224 replies to this topic

[Dantiger]

its normal that everyone think it is unfair, in a normal war if a weapon have a big weakness, then it will be revised and fixed
but it is a game, if that weakness keeps there, it probably will reduce the gaming experience of the player when it is too easy to exploit

btw... fair play only in arena, the spectators deserve a good show

[daniel castelo]

Legging is awesome.. ^^ Check the video below

Blowing up your cannon arms is awesome..

Shooting a mech that fell on the ground is awesome...


C'mon guys.... It's a game.. and everyone wants to win ...

[rmeng]

Pika, on 07 August 2012 - 08:19 PM, said:

I guess the topic says it all, really!

I've been a part of the BattleTech franchise for many, many years and I love it perhaps a little too much. All through my MW games over the many, many years, the one thing people CONSTANTLY complain about is 'Legging' (That is, destroying another 'Mechs legs to disable or cripple it.)

Now in MW:LL it's ESPECIALLY looked down upon, and in MW3 it was considered 'Cheap' to go through the game with it. I personally considered it totally viable and perfectly legit. In a 'Mech with weak legs? Well keep moving.

As far as i'm concerned, when I load up into a game, I'm in it to win, not to let the little Owen's have a happy little run-around, playing tag with the Jenner. If I can put it down on it's ***, and then leave it so the player is nothing more than a handicap, is that not just a tactic? A dirty one, yes, but a valid one, and one that works.

I'm not asking for a true debate on if it IS cheap\dirty whatever, just curious as to why it's looked at like that.

Totally agree with you.
Its war after all and you play to win whatever way you can (without cheating of course !).
Saying that though, arms would be a better target as this is where some rockets and guns are mounted....depends on the mech really.

[Ghogiel]

Legging erry day.

[Bishop Steiner]

Monsoon, on 07 August 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

My perception is that in the older games Legging WAS cheap, because it was pretty easy to hit a leg and you only needed to destroy one to be rid of the entire Mech.

Now in MWO, I don't see it as cheap. As you need to destroy both legs and on especially quick mechs, hitting a leg (on purpose) can prove to be impossible.

If it ain't "breaking the rules" who can it be cheap? Or is Mechwarrior like Baseball now, where there are all sorts of "unspoken rules"?

[Deathz Jester]

I really only leg someone if I dont want to deal with them currently or its a light mech.


I'd be more concerned with blowing out the torso/cockpit of an Atlas than trying to leg him.

But I'd be way more likely to leg that Jenner that keeps doing hit & run tactics.

[Bishop Steiner]

SuperClone, on 07 August 2012 - 11:13 PM, said:

To my knowledge this began in MW2 online play. In MW2 the max armor you could fit on your legs didn't hold up very long, and when one leg was destroyed the mech became immobile (except JJ's). Now, league matches were 2v2, usually first team to 10 or 15 kills - which meant that when you died your mech would respawn and could rejoin the fight.

So, the problem with legging, at least, in my eyes at the time, was that you would be fighting in a league match and one member of the team could get one leg taken out from under it and now the match is 2v1 as long as they stay out of range of the legged mech. When this happened to me it wasn't so much being PO'd that they shot my legs, because I spent more time flying through the air landing 1-3 DFAs a match then I did walking and this led to my legs taking more damage. To me getting rendered immobile and unable to continue fighting was really what got me.

It is like stabbing Kobe Bryant at the beginning of a basket ball game, going on to win 5 v 4 and saying you won ... well yea, you did, and you could call stabbing Kobe Bryant a "tactic" that led to your victory ... but I am going to just call that cheap. Let's face it - this game is more like a basketball game than it is like "Real Mech Warfare". There are no rules in war, but there are rules in games. I know which MWO is, I hope the people I play against do as well.

This may be one of the more ludicrous examples I have ever seen. Stabbing Kobe Bryant to win? That might parallel giving the other guys computer a virus before the match, because that skews the outcome before play ever starts. Once IN GAME, everryone has the same opportunities and can use the same tactics. So there is no conferring of advantage. If one person chooses to refrain from leging, that is their choice, but I am in no way bound by it.

And if this were titled "Mech Olympics" or such, you basketball analogy MIGHT hold some water, but Battletech/Mechwarrior is designed to be a COMBAT SIM. So one treats it like combat, ie, warfare. Be it here or on COD, if the other guys team is only equipped with SMGs, I see no reason to limit myself to the same, when the valid (and intelligent) tactic is to set up a kill box in open terrain, lure them into it, and have emplaced snipers decimate them before they can get close enough to respond. Conversely, if the OPFOR proves cunning, and manages to sneak up close to my snipers, it is not "cheap" for them to jack me up with CQB when my weapon choice is now largely useless.


In other words, we ALL have the same choices and oppurtunities. If we CHOOSE to drive an Atlas, expect people to pot your leg. If we choose to drive a locust, don't complain when the Atlas lands a lucky hit and splats u like a bug.

[KnowBuddy]

Let's also point out that stabbing Kobe Bryant (or any other player, oddly enough) during play is explicitly forbidden by the rules of basketball (much like elbowing another player in the face intentionally is forbidden and punished).

Shooting an opponent in the leg(s) isn't against any rules anywhere. Legging isn't even against the rules of Zellbrigen!

[Woska]

I think it is mostly frowned upon because in certain games the act of legging a mech was far too effective. If you took one leg off the mech, it was destroyed. And, it was relatively easy to do compared to blasting through the torso.

In MWO, they've stated that legging a mech does not destroy it, or even leave it lying down and vulnerable. Instead the mech is simply hobbled and slow. This allows you to keep fighting if you get legged, just and a severe disadvantage.

I think the hatred of legging will be drastically reduced as time passes in this game.

[Bishop Steiner]

Soul Cruiser, on 08 August 2012 - 12:11 AM, said:

Greetings All

Personally I coould never understand why Mechs would have such a weakness?

I mean think about it "If" it was real life and we could really pilot Mechs to give them such a weakness would defete the object of using a mech to fight a battle in the first place.



I have to agree with Bishop on this Oh the whining and moaning that ensued after a legging but again why would anyone in any universe build such a weakness into such an expensive peice of kit?

When I first started playing I used it as a valid tactic to take down bigger mechs as I always ended up in a light or med being the noob and the flack I took over it from other players. There was always much talk of honour and spirit of the fight etc and poor tactics etc.

So I would say it was a flaw an ommission a cluster f*** by the designers. of mechs in general. Its like building a tank with ceramic tracks. In my humble opinion it is too much of a weakness and always has been. For a skilled pilot it is relatively easy to leg an assault with a light regardless of joystick used or level of experience.. Just get him on his own and stay out of the way of his alpha.

I play WoT alot atm and the screems of "camper" and "noob" are common place when a tank with 100% health lays hidden at base to protect the artillary but it is a valid tactic to defend your resources.

In summing up I would suggest either the Dev's rectify the design flaw or the moaners learn to play and accept their fate.

Well, the issue is ALL designs have compromises and weaknessess. The only way not to is to have zero exposed moving parts. Now said moving parts will always have relative weakspots wherever therre is a joint. There are 3 major target/joint clusters on a leg, the hip/groin connection, the knee cluster and the ankle. To compound this, if you over armor the leg with too much weight, that would actually reduce mobility more than the same weight spread over other areas, as reciprocating weight on a drive system causes parasitic power drag (same reason racing engines use extra light cranks, and pistons and connectors.. the less weight in the drivetrain, the less power wasted to move the drive train, translating to more motive power.

To make matterrs worse, the legs are load bearing, so structural damage that may not be critical on an arm, can be catastrophically multi[plied in the legs, as the weight of the entire unit plants, posts and pivots on the legs, causing greater issues.

There is really no realistic way to fully overcome this, but in general the benefits of a bipedal unit for ability to handle terrain (it certainly isn't for better ground speed!) offset the potenttial weak point. ANd if a mech stays moving, the legs are not that easy a target, and the faster a mech can move the more difficult the shot.

In any military machine, stationary = DEAD. Movement is life. The reason the Super-Tank concept never worked was that in the battle between armor and warhead development, the warhead ALWAYS has the upper hand. Hence a large but slow tank or mech is a target. It might be armored enough to wit5hstand light support weapons, but a single medium tank or mech with a BFG that can penetrate will trash that huge machine, every time, being able to outflank, avoid fire and such.

Think of it as the disadvantage hugely armored european knights faced when dealing with english archers. If caught flat footed, the mounted knight would slaughter them. But used well, the archers could strike before the knight could reply, and use terrain and such to negate the knights advantage in armor and weapons. And a Stationary French knight on the battlefield was a pincushion waiting to happen for the English Longbow.

Assaults are really best when used toe tto toe against similar designs, or when they can use terrrain to minimize the oppositions mobility.

[Neenja]

People complain about legging because for the same reason they blame hackers, lag, and the sun in their eyes. They can't accept that they were beaten and desperately need an explanation for why it was impossible for that to have happened within the bounds of whatever arbitrary "rules" they've set in their own head.

There have been a handful of MechWarrior games were it was a somewhat legitimate complaint against the game's armor distribution design and the impact a lost leg had on that 'Mech's combat capability - never a valid complaint from a PVP perspective.

Edited by Neenja, 08 August 2012 - 09:33 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

PANZERBUNNY, on 08 August 2012 - 02:12 AM, said:

Because if it's a game where a mech can be taken out of commission so easily with a leg, everyone is running around looking at the ground trying to blast off legs.

That's why it's stupid.

No. Stupid is being the one NOT doing it. Cuz then you die. =)

Ori Klein, on 08 August 2012 - 06:57 AM, said:

So many syllables, so little meaning.
Without honour and rules society falls onto anarchy and decay.
There is no progress, only degeneration.

The Rasalhague Dominion has become far stronger a society than your petty and hollow ambitions of power, Steiner.

*Yawns*

Blah blah blah. Looks like I know who's mech to kneecap first... =)

[Ori Klein]

phinja, on 08 August 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

no,
If i'm in a light mech i'm gonna nip at your heels, not try to pry off the 30 tons of armor plastered to your chest with my small laserrsssssssssss.

Have fun nipping at my 20 tons of armor-plastered heels with your small laserrsssssssssss, then.
Until I squash you like I would any insect.

[Dissarray]

In my oppinion leging a mech is like running the clock in a football match. Sure you can do it, there are no rules against it. And sometimes it is the smart thing to do. Still it isn't very sporting. That said mech combat in the game is a combat sim and in combat being sporting realy isn't the goal so go right ahead.

Personaly I only go for the legging blow when I am out-matched or desperatly outnumberd. If I'm rolling in medium mech and come toe to toe with an assult mech it's game on in a desperate bid to eather kill it or get out of the fight alive and if kneecaping him is how to get it done so be it. Siumularly if swarmed by light mechs I'll take all the hits on any part of the mech that presents itself. Now if it is a 1v1 between simularly matched mechs I'll go for the long fight and enjoy the hell out of it; and if the other guy wants to bring legs into it I'll return in kind.

[Ori Klein]

daniel castelo, on 08 August 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

Legging is awesome.. ^^ Check the video below

...
C'mon guys.... It's a game.. and everyone wants to win ...

1. I've won that battle without resorting to legging.

2. Video clearly demonstrates the pilot competency. Missing many shots, practically no dodging. Saved merely due to grace of AI failing to perform.

3. They assault him one at a time, Clan rules. Had they 'played' it out like you fine folk suggest, he would be ravaged 4v1, and I highly doubt his capabilities will fit to topple them.


I agree with the voice actor, "your skills are lacking".

Edited by Ori Klein, 08 August 2012 - 10:40 AM.

[Alex Wolfe]

It's a relic from the times when destruction of one leg would destroy the mech (MW1 to 3).

Even if a mech is packing more armor on a leg than CT, the leg is much easier to hit for non-lights, as it's never obstructed, so it was an easy way to take down an enemy much bigger than you - way easier than coring. MWO will likely have the system from MW4 and MechCommander (1 leg down = limp, 2 legs = destruction) however, so legging shouldn't be an issue there.

[RavenMage]

My response to this.. "Come At Me Bro"

[Emery Radick]

I see no problem with legging at all. If your in a fight to the death might as well be in it to win it!

[Karuik]

Hello hello, I come to kill a common misconception (or at least feel like I am, because there is no way I will.)

A lot of people seem to think that us 'dirty clanners' are some of the ones who flip out over legging, this is very much not true. In the clans it is considered to be a GOOD thing to down a mech via legging, as it greatly preserves the mech, compared to coring the whole engine for instance. Waste not trothkin.

So yes, I will leg you if need be. I will leg the **** out of you. For honor. (Unless we are playing Mechwarrior 3, in which case I will not because come on, it really WAS cheese in that game.))

Edited by Karuik, 08 August 2012 - 10:27 AM.

[Mystwolf]

First....all will say whatever to make their view appear better and right in their eyes.

Second.....In MW3 you could destroy the enemy by blowing off 1 leg. that is why it was seen as cheap you really only had to do enough to take one leg off, not both.

Three.... some saw it as cheap since in the books they could keep fighting with no legs.....but it is what it is.

four..... That video is such a bad ToP......that is not how a ToP is conducted..... shows how little research they did on the IP. Go read....hmmm Jade Phoenix or blood of kerensky books to see how it should have been.....and that bidding was atrocious again not how it happens in the clans.

If the game is done right legging is no big deal and a viable tactic.