79 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Hotthedd, on 05 February 2016 - 12:30 PM, said:

AFAIK though, nobody is complaining about only being hit with those weapons one at a time, or being hit by two or more of them in two or more different components. Like you say, it wouldn't necessarily change the loadouts too much (but it would improve game play IMO)

The changes would mostly occur on the lower end of the tonnage spectrum, where mechs normally reliant on things like medium or small lasers would be forced to expose themselves for longer time due to chainfiring with so many hardpoints.

Basically, mechs with more than around 4-5 weapons or so max would have to expose themselves too long because of the chainfire delay between shots, and would thereby be pooped on heavily by that change.

[Hotthedd]

FupDup, on 05 February 2016 - 12:32 PM, said:

The changes would mostly occur on the lower end of the tonnage spectrum, where mechs normally reliant on things like medium or small lasers would be forced to expose themselves for longer time due to chainfiring with so many hardpoints.

Basically, mechs with more than around 4-5 weapons or so max would have to expose themselves too long because of the chainfire delay between shots, and would thereby be pooped on heavily by that change.

Nobody is forced to fire all of their weapons. And there is no way I can buy the argument that mechs with more weapon slots are disadvantaged against those with fewer weapon slots.

[FupDup]

Hotthedd, on 05 February 2016 - 12:36 PM, said:

Nobody is forced to fire all of their weapons. And there is no way I can buy the argument that mechs with more weapon slots are disadvantaged against those with fewer weapon slots.

I'll try to break this down more thoroughly...


>Some guy proposed that we remove group fire, which means you have to use chain fire as the only means of attacking.

>Chain fire allows only one weapon to fire at any given moment.

>There is a delay between weapon firings in chain mode (currently 0.5 seconds).

>Given that there is a delay between weapon firings, the mathematics indicate that chain-firing a large group of weapons will take a longer period of time to fully discharge than a small group of weapons. The delay between weapons adds up as you fire more weapons. Fewer weapons to chain fire means fewer delays.

>For example, chaining through 3 weapons will take only about half of the time that it takes to chain fire through 6 weapons.

>Therefore, a mech that is using only a few weapons will have less exposure time than a mech trying to chain through a large quantity of weapons. This implies higher survivability.

>If we're going to chainfire only a small number of weapons, it would then be obvious to a min-maxer to ensure that each of those weapons deals as much damage by itself as possible. For example, one individual weapon that deals 10 damage will be a more efficient choice than one that deals like 7 or 8 damage, assuming that all other factors are equal.


I also now just remembered that this would cause problems with constant-fire weapons like MGs and Flamers, or weapons with relatively short cooldowns.

Edited by FupDup, 05 February 2016 - 12:44 PM.

[Mystere]

FupDup, on 05 February 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

I'll try to break this down more thoroughly...


>Some guy proposed that we remove group fire, which means you have to use chain fire as the only means of attacking.

>Chain fire allows only one weapon to fire at any given moment.

>There is a delay between weapon firings in chain mode (currently 0.5 seconds).

>Given that there is a delay between weapon firings, the mathematics indicate that chain-firing a large group of weapons will take a longer period of time to fully discharge than a small group of weapons. The delay between weapons adds up as you fire more weapons. Fewer weapons to chain fire means fewer delays.

>For example, chaining through 3 weapons will take only about half of the time that it takes to chain fire through 6 weapons.

>Therefore, a mech that is using only a few weapons will have less exposure time than a mech trying to chain through a large quantity of weapons. This implies higher survivability.

>If we're going to chainfire only a small number of weapons, it would then be obvious to a min-maxer to ensure that each of those weapons deals as much damage by itself as possible. For example, one individual weapon that deals 10 damage will be a more efficient choice than one that deals like 7 or 8 damage, assuming that all other factors are equal.


I also now just remembered that this would cause problems with constant-fire weapons like MGs and Flamers, or weapons with relatively short cooldowns.

Where does it say that you can't fire two or more weapons at the same time by pressing on two or more keys at the same time?

[FupDup]

Mystere, on 05 February 2016 - 12:47 PM, said:

Where does it say that you can't fire two or more weapons at the same time by pressing on two or more keys at the same time?

Nobody said that explicitly, but I would assume that it wouldn't be allowed that way or else group fire would still be possible even though that other guy's intention way to remove group fire.

[Hotthedd]

FupDup, on 05 February 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

I'll try to break this down more thoroughly...


>Some guy proposed that we remove group fire, which means you have to use chain fire as the only means of attacking.

>Chain fire allows only one weapon to fire at any given moment.

>There is a delay between weapon firings in chain mode (currently 0.5 seconds).

>Given that there is a delay between weapon firings, the mathematics indicate that chain-firing a large group of weapons will take a longer period of time to fully discharge than a small group of weapons. The delay between weapons adds up as you fire more weapons. Fewer weapons to chain fire means fewer delays.

>For example, chaining through 3 weapons will take only about half of the time that it takes to chain fire through 6 weapons.

>Therefore, a mech that is using only a few weapons will have less exposure time than a mech trying to chain through a large quantity of weapons. This implies higher survivability.

>If we're going to chainfire only a small number of weapons, it would then be obvious to a min-maxer to ensure that each of those weapons deals as much damage by itself as possible. For example, one individual weapon that deals 10 damage will be a more efficient choice than one that deals like 7 or 8 damage, assuming that all other factors are equal.


I also now just remembered that this would cause problems with constant-fire weapons like MGs and Flamers, or weapons with relatively short cooldowns.

I get what you are saying, but having say 6 weapons does not have to be a disadvantage to having only 3. Each mech would be able to fir 3 weapons in the same amount of time. The mech with 6 weapons is not obligated to fire all of them.

And to reiterate, I am not suggesting global cooldown as an idea. This thread is to gauge the sentiment of players who think that Alpha Strike Warrior: Online is a good thing, or would rather see something a little more evolved.

[wanderer]

Convergence has always been the worst issue, simply because logically speaking, any weapon that cannot be used to combo-strike that single pixel for maximum damage will be considered third-rate at best.

PGI can't do oldschool convergence, but even simply using a default convergence distance would have prevented the ever increasing amounts of damage we can apply in a focused manner. We push the button to fire all the weapons because that means we get the maximum damage to one spot in the shortest period of time, and that kills the giant robot best.

[Moldur]

We manually have to put in convergence.

Target.
waiting for target info
488m
[page up] (or whatever key) in 50m increments until weapons converge at 500m
Fire.

This seems like the obvious solution. Manually setting convergence at any point in the game, whether you do it ahead of time in anticipation, or after you get target info to do a more precise convergence.

Maybe even make it something like always have the option to do manual convergence in 50m increments, but on targetted targets, convergence will automatically rise or lower within several meters of exact value over time (so say, auto convergence changes at 15 m/s), meaning you would still want to use manual convergence to quickly go up or down several hundred meters while letting auto convergence do the fine tuning. It would just mean that when targetting, you could get an exact convergence.

Edited by Moldur, 05 February 2016 - 07:04 PM.

[Rhavin]

I always thought it would be interesting (funny) to have each location on a mech have its own reticle. Giving you up to 6 aiming points. Nothing too insane as far as distance apart . Like far enough from each other to maybe cover a cicada at 200 300 meters. Then each location would fire to that particular reticle. It would make alphas outside of a brawl very interesting, as well as heat scaleing. Granted it's a stupid idea but if you read the books you see where pilots had to lift their arms or adjust their torsos to aim a weapon.


Maybe something like this for a humanoid chassis.

X
X. X X
X. X

With the top representing the head, the center 3 the torsos and the bottom 2 the arms. Any reticle could make a missle lock.

Lol, I am now imagining the hilarity that this would cause as well as the increase in kill time. I love whiskey!

[M T]

So you preferably want all maps to be flat plates and just not have any strategy on a map? The whole reason a map exists like they do is so you can pop in and out, taking cover, take a shot, back into cover.

If it was all about DPS and spread damage we might as well not have individual components etc.

[Hotthedd]

x MT x, on 05 February 2016 - 07:52 PM, said:

So you preferably want all maps to be flat plates and just not have any strategy on a map? The whole reason a map exists like they do is so you can pop in and out, taking cover, take a shot, back into cover.

Like Call of Duty.

That is kind of why I was asking the question.

[Aresye]

BattleTech:
- Dice rolls determined hit locations.
- Alpha striking utilized, but rare.
- Board Game

MechWarrior:
- Weapons have always converged on crosshair.
- Boating and alpha striking utilized often, due to FPS nature of title.
- FPS w/ some simulator aspects.

Last I checked I was playing MechWarrior, not TableTop: Online, and while I enjoy the lore, I enjoy the game because it's a shooter.

Take your cone of fire (aka: dice roll simulator), battle value, and other TT bull crap and go play HBS's new game if you miss it so much. The rest of us want to continue playing the FPS with robots known as, "MechWarrior."

[MadcatX]

Aresye, on 05 February 2016 - 08:14 PM, said:

BattleTech:
- Dice rolls determined hit locations.
- Alpha striking utilized, but rare.
- Board Game

MechWarrior:
- Weapons have always converged on crosshair.
- Boating and alpha striking utilized often, due to FPS nature of title.
- FPS w/ some simulator aspects.

Last I checked I was playing MechWarrior, not TableTop: Online, and while I enjoy the lore, I enjoy the game because it's a shooter.

Take your cone of fire (aka: dice roll simulator), battle value, and other TT bull crap and go play HBS's new game if you miss it so much. The rest of us want to continue playing the FPS with robots known as, "MechWarrior."

Please elaborate on "the rest of us" part.

[Mystere]

Aresye, on 05 February 2016 - 08:14 PM, said:

Take your cone of fire (aka: dice roll simulator), battle value, and other TT bull crap and go play HBS's new game if you miss it so much. The rest of us want to continue playing the FPS with robots known as, "MechWarrior."

The basic problem is that many people's idea of "cone of fire", as exemplified by your "dice roll simulator" jab, is a uniform distribution on the circular area of the plane perpendicular to and intersecting the cone, like this (shaded area of image):



while many of the people talking about the same thing are proposing a normal distribution along the same plane, like this:



That is a huge difference.

Edited by Mystere, 05 February 2016 - 09:05 PM.

[Aresye]

Mystere, on 05 February 2016 - 09:00 PM, said:

The basic problem is that many people's idea of "cone of fire", as exemplified by your "dice roll simulator" jab, is a uniform distribution on the circular area of the plane perpendicular to and intersecting the cone, like this (shaded area of image):



while many of the people talking about the same thing are proposing a normal distribution along the same plane, like this:



That is a huge difference.

No matter how you tell it, you're still talking about people missing shots who should have made them, and others making shots that should have missed them, and random luck is a bad mechanic to try and balance things with.

If pulse lasers and other similar weapons fired hundreds of bolts per second, then yes, a CoF would most certainly be needed, but no, we're talking (for the vast majority of them) single shot weapons, with waste heat, long cooldowns (compared to normal FPS weapons), and not in any way compatible with a CoF mechanic.

I still laugh at the fact that so many people say, "Aiming is so easy in this game," yet EVERY SINGLE MATCH I play the vast majority of players show they couldn't shoot the freaking ground if they tried.

[Lightfoot]

Yes, MechWarrior has "Group-Fire" as a core mechanic of gameplay. Always has, always will. That is not an Alpha-Strike. Alpha-Strikes are pretty rare in MWO, most players fire all weapons of one type together and cycle through their load-outs one weapon type at a time. Of course if you shut-down you might get hit by an alpha-strike if they can handle the heat-spike it causes.

That's the game though. Mechs have so many weapons they need to fire them in groups or they would never be used before the first weapons were ready to fire again.

[thehiddenedge]

Lightfoot, on 06 February 2016 - 01:36 AM, said:

Yes, MechWarrior has "Group-Fire" as a core mechanic of gameplay. Always has, always will. That is not an Alpha-Strike. Alpha-Strikes are pretty rare in MWO, most players fire all weapons of one type together and cycle through their load-outs one weapon type at a time. Of course if you shut-down you might get hit by an alpha-strike if they can handle the heat-spike it causes.

That's the game though. Mechs have so many weapons they need to fire them in groups or they would never be used before the first weapons were ready to fire again.

and if a mech happens to use only type of weapon, such as lasers? and if the heat capacity is so high that the mech can get away with doing three or four or even five alpha's back to back? and that alpha is still a respectable amount of damage?

I'm sorry, we must be playing a different game, because I see quite a bit of laser vomit in my games. I see plenty of people alpha while spectating and they're definitely not shooting shut down mechs.

Don't get me wrong, I wish the game were how you describe, but it's not.

[Zoid]

Alpha strikes feel a lot worse than they should right now in large part due to IS megaquirks. Extremely short-duration weapons that are supposed to also be extremely short-range (large and medium pulse lasers) actually can do damage at a significant range. Human reaction time is estimated to be about .25 seconds, so if a laser is doing its damage in .6 then there's not a whole lot of spreading you can do.

Other weapons have a much harder time delivering a massive alpha strike. Gauss are hard limited to 2 at a time, PPCs really can't fire more than 3 without ridiculous ghost heat and even doing 3 isn't a good idea. The largest alpha you can reasonably do from outside of 300m with Autocannons is 30.

Clan 'mechs can deliver huge alpha strikes but they're mostly with lasers that have a duration of 1.15s or more. If you're eating all of that in your CT, I have no sympathy for how fast you are dying.

[Hotthedd]

Aresye, on 05 February 2016 - 10:03 PM, said:

No matter how you tell it, you're still talking about people missing shots who should have made them, and others making shots that should have missed them, and random luck is a bad mechanic to try and balance things with.

If pulse lasers and other similar weapons fired hundreds of bolts per second, then yes, a CoF would most certainly be needed, but no, we're talking (for the vast majority of them) single shot weapons, with waste heat, long cooldowns (compared to normal FPS weapons), and not in any way compatible with a CoF mechanic.

I still laugh at the fact that so many people say, "Aiming is so easy in this game," yet EVERY SINGLE MATCH I play the vast majority of players show they couldn't shoot the freaking ground if they tried.

As Mystere explained to you already, a come of fire is by definition NOT random. ALSO, the CoF mechanic would ONLY apply to group fired weapons. Therefore your argument about pilots missing when they "would have" and hitting when they "wouldn't have" is a Red Herring.

But you did answer my question (you believe perfectly precise alpha strikes are a good thing), so thank you.

Lightfoot, on 06 February 2016 - 01:36 AM, said:

That's the game though. Mechs have so many weapons they need to fire them in groups or they would never be used before the first weapons were ready to fire again.

Or they could be grouped by hardpoint location...

[Lightfoot]

thehiddenedge, on 06 February 2016 - 02:07 AM, said:

and if a mech happens to use only type of weapon, such as lasers? and if the heat capacity is so high that the mech can get away with doing three or four or even five alpha's back to back? and that alpha is still a respectable amount of damage?

I'm sorry, we must be playing a different game, because I see quite a bit of laser vomit in my games. I see plenty of people alpha while spectating and they're definitely not shooting shut down mechs.

Don't get me wrong, I wish the game were how you describe, but it's not.

Two things. MWO's mechs are a little weak to damage and have large enough hit boxes that players don't miss much unless your mech is a good Light mech. Maybe mechs could get overlapping hitboxes or bullseye style hitboxes or just a second armor buff from the current 2X to 3X Battle Tech standard. PGI is already close to doing this on some mechs with Quirks.

Secondly the problem with Lasers is not that they get alpha-striked at short range, it is that there is no weapon strong/accurate enough to challenge the laser boats reaching short range. AC2's, Gauss, and PPCs used to handle this well, but players who did not understand what they were unleashing demanded that PGI nerf Gauss and PPCs, and PGI did so.

MechWarrior is a balance of one weapon countering another when the correct tactic is used. Otherwise the most adaptable weapon, the Laser, becomes nearly unbeatable.

So it's not Group-Fire or alpha-striking that is the problem. That's a core game asset.