Jump to content

Battletech Melee Weapons


261 replies to this topic

Poll: BattleTech melee weapons (812 member(s) have cast votes)

Should there be BattleTech melee weapons

  1. Voted Yes (690 votes [84.98%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 84.98%

  2. Voted No (122 votes [15.02%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 15.02%

Vote Guests cannot vote

#141 NotMyIfurita

    Member

  • Pip
  • Bad Company
  • Bad Company
  • 11 posts
  • LocationOklahoma City

Posted 25 October 2014 - 06:28 AM

I like the idea of a hardpoint for hatchets and other melee weapons, but melee shouldn't be in the game unless the basics (punch and kick) are in. An Axeman will mess you up with that axe, but he still needs to think about it before he loses a leg to an Atlas's kick. Melee will make the Assaults the terrors they should be, so I sure hope we see it!

Edited by NotMyIfurita, 25 October 2014 - 06:29 AM.


#142 Burktross

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • 3,663 posts
  • LocationStill in closed beta

Posted 25 October 2014 - 10:51 AM

View PostStardancer01, on 21 November 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

I voted no, because allow I would like to see a bonus to trip chance & ram damage I would defiantly not want a press button swing weapon. If you want that go play sky rim

Battletech canon, m8.

#143 EAP10

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 401 posts
  • LocationOntario, Canada

Posted 01 February 2015 - 07:29 AM

What about something like this: for punching, you press a button to activate 'melee' mode, and the left mouse button is to move your left arm, and the right mouse button is to move your right arm. Going into melee mode would also deactivate your weapons. Punching would be like: EX. Atlas, you hold down left mouse button, elevate your cursor a bit, and move your mouse to the right to punch, therefore making it simple. You could only punch sideways though if you had lower arm actuators. If you didn't, just do the same thing but up and down. You could punch with arms that have hand actuators and arms that dont, but with arms that don't when you hit something there is a chance of destroying the weapon(s) in that arm. Maybe special types of melee damage such as impalement damage and just normal physical damage. Ex. If a awesome punched a Jager with its ppc arm, it would do impalement damage to the inner torso, and also might destroy the ppc. If the Jager hit back by swinging its barrels downwards, it would do normal physical damage and the barrels would have a chance of breaking.

Just ask me any questions about this if you are unsure about what I mean.

#144 Mr Hunter

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • The Spear
  • The Spear
  • 141 posts
  • LocationIn a Shadowhawk

Posted 10 April 2015 - 01:43 PM

View PostEAP10, on 01 February 2015 - 07:29 AM, said:

What about something like this: for punching, you press a button to activate 'melee' mode, and the left mouse button is to move your left arm, and the right mouse button is to move your right arm. Going into melee mode would also deactivate your weapons. Punching would be like: EX. Atlas, you hold down left mouse button, elevate your cursor a bit, and move your mouse to the right to punch, therefore making it simple. You could only punch sideways though if you had lower arm actuators. If you didn't, just do the same thing but up and down. You could punch with arms that have hand actuators and arms that dont, but with arms that don't when you hit something there is a chance of destroying the weapon(s) in that arm. Maybe special types of melee damage such as impalement damage and just normal physical damage. Ex. If a awesome punched a Jager with its ppc arm, it would do impalement damage to the inner torso, and also might destroy the ppc. If the Jager hit back by swinging its barrels downwards, it would do normal physical damage and the barrels would have a chance of breaking.

Just ask me any questions about this if you are unsure about what I mean.

I think I understand what you're saying, and I for one am a fan of your idea.

#145 Chuanhao

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Raider
  • The Raider
  • 520 posts
  • LocationSingapore

Posted 12 April 2015 - 06:48 PM

Will we be able to get Virtual On, Gundam video games' level of arm movement? Or is the axman's axe hand going to just go up and down in one comical straight line? The former is too diffcult to implement. The latter is a bit too kiddish for me. Im happy to stay where we are. The axes, swords, can be deco. An axman with an axe strapped on the back is quite visually appealing.

#146 Astarot

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • Big Brother
  • Big Brother
  • 167 posts
  • LocationNew Hampshire, Troy, hiding from the Romans

Posted 12 April 2015 - 06:59 PM

Just want to make a point. They don't even have collision damage properly set up. What makes you expect them to put in weapons that depends heavily on crunchy collision?

#147 Ialdabaoth

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bridesmaid
  • Bridesmaid
  • 329 posts

Posted 13 April 2015 - 06:34 PM

You really just need a 'sword swing' animation, an 'axe swing' animation, and a 'roundhouse punch' animation; then have a hitscan weapon with a 5 to 10 meter range depending on your size (5 meters for lights, 6.5 meters for mediums, 7.5m for heavies and 10m for assaults).

#148 50 50

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,145 posts
  • LocationTo Nova or not to Nova. That is the question.

Posted 19 April 2015 - 07:07 PM

It's an interesting question.

I'm interested in getting melee into the system primarily because I'd like to see and play as an Elemental and utilize their battleclaw attack.
My thoughts were that implementing a melee attack with something small like the Elementals would be a good stepping stone to test functionality and balance before moving onto melee attacks in a larger scale.

Charge attacks, Death from Above, Punches and Kicks would all need to be considered first before actual swords and axes. The melee weapons were not initially in the boxed game until the rules and equipment were expanded on later and my gut thought is that melee weapons should never be an item that can be equipped. They should only be available on very specific mechs such as the Hatchetman and Axeman where they are a permanent item and that's it.

If I recall correctly, in the table top if you were making a melee attack you could not use your weapons. This suggests that the pilot might need to toggle across into a advanced piloting mode which disables the weapon groups and allows melee attacks, or at the very least they take up their own weapon group and cannot be combined with other weapons.

#149 Urek Mazino

    Member

  • Pip
  • The Bludgeon
  • The Bludgeon
  • 18 posts

Posted 10 May 2015 - 12:03 PM

I don't think melee combat can be implemented realistically in the near future. It would either be impossible to hit lights, or the melee weapons would end up using some kind of method that makes their reach unrealistic and even what would normally have been a miss, ends up hitting. Both of those options would be undesirable and add a further balancing issue to the game.

Having said that, I would love a hatchetman, and other melee mechs with melee abilities. I think first, if PGI does make a pve mode to the game before steam release, It would be a good place to test melee combat. Imho the melee combat should be a quicktime event/button mash. For example, getting within point blank range of a mech, provided you have a melee weapon equiped (only certain mechs would have melee weapons, and yes, they are very very heavy), within range a prompt would appear for melee combat, and then the player would have to mash their melee weapon group.
-Now there would be some options here.
First is if melee is an instant kill on successful mashing of the melee weapon. Or a broken melee weapon hand if mashing failed.(enemy blocks you and shoots your arm off)
The other option is if Melee isn't an instant kill, and instead depending on how well you mashed there would be certain states. 100% -instant kill, 75% hit through/down the side-torso, 50% hit through/down the arm, below 50% fail (you really messed up and you not only lose your melee weapon but the arm it's attached to as well)

For pve only, this could be taken to the extreme and if the player managed to sneak up behind an enemy mech they could have an execute command. Something like blowing the enemy mechs headoff from the back, or shooting straight through their engine from behind. Whatever artistic flair PGI prefers.

For actual pvp, the issues would be a lot worse than pve. I'm sure even the pve melee would end up displaying issues over time. But some of the foreseeable issues once implemented into pvp is the use of macro's and just the general ability for people to use artificial button mashing techniques that people doing it manually would not be able to compete with. There would also be the issue of what happens if you're in a melee combat state and others shoot you. The answer would have to be, you take dmg and can die. This would make melee combat a very high risk high reward system, it would be especially good for pilots that prefer to flank the enemy. (Bring on the Berserker!!!). Would a mech in a melee state still be able to fire their other weapons? what about the mech being hit? A combo of using the melee state to force your enemy to mash while you also have an ac20 and srm's on your torso's to blow them away with would potentially be extremely over-powered.

Overall, I wish for melee combat, but I also fully accept that it is not viable, it would be extremely unbalanced, and even the most realistic solution would be laced with every kind of issue imaginable.

A loop around is if for steam release pgi changed non-cw matches to have a respawn system. Not something I have an opinion on currently. Instant kills in melee range are pretty common in most shooters these days, as such it would be less of an issue. But there would still be the question of whether every mech could instant kill, or only mechs that have melee potential and used tonnage for their melee weapon.

Nutshell: Melee has issues, could be neat for pve as a test for how viable it would be, provided we get a pve mode. I think there are more major issues to deal with first.

#150 Celtic Warrior

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Death Wish
  • The Death Wish
  • 507 posts
  • LocationClan Wolf Operations - Tukayyid - Honolulu HI

Posted 10 May 2015 - 01:00 PM

Hell no!!!!! The last thing I want is a bunch of mechs slamming into me so they can do "rock em! sock em! robots".

#151 Void Angel

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Marauder
  • The Marauder
  • 6,573 posts
  • LocationParanoiaville

Posted 10 May 2015 - 01:06 PM

This has already been on their list of Things To Do Someday for a while. The issue is that in order to implement melee weaponry and attacks, you'd have to first fix collisions, and a lot of other things need attention first. Still, something every battletech fan with a soul would love to see.

#152 Nik Reaper

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • Bad Company
  • 1,273 posts

Posted 10 May 2015 - 03:43 PM

Well, let's think about this for a sec.

As an idea it is good , as something that pgi would need to implement and balance... really ... really?

Let's review a few things , mech for IS in most are humanoid and by lore are much like giant soldiers , they don't keep there arms at waist hight and just run around , they could crouch , lay prone on there belly with arms to the front like a sniper , lean on rocks and building to do cover shooter corner actions and so on....

So we have none of that and I'm not too confident about implementation of all of that, so why would be want a klanky implementation of melee combat... I mean just imagine it, with our clumsy collisions mechs doing there kicks, punches and swings ( probly only one animation and only one move ) while rebounding and even more missing.... and that while they said that mechs so far can't rise there arms to shoulder hight because everyone would do it all the time and we would end up with a lot of "zombie like mechs" .

Edited by Nik Reaper, 10 May 2015 - 03:44 PM.


#153 Void Angel

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Marauder
  • The Marauder
  • 6,573 posts
  • LocationParanoiaville

Posted 10 May 2015 - 10:05 PM

Melee attacks wouldn't necessarily rely on collisions, but there are non-trivial tasks involved in implementing it - collisions likely would need to be re-implemented in order to make melee work well, if only from a balance perspective.

As for Battlemechs allegedly doing calisthenics - don't mistake flavor text with the core elements of the universe. Someone posted flavor text that claimed the Atlas could do handstands once. The BattleTech universe has a lot of the same problems the Expanded Universe had in Star Wars; lots of different hands stirring the pot, often making a soup sandwich out of power creep and bad characterizations. The actual tabletop gameplay treats 'mechs like walking super-tanks. They can climb over limited obstacles, and fall over and stuff - but they move either backward or forward, their torsos twist like a turret, and they rely on cover, firepower, speed, and toughness to survive in combat, just like armor today.

So, there's no reason that simple melee attacks violate the Spirit of Mechwarrior - quite the opposite in fact. The original tabletop rules allow you to punch or kick, period. Later rules added some slight variation with combat claws, but it's really all very simplified; the main focus of the game is guns and missile launchers, not melee. But while it's a good idea to have it in there some time, it's going to be a long time down the road because of more pressing issues and the cost/benefit of the stuff that has to be done in order to get melee attacks in the game.

#154 IraqiWalker

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 9,682 posts
  • LocationCalifornia

Posted 10 May 2015 - 10:45 PM

View PostRushin Roulette, on 21 November 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

Here is a preview of an Atlas vs a scout if Melee damage is implemented;

Posted Image


Oh God, I'm choking. Oh God!

View PostRojolobo, on 21 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

Nice to have a button to punch a Mech. Knock him over or do damage. Battletech has melee weapons. Mace, lance, chainsaw, pile driver ect. Would be great to push someone away when hitting a button.


OP, PGI wants to put melee in, but the coding is a nightmare for it, and we already have more than enough problems for them to deal with.

We all want melee in. I would run around in an Ax-man doing a bang up impression of a khorne berzerker the second they implement it.

#155 Nik Reaper

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Bad Company
  • Bad Company
  • 1,273 posts

Posted 11 May 2015 - 04:09 AM

Thing is, IMO, there are two ways to do melee , one is it's an attack that you can do anytime and all it is, for example, is rising an arm up and slashing it down, with or without a weapon, and the other way is that it is an animation set that once initiated takes controle over the whole mech and the mech has to go through all the motions of it before the player has control over the mech again.

I personaly favor the second kind as it would have a more developed animation, is less spamable ( avoid a bunch of mechs just doing verital chops all the time ) and it provides counter play as you can see when the mechs shortly takes a stance needed to attack and then moves to attack.

Although you say collisions don't need to be part of it, what you likely would end up with out them would be a lot of clipping isues.
A mech's collision boxes, as the game engine treats them, seem to be only a bit wider then the mech, so extending an arm, axe or leg has implications , ei. an axe would need to detect that it hit something and stop the animation there , detect impact and apply damage to a body part, then retract axe to starting position from the stopped position, otherwise we will have mechs cleaving other mechs in half with axes as they would go through the other mech only to do some damage ( definitely not cuting it in half ) and that would look so bad... So we need colision detection.

Second, should the range of melee attacks be 4~5 m for punches, 10 for an axe, 3~4 for kicks ( wich should only target legs as mechs do not do mid and high kicks ) with about ~1s of windup time before the damage is done?

This kind of work would require extra animations ( one for kicks , 2 for punches ( if one arm is blown off ) and one for weapons when they are in ) for each mech and they would need to be interuptable at many stages to make impact more belivable and reduce clipping.

It is doable, but by what I got from pgi such work would be considered an expansion much like they consider solaris to be an expansion and yeah those are for much later.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 11 May 2015 - 04:11 AM.


#156 AbsUserName

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 182 posts
  • LocationStar Leagues afield.

Posted 28 May 2015 - 02:35 PM

Yes, I would make a new thread a week on this topic. And melee. This bump should be enough.

Low on ammo? Punch.

The commando is right before you, beyond the weapons' reach? Kick.

That Direstar just vomited PPC and laser and shut down? Body slam.

And, of course, when the AC10 ammo on you Hatchetman is over, hatchet.

To be honest, kick is already in the game (PGI, you sneaky, shady little fellow!). Just jog around the assaults for a while in your Lolcust and you'll be legless in no time. Great, isn't it?!

#157 AbsUserName

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 182 posts
  • LocationStar Leagues afield.

Posted 28 May 2015 - 02:57 PM

View PostNik Reaper, on 11 May 2015 - 04:09 AM, said:


Second, should the range of melee attacks be 4~5 m for punches, 10 for an axe, 3~4 for kicks ( wich should only target legs as mechs do not do mid and high kicks ) with about ~1s of windup time before the damage is done?

This kind of work would require extra animations ( one for kicks , 2 for punches ( if one arm is blown off ) and one for weapons when they are in ) for each mech and they would need to be interuptable at many stages to make impact more belivable and reduce clipping.




I'd like to remember our community that the confusion between realtime and TT rendering of reality is real. When a Mech punches, in - TT wise - 10s round, in my perception the punch is an action, and the damage is a result of many punches landed during a trade: think MMA punching, you tell from the fence "punch when the guard is down!" and the fighter throws many punches in the trade, some of which land and do damage.

View PostVoid Angel, on 10 May 2015 - 10:05 PM, said:

; the main focus of the game is guns and missile launchers, not melee.


Sorry, this is one way to view the wargame, and it's most likely a personal opinion.

Mechs had hand actuators to punch; some had low ammo because one can always melee if ammo is over.

And there were mechs built around melee, of which the Axman and Hatchetman are prominent examples of counterproof to the affirmation "main focus of the game is guns and missile launchers, not melee."

The previous mechwarrior games could say "but we don't have computational power, so no melee for you!" MWO has lots, lots of cpu/gpu power available. Don't accept "no, too complicated" for an answer, not in the Core Duo era and beyond.

Thanks for the comprehension that this is no personal attack, but a push toward a better Battletech/Mechwarrior implementation. After all, many limitations of this game are inherited from a "lostech" era when not everyone could have multicore processors at home!

PS: for clanners, I imagine it's ok to have a streakcrow rendered useless after ammo is over. But for IS, every operational mech still can level a city block by itself after ammo is over.

#158 AbsUserName

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 182 posts
  • LocationStar Leagues afield.

Posted 28 May 2015 - 03:19 PM

View Post50 50, on 19 April 2015 - 07:07 PM, said:

They should only be available on very specific mechs such as the Hatchetman and Axeman where they are a permanent item and that's it.


Any mech could pick up a tree (or that arm you just tore asunder!) and bludgeon away.

Edited by AbsUserName, 28 May 2015 - 03:20 PM.


#159 IraqiWalker

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • FP Veteran - Beta 1
  • 9,682 posts
  • LocationCalifornia

Posted 28 May 2015 - 03:31 PM

View PostAbsUserName, on 28 May 2015 - 03:19 PM, said:


Any mech could pick up a tree (or that arm you just tore asunder!) and bludgeon away.

One of my favorites was a post by someone else recalling an incident in which his atlas picked up a destroyed locust, and used it as a makeshift club for a campaign.

#160 Void Angel

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • The Marauder
  • The Marauder
  • 6,573 posts
  • LocationParanoiaville

Posted 28 May 2015 - 04:28 PM

View PostAbsUserName, on 28 May 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:


I'd like to remember our community that the confusion between realtime and TT rendering of reality is real. When a Mech punches, in - TT wise - 10s round, in my perception the punch is an action, and the damage is a result of many punches landed during a trade: think MMA punching, you tell from the fence "punch when the guard is down!" and the fighter throws many punches in the trade, some of which land and do damage.



Sorry, this is one way to view the wargame, and it's most likely a personal opinion.

Mechs had hand actuators to punch; some had low ammo because one can always melee if ammo is over.

And there were mechs built around melee, of which the Axman and Hatchetman are prominent examples of counterproof to the affirmation "main focus of the game is guns and missile launchers, not melee."

The exceptions provided by the Axeman and other 'mechs prove the rule; these 'mechs are thin on the ground compared to the massive arsenal of ranged weaponry available - melee was an integrated part of the game, but it was a secondary focus. The melee attacks offered by the game to most 'mechs were punches and kicks - I did forget charging (which includes Death from Above.) You could make a 'mech that was specialized for melee combat (I had one playing Solaris VII matches with my brothers using Triple Strength Myomers... I digress,) or even pick up an arm or leg someone lost and beat people with it - but it was really an edge case considering that you gave up the ability to fire weapons when performing those attacks.

Thus, if you wanted to forgo weapons fire, and if you were close to the enemy - meaning if you could catch him or if he could catch you - and if he was in your arc and not behind you or something... You could hit him. There were times when this was preferable - it's not always a last-ditch, no-weapons-left tactic. But it's also not the main focus of the game, particularly with a fair number of 'mechs lacking lower arm and/or hand actuators.

In any case, at the level of importance to tabletop gameplay (and we do need to follow tabletop unless there's a reason not to) and given the non-trivial technical issues involved in melee combat... we're not going to be getting that any time soon.

PS: as for quicktime events and instant-kill melee in Battletech... I'm not even going to dignify that with a rebuttal.





1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users