Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 12:17 PM, said:
LosTech is the only reason battlemechs exist. Otherwise, you'd just send cruise missiles and call it a day. Please stop trying to apply logic to Battletech.
A game needs to stay true to it's own logic which is what I used. But the LosTech explanation for bad weapon convergence contradicts with itself. No use of real world logic needed to debunk that.
And if logic doesn't apply then why have bad weapon convergence? You must still have a reason. I don't care if it's real world logic, game logic or something else, as long as it adds up and gives a better experience.
Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:
MOBAs have decent in-game tutorials. No part of controlling a mech in MWO couldn't be adequately taught with a decent tutorial, which MWO doesn't have. What part of adding this system would make MWO insurmountably difficult for new players to learn?
I didn't even use the tutorial in LOL. It was all obvious. And right now piloting a mech is mostly difficult because mechs move as tanks and not as people, but a tutorial can teach that quickly. Convergence however is unintuitive and just a needless complexity that would take time to get your head around. For a long time in closed beta I just thought I was a lousy shot until people on the forum mentioned convergence and then I figured out why I never hit where I was aiming.
Configuring mechs however, now that is a text book example of how to confuse and scare people away with needless complexity, but that's another topic.
Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:
It's completely irrelevant how many guns you use in other shooters. The principle is the same. Move fast, shoot bad. Move slow, shoot better. Don't move, shoot best.
That's still accuracy and nothing to do with convergence. The main gun of a tank always hits exactly where it was pointing at all times, at all speeds because that one gun is simply pointing straight at the crosshair. You only need convergence if you have more than one weapons because they cannot all be exactly in the middle and therefore needs to shoot at an angle. That's why there is no other FPS games to compare to.
And moving has no effect on convergence. What does effect convergence is if the distance between the mech and the point that they are aiming at changes. And changes faster than the weapons can adjust which needs to be pretty damn fast.
Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:
And again, applying real world logic to Battletech is stupid. There's no real world comparison, as we have not successfully built any kind of giant combat robot. Wee probably never will, since they're inherently illogical. And besides, a battlemech is practically a giant human body in terms of movement mechanics, anyway. It's even controlled by myomers, which are basically synthetic muscles. These muscles lose strength and precision when they overheat, which is why mechs get movement and accuracy penalties as they heat up in tabletop.
Convergence is a real world thing with associated physics and was exactly what they tried to emulate in closed beta. So as long as we talk convergence we are already talking real world logic. When we are talking mechs we are talking imaginary technology, but with the same purpose as all other warmachinery. Why imagine cool mechs and then imagine them purposefully poorly made for no reason. I want military mechs, not mechs made by a tech student that doesn't know what he's doing.
Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:
It reduces TTK and gives us a reason not to be running at full speed everywhere at all times. And dice mechanics are exactly what most shooters do. If you do any kind of moving and shooting, it essentially does become a dice roll whether or not you what you're pointing at, even your target is dead center to your reticle. The difference here is that if you assign a crosshair to each weapon, you get to see exactly where your shots will go, even if they're not going exactly where you want them to go.
That is not even CLOSE to what TT did. TT did not have convergence, TT had random hit locations. What you are suggesting here is simply inaccuracy, an entirely different mechanic from convergence. And I do agree that we might need to reduce TTK and inaccuracy could be one of those things.
But really, we cannot in any meaningful way simulate the aiming mechanics of TT so maybe we shouldn't try to simulate it's armor system either. That's another way we could go. As long as it adds to the game and isn't just confusing.
Kaeb Odellas, on 08 August 2015 - 01:17 PM, said:
That's exactly what I want it to be. Multiple reticles indicating what all my weapons are pointing at, all converging (via arm movements or gimbal mounts on torso hardpoints) towards the thing under my main reticle that I want dead.
Which is exactly what you currently have. They just happen to be synced up all the time because you can't torso twist faster than the convergence can adjust anyway. Except for arms which can move faster and at greater angles.