Pistoleer Archive
Thread: IMPORTANT TEST CENTER UPDATE
errr... it was just the HAM costs that got yanked.
*curses the lack of an edit button* 
Thanks for the update, Shazeen. Here's the patch note:
"Removed special move HAM changes. We will continue to use the old system to allow more time for balancing"
The Brawler Correspondent did some good testing and found that the new system was overpowering, at least for Brawlers. Frankly we didn't have enough other people doing good testing ... I've been out for Thanksgiving, and most other folks have just been talking on forums instead of testing the system out on TC. *shrug*
I have the feeling that the system will come back at some point. We'll see what happens when it does.
Message Edited by Philosopher1976 on 12-01-2003 05:55 PM
McWatt98 wrote:
My biggest question is whether mitigation affects just max damage or min and max damage. The example you gave before had a min damage of 1, so it doesn't make it clear. The game already uses the term "damage range" to mean a change to both min and max damage (in slicing), so I don't assume that only max will change based on the post you made in TC, Philosopher.
Apparently it affects the entire range ... which means that it disproportionally affects weapons with a large min-max range (likethe FWG5, as opposed to the DX2). Weapons with high minimum damage aren't affected much, and it's something the Devs will have to deal with down the road. Here's an example another Correspondent came up with to explain how it works:
"It is 60% of the RANGE.
So, if you have a 120-180 damage rifle, then the range is 60. 60% reduction on 60 is 36. So, the damage becomes 120 - 144"
That explains it fairly well.
I'll try to post something more detailed about damage mitigation in the next day or so, to start a bigger discussion about it so we can figure out what we all think about it. Right now my sense is that damage mitigation is going to essentially be a nerf to weapons with a big damage range (like Republic Blaster, FWG5, Laser Rifle, Laser Carbine) as well as a nerf to super-high-end Krayt weapons.It's also a big boost to Masters of all professions.
As Thunderheart mentioned in one of his public posts, there is a big "combat balance" on the way in the future, so I suspect that they'll re-balance the weapons as part of that. In the meantime the damage mitigation going to have some significant balance impacts -- good or bad, I don't know for sure.
Fernben wrote:
I am not too sure I understand the opinions that the mitigtion effects will affect high damage weapons, or large damage range weapons, any more that any others. The mitigation will occur to the actual damage impacting the target, not to the weapon being fired. It will ALWAYS be better to have 1000 damage mitigated to 400, than have 100 damage mitigated to 40! Since all damage of the same type will be mitigated the same, themore damageyou do thebetter... as always.
It's because the mitigation reduces the range as opposed to reducing the overall damage. Let's take a hypothetical example of two pistols:
SR Combat: 80-140 damage range
Uber Krayt FWG5: 45-425 damage range
The SR's range is 60 (140 minus 80 = 60), and Ranged Damage Mitigation 3 reduces this by 60%. So the range is now 80-104.
The Krayt's range is 380 (425 minus 45 = 380), and Ranged Damage Mitigation 3 reduces this by 60%. So the range is now 45-197.
Before the Damage Mitigation, the average damage of the Krayt was 235, which is around 214 percent higher than the SR. After the Damage Mitigation the average damage of the Krayt is121 and the average damage of the SR is 92. The Krayt is now only31 percent stronger than the SR, because the Damage Mitigation reduces its damage far more than it reduces the SR's damage.
I hope this helps explain things a bit.
Message Edited by Philosopher1976 on 12-22-2003 05:15 PM
OnlyMaestro wrote:
Anyone else think this is in response to Krayt weapons going around like hotcakes? It's no longer a skill game....it's who has the Uber weapon with one good special.
I have the impression that this was added for PvE and not PvP reasons ... the PvP implications are just an unintended side effect.
So instead of changing creature/NPC max damage, they'll just do it sweepingly like this? Sound like a Band-Aid fix to anyone else?
What happens when the Creature balancing pass rolls around? Either (A)things won't change at all because now players will be able to take more damage (B)creature damage will be reduced acordingly & damage mitigation will be removed (C)creature damage will be raised or mitigation lowered because the effects were too high.
Also, what about the new HAM system? That is going to come out eventually, and it definately seemed like it was in the player's favor. They removed the HAM system from Test because it seemed too overpowering, possibly in response to some of the Melee tests where they were soloing Kryats and other large creatures, but they also had damage mitigation(because they were Masters).
It could have been, and probably was, the combonation of 60% Damage Mitigation + New HAM that was overpowering, not just the new HAM. (Not to mention the effects of the new Center of Being ability they have which was probably used)
So they take out the new HAM system, which would have beneficial to ALL professions at ALL levels, and leave in damage mitigation which only effects certain professions and mostly at the highest levels.
I only got to play with the new HAM system at the lowest levels with a semi-newbie character, but it was nice and helped a LOT in my oppinion. I don't know how others feel, but I'd rather have the new HAM system over mitigation- if I had to choose one.
Madrox wrote:
So they take out the new HAM system, which would have beneficial to ALL professions at ALL levels, and leave in damage mitigation which only effects certain professions and mostly at the highest levels.
I only got to play with the new HAM system at the lowest levels with a semi-newbie character, but it was nice and helped a LOT in my oppinion. I don't know how others feel, but I'd rather have the new HAM system over mitigation- if I had to choose one.
I don't think they're taking out the HAM system forever ... I just think they saw that it was unbalancing in some aspects, based on testing done by one of the other Correspondents, and felt that they needed more time to test it out. Right now they're pretty busy with vehicles and other things. *shrug*
Not sure why they are more committed to getting Mitigation to Live servers than the HAM system ... maybe they see it as easier to fix/balance if needed in the future.
perhaps 6 months after Space Expansion is released when that is properly balanced/fixed this game will make sense...
oh yeah do the math guys... 350,000 players subsribed to this game (something like that)
multiply that buy average of say 12.00 a month...
4,200,000 dollars... mulitiply that by the number of months this game has been out... which is what? 6?
25,200,000 dollars
anyone else feel a little jipped?