244 replies to this topic

[guardiandashi]

I really don't get the "gamer" absolute every shot has to hit exactly on the pixel I am aiming at or the game is worthless mentality that is coming out, additionally the "every weapon on the mech MUST always hit every time exactly where I aim blah blah.

what I have been saying and al lot of the non "gamers" have been saying is that we are not opposed to reasonable or even "perfect" accuracy, when you fire a SINGLE weapon, or have a "targeting computer" such as the masakari/warhawk has to pull the weapons aimpoint in faster.

what we (or at least I ) are objecting to is the fact that the excessive accuracy you are demanding is exactly what causes the "boating" issue that so many "gamers" whine about as well.

one of the simplest fixes to eliminate the "boating" issue and also the "gunbag" issue is to make a tweek in the targeting system so that the weapons are "slightly" less accurate or precice and have issues converging in an excessive manner.

example lets say you are piloting a nova prime it is a perfect example of a "Laser Boat" with a whole whopping 12 er medium lasers. In universe it has 18 DHS for a total of 36 heat dissipation and each laser generates 5 heat when fired. this means if you trigger the whole load its going to generate 60 heat on an alpha and can only dump 36 of that, meaning if its standing still its going to hit 24 heat and nothing can affect it significantly.the negative side effects of that level of heat don't kick in until after the damage is allocated, but include: -4 movement points (so its going to be reduced to 1/2 movement) +4 on 2d6 penalty to hit shutdown avoid on 8+ on 2d6 ammo explosion avoid on 6+ (irrelavent as there is no ammo)

Now lets take a step back and look at the damage you would have done you fired 12 er medium lasers that individually do 7 points of damage each if they all hit you just did 84 points of damage an atlas one of the best armored mechs in existance only has a grand total of 47 front armor, and 31 internal so 78 points, meaning if all of those lasers hit it square in the front of the chest (like you are demanding) it just instantly died and one of the lasers is going to be burning 6 of its 14 points of rear armor off trying to burn out of the chassis, and thats assuming it was totally undamaged.

now my simple solution is to have the targeting pointer be a designator of where you want the guns to hit, and the guns individually have aim pointers that are tracking where the gun is actually pointing (with perhaps a small cone of probability) as you shift your aimpoint the guns track in on itbut they basically are not pinpoint perfect aim when firing more than ONE (1) weapon.

[Captain Hat]

You obviously haven't actually read and understood my posts: I will not respond to you until you do so.

[EDIT]Also:

Dozer, on 10 November 2011 - 08:08 AM, said:

<SNIP>

The fact that you are here at all this early on marks you out.

You are not in the mainstream.

Your history is not particularly relevant.

Edited by Captain Hat, 10 November 2011 - 08:42 AM.

[Dozer]

Captain Hat, on 10 November 2011 - 08:38 AM, said:

You obviously haven't actually read and understood my posts: I will not respond to you until you do so.

Too funny.

I... can't... stop.. laughing.

Thank you for that.

Edited by Dozer, 10 November 2011 - 08:43 AM.

[Captain Hat]

*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.

[Dozer]

Just so I understand Captain what is your precise definition of the mainstream gamer they will be aiming for?

Just gives me some frame of reference to better understand your position.

Edited by Dozer, 10 November 2011 - 09:32 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

So I just want to ask people like captain hat who think every gun should hit the exact pixel you're aiming at how they propose to deal with the issues in multi-player mw3 and mw4? How do you proposed to deal with alpha stikes? How will you deal with legging? How will you deal with headshots? How will you deal with CT coring without other damage?

Or do you think that these things actually make for a fun game? I won't even get into canon. Just tell me how you're going to make good gameplay out of this. I'm listening, but all I've heard from that camp is "waaaaah it all has to be about my l337 skillz"

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Dealing with legging is easy - just stop the game recording a missing leg as a kill and let the mech keep functioning - and able to fire with any weapon that's able to bear. As for head shots. After having trouble in MW3 & 4 with those I set up mechs to fight against 1V1 with no engine or weapons and tried headshots at pointblank range. In many cases the "head" wasn't where the graphic suggested and in some cases didnt seem to exist -even when you had an AC20 pressed right up against the apparent "head". Many mechs have heads buried in the body and only visible from a limited arc in front and theoretically should be difficult to hit from any range. The more manlike the mech, the easier it should be to hit the head. If it's a real problem in game - up the armour.

[Tierloc]

Your question is a misnomer, JaRules. MW3 and MW4 were very different games. Heck MW4 Vengeance to MW4 Mercenaries are very different games. What mektek did to Mercenaries is yet again another very different game. I would also add that the number of years between all these revisions fostered different online audiences of experience, technology and interests. If there is any issue now with open online play, it's the learning curve. You unfortunately can't reset years of experience for everyone so Johnny Come Lately has just as good a chance to know every map like people like me do, know what a chassis can do on what heat index etc etc.

But lets assume the games are all the same since you did. I'm referencing one in particular, the free MW4 Mercs v30c, since anyone can go experiment with it. Historically, I played Vengeance in 03-04 before getting Mercenaries. I started playing in MWL in 2005 and continue to do so today.

Your questions about gameplay are common misguided complaints from a small group of forum trolls that most often will admit to not really playing the game that much. It's sad and pathetic to think that those are considered "players" at this point, but even I have to admit they have contributed to keeping this game alive. That's pretty much where I leave them though, as I would argue that similar to what I see on these forums, quite a few of the bullshit changes included in mekpaks were spawned from their feable intentions having hardly played the game. Actual players complained enough to reverse quite a few of those changes. On these forums, I see game play mechanics and basic common sense getting thrown out the window in leiu of some uber mechwarrior utopia that frankly will never exist.

Someone is always going to be better than you, grow up and move on. The game doesn't have to suck for everybody because 2% of the audience thinks something is unfair or not balanced. If you have the same opportunity as your enemy, right there it's fair and balanced. There is no argument to be made.

[Creel]

at 1000m the reticle should be big enough for an enemy mech to fit inside.

[UncleKulikov]

It should be a cone of fire, so that it combines player skill and probability.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Tierloc, on 10 November 2011 - 01:54 PM, said:

Your question is a misnomer, JaRules. MW3 and MW4 were very different games. Heck MW4 Vengeance to MW4 Mercenaries are very different games. What mektek did to Mercenaries is yet again another very different game. I would also add that the number of years between all these revisions fostered different online audiences of experience, technology and interests. If there is any issue now with open online play, it's the learning curve. You unfortunately can't reset years of experience for everyone so Johnny Come Lately has just as good a chance to know every map like people like me do, know what a chassis can do on what heat index etc etc.

But lets assume the games are all the same since you did. I'm referencing one in particular, the free MW4 Mercs v30c, since anyone can go experiment with it. Historically, I played Vengeance in 03-04 before getting Mercenaries. I started playing in MWL in 2005 and continue to do so today.

Your questions about gameplay are common misguided complaints from a small group of forum trolls that most often will admit to not really playing the game that much. It's sad and pathetic to think that those are considered "players" at this point, but even I have to admit they have contributed to keeping this game alive. That's pretty much where I leave them though, as I would argue that similar to what I see on these forums, quite a few of the bullshit changes included in mekpaks were spawned from their feable intentions having hardly played the game. Actual players complained enough to reverse quite a few of those changes. On these forums, I see game play mechanics and basic common sense getting thrown out the window in leiu of some uber mechwarrior utopia that frankly will never exist.

Someone is always going to be better than you, grow up and move on. The game doesn't have to suck for everybody because 2% of the audience thinks something is unfair or not balanced. If you have the same opportunity as your enemy, right there it's fair and balanced. There is no argument to be made.

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?

Edited by TheRulesLawyer, 10 November 2011 - 02:35 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

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?

[Lasercat]

Somewhat OT, but what tierloc says has some truth to it. There seems to be a lot of people on this forum saying they don't want x or y feature from the previous games because it was obviously bad. Sometimes I think they're going off of hearsay since what they're mentioning was never an issue. For example the idea that players were getting head shots left and right because aiming was as "easy" as point and click. The way the mechlab was being made out to be the mechwarrior boogeyman is also weird.

On topic: if it were to happen, adding a cone of fire to weapons wouldn't dilute player skill when done right - having a straight up random distribution of shots within some circle is a very poor way of doing it. The shot spread needs to be predictable with practice, like in counterstrike. Each weapon there has its own different spread pattern in different situations. Once you get used to it, it's possible to very accurately tell where your shots are going to be landing.

I'd imagine if this type of thing was used in mwo the spread pattern would be unique to each mech rather than the weapons (or some combination), getting rid of any need for artificial rpg-like bonuses to accuracy. You become familiar with how a particular mech tends to shoot in different situations, you learn to compensate for it, and your shot placement becomes tighter with that mech naturally.

All that being said, mechwarrior isn't like other fps games where a character can get shot anywhere and die. Mechs are divided into individual parts so there is no global HP. Players have to be more consistent with their aiming and usually have to hit the same section repeatedly to do any real damage. Also, being able to target and shoot off separate weapons, arms, torsos and legs is a big part of what makes mechwarrior mechwarrior. Any cof model would need to take the greater need for precision into account. Then there's lag, which is sometimes enough of a cof on its own.

Edited by Lasercat, 10 November 2011 - 08:11 PM.

[Phades]

guardiandashi, on 10 November 2011 - 08:28 AM, said:

I really don't get the "gamer" absolute every shot has to hit exactly on the pixel I am aiming at or the game is worthless mentality that is coming out, additionally the "every weapon on the mech MUST always hit every time exactly where I aim blah blah.
[...]
now my simple solution is to have the targeting pointer be a designator of where you want the guns to hit, and the guns individually have aim pointers that are tracking where the gun is actually pointing (with perhaps a small cone of probability) as you shift your aimpoint the guns track in on itbut they basically are not pinpoint perfect aim when firing more than ONE (1) weapon.

Actually the "core" issue end up being tied solely to hit scan weapons such as lasers. Ballistic weapons have a flight time and different shot origin, which causes natural deviation on any target that isn't moving directly into the shot. Unless you assign a "flight time" and some sort of ballistics to a laser weapon (lol now you are just killing any believability the weapon platform has), you aren't going to see a real fix.

That said, grouping weapons by hit location on the firing mech (not the target) to have a similar bias to hit location relative to where the cursor is makes a degree of sense. The devs can easily play around with different weapon mounting options on different chassis even to give a different feel for the same weapon mounted in different locations such as the arm vs ct, etc.

As far as just assigning a random number generator for shot displacement, you would have to proceed with massive amounts of caution. If you played Morrowind for example, you would know that it used a random number generator to determine success. It didn't matter if you visually saw the sword pass through the enemy, all that mattered was if the dice roll said it did. The same logic applies here as well. If you force the probabilistic shot placement post firing, then you will have shots striking visually, but causing no effect (fastest way to **** folks off btw). If you do it pre-shot, then you will have people randomly eating head shots that were never aimed there (also pretty dumb). If you are also thinking cone of fire, I'd advise against that as well for anything other than rapid fire munitions (mainly for reasons listed above). However, anything that is single shot and isn't reasonably true to aim turns into a headache to use if shots just arbitrarily careen off into the wild blue yonder. Also, if this is the preferred method, then how do you propose dealing with the inevitable friendly fire that will occur? Are you ok with the , "oops sorry bro, i didn't meant do leg you I was aiming at the atlas (which is larger than many buildings) and hit you instead".

Many aspects of the table top game do not translate well directly into a simulation based game, while other things do. I have no issue with cockpit jarring at all due to incoming fire, but the severity of the jarring will need to be carefully balanced against the total damage received. I'm going to restate it again, that the main "problem" being viewed lies entirely with hit scan lasers and the premise of the hyper lethal futuristic environment that would breed such things. We have potentially ultra precise long range weapons targeting walking buildings that move at a snail's pace (even 120 kph, is only slightly more than 74mph and I drive faster than this for moderate to longer trips on the freeway). Today's weapons can easily strike targets at that speed which are much smaller. It wouldn't be as much of an issue if the mechs themselves were significantly faster making it more of an issue bound to the player to react to the presence of the target.

Other things to consider would be how the weapons discharge as well. Do lasers get implemented with a "warm up" time before they fire instead of simply firing on activation? Does the laser need to be trained on a specific location to gain the benefit of the "full listed damage" for a period of time (IE standard laser or ER laser warms up for .5s and discharges for 2s breaking up the damage into .25s or.5s intervals)? Are auto cannons simply single slug shot affairs (more in common with guass or ppc instead of other ballistic weapons today), or are the implemented more like the machine gun discharging rounds continuously or several rounds in a burst with each projectile doing X amount of damage as part of the whole (I'm deliberately ignoring RAC and ultra ACs at this time as they could simply be adjusted versions)? LBX auto cannon is your basic flechette shotgun, which would be more consistent of a concept of multiple projectiles each having separate damage values. Missiles? Same deal and have pretty consistently been represented this way.

TL;DR? Look at lasers as your point of focus instead of a player's ability to aim and read the target's movement.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Phades, on 10 November 2011 - 09:32 PM, said:

Do lasers get implemented with a "warm up" time before they fire instead of simply firing on activation? Does the laser need to be trained on a specific location to gain the benefit of the "full listed damage" for a period of time (IE standard laser or ER laser warms up for .5s and discharges for 2s breaking up the damage into .25s or.5s intervals)?

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...

The hit locations on mechs; we need more of them. A lot more. A huge reason why mechs have always got cored in just a few shots was because the standard hit locations cover far too large of an area. It makes no sense that hitting an Atlas in the crotch and hitting an Atlas in the chest damage the same portion of the mech (in this instance the center torso).

We need much more specific and localized damage. The traditional hit locations aren't numerous enough.

[Halfinax]

Why couldn't we have an adjustable convergence range much like modern tanks? In flight sims you typically have to hard set the convergence range of all your machine guns before take off, so why couldn't we have something like that. The difference being you can adjust it during the battle since most of the weapons are at least semi turreted? You could have a precision convergence (so mouse scroll wheel), and perhaps 3 default convergence hot keys (short: 60m, Medium: 180m, and long 240m). This brings skill in, but allows for spread if the target is inside or outside the convergence range.

[Phades]

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

We need much more specific and localized damage. The traditional hit locations aren't numerous enough.

I think you have a point regarding hit locations and critical slot disbursement. Much of this is tied to the table top game and I'm fairly certain this was done for simplicity. This is despite the fact that the mechs themselves are woefully fragile against the weapons pointed at them and how many are mounted on a chassis potentially and is the primary reason I hated the stock mech designs.

Can of worms really, but I'm sure there is some middle ground to be had here.

Halfinax, on 10 November 2011 - 09:51 PM, said:

Why couldn't we have an adjustable convergence range much like modern tanks? In flight sims you typically have to hard set the convergence range of all your machine guns before take off, so why couldn't we have something like that. The difference being you can adjust it during the battle since most of the weapons are at least semi turreted? You could have a precision convergence (so mouse scroll wheel), and perhaps 3 default convergence hot keys (short: 60m, Medium: 180m, and long 240m). This brings skill in, but allows for spread if the target is inside or outside the convergence range.

That is an interesting thought. I think that something could "easily" be implemented by where the weapon is mounted on the machine while offering other "fine controls" to the pilot. That would be more or less half the point of, and part of the primary reason to, group weapons together and be able to toggle them for chain firing as well.

Edited by Phades, 10 November 2011 - 09:55 PM.

[ice trey]

I'm going to say Cone of fire.

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.

Cone of Fire, however, would be a welcome addition that I feel there just wasn't enough programming know-how to apply, back then. Likewise, there wasn't as much experience in what makes a good Multiplayer experience and how to make it fun for all comers. By having the cone's spread changing based on the movement type, not only does it draw more accurately from the Battletech universe, but it also makes a much better balancing tool. I would say that there was no point to expanding the reticule further for "Recoil", but when each footstep comes down with 20 tons of weight, there's bound to be difficulty for the Targetting computer to compensate.

That's just it - A lot of people claim that battletech tabletop's Targeting Computers are like you're firing over iron sights, but in reality, it's more like it's compensating for all sorts of unexpected variables (Terrain, wind, slight calibration errors of the weapons) when stationary, and more dramatic variables (Vibrations caused by footsteps, Shaking from Jump Jet Thrusters, calculations of jump arc trajectory, and turbulence) while moving.

Turret movement, however, would have negligible effects on targeting computer calculations, and so a stationary 'mech using it's torso or arms to track an opponent should suffer little to no additional CoF size increase - it would only be after starting to turn the whole of the mech by pivoting in place, walking, etceteras that would cause the targetting gimp.

Edited by ice trey, 10 November 2011 - 10:04 PM.

[Captain Hat]

Dozer, on 10 November 2011 - 09:31 AM, said:

Just so I understand Captain what is your precise definition of the mainstream gamer they will be aiming for?

Just gives me some frame of reference to better understand your position.

The kind of people who play a lot of online games that are in some way similar to this but won't necessarily play this one unless they hear things they like about it- to wit, mainly the CS, BF3, WoT and CoD crowds.

The kind of people who've probably never even played a tabletop game in their life before, usually between about 14 and 25 with far too much spare time and a really short attention span.

You may not like them, but that's where the money is and that's where success or failure rests for any online game of this type.

TheRulesLawyer, on 10 November 2011 - 09:49 AM, said:

So I just want to ask people like captain hat who think every gun should hit the exact pixel you're aiming at...

I stopped reading at this point because it was immediately obvious that, again, you haven't actually read my posts.

A useful tip here- if you're going to try to counter someone's argument, it helps to know what their argument is before you start!

As for Dozer, the main reason I'm arguing is this "targeting computer" nonsense. A targeting computer is for missile lock, weapon convergence range and helping to guide the aimpoint for precision shots, any more takes too much control away from the player. I'm not saying there shouldn't be an additional layer on top of that- maybe an inherent inaccuracy for the ACs, slight divergence on the weapon mountings etc (seriously, read my first post in this thread, it explains what I think in more detail) but setting the game up so the most effective route is to never actually do any of the aiming yourself is part of what killed Fallout 3 for a lot of people, including most of my friends (both online and off). It might work in universe terms (though again, as I have already said, I personally would strongly dispute that) but it really doesn't work in a game.

Edited by Captain Hat, 11 November 2011 - 12:49 AM.

[Kudzu]

I rewatched the trailer video and I noticed something... the fight between the Warhammer and the Atlas actually felt more like Battletech than any of the other MW games ever did. The mechs felt heavy, the weapons, in turn, felt powerful for battering them around. It wasn't over in three seconds after a pinpoint alpha strike to the leg or CT; shots were traded back and forth, some missed, some scattered, limbs were torn off. It looked and felt like a brawl.

I'd love to see that carried over into the game. Maybe a combination of cone of fire and slowing down recharge/reload rates would help. Make fights last for 30+ seconds instead of who can group fire and coolant flush the fastest.