SawzAll
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Posts posted by SawzAll
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I am a new player, since September 1 this year, and I'm only arena rank 11. I am P2W (but other than birthday and Christmas money, just the $5/month subscription). So please be gracious and listen to my idea. I'm not super experienced, but I think I have an idea that will help. My background is mainly BattleTech and MechWarrior (not the same universe as SM but similar).
I used to work on the avionics systems of the F-117, CV-22, and F-16. Things like radar, GPS, UHF, navigation computers, targeting computers, and fire control systems. These aircraft have specialized computer systems in boxes inside of them that draw energy and create heat. I know that SuperMechs isn't trying to be super-realistic, but I think one way to balance the game would be to require all items to draw energy, even if it's only 5 energy. Even drones: their controller computer, mounted in the mech, probably draws at least 5 energy.
I can see weapons like Flaminator not making heat, if one sees the 110 energy drain as powering some of the on-board fans on the Flaminator. There were avionics computers (rarely) in our aircraft that had self-contained fans and didn't need to be hooked up to the onboard Environmental Control System (basically HVAC heating and air conditioning for airplanes). But everything required energy to run. Also, on military aircraft, squibs, explosive charges, and rocket motors, are set off (initiated) by a high power electric current. Firing weapons required energy. Also, on military aircraft, the system that reloads the weapon is either hydraulic (larger guns like the M61A1) or a combination of electrical and recoil.
I know I'm new, but I figure that even if that means that energy-free becomes almost-energy-free (i.e. all weapons that were energy free now require 5 energy cost), it wouldn't completely nerf it because torsos have energy production, and dual modules are a thing.
Basically, the fundamental problem, as I see it, is that energy mechs were designed to drain an enemy's energy to beat them. The fundamental problem, therefore, is that mainly weapons have been created that don't need energy, making energy basically irrelevant. If you are doing your job (draining their energy) but it doesn't have any effect, fundamentally energy is made irrelevant.
So since I have ideas but not experience, can some of the seasoned experienced players comment and tell me if this would help fix energy meta?
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15 hours ago, CleverName said:
Plenty of energy in Rank 5+. However, none in top 5 (if that's what you meant). When people say energy is weak, it's really only at very competitive levels. At any non-competitive level, energy is fine (imo). The main reasons energy isn't competitive are:
1) Lack of raw damage (vs. peers)
2) New modules have made energy cap + regen easy to get
3) High hp builds can get away with using no drone to still win fights as most energy builds are 3k hp or lessThanks.
Yeah that's basically what I meant: top 10 players (see arena > league). In my opinion, until you regularly see energy and heat in the top 10 players, even if the top 5 of them are physical builds, it's not balanced. If it is impossible to make it into the top 10 players if your primary mech is energy or heat, the game is not balanced.
It's not that I am saying this is a deal breaker. Even if nothing changes, I will build up my physical mech (it's next on the list) and use it in the arena.
One can see this even in Workshop Unlimited: try a dual valiant sniper energy meta against your own physical meta or any of the physical meta. It's freaking difficult, if not already impossible, to overpower anyone with an energy mech. My WU has basically one of all of the meta and then my 3 builds (i.e. my goals) and dual VS usually loses by about 500 hp.
And that's using legs on all of them. If I put The Claw on some of the physical metas in my WU and try dual VS against them, the difference in hit points is even bigger.
Balancing something as complex as a video game, even if it's SuperMechs (and not Team Fortress 2 or something bigger) is not easy. So I'm being patient.
Thanks CleverName.
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29 minutes ago, Fruit Money said:
physical isnt unfair, you just gotta learn how to fight it
Please pardon me for disagreeing with you then. There are literally NO energy mech meta that rise above rank 5 (this per the pro players I have spoken with) and there are very few if any in the top 10 players' inventory. You can also go into Workshop Unlimited and test your theory out. Even against the computer, you end up losing to mockups of CleverName's physical mech, the heat hugger meta, and many others even if you are dual Valiant Sniper + Rail Gun + Malice Beam. And you end up losing by 500 hp at least. And that's with massive legs on all mechs: try it with a physical mech that has The Claw and the difference in health is likely much higher.
Sure, I'm arena rank 11. I'm a bit new. But I have yet (on the previous forum or this one) to meet anyone who plays an energy mech in arena rank 5 or higher. Sure, maybe they exist. But I have yet to find them.
I would really appreciate, however, if @CleverName and others who are actually ranks 1-5 would weigh in on this.
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3 minutes ago, Raul said:
Definitely quitting if the battle barely started and I already know I'm gonna lose for what ever reason. Counter opponent, etc...
You do you.
My advice, and my rule in my clan, however, is we don't quit.
I think that's something newbies do far too quickly: they quit out when they think they will not win.
In my opinion, it's far more useful to stand and fight.
Learn your opponent's weaknesses. Hammer meta for instance: are they weak at range 2? Move into their range 2 then.
There's someone at my rank (arena 11) that I beat energy vs energy, not by being better. They are weak to energy at range 1-2. They have I think a lightning recoiler that's not high in level, and their regen is low. I usually get drained by my 3rd turn, but then I jump into their range 1-2 and end turn there, and their resulting drain isn't enough to keep me shut down because my regen is higher. So then I end up with 100 energy on my 3rd turn at range 3, and I drain them.
Then they can't drain me back fast enough because I don't have the range 1-2 vulnerability they have, and I end up winning.
I have won matches using stomp as well, believe it or not. With my heat mech, I once stomped an energy mech until I won. I cornered them and stomped maybe twice, and by the 2nd time they couldn't keep my energy drained, so I used my hammer and stomp by the 3rd turn.
Not saying that I'm some awesome player. I'm saying you never know for 100% certain that you will lose. Therefore you should give every fight your 100%. Even people that seem more powerful than you. Fight everyone.
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This is a difficult thing to vote on and so I voted the best I could. but the problem I think is much more comprehensive than simple solutions that were provided here.
I think ultimately what needs to happen is there needs to be a secret SuperMechs testing app and server that only a very select few people are given access to.
This server would allow people to test adjustments to the entire game in the arena and in campaign.
Because the amount of work that is going to be needed to make the elements (energy, heat, physical) equal is going to be much more than just what I voted on here. if the game is going to be balanced each element should be able to achieve ranks one through five and each element should be able to beat the campaign levels.
Therefore there is going to be a very big adjustment needed to make this happen.
There is going to need to be a very concerted effort and complex evaluation of every item torso and module so that the highest meta of each element are indistinguishable at rank 1 when played by the top 10 arena players for instance.
So that heat hugger configuration that people like clever name have used needs to be equal to clever names physical jump meta and needs to be equal to the dual valiant sniper meta.
The game will be balanced when the deciding factor is the person piloting the mech, not money or equipment.
This can be done while still making SuperMechs a viable business. It's balanced when three people with $100, for instance, end up equal in the arena if they started with a brand new account.
It's equal when the shop mechs are also essentially equal.
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Warning: scientific, hypothetical thread. Also, there isn't a general discussion area for this type of topic.
ABSTRACT: Savior Resistance is likely better for the campaigns, but Iron Plating for the Arena.
INTRODUCTION: Being the newbie that I am, I do not have a max protector or platinum plating yet. So I was wondering which of the two, iron plating or savior resistance, is best and for what situations. I have two Thanos torso mechs and so this topic is important to me. I would hear various things in various places from pros about which, hit points or resistance, mattered most. So I did some semi-scientific research.
Iron plating is only worth 145 hit points (without buffs obviously) and savior resistance is worth (without buffs) 16 resistance points per element.
As you probably know, a lot of people "farm" mission 7 in 1V1 campaign overlord's den to convert fuel into gold (and sometimes items).
METHODOLOGY: I let the computer play my heat mech in level 7 on hard mode with my heat mech. At the time, I had roughly 1900 hit points (with buffs), nearly all my weapons were mythical level 30+ (savagery, corrupt light, flaming hammer) and my Terror Cry was roughly level 33 legendary. My torso is a mythical level 40 fractured heat armor, and my legs level 30 massive lava feet.
RESULTS: I noticed that enemy mechs hit me 5 times on average (reducing my resistance from 19 to 8 over the fight), tanks hit me twice (reducing resitance from 19 to 8 ) and buggies hit me once (reducing resistance from 19 to 14).
On average, I got hit a total of 21 times per mission.
On average, due to reductions from enemy fire, my resistance was at value 13. I calculated it this way to guess conservatively (lower value).
This means, on average, each of the hits I receive is reduced by 13. Thirteen average resistance times 21 total enemy fire hits equals roughly 273 points of reduction in damage.
Further testing (because my heat mech sometimes can't beat mission 7 on hard with the computer playing, if I don't have a savior resistance) seems to validate my hypothesis.
DISCUSSION: This seems to make sense because in a campaign match, every time you or the computer clicks on an enemy and you fight, your resistance is back to its original value.
However, in the arena, one does not get a resistance reset. For instance, if I face two heat mechs with my mechs, and I begin with my heat mech, even if I beat the enemy's first mech, if that mech reduced my resistance to -50 heat, the second mech will have a clear advantage because my resistance is now still -50.
CONCLUSION: In my "arena rank 11" opinion, therefore, I think it's best to leave a module slot open and switch based on what I'm doing. When it's time to go to the arena, I should swap in an iron plating. If I am in the campaign, I should swap in a savior resistance.
Obviously, if I have a platinum plating module, that trumps both the other two modules, and I should use that. If I have both the platinum plating and the max protector, I should probably continue to use the same policy of resistance for campaign and hit points for the arena.
LIMITATIONS: First, I'm a newbie. Second, I did not run 40 campaign levels to test my theory: I ran only one. Further testing will be needed before I can claim that this is a scientific fact, or close to one. Third, I don't have a platinum plating or a max protector yet, so I cannot know if the same policy of resistance for campaigns and hit points for the arena works out the same. I will have to wait until I get both.
Feel free to reply, as I'm a newbie. I did this up more like a scientific journal entry because of my own sense of humor, but I am serious about my conclusion. So I want your input, please.
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48 minutes ago, Turtle said:
As for you SawzAll, if I noticed correctly, you have a saviour resistance on your mechs. Drop them, they aren't doing enough for as much weight as they take up.
I appreciate your advice. You are partially correct. I already ran a mathematical analysis of them.
For campaigns, the main thing I'm doing recently, they are better than iron plating. The reason is every time you fight a foe in the campaign, your resistance regenerates, but not your hit points.
However, in the arena, the iron plating is better because there's no resistance regen.
For now, I'm holding on to them in the campaign, which is how my mechs were configured when I took the screenshots this morning.
Now if I get a platinum plating, absolutely: at that point, plat will give me more hit points than a savior resistance would shield me from. But for now, they make tons of sense for the campaign.
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Oh I didn't see the platinum plate. Yeah, I agree, myth that.
But I'm giving him advice on how to keep winning when he faces me lol. I'm more of a heat/energy drainer type person in mentality, so I appreciate it when my enemies have capacities in the 300 range
Speaking of which, I adopted the Rusty Energy Armor too soon, so I dropped arena ranks. I'll be back soon I'm sure, but for now.........
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Sort of difficult to recommend something to the person who keeps BEATING YOU in the arena
(I.e. you keep beating ME).
I would say a heat module. Your heat cap is slightly low.
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(This is just the order in which they uploaded.)
My 3rd mech, physical, is currently nightfall, annihilation, night eagle, back breaker, reckless. She's sort of the "parts mech" for now, but I've been working on her when I'm not involved with my other two. (Alexander please do a "monkey torso" item portal: I could use one for this mech lol.) She will be basically a "classic" nightfall setup. My future goals for her are possibly dual spartan, but mainly I'll copy CleverName's setup (yes, you're a celebrity). I think resist mech would also be possible. I was running Frantic Brute until I got the Night Eagle. Drone: Tonto.
This is my heat mech. She's my #2 mech but the one I used to beat the 1V1 campaign in insane mode. "Classic" F2P heat capacity damage weapons like savagery, corrupt light, etc. I really want to replace my hammer with Terror Blade. Also, I want something I can use to repel range 2 enemies: I wish there was a heat version of Last Words, like Last Smoke, etc. Terror Cry is working but it doesn't inflict heat damage, so Reckoning may be in my future. Another future goal is to get Hybrid Heat Cannon to replace Corrupt Light. I love heat capacity damage: for example, I love seeing the Titan's heat cap at 1 by the time I'm destroyed. I have two desolations, so I'll be working on those after I fully upgrade what I have. Then I'll probably try to build a heat hugger (red rain, heronblade, terror blade, etc). Drone: Clash (I need a Nemo).
Finally, this is my first mech. I fell in love with energy mechs early because I like the color blue (as you can probably tell). Anyways, recently got the "right" torso, so I'm working on upgrading that. I also need to myth my Storm Weaver. Reason: energy capacity damage, i.e. a "classic" energy drainer. Future direction: first, get a hybrid energy cannon to replace malice beam. Then migrate towards a dual valiant sniper build once I finally get some of those. Drone: Torment.
All my mechs need their modules mythical'd, which is currently what I'm up to, more or less.
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Weighing in my opinion as a level 11 arena guy who's played this game since Sep. 1, 2020. Take this with a grain of salt.
The short story is I think if heat drones are not going to have energy costs, Swoop should have its energy costs removed.
However, statistically, swoop's damage to weight ratio is very high. That's because it's lightweight. I don't think it needs a damage or heat or resistance drain buff. But again, if we're going to do this thing that heat drones have no energy costs, swoop's energy costs should be removed.
I think Swoop fills a niche. If I max out other things on my mech and I have only enough weight left for Swoop, I'm going to use Swoop. It's one of the drones I want to get eventually, even if I prefer Nemo.
However, here's the long story. Is there any push towards being at least moderately realistic in SuperMechs? I know large fighting mechs are not realistic yet, but still....
If so, I would say all drones should require an energy cost to run the remote controller computer for that drone. I used to work on military aircraft on radar, GPS, UHF, fire control, targeting, and all kinds of electronic and computerized systems. It should draw energy to run.
Then I would say drones should also not cost heat, or their heat costs should be very low, simply because I don't see how the drone is transferring heat to the mech. Maybe, again, the computer box that's installed to run that drone is drawing heat, but not much.
So if this was to be more realistic, I would say ALL drones should cost 5 energy and 5 heat.
But given how SuperMechs is already working, I would think that ultra-realism isn't the point. So that's why I split my reply into short and long story.
BOTTOM LINE: I think Swoop should be buffed by simply removing energy costs from it.
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7 hours ago, Reactivation said:
Y`know, I can have a mech with grim and just as well have 3015 hp XDDDDD
I question that one. Is this because you have like 4 x platinum platings and you max'd your arena hit point buffs and you're using The Claw? I don't see any Grim Reapers among the top ten arena players.
You cannot deny that if you were to suddenly substitute a divine Rusty Energy for your (probably) divine Grim Reaper, you'd instantly have a heck of a lot more hit points. That's just the way the item stats are.
----------------------------------------------------- NEW FLEX POST:
Finally, because I was working on fixing my inventory from all the birthday and Christmas money PPs....
Now I have two Desolations and an Energy Free torso, so I may play around a little with energy-free heat.
I have an honest question, though: I do not like tracks like Rolling Beasts and Sparked Runners, though they are good legs. Is there any meta in which they are absolutely necessary? Because I only have 3 months of experience, I see that there are nearly no top ten arena players (Arena > League) that use treads rather than massive legs. Please teach me some stuff here: is it bad to use them as myth food?
- VB , Liioh, epicspeedster and 1 other
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Today I FINALLY got a Rusty Energy Armor. Not going to lie, I immediately fed my mythical level 40 Grim Reaper torso to it, because Grim sucks in terms of hit points. Now I need another Thanos torso for my physical mech.
- Liioh, CyberRodrigo, Paladin and 3 others
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31 minutes ago, L4K3 said:
It's either that or...removal.
I would recommend that if removal is what is decided upon, that everyone be given a Spartan Carnage of the same level for their troubles, i.e. a literal mass replacement item per item in everyone's inventory. That way dual frantic physical metas have a very equivalent meta: dual spartan.
But alas I am a newbie. So what does everyone think? If removal is the action, would that be fair?
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1 minute ago, epicspeedster said:
wow, you still didn't get the item, sucks
Really, what sucks is I didn't get even one monkey torso, much less two. You know I need two of them.
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21 hours ago, Shoultz262 said:
ing the weight a bit doesn't change much, and I don't think is a viable solution. And trust me, frantic rolls high almost all the time, even if the rng was changed, it would still be controversial due to its damage range. This game is supposed to be a strategy game, not a slot machine. Also, testing isn't really needed when most people here have a lot of experience in the game.
Thanks for helping me understand. This was what I was trying to get at in terms of understanding how the game generates random numbers: I think that part of the code might have something to do with it.
For example, it could be an awkward (RND+1) call.
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20 hours ago, Alexander said:
Woah, you've had quite a history. What's the reason you wanted to get into clinical mental health counseling?
I spent 20 years fixing the digital systems on the F-117A, CV-22, and F-16. I got tired of fixing airplanes: now I want to "fix" people. All I want to do with the rest of my life is help others.
- OKI DOKI and Monke King
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I spent my Christmas money on myself. Merry Christmas to me!
- epicspeedster, Liioh, bumbum and 2 others
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I would like to recommend a survival mode game play mode. It can be listed as the fourth "campaign" mode if you want, or a new button above the base, etc.
Basically the player (3v3) has to see how many tanks, buggies, and mechs they can survive. Rewards could be experience, gold, and tokens at whatever intervals are decided, etc.
To feed this on the software side, basically take all the enemies in all the campaign modes (as if this was a spreadsheet or something) and sort from lowest to highest hitpoints.
Or if that's not how the software works, whatever interval you want (i.e. enemies are random element and then add 50 hit points to them at each spawn, or whatever).
This would add a new thing to master. Unlike raid where (I hear) equipping multiple heat bombs might help one succeed, this would require people to equip weapons that are not limited in how many times they can fire. This would therefore be a refreshing new game play mode.
Titan is already slightly similar, but a different concept. For titan, you probably want weapons that can fire an unlimited number of times. But here, you would probably need a mech with good heating, cooling, resistance, and weapons, because the enemies don't stop coming, and they are random elements (heat/energy/physical).
The enemies can start off as easy as the first day of Raid, but then go all the way up to bosses at the end of 3V3 if you want.
Please reply and let me know what you think.
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I am just a newbie so please forgive me if this is out of line.
By the damage stats you gave, that technically makes it an average damage of 360, just like the old version.
I think from what I've experienced and seen in the arena, and heard from the long-time players, is that the problem is more that the random rolls don't seem random.
This may be due to the human brain's tendency to see a pattern where there is none.
How are random numbers done in this game? In the code, is it pulling from the CPU's random number generator? Would it be possible instead to take a page from pokemon (tm) and instead substitute a very large list of numbers that are known to be truly random, such as (for example) those listed in the back of statistical and scientific research related textbooks?
I think heat cost is fine, but I can see a benefit to increasing energy cost, so that energy mechs aren't really close to an energy break only for their enemy to be able to fire frantic brute one last time for tons of damage.
I would say that maybe the solution is to make the weapon slightly heavier. It weighs less than a malice beam, and the malice beam does 321 average damage specifically to energy drained mechs, 194 average damage to mechs that aren't drained of energy.
Like, today I had that conundrum with my energy mech: do I equip frantic lighting (50kg) or UltraBright (56kg) or Hot Flash (66 kg)? Frantic Lightning is tempting because it's lighter, and would deliver a crushing blow to a mech that's drained.
I guess 2 shots rather than unlimited compensates for power to weight, but seriously if I see a dual frantic brute player in an arena match, I try to match up with my energy mech and pray to God I don't die. Usually, if even one of those is mythic, I'm dead. (my energy mech is 1500 hp roughly).
Anyways, that's my 2 cents. EDIT: I would think its average damage needs to be less than Spartan, but that's my opinion. Maybe make it the F2P Spartan, but keep the damage spread wide. That way it's for people who like to gamble.
Is there an alternate supermechs server that's strictly for testing where we could test this out? Stats are nice on paper, but as we all know, sometimes what's on paper doesn't match up to reality. I would suggest that such a thing would be necessary: an undocumented, undisclosed test server given out only to the very few who are helping to test. All accounts would have one divine of everything so that players can equip stuff to fight in arena and test things out with.
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I am SawzAll from the SuperMechs game and (previous) Tactisoft forum.
I'm working on a graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.
I was an airplane mechanic for the United States Air Force for 20 years.
I love the color blue and energy mechs, as you can probably tell.
I have been playing roughly 3 months and am roughly arena rank 11 (at this time).
I am a Pay-to-Support (P2S) player who spends his birthday and Christmas money on the game, as well as doing the $5/month subscription. If it's good enough for Netflix, it's good enough for SuperMechs.
I have helped test software both for the military and for the Linux community. I also love math, spreadsheets, and science.
Ask me anything you want.
- JamAnime, Monke King, Alexander and 4 others
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Realistic Way To Fix Energy (Suggestion)
in Suggestions
Posted
Fidelio, I can see that to a point, but the fact that heat can ignore energy is just as much a problem as physical being able to ignore energy, at least in my opinion. But I admit that I am biased: energy is my favorite.