79 replies to this topic

[Boris The Spider]

You don't need multiple target reticules for this to work, for torso mounted weapons the deviation of the shot is measured in feet, its enough to make torso mounted weapons de-sync with arm mounted weapons and ensure that they almost always hit different components. On some mechs it would just become a quirk that you would get used to, so the Hunchback, you know that your shot is going to land just up and right of the + by a couple of feet, the Battlemaster, you know that they are going to hit the L+R torso of an enemy when fired dead centre, that sort of thing. De-converging torso weapons will not make you miss your target, ever! (unless you are trying to shoot his AMS off) If you want pin-point precision out of your weapons, just ensure they are mounted on articulated sections of the mech... or you have a targeting computer and are spending the extra tonnes and criticals to represent the internal articulation required.

As for the arm mounted weapons, for articulated arms, no change is needed, perhaps the o could start expanded and contract as the convergence calculates to target. For unarticulated arm weapons, replace the o with a moving > < which indicates your range to perfect convergence. So at your weapons optimal range they would appear as >< … the only mech I can think of, off the top of my head that should need any more reticules is the Victor, which, on two variants, should not be able to move its right arm left and right.

This has been needed since closed beta, and we have had a string of band aid nerfs aimed at specific mech chassis and load-outs thrown into the mix for the last two years that have never really got to route of the problem and always ended up nerfing things that were never intended to be nerfed. Starting with the Gauss Rifle fragility to counter the Gauss Cat, then Ghost Heat to counter boating, such as the 2xAC20 Jagger, then Gauss Rifle charge to counter Gauss+PPC combo, then the hill climb nerf to counter hill-humping, high mounted unarticulated weapon mounts, then the Jump-Jet shake and range decreases/ammo decreases/damage decreases on ballistic weapons. Its a massive list, but not exhaustive, I'm sure I have missed some. But every single time it was to nerf a specific build/combination that would not have been possible/overpowered without convergence on unarticulated hard-points.

And finally, my favourite reason to remove convergence on unarticulated hard-points. The critical tax! Currently, the mechs that should be able to pinpoint with their arms (mostly the humanoid designs) are paying between 2 and 4 critical tax to be able to shoot into the mountainside in front of them more effectively! Bring this in, and it rebalances all the low slung weapon mounts by allowing them to pinpoint at any range, so they become slight less of a liability.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 27 June 2014 - 08:33 AM.

[Mercules]

Boris The Spider, on 27 June 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

This has been needed since closed beta, and we have had a string of band aid nerfs aimed at specific mech chassis and load-outs thrown into the mix for the last two years that have never really got to route of the problem and always ended up nerfing things that were never intended to be nerfed. Starting with the Gauss Rifle fragility to counter the Gauss Cat, then Ghost Heat to counter boating, such as the 2xAC20 Jagger, then Gauss Rifle charge to counter Gauss+PPC combo, then the hill climb nerf to counter hill-humping, high mounted unarticulated weapon mounts, then the Jump-Jet shake and range decreases/ammo decreases/damage decreases on ballistic weapons. Its a massive list, but not exhaustive, I'm sure I have missed some. But every single time it was to nerf a specific build/combination that would not have been possible/overpowered without convergence on unarticulated hard-points.

You forgot Ghost Heat, one the most hated changes, to counteract 4-6 PPC, 2 AC20, and similar builds.

[Boris The Spider]

Its in there Merc but to address the 6 PPC Stalker. Removing free convergance would allow it to only hit with 4 at most simultaniously on a single component, and then only at a narrow range band.. an expert Stalker pilot would probably learn that they can hit with 3 on each side, just to the right or left of the reticule within another closer range band where the torso and arms converge.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 27 June 2014 - 08:26 AM.

[Roland]

Honestly, part of the issue was introduced by the ability to lock arms to the torso.
It was intended to help new players, but in general it's just used by expert players, toggling it on and off as needed. It's really not a good feature and should be removed from the game.. especially how the lock is essentially instantaneous when you toggle it and it just snaps everything together.

And then, even with it removed, that ends up giving mechs with no lower arm actuators something of an advantage in that their weapons are always effectively locked to the torso reticle at least in the horizontal plane.

[Boris The Spider]

Indeed Roland, its both a liability to new players when they get circle strafed and increases the power of custom builds that are designed to exploit arm lock to group torso and arm weapons... in effect, its had the opposite effect to what was intended and should have gone a long time ago.

The difference between torso and arm mounted weapons becomes apparent to any player the first time they fire their guns without arm-lock!

Edited by Boris The Spider, 27 June 2014 - 08:25 AM.

[Roland]

The whole reason they introduced it, I believe, is that with new players you'd see them flailing around with their arm reticle at the very edge of their screen, not really realizing where it was or that they were shooting into the ground... you saw it most often with bad atlas pilots trying to deal with light mechs killing them.

A better solution to this problem would have been to just increase the visual indication that the reticle was at the edge. There already is one, in that you get a little line going from the torso reticle to the arm one, but the coloring (especially in IS mechs) made it less visible.

Another option would have been to limit the movement range of the arms when they are locked, so that the arm reticle couldn't go to the very edge of the screen... but not actually lock it to the torso reticle. This also would have eliminated the problem of new players losing their reticle of the screen.

Unfortunately, I do not expect PGI to revert this change.

[Gas Guzzler]

Fitzbattleaxe, on 26 June 2014 - 05:43 PM, said:

A is a good point, and I can't comment on C as I frankly don't care enough to test. B is half right, in that if you *aren't* moving against the sky as a background, then depending on the position of the person firing at you, the error in the convergence can be pretty negligible.

Actually, it makes a substantial difference. If you are jump "sniping" a moving target, unless its like a Dire Wolf, you will most certainly see the effects here. I almost always see at least 2 components take damage, even if I am just firing 2 PPCs. Happens all the time, UNLESS the target is either coming straight towards me or away from me or just standing still. In either of these cases though, some jock in a Stormcrow could lay a 57 pt laser alpha to you CT which is far more deadly then the 30-35 pts we are talking about here.

Heck, here is a fun anecdote (because we all love anecdotes here). One time I went to aim for an enemy (next to another enemy) with my arm mounted PPCs in a Jester. I missed pretty badly and ended up firing aimed at the terrain behind and in between them, and each PPC landed a kill shot (1 PPC hit the one I meant to shoot at, the other hit the other guy, and they both happened to be weak enough to die to it). I was floored, wish I was recording. No skill on my part, but goes to show you how "perfect" convergence actually is.

[Gas Guzzler]

Roland, on 27 June 2014 - 05:12 AM, said:

The other possibility here is to implement the same basic system as Star Citizen's reticle, where you can actually see where the different weapons are aiming and can see them converge. And since they're also using the Cryengine, it's obviously possible. They're basically dealing with the same problem that MWO is trying to deal with.

From the video of star citizen I watched it looks like as soon as you line up your reticle on target your guns auto lead and auto hit. Seemed pretty weak to me.

[Mercules]

Boris The Spider, on 27 June 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

Its in there Merc but to address the 6 PPC Stalker. Removing free convergance would allow it to only hit with 4 at most simultaniously on a single component, and then only at a narrow range band.. an expert Stalker pilot would probably learn that they can hit with 3 on each side, just to the right or left of the reticule within another closer range band where the torso and arms converge.

You know... I read it but it was at the beginning of the list so I forgot I had checked it off.

[AlexEss]

guesswork should always be kept to the bare minimum and having no visual indicators where your torso mounted weapons go will be... problematic seeing how the exact height and position differ greatly, while mechs such as the HBK and the shawk or the Jaggy are fairly easy to get to grips with as you actually see the barrel from time to time. The wais mounted ones are a bit trickier.

Now if i did not think it would be entirely pointless with the size of our current playerbase i´d argue for a "sim-mode" as i said.. those who are familiar with Warthunder will understand this. But in short it is for those 2-3% who are only happy when the game is flogging them bloody. There they are enough... here they are too few.

[RetroActive]

Oh Yay.....this thread again.

[Roland]

Gas Guzzler, on 27 June 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

From the video of star citizen I watched it looks like as soon as you line up your reticle on target your guns auto lead and auto hit. Seemed pretty weak to me.

Certain aspects of it could certainly be removed. In SC, the overall gameplay is a good deal different since you're flying around in space.

However, the system itself actually models some pretty complex stuff.

You put your reticle where you want the guns to hit. If it's on a targeted ship, then the gimbaled weapons (Class 2 and above) will then move to try and hit it while you are holding your reticle over the ship. As you say, currently they will adjust for travel time as well, although this leading is not at all guaranteed to hit (since they can't predict where the ship will actually be, only where it will be if it does not turn).

The movement of the gimbaled weapons is not instantaneous though. The speed at which they move the weapons into a firing position is dependent upon many things, including stuff like how much power is being devoted to your weapons systems. This has some interesting effects, including how long it takes for the weapons to truly converge, as well as having them not converge at all if you've overloaded the power load on the ship.

A lot of these ideas could potentially be incorporated into MWO's targeting system.

[Boris The Spider]

AlexEss, on 27 June 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

guesswork should always be kept to the bare minimum and having no visual indicators where your torso mounted weapons go will be... problematic seeing how the exact height and position differ greatly, while mechs such as the HBK and the shawk or the Jaggy are fairly easy to get to grips with as you actually see the barrel from time to time. The wais mounted ones are a bit trickier.

Now if i did not think it would be entirely pointless with the size of our current playerbase i´d argue for a "sim-mode" as i said.. those who are familiar with Warthunder will understand this. But in short it is for those 2-3% who are only happy when the game is flogging them bloody. There they are enough... here they are too few.

There would be no guesswork at all on weapons on the arms, and the the amount that the torso weapons would deviate from the centre cross wouldn’t be huge, it would be a few feet. Its not, in my opinion enough to even concern a newer player and they would benefit more from increased 'Time to Kill' than they would lose from the increased learning curve involved in getting the best possible performance out of each chassis. The only players who would really see any change are the the existing ones who are used to/reliant on shells coming out of guns at 15^o angles to make perfect strikes.

[GroovYChickeN]

le sigh.... This again....

Not that it will help but yes convergence is needed. No it will not break the game. As said many time before almost any game worth it's weight has some form of convergence/cone of fire/randomization involved with the calculation of how a weapon shoots.

But nothing will come of this and instant convergence will continue.

Edited by GroovYChickeN, 27 June 2014 - 09:50 AM.

[Blacksoul1987]

I said you guys need to deal with over under weapons or you accomplish nothing stop ignoring the issue.
HGN-732

Edited by Blacksoul1987, 27 June 2014 - 12:13 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Anything like a total overhaul of a core game mechanic is probably not going to happen, no matter how much merit the OP's suggestion carries.

[Roland]

Another potential solution, which would be fairly easy to implement (and thus doable in the short term) would be to simply implement a firing system similar to what Chromehounds had.

When you fired weapons, they never fired at exactly the same time. There would be a very small delay between each shot. Not as long as the current chainfire delay... only a few milliseconds. But such a delay would be enough to create some small damage spread (especially if you implemented weapons recoil). Especially when firing very large groups of small weapons (like 12 small lasers or something).

It would still make everything hit exactly where you were aiming when it fired, thus not introducing any kind of randomization, but would help to address the large issue which is that MWO lets you duct-tape multiple weapons together to create single super-weapons.

[Blacksoul1987]

Roland, on 27 June 2014 - 12:14 PM, said:

Another potential solution, which would be fairly easy to implement (and thus doable in the short term) would be to simply implement a firing system similar to what Chromehounds had.

When you fired weapons, they never fired at exactly the same time. There would be a very small delay between each shot. Not as long as the current chainfire delay... only a few milliseconds. But such a delay would be enough to create some small damage spread (especially if you implemented weapons recoil). Especially when firing very large groups of small weapons (like 12 small lasers or something).

It would still make everything hit exactly where you were aiming when it fired, thus not introducing any kind of randomization, but would help to address the large issue which is that MWO lets you duct-tape multiple weapons together to create single super-weapons.

now this system could work as it would even deal with the highlander I posted above.

[Roland]

Blacksoul1987, on 27 June 2014 - 12:19 PM, said:

now this system could work as it would even deal with the highlander I posted above.

Yeah, it pretty much deals with all of the convergence problems, although it would be quite subtle in its effect.. It certainly wouldn't suddenly result in huge spreads of damage. And talented pilots could largely counteract its effects through gunnery skill.

With weapons recoil added in, then you start getting some very interesting effects. In Chromehounds it resulted in a need to actually place weapons in specific locations and order their firing in order to have their recoil balance each other out, to try and achieve tighter shot groupings.

[Blacksoul1987]

Roland, on 27 June 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

Yeah, it pretty much deals with all of the convergence problems, although it would be quite subtle in its effect.. It certainly wouldn't suddenly result in huge spreads of damage. And talented pilots could largely counteract its effects through gunnery skill.

With weapons recoil added in, then you start getting some very interesting effects. In Chromehounds it resulted in a need to actually place weapons in specific locations and order their firing in order to have their recoil balance each other out, to try and achieve tighter shot groupings.

i'm ok with someone being able to counteract it with skill my wish is to increase the skill cap in this game and the cof mechanics would lower it, and removing convergence would have very little effect and more likely to damage mechs that are already bad. We don't need RNG to simulate what can be accomplished with good physics. and dynamic precision is used in FPS to create more positional skill because users have no limits on turn rate or acceleration, without dynamic precision you could ADADADADADAD spam all day and still hit your mark. but I don't feel it is needed because our assaults are already slow and lumbering already and positioning is already very important in this game especially for assaults, though you could argue that poptarts shouldn't be so accurate.