39 replies to this topic

[lshtaria]

First off I apologise for my post last night on this subject. I'm pretty bad on the bipolar front which ends up getting me into trouble, especially on game forums when I feel strongly about something. Don't even get me started on real life!

For those who saw it, I got the physics side of things wrong with ablative armour and what-not but I would still say my idea would go a long way to preventing the pinpoint insta-gibs we see so much of in the game.

So the idea. Basically all I'd like to suggest is that after armour has been depleted, there is a short cooldown period (1 second?) before internal damage can be taken. If you took a 50 point alpha to a part with 30 points of armour, the armour would be completely destroyed but the 20 remaining points of damage wouldn't bleed through to the internals. It could either disappear into the ether or be spread to adjacent components. After the cooldown period, the internals would take damage as normal.

Of course it's just one of many ideas out there to help improve the game like true convergence, cone of fire accuracy etc. Either way at least many of us would like to this PPFLD gremlin to be changed in some way.

Your thoughts?

[Xarian]

I think it's a very artificial, tacked-on way to handle high-damage pinpoint. I'd rather see a system that spreads around the damage or one that discourages high-damage pinpoint in the first place. If that were the case, the "blowing through armor" thing wouldn't matter.

[MoonUnitBeta]

My initial thoughts is that I don't like it. Because of the very simple fact that it doesn't make sense. It can easily be interpretted incorrectly (where did my 40 damage go? Hit Reg? Lag? Hit box issues? Ping?) Also because if I have 1 armor on my torso, and receive 50-100 damage in one second. I wouldn't die. Infact my internals would remain unharmed. Even though I only had 1 armor and should theoretically be dead. And there's no way to explain why I survived, except, well, magic really.

Even if we tried to balance the system with a linear progression that scales incoming damage (for every 0.1 seconds it allows 10% more damage, for example) it would be a waste of time because it's fundamentally flawed already.

I understand your grief. The problem lies in many smaller problems that all gather and stack onto each other to give you high alpha pinpoints. You are right there are many ways to balance things, unfortunately this is not a very good way to do that. Sorry

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 27 October 2014 - 02:18 PM.

[lshtaria]

Xarian, on 27 October 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

I think it's a very artificial, tacked-on way to handle high-damage pinpoint. I'd rather see a system that spreads around the damage or one that discourages high-damage pinpoint in the first place. If that were the case, the "blowing through armor" thing wouldn't matter.

Yeah I hear you. At least the consensus is we don't like the high pinpoint alphas. It's just a case of how to fix it while keeping as many people as possible happy because there will always be agreements and disagreements on whatever the fix (if any) is to it.

I suppose that's why I like my idea (as if you don't like your own ideas anyway?) because it's just a simple way of segregating armour and internal damage without trying to be too convoluted about it.

MoonUnitBeta, on 27 October 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

My initial thoughts is that I don't like it. Because of the very simple fact that it doesn't make sense. It can easily be interpretted incorrectly (where did my 40 damage go? Hit Reg? Lag? Hit box issues? Ping?) Also because if I have 1 armor on my torso, and receive 50-100 damage in one second. I wouldn't die. Infact my internals would remain unharmed. Even though I only had 1 armor and should theoretically be dead. And there's no way to explain why I survived, except, well, magic really.

I understand your grief. The problem lies in many smaller problems that all gather and stack onto each other to give you high alpha pinpoints. You are right there are many ways to balance things, unfortunately this is not a very good way to do that. Sorry

Are you related to the W.A.S.P. who played All Points Bulletin Reloaded?

You make a good point though about legit damage being taken away. It's why I suggested the armour "blow off" damage could be spread to other parts of the mech?

This is always going to be a difficult problem to fix in a game where damage usually = win

Edited by Kyocera, 27 October 2014 - 02:21 PM.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Kyocera, on 27 October 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

Yeah I hear you. At least the consensus is we don't like the high pinpoint alphas. It's just a case of how to fix it while keeping as many people as possible happy because there will always be agreements and disagreements on whatever the fix (if any) is to it.

I suppose that's why I like my idea (as if you don't like your own ideas anyway?) because it's just a simple way of segregating armour and internal damage without trying to be too convoluted about it.


Are you related to the W.A.S.P. who played All Points Bulletin Reloaded?

You make a good point though about legit damage being taken away. It's why I suggested the armour "blow off" damage could be spread to other parts of the mech?

This is always going to be a difficult problem to fix in a game where damage usually = win

Nope. W.A.S.P is just a logo/exclusive unit (if you can call it that haha) that I made for my friend and I. It means War Additive Support Package. He's the only real-life friend I play the game with so it's kinda neat to have something that ties us together. He doesn't post on here much so you won't see the other WASP logo. '

I suppose that damage could be spread to other parts but, then again the same questions still apply with hit reg and stuff when components are receiving damage that the player isn't aiming at.

It's a tougher one to solve without upsetting anyone. There's been a lot of suggestions on this topic. None of which that really caught PGI's attention (that was when IGP owned them though), even though there's been a few that made half decent sense.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 27 October 2014 - 03:12 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

The fix is a mix of longer cooldowns, a mild CoF bloom system, an overhaul of the heat scale and penalties, rearm costs for cannon weapons, removal of Ghost heat and the removal of the ability to group fire certain weapons.....would that be gamey? Yeah, but no more so then current Ghost heat mechanics....

1PPC or GR can be fired at a time...you can rapidly fire them off in succession, but that would just help spread the shots and slow down the shooting as you would probably be reaiming after each shot....increasing the TTK...

[lshtaria]

Strangely I'm a fan of the ghost heat system I never said I wasn't weird

[LauLiao]

Kyocera, on 27 October 2014 - 02:17 PM, said:

You make a good point though about legit damage being taken away. It's why I suggested the armour "blow off" damage could be spread to other parts of the mech?

The problem with this is that you've gotta think of all possible scenarios. Take an extreme example. My mech has no armor anywhere except the left leg and right arm. Everything else is down to internal. I take an AC/20 shell to my arm. Where does the damage go? If it goes to the nearest location, that would be the right torso, which is now bereft of armor, and you're actually making the problem WORSE because now it could blow out my XL, or even take both the ST AND Arm if there's little enough internal left.

Ok then you transfer the damage to the nearest location with armor. In our scenario that would be the LL. How in the world does it make sense to take a shot on the right arm and have it do damage to the left leg?

[lshtaria]

LauLiao, on 27 October 2014 - 03:27 PM, said:

The problem with this is that you've gotta think of all possible scenarios. Take an extreme example. My mech has no armor anywhere except the left leg and right arm. Everything else is down to internal. I take an AC/20 shell to my arm. Where does the damage go? If it goes to the nearest location, that would be the right torso, which is now bereft of armor, and you're actually making the problem WORSE because now it could blow out my XL, or even take both the ST AND Arm if there's little enough internal left.

Ok then you transfer the damage to the nearest location with armor. In our scenario that would be the LL. How in the world does it make sense to take a shot on the right arm and have it do damage to the left leg?

Hmmm good point well made.

I guess all that's left is for the damage to disappear into the ether

Having said that, I wonder if this was an original mechanic it wouldn't be so badly received

[Brody319]

This is a science fiction game. We got diamond armor when any civilization that progresses far enough would easily find more viable resources to use for protection. You are probably better off filling that dropship with bombs and just carpet bombing the enemy mechs rather than waste metal, materials, and ammo on these mechs. If I fire a machine gun round in the vaccum on manifold, it would keep going till gravity dragged it down, also the lack of an atmosphere would actually inhibit cooling a mech. There is nothing out there to move the heat onto without the mech releasing its own coolent into the air. Cold maps would be the only place to give a cooling bonus because the air would suck the heat out of the mech. Heatsinks also force heat out of the mech, which is not how they work in real life, they just store heat and keep it out of the vitals. Really what should happen is a mech progressively gets more heat imparted, then it would shut down, and eject the heat sinks, and then turn back on and keep going. So really we should be seeing mechs being weighted down by heat sinks to eject to prevent heat damage rather than heat sinks forcing heat out.

This game has no basis in current understandings of science, so really why not have a second or two grace period? maybe the armor when its falling off blocks all the damage incoming into the internals for a few seconds till its dropped away for good. As good of an explanation as any.

[lshtaria]

Brody319, on 27 October 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

This is a science fiction game. We got diamond armor when any civilization that progresses far enough would easily find more viable resources to use for protection. You are probably better off filling that dropship with bombs and just carpet bombing the enemy mechs rather than waste metal, materials, and ammo on these mechs. If I fire a machine gun round in the vaccum on manifold, it would keep going till gravity dragged it down, also the lack of an atmosphere would actually inhibit cooling a mech. There is nothing out there to move the heat onto without the mech releasing its own coolent into the air. Cold maps would be the only place to give a cooling bonus because the air would suck the heat out of the mech. Heatsinks also force heat out of the mech, which is not how they work in real life, they just store heat and keep it out of the vitals. Really what should happen is a mech progressively gets more heat imparted, then it would shut down, and eject the heat sinks, and then turn back on and keep going. So really we should be seeing mechs being weighted down by heat sinks to eject to prevent heat damage rather than heat sinks forcing heat out.

This game has no basis in current understandings of science, so really why not have a second or two grace period? maybe the armor when its falling off blocks all the damage incoming into the internals for a few seconds till its dropped away for good. As good of an explanation as any.

Lol have you never heard of space magic?

It was as good an explanation as any for Mass Effect and pretty much every episode of Star Trek is deus ex machina

If you can't beat them, join them

Edited by Kyocera, 27 October 2014 - 04:06 PM.

[The Boz]

I shall shamelessly self-promote
http://mwomercs.com/...ced-short-ttks/

[Duke Nedo]

Another thread that will turn into "the only solution is delayed convergence which is impossible due to HSR and we will never get it and we don't want cone of fire and we don't want random accuracy.... thread".

Something that we could easily get, that I think we should aim for is:

• Forced unlocked arms (after cadet if you will), will spread pinpoint damage for some builds
  
• Unlocking left and right arms (with different backhand and forehand max angle and speed), will spread pinpoint damage for more builds
  
• Small recoil (relaxing quick enough not to affect AC2), will spread pinpoint damage from balistics/laser combos and UAC double-tap

[Elizander]

Duke Nedo, on 28 October 2014 - 12:28 AM, said:

• Small recoil (relaxing quick enough not to affect AC2), will spread pinpoint damage from balistics/laser combos and UAC double-tap

Lasers are usually shot after the Ballistic is fired since lasers are instant you can just fire where the ballistic hits.

[Duke Nedo]

Elizander, on 28 October 2014 - 12:31 AM, said:

Lasers are usually shot after the Ballistic is fired since lasers are instant you can just fire where the ballistic hits.

Aye, I usually "chainfire" them too, so recoil would not affect the way I play that combo, but there are occasions for example when using the DW 5x cUAC + 4 cERML build that I fire everything simultaneously and double tap for maximum destruction on targets without transverse speed. Recoil would probably be welcome in these situations...

The only thing these three bullets doesn't touch is probably the instafired AC/gauss/PPC combo when mounted in the same location, but they are rather desynced by proj speed so we could probably live with that?

[Xiang]

Well a good starting point would be for PGI to admit that if you are standing inside of a Jaegers arms, they should not be able to hit you with 2x AC20 to the CT.....

Failing that, they need to work on convergence so that weapons on the right side and left side cannot hit exactly the same place - ever - if they are fired at the exact same time. You should be hitting left and center, or right and center of your target. Or you should not be able to fire torso weapons when your arms are crossed over your body firing far off to one side, otherwise you would shoot off your own arm...im just saying...

Anyway, yes, it needs to be addressed.

Xiang

[Karl Streiger]

Why not simple use Ghost Damage?
Didn't matter if we had another additional bandaid system.

The maximum damage possible into a single locations without damage reduction is 20
If your alpha has a potentia damage of > 21 your damage is reduced.
no values - because some of you already have read about this idea (its not mine)

anyhow in the end 2 Gauss and 2 ERPPCs with a potential of 60 may only deal a potential of 40dmg.
is it logic? nope
make it sense? nope
does a M1A2 has two guns that hit the same spot? nope
make it sense that a multi turret warship can hit a coin at 2000m with the complete broad side? Nope
please keep realism or logic where it belongs.

(really if i would have been a weapon/tank designer - and somebody ask me to put 3 gauss rifles into a tank - i would ask him - why 3 for 15tons each - why not 1 really badass for 45t

[The Massive]

[riverslq]

Xarian, on 27 October 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

I think it's a very artificial, tacked-on way to handle high-damage pinpoint. I'd rather see a system that spreads around the damage or one that discourages high-damage pinpoint in the first place. If that were the case, the "blowing through armor" thing wouldn't matter.

like ghost heat isn't an artificial tacked-on way to handle high-damage output?

[Willard Phule]

riverslq, on 28 October 2014 - 01:42 AM, said:

like ghost heat isn't an artificial tacked-on way to handle high-damage output?

Just thinking the same thing...