318 replies to this topic

[arkani]

Karl Streiger, on 18 September 2013 - 11:02 PM, said:

While I still hope for a system using mor hitboxes than 7 - you post is well writen and makes sense.

Yes, the huncback for example, that hunch should either be a separated hitbox or that right torso should actually have more armor points

[Deathlike]

I agree with the overall concept, but for the purposes of balancing, it's depends on the mech's average TTK or some metric to determine how good or bad the mech's hitboxes are to survivability.

Jenners would be indirectly nerfed by the proposed changes, since lights in general are heavily dependent on XL engines for the tonnage saved.

In some of the proposed examples, the Awesome, Cicada, and Orion are perfect candidates for this change... but for the Dragon, where XL should be more than viable would be a dramatic nerf just because shooting it from the side would actually make XL engines less than viable on that mech. It could be readjusted a bit, but the fact of the matter is that you need to fully understand the ramifications of the change, before you do it. These changes are something you don't really want to mess with often... you only need to mess with it if there is a disproportionate difficulty or ease in shooting certain parts of a mech.

[Lightfoot]

@ Carrioncrows,

Yes, I agree with the reasons for re-vamping the Orion hit-boxes. The CT sticks so far forward the sides of it should be classified as side torso just like a Dragon or Catapult.

It dies too fast for a 75 ton mech is the bottom line. It also doesn't have the generous hardpoint layout of the lighter heavies, so balance-wise, some added toughness is due.

Also there is too high a difficulty in aiming the Orion's reticles with a Joystick. I am calling this a controller Bug though. I don't think it's intentional. However the Jagermech, Cataphract, Victor, and Awesome are all much easier to aim than the Orion when using a Joystick, which really slews around when aiming.





.

Edited by Lightfoot, 19 September 2013 - 08:17 AM.

[Carrioncrows]

Deathlike, on 19 September 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

I agree with the overall concept, but for the purposes of balancing, it's depends on the mech's average TTK or some metric to determine how good or bad the mech's hitboxes are to survivability.

Jenners would be indirectly nerfed by the proposed changes, since lights in general are heavily dependent on XL engines for the tonnage saved.

In some of the proposed examples, the Awesome, Cicada, and Orion are perfect candidates for this change... but for the Dragon, where XL should be more than viable would be a dramatic nerf just because shooting it from the side would actually make XL engines less than viable on that mech. It could be readjusted a bit, but the fact of the matter is that you need to fully understand the ramifications of the change, before you do it. These changes are something you don't really want to mess with often... you only need to mess with it if there is a disproportionate difficulty or ease in shooting certain parts of a mech.

If you can run a XL in a mech an almost never die to a Side torso.

Then that is an example of a Bad Hitbox design and should NOT be in MWO.

XL is a risk. It Should be. The benefit of saving 5-8 tons worth of weight needs a significant penalty.

So lets look at the dragon.

Original

My Version



Lets compare.

The Dragon CT is massive in the original picture, so much so that an XL for the dragon is a of course a no brainier. In Fact the the only reason to ever run a STD engine on a Dragon is if you are in a FLAME and you want that AC20 in the Left Torso. That's it. That's the only reason to run a STD engine in a Dragon.

That's the upside you get to run your XL engine without risk of dieing to a side torso.

Here is the downside. You have 80 points of armor, total, split between CT and Rear CT before they can kill you.

That's it. 80 points. 60 ton mech dead after 2 alpha's because the CT is so big they won't miss.

Even when you torso twist away you can still nail that big honking CT from pretty much any angle.

Now here is where my hitboxes come in:



Now looking at this Dragon straight on, not a whole lot has changed Directly on.

The CT is still the biggest target, but now when you take fire you can torso twist one way or the other and suddenly you are not taking the full brunt of the damage on the CT anymore. You've just split the damage from the CT down to a side torso which has another 56 armor, split between Rear torso and torso.

Now you torso twist more and that damage starts to hit the ARM instead of the Side torso, you've just gained another 40 solid armor in the arm.

That's 176 armor how you can diffuse damage over compared to just the original 80 points the ct has.

And that's just torso twisting one way, you still have the other direction you can torso twist with.

So lets say you are hurt, they breached one of your side torso's and you are in danger of popping because you have an XL. The above intelligent hitbox system gives you the power to protect yourself. It's up to you to keep that damage location protected and not expose it to enemy fire by keeping that location turned away from your attacker.

Now he may be an extremely good shot and still manage to get that pop that side torso. In which case, it rewards him as a player for being an extremely skilled marksman. If not it rewards you for being a good pilot able to keep that torso alive by awareness and good torso twisting. Which is the point.

Don't you see? The system doesn't kill XL engines mechs, it makes them "BETTER"

It doesn't kill their viability but instead, lessens their vulnerability while still making the option for those that use a STD engine a real possibility.

If you get a breached location, with Intelligent hitboxes it gives you the Pilot, the ability to protect it whether that be your Center Torso or a Side Torso it's up to you to play smart. No longer will you have a cored CT get popped by someone from across the map because they can hit your CT (because it's so massive you can hit it from pretty much any angle) while you are running away TRYING to protect it.

[Deathlike]

Actually, I've side cored plenty of Dragons when the situation comes up... but that only happens if there's pre-existing damage to the mech to "clean up" as it were.

Coring a Dragon is easy... side coring a Dragon is also easy. The proposed changes IMO don't really change my opinion.. but I'm willing to see it in action first and then reassess. I simply think that talking a lot of theory into some of this doesn't always translate into reality all the time.

[Carrioncrows]

arkani, on 19 September 2013 - 08:08 AM, said:

Yes, the huncback for example, that hunch should either be a separated hitbox or that right torso should actually have more armor points

Well if i was going to do the hunchback it would probably be around the lines of something like this:



Honestly this fix might be a bit on the "Janky" side, but it's also one that probably needs to be made.

First up is the splitting the pelvic area between the legs and then the next big step is to bring up the arm hitboxes into the actual shoulder of the mech. In the case of the "HUNCH" I took the arm hit box way up along the side of the mech.

It doesn't completely cover it, but someone who torso twists should have adequate protection by trying to torso twist away from fire and take the brunt of it on their arm. Like I said "Janky" but you could made the argument that it's the Shoulder Acuator, it's a bit of a stretch but a welcome if not needed one.

A accomplished marskman would still be able to get around this "Flaw of the big hunch design" but this should more than help alleviate loosing the cannon out the door.

Now this doesn't give the hunchback "MORE" armor or another hitbox but instead helps share the load with the arm hitbox. And of course once the arms gets blown off those area will transfer damage to the right torso giving you a bit of a buffer zone.

Deathlike, on 19 September 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

The proposed changes IMO don't really change my opinion.. but I'm willing to see it in action first and then reassess. I simply think that talking a lot of theory into some of this doesn't always translate into reality all the time.

I get that, but you've got to admit that something needs to change.

Change can be frustrating during the translation but there is no doubt in my mind that if such changes were made it would only be towards the "BETTERMENT" of the game.

Edited by Carrioncrows, 19 September 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[Deathlike]

Carrioncrows, on 19 September 2013 - 02:55 PM, said:

I get that, but you've got to admit that something needs to change.

Change can be frustrating during the translation but there is no doubt in my mind that if such changes were made it would only be towards the "BETTERMENT" of the game.

For some mechs, sure. For other mechs, probably not. It's subjective and we can kinda agree to disagree on whichever ones that need this...

There should be a better rule of thumb by design for PGI than whatever system they are using at the moment. I'd rather avoid the Kintaro debacle in the first place.

[Monky]

This thread is gold and each example I've seen is about what I hope for for each of the mech's hitboxes.

In the case of the hunchback however, due to its huge shoulder, that part can be rescaled (and without having to rescale the whole mech too! just shorten the front protrusion and reduce the height on the hitbox, and reposition the weapon elements)

THANK YOU OP!

Edited by Monky, 19 September 2013 - 04:23 PM.

[Carrioncrows]

Deathlike, on 19 September 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

For some mechs, sure. For other mechs, probably not. It's subjective and we can kinda agree to disagree on whichever ones that need this...

There should be a better rule of thumb by design for PGI than whatever system they are using at the moment. I'd rather avoid the Kintaro debacle in the first place.

And your right, not every mech needs a redesign. Most of the builds are pretty solid. I am just grabbing the more extreme examples to showcase how it should be done.

Monky, on 19 September 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

This thread is gold and each example I've seen is about what I hope for for each of the mech's hitboxes.

In the case of the hunchback however, due to its huge shoulder, that part can be rescaled (and without having to rescale the whole mech too! just shorten the front protrusion and reduce the height on the hitbox, and reposition the weapon elements)

THANK YOU OP!

That would be preferable to re-scale the model a bit, but also I like the look of the hunchback. I down right love it. It's a beautiful mech, but that hunch does present problems.

When you re-scale things it is a monumental task as you change the model, you change both the material layers (patterns) and the colors (texture) of the entire mech which means someone has to go back and redraw those which is a massive task. In some cases they will end up doing this anyways, but the Hitboxes should be a much simpler fix as they are just redrawing the bounding boxes.

We shall see.

[Artgathan]

Carrioncrows, on 19 September 2013 - 02:39 AM, said:

There may come a time when they add a legitimate penalty in game that allows side torso's to be popped with an XL without killing the mech.

And as long as the penalty was steep enough. Like (loss of 50% heat efficient, 50% speed, ect ect. I would be ok with this.

It violates B-tech canon in the worst way, but not everything about Btech made sense and PGI has stated this is their interpretation of it. So as long as it has a good dose of "Common sense" I am ok with them making XL's not kills. *shrug*

But until then, "Pop goes the weasel"

=)

+1 to the OP!

The above quote is also how I would prefer we dealt with XL engines (if we're increasing the size of side torsos). I'm a pretty good shot, so when I see a mech that has an XL I burrow straight through the side torsos. I would be hard-pressed to say that people would keep using XLs if we made them more vulnerable. However if we simultaneously decreased the penalty for an XL blowout (losing side torso =/= instant death, but speed / heat penalties / HUD flickers / flashing lights) I think that this would be OK.

[Volthorne]

Now do the Catapult, Atlas,and Quickdraw.

[Carrioncrows]

Volthorne, on 19 September 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

Now do the Catapult, Atlas,and Quickdraw.

I think the Catapult and Quickdraw are fine, they need the Pelvic area rezones to the legs but that's about it. I'll put the Atlas here once i'm done with it.

The issue with the Quickdraw is that it's too big. I'm not a fan of how big the legs are but that's hardly a hitbox issue, it's a fundamental "model" issue. But apart from that and scale it's good to go.

EDIT: For the Boom.



The real problem with the Atlas is that massive Pelvic Diaper pants look to it. That soaks up an amazing amount of space. But then again that's a Model issue more so than a hitbox issue, but those still need reassigned to the legs.

If it doesn't rotate when you turn your torso, it should be legs.

Pretty standard stuff except I went ahead and bloom out the massive pauldrons like I did with the Awesome. And Like I said it's MORE than Ok to have massive Arm hitboxes.

Edited by Carrioncrows, 19 September 2013 - 07:44 PM.

[Majorfatboy]

Carrioncrows, on 18 September 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

PURE HARDCORE COMMON SENSE

Yes! A million times this! I've been saying this since the blasted Awesome came out.
For the sweet love of muffins, PGI, do just as the op said!
If I could like a post more then once, this'd be the one.

[Faithsfall]

Thankyou Carrion for this, I doubt it will be looked at but it is a very intelligent post that would help overall gameplay with alot of the mechs atm.

[Gaan Cathal]

I'm not entirely sure about all the CT/ST changes (it's always made some sense to me that mechs like the Catapult might trade survivability in terms of an exposed CT for 'safe' XL usage) but, as a light pilot who abuses the hell out of this (not only in lights, to be fair) that change to the diapers has to happen. I don't think I intentionally shoot a mech anywhere but the groin these days, as long as it's not crotch-down behind some inconvenient scenery.

[Solis Obscuri]

Carrioncrows, on 18 September 2013 - 11:29 PM, said:

I will work up an awesome and throw it in here.



Like I said it's ok to have BIG ARMS, in the case of the Awesome it is renown for it. Those massive pauldrons just soaking damage. But even then, once the arm blows off that damage transfers to the side torso's.

The side torso look massive but also keep in mind you are looking at it from the 3/4 view, straight on the CT and side torso's are equal.

Yes please.

[Johnny Reb]

I shutter at the new phoenix mech hitboxes. Cause, they keep getting worse.

[bloodnor]

PGI hire this fellow as an consultant

Edited by bloodnor, 20 September 2013 - 01:13 AM.

[Carrioncrows]

Johnny Reb, on 20 September 2013 - 12:56 AM, said:

I shutter at the new phoenix mech hitboxes. Cause, they keep getting worse.

Well considering they are 25 days away, chances are they are locked in already.

The locust is what concerns me the most, it's already 20 tons but if it has hitboxes like the current cicada it's going to make that meager armor even less because the arms will be useless for absorbing damage.

bloodnor, on 20 September 2013 - 01:13 AM, said:

PGI hire this fellow as an consultant

I'd be willing to work for cookies at this point if it makes MWO a better game.

I think it's the fact that I don't have a Canadian work visa yet, i'm working on it....then the cookies will flow

[Marmon Rzohr]

The proposed Dragon design would not make XLs any less viable. From the front it will still be hard to hit the STs from the front, but it would give you the option of twisting to absorb damage if you want to.