437 replies to this topic

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Kudzu, on 29 November 2011 - 12:39 PM, said:

Once we actually see some game footage a post to http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/ with it's 895,418 readers will certainly help... oh, and it's free.

That is indeed interesting, is that 895,418 active readers. or a grand total of accounts whereby some are not active and haven't been for some time?

It's also interesting the comments coming out that people commenting here are now saying they have not played MW4 Multiplayer much albeit a few months, yet are able to tell everyone its pitfalls and how to play and counter play.

Also why would lasers (beams of light traveling at light speed) not be point and click? by the time you've pressed the trigger the laser will have already landed.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 29 November 2011 - 12:48 PM.

[SwordofLight]

Wait, what? Why is this even open for discussion? Theres already a mechanism for dealing with alpha, its called heat. If you havent designed your mech properly, you pay for it. Loss of speed, targeting accuracy, possible ammo cook-off, engine shut-down. But if I cant thumb the button marked "Deus Ex Machina" its not Battletech. Why dont you just take out hit locations and customization, while you're at it?

-Don

[Halfinax]

So you can't watch a movie for a few minutes or play a game for a bit, and realize that it's bad? I have a lot of experience with gaming. I don't have to spend a lot of time with a game to know if it's fun or balanced. I don't have to watch all the way through a 1 star movie to know it's a bad movie, and I don't have to play a MP game for 200 hrs to know it's not fun or balanced, or see the obvious flaws. Read my post fully. Understand that balance for SP does not equate balance for MP, and also note that you yourself have more or less said that there are only a few good builds, and you equated that to player skill. Find exploitable features in a MP game isn't skill.

[Kudzu]

DV^McKenna, on 29 November 2011 - 12:47 PM, said:

That is indeed interesting, is that 895,418 active readers. or a grand total of accounts whereby some are not active and haven't been for some time?

It's the number of people subscribed to the section, I have no idea how many are active or how many people view it without logging in. Even if 5% are willing to give a free to play game a try, that's still 45,000 people to spread the word. And the way Reddit works if you can get enough "upvotes" and it makes it to the front page you'll have a lot more people seeing it overall.

[Haeso]

Tyrant, on 29 November 2011 - 12:32 PM, said:

Really? I happen to know a few monsters that would disagree with you. Your comment shows that you actually know very little about MW4 high end game play. Please refrain from making comments about MW4 play-styles or balance.

For the almost 6 months I played, everything I've said was accurate, how the game changed from then I cannot say as I'm not omniscient, ironically the more effective poptarting apparently became only reinforces the position I entered this thread in, which is that I believe pinpoint accuracy makes the game more shallow and does not work within the universe of battletech. If you redo all of the weapons, hitpoints system and such, you're not playing battletech anymore. Such a game may be fun, but it's not battletech. Can we all agree on this at least? MW4 at least loosely was based on BT, unlike say MechAssault which had little more than name in common.

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So, your a developer, I am impressed you have said so many prefer to keep silent, I do respect what you do, I know its not easy especially with people like me around. No troll. If you can tell me what products you have worked on so we can discuss this issue around something more concrete rather than vaporware that MWO currently is.

Market analysts don't make the game, and developers that are making a game they love make a better game, it's not something easily quantified. I don't like to connect my name to my work for obvious reasons you probably already know given you understand most don't bring it up to begin with.

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You are assuming 50/50 skill, perfect positioning on both sides with no external factors. I am truly sad I did not have the opportunity to play with you in NBT, I believe you would have experienced MW4 at its very best.

Perhaps it's better than it was when I played, games evolve, going back to starcraft, until Boxer showed people how to play Terran, Terran was essentially the red headed stepchild of competitive play.

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The reason why LoL is not a valid example of monetization is because they have had a constant community since DotA that community is also significantly larger than anything MW related or WoT as such its a breakout project and cannot be used to make direct comparisons to or compared against as the will never be realistic.

I don't believe that constant community is the reason for it's success. Not even slightly. I'm willing to bet the vast majority never even tried DotA. That's where it all started, of course. But it's continued success? That's it's brilliant business model and solid gameplay, personally I don't play much anymore, but I can give it credit where it's due.

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I do see where you are going with this however:
no control / randomization is not fun no matter your reasoning

There is control, yes there is some randomization with the proposed elements. I still contend a CoF can have an excellent amount of skill, indeed it makes room for more tactical gameplay. You still have to aim, just you can't be certain of where it'll hit. We're not talking hitscan and rolling dice, though I think that system has merits and it'd be good in it's own right, that's not what I'm looking for.

If you played MW2, that was random hit locations. Which according to you is even worse than CoF, but it was quite a lot of fun and it would have been pretty competitive if it wasn't released in the stone age of the internet.

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Its hard to say much more than that without any sort of numbers where you can directly compare ERLL to LBX and say that ERLL have to be aimed for 2s but their maximum deviation is 0.2m per 100m to a max of 800m

It was only a simple example of range comparison compared to the supposed accuracy of a weapon in regards to size of CoF, that's all. Some weapons of equal range would be more accurate, and that's part of how they're balanced.

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And as your experience of high end MW4 game play is so limited I will go ahead and say there will be players / teams that will alpha from range, either from an individual or combined alpha to a point of where you will have to continue nerfing long-range weapons to compensate for player ability / coordination.

I rarely used short range weapons, mostly fast/low damage per hit weapons, and my team would focus on putting them into a position where they were forced to be exposed for an extended period by attacking from multiple angles based on the terrain of where they'd set up shop, not necessarily by getting into short range. Short range just happened to be the goal if we could manage it, perfectly happy nailing a poptart at long range with pulse lasers, UACs etc. which were far more damage/heat damage/ton but dealt it over a long period. Certain maps as I recall it wasn't possible on, but I remember being able to do it more than often enough.

Edited by Haeso, 29 November 2011 - 01:00 PM.

[3trip]

does an alpha strike have to fire all weapons at the exact same moment? why not in a burst?
with burst fire, there's a greater chance more shots will miss, especially if the target is moving.

[Dlardrageth]

Some posts really sound more like borderline whining. The fear about losing a potential "I win button" when making alpha strikes a more rare and risky occurence must be really strong.

Also gotta wonder how MW4 MP wasn't totally popular and claiming a 6-digit playerbase persistently if it was so extremely well-balanced and significantly fun.

[MaddMaxx]

3trip, on 29 November 2011 - 01:04 PM, said:

does an alpha strike have to fire all weapons at the exact same moment? why not in a burst?
with burst fire, there's a greater chance more shots will miss, especially if the target is moving.

A true Alpha Strike would use a large Group, if not all the Mechs weapons, and those would all be of the same range and or Type. There is no point in having a mixed weapon load-out and firing an Alpha at anything other than "in his face" close range.

[Tyrant]

Haeso, on 29 November 2011 - 12:56 PM, said:

For the almost 6 months I played, everything I've said was accurate, how the game changed from then I cannot say as I'm not omniscient, ironically the more effective poptarting apparently became only reinforces the position I entered this thread in, which is that I believe pinpoint accuracy makes the game more shallow and does not work within the universe of battletech. If you redo all of the weapons, hitpoints system and such, you're not playing battletech anymore. Such a game may be fun, but it's not battletech. Can we all agree on this at least? MW4 at least loosely was based on BT, unlike say MechAssault which had little more than name in common.

Yes, MW4 was not CBT but IMO it made good use of the license for its time while not a true simulator it was also not a true FPS game in a time where FPS game were discovering their identity.

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Market analysts don't make the game, and developers that are making a game they love make a better game, it's not something easily quantified.

I wish this was true across the board, however not all houses have the resources which grants then freedom to develop what they truly love, Piranha included.

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I don't believe that constant community is the reason for it's success. Not even slightly. I'm willing to bet the vast majority never even tried DotA. That's where it all started, of course. But it's continued success? That's it's brilliant business model and solid gameplay, personally I don't play much anymore, but I can give it credit where it's due.

Continued success, maybe not, however I do believe that it helped with the initial snow ball effect and RIOT were clever to capitalize on it.

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There is control, yes there is some randomization with the proposed elements. I still contend a CoF can have an excellent amount of skill, indeed it makes room for more tactical gameplay. You still have to aim, just you can't be certain of where it'll hit. We're not talking hitscan and rolling dice, though I think that system has merits and it'd be good in it's own right, that's not what I'm looking for.

If you played MW2, that was random hit locations. Which according to you is even worse than CoF, but it was quite a lot of fun and it would have been pretty competitive if it wasn't released in the stone age of the internet.

It was only a simple example of range comparison compared to the supposed accuracy of a weapon in regards to size of CoF, that's all. Some weapons of equal range would be more accurate, and that's part of how they're balanced.

My worry is that something like this will be the equivalent of WoT cone of fire, where at 300m you have virtually no accuracy as your reticule is around *3 size of the target at best zoom, good design as always is in the details, the best intentions can turn into horrible implementation.

Edited by Tyrant, 29 November 2011 - 02:16 PM.

[Melissia]

Yes, you can contend that the "cone of fire" requires skill, but it still requires less; you're not aiming specifically at an enemy, just in their general direction,

[Kudzu]

Melissia, on 29 November 2011 - 02:18 PM, said:

I really don't understand how CoF works.

FTFY

[Haeso]

Tyrant, on 29 November 2011 - 02:04 PM, said:

I wish this was true across the board, however not all houses have the resources which grants then freedom to develop what they truly love, Piranha included.

I've worked on a low budget labor of love, without pay for over six months at a time and been paid an enormous amount of backpay once it retailed. I know one guy who worked full time nearly two years with maybe a month or two total pay until the very end of it. If you've a twisted sense of humor you'll find this amusing, the houses that can easily afford to make the game they want to play rather than the game their market analysts say is best, are ones least likely to do it for a multitude of reasons.

I'd say given the IP, and assuming the dedication they've professed is true, they've got what it takes to make the game they want to make. What that game is exactly, I won't presume to put words in their mouth as I don't know anyone on the team personally. But I've a moderate level of confidence in them. Especially with the hard choices like PC only, F2P and PvP only made. All three of those point towards a relatively speaking cheap game. LoL for example was built on the cheap, and while never monetized beyond ads, DotA was built on the free literally. Edit: I am aware of the differences between UMS creation and an entire game, the point was something fairly high quality was made with no budget. Motivated people can stretch a budget really far. Much further than the team that's burned out, jaded and working for the paycheck not the love of the game.

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My worry is that something like this will be the equivalent of WoT cone of fire, where at 300m you have virtually no accuracy as your reticule is around *3 size of the target at best zoom, good design as always is in the details, the best intentions can turn into horrible implementation.

One cannot assume the worst case scenario when discussing something like this, it's not quite like hyperbole, but it's sort of the same thing. One must assume a certain level of competency is done in the design otherwise the game's likely to tank regardless of game design direction, comparing WoT to anything, is comparing a **** to anything. There are very few things that are going to make a **** look good, it's not the right way to build your debate.

Edited by Haeso, 29 November 2011 - 02:52 PM.

[Creel]

Melissia, on 29 November 2011 - 02:18 PM, said:

Yes, you can contend that the "cone of fire" requires skill, but it still requires less; you're not aiming specifically at an enemy, just in their general direction,

That's not at all true. CoF just means that a shot will land within X distance of your aim point. X can be defined using multiple variables, and be used to represent a wide range of effects. Controlling these variables in order to minimize the value of X improves the precision of your strikes. You still have to aim as, or more, carefully as you do without that deviation. We're* not talking about so much deviation that whether you hit or miss is a crapshoot. Just enough that you might hit the right arm or center torso when your cross-hairs on the right torso. This represents the inability of the multi-ton mechanical parts at the other end of the controls to respond instantly and with 0 margin of error.


<sup>*. I realize that the use of we there may be a bit presumptuous. feel free to castigate me for it.

edit: superscript function no workie.</sup>

Edited by Creel, 29 November 2011 - 02:57 PM.

[SwordofLight]

Ok, heres when I use Alpha:

I've got the right mech for it - say its a little fella, and its total arms dont exceed the total heat for a full move and an alpha. I've designed an Assault mech with sufficient heat sinks that I can Alpha. I have a few low heat/high damage guns.

I've got the right moment for it - I'm at an optimal point, a sweet-spot, where everything is in range, over minimum range penalties, and I have a decent shot at scoring a perfect broadside. Hell, I'll even take the heat penalty if I think an Alpha will swing the fight in my favor.

PANIC! - If I dont stop that guy right this very minute bad things will happen. That AC/20 is actually wedged under the chin of my cockpit, and heat, even cook-off, is really not such a concern right now. I'm going down, but I'm taking that Commonwealth ******* down with me.

Why is anyone talking about taking away valid mech tactics? BT or MW? There are mechanisms for constraining or penalizing Alpha in both - you Alpha in MW, not only do you heat spike, but your arms all have recharge/reload times, so you cant just make a continiuous storm of flaming death. Someone brought up WoT - this sounds like the incessant whine of the aty hater. Yeah, ok, I just dropped a shell on your tank thats almost 2 feet wide, and you went from 100% to scrap metal. UNFAIR! Except that same 203 will not fire, even with a rammer, for another 35 seconds. And thats assuming I dont scatter, or you werent stupid enough to sit in one spot long enough for me to aim. I have never played a single piece of mobile artillery where my accuracy has exceeded 35%. And if I miss? I'm out more than a grand in resupply costs - if I miss and freindly fire, the current penalty is about 8 grand. Every game has these Blue Bolts From Heaven - but every game, including both BT and MW - balance them out.

-Don

Edited by Sword_of_Light, 29 November 2011 - 03:02 PM.

[Bloody]

hmm allow alpha strike and play the game ala Counter Strike or not. Dunno, if i wante dot play CS it is already done and i do not need to play it in a Mech.

[Melissia]

Creel, on 29 November 2011 - 02:56 PM, said:

Just enough that you might hit the right arm or center torso when your cross-hairs on the right torso.

... which is more pretty much a crapshoot outside of point blank range.

Just give reticle swaying based off of movement and heat levels, and enforce stronger heat penalties on alpha striking. I want it to hit where I aim, and if I miss, I want it to be because I missed, not because of a random number generator.

[Tyrant]

Haeso, on 29 November 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

Especially with the hard choices like PC only, F2P and PvP only made. All three of those point towards a relatively speaking cheap game. LoL for example was built on the cheap, and while never monetized beyond ads, DotA was built on the free literally.

PC, F2P and PvP only are not hard choices, they are actually very easy ones. PC and PvP only go hand in hand and make complete sense for MW. F2P is to maintain long-term revenue without asking for a regular subscription, and the revenue stream is also potentially higher than box sale only or sub only. LoL is monetized beyond ads, significantly so.

Haeso, on 29 November 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

One cannot assume the worst case scenario when discussing something like this, it's not quite like hyperbole, but it's sort of the same thing. One must assume a certain level of competency is done in the design otherwise the game's likely to tank regardless of game design direction, comparing WoT to anything, is comparing a **** to anything. There are very few things that are going to make a **** look good, it's not the right way to build your debate.

A CoF system (or any system) can be judged on the probability of it being worthwhile feature that improves the game based on the pillars of that game and studios situation, and the chance of successful implementation of a system is also a valid question mark on if it should be attempted in the first place.

WoT is the closest thing that is conceptually similar to MWO. An instanced PvP non-standard tactical FPS game.

Cone of Fire system is a poor choice for the following reasons:
The system dictates player ability / success.
The players frustration just because the system rolled badly. - I assume you don't see having 100% accuracy after aiming for a while.
Promotes camping / extremely static game-play, if I aim better if i move less, I will move less, find the best spot on a map for my mech config and camp.

And for those who consider MW4 play-style bad (your wrong, but everyone has an opinion) and keep harping on about some magical balance because of this randomization in shooting mechanics.

A CoF will change nothing, there will be no magical balance attained. Assuming all weapons are to be viable, you are arbitrarily increasing the amount of shot its takes to down a mech, this is exactly the same as saying increase the time to live on all mech. However on fluke occasions 2 volleys will land in the same hit-box bypassing the designed time to live on a mech. Creating luck based success system, which is frustrating and bad design for a PvP game.

[Haeso]

Tyrant, on 30 November 2011 - 01:12 AM, said:

PC, F2P and PvP only are not hard choices, they are actually very easy ones. PC and PvP only go hand in hand and make complete sense for MW. F2P is to maintain long-term revenue without asking for a regular subscription, and the revenue stream is also potentially higher than box sale only or sub only. LoL is monetized beyond ads, significantly so.

Most of it's monetization is aesthetics, and they are hard choices. Originally the game was meant to be multiplatform. Being locked into only 360 and unable to do a PS3 port forced them into PC only or risk losing money developing for one console rather than both. PvP only, when the majority of Mechwarrior games have focused on singleplayer (I'm aware you and others played primarily for multiplayer, the vast majority who purchased the games however did so for single player. As is the case with almost every game that offers both single and multi player portions.) F2P was an easy choice after the other two were made, I'll agree. But otherwise would have been very unlikely.

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A CoF system (or any system) can be judged on the probability of it being worthwhile feature that improves the game based on the pillars of that game and studios situation, and the chance of successful implementation of a system is also a valid question mark on if it should be attempted in the first place.

if we're going to assume a failed implementation, there's no point in discussing anything to begin with. Why not assume the game will suck in general and be done with it?

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WoT is the closest thing that is conceptually similar to MWO. An instanced PvP non-standard tactical FPS game.

WoT is a terrible game. Whether or not you want to call the closest, it'll still continue being a terrible game.

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Cone of Fire system is a poor choice for the following reasons:
The system dictates player ability / success.
The players frustration just because the system rolled badly. - I assume you don't see having 100% accuracy after aiming for a while.
Promotes camping / extremely static game-play, if I aim better if i move less, I will move less, find the best spot on a map for my mech config and camp.

A: You use skill to time your shots and increase your relative accuracy by quickly coming to a stop, letting the shot align and firing, then moving again. It may not be 100%, but it should be close to offer a fairly high chance to hit at optimal range (Somewhere between medium and long's max ranges, for a long range weapon for example.)

B: You risk missing while firing on the run in exchange for being harder to hit.

C: Many games use CoF without being arbitrarily "Frustrating" to a majority of users whether or not it's frustrating to you. Subjective.

D: The overall tactics required to aim accurately utterly prevent poptarting and the like, if you have to expose yourself for more than a split second to get good accuracy.

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And for those who consider MW4 play-style bad (your wrong, but everyone has an opinion) and keep harping on about some magical balance because of this randomization in shooting mechanics.

It was bad or it would have been far more popular. TT is pretty balanced with it's rolling to hit and rolling to determine hit locations. The armor/damage model is based off that, the CoF abstracts that while retaining player skill. Basically you control the +/- hit modifiers on top of where to aim. If you aim CT with a well focused CoF at med---X---Long range, your probability of hitting CT is high, with a chance to hit LT/RT/H. You aim RT you've got a chance to hit CT,RA,H.

If you take the time to position yourself as a sniper, you may still be able to give accurate fire, but you risk being nailed for it, no poptarting business.

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A CoF will change nothing, there will be no magical balance attained. Assuming all weapons are to be viable, you are arbitrarily increasing the amount of shot its takes to down a mech, this is exactly the same as saying increase the time to live on all mech. However on fluke occasions 2 volleys will land in the same hit-box bypassing the designed time to live on a mech. Creating luck based success system, which is frustrating and bad design for a PvP game.

It's only heavily luck based if you try and poptart or shoot while overheating or sprinting around or as you're getting hit by someone else. The CoF should be relatively small if stationary and un-hit for several seconds. It allows close to that accuracy but exposes you to risk in exchange for that. It's better for the game.

Melissia, on 29 November 2011 - 05:35 PM, said:

More baseless hyperbole

While tyrant is capable of expressing his opinions and ideas in a fairly constructive manner, by comparison you're just being childish.

The CoF is based on range because of how it works. A long range weapon has a tight cone at medium range, this treats the say 1km of MW4 UAC2 as it's max range, not it's optimal range. This is an important distinction to make. If it's possible to be remotely accurate at maximum range, it falls within reason at half of that, 500m, you would be twice as accurate with a weapon rated at 1km.

Edited by Haeso, 30 November 2011 - 02:20 AM.

[Melissia]

Haeso, on 30 November 2011 - 02:14 AM, said:

this treats the say 1km of MW4 UAC2 as it's max range, not it's optimal range.

The Ultra AC/2 is used as an anti-aircraft weapon, it SHOULD be quite accurate even to its max range. As for "childish", at least I'm not throwing around insults.


*ignores Kudzu, who is doing nothing but trolling*

Edited by Melissia, 30 November 2011 - 03:36 AM.

[Haeso]

Hyperbole and strawmen may not be insults to people, but they are incredibly disrespectful towards proper debate and discussion, and waste everyone's time.

And if you're going to argue semantics regarding something simple like the UAC2, I honestly don't know what to say. The point is that a weapon has the kinetic energy to go 1km, that is it's maximum range, the proposition suggests <700 be it's optimal range. The effective maximum range and suggest combat range of weapons for oh I don't know, the history of all combat ever, they've been different. Just because the UAC2 has the kinetic energy to go 1km, doesn't mean it should be accurate at that range.

The difference here is, rather than say the UAC2 can only go 500m, and it's effective range and maximum range are both 500, it can also elect to shoot past it's effective range into it's maximum range.