597 replies to this topic

[Muffin Stump]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 01 September 2013 - 04:46 AM, said:

But seriously, who the hell plays to disarm now a days?

I don't get why you think defanging someone is useless.

Whatever... just, don't bother trying to justify or explain your irrational process to me.

I'm merely commenting on that for your own sake...

[AlexEss]

**sorry have to edit to accommodate catvomit*

Edited by AlexEss, 01 September 2013 - 10:01 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Muffin Stump, on 01 September 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

I don't get why you think defanging someone is useless.

Whatever... just, don't bother trying to justify or explain your irrational process to me.

I'm merely commenting on that for your own sake...

Math is working against you.

Atlas CT armor: 124 external, 62 internal
Atlas Side Torso armor: 84 external, 42 internal.

Let's say you have an Atlas with 2 MLs, 3 SRM6s and 1 AC/20 against you.
That means it deals roughly 10 damage per second on the left half and 6.25.
Let's say you disarm the missile side first. Your effective damage be x DPS.

You need 126/x seconds to get yourself through that armor. In this time, the enemy Atlas can deal 16.25 * 126/x damage.
If you now go to disarm the other half, you need 126/x seconds and take 6.25 * 126/x damage.
If you would go directly for the CT, you would need 186/x * 16.25 damage.

16.25 * 126/x + 6.25 * 126/x = 2047/x + 787.5/x = 2734.5/x.
186/x * 16.25 = 3022.5/x.

Difference in the favour of the disarmer is 288.5/x in damage taken.
So you take about 11 % less damage if you go the side torso route, but you have additional complications:
1) If you're in a team environment, you'd actually need to coordinate which torso to shoot for. And you know how good people are in figuring out left and right from multiple perspectives, right.
2) This is for a mech that has no CT or H weapons, which is not a given.
3) For many mechs, the side torso is actually a smaller target.
4) If the enemy is torso twisting, the side torso will be more often out of your reach then the CT.

So, at best you get a 11 % advantage, if you do absolutely everything perfectly right and the enemy does not.
Or you accept that neither you nor your team are perfect and that the enemy pilot probably isn't totally dumb and take the safe bet and go for the CT.

There are, of course, still good reasons to go for side torsos occassionally. XL Engines are a given, of course, if you know the enemy has one, you know shooting off the side torso is much better.
And if you meet an enemy that already has lost most his side torso, keep hammering there, because then the above math works out much more in your favor - but of course it means a suboptimal route of action was taken before. (If it was deliberately, if you fire your Quad PPC from 700m, you can probably expect hitting the wrong spot occasionally.)
That may be another aspect of the math lesson - once you have started with a strategy (intentional or not) it might be better to keep pursuing it.

But from the start of the battle, you should probably focus on that CT torso kill, it's the safest bet.

[Muffin Stump]

Dude, MWO is not about math.

Lol!

Mustrum you're a good guy, but stop that nonsense.

Edited by Muffin Stump, 01 September 2013 - 10:51 AM.

[TLBFestus]

HDMan, on 31 August 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

The article is accurate in the fact that there is tremendous backlash in the forums by a very vocal group. There have been mistakes made (devs are human as is the publisher). This kind of "entitled" ranting is REALLY hurting the community and the game. PLEASE give them some time to realize their vision and enjoy the game as it is. Community warfare will eventually make it into the game once they bring UI2.0 online. What the article doesn't portray is the HUGE number of folks who DO like the game and don't post their fury in the forums. I have been avoiding the forums because it is soooooo depressing to see all the bashing. I LOVE this game and it's our ONLY shot at bringing our beloved IP back to life. Take a few moments to marvel at what happens in each match you play. The environment, the damage maps to the mechs, the teamwork necessary to pull of a win, the mechanics involved in staying alive while taking out foes. I am terrified that this game might die in a fit of rage that is completely unnecessary. PLEASE give them some time...To clarify what I mean by "entitled": The game isn't even live yet... Give them a chance to right the perceived wrongs...

Post like this, make me think of my mom (rest in peace).

She was a wonderful lady, spent years in rehab working with Substance abusers (evidently the word "dr*g is verboten on the forums), Alcohol abusers, and battered women.

Every time I read a post like this, "Yes the game is borked, and the Devs seem determined to screw us, but keep supporting it because it will get better", I think of her.

Some days she would come home off a shift, looking exhausted and tired, and tell me that she "had another one", referring to the battered woman who refused to press charges, or leave her husband who battered and beat her because she couldn't see an alternative or was sure that if she just tried harder she could "fix" him.

I think my mom would think the same way about this game in its current state.

Edited by TLBFestus, 01 September 2013 - 11:24 AM.

[norhymes]

Not having time to sift through this entire thread, I will simply say that this article outlined the issues thoughtfully.

PGI, read and consider. IGP, read and consider.

Objectively, I might add. And not with this fake sense of "we know what's better."

Because if that's the response, it's clear you just don't want us here anyway. Or at least don't care about us.

[Stalephreak]

TLBFestus, on 01 September 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

Post like this, make me think of my mom (rest in peace).

She was a wonderful lady, spent years in rehab working with Substance abusers (evidently the word "dr*g is verboten on the forums), Alcohol abusers, and battered women.

Every time I read a post like this, "Yes the game is borked, and the Devs seem determined to screw us, but keep supporting it because it will get better", I think of her.

Some days she would come home off a shift, looking exhausted and tired, and tell me that she "had another one", referring to the battered woman who refused to press charges, or leave her husband who battered and beat her because she couldn't see an alternative or was sure that if she just tried harder she could "fix" him.

I think my mom would think the same way about this game in its current state.

Yup, very similar. It's part of the reason a fair portion of us are convinced the "white knights" are bonkers. Oh, PGI will change. I just know they will.... (I swear, it's like a plot line from Twilight!!!)

[Protection]

[ShadowSpirit]

[merz]

apparently, to a significant chunk of MWO's playerbase, 'fun' was pwning face in 6ppc stalkers or dual ac20 jags. when that became less viable, PGI took the fun out of the game.

Those who purchased founder's packages were supporting a battletech game. a mechwarrior game. ultimately a game made/designed by PGI, and therefore their vision of it. It is understandable if that vision differs from what those people had, and it is understandable if they may want their money back under the circumstances, especially with the game being in beta at the moment.

What isn't understandable is the idea that the developers should design by committee. "Listening to the community" on many counts end up being one of those non-statements that do not indicate which specific segment of that community or which specific person's guidance - and there are as many perspectives there as there are people - they should follow.

Having played through the end of closed beta and all of the open period so far, I have to say that the game has actually improved a lot. No, it doesn't translate the table-top miniature game 1 to 1, but it manages to adequately steer towards its spirit without literal interpretation. Things like 'ghost heat' penalties, while extremely poorly-documented and un-intuitive, did get the job done of reducing alpha-centric builds enough for other things to be viable. Having an angry chorus of 'YOU ****** UP MY BUILD-DU-JOUR' comes off as a good example of plausible reasoning behind PGI's lack of engagement with the community.

It seems the fewer things are actually broken with the game, the more people are coming out with torches and pitchforks, entirely forgetting that this is the first battletech game to have materialised since the late 90s and, in all likelihood, probably the last of the sort you'll see in the foreseeable future.

And yes, if you have a problem with the pace and the 'lack of fun, there is hawken, titan fall and so on and so forth. there's absolutely no way to make this experience work for everyone, but despite the many voices crying OMGWTFBBQ, you'll find that there are plenty of people quite content with the core mechanics of it seen presently (still for want of weight restrictions, a proper meta-game that actually gives some purpose to playing, persistent mechs and equipment and dropships and so on and on on, but i'll give it a few years..)

Yes, the problems with communication were glaring. The third person view seemed indicative of some seriously schizophrenic decision-making upstairs and the trust of your paying customers isn't something to abuse. I think the greatest failing here was accepting money during a beta test in which core mechanics of the game are continuously being tuned. You end up with some measure of expectations from past builds/ways things were become romanticised, nostalgia (remember the good old days when i wrecked shop and killed everything in 1 volley with my splatcat? wasnt that the definition of fun? PGI killed fun..) follows. But, that aside, when the 'community' presents its collective face as a bunch of 'sperglords, frothing in fits of entitlement, is it so unreasonable that the developers merely cease reading or giving a flying f......?

Edited by merz, 01 September 2013 - 03:13 PM.

[ShadowSpirit]

merz, on 01 September 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

[color=#959595] Things like 'ghost heat' penalties, while extremely poorly-documented and un-intuitive, did get the job done of reducing alpha-centric builds enough for other things to be viable. [/color]

You completely ignore the fact that PGI has said one thing and done another on multiple occasions now. PGI is responsible for the maintenance and continued survival of this game. The community got it off the ground and PGI set in motion a chain of events that have led us to today.

I agree with you the game is better but it is not the newbie utopia they say they are creating. It's incredibly complex and convoluted. How many months did the terrible EMC implementation stay in the game? We had armies of stealth mechs running around. How did this add value to the game? It didn't. Ghost Heat? Cool shot? Time and time again PGIs pride has gotten in the way and they seem hard pressed to say, "We made a mistake." They created this situation and the future of this game hinges on how they respond in the next few days. If they screw this up we might as well stick a fork in MWO -- it's done.

[Thunder Lips Express]

onipanda, on 31 August 2013 - 10:23 PM, said:

The white knights in this thread are *adorable*.

the "goons" in this thread are "adorable"

[merz]

ShadowSpirit, on 01 September 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

The community got it off the ground and PGI set in motion a chain of events that have led us to today.

You seem to be under the misinformed impression of this game having been crowd-funded. While it did feature founder's packages that were a token of support for the game and developers, there was a publisher, a licence, a set of developers in action before founder's mechs appeared on the horizon. Please do not turn the founder's package into some kind of kickstarter.

PGI has indeed erred in the way it has communicated. Promises were made and ultimately not realised, things were said contrary to actions. This loss of trust is a real problem and must be addressed. What isn't at all relevant is the rest of the stuff. The armies of stealth mechs, the ghost heat, et cetera. You're either under-informed or trying to stir **** up, and i'm leaning towards the latter as you're a 'legendary founder'. Allow me to weigh in a little. The main issue with ECM in its original implementation was the poor hit detection system that left streaks as the only reliable way of dealing with light mechs. Since the hit detection's improvement, direct fire like lasers has been more effective at curbing ECM mechs, and the disrupt mechanic of PPCs as well as beagle active probes has further made it less of a problem. But the problem had always primarily been the inability to hit a raven the way you were able to hit a DDC, ecm or not. As you may recall, even dual-gauss and other ballistics were seen as sub-optimal in those days because every time you shot and hit, you were still tossing a coin as to whether the damage would register or not. And that was sort of implicitly okay. The game was a work in progress.

Today we still have some hit detection problems. They're less pronounced than they ever were back then, but when they rear their ugly head you can hear the anguished cry all over your nearest teamspeak channel 'HOW DID THAT NOT HIT? I HIT RIGHT THROUGH THAT SPIDER OMG WTF BBQ PGI FIX YOUR GAME OMG OMG'..

Ghost heat was a consequence of games dominated by boated weaponry, as they had been for a long time with, ah, just about every battletech game ever made out there. One of those issues when you're translating a tactical turn-based game into real time simulation. Just sayin'. The idea was to discourage boating. The approach taken was less than optimal - better choice would simply have been halving the heat scale and increasing dissipation, as i had always written, but apparently that approach was not favourable to Paul because, to paraphrase what he had said, 'it would be a nerf to everything' and draw the combat out over longer periods of time. Apparently slowing down the combat too much is unwanted because of the younger demographic that wants a faster-paced FPS experience. So its one of those 'damned if you do, damned if you don't.' situations. But you knew that the status quo wasn't optimal the moment you'd spectate a match of PGI team doing an 8-man and getting instantaneously obliterated by walls of gauss and ppc fire. And responding to that with 'just nerf the **** out of those weapons' entirely missed the point therein (anyone remember the 5-6 LL boat days before HSR? only reason they didn't elicit the same degree of whine was because of splatcat splash damage back then..)

Anyway, what i'm saying to say is that while MWO may be 'done' for you and a bunch of other people posting here, Its very much on for me (and, as you may guess, a bunch of other people - whether they're posting in this thread or not..) Consider for a moment that your anguished doom-stricken cry isn't the only opinion out there. Because i'm a part of this community too. And I think things have gotten steadily better.

Call it a white knight or what ever, I've sort of had it with reading your histrionics.

the lesson for future developers to take from all of this is: do not accept money from people until you go live. taking money during development makes your players feel entitled to aspects of your product as it was at the time of their purchases. any change to that and you'll be declared the great ***** 'out to destroy' their beloved IP. even when you're the only one bothering to bring that IP to any audience at all. go figure.

game development is one of the most thankless jobs ever.

Edited by merz, 01 September 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[Super Mono]

Merz, I'm not going to bother to pick apart and destroy those walls of texts you call an argument because there is not a single factual or logical statement contained within.

I will however present the fact that Russ Bullocks gave interviews where he referred to the Founders program as a crowdfunding effort. Your statement that MWO wasn't crowdfunded is demonstrably false:

http://www.gamasutra...ew/news/180401/

[merz]

lovely 'nope' style of counter argument, chill bro. key difference here was the product already existed and had a publisher before it raised money from the community, which supported the effort but did not entitle those paying the money to anything beyond what the founder's package advertised. If, at some point, you were under the impression that purchasing it entitled you to design the game according to your vision of it, you are beyond any help i can offer. If i understand correctly, PGI has been understanding under these circumstances and offering refunds for those participants wanting to withdraw their support. I also imagine that this will cease with the game going live, so you best hurry.

Edited by merz, 01 September 2013 - 03:48 PM.

[Chronojam]

merz, on 01 September 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

apparently, to a significant chunk of MWO's playerbase, 'fun' was pwning face in 6ppc stalkers or dual ac20 jags. when that became less viable, PGI took the fun out of the game.

Hey look a dishonest argument. At least you stopped beating your wife after ghost heat was implemented. I can play that game, too, see?

Spoiler

6PPC Stalkers were never a serious/competitive build and had many downsides. Dual AC20 jaegermechs were a fairly balanced build and were not as popular with the competitive crowd as you'd pretend.

[ShadowSpirit]

merz, on 01 September 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

Wall of text.

In the first sentence you put words in my mouth. I don't think I ever said this game was crowd funded. If you do not think the founder's package had a significant impact in getting the game off the ground you are the one that is misinformed.

Quote

Ghost heat was a consequence of games dominated by boated weaponry,

Hey man I am not saying they didn't need to fix things. I am saying the path they choose was the wrong one. Ghost heat is silly. A simple thing like lack of convergence when you alpha would have done a lot. The problem isn't all of the weapons firing. It's the accuracy. There are tons of games out there where if you "hold down the trigger" convergence suffers.

You can defend PGI until you are blue in the face but the fact remains the bad press is a result of their actions -- not the community.

I have worked on games half my life -- paid and unpaid -- I know how it goes and I know how it works. I don't pretend to know what goes on behind the doors at PGI but I think it's obvious that the next few days will shape the foreseeable future for MWO.

If the release is a failure they are in for some tough times. Reviews will start pouring in and the climate is already hostile. Bad timing all around by PGI.

Quote

histrionics

You live in a bubble? It's not me. It's the "press."

Edited by ShadowSpirit, 01 September 2013 - 03:55 PM.

[RedDragon]

merz, on 01 September 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

[/size]
Consider for a moment that your anguished doom-stricken cry isn't the only opinion out there. Because i'm a part of this community too. And I think things have gotten steadily better.
Call it a white knight or what ever, I've sort of had it with reading your histrionics.

Well, I for myself have no problem with people who find the game still fun and like to play it. But "white knights" who defend all of PGIs decisions and belittle everyone who criticizes the game or the Devs for being unthankful spoiled children are a completely different matter. This doesn't aim at you, Merz, it's just a general view that most of us here share. I guess.

[Chronojam]

Honestly we should cut this joker some slack. Because when it comes down to it, by the time Merz started playing, the long-range high-alpha metagame had already been dominant for 3-5 months, and the game was already in this downward spiral.

Understandably, he has little frame of reference: he wasn't there for the grand promises, the "successful crowdfunding" articles, the interviews that confirmed community warfare was due to start four months before Merz even showed up, the time during which you could play a medium mech and have a real place on the battlefield. The guy just can't possibly understand why you'd be upset, he's just a Johnny-come-lately who has no idea what he's missed and this awful shadow is the only MechWarrior Online he knows.

To him, none of that ever happened, the game's always been like this, we've always been at war with Eastasia.

[FrOdO]

WOW!, I LEAVE FOR MONTHS AND THIS HAPPENS... ABOUT DAMN TIME! I was one of the first to grab a pitchfork when I looked at PGIs back catalog and realized what it meant for the Mechwarrior franchise. They called me crazy but, HERE WE ARE.


AND YOU GUYS KILLED MW:LL........ A TRUE MW GAME!.....ONE THAT HAD LESS FUNDING AND WAS A MOD.......