1126 replies to this topic

[Almond Brown]

Apocryph0n, on 20 January 2015 - 06:22 AM, said:

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.

stuff

How many of those games allow 1 players to fire 7-9 weapons all at once? That is likely your answer.

[Widowmaker1981]

Almond Brown, on 20 January 2015 - 09:48 AM, said:

That is easily accomplished. Any "Alpha Strike" gets a 300% heat Spike and an auto, min. 5s - 10s shutdown. If the Heat causes a prolonged Shutdown due to excess Heat generated, then you stay down that long.

Leaving aside how ridiculous that is for a moment, define 'Alpha strike' please - the classical definition is 'all of the weapons on the mech' but you can't mean that since it would be trivial to avoid by equipping 1 small laser on every mech that you never fire.

[Mister Blastman]

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

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

Removing convergence doesn't equal rolling digital dice. Removing convergence and adding cone of fire would.

Removing convergence and putting in FIXED convergence or firing in a straight line... would not be random at all. You would know where your stuff would go. It would be up to YOU to decide if you want to hit or not.

We don't want dice rolling. We want fixed convergence / straight line firing / arms at best only converge and ONLY on those 'mechs that support fully actuated arms.

[Axeface]

Gyrok, on 20 January 2015 - 09:49 AM, said:

Want to know the approximate accuracy of an M1 abrams on the move @ 100 km/h?
Inside a 24" radius at 2400 m.
So, do you honestly think a mech standing still at 800m could not hit you in the head with a weapon that is 1040 years in the future with advanced future tech targeting systems?

A battlemech couldn't, no.

[Bishop Steiner]

1453 R, on 20 January 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

What this thread, and all other convergence threads, boil down to is, really, a bunch of people arguing for their preferred method of:

"This is how I want to make sure nobody ever hits:

1.) what they aim at
2.) anything more than 150 meters away from their 'Mech
3.) lights
4.) with autocannons

...ever again."

Here's the problem with all these convergence systems trying to force players to sign blood contracts with Lucifer, or force them to perform arcane rituals under the full moon, in order to hit what they aim at. Players in this game like hitting and dislike missing. They will find a way to hit what they aim at no matter how much you try and convince them that hitting what they aim at is unrealistic and against BattleTech lore. Remove convergence in favor of fixed everything, or some ridiculous cone-of-fire effect where the entire screen is your crosshair at five hundred meters? I guarantee you that the new meta will be SRM splat. Get right up in their faces, point-blank, and let 'em have it with SRMs.

How're you going to stop them, after all? SRM splat is competitive now, when splat 'Mechs have to actually fear being hit from more than 150 meters away. Remove a player's ability to hit a target beyond 150 meters and all you do is force fights into occurring under 150 meters. Number of missile hardpoints becomes the new determinant of Good vs. Bad, not placement of ballistic/energy hardpoints. And the forums erupt in screams of rage that the Evil SRM Meta is ruining their fun.

People, please realize. You are never going to get rid of players' desire to kill their enemies as quickly and effectively as possible. You are never going to get rid of the fact that bracketed builds are bad, were bad in TT and will remain bad in MWO. You are never going to get rid of the fact that making the single most fundamental interaction between players in this game - that is, the act of aiming and shooting at enemy pilots - sketchy, unpredictable, and unreliable will render your game effectively unplayable.

Stop. Please. There are many things far more worthy of attention than breaking aim.

Widowmaker1981, on 20 January 2015 - 08:53 AM, said:

Yep. This.

Not really. Why the basis is sound, the over emotional exaggeration is really stealing a lot of power from the argument.

Things like "cone-of-fire effect where the entire screen is your crosshair at five hundred meters" are such gross exaggerations as to make one sound hysterical. Yes, one can get overly impassioned when defending "their way of doingthings", but it seems of late that 1453R has been arguing from that posture almost entirely.

Hyperbole is not counter arguments.

[STEF_]

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

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

What about the idea, instead? putting a max dmg per alpha.
The less dmg possible, the more ttk, imo.

Another possibility: let only chain fire mode (TTish).

(I said alpha, not pinpoint dmg)

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 20 January 2015 - 10:33 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 January 2015 - 09:54 AM, said:

Leaving aside how ridiculous that is for a moment, define 'Alpha strike' please - the classical definition is 'all of the weapons on the mech' but you can't mean that since it would be trivial to avoid by equipping 1 small laser on every mech that you never fire.

Since we are spit-balling here, I will let that slight slide. Even if any Player removed 1 weapon from their Alpha set-up and put a SL in its place, a gain will be made in the right direction.

Or perhaps we can re-define what Alpha means if that would make you happier.

[1453 R]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 January 2015 - 09:56 AM, said:

Not really. Why the basis is sound, the over emotional exaggeration is really stealing a lot of power from the argument.

Things like "cone-of-fire effect where the entire screen is your crosshair at five hundred meters" are such gross exaggerations as to make one sound hysterical. Yes, one can get overly impassioned when defending "their way of doingthings", but it seems of late that 1453R has been arguing from that posture almost entirely.

Hyperbole is not counter arguments.

How 'bout this, then:

1453 R, on 20 January 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

What this thread, and all other convergence threads, boil down to is, really, a bunch of people arguing for their preferred method of:

"This is how I want to make sure nobody ever hits:

1.) what they aim at
2.) anything more than 500 meters or so away from their 'Mech
3.) lights

...ever again."

Here's the problem with all these convergence systems trying to force players to sign blood contracts with Lucifer, or force them to perform arcane rituals under the full moon deal with any of these baroque, opaque systems which rob them of any real accuracy unless they know exactly how to massage the system (much like Ghost Heat's current implementation), in order to hit what they aim at. Players in this game like hitting and dislike missing. They will find a way to hit what they aim at no matter how much you try and convince them that hitting what they aim at is unrealistic and against BattleTech lore. Remove convergence in favor of fixed everything, or some ridiculous cone-of-fire effect where the entire screen is your crosshair at five hundred meters which effectively eliminates long-distance combat as a serious threat due to a drastic decrease in damage pressure distance builds get to accurately put out? I guarantee you that the new meta will be SRM splat. Get right up in their faces, point-blank, and let 'em have it with SRMs.

How're you going to stop them, after all? SRM splat is competitive now, when splat 'Mechs have to actually fear being hit from more than 150 meters away by snipers who can actually deal significant damage from a distance. Remove a player's ability to hit a target beyond 150 meters deal significant damage to his targets at a distance and all you do is force fights into occurring under 150 meters in close, instead of at a distance and then in close. Number of missile hardpoints becomes the new determinant of Good vs. Bad, not placement of ballistic/energy hardpoints. And the forums erupt in screams of rage that the Evil SRM Meta is ruining their fun.

People, please realize. You are never going to get rid of players' desire to kill their enemies as quickly and effectively as possible. You are never going to get rid of the fact that bracketed builds are bad, were bad in TT and will remain bad in MWO. You are never going to get rid of the fact that making the single most fundamental interaction between players in this game - that is, the act of aiming and shooting at enemy pilots - sketchy, unpredictable, and unreliable will render your game effectively unplayable.

Stop. Please. There are many things far more worthy of attention than breaking aim.

The message is the same regardless. I apologize for having emotions, but I've been having a really damn rough time of it lately, and frankly the continued forum stupidity around here is wearing on my nerves more than it usually does. Does anyone really, really, really think that decoupling 'aiming' and 'hitting' is a good idea, or will lead to anything but point-blank SRM shotgun builds utterly dominating the game?

[Widowmaker1981]

Almond Brown, on 20 January 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

Since we are spit-balling here, I will let that slight slide. Even if any Player removed 1 weapon from their Alpha set-up and put a SL in its place, a gain will be made in the right direction.

Or perhaps we can re-define what Alpha means if that would make you happier.

My point was really that you can't define it in a meaningful way, setting it to 'all weapons on the mech' would do nothing at all, most people don't use all the hardpoints on mechs that have lots (like timbers, stormcrows, dire wolves, banshees, etc) so it would cost them 1/2 a ton to circumvent. At that point you are setting a cap on either: number of total weapons or total max allowable damage output. What should those numbers be?

[1453 R]

Widowmaker1981, on 20 January 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

My point was really that you can't define it in a meaningful way, setting it to 'all weapons on the mech' would do nothing at all, most people don't use all the hardpoints on mechs that have lots (like timbers, stormcrows, dire wolves, banshees, etc) so it would cost them 1/2 a ton to circumvent. At that point you are setting a cap on either: number of total weapons or total max allowable damage output. What should those numbers be?

Funny part is that this cap/limiter already exists.

It's called your heat bar.

Stop clamoring for convergence 'fixes' and start clamoring for proper utilization of the heat bar. A reasonable system of heat penalties would solve a lot of the super-high pinpoint issues without hurting a player's ability to hit that they aim at.

Keep your 'Mech below 50% heat? You're fine. Carry on, soldier. Keep your 'Mech between 50%-75% heat? You're going to suffer some HUD glitches, perhaps a few mobility knocks here and there, and your vision might start to swim from heat exhaustion if you keep it up too long, but you can still fight. Ride that sucker at 90+% for minutes at a time? You're courting heat sink failure, ammo cookoffs, and pilot blackouts.

Do that first. Then talk convergence. Or, preferably, don't. Since not hitting what you aim at is never really acceptable in a shooter.

[CocoaJin]

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.

That's like saying you can't hit a small, fast moving target with bird or buck shot. If anything, you are more likely to hit lights...it would be harder to alpha a specific part of a light(but that's the purpose vs all classes, not just vs lights), but actually hitting lights would be easier. Lights trying to run the gauntlet among enemy mechs will feel like they're flying through clouds of flak.

[cSand]

I can tell you my 2 AC10s I put on my new phract don't hit the same spot usually, even if I hold shift for armlock (they land over/under except at optimal range)

PPC, gauss, and AC's (lasers don't count since you can spread the damage) all travel different speeds, spreading most damage if you keep moving. Plus those mechs with all that firepower, they have big weaknesses anyways and if you aren't a human vegetable you can probably figure these out.

Then there's this, people see a DWF, first instinct is to turn and run. Then they complain when he blasts them in half from behind, where they have put 5 POINTS OF ARMOR ON THEIR BACK. I see it all the time

I dunno how many times I have to say this, but everything whined about in this thread, and all the other NREF PPDLD MRRRRRAAAAA threads make it sound like everyone just stands in 1 spot taking hits all match

granted a lot of people do that I can see why they b*tch, but a guy can't ask for cars to be banned because he likes standing in the middle of the highway


basically what I'm saying here is L2P and all your problems, will go away!

Edited by cSand, 20 January 2015 - 11:10 AM.

[Davers]

CocoaJin, on 20 January 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

That's like saying you can't hit a small, fast moving target with bird or buck shot. If anything, you are more likely to hit lights...it would be harder to alpha a specific part of a light(but that's the purpose vs all classes, not just vs lights), but actually hitting lights would be easier. Lights trying to run the gauntlet among enemy mechs will feel like they're flying through clouds of flak.

How did removing convergence turn all weapons into shotguns?

[Widowmaker1981]

1453 R, on 20 January 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

Funny part is that this cap/limiter already exists.

It's called your heat bar.

Stop clamoring for convergence 'fixes' and start clamoring for proper utilization of the heat bar. A reasonable system of heat penalties would solve a lot of the super-high pinpoint issues without hurting a player's ability to hit that they aim at.

Keep your 'Mech below 50% heat? You're fine. Carry on, soldier. Keep your 'Mech between 50%-75% heat? You're going to suffer some HUD glitches, perhaps a few mobility knocks here and there, and your vision might start to swim from heat exhaustion if you keep it up too long, but you can still fight. Ride that sucker at 90+% for minutes at a time? You're courting heat sink failure, ammo cookoffs, and pilot blackouts.

Do that first. Then talk convergence. Or, preferably, don't. Since not hitting what you aim at is never really acceptable in a shooter.

for the record, i agree with you, i was arguing against the person i quoted's absurd idea of 'if you alpha strike you should get +300% heat and have an auto shutdown'

[CocoaJin]

Davers, on 20 January 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

How did removing convergence turn all weapons into shotguns?

It would turn the alpha of multiple weapons mounted in different locations into a shotgun...especially if torso mounted weapons.

[Kill Dozer]

"perfect convergence"

Yeah, that's what I think every time I shoot at a mech in the distance with AC's or PPC's and my weapons cross paths about halfway there and land on either side of them.

[Jonathan Paine]

Single weapon = pinpoint
Several weapons = spread

Landing successive shots in the same location requires more skill.

In other words, BUFF SKILL by NERFING CONVERGENCE.

[Kahoumono]

I am all for getting rid of convergence but I am afraid that boat has sailed. It would as suggested by other posts open up other problems, like missiles gaining the upper hand again, light mechs being invincible again, etc. So a complete overhaul would be necessary.

Several things need to be implemented at once convergence to make the game more in tune with the dynamics in Battletech lore. Convergence should exist to an extent and should be tied to size of mech, location of weapons, speed and additionally improved with targeting computers and similar modules. Mobility (speed) needs to be tied to heat so mechs, lights specifically, cannot operate fearlessly if it wants to alpha spam repeatedly. This would also improve the survivability of scouts as they can disengage the enemy if it concentrates on running. I don't have any ideas with missles off the top of my head and I am sure my suggestions have holes. Regardless I don't think the game will change as it is so I can only hope the next rendition when I am too old to play games.

[Joseph Mallan]

Kill Dozer, on 20 January 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

"perfect convergence"

Yeah, that's what I think every time I shoot at a mech in the distance with AC's or PPC's and my weapons cross paths about halfway there and land on either side of them.

Aw come on Dozer.... When's the last time you actually missed!

[Burktross]

Only if we implement Burktross's Weapon Convergence System™

Torso Mounted Weapons:
-Minimum convergence is decent
-Maximum convergence is never perfect.
-Convergence is slower
-less recoil.

Arm Mounted Weapons:
-Minimum Convergence is inaccurate
-Maximum convergence is near perfect
-Convergence is fast
-Most recoil