94 replies to this topic

[guardiandashi]

lasercat thats twisting the arguement and creating a strawman.

here is the issue.

you CANNOT eliminate "boats" and maintain universe cohesion IE keeping it "battletech" as has been mentioned either here or in other threads there ARE canon boats, example the jenner is argueably a medium laser boat (a small one but still is one)

the flashman if you have it is a medium/large laser boat

etc.

the fact of the matter is that the battletech game UNIVERSE unlike the old mechwarrior (computer) games is BUILT around a level of inaccuracy to make the canon firepower vs armor system FUNCTION, in order to even get somewhat close to ballance (and IMO they still failed BADLY) the previous mechwarrior computer games had to reduce weapon damage and dramatically increase armor levels to prevent OSK's because of the messed up "perfect accuracy" mechanics.

its the "perfect accuracy" mechanics that make 4 medium lasers completely reduce an ac20 to being worthless because in the example where you have no "free" heat sinks under a "perfect accuracy" scenario 4x medium lasers plus heat sinks to keep them @ 0 net heat weighs 16 tons and takes 16 crits with single heat sinks, with double heat sinks this drops to 10 tons total

an ac20 weighs 14 tons, generates 7 heat and I am going to say 10 "shots" ie 2 tons of ammo is the minimum load I would feel comfortable with. this is all going to add up to 23 tons and 17 crits, CLEARLY the medium laser barrage is significantly better.

now on the other hand if you degrade the accuracy by projecting EACH weapon as individually firing with reasonable accuracy deviations for EACH weapons shot individually then you return to the ballance as intended IE both weapon options do 20 damage per round, (turn) but the laser battery can't concentrate damage as well and is not as all or nothing as the ac20 is.

[Haeso]

Yeach, on 23 November 2011 - 12:41 AM, said:

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.

I know what he's talking about: But in every MW games range was never limited by accuracy was my point. It was limited by the distance the shot simply disappeared/the distance at which things stopped rendering because it's an old game. And in TT it was limited by tablespace.

[Moppelkotze]

So saying the computer aims at the wrong location (because it's not working well) wouldn't make the weapons using this computer
fire in different directions but just don't hit the target. They still aim at the point the computer points to,
although the calculations may be wrong.
I can bearly understand how a targeting system could ever put the crosshair on the false location when
it was calibrated before the fight and the servos moving the weapons are not damaged yet.

It would just be really boring in a novel or in a tabletop game as nearly every shoot would hit.

And if you are affraid of getting killed by one alpha just double or tripple the armor
or half the damage output of every weapons (adjust the heat also). No one shots and longer fights in general.

[Kudzu]

Yeach, on 22 November 2011 - 11:54 PM, said:

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)

It was an honor duel that got turned up a notch.

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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."

Where did you think that term came from?

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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."

First off, the War Hawk C (that Ranna is piloting) has a T-comp that under TT rules allows you to do a called shot to a particular location.

From the same fight:
"Victor knew he'd only have one chance coming back, so he let the Masakari have it with everything in the Daishi's arsenal.
The Gauss cannon sent a silvery slug sizzling into the Masakari's chest, gouging out a huge chunk of armor over the 'Mech's heart. One of the three large pulse lasers in the Daishi's right arm missed its target, but the other two hit hard. One scored a glowing scar in the armor on the Masakari's left breast, while the second punched straight through the armor in the middle. Flame shot out of the flamer muzzle, and Victor's auxiliary screen reported heat rising in the enemy 'Mech."

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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."

No one is saying that it shouldn't be possible for everything to hit the same location, just that it shouldn't be as easy as it has been in the past.

From the same fight:
"The Centurion struck first. Its right arm came up, its Gauss cannon spitting out a silver projectile amid a brilliant flash of energy. Streaking up the line of the hills, the ball hit the Wolfhound in the left chest. The 'Mech dropped armor like a snake shedding skin, leaving the ferro-titanium skeleton open to view. Victor saw a puff of smoke curl up out of the gash and the Wolfhound staggered a bit. Lost a medium laser and maybe took engine damage! Way to go, Kai!
The twin lasers mounted beneath the left arm also assaulted the Wolfhound, their hail of red energy darts shredding the armor on the other side of the 'Mech's chest. The skeleton beneath the lost armor glowed red and the Wolfhound again appeared to shudder, but Phelan managed to keep it upright despite the vicious pounding."



Edit: I'll throw this in too

Quote

"Good evening." Phelan nodded to Galen, then smiled at Kai. "I can see easily why you are the Solaris champion." He shifted his gaze to Shin. "And why the Coordinator still has an heir."
Shin stiffened and then executed a short bow. Phelan read a hint of shame on Shin's face. Coordinator Takashi Kurita had been murdered only a few months before, and Shin had been in charge of Takashi's bodyguards.
Kai nodded at Phelan, the hint of a blush coloring his face. "Considering that my modified Centurion out-massed your Wolfhound by fifteen tons, you would be a favorite on Solaris. It would have taken many other fighters months of plotting to do what you managed on the fly out there."
"Lucky shots," Phelan shrugged. "I do not think you have anything to fear from me. Even if I were allowed to travel beyond the treaty line to Solaris, I would not welcome a rematch with live ammunition. As I recall, neither one of us would have survived our fight."
"Point well taken."

Edited by Kudzu, 23 November 2011 - 12:59 AM.

[Halfinax]

Moppelkotze, on 23 November 2011 - 12:50 AM, said:

So saying the computer aims at the wrong location (because it's not working well) wouldn't make the weapons using this computer
fire in different directions but just don't hit the target. They still aim at the point the computer points to,
although the calculations may be wrong.
I can bearly understand how a targeting system could ever put the crosshair on the false location when
it was calibrated before the fight and the servos moving the weapons are not damaged yet.

It would just be really boring in a novel or in a tabletop game as nearly every shoot would hit.

And if you are affraid of getting killed by one alpha just double or tripple the armor
or half the damage output of every weapons (adjust the heat also). No one shots and longer fights in general.

In your opinion the computer should be able to make perfect calculations of trajectory, predictive changes speed, direction, and hieght, along with perfectly predicting it's own pilots changes in the same regards?

[guardiandashi]

moppelkotze the one shot kills are NOT directly the problem they are a SYMPTOM of the problem

and degrading the damage of weapons and upping the armor is a 3rd stage attempt at solving the symptom of the symptom of the problem.

IE the core problem is excessive accuracy. reducing damage to armor ratios does NOT address the excessive accuracy issue, it just fixes one aspect but in the process breaks other aspects.

if you reduce BASE accuracy, then you can put the damage vs armor ratios back at or close to the classic table top levels and everything works.

if you KEEP the excessive accuracy, you then have to dramatically adjust damage vs armor ratios and that breaks other things.

example a ppc which does 10 damage out to long range (18 hexes) is FEARED because it can potentually rip locations completely off other mechs in 1 hit however 2 medium lasers (or in the later eras 2 lppc's) are not nearly as scary because they only (ha ha) do 5 points each and the odds of dropping both hits into the same location is dramatically reduced.

[VYCanis]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 12:47 AM, said:

I know what he's talking about: But in every MW games range was never limited by accuracy was my point. It was limited by the distance the shot simply disappeared/the distance at which things stopped rendering because it's an old game. And in TT it was limited by tablespace.

and i would love so much, sooooo much if we could finally get rid of that damn aspect where weapons evaporate in midair. so dumb.

[Moppelkotze]

Halfinax, on 23 November 2011 - 12:57 AM, said:

In your opinion the computer should be able to make perfect calculations of trajectory, predictive changes speed, direction, and hieght, along with perfectly predicting it's own pilots changes in the same regards?

It doesn't need to as the computer doesn't aim for you. It only shows you the crosshair where the weapons
are aiming at now. You pull the trigger, der computer does nothing, the weapons are just fired.
When you move the crosshair the computer moves the weapons. But why should it calculate differently
especially when using the same weapons? If the calculation is not done correctly the weapons
would be a bit off where the crosshair is aiming to but they should still hit the same location.
[Unless one of the servos of a weapon is damage and can't move the weapon fast enough]

[Lasercat]

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

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

If you've never had certain areas immediately shot off when you bring certain mechs, it sounds like you've been playing against not so great players. That's not your fault though, all the mech games are far past their prime so you're going to have a lot of trouble finding anybody decent to play with. But that's another story.

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

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.

You actually didn't answer my question - or your answer makes little sense. What I got from what you said is that if the best strategy is to shoot peoples legs and torsos, and someone starts shooting them, they're "breaking the game".

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

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?

So who are you to say how the game is meant to work? If it works in a way which lets someone do that, that's how it works. There's obviously nothing wrong with playing a game how it tells you to play, unless you hold people over some other standard. That becomes your problem though.

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

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.

If all of what you said is somehow true, then changing the armor system to something more interesting is definitely a better alternative to artificial capping of player skill through a random cof.

[Lasercat]

Draco Argentum, on 23 November 2011 - 12:37 AM, said:

snip

You're somewhat right, but that's why I said balanced. In a balanced game there are multiple ways of winning, so those problems are avoided.

In any case let me try to illustrate something with your chess example. What happens when 2 chess master guys go head to head with that unbeatable strategy? Things start getting interesting...one of them has to win and one of them has to lose. Neither can rely on just using that one strategy to win, they actually have to get good at applying at it and creating variations of it. That's where the fun lies.

Noobs can also have fun with this. They're just going to have to wrap their heads around whatever it is the master guys are doing, which shouldn't be impossible for them. After all the masters started out like everybody else.

guardiandashi, on 23 November 2011 - 12:45 AM, said:

lasercat thats twisting the arguement and creating a strawman.

Which argument? I don't even remember what we're talking about anymore

[Haeso]

Lasercat, on 23 November 2011 - 01:29 AM, said:

If you've never had certain areas immediately shot off when you bring certain mechs, it sounds like you've been playing against not so great players. That's not your fault though, all the mech games are far past their prime so you're going to have a lot of trouble finding anybody decent to play with. But that's another story.

If you're familiar with the armor values of CT versus the extra areas, or especially in MW3 the leg armor versus other areas - aiming at anything else is increasing the amount of damage you take. The only exception would be a mech that has literally only weapons in one location.

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You actually didn't answer my question - or your answer makes little sense. What I got from what you said is that if the best strategy is to shoot peoples legs and torsos, and someone starts shooting them, they're "breaking the game".

If the best strategy is ALWAYS shoot CT or ALWAYS shoot LL/RL, then yes the game has broken. That's not how the game was designed to work, at that point you're not playing battletech. And quite frankly when you start changing something as basic as the armor/damage system, you might as well throw everything out the window and rename the game MechAssault Online.

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So who are you to say how the game is meant to work? If it works in a way which lets someone do that, that's how it works. There's obviously nothing wrong with playing a game how it tells you to play, unless you hold people over some other standard. That becomes your problem though.

It has nothing to do with who I am, it has to do with both the TT and the books, which are the basis for everything. Concessions should be made in the sake of gameplay where necessary due to the transition in mediums. The entire game should not be redone, when you do that you get games like MechAssault that should have been aborted or at the very least re-named. I enjoyed MechAssault for what it was, but it didn't belong in the same universe as anything else Battletech.

Lasercat, on 23 November 2011 - 01:53 AM, said:

You're somewhat right, but that's why I said balanced. In a balanced game there are multiple ways of winning, so those problems are avoided.

In a game with perfect accuracy and the armor/damage system we have currently, there are no 'multiple' ways of winning. If MW3 legging exists, leg them. If not, Core them. There will occasionally be differences like if their legs are covered by a low wall, or you manage to get behind them, etc. But they're pretty minute and don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Next you'll tell me we should do away with heat and ammunition. Lets just use one healthbar for the whole mech too!

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In any case let me try to illustrate something with your chess example. What happens when 2 chess master guys go head to head with that unbeatable strategy? Things start getting interesting...one of them has to win and one of them has to lose. Neither can rely on just using that one strategy to win, they actually have to get good at applying at it and creating variations of it. That's where the fun lies.

I don't think you understand how turn based and 'unbeatable' work. Whoever goes first wins, like checkers. Though to be fair I don't remember if it's first or second that wins in checkers. (assuming optimal choices are made.) Or like tic tac toe, where unless you're an ***** nobody wins.

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Noobs can also have fun with this. They're just going to have to wrap their heads around whatever it is the master guys are doing, which shouldn't be impossible for them. After all the masters started out like everybody else.

Either you're innately gifted and ignorant, or just ignorant. There is a threshold that people cannot pass, it's different for each person. Lets go ahead and make this as extreme as possible to highlight the problem:

Unless you're exceptionally skilled you will never hit anything. The majority of players can never achieve this, lets say 90%. Do you think this would be fun or conducive to good gameplay for either the 10% OR the 90%? This is obviously worse than it would ever be, but it's a thought experiment.

If the skill ceiling does not scale on a proper curve, it's not fair nor is it fun. This is one problem pinpoint accuracy causes.

The more important problem as I've explained above, it absolutely trivializes the hit box style gameplay of Battletech/MechWarrior. Other games only really have two, headshots and.. not headshots. And they're designed with that in mind. However the entirety of battletech revolves around these multiple hit boxes, from every weapon being assigned a location, to being able to allocate/track the armor of each location, to being able to sever limbs, it goes on and on - it's central to the universe. When you trivialize this, you trivialize a large portion of what makes Battletech, Battletech. You end up with something like MechAssault.

Edited by Haeso, 23 November 2011 - 02:28 AM.

[Lasercat]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

If the best strategy is ALWAYS shoot CT or ALWAYS shoot LL/RL, then yes the game has broken. That's not how the game was designed to work, at that point you're not playing battletech. And quite frankly when you start changing something as basic as the armor/damage system, you might as well throw everything out the window and rename the game MechAssault Online.

It's possible for someone to miss a shot and then plug the rt instead of the ct. Now the best strategy is to hit the rt because it's damaged. The best strategy changes naturally with this kind of set up, so don't worry about it.

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

It has nothing to do with who I am, it has to do with both the TT and the books, which are the basis for everything. Concessions should be made in the sake of gameplay where necessary due to the transition in mediums. The entire game should not be redone, when you do that you get games like MechAssault that should have been aborted or at the very least re-named. I enjoyed MechAssault for what it was, but it didn't belong in the same universe as anything else Battletech.

Great, I agree with you.

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

In a game with perfect accuracy and the armor/damage system we have currently, there are no 'multiple' ways of winning. If MW3 legging exists, leg them. If not, Core them. There will occasionally be differences like if their legs are covered by a low wall, or you manage to get behind them, etc. But they're pretty minute and don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

How else could you kill a mech? Shooting arms doesn't do the trick, side torsos might if they got XL, theres the head, the ct, the rear (which is the same idea), and potentially the legs. Then you have to take into account the terrain, what mech they're using, where are they damaged and by how much, where their weapons are, do they have buddies around and so on like you said. That's multiple ways already.

A better question to ask would be how does a random cof give you "multiple" ways to win. Pretty much its just get that circle as small as you can, point it on the other guy and hope for the best.

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

I don't think you understand how turn based and 'unbeatable' work. Whoever goes first wins, like checkers. Though to be fair I don't remember if it's first or second that wins in checkers. (assuming optimal choices are made.) Or like tic tac toe, where unless you're an ***** nobody wins.

Chess is the example, not checkers or tictactoe. Not sure what you're talking about there.
EDIT - I get what's being said now. If a truly unbeatable strategy for any game was found, and any player no matter the skill level could make equal use of it, the game would fall out of favor. I've never known of that happening with any online fps type game though, so examples with board games don't really apply.

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

Either you're innately gifted and ignorant, or just ignorant. There is a threshold that people cannot pass, it's different for each person. Lets go ahead and make this as extreme as possible to highlight the problem:

Unless you're exceptionally skilled you will never hit anything. The majority of players can never achieve this, lets say 90%. Do you think this would be fun or conducive to good gameplay for either the 10% OR the 90%? This is obviously worse than it would ever be, but it's a thought experiment.

If the skill ceiling does not scale on a proper curve, it's not fair nor is it fun. This is one problem pinpoint accuracy causes.

Sure, but this isn't duck hunt it's mechwarrior. There are many elements to being good than just aim, so it's possible for anyone to improve the other skills related to the game and become a better player that way. Also the whole role warfare thing they got going is probably going to mean those other skills may be just as or even more important than aim.

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 02:27 AM, said:

The more important problem as I've explained above, it absolutely trivializes the hit box style gameplay of Battletech/MechWarrior. Other games only really have two, headshots and.. not headshots. And they're designed with that in mind. However the entirety of battletech revolves around these multiple hit boxes, from every weapon being assigned a location, to being able to allocate/track the armor of each location, to being able to sever limbs, it goes on and on - it's central to the universe. When you trivialize this, you trivialize a large portion of what makes Battletech, Battletech. You end up with something like MechAssault.

I don't really understand this part.

When you've got pinpoint aim, with enough skill it becomes possible to take off arms legs, weapon pods etc. as needed. When you have to shoot through a random cone it's much harder to take out individual parts, since you're not guaranteed to hit where you're pointing. With random cof the absolute best strategy is to aim towards center of mass - exactly what you wanted to avoid.

So pinpoint aim emphasizes the importance of individual hitboxes by making them easier to hit compared to using a random cof.

Edited by Lasercat, 23 November 2011 - 03:46 AM.

[VYCanis]

Also, please keep in mind that in the chaos of battle, its not so easy to just take out whatever location you please. Good pilots will be doing their best to second guess your recycle times to time their shots to mess with your aim, put advantageous cover between you and them, try to position their mech's freshest armor towards you while hiding damaged parts, and try to maneuver out of your firing line. Meanwhile you are mindful of heat, ammo, damage, recycle times, and range.
add in aim sway/knock/momentum, and recoil and it will plenty hard enough without needing some sloppy CoFs

i mean, have you guys even played MWLL? aim is fairly precise in that game. and even so, believable weapon behavior does an excellent job at limiting players from just hitting whatever they want reliably.

MWLL didn't need any cone of fire to make laser boating difficult. Simply making lasers act like lasers with long durations made it difficult. Sure, a laser alpha was not going to hit a mech in various locations like a shotgun blast like in the TT, but it didn't need to, hitting a moving target was more often than not, hit right arm, then your lasers slip past, damage a few other locations and waste energy into the dirt. And thats not even factoring in players than turn in place or jjet when getting lasered, to spread potential damage even more. The only times you were likely to concentrate damage was if an enemy mech was literally standing still or running straight at you, and you had good aim control.

Functionally the same result most of the time with "misses and spread damage" but in a much more believable interpretation.

The problem with mw3 and 4 was that lasers did their damage within a very narrow window of time in the case of the former, and instantly in the case of the latter, which made laser boating very attractive. Just spread out that duration and the problem goes away.

[Haeso]

Lasercat, on 23 November 2011 - 03:28 AM, said:

It's possible for someone to miss a shot and then plug the rt instead of the ct. Now the best strategy is to hit the rt because it's damaged. The best strategy changes naturally with this kind of set up, so don't worry about it.

ONLY if they're using an XL engine, furthermore "If they miss"? You kidding? The whole point is the way the hitboxes work you don't miss with pinpoint accuracy unless you yourself get hit right before firing.

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How else could you kill a mech? Shooting arms doesn't do the trick, side torsos might if they got XL, theres the head, the ct, the rear (which is the same idea), and potentially the legs. Then you have to take into account the terrain, what mech they're using, where are they damaged and by how much, where their weapons are, do they have buddies around and so on like you said. That's multiple ways already.

Going purely for the kill rather than anything strategic like focusing on a specific weapon is always the best option for anyone that can reliably hit CT in MW4 or reliably hit a leg in MW3. Head/Rear are never reliable options in either.

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A better question to ask would be how does a random cof give you "multiple" ways to win. Pretty much its just get that circle as small as you can, point it on the other guy and hope for the best.

If the CoF is gigantic, that would be the case. If it's appropriate and allows you to have good accuracy while stationary for a short period, not overheating and not having been hit recently, then you can certainly choose to trade your own survivability by standing still to try and take out a specific section, but you risk getting nailed much easier in return.

You guys act as if a CoF would be so large that even if center mass you're likely to miss. Well sure... if you're overheating, recently taken an LBX20 to the face and moving at full speed. But if not? Hardly.

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Chess is the example, not checkers or tictactoe. Not sure what you're talking about there.
EDIT - I get what's being said now. If a truly unbeatable strategy for any game was found, and any player no matter the skill level could make equal use of it, the game would fall out of favor. I've never known of that happening with any online fps type game though, so examples with board games don't really apply.

Any game with a fixed recoil that the exceptional players can exploit allowing pinpoint accuracy on fully automatic weapons shows fairly well what happens. Shenanigans of the highest order.

Quote

Sure, but this isn't duck hunt it's mechwarrior. There are many elements to being good than just aim, so it's possible for anyone to improve the other skills related to the game and become a better player that way. Also the whole role warfare thing they got going is probably going to mean those other skills may be just as or even more important than aim.

... Like what, being a not yet invented C3 slave? Narcing? Information gathering may be more important, but ultimately this game is going to come down to the combat, and even if there were more to it, that still doesn't address the problem at all, it's a band-aid on an amputated arm. Oh, you can't aim? Well you're only allowed to play scout/Narc mechs for the rest of us.

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I don't really understand this part.

When you've got pinpoint aim, with enough skill it becomes possible to take off arms legs, weapon pods etc. as needed.

But it is never worth doing unless you're against a one-trick pony like a Hunch. And it never will be without forcing people into doing it, which creates the exact same problem in reverse, you must take out all their weapons before it's worth coring/legging them. While better, still not ideal by any stretch of the imagination.

And the point here, if I wasn't clear, this is the one advantage in terms of gameplay pinpoint aim has. But it's more than overshadowed by the problems it causes.

Quote

When you have to shoot through a random cone it's much harder to take out individual parts, since you're not guaranteed to hit where you're pointing. With random cof the absolute best strategy is to aim towards center of mass - exactly what you wanted to avoid.

Only if the CoF is gigantic.

Quote

So pinpoint aim emphasizes the importance of individual hitboxes by making them easier to hit compared to using a random cof.

No, what it does is it marginalizes the existence of all non-critical hitboxes.
Only if the CoF is gigantic.

[Haeso]

VYCanis, on 23 November 2011 - 04:18 AM, said:

Also, please keep in mind that in the chaos of battle, its not so easy to just take out whatever location you please. Good pilots will be doing their best to second guess your recycle times to time their shots to mess with your aim, put advantageous cover between you and them, try to position their mech's freshest armor towards you while hiding damaged parts, and try to maneuver out of your firing line. Meanwhile you are mindful of heat, ammo, damage, recycle times, and range.
add in aim sway/knock/momentum, and recoil and it will plenty hard enough without needing some sloppy CoFs

i mean, have you guys even played MWLL? aim is fairly precise in that game. and even so, believable weapon behavior does an excellent job at limiting players from just hitting whatever they want reliably.

MWLL didn't need any cone of fire to make laser boating difficult. Simply making lasers act like lasers with long durations made it difficult. Sure, a laser alpha was not going to hit a mech in various locations like a shotgun blast like in the TT, but it didn't need to, hitting a moving target was more often than not, hit right arm, then your lasers slip past, damage a few other locations and waste energy into the dirt. And thats not even factoring in players than turn in place or jjet when getting lasered, to spread potential damage even more. The only times you were likely to concentrate damage was if an enemy mech was literally standing still or running straight at you, and you had good aim control.

Functionally the same result most of the time with "misses and spread damage" but in a much more believable interpretation.

The problem with mw3 and 4 was that lasers did their damage within a very narrow window of time in the case of the former, and instantly in the case of the latter, which made laser boating very attractive. Just spread out that duration and the problem goes away.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't see boating as a problem. Especially not laser boats of all of them, that was never the issue. That's intended at some level.

The problem has to do with accuracy and the ability to ignore everything but the Core or Leg of a mech to kill it making the rest of the mech and it's armor relatively pointless. And I don't know why you seem to think MW:LL is better, the best players could still reliably core at long ranges, and regarding boats you only have variants to play with, no full customization last time I played ages ago.

[VYCanis]

Haeso, on 23 November 2011 - 04:32 AM, said:

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't see boating as a problem. Especially not laser boats of all of them, that was never the issue. That's intended at some level.

The problem has to do with accuracy and the ability to ignore everything but the Core or Leg of a mech to kill it making the rest of the mech and it's armor relatively pointless. And I don't know why you seem to think MW:LL is better, the best players could still reliably core at long ranges, and regarding boats you only have variants to play with, no full customization last time I played ages ago.

Thats a different problem in MWLL, that has more to do with the present lack of a crit system. If ammo, heatsinks, and side torso engine crits could get popped, then you'd have all sorts of reason to try to aim for areas other than the CT. As for variants, no there's no customization now, but there are plenty of variants that vary from maxed out boarty to balanced, so its not like players would be able to make stuff that's boatier than whats already in that game should a mechlab come out.

I was mainly pointing out that actual weapon behavior does a way more interesting job of balancing the issues of accuracy, not necessarily that the entirety of its gameplay should be held up as one big example.

also the best players aren't just shooting for the center torso, they aim their CT away from you while their guns are recycling. Its a two way street. Piloting your mech in a way to spread incoming damage around as much as possible is a skill unto itself.

Edited by VYCanis, 23 November 2011 - 04:47 AM.

[VYCanis]

and in regards to making the COF not gigantic, what size do you propose?

because if you make it small, I don't think its going to solve the problem you are intending to solve:

Making it real small and you really are only going to be spreading damage around and missing what you are aiming at long ranges, close range is going to be just focused fired as any old MW game. And you've screwed over legitimate long range support units.

Bigger and you lose out on effective direct fire combat out past medium range.

Bigger still than that and the game will always be a brawl because no one will be able to effectively prevent anyone from closing the distance.

Making it where each weapon has its own COF rating based off TT range brackets and **** gets crazy epileptic. where a large, medium and small laser all mounted in the same area can shoot off in 3 different directions. or an MG fires erratically while an ac2 is nearly spot on.

And while people keep bringing up the CoF principle and how it totally works in most shooters, the important factor that is often omitted is that those shooters either take place almost entirely at ridiculous close ranges where everyone is inside of 100ft, or cone of fire type shooting is reserved for when your target just rounded a corner some 10 feet away, otherwise you actually aim with your weapon's sights and the bullets actually go where you are aiming for shooting anything farther. Cone of fire is not really used for long range shooting. unless you have high enough rates of fire to compensate, like minigun fast. and only a relative handful of BT weapons can claim that

Edited by VYCanis, 23 November 2011 - 05:09 AM.

[Creel]

VYCanis, on 23 November 2011 - 05:05 AM, said:

and in regards to making the COF not gigantic, what size do you propose?

because if you make it small, I don't think its going to solve the problem you are intending to solve:

Making it real small and you really are only going to be spreading damage around and missing what you are aiming at long ranges, close range is going to be just focused fired as any old MW game. And you've screwed over legitimate long range support units.

Bigger and you lose out on effective direct fire combat out past medium range.

Bigger still than that and the game will always be a brawl because no one will be able to effectively prevent anyone from closing the distance.

Making it where each weapon has its own COF rating based off TT range brackets and **** gets crazy epileptic. where a large, medium and small laser all mounted in the same area can shoot off in 3 different directions. or an MG fires erratically while an ac2 is nearly spot on.

And while people keep bringing up the CoF principle and how it totally works in most shooters, the important factor that is often omitted is that those shooters either take place almost entirely at ridiculous close ranges where everyone is inside of 100ft, or cone of fire type shooting is reserved for when your target just rounded a corner some 10 feet away, otherwise you actually aim with your weapon's sights and the bullets actually go where you are aiming for shooting anything farther. Cone of fire is not really used for long range shooting. unless you have high enough rates of fire to compensate, like minigun fast. and only a relative handful of BT weapons can claim that

Playtesting would ultimatedly need to determine that.

[MaddMaxx]

What if we change the name of the fire pattern distribution to "Tube of Fire" seeing as "Cone of Fire" seems to have such an overwhelming negative psychological effect on so many.

Here is an example image.

"Tube of Fire"

In this example, the weapons (denoted by colored circles) are in side or converging into the Central Firing Reticule. Once inside, they stay there unless some extreme action or reaction forces a re-convergence to be required.

Then we can have an expanding or contracting Reticule which the weapons in question (arms would always converge into it) with more stable mounts always find the interior but move about within its confines with never more than 50% of the Tube ever moving outside (when the Reticule is at its smallest).

Then all we need to assure is that the actual targeting Reticule never exceed a certain diameter at any given range and the individual weapons tube sizes vary based on whatever (weapon type and or size) Small, Medium, Large for Lasers and 1, 5, 10, 20 for Ballistics while Missiles are independent as a Lock will assure accuracy, while unlocked they fly until they hit something or leave the FoV..

Edited by MaddMaxx, 23 November 2011 - 09:02 AM.

[Halfinax]

Moppelkotze, on 23 November 2011 - 01:27 AM, said:

It doesn't need to as the computer doesn't aim for you. It only shows you the crosshair where the weapons
are aiming at now. You pull the trigger, der computer does nothing, the weapons are just fired.
When you move the crosshair the computer moves the weapons. But why should it calculate differently
especially when using the same weapons? If the calculation is not done correctly the weapons
would be a bit off where the crosshair is aiming to but they should still hit the same location.
[Unless one of the servos of a weapon is damage and can't move the weapon fast enough]

How does it, in this new scenario, determine the range? Does it have some automatic "oh he's pointing at this object at 200 meters" sensor, but doesn't calculate (aka adjust aim)? Or are you suggesting that your shots come from the reticule itself?