1063 replies to this topic

[Shumabot]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

A < A*n

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



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

And then LRMs would dominate every match and a srm catapult would have an effective 180 damage alpha that would instakill EVERY MECH IN THE GAME.

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 04:14 PM.

[Naeron66]

KinLuu, on 07 January 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

All mechwarrior games had the same mechanic than MWO.

It is what makes these kind of games skill based. Random spread is a bad idea - and most people wont like it.

So your idea has no chance. Deal with it.

This.

This is an FPS implementation of Battletech, if you want random shot spread go back to TT or play a game that is turn based.

[Beo Vulf]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 04:12 PM, said:

A < A*n

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



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

That math would argue against cone of fire not for it. Currently A is less than A times n. What you are suggesting is to make A>A*n at least that is the way I read your original post. It might also be why people are negative to your suggestion.

[P e n u m b r a]

how would changing the Armour values do anything?? you would buff the close range weapons also doing that and they would be hitting you with more of them... come on man there is quite a bit of damage fall off at range with the long range weapons. If you want to have even close to the firepower of a medium in a heavy at long range you have to put in a xl engine, and not even a fast one at that and thats still counting only optimal damage in medium range. Long range you do even less and come no where near still. if you do what you are suggesting it will be a brutal brainless brawl kinda like mech assault. I want to see varied tactics full use of the terrain long range and short you really are forcing a brawl with this suggestion I don't even know how you can dispute that.

Edited by Le0yo, 26 February 2013 - 04:27 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

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.

You're correct. If they continue to balance things in the direction they are trending now, we'll end up with MW4. I'm not opposed to that... hell, I played it for nearly 8 years, but the Devs had a chance here to do something potentially better. I'm completely willing to try this out and if it fails... revert it. But not trying it is a mistake.

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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.

No, in that case, you would basically make individual weapons useless because you could never every get through someone's armor. You'd need to fire lots and lots of groups of weapons together to have a chance to burrow through to kill them. That's the issue.

Deconvergence or modified weapon spread allow individual weapons to be balanced independent of one another and hardpoints.

[HRR Insanity]

Beo Vulf, on 26 February 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

That math would argue against cone of fire not for it. Currently A is less than A times n. What you are suggesting is to make A>A*n at least that is the way I read your original post. It might also be why people are negative to your suggestion.

I'm suggesting to make A = A*n as closely as possible with regard to a single panel.

[Shumabot]

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You're correct. If they continue to balance things in the direction they are trending now, we'll end up with MW4. I'm not opposed to that... hell, I played it for nearly 8 years, but the Devs had a chance here to do somethingpotentially better. I'm completely willing to try this out and if it fails... revert it. But not trying it is a mistake.

Whatever that potentially better is, it has nothing to do with weapon deconvergence, which would be a knife to this games throat. The best balance change they could possibly make is to introduce a big/small weapon restriction on hardpoints, but I suspect they won't ever do so because EFFORT and because it would make the people that obsess over the TT go into seizures.

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No, in that case, you would basically make individual weapons useless because you could never every get through someone's armor. You'd need to fire lots and lots of groups of weapons together to have a chance to burrow through to kill them. That's the issue.

I think you need to identify what your problem actually is with the game. right now you don't seem to know, and you are throwing out "fixes" that just push it into being closer to the TT, probably because you identify that as being what this game is "supposed to be", even though its a horrifically bad mechanical basis for a game.

Quote

Deconvergence or modified weapon spread allow individual weapons to be balanced independent of one another and hardpoints.

No, you just believe it does. You haven't actually presented a coherent argument for how it does that.

Edited by Shumabot, 26 February 2013 - 04:30 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Le0yo, on 26 February 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

how would changing the Armour values do anything?? you would buff the close range weapons also doing that and they would be hitting you with more of them... come on man there is quite a bit of damage fall off at range with the long range weapons. If you want to have even close to the firepower of a medium in a heavy at long range you have to put in a xl engine, and not even a fast one at that and thats still counting only optimal damage in medium range. Long range you do even less and come no where near still. if you do what you are suggesting it will be a brutal brainless brawl kinda like mech assault. I want to see varied tactics full use of the terrain long range and short you really are forcing a brawl with this suggestion I don't even know how you can dispute that.

No, if long range weapons are effective... and short range weapons are effective, but neither can combine damage, it's a level playing field.

If you hang out at range, long range weapons will have an advantage... and good pilots will kill you with carefully placed individually fired big weapons.

If you manage to get close, then close range weapons will have an advantage, but AC20s would be individually effective... as would MLs and SLs... but they wouldn't have to be grouped to do so. You could group them and risk doing more damage but being less accurate... but it wouldn't be the de facto always-correct play.

I'm in no way saying that this wouldn't require balancing. I'm just saying the current system has a flaw that won't be fixed by fixing any individual weapon.

[Tarman]

HRR Insanity, on 26 February 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

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.



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.

Now you're crying about GunKats, specifically the GKat and the 20Kat. At least stick with a theme, unless your theme is the game is just unplayable and everything kills you and you can't deal. Those builds are balanced by the fact that hyper-specialists have weaknesses in the areas they gimped to specialize somewhere else. Doesn't need heat or cones to keep it relatively fair; one-trick ponies by nature only have one trick. Go ask those guys what they did to those poor Kats to stuff them with big guns. And ONLY those big guns usually, most GunKats don't pack backups because there's no space, not because they couldn't use them.

And those sniper builds can be easily defeated just as much as they kill, by actually playing the game. Cover. Focus them down. Blow their guns out, especially a GKat. Shoot off their legs. Get in close if they're not too quickfooted in the close game. Split their attention between two dangerous closing targets. Have a light poke holes in their backs or call down rain. Yes they are dangerous, duh. No, you don't need to rewrite basic fire mechanics to fight them.

It sounds to me like you don't want balance, you want symmetry. Everything the same, instead of a varied collection of things that more or less balance out. I'd rather not water down everything in the game in the name of "fairness", especially when all it really does is just water down the game. I can still cut your head off with a gunfire cone, because I can aim, but now it's really annoying. And the guy next to me who could barely aim before just quit the game.

[P e n u m b r a]

I don't see the problem though really so what you can hit one point so can the enemy its good to see accuracy is rewarded how is it unbalanced that the more accurate player wins it would be horrible to have randomness in there, you can say its like real life with bullet spread and all but its not like that at all you can land 3/4 bullets in a grouping to one point if you are accurate and land a kill. what you are suggesting here will barely scratch a mech as for the weapons I see loads of variety with some changes to some of the unused weapons like ac20s and the lbx's there is variation for sure. its more about the role of said weapon yeah 2 medium lasers = 1 ppc but they are both situation and used for different things both are good why not add recoil to single fire weapons the more you fire the more recoil at least you need to recenter your aim lasers kind of go all over the place anyways and have their own penalties. the other suggestions are on torso firing straight forward just sound clunky and horrible.

just to put it into perspective the suggestion as in now

4x ppc is no more deadly than 4x srm 6 fired in group

after change

4x srm 6 fired in cone point blank would be way more devastating than ppc grouping your suggestion actually does nothing for nerfing grouped weapons it just makes other variations stronger than others please think about it are you playing the same game? ;<

and please dont come up with arguments like players will pick you off at range single fireing? no way is that going to have the stopping power to stop a full on charge of mediums going 80+ kph what idiots would hang back at range knowing their enemy can only single fire one weapon with any accuracy every so often??

the problem with ac20 is vs gauss for the difference in the weapon. its not worth it for the tonnage you are far more explosive carrying that 1 ton 7 shot stuff the velocity of it could be improved im thinking this will be balanced out with its knockdown chance or something along those lines when that gets put back into the game as they are supposed to be able to cripple mechs.

Edited by Le0yo, 26 February 2013 - 05:06 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

Whatever that potentially better is, it has nothing to do with weapon deconvergence, which would be a knife to this games throat. The best balance change they could possibly make is to introduce a big/small weapon restriction on hardpoints, but I suspect they won't ever do so because EFFORT and because it would make the people that obsess over the TT go into seizures.

I personally think that deconvergence would not be a 'knife in the throat'. Your opinion on this just as valid as mine.

Big/small weapon hardpoints did nothing to affect this issue in MW4 and would not here either.

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I think you need to identify what your problem actually is with the game. right now you don't seem to know, and you are throwing out "fixes" that just push it into being closer to the TT, probably because you identify that as being what this game is "supposed to be", even though its a horrifically bad mechanical basis for a game.

I want this game to feel like I'm piloting a 'Mech that has individually powerful weapons that I need to be skillful to use properly.

At present, there is an insufficient skill gap between good pilots and bad pilots because 'Mechs die too quickly due to pinpoint convergence.

Quote

No, you just believe it does. You haven't actually presented a coherent argument for how it does that.

And you believe it doesn't... so our anecdotal evidence cancels out.

Tarman, on 26 February 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

Now you're crying about GunKats, specifically the GKat and the 20Kat. At least stick with a theme, unless your theme is the game is just unplayable and everything kills you and you can't deal. Those builds are balanced by the fact that hyper-specialists have weaknesses in the areas they gimped to specialize somewhere else. Doesn't need heat or cones to keep it relatively fair; one-trick ponies by nature only have one trick. Go ask those guys what they did to those poor Kats to stuff them with big guns. And ONLY those big guns usually, most GunKats don't pack backups because there's no space, not because they couldn't use them.

I'm not crying about anything. I'm pointing out a consistent flaw in the game that manifests itself in a number of builds which have similar outcomes.

Quote

And those sniper builds can be easily defeated just as much as they kill, by actually playing the game. Cover. Focus them down. Blow their guns out, especially a GKat. Shoot off their legs. Get in close if they're not too quickfooted in the close game. Split their attention between two dangerous closing targets. Have a light poke holes in their backs or call down rain. Yes they are dangerous, duh. No, you don't need to rewrite basic fire mechanics to fight them.

I'm not asking to counter specific builds. I'm saying ALL of the builds are based on weapon convergence.

Quote

It sounds to me like you don't want balance, you want symmetry. Everything the same, instead of a varied collection of things that more or less balance out. I'd rather not water down everything in the game in the name of "fairness", especially when all it really does is just water down the game. I can still cut your head off with a gunfire cone, because I can aim, but now it's really annoying. And the guy next to me who could barely aim before just quit the game.

/sighs/ Read the original post again.

[Tarman]

I did. And your deconvergence does not address the issues you think it does. It simply makes the game less fun. It is a skilled shooter game, and you want to add a nerf to skilled shooting. This is not a good concept at a very basic level.

[Vapor Trail]

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.

[Classic FPS]
Don't confuse cone of fire with muzzle climb. Two completely different operations.

Muzzle climb is where the pointing vector of the weapon is raised with each shot, and can be countered by "pulling down" on your mouse as you fire.

Cone of fire is always centered on the pointing vector, so as your muzzle climbs, your cone of fire climbs with it. The vector of the actual shot is dictated by the cone of fire. By keeping the pointing vector on the target, you increase the odds that the shot will hit the target.

Cone of fire bloom is nearly impossible to compensate for "as it happens" while at full auto. The technique that counters it, in most FPS (and IRL) is burst fire. Fire a small number of shots, pause for a short time, fire a few more, pause again.

"Short, controlled bursts" is not just an ammo conservation measure. It increases your accuracy dramatically with fully automatic weapons. By keeping the cone of fire small (preferably having the cross section of the CoF at the target's range smaller than the target area of the target) you increase the odds of a hit with any single round (in the case given, up to 100%).

[MWO]
This discussion is one of introducing an inherent inaccuracy into the system. One that can be overcome by taking the time to carefully place each shot, rather than lining up one shot and, in effect, saying "Everything I have hits here."

In TT, what MWO's group fire does is exactly this: declare "I'm firing some weapons," figure a single to-hit number, roll one set of dice, and that decides not only whether or not everything hits, but where it hits.

The concept presented here, that of being able to have perfect accuracy and precision, but have to sacrifice the speed with which you can output that damage to do so, vs being able to output massive damage, but sacrificing the accuracy and precision with which you can apply it, seems to me to be to be one of the best ways to capture the feel of BattleTech.

Some might make the argument "But that loss of precision removes skill from the game."
I would counter that it actually raises the bar for skill. Do you risk trying to put an another shot downrange now, when you might miss, or later, when might not even have a shot, a weapon or even a mech?

"It's not new player friendly"
Getting instacored by a HexaPPC at 600m is?
Getting pitted from a single salvo by a jump sniper is?
Getting pitted from a single salvo by anything packing enough damage to do the job for that matter?

Game balance isn't supposed to cater to the new player. That leads to shallow game design and uninteresting gameplay. In short, it goes from "This is easy, so it's fun," to "This is so easy it's boring now." The more depth to the game, the better. The more challenge to the game, (as long as it's not outright impossible to start with) the better. The phrase "easy to learn, difficult to master" should be a touchstone.

[P e n u m b r a]

except single fire weapons would not be harmful enough even doing full linked down range to stop brawlers just running full speed at you and then pummeling the hell out of you at close range with superior firepower...
you use TT as an argument to warrent cone but in reality in the sim close = larger target less spread and a direct buff to close range weapons while you nerf the long range to only single fire. While as it stands in live right now a ranged heavy all ready does less damage than a medium mech at half the speed with a XL engine... and you still are not fixing group fire just shifting it. Ill give you it though very nice try at nerfing something you struggle against.

Edited by Le0yo, 26 February 2013 - 05:57 PM.

[Psychobunny]

meh, its mechwarrior, cant realy change the lore all that much, honestly i dont care, the game is fine as it is, apart from lights being a bit OP, some tweeks, done.. dunno what else to say, but any critizism is good, as long as its not shouting bloody murder and cousing havoc..

[Skaav]

Ive got a really easy Solution for this problem, that actually even makes sense and is not implementing new Concepts or such...

Firing a large group of weapons should just increase the Heat level more significantly....
If you fire 6 ml's at one time some of these weapons are bound to be close to one another. One heats up the next, both guns mounted on an arm will use the same heat sinks, those heat sinks reach their capacity and try to dissipate some heat to other heat sinks.
Also recharging/reloading 6 weapons at the same time wil produce a large portion of heat
that cant be dissipated right away because the heat sinks are still struggling with the heat from the shot prior.
The more weapons u fire, the more bonus heat will be produced (i.e. 0% for 2 Weps, 7% 3 weps, 15% 4 weps, etc)

Think that makes kinda more sense than weapon convergence, Were not talking about Battleships from WWII here, were talking about highly specialized combat walkers from the far far future, I think after some centurys of Mech warfare u'll get the hang of a movement of a mech and your targeting computer would easily be able to compensate. Also weapon convergence does not make sense because the actual weapon banks on a mech are not that far apart: all are mounted to the torso or its extension (arms).
Weapon Convergence only becomes relevant if individual cannons take some time to reach their designated positions before firing. Weapons on a mech would never have to move more than a few centimetres which could be achieved pretty much just as fast as the computer can tell the gun where to go... and every modern calculator can do the math required faster than a human could THINK to blink their eyes.

Edit: Im not rly sure if there is a comparable mechanic in the game, if there is, its not punishing enough.
Btw I completely agree that the current weapon boating is not fun, it just supports the "lets all go one way and one-shot everything we see with our 58 medium lasers k?"-"Strategy"
Just no sense in currently getting a balanced loadout if u want to get xp and kills fast...

Edited by Skaav, 26 February 2013 - 06:09 PM.

[HRR Insanity]

Vapor Trail, on 26 February 2013 - 05:13 PM, said:

[Classic FPS]
Don't confuse cone of fire with muzzle climb. Two completely different operations.

Muzzle climb is where the pointing vector of the weapon is raised with each shot, and can be countered by "pulling down" on your mouse as you fire.

Cone of fire is always centered on the pointing vector, so as your muzzle climbs, your cone of fire climbs with it. The vector of the actual shot is dictated by the cone of fire. By keeping the pointing vector on the target, you increase the odds that the shot will hit the target.

Cone of fire bloom is nearly impossible to compensate for "as it happens" while at full auto. The technique that counters it, in most FPS (and IRL) is burst fire. Fire a small number of shots, pause for a short time, fire a few more, pause again.

"Short, controlled bursts" is not just an ammo conservation measure. It increases your accuracy dramatically with fully automatic weapons. By keeping the cone of fire small (preferably having the cross section of the CoF at the target's range smaller than the target area of the target) you increase the odds of a hit with any single round (in the case given, up to 100%).

[MWO]
This discussion is one of introducing an inherent inaccuracy into the system. One that can be overcome by taking the time to carefully place each shot, rather than lining up one shot and, in effect, saying "Everything I have hits here."

In TT, what MWO's group fire does is exactly this: declare "I'm firing some weapons," figure a single to-hit number, roll one set of dice, and that decides not only whether or not everything hits, but where it hits.

The concept presented here, that of being able to have perfect accuracy and precision, but have to sacrifice the speed with which you can output that damage to do so, vs being able to output massive damage, but sacrificing the accuracy and precision with which you can apply it, seems to me to be to be one of the best ways to capture the feel of BattleTech.

Some might make the argument "But that loss of precision removes skill from the game."
I would counter that it actually raises the bar for skill. Do you risk trying to put an another shot downrange now, when you might miss, or later, when might not even have a shot, a weapon or even a mech?

"It's not new player friendly"
Getting instacored by a HexaPPC at 600m is?
Getting pitted from a single salvo by a jump sniper is?
Getting pitted from a single salvo by anything packing enough damage to do the job for that matter?

Game balance isn't supposed to cater to the new player. That leads to shallow game design and uninteresting gameplay. In short, it goes from "This is easy, so it's fun," to "This is so easy it's boring now." The more depth to the game, the better. The more challenge to the game, (as long as it's not outright impossible to start with) the better. The phrase "easy to learn, difficult to master" should be a touchstone.

You're saying what I'm trying to talk about much better than I can at this point... /tags out/

It's all yours for a bit. =)

[Doc Holliday]

So nice to see people still wasting their time trying to solve a nonexistent problem.

You already know they're never going to implement something like this because it's unwanted and unnecessary, yet you persist in beating your head on a brick wall. I'd think you'd tire of it eventually.

[Doc Holliday]

Shumabot, on 26 February 2013 - 03:07 PM, said:

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.

Except you were blatantly lying, and I wasn't wrong. You're pathetic. This is my last response to your BS. I'm done feeding your worthless trolls.

[Vapor Trail]

Doc Holliday, on 26 February 2013 - 08:14 PM, said:

So nice to see people still wasting their time trying to solve a nonexistent problem.

You already know they're never going to implement something like this because it's unwanted and unnecessary, yet you persist in beating your head on a brick wall. I'd think you'd tire of it eventually.

We don't know they're not going to implement something like this or not. If the Devs decide something like this is warranted, then they'll implement it. Their decision.

The position may be obviously unassailable. We may be wasting our time.
But if we are, what does that say about what you're doing?

Edited by Vapor Trail, 26 February 2013 - 09:10 PM.