198 replies to this topic

[Nicholas Carlyle]

TheBossHammer, on 14 August 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

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."

I wish more people would comprehend this, and we could stop having poorly thought out posts like the one that started this thread.

Lack of Convergence is not the same thing as Random.

[Foxfire]

Actually I think the official word from PGI isn't that they 'can't' do it but that they don't want to do it because it would be a major engineering effort on the back end to make a more complex change work.

IMO, however, it would be worth it for them in the long run because having such a system would make the game much easier to balance without going to such arbitrary systems such as the magical heat system that they come up with and would help with the overall longevity of the game by allowing for more variety in gameplay.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Foxfire, on 14 August 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

Actually I think the official word from PGI isn't that they 'can't' do it but that they don't want to do it because it would be a major engineering effort on the back end to make a more complex change work.

IMO, however, it would be worth it for them in the long run because having such a system would make the game much easier to balance without going to such arbitrary systems such as the magical heat system that they come up with and would help with the overall longevity of the game by allowing for more variety in gameplay.

Splitting hairs basically.

For PGI major efforts are to be avoided like the plague.

That's why by all accounts CW is going to be all about Loyalty Points instead of actually conquering planets and expanding your sphere of influence.

Or why they refuse to revisit mech scaling (GIANT KINTARO'S 4 LIFE).

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 14 August 2013 - 03:23 PM.

[Foxfire]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:22 PM, said:

Splitting hairs basically.

For PGI major efforts are to be avoided like the plague.

That's why by all accounts CW is going to be all about Loyalty Points instead of actually conquering planets and expanding your sphere of influence.

Or why they refuse to revisit mech scaling (GIANT KINTARO'S 4 LIFE).

If enough customer pressure is applied, I'm sure that they will find the time to address the issue. The issue is drumming up noise from the customers.

[aseth]

Convergence and Cone of Fire are related, but not necessarily identical features.

Convergence can be implemented without a cone of fire, if all of the weapons initially fire straight forward rather than at the targeting reticule. Maintaining a lock on a target (like you do for Streaks) could make them all move towards convergence at different speeds (so things like Pinpoint actually do something, and so weapons like pulse lasers can be set to converge faster than standard lasers).

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Foxfire, on 14 August 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

If enough customer pressure is applied, I'm sure that they will find the time to address the issue. The issue is drumming up noise from the customers.

That's fine, but they've got what? 5 or 6 major issues (hit detection, hit boxes, CW, mech scaling, convergence, tonnage limits etc.), and release is a month away.

You can't have new players coming into this, they won't stick around.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 14 August 2013 - 03:32 PM.

[Xanquil]

Aseth, that is how convergence is suppose to work in MWO, but for some reason PGI couldn't get it to work so they set the convergence time to zero.(or almost zero)

[Jetfire]

Fully articulated arms should have convergence like in closed beta... but fixed so it actually converges on what you are pointing at.

CT should have perfect to reticule targeting... its in the center.

LT and RT along with vertical only arms should be preset to converge on the max useful range for each weapon.

Cone of fire is a separate issue. I say fix convergence... then see if we even need to worry about it.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Jetfire, on 14 August 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

Fully articulated arms should have convergence like in closed beta... but fixed so it actually converges on what you are pointing at.

CT should have perfect to reticule targeting... its in the center.

LT and RT along with vertical only arms should be preset to converge on the max useful range for each weapon.

Cone of fire is a separate issue. I say fix convergence... then see if we even need to worry about it.

Arm Convergence will ALWAYS present a major issue, because if it's the only way to get real pinpoint convergence everyone will pick mechs that can mount 2 PPC's and a Gauss in the arms. Which is exactly what we are trying to curtail right now.

[Jetfire]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

That's fine, but they've got what? 5 or 6 major issues (hit detection, hit boxes, CW, mech scaling, convergence, tonnage limits etc.), and release is a month away.

You can't have new players coming into this, they won't stick around.

Honestly yeah they have too much to do for me to be comfortable with them launching... but then that's what I said about open beta too. I feel they are almost where I thought they would be for open beta...

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

Arm Convergence will ALWAYS present a major issue, because if it's the only way to get real pinpoint convergence everyone will pick mechs that can mount 2 PPC's and a Gauss in the arms. Which is exactly what we are trying to curtail right now.

Sure, but then you can actually tune the convergence speed to balance it.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Jetfire, on 14 August 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

Honestly yeah they have too much to do for me to be comfortable with them launching... but then that's what I said about open beta too. I feel they are almost where I thought they would be for open beta...

It's a real issue, I can't believe we have 0 CW implemented at this point.

[TexAce]

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.

what the hell....

no one is saying fix convergence with cone of fire. NO ONE. Because CoF is a stupid mechanic. MechWarrior should not rely on dice rolls, which CoF is, its nothing else than a Random Number Generator.

What we mean with convergence is something like this here:
http://mwomercs.com/...94#entry2654694

Hell we even have a convergence-speed quirk in the mech tree, that at the moment DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but you have to unlock it for 3K XP just to have Elite on your mech.
How the hell do they want to explain that to a new user after launch.

Edited by TexAss, 14 August 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Jetfire, on 14 August 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

Sure, but then you can actually tune the convergence speed to balance it.

Except once again, based on recent Ask the Devs, they aren't comfortable being able to institute convergence speed and feel it would be a MAJOR undertaking.

We need a way that doesn't require a major undertaking, because these dev's refuse to do major undertakings as I've outlined above.

[Donnie Silveray]

Most convergence suggestions generally fall flat on the ground when it comes to being within reason or adaptable to the pace of the game, which is why in general I think any discussion regarding convergence is generally a **** poor excuse.

MWO is NOT an FPS like normal. A bog standard FPS has instant acceleration and deceleration, or near instant. Aiming down sights, focusing on gunplay.

MWO is partly a vehicle sim with limited range of movement, lots of hitpoints, and all sorts of other interrupting features. MWO can NOT put as much focus on Gunplay as other FPS games because it'd become too overloaded. Having to maintain heat, ammo, movement, position, shaking, all of this is ALREADY a big impact on basic gameplay. Such as is the point WHY the game needs a fairly fast convergence to be playable.

No amount of forcing shots to not go where they are meant to go is going to fix the game, all it will do is overcomplicate and add yet another arbitrary feature that is hardly welcome. In this game you can not guarantee a shot to the CT is going to veer off to the leg or arms, it is utterly impossible. It's either where you aim it or not. The difference between hitting a spider as it is transversing you in the arm or completely missing what would be a proper shot.

[TexAce]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:39 PM, said:

Except once again, based on recent Ask the Devs, they aren't comfortable being able to institute convergence speed and feel it would be a MAJOR undertaking.

We need a way that doesn't require a major undertaking, because these dev's refuse to do major undertakings as I've outlined above.

It feels like they are writing this game in HTML and can't do anything else.

[Joseph Mallan]

TexAss, on 14 August 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

what the hell....

no one is saying fix convergence with cone of fire. NO ONE. Because CoF is a stupid mechanic. MechWarrior should not rely on dice rolls, which CoF is, its nothing else than a Random Number Generator.

What we mean with convergence is something like this here:
http://mwomercs.com/...94#entry2654694

Actually you are wrong. Some of us are saying CoF. Its not a random numbers generator. It is an area on the target that you can reasonably hit. I fired enough ordinance to know the bullets(ACs) does not always go where the cross hairs are pointing.

[Dimento Graven]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 14 August 2013 - 03:39 PM, said:

Except once again, based on recent Ask the Devs, they aren't comfortable being able to institute convergence speed and feel it would be a MAJOR undertaking.

We need a way that doesn't require a major undertaking, because these dev's refuse to do major undertakings as I've outlined above.

I like what I posted earlier for a non-CoF means of fixing this:

Quote

...

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.

Edit: Same thing for movement, if you're moving the circle grows. The faster you move, the larger the circle, thus increasing ambiguity to make sniping on the run MUCH more difficult...

...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 14 August 2013 - 03:45 PM.

[Donnie Silveray]

TexAss, on 14 August 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

It feels like they are writing this game in HTML and can't do anything else.

Or you are misunderstanding what the devs are talking about. They are currently under crunch time and have a boatload of things far more important to the core gameplay to add rather than risk spending months on a possibly fruitless venture on experimenting on how the reticle targets things. You should ask them AFTER release regarding this possibility rather than accusing them of laziness when they're already up to their necks in work.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Donnie Silveray, on 14 August 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Most convergence suggestions generally fall flat on the ground when it comes to being within reason or adaptable to the pace of the game, which is why in general I think any discussion regarding convergence is generally a **** poor excuse.

MWO is NOT an FPS like normal. A bog standard FPS has instant acceleration and deceleration, or near instant. Aiming down sights, focusing on gunplay.

MWO is partly a vehicle sim with limited range of movement, lots of hitpoints, and all sorts of other interrupting features. MWO can NOT put as much focus on Gunplay as other FPS games because it'd become too overloaded. Having to maintain heat, ammo, movement, position, shaking, all of this is ALREADY a big impact on basic gameplay. Such as is the point WHY the game needs a fairly fast convergence to be playable.

No amount of forcing shots to not go where they are meant to go is going to fix the game, all it will do is overcomplicate and add yet another arbitrary feature that is hardly welcome. In this game you can not guarantee a shot to the CT is going to veer off to the leg or arms, it is utterly impossible. It's either where you aim it or not. The difference between hitting a spider as it is transversing you in the arm or completely missing what would be a proper shot.

It's not about "forcing shots to not go where they are meant to go", it's about forcing shots not to all go into once place.

So I guess you feel that adding "Phantom Heat", "Pebbles that Stop Mechs", "Medium Mechs Bigger Than Assaults" and now what sounds like "Phantom Weapon Delay" are all bad things too?

We are trying to get to where simple intuitive fixes are put into this game, understanding convergence isn't hard.

All of the things I listed above are what is hard to understand.

[Joseph Mallan]

Donnie Silveray, on 14 August 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Or you are misunderstanding what the devs are talking about. They are currently under crunch time and have a boatload of things far more important to the core gameplay to add rather than risk spending months on a possibly fruitless venture on experimenting on how the reticle targets things. You should ask them AFTER release regarding this possibility rather than accusing them of laziness when they're already up to their necks in work.

Sorry Don we've been chasing this since closed beta.