387 replies to this topic

[DocBach]

Prezimonto, on 02 July 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

Or fire single weapons. A single Gauss rifle would still be amazing.

correct - chain fired weapons would still receive pin point accuracy, so a stationary 'Mech could accurately fire a single weapon at long range without convergence penalties.

[DarkJaguar]

I like the idea, and it's well thought out (nice pics btw) but I am of the belief that the problem is more than just convergence. The whole system is broken.

I have a thread along a similar vein (though I do things a bit differently. ) that you may enjoy reading.

http://mwomercs.com/...er-fix-balance/

With any luck, and if enough of these threads are kept near the top, maybe PGI will take notice.

[Prezimonto]

I agree. Something needs to be done. This just happens to be my favorite one before it includes feedback inhibition.

Speed = defense at the cost of alpha strike offense

The whole concept is elegant and hangs together very nicely.

[DocBach]

Prezimonto, on 02 July 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

I agree. Something needs to be done. This just happens to be my favorite one before it includes feedback inhibition.

Speed = defense at the cost of alpha strike offense

The whole concept is elegant and hangs together very nicely.

yep, thats the basic jist; speed penalizes pinpoint accuracy (though still provides enough accuracy to hit a target with all of you weapons, they just would not go in to the same clean little hole), but provides protection against enemies from doing the same to you. Moving slow means guns can train on you better and quicker so you are at more of a risk of having accurate fire placed on you.

It doesn't punish accuracy; it gives you an aiming point for all of your weapons groups, it just makes you work a bit harder to get all of your groups to land in the same spot every time.

[Homeless Bill]

This idea deserves a bump, particularly with all the un-constructive QQ on the front page today.

[DocBach]

\

BACK TO THE FRONT

bump

[RetroActive]

No No NO! Why don't we just ask the devs to create CounterStrike Warrior Online?

[DocBach]

Except for it would not be anything like Counterstrike - in Counterstrike the reticle expansion is random and you cannot fire multiple weapons at once, and this option provides constant aiming points for each weapon location and the ability to still fire multiple weapons at once, but pinpoint accuracy for all the weapons fired would have to be worked for rather than instant like current.

[Undead Bane]

Well, I would like to bump the thread so that maybe someday some dev will come by to read...

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Would love to see SOMEONE...cough....say they are bringing this thread to Paul's attention.

[Undead Bane]

RetroActive, on 05 July 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

No No NO! Why don't we just ask the devs to create CounterStrike Warrior Online?

I would normally just ignore such an answer but...

Whack-a-mole-point-and-click is just so much better!

And the suggestion is nothing like CS. L2R(ead) please.

[Otto Cannon]

Viktor Drake, on 01 July 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Also this isn't going to fix boating because lets face it a sniper is often standing still just waiting for a target to pop over a ridge. That being the case, he is still going to have prefect convergence due to lack of movement triggering the recticle bloom.

PEEFsmash, on 01 July 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Has anyone pointed out that this does nothing to stop the sniping meta, because snipers are the ones standing still with crosshairs on target for the longest period of time before shooting?

But this isn't true when the convergence depends on target speed too.

I'd favour making target speed more important than the speed you're moving; you could fluff-justify it by saying the targeting computer is set up to compensate somewhat for the known pattern of your own walking or running but can't predict enemies. That gives lighter mechs an edge when groupfiring where their light weapons aren't such a problem, but assaults won't be left helpless because they can carry large weapons to fire single shots with accuracy (AC20 etc.) or simply groupfire anyway and actually use the spread like an LBX to make hitting easier.

I think it would do a lot to help the weight class imbalance, and sniping would still be possible but not as easy. The only time a sniper would have you cold is if he's standing still with low heat and you're also just standing still, in which case you deserve to get shot for not moving.

[Unbound Inferno]

If I could make a suggestion though:

DocBach, on 25 June 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

Although I like the idea, I would wonder if its simpler to handle it with more of a guide manner than a specific landing point;



Basically leave what we have now, just ad two marks on the arm cursor and one center in the crosshair. Have the guides expand to suggest how the shots are becoming more wild.


All I am saying, is not to have the crosshair be the pinpoint spot it lands. Let it be a bit random, but show a guide where the shots could land.

[DocBach]

Would that be opening the path to random shots hitting in a cone? The idea is to keep the different locations aiming points constant so people can't claim their skill is being taken away for randomness while still opening up alpha strikes damage.

[Unbound Inferno]

DocBach, on 07 July 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Would that be opening the path to random shots hitting in a cone? The idea is to keep the different locations aiming points constant so people can't claim their skill is being taken away for randomness while still opening up alpha strikes damage.

It would if I could do anything about it. But I don't believe an ounce of how they argue on keeping that pinpoint levels because of skill. Simply moving the pinpoint off to the side doesn't really solve the problem - the shots still land exactly where they are meant to and that skill doesn't matter against a little bit of timing.

See, the way they argue 'skill' in here should hold little when it comes to the hard mechanics of the game. Skill as it should be is your ability to overcome those mechanics to play well. If you do not make some form of buffer for that skill, the situation cannot change because of the current game - referring to the horrid matchmaker of experienced vs new players with that pinpoint ability. Those perfect shots will still land on those specific places for those that can do it.


As much as they hate it, it is a handicap for their perfect hits, but its not as bad as they make it out to be.


The system as either how you have it set, or I envision it under a cone of fire around a guide still leaves those few key early shots perfectly accurate. High alphastrike builds remain as they are for the first shots. However as yours goes out, it is a perfectly manageable system where they know exactly where the next lands and can adjust accordingly.

The intent of mine is to make it so that massive alphastrike was a once in a while situation where if they rush again the next falters more unpredictably - or if they wait the target has time to recover. If the target doesn't take proper actions (like cover or re-positioning) its prone to be hit again. In that regard, the proper use of skill and experience by where you are and taking your time means you can overcome the system - but rushing like the current meta would only mean you can't. It forces a mitigation of damage by adding that time or the shots become wild and it forces less damage at those extreme ranges because it can't aim well.


The aiming distances for its effectiveness depends on the target and distance. In this way its mean to limit the frequency of alphastrike hits from PPC/Gauss boats from across the map, but the level of inaccuracy becomes negligible as the target is closer.

My goal is that ranges of 700m+ would be required to fall under that one careful shot or the wild ranges push it enough they can't hit it. It can be overcome - in yours easier than mine. Adding a random cone is harder to aim at extreme ranges than knowing your shots will land 'there' instead.
The mid-range of 300-600m would be around where the accuracy can be overcome on large mechs, but medium and lights might slip between the shots. Again, leaving pinpoint leaves the same issues as simply regrouping weapons leaves them with just needing an extra shot but they can do it easily.A cone makes that pointless and at best one or two lands while the rest veers off.
The close range (typical brawling range) of under 300m is where the mech sizes fall to a point that the distances remain close enough that you can't miss. In yours the levels remain constant, the aiming points predictable - its still pinpoint. In mine its a bit more wild, but the distances leaves it as if it were almost pinpoint. If the heat was enough it would be wide shots, but you'll still hit your target usually.


Cone fire does make the so-called "light-hunting" harder for those that are good with perfect shots now, but in an odd way it helps those that could be off just slightly on their shots as just slightly off might mean a variable is enough to hit.



However, either way is just a guess by me now. Without specifically testing it we'll not know.


But its not to dismiss your idea. It would help some, but I don't think that leaving a pinpoint accurate spot would exactly solve it all. A step in the right direction at least, but not something that would likely solve the problem completely.

[KaSpuck]

There are so many broken things right now balance wise... this is one of a few systems I would ardently support. But the poor arbitrary and consistent game physics-less reasoning among the game systems that exist show a fairly clear path towards twitch and money. I still play occasionally because of my love of the franchise, but I find myself less enthusiastic with every patch. I hope a dev with any kind of real architectural pull looks at this and they can come to jesus somewhat and bring the systems more back in line with canon reasoning for how systems worked together.

[Dudeman3k]

bumping this thread back to the top,m it's just that good.

[Tegiminis]

Very bad suggestion.

The first issue with this system is that it would still favor high alphas. You will want to stop, alpha, and go over roaming fights. There would be little point to fielding a light or medium for actual combat, since the high movement speed and constant turning would completely destroy any chance of aiming. May as well just remove them from the game and call it AssaultWarrior Online, since that's all anyone would field.

Second, it deadens the skill cap instead of raises it. Rather than making weapons functionally more difficult to use (raising cooldowns, changing heat, forcing chainfires, changing projectile speed, altering damage), it introduces randomization which the player can not effectively work around. May as well just go play tabletop, if we are going to have tabletop-like accuracy variance.

I'm all for making high alphas more difficult to use. But this system has the double effect of lowering the skill cap (by removing a good portion of skill and putting it in the hands of the RNG) and favoring high-alpha assaults. I guess the grognards around here favor it because they don't know any better.

[jay35]

DocBach, on 25 June 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

Overview:

The largest problem in this game stems from the fact that PGI has kept certain traits and rules from the board game such as the separate location damage models, then added the ability to group several weapons together and shoot them all at one location. These damage models were balanced for a board game in which weapons hit completely random locations; now that where they go can easily be selected we have created an environment that rewards boating the biggest alpha strike as possible as they are superior in nearly every way to other weapon systems.

To fix it PGI needs to make a decision; is this going to be a simulation of the board game, or a first person shooter skinned with the lore?

It's absolutely going to be the latter, if they want the game to be fun and attractive to a wide audience (which they have stated they do). Trying to force a TURN-BASED board game into a real-time shooter is going to require sacrificing stricture in order to maintain fun and reduce frustration. It's the same reason we have the heat mechanics we do, rather than the overly-punitive table-top scale.

All they need to do is fix PPCs a bit (and improve SRM damage) and things will have a pretty good balance. The rest of the changes needed pretty much boil down to matchmaking, segregating premades from PUGs, and preventing pre-mades from taking more than 2 of any chassis at a time, in order to reduce the real imbalance that happens due to multiples of a specific mech being fielded together and then on top of that being well-coordinated by premade teams on voice comms.

Once they fix those things, the game will have a reasonable balance and be in a good place. Techniques that sap skill in favor of dulling the effectiveness of weapons, belong in turn-based tabletop games not first-person real-time shooter-style games like MWO.

Edited by jay35, 07 July 2013 - 07:19 PM.

[DocBach]

It isn't random at all - it gives a constant aiming point for each location that changes based on battlefield conditions. As range and target speed is a consideration, being in a fast light or medium squaring off against a slower assault 'Mech means your convergence closes in faster than his while his takes longer to gain. The player has control over how tightly his weapons are converged based on how long he holds his reticle over his target before deciding to fire; if he wants more accuracy he may have to sacrifice security by exposing himself longer to get a tighter grouping. It makes the player trade off to get maximum damage to a single location panel.

I think there's a comprehension failure on your part somewhere, your post is disconnected from the actual idea.

Edited by DocBach, 07 July 2013 - 01:36 PM.