67 replies to this topic

[Matthew Ace]

cdlord, on 05 January 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

Opinion: All weapons should have zero damage at their listed TT max range.

You know that there are also Extreme and LOS range bracket (source: CBT Tactical Operations) right?

My opinion: the more stuff that adds to gameplay derived from Tactical Operations, the better it is.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 05 January 2016 - 03:08 PM.

[Thunder Child]

Wintersdark, on 05 January 2016 - 02:32 PM, said:

Yeah, Stjobe, you know I'm normally with you about such things, but this time? No leg to stand on.

Laser ranges in MWO - in Battletech entirely, actually - are ridiculous. So yeah, they attenuate really quickly. But our lasers already stop at a certain length, they're just making that length make sense, and instead of being full brightness and thickness till they reach that point, they'll lose intensity gradually. Thus, damage done makes brightness and "power" of the beam.

The scales involved are silly (which is a fundamental Battletech bit of silly), but what's happening makes a lot of sense.

If I remember rightly from some of the earlier novels, the Lasers themselves actually had LoS Range. You could hit that Locust 30km out that was skylining itself on a ridge. The problem in 3025 BT was that the Targeting Systems were so degraded by that point (they just don't make chewing gum like they used to....), that the weapons had an abysmally short effective range.
And the Laser Beams that we see in game were supposedly after images, rather than the actual beam. Which, when you think about it, would make MWO rather trippy if they actually followed that line of reasoning. A sweep of the laser would result in a great big fan of light which would slowly fade, Lol.

Anyways, TL:DR, Fluff stuff makes sense for the early BT, not so much after the Clans come back. Prettier lasers are cool, though it would be nice if they put resources towards other things. Oh well, progress is progress. Quit yer bitchin!

[Wintersdark]

Thunder Child, on 05 January 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

If I remember rightly from some of the earlier novels, the Lasers themselves actually had LoS Range. You could hit that Locust 30km out that was skylining itself on a ridge. The problem in 3025 BT was that the Targeting Systems were so degraded by that point (they just don't make chewing gum like they used to....), that the weapons had an abysmally short effective range.
And the Laser Beams that we see in game were supposedly after images, rather than the actual beam. Which, when you think about it, would make MWO rather trippy if they actually followed that line of reasoning. A sweep of the laser would result in a great big fan of light which would slowly fade, Lol.

Anyways, TL:DR, Fluff stuff makes sense for the early BT, not so much after the Clans come back. Prettier lasers are cool, though it would be nice if they put resources towards other things. Oh well, progress is progress. Quit yer bitchin!

Yeah, the novels have all sorts of random silly fluff to explain away silly battletech things. I love battletech, but none of it should ever be compared with reality. That way lies madness.

In this case, though, it's not about making lasers prettier, its about making form and function match so they make more sense for newer players.



And really: Making things make more sense for newer players rather than being needlessly obtuse is not "dumbing down" anything. Lasers still work the same way. Their appearance will just more accurately reflect what they're doing.

Either way, they don't *look* anything whatsoever like real life lasers, so who cares?

[Sandpit]

Wintersdark, on 05 January 2016 - 02:55 PM, said:

Not to mention how ridiculous visible laser beams are in the first place.

it's called a video game and visual representations are important for any number of reasons. I've never understood the whole "but science" thing when you're talking fiction.

I don't care what real world physics say, I'm playing a video game that includes things like
FTL travel
galactic warfare
big stompy robots

Wintersdark, on 05 January 2016 - 03:17 PM, said:

Yeah, the novels have all sorts of random silly fluff to explain away silly battletech things. I love battletech, but none of it should ever be compared with reality. That way lies madness.

In this case, though, it's not about making lasers prettier, its about making form and function match so they make more sense for newer players.



And really: Making things make more sense for newer players rather than being needlessly obtuse is not "dumbing down" anything. Lasers still work the same way. Their appearance will just more accurately reflect what they're doing.

Either way, they don't *look* anything whatsoever like real life lasers, so who cares?

ding ding ding

[Wintersdark]

Sandpit, on 05 January 2016 - 04:16 PM, said:

it's called a video game and visual representations are important for any number of reasons. I've never understood the whole "but science" thing when you're talking fiction.

I don't care what real world physics say, I'm playing a video game that includes things like
FTL travel
galactic warfare
big stompy robots

To be clear - I'm not sure how you read my comment re: real laser beams being invisible - it was meant to be showing how absurd it is to say "X element of how this thing looks is unrealistic!" when it's a magic space ray; given any element of how they look will be "incorrect" because the reality is that you can't see any laser beams in the first place. Previous and following comments reiterated the silly fictional not-even-close to realistic nature of Battletech to begin with

I definitely agree, though. While I understand that you want things to make sense within the given fictitious reality (elsewise all is chaos) arguing how things should look/be Because Science/Present-day Real Military Hardware/Whatever else is pointless.

Battletech in particular is really bad this way - it's not set in a hard-scifi sort of universe where things are supposed to work as per real science at all. Hell, the very nature of battlemechs as war machines is pretty silly. As such.... trying to use that as an argument quickly fails.

But... People will never stop. There will ALWAYS be huge megathreads of people complaining about how a weapon works, because this US tank has a gun that big and shoots that far and whatever and the whole thing displaces this many tons blah blah blah.

Magic Space Robots shoot Magic Space Rayguns.

[Sandpit]

Wintersdark, on 05 January 2016 - 04:25 PM, said:

To be clear - I'm not sure how you read my comment re: real laser beams being invisible - it was meant to be showing how absurd it is to say "X element of how this thing looks is unrealistic!" when it's a magic space ray; given any element of how they look will be "incorrect" because the reality is that you can't see any laser beams in the first place. Previous and following comments reiterated the silly fictional not-even-close to realistic nature of Battletech to begin with

I definitely agree, though. While I understand that you want things to make sense within the given fictitious reality (elsewise all is chaos) arguing how things should look/be Because Science/Present-day Real Military Hardware/Whatever else is pointless.

Battletech in particular is really bad this way - it's not set in a hard-scifi sort of universe where things are supposed to work as per real science at all. Hell, the very nature of battlemechs as war machines is pretty silly. As such.... trying to use that as an argument quickly fails.

But... People will never stop. There will ALWAYS be huge megathreads of people complaining about how a weapon works, because this US tank has a gun that big and shoots that far and whatever and the whole thing displaces this many tons blah blah blah.

Magic Space Robots shoot Magic Space Rayguns.

agreed

it's just a strawman usually for people to push their idea or suggestion or vice versa because it's the only counter they can come up with for an idea they don't like

[Strum Wealh]

Matthew Ace, on 05 January 2016 - 03:04 PM, said:

You know that there are also Extreme and LOS range bracket (source: CBT Tactical Operations) right?

My opinion: the more stuff that adds to gameplay derived from Tactical Operations, the better it is.

Yeah... they tried that with the ECM system, and look at what happed with that!

Now, personally, I would have liked to have seen PGI go with BattleForce-scale ranges (6x standard CBT "in-meters" ranges; 1 hex = 180 meters in BF, versus 1 hex = 30 meters in CBT) & correspondingly-scaled maps (minimum 10 kilometer radius/20 kilometer diameter), and Solaris/MDR-style weapon recycle times (which would have given the weapons a much wider range of recycle times, rather than having the majority of weapons at 2-4 seconds; see the table here), but that's just me.

Edited by Strum Wealh, 05 January 2016 - 07:28 PM.

[DaZur]

Sandpit, on 05 January 2016 - 12:16 PM, said:

well there's a few other factors as well.
color blind comes to mind right off the bat. I've talked to a few players that have that issue and it can be a bit difficult for them. Plus, as you said, the new players really have no easy way of knowing what a "max" range of a lot of weapons are. We take for granted that this information was dispersed years ago and we know it, new players not so much.

Not intending to be insensitive or blatantly obtuse... I'm just kind'a sick of the "wussification" of so many things in the gaming industry with intent of pandering to the lowest common denominator. I'm just projecting my annoyance...

This just feels like PGI is giving slip on shoes to the kid who owns ones with velcro straps... Sad reality is no one thought it necessary to teach the kid how to tie his shoes in the first place.

I say learn to tie your shoes or go barefoot... But you know me, I'm the sensitive type.

[Aresye]

Almond Brown, on 05 January 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

Take a flashlight, a strong one even, out into the night and see how far you can actually see with it ffs. Light diffuses quite quickly, even a beam that starts out highly focused, diffuses pretty quick. In MWO the max. range of any Laser is whatever your Draw Distance Max setting is...

A flashlight diffuses quickly. A laser does not. That's WHY it's a laser.

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 05 January 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

Not intending to be insensitive or blatantly obtuse... I'm just kind'a sick of the "wussification" of so many things in the gaming industry with intent of pandering to the lowest common denominator. I'm just projecting my annoyance...

This just feels like PGI is giving slip on shoes to the kid who owns ones with velcro straps... Sad reality is no one thought it necessary to teach the kid how to tie his shoes in the first place.

I say learn to tie your shoes or go barefoot... But you know me, I'm the sensitive type.

On this particular issue I don't see it as dumbing anything down though.
It really is confusing for new players to understand
min range
max range
optimal range
diminished returns

The concepts themselves aren't hard to grasp, knowing the actual math and such is. I also like the visual effect more than a laser hitting an invisible wall and just stopping in mid air watching it sizzle lol

[DaZur]

Sandpit, on 05 January 2016 - 08:18 PM, said:

On this particular issue I don't see it as dumbing anything down though.
It really is confusing for new players to understand
min range
max range
optimal range
diminished returns

The concepts themselves aren't hard to grasp, knowing the actual math and such is. I also like the visual effect more than a laser hitting an invisible wall and just stopping in mid air watching it sizzle lol

If this was purely a cosmetic effect I'd be all on board (I'd be more impressed with a soft diffuse versus a vanishing point... but I digress)...

You're right thought, it's not technically dumbing it down. It's more like writing out the instructions in fat crayon at a 3rd grade level...

[Nightmare1]

TamCoan, on 05 January 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

If I understand the wording, the laser will get thinner and vanish. So hopefully it just looks like the light diffuses. *shrug*

That would be reasonable, I think.

I noticed someone saying it would be silly to just have the laser stop at its max range. It wouldn't really, actually. It already does that. Have you ever seen a laser stop in mid-air in front of you on Alpine? That map's large enough that lasers can reach the terminating point of their visual effect, which is far beyond their max range for damage. PGI may be simply shortening this to the actual maximum range, or doing the thinning and then dissipating mechanic. Personally, I hope lasers look like they peter out as their light diffuses over distance. That would be a cool effect.

[ZenFool]

In the books the visible laser beam was said to be artificially added to aid in *gasp* aim(targeting computers were about as complex as Pong). If I recall correctly, there were some brands that were invisible.

As far as this change goes, I don't see an issue with it. They are just making it make sense.

Its not the issue I would have picked to get changed one month into a Steam Launch, but what do I know?

[Deathlike]

Why are we complaining about sharks mechs with laser beams on their freakin' heads?

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 05 January 2016 - 08:27 PM, said:

If this was purely a cosmetic effect I'd be all on board (I'd be more impressed with a soft diffuse versus a vanishing point... but I digress)...

You're right thought, it's not technically dumbing it down. It's more like writing out the instructions in fat crayon at a 3rd grade level...

It is a cosmetic effect
At least that's how I understood it. It doesn't change anything other than the visual of the beam as it travels out to its max range.

[Pjwned]

If people are going to have such an autism fit over this change, then there should be an option in the game settings to keep it the way it is now while also having it disabled by default.

DaZur, on 05 January 2016 - 12:12 PM, said:

HEY! Someone just fired a a medium laser at me (looks down at paper doll) ... No problem, idiot was out of range.

Not sure why this needs a usual representation via a vanishing perspective beam...

Enter the codification of new player experience.

There's nothing wrong with conveying that you took essentially no damage without needing to look at your paper doll, go be a baby somewhere else.

[DaZur]

Sandpit, on 05 January 2016 - 08:40 PM, said:

It is a cosmetic effect
At least that's how I understood it. It doesn't change anything other than the visual of the beam as it travels out to its max range.

Touche'

Fine.. it's visual couched in the premise that terminating beams at their max range will aid in allowing one to distinguish whether they are actually receiving damage.

[DaZur]

Pjwned, on 05 January 2016 - 08:51 PM, said:

Go be a baby somewhere else.

But... but...but... The general wails of indignation heard on this forum makes me feel at home?

[BearFlag]

I suspect the aesthetic of this is going to look kinda funky in practice. Whether it tapers or not is of little consequence. It should actually do the opposite and spread. I doubt there are many new players who fail to grasp the ridiculous damage curve within a week.

The no science in science fiction argument because some of the science is already bad is beyond repair. It's called "science fiction" as a genre because some reasonable semblance of science is used in the suspension of disbelieve in the fiction. Shall we introduce creationism, magic spells and alchemy to MWO? Would you cite "science" then? Oh, here's one: how about if a laser does less damage if you don't have target lock? I'd also like to see a undead priest mech who can resurrect dead mechs as zombie minions.

Sorry. Science is important to science fiction - even science fiction games. Yes, I know, gravity generators and Warp drives are wild speculations. Laser are not. And, yes, BT and MWO are way off on lasers. For example...

1) There is no need to optically "focus" a gigawatt laser. There is plenty of power to damage with out focus.
2) Large diameter beams (multi-cm in Lore) have lower beam divergence than small beams. This means gigawatt class weapons would deal damage at tens and hundreds of kilometers THROUGH a medium and thousands of kilometers in a vacuum
3) Lore mentions lenses. There will be no "lens" on a single element, gigawatt laser. The weapon would not survive due to lens interface reflectance.

And then there's the MWO Magic Medium:
DEFINITION: The Magic Medium is that space between objects in MWO - an atmosphere if you will. It is qualitatively and quantitatively identical on all planets, all maps and at all altitudes. With respect to lasers it offers zero attenuation out to a particular range. This absence of attenuation is not defined in physics but by the weapon specs' "optimal range." Beyond optimal range a familiar linear, if massive, decay takes place.

"Lasers are invisible." Um, in vacuum and at all wavelengths, yes. Through a medium, it depends. For a low power laser in the visible part of the spectrum, you will see it if there's something in the medium for it bounce off of - like fake smoke at a rock concert. A high power laser outside of the visible spectrum may still be visible for its effect on the medium. It all depends on power, wavelength and the components and density of the medium. An inexact metaphor: electron flow is invisible but lightning bolts sure get your attention.

Following the "logic" of the Magic Medium, a laser should be invisible out to optimal range and then visible to maximum (or beyond, I dunno) range as it gives up its energy to the medium. That would look weird.

So we have silly science in MWO and possible silly effects if we use science literally, it boils down to this. How's it look in the game and is there ~some semblance~ of science behind it? Guess we'll see when they patch.

[Tarogato]

cdlord, on 05 January 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

Opinion: W(hy)TF are they wasting resources on laser beam diameter in range v distance when there's so much other things they could specifically devote a weapon projectile artist to???

Maybe ask them how long it took for them to make this change before assuming that it's a waste of resources. Maybe it was only 10 minutes for one person to fiddle around with some numbers and push it to testing. Bam done. You don't know. =P