1063 replies to this topic

[mekabuser]

my
energy based solution in conjunction with a decent bullet drop is all that is needed, if anything is needed at all.
tbh, your complaint is about number 50 on the list of things to do.

If you spent some time looking at loadouts, boating is about 5% of what it was in mw4.

and if you have a problem with weapons firing in sequence screwing up targeting between two moving targets then your just a ****** and need to put down the TT rulebook

S a d i s t is not a curseword

oh and whatever the space required between shots to be"pinpoint", it will be macroed and those doing that will say they arent cheating..
Look at the uac5 macro

Edited by mekabuser, 22 January 2013 - 11:36 AM.

[Artgathan]

Part of the boating issue (that I don't expect you to address because there's no way to address it in terms of gameplay) is the simple fact that it's easier (as a pilot) to boat weapons.

What I mean by this is simply that we all have 2 easily accessible buttons on our mouse (some might have more with the mouse wheel, but I'm talking about a very basic mouse). That means that I can set two easily accessible weapons groups to use in combat. I can use the number keys as well, but since I tend to fiddle with my movement buttons, I tend to not use the number keys beyond 3 (after that I often 'displace' my hand and start pushing the 'ESDF' keys instead of the 'WASD' keys, which is problematic in combat).

MWO has a wonderfully diverse set of weapons to pick and choose from. However, I'm limited to picking 3. Why? Because I'm not going to bind an AC/20 to the same group as a medium laser. Even though they have the same range, their other characteristics prevent them from being placed into the same category. Essentially what this amounts to is the fact that each weapon can only belong to a group composed of the same weapons (the exception being SRM2/4/6 and LRM5/10/15/20 which can be grouped because you're not really changing anything besides volume of fire and reload speed).

Additionally, even though most TT mechs are designed to be 'versatile' (they pack weapons for multiple ranges), mechs in MWO will tend to be specialized since it's pretty easy to get your mech into a position where your specialization is effective. For example, if you're boating long-range mechs on Forest Colony, you run into the lake. If you're a brawler, you go the other way.

Implementing a Cone of Fire does not fix these issues (equipment / pilot limitations and map design). While the idea has some merit, I will become extremely frustrated when my AC/20 round misses an enemy mech because invisible dice made it so. The COF is a nice attempt to implement a tabletop-style mechanic in MWO; but it denies the fact that MWO is fundamentally different from TT and certain mechanics should not (or can not) be translated over. A First-Person Shooter (which is what MWO at heart, even if it behaves slightly differently and has certain simulation aspects) is fundamentally different from a Turn-Based Strategy Game.

[AustinNH]

Everyone's going back to COF but what about fixing convergence (so that torso weapons don't converge, or converge to a fixed distance)? It seems that would address the OP's concerns and would not involve dice.

[Frostiken]

Steel Talon, on 22 January 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

Significant ballistic weapons needs knockdown mechanic, cause when i see commando still standing after taking hit from AC/20, I dare to say that BF3 is more simulator than MWO.

Anybody who calls MWO a simulator needs to have their chest shat on.

[warner2]

This is an interesting thread within the context of Garth's post on reddit hinting that buffing PPCs is not a given considering the 6PPC Stalker that people are using (and that I'd love to get my hands on).

Hopefully PGI see that it's hard to make individual weapons powerful when you can combine them so readily into the so called "super weapon" (although, less than in MW4 I think it's fair to say, the hard-points used here to prevent boating to some degree).

Edited by warner2, 22 January 2013 - 01:35 PM.

[Frostiken]

b00zy, on 22 January 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

at this point I wish they had never put the mechwarrior name on this game it is becoming very clear that the TT fanbase has no clue what so ever as to how to make a online game and will work there hardest to sabotage this game in a crusade to have to mimic the TT in everyway

Half the TT people want to the broken heat system, which was designed only for turn-based action, and all the damage and weapon settings exactly as they are, but then want to remove the key balancing component, which was the inaccuracy.

The other half of the TT people want the inaccuracy along with it.

The entire reason the game is broken-feeling is because of over-adherence to TT rules. Fine, you want every single shot to land with flawless accuracy like a Quake railgun, because you're too ****** to actually play Quake, so you need to play a game where your targets are nearly immobile buildings. Yes, it takes SOOOO much skill to shoot something in this game.

But that means you have to change the weapons, and the sooner we drop this useless anchor that is "BT purism", the better.

warner2, on 22 January 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

This is an interesting thread within the context of Garth's post on reddit hinting that buffing PPCs is not a given considering the 6PPC Stalker that people are using (and that I'd love to get my hands on).

Hopefully PGI see that it's hard to make individual weapons powerful when you can combine them so readily into the so called "super weapon" (although, less than in MW4 I think it's fair to say, the hard-points used here to prevent boating to some degree).

The hardpoints don't prevent boating, they just shoehorn boats into certain mechs.

Edited by Frostiken, 22 January 2013 - 01:39 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

mekabuser, on 22 January 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

oh and whatever the space required between shots to be"pinpoint", it will be macroed and those doing that will say they arent cheating..
Look at the uac5 macro

If that time is also a function of movement/heat, it will be impossible to macro. That is also in the original post.

[Trev Firestorm]

Jetfire, on 07 January 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

There are 2 parts to this and with them included the game would have a lot more depth.

1. Only fully articulated arms can have adjustable to target convergence. Torso and Up/Down only arms should fire at a fixed convergence of the weapons maximum effective distance. The reason being that these items are not all mounted on individual articulated gimbals. This makes where you mount weapons important as it will affect the spread. Center of mass weapons on the torso like the Centurions lasers have no convergence issues as they are mounted dead center on the reticules.

2. Cone of Fire. Just because I point a reticule at something does not gaurantee a hit. There needs to be an inclusion of some inaccuracy due to simple slop in the system. The tech who lines up your weapons will not get it 100%. Try sighting in a real rifle. The faster you move the more vibration and uncertainty. The more heat, the slower your targeting computer can keep up.

That said, modules and equipment should be able to improve accuracy and heat proof the targeting computer.

Never been a huge fan of cone of fire but I can see the addition of a /very/ small cone of fire mechanic being a good thing. Also have always supported a proper implementation of convergence. Especially like the point about modules designed to improve accuracy/reduce ill effects of various weapon combinations.

Variety is good and this suggestion would definitely lead to better multi-role mech loadouts.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 22 January 2013 - 02:15 PM.

[Vapor Trail]

6 PPC Stalker (Hex-Stalker?) is not op, in fact it's still slightly underpowered IMO.

It is a sign of things to come (eventually). Sure, it can deliver a 60 point shot to a single location... but it can do so reliably once every twelve to fifteen seconds or so. Any faster and it shuts down. The combination of the single viable shot before shutdown, the slow assault speed and torso twist, limited traverse, exposed side torsos, and minimum range on the PPC makes the Hex-Stalker extremely vulnerable to short-range mechs of any size, and lights in particular.

Eventually, either though Clan Omni-mechs, or the intro of the Annhiliator, there will be a Quad Gauss mech...

Which will be capable of the same "60 point hit" as the Hex-Stalker, but be able to do it every four seconds for as long as the ammo holds out. With an average of a dead mech per ton of ammo, eight tons of ammo would be enough to kill the entire enemy team.

Granted, with IS tech, it's 68 tons of payload... which means a small engine and probably light armor, so it's effectively a Gauss Turret...

But with Clan tech, it's only 56 tons... this thing is going be nearly as fast (if not as fast) as the current Hex Stalker with between three and four times the effective firepower.

[Corvus Antaka]

HRR Insanity, on 22 January 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

Because hardpoints are a reaction to small weapon boating. They pre-emptively prevented the 15SL boats by adding hardpoints and limiting customization. This fails because there will always be 'Mechs with more hardpoints... which makes them the preferred 'Mech because they can combine more weapons together into a bigger alpha. (See: HBK-4P, K2, Stalker, etc)

There is no way to make hardpoints work as intended to limit boating (of mostly small weapons) while still keeping the ability to customize.

Thus, yes, as long as 2MLs always hit the same spot, they will be directly better than the LL. (Unless you want all 'Mechs to have only 1 hardpoint of each type...). The problem and solution outlined in the original post still apply.

If you continue to nerf small weapons (SLs, MLs) by increasing heat, increasing armor, weakening damage... eventually PPC or LL boats will become standard of practice (they probably already are in many situations). But they will still be stacked in large numbers to combine damage.

The best way to fix boating is using a mech4 type mechlab in conjunction with heat stacking penalties for firing more than 1 of the same gun if the combined fire of those guns does more than X damage or heat. ie 2 ac 20's would incur a 25% heat bonus penalty, 6 small lasers would incur the same penalty, or firing more than 3 erppc/ppc or 4 large lasers at once.

incurring a heat penalty on high combined weapons alpha strikes would discourage this type of firing behaviour.

[HRR Insanity]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 22 January 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

The best way to fix boating is using a mech4 type mechlab in conjunction with heat stacking penalties for firing more than 1 of the same gun if the combined fire of those guns does more than X damage or heat. ie 2 ac 20's would incur a 25% heat bonus penalty, 6 small lasers would incur the same penalty, or firing more than 3 erppc/ppc or 4 large lasers at once.

incurring a heat penalty on high combined weapons alpha strikes would discourage this type of firing behaviour.

And for weapons that don't produce heat?

GR?

ACs?

Heat isn't the answer. Fixing weapon convergence is.

[Corvus Antaka]

HRR Insanity, on 22 January 2013 - 02:29 PM, said:

And for weapons that don't produce heat?

GR?

ACs?

Heat isn't the answer. Fixing weapon convergence is.

Only gauss rifle, and that could be fixed by causing another type of overload like a HUD overload

[HRR Insanity]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 22 January 2013 - 02:48 PM, said:

Only gauss rifle, and that could be fixed by causing another type of overload like a HUD overload

The point remains... it still doesn't fix the underlying issue... which means you can still alphastrike for absurd damage to a single panel which breaks the game.

[Vapor Trail]

25% heat penalty per salvo would also only raise 4 AC5 heat from 4 heat per salvo to 5...

At current RoFs that's basically the firepower of a pair of AC/20s, at double the range, for 4 tons more for the weapons, fewer criticals, and less heat generated. Only downside is that the paired AC/20 can put both shots (equivalent to 8 AC/5 rounds, or two salvos) on the same panel at the same time at the price of even higher heat (about 15 for the salvo).

A 50% heat penalty on the AC/5s would only raise the heat to equivalent to the level of the AC/20 (6 heat per salvo).

A 100% heat penalty on the AC/5s would only be 8 heat per salvo, 16 heat for two. Dual AC/20 heat, no penalty is 12. 25% penalty would be 15.

Salvo penalties would have to be MASSIVE for small heat weapons to make them relevant.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 22 January 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

For the Gauss, you'd basically need a 1000 % increase to be appreciatable as well. Unless t he devs will forever avoid putting in mechs that can carry more than 2 large ballistics. It should be obvious to them that they screwed up if they can't do that and have to avoid certain canon mechs because they'd break their game.
But then, a lot should b eobvious to them which doesn'T seem to be.

[pcunite]

I just reread this ... this needs to happen. I assume the author also wants the weapons and armor values as originally intended (a single AC/20 would become powerful again) which I completely agree with. This game was supposed to be a chess match in which individual mechs contribute in a meaningful way.

Not simply every lance mate pointing their guns at one enemy; rinse repeat. Team play should not be always about the queen, rook, and knight taking out pawns one at a time. There is such a thing as individual value in an overall coordinated plan.

[Zerethon]

Bleeding hell do i need to pop up again?

Alright.

Cone of fire is not relevant, Lasers, barring various atmospheric effects that become many times less apparent at high powers (And i'm going to bloody well say the lasers in MW, which can MELT THROUGH STEEL ARMOR IN SECONDS are high powered)

Ergo, like a laser pointer, they always point where pointed. Unless mucked with by other means (See: Arrow IV anti-laser warhead)

Cone of fire isn't a solution, it's an exaberated problem, why would my HARD MOUNTED 6 medium pulses on my hunchie 4P Fire in randomnly scatted angles if i fire all 6 at once? It's a hardmounted laser for f***sake, all 6 will fire where pointed at.

How to fix fire points, ya' ready for this, bub?

1. Swank around the hardpoints on a couple certain problem mechs (I'm looking at you, K2 with non-CT MG's) that fixed-lines-of-fire would not fix

2. Make weapons mounted on torso's and arms with non-actuated left/right have a set line they fire in, with a fixation point SETTABLE BY THE PLAYER (If i own the mech, what's stopping me from telling the techs to fix my convergence point for my CT weapons to X Meters? Nothing beyond design limits on the mechs adjustability due to space constraints) which means that a sniper mech can set his "Pinpoint" range at say, 750m, getting less accurate closer or further than that.

3. Arms with full actuation have a limited convergence ability with a slight delay allowing them to re-calculate the players pre-set "Default" convergence range when the player holds a mech under their crosshairs.

4. Just because, various ECM changes such as making it only fully functional if the carrying mech is actually keeping the mech it wants to effect within it's sphere of influence (LRM Boats could get locks on ECM-carrying mechs when outside the circle range, that is, the range they normally could target at which is like, up to 500/600m away)

Bam. I win.

Also, a generic FPS weapon spread when firing multiple weapons of the same type or on constant fire is very unrealistic when mounted on mechs with massive gyroscopes and recoil-dampers that weigh 25+ tons and can very easily rely on weight alone to counterbalance all but the absolute largest guns. I could see an AC20 raven or something being affected by the recoil of the gun, but an AC20 atlas? It's a 100 ton wall. A recoil-damped AC20 isn't going to bloody shake something that size easily.

[Death Mallet]

HRR Insanity, on 07 January 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

On June 17, 2012, I posted a thread (http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1) stating that the Developer’s on-going attempts to balance weapons without some mechanism of weapon spread (cone of fire, convergence, etc) were doomed. And by extension, the game itself was likely doomed to suffer terrible weapon/armor balance.

(etc.)

I get what you're saying, you're just wrong. As a long time tabletop player also I can tell you the tabletop version is inherently unbanlanced, just in different ways.

Add in different rates of fire and whatnot for the online version and its even worse. You can't stick to cannon values for heat, damage, etc for the tabletop and make a balanced online game.

I think the devs are doing a good job of retaining the flavor of battletech while implementing the mechanics they need to in order to make a game that works online. It's not there yet, but its light years ahead of where it was 6 months ago, and they'll keep improving.

So sorry. . . nice post. . . just incorrect analysis proceeding from a flawed premise.

[Zerethon]

Death Mallet, on 26 January 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

I get what you're saying, you're just wrong. As a long time tabletop player also I can tell you the tabletop version is inherently unbanlanced, just in different ways.

Add in different rates of fire and whatnot for the online version and its even worse. You can't stick to cannon values for heat, damage, etc for the tabletop and make a balanced online game.

I think the devs are doing a good job of retaining the flavor of battletech while implementing the mechanics they need to in order to make a game that works online. It's not there yet, but its light years ahead of where it was 6 months ago, and they'll keep improving.

So sorry. . . nice post. . . just incorrect analysis proceeding from a flawed premise.

I'll echo you here, Not like you -CAN- fire an AC20 in TT nearly as fast as you can in MWO. It's basically a mech-mounted small battleship cannon.

[SteelJaws]

Cone of Fire should be in.

As in RL or any of the shooting games for the past...oh I don't know 20 years? The more you shoot the worse your aim is, hence the term "Spray and Pray". Doing a single shot puts it right where your crosshairs are(unless wind or other issues, but lets not go there) doing 2-3 shots puts it close to your crosshairs, and doing 10-15 shots at once spreads it around like your ******* into a stiff breeze. That is the way its ment to be.

Now then, lets talk about your mech, your telling me that a Laser in your RIGHT arm, and a laser in your LEFT torso, will hit the same exact spot? Or maybe a Laser in your HEAD, and CENTER torso?

Yeah, sure they can, if both lasers have the ability to move up in down and right and left in their own Socket. Oh wait, the weapons are in a fixed place and can only be moved by either moving your arms or torso, and none of these mechs have a neck, so nodding their head is impossible.

Unless this is Gundam Warrior Online.