Anyone remember the old RA2 Mythbusters thread? I'm not going to dig down and resurrect it, because I want this thread to be for testing weapon balance in DSL. But Mythbusting is basically what I'm doing here.
As you all know, I was off RA2 for about 2 years, so I don't actually know that much about my own project (DSL 2.2). So when a few respectable people said that the Typhoon teeth were overpowered, I mostly took their word for it, figuring they had more experience than me, and agreed to make Mr. AS's weapon rebalance patch official for an upcoming DSL 2.3.
But later I was doing some battles and noticed that Typhoon teeth (actually, normaled weapons in general) seemed to be performing surprisingly poorly, similar to the situation in DSL 2.1 where having normals was an automatic death sentence for weapon useability. So I thought I had better do some formal testing.
This is my setup:
The long extender rails are to keep the two test bots aligned, so I can keep bashing their weapons together head-on and see who wins under different circumstances. I put different weapons on each bot, with or without Mr. AS's patch, and kept track of which bot de-weaponed the other.
Test 1: 2 Typhoon teeth vs. 4 iron spikes, without AS patchBoth of these weapon setups weigh 40 kg, but Typhoon teeth are heavier. Therefore, I expect the Typhoon tooth spinner to beat the iron spikes due to the efficiency bonus for heavier weapons. But Typhoon teeth have normals, and iron spikes don't, so who knows?
Result: Typhoon teeth win 100% of the time with both teeth intact. So I know that big normaled weapons are good enough to beat an equivalent weight of spammy little weapons. But are they
too good?
Test 2: 2 ripping teeth vs. 2 hammer heads, without AS patchNote: I tested this with Typhoon teeth as well and got similar results. Ripping teeth are more or less the same as Typhoon teeth. I used them here instead of Typhoons because they are closer to the same weight as hammer heads.
These weapons are almost the same weight (44 kgs. of teeth vs. 46 kgs. of hammers), but the teeth have normals and the hammers don't. So they should be approximately evenly matched. Are they?
Result: Ripping teeth win 90% of the time, usually with both teeth intact but sometimes with only one.
Now this isn't a great deal of data here, because I have better things to do than smash test bots together 1000 times, but it seems reasonable to conclude that Typhoon/ripping teeth are indeed overpowered,
but only a little bit. Keep in mind that my test setup here is a best-case scenario for normaled weapons - a head-to-head collision. It removes the advantage of non-normaled weapons being able to damage in any direction. In a real battle situation, if you hit a Typhoon tooth from the side, it will take damage without dealing any in return, making them effectively worse. So in an ideal test setup, normaled weapons
should win more often.
That said, 90% of the time might be too much. And most DSL players agree from experience that Typhoon teeth are too good. So
does Mr. AS's rebalance patch fix the problem?Test 3: 2 ripping teeth vs. 2 hammer heads, with AS patchResult: Hammer heads win 100% of the time, usually with both hammers intact.
Hmm. That shouldn't happen. I also tested with Typhoon teeth instead of ripping teeth and got the same result.
Test 4: 2 Typhoon teeth vs. 4 iron spikes, with AS patchResult: Typhoon teeth win 100% of the time, but almost always with only one tooth intact.
So normaled weapons are still good enough to compete with small non-normaled weapon spam, but possibly just barely (these are ideal conditions, remember). But as for non-normaled weapons of equal weight, forget about it. If you have 50 kg to spend on weapons, go for hammers over teeth every time.
Does Mr. AS's rebalance patch fix the problem? Yes, but I think it fixes it
too well. In DSL 2.1, normaled weapons got either a 1.4x or 2x damage boost, depending on how many normals they had. The AS patch drops this boost to a maximum of 1.4x. Tentatively, I suggest that for DSL 2.3, the maximum boost should be more like 1.8x. But this will require more formal testing.
But I invite anyone interested in this to do some testing of their own!
I suspect the replica discs are overpowered for different reasons than the Typhoon teeth. Namely, being all one piece gives them a huge advantage over other weapon setups - no need to worry about teeth breaking and unbalancing your weapon, AND the weight of the disc effectively counts toward weapon weight! The solution? Perhaps, for DP calculation, the estimated weight of the center disc portion should be ignored, so for a Minion disc, instead of getting DP balanced for a 75 kg weapon, it has DP balanced for a 20 kg weapon instead. This mimics having a non-weapon disc with weapon teeth.
