198 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

MrZakalwe, on 14 August 2013 - 02:43 AM, said:

Agree strongly on all points. Balancing location armour so that hitting anywhere other than the CT is a valid decision would make convergence a non-entity.

I don't think convergence will ever become a non-entity - even if the race through the center torso isn't the best approach anymore, the best approach will still be too take out a hit location fast, and that is still best done with precision.

[MrZakalwe]

MustrumRidcully, on 14 August 2013 - 03:51 AM, said:

I don't think convergence will ever become a non-entity - even if the race through the center torso isn't the best approach anymore, the best approach will still be too take out a hit location fast, and that is still best done with precision.

Ghost heat has sorted a lot of it out and if they figure out a way to sort out 2x ERPPC + Gauss then the largest sensible alpha without massive heat problems will be 20 (AC40 Jager aside but that thing has its own problems).

[Wolfways]

MrZakalwe, on 14 August 2013 - 12:37 AM, said:

Not a troll at all- I think convergence is the only thing that allows this game to function like a shooter when mechs often have more guns than they can sensibly chainfire.

imagine an 8 laser hunchie alpha striking with cone of fire - really picture it in your head - what does it look like?

P.S. I really hate that attitude- this guy doesn't agree with my opinion? Obviously trolling.

It looks like a circle with 8 hit locations in it...

[One Medic Army]

RENZOKUKEN, on 14 August 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

So why do you need an excuse as to why you die? Do you have some faint hope that through the implementation of some sort of accuracy nerfing change that you and others like you might stand a better chance on the battlefield? Here's a suggestion, learn to aim.

First off, you're assuming I'm asking for nerfs because I'm dying.
I'm not, I'm asking for nerfs because a cone would be more intuitive than the "ghost heat", and I personally find it far too easy to repeatedly hit the same section on enemy mechs repeatedly at range.
I regularly side-torso Victors, Jagers, and Highlanders with AC/5s FFS.

[edit] I can run around at full-speed in a BJ-1 pegging assaults and heavies in the exact armor section I want while jumpjetting and at 70% heat. Yes, I do it in a medium because it's even easier doing it in one of my Victors.

Edited by One Medic Army, 14 August 2013 - 01:06 PM.

[Lykaon]

Khobai, on 14 August 2013 - 01:56 AM, said:

MWO uses TT armor values, but TT armor values are balanced around not having convergence. Therefore, MWO should either not use TT armor values, or it should not have convergence. Simple logic really.

PGI either needs to remove convergence or use armor values that are balanced with convergence in mind.

This is actually the core issue.

MWo pulled the armor mechanics directly from the table top game but failed to include enough supporting mechanics to prevent exploitation of the armor mechanics.

One big problem is most of the supporting mechanics from table top do not translate to a shooter game.

Random to hit numbers based on fixed variables modifying target numbers.

Random hit locations based on fixed values.

Longer refire rates.(Battletech is based upon a 10 second turn that allows each weapon to be fired once in a turn.In MWo we have on an average 2.5X faster refire times)

Progressive penalties for higher heat scale values.In MWo we have a heat system that is either fully function or shut down with no in between.

Turn based movement and shooting phases as well as initiative based order of events also play roles in mitigating damage application effects.


At the end of the day we have a square peg armor mechanic in a round hole game.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I love when people try to say a lack of instant pinpoint convergence is the same as random hit locations.

It invalidates the entire argument.

This thread is dumb.

[Xanquil]

Lykaon, on 14 August 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

.
Turn based movement and shooting phases as well as initiative based order of events also play roles in mitigating damage application effects.

This is the only one that can't be done, the rest just haven't been. And yes the core problem is that the armor/internal structure being used for MWO was never designed for the pin point weapons/pinpoint alpha strikes we have in this game. one of the 2 is going to have to give. I for one don't want the one armor value system MechAssault used, I would rather miss on occasion do to forces beyond my control.

[Boris The Spider]

MrZakalwe, on 14 August 2013 - 12:37 AM, said:

Not a troll at all- I think convergence is the only thing that allows this game to function like a shooter when mechs often have more guns than they can sensibly chainfire.

imagine an 8 laser hunchie alpha striking with cone of fire - really picture it in your head - what does it look like?

P.S. I really hate that attitude- this guy doesn't agree with my opinion? Obviously trolling.

HBK4 P firing without convergence:


It looks badass! Convergence is the automatic aiming by computer of all the weapon systems on your mech to strike a single point. You saying that this automatic aiming is not a problem beacuse... cone of fire... just does not follow. Then you even accuse people of not being able to aim when you support a system that allows AC20 rounds to fly out guns at a 30o angle just so they can hit where the reticle is pointed. (walk up nose to nose with the Catapult on training mode in an AC20 jagger and fire, IMPOSIBLE!!!!!)

Edited by Boris The Spider, 14 August 2013 - 01:26 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Aspects to keep in mind when considering the problem:

1. TT is 3rd Person view, so there's no means of adding gunnery skill other than through a small die roll modifier, or to add a lot more funky mechanics that can take a 5 minute per round game and turn it into 25 minutes per round. The mechanic in TT was done for game play expediency and what can be done in a 3rd person only view. Some of this was accommodated by location modifiers depending on what portion of the 'mech you could see, too. After all it wasn't possible to not hit what you couldn't see, ie: legs, when a 'mech was standing behind a Level 1 obstruction.

2. MWO is a first person shooter built on the Crysis2 engine, which was designed from the first person carrying and firing a single weapon at a time perspective.

3. As mentioned earlier, PGI has taken bits and pieces of the BT mechanic and implemented them in this game, missing the corresponding balance features inherit in TT play.

4. PGI has actually bastardized various values in TT, armor per ton, ammo per ton, heat per shot, and more specifically weapon ranges.

5. As mentioned in 4, when it comes to weapon ranges, PGI has actually increased them. Not only that, they compounded this by adding in an "Extended Range" component, giving weapons ridiculous ranges when compared to TT. Given that in TT a single hex was 30 meters, and that LONGEST range you could fire a gauss and actually hit was 22 hexes (30meters times 22 hexes), the LONGEST effective range of a gauss rifle was: 660 meters, regardless of your skill or any modifiers.

6. Lack of a comprehensive Heat Affects table allows repetitive use of Alpha Strike as fast as the weapons can possibly be fired. Something not typically seen in standard TT. In BT, LONG before you risked actual shut down there were other affects that would be activated based on your level of heat adding risks to using alpha strike, ie: It had a balancing factor. MWO, with no heat affects until your heat is beyond 99%, has nothing to balance alpha strike.

What this adds up to is to make MWO more like we expect our BT experience to be 3 things have to happen:

1. Add a comprehensive Heat Affects table for heat levels below 99% to add risk to over use of alpha strikes.

2. Reduce weapon ranges to TT standard, alleviating probably 30%-50% percent of the sniper opportunity.

3. Change the aiming mechanism to add 'pin point' ambiguity at LONG range, but leaving close in 'pin point' only slightly affected.

I'll see if I can't describe point 3 more completely. Essentially instead of having a pin point aiming reticule, you'd have a circle in the center of your screen of say a .5 cm diameter.

In that circle the 'pin point' that you previously used for aiming would exist, but it would be invisible, and in that circle it would randomly drift moment to moment. So that, at LONG range, when a 'mech is really 'small' in your FP perspective, the entire mech could fit inside that circle, but you wouldn't be able to see exactly where the 'pin point' of aim was. It could be dead center, it could be on the outer edge somewhere, and when you fired, it used that point to fire the weapons. You might hit but you only have a percentage chance of hitting exactly where you want, or you might miss entirely. You could possibly expand the number of invisible pin points to match the number of weapons the 'mech is carrying too, so that each weapon could end up with a different aiming point, eliminating 100% weapon convergence.

Now, taking that same .5 cm diameter circle and close in on the target 'mech, as you got close the target 'mech from your perspective grows in size, the targeting circle covers less and less of the 'mech until the point where the circle covers only a section of arm, or left/right torso that you're point at.

This method would simulate the LONG RANGE ambiguity, eliminate 100% convergence, but still allow for close in targeting.

Also for a heat affects, one of the things you could do to affect firing ability while under high heat is to cause the targeting circle to grow from .5 cm to 1 cm on up to as wide as the screen. A very cool affect that does a great approximation of simulating TT heat affects on gunnery skill.

It even adds the possibility of adding a "Firing Computer" control module that could be purchased just like current modules (the NON-MC ones) to reduce the pin points to ONE pin point, adding accuracy, but still maintaining LONG range ambiguity...

My thoughts anyway...

[Foxfire]

MrZakalwe, on 14 August 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

There have been many posts dropped around this forum blaming convergence for all the world's ills and I can't help but disagree.

Cone of fire would not really work in a game where a medium mech can legitimately fire 8 guns at once and some people have even suggested random chances to hit in direct immitation of tabletop.

If I want that I'll play Mechwarrior: Tactics.

You can fix convergence without a cone of fire.

Convergence is the number 1 reason why most mediums are death sentences.

[Joseph Mallan]

One Medic Army, on 14 August 2013 - 12:49 AM, said:

Accurate fire with an assault rifle in a modern FPS: attainable when stationary, aiming down the sights, not taking damage, and only within a certain range.
Accurate fire with a SMG in a modern FPS: LAWL
Accurate fire with a sniper rifle in a modern FPS: if you cancel out the reticule sway and only fire about every 10 seconds.

Accurate fire in MWO: everything, all the time, forever.
It has nothing to do with 1 weapon vs 10 weapons, if anything firing 10 weapons at once should make you less accurate.

With one exception... There is no kick or recoil on lasers. They should be left alone since beam duration spreads damage well enough.

[One Medic Army]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 August 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

With one exception... There is no kick or recoil on lasers. They should be left alone since beam duration spreads damage well enough.

Yeah, I can agree with that.

[Mystere]

Change convergence to be as follows:

• slow down rate of convergence
  
  • give arm mounted weapons faster rate
• allow convergence only on targeted mechs
  
• apply minimum convergence distance for all weapons
  
  • give arm mounted weapons smaller minimum distance

and all of these problems are eliminated.

[Steel Claws]

One Medic Army, on 14 August 2013 - 12:49 AM, said:

Accurate fire with an assault rifle in a modern FPS: attainable when stationary, aiming down the sights, not taking damage, and only within a certain range.
Accurate fire with a SMG in a modern FPS: LAWL
Accurate fire with a sniper rifle in a modern FPS: if you cancel out the reticule sway and only fire about every 10 seconds.

Accurate fire in MWO: everything, all the time, forever.
It has nothing to do with 1 weapon vs 10 weapons, if anything firing 10 weapons at once should make you less accurate.

Does the sniper rifle shoot a cone? I rather think not. What we have is multiple sniper rifles mounted on a articulated bi-pedal chassis. I'm ok with that.

What I find interesting is that most of the people ranting about convergence are all right with the way lasers are. Lasers converge far better and way more accurately than ballistics or PPCs. The responce I get is that they do their damage over time so it doesn't go in the same place. Actually it does but the issue is aim and target movement. These are the same issues that make convergence less effective on Ballistics and PPCs. There is No such thing as "instant damage" with anything other than lasers - which they are fine with. Lasers are still far more accurate than the other two.

In the end it doesn't matter one way or another. They say that convergence has to stay in because of the engine so why keep beating that dead horse. No mater how much discussion there is - it isn't going to change the fact that it isn't going away. All that happens is that we get some bandaid that hurts everyone (i.e. PPC Guass uncouple) to try to appease the ones complaining.

Edited by Steel Claws, 14 August 2013 - 03:11 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Mystere, on 14 August 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Change convergence to be as follows:

• slow down rate of convergence
  
  • give arm mounted weapons faster rate
• allow convergence only on targeted mechs
  
• apply minimum convergence distance for all weapons
  
  • give arm mounted weapons smaller minimum distance

and all of these problems are eliminated.

Except PGI has basically stated they can't do this due to some behind the scenes issues with their servers or something.

The problem with debating convergence is, PGI has already said they can't fix it.

So the question is, aside from all of these mythical penalties (Heat, Firing Delays), what could you do to fix it?

I think in the end it comes back to to two possibilities.

One is forced chain fire (everyone freak out now).

The other is there are basically two ways to fire shots one is Chain Fire which uses the current convergence mechanics (for example you fire and your PPC goes where you are pointing).

The second way is to Alpha, but an Alpha shot lacks any convergence at all. All weapons go straight out from your mech.

It's not perfect obviously, but those both seem like workable solutions with no random components, given PGI's inability to fix convergence properly.

[Xanquil]

That is the thing I don't like how lasers converge either. I don't think any 2 weapons should always hit the same location at the same time. If lasers hit the target than tried to converge that would be better IMHO.

[One Medic Army]

Steel Claws, on 14 August 2013 - 02:55 PM, said:

Does the sniper rifle shoot a cone? I rather think not. What we have is multiple sniper rifles mounted on a articulated bi-pedal chassis. I'm ok with that.

What I find interesting is that most of the people ranting about convergence are all right with the way lasers are. Lasers converge far better and way more accurately than ballistics or PPCs. The responce I get is that they do their damage over time so it doesn't go in the same place. Actually it does but the issue is aim and target movement. These are the same issues that make convergence less effective on Ballistics and PPCs. There is No such thing as "instant damage" with anything other than lasers - which they are fine with. Lasers are still far more accurate than the other two.

Sniper rifles in most games have scope sway, and also in most games you must be scoped/stationary to have perfect accuracy.
Not to mention in most games the targets are far harder to hit than in MWO, even lights have things like turning radius and accel/decel speeds that aren't present in FPS games.

[Lyoto Machida]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

Except PGI has basically stated they can't do this due to some behind the scenes issues with their servers or something.

The problem with debating convergence is, PGI has already said they can't fix it.

So the question is, aside from all of these mythical penalties (Heat, Firing Delays), what could you do to fix it?

I think in the end it comes back to to two possibilities.

One is forced chain fire (everyone freak out now).

The other is there are basically two ways to fire shots one is Chain Fire which uses the current convergence mechanics (for example you fire and your PPC goes where you are pointing).

The second way is to Alpha, but an Alpha shot lacks any convergence at all. All weapons go straight out from your mech.

It's not perfect obviously, but those both seem like workable solutions with no random components, given PGI's inability to fix convergence properly.

Leave the alpha like you said but limit weapons shooting straight out to torso weapons only.

Or, set convergence to max damage range of the specific weapon in question (ie: torso mounted MLs would auto converge at 270m...arm mounted ones would converge where the reticule is like currently).

Or...allow the player to set the optimum convergence range based on his playstyle. If some guy out there wants his torso mounted MLs to converge at 90m because he facehugs a lot, thats fine. He should just be prepared for his lasers to shoot off in an X pattern beyond 90m.

Or...make convergence an automatic thing based on the distance of the mech that you're targeting. If you're not targeting a mech or shooting at one that you are not currently targeting, the convergence is either the max damage range of the weapon, straight ahead, pre-set range, something...

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Xanquil, on 14 August 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

That is the thing I don't like how lasers converge either. I don't think any 2 weapons should always hit the same location at the same time. If lasers hit the target than tried to converge that would be better IMHO.

In the end what it comes down to, is what makes for the most compelling Mech vs. Mech gaming experience.

And I think that gets lost on people when having these discussions.

Lets throw out physics and game mechanics for a second.

In my opinion when two mechs meet on the battle field, you should see a mix of weapons and the mechs should be put through a long grueling fight to the death.

When the battle is decided the winning mech should be missing an arm or two and showing it's insides. The losing mech should be in complete tatters. None of this clean shooting through the center torso crap we see now.

That isn't what we have now, not even close.

There are reasons for that.

First one is instant pinpoint convergence. Second is the hardpoint system. The third is a lack of dynamic missions and game types.

It would help a lot of maps were all huge, and all 3 lances dropped in different locations, limiting the amount of blobbing that occurs.

Lyoto Machida, on 14 August 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

Leave the alpha like you said but limit weapons shooting straight out to torso weapons only.

Or, set convergence to max damage range of the specific weapon in question (ie: torso mounted MLs would auto converge at 270m...arm mounted ones would converge where the reticule is like currently).

Or...allow the player to set the optimum convergence range based on his playstyle. If some guy out there wants his torso mounted MLs to converge at 90m because he facehugs a lot, thats fine. He should just be prepared for his lasers to shoot off in an X pattern beyond 90m.

Or...make convergence an automatic thing based on the distance of the mech that you're targeting. If you're not targeting a mech or shooting at one that you are not currently targeting, the convergence is either the max damage range of the weapon, straight ahead, pre-set range, something...

I'm leary of arms being different because all that does is create a situation where everyone will mount as many PPC's/Gauss Rifles into the arms and we're right back where we started.

As for Or1, that sounds like once again a problem for PGI's coding team/servers.

Or2 is a possibility but I once again would wager it would be limited by PGI's coding. So you might have to set just once or two convergence points and that's it.

Or3 is definitely what they said they couldn't do.

[TheBossHammer]

MrZakalwe, on 14 August 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

There have been many posts dropped around this forum blaming convergence for all the world's ills and I can't help but disagree.

Cone of fire would not really work in a game where a medium mech can legitimately fire 8 guns at once and some people have even suggested random chances to hit in direct immitation of tabletop.

If I want that I'll play Mechwarrior: Tactics.

Cone of fire isn't convergence. Check your facts before you argue against a solution. Convergence is "my guns take so much time to all end up in the same spot, but the reticle is visible the entire time and I know exactly where that gun is going to shoot so I can use it to aim that one gun if I need to. There is no random chance." Cone of fire is "There's a big huge cone and my shots will end up somewhere in it. It's completely random."