91 replies to this topic

[Beaker]

cobrafive, on 31 October 2011 - 10:00 PM, said:

I'm not a clanner, I don't strip the armor off to game the system, and I've never had that problem in an Assault mech... so... no?

The reason I think legging is dumb is because its too easy. Which is presciently why pretty much no-one has suggest removing legging, only that it needs to be tweaked for good gameplay. Otherwise everyone will be legging everyone over and over forever, like MW3.

Believe me, in MW4 when you're running an Angry Pencil (Wolfie loaded out with SL or ERSL) legging isn't easy when you're being targetted by an arseload of guys. It is however a valid tactic. I used lights right from Vengeance onwards, WAY prefer them. If someone was laserboating I'd always test their legs, and if they hadn't armoured them properly I'd make apoint of targetting them. Normally I'd be running a mech with less armour on the entire thing than you can fit on the leg of something like a Gladiator! Saying "Stop Shooting my legs" would normally get a response along the lines of "Stop shooting my CT!", or "legger" normally got "Yep ".

[taxman]

cobrafive, on 31 October 2011 - 04:26 PM, said:

This is going to be one of the most difficult decisions they have to make. In all honestly, legging generally just doesn't make for good gameplay. Its too much reward for too little risk and its just too easy. There's no reason not to leg!

But taking it out... it just doesn't make sense, and moreover, its just not mechwarrior!

I vote for being legged slowing you down, but not killing you.

Alternatively: To simulate some kind of honor on the battlefield, since this is an MMO style game... if you kill an enemy by legging, you get less money/experience points for the kill.

May not gain points but salvage should be good A few point to ponder HeadShots ( Cockpit - Killing Pilot without ability to eject ) Whilst frowned upon , would also deliver the possibility of good undamaged weapons salvage.

No one ever said war was fair. Real life history teaches us that. I guess in the MechWarrior Universe If I need equipment I would go for the quickest kill, if I needed xp points I would Harvest all the experience I could from a single battle.

I remember the idiots that thought joing a team and then constantly suiciding was fun...
So I guess questions for the developers should be....

1) Are legs and cockpits valid targets.
2) will a Cockpit shot Kill off that Mechwarrior character?
3) Persistent Suiciders part of the game or something to be dealt with?

Personaly I think if its part of an active mech then its a valid target. On the headshot - I am happy for the pilot to survive as long as I get good Salvage. You could if you like adopt a system like Eve were you could with experience and in game cash purchase clones that would be activated in the event of your untimely demise, obviously clones could be updated as you gained experience. for example if you had a clone that had a 5k exp point cap and your main character had 7.5 k and you were head shot then you would restart with the clone at 5k exp points.

As to legging, well I am sure the dev's can sort this issue out.
For example If you have both legs destroyed an Auto eject would imediately happen initiating a self destruct and a large explosion obliterating the Mech no salvage value and the pilot survives to fight another day.

Why would anyone want to leg? Same reason as a sniper would want to seriously wound a target, or an enemy plants anti personelle mines. To slow the enemy down.

Why would people want to suicide whilst in game. To further their cause, to create fear and panic in the enemy.
A person who uses the suicide option should not be able to use a clone so the character would die and be removed from the game.

I am so excited

[SJ SCP Wolf]

And it begins anew! Can we at least see how the damage and armor systems work before we have a legging whine thread?

[dr who2]

topgun505, on 31 October 2011 - 06:43 PM, said:

Why treat the leg, or indeed, ANY section of the mech as a single structure? We are all playing games nowdays with structures/objects composed of huge numbers of polygons. So why should a leg (or really, any large body portion) remain a single piece with a single damage value?? Why not break the leg up into 8 sections each ... or possibly more? For example, the front portion of the leg below the knee is one, the inside side of the leg below the knee is another, the backside below the knee is another. Etc. The same applies to above the knee. Every section has its own armor rating (which probably you would not be able to see a damage readout of an opposing mechs armor) which must be blown through before hitting the internals. No longer do you have a large leg as a target and you can hit it anywhere between the toe and the hip and it all counts towards the damage value of the entire limb. Break it up. If you want to dish out damage to a specific area of a mech you have to continually hit the SAME spot on the mech ... otherwise you are just hitting the fresh armor of a different section on the target.

This will make mechs in general more hardy and make you feel like you are really working to get your kill (cause you WILL be). And will make tactics such as legging difficult or impossible to do.

This definitely seems like a good compromise. It also makes effective legging a skill (i.e. those that can't aim well enough aren't going to be able to leg a mech, will waste their time doing so, thus making them an easy target). For the complaint that it departs from from the pencil and paper, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If departing from the pencil and paper is something that shouldn't be done, then shouldn't the whole idea of a real-time simulation be an issue? Shouldn't we get time to strategize our movements? IMHO, the kind of thinking, that says don't depart from the original, can kill the fun of a game.

Something the guys at Piranah Games should also be able to do is to tweak the armor values on the legs to give a good game-balance.

[Master Q]

fenixstryk, on 31 October 2011 - 04:33 PM, said:

In MW2, unless I'm misremembering, if you lost a leg, you fell over and waited for them to kill you. You could still shoot.

Depends on the exact version you have (of the more than 100 versions).

In some of them, you stood upright. Couldn't walk, could still torso twist and fire. Could still jump-jet maneuver, and could still "wiggle" (turn right and left) to hop forward at about 2-3 kph.

In some of them, you fell over and were basically defunct, since torso rotation clipped the ground and stopped working.

In some of them, you fell over, but could still torso twist to fire.

All depended on the iteration, and in some cases the graphics card you were running on (different cards = different collision detection).

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In MW3, if you lost a leg, you died instantly.

Well, not in a "Mech Asplode" way, just a "mech fall over shut down" way. Which is why nobody did anything but leg in the single-player campaign - you got to salvage the entire mech, sans one leg easily replaced.

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In MW4, if you lost a leg, you moved at half speed and any further damage to that leg went to your Center Torso / Internals.

Incorrect. Damage didn't transfer inwards from arms/legs to torso, just from LT/RT to CT. That being said, you do get to limp around. It reduces the incentive to leg someone to a manageable gameplay balance - more consistent with a dead actuator in the tabletop system.

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I don't remember what MechAssault did and I don't really care.

MechInsult didn't even have location-based damage.

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I would go with what MW2/MWLL did. I don't really fancy the idea of limping around, but instant death doesn't seem fair either.

Respectfully, I have to disagree. Legging was such an incentive in MW3 that it almost killed the game's online potential entirely. The only other option is to put such an armor boost on the legs of all 'Mechs that legging is simply not worthwhile - but then you're looking at legs having 50% more than a CT armor allocation per leg. If the 'Mech falls over at a cost of 75% of the damage required to take down the CT, then nobody will do anything but sweep the legs (johnny).

[LordRush]

zomg! Really? REALLY? Does this topic have to fit on every single freakin MW/BT forum?
Its part of the mech...shoot it,kill it.
I DO agree though...legging a mech "shouldn't" kill it. After all, just like the old BT days. If you were legged, you were still somewhat given a chance. At least you could torso maneuver and if a mech was in range and in site...hell, take a shot at it. I managed quite a few gyro kills when the other team just disabled me.

[PhoenixClaw]

It its urban combat I can forsee alot of alpha strikes to the legs in the gaps between buildings, provided someone can aim well enough on the move.

[Goose]

TheRulesLawyer, on 31 October 2011 - 11:17 PM, said:

Couple fixes
-Dispersion like most tactical FPS have. Your weapon will land somewhere in the circle. Calculated per weapon, so each weapon has a chace to hit a different spot. Bonus- pilot skill can make this smaller/larger.
- Make alpha strike have a much larger dispersion than normal. This will make it almost impossible to alpha strike any limb without wasting a lot of damage. Pilot skill again could affect this.

Damage should probably knock you down. That way you can take falling damage and add another roll for pilot skill. I'd just allow mechs with a blown off leg to get back up on successful attempt and walk at a slow limp … however it gets further away from the paper rules.

+1

[Jhereg KnT]

in MBPT some of my favorite battles ended on my back trying to get a good arc of fire on my enemy

The crux of the matter is that of all the rules to follow in BT , 'Mech developers have somehow managed to retain the damage models of the boardgame which basically means if you hit a limb that is already gone, (rolling dice here) then the damage move to the next closest part of the 'Mech which leads to internal damage hence why legging became such an issue. If they toss out that model and replace it with a more realistic one (such as in EGA/MPBT), yes you might get legged but you are still able to fight.

Edited by jhereg_knt, 01 November 2011 - 12:20 PM.

[Kamzack]

For legging i would prefer the weight of the mech comeing into play, the heavier the mech the higher chance of it falling down if its lag is gone.
If it dosent fall over, then it should move at half speed.

[xMarshallx]

jhereg_knt, on 01 November 2011 - 12:20 PM, said:

in MBPT some of my favorite battles ended on my back trying to get a good arc of fire on my enemy

The crux of the matter is that of all the rules to follow in BT , 'Mech developers have somehow managed to retain the damage models of the boardgame which basically means if you hit a limb that is already gone, (rolling dice here) then the damage move to the next closest part of the 'Mech which leads to internal damage hence why legging became such an issue. If they toss out that model and replace it with a more realistic one (such as in EGA/MPBT), yes you might get legged but you are still able to fight.

I think you make a very valid point Jhereg and the uncertainty of how this game will develop as far as rule placement makes this is truly an exciting time for all of us. The rules that were created for the board game may or may not translate well into a video game. Fortunately for this community, it seems that Piranha has put together an excellent team, whether it is through their own staff or outside partnerships, that we can hopefully see this game finally come to fruition in a way we can all enjoy while staying as true to its classic rule set to provide another quality title which has kept this community tied together for the past 10 years.

[saber15]

I want MWLL style legging in MWO - when your leg is critically damaged, you limp at about 1/4th speed. When it's destroyed, your mech topples over on the ground, and you're unable to move, but you can still twist around and shoot, and activate your jumpets:


Of course, since MWO will likely not feature ejection so you can fight as battlearmor / infantry, you should be able to get up to keep on limping, or crawl along on the ground.

[SquareSphere]

as long as you can't clip through the flood i'd be ok with it

[CGB Radar]

Yeah I'm In agreement with most folks in here. Legging should slow or definitly hamper mobility, and you should have the option of repairs like in WoT.

Unless they plan on adding repair bays that you can make use of, but like in WoT, once you repair, there's definitly some performance degredation. Maybe that could be also added in?

[Erhardt]

Hopefully their damage model will be flexible enough to give us the whole progressive rainbow of outcomes... progressive damage of blown out actuators slowing you down in stages as you lose more of them over time, to the effective destruction of the leg (not necessarily blowing it clean off) reducing movement to an absolute bare minimum (unless you fire Jump Jets), to outright blowing the leg (or arm, for that matter) off in a violent, explosive amputation.

And total destruction should be random... it always bothered me that every single mech in MW4/MERCS ended in a fantastic explosion that stopped being fantastic because it happened all the time. Make it clear a mech is dead, sure... walls of flame and smoke coming from the chassis, etc, but not every single kill needs to be vaporized in a reactor explosion.

[Ghost]

Hull-down/kneeling. Only way to go.

[topgun505]

saber15, on 01 November 2011 - 12:33 PM, said:

I want MWLL style legging in MWO - when your leg is critically damaged, you limp at about 1/4th speed. When it's destroyed, your mech topples over on the ground, and you're unable to move, but you can still twist around and shoot, and activate your jumpets:


Of course, since MWO will likely not feature ejection so you can fight as battlearmor / infantry, you should be able to get up to keep on limping, or crawl along on the ground.

I find it funny that in a thread about how to reducing legging, this clip appears with 2 mechs in the background not moving an inch and doing nothing bout firing nonstop at ... each others legs.

[GreenHell]

topgun505, on 01 November 2011 - 01:59 PM, said:

I find it funny that in a thread about how to reducing legging, this clip appears with 2 mechs in the background not moving an inch and doing nothing bout firing nonstop at ... each others legs.

I lol'd

[Reoh]

Ahhh legging, I remember running a locust back in the original 4-colour mechwarrior game, circling around those slow moving Battlemasters and then zapping their legs off. I was too shot you see, to be hit by guns. All I had to do was run into its legs and blow it off. Fortunately the game didn't have melee combat, that Battlemaster should've just dropkicked me out of the battlefield.

I can see now, 'mechs laying prone becoming the new "last stand" guys.

[IS Wolf]

Owl Cutter, on 01 November 2011 - 01:11 AM, said:

We should be able to have fun legging mechanics without it becoming a cheap tactic. In MW2, losing one leg leaves you standing in place unless you have functioning jump jets, in which case you get to jump and use lateral thrust. In [MW2:] Mercs you fall over and have to torso-twist to hit anything. It's as fun as it sounds. You could still use jump jets in Mercs, too; when using them, they right your 'mech but you fall over again when you stop thrusting. It's hilarious and awesomely immersive at the same time, so I'd like for legging to work the same way in MWO but with one change.

The reason it's too drastic a result for the effort, esp. if salvage is important, is that in a game with actual aiming involved we get a choice between damage divided across two locations when aiming low and six when aiming high. Just give armor allocated to legs some extra resistance to incoming damage, so shooting at the torso and arms becomes at least as desirable. I like the idea of being able to get better salvage through greater effort; kill it as quick as possible but lose out on spare parts and upgrades, or take more time and risk for a bigger payoff?

This. Legging = salvage essentially, and that is always good.
So cutting out legging completely would be a drag imnsho.