51 replies to this topic

[Xandralkus]

WARNING: Incoming Mega-Threadnought!

I have only briefly expounded upon this idea in others' posts, never giving it the thorough analysis it needs - primarily because I lacked a model that elegantly and coherently resolved the issue without sucking.

Rather, I lacked an elegant and coherent model until now.

To preface, at present, our battlemechs, their limbs, and their associated weapons stay pointed exactly where the pilot intends, regardless of what maneuvers the battlemech is executing. Additionally, all of the battlemech's weapons converge to a single point when firing. I believe that this model is in desperate need of replacement.

Inaccuracy Mechanics:

Instead, I believe the devs should code the game so that a battlemech's torso sways while moving, in a predictable path. As a result, the pilot's view would move while the battlemech moves - but most importantly, the point where the battlemech's weapons are pointing would also move, in a predictable arc.

The torso targeting reticule would remain centered in the player's view, while the view deviates from the battlemech's path of movement. Thus, when the pilot fires their weapons when moving, the weapons will still remain perfectly aligned to the reticules - but firing will still yield a subtle deviation in accuracy.

Articulated limbs (arms) would cancel 50% of this movement-induced fire deviation. Since the torso reticule stays centered in the pilot's view, the arm reticule would drift in the opposite direction, cancelling half of the absolute angular deviation in the battlemech's firing pattern.

Since this motion is predictable, as player skill and hand-eye-coordination increases, this 'view drift' can be partially compensated for - at least for short periods of time. This also has the interesting side-effect that when extremely skilled players choose to manually cancel this movement to 'pinpoint fire', they can only do so with either the arms or the torso, not both simultaneously.

This can also be adjusted on a per-battlemech basis - for example, the Hunchback and Dragon have impressive arm movement range, and thus are 'more' articulated - it may be appropriate to buff the movement induced fire deviation reduction to 60% or so. Similarly, limbs such as the Cataphract's arms are 'less' articulated, and as such, it may be appropriate to reduce this accuracy bonus to 40%.

The question now is, how much should this view deviate? And what circumstances should be tied to the deviation? I believe that throttle percentage should be the primary factor - though tonnage and absolute maximum velocity should be secondary factors which subtly influence it.



This graph illustrates how throttle percentage state will influence movement-induced deviation. Keep in mind, this is the maximum deviation during the battlemech's gait - at 100% throttle, the battlemech's torso and the pilot's view will be shifted, at peak, by 2.5 degrees off-center.

I also feel that two other factors should be considered: Inertia (a property of mass and movement) and the top speed of the battlemech. If a mech is faster or heavier, it will be affected slightly more.

Suppose we have a Commando that moves at 125 KPH and weighs 25 tons. We divide tonnage by 18 and top speed by 22.5 to obtain two values; these are the number of percentage points that the throttle-movement-deviation curve is modified by. These are additive, not multiplicative values.

125 KPH / 22.5 = 5.55
25 Tons / 18 = 1.38
5.55 + 1.38 = 6.93%

Due to the Jenner's speed and tonnage, the speed-induced deviation is increased by 6.93% - meaning that the pilot's view and weapons will be shifted, at maximum, 2.673 degrees off-center.

A 65 KPH Cataphract suffers a 6.76% penalty to deviation based on mass and tonnage, meaning a maximum deviation of 2.669 degrees when at top speed.

A 45 KPH Atlas suffers a penalty of 7.55%, or a maximum deviation of 2.689 degrees when at top speed.

None of this needs to be calculated on the fly by the servers, and can all be handled in the Mechlab before ever assigning a battlemech to a match. The servers can calculate the maximum deviation when the mech is saved, and along with it, save the value by which to scale the mech's movement-induced accuracy.

Convergence Mechanics:

For accurately depicting how weapons on a battlemech actually WOULD behave in any semi-realistic and interesting way, we need a little bit of geometry. (unlike in most other cases, this is a case where implementing realism coincidentally creates GOOD game design, which is very rare, because usually the opposite is true). WEAPONS will never converge - only limbs will.

For convergence purposes, every battlemech will have an imaginary line extending from the cockpit, and 'forward' to infinity. This is the line that the pilot looks down. We will call this the torso vector.

Each arm (with weapons) will also have an arm vector. This arm vector will be roughly in the center of the polygon structure that comprises the arm, and may not necessarily pass through a fire point.

Weapons mounted on the torso will be fired PARALLEL to the torso vector, and will not converge. This means that the Hunchback's right torso AC-20, which is shifted a meter or two to the right, will aim a meter or two to the right of the torso reticule.

Weapons mounted on the arms will be fired parallel to the arm vectors. In the case of the Cataphract's right arm, which has one weapon a few meters higher than the other, it will be entirely possible (though rare) to have one beam strike the target, and for the second beam to miss.

If the limbs are horizontally articulated (capable of moving left and right) then the arm vectors will converge to the torso vector, either at the distance of the selected target, or if no target is selected, to the distance of the reticule.

If the limbs are not horizontally articulated, they will not converge at all, and the arm vectors will remain (horizontally) parallel to the torso vectors. This means that in order to pinpoint fire with non-horizontally articulated arms, the pilot must first fire the weapons on one arm, turn ever so slightly, and fire the weapons on another arm.

Yes, I have designed games before. This is what interesting game design looks like.

There are a number of other glaring issues with the game, which need addressing: http://mwomercs.com/...minimum-effort/

And, while we are at it, let's plug in some weapon values which actually work: http://mwomercs.com/...20#entry1477020

After that...the game is fixed! As in...playable and balanced! Meaning that the only thing the devs have to work on is the lagshield and new mechs! After that, the game is ready for launch.

Edited by Xandralkus, 12 March 2013 - 05:44 PM.

[Cyke]

As discussed on several different threads, the elegant method of implementing the torso-mounted weapon movement is to simply have it fixed to the actual axis of the weapon mounts on the torso model. That aside, it is identical to what you've discussed (or rather, an additional stipulation that accomplishes the same objective).

While elegant, I'm not completely certain the implementation I described would be workable.. the walking/running animations on the different chassis' models might have different levels of "sway" when they move, and this has the unintended consequence of causing some chassis to have significantly more movement-induced instability than others.
We can closely examine how the chassis move when they walk, which might give us a clue about this.. but only the developers' observation of an actual test implementation would determine if this is the case. If it does turn out to be true (some chassis walking animations sway too much more than others), then I guess the part that I mentioned is unworkable, though the OP's suggestion still stands.


With regards to the suggestion itself, one more thing I'd like to point out (that several individuals on the forums have independently noted) is that the flexibility of the arms on various chassis is already directly based on the presence or absence of the various joint actuators in the arms.
It's been outlined in more detail on other threads, but to summarize, all the existing chassis will not need to have their arm flexibility configured by the devs on a case-by-case basis, but rather simply have it depend on what arm actuators are present.
The elegance of this is that 'Mechs with more actuators will have greater functionality of arm aiming, but will also have fewer available usable slots in those arms.


As an aside, while the extended detail you've worked out is impressive, I think specific values are best left out of a suggestion. The fine tuning of these values will need to be worked out by the devs, and through the playerbase's observation of multiple iterations throughout Patch versions.

Xandralkus, on 12 March 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

If the limbs are horizontally articulated (capable of moving left and right) then the arm vectors will converge to the torso vector, either at the distance of the selected target, or if no target is selected, to the distance of the reticule.

Leaving aside that the suggestion is to only have convergence for the aim of articulated arms (with no convergence for torso weapons), I'd like to call particular attention to this point you mentioned.

Right now, as it stands, I believe the dynamic convergence point always uses the range of the object under the crosshair. At times, this becomes detrimental rather than helpful, especially when aiming weapons with projectile travel time; these weapons require a pilot to lead a moving target, and therefore have their crosshair pointed somewhere other than their target, and therefore have the wrong dynamic convergence distance at time of firing.

Your suggestion to prioritize the selected target's range first, and only use the crosshair rangefinder if no target is selected, is brilliant. This is a general improvement that should be strongly considered, even if developers decide not to implement this thread's suggestion for fixed true mounting-axis non-converging torso weapons.

Edited by Cyke, 13 March 2013 - 07:40 AM.

[Zyllos]

This looks very close to my suggestion:

Quote

Something I have begin to notice in MWO is that builds which can pin-point a lot of weaponry onto a single point for as long as possible than builds which can actually deal more damage but generally spreads the damage across a target.

This is part of why the phenomenon on why players generally only aim for the torsos. All their weapons can easily pin-point to a Left/Right Torso, which also destroys the arms in the process. Thus, there is little emphasis on destroying arms because you can just aim all your weaponry at the torso and destroy a mech or maim it by killing both a torso and arm.

I suggest three mechanic changes to fix this issue by placing more emphasis on arm mounted weaponry while removing some ability for all weapons to target a specific point, thus allowing more weapon fire to spread.

Suggestion One - Multiple Weapon Fire Out of a Single Weapon Port

This is an odd mechanic by PGI. I understand the logic behind allowing multiple weapons to be equipped to allow for more customization but why allow multiple weapons to fire out of the same physical weapon port at the same time?

A good example of this is the Atlas Right Torso 2 Ballistic hardpoint / 1 Physical Weapon port location. If someone equips two UAC/5s in this location, and places both of them on the same weapon group without chain fire, then why does both UAC/5s fire at the same time, having overlapping projectiles? This essentially makes it a UAC/10. This also fools your target because they believe a single UAC/5 is firing but actually it is 2 UAC/5s firing at the same time.

The Cicada is another prime example of this. With multiple Energy hardpoints in the same physical Weapon port, they can fire both laser, which overlaps each other looking like a single laser.

So I suggest adding a mechanic where if multiple weapons are fired at the same time out of a single weapon port, just fire the weapons immediately one after the other. This will help spread a bit of the damage just because of the delta time between each firing while moving and also not be used to fool your target.

Suggestion Two - Arm Actuators Given Meaning

This is a brand new mechanic added, which I believe PGI is planning on adding at some point in time. It is fairly straight forward implementation based on how existing mechs already behave and actually sticks to the TT actuator charts fairly well.

Shoulder actuator - Allow arm weaponry to converge on the Arm crosshair.
Upper Arm actuator - Allow vertical deviation of the Arm crosshair from the Torso crosshair.
Lower Arm actuator - Allow horizontal deviation of the Arm crosshair from the Torso crosshair.
Hand actuator - Allow hand related actions to be performed.

Suggestion Three - Torso Mounted Weaponry Do Not Converge

I personally think this is a big balancing factor to the game and part of the reason why nobody aims on arms and everyone can just place the crosshair on a single location and alpha strike, having all damage hit that single location.

I suggest making all torso mounted weaponry only aim straight ahead, aiming in relation to the cockpit view. Basically, a straight line is drawn down the center of the player's perspective. All torso mounted weaponry fires straight ahead from the mech in relation to this line. As a note, arm mounted weaponry will still only fire straight ahead, like torso weaponry. Just both arms point directly at the Arm crosshair.

A good example is the Atlas. The two Center Torso Laser ports will fire straight ahead, not converging on the location on which it is aimed at, but instead will be aimed at the Torso crosshair, landing in relation to the weapons mounted on the mech. So the two Lasers will land below the Torso crosshair, one directly below (because the cockpit is actually out of the left eye, thus the left Center Torso laser will be directly below you) and the other below and slightly to the right. The Ballistic and Missile hardpoints will be aiming to the below/left and below/right of the Torso crosshair.

What this does is removes the ability to pin-point all weaponry mounted on a mech (unless it is all in the arms) to hit a single location. Thus, placing a larger emphasis on arm mounted weaponry (with intact Shoulder actuators). While alpha strikes will still be around, they will not be the single location devastating that they are now, but instead be the wild firing of multiple systems to place as much damage on the target as fast as possible, not worrying about where on the mech it hits.

And with the greater emphasis on allowing convergence on arms only, players might start choosing to destroy an arm first before taking out the Left/Right Torso, especially on mechs which mount a large amount of weaponry on those arms.

Below is an example of what I am talking about:





Even thought it is not shown above, regarding the arms, you can think of the torso suggestion as the same with arms. Draw a box around each arm, having the boundry around the arms to fit each weapon system attached and the middle of the arm itself.

Then, trace each weapon to hit the same location in a boxed diagram of each arm (as above for the torso, keeping weapons in their own relationship of each arm).

Lastly, then converge that box size to the target based on the distance to the target. Each weapon will land in that box, no matter the distance (but remember, that box grows/shrinks in size with distance) with the same relationship.

This removes all individual weapon convergence, then removes torso weapon convergence specifically, while maintaining the ability to point arms at specific locations.

The large torso convergence square is always centered on the Torso crosshair while both arms (with Shoulder actuators) with the small arm covergence squares will center on the Arm crosshair. The arm convergence squares can be different sizes (different shaped arms and mounted weaponry).

TLDR

Remove ability to fire multiple weapons out of the same weapon port at the same time.
Add arm actuator functionality.
Make torso weaponry not converge, but instead fire straight ahead based on distance to selected target or longest range weapon.
All weapons fire straight ahead.

Edited by Zyllos, 13 March 2013 - 09:27 AM.

[Xandralkus]

Cyke, on 13 March 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

While elegant, I'm not completely certain the implementation I described would be workable.. the walking/running animations on the different chassis' models might have different levels of "sway" when they move, and this has the unintended consequence of causing some chassis to have significantly more movement-induced instability than others.

We can closely examine how the chassis move when they walk, which might give us a clue about this.. but only the developers' observation of an actual test implementation would determine if this is the case. If it does turn out to be true (some chassis walking animations sway too much more than others), then I guess the part that I mentioned is unworkable, though the OP's suggestion still stands.

In order to make it look 'plausibly realistic', the devs would first need to alter the walk/run animations of each chassis, so that the amount of sway visible to other players scales reasonably smoothly along the battlemech torso-align deviation curve. As long as the weapons sway properly, it isn't entirely critical that the mathematical sway matches the graphical sway, as long as the weapon aim is tied to the mathematical sway.

Cyke, on 13 March 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Your suggestion to prioritize the selected target's range first, and only use the crosshair rangefinder if no target is selected, is brilliant. This is a general improvement that should be strongly considered, even if developers decide not to implement this thread's suggestion for fixed true mounting-axis non-converging torso weapons.

I don't deserve full credit for this specific part of the suggestion; months ago, everyone was screaming for this. I am not entirely sure if they gave up and disappeared, but it was still a good idea - so long as they fix it so that torso-mounted weapons stop converging.

Edited by Xandralkus, 15 March 2013 - 10:51 AM.

[Pht]

Having our cake and eating it too, are we...

... but this would remove player skill from the equation!

Forcing someone to miss just because they took the wrong mech, that couldn't converge it's weapons just because some dumb artist spread them out across the 'Mech and put most of them on the torsos...

That doesn't belong in a shooter game!

[Pht]

Xandralkus, on 12 March 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

WARNING: Incoming Mega-Threadnought!

I have only briefly expounded upon this idea in others' posts, never giving it the thorough analysis it needs - primarily because I lacked a model that elegantly and coherently resolved the issue without sucking.

Rather, I lacked an elegant and coherent model until now.

To preface, at present, our battlemechs, their limbs, and their associated weapons stay pointed exactly where the pilot intends, regardless of what maneuvers the battlemech is executing. Additionally, all of the battlemech's weapons converge to a single point when firing. I believe that this model is in desperate need of replacement.

Xandralkus, on 12 March 2013 - 06:50 PM, said:

Newsflash, this is a SHOOTER. Meaning that every player has a different 'chance' of hitting a mech's [body part here], based on their own personal preference, hitbox size, and hand-eye-coordination. Players can choose what to aim at - CT, arms, head, etc. One player might have a 7% chance of hitting the head when aiming for it. Another might have a 43% chance of hitting it.

Inaccuracy mechanics have no place in a shooter, so all the balancing that you've done around the torso rotation and the port locations now has to be replaced with new mechanics in order for any of it to work.

If we did this, then why would we need players to be pilots at all? Why not simply save a step and remove the players?

Seriously, this is absolutely mind-boggling. It's as if you missed the point completely that there are robots shooting at each other, and we're driving them. You seriously want to take that out? Not sure if trolling, or serious, or if I just grossly misunderstand what you're trying to say.

----

Hey, if it worked for you as an argument...

Are you really the SAME person that is posting this thread: http://mwomercs.com/...rt/page__st__20 ...?

Which is it?

Is the game a shooter as you've defined it in the quote of you above ...

Or isn't it?

Quote

Inaccuracy Mechanics:

Instead, I believe the devs should code the game so that a battlemech's torso sways while moving, in a predictable path.

How is this functionally any different than adding in predictable weapons spread based upon conditions occuring when you pull the trigger - aka, using the hit location table(s) and the non-pilot related to-hit modifiers - which are both easily predictable and intuitive to the new players?

Besides which, they're already built and have been tested for 29 years, which means the devs will far more easily be able to control for munchkinization by the use of direct and indirect controlling factors.

Quote

Convergence Mechanics:

For accurately depicting how weapons on a battlemech actually WOULD behave in any semi-realistic and interesting way, we need a little bit of geometry. (unlike in most other cases, this is a case where implementing realism coincidentally creates GOOD game design, which is very rare, because usually the opposite is true). WEAPONS will never converge - only limbs will.

First, Battlemechs are capable of converging their weapons, even their torso mounted ones.

Beyond that, you can't implement realism here, because nobody has created anything even remotely like a BTU battlemech.

There can be no appeal to imitate the actual non-fictional behavior of something that doesn't even exist in any form outside of fiction.

----

We still don't know what you mean when you use the word "balance."

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

While OP's ideas posted here might be good if implemented properly, they might also make it necessary to change weapons placement on certain mechs to keep them viable, and that would mean altering mech's apperance (i.e. models).

[Pht]

Krzysztof z Bagien, on 15 March 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

While OP's ideas posted here might be good if implemented properly, they might also make it necessary to change weapons placement on certain mechs to keep them viable, and that would mean altering mech's apperance (i.e. models).

And quite possibly it would involve doing new animations for the 'Mechs.

[kiltymonroe]

The best suggestion to dealing with aiming:

Go get a pair of dice and just play tabletop so you don't have to deal with this whole skill-based element of 'mech piloting.

[Sable Dove]

Seems very over-complicated to me. Simple solution would be to make it so that convergence only takes place when the mech is not moving. Moving causes the opposite effect until the weapons are all facing straight forward.

I do agree that you shouldn't be able to fire multiple weapons out of one 'barrel' simultaneously. Just doesn't make sense.

Edited by Sable Dove, 16 March 2013 - 11:36 PM.

[Training Instructor]

I agree. There is zero reason most of these mechs with fixed weapons positions should be able to hit the same spot on an enemy mech.

6ppc stalker? Those shots should be spread over an enemy mech, because the weapons are not physically able to converge on one location.

AC20 k2? No reason at all for them to be able to put 40 points to one location in a single salvo. They should have to fire one weapon, and then twist to land the other shot in the same location.

[Seox]

Fix? How is this system broken?

I have absolutely praised this game for its close adherence to mechanics emphasizing player skill. You can make the argument that "this will introduce more room for player skill", but the fact of the matter is that this is an argument that could be taken to infinity: Mechs that fly at mach 4 over forest colony with weapons that have lead times similar to tribes games with misses killing you instantly also take more skill, but more complex mechanics aren't necessarily the type of "more skill" that'll improve gameplay.

You'll often find that the best balancing mechanic, if balance is what we're looking for here, is the inability to aim well that a lot of players face. Spectating players quickly reveals that even with perfect accuracy, movement and combat, pressure and potential inexperience do plenty to prevent players from consistently focusing fire on one part to the exclusion of all else, and this properly rewards those who do have the ability to aim well.

After trying and disliking world of tanks for its rampant RNG and poor spotting mechanics that did not lend themselves to skillful play, I cannot fathom why anyone would want to introduce more inconsistencies and greater difficulties in the demonstration of skill in a game that has so thoroughly thrown out RNG as a basic mechanic. Devs, please don't make the mistake of trying to "redistribute skill" by taking my fate in game out of my hands and giving people who legitimately miss a chance to hit anyways by instituting RNG or a system that might have some of the same results due to its innately unnecessary complexity.

I understand that I draw some parallels to RNG and thoroughly expect someone to state that this is actually quite a deliberate system and not RNG based at all, but the fact of the matter is that it will implement mechanics that average players will not be able to use in a way that won't behave like RNG, causing them to arbitrarily miss and score hits that they shouldn't have, and would otherwise complicate things for skilled players in a way that I feel unhealthy for the gameplay.

Edited by Seox, 17 March 2013 - 10:44 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Seox, on 17 March 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

*snip*

Its not about the accuracy, skill etc.

it's about the pinpoint convergence making it FAR too easy for boats to core mechs with 1 or 2 alphas. Its not about trying to nerf boats either. 6 PPC hits is still 6 PPC hits, but its more reasonable if that damage isn't hitting all the same location just because of the convergence mechanic.

[Seox]

M4rtyr, on 17 March 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

Its not about the accuracy, skill etc.

it's about the pinpoint convergence making it FAR too easy for boats to core mechs with 1 or 2 alphas. Its not about trying to nerf boats either. 6 PPC hits is still 6 PPC hits, but its more reasonable if that damage isn't hitting all the same location just because of the convergence mechanic.

Then this is an issue of balance, which I did address.

Another problem with this system is that if you're just looking to fix boats, universally harming accuracy consistency is going to mess up boats bad and normal players worse. That's not the path we ought to take to find balance that works. I feel that what I say both thoroughly addresses this and continues to stand.

As I said before, the greatest balancing factor is the relative inaccuracy of most players. If someone can hit like that, more power to them, but more often than not people cannot maintain the accuracy that would cause balance issues from boats. If those hits are hitting that consistently, I'd wager that the one being fired at could be doing more to prevent being hit in the first place; I cannot say that I have any problems with this myself or ever have had the issue, though I am 100% cognizant of the fact that my experiences do not mimic others'.

Edited by Seox, 17 March 2013 - 11:31 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Seox, on 17 March 2013 - 11:28 PM, said:

Then this is an issue of balance, which I did address.

Another problem with this system is that if you're just looking to fix boats, universally harming accuracy consistency is going to mess up boats bad and normal players worse. That's not the path we ought to take to find balance that works. I feel that what I say both thoroughly addresses this and continues to stand.

No you didn't cover it its not about accuracy or the fact that some players have better accuracy then others. Its about the fact then when you hit with 6 PPC you are usually goning to destroy the section you just hit, because they ALWAYS hit the same location when fired together. The objective is to stop the easy coring by the convergence being off just enough that shots still hit but are spread over the target more.

Obviously this is a hard thing to do and when ranges get really close they're still gonig to hit the same location, but any improvement is better then nothing.

Edited by M4rtyr, 17 March 2013 - 11:34 PM.

[Seox]

Seox, on 17 March 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

You'll often find that the best balancing mechanic, if balance is what we're looking for here, is the inability to aim well that a lot of players face. Spectating players quickly reveals that even with perfect accuracy, movement and combat, pressure and potential inexperience do plenty to prevent players from consistently focusing fire on one part to the exclusion of all else, and this properly rewards those who do have the ability to aim well.

I understand that I draw some parallels to RNG and thoroughly expect someone to state that this is actually quite a deliberate system and not RNG based at all, but the fact of the matter is that it will implement mechanics that average players will not be able to use in a way that won't behave like RNG, causing them to arbitrarily miss and score hits that they shouldn't have, and would otherwise complicate things for skilled players in a way that I feel unhealthy for the gameplay.

M4rtyr, on 17 March 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

No you didn't cover it its not about accuracy or the fact that some players have better accuracy then others it about the fact then when you hit with 6 PPC you are usually goning to destroy the section you just hit. because they ALWAYS hit the same location when fired together. The objective is to stop the easy coring but the convergence being off just enough that shots still hit but are spread over the target more.

If you can't be bothered to read my arguments, we won't get anywhere at all trying to debate. It's one thing to try to refute what I'm saying, but to say that I didn't say it is silly It is simply terrible balance to break the firing mechanics for every player just to (barely) hurt the performance of a handful of boats (that are completely legitimate, albeit annoying) builds. Good balance should serve to balance the things that need it in isolation, and it would be extremely foolish of us to seek to balance what we perceive as a problem with a blanket mechanic change that is entirely unnecessary.

Edited by Seox, 17 March 2013 - 11:36 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Seox, on 17 March 2013 - 11:34 PM, said:

If you can't be bothered to read my arguments, we won't get anywhere at all trying to debate. It's one thing to try to refute what I'm saying, but to say that I didn't say it is silly It is simply terrible balance to break the firing mechanics for every player just to (barely) hurt the performance of a handful of boats (that are completely legitimate, albeit annoying) builds. Good balance should serve to balance the things that need it in isolation, and it would be extremely foolish of us to seek to balance what we perceive as a problem with a blanket mechanic change that is entirely unnecessary.

You are the one not reading dude. I said change it so all weapons don't hit the same location without making misses. If it was about just making shot go whereever it would be an easy fix, but its about spreading hits around the target not making misses.

This has nothing to do with my accuracy or any one else accuracy it has to do with the fact that if I hit you with 6 PPC, regardless of where or hot good I am, I hit and the location that is hit is now gone just because all 6 hit the same location. i didn't make them hit the same location the game made them hit the same location. NOTHING to do with accuracy.

[Seox]

It sounds to me like your problem is with boating, not with the accuracy that you feel people have. If that's the case, why make a case for needlessly complex convergence mechanics that will have "balance ripples" outside of what you're hoping to accomplish? Why not just try to make a case against boating?

I'm not convinced that making such a massive change that will include so much gameplay "collateral damage" would be best for the balance and health of the game.

Edited by Seox, 17 March 2013 - 11:49 PM.

[M4rtyr]

Seox, on 17 March 2013 - 11:45 PM, said:

It sounds to me like your problem is with boating, not with the accuracy that you feel people have.

You're clueless. Its not boating that does it, its the convergence mechanic, boating just exploits the convergence mechanic. And its not a reward to anyone.

As of right now I can aim my 4 ML's and score a hit on you, my good accuracy just rewarded me with a hit. Not the convergence mechanic kicks in and all my ML'***** the same location, whatever location that is doesn't matter and that location takes the given damage. Doesn't seem like a big issue at all because its low damage. Now I have a stalker with 6 PPC's. I aim and fire and hit, I just got rewarded for my good marksmanship again. Now convergence kicks in again and all 6 hit the same location again, thats 60 damage and for most mechs and location is completely destroyed location which drastically increase kill times, which happens to be why they doubled armor becuase kill times were too high but they havn't completely addressed the situation.

Now if you change convergence so its not pinpoint perfect it changes like this. I take aim with my 6 PPCs, alpha them again and I hit, I'm rewarded once more. But now convergence isn't there so those 6 shots are spread out over say the 3 torsos. Instead of 60 damage to one location with NO skill or extra effort needed its 20 damage to 3 locations. So you can still have the exact same boat but they are much more balanced because convergence isn't making it too easy.

Edited by M4rtyr, 17 March 2013 - 11:59 PM.

[Seox]

M4rtyr, on 17 March 2013 - 11:58 PM, said:

You're clueless. Its not boating that does it, its the convergence mechanic, boating just exploits the convergence mechanic. And its not a reward to anyone.

As of right now I can aim my 4 ML's and score a hit on you, my good accuracy just rewarded me with a hit. Not the convergence mechanic kicks in and all my ML'***** the same location, whatever location that is doesn't matter and that location takes the given damage. Doesn't seem like a big issue at all because its low damage. Now I have a stalker with 6 PPC's. I aim and fire and hit, I just got rewarded for my good marksmanship again. Now convergence kicks in again and all 6 hit the same location again, thats 60 damage and for most mechs and location its a completely destroyed location which drastically increase kill times, which happens to be why they doubled armor becuase kill times were too high but they havn't completely addressed the situation.

Now if you change convergence so its not pinpoint perfect in changes like this. I take aim with my 6 PPCs, alpha them again and I hit, I'm rewarded once more. But now convergence isn't there so those 6 shots are spread out over say the 3 torsos. Instead of 60 damage to one location with NO skill or extra effort needed its 20 damage to 3 locations. So you can still have the exact same boat but they are much more balanced because convergence isn't making it too easy.

If you're not bothered by the boating, then you're upset by the idea that accurate players are being rewarded for being accurate? What, do you want people who are more accurate than you to lose points and damage teammates instead? Do you want to nerf players who outdamage you too?

If boats cause problems, we should examine them and evaluate what needs to be done, but accuracy can be nothing but healthy for game balance and play, and we should protect that as long as we can. Needlessly complicating accuracy mechanics and tainting the lack of RNG/essentially random accuracy mechanics that we have in the game should only be done if there is no other way to handle an issue. Implementing inconsistencies in aim or mechanics that needlessly complicate aiming aren't healthy because they remove reasonably skillful play from players and make it far more difficult to demonstrate simple, reasonable skill - skill demonstration that serves as a cornerstone for any balanced and capable competitive game.

Edited by Seox, 18 March 2013 - 12:03 AM.