1258 replies to this topic

[Corbenik]

Why not do the slowdown and remove the charge mechanic from Gauss Rifles ?

[GreyGriffin]

Of course cone of fire is a "skill reduction." Right now, the only skill that matters is marksmanship. That means that the only weapons that are viable are the weapons that reward high degrees of marksmanship. If throttle management, heat management, and 'mech maneuvering approach marksmanship in importance, then we can have a game that is deeper than "jump up, click on enemy when everything stops shaking."

Pinpoint damage is the root cause of literally every weapon nerf, from laser heat back in close beta, to ghost heat, to gauss charging, to autocannon velocity reductions, to gauss weapon group limiting.

How far do we have to go to appease the players who can't handle the idea that a 'mech running at 100 kph does not have pixel perfect accuracy? When can we bring these weapons systems back to intuitive, satisfying gameplay without ten steps of hoop jumping (that can be overcome by a bit of explicitly legal mouseclick scripting) by addressing the mechanic that makes them a problem?

As an aside, the Light 'Mech speed problem can be much more easily addressed once pinpoint damage is out the window. Without having to worry about getting insta-legged, Lights can be much better balanced by engine caps and hardpoint changes that differentiate slow, well armed and equipped lights (Commando, Raven), from light, fast lights (Jenner, Locust). going "only" 90 kph won't be a death sentence.

[S3dition]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 01:58 PM, said:

They are already much harder to hit than an atlas. (1/4th its size and moving 3 times as fast.)



Harder to hit, yes, as they already are. What you are talking about is making a successful hit on this a piece of blind luck.

I do not understand how you can see this as a healthy maneuver, why would I bother taking a long range weapon if now, in addition to adjusting for speed, lead-times, cursor scroll, etc.. I now have to pray that the RNG diety is with me.

Well, I should say, why would I bother taking a long range weapon in anything but a spider or Kitfox.. I can sit at at range with relative impunity because even if my opponent is a crack shot, he has to pray to the RNG gods for a hit on me... That is called "Skill reduction"




Yeah, it heavily punishes snipers and people with a talent for placing their shots accurately, with the the random number generator decided their fate, with a 2-3-4 to-hit MULTIPLIER for smaller mechs.



Well yeah, as I pointed out for Yok.. NONE OF THE OTHER GAMES HAVE TINY LITTLE TARGETS. They have uniform sizes, with uniform speeds so the same Cone of fire effects EVERYONE equally.



I think you and I have a different view of "slightly."

----------------------------------------

I can honestly say, I would drop this game in half a heartbeat if they implement what you suggest. Not only is CoF terrible in general for a game with as many weapon considerations as we have now, it gives monumental advantage to a player simply for the mech they are in.

(Or were you not here when the Raven hit-boxes were broken? That was just a TASTE of RNG applied to this game.)

Again being unable to hit light mechs that are moving fast is not a problem. That is working as intended. Read up on the virtues of the LBX, streaks, and lasers. They dramatically increase your performance vs fast moving lights. They are SUPPOSED to be very hard to hit. That is not an issue.The issue is that mechs hit the same spot too often from outside their maximum effective range. A light mech at 900 meters, even standing still, is going to miss very frequently with this system, so that entire point you made is moot. If they don't close in, they won't be hitting anyone.

I also greatly disagree that it takes skill and talent to hit mechs. I'm not a top tier player and I can easy score hits on light mechs, moving at full speed, near max range, with a PPC. With at least 50% accuracy. THIS IS NOT OKAY. I'm hitting mechs beyond the canon PPC's ability to do any damage with almost no effort. Alpha strikes are dealing far too much pinpoint damage at very long ranges.

My suggested fix will NOT greatly decrease the ability to hit lights. Not unless you think the disance from the an atlas' center torso to its arm is vastly wider than a light mech. Also, that's at 650 meters. I think you need to sit down and do a little trig. A cone, when its origin is approached, becomes more narrow. Ergo, at 200 meters, the total drift is less than 1/3 of the maximum delta. In other words, your hitting a very small spot between the left, center, and right torso of an atlas. If you completely miss a spider with that kind of accuracy, it's your own fault. It's not effecting your ability to hit a mech by any great margin, only your ability to hit a specific component.

Also, making a different cone for each weapon means you can make the GR carry a tighter grouping. Fire 2x ppc and a GR, and they all hit different components. Welcome back, alpha strike. Macros are obsolete, and there is no need for further tom foolery with this "lets add more random resources" business.

Before you try to post yet another rebuttal, consider that the number of successful games using this system already trounce you. It's proven. Words on a forum really aren't going to counter tested success.

Edited by S3dition, 30 July 2014 - 02:54 PM.

[Kithun]

i like a suggestion by milt. have the PPC bolt be a longer "bullet" that will allow the dmg to be spread during a torso twist.

[Livewyr]

GreyGriffin, on 30 July 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

Of course cone of fire is a "skill reduction." Right now, the only skill that matters is marksmanship. That means that the only weapons that are viable are the weapons that reward high degrees of marksmanship. If throttle management, heat management, and 'mech maneuvering approach marksmanship in importance, then we can have a game that is deeper than "jump up, click on enemy when everything stops shaking."

Pinpoint damage is the root cause of literally every weapon nerf, from laser heat back in close beta, to ghost heat, to gauss charging, to autocannon velocity reductions, to gauss weapon group limiting.

How far do we have to go to appease the players who can't handle the idea that a 'mech running at 100 kph does not have pixel perfect accuracy? When can we bring these weapons systems back to intuitive, satisfying gameplay without ten steps of hoop jumping (that can be overcome by a bit of explicitly legal mouseclick scripting) by addressing the mechanic that makes them a problem?

As an aside, the Light 'Mech speed problem can be much more easily addressed once pinpoint damage is out the window. Without having to worry about getting insta-legged, Lights can be much better balanced by engine caps and hardpoint changes that differentiate slow, well armed and equipped lights (Commando, Raven), from light, fast lights (Jenner, Locust). going "only" 90 kph won't be a death sentence.

I used to be on board with changing convergence with movement, but then I learned why they removed adjusted-convergence in the first place:

It was too demanding on the system. Every time the reticule changed, the convergence had to move between point A (where it was) and point B (where it is now) converging on every point in between. That had to happen, every single time anyone moved their reticules (because you have 2).

Take someone moving both of their reticules constantly. Think of those calculations.
Then (at the time) take those calculations and multiply them by 16 per game. (Would now be 24)
Multiply that by how many games are going on at once.

They killed it because it overloaded the server and caused ridiculous rubber-banding and all sorts of server load issues.

Now it is "Where ever the reticules are, those are the convergence points." A tiny fraction of the calculations.

[S3dition]

GreyGriffin, on 30 July 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

Of course cone of fire is a "skill reduction." Right now, the only skill that matters is marksmanship. That means that the only weapons that are viable are the weapons that reward high degrees of marksmanship. If throttle management, heat management, and 'mech maneuvering approach marksmanship in importance, then we can have a game that is deeper than "jump up, click on enemy when everything stops shaking."

Pinpoint damage is the root cause of literally every weapon nerf, from laser heat back in close beta, to ghost heat, to gauss charging, to autocannon velocity reductions, to gauss weapon group limiting.

How far do we have to go to appease the players who can't handle the idea that a 'mech running at 100 kph does not have pixel perfect accuracy? When can we bring these weapons systems back to intuitive, satisfying gameplay without ten steps of hoop jumping (that can be overcome by a bit of explicitly legal mouseclick scripting) by addressing the mechanic that makes them a problem?

As an aside, the Light 'Mech speed problem can be much more easily addressed once pinpoint damage is out the window. Without having to worry about getting insta-legged, Lights can be much better balanced by engine caps and hardpoint changes that differentiate slow, well armed and equipped lights (Commando, Raven), from light, fast lights (Jenner, Locust). going "only" 90 kph won't be a death sentence.

It seems to be an issue of a vocal number of players on the forum running jump sniper or regular sniper builds. They're basically gaming a system that was never, ever intended to be part of battletech, but PGI created because they didn't want any kind of variation in trajectory. Essentially, they made pixel perfect damage, and now they're trying to do everything in their power to nerf pixel perfect damage without actually nerfing pixel perfect damage. People who rely entirely on long range weapons are supporting them because they don't want to have to adopt different tactics.

If PGI really wants to keep perfect trajectory in the game, they need to drop most of the battletech canon and build their own system from scratch. They already had to double the amount of armor and structure because of the insane amount of pinpoint damage in a single alpha and add a charge system to the GR. The PPC had a low projectile velocity early on and they had to increase it to where it is now. Now they're decreasing it again. What has changed to need the decrease? Nothing, really. It's would be usless again and they would have to increase it. As people have been saying, they're attacking the symptoms, not the cause.Making weapons harder to use is not a realistic solution. Firing slower is not the solution - same accuracy, same damage, longer game.

Increasing heat could help, but it punishes people who don't live on meta builds too.

Furthermore, adding some energy pool is ridiculous. That makes it a hybrid of starsiege and battletech.

[GreyGriffin]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

I used to be on board with changing convergence with movement, but then I learned why they removed adjusted-convergence in the first place:

This is why dynamic convergence isn't viable. However, a system of reticle bloom/cone of fire is more than feasible. If weapons "bloomed" outwards from the aimpoint based on movement speed/type (still/walk/run/jump), based around a centerpoint of the selected weapon, you wouldn't need all those extensive serverside calculations based on weapon type, aimpoint, line of sight, and whether or not an allied Spider is photobombing your crosshairs. (If you want a basic idea of how crazy the original idea of dynamic convergence was, check out any article you can find about occlusion in 3d games, it's basically the same problem.)

A random distribution of weapons inside a cone of fire (essentially, a semi random angle of fire) would be even less burdensome, but I don't like the idea of weapons spraying about completely randomly.

[S3dition]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

I used to be on board with changing convergence with movement, but then I learned why they removed adjusted-convergence in the first place:

It was too demanding on the system. Every time the reticule changed, the convergence had to move between point A (where it was) and point B (where it is now) converging on every point in between. That had to happen, every single time anyone moved their reticules (because you have 2).

Take someone moving both of their reticules constantly. Think of those calculations.
Then (at the time) take those calculations and multiply them by 16 per game. (Would now be 24)
Multiply that by how many games are going on at once.

They killed it because it overloaded the server and caused ridiculous rubber-banding and all sorts of server load issues.

Now it is "Where ever the reticules are, those are the convergence points." A tiny fraction of the calculations.

Planetside 2 has 200+ people in a single area with convergence. That trumps 24 pretty soundly. That's not including the 3k or so per continent that are being tracked seamlessly.

Eternal Crusade is planning on doing it with around 1000 players in a single battle space.

It's not an issue of technology.

[Livewyr]

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Again being unable to hit light mechs that are moving fast is not a problem. That is working as intended.

That is called "near invulnerability." Why in hell should anything in this game be invulnerable simply because it exists?

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Read up on the virtues of the LBX, streaks, and lasers. They dramatically increase your performance vs fast moving lights.

With the exception of the larger lasers- all at short range. (That is why I am not arguing about light mechs at short range, they are easy to hit regardless.)

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

They are SUPPOSED to be very hard to hit. That is not an issue.The issue is that mechs hit the same spot too often from outside their maximum effective range. A light mech at 900 meters, even standing still, is going to miss very frequently with this system, so that entire point you made is moot. If they don't close in, they won't be hitting anyone.

A light mech at 900 meters would miss frequently. And would get hit: Never.

Is your goal to turn this into a brawl arena? Might I then recommend Hawken?

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

I also greatly disagree that it takes skill and talent to hit mechs. I'm not a top tier player and I can easy score hits on light mechs, moving at full speed, near max range, with a PPC. With at least 50% accuracy. THIS IS NOT OKAY. I'm hitting mechs beyond the canon PPC's ability to do any damage with almost no effort. Alpha strikes are dealing far too much pinpoint damage at very long ranges.

You disagree that it takes skill and talent to hit mechs. Well, if you truly believe that, how do you think you would do in a duel with Heim, or Schope, or Proton. I like to think of myself as fairly accurate for my 15" 1024x768 screen, but those gents are borderline hackers. (Yes... yes.. shameless plug...) I have every confidence that you would be shredded by any of them, and it would be a result of them being able to aim accurately and more quickly than you.
Now Accuracy skill shameless plug aside:
You are trying to apply the RNG firing mechanics of a turn-based game where mech size does not matter... and apply it to a very fast paced, multiple ranged, real time game.

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

My suggested fix will NOT greatly decrease the ability to hit lights. Not unless you think the disance from the an atlas' center torso to its arm is vastly wider than a light mech.

A: This is not what you said before. (You said Distance between arms.)
B: Actually, yes, the distance between an Atlas' center and the the end of its arm IS slightly wider than a spider.

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Also, that's at 650 meters. I think you need to sit down and do a little trig. A cone, when its origin is approached, becomes more narrow. Ergo, at 200 meters, the total drift is less than 1/3 of the maximum delta. In other words, your hitting a very small spot between the left, center, and right torso of an atlas. If you completely miss a spider with that kind of accuracy, it's your own fault. It's not effecting your ability to hit a mech by any great margin, only your ability to hit a specific component.

So you are trying to turn this into Solaris Brawl Arena..

Hawken is that way.

I would like to use a long range play-style as well, and I would like to think my accuracy means something. If you would like, I could post several videos of myself prosecuting nearly an entire game from over 1000 meters, and I enjoy that thoroughly.

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Also, making a different cone for each weapon means you can make the GR carry a tighter grouping. Fire 2x ppc and a GR, and they all hit different components. Welcome back, alpha strike. Macros are obsolete, and there is no need for further tom foolery with this "lets add more random resources" business.

Could you clarify on this?

It sounds like you just eliminate weapons which have larger Cones of Fire.

S3dition, on 30 July 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Before you try to post yet another rebuttal, consider that the number of successful games using this system already trounce you. It's proven. Words on a forum really aren't going to counter tested success.

Oh really? Send me a link to a game that uses this system where you are talking about, while using between 2 and 16 weapons, with different ranges, traveling at different speeds (both weapon projectile and character), with completely different weapon mechanics- Simultaneously.(Means: "All at the same exact time.")

I am trounced by.. What?


I am going to go shoot things, I am losing my patience and it is starting to show.

[Jakob Knight]

This is, unfortunately, a continuation of a problem that has been in MWO for some time. That problem is the attitude of the Devs that this is an arena game where all mechs must be equal, and all weapons must be equal to all other weapons at all ranges, and that all players should fight the same way.

This sort of change to a weapon system happens every time a weapon or combination of weapons proves successful, and so it must be reduced to make it less successful. This in turn results in a new weapon or combination of weapons becoming more successful than the others, and that must also, then be reduced to allow still other weapons to become effective, which then requires those weapons to be reduced. This is the idea the Devs have for 'balance'.

But, what so many players fail to realize, and what the Devs are not remembering, is that this is all the results of players adapting to the changes they implement and finding ways to take advantage of the new way of doing things.

The charge mechanic on the Gauss Rifle was intended to de-synch it from the ERPPCs and other weapons. What did the playerbase do? Develop a technique and/or macros/programs to still let it be synched. Ghost Heat was put in to restrict high-alpha builds. What did the playerbase do? Went to tactics and weapons that minimized Ghost Heat's impact (pop-tarting and the use of ballistic weapons). Autocannons had their range cut and ROF adjusted to reduce their effectiveness. What did the players do? Went with the weapons that hadn't had their weapons range reduced.

Every time a weapon is knocked down, the playerbase with go with whatever is the next 'top weapon'. Whenever a system is put into place to reduce a set weapons' configuration, the players will find other weapons to fill the gap or find ways around the system, even if they have to have their computers do it for them or hack the game. It's always going to be this way, and trying to constantly change the game to try to cover every dynamic possible only leads to another dynamic that is seen as 'too powerful' and needs to be changed, in an unending process of downward effectiveness until the game reaches the point that nothing works.

Further, trying to make the game such that only brawling combat is viable is also an effort that will ultimately destroy MWO. Range mechs must have the ability to destroy a brawling mech at range, or there is no point in anything like tactics beyond 'charge the enemy'. At the same time, ranged mechs that end up with a brawler getting into close combat must also face real destruction, or battles will be nothing more than hide-and snipe battles. Right now, we have that good balance. A ranged mech can destroy a brawling mech that does not carefully plan out it's approach, and the brawling mech that gains the ranged mech's position usually destroys the ranged mech. Striving to eliminate the ability of ranged mechs to seriously damage or destroy a mech -at- range would lead to yet another imbalance to correct as the game dissolves into 'rock-em, sock-em robots', which is -not- Mechwarrior.

So.

I think the current proposals are simply the wrong approach. Rather than reduce the GR/PPC combination, they should enhance the other weapons in the game to make them -as- effective. Bring up the damage of lasers. Let LRMs fired in line-of-sight travel much, much faster. Make other weapons combinations as dangerous as these weapons are, rather than a continuous downslide of knocking down whatever weapon or combination of weapons has been put at the top by the Dev's own prior reductions on other systems.

Failing that, simply acknowledge that both the Gauss Rifle and PPCs are supposed to be the most powerful weapons of their class in the Mechwarrior universe, and both pay for that status. Any time you are facing them, you -should- realize you face quick destruction. The Gauss Rifle is the heaviest projectile weapon with the longest charging time in the game, while the PPCs are the hottest-running and heaviest energy weapon in the game (to the point that a mech that originally was supposed to be able to fire it's PPCs continuously without heat buildup cannot do so in MWO, and even stock mechs like the AWS have been purposely crippled by the Devs by this). In the original material, a single PPC or Gauss Rifle could kill an enemy mech of any size with a single shot, so why these weapons would be considered any different in MWO is mystifying.

However, if, after all I have said, the Devs are still set to yet again punish success, then I would have to say the staggered charging mechanism on mechs mounting both GRs and PPCs (and -only- on such mechs, not mechs that might mount multiples of either single weapon system) would be the least unbalancing to the game. The idea of reducing the PPC travel time would hurt -all- PPC use, not just the combination that is claimed to be the target of this measure, and PPCs are already much reduced from what they are supposed to be. Therefore, implementing a reduction in the PPC's projectile speed, especially when it is supposed to be a -beam- like a laser, would be the more disruptive and negative to the game, and the staggered firing system of the first option is the one most likely to address the stated problem.

If, however, the idea of reducing the projectile speed is the one firmly set by some Dev with personal control over the game, I would recommend strongly that it be the -Gauss Rifle- projectile that is reduced. Other projectile weapons already have a low projectile speed, and in addition to being more in-line with its weapons class, it would curtail finding other weapons combinations to use with this weapon (and it is the GR projectile causing most of the penetrating damage here). I don't necessarily believe this would be best, as the GR already has a charging mechanic as it's version of the ERPPC's Ghost Heat mechanic, but if one of these weapons must be reduced in projectile speed, the one actually firing a projectile makes the most sense for a reduced speed.

But I still think the Devs should simply quit trying to punish what works to make it equal to what doesn't.

My two cents.

[Livewyr]

GreyGriffin, on 30 July 2014 - 03:13 PM, said:

This is why dynamic convergence isn't viable. However, a system of reticle bloom/cone of fire is more than feasible. If weapons "bloomed" outwards from the aimpoint based on movement speed/type (still/walk/run/jump), based around a centerpoint of the selected weapon, you wouldn't need all those extensive serverside calculations based on weapon type, aimpoint, line of sight, and whether or not an allied Spider is photobombing your crosshairs. (If you want a basic idea of how crazy the original idea of dynamic convergence was, check out any article you can find about occlusion in 3d games, it's basically the same problem.)

A random distribution of weapons inside a cone of fire (essentially, a semi random angle of fire) would be even less burdensome, but I don't like the idea of weapons spraying about completely randomly.

That sounds a little better than straight cone of fire, but I can see a big issue:
If moving causes accuracy loss, and sitting still maintains perfect or near perfect accuracy, would that not promote camping? (Being entrenched means you can shoot them accurately while they move to you.)

It does not support aggressive action.

[Aiden Skye]

I perfer the 1st idea of the Gauss being a charging weapon and the PPC a heavy draw weapon.
I rather not see PPC speed nerfed that much. Not everyone that uses PPC's is interested in meta.

[Mystere]

Wintersdark, on 30 July 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

You do understand that reticule bloom *is* cone of fire, right? The idea is an expanding cone of fire based on circumstance.

As to your second post: Yes, PGI could totally botch it, but that applies to everything.

However, if you're using the concepts in my post, it's a net buff to lights and brawlers. Most lights are using short range weaponry. At short ranges, a couple degrees of CoF is irrelevant, particularly when firing at a large target. Lights engaging at long ranges can slow to 75%speed and fire with pinpoint accuracy (most tend to slow/stop for long range sniping anyways), slowing when you're at 600+m isn't a death sentence. Particularly as mechs in this situation tend to be peeking out of cover anyways.

But a small light at range? Practically impossible to hit if the firing mech has any CoF - so he'd need to slow, aim carefully, be on the ground and at moderate or lower heat. Vulnerable.

This all makes sniping every bit as dangerous. You CAN land distant, pinpoint shots. But you need to be vulnerable to do it. You can't do it while running at top speed, etc, etc.

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 01:58 PM, said:

I can honestly say, I would drop this game in half a heartbeat if they implement what you suggest. Not only is CoF terrible in general for a game with as many weapon considerations as we have now, it gives monumental advantage to a player simply for the mech they are in.

GreyGriffin, on 30 July 2014 - 02:35 PM, said:

Pinpoint damage is the root cause of literally every weapon nerf, from laser heat back in close beta, to ghost heat, to gauss charging, to autocannon velocity reductions, to gauss weapon group limiting.

How far do we have to go to appease the players who can't handle the idea that a 'mech running at 100 kph does not have pixel perfect accuracy? When can we bring these weapons systems back to intuitive, satisfying gameplay without ten steps of hoop jumping (that can be overcome by a bit of explicitly legal mouseclick scripting) by addressing the mechanic that makes them a problem?

Frankly, I've now reached a point in which I think the concept of CEP, or something more appropriate, should be applied for ballistic weapons.

As for laser weapons, things might be a bit more problematic given that they are not even in real-life deployment right now.

Edited by Mystere, 30 July 2014 - 03:54 PM.

[Mystere]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

I used to be on board with changing convergence with movement, but then I learned why they removed adjusted-convergence in the first place:

It was too demanding on the system. Every time the reticule changed, the convergence had to move between point A (where it was) and point B (where it is now) converging on every point in between. That had to happen, every single time anyone moved their reticules (because you have 2).

Take someone moving both of their reticules constantly. Think of those calculations.
Then (at the time) take those calculations and multiply them by 16 per game. (Would now be 24)
Multiply that by how many games are going on at once.

They killed it because it overloaded the server and caused ridiculous rubber-banding and all sorts of server load issues.

Now it is "Where ever the reticules are, those are the convergence points." A tiny fraction of the calculations.

My solution to this is to get rid of automatic convergence entirely. Make weapons fire straight, forcing the player to aim his shots relative to the reticule. Give left and right arms their own reticules.

If that is too much to stomach, then make convergence fixed to a certain distance while at the same time allowing for manual adjustment of that convergence distance.

[Hellcat420]

Mystere, on 30 July 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

As for laser weapons, things might be a bit more problematic given that they are not even in real-life deployment right now.

except that the navy has had laser weapons deployed for about a year now on a couple ships, and the air force has had large laser weapons deployed on 747's( for anti icbm purposes) for a number of years. hell even the army has some "defensive" laser weapons deployed on humvees.

Edited by Hellcat420, 30 July 2014 - 04:18 PM.

[S3dition]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

That is called "near invulnerability." Why in hell should anything in this game be invulnerable simply because it exists?



With the exception of the larger lasers- all at short range. (That is why I am not arguing about light mechs at short range, they are easy to hit regardless.)



A light mech at 900 meters would miss frequently. And would get hit: Never.

Is your goal to turn this into a brawl arena? Might I then recommend Hawken?



You disagree that it takes skill and talent to hit mechs. Well, if you truly believe that, how do you think you would do in a duel with Heim, or Schope, or Proton. I like to think of myself as fairly accurate for my 15" 1024x768 screen, but those gents are borderline hackers. (Yes... yes.. shameless plug...) I have every confidence that you would be shredded by any of them, and it would be a result of them being able to aim accurately and more quickly than you.
Now Accuracy skill shameless plug aside:
You are trying to apply the RNG firing mechanics of a turn-based game where mech size does not matter... and apply it to a very fast paced, multiple ranged, real time game.



A: This is not what you said before. (You said Distance between arms.)
B: Actually, yes, the distance between an Atlas' center and the the end of its arm IS slightly wider than a spider.



So you are trying to turn this into Solaris Brawl Arena..

Hawken is that way.

I would like to use a long range play-style as well, and I would like to think my accuracy means something. If you would like, I could post several videos of myself prosecuting nearly an entire game from over 1000 meters, and I enjoy that thoroughly.



Could you clarify on this?

It sounds like you just eliminate weapons which have larger Cones of Fire.



Oh really? Send me a link to a game that uses this system where you are talking about, while using between 2 and 16 weapons, with different ranges, traveling at different speeds (both weapon projectile and character), with completely different weapon mechanics- Simultaneously.(Means: "All at the same exact time.")

I am trounced by.. What?


I am going to go shoot things, I am losing my patience and it is starting to show.

You need to re-read my posts for comprehension. I explain why there is a difference in cone size.

I already gave you 2 examples of games using multiple weapons with multiple cones, with thousands of players. Re-read my post for comprehension.
Discussion end.

Edited by S3dition, 30 July 2014 - 04:22 PM.

[Mystere]

Hellcat420, on 30 July 2014 - 04:15 PM, said:

except that the navy has had laser weapons deployed for about a year now on a couple ships, and the air force has had large laser weapons deployed on 747's( for anti icbm purposes) for a number of years. hell even the army has some "defensive" laser weapons deployed on humvees.

But are they being used or have been used en masse in real combat? Because that is how their real-life performance can be measured.

[Hellcat420]

Mystere, on 30 July 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

But are they being used or have been used en masse in real combat? Because that is how their real-life performance can be measured.

that is the whole point of field testing in a combat zone. the airforce 747 laser planes have been in use for a long time, the army humvee lasers i first saw about them being field tested in iraq about 7 years ago. the navy ones i first read about approximatly 2 years ago. and keep in mind none of these things are first generation laser weapons., and the general public does not usually get to know about advanced tech until they are ready to replace it with new stuff.

Edited by Hellcat420, 30 July 2014 - 04:32 PM.

[Mystere]

Hellcat420, on 30 July 2014 - 04:25 PM, said:

that is the whole point of field testing in a combat zone.

Field Testing Performance <> Massed Combat Deployment Performance

I'm sure you have heard of something called the M-16.

But we're now getting off topic ...

Edited by Mystere, 30 July 2014 - 04:33 PM.

[GreyGriffin]

Livewyr, on 30 July 2014 - 03:30 PM, said:

If moving causes accuracy loss, and sitting still maintains perfect or near perfect accuracy, would that not promote camping? (Being entrenched means you can shoot them accurately while they move to you.)

It does not support aggressive action.

First of all, current mechanics promote camping, but for the opposite reason. Rather than taking up a defensible position, 'mechs are afraid to advance across even modestly open terrain, because a meta alpha hitting them in a single component is basically game over for anything below 65 tons, and that shot is possible from nearly a kilometer away.

Second, a dynamic cone of fire would actually bring a cost to sniping tactics, requiring the 'mech to remain stationary or at low throttle to have near pinpoint convergence. Hill humpers and corner peekers would have to spend valuable seconds exposed to pull off that clinch shot, allowing enemies on the advance to effect (less accurate) return fire. Or they could sacrifice accuracy for minimum exposure time via jump sniping or immediately throttling reverse.

Making these decisions (stay stationary or run? Break cover to move closer or stay?) should be much more meaningful than they are now. At the moment there are a fixed set of optimal options (mount PPC/gauss, stay well away, hill/corner hump), and the ability for 'mechs to get picked apart component by component at extreme range is the culprit.

Now... the second half of the equation of long-ranged combat is a full-on revamp of information warfare, sensors, and scouting, but that's another pretty big bogeyman.