1126 replies to this topic

[Darwins Dog]

I liked the system they had in beta where you had to hold your reticule on a target for a short time to get perfect convergence. If you fired early, then some of your weapons would be off target. The good thing about it was that you knew roughly where they were pointing and could compensate.

At the same time I would rather keep what we have now than see a cone of fire. I want my shots to go where my gun is pointing.

I would also like to see the pinpoint efficiency do something. With the exception of speed tweak, none of the elite skills really have an effect on the game (but that's a topic for another thread).

[Kjudoon]

Darwins Dog, on 20 January 2015 - 07:42 AM, said:

I liked the system they had in beta where you had to hold your reticule on a target for a short time to get perfect convergence. If you fired early, then some of your weapons would be off target. The good thing about it was that you knew roughly where they were pointing and could compensate.

I'd love to see this.

[Widowmaker1981]

Apocryph0n, on 20 January 2015 - 07:34 AM, said:

Arms are pretty much meaningless on most mechs right now, except for fending off lights and in the odd case that your main hardpoints are in your arms (Gargoyle e.g.). On most other things people tend to use one or two arms as a shield and cram their main weaponry into the torsos (Hellbringer, 9S, 5SS to some degree, even Timbers shove as much as they can in the CT and STs)

You do realise that the reason for that is nothing to do with protecting the weapons, and everything to do with hardpoint height don't you? And that hardpoint height is the most important single factor determining any non light mechs viability - people dont put weapons in arms because arms are low slung in most cases - people have no problem putting guns in the arms of blackjacks and Jagermechs

People dont like shooting into the floor when trying to shoot downhill.

[Mcgral18]

Kjudoon, on 20 January 2015 - 07:41 AM, said:

That's odd... Mechwarrior has always been digital dice, not an FPS.

Convergeance must go.

We can have convergence, but magical instantaneous perfect convergence must go.

It's just that PGI can't do the former.

[MeiSooHaityu]

blood4blood, on 20 January 2015 - 07:39 AM, said:

If the technical side (ray casting, HSR, lag, client view vs. server registering hits, etc.) works well, I'm fine with putting a convergence mechanic back into the game. If it causes shots to go wildly astray like it did in beta, then I'm opposed. Other than technical issues, I'm neutral.

I guess this is ultimately where I should stand.

I just feel that if it was implemented, shots would widely miss without real represented reason. Plus there is a natural dislike of the idea of weapons will land somewhere within this cone, so you better not fire at range or it is a crap shoot on whether something will hit.

Anyway, if it was ever implemented (which it probably won't be), I'd just have to learn to deal with it, or go somewhere else *shrug*.

[Tyman4]

Joseph Mallan, on 20 January 2015 - 02:20 AM, said:

How many rounds have you fired at a rifle range? Before you answer that also understand that, a GPS guided shell/missile is accurate within a +/- 5 meter RADIUS. Now How good a shot are you? I can put 7 out of 10 shots in a target the size of a human head at 500m using iron sights... and I think the PP targeting is BS.


Actually its a bad idea. Unless there is no way at all to open up convergence.

I would prefer to have adjustable convergence. IE, I can set at what distance what weapons would converge. Ideally, I would have most of my close range weapons converge at 100m and mid at 500 and long at 800m. Then the weapons would either hit wide of each other if the target is close or the rounds would "cross" and be wider as they when to longer ranges. I think that would take up too much processing power for all the weapons in game, and it would be difficult to make all weapons adjustably converge at different ranges in mechlab (all new feature that I have never seen in a game before).
In liu (leu?) of that...
I am Totally on board with this.

Tyman

Edited by Tyman4, 20 January 2015 - 07:48 AM.

[Apocryph0n]

OP created this thread to ask the current opinion of the playerbase, but if the last poll was for convergence it seems this time it would prolly look the same

i have to admit it is pretty comfortable to be 100% sure of where your weapons will hit and it is probably the better thing for the game in general (it is not really a Mech Simulator, it's always been more arcade-y than simulator-y thus a lot of fun for every kind of player, from super-competitive-pro to a 50yo Battletech veteran trying to chill out and visually experience the tabletop he played when he was 15 )

But I stand by my previous statement, that creating mechanics around hitreg is wrong, when you could just dedicate more resources towards fixing hitreg then. It might not be easy, programming wise, but it would be the right thing to do.

Widowmaker1981, on 20 January 2015 - 07:45 AM, said:

You do realise that the reason for that is nothing to do with protecting the weapons, and everything to do with hardpoint height don't you?

I do! And using high mounted torso hardpoints is only a viable choice because you can still pin-point the crap out of people at ANY range. It is not negating the fact that it makes arm mounted weaponry completely optional except on Jagers and BJs and stuff (because the arms ARE the high mounted weapons luckily in this case )

Edited by Apocryph0n, 20 January 2015 - 07:53 AM.

[MauttyKoray]

pwnface, on 20 January 2015 - 02:06 AM, said:

Please no. I want to play a shooter not roll digital dice.

Might I suggest looking into Hawken then? Its the 'mech shooter' you're looking for instead of the 'mech semi-sim' you're currently playing.

I'm all for either bringing skill based convergence back, and yes it would be skill based, adding another layer of skill to the game requiring players to learn the convergence mechanic and how to deal with it.

Or, as a proxy we can solve the problems of bloated heat, armor, and ammo, effectively reducing the amount of weapons being fired in alpha but allowing a mech to constantly be firing smaller weapons while not having to wait forever to cool down firing larger ones. Ammo should be reduced to TT values at first, as well as armor and balance up or down from there to provide better gameplay (armor may have to go up just a tad but not sure without testing). Meanwhile I would love to see performance mechanics based on heat come into play, degrading a mech's performance with heat increase to break the mass weapon meta even further.

But...that's just me as too many people want their crappy high damage alphas.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 20 January 2015 - 07:56 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Apocryph0n, on 20 January 2015 - 07:49 AM, said:

OP created this thread to ask the current opinion of the playerbase, but if the last poll was for convergence it seems this time it would prolly look the same

i have to admit it is pretty comfortable to be 100% sure of where your weapons will hit and it is probably the better thing for the game in general (it is not really a Mech Simulator, it's always been more arcade-y than simulator-y thus a lot of fun for every kind of player, from super-competitive-pro to a 50yo Battletech veteran trying to chill out and visually experience the tabletop he played when he was 15 )

But I stand by my previous statement, that creating mechanics around hitreg is wrong, when you could just dedicate more resources towards fixing hitreg then. It might not be easy, programming wise, but it would be the right thing to do.

Its not 'hitreg' that prevents delayed convergence its Host State Rewind (you know, the thing that allows us to shoot at where the enemy is on our screens, rather than where we hope they will be in .3s). The calculations for working out where each mechs weapons have converged to at any given point are too much with the rewind tech.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 20 January 2015 - 07:52 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tyman4, on 20 January 2015 - 07:47 AM, said:

I would prefer to have adjustable convergence. IE, I can set at what distance what weapons would converge. Ideally, I would have most of my close range weapons converge at 100m and mid at 500 and long at 800m. Then the weapons would either hit wide of each other if the target is close or the rounds would "cross" and be wider as they when to longer ranges. I think that would take up too much processing power for all the weapons in game, and it would be difficult to make all weapons adjustably converge at different ranges in mechlab (all new feature that I have never seen in a game before).
In liu (leu?) of that...
I am Totally on board with this.

Tyman

Its better than what we have now. Not sure if I like it or not but its a good step or 6 in the right direction. Still don't see convergence needing to be pin point even if the convergence is at 3 different distances.

[Apocryph0n]

Yeah the thing that does not work for me and most euros, sadly xD (I have to lead targets quite a bit even with lasers, to get hits registered at a ping of 90-110 :-/ )

[Ryoko Kombat]

[operatorZ]

MeiSooHaityu, on 20 January 2015 - 07:21 AM, said:

Please stop comparing this game to CoD or Battlefield. I've explained why it is a bit different. Ok, let's say it again. Ballistics and PPCs (the number one driver of this conversation and the reason this thread exists), is a single shot weapon. Single shot weapons in games hit where you fire them. CoD and Battlefield's single shot weapons (sniper rifles) don't randomly shoot within a cone. If they did, sniper rifles would be crap and no one would use them. Cone of fire in those games are rapid fire weapons where burst affects aim (like burst rifle assault rifles, MGs, etc...). That is an intuitive mechanic. Zooming in MWO, lining up a crosshair on an enemies CT, and firing an ERPPC at 800m only to watch it miss and whizz by his head does not seem like an intuitive mechanic. Why does a long range shot miss where I pointed it? Just because doesn't feel natural.

Doesn't matter anyway. This conversation isn't going to change the game for better or for worse regardless. PGI has they game implemented the way they like it, do this is all hypothetical banter anyway I suppose.

Just for clarification there are two issues at work here, mech movement affecting cross hairs and CoF...I'll try and explain
In reference to your 800m PPC shot above.....I am saying that your cross hairs move/shake/wobble/whatever slightly with your mech movement...making that shot harder...your shot still goes where your cross hairs are...just that its harder to predict exactly what your cross hairs are doing based on movement.... if any. If your mech is still and not taking fire and your not in the middle of unleashing some UAC's then your cross hair movement is zero but there is still enough CoF to make that shot have a *small* chance of not hitting the aimed for component at 800 m. Its realistic and opens up all sorts of options for balance and improvements and also adds a significant skill component

[Mamonar]

My propostition how to resolve convergence:

1. Torso mounted weapons do not converge. Instead they have fixed convergence set at weapons optimum range. (e.g.: ML converge at 270m, LL at 450m, SL at 135m)How this helps: This means it makes more sense to use Medium and Small Lasers at close ranges, because torso mounted Large Lasers won’t be able to do pinpoint dmg at close ranges.

2. Arms converge on locked target, otherwise set to optimum range of the weapon with the longest range. Arms need time to converge.

Edited by Mamonar, 20 January 2015 - 08:06 AM.

[Tombstoner]

Gyrok, on 20 January 2015 - 07:16 AM, said:

FTFY.

[rant]

Only Clan Gauss, and the occasional ERPPC are PP FLD for clans. So if you fight against clans and do not torso twist, you are screwing yourself over and deserve to take a laser vomit alpha to the chest for full burn while you try to line up your PPC lolpha from the 9S you are terrible at piloting.

[/rant]

EDIT: I am aware you know this, but that was aimed at anyone who does not understand the essence of the point.




What next? They give our mechs my little pony mounts, and rename ballistics hugs, and rename PPCs kisses, and then the end of the match comes when everyone gets to theta to sing Kumbaya?

Not sure if you understood my post or the topic in general... A COF will INCREASE the degree of difficulty. It will further enhance the difference between player skill levels. A COF is in no way a "care bear" helping hand. When hugs no longer magically converge with kisses creating game breaking levels of "Pin point" high alpha damage game play becomes more enjoyable. O and "skill" will still let you deliver that massive pin point strike. your just not given a 100% chance...

Not many people argue against high damage output.... its massive "pin point" alphas that are currently turning assault mechs(everyone) into care bears.....

[Mcgral18]

Mamonar, on 20 January 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

2. Arms converge on locked target, otherwise set to optimum range of the weapon with the longest range. Arms need time to converge.

The issue with that is the Jesus Box offering Null Sig. Heat and crit slot free.

[Tombstoner]

Joseph Mallan, on 20 January 2015 - 07:53 AM, said:

Its better than what we have now. Not sure if I like it or not but its a good step or 6 in the right direction. Still don't see convergence needing to be pin point even if the convergence is at 3 different distances.

WWII fighters had adjustable convergence settings.

[Pika]

How about instead of removing it, we add a considerably larger time delay?

Look at something like World of Tanks (I know, I'm sorry, don't shank me) and take something similar to their cone of fire system, but for all the weapons. Rather than a CoF, more of a "All your guns will hit randomly in this area" until we've been stood still or below a certain speed threshold or something. We can speed this convergence up with the advanced skill, which is what it's SUPPOSED to do now, but seems to do nothing.

I would also like to see the 'Mech's torso get spun around like in the old MW3/4 days too along with this.

[Tynan]

Leaving aside the general tendency of humanity in general to *think* they want something when, in practice, it turns out they didn't think through the full consequences, I'm not sure it matters much how much anyone wants this. PGI's stated numerous times that dynamic convergence doesn't work well / at all with the engine, so it'll probably never happen. That could change, I suppose, or their understanding of the engine could change enough that they figure out a new way of pulling it off they hadn't thought possible previously.

All THAT said, my personal preference in a perfect world would be for dynamic convergence based on where the hardpoint is located. Essentially, articulated arms converge, fixed arms (like Catapults') do not, and neither do torso slots. Add separate HUD icons or whatnot to represent nonconverged weapons (something tiny / translucent so it doesn't ruin visibility). Arms are already more vulnerable, and this gives them more purpose. Also, it would reduce alphas and add strategic depth to weapon deployment.

Not that any of that would happen, so it's really just idle talk. But that's what I'd want to see.

[LordKnightFandragon]

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

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.

yeah, the clan versions, the IS still get significantly faster burning lasers, FLD ACs, Gauss and even their LRMs have more PP then any of the Clan weapons.

Convergeance is not an issue with a clan mech, quite so much....but for the IS.....they still have plenty of ways to put out a massive PP shot.

The alternate to this whole convergence thing is to give the IS the same spread as the Clans, AC, spread thier LRMs out more..

PPCs are decent weapons, but that 90m min range, I never did like that. ERPPC are a joke, that is why you dont see them except on quirked mechs...

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 20 January 2015 - 08:24 AM.