157 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 30 July 2018 - 09:35 PM, said:

No, once they nerfed PPC velocity, no one even bothered with PPCs. That was the birth of the gauss vomit meta.

Not true at all. If that was true there wouldve been no need for PGI to link PPC/Gauss for ghost heat. Nor would there have been a need to nerf to the Warhawk's PPC quirks. Both of which were done AFTER PPC velocity was nerfed.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:18 AM, said:

Not true at all. If that was true there wouldve been no need for PGI to link PPC/Gauss for ghost heat. Nor would there have been a need to nerf to the Warhawk's PPC quirks. Both of which were done AFTER PPC velocity was nerfed.

They buffed PPC velocity between the nerf and the GH link. It used to be 950 and 1050 m/s for PPC and ERPPC, respectively. Nobody used them during that time. 1200 was the velocity on cERPPC during the KDK-3/NTG era, and it was those two 'Mechs which convinced PGI to link Gauss and PPC.

[Koniving]

Almond Brown, on 30 July 2018 - 07:26 AM, said:

Dude.. HSR did not even exist at that time. I know you know, cause you were their as well. But HSR, after being added, caused the issues I wrote about and thusly delayed convergence was removed.

Convergence was dropped on the exact same patch as HSR was implemented, actually.

However, it was NOT dropped because of HSR. It was dropped because while someone in the US with a ping of X would see the intended 1 second or less delay to convergence acquiring the target and being able to hit it, someone on the Oceanic front playing the game would need 5 seconds of holding on target to achieve convergence. Basically the game was completely unfair to play if you had high latency, as convergence depended entirely on being able to hold the target... and when the target isn't even where you think it is, welp you won't hit it as you won't get convergence to it anyway.

HSR could potentially have compounded the problem instead of solving it, but the removal was a long time coming. Without a way to manually set your convergence, "delayed convergence" will never return.

[Koniving]

Any form of convergence/lack there of that cannot be controlled at the press of a button will never happen due to the disparity issue if you should happen to be playing on a foreign server or if you happen to have a slower connection. The disadvantage is too great.

But if it is client controlled instead of server authority, and set at the push of a button, the field will be equal as you can aim at X, press button, instantly re-calibrate your convergence to said range and be able to use your weapons appropriately.

The question then becomes... how to prevent it from being exploited?

[Eisenhorne]

I don't think anyone in this thread has actually stated why large alphas are a big problem, now that I think about it. If you expose yourself to a firing line, can anyone explain why they think they should survive it?

If you want to play games with random hit locations, go play BattleTech.

[Khobai]

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

I don't think anyone in this thread has actually stated why large alphas are a big problem, now that I think about it. If you expose yourself to a firing line, can anyone explain why they think they should survive it?

If you want to play games with random hit locations, go play BattleTech.

large alphas are a problem because the poking meta it creates is incredibly BORING.

[Brauer]

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

I don't think anyone in this thread has actually stated why large alphas are a big problem, now that I think about it. If you expose yourself to a firing line, can anyone explain why they think they should survive it?

If you want to play games with random hit locations, go play BattleTech.

I would add to this that exposing a single mech to a firing line of 4+ in Battltech is a great way to get rekt, especially if we are talking reasonably optimized builds. People who play Battletech talk about the need to drop 1+ mechs a round to win when outnumbered, and yet folks complain when they are punished for bad-positioning in MWO.

[Eisenhorne]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 07:15 AM, said:

large alphas are a problem because the poking meta it creates is incredibly BORING.

Right, so the solution is to put counters to them into the game then, not to remove them from the game. Bring back PPC Jump Snipers to pop up and quickly deal damage to guys trading a corner. The jump snipers were great at killing static targets that stayed back, but were weak against things that would push them, since PPC's are so hot. that would require buffing heavy / assault jump jets. Don't need to remove the PPC/Gauss ghost heat (even though I think it would be fine) because PPC + AC10's would work fine too. If my Victor could jump better and had decent torso pitch to look down, it would be a great counter mech to the current peeky-pokey meta mechs.

Maybe buff brawl weapons as well. Remove ghost heat on AC20's, so if a brawler gets in close to the enemy trading mechs it can take them apart. Put Small Pulses back where they belong, and make them extremely deadly at close combat. Brawlers can usually get into range with a trading mech before it's taken out, but it takes some hits on the way in, and the trading mech (while not a great brawler) can usually out-brawl a damaged close range mech because the close range weapons are too ineffective.

Don't make everything bad because the meta is boring. Make other things better so they are alternatives that make sense.

[Khobai]

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 07:36 AM, said:

]Right, so the solution is to put counters to them into the game then, not to remove them from the game. Bring back PPC Jump Snipers to pop up and quickly deal damage to guys trading a corner.

That makes no sense. You dont counter large alphas and poking by readding large PPFLD alphas from poptarts that poke.

That would just make the problem worse. Like when poptarts ruined the game once before. Or did you forget about that whole dark period of MWO?

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 07:36 AM, said:

Maybe buff brawl weapons as well.

This I can agree with. Brawling needs to be brought back into parity with Poking. Ideally a healthy meta should enable both playstyles to be effective.

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 07:36 AM, said:

Don't make everything bad because the meta is boring. Make other things better so they are alternatives that make sense.

Balance is entirely relative. You cant have everything be bad. Because if everything is at the same level thats actually balanced. Something can only be bad if something else is better.

Edited by Khobai, 31 July 2018 - 07:48 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 07:41 AM, said:

That makes no sense. You dont counter large alphas and poking by readding large PPFLD alphas from poptarts that poke.

The large PPFLD alpha would be half the damage of the maximum alpha from one of the slower ground poking mechs. 30-35 damage isn't anywhere near as scary as it once was. The idea is that it would be a viable alternative to a ground pounding, slower, heavier trader. A skilled player in a Deathstrike could probably take out a poptart, but you would have alternate ways to try to counter it instead of trying to find an angle on the Deathstrike where it doens't see you, and take a few potshots before falling back.

Also, if you make the brawl weapons deadlier, faster mechs mounting an array of small pulses become a LOT better, so you could push those jump snipers and quickly dispose of them at close range, because they are the worst at brawling, way worse than the trading mechs.

[Mystere]

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

I don't think anyone in this thread has actually stated why large alphas are a big problem, now that I think about it. If you expose yourself to a firing line, can anyone explain why they think they should survive it?

Well, PGI has already accepted it is by creating the current PTS.

Eisenhorne, on 31 July 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

If you want to play games with random hit locations, go play BattleTech.

Once again:

Convergence-based Solution <> Random

It's not even close. <smh>

[Kalthios]

To me, the appeal of BattleTech and MechWarrior games is how they simulated battling with giant robots with believable mechanics for their medium. I ask myself "is this mechanic believable?"

The devs see the appeal of MWO being how it is a competitive esport. They ask themselves "does this mechanic create fun gameplay that is easy for a new player to understand?"

MWO is meant to be an easy to understand and play competitive esport. I don't think the devs would implement mechanics that made piloting a mech more complicated.

I do believe that getting rid of unbelievable mechanics like ghost heat and implementing believable/realistic mechanics such as power draw and convergence issues (as well as a host of other features), would make the game more fun. Its just that such features make the game more sophisticated/complex and that doesn't jive with their design philosophy.

[Prototelis]

A blooming reticle that only blooms when moving is a direct nerf to lights. You know, the class that has to continually move or get wrecked.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Khobai, on 31 July 2018 - 12:18 AM, said:

Not true at all. If that was true there wouldve been no need for PGI to link PPC/Gauss for ghost heat. Nor would there have been a need to nerf to the Warhawk's PPC quirks. Both of which were done AFTER PPC velocity was nerfed.

Yeonne Greene, on 31 July 2018 - 06:03 AM, said:

They buffed PPC velocity between the nerf and the GH link. It used to be 950 and 1050 m/s for PPC and ERPPC, respectively. Nobody used them during that time. 1200 was the velocity on cERPPC during the KDK-3/NTG era, and it was those two 'Mechs which convinced PGI to link Gauss and PPC.

This is the truth, there were roughly like 2 years between when they nerfed PPC velocity and when they linked GH for Gauss and PPCs. It wasn't until repeated velocity buffs that PPC became usable again.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 31 July 2018 - 10:06 AM.

[Prototelis]

Maffa, on 31 July 2018 - 09:52 AM, said:

you cant really hope to haul 130+kmh and be pinpoint accurate now can you, thats why several use SRMs and MGs

That is how it works, so yes I can expect my shots to go where fired. It's a got damn robut not a human being.

I'm sorry you got leg humped that one time. Try sticking with your team.

[Variant1]

the problem isint convergence, its always been in the past mechwarrior games and making aim random will not make the game fun. Instead hitboxes could be made smaller like center torsos or weapon could generate more heat, that way high alpha striking would invoke a penalty. My main gripe is the quirk tree, too easy to negate weapon heat with high heat reduction nodes. This new skill tree weapon nodes need to be removed.

[Mystere]

Prototelis, on 31 July 2018 - 09:31 AM, said:

A blooming reticle that only blooms when moving is a direct nerf to lights. You know, the class that has to continually move or get wrecked.

Not necessarily. Due to their relative size, close-range/backstabbing lights should be more than fine. As for the prototypical 2xERLL snipers, that would depend on the bloom size.

I still prefer a convergence-based solution, though. That would still be deterministic compared to an (presumably) RNG-based reticle bloom.

[Mystere]

Variant1, on 31 July 2018 - 10:29 AM, said:

the problem isint convergence, its always been in the past mechwarrior games and making aim random will not make the game fun. Instead hitboxes could be made smaller like center torsos or weapon could generate more heat, that way high alpha striking would invoke a penalty. My main gripe is the quirk tree, too easy to negate weapon heat with high heat reduction nodes. This new skill tree weapon nodes need to be removed.

Once again:

Convergence-based Solution <> Random

Also, it can be reasonably argued that old MW games were pinpoint (and hit-scan) due to CPU limitations of the time. But it's already 2018 and both CPUs and GPUs are orders of magnitude more capable. Not to mention many software now leverage GPUs on demand for their computational power above regular CPUs.

Finally, with regard to hitboxes, lurking within these forums is a suggestion to further subdivide hitboxes into smaller sections.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 July 2018 - 05:01 PM, said:

Nothing is a silver bullet, and this is a particularly problematic change.

I would be alright with a brief convergence delay to have weapons converge at the range of the target.

There's a few concepts of things that wouldn't be a bad idea to do with convergence and targeting/information warfare, combined with smaller mechs taking longer to lock, etc.

I also wouldn't consider it a 'fix' to any balance issues really though. It would be an additional mechanic that could possibly add some fun if done really, really well. It could also add grand mountains of suck if not done really really well.

Currently I'd still just be happy getting mobility back, resizing some mechs and a few more simple changes. You know. Stuff to make the game more fun to play.

[Eisenhorne]

MischiefSC, on 31 July 2018 - 01:25 PM, said:

It would be an additional mechanic that could possibly add some fun if done really, really well. It could also add grand mountains of suck if not done really really well.

So PGI should stay FAR FAR AWAY from implementing this then. Agreed.