124 replies to this topic

[AndyHill]

1) & 2) Those were numbers from the tabletop game, which hasn't been through balancing rounds to nerf group fire.

3) The AC/20 should probably also have burst instead of one shot.

4) To be exact, I wrote "4 MLAS at 4 slots, 4 tons, 12 heat without ammo requirements isn't supposed to rival AC/20 with 10 slots, 14 tons and 7 heat plus ammo for instant damage potential - like they do in MWO" Heat sink and ammo requirements vary depending on engagement length and profile, for this comparison both were omitted. The instant damage potential is an important factor on the tabletop, but much more so in MWO where you can actually aim the shot. This is in fact the core reason for the popularity of PPC/Gauss and the current jumpy & hide & seek -gameplay.

[AndyHill]

Viktor Drake, on 27 August 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

One - Group Firing is part of lore.

Two - I only have 4 buttons I can use to fire weapons which means even with groups alot of times I have trouble having enough buttons for all my different weapon types.

Removing Group Fire doesn't fix anything and in fact breaks the ability to have any sort of mixed build. For example, I said I have 4 buttons. Instead of having a Group set up for my 2 LL, a Group set up for my 3 ML and Group set up for my 2 SRM6s, I will assign PPC 1 to button 1, PPC 2 to button 2 and Gauss 1 to button 3. Then I will just push all three buttons at once so they fire as a "Group".

All you accomplished it to make it so I perfer to run a boat with fewer weapons, rather than a mixed build of different weapon types.

One - How is group fire a part of the lore? It isn't a part of the tabletop game (at least the original version I have some experience with), how important is it in the lore?

Two - Weapon groups wouldn't be going anywhere I think, you would basically have groups just like today, they would just be on chain fire and you couldn't fire several groups at once.

As for your boating question, see above. Firing simultaneously from separate groups would not be possible, there would be a global cooldown preventing that. This would at least in theory actually encourage taking different weapons, because you wouldn't have to fire all the guns at the same time to be effective, like in the current meta.

[Koniving]

Koniving, on 12 July 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

Part of that, which has failed to enter this game, is that when the Warhammer is being hit by the Autocannon it throws the Warhammer's aim off. Here, if you're hit the cockpit rocks slightly (while the mech rocks to the extreme) however your aim remains unchanged.

Example: Back when it was the Earthquake Simulator.

There's also recoil applied to the PPCs (and slight recoil to the Atlas's cannon).

The aim used in the video, however, aside from long delays due to heat generation and single heatsinks, is pinpoint with a large "O" rather than a "+" with a "o". But it was still pinpoint except when he fires while being hit by the kinetic force of the cannon.

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In general I believe many of MWO's issues would be fixed through a heat threshold standardization (no rising per heatsink b.s. see below) and high pinpoint damage with non-lore friendly ACs. Please open the spoilers.

Standardized Heat Threshold.

Spoiler

No rising threshold b.s. Just you can generate this much heat at once safely and shutdown. 30, 45, or 60 threshold. That's it. Period. 6 ER PPCs in MWO? 66 heat. Instant death with 30 threshold. 6 standard PPCs? 48 heat. 3 ER PPCs? 33 heat, shutdown. 3 standard PPCs? 24 heat. Now this doesn't say you can't use a 6 ER PPC stalker. You'd have to space out each of the 6 ER PPCs over the course of 10 seconds, just like tabletop.

In real life, imagine yourself as the mech. Cold drinks, ice, etc. are heatsinks. And now you're standing in 90 degree Florida weather. It's hot, isn't it? You can use the heatsinks to cool off, but does that mean because you consumed ice, you can now survive in 180 degree weather? No. Then how come if 3 ER PPCs shut us down with 10 standard heatsinks, then why can we fire 6 ER PPCs twice in a row with 18 DHS? It should be faster cooling. Not higher threshold. That's the root of alpha strike abuse.

Between 22 DHS, and the mech efficiencies "Heat threshold" 2x basic for elite mechs giving an additional 20%, allows for thresholds that, without taking cooling into account, are in excess of 130 heat for "100% heat." We used to have to get 300% heat for instant death. Now it's closer to 150% heat with the latest patch. But that's still insane.

Enjoy reaching 300% heat threshold!

"Un-lore friendly ACs, what would make balanced lore friendly ones?"

Spoiler

AC/20 in a single shot variant is a Howitzer 203mm round, which according to BT fluff if mounted on an Atlas and fired, the Atlas would fall over causing serious damage to itself. That's with just one AC/20. Thus it is not mounted on battlemechs. There's a great many variants out there that are lore friendly, and not cheesy, but still manage the same DPS without the same pinpoint burst damage. You can see them below.

Check this out. I disagree with the timings presented in the image, but the idea is solid. Click the arrow on the upper left of the quote to go to the thread.


I created macros to test them as well as builds required to do use them, so check out that thread.

Through testing with said macros, I found "1" second long bursts to be a good maximum length. Possibly 1.5 seconds for the Chemjet Gun, depending on whether or not its recoil is as strong as placed in that thread.

What keeps this balanced is that whatever the case, you will always have no more than 4 seconds between trigger pulls, so the time it takes to pump out the shots would reduce the cooldown time. If the MWO AC/20 fires instantly and takes 4 seconds to reload, then the Chemjet Gun takes 1.5 seconds to fire, it takes 2.5 to reload, and finally the Super Crusher takes 1 second to pump out 10 shells, and 3 seconds to reload. No matter what, you are always doing "5 DPS" regardless of which variant of the AC/20 you are using.

Obviously the smaller the caliber, the less recoil you'd have to deal with per shot.

AC/2s, I picture an optional variant firing 2 shells at 0.25 seconds apart at 1 damage each with zero cooldown, or another that fires 2 shots 0.1 seconds apart with 0.4 cooldown to fire again. Whether you use the MWO AC/2, the slow 2 shot version or the rapid 2 shot version, you will have identical 4 dps for them.

Finally got to making a test video of AC/20 variants.

For more, click on the second link in my signature.

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Edit: Earthquake sim vid was missing. It's an Atlas being hammered and rocked around like mad but still having pinpoint aim in spite of it. Also added in variant test vid.

In this I referred to recoil on PPCs -- and since a like has brought me back to this I decided to make a correction.

Some time later through watching the MechWarrior 5 trailer video again I came across a few realizations. The relevant one here is that no, there is no recoil to the PPCs. Instead, pay attention to the timing of the Autocannon fire from the Atlas when the Warhammer goes to fire its PPCs.

Notice upon being hit by the autocannon, the view and the body jerks, causing the PPC's aim to be thrown off?

It's an impulse (impact, forceful jerking from being shot) reaction to the autocannon. Evidently the autocannon is supposed to throw your aim off.

So, cleared that tidbit up.

[Hexenhammer]

General Taskeen, on 12 July 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

Everyone remembers the original concept videos right?

This is what people believed they were getting when we heard about MWO.

If PGI used used a large targeting circle like the video has PGI would get the crit and strip game they say they want and we wouldn't have 30-40point alpha strikes to the head at 900 meters.

[MustrumRidcully]

What's interesting about this video is also that it doesn't seem to show any "group fire" - the Atlas fires its lasers after each other, for example.

One thing to consider: Group Fire probably means that 10 second recycle time is boring. No Group Fire/Forced CHain-Fire would mean it's not, because you hav eplenty of guns to fire in those 10 seconds and have to wait between shots.

That said, i would not necessarily advise 10 second long recycle times. I just want to point out that chain-fire might work with longer recycle times. And longer recycle times and longer pauses also means more torso twisting opportunities again, so we don't lose this aspect of tactical depth that is unique to MW:O ,either.

[AndyHill]

The longer (let's say 10 seconds) recycle times are not exactly a necessity if you remove group fire, but practically they might be. A few notes about 10s+ cooldown times:

- That's WoT gameplay territory. When talking about WoT you have to remember they only have something like 70M+ registered users. Of which probably a far larger proportion is casual gamers than in MWO. Casual gamers who have no problems with waiting 10 seconds to fire. Actually, one of the generally considered "fun" builds used to be a tank that shot less than 3 times per minute.

- Luckily the above point is entirely moot, since as Mustrum said, thanks to forced chain fire you would be firing much more often than that.

- If you think about the current meta, how often do 2PPC + Gauss snipers actually fire? How many shots per minute did the dreaded death-nerfed 4PPC Stalker fire in a minute? More than 6? If the idea of BOOM-wait wait wait gameplay sounded boring, why is the high-end gameplay like that right now? If the goal was to make people go pew pew pew dakka dakka constantly, why is the game design designed to be the exact polar opposite of that?

- Longer recycle times would help a lot in weapon diversity. The faster you need to fire weapons the less time you have for coming up with firing solutions for different types of guns, which encourages boating.

- (Psst don't tell PGI about this cleverly hidden point, but if they were to remove group fire and lengthen cooldowns without increasing heat production, heat balance would instantly improve. After that it would be a simple thing to reduce heat cap and add variable penalties.)

- Limited group fire possibility might be a perk for some weapons and 'mechs. MG, FLMR and SLAS might for example be fired in twos or even fours to make them a bit more useful and some 'mechs like for example the Kraken might be able to group fire even more AC/2, but that would have to be carefully considered and tested first.

Edited by AndyHill, 28 August 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[Syllogy]

I'd like to point out the obvious and say that removing group fire will not help in any way, shape, or form.

Anyone with a programmable keyboard, mouse, or gamepad could still set up group fire with relative ease.

This would only punish people that didn't have one of those things.

[AndyHill]

No. As noted in the op and later in the thread, firing two weapons within x amount of time would simply be impossible. No amount of macroing would get you around that.

[Syllogy]

AndyHill, on 28 August 2013 - 07:10 AM, said:

No. As noted in the op and later in the thread, firing two weapons within x amount of time would simply be impossible. No amount of macroing would get you around that.

So what's the delay in time then?

[AndyHill]

Difficult to say without testing. Currently the chain fire delay is at 0.5 seconds and to me it feels like a lower limit to what I'd go for. Maybe try it with 1 second and see what that feels like.

[Syllogy]

AndyHill, on 28 August 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

Difficult to say without testing. Currently the chain fire delay is at 0.5 seconds and to me it feels like a lower limit to what I'd go for. Maybe try it with 1 second and see what that feels like.

So a Hunchback 4P (for example) would have to wait 1 second between firing each laser?

The longest cooldown on any weapon is 4.75 seconds.

That means that there would be absolutely NO reason to load more than 5 weapons on any mech? (And that's if you're running LRM's)

Wouldn't that gimp the entire lineup?

Edited by Syllogy, 28 August 2013 - 09:08 AM.

[AndyHill]

The cooldown values are currently adjusted for a world where group fire is king - and it's causing 'mechs to die too fast in a pinpoint alpha strike meta.

[Angel of Annihilation]

AndyHill, on 27 August 2013 - 12:48 PM, said:

One - How is group fire a part of the lore? It isn't a part of the tabletop game (at least the original version I have some experience with), how important is it in the lore?

Read the novels. Many of them talk about grouping weapons on a single firing circuit. The one I remember the most is in the fight between Vlad and Phelan, Vlad makes a mistake in how he has his weapons grouped. This is only one example though. There are many more.

Quote

Two - Weapon groups wouldn't be going anywhere I think, you would basically have groups just like today, they would just be on chain fire and you couldn't fire several groups at once.

Oh I agree for the most part, but the OP was making a case for removing the ability to group weapons together entirely. Also the new mechanic behind the Gauss Rifle will prevent you grouping it with anything because it will be the only weapon with a click-charge-release mechanic so who knows what else PGI has in store for us.

Quote

As for your boating question, see above. Firing simultaneously from separate groups would not be possible, there would be a global cooldown preventing that. This would at least in theory actually encourage taking different weapons, because you wouldn't have to fire all the guns at the same time to be effective, like in the current meta.

Ahh missed the Global Cooldown part. That would indeed fix the issue of being able to hit multiple buttons at the same time. However it would also totally eliminate the ability to Alpha which is something that is about as much a part of Battletech as the mechs themselves.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 28 August 2013 - 10:55 AM.

[AndyHill]

I've read some of the novels and if I recall correctly they had joystick controls for both arms with a firing button for each weapon in those - but this is not too important a point for me, since I'm mainly looking at this from a gameplay perspective. Sorry for the misunderstanding about weapon groups - I was at least supposed to mention somewhere that the groups would still exist, but their only function would be to choose which weapon gets to go next.

On the alpha issue I disagree strongly. It doesn't exist in the tabletop game or the very first 'MechWarrior game, but more importantly it has very serious negative gameplay consequences combined with the BattleTech damage system. Also, I've never read (admittedly, I haven't read many BTech novels) a combat sequence that goes like this: "The large laser cut through the armor moments before the two plasma bolts converged on the already heated metal, preparing the way for the Gauss slug that blasted straight through to the engine. The Phoenix Hawk turned instantly into a gigantic, lifeless paperweight with a puff of smoke rising from the neat hole in its chest, the only wound in an otherwise untouched warmachine."

As for the Gauss nerf, I already designed a macro that'll fire the PPC at the exact same moment with the gauss. I'll have to see how much the gauss is nerfed in practise, though, since it might be better to just replace it with another weapon. If I bother to play that much anymore in the first place, of course.

[MustrumRidcully]

Syllogy, on 28 August 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

So a Hunchback 4P (for example) would have to wait 1 second between firing each laser?

The longest cooldown on any weapon is 4.75 seconds.

That means that there would be absolutely NO reason to load more than 5 weapons on any mech? (And that's if you're running LRM's)

Wouldn't that gimp the entire lineup?

My take is to have cooldowns differ based on weapons, with a benchmark: No more than 20 damage in 0.5 seconds. (Andy seems to prefer longer cooldowns than I do, but ultimately, the base value is something that we need to experiment with.)

A Medium Laser deals only 2.5 seconds in 0.5 seconds, and whatever the delay is, the next shot will deal even less damage in the same 0.5 second interval. My guess is the delay for lasers would be marginal (say, 00.5 seconds), while the delay for the high-end ballistics and PPCs would be the more noticeble noticeable ones (0.25 to 0.5 seconds).

I really wish we could make our own MW:O servers with our own mods... You could try out so many things...

[Hexenhammer]

On the issue of removing firing groups. I got one word for you. MACRO!

I've a a programmable mouse and a programmable game pad. So why take firing groups out of the game and punish people without programmable keyboards, mice, and game pads. Or is the goal to push people to buy them?

[XANi]

Make CD between shooting high-caliber (10+ damage per shot) about 0.5s

Then, make cockpit sway to side that shot weapon as "recoil", the bigger the more damage it does (+ a bit of randomness so that movement can't be macroed around)

That way yes you could quickly put damage on target but it would automatically spread when shooting multiple weapons so on max range player would miss and on medium it would at least hit different components.

Add 5x modifier if legs are not touching ground. So no high-alpha poptarting

[AndyHill]

Hexenhammer, on 28 August 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

On the issue of removing firing groups. I got one word for you. MACRO!

I've a a programmable mouse and a programmable game pad. So why take firing groups out of the game and punish people without programmable keyboards, mice, and game pads. Or is the goal to push people to buy them?

Macros will do nothing for you when there's a global cooldown that simply prevents the firing of two or more weapons at less than x seconds from each other.

[AndyHill]

Bonus question: Poptarting.

1) If you can only chainfire with a notable delay between shots, poptarting becomes a fairly difficult tactic, even more so if PPCs and ACs are no longer one-shot weapons.

2) Not related to group firing, but one way to bring a bit of realism into the game and make poptarting more challenging is to automatically lock the torso and arms to a certain position whenever you activate jump jets. This way you could only use the jets to maneuver or put the targeting cursor on top of anyone, which would be quite clumsy compared to turning your torso. The 'mechs are not terribly aerodynamic or balanced as far as rocketry goes, so in reality they would probably have to lock the torso into direct center position and the arms if not completely locked too, would probably have to be used for balancing. This would make jumping more of a way to move from one place to another compared to jumpshooting from behind obstacles. This would of course have an effect on lights and other jumpers as well and probably need further balancing and thinking.

[Syllogy]

You're still talking about limiting mechs to only a handful of weapons, regardless of how many hardpoints they have.