1911 replies to this topic

[IraqiWalker]

Rebas Kradd, on 19 January 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

Agreed. A lot of people want Battletech immersion, but when they're given realistically dank or grungy maps to play, their desire for immersion conveniently goes out the window, replaced by typical gamer desires.

Terra, for example. I hate it. It's just so damn hard to maneuver, and it's dark to boot. Not fun on a gamer level. But it's realistic. I can see a volcanically challenged planet looking just that way. And it's also the only map designed to actually require scouting by denying easy lines of sight. The rest of these maps take the need for scouting and absolutely bury it.

Terra also requires proper heat management and trigger discipline. Which is why the only ones complaining about it are usually those that have only two firing modes :alpha, and not firing.

[Void Angel]

Actually, I alpha most of the time, depending on the build; it's simply the most effective way to use my weapons. In most 'Mechs, I build my weapon loadout to match my heat capacity, so that I can alpha strike fairly often in sustained combat. If you're not running too hot to begin with, Terra Therma is still a level playing field for everyone but Gauss Snipers and the like. I'm not sure we have the data to declare who the "only ones complaining" about it are - I don't really see a lot of complaining, unless you count personal dislike, which is purely subjective.

However, it's unwarranted to compare a desire for "Battletech immersion" with "realistic" map features like not being able to distinguish a bright-red Battlemech from a background of green trees and brown rock - particularly to imply hypocrisy on the part of players. Everyone wants the feel of Battletech - but not being able to see the game isn't "immersive," it's frustrating. Particularly since certain things like vision modes have built-in limitations that are not present in real applications of the tech. Thermal vision, for example, can be calibrated so that the background heat of the environment won't magically blind it - even if we assume that there are inexplicably no pilot controls, if I got to a fight and found that my thermal wasn't calibrated, some astech back at the dropship would be doing many, many pushups. In any case, if you ask people to choose between the somewhat subjective concepts of "immersion" and "gameplay," gameplay would win for every respondent who was sane.

[Mawai]

Hi Karl,

I don't know if you are still following this thread but on the off chance that you are ... I have a quick couple of questions.

1) Under what circumstances does the reticle turn red?
- does it turn red when the client receives confirmation that damage was done to a mech?

2) Is there a time cut off in the colour change of the reticle?
- if in the case of bad lag or packet loss will the reticle still turn red for a hit that was registered 1 to 2 seconds in the past?

I am wondering if there is a time cutoff in the reticle hit registration display to avoid the confusion that could be caused by a severely lagged response or whether the client will turn the reticle red for every hit registered?

[Sarlic]

I find all the map designed up to now are so poor. Poor design, it's just don't fit the whole immense Battletech combat.

[Cimarb]

Sarlic, on 25 January 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

I find all the map designed up to now are so poor. Poor design, it's just don't fit the whole immense Battletech combat.

I hear they are hiring.

[shellashock]

Looks like they are wanting to hire a texture artist...

Commence hype for optional MW:O HD texture pack!

[Sizzles]

I could live with the maps the way they are. If they could just fix the freaking hitboxes on the maps I would be most pleased. As it is there are way too many "one way boxes."

[Heffay]

shellashock, on 26 January 2015 - 08:20 AM, said:

Looks like they are wanting to hire a texture artist... Commence hype for optional MW:O HD texture pack!

From my understanding the texture maps are made at 4096x4096, and then just converted down to 1024x1024 when they get released into the game. I think the problem around having a set of high quality textures would revolve more around getting an interface that will allow players to select the detail they want. Probably under visual settings, but it's going to involve a *lot* of testing and programming. Not to mention it has to work with the decal setting as well.

[Lordred]

Heffay, on 26 January 2015 - 09:43 AM, said:

From my understanding the texture maps are made at 4096x4096, and then just converted down to 1024x1024 when they get released into the game. I think the problem around having a set of high quality textures would revolve more around getting an interface that will allow players to select the detail they want. Probably under visual settings, but it's going to involve a *lot* of testing and programming. Not to mention it has to work with the decal setting as well.

Right now the textures are ALL over the place, we have textures ranging from 2048x2048 to as low as 512x512 for our mechs.

I've been calling for them to all be standardized to 2048x2048, as the files all contain the textures in (2048,1024,512, and 256) It would have no adverse effect on game performance, people with lower end systems could simply toggle the texture size down. It might result in a more even system performance as well.

[Rebas Kradd]

Sarlic, on 25 January 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

I find all the map designed up to now are so poor. Poor design, it's just don't fit the whole immense Battletech combat.

Much of this is engine limitation.

MW2 maps were just as small, actually. But they gave the impression of larger size by (mostly) leaving out the conspicuous mountain ranges surrounding each map and just letting it be horizon. Don't know why PGI can't do the same. They did it with the oceans on all the original maps. Must be some technical thing...

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 26 January 2015 - 04:16 PM.

[Void Angel]

Probably it's not - they just wanted it to be obvious where the map edges were whenever possible. Besides, Sarlic is claiming bad design and citing highly subjective aesthetics - which means if he's right, it's only by accident.

[Cimarb]

Rebas Kradd, on 26 January 2015 - 04:15 PM, said:

MW2 maps were just as small, actually. But they gave the impression of larger size by (mostly) leaving out the conspicuous mountain ranges surrounding each map and just letting it be horizon. Don't know why PGI can't do the same. They did it with the oceans on all the original maps. Must be some technical thing...

Walking into an invisible wall is very poor for immersion. Having mountains makes it very "neat and tidy". You could do the same thing with the water dropping off drastically, which I think would have been better than doing the out of bounds on those maps...

[Goose]

Karl Berg, on 27 December 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

Elo per mech model makes a good amount of sense. It's one of those things we'd probably have done already, had the simulations backed it up. I suspect the reason it appears to perform worse is due to large amounts of players bouncing between various trial mechs, and not playing enough games on a particular mech to properly converge their Elo.

OK; How about this: Can we have a separate set of Elos' for the gorram Clan 'Mechs? Russ seems to think ~25 point spread is a reasonable stretch for that "small-but-growing" Elo difference, but I not buying it.

Edited by Goose, 03 February 2015 - 08:08 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Cimarb, on 26 January 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

Walking into an invisible wall is very poor for immersion. Having mountains makes it very "neat and tidy".

No need to make it an invisible wall. Just place the edge far enough to where mechs will die from Out-of-Bounds before reaching the edge.

[Cimarb]

Rebas Kradd, on 04 February 2015 - 03:06 PM, said:

No need to make it an invisible wall. Just place the edge far enough to where mechs will die from Out-of-Bounds before reaching the edge.

They do that is some maps already

[Rebas Kradd]

Cimarb, on 04 February 2015 - 06:04 PM, said:

They do that is some maps already

I know, like the ocean maps. Keep doing it! I long for one of those wide-open plateaus from MW2.

[Kanajashi]

Hey Karl, I made a tutorial on critical hits based on what I could find out (there is a serious lack of documentation on this stuff). Would you be able to watch it and tell me if its covering the topic well or if there is anything that should be changed. Thanks man

[Jman5]

Hey Karl, any thoughts about creating a separate Solo and Group Elo? I know that there are some groups out there that go practically undefeated in the group queue when they play as a premade, but there is no way they could keep it up in the solo queue. On the flip side, there might be group players who get utterly trounced most of the time, but do much better alone.

It might create a more accurate and enjoyable experience if we separated the two instead of assuming a 2700 group Elo player is a 2700 Solo Elo player. I understand that the rating will right itself eventually but if they are only popping into one of the queues on occasion, it might never have time to reach his "real Elo" before he pops back into the other queue and inflates/deflates it back. What winds up happening is that every time they drop into the solo queue they just have a miserable time because matchmaker is overestimating their ability.

It would be an interesting experiment if you would decouple the two and see whether or not the two scores continue running parallel or drift apart.

[Goose]

This, in the main.

I know previous suggestions for multiple Elos seems to devolve into trying to account for how much AMS ammo ones'n newest teammate in'a 12-man carries, or some such; But I'd be much more interested in figuring out which of the "big" differences need to be looked at: Chassis†, Mode, Group (yes/ no) …

(Specific model would be a bridge too far, IMAO, even if we could demo, for example, how oddball the K2 'Pult is compared to her sisters.)

†That would cover Clan vs. Inner Sphere, right?

Edited by Goose, 21 February 2015 - 10:13 PM.

[Goose]

Karl Berg, on 27 December 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

I suspect the reason it appears to perform worse is due to large amounts of players bouncing between various trial mechs, and not playing enough games on a particular mech to properly converge their Elo.

That's what's wrong with this picture: How are you quantifying this-hear convergence? X number of games? Y rate of change?

Did this rate of change seem kind'a high, seeing as how it tends to cover radically different 'Mechs within a weight class?

Edited by Goose, 07 March 2015 - 06:01 PM.