176 replies to this topic

[Tombstoner]

Tahribator, on 13 June 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

I will quit this game the day they take away the skill from aiming. Ridiculous suggestions.

I will spend more money on this game when "skill from aiming" is more then a one dimensional big boated alpha.
skill needed to hit CT

Less.......................................................more
6 ppc's in group fire < 6 ppcs each fired once single fire mode

counter argument ... i would never single fire my weapons... its too easy to not hit the ct that way.
i want my skill in maximizing the lack of convergence to mean something.

Edited by Tombstoner, 13 June 2013 - 11:38 AM.

[cyberFluke]

3rdworld, on 12 June 2013 - 05:54 AM, said:

So PPCs are really good, so much so that people stick as many as possible on pretty much any mech with energy points.

So lets nerf aiming.

If you get heat corrected to value DPS over alpha, you will fix the "pinpoint" damage issue without have to implement artificial limitations to skill. Adding in Cone of Fire is more or less reverting Host State Rewind.

Utter hyperbolic bull$h!t. You're intentionally neglecting to mention the fact that you, the player can manipulate the size of the aiming reticle by carefully managing heat and speed to name but two simple factors. Therefore early positioning, tactical/spatial/temporal awareness become a factor, rather than lizard brain point and click aiming.

I get it, you want to protect the supposed "Skill^TM" that you perceive yourself as having. However, I'd rather not see another attempt at a MechWarrior game die because of an ignorant, short-sighted protectionist mindset.

Edited by cyberFluke, 13 June 2013 - 11:45 AM.

[PropagandaWar]

My only offer for solutions to Pin Point Alpha strikes has been having Torso mounted Weapons be Static and arms with Convergence only. So if a unlucky mech is at say 860 meters (whatever normal ERPPC max number is)away then he will get nailed if alphed in on one location. If the mech is however 300 meters or 900 meters away they will hit whater part if any happens to cross the firing arcs path at that given distance.

[Zyllos]

If anyone has seen Homeless Bill's suggestion, I think this could provide balance to large number of alpha strike builds and builds that chain fire multiple weapons.

There is a Targeting Computer (TC) which has a Load (TCL). Each weapon has a Stress value (TCS) that is applied when fired. A TC has a threshold value of 100. As weapons are fired, their TCS value is added to the TCL value. All values are applied before the firing of a weapon.

If the TCS value is ever above 100, this includes all weapons currently just fired, then a Cone-of-Fire is applied to all the shots. If the TCL value is ever above a threshold of 200, then the Cone-of-Fire is extremely large in size and missile locks are impossible and current locks are lost until the TCL value is below 200.

The TCL value is decreased at a rate of 100 per 1.0s. This means you can shoot and do actions worth of 100 TCS in an instant or 100 + (100 * time duration) worth of TCS and never receive any accuracy penalty.

The general concept of this idea is to allow a specific number of weapons to be fired over a certain period without any Cone-of-Fire penalties. If more weapons are fired in that certain period, then you will not be guaranteed to hit that specific location that you was aiming for.

Homeless Bill's numbers was based on the idea that you should be able to place approximately 20 points of damage onto a given spot at any given time before you receive penalties.

You could easily expand this system to include actions, like how much throttle your currently running will have a TCS value, if your jump jetting or falling, if your moving over rough terrain, if you have taken a critical hit your gyro, arm actuators, ect.

This also will be able to be expanded into the Targeting Computer equipment that can be attached to each weapon that might decrease the TCS of the weapon and/or increase the rate that TCL is lost.

You could even have a TCS penalty for weapons being fired from different sections in a short amount of time.

There is many possibilities that you could do to balance this TCL/TCS system to ensure that certain builds are allowable without penalty. And this system is easily, I personally think, implementable and configurable. It also makes sense with the Battletech lore and gameplay feel.

Combining the above changes with tweaks in the heat and hardpoint systems would greatly improve balance within this game.

[Galen Crayn]

Mechwarrior is a Battletech Game, based on the rules of BT. So why they had changing hitzones? Because a mech is a moving heavy robot firering its weapon while its normally moving. Precision impossible. Yes, you could have luck and make a headshot, but this was a one in a million shot! So Battlemechs are shaking while they are walking and their weapons too. With this in mind you could also change the targeting system in MWO. The crosshair shakes with the mech and its only a "where i shoot nearly" ting. Than second the idea of a different thread: The novel "rules" where pilots have to get a target like with missiles for lasers and all other weapons too for precise shooting. Otherwise your hitzone is a litte unprecisesly... And third the idea of another thread that if a mech stands still he only could fire 500m precise and about that it will become only possible with a target lock. Combined with a blowback of really heavy weapon that makes it necessary to get the target lock back again. Only my 2 cents

And the terrain was very important for how easy you can hit an opponent mech

Edited by Galen Crayn, 13 June 2013 - 12:18 PM.

[3rdworld]

cyberFluke, on 13 June 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

Utter hyperbolic bull$h!t. You're intentionally neglecting to mention the fact that you, the player can manipulate the size of the aiming reticle by carefully managing heat and speed to name but two simple factors. Therefore early positioning, tactical/spatial/temporal awareness become a factor, rather than lizard brain point and click aiming.

I get it, you want to protect the supposed "Skill^TM" that you perceive yourself as having. However, I'd rather not see another attempt at a MechWarrior game die because of an ignorant, short-sighted protectionist mindset.

I get it, you get butt-hurt when people disagree with you.

It is unfortunate you are so thick you cannot see the logical and eventual implications on of those factors you mention.

Making someone run slower to shoot accurately, turns the game into sniper assault campfest online.

Nerfs all mechs that rely on speed for any advantage.

Nerfs all weapons that rely on heat. Buffs the ever loving heck out of lock on based weapons.

I ignored your factors as they are idiotic. Just like the idea for cone of fire.

Edited by 3rdworld, 13 June 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[cyberFluke]

3rdworld, on 13 June 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

I get it, you get butt-hurt when people disagree with you.

It is unfortunate you are so thick you cannot see the logical and eventual implications on of those factors you mention.

Making someone run slower to shoot accurately, turns the game into sniper assault campfest online.

Nerfs all mechs that rely on speed for any advantage.

Nerfs all weapons that rely on heat. Buffs the ever loving heck out of lock on based weapons.

I ignored your factors as they are idiotic. Just like the idea for cone of fire.

Then you clearly can't see past your own worry that your self assumed "Skill" may be in jeopardy. Yeah, sure, there are better ways then a crosshair bloom, but it's better than what we have now, by a country f*ck!ng mile.

[Kaldor]

Yeah, lets put dev resources into fixing something that is not broken. Find a simple solution for the heat problem, heat cap down, dissipation up, damage on overheating and the problem solves itself and gives the game a solid foundation for the future. I dont know about you, but Id rather have CoF and massive changes to the heat system than all the rest of the stuff that is supposed to be in game by now.

If you prefer CoF type aiming, I suggest you go play WoT or CoD.

[Steel your Life]

Skyfaller, on 12 June 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

Paul,



2- There is a way to remove pinpoint accuracy while still allowing the player to aim in 1st person shooter. World of Tanks uses it.

Simply put, there is a dispersion cone built into the aimpoint. The longer the aimpoint remains aimed at a certain range the narrower the cone becomes. If the aimpoint is moved around the dispersion cone expands.

This system alone turns MWO arcade into Battletech combat.

There are two ways to implement the system:

A- All weapons use the dispersion cone system.
B- Torso mounted weapons do not converge and instead fire straight ahead while arm weapons have the ability to converge.

Option B would make the game far more BT like as hit dispersion would be highest while still permitting pinpoint accuracy of arm mounted weapons IF they aim at a location long enough to narrow it down to where it has a high chance of both arm guns hitting the same armor plate. It would also make mechs with mobile hands have an advantage..which they did in BT.


Apply both fixes to heatsinks and add the dispersion system and your game will be fixed.

great ideas but they are not something new. Many games implement the disperssion cone (call of duty, halo) this is not something new even other mech warrior type games (Chromehounds xbox360) had mechanics like this such as weapon recoil heavier weapons would have greater recoil if used on lighter mechs.

Unfortunately you are looking at this issue from the eyes of the gamer not the developer. Yes this idea makes sense and yes it would make the game more realistic and balanced and better!! Unfortunately these types of mechanics are very, very, very mathmaticaly time consuming to program and implement and develope and ultimately expensive. And unless MWO can score the code from another company that has put the time and money into making a cone fire or other realistic firing mechanics you will never see them. Because PGI is a backwater company that has done the bare minimum work to launch their flagship title and start generating some revenue for their efforts. They have no interest in revisiting and overhauling the AIM mechanics wich would take many man hours and cost a great deal of money to upgrade a game that has already been out for a long time and is in its gradual decline.

These are the types of things developers know about but wont put in a game until its second release like Mech warrior online 2 then they can spend money to build off their original code but you will never see AIM mechanics added to the game now at this point

[MECH JECK DIRRECT]

^^-------------------hear hear well said!!

[Asmudius Heng]

MustrumRidcully, on 12 June 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

How do you detect weapon's are fired grouped?

Macros are a ****** right.

If they are in a group already thats easy - perhaps if you are on chain fire or in different groups the cone would widen after each shot slightly then return to normal half a second later to make sure people do not macro 0.1 second between shots or something.

Thinking about it again though, i dont know if it is an issue if each weapon is calculated differently within the cone, you are still going to get some spread unless you take a lot of action to prevent it

[Ansel]

An RNG mechanic isn't needed. It could be implimented, and it would complement the already Half RNG system we have (BT Paperdoll).

Removal of the BT Paperdoll is what is really needed. Expecialy since they removed the "To Hit" part of the RNG system.

Make weapons only deal damage in a radius of the spot they impact and not deal damage to an entire section. The "sections" could be kept, but would only be used to determine the "thickness" of that particular area.

The radius would then be a balancing point that is needed right now for some weapons.

The radius would also help balance mech silhouettes.

Mechs like the Awsome have large sections right, if they remove the paperdoll the "point total" then means you can spread "more" damage over the larger "surface area" of the mech instead of taking only a "total" of X points of damage before loseing that entire section no matter where it'*****.

This would mean players would have to tightly cluster their hits in order to breach armor.

Edit: apparently typing "hit" after "it's" gets censored, rofl, made my day

Edited by Ansel, 13 June 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[Galenit]

MaddMaxx, on 13 June 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

Look at your cars Thermometer. Check the value it runs at under ideal conditions, then see how much further the gauge goes before getting flagged as RED. Same for a BattleMech.

Lets take a gpu (i mean a videocard, but dont want to type it every time), that should show it better:

Nvidia says its max. temperature is 97° (the heat on your mech is orange)

Its works perfect until 120 degree, at this point the solder starts to expand, this can cause first errors, you get more the more the heat increases, (your mech is in the red heat)

Around 140-160° the gpu shuts hopefully down and you have a chance to get a cold solder joint. (your mech has shutdown )

At 180° the solders melts, your gpu has great chance to stop working, sometimes you can fix it like a cold solder joint (your mech is going away)

Tip: If you have a cold solder joint you can bake your videocard in an oven to fix it. Kids, dont do this with a working videocard!


Gpu - Mech
97° - 60% heat
120° - 80% heat - more then 80% gives first errors
140° - 100% heat - shutdown. more erros, chance to losing heatsinks
180° - 120% heat - a lot of errors, taking internal damage, chance for ammo explosion and losing systems of all kind
___ - 140% heat - the cooling system for the core stops working and it melts. (Maybe this should be delayed to 150%?)

Edited by Galenit, 13 June 2013 - 04:33 PM.

[stjobe]

Kaldor, on 13 June 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

What your suggesting is very much so a nerf. Looking at AC20s. Now it is instant, with a 4 sec cooldown. What your suggesting is a total of 5 seconds. They would need to reduce the cooldown to keep them at 4 seconds total.

That's fine, I did say the values I put where example values. 1-second burst and (current - 1s) cooldown would work just as well. The point is *exactly* to make them "hitscan" like the energy weapons, to relieve the pin-point scourge we're currently living with.

Kaldor, on 13 June 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

I could see a .25 second pulse for PPCs. But them again I support .5 second duration pulse lasers. My biggest issue with that is you just created a hitscan weapon.

Again, the point is *exactly* to make them hitscan - and in the case of the PPC, there are very good lore reasons to make them so; they never were anything but beam weapons.

The whole suggestion was done as a means to reduce the pin-point accuracy without having to muck about with RNG cone of fire or convergence values. Missiles have their spread, so they're not pin-point. Energy weapons have their beam duration, so they're not pin-point. Only ballistics are pin-point, and with a 1-second burst they won't be. Also, arguably the worst offender, the PPC, is currently implemented as a lore-defying pin-point ballistic instead of a beam-duration energy weapon. This could do with a change.

[3rdworld]

cyberFluke, on 13 June 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

Yeah, sure, there are better ways then a crosshair bloom

Then why are we even discussing it?

[cyberFluke]

3rdworld, on 14 June 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

Then why are we even discussing it?

Because it would be the easiest way to get some kind of damage spread in game in time for release, whereupon an improved, more complex system could be designed/tested/implemented.

[Tombstoner]

Ansel, on 13 June 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

An RNG mechanic isn't needed. It could be implimented, and it would complement the already Half RNG system we have (BT Paperdoll).

Removal of the BT Paperdoll is what is really needed. Expecialy since they removed the "To Hit" part of the RNG system.

Make weapons only deal damage in a radius of the spot they impact and not deal damage to an entire section. The "sections" could be kept, but would only be used to determine the "thickness" of that particular area.

The radius would then be a balancing point that is needed right now for some weapons.

The radius would also help balance mech silhouettes.

Mechs like the Awsome have large sections right, if they remove the paperdoll the "point total" then means you can spread "more" damage over the larger "surface area" of the mech instead of taking only a "total" of X points of damage before loseing that entire section no matter where it'*****.

This would mean players would have to tightly cluster their hits in order to breach armor.

Edit: apparently typing "hit" after "it's" gets censored, rofl, made my day

Agreed. i would also prefer a much more detailed model of armor protection. as opposed to a COF.
this is basicly just adding a large number of subsections to each section. each sub section with the same armor as the main. that way high damage alphas are rewarded for the all or nothing approach if they can hit the really small subsection.

I think its posable ,but i expect would require more retooling under the hood then a COF.

[Dude42]

I just spent 3000 XP on this "Pinpoint" Efficiency in the Pilot Tree. What does it do?

[Tombstoner]

Dude42, on 14 June 2013 - 02:00 PM, said:

I just spent 3000 XP on this "Pinpoint" Efficiency in the Pilot Tree. What does it do?

Basically its a speed bump slowing you down. it was supposed to improve the rate of convergence. i suppose it still does, but
convergence rates are so high that a 10% increasing to that rate is not noticeable.

If you look carefully sometime you can see that missed shots criss cross one another. this is convergence and why we have pin point damage. if the rate of convergence was lower its posable that if you crest a hill and target an enemy at long rage... if you shoot too soon all your shots will criss cross in front of your target pass on either side and complete miss the target. worse yet hit your team mates in the back.... so i think convergence rate where set at high level and the dev team moved on to other issues.

The problem is its left a festering wound in game play... this is why high damage alphas rule. when the optimum pop tart (highlander) was added it became all the rage. 6 ppc stalkers also take advantage of the pinpoint accuracy of convergence. this issue is just going to get worse with clan tech.

The heat gimmick being put forth is not going to be understood by the new player. where are new players going to find this information....the forums... it should be part of the game. This change is going to hurt the new player experience. It will frustrate them to the point where they dont spend money before leaving.
why am i blowing up..... my armors not damaged.... o i'm over heating. let my buy some cool shots.
i could be wrong....

Edited by Tombstoner, 14 June 2013 - 02:23 PM.

[Zerberus]

Idea: every time someone creates a thread designed specifically to comment about Post X from Dev Y, please link that post in the OP.

For the simple reason that half the people here are, as usual, "theorizing" (read as "complaining") about something that is ridiculously easy to find info about, and still obviously have no clue what they`re talking about. But as usual, that doesn`t stop them from adding their "highly qualified elite opinions" to the discussion....

Edited by Zerberus, 14 June 2013 - 02:36 PM.