1063 replies to this topic

[MaddMaxx]

pcunite, on 09 January 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

As a player you must fire at the same time and at the same mech as all your lance mates; basically forming a roving megatron. What fun is it when you can't do anything yourself, ever?

I would have you tell that to the Player who Kills the final 2-3 enemy Mechs, by themselves to Win the Match, and has done so on more than one occasion. Are you sure your actually playing the same game?

[ODonovan]

Apoc1138, on 09 January 2013 - 02:04 AM, said:

so anyone who disagrees with you = trolling? right, got your number, can't actually think of anything sensible to counter argue a valid point so just refer to said poster as troll in an attempt to disparage the comment instead

Hey Zippy, if you keep whining "this isn't TT" and "dice rolling" when NO ONE is making the arguments that it is TT or that they DO want dice rolling, you're not arguing a valid point. You're creating straw man arguments and you are TROLLING.

Please hit yourself in the forehead with a clue by four.



-Irish

[Apoc1138]

ODonovan, on 10 January 2013 - 12:32 AM, said:

Hey Zippy, if you keep whining "this isn't TT" and "dice rolling" when NO ONE is making the arguments that it is TT or that they DO want dice rolling, you're not arguing a valid point. You're creating straw man arguments and you are TROLLING.

Please hit yourself in the forehead with a clue by four.



-Irish

right, but creating a post just to call 5 people a troll is so much more productive
whatever the reason they give, the view point they put forward is their view on how they would like to see the game progress, it is no more valid or invalid than yours and calling everyone a troll every other page is in fact itself trolling

if you actually read through the OP's posts in this thread, he keeps referencing "BattleTech"... it's ambiguous at best to say if he's referencing TT or not, so some posters having made that assumption is not all that surprising, but sure, go ahead, start slinging insults just because it's easier than having a reasonable discussion

Edited by Apoc1138, 10 January 2013 - 01:49 AM.

[KinLuu]

ParasiteX, on 09 January 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

I made a few illustration to show what a fixed convergance would do.

Heres how it currently works in-game. No matter hwere you aim from, your shots will always converge on the point your aiming at. Making cheezy boating nuilds, like the 6PPC stalkers, way more deadly than they should be.


Now if we where to instead have the convergance fixed to the range of the farthest target in previous illustration. you would instead end up with a more spread out pattern, if you where to shoot something closer to you.


Now my third example, would be if we instead set weapons to converge at the middle target. Which instead would cause the furthest target to have a more spread out shot, as the shot would converge at the middle range. But you would have a much tighter grouping on closer targets.


So yeah. no dice rolling at all. you simply have to adjust your aim slightly, depending on range, to accoutn for weapon convergance. requiering more skill from player obviosly. but making bigger single shot weapons like the AC20, more viable. than 9ML boats.

The effect would be three fold. First it would make alpha strike boating less viable. Secondly, it would be more in line, with how TT works. And thirdly. It would be more realistic.

I could live with the 2nd picture. Fixed convergeance at maximum range - IIRC it worked similar in MW4. Would make sniping a lot easier as well.

[ODonovan]

Apoc1138, on 10 January 2013 - 01:22 AM, said:

right, but creating a post just to call 5 people a troll is so much more productive

They're the ones entering the discussion and basically lying about what others have said just so they can argue against it to try to make the others look foolish and stroke their own egos. I will not stop pointing out they're the ones looking like they just stepped out of "The Emperor's New Clothes." If they want to discuss the points being made, that's fine. If not, I reserve the right to yell, "Liar liar, pants on fire!" at them and perhaps even taunt them a second time.

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whatever the reason they give, the view point they put forward is their view on how they would like to see the game progress, it is no more valid or invalid than yours and calling everyone a troll every other page is in fact itself trolling

*ROTFLMAO!* They are doing no such thing. They're arguing against points that aren't even being made. They're blowing hot air. They are taking NO meaningful part in the discussion. They're forum bullies trying to feel good about themselves and they're keeping the thread from actually concentrating on the pros and cons of the OP's suggestions.

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if you actually read through the OP's posts in this thread, he keeps referencing "BattleTech"... it's ambiguous at best to say if he's referencing TT or not, so some posters having made that assumption is not all that surprising

Here's a clue... It's ALL BattleTech...the original TT game, the MechWarrior computer games, and MWO. They all come from the same place in an unbroken line. The fact is, some posters are trolling, saying people who agree with the OP want MWO to be a turn-based, dice rolling game. In fact, NO ONE has said anything of the sort.

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but sure, go ahead, start slinging insults just because it's easier than having a reasonable discussion

If this thread was only a reasonable discussion, that would be wonderful. Why don't you turn around and tell the folks who are doing the trolling that THEY should be having a reasonable discussion, rather than what they've been doing, which is arguing against points no one is actually making, just to make themselves feel important.



-Irish

[Heiggwinie Halberstadt]

I was reviewing a lot of the standard mechs and realize that they almost all carry long, medium, and short range weapons. As the mechs in combat move closer they switch from the long range weapons to the medium range weapons and finally to the short range knife fighting. There was some discussion on not having too many buttons to push to fire certain weapons. If your left mouse button was set to fire your PPC at a certain range from your target it would automatically switch to medium lasers at a certain range. There could also be an overlap range where the PPC and the medium laser could both fire together. The right mouse button could then be set to go between LRMs and SRMs in the same way. This could help stock mechs become as useful to us as the mechwarriors in 3050 found these mechs useful. This might also help reduce the boating.

Cone of Fire would help to compensate for some of the clinical combat we now fight in. There is not enough smoke, explosions, heat, rough terrain, infantry, vehicles, aircraft, dieing screaming burning melting voices coming over the com channels to cause the little bit of confusion that would throw off your aim just a little bit. A Cone of Fire might be able to replicate these effects. You should not be able to always hit a mech.


I am still a big fan of not being able to replace a machine gun with an ac20. There has to be a size limit on how much you can modify a mech. This is why there are different mech designs. Just having general hard points is not enough to differentiate mech designs. The mechs we play with are much too omni when they are not suppose to be at all.

Have the MWO Devs ever played TT Battletech? Are they just reading some book or going off MW2-4 and then trying to use the IP to find the best way to separate us from our money? Do they really care about continuing to expand the Battletech and Mechwarrior history or would they be fine with doing a Hello Kitty Combat game if they knew they could make the same amount of money? I think the MWO Devs NEED to play a TT Battletech game every week so that they know where the history and fun that this game started from. Another thing is that MW1 was so much fun all those many years ago. Why isn't a Mechwarrior game based on being the Mechwarrior and not just some pilot inside a Mech?

Where is my neurohelmet making the mech being part of me? Mechs are suppose to mimic moving like a human and not moving around like they are a Lost in Space robot.

Edited by Heiggwinie Halberstadt, 10 January 2013 - 09:06 AM.

[Roland]

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Cone of Fire would help to compensate for some of the clinical combat we now fight in. There is not enough smoke, explosions, heat, rough terrain, infantry, vehicles, aircraft, dieing screaming burning melting voices coming over the com channels to cause the little bit of confusion that would throw off your aim just a little bit. A Cone of Fire might be able to replicate these effects. You should not be able to always hit a mech.

I think that this is, easily, the worst possible justification and suggested implementation for weapons spread.

You cannot just arbitrarily add in randomness, because "pilots shouldn't be as accurate as they are."

If you want to add in those environmental effects you suggest, so be it. But don't just add in randomness to the game. This idea is precisely the one which causes folks to rail against the very notion of any type of damage spread... because they mistakenly think that any suggestion of a cone of fire or damage spread equates to what you're presenting here.. which clearly IS just introduction of a RNG, and clearly does just remove skill.

Any reduction in weapons accuracy must be clearly tied to well defined actions which the pilot has control over... thus, he can achieve exactly the same degree of accuracy, if he understands and masters certain aspects of gameplay. If you prevent him from being able to control those things, then you are simply reducing the skill-ceiling of the game, which is not a good thing.

[Bubba Wilkins]

Roland, on 09 January 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

Well, it's not quite a RNG, if the damage spread is always linked directly to actions of the pilot though, right?

For instance, if I'm playing CoD, I don't just hold down the trigger, right? Because whatever gun I'm using is gonna spread fire all over the place... Not being able to just spray fire isn't knocking noobs out of the game.. because noobs are the ones who are just holding down the trigger. Understanding how to control your fire is part of the game.

Likewise, in numerous games which adjust the accuracy of weapons depending on the stance of the player, it's not a reduction of the skill level required to play the game. It is merely another aspect of gameplay which must be understood and used by the player.

The really critical aspect here though, which I think is a key aspect of your position, is that accuracy must be kept linked to player actions. You cannot allow it to be determined randomly, regardless of player action, because it injects "luck" into play, which is somewhat at odds with the notion of a skill based game.

For instance, imagine something like adding not even a cone of fire effect, but rather... reticle shake, perhaps... as an effect for when your mech is running very hot. That's not simply reducing the skill level to play the game, right? Because it's simply a penalty for running your mech really hot. You, as the pilot, can choose to reduce the inaccuracy by letting your mech cool down. Or hell, you could even just fire through the shake if you wanted, and could time it right.

Anyway, I'm honestly not a huge proponent of damage spread at this point (I'm kind of happy with the effect on lasers at this point), and I really could care less about adhereing to battletech... I was just trying to maybe help folks who are arguing on different sides of this issue realize that the other side isn't really just trying to "ruin the game" or whatever folks imagine their internet enemies to be trying to do.

McKenna brought up a good point though, regarding things like tying accuracy to something like movement.. I like to run around, and it would kind of suck to be penalized for movement. Even so, I suspect that the system could be made deeper somehow, without just ruining everything to turning it into a bunch of dice rolling. If not, then I'm totally with you... because I don't want to play some dice rolling game either.

The Laser effect though is an implementation of damage spread, and frankly, I think it's pretty awesomely well done. I think it shows that such things can have a good impact on the game, if done well.

Yes, those weapons have a cone of fire. They have it to simulate recoil acting against human muscles holding a weapon and firing in full auto.

They also have adjustable target sights which adjust for movement speed and such. This is to simulate the human ability of aiming while moving. The weapon is still 100% as accurate as its implemented, it's the aiming that randomized.

Neither have a place in MWO.

You can assume that any vehicle mounted weapon can be mounted in such a manner that recoil and rapid fire are not going to throw the aim off. You can also assume that in the case of a mech that weapons can be equipped with adjustment servos which compensate for target range and convergence at many different ranges.

You are not directly controlling any part of the mech, you are merely instructing the mech on where you want to go, where to point the guns, and when to shoot. You can assume that the targetting computer is handling the the slight adjustments required to switch convergence from a close target to a long target behind the scenes.

For gameplay reasons, the current implementation is the best way to manage this. The only issue is that with targetting being server side and the fact that you have to anticipate and lead targets with ballistic weapons, that you often are firing on a target utilizing a convergence range which is different than your target. This would be easily solved if convergence was based on your locked target distance and not necessarily whatever your crosshairs were currently aimed upon when your weapons fired.

[Roland]

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You can assume that any vehicle mounted weapon can be mounted in such a manner that recoil and rapid fire are not going to throw the aim off.

I think that's kind of a ridiculous assumption, but it's also somewhat moot as none of these decisions should necessarily be based upon "realism" as much as they should be conducive to good gameplay.

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You are not directly controlling any part of the mech, you are merely instructing the mech on where you want to go, where to point the guns, and when to shoot. You can assume that the targetting computer is handling the the slight adjustments required to switch convergence from a close target to a long target behind the scenes.

An excellent point, but as implemented it would suggest that all mechs carry magical targeting computers which are able to instantaneously and perfectly make such targeting calculations.

In the lore, which I personally do not really care about, it mentions exactly such targeting computers. Various mechs had more advanced targeting computers, which enabled them to function more accurately. This would imply that without those advanced components, most mechs firing is not in fact perfectly accurate. The targeting computers take up critical space and tonnage based upon the weapons systems they are linked to, and reduce things like recoil for those weapons, account for atmospheric conditions, weapon drift, etc.

Again, I would tend not to use this aspect of battletech to implement just widespread randomness across the board in relation to gunnery, but I think that it's worth noting when considering the type of argument you presented there, which attempts to argue that mechs are somehow capable of magically always landing shots in an exact location.

[MustrumRidcully]

Bubba Wilkins, on 10 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

You can assume that any vehicle mounted weapon can be mounted in such a manner that recoil and rapid fire are not going to throw the aim off. You can also assume that in the case of a mech that weapons can be equipped with adjustment servos which compensate for target range and convergence at many different ranges.

That's a bold assumption, considering we are playing in a setting where "long range missiles" can reach a distance of 1000m....

[8RoundsRapid]

Bubba Wilkins, on 10 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

You can also assume that in the case of a mech that weapons can be equipped with adjustment servos which compensate for target range and convergence at many different ranges.

I thought mechs used myomer 'muscles' not servos. As such, all your arguments about recoil and aiming in regards to human 'muscles' is actually inaccurate, as mechs use pretty much an exact copy of the human body. Skeleton, muscles, armor.

And remember, this isn't real! It's fiction and real world comparisons should not apply.

Edited by 8RoundsRapid, 10 January 2013 - 10:48 AM.

[SGT Unther]

Why not set the torso weapons to manual convergence and the arms to auto converge?

[Fut]

Heeden, on 07 January 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

So aiming is bad, and the game would be better if it randomised your aim?

It's frustrating to see so many people jump to this overly exaggerated form of the suggestion.
Nobody said that aiming was bad, nobody said that shots would be randomized.

Go back and re-read (maybe even just read it, based on your comment it doesn't look like you actually read the original post) the first post in this thread.

He clearly says that when firing a single weapon you will have pin-point accuracy like you're used to now.
However, when you try to fire more than one weapon at a time, they will not hit the exact same point - there will be some fluctuations and the shots may or may not hit different parts of your target. The amount of this fluctuation will be based on numerous things: how fast you're moving, how many weapons you're firing, how hot your mech is currently running...etc.

Not only does this help with the damage/armor mess we're currently facing, it makes the game much more realistic!

It makes absolutely no sense for a mech to be capable of shooting 5 weapons (located on various parts of the mech), while running at high speeds, and manage for all the shots to hit a target the size of a postage stamp. None. It just doesn't make sense.

In all honesty, I would like to see the "cone of fire" suggested by Insanity implemented in conjunction with another suggestion made in this thread (sorry to whoever posted the idea, I cannot recall your name at the moment) where weapons on the torso & head fire relatively straight from their mounting point.

I just really want to see MWO become a true MechWarrior game, not just some normal FPS with giant robots for a theme.

[Bubba Wilkins]

Roland, on 10 January 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

I think that's kind of a ridiculous assumption, but it's also somewhat moot as none of these decisions should necessarily be based upon "realism" as much as they should be conducive to good gameplay.



An excellent point, but as implemented it would suggest that all mechs carry magical targeting computers which are able to instantaneously and perfectly make such targeting calculations.

In the lore, which I personally do not really care about, it mentions exactly such targeting computers. Various mechs had more advanced targeting computers, which enabled them to function more accurately. This would imply that without those advanced components, most mechs firing is not in fact perfectly accurate. The targeting computers take up critical space and tonnage based upon the weapons systems they are linked to, and reduce things like recoil for those weapons, account for atmospheric conditions, weapon drift, etc.

Again, I would tend not to use this aspect of battletech to implement just widespread randomness across the board in relation to gunnery, but I think that it's worth noting when considering the type of argument you presented there, which attempts to argue that mechs are somehow capable of magically always landing shots in an exact location.

Your confusing precision and accuracy. Precision is the consistency with which a ballistic weapon, laser, PPC, etc is able to hit a fixed target. Accuracy is the ability of the pilot to aim said weapon. Ballistic weapons have since the dawn of their creation followed some very basic principles. A given projectile fired at a given speed and aimed at a given elevation is going to travel a given distance. Change none of these factors and subsequent projectiles will have the exact same behavior.

Mechs are highly precise weapons platforms. If aimed at a fixed point and mounted in a fixed location, an AC20 should hit the same spot at a given range every single time with such little deviation as to be statistically insignificant. Most pilots are neither accurate nor precise. No one here can claim that they hit the cockpit of their target dead center every single time.

If you wish, I can theory craft the process for you thusly:

You aim your reticle at a target 1000m away for a long range alpha strike. The computer actively monitors what range you are aiming at as represented by the range indicator on your hud. As this range changes, the computer looks up the ballistics properties for each weapon and then adjusts their convergence. It's not hard to imagine that a small servo is part of the mount to accomplish this. Obviously at extreme close range, they should not converge, but the difference between the convergence angle at 100meters and at 1000meters is relatively small and completely dependent on how far off the center aiming point the weapon is located. So the weapons move ever so slightly to adjust convergence, and then fire. This is supported in the books (which I'm currently reading by the way) in that even the industrial mechs modded for battle still have very simple targetting computers.

So your basic bottom line targetting computer can be programmed with the ballistic tables of weaponry. It is not however capable of locking a target, tracking a target, or predicting the amount of aiming required to lead the targets. These basically give you the crosshairs, monitor range, and rely on the pilot to do all the aiming and movement prediction.

The next level of targetting allows the pilot to lock a target, but otherwise is unable to provide movement prediction. It is capable of the LRM's and SSRM's since these are guided weapons. This is the one we have on all mechs currently. The pilot is till tasked with movement prediction and physically aiming the non guided weapons.

The next level up, you have locking and movement prediction in that once you lock a target, the computer gives you a reticle which tracks and displays how much you need to lead the target in order to hit it. This is the classic jet fighter hud everyone knows when "switching to guns". Up to this point, the calculations are instantaneous and the pilot is still actively aiming all weapons with the computers doing very simple background calculations.

The next level up, the computer takes over active aiming abilities and applies extensive calculations. The pilot merely designates the intended target and the computer actively tracks the target with motion prediction and provides a final shooting solution when the pilot hits the fire button. These would be floating point calculations and are often described in the books as "the pilot waited for the target indicator to green up with a solid lock and fired". Still, the pilot can manually adjust the aiming point at any time and fire without having a solid lock. I believe these would be yellow indicators.

Finally, the top of the line targeting computer does all the above but goes one step further and does it for multiple targets allowing the pilot to both target multiple enemies and designate which weapons to fire on them simultaneously

There is no magic involved and all the above is consistent with lore.

It's not hard to imagine that an technical and industrial advanced civilzation capable of producing fusion core reactors and giant stompy robots with Gauss, PPC, and lasers could equip those weapons in such a manner that they could be adjusted on the fly for various different convergence ranges. Arms are a given, but a small servo on a torso weapons mount could also do so.

Don't make me bring real math into it.

[SilentWolff]

Anyone else see the irony of a guy named Insanity starting this thread.

[Fut]

SilentWolff, on 10 January 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

Anyone else see the irony of a guy named Insanity starting this thread.

Nope, because his ideas are sound.
People might not agree with his solution, but there's clearly an issue in MWO concerning weapon convergence and stacked smaller weapons being extremely more effective than the large ones - whether you want to admit to this issue or not.

[Bubba Wilkins]

Fut, on 10 January 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

Nope, because his ideas are sound.
People might not agree with his solution, but there's clearly an issue in MWO concerning weapon convergence and stacked smaller weapons being extremely more effective than the large ones - whether you want to admit to this issue or not.

Two different issues. The only convergence issue currently is that server lag penalizes ballistic weapons resulting in convergence points being for ranges different than your actual target. I've already suggested how this could be easily fixed.

Your second issue has been part of Battletech forever. The point of the weapons systems is to force you to think about how you utilize them and make decisions accordingly. Two small lasers hit harder than a medium, two mediums hit harder than a large. But thats not the only consideration now, is it. You also have to factor in range, tonnage, heat, crits, and hardpoints usage. Unlike table top where you can basically cram anything you want into a given chassis, we have hardpoints which steer you away from that sort of thing. Sure some mechs still can boat weapons systems, but that is also historically accurate. The point is, if you have 6 hardpoints and you decide your only going to use 2 of them for some large weapons systems, you're doing it wrong. Likewise if you fill those 6 hardpoints with small weapons, but have 10 tons extra space and crits, you're also doing it wrong.

[Soy]

Fut what you're saying is, weapon combos should not exist or be effective.

I disagree.

Wep combos that have good synergy and convergence in specific ranges is part of the allure of weapon systems. You can carry 1 big wep that does that role, or maybe a couple smaller that do that role, or maybe 2 big ones and you have less tonnage/weps to devote to a diff role...

...why would you want to crap all over that by making combos less accurate?

[Praeses]

The reticule should be the one that moves (speed, heat, etc), but don't increase the size, so if your mech is shaking the reticule would also shake, when you shot the weapon will hit where the reticule is at that moment. This doesn't bring randomness.

Someone said this before, if you have two mounted lasers one next to each other, you should get two parallel laser beams when you fire, they should not converge into one.

I don't know about making firing several weapons at once more inaccurate, but you could solve this by adding a more powerful recoil effect, affecting the reticule thus affecting the accuracy for the next shot.

[HRR Insanity]

Soy, on 10 January 2013 - 01:44 PM, said:

Fut what you're saying is, weapon combos should not exist or be effective.

I disagree.

Wep combos that have good synergy and convergence in specific ranges is part of the allure of weapon systems. You can carry 1 big wep that does that role, or maybe a couple smaller that do that role, or maybe 2 big ones and you have less tonnage/weps to devote to a diff role...

...why would you want to crap all over that by making combos less accurate?

Weapon 'combos' are weapons that can be used at the same range with equal effectiveness. That doesn't change with my proposal.

A mech that combines AC20 and SLs will still be good at close range. You just can't combine the weapons and expect to hit the exact tiny little area invalidating the weapon/armor/heat balance.

Bubba Wilkins, on 10 January 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

Your second issue has been part of Battletech forever. The point of the weapons systems is to force you to think about how you utilize them and make decisions accordingly. Two small lasers hit harder than a medium, two mediums hit harder than a large. But thats not the only consideration now, is it. You also have to factor in range, tonnage, heat, crits, and hardpoints usage. Unlike table top where you can basically cram anything you want into a given chassis, we have hardpoints which steer you away from that sort of thing. Sure some mechs still can boat weapons systems, but that is also historically accurate. The point is, if you have 6 hardpoints and you decide your only going to use 2 of them for some large weapons systems, you're doing it wrong. Likewise if you fill those 6 hardpoints with small weapons, but have 10 tons extra space and crits, you're also doing it wrong.

That is the the way it currently works, but that doesn't mean it's the only or the correct way.

At present, you'd be stupid not to use 4 MLs over a LL if you have the hardpoints and you're planning at fighting in close range.

With this change, you can have MLs and LLs be powerful in their own way and the weapons can be balanced vs. one another.