1126 replies to this topic

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 10 April 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

I dont want to get rid of convergence. I just dont want it to be as easy to put 30-40 damage into one location.

PPCs should do splash damage and ACs should burst fire. Gauss should either do splash damage or have reduced damage but allow a certain percentage of that damage to armor pierce.

By making weapons spread damage more evenly across mechs we can get rid of ghost heat.

First: In my opinion splash damage is effectively the same thing as "CoF" only it puts the cone into affect after the weapon has landed.

Second: I thought PPC's already splashed, which in my opinion is wrong but if they do so now, it is what it is.

Third: Again, reducing damage of weapons or 'spreading the damage around' artificially only hurts the players that can actually aim. Everyone else who can't, or doesn't care, won't see much difference, and without an actual heat affects table, you'll STILL have the issue of repetitive firing of high alphas occurring.

[Mister Blastman]

Khobai, on 10 April 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

I dont want to get rid of convergence. I just dont want it to be as easy to put 30-40 damage into one location.

All PPCs should do splash damage like clan ERPPCs and all ACs should burst fire like clan ACs. Gauss should either do splash damage or have reduced damage but allow a certain percentage of that damage to armor pierce.

By reducing pinpoint damage and making weapons spread damage more evenly across mechs we can get rid of ghost heat. TTK would also be dramatically improved.

Sooooo... what about high damage erllas and llas alphas? Because that's exactly what will happen and we'll still be going on about convergence.

When you have a physical malady, you don't treat the symptom, you treat the problem. The symptom is weapons balance. The problem here is convergence.

[Khobai]

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First: In my opinion splash damage is effectively the same thing as "CoF" only it puts the cone into affect after the weapon has landed.

Its not the same thing as cone of fire at all. cone of fire is random. splash damage is not random; it always hits the same adjacent locations for the same amount of damage.

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Second: I thought PPC's already splashed, which in my opinion is wrong but if they do so now, it is what it is.

only Clan ERPPCs splash.

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Third: Again, reducing damage of weapons or 'spreading the damage around' artificially only hurts the players that can actually aim. Everyone else who can't, or doesn't care, won't see much difference, and without an actual heat affects table, you'll STILL have the issue of repetitive firing of high alphas occurring.

No it doesnt. Your shots would still go exactly where you aim. You just have to be more consistently accurately.

It doesnt punish players that aim. It just raises the skill cap on aiming by making it harder to consistently hit the same location.

If anything it further divides the players that can aim from the players that cant.

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Sooooo... what about high damage erllas and llas alphas? Because that's exactly what will happen and we'll still be going on about convergence.

quirks are a large part of the problem with lasers, specifically the stalker's quirks.

also beam duration on lasers should be more proportional to the damage done. right now the beam duration on some of the higher damage lasers is too short compared to the lower damage lasers. the quirks make that even worse by lowering the durations further.

Edited by Khobai, 10 April 2015 - 12:52 PM.

[1453 R]

WHY IS THIS THREAD STILL A THING

[Max Liao]

1453 R, on 10 April 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:

WHY IS THIS THREAD STILL A THING

Apparently to up your post count by 1.

I'm glad it served it's mission.

[Dimento Graven]

Hotthedd, on 10 April 2015 - 12:26 PM, said:

He can call you now, because, as far as MW:O and the Battletech universe is concerned, it IS 3050 (an miraculously has been for nearly 3 years)

We ARE NOT talking about the future, we are in fact talking about a present for which the future has already been written. The technology for MW:O's 3050 is the ONLY 3050 this game should care about.

When we're talking about a top down, table top, turn based game, it makes perfect sense why all that was required was a few "two through twelve" tables, two six sided die, and pencils.

When you're talking about a 1st person, real time sim, not so much.

[Max Liao]

Dimento Graven, on 10 April 2015 - 12:46 PM, said:

When we're talking about a top down, table top, turn based game, it makes perfect sense why all that was required was a few "two through twelve" tables, two six sided die, and pencils.

When you're talking about a 1st person, real time sim, not so much.

Not sure if you saw my response [here].

When World of Tanks (with CoF) simulates BattleMech combat than a BT/MW game, there's a problem .. and (for all of the whine and QQ) it has more active players.

[Hotthedd]

Dimento Graven, on 10 April 2015 - 12:46 PM, said:

When we're talking about a top down, table top, turn based game, it makes perfect sense why all that was required was a few "two through twelve" tables, two six sided die, and pencils.

When you're talking about a 1st person, real time sim, not so much.

1st person, real time SIM?

...I thought we were discussing MW:O.


But, to your point, cursor dragging and clicking are NOT "aiming". A'int nobody in this game leet because they can point'n'click.

If there is a human involved in the process, there WILL be errors.

A rifle expert once told me (paraphrasing) You ALWAYS hit what you are aiming at. Unfortunately, either due to human error or mechanical error, you are rarely aiming where you THINK you are aiming.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 10 April 2015 - 12:40 PM, said:

Its not the same thing as cone of fire at all. cone of fire is random. splash damage is not.

********. I hit a target dead center of his CT, WHERE does the splash go, how much and how is it all determined?

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only Clan ERPPCs splash.

I'll take your word for it. I knew there was an association between PPC's and splashing and you could be right, and I don't care enough to check.

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No it doesnt. Your shots still go where you aim. You just have to be more consistently accurately.

It doesnt punish players that aim. It raises the skill cap by making consistently hitting the same location harder.

WTF are you talking about? With "splash" I could aim perfectly every damned time but because now all the damage is NOT being applied to what I am aiming at, I have to fire even MORE to have the same affect. Splash doesn't make hitting ANYTHING 'harder' it just makes hitting what you've aimed at have a lessened affect, allowing BAD PLAYERS TO LIVE LONGER THROUGH ARTIFICIAL MEANS.

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quirks are a large part of the problem, specifically the stalker's quirks.

but also beam duration on lasers should be more proportional to the damage done. right now the beam duration on some of the higher damage lasers is too short compared to the lower damage lasers. the quirks make that even worse by lowering the durations further.

Quirks have certainly exacerbated this issue. I really do wonder how much the decision makers on these things actually play this game, and at what level they play at.

After going through all the BS to fine tune the monstrosity of "ghost heat", they have in affect for a specially chosen few 'mechs, rolled back "ghost heat" so that we're again seeing PPC boating Awsomes, and the LL Stalker boats.

Add a heat affects table, mitigate that sort of silliness a bit.

[Dino Might]

Dimento,
You have still not addressed any of the four questions I posed. None of your statements have any reasonable evidence, logic, or rational basis. I'm still waiting on something other than "I'm awesome, so whatever I say must be right."

-Star Buddy Dino

[PPMcBiggs]

Dimento Graven, on 10 April 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

First: In my opinion splash damage is effectively the same thing as "CoF" only it puts the cone into affect after the weapon has landed.

Second: I thought PPC's already splashed, which in my opinion is wrong but if they do so now, it is what it is.

Third: Again, reducing damage of weapons or 'spreading the damage around' artificially only hurts the players that can actually aim. Everyone else who can't, or doesn't care, won't see much difference, and without an actual heat affects table, you'll STILL have the issue of repetitive firing of high alphas occurring.

Man I so totally agree with you.

What I keep hearing is "Pinpoint sucks because it hurts real bad so we shouldn't have pinpoint."

This, to me, is silly.

I have about 1000 hours in an actual twitch game: TF2. In that game I play as a scout which only has CoF weapons (shotgun, pistol). The only class in that game that has pinpoint accuracy is the sniper. I have enough experience in that game that it is somewhat easy for me to tell when a sniper has joined the game and is aim-botting within 2-3 shots (on me). When a sniper is really good they can nail you dead so fast it is infuriating, but they still miss plenty. I have learned a few tactics to get these irritating mofos. First, avoid line of sight: you cant hit what you can't see. Second my style of play has evolved such that I am in their face moving as fast possible, as close as possible to them in order to make aiming incredibly difficult for them. I still die sometimes, that is just the game.

The point I am trying to make is if you are dying too fast I don't think the issue is necessarily pinpoint convergence. In almost all cases it is a players strategy. If you run out in the middle of the map and get sniped by 4 mechs simultaneously you deserve to die. If you are playing peek a boo with a skilled pinpoint shooter you deserve to die, especially if you never vary your peek timing or try maneuvering elsewhere. If there isn't enough cover on maps to get good cover let PGI know. If you can't adjust to the reality of the game, practice more or give up.

Back to alphas:
Alphas need some work. Especially laser (& PPC) boats.

Edit: grammar

Edited by PPMcBiggs, 10 April 2015 - 12:59 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Max Liao, on 10 April 2015 - 12:49 PM, said:

Not sure if you saw my response [here].

When World of Tanks (with CoF) simulates BattleMech combat than a BT/MW game, there's a problem .. and (for all of the whine and QQ) it has more active players.

I don't play WoT.

I acknowledge its existence but refuse any attempts at suggesting what happens in WoT, TF2, BF, CoD, Castle Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Doom, RoT, or Mario Kart, should have any bearing on what happens in MWO.

Dino Might, on 10 April 2015 - 12:55 PM, said:

Dimento,
You have still not addressed any of the four questions I posed. None of your statements have any reasonable evidence, logic, or rational basis. I'm still waiting on something other than "I'm awesome, so whatever I say must be right."

-Star Buddy Dino

[Redacted], and go re-read:

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__4353490

I addressed every damn point.

[Khobai]

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WTF are you talking about? With "splash" I could aim perfectly every damned time but because now all the damage is NOT being applied to what I am aiming at, I have to fire even MORE to have the same affect. Splash doesn't make hitting ANYTHING 'harder' it just makes hitting what you've aimed at have a lessened affect, allowing BAD PLAYERS TO LIVE LONGER THROUGH ARTIFICIAL MEANS.

only about 1/3rd of the damage would be splash damage and would hit predetermined adjacent locations. the rest would still hit where you aim. the goal of splash damage is simply to lower the overall effectiveness of pinpoint damage. not eliminate pinpoint damage entirely. not at all the same thing as cone of fire.

as for burst fire, when an autocannon fires bursts, you can still aim each of those bursts. its just harder to hit the same location with 4 rapid shots than 1 single shot. However you can still aim your shots, the skill cap required to do all the damage to one location is just increased.

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********. I hit a target dead center of his CT, WHERE does the splash go, how much and how is it all determined?

The same exact way the CERPPC currently works. CT shots do 10 damage to the CT and 2.5 to each side torso.

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The point I am trying to make is if you are dying too fast I don't think the issue is necessarily pinpoint convergence.

The issue is definitely pinpoint convergence. You dont see mechs with mixed loadouts for a reason. The reason every single meta loadout boats similar weapons is because they converge on one location.

Edited by Khobai, 10 April 2015 - 01:09 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Hotthedd, on 10 April 2015 - 12:52 PM, said:

1st person, real time SIM?

...I thought we were discussing MW:O.


But, to your point, cursor dragging and clicking are NOT "aiming". A'int nobody in this game leet because they can point'n'click.

You'll have to define your parameters for 'leetness'. I consider someone approaching 'leet' when they can regularly (not ALWAYS, REGULARLY) hit what they aim at when they and their target are moving.

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If there is a human involved in the process, there WILL be errors.

Hence, REGULARLY, in my definition of 'leet'.

From what I've seen of play, majority are more prone to errors and the 'regularity' of their point and click aim lacks.

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A rifle expert once told me (paraphrasing) You ALWAYS hit what you are aiming at. Unfortunately, either due to human error or mechanical error, you are rarely aiming where you THINK you are aiming.

That's a fundamental truth we can agree on.

[Hotthedd]

Dimento Graven, on 10 April 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

You'll have to define your parameters for 'leetness'. I consider someone approaching 'leet' when they can regularly (not ALWAYS, REGULARLY) hit what they aim at when they and their target are moving.

Hence, REGULARLY, in my definition of 'leet'.

From what I've seen of play, majority are more prone to errors and the 'regularity' of their point and click aim lacks.

That's a fundamental truth we can agree on.

You miss my point that we are NOT aiming in this game. We are point'n'clicking. I do not believe there is any possible way to be an ELITE pointer or clicker. Just in the same way I do not believe there can be an ELITE tooth brusher.

I'm not really in the Cone-of-Fire camp, unless added as part of a heat penalty, but unless we were to all add bounce to our desktops and chairs while playing, I see it as an acceptable approximation.

[Dino Might]

Go re-read my questions and your responses. You did not answer in a way other than "because I yelled so."

Dimento Graven, on 10 April 2015 - 11:58 AM, said:

It was Bayer asprins... And occasionally chewable vitamin C's.

So, fantasies now = evidence? I must admit, you have the advantage on me there.

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Because SOME people can't do the same, and their continued attempts at watering down OTHER PEOPLE'S skills with RNGs just so that they can continue playing badly without consequences requires the attention of SOMEONE of reason to respond.

Why is it right?

BECAUSE: It is UNREASONABLE to have good play be circumvented by an RNG. You pick an unmoving/slow moving target that's unwittingly out in the open, carefully line up your target on them, click the fire button only to have an RNG spuriously decide, that no, you did not hit, because "reality".

NOW, ask yourself, WHO does that sort of thing benefit? Does it benefit the shooter? Does it "force" him to become "better"?

No, of course not. There's not a goddamned thing the shooter can do to control the RNG. It benefits the moron standing/moving out in the open.

It waters down GOOD play in favor of STUPID play.

It doesn't lead to normalization. A player who is bad at aiming MIGHT get more "lucky" shots with an RNG based CoF, but for a player who is GOOD at aiming it only leads more SPURIOUS misses.

I have given you real life examples of how the CoF model actually benefits the skilled players and provides a greater differentiation between players of various skill levels. You seem to think that an RNG system will somehow specially target you and make all your shots miss while it makes all my shots hit you when they shouldn't have. You think that there's some magical distribution genie that will somehow unfairly gimp you while helping everyone else? Seriously, dude, go to Vegas. If you can have that sort of affect on statistical distributions, you should be raking in the dough at the roulette wheel.

Over the course of 30 shots (30 weapons, maybe all fired at once, maybe fired 1 at a time, doesn't matter), a pure CoF system will ensure that the one with better aim wins. If you are advocating for a one shot one kill type of game, then yes, the CoF system could give you an appreciable disadvantage on an extremely small percentage (<1%) of the time. If that number bothers you, you have other issues. But we're not advocating a uniform blanket standard deviation for the CoF (RNG distribution). The standard deviation is impacted by your piloting and mech status, so that when you line up that shot carefully and pull the trigger, your gauss round aimed at dead center of the cockpit is going to hit within a foot of that point of aim, which is still pretty much dead center of the cockpit. It's only when you start trying the 360 no scope snapshots at 80% heat that your potential point of impact deviation causes you to hit the side torso or arm, or *gasp* miss instead. I think we can both agree that those types of shots are not routinely done by skilled players, even ones such as yourself. The ones hitting with those shots are getting lucky that they hit the mouse button at the right time - it wasn't really skill based because it's entirely unrepeatable.

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It's unnecessary for any IS weapon that isn't constantly firing rounds. Missile weapons have there unconverged fire, the MG has its unconverged fire, the flamer has its area of affect, LBX has its "cone of fire" already as well, "pulse" lasers are the closest you get, but because the energy beams they fire are massless there's nothing to "logically" cause a "cone of fire" affect, each pulse will follow the previous exactly, then you have regular lasers a beam and a single BEAM can't have a "CONE of FIRE" can it? As far as all other weapons, they are single shot, fired one at a time at a target as large as a 4 story building.

I have given you ranging formulas and discussed with you how angular deviation results in appreciable differences in point of impact for anything, be it coherent light or ballistic projectile. You still aren't understanding how that works, despite me having given you the sources to go investigate and learn.

Also, a beam of light actually has a definitive cone of fire. First let's start with the concept that light is made up of photons. These photons exhibit wave-particle duality. There's a whole slew of things that changes about your assumptions, but its on such a small scale in the macro world as to be inconsequential. A laser is a collimated beam of these photos. Collimation uses a mirrored tube and geometry to achieve the focused beam. The beam can never be perfectly focused so that all photons are traveling in perfectly parallel directions. There will literally be a cone of light emitting from the lens. Now, again, we can show that this cone will be quite small, and almost negligible for our purposes. But, the gimbals, actuators, and mechanical systems used to align the lens/barrel/collimator will have errors in precision no matter what you do. Despite the fact that you keep arm waving about 3050 tech being magical, we are supposed to be playing with things that are made of real matter behaving in ways we understand. There can be no argument that there will be some precision error every time the weapon is realigned. That error may be so small as to be negligible, but it depends on the engineering of the system, the environmental conditions in which the weapon is used, inertial effects, etc. (read PHYSICS). Because of how this works, there will be some error in each shot, however small it may be. The errors are modeled very well with a CoF system, which allows us to get the same end result of where the shots should land without having to calculate every particle interaction in the local space (which again, would take a processor that exceeds any conceivable design, even with your 3050 magic tech).

So, again, explain to me how 3050 negates all of this?

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Call me in 3050, we'll talk.

This is the best non-answer ever. Will the sun come up tomorrow? Call me tomorrow and let me know if it did. Until then, I won't believe you when you say yes.

Edited by Dino Might, 10 April 2015 - 01:20 PM.

[Khobai]

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I have given you real life examples of how the CoF model actually benefits the skilled players

There are ways to distribute damage more evenly without introducing random elements to the game. I feel non-random methods such as splash/burst damage should be tried first. CoF is a last resort IMO.

[Dino Might]

Khobai, on 10 April 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

There are ways to distribute damage more evenly without introducing random elements to the game. I feel non-random methods such as splash/burst damage should be tried first. CoF is a last resort IMO.

I'm okay with that, but I'd prefer something that models reality more - make it more sim-like. That's my personal preference, and by no means can that be the basis for requiring my system be put in place. At the end of the day, I like a more realistic game. Others don't. Hopefully PGI can come up with a solution that's a good balance between the two.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 10 April 2015 - 01:00 PM, said:

only about 1/3rd of the damage would be splash damage and would hit predetermined adjacent locations. the rest would still hit where you aim. the goal of splash damage is simply to lower the overall effectiveness of pinpoint damage. not eliminate pinpoint damage entirely. not at all the same thing as cone of fire.

Exactly like I said, reduce the effectiveness of people who can aim allowing other people playing badly to live longer because now 1/3 less damage is being delivered where aimed.

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as for burst fire, when an autocannon fires bursts, you can still aim each of those bursts. its just harder to hit the same location with 4 rapid shots than 1 single shot. However you can still aim your shots, the skill cap required to do all the damage to one location is just increased.

Yep, you can still aim the burst AC's, totally agree, and due to the mobile nature of this game, I don't think it's necessary to add a CoF. Some people have made points that at the ranges to target and size of targets we're talking about, to have the "CoF" affect people seem to be asking for you'd have to make the error factor beyond the "reality" some of you are trying to inject here.

As it is, in a mobile battle with cover to duck in and out from, with enemies and friendlies to dash between and behind, there really is enough of a 'fudge factor' (NOT EVEN COUNTING hit reg issues, ping and lag differences, as well differences in computing power and graphics settings) to provide PLENTY of misses, without the need of an artificially large CoF.

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The same exact way the CERPPC currently works. CT shots do 10 damage to the CT and 2.5 to each side torso.

Yeah now I remember, I never bothered the clan ER PPCs because I ran into situations in training grounds where I could fire clan ER PPC dead on, and it would only damage the center and right torso.

I'd reported it, don't know if they ever fixed it, but it seemed to stupid (and still does). I'm not sure why anyone wanting to purport that in order to uphold the lore of the game we need a cone of fire to dictate hits and misses, could stomach the concept of "splash" damage.

I don't recall any hit tables for PPC's or any other 'mech based weapons that had 'splash'...

That seems very counter lore to me.

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The issue is definitely pinpoint convergence. You dont see mechs with mixed loadouts for a reason. The reason every single meta loadout boats similar weapons is because they converge on one location.

I run gauss and lasers, mixed. I also have missile and laser builds, mixed. There's a lot of the "meta" crowd out there who I am sure religiously check the metamechs.com site to see if there's been any changes to the current 'meta' state in MWO.

Nothing we can do about it, the game allows for us to modify our builds and fire a mech with 12 of 1 weapon, or 12 of 12 different weapons simultaneously potentially several times in a row without regard to any adverse affects.

Again, the lack of a heat table is the REAL issue, not the fact that we have convergence.

EVEN IF, PGI were to right this instant add a 2d6 RNG based hit table into the game, the fact that any bozo in his 8 SPL Fire Starter can run up on you fire all 8 3 times in a row, and run off at full speed, will STILL be an issue.

Only, due to all the other problems of this game, now that YOU can't consciously and thoughtfully aim at his leg as he comes up to you or as he runs off, YOU have no sure way to control this sort of activity, and it's not self-regulated with a full featured heat affects table, YOU are now totally screwed.

Unless of course YOU hop in an all SPL Fire Starter and start playing the same way.

[One of Little Harmony]

No. Please don't get rid of convergence. If you're concerned about alpha strikes...then go directly to the source and limit the amount of damage an alpha strike can do. (Probably by deflecting it to other components)

Edited by One of Little Harmony, 10 April 2015 - 01:31 PM.