220 replies to this topic

[The Boz]

Have you thought about balancing LRMs by pattern tightness, which would depend on the quality of the lock?

[Squarebasher]

Great OP agree with all of it.

[Roland]

Apparently, the idea of putting together a community council to suggest such ideas never actually happened, and the link to this thread was somehow removed from my signature at some point in the recent past.

Regardless, I figured folks may be interested in seeing these ideas.

[bobF]

Since you shamelessly bumped this from obscurity, I gave it a read out of curiosity.

I LOVE the proposed changes to sensors and radar. I HATE the ideas for lrms and info warfare.

ECM and BAP just being inert pieces of passive buff equipment is just silly, when we could have a dynamic system that gives a little depth. Without writing a treatise to respond to yours, I basically envision a system that's worked for every other fps and mmo pvp system: timed, activated abilities with a cooldown. ECM, BAP, IS command computers, and clan targeting computers should all have some kind of rock-paper-scissors ability (or abilities), where each piece of equipment addresses (by either negating or enhancing) some other piece of equipment's functionality. It's information warfare, and I would certainly enjoy warfare while I warfare (insert Xzibit yo dawg pic here).

As for LRMs, honestly, a super simple fix would prevent 90% of the crying: flatten out missle arcs to targets, keep everything else the same. Maybe give a buff to AMS.

There's my feedback.

[Roland]

bobF, on 08 December 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

Since you shamelessly bumped this from obscurity, I gave it a read out of curiosity.

I LOVE the proposed changes to sensors and radar. I HATE the ideas for lrms and info warfare.

ECM and BAP just being inert pieces of passive buff equipment is just silly, when we could have a dynamic system that gives a little depth.

Just to be clear here, you realize that in the system described here sensors as a whole become dynamic, with ECM and BAP effectively just acting as modifiers?

So, while you aren't turning on/off ECM or BAP, every mech, regardless of its sensor suite, is given the abilty to control its radar signature, and its ability to detect others, through direct player actions.

I appreciate your feedback though. The purpose of this thread was originally created to simply generate discussion on this topic, as I suspected that the idea of a player council wasn't really going to pan out.

[Barantor]

Has anyone bugged PGI about the player council? I know they have been hammering out CW and a lot of this happened around the time of the IGP split didn't it?

Love the ideas Roland.

[Tombstoner]

One aspect thats omitted in all this is a mechs effective detection signature. I expect that i could hear a 20 ton mech running at 150kph from a ling ways away. Many times in WWII troops hear the sound of armor advancing long before seeing them.
detection range should be modified by mech speed and well as the presence of active sensors.

I'm thinking along the lines of sonar and sub detection that is until you make LOS and i don't think it should be automatic. unless it's moving. detecting a mech and then pattern recognition processing of the mechs should be complicated by movement. stationary and its hard to pickout. moving and its easy to detect just by comparing two images, that is unless your also moving and then i think your ability to detect things should get worse. something along the lines of what your describing in the OP. This creates the opportunity for rubber foot pads to reduce movement based signature penalties just like stealth reduces radar signature.

[bobF]

Roland, on 08 December 2014 - 10:22 AM, said:

Just to be clear here, you realize that in the system described here sensors as a whole become dynamic, with ECM and BAP effectively just acting as modifiers?

Yes. It's boring gameplay and lazy design. When you force players to press more buttons than just the dps hotkeys, you get a richer gameplay with more skill required. Done intelligently, info warfare would be an engaging aspect to the combat, but would require focus and effort on the part of PGI. The fact that the equipment just sits there giving a passive aura buff in a radius is the entire reason for it's inadequacy to begin with. Magic jesus box is too magic, and anti-magic jesus box (was) too magic. It's like trying to balance factions by adjusting their weapons. Oh wait....

Honestly, PGI is too incompetent to resolve the issue in an intelligent, timely fashion, so both of us are just going to have to deal with "adjustments" to radii as a band-aid fix. If it doesn't have anything to do with making geometry an attractive purchase, then it gets put on the back burner. I still really like the sensor/radar ideas though.

Edited by bobF, 08 December 2014 - 11:32 AM.

[Roland]

Quote

Yes. It's boring gameplay and lazy design. When you force players to press more buttons than just the dps hotkeys, you get a richer gameplay with more skill required.

Again, you realize that the system laid out here involves in the players pushing more buttons to turn their active sensors on and off, right?

[Jabilo]

Great read and agreed with most of it. Need to give the Lrm section another read but generally a bloody good post.

[LordMelvin]

I loved the way MW4 used passive radar as a combat asset. There were a number of missions in the single player that had fairly significant divergent paths based entirely on whether you got detected or not. One mission in particular involved you assaulting a base and getting detected at the very first waypoint meant you needed to deal with two lances of heavy mechs later in the mission (which was a problem at the time since most of what you had were mediums).

I think giving information denial a larger role and discouraging "Deathballing" will go a long way to making this the "think man's shooter" that MWO claims to be. With these changes, splitting up lances would be a viable option, but deathballing would still be equally viable (concentration of fire and detection). Not to mention it puts skill back in tracking enemy movements beyond "wait for the dorito and press R for LRM spam".

[Sjorpha]

Great ideas Roland, I like it a lot.

I do think ECM and BAP could have a little stronger utility than you suggest, like for example ECM could slightly reduce the radar footprint on nearby friendly mechs, but not as much as for the carrier. But I like the general concept of how they would work.

The concept of radar footprint strength would also open up for the idea of differently sized doritos on the radar. In other words mechs with ECM or passive radar would look smaller in addition to their reduced detection range until the info gathering was complete ("I have something behind this ridge here, looks like a medium...oh **** no wait it's a D-DC!").

[Roland]

Sjorpha, on 08 December 2014 - 12:22 PM, said:

Great ideas Roland, I like it a lot.

I do think ECM and BAP could have a little stronger utility than you suggest, like for example ECM could slightly reduce the radar footprint on nearby friendly mechs, but not as much as for the carrier. But I like the general concept of how they would work.

The concept of radar footprint strength would also open up for the idea of differently sized doritos on the radar. In other words mechs with ECM or passive radar would look smaller in addition to their reduced detection range until the info gathering was complete ("I have something behind this ridge here, looks like a medium...oh **** no wait it's a D-DC!").

Yeah, there could potentially be a lot of varying levels of fidelity added to the sensor modeling, although the suggestions I've made here are intended to be a first pass.

Long term, MWO could potentially incorporate some of the stuff that Star Citizen is doing, in terms of more highly modeled sensor mechanics, with false/fuzzy signatures, making detections less of a binary yes/no element.

[Barantor]

Roland, on 08 December 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

Yeah, there could potentially be a lot of varying levels of fidelity added to the sensor modeling, although the suggestions I've made here are intended to be a first pass.

Long term, MWO could potentially incorporate some of the stuff that Star Citizen is doing, in terms of more highly modeled sensor mechanics, with false/fuzzy signatures, making detections less of a binary yes/no element.

Could also add some quirk elements to it like giving certain mechs even more advantage if they were normally good with sensors etc. A Cyclops with better detection might help give it the edge it needs in the assault class.

[Rebas Kradd]

bobF, on 08 December 2014 - 11:32 AM, said:

Yes. It's boring gameplay and lazy design. When you force players to press more buttons than just the dps hotkeys, you get a richer gameplay with more skill required.

That's suggesting that there's already little nuance to the gameplay to begin with. Weapon groups and ranges, torso twisting, and the existing sensor mechanics and counters already provide nice depth to this game and leave CoD kiddies nicely stymied. There IS a line at which the game just becomes too complex and confusing, and I've been pretty outspoken in saying that this thread approaches the line.

If you want more depth to information warfare, it should be relegated to certain mechs or equipment whose pilots are actually devoting themselves to the concept. Across-the-board changes that require more overlapping Venn diagrams is really pushing it.

One area I agree with you: gameplay elements should be visible and dynamic, not passive. Asking for dev resources on a change that doesn't alter a whole lot to the naked eye might not be realistic.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 08 December 2014 - 03:43 PM.

[KingIronwolf]

I like this idea and would love to see it implemented in MWO.

[Malckovich]

I see no need for some form of player council. We have the forums for a reason. Roland's suggestions are fantastic and I would love to see them in this game.

His ideas cleanly address some serious issues with the game. Well done.

[Sprouticus]

I would like to reassert my feeling that a new sensor model would be a good thing. The current one is too simple. Roland's model is not perfect, but it is a good deal better than the one we have.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

I forgot all about the council floatation...

[Krysic]

If PGI announced that they were going to make these changes I would put money in to the process. That's quite a statement from me. I've felt ripped off since I bought my second black color, only to realize they looked the same. I've made a promise to myself not to spend any more money on this game until it's issues are fixed. However, I would gladly pony up for the implementation of this proposal.

Edited by Krysic, 23 March 2015 - 11:44 AM.