39 replies to this topic

[Wolfe Ryatt]

After reading the various articles and getting up to speed, I had a thought while reading the blurb about Urban combat.

Will we be able to destroy buildings? Or hide in them? Can we destroy landscape as well? Will artillery create craters? Can we set forests on fire to flush out recon Mechs?

These are things I'd like to know.

[Sajuuk]

And you wont know until they start demoing the game, or tell us right out.

[Sevari]

All these thing ARE possible, however will they be available in this game....your guess is as good as mine. As far as persistant world goes, I would guess not, but the 'instances' or 'battlefields' that may be played, it could very well happen. But, we have no idea how this is going to work at this time. Patience is a virtue.

[Haeso]

If we can destroy buildings they had better take some serious firepower to bring down and cause massive visibility problems with smoke and debris. One of the things that annoyed me in mech assault was any map with buildings eventually turned into a flat plane with no buildings as teams set up huge firing lines only leaving the buildings they wanted to use as cover standing. I'm in favor of partial destruction that leaves piles of debris rather than total removal, so it still functions as cover, perhaps if the building was small at the start it wouldn't be much help, but a tall building should cause damage to anything nearby when destroyed and leave a pile of rubble big enough to block LoS/Weapons fire.

[Halfinax]

I think it's something the developer's want to include as it is in their promotional trailer (yes I know this version of the game is different). It could certainly be used effectively as a strategy to draw an enemy 'Mech into the vicinity of a large building that your team has nearly collapsed and then as the walk into the shadow of the building *BOOM* bring that baby crashing down on the unsuspecting Mechwarrior.

I also agree that if it doesn't create a huge dust cloud and leave a believable amount of debris on the ground then it's not really worth putting in.

[Red Beard]

If the devs take a page out of Mechassault's playbook, then we are in for a real treat. Oh the beautiful destruction that you could rain down on the buildings and even the trees. It's funny, when a player would start getting whipped on really hard, and they could not kill another mech to save their life, they would start shooting the buildings, just for that sense of dominating SOMETHING.

I do not think that the devs are going to make this game a persistent world, at least, I hope not. Each match will be it's own thing. In that case, it would be more likely to see destructible environments. I really hope they do make the environment destructible, since that truly lends itself to using your surroundings in your favor.

[Wolfe Ryatt]

Well, my hope is that any destruction leaves rubble piles, and that complete leveling of an Urban environment will be impossible.

I for one would like to see persistence. The destroyed areas could slowly rebuild over time. A very crude version of this exists in WWII Online, and that tech is a decade old.

I also agree that dust and smoke should be integral parts of the tactical situation, affecting LOS, but also affecting instrumentation and the like.

[LordRush]

red beard, on 09 November 2011 - 09:41 AM, said:

I do not think that the devs are going to make this game a persistent world, at least, I hope not. Each match will be it's own thing. In that case, it would be more likely to see destructible environments. I really hope they do make the environment destructible, since that truly lends itself to using your surroundings in your favor.

Q. Will MechWarrior® Online™ have any online persistency?

A. Yes, this is where our plan for the Inner Sphere comes into play. All players in Merc Corps will be fighting for control over various border planets. The state of these planets is persistent.

[Red Beard]

lordrush, on 09 November 2011 - 09:51 AM, said:

Q. Will MechWarrior® Online™ have any online persistency?

A. Yes, this is where our plan for the Inner Sphere comes into play. All players in Merc Corps will be fighting for control over various border planets. The state of these planets is persistent.

Hmmm...perhaps I am not as tuned into exactly what "persistent" means in this context?

[Deadmeat313]

I think it would be best if urban terrain was PARTLY destructible - both by weapons fire and by 'Mechs piling straight through the buildings.

That would leave the strongest structures still standing: For example the stairwells in 5 storey town blocks. As long as there is still "terrain" that we have to work around (and can use as cover) then it'll be good.

If the players can completely flatten a city then it'll happen every time and we will have to get used to fighting over a brick-strewn ball park.

o7

[benefedaykin]

lordrush, on 09 November 2011 - 09:51 AM, said:

Q. Will MechWarrior® Online™ have any online persistency?

A. Yes, this is where our plan for the Inner Sphere comes into play. All players in Merc Corps will be fighting for control over various border planets. The state of these planets is persistent.

That's a persistent planetary faction control, not persistent terrain/destruction on the battlefield. The Devs have yet to comment (to my knowlege) on having persistent destruction within the combat areas themselves.

If it ever did get implemented then it would probably be based on how long it has been since the last battle and the damage present at the start of the fighting would be predefined. It would take WAY too much effort to actually record damage in all combat areas after EVERY fight and to simulate repair progress on all of them!!! No way this would happen... Besides everything would be rubble if it did... the whole point of MWO is to fight so the destruction would never stop...

As for the types of destruction available, I would expect buildings to slowly erode and then collapse after taking enough damage. They'd probably leave a rubble pile afterwards because how many games have destroyed buildings dissappearing completely these days?

IMO, destroyed mechs should also remain on the battlefield.

[LordKelvin]

Persistent terrain sounds like a good idea in theory, but in terms of gameplay it might not be all that great. Say, if you're fighting over a city, eventually it'd see enough action to level every single building; even if you lose points or reputation or whatever scoring system is going to be used for destroying buildings, even accidentally, it will eventually end in all the buildings being knocked down, even if reconstruction efforts were persistent. After all, there may even be griefers who would level buildings for fun, and then what's the point of capturing or defending a city when everything is just rubble?

In general, destructible buildings and setting forests on fire certainly sounds feasible; this is stuff that existed in the tabletop game for a long time but they were never able to implement in the games due to technological limitations. Destroying landscape and artillery creating craters, on the other hand, is a different kind of special since, to my knowledge (a discussion I had with some modders back in 2006 or so), the terrain would have to be pre-mapped for each individual crater and such; as opposed to just placing scorch and bullet hole decals on a wall, 'Mechs can still walk over craters, and it would be difficult to reflect that.

[Glare]

There was destructable scenery in the original trailer way back when, I see no reason for it to be excluded from this game.

[Mchawkeye]

I love the idea of destructible scenery...attacking defending factories or residential areas or whatnot becomes much more edgy when the buildings can in fact crumble...as an attacker, do you take out the defending mechs, or run for the goal? seeing a city slowly crumble from months of war really appeals to me, for some reason...

[UncleKulikov]

Some terrain should be destructible. It adds to the tactical nature of the urban landscape.

[CaveMan]

I want to be able to set fires and use the smoke to block LOS. Would make the Firestarter an extremely useful 'Mech to have in your company. Set up some fires upwind of the enemy to screen your assault, then move in with heavy firepower while he's blind.

[Red Beard]

LordKelvin, on 09 November 2011 - 12:10 PM, said:

they were never able to implement in the games due to technological limitations.

Actually, they did it extremely well in Mechassault. That was one of the better qualities of those games.

[Haeso]

Red Beard, on 09 November 2011 - 02:22 PM, said:

Actually, they did it extremely well in Mechassault. That was one of the better qualities of those games.

... They did it horribly in MA. Buildings just disappeared after being destroyed, no rubble, no debris cloud, cities turned into flat planes with no terrain in Mech Assault. All you could say was it "looked nice" at best.

[Tsula]

Yes I would like to see things blow up other then mech.

[Arkansas Warrior]

You could make craters in the landscape in MW3, I seem to recall. In both 3 and 4 you could destroy at least some of the buildings, but I wasn't terribly pleased with the implementation in either.

Edited by Arkansas Warrior, 09 November 2011 - 03:22 PM.