18 replies to this topic

[HansBlix WMD]

Another possible solution to long range pinpoint alpha boats: randomize the velocity of the projectiles (ppc/gauss/ac). This has the advantage of changing nothing for stationary (shutdown, legged) or zero-transversal (badly piloted) mechs but providing evasive pilots with some protection against the instakill.

Right now the projectiles travel at a set velocity; the velocities are chosen from a Gaussian curve with a width of zero. I propose changing that to a probabilistic curve with a width dependent on how many weapons of the same type that are being fired. Similar to the heat penalty PGI has discussed, except this prevents the problem rather than just punishing it after the fact.

Let's take PPC's for example. Their mean velocity is 2000. If you fire 1 or 2 PPCs, let's keep the sigma very small, around 10 or so, so one might come out at 2005 m/s and another at 1990 m/s. This would make hardly any difference to whether they hit the same mech or even the same component.

Then maybe for 4 ppc's simultaneously you get a bigger sigma, like 250. Then you might have one PPC coming out at 2000 m/s, another at 1750 m/s, one at 2080 m/s, and perhaps one really over-excited particle bundle went super fast at 2300 m/s. The chance of all four of these PPC's hitting the same component on a mech is near zero, if the target is moving. For 6 PPC's, let the sigma go wild, with the chance of them all coming out with a similar velocity extremely low!

This changes nothing for stationary targets. But for moving targets, playing the game correctly, it provides a modicum of protection against long range pinpoint alpha.

Edited by HansBlix WMD, 22 June 2013 - 08:34 AM.

[redreaper]

just increase heat of ppc erppc to 10 and 15(where they were before) increase the dps of ac10 and bring srms upto 2,0 damage problem solved nothin fancy needed.ohh and get rid of quick start up pilot skill

Edited by redreaper, 22 June 2013 - 08:39 AM.

[zazz0000]

A small deviation in velocity would be nice...
Like maybe with the sigma factor of 10% (at high heat) or less, I can dig it.
And throw in on top of that a small deviation in recycle time when running hot too.
Oh and also throw in some trigger time deviation when hot, so there's a short delay between the pull and the actual firing.

Hmm? Hmm? Anyone?

[MuonNeutrino]

redreaper, on 22 June 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

just increase heat of ppc erppc to 10 and 15(where they were before) increase the dps of ac10 and bring srms upto 2,0 damage problem solved nothin fancy needed.ohh and get rid of quick start up pilot skill

No, problem not solved. SRMs and ac10 need a boost, but as long as PPC boats stay at less than 150% heat after an alpha, they'll still be wrecking face. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me if the PPC boat that just shot me is guaranteed to shut down afterwards if that one shot he got off is still enough to leave my poor blackjack face down in the snow missing a previously untouched torso section. And just straight up nerfing PPC heat generation also ruins the weapon for the people who *aren't* boating it - two PPCs on a mech isn't OP, and shouldn't be getting nerfed.

I really like the OP's idea. I'm not sure it'd completely solve the problem by itself, but it'd definitely be a good element to include in whatever the final solution turns out to be.

edit:

HansBlix WMD, on 22 June 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

Similar to the heat penalty PGI has discussed, except this prevents the problem rather than just punishing it after the fact.

THIS is what FAR FAR too many people fail to understand about this problem. Any penalty relating to heat, either generation or effects on the mech, doesn't actually *solve* the problem, because it doesn't actually stop people from landing those massive pinpoint alphas. Barring a *permanent* penalty of some sort (damaged heat sinks or whatever), heat penalties are NOT going to fix things. A true solution needs to make it so that hitting things with 60 damage pinpoint alphas is *imposssible*, not just costly. That is why this, and Homeless Bill's convergence idea, are good potential solutions - because the prevent the problem from occurring in the first place, instead of just trying to whack the offenders after they fire.

Edited by MuonNeutrino, 22 June 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

There's little enough skill involved in landing big alpha shots as it is, adding a non-mitigatable variable just reduces that even further. Add things that can be mitigated by skill like bullet drop and non-instant convergence. I honestly don't mind my Raven dropping to two hard shots. The problem is, they're not hard shots.

[HansBlix WMD]

Gaan Cathal, on 22 June 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

There's little enough skill involved in landing big alpha shots as it is, adding a non-mitigatable variable just reduces that even further. Add things that can be mitigated by skill like bullet drop and non-instant convergence. I honestly don't mind my Raven dropping to two hard shots. The problem is, they're not hard shots.

This would effectively make it hard shots at long range. If you alpha strike while leading a target, then it will be impossible for all the projectiles to be on target if you're moving sideways. If you chain fire you don't have that problem, but then you have to aim 3,4,5 times in succession which takes some skill!

[Otto Cannon]

It's not a terrible idea if the issue was only ever long range PPC shots, but the short range alpha would be unaffected so people would still be complaining on the forum about AC40 Jagers or whatever the next cheese alpha brawler is.

[HansBlix WMD]

I think the short range alpha is a separate problem. Even if you do something like cone of fire, then you have a smaller dispersion when you're closer anyway. At least the short range alphas have the requirement if being in short range; the 4-6 PPC alphas have very long range and are much harder to avoid in most maps.

[Vassago Rain]

This is a terrible idea. Randomness for the speed of my projectiles? No.

[Gaan Cathal]

One thing I do think might be worth trying, although it would by no means be a solution on it's own, is changing the falloff damage reduction so it's exponential not linear. You still have the good aspects of falloff range (not being cheated out of all your damage by a <1m change in distance) but we won't have AC/20s invalidating AC/10s by doing the same damage in AC/10 optimal and similar issues, and we'd cut down a bit on the extreme-ranged quad-PPC damage.

I really am of the opinion that the solution to the excessive power pinpoint alpha offers for the effort expended to achieve it is going to be a number of solutions, not one cure-all change. Convergence, bullet drop, exponential falloff, heat adjustment, speed cap removal and a whole host of other things should provide a limit to the pinpoint alpha both in terms of it's raw power, and by increasing the skill required to exert that power.

[HansBlix WMD]

Whether the falloff is exponential or linear the question is the slope, not the functional form. If you're saying you want to make it falloff faster, ok, but that isn't really the core of the problem.

If someone wants to expose themselves for potshots of 1 gauss or 1 ppc I don't think that makes the game not fun. It's actually entertaining. What sucks is when 40 damage cores you from 1000m when you're running at full speed.

Have to focus on things that penalize multiple-large-weapon pinpoint alpha, not just ranged damage in general.

[skullman86]

redreaper, on 22 June 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

just increase heat of ppc erppc to 10 and 15(where they were before) increase the dps of ac10 and bring srms upto 2,0 damage problem solved nothin fancy needed.ohh and get rid of quick start up pilot skill

Probably wouldn't fix everything wrong with balance, but it would be a nice change to have while PGI develops a real solution.

[East Indy]

HansBlix WMD, on 22 June 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

This changes nothing for stationary targets. But for moving targets, playing the game correctly, it provides a modicum of protection against long range pinpoint alpha.

As one who's constantly thinking of different solutions, I like it, especially because it would encourage smaller fire groups and a skill-based meta for precision fire.

[MechWarrior849305]

Velocity randomization - NO. Velosity reduce - YES. 1km in a half second - ridiculous. Make it 2 secs (yes, 500m/s).
And reduce max range to be not 2xLong range, but something like 1.2-1.5xLong range max. So to be 950-1200m. The problem with the game is that you can shoot about twice of length of any map (except Alpine). So it is base-PPC-warrior, nothing more.

[Asbjorn Jorgensson]

I greatly support the very low velocity. My favourite mech is the Warhawk and my favourite weapon is the ER PPCs. It pains me to see it being so wide spread. I would rather relearn to use my favourite weapon than seeing it be used everywhere. 500 m/s may make ppc dodging fun to try where you vary your speed as you cross the map.

Hmm a harsher range nerf for PPC users vs other energy weapons? I think that sounds like a fine plan to me. We already know that that the max range of energy weapons is 2x of the written value with a linear fall in damage why not make PPCs more special.

Refresh my memory but why did they increase the velocity of PPCs to 2000?

[MechWarrior849305]

Asbjorn Jorgensson, on 22 June 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

I greatly support the very low velocity. My favourite mech is the Warhawk and my favourite weapon is the ER PPCs. It pains me to see it being so wide spread. I would rather relearn to use my favourite weapon than seeing it be used everywhere. 500 m/s may make ppc dodging fun to try where you vary your speed as you cross the map.

Hmm a harsher range nerf for PPC users vs other energy weapons? I think that sounds like a fine plan to me. We already know that that the max range of energy weapons is 2x of the written value with a linear fall in damage why not make PPCs more special.

Refresh my memory but why did they increase the velocity of PPCs to 2000?

PPC were too bad long ago, so they have decided to decrease heat and increse velocity to be compared with the speed of AC20 and Gauss. And apparently overbuffed them as well.

[Ningyo]

I was not around for it, but what I always hear is before they put in HSR PPCs could not hit anything, so they massivley raised its speed. Then they put in HSR and left it absurdly fast

[Hexenhammer]

Velocity deviation? I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I remember playing closed beta and hitting with ballistics was a nightmare because of net code, server side authentication and any number of other things that toyed with firing speeds. Sure weapon velocity is a silly idea. I watched a Cicada walk forwards and backwards, dodging my uac/5 rounds like it was nothing. I was shootting one round at a time and he was over 1500m away but still he was able to dodge it. What was he? Neo?

Now imagine trying to hit a target in the heat of battle when you don't know if you know how much you need to lead a target by?

[HansBlix WMD]

Hexenhammer, on 22 June 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Velocity deviation? I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I remember playing closed beta and hitting with ballistics was a nightmare because of net code, server side authentication and any number of other things that toyed with firing speeds. Sure weapon velocity is a silly idea. I watched a Cicada walk forwards and backwards, dodging my uac/5 rounds like it was nothing. I was shootting one round at a time and he was over 1500m away but still he was able to dodge it. What was he? Neo?

Now imagine trying to hit a target in the heat of battle when you don't know if you know how much you need to lead a target by?

I'll assume you skipped the part where I propose randomizing the velocity in a meaningful way only when large numbers of weapons are fired simultaneously. If you were firing one UAC/5 (and missing a light, just like I always do too!) then you wouldn't notice any difference in velocity at all. The sigma could be zero, or something so small that over a short distance the time to target would be virtually unchanged.