123 replies to this topic

[MW Waldorf Statler]

if Pinpoint is removed, newcomers have no chance.Today, many have difficulties with the aim and with No Pinponit =MWO a game for a few veterans and TT Freaks

Edited by CSJ Ranger, 29 May 2014 - 10:20 PM.

[Kassatsu]

Black Arachne, on 28 May 2014 - 04:04 PM, said:

Pinpoint is the core of the problem - and will continue to be so until PGI takes a look into it. Until then, expect some more Ghost mechanics to come into place.

Ghost Ammo
Ghost Charge
and what other poorly thought out mechanics PGI can come up with.

Ghost jump jets? Ghost engines? How about ghost legs, where your mech just sort of glides a few feet above the ground. Only applies to light mechs as they get legged the most and it was determined OP by extensive in-house testing.

[Phlinger]

They could create a 'kick' or recoil mechanic that modified the pin point reticule depending on how many weapons were fired at once. This recoil, or cockpit shake could be enhanced when using Jumpjets or even moving at max speed. Of course it would have to be a variable depending on weight, much like a quirk. the wider the reticule during such maneuvers the more of a chance to have your shots go off slightly. it would add a randomness to the game when deciding to fire more than a few weapons at once. they could even take the Ghost heat mechanic and rework it to instead force shake. Kind of a +1 to+3 for more weapons to hit the target where they wanted or a -1 to -5, depending on how many weapons were fired. If someone wanted to boat 6 PPC's, that would be fine, only if they fired them in anything other than chain fire, they wouldn't hit the broadside of an Awesome.

This would also allow players to play with the stock mechs like they want, or even allow for simple TT Battletech builds that we know. People could still use their Meta builds that currently stand, but would be forced to chain fire, spreading out the damage. I can see varied weapon load outs being much more common and less desire to boat.


Just a thought, probably already been mentioned, but meh, I'm lazy.

[Phlinger]

Oh, another thought to add, and I didn't feel like editing. With the recoil mechanic, not only would it be more realistic, I mean having big heavy weapon firing, the shock has to be displaced somewhere right? But this could also mean they could un-nerf the Gauss, because they would be forced to single fire.

Want to snipe with a single Gauss, awesome. Want to shoot long range with a single PPC? You're good. AC5/AC2, single? Golden. Pair them with a second weapon and at anything over a few hundred meters and nope, not so good anymore.

[Demuder]

CSJ Ranger, on 29 May 2014 - 10:18 PM, said:

if Pinpoint is removed, newcomers have no chance.Today, many have difficulties with the aim and with No Pinponit =MWO a game for a few veterans and TT Freaks

The newcomers' main problem is the fact that the torso moves in an independent fashion than the legs, they die almost instantly without knowing why (since they are walking into obstacles while getting shot, etc etc), managing the crappy weapon groups (when compared to customized mechs), getting sniped by poptarts or dual guass builds, etc etc.

Non instant convergence would be the least of a newcomer's problems I think. Maybe the diminished TTK would even ease their experience.

Edited by Demuder, 29 May 2014 - 11:36 PM.

[Lykaon]

Oh you were so close I thought you had it.

Pinpoint convergence is still just a symptom of the underlaying issue.

The absolute and bottom line issue is a disparity in game mechanics that allows for one method of damage delivery to excel beyond other methods.

It all begins with the decision to use an armor mechanics system derived so closely to the table top game that it has inherited several of the table top game mechanic's flaws.

In essence the only real difference in the core effects of MWo's armor mechanics and Battletech's armor mechanics is MWO has doubled the values.

As a mechanic X mech body location may have Y value of armor that is double value of Z internal structure values.
IE: A mech arm with 10 internal structure is limited to no more than 20 armor points.

Both Battletech and MWo use this basic rule as a mechanic.Once the total of armor and internal structure is depleted that body segment is destroyed.

So where is the problem you may ask?

Well the problem arises when we lift the basic mechanics of a table top game's armor system out of it's support structure and plop it into a real time skill based shooter and expect it to work A OK by simply doubling values.

The Core armor mechanic was designed to function within a structure of supporting mechanics.These mechanics worked to isolate the armor mechanics from effects that disrupted the functionality of the armor mechanics.

Three primary support mechanics allowed for the armor mechanics to function for the table top game.

Dice rolls to determine hits for each weapon modified by enviormental effects reduced frequency of hits.
Dice roll to determine location of damage application prevented pin point accuracy.
Heat scale penalties that made hitting the mark more difficult scaled with the amount of excess heat.

Mechwarrior online has none of these or any suitable replacement.The armor mechanics are expected to function under the pressures of the precise elements it was meant to be isolated from.

In MWo we have group fire.This allows several weapons to be linked to a single trigger pull vastly improving the volume of fire that connects.

In MWo we have player skill preplacing a random roll to determine hit location.This vastly reduces the value of armor on non vital location and in turn vastly reducing mech survival time under fire.

In MWo our mechs function at 100% efficiency until they shut down.It's all or nothing no gradual reduction in firepower volume or accuracy.

As a result we have discovered that any weapon (or group of weapons) that applies 100% of it's damage total to a single location at a single instant is superior at over whelming the floundering armor mechanics.

Front loaded damage applies the most stress to the armor mechanics by creating more stress elements to over whelm the armor mechanics.

I.E. Grouping PPC and AC together allows for the highly accurate application of high volume damage to specific vulnerable mech body locations.Creating the precise elements that trigger mechanics failure in the armor system.

All the top teir weapons that are used heavily in the current dominating meta apply these break point stresses to the armor system.While poorer performing weapons use mechanics that actually emulate a support function of the armor system.

And example of a supportive weapon mechanic is found with lasers.

Lasers apply damage over a short duration.Due to this mechanic several enviormental factors are in play to disperse damage and reduce the occurances of high volume pin point accuracy.

If it were only convergence as the issue then we would be seeing any weapon with the capacity to be directly aimed as game breakingly meta awesome.What we are actually seeing is ONLY front loading damage weapons as meta awesome.

Edited by Lykaon, 30 May 2014 - 03:24 AM.

[Agent of Change]

Lykaon, on 30 May 2014 - 03:09 AM, said:

Snip for space.

I think your point is interesting but I want to specifically address you primary supporting point about FLD. The fact of the matter is that not every weapon is created equal but a small number of weapons significantly out perform everything else disproportionately because of the convergence as it stands.

In a situation where you didn't have Auto-convergence with every shot the appeal of the FLD from a handful of weapons reduces because it's not as precise and there is a whole lot of eggs in some small baskets. lasers with DoT and the ability to correct aim to "waste" less damage get upped a notch.

I do think armor needs to be looked at, that heat needs to be revisited, but convergence that perfect instant always on convergence remains the largest single bug-a-boo for balance.

[Tombstoner]

Agent of Change, on 30 May 2014 - 04:28 AM, said:

I do think armor needs to be looked at, that heat needs to be revisited, but convergence that perfect instant always on convergence remains the largest single bug-a-boo for balance.

It is something that PGI seems perfectly willing to live with. 3 or so years now. in fact has stated the game is where they like it.
bundled weapons are hear to stay. That's why i started to look into other areas that need attention that indirectly mutes FLD.
FLD is the center point where all other weapon need to be adjusted against.

That means lasers need to have higher damage output or less damage drop off. for each unit of heat generated.
In addition to having armor levels adjust across the board for mech size relative to the smallest mech in the game.

besides everyone will be moving to clan mechs soon and they use burst fire for ac's and ghost heat stops multiple energy weapons... unless your using 3x gauss. and you pay for that in tonnage.

[Agent of Change]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

It is something that PGI seems perfectly willing to live with. 3 or so years now. in fact has stated the game is where they like it.
bundled weapons are hear to stay. That's why i started to look into other areas that need attention that indirectly mutes FLD.
FLD is the center point where all other weapon need to be adjusted against.

That means lasers need to have higher damage output or less damage drop off. for each unit of heat generated.
In addition to having armor levels adjust across the board for mech size relative to the smallest mech in the game.

besides everyone will be moving to clan mechs soon and they use burst fire for ac's and ghost heat stops multiple energy weapons... unless your using 3x gauss. and you pay for that in tonnage.

As I said though FLD is largely only a problem because of PP convergence. I mean look at all those people completely destroying everything with SRM's and LRM's... wait that doesn't happen doesn't it?

You aren't entirely wrong, but just because PGI hasn't budged on it previously doesn't mean we should lean on this issue more. I mean as we have stated the have reversed themselves on far less important points already.

I wasn't excluding anyone in my title statement. So long as PGI is ignoring this issue they are in fact wrong about how they are handling balance.

Edited by Agent of Change, 30 May 2014 - 05:27 AM.

[Tombstoner]

Agent of Change, on 30 May 2014 - 05:27 AM, said:

As I said though FLD is largely only a problem because of PP convergence. I mean look at all those people completely destroying everything with SRM's and LRM's... wait that doesn't happen doesn't it?

You aren't entirely wrong, but just because PGI hasn't budged on it previously doesn't mean we should lean on this issue more. I mean as we have stated the have reversed themselves on far less important points already.

I wasn't excluding anyone in my title statement. So long as PGI is ignoring this issue they are in fact wrong about how they are handling balance.

O absolutely. but I think they will never budge from something that is now fundamentally engrained into the game. The time to change that was in beta. PGI never tried anything. They reversed them selves on thing that where less important, but the insanity that erupts when people talk about adding a little bit of realism and it explodes into "NO RNG" polarizes the community. its a lightning rod PGI will not touch.

Thats why FLD needs to become the common denominator for balancing all other grouped weapons. SRM's used to destroy things but a 6x srm6 cat was an issue. due to a bug in the splash damage mechanic. why they placed a splash damage mechanic in the game is for me at least, incomprehensible.

I would start at the beginning and examine how the TT rules set was ported as a FPS and i clearly see how mech size is not compensated/ adjust and its effects on TTk. once that is implemented then we can revisit the PIN point damage issue.

That could also be further mitigated but giving further bonuses to the ct armor. once armor is readjusted the armor per ton can be lowered/adjusted as needed. all this adjusts TTK without touching inter weapons balance and heat generation. something that PGI desperately needs to help with balance issue.

[Agent of Change]

Tombstoner, on 30 May 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

O absolutely. but I think they will never budge from something that is now fundamentally engrained into the game. The time to change that was in beta. PGI never tried anything. They reversed them selves on thing that where less important, but the insanity that erupts when people talk about adding a little bit of realism and it explodes into "NO RNG" polarizes the community. its a lightning rod PGI will not touch.

Thats why FLD needs to become the common denominator for balancing all other grouped weapons. SRM's used to destroy things but a 6x srm6 cat was an issue. due to a bug in the splash damage mechanic. why they placed a splash damage mechanic in the game is for me at least, incomprehensible.

I would start at the beginning and examine how the TT rules set was ported as a FPS and i clearly see how mech size is not compensated/ adjust and its effects on TTk. once that is implemented then we can revisit the PIN point damage issue.

That could also be further mitigated but giving further bonuses to the ct armor. once armor is readjusted the armor per ton can be lowered/adjusted as needed. all this adjusts TTK without touching inter weapons balance and heat generation. something that PGI desperately needs to help with balance issue.

You just gave me a revolutionary idea. Ok, so Taking the following assumptions in to account i have a thought.

Assumptions:
1. PP convergence is likely not going anywhere (as dumb as that is)
2. FLD is a major issue and needs to be balanced around
3. A large part of the problem is how mechanics were attempted to be ported directly from TT into a new medium
4. Mech design (size in particular) is causing some of the TK issue.

Crazy Ass half formed idea:

What if you dial the armor back to base TT levels (or less), broke the individual sections of each mech into their "critical slots" and each crit spot would have it's own armor and internal health values. For example in order to blow off an arm you'd have to destroy the actuators, to kill a mech with an engine kill you'd have actively had destroyed 3 individual engine critical locations.

It could take barn doors like the awesome and make them less suicidal. It's take pin point sniping to something that really requires skill and aim if you want to do real damage. Yeah you can drop 45 PP FLD but you migh have only destroyed a single HS with that shot, GG. Or you blow of a weapon with a surgical strike. TTK should improve and the giant robot figths would feel like titanic clashes of slowly degrading warmachines as damage is taken rather than "I'm fine, i'm fine, WTF I'm dead"

This is by no means a complete proposal but it;'s not something I think i've heard any one propose yet.The key point is it potentially solves the Convergence issue without needing to remove convergence as it stands making it marginally more likely to be considered.

Edited by Agent of Change, 30 May 2014 - 06:17 AM.

[East Indy]

Thanks for refocusing us, Agent. Someone should tweet this to Russ.

On-topic: there's one "done-in-a-day" change, and it's adding millisecond delays between grouped/simultaneous weapon firings. It doesn't punish single weapons, still encourages evasion and twisting, can be scaled for caliber, and replaces heat scale. Basic idea here.

[Artgathan]

Agent of Change, on 30 May 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

You just gave me a revolutionary idea. Ok, so Taking the following assumptions in to account i have a thought.

Assumptions:
1. PP convergence is likely not going anywhere (as dumb as that is)
2. FLD is a major issue and needs to be balanced around
3. A large part of the problem is how mechanics were attempted to be ported directly from TT into a new medium
4. Mech design (size in particular) is causing some of the TK issue.

Crazy Ass half formed idea:

What if you dial the armor back to base TT levels (or less), broke the individual sections of each mech into their "critical slots" and each crit spot would have it's own armor and internal health values. For example in order to blow off an arm you'd have to destroy the actuators, to kill a mech with an engine kill you'd have actively had destroyed 3 individual engine critical locations.

It could take barn doors like the awesome and make them less suicidal. It's take pin point sniping to something that really requires skill and aim if you want to do real damage. Yeah you can drop 45 PP FLD but you migh have only destroyed a single HS with that shot, GG. Or you blow of a weapon with a surgical strike. TTK should improve and the giant robot figths would feel like titanic clashes of slowly degrading warmachines as damage is taken rather than "I'm fine, i'm fine, WTF I'm dead"

This is by no means a complete proposal but it;'s not something I think i've heard any one propose yet.The key point is it potentially solves the Convergence issue without needing to remove convergence as it stands making it marginally more likely to be considered.

I'm wary of any system that allows engine crits to kill. If it's simply based on a # of critical hits (rather than HP) weapons like the MG / LBX will be a death sentence to mechs with an exposed CT.

An alternate approach is to have reduced critical damage for certain weapons (IE: when they start hitting exposed internals they do less damage). This would really force players to bring varied loadouts (or coordinate team loadouts to cover weaknesses), or else risk having their damage potential severely gimped once a mech's armor comes off. For instance, we could make all the FLD weapons good against armor, but do reduced damaged vs internals, while all DOT/Spread weapons do bonus damage vs. internals

[Mcgral18]

Artgathan, on 30 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

I'm wary of any system that allows engine crits to kill. If it's simply based on a # of critical hits (rather than HP) weapons like the MG / LBX will be a death sentence to mechs with an exposed CT.

An alternate approach is to have reduced critical damage for certain weapons (IE: when they start hitting exposed internals they do less damage). This would really force players to bring varied loadouts (or coordinate team loadouts to cover weaknesses), or else risk having their damage potential severely gimped once a mech's armor comes off. For instance, we could make all the FLD weapons good against armor, but do reduced damaged vs internals, while all DOT/Spread weapons do bonus damage vs. internals

For the first part, you'd need to expose 3 armored sections in the CT, and avoid the 2 empty slots. That would take a long enough time with MGs, since the cone of fire pretty much prevents you from hitting the same spot with more than 5 bullets in a second. PPFLD might still be the most efficient, but it would be much more difficult to actually hit the spot you want.

It might cause issues with lights, but I like the proposed idea.

Reduced damage to internals (or an internal buff to 2x, same as armor) would be a good enough idea. I'm against a bonus against internal structure though. Crits already deal 15% bonus damage, and things melt pretty quickly with current weapon values at 300% damage against IS.

[Tombstoner]

East Indy, on 30 May 2014 - 06:36 AM, said:

Thanks for refocusing us, Agent. Someone should tweet this to Russ.

On-topic: there's one "done-in-a-day" change, and it's adding millisecond delays between grouped/simultaneous weapon firings. It doesn't punish single weapons, still encourages evasion and twisting, can be scaled for caliber, and replaces heat scale. Basic idea here.

No some one shouldn;t tweet this to PGI ... PGi should be monitoring this.... i really hate how PGi uses other forums of media..i know its needed but direct tweets is easily abused and become or feals like the only way to interact with PGI.

OP - my lunch time is over i will give you ideas more time later..... in the mean time look for a topic i started called tweek armor not weapons for more about what i'm getting at.

[Agent of Change]

Artgathan, on 30 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

I'm wary of any system that allows engine crits to kill. If it's simply based on a # of critical hits (rather than HP) weapons like the MG / LBX will be a death sentence to mechs with an exposed CT.

An alternate approach is to have reduced critical damage for certain weapons (IE: when they start hitting exposed internals they do less damage). This would really force players to bring varied loadouts (or coordinate team loadouts to cover weaknesses), or else risk having their damage potential severely gimped once a mech's armor comes off. For instance, we could make all the FLD weapons good against armor, but do reduced damaged vs internals, while all DOT/Spread weapons do bonus damage vs. internals

Mcgral18, on 30 May 2014 - 07:06 AM, said:

For the first part, you'd need to expose 3 armored sections in the CT, and avoid the 2 empty slots. That would take a long enough time with MGs, since the cone of fire pretty much prevents you from hitting the same spot with more than 5 bullets in a second. PPFLD might still be the most efficient, but it would be much more difficult to actually hit the spot you want.

It might cause issues with lights, but I like the proposed idea.

Reduced damage to internals (or an internal buff to 2x, same as armor) would be a good enough idea. I'm against a bonus against internal structure though. Crits already deal 15% bonus damage, and things melt pretty quickly with current weapon values at 300% damage against IS.

I mean yeah the real trick would be that each "critical point" has it's own armor total. The idea of "blowing off a whole segment" would be gone ans replaced by the more realistic gutting or crippling of the bits. Ammo explosions... easy they go to adjacent crit spots if not CASEd. The thing is as it stands you already only need three engine crits to kill a mech, you just tend to get them by coring or a side torso with XL.

[CeeKay Boques]

Agent of Change, on 30 May 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

I mean yeah the real trick would be that each "critical point" has it's own armor total. The idea of "blowing off a whole segment" would be gone ans replaced by the more realistic gutting or crippling of the bits. Ammo explosions... easy they go to adjacent crit spots if not CASEd. The thing is as it stands you already only need three engine crits to kill a mech, you just tend to get them by coring or a side torso with XL.

This is the fix. Keep PP damage, anything else and you're really stripping the gameplay. You can pretend that other convergence, rng and cone of fire options IDEAS are good, but implementation... no way. Do you really want Ghost Damage? Me either.

BUT!

Having each panel segmented into 4 or 5 different armor plates with specific criticals underneath... THAT is the way to go. REAL pin point. Either you hit the pinpoint... or not. And usually you won't.

HTAL becomes a readout of 8 Panels x 5 or 40 different armor panels. Probably be hell on performance or the current favorite "Too hard to put in the game".

Edited by Technoviking, 30 May 2014 - 10:03 AM.

[Agent of Change]

Technoviking, on 30 May 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

This is the fix. Keep PP damage, anything else and you're really stripping the gameplay. You can pretend that other convergence, rng and cone of fire options IDEAS are good, but implementation... no way. Do you really want Ghost Damage? Me either.

BUT!

Having each panel segmented into 4 or 5 different armor plates with specific criticals underneath... THAT is the way to go. REAL pin point. Either you hit the pinpoint... or not. And usually you won't.

HTAL becomes a readout of 8 Panels x 5 or 40 different armor panels. Probably be hell on performance or the current favorite "Too hard to put in the game".

While I disagree with the sentiment that there are no good ways to remove universal PP convergence (that's what this whole thread is about) if we take as an assumption it's not gonna leave then we need to look not at the firer but the target. I think based on chassis and logic you could easily break mechs up into multiple sections as far as armor is concerned while retaining the traditional Mech bay setup. i.e. if you set 30 armor to your LT than ALL the sections of the LT each have 30 armor.

I'm not sure I'd be as happy with this as i might an actually fix to the convergence issue but since both approaches address the issue of PP FLD either would be better than what we currently have.

Edited by Agent of Change, 30 May 2014 - 10:22 AM.

[Runenstahl]

CSJ Ranger, on 29 May 2014 - 10:18 PM, said:

if Pinpoint is removed, newcomers have no chance.Today, many have difficulties with the aim and with No Pinponit =MWO a game for a few veterans and TT Freaks

I don't think that would be an issue. Look at World of Tanks. It's using movement much like MWO (without jump-jets) and exactly the targeting that is proposed here. To my knowledge none of this has been much of a hurdle to newcomers.

[Agent of Change]

Runenstahl, on 30 May 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

I don't think that would be an issue. Look at World of Tanks. It's using movement much like MWO (without jump-jets) and exactly the targeting that is proposed here. To my knowledge none of this has been much of a hurdle to newcomers.

There are a lot of ways to handle this issue, many bad a few are great. We just need the devs to have the skill and testicular fortitude to give it a shot.