Make Conclave Fast Again! (And add Aim Assist to make it engaging)

[ByroSphere]

I know that it might sound outrageous, but hear me out. In the last few days I have been disqussing in multiple threads (a particularly interesting one linked here: 

about different ways one could make the Conclave more fun to play. And well, an idea that I got for that, is instead of slowing or restricting the game down so that Conclave will play more like a cover shooter, I thought that maybe they could make Conclave as fast as normal Warframe game modes, but add varying levels of aim assist depending on weapon type, so that you can kill people with other weapons besides 1hk snipers or AoE nukes.

Any thoughts?

Edited October 24, 2019 by ByroSphere

[krc473]

11 minutes ago, ByroSphere said:

Any thoughts?

Yes: it was changed from this type of thing for a reason. Why would DE go back now? I am all for changing it back to how it was before, but people seem to object (not sure why as no one plays it now).

[Tachmag]

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

I know that it might sound outrageous, but hear me out. In the last few days I have been disqussing in multiple threads (a particularly interesting one linked here: 

about different ways one could make the Conclave more fun to play. And well, an idea that I got for that, is instead of slowing or restricting the game down so that Conclave will play more like a cover shooter, I thought that maybe they could make Conclave as fast as normal Warframe game modes, but add varying levels of aim assist depending on weapon type, so that you can kill people with other weapons besides 1hk snipers or AoE nukes.

Any thoughts?

Dude, people get kills with weapons beside those. Play Conclave for more than 10 matches before suggesting terrible mechanics for a PC shooter.

 

By "1hk snipers" and "AoE nukes" I'm going to assume that you're talking about the Snipetron and Staticor. Those weapons are outliers. We don't want other weapons to kill as fast and easily as those, we want those weapons to be nerfed and put in line with other weapons. And you know why? Because we can actually get kills with other weapons beside those just fine.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Tachmag

[ByroSphere]

1 hour ago, krc473 said:

Yes: it was changed from this type of thing for a reason. Why would DE go back now? I am all for changing it back to how it was before, but people seem to object (not sure why as no one plays it now).

DE made Conclave slower at first, because it was too hard to hit anyone with anything except with wide AoE weapons.

The problem, even tho the movements are now noticeably slower (even Loki feels about as heavy as Rhino), it’s still too hard for most newbes to kill anyone, as it’s still brainlessly easy to dodge attacks (noobs have trouble killing other noobs too), which means only the skilled and the experienced get a significant amount of kills.

I want to include some form of aim assist, so that it actually takes some skill to dodge while also make it so that even newbes can fight decently, rewarding them with kills instead of 10 minutes of then hitting thin air.

Reason as to why make it also fast again, is partly cause Warframe is simply more fun when it is fast, but mainly because Aim Assists only work well in games were the players are fast enough to dodge projectiles consecutively.

If we instead made the Conclave even slower than now, then sure, noobs could hit targets, but then it’d be also next to impossible to dodge anything, while it wouldn’t be anywhere as fun to manuever around at snails pace.

[Tachmag]

3 minutes ago, ByroSphere said:

DE made Conclave slower at first, because it was too hard to hit anyone with anything except with wide AoE weapons.

The problem, even tho the movements are now noticeably slower (even Loki feels about as heavy as Rhino), it’s still too hard for most newbes to kill anyone, as it’s still brainlessly easy to dodge attacks (noobs have trouble killing other noobs too), which means only the skilled and the experienced get a significant amount of kills.

I want to include some form of aim assist, so that it actually takes some skill to dodge while also make it so that even newbes can fight decently, rewarding them with kills instead of 10 minutes of then hitting thin air.

Reason as to why make it also fast again, is partly cause Warframe is simply more fun when it is fast, but mainly because Aim Assists only work well in games were the players are fast enough to dodge projectiles consecutively.

If we instead made the Conclave even slower than now, then sure, noobs could hit targets, but then it’d be also next to impossible to dodge anything, while it wouldn’t be anywhere as fun to manuever around at snails pace.

Newbies aren't supposed to have a fighting chance against people with 500+ hours in PvP than them. Newbies are supposed to have an equal fighting chance against other newbies.

 

[ixidron92]

Aim assist is always a terrible idea for shooters (unless it's console). I maintain my point: It'd be best  to reduce/restrict mobility overall and compensate later on with mobility mods.

[ByroSphere]

10 minutes ago, Tachmag said:

Dude, people get kills with weapons beside those. Play Conclave for more than 10 matches before suggesting terrible mechanics for a PC shooter.

 

By "1hk snipers" and "AoE nukes" I'm going to assume that you're talking about the Snipetron and Staticor. Those weapons are outliers. We don't want other weapons to kill as fast and easily as those, we want those weapons to be nerfed and put in line with other weapons. And you know why? Because we can actually get kills with other weapons beside those just fine.

Im actually a regular player that has been playing warframe since 2016. And well, altough I do kinda enjoy how it’s played right now, I can’t help but notice how stale the main play of Conclave is. Sure, you don’t “need” 1hk snipers or AoE nukes to be good at it, but as of now they are the only types of weapons that can be freely used without resorting to a play of “cat and mouse”, where you either are only speeding around like a headless rooster or taking potshots whenever someone slows down for any reason.

The only thing that takes skill here is to pull off “impossible shots”. Everything else? Doesn’t matter how long you have played the game, all someone have to do is randomly dash around and all that cultivated skill won’t matter squat, until they do the suicide move of slowing down.

And you know what? Only die hard PvP players right now even had the patience to figure out the “cat and mouse” strategy, every body else won’t bother to invest much time in getting gud, partly because the rewards for conclave sucks too much to play it more than casually, while it’s too boring to hit air 10 mins consecutively to maintain motivation for improvement.

The only people that thinks that aim assist are bad, are people who thinks that “shooter” only means CoD cover shooters. But you know what? Warframe is not a cover shooter. It’s a fast paced 3rd person shooter, and that falls closer in line to games like Armored Core For Answer or Ace Combat, which have working PvP precisely because of the aim assistance, which Warframe lacks despite it’s speed.

[ByroSphere]

38 minutes ago, Tachmag said:

Newbies aren't supposed to have a fighting chance against people with 500+ hours in PvP than them. Newbies are supposed to have an equal fighting chance against other newbies.

 

But newbes are supposed to be able to kill each other. With how easy it is to avoid hits, any player could run around randomly at any stage without being killed once. It’s just that, much like it’s impossible to get hit when speeding around, it’s also next to impossible to shoot anything while you are at it. And well, in a game mode that the point is to kill other players, people are often forced to slow down just so they can aim... But then, because only veterans are used to change it up swiftly, noobs could spend 10 mins per round with a score of 0 kills 5 deaths. That’s just too disheartening for a game mode that has completely zero gameplay progression and S#&$ty rewards.

It’d be far better if they made it possible to tag others in the move, so that even newbes could have a score of 10 kills 20 deaths. You may notice that the death score is higher, because the veterans will always have an edge over the newbes... But the important part are not the deaths, but the kills. A game were you die often but gain a lot of kills will always feel more rewarding than a game were you have few deaths and no kills.

 

Besides, “aim assist” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s auto lockon with perfect shots every time. Im basically just asking to give none AoE/1hk weapons a wider AoE through a lens or crosshair that will automatically correct your aim to any target that it’s pointed at. Still needing some level of player accuracy, but reducing it to just 60-50% instead of 90% like now.

Edited October 24, 2019 by ByroSphere

[ByroSphere]

30 minutes ago, ixidron92 said:

Aim assist is always a terrible idea for shooters (unless it's console). I maintain my point: It'd be best  to reduce/restrict mobility overall and compensate later on with mobility mods.

I guess you don’t play any action based RPGs (like Black Desert, Tera or Blade&Soul), or Air Fighter simulators then. 100% manual aiming only works for cover shooter games where your opponents fight at human speeds... Warframe however, neither is a cover shooter, nor does it play at speeds were normal human accuracy works without overcompensating. So I’d suggest to revise that judgment.

Edited October 24, 2019 by ByroSphere

[ixidron92]

Warframe is not dissimilar to many other PvP class/hero based shooters like Destiny, Overwatch, TF2, Paladins, etc. The main difference here is the insane mobility sure, but if the problem is mobility, you simply fix the problem, not add a clutch so the problem can be somewhat ignored. Aim assist is simply that, a clutch. It doesn't solve the problem, it just masks it.

[ByroSphere]

19 minutes ago, ixidron92 said:

Warframe is not dissimilar to many other PvP class/hero based shooters like Destiny, Overwatch, TF2, Paladins, etc. The main difference here is the insane mobility sure, but if the problem is mobility, you simply fix the problem, not add a clutch so the problem can be somewhat ignored. Aim assist is simply that, a clutch. It doesn't solve the problem, it just masks it.

It is dissimilar in a very important principle. In those games, the key factor for survival is covers, and the stages in those games reflects that.

In Warframe the key factor is not covers (they are practically none existent, actually), but rather mobility. To ignore this and insist that Conclave should play as CoD, is nothing but a grave error, when you consider that the game as a whole (from the gameplay mechanics to stage layout) isn’t  made in a way that supports that ground bound play style.

Edited October 24, 2019 by ByroSphere

[ixidron92]

hace 1 minuto, ByroSphere dijo:

It is dissimilar in a very important principle. In those games, the key factor for survival is covers, and the stages in those games reflects that.

In Warframe the key factor is not covers (they are practically none existent, actually), but rather mobility. To ignore this and insist that Conclave should play as CoD, is nothing but a grave error, when you consider that the game as a whole (from the gameplay mechanics to stage layout) inst made in a way that supports that play style.

Uh? covers are a very important factor. Maps here are incredibly cramped, and to make full use of mobility you need a lot of obstacles. Hell, if maps were big and open, mobility wouldn't be that much of an issue. It's the fact that you can chain jumps of a wall what makes mobility so broken.

[ByroSphere]

2 minutes ago, ixidron92 said:

Uh? covers are a very important factor. Maps here are incredibly cramped, and to make full use of mobility you need a lot of obstacles. Hell, if maps were big and open, mobility wouldn't be that much of an issue. It's the fact that you can chain jumps of a wall what makes mobility so broken.

Except the obstacles in Warframe are often put on the sides, while being tall enough that you could even climb on them.  In those cover shooters however, the obstacles are ofted laid in the middle of the battlefield, low or small enough that you can aim on them from above/the side, but still big enough to cover you from fire.

There is also difference in how the obstacles are used. While in Warframe, anything  that isnt an enemy or out of bounds, are used as footholds to manuever around. But in the cover shooters, the obstacles are mostly used as covers to hide behind.

Not to say that there are no obstacle that can’t be used for cover in Warframe, but 1 or 2 big objects in a game that mostly use the obstacles as platforms, does not a cover shooter make.

[ixidron92]

hace 8 minutos, ByroSphere dijo:

Except the obstacles in Warframe are often put on the sides, while being tall enough that you could even climb on them.  In those cover shooters however, the obstacles are ofted laid in the middle of the battlefield, low or small enough that you can aim on them from above/the side, but still big enough to cover you from fire.

There is also difference in how the obstacles are used. While in Warframe, anything  that isnt an enemy or out of bounds, are used as footholds to manuever around. But in the cover shooters, the obstacles are mostly used as covers to hide behind.

Not to say that there are no obstacle that can’t be used for cover in Warframe, but 1 or 2 big objects in a game that mostly use the obstacles as platforms, does not a cover shooter make.

There's a reason why people prefer Lua over Cephalon Citadel or Mars. Lua has a big open area where mobility is less useful, while the other 2 are freaking mazes that reward AoE spam.

[ByroSphere]

6 minutes ago, ixidron92 said:

There's a reason why people prefer Lua over Cephalon Citadel or Mars. Lua has a big open area where mobility is less useful, while the other 2 are freaking mazes that reward AoE spam.

But that’s because as the game is right now, it’s incredibly difficult to hit anybody that is not moving in straight, predictable line. But if you add a form of weapon based aim correction, then players would have ab easier time to track and shoot down even in the more acrobatic situations.

If in the present you need to have pixel levels of accuracy to shot someone down with a low damage machine gun, with AAC you only need to make sure that your opponent is within a big circle/square on the screen to hit them

[ByroSphere]

Now that I think about it, maybe it’s more accurate to call it “Semi Auto Aim Correction”, since the player still does most of the aim, the system simply further corrects it to hit spotted targets.

 

[Tyreaus]

If the problem is mobility and people being able to faff around their hitbox with rolls and such things while Sonic the Hedgehoging around maps, would it not almost be more sensible to balloon the size of the hitbox during certain, hyper-agile animations so there's an additional detriment to moving at such velocities?

[ByroSphere]

2 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

If the problem is mobility and people being able to faff around their hitbox with rolls and such things while Sonic the Hedgehoging around maps, would it not almost be more sensible to balloon the size of the hitbox during certain, hyper-agile animations so there's an additional detriment to moving at such velocities?

Well, it does sound like it could work on theory, but how would it be to have a variable hitbox for moving players? Know any good examples that are like this?

[Tachmag]

Make walljumps not restore maneuvers and remove retarded melee dashes on certain stances. That's all you need to make hit-n-run less viable.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Tachmag

[Tyreaus]

2 minutes ago, ByroSphere said:

Well, it does sound like it could work on theory, but how would it be to have a variable hitbox for moving players? Know any good examples that are like this?

Generally speaking, there are often three "redraw" processes that go together with movement in games:

1. The visuals get redrawn in an animation. Seeing your character twirl about all happy-like.

2. The character's position gets redrawn via acceleration. The actual movement part.

3. The character's hitbox (or hit-area) gets redrawn. The physical presence of the character moves with the visuals and position.

You can see this sort of thing when analyzing fighting game hitboxes - some attacks can shrink hurtboxes down lower than just crouching, some can extend it forward so that a jab isn't risk-free.

Warframe might be a little bit tricky to do since hitboxes might be tied directly to models—see Peculiar Growth—but as long as there is a way to decouple the two or overlay an independent hitbox that can scale outside the model, it'd be doable.

[ByroSphere]

12 minutes ago, Tachmag said:

Make walljumps not restore maneuvers and remove retarded melee dashes on certain stances. That's all you need to make hit-n-run less viable.

 

But would it make other strategies viable? Bullet Jumps after wall jumps + optional melee dash certainly is the "main meat" in what makes the hit and run tactics effective... But even without them, if the idea is to just run away after landing potshots, you could still do more or less the same with just normal doublejumps/walljumps + aimglide and slide, and it would do a good enough job if done in tight corridors/platform heavy areas where you can wall jump a lot, especially if it's still hard to kill agile targets with weapons who doesnt have high AoE/is 1HK. 

The idea isn't so much to nerf the hit and run tactics, so much as it is to buff the chasing, and just generally encourage people to fight each other head on while performing crazy but planed stunts... When I feel that the parkour will never be encouraged to that level, if random jumping is good enough to be considered high tier.

 

5 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

Generally speaking, there are often three "redraw" processes that go together with movement in games:

1. The visuals get redrawn in an animation. Seeing your character twirl about all happy-like.

2. The character's position gets redrawn via acceleration. The actual movement part.

3. The character's hitbox (or hit-area) gets redrawn. The physical presence of the character moves with the visuals and position.

You can see this sort of thing when analyzing fighting game hitboxes - some attacks can shrink hurtboxes down lower than just crouching, some can extend it forward so that a jab isn't risk-free.

Warframe might be a little bit tricky to do since hitboxes might be tied directly to models—see Peculiar Growth—but as long as there is a way to decouple the two or overlay an independent hitbox that can scale outside the model, it'd be doable.

I see. Well, if DE can make it work, then maybe it could be a decent solution, but wouldn't adding some kind of wide "hitscan area" directly tied to player's weapon crusor be a better alternative? Think it would be at least easier to apply, while allowing players to have more consistent accuracy, firing about as well in any situation where a target is on the sights, instead of being poor in one moment but supper accurate in others. 

[Tyreaus]

11 minutes ago, ByroSphere said:

but wouldn't adding some kind of wide "hitscan area" directly tied to player's weapon crusor be a better alternative?

The first problem with this is that it's always on, whether the target is standing still or leaping around at 150 miles per hour. If the issue lies specifically where players are mach-rushing everywhere, I don't think players need an assist when it comes to the much slower, regular movements. Those are probably just fine. But adding in a hitscan area means the only effective juking is with large movements like bullet jumping (versus things like sprinting and hopping erratically - surprisingly good against precision weapons), and it doesn't seem fruitful to encourage the thing that's a big part of the original issue.

The second problem is that there are other weapons, like projectile weapons, that may still need to make use of it - and would look janky as f%$k as those perfectly accurate weapons hit what you're not aiming at.

The third problem, more of a question, is how it would interact with recoil and accuracy. If a weapon has high spread, do all the shots line up with the target? Does it just centre the crosshair in an invisible fashion? Many solutions are going to feel kind of janky. Imagine, e.g., you use a Braton with the aiming area being like, 50% of the reticle "circle" when ADSing. Aim at target, slowly move aim to the side. You'd get great shots, keep having great shots - and then all of a sudden, the invisible reticle snaps from the target to where you're actually aiming and now just about all of your shots are missing. It snaps from, say, 50% hit percentage down to 0% instantly. Compare that to the way things are, where as you move the reticle to the side, fewer shots land on the target until your crosshair is just about entirely off them. It's the same 50% to 0%, but it's much smoother. Larger hitboxes keep that gradient.

[ByroSphere]

10 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

The first problem with this is that it's always on, whether the target is standing still or leaping around at 150 miles per hour. If the issue lies specifically where players are mach-rushing everywhere, I don't think players need an assist when it comes to the much slower, regular movements. Those are probably just fine. But adding in a hitscan area means the only effective juking is with large movements like bullet jumping (versus things like sprinting and hopping erratically - surprisingly good against precision weapons), and it doesn't seem fruitful to encourage the thing that's a big part of the original issue.

A way that could  be done about the hit scan always being on, is to change the hit scan/aim correction area based on if you are focus aiming or not. Normal aiming could have wide Aim Correction Areas (will just call it ACA for now) so that you can deal with speeding targets without losing sight of your surroundings. While you could give the focused aiming a much smaller correction area, so that the projectiles are launched closer to where the player is aiming as opposed to where the target is moving.

I also believe that there should be varying sizes of ACAs depending on weapon type. Machineguns and Assault rifle types that relays on many hits to be lethal (regardless of if it’s energy or bullet based), should have big ACA so that you can kill someone on the move with them, but without being that accurate for prescise aiming.

Snipers and Bow class weapons that are all about dealing a lot of damage in single shots, should have very small correction areas so that they will be more reliant on presice shots, but still somewhat useable against high speed players.

While Shotgun types or any weapon that has a blast radius/projectile size wider than 0.5m (regardless of type in that case), shouldn’t have any aim assist at all. Mostly cause they are already pretty effective in current meta, and should encourage a different type of play style than sniping or rapid shooting. Although weapons that got high AoE but are pathetically weak like the Sonicor could use either a damage buff or at least element buff to improve knockdown.

While variable weapons like the Drakgoon could be an exception, in that it doesn’t have an ACA in quick spreadshots, but that it instead generates one closer to the size of the sniper types whenever it charges into concentrated bursts (Tigris could naturally have this assist).

Think the good thing about that, is that players will become less reliant on focused aiming in general (which obscures their surroundings) to gather kills (making more strategies other than mobile sniping, viable). While still also giving an alternative for more presice targeting.

10 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

The second problem is that there are other weapons, like projectile weapons, that may still need to make use of it - and would look janky as f%$k as those perfectly accurate

Well, they always could make a difference between how the player aim their shots, and how the characters animate their stances as the player fires. 

For the normal aiming which will have a much wider ACA, the Frames could follow with their guns in a general sense relative to the cursor, but when you actually start firing, the frame could change its stance depending on how the system corrects the bullets trajectory (so every frame could  pull off similar quick pased stance shifts as Mesa’s 4th ability when firing in normal aim). 

While in focused aim where the ACA will align closer to where the player is exactly aiming at, the frames could follow their sights in more or less the same fashion as in the present.

 

10 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

The third problem, more of a question, is how it would interact with recoil and accuracy. If a weapon has high spread, do all the shots line up with the target? Does it just centre the crosshair in an invisible fashion?

The way it could interact with recoil and accuracy, is that by the higher the precision stats is, the closer the correction will be directed at the center of the ACA relative to the position of the target. While the less accurate the precision is, the closer to the edges of the ACA relative to the target, the projectiles will be directed at. Projectile speed and appearance could otherwise be in the same way as they are right now.

Combine this with the aforementioned weapon dynamics, and the auxiliary mods will actually have a more significant role into the Conclave, instead of just minor changes which are only notable when min maxed.

10 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Aim at target, slowly move aim to the side. You'd get great shots, keep having great shots - and then all of a sudden, the invisible reticle snaps from the target to where you're actually aiming and now just about all of your shots are missing. It snaps from, say, 50% hit percentage down to 0% instantly. Compare that to the way things are, where as you move the reticle to the side, fewer shots land on the target until your crosshair is just about entirely off them. It's the same 50% to 0%, but it's much smoother. Larger hitboxes keep that gradient

Larger hitboxes may keep that gradient smoothly, but it isn’t without its own issues. Like, other than being possibly harder to be applied with moving 3d figures, it also doesn’t encourage much change into how players play, because their aim still wont be adjusted to their own mobility, while focused aiming will remain in being the go to way to shoot down targets. Even tho this obscures your surroundings and limits strategies into sniping with every weapon type, instead of giving possibilities for unique playstyles for each weapon type.

Im not just looking for simple buffs or nerfs, but a way that makes the Conclave capitalize it’s platform shooter elements, while still giving enough liberty for multiple playstyles and strategies. Do you think the Aim Correction Area system full fills this? Does the variable player hitbox do it well? Is there some other better way it could be applied?

Im curious to know what you think

Edited October 25, 2019 by ByroSphere
Typo

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

A way that could  be done about the hit scan always being on, is to change the hit scan/aim correction area based on if you are focus aiming or not. Normal aiming could have wide Aim Correction Areas (will just call it ACA for now) so that you can deal with speeding targets without losing sight of your surroundings. While you could give the focused aiming a much smaller correction area, so that the projectiles are launched closer to where the player is aiming as opposed to where the target is moving.

The point I was making was that it ends up creating changes in areas that, I think, people would generally say is A-OK as it stands. Namely in the area of micro-movements. It's an inherent problem in making the change basically aimer-side rather than target-side: ACA doesn't care what the enemy is doing. But the complaints of movement stem from specific things enemies do. I don't think people complain a lot about my strange-arse bunny-hopping to dodge Daikyus. _{Probably because it's not as ubiquitous but still...}

I'm also very skeptical about tying performance to ADS in this way. ADS has a variety of uses among shooters, from stabilizing aim to adjusting mouse sensitivity. Generally, it's to nail more precise shots. But when ACA snaps the metaphorical crosshairs onto your target by itself, those reasons for ADSing disappear.

As for having adjustable ACA's for every weapon, you have to consider that such starts taking it away from "easier to apply". There are only a handful of manoeuvres shared between every single Warframe, yet hundreds of weapons, many of which would have to have their ACA's adjusted based on spreads and the like and pretty much all of which would have to be looked at and checked to make sure everything is shiny from whatever template one starts with.

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

Well, they always could make a difference between how the player aim their shots, and how the characters animate their stances as the player fires. 

For the normal aiming which will have a much wider ACA, the Frames could follow with their guns in a general sense relative to the cursor, but when you actually start firing, the frame could change its stance depending on how the system corrects the bullets trajectory (so every frame could  pull off similar quick pased stance shifts as Mesa’s 4th ability when firing in normal aim). 

This is really starting to veer into "a lot of work" territory. It also doesn't address what I said about the shots landing astride your crosshair with otherwise perfectly accurate weapons. Nothing to do with the Warframe's animation, which likely wouldn't have to change anyway because I don't think we're talking big enough areas for the Warframe's aiming angle to be noticeable. Am I being unclear somewhere?

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

The way it could interact with recoil and accuracy, is that by the higher the precision stats is, the closer the correction will be directed at the center of the ACA relative to the position of the target. While the less accurate the precision is, the closer to the edges of the ACA relative to the target, the projectiles will be directed at. Projectile speed and appearance could otherwise be in the same way as they are right now.

This is phrased in a way that is very confusing. I'm envisioning an invisible circle around the centre of one's crosshair that serves as the ACA area. Do you mean to say more accurate weapons have lower ACA areas / smaller circles? Or that it's a correction gradient, so that the closer to 'on target' a player is, the more aim gets adjusted toward the target, with the slope depending on accuracy: more accurate weapons have a more exponential slope, so their aim adjust happens very little at the edge, while less accurate weapons have a more linear slope so they have a decent amount of aim adjust at the edges?

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

Larger hitboxes may keep that gradient smoothly, but it isn’t without its own issues. Like, other than being possibly harder to be applied with moving 3d figures, it also doesn’t encourage much change into how players play, because their aims till wont be adjusted to their own mobility, while focused aiming will remain in being the go to way to shoot down targets, even tho it obscures your surroundings and limits strategies into sniping with every weapon type instead of giving possibilities for unique playstyles for each weapon type.

I'm bewildered at where this flak for ADS is coming from. That it obscures one's surroundings is kind of the point: it's a mechanical trade-off, one meant to limit distractions too. Kind of par the course for even modern-ish shooters. I'm also not sure where the thought that larger hurtboxes with high-mobility techniques wouldn't change how players play. I would tend to think brandishing a hurtbox the size of the moon would tend to make players second-guess their strategy of jumping around the map like a spaz, them being larger targets and all. And isn't player mobility what we're talking about, at the core of all this?

_{As an aside regarding implementation: Void's bullet attractor status effect exists. It's very possible to use a series of these, visible or otherwise, and tweak the code a relatively minute amount to emulate a secondary hurtbox while allowing punch through weapons to keep along with their punch through properties. That's probably much easier than trying to fuss around with decoupling hitboxes, especially since 90% of the code for bullet attractors can be worked with.}

1 hour ago, ByroSphere said:

Im not just looking for simple buffs or nerfs, but a way that makes the Conclave capitalize it’s platform shooter elements, while still giving enough liberty for multiple playstyles and strategies. Do you think the ACA system full fills this? Does the variable player hitbox do it well? Is there some other better way it could be applied?

This is a very vaguely-worded goal. What elements do you want to capitalize on? Movement? Weapon variety? Which playstyles and strategies do you want that we don't already have? And what things are we looking at as "this needs work" that ACA is supposed to fix? We can say "movement", but we need more specifics to tell if it's doing that well.

For example, if we're wanting to limit the ubiquity of bullet-jumping and high-velocity movement and the like, ACA doesn't seem to do that. If it takes effect even when the enemy is stationary, then their best bet at avoiding damage is to go as fast and as broadly erratic as they can to try to throw off the person's aim to the point ACA doesn't help enough. But that's the same principle behind what's going on right now.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Tyreaus
Phrasing clarity on subscript text.

[ByroSphere]

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

But when ACA snaps the metaphorical crosshairs onto your target by itself, those reasons for ADSing disappear.

 

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

This is phrased in a way that is very confusing. I'm envisioning an invisible circle around the centre of one's crosshair that serves as the ACA area. Do you mean to say more accurate weapons have lower ACA areas / smaller circles? Or that it's a correction gradient, so that the closer to 'on target' a player is, the more aim gets adjusted toward the target, with the slope depending on accuracy: more accurate weapons have a more exponential slope, so their aim adjust happens very little at the edge, while less accurate weapons have a more linear slope so they have a decent amount of aim adjust at the edges?

I see that there is a fundamental misunderstanding with what I mean with the Aim Correction Area. I don’t mean some kind of motion based lockon that automatically changes players aim to nearby targets... What I mean is more like turning your crusor/crosshairs into a mechanical bullseye. The player has full control on where this bullseye will be directed at, but depending on your precision stats, the system will make it so that your projectiles hits more the outer or inner circles relative to the target you are aiming this bullseye at.

Like for example, if you got 100% precision and shoot at a target who is at the left side of your bullseye cursor (which is the Aim Correction Area ), the bullet will shoot at the center (the 100point mark of a bullseye) but leaning left to where the target is. While if you do the same but with 50% precision, the bullet will lean left but where it is like 50points (going by bullseye terms). Note that these are examples, the actual numbers could be adjusted so that it works that way in the game.

 While the focus aiming (the thing that also allows you to aimglide) will shrink this mechanical bullseye so that you have more precise aiming. If normal aim has the radius of two heads stacked atop each other, focus would only be 1/3 as that. Smallest size being the size of current cursors, biggest aim correction area possible being the size of a Grineer Lancer’s torso (only the center crosshairs and outer edge line needs to be visible).

Assault Rifles/Machine Guns will have a large “bullseye” with accuracy favoring the edges to better deal with fast moving targets.

 Snipers/Bows will have a small bullseye that favors the center to hit more accurately at specific pinpoints.

 Shotguns and other high AoE weapons that covers radius of +0.5m will only have normal cursors without the mechanical bullseye, unless they also have a high precision firing mode (like the Drakgoon’s charge mode, or Tigris which is a high precision shotgun).

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

As for having adjustable ACA's for every weapon, you have to consider that such starts taking it away from "easier to apply". There are only a handful of manoeuvres shared between every single Warframe, yet hundreds of weapons, many of which would have to have their ACA's adjusted based on spreads and the like and pretty much all of which would have to be looked at and checked to make sure everything is shiny from whatever template one starts with.

Yeah, I’m definitely noticing that this really will take more work than the variable hit box you are suggesting... But at the same time, I still feel that at least that much needs to be done, or else, the changes willl be nothing but like what @ixidon92 said, “a clutch [which]  doesn't solve the problem, it just masks it”.

There doesn’t need to be any new animated manuevers outright, but to make it seem like it makes sense for a bullet to travel a certain way, it gotta look like the shooter is turned towards the direction that the bullet is fired at. Me using Mesa’s animation for the 4th ability as an example, is just to make visual sense for the rapid change in directions that rapidly shooting a moving target would have, if you could shoot a guy that is on the far right by simply covering with the edge of the ACA bullseye (bullet travels to the right even tho players aim cursor points forward), the frame shouldn’t look like they are firing forward, but rather turn to the side along with their weapon.

To minimize the time that it’d take to apply the ACA system into most weapons. It’d be more effective to apply different sizes based on general weapon classes instead of in a individual basis. And then just make it so that this  doesn’t apply to weapons that got projectile size/blast radius larger than 0.5m (making that condition universal).

 

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

I'm bewildered at where this flak for ADS is coming from. That it obscures one's surroundings is kind of the point: it's a mechanical trade-off, one meant to limit distractions too. Kind of par the course for even modern-ish shooters. I'm also not sure where the thought that larger hurtboxes with high-mobility techniques wouldn't change how players play. I would tend to think brandishing a hurtbox the size of the moon would tend to make players second-guess their strategy of jumping around the map like a spaz, them being larger targets and all. And isn't player mobility what we're talking about, at the core of all this?

The problem tho, is that since players will generally move very fast while quickly changing animations, the enlarged hit points may not remain large enough to change the strategy of aiming only with focus.

Losing sight of your surroundings to better hit a specific target is indeed a nice trade off for sniping. But when that is the only viable way to kill someone, or rather, when that is the very best way to kill someone compared to anything else, it limits the ways that people will scout the area while returning fire, reducing the types of assaults people will perform without taking much advantage of their mobility.

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

This is a very vaguely-worded goal. What elements do you want to capitalize on? Movement? Weapon variety? Which playstyles and strategies do you want that we don't already have? And what things are we looking at as "this needs work" that ACA is supposed to fix? We can say "movement", but we need more specifics to tell if it's doing that well.

 

Alright the goal involves achieving high movement, accuracy that compensates for the speed and gameplay variety for different weapon types.

And well, if we theoretically make the Conclave play as fast as the rest of Warframe (without restricting the jumps/roll/slide), then we would have the “technical movement” that Im seeking. But if no changes is made on how you can hit your opponents, then the “practical movement” will remain the same, because the movements that has always been used as of now will remain the best option over any other one.

For example, in todays meta game, people move too fast for normal aiming to be viable. So people naturally sacrifice the view of their surroundings to have better accuracy with focused aim, limiting their moves to only move erratically whenever they are not trying to kill someone.

If you ad bigger hitboxes for targets in general (independently from weapons used), but without changing how the players themselves adjust their shots, it may become easier to hit the targets, but because focused aiming remains generally better at hitting targets in general... Focused aiming will remain to be the go to way to use for any weapon, with only high AoE weapons being exceptions.

The ACA bullseye system, would in contrast not only make it easier to hit targets in general, but normal aiming will actually start to have a practical edge over focused aiming. Namely, that while the former will be better at hitting fast moving targets, the focused aim will be better at hitting slow targets/specific points.

These will ad more gameplay variety, because now, since shooting a moving target without focus aim is better than with it, players will be incentivized to gun down speeding targets without obstructing their vision of the surroundings... Which in practice means, that a chasing scenario wouldn’t necessarily consist of the chaser exclusively relying on straight leaps and aim glide, but they could zig zag parkour and shoot *at the same time with an accuracy that can kill people consistently.* While the chased would also be able to accurately shoot back and retreat at the same time (something you can’t really do nowadays unless you are particularly skilled).

And since each weapon class will also have more specified ranges of utility than before, the players are now incentived to use each of them differently. Cause why should you use a machine gun with aim glide if it aims better with fast falls and quick jumps? It’d certainly be like a parallel to the mindset for “why use sniper rifle without focus aiming if you hit better with it?”

Thus, naturally invoking gameplay variety with Warframe’s existing weapons.

5 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

For example, if we're wanting to limit the ubiquity of bullet-jumping and high-velocity movement and the like, ACA doesn't seem to do that. If it takes effect even when the enemy is stationary, then their best bet at avoiding damage is to go as fast and as broadly erratic as they can to try to throw off the person's aim to the point ACA doesn't help enough. But that's the same principle behind what's going on right now.

Considering that most of this judgement is based on a misunderstanding... Has it changed your mind, now that I have made it a bit clearer?