27 replies to this topic

[Heiggwinie Halberstadt]

Why do artillery shells and air strikes always hit the smoke with one hundred percent accuracy?

[darkkterror]

Jin Ma, on 31 May 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

it means they recognize it as an issue, compared to before where they just outright ignored it.

i'm not sure why you are arguing against this. Pretty sure everybody wants this removed. Unless its just for the sake of argument.

" i want a citation because i want to see PGI is planning to do somethign about this, but if you give me one i am going to complain about how PGI doesn't deliver anything"

so yeah you are right, they are dealing with some tough customers.

I'm not arguing against doing something about strikes headshotting Mechs. I'm arguing against misinterpretation. You stated, in no uncertain terms, that PGI was going to remove the ability for strikes to damage the head. I ask for a source on this and you provide a source that does not backup your claim.

Paul didn't say they were going to remove the ability for strikes to damage the head, as you suggested. He said they were looking into it. He used words like if and might, which are not certain terms. He also didn't mention that they would make strikes not damage the head at all; he simply said that they might (there's that keyword again) reduce head damage they do. It's also entirely possible that they may decide to do nothing (they are only looking into it, after all). Consider the fact that they're increasing the spread of the shells in the future. They might conclude that this increase in spread reduces the number of times that a mech gets hit in the head, so they might end up doing nothing.

All I want here is for expectations to be clear. If someone reads something from a PGI dev and comes to a conclusion that is not fully supported by that statement, then they very well might become very disappointed and then upset with PGI (which only compounds how many already feel). Carefully read their statements, interpret them properly, and set appropriate expectations. Hold PGI only to those expectations, instead of using extrapolated expectations that PGI never actually set themselves.

Edited by darkkterror, 31 May 2014 - 08:54 AM.

[Jin Ma]

darkkterror, on 31 May 2014 - 08:53 AM, said:

He also didn't mention that they would make strikes not damage the head at all; he simply said that they might (there's that keyword again) reduce head damage they do.

Paul Inouye, on 28 May 2014 - 08:07 AM, said:

if it requires us to reduce the amount of damage done to the head, we will do it

I don't see a might anywhere in that sentence

i think you are just upset that there was a source saying this when you thought there wouldn't be. We all want to be as mad at PGI as possible for ignoring game breaking features. But this time they are acknowledging it, which is a good thing.

Edited by Jin Ma, 31 May 2014 - 09:18 AM.

[ManDaisy]

Keep dreaming Jin Ma, I think the devs are smart enough to realize soon as they take away artillery's ability to damage the head, that the "meta" crowd will start to strip armor there even more. As if they arn't already.

Edited by ManDaisy, 31 May 2014 - 09:22 AM.

[darkkterror]

Jin Ma, on 31 May 2014 - 09:17 AM, said:

I don't see a might anywhere in that sentence

i think you are just upset that there was a source saying this when you thought there wouldn't be. We all want to be as mad at PGI as possible for ignoring game breaking features. But this time they are acknowledging it, which is a good thing.

But there is an "If" and you seem to be defining "If" as "We absolutely will do this." I don't care that there's a source that proves they may change how strikes deal head damage. I care that people fail to properly comprehend it.

[tammo]

Kyle, thanks for the explanation.
I see now that i misunderstood the threads title-
Since i never saw those über-large Artillery weapons in the game,
i was sure the OP was talking about LRM Mechs.
MWO is very confusing for a casual player when it comes to naming things-
It looks like every single mech in this game has at least 3 Names,
a codename like CTF-R2-D2, a spoken name (Cataphract?),
and then any number of informel nicknames like Pepsophract, Bongophract, or even "Poparting Boomphract" or something like that.
Multiplied by the number of mechs, weapons and systems,
its almost as hard as learning French. (But way more useful `_`).

I think the mechanic you explained with the "spotter"mech seems be designed
in order to incourage teamplay.
But in reality it creates some big problems:

From the 3 Players involved in this system only the "spotter" has an interesting job.
He has to navigate behind or near enemy lines in order to get a LoS to the target,
using either speed or stealth.
He can see how the targed he picked gets shredded
by blazing death from the sky. Pretty cool.

The LRM mech on the other hand, cant see what his attacks are doing.
Maybe there is a color shift in a mech icon or something like that.
At the start of the round he has to move to a covered position
about a KM from the enemy line.
Then he waits for the time when he has to push the "fire" button.
Teasing mushrooms in the forest is probably more exciting then this.

After some time either your team wins the match,
or the enemy closes up to your position and because of the LRM minimum range,
you have to defend yourself with 2 small lasers
against an angry assault lance.
The third player involved in this menage-a-troi is the LRMs victim.
If this is an inexperienced player, he will die without a clue what just happened.
Standing hidden behind a huge building,
and having installed 1500 kg of future anti-missile technology,
he felt pretty missile proof.

"That crazy LRM guy jumping around a hill the distance couldnt even see me.
Must be those frigging hackers again."

After some time this gets very frustrating.
For me this was always the reason why i stopped playing the game.
But i always came back after some time because i just love Battletech
and hope that this missiles get patched
into something more enjoyable for non pro gamers.

To sum it up:
3 players are involved in this gameplay aspect, and its only fun for one of them.

One possible solution:
Remove the boring job by letting the LRM mech be remote controlled
by the spotter/scout player.
He uses his mini-map to set waypoints for the LRM mech,
just like in a RTS game like starcraft.
Missile salvos are triggered by leftclicking
while his "LRM-target illumination thing" is selected,
just like firing a normal weapon.


Thanks for reading!
Regards, Tammo

(Maybe move this to another thread because i misunderstood the OPs topic?)

[wanderer]

tammo, on 30 May 2014 - 06:41 PM, said:

I am a (kind of) new player.
So far i usually rank in the last 3 places of the scoreboard.
most of the time i dont get killscores, sometimes an assist.
Today i bought a mech with 2 LRMs and artemis system.
Suddenly my score is much higher and i am the top 5 places most of the time.

Incidentally, LRMs will do a lot of damage, but due to spread, it's also less effective despite those numbers- but the mechanics of LRMs also tend to add to your match score via more assists and other bonuses such as spotting. That you're doing well is in part due to 1) It sounds like you have poor aim with direct-fire weaponry and 2) LRMs are much more effective vs. less experienced players.

Also, parking your butt 1000m away is....well, newbie LRM tactics. Yeah, you can hit things from there.

You're also dead meat when someone notices in a scout and does donuts around you inside 180m and smokes your 'Mech because you hid yourself outside the reach of any help, and your missiles have the worst chance of keeping lock from launch to impact. Yeah, at your level of opponent you'll slap things around. This will change. At my point, you're firing at half that range and moving as much as possible to keep people from trampling you with a fast medium/light and to keep accurate fire incoming. To give you an idea, the number of LRMs in the big 12-man tournaments at the end?

Zero. It's not considered effective vs. experienced players. Get out of the newbie level of play, and your experience with LRMs changes greatly- what it takes to get those numbers gets tougher as your opponents do.

Edited by wanderer, 31 May 2014 - 12:19 PM.

[wanderer]

tammo, on 31 May 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Kyle, thanks for the explanation.
I see now that i misunderstood the threads title-
Since i never saw those über-large Artillery weapons in the game,
i was sure the OP was talking about LRM Mechs.
MWO is very confusing for a casual player when it comes to naming things-
It looks like every single mech in this game has at least 3 Names,
a codename like CTF-R2-D2, a spoken name (Cataphract?),
and then any number of informel nicknames like Pepsophract, Bongophract, or even "Poparting Boomphract" or something like that.
Multiplied by the number of mechs, weapons and systems,
its almost as hard as learning French. (But way more useful `_`).

Most military designs have a designation, an actual name, and people often use slang terms to show how variants function.

Take the American aircraft fighter, the F-16. It's officially known as the "Fighting Falcon" as well, but pilots also slang-named it the "Viper" as a joke reference to the Battlestar Galactica television series. "F-16" is it's designation (and variants/updates get other stuff tacked on, like "F-16D"). So while all Cataphracts in MWO are "CTF-xxx", the second part indicates what capacities the variant has (and usually, if there's a number indicates in what order they were produced)- the CTF-1X came first, then the -2X, 3D, and 4X in that order.- the F-16 has the same references in terms of "Block 40, Block 50", etc. etc.).

Edited by wanderer, 31 May 2014 - 12:28 PM.