704 replies to this topic

[LittleGrim]

Bump as this needs to get the attention it deserves.

[Ken Fury]

Pht, on 16 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

The fix has to address the cause of the symptoms, not the symptoms theselves.

Quad PPC Stalkers do fire 2 by 2 now, same as his suggestion would do. And it's not fixing anything. You could "fix" it with a random cone of fire OR by improving Hitpoints. And one could use this buff to give a bigger % buff to the smalles Mechs, So at least the disparity between a 20t and 40t Mech isn't that drastic.

[Endgame124]

Tank Boy Ken, on 17 July 2013 - 10:09 PM, said:

Quad PPC Stalkers do fire 2 by 2 now, same as his suggestion would do. And it's not fixing anything. You could "fix" it with a random cone of fire OR by improving Hitpoints. And one could use this buff to give a bigger % buff to the smalles Mechs, So at least the disparity between a 20t and 40t Mech isn't that drastic.

With this solution, you could change PPC's targeting load if they remained OP without having to change heat (which penalizes single use). If dual PPCs were just enough to lose convergence it would stop single panel damage.

[OuttaAmmo NoWai]

If you've effectively limited every mech in the game to 20 damage per second, what's the point of role warfare? What's the point of weight classes? A jenner will be doing the same damage as a stalker. The only differences between weight classes will be armor and speed, so you'll just see the meta become dominated by cataphracts running 2xERPPC and a gauss.

Sure, assaults will have the option of unleashing a massive, inaccurate alpha strike where a light or medium could not, but then the meta would just shift to lighter long-range alphas that wouldn't lose their convergence.

In my clan, we pretty much shifted to 2xERPPC and a gauss 20 minutes into the new heat patch, this new TCS proposal would do nothing to shift the meta.

The best teams will stay right in their phracts, stalkers and highlanders, and people at terribad ELOs will run their 1 LBX10 1 mdplas 1 Llas 1 LRM5 builds.

Edited by OuttaAmmo NoWai, 18 July 2013 - 06:36 AM.

[Homeless Bill]

I haven't abandoned this thread or idea. I'm just on vacation from it. I've been defending it vigorously for the last few weeks and my motivation will return after a nice long weekend of drinking.

Needless to say, I'll respond to everyone. Bill needs a lazy week.

In the meantime, why don't you all head on over to the ATD thread and upvote the **** out of this (thank you, Spirit of the Wolf):
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2571025

And because I'm smelly and shameless, I'll plug for my question as well:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2570813

[Prezimonto]

While I still like DocBach's solution better, I don't see it being implemented after the recent discussion on how that type of a system could cause players to crash.

This is easily the best runner up I've seen described. It's simple to understand, and as pointed out shouldn't be a terrible burden to program, if the dev team pushes for a solution to perfect convergence.

Edited by Prezimonto, 18 July 2013 - 10:19 PM.

[DocBach]

Prezimonto, on 18 July 2013 - 10:06 PM, said:

While I still like DocBach's solution better, I don't see it being implemented after the recent discussions on how that type of a system could cause players to crash.

This is easily the best runner up I've seen described. It's simple to understand, and as pointed out shouldn't be a terrible burden to program, if the dev team pushes for a solution to perfect convergence.

can you link me to the discussion?

[Prezimonto]

I'm referencing the quote from MiSs in the title post. I can't remember if it came from another thread, or an ask the Dev's but it's at least the second time I've seen it now.

But the jist of it that I got was that multiple calculations for convergence are bad, which multiple cross hairs would imply.

If I misunderstood what she was talking about, I'd like to know as well because I honestly still much prefer your system as it's elegant with a feedback inhibition mechanism built in based on relative mech speeds. The biochemist in me approves.

Edited by Prezimonto, 18 July 2013 - 10:22 PM.

[Homeless Bill]

DocBach, on 18 July 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

can you link me to the discussion?

See my updated OP. It was in their last ATD answers. Tracking convergence will probably need some form of HSR and other fun stuff to work from the sounds of it.

[pencilboom]

I logged in on my phone just to give the 2 questions you mentioned in the ATD upvotes. Really curious about how they will answer those QUESTIONS. PGI has always been REALLY dodgy on answering critical questions.

Edited by pencilboom, 19 July 2013 - 01:22 AM.

[Mega Prawn]

OuttaAmmo NoWai, on 18 July 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

If you've effectively limited every mech in the game to 20 damage per second, what's the point of role warfare? What's the point of weight classes? A jenner will be doing the same damage as a stalker. The only differences between weight classes will be armor and speed, so you'll just see the meta become dominated by cataphracts running 2xERPPC and a gauss.

Sure, assaults will have the option of unleashing a massive, inaccurate alpha strike where a light or medium could not, but then the meta would just shift to lighter long-range alphas that wouldn't lose their convergence.

In my clan, we pretty much shifted to 2xERPPC and a gauss 20 minutes into the new heat patch, this new TCS proposal would do nothing to shift the meta.

The best teams will stay right in their phracts, stalkers and highlanders, and people at terribad ELOs will run their 1 LBX10 1 mdplas 1 Llas 1 LRM5 builds.

If you're talking about Homeless' balance plan, then the 2xERPPC 1xGauss would not work as they currently do because firing all three weapons at once would give you a cone penalty and a loss of convergence; which would mean that, despite retaining the damage, you would lose its pinpoint accuracy at any kind of distance, spreading its damage and making it less effective at knocking off components.

Also, if you check out the HUD 'prototypes' you'll see that the penalties aren't so bad that there will never be a reason to alpha - there would still be plenty of scenarios where it would be a good idea to fire everything even if it means spreading your damage, it would just remove the ability to put 35 damage in one chunk in one place from 0m to 540m.

So to consider your PPC/Gauss builds - different loadouts with a higher DPS but lower alpha would put you at a serious disadvantage because you lose the ability to put all your damage in one place.

Well... that's how I see it anyhow.

[Prezimonto]

I wanted to suggest that the targeting computer system could easily incorporate several of the ideas that DocBach incorporates.

You could include TCL for the speed your mech is at, or % speed your mech is at.
5TCL / 20 KPH or 20%KPH or something There could be a module that converts to the lower value, or include a paid "upgrade" to switch between the types.

You could include TCL for the speed of the mech being targeted/nearest the crosshair... both of these together would preserve the idea that speed/movement are defense, but stopping rewards damage. Not in the same way, and not as cleanly, but the idea is there.

You could include TCL for being over certain heat levels. This could easily be a way to incorporate some of the other heat penalties found in the table top game.
Over 50% heat: 10TCL, Over 80% heat: 30TCL, Over 90% heat: 50TCL... so as you fail to manage heat you also lose the ability to accurately alpha strike, further rewarding conserving shots until just the right moment for an all out attack.

Edited by Prezimonto, 19 July 2013 - 05:56 AM.

[Mega Prawn]

Prezimonto, on 19 July 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

I wanted to suggest that the targeting computer system could easily incorporate several of the ideas that DocBach incorporates.

You could include TCL for the speed your mech is at, or % speed your mech is at.
5TCL / 20 KPH or 20%KPH or something There could be a module that converts to the lower value

You could include TCL for the speed of the mech being targeted/nearest the crosshair... both of these together would preserve the idea that speed/movement are defense, but stopping rewards damage. Not in the same way, and not as cleanly, but the idea is there.

You could include TCL for being over certain heat levels. This could easily be a way to incorporate some of the other heat penalties found in the table top game.
Over 50% heat: 10TCL, Over 80% heat: 30TCL, Over 90% heat: 50TCL... so as you fail to manage heat you also lose the ability to accurately alpha strike, further rewarding conserving shots until just the right moment for an all out attack.

Firstly I want to say that I haven't read DocBach's ideas, so I am hesitant to pass any kind of judgement on them...

Regarding what you said in your post - specifically about the buffs/nerfs for movement speeds - I'm not sure they'd be appropriate, simply because your movement and the movement of your enemy already alter how much damage you can put on a target. It already requires a greater degree of aim and precision to hit a fast moving target than to hit a slow moving one, or to hit a target while strafing than to hit one while stationary. Obviously this assumes that, no matter how good your aim is, it is not perfect, and that you will thus miss some shots - the result being that relative speed differences have negatively impacted your ability to do damage.

It's not that the idea doesn't make sense (on the contrary it makes perfect sense), it's just that you would already be limited by Homeless' TC limitations and by the simple fact that it's harder to aim at a scroggy little spider nubbing it all over the place. There doesn't seem to be a need - from a gameplay point of view - to compound those two disadvantages into an additional third disadvantage: a Targeting Computer limitation, a physical aiming difficulty due to enemy movement, and a further Targeting Computer limitation based on that physical aiming difficulty due to enemy movement.

[Prezimonto]

The nice thing about this system, as opposed to Doc's, is that unless you use completely huge values to add to the TCL, you would essentially be slightly lowering the number of perfectly converged weapons you could bring to bear at a time.

Suppose you're running at full speed and the enemy mech is running at full speed... if you balance that so it takes up say...25% of your TCL you can still get a decent number of weapons on a point on the target... 6 medium lasers instead of 8.

It's a real strength of this system that it allows for these types of modifiers to at least be considered IMO. The community has been asking for the TT heat penalties for a long, long time, and this is a much more faithful interpretation of them than the heat scale just introduced.

In case you're interested DocBach's idea is here:
http://mwomercs.com/...active-reticle/

Edited by Prezimonto, 19 July 2013 - 07:45 AM.

[Homeless Bill]

Spirit of the Wolf's question has a lot of support, but there are currently six questions with more likes. Go vote now =D

And I know I said I wouldn't respond, but...

OuttaAmmo NoWai, on 18 July 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

If you've effectively limited every mech in the game to 20 damage per second, what's the point of role warfare? What's the point of weight classes? A jenner will be doing the same damage as a stalker. The only differences between weight classes will be armor and speed, so you'll just see the meta become dominated by cataphracts running 2xERPPC and a gauss.

This one is pretty easy: it's clear you just didn't read.

I specifically stated that it's not a limit on sustained DPS - cooldown time and heat will still be the limiting factors. You say it's "limiting" every build to 20 DPS, but I'd challenge you to build me a 'mech that can do 20 DPS sustained. Or 10. Go **** around in Smurphy's or the mechlab, and you'll see it's pretty hard to get your DPS over 6 or 7 unless you run ****-tons of LRMs.

It's simply forcing you to space out damage, particularly with pinpoint weapons, by about a second. The whole system has all weapons lumped into the same pool; you can't frankenbuild your way out of my penalties (2xPPC+1xGR == 175 == targeting computer overload and a horrible accuracy penalty).

If you're going to post feedback on someone's idea, please read a little bit of it next time.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 19 July 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[DEMAX51]

Keep fighting the good fight, Bill. And people, seriously vote for Spirit's ATD question about Bill's idea.... and vote for mine while you're there too!

[Roland]

I finally got around to reading this, and if it could be implemented it's actually a pretty slick idea.

The only issue is whether PGI could implement it in a timely manner.

[Phaesphoros]

Homeless Bill, on 19 July 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

You say it's "limiting" every build to 20 DPS, but I'd challenge you to build me a 'mech that can do 20 DPS sustained. Or 10. Go **** around in Smurphy's or the mechlab, and you'll see it's pretty hard to get your DPS over 6 or 7 unless you run ****-tons of LRMs.

Just for the laughs, Bill: 10.42 sustained DPS, almost viable
Oh, and this number in smurfy's isn't very reliable. You add a laser and it decreases (it should stay the same). Also, the 6 AC/2 build has 6*4 DPS = 24 DPS until it overheats. Most of the time it isn't necessary to sustain the DPS for longer than, say, 30 s.

But I agree this is not a problem within/for your TC mechanics.

[Wildgrin]

Phaesphoros, on 19 July 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Just for the laughs, Bill: 10.42 sustained DPS, almost viable
Oh, and this number in smurfy's isn't very reliable. You add a laser and it decreases (it should stay the same). Also, the 6 AC/2 build has 6*4 DPS = 24 DPS until it overheats. Most of the time it isn't necessary to sustain the DPS for longer than, say, 30 s.

But I agree this is not a problem within/for your TC mechanics.

actually that is perfectly correct.


Actually I take that back. The big number on smurphy's is your sustained DPS for infinity if you look closely there is a smaller number that is the max DPS. They calculate the big number by multiplying the small number times the heat efficiency. Thus adding a laser to that build reduces the heat efficiency blow 100% and so reduces the DPS number.

[JP Alpha]

I like the concept, OP. In essence what your idea proposes is a recoil-like system. Limp-wrist a Desert Eagle and your accuracy suffers, far more than with a .22. Same concept here; gyro-stabilized robot standing on two legs can only fire so much oomph before accuracy suffers. However PGI chooses to implement, some sort of recoil system is clearly needed. Heat scale is clearly not the answer.