1126 replies to this topic

[Jolly Llama]

Alistair Winter, on 20 January 2015 - 01:49 AM, said:

It's something I see talked about a lot on the forum. People shaking their heads at the pinpoint convergence of mechs with 60-80 damage alpha strikes, and people who still think ghost heat was a bad solution that ultimately didn't fix the real problem.

Do the majority of players want to get rid of convergence? If you don't know what I'm talking about, convergence is the mech's ability to focus all firepower on the exact same spot, as opposed to firing weapons directly forward and thus hitting different spots depending on how far apart the weapons are mounted. Right now, two torso mounted weapons will hit the same exact spot at any range. If you removed convergence, the torso mounted weapons would fire in parallell trajectories and it would be impossible for a CPLT-K2 with gauss to hit the same Center Torso with both weapons simultaneously, for example.

Is this what the community wants, or is it simply a Vocal Minority™? Or do the majority of players actually prefer the status quo, with perfect convergence? If it's the latter, what is the more popular solution to the MWO arm's race? Is it another look at how heat works? Greater penalties for overheating?

It's an old topic, but people do change their opinions now and again. At least, some of us do. Right now, I'm really not sure what the consensus is, if there is one. Most people only post in the General forum and PGI won't let us have polls here.

no

[DaZur]

I've railed on this a dozen times...

In order for a "shooter" to not de-evolve into some CoD'esk downward spiral and remain somewhat a tactical shooter PPD needs to remain.

That said... The magic infallible recticle we have now has to go bub-by... In short, movement and environmental influence should impact it's accuracy.

Mind you, I'm not talking about some arbitrary RoF or CoF... I'm talking about recticle deviation.

• You're standing still and you are not taking any incoming fire? Zero recticle deviation and all shots converge for high-damage PPD.
  
• You moving? Your recticle should deviate commensurate to the amplitude of your movement.
  
• You taking incoming fire? Your recticle should deviate, either from the impact of the ballistic or ablation of your armor.
  
• Lastly... IMHO damage should also extend to internal functions to include ones HUD.

The problem is not PPD... The problem is the magical and infallible recticle.

[Matthew Ace]

While I understand why players are irked by the very idea of a COF, I think it may be worthwhile just to have variations of that idea tried on the public test server to see if their concerns are indeed true. Personally I want to see parallel convergence (as opposed to perfect or none) has any viability.

What if COF is present in such a way that you need to aim dead center of a larger mech to do pinpoint damage to CT (it is still scattered, but not scattered enough to have a perfect convergence) at the weapons' effective range, while possibly spreading some of the weapon fire towards side torsos on the smallest of mechs (e.g. spider)?

Taking a Firestarter with 8 small pulse lasers for example. Aiming and focusing dead centre of an Atlas torso throughout the beam duration will still net you the 32 point of pinpoint damage. But do the same versus a spider and maybe 2-4 of the lasers land on its side torsos.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 21 January 2015 - 03:53 AM.

[Gyrok]

Alistair Winter, on 20 January 2015 - 04:35 PM, said:

I'm not sticking up for anyone, I'm explaining what the argument is.

By the way, torso twisting doesn't work against legs. Which is part of the reason why people often target legs when they're piloting laser vomit builds.

Torso twisting also doesn't work for builds that rely on continued fire rather than burst fire. This exacerbates the trend of pinpoint burst fire builds.

True, however, hills work to protect legs, so does moving. Especially against an average skilled pilot using something like Gauss or ERPPCs. Try nailing a firestarter in the legs while he zig zags @ 150 kph with Gauss + PPCs. It is completely doable...but for many pilots, there would be more luck involved than actual skill if they accomplished that feat, and they likely could not reproduce it.

Besides, if you do not cut leg armor, it will take someone as long to leg you as it would for them to take off a ST and bore through that ST to kill your CT.

Lesson for that is: do not cut leg armor.

[Gyrok]

Hotthedd, on 20 January 2015 - 05:58 PM, said:

To be sure, pinpoint convergence COUPLED with front-loaded damage ALPHA STRIKES are a game breaking mechanic in a game where a mech can be destroyed by killing one or two sections only.

Here are a few easy fixes:

1) Remove Alpha strikes altogether.
In TT, even firing all your weapons meant firing them one after the other, over a 10 second period.
This is the simplest remedy, but the QQ here would cause a flood.

2) Have every weapon fire straight forward in an Alpha strike, so even facehugging would not have all shots land on one location.

3) Harmonics. Have every weapon in the game set to hit the reticle at its maximum distance.
If you really wanted to get fancy and add to the customization, allow that distance for each individual weapon to be altered in the mechlab.

#3 is my favorite, as it allows any build, keeps the ability to alpha strike, but ADDS a layer of skill to the game. (I always laugh out loud at the people who think pointing and clicking is aiming)

Pointing and clicking is aiming in MWO. You have to lead a mech that is potentially doing as much as 171 kph at random ranges. Lasers and hit scan weapons are not aiming, that is more like tracking. However, PPCs, especially at long range, are certainly requiring a certain skill floor to have any decent accuracy rates past about 600m.

I tend to laugh out loud at people who think nerfing something because they cannot cope with it is a good thing.

Edited by Gyrok, 21 January 2015 - 06:45 AM.

[Dorion]

Why bother with distinguishing different sections of armor and how damaged they are if your going to get rid of convergence?

The point in my mind is to bring he most weapons to bare on target in the most effective way possible to kill the enemy in the quickest fashion.

I think the game would become exponentially less fun for me as it would become like; lets toss a bunch of shots at the enemy and see what sticks. That's just me though.

[Tahribator]

I also do not want to get rid of convergence. Especially a "cone-of-fire solution" is a reason to quit this game for me. I am however, open to other solutions like "non-instant" convergence or simply fixed convergence for torso hardpoints that can be set manually.

[Artgathan]

A few points from the snippets I've read (I haven't had time to read all 13 pages):

Firstly - removing convergence in favor of weapons that fire straight out of their ports creates a new set of balance issues wherein some mechs have much better hardpoint locations than others (consider the placement of the TDR-9S' PPC ports versus those of a CPLT-K2) that still allows them to 'focus fire' because of the proximity of their weapons to one another (as another example, this would make the BLR-1G a better PPC platform than the AWS-8Q since the BLR could cluster 3 PPCs together, while the AWS can only put two together).

Secondly - CoF doesn't always mean totally random, and managing randomness is a skill (though many people don't like it because they don't understand it). CoF would actually permit a 'truer' BT experience, because the size of the cone could be dependent on several factors (such as your speed and heat level). BT is chiefly about managing randomness anyways.

[nehebkau]

I think convergence time should be adjusted as follows:

• Smaller (lighter) weapons converge MUCH faster than larger (heavier) weapons. (current convergence rates would be the starting base for small lasers)
  
• Torso mounted weapons do not converge, they fire straight ahead.
  
• Arm mounted weapons converge.

If there is anything that the M1-A1 tank has shown us is that a big gun can be accurate at 100 Kph over uneven ground but, that main-gun is more like an arm on a mech with all its gyro stabilization and computer control.

Edited by nehebkau, 21 January 2015 - 07:53 AM.

[Mauller]

I'd really like to see an option to dial in your own convergence in the mech lab, but not during a match. I would also really like to see a cone of fire being used while your mech is in motion. If you watch mechs walking, their arms and torsos are bouncing all over the place, I highly doubt that they'd be able to deliver pin point accurate shots under these circumstances. Especially given that the arms tend to bounce out of time with the torsos. Lasers would be especially susceptible to this as you'd see the beam move up and down the target as they moved.

[Mycrus]

if they just disable the ability to snap arms + torso with a flick of a button this would be so better managed...

[Hotthedd]

Gyrok, on 21 January 2015 - 06:44 AM, said:

Pointing and clicking is aiming in MWO. You have to lead a mech that is potentially doing as much as 171 kph at random ranges. Lasers and hit scan weapons are not aiming, that is more like tracking. However, PPCs, especially at long range, are certainly requiring a certain skill floor to have any decent accuracy rates past about 600m.

I tend to laugh out loud at people who think nerfing something because they cannot cope with it is a good thing.

I am not calling for a nerf of anything. I am pointing out that instant pinpoint alpha striking at any and all ranges is a broken mechanic in a game that has hitboxes, only 1 or 2 that need to be destroyed to kill an enemy.

Sure, it does take skill to put your cursor over a target and click a mouse, but please do not confuse that with aiming. What we have now is 2 dimensional, it does not matter if you switch between targets that are 1000m away to one that is 200m away, all of your weapons immediately still hit the reticles.

There are fixes. (Better fixes than ghost heat, splash damage, etc.) I proposed 3 simple ones. I have no faith PGI even CARES that the mechanic is borked, they are trying to appeal to the point-n-click COD players (They already have BT and MW fans' money).

Simply put: Having the ability to be insta-gibbed from across the map, or by a crafty light pilot kind of takes away the sense that you are piloting the ultimate fighting weapon of the known galaxy. Why would any military unit invest that kind of money into a weapons platform that can be destroyed so easily?

I understand that adding something like harmonics would make the game too hard to play for the egos of some self-proclaimed "leet gamers". I have no delusions that this is something that will ever be fixed, but I'm happy to throw solutions out there.

[Blakkstar]

The entire Battletech combat system is based on three things: difficulty shooting at range, difficulty while moving, and semi-random hit locations.

Why does everybody complain TTK on this game is too low? There is only a slight difficulty to shoot at range, next to no penalty for moving (except jumping), and no CoF or RNG when it comes to hit location. This game is trying to shoehorn a non-Battletech FPS shooting system into the Battletech construction system and it isn't working very well.

It's not impossible to fix, and most of it could be by adding reticule shake while moving. The shake could be non-random, and proportional to throttle, not ground speed (a Locust and Atlas moving at top speed have the same shake). Thus the faster the mech, the greater the advantage for being able to shoot without being hit. The net effect would be to make shooting while moving more difficult and less precise, especially at range.

Edited by Blakkstar, 21 January 2015 - 07:45 AM.

[Tyman4]

RetroActive, on 20 January 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

Please no. You think people complain about invincible lights now? Can you imagine how hard it would be to kill a light if there were no convergence?

I like hitting what I'm aiming at, thanks.



Please point me in the direction of a setup that can deliver more than 50 pinpoint damage.

6 streak 6 mad dog.... by by light mech..gg close

Tyman

[nehebkau]

Tyman4, on 21 January 2015 - 07:50 AM, said:

6 streak 6 mad dog.... by by light mech..gg close

Tyman

Except I keep you at >400 yards with my speed and slowly blow off your legs with my (c) ERLLs.; The person does have a point about lights which is why i think arm weapons should converge and torso weapons should not converge.

That would also affect the FS9 7/8 laser builds where only 4 of their 7 or 8 would converge.

It would tend to have people put AOE weapons in their torsos (SRMs, LRMs, LBXs, MGs, Flamers) and pinpoint weapons (gauss, PPC, ACs, lasers) in their arms.

Edited by nehebkau, 21 January 2015 - 07:57 AM.

[Hotthedd]

nehebkau, on 21 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

I think convergence time should be adjusted as follows:

• Smaller (lighter) weapons converge MUCH faster than larger (heavier) weapons. (current convergence rates would be the starting base for small lasers)
  
• Torso mounted weapons do not converge, they fire straight ahead.
  
• Arm mounted weapons converge.

If there is anything that the M1-A1 tank has shown us is that a big gun can be accurate at 100 Kph over uneven ground but, that main-gun is more like an arm on a mech with all its gyro stabilization and computer control.

Yep, but that is ONE weapon, ONE shot at a time. Chain fire can be pinpoint without breaking the game.
Now, when we get tanks that can fire multiple guns simultaneously, and ALL of them hit the same dime-sized target, we should talk about adding that feature to MW:O...

[Athena Pryde]

In most FPS your reticle gets bigger when you move and even bigger when you run. If you fire a gun with recoil your reticle also gets bigger to reflect the recoil. This should be in MWO as well. Bigger balistics should have bigger recoil and if your running around at 150kph your reticle gets bigger then if your standing still. Jump jet and your reticle gets big too.

[Thorqemada]

All Mechs i play often do spread damage - a change would only benefit me as i would face the competition on a more even ground.

[operatorZ]

DaZur, on 20 January 2015 - 07:49 PM, said:

I've railed on this a dozen times...

In order for a "shooter" to not de-evolve into some CoD'esk downward spiral and remain somewhat a tactical shooter PPD needs to remain.

That said... The magic infallible recticle we have now has to go bub-by... In short, movement and environmental influence should impact it's accuracy.

Mind you, I'm not talking about some arbitrary RoF or CoF... I'm talking about recticle deviation.

• You're standing still and you are not taking any incoming fire? Zero recticle deviation and all shots converge for high-damage PPD.
  
• You moving? Your recticle should deviate commensurate to the amplitude of your movement.
  
• You taking incoming fire? Your recticle should deviate, either from the impact of the ballistic or ablation of your armor.
  
• Lastly... IMHO damage should also extend to internal functions to include ones HUD.

The problem is not PPD... The problem is the magical and infallible recticle.

This^^

[Heffay]

I want arm mounted weapons to have convergence (instant is fine, because limited firepower) but torso/head weapons to have a fixed (user defined, manually configurable) range.