53 replies to this topic

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Just curious is there any way you think it would be easy to have this be how group fires are calculated, where as chain fire would continue to be pinpoint?

I am at the point where any convergence fix is welcome.

[SerEdvard]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 12 July 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

Just curious is there any way you think it would be easy to have this be how group fires are calculated, where as chain fire would continue to be pinpoint?

I am at the point where any convergence fix is welcome.

I have no idea if this is possible, but I love the idea. Chain fire should be encouraged/rewarded for more reasons than just heat.

I would love to get a dev to comment on this!

Edited by SerEdvard, 12 July 2013 - 12:35 PM.

[Orzorn]

I'm personally in favor of a cone of fire that is about the size of the chest of a heavy mech or so, but I'm also in favor of this idea.

Anything that makes weapons not so pinpoint.

[Budor]

While its a cool idea i am absolutely against weapons not hitting where i aim. Esp. lasers, ballistics and such.

Edited by Budor, 12 July 2013 - 01:02 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Budor, on 12 July 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

While its a cool idea i am absolutely against weapons not hitting where i aim. Esp. lasers, ballistics and such.

lasers i can understand, but Ballistics and Missiles do have an inherent inaccuracy.

[SerEdvard]

Budor, on 12 July 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

While its a cool idea i am absolutely against weapons not hitting where i aim. Esp. lasers, ballistics and such.

Joseph Mallan, on 12 July 2013 - 01:05 PM, said:

lasers i can understand, but Ballistics and Missiles do have an inherent inaccuracy.

I sympathize, but I can say with confidence that the offset would be so small as to be hardly noticeable. In fact, I would think that the inherent inaccuracies from lag/ping and fps stutter would be much larger and more noticeable than this convergence tweak.

Edited by SerEdvard, 12 July 2013 - 01:19 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Budor, on 12 July 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

While its a cool idea i am absolutely against weapons not hitting where i aim. Esp. lasers, ballistics and such.

You know where they are going to hit. It just won't be all in one spot.

[TurboChickenMan]

This is a VERY quick and dirty fix, but as a placeholder for a total rework, it should be fine.

[Fajther]

I think it is great that this topic is up for another day. It is a good Idea and i hope that it catches on.

[SerEdvard]

Well, in today's ATD42-Answers Paul stated that the dev team doesn't currently have the resources to work on fixing convergence and that it would be a complex and highly technical issue to work on... But I wonder if he and his team have considered a potentially much simpler fix, albeit imperfect and likely only temporary, such as this one...

[Pht]

SerEdvard, on 12 July 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

What do you think?

I'm happy you see that there's a problem, but the idea you've got here doesn't take into accout that a battlemech can and actually does aim each individual weapon. The point at which each individual weapon converges is not a fixed point; it is constantly being adjusted by the battlemech.

[Mahnmut]

I think that weapons firing at their optimum range should not suffer the convergence offset but once they get in closer the offset should increase in a linear way. i.e. PPC's at 540m and over will still do pinpoint damage but inside that range the target offset will increase the closer they get.

This helps brawler weapons at closer ranges but still lets sniper weapons shine at long distances.

I don't think individual weapons fired should be subject to any convergence penalty though.

[The6047]

I think torso/head mounted weapons should always fire straight ahead with no convergence always and forever. Weapons on the arms with actuators should be able to converge on reticle with pinpoint accuracy regardless of distance as it is now. Just seems like common sense to me. You can still get almost pinpoint with torso weapons by separating your firing groups to match the locations they are mounted, firing them seperately and adjusting for their line of fire. Pretty simple, thoughts?

[Khobai]

Not an ideal fix but better than absolutely nothing which is what we have now.

[DarkJaguar]

I like it but...

4PPC stalkers fire 2 PPCs per tube, so you're still getting 20pts of damage done to a single pixel every time.

It's a creative and simple solution, and it would be better than the current system, but I would still like PGI to address some OTHER issues as well.

[PEEFsmash]

Why not balance the weapons/armor themselves instead of nerfing aim? I promise, it's possible.

[DarkJaguar]

PEEFsmash, on 12 July 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

Why not balance the weapons/armor themselves instead of nerfing aim? I promise, it's possible.

It's not. I'd like to see what Damage/recycle numbers you would throw out there that would balance multi-weapon pinpoint accuracy though.

[SerEdvard]

DarkJaguar, on 12 July 2013 - 07:42 PM, said:

I like it but...

4PPC stalkers fire 2 PPCs per tube, so you're still getting 20pts of damage done to a single pixel every time.

It's a creative and simple solution, and it would be better than the current system, but I would still like PGI to address some OTHER issues as well.

Agreed. This is not a perfect solution by any means, just a quick and dirty one. This convergence fix would work best paired with other balance changes, such as increased PPC heat, buffed SRMs, etc. As you have laid out in detail, there are a great many issues that need to be addressed that this convergence fix doesn't touch at all.

Still, 2 PPCs on target is better than 4 or 6, and dual AC20/gauss would be spread out as well since you can't mount two of them in the same location. One limitation is that his fix couldnt stop 3+ PPC pinpoint alphas from mechs with 3+ energy hardpoints in one location, such as some Highlander, Victor, and Battlemaster variants have.

Edited by SerEdvard, 12 July 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[Bobdolemite]

Out of all of the ideas I have seen to help address pinpoint accuracy / convergence this is by far the simplest and most likely to succeed IMO. Doesnt look like it would take a ton of work, certainly less than their whole boating dynamic and the infinite balancing that is to follow.

I dont see this as being a permanent solution but it would definitely relieve some of the problems that have plagued us without penalizing anyone or changing the games dynamic in the slightest.

Once people learn to predict the slight spreading of shots singling out components will not be difficult.

Heat can be addressed as the separate issue that it really is and perhaps the penalties do not have to be so ground shattering.

+1 for the idea, I would love to go to PTR and see this!

(would love to see a staff response to this one - but maybe that wont happen till its submitted in tedium to Garth..... now wheres that pm button)

[SerEdvard]

Bobdolemite, on 12 July 2013 - 09:37 PM, said:

Out of all of the ideas I have seen to help address pinpoint accuracy / convergence this is by far the simplest and most likely to succeed IMO. Doesnt look like it would take a ton of work, certainly less than their whole boating dynamic and the infinite balancing that is to follow.

I dont see this as being a permanent solution but it would definitely relieve some of the problems that have plagued us without penalizing anyone or changing the games dynamic in the slightest.

Once people learn to predict the slight spreading of shots singling out components will not be difficult.

Heat can be addressed as the separate issue that it really is and perhaps the penalties do not have to be so ground shattering.

+1 for the idea, I would love to go to PTR and see this!

(would love to see a staff response to this one - but maybe that wont happen till its submitted in tedium to Garth..... now wheres that pm button)

And I'd like to reiterate Nichola Carlyle's great idea that the increased convergence distance could only apply to group fire, if the engine allows it. Weapons could still be fired with pinpoint accuracy if chain fired.