517 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

FupDup, on 28 March 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

Do I win?

Nope. Convergence isn't a "weapon".

Coralld, on 28 March 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

Last time I checked, Luke used his FLD weapons into the Death Stars internals and rolled a critical.

Moral of the story? Don't use an XL Engine in something the size of a small moon.

Luke used the Force aimbot. HAX.

[Cimarb]

3rdworld, on 30 March 2014 - 09:56 AM, said:

Really? 20 of the 30 damage alpha is coming from autocannons? Cool.

And saying RoF is important to TTK....lol. That is why AC/2s are beasts right? Right?

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or how so.

AC2s weigh less, take up less space, do damage out to the farthest ranges in the game, and have a DPS that is on par with ever other AC. It should not take an arbitrary heat mechanic to balance autocannons, which are supposed to be the most heat-efficient weapons in the game.

That being said, AC2s RoF is not the issue, as at least it spreads the damage out like ACs should.

[FireDog]

How about restricticting ammo movement to only one joint. (e.g. Ammo from arms/legs/head omly to side Ts and CT, CT and Side Ts ammo to arms/head but never ammo from one arm to another. Offset this by giving mechs three slot legs that allow for double heatsinks and mayble giving (most*) larger mechs an extra slot in the arms because of their sheer size.
*Note some mechs like Stalkers/Jaegers might not have much arm volume to work with. Only reward those with some decent arm volume the slots.

[Cimarb]

FireDog, on 30 March 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

How about restricticting ammo movement to only one joint. (e.g. Ammo from arms/legs/head omly to side Ts and CT, CT and Side Ts ammo to arms/head but never ammo from one arm to another. Offset this by giving mechs three slot legs that allow for double heatsinks and mayble giving (most*) larger mechs an extra slot in the arms because of their sheer size.
*Note some mechs like Stalkers/Jaegers might not have much arm volume to work with. Only reward those with some decent arm volume the slots.

Mechs without hand and/or lower arm actuators, such as the Stalker and Jäger, already have extra crit slots. I don't want to see PGI adding arbitrary slots on a whim, though.

I also don't think ammo locations should be restricted, though the idea of having ammo reload times based upon how far away from the weapon is a neat one.

[stjobe]

FireDog, on 30 March 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

How about restricticting ammo movement to only one joint. (e.g. Ammo from arms/legs/head omly to side Ts and CT, CT and Side Ts ammo to arms/head but never ammo from one arm to another. Offset this by giving mechs three slot legs that allow for double heatsinks and mayble giving (most*) larger mechs an extra slot in the arms because of their sheer size.
*Note some mechs like Stalkers/Jaegers might not have much arm volume to work with. Only reward those with some decent arm volume the slots.

People come up with such convoluted ideas when the real solution is staring them in the face.

Let go of front-loaded damage, it's unbalancing the whole game. Just give it up, we can't keep it in if we ever want to have some semblance of weapons balance.

Make ACs burst-fire and you'll see a lot of beneficial side-effects in addition to bringing the ACs back to play in the same league as the other weapons. Just two examples:

* TTK will increase, which is a stated goal for the devs.
* Room will be made for weapons other than ACs/PPCs, both literally and figuratively. Mixed load-outs make for better matches.

And if you go all the way and make PPCs beam-duration (like they should be), you could probably look at getting rid of Ghost Heat as well.

[FupDup]

wanderer, on 30 March 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Nope. Convergence isn't a "weapon".

Not a weapon by itself, but it allows us to duct-tape a large number of weapons together to create an exponentially deadlier "super weapon."

Edited by FupDup, 30 March 2014 - 03:20 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Not a weapon by itself, but it allows us to duct-tape a large number of weapons together to create an exponentially deadlier "super weapon."

Ghost heat has more or less eliminated convergence though. Except on PPCs, AC10s, and AC5s.

Precise aiming is the real problem. Being able to repeatedly hit mechs in the same location over and over is really overpowered.

Battletech's armor system isnt designed for one location to get hit repeatedly. Its designed for damage to be spread out roughly evenly. Thats why TTK is so low in MWO. Because MWO's armor system cant handle consecutive hits to the same location.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 30 March 2014 - 04:21 PM, said:

Ghost heat has more or less eliminated convergence though. Except on PPCs, AC10s, and AC5s.

Precise aiming is the real problem. Being able to repeatedly hit mechs in the same location over and over is really overpowered.

Battletech's armor system isnt designed for one location to get hit repeatedly. Its designed for damage to be spread out roughly evenly. Thats why TTK is so low in MWO. Because MWO's armor system cant handle consecutive hits to the same location.

It only deals with convergence on builds that meet or exceed the max alpha limit for whatever weapon group. If you have 1 less weapon than the limit...no penalty for you. What's also silly is that most of the weapons on the list weren't even that pinpoint to begin with, such as SRMs and to a lesser extent lasers.

[Cimarb]

Khobai, on 30 March 2014 - 04:21 PM, said:

Ghost heat has more or less eliminated convergence though. Except on PPCs, AC10s, and AC5s.

Precise aiming is the real problem. Being able to repeatedly hit mechs in the same location over and over is really overpowered.

Battletech's armor system isnt designed for one location to get hit repeatedly. Its designed for damage to be spread out roughly evenly. Thats why TTK is so low in MWO. Because MWO's armor system cant handle consecutive hits to the same location.

Ghost heat didn't affect what needed affecting, except maybe AC40s slightly. It did nothing to 2xPPC+Gauss/AC20/AC10 or PPC+2xAC5, which are and have been the primary meta for roughly a year now. In fact, the charge mechanic of the Gauss did far more to change that meta than the whole Ghost Heat system did.

Precise aiming is not the problem, as you SHOULD have precise aim with an advanced war machine. Having the damage done in a single 'lump' is the problem, and that can only be fixed by changing the damage delivery method (FLD) or convergence. Convergence, though, only affects grouped weapons, and would be roughly as effective as Ghost Heat, so that only leaves FLD changes.

[Khobai]

Quote

Ghost heat didn't affect what needed affecting, except maybe AC40s slightly. It did nothing to 2xPPC+Gauss/AC20/AC10 or PPC+2xAC5

They slowed down AC10 and AC20 projectile speeds considerably in order to decouple them from PPCs so they hit different locations more often. I personally dont convergence is that big of a balance issue anymore.

The bigger balance issue IMO is precise aim. I dont see a problem with doing 20-30 damage to one location. What I see a problem with is doing 20-30 damage to the same location consecutively. Thats why I feel we need damage spreading mechanics on PPCs and Autocannons.

[Cimarb]

Khobai, on 30 March 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:

They slowed down AC10 and AC20 projectile speeds considerably in order to decouple them from PPCs so they hit different locations more often. I personally dont convergence is that big of a balance issue anymore.

The bigger balance issue IMO is precise aim. I dont see a problem with doing 20-30 damage to one location. What I see a problem with is doing 20-30 damage to the same location consecutively. Thats why I feel we need damage spreading mechanics on PPCs and Autocannons.

Two views that disagree (mine and yours), but we both agree that the damage needs spread.

Precise aim is very subjective, though, as precise aim is nearly impossible to avoid at close ranges, while it is highly affected by many other factors already at extreme ranges (such as shooters movement, targets movement, targets torso twist, height, shell drop, etc.).

Burst-fire is the best solution to all of the PPC/AC issues, but some people dislike that option just because it changes how they like to do damage.

[Khobai]

Quote

Precise aiming is not the problem, as you SHOULD have precise aim with an advanced war machine.

Precise aiming absolutely is the problem. Because, regardless of how MWO SHOULD be, MWO still uses armor values that come from battletech, and those battletech armor values cant handle precise aiming.

Im not saying that MWO shouldnt have precise aiming. Im just saying as long as we use battletech armor values precise aiming will be unbalanced. Thats a fact. The only way around it is to spread damage or redistribute armor values.

Edited by Khobai, 30 March 2014 - 08:07 PM.

[FupDup]

My favorite convergence solution is this one right here: http://mwomercs.com/...oats-and-clans/

Basically, you can still aim your shots as normal, but if you fire too many weapons you overload your mech's targeting computer and your shots would deviate from the center of your reticule (the amount of deviation would depend upon how much you overload your targeting comp). So, you have the choice to either fire your weapons individually/in small groups for maximum precision (and higher difficulty/risk), OR you could fire everything all at once for a huge burst that doesn't pinpoint into a single hitbox (spreads over multiple panels).

When you do lose convergence, your mech's weapons would simply fire parallel to their mounting locations and perhaps gain their own individual reticules to aim with. You could still get them to hit where you want them to, but it would require much more time and skill to pull off than if you hadn't lost convergence in the first place.


Adds a nice element of risk-versus-reward and keeps the game skill based (no randomness involved with it).

Edited by FupDup, 30 March 2014 - 08:15 PM.

[BourbonFaucet]

I like the idea of reducing the pinpoint effect of PPC's and AC's.

But how do we do that without making weapons bland is beyond me.

The PPC with a beam duration might simply become an "Extra-Large Laser", for example.

Oh well, maybe having a huge electrical beam might actually be nice.

[Khobai]

Quote

But how do we do that without making weapons bland is beyond me.

Well heres what Id do:

-Make PPCs do arcing damage (6 damage to the location they hit and 4 damage divided among adjacent locations)
-Give PPCs a HUD/targeting disruption effect to make them unique compared to lasers.
-Change PPC minimum range back to a gradual damage dropoff rather than an immediate damage dropoff to zero.
-Reduce PPC and ERPPC heat (and remove ghost heat all together)

-Make Autocannons fire in bursts to break up the damage into smaller chunks.
-Give Autocannons different ammo types to make them unique compared to lasers.
-Reduce ballistic range from x3 to x2.5
-Increase AC5 heat to 1.5 and decrease AC2 heat to 0.67

[BourbonFaucet]

Khobai, on 30 March 2014 - 09:44 PM, said:

Well heres what Id do:

>ideas<

Yeah, I like those. I've seen the electrical arcing thread and I like that concept for the PPC. I like the idea of dropping ballistic ranges and increasing the lighter AC's heat, but I'd prefer a slower firing rate on those weapons instead.

Great stuff though.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Convergence could help.

Edited by Mister D, 31 March 2014 - 04:27 AM.

[stjobe]

Forget convergence as a solution, the devs have said they can't change it.

So let go of that, it is not the solution. The devs chose HSR over any kind of variable convergence, so what we have convergence-wise today is what we will have to live with.

That leaves some kind of FLD reduction, and I think I've shown that burst-fire is really simple to implement.

[Corwin Vickers]

I've always thought that our crosshairs and screen in general are too stable. Of course it's not hard to pinpoint damage when they are as stable as they are now no matter your tonnage or speed.

Every step you take should cause huge swaying of your crosshairs and shaking of your screen. That would force people to stop moving to take accurate shots and greatly reduce pinpoint damage while on the move.

Of course some people have trouble hitting now so if you were to make it harder to hit you'd have more whine than we already have.

TT to-hit and random locations is meant to mirror something, makes sense to me that it would be vibration and swaying due to riding a 100 ton mech.

[Corwin Vickers]

Oh, and forcing people to stop moving to take accurate shots might force a sniper meta.... So you'd have to think of something to help mitigate that.