152 replies to this topic

[Roadbeer]

GreyGriffin, on 19 February 2014 - 04:36 PM, said:

Some of us put the game down for awhile.

Who is this us you are speaking of?

[GreyGriffin]

People who were disappointed with the way the game turned out, people who have other things to do and didn't have time. You know. Players.

[Roadbeer]

And where is this forum where they elected you to speak for them?

Your words carry more weight when you speak for yourself and not this unidentifiable "us"

[GreyGriffin]

Ad hominem attacks aside, do you have an argument against the content of my post?

[Roadbeer]

Other than implementing a RNG into the game is a terribad idea, and has no place in a "shooter". Not really.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Moromillas, on 18 February 2014 - 09:03 PM, said:

Would prefer other balance mechanics over random rolls.

Have any examples of other systems you'd like to try? I don't think the Ghost Heat system actually works, it's become a non-solution and frustrates players.

Moromillas, on 18 February 2014 - 09:37 PM, said:

Perhaps a tiny variance (excluding sniper weapons) would be acceptable, maybe even a recoil mechanic, something that wouldn't be noticeable at short and medium range. I donno, maybe it's something that needs testing, to find out how it goes.

I do know that, any game where you are wrestling with RNG, it just makes gameplay not fun.

Why not include the sniper weapons? Versus making their cone be specific to their classification? Unique behavior for unique weapons. It's a bit of work to do but is something that can be balanced out. It'd require testing and tuning.

Gideon Grey, on 19 February 2014 - 05:34 AM, said:

Apparently too difficult: Add the mechanic that we all thought was originally in place. Convergence takes time. Show the reticle a for each weapon and have them converge on the target point over a short period of time. Make this time be effected by movement/jump maybe? Make the elite skill "pinpoint whatsit" have some value?

This is a viable solution. This is how many Arcade/Action (Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Halo, etc.) style FPS shooters that rely on "hip fire" mechanics as their core element while running around mitigate and balance the weapon. As well as expanding cones for automatic weapons to when fired consistently. Even the more Tactical Shooters have the expanding cone for automatic fire to ensure those weapons don't become dominate.

This is a viable, solution. Requires time, testing, and tuning to get the balance done in a fashion that people would fine both fun and fair.

GreyGriffin, on 19 February 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

The instant rejection of cone of fire remains baffling to me, too.

Ignorance is Bliss and Jumping on the hate bandwagon is popular for most forums out there. I don't disagree with the sentiment of the OP but not a lot of solutions were presented as well. Many other folks have chimed in and can cite examples of what would work or other approaches that are worth investigating on the dev side.

We will just have to see if the dev team chooses to listen to the community or are even concerned with this concept to begin with.

They tend to repeatedly drop the ball in many arenas though.

invalidusername, on 19 February 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

If something like this was implimented, I'd completely stop playing.

Why? The idea and the implementation have worked in many other titles throughout gaming history and it works well even in 1st person titles. You see this behavior in everything from Counter-Strike to Gears of War in various perspectives and implementations. It's about approach and tuning. Even so in the end if it doesn't work - you can always roll back to a previous system by just reverting changes and re-integrating old code into the builds.

If you're really that vehemantly against it as a concept I'd love to hear the reasoning why this is the case? If you think it'd ruin gameplay can we get some examples of where it's bad in your experience?

[GreyGriffin]

Virtually every shooter on the market already implements RNG to a degree through variable cones of fire on automatic weapons. Cone of Fire isn't strictly a game mechanic, it's a real factor in weapons design and military tactics that dates back as far as firearms themselves. The idea that a weapon becomes less accurate over a longer distance is just how guns work.

A laser has to worry about refraction and diffusion. A ballistic projectile has to worry about windspeed, air density, and even things like quality of manufacture of the projectile, to say nothing of recoil. Missiles are a crapshoot and a half between guidance software and actually trying to steer a rocketful of explosives. It's clearly not a realism issue.

Pinpoint accuracy is important in a game like Unreal or Quake, where players are bolting around at a hundred miles an hour and flying off jump pads. Here, especially here, where the 'mechs are big and slow, where the game mechanics encourage damage spread out over the chassis, and where the current gameplay paradigm is stifled by a mechanic that is incredibly easy to fix in a way that's been used and tested in games for decades, I can't see "it caps twitch skill" as a valid argument against it.

Your ability to point your weapons at a target is not supposed to be the apex of skill in Mechwarrior. Great gunnery is its own reward, but your ability to manage heat, to balance mobility and accuracy, to coordinate with your teammates, win the battle of maneuver, and use your 'mechs strengths and weaknesses effectively should be just as important, and right now they simply are not.

[Hoffenstein]

I completely agree with the original poster regarding the addition of a Cone of Fire. In a lot of games out there, large calibre sniper type weapons have poor accuracy when fired without using the sight or scope. This "sniper weapon" element could easily be applied to Guass Rifles, standard PPC's, AC/2's and AC/5's and any other weapon that would normally have a minimum range (maybe even LRM's). These are the weapons that should be used at range, possibly with a tighter cone of fire, but when up close it will be pretty sloppy, thus adding the neccesity of some closer range weapons.

[Moromillas]

Mirkk Defwode, on 19 February 2014 - 05:27 PM, said:

Why not include the sniper weapons? Versus making their cone be specific to their classification? Unique behavior for unique weapons. It's a bit of work to do but is something that can be balanced out. It'd require testing and tuning.

Because putting cone of fire on a sniper weapon would render it defunct, as their intended purpose is for long range.

[Moromillas]

wanderer, on 19 February 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

That's because it never could fix the real problem in the first place.

Single-point, instant-damage-on-demand weaponry. About the only one that might get away with it in the end is Gauss Rifles, but AC's and PPCs have that "put all the damage in one point, no muss no fuss" ability that even MWO managed to NOPENOPENOPE with lasers, yet failed to realize why it was the right idea in the first place.

Battletech's damage modeling assumes damage spreads across a target- either by the pilot actively doing so, the target moving as damage is applied over even a small amount of time, or the weapon inherently spreading damage, like missiles or LB-X.

A weapon gets increasingly more broken as it can avoid spreading damage. There's where the fix needs to be in.

Those seem to be two separate issues. The alpha, and the lack of spread. Hopefully there's a lot more solutions to it than to add randoms.

Did you see my idea to improve AC spread? It's back on page 1.

With ghost heat, I don't think they should scrap it just yet. If it's possible to fix, I think it should be. It actually takes quite a lot to implement new systems.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Moromillas, on 19 February 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Because putting cone of fire on a sniper weapon would render it defunct, as their intended purpose is for long range.

What degree of variance are you assuming it'll have? The value within the cone could be as little as half a degree to 2 degrees for what may happen. So even at long ranges that'll amount to a near miss or an even better shot depending on where you're aiming.

The assumption you'll have cones that expand out greatly for all weapons is a poor one. The best way to do this is define the range you want the weapon to be used, then the cones become set for ranges then fine tuned for individual weapons.

That is literally the method used by many major shooters on the market today.

[Prezimonto]

Bhael Fire, on 18 February 2014 - 09:02 PM, said:

Also, I'd only support this idea if the cone tightened up the longer you stood still.

So basically you could stand and aim for a few second to get a really tight grouping (akin to what we have now) but when you're moving the cone (i.e.target reticle) widens making the shots less accurate.

So basically, no way to get a tight grouping when running or jumping.

I would add: stand still while gaining targeting information. You should have to physically get the mech's targeting computer involved. This would add a lot of synergy with light mechs, spotting roles, and information warfare.

[Prezimonto]

Moromillas, on 19 February 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Because putting cone of fire on a sniper weapon would render it defunct, as their intended purpose is for long range.

That's why you tie the CoF and limiting it to obtaining target information and range.

If you obtain a target, sit still for a little while... that's like scoping in with a sniper rifle in another game. Without the targeting information sniper weapons might have terrible CoF, but might tighten down to nothing with enough time.

Add in modifiers for shooting on the move... tie it to % throttle and give it a modifier for the size of the mech so lights and mediums (which can't carry many huge weapons) don't get too nerfed.

It could easily be set that single fired weapons always get zero CoF... so if you're willing to fire each weapon individually (chain fire) you never have to deal with a CoF.

There's lots of ways to add it into the game, and make the game a more fun experience for the majority of players.

[Moromillas]

Mirkk Defwode, on 19 February 2014 - 06:41 PM, said:

So even at long ranges that'll amount to a near miss or an even better shot depending on where you're aiming.

Sniper weapons already have mechanics in place to curb damage at long range. Add a random variance, even half a degree, and it will be much to difficult to land a shot at long range.

[Prezimonto]

Moromillas, on 19 February 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Sniper weapons already have mechanics in place to curb damage at long range. Add a random variance, even half a degree, and it will be much to difficult to land a shot at long range.

The point is that this one mechanic could fairly easily replace charge up and ghost heat... which are actually both much more intrusive and difficult to deal with than a well implemented CoF mechanic.

[Mirkk Defwode]

Moromillas, on 19 February 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Sniper weapons already have mechanics in place to curb damage at long range. Add a random variance, even half a degree, and it will be much to difficult to land a shot at long range.

Quite honestly. I'm okay with that. If you have the zeroing feature in addition that hones in as you travel more slowly or stand still that would be the balancing element. Many ideas on this thread can be cobbled together into a superior system that could replace the ghost heat as well as balance out various levels of combat. It'd be an overall improvement on the combat systems in game.

Prezimonto, on 19 February 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

The point is that this one mechanic could fairly easily replace charge up and ghost heat... which are actually both much more intrusive and difficult to deal with than a well implemented CoF mechanic.

You got it.

[Moromillas]

Prezimonto, on 19 February 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

The point is that this one mechanic could fairly easily replace charge up and ghost heat... which are actually both much more intrusive and difficult to deal with than a well implemented CoF mechanic.

Not really. The problem seems to be WHEN a penalty is applied, and not the penalty itself.

If 4 PPC's gives you a CoF, but 2 PPC's and some AC's give you no CoF, but the same alpha damage. Then changing the penalty from one to another doesn't accomplish anything.

Replace ghost heat with CoF, and Instead of players saying that ghost heat isn't working, they'll be saying that CoF isn't working.

Simply adding a minor and differential CoF variance to all the weapons across the board isn't a very ideal solution either. Too much, and it becomes random rolls land, less and it accomplishes nothing.

Mirkk Defwode, on 19 February 2014 - 07:27 PM, said:

Quite honestly. I'm okay with that. If you have the zeroing feature in addition that hones in as you travel more slowly or stand still that would be the balancing element. Many ideas on this thread can be cobbled together into a superior system that could replace the ghost heat as well as balance out various levels of combat. It'd be an overall improvement on the combat systems in game.

I disagree, I think all weapons should be viable and competitive.

[Roland]

Introducing random dice rolls in place of aiming would easily be the single worst possible change to this game.

If you don't want to aim, go play another game for christ's sake.

[ShadowbaneX]

Bhael Fire, on 18 February 2014 - 09:07 PM, said:

Yeah no random rolls. RNG has no place when targeting.

While I abhor Cone of Fire, in TT you get a -1 penalty for walking and -2 penalty for flank speed. Right now this is not reflected in the game, a shot at 170 kph is the same as standing still.

[cSand]

GreyGriffin, on 19 February 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

ability to manage heat,
to balance mobility and accuracy,
to coordinate with your teammates,
win the battle of maneuver,
and use your 'mechs strengths and weaknesses effectively
should be just as important, and right now they simply are not.

Well, yes they are, and perhaps by doing the previous 5 things you listed someone may not find themselves on the business end of AC40 so much. Ever tried to aim an AC at a max range target while it's running? Not so easy. So, adding a random chance to miss to my (theoretically ) skillfully aimed hail mary shot is solving what exactly? That I'm just too effing good at aiming?

One positive of the CoF though, people would stop posting about hit detection

I could see adding a little bit of shake to the reticle when moving or recoiling.. since lasers don't have recoil that might help them out a little too. But just penalizing people for having a good hand is no way to do anything

Edited by cSand, 19 February 2014 - 10:19 PM.