1258 replies to this topic

[ReXspec]

PocketAces, on 07 August 2014 - 06:44 AM, said:

<snip>

That solves the issue of close range convergence, but not long range convergence.

The core of the issue is deciding at what ease at which pilots can maintain, and put damage on a point target, and determining what speed of convergence they should have to do so.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, what you're really doing is making convergence available at long ranges, but virtually nil at knife-fighting distances.

Edited by ReXspec, 07 August 2014 - 07:31 AM.

[ReXspec]

Koniving, on 07 August 2014 - 07:19 AM, said:

Nope. The 250 engine is required in MWO currently to have 10 built-in 2.0 heatsinks. Any DHS not built into the engine and added (even if added into a slot on the engine) is 1.4 currently, which after elites will come out to more than 2.0.

All of the following is 10 DHS.
Without elites with MWO's current system.
250 engine
Cooling Rate : 2.00 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 50

200 engine
Cooling Rate : 1.88 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 48.8

150 engine
Cooling Rate : 1.76 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 47.6

---------

Now, Proposal: Again without elites.
30 threshold, all DHS are 2.0...
250 engine
Cooling Rate : 2.0 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 30.

200 engine
Cooling Rate : 2.0 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 30.

150 engine
Cooling Rate : 2.0 heat/sec
Heat Threshold : 30.

See a difference?
(Copy/pasting from the heat simulator causes odd spacing to appear, had to fix 'em.)

Well, it's assumed that the larger the engine, the more heatsinks it's going to be capable of holding, and the more efficiently it is going to be able to contain/disperse heat.

That said, is it really fair (or realistic, for that matter) to put every engine at the same heat threshold and cooling rate? Despite the number of heatsinks (or the type of heatsinks) an engine is capable of holding?


*MASSIVE EDIT*

Okay. I see what you did. You essentially reset DHS to their original values, while upscaling the cooling rate. That is rather clever, but, if you do that, then you also have to scale back the ghost heat emitted from all weapon systems.

Otherwise, 'mechs would constantly shut down. Even with the buffed cooling rate.

Edited by ReXspec, 07 August 2014 - 07:46 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

ReXspec, on 06 August 2014 - 09:00 PM, said:

Neither can a stock Warhawk, but a classic Warhawk was never meant to fire ALL of it's PPC's at once. It was meant to fire them in succession, or put both PPC's on both arms on separate firing groups.

A stock warhawk could alpha strike all it's PPCs. It would be catastrophic, but it could. In this case what I'm saying is that the alpha strike button on the dashboard, doesn't work.

Jungle Rhino, on 07 August 2014 - 03:02 AM, said:

I been playing quite a lot of tabletop BT lately and thinking about the conversion from the turn based game to MWO which is essentially a real time simulation. There are some pretty core game concepts, the vast majority of which PGI have transferred across quite faithfully but there are few things that are missing notably:

Shooting accuracy is a function of a number of things including target speed, range, concealment - all of which are represented reasonably well in MWO. The thing missing is an accuracy penalty for the shooting target moving. In TT stationary mechs have no penalty, walking mechs +1, running mechs +2, jumping mechs +3.

This is a very important concept because it forces you to trade accuracy for mobility. MWO desperately needs a dynamic weapon cone of fire mechanic that brings this trade off to prevent front load damage ruling. If you limit accuracy on the move you increase the amount of exposure time a high FLD build needs to get accurate shots away. No more ridge-tarting or corner shooting with high precision. You can still use these tactics of course but If you want to rock back and forwards out of cover without waiting for your guns to settle you won't be shooting as accurately.

It just seems to make such an enormous amount of sense and I really can't understand why Paul hasn't gone down this route. Or if he has why was it abandoned? The direction that PGI are heading I am very concerned that the 'simulation' is going to be whittled away by all these abstract concepts such as ghost heat that are not intuitive and quite frankly confusing especially for new players.

You've been here since closed beta. How about they just re-implement the scaling convergence they used to have back then?

Karyu, on 07 August 2014 - 03:09 AM, said:

Would it not be much simpler to get rid of the charge mechanic on Gauss and simply totally lock out the ability to fire anything else at the same time with perhaps a .5 second lockout after firing? Then in turn apply the same concept to PPC's, but instead of 1 PPC, if you fire 2 or more (or limit it to 2 max) you have the same lock out. The concept is just as easily justified with the "heavy power draw" explanation. Hell if you wanted to really get interesting, S/M/H mech generators could only be able to handle the draw of firing 1 Gauss, while assaults could handle firing two simultaneously. Again, easily applied to PPC's as well.

Nope. I'm guessing you weren't here when Gauss was the ultimate weapon, because you could hit people at nearly 2K with one click, and if someone got close you have lightning speed 15 points of damage in a brawl. In fact, I remember Gauss was used more for brawling.

The charge mechanic is what's keeping gauss from comboing with every weapon we have right now, and also giving it proper use for it's intended purpose, a sniping weapon. With the charge removed, everyone will be using gauss for brawling again.

ReXspec, on 07 August 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

Okay. I see what you did. You essentially reset DHS to their original values, while upscaling the cooling rate. That is rather clever, but, if you do that, then you also have to scale back the ghost heat emitted from all weapon systems.

Otherwise, 'mechs would constantly shut down. Even with the buffed cooling rate.

Actually, I don't think Ghost heat would need to be implemented at all.
That's a max of 3 standard PPCs fired in one salvo, or 2 ERPPCs. In both cases causing a shut down for a couple of seconds.

Anyone that thinks the system makes ballistics really strong, is beginning to understand how the combat in BT was supposed to go.

You either go with the safe option of ballistics, and sacrifice a lot of tonnage and slots for ammo and guns, while risking ammo explosions ... etc. Or go with the risky option of energy weapons, where you'll be safe from ballistic associated problems, but have to deal with high heat from these massive energy cannons.

Or missiles that are more of the middle ground in terms of slots, heat, and tonnage costs.

[Gorgo7]

ReXspec, on 06 August 2014 - 04:35 PM, said:

Ummm... I use my Dual PPC, Dual Gauss, 5x ER medium laser Dire Wolf all the time... I rarely ever do below six-hundred damage with it.

I love that build, but, as much as I love that build, with the way aiming, pinpoint damage, and convergence are set up now, and without the range and velocity of AC-2s or AC-5s to effectively counter my Dire Wolf at range, that build is absolutely ridiculous.

I would LOVE a re-work to aiming and convergence despite running this build myself. It would present more of a fun, immersive, and interesting challenge in using this build.

Yeah, I hear what you are saying.
An 85 pt Alpha (50 ppd at extreme range) is conducive to 600 pt games. About the same as your armour value...correct?
It isn't out of line damage wise... say, 6 pts per ton of mech. I aim for my armour value as a way of gauging my performance as well.
The above mentioned PPC boat of mine is currently running about 4.85 damage per ton. A little lower than your whales. wolves. whatever. It is useful late game for finishing off survivors.
Last night I got around a DWF (IS vs. Clan, crimson) with a similar build to the one you posted. I was driving my 8Q with 3 ERLlasers and 4 med lasers.
He hit me twice before I cleared his line of fire and killed him with several heavy burns then got the timber wolf who was busy killing one of our lights. Thank god for cool shot.
My point is that it is situational.
The build you posted is nasty, provided you are middle of the firing line, your flanks and rear are secure, you have fixed the enemy....and you have support to keep the meds and lights off of you.
The direwolf has some weak qualities to offset the firepower it brings. Slow. lumbering , poor turn and twist rate and range, impossible to miss.
Reducing PPC spd, complicating the trigger mecanisim, disallowing more than one gauss per build, increasing heat, lighting your farts on fire...none do anything useful for game play.
Leave it as is.

PS Yes i do alpha the PPC's based on circumstances.

Edited by Gorgo7, 07 August 2014 - 08:54 AM.

[Reno Blade]

Imagine the current 2PPC/2AC5 or 2PPC/1-2Gauss builds.
With 30 threshhold and "true" DHS you would just make these builds more efficient.
Higher rate of fire because you cool down faster without limiting the shots at all.

Edit:
If convergence, then only that way:
All shots of torso and head weapons are always parallel.
Arm weapons are also always parallel.
(we still have the two reticules)


If you are in a small or slim mech or have your weapons mounted close together, you will be able to get all your shots onto bigger targets easier, but the weapon hits could be spread depending on size of both mechs.

If you are in a broad or big mech (Atlas, Awesome, Direwolf) with weapons in the arms, you would likely have some shots fly by the side of a smaller target.

Oh this sound bad?
Shoot the weapons when the reticule for the section (e.g. left arm, left torso) is where you want it, then aim to get your other sections' reticule on target and shoot these weapons.

This would increases brawling (reduce sniping alphas), simulates Tabletop range modifiers, adds higher use for medium mechs, removes most of the alpha striking and gives bonus to mechs with multiple hardpoints in the same section.

Edited by Reno Blade, 07 August 2014 - 09:17 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

I didn't want to write here at first but now seeing that slowing down PPC speed is actually in discussion I can't sit still anymore. If you reduce PPC velocity you can also completely negate the speed. Make them shoot backwards that would have the same effect.

Ok, seriously, you would force them to be exclusively brawling weapons, what noone really wants.

I am clearly for that Gauss / PPC system. I propagated this change for a year now so I'm somewhat tired of writing it all down again. Atleast you finally woke up PGI.

As for all these heatpenalties flamers: This is a sim and a sim has complicated systems. Heatpenalties are what MWO needs for balance and such is this change. Even though a rework of the heatsystem with real DHS would be nice.

[IraqiWalker]

Reno Blade, on 07 August 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Imagine the current 2PPC/2AC5 or 2PPC/1-2Gauss builds.
With 30 threshhold and "true" DHS you would just make these builds more efficient.
Higher rate of fire because you cool down faster without limiting the shots at all.

You do know our DHS are far better than TT right now, right?

In fact, most of our DHS average around 2.3 Heat per second.

They only become less efficient once you strap more than 18 DHS in your mech.

With a proper 2.0 heat per second, and a 30 heat threshold (instead of the average 45 -70 our mechs run with), things will be a LOT less efficient compared to right now.

EDIT: also, arms should have one cross-hair, except for builds where one arm is lacking a lower arm actuator.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 07 August 2014 - 09:20 AM.

[Gorgo7]

Reno Blade, on 07 August 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:

Edit:
If convergence, then only that way:
All shots of torso and head weapons are always parallel.
Arm weapons are also always parallel.
(we still have the two reticules)

Love the concept, would argue that arms should converge with CT provided actuators are installed.

Excellent illustration!

[Reno Blade]

Gorgo7, on 07 August 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

Love the concept, would argue that arms should converge with CT provided actuators are installed.

Excellent illustration!

Well, I think that the usual convergence, reticule-bloom and recoil ideas are all lacking something.
They do not change the behaviour of groupfire (in a logical way).
While they could all bloom or lose convergence on alpha striking, how do you expect the shots to shoot?
Random ? Isn't RNG what everyone hates?
Bloom works good for machineguns in typical FPS game, but not for alpha shots in MWO.

So I thought it would be easy to understand and always the same, no RNG, to have fixed crosshairs.

[CharlieChap]

I had an Idea today that I havn't read anywhere and think may be alternate approach to this and 'ghost heat'.

Limit weapons grouping.

Simply don't allow more than 1 GR, PPC or large AC in a weapons group.

Of course this number should be different for smaller weapons so you could have 6 medium lasers, or 2 ac5's for example in a group...it could be tailored and tweaked very easily.

Players would see instantly what was permissible because they would not be able to do it if they tried to group more weapons of certain type than permissable, so it would be visible and transparent pretty instantly without introducing complex new mechanism.

But then surely macro's would allow people to get around this ?....

Introduce a delay between weapons group fire automatically. So that if you hold down all fire buttons simultaneously you would effectively get chain fire between the full groups. (not individual weapons but the groups themselves, this delay could be effected by things like Command Consoles or targeting Computers.)

Its transparent, simple, would gut the pinpoint meta, and you could use it to also get rid of ghost heat in the long term.

Just an idea I had today. Maybe flawed in some way, but its something that I havn't read suggested anywhere (although it could have been ?) and thought it worth posting.

Edited by CharlieChap, 07 August 2014 - 11:55 AM.

[Sandpit]

Aim64C, on 06 August 2014 - 07:02 PM, said:

Convergence is a bit of an issue - but it's also the effective range of the weapons versus the actual range of the weapons.

Most of the short range weapons have such limited ranges that they are more or less useless - even if we were to consider that their role was to be support for use against vehicles or infantry (that are not present in team solaris).

This means that the 'long range' of a Gauss Rifle is more in line with where most players feel comfortable engaging an enemy mech while other weapons require you to push uncomfortably close.

By shifting the range increments to allow mechs to fire much farther on the whole - you end up with weapons like the Gauss' range being more limited by the player's skill or the context of the engagement as opposed to it being an arbitrary programming limitation.

Setting up a bank of small lasers becomes a practical low-burden support weapon that can be called upon in times of need rather than being a "when the hell am I ever going to use that - pile on more ammo!"

Of course, this also means we use our brains when designing the missile weapons so that streaks have their natural role in things.

I also say it to be more inclusive of the other design ideas I've talked about.

Though it essentially describes a different game - it does describe something more like a battletech simulation/emulation as opposed to mindless solaris deathmatches with battletech artwork.

range wouldn't affect the cause of this though. You'd still be getting the same exact damage outputs, just at slightly shorter ranges. You have players now how refuse, can't, won't, don't want to, etc. use cover to cross areas quickly from spot to spot in order to close on the meta builds. Range wouldn't change that. The only thing that changes in that instance is you give Clans more of an advantage, LRMs become the "go to" weapon, and increase the amount of ECM you see on the field.

Convergence really fixes all of that. You're still getting PPD and FLD, no complicated trigger, boating, heat, or other redundant mechanics that don't fix the issue in the first place, and you get a mechanism that pays off for the truly skillful while reducing the number of effective uses for the meta builds and tactics.

[MaChIIInA]

Hey niko, i have what in my opinion is a effective idea for solving the issue with the dire wolf while helping to fix anything that may occur in the future. My proposed solution is to have a static base heat threshhold depending on the weight class and changing heatsinks so that they only affect heat dissipation and no longer increase heat threshhold, for example, light mechs would have a max heat cap of 20 and for each weight class this base value would increase so mediums would have a base of 25, heavies - 30 and assaults - 35.

with a cap of only 35 it would allow a 2 guass 2 ppc build but no longer a 3rd ppc on the dire while having almost no affect on any other mechs in the game and not require any new mechanics to be introduced into the game while also removing the need for ghost heat and also taking into account the heat threshhold skills.

[Sandpit]

ExMaChIIInA, on 07 August 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

Hey niko, i have what in my opinion is a effective idea for solving the issue with the dire wolf while helping to fix anything that may occur in the future. My proposed solution is to have a static base heat threshhold depending on the weight class and changing heatsinks so that they only affect heat dissipation and no longer increase heat threshhold, for example, light mechs would have a max heat cap of 20 and for each weight class this base value would increase so mediums would have a base of 25, heavies - 30 and assaults - 35.

with a cap of only 35 it would allow a 2 guass 2 ppc build but no longer a 3rd ppc on the dire while having almost no affect on any other mechs in the game and not require any new mechanics to be introduced into the game while also removing the need for ghost heat and also taking into account the heat threshhold skills.

this is just another overly complicated system though. That's what most of us are trying to avoid. Complicated = bad.

I just don't see it fixing the issue either. you still have 2 gauss/2PPC build that's still doing the exact same thing as before this particular fix.
Now if a 2PPC+2Gauss mech had
.4 second delay on Gauss lining up as it slowly moves into the spot the player wants to hit
and PPC had a .3 delay while moving, it would be near impossible for players to continuously have perfect convergence every shot unless they and their target are both just standing still, in which case I have no sympathy for either one if they're just standing still out in the open.

[Reno Blade]

Someone can tell how convergence would work with 2Gauss/3PPC builds, 4UAC10 or 2isAC20 builds?

[Sandpit]

Reno Blade, on 07 August 2014 - 01:22 PM, said:

Someone can tell how convergence would work with 2Gauss/3PPC builds, 4UAC10 or 2isAC20 builds?

2 gauss/ 3PPC = even though the weapons are "repeated" their locations are not. So a PPC in the left arm still has to move the reticle into position while the PPC in the right arm has to do the same until they all converge on the exact same spot. You can click the trigger at any time but if you don't wait for the crosshairs to converge, your damage is going to get spread out slightly.

same with
4UAC10
2AC20

even though they're the same weapon, they still have to converge on the same spot. I'm trying to think of how to best illustrate this


L Arm = AC20
R Arm = AC20

Player aims at enemy mech in center of his screen. The crosshairs move into the convergence spot to fire both of those guns at the same location of the enemy mech. There's a .5 second delay (which all of the delay numbers can be adjusted, they're purely for example purposes) in the time you swing your mech's cockpit around to line up the shot and the corsshairs getting into position to converge all of that damage into one location.

Now you can take that shot any time you like, and it will hit exactly where you were aimed, the crosshairs just take a slight delay to move into position as well. So if the enemy mech is slightly to your left, the left hand AC20 would converge faster because it has less distance to travel while the right AC20 would take a split second longer to converge on the same spot.

It doesn't stop PPD or FLD, it just adjusts the time it takes the individual weapon to "catch up" so to speak.

[Reno Blade]

So it is closer to a Flight sim with missile lock (or actual MWO LRM) just not the lock but the convergence.

Sounds a bit like in "Engarde" when Justin Allard tried to lock onto the Rifleman, but the woods made the targeting system unable to and he switched to manual aiming and fired without a "hard lock" of his weapons.

It would definitely help against the twitch-shooting element of these weapons, but it would not help against the power of these builds.
Of course if the convergence is depending on loadout, somehow...
Well, I don't know about the speed, but if we had the 6 reticules mentioned above converging like this, it could work.
Please excuse the bad animation.

[Sandpit]

Reno Blade, on 07 August 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

this pic is perfect to illustrate what I'm talking about.

See how each crosshair moves in order to converge on the same spot?
Now if each ballistic and PPC had the same effect, and moved at different speeds based on size, it would solve most of the FLD and PPD issues. You'd still hit exactly where you're aiming but you'd have to show a little patience and skill to line up ALL of your weapons on the same spot.

lasers wouldn't have a convergence mechanic added to them. They could remain as instant convergence which would help make them more viable against ballistics since they're not FLD. Thank you Reno! I was searching and searching for something that would help me illustrate because I think some (including PGI) are misinterpreting what myself and a few others are saying about convergence delay.

This also requires no additional mechanics or coding as this is already in the system. It has to be in order to aim anything. All that would need to be done is just adjust the speed at which a weapon tracks.

[BARBAR0SSA]

Mazzyplz, on 01 August 2014 - 06:21 PM, said:

DONT reduce the speed of the ppc. it will be impossible hitting light mechs with it, actually stop and think about all the possibilitied before you do it - hard as it may seem

SERIOUSLY!?

Don't slow it because it will be hard to hit the mechs that sit around 7% of the playerbase.....

Maybe it would encourage lights to play and give them a bit longer to live and some more use. Only way I'd change that is if the PPC projectile size was drastically reduced so your aim had to be bang on the legs.


Other than that it solves a lot of boating issues, a chunk of the clan range advantage etc.

[Sandpit]

shad0w4life, on 07 August 2014 - 02:51 PM, said:

Other than that it solves a lot of boating issues, a chunk of the clan range advantage etc.

while simultaneously ruining it for any loadout that DOESN'T boat them. This is actually encouraging players to boat because that's the only way to use it effectively.

[IraqiWalker]

Sandpit, on 07 August 2014 - 01:03 PM, said:

in which case I have no sympathy for either one if they're just standing still out in the open.

Standing out in the open has been the biggest drive for complaints, since most people refuse to understand the concept of cover.

Reno Blade, on 07 August 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

Okay, now THAT! is something I would love to see. Might require too many brain cells for the truly idiotic, but it looks, and feels like how convergence SHOULD work (damaged actuators would slow their arm's convergence speed, if not disable it completely. Making critting a mech an even more important task). This would also allow the current elite skill that boosts convergence, to actually be relevant, and do something, instead of being a 4K XP paperweight.

shad0w4life, on 07 August 2014 - 02:51 PM, said:

SERIOUSLY!?

Don't slow it because it will be hard to hit the mechs that sit around 7% of the playerbase.....

Maybe it would encourage lights to play and give them a bit longer to live and some more use. Only way I'd change that is if the PPC projectile size was drastically reduced so your aim had to be bang on the legs.


Other than that it solves a lot of boating issues, a chunk of the clan range advantage etc.

This is extremely counter-productive. Let's ignore the fact that it violates the lore. I won't care about that very much if it balanced the weapon.

The problems are as follows for your suggestion:

1- It makes this sniping weapon, useless at sniping

2- It makes mechs want to boat it more often, since 1 isn't going to be useful.

3- The weapon is actually already very well balanced. Including the projectile size, basically this "fix" will break it.



These are the 3 main problems with that fix. I don't get the comment about the 7% or lights thing, if you elaborate on that, I would appreciate it.