141 replies to this topic

[Soy]

Kinda sad how you ignored the first sentence - which was the most important - and proceeded to get emo over that post.

Btw, "mech sims" involve aiming.

Go play MWO if you want to learn about it.

Edited by Soy, 09 June 2013 - 01:17 AM.

[Zaptruder]

Basically, the correct solution to pin point high damage weapon loadouts is divergence. Heat is by far the worst (and most popular) solution given how many other issues it introduces while failing to completely (or even) solve the primary issue. Weapon hard point restrictions is a little better - but makes mech load outs a little too rigid. Which would be ok if we had hundreds of mechs to choose from, but less good when we don't. Also it doesn't stop 'natural boating' - so it'd really just reduce the number of mechs in the top tier.


Spatial divergence can be iffy - but I think this is probably the best of the solutions for introducing spatial divergence (it's actually a hybrid spatial/temporal divergence idea).

But the implementation of it requires some insightful forethought in order to pull it off correctly.

So the idea is that the weapons start off at parallel to the reticle. The longer you hold the reticle on target, the more the weapons converge - faster for fully articulated arm weapons, slower for no elbow arms and torso mounted weapons.

The trick though - is that this only applies if the player is firing weapons from multiple hard points at once. If firing from a single hard point, then it automatically converges on the reticle irrespective of shot location.

But what about players the circumvent it by setting 2 PPCs on the left arm to one group, and 2PPCs to right arm to another weapon group and then firing them in short succession (i.e. as fast as you can click on mouse 1 and 2)?

The first fired weapon group would set the convergence point, while the second group would be offset the distance from the left arm group minus the distance that has already converged.

The main problem with this solution is that it's not transparent - as in, if you don't know exactly how or why things are behaving as they are, it can be quite difficult to know why your shots are going off the way they are. But with adequate messaging from the developers, even this barrier can be overcome. And it's certainly a damn sight better than having to deal with massive pin point damage that is in a very real sense, game breaking.


So what about the implementation for convergence? How long should it take, and how on target do you need to keep things?

Obviously, it can't be the case where if there's any movement whatsoever, the convergence is thrown off entirely. If this was the case, the only time you'd be able to converge is when aiming at a shut down opponent. Otherwise convergence would only start when you're dead still AND the opponent isn't moving around.

Something more like the behaviour of streaks - where you need to keep the target under reticle for 2-3 seconds before been able to converge. Moreover, unlike streaks, you can only converge if pointing directly at the target; if your target moves behind cover, convergence is broken and the process needs to be started again. So, if you want to snipe with your AC20s, Gauss, PPCs, etc, you'd essentially have to spend a few seconds vulnerable out in the open. Or you could just pull the trigger, accept divergence and minimize your exposure risk.

If there is a problem with this implementation, it may be in the server load - i.e. each mech has a continuous invisible beam (not unlike TAG, except invisible) which would be traced between the player and the target in order to check for line of sight. But given the number of lasers and tags that can be loaded on mechs, I don't think 16-24 extra beams is going to impact that heavily on the server.

Anyway, the longer you hold the more on reticle your weapons converge. Once locked (golden reticle), like streaks, there's a cone that you can stray from before you break convergence. So if you're a sniper and you stand out in the open long enough, your subsequent shots should be more accurate; commensurate with the risk you're taking.

Finally, if you fire weapons in one body location - the convergence is only set for as long as the reticle is still (or within a small range of movement). As soon as you start moving your reticle, the convergence is reset for the new body location (but the convergence timer will continue ticking down as long as your reticle is on target/tracking the enemy)

So that means instead of shooting your AC/20 in your left arm of your Jagermech, then swinging your torso to track the enemy, shooting the right arm AC/20 - and having your shot go stray (because you're aiming with the reticle without accounting for how much convergence there is left), the first AC/20 shot goes where you point, you track, and the second AC/20 shot goes where you point.


On the UI front, the reticles now grow and shrink is size commensurate with the degree of convergence that the player has achieved. They turn gold once full lock is achieved.


So the end result here is a system that encourages group firing by weapon location and serves also to buff brawling - in a brawl, you're typically firing by weapon location anyway, keeping up a steady stream of weapon fire - moving your reticle to track the enemy as you dance around each other. You'll be completely unaffected by divergence. OTOH, if you're a sniper, you'll have to make yourself more vulnerable in order to have a pin point alpha, or you'll be forced to fire the weapons in appropriate groups and adjust aim manually to compensate.


With this sort of implementation in play, it introduces a subtle increase in the level of mastery required to play the game. New players will not be tremendously disadvantaged - while experienced players will adapt to the changes as required. It's got a nice balance between in universe logic, game logic and {Noble MechWarrior} logic, while actually doing a fair amount to solve the primary meta problem plaguing the game.

[Zaptruder]

Soy, on 08 June 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

Jesus, it's a philosophical question, if I had worded it "if you are a better shot than me, you will be able to hit me from farther out" sit better? ******* christ, you people look for the most ridiculous ****.

You lack the ability to even comprehend your own posts. Which is about right given the content in your posts.

Yes, of course if you shoot better, you'll hit more. That kind of statement doesn't need statement. The only reasonable way to interpret it within the context of this thread is that you're implying - "why bother changing things - just learn to shoot better, and you won't have any complaints.

Ergo, my response that if you believe that someone only needs to shoot better to overcome their problems, then surely you can learn to play better under new circumstances to regain whatever advantages you have in the current, imbalanced, paradigm.


Because despite your obtuseness regarding the matter - the real issue isn't a matter of aiming. It's a matter of playstyle and mech build style.

The current system rewards mechs that can mount weapons that deal as much damage as is possible to a single point - because destroying mech parts is the aim of the game. And it's faster and easier to destroy mech parts with single larger blows than many smaller blows, even if the damage amounts to the same over time.

Learn to play isn't a valid retort for denying balance - because people that learn to play can do so irrespective of the ruleset and imbalance. That they can play it, doesn't mean that the system in which they're playing isn't broken or requiring rebalancing.

Indeed, such an attitude is as myopic as someone in a terrible society that is in power saying that society doesn't need to change - because all you need to do, is learn to live. "If you weren't so bad at living, then you'd be rich and successful. Ergo, there's no problem with society, all the problem is with you."

[Soy]

I like how you extrapolate "learn to play" out of the simple notion that someone who is better at aiming will be able to shoot from farther out. Which is a ******* fact. It's quantifiable.

So what exactly are you trying to do besides project ****. You do realize your first response to me was you pretending to take what I said personally? It was obvious as **** it was a philosphical thing and not directed at anyone - especially you, since you hadn't said a single thing in this thread til you hopped on my jock. Get the **** off kid.

You lack a lot as well, but walls of text is apparently not one of them.

Edited by Soy, 09 June 2013 - 01:56 AM.

[Zaptruder]

Soy, on 09 June 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

I like how you extrapolate "learn to play" out of the simple notion that someone who is better at aiming will be able to shoot from farther out. Which is a ******* fact. It's quantifiable.

So what exactly are you trying to do besides project ****. You do realize your first response to me was you pretending to take what I said personally? It was obvious as **** it was a philosphical thing and not directed at anyone - especially you, since you hadn't said a single thing in this thread til you hopped on my jock. Get the **** off kid.

You lack a lot as well, but walls of text is apparently not one of them.

You're a dumbass Soy. You lack the intelligence necessary to comprehend anything outside of what you think is right. And when you're wrong as much as you are, you end up thinking you're right about a lot of incorrect things.

Spoiler

How's that for brevity?

[Soy]

Zaptruder, on 08 June 2013 - 11:46 PM, said:

play. I'm confident you can.

Least you got that part right.

Got my eye on you son.

[K0M3D14N]

So...the catfight that has erupted here aside, I do actually quite like the idea of having to hold your crosshairs on a target for a second or more so that the targeting computer can run through its calculations and adjust the weapons as necessary to hit where the pilot is aiming. It's a good idea and I think will help a lot with these super high damage alphas that are rifled off before the threat can even be identified. What I do not like, however, are all the suggestions in here that seem to think a 'cone of fire' or some sort of RNG process is the way to go. 'Shooting from the hip,' as it were, should not be punished if the pilot is skilled and knows his 'Mech.

There is a simpler, more straight forward way to do it that does not remove pilot skill from the equation whatsoever.

I'm going to use my DRG-5N as an example. Due to the angle that the arms are set at, the Dragon's targeting reticle is off by a few degress at ranges inside the Gauss rifle's 540m. As such, a Dragon pilot has to adjust his aim off-center of the target and still adjust for lead, which can be a rather difficult task but a very, very rewarding one. I'd like to suggest somethign similar across all 'Mech chassis with the OP's suggested system.

Say, for example, you're in a Catapult-K2. As the weapons are shoulder-mounted, if the pilot fires before a shooting solution can be achieved by the targeting computer, the weapons will fire straight ahead. What I mean by this is that the shoulder-mounted weapon on the left will fire slightly high and to the left of the targeting reticle and the same can be said of the weapon on the right. Torso mounted weapons will fire just to the left or right of the targeting reticle and so on and so forth. The further from the center of the 'Mech the weapons are located, the more the pilot will have to compensate.

I think what this will help accomplish is eliminate those quick 'peek out and alpha' shooters, force them to expose themselves more, and give pilots that really know their 'Mechs the ability to compensate for disparity and fire off weapons in pairs or chain fire several different weapons from different spots rapidly without having to wait for a target lock and without being punished for it.

[DocBach]

Soy, on 08 June 2013 - 11:50 PM, said:

Jesus, it's a philosophical question, if I had worded it "if you are a better shot than me, you will be able to hit me from farther out" sit better?

it would still work that way - its not locking on to the target to home in shots and do the work for you, the lock acts as the targeting computers way of gaining the pinpoint accuracy we have now instantly, to help remedy the fact that pinpoint high alpha builds currently dominate this game. without achieving a full lock, which would take longer depending on various factors like speed, heat, ect your shots could still land on a target, just not exactly where you were pointing.

to concerns that requiring lock to gain convergeance would mean the end of being able to make quick reaction shots up close:

shooting errors are angular in nature, and are increased at longer range. shooting at close range the deviation wouldn't be nearly severe, you might hit a side torso instead of the center torso at close range if you made a snap shot without achieving a lock for your targeting computer.

Edited by DocBach, 09 June 2013 - 09:16 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

How about 3 reticules? RT CT LT are near instant convergence. ArmLock still locks arms at horizontal, no ArmLock allows vertical convergence but the arm reticules have to traverse around the outside of the center target Circle, both up and down with the center reticule moving to intercept the arms.

Time to traverse the outside would be longer than just horizontal. Times could be up for debate.

Something like this perhaps:

Edited by MaddMaxx, 09 June 2013 - 09:58 AM.

[Pht]

Rebas Kradd, on 08 June 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

You're surprised that they're not going to start all over and rebuild MWO from the ground up after a year of work? Especially having just announced launch in September? Can't say I blame them.

I don't see how you could have gotten this idea that I'm supposedly "suprised that they won't re-write the whole thing" from my post... it's not there.

[Kaiser Thermidor]

This sounds really nice, especially with what others have chipped in with (only read most of the first page, though). Having a "lock on time" for direct fire weapons to achieve correct convergence would be not only a great way to reduce the pinpoint alpha meta we're seeing lately, but also be pretty cool in a immersion sense. The MechWarrior series has always been more sim than arcade, at least in my opinion, so it would fit perfectly. Further, it would also help alleviate my annoyance at how convergence works in this game currently: weapons mounted parallel on a torso apparently can focus their fire on the same pinhead-sized spot at a large variety of ranges. This... does not sit well with me.

Having the lock-on take longer as distance increases would be pretty cool as well, and might be a good way to further reduce the sniping meta. Having different values for each weapon would be even more interesting, further differentiating weapons into 'sniper' and 'brawler' classes. At least, it would be interesting to me, who is a person who likes having defined classes.

From a developer's point of view, I can see this introducing some problems. Namely, can the engine even handle it? Non-instant convergence, I mean. With no knowledge of how the CryEngine handles that, it could be a technical limitation. And the HUD is already a hot sopping mess at times. Introducing a more complex reticule could be... I mean, it was already too complicated for some people, so they introduced Arm Lock...

But regardless, this idea has my full support as I've described above!

Edited by Vadim Krasvanya, 22 June 2013 - 07:12 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Three problems i can see with this.

1) It slows the pace of the game down.

2) It does decrease a portion of the skill gap, by firstly reducing long range combat (certainly as self aimed snap shots) increases brawling favourability to the same sort of level as poptarting. It will also allow less skilled players a more reasonable chance of being artificially inflated above their skill level (which is bad anyway you look at it)

3) PGI are not going to re-write such an huge amount of code to even begin to make this work this late into the games development cycle.

[Pht]

DV McKenna, on 22 June 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Three problems i can see with this. 1) It slows the pace of the game down.

Slower gameplay is not a bad thing.

... reminds me of an instance in an RTS game many moons ago ... ran the game at normal speed... the clickaholics freaked out ... asked "what do I do? I'm all done!" ... apparently the idea of using ... um ... strategy in an RTS game eluded them.

Slamming three attacks into someone's base, staggered ... simply because you had the time to do it ... never occured to them.

Quote

3) PGI are not going to re-write such an huge amount of code to even begin to make this work this late into the games development cycle.

You're with pgi?

[Unbound Inferno]

MaddMaxx, on 09 June 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

How about 3 reticules? RT CT LT are near instant convergence. ArmLock still locks arms at horizontal, no ArmLock allows vertical convergence but the arm reticules have to traverse around the outside of the center target Circle, both up and down with the center reticule moving to intercept the arms.

Time to traverse the outside would be longer than just horizontal. Times could be up for debate.

Something like this perhaps:

Not too bad of an idea to display it. Might feel a bit cluttered at first, depending of size of course - but its plausible.

[El Bandito]

DV McKenna, on 22 June 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Three problems i can see with this. 1) It slows the pace of the game down. 2) It does decrease a portion of the skill gap, by firstly reducing long range combat (certainly as self aimed snap shots) increases brawling favourability to the same sort of level as poptarting. It will also allow less skilled players a more reasonable chance of being artificially inflated above their skill level (which is bad anyway you look at it) 3) PGI are not going to re-write such an huge amount of code to even begin to make this work this late into the games development cycle.

1. Slowing down the pace is a positive thing. Right now, mechs are falling as fast as men (this was the whole reason PGI doubled the armor value and it is still not enough). This is more akin to some CoD game than a mech sim.

2. Reducing the long range combat is also positive because the majority of the community are tired of PPCs being the main weapon every match. Brawling coming back is a positive thing and PGI can balance the lock time etc...to make sure long range sniping will not become useless. There is no great skill gap in current sniping because even scrubs can snipe anything over 40 tons with ease.

3. PGI can do whatever they want, this is just a suggestion to make MWO more in tune with the Battle Tech universe and it is not a difficult one to implement.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 June 2013 - 05:31 PM.

[FactorlanP]

I didn't read the entire thread, so my apologies if this has already been mentioned...

In one of the Stackpole books, Phelan Kell is in the middle of his Clan trial. He is up against his nemesis Vlad. The novel describes how Vlad is basically trying to alpha strike, but power limitations of his mech cause his weapons to fire over a period of many seconds instead of firing all at once.

So, even though Vlad was trying to fire all of the weapons at once, the Mech would only fire them as enough power came available.

Something along this line is how I would like to see boating handled.

[El Bandito]

FactorlanP, on 23 June 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

I didn't read the entire thread, so my apologies if this has already been mentioned... In one of the Stackpole books, Phelan Kell is in the middle of his Clan trial. He is up against his nemesis Vlad. The novel describes how Vlad is basically trying to alpha strike, but power limitations of his mech cause his weapons to fire over a period of many seconds instead of firing all at once. So, even though Vlad was trying to fire all of the weapons at once, the Mech would only fire them as enough power came available. Something along this line is how I would like to see boating handled.

I know that part, and had suggested a power limit idea in a separate thread.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 June 2013 - 05:34 PM.

[FactorlanP]

El Bandito, on 23 June 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

I know that part, and had suggested a power limit idea in a separate thread.

Ya, I briefly toyed with the idea of tracking the text down and posting a quote... But, I don't believe that it will ever be implemented, so... meh... Why bother?

[Homeless Bill]

I think assuming non-convergence and forcing players to work for it is too harsh. I prefer assuming convergence and removing it when players do ****** things.

For all the problems it will solve, this solution will slow the pace of the game, diminish the value of twitch shooting, and alter a lot of dynamics like torso twisting (would it still be useful at all if you have to re-acquire a lock?); I think the unknowable, collateral effects make this system slightly too risky to implement.

[El Bandito]

Homeless Bill, on 23 June 2013 - 06:24 PM, said:

I think assuming non-convergence and forcing players to work for it is too harsh. I prefer assuming convergence and removing it when players do ****** things. For all the problems it will solve, this solution will slow the pace of the game, diminish the value of twitch shooting, and alter a lot of dynamics like torso twisting (would it still be useful at all if you have to re-acquire a lock?); I think the unknowable, collateral effects make this system slightly too risky to implement.

Yes, it is risky. Which is why PGI needs to get that test server up ASAP. However, twitch shooting accurately over 500+ meters should have no place in MWO as long as big alphas exist. Torso twisting will still be damn useful to avoid incoming shots and missiles and covering weak spots.

I know my idea is not the best solution but it will make this game more faithful to BT lore.

Edited by El Bandito, 23 June 2013 - 06:41 PM.