94 replies to this topic

[Haeso]

Dsi1, on 22 November 2011 - 08:18 PM, said:

Some people want to make it worse (luck based on a random CoF) and some people want to make it better (munitions are emitted directly from the weapon on the mech, and the mech is moving of course, swinging arms, rotating torso, shake from incoming weapons fire, shake from stepping, etc).

How is it worse to based on a random CoF. MW4 and the ilk was never based on luck, it was based on anyone above a certain skill threshold being able to reliably core light all the way to assault at 900m-1200m rapidly. It wasn't fun, it was moronic. All the things to artificially hamper accuracy that you're suggesting mean this is still possible just for a smaller group of people. Rather than half the players capable of coring people near-instantly at 1km+ you'll have maybe 10% probably less able to do it, I'm certain I'd fall in that 10%, I still don't think that's right, that doesn't feel like the BT that I loved growing up.

Quote

What I wonder: Why do so many people support something so outdated and (should be) obsolete as cone of fire? It certainly has no place in any game that wants to be any sort of sim.

It's more realistic than suggesting any shmuck with a rifle is a crack shot with every weapon known to man and any weapon he uses is perfectly maintained to have almost nil spread.

Furthermore this is a simulation of battletech in which targeting computers are almost completely worthless despite weighing tons. It would not be an accurate simulation of battletech if the game has pinpoint accuracy. Nor would it be conducive to gameplay, just like the majority of FPSes with CoF, there should be ways to make that cone tiny under perfect circumstances, and if you can put yourself in those circumstances you can shoot fairly accurately, but when you're moving, overheating or getting hit, you should not have anything remotely close to pinpoint accuracy.

[Traejun DiSanctis]

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

Furthermore this is a simulation of battletech in which targeting computers are almost completely worthless despite weighing tons. It would not be an accurate simulation of battletech if the game has pinpoint accuracy. Nor would it be conducive to gameplay, just like the majority of FPSes with CoF, there should be ways to make that cone tiny under perfect circumstances, and if you can put yourself in those circumstances you can shoot fairly accurately, but when you're moving, overheating or getting hit, you should not have anything remotely close to pinpoint accuracy.

This x100.

[Bloody]

i agree with this, the cross hair should be a more of a general direction pointer than anything. Original battletech rules split damage into 5 points and randomly assigned damage. If anything when a weapon is fired it should be a large variable hit box which decreases in size depending on Targeting skill / Ballistic skill etc . Ballistic weapons should have slightly smaller boxes, and larger ranges = larger box. Add in movement, sway and we should get back the old slug it out mechwarrior / battletech fights. Precision based weaponry in the Mechwarrior simulation games was silly, I won entire levels with just ER Large lasers on light mechs with lots of Heatsinks and could 2 shot Direwolfs at maximum range and max speed. ( it was 2 shot because the game never allowed you to completely blow off a head unit with 1 burst regardless of weapon type )

That is not the battletech system.

[VYCanis]

Battletech weapons and their targeting systems are NOT crapshoot inaccurate

the TT is an abstraction with a lot of depth, but it is not a 1:1 simulation, and it is not to scale.

Unless of course you are willing to believe that a flamethrower and a machine gun have the same exact range.
Abstraction, use your imaginations.

Edited by VYCanis, 22 November 2011 - 10:50 PM.

[Haeso]

VYCanis, on 22 November 2011 - 10:50 PM, said:

Battletech weapons and their targeting systems are NOT crapshoot inaccurate

the TT is an abstraction with a lot of depth, but it is not a 1:1 simulation, and it is not to scale.

Unless of course you are willing to believe that a flamethrower and a machine gun have the same exact range.
Abstraction, use your imaginations.

Read the books. I'm not even talking about simulating the tabletop. I'm talking about simulating the actual universe. The targeting systems WERE crapshoot inaccurate.

And even if one were talking about simulating TT, who are you to say it was meant as an abstraction and not working as intended? Were you involved with the creation of battletech? Can you point me to where it says the rules for targeting were meant as an abstraction rather than an accurate portrayal? I'm fairly sure you can't

Edited by Haeso, 22 November 2011 - 10:54 PM.

[Lasercat]

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

<insert game here> and the ilk was never based on luck, it was based on anyone above a certain skill threshold being able to <insert action here>.

That's right! That's the core premise of games from mario to mechwarrior.

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

It wasn't fun, it was moronic.

What.

Are you sure you're saying what you're trying to say? The way you phrased it, you've said the main means through which these kinds of games provides entertainment is moronic.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

The problem is this; Energy weapons are inherently accurate, balliatics less so, and missiles slightly less still. Simulating this at all accurately
leads to one shot kills. This makes for a non enjoyable game. If people don't accept that some in game method affects the accuracy of the weapons then there is only one other solution. Totally revamp the way armour is modelled in the game by reducing the hitbox size and increasing the armour values. At the moment you ave the ability to hit within a few square centimetres while the armour is modelled over an area of many square metres. Either that or drastically reduce damage. If not then very few people will play for long because getting one-shot killed as soon as you are seen is not fun.

[Haeso]

Lasercat, on 22 November 2011 - 11:05 PM, said:

That's right! That's the core premise of games from mario to mechwarrior.

Looks like the point went over your head, let me break it down for you.

Above a certain skill threshold the game mechanics break down. Were you aware that battlemechs have armor on their arms, left and right torsos and heads, not just tenter torso and legs? All four MW games have had two relevant armor slots, legs and ct. Everything else was almost completely irrelevant. But it wasn't that it was too easy, how easy or difficult isn't the point. I'm all for a skill ceiling, but when you completely remove part of the game beyond a certain skill ceiling, you're hurting the game.

Lets say it's harder to core people without wasting any shots, so now only 10% of the players can do it. This 10% has an advantage they've 'earned', I'll agree they've earned an advantage by being better. What I'm saying is that the advantage is game breaking, it's not about easy or difficult. It doesn't matter if only one person can do it or if 100% of the players can do it, it just breaks the game.

Quote

What.

Are you sure you're saying what you're trying to say? The way you phrased it, you've said the main means through which these kinds of games provides entertainment is moronic.

I know exactly what I'm saying, you're twisting what I've said and creating a strawman. A better player is still a better player with CoF, this doesn't remove skill. It may lessen it's impact above a certain threshold, but given what you can do above that threshold, it's worth removing. Battletech was never designed to work like the MW games did, it simply doesn't work. It's not a matter of tabletop vs simulation or FPS vs turn based or any of those things, at it's core pinpoint accuracy completely messes with the damage/armor equation and makes the multiple hit-box armor system not work.

[Halfinax]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 22 November 2011 - 11:09 PM, said:

The problem is this; Energy weapons are inherently accurate, balliatics less so, and missiles slightly less still. Simulating this at all accurately
leads to one shot kills. This makes for a non enjoyable game. If people don't accept that some in game method affects the accuracy of the weapons then there is only one other solution. Totally revamp the way armour is modelled in the game by reducing the hitbox size and increasing the armour values. At the moment you ave the ability to hit within a few square centimetres while the armour is modelled over an area of many square metres. Either that or drastically reduce damage. If not then very few people will play for long because getting one-shot killed as soon as you are seen is not fun.

You fail to factor in convergence in your argument. Generally you are correct, but a weapon is only as accurate as it's level of convergence allows. The most accurate energy weapon in the world woul be useless if the computer targeting for it was off by 12 meters or more on the rate of convergence.

This is the real point of contention between the CoF crowd and the Pin Point accuracy crowd. It's not so much a matter of actual game balance and fun for all as it is a failure to factor in basic physics, logic, and fair play.

[Blacstonn]

All of these arguements work toward the same thing, better gameplay, I'm sure the designers are willing to put some of these into actual use, but they have to think of complexity themselves. For me as a vet in the us navy I have a completely different view of gun fire, it took a team to do that, the fact that a single person has even a remote chance of hitting a target is amazing.
each type has to rely on the human factor, piloting, timing, vision, "Feel". so balance is a relative term here. I just want the chance to get a shoot at it....

[Yeach]

Just a few things that I am getting from the BTech novel "Natural Selection"; this is between a mock fight in simulator pods between Phelan Khan Star (5) vs Victor Davion's Company (16) (company plus a command lance which I thought was weird)

Anyways on Chapter 6pg 66 in regards to BOATS
Ranna look warily at Phelan. "I gather you assume we will defeat them?"
"Your question borders on treason, Star Captain."
"Does it? Apparently you underestimate our foes. Captain Moran's company may be only medium weight but they pack mostly missile boats. Besides that, they have already fought against the Nova Cats and Smoke Jaguars, so they are familiar with our tactics and equipement."

In regards to accuracy pg 71
"As if the other side had been reading his mind - damnit, only Galen could have set this trap - three 'Mechs moved up over the crest of the hills. The first, a thick squat Masakari spread its birdlike legs wide to establish a stable footing among the hill's crumbling rocks. The arms ended in twin barrels and the two left arm PPCs flashed even before Victor could call out a warning to his companions.
The twin bolts of blue lightning crackled through the air. Both hit the Prometheus' right leg, reducing its armor to virtual vapor. A pulse laser in the Masakari's right arm drilled a series of green bolts in the same limb. That hit ripped away all but the very last bit of armor as far as the computer was concerned."

and pg 72 after Phelan's wolfhound had been pounded by Kai's Centurion (Yen-Lo-Wang)
"Then the Wolfhound bit back with a vengeance. The large laser that made up most of its right arm sent a green spear of coherent light into the Centurion's right arm. Armor fragments rained down over the simulated hillsides, starting little brush fires. The three pulse lasers mounted in the Wolfhound's chest focused their fire on that same limb. The first burned through the rest of the armor and the others stitched fire up and down the arm. Myomer muscles snapped white-hot before they melted away.
More importantly, the lasers blasted into the Gauss cannon's mechanism. The capacitors exploded, shredding the armor on the right side of the Centurion's chest."

[VYCanis]

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 10:51 PM, said:

Read the books. I'm not even talking about simulating the tabletop. I'm talking about simulating the actual universe. The targeting systems WERE crapshoot inaccurate.

And even if one were talking about simulating TT, who are you to say it was meant as an abstraction and not working as intended? Were you involved with the creation of battletech? Can you point me to where it says the rules for targeting were meant as an abstraction rather than an accurate portrayal? I'm fairly sure you can't

The books were also written by a myriad of different writers, and were written from the context of telling a story, not laying out exact playable gameplay. Some of their content actually contradicts material from other authors.

and i can in fact point out exactly which book says exactly that.

Quote from: Total Warfare page 36-37
"Weapons ranges provide another example. Players will quickly realize that the longest-range standard weapon in the game can only hit targets out to thirty hexes (900m) from the attacker. Real-world primary main battle tank weapons have an operational targeting ranges in excess of 4,000 meters. Because Battletech map sheets are only seventeen hexes long, requiring more than seven map sheets laid end to end, for a playing space greater than 12 feet in length. Not many people have that type of table space, nor would it provide players with any tactical maneuvering room. Anywhere a player might move a unit on the map, an attacker could hit that unit."

been saying it, ranges and targeting in BT are not directly tied to any actual sci fi weapon limitation, its purely for the sake of gameplay in a turn based game space dictated by the average dinner table size

MW:O is not limited by the size of any particular dinner table. Gameplay and accuracy should be based on whatever the overall map sizes this game has.

At any rate, you don't need to make weapons stupid inaccurate to make them hard to use. There a many ways of introducing difficulty and damage spread without taking direct control away from a player. and you know what? i'm not even all that good. Those pure skill twitch players that scare the living daylights out of some of you guys, that some of you feel somehow morally superior to. Yeah i'm not one of them. I'm mediocre at best. I'd probably be better off under a CoF system. But I'll be damned if i want to see the skill ceiling so lowered to the point where aiming is reduced to slowing down and aiming in a general direction. I want to be able to practice to the point where i can learn how to deal with the bounce of my mech and the recoil of my guns and have that skill reflect in my effectiveness in game. If i miss, i want it to be because of my failure to account for and compensate for various factors, not simply because i didn't reduce the modifiers to my hitchance enough.

Edited by VYCanis, 23 November 2011 - 12:15 AM.

[Haeso]

That has nothing to do with the general accuracy of the era, do you need me to go list out all the times people have missed in the Battletech novels?

For every mention of multiple weapons hitting the same area there are more for hitting a bunch of different areas.

And your the post mentions range. Not the accuracy of weapons...

Edited by Haeso, 23 November 2011 - 12:37 AM.

[Lasercat]

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

All four MW games have had two relevant armor slots, legs and ct. Everything else was almost completely irrelevant.

This is not true, but lets ignore that.

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

Lets say it's harder to core people without wasting any shots, so now only 10% of the players can do it. This 10% has an advantage they've 'earned', I'll agree they've earned an advantage by being better. What I'm saying is that the advantage is game breaking, it's not about easy or difficult. It doesn't matter if only one person can do it or if 100% of the players can do it, it just breaks the game.

How does 10% of the players getting legitimately good at a balanced game break it?

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

I know exactly what I'm saying, you're twisting what I've said and creating a strawman.

Okay.

Haeso, on 22 November 2011 - 11:32 PM, said:

A better player is still a better player with CoF, this doesn't remove skill. It may lessen it's impact above a certain threshold, but given what you can do above that threshold, it's worth removing. Battletech was never designed to work like the MW games did, it simply doesn't work. It's not a matter of tabletop vs simulation or FPS vs turn based or any of those things, at it's core pinpoint accuracy completely messes with the damage/armor equation and makes the multiple hit-box armor system not work.

You're saying you want to put an arbitrary skill cap on a new mechwarrior game because otherwise it "messes with the damage/armor equation and makes the multiple hit-box armor system not work"?

[Yeach]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 12:12 AM, said:

That has nothing to do with the general accuracy of the era, do you need me to go list out all the times people have missed in the Battletech novels?

For every mention of multiple weapons hitting the same area there are more for hitting a bunch of different areas.

Thats because those mechwarriors suck at aiming

[Haeso]

Lasercat, on 23 November 2011 - 12:22 AM, said:

This is not true, but lets ignore that.

You never played them online then, or couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a long tom.

Quote

How does 10% of the players getting legitimately good at a balanced game break it?

Can you not read? It trivialized any strategy, MW3 style leg = death, always leg them. MW4 style requiring multiple hits beyond black or both legs, always core them. It's not about them being better or not, it's about beyond a certain point the advantage breaks the game.

If it was possible to kill every mech by hitting a certain tiny spot, so small that only one player had the skill to do it, and he could do it at 1200M with HVAC2 or 1000m with CUAC2 going by era, would that be okay with you? Because he's good enough to do it, it's fine that what he's doing completely ignores how the game was meant to work?

Quote

You're saying you want to put an arbitrary skill cap on a new mechwarrior game because otherwise it "messes with the damage/armor equation and makes the multiple hit-box armor system not work"?

I'm saying make the game work like battletech should, and providing a non-canon reason in addition to the canon reasons. If it's possible to reliably hit ONLY the core or ONLY the leg, and EITHER of them result in death, the game breaks. It doesn't matter if it's only possible for 100%, 10%, 1% or even a single player. This isn't call of duty, it's not how battletech should work, it's not fun nor does it fit the universe. I'm good enough to be able to do what I'm arguing should not be possible to do, because there are only two ways to go about it if allowed. Let anyone good enough be able to do it and trivialize one of the primary mechanics in battle tech, the fact that you've got an entire battlemech, not just a center torso, or change the armor system entirely.

Sorry but I don't want to play mech assault with a total healthbar nor do I want to play Call of Duty: Exoskeleton edition.

[VYCanis]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 12:12 AM, said:

That has nothing to do with the general accuracy of the era, do you need me to go list out all the times people have missed in the Battletech novels?

For every mention of multiple weapons hitting the same area there are more for hitting a bunch of different areas.

And your next post mentions range. Not the accuracy of weapons...

accuracy and range go hand in hand. If you can't hit a moving target at 300m you are not going to hit one at 1000. If you can hit a moving target at 1000, the same one at 300 is relatively easier.

so what if characters miss in the stories? Its a story. Dramatic tension. Stories would be real short or real weird real quick if the protagonist ate bullets as often as they should.

I'm not saying aiming should even be easy. but it should be something in a player's direct control. running and shooting should be harder than stationary shooting. jumping should be a lot harder. but instead of simply turning it into an invisible gamble as to whether or not my guns are on the mark, let me know where that weapon is pointing so i can make the call and compensate for what i'm doing. If an opponent can, in mid jump, with his crosshairs bouncing like freaking mad, while being shot at, and having a busted gyro can still keep his aim on me, that man deserves to hit whatever he wants. conversely if he just takes a shot, and it hits under a wide COF, its simply pure freaking luck, and any one else is just as likely or unlikely to pull it off.

I honestly could not give a rat's behind how many times characters miss. and i've read like 80% of the novels so far

Edited by VYCanis, 23 November 2011 - 12:41 AM.

[Draco Argentum]

Lasercat, on 23 November 2011 - 12:22 AM, said:

How does 10% of the players getting legitimately good at a balanced game break it?

Its called degeneracy. If the best tactic is unfun, which most posts seem to regard heading legging and coring as, then the game is boring. If you make coring easy then the game will degenerate into coring at most levels of play. If you make coring hard then the noobs won't be doing it. But the pros will and the game will be degenerate at their level of play. Thus the pros get a boring game and start to leave.

Imagine of grand master chess players knew the perfect strat that couldn't lose. High level matches would just turn into a predetermined farce. Yet the game could still be fun for lesser players who don't know the perfect strat.

In essence, yes it is possible for a tactic that requires immense skill to make the game boring for the people capable of pulling it off.

[Haeso]

VYCanis, on 23 November 2011 - 12:34 AM, said:

accuracy and range go hand in hand. If you can't hit a moving target at 300m you are not going to hit one at 1000. If you can hit a moving target at 1000, the same one at 300 is relatively easier.

Yes, if range is determined by accuracy. Range is NOT determined by accuracy in battletech. Did you even read what you quoted? Range was shortened to make the scale fit what they wanted.

Hell none of the MW games even take into account proper ballistics beyond projectile speed.

[Yeach]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 12:39 AM, said:

Yes, if range is determined by accuracy. Range is NOT determined by accuracy in battletech. Did you even read what you quoted? Range was shortened to make the scale fit what they wanted.

Hell none of the MW games even take into account proper ballistics beyond projectile speed.

I think he meant accuracy is determined by range.
The farther away a target is, the harder it is to hit.
Thats why WW1 fighters went as close as possible to hit with guns.