203 replies to this topic

[jay35]

YueFei, on 26 May 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

If we are going to continue to use values derived from the TT, we have to make it possible for mechs to take hits on different panels. That does not mean we must make mechs shoot inaccurately. Instead, we can make it so the mech being shot at has a chance to twist and turn, crouch and jump, in order to spread the damage around. To do that, you just stretch out an alpha strike time-wise, make it infeasible to fire a huge stack of weapons simultaneously. Make it so that they fire in rapid succession, one after another, so a skilled shooter can still land all of his shots into the same spot, and if the victim mech driver is lazy or sucks, he will end up taking all those hits into the same spot. But this way, the victim mech has a chance to maneuver to present different armor facings and take damage all around. This ups the skill level required for both the shooter and the victim, and more closely resembles the TT as mechs take hits all around.

This proposal actually intrigues me. It's not the randomization nonsense, but it does add some depth and reduces the insta-kill happenstance that does on occasion plague matches and obviously annoys a segment of the playerbase enough that they would want to have TT-like randomization, as disappointing as that would be.

[Pht]

jay35, on 26 May 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

This proposal actually intrigues me. It's not the randomization nonsense,...

Do you think the below is "randomization nonsense" ...?

Pht, on 15 May 2013 - 05:36 PM, said:

The 'Mech calculates all the ballistics and other such things. The MechWarrior does not do these calculations, and indeed, couldn't do them anywhere near fast enough or precisely enough.

TechManual, Pg 42 said:

But BattleMech computers do handle an incredible amount of lower-level decision-making. The T&T system, for instance, sorts, processes and interprets sensor data for the MechWarrior, who only has to look at his screens or HUD to get a concise picture of the battlefield. When targeting, a MechWarrior merely uses a control stick to aim a crosshair on a display that shows the enemy. It is up to the BattleMech to actually aim the weapons with all the calculations that entails.

It is also mostly up to the BattleMech to compensate for the recoil of its autocannons or the blasts of hostile fire while moving in the direction a MechWarrior sets. Yes, a MechWarrior can correct the BattleMech on its balance, such as telling the BattleMech when to ride with the blasts rather than leaning against them, or when to throw itself off -balance and into another BattleMech, but a lot of the decision-making gets done by the DI computer.

http://www.battlecor...roducts_id=1876

... and yes, this TM source is authoritative on the topic:

Cray said:

Pht said:

For example, are the Tech Manual "fluff" descriptions of how a BattleMech's targeting and tracking system and diagnostic interface do the grunt work of aiming 'Mech weaponry something that novelists and other writers would have to adhere to? Or can such "fluff" be ignored at will by novelists to provide their versions of how BattleMech's perform and behave?

That fluff of Tech Manual would be adhered to by default. I can and have pointed out mistakes in control descriptions in BattleCorps stories and referred the author to the Tech Manual for the correct descriptions.

http://bg.battletech....html#msg591660


Skill in calculating lead/convergence is replaced by having to know how well your 'Mech can handle whatever situation is occurring when you pull the trigger(s) and what you can do to make it's job easier.

----------

I think it somewhere between odd and funny that all of this work is being spent trying to invent an ultimate precision ceiling for battlemechs when we already know how well they can get multiple weapons to hit a single armor panel:



"front/rear" is for a shot to center of mass, left side is for left center of mass, right side is for right center of mass.



Shot from Above is for when a Mechwarrior is trying to aim for the neck/shoulders/cockpit area, shot from below is from aiming at legs, and notice, if you aim low or high, you can't hit the opposite end, so no, you can't aim at his foot and hit his cockpit - people who tell you this don't know what they're talking about.

... and yes, the hit-tables represent the MECH'S ability to get multiple independently aimed weapons aimed onto a single location versus a mobile 'Mech sized target:

Herb Beas (BT Line developer) said:

As to Hit Location Tables, they are designed to approximate the basic targeting system's goal of aiming for center mass (which is why they weight the bell curve to the torsos), while both attacker and target are in motion on a chaotic battlefield filled with ambient electronic noise.

http://bg.battletech...j6gd6#msg676405

Above tables are from:

Total Warfare - http://www.battlecor...s=total+warfare

&

Tactical Operations - http://www.battlecor...roducts_id=2124

More detail here: http://mwomercs.com/...different-idea/

jay35, on 26 May 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

....but it does add some depth and reduces the insta-kill happenstance that does on occasion plague matches and obviously annoys a segment of the playerbase enough that they would want to have TT-like randomization, as disappointing as that would be.

Have you even played the TT game? Megamek? Read the combat section of total warfare? Any of the older master rules books? ... Have you even read the quick start rules?

Virtually everyone that I've seen complaining about "TT-like radomization" and the like haven't, and don't understand the TT combat system in the least.

Usually all one has to say to scare people unfamiliar with the TT combat system is "dice."

Edited by Pht, 26 May 2013 - 05:42 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

jay35, on 26 May 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Ah yes, "real life". A favorite strawman used by those who want to force obtuse, turn-based TT strictures onto MWO. As if the existing mechanics aren't capable enough, they want to add in all sorts of punitive measures to make the game less about raw skill and more about who best managed to balance a raft of competing warnings and failures like some sort of submarine hull leak simulator. Yes, in a real-time, first-person gameplay environment where consistency and efficiency is important to ensure skill determines the outcome not random events or unnecessary restrictions, they advocate putting in place additional hoops to jump through in order to play (or continue playing) the actual game. Whether it's demanding a return of R&R or adding punitive measures for heat buildup that is within the cooling efficiency of the mech build (think about that for a second, punishing the player when they haven't even maxed out the cooling capacity of the mech), it's the same root problem: They want a hardcore nerd simulator, not an action game. And so we're back to the topic post PSA: This might not be the game for them. But the good news is there are other games designed just for that, like MW: Tactics.

Are you looking for this game to be arcade style or a "sim?" I mean, this game is based off of an existing franchise with tons of source material. Why even call it MechWarrior and not some generic robot game if you don't want to add the other parts of the game combat it is originally derived form (heat penalties, movement/accuracy penalties, etc)?

[Hoaggie]

PEEFsmash, on 26 May 2013 - 01:36 PM, said:

This game could be a great, difficult-to-master, high-skill-gap, strategic team FPS with a thriving competitive scene and a huge separation between the very best players and the average players. I hate when people want to insert RNG win gifts or insert other mechanics to make low/mid level players about as good as everyone else...not only does it make me mad, it makes me sad, because you are turning a game that can be into a game that could have been... and for what? So you can get some random wins vs players who by your own admission are better than you. What a sad and depressing state of affairs.

Well said. Also, great example with the AC20

Pht, on 26 May 2013 - 02:10 PM, said:

The MW video game genre dictates that a person is in virtual first person real time control of a battlemech. NOT a stack of weapons that always magically aim exactly under the reticule.

Nothing is magical about it, statements like that make me want to insult you, but I won’t. Instead I am just going to point out that our (American) modern combat vehicles that were designed 20-30 years ago can keep their high caliber weapons on target while on the move. In the case of the M1A1 Abrams, it can hit a targets accuratly from miles away while driving over rough terrain at 50+kph. It is hard to believe that a thousand years in the future it will take “magic” to weapons that are 100% accurate.

Pht, on 26 May 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

Do you believe that NOT having all weapons of similar velocity fired at the same hit exactly the same spot under the reticule automatically results in a video game that cannot have equivalent or even more human player skill that matters?

My weapons should hit where I have them aimed. We are not saying that a COF does not involve skill, just that there should be no RNG based COF on mechs from a thousand years in the future. The designers are not going to throw random numbers into their guidance/aiming systems.

sarkun, on 26 May 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Skill in shooting in MWO? Lol. If you can successfully double click the game icon on your desktop, you have all the skill required to hit things in this game.

Consider for a moment Battlefield 3. Your accuracy is affected by your stance (standing, kneeling, prone) whether you are stationary or moving, aiming down sight or not, your's weapon attachments, you have bullet drop, recoil to compensate for, and all weapons have different bullet speeds and spread patterns to master. You are also affected by enemy suppression.

THAT is what makes shooting skill based - ability to overcome all the inherent inaccuracy, and choosing the best way to engage every target. THIS IS SKILL, no this mwo ******** of just point and click regardless af anything. I'm all for cone of fire, recoil, heat penalties, anything to end this easy mode ****.

Mech are not people, does a tank need to go prone to get a kill shot on an enemy tank? No. You still have to choose the best way to engage every target, MWO is really not point and click. If you don’t want easy mode then go do some 8 v 8 premade and test your skills against some serious pilots.

Caustic Canid, on 26 May 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

Real life -is- random, as far as humans are concerned.
You could fire 100 of the same brand of bullets from the exact same gun and get 100 different results.
Some of them would be effected by wind, some would have slight variances, some might not even fire.
Somehow I don't think adding reticule bloom would utter break this game, and make it unplayable.

Setting aside that mechs are robots, not effected by fatigue or random muscle movement, have you ever fired a real weapon? Modern rifles will hit the target 100% of the time if the target is inside their maximum effective range. They are precise machines, capable of preforming the same action identically thousands of times. Sure, they break down, but a complex highly accurate rifle like the M16A4 can fire over 3,000 before any major malfunction would occur, and even then with proper preventive maintenance can prevent many of those

[Sephlock]

Speaking of, did they finally lift the NDA on MW:T so I can say whatever I want about it if I were hypothetically in that beta which I cannot confirm nor deny?

[jay35]

Pht, on 26 May 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

Have you even played the TT game? Megamek? Read the combat section of total warfare? Any of the older master rules books? ... Have you even read the quick start rules?

I've played tabletop battletech, I've played with Megamek, I've played every MechWarrior game since MW2, both Mech Commander games, both Mech Assault games, MW:LL, MW:Tactics closed beta, and the recently released iPad game using the MW license.

MechWarrior is not pure Battletech. It uses the same universe and attempts to create a real-time first-person version of battlemech combat, not of tabletop battletech. Tabletop battletech in a digital form is what megamek and to a large extent MW: Tactics are designed to provide.

Where I think a lot of tabletop BTers go wrong, is to assume that the universe begins and ends with tabletop rules and that anything branded Battletech or utilizing aspects of the universe must adhere to tt rules. It doesn't. The universe exists and one way in which we can enter is is through turn-based play, whether tabletop or in a software program, in a third-person perspective. Another is through a real-time first-person engagement that mixes a light amount of simulation (compared to flight sims, for example) with a more traditional FPS style of play.

PGI's stated goal is to attract a wide audience for this product, necessary with any f2p game if it wishes to have a long lifespan. This supports the above, in that keeping the simulation aspects fairly light, while still feeling like you're piloting a battlemech, is important to keep the game approachable and feeling 'fair' rather than harsh, confusing, frustrating, or random. None of those last four are desirable in game design philosophy when the goal is as stated above. It also happens that this aligns well with competitive play, which is a significant component of the hardcore fanbase for MechWarrior games over the last 15 years or so.

Anyway, since you asked, I hope that helps clarify where I'm coming from.

Sephlock, on 26 May 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Speaking of, did they finally lift the NDA on MW:T so I can say whatever I want about it if I were hypothetically in that beta which I cannot confirm nor deny?

I do not believe they have, however they gave NGNG that special opportunity to show two hours of beta gameplay footage, which is why I linked to that since it best communicates what MW:T has to offer at the present time.

Edited by jay35, 26 May 2013 - 05:55 PM.

[Pht]

Hoaggie, on 26 May 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Nothing is magical about it, statements like that make me want to insult you, but I won’t. Instead I am just going to point out that our (American) modern combat vehicles

American combat vehicles are not battlemechs and the BTU lore was not designed to be a "future fictional reality based upon reality"

MW is about simulating what it would be like to pilot a battlemech from the BT setting in first person real time combat. Not about "reality."

Quote

My weapons should hit where I have them aimed. We are not saying that a COF does not involve skill, just that there should be no RNG based COF on mechs from a thousand years in the future. The designers are not going to throw random numbers into their guidance/aiming systems.

In the lore the pilot doesn't physically aim the weapons. The mech does. The pilot also doesn't calculate the ballistics/lead/convergence for the weapons. The 'mech does. In fact, in my post above, i've cited the man who is the line developer for the BT fictional setting (line developer = god of the setting - what he says, goes).

Quote

Setting aside that mechs are robots, not effected by fatigue or random muscle movement,

BTU battlemechs are very much affected by random myomer movements. Myomers are just electric motors that contract under electric current. Excess heat basically makes a myomer bundle spasm unpredictably. This is why the TT makes it harder to hit things the hotter the 'mech is.

Quote

have you ever fired a real weapon? Modern rifles will hit the target 100% of the time if the target is inside their maximum effective range.

MW and the BT setting are not "reality" nor are they intended to be those as such.

They're about escapism, not simulating whatever someone thinks "reality" is.

Edited by Pht, 26 May 2013 - 05:59 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

Hoaggie, on 26 May 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Well said. Also, great example with the AC20


Nothing is magical about it, statements like that make me want to insult you, but I won’t. Instead I am just going to point out that our (American) modern combat vehicles that were designed 20-30 years ago can keep their high caliber weapons on target while on the move. In the case of the M1A1 Abrams, it can hit a targets accuratly from miles away while driving over rough terrain at 50+kph. It is hard to believe that a thousand years in the future it will take “magic” to weapons that are 100% accurate.

My weapons should hit where I have them aimed. We are not saying that a COF does not involve skill, just that there should be no RNG based COF on mechs from a thousand years in the future. The designers are not going to throw random numbers into their guidance/aiming systems.



Mech are not people, does a tank need to go prone to get a kill shot on an enemy tank? No. You still have to choose the best way to engage every target, MWO is really not point and click. If you don’t want easy mode then go do some 8 v 8 premade and test your skills against some serious pilots.

Setting aside that mechs are robots, not effected by fatigue or random muscle movement, have you ever fired a real weapon? Modern rifles will hit the target 100% of the time if the target is inside their maximum effective range. They are precise machines, capable of preforming the same action identically thousands of times. Sure, they break down, but a complex highly accurate rifle like the M16A4 can fire over 3,000 before any major malfunction would occur, and even then with proper preventive maintenance can prevent many of those

That's great and all but the game is set in the future and that was the universe described. Doesn't matter what our current real life capabilities are. What if instead of battlemechs, the writers had originally written that humans had contracted some virus that genetically mutated us to the point that our legs didn't work any more and combat was done in "armored wheelchairs?" Sure, it sounds dumb but if that's the universe that was described, who cares that we can actually run and jump in 2013?

There's plenty of other mech games coming out...I hate to say it but the people that don't like the description of the universe this is set in and everything it entails should probably go play a different mech game.

As far as the M1A1 tank example, who knows how they'd operate in 100 years after decades of war...maybe they wouldn't be as precise as they are now either...

[Pht]

jay35, on 26 May 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

I've played tabletop battletech, I've played with Megamek, I've played every MechWarrior game since MW2, both Mech Commander games, both Mech Assault games, MW:LL, MW:Tactics closed beta, and the recently released iPad game using the MW license.

Good. Than you can actually point to the combat rules from the TT and tell us what's "randomization nonsense."

Quote

MechWarrior is not pure Battletech. It uses the same universe and attempts to create a real-time first-person version of battlemech combat, not of tabletop battletech. Tabletop battletech in a digital form is what megamek and to a large extent MW: Tactics are designed to provide.

The universe everywhere makes the 'mechs comply with the tt combat system.

This is not my opinion. This is Herb Beas's statement of fact.

Directly from the horse's mouth: http://bg.battletech...ic,26178.0.html

[johnyboy420]

OMG twich shooters are so hard guys, lol
if only you kids cud FLICK

[Hoaggie]

Bottom line, a random number is not fair to high level players. And I know that some people think that higher level players need a nerf, but we aren't quite in a Harrison Bergeron world yet, some people are just better. I am nowhere near the best player, but I am better than quite a few and don't think I should get nerfed because some people are bad at the game.

[Hotthedd]

Why does everyone who wants to keep instant pinpoint alpha convergence always scream "NO RNG!!!" in every single thread about it?

There are ways to decrease convergence WITHOUT adding any randomness at all. Whenever someone brings up RNG, they are bringing up a Red Herring.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

MustrumRidcully, on 26 May 2013 - 08:35 AM, said:

If you don't want RNG, and less alpha striking, we need a reason to not fire multiple weapons at once.
Lower the heat cap so that too many weapons fired at once breka the heat cap, chain-firing them doesn't.
Remove convergence for torso mounted weapons (and limit convergence of arm mounted weapons to arm mounted weapons firing parallel to each other but the arm "converging" on the targeted spot)
Enforce a global cooldown so that weapons always chain-fire and turn alpha strike into a special ability that can be used ever 10 seconds or something like that.

GL there has been threads that have said the same thing over, and over and over. PGI does not care and someone there knows better than their "customers". So again it looks like yet ANOTHER battletech game will go down faster than Debbie in Dallas.

[wolf74]

Hotthedd, on 26 May 2013 - 07:12 PM, said:

Why does everyone who wants to keep instant pinpoint alpha convergence always scream "NO RNG!!!" in every single thread about it?


There are ways to decrease convergence WITHOUT adding any randomness at all. Whenever someone brings up RNG, they are bringing up a Red Herring.

You are Correct, Case and Point.

Change the "Auto-Instant-Convergence" we currently have to a Manual Controlled system (AKA you the Pilot must tell the mech the range to converge the weapons at)

Go back to Page two re-read my small post about some basics.

[MustrumRidcully]

YueFei, on 26 May 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

This game is derived from the TT, where weapon damage and armor values were balanced with weapons striking different armor panels.

If we are going to continue to use values derived from the TT, we have to make it possible for mechs to take hits on different panels.

It is possible for a mech to hit different panels - the pilot must decide to do so (or screw up).

We can add randomziation and all that. or we can just give the pilot reasons to strike different panels. Or at least not have all pilots against all mechs decide between two primary targets:
- Center Torso
- Side Torso if XL Engined.

This could be achieved by altering armour values so that the current prime targets are better protected and there ar emore reasons to shoot off limbs.

[Asmudius Heng]

MustrumRidcully, on 26 May 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

It is possible for a mech to hit different panels - the pilot must decide to do so (or screw up).

We can add randomziation and all that. or we can just give the pilot reasons to strike different panels. Or at least not have all pilots against all mechs decide between two primary targets:
- Center Torso
- Side Torso if XL Engined.

This could be achieved by altering armour values so that the current prime targets are better protected and there ar emore reasons to shoot off limbs.

I agree, i dont feel like there is a reason to aim at certain parts sometimes.

Lights for the legs sure - hunchback the gun mount - but then its usually just CT CT CT.

I always laugh when people say shoot the arms off catapults. Why bother when you can just core them or shoot off a torso and remove the arm that way? Or leg them as people strip a lot of armour off the leg.

All in all, because we can aim - the way mechs work from TT does not translate well so you either need to encourage a way to spread damage a bit more, or the way armour and internals work needs to change to balance pinpoint accuracy.

[MustrumRidcully]

Asmudius Heng, on 26 May 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

I agree, i dont feel like there is a reason to aim at certain parts sometimes.

Lights for the legs sure - hunchback the gun mount - but then its usually just CT CT CT.

I always laugh when people say shoot the arms off catapults. Why bother when you can just core them or shoot off a torso and remove the arm that way? Or leg them as people strip a lot of armour off the leg.

All in all, because we can aim - the way mechs work from TT does not translate well so you either need to encourage a way to spread damage a bit more, or the way armour and internals work needs to change to balance pinpoint accuracy.

By the way, one simple way to do this could be - just losen up the restrictions. Set the max armor for all components to, say, 1/3 or 1/4 the max armor on the complete mech. And then let's see what players go for and armor best. And then let's see how the players react to knowing that no one carries more than 15 points of armor on the arms and everyone has 150 points of armor on the CT.


----

http://mwomercs.com/...-hit-locations/

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 26 May 2013 - 11:54 PM.

[YueFei]

jay35, on 26 May 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

This proposal actually intrigues me. It's not the randomization nonsense, but it does add some depth and reduces the insta-kill happenstance that does on occasion plague matches and obviously annoys a segment of the playerbase enough that they would want to have TT-like randomization, as disappointing as that would be.

I swapped out my Catapult K2 loadout from the 2 PPC + lasers to go with 2 PPC + 1 Gauss, and my damage and kills went way up. I didn't get any better as a player, and the actual alpha damage output isn't higher than my old loadout, but it's devastating because it focuses all that damage into one spot. I shoot a medium mech twice and his side torso is gone.

Yeah, the problem right now is the damage is so easily focused into a single spot that mechs are dying pretty fast. I'm a mediocre player, but even I've been able to get lucky with 3 shots in a row hitting another heavy mech dead-on, and the guy dies after only about 9 seconds of combat. Heavy mechs can pretty much 3-shot each other... maybe 4-shot if you put alot more armor up front, which I find myself doing more of to survive an extra few seconds. Funny thing is now when I make a mistake and someone happens to shoot me in the rear side torso where my Gauss rifle is, I explode almost instantly. =P

Anyways, my suggestion would be to spread out a salvo into a ~1 second interval, same duration as regular lasers. Given server lag, and typical human reaction time, this would let a player getting hit about 500 milliseconds to turn/twist to take subsequent hits on other panels. If you don't react fast enough, all that damage is still going to go into one spot (assuming the shooter tracks you perfectly). If you react quickly enough, maybe you take 2 PPC on the chin, and the Gauss hits your left arm. That slight reduction in the intensity/focus of the damage could help well-piloted mechs survive 30% to 40% longer in combat, which lengthens the gameplay time and would make for a more fun game that is truer to the original source material.

[One Medic Army]

MustrumRidcully, on 26 May 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

It is possible for a mech to hit different panels - the pilot must decide to do so (or screw up). We can add randomziation and all that. or we can just give the pilot reasons to strike different panels. Or at least not have all pilots against all mechs decide between two primary targets: - Center Torso - Side Torso if XL Engined. This could be achieved by altering armour values so that the current prime targets are better protected and there ar emore reasons to shoot off limbs.

Yeah, that'd be another way to do it, re-figure the armor allocations based on PGIs telemetry on which sections get shot the most, I'd be glad to shave my atlas arms to 40-50 and legs to 50-60 if I got to stick the extra armor onto the CT and ST.

Right now everyone shoots CT, ST, or occasionally legs, because it's generally not worth chewing through all the arm armor on a mech, on purpose, just to take off one or two guns. Even legs are generally ignored, except for people who severely de-armor and light mechs (even here it's not all lights, Jenners rarely get legged compared to Ravens).

Edited by One Medic Army, 26 May 2013 - 11:46 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

One Medic Army, on 26 May 2013 - 11:45 PM, said:

Yeah, that'd be another way to do it, re-figure the armor allocations based on PGIs telemetry on which sections get shot the most, I'd be glad to shave my atlas arms to 40-50 and legs to 50-60 if I got to stick the extra armor onto the CT and ST.

Right now everyone shoots CT, ST, or occasionally legs, because it's generally not worth chewing through all the arm armor on a mech, on purpose, just to take off one or two guns. Even legs are generally ignored, except for people who severely de-armor and light mechs (even here it's not all lights, Jenners rarely get legged compared to Ravens).

I've got a thread for you on this now: http://mwomercs.com/...-hit-locations/