162 replies to this topic

[cazidin]

Greetings Mechwarriors. Today I ask all of you a simple question. Why do I see so many against perfect weapon convergence? Yes, lasers offer a high alpha but most can be countered with good twisting/armor rolling and if perfect convergence were removed that'd affect mixed loadouts aswell.

So, you might say "just make it so that weapons only converge when you have a lock!" to that I have but two simple words. GHOST RANGE. Never forget.

(For those of you at home unaware of the TERRIBLE GHOST RANGE! here's a brief description. In the last PTR for the Quirkening II GHOST RANGE was a mechanic that PGI had hoped would crush the laser meta.

If you didn't have a lock on your target the effective range of your lasers were halved so you'd deal less damage even if within the otherwise optimal range. It was going to be tied to the shelved Info War changes.)

While Ghost Range and a variable COF/Press R to Converge behave differently they very similar purposes and the latter would be met with equally if not greater negative reception if implemented.

Personally, I'd prefer a better heat scale with real penalties and true DHS.

[Mcgral18]

Because aligning 30+ tons of guns instantly strikes some people as odd. Those guns which are located on opposite ends of a mech moving 50+ Kph across rocky, uneven terrain...until you hit a Pebble of Steel. Upon which...nothing happens. You just stop dead in your tracks, with the guns not moving a millimetre. Dat conservation of momentum...

The Perfectly Pinpoint Magical Convergence MWO has is the source of the majority of the past balance issues, which were "solved" with Ghost Heat, Ghost Damage, Giganerfs, The Nerfinator, and of course, Machine Gun Nerfs.

Naturally, none of those had a very large impact.


The reality is: MWO isn't going to change core features at this point. PGI just isn't going to do it. We're going to keep Perfectly Pinpoint Magical Convergence, that's the reality.


Perhaps I'm just a bittervet, but my opinion on these things can be summed up with this:

Meh

Edited by Mcgral18, 09 February 2016 - 09:41 AM.

[SuomiWarder]

I still don't understand the argument that lining up weapons that fit the exact pixel under the reticle under all conditions is "skill" and having to mentally juggle several variables like your speed, location, time of exposure and weapon layout to get the best chance of a hit is "random dice rolling".

[nehebkau]

Arm weapons, convergence makes sense... torso weapons -- well maybe not so much.

[El Bandito]

cazidin, on 08 February 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

Greetings Mechwarriors. Today I ask all of you a simple question. Why do I see so many against perfect weapon convergence? Yes, lasers offer a high alpha but most can be countered with good twisting/armor rolling and if perfect convergence were removed that'd affect mixed loadouts aswell.

So, you might say "just make it so that weapons only converge when you have a lock!" to that I have but two simple words. GHOST RANGE. Never forget.

(For those of you at home unaware of the TERRIBLE GHOST RANGE! here's a brief description. In the last PTR for the Quirkening II GHOST RANGE was a mechanic that PGI had hoped would crush the laser meta.

If you didn't have a lock on your target the effective range of your lasers were halved so you'd deal less damage even if within the otherwise optimal range. It was going to be tied to the shelved Info War changes.)

I was there in the PTS and I can tell you that info warfare based laser range was not as terrible as you claim, since the numbers were subject to change. Indeed it made MWO more mechwarrior like, since in Battletech novels weapons are not focused until the target has been locked. PGI could have expanded on the info warfare concept, to further give more immersion to the game, but the community's knee jerk response made them give up too early and have MWO remain this generic robbit shooter. No wonder PGI can't make significant changes--they can't even put their foot down!

Later on the Ghost laser range was implemented anyway to Clan lasers, on the live server, but without the inclusion of the info-warfare, all because people had cried the sky was falling. SMH...

Edited by El Bandito, 08 February 2016 - 04:33 PM.

[cazidin]

I appreciate that a lack of perfect convergence might enhance immersion but that would be at a rather nasty cost to the players. I wasn't the only one who disliked GHOST RANGE, which I capitalize for comedic effect btw. It was a poor design choice. Atleast, in that incarnation.

[Aresye]

Ah, the MWO board, where the general theme seems to be, "Why reply to one of the many already existing topics when you can just create your own?"

[Pjwned]

Your argument is that a horrible dogshit nonsense ghost range system was tested rather than something that actually made sense and that's why convergence on locks shouldn't be implemented.

**** argument, bad thread, obviously biased to hell and back, 0/10.

El Bandito, on 08 February 2016 - 04:21 PM, said:

I was there in the PTS and I can tell you that info warfare based laser range was not as terrible as you claim, since the numbers were subject to change. Indeed it made MWO more mechwarrior like, since in Battletech novels weapons are not focused until the target has been locked. PGI could have expanded on the info warfare concept, to further give more immersion to the game, but the community's knee jerk response made them give up too early and have MWO remain this generic robbit shooter. No wonder PGI can't make significant changes--they can't even put their foot down!

It was rejected because the idea was absolutely terrible.

Edited by Pjwned, 08 February 2016 - 04:28 PM.

[cazidin]

Aresye, that offers little to this conversation but I feel that's intentional?

Pjwned, please. If you think that manual convergence is superior mechanic, tell us why?

Edited by cazidin, 08 February 2016 - 04:30 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

I agree a bit sick about hearing about lets do away with convergence and add some convoluted system in its place.

[Mister Blastman]

Because these are armored death machines. And in Battletech, in tabletop, they are stupid tough. You don't take eight medium lasers, a ton of heatsinks, look at a medium mech and...

"lol Die!"

Fire for 40 pts alpha into its CT, then next turn fire all eight and hit that same exact center torso for 80 pts combined damage and watch them explode.

It just... does... not... happen.

The 'mechs in tabletop are durable.

Convergence ruins this durability. The armor system is not compatible with it.

[oldradagast]

Why are we against perfect convergence?

• Because it is the root of nearly all balance problems in the game. Ghost Heat, nerfed jump jets, Gauss charge, assorted weapon nerfs, and so forth. None of these would have been needed if a player wasn't able to constantly put his full, boated weapon alphas on a single pixel regardless of range, speed, heat, and everything else. And, heck - all it's done is give us the laser vomit meta, so it's STILL not fixed
  
• It's nutty violation of basic physics. Sorry, but weapons do not work that way. No vehicle mounting a pile of weapons is going to be able to put every shot on the exact same spot every time, magically, regardless of everything else going on. Even lasers are only as good as the platform on which they are mounted and the targeting computers controlling them.
  
• It's against Lore and game mechanics. Battletech is clearly not a world of hyper-precision weapons. It's also a world where the game mechanics REQUIRE some level of damage scatter to even work correctly. If we basically could pick where we wanted to hit in table-top, the whole system of mech components, armor, etc. would break down - as it's doing in MWO.

So, there are plenty of good reasons to be against pinpoint, perfect, instance convergence.

[cazidin]

Mister Blastman, but you're not asking if this part of TT translates well to an Online FPS. Can you really say that you'd be comfortable with a system where your weapons fire in multiple different locations? It'd take true skill to account for this, yes, but how many would want that in this game if they saw how it actually works? Again, a proper heatscale mitigates MEGA LASER ALPHA STRIKES OF DOOM!

Oldradagast, allow me to address each point.

1.Manual or imperfect convergence would create several more problems for each problem that it creates. Each of these band aids were applied with an equal level of foresight, unfortunately.
2.I can only counter this point by reminding everyone that we are violating basic physics and engineering by piloting giant robots that fire gamma ray lasers, artillery shell autocannons and short long range missiles.
3.You can torso twist or armor roll to partially mitigate the effectiveness of lasers because of their burn time but I agree that the damage IS a bit high. We need a proper heat scale with penalties!

[pbiggz]

The game needs some kind of convergence system that will do away with perfect pinpoint convergence. BUT, it also needs heatscale, and it needs neither of those things to reduce the game to firing single medium lasers or risking a 45 degree tilt in your second laser shot because RNG convergence said that one would miss.

I support logical weapon convergence and heat scale. I do not support classic battletech zero convergence chainfirewarrior online.

[Pjwned]

cazidin, on 08 February 2016 - 04:28 PM, said:

Pjwned, please. If you think a manual convergence mechanic is superior, tell us why?

I'm not advocating for manual convergence by the way, I'm advocating for fixed convergence without locks and standard (i.e perfect) convergence with locks, which is different.

It's superior because it addresses convergence in a way that actually makes sense (and it's been clear for a while that convergence does need to be addressed), it doesn't arbitrarily nerf 1 weapon type in the most nonsense way possible, (incoming the DARPA laser picture for the 10,000th time) and it still keeps convergence intact which is important because convergence is needed to an extent but not the instant, perfect, pinpoint convergence at all times that we have now.

It also paves the way for information warfare being something that really matters because information would then mean more accurate shots which is something that actually makes quite a lot of sense, and it also wouldn't completely destroy your accuracy all the time either (like the stupid cone of fire suggestions I've been hearing) if you don't have a target lock because it would converge at a default range which is not that hard to manage.

[FupDup]

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 04:29 PM, said:

Because these are armored death machines. And in Battletech, in tabletop, they are stupid tough. You don't take eight medium lasers, a ton of heatsinks, look at a medium mech and...

"lol Die!"

Fire for 40 pts alpha into its CT, then next turn fire all eight and hit that same exact center torso for 80 pts combined damage and watch them explode.

It just... does... not... happen.

The 'mechs in tabletop are durable.

Convergence ruins this durability. The armor system is not compatible with it.

Well, Tabletop mechs are durable until you hit them with a bank of Gauss, AC/20, PPC, and/or LPL. Then they die pretty quickly.

Lights and mediums in particular can be either crippled or killed in one single turn if you built your mech good enough. Or, if you got a through-armor critical on something like an ammo bin you could kill a fully-armored 100-ton mech in a single turn with a single Small Laser to the front center torso.


Don't interpret this post as saying that I want MWO to be that way (read: I don't), the point I'm making is that TT mechs do actually get hurt and die just as quickly as MWO or even quicker in a number of cases.

[cazidin]

That would be a reasonable compromise if we had Lock-On Convergence and a proper Heat Scale however I personally think that the latter would be adequate to combat the infamous laser meta.

I saw an old diagram of a few WW2 planes. The diagram clearly showed that the machine guns would converge at the optimal range and spread out in a cross/X pattern inbetween that or farther out. If weapons spread outward beyond their optimal range, but converged within it, then I don't see why many would complain.

Also. I want Info War too.

[wanderer]

Quote

So, you might say "just make it so that weapons only converge when you have a lock!" to that I have but two simple words. GHOST RANGE. Never forget.

That was "get a lock or your weapon magically does less damage"- and only lasers at that. Which was patently stupid at best.

Lock-for-convergence doesn't mean your damage magically vanishes. It just stops converging like a Death Star superlaser and spreads damage around a wider section of the 'Mech, making the 'Mech not die like a giant metal donut of virtually unmarked armor surrounding the smoking hole in their engine section.

[Mister Blastman]

cazidin, on 08 February 2016 - 04:41 PM, said:

Mister Blastman, but you're not asking if this part of TT translates well to an Online FPS. Can you really say that you'd be comfortable with a system where your weapons fire in multiple different locations? It'd take true skill to account for this, yes, but how many would want that in this game if they saw how it actually works? Again, a proper heatscale mitigates MEGA LASER ALPHA STRIKES OF DOOM!

No, the heatscale does not mitigate it. I know this because I played Mechwarrior 3 competitively, online. Mechwarrior 3 had a great heatscale. Boated weapons and high alpha was a HUGE PROBLEM.

The heatscale helped... but pinpoint convergence overcame it even there.

I've played competitive Mechwarrior since Mechwarrior 2 and seen the same problem over and over wreck the longevity of online play since the third iteration. It is convergence.

I can deal with it being removed. It won't be a big problem. We'll manage just fine. Just put it on the PTS and see how it goes (with a big grab bag event to encourage participation).

The three armor panel system--right, center and left torso, is not made to withstand 40 pt, 50 pt, 60 pt perfect convergence alpha strikes over and over again--three of them in ten seconds. The 'mechs are supposed to be durable and last.

So if you don't want to remove it...

Then go from three armor panels... to a grid of nine... or twenty seven. Like this...





You get the idea.

Each subsection of the RT has the full armor value of that section. So 42 pts in RT, then top panel is 42, middle is 42, bottom is 42.

Want to punch through and hit engine?

Great!

You must drill through one panel with perfect aim to get to it.

So attack one... Hit top panel for 30 pts...

Top panel has 12 pts remaining, middle has 42, bottom has 42.

Second attack... hit middle panel for 25 pts...

Top has 12 pts remaining, middle has 27, bottom has 42.

And so on.

This grid system would allow for huge alpha strikes while simultaneously rewarding precise pilot aiming and penalizing pray and sprayers.

Mech durability will go up. Time to kill will increase.

The one concession that would have to be made to coincide with an armor system re-work is increased ammo per ton. But not too much... because remember... those ballistics have front loaded damage which applies to a single panel.

SRMs would also have a perk here with an increase of panels as they'd "melt" armor while simultaneously having a higher likelihood of hitting that cored panel in the heat of an intense confrontation.

[cazidin]

As I originally stated. They behave differently, but the result wouldn't be much different. Players would likely see how it actually works and complain until PGI reverses their decision. This would effect Ballistics AND Missile loadouts aswell.

Mister Blastman, that is a beautiful drawing of a majestic mech.

Edited by cazidin, 08 February 2016 - 05:00 PM.