52 replies to this topic

[Lord of All]

They will never fix this Great Mechwarrior Garbage Patch collection. The Pacific one will get cleaned up first.

[Ancient Demise]

I like the DPR idea but the heat level should affect it only minimally, if at all. I also still think there should be a base accuracy that the DPR modifies. Nothing big - a little would go a long way. Enough to give different weapons different characteristics and prevent super alpha sniping (pinpoint) while maintaining a high chance to hit the mech.

Timuroslav, on 12 July 2014 - 05:14 AM, said:

Players should not be punished for practicing their aim, or having skill with their favored weapon.

I do not think it punishes players for their skill so much as equalizes combat across all ranges.
Pros of long range: hitting hard while being less likely to be hit hard back. Your weapons will still probably hit but the chances of anyone being cored with a single alpha is relatively low. Gauss and ppc are high alpha low dps and ac 2s and 5s are higher dps.

Pros of short range: potentially higher dps weapons out fight long range "sniping" weapons. Accuracy of short ranged weapons such as pulse lasers could be much higher than their standard and er counterparts while larger bore autocannon accuracy decreases. On the other hand, lower accuracy weapons are also less likely to miss at short range but there is still a chance for them to hit different components.

Example: Player A and Player B use the same gauss/ppc build. Player A is a much better shot than Player B.
With 2 gauss and 2 ppcs, Player A can core or leg any light mech and most mediums as 1000 meters. Against an atlas Player A can core the CT in about 2 shots. Player B tries to do the same thing but can only make the hit at 500 meters. At 1000 meters Player B misses his mark but still hits part of the atlas most of the time.
Enter the proposed changes to pinpoint.
Player A fires all 4 weapons at a light mech, say a jenner. The deviation (in this example) is a 4 meter circle at 1km. Of the 4 shots fired, 2 hit the ct, 1 hits the lt, and a ppc misses. The jenner is really hurting now but is not quite crippled.
Player B tries the same thing but due to less skill/experience, only 1 shot hits a side torso.
Against an atlas Player A hits all 4 shots on the left, center, and right torso. Player B also hits the atlas but again misses the ct. 3 shots hit, one on the arm and 2 on the right torso.
This is done equally and affects all players the same. Better shots will still be better shots but much like bt lore, no one will be hitting full alpha headshots at 1000 meters without some seroius luck.
At closer range, say 250 meters, yes it is possible to do a clean headshot with multiple weapons, depending on the size of the hitbox. Better players will be able to pull it off while worse/less experienced will probably miss. However, all shots will still hit the mech.

If this were to be based purely on mech movement we would see a serious increase in sniping while still as that would be the only real way to get a clean shot.

In TT, pilot skill, movement speed/type, terrain, distance to target, target movement speed /type, and weapon type all modify the accuracy. Obviously PGI knows this as they have essentially built it in to srms, lrms, lbx, and even streaks (albeit badly, see my thread on streaks) and the cone on these should remain largely unchanged. All I want is some consistency with the rest of the weapons.

[Ansgar Odinson]

Make torso weapons fire strait forward (no convergence) make arm weapons converge horizontally (not vertically) so long as there are lower arm actuators. Still use the same reticle as a central aiming point but have no convergence.

[ReXspec]

Timuroslav, on 12 July 2014 - 05:14 AM, said:

Don't hurt player skill, by damaging weapon convergence. IF you want to make combat last longer, without increasing armor values and Weapon damage; there needs to be another solution.

Your best solution is to incrementally, put cockpit shake back in the game.
No not bullet impact cockpit shake; Mech MOVEMENT Cockpit shake. A lot of these heavier mechs have horrible jumpy bounce trots that would naturally affect their aim. Why should PGI keep making new numbers and codings when all they would have to do is throttle back the pilot's "Shock absorbers"
It should not be at the level that it was first implemented, but it's better than completely changing the Weapon systems.
Players should not be punished for practicing their aim, or having skill with their favored weapon. I do see why targeting computers does piss you off though, but if you look at the tonnage and the slot requirements it's like putting another ppc in that can't fire at times. If you build around a giant targeting computer that can be destroyed and can't fire; you should get something in return. Even if it is just a higher critical hit chance and a marginal weapon range increase.

Cone of fire and compensating aim accordingly is not "punishing" a player's skill. It's another thing players need to adapt to, and that any player with a good knowledge of how recoil, speed, and terrain obstruction will effect his gun's accuracy will be able to properly adapt to it.

Simply put, I'm not asking for a system similar to a first-person shooter where your aim magically goes to sh*t when you start moving. I'm asking for a system of ballistics and aim deviation similar to the system present in Mechwarrior 3, but with a little more fine-tuning to smooth out the transition and implementation of ballistics.

[Hoffenstein]

You could have both! Just have two drop options: one, without cone of fire, for the tournament crowd which could be referred to as "Call of MechWarrior: Online". The second could have cone of fire, heat and movement penalties, that could be referred to as "Battletech, the not-boardgame". Just make it a different game mode

[ReXspec]

Hoffenstein, on 05 August 2014 - 03:24 PM, said:

You could have both! Just have two drop options: one, without cone of fire, for the tournament crowd which could be referred to as "Call of MechWarrior: Online". The second could have cone of fire, heat and movement penalties, that could be referred to as "Battletech, the not-boardgame". Just make it a different game mode

Assuming P.G.I. would ever decide to listen to us--let alone give us feedback about our suggestions.

[Fire and Salt]

Solution:

-Reduce armor values to their TT values.
-Make the head hitbox the correct size, instead of artificially shrinking it.
-Rdeuce the head components internal structure to its TT value.


Then, we don't have to worry about 'pinpoint' convergence of multiple weapons systems, because a single AC20 will be able to 1 shot any mech. The dire wolfs 1 shot ability will finally be balanced, because even the humble AC20 raven will have the same capability.



PROBLEM SOLVED

[Gwydion Ward]

They copied every single stat over from TT... 'except' the Randomness of were your shots land.. both Beam and Balistic. Its my one major gripe about MWO. Everyone in their brother knows that "kill the CT, Kill the mech!". So... thats the ONLY thing 90% of the palyers shoot at.. and since every weapon hits exactly were you aim... thats the only thing those 90% of the playerbase hit.

[Nightmare1]

The current firing systems work great - let's keep it simple and leave them alone! Given PGI's track record, the last thing I want is for them to go messing with my firing systems. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[Lightfoot]

Okay, so players hated two Reticules so much they ended up just adding a toggle On/Off. They hate weapon's knock so much it is constantly being toned down. Why would they put up with a mechanic that causes them to be unable to aim? One that reduces the player's skill vs other player's with less skill, removes competition ability. ?

Battle Tech has a feature called Mech overheat that keeps players from firing alpha strikes more than once or twice in most situations. What MWO has not implemented is the functional degradation that overheat causes to a Mech. The Mech slows to walk speed, the HUD becomes scrambled other things, but those two would do most of what you are suggesting in a mostly CPU passive way, certainly the HUD scrambling is very low CPU and only affects the playermech.

Other than that moving laterally spreads the damage across the Mech in the same way that your automatic damage spreader would. But moving laterally and hitting targets in combat is the highest level of competition MechWarrior can provide, whereas a mechanic that removes the need for players to learn to move laterally or even move their mech at all is not going to make a better game. My mech never gets cored unless I make a mistake, but I accept that it was my mistake and not a game flaw.

Basically, for the skilled pilot, there is no pin-point damage alpha unless the weapons are all the same type and PGI uses Ghost Heat to keep that alpha group to a balanced level.

Like you I have played MechWarrior online PvP since MW2 and I would caution in removing or dulling core gameplay skills like moving your mech while hitting your target.

GL&GH

[0rionsbane]

pinpoint damage is really a non issue compared to other mechwarrior titles. you could literally die in one volley on multiplayer with all previous mechwarriors. the problem with this mechwarrior title is there are no re spawns so a player if he dies has to wait for the battle to end in order to play his mech again. I suggest just adding a dropship system say 4 mechs for regular matches, and if the issiue persists capping heat at 30 so laser vomit is lessened. the dropship would only be able to drop mechs while it is up, aka you could shoot it a lot say and then you have removed it from play, allowing a team with a clear advantage a win like it is currently. but making a insta gib match far less likely as you would have to put yourself in that situation 4 times.
either way the suggestions in the poll here would really hurt the tactical element of the game. a lot of this game is about focusing fire to down one mech quickly, nerfing alphas means that strategy is weaker, implementing cof is a definite no no say good bye to almost all competitive players. but the real problem is pgi seems to want a battle of attrition from a game that has mostly been about blowing up that enemy robot before it harms you. they are trying to make rainbow six into a halo with buffed shields etc. it just needs to be about blowing up that robot, not about that robot surviving longer. i would suggest the dropship and put the armor back to normal. would make for faster fights (hard to focus fire when its already dead) and more engaging matches.

[Fubbit]

I would love to see some kind of cone of fire. Especially if it was implemented smartly (like the OPs ideas.)

This is also a place the different chassis could be differentiated with more or less ability to "run and gun".
Maybe as quirks, maybe as tied to the mechs "movement types", or both?

Maybe more massive mechs should be more resistant to recoil cone of fire?
Lighter mechs more resistant to movement cone of fire?

Edited by Fubbit, 06 March 2015 - 07:52 AM.

[Telmasa]

I know this thread is rather old, but the King Crab would like to have a word or two with you....