104 replies to this topic

[Pht]

Mercules, on 14 August 2014 - 06:44 AM, said:

Basically, before PGI ever tried to translate the rules over, they should have understood them and what they represented.

I believe they did try to come to some understanding of what the rules represented. I do wonder, however, if, say, david bradley (who never reads his private messages - jab) at the very least talked to randall bills about what represents what... or, say, the bt line developer and/or mike miller? It don't believe it would have cost them a dime beyond the cost of the phone calls... or maybe david B. just doesn't get the inter-office luvin he deserves? Who knows? We don't.

The two things that disturb me the most are a couple of comments. One from the president of pgi, Russ Bullock, (these are not his exact words) that gameplay without perfect convergence isn't/wouldn't be fun (which is wrong, but I don't expect to be having that conversation with him any time soon). The other is from number 2 at PGI, Creative Director Bryan ekman (again, not his exact words) on an NGNG podcast that as far as he was concerned, the mechs were well simulated and thus didn't need to be looked at on the basic level again. Comments like these make a hopless dork like myself who really would like to at least see a game where battlemechs perform in combat like battlemechs feel like the proverbial red-headed stepchild.

Edited by Pht, 15 August 2014 - 05:20 AM.

[Mercules]

Pht, on 15 August 2014 - 05:18 AM, said:

I believe they did try to come to some understanding of what the rules represented.

I think they came to the same conclusion most RPG players do with their game systems where they fail to understand the abstraction and think of each dice roll as an absolute and values as absolutes.

HPs in D&D are not actual representations of how physical you are. Wouldn't make sense for a Fighter to go up a level and suddenly get X points healthier. What they do represent is grit and resolve, turning a strike that would have been a wound into a nick or superficial wound and you get more as you level because of your experience. Most GMs fail to take that into consideration so they describe ghastly gory cuts and crushing injuries over and over again... stupidly.

PGI seems to be doing much the same with weapon systems and convergence. I really like that lasers have a burn tiime. PPCs should have been implemented much the same and ACs should have been what we see with Clan ACs from the get go with one small change. All weapons systems should have been set up to do X damage and Y heat in 10 seconds based off the BT charts and then given a RoF that divided that out. Armor wouldn't have had to have been doubled and time to kill would have been much the same. The if you remove convergence you suddenly have a representation of big war machines pounding each other over and over and maneuvering for position.

Because they didn't realize that the weapon chart was an abstract of how much damage a weapon system could deliver in 10 seconds they took it as an absolute, Medium Laser does 5 damage and messed everything up from the start. That is the issue I have with PGI's interpretation of the rule system.

[Pht]

Mercules, on 15 August 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

I think they came to the same conclusion most RPG players do with their game systems where they fail to understand the abstraction and think of each dice roll as an absolute and values as absolutes.

HPs in D&D are not actual representations of how physical you are. Wouldn't make sense for a Fighter to go up a level and suddenly get X points healthier. What they do represent is grit and resolve, turning a strike that would have been a wound into a nick or superficial wound and you get more as you level because of your experience. Most GMs fail to take that into consideration so they describe ghastly gory cuts and crushing injuries over and over again... stupidly.

Absolutely the ten second turn time is an abstraction to make things "work" for the tabletop format.

However ... it's perfectly ok to say that x weapon does y damage concretely in the TT system - as long as you understand a few things:

Weapon X most likely doesn't actually have a ten second recycle time;

and

the heat system IS on a ten second recycle time.

Add to that the heatscale effects *on your battlemech's ability to hit what you're tracking,* so heat is controlling for every weapon mounted in a battlemech, and the factors that the armor/internal structure/damage to internal components systems are setup versus concrete weapons damage numbers.

We know 25 points of damage in a single "package" is MASSIVE in the lore; because it's vs a certain set amount of external armor (25 pts instant is more likely to blow through even fresh armor using the appropriate advanced combat rules) ... etc, etc.

So you can stick to the weapon X does Y (concrete) damage, as long as you remember that, if you want to fiddle with the ten second TURN (which, again, is not the actual weapons recycle time...) time, you have to adjust the heat output of said weapon to keep it's overall damage profile similar. It was balanced for firing that concrete damage number versus x armor and internals once every ten seconds, even if the weapon, in the fictional lore, could and DID fire faster than once every ten seconds.

Quote

PGI seems to be doing much the same with weapon systems and convergence.

I'm not sure exactly what caused them to not bring in the combat mechanics that DON'T represent pilot skill (rather, they represent the 'mech's combat performance)... A few comments from the developers on this topic:

• Attacks in the tabletop game would randomly hit different sections of an enemy ’Mech; this doesn’t need to be recreated in a video game because it’s fully represented by the skill of the player"

Or

• "Those factors and those variables take care of having to create this ... this randomness and addresses you know, pilot skills and all the things that exist in the tabletop all the rules that exist in the tabletop game to make the game fair not just say, "I shoot you with all my weapons and I hit 100% of the time" so that's why there are dice in tabletop games is if there weren't you would always choose to do the maximum amount of damage."

Or

• "[DAVID]Attacks in the tabletop game would randomly hit different sections of an enemy ’Mech; this doesn’t need to be recreated in a video game because it’s fully represented by the skill of the player."

Or

• Russ: (in the Three Moves podcast) We get a lot of stuff for free because we are using a physics engine, because we have line of sight, and we have the ability to do raycast and detect whether we are hitting objects. We don't need to create or simulate randomness or pilot skill, so that's one of the advantages we have, ...

Or

• "Zyllos: With many discussions on convergence of weaponry, has there been any discussions on why/why not more variability should be added to weapon fire, thus spreading the damage more across a target?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A: We’ve removed randomness from weapon firing in favor of skill."

Or

• "From Day 1 our goal was to take the TT rules and create a game that reflects the spirit of those rules. Since so many of the TT rules are designed to work around simulating skill and randomness we end up with a situation where there is no 1:1 mapping of damage/hit points from TT to live simulation."

Or

• "[DAVID] While there hasn’t been anything that I would call a great difficulty, the thing that we always have to keep in mind is that we want to capture all of the flavour of the tabletop game but need to be aware of when a direct translation of a tabletop system won’t work for a real time computer game."

These are all direct quotes.




The last two comments are there because ... I've never seen any of the developers tell us what they really mean by "flavor" or "spirit." Kind of like how everybody discusses "balance" but nobody ever stops to see if they're even appealing to the same thing. Say "random," or God forbid, "dice," and people turn into brain-eating zombies.

It appears they simply thought the combat mechanics that DO tell us how the 'mechs work in combat ... weren't about how 'mechs work in combat - WHY they believed this, I have no idea. Until I know for sure otherwise, I refuse to do more than ascribe this to anything more than a simple mistake, possibly caused by an assumption they brought with them when they were looking at what to convert and what to leave behind.

Quote

Because they didn't realize that the weapon chart was an abstract of how much damage a weapon system could deliver in 10 seconds they took it as an absolute, Medium Laser does 5 damage and messed everything up from the start. That is the issue I have with PGI's interpretation of the rule system.

That's an interesting theory, but I haven't seen any evidence that they did what you've said here - I mean actual evidence, not back-reading into the patches and such, which would allow for nearly any conclusion.

Edited by Pht, 15 August 2014 - 09:07 AM.

[Mercules]

Pht, on 15 August 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

That's an interesting theory, but I haven't seen any evidence that they did what you've said here - I mean actual evidence, not back-reading into the patches and such, which would allow for nearly any conclusion.

Theory?

In TT a Medium Laser does 5 damage and creates 3 heat over a 10 second period of game time.

In MWO a Medium Laser does 12.5 damage and creates 10 heat over a 10 second period of game time.

They do not understand how that SHOULD have translated. That is not a Battletech Medium Laser mounted on that mech.

[Pht]

Mercules, on 15 August 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Theory?

I was specifically referring to your saying that PGI didn't understand that the 10 second turn is an abstraction when I said "theory."

I suspect they knew it was an abstraction, but I have no evidence to back this suspicion up. I *do* know they HAVE made the comments about what some of the combat system represents.

Quote

In TT a Medium Laser does 5 damage and creates 3 heat over a 10 second period of game time.

Yep.

Meaning, in the non-turn based format, you either have it recycle every ten seconds ... or, if you want it to go faster, you make it run hotter.

The turn, IMO, represents not the actual in-lore weapons recycle times - it represents the refire-rate, divided into ten second chunks. IE, the heat buildup over time that any given 'mech can absorb. Even a so-called heat-neutral mech could be overheated, if you could fire the weapons in it fast enough.

Sure, you can fire the weapon every ten seconds in tt... but what stops you from firing it effectively ... or at all... is the heat-effects for leftover heat that your heatsink system can't dump. Create enough waste heat and you're forced into shutdown. Heat determines your ability to fire the weapon every time you get a chance to fire that weapon.

I think we both agre the translation wasn't done right. We just seem to disagree over the details of why it wasn't done right.

Edited by Pht, 15 August 2014 - 09:28 AM.

[Mercules]

Pht, on 15 August 2014 - 09:26 AM, said:

I was specifically referring to your saying that PGI didn't understand that the 10 second turn is an abstraction when I said "theory."

I suspect they knew it was an abstraction, but I have no evidence to back this suspicion up. I *do* know they HAVE made the comments about what some of the combat system represents.



Yep.

Meaning, in the non-turn based format, you either have it recycle every ten seconds ... or, if you want it to go faster, you make it run hotter.

The turn, IMO, represents not the actual in-lore weapons recycle times - it represents the refire-rate, divided into ten second chunks. IE, the heat buildup over time that any given 'mech can absorb. Even a so-called heat-neutral mech could be overheated, if you could fire the weapons in it fast enough.

Sure, you can fire the weapon every ten seconds in tt... but what stops you from firing it effectively ... or at all... is the heat-effects for leftover heat that your heatsink system can't dump. Create enough waste heat and you're forced into shutdown. Heat determines your ability to fire the weapon every time you get a chance to fire that weapon.

I think we both agre the translation wasn't done right. We just seem to disagree over the details of why it wasn't done right.

See... I don't agree with your assessment. In TT you couldn't double fire MLs and just deal with the heat. That isn't a correct interpretation of the TT rules although it was one that I think Paul once used, that the mechwarriors could fire that often but didn't to keep heat low.

An IS Medium Laser literally could not do more than 5 damage to a mech over a 10 second period. You don't allow them to fire more often or make them fire only once every 10 seconds, you simply use the 5 damage over 10 seconds as your set goal, assign a rate of fire to the weapon, and then make sure damage and heat match that over 10 seconds. Done. Very simple and would have captured the flavor and essence of a ML from TT without doubling armor, adding heat, adding ghost heat, altering range....

[Pht]

Mercules, on 15 August 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

See... I don't agree with your assessment. In TT you couldn't double fire MLs and just deal with the heat. That isn't a correct interpretation of the TT rules although it was one that I think Paul once used, that the mechwarriors could fire that often but didn't to keep heat low.

We know for a fact that the rulesets don't give us the actual recycle times of the weapons. Not even the solaris box set does.

We know for a fact that your ability to fire any given weapon in a turn is controlled by your overheat level.

It's also consistently written in the novels that the weapons don't take very long at all to do their firing - "on time" if you prefer.

The heat controls your chance to fire the weapons.

Quote

An IS Medium Laser literally could not do more than 5 damage to a mech over a 10 second period.

In the solaris box set the recycle times were lower than 10 seconds for the ML - in that set it had a 5 second recycle time.

Quote

You don't allow them to fire more often or make them fire only once every 10 seconds, you simply use the 5 damage over 10 seconds as your set goal, assign a rate of fire to the weapon, and then make sure damage and heat match that over 10 seconds.

Except that forces you to spread the damage across time for weapons that specifically do their damage in a very short time - the gauss and ac class weapons, for one example. You also would run into problems doing this with the pulse class laser weapons. The TT weapons damage numbers and armor/structure factors weren't balanced for only the DPTurn.

Look to the advanced rules on penetrating critical hits; which are specifically balanced for how weapons put out their damage across time. Weapons with higher damage per-"packet" are given a greater chance for penetrating fresh armor, for the mere fact that they put a lot of damage onto a single point of armor very quickly.

Edited by Pht, 16 August 2014 - 05:29 AM.

[Wingbreaker]

IGNORE

Edited by Wingbreaker, 17 August 2014 - 07:51 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Good plan. Ignore it completely - we should have robo-pokemon mech options too. And more anime stuff!

[Pht]

Rather telling that the best counter-argument here is "IGNORE IT! IGNORE IT!" (add eye-catching pictures for effect).

Sad to say, the counter-argument to using the tt combat system (minus all human skill simulating parts) hasn't been much if at all better... not even in the closed beta, where people were civil and actually showed at least more than a passing interest in supporting what they claimed. There was even an open invitation for people to show the WHY of "can't convert turn based to real time" - and several people showed interest in hearing the why ... and it never happened and hasn't since.

It seems to progress from snide laughter and insults, to saying it should be ignored, to saying it's stupid, to fear mongering over the words "dice" and "random," to "you can't convert turn based to real time," to "but that would remove skill" - all of which have been soundly shown to be wrong, over and over and over and over - all of which have NOT been supported at any meaningful level by the people who use them.

Shamefully, phil of NGNG doesn't apparently even *know* what homeless bill's fix is, even though he feels safe enough to make up stuff on the NGNG podcast (which is almost virtually the official channel for MWO news). Listen to phil's comments in number 117 and than go read homeless bill's post http://www.qqmercs.com/?p=2780 - ... and than wonder how people can get it so wrong ... on such a wide-listened to program... and mind you, I don't even *agree with* HB's fix. Ok, yes, it's a game that's about a fictional universe - but that doesn't excuse speaking of things you exhibit virtually no knowledge of. If phil screws up HB's post, I can't imagine how horribly he would screw up this: http://mwomercs.com/...different-idea/

The apparent fact that many, if not most, of those who use such arguments don't even *know* the two combat mechanics in question in any detail ... or even in passing... that they say can't/shouldn't be used is even more annoying. Ask what's wrong with these two things and most of the time, the reply you get boils down to "but... but... but ... DICE! DICE!" and either they can't tell you what they mean by "dice! dice!" or if they can, what would be wrong with what they say.

As far as the devs - yes, they have better things most of the time to do than discuss this topic with us, but so far this is the only even remotely serious attempt I've seen to discuss anything like this topic: http://mwomercs.com/...045#entry781045 ... and I quoted this link in a thread in the closed beta forums, gave it serious interaction, and PM invited Alex Iglesias to discuss it... which simply ... didn't happen (I'm willing to discuss it still, even in private if you can't bear to do it in public). So this discussion has never happened really anywhere at a serious level on the forums, from anyone that I've seen. (If anyone has a link to it, please drop it here). Speaking of PM'S, David bradley apparently doesn't even READ his pms on this forum - or at least he refuses to even read the one I sent him over a year ago (it hasn't even been deleted out of his PM box)... does he even KNOW he has a pm box? Is he just THAT busy? Give the man a break, if you're running him that hard.

Edited by Pht, 18 August 2014 - 08:42 AM.

[Koniving]

MecatamaMk2, on 12 August 2014 - 05:58 AM, said:

this is ONLINE, NOT BOARD.
MWO bound bt boardgame.

for balance. corerule ignore.

I hate to say it, but the reason the balance is so bad is that PGI has, in fact, selectively ignored every rule they see fit.

For example, "ECM" has ignored ALL core rules.
Result? ECM mechs are the only playable mechs.

Here is another example: Threshold = 30. Ignored. Threshold is whatever PGI feels like it should be and it raises.
Result: Lots of boating. Result: Ghost heat. Result: Lots of poptart meta (it would be completely unfeasible as a meta with 30 threshold). Result: SHS are useless. Result: Small and Medium lasers are given higher than normal heat. Result: Large lasers are given lower than normal heat. Result: Meta favors long range. Result: Clan mech superiority (they have longer range). Result: Plethora of unnecessary and awful balancing decisions.

This could go on all day...and the next day...and the next day.
---------------
On the SHS are useless...

Proper time to cool from 30 threshold with 10 SHS. 30 seconds.
Proper time to cool from 30 threshold with 15 SHS. 20 seconds.
Proper time to cool from 30 threshold with 20 SHS. 15 seconds.
Proper time to cool from 30 threshold with 25 SHS. 12 seconds.

Actual time to cool with 20 SHS in MWO due to rising threshold WITH FULL ELITES (that enhance cooling from 2/sec to 2.3/sec) : 26 seconds. Faster cooling than tabletop and it still takes longer.

26 seconds to cool down ≠ 15 seconds to cool down.
Viability is lost.

20 SHS = 10 DHS.
10 true DHS with elites in MWO = 26.087 seconds to cool down.
This is because the threshold rises to 60.
(Fun fact: Despite much faster cooling with elites, the fact that the threshold rises even more means you take even longer to cool to zero from 100% heat).

So, the game makes all heatsinks take longer to cool down even when you are able to cool heat FASTER than tabletop, because the thresholds get higher.
But, because the thresholds are so high, you can alpha strike so much, repeatedly. Resulting in the need for ghost heat; a completely alien and unnecessary concept had the game not taken liberties in how the heat system was designed.

Sure, something would need to be done about twin AC/20s. Got two easy answers for you. Remove convergence OR lore-friendly AC/20s (which are burst fire). Even better is to go by the 10 second rule. AC/20 is a Class 20 autocannon whose damage class specifies that it can do 20 damage within 10 seconds. If it fires 4 times in 10 seconds, then each shot does 5 damage. Follow suit with all weapons and the highest pinpoint you can possibly get (assuming Gauss Rifles are still 1 shot = 15 damage) is 30. Slap in a charge limit and bam, 15 + 10 + 10 is the highest feasibly possible damage that could be done at range in a single shot, and that's once every 10 seconds. And a charge limit can solve that too. The point though is that ghost heat was completely unnecessary, the problem is rooted in the threshold.

Edited by Koniving, 18 August 2014 - 08:52 AM.

[ice trey]

ITT> People who have never played the boardgame, and assume that Battletech mechanics don't translate to MWO well simply because it's a boardgame and "MAH SKILLS".

The whole core of the issue is PGI went the pinpoint accuracy route instead of the counter-strike expanding reticle route. That foundational change would have removed so much of this nerf/buff bullshit we're facing today.

Before saying that the mechanics don't translate, it would help if you knew the mechanics, first.

[wwiiogre]

OP,

Ignoring core rules and lore might as well be saying lets play a robot game with no history or rules or balance. Wait a second, that is exactly what happens when PGI ignores core rules and lore. They get a very unbalanced game when core rules and lore are completely ignored.

Let's see, currently PGI uses target sharing. So if one teammate targets a mech all can target it. That is part of core rules, Its called C3. It is in the future from this timeline. Because PGI ignored core rules and allows this, we have LRMageddon. Where mechs can be fired at by LRMs that cannot see them. This is impossible using core rules and lore.

To counter this non core decision by PGI, we then had PGI introduce another non core rule ecm that is stealth. Stealth is part of BT but once again is part of the future. So PGI made a bad non core decision, then to try to balance their bad decision that was not core, they made another non core rule ecm/stealth.

Now you have two non core rules, meant to balance each other that have allowed the game to become unbalanced. Both choices were not core rules/lore, both choices were and are overpowered.

Then PGI made a decision to no follow other core rules. Movement and heat make it harder to aim. Instead we have perfect pinpoint aiming. Which leads to boating, which leads to mechs getting cored and destroyed really fast. What could PGI have done to follow core rules to make movement and heat be realistic. Oh perhaps they could use reticle shake like jump jets now cause, for moving slow and then worse reticle when moving near full speed and the worst of all for jump jet shake. That is the core rules. Then for heat, in core rules as you heat up, your engine suffers and makes your mech go slower. The hotter you are, the slower your mech goes. Also the hotter you are you would get screen shake and eventually before shutting down you would lose your hud. But PGI instead decided to allow perfect aim when running and when overheated.

PGI then decided to give LRM and streak a ballistic path instead of them having a random number hit each shot and then have them hit in random areas. Core rules used this way to balance the fact that LRM and Streak were basically fire and forget weapons. Only certain weapons did all of their damage to a single hitbox.

Because of these choices, PGI made MWO an op game. First with sharing targets for indirect fire, then with stealth ecm, then with no convergence for weapons and then with no penalties for accuracy for movement or heat. To compound all of this, they took stock mechs and allowed them to be completely customizable with more weapon hardpoints than stock mechs could fit normally. This lead to boating and much quicker mech destruction. Which PGI then had to give mechs double armor.

See how changing core has a string of never ending unintended consequences. Lets talk about modules, cool shot a module that does the same thing as a coolant pod (once again future tech). This allowed people willing to pay mc($)/cbills to cheat the heat system and it cost them nothing in tonnage. Once again not using core rules. Lets talk about arty/air in core to have arty/air you had to have the tonnage available. To explain that, one long tom arty support vehicle could deliver one shot every ten seconds. One shot that did 20/10 damage. Or 20 damage to one 30mx30m hex and then 10 damage to every hex around it. Or a 90m circular target area. That long tom was the equivalent of not having a Heavy Mech on the board. It only delivered a total of 20 to one mech and possibly 10 to another 6 other mechs. For a total of 80 damage. PGI has arty now doing the equivalent of 8 long toms. And instead of them hitting just legs with damage being spread randomly. They can literally destroy a mech because multiple shots can hit the same mech.

Once again a case of PGI not following core rules and then reaping unintended consequences.

So spare me the do not use core rules. If you do not like Battle Tech then do not play Mech Warrior, because it is based on Battle Tech.

Unfortunately, this is all we have. Its still the best MW game ever made yet. It has the potential to be great. It currently is suffering because of the law of unintended consequences. Where PGI people think they know better than a game that has been balanced for decades. And when you make one bad decision and then attempt to balance it with another bad decision, you get what we have. Overpowered problems that continually get nerfed after it becomes overwhelmingly obvious they made some bad choices.

On PGI's behalf, they have eventually fixed some of the problems. But in the end, they usually just cover it up or nerf something instead of fixing the real problem that caused the other problems.

As for their ELO matchmaker, it is a joke and is once again an attempt to cover up the problem, not fix or make a balanced matchmaker. ELO has only one purpose, it stacks matches to force one side to lose thus bringing their win/loss closer to 50%. So PGI can say there is nothing wrong since most people are in the bell curve. Its standard marketing procedure.

So, sorry OP, I must disagree with you. The biggest problem with MWO at this moment is the fact PGI chose not to stick to core rules on some of the most basic things and that has led to even worse imbalance.

chris

[Pht]

Koniving, on 18 August 2014 - 08:38 AM, said:

I hate to say it, but the reason the balance is so bad is that PGI has, in fact, selectively ignored every rule they see fit.

Part and parcel of conversion is not converting things that don't convert... but there has to be a good reason for not converting things, which is where things get screwed up.

Quote

For example, "ECM" has ignored ALL core rules.
Result? ECM mechs are the only playable mechs.

ECM in the lore is very, very useful ... but it's also entirely counter-able.

Quote

Here is another example: Threshold = 30. Ignored. Threshold is whatever PGI feels like it should be and it raises.
Result: Lots of boating. Result: Ghost heat. Result: Lots of poptart meta (it would be completely unfeasible as a meta with 30 threshold). Result: SHS are useless. Result: Small and Medium lasers are given higher than normal heat. Result: Large lasers are given lower than normal heat. Result: Meta favors long range. Result: Clan mech superiority (they have longer range). Result: Plethora of unnecessary and awful balancing decisions.

Actually, the heat-effects go up to 50:

Over 50, you don't blow up - you're just stuck in shut down until you dump ALL of your waste heat. Of course, by the time you drive your 'mech up to that heat level, it's a potted plant that can't hit the broad side of a barn. Which is IMPOSSIBLE to have in MWO because the parts of the system that tell us what the 'mech does in combat weren't used. A 'mech can't even *have* trouble getting a severely heat-addled weapon aligned to hit what it's pilot is tracking ... because the mech doesn't even take part in aligning it's weapons, beyond having split reticules.

ice trey, on 18 August 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

ITT> People who have never played the boardgame, and assume that Battletech mechanics don't translate to MWO well simply because it's a boardgame and "MAH SKILLS".

The massive irony of it all is that bringing the 'mech's part of the aiming into the game would mean player skills would be MORE important for gameplay outcomes.

Quote

The whole core of the issue is PGI went the pinpoint accuracy route instead of the counter-strike expanding reticle route. That foundational change would have removed so much of this nerf/buff bullshit we're facing today.

You don't need a CS expanding reticule. In fact, the lore contra-indicates that... the lore color codes the reticule to let you know how well it has the weapons aligned to hit what you're tracking with the reticule on the HUD - and the factors that affect how well a 'mech can calculate convergence and physically align the weapons to those points are intuitive and controlled by ... player choices and ... shocking, I know ... player skill.

Quote

Before saying that the mechanics don't translate, it would help if you knew the mechanics, first.

Amen. Some of us have even listed the mechanics in question for those w/o access to the source material.

Edited by Pht, 18 August 2014 - 09:06 AM.

[ice trey]

Pht, on 18 August 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:

You don't need a CS expanding reticule. In fact, the lore contra-indicates that... the lore color codes the reticule to let you know how well it has the weapons aligned to hit what you're tracking with the reticule on the HUD - and the factors that affect how well a 'mech can calculate convergence and physically align the weapons to those points are intuitive and controlled by ... player choices and ... shocking, I know ... player skill.

I'm thinking of the expanding reticle as more of a way to bring the "Spreading the damage" effect of the hit locations tables, while simultaneously including the effects of movement modifiers. Small reticule when stationary, honkin' huge one while jumping. You're vulnerable if you want to snipe, and if you need to move, you'll have a harder time getting the shots off.

[Lexx]

I like how this thread is about how PGI should ignore the tabletop core rules if they want to balance the game.

Then almost this entire last page is a guy talking about how they should have interpreted the core rules better and been more true to them. You can't translate turn based tabletop game rules into a real time simulation or RPG video game. It's been tried over and over again and no one has been able to make it work.

This thread was a lot more fun when it was about bad English and new memes.

Edited by Lexx, 18 August 2014 - 09:20 AM.

[wwiiogre]

But what I said, is they didn't ignore them, they just used core rules from out of the timeline. Then because of bad choices they had to make more bad choices.

Like it or not, the core rules/lore are what make Battle Tech into MWO. Without them, you don't have a game and a world to play it in. Or a core class of supporters willing to shuck out $1000 in two years for a $60 game. Yup guilty as charged. Why when I seem to be so unhappy with MWO do I still give PGI my money. Simple, in some cases they have shown they listened and eventually started getting some things right.

And its the only Mech Warrior game around. If there was another one, PGI would not get my money. Really is that simple.

Chris

[Noesis]

BT Precidents are good. Blindingly following mechnanics designed for a dice game don't work or help to add purposefull reasons to MWO.

E.g. ECM for everybody, means everyone will simply fit ECM and would simply become a needed item in the min/max build mentatility. Thus making ECM relatively pointless mechanic if everyone effectively negates the need to use it at all since it is the same for everyone.

To be true to lore and BT with stock fits perhaps only a few mech builds had ECM. So if you want to honour lore then you would make everyone pilot stock mechs and then we would still have an inequality with ECM anyhow. And people would still be then complaining about the fact that certain mechs can do certain things.

But we dont have say, missiles on all Mechs, we dont have jump jets on all mechs. All to add divergance into the mix and allow for a greater spread of possible variety of mech use.

Jenners are by far recognised in the meta as the go-to light for mixing it up and dont actually use ECM. This since if you go with a Raven 3L it does not have the same combat potential or jump jets. The offensive capability of the Jenner is better as a result, but the Raven is useful as an electronics platform. Imagine if you could simply place an ECM on a Jenner F. OP with the current balance?

Though of course the idea would be to then make ECM different in that it effects lock times. But again if this is all it does then people would either equip it default as per an AMS choice if it was needed as an LRM counter or not if LRMs where nerfed. But since it is homogenised, ECM just becomes another piece of kit that whilst equalised offers no real way to distinguish its use.

Imagine if shots where random to hit instead of them going where you aimed? This is the cone of fire random spread effect that some people would want to best emulate the TT rule. This then easier to use for Clanners due to training from lore?

Would we have to follow a spread of drop composition with say 1 or no assaults and lots of mediums?

12 v 10 would be normal or evern 12 v 5 as per some engagements. With the IS vs Clan rulings.

Travel times of days between systems for CW?

Would everyone want to play stock mechs, no custom design or mechlab and faction related? Thats how it would happen if we followed BT more religeously.

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PGI have been placing the weapons and Mechs into the gaming environment as per lore. They have been trying to honour all the various components from BT into the game as a result. But to expect to make an FPS, 1pv simulator in real time based on turn based, dice rolled, overhead game is not very realistic. PGI are doing there best to interpret these rulings as "precidents" but also trying to make gameplay more fun as a result that is more relevant to a simulator game imho. And for that to happen we cannot follow every BT rule to the letter so being butthurt about PGI not doing this is not really a practical or realistic position to take imho.

[Pht]

ice trey, on 18 August 2014 - 09:11 AM, said:

I'm thinking of the expanding reticle as more of a way to bring the "Spreading the damage" effect of the hit locations tables, while simultaneously including the effects of movement modifiers. Small reticule when stationary, honkin' huge one while jumping. You're vulnerable if you want to snipe, and if you need to move, you'll have a harder time getting the shots off.

... It's really not necessary, because when you've got crummy weapons alignment, the reticule is red and you're getting the audible tones for "bad alignment" - through other colors and audibles up to gold, for best alignment, and for some weapons aligning good and others not, you get a partially gold-partially red alternating reticule and a different tone.

The things that cause bad alignment are all pretty intuitive. Moving quick while trying to make a shot - working past the rated range for a weapons system, overheating while firing, target is evading, etc, etc.

The best part is, you don't even need a cone system. You just expand the hit-location table mechanic. The basic HLT is for "aiming center of mass" - for tighter shots, you use the called high/low/left/right tables... which are triggered for use by ... aiming high, low, left/right... for even tighter shots, use the aimed shot tables. For super-tight pick you part, you use a single weapon with a higher chance of overall missing but if you DON'T miss you DO hit the part exactly under the reticule. An added benefit of this is that you can than add in the penetrating part of the armor system, along with the combat mechanic that makes penetrating hits less terrifying w/o destroying balance - the advanced critical damage tables (yes, you punched a hole in the armor and "hit" a component - but did you give it a close shave or did you destroy it?).

Lexx, on 18 August 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

You can't translate turn based tabletop game rules into a real time simulation or RPG video game. It's been tried over and over again and no one has been able to make it work.

You can translate turn based to real time sim or rpg video game format and it has been done and it does work and I suspect you don't even know the rules that you're so adamantly saying can't be converted.

If you did, you'd know you were saying something very ignorant - that you can't add double digit numbers in real time, and that you can't choose from 1-12 in real time. That's all you need to do to convert the turn-based tt rules into real-time first-person skill&choices-based outcomes simulator/fun gameplay. Everything else required to do the conversion in real time is *already being done by the game.*

... as if our comptuers can't do what a calculator from 1993 can do: http://www.pryderock...l_games.php#BT2

[Pht]

Noesis, on 18 August 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

BT Precidents are good. Blindingly following mechnanics designed for a dice game don't work or help to add purposefull reasons to MWO.

... Nobody's saying "follow blindly." That's a strawman.

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E.g. ECM for everybody, means everyone will simply fit ECM and would simply become a needed item in the min/max build mentatility. Thus making ECM relatively pointless mechanic if everyone effectively negates the need to use it at all since it is the same for everyone.

... how is THAT a part of the tt? This is a mechlab setup question - a related but different area. Suffice to say, the construction rules are NOT the rules for modifying/customizing already existing 'mechs. It's possible to have a decent amount of customization on non-omnimechs w/o rendering everything into a gunbag on legs, but that's a different discussion.

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Would everyone want to play stock mechs, no custom design or mechlab and faction related? Thats how it would happen if we followed BT more religeously.

Not true. The bt fiction doesn't require this at all.

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PGI have been placing the weapons and Mechs into the gaming environment as per lore. They have been trying to honour all the various components from BT into the game as a result. But to expect to make an FPS, 1pv simulator in real time based on turn based, dice rolled, overhead game is not very realistic.

It is realistic. It can be done. MWO has done a good bit of it, with the exclusion of the simulation of a 'mechs ability to get it's weapons aligned to hit what it's pilot is tracking with the reticule on the cockpit hud. Had this part been converted over most of the problems would not have happened.

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PGI are doing there best to interpret these rulings as "precidents" but also trying to make gameplay more fun as a result that is more relevant to a simulator game imho. And for that to happen we cannot follow every BT rule to the letter so being butthurt about PGI not doing this is not really a practical or realistic position to take imho.

Such a nice way everyone has of saying "ignore and make my own thing" - using the words "precedent," "interpretation," "flavor," and "spirit."

How would you know it was wrong to say that the game should convert to roller-coaster simland?

"Make the game more fun" - you don't even know what I want... or what others want, I suspect - yet you feel safe enough to say it "wouldn't be fun." you don't even know what "it" is.

I'll tell you what "IT" isn't - tactics/mech commander/tabletop in first person; "IT" doesn't even require a 10 second recycle time on the weapons either. "IT" doesn't require mechanics that give nonsense unpredictable uncontrollable results. "IT" doesn't require cones of fire, or an expanding and/or dancing reticule. It doesn't even require something as complex and hard to understand as homeless bill's fix (which really isn't too complex).

Edited by Pht, 18 August 2014 - 09:50 AM.