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Regarding A Common Argument Against Cof Suggestions

Weapons HUD Loadout

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#21 Davers

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:29 AM

View PostAlan Davion, on 30 April 2016 - 08:20 AM, said:


Problem is, SRMs are the only moderately useful weapons you list there.

LRMs are hardly ever used anymore, and generally speaking only the LRM5 sees even moderate use, while there are always exceptions, the LRM10/15/20 are garbage for the most part these days.

And Machine Guns? Seriously? Easily the weakest weapon in the game really. Unless you're a Spider, Shadow Cat or a Nova and you're being a sneaky crit-seeker, MGs have no place in the game right now.



Uh-huh, mind telling us where you got that little bit of clairvoyance?

PGI has said that they are not interested in CoF years ago. You don't think these threads were around even before Closed Beta, back when PGI actually participated on the forums?

#22 Alan Davion

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:37 AM

View PostDavers, on 30 April 2016 - 08:29 AM, said:

PGI has said that they are not interested in CoF years ago. You don't think these threads were around even before Closed Beta, back when PGI actually participated on the forums?


I wasn't here back then. Humor me.

#23 Endimra

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:48 AM

This thread wasn't really meant to be another cone of fire suggestion, it was just questioning a common argument that seemed poorly thought out to me.

Regarding the fears of getting RNG-headshotted, I would like to mention that we already have this in the form of airstrikes, not that I think those okay. Moreover, only an AC/20 could actually one-shot you through the head, if you have max head armor. Sure, it could still happen, but it would be much rarer than in games like CS.

On PGI's prior stance, there was once a time when we were never going to get the unseen, as well as a time when we were never going to have urbies. I'm not saying they would add a cone of fire if the community was behind it, just that they could.

EDIT: Third person view and coolant can also go up there, unless I'm remembering my history wrong.

Lastly, I prefer a cone of fire over convergence for two reasons. Firstly, it's a common enough feature that most people will be familiar with it, so I don't expect it will drive away new players. Secondly, a cone of fire would affect all mechs equally, whereas I think messing with convergence would adversely affect certain mechs like Ebon Jaguars. The latter of course could be balanced, but I don't really know a way around the former.

Edited by Endimra, 30 April 2016 - 09:06 AM.


#24 Raso

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:49 AM

I think a CoF makes sense for ballistics. For lasers it should be straight shots directly from the torso with not convergence and straight from the arm hardpoints with the arms articulating to allow the batteries on each arm to converge. This would naturally spread damage on boating mechs and even give mediums ann edge as their smaller feams could now weave their way through the alphas of assaults. Make totso mounted ACs more stable and arm mounted ACs less stable (unless quircked).


#25 Dracol

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:53 AM

I'll throw up this counter argument:
Although fps games like BF series and Halo have cone of fire, usually affected by movement, no prior Mechwarrior game, going back to the 90's, has ever had a CoF mechanic. The Mechwarrior franchise has always had the distict mechanic of being able to pick apart your opponenent. If CoF were ever implemented, it would water down one of the major differances that sets this franchise apart from the crowd.

#26 Davers

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 08:58 AM

View PostAlan Davion, on 30 April 2016 - 08:37 AM, said:


I wasn't here back then. Humor me.


When asked if they would put in CoF to combat the massive alpha strikes of previous MW games, they said no. Instead they would use 2 target reticules, burn time, different velocities for ACs, delayed convergence, and later by nerfing heatsinks.

They wanted a game where skilled/knowledgeable players would actively target specific components, and a CoF would eliminate that.

As time has gone on, we have moved further away from any random hit system as delayed convergence didn't work and they added Arm Lock, in many ways bringing us full circle to the large alphas of previous games.

#27 Alan Davion

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 09:12 AM

View PostDracol, on 30 April 2016 - 08:53 AM, said:

I'll throw up this counter argument:
Although fps games like BF series and Halo have cone of fire, usually affected by movement, no prior Mechwarrior game, going back to the 90's, has ever had a CoF mechanic. The Mechwarrior franchise has always had the distict mechanic of being able to pick apart your opponenent. If CoF were ever implemented, it would water down one of the major differances that sets this franchise apart from the crowd.


And I'll just add this counter to your counter.

All the other MW games have also had much harsher penalties when it comes to heat, which is the biggest problem here in MWO, allowing people to fire literally all their weapons almost at exactly the same time without so much as shutting down.

You tried that in any other MW game, you would immediately shut down on the spot, and, if you were carrying any ammunition for ACs or Missiles, it's likely your rump was immediately roasted as the ammo cooked off and took your mech with it.

Slash the heat cap in half, or, supposedly the rumored power draw system, either of these mechanics should hopefully curtail the pathetic poke-out-alpha-strike-duck-back play style.

#28 FupDup

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 09:17 AM

View PostEndimra, on 30 April 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

- You are above a certain heat threshold
- You are moving too quickly
- You do not have a lock
- You are some distance outside of your weapon's optimal range, in either direction

So basically, your definition of "skill" is standing immobilized and boating ballistics with long optimal ranges?


View PostEndimra, on 30 April 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

But while I may be missing something obvious, it seems to me that most cone of fire suggestions would make the game that little bit less like 'Call of Duty with Robots' and more like Mechwarrior.

People say this a lot, and it's wrong every time.

1. Call of Duty has cone of fire. In fact, it's the game that forced all other generic FPS games to also copy-paste the CoF mechanic. Now you're trying to copy-paste it here and homogenize the genre even more than it already has been.

2. Mechwarrior games have never had cones of fire. How can you claim something is "Mechwarrior" if that feature has never been a part of the franchise?

Edited by FupDup, 30 April 2016 - 09:28 AM.


#29 Kubernetes

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 09:19 AM

I wouldn't mind accuracy degradation based on movement speed.

#30 FupDup

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 09:27 AM

View PostAlan Davion, on 30 April 2016 - 09:12 AM, said:


And I'll just add this counter to your counter.

All the other MW games have also had much harsher penalties when it comes to heat, which is the biggest problem here in MWO, allowing people to fire literally all their weapons almost at exactly the same time without so much as shutting down.

You tried that in any other MW game, you would immediately shut down on the spot, and, if you were carrying any ammunition for ACs or Missiles, it's likely your rump was immediately roasted as the ammo cooked off and took your mech with it.

Slash the heat cap in half, or, supposedly the rumored power draw system, either of these mechanics should hopefully curtail the pathetic poke-out-alpha-strike-duck-back play style.

Did you play Mechwarrior 3? Because I played it again a few days ago, and I can assure you that this statement is false.

Mechwarrior 3 has a far more lenient heat system than MWO because its dissipation rates are so much faster. You could literally design a mech in MW3 that could fire everything it had continuously without overheating at all. Heat neutral mechs are very easy to build in MW3.

Or you can design a mech that still generates some amount of heat, but can dissipate all of that heat in only about 1-3 seconds.

As an example, one build I tried was a Dire Wolf with 6 Large Pulse Lasers and 27 or 28 Double Heat Sinks. In MWO, this build looks like this: Dire Wub

I don't think very many people would consider that a viable build here, since it has a lot of exposure time (to avoid Ghost Heat) and not very much heat sustainability on a slow mech that can't really escape. In MW3, though, it can keep up a good volume of fire for several moments, and then after a moment of ceasing fire it has cooled off all of its heat to continue the process.

A more egregrious example is my "Ghetto Hellstar" Daishi with 4 ERPPCs and 31 DHS. This mech does technically shut down after a single alpha, but it dissipates heat at such an incredible rate that it restarts immediately and is 100% dissipated to zero heat by the time its guns are reloaded. It can alpha back to back and shutdown/startup every single time without consequence.

I also don't recall ever suffering a heat-based ammo explosion in MW3, but then again most of my mechs there boat energy...

MWO's heat system is far harsher than MW3's because MWO forces almost every single mech in the game to inevitably overheat regardless of how many DHS you have packed in and how few weapons you have. Only ballistic boats can avoid it, and only when they boat ballistics that don't have Ghost Heat.

Try some of your MWO builds in MW3, using the same heatsinks, and compare how long you can sustain your firing and how long it takes to dissipate your heat to zero.

#31 Endimra

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 09:51 AM

View PostFupDup, on 30 April 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

So basically, your definition of "skill" is standing immobilized and boating ballistics with long optimal ranges?


Most suggestions don't include all of those. Regardless, standing immobilized and remaining in optimal range are mutually exclusive, and if you only take long-ranged weapons you would have some issues if anything short-ranged were to get close. Additionally, most suggestions for making the heat scale more important come with the implication that ballistics would need to be nerfed in some way to avoid them becoming too dominant.

Of course, I can't say I know how matches would actually go if a CoF system was implemented. Maybe you're right, and everyone would just line up trading gauss fire, with a single streakcrow on light patrol.


View PostFupDup, on 30 April 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

People say this a lot, and it's wrong every time.

1. Call of Duty has cone of fire. In fact, it's the game that forced all other generic FPS games to also copy-paste the CoF mechanic. Now you're trying to copy-paste it here and homogenize the genre even more than it already has been.

2. Mechwarrior games have never had cones of fire. How can you claim something is "Mechwarrior" if that feature has never been a part of the franchise?


Yeah, I concede this. Even before I posted I considered that first point, but I decided to just use the terminology the community is familiar with and understands, sort of like the current use of the word 'meta'. It would have been more accurate to say 'FPS' and 'Mech Sim'.

Edited by Endimra, 30 April 2016 - 09:52 AM.


#32 FupDup

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 10:02 AM

View PostEndimra, on 30 April 2016 - 09:51 AM, said:

Most suggestions don't include all of those. Regardless, standing immobilized and remaining in optimal range are mutually exclusive, and if you only take long-ranged weapons you would have some issues if anything short-ranged were to get close. Additionally, most suggestions for making the heat scale more important come with the implication that ballistics would need to be nerfed in some way to avoid them becoming too dominant.

Of course, I can't say I know how matches would actually go if a CoF system was implemented. Maybe you're right, and everyone would just line up trading gauss fire, with a single streakcrow on light patrol.

The reason I listed "long optimal range" was specifically to have accuracy out to long enough of a distance for most fights. Weapons with 600+ meters optimal would be ideal for this.

In order for the brawler mechs to get in close, they have to move. If they move, their shots won't hit anymore, so that means they have a big pocket of time where they just get hammered by pinpoint accurate fire.

Alternatively, if/when they do get close, then SRMs will be the king of all short-range weapons because their natural spread counteracts the effects of the cone. Pulses and ACs wouldn't be good in short range anymore since they would have to stand still to hit, while SRMs could hit multiple body parts regardless of having a cone or not having a cone. SRMs are already good and meta, and this would get rid of some of the competition for short-ranged weapons.

#33 Alan Davion

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 10:40 AM

View PostFupDup, on 30 April 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

Did you play Mechwarrior 3? Because I played it again a few days ago, and I can assure you that this statement is false.

Mechwarrior 3 has a far more lenient heat system than MWO because its dissipation rates are so much faster. You could literally design a mech in MW3 that could fire everything it had continuously without overheating at all. Heat neutral mechs are very easy to build in MW3.

Or you can design a mech that still generates some amount of heat, but can dissipate all of that heat in only about 1-3 seconds.

As an example, one build I tried was a Dire Wolf with 6 Large Pulse Lasers and 27 or 28 Double Heat Sinks. In MWO, this build looks like this: Dire Wub

I don't think very many people would consider that a viable build here, since it has a lot of exposure time (to avoid Ghost Heat) and not very much heat sustainability on a slow mech that can't really escape. In MW3, though, it can keep up a good volume of fire for several moments, and then after a moment of ceasing fire it has cooled off all of its heat to continue the process.

A more egregrious example is my "Ghetto Hellstar" Daishi with 4 ERPPCs and 31 DHS. This mech does technically shut down after a single alpha, but it dissipates heat at such an incredible rate that it restarts immediately and is 100% dissipated to zero heat by the time its guns are reloaded. It can alpha back to back and shutdown/startup every single time without consequence.

I also don't recall ever suffering a heat-based ammo explosion in MW3, but then again most of my mechs there boat energy...

MWO's heat system is far harsher than MW3's because MWO forces almost every single mech in the game to inevitably overheat regardless of how many DHS you have packed in and how few weapons you have. Only ballistic boats can avoid it, and only when they boat ballistics that don't have Ghost Heat.

Try some of your MWO builds in MW3, using the same heatsinks, and compare how long you can sustain your firing and how long it takes to dissipate your heat to zero.


I will freely admit this is the one MW game I've never played, and from what you've just said, I'm very glad I never did. That sounds even more boring than MWOs current heat system which is still too forgiving compared to MW2.

There should always be a harsh heat system for BT/MW, as it forces a person to actually think about which weapons to load onto their mech(s), which weapons to fire and how many weapons to fire at the same time.

Otherwise, what's even the point, might as well play some other generic mech game if you're just going to water everything down and pander to the lowest common denominator.

#34 cazidin

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 10:44 AM

View PostFupDup, on 30 April 2016 - 10:02 AM, said:

The reason I listed "long optimal range" was specifically to have accuracy out to long enough of a distance for most fights. Weapons with 600+ meters optimal would be ideal for this.

In order for the brawler mechs to get in close, they have to move. If they move, their shots won't hit anymore, so that means they have a big pocket of time where they just get hammered by pinpoint accurate fire.

Alternatively, if/when they do get close, then SRMs will be the king of all short-range weapons because their natural spread counteracts the effects of the cone. Pulses and ACs wouldn't be good in short range anymore since they would have to stand still to hit, while SRMs could hit multiple body parts regardless of having a cone or not having a cone. SRMs are already good and meta, and this would get rid of some of the competition for short-ranged weapons.


I wonder why so many will ask, beg or demand for a COF system when a better heatscale would mitigate the frequency of high damage pinpoint laser alphas which are arguably the greatest offender. Ghost Heat II will impose an artificial limit and might work very well but it's still a system atop of another system.

#35 Endimra

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 10:54 AM

View PostFupDup, on 30 April 2016 - 10:02 AM, said:

The reason I listed "long optimal range" was specifically to have accuracy out to long enough of a distance for most fights. Weapons with 600+ meters optimal would be ideal for this.

In order for the brawler mechs to get in close, they have to move. If they move, their shots won't hit anymore, so that means they have a big pocket of time where they just get hammered by pinpoint accurate fire.

Alternatively, if/when they do get close, then SRMs will be the king of all short-range weapons because their natural spread counteracts the effects of the cone. Pulses and ACs wouldn't be good in short range anymore since they would have to stand still to hit, while SRMs could hit multiple body parts regardless of having a cone or not having a cone. SRMs are already good and meta, and this would get rid of some of the competition for short-ranged weapons.


The brawlers would be punished for walking across an open field against an enemy with a range advantage, the snipers would be punished if they fail to re-position, or do sufficient damage to win the ensuing brawl despite an inherent disadvantage. I am sure that if any kind of cone of fire were to be implemented, there would be some severe balance issues in need of fixing shortly thereafter. But I expect it would be weighted in favor of the brawlers, if anything.

Regarding SRMs, yeah, they would need to be looked at. They were balanced with high damage to compensate for spread and short range, if the spread no longer matters they would certainly need to be nerfed somewhere else.

To be honest, I'm not trying to say adding a cone of fire would necessarily fix the game. Maybe the power draw thing coming up is the most optimal solution. I just wanted to get rid of this idea that a cone of fire would somehow negate skill, and allow a bit of deeper discussion on the topic. I don't think I've actually seen the point about SRMs until now, for instance.

#36 Lord0fHats

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 11:01 AM

This is baffling. Virtually all FPS games use CoF. Call of Duty. Battlefield. Titan Fall. Borderlands. Counter Strike. Etc. People play these games. Having cone of fire as part of the ballistic mechanics didn't drive the population away. Honestly...

Cone of Fire would solve a number of in game problems (low time to kill). It would introduce some new ones (brawling just got a wonderful buff). Regardless of its merits, I think PGI would have introduced it by now if they intended to. It's not like the code isn't in the game already (SRMs and LBX's).

#37 Ex Atlas Overlord

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 12:19 PM

COF when accelerating / decelerating is a great idea.

COF for arm weapons growing as heat grows is a great idea.

COF when jump jetting...doesn't this already exist?

#38 kapusta11

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 12:33 PM

View PostLord0fHats, on 30 April 2016 - 11:01 AM, said:

This is baffling. Virtually all FPS games use CoF. Call of Duty. Battlefield. Titan Fall. Borderlands. Counter Strike. Etc. People play these games. Having cone of fire as part of the ballistic mechanics didn't drive the population away. Honestly...

Cone of Fire would solve a number of in game problems (low time to kill). It would introduce some new ones (brawling just got a wonderful buff). Regardless of its merits, I think PGI would have introduced it by now if they intended to. It's not like the code isn't in the game already (SRMs and LBX's).


Yeah, they have CoF but only for rapid firing and shotgun type weapons. And there is no separation between arms side torsos, center torso, legs and cockpit. Should I mention how long TTK is in those games as well?

#39 Oberost

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 12:39 PM

View Postkapusta11, on 30 April 2016 - 08:26 AM, said:

Games that have CoF mechanic have only 2 hitboxes for targets: head and body, MWO has 8. Weapons that have CoF in those games are either ARs or shotguns. They also have respawns and much shorter TTK.


If I recall correctly WoT has CoF mechanics (moreover, in WoT you never have perfect accuracy as your reticle don't close past a determined radius), more than two hitboxes (you only have one HP pool, but the armour of different parts of the tanks and the components inside like crew members, ammo bins, etc... can be considered as different hitboxes) and don't have respawns.

#40 DAYLEET

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Posted 30 April 2016 - 12:39 PM

No cone of fire, no recoil, no anything. Ill settle for weapon firering straight ahead if you are not locked on target but the targeting system will need to be fixed and revamped because right now i dont target the target i want it just cycle through targets. Now that i thin kabout it id only make mech with weapons all grouped together and remove the penalty for not being locked.

Less damage when unlocked was a better option than all of those.


View Postdwwolf, on 30 April 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

BF4 anyone ? Ohhh wait that wasnt popular at all.......... Posted Image

Bf4 was not only unpopular and barely had a moving lifeline 4 months after being launch, it had no cone of fire, like BF3 had none. It had instead a predictable recoil system(each weapon their own recoil). It switch the burden of skilful use of trigger tap and cooldown with... with nothing because learning how to compensate the recoil was not necessary since you could repeatedly fire 7 bullets without any major deviation and your target was dead. The idea was great but they should have stopped at BC2(BC2 had recoil, cone of fire and cooldown), bf3,4 made the gunplay too simple and shallow.

To compensate for the lack of spray they introduced the system where you become less accurate when under fire, well all know how well that went, the guy holding the trigger down before turner a corner would stay accurate while his targets couldnt aim for shits.

In bf3,4 i liked to fire single shot because you always were 100% accurate and fast, especially in the 3. BF 2, 2142 and even BC2 had real cone of fire that would expand the longer you pulled the trigger and needed to be cooldowned. BC2 however had both, predictable recoil and cooldown and it was the best of both world. BF3 and 4 were a shameful act of bridging another fps that should not be named with the battlefield franchise. Im so happy their games are all flops now and need a rebate only months after launch. Sorry, i had to go on a rant about another game.

Edited by DAYLEET, 30 April 2016 - 12:43 PM.






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