85 replies to this topic

[Prezimonto]

Again, restatement of assumption not fact. I have never yet lobbied for random cones of fire. I have lobbied for fixed torso convergence points. Where actually aiming is still rewarded, but is more challenging and/or for the convergence to have an "aim time" when traversing between ranges. This is no different a mechanic that sniper scope sway or set up times for heavy weapons which many shooters do have.

more armor = more boats and less viable weapon load outs.

Edited by Prezimonto, 26 March 2013 - 12:55 PM.

[Zerikin]

The pinpoint convergence needs to be addressed. Adding randomness to it would be lame though so another option is needed. Making the convergence not perfect would spread the damage out more and make the full alpha less of a problem. You can alpha and get the mech more overall or control your fire and take more shots instead. Either way it will increase the TTK of large hit weapons like AC/20 and PPC.

[Zyllos]

Khobai, on 26 March 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

Doesnt matter if you have 1 gun or 1000 guns. The basic principle of your guns shoot where your reticle is aimed is exactly the same.

It doesnt exacerbate the problem at all. The problem is mechs dying too fast. Increasing armor would make mechs die slower. So its fixing the problem.

This is the problem with increasing armor, what in the heck does the Spider or Commando do against those larger targets? 1 or 2 Medium Lasers just do absolutely nothing against a target when armor becomes quadrupled. It also hurts mechs like the Dragon or the HBK-4G with a single AC/20.

Also, your guns fire at the ridicule, just they are slightly deviated from that Torso crosshair based on where they are physically located on your torso, keeping large alpha strikes from hitting a single location instead landing logically around the Torso crosshair in the same shape as they are located on your mech. Arms still converge onto the Arm crosshair, but also landing logically around the Arm crosshair based on their location as well.

[Seox]

Zyllos, on 26 March 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

This is the problem with increasing armor, what in the heck does the Spider or Commando do against those larger targets? 1 or 2 Medium Lasers just do absolutely nothing against a target when armor becomes quadrupled. It also hurts mechs like the Dragon or the HBK-4G with a single AC/20.

Also, your guns fire at the ridicule, just they are slightly deviated from that Torso crosshair based on where they are physically located on your torso, keeping large alpha strikes from hitting a single location instead landing logically around the Torso crosshair in the same shape as they are located on your mech. Arms still converge onto the Arm crosshair, but also landing logically around the Arm crosshair based on their location as well.

You want reduced damage against enemies and blame convergence, but when damage to health ratio changes, that's a bad thing?

This is ridiculous. You're playing with moving goalposts and it shows.

[Zyllos]

Seox, on 26 March 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

You want reduced damage against enemies and blame convergence, but when damage to health ratio changes, that's a bad thing?

This is ridiculous. You're playing with moving goalposts and it shows.

Convergence changes the Time-to-Kill. But doesn't effect individual weapons themselves because you can still aim them, just have to aim by group.

Damge-to-Health ratios effects individual weapons. A Small Laser or AC/2, as individuals, would be extremely negatively effected when you continue to increase the amount of armor.

[Seox]

Zyllos, on 26 March 2013 - 03:43 PM, said:

Convergence changes the Time-to-Kill. But doesn't effect individual weapons themselves because you can still aim them, just have to aim by group.

Damge-to-Health ratios effects individual weapons. A Small Laser or AC/2, as individuals, would be extremely negatively effected when you continue to increase the amount of armor.

Eliminating convergence creates parallax aim and effects -ALL- weapons.

Seriously, it's like you didn't take the ten seconds it'd take to realize that your idea would take a big steamer on the game's flow and playability for every player. You'd have to master parallax offset for every weapon on every hardpoint with every mech in the game. That's absolutely stupid.

And before you claim that "you only have to master the group", no. No, you don't, because ACs perform drastically different than lasers/etc. Do you even play MWO?

I seriously hope they never implement this crap. People give you a reason why it's stupid and will hurt the game and you ignore it and keep barking the same broken logic like it's law.



EDIT: Do you not understand what parallax is or something? That's absolutely crippling to the game and learning curve, but every time I mention it you ignore it and say it "adds skill" without realizing how bad it'd be for gameplay.

Edited by Seox, 26 March 2013 - 03:55 PM.

[Zyllos]

Seox, on 26 March 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

Eliminating convergence creates parallax aim and effects -ALL- weapons.

Seriously, it's like you didn't take the ten seconds it'd take to realize that your idea would take a big steamer on the game's flow and playability for every player. You'd have to master parallax offset for every weapon on every hardpoint with every mech in the game. That's absolutely stupid.

And before you claim that "you only have to master the group", no. No, you don't, because ACs perform drastically different than lasers/etc. Do you even play MWO?

I seriously hope they never implement this crap. People give you a reason why it's stupid and will hurt the game and you ignore it and keep barking the same broken logic like it's law.



EDIT: Do you not understand what parallax is or something? That's absolutely crippling to the game and learning curve, but every time I mention it you ignore it and say it "adds skill" without realizing how bad it'd be for gameplay.

Parallax is already in the game, it's just automatically pointed towards the crosshairs of their respective location. This is why a Jagermech can fire over buildings when a Cataphract can not, except for the 2 energy points high on the Left/Right Torsos.

My suggestion does not make parallax all of a sudden more predominate. All it does it make the width/height of the torso weaponry, and minorly the arms, play more of a role on where their location is landing. It changes nothing in terms of were the weapon comes from (so the Jagermech will still be able to fire over buildings and the Cataphract will still be able to use the Left/Right Torso energy hardpoints).

***EDIT: Also, everyone already learns where the weapons fire from (and their parallax). They learn that you can not be close to a hill and fire with the Atlas arms or it will just hit the hill in front of it. But the SRMs can clear it.***

***EDIT2: I never said that doing this would be easy. It would completely change how the feel of the game is played. But that is because we are all used to how it plays now. And that is why we are in beta, to change how the game is played, for the better. This is why weapon balance is on going, and feels swingy at times.***

Edited by Zyllos, 26 March 2013 - 04:23 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

You'd have to master parallax offset for every weapon on every hardpoint with every mech in the game. That's absolutely stupid.

Exactly its a dumb idea. Its pretty much the worst idea in fact. And it would ruin this game completely for new players. Because they would hop in their first mech and fire their weapons and completely miss the target... and then they would just quit MWO and go play CoD11:WIAIWMGS (Where I Aim Is Where My Gun Shoots) instead.

Players need to stop coming up with overcomplicated solutions. The best solutions are just to address the convergence problem by tweaking weapon damage and armor values. Give punch through weapons longer cooldown times. Increase armor on torso locations.

[Zyllos]

Khobai, on 26 March 2013 - 07:08 PM, said:

Exactly its a dumb idea. Its pretty much the worst idea in fact. And it would ruin this game completely for new players. Because they would hop in their first mech and fire their weapons and completely miss the target... and then they would just quit MWO and go play CoD11:WIAIWMGS (Where I Aim Is Where My Gun Shoots) instead.

Players need to stop coming up with overcomplicated solutions. The best solutions are just to address the convergence problem by tweaking weapon damage and armor values. Give punch through weapons longer cooldown times. Increase armor on torso locations.

If their crosshair is dead on the target, they will hit with most of their weapons. That is the thing, your saying that if they have the crosshair on the target that it will miss. That will not be the case, look at my example on the first page. What will happen is that the weapons on the right side will the left side of the target, but will not miss, assuming that crosshair is on the CT of the target.

That is to keep people from alpha striking and all hitting a single point. But allow players to know where the shot will land (just left of crosshair, just above the crosshair) every single time, with a grouping of weapons in the same location.

That matrix fits on the target. The only time missing will happen a lot is if your extremely bigger than your target. And that is only with torso weaponry. Arms will converge their facings on the Arm crosshair.

All of this is playing into the idea to balance Alpha Strikes and Chain Firing. Right now, Alpha Strikes has no drawback over Chain Firing, other than to keep heat manageable. But with removing the pin-point of weapons, alpha strikes (meaning firing all weapons at the same time) will never hit the same location except for arms. But it allows you to turn away from your target because all your weapons have fired. Where as Chain Firing allows players to fire their groups at a single location when aiming with weapon group locations. The drawback is that you have to keep facing the enemy to continue aiming to hit that location.

Alpha Strike -
Pros:
Allows for minute control of torso facing before/after firing.
Allows easier movement control and controlling when to fire while changing movement directions.

Cons:
Adds heat all at the same time.
Weapons do not all land in the same spot.

Chain Firing -
Pros:
Allows for pin-point targeting against your target.
Allows more control of heat when firing.

Cons:
Requires torso to face the target when continuing to fire.
Harder to control movement and keep pin-point damage when changing leg facing.

Edited by Zyllos, 26 March 2013 - 08:53 PM.

[Seox]

Zyllos, on 26 March 2013 - 08:42 PM, said:

If their crosshair is dead on the target, they will hit with most of their weapons. That is the thing, your saying that if they have the crosshair on the target that it will miss. That will not be the case, look at my example on the first page. What will happen is that the weapons on the right side will the left side of the target, but will not miss, assuming that crosshair is on the CT of the target.

That is to keep people from alpha striking and all hitting a single point. But allow players to know where the shot will land (just left of crosshair, just above the crosshair) every single time, with a grouping of weapons in the same location.

That matrix fits on the target. The only time missing will happen a lot is if your extremely bigger than your target. And that is only with torso weaponry. Arms will converge their facings on the Arm crosshair.

All of this is playing into the idea to balance Alpha Strikes and Chain Firing. Right now, Alpha Strikes has no drawback over Chain Firing, other than to keep heat manageable. But with removing the pin-point of weapons, alpha strikes (meaning firing all weapons at the same time) will never hit the same location except for arms. But it allows you to turn away from your target because all your weapons have fired. Where as Chain Firing allows players to fire their groups at a single location when aiming with weapon group locations. The drawback is that you have to keep facing the enemy to continue aiming to hit that location.

Alpha Strike -
Pros:
Allows for minute control of torso facing before/after firing.
Allows easier movement control and controlling when to fire while changing movement directions.

Cons:
Adds heat all at the same time.
Weapons do not all land in the same spot.

Chain Firing -
Pros:
Allows for pin-point targeting against your target.
Allows more control of heat when firing.

Cons:
Requires torso to face the target when continuing to fire.
Harder to control movement and keep pin-point damage when changing leg facing.

Which is a needlessly complex solution for a simple or even nonexistent problem. It completely obfuscates gameplay, throws new players out the window and makes gameplay less streamlined and intuitive in addition to artificially capping skill.

[Syllogy]

<troll> Skill is OP. It needs to be nerfed so that it doesn't matter if you are a derp or a pro. </troll>

[Zyllos]

Seox, on 27 March 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

Which is a needlessly complex solution for a simple or even nonexistent problem. It completely obfuscates gameplay, throws new players out the window and makes gameplay less streamlined and intuitive in addition to artificially capping skill.

How does it "artificially" cap skill? Because you can not alpha strike all the damage on a single location? Because you have to spend extra time aiming each weapon group on the torso to hit the same location?

And this is no simple problem. It will take a complex solution to balance out all damage being pin-point while chain firing giving no benefit to the game (IE never chain fire, even if the option exists in the game).

Syllogy, on 27 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

<troll> Skill is OP. It needs to be nerfed so that it doesn't matter if you are a derp or a pro. </troll>

That is completely untrue.

Just because I am balancing alpha striking against chain firing doesn't mean "I hate skill".

Edited by Zyllos, 27 March 2013 - 08:16 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Because you have to spend extra time aiming each weapon group on the torso to hit the same location?

Again... needlessly complicated. If we did things your way this game would fail miserably within 3 months. No one wants to play a game like that. There are simpler solutions that don't drastically upset the flow of gameplay or increase the learning curve for new players even higher.

[Karl Streiger]

Syllogy, on 27 March 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

<troll> Skill is OP. It needs to be nerfed so that it doesn't matter if you are a derp or a pro. </troll>

I love that white noise.

Zyllos, on 27 March 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

Just because I am balancing alpha striking against chain firing doesn't mean "I hate skill".

some made a good point... while i would like to see convergence beeing an issue...it would be for new players really hard to start.
Ok... they could fire their weapons in chain....maybe it could help too: for example the arm laser of an atlas may hit two points each with a space of 4m between. So a new player have better chance to hit the target - but for the cost of concentrate damage

[Prezimonto]

Quote

[color=#959595]Seriously, it's like you didn't take the ten seconds it'd take to realize that your idea would take a big steamer on the game's flow and playability for every player. You'd have to master parallax offset for every weapon on every hardpoint with every mech in the game. That's absolutely stupid.[/color]

Parallax is the reason the fixed convergence point is feasible. It WOULD require a pilot to have skill in playing to land their torso weapons, because they would have to actually pilot AND aim AND account for various weapon convergence points. This is the EXACT reason this IS a good idea. Remember, I'm not suggesting implementing this for ARM hardpoints either, they can and should converge just fine.

As long as you can tweak the fixed point for you weapons it becomes a point of play and choice... do I want these weapons to converge at really far range (sacrificing the potential for medium and short range alpha strikes but keeping the spread to no wider than your mech's torso over the medium and short ranges) OR set the point closer and understand that this will lead to long range shots having a wide spread. In game terms if you fix the torso convergence points at middle value of the "yellow"(declining damage) range then a new player will never be affected by parallax greater than the torso of their mech, but won't be getting alphas on single hard points until the learn the game and begin playing with mech lab settings.

Again, this adds both skill and depth the game play and the mech lab and solves massive, precise alpha strike issues.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 March 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Sidekick]

Khobai, I've read the entire thread and I've got to ask: what is your point? I get you are against it, but judjing by your arguments, you seem to be rather dogmatic about the issue. You flip your arguments around and try to prove the OP wrong for..... Reasons.

I am curious: why all that rage against the OP? Clearly, the context of the suggestion isn't an issue for you since you avoid o discuss the main idea and try to hide behind buzzword and false assumptions.



To the OP: excellent idea, it would solve many issues at once while opening up new concepts of balance fir the devs. Designing the hardpoint and general schematic will be of greater importance than the templates some users apply in the lab. It would make the modifications in the lab deeper, too.

The devs should try this, even if it's just for a limited time.

[Slanski]

We can either solve this on the convergence track or on the heat track, but the "6 MLasers act like an AC30" issue needs to be addressed. Refer also to thread:

http://mwomercs.com/...reates-choices/

[Zyllos]

Sidekick, on 28 March 2013 - 03:49 AM, said:

Khobai, I've read the entire thread and I've got to ask: what is your point? I get you are against it, but judjing by your arguments, you seem to be rather dogmatic about the issue. You flip your arguments around and try to prove the OP wrong for..... Reasons.

I am curious: why all that rage against the OP? Clearly, the context of the suggestion isn't an issue for you since you avoid o discuss the main idea and try to hide behind buzzword and false assumptions.



To the OP: excellent idea, it would solve many issues at once while opening up new concepts of balance fir the devs. Designing the hardpoint and general schematic will be of greater importance than the templates some users apply in the lab. It would make the modifications in the lab deeper, too.

The devs should try this, even if it's just for a limited time.

I "heard" from somewhere that the Devs were going to open a test server at some point. Maybe I was hearing things or mixing it up with the Testing Grounds. But if I did hear that correctly, that would be a nice place to test it out for 2 weeks.

[Seox]

Slanski, on 28 March 2013 - 05:04 AM, said:

We can either solve this on the convergence track or on the heat track, but the "6 MLasers act like an AC30" issue needs to be addressed. Refer also to thread:

http://mwomercs.com/...reates-choices/

Why? Six medium lasers take up four more hardpoints, generate significantly more heat and have **** all for range compared to what an AC30 would have. You have to build a mech around that concept just as you would a 30 and you'll likely come out with less. The only thing you save is crit space and tonnage.

Seriously, do you not get that this is a game about customization?

I was worried that the devs would actually implement this stuff earlier, but the more we discuss it and the more clear some of what the OP and his circlejerk team wants becomes, the more confident I am that it will never be; absolutely noone would play with the parallax issues present in the game, fixed convergence configurable or not. Noone. If it was implemented, the forum backlash would be immediate and powerful, and I bet anything they'd end up hotfixing it.

Let it go, ffs.

[Prezimonto]

Actually, if an AC30 were introduced it would likely have range closer to a small laser, if you extrapolate ballistic ranges.