126 replies to this topic

[Prezimonto]

Corwin Vickers, on 26 April 2014 - 08:43 PM, said:

And what no one who advocates collisions ever references correctly is that it is the chargee who does more damage and takes less damage. So it's the assault mechs who get the worst end of the deal. Of course no one wants that though....

You also don't see people asking to get knocked down everytime they take 20 damage in 10 seconds. You don't hear people talking about how they want their atlas to try and kick a locust, miss, fall on it's back and crit it's gyro and never be able to stand again. These are all part of the rules.


That's not cannon and that's not physics. Just another "assault mechs aren't powerful enough" post. As if clicking on your mech selection should be the determining factor in whether you win on the battlefield.

I can say that I'd like collisions to work with a proper physics based damage model where both sides take damage. Certain weapons (hands, feet, weapons) might have varying amounts of damage reduction.. so if you use the proper tool you come out ahead, but pure collisions to knock over mechs should do equal damage to both mechs.

As for gyros and gyro crits: I think it IS terribly unfun to get knocked over and not be able to move.

What I suggested a while back in this thread is that your gyro gets a force vector that offsets falling over. If you get knocked, and your gyro's force vector magnitude is larger than the imbalancing force vector you stay up... but get shaken.

Crits to the gyro would steadily decrease your mechs ability to counter being knocked over. If it's destroyed I'd also like to see your mech go very slowly... like losing a leg (which by TT should knock you over).

I think there's a middle ground where penalties could be worked up, but not completely invalidate fun in a 10 minute shooter match. Another idea is to have step wise return to standing. Get knocked over... retain control and shoot from the ground, tap the direction button and move to kneeling in that direction, tap again, move to standing. All the time being able to fire.

And YES I want weapon recoil for the shooter, and knockdown chance(not a chance based on the state of your gyro and mech's size) from the force vector applied from HUGE weapon hits.

As for roots/snares/ect... think about what has to happen for that in this game if it's based on a grab... you have to be in range, you'd have to be able to latch onto something you can hold... that's what 5m range? It would actually add to team tactics and brawling in a big way. It would make the long range game a little more dangerous. Both are good things.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 April 2014 - 06:54 AM.

[TimePeriod]

If we are going to have this feature (call it what you want), we are going to have a few ground rules...

1) When grounded or knocked over, the 'Mech must retain the ability to fire its weapons.
If I can see the bloody thing, my weapons are powered and online, I must be allowed to shoot it.

2) Both 'Mechs receive damage proportional to the mass upon collision.
Raven bumps into Atlas. Raven takes most damage.

3) If legged already a 'Mech cannot return to its feet and must crawl, retains the ability to fire any weapons mounted on the arms.
If the upper torso sports a high mounted weapon location, the weapon could fire provided elevation

3A) If you are stuck on your stomach, laying flat down you can elevate yourself using your arms and fire whatever torso mounted weapons currently at your disposal.

Edited by TimePeriod, 27 April 2014 - 07:08 AM.

[wanderer]

Corwin Vickers, on 26 April 2014 - 08:43 PM, said:

Are you talking about Solaris rules or some other level 3 rules? Because in the standard rules there is punching, kicking, DFA, and charging. Later on you had the hatchetman and Axeman. And only much later did you have other weapons. No grabbing or grappling.

Tactical Operations, actually. Which falls under "advanced" rules along with such things as....oh, artillery. Total Warfare represents the "tournament" rules, which are streamlined to reduce match time. TacOps has most of the stuff that could slow down a match, like more complex physical maneuvers or setting terrain on fire, inferno rounds for SRMs, that sorta thing.

Quote

And what no one who advocates collisions ever references correctly is that it is the chargee who does more damage and takes less damage. So it's the assault mechs who get the worst end of the deal. Of course no one wants that though....

And speaking of that, the advanced-level rules for charging take the target's tonnage into account as well. Ramming something in a light 'Mech can REALLY HURT, as opposed to automatically being a barely-denting experience- especially if both 'Mechs moved at each other in a straight line.

Quote

You also don't see people asking to get knocked down everytime they take 20 damage in 10 seconds. You don't hear people talking about how they want their atlas to try and kick a locust, miss, fall on it's back and crit it's gyro and never be able to stand again. These are all part of the rules.

Given, in MWO it'd likely be 40 damage, and it's actually "in one turn"- which can be less depending on scaling. And actually, gyros don't take damage in MWO- because they can't code to simulate the wobbly, apparently.

Quote

And piloting skill rolls are based on stopped, walking, running, jumping, not actual speed. Thus a mech running 40kph has the same trouble maneuvering as the mech running 170kph

Actually, skid checks have penalties based on speed- which is what you worry about when making that tight turn at 150kph...

Edited by wanderer, 27 April 2014 - 08:12 AM.

[monk]

Going to spout of a few thoughts, possible heresies, and ideas that may or may not appeal.

First off, I really miss the idea of knockdown. I realize that it had issues, but I see so much advantage in what it could potentially offer if working properly. I feel this way about a lot of the old systems and mechanics that have faded since CB. I understand that some of it was done to get the game working "properly" instead of being full of half functioning features, but I can't help but grimace when watching some of the old videos that show off things which, to me, made MWO a more interesting and exciting game.

Regarding knockdown, here's a heretical concept I haven't spent much time on, but I thought I'd toss out as it came up a few times in my mind while reading through this thread. What if, when knocked down, instead of becoming unable to pilot and do anything, you *gasp...hold on to your pants, I'm sure you're about to drop a brick* the mech went into the 3rd person animation to show what is occurring, but allowed you to maintain a degree of function (i.e. you could still aim and shoot, albeit, your weaponry may have issues targetting as it could be pointing the wrong way. This state would exist until the mech, using DI was able to right itself back to proper position, and you'd return to the first person view. Some mechs would clearly benefit from having arms and other things which may thereby be able to fire. Sure, there are a lot of minor mechanics that would need to be sorted (what if you don't want to get up, but would rather just focus fire on that enemy that was almost dead and has you dead to rights - getting up could be the last thing you want to do. What if you wanted a specific weapon to fire, could you get up with only one arm. What if your mech can't actually get up because it has missing parts that would prevent it from righting itself, etc.) But it would be a fun mechanic to sort through and resolve.

The ability to target things like legs to cause a mech aiming issues would also be fun. An ac20 round to the leg could spin the mech to the side a bit (dependent up on range, target mech weight, etc.) Sure, this could be disorienting to new players, but there are easy ways to add clear feedback on what is occurring. Error messages and notices from Betty could alert players to what was occurring. There are also simple hud notices that could appear on the players view.

I do agree that actual knockdowns should be somewhat rare, as mechs will try their best to maintain balance, but I would love to have their aim affect by things like this. Imagine all the scenarios that could play out. Losing all your weaponry wouldn't leave you a useless shell anymore. You could still attempt to disrupt and actually *gasp* damage an enemy mech by charging them down. Maybe you won't be able to destroy them, but ramming into them, disrupting their aim as much as LRMs or other hits do would be extremely reasonable. Why shouldn't an Atlas be able to affect a locusts ability to aim their shot? This doesn't negate the role of lighter mechs, but instead would add to the diversity between mechs. Mechs with large engines and heavy mass would have new things to consider. Speed and stability could also have a more prominent role. Light and agile? Good, you probably also have better stabilizers that prevent you from getting bumped over. Heavy and carrying an insufficient engine? You're going to potentially have more issues with stability.

And I totally would love to see melee combat exist. Sure, not every mech would make use of it, but there are currently a number of mechs who would see a significant reason for action if they were able to make use of all of their parts. We don't need WWE, but a basic level of melee functionality would be amazing. Anything to improve the reason to brawl would be a huge bonus. Consider the banshee. Not a lot of those out there. All torso based weapons and two useless arms. Would be nice if they could use them for hand to hand combat (as intended) to "...turn lighter 'Mechs to scrap in hand-to-hand fighting" as noted on Sarna. I'd LOVE to see something like the BNC-3S Reinesblatt hauling a hatchet into battle and taking chunks off another mech. Role diversification. Players getting to design things according to their play style. All good for MWO.

Anyhow. I realize it's a way down the road, and I appreciate that PGI hasn't thrown in the towel (from what we're being told), but I am pained that development is so slow. There are a number of key features that MWO seems to be missing that really would help it become something that could set it apart.

[Lightfoot]

Mechs get up automatically or press the G key? Something to think about.

What I didn't like about the knockdowns from collisions was that it was too easy to do. Mech takes a little bump and falls over. It wasn't realistic considering the Mechs can take an AC20 hit and remain upright. Now a DFA or full speed collision, yes, this could knock a Mech over.

Again I am more keen on seeing knockdowns from weapon "spin", like a 3xPPC hit on a Medium or a 2xAC20 hit on a Heavy or combination of PPCs and AC20 on an Assault. Or...wait for it.... LRM30 and up depending on impact trajectories and the size of the mech.

[Sean von Steinike]

I pretty much stopped playing lights after knockdown was removed. Got boring lame. Granted, it was poorly implemented (what else is new with PGI?) but if they can manage to reintroduce it with better implementation (won't hold my breath), I am all for it.

[Galenit]

FupDup, on 21 April 2014 - 04:07 PM, said:

I can understand how my meta Victor body-slamming into anything and everything below my tonnage at every single possible opportunity and dropping artillery/air strikes on them while they're down could be fun for my end, but it would probably be borked for the overall game.

kinetic energy=1/2 x m x v²

The little ² is the important part of it.

Its says your victor will not do much if it wades to the enemy,
it also says the little spider will drop you down more often if it comes at full speed and jumps at your chest.

You both will take around the same damage,
you will be heavy damaged,
the spider will stick as flat piece of metal to your chest,
and you will sit on your back after that.

And thats why the little ² is the main problem if you try to balance it ....


We have done the math about it and some discussions and solutions for balancing it some month ago somewhere in the forum ...

Prezimonto, on 22 April 2014 - 01:11 PM, said:

On the first page of the thread I suggested that a real physics based damage model would help a LOT. 100 tons moving at 50kph is about equal to 50 ton mech rolling at 100kph is about equal to a 35 ton mech moving at 143 kph, about equal to a 20 ton mech moving at 250 kph.

NOOOO!!!!!!11111Eleven!!!!

100 tons at 50 kph = 1/2*100000kg*(13,8m/s)²=9522000J
50 tons at 100kph = 1/2*50000kg*(27,8m/s)²=19321000J
20 tons at 250kph = 1/2*20000kg*(69,4m/s)²=48163600j

Thats not the same, its not equal, because there is the little ² ....


Your base statement is right:
A real world physics model, with some modifications based on wheightclass and mechchassis as quirks, would make a good start for a great knockdown system.
But we all know pgi ...

Edited by Galenit, 28 April 2014 - 04:18 AM.