70 replies to this topic

[Kibble]

This is also an F2P title. We all expect too much. It's time to lower our standards.

[Jasen]

Kibble, on 18 June 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

This is also an F2P title. We all expect too much. It's time to lower our standards.

Actually I only expect what PGI says we're getting.. just a shame they have about a 5% accuracy index on their words.

[Mister Blastman]

I've wanted a system like this in Mechwarrior since Mechwarrior 2. It'd lengthen battles and reward accuracy and skill. There's nothing preventing them from doing it other than better visual damage modelling.

[Jasen]

Mister Blastman, on 18 June 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

There's nothing preventing them from doing it other than better visual damage modelling.

Hit detection, armor destruction code, tons more damage modelling, tons more texture work... not to mention the whole thing is pointless if they are all going to share the same "HP" levels in that section... otherwise we're reworking entire core game mechanics...


Yea, barely anything at all from a company that cant buff SRMs in 3 months.

[Gaan Cathal]

ArtistX, on 18 June 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

In my opinion this would fix alot of the balance issues MWO has including:

- Making LB-Xs more viable
- Making SRMs more viable
- Laser would be more viable compared to PPCs and Ballistics.
- Making Brawling more viable compared to Sniping..
- Slowing down combat so that it's longer and more tactical...
- Making Assualt mechs into the juggernauts they should be(instead of huge targets)
- Awesomes would be viable...
- LRMs could be more viable and not overpowered..

It would actually take more combinations of weapons to effectively strip armor and go for internals...

Whilst a genuinely interesting idea, I'm confused as to why you think it'll have that effect.

An instant-damage weapon will still frontload all it's damage into one hex, since it will only hit one point.

A laser, which can currently be kept on one compartment with a little effort will need to be kept on a location a fraction of the size, and with no visual indicator.

LB-X and SRM will likewise actually be hurt by this, because whereas with a currently LB-X you might hit a compartment with, say, 5 of your pellets, they will now each hit a different hex.

What you're nerfing is the ability to chew a compartment with multiple time-separated shots, if enough damage to breach hits at once, it'll still breach the one hex fine.

[Mister Blastman]

Gaan Cathal, on 18 June 2013 - 11:38 AM, said:

What you're nerfing is the ability to chew a compartment with multiple time-separated shots, if enough damage to breach hits at once, it'll still breach the one hex fine.

You are missing the point. It will be harder to hit that same, exact hex a second time to do the finishing blow.

[Gaan Cathal]

Mister Blastman, on 18 June 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

You are missing the point. It will be harder to hit that same, exact hex a second time to do the finishing blow.

Hm, I was confusing some prospective armour values later in the thread with the OP's numbers. It'd work if you couldn't just wipe out a component with, say, 60 damage. That's about as high an alpha I can see hitting the same spot at once. Though they would definitely need to change UACs to have a delay in doubletapped shots.

[Tabrias07]

This would have an absolutely MASSIVE performance impact.

They're already removing things to make the game run better on people's toasters, there's no way they could do this.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

They'd have to rebalance all the weapons, add splash damage (which they never got right), and in general do too much. The general idea could work by dividing the current locations into 1-4 bigger sections and I'd approve of that.

[Unbound Inferno]

Fascinating idea, but its quite contrary to the basic battletech lore that mwchwarrior is supposedly based off of.

It would be a suitable option within another game, but not here.

The problems we are faced with now is a longer-standing issue of a fundamental flaw in using a RNG-based damage scale in a precision-based FPS game. The problem of having pinpoint accuracy that can be controlled with balance figures relying on basic inaccuracy is causing the root of the issues here. We've already stepped up off the pure numbers with Double Armor, reworking the mechanics of the armor itself like this might warrant us calling this game by another name instead.

[Lostdragon]

Go look at the hitbox diagram of an Awesome, which PGI thinks they nailed, and then see if you think this is feasible for them or something they would consider doing.

[Pinselborste]

Kraven Kor, on 18 June 2013 - 10:50 AM, said:

Again, neat idea, but doubt it would ever work.

More hitboxes = more problems, any way you slice it.

If another game could make something like this work, that would be sweet. Would be great for a "realistic" tanks game; where you either deflect the shot entirely, or explode violently

some planes in warthunder have 100 hitzones, and it works.

Unbound Inferno, on 18 June 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Fascinating idea, but its quite contrary to the basic battletech lore that mwchwarrior is supposedly based off of.

lore doesnt matter in a Balance decision, also i dont you will read in a bt book that a hit on a finger on an Atlas arm will rip the whole arm off.

Edited by Pinselborste, 18 June 2013 - 02:19 PM.

[Jasen]

Pinselborste, on 18 June 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

some planes in warthunder have 100 hitzones, and it works.

Impressive actually. Didn't know that... Granted I hate the warthunder noob flying **** (hold your mouse over a dot and hold trigger to be best pilot ever). But that is still a cool tech achievement for the pace of that game.

[Ansel]

Roughneck45, on 18 June 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

No, that looks awful.

Im sure it would be a nightmare to code as well.

Damage does not need to be spread for you, you need to learn to torso twist. The fact that you can actually target 11 different parts of the mech is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game.

Roughneck45, on 18 June 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

ahahahahahahahahahahahah

I would just shoot you in the "nuts" as it were and laugh as you futilely flail your torso about, crotchshots hits the whole CT, LuLz.

I love bein called a "hacker" cause some guy thinks turning his torso is "going to spread damage" ahahahahah.

[Unbound Inferno]

Pinselborste, on 18 June 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

lore doesnt matter in a Balance decision, also i dont you will read in a bt book that a hit on a finger on an Atlas arm will rip the whole arm off.

That's a novel/story? In battletech itself the tabletop game has exactly the hitboxes you see at the moment, where it hits was decided by a random dice roll. That is what I am talking about.

What we have now is the issue of the hitboxes being the same thing, but the fact we don't randomly decide where hits land now - leaving massive damage reliably in one general location.

The root of the issue boils down to that basic accuracy, not to demean the absurdity of sizes of things - a 65 ton Catapult being larger than a 80 ton Stalker for example - but that accuracy is the main issue.


I can guarantee if we had something that would either randomize landing hits, influence convergence or force the limitations of perfect accuracy - preferably a combination of all three - we'd see a drastic increase in what we all would want for fights.

[ExtremeA79]

Kraven Kor, on 18 June 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

I think this would be a neat idea.

Armor (in the real world...) is, generally speaking, kind of "all or nothing." Either it deflects the incoming attack entirely, or the incoming attack breeches the armor and musses things all up.

Repetitive hits to the same spot mean nothing, until the armor is actually damaged or weakened or breached in that spot.

With this, light mechs could have say "15 points per hex" and fewer overall hexes (an AC/20 will breach one hex, period.) Heavier mechs have more per hex; so assaults might have 30 per hex, mediums 20, heavies 25, or whatever, right? And also more hexes overall.

A truly good shot could land all his ordinance on a single hex and be nearly guaranteed a chance at internal damage and criticals; those that spray and pray wouldn't see all that much difference to their performance.

Any shot that hits a spot with a breach, or breaches a hex of armor, deals damage to the internal structure as normal, and gets a chance at a crit.

Now, I don't see this happening here and would not recommend it, but it is an interesting idea.

We do know, though, that more hitboxes = more problems, generally speaking.

UMMM for your INFORMATION, this isn't the kind of armor you see in tanks. Its the kind of armor you see in space shuttles.

ITS ABLATIVE ARMOR,\.

[aniviron]

You should have used a different mech in the example pic, OP. The awesome is so wide it is causing horizontal scroll bars to appear in my browser window.

[Angel of Annihilation]

The OP kinda has a point. Right now 80 armor in say the CT means different things for different mechs. Take a Awesome for example, the CT hitbox on this mech is huge making it very easy to hit time after time. Then take the CT on a Stalker which is tiny in comparison. The end result is that the Stalkers 80 armor on the CT is equalivant to probably 120 armor when compared to the Awesome, at least from a survivability standpoint.

That being said, the Hex system the OP proposed would actually work great.

What you do is bring the AF back in line with traditional rules and then make each and every HEX have the same value. For example, if the CT AF value is 40 then each of the smaller hexes have 40 AF each meaning that it would take 40 damage to penetrate in any one section.

This would not only make armor values equally effective no matter the size and shape of the mech but would serve to slow down the gameplay make it alot more tactical.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Kibble, on 18 June 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

This is also an F2P title. We all expect too much. It's time to lower our standards.

This is where you are wrong.

The reason games are going to the F2P model is because the F2P model is actually more profitable for game developers than the subscription model. Therefore we honestly should be expecting more, not less.

Also when you consider that unlike a subscription model, a F2P model lives or dies by it ability to convince its players to spend even more money than they would on a subscription, it is equally obvious that a F2P game should offer even more AAA content.

However your post outlines the sad turth that in general people are kinda dumb. We see the word Free and automatically associate that in our minds with being cheap or lacking features. This unconscious word/concept association thus allows game developers to pretty much justify giving us crap while we just blindly lemming along like accepting sheep.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 18 June 2013 - 05:53 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

imho this shoulda been on the board for alpha, a lot of us knew a system like this adapted to MWO would make a huge difference, even just splitting the torsos into 9 segments instead of 3.