1063 replies to this topic

[Der Geisterbaer]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

What it really is, is a lazy programmer's way of disguising the fact that they don't have a clue how to actually simulate real guns.

Okay, this is kina cheap now, but: What about simulating fictional weapons and their not so realistic properties?
(UT weapons aren't real guns either)

Edited by Der Geisterbaer, 26 February 2013 - 02:18 PM.

[Shumabot]

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No. No they don't. Not at all. They don't simulate that any more than Super Mario does. The only people who think it's anything remotely like real guns are people who know next to nothing about real guns. What it really is, is a lazy programmer's way of disguising the fact that they don't have a clue how to actually simulate real guns.

That's funny, because the spray patterns for several popular military shooters (CS: Source among them) are styled after the actual patterns of those weapons (IE they shot the guns, recorded the pattern, and implemented an observed average within the game).

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No, I'm taking the stance that I'm a better judge of the quality and actual fun-factor of a video game than most players.

You should probably stop then, you sound like a bitter old man with no idea what he's talking about and you're contradicting yourself constantly. Popular games don't matter? You know what people want more than they do? What people wan't is a return to Quake style gunlaser battles because real guns do that? Spread is only ok when it's in Unreal Tournament? Barf.

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Just like everyone else does. Unlike most of those people though, I at least give fairly well-founded explanations for my ideas and opinions.

No you don't. You don't even come close. Repetition and appeals to authority are hardly the mark of a quality argument and that seems to be the best you have. Not that you're arguing against people with better ideas. This entire conversation should feel bad about itself.

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[Doc Holliday]

Der Geisterbaer, on 26 February 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

Then let me rephrase it: Have you ever made comparisons between games and universes of franchises with (more or less) well known background premises? Doesn't matter which game genre we're talking of.

Side note: I do recall that Activision once planned to give protective force fields to BattleMechs in a MechWarrior game. The very idea caused outrage (ofc partially because the TT rules don't know something like that, but at the same time such a force field would have been against the universe's premises, which - at least to me - was far more serious).

As far as a "universe" as a whole, no. I pretty much always couldn't care less about lore and things like that. It needs to be fun. That's about it.

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I'm a bit confused here, since you're again focussing on "cone of fire" and even there seems to be some contradiction:

Possible or impossible to create a game with inaccuracy as part of the game design?

Well that's a bit of a different question. Inaccuracy can be fine, as a small part of the game design. To design most or all of the game around it leaves it bland and boring, and decidedly less fun.

[Doc Holliday]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 02:18 PM, said:

That's funny, because the spray patterns for several popular military shooters (CS: Source among them) are styled after the actual patterns of those weapons (IE they shot the guns, recorded the pattern, and implemented an observed average within the game).

That might be remotely true, if they shot like a little girl. That's the only way though, because in CS: Source you can empty an entire clip from an automatic weapon at an enemy 3 feet away and have most of the shots miss. Anyone with any skill at all at aiming a real gun could put 100% of those shots on a human target at that distance. The spread pattern depends on the shooter's skill at aiming and controlling the gun. It's not some random crap like a cone of fire in CS:Source or CoD.

Have you ever fired a real gun before?

Edited by Doc Holliday, 26 February 2013 - 02:30 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

Come on. Don't do this, it's beneath you. You and I both know that the only changes you've proposed are weapon spread or minimizing convergence. You've proposed nothing about simply forcing weapons to be fired individually as opposed to a group.

You need to read carefully. The entire purpose of the original proposal was to create a pilot choice. That choice was either:

1. Fire weapons individually with perfect accuracy.
2. Fire weapons in groups with weapon spread of some sort. Cone of Fire was my preference.

I have no desire to force people to fire weapons singley. They're more than welcome to fire groups of weapons... however, if they do, they should not be automatically better by virtue of always being pinpoint accurate. That is the underlying issue. That has always been the underlying issue.

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I'm fine with disagreeing. I'm not fine with people attempting to force unwarranted changes on a game I play.

/shrugs/ The game will continue to have weapon balance problems (as described in my original post) until this is addressed.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 26 February 2013 - 02:28 PM.

[Shumabot]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

That might be remotely true, if they shot like a little girl. That's the only way though, because in CS: Source you can empty an entire clip from an automatic weapon at an enemy 3 feet away and have most of the shots miss.

One of the things that tells me you barely played counterstrike comes from that fact that you don't know that you can resist spread by moving your mouse against it, which simulates skill in bracing a weapon. Weapon patterns are consistent and a skilled player can keep an entire clip on target at pretty distant ranges because they know how to handle the recoil. Your arguments are hugely ignorant of their subject matter, and it's pretty obvious. Stop. Now.

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Anyone with any skill at all at aiming a real gun could put 100% of those shots on a human target at that distance.

And the same can be said of anyone with skill in CS. Something you clearly don't, and have never had.

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Have you ever fired a real gun before?

Yes, the heaviest is a PLA AK variant. A big, heavy, poorly designed one. Stop throwing bad logical fallacies around, you sound like a nerdraging bitter old basement dweller. My experience with a weapon has nothing to do with my arguments.

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[Tarman]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

You need to read carefully. The entire purpose of the original proposal was to create a pilot choice. That choice was either:

1. Fire weapons individually with perfect accuracy.
2. Fire weapons in groups with weapon spread of some sort. Cone of Fire was my preference.

I have no desire to force people to fire weapons singley. They're more than welcome to fire groups of weapons... however, if they do, they should not be automatically better by virtue of always being pinpoint accurate. That is the underlying issue. That has always been the underlying issue.



/shrugs/ The game will continue to have weapon balance problems (as described in my original post) until this is addressed.

Wait. This whole thread is about "nerf aiming"?

0____.

[Zyllos]

Ya, I am not understanding why you assume that weapons will act the same when weapons spread from group fire vs. single fired (Insanity's suggestion - cone of fire).

But his point is that he wishs to add some mechanic to keep all weapons from always hitting the same single point when fired at the same time, no matter what weapon it is.

Hell, I have suggested a different mechanic (Reduction of Pin-Point Alphas and Emphasis on Arms) which reduces the amount of converging fire while not introducing a cone of fire.

The whole point we are getting across is that because weapons can easily all hit the same point is why we are running into issues of dealing with balancing damage, heat, ammo, critical hits, and many other game mechanics.

[Shumabot]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

You need to read carefully. The entire purpose of the original proposal was to create a pilot choice. That choice was either:

1. Fire weapons individually with perfect accuracy.
2. Fire weapons in groups with weapon spread of some sort. Cone of Fire was my preference.

I have no desire to force people to fire weapons singley. They're more than welcome to fire groups of weapons... however, if they do, they should not be automatically better by virtue of always being pinpoint accurate. That is the underlying issue. That has always been the underlying issue.



/shrugs/ The game will continue to have weapon balance problems (as described in my original post) until this is addressed.

Your argument also makes no sense. Weapon convergence has so many logical gameplay holes you could grate cheese on it. Neither of you are arguing in good faith or from a position of logic.

[Zyllos]

Tarman, on 26 February 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

Wait. This whole thread is about "nerf aiming"?

0____.

It's not about nerfing aim. It's keeping weapons not all hitting the exact same location when fired, or at least not allowing ALL the mounted weapons on a mech to do it without a draw back.

[Doc Holliday]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

You need to read carefully. The entire purpose of the original proposal was to create a pilot choice. That choice was either:

1. Fire weapons individually with perfect accuracy.
2. Fire weapons in groups with weapon spread of some sort. Cone of Fire was my preference.

I have no desire to force people to fire weapons singley. They're more than welcome to fire groups of weapons... however, if they do, they should not be automatically better by virtue of always being pinpoint accurate. That is the underlying issue. That has always been the underlying issue.

And I can individually chain fire half a dozen weapons in half a second. Sure, I might not get quite as much of the damage on target as with a normal alpha, but close enough as makes little difference.

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/shrugs/ The game will continue to have weapon balance problems (as described in my original post) until this is addressed.

It will continue to have weapon balance problems until they day they shut it down, regardless of what they do. You can't ever balance something perfectly.

Zyllos, on 26 February 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

It's not about nerfing aim. It's keeping weapons not all hitting the exact same location when fired, or at least not allowing ALL the mounted weapons on a mech to do it without a draw back.

Which is just a fancy way to say "nerf aiming".

Edited by Doc Holliday, 26 February 2013 - 02:39 PM.

[Shumabot]

Zyllos, on 26 February 2013 - 02:37 PM, said:

Ya, I am not understanding why you assume that weapons will act the same when weapons spread from group fire vs. single fired (Insanity's suggestion - cone of fire).

But his point is that he wishs to add some mechanic to keep all weapons from always hitting the same single point when fired at the same time, no matter what weapon it is.

Hell, I have suggested a different mechanic (Reduction of Pin-Point Alphas and Emphasis on Arms) which reduces the amount of converging fire while not introducing a cone of fire.

The whole point we are getting across is that because weapons can easily all hit the same point is why we are running into issues of dealing with balancing damage, heat, ammo, critical hits, and many other game mechanics.

No, you're running into those issues because the games weapon numbers and mech classes are nonsensical and clearly don't have functional testing behind them. That's the problem with basing a game like this off of a poorly balanced tabletop game. It doesn't translate and systems break down. Boating isn't a problem with the games weapons or mode of play (though the SRM6 is hugely overpowered), it's a problem with the gunbag weight and weapon system in mechwarrior. You can't fix it with ridiculous cone of fire nerfs, especially when that does nothing to address the fact that people can do the exact same thing with different but functionally similar weapons. The issue is opportunity costs and the loss of variety caused by infinite customize-ability. Something people unfamiliar with game design precepts can't usually fathom when they're searching for "something to blame".

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 02:41 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Garth Erlam, on 26 February 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

To highlight this, the top three 'builds' of the game don't stack the same weapons - in fact, many of the top 5 utilize 3+ different weapon types.

Please define 'top'. If 'top' indicates purely the most popular, then it's largely a useless statement. With all the new players.. I bet some of the 'top builds' are the trial 'Mechs by pure population.

Please report how often players fire their weapons in groups vs. individually (chain fired). That is the issue, not whether they have different weapons on the 'Mechs. If someone has 1PPC, 1 ERPPC, and 1GR (3+ weapons) but always fire them in an alpha strike.. then you're only supporting my argument.

With the current system in place weapons are fired in groups. Those groups of weapons make individual weapon balance nigh-impossible as described in the original post and will continue to lead to those types of builds dominating.

If you have data on the frequency of grouped fire vs. individually fired weapons for people who play well (ie: K/D > 3-4, win%> 65%, etc)... bring it out.

Actually help the discussion. If you really want to engage in the conversation, rather than doing a drive-by-shooting with useless info... cough it up.

Edited by HRR Insanity, 26 February 2013 - 03:02 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

And I can individually chain fire half a dozen weapons in half a second. Sure, I might not get quite as much of the damage on target as with a normal alpha, but close enough as makes little difference.

Read my first post.

Weapons fired in close temporal proximity (ie: really fast) would be subject to a cone of fire, just as if they had been fired in a group to avoid this issue (ie: macros, etc).

Regardless, you don't like the idea. We get it. But try to at least read my post and understand it before you continue to mis-represent it in your attempted rebuttals.

[Zyllos]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

No, you're running into those issues because the games weapon numbers and mech classes are nonsensical and clearly don't have functional testing behind them. That's the problem with basing a game like this off of a poorly balanced tabletop game. It doesn't translate and systems break down. Boating isn't a problem with the games weapons or mode of play (though the SRM6 is hugely overpowered), it's a problem with the gunbag weight and weapon system in mechwarrior. You can't fix it with ridiculous cone of fire nerfs, especially when that does nothing to address the fact that people can do the exact same thing with different but functionally similar weapons. The issue is opportunity costs and the loss of variety caused by infinite customize-ability. Something people unfamiliar with game design precepts can't usually fathom when they're searching for "something to blame".

I still do not think you see the picture.

Yes, I will agree that the "gunbag", as you eloquently put it, mechanics of how a mech is equipped is partly an issue. But it is not a source of the issue I am speaking about.

And really, boating is not the issue I am speaking about, either. My issue is two weapons, it doesn't matter the type (ballistic, energy, missile) will always converge on a single point when firing, no matter where it is mounted.

Plus, if you re-read my post, I gave a suggestion on how to fix this without a cone of fire.

[ExplodedZombie]

This game is full of whiners and rage-quitters. Do you think everything would go smoothly with weapon spreading?

I do believe that 2 ML in the same arm could be a few inches apart at their final point and not act like they are firing from the same lens.

Could we have an increase in heat if more than one weapon is fired simultaneously from the same section of the body?

Hearing about this game moving away from canon is getting old. This is a FPS/SIM not a board game. Please understand that a direct translation is impossible without severe balance issues that are far worse than what we have. Hell, in the books (not exactly canon, I'm sure), light mech pilots were scared as hell when they saw an assault mech.

[Doc Holliday]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

One of the things that tells me you barely played counterstrike comes from that fact that you don't know that you can resist spread by moving your mouse against it, which simulates skill in bracing a weapon. Weapon patterns are consistent and a skilled player can keep an entire clip on target at pretty distant ranges because they know how to handle the recoil. Your arguments are hugely ignorant of their subject matter, and it's pretty obvious. Stop. Now.



And the same can be said of anyone with skill in CS. Something you clearly don't, and have never had.



Yes, the heaviest is a PLA AK variant. A big, heavy, poorly designed one. Stop throwing bad logical fallacies around, you sound like a nerdraging bitter old basement dweller. My experience with a weapon has nothing to do with my arguments.

One of the things that tells me you're an *** and a troll is the fact that you already admitted that you don't actually care about this discussion, yet you keep arguing. Stop trolling. Now. Go play your Jenner without jump jets.

[HRR Insanity]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

No, you're running into those issues because the games weapon numbers and mech classes are nonsensical and clearly don't have functional testing behind them. That's the problem with basing a game like this off of a poorly balanced tabletop game. It doesn't translate and systems break down.

If you want to remove hit locations, armor values, and everything else related to BT, then you can start from scratch... but the entire purpose of this game is to exist in the BattleTech Universe. The IP is why we play this game. If you diverge too much from the IP, you lose a lot of the draw and excitement associated with the game. It's a game about piloting BattleMechs.

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Boating isn't a problem with the games weapons or mode of play (though the SRM6 is hugely overpowered), it's a problem with the gunbag weight and weapon system in mechwarrior. You can't fix it with ridiculous cone of fire nerfs, especially when that does nothing to address the fact that people can do the exact same thing with different but functionally similar weapons.

No, they can't. In the original proposal... all weapons regardless of type would be subject to the weapon spread effect. You can't 'dodge' it by bringing 1 of everything. It's not a boat-specific fix. It's a weapon convergence fix. It has the side-effect of fixing boating, but it is aimed at the fundamental underlying issue relating to balancing the game.

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The issue is opportunity costs and the loss of variety caused by infinite customize-ability. Something people unfamiliar with game design precepts can't usually fathom when they're searching for "something to blame".

The proposed fix would reverse the effect of customizability by providing a pendulum away from hyper-specialized alpha-based convergence builds.

[Shumabot]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

One of the things that tells me you're an *** and a troll is the fact that you already admitted that you don't actually care about this discussion, yet you keep arguing. Stop trolling. Now. Go play your Jenner without jump jets.

I care about telling you that you're wrong when and if you're wrong. I'm not going to sit back and level a gold demagogue get to keep his soap box. I'm gonna kick it out from under him because it's what his arguments deserve.

[Tarman]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

If you want to remove hit locations, armor values, and everything else related to BT, then you can start from scratch... but the entire purpose of this game is to exist in the BattleTech Universe. The IP is why we play this game. If you diverge too much from the IP, you lose a lot of the draw and excitement associated with the game. It's a game about piloting BattleMechs.



No, they can't. In the original proposal... all weapons regardless of type would be subject to the weapon spread effect. You can't 'dodge' it by bringing 1 of everything. It's not a boat-specific fix. It's a weapon convergence fix. It has the side-effect of fixing boating, but it is aimed at the fundamental underlying issue relating to balancing the game.



The proposed fix would reverse the effect of customizability by providing a pendulum away from hyper-specialized alpha-based convergence builds.

Cone-fire as an across-board counter to good aim. How about no. All you're going to do is shift the top-player game slightly by making them work around a mechanic that shaves off their aim no matter how good they are, and ruin poor-to-middling players who need whatever accuracy they can scrape together in the first place. Oh, and chase away people who like to actually aim things in shooter games. I get what you're after but this is not a good way to do it. This makes everybody's game a little crappier. That's not really a fix.