149 replies to this topic

[Jetfire]

I'm just going to keep saying this because it is the simplest, most modest and yet still effective fix to convergence.

Torso and arm weapons without lower actuators are set to converge at the max useful range.

Arm weapons with lower actuators auto converge.

Now you get pinpoint at long range where damage is halved, and as you get closer the damage grows but so does the spacing a bit. This is how wing guns on WWII planes worked for example.

[Ratpoison]

Jetfire, on 11 February 2016 - 09:47 AM, said:

I'm just going to keep saying this because it is the simplest, most modest and yet still effective fix to convergence.

Torso and arm weapons without lower actuators are set to converge at the max useful range.

Arm weapons with lower actuators auto converge.

Now you get pinpoint at long range where damage is halved, and as you get closer the damage grows but so does the spacing a bit. This is how wing guns on WWII planes worked for example.

tortuousGoddess, on 11 February 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

It would get removed from the game before it left PTS due to all the outrage from cross-eyed shots missing targets a little outside of max effective range. Fixed convergence is incredibly unintuitive and confusing to those who don't understand how it works, and there's no point to damaging the financial health of this game by alienating large numbers of newer players.

War sim fans and veterans understand such concepts, but most others definitely will not.

[Khobai]

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Torso and arm weapons without lower actuators are set to converge at the max useful range.

Arm weapons with lower actuators auto converge.

um so mechs with lower actuators and arm hardpoints become dominant. everything else becomes obsolete?

great idea.

[Pjwned]

Troutmonkey, on 10 February 2016 - 08:05 PM, said:

The demo also includes fixed convergence.
Fixed convergence is dumb because of the cross eyed effect that happens after the target distance. If ML's were fixed to 270m, they would be unable to hit anything after 300m.

That is such a gross exaggeration it's insane. Yes it would be hard to hit something well beyond the weapon's optimal range if you didn't have a lock on them, but the claim the medium lasers couldn't hit anything after 300m (just over 10% beyond optimal range) is just wrong.

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Plus, 90% of the time people have locks, so 90% of the time your system failures to change or resolve anything

Once again, info warfare, and also once again convergence doesn't need to be hit with a sledgehammer but at the same time it does need to be toned down.

Widowmaker1981, on 11 February 2016 - 04:22 AM, said:

Just saying that if you set fixed convergence to be maximum range then you will never get the cross eyed effect, and weapons will get 50% convergence at optimal range, which should be enough to at least get all weapons to hit the target unless talking about very widely spread weapons (king crab arms) shooting a very skinny target (spider) - though of course over multiple hitboxes, which is the point i suppose.

That combined with perfect convergence with target lock would in my opinion:

Increase the value of target locking
Decrease the ability to snapshoot very accurate high damage alphas
Improve the ability of multiple travel time weapons to converge on their target with target lock.

As a bonus, to improve the value of low arm mounted weapons you could make it so that any weapons mounted in an arm where the mech has lower arm actuators keep their current instant convergence on reticule when unlocked, and gain convergence to locked target when locked.

It's dumb to set convergence to max range because max range means practically no damage dealt at all, and additionally I think you underestimate how wide your medium lasers would shoot at a target 270m away when they're set to converge at 540m.

[cazidin]

No. PGI won't implement a lock on convergence mechanic. Ask them for a better heat scale instead!

[Mystere]

cazidin, on 11 February 2016 - 03:54 PM, said:

No. PGI won't implement a lock on convergence mechanic. Ask them for a better heat scale instead!

[Pjwned]

Jetfire, on 11 February 2016 - 09:47 AM, said:

I'm just going to keep saying this because it is the simplest, most modest and yet still effective fix to convergence.

Torso and arm weapons without lower actuators are set to converge at the max useful range.

Arm weapons with lower actuators auto converge.

Now you get pinpoint at long range where damage is halved, and as you get closer the damage grows but so does the spacing a bit. This is how wing guns on WWII planes worked for example.

If it's only arm weapons with lower arm actuators that auto converge then all that does is make everybody run mechs with LAA and everything else be damned. That would be lame, either remove auto convergence entirely (which I don't agree with) or make it available to every mech in certain circumstances i.e acquiring a target lock.

Perhaps as a compromise, arm mounted weapons with lower arm actuators wouldn't need a target lock for auto convergence? That wouldn't make very much sense though...

[Troutmonkey]

Pjwned, on 11 February 2016 - 03:25 PM, said:

That is such a gross exaggeration it's insane. Yes it would be hard to hit something well beyond the weapon's optimal range if you didn't have a lock on them, but the claim the medium lasers couldn't hit anything after 300m (just over 10% beyond optimal range) is just wrong.



Once again, info warfare, and also once again convergence doesn't need to be hit with a sledgehammer but at the same time it does need to be toned down.



It's dumb to set convergence to max range because max range means practically no damage dealt at all, and additionally I think you underestimate how wide your medium lasers would shoot at a target 270m away when they're set to converge at 540m.

Fine. I exaggerated. At 270m they will be perfectly converged. At 540m that will be spread the width of your mech's hardpoints. It still means that mechs with clustered hardpoints will be better mechs, and that smaller mechs will be both harder to hit and better at hitting. For a wide mech fixed convergence means that targets inside it's convergence triangle that are smaller than it cannot be physically hit by aiming directly at them. This concept is not exactly intuitive for most players.

[Pjwned]

Troutmonkey, on 11 February 2016 - 05:19 PM, said:

Fine. I exaggerated. At 270m they will be perfectly converged. At 540m that will be spread the width of your mech's hardpoints. It still means that mechs with clustered hardpoints will be better mechs, and that smaller mechs will be both harder to hit and better at hitting. For a wide mech fixed convergence means that targets inside it's convergence triangle that are smaller than it cannot be physically hit by aiming directly at them. This concept is not exactly intuitive for most players.

Fair point, but I don't think those are exactly dire consequences.

[Troutmonkey]

Pjwned, on 11 February 2016 - 07:46 PM, said:

Fair point, but I don't think those are exactly dire consequences.

Except that all hardpoints will now have both a minimum and maximum range. It would drastically alter balance and the entire core of game by changing the shooting mechanics in all circumstances. Many mechs would become obsolete, while other would become too powerful. Light mechs would become unhittable killing machines, and while I think light mechs could use a buff, this going way beyond that.

[Pjwned]

Troutmonkey, on 11 February 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

Except that all hardpoints will now have both a minimum and maximum range. It would drastically alter balance and the entire core of game by changing the shooting mechanics in all circumstances. Many mechs would become obsolete, while other would become too powerful. Light mechs would become unhittable killing machines, and while I think light mechs could use a buff, this going way beyond that.

It's not all circumstances though, that's the point of allowing perfect convergence when you do get a lock.

[Troutmonkey]

Pjwned, on 11 February 2016 - 10:19 PM, said:

It's not all circumstances though, that's the point of allowing perfect convergence when you do get a lock.

But then 90% of the time (because you're usually locked anyway) weapons hit exactly where you hit under all circumstances, so 90% of the time we still have the perfect convergence + high alphas problem.

[Pjwned]

Troutmonkey, on 11 February 2016 - 10:33 PM, said:

But then 90% of the time (because you're usually locked anyway) weapons hit exactly where you hit under all circumstances, so 90% of the time we still have the perfect convergence + high alphas problem.

And that just goes back to repeating what I've already said...

[MechWarrior4023212]

Target lock is not used to make the arms match the torso for firing, so NO!

[Widowmaker1981]

Pjwned, on 11 February 2016 - 03:25 PM, said:

It's dumb to set convergence to max range because max range means practically no damage dealt at all, and additionally I think you underestimate how wide your medium lasers would shoot at a target 270m away when they're set to converge at 540m.

They would be exactly 50% of the distance apart the weapons on the mech are, obviously. Since your target is also a mech, of a likely similar size, the convergence would be such that they would all hit the mech, but spread across multiple hitboxes - isnt that the point of all these convergence suggestions? to spread damage?

*I* don't personally think we need anything really, im fine with what we have no in terms of convergence. - though i would definitely advocate for convergence set to locked target even if it stays as it is currently for unlocked, because its unfair to projectile weapons at the moment. Lasers are hitscan, and therefore benefit 100% from instant perfect crosshair distance convergence, where lead time ballistics only benefit from it if the target is not moving laterally (and are completely fubar with wide mounts like the KGC if your target is skylined - convergence to infinity makes it literally impossible for both arms to hit the same mech.)

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 12 February 2016 - 12:42 AM.

[Pjwned]

Widowmaker1981, on 12 February 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

They would be exactly 50% of the distance apart the weapons on the mech are, obviously. Since your target is also a mech, of a likely similar size, the convergence would be such that they would all hit the mech, but spread across multiple hitboxes - isnt that the point of all these convergence suggestions? to spread damage?

*I* don't personally think we need anything really, im fine with what we have no in terms of convergence. - though i would definitely advocate for convergence set to locked target even if it stays as it is currently for unlocked, because its unfair to projectile weapons at the moment. Lasers are hitscan, and therefore benefit 100% from instant perfect crosshair distance convergence, where lead time ballistics only benefit from it if the target is not moving laterally (and are completely fubar with wide mounts like the KGC if your target is skylined - convergence to infinity makes it literally impossible for both arms to hit the same mech.)

Why would it make sense for weapons to converge at a range where they do practically no damage though?

[Widowmaker1981]

Pjwned, on 12 February 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Why would it make sense for weapons to converge at a range where they do practically no damage though?

Purely to force damage spread, which is what people are asking for.

Convergence set at optimal range wont really spread dmg at +/- 50 meters from optimal at all (well, no headshots maybe, but you could CT core or ST core), which is where you should be engaging anyway.

[Pjwned]

Widowmaker1981, on 12 February 2016 - 01:24 AM, said:

Purely to force damage spread, which is what people are asking for.

It still needs to make sense though.

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Convergence set at optimal range wont really spread dmg at +/- 50 meters from optimal at all (well, no headshots maybe, but you could CT core or ST core), which is where you should be engaging anyway.

It would make enough of a difference while not being overly drastic, which is the goal.

[Widowmaker1981]

Pjwned, on 12 February 2016 - 01:39 AM, said:

It still needs to make sense though.



It would make enough of a difference while not being overly drastic, which is the goal.

Meh, i don't really mind - not like i think its even needed anyway, apart from projectile weapons needing to converge on distance to locked target to stop them being gimped compared to lasers when shooting laterally moving targets.

[Mystere]

Troutmonkey, on 11 February 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

Many mechs would become obsolete, while other would become too powerful.

Just to be the devil's advocate, how different is that today? There will always be a set of Mechs that will be preferred above all else.

Ember Stormfield, on 12 February 2016 - 12:22 AM, said:

Target lock is not used to make the arms match the torso for firing, so NO!

But it should be, so YES!