15 replies to this topic

[Impyrium]

Heads up, this isn't a very realistic suggestion in that I don't expect such a thing could happen in the near future, or perhaps at all at this stage of development.

And it's probably been suggested before.

So I'm not entirely sure on how, or if, ejecting is going to be implemented. Personally I'd like such a thing to be simply an automatic/semi-random thing that happens when your engine goes up... instead of reverting to the third person death cam, simply have a cam that rockets up from your 'Mech, looking downwards. Add a missile trail and basic ejection pod mesh and bam you have ejection.

But I'm thinking other things as well. Having the camera stay within the cockpit when you go up, when you don't eject, flames and sparks bursting from the consoles as your pilot's arms are flung up in front of you.

It'd make death far more satisfying. The current instant third person death cam is kinda... empty.

But again, I understand the resources involved would take away resources needed for more critical areas. In my opinion, NOT balance, which will never be achieved, but things such as CW. But yeah. Just a suggestion.

[Stingray Productions]

what if you have to eject in order to stay around; ergo, if you die before you eject you can't spectate because you're dead, only live ejected pilots can spectate. I'm sure most people wouldn't actually want that, but it sounds cool to me.

[Impyrium]

Stingray1234, on 20 April 2014 - 09:36 PM, said:

what if you have to eject in order to stay around; ergo, if you die before you eject you can't spectate because you're dead, only live ejected pilots can spectate. I'm sure most people wouldn't actually want that, but it sounds cool to me.

Oh yes, definitely, I'd love something more interactive for the player like that. But you are correct in that many would hate it. I would like to think that a simplistic implementation as I have it would be easy to implement... but I wouldn't really know.

Also ejecting can be abused... at least there's no splash damage, but still.

[Stingray Productions]

I heard someone suggest once the ejection can't occur the first 5 minutes of the game, to lessen abuse. Another suggestion I heard is that you can't eject unless you have internal armor showing on exposed engine parts (so std. engine would mean center torso, XL would mean all torsi). A benefit of ejection might be if you eject within 5 seconds of your mech's destruction, you get an XP bonus.

....hmmm, what if ejected pilots acted like a UAV for a few seconds! .... ahh, don't why i said that last part, now I'm just rambling...............................

[Impyrium]

Stingray1234, on 20 April 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

I heard someone suggest once the ejection can't occur the first 5 minutes of the game, to lessen abuse. Another suggestion I heard is that you can't eject unless you have internal armor showing on exposed engine parts (so std. engine would mean center torso, XL would mean all torsi). A benefit of ejection might be if you eject within 5 seconds of your mech's destruction, you get an XP bonus.

....hmmm, what if ejected pilots acted like a UAV for a few seconds! .... ahh, don't why i said that last part, now I'm just rambling...............................

Haha, that's the thing though; a game/universe as rich as MechWarrior and BattleTech have so much potential for things like this, as small as they seem, but you're never going to see a developer put much effort in it because they're too focused on the balance and gameplay stuff. That's all very well and good, but I love my immersion.

I imagine the vast majority of players here won't agree with me. That's fine obviously, it's just my preference, but I can't help but think that the F2P deathmatch game style has led to that...

[Durant Carlyle]

The thing about MW:O is...

The MechWarrior (you) never dies. Only your 'Mech does. You are assumed to eject, land safely, run around avoiding the enemy, and get picked up by friendly rescue forces. It just all happens in the background where you don't see it, like your destroyed 'Mech getting picked up from the battlefield (whether you win or lose) and repaired.

An ejection animation happening at random when your 'Mech dies might be nice. But there will never be an actual reason to eject as your pilot will never be in danger of dying.

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 20 April 2014 - 11:36 PM.

[Impyrium]

Durant Carlyle, on 20 April 2014 - 11:34 PM, said:

The thing about MW:O is...

The MechWarrior (you) never dies. Only your 'Mech does. You are assumed to eject, land safely, run around avoiding the enemy, and get picked up by friendly rescue forces. It just all happens in the background where you don't see it, like your destroyed 'Mech getting picked up from the battlefield (whether you win or lose) and repaired.

An ejection animation happening at random when your 'Mech dies might be nice. But there will never be an actual reason to eject as your pilot will never be in danger of dying.

Yes, but, what we have now doesn't have anything to do with 'story', or 'lore', or anything like that. What we have now is baseless deathmatches. There is no story glueing it together, and unless PGI pulls something magic out of their hat with CW, MW:O isn't exactly going to have any 'reason' for ejecting other than simply being more interesting and immersive.

If I wanted something that made sense, then I'd play the singleplayer portion of MW2, MW3 or even 4. Hell, even the original had more RPG involved. Don't get me wrong; I want MW:O to have that element, but ultimately it's an online multiplayer F2P shooter with the MechWarrior mechanics wrapped over the top. I don't like that, but it's what we have to work with and PGI isn't going to switch to a proper retail game any time soon.

Edited by AUSwarrior24, 21 April 2014 - 01:38 AM.

[Spawnsalot]

I'd love to have the view stay in the cockpit as the pilot while you ride the mech to the ground, bracing against the consoles for the impact, and have it cut to black and then to spectator cam after the landing.

I'd really love this feature for if/when knockdowns are put back in the game too.

[Durant Carlyle]

AUSwarrior24, on 21 April 2014 - 01:36 AM, said:

Yes, but, what we have now doesn't have anything to do with 'story', or 'lore', or anything like that. What we have now is baseless deathmatches. There is no story glueing it together, and unless PGI pulls something magic out of their hat with CW, MW:O isn't exactly going to have any 'reason' for ejecting other than simply being more interesting and immersive.

That's right ... this game doesn't have a reason for ejecting. There's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with the game not having its own story, as we'll be writing it ourselves when CW finally arrives. Actually, we're writing it right now, if you're involved in any of the leagues that have started up.

I find it funny that people seem to need a story. I have fun in each and every match, even though there is absolutely no connection between any of them. They are each their own independent battle.

[Stingray Productions]

Durant Carlyle, on 20 April 2014 - 11:34 PM, said:

An ejection animation happening at random when your 'Mech dies might be nice. But there will never be an actual reason to eject as your pilot will never be in danger of dying.

...hmmmm, i suppose you are quite right about that. In which case, it'd just be fun to have an ejection animation, you know, similar to the one in the reboot video:

[shellashock]

I seem to remember a thread that was looking into how the mech models are designed and concluded that at least 50% of the mechs in game are incapable of having an ejecting animation without the pilot model magically clipping through the mech. I will have to look around the forums for it, but I can say for certain that if PGI is extremely reluctant to go back and fix old mech models that need to be changed for balance, then they are definitely not going to rework old models for an ejecting animation.

I would like an ejecting animation as much as you would, but it simply will take too much development time to make the animation seam-less with all the mech models.

[Bobzilla]

They should have an eject option, the only benifit being a death/survived mech destruction stat. The eject option would be a 0.5 second window after your mech is already destroyed.

As for animation problems, if the mech has no good spot for a cockpit to blast out and look realistic, just add smoke/explosion visuals to hide it.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Reference the "Ejection" sequence and any difficulty that PGI might have in it's implementation:

Currently PGI is at the Alfa stage of testing a new "spectator" type of application, but they already have a working free flight mode for this position. As has been seen at the "Opening Tournament" where the commentators were able to free fly and pan around the battle field, and recently in the BUG seen from a very high latency being "pushed out" of the players Mech during the match launch.

So the tools are already there for the outside image for the pilot moving up to altitude and away from the Battle field. This may be additionally required when we receive the Drop Ship mode, and being able to re-enter the current battle with the remainder of the Pilots Mech's in his ship. If the "in cockpit" ejection animation effects from the original trailer can be used here, that gives us all the elements required for this effect to be used.

- Now there is the issue with having the correct Mech's cockpit be displayed for the Pilot to see when this effect is happening.
(and requiring linking to every Mech's interior artwork for the sequence to work)
~ A work around that could stand in for all Mech's, is to have a head shield cover slide down to protect the Pilot during the effect. And block sight of the animation of actually leaving the Mech's cockpit, opening again when at altitude.

- Building in the ability for the game to know when the Mech is damaged enough to force the Pilot into the eject sequence.
- Building in keys that could be used to either over-ride, stand-by, shut down, the eject mode. But could cause catastrophic damage to the Mech to the point of a complete non-reversible shutdown.
- Deciding if the ejected Pilot could be targeted during the assent sequence, or that target is now considered a non-threat for this mission.

- As some have addressed, not every Mech fielded has an actual operating Eject System, or there are Unique effects to a system, like sideways eject, whole head eject. (some issues here)
- Exactly when and if this eject operation can be initiated, abuse issues, and how it effects any gained elements CB's, XP, achievements, loyalty, for the mission/contract or Pilot.

But gameplay wise all the elements are here that would be needed for this eject effect to be modeled. If it's a hard kill of the Pilot inside the Mech, we already have that 3rd person spin around. (but with no effect on anything earned game wise.)
- As in some of our current modes it's the only method of completing/ending the match, kill everything. And not very realistic (in this Battle Tech verse) with the cost and expense of fielding and owning Mech's.
- Scheduling, engineers, designers, art, and gameplay personnel would all need to be "set at task" for this to happen. And not something that we are hearing PGI has time for now. Perhaps when the additional Drop Ship mode is being designed this can be looked at, as part of the method to "get the Pilot back to his Drop Ship".

9erRed

[Stingray Productions]

9erRed, on 21 April 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

Greetings all,

Reference the "Ejection" sequence and any difficulty that PGI might have in it's implementation:

Currently PGI is at the Alfa stage of testing a new "spectator" type of application, but they already have a working free flight mode for this position. As has been seen at the "Opening Tournament" where the commentators were able to free fly and pan around the battle field, and recently in the BUG seen from a very high latency being "pushed out" of the players Mech during the match launch.

So the tools are already there for the outside image for the pilot moving up to altitude and away from the Battle field. This may be additionally required when we receive the Drop Ship mode, and being able to re-enter the current battle with the remainder of the Pilots Mech's in his ship. If the "in cockpit" ejection animation effects from the original trailer can be used here, that gives us all the elements required for this effect to be used.

- Now there is the issue with having the correct Mech's cockpit be displayed for the Pilot to see when this effect is happening.
(and requiring linking to every Mech's interior artwork for the sequence to work)
~ A work around that could stand in for all Mech's, is to have a head shield cover slide down to protect the Pilot during the effect. And block sight of the animation of actually leaving the Mech's cockpit, opening again when at altitude.

- Building in the ability for the game to know when the Mech is damaged enough to force the Pilot into the eject sequence.
- Building in keys that could be used to either over-ride, stand-by, shut down, the eject mode. But could cause catastrophic damage to the Mech to the point of a complete non-reversible shutdown.
- Deciding if the ejected Pilot could be targeted during the assent sequence, or that target is now considered a non-threat for this mission.

- As some have addressed, not every Mech fielded has an actual operating Eject System, or there are Unique effects to a system, like sideways eject, whole head eject. (some issues here)
- Exactly when and if this eject operation can be initiated, abuse issues, and how it effects any gained elements CB's, XP, achievements, loyalty, for the mission/contract or Pilot.

But gameplay wise all the elements are here that would be needed for this eject effect to be modeled. If it's a hard kill of the Pilot inside the Mech, we already have that 3rd person spin around. (but with no effect on anything earned game wise.)
- As in some of our current modes it's the only method of completing/ending the match, kill everything. And not very realistic (in this Battle Tech verse) with the cost and expense of fielding and owning Mech's.
- Scheduling, engineers, designers, art, and gameplay personnel would all need to be "set at task" for this to happen. And not something that we are hearing PGI has time for now. Perhaps when the additional Drop Ship mode is being designed this can be looked at, as part of the method to "get the Pilot back to his Drop Ship".

9erRed

wow, now there's some good info. thanks for posting 9erRed, good to get somewhat of an idea from where PGI sits with this idea.

Edited by Stingray1234, 21 April 2014 - 11:29 AM.

[Ovion]

Have the eject system only activate at say, only when 'dead', or potentially at under 10% health aswell.
There's a short period after you die where you can hit eject, and ejecting gives you an 'eject bonus'.
Say, 500-1000 C-Bills, and/or 25-50 Experience.

Not a lot, but a little something extra for pulling it off.

Maybe even have you lose an amount if you fail to eject (not much, maybe half what you'd get for ejecting), but just enough to make people want to.

I'd key it into the throttle on my Saitek Cyborg Evo (currently unused) so I can slam it down when I die.

[Impyrium]

Durant Carlyle, on 21 April 2014 - 07:14 AM, said:

That's right ... this game doesn't have a reason for ejecting. There's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with the game not having its own story, as we'll be writing it ourselves when CW finally arrives. Actually, we're writing it right now, if you're involved in any of the leagues that have started up.

I find it funny that people seem to need a story. I have fun in each and every match, even though there is absolutely no connection between any of them. They are each their own independent battle.

I find it funny you didn't read my second paragraph.

I ACCEPT that the current MW:O has no 'story'. I shouldn't have used the term 'story', though; I mean 'backing' of sorts to the battle. I'm not saying it SHOULD be there, simply that it ISN'T. Therefore there's also no reason ejection SHOULDN'T be added.

EDIT: That said, 9erRed, thanks for posting that. Certainly makes sense. Though I can't help but feel that's over-complicating it... my idea was mostly cosmetic. But I understand the difficulties with even that, so yeah.

Edited by AUSwarrior24, 22 April 2014 - 02:27 AM.