71 replies to this topic

[MysticLink]

You guys want to make this game too hard. Less people except the hardcore people will play. Keep it fun. Fun is more important then balance.

[Koniving]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 24 February 2015 - 10:35 PM, said:

Heat- and movement-based modifiers in the form of dynamic precision reduction would reduce the most egregious examples and vastly improve both balance and immersion.

Jazzbandit1313, on 24 February 2015 - 10:44 PM, said:

Basically...

Heat based modifier: The hotter you are, the less accurate you are (can be implemented in a system that just blurs your screen when you get too hot, or actually reduce your convergence rate or somesuch).

Long story short, heat affects your aim.

Movement based modifier.
Example one (please watch in the highest quality with full screen).
Example two (as above).

Long story short, Movement affects your aim. (Which is 100% pure canon with BT, the faster you move in relation to your overall speed the less accurate you are). So if you're in a Warhawk going 64.8 kph you're a lot less likely to hit things than one going 42 kph, which is less likely to hit things than a stationary Warhawk.
Jumping leaves you as inaccurate as running.
Things of that nature.

Note War Thunder which was used as the example is 100% pinpoint accurate to where the crosshair is. But tilting up or down from terrain or simply inertia will jerk your entire tank, which jerks the barrel, which jerks the aim.

Essentially, take a look here.
A crosshair that moves in the same way that the mech actually moves.


Watch the crosshair in third person. At the most basic level, take that and put it in first person. The faster you move, the more it moves, the less accurate you are. Still 100% pinpoint to where the crosshair is, but like real tanks, people and machines the weapon shifts and move with the mech.

Edited by Koniving, 25 February 2015 - 11:04 AM.

[Necromantion]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 25 February 2015 - 09:23 AM, said:

You must living in some other dimension. Just every FPS game around have cone of fire, beginning with ultimate competitive game CS where you got real PRO players earning real money for gaming.

Cone of fire on automatic and burst fire, not single shots dipwit

[-Vompo-]

I'd be fine with weapons taking a small time (much less than a second) to reorient themselves when distance to target changes. If you fire before the guns have worked out their new convergence your fire will cross in the wrong distance and it wouldn't be pinpoint accurate but still predictable.

What comes to this cone of fire thing... it may work well with extremely arcade shooters where humans are firing their weapons.
Oh and someone brought up CS:GO in the cone of fire discussion... Recoil in that game follows a pattern. The same pattern everytime. This pattern is different with different weapons. I wouldn't call this cone of fire.

[Almond Brown]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 February 2015 - 10:20 PM, said:

I think you and I have a very different definition of what point and click adventures are.

Or what does having an artificial CoF and a Sim have in common? I am sure WWII tankers would have loved to spread there shells around as having those pinpoint (single barreled) cannons were simply OP too right?

Mcgral18, on 24 February 2015 - 10:22 PM, said:

stuff

Speed has no impact.

Holy **** Batman! Tell that to all those players of MWO who have a Love to Hate relationship with enemy Light Mechs...

Edited by Almond Brown, 25 February 2015 - 12:18 PM.

[BlackSquirrel]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 24 February 2015 - 10:35 PM, said:

Heat- and movement-based modifiers in the form of dynamic precision reduction would reduce the most egregious examples and vastly improve both balance and immersion.

Actually doing this and making weapons have "fire on the move" and "stationary" would go a long way towards balance of both weapons and mechs.

"gyroscopic balance modifier +10%" AC2 movement modifier -15%. PPC/ERPPC movement fire +20%.

[LobsterPete]

Instead of trying to put in a cone of fire, I've always wondered if armor could be broken up a bit more, so like the CT would have 3 hit boxes instead of 1. If someone really was a good shot and could hit the same part of the CT over and over, that would be a pretty deadly pilot. Most people would probably spread their shots across the 3-4 armor hit boxes. Internal structure HP could probalby stay a single section. Sure would increase the time to kill

I know they wanted to make the game similar to table top but having a single hit point of armor for a torso seemed odd when you could do more with a computer.

[ROSS-128]

What I'm wondering is, what is this "instant convergeance" that some people here are speaking of? I've had half an alpha blocked by trees in Viridian Bog often enough to know that my weapons definitely take time to converge.

There's a good reason that tightly clustered, cockpit-height hardpoints are considered valuable on mech variants.

In fact if BT mechs were to be reworked with functionality in mind, they'd end up with a lot more hardpoints grouped tightly at or near their shoulders. And far fewer in the lower torso or slung on hip-level arms.

Been having fun with the TDR-5SS lately, but every time I get certain maps I start missing my Banshee's high concentration of shoulder-mounted wub.

[Mcgral18]

Almond Brown, on 25 February 2015 - 12:18 PM, said:

Holy **** Batman! Tell that to all those players of MWO who have a Love to Hate relationship with enemy Light Mechs...

To be fair, everyone's weapons are just as accurate....it just so happens some people are not. Disregarding hitreg.

E Rommel, on 25 February 2015 - 12:32 PM, said:

What I'm wondering is, what is this "instant convergeance" that some people here are speaking of? I've had half an alpha blocked by trees in Viridian Bog often enough to know that my weapons definitely take time to converge.

There's a good reason that tightly clustered, cockpit-height hardpoints are considered valuable on mech variants.

In fact if BT mechs were to be reworked with functionality in mind, they'd end up with a lot more hardpoints grouped tightly at or near their shoulders. And far fewer in the lower torso or slung on hip-level arms.

Been having fun with the TDR-5SS lately, but every time I get certain maps I start missing my Banshee's high concentration of shoulder-mounted wub.

That's not convergence time, that's mounting location. If there's something blocking the path, it will hit that first, and not phase through it.

Take some cERLLs and find two hills, one close and one far. Trial StormCrow should work.

Now, shoot the close one, then aim at the far one. Tell me how long they take to converge.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 25 February 2015 - 09:23 AM, said:

You must living in some other dimension. Just every FPS game around have cone of fire, beginning with ultimate competitive game CS where you got real PRO players earning real money for gaming.

You neglect to mention that in CS a hit in the toe is as lethal as a hit in the eye. You also failed to mention the fact that those 'pros' have been banned because it turns out they used hacks and got caught, so they didn't even have a cone of fire when they played. You REALLY should keep up on the subject you plan to use as your 'evidence' of how things should be, otherwise you end up looking...like this. To be fair, this isn't the first time this has happened for top teams who make money in video games.

CoF isn't needed, it's HATED in every single game that uses it. CS forums were full of that hatred from the original CS, much less the 'new' CS and CS:GO. Battlefield, every single installment, forums full of the hatred, we begged and pleaded with DiCE to remove it for BF2 and on out, they left CoF in regardless of the player's requests. It's easier to do a CoF than do all the other ways to mess with aim, simple as that.

MWO could do some of those other things, which have been suggested in this thread and others for the past 3 years, and maybe they will at some point, once HSR and hitreg actually work properly all the time. Until that happens....

[Jazzbandit1313]

Kristov Kerensky, on 25 February 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

You neglect to mention that in CS a hit in the toe is as lethal as a hit in the eye.

Actually, an AWP shot from the waist down isn't a one hit kill like it is from the waist up. Know your hitboxes lel.

Edited by Jazzbandit1313, 25 February 2015 - 01:43 PM.

[zagibu]

I, too, feel like the concentrated damage in this game is a problem, but honestly, there have been MANY threads about the topic, and I haven't read a single viable solution.

- recoil isn't a solution, as it only applies to follow-up shots
- more severe heat penalties are not a solution, because they don't affect all weapons and again, only apply for the second or third salvo
- cone of fire just leads to more camping and boring gameplay where mechs prefer to lie in wait for their opponents instead of pushing, because it doesn't affect immobile mechs
- slowly adapting convergence might work a bit, but is technically infeasible and might also lead to more camping (aim weapons at certain mapspots with high traffic in order to have proper convergence for appearing mechs)

I don't think there is a solution that doesn't involve some drastic gameplay changes. Of course, what really would fix the problem was if it wasn't possible to "boat", i.e. take more than 2 of the same weapons. But that would invalidate stock builds and remove a lot of customization possibility from the game.

Edited by zagibu, 25 February 2015 - 01:47 PM.

[Nemesis Duck]

Hey, it's 3050, all weapons have mini-gimbals that ensure all weapons converge at any distance within a weapon range, these use a laser range finder mounted on the nose of the mech to calculate the convergence distance of a particular shot. You don't need to target an enemy, just need LoS.

The laser range finder is backed up with acoustic, thermal and quantum (yes) sensors to assist in accurate convergence in low visibility situations.

Edited by Assmodeus, 25 February 2015 - 01:54 PM.

[DaZur]

Assmodeus, on 25 February 2015 - 01:51 PM, said:

Hey, it's 3050, all weapons have mini-gimbals that ensure all weapons converge at any distance within a weapon range, these use a laser range finder mounted on the nose of the mech to calculate the convergence distance of a particular shot. You don't need to target an enemy, just need LoS.

The laser range finder is backed up with acoustic, thermal and quantum (yes) sensors to assist in accurate convergence in low visibility situations.

What ever happened to good ol fashion Kentucky windage?

[Nemesis Duck]

DaZur, on 25 February 2015 - 03:00 PM, said:

What ever happened to good ol fashion Kentucky windage?

Ah nuts...

[Tombstoner]

zagibu, on 25 February 2015 - 01:45 PM, said:

I, too, feel like the concentrated damage in this game is a problem, but honestly, there have been MANY threads about the topic, and I haven't read a single viable solution.

- recoil isn't a solution, as it only applies to follow-up shots
- more severe heat penalties are not a solution, because they don't affect all weapons and again, only apply for the second or third salvo
- cone of fire just leads to more camping and boring gameplay where mechs prefer to lie in wait for their opponents instead of pushing, because it doesn't affect immobile mechs
- slowly adapting convergence might work a bit, but is technically infeasible and might also lead to more camping (aim weapons at certain mapspots with high traffic in order to have proper convergence for appearing mechs)

I don't think there is a solution that doesn't involve some drastic gameplay changes. Of course, what really would fix the problem was if it wasn't possible to "boat", i.e. take more than 2 of the same weapons. But that would invalidate stock builds and remove a lot of customization possibility from the game.

I don't agree with everything you said, but i advocate for a COF specifically because of grouped boated weapons. In TT you hope for hitting the same location. MWO your given it for free. it makes weapons stronger then they should be in an ablative game system.

Group fire allows you to build a 4x ac5 that has better range, that means more damage, more heat, a faster rate of fire. then a single ac-20. The only thing that limits this is tonnage and hard-points. Give the Diash full omni capability for unlimited hard points and you will see unholy terror unleashed. Its game breaking and PGI has been fighting that decision from day one. 60 point gauss shots are on the way.

[zagibu]

Tombstoner, on 25 February 2015 - 03:23 PM, said:

I don't agree with everything you said, but i advocate for a COF specifically because of grouped boated weapons. In TT you hope for hitting the same location. MWO your given it for free. it makes weapons stronger then they should be in an ablative game system.

Usually when people talk about a COF, they mean that movement and turns add random spread to your shots for a short while, and the randomness decreases over time until it's perfectly accurate again if you stay still long enough. Faster movements add more randomness and slower movements do not make it that much less accurate. Such a system increases the incentive to move as little as possible, which leads to a boring camp fest.

If you are talking permanent random deviation, even when being perfectly still, forget that, it's wildly unpopular. If you are talking about recoil- or heat-induced COF, that doesn't solve the problem of the first salvo still remaining as accurate as it is now.

[Bloodweaver]

Jazzbandit1313, on 24 February 2015 - 10:15 PM, said:

I mean there really isn't anything that the devs can do since they started with 100% accuracy...theres no way they could remove it and keep their playerbase...leh sigh

But that (bolded section) just isn't true!!! You know how when you're leveling up your 'mechs, there's one particular skill unlock in the Elite tier, that supposedly decreases convergence time?

Well, now it doesn't actually do anything but cost you an extra 3,000 GXP to get to double-basics. But it USED to do something... because there USED to be a thing called "convergence!" Initially, weapons DIDN'T instantanesously converge on a single pixel. You would put your reticle over a target, and if you wanted, you COULD fire right at that moment... but your weapons would not have converged, and would splash all over different sections of the target 'mech. But if you held that reticle on-target for a second or so, the weapons on your 'mech would gradually come closer and closer together. So pinpoint was possible but came at a much higher cost, and TTK was lowered, and... well, it was really a pretty damn good system period.

So why was it removed? From what I understand, hitreg/serverside detection/lag issues. I still ache for its return but it's extremely unlikely, in fact I don't think the concept is even on PGI's radar :/

[Lightfoot]

I want more accuracy not less. Low accuracy on everything is why only lasers compete now. If PPCs worked you would have your lower accuracy due to travel time, but PGI lowered the speed so much they are impossible to use. So if you want players to stop using 7xLasers make other working options.

The other thing is that Light mechs can dodge a single pin-point hit most times but they can't dodge a damage footprint attack like an LBX gun. You would spread the damage out, but some would always hit. That's a huge buff to Assault mechs and a huge increase in damage to Light mechs who have so little armor.

[GenghisJr]

To land damage like that, I need to stand perfectly still and pick a stationary target and the longer the target stands still the easier it is. Say hello to my 4N photon cannon