385 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Kira Onime, on 23 October 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

You had a good point until you decided to make yourself look like an idiot.

I always look like an idiot to the Tier 1/2 echo chamber, therefore I disregard that opinion as irrelevant. This is because I'm almost completely contrary to the competitive mindset and goals. I see what you guys write on HPGOutreach so this is no surprise.

Edited by Kjudoon, 23 October 2015 - 10:25 PM.

[Violetear]

I proposed a while ago smth like that. The idea was to make things a bit more compicated.
http://mwomercs.com/...37#entry4735137

[Rhalgaln]

Its not the pinpoin, the Problem is the boating of weapons.

The firestarter is a hell because he stacks 5 Medium Pulse Lasers or 8 Small Pulse Laser, as the Cheetah is.

The "Meta" builds stack 2 Gauss and one secondary weapon type.

A very simple solution to prevent overpowered quirk based stacking of weapons is to attach a negative quirk on every weapon.
Each weapon should have a negative 10% Cooldown, 10% Heatefficiency, Duration quirk on its own type.
So if you stack the same weapon 3 times you get 30% malus on cooldown, efficiency and duration.

This can be countered by chassis quirks which define a base role to have a standard konfiguration slightly preferred.

So if a chassis has a 50% cooldown Bonus on a Medium Laser, each booted Medium Leaser eats the bonus with 6 even giving the mech a malus.

Numbers are just examples. A Small laser might have 3% where an Gauss might have 50%.

Especially with the gauss you could quirk the loading time, so firing one gauss has 1 second, firing 2 gauss 2 seconds, firing 3 gauss 3 seconds loading time until you can fire them in an alpha.


Such system would be very easy to set up, as quirks are already in game and can prevent boating.
I do not see high Alphas as a Problem, because if you fire an Alpha from 1AC20, 1AC5, 1SRM6, 1SRM4, 1Large Laser and 2 Small Laser it makes a pretty difference from an
12 SPL Alpha.

[Kjudoon]

Boating weapons is not the problem.

You can do 2xGauss 2xPPC and do 50dmg.

Add in 2xLLs and you jump to 68 dmg. None of which is boating.

It is the amount of damage applied to the same place.

Boating 6xAC2s is a highly irritating and somewhat effective mech if you run macros or click a lot REALLY FAST. That's still only 12 points in an alpha strike which would require a KGC to run. Again, not much of a threat.

Of course 8 spls on a firestarter will do 32 damage. This is a problem.

Same goes for someone who mounts 4xLRM20s on their mech. Dangerous to a point, but even doing 80dmg, I'd rather face that than the first example of 68 points of DF damage from Gauss/PPC/LL. Heck, I'd rather face 6x SRM6s doing 72dmg than the focused pinpoint of DF alphas. There is just no comparison to getting all that damage on the same location or only spreading it as far as one other.

That's the problem. You cannot control this with heat because damage is not attached to heat directly and it would be silly to. You can't control this with hardpoint limits because you'd have to do some major restructuring of every mech in the game. Quirks won't do it because we see what a mess they make.

Your only remaining TRUE solution is some method to spread damage. Even with JJ jitter, unless all weapons fired at the same time hit different locations (or in a cone of fire pattern) you cannot, WILL not fix this problem. This is an issue similar to ballistics and energy transfer from projectiles. Getting hit by a tennisball moving at 700fps is going to hurt but most likely not going to kill you because of it's size of impact area, even though it's weight would be similar to a .45 slug moving at the same speed. This is the principle bullet proof vests work on: spread the damage over a larger area as to prevent penetration and spread the pressure and impulse of a bullet to a larger area, preventing it from harming the target.

The digital version is here. LRMs, SRMs, Streaks and LBx weapons all spread. They are the tennis ball even when fired in an alpha. They cannot do the same degree of devestation a DF or PPFLD weapon can do like a PPC or AC20. Heck, consider how inferior a clan ERPPC is to an IS! It spreads its damage and makes it far less functional.

There's no getting around this.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

The example of 2x Gauss, 2x PPC and 2x LL is only viable to a certain extent. Those weapons all move at different speeds. Lasers instant, Gauss near-instant, but PPCs need lead. So, possible, but difficult.

Boating high damage weapons is more problematic because all the weapons have the same behaviors.

Still some viability in this argument.

A cone of fire is pretty reasonable. Could use skill tree and equipment/modules to make it smaller and smaller.

But heat could also be tied to damage. The ratio just has to be different for different weapons types.

It's not only about heat. What I've been trying to get at is that the different weapons need to balance INTERNALLY so that they all have similar derivative stats (DPS, HPS, DPS/T, etc.). Not same, mind you; but especially within weapon types, these derivative stats should be similar.

That way we can give 1 laser more range/damage or shorter duration/recycle and some other stat has to be affected as well (likely heat, in the case of lasers).

[oldradagast]

Cone of fire is the only reasonable answer assuming convergence fixes are not an option.

Nonsense mechanics, like vanishing damage, are something this games needs LESS of, not more. All other suggestions such as damage caps and higher armor still do not change the fact that perfect pinpoint damage at long ranges is at the root of nearly all balance issues in the game. It doesn't matter if armor is doubled again or multiplied by 100 - A Gauss rifle will still beat an LBX because it can put all that damage on one location at long ranges. Pair up the Gauss and you have death, while scatter weapons just continue to uselessly scatter damage around.

Until that issue is fixed - that pinpoint weapons are the only competitive weapons AND that they can put insane amounts of damage all on a single component at long ranges - the game will remain unbalanced with pinpoint damage and boatable hardpoints being almost everything that matters.

[oldradagast]

Kjudoon, on 23 October 2015 - 10:22 PM, said:

I always look like an idiot to the Tier 1/2 echo chamber, therefore I disregard that opinion as irrelevant. This is because I'm almost completely contrary to the competitive mindset and goals. I see what you guys write on HPGOutreach so this is no surprise.

The "skillz" crowd has been opposed to a cone of fire since day one, using strawman arguments such as "it would make my shots go everywhere" and "it removes aiming from the game," as if the proposed cone of fire is a 45 degree cone or some nonsense. They still believe that playing a dual Gauss + lasers "skill wolf" is the pinnacle of skill in the game... but they are also the ones that killed CW with their lunacy that "seal clubbing is a vital part of the high-skill CW environment" and "nobody care if you're having fun since it's community WARFARE, and war is not fun." Given their failure to understand those issues, I wouldn't take anything they have to say on game balance seriously since they have very obvious ulterior motives.

[Valar13]

A really convoluted and possibly stupid solution is to have separate reticle components for each location with a mounted weapon, sort of like this


-l-[o]-l-

where the brackets and circle are the current reticle and then the vertical lines to either side represent side torso aiming. Adjust width as necessary. Not as random as a cone of fire, but not all converged on the same point without slight adjustments to put weapons on target.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Without going into very complex fixes for Gauss, I have to agree a cone of fire would be a very good approach.

I still think my above suggestion about normalized ratio-rulesets applies; even without pinpoint alpha laser will still dominate meta, just because of their no ammo nature and the way heat works right now.

[Seelenlos]

If we take it the way it is, an AHC or WH or whatever mech running to you with 126 above is so much in shutter it should not be able to do nearly any damage, if we even implement a point blank system for all weapons!

We do not get hits to lights because they are fast, why should they get hits on us, when they are the fast?

They want a full hit, then they should come to the Point Blank distance - under 90m- and make a new friendship with AC20s and the rest of the arsenals.

Edited by Seelenlos, 25 October 2015 - 04:40 PM.

[Bloodweaver]

ILikePeaches, on 23 October 2015 - 12:06 AM, said:

This isn't really an issue with... ballistics outside of gauss .

Dead wrong. The PPFLD issue has always, always, been primarily driven by ballistic weapons. The only difference over time is which particular ballistic weapon reigns supreme. It's moved around from Gauss to AC/20 to UAC/5 to PPC (energy in name only) to AC/5.

Lasers have never been the biggest problem, until the Clans arrived. And that was only because with Clan weaponry, the spread mechanics that characterize the differences between lasers and ballistics got switch around from what they were with Inner Sphere weapons. In other words, Clan lasers are akin to Inner Sphere ballistics, and Clan ballistics are akin to Inner Sphere lasers. The "burn time" on Clan autocannons is worse than it is on their lasers, because ballistics also have a travel time whereas lasers do not, exacerbating the spread.

Lasers are pinpoint, but that's not all it takes. Since they spread damage over time, their damage output is rarely pinpoint overall. Ballistics (Inner Sphere anyway) do all their damage to whatever they hit, every time. They are much bigger contributors to the PPFLD problem than lasers are, always have been - the worst of it was the poptart dual AC/5 dual PPC meta. No lasers were involved there at all.

[Cementi]

I personally think the heat system is the biggest issue. Lowering the current heat cap but increasing the disapation would move the game from an alpha strike situation to a dps situation.

I also would like to see some complex heat penalties such as table top has put in.

Cone of fire could also help unquestionably and even their current pts proposals are decent. Not enough imo but a step in the right direction once it is tied to the previous pts and the target delay system.

[Greyhart]

In my view the problem of pinpoint is more than just lasers, it is just that lasers can be boated as well and have unlimited ammo making a no brainer.

I think combining a cone of fire is a good solution.

I would however add it as a heat penalty. This is keeping in mind that heat is added before the weapon fires.

This of course leaves a problem with ballistics but I would put convergence on ballistics either at max or on target lock. same could apply to lasers, but dependant on balance.

[JernauM]

Dealing a large amount of damage in a short amount of time to enemies' critical components, while denying them the opportunity to do the same to you? That's not a problem, that's the game.

Balance in MWO is largely about the extent to which a variety of mechs and loadouts can accomplish the above with a degree of effectiveness and reliability that is in proportion to the skill, effort, and risk required.

The opposite approach would be to create a game where players spread their damage output over time and across multiple components, while face-tanking return fire from the enemy team. Is that what people are asking for?

[Kjudoon]

If you really want to deal with both boating and Convergence, this could be tried:

The lasers 'scribble' across random paths inside the area. ACs spread. Missiles are unaffected because well... they already do this.

The size would be determined based on the mech's innate targeting computer (some mechs are just better made for shooting long range like the Panther, Vindicator and Jaegermech while others are not), and the number of weapons fired at the same time. The size of the COF would then fluxuate based on movement and targeting aids like the targeting computer and BAP/CAP. Standing stock still firing one weapon would automatically be pinpoint accurate, but moving would give it a small COF. On the other hand running and firing 8mls with no targeting computer, they'd be all over the map so hope you're close.

If a target is unlocked, of course it is the widest spread. about the size of an atlas, and the more aid you have to targeting computers, the better it gets till it would be NEARLY as precise as the current situation. Of course we're talking max level Clan targeting computer and a chassis that is designed for sharpshooting, not boating. So if you want precision, you get to give up your boating. If you don't care because you're going to be within melee range... it doesn't matter anyway. boat away. you want maximum firepower to strip your target bare, but don't expect to just blow off components like a child pulling wings off a fly. That just needs to go.

An imperfect solution, but far better than what we have now.

[Karl Streiger]

JernauM, on 26 October 2015 - 02:00 AM, said:

The opposite approach would be to create a game where players spread their damage output over time and across multiple components, while face-tanking return fire from the enemy team. Is that what people are asking for?

But that is the essence of BattleTech - and even in BattleTech - twisting has its worth (a open left side) - you try to show the enemy your right.

As said in the post above - the cone can be affected by the player. It is no RNG if you do it right - its RNG if you can not deal with your Mech.
Best example that this idea does work: The wonky working convergence from Closed Beta!
Firing Alphastrike of Left PPC + Right PPC + Gauss - as soon as you see the target (could spread or even miss)
Firing Alphastrike a second after your cross hair lay over the target - pinpoint
Firing Snapfire but Chain = instant shots hit were you did aim

Another example why PP Alpha is complete off:
firing 4 AC 5s..... = 20dmg each 1.7sec for 4 heat; weight 32t; 16 crits
vs firing 2 AC 20s: 40dmg each 4sec for 23.52 heat - weight 28t 20crits /alternative 20dmg each 2sec for 7heat

[Rogue Jedi]

I would like to see convergence set in the Mechlab, I do not think torso mounted weapons should have dynamic convergence, I also think an actuator should be needed for dynamic convergence.

If I am in a fast light I would set convergence to something like 200m, meaning at 200m the lasers would all hit the same spot, at 400m apart the individual beams would be the same distance apart as they are on the Mech
a lower arm actuator should allow dynamic convergence on the target you have locked otherwise the hits are spread more based on how far off your convergence is set

example
if you take a Dire Wolf with Gauss rifles in the arms and decide to dial in the convergence at 500m, if the Dire is about 8 meters wide (estimate), the Gauss shells would hit 4 meters apart at 250m and 750m, and 8 meters apart at 1km, if you want to get both to hit the same spot you have to fire them individually and compensate for how far apart they are when you fire outside your chosen range
You could move the Gauss into the torsos so they are closer together meaning they are perhaps 4 meters apart, now if you dial the convergence at say 150m because you like to get up close with your Dire Wolf ^{(I know bad example but this is to illustrate a point)} now at 300m your Gauss shells will be 4m apart, at 450 they will be 8m apart, at 600 they will be 12m, and at at 900m they would be 20m apart, now because you have dialed the convergence in so close they will be next to useless past 500m,
you could set convergence at 800m and the shells would be 2m apart at 400m, that is close enough together to be effective, but you would have to be more skilled if you wanted to e.g. rip an arm of a stationery light 200m in front of you, firing the gauss separately and compensating for the distance apart the shells will be to accuraly hit a small target at outside your chosen optimum range


PGI could possibly then add weapon gimble actuators for individual weapons as an optional extra, so a gimble rated at up-to maybe 5 tonnes costs 1 slot per weapon, 5 to 10 tonnes could cost 2 slots, weapons weighing more than 10 tonnes you must sacrifice 3 slots, this is a minor cost for dynamic convergance but it makes it a choice, would you prefer a converging AC10 or fixed convergence Gauss or AC20

[VorpalAnvil]

ILikePeaches, on 23 October 2015 - 12:06 AM, said:

Some mechs are so meta you can't torso twist the laser damage. For example a Hunchie 4P, TDR-5SS, and the BL-7-KNT-L just to name a few off the top of my head. Those all can have builds that are pinpoint laser cutters with amazing quirks that cut duration down to almost nothing noticeable. You can surgically take apart other more balanced mechs with ease. This isn't really an issue with missiles and ballistics outside of gauss (but that's expected of gauss and it has plenty of cons to go with it).

Look at all those OP clan mechs used as examples!

[Widowmaker1981]

Karl Streiger, on 23 October 2015 - 04:55 AM, said:

Its not only Lasers.... take the PPC as an example.... considering the development of PPCs.
Say you could have Light and Heavy PPCs ind MWO.

Light PPC - 5heat 5 PPFLD 3ton (90m min range)
Heavy PPC 15heat 15 PPFLD 10tons (120min range)

if you got the energy hardpoints would you even think about taking the HPPC?
Because in the end the combination of 3x LPPC would damage a target with 15dmg also (no twisting will prevent that)

No of course not its the same as with the LRM5 - if you got the Hardpoints you should take the LRM5 simple because its spread is much smaller.

Your PPC example is actually silly, because of convergence. If you are aiming directly at a mech moving toward or away from you, or still then sure, the 3 LPPCs will hit the same spot, but because convergence is based on the distance of the object under the reticule at the time of firing, if you have to lead a laterally moving target then your PPCs will converge at that distance, and NOT at the mech you want to hit.. in other words the LPPCs wont converge fully if your target is not being a potato. Convergence is only an issue imo for lasers (because hitscan = no lead = full convergence every time), and even then its only really short duration lasers that you cant easily twist all over, and those also have short range.

If clan mechs are getting a full 1.15s burn onto one component, the problem is the target player being a potato and not torso twisting..

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 26 October 2015 - 06:12 AM.

[VorpalAnvil]

JernauM, on 26 October 2015 - 02:00 AM, said:

Dealing a large amount of damage in a short amount of time to enemies' critical components, while denying them the opportunity to do the same to you? That's not a problem, that's the game.

Balance in MWO is largely about the extent to which a variety of mechs and loadouts can accomplish the above with a degree of effectiveness and reliability that is in proportion to the skill, effort, and risk required.

The opposite approach would be to create a game where players spread their damage output over time and across multiple components, while face-tanking return fire from the enemy team. Is that what people are asking for?

Man, this whole thread is nothing but a Tier 5 whine-and-cheese tasting. Terribads who want the game dumbed down to their level, not their skill level to improve because getting better is too hard for mommies special little snowflakes. In answer to your rhetorical question; a hearty yes...