117 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

its stupid because its not how battletech works. mechs are designed to fire multiple weapons at once without misalignment

you should be able to fire all your weapons at once without half of them missing the target.

the problem with cone of fire is it doesnt just shift your damage over to an adjacent location. cone of fire will actually make your weapons veer COMPLETELY off the target so they miss.

Thats why i dont like it. I think my solution is better because all your weapons still hit, and all the damage is accounted for, the damage just gets distributed across the mech using a damage transfer mechanic.

Hold a second!

Considering I don't do TT, I have a question. How many dice rolls do you have to do to fire 10 weapons?

And as for CoF, there is a huge difference between an even distribution and a gaussian one. No one I know of is suggesting the former for a CoF.

Edited by Mystere, 28 October 2015 - 09:58 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Considering I don't do TT, I have a question. How many dice rolls do you have to do to fire 10 weapons

?

10. But each dice roll is independent of the others. The dice rolls dont get harder just because youre firing more weapons at once.

So thats not at all the same thing as cone of fire.

[Mystere]

Gas Guzzler, on 28 October 2015 - 09:53 AM, said:

Lasers have no kick.

But everything else does.

Gas Guzzler, on 28 October 2015 - 09:53 AM, said:

What would be cool though, is for ballistics, towards the end of the match due to the mounting system starting to fatigue under repeated use if the guns started to shoot off of the reticle by a certain degree. Not a random CoF, but say maybe it starts aiming 1-4% higher based on how many times its been fired. More of a simulation aspect than anything else, but you can skill your way around it if you are familiar with the system.

Why higher? Why not 1-4% up and left now, down and right later, up and left after that, and ... you get the idea.

Why not just implement something modeled from well-understood concepts like CEP?

Edited by Mystere, 28 October 2015 - 10:06 AM.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

10. But each dice roll is independent of the others. The dice rolls dont get harder just because youre firing more weapons at once.

Ah! But that also suggests not all 10 weapons will hit exactly the same spot. There is also the probability -- no matter how small -- that nothing will be exactly on target.

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

So thats not at all the same thing as cone of fire.

Maybe not. But, at the same time, needing 10 dice rolls suggests misses do occur. And we can model that via a CoF. And as I said earlier, most CoF ideas involve a gaussian distribution, not a completely even one.


But as I have also said, dealing with convergence is my preferred solution.

[Khobai]

Then why not just have independent gaussian distribution for each weapon?

We already said that in battletech each weapon rolls to hit individually and that firing multiple weapons has no effect on the accuracy of the rolls.

So why not just give each weapon a chance to be a few pixels off regardless of whether its fired singly or grouped with other weapons?

Thats more in line with battletech.

Edited by Khobai, 28 October 2015 - 10:36 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

stuff

I said damage would transfer outward.

CT->ST->arm or leg (whichever is closest to point of impact)

So say 25% of damage would transfer outward to an undestroyed adjacent location.

more stuff

So a ST hit with a Arm and Leg missing goes to... Head? No thanks...

[Almond Brown]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

Then why not just have independent gaussian distribution for each weapon?

We already said that in battletech each weapon rolls to hit individually and that firing multiple weapons has no effect on the accuracy of the rolls.

So why not just give each weapon a chance to be a few pixels off regardless of whether its fired singly or grouped with other weapons?

Thats more in line with battletech.

That begs the question then of how many "pixels" off is enough to assure that not everything fired does not land on the same Segment? And how does that work in regard to range to target? Range to target and CoF variations would be the thing many would take issue with.

If at 150m variance is slight, how does that variance scale out to 750m when the target being shot at never changes actual size.

P.S. In BT the chance to miss is in the rules. No such rule exists in MWO. Adding it now might not sit well with everyone.., PGI has to try and please everyone remember...

[JigglyMoobs]

COOL HANDS, on 27 October 2015 - 10:48 PM, said:

You mean PGI is actually going to tone down the noob alpha, I'll e believe it when I see it. Of course the meta junkies are not going to like their crutch being removed.

were you consistently winning against those alpha noobs when this "giangantic crutch" wasn't in place?

[Khobai]

Quote

That begs the question then of how many "pixels" off is enough to assure that not everything fired does not land on the same Segment? And how does that work in regard to range to target? Range to target and CoF variations would be the thing many would take issue with.

It would be based on the battletech range brackets. The longer the range the more the distribution would be. It would be one way of bringing short/medium/long range back into play.

[Lootee]

It would be easier to simulate COF without random misses by adding more hitbox zones along the seams where two components meet. When a shot impacts in this zone the damage is randomly assigned to either component.

Example: you fire 2 gauss rifles and hit the new seam hitzone where the Left Torso meets the Left Arm. The 30 damage could: all hit the LT, all hit the LA, or do 15 points to each.

There should still be hitzones that only damage 1 component but they should require very precise aiming to hit.

With that system you don't get random misses. Damage is spread with a rational explanation and player skill still matters.

Really can you tell where Left Torso ends and Center Torso begins? Are autocannon shells that discriminating? It's not like heavy ordnance knows it hit one torso so the warhead directs the blast a certain way so that only that 1 component takes damage.

And this solution is not beyond PGI's technical capabilities.

[kapusta11]

So why don't you make your own game, mighty game designers?

[Bobzilla]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 10:55 AM, said:

It would be based on the battletech range brackets. The longer the range the more the distribution would be. It would be one way of bringing short/medium/long range back into play.

Well really, the closer it is, the more pixels it can move while still staying the same section, so you wouldn't even really need to do that. If anything, the longer the range of the weapon, the less it should change.

Now if the weapon has a min range, it should get a larger change the closer the range gets. Which would make PPCs do dmg at 0 range, but fire off in weird spots replicating a to hit penalty.

[JigglyMoobs]

You guys advocating cone of fire do realize that it's in all of the popular FPSs right?

Many of the changes that you are advocating are actually going to make this feel more and more like an fps.

By the end of this, of pgi actually listens to you will just have a bunch of medium sized masterchiefs running around killing the lights, the heavies and the assaults.

-and the same people will still be winning-

Except people will be bored and moving on because MWO doesn't do halo as well as halo.

Maybe after we go through all of these nerfs, we can also get respawns! Oh wait, CW.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I want to explore spread mechanics using what already exists in MWO.

So with no target, all weapons will fire at separate random points, as currently happens when holding Jump Jets.

Get a Target under the crosshairs/reticles and the mech aims at the SSRM bones, using the existing calculations system and weighting.

The difference I'd like to test is being able to set a single primary weapon that is not affected and always follows the crosshairs / reticles.



So for example a player could designate a single C-LPL, ERPPC or UAC/5 that is not affected by the above mentioned system

And lore-wise, one of the main reasons most weapons weigh so damn much is because each uses an independent gimbal to aim the weapons, and things like Targeting Computers add more gizmos to improve their efficiency, reducing recoil and more precision and so on.

---

And I would still want an improvement of the Heat System, regardless of whatever targeting changes are explored and eventually implemented after extensive testing and tweaking.

So reduce the gifted 30 to 14 Heat

IS SHS is 0.2 Dissipation 1.0 Capacity

IS DHS is 0.4 Dissipation 2.0 Capacity

C-DHS is 0.3 Dissipation 1.6 Capacity

So no difference inside or outside of the engine and if We retain 2x Cool Run and Heat Containment they would only boost Dissipation up to the above max values, with Capacity being solely dependent on HS count and the +14 value.

And that Dissipation boost only goes from 115% to 135%, an increase of 20%, so then the base Dissipation will start at

0.15 IS SHS, 0.3 IS DHS, and 0.225 C-DHS, due to keeping those boosts around.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 28 October 2015 - 11:31 AM.

[JigglyMoobs]

Praetor Knight, on 28 October 2015 - 11:26 AM, said:

I want to explore spread mechanics using what already exists in MWO.

So with no target, all weapons will fire at separate random points, as currently happens when holding Jump Jets.

Get a Target under the crosshairs/reticles and the mech aims at the SSRM bones, using the existing calculations system and weighting.

The difference I'd like to test is being able to set a single primary weapon that is not affected and always follows the crosshairs / reticles.



So for example a player could designate a single C-LPL, ERPPC or UAC/5 that is not affected by the above mentioned system

And lore-wise, one of the main reasons most weapons weigh so damn much is because each uses an independent gimbal to aim the weapons, and things like Targeting Computers add more gizmos to improve their efficiency, reducing recoil and more precision and so on.

---

And I would still want an improvement of the Heat System, regardless of whatever targeting changes are explored and eventually implemented after extensive testing and tweaking.

So reduce the gifted 30 to 14 Heat

IS SHS is 0.2 Dissipation 1.0 Capacity

IS DHS is 0.4 Dissipation 2.0 Capacity

C-DHS is 0.3 Dissipation 1.6 Capacity

So no difference inside or outside of the engine and if We retain 2x Cool Run and Heat Containment they would only boost Dissipation up to the above max values, with Capacity being solely dependent on HS count and the +14 value.

And that Dissipation boost only goes from 115% to 135%, an increase of 20%, so then the base Dissipation will start at

0.15 IS SHS, 0.3 IS DHS, and 0.225 C-DHS, due to keeping those boosts around.

And then every Meta player moves to mediums or lights with ECM and ac/20, erppc or gauss as primary. GGclose.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 28 October 2015 - 11:39 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

JigglyMoobs, on 28 October 2015 - 11:36 AM, said:

And then every Meta player moves to mediums or lights. GGclose.



And then every Meta player moves to mediums or lights with ECM. GGclose.

Can you explain why that would be a problem, if many consider Heavies and Assaults to be overly represented as-is?



And the random spreading should still hit the target, and a player with good aim will still land much of their damage on the intended target if we can test such a targeting system.

SRMs are in need of an overhaul, and so I'd like to see them tested with SSRM bone targeting when a lock is acquired and still be dumb-fired as LRMs are, or just straight up using LRM coding for them.

And I haven't commented on the need to reduce agility across the board, starting with turning off the Mech Tree Efficiencies and then boosting mechs back to what they might need on a case by case basis.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 28 October 2015 - 11:46 AM.

[Alek Ituin]

MoonUnitBeta, on 28 October 2015 - 06:37 AM, said:

It's not a bandaid. it's an expansion of resource management. It's a logical design element that takes some of the load and dependencies off heat scale, and catagorizes weapons in a more sensible way. It can affect cooldowns, it can affect burn durations, it can affect how many energy weapons you're able to fire all at once or over time. It promotes the full use and range of all, or more than one weapon type.
It also means that there’s better reason for weapon manufactures. Some use less energy, but burn longer, or shorter, or have less range, or more range and deal less damage. And these weapons can be combined to overcome some of the restrictions that all energy builds will face. They're not going to pack 6 larger lasers, but they'll be able to take lots of various ranged weapons (small, medium, large energy weapons), or very few large weapons.
Bigger engines can support a larger energy pool. Which means that you'll be weighing the pro's and cons of a small engine, and one or two large weapons, or a big engine, but weighing the pros and cons of less tonnage to work with, and thus less weapons. Much like how larger engines have more heat sinks, except surplus energy is weightless, and produced by the strength of the engine.

We can have that now with heat, but you’re balancing AC’s to Lasers in the same resource, and the only difference is one is PP, and the other is over time. It's a very fine line. When you separate them into their own resource pools you put them in different balance pools, and they're easier to balance as a whole as there becomes a greater encouragement to take an assortment of weapon types.
Ghost heat is a bandaid. A single purpose feature to fix only one thing, a quick fix.
This isn't a quick fix. It requires actual planning and design to implement. It also makes sense.

And so the lack of more sensible ways to manage your weapons, in my eyes, is a flaw, and things like ghost heat is a bandage to cover up the obviousness of these issues.

NO.

No more convoluted mechanics, no more "bandaids but not baindaids", no more ridiculous non-BT mechanics. That crapheap of an idea you have is just Ghost Heat/Ghost Damage with extra steps.

I would like to play a BattleTech game that resembles BattleTech in more than name alone.

Edited by Alek Ituin, 28 October 2015 - 11:48 AM.

[ArchSight]

Convergence makes the net code suck. That's why PGI dropped the concept. Convergence will never work. Except that fact already. A cone of fire is the same thing.

Why don't you all know that already?


To the OP, heat dissipation and heat cap changes doesn't promote the use of chain fire. It only promotes using less heat causing weapons per alpha strike. A dire wolf will gladly boat ballistic weapons. The heat dissipation increase will also make time to kill smaller due to more attacks that will be done faster with smaller or larger less heat generating alpha strikes. The lower heat cap will only limit the higher heat weapons and not the lower heat weapons. The inner sphere will destroy most of the clan mechs because most of their weapons are lower heat than clan weapons. Players will still be doing alpha strikes that fire at pin point, front loaded damage that will stack up with 12 mechs to kill other mechs quickly.



I have a better idea that takes this all into account. Have heat scale(ghost heat) promote single weapon fire by scaling heat up if weapons are not fired by themselves.(That includes increasing ballistic heat when not fired by themselves) Player's will be inclined to want to do more damage which will cause them to accept the increased heat with firing more weapons. 4 to 12 mechs will alpha strike at other mechs to get a quick kill. This will fill the heat capacity up with excess heat from firing to many weapons and will not increase heat dissipation. It may require heat dissipation to be less. Causing the players who choose to do this to take more time to cool down giving other player's who didn't alpha strike the chance to put in their damage with single weapon's fire but single weapons fire gives more chances to spread damage. The spread damage will have a chance to be on point during that time of the other player's are over heating. The player's that are overheating will see this and wish they did single weapon fire too. By the time the alpha strikers get done over heating, the single fire player's will finish them off with their own small alpha strikes into a shut down. Game ends in red 3 kills, blue 12 kills. Now in this idea, time to kill is longer because using alpha strikes early can put the player and their team at a disadvantage.

Edited by ArchSight, 28 October 2015 - 12:04 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 02:56 AM, said:

But this isnt world of warships. People play this game because they dont want to play world of warships. If they wanted to play world of warships they would play world of warships.

Yup, but instant convergence, ECM which unites several electronic items in one, heatscale without penalties, heavy (and partly assault) ballerinas which dance nimbly around their own axis...that is BT, right?

Sorry, but when something doesn't fit your argumentation, you shouldn't just close your eyes

Khobai, on 28 October 2015 - 10:04 AM, said:

?

10. But each dice roll is independent of the others. The dice rolls dont get harder just because youre firing more weapons at once.

So thats not at all the same thing as cone of fire.

2x10 (to hit & to find the location). That's right. It is no CoF it is more widely spread.

@Mystere: That, however, makes weapons which focus damage (PPC, AC/20s etc) on one location so valuable and feared. In TT no one in their right mind let an AC/20 equipped mech get near their mech.
In MWO the AC/20 has not nearly that *oh shiiiiiit* feeling like in the TT

Edited by Bush Hopper, 28 October 2015 - 12:12 PM.

[JigglyMoobs]

Praetor Knight, on 28 October 2015 - 11:44 AM, said:

Can you explain why that would be a problem, if many consider Heavies and Assaults to be overly represented as-is?



And the random spreading should still hit the target, and a player with good aim will still land much of their damage on the intended target if we can test such a targeting system

it will be a lot of fun:

http://www.twitch.tv/ngngtv/c/4637214

except people on the receiving end of this will grow tired of being on the receiving end of this, and we'll have a whole new round of complaints.

Quote

SRMs are in need of an overhaul, and so I'd like to see them tested with SSRM bone targeting when a lock is acquired and still be dumb-fired as LRMs are, or just straight up using LRM coding for them.

I see, so your new metabis the loyalty cent with radar derp.

Quote

And I haven't commented on the need to reduce agility across the board, starting with turning off the Mech Tree Efficiencies and then boosting mechs back to what they might need on a case by case basis.

and would you also like to see a lower server population longer queue times and more skill mismatch? because I think the player base is too strong right now, needs nerf. this should do that nicely.

Edited by JigglyMoobs, 28 October 2015 - 12:13 PM.