244 replies to this topic

[Creel]

Adding more hit locations would require recalculating all of the weapon damage and armor density.if you have 35 points of armor in the center torso and you break that into 7 segments, then any one segment is completely cored by one IS LL. This could easily aggravate the issue of mechs being less survivable than they should be.

[Tierloc]

Sorry for the wall of text guys. Noone replied to my multiple videos though so meh.

TheRulesLawyer, on 10 November 2011 - 02:35 PM, said:

Is that supposed to be addressed to me? Your answer is basically "suck it up, I've played more MW than you, L2P" That's not exactly addressing the issue. Are you actually denying that what I'm talking about happens? I certainly didn't hear that. You're saying that I should just learn to abuse a bad mechanic better.

Honestly if you want to talk about the 2% vs the majority you need to check the mirror. You are the minority. Your entire reply reeks of elitism.

So I'll ask again. Do you actually deny this stuff happens, and do you have a plan to fix it?

What I was saying is that in any form of competition the players who have participated even just once have an edge on the new guy. That applies to more than just video games. There is no way to make me forget the years I've played this game, so unfortunately new players will always be at a disadvantage. I said it was a steep learning curve in the current chapter of the game and I meant it. I recognize their disadvantage but the failure to recognize it simply as experience is sad. You exemplify this by suggesting the game itself is broken.

I went a step farther though I don't think you bothered to read it. The online experience of open servers as MW4 currently exists is an empty, shallow version of what it used to be even 2 years ago. You ask "what are we going to do to fix these issues!" and I simply laugh at you, but pity you too, as you will never get the chance to learn how to play the game from pilots who did more than take a supernova every drop with 8 erls. You will not experience or come to realize how extremely easy it is to beat these kind of people. You will not learn the full potential of this game from playing in open servers the past year or in the future. The community just doesn't exist anymore.

But enough about why and how, you asked so I'll answer. Legging.. I was led to believe (having never played it) that legs in Mechwarrior 3 were handled as "once destroyed, your mech toppled over onto it's side, rendering you completely usless until you either ejected or someone killed you." I have seen this in action in youtube videos of MW3. The chassis just drops to the ground and waits to get destroyed, or not I guess, as you could just run away. This generated an extreme phenomenon known as "honor" on the battlefield where it was a sin to leg an opposing player - to be "dishonoroble". This carried over into Vengeance, though the game mechanics were altered so you could lose a leg but still be somewhat functional. People still complained about it. From a player perspective, I would rather be limping than eating dirt. By the time Mercenaries came around, players all but forgot the honor/dishonor.

Solution to this? IMO don't change the tonnage distribution but double the allocation slots on the legs, so if I want to put 6 tons of armor on each leg of my black lanner, I can. This would deter people from going after my legs. Of course I would have to take tonnage away from something else.. but if I was really concerned with getting legged I could choose to play that way. Frankly only an ***** for an opponent would choose to go through 6 tons of armor instead of 2 tons on my torsos. Coincidently I already apply to the current system. Most of the current chassis by default have more tonnage on the legs (bigger slots anyway), and IMO, remember this is based on experience, my opponent will find the fastest way to kill me. Why have more armor on my legs than the max on my torsos.. ? Same number of shots to take me down either way, and if I pick up 2 extra tons then great.

Alpha strikes are simply hitting a target with every weapon on your loadout at the same time. For whatever reason there is an added modifier on top of maximum damage that is represented in the mech lab when you achieve it. Usually this pushes enemy mechs over the line of being knocked over. It's not by group, and it's not point and click. If you are carrying missle, projectile and beam weapons.. hitting all of those at the same time can be difficult but possible.

Solution to this? I'm not sure why there is an added bonus on top of the comulative damage. I guess that's what is supposed to make it special instead of hitting your target with one weapon at a time and having it do the same damage. Maybe to keep people from chain firing? It could be as simple as someone complained that the same damage was being applied from chain fired ppcs. I don't know. I will say that I believe dealing total damage in one shot instead of over time should do something, anything. Whether that simply stuns you, or you are more prone to being knocked over.. You can't tell me that getting hit with an lbx20 4 times over 5 seconds is the same as getting hit by 4 shots in 1 second. You would feel the difference.

Were you confusing an alpha strike with what's commonly referred to as "boating"? Well.. common boats are "laser boats" though in Vengeance the LG Daisy (6 light gauss daishi) was more common. They only exist in the fictional realm of No Heat Unlimited Ammo. You can not run a full laser class chassis in HLA and be successful. This goes back to my original premise that you can't and will not experience the gameplay in open servers as you should. You can throw "poptarts" in with this mix I guess. There are ways to outflank and rip apart these people. It's not rocket surgery.

Headshots, or hud shots.. We could probably have an entire discussion about the placement of the hit boxes on the chassis. I keep going back to it, but not everything always was the way it is now. Chassis have been nerfed, new mechs have been beefed up.. I'm not sure if you're questioning the ease to hit them, or to kill you.. or simply what happens when you take a shot in the cockpit. I do not have a problem with the current system of losing your zoom, having a blurred vision. I do think the hit boxes on some of the chassis suck.

CT shots.. I'm not sure how you ask about legs and then include CT. Am I not supposed to you shoot you anywhere? Would you rather have one GIANT hit box with an overall mech rating? The CT is the same as torso, as it is leg, hud and rear. The principle is your mech cannot function without them, and should any one of them be destoryed, such as it is. If I shoot your arm off, I want to destroy your arm. If I shoot your CT, I want to destroy your CT.

Yes I think MW4 is a wicked fun game, which is why I still play league drops for MWL. I do not recreationally play in open servers though, it's too easy - repetitive - honestly to many other games are out that are more fun.

[Tierloc]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 10 November 2011 - 02:43 PM, said:

Tierloc,
I like most of what you say. The game must come first - if canon (&TT gaming ) doesn't work then bring it up to date - but please I hope that don't think that "skill" means you can zoom in and choose which pixel on the logo to hit?

If I were to use a firearm, that firearm would reliably shoot where the sights were pointed. I understand range is a factor on most projectiles and not every weapon fires the same, but the basic idea of having sights is supposed to indicate where the weapon will shoot. I'm ignoring things like wind speed and movement etc.

The factor here is how I handle the weapon to aim it where I want to hit. Superficially injecting a random qualifier to make me miss is not good gameplay IMO. A sniper rifle is just as accurate even if you don't use the scope.. but you may not be aiming where you want to.

[Tierloc]

Cavadus, on 10 November 2011 - 09:40 PM, said:

Yeah, the treatment of lasers in past MW titles has left a lot to be desired. I do absolutely agree that lasers need to spread their damage over the short amount of time that the beam is active.

I'd definitely love to see lasers doing their full listed damage over 1s in 0.25s intervals. This gives the laser an opportunity to impart it's damage to multiple sections which brings up another point...

So only Pulse Lasers should exist? Can I lol because of how many complaints there are for pulse lasers..

I mean I definetely think there is some merit to the suggestion if they infact operate like AC20s currently do, where you have to keep your recticle on target for subsequent firing to hit after the initial shot. That would then make them viable. As it is right now, 3 bursts hit the same target with one click. It should strafe with your recticle.

[Tierloc]

ice trey, on 10 November 2011 - 09:59 PM, said:

It never seemed an issue before Mechwarrior 4, but that said, I'd never played online prior to Mechwarrior 4. MW4 was single-handedly the game that killed multiplayer anything for me, because in my mind "If I couldn't love a Mechwarrior game in multiplayer, then there is no hope." since then, I've been very Pro-PvE if ever online.

But what were the key problems? The Customization systems were being abused; Heat was irrelevant since the coolant flush tanks would be fully refilled as soon as you respawned; There was little to no variation in the shots' trajectories in spite of movement. Long story short, a game where you're supposed to be able to take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to down an opponent had been shortened to little over three seconds, the game lost all pretense of multiplayer tactics, and there was no way to defeat jump-sniping besides jump-sniping, yourself. Couple this with the most popular games eschewing heat and ammo altogether, and it was a frustrating experience. I eventually found a game that tried to work around the problem by making everything extremely heat sensitive, and even running would push your 'mechs heat gauge higher (Netmech IV), but - surprise surprise - nobody ever played.

In reference to you, jarules, this post proves my point.

[Creel]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 06:53 AM, said:

If I were to use a firearm, that firearm would reliably shoot where the sights were pointed. I understand range is a factor on most projectiles and not every weapon fires the same, but the basic idea of having sights is supposed to indicate where the weapon will shoot. I'm ignoring things like wind speed and movement etc.

The factor here is how I handle the weapon to aim it where I want to hit. Superficially injecting a random qualifier to make me miss is not good gameplay IMO. A sniper rifle is just as accurate even if you don't use the scope.. but you may not be aiming where you want to.

you don't have much firearms experience, do you?

[Tierloc]

I have limited experience since I do not own a weapon, I have only shot maybe a half dozen times in my life.

Are you saying that if someone is holding a firearm, regardless of where they are looking or even how they are holding it, that discharged the weapon is going to fire somewhere else than where the sights are pointed?

[Kronice]

Perhaps a combination of "player" sklll with the joystick combined with your pilot's "piloting" skill which has been improved (or not) via gameplay

[Creel]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 07:15 AM, said:

I have limited experience since I do not own a weapon, I have only shot maybe a half dozen times in my life.

Are you saying that if someone is holding a firearm, regardless of where they are looking or even how they are holding it, that discharged the weapon is going to fire somewhere else than where the sights are pointed?

As a pistols instructor, I'll give that a qualified yes.

I'm saying that, depending on the quality of the control system (human or mechanical), and the stability of the firing platform (offhand, or with a rest, or hardmounted), the projectile can be reasonably expected to contact the target within a range anywhere from 1" to 1 meter of where the shooter thinks they're aiming, at a distance of 25 feet. Granted, the 1m only applies to people with horrific technique, however it's not at all uncommon for beginners. That extreme will, of course, not be the case with computer controlled mechanical systems.

One thing to think about is Minute of Arc. (http://en.wikipedia....i/Minute_of_Arc) This is a mathematical term which measures angular difference, and is used to calculate course and trajectory.

a difference of 1/60 of 1 degree translates into shot deviation of 1" at ~30 meters. This means that if a weapon is misaligned by as little as 1 MOA. at 100m youre shot has deviated 3", and at a thousand the projectile hits 3 feet from your designated target spot. Even the best high powered rifles only guarantee accuracy up to about one MOA, which means that you can reasonable expect 6" groups at 100 yards, or 5ft groups at 1000 yards.

Miniscule differences affect trajectory in a massive way, and when you're dealing with weapon mounts that weigh tons which are bouncing up and down at 50kph. calibration of one sixtieth of one degree seems pretty unattainable. With only 1 degree of misalignment you are going to be hitting anywhere in a 60,000ft circle

Edited by Creel, 11 November 2011 - 07:54 AM.

[guardiandashi]

one thing re the lasers
if you go by the novels a standard or er laser has a "burn time" even if its only 1 - 2 seconds which means that as you fire the weapon it triggers and if the target does not move it will burn a hole into the target over the course of the "on time"
if the target is moving, or the laser is still traversing to try to match the aimpoint as it triggers it will burn/cut a line into the target.

pulse lasers do not do that instaid they cycle very fast, in the example of say a large laser it would burn for 2 seconds causing a total of 8 damage meaning each 0.25 seconds it would cause 1 point of damage wheras the large pulse laser would fire 9 times in the same 2 seconds each pulse causing 1 damage.

the thing is I know that in the translation to the sim/shooter due to compromises either the weapons got vastly weaker, or the armor got toughened a lot from the PnP/tt version to compensate for the excessive accuracy that has been in previous versions, allowing for massive group firing to all hit in the exact same location.

It is this issue that is the reason I and some other people have been so .... aggressive? about wanting to change the dynamic somewhat. Don't get me wrong I love the idea of a new mechwarrior game and I don't want another megamek, what I really would like to see is a sim that is more faithful to the concepts of the tt version where a single salvo is unlikely to kill a mech but there are weapons that CAN osk (one shot kill) a mech if they hit in the right spots

granted it really sucks if you are piloting an atlas for instance and someone fires say a clan erppc, a gauss rifle or similar and puts the hit square into your head and blows it clean off your mech. On the other hand it gives the person that managed to do it a great feeling. but I also don't want someone to be able to take an 8-12 cerml nova and blow any mech in existance up in 1 salvo because all the lasers hit 1 location every time.

when you look at a mech in the tt version each weapon does a number of points of damage, examples being small laser 3, medium laser 5, large laser 8 ppc 10, clan er small 5 er medium 7 er large 10, and erppc 15

then you have a record of how much the mech can take example the dasher one of the most fragile mechs in the game has 3 armor and 3 internal on each arm 4 front torso armor and 5 internal structure on the side torsos so when a IS ppc hits it in the arm that arm evaporates absorbing 6 of the 10 damage and 4 points transfer to the side torso evaporating the frontal armor but not damaging the internals (if hit from a forward direction) wheras the clan erppc because it hits for 15 would in addition rip the internal structure of the side torso apart.

its this kind of balance that makes the heavy weapons feared if an ac20 (twenty point autocannon) did the same hit it would do the same damage, AND rip all the front center torso armor off because thats how fragile a dasher is.

Edited by guardiandashi, 11 November 2011 - 07:51 AM.

[ice trey]

Long story short

I want this game to seperate itself from Mechwarrior 4's mistake of using single-player mechanics in a multiplayer game by correcting it's flaws and using Battletech tabletop rules as the backbone for how the game is programmed.

I do not want this mechwarrior game to become an e-sport, where you can only win if you can twitch-click your way to success. There are a thousand and one other games like that, and Mechwarrior 4's multiplayer was terrible for promoting it. I can't say how any other games from the Mechwarrior franchise were in multiplayer, because they all came at a time where multiplayer anything was quite uncommon and fractured - I never had a chance to try them online.

I'm not saying target a 'mech in general and probability calculations decide whether you hit or not, but Cone of Fire is a great way to emulate things like range modifiers and movement modifiers. Skill will be involved, but let it be tactical skill and teamwork, not who is the most dexterous or has the best $300 gamer mouse.

While I am an ardent supporter of Battletech tabletop, I've been a computer gamer a lot longer. However, Mechwarrior games are traditionally Single-player focused, so maybe making this game something that's approachable by single-player gamers in spite of being multiplayer is a better way to go. No use in distancing the game from the Battletech universe if you've gone to get the franchise in the first place. We've got other giant robot games coming out like Hawken, which are better suited to the multiplayer lone-wolf mentality.

Edited by ice trey, 11 November 2011 - 09:09 AM.

[Red Beard]

Captain Hat, on 10 November 2011 - 08:52 AM, said:

*shrug* That was for GD.

For you, I'd say firstly check the edit- your history with MW games isn't particularly relevant here, the fact that you're around this early marks you out as someone with more interest than most already.

And secondly I'd say that I've played games of all three types (pinpoint, shooting by random circle and shooting by automated targeting) a number of times before and thus have direct personal experience of all three.

Pinpoint works for pure deathmatch games and that's what you get in most MW multis so far, but some variation from it is desirable when you're trying to make combat last more than a couple of seconds as befits a MechWarrior game.

Random cones are a cheap fix, easy enough to do and sometimes an acceptable approximation but often overestimate the effect of movement and infuriate players (like in WoT when your shot goes into the one tiny corner of your reticle where the enemy wasn't and you don't reload for another 40 seconds) in addition to removing a certain degree of skill from the aiming process.

Automatic aiming leaves you feeling far too separated from the action. It just pushes you out of the immersion (or at least, it does for most people) and breaks a lot of the connection you otherwise have with the game. This is the only solution I think will definitely NOT work. Frankly, it's a ridiculous idea.

If you actually read the thread (and particularly if GD reads the thread) you will see that my ideal solution is very similar in nature to what he's described above.

These are THE posts that define this thread. I would have written some long winded wall of text, but Captain Hat is much more gifted at putting good thoughts into words than I am. Read these and consider yourself educated.

[Red Beard]

Captain Hat, on 03 November 2011 - 03:17 AM, said:

Personally I think the key is not to randomise the shots but to introduce deviation according to a set pattern. This will allow for skilled pilots/gunners to compensate for the inherent inaccuracy of their weapons while still reducing the silliness of an alpha-strike kill.

To explain what I mean: If your 'mech has an ER laser mounted in its arm, the mount isn't always going to be perfect, and the arm's actuation isn't always going to be spot perfect either, so at 800 metres, there's a good chance the beam will not bisect the crosshair point perfectly. However, the thing is mechanically attached and doesn't flap about at random, so the next time you take your shot the deviation will be roughly the same, and you can compensate for it: It won't suddenly deflect five metres to the right of the original shot for no reason.

Real world autocannons don't deviate much, but when they do it's either according to the coriolis effect of a rifled barrel, the centripetal deflection from a rotary cannon or just the recoil from the previous shot throwing the gun off- and then there's the wind to take into account too. These things may appear random to the uninitiated, but all of them have specific effects- the gun's muzzle brake or autoloader system may cause it to consistently deflect up and to the left on recoil, for example- and while there will be a fraction more random error with autocannons most of the deflection from the target zone should, again, be predictable.

Then you have movement. Even without the screen bobbing, the aim points of the weapons on the mech will change noticeably as the 'mech moves. The arms will rock up and down, deflecting noticeably more than the body: Body-mounted turrets, like the Vulture's, will be able to maintain much more precise aim than any arm-mounted weapon system (and yeah, I know the Clans haven't arrived properly yet when the game starts, but it won't be long!) and each weapon will move differently depending on its weight, barrel length, the strength of its mounting and so on: While, again, these can seem like random movements, in reality they are not, and a skilled pilot will be able to compensate to a certain extent by timing his shots and adjusting his aim. You will never be perfectly precise this way, but if the deviation is according to rules rather than a random throw of the dice, then skill can have a much greater effect.

Note that skill in this instance is not just reflexes: Firing on the move is as much about timing and rhythm as it is about speed in this model, and since the arm actuators and torso of the mech will lag behind the controller's input, so is any kind of drastic change in aim- you need to be able to time your shots right, not just twitch them off.

Note that this will also mean that an alpha-strike will almost never all strike the same location: Different guns will have different deflections from the mount on upwards, so even while sitting perfectly stationary they will never all strike the same pinpoint. FOr example, the ER PPC on your Warhammer's left arm may deflect slightly up and to the right, but the one on the right goes slightly to the left instead, so at any range beyond about 500m you'll never land both guns onto the centre torso of an enemy unless you fire them one after the other, with enough of a delay between to allow your 'mech to compensate for the recoil of firing the first (and the speed of the second shot will depend on how good you are at timing the re-aim precisely and then compensating for the gun's inherent deflection).

It sounds like a lot to take into account, but first of all it's not really that bad- implemented correctly you won't really notice it a lot of the time after a while and only really pay attention to it when you're running or shooting at range- and secondly it would enable pilot skills that make a real difference from the RPG side without making top-level pilots virtually invincible- for example, a higher-level pilot skill could be that firing shots at range will give you an "accurised" reticle for each weapon as your pilot gets used to its characteristics- so that the ER PPC that deflects up and to the left actually puts a dot on your screen slightly up and to the left of your main reticle when you have it ready to fire. The guns themselves won't get any more accurate, but it's easier to compensate for their inaccuracies this way.

In my opinion, that would be the ideal sort of system to have.

It does, however, require a lot of work to implement, so we'll probably just get a "random cone of fire" that shrinks faster dependent on pilot skill, gyros etc, WoT style.

All of this too...You cannot get a better, more thought through answer to the poll. If this game relies on antiquated TT rules to help us aim, than why bother, if the comp is gonna do most of the work.

Edited by Red Beard, 11 November 2011 - 09:21 AM.

[AuGuR]

Red Beard, on 11 November 2011 - 09:20 AM, said:

... If this game relies on antiquated TT rules to help us aim, than why bother, if the comp is gonna do most of the work.

Not so much that, as realistically, pilot and gunnery skill have since been replaced by how well you can drive your mech and keep crosshairs on target. Any attempt to adhere to TT random hit location rolls would come from cone deviation (at best) to cover movement, called (aimed) shots, etc...

And no, I'm not advocating the use of cone deviation, or pin-point pixel targeting for that matter. I'll adjust to what ever the devs decide to implement, as I think we all will.

[Tierloc]

Creel, on 11 November 2011 - 07:47 AM, said:

Interesting stuff.

I think I understand what you're saying, but I came to pause in the first paragraph because I see mechs having hard mounts. I see the turrets in the videos I posted earlier (even the manual 50cal) and on the vulcan cannon from the game mechanics thread and I do not believe there to be a floppy armed recoil coefficent affecting the overall spread.

Like:



It's more like this:




I would say, as a note more directed at your post, that the minute of arc is not going to be affected by how long my chassis is in a static position. It's a part of the ballistic tragectory, it's a constant for each firearm, and can be measured as such with distance. If I calibrated all of my weapons to correlate with my recticle at what % of their max effective ranges (probably based on experience using them, up to my tech crew) to their minute of arc, then I could reasonably train to expect the same result at the same distances. I believe this works for machine guns mounted to airplanes.

Assuming the weapons were installed correctly and not damaged, it should be like aiming the headlights on my car. Where I direct the car is where the light goes, regardless of speed. Speed and vibration will change what I am aiming at, but not the alignment of the lights. If the light doesn't shine on what I want it too, it's because I'm not doing it right, not because the target cone of the head light hasn't had time to focus.

[Halfinax]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 09:54 AM, said:

I would say, as a note more directed at your post, that the minute of arc is not going to be affected by how long my chassis is in a static position. It's a part of the ballistic tragectory, it's a constant for each firearm, and can be measured as such with distance. If I calibrated all of my weapons to correlate with my recticle at what % of their max effective ranges (probably based on experience using them, up to my tech crew) to their minute of arc, then I could reasonably train to expect the same result at the same distances. I believe this works for machine guns mounted to airplanes.

Assuming the weapons were installed correctly and not damaged, it should be like aiming the headlights on my car. Where I direct the car is where the light goes, regardless of speed. Speed and vibration will change what I am aiming at, but not the alignment of the lights. If the light doesn't shine on what I want it too, it's because I'm not doing it right, not because the target cone of the head light hasn't had time to focus.

The inherent issue with this is that with the examples you provided the weapons in question are set to a static convergence. In previous MW games your weapons effectively shot out of the reticule there was no compensation for how near or far they were to you, or what the convergence range was set for. If the target was 10 meters away the weapons were just as precisely clustered on the reticule as when the target was 260 meters away.

If we can set convergence on the fly then the whole problem of CoF vs Click and Hit goes away. I have no idea how realistic this would be for the devs to implement it, but flight sims have been allowing you to set convergence range for years.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Creel, on 11 November 2011 - 05:52 AM, said:

Adding more hit locations would require recalculating all of the weapon damage and armor density.if you have 35 points of armor in the center torso and you break that into 7 segments, then any one segment is completely cored by one IS LL. This could easily aggravate the issue of mechs being less survivable than they should be.

Just give each section inside of a "meta-section" the same armor values. I mean, why divide it?

So if you have an Atlas that would have 72 points of armor on the CT and then break up the CT into six sections it would be silly to divide that 72 armor between them for a total of 12 armor per "CT-section".

Give all sections inside of the CT 72 armor.

Edited by Cavadus, 11 November 2011 - 10:51 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 06:50 AM, said:

What I was saying is that in any form of competition the players who have participated even just once have an edge on the new guy. That applies to more than just video games. There is no way to make me forget the years I've played this game, so unfortunately new players will always be at a disadvantage. I said it was a steep learning curve in the current chapter of the game and I meant it. I recognize their disadvantage but the failure to recognize it simply as experience is sad. You exemplify this by suggesting the game itself is broken.

I went a step farther though I don't think you bothered to read it. The online experience of open servers as MW4 currently exists is an empty, shallow version of what it used to be even 2 years ago. You ask "what are we going to do to fix these issues!" and I simply laugh at you, but pity you too, as you will never get the chance to learn how to play the game from pilots who did more than take a supernova every drop with 8 erls. You will not experience or come to realize how extremely easy it is to beat these kind of people. You will not learn the full potential of this game from playing in open servers the past year or in the future. The community just doesn't exist anymore.

You make some wrong assumptions about me. I've played Every MW, every expansion since mw1. I'm hardly a new player. Granted I haven't picked up MW4 in awhile, but its an ancient game now. I've been behind the curve in other games occasionally, but I played these games when *everyone* was new to them. There is a difference between unbalanced and something that just isn't fun you know.

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But enough about why and how, you asked so I'll answer. Legging.. I was led to believe (having never played it) that legs in Mechwarrior 3 were handled as "once destroyed, your mech toppled over onto it's side, rendering you completely usless until you either ejected or someone killed you." I have seen this in action in youtube videos of MW3. The chassis just drops to the ground and waits to get destroyed, or not I guess, as you could just run away. This generated an extreme phenomenon known as "honor" on the battlefield where it was a sin to leg an opposing player - to be "dishonoroble". This carried over into Vengeance, though the game mechanics were altered so you could lose a leg but still be somewhat functional. People still complained about it. From a player perspective, I would rather be limping than eating dirt. By the time Mercenaries came around, players all but forgot the honor/dishonor.

Honestly once you've been legging you might as well be dead even standing up IMHO. Agreed limping is better than eating dirt, but not ideal. I don't think relying on "honor" to prevent certain action works very well in multi-player games. People have shown again and again that they'll do anything for an advantage.

Quote

Solution to this? IMO don't change the tonnage distribution but double the allocation slots on the legs, so if I want to put 6 tons of armor on each leg of my black lanner, I can. This would deter people from going after my legs. Of course I would have to take tonnage away from something else.. but if I was really concerned with getting legged I could choose to play that way. Frankly only an ***** for an opponent would choose to go through 6 tons of armor instead of 2 tons on my torsos. Coincidently I already apply to the current system. Most of the current chassis by default have more tonnage on the legs (bigger slots anyway), and IMO, remember this is based on experience, my opponent will find the fastest way to kill me. Why have more armor on my legs than the max on my torsos.. ? Same number of shots to take me down either way, and if I pick up 2 extra tons then great.

Sure, but then you're getting further and further from canon. It doesn't really solve the issue of the ease is which a player can concentrate damage.

Quote

Alpha strikes are simply hitting a target with every weapon on your loadout at the same time. For whatever reason there is an added modifier on top of maximum damage that is represented in the mech lab when you achieve it. Usually this pushes enemy mechs over the line of being knocked over. It's not by group, and it's not point and click. If you are carrying missle, projectile and beam weapons.. hitting all of those at the same time can be difficult but possible.

Yah, that probably them trying to simulate the pilot skill roll you have to make when you take 20 damage in a round. Hey, they're trying to follow TT a little bit.

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Solution to this? I'm not sure why there is an added bonus on top of the comulative damage. I guess that's what is supposed to make it special instead of hitting your target with one weapon at a time and having it do the same damage. Maybe to keep people from chain firing? It could be as simple as someone complained that the same damage was being applied from chain fired ppcs. I don't know. I will say that I believe dealing total damage in one shot instead of over time should do something, anything. Whether that simply stuns you, or you are more prone to being knocked over.. You can't tell me that getting hit with an lbx20 4 times over 5 seconds is the same as getting hit by 4 shots in 1 second. You would feel the difference.

I agree that getting hit with an alpha strike should do something. Make your aim circle go full wide, chance to fall down, etc, etc. The issue isn't having an extra bonus, but having all those weapons hit the same location. There didn't seem to be a downside to use alpha strike to concentrate damage.

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Were you confusing an alpha strike with what's commonly referred to as "boating"? Well.. common boats are "laser boats" though in Vengeance the LG Daisy (6 light gauss daishi) was more common. They only exist in the fictional realm of No Heat Unlimited Ammo. You can not run a full laser class chassis in HLA and be successful. This goes back to my original premise that you can't and will not experience the gameplay in open servers as you should. You can throw "poptarts" in with this mix I guess. There are ways to outflank and rip apart these people. It's not rocket surgery.

Nah, I know they are two different things. I'm not a fan of either, but there are canon boats as well. Mechlab is a whole other discussion. The no heat unlimited ammo thing is so laughable I don't think it needs to be discussed for inclusion in MWO.

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Headshots, or hud shots.. We could probably have an entire discussion about the placement of the hit boxes on the chassis. I keep going back to it, but not everything always was the way it is now. Chassis have been nerfed, new mechs have been beefed up.. I'm not sure if you're questioning the ease to hit them, or to kill you.. or simply what happens when you take a shot in the cockpit. I do not have a problem with the current system of losing your zoom, having a blurred vision. I do think the hit boxes on some of the chassis suck.

I never found these to be near the problem as the legging wars. Its a relatively hard shot, but still easier than in TT. Most of it boiled down to some mech having the head very prominent in geometry. This mostly can be fixed by reducing the hitbox size for the head.

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CT shots.. I'm not sure how you ask about legs and then include CT. Am I not supposed to you shoot you anywhere? Would you rather have one GIANT hit box with an overall mech rating? The CT is the same as torso, as it is leg, hud and rear. The principle is your mech cannot function without them, and should any one of them be destoryed, such as it is. If I shoot your arm off, I want to destroy your arm. If I shoot your CT, I want to destroy your CT.

I include it merely since its the fastest way to kill a mech. People shooting for CT often hit rt or lt. Its low on the issue scale, but becomes a bit of an issue with super precise targeting IMHO.

I still don't see a solution in here, but I guess you just don't see it as a problem. That's fine I guess, but but not something I could ever agree with.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 07:15 AM, said:

I have limited experience since I do not own a weapon, I have only shot maybe a half dozen times in my life.

Are you saying that if someone is holding a firearm, regardless of where they are looking or even how they are holding it, that discharged the weapon is going to fire somewhere else than where the sights are pointed?

Absolutely. Even a weapon fired from a bench rest (effectively zero human component) is going to deviate from the crosshairs every time you pull the trigger. My rifle is accurate to about 1MOA (minute of angle, 1" at 100yrd) from prone unsupported I'm typically within about 3MOA. Add in bullet drop and windage and that'll open right up. If you read up about real snipers you'll see that they have ballistic computers that try and compensate for these factors, but its not at simple as the bullet hit the crosshairs if you do your job lining them up.

[Creel]

Tierloc, on 11 November 2011 - 09:54 AM, said:

I think I understand what you're saying, but I came to pause in the first paragraph because I see mechs having hard mounts. I see the turrets in the videos I posted earlier (even the manual 50cal) and on the vulcan cannon from the game mechanics thread and I do not believe there to be a floppy armed recoil coefficent affecting the overall spread.

Like:



It's more like this:




I would say, as a note more directed at your post, that the minute of arc is not going to be affected by how long my chassis is in a static position. It's a part of the ballistic tragectory, it's a constant for each firearm, and can be measured as such with distance. If I calibrated all of my weapons to correlate with my recticle at what % of their max effective ranges (probably based on experience using them, up to my tech crew) to their minute of arc, then I could reasonably train to expect the same result at the same distances. I believe this works for machine guns mounted to airplanes.

Assuming the weapons were installed correctly and not damaged, it should be like aiming the headlights on my car. Where I direct the car is where the light goes, regardless of speed. Speed and vibration will change what I am aiming at, but not the alignment of the lights. If the light doesn't shine on what I want it too, it's because I'm not doing it right, not because the target cone of the head light hasn't had time to focus.

Ok, lets assume that the weapons are hard mounted to the torso with 0 independent movement.

2 mechs of the same type are facing each other. one fires a medium laser mounted in the left torso. It impacts on the right torso of the target mech. This weapon cannot be aimed at anything other than the right torso of the target mech. In order to strike any other part of the target mech the entire torso of the firing mech would have to be realigned. This realignment is subject to the same calibration issues that would affect a mount that was able to traverse independently. The only difference, is that you're aiming with your whole torso, rather than with non-static mount.

The issue with static convergence is similar. adjustable convergence doesn't fix this because, if the convergence can be set to different values, than the mounts must have some ability to realign themselves, and are therefore again subject to limitation on the stability of those moving parts.