45 replies to this topic

[Frostiken]

Ghogiel, on 09 June 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

What Frostiken fails to mention is that since this image was made, many moons ago,the Uziel has had a size decrease and the Shadwowcat had a size increase.

I recall no Shadowcat size adjustments. I thought they just shrank the Uziel and the Harasser.

Regardless the point isn't to go 'look MWLL is broken', it's 'look at how is used to be and why they had to spend time fixing it'.

Edited by Frostiken, 09 June 2012 - 03:03 AM.

[Ghogiel]

The scat never did get a size increase unfortunately . must be on the never ending big list of **** to do. Same with the Osiris lolhueg.

but honestly looking at what Mr. Debris has done to the designs, nothing is standing out as terrible is this regard. But there is only so much he can do artistically without throwing the baby out with the bath water. A madcat needs ears or it just isn't a madcat. It'll all come down to the head and center torso if you can't drill through a side and get a kill though, so it'll work out differently what lends itself to survivability and what is begging for a head shot. (hmmm everything is begging for a head shot though...)

Edited by Ghogiel, 09 June 2012 - 07:29 AM.

[Lightfoot]

MW3 and MW4 resolved this with hit boxxes for each section rather than the visual physical dimensions. End result was the 'mechs retained their general easy to hit areas like the Madcat's cockpit and missile racks or the Thanatos's side torsos, but nothing was instant hit, you still needed to aim well.

I remember discovering the the MW3 Avatar had the smallest hit box of the 70-75 ton 'mechs and switched to it while everyone else kept using the Thor. However in the end everyone figured this out and all you saw after that were Avatars. Revealing something to keep in mind, that players will use the 'mech that has the best abilities no matter how small the advantage might be. This doesn't mean all 'mechs need to be identical, it means they must have perks that balance out!

Edited by Lightfoot, 09 June 2012 - 07:48 AM.

[Kyle Hawkins]

Ghogiel, on 09 June 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

What Frostiken fails to mention is that since this image was made, many moons ago,the Uziel has had a size decrease and the Shadwowcat had a size increase.

Well yes, but that's kind of the whole point. The fact that they were changed is simply proof of the issue, and also proof that there are ways to help fix it.

I've been wondering whether for mechs like the Mad Cat and Daishi, which are well known for having problems with being cored out in no time whilst the rest of the mech stays pristine, whether simply extending the side torso hit boxes down either side of the nose would help towards reducing this effect. I've been meaning to do some tests with friends in MW4 for a while now, just to get a bit of insight into how it's been done before, but not got round to it.

I have tested head shots before (in MW4), and found some rather varying results. Certain mechs like the Catapult you can seem to rain fire all over the front of it and never seem to hit the head. In the Atlas case the head counted as center torso, and its was actually a single particular eye you had to aim for, making it very tricky though still giving you an easy to identify target zone. Others like the Mauler I noticed were incredibly vulnerable to head shots, with the whole front glass panel forming a rather large and easy target. When it came to designing my mechs, I would actually very often dump half a ton of armour out of the cockpit if possible, simply since AI enemies never hit it. Might not want to make that gamble when it comes to facing off against you guys in MWO though of course.

And like lightfoot says, I'm simply hoping for a nice balance to the different chassis that lets them keep their unique perks and quirks, but prevents any being overly identified as "the best" and being the only one you see. I was watching my brother play Armored Core: V today, and looking over the leader boards for the top 100 players, you get this unfortunate thing where despite the game having hundreds of parts each with different versions, you still have 80% of those top players piloting near identical designs. Which is a real shame.

[Orion Pirate]

Kyle Hawkins, on 08 June 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

Going back to the post that started the fuss...

Say that again a few months down the line when the full game is out and underway. This kind of thread WILL turn up again, talking about something more specific next time with people clamoring for a fix.

It's not unfounded, its a valid concern and a repeatedly proven and significant issue in Mech Warrior games. It's one I trust the Piranha devs to be aware of and doing their best with, but it's also one that the MWLL devs were aware of too and still made mistakes and had to put special thought into fixing latter on. One might say that all of these "concern threads" about some gameplay or balance issue are largely wasted idle keystrokes whilst waiting for the game since they're unlikely to change anything, but some issues have already been shown to have been noticed by the devs and confirmed fixed or under their attention. And what else are we meant to talk about? (The AC20 velocity in the first teaser vid for example)

Things don't have to be wildly unbalanced to keep the mechs unique. No one's asking for all mechs to be equal and identical (certainly not). There are plenty of subtle fixes that can be made to hitbox areas and minor model sizing tweeks that can be made without harming the mech's character. Since honestly, look at all the official artwork for mechs. Most of them are about as consistent and precisely drawn as a set factory mis-shapes. There's room for adjustment.

Sorry, I have to disagree.

Since MWO is NOT MWLL, and none of us have played MWO to my knowledge, then I feel the concern is unfounded, which leads me back to my original post and thought process of mechs look different, therefore some will be easier to hit then others (speed will have an effect too, should we nerf that as well?) and there is not much that can be done about it except standardize the mechs, which I know many people would not want. If you don't want to get hit, don't use the mech, and since this is a F2P game, the devs will make adjustments to it or they will be losing some potential income.

Since the BT universe is not standardized in their mech designs and this is an issue for some people in real time mech simulation first person perspective game mechanics, then maybe the BT universe is not for you... I know I have been told this before at least once...

What I really WANT to know, if this is so important to some people, why is it not in the Developer Q&A section?

Edited by Orion Pirate, 09 June 2012 - 06:07 PM.

[Frostiken]

Quote

why is it not in the Developer Q&A section?

Because the developer Q&A threads are 'place we ignore real questions, answer old questions and only pick 4 questions and 1 comedy option out of the 300 questions asked'.