459 replies to this topic

[Bloody Moon]

@Peefsmash

I think that is one thing that should be changed in the statistics page. After all this time it still misleads players into a false sense of laser accuracy.

[Echo6]

marabou, on 14 June 2013 - 01:17 AM, said:

Aiming is op, nerf it!

"point-and-click" is not aiming; there is no aiming in this game.

[Lostdragon]

PEEFsmash, on 14 June 2013 - 02:18 PM, said:

Medium laser accuracy is so high for everyone because SOME of almost every shot will hit, but usually it isn't much. That tiny tick still counts as a hit.

Do this for me: Take your total # of medium lasers shot, multiply that by 5. This is the total damage you could have done. Now divide your actual medium laser damage done/that number you just calculated. That is your "real" medium laser accuracy. I'd bet good money that if you've taken thousands of medium laser shots, your "real" accuracy ill be lower than your PPC accuracy.


I'm not negating anything of yours or trying to 1-up you. I was responding to someone else asking for leaderboard cred from me. But, while we are at it, the most recent couple leaderboard events (Spring Clean Up and Med vs World) were far more measures of skill and far less functions of grind time as the old ones. Your win ratio was only 1.12.

I understand perfectly why ML accuracy is inflated. My point was that I am probabky fair to middling with PPCs but if they had a duration on shots I would miss with direct fire I would do some damage with a dot. So would everyone else. I don't know what elite level accuracy is with PPCs but I am pretty sure it is not 98% but with your proposal it would be and that would hurt lights.

[Homeless Bill]

Stepped into this thread for a couple minutes... Saw an inordinate amount of *****-waving...

http://www.youtube.c...WE_M_EM#t=2m10s

Edited by Homeless Bill, 14 June 2013 - 02:35 PM.

[Traigus]

Tombstoner, on 14 June 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

Weapons that are mounted in the same location would be considered as one weapon. i think that you should benefit from boating in one location like the hunchback, but have a counter and that is its easier to destroy.

I disagree.

Besides, IN BT the "lost art" of machining exotic alloy components, the patched nature of mechs, the wear and tear on components causing focusing ring to mis-align even slightly etc..


...means that 2 of the same brand PPCs wouldn't hit the same spot if you swapped them out of the same mount, let alone mounted them next to each other on an arm that mostly was built from a repalced arm... the skeleton of which came from of another of the same chassis that was destroyed and a crap ton of replacement parts. (kind of like handmade revolutionary war guns and cannons).

That's why Mechwarriors are well known for pilotng the same mech and getting the "feel" of it. Al lthe best MWarriors in lore are famous for piloting something very specific, wit ha few doing an mech upgrade, then getting awesome in that one too. I always felt PGI had the skill trees backwards.

In BT the Mechwarriors, learn about basic classes > then a make/ model > then a variant > then become super awesome in their personal mech, with all it's jangly bits and mismatched leg limping goodness. (MWO seems to want you to become really good at all variaints.)


As with anything, I would assume all of these sytems would be modified at least a little by skill trees and experience, not to zero them out, but to allow more experienced pilots to have a little faster recovery, or less spread because they know their mehc's quirks so well.

Edited by Traigus, 14 June 2013 - 03:38 PM.

[Deadmeat313]

Very well said, Levi Porphyrogenitus!

I do agree that a cone of fire mechanic is needed for this game - and could be done well.

[Febrosian R Gillingham]

What separates lower skilled players from higher skilled players in a sniper fight isn't aiming. Anyone can move a reticule over the right part of a target and click, if you couldn't you wouldn't be able to launch the game. The skill comes in aiming quickly, firing, and torso twisting away or ducking into cover, and not everyone can get on target as fast as the top players.

Adding in a random cone of fire completely destroys this skillset and is a terrible idea for any sort of serious game. Making it so movement speed/heat/etc affect the cone makes this even worse since it rewards current low skill play (standing still and firing) while punishing better play (moving while firing to force the other pilot to lead his target, dancing on the heat line by firing just enough weapons to not shut down, etc). This removes way too much skill from the game and leads to a frustrating experience for anyone who knows what they are doing.

Adding in convergence thats going to take a long time (2 seconds I thought someone suggested?) negates most of the aiming skillset since snap shots will do very little damage, and also promotes boring static gameplay (sit within sight of a ridgeline, converge on the ground at the top of the ridge, shoot the first mech to pop over while he can't even shoot back accurately for however long convergence takes). Long convergence also hurts a light mech's ability to help in a brawl unless circle strafing (again rewarding lower skill play) since most of a light's power comes from the ability to pick at specific damaged components.

Peef's idea of giving PPCs a duration would definitely work to spread out the pinpoint damage. I would not mind this as a light, since currently you either don't get hit at all or you get legged/stripped/killed. Buffing SRMs and lasers (which should absolutely be done anyway) would bring brawling back so running a PPC boat is a risk again. Would solve a lot of problems very quickly and easily without changing game mechanics very much or creating static play. For those worried about UAC20's when they come in, easy solution - give each shot recoil that moves the the reticule a random (somewhat large) amount. It won't affect the shot, just each shot will need to be manually re-aimed.

[DocBach]

Febrosian R Gillingham, on 14 June 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

What separates lower skilled players from higher skilled players in a sniper fight isn't aiming. Anyone can move a reticule over the right part of a target and click, if you couldn't you wouldn't be able to launch the game. The skill comes in aiming quickly, firing, and torso twisting away or ducking into cover, and not everyone can get on target as fast as the top players.

Adding in a random cone of fire completely destroys this skillset and is a terrible idea for any sort of serious game. Making it so movement speed/heat/etc affect the cone makes this even worse since it rewards current low skill play (standing still and firing) while punishing better play (moving while firing to force the other pilot to lead his target, dancing on the heat line by firing just enough weapons to not shut down, etc). This removes way too much skill from the game and leads to a frustrating experience for anyone who knows what they are doing.

Adding in convergence thats going to take a long time (2 seconds I thought someone suggested?) negates most of the aiming skillset since snap shots will do very little damage, and also promotes boring static gameplay (sit within sight of a ridgeline, converge on the ground at the top of the ridge, shoot the first mech to pop over while he can't even shoot back accurately for however long convergence takes). Long convergence also hurts a light mech's ability to help in a brawl unless circle strafing (again rewarding lower skill play) since most of a light's power comes from the ability to pick at specific damaged components.

Peef's idea of giving PPCs a duration would definitely work to spread out the pinpoint damage. I would not mind this as a light, since currently you either don't get hit at all or you get legged/stripped/killed. Buffing SRMs and lasers (which should absolutely be done anyway) would bring brawling back so running a PPC boat is a risk again. Would solve a lot of problems very quickly and easily without changing game mechanics very much or creating static play. For those worried about UAC20's when they come in, easy solution - give each shot recoil that moves the the reticule a random (somewhat large) amount. It won't affect the shot, just each shot will need to be manually re-aimed.

I proposed instead of a completely random, unnatural cone, weapons in different locations converge to the stadia reference lines of the reticle, which opens and closes based on various combat factors.

The convergence spread would only be applied to firing multiple weapons at once; the PPC, gauss rifle, or AC/20 is not the problem, it's the fact that you can shoot all of them - grouped together at once - into a minute size hole at 800 meters. You would have the choice of applying pinpoint damage with a single weapon, or spreading the damage out with grouped fire.

As for Ultra Autocannons, that's the conclusion I came up with as well; Ultra AC's in lore are suppose to be akin to a double fire rate which was balanced by a random hit, where it was very rare that both shots landed in the same location, sometimes the second shot even missed the target completely. I'd like to see Ultra Autocannons have a random recoil cone of fire, that increases with the caliber of the weapon, so Ultra AC/2's would have little deviation, but Ultra AC/20's would see large deviation between the point of impact of both rounds.

Edited by DocBach, 14 June 2013 - 04:51 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

PEEFsmash, on 14 June 2013 - 02:18 PM, said:

Medium laser accuracy is so high for everyone because SOME of almost every shot will hit, but usually it isn't much. That tiny tick still counts as a hit.

Do this for me: Take your total # of medium lasers shot, multiply that by 5. This is the total damage you could have done. Now divide your actual medium laser damage done/that number you just calculated. That is your "real" medium laser accuracy. I'd bet good money that if you've taken thousands of medium laser shots, your "real" accuracy ill be lower than your PPC accuracy.


I'm not negating anything of yours or trying to 1-up you. I was responding to someone else asking for leaderboard cred from me. But, while we are at it, the most recent couple leaderboard events (Spring Clean Up and Med vs World) were far more measures of skill and far less functions of grind time as the old ones. Your win ratio was only 1.12.

not agreeing with the KDr silliness, but totally 100% wish people would understand the point on the lasers. My large and Mediums are nearly 90% hit rates, but as you say, that is because any sweep touching for a millisecond is counted. doing .1 damage out of a possible 5 should not be counted toward one's accuracy.

[Sybreed]

Artgathan, on 14 June 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

What if the CoF is replaced with a de-convergence system. This means that as you did things to make the mech more inaccurate (high heat, running, using jump jets) the different components of the mech (LA, RA, LT, RT) lose their convergence on a pinpoint location. However! Every location is still pinpoint accurate.

What I mean is that imagine your targeting reticule is actually made up of 5 dots stacked on top of eachother (CT, LT, RT, LA, RA). As you run these dots move apart (in a horizontal or otherwise predictable pattern). All the weapons in each location converge on the point they correspond to (IE: if there's 2 ML in my RA, they both hit the same place, but they won't hit the same place as the PPC in my LA). Using this players can still be pinpoint accurate, but they must rotate their mech to get all the weapons onto the same point (IE: I have to fire my RA first, twist to bring my LA aimpoint onto target and then fire my LA).

Darren Tyler, on 14 June 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

THAT IS WHAT WE NEED.
NOT THIS STUPID CONE OF FIRE COD STYLE.

Hmm, you 2 should re-read my OP:

Sybreed, on 13 June 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

Docbach actually put in better words what I suggest:


DocBach, on 14 June 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

Rather than a completely random cone, I'd rather have an expanded reticule where weapons would only converge so far to where they didn't all hit in the same location.


I don't think that's a half bad idea, any thoughts on this?

reading comprehension fail....

Homeless Bill, on 14 June 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Stepped into this thread for a couple minutes... Saw an inordinate amount of *****-waving...

http://www.youtube.c...WE_M_EM#t=2m10s

yeah, left that thread for 24 hours and some people ruined it

Edited by Sybreed, 14 June 2013 - 05:44 PM.

[Artgathan]

Sybreed, on 14 June 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

Hmm, you 2 should re-read my OP:

reading comprehension fail....

It's not clear from what either you or DocBach wrote that you're talking about the same thing I was. Both of you talk about some sort of cone system (with non-random elements), but neither of you suggest that there should still be some sort of pin-point accuracy.

[Ralgas]

Sybreed, on 14 June 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

Hmm, you 2 should re-read my OP:






reading comprehension fail....


yeah, left that thread for 24 hours and some people ruined it

I think the issue is you should title it "return convergence" rather than use " cone of fire " anywhere. Any game that does use "cof" is typically an rng model and people treat it as such.

Edit: still do see a couple of issues, but nothing that cant be sorted out with some hardpoint shifts. (an example would be the dragon or highlanders with 3 of the same hardpoints in 1location.

Edited by Ralgas, 14 June 2013 - 05:57 PM.

[DocBach]

Artgathan, on 14 June 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

It's not clear from what either you or DocBach wrote that you're talking about the same thing I was. Both of you talk about some sort of cone system (with non-random elements), but neither of you suggest that there should still be some sort of pin-point accuracy.

My suggestion was use the reticle we have already as points to where different locations would converge to, so you would have aiming reference points -- they just wouldn't tighten to a single point on a 'Mech like they do now.

Ralgas, on 14 June 2013 - 05:53 PM, said:

I think the issue is you should title it "return convergence" rather than use " cone of fire " anywhere. Any game that does use "cof" is an rng model and people treat it as such

Agreed - change the thread title from cone of fire to like "diverging convergence", so people don't just come in here freaking out about random cones and whatnot interfering with their skill us laymen just can't comprehend.

Edited by DocBach, 14 June 2013 - 06:02 PM.

[Unbound Inferno]

Artgathan, on 14 June 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

It's not clear from what either you or DocBach wrote that you're talking about the same thing I was. Both of you talk about some sort of cone system (with non-random elements), but neither of you suggest that there should still be some sort of pin-point accuracy.

READ THE THREAD

DocBach, on 14 June 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

not really as random as a shotgun if they use convergence spread rather than completely random cone of fire;


using an expanding or contracting version of the same reticule they have but changing the convergence points of the different locations to different aiming stadia references on it would open the damage up a bit, but could be countered by player skill in multiple ways, while making the huge one shot alpha strikes much harder to achieve.


Arm lasers fired at a target, even though the expanded reticle is largely pointed over the enemies arm, one of the lasers hits the adjacent torso as the lasers are no longer pinpointing together


CT lasers firing with the expanded reticule - because they are in the same location, the hits will be much closer than say arms fired in opposing limbs or torso, but still have a chance to hit different locations


what it would look like if the lasers were mounted in the left and right torsos - it isn't a random spread, in fact even the reticule opening and would not be random and be determined by factors such as heat and speed; the player still has control of those, and if he chooses to push his machine too hard he suffers the consequences.

That is the idea. The "cone" is the aspect of the fire being wider the further from the mech rather than the splatter area it hits.

The spots its going to hit is relatively predictable, but the effects prevents the perfect pinpoint target at ranges 0-infinity we have now - which is the problem that shouldn't exist. Heck, w'ere supposed to have a delay for convergence and even that isn't visible in the game.

[DocBach]

thread title changed - new catchphrase coined

"divergent convergence"

[Unbound Inferno]

The answer is either. So long as its no longer pinpoint accurate all the time.

[Sybreed]

just so you guys know, Garth forwarded it to the devs, let's see if they ever take some of the ideas thrown here and there... I know some excellent stuff was mentionned here (DocBach, Levy just to name a few posters with good ideas), but I just got back from an 8 hour shift and a 4 hours drive to get back home so I don't have the energy to read the 15 pages that spawned during that time (but I did see the reading comprehension fail from my cell phone during my break, which is why I wanted to post the meme as soon as I got back ! )

I'll read the rest either later tonight or tomorrow... depending on how many glasses of whisky I drink

[Slashmckill]

DocBach, on 14 June 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

thread title changed - new catchphrase coined

"divergent convergence"

I think thats a good call to change the name, because once anyone uses the term "cone of fire" even in the loosest of senses, you get the mr. pro sniper types that act as if you just pissed in their lemonade if you introduce any concept that applied any sort of lore or realism for the setting/history into the game. (i might just be ranting a little but still, the same people say they don't like any idea that takes away any aim what so ever, even if the conditions are fully controllable. So i say to hell with it, something has to go and it should be pin-point acc 100% of the time.)

Sybreed, on 14 June 2013 - 06:12 PM, said:

just so you guys know, Garth forwarded it to the devs, let's see if they ever take some of the ideas thrown here and there... I know some excellent stuff was mentionned here (DocBach, Levy just to name a few posters with good ideas)

I really hope they consider some of the ideas in this thread, they perfectly address both the BT universe and the pin-point problem.

Edited by Slashmckill, 14 June 2013 - 06:25 PM.

[Lostdragon]

I guess people don't realize that "convergence" is just another way of saying cone of fire. They are basically the same concept.

[Artgathan]

Lostdragon, on 14 June 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

I guess people don't realize that "convergence" is just another way of saying cone of fire. They are basically the same concept.

Not really. CoF uses a RNG, Convergence depends on your ability to hold your crosshairs over a target for more than a split second.