8 replies to this topic

[no one]

Water. Any light pilot will tell you; splashing around in water is one of the greatest things. It lets you protect those gigantic, chicken wing legs that make up 70% of your 'Mech's overall hit-box profile. As an added bonus, you can turn a puddle into your own personal sauna while making those single heat-sinks barely effective for once! Sure, you can't really see much if you're submerged and you missed the vote when they decided on maintaining all water in the Inner Sphere at ankle deep. . . But hey, water does stuff and that's neat!

Aight, aight, let me get to The Point -

Woods. Woods don't really do anything at the moment but be trees and block your line of sight (mostly when you're standing in them). What I propose is a buff to woods, such that a 'Mechs standing in woods are subject to an ECM-like effect with the following rules.

1 - They do not show up on radar normally unless they are
a - Running within 400 m of your position.
b - Walking within 200 m of your position.

2 - They are targetable, but only if you hold your cursor within a few degrees of where they are standing (as you would if you were trying to get a missile lock). After they are targeted you suffer no target decay for taking the cursor off of them, unless you lose line of sight normally.

3 - Weapons fired into woods are subject to a 10% damage reduction.

4 - Destructible/inflammable woods/terrain or smoke SRM rounds with a similar effect would be super neat but, I'm not holding my breath for that.

5 - I welcome anyone's thoughts on the matter. (Yes yes, they gotta fix the UI and CW and all dat first, you needn't remind me.)

[Damocles]

I like it, this adds some more depth to the maps we play on.
1. would require some testing and adjusting of ranges but a good idea.
2. I like it, reminds me of the IFF jammer in MW4 although you couldnt force target.
3. Same answer as 1
4. Neat, but also never going to see that with so many problems in their lag formula

extra thought: make Maps with MORE WOODS.

[no one]

Damocles, on 27 February 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

extra thought: make Maps with MORE WOODS.

That's a fair point. The woods we have now are fairly sparse, and what I would consider 'light' woods. (An Awesome is going to stick out rather sorely, no matter how well it is hiding it's ankles. )

[Durant Carlyle]

The only problem with this idea is that currently, trees and streetlights and fences and such are all local -- they are displayed on your system only.

Everything that affects the gameplay is server-authoritative.

Because the server doesn't know the trees/streetlights/fences are there, those things cannot affect anything in-game.

Changing this would put more load on the servers, and would result in more traffic between each client and the servers.

[no one]

Durant Carlyle, on 27 February 2014 - 11:55 AM, said:

Changing this would put more load on the servers, and would result in more traffic between each client and the servers.

Not as much as you might think. On the server side all you need to do is to designate an area or 'field of effect' with a set of x/y coordinates to designate areas covered by trees on each map. The server doesn't need to track individual trees or display anything.

Edited by no one, 27 February 2014 - 12:04 PM.

[Dawnstealer]

First, water: I think water should slow everyone down and Jump Jets probably shouldn't work. Just a thought.

Woods: radar should work regardless, but shooting through the trees should act as some kind of armor assist: you shoot through trees, it should lower the damage, both shooting in and shooting out.

Really, the trees in the game really should be knocked over when mechs run through them or blown up when shot, but...low priority.

[Hoffenstein]

no one, on 27 February 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

Not as much as you might think. On the server side all you need to do is to designate an area or 'field of effect' with a set of x/y coordinates to designate areas covered by trees on each map. The server doesn't need to track individual trees or display anything.

If I'm not mistaken, they already have areas that can have different effects on a map, such as the cauldera map with higher heat in the middle.

To the OP, this sounds like a really cool idea. A simple way of showing damage to the wooded area would be using the same black smoke that dead Mech's make, reduces line of sight and makes it look neat too! Don't even need the damage reduction if you do this, because it simply reduces line of sight.

[RapidFire7]

I like this post - it's a very good idea. It is impossible to use stealth in the current state of the game and I think this would add to the character of the game.

Plus, i like the OP's name

"no one has killed RFMG567"

[no one]

Dawnstealer, on 27 February 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

stuff

I think PGI said somewhere they were going to do that with water? And yeah, crashing through woods should probably slow you down as well. Moving through trees could trigger a 'wood splintering' sound or something client side, but yeah it's low priority (see: OP).

Let me explain my reasoning behind the radar thing:
- Woods should, to some extent, block line of sight. In MWO line of sight defines your ability to target an enemy, and track them on your radar. however, looking directly at a target both confirms that you have visual, and means whatever forward looking sensors you have can pick out the target, after which point passive radar absorption by the terrain goes bye bye.

Hoffenstein, on 27 February 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

*snip*

Yep, yep,
I like it. Smoke and maybe a burning ground effect with a temporary increased temperature in the affected woods area.

RFMG567, on 27 February 2014 - 12:33 PM, said:

"things"

Cheers.
No one go to theta! It's swarmed with enemy heavies!
No one is sneaking up on you, RFMG567!
No one has to die today!
Thank goodness no one was hurt!

Endless fun.

Edited by no one, 27 February 2014 - 01:11 PM.