50 replies to this topic

[Buckminster]

Blaqwolf, on 29 April 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

At closer ranges against moving mechs I may have the target in front of me, but my shots pass harmlessly behind them (toward one side of my view or the other) - my latency is on average 80-120ms.

...And I so love how you try to hold behind cover with a full view of the field of fire only to hit the building/hill with one or all of your weapons. PGI seems dead set against the use of cover tactically. Jump jets are so slow you're left hanging there for every return volley from half the battlefield...

Weapon convergence is one of those things that can be very goofy, and can vary from mech to mech. Mechs with low slung weapon hardpoints (like the cataphracts arms) can often end up hitting terrain even though your crosshairs are aimed at a target. Mechs with wide hardpoints (like the Cat K2) can end up shooting wide if you are close enough. It's one of those things that just takes getting used to. This isn't a standard fps, where your crosshairs represent the line of sight down the barrel of your weapons - it represents the line of sight from your pilot.

I've been using Catapults and Ravens up to this point, and convergence has only been a real issue at close range. A big part of that has to do with the fact that the hardpoints on the Raven and Cat tend to be at or about at eye level. I just bought my first Centurion the other day, and I've noticed that in a more humanoid mech I have more problems with this - all of my weapons are well below my eye-level, so if I'm not careful I dump a lot of ammo into hills.

Blaqwolf, on 29 April 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

Me... I average maybe, if I'm lucky, a paltry 30 damage a round and in 19 battles managed 2 kills almost entirely by luck. Missiles miss entirely 90% of the time and don't do any appreciable damage (0.7 damage/missile on LRM 15??) if they do hit and only two or three in any salvo actually find their target because they vanish almost as soon as they appear.

I prefer a support role, but laughably pointless missiles make that role utterly useless, and the lack of sensativity adjustments makes shooting anything pretty much impossible.

Not that it matters, I can go back to World of Tanks which (despite laughably bad matchmaking) has managed the fine balance between speed and slow that my nerves and shoddy reaction times can handle. MWO will just get binned, like Hawken did (and that one at least has dodge & cover tactics... MWO has no mechanic beyond: find target, slug it out until dead).

Come back in a couple weeks. Missiles are intentionally weak at this point, there were some major problems with damage calculations that made them stupidly powerful, and PGI intentionally dialed them back too far so they could get a handle on it. It's supposed to be fixed sometime in May.

And maybe some of the issue is just in your mech choice - what have you been piloting?

Edited by Buckminster, 29 April 2013 - 05:22 AM.

[Syllogy]

3 things:

• Arm Lock can be your friend, use it for more control.
  
• Clean your Optical Mouse and the surface you use it on.
  
• I have nearly 4000 drops and nobody has hit me with a headshot more than 1 time in a match outside of 1000m, and I have never died from shots made outside 1000m.

[KableGuy]

Blaqwolf, on 29 April 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

I'm using the basic free mechs for the most part and a missile trebuchet

This is probably the issue, have you redistributed the armor or is this a trial mech? If it is a trial mech i would suggest getting out of that walking deathtrap trash can ASAP and building your own mech with more armor.

Blaqwolf, on 29 April 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

(where are the old MW standards?? Madcat, Rifleman??).

They are working on them , The rifleman is a licensing thing and will likely never be seen in game and the clan Mechs are not here yet because the clans are not here yet.Late september clans will arrive en masse.

[Gregore]

Why are there so many posts? From the OPs posts it is clearly either him his mouse or his system.
If I play with just the keyboard (and I am sure pretty much everybody's experience will be like this) the targeting reticules stay exactly where they were the whole time. They only move when the mouse moves. So if your reticule is jumping it is because you are moving the mouse.

Got to control panel for your computer. Find mouse settings, put the dpi down to 800, or find the slower faster bar and move it much closer to slower. If it is flickering around and moving on its own than one can only assume the program is having a conflict with another program running.

Nobody seems to want to take responsibility for anything any more. If you suck, you suck, don't say you suck only because others use aimbots or hax, just man up and admit, then work on getting better, if you want to. If you are ok with sucking then just **** and enjoy the game and stop accusing others of ******** things to make you feel better about yourself.

[Mr Everything]

Gregore, on 29 April 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

Nobody seems to want to take responsibility for anything any more. If you suck, you suck, don't say you suck only because others use aimbots or hax, just man up and admit, then work on getting better, if you want to. If you are ok with sucking then just **** and enjoy the game and stop accusing others of ******** things to make you feel better about yourself.

I Don't Suck,
You do!!!!

Just Kidding, I do suck Bad. I can't seem to help it, i just am the worst player ever, there is no-one worse than me. My team always complains because I charge in and die.

Is that better?

[Gregore]

I suck too, it is nothing to be ashamed of.
It is a video game, some people are inherently better at it, or they have immensely more time to practice. I maybe get 5 or 6 matches in a day and then I am done.
I still have fun, there are some people who are really good that they look like they are cheating, but most likely not. Aimbots cannot lead mechs, or at least not very well.

[Adrienne Vorton]

sorry to say it that way, but weither something with your hardware is wrong,orwith you... MWO is one of the easiest to aim games i have ever played. i would say i am no more than averagely skilled, but aiming in MWO is my very very least problem. if i suck, than because of bad tactics... i have a trust laser mouse with 1600/800 dpi, which iwould say is less than an average mouse for gamers... and its not a problem for me moving 80kph and hitting targets on 700+ meters, if they are not too fast... and i never touched any of the mentioned config tweaks

any mouse that is not a cheap office mouse should be way enough to aim more or less accurate. MWO is an arcade shooter... believe it or not

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 29 April 2013 - 07:03 AM.

[Hammerfinn]

Mouse *accuracy* never sits still - it's always twitching even if I release it. Not much - it's the in-game mech's natural tendancy to float its arms and torso. God forbid my 80 ton assault gets hit with a machinegun, it shakes like a Prius in a hurricane - much less when a missile or PPC hits.


This shouldn't happen-- you must have something wrong with your mouse or your input somewhere.

[Koniving]

Blaqwolf, on 28 April 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

How is it that I can't keep my crosshairs anywhere near a target, even with my mouse settings effectively choked down to a crawl, and the other guy can run around me like a squirrel on a six pack of Monster Energy and keep his guns unerringly locked on my head?

Am I missing something, or have aim-bots already taken over?

There are three conditions that you may be missing.

• Most likely he's a squirrel moving fast. He's also circling you. Meaning you are stationary or close to that. It's easier to track a stationary target while moving than a moving target while stationary.
  
• Engine size determines twist speed. If you can't turn and torso twist fast enough, chances are your engine might be a bit small. The larger your engine, the faster you can turn and twist. That's why Bob's smile is so big! Consider artificial engine enhancement! (Mind just exploded!)
  
• Do you have arms on your mech? Is your armlock on or off? Mechs with armlock disabled can track targets much easier and faster than those with armlock enabled.

Edited by Koniving, 29 April 2013 - 11:59 AM.

[BoPop]

some people are good at video games. i think there's only been ONE time i felt suspicious of an aimbot. but i return to the statement, "Some people are really awesome at video games."

just takes practice.

[Victor Morson]

Blaqwolf, on 28 April 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

How is it that I can't keep my crosshairs anywhere near a target, even with my mouse settings effectively choked down to a crawl, and the other guy can run around me like a squirrel on a six pack of Monster Energy and keep his guns unerringly locked on my head?

Am I missing something, or have aim-bots already taken over?

OP, I want to apologize to you. You are most likely a victim of the "Newbie ease of use" "feature" (there are no air quotes big enough) that remove your arm movement from you.

Go to your Options and uncheck Arm Lock (I think that's what it's called). Now you can move your reticule around in a "floating" style, and aim with arm mounted guns that way. If you want to focus all your weapons together, press and hold shift and you will "lock" your arms and torso back together.

You're likely being blasted apart with arm mounted lasers or from fast moving torsos, while you're at a huge disadvantage not being able to do the same.

Apologies if I'm wrong and you're running normal mode already. But a lot of us vets were angry when PGI made that feature default because it's going to confuse / hurt newbies more than help them (which wasn't the point).

[Aym]

Blaqwolf, on 29 April 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

When I talk about drift I'm not talking about a massive jitter - just enough at max zoom to make the crosshair aim either to the right or left of a target, and valiantly defy centering on it.

At closer ranges against moving mechs I may have the target in front of me, but my shots pass harmlessly behind them (toward one side of my view or the other) - my latency is on average 80-120ms.

I do use an optical mouse, but I have no way to adjust its DPI which is, I imagine, the only way to focus in on distant targets... but how to do that without the pointer jerking side to side when i'm trying to make small adjustments defies me.

But I'm still getting instaripped by the first mech who crosses my path and never misses a shot even at a full sprint. I'm using the basic free mechs for the most part and a missile trebuchet (where are the old MW standards?? Madcat, Rifleman??).
And I so love how you try to hold behind cover with a full view of the field of fire only to hit the building/hill with one or all of your weapons. PGI seems dead set against the use of cover tactically. Jump jets are so slow you're left hanging there for every return volley from half the battlefield.

Me... I average maybe, if I'm lucky, a paltry 30 damage a round and in 19 battles managed 2 kills almost entirely by luck. Missiles miss entirely 90% of the time and don't do any appreciable damage (0.7 damage/missile on LRM 15??) if they do hit and only two or three in any salvo actually find their target because they vanish almost as soon as they appear.

I prefer a support role, but laughably pointless missiles make that role utterly useless, and the lack of sensativity adjustments makes shooting anything pretty much impossible.

Not that it matters, I can go back to World of Tanks which (despite laughably bad matchmaking) has managed the fine balance between speed and slow that my nerves and shoddy reaction times can handle. MWO will just get binned, like Hawken did (and that one at least has dodge & cover tactics... MWO has no mechanic beyond: find target, slug it out until dead).

Your screen will shake when you take damage, maybe that's it.

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to get an accurate description, at the very beginning of the drop and you are not moving, does your mouse move by itself? Yes or no.

If it does move by itself at the beginning of the game without touching it, the issue is the mouse, the surface the mouse is on or a device such as a joystick, gamepad or pen. Having the mouse on a semi reflective surface or bright light around it can have an effect on it, as it is most likely an optical mouse (yes, some people still do not use optical but mechanical mouse).

[Regina Redshift]

Thankfully, the finally put the game options in the Escape-key menu while your in a match.

Go into training mode with your 'mech of choice, and start tweaking settings. Tweak both OS and Game settings, and for your sanity turn off the arm lock "feature." That bit of PGI's software second guesses your movements to death.

It it still doesn't feel right after all that, try a new mouse or clean yours.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Oh, and most players run extremely tweaked builds in matches. Myself included. We move tons of armor around without a second thought and we specialize our builds to task. As much as I hate to say it, but players love to target stock 'mechs. They get targeted second only to the flavor-of-the-month builds.

Edited by Archwright, 29 April 2013 - 04:20 PM.

[WardenWolf]

In case any Devs are listening, this (OP's concerns) is why we *need* to get a tutorial in the game ASAP, along with more fine-tune controls for the mouse and such. Kudos on making settings accessible in-game, that was a great step, but a lot more needs to be done.

Also, I suspect a lot of the OP's frustration with playing against good players right off the bat could be alleviated if you drop new players in at a lower ELO - around the 25% percentile, instead of right in the middle.

[MegaZordTrololo]

I hope you are still lurking this thread and picking up some good advice, its sad seeing new players quit out of frustration because of the many many things new players are not currently told.

The random crosshair movement you describe has already been addressed by others (this is a problem unique to you, not a game fault as far as i can tell).

You sound like you are having trouble with hitting terrain when you fire. This is in fact a big part of the game. Different mech chassis have weapons distributed in different locations. For example the Cataphract 4X and the Jagermech DD can both mount 4 autocannons on their arms. The Cataphract is 5 tons heavier than the Jagermech so one would assume the Cataphract 4X is the superior mech for a heavyweight cannon array. This is however not the case; the Cataphract has very low slung arms and can rarely bring its arm cannons to bear without hitting terrain, while the Jagermech has it's cannons placed at the very top of the mech, allowing it to shoot over cover with ease. The viability of using your weapons near close terrain is something you have to learn and adjust to for each separate mech chassis and/or variant.

Another tip, avoid mechs/building mechs with ballistic weapons or PPC's in the arms until you are more used to the game. The weapon convergence (i.e how the weapons automatically adjust their focal point depending on the distance of the target) is a bit strange for weapons mounted on the arms. Leading a shot causes an arm mounted weapon to converge on distant terrain rather than your target. This means accurate fire from an arm mount can be quite troublesome. I have found myself hitting better with arm mounted ballistics with more practice, although I have no idea what compensation to my aim I am making now that I wasn't before. I might edit with more at some point.

Also as mentioned above, new players need far more information. I'm sure there are plenty of player guides about on the forums and wiki's but players need to be passed directly to them through the game client. (Or am I missing something here and the game client already does this?)

Edited by MegaZordTrololo, 29 April 2013 - 05:13 PM.

[Liquid Leopard]

MegaZordTrololo, on 29 April 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

Another tip, avoid [buying or] building mechs with ballistic weapons or PPC's in the arms until you are more used to the game. The weapon convergence (i.e how the weapons automatically adjust their focal point depending on the distance of the target) is a bit strange for weapons mounted on the arms. Leading a shot causes an arm mounted weapon to converge on distant terrain rather than your target. This means accurate fire from an arm mount can be quite troublesome.

Yeah, I got a mech with asymmetrical hardpoints, and the weapon convergence is an issue for me.

When I first started this game, I definitely had a hardware problem. I was playing on a laptop, and had a frame rate of 3 frames per second. I'd get the error message saying "Unsupported video card" and I'd say, "Shows what you know! I don't have any video card!"
　
Now that I've got a better computer, I'm searching the forums for how to improve my aim, and whether I might still be having any issues with graphics or hardware.
　
In the Testing Grounds, I found that I have a frame rate around 22 fps. The number is displayed in yellow most of the time. It goes as high as 23.6 and as low as 19.9. When it goes below 22.0, the number turns red, so I assume that's bad. In a match, my frame rate goes as low as 7.1 fps.

Could this be part of why I can only hit a target in the Testing Ground, while everyone else can core out my mech in a matter of seconds?

MegaZordTrololo, on 29 April 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

I have found myself hitting better with arm mounted ballistics with more practice, although I have no idea what compensation to my aim I am making now that I wasn't before. I might edit with more at some point.

Yes, please post if you figure it out.

I'm really pissed about my CN9-A right now. The cannon on the arm is dead weight right now, and I've tried a few different cannons. I put a lot of time and C-Bills into that thing, and I can hit the broad side of a barn if I walk into the barn. Moving enemy mechs? Pfft.

Meanwhile, every bozo out there with a Centurion can core out whatever I'm using.
　
I read where people say "I do 600 points of damage in a match with this Hunchback", and with mine that's nearly identical, I struggle to do 150 points.

BTW, my stats can't possibly be good, so how the f*** do I get put in a game against a team of 7 founders? The Elo system doesn't work, yet.

Edited by Liquid Leopard, 05 May 2013 - 10:25 AM.

[Koniving]

Aym, on 29 April 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

Your screen will shake when you take damage, maybe that's it.

Remember these days?

Liquid Leopard, on 05 May 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

Yeah, I got a mech with asymmetrical hardpoints, and the weapon convergence is an issue for me.

Now that I've got a better computer, I'm searching the forums for how to improve my aim, and whether I might still be having any issues with graphics or hardware.
　
In the Testing Grounds, I found that I have a frame rate around 22 fps. The number is displayed in yellow most of the time. It goes as high as 23.6 and as low as 19.9. When it goes below 22.0, the number turns red, so I assume that's bad. In a match, my frame rate goes as low as 7.1 fps.

Could this be part of why I can only hit a target in the Testing Ground, while everyone else can core out my mech in a matter of seconds?

I'm really pissed about my CN9-A right now. The cannon on the arm is dead weight right now, and I've tried a few different cannons. I put a lot of time and C-Bills into that thing, and I can hit the broad side of a barn if I walk into the barn. Moving enemy mechs? Pfft.

Meanwhile, every bozo out there with a Centurion can core out whatever I'm using.
　
I read where people say "I do 600 points of damage in a match with this Hunchback", and with mine that's nearly identical, I struggle to do 150 points.

BTW, my stats can't possibly be good, so how the f*** do I get put in a game against a team of 7 founders? The Elo system doesn't work, yet.

ELO

Ah the good old days. Sometimes the ELO will throw you into some bad situations. I noticed you're also a bit new, which explains a bit about the ELO. You tend to start pretty close to "average" and then gradually "melt" over time into where you should be based on your performance. There's also whether you play alone or in a group.

ELO focuses on putting your score with the scores of the others on your team to make an average; then it tries to make the other team's average almost even (but never perfectly). This means if you're alone, you might get thrown into a team that has an ELO that's too high to dumb down the team's score to be more on par with the other side. Or you might be in a low-end game, but someone or a group of people spiked the other team's ELO too high, and so a good player is thrown on your team to try and balance out the average score.

Alone, I find myself frequently thrown into modest games to balance out the ELO averages. In a group I find myself in an exceptionally high ELO match with a few low-end stragglers that got thrown into a piranha pit! Either way I find myself carrying my weight whether with ease or with extreme difficulty.

-------

Framerate

Download this: http://www.3dmark.com/
Use the basic version. It has a benchmark test and some impressive visuals that represent what the Cry Engine 3 could do if something beyond medium settings actually worked. (No. Seriously. NOTHING above medium actually works. You can set it. Nothing changes. Bryan Ekman says they will be doing high end optimizations and reenabling higher-than-medium settings by July.)

Tell me what your score is on there. Also, current card (if any), ram, and processor? Please tell me you're not using Windows 8.

A temporary solution -- you can use Right Shift + F11 to turn off your hud. Do this especially during hud bugs. Your FPS will shoot straight up. Some FPS issues are caused by the processing time consumed trying to read through the recent lance system update's various errors. During more severe bugs I gain as much as 20 FPS. Some gain over 40.

------------------------------

Aim and Damage

I assume that you're using mainly missiles for the CN-9A, which does not have Host State Rewind (no lag compensation). If so, lead way ahead of your target with them for better effect. Continue to fire your lasers directly at them.

This is a default Hunchback 4H. It is pre-Ballistic HSR. Notice how I have to lead ahead of faster moving targets even from a short distance away, but when they are stationary I can aim directly at them? This is what needs to be done with your missiles until they announce missile HSR.



When you aim for a mech, what do you go for? Arms? Side torsos? Center-mass? Legs? List some examples and why you choose those body parts to aim for on whatever targets from your examples.

This video is testing someone's build provided in the help thread titled "What the 5N has taught me."
The link skips directly to some good fighting with a ballistic Dragon 5N which is essentially similar to a CN-9A. Notice bouncing between Armlock on and off, as well as occasionally taking control of just my arms to squeeze in extra shots. Also notice the tactics. I believe these may help especially for people with lower frame rates.

If your aim is really bad, you could try LB-10s for a ballistic.


Atlas versus Atlas (both very slow, 30 to 40 kph.)
Time skipped

-----------

Convergence
Myself, I fire with Armlock off. When I need to zero all of my weapons to the target, I press Shift, count to 1, then fire. This gives the convergence time to align with my target.

When leading a fast target, convergence will get really screwed up if part of the mech keeps bouncing into the reticle. Same if the reticle keeps hitting various distances away. Instead, favor aiming downward when being circled by a light. This allows you to keep a steady distance under the reticle, stabilizing your convergence to something you can anticipate. Leading far enough ahead of the light to not have its legs actually bounce in your sights will allow your ballistics to fire straight and not diagonally (which it would due to attempting to calibrate to a distance).

--

I hope this helps you.

Edited by Koniving, 05 May 2013 - 11:22 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

Hmmm does mouse accel default to 0? As far as I can tell it does (which is good).

[Arkus Bethla]

I had a similar issue where with my mouse stationary my cross hairs would drift left (or right).

I had an unused controller hooked up and somehow mwo was picking up the uncallibrated thumbstick there or maybe the connector or driver on that controller was truly messed up.

In any case I unplugged the controller and it was fine. The alternative which also worked was to rotate the thumbstick and let it re-center once after the restart of the PC and that seemed to keep mwo happy.

On other games I had the same issue and it was the mouse giving up the ghost. Replacement same make and model fixed the problem.