522 replies to this topic

[-Muta-]

What is the link to check the update dates?????


+1

[Taram]

I approve.... long overdue in fact. It'll make terrain actually matter and give a meaningful use for Jump Jets besides hopping on top of buildings.

[Thariel]

Nice one, great "assault-nerf", but consider some extremely strong mechs like the phract in that class.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

MrMadguy, on 28 June 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

Overall I like the idea, cuz I understand, that current state of moving physics in game is very poor.

1) But I also don't want balance to be futher shifted towards light mechs. They are invulnerable enough even now. I've got good hardware and relatively good ping, but it's still very hard to hit them. Sometimes one spider is running among whole of your team and lives longer, then my 100 ton Atlas, while being able to kill some mechs 1vs1. Futher increase of difference in speed/manoeuvrability may cause even more problems.

2) Also I don't like, when movement is not smooth enought. It's very frustrasing, when you constantly stumbling about something. And I think, that heavy mechs have enough problems with moving now. For example after playing Jager for some time, when I tryed Atlas my first time, it was so crappy experience. It has taken some time to use to constant stumbling about something.

So. here is my suggestion. Physics model should be even more realistical - climbing speed penalties should depend on your engine power. Something like real phyisics:

<Traction force> = <Engine power> / <Speed> - <Friction force> - <Gravity force>
<Acceleration> = <Traction force> / <Mass>

Where:

<Friction force> = <Friction coefficient> * <Mass> * 9,81
<Gravity force> = <Mass> * 9,81 * Sin(<Climb angle>)

So max speed will be achieved, when <Traction force> = 0, i.e.

<Engine power> / <Speed> = <Friction force> + <Gravity force>

And finnaly:

<Max speed> = <Engine power> / (<Friction force> - <Gravity force>)

What does it mean?
1) More weight you have - slower you moving. That's what we have now.
2) More angle you climbing at - lesser speed you have. That's what we want to achive.
3) But!!! More power your engine have - at bigger angles you may climb with the same speed!
What will it give us?
1) You won't stuck in situation, where you have assault mech and can't fix it's mobility some way, even if you really want.
2) Heavier engines will be more valuable, cuz they'll allow you not to just travel faster, but even to overcome more difficult obstacles.

I really like these ideas. However I think individual mechs should have their own quirks as well. For instance: the Raven has extremely log ‘shins’ with articulation very high up on the leg. This mech should be the absolute worse hill climber of any mech yet released. While extremely tall mechs with knees would gain a bonus (Atlas), as would mechs with articulated arms.

Speaking of height, mechs like the Atlas (and Awesome and Centurion) are relatively tall with long articulated lets, these mechs should easily step over small obstacles (like the pipes in Caustic Valley) which might be impassible to short mechs that cannot even see over them (like the commando).

[gjnii]

I also want to make sure this won't affect a mechs ability to step over smallish objects (proportionate to its leg size).

if my atlas has trouble handling steeper slopes fine. But I hope it can handle shin high sloped obstacles without losing all its speed. I'll be really annoyed if I lose 15kph cause my mechs foot happens to come down half on and half off one of those silly trucks in river city or something.

[gjnii]

I also want to mention its going to be even rougher being the "low ground" spawn on alpine... now the enemy can slide down on you at any time, from their awesome high ground point, and you really have no good way to avoid them that doesn't take at least 2 minutes of top speed travel as an assault through open terrain...

Topside however can be in your face in 2 minutes if they decide they want to be.

[ego1607]

I think this has a potential to finally make mediums a bit more viable.

Then again, cramming hunchback and cataphract in the same category... you're ******* me, right?

Edited by ego1607, 28 June 2013 - 02:01 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Kattspya, on 28 June 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

The slowdown when touching walls is gong to be so broken and frustrating it's going to be hilarious. The textures and collision meshes are not matching each other very well at the moment and it is already frustrating when you get snagged on invisible corners under the current system. Imagine how it will be when you only have to scrape invisible corners to lose forward speed.

Then there is the second part of the problem. Currently there is almost no sense of when your arms or body are clearing an obstacle. Now it only leads to a few wasted shots but imagine when it kills your speed in a medium or light. EDIT: 3PV just got really really useful. Small advantage mein *****...

I'm betting the wonderful testers at PGI are testing under optimum conditions so imagine what packet loss, unstable ping and high ping combined with the greatest net code of all time will do to exacerbate the problem above.

I think both mechanics sound great on paper but my faith in PGI to implement it without burning down the forums and without having to hotpatch it out is about zero. It is going to be like collisions only worse as architecture generally does not try to get out of the way.

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Sorry, joking! I had to do it. I think the bumping into obstacles will cause much initial frustration, but it will have 2 significant in-game effects: It will reduce haphazard clumping of Mechs, and it will force people to reconsider the value of Speed in an urban fighting environment. Currently, you can clump-up and fire away from a blob of Heavies/Assaults, but this change will encourage them to stay somewhere around shoulder-width apart and to focus more on their maneuvering than just pumping rounds downrange while trundling forward or wall-hugging.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 28 June 2013 - 02:08 PM.

[Kattspya]

Prosperity Park, on 28 June 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

Sorry, joking! I had to do it. I think the bumping into obstacles will cause much initial frustration, but it will have 2 significant in-game effects: It will reduce haphazard clumping of Mechs, and it will force people to reconsider the value of Speed in an urban fighting environment. Currently, you can clump-up and fire away from a blob of Heavies/Assaults, but this change will encourage them to stay somewhere around shoulder-width apart and to focus more on their maneuvering than just pumping rounds downrange while trundling forward or wall-hugging.

Agreed about initial frustration and the rest of your post. My point is that if you have no feel for your body and collision meshes are slightly out of wack combined with even small desynch from the server will make it ever frustrating and inconsistent. At least visibly inconsistent in case of meshes. Dedicated players could probably cope but with inordinate amounts of frustration, new players not so much.

The paper idea is fine, great even but the implementation will suck and network errors will compound that even more. We'll see if I have special precognitive powers soon enough, or maybe not considering which game this is...

EDIT: added a few lost words.

Edited by Kattspya, 28 June 2013 - 02:17 PM.

[DeaconW]

Good change.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

3 things:
1. since when is a Jenner a "tiny" mech? It doesn't belong in the same category as the commando and spider.
2. Canyon Network is going to be interesting. Looking forward to light jumping mechs pushing PPC boats into the canyons and hearing them curse.
3. Looks like an indirect buff to lrms. Let's wait and see.

Oh another thing...u realise that the Awesome was handicapped to begin with, right? I mean, lift the legs a little more pls

Edited by Brown Hornet, 28 June 2013 - 03:50 PM.

[Phalanx100bc]

BIG THUMBS UP for realistic game mechanics!

[Lucy Cameron]

And this is why I love jump jets.

[PostalPatriot]

To be the voice of constructive descent
I am concerned that this might just unnecessarily slow down play on some maps. Can't even imagine playing Tourmaline Desert in an atlas, uggg and alpine all-ready makes me want to Alpha override my self to death (i want to do that even in my spider). Not sure what the slow down percent is though.

[Ordate]

Overall I like the idea. I am however a little concerned with what is going to happen with jumpjets and you are jumping over something and just nick the edge. If you come to a complete stop horizontal or vertical means you wont get ontop. Which I can understand if you smash your whole body into the wall, but if you just nick you big toe, shouldn't really have an effect.

[SubRyan]

For the classes of movement restrictions, shouldn't that be based on a combination of mech tonnage, stride length, leg design, and foot actuators?

Edited by SubRyan, 29 June 2013 - 05:13 AM.

[Bad Andy]

one concern I have about this change is that there may be some areas on maps that mechs could get stuck on much easier and be unable to get out.

[Disapirro]

Bad Andy, on 29 June 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

one concern I have about this change is that there may be some areas on maps that mechs could get stuck on much easier and be unable to get out.

That would be known as the 'kill zone' to JJ enabled mechs.

[p00k]

more hilarious will be all the places that mechs get stuck in each other due to a half-implemented collision system combined with these slope issues. it already happens in a few places on alpine and canyon, and i have absolutely zero faith that pgi will be able to resolve this.

especially considering these issues have been around as long as the maps have been (few months now for alpine), yet pgi hasn't bothered to even look at them. ******* pathetic

[Zordicron]

I will not proclaim doom on this like others have, but I am not going to write in "OMG BEST EVAH" like some have either, not till i test this.

My initial concerns:
Only a handful of maps really, however there are some very noticable flaws that will probably need to be looked at.

River City: both versions obviously. The rocky sloped faces near upper city and that side's base- by removing ability to traverse this, there is now a massive bottleneck on how to get into upper city. There is apparently another one in the approach to that base in lower city. Results: That side base team can now do two things- Camp base, and basically force the lower team to walk up a ramp in single file to engage, or stroll over to upper city on the bridge iof the lower team goes that way, and again, watch the team walk single file to engage.
This already happens to a lesser extent with upper city. These new map changes IMO are going to give the upper team a massive advantage in strategy and fireing lines. all they will need is one quick scout, or just a LRM boat for suppression fire to force the other team into a death march. Lower teams only option is going to be to head to the water, and wait. Currently that is about as easy to convince pug-mates to do as pull teeth. I am actually sort of dreading my first match in RC after these changes.

Frozen City:
Not that it was particularily used before, but the new slope mechanics are going to pretty much eliminate any and all use of the areas around the south and east by anything other then light mechs. Even a heavy mech now will be severely detained trying to navigate back up to the main city area, much less a Atlas. This will not have a whole lot of effect on Assault mode, but in conquest mode, Assaults and heavy now too most likely will be contained to the actual city, for fear of being trapped into a 5 minute hike around the bend to the east or south. I expect even the bigger mediums and that will think twice now without JJ. maybe this change will really break up the Zerg play, but I kinda think it will have the opposite effect- some teams will Zerg harder and totally stomp the other team that didnt.

Alpine: This is a welcome change for sniper mountain. However, without accompanying changes to base cap mechanics, base caps are going to be almost impossible to stop without dedicated gaurds here. it is nigh impossible for anything other then a fast light to beeline straight for RTB currently from the middle ground battle area. Now nobody can beeline straight for it, especially the upper base. We will have to see just how bad cap warrior gets on that map.
EDIT: oh just thought of this after looking at the map some more- mountain base really could just sit and camp base now. There are only 2 routes into the base. All they need is a scout to tell the team which way the enemy went, and then set up a massacre line at the appropriate entrance.

Canyon: Oh my favorite. No offense to PGI or anyone who likes that map really, but I havent really liked it from day one. the concept was good, but there are so many "traps" now for big mechs or non JJ mechs it can be very frustrating to get around. At least the snipe war should recede a little here, but I really dread running my Atlas on this map in the future.



Overall: An interesting change, i will test this to see how it plays out. I fear a few maps will need significant tweaks. Also, LRM boats just got promoted, indirect weapons and a new barrier mechanic= prerequisite for victory. On paper it looks like smaller mechs will gain utility and some advantage. I am not sure this is the case for anything but actually traversing the map. For instance, while dueling mechs much larger then my own, I frequently use terrain with inclines to throw off my opponants tracking- it is harder for some to track both horizontal and vertical movements for aiming- IE requires more skill. While I am proficient at this, I can move my mech around my foe, up and back down slopes and hit, my foe will miss- etc. With this new mechanic, my mech will simply slow down on a slope and the bigger mech now gets an EASIER time to hit me instead of more difficult. While on paper one would think it would still be an advantage because the larger mech will slow down more, in reality the HGN or Atlas or Stalker is just standing in place turning to try to keep up with my XL engine jager or max engine Hunchie. Now I will slow down for them on any decent slope I previously used for elevation change advantage, totally negating this tactic. This tactic was really the only way for a lighter mech to brawl a heavy one on Alpine for any type of duration- now the movement advantage can only be used for escape.

But we will see. Maybe this will pan out differently- it depends a lot on how the PUG masses go with this.

Edited by Eldagore, 29 June 2013 - 10:16 AM.