330 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Fixing hitboxes has nothing what so ever to do with any other sort of balancing. It's about balancing how the mech is represented and what its strengths and vulnerabilities to taking damage of any sort are designed.

The rest of the debate is off topic. Fixing hitboxes is about accurately representing where hits on a mech relate to its armor by location and its internal structure and design. How damage is inflicted is totally unrelated.

[Cimarb]

MischiefSC, on 08 November 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

Fixing hitboxes has nothing what so ever to do with any other sort of balancing. It's about balancing how the mech is represented and what its strengths and vulnerabilities to taking damage of any sort are designed.

The rest of the debate is off topic. Fixing hitboxes is about accurately representing where hits on a mech relate to its armor by location and its internal structure and design. How damage is inflicted is totally unrelated.

It is related because Lightfoot said "complaints about being cored, pinpoint damage... could be best resolved by hitbox adjustments". This is not the case, and I support that with what actually is the issue, aka slug type damage from PPCs and autocannons. For reference:

Lightfoot, on 06 November 2013 - 09:15 PM, said:

I feel alot of the complaints about being cored, pinpoint damage, PPCs, Gauss Rifles, now AC's, are all actually hitbox complaints or could be best resolved by hitbox adjustments.

[soulfire]

Well I hope eventually they fix them or add more hit boxes or smaller or whatever . As the game stands now it's about as fun as going to the dentist. Go into a battle get cored repeat, is basically how its going.Doesn't matter what you take except for light perhaps.Medium mechs die faster than the rest. It's not easy designing games I understand that but when most mechs life span in a game is so short. Forget about strategy just charge in guns a blazing! No long drawn out battles like allot of us enjoy.
Just another shoot um up for the short attention span crowd. Sometimes it feels like the game has two different groups trying to create it, group that started out making it which was trying to hold close to board game and another group that wishes to make it into a regular ol shoot um up who wants to "open it to a broader audience" by bringing in 3rd person and neat o stuff like that.Heat as a main balance for weapons usage not a combination of heat and slower cycle times aw they can sell Cool shots.to slightly cool the mech....

[Fooooo]

Cimarb, on 08 November 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

It is related because Lightfoot said "complaints about being cored, pinpoint damage... could be best resolved by hitbox adjustments". This is not the case, and I support that with what actually is the issue, aka slug type damage from PPCs and autocannons. For reference:

Yeah no hitbox adjustments can fix pinpoint dmg.

Only adjustments to convergance can fix that.....


Unless ofc the CT hitbox is the size of a grain of salt, meaning nobody could EVER hit it with every weapon mounted no matter how accurate they were..... in which case the problem still remains, just you cannot really use it against a certain section of armor which happens to be the section that kills a mech..........(non-xl anyway )

Edited by Fooooo, 09 November 2013 - 06:58 AM.

[Cimarb]

Fooooo, on 09 November 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yeah no hitbox adjustments can fix pinpoint dmg.

Only adjustments to convergance can fix that.....


Unless ofc the CT hitbox is the size of a grain of salt, meaning nobody could EVER hit it with every weapon mounted no matter how accurate they were..... in which case the problem still remains, just you cannot really use it against a certain section of armor which happens to be the section that kills a mech..........(non-xl anyway )

I don't believe convergence is the issue either, though. Even with changes to convergence, you are still delivering pinpoint damage to one area. For instance, the Ac20 will still deliver 20 points of damage to that point, whether it is the CT or RT, and is still pinpoint damage. No convergence or hitbox change will fix that. Make it an actual autocannon, delivering a spray of bullets (like a laser is a beam duration), and you no longer have the pinpoint damage from it to worry about.

[Skunk Wolf]

Hexenhammer, on 30 October 2013 - 05:01 PM, said:

Done!

It didnt take a magic 8ball to see this was coming and that when it did spiders would be impacted the most. This isn't a bad thing unless you ran spiders only because they were broken.

I'm a {Scrap} pilot. I took the champion trial.and MURDERED people. That tells me it's really REALLY broken.

[Deathlike]

I had a realization days ago about why the Atlas (and Orion) was selected to be looked at.

Consider what the last two hero mechs were prior to the Jester.

The only reason I can think of for the Atlas being looked at is because the BH is one of the easier Atlases to take down. The BH is sub-optimal for shielding itself with its arms, considering where the bulk of the firepower happens to be.

Edited by Deathlike, 09 November 2013 - 07:08 PM.

[Kaldor]

Kaldor, on 31 October 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

Hit boxes will never really be fixed until the sizes of the mechs are adjusted so that the size of the mech is directly proportional to the amount of armor it carries.

But, anyway, at least it might get addressed at some point....

I will quote myself here. The size vs armor carried equation needs to be fixed before any real balance will ever be achieved by changing hit box sizes and locations.

[The Boz]

Please clarify.

[NocturnalBeast]

Fooooo, on 09 November 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yeah no hitbox adjustments can fix pinpoint dmg.

Only adjustments to convergance can fix that.....


Unless ofc the CT hitbox is the size of a grain of salt, meaning nobody could EVER hit it with every weapon mounted no matter how accurate they were..... in which case the problem still remains, just you cannot really use it against a certain section of armor which happens to be the section that kills a mech..........(non-xl anyway )

If you can aim all your weapons at one point and all the weapons have the same range / projectile speed, you should be able to hit with pinpoint precision, especially if you group fire and have the pinpoint elite pilot skill. This is a side-effect of making MWO a FPS rather than a turn-based game. If you start messing with the accuracy of weapons, you will end up with an MMORPG style auto-attack system, which would be lame. PGI needs to focus on physics like knockdowns, collisions, destructible terrain and slowing down in water (if a small rock can bring your mech to a standstill, 10 foot deep water should at least slow you down a bit). Also, hit detection, hit boxes and DX11 should be prioritized. We do not need PGI to do the Nerf-whine-buff-whine game.

Kaldor, on 11 November 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

I will quote myself here. The size vs armor carried equation needs to be fixed before any real balance will ever be achieved by changing hit box sizes and locations.

This is part of the solutions, but the armor values were doubled in beta to make the games last longer, so I doubt that this would get adjusted more. If we went to tabletop armor values, the QQ would be epic.

[Galil Nain]

Ed Steele, on 11 November 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

If you can aim all your weapons at one point and all the weapons have the same range / projectile speed, you should be able to hit with pinpoint precision, especially if you group fire and have the pinpoint elite pilot skill. This is a side-effect of making MWO a FPS rather than a turn-based game. If you start messing with the accuracy of weapons, you will end up with an MMORPG style auto-attack system, which would be lame. PGI needs to focus on physics like knockdowns, collisions, destructible terrain and slowing down in water (if a small rock can bring your mech to a standstill, 10 foot deep water should at least slow you down a bit). Also, hit detection, hit boxes and DX11 should be prioritized. We do not need PGI to do the Nerf-whine-buff-whine game.

It would appear that we are using different definitions of "Pinpoint" here.

I get what you are trying to say. Aim all your weapons at a single point, and they'll all hit that point. Fine. This is how it now works, and that much is working as intended. This, however, is what most of us term as "convergence", not pinpoint.

Now factor in if either you or your target is moving. Fire your converged loadout at a single point on your target without following your target's relative displacement for the totality of the firing time and the ACs and PPCs will deal ALL of their damage to that one component, but any lasers will spread their damage over not only that one component, but over any other components that cross your reticule during their firing time, dealing only PART of their damage to that component.

On the other hand, if the target is NOT moving, firing your converged loadout at a single point on your target will deal ALL of the damage from ALL of the weapons to that single component.

In lore, ACs are a succession of slugs fired in a burst (albeit within a short time-frame) where the damage rating is for the whole burst, not per slug. In MWO, they are a single slug. This is where the complaints are coming from. With lore-based ACs, fire at a moving target (particularly in the case of those that are fast) without following their movement with your muzzle and the slugs that make up that burst will not all hit that single location. Therefore, your AC20 may deal only perhaps 4 or 5 damage to any single component, but conversely may damage multiple components per "shot". Using MWO mechanics, ALL the damage is applied to the one component. THIS is what is meant when people are complaining about pinpoint damage.

I do, however, realise that the poster to whom you are replying seems to have the same misconception as to what the issues are!

Quote

This is part of the solutions, but the armor values were doubled in beta to make the games last longer, so I doubt that this would get adjusted more. If we went to tabletop armor values, the QQ would be epic.

I think Kaldor is perhaps suggesting that the models, and related hitboxes, should be re-sized to better account for the armour amounts they represent, not that the armour amounts themselves should be changed. If Kaldor isn't suggesting this, then I apologise and fully agree with your concerns regarding it. If, on the other hand, I am right in my assumption as to Kaldor's intent, then I agree with both of you (albeit arguing different sides of a related pair of issues).

[Cimarb]

Galil Nain, on 12 November 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

It would appear that we are using different definitions of "Pinpoint" here.

I get what you are trying to say. Aim all your weapons at a single point, and they'll all hit that point. Fine. This is how it now works, and that much is working as intended. This, however, is what most of us term as "convergence", not pinpoint.

Now factor in if either you or your target is moving. Fire your converged loadout at a single point on your target without following your target's relative displacement for the totality of the firing time and the ACs and PPCs will deal ALL of their damage to that one component, but any lasers will spread their damage over not only that one component, but over any other components that cross your reticule during their firing time, dealing only PART of their damage to that component.

On the other hand, if the target is NOT moving, firing your converged loadout at a single point on your target will deal ALL of the damage from ALL of the weapons to that single component.

In lore, ACs are a succession of slugs fired in a burst (albeit within a short time-frame) where the damage rating is for the whole burst, not per slug. In MWO, they are a single slug. This is where the complaints are coming from. With lore-based ACs, fire at a moving target (particularly in the case of those that are fast) without following their movement with your muzzle and the slugs that make up that burst will not all hit that single location. Therefore, your AC20 may deal only perhaps 4 or 5 damage to any single component, but conversely may damage multiple components per "shot". Using MWO mechanics, ALL the damage is applied to the one component. THIS is what is meant when people are complaining about pinpoint damage.

Quoted just in case anyone missed it the first time. Autocannons should fire a burst of rounds, not a slug. This, plus PPC spread (or charge even), would fix the 95% of the pinpoint issue immediately.

Hitbox changes are great, especially ones that have large CTs, but has nothing to do with pinpoint damage at all.

[Carrioncrows]

Cimarb, on 12 November 2013 - 06:05 PM, said:

Quoted just in case anyone missed it the first time. Autocannons should fire a burst of rounds, not a slug. This, plus PPC spread (or charge even), would fix the 95% of the pinpoint issue immediately.

Hitbox changes are great, especially ones that have large CTs, but has nothing to do with pinpoint damage at all.

There are thousands of types of autocannons.

Autocannons are sorted by the damage they deal because there was thousands of different types.

Some autocannon's did all their damage in one slug

Some autcannons were like big machineguns that deal all of their damage over time.

Some Autocannons fired bursts

Some Autocannons fired smaller shells but at twice the speed.

Ect ect.

PGI just chose the Single shell approach to all their Autocannon's.

There is no right way or wrong way. It's just the path they took. That means at some time or another when they expand the universe they can come back and create these other types of autocannons.

[Cimarb]

Carrioncrows, on 14 November 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

There are thousands of types of autocannons.

Autocannons are sorted by the damage they deal because there was thousands of different types.

Some autocannon's did all their damage in one slug (1)

Some autcannons were like big machineguns that deal all of their damage over time. (2)

Some Autocannons fired bursts (3)

Some Autocannons fired smaller shells but at twice the speed. (4)

Ect ect.

PGI just chose the Single shell approach to all their Autocannon's.

There is no right way or wrong way. It's just the path they took. That means at some time or another when they expand the universe they can come back and create these other types of autocannons.

I numbered your options for reference. Out of those four options, one option causes a pinpoint damage issue, while the three others all do damage as I am talking about (over a duration). There IS a right and wrong way, because the path they took is causing pinpoint damage issues. If they had took any of the other paths/options, we would not have this issue. No one is complaining about lasers being overpowered, because they don't do pinpoint damage. No one is complaining that MGs or LRMs are overpowered for the same reason. Ballistics (I.e. autocannons) are the FOTM because they are the only pinpoint weapons left, other than PPCs, which are so hot now that you can't equip enough to make them as effective.

[ebea51]

Sounds good Paul! Looking forwards to having the in-mech gameplay improved! PLEASE look at HSR too!!!

[Heffay]

Cimarb, on 14 November 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

I numbered your options for reference. Out of those four options, one option causes a pinpoint damage issue

It doesn't have to, if the shells have a diameter and can span across hit boxes.

[Davers]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

It doesn't have to, if the shells have a diameter and can span across hit boxes.

Shells have a 1m diameter. Not sure what happens if it hits 2 hit boxes.

[Cimarb]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

It doesn't have to, if the shells have a diameter and can span across hit boxes.

It still has a high probability of hitting pinpoint (all damage in one spot at one time), so it is not nearly as good, but it is still better than the current implementation.

[Heffay]

Davers, on 14 November 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

Shells have a 1m diameter. Not sure what happens if it hits 2 hit boxes.

Damage gets divided across the two hitboxes it hits.

In fact, I believe they had a problem with this *way* back in beta. Some weapon systems were doing far more damage to light mechs due to it applying full damage to multiple hit boxes, and since the smaller mechs had the potential for the damage to span more than two, certain weapons were extremely deadly to them. PGI posted a long rundown of that problem. Maybe someone can find it?

Edited by Heffay, 14 November 2013 - 05:08 PM.

[Davers]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

Damage gets divided across the two hitboxes it hits.

In fact, I believe they had a problem with this *way* back in beta. Some weapon systems were doing far more damage to light mechs due to it applying full damage to multiple hit boxes, and since the smaller mechs had the potential for the damage to span more than two, certain weapons were extremely deadly to them. PGI posted a long rundown of that problem. Maybe someone can find it?

That was about missiles and their explosion radius, and that wasn't too long ago. Unless this is something else that I hadn't heard of.