1063 replies to this topic

[Zyllos]

Tarman, on 26 February 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

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.

Already a fix for reducing weapon convergence fix without cone of fire: Reduction of Pin-Point Alphas and Emphasis on Arms

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Suggestion Three - Torso Mounted Weaponry Do Not Converge

I personally think this is a big balancing factor to the game and part of the reason why nobody aims on arms and everyone can just place the crosshair on a single location and alpha strike, having all damage hit that single location.

I suggest making all torso mounted weaponry only aim straight ahead, aiming in relation to the cockpit view. Basically, a straight like is drawn down the center of the player's perspective. All torso mounted weaponry fires straight ahead from the mech in relation to this line. As a note, arm mounted weaponry will still only fire straight ahead, like torso weaponry. Just both arms point directly at the Arm crosshair.

A good example is the Atlas. The two Center Torso Laser ports will fire straight ahead, not converging on the location on which it is aimed at, but instead will be aimed at the Torso crosshair, landing in relation to the weapons mounted on the mech. So the two Lasers will land below the Torso crosshair, one directly below (because the cockpit is actually out of the left eye, thus the left Center Torso laser will be directly below you) and the other below and slightly to the right. The Ballistic and Missile hardpoints will be aiming to the below/left and below/right of the Torso crosshair.

What this does is removes the ability to pin-point all weaponry mounted on a mech (unless it is all in the arms) to hit a single location. Thus, placing a larger emphasis on arm mounted weaponry (with intact Shoulder actuators). While alpha strikes will still be around, they will not be the single location devastating that they are now, but instead be the wild firing of multiple systems to place as much damage on the target as fast as possible, not worrying about where on the mech it hits.

And with the greater emphasis on allowing convergence on arms only, players might start choosing to destroy an arm first before taking out the Left/Right Torso, especially on mechs which mount a large amount of weaponry on those arms.

Edited by Zyllos, 26 February 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[Shumabot]

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.

That seems like it doesn't address much other than people not wanting to be shot at long range and unduly punishes torso mounted weapons on wide mechs. It doesn't actually answer any of the games balance issues.

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 03:17 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

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

Your argument also makes no sense. Weapon convergence has so many logical gameplay holes you could grate cheese on it.

Feel free to elaborate. Keep in mind that my suggestion is based on the IP (ie: BattleMechs in the future have poor accuracy) and allows individual weapons to be balanced via the damage/heat/tonnage/crit model which the Devs have adopted directly from the BattleTech game without running into problems associated with converging those weapons on a single point.

[Connatic]

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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.

To me this doesn't make it feel any more like "Battletech". If I recall correctly, Alpha strikes didn't work that way in the Table Top either.

The real problem is, the devs are arbitrarily holding on to some TT values, while totally letting others go through the window. Making Alpha Strikes into unreliable shotgun attacks won't just magically fix the dynamics. All table top values should have been just used as a guide. Obviously Armor was adjusted to maintain the pacing of a Mechwarrior battle, but now other weapon values may need adjusted as well.


Really a more practical fix that would feel more like Battletech to me, would be some incremental increase of heat when you fire weapons in groups. Two not much different...Three it would get worse...Four or more and you start to get a penalty. Basically weapons would generate more heat than they normally would when you fire them in large groups. I think the true drawback of an Alpha strike is the danger of overheating and having to shut down leaving yourself vulnerable. I think your fix of making weapons inaccurate would take the game in another direction that equally doesn't feel much like Battletech

Edited by Connatic, 26 February 2013 - 03:19 PM.

[Shumabot]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

Feel free to elaborate. Keep in mind that my suggestion is based on the IP (ie: BattleMechs in the future have poor accuracy) and allows individual weapons to be balanced via the damage/heat/tonnage/crit model which the Devs have adopted directly from the BattleTech game without running into problems associated with converging those weapons on a single point.

That's the logical hole. This isn't the tabletop game. The tabletop game is a slow, random, figure game. This is a first person vehicle sim. Your proposed changes don't address any of the games actual balance issues, and introduce quite a few more. They lower the skill ceiling, don't raise the floor, make LRMs better, make catapaults better, make dragons and awesomes worse, and generally just reset the power tier for mechs a fractional amount by making long range mechs that base their playstyle on direct fire have to focus their guns more into their arms.

It's full of holes because it's pointless and doesn't address any of the games balance issues.

Connatic, on 26 February 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

To me this doesn't make it feel any more like "Battletech". If I recall correctly, Alpha strikes didn't work that way in the Table Top either.

The real problem is, the devs are arbitrarily holding on to some TT values, while totally letting others go through the window. Making Alpha Strikes into unreliable shotgun attacks won't just magically fix the dynamics. All table top values should have been just used as a guide. Obviously Armor was adjusted to maintain the pacing of a Mechwarrior battle, but now other weapon values may need adjusted as well.


Really a more practical fix that would feel more like Battletech to me, would be some incremental increase of heat when you fire weapons in groups. Two not much different...Three it would get worse...Four or more and you start to get a penalty. Basically weapons would generate more heat than they normally would when you fire them in large groups. I think the true drawback of an Alpha strike is the danger of overheating and having to shut down leaving yourself vulnerable. I think your fix of making weapons inaccurate would take the game in another direction that equally doesn't feel much like Battletech

That already happens. When you fire more than one energy weapon at once you get more than one energy weapons worth of heat. All putting a multiplier in there does is make people even more likely to stick to SRMs and makes awesomes cry tears of blood.

[HRR Insanity]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Ahh, sorry, I had been combining two different posts in my mind. That one has it's own huge issues though, namely that it removes alpha striking as a functional and meaningful form of gameplay and introduces a huge logical hole in the functionality of the weapons in the game (why do lasers have kick..?)

No, it makes alpha striking an option with pros and cons. Alphastrikes would be more powerful (lots of damage at the same time) but not unbalanced (hitting all the same spot with all that damage).

Lasers don't have kick. The targetting systems of BattleMechs are known to be flawed. That's part of the game IP. It's supposed to be a simulation of a future FICTIONAL universe where BattleMechs are the combat machines of the future, but people have lost the technology to maintain them with perfect care. Thus the innaccuracies. In about 5-10 'game years', they will re-discover the targetting computer... which allows perfect convergence, but costs 4 tons and some critical slots.

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It also punishes builds designed to boat unfairly (hunch, awesome, cicada, etc) while pushing up the power level of weapons dedicated to chain firing considerably (hello elmo). If you want PPCs, LRMs, and point blanking with SRMs to stagnate the meta even more than they do now then your ideas are good. It unduly punishes brawling builds which rely on quick and on point firepower while artificially reducing player skill and introducing a mechanic of recoil compensation into a game that doesn't have the mechanical systems for players to deal with it.

Re-read my original post. I suggested that we could re-balance weapons to be individually powerful. An infighter (like the HBK-G) could have an AC20 that actually HURT things... And given careful management of the cone of fire effect (base off heat, movement, # of weapons, etc) I think that we could really make an interesting game that would make choice about # of weapons to fire in groups as much of a choice as if you wanted to slow down to 50% of max speed to reduce weapon spread.

[Zyllos]

Connatic, on 26 February 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

To me this doesn't make it feel any more like "Battletech". If I recall correctly, Alpha strikes didn't work that way in the Table Top either.

The real problem is, the devs are arbitrarily holding on to some TT values, while totally letting others go through the window. Making Alpha Strikes into unreliable shotgun attacks won't just magically fix the dynamics. All table top values should have been just used as a guide. Obviously Armor was adjusted to maintain the pacing of a Mechwarrior battle, but now other weapon values may need adjusted as well.


Really a more practical fix that would feel more like Battletech to me, would be some incremental increase of heat when you fire weapons in groups. Two not much different...Three it would get worse...Four or more and you start to get a penalty. Basically weapons would generate more heat than they normally would when you fire them in large groups. I think the true drawback of an Alpha strike is the danger of overheating and having to shut down leaving yourself vulnerable. I think your fix of making weapons inaccurate would take the game in another direction that equally doesn't feel much like Battletech

Yes, and that danger should be caused by the heat of the weapon themselves, not a "heat factor" based on number of weapons fired. How does that feel more Battletech to you?

What about mech loadouts that are built around firing all the weapons at the same time? The HBK-4P with it's 6 energy hardpoint hunch comes to mind.

[P e n u m b r a]

Der Geisterbaer the extreme comparisons you are making are so bias and actually crazy where do you draw the comparison of changing the main character to the weapons? his gear is totally different in the modern incarnation just like weapons can be changed in this you still have all the cannon mech's and the lore but the rules and function of the weapons and art style can and should change because what you are arguing for well ITS BALANCED FOR A TABLE TOP! I never ever said every game that was made was an improvement over original creations but some are...

what you describe would turn this game into a boring brawl fest with little tactics other than choosing a mech to gang up on, it would not even be worth engaging at range terrain would serve nothing more than a sight block to getting tickled by single fire weapons obviously the closer in the more effective the weapons would be both teams would just want to get in close you would be gimping yourself taking ranged I cant think of anything more arcade and less sim than walking up and shooting the crap out of things point blank.

Edited by Le0yo, 26 February 2013 - 03:34 PM.

[Connatic]

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Re-read my original post. I suggested that we could re-balance weapons to be individually powerful. An infighter (like the HBK-G) could have an AC20 that actually HURT things... And given careful management of the cone of fire

Why can't we just re-balance weapons and leave it at that? Why even bother with cone-of-fire? Why not just nerf weapons that are easilly boated (MLs) and buff the big guns that are supposed to be scary (PPCs, AC/20s)?

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Yes, and that danger should be caused by the heat of the weapon themselves, not a "heat factor" based on number of weapons fired. How does that feel more Battletech to you?

What about mech loadouts that are built around firing all the weapons at the same time? The HBK-4P with it's 6 energy hardpoint hunch comes to mind.

It feels more like it because that's the danger. I was just suggesting a further heat penalty as a better way as opposed to totally changing the dynamics of how we aim weapons in this game. Really I would like to see neither idea implemented and just continue with weapon balancing that isn't afraid to move further away from exact table top numbers.

Edited by Connatic, 26 February 2013 - 03:38 PM.

[Tarman]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

No, it makes alpha striking an option with pros and cons. Alphastrikes would be more powerful (lots of damage at the same time) but not unbalanced (hitting all the same spot with all that damage).

Lasers don't have kick. The targetting systems of BattleMechs are known to be flawed. That's part of the game IP. It's supposed to be a simulation of a future FICTIONAL universe where BattleMechs are the combat machines of the future, but people have lost the technology to maintain them with perfect care. Thus the innaccuracies. In about 5-10 'game years', they will re-discover the targetting computer... which allows perfect convergence, but costs 4 tons and some critical slots.



Re-read my original post. I suggested that we could re-balance weapons to be individually powerful. An infighter (like the HBK-G) could have an AC20 that actually HURT things... And given careful management of the cone of fire effect (base off heat, movement, # of weapons, etc) I think that we could really make an interesting game that would make choice about # of weapons to fire in groups as much of a choice as if you wanted to slow down to 50% of max speed to reduce weapon spread.

No, it makes alpha-striking pointless because it's a blunderbuss instead of a Barrett. That's like arming everyone with giant, unevenly-damage-rated LB-Xs. Alpha is about trading heat for shooting, not accuracy. Too big an alpha and you can watch your powerup sequence or a death animation, or at the least have to wait out a few shots to keep mobile. That's a choice. Not being able to aim entirely because the game says NO YOU CANT AIM is a silly addition to a game that has specific-location target damage.

Cones are for sick dogs and modelling Stormtrooper rifles. For people that want to actually shoot things in games they are garbage.

[Tombstoner]

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

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

0____.

Not nerfing per say, but an attempt to bring in some weapon balance into the game from TT.
see TT weapons where created with a random hit location in mind. once they convert the game and implemented skill based targeting and simultaneous weapons fire that TT balance is tossed out the window. 4 medium lasers now function way better then one ac-20 in terms of weight, heat, damage and no need for ammo. 4 medium lasers will beat 1 ac-20 every time.
this is why hard point where needed and when clan mechs if they are truly omni and not locked into cannon configurations.
will just carry 20 x mLasers and be done with it. with that you can 2 shot an atlas ct. in TT each ML would have hit a diferent location. sometimes in the legs, arms, CT, the damage got spread around. this is whats missing from the ac-20 that massive hit. only with a 2x20 cat dose the ac-20 seem like its deadly. thats why all damage valuse need to be readjusted or overlay what the OP has suggested.

One element of customization that's not in the game is character avatars with skill's, perks and favored weapons. think levels from wow or cert system from planet side2. gxp and xp can be used for not just mech customization but the pilot as well. one thing that can come out of pilot customization is tighter cones for fire with higher avatar skills. its a missed opportunity i think.

[Tarman]

Tombstoner, on 26 February 2013 - 03:48 PM, said:

Not nerfing per say, but an attempt to bring in some weapon balance into the game from TT.
see TT weapons where created with a random hit location in mind. once they convert the game and implemented skill based targeting and simultaneous weapons fire that TT balance is tossed out the window. 4 medium lasers now function way better then one ac-20 in terms of weight, heat, damage and no need for ammo. 4 medium lasers will beat 1 ac-20 every time.
this is why hard point where needed and when clan mechs if they are truly omni and not locked into cannon configurations.
will just carry 20 x mLasers and be done with it. with that you can 2 shot an atlas ct. in TT each ML would have hit a diferent location. sometimes in the legs, arms, CT, the damage got spread around. this is whats missing from the ac-20 that massive hit. only with a 2x20 cat dose the ac-20 seem like its deadly. thats why all damage valuse need to be readjusted or overlay what the OP has suggested.

One element of customization that's not in the game is character avatars with skill's, perks and favored weapons. think levels from wow or cert system from planet side2. gxp and xp can be used for not just mech customization but the pilot as well. one thing that can come out of pilot customization is tighter cones for fire with higher avatar skills. its a missed opportunity i think.

If TT were based in either balancing or reality then this would almost make sense. Except that it isn't. TT isn't balanced in of itself, let alone for any of the various ports it's done over the years. It was made by guys in the 80s who thought giant fighting robots in a spacewar future would be really really cool. They nearly ruined their own game with the Clans because they didn't plan on them at all, they just went "This is even cooler than the last thing we made!" Hopefully PGI can learn from FASA's errors.

And this game is way closer to a translation than some others. Go play MW4, and see how close you can get to the Stackpoling engine of a downed target. Go play MW2, and tell me how many usable Medium Lasers you can fit INTO YOUR FEET. PGI is closer to the kitchen table than some previous offerings. But as far as balancing goes, the TT is a vague guideline. Straightporting is an exercise in futility, especially if you believe it was balanced, and doubly if you believe that balance can also be pulled straight across and still function.

[Beo Vulf]

Draxtier, on 07 January 2013 - 06:20 PM, said:

The things you're identifying as problems aren't problems, and the "fixes" you're suggesting would make the game a fair bit less interesting and less fun, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Game play in MWO is pretty balanced right now, and works just fine with group firing of accurate weapons. There is simply no need to radically alter something so fundamental as making group firing inaccurate.

Maybe he just wants easy mode, less skill required.

[HRR Insanity]

Connatic, on 26 February 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

Why can't we just re-balance weapons and leave it at that? Why even bother with cone-of-fire? Why not just nerf weapons that are easilly boated (MLs) and buff the big guns that are supposed to be scary (PPCs, AC/20s)?

Because of the reasons I stated previously.

Small weapons: Small 'Mechs rely on small but effective weapons (SLs, MLs, MGs, etc). As you nerf those weapons (which you must to prevent larger 'Mechs from running huge numbers of them), you suddenly make small weapons worthless.

Big weapons: If you buff big weapons, large 'Mechs running multiples of them hitting the same spot become insane. The current fascination is 6xPPC... and you want to buff that? Buff the AC20x2 'Mech? Buff the 2xGR 'Mech? All of these are a problem because of pinpoint accuracy, not because of the weapon.

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It feels more like it because that's the danger. I was just suggesting a further heat penalty as a better way as opposed to totally changing the dynamics of how we aim weapons in this game. Really I would like to see neither idea implemented and just continue with weapon balancing that isn't afraid to move further away from exact table top numbers.

Can't fix just heat weapons... it applies to all weapons.

Beo Vulf, on 26 February 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

Maybe he just wants easy mode, less skill required.

More skill would be required.

[Naeron66]

HRR Insanity, on 07 January 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

You misunderstand.

The double armor was the developers solution to 'Mechs dying instantly due to pinpoint accurate massive combined fire.

Wrong. It was a solution to the general fact that fire does not randomly hit different parts of the mech.

[Beo Vulf]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Because of the reasons I stated previously.

Small weapons: Small 'Mechs rely on small but effective weapons (SLs, MLs, MGs, etc). As you nerf those weapons (which you must to prevent larger 'Mechs from running huge numbers of them), you suddenly make small weapons worthless.

Big weapons: If you buff big weapons, large 'Mechs running multiples of them hitting the same spot become insane. The current fascination is 6xPPC... and you want to buff that? Buff the AC20x2 'Mech? Buff the 2xGR 'Mech? All of these are a problem because of pinpoint accuracy, not because of the weapon.



Can't fix just heat weapons... it applies to all weapons.



More skill would be required.

Give me the math to substantiate your claim.

[HRR Insanity]

Tarman, on 26 February 2013 - 03:41 PM, said:

No, it makes alpha-striking pointless because it's a blunderbuss instead of a Barrett. That's like arming everyone with giant, unevenly-damage-rated LB-Xs. Alpha is about trading heat for shooting, not accuracy. Too big an alpha and you can watch your powerup sequence or a death animation, or at the least have to wait out a few shots to keep mobile. That's a choice. Not being able to aim entirely because the game says NO YOU CANT AIM is a silly addition to a game that has specific-location target damage.

If Alpha is about trading heat for shooting... explain the 2xGR 'Mech. And how Heat balances that. Explain the 2xAC20 'Mech. Explain all the low-heat weapons (SLs, MLs, etc) that have had to have their heat increased to make them vaguely balanced when you can combine weapons together... and now that they've done that... explain why people are still using the 4-6xPPC 'Mechs.

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Cones are for sick dogs and modelling Stormtrooper rifles. For people that want to actually shoot things in games they are garbage.

If those people need perfect accuracy, they can fire individual weapons in sequence. And they wouldn't be at a disadvantage compared to those who fired in groups... because of the proposal outlined above.

[P e n u m b r a]

why don't we just roll a dice to see what bits we hit. And no insanity, single fire with the current balance on ranged weapons gives you plenty of time to just charge at said ranged mech and laugh...

when a mech is going full speed towards you and you can only fire single fire for sod all damage then hes on you spamming his cone sorry but it removes all skill and promotes brain dead point blank button bashing why cant you see that will be the outcome...

Edited by Le0yo, 26 February 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[Shumabot]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Because of the reasons I stated previously.

Small weapons: Small 'Mechs rely on small but effective weapons (SLs, MLs, MGs, etc). As you nerf those weapons (which you must to prevent larger 'Mechs from running huge numbers of them), you suddenly make small weapons worthless.

Big weapons: If you buff big weapons, large 'Mechs running multiples of them hitting the same spot become insane. The current fascination is 6xPPC... and you want to buff that? Buff the AC20x2 'Mech? Buff the 2xGR 'Mech? All of these are a problem because of pinpoint accuracy, not because of the weapon.



Can't fix just heat weapons... it applies to all weapons.



More skill would be required.

It's a bit pessimistic to think that a better weapon balance can't be achieved. Knocking SRMs down a third and giving machine guns and flamers damage commiserate with their weight would go a long way towards introducing a level of variety in the game. Hardpoints already prevent large mechs from unreasonably boating effective small weapons, and a better hardpoint system could answer most issues all at once.

There is simply no problem that weapon de-convergence actually addresses. None. It's an arbitrary change in gameplay that could just as easily be mimicked by doubling everythings armor again.

[HRR Insanity]

Beo Vulf, on 26 February 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

Give me the math to substantiate your claim.

A < A*n

Where n = number of weapons and A = a weapon.

Le0yo, on 26 February 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

why don't we just roll a dice to see what bits we hit. And no insanity, single fire with the current balance on ranged weapons gives you plenty of time to just charge at said ranged mech and laugh...

Read the original post. I suggested that we could go back to original armor values which would make large weapons individually powerful.