87 replies to this topic

[pbiggz]

VeeOt Dragon, on 27 November 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

as far as convergence goes i would have a mixed system. arm weapons would have convergence with no problem and use the current model. torso mounted weapons though would only fire directly forward. yes this would hurt mechs like the Fafnir by spreading its damage out. most mechs though wouldn't be hurt to badly at normal engagement ranges. yes at long ranges it might cause some issues. but i figure at anything under 700m it should be fine. also since arms tend to have less armor it would be risk reward system. if you want that perfect convergence you have to put your weapons into those more vulnerable slots. it would also make people think about if they want to go all torso and strip the arms but lack convergence (also risking not being able to hit something hugging your crotch.) or get that pinpoint but risk losing weapons more easily.

I cannot emphasize enough just how bad it feels when you make guns shoot *not where the player clicked* and how much of a backlash that would cause.

[ScrapIron Prime]

ScrapIron Prime, on 27 November 2021 - 11:07 AM, said:

The meta changed. I've moved to that dedicated hunter design as one of my go-to mechs now. The trick is making a chassis fast enough that you can cover ground quickly, that you can go around the long way if you have to and not miss the fight. Dual Heavy Gauss makes for excellent brawling, yes, but getting into position on many of the maps is difficult. A Centurion D, Nova, Shadow Hawk, or Phoenix Hawk packs less firepower, but can always bring it to bear because you're moving at twice the speed of a Fatnir.

The trick is what you DO when you get there, of course.

Like this guy, for example. I'm routinely putting up 800 damage games by ambushing snipers, despite its XL engine. he's a little on the slow side for one of my mediums, but brings a nice punch to the party.
https://mwo.nav-alph...c6cac59c_DV-6MR

[C337Skymaster]

YueFei, on 26 November 2021 - 04:02 PM, said:

Yeah but the mechanic (ghost heat) which forces a staggered salvo out of those mechs isn't one that affects accuracy. They'll still shoot where you want without having to account for dynamically-changing parallax between where you see your reticule and where you suppose your gun mounts may be pointing (unless you offer multiple reticules??).

If you saddle the mechs with wide hardpoints with difficult mechanics, most players aren't going to try to struggle with it, they'll just take mechs with tightly-clustered hardpoints. You'll render a whole bunch of mechs relatively non-viable, which runs anathema to the goal of making as many mechs and weapons viable as possible. The thicc mechs will whiff shots on either side of their targets (like Vlad missing with both arms when he fired at Phelan, LOL), while the skinny mechs will be able to focus their damage.

That's just it, though: I AM "dynamically changing my parallax" by shifting from slightly-left-of-target, to slightly-right-of-target between shots, particularly with the Warhawk and AC/20 King Crab. It's harder to do with laser boats because they pinpoint straight to the reticule and manage to avoid just about everything on the way there except terrain and teammates backs. I tend not to do it as much with Gauss Rifles, but mostly because the projectile velocity is so high, there's almost nothing to adjust for.

YueFei, on 26 November 2021 - 04:02 PM, said:

OK, it seems you're trying to approach the problem of pinpoint damage and how to solve it. You're trying to solve it by altering the shooting mechanics. The problem I see is that if you take a mech with wide hardpoints, you're never going to get the chance to get that pinpoint damage. You'll come out, wait on lock, get drilled by a mech with tightly-clustered hardpoints, and then it'll duck back into cover while you're still waiting for that lock. Either that or you're gonna have to let fly with only a fraction of your firepower and it'll still end up splattering all over the target.

I don't think we need to solve the pinpoint damage issue via an overhaul of the shooting mechanics that's likely to frustrate existing players, confuse new players, and drive people to play mechs where it won't matter (or matters much less).

I think that dealing with pinpoint damage just requires a careful balance of laser durations and varying projectile velocities (to create different Times-to-Impact), and it requires the defending player to actively maneuver their mech to defend. This requires greater player input and gives players greater agency. If I stand there like a dunce I get drilled out. I know I've done that before, not realizing I'm being flanked, and getting a shoulder opened up by a single massive salvo by an enemy that had a million years to stand still, track me, and light me up, but that's my fault and I ought to be punished for it. It makes it all the more satisfying when I do move smartly and force the enemy to take every last point of armor and structure from me before I go down.

And really, if players do that and most of the time they can die while missing half their mech? Then pinpoint damage isn't a problem anymore. And I believe that's already the case, since even when the best players fight each other, they don't all end up with cleanly drilled-out CTs and nothing else touched. That's strong evidence that pinpoint damage isn't a problem, since even the best marksmen can't pull it off.

That's exactly where this all started, prompted by two issues in particular: Laser Boats, and later, Dual Heavy Gauss. Combine that with problematic geometry (Timber Wolves have some of the most obvious "shoot-me-here" locations, particularly when running a bunny-ear config, that they've lost any and all of their ferocity and formidability in combat).

Bunny Ears, in particular, are a huge target that can be tracked regardless of the angle of the 'mech, and the more twisting and weaving you do, the longer it takes for you to figure out where your opponent moved to and reacquire a target for your next shot. One of the reasons the "compressed 360 view" sounds really cool, although it sounds like it would be just as difficult to learn to read as it's described.

Someone else made the remark a few months ago, and I managed to confirm in the testing grounds, that the Atlas CT can be shot through 360 degrees, with about 30 degrees of overlap between being able to hit the front or the back on each side. If a pilot is sufficiently skilled, and has sufficiently accurate weapons (lasers), then the amount of twisting and turning the Atlas does starts to matter less and less.

As for varying velocities: that only works once Ghost Heat becomes sufficiently oppressive as to force players to take one or two of each weapon, and not be able to boat any one of ANYTHING. As long as you can fire several of the same weapon, then their velocities will naturally match up. Unless you're amenable to another post I saw in another thread, suggesting variable muzzle velocities.

Another issue I'm trying to bypass is the natural downside of any form of RNG, so my proposals all attempt to avoid it by any means necessary. The above complaint of "not shooting where you clicked" and all.

YueFei, on 26 November 2021 - 04:02 PM, said:

So essentially being able to blind-fire around corners? That'd be a neat mechanic, for sure, particularly since we have Target Info Sharing which means you can in fact try to aim at the target even though you don't have direct LOS from your cockpit. Having the option to voluntarily disable your convergence would be cool. But I disagree with nixing convergence or making it overly clunky because of how it would screw the thicc mechs.

Not even "blind" fire. Ever been peeking around a building? You can see your target clear as day. They don't see you (probably because they're 1500 m away across River City, and you're in the shadow of the building you just stepped around). They're standing perfectly still, thinking they're out of the way. You line up your shot, click the mouse, and...!!! Your shot hits the invisible wall that you didn't realize was 10 m in front of your crosshairs.

In every situation like that (except for one location I recently discovered on New Polar), even though your crosshairs were blocked, your arm would have cleared the building. Especially in cases where you knew ONE of your arms was blocked, and you were only shooting the weapons on the OTHER one.

VeeOt Dragon, on 27 November 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

as far as convergence goes i would have a mixed system. arm weapons would have convergence with no problem and use the current model. torso mounted weapons though would only fire directly forward. yes this would hurt mechs like the Fafnir by spreading its damage out. most mechs though wouldn't be hurt to badly at normal engagement ranges. yes at long ranges it might cause some issues. but i figure at anything under 700m it should be fine. also since arms tend to have less armor it would be risk reward system. if you want that perfect convergence you have to put your weapons into those more vulnerable slots. it would also make people think about if they want to go all torso and strip the arms but lack convergence (also risking not being able to hit something hugging your crotch.) or get that pinpoint but risk losing weapons more easily.

This sounds like a very interesting mechanic. The one caveat I would add is arm actuators: If you don't have lower arm actuators, you wouldn't be able to converge your weapons like that. (But I also feel like there was a missed opportunity in the original TT artwork and with PGI: a 'mech without lower arm actuators should look like a Blackjack/Rifleman/Jagermech. With lower-arms should look like a Marauder, or Atlas, etc. At least they got hands/no-hands right. That way there's a further give/take: either you can converge your weapons, or you get an amazing hill-humping profile).

Edited by C337Skymaster, 27 November 2021 - 02:48 PM.

[FupDup]

pbiggz, on 27 November 2021 - 12:53 PM, said:

I cannot emphasize enough just how bad it feels when you make guns shoot *not where the player clicked* and how much of a backlash that would cause.

I've seen some proposals that would give you a reticule for each individual weapon, which means you would see exactly where your guns are currently aimed...but then that would just be a total UI mess for mechs like the Swayback or Piranha.

[ScrapIron Prime]

FupDup, on 27 November 2021 - 02:45 PM, said:

I've seen some proposals that would give you a reticule for each individual weapon, which means you would see exactly where your guns are currently aimed...but then that would just be a total UI mess for mechs like the Swayback or Piranha.

LOL, I can deal with two reticles (arms and torsos). A dozen or more? Might as well play with beer goggles on!

[pbiggz]

FupDup, on 27 November 2021 - 02:45 PM, said:

I've seen some proposals that would give you a reticule for each individual weapon, which means you would see exactly where your guns are currently aimed...but then that would just be a total UI mess for mechs like the Swayback or Piranha.

ScrapIron Prime, on 27 November 2021 - 02:54 PM, said:

LOL, I can deal with two reticles (arms and torsos). A dozen or more? Might as well play with beer goggles on!

Making a mechwarrior game that puts greater emphasis on the sim aspects is all well and good. It isn't this game and it probably never will be, and even so, you have to be very careful, because a competitive shooter that puts too heavy a weight on the sim aspects is one that has alot of gameplay friction that shouldn't be there.

[C337Skymaster]

pbiggz, on 27 November 2021 - 03:33 PM, said:

Making a mechwarrior game that puts greater emphasis on the sim aspects is all well and good. It isn't this game and it probably never will be, and even so, you have to be very careful, because a competitive shooter that puts too heavy a weight on the sim aspects is one that has alot of gameplay friction that shouldn't be there.

But it was SUPPOSED to be this game. That was the promise, back in 2012, and there ARE those of us playing this game who are still waiting on the fulfillment of that promise. Battletech is, at its foundation, a simulation. All of the games that have been created based on it have been simulations. To have ANY subset of the franchise NOT fall under "simulation" is anathema to the franchise and the universe it created.

[Blood Rose]

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 03:36 PM, said:

But it was SUPPOSED to be this game. That was the promise, back in 2012, and there ARE those of us playing this game who are still waiting on the fulfillment of that promise. Battletech is, at its foundation, a simulation. All of the games that have been created based on it have been simulations. To have ANY subset of the franchise NOT fall under "simulation" is anathema to the franchise and the universe it created.

Here here, but so much for it. We have an arena shooter with Mechs.

[Bud Crue]

Blood Rose, on 27 November 2021 - 05:36 PM, said:

Here here, but so much for it. We have an arena shooter with Mechs.

Think this chain of thought through. If MWO was the "simulation" that many of us wanted back in 2012, what would the result be? A game where anyone who could afford the top assault mechs would be at the apex and everything else would be dross. Oh boy, what fun /s. That would have sucked. Forget monetization, forget making a F2P game that has lasted as long as it has. MWO would hvae been a race to the top assaults and nothing else, just like every MW/BT game before it. This would have sucked in the F2P/PvP realm; and no one would be playing this pos nearly 10 years on. As one of the more out spoken critics of the Chirs/Paul nerf-ageddon of 2016-2019, I assert that even in the darkest days of their reign, this game was more enticing than a PVP game based on such a "simulation" could have otherwise have been.

[pbiggz]

This is an action sim. Action gets top billing.

[YueFei]

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

That's just it, though: I AM "dynamically changing my parallax" by shifting from slightly-left-of-target, to slightly-right-of-target between shots, particularly with the Warhawk and AC/20 King Crab. It's harder to do with laser boats because they pinpoint straight to the reticule and manage to avoid just about everything on the way there except terrain and teammates backs. I tend not to do it as much with Gauss Rifles, but mostly because the projectile velocity is so high, there's almost nothing to adjust for.

With convergence as we have it now, you have instant feedback and knowledge of what your weapons are converging onto. You're proposing a system where the degree of convergence is dynamically-changing, right? If so, that's going to require feedback to players, something like multiple reticles, or else it's gonna be just be rough guesswork.

Not sure what you mean when you say it's harder to do with laser boats. With hitscan there's no need to worry about convergence not matching your target because there's no need to lead the target, so there's no reason for the reticle to be on anything in the background.

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

That's exactly where this all started, prompted by two issues in particular: Laser Boats, and later, Dual Heavy Gauss. Combine that with problematic geometry (Timber Wolves have some of the most obvious "shoot-me-here" locations, particularly when running a bunny-ear config, that they've lost any and all of their ferocity and formidability in combat).

I don't feel that laser boats are a problem. I've mentioned this in other threads, but against a laser boat I have to derp out for 1 whole second to get badly punished. Otherwise, as long as I'm on my toes and maneuvering, there's a lot of margin for error.

By comparison, PPFLD (Pin Point Front-Loaded Damage) is a lot less forgiving, since a split-second lapse in attention can mean the difference between successfully shielding or taking a shot where it hurts.

I don't find Dual Heavy Gauss to be oppressive, because of the trade-offs required to run it (slow, STD engine, the need to charge it before firing), which means there's counter-play options against it. For example, due to the need for it to charge, if you are the one initiating a peek against him, you can try to make sure you time it so that you get off your volley whilst he's still charging, so that by the time he's ready to send it, you're already shielding and ducking back into cover. Do the usual due diligence, check for UAVs so he can't pre-charge and pre-fire you, check that no other enemies have LOS on you and may be feeding that target info, etc. Alternatively, if you're faster than him (slow STD engine), you can maneuver to gain distance to counter the shorter range of Heavy Gauss.

Even with all that, most times you can still make 1 bad mistake and eat a 50 burger to the chest and survive it.

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

Bunny Ears, in particular, are a huge target that can be tracked regardless of the angle of the 'mech, and the more twisting and weaving you do, the longer it takes for you to figure out where your opponent moved to and reacquire a target for your next shot. One of the reasons the "compressed 360 view" sounds really cool, although it sounds like it would be just as difficult to learn to read as it's described.

Someone else made the remark a few months ago, and I managed to confirm in the testing grounds, that the Atlas CT can be shot through 360 degrees, with about 30 degrees of overlap between being able to hit the front or the back on each side. If a pilot is sufficiently skilled, and has sufficiently accurate weapons (lasers), then the amount of twisting and turning the Atlas does starts to matter less and less.

The issue of certain mech's hitboxes being hittable from all angles is not actually a big problem. If it was, like I said, Comp play would look very very different, with everyone dying with most of the damage focused into the CTs, or getting XL-checked.

It may seem like it's easy to isolate certain hitboxes, but it's only so if a player remains stationary or moves in a predictable straight line. I've seen players who were smart enough to shield, but still moved in a straight line, such as going straight backward with no leg turning while twisted 90 degrees in a full shielding posture.... only to get shot in the crotch which still counts as CT. Heck, I've been one of those players dumb enough to think that simply being in a twisted, shielding posture would keep me safe, and then my opponent showed me how wrong I was by shooting me in the crotch.

Players must actively maneuver and turn and accelerate/decelerate to defend themselves. If you watch videos of some of the good players, and ignore their cockpit view and look instead at their throttle and their legs, you'll notice that's what they're doing. And it is very effective and dispersing the incoming damage.

To use an example from Air Combat, it doesn't matter if you're flying near perpendicular to an incoming IR-guided missile if all you do is hold the same course and speed. The missile will fly lead on an intercept course and hit you regardless. You gotta actually change vector and force the missile to change vector with you and exhaust its maneuvering budget.

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

As for varying velocities: that only works once Ghost Heat becomes sufficiently oppressive as to force players to take one or two of each weapon, and not be able to boat any one of ANYTHING. As long as you can fire several of the same weapon, then their velocities will naturally match up. Unless you're amenable to another post I saw in another thread, suggesting variable muzzle velocities.

We already have Ghost Heat limits that allow multiples of the same weapon. Players can then build mechs with different sets of weapons that synergize, but then the different projectile velocities of each weapon type will create TTI differences, which spreads damage against laterally-moving targets.

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

Another issue I'm trying to bypass is the natural downside of any form of RNG, so my proposals all attempt to avoid it by any means necessary. The above complaint of "not shooting where you clicked" and all.

I understand your proposed system has no RNG at all, which is great. The issue is how to prevent a disparity between skinny Mechs with favorable mount points and wide Mechs with spread-out hardpoints? What about accessibility for players to use? For example, in a system with zero or delayed convergence, a skinny mech that has RT/RA weapons can dump their whole salvo at an enemy and it'll strike 2 different hitboxes. Or even if they split their salvo to try to target the same hitbox, they don't need to change their aimpoint as much. Take a wide mech with LA/LT/RT/RA weapons, and fire a whole salvo and your LA/RA weapons might even miss the skinny mech completely, hitting only with LT/RT weapons. Or, even if you split your salvo, you'll take longer to adjust your aimpoint between shots because you have to rotate a larger degree, making it take longer for you to fire off your whole arsenal. What if it takes so long to fire off your whole salvo that you get just abused by agile enemies who peek you and duck back into cover knowing you're only ever gonna have enough time to shoot back with half of your weapons?

Like I said, if this happens, I predict that people will just gravitate towards skinny mechs with clustered hardpoints. A zero convergence or delayed convergence system won't much affect something like a Hunchback-4P, for example.

C337Skymaster, on 27 November 2021 - 02:42 PM, said:

Not even "blind" fire. Ever been peeking around a building? You can see your target clear as day. They don't see you (probably because they're 1500 m away across River City, and you're in the shadow of the building you just stepped around). They're standing perfectly still, thinking they're out of the way. You line up your shot, click the mouse, and...!!! Your shot hits the invisible wall that you didn't realize was 10 m in front of your crosshairs.

In every situation like that (except for one location I recently discovered on New Polar), even though your crosshairs were blocked, your arm would have cleared the building. Especially in cases where you knew ONE of your arms was blocked, and you were only shooting the weapons on the OTHER one.

Yeah that's an invisible wall problem. It could still be a problem even with the ability to fire around corners.... because the enemy might be next to an invisible wall themselves.

At least you can avoid the problem of an invisible wall in front of yourself by using the rangefinder. Can't really use the rangefinder for the invisible wall the enemy is behind.

[C337Skymaster]

Bud Crue, on 27 November 2021 - 07:59 PM, said:

Think this chain of thought through. If MWO was the "simulation" that many of us wanted back in 2012, what would the result be? A game where anyone who could afford the top assault mechs would be at the apex and everything else would be dross. Oh boy, what fun /s. That would have sucked. Forget monetization, forget making a F2P game that has lasted as long as it has. MWO would hvae been a race to the top assaults and nothing else, just like every MW/BT game before it. This would have sucked in the F2P/PvP realm; and no one would be playing this pos nearly 10 years on. As one of the more out spoken critics of the Chirs/Paul nerf-ageddon of 2016-2019, I assert that even in the darkest days of their reign, this game was more enticing than a PVP game based on such a "simulation" could have otherwise have been.

Not necessarily. Not if done right. (Yes, I know that's putting even MORE reliance on PGI getting it right, but still). If role warfare was properly introduced into the game, then every 'mech would have its purpose. Sure, Assault 'mechs will win a straight-up fight unless the lighter 'mechs are extremely good or extremely lucky. But the Assault 'mech can't hope to catch up to the lights and prevent them from doing anything outside its field of fire. Our current maps and super-extended weapon ranges basically ensure that a 'mech with long-range weapons and a high vantage point can cover the entire map from one location, but if it were designed such that a slow 'mech could only cover their small area and can easily be circumvented by a light scout, then one would be forced to play a light scout to provide proper counter-play.

Each 'mech, even in its stock config (and even when agreed by everyone to be a terrible 'mech, such as the Assassin), has a role to play, and a role in which it's adequate, or even excels. Assassins and Locusts excel at moving fast. Any task which requires extremely fast movement will be right in their wheelhouse, and won't be doable by anything else. (That was a complaint I joined in time to hear: that early Clan lights weren't fast enough to perform scouting tasks, and were at a disadvantage against their IS counterparts, back when it was just the Adder and Kit Fox in the game).

Heavy 'mechs are basically faster versions of Assault 'mechs, and Mediums are more heavily armed scout 'mechs. Urbanmechs, Annihilators, and Supernovas are all meant to stand in one place and shoot anyone who walks by. The two IS versions being assigned to areas where sight lines are sufficiently restricted that they can't be outranged, while Supernovas were best used defending installations surrounded by wide open plains.

One of the most exciting things about MWO that they abandoned early on was the notion of matching up the in-game and real-world timelines, so each real-world day would progress the game one day. Starting in 3049, that would have seen the start and progression of the Clan Invasion within a year, and the development of all kinds of new IS tech and new IS chassis over the next 10 years, and could have included news bulletins from around the universe each and every day, keeping players engaged with what's going on.

"Instant action" could have been a training simulator, while you and/or your unit travels from location to location, supporting the war effort for whichever faction you pick against whichever faction you're hired to attack. Large units such as KCom, or JGx could have purchased their own Dropships, or Jump Ships, which could support them on missions, etc.

There's a lot they could have added to a true "simulation" MWO (some of which they were explicitly promising back in 2012, and which they quietly reneged on a year or two later), which would have kept the game from getting as stale as you predict, and honestly would have kept the game from getting as stale as it did.

If MWO was the "simulation game that many of us wanted back in 2012", the end result would be a story that's still unfolding, and technology that's still in the pipeline, that we can look forward to on known release dates, and which we would have to travel to places where it's sold, or pledge loyalty to factions that have access to it, and earn enough money to buy replacements for equipment that gets destroyed in battle. It would be a very dynamic game.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 02 December 2021 - 12:48 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

With convergence as we have it now, you have instant feedback and knowledge of what your weapons are converging onto. You're proposing a system where the degree of convergence is dynamically-changing, right? If so, that's going to require feedback to players, something like multiple reticles, or else it's gonna be just be rough guesswork.

Not sure what you mean when you say it's harder to do with laser boats. With hitscan there's no need to worry about convergence not matching your target because there's no need to lead the target, so there's no reason for the reticle to be on anything in the background.

Not exactly what I'm proposing, but it appears to be one proposition, and I could get behind it if my proposition is to be denied. My personal proposition is that there's no convergence at all, that weapon paths are fixed, and thus they're always known, and extremely predictable. Yes, this comes with all the complications you list below, but that's my particular proposal.

As for "it's harder to do with lasers", I mean it's harder to shoot the left lasers, move the reticle, then shoot the right lasers, since it's much harder to find a point behind a target where your lasers will still go through the target. PPCs and Autocannons are easier to do that with, so you can do a left/right while changing the aiming point and still hit your target without relying on convergence. Lasers are so pinpoint, they'll go under the targets armpit, or something, rather than "pass through" what you're trying to hit. (I'm talking current convergence, not with my proposed modification).

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

I don't feel that laser boats are a problem. I've mentioned this in other threads, but against a laser boat I have to derp out for 1 whole second to get badly punished. Otherwise, as long as I'm on my toes and maneuvering, there's a lot of margin for error.

Easier to do than you might expect, especially when your network connection, graphics card, CPU, etc, are being overwhelmed by incoming RAC explosions, or LRM fire. Even with particles set to "low", this can still happen occasionally.

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

By comparison, PPFLD (Pin Point Front-Loaded Damage) is a lot less forgiving, since a split-second lapse in attention can mean the difference between successfully shielding or taking a shot where it hurts.

I don't find Dual Heavy Gauss to be oppressive, because of the trade-offs required to run it (slow, STD engine, the need to charge it before firing), which means there's counter-play options against it. For example, due to the need for it to charge, if you are the one initiating a peek against him, you can try to make sure you time it so that you get off your volley whilst he's still charging, so that by the time he's ready to send it, you're already shielding and ducking back into cover. Do the usual due diligence, check for UAVs so he can't pre-charge and pre-fire you, check that no other enemies have LOS on you and may be feeding that target info, etc. Alternatively, if you're faster than him (slow STD engine), you can maneuver to gain distance to counter the shorter range of Heavy Gauss.

Even with all that, most times you can still make 1 bad mistake and eat a 50 burger to the chest and survive it.

You forget about Seismic Sensors. There's a reason I run full Seismic on EVERY 'mech I own (all 400 of them). They're an excellent resource for predicting a corner-peek, and can't be spotted or fooled.

Light 'mechs typically can't survive a "50 burger", particularly Kit Foxes. Nice big CT and sufficiently slow movement to eat everything that comes at them.

Heavy Gauss might have an "effective" range of 270, but their dropoff isn't that fast, and can still do pretty serious damage out to 500m or so: max range on most engagements that aren't across-the-map-sniping.

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

The issue of certain mech's hitboxes being hittable from all angles is not actually a big problem. If it was, like I said, Comp play would look very very different, with everyone dying with most of the damage focused into the CTs, or getting XL-checked.

It may seem like it's easy to isolate certain hitboxes, but it's only so if a player remains stationary or moves in a predictable straight line. I've seen players who were smart enough to shield, but still moved in a straight line, such as going straight backward with no leg turning while twisted 90 degrees in a full shielding posture.... only to get shot in the crotch which still counts as CT. Heck, I've been one of those players dumb enough to think that simply being in a twisted, shielding posture would keep me safe, and then my opponent showed me how wrong I was by shooting me in the crotch.

Players must actively maneuver and turn and accelerate/decelerate to defend themselves. If you watch videos of some of the good players, and ignore their cockpit view and look instead at their throttle and their legs, you'll notice that's what they're doing. And it is very effective and dispersing the incoming damage.

To use an example from Air Combat, it doesn't matter if you're flying near perpendicular to an incoming IR-guided missile if all you do is hold the same course and speed. The missile will fly lead on an intercept course and hit you regardless. You gotta actually change vector and force the missile to change vector with you and exhaust its maneuvering budget.

You're talking CT's. I'm talking bunny ears (which never show up in Comp Play, as far as I understand, because they typically indicate LRMs, which also almost never show up in Comp play). You can take a Mauler's side torso off from 360 degrees, regardless of what he does with his torso and legs. If that Mauler is running an XL engine (which should be the case on every Mauler except the MX90, in a Stock Config fight), that Mauler is dead because no amount of twisting and maneuvering could shed the damage from the giant missile launcher that's sticking up above the cockpit. The only way to shield the one is to hide it behind the other. Same problem applies to the Mad Cat if it's running LRMs or ATMs. Okay, it can technically survive the loss of the first side torso, but the complete loss of heat dissipation and the gain of so much extra heat renders it combat ineffective, able to fire one salvo every 50-60 seconds, down from every 5 or so seconds.

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

We already have Ghost Heat limits that allow multiples of the same weapon. Players can then build mechs with different sets of weapons that synergize, but then the different projectile velocities of each weapon type will create TTI differences, which spreads damage against laterally-moving targets.

I was talking going completely draconian: You can fire a single ERLL without Ghost Heat, and a single ERPPC, and a single Gauss Rifle, etc. Currently, you can fire two or three ERLL: same firing profile. You can fire 8 IS LL: same firing profile. You can fire 4 IS ERPPC: same velocity and firing profile. Or you can do 2x ERPPC, 2x Gauss: they may differ from each other, but each pair is a duplicate, and has the same firing profile. 6x AC/2's all have exactly the same firing profile, etc.

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

I understand your proposed system has no RNG at all, which is great. The issue is how to prevent a disparity between skinny Mechs with favorable mount points and wide Mechs with spread-out hardpoints? What about accessibility for players to use? For example, in a system with zero or delayed convergence, a skinny mech that has RT/RA weapons can dump their whole salvo at an enemy and it'll strike 2 different hitboxes. Or even if they split their salvo to try to target the same hitbox, they don't need to change their aimpoint as much. Take a wide mech with LA/LT/RT/RA weapons, and fire a whole salvo and your LA/RA weapons might even miss the skinny mech completely, hitting only with LT/RT weapons. Or, even if you split your salvo, you'll take longer to adjust your aimpoint between shots because you have to rotate a larger degree, making it take longer for you to fire off your whole arsenal. What if it takes so long to fire off your whole salvo that you get just abused by agile enemies who peek you and duck back into cover knowing you're only ever gonna have enough time to shoot back with half of your weapons?

Like I said, if this happens, I predict that people will just gravitate towards skinny mechs with clustered hardpoints. A zero convergence or delayed convergence system won't much affect something like a Hunchback-4P, for example.

And this is where I'm open to variations on the theme, as long as the end result is a lot less convergence than what we currently have, and thus a lot less pinpoint. Because yes, I can think of several 'mechs with severely clustered hardpoints: Battlemasters, Banshees, Hunchback, Dire Wolf, Nova Prime, Supernova, (the IS 'mechs having the added advantage of high mounts, vs the Clan 'mechs all suffering with Low-Slung Arm Syndrome). We'll still have the advantage of their OTHER hardpoints being separated out, but they've still got a sufficiently tight cluster as to be able to use just those to great effect.

YueFei, on 27 November 2021 - 10:32 PM, said:

Yeah that's an invisible wall problem. It could still be a problem even with the ability to fire around corners.... because the enemy might be next to an invisible wall themselves.

At least you can avoid the problem of an invisible wall in front of yourself by using the rangefinder. Can't really use the rangefinder for the invisible wall the enemy is behind.

You say that, but the number of times I've shot the invisible wall just in front of my rangefinder in the last 6 years would suggest otherwise.

[An6ryMan69]

I liked the old caustic because you could hang out in the mountainous regions and hug enemies to death, or head into the middle and brawl, or hang back and snipe. Yeah it had nascar issues, but was still a solid map.

The new one drives me mad with terrible visibility, an absurd amount of structure impeding everything, and even low level terrain that has assaults constantly feeling like they are going to fall on their faces as they stumble around tripping on exposed edges. Just a pure mess - not far off the new HPG actually. Both maps that have me wanting to take a piss and grab a snack instead of piloting, when I dragged into them in quickplay.

[pbiggz]

An6ryMan69, on 03 December 2021 - 01:00 PM, said:

I liked the old caustic because you could hang out in the mountainous regions and hug enemies to death, or head into the middle and brawl, or hang back and snipe. Yeah it had nascar issues, but was still a solid map.

The new one drives me mad with terrible visibility, an absurd amount of structure impeding everything, and even low level terrain that has assaults constantly feeling like they are going to fall on their faces as they stumble around tripping on exposed edges. Just a pure mess - not far off the new HPG actually. Both maps that have me wanting to take a piss and grab a snack instead of piloting, when I dragged into them in quickplay.

While you're entitled to that opinion, i am also well within my rights to tell you, if you play the new maps like the old ones, you're going to have a bad time, and stomping your feet like a toddler will not make life easier.

[C337Skymaster]

pbiggz, on 03 December 2021 - 01:26 PM, said:

While you're entitled to that opinion, i am also well within my rights to tell you, if you play the new maps like the old ones, you're going to have a bad time, and stomping your feet like a toddler will not make life easier.

You're not given an option to "not play the new maps like the old ones" if you're dragged into them on a Domination match...

[pbiggz]

C337Skymaster, on 04 December 2021 - 07:45 AM, said:

You're not given an option to "not play the new maps like the old ones" if you're dragged into them on a Domination match...

Yes,

because they are not the old maps. They are new maps. They aren't supposed to be like the old maps.

[Blood Rose]

Bud Crue, on 27 November 2021 - 07:59 PM, said:

Think this chain of thought through. If MWO was the "simulation" that many of us wanted back in 2012, what would the result be? A game where anyone who could afford the top assault mechs would be at the apex and everything else would be dross. Oh boy, what fun /s. That would have sucked. Forget monetization, forget making a F2P game that has lasted as long as it has. MWO would hvae been a race to the top assaults and nothing else, just like every MW/BT game before it. This would have sucked in the F2P/PvP realm; and no one would be playing this pos nearly 10 years on. As one of the more out spoken critics of the Chirs/Paul nerf-ageddon of 2016-2019, I assert that even in the darkest days of their reign, this game was more enticing than a PVP game based on such a "simulation" could have otherwise have been.

Well thats the issue, you see the game as an arena shooter. I dont blame you, that is what the maps and modes encourage, but there is a lot that the lighter mechs are good for and the heavier are not. Mobility is key, and if we had a proper need for recon and scouting units then Lights and lower end Mediums would still have an important place. If the maps are larger, have random spawn points and asymmetrical objectives or objective points that needed securing but spawned in random locations, then the need to find the objective, note the enemy force, size and heading and other such duties would be important.
Throw in some AI units that have a random movement path but need to be intercepted, or old warehouses with loot that the players need to carry off and you have situations where bugs and light, fast, units are very useful to have, arguably more so than an Assault. Who is going to carry off more loot - an Atlas or a Shadowhawk? Both can carry the same amount by TT rules, but the Shad is faster and can do the trip several times in the time it takes the Atlas to reach the point and load up.
But how do you know where the objective is? well, if your team has light mechs then they can find it for you so you know where to send your slower Mechs.
A simulation style game would be, arguably, better than what we have now, where the leading meta is not how well you can complete the objectives but how well you can stand off and put pinpoint damage onto an enemy.

[martian]

Blood Rose, on 04 December 2021 - 12:11 PM, said:

... complete the objectives ...

All these things in your post would be nice to have, but all that stuff mattered 6-7 years ago. PGI is not going to change the basics of the game now.

By the way, have you tried the new MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries?

[Blood Rose]

martian, on 04 December 2021 - 11:40 PM, said:

All these things in your post would be nice to have, but all that stuff mattered 6-7 years ago. PGI is not going to change the basics of the game now.

By the way, have you tried the new MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries?

Bought it on sale, ive only played a bit and it seems fun, but the Leopard is niggling me a bit, I would rather a Union or Mule in the Succession wars (easier to find parts for, can hold its own LZ from light forces/cover retreating units, can carry a full company if needed, can store more spare parts, etc)