704 replies to this topic

[Demuder]

This is an excellent, elegant, simple and easy to balance after deployment, solution to a very big problem with the game.

PGI, hire this guy. Or use his idea for free.

Only bad thing about it is the bold and underline punctuation all over the place. Makes this really hard to read imho.

[Homeless Bill]

Traigus, on 10 June 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

I'd rather have a player with no skill but a tutorial go... "OK, I can shoot these different aim points if I have to, or I can wait to Blammo someone all at once" over "huh, I just shot that guy 17 times, why are my guns going all over the place, how many guns can I actually shoot? It depends? err..."

If i shoot too much I suck, there is nothing I can really do about it, but buy a targeting computer, and hope I have few enough weapons to not suck still. They have to slow down, but how much? When? Where is this shot going to go?

My method lets people still have control of their shots, but spaces them out by active participation (moving mouse to another recticle). The force is still there, but it is participatory.

They still get to do something if they don't want to wait for convergence.

In your model.. They have to wait (granted, not a long time)... or miss all over the place. Is that fun?

See, you think players will be immediately confused about how my system works; in my mind, it's about as intuitive to a first person shooter as it gets. A simple recoil-like HUD element or number will be all a player needs to know exactly what's going on. They fire an alpha strike, they get the red message saying "Targeting Computer Overloaded," and there's no convergence. They switch to firing a single group or chain fire, and things are okay. They see the TCL shoot up and rapidly fall back down, no harm done.

Yours requires active participation to even hope to be accurate. You say they can just spam away with your method if they don't want to wait, but that's exactly how mine is. The only difference is that I don't force players to work for convergence - the opportunity for a skilled aim to shine is always there.

You say they have to wait, but heat will still, by far, be the limiting factor in rate of fire. Firing 4xPPCs simultaneously only causes convergence loss for a second afterwards (two seconds for TCL to be at zero). By the logic that people don't want to wait to shoot, we should just remove the heat scale.

Though I'd say that your idea is, in many ways, far better than what we have now, I'd be hesitant to implement it because of how drastically (and unpredictably) it will alter the fundamental dynamics of combat. Torso twisting would be much less useful because you'll have to re-acquire targets anyways, and I think it would slow the pace of combat to the dismay of the shooter crowd.

As much as I'm all in for more simulation elements, I don't think a lot of cross-overs are. The primary advantage I see my system having over yours is that it doesn't alter any part of gameplay besides my intended target: high damage + convergence. Your solution does a ton of things right, but it touches too many areas for me to feel like it could just slip in to the current game without issues.

I'm really enjoying having a back-and-forth with you about your well thought-out alternative. Massive props.

Ningyo, on 10 June 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

Fire 6 PPC's at once, is the random loss of aim applied before those shots or after? If after then ho fast do you recover your targeting, under 15 seconds? If its before the shots then didn't you just make things like the Stock awesome, have random damage using their basic configuration properly?

It applies the penalties before the shot and then dissipates. Basically, weapon cooldown will typically be longer than the time it takes for the TCL to dissipate.

The stock Awesome has to choose: it can shoot on chain-fire or even two PPCs at once without an accuracy penalty or it can alpha without accuracy. Firing all three simultaneously would result in a convergence loss. The most efficient way it could do damage with the stock Awesome is to fire 2xPPCs, wait a half of a second, and then fire the last PPC. You can say that's nerfing the stock Awesome, but when everything else is tethered to the same restrictions as well, it's not really a huge deal.

Again, my philosophy is that anything over 20 damage to a single location with a single click is pushing it.

Hobietime, on 10 June 2013 - 10:31 PM, said:

When your targeting computer load is past 100 it says that you loose convergence. Does that mean all your weapons keep the last good convergence distance or do they suddenly focus at infinity?

Focus at infinity. Basically, the system does not allow you to do high, focused damage. If you want to put out high damage in a single salvo, that's fine, but you'll be inaccurate.

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 10 June 2013 - 10:55 PM, said:

@ Ningyo - the way I understand the OP is:
- when you pull the trigger (click the mouse) and cross the 100 point threshold, the weapons fired that shot will not converge on a single point because you overloaded your targeting computer ...
- the stock Awesome could still fire 3 PPCs at once, they just all travel parallel to each other, rather than converging on one spot (or you could chain fire them, time your clicks about half a second apart and fire a 3-round burst with no penalty)
- the TCL recovers at 100 points/second (not 10)
- the only ways to get over 200 (i.e.: shots start doing weird things, not just going straight) would be to fire several massive weapons at once or in very quick succession, or a few low damage / high rate of fire weapons continuously ... you would have to continuously fire 6x AC/2s for over five seconds to break 200

@ Homeless Bill ... did I get it right? ... very interesting idea, and shouldn't be too hard to display visually ... once your TCL gets above 100, your HUD starts to flicker (already have that mechanic in place) ... after 200, the HUD turns off

If this (or somthing like it) is implemented, the next meta game will be matching TCL, Heat and Damage ... find the 99-point TCL Alpha build that does the most damage for the least heat.

Spot on. Visually, it needs a "Targeting Computer Overloaded" message just like the current "Heat Warning" message. From 100-200, the crosshairs should fan out like they do for recoil in other shooters. I also wouldn't mind something like flickering HUD / disappearing crosshairs after hitting 200.

Honestly, it's pretty hard to come up with cheese under this system. The simultaneous fire value in the numbers section tells you what kind of alphas you'll see: 4LL, 8ML, SRM24, etc. I genuinely believe my system will push gameplay away from alpha strikes. People using high-damage alphas will simply be ineffective compared to their counterparts exercising fire discipline.

You can say that 40 points of damage from lasers per volley is excessive and will be abused, but I think it's fair considering the effort required to keep them on target. And if not - if lasers become the next flavor of cheese - you can simply increase their targeting computer stress value. The beauty if this system is that it keeps alpha strike problems separate from all the other balance issues.

4xPPC Stalkers will still exist. They will just have to fire two at a time. There is seriously no way to get a large, accurate alpha with this system. And if there is, it's because the numbers haven't been tweaked properly.

VonRunnegen, on 10 June 2013 - 11:00 PM, said:

I think it'll be harder than you expect to message to players how loaded their TCL is or will be though as it'll seem like that should be referring to missile locking or similar. Maybe just 'Weapon Management System' or something generic

I don't particularly care what it's called or about the details of the HUD implementation. The HUD will need to make it easy to understand, but it's a fairly simple thing to represent. All I know is that it will be intuitive and self-explanatory to new and veteran players alike. There's a scale that goes up based on how much you fire at once; if it goes over 100, you get no convergence. Additionally, it dissipates so quickly that it's not something you have to "manage" over the long-term. You would literally have to be brain-dead to keep alpha striking and keep wondering why your weapons don't converge.

Answers to chain fire on the way later this afternoon...

[HRR Insanity]

Yeah... I had similar proposal from 1y ago and 6 months ago:

http://mwomercs.com/...om-closed-beta/

Individually fired weapons (separated by 0.5s to avoid macros) are pinpoint, groups are not. In mine, I hypothesized that the degree of weapon spread should be a function of current heat, movement, and # of weapons.

Same outcome as yours, but should take about 1% of the time to implement and balance.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 11 June 2013 - 12:10 PM.

[Homeless Bill]

MustrumRidcully, on 10 June 2013 - 11:18 PM, said:

If you want to keep it simple, you could just enforce chain-fire as the only way to use your weapons.

Slashmckill, on 11 June 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

Enforcing chain-fire mode... i've pondered this myself for weeks and honestly the benefits are completely out weighing the potential problems i see with it.

I don't like forcing chain-fire for a couple of reasons:
1. Group fire has always been around and it's fun. It's a staple of MechWarrior games, and I thoroughly enjoy watching a huge volley of every weapon I have racing towards an enemy. I think it's a valid tactical choice, and its wholesale removal is too extreme.
2. It doesn't really solve anything since you can click rapidly or set up a macro to avoid chain fire. To which this would be the only solution:

MustrumRidcully, on 11 June 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

One might be able to tweak this in having weapons cause different global cooldowns. A Small Laser or Medium Laser might only cause a 0.1 second global cooldown, while an AC/20 or PPC causes a 0.4 second cooldown.
Maybe 4 values would be enough, based on damage per shot values:
[0-2] damage: 0 seconds. (Machine Guns, AC/2, SRM2, SSRM2)
]2-5] damage: 0.1 second. (Small to Medium Laser, AC/5, Ultra AC/5, SRM4, LRM5)
]5-9] damage: 0.2 seconds. (Medium Pulse to Large Laser, SRM6)
]9-infinity] damage: 0.4 seconds (Large Pulse Laser, AC/10, AC/20, PPCs, LRM10 to LRM20)
I might even make SRMs, LRMs and LBX exempt from this, since they don't deal precision damage anyway. This can also create some interesting value in mixing different weapons...

So... global cooldowns on a per-weapon basis... Maybe it's just me, but that sure sounds a lot like exactly what I'm talking about doing. Basically, the only way to make chain-fire solve the problem is the implementation of these cooldowns. And they would also have to be explained to the player in the Mechlab and the HUD. It would be the exact same amount of work for the same effect. The only difference is that you'd also be getting rid of a staple of MechWarrior games.

I enjoy the tradeoff between accuracy and damage. I think it's totally legit to put a huge alpha strike out there at a desperate moment. I think forced chain-fire takes away an important tactical element.

Jonneh, on 11 June 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

Too complicated, will not gel well with a f2p mass market appeal.. which is the only way the game will succeed.

This one thing I totally disagree with. Of all the complicated things in the game, this would not be one of them. If you've played an FPS with recoil, you'd know exactly what's going on; it's perfectly catered to the mass market. Even without, it would take someone perhaps two minutes in the training ground or shooting at a wall to figure out exactly what's happening.

You want to know what doesn't have mass market appeal? Getting one-shotted in a game that takes two minutes to just get to the enemies.

Don't let the massive write-up fool you: this solution is relatively simple to implement, intuitive to use, and comprehensive in solving a myriad of our balance problems.

Almeras, on 11 June 2013 - 12:58 AM, said:

I think this would cost to much in terms of PGIs development time and I think it would detract from the game. I do think we need to limit Pinpoint alpha boat I think the best way is with Battle value modifier.

But that doesn't solve the problem. It just punishes people (or their team) for doing it. It says, "you brought cheese, so get ready to carry." It still allows cheese boats to do exactly what they do. The issue here isn't team balance (though I readily acknowledge it has problems) - it's that no 'mech should be able to do massive, pinpoint damage with a single click.

John MatriX82, on 11 June 2013 - 02:11 AM, said:

I like this thread, however I think things might be made simpler, and I'm going to post some thoughts about an hardpoint restriction system, that won't need heat penalites, nor convergence/accuracy penalties (this to keep the game simpler).

I feel like you didn't read the section about hardpoint restrictions. I'm in support of restrictions, but they are not a comprehensive solution to this problem. Canon boats will be left untouched. Tell me what hardpoint restrictions will do to these 'mechs: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Devastator, http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Warhawk, and http://www.sarna.net...i/Hunchback_IIC. All it will do is cause 'mechs designed as boats to be massively superior.

I know that everyone wants a simple solution to our game balance problems, but it's just not going to happen. There is no magic wand. The gap between tabletop random and first person shooter aim is massive. A system is needed to be the plug adapter between them, and that's where my idea comes in.

Just like the heat solution, without solving high-damage, pinpoint alphas, it's just not a complete fix. My solution is not light-weight, but it does solve all of the major issues without leaving little messes to sweet up.

Ningyo, on 11 June 2013 - 04:11 AM, said:

...though I still prefer just making only arm mounted weapons with lower arm actuators converge (yes 1 Awesome, 1 Highlander, and 1 Atlas could still pull major pinpoint alphas), and have torso mounted weapons never converge. Mechs with the high arms like jaggermechs and Stalkers which gain the extra crit slots, ability to easier fire over terrain and such would lose pinpoint accuracy too reducing most hill humping strategies, and problems with AC40 builds.

Like everything else, it's a partial solution that leaves lots of cheese untouched. More troubling would be that chassis with arm-mounted weapons would skyrocket in value, while anything with torso-based weaponry would be inferior. When you first hear it, it sounds good; once you've thought about the implications, it just doesn't work out so well.

Again, what does this proposal do to the Warhawk besides make it even more desirably and cheesy?

Wildgrin, on 11 June 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

bumping the Thread because I think this could solve a lot of problems.

I think the numbers and tuning sounds like a good place to start from but have a suggestion for the UI/usablity. Using the standard recoil solution(expanding the reticules when accuracy is affected) would be immediately recognizable to new players and convey a sense of how high the tcl was without having to add bars to be tracked. Perhaps add a number that floats along side so that more advanced players would be able to anticipate the affect when they are below the 100, but I suspect that it would not be necessary given the tcl recovery rate.

I'm definitely open to ideas about the HUD. Whatever it is would have to be very close or a part of the crosshair. Having another bar in the lower section of the screen (particularly given its high rate of dissipation) would be useless.

I am truly honored that your first post was a bump to this thread <3


Response to HRR Insanity incoming later. It's one hell of a good write-up, and it deserves its own wall of text in response =D TL;DR: Mine's better, but yours is better than what we've got.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 11 June 2013 - 12:41 PM.

[Slashmckill]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

I don't like forcing chain-fire for a couple of reasons:
1. Group fire has always been around and it's fun. It's a staple of MechWarrior games, and I thoroughly enjoy watching a huge volley of every weapon I have racing towards an enemy. I think it's a valid tactical choice, and its wholesale removal is too extreme.

Group firing is part of the problem.

When you fire 2 medium lasers together it hardly seems OP in the slightest, i have no problem with a few weapons in a group being fired, however i'am mimicking TT in the respect that every single weapon you fire has a to-hit roll, and without some kind of randomization the only way to simulate this is mass chain-firing. Like i said, the benefits out-weigh the potential problems.

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

2. It doesn't really solve anything since you can click rapidly or set up a macro to avoid chain fire. To which this would be the only solution:

I'am not going to flat-out accuse you of not reading my entire post.... but i did handle that exact problem in the same post. It's a matter of adding a simple small delay before being able to fire the next weapon, something small around .25 seconds is enough to stop said macro abuse. Like i also said in the same post, this does have the consequence of makeing small weapons boats a bit of a pain, however leaving the game as it is, is far more of a pain.

It is a very valid idea to explore, but it will never be 100% perfect, human nature will see to that.

Edited by Slashmckill, 11 June 2013 - 01:00 PM.

[Tombstoner]

HRR Insanity, on 11 June 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

Yeah... I had similar proposal from 1y ago and 6 months ago:

http://mwomercs.com/...om-closed-beta/

Individually fired weapons (separated by 0.5s to avoid macros) are pinpoint, groups are not. In mine, I hypothesized that the degree of weapon spread should be a function of current heat, movement, and # of weapons.

Same outcome as yours, but should take about 1% of the time to implement and balance.

The OP's idea is a candy coated COF. The Dev's are well aware of these types of solutions and could have implemented something anytime they wish as far as I'm concerned. i have seen nothing to indicate the slightest inclination to place any sort of modifier between player targeting and hit location: critical flaw.

Except that PGI has hidden a RNG in the game as a solution to pop tarting. All that shaking is causing your targeting to jump around, its adding an artificial random targeting error that can be partially compensated for... luck and reduced range. it is in affect a hugh COF and a sledge hammer to game balance. PGI should just admit that every issue with game balance and life expectancy stems from grouped weapons all hitting the same location no mater what.

The solution to pop tarting high alpha weapons was in fact a COF.

[HRR Insanity]

Tombstoner, on 11 June 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

The OP's idea is a candy coated COF. The Dev's are well aware of these types of solutions and could have implemented something anytime they wish as far as I'm concerned. i have seen nothing to indicate the slightest inclination to place any sort of modifier between player targeting and hit location: critical flaw.

Except that PGI has hidden a RNG in the game as a solution to pop tarting. All that shaking is causing your targeting to jump around, its adding an artificial random targeting error that can be partially compensated for... luck and reduced range. it is in affect a hugh COF and a sledge hammer to game balance. PGI should just admit that every issue with game balance and life expectancy stems from grouped weapons all hitting the same location no mater what.

The solution to pop tarting high alpha weapons was in fact a COF.

/nods/ They're finally starting to understand... but they still screwed up that CoF implementation. With the current solution it's 'all or nothing' because the jumper's shot is still pinpoint for all the weapons... Thus, the shot is either FULL ALPHA (30+) or nothing.

If they had instead made the CoF 'bloom' with jumping, there would be a chance of hitting with 1-2 weapons for reduced damage... but wouldn't make it a complete gamble.

As in my proposed solution... jumping advantages (LoS, mobility, reduced risk of exposure) would be balanced by not hitting with all your weapons IF you group fire. If you chose to jump-snipe with single weapons... my system would still allow that with perfect accuracy. Something I think should be in the game.

Balance. It's not rocket science.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 11 June 2013 - 02:16 PM.

[PanzerMagier]

This guy.., This homeless bill, whoever he is. I'd take him over whoever now has his cheetos stained fingers on MWO's balancing systems. I've seen a lot of posts about "a solution to XYZ". And they all kind go in my head "yea that'll be nice but it'll never happen" or "pff this is stupid thank goodness this guy isn't on the team responsible for gameplay balance".

However this one... I'd vote for this guy. Homeless bill, you have my approval. And my respect.

[Tombstoner]

HRR Insanity, on 11 June 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

/nods/ They're finally starting to understand... but they still screwed up that CoF implementation. With the current solution it's 'all or nothing' because the jumper's shot is still pinpoint for all the weapons... Thus, the shot is either FULL ALPHA (30+) or nothing.

If they had instead made the CoF 'bloom' with jumping, there would be a chance of hitting with 1-2 weapons for reduced damage... but wouldn't make it a complete gamble.

As in my proposed solution... jumping advantages (LoS, mobility, reduced risk of exposure) would be balanced by not hitting with all your weapons IF you group fire. If you chose to jump-snipe with single weapons... my system would still allow that with perfect accuracy. Something I think should be in the game.

Balance. It's not rocket science.

Then add to that idea a module called.... i dont know "Targeting computer" it gives a flat 25% reduction in all movement based / targeting penalties. Then you could have lets say Targeting computer II and it gives gasp a 50% reduction in penalties.

o i'm sold on this idea a long long ago. when we had TT armor, 120 second matches and the best weapon was the large laser.
talk about some sick brawls and LRM abuse. Its been whack a mole since they doubled TT armor. A new/substitute for convergence was needed from that point. Double HS could be DHS if the hit rate was lower gasp what a concept.

add in a COF and you could add a real pilot tree that lets players choose improved targeting like +1,2,3 gunnery skill or +1,2,3 piloting skill and movement and jumping cof modifiers go down respectively. that would let a player choose if he/she wanted to make a poptart or brawler mech that needs compensation for specific movement penalties.

How about +1,2,3 with auto cannons then later on advanced skills for specific weapons like the ac-20
this can be done for all weapons. Make one pilot for all mech representing the player. then the player can customize skill based on his/her play style.

Full mastery of all skills should take a very long time to complete and better yet a reason to pay cash for faster progression(onuse xp/money). pay for convenience(fater money/xp) not pay to win.

This stuffs not hard like rocket science. expecaly since the IP is so strait forward.

Edited by Tombstoner, 11 June 2013 - 03:24 PM.

[scJazz]

You know what Bill... still haven't read your idea. I'm inferring your strategy by reading other peoples comments. Until you put down the underline button I won't read it either.

Still... after reading the 6/11 Balancing Post from the Devs... it has become soulcrushingly apparent that you can do a better job than them.

I endorse whatever Bill said!

[HRR Insanity]

Tombstoner, on 11 June 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

Then add to that idea a module called.... i dont know "Targeting computer" it gives a flat 25% reduction in all movement based / targeting penalties. Then you could have lets say Targeting computer II and it gives gasp a 50% reduction in penalties.

o i'm sold on this idea a long long ago. when we had TT armor, 120 second matches and the best weapon was the large laser.
talk about some sick brawls and LRM abuse. Its been whack a mole since they doubled TT armor. A new/substitute for convergence was needed from that point. Double HS could be DHS if the hit rate was lower gasp what a concept.

add in a COF and you could add a real pilot tree that lets players choose improved targeting like +1,2,3 gunnery skill or +1,2,3 piloting skill and movement and jumping cof modifiers go down respectively. that would let a player choose if he/she wanted to make a poptart or brawler mech that needs compensation for specific movement penalties.

How about +1,2,3 with auto cannons then later on advanced skills for specific weapons like the ac-20
this can be done for all weapons. Make one pilot for all mech representing the player. then the player can customize skill based on his/her play style.

Full mastery of all skills should take a very long time to complete and better yet a reason to pay cash for faster progression(onuse xp/money). pay for convenience(fater money/xp) not pay to win.

This stuffs not hard like rocket science. expecaly since the IP is so strait forward.

Whooooa there, cowboy. It's not like this game is based on BattleTech or something. Don't be stealing ideas from a good game like that.

=)

[Sybreed]

have you guys asked IGP reps to send this thread to the devs? That's what I would do, but I've done this so often that I don't think I have any credibility now

the worst thing that could happen is that it's something that can't be done engine wise, and only PGI can tell us that. But, considering that Star Citizen is using the same engine and will have a similar system to that one, I don't see why it should be a problem to implement this.

[EmperorMyrf]

I can get down with this. Obviously this isn't the end-all solution to balance, and you admit that, but this would be a great giant step towards being able to fine-tune weapons effectively.

Introducing such a system would also give the Targeting Computer equipment a purpose (higher threshold or dissipation rate). In addition, it would allow TCL related quirks and modules which adds a great layer of depth to the game, but not so deep that every new player has to memorize the system's intricacies to be good.

[Traigus]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

See, you think players will be immediately confused about how my system works; in my mind, it's about as intuitive to a first person shooter as it gets. A simple recoil-like HUD element or number will be all a player needs to know exactly what's going on. They fire an alpha strike, they get the red message saying "Targeting Computer Overloaded," and there's no convergence. They switch to firing a single group or chain fire, and things are okay. They see the TCL shoot up and rapidly fall back down, no harm done.

Yours requires active participation to even hope to be accurate. You say they can just spam away with your method if they don't want to wait, but that's exactly how mine is. The only difference is that I don't force players to work for convergence - the opportunity for a skilled aim to shine is always there.

You say they have to wait, but heat will still, by far, be the limiting factor in rate of fire. Firing 4xPPCs simultaneously only causes convergence loss for a second afterwards (two seconds for TCL to be at zero). By the logic that people don't want to wait to shoot, we should just remove the heat scale.

Though I'd say that your idea is, in many ways, far better than what we have now, I'd be hesitant to implement it because of how drastically (and unpredictably) it will alter the fundamental dynamics of combat. Torso twisting would be much less useful because you'll have to re-acquire targets anyways, and I think it would slow the pace of combat to the dismay of the shooter crowd.

As much as I'm all in for more simulation elements, I don't think a lot of cross-overs are. The primary advantage I see my system having over yours is that it doesn't alter any part of gameplay besides my intended target: high damage + convergence. Your solution does a ton of things right, but it touches too many areas for me to feel like it could just slip in to the current game without issues.

I'm really enjoying having a back-and-forth with you about your well thought-out alternative. Massive props.

hrmm. Thinking it over some more, I'd agree that yours does come off ans simpler for the user, until the point where convergence is lost. I'd really like to have some indicator of where my shot will go, even if it is not center crosshairs. Straight out may as well be random for me. Or real crazies will put blu-tack on their screens to mark the points and get my system anyway (I know people that do this for FPS where there are no crosshairs in hardcore modes for hip fire).

I was thinking about my method a bit more, and I came up with the question... Why would my weapons lose convergence back to straight out? Hell, why would they be defaulted to straight out anyway? Who would have that as a default state? Your model shares this flaw. makes sense as a game mechanic, but not a great deal of sense for designers of stompy robots.

My reasoning, is that convergence is tricky. Nominally (i'd think) every weapon on the mech (or at least by type) would have a set convergence (like WWII fighters). we should know where our missed shots are going to go. Even if it is not where te enemy is.

Proposal

So (with the assumption that your system is better than mine and I want it to include a skilled non-computer aided shot, without 5 messy crosshairs)

1. Require R lock to use your system (I don't remember if you said this, or not). Any weapon fired without a lock converges at optimal range

So if target is closer or more distant, weapons would cross center at optimal range,, and may hit anything in their path. So it would be possible to shoot at a mech without computer power and S Lasers would cross in front of it, and PPCs would cross behind it

There is an added bonus that skilled players (which may not be me) can use your targeting computer + a skilled manual shot.

Lock on, and fire AC/20 at a mech at optimal Mlaser range, then dump the lock and shoot the lasers.

OR

No lock and shoot the lasers on a passby.

This way a pilot could get a perfect shot without fire computer, but only at the perfect time, or some of the weapons would miss.

For some reason I want to be able to kill the Death Star.

I just want ordered shooting even when I'm not using the computer... because I then want the computer to stop working at 100% when I get a sensor critical, or when I get a Gyro hit.

(Armchair designing... away)

[Phaesphoros]

@Homeless Bill

If I understand you correctly, your suggestion is to add another metric besides heat to provide another, independent way of balancing.

Heat, without alpha heat penalties, is only dependent on (heat per shot) * (shots per second) and therefore cannot distinguish between several short damage peaks (e.g. 2 shots of a PPC in 8 s) and continuous / steady damage (e.g. 10 shots of an AC/2 in 5 s) (*). As far as I understand the heat metric, it is good to limit the total amount of damage over a certain period of time of the order of tens of seconds.

(*)

Spoiler

The example is not good. Imagine some combination of high-alpha weapons that do the same damage as a combination of non-high-alpha weapons over the same period of time, such that the heat dissipation is the same.

The additional scale you suggest is made to complement the heat scale for short periods; to be able to put penalties on high peak (= "alpha") damage, especially on high pin-point peak damage.

If the goal is to limit high damage to a single part of the mech during a very short period (<< 1 s), then what could be solutions?

• limit the ability to put all that damage in one location (= nerf pin-point)
  
• limit the ability to do all that damage (= nerf high-alpha)

Your solution seems to use (1) with the introduction of a COF. The weapons that do not have a problem with COF (missiles) are affected by losing the lock, a very elegant solution. This still does not affect the Splatcat, but in the current meta she's not a problem (SRMs too weak), except if the ROF of SRMs would be huge (remember the hugging cats? maybe reintroduction of knock-down? dunno).





As a general idea, I think this makes sense. Lots of arguments have been provided why heat penalties cannot be resonably applied to e.g. Gauss and therefore fail to limit high peak damage.

I'm not quite satisfied with the "explanation" using the targeting computer, though. Yes, magic BT wonderland does not have (or need) real-world physics nor real-world computing, but a Targeting Computer that changes where my weapon is pointing without any input is not convincing. Loss of convergence and missile-lock is, on the other hand.

Why not free yourself from the problems and restrictions of an explanation? You could add any kind of mechanic with any kind of effect to introduce some balance and add an explanation with hindsight. There could even be multiple subsystems of the mech involved, as long as the penalties are easy to understand, intuitive. (e.g. High peak damage output set various of the 'Mech's subsystems under stress. Don't alpha or bad things will happen. yadda-fluxcompensator-yadda)

I'm curious what you think of the following possible negative effects (some of them you might already have mentioned in the follow-up posts):

• mech shutdown (planned like emergency heat shutdown, unplanned like during power outage <- with longer power-up period i.e. full start-up sequence)
  
• JJ failure / outage while jumping
  
• heavily increased fall damage if shutdown during impact on ground
  
• mech speed (stupid, doesn't help against snipers)
  
• torso/arm movement limitations (slower, less acceleration, ..), up to the point where you cannot move your torso (temporarily) and therefore cannot aim
  
• HUD / sensor failures, vision mode availability / malfunction; also: ECM-like communications interrupts
  
• immediate damage to internals (e.g. shoot 6 PPCs at once and explode) or to weapons / items (**) only
  
• inability to fire some (amount) of weapons during the short period covered by this alternate scale; also: weapon jamming (temporarily, permanent)
  
• reduction of armor effectiveness (like: "hot armor is less durable")

Effects you incorporated AFAIK:

• COF / aiming accuracy
  
• convergence (i.e. adjustment of direction of weapons to all hit the same spot at different distances)
  
• missile locks (duration until acquisition of lock, loss of lock)
  
• (forgot something?)

(**)

Spoiler

This leads to the interesting idea of exploding / malfunctioning heat sinks if there's a peak in the heat; this has already been mentioned either in this thread or the official feedback thread to the Command Chair.

Edited by Phaesphoros, 12 June 2013 - 01:22 AM.

[Killashnikov]

Interesting! I like the idea.
Because the level of targeting penalty is determined by the weapon grouping, you could pre-calculate the potential spread of a weapon group and display this as the size of a circular targeting reticule in the hud.

Then a pilot could use the weapons groups to select an alpha size that balances damage potential and accuracy at the range of the target...
Add weapons to a group and the reticule becomes larger according to TCS. And visa versa.
Turn on chain fire and the reticule returns to pinpoint.

Easily managed by the grouping system. Each group could have a color coded reticule circle...

You can also then give a purpose to targeting computers when introduced - they can increase the TCS limit of the system.

By displaying the current TCS penalty in the HUD visually before firing, you give new pilots an easy reference and feedback on weapon selection.

Edited by Killashnikov, 11 June 2013 - 08:33 PM.

[Alex Warden]

DocBach, on 10 June 2013 - 01:20 PM, said:

i think instead of adding a new targeting computer stat, with weapons having their own cost to use, we just have convergeance based on speed, range, obstructions and heat level?

this would be a very good start, and not that hard to do i guess...

[Homeless Bill]

HRR Insanity, on 11 June 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

Yeah... I had similar proposal from 1y ago and 6 months ago:

http://mwomercs.com/...om-closed-beta/

I'm not a fan of removing group fire, but it seems to be the only other alternative that would actually fix things. Again, that deserves a thought-out and well-organize rebuttal, and you will get one soon enough.

Slashmckill, on 11 June 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

Group firing is part of the problem.

I'am not going to flat-out accuse you of not reading my entire post.... but i did handle that exact problem in the same post. It's a matter of adding a simple small delay before being able to fire the next weapon, something small around .25 seconds is enough to stop said macro abuse. Like i also said in the same post, this does have the consequence of makeing small weapons boats a bit of a pain, however leaving the game as it is, is far more of a pain.

I'm going to put you in with Insanity.

I did read it, but I don't think a flat penalty will work very well. It will make things like AC/2s and machine guns useless. It would have to be on a per-weapon basis (even if it didn't have to be, it might as well be once there are exceptions to the rule). My point was that it's not going to avoid many of the complications that my system has. Again, full response when I have time.

PanzerMagier, on 11 June 2013 - 02:28 PM, said:

This guy.., This homeless bill, whoever he is. I'd take him over whoever now has his cheetos stained fingers on MWO's balancing systems. I've seen a lot of posts about "a solution to XYZ". And they all kind go in my head "yea that'll be nice but it'll never happen" or "pff this is stupid thank goodness this guy isn't on the team responsible for gameplay balance".

However this one... I'd vote for this guy. Homeless bill, you have my approval. And my respect.

<3

I would totally love to work on this game. I have two years industry experience, I love MechWarrior, and I'd like to think I've got a decent sense of game balance. HIRE ME PGI! I'M SO HUNGRY.

scJazz, on 11 June 2013 - 03:24 PM, said:

You know what Bill... still haven't read your idea. I'm inferring your strategy by reading other peoples comments. Until you put down the underline button I won't read it either.

Still... after reading the 6/11 Balancing Post from the Devs... it has become soulcrushingly apparent that you can do a better job than them.

I endorse whatever Bill said!

I'm not going to change my post just for you, but you may be pleased to know that this is really just a test bed for the article this will eventually become. I needed to see what I needed to change an adapt, what people were confused about, and what alternatives came out.

I promise you're not endorsing something terrible.

Basically my solution boils down to this: if you fire too many weapons at once or in rapid succession, you lose convergence. It limits you to either high, immediate damage or about 20 damage per second with pinpoint accuracy. I dislike removing group fire entirely for several reasons, and I think this would solve the problem without needing to go that far.

It hurt me not to bunderline parts of this response.

Sybreed, on 11 June 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

have you guys asked IGP reps to send this thread to the devs? That's what I would do, but I've done this so often that I don't think I have any credibility now

the worst thing that could happen is that it's something that can't be done engine wise, and only PGI can tell us that. But, considering that Star Citizen is using the same engine and will have a similar system to that one, I don't see why it should be a problem to implement this.

I've never tried it before, but it's worth a shot. When I end up doing the full article that this will become, I will do everything in my power to spam the developers with it. It's not that I think heat penalties are necessarily bad - it's that they won't work long-term. And I'm very fearful that once it goes in, it will never come out.

I work on games for a living, I can tell you with certainty that there is no programming or art reason this couldn't be implemented. It's the equivalent of another heat system for them with fewer elements.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 11 June 2013 - 11:58 PM.

[Slashmckill]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 11:56 PM, said:

I'm not a fan of removing group fire, but it seems to be the only other alternative that would actually fix things. Again, that deserves a thought-out and well-organize rebuttal, and you will get one soon enough.

I'm going to put you in with Insanity.

I did read it, but I don't think a flat penalty will work very well. It will make things like AC/2s and machine guns useless. It would have to be on a per-weapon basis (even if it didn't have to be, it might as well be once there are exceptions to the rule). My point was that it's not going to avoid many of the complications that my system has. Again, full response when I have time.

Well yeah, the whole mass-chain firing thing won't simply work by doing the bare minimum of simply just disabling group fire and adding the delay. It needs to be modified and fleshed out alittle to even gain any ground what-so-ever. It can work to solve the current meta problem, however i don't think of it as the best solution, merely quick to do and easy to adjust.

(It has merits to it that i quite like, but it's not my favorite idea, my favorite idea was one someone metioned about changing convergence to a semi lock system based on mechwarrior novels, that one just sounded awesome in my mind when i read it. I managed to find it Here)

Edited by Slashmckill, 12 June 2013 - 12:28 AM.

[Demuder]

Homeless Bill, on 11 June 2013 - 11:56 PM, said:

I work on games for a living, I can tell you with certainty that there is no programming or art reason this couldn't be implemented. It's the equivalent of another heat system for them with fewer elements.

The only real problem would be having to rework the UI to add in the targeting computer load for every weapon and the targeting computer load monitor in the HUD UI. From what I can tell developers are really reluctant when it comes to making even the slightest changes in the UI - not just in MWO, but in every game.