10 replies to this topic

[Star Commander Freya]

Hello, everyone. How are you? I am a returning player, back from a 5-year hiatus and trying to get back into the game. Please excuse the wall of text. This is a complicated issue to describe, and I hope that I do so adequately.

I've been a fan of MechWarrior, since the second game, so I'm not unfamiliar with mech sims in general. However, for whatever reason, I could never really master aiming, in MechWarrior Online (this was one of the main reasons I quit, the first time). However, I could never quite understand why my aim was so bad, until I tried again, a few days ago, and I had an epiphany. Now that I understand my problem better, perhaps you could help me to find a solution.

At the risk of showing my age, the best way for me to describe my problem is to reference MechWarrior 3 and MechWarrior 4. In MechWarrior 3, rather than using the mouse to control the torso, you would use it to control your arms. To oversimplify things, your torso would not move, and you would move the corsair with your mouse. In MechWarrior 4, the arms couldn't move at all. The crosshair would remain centered, and aiming would be controlled through torso twisting.

This is where I had my epiphany: in both systems, you are provided with a stable reference point. In MechWarrior 3, your torso wouldn't move, but you could control your crosshair. In MechWarrior 4, your crosshair couldn't move, but you could move your torso. In both systems, you were provided with a stable reference point, which I would use to guide my shots. In MechWarrior 3, it was the static torso/camera. In MechWarrior 4, it was the static crosshair.

I think that the reason my aim is so bad in Mechwarrior Online is that I am left without any sort of stable reference. Because the mouse controls both the crosshair and the torso, it is constantly jiggling, and I am left without a good idea of where I am shooting. I feel like, even if it would slow me down somewhat, "locking" the cursor to the middle of the screen (as in Mechwarrior 4) would drastically improve my accuracy. I found an arm-lock option in Settings, and, while it improves things somewhat, it merely reduces the jiggling of the crosshairs rather than stop it entirely.

As for the Mechwarrior 3 solution, there does not seem to be a way to move the arms independently of the torso. Free look is the closest I can find, but it moves the entire camera, not just the arms, leaving me with the same problem as I had before: I have no way to gauge where my crosshair will end up.

Perhaps this is merely the ranting of an old person who can't get used to new controls. Perhaps there is no solution to my problem. However, I at least feel better knowing what my problem is, and I hope that I've described it adequately. Do you know of any sort of solution? I don't think practice will help (it didn't, last time), so the solution will have to involve the controls, either changing them somehow or buying a new peripheral.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Looking forward to your responses!

~Rakeesh

TL;DR: I cannot get used to the mouse controlling both the crosshair and the torso. Suggestions?

[helix6745]

Have you tried reducing your mouse sensitivity of your mouse? try reducing it to .2, that helped me quite a bit with my accuracy, but it definitely isn't like mechwarrior 4.

[Star Commander Freya]

Hello, Helix.

Thank you, for the reply. Yes, I have tried different sensitivities. I really do think that the issue has more to do with the moving cursor, to be honest. At the risk of sounding like a luddite, I really would prefer if the targeting crosshair would just stay still, right in the middle of the screen. Point-and-shoot, so to speak. I'm not sure if such an option exists, though. Again, arm lock is the closest I can find, but the cursor still jiggles slightly. Perhaps this is just a game mechanic that can't be avoided, but I'd be willing to go so far as to remove my arm actuators, if I thought it would improve my accuracy. Again, though, I'm not sure if that's a feature.

[CFC Conky]

Hello Rakeesh,

Have you tried playing with arm lock on? The aiming cross will stay in the center of the HUD and will move in conjunction with your torso. Also, I’ve found a tack ball to be more accurate that a mouse.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Biomechtric]

You could try software that overlays a crosshair on your screen, that's the only way I can think of other than arm lock, though the system MWO uses works really well when you get used to it.
With enough practice you can shoot two enemy's at the same time, hold your arms locked to a target while it's moving across your field of view & even (though not quite so much nowadays after a wack with the nerf bat) curl ATM's & LRM's around\over cover.

I must again stress that you in game mouse sensitivity is best set at(usually) less than 0.3. that's zero point three not three. Remember guys it's not a bug, it's a feature.....

[Star Commander Freya]

Hello, again, everyone.
I have been experimenting with some of your suggestions. So far, using a combination of free look to move the arms and a mouse sensitivity of 0.3 has improved my accuracy somewhat. I could definitely see myself getting used to this, with practice.

Is there a way to torso twist while using freelook? If I could combine both, it would feel a lot more natural to me.

Thanks, again!

[justcallme A S H]

Rakeesh, on 28 October 2019 - 04:34 PM, said:

At the risk of sounding like a luddite, I really would prefer if the targeting crosshair would just stay still, right in the middle of the screen.

It does though?

If you have arm lock-ON. Your crosshair will always be in the same place. Arm lock-OFF will mean torso and arm weapons will not line up unless you control it as such - which isn't easy and is more used for advanced play.

There is an issue having Arm Lock-ON, you torso twist is slower so you don't spread damage as well.

[Vxheous]

Rakeesh, on 28 October 2019 - 03:47 PM, said:

TL;DR: I cannot get used to the mouse controlling both the crosshair and the torso. Suggestions?

Armlock in MWO behaves exactly the same as the default aiming in Mechwarrior 4. In Mechwarrior 4, your mouse moved your upper torso, the same way it does in MWO. Perhaps your stuttering is more framerate issue

[Tarl Cabot]

F9 to see what your FPS is. What is your system setup? dxdiag and paste from the beginning to just pass the sound card entry.

What game settings are you using? What AA, if any?

Change key to Toggle Arm lock on/off. Arm Lock off, your arms cross hairs move faster/farther than your torso cross hairs. Arm Lock on, both your arm/torso weapons keep line up together.

And have you run through the Academy, or even the Testing Grounds? FPS in the Testing Grounds will be higher since there is not the huge overhead of tracking/drawing/etc the other 23 players.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 30 October 2019 - 02:17 PM.

[Horseman]

I very, very strongly recommend changing arm lock bind to arm lock toggle. You can keep your arms locked when you only use torso mounts, while on builds that only (or primarily) use arm mounts OR lock-on weapons you just disengage lock and ignore the torso reticle.
On builds with both arm and torso weapons you'll either want to have them on separate weapon groups or keep the arms locked. That's what it boils down to and the rest is just getting used to how the reticles behave - your arm reticle moves faster and has slightly greater range than the torso reticle, with the torso reticle just moving to follow the arm reticle within its' allowed range of motion.

[Rain Dark Sky]

OP, I used to play MW2 and 3, and I understand your difficulty. When I first started playing this game recently I had some trouble adjusting also.

Go to training rounds, practice, practice, practice your circles. You know, dog fighting. Practice doing jump spins and getting hits while doing so.

Practice.

The only cure.

I kept my arms on lock for a long time, and only unlocked as needed. Only in the last few weeks have I been playing with lock off.

I can finally keep lock off.

You are basically training to fire two guns at the same time, one torso mounted, on arms mounted. If you turn fast you will see out the side windows. Eventually it becomes sub conscious. The learning curve sucked though.

It really sucks when you lose a match because you forgot to unlock your arms, and someone calls you on it. Don't ask me how I know.