72 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

leg damage from falling should be multiplied by tonnage:

so like an atlas should take 1 damage times 100% = 1 damage

a commando should take 1 damage times 25% = 0.25 damage

a locust should take 1 damage times 20% = 0.2 damage

Edited by Khobai, 21 April 2014 - 12:26 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Fierostetz, on 21 April 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

... remember this isn't TT though.

Indeed.

Product9, on 21 April 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

No offense, but it's pretty obvious you've never coded on top of an existing game engine before.

That is not very helpful or relevant.

What I looked at was some threads on crydev.net and a few other sites I googled. If are you familiar with the the Cryengine, may you please share some of what you know on the topic?

[Solahma]

Fierostetz, on 21 April 2014 - 11:50 AM, said:

lol neither is that bad, just plan your routes better.

I hate to make assumptions, but i'm guessing this is coming from someone who doesn't pilot a Locust. Regardless of how good your situation awareness is, you are going to be restricted to certain maneuvers given several factors which are not always under your control. Your routes are limited to weapon ranges as well as enemy positions. Your opponent will react in a number of ways and they are not always predictable. You cannot predict how long your opponent will focus on you while you evade or if another light will round a corner to counter your presence.

Keeping track of all these factors quickly turn you into a good pilot and improve situational awareness (as you recommend), but with one major flaw. No matter what your planned route, you will be frequently faced with decisions. Do I continue down this "safe terrain" route and suffer more enemy fire, or do I bug-out over this ridge and out of LoS only to take an unavoidable fall-damage. The obvious choice is to take the fall damage and evade; taking the least amount of damage possible.

The problem is, just enemy positioning alone is forcing you to take damage in a mech that has very little armor. It's a lose-lose situation where a mech takes damage no matter what decision the pilot makes.

"Get better piloting"

tell that to the rock you just clipped and slid you 2m down the rest of the tiny hill taking leg damage. Now do that several times in a match. You've practically killed yourself by trying to survive.

This makes absolutely zero sense and there is no reason to shrug it off as "bad piloting" or "improve your routes". You can get away with that in a Firestarter or a Jenner. They have TWICE the leg armor AND jump jets. Obviously they are not the concern. You can plan any route with the heavier lights and have a large tolerance because the doubled leg armor and jump jets. The commando even has 33% more leg armor and would be less of a concern. Right now, the Locust has no advantage to justify both lower armor and fall damage punishment.

It would be amusing if the Locust was immune to fall damage. Might actually be worth taking by more people at that point. Hopefully your team-mates don't run into you though

Edited by Solahma, 21 April 2014 - 12:55 PM.

[Daekar]

I have thought this was backwards since closed beta. In a world where you can throw an ant off the Empire State building and have it suffer no fall damage, it makes no sense to have the large mechs taking no damage whereas the small ones lose leg armor on pebbles, short falls, etc.

It should be reversed.

[Jin Ma]

I've always said fall damage should be a % of leg armor. not a flat damage.

[Clit Beastwood]

Solahma, on 21 April 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

I hate to make assumptions, but i'm guessing this is coming from someone who doesn't pilot a Locust. Regardless of how good your situation awareness is, you are going to be restricted to certain maneuvers given several factors which are not always under your control. Your routes are limited to weapon ranges as well as enemy positions. Your opponent will react in a number of ways and they are not always predictable. You cannot predict how long your opponent will focus on you while you evade or if another light will round a corner to counter your presence.

Keeping track of all these factors quickly turn you into a good pilot and improve situational awareness (as you recommend), but with one major flaw. No matter what your planned route, you will be frequently faced with decisions. Do I continue down this "safe terrain" route and suffer more enemy fire, or do I bug-out over this ridge and out of LoS only to take an unavoidable fall-damage. The obvious choice is to take the fall damage and evade; taking the least amount of damage possible.

The problem is, just enemy positioning alone is forcing you to take damage in a mech that has very little armor. It's a lose-lose situation where a mech takes damage no matter what decision the pilot makes.

"Get better piloting"

tell that to the rock you just clipped and slid you 2m down the rest of the tiny hill taking leg damage. Now do that several times in a match. You've practically killed yourself by trying to survive.

This makes absolutely zero sense and there is no reason to shrug it off as "bad piloting" or "improve your routes". You can get away with that in a Firestarter or a Jenner. They have TWICE the leg armor AND jump jets. Obviously they are not the concern. You can plan any route with the heavier lights and have a large tolerance because the doubled leg armor and jump jets. The commando even has 33% more leg armor and would be less of a concern. Right now, the Locust has no advantage to justify both lower armor and fall damage punishment.

It would be amusing if the Locust was immune to fall damage. Might actually be worth taking by more people at that point. Hopefully your team-mates don't run into you though

Incorrect! all three are mastered. Of all the lights, I find the locust the most fun because it handles like a dirtbike, and basically forces you to be on guard at all times. After double basics, it accelerates and decelerates in a truly beautiful way. I'm a light mech pilot primarily, but drive everything. If you ever want some pointers or tips, feel free to friend me in-game and I'll gladly help you out or follow me on twitch - I'm out of things to do in this game, so 5 flamer locusts are my recent fun ride of choice! My light mech motto is "be where bullets aren't".

Now, some background on me - I spend a mandatory minimum of 2 hours a week in testing grounds doing high speed target practice, and looking for faster/more efficient ways around the maps. I am not normal, in that I am absolutely obsessive about this stuff.

Edited by Fierostetz, 21 April 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[Clit Beastwood]

I re-read my post and it made me sound like a jerk, if it comes across that way, I apologize I'm genuinely offering to drop with anyone needing help!

[Product9]

Praetor Shepard, on 21 April 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

What I looked at was some threads on crydev.net and a few other sites I googled. If are you familiar with the the Cryengine, may you please share some of what you know on the topic?

I've not developed for CryEngine because I'm not particularly masochistic, but I have written character controllers for other engines.

The controller in MWO is actually similar to one of my early attempts a few years back, but I've since gone with an entirely different approach because in my project getting stuck on corners was unacceptable. This isn't really relevant to the topic at hand, though.

Basically, if you develop a game on the Source engine, it doesn't mean that the avatar is necessarily a reskinned Gordon Freeman. By the same token, the mechs aren't reskinned versions of the Crysis guy (never played it, so I can't be sure, but MWO controls completely differently from a traditional FPS).

For a game like MWO, the character controller would usually be written from the ground up, not relying on the controller used in Crysis. There should be no need for half-baked hacks like what you are suggesting, but rather a simple change to the script that controls the mech, calculated fall damage, speed, etc.

There are probably variables for tonnage and the fall damage is calculated by a multiplier. If that isn't the case, then it should be because it makes more sense.

[Koniving]

kesuga7, on 21 April 2014 - 07:13 AM, said:

So even the tiniest bump into much anything or a small jump will hurt these already low armoured light mechs

If your jumping down a hill you need to slow down to avoid any leg damage while jumpjet equipped spiders can actually go faster without having to slow down and just cushion their landing

Can there please be a adjustment to Non jumpjet capable lights taking leg damage from such tiny bumps specifically on the locust or commando?!

For a comparison... This is the longest fall that ever existed in the game. When I sent in a report to support, when someone checked it out and before it was fixed, I was told "By the way, that fall only resulted in 0.7 damage."

So this fall is 0.7 damage. The average fall is usually 0.2 or less damage.
I think you're alright. Btw at falls of 39 meters or less hit "X" or full stop while falling to significantly reduce any damage (as in NOT take damage at all).
Take falls at less than 65 kph for zero damage.

Basically falls under 40 meters, under 65 kph, get no damage.

[Graugger]

Almost sounds like the lights want a buff to their leg armor and a nerf to the leg armor of heavy mechs.... Anyone up for double legging a few atlas's?

Actually no, that's a brilliant idea PGI should do this!

[kesuga7]

Graugger, on 22 April 2014 - 06:58 PM, said:

Almost sounds like the lights want a buff to their leg armor and a nerf to the leg armor of heavy mechs.... Anyone up for double legging a few atlas's?

Actually no, that's a brilliant idea PGI should do this!

jenner and firestarter are fine with more plentiful Armour and jumpjets but locust and mando more specifically locust seem to actually take more leg damage then normal , i gotta test if the locust takes higher leg damage over a 16 leg armour raven

i don't know if its leg damage scaling or armour it just seems off

Koniving, on 22 April 2014 - 06:45 PM, said:

So this fall is 0.7 damage. The average fall is usually 0.2 or less damage.
I think you're alright. Btw at falls of 39 meters or less hit "X" or full stop while falling to significantly reduce any damage (as in NOT take damage at all).
Take falls at less than 65 kph for zero damage.

Basically falls under 40 meters, under 65 kph, get no damage.

well that another thing , a spider can run off a hill at full speed and cushion its landing while lighter mechs ith less leg armour and no jumpjets need to slow down to fully avoid that leg damage


anyway going to test:

How many jumps does it take to leg a 16 leg armour locust and a 16 leg Armour raven

Edited by kesuga7, 22 April 2014 - 08:41 PM.

[Koniving]

kesuga7, on 22 April 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

well that another thing , a spider can run off a hill at full speed and cushion its landing while lighter mechs ith less leg armour and no jumpjets need to slow down to fully avoid that leg damage

It's part of having jumpjets.
Either way when you land you slow down, regardless of trying to stop, holding down the throttle, or jumpjetting. Thing is when you jumpjet you SLOW DOWN.

When you let go of the throttle, you slow down and brace your legs for the landing.

If you hold the throttle, you're "running in the air" which doesn't improve your speed at all, you still slow down when you hit the ground hard; the problem is you just twisted your ankle for "0.1 to 0.2" damage. Big deal. One to two machine gun bullets worth of damage. If even that much!

I still manage to get that kind of damage with jumpjets on about 4 out of every 10 jumps.

And typically my jumps are much less high than my falls.

[Fantastic Tuesday]

I just did some quick testing. Running a locust into one of the ravines on Canyon Network does approx 0.33 damage per leg, per fall. This was based on 48 falls being stripping all 16 points of armour from both legs, and 22 needed for the 8 points of structure.

So for now this isn't really a problem, but if fall damage is bumped up in future this will need addressing. There's no reason a Locust should take fall damage where heavier mechs do not.

[Monkeystador]

100 tons falling 10 meters should do considerable damage to the legs. Also the damage should never be capped, if the mechs falls down from 100 meters, legs break off.
I dont like to see mechs JJ off a cliff into the void just to drop down straight and running avoid.
JJs need some serious work.
A simple linear damage scale for all mechs would be fine. fall down 100kph, receive x damage * tonnage. If there is a need to make some mechs better at dampening fall damage add another multiplicator to it.

Edited by Monkeystador, 06 May 2014 - 02:35 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 21 April 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

The Locust's relatively leg armor capacity is a leftover Tabletop rule that served no purpose other than to nerf the crap out of 20 ton mechs, which would be weak even without that...

IIRC The Locust and other 20 ton Mechs have 4 points of Leg Structure for a max of 8 armor or 16 max in MW:O. Working as intended if my Memory holds true.

[Joseph Mallan]

Monkeystador, on 06 May 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

100 tons falling 10 meters should do considerable damage to the legs. Also the damage should never be capped, if the mechs falls down from 100 meters, legs break off.
I dont like to see mechs JJ off a cliff into the void just to drop down straight and running avoid.
JJs need some serious work.
A simple linear damage scale for all mechs would be fine. fall down 100kph, receive x damage * tonnage. If there is a need to make some mechs better at dampening fall damage add another multiplicator to it.

(Tonnage/10)*Levels fallen.
(100/10)*2= 20 damage delivered in 5 point locations on the Legs. Max 20% armor loss.

(20/10)*2=4 Or 50% TT leg's armor max.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 May 2014 - 07:47 AM.

[DONTOR]

Commando has enough leg armor that it doesnt matter all that much, the Locust on the other hand has 8 points less PER leg than the Commando, and that matters alot.

[Screech]

Think most of the problem comes from damage being determined by the speed of the mech when landing and not the distance of drop.

[Joseph Mallan]

Screech, on 06 May 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Think most of the problem comes from damage being determined by the speed of the mech when landing and not the distance of drop.

That is Ramming Damage and not falling damage Ramming inflicts damage to the charging Mech as follows:
(tonnage/10)*Distance ran in a straight line
(20/10)*6Hexes
12 damage... Level 1 Rock/Wall/whatever damage done to Legs only. That would have crippled a TT locust!

[Screech]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 May 2014 - 08:20 AM, said:

That is Ramming Damage and not falling damage Ramming inflicts damage to the charging Mech as follows:
(tonnage/10)*Distance ran in a straight line
(20/10)*6Hexes
12 damage... Level 1 Rock/Wall/whatever damage done to Legs only. That would have crippled a TT locust!

I am talking more about the game engine as opposed to TT rules. It really was apparent a year or so ago during a patch. Found an old thread about it from 2012. Here.

They later went back and changed it somewhat but I think the root problem is still there.