252 replies to this topic

[Kommisar]

Perhaps this got covered by someone; but if not, I'll clarify.

When the CB guys talk about collisions "breaking lock"; they are not talking about ramming the guy launching the missiles to break his lock. They are talking about two friendly mechs ramming each other so no one could fire missiles at them. Or waiting until missiles where in the air, then colliding and causing the missiles to lose lock.

It had nothing to do with the guy launching the missiles getting hit or rammed; just the target.

I want collisions back. I want to stompy stupid spiders under my Atlas feet like everyone else. But the last incarnation back in CB just did not work well at all. It looked terrible. It acted terrible. Half the time it made no sense with a Jenner bumping into an Atlas at low speed and only knocking down the Atlas. And the Dragon Linebackers just got annoying.

And yes, it was VERY much a crutch for bad pilots. If you got into a bad situation, you rammed someone and get yourself knocked down. Then, it was completely random if people shooting at you were going to hit you or the other, friendly, mech. The mechs warped everywhere. Lots of honest friendly fire kills and cripplings back them. But as the pilot in a bad situation, it bought you time for help to arrive. Time where you couldn't be reliably hit. It was very much exploited.

Edited by Kommisar, 09 April 2013 - 12:53 PM.

[KinLuu]

I prefer no collision to bad collision.

[Hawks]

Shumabot, on 09 April 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

That and the fact that the system looked idiotic, played badly, and turned the game into bowling.

This, a thousand times this

[FrOdO]

[Yokaiko]

Kommisar, on 09 April 2013 - 12:50 PM, said:

Perhaps this got covered by someone; but if not, I'll clarify.

When the CB guys talk about collisions "breaking lock"; they are not talking about ramming the guy launching the missiles to break his lock. They are talking about two friendly mechs ramming each other so no one could fire missiles at them. Or waiting until missiles where in the air, then colliding and causing the missiles to lose lock.

Which wouldn't save them, missiles fired on a lock will hit where the lock was last. They'd still get peppered.

May have screwed streaks a bit, but that would be a laser situation anyway.

[Megalosauroid]

Yokaiko, on 09 April 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

I have NO idea where this falling was an instant death sentence thing. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, but the game was better, it was harder, and there was more to it then leg hump, and run in circles not matter what the terrain or other mechs in the area were.

1000 times this.

We used to have a little thing called role warfare where lights where scouts and strikers and assaults could basically be used as area denial. That all went out of the window day 1 after collisions were removed. Now all we have is circile strafing (or more recently, find a ridge and walk backwards and forwards over it). In closed beta there were more potential options when getting swarmed by lights in an assault than putting your back to the wall or running towards your team.

[Dreamslave]

Yokaiko, on 09 April 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

I remember smearing a number of mechs in just those situations. Occasionally someone would catch you from behind, but usually the team would take care of it.

I have NO idea where this falling was an instant death sentence thing. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, but the game was better, it was harder, and there was more to it then leg hump, and run in circles not matter what the terrain or other mechs in the area were.

Exactly this. We wouldn't have this hug fest gametype we have now, where lights stay permanently attached to the legs of every other mech. People would be learning how to pilot better in tight environments or be penalized for it by being knocked over. I very clearly remember it being exactly as you said, sort of a 50/50 thing. Where if you make an error and get knocked over, the enemy might capitalize on that, or they might not. It was never an instant death sentence. It rewarded battlefield awareness and penalized those who ran around willy nilly.


I was completely taken by surprised when they removed it entirely and am in complete awe and disbelief that PGI has yet to re-implement a more polished collision setup so many months later. This is absurdity at it's finest.

Megalosauroid, on 09 April 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

1000 times this.

We used to have a little thing called role warfare where lights where scouts and strikers and assaults could basically be used as area denial. That all went out of the window day 1 after collisions were removed. Now all we have is circile strafing (or more recently, find a ridge and walk backwards and forwards over it). In closed beta there were more potential options when getting swarmed by lights in an assault than putting your back to the wall or running towards your team.

Agreed. Lights have gone from what they were supposed to be, a support role that hardy ever engaged, to complete killing machines, taking out mechs multiple times their tonnage, which is completely insane. The constant "circle strafing", where there is literally no penalty to running full speed into enemies and allies alike have caused most matches to be a complete cluster**** of brawls. Either that or complete WWI trench warfare, where neither side dares enter "no mans land", which spans between both teams vast amount of fire support.

Of course that last bit about trench warfare is something I only notice when I drop in 4 mans, because obviously that would never happen in 8 mans where we have leadership, direction and strategy, but the point still stands.

Edited by Dreamslave, 09 April 2013 - 12:59 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Yokaiko, on 09 April 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

Missread the year on Budd.

I remember collisions being wonky, I remember when you had to aim a mech and an half in front of a shutdown light to hit it.


....and I can also question your mental process. All of the leg humping and phasing is crap. I LOVE getting stuck in mechs that are busy trying to run through me. Particualy when they are enemies.

Sorry that was too hard for you and your "deep" thoughts.

Please point out where I said, EVER, that I don't want collisions back and that I enjoy the lack of them? I'll save you some time, I've NEVER said that. I want them back, very VERY badly do I want them back, but I want them working PROPERLY, not the fubar version we had in CB.

When I ram my Spider into an Atlas at 150+kph because I was being stupid, I want to PAY for that, not just phase through the big bastiche. When I'm in my Atlas and some dumbarsed surat lover rams into me at 150kph with his Jenner, I want that Jenner to be on it's arse and hurting, so I can stomp his cockpit into the dirt or at least put an alpha into his exposed belly while he lays there going 'wtf, who put that mountain there?'. And I expect to see my legs on my Atlas to be damaged by that collision, not a single point but the PROPER amount of damage that 35 tons impacting them at 150kph should impart.

My memory of the collisions in CB is just fine, that video on this very thread shows just how bad they really were, 2 MINUTES of getting knocked down over and over and over..and the Catapult didn't die from the collisions..you got any idea just HOW fubar that is?

Silly question, of course you don't, you think the fubar collisions were just fine.

[Hawks]

Knockdowns were just a crutch for people who couldn't shoot straight, anyway.

[Yokaiko]

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

Please point out where I said, EVER, that I don't want collisions back and that I enjoy the lack of them? I'll save you some time, I've NEVER said that. I want them back, very VERY badly do I want them back, but I want them working PROPERLY, not the fubar version we had in CB.

Ok so point out where I ever said they were good. No one said they wanted closed beta knockdowns back.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

When I ram my Spider into an Atlas at 150+kph because I was being stupid, I want to PAY for that, not just phase through the big bastiche. When I'm in my Atlas and some dumbarsed surat lover rams into me at 150kph with his Jenner, I want that Jenner to be on it's arse and hurting, so I can stomp his cockpit into the dirt or at least put an alpha into his exposed belly while he lays there going 'wtf, who put that mountain there?'. And I expect to see my legs on my Atlas to be damaged by that collision, not a single point but the PROPER amount of damage that 35 tons impacting them at 150kph should impart.

Debatable, a few points of damage sure, maybe like 5. If you go any further than that you WILL have people exploiting that, successfully.

Now DFAs may be an exception, but they aren't giving us any sort of info, "after release" means never effectively. Just like calling this "open beta" is a farse, this is a live product, they released at the start of open beta with a minimally viable product, just like they said they would.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

My memory of the collisions in CB is just fine, that video on this very thread shows just how bad they really were, 2 MINUTES of getting knocked down over and over and over..and the Catapult didn't die from the collisions..you got any idea just HOW fubar that is?

Yeah, he was being griefed by Goons, anyone else would have just killed him and went on to the next game.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

Silly question, of course you don't, you think the fubar collisions were just fine.

....and there you go putting words in my mouth again.


Not to mention, applying real world physics to 45 foot tall mechs running around corners at 90mph.....yeah, keep at that.

Edited by Yokaiko, 09 April 2013 - 01:05 PM.

[Megalosauroid]

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

My memory of the collisions in CB is just fine, that video on this very thread shows just how bad they really were, 2 MINUTES of getting knocked down over and over and over..and the Catapult didn't die from the collisions..you got any idea just HOW fubar that is?

Silly question, of course you don't, you think the fubar collisions were just fine.

You just keep using two examples (jenner vs atlas and the paul video) where collisions are at their absolute worst and claiming that is what the averge experience of collisions is like. Its stretching the truth beyond breaking point. Apart from anything else the paul video is not at all representative of normal play and represents a concerted effort by a team on voice comms versus a single mech.

Edited by Megalosauroid, 09 April 2013 - 01:06 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Megalosauroid, on 09 April 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

Were you even around for collisions? If you mind me asking, you arent a founder.

sorry; was using the wrong account, but yes I was around

I thought I might point out also; there are people without founders tags who were here in CB.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

I was around during that time and I wasn't a Founder until AFTER collisions were removed, not all of us BOUGHT our way into the early closed beta...might want to remember that. And an alt account usually has a much later join date then the original account has...another thing to remember. No idea if that's the truth or not in this particular case with Buddahcjcc, but it's something to consider.

pretty much this. Given that I wanted to see how onerous the new player grind is for people I might invite to the game, knowing what my friends tolerances are and thats why I have an alt account

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 09 April 2013 - 01:22 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Yokaiko, on 09 April 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

Ok so point out where I ever said they were good. No one said they wanted closed beta knockdowns back.



Debatable, a few points of damage sure, maybe like 5. If you go any further than that you WILL have people exploiting that, successfully.

Now DFAs may be an exception, but they aren't giving us any sort of info, "after release" means never effectively. Just like calling this "open beta" is a farse, this is a live product, they released at the start of open beta with a minimally viable product, just like they said they would.



Yeah, he was being griefed by Goons, anyone else would have just killed him and went on to the next game.




....and there you go putting words in my mouth again.


Not to mention, applying real world physics to 45 foot tall mechs running around corners at 90mph.....yeah, keep at that.

Actually, you MIGHT want to check your own posts in this very thread where you continually point out that CB knockdowns weren't a problem...unless someone else is posting under your account.

That video where Paul is being knocked down by the Goons, that IS the prime example of how bad collisions were in CB, THAT CATAPULT DIDN'T DIE FROM 2 STRAIGHT MINUTES OF BEING RAMMED BY MECHS IT'S OWN SIZE AND LARGER! Do you NOT get how badly messed up that is? THAT is why collisions were removed, they were ONLY used to grief people, they did not even remotely work as intended.

Collisions in BTech are NOT 'oh, pardon me, let me help you back up' affairs, you hit someone at speed and you do damage to yourself AND the Mech you hit, how much damage being based on the tonnage of both Mechs and the speeds involved. Little Mechs moving really fast could rip their own Mechs apart from a collision with a building or another Mech, and big Mechs could get hurt pretty badly from those as well. I watched a friend in a Cicada fail a piloting roll on a paved road at max speed on a turn and when his Mech finally stopped rolling and skidding, he was dead(literally, cockpit took 18 points of damage) and most of his Mech was spread out over the distance of his travel before it stopped due to hitting the leg of my Battlemaster(that's where the final cockpit damage came from, hurt my Battlemaster too). Yeah, physics for a walking 100 ton Mech are REALLY difficult to figure out...if you haven't ever had a single physics class and can't do more then basic addition. It's not rocket science..er..ok..it is, but rocket science really isn't all that difficult, at least not to anyone who's taken more then a General Math class in high school or college. The CryTek engine can handle the physics, it's up to PGI to get them working as they want, which would in all likelyhood NOT be according to the true physics of the situation. Otherwise, well...35 tons vs 100 tons..VW Bug vs Mack Truck really is a good analogy there, only the Mack in this case would probably lose a leg at the very least.

Megalosauroid, on 09 April 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

You just keep using two examples (jenner vs atlas and the paul video) where collisions are at their absolute worst and claiming that is what the averge experience of collisions is like. Its stretching the truth beyond breaking point. Apart from anything else the paul video is not at all representative of normal play and represents a concerted effort by a team on voice comms versus a single mech.

Really? You don't see how that fact that a Jenner could knock down ANYTHING was wrong and was one of the most obvious of the issues with the collisions? And the fact that for TWO STRAIGHT MINUTES, Paul's Catapult got knocked down over and over and over without blowing up?

No, you and Yokaiko both feel that the collisions were ok but the warping was the problem, you totally disregard the fact that there was 1 point of damage per collision, MASS had no effect on that at all. Not to mention that fact that at 20m distance, you could trip over someone else's stationary Mech due to how bad the collision detection code was? None of this rings any bells for you two?

[DrSecretStache]

Ohoho man. I wonder just how much people remember.

I got accepted into beta about one week before the raven was released. It was bad.
1. I exclusively piloted commandos, mostly because this was the time when you earned 36k per match. And that's in a COM, that didn't need to reload streaks because you packed more than you needed. I didn't even have an xl. The huge problem with the warping is that it only affected jenners, which you literally could not hit when they were on th ground, where in a com or even a raven, it was only enough to look kind of grizzly, you were still easy to hit. There's a reason they were the combatants of the day, and it was this, combined with their somewhat more significant weapon loadouts. 3 streaks was still beastly, but Jenners often won, and the rubber banding was a big part of it. (this was also when ravens were considered worse then coms).
2. AS a Commando, if you fell down with some relatively large mech near you, you were in fact dead. It was a death sentence. The rubber banding wasn't as much of an issue, and thus you could easily be hit. The only time it wasn't a death sentence was when it was another light accidentally ramming into you.
3. The 3rd person falls didn't really bother me, but I'll agree that the immersion factor wasn't helped by it. If I remember correctly, they didn't do it from the pilot's view because of a coding issue.
4. The rubber banding looked really ugly. Especially because it wasn't ping related.
5. The biggest reason it was broken was because of the hitboxes for the mech collisions. They were bigger than the mech, so you could be running past an ally with what you think is quite a bit of room, and suddenly you're on your face.

Yah, I'm pretty glad they took it out. And I'll be happy when they put it in. It was a good system and would probably solve a few issues, but man. It was bad.

Edited by Zoughtbaj, 09 April 2013 - 01:30 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Dreamslave, on 09 April 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

It wasn't "stupidly broken" or "easily abused". It punished poor piloting. Which is a good thing. The only thing that sucked about it was the minor teleporting that happened when the two mechs would stand up, but thats hardly a big deal considering the myriad bugs we are currently dealing with now. Whatever reason PGI has for not implementing collisions just aren't good reasons at all. This game desperately needs that feeling of immersion and with each and every patch we stray further and further away from that.

again;

This is why it was removed. Two weeks after this was posted they yanked collisions.
its fairly well known that the dev build (at the time) was about two weeks ahead of the live build.
It strains credulity that this gets posted, then two weeks later collisions are yanked never to be heard about again is just cooincidence.

Megalosauroid, on 09 April 2013 - 12:41 PM, said:

If its an alt account then i can only assume his main was banned from the forums

lol assuming makes an *** out of you and me but keep on assuming youre funny
What, I gotta stay here and continue arguing on the forums instead of going out and having supper?

Heres a better question: Who here remembers when the devs themselves said the Dragon's ability to knock down every other mech was due to it being given 100 tons of mass in ERROR?
That it wasnt intentional? I do... Then again that was on the CB boards and theyre gone

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 09 April 2013 - 01:33 PM.

[Megalosauroid]

" You don't see how that fact that a Jenner could knock down ANYTHING was wrong and was one of the most obvious of the issues with the collisions? "

One bugged mech does not equal a whole broken system, i dont see how its justification for removing collision from the game for so long. Hell remove the jenner for all i care since thats what was causing the problem.

"And the fact that for TWO STRAIGHT MINUTES, Paul's Catapult got knocked down over and over and over without blowing up? "

Not. Representative. Of. Normal. Play.

"No, you and Yokaiko both feel that the collisions were ok but the warping was the problem, you totally disregard the fact that there was 1 point of damage per collision, MASS had no effect on that at all"

So what you're saying is out of all the problems collision supposedly caused; the worst one is not doing enough damage. Well i think that would probably have been easy to fix. And isnt really a major issue compared to the problems with the rest of the game, unadressed, we have several months later.

" Not to mention that fact that at 20m distance, you could trip over someone else's stationary Mech due to how bad the collision detection code was?"

And how much better is the netcode now than it was then? This problem would have fixed itself. Also given the fact that none of the mechs in the game can stop on a dime im willing to bet that if you go within 20m of something 99% of the time you are going to step on it, regardless of your input. 20m is probably well within the bounds of error caused by simple latency if you live outside of north america.

[Yokaiko]

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

Actually, you MIGHT want to check your own posts in this very thread where you continually point out that CB knockdowns weren't a problem...unless someone else is posting under your account.

No no, please quote me.

I actually noted where they screwed up with the original collision mechanics......way back in the beginning of the thread.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

That video where Paul is being knocked down by the Goons, that IS the prime example of how bad collisions were in CB, THAT CATAPULT DIDN'T DIE FROM 2 STRAIGHT MINUTES OF BEING RAMMED BY MECHS IT'S OWN SIZE AND LARGER! Do you NOT get how badly messed up that is? THAT is why collisions were removed, they were ONLY used to grief people, they did not even remotely work as intended.

Debatable.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

Collisions in BTech are NOT 'oh, pardon me, let me help you back up' affairs, you hit someone at speed and you do damage to yourself AND the Mech you hit, how much damage being based on the tonnage of both Mechs and the speeds involved. Little Mechs moving really fast could rip their own Mechs apart from a collision with a building or another Mech, and big Mechs could get hurt pretty badly from those as well. I watched a friend in a Cicada fail a piloting roll on a paved road at max speed on a turn and when his Mech finally stopped rolling and skidding, he was dead(literally, cockpit took 18 points of damage) and most of his Mech was spread out over the distance of his travel before it stopped due to hitting the leg of my attlemaster(that's where the final cockpit damage came from, hurt my Battlemaster too). Yeah, physics for a walking 100 ton Mech are REALLY difficult to figure out...

yeah, and show me where I can declare a charge, crouch, lie prone......

....oh wait or roll dice.

You can't, this isn't the board game.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

if you haven't ever had a single physics class and can't do more then basic addition. It's not rocket science..er..ok..it is, but rocket science really isn't all that difficult, at least not to anyone who's taken more then a General Math class in high school or college. The CryTek engine can handle the physics, it's up to PGI to get them working as they want, which would in all likelyhood NOT be according to the true physics of the situation. Otherwise, well...35 tons vs 100 tons..VW Bug vs Mack Truck really is a good analogy there, only the Mack in this case would probably lose a leg at the very least.

Yes, KE= (1/2)mv^2 is terribly difficult

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

Really? You don't see how that fact that a Jenner could knock down ANYTHING was wrong and was one of the most obvious of the issues with the collisions? And the fact that for TWO STRAIGHT MINUTES, Paul's Catapult got knocked down over and over and over without blowing up?

Again, applying real physics in ANY way shape or form to 35 metric ton mechs running around corners at 150kph is a false economy, and if we actually DID you wouldn't want to play the game.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 April 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

No, you and Yokaiko both feel that the collisions were ok but the warping was the problem, you totally disregard the fact that there was 1 point of damage per collision, MASS had no effect on that at all. Not to mention that fact that at 20m distance, you could trip over someone else's stationary Mech due to how bad the collision detection code was? None of this rings any bells for you two?

You didn't read nearly as well as you thought you did.

Edited by Yokaiko, 09 April 2013 - 01:35 PM.

[Megalosauroid]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 09 April 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

Heres a better question: Who here remembers when the devs themselves said the Dragon's ability to knock down every other mech was due to it being given 100 tons of mass in ERROR?
That it wasnt intentional? I do... Then again that was on the CB boards and theyre gone

Maybe it wasnt a programming error, but it was an error of judgment.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Yokaiko, on 09 April 2013 - 01:34 PM, said:

Debatable.

ok, Ill bite; debate the merits of a system where when you are the last mech alive on your side the other team then desides to bowl you for over two minutes straight to have fun.
And dont say "just DC"
Thats not a merit based on the system.

Megalosauroid, on 09 April 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

Maybe it wasnt a programming error, but it was an error of judgment.

but it was a programming error as the devs themselves said it was. Dammit I wish they hadnt made the CB boards disappear. Hell I wish that for more reasons than just this; I had some nice threads there Id still be linking to -.-
I believe their words were "The value was set to 100 tons in error, it will be fixed" but the whole system was yanked before that could even happen

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 09 April 2013 - 01:39 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Lack of collisions is not a deal breaker to me, nor most of my friends who play apparently and it ranks lower on the list of things to ask for corrections/fixes on for that reason.

Fix the myriad of things wrong with the game first, introduce CW before the game finishes dying a slow death and then work on things like collisions imo.