1126 replies to this topic

[Bartholomew bartholomew]

Don't want to totally get rid of convergance. But slow it down.

Some formula like speed+weapons alpha size+time locked= convergence time

That way a stormcrow doing a hit and run with srms will sandpaper instead of pinpoint.
A flyby firestarter will drift.
A guass/ppc assault monster will take a whole lot longer to hit the same spot.

Basically the longer you have lock and the slower you are going the tighter the pinpoint.
With some wiggle room for lights and other needed mechs with quirks.

Edited by Bartholomew bartholomew, 20 January 2015 - 05:58 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Pariah Devalis, on 20 January 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

I have always been a fan of making the torso weapons locked at infinity, and only the arm weapons being allowed to converge (and only if at least one lower arm actuator is present). You can get your precision by mounting weapons in the vulnerable arms or you can get your safe firepower by torso mounting your guns but lose out on pinpoint convergence. A pro and a con for each, while retaining both Pinpoint and Cone of Fire in a logical manner.

Do you know how badly that would affect the King Crab and Jagermech? (and a lot of clan builds)

The King Crab in particular would go from good to useless in a heartbeat, since with how far apart the arm weapons are it pretty much never be possible for both arms to hit the torso of an enemy mech (even opposite side torsos).

[Pariah Devalis]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 January 2015 - 05:54 AM, said:

Do you know how badly that would affect the King Crab and Jagermech? (and a lot of clan builds)

The King Crab in particular would go from good to useless in a heartbeat, since with how far apart the arm weapons are it pretty much never be possible for both arms to hit the torso of an enemy mech (even opposite side torsos).

The arms are no wider apart than on the DW, and the Jagermech's arms are close enough to slam either side torso of most heavies, if the crosshair is centered. Fire one arm at a time, though, and you are golden. Shift a little to the right, fire left arm, shift a little to the left, fire right arm. Congrats, now your awareness of your mech allows you to utilize the mech. You do not need to alphastrike everything, ya know.

Considering overall TTK across all mechs will be lower, this might not be such a crippling thing at all.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 20 January 2015 - 06:04 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Removing convergence would be fine in my book. Without it you'd still hit roughly the spot you want to hit anyway and it would prevent those ridiculous 1-salvo deaths.

Edit: it could be made that the farther away you are the easier it is to converge e.g. torso mounted weapons and nigh to impossible on a certain closer range

(Acutally what each mech can do at the moment is what a clan targeting computer is for in the BT universe: converging the beams/shells on one spot, just saying.)

Also, mech fights would then become a bit more tactical about movement and positioning and light mechs could live a little longer.

Lastly it would also add a feeling like playing the novels where shots weren't focused either - nor in the TT game.

Edited by Bush Hopper, 20 January 2015 - 06:16 AM.

[Darlith]

I'd rather they didn't get rid of it. I have enough trouble keeping track of two targeting reticles at once on the screen without having to remember that left arm is 5m to the left of the circle and right is 5m to the right, oh and only center torso lines up with the cross. Or even more fun to keep track of, 5 seperate reticles which we than can try to remember which of 6 weapons groups fires with which reticle lined up.

Non-convergence worked in table top because you could just say "I'm firing these weapons this round" and roll to see what hits. For most people it would be overly complicated for an action oriented mech shooter.

[MeiSooHaityu]

If locked torso hard points were to ever become a thing (and I'm not sure I would like that anyway), you would need to be allowed to set its convergence point manually.

If I installed lasers in the torso and I knew I generally closed to within 300m of an opponent to use them, I must be able to set convergence at a static 300m. If they fired straight into infinity, that would be completely idiotic. Even fighter planes in WWII had a set convergence distance where they were most likely to fire at the enemy.

I'm still not a fan of static torso weapons, but to even be considered, manually set convergence would be a must.

[operatorZ]

yes, give us cone of fire. A small one...so that when you shoot someone at 1000 m its not an automatic hit but more like 50/50...scale in from there.

make it relevant to whether your mech is moving, taking fire and what kind of weapon....

in short add some goddamn dynamics

Edited by operatorZ, 20 January 2015 - 06:12 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

No.

[operatorZ]

Yes, like just about every shooter ever made in the modern age....add some goddam f*cking dynamics that force a little skill.... for once. Make players make the choice in their heads to take that shot or wait for a better opportunity, rather then just spamming the fire button.....

[Apocryph0n]

MeiSooHaityu, on 20 January 2015 - 05:36 AM, said:

That's great and all, but at the end of the day, this is an online shooter. People want to hit what they point at.

So, why do all succesful online shooters have Cone Of Fire then? (BF4, CoD, even Arma, Counter Strike, everything)
MW:O is literally the only game where your weapons hit the exact same pixel your mouse was aiming at.

removing insta convergence would not even make weapons less precise as in the games above, just harder to aim with.

Edit: This is what most people in here do not get: Convergence would not make anything less precise, it would just make it realistic. Your torso weapons are not mounted on magical surfaces that allow them to align with your crosshairs at any range. the guns face forward. They should shoot parallel. everything else is ridiculous from a logical PoV.
Arm Hardpoints can converge, yes, that's why Mechs have arms, but not the Torso mounted ones.

Gameplay wise it would also solve a lot of things. Btw if you want skill involved: That would take considerably more skill than pointing your mouse at something and click MB1-3.

Edited by Apocryph0n, 20 January 2015 - 06:26 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Seems like a lot of the anti twitch shooter CoD crowd are the same ones advocating CoD style mechanics like CoF. That's how I know the idea is doomed.

[operatorZ]

Ghogiel, on 20 January 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

Seems like a lot of the anti twitch shooter CoD crowd are the same ones advocating CoD style mechanics like CoF. That's how I know the idea is doomed.

....I....huh....what?

[Kmieciu]

MeiSooHaityu, on 20 January 2015 - 05:36 AM, said:

That's great and all, but at the end of the day, this is an online shooter. People want to hit what they point at.

Warthunder is a much more casual online shooter and it does have convergence. You can set it in 50 meter increments, or turn it off completely.

[Joseph Mallan]

MeiSooHaityu, on 20 January 2015 - 05:36 AM, said:

That's great and all, but at the end of the day, this is an online shooter. People want to hit what they point at.

You can get away with variance to some extent (especially if they can see why variance exists), but this execution can only be taken so far.

If a person goes to play and they have 5 reticules (all behaving differently) and shots go everywhere and they can't keep easy track of what reticule is for what weapon, they will think "screw this" and they will go play something else.

Again, I'm not completely against some variance if it works, makes sense, and can feel natural to compensate for.

If there is 5 reticules, some bounce with the mech, some gimble, some drift, some don't; and because of this, my weapons fire looks like a 1980s class picture with the laser background, I'm not going to play.

No one here would miss me (heck, no one would even know I was gone), but I wouldnt be the only one. This game would upset and lose a lot of people, not just me.

You need to be careful about what you want to implement and how. Some ideas are more radical than others and if you stray too far and really mess with aim, you will lose a lot of people.

Just remember, people want to simply hit what they aim at in a shooter. Mess with that too much, and they will find another shooter in a market of a lot of shooters.

That's great and all but the same can be said on the rifle range or in the fields Hunting Deer.Unless the target is standing still and you are standing still, hitting what you are pointing at is a challenge.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Ghogiel, on 20 January 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

Seems like a lot of the anti twitch shooter CoD crowd are the same ones advocating CoD style mechanics like CoF. That's how I know the idea is doomed.

Lol, I am no COD player, but I do advocate for a slight CoF mechanic. Nothing to the extreme of a hipfire Light machinegun, but something more around twice the size of our little center aiming reticule. Then, I also add a way to get around the Cof entirely....chain fire 1 weapon. maybe fire 2 weapons. Or get really close. Most fights in this game end up closer then 500m in game anyway...and 500m in MWO is surprisingly close range....its from the river to the mountain in Crimson......

So, yeah, a slight CoF, just enough to deviate mass PPFLD shots would be grand.

[Joseph Mallan]

LordKnightFandragon, on 20 January 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

Lol, I am no COD player, but I do advocate for a slight CoF mechanic. Nothing to the extreme of a hipfire Light machinegun, but something more around twice the size of our little center aiming reticule. Then, I also add a way to get around the Cof entirely....chain fire 1 weapon. maybe fire 2 weapons. Or get really close. Most fights in this game end up closer then 500m in game anyway...and 500m in MWO is surprisingly close range....its from the river to the mountain in Crimson......

So, yeah, a slight CoF, just enough to deviate mass PPFLD shots would be grand.

I'd even accept a widening CoF for when I fire A LOT of ballistics, or Missiles. Laser weapons are a different story as beam duration has damage stenciled where the beam hits.

[operatorZ]

Joseph Mallan, on 20 January 2015 - 06:47 AM, said:

I'd even accept a widening CoF for when I fire A LOT of ballistics, or Missiles. Laser weapons are a different story as beam duration has damage stenciled where the beam hits.

but a CoF could still affect lasers do to mech movement i.e the cross hairs are not steady

basically if your mechs body is moved due to:

Being hit

Firing

Moving

Collisions

Then this affects the accuracy of your weapons...all weapons...including lasers, I am not talking a lot here but just enough to make that long 1000m shot 50/50 if your moving and make that single component alpha pretty difficult to hit with all weapons overall.

[Gyrok]

Convergence is really not much issue anymore.

Most popular weapons are DoT now. Not everything is a ballistic boat (outside a few edge cases).

Ballistics were the worst offenders, and even some of those are more DoT in nature now (Clans ACs/UACs).

PPCs are seen still, but not in droves as they were...(9S Thuds in CW not withstanding, of course)

Gauss is in a very good place.

SRMs/LRMs are not PP weapons, and Streaks spread damage even worse.

I can honestly say convergence is not much of an issue anymore.

EDIT: The biggest issue is a few edge cases where mechs were overquirked.

Edited by Gyrok, 20 January 2015 - 07:04 AM.

[Feetwet]

This one thread keeps going back and forth between 2 problems not one. Convergence and weapon accuracy. I think they are both porked.

Instant convergence is silly. Easy to code but not realistic. The easiest alternative that I can think of is manual settings. Either in the mechlab or on the fly with some kind of dial. Convergence fixed. Additions could be made like torso can only be set in mechlab and arms with acts can be set on the fly. Once done mech balancing may have to be done (9s torso PPCs).

I also agree with Joseph and several others here. I by far am not nearly as good a shot at range as he is but his example demonstrates weapon accuracy pretty well. And each rifle/round has a different best case. RNG systems in other shooters don't just simulate recoil. They simulate a myriad of atmospheric conditions that effect each shot as well as the shooters movement. Wind, humidity, imperfections in the round, shooter sway, shooter breathing...all of these are factors. RNGs simulate that. Weapon firing is NOT point and click. At range we shoot at a human torso for a reason.

What I would like to know from someone who has knowledge on the subject is maybe our closest analog. What is the accuracy expected from a M1A1 round fired while both the tank is moving and the target?

S

[Widowmaker1981]

Gyrok, on 20 January 2015 - 07:03 AM, said:

I can honestly say convergence is not much of an issue anymore.

It is for some people who seem to think that a 1.2 second laser burst is not something you can spread over your mechs torsos (the only realistic large non spread alphas are laservomit)