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Ask The Devs 37 - Answers!


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#41 Koniving

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 04:39 PM

View PostWintersdark, on 03 May 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

TLDR: Missiles are broken, it's not an SSRM problem, it's a missile problem. It'll get fixed when missile pathing gets fixed.


I see what you're saying. Personally I think streak pathing should go back to the old days where if you were too close, the missile could not yaw enough to hit its target.
Example:



Of course, here's how LRMs used to fire. Watch the center-right side. The dragon will fire the LRMs within a few seconds of clicking the link. Watch how fast those things were!
http://www.youtube.c...SJu_A9vE#t=102s

Here's what I wonder, though. What if PGI changed it so that the total damage from the missile's impact + splash = a preset amount of damage. No guessing games, bonus damage for hitting tiny mechs, etc. For example if a single SRM / Streak missile is supposed to do 2.5 damage... why not just have the total damage dealt be 2.5? Even if it splashes to the CT it'd be very low compared to the impact point. What spreads out would only reduce from the impact damage, which means to keep the weapon viable the damage had to be largely focused on the impact point.

LRMs then could actually do 1.8 damage per missile instead of saying 0.7 and actually doing upwards of 2 to 5 damage per missile depending on how small the target is (poor commando, you hit it in the CT and every body part gets devastated). Though we'll clearly see outcries for it to be buffed again.

#42 Nicholas Carlyle

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:00 PM

Better AtD, wish you guys weren't so bi-polar about them. Seems like it's one good, then a bad where we complain, then you come back with a good to try and quiet us down.

Might want to try just being consistently good, so that when you say that this and the command chairs (another one where you guys are bi-polar) are actually GOOD replacements for the Dev Blogs.

Also the GD answer is BS.

I still feel like a lot of this stuff boils down too "We don't believe you". I don't know. The streak answer bugged me, everyone knows they are stupid in their current incarnation.

UI2.0 sounds good. Wish it had been out longer before going into release. Feel like the game could have gained a lot more momentum.

Assuming no crazy money requirements, I think we're going to see community run CW via private matches being the real meat of this game. The PGI version just sounds...bland.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 03 May 2013 - 05:01 PM.


#43 Zyllos

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:05 PM

View PostFelix Reynolds, on 03 May 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:


The issue is that regardless of where the missiles *appear* to hit, the main damage allocation for the 'impact' (ie, the 1.5 damage value that Paul spoke of in the hotfix notes) is applied to the CT- if it was merely an issue of the impact locations being so clustered around the CT that the splash damage always spilled over, you still wouldn't end up with the current coring effect as the splash was tweaked down to 40% of main damage *max*. At those values, the side torsos of mechs should be getting far more torn up than they are currently as each 'direct' hit is doing 2.5x the damage of the max splash value- especially when considering most CT values are 30-40% higher than LT/RT armor values.


This part right here that has confused me over this whole LRM/SRM/SSRM fiasco. If splash damage is reduced by 40% and reduced by distance to hitbox, then it's guaranteed that the splash is dealing less damage.

If the majority of SSRMs are not hitting the CT, then why is the CT taking more damage overall? It is a physical impossibility without any other information that is hidden to us.

This also feeds back into the issue that they said removing splash makes all missiles hit the CT. How does splash even affect this then? Regardless of how splash damage is applied, they either hit the CT or not. Splash can not cause missile to start hitting the CT unless they always hitting the CT, regardless of splash.

That is what has me so confused on the whole issue with missiles.

#44 matux

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:08 PM

View PostBryan Ekman, on 03 May 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Matux: When will we see bacon camo ?
A: When we finish the eggs and hashbrown patterns..


So... This means we are getting it or are you just toying with my emotions, also i feel that eggs and hash brown arnt needed as bacon is pretty much a standalone meat.

#45 stjobe

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:13 PM

View PostBryan Ekman, on 03 May 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Timuroslav: Will there be an Increase in the Incentive/rewards for playing Light mechs, now that the Risk is more dangerous?
A: As we flesh out the roles for each `Mech, yes. But this is not specific to just Lights.

It's the lights that need it the most.

Currently there is a great disparity between the rewards for damage, kills, and assists, and the rewards for e.g. spotting/targeting/capping - traditional light roles. Why, for instance can you only get the TAG/Narc bonus once per enemy? Why can you only get the spotting bonus once per enemy? And why on earth are they so low (200 XP if you manage to spot all enemies - which isn't going to happen) when you give 150 XP for saviour kills/assists as a bonus to the regular kill/assist reward?

There really is no incentive for running a light now; the only reason most light pilots (all 11% of us) still do it is because of sheer stubbornness (or, as someone else put it; the love of lights).

Please give us some reason to pilot lights; a good start would be going back to Dev Blog 4 and implementing what you wrote there, that'd give lights a proper role in MWO.

#46 Sable Dove

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:16 PM

Quote

Lazor Sharp: Will we get a rear view mirror in the cockpit, or a button that shows the rear view like MW4...?
A: Due to technical and performance reasons, we have elected not to offer any form of picture-in-picture modes. This requires the entire scene to be rendered at least two times, dropping FPS significantly.


Does this mean you're going to fix Advanced Zoom at some point? Because it's currently worse than useless. It makes it harder to see close targets, in return for an effect that I can get by leaning forward in my chair.

Also, please FFS don't add the same kind of skill system that we have for mechs to weapons, or anything else. It is easily one of the least fun parts of the game. There's already unnecessarily (literally unnecessary; the C-Bill grind is already more than enough without the need to cripple new mechs for a great many games) large amounts of grinding for the current system that makes it painful to buy new mechs. If you do add a skill system to weapons or modules, don't make it a flat upgrade to the stock weapons. The game's got enough pay-to-win as it is; we really don't need more.

#47 Chavette

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:30 PM

Quote

IS Factions and Merc Corps will have access to all IS tech, however allegiance will affect prices.


I don't get it, last time it was "Merc corps can specifically attack a system to gain control of exclusive technologies"...

Now its flip flop again?

#48 Rashhaverak

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:30 PM

View PostKoniving, on 03 May 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:


Well, most of those Catapults are me. Why not? ;)

But seriously though in the vid you can clearly see only the upper panel counts. In the group shot, you can compare those cockpits. The only one with a problem is actually the Centurion (Cataphract only has the top middle panel counting as the cockpit). The Centurion's upper panel counts as the cockpit, this is true. Lower does not count. But here's the problem. The Fin / Mohawk counts as the cockpit and can be destroyed from any angle. This unfortunately makes it the easiest mech to destroy out of all of them.

Your description does not appear to be accurate. The head hitbox can be seen in the mechlab, and if you click on the lower panel, the upper panel, and the side panels, the head readily comes up. That being said, I agree (and it was in my original post) that the head on the cent is also quite large and easy to hit in comparison to other mechs.

#49 Deathlike

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:31 PM

View Poststjobe, on 03 May 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

It's the lights that need it the most.

Currently there is a great disparity between the rewards for damage, kills, and assists, and the rewards for e.g. spotting/targeting/capping - traditional light roles. Why, for instance can you only get the TAG/Narc bonus once per enemy? Why can you only get the spotting bonus once per enemy? And why on earth are they so low (200 XP if you manage to spot all enemies - which isn't going to happen) when you give 150 XP for saviour kills/assists as a bonus to the regular kill/assist reward?

There really is no incentive for running a light now; the only reason most light pilots (all 11% of us) still do it is because of sheer stubbornness (or, as someone else put it; the love of lights).

Please give us some reason to pilot lights; a good start would be going back to Dev Blog 4 and implementing what you wrote there, that'd give lights a proper role in MWO.


Actually... spotting bonuses stack repeatedly... it works better when chain fire is in use for missiles.

Anyways, this Q&A is like watching a certain country speaks loudly, but is more likely to drop the bomb on itself...

The 3rd person comment for CW isn't really helping... eventually PGI's own words will be its own detriment.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 May 2013 - 05:32 PM.


#50 Lucian Nostra

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:45 PM

View PostBryan Ekman, on 03 May 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Ask the Devs #37

EarlGrey83: Do the new Clan sub forums represent all the playable Clans in comunity warfare? (Wolf, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar got forums, but the other invasion Clan - the NovaCat - did not. The rabid NovaCat fanbase in MWO, consisting of at least two others and me, would be very pleased for a playable NovaCat faction.)
A: For now, yes. More will come.


Posted Image

#51 stjobe

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:45 PM

View PostDeathlike, on 03 May 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:


Actually... spotting bonuses stack repeatedly...

Yes, you're right. It's once per enemy you were the first to target (and hold lock on until damage is done) per team mate actually firing LRMs on it when you have it targeted.

So you need to
1. Be the first to target that enemy
2. Hold the lock until the LRMs hit
3. Have a LRM-equipped team mate fire and do damage to that target.

So really, good luck in getting more than a couple.

Oh, and it's 25 XP per spotting assists. Same for TAG/Narc.

A pittance.

#52 Koniving

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:47 PM

View PostRashhaverak, on 03 May 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Your description does not appear to be accurate. The head hitbox can be seen in the mechlab, and if you click on the lower panel, the upper panel, and the side panels, the head readily comes up. That being said, I agree (and it was in my original post) that the head on the cent is also quite large and easy to hit in comparison to other mechs.


If you go by that, the head hitbox of the Founder's Catapult is the nose cone, and the hitbox of the Awesome is the entire head and not the window glass.

The head hitbox of the Jenner would be the entire saucer section of the Enterprise. The hitbox of the Cataphract would be a large portion of the CT.

The Founder's Atlas includes everything EXCEPT the left eye, which is the actual cockpit.

Therefore, that's inaccurate.

-----

However, I will agree that after testing it today, something has been borked significantly between the March 19th patch and now, with the catapult cockpit being back-spun to include the lower window pane. The video was recorded just before the April 2nd patch, and clearly you can see lower pane does not count as cockpit in the video. Meaning that between then and now, someone, somewhere, screwed up.

I think this can be of some evidence that some of the bugs we've had might be related to poor version control? Not enough to confirm though.

Edited by Koniving, 03 May 2013 - 05:51 PM.


#53 FupDup

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:48 PM

View Poststjobe, on 03 May 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

It's the lights that need it the most.

Currently there is a great disparity between the rewards for damage, kills, and assists, and the rewards for e.g. spotting/targeting/capping - traditional light roles. Why, for instance can you only get the TAG/Narc bonus once per enemy? Why can you only get the spotting bonus once per enemy? And why on earth are they so low (200 XP if you manage to spot all enemies - which isn't going to happen) when you give 150 XP for saviour kills/assists as a bonus to the regular kill/assist reward?

There really is no incentive for running a light now; the only reason most light pilots (all 11% of us) still do it is because of sheer stubbornness (or, as someone else put it; the love of lights).

Please give us some reason to pilot lights; a good start would be going back to Dev Blog 4 and implementing what you wrote there, that'd give lights a proper role in MWO.

The UAV and seismic sensor modules won't exactly help matters.

So now assaultwarriors will be able deploy consumable scouts and also detect sneaky ninjas through terrain within 200m...



This might very well be the killing blow to all but the most stubborn light pilots. WE MUST NEVER SURRENDER!!!

Edited by FupDup, 03 May 2013 - 05:59 PM.


#54 KableGuy

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 05:50 PM

View PostJoker Two, on 03 May 2013 - 03:15 PM, said:


I'm not sure how to feel about this. The first three sentences sound like a denial of the bug's existence, especially since splash damage was supposed to be disabled and so shouldn't be affecting anything. On the other hand, you say they are being tuned. I'm going to reserve judgment and continue posting armor paperdolls.

splash damage is not disabled. They never said it was going to be disabled.

#55 Wintersdark

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 06:12 PM

View PostKoniving, on 03 May 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:


I see what you're saying. Personally I think streak pathing should go back to the old days where if you were too close, the missile could not yaw enough to hit its target.
Example:



Of course, here's how LRMs used to fire. Watch the center-right side. The dragon will fire the LRMs within a few seconds of clicking the link. Watch how fast those things were!
http://www.youtube.c...SJu_A9vE#t=102s

Here's what I wonder, though. What if PGI changed it so that the total damage from the missile's impact + splash = a preset amount of damage. No guessing games, bonus damage for hitting tiny mechs, etc. For example if a single SRM / Streak missile is supposed to do 2.5 damage... why not just have the total damage dealt be 2.5? Even if it splashes to the CT it'd be very low compared to the impact point. What spreads out would only reduce from the impact damage, which means to keep the weapon viable the damage had to be largely focused on the impact point.

LRMs then could actually do 1.8 damage per missile instead of saying 0.7 and actually doing upwards of 2 to 5 damage per missile depending on how small the target is (poor commando, you hit it in the CT and every body part gets devastated). Though we'll clearly see outcries for it to be buffed again.

Before people/PGI found the splash bug and explained what was happening, this is actually how I'd assumed splash damage worked.

I definitely think it should go there, too - Missile does X damage, calculate percentages based on what components are hit by the explosion radius and divide the total damage up between the components that way.

It would make missile's tuning much more reliable and consistent between chassis. Smaller mechs or hits around complex geometry may spread damage around more and large mechs much less, but this is entirely reasonable.

Edit: I wish streaks worked like that now, with realistic turning rates. So they fire at intended targets and do track them, but have hard limits on how fast they can turn (and rates slow enough that they cannot orbit, but rather simply miss as shown in your video).

Moar Editz: Yeah, in short, what you said is all win and awesomesauce.

View PostRashhaverak, on 03 May 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Your description does not appear to be accurate. The head hitbox can be seen in the mechlab, and if you click on the lower panel, the upper panel, and the side panels, the head readily comes up. That being said, I agree (and it was in my original post) that the head on the cent is also quite large and easy to hit in comparison to other mechs.

This is incorrect. The panels that light up in the mechlab are NOT the hit boxes in combat. They are similar to - and often what PGI started with - but the actual hitboxes in combat are much, much smaller.

Edited by Wintersdark, 03 May 2013 - 06:15 PM.


#56 Koniving

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 06:19 PM

View PostBitMonger505, on 03 May 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

splash damage is not disabled. They never said it was going to be disabled.

Paul said it would in response to the testing. But then they changed how they were going to go about it by reducing it to get feedback on the difference. You are correct though in that splash damage is still in effect.

#57 Ryvucz

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 06:22 PM

View PostBryan Ekman, on 03 May 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Krzysztof z Bagien: What makes you think Elo system is suitable for team game?
A: While no matchmaking system is ever going to be perfect, Elo offers a nice balanced approach, that is easy to feed data to create desirable matchups, whether solo or team based.


Although, overall, my wins are higher than they used to be, the matches are very far from feeling desirable and fun.

#58 Felix Reynolds

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 06:49 PM

View PostThontor, on 03 May 2013 - 05:40 PM, said:

Makes perfect sense, and it is not a physical impossibility

Assuming the CT does not get hit, but is close enough to the point of impact to receive splash damage from all the missiles, the combined splash damage from all the missiles is more damage than the damage at the point of impact.

Imagine circles around each point of impact. All these circles overlap on the center torso, since its, you know, in the center... So it takes splash damage from all the missiles. whereas the other sections might only take damage from whatever missile hits that section.


While the description is accurate, how it's being implemented in game is a bit different from how it *should* work (which is how you described)- the numbers being what they are, even with all the spillover splash damage the CT should not be getting stripped as specifically as it is. There are quite a few paperdoll and video examples around that are showing even on the heaviest mechs, the CT is being cored straight through while the RT/LT armor is still barely scratched (yellow)- even on big beefy brawlers. Even though the CT, logically, should be taking more splash damage than other components because of its central location, it should still only be taking at most 40% of the 'impact' damage, which it should handle reasonably well thanks to being 30-40% more armored than those other bits.

I think the major thing that is really irking/worrying a lot of people now is that the damage actually being distributed to the mech is not matching with where the missiles look like they're going, and so far the major WIP for missiles seems to be the numbers balance for damage and the pathing fixes. So going to keep my fingers crossed that it all get sorted out this month, but if it doesn't, then BAP-toting Streakcats are going to be a real PITA for light pilots...

Just like the good ole' days. ;)

#59 Deathlike

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 06:49 PM

View Poststjobe, on 03 May 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Yes, you're right. It's once per enemy you were the first to target (and hold lock on until damage is done) per team mate actually firing LRMs on it when you have it targeted.

So you need to
1. Be the first to target that enemy
2. Hold the lock until the LRMs hit
3. Have a LRM-equipped team mate fire and do damage to that target.

So really, good luck in getting more than a couple.

Oh, and it's 25 XP per spotting assists. Same for TAG/Narc.

A pittance.


Well, that current issue has more to do with the current state of missiles, but moreso the fact that light play has declined and not been rewarding.

I could repeat some idea for light/scout bonuses (I've written and posted in topics regarding them), but I'm losing hope they would implement ANY form of them.


View PostBitMonger505, on 03 May 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

splash damage is not disabled. They never said it was going to be disabled.


They were going to disable it from the findings... however those findings revealed the CT being the primary target, which wouldn't have helped.

Missiles won't get their splash damage removed... maybe neutered, but not removed.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 May 2013 - 06:51 PM.


#60 JeepStuff

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Posted 03 May 2013 - 07:09 PM

View PostBryan Ekman, on 03 May 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

Ask the Devs #37

Community Relations Questions/Concerns
Community consolidated question: Can you explain the thought process behind the forum changes, and specifically the removal of the General Discussion forum? Many of your fans regarded this section as the ONLY place to go to on your website, any plans on revisiting this decision so we could get the old forum format back as this is pretty painful for finding useful information.
A: If you want to find useful information, you go to the proper place. If you want to know more about military weapons, you will not go on a food site. It's the same principle and, contrary to what you feel, it actually helps us a lot in finding specific information, this is also easier for the dev team to find topics related to their specialty and respond + interact with the community. It's still a work in progress (like the FAQs need to be populated) and small changes are to be expected, but GD is not coming back. As for GD being the only place to go, we think there is lots of interesting information in other part of our forums, and this will help them to be discovered and populated, once the dust have settled and final tweaks done, it will be much easier for everyone to find discussion about what they are looking for as there will be a forum for it



This is a good argument, and I respect it, but in my opinion it doesn't address what I believe lots of folks use the general discussion for, which is to BROWSE around without looking for anything specific. It's rare that I come to the forum with some topic in mind that I want to search for. I come here just to look around and see what I see, and see if there are any discussions I care about reading.

This is a lot more difficult to do now. To browse through all the latest posts, I have to open 10 different tabs just to see all the topics. I'm too lazy for that, and I lose interest much faster now. That's not the end of the world -- I'm not threatening to quit or anything so dramatic, I'm just saying that in my opinion all your arguments above that go on and on about how easy it is to FIND something are totally missing the point that many of us aren't really LOOKING for anything in particular. We're just poking around. And now the browsing experience is painful.

Sad face.





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