378 replies to this topic

[Ningyo]

Ok I voted yes before I read entire thread, and I stand by it, I think they should take another LOOK at some mech sizes. Admittedly I have only played for a few days now, but when I see a catapult at 1500m I think oh that will be easy to shoot. It is already a fairly good mech so I don't think it should be made much smaller, but maybe 5-10%. I sometimes start and see a big assault mech in front of me so I move my targeting reticle over it and it says trebuchet (really it looks like it should be 70+ tons).

Now I think changes should be fairly small really if at all, and should be done based mostly on game balance. (And really just think they should take another look at some.)

Ok on to the weight to height part. ALL of the arguments are meaningless, because every one of you has forgotten or ignored something (even some of the battletech books ignore this). A mech does NOT weigh what it is labeled in tonnage. That is the mechs loadout weight, it ignores internal structure, arm and leg actuators, cockpit, wiring, teleporters to move your ammo from the right arm to the weapon in the left arm, multidimesional pockets to let you sit in the eyeball of an atlas, and those spiffy antennas on top of your mech (antennas probably don't weigh much).

It is good for them to be fairly close (+/- 20% in a loadout weight : displacement comparisant) in terms of size to tonnage however at least as a guideline. I think it is much more important for them to work on some other issues however so think this is more something they need to keep in mind and maybe if they decide a mech needs modified put it in a planned to do list. such as (when we have time make catapult about 5% smaller) type of thing so players can not bother devs too much during the process.

Btw overall great job on mech design I think it is 95% right just be better to be 100% right.

[Tennex]

Ningyo, on 10 May 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

I sometimes start and see a big assault mech in front of me so I move my targeting reticle over it and it says trebuchet (really it looks like it should be 70+ tons).

when the highlander sneakpeak trailer came out. in the low viz footage people thought the highlander was a trebuchet...

Edited by Tennex, 10 May 2013 - 08:53 PM.

[Red squirrel]

IMHO one main problems of the Stalker are the Hitboxes. The side torsos go allmost all the way to the front.
So, if you shoot directly at the front of what appears to be the CT, you will spread damage between RT, CT, and LT.

The best is to shoot between the legs where you would expect the balls if it was a human this part is completely CT hitbox.


But hey, why is the Stalker smaller or as tall as than my Catapult?
Of all the broken mech sizes, the Stalker is the worst. The Cent works fine for me though.

Edited by Red squirrel, 11 May 2013 - 11:00 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Thontor, on 10 May 2013 - 04:57 AM, said:

I personally think the mediums are already harder to hit than the mechs equal in height but not tonnage, this coming from a medium pilot primarily, so I'm not sure they need to be made smaller.

My Centurions go 98kph and to 99% i am in matches that contain in aveage 6 enemy mechs that can and will 1-shot me the second i only go a tiny bit out of cover.
98kph sounds fast but is to slow to really do flanking manevuers or to get away from fast or jumpcapable heavys, even Assaults that only make 60kph can chase me for quite a while even in Areas with much cover.
I only can fight a range where the Chance for a miss is higher or be a total Coward.
I really dont feel that any Mech from Medium to Assault is hard to hit.
Only some Lights still manage despite HSR to get away unhurt from Laserfire if its not 4xLL or something.

Most Medium Mechs could need some sort of adjustment but it wont help the Metagame of High Alpha Warrior.

Edited by Thorqemada, 11 May 2013 - 11:10 AM.

[Ningyo]

ah I am the one mistaken, though omg they made the internal structure light, and all the other stuff must be near weightless.

[MCXL]

Yea. I think the most valid one is the Stalker VS Catapult. Why is the Cat bigger? I dont just mean the ears either, I swear from the front and rear the cat is easier to hit.

[Thomas Covenant]

I was wondering about this when I started playing. Everything looked like it was either a light, heavy or assualt. There is not much noticable bridge in size between small and large.

[Deathlike]

Let me put my points into each mech in detail:

1) Centurion - I don't see the problem really. Perhaps the damage intake on the torsos is much lower than it should be (IIRC, that is the case is it not?). As currently constituted, this is a non-issue. I would only agree if they fix the damage that is received... but right now it's technically fine as is. Smarter players leg Centurions, which at the moment really make this less of an issue than it should be. If you really wanted to address Centurions, you would up/buff their base engine speed to 300 instead of 275 for the A and AL variants.

2) Trebuchet - Maybe it is the shape of the mech, but it does look a lot like the Highlander from a distance. With that said, the buckets have a lot more speed than the Highlander and are generally used for poptarting. For the most part, I don't see this as an issue, since their primary weakness is their arms (specifically the right side) and although I haven't driven one yet (it's on my MWO bucket list), it's kind of a non-issue IMO.

3) Stalker - It is large, but not in height but in "girth" (different from an Atlas) from its side. It could stand to be bigger, but I honestly don't think that's why it is superior (effective hardpoints, but also easy to cripple like an Atlas). I would give you more credit if you wanted the Awesome to be smaller.. if not have its hitboxes change in a favorable way. A Catapult, which probably couldn't hurt having a size reduction, is a far easier target to get at than a Stalker...

Anyways... you got 1.5 mechs worthy of complaining against, but not enough to make me care enough.

[MCXL]

It's also worth noting that I don't think mech sizes are like WAY off or anything, it just feels like 5-10% tweaks would do it.

[SubRyan]

Commando chassis should be tiny but they are on par with the Spider

[S p a n i a r d]

I agree the Stalker should be re-sized (specifically, the torso should be made slightly wider).

Because of the "narrowness" of the Stalker's torso it's quite difficult to hit the Center portion, specially from the front.

What happens is that the damage is frequently, beautifully distributed to the right and left torso which results in

a higher-than-usual staying power. I'm sure some of you have seen this several times, a Stalker

that seems to be as hard as an Atlas.

[LordBraxton]

Stalker is way too small, all mediums are too large.

If you disagree you probably pilot stalkers and don't enjoy piloting mediums.

[Tennex]

LordBraxton, on 12 May 2013 - 12:31 PM, said:

Stalker is way too small, all mediums are too large.

If you disagree you probably pilot stalkers and don't enjoy piloting mediums.

lol all 10% of the people that disagree

[zraven7]

Does anyone have a listing of Canon mech dimensions? Sarna doesn't have that listed.

[Keifomofutu]

zraven7, on 13 May 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

Does anyone have a listing of Canon mech dimensions? Sarna doesn't have that listed.

Someone did show a chart earlier. Basically the way canon deals with it was that mechs of the same weight were always very close to the same height. Cent in canon is about the same height as hunch and skinnier. The stalker is taller than the awesome and of course atlas is taller than all of em.

[Durahl]

Tennex, on 23 April 2013 - 04:01 PM, said:

Why is the terbie/cent as big as the awesome?

There is a 30 ton difference between the two medium mechs and the assault mech.

Why are they the same size?

The weight of an object is not necessarily related to the size of it so within reasonable margins an Assault Mech can have the size of a Heavy or the other way around.

[Tennex]

Durahl, on 13 May 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

The weight of an object is not necessarily related to the size of it so within reasonable margins an Assault Mech can have the size of a Heavy or the other way around.

thats a really good point. and i think its part of the problem that caused the trebuchet to be so big.

if an assault can be the size of a heavy. and a medium can be the size of a heavy. then by deduction, the medium can be the size of the assault. simple A=B B=C then A=C stuff.

and to push that logic further. a light mech can be the size of a medium mech. and if the medium mech can be the size of an assault mech. then the light mech can be the size of an assault mech.


you see what im saying? when does it end? where is the boundary for how big a mech can be. because if no line is drawn in the sand. you got mechs 2 weight classes apart being the same height. like we have now

Edited by Tennex, 13 May 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[Keifomofutu]

Durahl, on 13 May 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

The weight of an object is not necessarily related to the size of it so within reasonable margins an Assault Mech can have the size of a Heavy or the other way around.

All mechs are built to carry the same parts. Fairly interchangeable you might say. You would have to somehow prove a certain mech was built from toilet paper. You can't just say derrr its less dense cause reasons!

Exact same armor, weapons, heatsinks, actuators, gyros.

But none of that really matters cause this is a game. Balance is the most important thing and some of these mechs have a frontal profile that is very poorly balanced to their competitors.

[Colddawg]

makes me wonder how off the Flea is going to be.

[Keifomofutu]

Colddawg, on 14 May 2013 - 06:58 AM, said:

makes me wonder how off the Flea is going to be.

If they do it right it should be a similar scale difference to the jenner and the cicada only opposite. People bash the flea but if it is small enough with a decent number of laser hardpoints it could end up being a real PITA.