385 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

Fire for Effect, on 30 October 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

MWO aint a twitch shooter. With only reflexes you get nothing here.

MW:O is more of a twitch shooter than it is a sim.

Fire for Effect, on 30 October 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

And no there are no other alternatives simply because the server authorative hit detection precludes ANY convergence ideas. The cone would most likely also not work since extra data would have to go between you and the server and back AND to each and every client in the game, and that for every weapon. Not only where you point and if you have shot, not the server has to throw dice were you might have hit and you have to include HSR. You would also be very unhappy because cone and DOTs dont work so you get the entire Laser dmg instantly to a single location...

The server side hit detection actually DOESN'T preclude any convergence ideas. It merely increases the data that has to be transferred. It COULD be done, but it would take work. Harmonics (either set or configurable) would work very well. There is no dice roll involved, and HSR would remain exactly as it ALREADY is. Why wouldn't a CoF work with DoT? Please explain. I see no reason why those two things would be mutually exclusive.

Fire for Effect, on 30 October 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

Maybe try the new Battletech Kickstarter, I already did that by the way...

Good for you! How did you like it?

Fire for Effect, on 30 October 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

Edit: I forgot to add you can very well hit the same hit location in Battletech on purpose.
"Aimed Shots" see Total Warfare for that I am sure you have it in your Bookcollection...

Can you roll for multiple weapons at once? All hit or all miss? What is the modifier? In MW:O there is no downside to it. THAT is the problem.

[Fire for Effect]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 30 October 2015 - 08:57 PM, said:

I agree with the heat thing (as I've said it myself many times). Clan lasers really need to be fixed into reason so we can strip out the god-quirks and return to balance with fun quirks.

But it doesn't fix boating low heat weapons like gauss or AC/UAC.

(Just as an aside, I only own Clan 'Mechs and I'm still calling for a nerf to Clan lasers because I know they aren't balance. I don't play them by boating, I always chain fire and bring a variety of weapons.)

again argumenting on the wrong level:

not weapons need to be balanced
not mechs need to be balanced
TEAMS NEED TO BE BALANCED.

On average both teams will have roughly the same weapons so tinkering and tweaking will be pretty useless for an overall balance of both opposing sides...

Gimping lasers even more will just result in an increase of Gauss PPC gamebreakers with some AC Builts thrown in.
Be happy that DOT weapons are common now, you can spread the damage by twisting and you can run to even more spread it.

But again if you dont like it NORMALIZE the damage. Instead of quadrupling the firing rate and fiddling with heat adjust the damage accordingly.

quadruple firing rate congrats you are doing one forth damage per shot. Get rid of 2 second Laser burn and other weird things like Ghost heat.

[Zarathustrah]

Right, so why are high alphas a problem? Shouldn't PGI be focusing on increasing the skill cap of this not decreasing it further? I mean really, what's the point of playing a game where no matter how good you are someone who doesn't aim and isn't good at the game can just rain lrms on you?

You see, the issue with balance is a natural one. Better players are going to beat and frustrate worse players. If you want to balance things, fix the population problem so that players always get matched up against equal skill. Tweaking the meta is only going to jade players and make them leave.

Critical thinking is a skill people.

Edited by Zarathustrah, 31 October 2015 - 11:45 AM.

[Fire for Effect]

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

MW:O is more of a twitch shooter than it is a sim.

definitely not since you are not limited by your reactions but by your machine and those little bits of physics they implemented.
you also cannot one shot people easily, you have no unlimited respawn and so in...

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

The server side hit detection actually DOESN'T preclude any convergence ideas. It merely increases the data that has to be transferred.

and thats the breaking point, the data that has go back and forth would increase by AT LEAST an order of magnetude for EACH Mech.

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

It COULD be done, but it would take work. Harmonics (either set or configurable) would work very well.

nope cannot be dont since the server would have to handle AT LEAST an order of magnetude more data per game for absolutely no gain. Harmonics? please explain. yes you can get mathematical.

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

There is no dice roll involved, and HSR would remain exactly as it ALREADY is. Why wouldn't a CoF work with DoT? Please explain. I see no reason why those two things would be mutually exclusive.

of course you need a die roll with a cone because you have to set where you actually hit, you need to set the coordinates that are actually hit and you have to transfer that data to EVERY client too and that for EVERY weapon fired.

HSR cannot remain the same since suddenly you have AT LEAST an order of magnetude more data and for each data bit you have different latency... good luck wasting prog time on that instead on something that actually increases the scope of the game.

So for DOTs how do you suppose to make it work apart from the actual weirdness and absurdety of a to hit cone for a Laser? Every milisecond another hit randomly somewhere in the cone then new die roll? every tenth of a second? every quarter second? and then your laser twitches back and forth after every new coordinate roll? or just at the start of the burn? Then you have gained nothing except annoyed everyone but people who can actually aim, these just move the burning laser to the desired part of the target. Or maybe you are happy with complete randomness and autotargeting? so point at the general direction of a mech and maybe you hit or not depending what the server rolls...

And all of this for what? to appease people not willing to learn to aim and that torso twisting makes your mech last longer?

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

Good for you! How did you like it?

no idea what you mean. I must have liked the idea since otherwise I would not have supported it.

Hotthedd, on 31 October 2015 - 07:08 AM, said:

Can you roll for multiple weapons at once? All hit or all miss? What is the modifier? In MW:O there is no downside to it. THAT is the problem.

-yes, I never met a group that actually rolled for 12 Lasers seperately on a nova. Our battles were typically company size and larger...
-depends, mostly if you hit random sections absolutely no modifier
-also depends

and yes in MWO there is of course a downside all hit or all miss, either your 2 gauss/PPC/AC miss or both hit...

[Randall Flagg]

Sigh...

[Heuvadoches]

There is a solution to this ... put on your shades and learn how to play.

[Tarl Cabot]

Alphas are going to happen, be with with Small Lasers/Large Lasers/ERPPC, dual AC20/Gauss Rifle/AC10/etc, etc and a combo of all of it. The primary questions are how often and pinpoint accuracy

There is the Cone of Fire. For MWO it could be 4 different sets Standing Still/Walking/Running/Jumping (regardless of speed/height/distance). The larger CoF would activate immediately but reducing the CoF would happen only after a cooldown period. Or use smaller but similar affect as seen with masc/jumping but with a cooldown timer. If it ever went this route if the skill-base section was ever redone having a skill to reduce the effect could be added (just a thought).

The other is the a multi-point reticule we already have with a separate arm/torso reticule. With MWO arm-lock they completely overlap while there is also a difference it articulation between those with lower arm and no lower arm actuators. If MWO were to set 3 sets of reticules, instead of having single arm-lock key there could be 3 arm-lock keys: Standard lock so both arms/torso are locked, moving at the same time (but no overlapping), and mechs with actuators Right lock to overlap torso/right arm reticules and Left lock for left arm/torso reticules.

The multi-point though would not stop alphas from all weapons in specific left/right/torso locations but would make for an interesting feature, especially if it was used with CoF effect.

The last major item is how often alphas happen. With the current game starting at long range a pilot fires/hides/fires/hides/fires/then hides for a bit for major cooling. During that time does not matter how hot the mech is, there is no change in its forward speed, moving cover to cover, or back into cover. Just a reminder this was to be a thinking man's game, in all aspects, not just a few. For heat, currently all ya have to think about is how much can I do before I hit shutdown threshold? With a halfway working heatscale with 3-4 threshold points, including final shutdown, a pilot would have to consider, would alphaing my weapons put me in a bad position? Will it slow me down enough to the point that I can not back up into cover fast enough, or if running reach the next cover?

Take that last one. How many times would an assault/heavy fire an alpha if it reduced them to a crawl? Many do it now, especially as a last resort, but would they do it at the beginning of the match when they are not in the thick of things? Consider lights (I do like playing lights) . How often would they alpha that assault in the back if it came with the risk of their speed being dropped down to the assault's speed, especially if PGI were to introduce it with a percentage scaling instead of a specific speed reduction.

The Heat Scale effects should be the first item to consider, with or without a hard cap, and for that heat cap reduce the effect of DHS being added to the baseline, such as adding simply increase of 1 HS, be it SHS or DHS to the baseline of 30.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 31 October 2015 - 09:43 PM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@Tarl Cabot

Actually, a multi-point reticle could spread alpha damage over an area if each point in the reticle doesn't overlap.

Example 1
If I have weapons mounted in my LA, CT, RT, and RA my reticle might look like this:

[o Xxo]

The "o's" mark where my LA/RA are pointing. The big "X" marks where my CT is pointing and the small "x" marks where my RT is pointing.

Example 2
If I have weapons mounted in my LA, LT, RT and RA my reticle might look like this:

[ox xo]

Example 3
If I have weapons in my LT, CT and RT it might look like this:

[ xXx ]

That's up to 5 different points where my weapons would hit. It could be made more complex if you wanted to differentiate high and low mounted torso weapons.

With that, we don't need to nerf pinpoint with the cone; we can retain it. At the same time, we prevent the massive pinpoint alpha.
--------------------

Lets face it, people like to use "skill" or "twitch reflexes" to put their shots where they want them; so CoF is out.

On the other hand, BT was never designed to make the fight end with 1 hit. The whole concept of "brawling" is in trading blows. So pinpoint alphas are tantamount to gamebreaking. They need to be stopped.

Convergence is the best solution, but its technically infeasible.

Therefore, the multi-point reticle (as above) is the best way to reconcile this.

With skill in mimics convergence, retains pinpoint accuracy and prevents pinpoint alpha.

[Reno Blade]

This might be a lot more than working for this threat, but it increased over the years, so here is my take for balancing high damage alphas, boating and TTK:

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__4718854


Weapon changes:
1. Increase beam duration on all lasers to 1.5 - 2 second (including pulse lasers to 1.2 to 1.7 or so)
Remember the outcry of Clan beam times, when the ERLL had 2 seconds or so?
This would also increase the difficulty of light mechs spamming MLaser or SPulse (such as firestarters) and bring them "down" to the difficulties their "prey" have shooting back.

2. couple all lasers into a shared Ghost Heat group
Limit of 2 Large or 4 Med, or 1 Large + 2 Med.
No more 2 - 3 Large + 3 - 6 Med laser alphas = boating gone.

3. couple PPC and all Ballistics to a shared Ghost heat Group
Limit of 1 PPC or one Gauss, or one AC10 or 2 AC5. (any higher group number will be penalized by GH)
Prevents PPC + Gauss and PPC + AC5/10 Alphas and AC boating (not just dual AC20 or quad PPC boats)
And possibly increase Gauss Heat from 1 to 4+

4. give all ACs (IS and Clan) burstfire for more facetime, but keep it shorter than lasers (see curent clan ACs)

5. Increase LRM damage and cooldown by 2x, but increase Ghost heat amount to reduce boating efficiency


This way we get certain disadvantages of boats:
- Laserboats can't alpha as much with the heat penalties
- Laserboats will have lot of face time - even more if spacing groups to prevent GH (see 6LLaser Stalkers)
- FLPPD (PPC/Ballistic) can't alpha as much with the heat penalties = reduce the FLPPD alpha size and dps
- strong FLPPD will have more facetime by spacing the shots to prevent GH

- SRM builds will be very strong short range with big alphas (3+ SRM6), but still have very short range
- LRM builds still have all the sensor problems and AMS to struggle with, but will be more a support weapon than a boating config


and some more general mech changes:
- remove/reduce the bonus of agility given by the engine and make the differences of variants count more that way.
> increases the effect/quirks of variants that push agility over mechs that have bigger engines (like the Timber).

- give Endo/Ferro some plus/minus effects (e.g. reduced/increased internal structure/armor)
> e.g. 20% more armor if you use Ferro

- increase internal structure (at least of the torso sections) of all mechs
> reduces the risk of very fast kills by coring mechs and makes disarming more usefull

optional: make endo/ferro on IS mechs become un-changeable
> further differentiate variants and inter-chassis differences

- XL Engines:
I'd go for longer time to live with bigger side effects such as 25% heat (25% reduced heat cap and heat dissipation) and speed penalties for each side torso destroyed for IS and Clan XL engines and removing the death by one/two destroyed sides completely.




Then we will see way longer TTK, have builds with more than boating one weapon type.
Classic builds like Warhammer and Marauder (everyones loved ones) will be equal to boats.

[Hotthedd]

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

definitely not since you are not limited by your reactions but by your machine and those little bits of physics they implemented.
you also cannot one shot people easily, you have no unlimited respawn and so in...

Pinpoint convergence is instant in MW:O, so you are not limited by your 'mech any more than you are limited by your avatar in any twitch shooter. You definitely CAN one-shot 'mechs instantly, especially lights and mediums. Even if that one shot does not destroy the 'mech, one shot can effectively cripple it until clean-up time at the end. Re-spawn and twitch are two completely different things, they can exist independently of each other.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

and thats the breaking point, the data that has go back and forth would increase by AT LEAST an order of magnetude for EACH Mech.

Except that it does not have to be breaking. If the servers cannot handle it, upgrade the servers. If players' rigs cannot handle it, upgrade your computer. The connections cannot be helped, but it would be no different than 24 players simultaneously chain firing, which can happen now.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

nope cannot be dont since the server would have to handle AT LEAST an order of magnetude more data per game for absolutely no gain. Harmonics? please explain. yes you can get mathematical.

It CAN be done, and as illustrated before, if everyone chain fired at the same time WOULD be done with everything as it is now.
Harmonics is nothing more than set convergence. Ideally it could be set in the mechlab, from 10 meters up to infinity. A player could set all of their weapons to converge at 350m if they wanted, making pinpoint alphas POSSIBLE, but much harder to achieve. Picture a WWII fighter plane's convergence.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

of course you need a die roll with a cone because you have to set where you actually hit, you need to set the coordinates that are actually hit and you have to transfer that data to EVERY client too and that for EVERY weapon fired.

Except that even in that case, it is not random, as it would be within the cone. (Random is the possibility that a shot could go off in an unforeseen direction) Again, the data is already having to be transferred- no change in load there.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

HSR cannot remain the same since suddenly you have AT LEAST an order of magnetude more data and for each data bit you have different latency... good luck wasting prog time on that instead on something that actually increases the scope of the game.

In my opinion, increasing TTK and increasing the degree of difficulty DOES increase the scope of game play. As far as increasing the scope of the GAME (Immersion, role warfare, CW that means something, etc., that needs to be addressed as well, but it really should be an entirely different department.)

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

So for DOTs how do you suppose to make it work apart from the actual weirdness and absurdety of a to hit cone for a Laser? Every milisecond another hit randomly somewhere in the cone then new die roll? every tenth of a second? every quarter second? and then your laser twitches back and forth after every new coordinate roll? or just at the start of the burn? Then you have gained nothing except annoyed everyone but people who can actually aim, these just move the burning laser to the desired part of the target. Or maybe you are happy with complete randomness and autotargeting? so point at the general direction of a mech and maybe you hit or not depending what the server rolls...

Just at the initial start of the burn, so that DoT weapons could be corrected by the pilot. (Making ACs burst fire would allow those to be corrected as well)
You do realize that pointing and clicking is no more aiming and firing a weapon than ordering a meal at a restaurant makes you a professional chef, right? It is unrealistic to expect every shot fired to be a bullseye. If it makes you feel better, thing of it as a simulation of recoil, ballistics drop, wind, atmospheric particles, or any of the real world physics that make pixel-perfect pinpoint precision totally unrealistic in either this universe OR the BT universe. That is not complete randomness, it is realism. Further more, any CoF should be somewhat controllable by the pilot. Less heat, movement, number of weapons fired simultaneously, and the addition of a targeting computer should all reduce the CoF - possibly down to the pixel precision we take for granted right now.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

And all of this for what? to appease people not willing to learn to aim and that torso twisting makes your mech last longer?

It would actually REWARD patient aiming over twitch aiming. Snap shots should not have the expectation of precision. It is HARDER to land 6 shots on target than it is to land ONE trigger pull on target and have multiple weapons all automatically hit that spot.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

-yes, I never met a group that actually rolled for 12 Lasers seperately on a nova. Our battles were typically company size and larger...
-depends, mostly if you hit random sections absolutely no modifier
-also depends

Well we definitely played different versions of the TT game. I never played TT where one roll determined if every weapon you fired hit. We played with the original rules, each shot separately determined, with a to-hit modifier for aimed shots that scaled with the targeted component.

Fire for Effect, on 31 October 2015 - 10:43 AM, said:

and yes in MWO there is of course a downside all hit or all miss, either your 2 gauss/PPC/AC miss or both hit...

But there is no real downside to Alpha striking over chain firing. The reward far outweighs the risk, especially with the current heat system being either shutdown or not, no in-between.

[Piousflea]

The problem with high alphas is due to two things: pinpoint accuracy and lack of heat penalties.

*****
Pinpoint accuracy:

Being able to fire 6 shots and have all of them hit the CT is neither true-to-TT nor realistic. There are *many* suggestions out there including convergence and cone of fire.

Whatever solution is adopted, I think it's important for single-weapon pinpoint accuracy to stay intact. A skilled player should be able to place *single* shots exactly where he wants, *with a single weapon*. Not with 3xLPL or 6xAC5 - at least not without a prerequisite. (such as target lock)

****
Heat System:

In TT, building up heat gives you all sorts of penalties even before you overheat. This makes alphastrike vs chainfire a tactical decision. If you alpha, there's a chance that you'll destroy some enemy components (or even score a kill) before they can attack you. However, if you fail to do critical damage, the heat buildup from an alpha strike makes you slower and weaker than normal.

In MWO there is no tradeoff. Vomiting all of your lasers gives you the highest chance to crit or kill your opponent. So long as you stay just barely below the shutdown line, there is zero penalty for running hot. This is a balance problem.

Lowering the maximum heat capacity helps to some extent, but the real problem is the "all or nothing" nature of heat. There needs to be some penalty in between 'zero heat' and 'shutdown'.

[Bloodweaver]

The servers already calculate weapon paths in relation to convergence. There shouldn't be any significant additional load by implementing various convergence mechanics. Variable convergence already exists in MWO in a few extenuating circumstances - invisible walls being the most oft-encountered.

You can also hit a target in multiple locations even when firing dual AC/5s or PPCs together, if you're leading them If you have a Jenner running laterally to you at 150 meters distance, then you'll need to lead him in order to hit him due to your weapons' travel time. That means your reticle will actually be pointed at terrain, not at the Jenner, when you fire. Because your weapons will be converged wherever your reticle is pointing, they will hit the Jenner in different spots.

The idea that implementing a convergence mechanic would increase server load by any significant amount is a fabrication. The only reason delayed convergence was removed from the game was because it unfairly punished high-ping players. It takes them longer to send and receive information to/from the servers, which means that not only do they have to guess how far ahead of their shown position 'Mechs are, but their weapons take longer to lock on as well.

Removing convergence had nothing to do with decreasing server load. The servers still have to make all the same exact calculations as before. Delayed convergence was removed due to ping issues. Now that we have three separate server locations, ping issues should be far less significant and delayed convergence mechanics should see a return in some form or another.

Edited by Bloodweaver, 01 November 2015 - 09:04 AM.

[Fire for Effect]

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Pinpoint convergence is instant in MW:O, so you are not limited by your 'mech any more than you are limited by your avatar in any twitch shooter. You definitely CAN one-shot 'mechs instantly, especially lights and mediums. Even if that one shot does not destroy the 'mech, one shot can effectively cripple it until clean-up time at the end. Re-spawn and twitch are two completely different things, they can exist independently of each other.

respawn is a trademark of twich stuff. you CAN one shot mechs but its hideously difficult and very unlikely...
And yes it requires skill to hit something in this game even if you doubt it.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Except that it does not have to be breaking. If the servers cannot handle it, upgrade the servers. If players' rigs cannot handle it, upgrade your computer. The connections cannot be helped, but it would be no different than 24 players simultaneously chain firing, which can happen now.

I think I have to stress it the data GOING BACK AND FORTH increases massively. Everything has to be calculated AND distributed by the server resulting in massively more lag and a gazillion of other problems, so forget it. Convergence does not even work for 2 (!) convergence points much less for ANYTHING that might be in your cone.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

It CAN be done, and as illustrated before, if everyone chain fired at the same time WOULD be done with everything as it is now.
Harmonics is nothing more than set convergence. Ideally it could be set in the mechlab, from 10 meters up to infinity. A player could set all of their weapons to converge at 350m if they wanted, making pinpoint alphas POSSIBLE, but much harder to achieve. Picture a WWII fighter plane's convergence.

what do you actually want? cone? manual convergence for some distance set by the player? On many mechs manual convergence will have excactly no impact since their weapons are so close it will have no effect. chain fire? you dont really believe that anyone would accept chainfiring 6 Lasers instead of grouping these?

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Except that even in that case, it is not random, as it would be within the cone. (Random is the possibility that a shot could go off in an unforeseen direction) Again, the data is already having to be transferred- no change in load there.

so the server is rolling dice... and its random withhin the cone obviuosly. and of course you vastly increase the amount of data now its only where your arms point and where you main chassis points thats it. you would need to transfer ADDITIONALLY coordinates for each and every rolled weapon coordinates to every client. considering that its often already laggy forget that idea....

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

In my opinion, increasing TTK and increasing the degree of difficulty DOES increase the scope of game play. As far as increasing the scope of the GAME (Immersion, role warfare, CW that means something, etc., that needs to be addressed as well, but it really should be an entirely different department.)

your methods are sadly not resulting in higher TTK but instead massively increase the server load and will be highly problematic if not impossible. And it will result in massive migration of the main player base that finances the game....

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Just at the initial start of the burn, so that DoT weapons could be corrected by the pilot. (Making ACs burst fire would allow those to be corrected as well)

well then there is no difference to now...you just lose a few milliseconds and are annoyed each time you fire a weapon. you still hit with the vast majority of your dmg the part that you want to hit.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

You do realize that pointing and clicking is no more aiming and firing a weapon than ordering a meal at a restaurant makes you a professional chef, right? It is unrealistic to expect every shot fired to be a bullseye. If it makes you feel better, thing of it as a simulation of recoil, ballistics drop, wind, atmospheric particles, or any of the real world physics that make pixel-perfect pinpoint precision totally unrealistic in either this universe OR the BT universe.

playing a guitar and a violin requires vastly different skillsets but still both require skill ... Apart from the fact that firing a weapon has nothing to do with the actual question, firing guns requires not much skill if you want skill go for archery. What you describe is something that everyone can (ordering a meal) sadly this is not the case as is pretty obvious if you look at people beginning with the game.

recoil, particles and ballistic drop do NOT affect lasers.... Since these are DOT anyway these are obviously not the problem.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

That is not complete randomness, it is realism. Further more, any CoF should be somewhat controllable by the pilot. Less heat, movement, number of weapons fired simultaneously, and the addition of a targeting computer should all reduce the CoF - possibly down to the pixel precision we take for granted right now.

Never heard of gyrostabilized mounts? just look at a leopard 2 firing at full speed at 1,5 km distant targets on rugged ground...
surely will you find some videos on youtube about that. But lets not get to much into realism....
unstabilized mounts is WW2 technology and even at that time were several gun mounts gyro stabilized. Even the rather weak american tanks were gyrostabilized at the end of the war.

If a cone of fire is controllable its not random and will not result in anything that you want to archive...

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

It would actually REWARD patient aiming over twitch aiming. Snap shots should not have the expectation of precision. It is HARDER to land 6 shots on target than it is to land ONE trigger pull on target and have multiple weapons all automatically hit that spot.

twitch aiming only works with insta dmg weapons and even then rather bad since you want to hit something specific and not just something on the mech.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Well we definitely played different versions of the TT game. I never played TT where one roll determined if every weapon you fired hit. We played with the original rules, each shot separately determined, with a to-hit modifier for aimed shots that scaled with the targeted component.

Its the same version you are just doing it extra cumbersome, but maybe you like rolling dice thats ok too.... you can sum up weapons into groups and fire them. Its also recommended in "tactical operations" since it speeds up gameplay drastically. And noone said its only one die roll... Its just not every weapon seperately, which would be detrimental if 20 Mechs are on the board.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

But there is no real downside to Alpha striking over chain firing. The reward far outweighs the risk, especially with the current heat system being either shutdown or not, no in-between.

why should there be ANY downside? You get heat accordingly and thats it. If you wish to increase TTK hard limit the amount of weapons you can fire at once no weird cone and no absurd quirks or normalize the damage to a given time frame. 4 times rate of fire only one forth dmg... if you do that you can adjust the heat scale too... but that will result in many many beginners just blowing up themself and then saying "**** game"

[Fire for Effect]

Reno Blade, on 01 November 2015 - 05:50 AM, said:

This might be a lot more than working for this threat, but it increased over the years, so here is my take for balancing high damage alphas, boating and TTK:

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__4718854


Weapon changes:
1. Increase beam duration on all lasers to 1.5 - 2 second (including pulse lasers to 1.2 to 1.7 or so)
Remember the outcry of Clan beam times, when the ERLL had 2 seconds or so?
This would also increase the difficulty of light mechs spamming MLaser or SPulse (such as firestarters) and bring them "down" to the difficulties their "prey" have shooting back.

2. couple all lasers into a shared Ghost Heat group
Limit of 2 Large or 4 Med, or 1 Large + 2 Med.
No more 2 - 3 Large + 3 - 6 Med laser alphas = boating gone.

3. couple PPC and all Ballistics to a shared Ghost heat Group
Limit of 1 PPC or one Gauss, or one AC10 or 2 AC5. (any higher group number will be penalized by GH)
Prevents PPC + Gauss and PPC + AC5/10 Alphas and AC boating (not just dual AC20 or quad PPC boats)
And possibly increase Gauss Heat from 1 to 4+

4. give all ACs (IS and Clan) burstfire for more facetime, but keep it shorter than lasers (see curent clan ACs)

5. Increase LRM damage and cooldown by 2x, but increase Ghost heat amount to reduce boating efficiency


This way we get certain disadvantages of boats:
- Laserboats can't alpha as much with the heat penalties
- Laserboats will have lot of face time - even more if spacing groups to prevent GH (see 6LLaser Stalkers)
- FLPPD (PPC/Ballistic) can't alpha as much with the heat penalties = reduce the FLPPD alpha size and dps
- strong FLPPD will have more facetime by spacing the shots to prevent GH

- SRM builds will be very strong short range with big alphas (3+ SRM6), but still have very short range
- LRM builds still have all the sensor problems and AMS to struggle with, but will be more a support weapon than a boating config


and some more general mech changes:
- remove/reduce the bonus of agility given by the engine and make the differences of variants count more that way.
> increases the effect/quirks of variants that push agility over mechs that have bigger engines (like the Timber).

- give Endo/Ferro some plus/minus effects (e.g. reduced/increased internal structure/armor)
> e.g. 20% more armor if you use Ferro

- increase internal structure (at least of the torso sections) of all mechs
> reduces the risk of very fast kills by coring mechs and makes disarming more usefull

optional: make endo/ferro on IS mechs become un-changeable
> further differentiate variants and inter-chassis differences

- XL Engines:
I'd go for longer time to live with bigger side effects such as 25% heat (25% reduced heat cap and heat dissipation) and speed penalties for each side torso destroyed for IS and Clan XL engines and removing the death by one/two destroyed sides completely.


Then we will see way longer TTK, have builds with more than boating one weapon type.
Classic builds like Warhammer and Marauder (everyones loved ones) will be equal to boats.

in short:
nope does not work.
there are so many misconceptions in that post its barely redeemable.

-people would just go for pinpoint weapons we had that and it was terrible.
-increasing the burn time will just result in lasers dying out. Especially since lasers are not an issue
YOU CAN SPREAD THE DAMAGE ALREADY

-your ideas presented above additionally just GIMP the IS side. Clans need less Lasers for the same effect anyway.

-Heat is a nonissue since you are hot but the enemy is dead so grouping something into the same ghostheat is completely nonsense if you are hot you just wait... face time will also not be increased they simply fire as they fire now and then get into hiding and cool down. Believing that increasing heat does anything here is wishful thinking.

- Gimping IS ACs why exactly? is see a pattern here only the IS side is being shafted...

- increase LRM dmg does not change anything except in public random matches, you are still easily swarmed and killed as LRM-boat if you have halfway competent enemies. Add to that a sure outcry of people for supporting "skillless" playing I am pretty sure PGI does not want to endure that a 5th time.

- endo ferro there are variants that give you plus and minus so no need to fiddle with it. PGI just needs to implement these..

- Endo/ Ferro unchangable for IS mechs so AGAIN a massive nerve that only touches IS? do we see a pattern here?

- increase Internal structure AGAIN? so cheaters get completely indestructable? How about torso twisting, instead of again twiddling with internals?

-Agility changes due to engine? strange AGAIN you wish to buff something that generally only increases the combat potential of the clans because these have the biggest engines...

-XL Engines... strange... again a buff to clans because IS can use standard engines; you want a less weight engine you have to pay for that somehow, so its your survivability. Live with it.

In your whole post you seem to assume that people will still drive Lasers well they wont, you will be even faster killed by SRM crows, Splat-CATs and SRM adders, Lights will become pretty much indestructable, except by Streak Boats which are only available to clans (see a pattern?)
Lasers are the only thing that keep fast SRM vomit at bay.

That entire post is nothing but a big buff for Clans and completely disqualifies itself for that reason alone, additionally to completely ignoring the most likely reaction of the player base.

[Fire for Effect]

Bloodweaver, on 01 November 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

The servers already calculate weapon paths in relation to convergence. There shouldn't be any significant additional load by implementing various convergence mechanics. Variable convergence already exists in MWO in a few extenuating circumstances - invisible walls being the most oft-encountered.

that is not variable convergence, if you look at the distance meter you see that the server thinks you are looking at a solid object in a distance of 6m in front of you; weapons instantly converge to that distance...

its a massive load of data that has to be transferred. fact is they were unable to prog it since closed beta and before you ask yes they tried. I believe it to be completely impossible due to the server authoritive calculations. to much data has to go through your precious bandwidth increasing the lag time.

Bloodweaver, on 01 November 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

You can also hit a target in multiple locations even when firing dual AC/5s or PPCs together,

ballistic drop not convergence

[Inkarnus]

Simple everything fired that is more of 2 of the same or anything other at the same time and your cockpit explodes =D
fixes everything to a degree and we will see finally some different builds and hopefully some diversity.

Highdamage pinpoint damage is and will be in this game the crulprit.
You could argue its skill to hit twice the same spot and then kill off a an enemy. I say thats bs.
Taking out an enemy should take time and longer as aaaah shhiii *dead* looks at "fire for effects" brand market group move of killing himself (that is not a joke it happened too often in the past). This is mechwarrior not a cod clone it should feel like mechwarrior and the weapon should act like in a simulation firing 8 lasers even with a fusion reactor should tax heavily on the systems. One of the old sim simulator pods had coolant that would leak as a conter to boating. There are enough possibilltys
to fix a problem but the problem of highdamage pinpoint damage was neglected for far too long and it isnt a thing
that just poped up today many did already vocally tried to get it fixed in the alpha and later beta, heck even the open beta.

Edited by Inkarnus, 01 November 2015 - 03:12 PM.

[Hotthedd]

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

respawn is a trademark of twich stuff. you CAN one shot mechs but its hideously difficult and very unlikely...
And yes it requires skill to hit something in this game even if you doubt it.

It may be, but it in itself is not twitch, and a game can be twitch without respawns.
We do disagree on the skill level required to hit what you aim at in this game. More to the point, I have a problem with the ease of hitting what you shoot at compared to the relative difficulty of doing it in a BattleMech. MW:O does not feel like you are in a 'mech.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

I think I have to stress it the data GOING BACK AND FORTH increases massively. Everything has to be calculated AND distributed by the server resulting in massively more lag and a gazillion of other problems, so forget it. Convergence does not even work for 2 (!) convergence points much less for ANYTHING that might be in your cone.

And conversely I must stress that the amount of data itself is the same, the actual data is different. IGP/PGI took the lazy way out by saying that slower auto convergence took too much load, so ANY multiple weapon/multiple target data takes too much load. The PROBLEM was in the game correcting the convergence, and having to transfer THAT continuous info back and forth between players of differing pings.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

what do you actually want? cone? manual convergence for some distance set by the player? On many mechs manual convergence will have excactly no impact since their weapons are so close it will have no effect. chain fire? you dont really believe that anyone would accept chainfiring 6 Lasers instead of grouping these?

I would take anything that simulates more realism, and/or more adherence to the BT universe.
Yes, people would chain fire IF there were an actual choice (more drawbacks to group fire)

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

so the server is rolling dice... and its random withhin the cone obviuosly. and of course you vastly increase the amount of data now its only where your arms point and where you main chassis points thats it. you would need to transfer ADDITIONALLY coordinates for each and every rolled weapon coordinates to every client. considering that its often already laggy forget that idea....

It is no more data than if everybody were to chain fire as the game is right now. As I explained, it could be done to no ill effect. The game is already too simple.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

your methods are sadly not resulting in higher TTK but instead massively increase the server load and will be highly problematic if not impossible. And it will result in massive migration of the main player base that finances the game....

Either more spread of shots or more time between shots WOULD increase TTK. There is no debating that point. It IS possible.
Do you really think PGI gets most of its revenue from FPS gamers? I do not. The main playerbase that has financed this game is the BattleTech fan. Those people will welcome any changes that brings MW:O back towards the sim side and away from the more arcade side.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

well then there is no difference to now...you just lose a few milliseconds and are annoyed each time you fire a weapon. you still hit with the vast majority of your dmg the part that you want to hit.

Except if there are for example 5 lasers fired at once, they are spread within that cone for the duration of the burn, reducing the pinpoint damage. But if you see no difference, then what is the big deal?

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

playing a guitar and a violin requires vastly different skillsets but still both require skill ... Apart from the fact that firing a weapon has nothing to do with the actual question, firing guns requires not much skill if you want skill go for archery. What you describe is something that everyone can (ordering a meal) sadly this is not the case as is pretty obvious if you look at people beginning with the game.

I would argue that firing several weapons simultaneously AND having them all hit the same component of a 'mech requires more skill than dragging a mouse and clicking a button, which anyone can do. I stand by my analogy.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

recoil, particles and ballistic drop do NOT affect lasers.... Since these are DOT anyway these are obviously not the problem.

I am not just talking about lasers, but atmospheric particles absolutely DO affect lasers. (so does gravity, to be honest, but not at the ranges we deal with)

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

Never heard of gyrostabilized mounts? just look at a leopard 2 firing at full speed at 1,5 km distant targets on rugged ground...
surely will you find some videos on youtube about that. But lets not get to much into realism....
unstabilized mounts is WW2 technology and even at that time were several gun mounts gyro stabilized. Even the rather weak american tanks were gyrostabilized at the end of the war.

How many weapons is that Leopard II firing at once?
I am all for having precision when firing one weapon. Show me a video of any weapons platform firing multiple non-guided munitions and hitting the same spot at the same time and we can talk.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

If a cone of fire is controllable its not random and will not result in anything that you want to archive...

I never said a cone of fire was random, you did. I said that a cone of fire simulates imperfect precision. There is a world of difference. Imagine playing darts at a bar. It is the difference between missing the bullseye in darts and hitting the bartender with a dart.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

twitch aiming only works with insta dmg weapons and even then rather bad since you want to hit something specific and not just something on the mech.

Are you saying that one cannot snap shot with lasers? I must disagree.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

Its the same version you are just doing it extra cumbersome, but maybe you like rolling dice thats ok too.... you can sum up weapons into groups and fire them. Its also recommended in "tactical operations" since it speeds up gameplay drastically. And noone said its only one die roll... Its just not every weapon seperately, which would be detrimental if 20 Mechs are on the board.

Different rules, obviously.

Fire for Effect, on 01 November 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

why should there be ANY downside? You get heat accordingly and thats it. If you wish to increase TTK hard limit the amount of weapons you can fire at once no weird cone and no absurd quirks or normalize the damage to a given time frame. 4 times rate of fire only one forth dmg... if you do that you can adjust the heat scale too... but that will result in many many beginners just blowing up themself and then saying "**** game"

Because it is supposed to be a "thinking man's shooter". There should be trade-offs to different styles, it is bad game design to have one way of playing superior in every way to another. It makes certain chassis inherently better than others due to hardpoint numbers and locations.
If one way should be "better" than the other, then it should be the lore-friendly chain fire if this is supposed to be a BattleTech based game.

[Mr Hunter]

Honestly I can doge lasers and I've figured out what mechs boat laser I.E shoot them first, not sorry. I have an issue with the freaking gauss boats, theres no downside, tonnage permitting. Also the scalpels Firestarters and Cheeters. But thats another issue entirely.

[Fire for Effect]

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

It may be, but it in itself is not twitch, and a game can be twitch without respawns.
We do disagree on the skill level required to hit what you aim at in this game. More to the point, I have a problem with the ease of hitting what you shoot at compared to the relative difficulty of doing it in a BattleMech. MW:O does not feel like you are in a 'mech.

easy? look at beginners look at normal matches what you see sometimes is gruesome, so its definitely not easy. since you will never have anything but a mouse to aim and nothing but buttons to shoot I am eager to here what else you want to use?
If it does not feel for you being in a mech thats your personal problem dont try to sour the game for others. someone has built a pretty cool cockpit around his gaming pit maybe that helps for you too.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

And conversely I must stress that the amount of data itself is the same, the actual data is different. IGP/PGI took the lazy way out by saying that slower auto convergence took too much load, so ANY multiple weapon/multiple target data takes too much load. The PROBLEM was in the game correcting the convergence, and having to transfer THAT continuous info back and forth between players of differing pings.

I fear it is not the case, the amount transfered is MASSIVELY more.

Now for hitting purposes the following is transferred continuesly

now:
coordinates for arms and torso alinement in infinity AND distance to first solid surface in front of each of these points.

your cone:
has to transmit ADDITIONALLY (you always need the direction of ams and chassis):
first the cone geometry has to be transmitted; then the server has to roll where you hit in the cone then the coordinates in infinity for each time you press the firing button and for each set of coordinates the distance to the first solid thing. and that for every weapon fired. and that data has to be relayed to EVERY client. Amount of data rises by at least an order of magnitude. if you wish some convergence that would be ADDITIONAL data that has to be sent for EACH weapon fired (also time between last distance change to a solid surface in front of each point and current convergence progress)... so just forget it, it just does not work.

Why should your cone actually ever be worse than weapons shooting straight ahead? If you use that as a basis your idea is getting completely nonsense since many mechs have their weapons so close to each other that these will hit the same spot all the time.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

I would take anything that simulates more realism, and/or more adherence to the BT universe.
Yes, people would chain fire IF there were an actual choice (more drawbacks to group fire)

Actually people would say. "frag you i am not using a dozen different buttons just to fire my weapons, bye I go playing Elite" or they say: "frag you I am not just using only 3 of my 12 weapons, bye I go play Star citizen" since thats the rough cycle time for chain fire. The rest would be completely useless redundent weapons that you simply cannot use in chain fire. People would also say: "where the frag is the weapon grouping why cant you fire than more weapon at once?"

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

It is no more data than if everybody were to chain fire as the game is right now. As I explained, it could be done to no ill effect. The game is already too simple.

As has been concisecively proven it is much much more data. And the massive amounts of data that you have to transfer will have massive ill effects for a miniscule gain. There are much more effective ways to increase TTK.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Either more spread of shots or more time between shots WOULD increase TTK. There is no debating that point.
It IS possible.

It is ineffective and highly annoying people. Wait until your cone results in team kills the outcry will be spectacular. Decreasing the damage per shot is MUCH MUCH more effective because you can STILL hit everything at the same spot with your cone idea, while lowering damage is ALWAYS effectively increasing TTK. And its done with the simple change in a html script.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Do you really think PGI gets most of its revenue from FPS gamers? I do not. The main playerbase that has financed this game is the BattleTech fan. Those people will welcome any changes that brings MW:O back towards the sim side and away from the more arcade side.

Nobody said its FPS guys; actually this game has absolutely no appeal for FPS guys and thats good. the main financial base are the competetive players and the die hard mech warrior fans. And you can be sure those HATE the cone idea. Also anyone who has ever played a cone game will tell you its annoying junk. You missed and the other mech hit just because the server rolled that is hideosly unfair. if you die you should have been NEVER at the mercy of some absurd artificial randomness.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Except if there are for example 5 lasers fired at once, they are spread within that cone for the duration of the burn, reducing the pinpoint damage. But if you see no difference, then what is the big deal?

Again you are having a misconception: Lasers are not pinpoint its a DOT. the big deal is that you are wasting programming time, that you are wasting processing time also wasting bandwidth. All of these things can be used in a much more useful way. Also there is absolutely no reason to absurdly spread the damage of lasers into a cone. Its completely illogical and completely non-intuitive. Also imagine that one or two LL will hit an friendly? what then? like to be team killed because of randomness?

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

I would argue that firing several weapons simultaneously AND having them all hit the same component of a 'mech requires more skill than dragging a mouse and clicking a button, which anyone can do. I stand by my analogy.

why should lasers spread??? complete absurdity. your method introduces exactly zero skill, it introduces randomness nothing more. you can only point at the general direction targeting anything is not necessary anymore since you cannot hit anything specific anyway. I see absolutely no skill increase in that, its in contrast a massive deterioration since targeting is not necessary anymore. You can stand as much as you like it still becomes neither true nor a good solution.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

I am not just talking about lasers, but atmospheric particles absolutely DO affect lasers. (so does gravity, to be honest, but not at the ranges we deal with)

Particles only lessen the intensity but do not change the direction of a laser, gravity.... you really want to discuss the effect of gravity on earth like worlds on light?

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

How many weapons is that Leopard II firing at once?
I am all for having precision when firing one weapon. Show me a video of any weapons platform firing multiple non-guided munitions and hitting the same spot at the same time and we can talk.

OK you want perfect precision with one weapon why should it be different when firing more weapons, except wishful thinking of course? it can never be worse than convergence in infinity and even then you dont gain ANY increase in TTK on many mech while completely gimping others.

It is firing all weapons it has, since there is no multicannon tank in existance and guided munitions are what is used mainly you know that that cannot be shown. But it seems you have not understood what gyro stabilizations means you completely cancel out any outside effects including recoil from any other sources you can even kick something thats properly gyrostabilized and it does not waver. Apart from that Lasers do not have recoil so that whole argument is nonsense for Laserbased weaponry.
Well its being done continuesly: the Apollo refraktion mirrors on the moon are being continuesly hit from different parts of earth pretty much at any moment by yes you guessed it Lasers.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

I never said a cone of fire was random, you did. I said that a cone of fire simulates imperfect precision. There is a world of difference. Imagine playing darts at a bar. It is the difference between missing the bullseye in darts and hitting the bartender with a dart.

If its not random its useless, then I can predict where I will hit before hitting the button. Effect will be zero for TTK.
lazy people just put a dot on their screen with a marker.

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Are you saying that one cannot snap shot with lasers? I must disagree.

well you have to keep the lasers on the target, pretty detrimental for moving erratically...

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Different rules, obviously.

same rules, same ruleset you just use the fun many many many die-rolling way. I can recommend tactical operations by the way very good advanced rules book. Also finally very well bound. and BT needs to spread...

Hotthedd, on 01 November 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Because it is supposed to be a "thinking man's shooter". There should be trade-offs to different styles, it is bad game design to have one way of playing superior in every way to another. It makes certain chassis inherently better than others due to hardpoint numbers and locations.
If one way should be "better" than the other, then it should be the lore-friendly chain fire if this is supposed to be a BattleTech based game.

lets see so you think brainlessly shooting at the general direction of the enemy and being happy if the server rolls the desired section makes it a thinking mans shooter? you are arguing on a whole wrong layer. if you want more simulation dont introduce randomness. The only person in control if you hit or miss has to be yourself.

Certain chassis ARE inherently better even in BT. like it or not but thats the case. why do you think BV has been introduced some 20 years ago?

what makes you belive that chain fire is more lore friendly? it is highly unlikely that people in reality would be so stupid to fire each weapon seperately... add to that the fact that highest to hit probability is the center you might get very unhappy with that approach.

concerning playstyles: hitting the enemy is always the superior gamestyle....


tl,dr
cone will not work
sensor based damage reduction just because you have no lock is simply absurd nonsense.

[Karl Streiger]

Fire for Effect, on 02 November 2015 - 06:14 AM, said:

Certain chassis ARE inherently better even in BT. like it or not but thats the case. why do you think BV has been introduced some 20 years ago?

because somebody got boozed and thought that the Clans or SDLF would be a good idea

Quote

lets see so you think brainlessly shooting at the general direction of the enemy and being happy if the server rolls the desired section makes it a thinking mans shooter? you are arguing on a whole wrong layer. if you want more simulation dont introduce randomness. The only person in control if you hit or miss has to be yourself.

When you flying a P39 in the first IL2 spreading those 6 machine guns all over the target was part random part "skill" and i can totally life with that kind of randomness.

For 90% of all shots taken it won't change anything. In the other 10% cases shots that are not placed carefully enough can miss or will hit a different location.
But currently I'm complete enthusiastic about the idea to cut damage by a part and increase RoF.
Simple because it will create a spread on its own - because hitting a target twice is harder than hitting it once.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 02 November 2015 - 06:25 AM.