74 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

my victor nearly never gets dmged other than ct ... :I

Exactly but a Stalker always gets hit in the side torsos. So Stalkers cant use XL engines. But Victors rarely use STD engines. Its completely random and arbitrary which mechs can use XL and which mechs cant which is just silly.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 12 September 2013 - 07:43 AM, said:

the decision to use XL shouldnt be based on the size and shape of your hitboxes though. Thats entirely arbitrary and ridiculous. You should be able to use an XL engine with any mech and not have to worry about significantly decreasing your survivability.

gotta disagree with you on this one.

The size of the hit box should be determined specifically by the role the mech was intended., but offset so that it CAN play the inended role without being penalized.

For instance, most Medium and Light mechs NEED XLs to have a chance, hence their hit boxes should be generally speaking, favorable to protecting the Side torso. Look at the Jenner. It's ALL CT, yet pretty well balanced despite that.

Many mechs, in the Heavy and Assault Bracket are meant to be tanks and brawlers. IN those cases, an XL should be discouraged. So having a well protected CT makes sense. Look at eh Awesome and Orion, two mechs that SHOULD be able to wade into the thick of things. Both end up with XLs because they are so easily CT cored it's a matter of "why not?".

Ideeally, those mechs should be biased toward running Standards, with the obvious option of XLs, but at the risk of fragility.

[Khobai]

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The size of the hit box should be determined specifically by the role the mech was intended., but offset so that it CAN play the inended role without being penalized.

No the size of hitboxes should be standardized across all mechs. Its ridiculous that some mechs have huge center torsos while other mechs have large, normal, or small center torsos. Center torso size should be proportionally the same across all mechs. Based on battletech, a CT should be about 20% of the total size of the mech.

Armor is the other reason we need standardization. Its unfair to mechs with huge center torsos to have the same amount of center torso armor as a mech with smaller center torsos. Like the Awesome vs the Victor. It also influences whether or not a mech can or cant use XL which is wrong. All mechs should be able to use XL with equal benefits and drawbacks.

Although standardized hitboxes are unlikely to happen since it would be a lot of work to resize most of the hitboxes on mechs. But it would be nice if the more extreme cases like the Awesome/Dragon were addressed.

Quote

Many mechs, in the Heavy and Assault Bracket are meant to be tanks and brawlers. IN those cases, an XL should be discouraged.

But they dont have to be tanks or brawlers, so XL should not be discouraged. Role should be determined by your weapons loadout, not predetermined by the mech itself.

Edited by Khobai, 16 September 2013 - 01:32 PM.

[Mr Andersson]

Some mechs need their CT hitboxes reworked, but far from all. Most notable is the Awesome.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 16 September 2013 - 01:05 PM, said:

No the size of hitboxes should be standardized across all mechs. Its ridiculous that some mechs have huge center torsos while other mechs have large, normal, or small center torsos. Center torso size should be proportionally the same across all mechs. Based on battletech, a CT should be about 20% of the total size of the mech.

Armor is the other reason we need standardization. Its unfair to mechs with huge center torsos to have the same amount of center torso armor as a mech with smaller center torsos. Like the Awesome vs the Victor. It also influences whether or not a mech can or cant use XL which is wrong. All mechs should be able to use XL with equal benefits and drawbacks.

Although standardized hitboxes are unlikely to happen since it would be a lot of work to resize most of the hitboxes on mechs. But it would be nice if the more extreme cases like the Awesome/Dragon were addressed.



But they dont have to be tanks or brawlers, so XL should not be discouraged. Role should be determined by your weapons loadout, not predetermined by the mech itself.

gonna have to disagee.

Mechs come in varying shape and sizes. Standardize the hit box, means generic standardized shapes and sizes. Do I agree some mechs need to be able to up armor certain areas (like say, oh the Hunch on a Hunchback?) yes. But a Mech is not a one size fits all jack of all trades. Else there would be no need for multiple in a tonnage class. Each was designed for a specific role, and their hitboxes should reflect that, and the viability, or lack thereof of certain upgrades. An Awesome was designed specifically to be a place holder, to stand in the battleline blasting away with its PPC and shrugging off enemy fire. And the hitboxes should encourage building it to do just that. (Sadly, they encourage it to hide so it doesn't get it's torso cored, AND it can't fire it's 3 PPC effectively either). A Catapult on the other hand is a support mech, and should not be easily made into a Brawler. Ditto a Jager.

Hit boxes, done right (and I anm not saying they are done right, at all) are yet one more way to diversify and give distinct roles to each chassis. (Along with quirks, which they need, since not all things are created equal, like maybe allowing an Awesome to fire up to 3 PPC without Ghost Heat penalties, or allowing a HBK to carry more armor than other Mediums, so it can actually fill the "Juggernaut" role it was designed for, etc)

Looking like we will have to agree to disagree, or we or bot doing a butt horrible job of conveying our PoV.

[OneEyed Jack]

HammerSwarm, on 13 September 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

This gets at the heart of my point. You would see fewer A/C 20 Jagers or similar builds if the hitboxes of said mechs reflected the proper danger of running an XL engine.

Have you ever actually played this game? The Jager has some of the easiest-to-hit side torsos in the entire game, including Assaults. They can be hit from any direction, thanks to the fins, and are absolutely enormous from the front. By comparison, the CT is tiny. And you know what? They pretty much all run XL, anyway. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE NATURALLY AIM CENTER MASS. How is it that you can't get that through your skull? It's such a simple concept, really.

Similarly the 'Phract is commonly thought of as having possibly the worst side torsos, for it's size, in the game. And yet most of them continue to run XL. Personally, I've experimented with Std and always went back BECAUSE PEOPLE NATURALLY AIM CENTER MASS. I gained a negligible increase in survivability for a huge drop in performance from either giving up a huge portion of my firepower or having a much more difficult time bringing it to bear. And if I can't perform as well, it increases the chance of losing the match, in which case I'll probably get ganged up on and killed even if I'm alive near the end, missing a ST and half, or more, of my weapons.

HammerSwarm, on 13 September 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

I think that second guy needs to see a doctor. There's a shot for that, but they have to put it directly in there, and it's gonna hurt.

kombatunit, on 13 September 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

I'm not sure what changed very recently but I'm getting CT shot out in literally seconds now. My jenner is going 130 kph, 99% dmg all CT.

That's because they removed some of your "leet skillz," otherwise known as improving hit detection, so more of the shots that were already hitting you, but you got to ignore, are now doing damage. So now you have to actually learn to play a Jenner instead of hunting Assaults while laughing and telling them they need to learn to shoot. [Edit: It's still not fixed, just improved, so expect to lose more of your skillz at some point]

Khobai, on 16 September 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

Exactly but a Stalker always gets hit in the side torsos. So Stalkers cant use XL engines. But Victors rarely use STD engines. Its completely random and arbitrary which mechs can use XL and which mechs cant which is just silly.

Stalkers get hit in the STs because it's one of the few mechs on which the average player often specifically aims at the ST. They do this because:

• They can be hit from the side, and the side is a much, much safer place to be when dealing with a Stalker.
  
• Stalkers, due to hardpoints, typically have disgustingly high damage output. It's generally a safer bet to remove a ST, since they go down quicker, and then work on either the other side or the CT. Shooting initially at the CT, which is not hard to hit by any means, just means they get to let the armor take it while unloading a LOT more damage. Even if you win, you probably took much more return damage than if you'd gone for the side, and reducing firepower.

Victors actually have very easy-to-hit STs. They aren't over-large, but can certainly be hit by anyone with a smidgen of aiming skill and a desire to do so. But, they have a little less armor and come across a lot less scary in the short term, so the typical player will more likely default to the center of mass standard.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 16 September 2013 - 07:40 PM.

[Razorfish]

Zyllos, on 12 September 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

The culprit is that we are using an armor system that was built around the idea that weapon damage is applied randomly in a game where weapon damage is applied where the player wants it.

Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away an entire planet was saved from total destruction because of this single awesome statement.

[Khobai]

Quote

Mechs come in varying shape and sizes. Standardize the hit box, means generic standardized shapes and sizes.

It means generic sizes not generic shapes, they can be ANY shape, as long as theyre the same size... and they should be the same size for sake of consistency.

Quote

Stalkers get hit in the STs because it's one of the few mechs on which the average player often specifically aims at the ST. They do this because:

• They can be hit from the side, and the side is a much, much safer place to be when dealing with a Stalker.
  
• Stalkers, due to hardpoints, typically have disgustingly high damage output. It's generally a safer bet to remove a ST, since they go down quicker, and then work on either the other side or the CT. Shooting initially at the CT, which is not hard to hit by any means, just means they get to let the armor take it while unloading a LOT more damage. Even if you win, you probably took much more return damage than if you'd gone for the side, and reducing firepower.

Again thats my point. Stalkers have huge side torsos but no more armor in their side torsos than mechs with small side torsos. It makes their side torsos extremely easy to destroy.

In battletech all mechs have the same chance of being hit in the center or side torso... there isnt any difference from one mech to another. By having inconsistent hitboxes, PGI has created imbalances between chassis' that need to be addressed. Reason being, the problem will only get worse as new mechs come out...

Edited by Khobai, 17 September 2013 - 03:44 AM.

[Zyllos]

Razorfish, on 16 September 2013 - 07:50 PM, said:

Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away an entire planet was saved from total destruction because of this single awesome statement.

Hah, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Rereading that statement, it was actually worded badly torwards the end.

But the geist of the comment is still true, though. We have an armor system based on random hits in a game with very little randomization. So why do we wonder why mechs die so fast and individuals complain about this not being MechWarrior?

[Almond Brown]

HammerSwarm, on 16 September 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

Why do you have to put people down to make your point? Lots of people who enjoy the game including myself expect to earn a certain number of cbills per hour, not because we're farming or grinding but because it allows for us to unlock new mechs, new engines, and amass a stable of weapons.

If I fall off the million per hour pace I'm not winning enough.

Thanks for proving my point dude. A Million an hour eh? Sounds like hurry to the end-game, where there is none, BS work, to me...

[General Taskeen]

Two things that often defeat the purpose of "twisting"

1. CT's that stick out so far that they can be hit from the side
2. Your front is facing the enemy, and your side is twisted - yet your Mech crotch still takes CT Damage.

[HammerSwarm]

OneEyed Jack, on 16 September 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

Spoiler

Have you ever actually played this game? The Jager has some of the easiest-to-hit side torsos in the entire game, including Assaults. They can be hit from any direction, thanks to the fins, and are absolutely enormous from the front. By comparison, the CT is tiny. And you know what? They pretty much all run XL, anyway. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE NATURALLY AIM CENTER MASS. How is it that you can't get that through your skull? It's such a simple concept, really.

Similarly the 'Phract is commonly thought of as having possibly the worst side torsos, for it's size, in the game. And yet most of them continue to run XL. Personally, I've experimented with Std and always went back BECAUSE PEOPLE NATURALLY AIM CENTER MASS. I gained a negligible increase in survivability for a huge drop in performance from either giving up a huge portion of my firepower or having a much more difficult time bringing it to bear. And if I can't perform as well, it increases the chance of losing the match, in which case I'll probably get ganged up on and killed even if I'm alive near the end, missing a ST and half, or more, of my weapons.

I think that second guy needs to see a doctor. There's a shot for that, but they have to put it directly in there, and it's gonna hurt.

Stalkers get hit in the STs because it's one of the few mechs on which the average player often specifically aims at the ST. They do this because:

• They can be hit from the side, and the side is a much, much safer place to be when dealing with a Stalker.
  
• Stalkers, due to hardpoints, typically have disgustingly high damage output. It's generally a safer bet to remove a ST, since they go down quicker, and then work on either the other side or the CT. Shooting initially at the CT, which is not hard to hit by any means, just means they get to let the armor take it while unloading a LOT more damage. Even if you win, you probably took much more return damage than if you'd gone for the side, and reducing firepower.

Victors actually have very easy-to-hit STs. They aren't over-large, but can certainly be hit by anyone with a smidgen of aiming skill and a desire to do so. But, they have a little less armor and come across a lot less scary in the short term, so the typical player will more likely default to the center of mass standard.

Yes I play this game, but you clearly misunderstood or are openly choosing to be abusive to derail this discussion. Your theory about why the side torsos of a stalker are shot most often is as laughable as your assertion that I don't know what I am talking about.

• Destroying the side torsos on a stalker does not prevent it from shooting from hard points not located in the adjoining arm or the side torso itself.
  
• Destroying said side torsos does not kill nor stop the mech.
  
• The armor located in the average side torso is not less than half of a center torso. (72:108 in a stalker)

With those facts established your assertion that the side torso is shot to prevent it from shooting is laughable. There is only 36 more armor on the center torso than on the sides. and if my math is right that's only 54 more possible hit points. So sheering off both side torsos actually takes more time than coring a stalker. Time is damage. You shoot the side torso because it's easier to hit, even when you are aiming at the middle if your aim point drifts or they make even a minor course correction you're not going to hit the center torso.

If you'll look at the image again you'll notice that the center torso is deemphasized in the right hand drawing. This would be similar to the stalker where the CT is harder to hit even though you are aiming at it.

The Jaeger is a curious case, you would think that because the side torsos are so easy to hit that they would be hit more often but that is not the case in my experience. I find that CT has it's own gravity field sucking in damage from around it.I'd love to see IGP/PGIs data on this topic to see if the data supports me or you. My experience is that I can torso twist in my jaeger but I only die to a side torso shot even with an XL a small bit of the time. This is because being cored in this mech is so much easier than losing my side torso. Rinse and repeat for a host of other mechs.

[GuisoSan]

I just got out of a fight in my Awsome, other than some scattered LRM damage, every shot hit my CT. From every direction, moving or stationary. It seems to happen in most of my mechs and its a real problem. Ugh.

[General Taskeen]

Apart of the problem is multiple factors, of which, center around TT damage/heat put into a real-time game based on pin-point aim coupled with scaling and hitbox issues, and tying into heatscaling and heatsinks issues.

For instance, if you have TT damage/heat values in a game, where there are Mechs that have poorly designed hitboxes... of which the center torso on some Mechs is enourmous, then obviously the "time to die" scale is not in that Mech's favor. You either die by two legs shot out, the CT, or a cockpit shot. The CT is the easiest to hit in most cases.

In general, when testing out how hitboxes work in MW:LL, your entire Mech can be a walking torso with nothing left, since twisting actually does you'd expect it to, spread your damage around, so even if you are driving a Mech with a CT that sticks waaay forward, you can expect the side of your Mech to take the brunt of all incoming damage if you are twisting.

Its the same deal in MW4, while big weapons or boating could kill you instantly if you were facing your opponent head on, most Mechs could survive with a lot of damage, where twisting also worked great and hitboxes generally seemed pretty good.

Edited by General Taskeen, 20 October 2013 - 08:59 AM.

[Riptor]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 12 September 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

I agree. Personally I think that standard engines should increase center torso internal hitpoints by double, and as you note currently too many mechs have too big center torsos thus almost always favouring an XL engine since most mechs just get cored anyhow.

The stalker is a prime example of a standard engine favour with it's tiny CT, and the orion the XL. This is and always has been a difficult issue to balance in mech games. Beyond moving to segmented 9 square hitbox torsos.

imho it is fine as it is now, but PGI needs to give us some more mechs with smaller CT and/or have standard engines boost internal damage taken by double, on only CT or even on the entire torso, whatever balance testing favours. This may however cause too much of a balance issue in favour of standard engines and slow game pace down to much.

Still, XL engines currently seem the norm. in CB standard was more viable, and monitoring this seems wise.

I disagree, XL engines where much more common after clan invasion in the IS then standard engines.

Played alot of Mekwars and standard engine mechs where a rarity... a very hard to kill rarity also known as zombie mechs. A title currently only held by the centurion in mwo if i remember correctly.

Thing with zombie mech was thought.. if you destroyed them, they where gone for good... an XL engine mech is salvagable even after a loss of a side torso..

But that isnt an issue in mwo of course.

XL engines should allways be a trade off between survivablity vs utility, on any mech.

These rules and these items where written with a standard paperdoll and hit location in mind, no matter what the actual mech looked like.

Edith says:

Right now only certain mechs with certain hitboxes benefit from XL while others dont, the ones that benefit the most are mainly those that have easaly to hit CTs.. so in their case an XL engine looses most of its downside effects. Thats not how its suposed to work.

While its not much of a downside to a victor s to have an XL because most hits will land in its CT it is a death sentence on a stalker whose CT isnt as easaly hit.

Edited by Riptor, 20 October 2013 - 12:10 PM.