65 replies to this topic

[DocBach]

The idea was to lower the TTK by promoting chain fire by reducing effectiveness of alpha strikes and large groups of weapon fire.

If you are familiar with the lore then you are familiar with the fiction that Battlemech targeting computers are incredibly slow and inefficient. The converging reticle and groups simulates the targeting computer getting the data to align the different caliber weapons in different locations together.

[IraqiWalker]

DocBach, on 06 April 2014 - 09:20 PM, said:

The idea was to lower the TTK by promoting chain fire by reducing effectiveness of alpha strikes and large groups of weapon fire.

If you are familiar with the lore then you are familiar with the fiction that Battlemech targeting computers are incredibly slow and inefficient. The converging reticle and groups simulates the targeting computer getting the data to align the different caliber weapons in different locations together.

The problem with that point is that the lore was written in a time where a computer with a memory more than 250MBs was unheard of. Now that we have a better grasp of digital technology and how it functions and how powerful it can be, it doesn't make much sense from a realistic point of view for them to be THAT inefficient. They still have problems such as "forgetting" what a mech is, and what it carries as soon as you switch locks... etc.

It's why I still think pinpoint damage should be allowed, even if I don't like it that much. Makes more sense.

[Monkeystador]

Ahh ... what the hell. I just give up on trying to find a solution for this. I just buy myself a meta mech then and join the PCC/AC gameplay.

[Funky Bacon]

I guess fast calculating targeting computers would be los-tech or something, or only available in a very limited quantity. Would not surprise me if some of the mech components are even built with old floppy drive parts.

[Bishop Steiner]

Funky Bacon, on 07 April 2014 - 03:47 AM, said:

I guess fast calculating targeting computers would be los-tech or something, or only available in a very limited quantity. Would not surprise me if some of the mech components are even built with old floppy drive parts.

If it were as simple as your computer guessing where to shoot on a video game, that would be true.

But you see, in REAL WORLD combat, one also has to do things like align the weapons systems barrel with the target, which is done via electric motors, myomer actuation and other MECHANICAL methods, which believe it or not, are NOT instantaneous.

The concepts of reticle sway, CoF, imperfect convergence are all to reflect that.

Hop in the turret of a Challenger, Abrams, Merkava or Leopard and see just how perfectly instantaneous your target corrections are at flank speed, on a bloody paved road, let alone a rough surface.

If it was as easy as you think, the Logistics departments of every standing military could rejoice because they could considerably cut back on amount orders. Aside from guided missiles and relatively static shots, pretty much every military in the world still misses with more ordnance than they hit with.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 07 April 2014 - 03:55 AM.

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 04 April 2014 - 09:41 PM, said:

was talking about CoF, Cockpit shake and such on another thread, so I am gonna cut and paste my thoughts, which I believe are in line with this (or rather would be complimentary too)

We need this. Because it adds realism, and adds REAL skill to the game, in place of point and shoot.

I do believe it needs to be subjectively implemented, so as not to punish one class over another, so pure speed can't be the scale. But I have always felt that at anything over say, 75% of maximum throttle one should encounter a progressively worsening CoF. There is a reason military vehicles prefer to fire from stationary defilade. It's easier to hit if you are not moving. in MWO, that is not the case, as you have PERFECT crosshair stability.

Said CoF should also be in effect, to varying degrees when:

1) Jumping. Screw cockpit shake, simply enforce CoF on the reticle. And enforce it UP and DOWN. Because no targeting system in the universe could perfectly correct and actuate weapons to the degree of accuracy we see.

2) High Heat. Any time a Mech is over say 75% of it's heat scale, one's targeting accuracy degrades, the hotter, the worse it is.

3) Extreme ranges. Weapons in MWO already have 2-3 times the range of their TT counters. Once on gets past the original TT ranges, one should again have a worsening CoF as these are beyond the optimal ranges the targeting systems were designed around.

And don't give me the "skill" argument. Twitch shooting in this game is already pathetically easy. Real skill is having to adapt to less than ideal targeting, and still being effective. It's what REAL soldiers have had to do since the dawn of time.

This also would give an easy system for implementing the Clans Advanced Targeting Computers, as it could simply diminish the extreme CoFs.

Likewise, I absolutely do feel we should have said swai in 1pV.

Such a simple concept, but i wonder why its not been implemented.... must be one hell of a good reason. Since it would make a targeting computer useful and the command console part of a c3 system that could also improve accuracy and possibly multiple targeting locking..... cause ya know super advanced future robots with magic levels of pin point accuracy can only hold lock on one target at a time.....

The current skill based - mech movement targeting meta is lacking depth and results in artificially short life expectancies that even PGI has acknowledges are too short...

Love to hear the reason why a COF hasn't been looked at.....

PGI please lie to us and say it would be technically impossible. I might just send some money your way....

[Bishop Steiner]

Tombstoner, on 07 April 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

Such a simple concept, but i wonder why its not been implemented.... must be one hell of a good reason. Since it would make a targeting computer useful and the command console part of a c3 system that could also improve accuracy and possibly multiple targeting locking..... cause ya know super advanced future robots with magic levels of pin point accuracy can only hold lock on one target at a time.....

The current skill based - mech movement targeting meta is lacking depth and results in artificially short life expectancies that even PGI has acknowledges are too short...

Love to hear the reason why a COF hasn't been looked at.....

PGI please lie to us and say it would be technically impossible. I might just send some money your way....

If you call Russ, Bryan and Paul being pig headedly stubborn about anything that deviates from their "vision" of the game a good reason, I suppose so......

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 April 2014 - 03:53 AM, said:

If it were as simple as your computer guessing where to shoot on a video game, that would be true.

But you see, in REAL WORLD combat, one also has to do things like align the weapons systems barrel with the target, which is done via electric motors, myomer actuation and other MECHANICAL methods, which believe it or not, are NOT instantaneous.

The concepts of reticle sway, CoF, imperfect convergence are all to reflect that.

Hop in the turret of a Challenger, Abrams, Merkava or Leopard and see just how perfectly instantaneous your target corrections are at flank speed, on a bloody paved road, let alone a rough surface.

If it was as easy as you think, the Logistics departments of every standing military could rejoice because they could considerably cut back on amount orders. Aside from guided missiles and relatively static shots, pretty much every military in the world still misses with more ordnance than they hit with.

Sigh ... REAL WORLD combat....I agree with you... once again, but people simply cant tolerate less then perfect accuracy for laser weapons that do no damage beyond 2000 meters. They love to sight the M1A1 as the paragon of accuracy and that weapon has a COF of about 8 meters at 8000 meters range. BTW that's incredibly accurate: LASERS, GPS guided munition also have a COF....

But to say NO to COF and then be ok with lasers...lasers doing no damage at 2000M is %$(!(#$& in my opinion.

I blame PGI for NOT having a clue when porting TT to a FPS.

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 April 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:

If you call Russ, Bryan and Paul being pig pigheadedly stubborn about anything that deviates from their "vision" of the game a good reason, I suppose so......

Part of that is having to explain why to the money founders who own IGP. They placed there trust in the big 3's "vision" and i expect magic levels of accuracy was a prime selling point as to how MWO is different from other FPS and WOT.

WOT takes some major criticism for simulating a COF based off of an abstraction of historical performance that players either hate or deal with. People want there shots to go where they AIM and cant comprehend why there 200mm short barreled smooth bore misses while they drive at 40 mph over rough terrain....the M1A1 can.... this came sucks.....rage quit.

That's why i think they are stuck.... they boxed themselves in way too early like noobs do. Then add in UI1.0 not doing whats needed and having to explain that.... not fun.

[Monkeystador]

Is was walking back and forth with lots of other problems in my head.. but i came up wiht this.
Why not have each mech (changes somehow ) has slight offset for all ballistic guns from the crosshair. Like a slightly bend barrel of a gun. Just in this case you got many barrels. So while you have that 4AC mech each gun aims at a slightly different point. That value is determined for the optimal range for the gun. In this way 1. you do not have pin point with sveral weapons, but well you can have pin point with a single weapon. That is because you can learn where your weapon actually fires at. Rather simple actually. Please bring up devastating arguments against it.
Something like it. The way how the offset changes can be thought off in depth later. Like after each refit, or after each time after your mech gets fixed or it is set when you buy a weapon or after each shot the point drifts a little. Maybe into a random direction, even more unprecise than in the beginning. For each drop the value is reset giving you a new firing pattern.
Although if its not changing constantly, one could keep buying weapons until 4 rather equal ones are found. Could be expensive though.

All in all the weapons would still hit pretty well on closer range, no movement penalties, but on optimal and further you get more and more spread out damage.

This does also play well with LosTech lore.

Edited by Monkeystador, 07 April 2014 - 04:47 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Tombstoner, on 07 April 2014 - 04:39 AM, said:

Part of that is having to explain why to the money founders who own IGP. They placed there trust in the big 3's "vision" and i expect magic levels of accuracy was a prime selling point as to how MWO is different from other FPS and WOT.

WOT takes some major criticism for simulating a COF based off of an abstraction of historical performance that players either hate or deal with. People want there shots to go where they AIM and cant comprehend why there 200mm short barreled smooth bore misses while they drive at 40 mph over rough terrain....the M1A1 can.... this came sucks.....rage quit.

That's why i think they are stuck.... they boxed themselves in way too early like noobs do. Then add in UI1.0 not doing whats needed and having to explain that.... not fun.

Eventually one is at a crossroads.

At that point one can choose to stubbornly stick to the current route, no matter the reasons, or one can do an about face. The about face may be inconvenient, may take a lot of time, and not be a heck of a lot of fun, but when it's blatantly obvious you are miles off course, "staying" the course might seem simpler, but it's just taking you farther and farther from where you wanted in the first place.

It's bloody well long past time for PGI to humble up, call a taxi, buy a GPS, wipe the egg off their face and get back on track. hey really aren't as far off from it as some of the serial QQers on here would have you think, but every patch they push the same broken, poorly thought out mechanics, every nerf and added layer of complexity Paul adds to bandaid simple problems, the harder it will be to right the course.

Apparently these guys need their wives to get out at the gas station and bloody well ask for directions.

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 April 2014 - 04:47 AM, said:

Eventually one is at a crossroads.

At that point one can choose to stubbornly stick to the current route, no matter the reasons, or one can do an about face. The about face may be inconvenient, may take a lot of time, and not be a heck of a lot of fun, but when it's blatantly obvious you are miles off course, "staying" the course might seem simpler, but it's just taking you farther and farther from where you wanted in the first place.

It's bloody well long past time for PGI to humble up, call a taxi, buy a GPS, wipe the egg off their face and get back on track. hey really aren't as far off from it as some of the serial QQers on here would have you think, but every patch they push the same broken, poorly thought out mechanics, every nerf and added layer of complexity Paul adds to bandaid simple problems, the harder it will be to right the course.

Apparently these guys need their wives to get out at the gas station and bloody well ask for directions.

I agree with you but i must also try to look at it from the other side.... leave it be and ghost heat is a good fix point of view.
By not changing the big things you keep development on track and not piss of a lot of players.The game then enters a pseudo stable state and i can say pseudo because one mech with the right combination of hard points will wreck the meta.

Once you have a stable game with clan mechs added you have basically sucked out all the available cash. PGI doesn't want to alienate its cash flow, so no big changes till then. According to PGI the TT player and frequent forum user are not the target audience.

Thus the only time you can change the big game play mechanics is after you taped the cash out of MWO 1.0. and that's post clans and CW. now with MWO2.0 PGI can do what ever it wants from the ground up without worrying about loosing customers that have all ready been sucked dry... its all about the new crop of players a MWO 2.0 can tap.

People will cry bait and switch and i'll be laughing cause content is subject to change is listed someplace or it will be added during an update on a dark night and people will click yes signing there rights away to a refund....

So we could look at PGI's development choices as being somewhat ********, but only if your goal is the best possible MWO1.0 game, not just something to pay the bills. It may be unethical but its a business and MWO 2.0 will be the best time to change things.

In short i think they are better business men then developers....

[Pjwned]

I think it would be cool if an internal structure component determined whether this would happen or not, kind of like how some mechs don't have lower arm actuators.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Pjwned, on 07 April 2014 - 07:43 PM, said:

I think it would be cool if an internal structure component determined whether this would happen or not, kind of like how some mechs don't have lower arm actuators.

Won't happen, just like getting actuator, gyro, and engine crits won't effect gameplay like it did in TT.




I'd love to see more effects in game, both heat based and crit based.

Running too hot? No armlock for you. HUD flickers. Lose locks. No zooming.

Gyro get critted? Now your mech is less stable and you crosshair sways more wildly.

Upper arm actuator get critted? Now your pitch on that arm is slower, and no more armlock.

Lower arm actuator get critted? Now your yaw for that arm is slower, and no more armlock.

Leg actuator get critted? Now your mech has lost some speed and turning radius.

Engine get critted? Now your heat threshold is lower or your mech twists slower or your mech loses some top speed.


Will we ever see this? Nope. And it's because it add a layer to the game that new players (read: kiddies with mommy's credit card) won't like because it's a mechanic that impacts their ability to play. And I don't think PGI has the depth of skill to do so.

I feel that the majority of the dev team spend their time working on new mechs, cockpit items, and paints/paintjobs and marketing. With the actual people doing the work for the base game content such as the mechanics being heavily understaffed and overworked.

[Sandpit]

JohanssenJr, on 04 April 2014 - 08:21 PM, said:

So, was derping about in testing grounds looking at my pretty pink Battlemaster in 3PV while testing some changes.

I noticed in 3PV there is reticule sway as the mech moves, and it moves in step to the mech. Kind of how it would be if we had stompy robots that shot laser beams, bullets, and missiles.

So too see if it was not just a cosmetic thought, but a potentially gameplay impacting one; I more or less wrote my name in the snow (not really, medium lasers have a weak stream).

Video! (Probably shouldn't have left my headset sitting on the desk, you can hear my keyboard and it kills my OCD.)

But as you can see in 3PV the lasers drew a line in the snow that was not straight. It was affected by the stepping of the mech as it bobbed up and down and swayed gently left and right.

However, in 1PV it was smooth as a baby's bottom.


I think having the 3PV crosshair sway would add some more elements to the gunnery of MWO. It might help with the reining in of direct fire as well. I also think Koniving did a topic on this some time back, but I'm unable to find it. Or I'd just necro the hell out of it.


Questions? Comments? Incoming tomatoes?

Let me preface this by saying I do not have and never HAVE had a problem with pinpoint. I don't think it needs to be changed. I think it works well, now with THAT said...


There have been hundreds of ideas on this and how to alter it. A few of them such as alphas causing divergence to spread, pinpoint reticle not converging as fast at high speeds (which would actually translate well as to hit modifiers from TT for movement in my opinion) and hundreds of others. Maybe they'll revisit it some day, or *gasp* actually TELL US SOMETHING that doesn't involve "that was our position at the time" anyhow....

aniviron, on 05 April 2014 - 12:40 AM, said:

A cone of fire that tightens when you sit still à la Counter-Strike or CoD is a terrible idea. This punishes lights and mediums while rewarding the snipergameplay that everyone claims this will fix.

It's simple, really. Have you ever sat still while firing in a light? Did you notice how quickly you died? That it takes most assaults just one shot to kill you? Well, as a light your choice is now sit still and die in one shot, or fire on the move and hit nothing. Assaults meanwhile still have the armor to sit and trade shots, and really aren't going that fast to begin with, save for Victors and 9Ms.

And this peek and hide ridgehumping gameplay that this will apparently fix? Yeah, the snipers are already sitting still when they take their shots the vast majority of the time. This isn't going to stop them from nailing your CT for 30 damage alphas over and over and over. What this will stop is your brawler's ability to effectively fire at components on the move when they finally get close to said sniper.

I'm sure there are people who will say, "Well, make the penalty less for lights," but really, even if the penalty is decreased, all of the above is still true- you're going to give lights, mediums, brawlers, and skirmishers a penalty, and you're going to do nothing to change the way assaults and snipers work. That doesn't sound like an MWO I want to play.

All you would really have to do is adjust it to weapon size as opposed to mech size. Big weapons = bigger penalty. That solves that issue. Big mechs with big weapons are affected more than light mechs with smaller weapons. Lasers would be completely unaffected due to being energy based beams that produce zero recoil.

[DeathlyEyes]

Sandpit, on 08 April 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

Let me preface this by saying I do not have and never HAVE had a problem with pinpoint. I don't think it needs to be changed. I think it works well, now with THAT said...


There have been hundreds of ideas on this and how to alter it. A few of them such as alphas causing divergence to spread, pinpoint reticle not converging as fast at high speeds (which would actually translate well as to hit modifiers from TT for movement in my opinion) and hundreds of others. Maybe they'll revisit it some day, or *gasp* actually TELL US SOMETHING that doesn't involve "that was our position at the time" anyhow....



All you would really have to do is adjust it to weapon size as opposed to mech size. Big weapons = bigger penalty. That solves that issue. Big mechs with big weapons are affected more than light mechs with smaller weapons. Lasers would be completely unaffected due to being energy based beams that produce zero recoil.

Mechs have recoil dampeners. There is very little recoil in Battletech.

Edited by SLDF DeathlyEyes, 08 April 2014 - 12:07 PM.

[Mechteric]

I would think they could have the cockpit view sway to convey motion, but keep the reticle steadied.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 08 April 2014 - 12:18 PM.

[Alexandrix]

JohanssenJr, on 07 April 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

I feel that the majority of the dev team spend their time working on new mechs, cockpit items, and paints/paintjobs and marketing. With the actual people doing the work for the base game content such as the mechanics being heavily understaffed and overworked.

Ummm...yea.Actually,that's pretty much exactly how it is.

This quote is from Russ Bollocks' 2013 state of the inner sphere post (as of dec.16 2013):

"First let’s discuss staffing and give you a little more insight into the effort going into MWO each and every month. This past year Piranha has averaged mid 50’s in employees with 45 full time developers that spend their entire day working on MWO content and features.

Development team:

- There is around 20 total staff working on content from maps, to `Mechs including hero, champion as well as skins and cockpit items. Remember all these staff do not contribute to features like CW and UI 2.0 they also do not drain away from those efforts
- 7 staff under production, developer support (internal QA), marketing and community management.
- This leaves 18 staff, all engineers to work on both live ops and feature development. And right there lies the key, if these 18 engineers could focus solely on feature development things would move much faster but these people have to also manage the live ops so there is always a constant stream of work involved to keep the game running smoothly, rollout patches, update the Patcher/Launcher, database management and other MWO tools. So the end result is you are only getting a fluctuating amount of full time effort from some portion of those 18 engineers to make the forward progress."

So,as you can see,they have ~20 staff working on pumping out crap they can hawk at you.While 18 engineers work on the actual game.To add insult to injury,those 18 engineers are split between the live ops just to keep the game running,get patches on the servers,do launcher updates,database management and whatever else needs to be done.Let's assume the split is half and half.So,at any given time,~9 people are working on making the actual game....and ~20 people are working on making more stupid garbage to put in your cockpit.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Alexandrix, on 08 April 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

Stuff that made realize how dire it was...

Russ' statement proving it

I had no idea that existed... I'm shocked at how close I was to guessing the circumstance.

[IraqiWalker]

Yeah, PGI needs more people, that's why they keep the "we're hiring" sign on the website. People have been yelling at them and comparing the game to others run by studios that are at least 3 times the size of PGI.

If people understood how colossal this game is, and how small PGI is we'd probably get less B****ing from people. Then again, people always want to cry about something I guess.

I'm glad they are pumping out this much content considering how small they are.