118 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Gas Guzzler, on 01 June 2014 - 05:51 PM, said:

[size=4]

Can you explain a little more? MWOs aiming system seems pretty standard to me. In most shooters, the shot goes where you are aiming. Shooters also implement a cone of fire, but this is typically seen in rapid fire weapons (most weapons in MWO can not be considered rapid fire, so a CoF doesn't really apply).

I still don't have 100% grasp of your first comment. By increasing the skill required to keep up the same performance, do you mean that by making shots less accurate it takes more skill to achieve the same performance? I would have to disagree. It just decreases the amount of skill required on the receiving end to spread damage. No increase of skill needed, just need to make more shots in the general direction of the Mech and cross your fingers that they go where you want them to.

I don't have a problem with convergence. Right now, we have a game that favors FLD weapons (PPCs, ACs, Gauss), which can be balanced by making the alternative forms of direct fire (SRMs, Lasers) a viable alternative.

If each weapon had a targetting reticule, and did not magically instantly converge, you would have to individually aim weapons, and you could indeed get similar performance from current popular weapons by individually firing them while aiming them seperately. It also buffs the less popular SRMs and LB10x by not requiring the same finess to aim the damage.

Perhaps give lasers convergence, but that could just lead to boating of said weapons....which is still better than what we have currently, in my opinion.

MWO doesn't have any movement penalties, aside from when you trigger the Jump Jets. And even that goes away the instant you let go of the button. A very simple 2 crosshair system, with only one method to deviate it. Seems mighty simple. In other games, when running at full throttle over hills or falling, you tend not to hit exactly what you are aiming for. Let alone multiple weapons magically converging on said spot.


Indeed making short range weapons...you know, better at short range than the long range weapons good be a nice place to start. Care to share your opinion on how to make that happen?

[Gas Guzzler]

Mcgral18, on 01 June 2014 - 06:16 PM, said:

Indeed making short range weapons...you know, better at short range than the long range weapons good be a nice place to start. Care to share your opinion on how to make that happen?

Tuning weapon damage, heat, and recycle time. Currently, I would rather have 2 LPLs or an AC 20 then 2 PPCs or 2 AC5s in close quarters combat, so that is a good start. Having someone close to 90 m is a big liability, and then the AC5s give you plenty of DPS but being able to shoot and turn away with the AC20 is very valuable in CQC.

SRMs are more of a support weapon system then a primary weapon system, and I think a tighter spread with maybe a slight increase in damage would make them very good at short range. You can have 3 SRM6s with artemis and a couple tons of ammo for the same weight of 2 PPCs, that's 36 damage albeit not pinpoint damage. Arguably more useful in close quarters combat, but SRMs should not be a primary weapon system frankly.

[Fishhawk]

PLEASE NO RNG!!! It screws me in FTL enough as it is.

I like the idea of having heat affect your aim. But, then we would need to get rid of Ghost Heat at the same time, and I'm sure that ain't happenin'.

[Mahnmut]

- PPC damage arcing
- Burst fire AC's
- SRM Fixes
- Increase hitpoints of internals
- Reduce terrain slope penalties to help non-jumpjet/brawling mechs
- Jump-jet: shaking for period / faster fall after cutting jets
- Change LRM's tracjectory so they fly flatter and don't arc steeply right at the end (negating a lot of cover)
- Remove arm lock
- Remove or revisit ghost heat

[Gallowglas]

Mcgral18, on 01 June 2014 - 06:16 PM, said:

If each weapon had a targetting reticule

Do you have any conception of how insanely cluttered and silly that would look with, say, a brawling Stalker with a huge bank of weapons? It would effective transform combat into something needlessly clunky.

[Mcgral18]

Gallowglas, on 01 June 2014 - 06:47 PM, said:

Do you have any conception of how insanely cluttered and silly that would look with, say, a brawling Stalker with a huge bank of weapons? It would effective transform combat into something needlessly clunky.

Bring less weapons?

It would at least require some thinking. Rather than Alpha at that spot.

[Gallowglas]

Mcgral18, on 01 June 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:

Bring less weapons?

It would at least require some thinking. Rather than Alpha at that spot.

Smearing Vaseline on your monitor might make pinpoint targeting less easy to accomplish too. That doesn't mean either would be fun. Annoying clutter and obtuse mechanics, while they might solve one problem, just create other problems that get in the way of compelling gameplay. I'm not arguing against some sort of mechanic to help reduce the number of pinpoint shots, but that's just not a good solution IMHO. The fact that your solution is "bring less weapons" should tell you all you need to know about what problems it presents.

Edited by Gallowglas, 01 June 2014 - 07:00 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Gallowglas, on 01 June 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

Smearing Vaseline on your monitor might make pinpoint targeting less easy to accomplish too. That doesn't mean either would be fun. Annoying clutter and obtuse mechanics, while they might solve one problem, just create other problems that get in the way of compelling gameplay. I'm not arguing against some sort of mechanic to help reduce the number of pinpoint shots, but that's just not a good solution IMHO. The fact that your solution is "bring less weapons" should tell you all you need to know about what problems it presents.

Obviously you can't take a joke.

If weapons are mounted on the same arm, they will more than likely hit the same target, or an adjacent hitbox unless you're at range.

Of course this isn't the best solution. But it is one that won't bork hitreg.

[Gallowglas]

Mcgral18, on 01 June 2014 - 07:04 PM, said:

Obviously you can't take a joke.

It helps when I know it's a joke.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Mcgral18, on 01 June 2014 - 07:04 PM, said:

Obviously you can't take a joke.

If weapons are mounted on the same arm, they will more than likely hit the same target, or an adjacent hitbox unless you're at range.

Of course this isn't the best solution. But it is one that won't bork hitreg.

Except what happens when the guns are mounted above one another?

Unless those guns can elevate themselves, they actually wouldnt hit the same spot. One would hit high, the other would hit low. And the Torso guns, the same thing, unless they can traverse in the torso. None of them look like they can move at all really. They might be linked to the targeting reticule.....but the guns shouldnt even be pintpoint cuz they cant move....and 2 immobile guns mounted like a foot apart wont hit the same spot. the arm has actuators, but the gun barrels dont.

[Lykaon]

SilentWolff, on 01 June 2014 - 08:42 AM, said:

Pinpoint damage is going nowhere. People that cry about it, never played MW3 or MW4, both of which had pinpoint damage and were great games. The people that complain about it are mostly bad players who want some kind of crutch to play against players with more skill than them. Quit yer crying and l2p or find another game to play.

Once again it's not PIN POINT damage that is the problem it's FRONT LOADING damage that causes the mechanics to break down.

This is why nearly no one ever complains about mechs using lasers even multiple group fired lasers.The problems arise when multiple front loading damage weapons are grouped together and fired in one trigger pull to inflict 30+ damage instantly upon impact to a singular location with no defensive recourse available once the shot is fired.

What complaints do we see every day? Day in and day out?

Nearly all of the frequent complaints are directly related to front loaded damage and it's superior effects when interacting with MWo's armor mechanics.

I find that people who say things like "people who cry about it" "quit crying" "LTP" and "play another game" are completley or at least partially ignorant of the issue that is being discussed.

I know you didn't get it because you cited MW3,That if I recall correctly had burst fire autocannons and painfully slow PPC and Gauss projectile speeds without the added accuracy of modern computing and systems like Host State Rewind.
And,when you did get a solid hit with multiple groupfired weapons and got damage to apply to a single location the game broke! That is why the way to go when building a mech for MW3 was multiple lasers (no ammo to waste on all the misses and light weight to pack them into huge weapon groups to blow legs off in singular hits) No idea if you played MW3 in a PvP capacity like I did but believe me a similar issue dominated game play way back then with MW3 we just had the benifit of horrible latency and computing power to draw out the game length.

And MW4? really? you do know that MW4 used a derived armor mechanic that was balanced against newly calculated damage values for every weapon in the game? At it's core the game was designed for the armor values and mechanics to function with the damage values of the weapons present.

MWo just pulled armor mechanics and armor values from the table top game closley derived weapon damage from the table top game and then expected this to survive translation from a turn based tactical table top game to a real time shooter video game with only doubling armor values!

Also no modern computing no Host State Rewind support and here's the kick in teeth MW4 also suffered from a similar issue with groupfired frontloading damage and poptarting in the PvP gameplay.The more balanced armor and damage mechanics coupled with good old latency and old school computers served to lengthen the games a bit but if you connected with those 4-6 Clan ER-Lrg lasers that everyone used when poptarting you would see the game break.

I'm thinking you may not have played MW3 or 4 PvP much or you would remember this crap from back then.

You don't need to learn to play but you do need to examine the issues and see there is a clear and obvious difference between using the meta AC/PPC/jumpjet game and playing anything else.

When there is a clear advantage to using less than 20% of the options and everything else is so far behind it's a handicap to use it there is a mechanics failure.

I highly doubt the intent for this game was to have

AC5s AC10s and AC20
PPC and ER-PPC
ECM
Jumpjets
Artillery and air strikes

as the "LTP" options and everything else the "toys for scrubs"

[Joseph Mallan]

Eddrick, on 31 May 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

Cone of fire
Cone of hit
Homelessbill's Targeting Computer solution
Remove Group Fire

Just saying...

[Pht]

stjobe, on 01 June 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

For example, the galaxy is on the tail end of roughly 300 years of rather harsh interstellar war that has made a lot of high-tech weaponry and control systems lost tech (or "lostech", as it is known). The very 'mechs that we pilot can only be made in automated factories - the knowledge on how to construct them has been lost. Same with their components, which is where the old BattleTech saying "kill the meat, save the metal" comes from. A highly trained MechWarrior is a valuable asset for sure, but pales to insignificance in comparison to his or her 'mech.

Yes and no. As I said, even in the depth of the succession wars blight, the 'mechs were capable of hitting targets out onto the horizon, with run of the mill hardware and somewhat shoddy maintenance. It just takes a good, patient pilot to do it.

The fact that 'mechs in the BT lore can't get all of their weapons to reliably and repeatably all hit the same armor panel is simply one of the presumed constants of the BT lore. I do not think that even morgan kell using the universe-breaking "ghost mech" skill was allowed to break this constant.

This is why the 'mechs could survive (in capable hands) with such relatively low armor levels versus so much damage. It's just the way the lore (and the TT) was/is balanced for damage.

So it's not really a 'tech level thing. It's just a part of the way the lore is.

However, using a single direct fire weapon, a very skilled pilot *can* "pick their part," even at very long ranges; even past the rated battlefield distance for a weapon.

I suspect some chunks of what you're relating have been retconned out. Yes, the Succession Wars were vicious and did smash society and tech down badly, just not as much as it used to be related. As the lore has grown and the continuity has expanded things have changed a little bit, simply to assure continuity.

Quote

As for perfect aim; according to lore, the battlefield is inundated with all kinds of counter- and counter-countermeasures to the point where the antiquated lostech sensor and guidance system has to struggle to keep up; this is the in-universe explanation to both the random to-hit roll and the short ranges that a board game designed to be played on a kitchen table necessitated.

In this you are absolutely right. Even in the farthest flung future parts of the timeline, the most advanced targeting can not produce perfect convergence reliably. Battlefields in the BT lore are overstuffed with counter-measures of nearly every sort.

I even suspect that 'mechs themselves are programmed to attempt to avoid incoming fire (much as they will twist and move limbs to avoid trees when running through a forest); this may be one of the reasons why a target has to be actually *immobile* before you can get the far-higher concentration of weapons fire under the reticule. When you light up a 'mech with active targeting (necessary for concentrating weapons fire) ... that's a huge clue to MOVE!

Quote

Thank PGI for that. Because they chose (or simply were not competent enough to do otherwise) to implement perfect accuracy, instant convergence, and front-loaded damage, they also broke the whole armour system; the BattleTech armour system is designed for spread-out damage (in TT with random hit location rolls) and it simply breaks when you can duct-tape several weapon systems together and have them all hit the same spot.

I think this was because of a simple honest mistake - not realizing that the hit location tables aren't there only to represent the pilot's gunnery skill. I suspect this was compounded by people at the time @ pgi not realizing how a bell-curved table (weighted heavily under the reticule) could give rise to really fun and compelling gameplay, instead of all weapons of same velocity fired at the same time hitting the same point gameplay.

Now, PGI is well and truly monetarily "into it." They have their livelihoods into this basket, and even if they decided they wanted to add the 'mech's part of the combat, the bean-counters

... who are useful toadstools but should be kept strictly to counting beans, not deciding what to do with them... would not let them make the change. (For a decent article about the problem with bean-counters running things: http://www.wired.com...now-everything/ )

... so, anyways, I don't thing PGI would be allowed to take a mulligan here. At this point, the hope is that someone comes along who doesn't have their hands shackled to put the 'mech part of the combat into the game.

Zervziel, on 01 June 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

I can understand people's stances on PPD, but I really loathe the idea of RGN ideas like cone of fire. it screws over everyone equally, the meta-tards and the people playing the game straight.

Cof isn't a good idea, even if it'd be a slight step up if done perfectly. As it is, we know in black and white math the ability of a 'mech to get it's weapon fire concentrated under the reticule. We know it well enough that we could do more of the same math to cover other situations that the tt doesn't handle - well enough to easily convert it to realtime.

All that it is is a bell-curved graph, with most hits concentrating heavily under the reticule. The best part is that player choices can get onto better graphs that concentrate the fire even more heavily under the reticule; all without calculating a cone of any type. No "I shot for the toe and blasted his hat off."

Gallowglas, on 01 June 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

Generic, always-active cones of fire would be horrible. Not just "gosh that's bad" horrible, but full-on "look, I'm playing a FPS with oven mitts!" horrible. One way to absolutely ensure a huge segment of your player base never plays again is to take away opportunities for skilled shots in favor of randomness.

Yep. Cones would stink to high heaven.

Quote

That said, I'd be in favor of a mechanic wherein a cone of fire or reticle shake existed while on the move, being hit, jumping, etc. Heck, I'd be fine with having a cone of fire that gradually reduces the longer your reticle is on a single target. You'd have to be really careful with any of these solutions though or they could make light mechs completely obsolete.

----

All that said, unless you impose some really obtuse randomness, you're still going to have pinpoint damage, even if it's more rare.

This already exists. The above math is set into an "IF" "THAN" set of rules. "If player's 'mech is running when player fires" "Than chance to miss goes higher," that sort of thing. This would allow the 'mech's part of the aiming to be put into the game, while still being player-controllable.

----

In the lore and the tt, the reliable, repeatable pinpoint comes only when firing a single weapon and at the hands of a skilled pilot; and it takes appropriate sacrifices to get to this ability. This skill, of course, has a very high reward for the high cost of attaining and using it.

There are also lesser varying degrees of lesser possible concentration of fire, given specific circumstances, player choices, and sacrifices.

[Violent Nick]

I say, embrace it, use it, learn to love it, learn to counter it, deal with it... 'LET'S FACE IT'?

And that is an honest answer. Maybe, it's the ONLY answer given what the OP said in his opening few lines.

[YueFei]

Gas Guzzler, on 01 June 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

Tuning weapon damage, heat, and recycle time. Currently, I would rather have 2 LPLs or an AC 20 then 2 PPCs or 2 AC5s in close quarters combat, so that is a good start. Having someone close to 90 m is a big liability, and then the AC5s give you plenty of DPS but being able to shoot and turn away with the AC20 is very valuable in CQC.

SRMs are more of a support weapon system then a primary weapon system, and I think a tighter spread with maybe a slight increase in damage would make them very good at short range. You can have 3 SRM6s with artemis and a couple tons of ammo for the same weight of 2 PPCs, that's 36 damage albeit not pinpoint damage. Arguably more useful in close quarters combat, but SRMs should not be a primary weapon system frankly.

Leave aside semantics like "support weapon" and "primary weapon". Just look at effectiveness on a per-tonnage and per-hardpoint and per-crit slot basis.

Currently, 2xASRM6 (before factoring in ammo) is 8 tons, 6 slots, 2 hardpoints. 1xAC5 is 8 tons, 4 slots, 1 hardpoint.

In Testing Grounds, at 90 meters, on a front-facing Awesome, the 2xASRM6 will kill the Awesome 23% faster than the AC5. And generates 250% of the heat to do so. Only about 65% of the missiles connect with the Awesome CT. Some missiles hit the arms and legs (!!!) at that range. =(

That is what McGral is talking about when he says the short-ranged weapons lack effectiveness. In a sterile environment, no lag, no HSR or hit detection problems, on a stationary target (that is an Awesome), the SRMs just barely outperform the AC5 in TTK. And it is actually a *bigger* investment in the SRMs, in terms of hardpoints and crit slots. In a live environment, against a resisting opponent who is moving and twisting, the SRMs become even less efficient, and the extra heat they generate can cause you to begin redlining on heat before you can kill the target, forcing you to slow your rate of fire, and giving up whatever marginal TTK advantage the SRMs may have had over the AC5.

SRMs: for a weapon system with less than half the range, slower projectile speeds, far lower damage-per-heat efficiency, it needs to have a bigger TTK advantage over the AC5 when the fight starts at 90 meters, and similar investment in tonnage and crit slots are made for both weapon systems.

Even when they fix HSR and hit detection for SRMs, they will still be underpowered. They need to go back to 2.5 damage per missile, and with a tighter spread.

[Damocles69]

i feel that history has shown us that searching for a "Finale Solution" to anything... isnt the greatest plan

[Pht]

Damocles69, on 06 June 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

i feel that history has shown us that searching for a "Finale Solution" to anything... isnt the greatest plan

Is this your finale solution for this thread?

[SilentWolff]

Lykaon, on 02 June 2014 - 03:03 AM, said:

Once again it's not PIN POINT damage that is the problem it's FRONT LOADING damage that causes the mechanics to break down.

This is why nearly no one ever complains about mechs using lasers even multiple group fired lasers.The problems arise when multiple front loading damage weapons are grouped together and fired in one trigger pull to inflict 30+ damage instantly upon impact to a singular location with no defensive recourse available once the shot is fired.

What complaints do we see every day? Day in and day out?

Nearly all of the frequent complaints are directly related to front loaded damage and it's superior effects when interacting with MWo's armor mechanics.

I find that people who say things like "people who cry about it" "quit crying" "LTP" and "play another game" are completley or at least partially ignorant of the issue that is being discussed.

I know you didn't get it because you cited MW3,That if I recall correctly had burst fire autocannons and painfully slow PPC and Gauss projectile speeds without the added accuracy of modern computing and systems like Host State Rewind.
And,when you did get a solid hit with multiple groupfired weapons and got damage to apply to a single location the game broke! That is why the way to go when building a mech for MW3 was multiple lasers (no ammo to waste on all the misses and light weight to pack them into huge weapon groups to blow legs off in singular hits) No idea if you played MW3 in a PvP capacity like I did but believe me a similar issue dominated game play way back then with MW3 we just had the benifit of horrible latency and computing power to draw out the game length.

And MW4? really? you do know that MW4 used a derived armor mechanic that was balanced against newly calculated damage values for every weapon in the game? At it's core the game was designed for the armor values and mechanics to function with the damage values of the weapons present.

MWo just pulled armor mechanics and armor values from the table top game closley derived weapon damage from the table top game and then expected this to survive translation from a turn based tactical table top game to a real time shooter video game with only doubling armor values!

Also no modern computing no Host State Rewind support and here's the kick in teeth MW4 also suffered from a similar issue with groupfired frontloading damage and poptarting in the PvP gameplay.The more balanced armor and damage mechanics coupled with good old latency and old school computers served to lengthen the games a bit but if you connected with those 4-6 Clan ER-Lrg lasers that everyone used when poptarting you would see the game break.

I'm thinking you may not have played MW3 or 4 PvP much or you would remember this crap from back then.

You don't need to learn to play but you do need to examine the issues and see there is a clear and obvious difference between using the meta AC/PPC/jumpjet game and playing anything else.

When there is a clear advantage to using less than 20% of the options and everything else is so far behind it's a handicap to use it there is a mechanics failure.

I highly doubt the intent for this game was to have

AC5s AC10s and AC20
PPC and ER-PPC
ECM
Jumpjets
Artillery and air strikes

as the "LTP" options and everything else the "toys for scrubs"

Its obvious your not a high enough ELO to play with the big boys, because you would be cryin a river about my units use of ERLL's, we dominate people with them. So your point is already null and void.

As far as "all" the complaints you reference, Its just bads who dont understand game mechanics. The game is basically the same game as MW3 and MW4. Yes the armor values are different, but the core game remains the same. Except you can no longer boat weapons, or put weapons in slots they didnt belong, like in MW3. Which compensates for the armor issues you claim to have with in MWO.

Furthermore, its obvious to me you didnt play MW3 or MW4 competitively. I did, for along time, in units that won leagues. I just have a different viewpoint from you on what "breaks" the game and what doesnt.

And I'm sick and tired of the crying about poptarts too. Have you went and watched the last MWO tourney? They didnt poptart. They ran fast mechs with AC's and medium lasers and brawled people to death. Thats the top ELO players. Its a case once again, of poor players failing to adapt to the game mechanics.

Edited by SilentWolff, 06 June 2014 - 02:41 PM.

[Bullseye69]

The majority of my deaths in last couple of months have been to missile damage not a whole lot of deaths to sniping at all.
I would support at least a test of LRM and SRM damage a long the same lines as streaks randomly across the bones of the mech. If this could not be worked out the increase the range and effect that AMS has to negate the death from being hit by multiple mech firing the 40 80 at a target. The tag laser needs a drop in range to me it range should be the max of large laser make the person targeting with it pay a price for using it make the have to take a chance of being damaged while trying to tag someone. Tag also should not work if the mech is say behind a building or hill the LRM should hit were the laser stop IE the side of the building or hill.

As far as PPC and auto cannon and pinpoint maybe the only thing that could do pinpoint is weapons that are in arms. Not really sure on how to stop pop tarts other than don't stand still and keep moving. Your going tohave pop tarts and the way jump jets work now did make it harder to hit while jumping but people will get good at it no matter what is done. As far as dual PPC or Er PPC firing increase the heat affects so that it a person fire the 1 PPC or Er PPC and then fires a secon or 3 before a set time he takes massive heat . So if I fire one PPC I have to wait 5 second before I can fire the second or I take triple heat so in table top terms PPC does 10 heat if I fire a second before time elapsed I take 10 point of heat first one then 20 points of heat for the second one and if I fire a third I taking 30 points of heat plus 20 plus the 10 for a total of 60 points of heat. They also could add in ammo explosion for over heating since your mech is getting so hot a chance of ammo explosion. Maybe add in a longer shutdown time for multiple overheats.
That all I have on the subject but I really think they need to do the LRM and SRM spread damage before the clan comes and also do a tag reduction range nerf or at least try a reduction to a max range of 500 to 600 meters.

Can we also have knockdown or collsion damage put back in tired of the leg humping go on by lights they have no drawback to not humping you mechs legs make them take damage for collision if not knockdown.


Can we please get some more MAPS a new map every 2 months would be nice by my count PGI would owe us at least 6 new maps we need new maps and alt of existing maps. Alpine conquest point s spread them out the center ones to close.

Edited by Bullseye69, 06 June 2014 - 03:38 PM.