1126 replies to this topic

[KuroNyra]

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 02:27 AM, said:

I'm genuinely curious just how many of these people who think TTK is too short peeked a 6-man firing squad, got ganked and went to the forums immediately to QQ about not being able to make big mistakes and live to tell the story. My TT memories are pretty blurry but I'm sure that having 6 mechs shooting at you in TT would instagib you just as fast if not faster(hello random crits).

In TT, they weren't able to achieve pin-point accuracy. And beside, this is far from being the problem.

Something know since at least Mechwarrior 2.

[Varvar86]

Looks some people thinks that we are talking about some randomizations in beams/shots spread some mystical dice rolls or something like that. No we don’t.
Let’s visualize the problem.
Here the first picture representing the actual working scheme. All weapons mounted will aim one point on any range will it be 1000m or 10m. Its all like average FPS shooter model - aim and shot all weapons and get guarantee hit. That’s leads us to “Alpha strikes” gameplay when in general – low ping + best aim + basic heat management always performs best, no super extra skill needed.



And here is screenshot (found online now I’m out of home so can’t do my own). This turret is placed only 40 meters away and all weapons aimed in 1 point. When fire all weapons mounted you will deal maximum damage your all weapons can deal in 1 point.


Here is the diagram when convergence for Torsos is off. This example is simplified for easier understanding. Let imagine that there is only medium lasers mounted in LT and RT. Lasers convergence point set on 300 meters. At this distance all torso mounted lasers will hit same point. The closer target is the more lasers trajectories will spread because laser are fixed and not mowing (as they actually are on our models). In this example, when target only at 100m you wont be able to hit all torso placed lasers in one place on enemies. Please notice weapons placed in arms still auto aims on any range - that’s logical because they moving. Actually you can ON “armlock” but this time we are not talking about this option



And here is photoshoped screenshot representing the simple example of how off convergence for Torsos might look in game.



Lets imagine this Battlemaster has LPL in left torso, and ErLL in right torso. Machine guns placed in arms – thetas why they easily aims for close target. But torso weapons locked on preset trajectory they simply cant so close placed target – because Battlemaster is big war machine.
Also lets set that in default convergence point for each weapon set on its maximum effective range. So for LPL it will be 300m and for ErLL 675m (as on picture). I get rid of center focused design to free space for floating aim crosses. Left torso aim is much closer because convergence point for LPL is only 300m. ErLL in right torso has convergence point on 675m so on close range its spreads wider. All this crosses are auto updates as soon as you move your mech, same as range meter works now.


As you can see in last example you can’t brawl in close range and deal all maximum damage at once. That doesn’t mean that hits are randomized or something like that. If you rotate your torso and placing your mech correct - you aim and you hit as usual. Just little more skill and practice needed, its not something game braking or etc. we deal with separate arms and torso crosses, so im sur we will easily deal with this too.
Main result of that change - existing alpha strikes on all ranges gameplay will be gone with this scheme. You cant place all your weapons in 1 arm. Yes you still will be able to “BAM - 45 damage triple gauss” if you place yourself correctly in terrain, if you will move and think. Maneuvering and planning will be much much more significant.


So I’m supporting this idea. More simulation to Mechwarrior, less one click FPS shooter

[Weeny Machine]

E Rommel, on 09 April 2015 - 08:38 PM, said:

Apparently some people just want to play a very different type of mech than what is actually in the game.


Aggregating the various "TTK too short" complaints it seems they want to play a slow, undergunned, over-armored, beat-up piece of junk that struggles t

Apprently they do or what is your explanation for...

1. light and medium queues are down (disregard the Urbie inflation for a second)
2. the heavy queue is looongThe explanation is actually quite simple: if you get hit unluckily or get simply caught flat footed 1-2 alphas are often enough to shred your mech. So much to TTK. And one other thing what gets disregarded by some people: this game is (oh surprise) played by Battletech fans. And sorry, mech battles are no Counterstrike nor Call of Duty shooter

Edited by Bush Hopper, 10 April 2015 - 03:34 AM.

[Boris The Spider]

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 02:27 AM, said:

I'm genuinely curious just how many of these people who think TTK is too short peeked a 6-man firing squad, got ganked and went to the forums immediately to QQ about not being able to make big mistakes and live to tell the story. My TT memories are pretty blurry but I'm sure that having 6 mechs shooting at you in TT would instagib you just as fast if not faster(hello random crits).

Did it ever occur to you that many of the people asking for this since closed beta are regularly on the 'dishing out end' of six man firing lines, and genuinely believe that increasing TTK will create a better strategic environment? Or those that think removing the ability to graft all your weapons together to create singular super-weapons would improve variety in both builds and strategy and stop PGI from nerfing individual weapons to deal with specific builds? Rather than, all these people are bads who are but-hurt from getting owned all the time.

[xImmortalx]

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 03:42 AM, said:

Did it ever occur to you that many of the people asking for this since closed beta are regularly on the 'dishing out end' of six man firing lines, and genuinely believe that increasing TTK will create a better strategic environment? Or those that think removing the ability to graft all your weapons together to create singular super-weapons would improve variety in both builds and strategy and stop PGI from nerfing individual weapons to deal with specific builds? Rather than, all these people are bads who are but-hurt from getting owned all the time.

I've no doubt that there are people like that in this thread. But it seems like there are just as many knee-jerk "nerf everything!!1" opinions which, frankly, aren't helpful.

Outside of a few notable cases (laser vomit, hi), there aren't that many configs that can fire more than 3 weapons at the same time without severe penalties in heat or accuracy because there aren't that many weapons in the game with identical travel times and without severe ghost heat.

I don't remember if I asked it in this thread or another but I'll ask it again on the off chance someone actually has a good answer this time: how would the effect of a global limit on the amount of weapons you can fire at the same time be any different from the effect of ghost heat? What makes you think people won't just adjust their configs to account for this latest brilliant idea and within a week we'll be right back to where we are now with the only difference being that mechs have become even more annoying to drive?

Also, when you say 'more variety in both builds and strategy' it sounds like all you mean is 'more freedom for people to do stupid things without getting penalized.' Maybe I'm exaggerating and you only want a reasonably small increase in mech survivability but the question is how does rewarding sloppy play make the game automatically better? And how will yet another nerf to aim in what is essentially a FPS be received by newer players that just want to jump in and play giant robots for a minute?

[PPMcBiggs]

Varvar86, on 10 April 2015 - 03:17 AM, said:

Looks some people thinks that we are talking about some randomizations in beams/shots spread some mystical dice rolls or something like that. No we don’t.
Let’s visualize the problem.
Here the first picture representing the actual working scheme. All weapons mounted will aim one point on any range will it be 1000m or 10m. Its all like average FPS shooter model - aim and shot all weapons and get guarantee hit. That’s leads us to “Alpha strikes” gameplay when in general – low ping + best aim + basic heat management always performs best, no super extra skill needed.



And here is screenshot (found online now I’m out of home so can’t do my own). This turret is placed only 40 meters away and all weapons aimed in 1 point. When fire all weapons mounted you will deal maximum damage your all weapons can deal in 1 point.


Here is the diagram when convergence for Torsos is off. This example is simplified for easier understanding. Let imagine that there is only medium lasers mounted in LT and RT. Lasers convergence point set on 300 meters. At this distance all torso mounted lasers will hit same point. The closer target is the more lasers trajectories will spread because laser are fixed and not mowing (as they actually are on our models). In this example, when target only at 100m you wont be able to hit all torso placed lasers in one place on enemies. Please notice weapons placed in arms still auto aims on any range - that’s logical because they moving. Actually you can ON “armlock” but this time we are not talking about this option



And here is photoshoped screenshot representing the simple example of how off convergence for Torsos might look in game.



Lets imagine this Battlemaster has LPL in left torso, and ErLL in right torso. Machine guns placed in arms – thetas why they easily aims for close target. But torso weapons locked on preset trajectory they simply cant so close placed target – because Battlemaster is big war machine.
Also lets set that in default convergence point for each weapon set on its maximum effective range. So for LPL it will be 300m and for ErLL 675m (as on picture). I get rid of center focused design to free space for floating aim crosses. Left torso aim is much closer because convergence point for LPL is only 300m. ErLL in right torso has convergence point on 675m so on close range its spreads wider. All this crosses are auto updates as soon as you move your mech, same as range meter works now.


As you can see in last example you can’t brawl in close range and deal all maximum damage at once. That doesn’t mean that hits are randomized or something like that. If you rotate your torso and placing your mech correct - you aim and you hit as usual. Just little more skill and practice needed, its not something game braking or etc. we deal with separate arms and torso crosses, so im sur we will easily deal with this too.
Main result of that change - existing alpha strikes on all ranges gameplay will be gone with this scheme. You cant place all your weapons in 1 arm. Yes you still will be able to “BAM - 45 damage triple gauss” if you place yourself correctly in terrain, if you will move and think. Maneuvering and planning will be much much more significant.


So I’m supporting this idea. More simulation to Mechwarrior, less one click FPS shooter

Not to scale diagram is very misleading.

Please make one to scale and re-post.

Your diagram greatly exaggerates the effect of fixed convergence.

Which is why I maintain: Who cares if convergence is fixed or not, the targets we are aiming at are large enough that even reasonably non converged weapons will still all hit the same component.

Convergence is not the issue some think it is.

[Quxudica]

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

Also, when you say 'more variety in both builds and strategy' it sounds like all you mean is 'more freedom for people to do stupid things without getting penalized.' Maybe I'm exaggerating and you only want a reasonably small increase in mech survivability but the question is how does rewarding sloppy play make the game automatically better? And how will yet another nerf to aim in what is essentially a FPS be received by newer players that just want to jump in and play giant robots for a minute?

Sloppy play is what is rewarded now, or at least less thoughtful play. You can fire all your weapons at once (with boats effectively being treated as one big super weapon) on most set ups, eliminating the need to really invest much thought into your weapon selection mid combat. Even medium mechs are capable of sporting high enough alphas to remove or seriously damage torso armor on heavies in a single shot, such high instant burst damage diminishes the need for considered aiming or target selection.

With the appropriate changes to the heat system and convergence, you could turn a fight that right now consists of a couple massive alphas, into a fight that consists of smaller weapon groups being traded like punches. The reduction in burst damage doesn't "reward sloppy play", it increases the importance of skilled piloting and accuracy as it draws out the fight, making not just that first massive trigger pull important but distributing the importance across all aspects of the encounter. Maybe one pilot gets that lucky shot on to a vital component, but one lucky hit on a fairly fresh part should not be enough, he should have to be skilled enough to make that shot several times if he wants to pierce that armor and burn out those components while piloting well enough to keep his opponent from doing the same.

The effectiveness of torso twisting is also massively diminished when a major burst of damage comes in almost all at once, you can lose armor on a location before you even register you've been hit. I've blown legs off fresh lights in my medium mechs, lights that made no piloting mistakes, that did everything they were supposed to do but it didn't matter because all I needed was that single lucky hit with one of my 50+ point alpha strikes that have next to perfect precision. I've taken side torsos on heavy mechs down to red or even bare armor when their only crime was walking past a tiny gap in cover that gave me the 1 second opening I needed to drop 40, 50, 60+ damage on them.

I want MWO to reward the long game. To feature combat that rewards the player who carefully considers how many weapons he really needs to be firing vs the performance loss that running hot should entail. I want choosing components to target to be an important decision in battle, and armor to not be nearly irrelevant. Right now I go for the side torso on probably 80% or so of mechs, regardless of their weight class, because my mechs precision alpha can cut through even an assaults front armor in two and a half alphas maximum. But if the game made me fire fewer weapons with lower burst damage, I'd have to consider whether it's better to work on that thick ST or if I should take the time to strip those weaker arms first. Critseeking builds also become more interesting and viable with burst damage being heavily reduced, right now TTK is so low that crit seeking is pretty much never worth specifically trying to accomplish - it's easier and faster to just blow up that entire section than it is to try and crit important gear inside it.

This is also a good portion of the reason why so many mech chassis are seen as seriously sub optimal - they don't have the hit boxes capable of dealing with massive pinpoint alphas. Storm Crows are the top mediums specifically because they can be played like one giant gun while sporting hit boxes that mean they can take the instant massive damage hits. If you reduce convergence and alter the heat system, the Crow may still have a hit box advantage but it no longer dominates the scene so effectively, Most major crow builds do not hold up exceptionally well in drawn out fights. They'd still be strong mechs but I guarantee some other chassis would suddenly become much more attractive than they are now if you are no longer capable of peeling armor sections in nearly a single weapon cycle.

Finally, changes being proposed here are ultimately designed to reintroduce choice as a factor in weapon usage. Right now if you ask "how should I fire my weapons" the answer is going to be "Alpha Strike" 95% of the time. The only reason to not Alpha is if the binary heat system says you have to wait, or if your HP's are blocked by something. Alpha Strikes should be the province of fight finishing burst, desperate all in gambits or hit and run strikers, but since there is no accuracy trade off for being able to fire your entire mechs payload - naturally it has become the default method of using weapons. That Brawler Atlas is going to fire all his lasers, SRMs and that AC/20 in one volley because there is no reason for him not to - in fact it's actually disadvantageous for him to try and fire in smaller groups.


The Alpha Strike should be high risk high reward, but with perfect convergence (and damn near perfect convergence even on disparate weapon types) there is no risk.. there is no trade off, and thus no choice to be made.

[Boris The Spider]

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

Outside of a few notable cases (laser vomit, hi), there aren't that many configs that can fire more than 3 weapons at the same time without severe penalties in heat or accuracy because there aren't that many weapons in the game with identical travel times and without severe ghost heat.

Exactly my point, weapons are nerfed because of specific builds, that almost always exploit the ability to group arm and torso weapons into single super-weapons, not because they are good. Did the AC5 have its projectile speed slashed because an AC5 was too good a weapon? Did the Gauss get a charge mechanic because people were getting messed up by Hunchbacks? Do we expect to see a general nerf on lasers next?

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

I don't remember if I asked it in this thread or another but I'll ask it again on the off chance someone actually has a good answer this time: how would the effect of a global limit on the amount of weapons you can fire at the same time be any different from the effect of ghost heat?

Because there is a notable difference between someone group firing 4 machine guns with 2 medium lasers and someone group-firing 4 AC5 with 2 PPC's. This is another counter suggestion which favours the long range peek shooting builds that have been the cause of all this games historic nerfs.

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

What makes you think people won't just adjust their configs to account for this latest brilliant idea and within a week we'll be right back to where we are now with the only difference being that mechs have become even more annoying to drive?

What you mean put their primary weapon groups into their arms instead of tucked away in the side torsos, or using more mechs with the low slung articulated arms and having to expose themselves to fire off long range pinpoint damage alphas. Good, kind of the point.

xImmortalx, on 10 April 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

And how will yet another nerf to aim in what is essentially a FPS be received by newer players that just want to jump in and play giant robots for a minute?

Personally I cannot see anything counter intuitive with weapons in your right torso hitting slightly to the right and weapons in your left torso hitting slightly to the left.

[Mystere]

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

Mystere, I wouldn’t exactly call it 'suffer' most torso weapons are arranged in pods so have a pretty tight grouping anyway.

It's a potential issue for wide mechs (e.g. Assaults). Their shots could miss a light standing right in front of them.

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

The two problems I have with a fixed convergence on torso, rather than direct forward are, 1^st off, aesthetically, lasers are going to appear to cross every time you fire them,

It may be aesthetically displeasing, but at or close to convergence point, they will be very effective.

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 12:23 AM, said:

2^nd its going make aiming projectiles even more difficult. Say I'm using a HBK-4G with an AC20, with a direct forward fire, I know, wherever I line my centre reticule, my shell is going to hit 1.5 meters to the right of it, every time without fail. With a fixed convergence, I then need to start taking into account the range to know if its right or left, too hard, not intuitive enough. That's before I even think about adding a mixed projectile load-out to it, say AC2/AC5 combo.

Then you can decide to set your convergence to infinity (i.e. parallel). That is the beauty of user-modifiable fixed convergence. You can set the convergence point anywhere you like.

[Boris The Spider]

Perhaps Mystere, but I don't think light mechs are all that narrow. If you blasted a commando right in front of you with a Battlemaster, your still going to hit him, just not all in the same place. At medium range, it would actually make lights easier to hit. In any event, back in the day, we used to screen assault mechs to protect them from lights

Don't get me wrong, I would take your idea over what we have now in a heartbeat.

Edited by Boris The Spider, 10 April 2015 - 06:34 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Quxudica, on 10 April 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

*SNIP*The Alpha Strike should be high risk high reward, but with perfect convergence (and damn near perfect convergence even on disparate weapon types) there is no risk.. there is no trade off, and thus no choice to be made.

Quoted for truth.

I LOVE to Alpha strike. Its in my blood.

I like quick kills.

It's why I took lessons in Wing Chun Do. The idea that my fist can hit with the force of 2,800 lbs and just obliterate someone with one hit. Now if I could just go back and finish the training...

Thats my style right there.


Now that being said. The more weapons I fire simultaneously the less accurate my shot should be!

So I don't want Alpha strikes to be removed, but I do support making it less pin point by a good factor.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 10 April 2015 - 06:40 AM.

[Mystere]

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 03:42 AM, said:

Did it ever occur to you that many of the people asking for this since closed beta are regularly on the 'dishing out end' of six man firing lines, and genuinely believe that increasing TTK will create a better strategic environment? Or those that think removing the ability to graft all your weapons together to create singular super-weapons would improve variety in both builds and strategy and stop PGI from nerfing individual weapons to deal with specific builds? Rather than, all these people are bads who are but-hurt from getting owned all the time.

Don't be surprised. Some people here are delusional when it comes to their own capabilities that they grossly underestimate, or worse blatantly disregard, the capabilities -- especially intelligence -- of others. Then reality eventually hits them like a freight train ... just like that "jock" who now cleans the toilets in the building owned by the "nerd" he used to bully back then.

Edited by Mystere, 10 April 2015 - 07:06 AM.

[Dino Might]

Of all the ideas, I think the most bang for the buck is the user selectable convergence.

For each weapon group, you have the effective range listed, and then you have the convergence range listed.
You have a weapon group highlighted and roll the mouse scroll wheel or hat ^ on the joystick and it increases the convergence range for all the weapons in that group. You can adjust up or down however much you want, whenenver you want. You can even doing it while firing a long burn laser and see the shift.

After 1000m the convergence just gets set to infinity (parallel paths). Have an option in the game settings that allows for tuning the fineness of the convergence adjustment. Does the converence range change by 100m with every revolution of the wheel, or by 1000m with every revolution of the wheel. That way, people can set up their control systems to their preferred sensitivities.

This would add another element to the game, require more thinking and coordination with piloting. I'm loving this idea, and it helps fix some major problems, while still allowing people to use their skill to get that massive pinpoint alpha if they do everything right. But you can't do that while jumping away increasing slant range on a target at 200m who's running perpendicular in the ground plane at 130km/h all the time unless you are really, really good.

This is not a significant coding difficulty - the game engine is already doing these calculations on the fly continuously. This would actually reduce some of the processing load.

Edited by Dino Might, 10 April 2015 - 07:09 AM.

[Telmasa]

Mystere, on 10 April 2015 - 06:27 AM, said:

It's a potential issue for wide mechs (e.g. Assaults). Their shots could miss a light standing right in front of them.
It may be aesthetically displeasing, but at or close to convergence point, they will be very effective.
Then you can decide to set your convergence to infinity (i.e. parallel). That is the beauty of user-modifiable fixed convergence. You can set the convergence point anywhere you like.

I'd imagine it as this:
- Torso Weapons have a fixed convergence set by the player in the mechlab. (How you would make this work with 3+SRM6 launchers on an Atlas seems pretty complicated to me - perhaps allowing greater torso pitch on all mechs? not sure how the reticule would look either - but I digress)
- Arm Weapons *that lack* lower arm actuators (jagermech, centurion) have a fixed parallel('infinity') convergence (with reticule to match)
- Arm Weapons with the lower arm actuators have 'dynamic' convergence - pretty much the way it is now with armlock disengaged

The big trouble with this, too, is that you would absolutely *need, need, need* a noob-friendly tutorial guide, complete with walkthrough and practice mission/run against dummy targets.

Mystere, on 09 April 2015 - 04:05 PM, said:

Now that is what I call progress.
It can be as simple as a 2-reticule system: one for Torso/Head-mounted weapons and another for arm-mounted ones.
It can also be a 3-reticule system, with each arm getting it's own. I just don't know how many will be able to control that, assuming they even have suitable equipment to do so.

Well, if all the player-made custom reticules available for WoT are any example, there's plenty ways to try it.

Or, on a different angle, you could think of it it like Dead Space aiming methods - though first person rather than over the shoulder and lacking the light beams (akin to our tag laser); every single weapon in Dead Space comes with a unique, fitting, and intuitive reticule.

Image for reference: http://cdn.3news.co....d-space-3-3.jpg
- imagine dots (preferable tiny center-fade circles) at the end of those beams, and the beams not being visible, and I think you get the gist of what I mean

Edited by Telmasa, 10 April 2015 - 07:24 AM.

[meteorol]

Well, you won't find out by asking here, because the majority of players doesn't visit the forum.

[Mystere]

PPMcBiggs, on 10 April 2015 - 05:10 AM, said:

Convergence is not the issue some think it is.

You are correct. It is the near-instant convergence that people find an issue with (among other things).

The delayed convergence we had during the closed beta days was much better than what we have now, as far as quite a number of people are concerned. Unfortunately, that was removed for technical reasons related to the CryEngine and/or one of the game subsystems. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that original post though.

[xImmortalx]

Quxudica, on 10 April 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

Sloppy play is what is rewarded now, or at least less thoughtful play. You can fire all your weapons at once (with boats effectively being treated as one big super weapon) on most set ups, eliminating the need to really invest much thought into your weapon selection mid combat. Even medium mechs are capable of sporting high enough alphas to remove or seriously damage torso armor on heavies in a single shot, such high instant burst damage diminishes the need for considered aiming or target selection.

I'll admit that is a fair point if you admit my point is fair as well. Better yet, let's compromise: What we're discussing here is actually a delicate balance between movement/positioning and gunnery. Right now the emphasis is placed on the former but it's not nearly as bad as in previous MW games. What you're proposing, if done incorrectly could heavily skew the game in the other direction and turn it into a game where a mech can plow through the open without much fear and rely only on gunnery to win a fight. I hope I don't need to explain why this would be a bad idea.

Quxudica, on 10 April 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

With the appropriate changes to the heat system and convergence, you could turn a fight that right now consists of a couple massive alphas, into a fight that consists of smaller weapon groups being traded like punches. The reduction in burst damage doesn't "reward sloppy play", it increases the importance of skilled piloting and accuracy as it draws out the fight, making not just that first massive trigger pull important but distributing the importance across all aspects of the encounter. Maybe one pilot gets that lucky shot on to a vital component, but one lucky hit on a fairly fresh part should not be enough, he should have to be skilled enough to make that shot several times if he wants to pierce that armor and burn out those components while piloting well enough to keep his opponent from doing the same.


The effectiveness of torso twisting is also massively diminished when a major burst of damage comes in almost all at once, you can lose armor on a location before you even register you've been hit. I've blown legs off fresh lights in my medium mechs, lights that made no piloting mistakes, that did everything they were supposed to do but it didn't matter because all I needed was that single lucky hit with one of my 50+ point alpha strikes that have next to perfect precision. I've taken side torsos on heavy mechs down to red or even bare armor when their only crime was walking past a tiny gap in cover that gave me the 1 second opening I needed to drop 40, 50, 60+ damage on them.


I want MWO to reward the long game. To feature combat that rewards the player who carefully considers how many weapons he really needs to be firing vs the performance loss that running hot should entail. I want choosing components to target to be an important decision in battle, and armor to not be nearly irrelevant. Right now I go for the side torso on probably 80% or so of mechs, regardless of their weight class, because my mechs precision alpha can cut through even an assaults front armor in two and a half alphas maximum. But if the game made me fire fewer weapons with lower burst damage, I'd have to consider whether it's better to work on that thick ST or if I should take the time to strip those weaker arms first. Critseeking builds also become more interesting and viable with burst damage being heavily reduced, right now TTK is so low that crit seeking is pretty much never worth specifically trying to accomplish - it's easier and faster to just blow up that entire section than it is to try and crit important gear inside it.


This is also a good portion of the reason why so many mech chassis are seen as seriously sub optimal - they don't have the hit boxes capable of dealing with massive pinpoint alphas. Storm Crows are the top mediums specifically because they can be played like one giant gun while sporting hit boxes that mean they can take the instant massive damage hits. If you reduce convergence and alter the heat system, the Crow may still have a hit box advantage but it no longer dominates the scene so effectively, Most major crow builds do not hold up exceptionally well in drawn out fights. They'd still be strong mechs but I guarantee some other chassis would suddenly become much more attractive than they are now if you are no longer capable of peeling armor sections in nearly a single weapon cycle.


Finally, changes being proposed here are ultimately designed to reintroduce choice as a factor in weapon usage. Right now if you ask "how should I fire my weapons" the answer is going to be "Alpha Strike" 95% of the time. The only reason to not Alpha is if the binary heat system says you have to wait, or if your HP's are blocked by something. Alpha Strikes should be the province of fight finishing burst, desperate all in gambits or hit and run strikers, but since there is no accuracy trade off for being able to fire your entire mechs payload - naturally it has become the default method of using weapons. That Brawler Atlas is going to fire all his lasers, SRMs and that AC/20 in one volley because there is no reason for him not to - in fact it's actually disadvantageous for him to try and fire in smaller groups.


The Alpha Strike should be high risk high reward, but with perfect convergence (and damn near perfect convergence even on disparate weapon types) there is no risk.. there is no trade off, and thus no choice to be made.

Again I have to question your examples. Outside of 'laser vomit' and 'wubs' builds I don't think any of the mechs I've run are alpha-optimal and they're all 'meta' builds. We figured out in MW3 that CERML was the most effective weapon in the game and in closed beta that MPL's short duration, not-stupidly-short range and acceptable heat made it a great, reliable brawler weapon.


I think that, while your argument has merit, your examples leave much to be desired and don't take into consideration the fact that enemy pilot skill plays a big part in what you're able to do with that 'massive' alpha. A light shouldn't be able to win a 1v1 battle against a larger, better armed, better armored mech assuming equal pilot skill. A smaller mech taking on a brawler assault shouldn't shut down, stand still or rush head on and allow the assault to bring all his weapons to bear. Bad piloting and decision making aren't a good enough reason to change a core game mechanic.

Boris The Spider, on 10 April 2015 - 06:24 AM, said:

What you mean put their primary weapon groups into their arms instead of tucked away in the side torsos, or using more mechs with the low slung articulated arms and having to expose themselves to fire off long range pinpoint damage alphas. Good, kind of the point. Personally I cannot see anything counter intuitive with weapons in your right torso hitting slightly to the right and weapons in your left torso hitting slightly to the left.

No, I mean people will keep the same configs but change the weapon groups and use staggered fire, which is what happens with a lot of the builds ghost heat supposedly killed. I've done several 4/6 LL/ERLL mechs in the last months or so and they all work marvelously despite ghost heat.

Edit: haha I broke the forums.

Edited by xImmortalx, 10 April 2015 - 08:25 AM.

[KuroNyra]

PPMcBiggs, on 10 April 2015 - 05:10 AM, said:

Not to scale diagram is very misleading.

Please make one to scale and re-post.

Your diagram greatly exaggerates the effect of fixed convergence.

Which is why I maintain: Who cares if convergence is fixed or not, the targets we are aiming at are large enough that even reasonably non converged weapons will still all hit the same component.

Convergence is not the issue some think it is.

Ho please, you clearly get the idea with theses pictures.

"Who cares"? Players maybe? One who are tired of that unrealistic pin-point convergence allowing you to hit with no problem something at the exact same spot at 500m while running at 80km/h?

To put a system like this would reduce the problem. Especially at long rang AND very short rang, you can't tell me that you are for THIS

[Joseph Mallan]

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Sloppy play is what is rewarded now, or at least less thoughtful play. You can fire all your weapons at once (with boats effectively being treated as one big super weapon) on most set ups, eliminating the need to really invest much thought into your weapon selection mid combat.

As someone who trained a lot to be both a Paid Professional Mass Murderer (Infantry Marine) and Martial Artist, if you are doing a bunch of thinking in a fight, you will lose.Thinking takes time. Time is precious when you are fighting.

So the more you do by the numbers in a tense situation the more likely you will be the last one standing.

[Dimento Graven]

Tim East, on 09 April 2015 - 08:04 PM, said:

That isn't actually an assumption, given that for many of us it is based on factual previous experience with delayed convergence and how it made for a more interesting and sim-like game. There should always be a delay between your rangefinder detecting the range to the point your reticule is over, your targeting computer relaying this information to your magical super-gimbals, and then said gimbals traversing a small distance to bring everything to face the direction requisite for your fire to intersect at the point indicated by said rangefinder.

There is a delay between range finder detecting range and your weapons converging on it. It just happens to be fast, fast enough that apparently most people don't notice the delay.

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I won't disagree that heatscale and alpha could use a second (or fifth) look, but using that as an excuse to justify nigh-instantaneous alignment of your weapons' trajectories in direct defiance of physics is something of a logical leap.

It's not in defiance of physics. I don't think any one can reasonably argue that if a weapon is pointed to where you're aiming, you're not going to hit, or for the sake of all the wannabe ballistics experts on this thread, get a very near miss.

In this game, very rarely, is it the first shot that kills you. It's the immediate follow up shots.

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Ummm, duh? All of the weapons that can reliably kill you are pinpoint. How many people really die to LRMs in this day and age? Heh.

When you come up against a person who knows how to use LRMs, or come up a group of people who know how to support a LRM boat by providing solid targeting, it can happen more often than you think.

Yes, it's harder to kill someone with missiles for the very reason you guys want to add a "CoF" to every other weapon. Missiles DO NOT have convergence, and in fact LRMs and SSRMs appear to have an anti-crit bias when hitting 'mechs.

And what your sentence should REALLY read is:

All of the weapons that can reliably kill you quickly, can be aimed.

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Seriously though, claiming that people want to change something because you personally beat them is a little bit disingenuous. Sure, the people who want to change convergence die mostly to pinpoint damage, but so do you and you aren't arguing for the alteration of convergence.

Meh, to each his own. I've seen a lot people posting here that I've face shot a time or two...

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Flamer challenge, go! I'll duel you in my Locust against any mech you want to run that uses nothing but flamers. If you prove me wrong and are deadly with flamers, well, then you get the satisfaction of having proven me wrong. Wouldn't that be nice?

Sounds like fun, but of course you're taking my statement to the extremis and seem to be indicating I can ONLY use flamers in whatever choice I make. Nope, when I use flamers I use them in combination with other weapons. Constant fire, with a visual obscuring affect, and a regular intervals of crit checking on open crit locations, can be used very effectively with other weapons.

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I have literally never had that first thing happen to me. The closest I've come to that is having one set of my lasers hit one leg and the other set hit the other leg, and that only happens at the most extreme close range. What range are you doing that at that you are missing on either side? Did you take your crosshairs off of the mech when you shot, or aim them between the target's legs? Either of those things can cause your rangefinder to misread the distance for convergence. Also, was your target moving? If they're at a very high speed, the projectile flight time can influence whether or not you attain perfect convergence, since the weapons are set to the point you were aiming when you fired, not when the projectiles hit the enemy. Though again, I've literally never seen this happen with lasers. They're hitscan and tend to insta-converge the moment they wash over things.

Then you are switching targets a lot less, and a lot more slowly than I do. I have this happen at all ranges, when switching from near to mid range, mid range to far, and far to near targets there's always a slight delay on the convergence matching what I've got targeted, more so if I haven't yet actually pressed "R" to lock my targeting computer on the target. I play this game pretty much every day, and I see this happen, every day.

You can see the effect more readily with ballistics because after you fire that first shot, the rounds travel on their original paths of whatever convergence the firing computer thought it should use at the time of your pulling the triggers. With lasers the beams will track while being converged so it's not a complete miss, it happens quickly and apparently most people don't even notice it (though again I STILL see a majority of players firing lasers and then trying to paint the target's entire body with the beams and not holding to a specific location, so, how could they notice, really).

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What IS it set to then? How do you know? Is it slow enough that you can measure it with hitscan weapons like lasers, and if not, how did you come to that conclusion? Accessing that game's code? Are you certain that elite convergence does something, because I've never noticed a difference. You know, aside from double basics, and that's completely unrelated.

I don't remember honestly, I know that someone from PGI once gave the delay interval, probably could find the post if we searched the forums enough, but I know for a fact from repeated observation that it's NOT instant, it's just fast.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 April 2015 - 08:56 AM.