Agent of Change, on 30 May 2014 - 04:28 AM, said:
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.
You are not digging deep enough into root causes and their effects if you think convergence is the core issue at hand.
The FLD damage application method is.Any weapon with the capacity to deal 100% of its damage to a singular location at a singular moment has a huge advantage over other damage application methods.
1) Always concentrates damage.
2) Can be snap fired and thus ideal for poptart/poke and shoot vastly reducing exposure to counter fire.
3) Allows for no active defense on the part of the target after the initial hit.Unlike a laser that allows a target to manuver after the initial hit to disperse damage.
A singular firing of a singular FLD weapon is still a superior damage application method so convergence is not at all connected to the superiority of the FLD mechanics.Instant convergence is however the reasom players groupfire loads of FLD weapons as an Alpha Strike.
So if all weapons were not instantly converging then all weapons would be equally "nerfed" leaving FLD still the superior mechanic and the new meta will be chainfire via macro FLD weapons while the rest of the weapons continue to be second or third class junk.
And 4 the most important point I need to make FLD produces effects that the armor mechanics were never suppose to be exposed to as a matter of common course.
The armor mechanics used for MWo are so closely derived from the Battletech table top game that they have inherited the weaknesses of those mechanics.
At it's core both mechanics use the same rules X amount of internal structure allows for up to Y amount of armor that is double the value of X.Once X+Y are depleted the body segment is destroyed.If X+Y of the CT or head (side torsos if XL engines) the mech is destroyed.
That is a very basic in the nutshell on the how armor works in both table top and MWo.
Now here is where it breaks...
The table top game used a supporting structure of additional game mechanics to isolate the armor mechanics from effects that triggered mechanics failure.
I will list a few the table top used.
Individual to hit rolls for each weapon fired in a turn.This decreased the volume of weapon fire recieved by a target in any single game turn.The armor mechanics would under these circumstances not be exposed to very high volumes of damage unless there was a severe discrepency between volume of weapon fire (10+ medium lasers) and value of armor (20 ton mech with 60 armor points in total) Or one mech facing a firing squad of several heavily armed mechs.
In MWo volume of fire that connects is a factor of player reflexes and aim and is significantly higher than the random dice rolls in the table top allowed for.Seeing how random dice rolling would utterly suck for this video game I am not suggesting we use that mechanic my point is NO mechanic was used to substitute and as a result the armor mechanics were exposed to a failure threshold effect on a regular bases in MWo.(groupfire and instant convergence magnify this effect but it still is in effect when weapons are fired sigularly)
Next we have in the table top game the armor mechanics were also supported by random hit locations for damage that hit a target.A player in the table top game could not under normal circumstances pick and choose the spot the weapon would land on.Over here in MWo that is exactaly what we do,we aim for critical body segments like the CT to trigger a target kill event.
The result of this is the armor mechanics are once again exposed to an element it was specificly isolated from in the table top game.The ability to aim with precision at a specific body location vastly depreciates the value of armor located on areas of the mech not being specificly aimed at.I estimate that on average less than 25% of armor not located on the mechs core has any effect on damage absorbtion.The armor located in it's center of mass is pretty much the only armor of any real value for exstending survival under fire.Overall this pretty much halves the effective armor values on battlemechs.
Next we have in the table top game the heat scale to hit roll penalties.As a mech built up excessive heat the mech became more sluggish reducing the opertunities to gain advantagious possition to fire and became less accurate reducing the volume of fire connecting on a target.Over here in MWo our mech performances are at 100% or 0% no gradual degrading of performace as heat builds.This encourages the alpha spam that is so frequent in out current meta.It doesn't matter if I shut down if the damage dealt out was worth it.Since I am no less accurate on the threshold of shutting down that I am at near complete coolness why would I ever reduce my volume of fire? So combining this quirk with FLD alpha strikes we get out current game meta.
FLD weapons are ideal for triggering these failure events.They do not by means of their mechanics ever emulate a support mechanic as many other weapons do.
A few examples.
Lasers and hit scan damage mechanics; A laser fires a brief duration beam at a target the damage is applied to the target at the point of impact of the beam and for the duration of the beam's contact or firing period.
This means several outside elements alter the effectivness of the beam's concentration of damage.
Plus,the additional effect of the hitscan mechanic allows for the target to activley move to disperse damage.
In a way this emulates a support mechanic that is lacking and allows the armor mechanics to function under less stress of failure.
SSRMs actually do use one of the table top game's supporting mechanics.Each Streak missile is assigned a target location that it will apply it's damage to.This repicates a support mechanic present in the table top game and the armor mechanics are not exposed to a failure event.
LB10X fires a dispersed pattern of damage that bu it's nature does not concentrate damage.Smaller tagets benefit more than larger targets but in the end rarely is a single armor location being effected by a singular shot of 100% of an LB10x shot's damage.SRMs are also similar to this effect.
So,instant convergence or not FLD is superior and an out laying mechanic that is not in line with every other damage application method we have in MWo.It seems to me fixing the out laying problem mechanic is better than making everything a problem mechanic.
Once FLD is repaired we can see if convergence is still an issue.
Edited by Lykaon, 04 June 2014 - 03:57 PM.
6
Come again?
