37 replies to this topic

[Gryphorim]

Each mech having unique sensor capabilities, some with faster lock times for missiles, others with more responsive sensors that pick up enemies and put doritos above them faster.

A general trend toward smaller mechs having better sensors, and scout types having best-in-class.

Sensor data actually taking time to transfer from forward observers to allied mechs based on range.

Scouting that was worth a damn.

Basically the perfect environment for the Cyclops to have it's purpose and for actual role warfare.


And people shouted down PGI because the same PTS had the "ghost range" for lasers. (BTW, real lasers need focussing/range data to "dial in" the appropriate focus in real life, otherwise you're shining a glorified torch at your target.) Was the 200m max range difference really THAT important?

Anyway, PGI, aside from the ghost range, can we have all the other stuff brought back please?

[TKSax]

Gryphorim, on 14 June 2016 - 06:48 PM, said:

And people shouted down PGI because the same PTS had the "ghost range" for lasers. (BTW, real lasers need focussing/range data to "dial in" the appropriate focus in real life, otherwise you're shining a glorified torch at your target.) Was the 200m max range difference really THAT important?

Anyway, PGI, aside from the ghost range, can we have all the other stuff brought back please?

I like'd the idea of mechs that can detect mechs at different ranges, but the longer locks and ghost range did not add anything to the game and just punished new and lower skill players. Higher skill players don't need locks to know where to shoot them, and the ghost range thing just played badly.

Edited by TKSax, 14 June 2016 - 07:06 PM.

[MischiefSC]

It played awesome. I had to approach targets more intelligently and it promotes locks and positioning. I was able to kick *** in a light by exploiting faster locks and speed to control range to win trades against bigger targets. I would use Dorito magic to herd pugs.

The IW mechanic was the best thing pgi has produced for a game mechanic. Trying locks to convergence would be better than laser range but the fundamn6were excellent.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I loved that PTS and would have hoped that everything in it made it into the game in its entirety. Sadly many people knee jerked hard to "ghost range" and canned it, but I'd be happy to get anything extra we can from it.

[MadcatX]

TBH, even if PGI implemented a really good system for role and info warfare, I don't think that would change things in many levels of play to a drastic extent other then perhaps player-run leagues and FW to an extent (although scouting in FW as a defender usually boils down to calling out which lane an enemy is coming down).

We simply don't have a system which gives any other roles due to lack of tonnage restrictions and even with that a light mech can be as deadly as a heavy in the right hands. Every build does usually fit a role of some sort, sniper, brawler, skirkisher, mixed. Having a system that could look at the loadout and engine you are running, assign it to the closest role it would fit, and then have the matchmaker attempt to have teams with even numbers of brawlers, snipers, etc. might get us somewhere, but obviously that is not going to happen.

[Mcgral18]

Oh yes, those 66M SPLs, and my 350M sensor range Cute Fox

What a wonderful nerf to those OP Light Mechs

[MischiefSC]

Mcgral18, on 14 June 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

Oh yes, those 66M SPLs, and my 350M sensor range Cute Fox

What a wonderful nerf to those OP Light Mechs

So the quirks needed changed. They warned they were artificially generated. 4000% torso twist and MG LRMs were funny too.

Without that using some of the well quirked mechs it was the best matches of MWO I've ever played. A hell of a lot more thinking man's shooter and they played out more intentionally by far.

[Gas Guzzler]

Honestly, I'm down with some mechs getting sensor buffs and some targeting delays for the bigger guys, but anything beyond that is beyond frustrating.

The base sensor range would need to be higher though...

MischiefSC, on 14 June 2016 - 07:22 PM, said:

So the quirks needed changed. They warned they were artificially generated. 4000% torso twist and MG LRMs were funny too.

Without that using some of the well quirked mechs it was the best matches of MWO I've ever played. A hell of a lot more thinking man's shooter and they played out more intentionally by far.

"thinking man's shooter" seems to have different definitions nowadays.

[Gryphorim]

Okay, so I'd like to add, here are a bunch of things about the current state of MWO that bug me, and have had fixes proposed, but those fixes get shouted down by certain groups among the community:
Artificially accurate weapons. Real weapons CoF. Recoil, or at least inaccuracies in actuation mean less than perfect aim, especially in a moving platform.
Instantaneous target pip when a target in LoS. In an environment full of background clutter, on any mech without variation, detecting any mech without variation, using sensors that are described as being as good as similar units from late-ish LAST century.
Optimal/Maximum ranges and that anything that gets proposed to affect these gets shouted down. Honestly a heap of things will affect the absolute maximum range of a weapon. Lasers are more accurate than ballistics, but unless they get ranging data, they can't focus the beam properly and lose a ton of intensity.
But IMHO, ranges should be tripled from what they are.

Edited by Gryphorim, 14 June 2016 - 07:39 PM.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 14 June 2016 - 07:18 PM, said:

Oh yes, those 66M SPLs, and my 350M sensor range Cute Fox

What a wonderful nerf to those OP Light Mechs

For figures that PGI itself warned were provisional, a whole lot of torches and pitchforks were brought out anyway. <smh>

Edited by Mystere, 15 June 2016 - 08:03 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Gas Guzzler, on 14 June 2016 - 07:23 PM, said:

Honestly, I'm down with some mechs getting sensor buffs and some targeting delays for the bigger guys, but anything beyond that is beyond frustrating.

The base sensor range would need to be higher though...



"thinking man's shooter" seems to have different definitions nowadays.

You can shoot at anyone you want but leveraging target locks to get better range or accuracy is absolutely about adding benefits to thinking and any sort of strategic thinking.

It took me like 10 matches to adjust to laser range changes and then it was a benefit I could leverage. I still say something convergence related is better.

Winning trades wasn't about who could poke fastest and cut corners tightest. It was lining up range with locks. I won trades by having spotters, UAV and teamwork or a lighter mech with faster locks that could control range better.

Currently winning has a lot in common with CS:GO. Good cornering, positioning to shoot first, locks largely irrelevant save for measuring damage and assisting teammates with enemy positioning.

[Zolaz]

Everyone here knows that PGI knows what is best for the game over all the players. Why? Because reasons.

[AnTi90d]

This sounds like an even worse idea than that ******** power draw crap they're going to shoe-horn into a 4 year old game.

FP would be **** versus the clans, since they're already under permanent ECM with their switchable omni pods and ECM mechs that are actually decent.

This game needs more content. Making gameplay changes that drastic and non-canon is going to chase more players out of the game.

[Gryphorim]

AnTi90d, on 14 June 2016 - 08:54 PM, said:

This sounds like an even worse idea than that ******** power draw crap they're going to shoe-horn into a 4 year old game.

FP would be **** versus the clans, since they're already under permanent ECM with their switchable omni pods and ECM mechs that are actually decent.

This game needs more content. Making gameplay changes that drastic and non-canon is going to chase more players out of the game.

So, in your opinion, dedicated scout platform mechs should have the exact same sensor capabilities as a close-range brawling machine? A specialist missile platform should have the same target lock times as a fast attack light?

Also, how is "power draw" any worse than the ghost heat system?

Having a non-binary sensor environment (as in one that is not just has ECM=yes/no) means a non-ECM team can still take advantage of dedicated scouts, and other role warfare options, so would go a small way toward leveling the playing field. Are you suggesting you want clan ECM to be OP?

Practically a mech every month, going back to rescale everything at player insistance, improving on existing maps and releasing new ones (I'll admit, faster map turnover would be good), reimagining Assault mode with actual bases, as well as new methods to communicate and coordinate, are all slated for the next month of release.
In what way is this not "content?"

[627]

Imo it was the right direction they took with it.

I get everyone hates the ghost range but in the end the idea was you need a lock before you can do full damage. And the idea is still good. Maybe not with range but a slight CoF because the mech don't know where to converge. If you have a lock you can.

Together with different sensor ranges and different "classes" to detect mechs (smaller mechs are harder to find) this could be made into a working team oriented game mechanic.

Sadly, they dropped the idea at the very first moment when people started to cry instead of working it out a bit more.
We have so much overcomplicated and useless things in this game for years where PGI is stubborn to change anything. But a new gameplay mechanic, even if only used to shake it up a bit was abandoned on first contact with the players.

[jss78]

The infowar PTS was a bunch of good ideas abandoned because of one bad idea (ghost range). It was a shame.

I like the idea of having weapon convergence require target lock. It'd make target locks matter and make a lot more sense than weapons coverging perfectly at all ranges without target locks.

How ECM/sensors/BAP interact would undoubtedly need fine tuming, but that's something that can be sorted out

[Funkin Disher]

The sensor range and target info stuff was great, the weapon range linked to target locking was not.

[Doman Hugin]

New equipment: Targeting computer, Tonnage 0, fits in same crit slot as sensors.

With this new technology you can target an enemy unit, letting the built in computer fine tune your weapons targeting, thus increasing the range and damage potential of any weapons fired at the target.

[Alistair Winter]

2 of the things this community needs to work on
1) People don't know how to discuss collision damage without getting it mixed up with knockdowns.
2) People don't know how to discuss infotech without including Ghost Range.

Gryphorim, on 14 June 2016 - 06:48 PM, said:

Anyway, PGI, aside from the ghost range, can we have all the other stuff brought back please?

It was right there in the OP. You see? I know time is of the essence, but y'all need to work on your skim reading skills.

And Gryphorim, you would probably get the answers you wanted if you deleted your paragraph where you rant about "was ghost range really so bad". Because people feel strongly about it, the majority of the community (including myself) absolutely hated it, and it will derail your thread.

With that out of the way...
I agree completely with the OP. However, I will say this: PGI made the mistake of trying to divide every mech into roles (which is good) and then used infotech to nerf every mech with high firepower regardless of weight class in order to make them equal to mechs with low firepower. For example, the Firestarter got approximately the same infotech nerfs as a Dire Wolf. It was effectively blind as a bat.

Now, the inability to detect mechs at long range isn't such a disaster if you're in a Dire Wolf, because you will probably have other mechs to scout for you and you're moving around at 50 kph, so it's not exactly hard to spot enemies anyway. However, if you're in a Firestarter, running zig zag on the frontlines between both friendly and hostile targets, engaging enemies at 90 meter range with only a split second to identify enemies every time you turn, then it makes no sense to have such awful sensors. Playing the Firestarter was like playing with the HUD bug in 2013. You couldn't detect enemy assault mechs before you were actually standing on top of them, it was ridiculous.

Infotech was great, but the actual distribution of quirks needed some work. A light mech shouldn't depend on other light mechs to spot enemy mechs 200 meters in front of them. That's not how you balance the Firestarter or the Jenner or the Cheetah.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 15 June 2016 - 02:27 AM.

[Gryphorim]

Alistair, I included the rant about the ghost range, because I wanted to hear other people's thoughts on the matter. For me, having had some work with military laser equipment, it seemed a no-brainer that the lasers would need targeting info to achieve their max-rated range. Realism in gaming.
However, for those who had more time with the PTS (My time was cut short by work commitments) obviously this made the game un-fun in some very specific and game-breaking way. As I understood it, it should have been a difference of 200m or so MAX, on ERLL, at ranges where you'd barely register damage at all. I was clearly wrong.
Thus an interest in rooting out what I was wrong about.
All the other stuff in the PTS was excellent, in concept. Sure some specific numbers needed work, like your Firestarter example.
IMHO, given that specific mech wasn't really designed for long-range fighting, it shouldn't have long range sensors, but it did get described as an urban fighter, so it should have had relatively fast target acquisition and info gathering. Ideally, it should have also had unique thermal optics, that aren't completely blind on hot maps, as well (can that even be quirked?)
Lights should have had base sensor ranges of 800m, with scouts seeing out to 1200m (and then add BAP) and brawlers still seeing out to 500m-ish. Most importantly for lights, is how quick those doritos pop up though. That should be fast for lights.

Honestly, I still hope to see not only Infowar as teased brought back, but the second layer, with radar cross section quirks (how far a mech can be seen from) and active/passive sensors toggle and other vision modes (magnetometer and ENHANCED OPTICAL!, sorry, had to be shouted!)