819 replies to this topic

[Satan n stuff]

Appogee, on 16 June 2016 - 05:26 AM, said:

There are four guns - A, B, C and D - which, until they are converged, are aimed at different points on the screen.

If those guns are converged when fired, then great, there's only one "aiming point" to be communicated to the server, for calculation of where the weapons will hit.

However, if the player fires those guns when they are not converged, then there would be four separate points for the client to calculate where the weapons will hit. I guess I can use an algorithm to combine those four aiming points (and also the differing points in time when all the weapons will hit due to differing velocities) but then, decoding that algorithm would still add to the server load.

If there's a different and more network- or server-efficient way of doing this, please do tell.

Your explanation above doesn't make sense to see me because four weapons on their way to tracking to one convergence point is still four pieces of data, or would still require a calculation to combine into one datapoint for network traffic, then being decoded at the other end.

*sigh*
Okay here we go again.
There is literally no reason to send the data for each gun separately, the guns are aimed based on the first person view and the convergence distance. Sending only that data allows the server and any client to calculate exactly where the guns are aimed because that's exactly how it's done in the first place.

If whoever wrote that part of the netcode were actually clueless enough to do it the way you suggested, that still wouldn't change anything because in that case the guns would have to be tracked separately either way, other than the fact that they'd have quadrupled the bandwith usage for no good reason.
I don't have a very positive opinion of PGI's ability to make any feature work as intended, but basic netcode optimization is not all that hard compared to the things they've already done with it.

If you have any further questions, try to read my posts until you actually understand what's being said, because there's no way I can say it even simpler than I already have.

[ItchyTriggerFingers]

I dont know if I can get behind a game that flip/flops so much with major 'features'.

Its like this game changes significantly every year or so.

I just want to shoot mechs!

[Chuck Jager]

From what I saw in the original post is that the OP sees the community as people like himself and is trying the same tactics that every middle school bully does when they are afraid of something different. We already have a heat feature and it manages what weapons we run and how we fire them. I am also part of the community and yes the problems with the current system are the ones I take advantage of to be a better player. I am pretty sure the OP sees the issues as roadblocks to the way he/she wants to play mechs like they have in other games.

Metas will change, if every person's hatred of a certain mechanic was magically fixed by a series of brilliant changes on PGI's part there would be a new meta that many folks would dislike. I can assure everyone that we will never get loadouts in general game modes that will function like they do in TT. This is not a jab at lore, just the fact that aiming and high weapon points (the features that work best in this environment) have very limited ways to control their dominance with a modern PVP experience. Other than cone of fire the other BEST choice is to limit how much fire can be grouped at one time. NOTE : sized slots is a no go for me and is more unclear and has more restrictions than GH.


Just by using the name Power Draw folks can not even see the fact that the goal is the same as heat and that PGI is trying to purposely make a break from lore and their past so that they can try to get a system that works in a modern PVP gaming environment. I am not saying that they will meet that goal, but at least try the cup half full approach.

PS I started after GH and it always made sense to me, but I try to use google to find the way a game's mechanics work before I play.

PPS - I have a feeling we are also breaking from heat so that ACs,Gauss and other weapon values can be adjusted to have more "draw" with less screaming than if the "heat" was changed. No proof, but from a PR point of view it helps soften the blow.

Edited by Chuck Jager, 09 August 2016 - 06:31 AM.

[Kirkland Langue]

From the little that I've seen - I expect to become furious at energy draw when light mechs are allowed to have the same alpha as assault mechs.

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and energy draw will, instead, reduce the bloated firepower that many lights already enjoy.

[Brizna]

I would't mind an streamlined ghost heat provdided, and this is a HUGE IF, it is done right, so far what I've heard about it sucks, but I am waiting to get a real description of it.

** What I mean is that any new system must take into mind the real power of weapons, if it only draws from raw damage some weapons whose strength lies in lots of unfocused short ranged damage will royally suck, I'm thinking in SRMs.

[Spleenslitta]

I want an Energy Draw system. But i fear PGI's Energy Draw system is...too crude. It encourages high firerate low alpha's.
We need something that encourages mixing weapon types and weapon ranges.

The idea of the energy draw/ reactor system has been suggested many times in the feature suggestion part of the forums.
Imagine if everything you do demands energy that the reactor produces. For example-

- Shooting energy weapons consumes energy. It consumes more energy than anything else.
- Walking, running and moving the torso and arms demands energy too.
The faster you go the more energy the engine and gyro needs to keep the mech upright and running along.
Much less than the reactor produces of course so you can move and fire at the same time as long as you don't take things too far.

- JJ's use energy too and it has been suggested in the past that even using ECM should use energy.
- Using ballistic and missile weapons would consume far less energy than energy weapons of course.

But because ballistics and missile weapons consume far less energy many would be drawn to boating AC's and SRM's.
Therefore there would be a need for a recoil system so it would be foolish to mount 6x UAC5 or 4x AC10's.
Shoot all those guns at the same time and you end up on your back. That's what the recoil system is for.
Furthermore the more recoil the gyro has to counter the more energy the gyro needs to keep the mech upright.

Missiles would come somewhere between the ballistics and energy weapons when it comes to energy consumption.
Sensors to guide the missiles would need some energy but not nearly as much as a laser for example.

Too many energy weapons and you run hot and low on energy.
Too much ballistics and the gyro overloads leading to high heat and energy consumption that way.


All this makes for a balanced system where mixing weapon types is encouraged. Think of the mechs in the lore.
The canon mechs had a bit of everything. If MWO became like that it would become a true thinking players game.
Yes i agree there would be a steeper learning curve but in the end we would see more nailbitingly close battles.
Those with true skill would be farther seperated from those with less skill which is good to improve the experience of both.

While it is very advanced it would put more distance Tier wise between the skilled and less skilled players.
That way a skilled player is faaaar less likely to end up in a match with a less skilled player.
Which would be a good thing since we would get fewer complaint threads about how bad everyone other than the OP is.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 09 August 2016 - 06:38 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Spleenslitta, on 09 August 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

- Using ballistic and missile weapons would consume far less energy than energy weapons of course.

So basically you want energy weapons to be worthless for a majority of mechs?

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 August 2016 - 06:39 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 06:39 AM, said:

So basically you want energy weapons to be worthless for a majority of mechs?

No. I want players to use a mix of ballistic, energy and missile weapons.
There are mechs that use only energy weapons. Black Knight for example. Such mechs could either have quirks that help them out or the players use their heads to manage their heat and energy wisely.

There are two reasons why there are no numbers in this idea of mine.
1) i do not have a head for math.
2) I want the community to make use their imagination to solve the balancing themselves.

[Mawai]

Satan n stuff, on 20 June 2016 - 02:23 AM, said:

*sigh*
Okay here we go again.
There is literally no reason to send the data for each gun separately, the guns are aimed based on the first person view and the convergence distance. Sending only that data allows the server and any client to calculate exactly where the guns are aimed because that's exactly how it's done in the first place.

If whoever wrote that part of the netcode were actually clueless enough to do it the way you suggested, that still wouldn't change anything because in that case the guns would have to be tracked separately either way, other than the fact that they'd have quadrupled the bandwith usage for no good reason.
I don't have a very positive opinion of PGI's ability to make any feature work as intended, but basic netcode optimization is not all that hard compared to the things they've already done with it.

If you have any further questions, try to read my posts until you actually understand what's being said, because there's no way I can say it even simpler than I already have.

Actually, I think the problem with convergence is hacking and not other technical issues.

ANYTHING that is client side can be hacked. Period. If the client tells the server when the weapons are converged then this can be hacked. There will be an instant convergence hack in place within days if not hours of this feature being in place.

A hack like this offers a HUGE advantage since the player using it will always have instant convergence weapons.

I believe that convergence was in the game at one point ... at least it was planned based on the skill tree. However, I suspect it was not implemented simply because hacks for it could not be prevented without sending aim point and weapon location data for every mech continuously instead of sending it just when the weapon fires. Continuous aim point data might actually also help prevent aim bots to some extent.

Putting convergence calculatons server side is probably the solution but this requires sending more data to the server, additional server calculation, and there is a question of how it would be integrated with host state rewind.

[Chuck Jager]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 06:39 AM, said:

So basically you want energy weapons to be worthless for a majority of mechs?

Note; not attacking the OP of quoted comment.

I have a feeling the opposite is going to occur and heat values for AC and gauss will change so 30 damage at a particular range/tonnage will have about the same draw as energy with similar range/tonnage. In the past the range/tonnage (ammor vs heat sinks) issue has had to be adjusted with nerfs/buffs to both energy and cannons/gauss with both having their time in the sun.

I understand the gauss 1 heat at the time of firing, but it still draws the energy over a period of time - see the "draw" mechanic. Also the same for AC never drawing heat, but every gun produces it. It takes either time or energy to cool it off and/or deal with the recoil. I would not bet money on gauss loosing the 2 gun limit without a serious heat problem. I can smell the salt if PGI makes gauss draw heat during the charge and nothing at firing and a multiplier is quickly added to either draw or dissipation if other weapons are being fired while charging. This would deal with firing lasers while charging gauss especially if they hit dissipation because coding on heat being applied at the time of firing for lasers. If PGI is smart they would keep the gauss value still low but make it abnormally vicious on draw/dissipation on the other weapons so as not to directly attack the accepted lore/MWO values.

Edited by Chuck Jager, 09 August 2016 - 07:01 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 August 2016 - 06:39 AM, said:

So basically you want energy weapons to be worthless for a majority of mechs?

Oh yeah...before you say ballistics would become superior...ballistics are limited by the recoil/ gyro system.
Too much recoil and the gyro compensates by consuming loads of energy to keep the mech on it's feet.
So using a mixed loadout is the way to go.

Do not use too many energy weapons because then your mech becomes too hot.
Do not use too many ballistic weapons because then the gyro cannot handle the recoil.

[Satan n stuff]

Mawai, on 09 August 2016 - 06:53 AM, said:

Actually, I think the problem with convergence is hacking and not other technical issues.

ANYTHING that is client side can be hacked. Period. If the client tells the server when the weapons are converged then this can be hacked. There will be an instant convergence hack in place within days if not hours of this feature being in place.

A hack like this offers a HUGE advantage since the player using it will always have instant convergence weapons.

I believe that convergence was in the game at one point ... at least it was planned based on the skill tree. However, I suspect it was not implemented simply because hacks for it could not be prevented without sending aim point and weapon location data for every mech continuously instead of sending it just when the weapon fires. Continuous aim point data might actually also help prevent aim bots to some extent.

Putting convergence calculatons server side is probably the solution but this requires sending more data to the server, additional server calculation, and there is a question of how it would be integrated with host state rewind.

If you'd just go back and read the post I made before that one, you would see exactly how that problem could be solved. I'm not going to bother repeating myself because of a necropost.

[kapusta11]

Spleenslitta, on 09 August 2016 - 06:51 AM, said:

No. I want players to use a mix of ballistic, energy and missile weapons.

And I want you to use meta mechs with high torso hardpoints and stripped arms. Now how do you like that?

[Cy Mitchell]

To answer the OP. Yes, I want a energy draw system. I want the repeatable Alpha meta to go away. I want button discipline to be a skill that means something. I want the Alpha to be a last ditch desperation move or a very occasional "all in".

I do not want power draw to depend solely on heat and only focus on laser meta. I want it to include reload metrics that would mean if you have more weapons of one type than the Mech's reload system can handle then the reload would slow down the weapon's ability to fire. This can be accomplished by increasing the cooldown rate for each weapon as the number of those weapons fired simultaneously increases. That would control ballistics, gauss, missiles and PPC. Energy draw on the available fusion power would control lasers.

In addition, overheating should impair Mech functions such as speed, torso twist and sensors prior to reaching the point of complete shut-down. Thus managing heat becomes an important skill also.

Edited by Rampage, 09 August 2016 - 07:16 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

kapusta11, on 09 August 2016 - 07:04 AM, said:

And I want you to use meta mechs with high torso hardpoints and stripped arms. Now how do you like that?

How do i like that? Hmm...i do know how it makes me feel.
It makes me feel like i'm above such petty creatures such as yourself.

[Mystere]

Spleenslitta, on 09 August 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

All this makes for a balanced system where mixing weapon types is encouraged. Think of the mechs in the lore. ...

Speaking of lore, purely energy boats like the Hunchback IIC-A have no such recourse. As such, they could potentially be relegated to the dust bin. I guess we will see how PGI deals with such things.

And by the way, the easier solution would have still been either cone-of-fire or some form of non-automatic convergence system.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Spleenslitta, on 09 August 2016 - 06:51 AM, said:

There are mechs that use only energy weapons. Black Knight for example. Such mechs could either have quirks that help them out or the players use their heads to manage their heat and energy wisely.

Except its quirks got removed to the point no one cares about the Black Knight anymore.

Spleenslitta, on 09 August 2016 - 06:51 AM, said:

No. I want players to use a mix of ballistic, energy and missile weapons.

First, power draw won't solve this problem. One of the biggest problems is that people are going to gravitate towards weapons that work well together which generally means they have similar firing behaviors, power draw will not change this, just change which set of weapons people go to (hint: it will be dakka).
Second, people do that currently, but there will always be a problem with the way tonnage factors into builds because energy/missiles weapons are always going to be required for lights and most mediums to be effective, they don't have the tonnage like assaults to make the best out of ballistics. The problem really boils down to the "entry" tonnage to use ballistics and how heavies/assaults have so much free tonnage to be the only ones to use them and still be effective.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 09 August 2016 - 07:26 AM.

[Hotthedd]

I personally do not care for "fixes" that have no basis is the BT universe, or the theoretical real universe (Fusion engines would have more than enough power to fire all of a 'mech's weapons).

Alpha Strikes are a part of the BT universe.

Having any kind of precision with an Alpha Strike isn't.

Using heat as a limiting factor only works if you have an actual heat scale.

The only thing that would really work would be a precision penalty for simultaneously fired weapons.

...but that will never happen.

[Spleenslitta]

Mystere, on 09 August 2016 - 07:19 AM, said:

Speaking of lore, purely energy boats like the Hunchback IIC-A have no such recourse. As such, they could potentially be relegated to the dust bin. I guess we will see how PGI deals with such things.

And by the way, the easier solution would have still been either cone-of-fire or some form of non-automatic convergence system.

Well that's were either quirks for that variant takes care of the problem. Or players must start thinking about other things such an energy boat variant can find it's role.
For example by loading a bunch of energy weapons with different ranges...thus making a mech that can adapt to any situation.

Then you only fire the longer reaching energy weapons when you are at an appropriate range.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Mystere, on 09 August 2016 - 07:19 AM, said:

And by the way, the easier solution would have still been either cone-of-fire or some form of non-automatic convergence system.

That doesn't really solve the problem, people will still gravitate towards builds with weapons that have similar behavior, they will just gravitate towards weapons/mechs the circumvent CoF and convergence the best. At best that mitigates fundamental issues, at worst it exacerbates balance problems.