162 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

The proposed cone would simply scatter damage a bit at long ranges - that's it. Oh, no - one of your Gauss rounds that was aimed for a point on the edge of his center torso actually hit his side torso instead. The horror - my skill no longer matters! And, one of my 6 medium pulse lasers missed near it's maximum range because I was aiming for the guy's arm - clearly, the unskilled are now winning the game!

If you're capable of played in a skilled fashion now, you're capable of playing in a skilled fashion under the proposed changes. Convergence is NOT SKILL, and nobody is proposing some sort of insane system where lower tier players get "cone of fire bonuses" or some other thing that would make "skill not matter." Heck, plenty of other games use cones of fire - does skill "not matter" there, too? Are total random scrubs winning everything in those games? No - so why would MWO be any different? Unless some people have grown to depend upon perfect convergence as a crutch - a way to kill mechs faster so their inferior play skills don't come to the surface.

Edited by oldradagast, 08 February 2016 - 06:58 PM.

[Ratpoison]

oldradagast, on 08 February 2016 - 06:58 PM, said:

The proposed cone would simply scatter damage a bit at long ranges - that's it. Oh, no - one of your Gauss rounds that was aimed for a point on the edge of his center torso actually hit his side torso instead. The horror - my skill no longer matters! And, one of my 6 medium pulse lasers missed near it's maximum range because I was aiming for the guy's arm - clearly, the unskilled are now winning the game!

If you're capable of played in a skilled fashion now, you're capable of playing in a skilled fashion under the proposed changes. Convergence is NOT SKILL, and nobody is proposing some sort of insane system where lower tier players get "cone of fire bonuses" or some other thing that would make "skill not matter." Heck, plenty of other games use cones of fire - does skill "not matter" there, too? Are total random scrubs winning everything in those games? No - so why would MWO be any different? Unless some people have grown to depend upon perfect convergence as a crutch - a way to kill mechs faster so their inferior play skills don't come to the surface.

If the luck can make my gauss miss its mark while my enemy's lands, then yes you have seriously damaged the skill requirement. Attaching convoluted systems to it does not redeem this, and it will never be acceptable. Claiming that you can compensate for a random factor, even a variable one, is BS as in the end it is still randomizing the outcome of fights to a degree.

[Troutmonkey]

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 06:38 PM, said:

Extra armor boxes is not convoluted. It is explained in a damn picture.

Haha you so funny. In a game with 11 hit boxes per mech you want to go ahead and add a bunch more but it's "not more complicated" at all. People already complain enough about hit box distribution and rightly so, some mechs just have fat CT's or Side Torsos. How are you going to balance all these new ones? How many more physics collisions will your suggestion add to the game? Please think about the technical and gameplay implications of your ideas before trying to pass them off as "really simple". Yeah, simple to understand on paper, but in reality it's a lot of work for both players and programmers to make happen

[oldradagast]

tortuousGoddess, on 08 February 2016 - 07:02 PM, said:

If the luck can make my gauss miss its mark while my enemy's lands, then yes you have seriously damaged the skill requirement. Attaching convoluted systems to it does not redeem this, and it will never be acceptable. Claiming that you can compensate for a random factor, even a variable one, is BS as in the end it is still randomizing the outcome of fights to a degree.

Oh, no - a tiny random factor - good thing the game has no other random factors in it! Clearly, that tiny change will be the undoing of all things, and the unskilled will rise up and unseat the mighty.

If you're depending upon that tiny random factor - pixel perfect damage application in a fashion unlike Battletech and nearly every other FPS out there - to separate yourself from the "horrible scrubs," well.. I have no sympathy for you or your position on the matter.

Convergence is not skill.

Edited by oldradagast, 08 February 2016 - 07:06 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 07:03 PM, said:

Haha you so funny. In a game with 11 hit boxes per mech you want to go ahead and add a bunch more but it's "not more complicated" at all. People already complain enough about hit box distribution and rightly so, some mechs just have fat CT's or Side Torsos. How are you going to balance all these new ones? How many more physics collisions will your suggestion add to the game? Please think about the technical and gameplay implications of your ideas before trying to pass them off as "really simple". Yeah, simple to understand on paper, but in reality it's a lot of work for both players and programmers to make happen

Pick a box, shoot at it. Not hard.

Back when I was a kid we played this game...



The object was to match two cards. You had to remember the ones you flipped over. The one who matched the most, won.

This is kindergarten stuff man.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 08 February 2016 - 07:08 PM.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 08 February 2016 - 04:14 PM, said:

Because aligning 30+ tons of guns instantly strikes some people as odd. Those guns which are located on opposite ends of a mech moving 50+ Kph across rocky, uneven terrain...until you hit a Pebble of Steel. Upon which...nothing happens. You just stop dead in your tracks, with the guns not moving a millimetre. Dat conservation of momentum...

The Perfectly Pinpoint Magical Convergence MWO has is the source of the majority of the past balance issues, which were "solved" with Ghost Heat, Ghost Damage, Giganerfs, The Nerfinator, and of course, Machine Gun Nerfs.

Of course, none of those had a very large impact.

The reality is: MWO isn't going to change core features at this point. PGI just isn't going to do it. We're going to keep Perfectly Pinpoint Magical Convergence, that's the reality.

Perhaps I'm just a bittervet, but my opinion on these things can be summed up with this:

Meh

But wut about mah very leet skillz? Putting 90 points of damage on a single pixel on a giant robbit is da definition of skillz.

Edited by Mystere, 08 February 2016 - 07:15 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

Mystere, on 08 February 2016 - 07:10 PM, said:

But wut about mah very leet skillz? Putting 90 points of damage on a single pixel og a giant robbit is da definition of skillz.

[Ratpoison]

oldradagast, on 08 February 2016 - 07:05 PM, said:

Oh, no - a tiny random factor - good thing the game has no other random factors in it! Clearly, that tiny change will be the undoing of all things, and the unskilled will rise up and unseat the mighty.

If you're depending upon that tiny random factor - pixel perfect damage application in a fashion unlike Battletech and nearly every other FPS out there - to separate yourself from the "horrible scrubs," well.. I have no sympathy for you or your position on the matter.

Convergence is not skill.

"If you disagree you're obviously depending on convergence as a crutch".

Yeah, you still aren't worth talking or listening to. You keep doing your thing, it's helping convergence stay put.

Edited by tortuousGoddess, 08 February 2016 - 07:16 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 07:06 PM, said:

Pick a box, shoot at it. Not hard.

Back when I was a kid we played this game...



The object was to match two cards. You had to remember the ones you flipped over. The one who matched the most, won.

This is kindergarten stuff man.

You're proposal isn't simple. I can keep saying it.
The returns on investment for input / output in relation to this system are simply not there.
Adding an extra X hitboxes doesn't solve the pin point alpha strike issue, if anything, it would worsen it as now each pixel has it's armour divided among those X boxes, making mechs weaker and easier to core through with a solid alpha strike.
I can see it, I can understand how you want it to work. Yes, it's simply to comprehend, not it is not simple to implement or execute.

[Mister Blastman]

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

You're proposal isn't simple. I can keep saying it.
The returns on investment for input / output in relation to this system are simply not there.
Adding an extra X hitboxes doesn't solve the pin point alpha strike issue, if anything, it would worsen it as now each pixel has it's armour divided among those X boxes, making mechs weaker and easier to core through with a solid alpha strike.
I can see it, I can understand how you want it to work. Yes, it's simply to comprehend, not it is not simple to implement or execute.

You don't read well, do you.

Go read what I've posted in this thread before. You'll see what you said above is incorrect. Come back after you have. Then I might talk to you.

[oldradagast]

tortuousGoddess, on 08 February 2016 - 07:16 PM, said:

"If you disagree you're obviously depending on convergence as a crutch".

Yeah, you still aren't worth talking or listening to. You keep doing your thing, it's helping convergence stay put.

I'd be more inclined to comment on your insipid posts if I had any reason to believe you've read a single proposal anyone has presented. Get back to me when you can tell the difference between a game mechanic crutch that rewards simplistic builds and dumb luck, such as perfect convergence, and actual skill. Because if you really think adding a small cone of fire, and the resulting damage loss and occasional miss at long ranges, would "totally wreck the game," than I have no idea what game you've been playing, but it sure as hell isn't MWO.

[Mystere]

Pjwned, on 08 February 2016 - 04:42 PM, said:

(incoming the DARPA laser picture for the 10,000th time)

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I used to design and build lasers in another lifetime.

cazidin, on 08 February 2016 - 04:53 PM, said:

That would be a reasonable compromise if we had Lock-On Convergence and a proper Heat Scale however I personally think that the latter would be adequate to combat the infamous laser meta.

But it would not combat a 1/2xERPPC + 2xGauss (or something like it) alpha.

wanderer, on 08 February 2016 - 04:56 PM, said:

That was "get a lock or your weapon magically does less damage"- and only lasers at that. Which was patently stupid at best.

Actually, it ain't stupid:



unless you call the people at DARPA stupid.

[Ratpoison]

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 07:19 PM, said:

You don't read well, do you.

Go read what I've posted in this thread before. You'll see what you said above is incorrect. Come back after you have. Then I might talk to you.

No. Your idea is convoluted, labor intensive, rife with potential balance problems, and it does NOTHING to curb the high alpha meta, it in fact only strengthens it since no competitive players are going to have a problem aiming at the box that they need to. Not to mention how much this would confuse the newbies, since your plan doesn't abide by the standard mech component layout. It's just bad all around, it's not a sign that people "don't understand" when they disagree with it.

[Troutmonkey]

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 07:19 PM, said:

You don't read well, do you.

Go read what I've posted in this thread before. You'll see what you said above is incorrect. Come back after you have. Then I might talk to you.

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 04:57 PM, said:

So if you don't want to remove it...

Then go from three armor panels... to a grid of nine... or twenty seven. Like this...




You get the idea.

Please do explain how I'm mistaken here.
From my understanding you want to either
A. Remove Converge
B. Move to a system with an extra 6-24 hitboxes

[Mystere]

1453 R, on 08 February 2016 - 05:15 PM, said:

.................................*Sigh*

Unfortunately Caz, you're never going to convince this community that being able to hit what you shoot at is a good idea. They will kvetch and kibitz and gnaw and rouse rabble until every single shot you fire deviates up to thirty degrees off-bore, randomly and without any ability to mitigate or compensate whatsoever, for no earthly reason.

Because being able to hit what you shoot at just isn't BattleTech™ enough.

I'm so done with f***mothering convergence threads. Fine. Remove convergence. Give us 60-degree cones of fire. Set up the fixed torso convergence where your gunsjust literally ignore the crosshair altogether. Do the whole drastic-heat-penalties thing where you start having to randomly roll for ammo explosions at 5 heat, even though everyone with anything resembling a working brain knows that's nothing remotely like how TT actually operated.

Do every single awful, moronic idea every jackalope in this forum has been bashing people over again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Do them. All at once. Every single one of them. Throw them out there. I'll take myself elsewhere and play other stuff until such time as stupid players in this stupid forum realize that being able to hit what you shoot at is, in fact, Really Important(C) and that no amount of BattleTech™ TT nostalgia is going to make unpredictable, uncontrollable, utterly random dice-based shot placement tolerable for any length of time whatsoever in a game where your most fundamental interaction with your fellow players is aiming and shooting.

Ludicrous exaggerations, all of them.

[Lightfoot]

Players complain about convergence, which is trivial in it's effect since if multi-weapon groups did not converge players would just switch to large single high damage weapons and there would in effect be no change.

But I wonder what players would say if those large high damage weapons started knocking mechs down? The effect is called weapons-spin and all previous MechWarrior games had mech knockdowns. MW3 even required you to press a "Get Up" button. Would MWO players be writing volumes of why knockdowns should be removed?

[cazidin]

If a convergence mechanic forced players to switch to heavier but fewer weapons does that not add another factor against lock on or manual convergence? At best, alpha strikes would deal a little less damage. Also, I just want to make this clear, I am opposed to the COF idea. That will just lead to far too many headaches.

[Mister Blastman]

tortuousGoddess, on 08 February 2016 - 07:31 PM, said:

No. Your idea is convoluted, labor intensive, rife with potential balance problems, and it does NOTHING to curb the high alpha meta, it in fact only strengthens it since no competitive players are going to have a problem aiming at the box that they need to. Not to mention how much this would confuse the newbies, since your plan doesn't abide by the standard mech component layout. It's just bad all around, it's not a sign that people "don't understand" when they disagree with it.

This is the first time I've ever heard pointing and clicking is labor intensive, rife with balance problems and convoluted.

I see a square. I click on the square. I score!

Thank you. I needed that laugh.

Come back when you have a real argument to make.

[Mystere]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 08 February 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

Because to the people arguing against the second point, they cannot juggle all those variables.

I think you're on to something there.

It seems some people actually think using a mouse scroll wheel to adjust convergence distance is adding too much "complication" to an already "complicated" game.

Mister Blastman, on 08 February 2016 - 06:02 PM, said:

Most of the outcry against removing convergence or adding hitboxes is from folks who want "easy mode."

Heaven forbid this game grows deeper and even more skillful...

See above.

Edited by Mystere, 08 February 2016 - 07:42 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

Troutmonkey, on 08 February 2016 - 07:33 PM, said:

Please do explain how I'm mistaken here.
From my understanding you want to either
A. Remove Converge
B. Move to a system with an extra 6-24 hitboxes

Read my description of how the hitboxes work. You got it all wrong in your previous post. So wrong... I knew you didn't read what I said.