75 replies to this topic

[Rockjaw]

I understand the intention of keeping the MW universe true to its roots, I've been here a long time and played every MW game from Mw2 onward (and some of the board games). But on the other hand, to ignore the possibilities that are out there now is well...rather stupid.

I'm seeing a lot of stress and pull on the game model right now form different people.

To start with I see a lot of people screaming about the F2P model.

And honestly I'm seeing a lot of...er...uninformed comments. Mostly in the form of "Now someone with a huge wallet is going to buy all the good stuff and kick everyone else's ****". And for the most part any F2P game with that possibility in the model has died off (or at least aren't very popular). The ones left have truly inspired and interesting gameplay. For example (And I think it is a very good example) WoT or World of tanks. The model works! I've played this game since beta and it still holds my interest. The Paid equipment is good. But it has never dominated a battle yet as far as I can see (and I've seen a lot). Personal skill has a much, much greater effect on the outcome of a game than equipment. So. Just saying. It works. You can calm down. Take a prozac. The devs are committed and they are going to take things slow and sure. (BTW Little shout-out here. Thanks guys. I appreciate the work you do.)

Second. Damage, it's what the whole game is about when you think about it...

I see the die-hards saying that a hit is a hit is a hit. X gun does X damage if it hits, full stop. And I see some other people looking at a more "accurate" (this can only be so accurate as it exists completely within the realm of imagination) damage model encompassing deflection angles and equipment placement. Personally I've seen the latter work amazingly well and without a hitch in (once again) WoT. It makes sense! A .40 round (handgun) Will NEVER penetrate 3 inches of solid armor plate. It should NOT do .5 points of damage. I can stand in front of that sherman all day and night pouring rounds into it until my glock stops cycling. But I will not penetrate that armor...this is the way it should be. Should an Lbx-5 do more than bounce off the chestplate of an atlas? Nope. Maybe it breaks a laser emitter lens...but it shouldn't damage anything internally that's for sure. Now an armor piercing slug in (roughly) the same caliber ought to at least move some armor around. That makes sense. But lets stop pretending that a light mech should do any more than FIND an atlas much less damage anything (with ballistic weaponry that is).

But enough discussion. Here's my ¢2. Lets do both! In the physical world we live in...chunks of metal never really penetrate harder/bigger chunks of metal unless they are designed to. as shown here. But Energy weapons can melt the upper surfaces of armor causing it to slough off. As a matter of fact, most of the books mention this quite often. Missiles can blow small chunks of armor into lala land. So there is no reason why a smaller mech should be ineffective. It just requires a weaponry change. This seems to both follow physics and the game/book world as accurately as possible while still allowing decent gameplay.

Either way, this is quite long enough for my first post. All I ask is that you guys stay respectful in your answers. Feel free to disagree...just do it with you brain more than the Caps key pls.

[Hayden]

I actually like what you're suggesting, it just seems a lot more complicated to code and implement? But it sounds nice.

[Rockjaw]

Thanks Hayden. I appreciate that my first reply is a friendly one. It might be pretty complicated. That's true. But I think it can be simplified to Type/thickness of armor. Type/"caliber" of weapon. Penetrate/no penetrate. If no penetrate how much armor gets taken off the top? Know what I mean? It's not too terrible...a better coder than me could probably have the concept mastered in a week. And luckily with todays internet speeds you can run calculations server or client side.

[Adridos]

It is nice, but telling all this, before you know if devs are making any of the "mistakes" you mentioned does not seem right. We will have to wait until they finally show us some mechanics and then we can start arguing (there will be people like that for sure).

[Rockjaw]

Adrios,

I never said that the Devs were making any mistakes. I just have a suggestion for a damage system that includes elements from reality and the game. (That's why they have a "suggestions" section right?) Maybe they've already done this. Maybe they figured out something better. We don't know yet.

[Tweaks]

Rockjaw: I fully understand what you're trying to suggest, but the issue is to reproduce all this physics into a game engine. It's not that easy, and it certainly doesn't help when you want to control balance (which is a very required thing in an online game). I really doubt that if PG was somehow able to reproduce real physics as per the BT novels, that all of the Mechs would actually be balanced.

That said, I'm sure they will come up with something quite close, but still manageable. Only time will reveal this, so let's wait and see... but we hear you

[TheRulesLawyer]

The trouble with a penetration model is that it renders light mechs useless vs assault mechs. This isn't really the case in the TT game. Ablative armor isn't as realistic as a penetration model, but it does allow a light mech to be a credible threat to an assault mech. Take a tier 10 vs a tier 1 in WOT and you can laugh at them. That doesn't make for fun gameplay. real /= fun. So two strikes against this type of system.

[Rockjaw]

Tweaks: Acknowledged and appreciated.

The Rules Lawyer: I don't think you read this fully... I didn't say that we should do a full penetration model. I obviously had already added/ changed away from the WOT system. I said that using certain types and calibers of ammunition against certain targets doesn't work. Do you really want machinegun spam to be able to take down an Assault mech? Besides, your scope is pretty limited there...you aren't supposed to take on an assault mech with a light mech. You can, And within my idea you can still take one out if your tactics are excellent but you aren't really supposed to. And the best part, It will truly take skill to do it instead of relying on your machinery.

[Tweaks]

I think the actual problem is that most sim games featuring armored vehicles don't account for repetitive damage done against the same piece of armor.

For example, if a light weapon only scratches a heavy's front armor by 1cm a shot, then it should be able to pierce it over time by consistently shooting that same area multiple times.

That would be a solution to make light Mechs still able to damage heavier Mechs by swarming them, as long as they focus their fire. If I remember correctly, in Decision at Thunder Rift, Grayson was able to highly damage a heavier Mech by spamming the same spot with his machine guns for a while. Metal is metal afterwards... Heat warps and weakens metal, heat it enough, and it will be pierced. Friction ad impact causes heat, so repetitive hits would eventually melt and weaken any kind of metallic armor.

That is however not that easy to translate in a real-time multiplayer game as it requires having multiple smaller hitboxes on each part of the Mech models and also requires the server to track each hitbox's HP points separately. Maybe it's doable, I don't know... but I think it'd be hard on the server's performance (notably lag) unless they highly limit the amount of players per side to 8 or so...

Edited by Tweaks, 07 November 2011 - 01:52 PM.

[ELHImp]

Add armour piercing system in this game, and it would be ready for oblivion before launch.

Btw. Mechs has some composite armour, that protects internal structure agains any weapons, but at cost of destruction itself. So you can bring any mech down with you glock, little patience and two trains full of ammo.

[Rockjaw]

ELH: For a description of actual Ceramic/composite armor. here. For an example of lightweight composite in action, here. In short, No I couldn't. Not with anything approaching real composite armor.

Tweaks: In theory you have a point. However in reality armor tends to highly bias towards a go-no go item. Either you penetrate it or you don't. Shooting armor with something powerful enough to "move" it pretty much tends to ruin it completely (think medieval armor). Even in the example I gave you earlier you notice that when the ammunition penetrated the first layer there was really only a 1cm hole left behind. You could in theory eventually penetrate it. But the moment you go to an armored slab of proper thickness you tend to bounce off or penetrate completely. Not leaving much of a dent really. WWII tanks are a pretty good example of this. You will notice here that either there is complete penetration or a barely noticeable ding. Mind you this is from a HPV 90mm cannon that is designed for this. Doing it with a machine gun is pretty much out of the question.

[Tweaks]

Good explanation Rockjaw... I see your point. I play(ed) WoT quite a lot actually, so I know where you're coming from. I fully agree with your suggestion and hope it actually works that way. For example, having a light Mech equiped with several medium lasers would be able to do something against even an assault with enough perceverance and good focus fire. However, the same Mech equipped with only light autocannons and machine guns wouldn't stand a chance and would only ding it.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Rockjaw, on 07 November 2011 - 01:50 PM, said:

The Rules Lawyer: I don't think you read this fully... I didn't say that we should do a full penetration model. I obviously had already added/ changed away from the WOT system. I said that using certain types and calibers of ammunition against certain targets doesn't work. Do you really want machinegun spam to be able to take down an Assault mech? Besides, your scope is pretty limited there...you aren't supposed to take on an assault mech with a light mech. You can, And within my idea you can still take one out if your tactics are excellent but you aren't really supposed to. And the best part, It will truly take skill to do it instead of relying on your machinery.

IRL I totally agree with you. In battletech your arguement is really no different than a full penetration model. It will only serve to unbalance the game, and make the rush to the largest caliber weapons even stronger. Yes I want MG to take down an assault mech because its in the TT game. I also want it because it means that your atlas can't completely ignore the locust that has spent the last 30seconds fire at his back armor.

You are familar with WoT apparently. You know that light tanks really don't have much place in high tier battles. Battletech doesn't have that issue. I don't want to see it introduced.

[Tweaks]

TheRulesLawyer, on 07 November 2011 - 02:40 PM, said:

IRL I totally agree with you. In battletech your arguement is really no different than a full penetration model. It will only serve to unbalance the game, and make the rush to the largest caliber weapons even stronger. Yes I want MG to take down an assault mech because its in the TT game. I also want it because it means that your atlas can't completely ignore the locust that has spent the last 30seconds fire at his back armor.

You are familar with WoT apparently. You know that light tanks really don't have much place in high tier battles. Battletech doesn't have that issue. I don't want to see it introduced.

You're ignoring part of what he suggested though. If you apply his suggestion, a light Mechs equiped with medium lasers would still be able to do some damage on a heavy or even an assault as long as it doesn't have reflective armor. Only the same Mech with all light ballistic weapons wouldn't stand a chance simply because it couldn't penetrate their armor. In other words, lights would still be effective but not in every case. In WoT, it's EVERY light that doesn't stand a chance against high tiers...

Edited by Tweaks, 07 November 2011 - 03:02 PM.

[ELHImp]

Rockjaw, on 07 November 2011 - 02:26 PM, said:

For a description of actual Ceramic/composite armor here.

Call me "Imp", please, there more then 10 people from ELH. And...

Quote

actual

nuff said.
Don't try to make science-fiction game more science than fiction.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Tweaks, on 07 November 2011 - 03:02 PM, said:

You're ignoring part of what he suggested though. If you apply his suggestion, a light Mechs equiped with medium lasers would still be able to do some damage on a heavy or even an assault as long as it doesn't have reflective armor. Only the same Mech with all light ballistic weapons wouldn't stand a chance simply because it couldn't penetrate their armor. In other words, lights would still be effective but not in every case. In WoT, it's EVERY light that doesn't stand a chance against high tiers...

Doesn't change my opinion at all. It still makes lights worse, or even certain load outs on heavier mechs completely ignorable. The great thing with battletech is you aren't completely helpless no matter what mech you are in. Chances are you'll get squished but at least you'll be able to leave a mark.

[ChargerIIC]

I've also played WoT and agree that armor penetration/deflection was a fun mechanic, but you need to consider the shape of your average battlemech. Some battlemechs have dozes of slope surfaces if not three times that. That means coding all of those points into the mech and having the shot calculate different hit ratios based on whether or not you hit the weapon pod of a hunchback or the rounded slope of it's arm joint. You are also dealing with a much wider range of weapons with wildly varying inertia values, a Gauss rifles so much damage to reflect just how badly it dents and penetrates armor, not because of any explosives the round contains.

It also pays to consider that many of the mech weren't designed with armor slopes in mind, this means you could be greatly improving or disadvantaging a mech based on what some artist thought would look cool years ago. Simpler designs like the rifleman would be outclassed in armor sloping by more complicated designs like the glass spider.

[Rockjaw]

Imp: If you don't want science in fiction you may as well go over to the Might and Magic area of things. This is about steel (composite, titanium, whatever) machines. Steel etc. acts in certain ways. The classic game is not the end all nor the be all of this game. Who says improvements aren't possible? After all I think that the original creators would have made it more accurate if they had the equipment to do so. Dont you?

TRL: If that's your opinion, so be it. I disagree completely. Personally I don't want to be rewarded for picking the wrong vehicle for a given situation. I want to be rewarded for setting up my vehicle properly and fighting properly. Good strategy/good tactics. That means that sometimes something doesn't work therefore sometimes a given build will fail.

Tweaks: Cool. Glad to see that you got my point

I think I see the problem here. The problem is that ye olde battletech fanboyz want the same game over and over with better graphics. I thought you already got that in MW 2 or the MTX build? I want a game improved with today's technology. Not the same flavor with different colored sprinkles. I mean...honestly the damage mechanics I'm hearing here were done already....I don't get it. On the other hand I think the build technology was ruined completely by MW4. But that's because it removed all flexibility to build the mech appropriate to the situation.

[Rockjaw]

Charger: You are absolutely right. that is freaking complicated. I would honestly be completely happy with a basic simple calculation. maybe some slight improvements. But a scout MG shouldn't eat through battlemech armor as easily as it does infantry or light vehicles. Physics just doesn't work that way. Yknow? I'm not about re-writing the whole battletech combat system...just slight improvements. Maybe basic armor thickness and hitboxes? I'd wait for a couple generations before trying to get the full simulation on computing power alone. I wouldn't want to wait for them to code every part that way either if I'm honest.

[ELHImp]

Only one question:
Why do you think mechwarrior needs this ideas? Maybe better wait for some "new-title-mech-game-delux", and don't fix that not broken.

Quote

The classic game

Exactly! It's not just old, but classic. In each game each mech can harm each other mech with each weapon (with few exceptions like TAG), and now you suggest just ruin this rule. At the end we get something different rather than mechwarrior. It can be nice like blackjack and wh*res, but it never will be mechwarrior.