1094 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 10:21 AM, said:

Yes PGI should do more to promote organized team play, and a REALLY good way to do that is to promote team play at ALL levels (which they don't). Lolpha snipers discourage team play on non-organized (TS and unit) teams. Of course sometimes PUGs work as a team, but I can attest that is a small percentage of the time.

Balancing based on lowest common denominators doesn't generally work so well.

Also, what lolpha snipers are we talking about? DPS (and range quirks) tends to be more important in ERLL fights where the BLR-1S or STK-3H is often used (which only mount 4 ERLL).

At best, the lolpha comes about when you reach 300-500m (mid-range) where you have Clan laser vomit (68 point alpha, but long duration) and mechs like the Black Knight (58 point alpha with a good short duration) spewing lasers.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 February 2016 - 11:00 AM.

[Dino Might]

tortuousGoddess, on 09 February 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

I don't have any misconception about this. The proposal still ends with an RNG at the end of movement and heat effects, both of which are idiotic for their own reasons aside from the RNG itself, and the rest of it is all still left up to random. That's what I meant when I used the words "full randomizer", is that it's a randomization within the CoF that is not based on any in game data other than the two defined factors that determine its size. It's not like any of the environmental or damage effects will alter it, so real world CoF simulation is irrelevant to this discussion.

You need to stop with the real world comparisons that don't connect. Making a good game comes before heedlessly adding "realism".

From what you said, "full randomizer" means, "involves RNG." Okay. In that case, I don't know what is wrong with that. Do you know how the normal distribution works? Do you understand the idea of probability density functions? Have you ever seen a normal distribution? I cannot have an intelligent conversation with you on this topic until you learn a bit about what you are so adamantly opposed to. If you've never contemplated modeling real world situations with random variables, then I can't convince you of what you do not understand. Despite providing evidence of use in analysis that determines real world designs and applications, if you will not accept the reality that is literally in front of your eyes, I can't do anything more to help.

I am giving up on this one-sided discussion. If you want to learn any of the math/science/reality behind the proposals, shoot me a PM and I can do some tutoring. Until then, adieu.

[Hotthedd]

IronClaws, on 09 February 2016 - 10:22 AM, said:

The majority of maps in MWO have intervening terrain and you only get sniped or focus-fired on if you stand out in the open for too long. COF should not be put in the game to punish players who fire on other players who do not understand how to use cover effectively.

Nobody can be in cover 100% of the time, unless you are playing in EU prime time.

[Hotthedd]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 10:37 AM, said:

Balancing based on common denominators doesn't generally work so well.

Also, what lolpha snipers are we talking about? DPS (and range quirks) tends to be more important in ERLL fights where the BLR-1S or STK-3H is often used (which only mount 4 ERLL).

At best, the lolpha comes about when you reach 300-500m (mid-range) where you have Clan laser vomit (68 point alpha, but long duration) and mechs like the Black Knight (58 point alpha with a good short duration) spewing lasers.

If not based on common denominators, the based on what? Balancing should try to encompass the widest demographic.

I have been seeing ERLL/GR snipers quite a bit, and ERPPC/GR combinations are pretty prevalent as well. I agree with the insane LPL/MPL and AC/5-UAC/5 mid to longer range lolphas being used (abused?) in just about every match I play, on both sides, and I am not above it myself--there is literally NO downside to it.

[Mystere]

Kuritaclan, on 09 February 2016 - 09:19 AM, said:

Well the setup of the books e.g. ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma ray lasers is sure something else. But non or less it was thinking ahead, when Battle Tech was created. Also notice that x-ray and gamma ray is a exaggeration to hook players/readers in the 80/90s to the game with think ahead tech. Still working as intended.

Actually, I never read any of the books. I was actually referring to current research on free-electron and gamma-ray lasers. I still have to see and/or hear of any progress on the latter though.

Kuritaclan, on 09 February 2016 - 09:19 AM, said:

Since we are talking about future Lasers it is hard to say what a real world equipment would look like. The point is 6t of equipment are mostly eaten up by energy unit and the "laser generating" unit itself. The aiming component is tiny compared to the energysource and the laser "array" (if needed) itself.

I agree on the underlined portion. But, what I do know is that, as of today, shielding from gamma radiation requires large amounts of mass (i.e. lead, concrete, packed soil, depleted uranium[!!!]). So I imagine "directing" a gamma-ray beam is going to be tough ... and heavy.

Kuritaclan, on 09 February 2016 - 09:19 AM, said:

If you couple every laser unit with a optical device like glass fiber to bunch them up and conenctrate and direct energy many things are possible.

I never disagreed with you on that point. But, that's not what BT claims to use.

But enough of that. It's time to go back to our regularly scheduled CoF extravaganza ...

Edited by Mystere, 09 February 2016 - 11:17 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

If not based on common denominators, the based on what? Balancing should try to encompass the widest demographic.

Meant lowest common denominator, sorry. Balancing should be based on team play though, not solo queue, because this is a team game, so it should be expected to balanced around such. PUGs aren't known very well for their team play, that is just part of the PUG life.

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 10:59 AM, said:

I have been seeing ERLL/GR snipers quite a bit, and ERPPC/GR combinations are pretty prevalent as well.

ERLL + Gauss at best is 42 damage, (3 ERLL + Gauss), which isn't enough to kill anyone but maybe a standing still light.
ERPPC + Gauss is at best 35 damage, which is decent enough to give fat ERLL spam mechs pause, but is still not enough consistent damage to really be threatening in PUG queue.

The best solo queue mechs have always been around mid-range, so still not really sure where this lolpha sniper thing comes from since the Whale fell from grace.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 February 2016 - 11:05 AM.

[Mystere]

Kuritaclan, on 09 February 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

It is not only the server problems to handle much vectors. It is also client pcs handle them. If all MWO Players would have a X99 i7 8 core cpu the game would be much more realistic. However this is not the case. So to speak the worst imaginable pc need also maintain the full load coming out of 12 mechs having a running vector, diretion of the torso vecort. direction of the arm vecor. This times two since player and enemy needs to be calculated hit area and now on top of this for every weapon you add in a specific vector to be calculated with own cof spread will add up to much data to be handeled every milli second at least (to give the feeling of "instant" reaction)

Modern CPUs and (especially) GPUs can handle that without breaking a sweat. Now, whether or not PGI is taking advantage of the GPU besides graphics is another matter altogether.

This just gave me a thought. Maybe PGI should have banks of GPUs installed on their hosted servers to handle all the math calculations.

Edited by Mystere, 09 February 2016 - 11:08 AM.

[Mystere]

Lockon StratosII, on 09 February 2016 - 10:36 AM, said:

Alphas shouldn't be the go to modus operandi but last resort.

On that we both agree. Unfortunately, this thread illustrates that there are many that disagree.

Edited by Mystere, 09 February 2016 - 11:14 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 11:04 AM, said:

Meant lowest common denominator, sorry. Balancing should be based on team play though, not solo queue, because this is a team game, so it should be expected to balanced around such. PUGs aren't known very well for their team play, that is just part of the PUG life.


ERLL + Gauss at best is 42 damage, (3 ERLL + Gauss), which isn't enough to kill anyone but maybe a standing still light.
ERPPC + Gauss is at best 35 damage, which is decent enough to give fat ERLL spam mechs pause, but is still not enough consistent damage to really be threatening in PUG queue.

The best solo queue mechs have always been around mid-range, so still not really sure where this lolpha sniper thing comes from since the Whale fell from grace.

One problem with balancing from the comp tiers is that they will always be playing as a team, with min/maxed loadouts. One 3 ERLL = GR sniper is a pain, but 3 or 4 on TS is instant death or severe dismemberment of even fresh assault 'mechs.
Neither should balancing be done solely from the solo queue, where individual score is the only real test, and therefore you see tons of LRMs virtually guaranteeing a high damage score. But at both levels, many players have warned about pixel perfect convergence of multiple weapons. PGI has, in my opinion, leaned too heavily on heat as the sole balancing mechanism for alpha strikes, when the actual problem is the accuracy.
Now, should accuracy be removed? Of course not. But there SHOULD be an accuracy penalty for things such as movement, heat, and number of weapons fired simultaneously. Let the player be forced to make a choice, if more than one choice is viable, game play will diversify, increasing the overall state of the game.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 11:18 AM, said:

PGI has, in my opinion, leaned too heavily on heat as the sole balancing mechanism for alpha strikes, when the actual problem is the accuracy.

See this is where we disagree, to me they just created a hamfisted bandaid that tried to address the problem in a round-about way.

The meta has generally about high energy alphas, with goose waffles thrown in to compliment the high heat weapons. The problem to me has been two-fold in that regard, high energy is not reigned in by low heat caps (heat gen quirks don't help either) or lower dissipation or both to limit DPS (to force more energy boats to Dire Star territory) and that Gauss is still a no heat weapon that combines really nicely with high heat builds.

Lower heat caps, balance engines, balance tech base without quirks, remove charge-up (and possibly some other nerfs) from Gauss and give it AC20 level heat.

[Hotthedd]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 11:30 AM, said:

See this is where we disagree, to me they just created a hamfisted bandaid that tried to address the problem in a round-about way.

The meta has generally about high energy alphas, with goose waffles thrown in to compliment the high heat weapons. The problem to me has been two-fold in that regard, high energy is not reigned in by low heat caps (heat gen quirks don't help either) or lower dissipation or both to limit DPS (to force more energy boats to Dire Star territory) and that Gauss is still a no heat weapon that combines really nicely with high heat builds.

Lower heat caps, balance engines, balance tech base without quirks, remove charge-up (and possibly some other nerfs) from Gauss and give it AC20 level heat.

But instead of a heat scale, we got ghost heat.

The meta has ALWAYS been about alpha strikes (even LRMs during the 3 Lurmageddons, as they were all fired at once), and always will be about alpha strikes as long as there is no tangible down side to it. If I have a choice to fire one time and have all of my weapons hit the same spot, OR fire multiple times, having to continuously aim each weapon in order for them to all land in the same spot, what choice will I make? What choice will everyone make? The only good solution, IMHO is to take away that mechanic. It is simply TOO GOOD.

[1Grimbane]

I'm all for keeping pin point alpha's.. also dump ghost heat then i can alpha strike more often thank you very much

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

The only good solution, IMHO is to take away that mechanic. It is simply TOO GOOD.

So you want us to play pretend then? That we really don't have weapons you can use at the same time, it is more like the typical FPS where you can have multiple weapons at once, you just can't use them at the same time. Kinda ruins the whole point of specialization.

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

The meta has ALWAYS been about alpha strikes (even LRMs during the 3 Lurmageddons, as they were all fired at once), and always will be about alpha strikes as long as there is no tangible down side to it.

So I have a question then, if I have a mech with 2 AC5, and I fire both at the same time, is that an alpha strike? Is there something wrong with firing 2 AC5 at the same time?

If either are no, then I have a better proposal for you, make DPS oriented weapons better because you have a problem with massive alpha strikes, not alpha strikes in general. If I can do a massive alpha, but only once every 30 seconds (or end up blowing myself up), I'm not that useful in the game, but if I'm able to put 15-20 damage on your mech 4x as often as you are able to spit out a 30-40 point alpha, suddenly you actually give rapid fire weapons a chance.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 February 2016 - 11:48 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

So you want us to play pretend then? That we really don't have weapons you can use at the same time, it is more like the typical FPS where you can have multiple weapons at once, you just can't use them at the same time. Kinda ruins the whole point of specialization.


So I have a question then, if I have a mech with 2 AC5, and I fire both at the same time, is that an alpha strike? Is there something wrong with firing 2 AC5 at the same time?

If either are no, then I have a better proposal for you, make DPS oriented weapons better because you have a problem with massive alpha strikes, not alpha strikes in general. If I can do a massive alpha, but only once every 30 seconds (or end up blowing myself up), I'm not that useful in the game, but if I'm able to put 15-20 damage on your mech 4x as often as you are able to spit out a 30-40 point alpha, suddenly you actually give rapid fire weapons a chance.

You can use them at the same time, you just wouldn't have the same accuracy as you would by chain firing (and chain aiming) them.
The OP's suggestion would say that 2 AC/5s fired at the same time would give you a small cone of fire. The more weapons you fire on one trigger pull would increase the cone linearly. You could literally be as precise as you wanted, at the expense of raw damage, or put out as much damage as you could, at the expense of precision, or somewhere in between to fit your situation and play style.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 11:56 AM, said:

You can use them at the same time, you just wouldn't have the same accuracy as you would by chain firing (and chain aiming) them.
The OP's suggestion would say that 2 AC/5s fired at the same time would give you a small cone of fire. The more weapons you fire on one trigger pull would increase the cone linearly. You could literally be as precise as you wanted, at the expense of raw damage, or put out as much damage as you could, at the expense of precision, or somewhere in between to fit your situation and play style.

I don't think you got what I was asking, I'm not talking about within the context of this change, I'm talking currently.

[Hotthedd]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 February 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

I don't think you got what I was asking, I'm not talking about within the context of this change, I'm talking currently.

Currently you can shoot as many weapons as you can fit and they will all hit accurately no matter what. You know that. In your post, you said to "pretend", I thought you meant pretend the changes the OP suggested were in play.

[no one]

Mystere, on 09 February 2016 - 10:24 AM, said:

I'd rather have CoF than that. At least CoF as proposed gives a much smaller deviation.

AC-tually, that's only true if you completely remove focus on all the weapons. There's the option of moving the focal point of the weapons some x dozen or hundred meters behind the target as well. That way you don't get complete divergence or randomized fire. Just a consideration for when you're comparing Cof and -partial- loss of convergence.

If you wanted to get tricky and still use a controlled fire grouping size from CoF WITH the defined fire pattern from partial convergence loss, then you'd need to draw a cone for your fire grouping size and then push the point of convergence back until the lines of fire are either parallel, or until one of them intersects the outside of the cone.

[Krivvan]

SQW, on 09 February 2016 - 02:29 AM, said:

Haha, if you think being able to laser boat in MWO is skill then you are kidding yourself. I laser boat myself and it's easy; far easier than ACs or PPCs which is why my WHMs runs lasers instead of ppcs.

If you are so LEET, why don't you swap out the lasers?

You do realize that there has been a large meta shift and that SRMs enjoy equal place with Lasers right now right? And that most "LEET" players are in fact running SRM brawler builds now? The exact opposite of a pinpoint laser build?

And I'm sorry to use an elitist argument, but I can't help it now. If you laser boat and laser boating is the instant key to victory, why are you 3 tiers under so many players that don't use laser boats?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Hotthedd, on 09 February 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

Currently you can shoot as many weapons as you can fit and they will all hit accurately no matter what. You know that. In your post, you said to "pretend", I thought you meant pretend the changes the OP suggested were in play.

When I said pretend, I meant we were pretending that we only have one gun able to fire at any given time like it was a modern FPS where you can only fire one gun at a time (for more obvious reasons), despite carrying multiple guns at once.

[Krivvan]

Livewyr, on 09 February 2016 - 06:06 AM, said:

I'm just going to answer in the quote to make it a bit easier to pick at.



What we have now is Candy Crush, with positioning considerations. That is it.

You pick the Heavy/assault mech with the most energy hardpoints (or that can carry a couple of gauss) and you set yourself up to click on the enemy mech first. That is it.

This argument is beyond ridiculous. So using a sniper in every FPS is basically the same as Candy Crush and is devoid of any skill. Pointing a gun at someone in real life is just pointing a thing at someone and pulling a trigger, so devoid of any skill.
Playing a puzzle game is just clicking on the screen, there's just no skill.

Perhaps the skill is the speed and accuracy that you can put your reticule on the enemy at? Or knowing when to do it? Or where to aim at?

Is using SRMs somehow inherently more skillful because they are less pinpoint? What?

Tarogato, on 09 February 2016 - 07:45 AM, said:

I put to you this thought experiment: MWO has CoF right now. The variable is currently set to 0.

Regardless of exactly how the CoF mechanic works or what effects it has, ... do you really think it would affect the game if we changed that variable to 0.00000001? Would that really kill the game? Is that so evil? How about 0.0001? Is it suddenly magically completely gamebreaking? If so, ... why?

That's a meaningless statement. It's obviously a spectrum. And the wider you make that cone the more of an issue those who don't support it have with it. Of course 0.00000001 isn't gamebreaking, but it's just slightly worse than what many would prefer. 0.1 may not be gamebreaking either, but is worse than what many would prefer. 10 may be gamebreaking and is a LOT worse than what many would prefer.

And on a side note, everyone in this thread is running with the assumption that everyone who fires lasers fires them in perfect zero duration pinpoint shots. That's...almost never the case. Good players shooting at good players with lasers will rarely get perfect pinpoint damage if the other player isn't just standing still. Otherwise we'd all be trying to go for headshots, and we don't. You want to argue about lasers doing a bit too much pinpoint damage? You should be arguing about duration then, but that's a completely different argument.

Edited by Krivvan, 09 February 2016 - 12:39 PM.