425 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 02:57 PM, said:

Not bad ideas, though I don't really like all weapons behave the same, overall. It's one of the few things I feel PGI did right, in theory was giving weapons distinct feels, by using differing mechanics. I rather would like to keep the distinctions for part of the reason I like the idea (though not the exact model used) behind WoT's aiming circle...immersion.

But even that tiny CoF? Church of Skill folk will rail against to the ends of the earth, because the only skill apparently is twitch targeting a pixel that is totally unaffected by any external force. And anythign that DOES affect things externally has to be exactly repeatable and predictable so it can be gamed.

So let it be written, so let it be done.



Yeah the 3x gravity was huge for risk/reward. But you could easily make the shot at 1000 meters, not just 600, at least before PPCs got massively nerfed. It's just the damage fall off was enough to not get instagibbed at that range (unless you had the misfortune of being multitargeted).

Still gonna stick to my guns with Poptarting:
-JJ heat was good.
-Fall Dmg was good (not just for jumping but the way Lights used to just run off the top of Candy Mountain when they got cornered by an Angry Assault)
- Cockpit Shake/ Weapon Spread while under thrust was fine.

Everything else was garbage. Even with 3x Gravity (which PGI apparently id for "reasons",shake half to a full second after thrust was cut, it would have eliminated 1JJ poptarts, forcing a decent load of JJs to get enough altitude to get a shot after shake ended, and have enough juice left to cushion the fall after your shot. It also would have forced them higher and to be exposed to return fire longer, which is probably why some folk at the time were so against it.

Because some folks loved their ezmode.

I would like to carve out some variety in there but you mitigate the lower armor by removing ppfld. That functionally kills poptarting on its own. Then you can fix JJs again.

So you can vary velocity and duration and damage/tic and heat/tic. Dear God, what if lasers just burned for 10 seconds solid if you wanted? Like beam lasers?

A lot of potential in that idea but you want to move away from ppfld to avoid the poking game.

[Mystere]

1453 R, on 14 June 2016 - 03:14 PM, said:

<much hilarity>

None of the CoF proponents I see here or in previous threads are calling for 20/60/90(!!!)-degree or more cones of fire with an even distribution. Only certain opponents of CoF are -- like yourself.

We know you hate anything based on RNJesus. But your exaggerations are not helping your objections.

Edited by Mystere, 14 June 2016 - 03:40 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Aresye, on 14 June 2016 - 03:29 PM, said:

The problem with having movement penalties for aim is it lowers the skill gap. I know we hate using that term, "skill gap," but it's 100% true in regards to what you're suggesting. You're rewarding players who stand still, and punishing players that actually know how to pilot effectively.

On the other hand, if MWO could incorporate a skill based means of counteracting that movement based penalty, then you've widened the skill gap in an already complicated game for new players.

CS:GO does so many things right when it comes to tiny things like this it's not even funny. Take for example the extreme movement penalty for most weapons. New players stand still and crouch as a means of getting around it, but in higher level play that just makes it easier to get killed. Instead, better players learn how to strafe-shoot, in which you time your aim and shoot only during the transition between 2 different directions of movement, when your sideways movement reaches exactly 0, and the movement penalty is no longer there.

CS:GO also uses predictable recoil patterns, with each weapon having its own unique pattern. This helps raise TTK and prevents the game from being a typical arcade shooter like CoD, but allows for high level players to learn and counteract these recoil patterns in order to be more effective.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like predictable recoil patterns in MWO. For example, imagine if an ISLL, ISML, and CERML all had separate "lensing" deviations while firing. The ISLL gently goes down and to the left, the ISML just gently goes down, and the CERML gently goes up. All of these would be very tiny deviations that wouldn't make that big of an impact at mid-close range, but could potentially spread the laser damage over a larger area at long range.

Newer players won't have to worry about being killed as fast, but good players retain the ability to learn and counteract these changes. A good IS ERLL sniper player would therefore know that while sniping at long range in a Grasshopper, he has to pull his crosshair up and to the right slightly while shooting.

this would be good also and not something I would be against. Though if people want to call it the epitome of "skill" when everything is predictable and repeatable, I guess I have a different definition of skill. Mind you something like bullet drop, and recoil impulse are pretty repeatable, but even holding a rifle a millimeter different does change the recoil pattern IRL. Even with gyro stabilization, guns dip and sway on tanks when they move at flank, and it's NOT 100% predictable and repeatable.

But because of people learning how to compensate, as you mention in CS:GO for those it removes a lot of the unpredictability, but never totally eliminates it. Even at a complete stop, an Abrams won't put every shell into the same hole even at 500 meters. There is what is for practical purpose random in everything we do, because we don't have the ability to measure the "ripple effect" of every thing we encounter.

But I'm pretty sure those real world shooters who have to overcome these things (and yes, most shooting competitions are outdoors where they have to compensate for wind drift, temp differentials, possible cross winds and such between shooter and target, simple things like powder not burning at 100% the same rate or a bullet being a micrometer different in shape or weight distribution) takes more skill than being able to repeatably and predictably click on the same pixel with no outside influence.

People often like to paint stuff the the extreme like we are talking CoF and meaning people taking shot while moving at a target 200 meters away and half the shots missing. Which is just a bs strawman. What we are saying is at those ranges and speeds you likely will see no real impact, but when you are running 130 kph across broken terrain shooting at another mech doing the same half a klick or farther away it's pretty damn ludicrous to think 6-12 different weapons systems would maintain instant and perfect convergence to the same exact spot. And doubly so in a Battletech game.

But people that are against immersive realism will always strawman it the Nth degree. And those who find the perfectly repeatable accuracy of MWO frankly boring, aren't complaining about "skill" but the complete and utter lack of immersion, and that certain people only recognize one thing as skill, twitch reflexes, which is pretty damn laughable.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 03:41 PM, said:

People often like to paint stuff the the extreme like we are talking CoF and meaning people taking shot while moving at a target 200 meters away and half the shots missing. Which is just a bs strawman. What we are saying is at those ranges and speeds you likely will see no real impact, but when you are running 130 kph across broken terrain shooting at another mech doing the same half a klick or farther away it's pretty damn ludicrous to think 6-12 different weapons systems would maintain instant and perfect convergence to the same exact spot. And doubly so in a Battletech game.

CoF is a silly diceroll mechanic (which is bad game design unless you're playing a turn based game) versus my adaptive armor system which solve the pinpoint damage problem by spreading shots, increasing TTK AND rewards superior skill.

Everyone wins. Except the bad players. But bad players should be punished anyways. They can get better if they really want to work at it.


Oh, and even the bad players benefit as they'll live longer... and living longer means they have more time to figure out how to improve!

Edited by Mister Blastman, 14 June 2016 - 03:44 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

MischiefSC, on 14 June 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

I would like to carve out some variety in there but you mitigate the lower armor by removing ppfld. That functionally kills poptarting on its own. Then you can fix JJs again.

So you can vary velocity and duration and damage/tic and heat/tic. Dear God, what if lasers just burned for 10 seconds solid if you wanted? Like beam lasers?

A lot of potential in that idea but you want to move away from ppfld to avoid the poking game.

PPFLD can be mitigated through other factors though. As I've noted, if we had a real heatscale (something I know you want to) with lower heat cap, and more immersive, realistic aiming, we might still have PPFLD weapons, but they will not all be instantly and easily coring the same exact spot every shot, unless, just like IRL they realyl take time to line up the shot which has it's own risks.

But just as counter to immersion would be seeing missiles not FLD, or a Gauss shot that was DoT. (PPCs I could see an argument for semi Dot, like 5 dmg FLD with the remaining 5, the "tail" DoT)

[Mystere]

Kangarad, on 14 June 2016 - 03:15 PM, said:

if you realy want to go away from pinpoint accuracy on the move, yet I realy do not like rng, why not add weapon sway? Your gyrostabs are not perfect (and theres a module for upgrading that) therefore your reticle and point of aim would sway with every step you take, light mechs are easier on the gyros so they may handle more speed untill the sway becomes impossible to control while heavyer mechs sway slower from the start but can not handle larger speeds well due to the mass the gyrostabs need to account for? wed still have the shake while in the air with that.

This would make it so that with skill you can still hit exactly what you want however it will be harder to do so while moving at top speeds and sniping would essentialy require standing still, yet the pilot can allways see where his shots go and with the right timing counter the mechanic giving the game a higher skill floor and ceiling.

Sway is fine. Unfortunately, the seemingly random and fast sway PGI used is not. There is a reason why the original JJ screen-shake made people nauseous, myself included.

These multi-ton weapon systems would presumably have inertial dampers. As such, they should not shake like the crazy way they do now.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mister Blastman, on 14 June 2016 - 03:43 PM, said:

CoF is a silly diceroll mechanic (which is bad game design unless you're playing a turn based game)

except it really isn't no matter how much you want to present it as one.

[Mystere]

Mister Blastman, on 14 June 2016 - 03:20 PM, said:

I like your post up until there. No, we don't need to get over Cone of Fire. See here:

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__5009851

See: Choice 2, scalable hitboxes... (because convergence is never getting removed)

It is a superior solution to adding Cone of Fire in every way.

Yes, this is one of those ideas I like. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt PGI will be willing to do this, especially because that would mean finer hitboxes as well for all/most Mechs and PGI will in all likelihood not be willing to redo them all.

Edited by Mystere, 14 June 2016 - 03:50 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 03:48 PM, said:

except it really isn't no matter how much you want to present it as one.

Except it really is. Cone of Fire rolls dice when truth be told, the reason the board game rolls dice is to simulate what happens in real time by mathematically predicting an outcome of factors that can't be played out on the board. It is pointless and counterproductive to put a random mechanic into a real time game when there are BETTER ways to achieve the EXACT SAME EFFECT without using dicerolls.

Using dicerolls is lazy game development and forces upon the player imagination which--is great for books and stories and turn based games but terrible for a game that plays out in a world you can observe realtime firsthand.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mystere, on 14 June 2016 - 03:50 PM, said:

Yes, this is one of those ideas I like. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt PGI will be willing to do this, especially because that would mean finer hitboxes as well for all/most Mechs and PGI will in all likelihood not be willing to redo them all.

there are a lot of potentially better mechanics out there. But which ones are realistically viable for PGI to pull off?

[Mister Blastman]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

there are a lot of potentially better mechanics out there. But which ones are realistically viable for PGI to pull off?

That isn't a fair question--it is one that could cause people to get removed from the forums...

[MischiefSC]

It's why I favor reticle for each weapon moving to convergence seperately. With enough skill you can lignin your non-converged reticle up to shoot independently and this keeps a weapons loadout from being just one that's used like a single big gun built of many smaller ones.

That's the underlying problem - the mechanics of BT are built around many weapons firing independently, with poor accuracy and restrained by a heat scale.

[Cy Mitchell]

Mystere, on 14 June 2016 - 03:24 PM, said:

Given the nature of Tech in BT....snip............ I expect them to have some inertial dampers to reduce the wild shaking.

Or not. If they cannot properly mount a gun or laser and dampen it then why would we assume the could dampen the undulations of the whole Mech?

Anyway, we are talking about finding the best way to limit pin point damage. I am not in favor of adding a RNG factor into weapon accuracy. While walking or running should not induce as much bounce as JJ, it should induce some thus making it difficult to hold the reticle on a target unless stationary. I believe that, in itself, would go a long way towards providing the damage disbursement that is needed. Add in convergence and you could probably restore the armor to the proper level.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 02:57 PM, said:

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Completely off topic, but I didn't read this post initially, but when I finally did, Creeping Death came into my head immediately, I assume this was intentional?

[Bishop Steiner]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 14 June 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

Completely off topic, but I didn't read this post initially, but when I finally did, Creeping Death came into my head immediately, I assume this was intentional?

(well, and the movie they based the lyrics off of, Cecil B Demille's 10 Commandments. Yul Brynner was pretty amazing in that film)

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 14 June 2016 - 03:54 PM, said:

It's why I favor reticle for each weapon moving to convergence seperately. With enough skill you can lignin your non-converged reticle up to shoot independently and this keeps a weapons loadout from being just one that's used like a single big gun built of many smaller ones.

That's the underlying problem - the mechanics of BT are built around many weapons firing independently, with poor accuracy and restrained by a heat scale.

It does not even have to be multiple reticles. It could be just a single expanding/contracting circle. Players would then mentally map weapon positions relative to the center of the circle. It's much cleaner than seeing up to 16 individual reticles.

Mister Blastman, on 14 June 2016 - 03:52 PM, said:

That isn't a fair question--it is one that could cause people to get removed from the forums...

<chuckles>

[Gorgo7]

Screw cone of fire.
The way it is described above it is not noticeable below 400m OR a dicey proposition. Forget about it.
Swayfire from movement is the way to go and speed should be irrelevant, it should only be based on % of max speed the mech is capable of.
Locust walks at 100kph...same sway as the Awesome walking at 42kph.
COF is a fallacy.

[MischiefSC]

Mister Blastman, on 14 June 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

Except it really is. Cone of Fire rolls dice when truth be told, the reason the board game rolls dice is to simulate what happens in real time by mathematically predicting an outcome of factors that can't be played out on the board. It is pointless and counterproductive to put a random mechanic into a real time game when there are BETTER ways to achieve the EXACT SAME EFFECT without using dicerolls.

Using dicerolls is lazy game development and forces upon the player imagination which--is great for books and stories and turn based games but terrible for a game that plays out in a world you can observe realtime firsthand.

Except you're already cheating the system. You're safe at home, at a desk using a 0 order controller device on a 2d representation. You're not in the cockpit getting shaken around and cooked. You're not using a series of actual controls with full sensory input of your environment fighting for your attention.

You are a detatched sphere floating along with the mech. All a small CoF does is add back in the unpredictable realities of what's happening in game.

Beyond which the fundamental mechanics of BT are based around inaccuracies. Removing them absolutely breaks the mechanics.

[MischiefSC]

Bishop Steiner, on 14 June 2016 - 03:45 PM, said:

PPFLD can be mitigated through other factors though. As I've noted, if we had a real heatscale (something I know you want to) with lower heat cap, and more immersive, realistic aiming, we might still have PPFLD weapons, but they will not all be instantly and easily coring the same exact spot every shot, unless, just like IRL they realyl take time to line up the shot which has it's own risks.

But just as counter to immersion would be seeing missiles not FLD, or a Gauss shot that was DoT. (PPCs I could see an argument for semi Dot, like 5 dmg FLD with the remaining 5, the "tail" DoT)

Missiles would be FLD- they scatter by their nature though.

Gauss.... probably, ironically, a high rate of fire. 15 1 pt shots over 10 seconds.

Or potentially on 15 pt shot every 10 seconds.

[Bishop Steiner]

MischiefSC, on 14 June 2016 - 04:32 PM, said:

Except you're already cheating the system. You're safe at home, at a desk using a 0 order controller device on a 2d representation. You're not in the cockpit getting shaken around and cooked. You're not using a series of actual controls with full sensory input of your environment fighting for your attention.

You are a detatched sphere floating along with the mech. All a small CoF does is add back in the unpredictable realities of what's happening in game.

Beyond which the fundamental mechanics of BT are based around inaccuracies. Removing them absolutely breaks the mechanics.

BAM.

Nice to be back on the same page (mostly) with you. I prefer that to bickering like angry old women at a bingo parlor.