Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Debunking how Speed works, the rebuttal!!!!
Phuobar ,
See, you missed the point too.
The calculation should be linear.
What speed mods you give out at each skill box, can be whatever floats your non-diminishing return-liking boat.
Right? Please respond so I know you're no board.
In fact, it's like this. +6...+6...+6...+6...+20! Boom! Huge gain, that is not linear. However, if the equation backing it is linear, then it's much easier for everyone to understand and predict how it affects balance.
The current system, that +6/+20 means...well, nothing. It could be 1/2x, it could be 1/5x, depending on where you are on the curve.
Big difference in the calculation and the speed mods given out.
Aside from whatever may come of the "speed solution", why not have delay modifiers for specials just add instead of multiply? So say in the code for Last Ditch(or Stopping Shot, whatever), it says (total weapon speed mod)+ 3.0 or whatever number is used in that special's delay.
So no matter how far down your base weapon speed would be powered and sliced to, 1.0 sec, .5sec, 3.0 sec, the special's delay modifier could never be changed or scaled. It still benefits players to get faster speeds as 1.0 weapon speed + 3.0 delay = 4.0 total as opposed to 2.0 weapon speed + 3.0 delay = 5.0 total. No weapon could ever achieve 1.0(or whatever the cap may be) by using a special - only through standard fire.
Am I making any sense?
Since everyone is talking about dps and stuff people should look at some of these laser rifles....
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=rifleman&message.id=19751
So, just to make sure that i'm not missing something...
If i'm a pistoleer and I shoot at a rifleman, i'm doing an extra 2.5 x of "melee" damage? (since this 2.5 damage is the justification for the rifle's much higher dps, i just want to make sure as a pistoleer i get this said advantage)
if not, how does the seemingly huge extra dps that riflemen do over pistoleers have anything to do with pistoleers?
Umm... do you guys know what your asking for by asking for a complete rework of the speed system? We are currently at what programers call critical mess, were if we fix one thing it seems like 3 other things go wrong. But completly dumping the the speed system as it is, may or may not fix the problems we are having right now,and is sure to come with a slew of its own problems. Most of the linear equations I've seen presented, would reduce the high end damage by 50% or more. Meaning that they would have to rework all of the higher level mobs, no small undertaking considering how much information that is. Also by changing the speed system you take the emphaces off of the elite classes, because they don't do that much more damage than a master marksman or brawler. One way to counter this would be by upping weapons damage which hoses PVP, unless you move the damage reduction for PVP up, in which case you'll have to increase the stats on pets or they'l suffer from the inablity to kill an opponent. if you buff pets they become to powerful in PVE, ect. ect. ect.
If we can fix the current system lets do it. Better the devil we know that the 100,000 that we don't. I'm gonna head to bed, I'll post more of my ideas tomrow.
You could be right that a fix or change could create more problems.. but the damage at higher skill levels doesnt need to come down by 50%.. speed bonuses should be linear so they are easier to balance but as someone said earlier the bonuses dont need to be +10 to all boxes, they can be whatever.. just easier to control when you are not adding % to speed.
I know I'm not as well-known as everyone else here, but I had a thought while reading through all of this stuff.
Most of the issues don't seem to be about each profession doing its base damage with its best damaging weapon over time (true DPS). What the main complaints seem to be are being able to spam specials over and over at higher speeds, thus artificially raising the "DPS" to where the number crunchers are going.
What might be in order, instead then, is a re-working of how specials are actually compensated. Rather than using delay-compensation (causing a long/short delay for them based on their high/low damage), why not take them out of the equation altogether and makespecial shots take a set amount of time, regardless of what it is, and compensate for it accordingly in other ways (amount of damage increased/decreased, HAM cost increased/decreased, special circumstances modifiers, etc). This would also help in that it opens up the possibility of making the shots have some sort of Roleplaying significance (since RPG is HALF of "MMORPG", it should also be considered).
For instance, let's take Last Ditch. To me the name implies an intended use - this shot is a desperation shot, designed to attempt to kill the target before it kills you. It's your last ultimate hope for survival,as it's your Last Ditch effort. How is this currently compensated? High damage, long delay. But how is that really "last ditch"? Especially if you can start spamming it at the start of a combat?
I think something like Last Ditch should take into account your own current HAM. The lower your HAM is (or one of your pools) currently, the more damage it does, thus showing how "desperate" you really are. So, spamming it at the start of a combat is nearly useless, but using it when you're desperate near the end of the combat is for your own benefit. The HAM cost of LD could remain the same, as it's also supposed to be an "ultimate effort" on your part, so you would also use it sparingly.
I posted recently about an idea for changes to Stopping Shot, in that its average damage should compensate for the current state of your target (somewhat the opposite of Last Ditch). The lower the HAM of your target, the more Stopping Shot should do, since at some point it does become the Stopping Shot for that target.
Perhaps it's time to look at "special shots" and really make them special (and make sense), rather than something you just spam throughout the combat. If you want a spammable shot, make something new like Spam Shot, designed for this purpose. For all other special shots that have a name and an implied purpose/theme for them, make them work according to that, rather than just some delay and some damage. Make all special shots cost a set delay, then adjust their damage accordingly and bring in other factors, rather than across-the-board delay-compensation. Thus you remove special shots from DPS calculations altogether.
Perhaps even some shots, under the right circumstances, would incur less or no cost whatsoever. Panic Shot, as an opening shot, could possible cost less HAM (or 0 HAM) if it is the first shot you shoot at an undamaged enemy. Subsequent costs would be higher, as of course it's harder to panic something once you've shot it the first time.
Just some "sense" to the shots might make it work better, rather than naming a shot, assigning a HAM and assigning a delay-compensation and calling it "special".
A linear formula unless it was a straight percent taken out of speed, would indeed reduce high endDPS, for example:
under the current formula master marksman/rifleman with +95 speed and the T21 (224)mentioned earlier in this post has a DPS against AR 1 of 436.5. A pistoleer witha speed of 103 and a DX2 (115)has an averagedpsof 143.7.
now lets switch that to a linear formula, for the example lets use a simple one MS= WS x (1- {SM/2}), were as MS is modified speed, WS is weapon speed, sm is speed modifier expressed as a percent in decimal (IE 50 becomes .5).
Under this formula lets look at the DPS again. the t21 has a new DPS of 88.9 which is only 20% of the damagethats it does now. The dx2 on the other hand has an average DPS of 91. Which is 63% of its current dps.
No matter how they do a linear formula its ethier going to change nothing (in the case of a straight percent), or we are in for the nerf of the century.Sorryguys i hate the caps ideas as well, but in order to avoid having to nerf everything, my suggestion on a workable cap system follows.
My idea on cap system for speed, is that Pistols cap at 1, carbines cap at 2, rifles cap at 3, and heavy weapons cap at 4. Special moves increases the cap by 50% so using a special move pistols are 1.5, carbines are 3, rifles are 4.5, and heavy weapons are 6.
So any questionsor comments, I would love to be proved wrong about a linear formula.
Xeon_Skyrunner wrote:
My idea on cap system for speed, is that Pistols cap at 1, carbines cap at 2, rifles cap at 3, and heavy weapons cap at 4. Special moves increases the cap by 50% so using a special move pistols are 1.5, carbines are 3, rifles are 4.5, and heavy weapons are 6.
So any questionsor comments, I would love to be proved wrong about a linear formula.
Anyone else think that Xeon's suggestion sounds pretty good? I do.
Was he the first to post this? Has this been shot down for any reason?
Man, I cant believe this thread is still going on. But I'd like to respond to Xeon.
Overall, your system is fine. By purely looking at DPS numbers, you attempted to balance things. I can see that you're obviously in the Rifle and Pistol DPS should be the same camp. Let me bring up a few things though that you may notof thought about.
1) Under this scenario, basically everything a rifleman has to deal with goes away. We have no real way of sustaining DPS so our specials need to now use health/action (compared to a pistoleer).
2) Our accuracy mods included in our specials are horrific compared to a pistoleer. I believe Noulles showed that there was a +40 accuracy bonus built into a pistoleer specials compared to similar rifleman specials. Now rifleman either needs a HUGE bump up or pistoleer a HUGE bump down in order to compensate.
3) Well, I guess we can throw the 2.5x damage modifier out the window.
So looking at what we have here is rifle using action or health for their specials so they can sustain their DPS. Because you cant say that DPS should be even, then give 1 class the ability to spam specials all day and another no similar ability. Rifle now has no 2.5 penalty and also has the same accuracy mods built into their specials. Now, you may be of the camp that says all of the above shouldn't change and in that case you are calling for severe nerfs to the rifleman class, and I mean SEVERE. So lets assume you are not calling for nerfs, and look what we got. Rifleman has now become a very homoginezed class compared to the pistoleer. Actually, you have morphed rifleman into a slow shooting pistoleer, and I cant think of one in having a greater speed.
But, letsassume that the DPS gap was supposed to be there. Using your system, what happens to rifle. Well, its going to dangerouslly tread closer to a heavy weapon class. Instead of seeing 130-330 ish T21's, you are going to see in the neighborhood of 500-800ish T21's (using the .5/3 second caps from before, you can run them with your own numbers if you want). You give the rifleman class the ability to just about 1 shot anybody all over again, which the devs already stated they dont want. Essentially, you continue the upward trend of balancing by granting more and more power to class and frankly this is disturbing.
I've been trying to figure out a way that would eliminate the exponential gains of the speed system while keeping DPS the same and am having brutal time trying to figure it out. On the flip side I'm trying to prevent the rifleman class from becoming a heavy weapons class and currently, with the way the game is balanced, it just isnt possible.......yet.
Tilen, Scylla