359 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Furball42, on 02 July 2013 - 10:23 PM, said:

Ok, I like this change.. I really do and that surprised a couple of people online last night. Here are my thoughts on a couple of the maps I played:

Firstly, although a cool map, Alpine is essentially a bit broken now. I mean, it was big to begin with, but now meeting another party is a 50/50 chance. Maybe this will be less of a problem with 12v12, but now, because om the limited movement, the map is just a curiosity.

Secondly, River City... Boy, have things changed.. Running into the city full blast is not an option anymore - it is more of a slow cautious approach and I like it. City fights are precarious things - you don't know what lurks.. and your movement is supposed to be limited. If you want to run, go into the river. Interesting play.

Canyon.. although I only played it once, I have to say I approve. Although I have to agree with many of the threaders here that getting stuck on the smallest of outcroppings and rocks piloting a 'las is quite annoying. BUT, and this was awesome, our assault lance got ambushed by a Victor 'mech.. He managed to deal out quite a lot of punishment standing up upon the ridge before he fell down and we blew him sky high - Jumpjets are really quite a powerful tactical tool...as it should be. Will have to play this a little more methinks.

It took me a couple of games to get used to the new movement mechanics, and I played with my Raven, Catapult and Atlas. it is going to take some getting used to, but I approve of what it brings to the game.

In response to Alpine here, I actually found that the changes literally required mechs to stay behind and defend the base, and so a lance of us did to resounding success.

River City I found me a ramp, went up it and basically shot anything that got close so I didn't get to experience much. But my teammates claim that they are going slower in the water and liked it. But I thought that wasn't implemented yet?

Canyon my group had mixed feelings. One guy hated it in his Atlas because he kept getting stuck on shin-high boulders. I confess it'd be nice to be able to kick these things out of the way or crush them with only a slight pause. Better if we could see them in our way and then shoot them down with lasers so they won't be an obstacle. (Also think the assaults should get downward facing belly cams that you can switch to in order to see what's going on under your feet, but if we get that we'd eventually want rear cameras and our rear-mounted weapons properly rear mounted and our flippable arms flippable).

I enjoyed my experience in an Atlas on it. I found myself luring enemies down into the canyons so that I could have myself easy kills. I only got stuck on one rock, but I know from seeing it in other perspectives this 'pebble' is taller than the Atlas's knee. Smaller ones slowed me down but didn't stop me.

I rather like the more tactical experience on Canyon, though as a Blackjack I found myself frustrated in realizing I was in one that didn't have jumpjets and couldn't climb most of the usual slopes. Instead, I kept trying different ones and found one I could climb At some point while being chased by a Hunchback I led the enemy to a thigh-high boulder and he got stuck on it, allowing me to pelt him a few good times before he backed up and went around it. Quite nice. Usually they just 'leap' over them.

Lordred had a fast Centurion chasing him on Caustic Valley and kept leaping over large hills to buy time, causing the Centurion to stop, turn, and run around them. Didn't buy enough time but it certainly helped.

Gotta say this has increased the value of my Raven 4X. Only thing that would increase it even more is knockdowns so I can go back to drop-kicking Atlases, hopefully landing on my feet so I can fire my AC/20 into his face.

[Blood78]

Movement archetypes applied to hills and slopes are awesome. What's not awesome is that some random objects on the ground is flagged and incline is applied. I've run into a number of these that literally puts you to a screeching halt over a pebble that Mech would easily crush or walk over.

There are number of these ungroomed small objects flagged with incline all over every map. Upper City of River City have a bunch that reduces speed. Canyon has pebbles everywhere that drops you to 0 kph. Tourmaline has weird incline applied in some random spots.

These need to be groomed big time. These small objects are so small you can't even see it unless you are walking slow and literally looking at the ground. Its bad application of terrain rule to these objects.

Edited by Blood78, 03 July 2013 - 06:24 AM.

[tuffy963]

Many of the posters in this thread have already said it, but let me summarize a few and add my own perspective...

• Weak Absolute Climb Angle - 45 degrees feels a bit low for the absolute angle that causes a full stop.
  
• Inertial is not being modeled well - The ability to become stuck on low objects and hills with a greater than 45 degree angle "feels" wrong and can undermine basic gameplay
  
• Jump Jets do not help in some situations (as intended?) - Jump Jets work on a mech previous momentum. Landing on an incline of greater than 45 d results in a strange situation where the JJ mech cannot advance either.

While I am not a fan of the overly abstracted system PGI has implemented to manage transversing slopes, I will constrain my recommendations to fixes that can work within that model as I understand it...

• Raise the absolute angle (AA) for traversing a slope to the original value before the patch. For the purpose of this post let's assume that was 65 degrees. No mech can advance up a slope that has an AA greater than 65 degrees, and all forward momentum is lost when you hit the AA.
  
• Create an extreme angle (EA) value that represents a mechs ability to make a "tortured" climb up this slope. Set that angle range to 45 - 65 degrees. When on an EA mechs loses all forward momentum, but can always advance at a speed of 5-10 KPH (The actual speed value should probably be determined as a value slower than the speed the mech can achieve on a slope that is 44 degrees or less)
  
• No change to the Sloped Angle (SA) mechanic and archetypes and all that. The mech still slows according to their archetype and

I believe some variation on this solution will minimize some of the more absurd situations happening since the patch. It will allow mechs to maintain some forward movement on low hills/obstacles that were never intended to stop a mech, but do have an angle that is greater than 45 degrees. It will also allow JJ some amount of forward momentum to operate properly. Best of all, every spot on every map can be reached (like pre-patch) if you are willing to go 5-10 KPH up the Extreme Angle to get there. This might reduce the pressure that is building to "smooth" all the current maps.


If you are feeling frisky (Read optional): Apply unique EA & AA values by archetype similar to how the Sloped Angles now work. As an example: "Tiny" mechs have an EA & AA value of 51 degrees & 71 degrees respectively , "small" mechs have an EA & AA value of 49 degrees & 69 degrees respectively, "medium" mechs have an EA & AA value of 47 degrees & 67 degrees respectively, etc.

Edited by tuffy963, 03 July 2013 - 06:41 AM.

[Shae Starfyre]

someone mentioned height is not a factor, such that a small pebble or incline that a Mechs should be able to walk over regardless of incline is causing full stops. I think that you need to add a height pass.

Anything under a certain height is bumpy, but doesn't stop you.

Also, someone mentioned something about instead of 0 speed, reduce it to 1; I kind of support this, but I think it should be 1 to 60 degrees, and then after that 0 movement.

This allows for getting out of a stuck pickle (not sure why you would be trying to get into a pickle in the first place - looks around sheepishly) when you realize you can't transverse it.

[M0rpHeu5]

Rise 45degrees to 60, 45 is more annoying than an improuvment. And make it a hotfix, don't make us wait 2 weeks

Edited by M0rpHeu5, 03 July 2013 - 06:58 AM.

[Itsalrightwithme]

It makes the game much more interesting, which I like. Unfortunately the fact that we all have to re-learn how to move, and by extension how to duck and maneuver effectively, this puts advantage to PPC/sniper boats.

Look, I understand this is Beta, but with so much disappointment I might just sit this game out until it is finally "Released". I am mentally tired of being rocked back and forth, and I am especially angry that this is turning into COD. And yes, all this after I bought into Legendary Founders and Phoenix Overlord. Everybody has a tolerance limit and the way you have treated us has exceeded mine.

[C E Dwyer]

The Idea is sound and much needed, the code needs to ignore a lot of what's slowing you down, small rocks in the water, even railings in river city degrade your performance, and can bring to you a complete stop, I think the effects on your speed happen to fast.

I also think that with the amount of sobbing that's all ready happening, if you bring back the knock down feature this game will hemorrhage numbers out of pure frustration.

Also mechs with an articulating hand or hands should be able to climber steeper faces than mechs that have a weapon or weapon pod

[Butane9000]

Okay,

So last night/this morning I finally got on to test the changes. Overall I didn't notice too much but I did catch a few things.

On Caustic Valley it's highly unlikely the climb to the edge of caldera and pot shot each other is going to be the standard engagement procedure. We eventually retreated a bit but stayed on the caldera hillside. Eventually we won through attrition. We will probably see much more fighting along the sides of the caldera now.

Alpine Peaks is a map I still haven't played with the changes. However from what my buddies tell me it's made it so there is a chance you can walk to your opponents base without seeing anyone. We definitely need 12v12 out sooner if that has any shred of truth.

The fighting in River City has changed somewhat. Mostly getting into upper since there are only 3 viable ways to do so for most mechs. I still have to play this on a few different mechs to really test the terrain changes.

Tourmaline Desert honestly disappointed me. I still saw mechs on the giant shards of tourmaline along the ridges. Though there is definitely some maneuvering changes. It mostly is still ridge v ridge combat with the occasional flanking measure.

Frozen City has definitely changed as I thought it would. I went to support a team mate at theta and got called back to help a Stalker buddy at Kappa but since the climb would take me so long I opted to continue heading to Theta. I also noted a lot of mechs kept away from theta and the lower section (trench) of the map.

Now Forest Colony also got a big change. No longer can people regularly climb the antenna hill to snipe. Most teams are now staying to the middle of the map or the water route.

[Thipequz]

ROCK......PAPER......CICADA

Enough said.

[M0rpHeu5]

Also the fences stop the mechs, fix that too.

[RAGE Quarter]

The execution is just plain horrible. Roll it back and start over. And by the way, try play testing it first next time.

[Uncleclint]

4 word feedback: THIS IS THE WORST

Get in a Stalker and start in the lower base on alpine! And while you do that, try to remember what someone posted in the announcement: "basically, if there´s snow, you can go" - I´ll give ya snow!!! I had a happy-hanging-halfway-up-the-hill-time on alpine and there was nothing but snow underneath and it was very unlikely above 45° as well. Nothing but utterly frustrating to go anywhere.

Whoever did work on these movement/map changes totally wasted all of his worktime for nothing valuable. This hasn´t been properly tested (and it took me, like three games to find out) and is completely unfunctional. It kills a lot of the good felling that one already had while piloting a mech. This is not Mechwarrior anymore.

Like above poster already said: ROLL IT BACK AND START ALL OVER or leave it as it was before the patch.

[Karenai]

Ridge camping got worse not better. People are less inclined to leave their hard won position at the top of the ridge. Combined with heat damage I see way more snipe wars almost untill every game.
Stalkers were tripple bad at walking anything, now it is just not funny anymore.

[C E Dwyer]

Karenai, on 03 July 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

Ridge camping got worse not better. People are less inclined to leave their hard won position at the top of the ridge. Combined with heat damage I see way more snipe wars almost untill every game.
Stalkers were tripple bad at walking anything, now it is just not funny anymore.

Its about time the stalker was bad at something

This alone with some tweaks is worth putting up with the rest

[Drakari]

While it would be a nice touch to be able to completely step over small obstacles with little or no loss in momentum, things like fences that barely come up to the knees even on mediums, overall the change is pretty good. Canyon is the one that most people seem to mention as "impossible" with the new system, but I played it in my BJ-DC1 with the stock engine and had no trouble finding paths. Maybe the people complaining have had too much experience with the old way (I only started last week), but when I look at the wall and say "I think I can climb there" I usually can, albeit very slowly and usually with some struggling near the top. I also have yet to just suddenly stop with no reasonable cause, though sometimes small bumps have a bit more impact than seems sensible for bipedal movement and may be enough to stop very large mechs with very tiny engines.

One thing that DOES seem very strange is that I've tried a mech with jump jets and it did seem to have an issue where it slowed down in the air rather than preserving its momentum until landing. I am only basing this off the in-game indicator of speed so it may be a UI bug rather than a physics bug, but since I don't actually use JJ (I took the trial Catapult for a spin just to test this) I'll let more experienced users get the full details (because this really needs to be fixed, if we're expected to use jump jets to get up steep slopes we can't be slowing down in the air). I don't think adding some forward thrust to the jets would hurt either, though asking for full vectoring is a bit too much of a change. You'd also have to make landing on extremely steep slope cause the mech to slip down to more reasonable angles or else JJs could then let you climb pretty much anything with multiple jumps, but I think that makes more sense than jump jets that can't jump forwards.

[MasterGoa]

I beleive a hot fix to reduce and then raise the numbers incrementally is required.

Having a heavy or assault in Canon or Alpine is EXTREMELY frustrating
and there is not indication where you will stall...

[BeezleBug]

Great idea but you should have looked at the maps a little before you did this.
Little rocks and the Mech stand still, from 100 to 0 in 1 sec U can see this when u play 2-3 games it´s obvious that pgi has not tested this...again, or they dont care about this.
btw. SRM still need more dmg

[Genewen]

Karenai, on 03 July 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

Ridge camping got worse not better. People are less inclined to leave their hard won position at the top of the ridge. Combined with heat damage I see way more snipe wars almost untill every game.
Stalkers were tripple bad at walking anything, now it is just not funny anymore.

No wonder. Closing the distance now takes significantly longer, and there are now less viable routes to use.

[Wintersdark]

Iguana Iguana, on 02 July 2013 - 10:01 PM, said:

1)
We don't have wheels!
2)
We are sitting in giant stompy robots
3)
I'm not good at battle, but I doubt there is any Mech with climbing claws on his feet
4)
To climb such terrain use JJ, because that's the reason the were invented (Yes this means getting out of the Stalker and into a Highlander for example)
4.1)
Oh noes! I can't use my Stalker/whatevermechwithoutJJs in every way I want
5)
Real Life =/= Mechwarrior

1&2: See #5

3: Actually, many mechs have clawed feet.

4: Indeed. I like to see jump jets having more value, but there is an argument that there's a LOT of this terrain and that serves to really remove value from Stalker/Atlas chassis as a brawler.

4.1: Really?

Anyways, my issue here is that this pushes Stalkers and Atlases in particular into long range sniping mechs. Brawling weapons are still fairly sub-par (re: SRM's), and it takes even longer to close the gap to the opposing Sniper mech.

So, those PPC mechs? Sure, overheat damage is worse, but that's ok - they don't need to fire as fast, because it'll take longer for you to get to them. Because the maps aren't really designed with these movement limits in mind, they have become grossly unbalanced in favour of certain starting locations. PPC mechs starting in the Northeast base on Alpine, for example, can easily get up onto a raised firing position and rain death onto everyone, with no fear of enemy mechs closing the distance.

Now, I'm not just crying here. I do like and agree with the concept employed. But there are some serious balance issues happening as a result, and it's definitely worsening the PPC/Gauss pinpoint meta.

HGN-732's with 3xPPC/Gauss are extremely common now.

[Wintersdark]

MasterGoa, on 03 July 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

I beleive a hot fix to reduce and then raise the numbers incrementally is required.

Having a heavy or assault in Canon or Alpine is EXTREMELY frustrating
and there is not indication where you will stall...

I definitely agree here.

It's extremely difficult to tell where you will get hung up, and acceleration is already slow in these mechs. If you slid sideways when you approached a ridge at an angle, it wouldn't be so bad - then you'd stay on the lower level until you got to a place you could climb (albeit at a reduced speed); but instead you simply stop and get kind of hung up, need to twist and turn to get going again. It's so damned easy to get stuck trying to climb up a ridge even near a "climbing path", usually without warning.

It's something that definitely needs some tuning. As I've said in pretty much every post - the idea is awesome, but the implementation is very frustrating. I'm all for this increasing the mobility advantages of lighter mech chassis. Anything that makes Mediums more awesome is good for me.

But how about moving the 0 speed point from 45o to 50o, and reducing the deceleration speed a smidge so you don't stop so abruptly. Keep the "no slowing point" as it is per chassis.