337 replies to this topic

[Magna Canus]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:18 AM, said:

Target Match Accuracy is measured in "Minute of Angle" or clustering shots around a 1 inch grouping (plus or minus determining 1/2 MoA, 2 MoA, etc). Combat shooting is measured in MoP, or Minute of Person. At what range does the weapon reliably hit a man sized target. Armored combat, it is simply minute of target, which tends to be other, similar sized vehicles. Simply put, if one holds center mass on a moving battlemech, while in their own, running, jumping, battlemech, and hits the target, that is realistic and believable accuracy, under most combat conditions. Add extreme range, jumping and such into the picture? You never HAVE a perfect center mass hold to begin with. Even if we don't see a "CoF", there needs to be serious reticle bounce and shake added to truly emulate the environments and situational nature of combat shooting. Sorry to all the "skill" princesses out there, but one does not get a perfectly stable hold and firing solution when one is doing aerial pilates in 80 metric tons of moving metal.

I can get friendly with the idea of more realistic environment and movement influences on how the reticle moves than I can a random CoF. I understand where you say it take more "skill" to minimize the margin of error with a CoF, but that still does not eliminate the fact that as soon as a CoF exists for a direct fire weapon you are adding in a "luck factor", e.g. relying on a roll or the dice, no matter how large or small. That luck factor makes the game less of a simulation that would like it to be.

I equate the entire situation to my experiences with archery on horseback. You have movement and factors that alter your ability to aim, but training and "skill" help you mitigate or completely eliminate those factors.

[Ghogiel]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:11 AM, said:

click a pixel is still far more reflex based than actual skill. I believe it is much more skill intensive to hit anything on games like Battlefield or such, where most think CoF simply means spray and pray, yet the really good players are very good at knowing when and how to minimize things like the CoF for the best chance of success.

In MWO, it simply is a matter of how fast you can scroll your mouse to the right pixel. If you are slow and busted like me, then guys like Wispsy and Jager will beat me, all day. But 90% of that is simply reflexes.

imo precision and skill to hold on that pixel is a bit more important than the speed to get there. Being fast is good, getting every shot on target is better.

[Bishop Steiner]

WarHippy, on 22 September 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:

I still would like to see a system where you fire one weapon and you have pin-point accuracy, but with each additional weapon the spread increases. Different types of weapons could have different amounts of spread, and with that people would be less effective at range bringing fights in closer like the devs want. This also allows the pin-point talent to have a proper use by lowering the amount of spread.

I get that.

But I still want to see the combat system that allows perfect, long range, direct fire sniper accuracy while running and bouncing and jumping at 100 kph or more.

When I find that, then I am all for the current perfect aim we have now. Or for said "sniper" to have to basically stand still to get it.

[SI The Joker]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:35 AM, said:

Ya know, maybe mechs need a periscope, or "corner shot" ability somehow where they can peek around corners without exposing themselves..... since I am constantly amazed how many people I see able to not just hit an ECM covered mech 500 meters out when it tries to peek.... but magically how often the whole team seems to know it's there in the first place.

Or maybe they just need to set up the User Config files so that people can't just strip everything out/adjust distance for heat vision, etc and actually force people to play on the "same playing field".

Eh, different topic, and one PGI doesn't like us talking about, for some reason.


Imagine how hard it would be for all these poor "skill" gamers to go to war. As they crawl into the firing cupola of an M1A1 abrams...... then can't find any place to plug in their adjustable dps mouse, no cup holder for their cans of Monster.......and then they look into the scope...and can't find any settings adjustments to remove all the smoke and visual detritus from their LoS.......

And that's before the thing even starts moving and they start getting bucked all over the place from every pothole and dip.

And that doesn't even touch what happens to one's own manual coordination once people start shooting at you.

But hey, it's all about the "skillz".

Sticky situation, those user config files. Adjusting some items yes... others... No.

I can tell you that 9 times out of 10 that little ECM mech sticks his head out right where I (and I'm assuming others) would almost expect him to... or he pops out and fires... then just stands there. Well... we all know what happens next.

[Joseph Mallan]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

I get that.

But I still want to see the combat system that allows perfect, long range, direct fire sniper accuracy while running and bouncing and jumping at 100 kph or more.

When I find that, then I am all for the current perfect aim we have now. Or for said "sniper" to have to basically stand still to get it.

You are easier to please than me. Most of the "Combat vehicles" have One main Weapon. I wanna see a Battleship fire a broadside and hit a 1.5 Meter diameter target with ALL OF IT!

SI The Joker, on 22 September 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

Sticky situation, those user config files. Adjusting some items yes... others... No.

I can tell you that 9 times out of 10 that little ECM mech sticks his head out right where I (and I'm assuming others) would almost expect him to... or he pops out and fires... then just stands there. Well... we all know what happens next.

I have seen what happens to Prairie Dogs. So yes, I can imagine!

[Bishop Steiner]

Magnakanus, on 22 September 2014 - 06:40 AM, said:

I can get friendly with the idea of more realistic environment and movement influences on how the reticle moves than I can a random CoF. I understand where you say it take more "skill" to minimize the margin of error with a CoF, but that still does not eliminate the fact that as soon as a CoF exists for a direct fire weapon you are adding in a "luck factor", e.g. relying on a roll or the dice, no matter how large or small. That luck factor makes the game less of a simulation that would like it to be.

I equate the entire situation to my experiences with archery on horseback. You have movement and factors that alter your ability to aim, but training and "skill" help you mitigate or completely eliminate those factors.

Actually, the luck factor, makes it more of a Sim. There are ALWAYS variables outside the shooters control, and even the finest match grade rifle and ammo have variances, else all the shots would go through the same hole.

Which is why, even with CoF, it would need serious though put in, for "realism". A center mass hold, even at extremes, should generate a "somewhere on torso or head" hit., generally speaking.

But trying to hit, with military grade, mass produced ammo and barrels, under combat conditions, the left arm of a moving mech, 800 meters out, while running and jumping yourself? Very real chance of missing, no matter how "skilled" one is.

Simple truth, every single shot you fire, IRL has a CoF, and is affected by the powder charge variances, temperature, the interface of the individual bullet to barrel, and once it leaves the barrel, wind, rain, etc.

Even when put into a mechanical firing device, with "precision ammo", a firearm will produce a cluster or "Cone" of hits.

But I do understand where you are coming from. But as a shooter, when I here people comment on "luck" and "rng" and such, I cringe, because even for the best of the best, both are very real factors in every shot taken, even from the most stable and perfect of conditions.

[Magna Canus]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:35 AM, said:

Ya know, maybe mechs need a periscope, or "corner shot" ability somehow where they can peek around corners without exposing themselves..... since I am constantly amazed how many people I see able to not just hit an ECM covered mech 500 meters out when it tries to peek.... but magically how often the whole team seems to know it's there in the first place. Or maybe they just need to set up the User Config files so that people can't just strip everything out/adjust distance for heat vision, etc and actually force people to play on the "same playing field". Eh, different topic, and one PGI doesn't like us talking about, for some reason. Imagine how hard it would be for all these poor "skill" gamers to go to war. As they crawl into the firing cupola of an M1A1 abrams...... then can't find any place to plug in their adjustable dps mouse, no cup holder for their cans of Monster.......and then they look into the scope...and can't find any settings adjustments to remove all the smoke and visual detritus from their LoS....... And that's before the thing even starts moving and they start getting bucked all over the place from every pothole and dip. And that doesn't even touch what happens to one's own manual coordination once people start shooting at you. But hey, it's all about the "skillz".

I have to admit that I have no real experience with the settings & heat vision thingy you are talking about, BUT the Mark 1 eyeball has been known to penetrate the ECM cloak. Add something like "in the course of the last 10k matches at least 1 ECM mech thought that it would be a good idea to snipe from x or spot from y" and the fact that we have a limited number of maps and each map has a relatively limited number of "usable approach lanes"... well, go figure. Experience tends to trump ECM.

[Bishop Steiner]

SI The Joker, on 22 September 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

Sticky situation, those user config files. Adjusting some items yes... others... No.

I can tell you that 9 times out of 10 that little ECM mech sticks his head out right where I (and I'm assuming others) would almost expect him to... or he pops out and fires... then just stands there. Well... we all know what happens next.

those I agree on. But trust me, there are times I am far from the fight, confirmed no LoS during my maneuvers, no UAV in range, etc, and just barely poke out ...and boo, literally have a lance or more, turn and hit me in unison.

Sometimes, it's just bad luck, sometimes, you are spotted.....other times....?

Magnakanus, on 22 September 2014 - 06:40 AM, said:

I can get friendly with the idea of more realistic environment and movement influences on how the reticle moves than I can a random CoF. I understand where you say it take more "skill" to minimize the margin of error with a CoF, but that still does not eliminate the fact that as soon as a CoF exists for a direct fire weapon you are adding in a "luck factor", e.g. relying on a roll or the dice, no matter how large or small. That luck factor makes the game less of a simulation that would like it to be.

I equate the entire situation to my experiences with archery on horseback. You have movement and factors that alter your ability to aim, but training and "skill" help you mitigate or completely eliminate those factors.

C'mon dude, you can never completely eliminate aiming issues while on a moving horse. The day you start doing a Robin hood, and landing multiple arrows splitting each other, while on a moving horse, consistently, I'll concede. Because that is what aiming in MWO is.

You can mitigate it, and make shots count, but part of that is also how often you have to delay, or NOT take a shot.

[Magna Canus]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 September 2014 - 06:51 AM, said:

those I agree on. But trust me, there are times I am far from the fight, confirmed no LoS during my maneuvers, no UAV in range, etc, and just barely poke out ...and boo, literally have a lance or more, turn and hit me in unison.

Sometimes, it's just bad luck, sometimes, you are spotted.....other times....?


C'mon dude, you can never completely eliminate aiming issues while on a moving horse. The day you start doing a Robin hood, and landing multiple arrows splitting each other, while on a moving horse, consistently, I'll concede. Because that is what aiming in MWO is.

You can mitigate it, and make shots count, but part of that is also how often you have to delay, or NOT take a shot.

Eliminate is too strong a word I guess. But still, if you can hit the 20 cm diameter yellow area more or less consistantly from a moving horse at 5+m WITHOUT an advanced targeting computer then hitting a 13m tall mech at 500 is not much different.

I think what the big open question here is what exactly that targeting computer can do. Since it is not a real piece of hardware it lays in the realm of conjecture. I remember reading some tech stuff on BT on the fly that talked about redundant and/or autonomous TC systems and what not. I read some info on the M1 a while ago as well that placed its accuracy very high while moving at a distance of around 2.5 km. I am sure BT can do better.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Instead of doubling armor and/or IS again, PGI just needs to implement dynamic precision reduction.

What does this mean? DPR is a real-time, scaling reduction in precision due to certain known factors. I always recommend that DPR take into account throttle % (what the mech is actually doing, not what it is set for), heat %, and stability state (things like being off the ground, having JJs burning, having recently received Impulse, etc.).

DPR's effects would not have to be all that harsh in order to be meaningful. That said, if you are running at 100% throttle while at 90% heat and you're JJing while under AC2 fire, then your shots should be deviating pretty widely. If you want to snipe with dual gauss and dual ERPPCs, then you need to slow down or even stop, make sure you're very cool, and avoid getting the enemy's attention so that you aren't being knocked around by incoming fire. Do those things and you will land your shots with deadly precision (DPR will be essentially null). DPR also renders poptarting far less potent without removing it as a valid tactic, and its effect would be far more pronounced with jump snipers than it would be for jump brawlers.

One further benefit of DPR over other "cone of fire" solutions is that DPR would be a set deviation under any particular circumstance (it could even be reflected in the reticule size). I could even see a system of deviation being implemented where the position of the weapon on the mech determines the direction in which it deviates (for instance, upper right weapons like Jager right arms or Battlemaster right shoulders deviate to the upper right part of the aim circle). Having random deviation distance and random deviation direction does more than naturally split volley-fired weapons, it also renders things unpredictable in a way that many players find objectionable. Implemented the way I recommend, DPR would reduce the impact of volley-fired weapons while also requiring more care in firing even single weapons under very poor conditions. Managing conditions and adapting to the real-time deviation imposed by DPR would introduce several levels of skill to MWO gameplay (which is currently more point-and-click than anything else).

Doubling armor and/or structure again would be something of a band-aid for larger mechs and would weaken lighter mechs relatively, even more than they already are. Plus, you'd pretty much have to increase ammo loads again if you did this. DPR, on the other hand, fixes all manner of underlying gameplay issues without further messing with the relationship between large and small battlemechs.

[Dolph Hoskins]

Magnakanus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:10 AM, said:

Eliminate is too strong a word I guess. But still, if you can hit the 20 cm diameter yellow area more or less consistantly from a moving horse at 5+m WITHOUT an advanced targeting computer then hitting a 13m tall mech at 500 is not much different.

I think what the big open question here is what exactly that targeting computer can do. Since it is not a real piece of hardware it lays in the realm of conjecture. I remember reading some tech stuff on BT on the fly that talked about redundant and/or autonomous TC systems and what not. I read some info on the M1 a while ago as well that placed its accuracy very high while moving at a distance of around 2.5 km. I am sure BT can do better.

Targeting computers are real.

The first is a home made TC essentially made by some college students. The second is a page describing Phalanx Anti missile guns that have been on air craft carriers and battleships for decades, make reference to the radar subsystems in particular.


http://en.wikipedia....adar_subsystems

[Lily from animove]

KraftySOT, on 20 September 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:

its not a bad idea, its just not TT.

But I would rather see this, than no change at all. Targeting specific spots would come back into play, which at least keeps you from getting cored...no ones after yer 2 med lasers...since the fastest way to turn a threat into a non threat is to destroy its ability to harm you, instead of trying to core it.

It would at least lead to better more tactical gameplay and I wont hate on an idea just because its not TT when it helps lead to more TT like RESULTS...which is combat not being a game of HIT THEM IN THE **** EARL!!!

at the moment you replaced the TT dice for hits with a human beign kidn of a cheated dice, you already left TT too much. So either you need to increase crosshair and make wepaons have a random spread in the crosshait to simulate TT or just accept that Mechwarrior will never be a TT game. because it never was in the other MW games as well.

stjobe, on 21 September 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

(Tech Manual, p. 43)

Wait, whaaat? in which way or degree can Battlemechs be programmed to do stuff automatically then?

[Bishop Steiner]

Magnakanus, on 22 September 2014 - 07:10 AM, said:

Eliminate is too strong a word I guess. But still, if you can hit the 20 cm diameter yellow area more or less consistantly from a moving horse at 5+m WITHOUT an advanced targeting computer then hitting a 13m tall mech at 500 is not much different.

I think what the big open question here is what exactly that targeting computer can do. Since it is not a real piece of hardware it lays in the realm of conjecture. I remember reading some tech stuff on BT on the fly that talked about redundant and/or autonomous TC systems and what not. I read some info on the M1 a while ago as well that placed its accuracy very high while moving at a distance of around 2.5 km. I am sure BT can do better.

that abrams is placing a single weapon on target...usually a tank sized target.
And it doesn't get "insta aim". Turret has to track, etc. It's not even so much how fast the Mech can process a firing solution.... it's how fast it can process multiple firing solutions simultaneously, and then actuate and converge several dozen tons of weaponry to said point.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Magnakanus, on 22 September 2014 - 06:40 AM, said:

I can get friendly with the idea of more realistic environment and movement influences on how the reticle moves than I can a random CoF. I understand where you say it take more "skill" to minimize the margin of error with a CoF, but that still does not eliminate the fact that as soon as a CoF exists for a direct fire weapon you are adding in a "luck factor", e.g. relying on a roll or the dice, no matter how large or small. That luck factor makes the game less of a simulation that would like it to be.

I equate the entire situation to my experiences with archery on horseback. You have movement and factors that alter your ability to aim, but training and "skill" help you mitigate or completely eliminate those factors.

Yeah, in the end, CoF's just draw the fights into Brawl range, where its so close you cant miss. But it would help mitigate the whole Gauss/PPC meta bit. As if the PPC speed nerf didnt already do that..it takes like 2s for the C ER PPC to travel like 900m. Or however far away I was the other day in the training grounds firing...900, 890? idk...it was a fair bit of range and the travel time was horrid.

[Pht]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 September 2014 - 06:20 AM, said:

I haven't dropped an F-bomb or got insulting and I feel that firing more than one weapon should have a cone of fire.

I was making reference to the way someone else was behaving a while back in the thread I linked.

I guess people really DON'T have an idea of how to fix the problem without unaccountable randomness or the COF.

*spidey sense tingles* ... I sense a short, sweet, visually enhanced post coming.

[Joseph Mallan]

Take your Pick!

Spooky


This is every 5th bullet. Note the size of the impact area and how wide the impacts are!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 22 September 2014 - 08:19 AM.

[stjobe]

Lily from animove, on 22 September 2014 - 07:16 AM, said:

Wait, whaaat? in which way or degree can Battlemechs be programmed to do stuff automatically then?

To a rather high degree actually. They are basically semi-autonomous robotic fighting machines, and can e.g. move from point A to point B avoiding obstacles on the way without any input from the MechWarrior except "move to point B".

There was a thread a way back discussing this (although the OP was rather upset with people saying 'mechs were any more advanced than e.g. a modern MBT or fighter jet).

[Joseph Mallan]

The Ripper13, on 22 September 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

Targeting computers are real.

The first is a home made TC essentially made by some college students. The second is a page describing Phalanx Anti missile guns that have been on air craft carriers and battleships for decades, make reference to the radar subsystems in particular.


http://en.wikipedia....adar_subsystems

4:16 No paint under left window
"Dummy" stays mostly behind shield.
4:22 This is called collateral damage!

[Tombstoner]

CapperDeluxe, on 22 September 2014 - 06:38 AM, said:

No thanks, it can already take forever to finally take down a Spider running around, why make it worse than it already is? Not to mention how long it can also take to destroy the likes of the Stalker or Dire Wolf if you don't have half your team focusing on it.

what your seeing is the interaction between armor and speed. flat out doubling armor reward mechs disproportionately. scaling base armor relative to the size of the hit box would be a great place to start. all that needs to be determined is what qualifies as the base line size, that is half way between the atlas and the locust.

LordKnightFandragon, on 22 September 2014 - 07:46 AM, said:

Yeah, in the end, CoF's just draw the fights into Brawl range, where its so close you cant miss. But it would help mitigate the whole Gauss/PPC meta bit. As if the PPC speed nerf didnt already do that..it takes like 2s for the C ER PPC to travel like 900m. Or however far away I was the other day in the training grounds firing...900, 890? idk...it was a fair bit of range and the travel time was horrid.

Not if the COF is dynamic and basd on the firing mechs speed. stationary mech should get high levels of precision the is modified by the weapon type... lasers should be the game most accurat weapons folowed by gaus and the rest.

[Dolph Hoskins]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 September 2014 - 08:28 AM, said:

4:16 No paint under left window
"Dummy" stays mostly behind shield.
4:22 This is called collateral damage!

Well, if you want to get all knit picking about it

Actually that paint ball turret is one of their first videos and designs, if you found that cool check out their product site. They have made leaps and bounds in advancements.

I've always found the Phalanx cannons almost unbelievable since I was a kid. Now imagine all of that tech mixed with space magic! Now you're talking bad ass.