91 replies to this topic

[Aresye]

Mystere, on 08 February 2016 - 10:00 AM, said:

Because to many people, cone of fire -- or in other words, random numbers -- are the Devil Incarnate Himself and interferes with their leet skills.

If I wanted to play a game with CoF, I'd play Call of Duty or CS:GO.

I'm here to play MechWarrior. Know how many MechWarrior games have had a CoF system?

ZERO

[Mystere]

Aresye, on 08 February 2016 - 12:10 PM, said:

If I wanted to play a game with CoF, I'd play Call of Duty or CS:GO.

I'm here to play MechWarrior. Know how many MechWarrior games have had a CoF system?

ZERO

Does that mean you agreed perfectly with what I said?

[Aresye]

Mystere, on 08 February 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

Does that mean you agreed perfectly with what I said?

Yes, actually.

Personally, I'd rather PGI just simply make the torso crosshair sway with mech movement.

[MischiefSC]

Have convergence set on weapon optimal or fixed and adjust automatically to locked target range after info aquisitiom.

This avoids a lot of Ray issues and isn't any more taxing on historical data; you're at fixed convergence until paper doll then you snap to target range.

Make sense? You want pinpoint you still get it you just need to get a lock first.

Seems like a lot of the perks of convergence so MAH SKILLZ are still relevant (and they should be) but provides a lot of opportunities to throw convergence off.

[1453 R]

TexAce, on 08 February 2016 - 02:45 AM, said:

We can, if they finally get their **** together, put a coder in a room and let him work for a month.

We have CoF already on MGs, what would be the problem to enable just that for the beginning. it would even make sense, you could explain it with Target Computers overloading, you could reduce the CoF with equipping Command Consoles and better TCs, by locking your target, by equipping modules, by pilot skills aimed for CoF reduction.

Hell, its so simple, it would reduce pinpointing, it would tremendously help to balance this game, it would make mechs more distinct, some mechs with arm weapons could be more worth than now.

ITS SO ******* SIMPLE PGI!!!

NO. IT'S. NOT.

Machine guns do not spray projectiles inside a cone of fire. That is not their behavior. No projectiles are involved with machine guns.

When activated, machine guns generate a cone, in which damage is randomly assigned to a target under the cone every 'tic' of MG fire. HSR would pretty much just randomly reroll those damage tics, resulting in different damage being displayed to the MG firing unit than was suffered by the unit fired upon. This is vaguely acceptable with machine guns as they have a very high tic rate and thus tend to sandblast anyways, and also because machine guns are garbage so nobody uses them.

If AC/20 hits were rolled randomly, and different randomly for the firing unit and the unit fired upon? if your TIG information displayed a hit to LT, but the receiving unit ended up taking that hit on right leg because HSR re-randomization of cone of fire/delayed convergence?

Well then. What now?

Machine gun 'CoF' is worthless and does not help whatsoever in creating cone-of-fire coding for discrete projectiles or non-dispersing tic-based weapons like lasers. All it does is help ensure that machine guns are pointless.

[pbiggz]

1453 R, on 08 February 2016 - 12:53 PM, said:

NO. IT'S. NOT.

Machine guns do not spray projectiles inside a cone of fire. That is not their behavior. No projectiles are involved with machine guns.

When activated, machine guns generate a cone, in which damage is randomly assigned to a target under the cone every 'tic' of MG fire. HSR would pretty much just randomly reroll those damage tics, resulting in different damage being displayed to the MG firing unit than was suffered by the unit fired upon. This is vaguely acceptable with machine guns as they have a very high tic rate and thus tend to sandblast anyways, and also because machine guns are garbage so nobody uses them.

If AC/20 hits were rolled randomly, and different randomly for the firing unit and the unit fired upon? if your TIG information displayed a hit to LT, but the receiving unit ended up taking that hit on right leg because HSR re-randomization of cone of fire/delayed convergence?

Well then. What now?

Machine gun 'CoF' is worthless and does not help whatsoever in creating cone-of-fire coding for discrete projectiles or non-dispersing tic-based weapons like lasers. All it does is help ensure that machine guns are pointless.

Thats what iv been trying to say the whole time here. Im not opposed to a carefully implemented COF system, but pretending its simple? thats just people trying to push an agenda, its far from that.

Take TexAce's system.

Well presented, but displays very little in the way of actual suggested number values. Whats the actual COF angle? how does it change? How does it interact with lots of small weapons? A few big weapons? A combination of big and small weapons? What about modules like advanced zoom. What about zoom in general. Do those effect it? How? How could you control those effects for balancing after implementation? Then of course theres the other things he has mentioned but hasn't shown numbers for. Heat, constant redlining, speed, jumpjets. How do those effect it?

This is, contrary to what many are saying, quite complex.

[Moldur]

That looks more fun than MWO.

[Davegt27]

The game does not need convergence it just adds another level of complexity that is not needed

The game is already controlled by the computer

So they can make your LRMs do like zero damage or a lot of damage
Your 3 lasers do damage like 2 lasers and so on

They have other ways to get to the desired result

[Troutmonkey]

Mystere, on 08 February 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

I will have to disagree on the highlighted portion. The trick with fixed convergence is to not to go short and be cognizant of your weapons' relative position to the center of the reticule. By doing so, you don't even need a dot/marker per weapon. And remember, there is nothing in a fixed convergence system that prevents it from allowing a convergence distance of infinity.

Having said that, I still prefer having convergence on target lock simply because that makes acquiring locks much more meaningful.

Setting it to infinity == fixed convergence.
Manual convergence is worse because of Murphy's Law - what can go wrong, will go wrong. If you expect players to be able to manually adjust range while running around at 100+kph while trying to manage heat and weapon cooldowns you're dreaming. If there was manual convergence the vast majority would simply max out the distance and leave it their as it's one more thing to worry about in the heat of battle. Or maybe they'd just quit in frustration because all their weapons just can't hit.

As for No convergence unless locked, it's a terrible system that poses many problems. For instance, if I lock onto one mech but shoot another, do I still have perfect convergence? And if not, when is convergence lost? Is it when my mouse is no longer over the locked mech? Then how will I lead targets? If the system just adjust a fixed convergence point to the distance of the target, from which point of the target are we measuring distance from? There's lots to be address and it still doesn't solve the issue - mechs will still be hit with 80 point alpha to a single pixel, instead it will just happen 1 second later.

Oni74, on 08 February 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

I think convergence should be a arm-mounted weapon-only benefit/cost balance.

• As an arm mounted weapon, it is at greater risk of being destroyed, but benefit of being mechanically adjusted by computer for weapons fire convergence.
  
• Torso mounted weapons, however, are safer from destruction but should not benefit from convergence since they aren't any mechanisms to adjust the weapon barrel for convergence.

With this type of cost-benefit setup, mech specialization and variety goes up and caters to different types of players - risk averse vs. risk takers.

Combined with weapon hardpoint sizing (another wishful change for MWO), we'd have significantly greater variety of mechs and customization of the MWO experience.

You're just complicating balancing here by throwing a massive spanner into the works. Now mechs without good arm mounts become significantly worse. You're actually going to reduce the quantity of viable mechs because the majority of the time non-converged weapons will not hit where you aim.

Aresye, on 08 February 2016 - 12:10 PM, said:

If I wanted to play a game with CoF, I'd play Call of Duty or CS:GO.

I'm here to play MechWarrior. Know how many MechWarrior games have had a CoF system?

ZERO

Well we already have a CoF for MGs and JJs. And lets not forget the PPC in this video that everyone got so excited about all these years ago

[Mcgral18]

On the one hand, Magical Instantaneous Perfectly Pinpoint convergence has been the underlying problem with weapon balance in MWO with exception to the 90 damage SRM6 and Lurmageddons (both related to Splash being y+zx damage)

On the other hand,
Meh

PGI has no intention of MWO even being Shooty Stompy Robots, and there's no real point in discussing it.

HSR prevents progressive, CoF can be annoying depending on size, or worthless at preventing spread at all
Static promotes a select few robots which would reign supreme (Loki with 3 in a close triangle, HGN 732 with 3 perfectly vertical and actuated arm, Whale with pairs of high, inline mounts, Crow arms (lesser extend Nova), Hunch's Hunch)

Magical convergence is easy, and PGI generally likes to keep things that way.

[pbiggz]

Davegt27, on 08 February 2016 - 01:22 PM, said:

The game does not need convergence it just adds another level of complexity that is not needed

The game is already controlled by the computer

So they can make your LRMs do like zero damage or a lot of damage
Your 3 lasers do damage like 2 lasers and so on

They have other ways to get to the desired result

No the game needs convergence, AND heat scale, instead of ghost heat. Heat scale is meant to reign in alpha strikes with significant risk vs reward decision making because running the bar high constantly should have serious implications. COF is intended to ensure that putting all the damage from a high alpha into a single point is rare, if not impossible.

What COF and heat scale are NOT meant to do is entirely eliminate snipers, or entirely eliminate alpha strikes, or entirely eliminate boating. These things are, whether you like it or not, part of the game, and they always will be.

I think the primary issue I have with COF and heatscale proponents isnt the idea of those systems, I'd much rather have a well implemented and fair COF and heatscale system in game than ghost heat. My primary issue is the fact that the biggest proponents of COF and heat scale are proponents of that system because they want their ABSOLUTELY **** mixed bag battletech special build to be as good as a competitive mech, or, in other words, they want to nerf the meta players hard.

This is not how you balance a game, and the implications of targetting meta nerfs are wide reaching and dangerous.

These people think that you should have to chain fire your ER medium lasers standing still just to make sure you hit your target. This isn't fun, and it will never be, and as much as mrblastman and khobai think its the way it should be, they're quite simply, categorically, wrong.

My point all along has been that, though I have some ideas, I do not have all the answers to the COF and heat scale questions yet, nor does anyone else here, and anyone who says its SIMPLE or EASY to come up with is lying to you. This is not simple. This is not easy. These are difficult questions that require alot of review and broad design changes as these systems effect massive parts of the game.

Do. Not. Be. Fooled. There is an anti-comp agenda here. I don't give a **** about competitive play, I haven't in a long time, but I don't subscribe to this casual vs meta narrative. Its just being used as a tool for bad players to try to get what they want by changing the rules, which hilariously, will never work, because PGI rarely changes the rules.

Edited by pbiggz, 08 February 2016 - 03:28 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

1453 R, on 08 February 2016 - 12:53 PM, said:

NO. IT'S. NOT.

Machine guns do not spray projectiles inside a cone of fire. That is not their behavior. No projectiles are involved with machine guns.

When activated, machine guns generate a cone, in which damage is randomly assigned to a target under the cone every 'tic' of MG fire. HSR would pretty much just randomly reroll those damage tics, resulting in different damage being displayed to the MG firing unit than was suffered by the unit fired upon. This is vaguely acceptable with machine guns as they have a very high tic rate and thus tend to sandblast anyways, and also because machine guns are garbage so nobody uses them.

If AC/20 hits were rolled randomly, and different randomly for the firing unit and the unit fired upon? if your TIG information displayed a hit to LT, but the receiving unit ended up taking that hit on right leg because HSR re-randomization of cone of fire/delayed convergence?

Well then. What now?

Machine gun 'CoF' is worthless and does not help whatsoever in creating cone-of-fire coding for discrete projectiles or non-dispersing tic-based weapons like lasers. All it does is help ensure that machine guns are pointless.

Um, you understanding of how this would all work is flawed. All that would happen is exactly what would happen now when using Jump Jets, except only when firing over a certain limit.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:25 PM, said:

Um, you understanding of how this would all work is flawed. All that would happen is exactly what would happen now when using Jump Jets, except only when firing over a certain limit.

So basically you would only be able to reliably shoot under that limit, forcing chain fire is good way to both kill lasers, and make PPFLD the only reliable way to do anything, well that or just take SRMs and say **** it which what would probably end up happening.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 February 2016 - 03:28 PM.

[pbiggz]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 February 2016 - 03:27 PM, said:

So basically you would only be able to reliably shoot under that limit, forcing chain fire is good way to both kill lasers, and make PPFLD the only reliable way to do anything, well that or just take SRMs and say **** it which what would probably end up happening.

Pretty much. You would see only link fired gauss rifles, ultra 20s, ultra 10s, ac20s, and PPCs, OR, more likely, massive SRM splat and streak boats.

It would be eerily similar to mechwarrior 4 meta. tilted unfairly to huge weapons and high front loaded alphas from weapons less effected. Ironically, COF done wrong, as a method to reign in alpha meta, might just make it even worse.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

pbiggz, on 08 February 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

It would be eerily similar to mechwarrior 4 meta.

The MW4 meta in the same conditions (FFP, H/LA, etc) is actually closer to what we have now. Back then it was ERLL/LL spam for days with some Gauss (all varieties) thrown in for good measure. The cat nap glitch didn't help things either.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 February 2016 - 03:38 PM.

[pbiggz]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 February 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

The MW4 meta in the same conditions (FFP, H/LA, etc) is actually closer to what we have now. Back then it was ERLL/LL spam for days with some Gauss (all varieties) thrown in for good measure.

triple ER PPC double Gauss glad bag bro.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

pbiggz, on 08 February 2016 - 03:37 PM, said:

triple ER PPC double Gauss glad bag bro.

Maybe with 3PV allowed, otherwise the 7 ERLL Nova Cat and 6 ERLL Timby were some of the best mechs, then you have the Ninja SCat/Ryo loadouts that abused teams who just didn't know what to do when an enemy team goes all harassers.

[Mystere]

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

Setting it to infinity == fixed convergence.

Zero convergence is a very specific subset of fixed convergence. It is just convergence distance set to infinity.

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

Manual convergence is worse because of Murphy's Law - what can go wrong, will go wrong.

Red herring.

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

If you expect players to be able to manually adjust range while running around at 100+kph while trying to manage heat and weapon cooldowns you're dreaming. If there was manual convergence the vast majority would simply max out the distance and leave it their as it's one more thing to worry about in the heat of battle. Or maybe they'd just quit in frustration because all their weapons just can't hit.

Ideally, people would set their default convergence distance according to the intended playstyle and loadout of the Mech they're deploying. Heck, PGI can even implement preset distances.

As for changing the convergence distance in the heat of battle, I can use presets mentioned above, the mouse scroll wheel, a pair of vertically adjacent keyboard or G13 keys, or any free analog axis or slider switch on my HOTAS. And the same trick I mentioned in another post applies: find a good enough distance to target suitable to your loadout.

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

As for No convergence unless locked, it's a terrible system that poses many problems. For instance, if I lock onto one mech but shoot another, do I still have perfect convergence? And if not, when is convergence lost? Is it when my mouse is no longer over the locked mech? Then how will I lead targets? If the system just adjust a fixed convergence point to the distance of the target, from which point of the target are we measuring distance from?

For simplicity, the convergence distance is the distance between your mech and the currently or previously locked target, unless manually changed.

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

There's lots to be address and it still doesn't solve the issue - mechs will still be hit with 80 point alpha to a single pixel, instead it will just happen 1 second later.

I already call that a big improvement. Remember, we used to have delayed convergence -- which is what people actually want but PGI cannot provide. As such, this is a good enough substitute as far as I am concerned.

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

You're just complicating balancing here by throwing a massive spanner into the works. Now mechs without good arm mounts become significantly worse. You're actually going to reduce the quantity of viable mechs because the majority of the time non-converged weapons will not hit where you aim.

Why not start enumerating said Mechs?

[Troutmonkey]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 February 2016 - 03:27 PM, said:

So basically you would only be able to reliably shoot under that limit, forcing chain fire is good way to both kill lasers, and make PPFLD the only reliable way to do anything, well that or just take SRMs and say **** it which what would probably end up happening.

It depends on how harsh you set the limit from which the cone starts to open up.

4 Medium lasers? Fine, 100% accuracy
8 Medium lasers? Yeah your shots are going to spread between the CT and ST of an Atlas
2 PPCs? Slight nerf to accuarcy
8 PPC direstar? Yeah your shots are going to go friggin wild. You'll be lucky if you get 2 or 3 hits on the target mech at all

"Reasonable" alpha say under 25 won't be affected. 25-30 would have a slight cone, 30-50 would have a good sized cone, 50+ and shots start spraying real wide.

pbiggz, on 08 February 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

Pretty much. You would see only link fired gauss rifles, ultra 20s, ultra 10s, ac20s, and PPCs, OR, more likely, massive SRM splat and streak boats.

It would be eerily similar to mechwarrior 4 meta. tilted unfairly to huge weapons and high front loaded alphas from weapons less effected. Ironically, COF done wrong, as a method to reign in alpha meta, might just make it even worse.

Except that the CoF will be pre-emptive and affect accuracy at the moment of firing. You won't be able to cheat by firing massive pin point alpha before the CoF happens.

Please I ask everyone to actually read Bill's proposal instead of assuming the worst possible implementation of CoF
http://www.qqmercs.c...ence-and-clans/

[Davegt27]

pbiggz, on 08 February 2016 - 03:24 PM, said:

No the game needs convergence, AND heat scale, instead of ghost heat. Heat scale is meant to reign in alpha strikes with significant risk vs reward decision making because running the bar high constantly should have serious implications. COF is intended to ensure that putting all the damage from a high alpha into a single point is rare, if not impossible.

What COF and heat scale are NOT meant to do is entirely eliminate snipers, or entirely eliminate alpha strikes, or entirely eliminate boating. These things are, whether you like it or not, part of the game, and they always will be.

I think the primary issue I have with COF and heatscale proponents isnt the idea of those systems, I'd much rather have a well implemented and fair COF and heatscale system in game than ghost heat. My primary issue is the fact that the biggest proponents of COF and heat scale are proponents of that system because they want their ABSOLUTELY **** mixed bag battletech special build to be as good as a competitive mech, or, in other words, they want to nerf the meta players hard.

This is not how you balance a game, and the implications of targetting meta nerfs are wide reaching and dangerous.

These people think that you should have to chain fire your ER medium lasers standing still just to make sure you hit your target. This isn't fun, and it will never be, and as much as mrblastman and khobai think its the way it should be, they're quite simply, categorically, wrong.

My point all along has been that, though I have some ideas, I do not have all the answers to the COF and heat scale questions yet, nor does anyone else here, and anyone who says its SIMPLE or EASY to come up with is lying to you. This is not simple. This is not easy. These are difficult questions that require alot of review and broad design changes as these systems effect massive parts of the game.

Do. Not. Be. Fooled. There is an anti-comp agenda here. I don't give a **** about competitive play, I haven't in a long time, but I don't subscribe to this casual vs meta narrative. Its just being used as a tool for bad players to try to get what they want by changing the rules, which hilariously, will never work, because PGI rarely changes the rules.

I see