44 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

Mystere, on 18 May 2019 - 04:58 AM, said:

I disagree. The point of LRMs is indirect fire.

Clearly we're talking about how the damage is delivered here, not the role. You could either IDF both when pseudo PPFLD or completely spread, they aren't mutually exclusive.

Mystere, on 18 May 2019 - 04:58 AM, said:

Actually, what I am suggesting is both.

Well, I get that. But as we have been pointing out the entire thread is that, it's against the point of the system to make them basically PPFLD. Now if it were just like SRMs that centers to a component, perhaps.

Mystere, on 18 May 2019 - 04:58 AM, said:

They will never be seen as being as affective as direct fire weapons unless the former comes closer to the lethality of the latter. Increasing their lethality (e.g. by significantly reducing their spread), in exchange for increasing mechanic requirements/complexity (i.e. stacking locks, TAG, NARC, UAV) is a fair trade off.

Merely increasing their novelty will not cut it, though.

Well, here's the thing, I agree that they have to be competitive versus aimed weapons, else there won't be a point.

But it's not like PPFLD is just the entire way to do it. You could also increase the damage per volley, while decreasing cooldown, which increases upfront damage when you are landing it, while making it less annoying by less missiles in the air. This way you increase the damage at the location you want, but keep it inefficient.

The point of shooting a lot of missiles is that you have plenty of chances to hit, just with machine-guns, else just pick a damn rifle, or in this case a Thunderbolt (not the mech, the missile).

Edited by The6thMessenger, 18 May 2019 - 05:42 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Mystere, on 18 May 2019 - 04:58 AM, said:

Homing effectiveness is indirectly proportional to velocity. As such, a very careful rework of missiles will be required.

I also have no illusions when it comes to this developer's abilities. <sigh>

I have said similar things before but here we are with Streaks and ATMs that can damn near turn on a dime.

That said, I don't think most 'Mechs are fast and agile enough for this to factor in anyway. Fleas, yes. Marauders, no.

[Mystere]

The6thMessenger, on 18 May 2019 - 05:40 AM, said:

Clearly we're talking about how the damage is delivered here, not the role. You could either IDF both when pseudo PPFLD or completely spread, they aren't mutually exclusive.



Well, I get that. But as we have been pointing out the entire thread is that, it's against the point of the system to make them basically PPFLD. Now if it were just like SRMs that centers to a component, perhaps.




Well, here's the thing, I agree that they have to be competitive versus aimed weapons, else there won't be a point.

But it's not like PPFLD is just the entire way to do it. You could also increase the damage per volley, while decreasing cooldown, which increases upfront damage when you are landing it, while making it less annoying by less missiles in the air. This way you increase the damage at the location you want, but keep it inefficient.

The point of shooting a lot of missiles is that you have plenty of chances to hit, just with machine-guns, else just pick a damn rifle, or in this case a Thunderbolt (not the mech, the missile).

My underlying point is that they should hurt almost as much as DF weapons. As such, I'm fine with increasing damage per volley as an alternative.

[Willard Phule]

LordNothing, on 16 May 2019 - 06:16 PM, said:

problem with using tabletop as a basis is that it was a major abstraction of a system that could be fully fleshed out a lot better in a real time environment. rather than a stat or bonus that represents a laser guidance system being in use you could have a laser guidance system.

I was just trying to keep it in the realm of what PGI is actually capable of doing. Remember, they still haven't figured out "swappable ammo" for the LBX ACs.

They have, however, shown us that they can program two separate trajectories for LRMs. One with line of sight, one without. Ultimately, what I'm suggesting is that TAG can turn a high arcing indirect volley into a line of sight volley if both are locked on the same target. Even if it's only for a couple of seconds, it effects the burn time and where it hits.

[LordNothing]

Willard Phule, on 19 May 2019 - 03:26 AM, said:

I was just trying to keep it in the realm of what PGI is actually capable of doing. Remember, they still haven't figured out "swappable ammo" for the LBX ACs.

They have, however, shown us that they can program two separate trajectories for LRMs. One with line of sight, one without. Ultimately, what I'm suggesting is that TAG can turn a high arcing indirect volley into a line of sight volley if both are locked on the same target. Even if it's only for a couple of seconds, it effects the burn time and where it hits.

i dont think mwo was ever meant to evolve. it was designed purely as a means to fund mechwarrior 5, and if you spend money to flesh things out you got less going into your prime project. the main focus of mech packs was to produce art for mw5 and other games (battletech) at the same time drawing in income to fund dev. what little dev time they put into mwo is just so they can say they are working on it. pgi is capable of much more than it lets on. never assume malice that what can be attributed to stupidity, unless they can feign stupidity (of course i might delete that addendum if i don't like mw5).

Edited by LordNothing, 19 May 2019 - 03:47 AM.

[Willard Phule]

LordNothing, on 19 May 2019 - 03:43 AM, said:

i dont think mwo was ever meant to evolve. it was designed purely as a means to fund mechwarrior 5, and if you spend money to flesh things out you got less going into your prime project. the main focus of mech packs was to produce art for mw5 and other games (battletech) at the same time drawing in income to fund dev. what little dev time they put into mwo is just so they can say they are working on it. pgi is capable of much more than it lets on. never assume malice that what can be attributed to stupidity, unless they can feign stupidity (of course i might delete that addendum if i don't like mw5).

Fair enough, and I also understand they're limited by the game engine they're using. It's entirely possible that some things they talked about doing are simply not possible with the current engine.

Ultimately, if they want to make something viable easily, using stuff they already know how to do, having NARC effect trajectory is the easiest way I can think of. We've all seen the fast light running across the plain with a rooster tail of LRMs following him. If they readjusted and took the quickest path possible while narced, it'd change that game.

[LordNothing]

Willard Phule, on 19 May 2019 - 12:59 PM, said:

Fair enough, and I also understand they're limited by the game engine they're using. It's entirely possible that some things they talked about doing are simply not possible with the current engine.

Ultimately, if they want to make something viable easily, using stuff they already know how to do, having NARC effect trajectory is the easiest way I can think of. We've all seen the fast light running across the plain with a rooster tail of LRMs following him. If they readjusted and took the quickest path possible while narced, it'd change that game.

i hear 'engine limits' thumped a lot more by gamers than devs. but an engine is a complete framework of things game devs need to make a game without their own in house engine wizard. if you cant implement a commonly used gameplay mechanic like alternate ammo (and demonstrated by the crysis games for which the engine was created), it sounds more like 'dont want to do' as opposed to 'cant do'. the engine clearly has that capability.

they probably had other reasons, like being unable to reconcile live ammo switching with the arbitrary weapon grouping system. do you switch per weapon/per group/globally? where do you put the controls for that? what i you have 3 kinds of ammo for one weapon and 2 kinds of ammo for another, but they are in the same weapon group? etc. it could have resulted in a soup of unnecessary complexity.

and its also a possibility that they programmed themselves into a corner. easily done with the right amount of spaghetti code, poor documentation, and poor policy for maintainable code. a small change could need a full rewrite of a lot of interconnected systems. programmers love to say 'not possible' when what they really mean is 'not worth the effort'. not to mention management loving to skimp on expensive coder time.

[FupDup]

LordNothing, on 19 May 2019 - 01:33 PM, said:

i hear 'engine limits' thumped a lot more by gamers than devs. but an engine is a complete framework of things game devs need to make a game without their own in house engine wizard. if you cant implement a commonly used gameplay mechanic like alternate ammo (and demonstrated by the crysis games for which the engine was created), it sounds more like 'dont want to do' as opposed to 'cant do'. the engine clearly has that capability.

they probably had other reasons, like being unable to reconcile live ammo switching with the arbitrary weapon grouping system. do you switch per weapon/per group/globally? where do you put the controls for that? what i you have 3 kinds of ammo for one weapon and 2 kinds of ammo for another, but they are in the same weapon group? etc. it could have resulted in a soup of unnecessary complexity.

and its also a possibility that they programmed themselves into a corner. easily done with the right amount of spaghetti code, poor documentation, and poor policy for maintainable code. a small change could need a full rewrite of a lot of interconnected systems. programmers love to say 'not possible' when what they really mean is 'not worth the effort'. not to mention management loving to skimp on expensive coder time.

I think the easiest way to handle the UI would be to give us one key to select the next available ammo type for all weapons in the currently selected weapon group (press arrow keys left or right to highlight the next weapon group). Like, for example, if I've got MPLs in group 1 and ATMs in group 2, then I have to press the right arrow to highlight group 2 then push whatever the ammo switch button is.

[LordNothing]

FupDup, on 19 May 2019 - 02:50 PM, said:

I think the easiest way to handle the UI would be to give us one key to select the next available ammo type for all weapons in the currently selected weapon group (press arrow keys left or right to highlight the next weapon group). Like, for example, if I've got MPLs in group 1 and ATMs in group 2, then I have to press the right arrow to highlight group 2 then push whatever the ammo switch button is.

i think im more of a fan of a per group toggle key. changing ammo would use the same key as the fire group command plus a modifier key. this will cause each weapon in a group to cycle to the next ammo type available. if you have more than one class of weapon in the group they would all switch together, but since i seldom used more than 3 or 4 groups i could use the others just to control the ammo types of the mixed weapons.

you could even improve it by making it so you can put groups in other groups. you might have a group for uac5s and another for ac10s, and then both of those groups in the main firing group. so you can cycle ammo separate and fire them together. but its still a big can of worms.

[Khobai]

you dont even need ammo switching to give players a choice different ammo types.

the fact we dont even have the latter is pretty telling that PGI has no intention of implementing the former.

[LordNothing]

Khobai, on 19 May 2019 - 08:36 PM, said:

you dont even need ammo switching to give players a choice different ammo types.

the fact we dont even have the latter is pretty telling that PGI has no intention of implementing the former.

i wouldn't be against doing it the way mw4 handled inferno ssrms. just do a weapon variant with slightly different stats to reflect the new ammo type. i dont need ingame ammo switch. its also a way to give a lot more weapon variety without needing a bunch of retrofits.

Edited by LordNothing, 20 May 2019 - 06:49 PM.

[RickySpanish]

Mystere, on 16 May 2019 - 04:52 PM, said:

...PPFLD...

I do not think this means what you think it means...

[Mystere]

RickySpanish, on 20 May 2019 - 07:43 PM, said:

I do not think this means what you think it means...

Considering the OP and practically everybody else seems to get what I mean, I think I am good. Maybe it is you who has the problem?

[Mystere]

FupDup, on 19 May 2019 - 02:50 PM, said:

I think the easiest way to handle the UI would be to give us one key to select the next available ammo type for all weapons in the currently selected weapon group (press arrow keys left or right to highlight the next weapon group). Like, for example, if I've got MPLs in group 1 and ATMs in group 2, then I have to press the right arrow to highlight group 2 then push whatever the ammo switch button is.

LordNothing, on 19 May 2019 - 06:30 PM, said:

i think im more of a fan of a per group toggle key. changing ammo would use the same key as the fire group command plus a modifier key. this will cause each weapon in a group to cycle to the next ammo type available. if you have more than one class of weapon in the group they would all switch together, but since i seldom used more than 3 or 4 groups i could use the others just to control the ammo types of the mixed weapons.

you could even improve it by making it so you can put groups in other groups. you might have a group for uac5s and another for ac10s, and then both of those groups in the main firing group. so you can cycle ammo separate and fire them together. but its still a big can of worms.

Why even restrict people to using just keys? A pop-up/window that provides a set of radio buttons per weapon with different ammo types should do the trick as well if not better.

[The6thMessenger]

Mystere, on 21 May 2019 - 01:51 PM, said:

Why even restrict people to using just keys? A pop-up/window that provides a set of radio buttons per weapon with different ammo types should do the trick as well if not better.

You overestimate PGI's ability to code such UI. I mean they can't even code what should have been necessary Ammo-Switching and Crit-Splitting.

[LordNothing]

Mystere, on 21 May 2019 - 01:51 PM, said:

Why even restrict people to using just keys? A pop-up/window that provides a set of radio buttons per weapon with different ammo types should do the trick as well if not better.

id rather not have an in game popup. it would work but say you are in a brawl and you just opened up a torso with lbx slugs and want to switch to buckshot for the sweet sweet crits. going through a popup would be really inconvenient for that.

ive been wanting a revamped weapon grouping screen for some times. things like being able to set the cycle interval and ripple count. a;sp to be able to set default settings for mech and equipment (like ecm mode, stealth, weapon doors, arm locks, etc). using it as a place to setup config ammo stores would be great.

i figure some kind of 2d grid with weapons on the vertical and ammo types on the horizontal. buttons 7-0 would be used for ammo switching groups 1-4. when you click on an intersecting cell it let you cycle 1-4 which corresponds to a ammo select group (or zero for no switching). if multiple ammo types are assigned to the same group for the same weapon then it will cycle those ammo types. incompatible weapon/ammo cells will be grayed out. you cannot edit this in game which makes things easier but it is one more thing to do in the mechlab. if you have a couple lb10s you can have a button for every ammo type. or you can cycle them with one button. or cycle the ammo for each independently. but there are other layout options.

The6thMessenger, on 21 May 2019 - 02:48 PM, said:

You overestimate PGI's ability to code such UI. I mean they can't even code what should have been necessary Ammo-Switching and Crit-Splitting.

ui is the only thing pgi has the ability to do. every mega feature is really just a ui for some basic functionality the core game already has. solaris is a great example. you could already fight 1v1s in custom games in the steiner arena everything else is ui, and some voiceovers and new maps. i dont get why crit splitting is so hard to do, xl and light engines already do that. cut and paste for the win.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 May 2019 - 07:27 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

LordNothing, on 21 May 2019 - 07:21 PM, said:

ui is the only thing pgi has the ability to do. every megafeature is really just a ui for some basic functionality the core game already has. solaris is a great example. you could already fight 1v1s in custom games in the steiner arena everything else is ui, and some voiceovers and new maps. i dont get why crit splitting is so hard to do, xl and light engines already do that. cut and paste for the win.

Well, the UI is one thing, the ammo switching and crit-splitting is another. Unfortunately -- and i take no pleasure to this -- they couldn't do it before, else we'd have it right now, so whether they made the UI is moot, it all hinges on such functionality.

[LordNothing]

The6thMessenger, on 21 May 2019 - 07:27 PM, said:

Well, the UI is one thing, the ammo switching and crit-splitting is another. Unfortunately -- and i take no pleasure to this -- they couldn't do it before, else we'd have it right now, so whether they made the UI is moot, it all hinges on such functionality.

it seems more like a wont do as opposed to a cant do. and if its a cant do, its perhaps pgi thinks its too complicated for our player base to handle.

we all like to rip on them for seemingly being inept. but they are game devs and this is kind of what they do. thats why i think its a case of wont do.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 May 2019 - 07:37 PM.

[FupDup]

LordNothing, on 21 May 2019 - 07:21 PM, said:

i dont get why crit splitting is so hard to do, xl and light engines already do that. cut and paste for the win.

The engine mechanics are not genuine crit-splitting, they just give off the illusion of it. The side torso slots are actually separate items that are not truly connected to the main CT engine unit. The game uses the tag "sidesToDie" to determine how many ST losses it takes to kill you, rather than actual engine crits. If it was legit crit-splitting you could kill any non-STD engine by getting one LT crit, one RT crit, and one CT crit.

For actual "legit" crit splitting of weapons, you'd have to be able to critical hit the item from any of its mounting locations. For example, if you put an AC/20 in your right arm and split 2 of the slots to your RT, you should be able to destroy the AC/20 by critting the RT internals without ever opening up the right arm. Another thing is that weapons split between arms and torso are supposed to use the torso firing arc instead of the arm firing arc.

We could probably figure out some kind of way to jury-rig the general concept, but the specific nitty-gritty details like those above would not be possible. We would have to split the item into two separate items that the mechlab will require you to equip both of (i.e. if you equip the 8-slot AC/20 item you need to mount the 2-slot filler item in an adjacent body part, if you take a 9-slot AC/20 you need a 1-slot filler, etc.). The arm/torso reticule restriction would have to be ignored entirely. Critting out the filler item would have no effect on the primary item. So, I guess you might be able to kinda sorta fake it but you'd have to make a number of compromises.

As a side note I'm not sure what the minimum slot size of the primary mounting location has to be. SSW lets me put only 1 slot of an AC/20 in the arm while still counting it as an arm gun but that doesn't seem quite right...

[The6thMessenger]

LordNothing, on 21 May 2019 - 07:32 PM, said:

it seems more like a wont do as opposed to a cant do. and if its a cant do, its perhaps pgi thinks its too complicated for our player base to handle.

we all like to rip on them for seemingly being inept. but they are game devs and this is kind of what they do. thats why i think its a case of wont do.

Well, they can't balance the game right. So I think they are just inept in general.