57 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

sycocys, on 08 January 2018 - 10:35 AM, said:

Isn't it a static pattern shape, but dynamic change based on distance?

I wouldn't use the same system for everything, but there could be something to locking torso mounts to dead ahead, and adding momentum motion to the arms at least.

Dead straight torso mounts would get rid of ~90% of the alpha shot PP problem straight away.

The pattern is a cone, that then stays as a cylinder once maximum size is reached now. I think if I remember correctly SRM's had a pattern a bit like two christmas crackers joined together, so at certain ranges, there were sweet spots

[ROSS-128]

I'm pretty sure that if we made all our weapons spread enough that they couldn't consistently target a slab-sided mech like the Awesome, Direwolf, or Fafnir, the spread would be so bad that we'd suddenly have a severe problem with hitting light mechs at all.

And the slab-sided mechs would still be at a net disadvantage.

[oldradagast]

No matter the level of convergence, bigger hit boxes will always be worse and need defensive armor quirks to buff them.

That being said, yes, pinpoint convergence is a huge part of the problem in this game. It's why the meta is stale, hardpoints and geometry matter more than anything else, and most mechs have no purpose. But we've been over this. The try-hards think that any game with anything but perfect, pinpoint convergence is "no skill" and "any stoopid noob can win in it." The facts completely disagree with this assertion, and any remotely seriously PvP shooters for years now have had some level of variable convergence, so their claims are utter nonsense. I challenge some "stoopid noob" in a game like WoWS - a game with a huge amount of variable shell fall - to "easily beat skilled players" because somehow we're to believe that reducing overall accuracy rewards less skilled players... even though everyone is affected equally bit... It's lunacy.

Not that it matters anyway since variable convergence is beyond PGI's abilities... even though we have a huge form of it when using jump jets... whatever.

Edited by oldradagast, 08 January 2018 - 12:34 PM.

[sycocys]

Its not just in the game with JJ, its also there with the arm-lock. Technically you have 2 convergence points at all times anyhow.

You are right though, it's pretty silly that they can't manage to add a less spastic form of the JJ shake to your reticules when you are just moving.

[Shifty McSwift]

Why does any new mech release need to compare to the meta at all?

Oh wait because the marketing model is built around selling new mechpacks. I'd call that inbuilt powercreep personally, but it is the simple and sad answer to most of these issues, and makes it easy to see why they cave to mass requests/cancelations.

[oldradagast]

Shifty McSwift, on 08 January 2018 - 05:31 PM, said:

Why does any new mech release need to compare to the meta at all?

Oh wait because the marketing model is built around selling new mechpacks. I'd call that inbuilt powercreep personally, but it is the simple and sad answer to most of these issues, and makes it easy to see why they cave to mass requests/cancelations.

That, and mechs lack "soul," for lack of a better word... or, maybe flavor. Everything degenerate into slapping the meta of the month on whatever chassis can carry it - while having high mounts and good hitboxes - and that's it.

I get it - not every mech can be equally powerful, but we've reached a point of mech saturation. So many mechs, and so few viable builds and choices. It's annoying. First world problems, but you know what I mean.

[Y E O N N E]

• Author comes in to like posts he agrees with
  
• Doesn't have backbone to defend the original point against valid criticisms raised against it

gg

[Mystere]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 January 2018 - 05:39 PM, said:

• Author comes in to like posts he agrees with
  
• Doesn't have backbone to defend the original point against valid criticisms raised against it

gg

Defend/prove someone's own point/assertion? Where have you been spending your time between November 8, 2016 and today?

Edited by Mystere, 08 January 2018 - 05:46 PM.

[panzer1b]

Despite being mostly a clanner, im in full support of removing convergence at least from torso mounted weapons (have all fire dead straight). Arms could be delayed convergence, but generally speaking i think we can keep arms with perfect convergence since i dont recall any mech off the top of my head that has enough arm mounted firepower to really stand out and break balance (there is no 60-80 point alfa from just arms).

Ofc there is always the downside of doing this, mechs that have heavily spread out torso weapons (wide torso with guns nowhere near center) will end up useless (or at least unworthy of meta), and mechs that have good groupings of weapons (MAD3R triple ballistic slots, HBR LT, MCII ST lasers, ect) will become the more meta favored since mopst of those have the ability to dump at least the majority of an alfa strike on 1 hitbox. Best example would prolly be the hellbringer, 3 lasers literally in the same spot, all ud need to do is alternate left/right cause you cant alfa the whole mech on 1 hitbox. Also worth mentioning is that a few mechs (particularly catapult and warhammer) will be the ONLY thing anyone runs gauss on since both have the guns close enough to each other as to snipe at least fairly effectively. That or arm gauss since arms arguably outta have convergence enabled since there are already good reasons not to use arm guns at all.

That said, i havent heard it myself so i am not sure if its true, but i dont doubt that PGI is simply unable to code such a thing without breaking hitreg and making half my fire dissapear into thin air despite perfect aim on my end (happens often enough in the current game let alone with more hitreg complexity).

[Kin3ticX]

CK16, on 07 January 2018 - 08:51 PM, said:

Here we go again. New mech with a popular past and large fan base being said it's garbage, bad, ect.ect. ect.....That to be meta must mean we get this tiny narrow torso mechs (that usually are just a minor side note in Battletech/Mechwarrior history!!!) To be your ideal meta sheeter.....

Yet those same id....players argue tooth and nail that pin point 100% accurate always convergent weapon aim is not an issue with this game. That bad geo is only the mechs fault for why it's not ideal to play....

**** complaining about bad geo, start addressing the stupid *** pin point 100% convergent aim, specify for laser vomit.....Then maybe all mechs csn start being more viable for once.....and no your skills won't change much as good shoots still requiring knowing how to aim

Are you Velron2005's alt account?

[Shifty McSwift]

oldradagast, on 08 January 2018 - 05:37 PM, said:

That, and mechs lack "soul," for lack of a better word... or, maybe flavor. Everything degenerate into slapping the meta of the month on whatever chassis can carry it - while having high mounts and good hitboxes - and that's it.

I get it - not every mech can be equally powerful, but we've reached a point of mech saturation. So many mechs, and so few viable builds and choices. It's annoying. First world problems, but you know what I mean.

I agree that nothing here will ever be truly equal, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, but each mech can totally be individually viable if they kept them updated and adjusted when compared with new potentials etc, but there is no impetus to do that, it is easier for them to let the "done work" of old mechs gather dust in that sense.

No matter how close balance gets there will always be best and worst mechs too, and just based on the sheer numbers of mechs that gap will be large, but you can work to minimise it for sure, at the moment most mechs are just inefficient choices over the meta forerunners for given roles.

The path of nerfing overperformers and buffing underperformers is one of only a few real options there in keeping a sense of balance up to date and constant, but then you don't just run into the issue of it not directly benefitting their main selling points as they see them, you also run into community flak to any kinds of changes, in particular to nerfs to mechs purchased with a specific set of stats.

The best answer there is to shift the marketing focus for that income flow for the ongoing development of the game (as barebones as that may be) away from mechs, which is obviously a carryover effect from the table top game in selling miniatures. A simple subscription system would be the best way to go in my opinion, but keeping the game free to play in essence is a big factor for attracting and keeping a decent playerbase figure.

I could go on, but the TL/DR is basically, they painted themselves into a corner with their marketing model in terms of ongoing balance versus ongoing income.

[Y E O N N E]

Mystere, on 08 January 2018 - 05:46 PM, said:

Defend/prove someone's own point/assertion? Where have you been spending your time between November 8, 2016 and today?

I like to think people in general have a little more integrity than the Cheeto in Chief, but then I'm also an unrelenting optimist.

[SeventhSL]

FupDup, on 07 January 2018 - 08:54 PM, said:

In a world of reduced or remove convergence, having bad geometry will still statistically increase the chances of certain body parts getting hit.

Good geo will always have an advantage but the OP is right that an accuracy mechanic will reduce this advantage.

For example, two different Mechs are being shot at from the side. One has good geo and shields so well that it's CT can't be seen. The other isn't as lucky and has a small part of its CT visible from the side. The first Mech won't take any damage to its CT but due to the pin point nature of weapons the second Mech will take a full alpha to its CT. if we add accuracy then the first Mech still won't take damage to Its CT but the big difference is the second Mech, with less desirable geo, will NOT take a full alpha to its CT.

There is also a lot of other things you can do with an accuracy mechanic to help geo. from example two Mechs are poking at each other at long range. One has high torso mounted hard points that allow it to expose very little to enemy fire. The other Mech has low arm hard points that require it to expose half the Mech to fire. We all know this ends in favour of the high torso mounts under our current system. If we add an accuracy mechanic and give weapons in the arms an accuracy bonus it levels the playing field a lot. One Mech has to expose a lot but gets shot at by more inaccurate weapons. The other Mech exposes little but get shot at with very accurate fire. Much more even.

[LordNothing]

one is definately a problem and the other is debatable as to whether or not its a problem.

i think the biggest issue with convergence is that it only really applies to lasers, one of the reason why lasers are so disproportionately op. sure you can get convergence on projectile weapons, unless you are leading a moving target in which case rounds and ppc blobs just go everywhere. lasers can pinpoint on the move and this is not factored into balance at all. i think its something that can use a little more thought into its implementation.

i like the idea of lock based convergence rather than boresight based convergence, that way you can get your ballistics and ppcs to converge while leading, provided you have a weapons lock. lock is required because otherwise the game doesnt know what you are shooting at since you are essentially aiming for the dead space in front of the mech, boresight would just set depth to whatever the resulting raycast says it is, which is the terrain behind where you want to converge. maybe lock will override boresight in all cases but the best convergence would be had from a lock.

arms only convergence might be a thing to give arm mounted weapons an advantage. torso weapons will be set to converge at optimal range and fixed there. lock based convergence might be applied here but it would only work on arm weapons. i have nothing against fixed weapons being fixed though. it would give you a tradeoff between precision and a potentially vulnerable weapon system.

[KodiakGW]

justcallme A S H, on 07 January 2018 - 09:50 PM, said:

I cannot see how this illogical point was logically reached...

Same way he reached the points on defending the Skill Web so adamantly. Was “change for change’s sake” one of his?

[The Lighthouse]

It is obvious that CK16 once again abandoned his thread.

[Tarogato]

SeventhSL, on 08 January 2018 - 08:38 PM, said:

Good geo will always have an advantage but the OP is right that an accuracy mechanic will reduce this advantage.

Actually, I would say it's the other way around.

There's a couple ways of putting this,

- As the favourability of hitboxes increases, so too does the value of pinpoint.
- As weapons become more pinpoint, the value of hitboxes diminishes.
- The better the hitboxes are, the less effective the inaccurate weapons will be.


Think perhaps of a Cataphract with its huge barn-door frontal profile. Even an inaccurate weapon like MRMs can CT-core this mech. So the value of pinpoint is not that great when you consider that you don't need much accuracy to kill it. But then think of a mech like the Marauder with a favourable thin frontal profile. The inaccurate weapon (think MRMs) will spread more on these sliver profiles of hitboxes, so the value of pinpoint is higher. In a world where we don't have pinpoint, then the gulf in performance between good and bad hitboxes is amplified. Inaccurate weapons can still kill mechs with huge terrible geometry, but they simply won't be able to focus components on the mechs that actually have favourable hitboxes. Having mostly pinpoint weapons in the game is good in a way because it helps level the playing field between good and bad geometry - pinpoint weapons can indiscriminately hit a single intended component without spreading.

[Spheroid]

This whole problem would have been avoided if from the beginning they made MWO a cone of fire with random hit table game.

Since the size of the CoF would scale with the target, specific mech geometry would be irrelevant and larger weapons like PPCs and ACs would not be disadvantaged.

I reject the criticism that hit tables reduce skill to unfun levels. The gunnery skill of calculating a ballistic lead on a maneuvering target would still exist and be as vital as ever. Also target facing would not be removed as a factor. Tabletop had a front, two sides and a rear table.

I would combine like weapons into a single CoF vector but make each have a separate hit location roll. A group fired hex mlas shot could slightly miss for some duration of it beam time and the remaining damage that walked onto the target could make six discrete hit rolls.

Armor levels could be massively reduced and a canon and punishing heat system could finally added. The heat scale effects would penalize movement and CoF diameter.

ECM would not add stealth only enemy CoF bloom and targeting computers might actually be worth their weight especially if called shot was allowed. The called shot would have alot of CoF error but lack a hit table lookup.

[SeventhSL]

Tarogato, on 09 January 2018 - 03:51 AM, said:

Actually, I would say it's the other way around.

There's a couple ways of putting this,

- As the favourability of hitboxes increases, so too does the value of pinpoint.
- As weapons become more pinpoint, the value of hitboxes diminishes.
- The better the hitboxes are, the less effective the inaccurate weapons will be.


Think perhaps of a Cataphract with its huge barn-door frontal profile. Even an inaccurate weapon like MRMs can CT-core this mech. So the value of pinpoint is not that great when you consider that you don't need much accuracy to kill it. But then think of a mech like the Marauder with a favourable thin frontal profile. The inaccurate weapon (think MRMs) will spread more on these sliver profiles of hitboxes, so the value of pinpoint is higher. In a world where we don't have pinpoint, then the gulf in performance between good and bad hitboxes is amplified. Inaccurate weapons can still kill mechs with huge terrible geometry, but they simply won't be able to focus components on the mechs that actually have favourable hitboxes. Having mostly pinpoint weapons in the game is good in a way because it helps level the playing field between good and bad geometry - pinpoint weapons can indiscriminately hit a single intended component without spreading.

If we had auto aim, CT homing or something you'd be right but I can head shot static Mechs in the training grounds easily but not in game. Why? Because player skill, lag, movement, range, burn time, projectile speed already form a kind of accuracy mechanic.

While an accuracy mechanic exists it is so small that Mechs like the Marauder and Assasin spread damage well but Mechs like the Catapult with big ears don't. Think about that for a moment.

Adding spread to weapons, that don't currently have it, will allow Mechs that currently spread to spread a bit better BUT it also allows Mechs that don't spread to spread a LOT better. It closes the gap, it doesn't eliminate it.

To elimate the geo advantage gap you have to look beyond hit boxes to things like hard point location. Re-read my post again where I talk about how accuracy can help close these gaps too.

[Tarogato]

SeventhSL, on 09 January 2018 - 03:06 PM, said:

Adding spread to weapons, that don't currently have it, will allow Mechs that currently spread to spread a bit better BUT it also allows Mechs that don't spread to spread a LOT better. It closes the gap, it doesn't eliminate it.

Listen to what you're saying, and think about it in terms of what actually does happen in the game.

Let's say the intended target is CT.





The white circle represents a weapon spread equivalent to an LB10 at approximately 170m. At this range, 100% of this spread damage will always hit the CT of a Cataphract. But only ~67% will hit the CT of a Thunderbolt at the same range.

That is to say... the mech with worse hitboxes takes full damage, just as if the damage were pinpoint. But the mech with better hitboxes spreads one-third of the damage. Make the Thunderbolt's CT twice as thin. Even better, now it only takes 33% damage. The smaller the hitbox is, the less damage it will sustain.



Breaking this down very obviously:


Pinpoint weapon:
100% CT damage on Cataphract
100% CT damage on Thunderbolt

Spread weapon:
100% CT damage on Cataphract
67% CT damage on Thunderbolt.


The tendency is that adding spread to weapons helps mechs with good geometry long before it will start helping mechs with bad geometry. Your example of the Catapults ears... it so happens that you can get an LB10 to deal 100% damage to a Catapult's ears at something like 230 meters. You add spread to a weapon like lasers or UACs? Unless you make their spread greater than LB10, they can still deal 100% of their damage to a Catapults gigantic ear. Now that everything has spread equivalent to LB10, the Assassin will be a lot harder to pick components off of because it has better hitboxes, but the Catapult won't be helped hardly at all. A buff to good geo, and no change for bad geo. The gulf widens.






Your earlier example of the mech's twisting to shield is false attribution:

"For example, two different Mechs are being shot at from the side. One has good geo and shields so well that it's CT can't be seen. The other isn't as lucky and has a small part of its CT visible from the side. The first Mech won't take any damage to its CT but due to the pin point nature of weapons the second Mech will take a full alpha to its CT. if we add accuracy then the first Mech still won't take damage to Its CT but the big difference is the second Mech, with less desirable geo, will NOT take a full alpha to its CT."

Your first mech with the good geo mech that shields entirely is a red herring, because all weapons will always deal zero damage to its CT, regardless of all factors. It's an irrelevant example to the argument.

What we have though is a scale. On one side of the scale, you have a mech who can twist and 0% of its CT is visible - this is good geo. On the other end of the scale you have a mech who twists but 100% of its CT is still visible - bad geo.

Your second mech with the "bad" geo is ACTUALLY a mech with good geo in the grand scheme of things, because only "has a small part of its CT visible from the side." Compare that now to a mech with twice as much of its CT visible from the side.



On the top is a Warhawk, which has only a small sliver of CT exposed. The bottom is a Dire Wolf that has worse geometry - definitely more CT exposed. Of course, a pinpoint weapon can potentially deal 100% of its damage to the CT on both mechs. Statistically of course it won't, but it is still feasible. However with spread or inaccuracy, it may be altogether impossible to deal 100% damage to the CT - the potential is literally not there. The white circle represents some amount of inaccuracy. Approximately 100% of the Dire Wolf's CT is inside that circle. But the Warhawk with its better CT geometry, only ~70% of damage will ever reach the CT. The mech with better geo is getting a benefit from the weapon spread, and the mech with worse geo is not.