1094 replies to this topic

[Nemesis Duck]

No cones, unless it's to be put on your head, and In that case carry on.

[AntiCitizenJuan]

RNG based aiming is trash. No.

[Imperius]

TexAce, on 10 February 2016 - 01:48 PM, said:

So you guys can nitpick why I used the number 9 instead of the number 3?

I'm glad there are enough people to not have to have everything laid down in front of them to understand a CONCEPT.

Hmm, wonder if this is how PGI feels when players tell them how to balance.

[pyrocomp]

Imperius, on 10 February 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

Hmm, wonder if this is how PGI feels when players tell them how to balance.

Constructive feedback is always welcome. From personal experience. Some times feedback and critique is really needed but not provided. Also from personal experience.

[Mystere]

lex conway, on 10 February 2016 - 04:23 PM, said:

No cones, unless it's to be put on your head, and In that case carry on.

AntiCitizenJuan, on 10 February 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

RNG based aiming is trash. No.

Your rationales for saying no are so informative.

Edited by Mystere, 10 February 2016 - 04:44 PM.

[ice trey]

40 pages? Holy crapstacks.

But as for me, totally for it. As someone who's been playing the game for over a decade, and reading the novels for twice that, I can say for sure that a cone-of-fire mechanic better recreates the Battletech setting in a game, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. Some people tend to think that "Skill" can only be achieved through pinpoint accuracy, but I'm pretty sure that Counterstrike's following would have other things to say about that.

I also made a thread about it during the early open/closed beta days. Again, people seem to have a very narrow perception of what skill is. "Skill isn't conscious but subconscious. It's not about positioning or balancing stability versus mobility, but how quick your nerves are and how accurately and quickly you can put that crosshair over something". But this is Battletech - MechWarriors in giant, cobbled-together but near-invincible Battlemechs that are barely understood - not Area 51 or house of the Dead, where it's point, trigger, dead.

Most of the issues that PGI has faced in making this game balanced stems from the fact that they've set it up that most every shot is pinpoint accurate on the reticule. Having to make lasers slow and drawn out, having to boost the armor to twice it's canon rates... it pretty well all stems from the fact that they're putting all the power in the players' abilities - but those abilities are all in reflex, less in critical thinking.

Cone of fire would give players a reason to consider whether approaching at top speed or a walking pace. It would also better show the difference of why 4 medium lasers aren't as effective as an AC20. When the damage is spread out, the mechs survive much longer. We can see a whole lot less pinpoint 60 damage mechs. Spread damage means every mech lasts a little longer on the field. Harassing lights have to expose themselves longer. Assaults can lead the charge longer, and the game really starts to live true to the name "The thinking mans' shooter", rather than a twitch-clicky dead in two alphas game.

As for arguments that "Modern tanks can hit a target while moving at 6 billion miles away", sure, whatever, but the Battletech setting is really more of a glorified World War 2 with giant robots. Accuracy isn't great, Mechs are far from comfortable, and you don't have the best the world has to offer. Most machines aren't running on modern targeting computers, but rather glorified hundred-year-old 286es with amber-screen monitors overheating and struggling to keep all the weapons systems pointing in the same direction. This is not a high tech setting. It's a setting of failing tech. You consider yourself lucky that you've found a 300 year old dell laptop in an abandoned bunker somewhere in a forgotten corner of space that has instructions on how to build a hydroponic farm.

Edited by ice trey, 10 February 2016 - 04:53 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

ice trey, on 10 February 2016 - 04:47 PM, said:

"Skill isn't conscious but subconscious. It's not about positioning or balancing stability versus mobility, but how quick your nerves are and how accurately and quickly you can put that crosshair over something"

So reflexes, not skill.

[Nemesis Duck]

Skill is better than chance. There will always be an element of chance in cones. If there is no RNG in aiming, then all factors can be predictable and by extension controllable. If I miss it's my fault. When I hit, I'm the best, not lucky.

Close the distance to be more accurate with my long range, direct fire weapon? Nay, drink again.

I already think there's some of this already going on, but I wont talk about it here out of fear of retribution. I can only say that handicaps and crutches do not impress me at all (turn me off) and if Russ wants an esport game then he's going to have to establish a sense of integrity in the brand. A RNG of any sort would be an arrow in integrity's knee.

Edited by lex conway, 10 February 2016 - 05:17 PM.

[Dagorlad13]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 February 2016 - 05:01 PM, said:

So reflexes, not skill.

You can train your muscle memory and reflexes through repetition, so therefore, it is skill.

[Livewyr]

lex conway, on 10 February 2016 - 05:05 PM, said:

Skill is better than chance. There will always be an element of chance in cones. If there is no RNG in aiming, then all can factors can be predictable and by extension controllable. If I miss it's my fault. When I hit, I'm the best, not lucky.

Which means you don't need to think. Just twitch accurately.

That is our whole point. We want to introduce some thought into the game. Some realism injected into this game, in the form of not perfect accuracy 100% of the time, would make it a thinking mans shooter, rather than twitch candy crush. Instead of just twitching accurately (because you know that everything is inherently in your control) you have to think about how to reduce the risks that your shot may miss at range. Thinking is the key part that is missing currently.


Every Sniper is a marksman.
Not every marksman is a Sniper.

IronClaws, on 10 February 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

You can train your muscle memory and reflexes through repetition, so therefore, it is skill.

By that requirement alone, literally anything can be a skill. (Why do we have minimum wage jobs again?)

Edited by Livewyr, 10 February 2016 - 05:18 PM.

[pyrocomp]

IronClaws, on 10 February 2016 - 05:14 PM, said:

You can train your muscle memory and reflexes through repetition, so therefore, it is skill.

That will be a reaction and still reflexes. Skill is (by def.) an ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). So convergence (mechanic) is not a skill. The ability to hold that beam on the target that requires not only twitch reflexes but also and aticipation of target reaction and movement (that comes from hours of play with keen attention on how it goes and why it goes that way). Leading for ballistics is a skill. Quick precise click on a target is somewhat a skill (motoric one, mouse precision movement, can be aquired in minesweeper, by the way). This game... I don't know, but mostly synthetic definition of skill should include also ability to predict enemy team moves and tricks, ability to gather a plan, to explain it and to lead people through it. So simple 'I can click a LCT ST from 1000 m' is not an entire skill.

[SQW]

The anti-cof crowd is buttoning down on the 'skill' angle when almost every other game with a gun since Counter Strike has moved to a cof because pin point accuracy is just lame.

Able to manage RNG bullets is far more indicative of your skill than relying twitch reflex and the computer giving your perfect accuracy. If you can't handle RNG in anything then you are still wading in the kiddie pool. Why? Because the more certainty an action has, the less skill it is required to implement it due to low variables.

You know what games with perfect scan hit weapons are called nowadays? Arcade shooters. This COF argument is really just a question of if you are a Serious Sam person or an ARMA person.

Edited by SQW, 10 February 2016 - 05:42 PM.

[oldradagast]

SQW, on 10 February 2016 - 05:40 PM, said:

The anti-cof crowd is buttoning down on the 'skill' angle when almost every other game with a gun since Counter Strike has moved to a cof because pin point accuracy is just lame.

Able to manage RNG bullets is far more indicative of your skill than relying twitch reflex and the computer giving your perfect accuracy. If you can't handle RNG in anything then you are still wading in the kiddie pool. Why? Because the more certainty an action has, the less skill it is required to implement it due to low variables.

You know what games with perfect scan hit weapons are called nowadays? Arcade shooters. This COF argument is really just a question of if you are a Serious Sam person or an ARMA person.

The "skillz" crowd are laughable at this point. Anyone who thinks convergence is skill is insane. Adding a small cone of fire, as proposed, will in no way punish their (self-proclaimed) amazing ability to hit targets far more often than "stupid noobs" can. Sure, at long ranges there will be a bit of damage loss and scatter, but if these "skillz" clowns are half as good as they claim to be, they should still be able to handily defeat all the "stupid noobs" who are nowhere near as skilled as them. Unless - as we all suspect - the "skillz" group is just relying on pinpoint alphas as their only real edge over the "bads" they so hate.

It's a joke. Convergence is not skill and pinpoint damage is anathema to both the Battletech rules system AND good FPS game design. Adding a cone of fire is not going to suddenly make poor players great, great player poor, or poor players even worse... but it WILL help resolve the root of all balance issues in this game that have existed since Closed Beta.

[Nemesis Duck]

Weapons have a range component that needs to be factored in, penalties for firing while moving, burn times, all this makes one shot difficult enough. Sometimes I only get one shot from a position, then I have to flee. After all the effort to set myself up for that one good shot, to have it miss while my reticule was on target would be disheartening.

[Dagorlad13]

pyrocomp, on 10 February 2016 - 05:23 PM, said:

That will be a reaction and still reflexes. Skill is (by def.) an ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). So convergence (mechanic) is not a skill. The ability to hold that beam on the target that requires not only twitch reflexes but also and aticipation of target reaction and movement (that comes from hours of play with keen attention on how it goes and why it goes that way). Leading for ballistics is a skill. Quick precise click on a target is somewhat a skill (motoric one, mouse precision movement, can be aquired in minesweeper, by the way). This game... I don't know, but mostly synthetic definition of skill should include also ability to predict enemy team moves and tricks, ability to gather a plan, to explain it and to lead people through it. So simple 'I can click a LCT ST from 1000 m' is not an entire skill.

Even with weapons converged you still have to aim / lead your target. Weapons mounted in the same location would be very easy to calibrate so they converge when fired. If the issue is the speed at which arm mounted weapons converge with torso mounted weapons, there is already a delay for that in the game. Maybe people should just be asking for arm-lock to be removed instead of some stupid RNG COF system being added.

lex conway, on 10 February 2016 - 06:12 PM, said:

Weapons have a range component that needs to be factored in, penalties for firing while moving, burn times, all this makes one shot difficult enough. Sometimes I only get one shot from a position, then I have to flee. After all the effort to set myself up for that one good shot, to have it miss while my reticule was on target would be disheartening.

Exactly. The COF crowd just wants another crutch for bad players.

Edited by IronClaws, 10 February 2016 - 06:20 PM.

[Dagorlad13]

Livewyr, on 10 February 2016 - 05:17 PM, said:

Every Sniper is a marksman.
Not every marksman is a Sniper.


By that requirement alone, literally anything can be a skill. (Why do we have minimum wage jobs again?)

Bad analogies.

[Clint Steel]

I'm fine with the idea of a cone of fire, depending on the implementation.

[Dagorlad13]

Clint Steel, on 10 February 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

I'm fine with the idea of a cone of fire, depending on the implementation.

LBX Autocannons and SRMs already have "cone fire", so use those weapons and enjoy.

[Summon3r]

OP +infinite, ive been a huge proponent of some type of cone of fire since day 1. great presentation anychance you can get that to Russ via twitter lol

[Mystere]

IronClaws, on 10 February 2016 - 06:19 PM, said:

Exactly. The COF crowd just wants another crutch for bad players.

More misrepresentation. <smh>