172 replies to this topic

[Doctor Proctor]

How about we just say it's equivalent to an AC/40 shot at 270m where convergence isn't even an issue? Cuz that's what it really is, all this debating about "Well, the chances of hitting 2PPC + AC/20 are blah blah blah" is missing the point entirely in that it's like free 40 point alphas that have a chance to one shot mechs.

[WarHippy]

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

I've provided suggestions that won't make them useless, and still carry most of the stuff intact. Please try not going to hyperbole because the changes themselves will not reduce their usage (except for the crazy people that are relying on the mechanic).

Interestingly enough before they upped the damage to where it is now they pretty much were useless, and they were not used very often by most people. So unless that vast majority of the people are crazy people(to be fair we do have a lot of crazies here ) relying on the mechanic you should be careful about your own exaggerations before pointing the hyperbole finger at me.

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

I never said "no damage to the cockpit", just less damage to it. If you aren't carrying enough head armor to suppress it, fine, you deserve to die. That's not asking for too much here. Immunity is not what I was asking for at all... it's simply bad outright. Reduction in damage to the head is a far cry from a major nerf to arty/airstrikes.

The problem is you said earlier that you don't like it that you can die in a single artillery strike. The thing is if you lower the damage done to the cockpit you can still die in a single artilery strike even if it is a smaller chance. The only way to prevent those random deaths from ever happening is to make the cockpit immune to the damage, and that for me is unacceptable.

Edited by WarHippy, 31 January 2014 - 02:31 PM.

[Roughneck45]

WarHippy, on 31 January 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

The only way to prevent those random deaths from ever happening is to make the cockpit immune to the damage, and that for me is unacceptable.

What about making all damage that would go to the cockpit go CT instead?

[WarHippy]

Roughneck45, on 31 January 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

What about making all damage that would go to the cockpit go CT instead?

My initial reaction is that isn't fine either because you are still making a part of the mech immune to certain types of damage, but it would still possibly cause random deaths for certain mechs because the CT would take the splash damage and the damage done to the cockpit. Depending on where exactly the shell hit you could be looking at nearly 80 damage to the CT, and while this might make me feel a little better about it I doubt it would prevent people from complaining about getting one shot. I will think it over tonight though.

[LastPaladin]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 January 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

If enough LRMs hit the head they still should. And Streaks are or should be RNG for damage locations and would/should require a huge amount of bad luck to take off a head.

From what has been posted in the forums, both LRMs and Streaks are coded in such a way that they avoid targeting the head, to avoid "random" headshots from those weapons. So, if that is the case, why should artillery be more dangerous than some of our standard weapons?

[WarHippy]

LastPaladin, on 31 January 2014 - 02:40 PM, said:

From what has been posted in the forums, both LRMs and Streaks are coded in such a way that they avoid targeting the head, to avoid "random" headshots from those weapons. So, if that is the case, why should artillery be more dangerous than some of our standard weapons?

Because poor design is a poor excuse to nerf something else.

[LastPaladin]

WarHippy, on 31 January 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

Because poor design is a poor excuse to nerf something else.

IF it is poor design. That's a subjective opinion, isn't it?

[Sephlock]

How about every smoke canister comes with speaker phones so there is an audible warning in addition tot he smoke?

[Roughneck45]

WarHippy, on 31 January 2014 - 02:39 PM, said:

My initial reaction is that isn't fine either because you are still making a part of the mech immune to certain types of damage, but it would still possibly cause random deaths for certain mechs because the CT would take the splash damage and the damage done to the cockpit. Depending on where exactly the shell hit you could be looking at nearly 80 damage to the CT, and while this might make me feel a little better about it I doubt it would prevent people from complaining about getting one shot. I will think it over tonight though.

Just to be clear, the only one shots anyone should be mad about, and the only ones i am against, are head shots.

If you lose a leg, an XL, a CT, or anything else really, chances are you either took damage before and the shell finished it off, or you got hit by multiple shells. Those arty kills are a-ok in my opinion.

[Roadkill]

Doctor Proctor, on 31 January 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

How about we just say it's equivalent to an AC/40 shot at 270m where convergence isn't even an issue? Cuz that's what it really is, all this debating about "Well, the chances of hitting 2PPC + AC/20 are blah blah blah" is missing the point entirely in that it's like free 40 point alphas that have a chance to one shot mechs.

Exactly.

But you don't see people crying about Boom Boxes because they get headshot by them all the time. They cry about Boom Boxes because they do 40 points of pinpoint damage and wreck face.

40-pt artillery shells just aren't that big of a deal.

[Deathlike]

Roughneck45, on 31 January 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

Just to be clear, the only one shots anyone should be mad about, and the only ones i am against, are head shots.

If you lose a leg, an XL, a CT, or anything else really, chances are you either took damage before and the shell finished it off, or you got hit by multiple shells. Those arty kills are a-ok in my opinion.

The thing about headshots in other games, even the most notable CS, was that it did actually take skill into account for a low percentage hit. Note that some games do make it an instant-kill, but they at least tried to make the hitbox smaller and added other variables to make it occur less, but ultimately, it wasn't a "random event" like the airstrike/arty we have today.

Even MW4, which I believe many of the community has experienced before is actual "headshot" mechanic that PREVENTED a large alpha to the head to mean instant death. It was a literal buffer that would prevent it. Now, it was kinda side-skirted because a projectile following that (usually a PPC/Gauss after a straight laser hit to the head) would get you killed immediately after, but that explicit behavior was put in there by the devs of that game (although, it didn't strictly apply to the head though - it was a high pinpoint alpha balance thing IIRC). The slight variance though was that head armor maximums was scaled by the size of the mech (which some would argue is not strict BT/TT), but that's besides the point.

In MW2 and MW3, headshots were rare, (the hitbox must've been close to non-existent or something). Those used stock TT armor values last I checked.

Anyways, reminiscing about the history of the older MW games makes me feel old, but it was an issue when you consider why such balance changes existed.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 30 January 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

Its not as rare as you might think. It happens way more often with certain mechs than others because of the position and size of their heads. Battlemasters are notorious for going down to arty strikes.

The only numbers I will believe will be the ones PGI releases themselves. Anything else is anecdotal, including my own numbers, which by the way say the exact opposite (i.e. 5 deaths out of 1300+ uses -- note I said deaths and not head shots).

LastPaladin, on 31 January 2014 - 02:40 PM, said:

From what has been posted in the forums, both LRMs and Streaks are coded in such a way that they avoid targeting the head, to avoid "random" headshots from those weapons. So, if that is the case, why should artillery be more dangerous than some of our standard weapons?

Well, from my point of view, the changes made to prevent head damage from missiles are wrong (i.e. It's a knee jerk reaction to massive forum QQ, AGAIN!). So, fix those and leave artillery and air strikes as they are.

Edited by Mystere, 31 January 2014 - 04:13 PM.

[Jaybee]

Man there is alot going on in this thread.
Artillery:
It's bloody good for breaking up areas or a finisher on busted up mechs. Does what it's meant to
"Artillery is the use of war devices that can far exceed the range of conventional personal and BattleMech weapons, and is primarily used to support an additional force. Due to the highly explosive nature of artillery, most artillery weapons cause not only substantial primary damage, but also secondary damage to adjacent areas."
My personal thoughts is it shouldn't be a module but more a dedicated unit (be it NPC or not) that lays the smack down.

Headshots:
Why the hell shouldn't there be head shots? if you can shoot it, then shoot it!
In saying that, I feel there are so many other components to explore that should take damage in the head such as gyro and life support. Gyro damage leads to falling over or weapon stability (possibly if they bring back knockdowns) and life support leads to vision probs and maybe to ejection.. ahh ejection, infantry, npcs... sigh

[Grrzoot]

i would like to see it being a ground based explosion. I.e. forget the thought of using shells that actually travel through the air, just have the explosions in the target area start at whatever ground terrian there is. Lights and mediums in the area near to fear it more as the explosion radius encompasses their mechs.

the larger mechs would be hit more center and legs, still dealing significant damage, but it would eliminate the roll a d20 and get a 20 and headshot boom!

[Mystere]

Grrzoot, on 31 January 2014 - 05:28 PM, said:

i would like to see it being a ground based explosion. I.e. forget the thought of using shells that actually travel through the air, just have the explosions in the target area start at whatever ground terrian there is. Lights and mediums in the area near to fear it more as the explosion radius encompasses their mechs.

the larger mechs would be hit more center and legs, still dealing significant damage, but it would eliminate the roll a d20 and get a 20 and headshot boom!

You're talking about mines, not artillery and air strikes. And I want those too.

Edited by Mystere, 31 January 2014 - 09:50 PM.

[WarHippy]

LastPaladin, on 31 January 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

IF it is poor design. That's a subjective opinion, isn't it?

Yes, it is a subjective opinion much the same that it is a subjective opinion that headshots shouldn't be allowed to happen.

[WarHippy]

Roughneck45, on 31 January 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

Just to be clear, the only one shots anyone should be mad about, and the only ones i am against, are head shots.

If you lose a leg, an XL, a CT, or anything else really, chances are you either took damage before and the shell finished it off, or you got hit by multiple shells. Those arty kills are a-ok in my opinion.

Just to be clear, what you described that I responded too would still allow for one shots just not the cockpit. So I see no reason to be a-ok with that but not when you get a direct hit on the cockpit.

[WarHippy]

Deathlike, on 31 January 2014 - 03:20 PM, said:

The thing about headshots in other games, even the most notable CS, was that it did actually take skill into account for a low percentage hit. Note that some games do make it an instant-kill, but they at least tried to make the hitbox smaller and added other variables to make it occur less, but ultimately, it wasn't a "random event" like the airstrike/arty we have today.

Yes, headshots in CS were skill based, but artillery would be more akin to lobbing an HE grenade over a box and it landing right next to someone or detonating by their head killing them instantly. Knowing where to throw the grenade is a lot like knowing how to place the artillery so that it is effective. I wouldn't want them to change the HE grenade in CS anymore than I want them to change artillery here.

[Khobai]

Quote

it is a subjective opinion that headshots shouldn't be allowed to happen.

I dont recall anyone taking the stance that headshots shouldn't be allowed to happen. I have zero problem with artillery damaging a mech's head. I just don't think artillery should be able to instantly destroy a mech's head.

[Deathlike]

WarHippy, on 31 January 2014 - 06:17 PM, said:

Yes, headshots in CS were skill based, but artillery would be more akin to lobbing an HE grenade over a box and it landing right next to someone or detonating by their head killing them instantly. Knowing where to throw the grenade is a lot like knowing how to place the artillery so that it is effective. I wouldn't want them to change the HE grenade in CS anymore than I want them to change artillery here.

Grenades have required skill... some allow you to open the pineapple, let it tick for a bit, and then fire/aim at the target. That was never a problem with me. If you score a kill, great. Noone will think of you less for having skill.