1263 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Livewyr, on 31 July 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

That is something I think they should definitely have:

Reticule Sway according to speed. Something mechanical that is entirely manageable without being prone to divine RNG intervention!

Heck my cockpit is bouncing up and down, why not have a little play in the reticule.. (still PP because of the silliness that would ensure trying to change it, but at least you would not be sniping 1000 meters at 100 kph...)

Koniving suggests this, and I agree.

Basically, causing the FPV reticule to move exactly as the TPV reticule moves with your mechs' motion.

[Malleus011]

Most of the folks I see who dislike a cone-of-fire seem to be assuming the worst case scenarios - that if you move, you can't hit the broad side of an Atlas, or if you're a light, your CoF is gigantic because you're moving so fast.

If you look at other games that use this system, those things aren't necessarily true. It depends on the size of the CoF, and how it's modified and implemented. World o' Tanks (among other games) uses CoF, and it still manages to be a skill game somehow.

Imagine if an Atlas moving at full speed had the same sized CoF as a Jenner moving at full speed. Imagine that your moving CoF at full effective PPC range was the size of an Orion's torso. Would it be hard to snipe a single location at maximum range while moving? Oh heck yah. Your CoF would be bigger than the entire 'mech. Am I OK with that? Oh yes. You want to snipe? Stop moving, sit still, and you'll probably get hits - but not land your entire Alpha on a single pixel. That seems reasonable and fair, and doesn't take skill out - you'll still need to aim, lead, manage throttle, etc. But it means that a Dire Wolf that just trucked around the corner probably can't alpha your right torso off in a single shot - since he's moving, he'll have a CoF. Most of his shots will probably hit at close range, but they'll scatter *some* - not enough to miss if he's a good shot, but enough to hurt.

Of course, if he's *really* skilled, he'll be smart, wait for you to spray fire all over his armor, slow down, and choose his shot carefully in marksmanlike fashion.

You're thinking the CoF advocate wants you spraying assault rifle rounds all over the landscape. That's not what we're suggesting. We're just suggesting that running and jumping at 80KPH in a giant robot might not be able to land gunfire from four different locations on exactly the same spot while leaping through the air.

[Wintersdark]

Fire is still pinpoint to the reticule, but you need either timing or to slow down for good accuracy.

Malleus011, on 01 August 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Most of the folks I see who dislike a cone-of-fire seem to be assuming the worst case scenarios - that if you move, you can't hit the broad side of an Atlas, or if you're a light, your CoF is gigantic because you're moving so fast.

If you look at other games that use this system, those things aren't necessarily true. It depends on the size of the CoF, and how it's modified and implemented. World o' Tanks (among other games) uses CoF, and it still manages to be a skill game somehow.

Imagine if an Atlas moving at full speed had the same sized CoF as a Jenner moving at full speed. Imagine that your moving CoF at full effective PPC range was the size of an Orion's torso. Would it be hard to snipe a single location at maximum range while moving? Oh heck yah. Your CoF would be bigger than the entire 'mech. Am I OK with that? Oh yes. You want to snipe? Stop moving, sit still, and you'll probably get hits - but not land your entire Alpha on a single pixel. That seems reasonable and fair, and doesn't take skill out - you'll still need to aim, lead, manage throttle, etc. But it means that a Dire Wolf that just trucked around the corner probably can't alpha your right torso off in a single shot - since he's moving, he'll have a CoF. Most of his shots will probably hit at close range, but they'll scatter *some* - not enough to miss if he's a good shot, but enough to hurt.

Of course, if he's *really* skilled, he'll be smart, wait for you to spray fire all over his armor, slow down, and choose his shot carefully in marksmanlike fashion.

You're thinking the CoF advocate wants you spraying assault rifle rounds all over the landscape. That's not what we're suggesting. We're just suggesting that running and jumping at 80KPH in a giant robot might not be able to land gunfire from four different locations on exactly the same spot while leaping through the air.

This, absolutely. Hence why I suggest CoF bloom starting at ~75-80% of max speed, likewise with heat, etc.

[Moomtazz]

Why not just reduce damage across the board while leaving armor values alone?

As far as Cone of Fire, if you have two players, one unskilled and one highly skilled, won't the highly skilled player still win the majority of the time?

Right now, crappy marksmen get frustrated. With CoF, all marksmen get frustrated.

[Anakha]

I would prefer no more types of mechanical fire changes like you did with the gauss rifle which I think is totally unnecessary and should be changed back.

I do like the idea of slowing down the PPC projectile and think that this is definitely needed.

I would also go a step further and change the PPC bolt to be a completely spread damage weapon and become the no ammo laser version of the LBX type auto canon and spread its damage to 3 components but to a greater degree that it currently does on the clan ER PPC. So a 15 Damage PPC does 5 to each of three armor points instead of 10 and 2.5/2.5.

[stjobe]

Moomtazz, on 01 August 2014 - 10:54 AM, said:

With CoF, all marksmen get frustrated.

It seems to be a really hard concept to grasp for you that the CoF isn't supposed to be constant.

Move slowly and it's minimal or even non-existent. Move faster, and it gets bigger.

YOU have control over your CoF. YOU can choose to minimize or even negate it. If implemented correctly, the accuracy of your shot is completely predictable and the skilled marksman will know when NOT to shoot as well as WHEN to shoot - ergo, MORE skill-based than the current mechanic.

[Wintersdark]

stjobe, on 01 August 2014 - 12:01 PM, said:

It seems to be a really hard concept to grasp for you that the CoF isn't supposed to be constant.

Move slowly and it's minimal or even non-existent. Move faster, and it gets bigger.

YOU have control over your CoF. YOU can choose to minimize or even negate it. If implemented correctly, the accuracy of your shot is completely predictable and the skilled marksman will know when NOT to shoot as well as WHEN to shoot - ergo, MORE skill-based than the current mechanic.

Agreed completely. A reticule bloom style CoF based on the pilot's action dramatically increases the skill cap, because that pilot needs to weigh his defensive actions vs. moving slower/running cooler to be more accurate.

It's 100% in his hands how accurate his fire is, with the entirely reasonable option for 100% pinpoint accuracy even while moving (though not at top speed, obviously). If he's suffering CoF, it's due to his actions and is readily shown via enlarged crosshairs. Thus, it's easily "grokked" by gamers, and as it's a mechanic shared by almost every shooter ever and many sims, it's pretty much immediately understood.

Edited by Wintersdark, 01 August 2014 - 12:35 PM.

[UBCslayer]

No need for any complicated firing mechanisms... just up the PPC and ERPPC cooldown to where it should be: 8 seconds. That keeps the weapon system in line where it should be: as a premier sniper weapon but limits its effectiveness in close quarters combat.

[Leigus]

Mitsuragi, on 31 July 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

The lore attributed great strain in the energy systems of mechs to fire a single gauss rifle.  Why don't we limit it to just that?  If you fire a gauss rifle you cannot fire any other weapons for 0.5 seconds.  In this way you could chain fire gauss rifles.  This also solves the problem of gauss + PPC.

Bumping this because it's an actual intelligent approach to the Gauss Rifle.

[Yokaiko]

Leigus, on 01 August 2014 - 12:52 PM, said:

Bumping this because it's an actual intelligent approach to the Gauss Rifle.

That was one of the Novels. Gauss was gauss in the game it worked more like a heavy ass ballistic PPC

[Lukoi Banacek]

W A R K H A N, on 30 July 2014 - 03:34 PM, said:

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.

Unfortunately everyone interested in "meta" right now, runs PPC though.

edit: and while the Gss/PPC DWF/TBR is a pain in the ass right now....the meta remains PPC/AC#. This derails in all honesty, one to two Mech builds. And mainly for public play. DWF simply too easy to kill in comp play against a team on TS that's actually competent...too slow for the most part.

I'm not arguing against a PPC/Gss delink of some sort....merely noting it does nothing to change the actual "meta" for this game right now.

Edited by Lukoi, 01 August 2014 - 01:20 PM.

[Jakob Knight]

Wintersdark, on 01 August 2014 - 12:34 PM, said:

Agreed completely. A reticule bloom style CoF based on the pilot's action dramatically increases the skill cap, because that pilot needs to weigh his defensive actions vs. moving slower/running cooler to be more accurate.

It's 100% in his hands how accurate his fire is, with the entirely reasonable option for 100% pinpoint accuracy even while moving (though not at top speed, obviously). If he's suffering CoF, it's due to his actions and is readily shown via enlarged crosshairs. Thus, it's easily "grokked" by gamers, and as it's a mechanic shared by almost every shooter ever and many sims, it's pretty much immediately understood.

Except for the one glaring fact that so many players in this thread seem to either forget or simply never understood.

This isn't Counterstrike.

This is Mechwarrior.

This game isn't about infantryman combat. It's about armored vehicle combat. An infantryman trying to shoot on the move is hampered by his/her movement because the weapon and the movement system are an integrated whole not meant to operate in the way they are trying to act. By comparison, even modern armored vehicles feature computer-aided targeting systems and gyro stabilization systems that make firing on the move pretty much as accurate as standing still, and ensure that where the shot is aimed is where the round hits.

To say that an armored vehicle with advanced computer-controlled, gyro-stabilized fire control systems would not be able to hit a target under the crosshairs because of some randomized 'jump' without any cause other than normal operational conditions is rather far-fetched. It smacks of going even further from a simulator into a console game.

No, cone-of-fire is just an excuse for those who see this only as a video game where the computer has to generate challenge, rather than a simulation where it is the actions of the pilots which determine challenge and outcome. Adding cone-of-fire would simply be rendering the arguments that artillery shouldn't be capable of destroying mechs by random hit location invalid (and, in fact, advocating the inclusion into MWO of random-chance for an instant kill on any target, which was also part of the same TT rules set people looking for random damage location seem to forget), as well as the impression that pilots with good aim should see no more benefit than those with bad.

For these reasons, especially the idea that the outcome of a battle be taken out of the hands of the players and put to random chance, I oppose any addition of randomness such as a cone-of-fire aim effect to normal combat systems in what is supposed to be a simulation game.

As a final note, I will say that the reason Battletech featured a random hit location was because it was a game about tactics and strategy, not piloting a battlemech. The decisions and actions of the players were all about position, weapons employment, and achieving objectives. Mechwarrior, by contrast, is about actually piloting the battlemechs through a combat situation to achieve objectives. It is the difference between a General in the command post deciding how and when to move the assets under his command to achieve victory, and the Pilot in the cockpit actually trying to do the work of fighting. Randomness in the job of the General was put in to simulate the fact that the actual pilots under their command weren't robots and would choose how to strike an enemy different from the commander back in the HQ building because -they- were the ones trying to defeat the enemy in the middle of a firefight.

Thus it is that calling for random damage in MWO simply doesn't hold water except as a call that pilots should not be responsible for the outcomes of their actions, in effect making MWO an arcade game.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 01 August 2014 - 01:30 PM.

[Yokaiko]

Lukoi, on 01 August 2014 - 01:17 PM, said:

Unfortunately everyone interested in "meta" right now, runs PPC though.

More like its worth the heat just so that you don't have to deal with the laser burn times or AC face time.

[Dark Horse X]

You all kill me. Reticle Bloom? in 3050? You mean to tell me that technology has taken such a drastic dump that we're even lucky to have fire in 3050?

Quote

The Abrams is equipped with a ballistic "fire control computer" that uses user and system-supplied data from a variety of sources, to compute, display, and incorporate the three components of a ballistic solution—lead angle, ammunition type, and range to the target—to accurately fire the tank. These three components are determined using a YAG rod laser rangefinder, crosswind sensor, a "pendulum static cant" sensor, data concerning performance and flight characteristics of each specific type of round, tank-specific boresight alignment data, ammunition temperature, air temperature, barometric pressure, a muzzle reference system (MRS) that determines and compensates for barrel drop at the muzzle due to gravitational pull and barrel heating due to firing or sunlight, and target speed determined by tracking rate tachometers in the Gunner's or Commander's Controls Handles. All of these factors are computed into a ballistic solution and updated 30 times per second. The updated solution is displayed in the Gunner's or Tank Commander's field of view in the form of a reticle in both day and Thermal modes. The ballistic computer manipulates the turret and a complex arrangement of mirrors so that all one has to do is keep the reticle on the target and fire to achieve a hit. Proper lead and gun tube elevation are applied to the turret by the computer, greatly simplifying the job of the gunner.The fire-control system uses these data to compute a "firing solution" for the gunner. The ballistic solution generated ensures a hit percentage greater than 95 percent at nominal ranges.

So, in the late 1900's on Terra, we were/are able to have the above in a tank...........BUT, in 3050 we're reduced to manually leading to hit a target at 1500m (well within the 3000m nominal range of a M-1 Abrams Tank)? We have Jumpships, dropships, a highly evolved genetics program (clans), every possible electronic system known to man, YET our actual AC shells travel an unbearably slow velocity and the range is laughable.

And what moron of a clan tech advisor even suggested that a "burst" fire AC would yield better results than a single slug? Clans are supposed to have better tech - BUT fail miserably to the IS on certain systems; primarily AC's.

Really? This all makes sense? This is all reasonable? Not to mention, how is that Clan tech is soooooo advanced over the IS, that their lasers (across the board) have longer duration times, run hotter, have better range (that one makes sense)? No, their laser weapons would be better in all facets than the IS version.

If I'm in an actual battle, hmmmm, let's see - I think I would choose to have the weapon that will throw more firepower down range, hit harder, cost less resources, etc. I'm not alone in this thinking, apparently every weapon devised for the military is an actual progression in these traits - NOT A REGRESSION!

However, PGI continues to attempt to sell us this laughing stock BS. Not only that, this entire post is more ludicrous propositions that aren't a benefit to this game in any way. PGI has painted itself into a corner by avoiding the straightforward fix to this entire mess: Heat Scale as listed in TT.

Balancing Clans vs IS? Give it a break. The Clans are SUPPOSED to be superior in every facet. However, making drops of 10 Clan vs 12 IS mechs would be a better approach. That is "canon", although all the "canon" criers don't want that - BUT they want everything else to be "canon". Either go "canon" completely, 100%, or don't go it at all.

Drop Ghost Heat, put all DHS to 2.0, reset all velocities/ranges back to as found in TT, add Heat Scale, don't try making goofy mechanisms for charging/firing weapon systems, fix ECM to TT, and then see what happens.

Let the players be players and let their skill be the proving point in this game. Never in the history of the world has everyone been equally skilled in all things, at all times. And if some idiot wants his 7 year old outdated laptop to be able to play this game at the same settings/fps of the higher end computers available today - don't waste your time or energy on the moron. He knows he's a moron for thinking that, we know he's a moron for it also......guess what PGI, those idiots are still morons and always will be - nothing you ever do will change that fact.

[L Y N X]

Baltazar, on 31 July 2014 - 08:13 PM, said:

PPC is already slow.

Do variant charging GR and PPC

No PPC is no longer slow, it once was nerfed and then over months slowly stealth buffed to 1500m/s. That is 1.5 km per second, and not slow.

[Yokaiko]

Vlad Dragu, on 01 August 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

You all kill me. Reticle Bloom? in 3050? You mean to tell me that technology has taken such a drastic dump that we're even lucky to have fire in 3050?

Why the hell not an 8 ton 5"/54cal Naval gun fires NINE MILES in real life, the design is 45 years old, so you are telling me that an AC5 going 1800m is "current" frigging black powder rolling cannons pulled by HORSES fired further than that.

[Jakob Knight]

7ynx, on 01 August 2014 - 01:21 PM, said:

No PPC is no longer slow, it once was nerfed and then over months slowly stealth buffed to 1500m/s. That is 1.5 km per second, and not slow.

Considering it is supposed to be an approximate speed-of-C weapon, yeah it is. The fact it has a delay between firing and target being hit like a projectile weapon is already an artificial characteristic meant to give the target an unrealistic advantage. However, the real problem with a speed reduction is that it would hurt all PPC use, rather than the stated goal of disrupting Gauss/PPC combo interaction. Using a given weapons configuration as an excuse to strike down configurations completely different from it would be the sign of deceptive engineering on the part of the Devs.

[Yokaiko]

Real life physics have NO place in anything Mechwarrior.

Ever.

[Gorgo7]

Jesus! 750m/s for a PPC? Why don't you tie an anchor to them while you're at it....reduce the turn rate of the machine equipped with them, have them explode randomly, maybe add three tons of weight to them as well..
Holy smokes! I run Awesomes! Are you trying to kill me? You just tweaked them and now you want to ensure PPC's are hopeless because of a competitive issue with Gauss rifles?
DUDE!
The Mechanic suits me fine. Reducing the PPC's velocity sucks the bag. They should be light speed.
Really?

[Sandpit]

Wintersdark, on 01 August 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

Koniving suggests this, and I agree.

Basically, causing the FPV reticule to move exactly as the TPV reticule moves with your mechs' motion.

I've got a similar idea that (as far as I know) Joe and I came up with quite a while back.

The convergence gets slowed down based on weapon size. Bigger the weapon, slower it converges. Now we're not talking 5 seconds here, just slow down each weapon's convergence speed based on size for ACs and PPCs. That still allows pilots to use their skill to hit where they aim but requires a little more finesse. If you absolutely need to take the shot quickly, hey go for it, but your damage will wind up spread out a bit. You'll still hit exactly where you're aiming, you just have to give it a small amount of time for those reticles to come into "focus"

Start it with something like this
AC2 = 0
AC5 = +.2 seconds
AC10 = +.5 seconds
AC20 = +.75 seconds
PPC = +.3 (I figure that's a happy medium between AC10 and AC5)

Adjust as needed.

Most importantly?
NOT
COMPLICATED

no need to code all new mechanics, no need to code funky trigger mechanisms, no need to make it even more confusing and adding in another barrier for new players to have to compete with. I just don't get how ideas like this are ignored while Paul comes up with stuff like that....