208 replies to this topic

[Jakob Knight]

I can see heavier mechs taking more falling damage (though to balance it out, they should also -do- more damage to the other mech when collisions happen), but the idea that a mech that weighs 20 tons with only 2 points of armor on its legs will somehow take less damage from a 30-meter fall than a mech that weighs 20 tons with 10 points of armor on it's legs falling the exact same distance seems completely unrealistic. The damage should be mass/distance of fall related. Armor has absolutely nothing to do with the damage -done-, but with dealing -with- the damage being done. In effect, you are saying the more you try to protect the leg from damage, the more damage you will sustain, which is completely senseless.

I recommend you dump the armor percentage code entirely. It's unrealistic, unneeded, and one more line of calculation to cause bugs and slow the system. Just leave it as straight weight damage calculation, and let the mechs with lower armor suffer the results of not having the protection they sacrificed for other gains.

The other point that has been raised by others is just as important. If a mech has fallen a distance, but uses jump jets to break its fall to land, there is no reason why it should take any damage at all. Jumping mechs are -designed- to land from an airborne fall, as long as they are not in freefall when they hit. And, -all- jumping mechs -will- land after being in the air more than 1 second, so this seems to indicate -any- use of jump jets in the game will damage your mech noticeably. Every time.

-Falling- damage is good. -Landing- damage is not. Please ensure damage is only done to a mech that hits the ground after a full second of -no- jump jet use, as this would qualify as 'falling'. Otherwise, the mech is braking its fall with jump jets, or has not fallen far enough to cause damage, and so should not take any.

Seriously, so many people want artificial solutions to tactical problems they face like Jump Sniping. The Devs should not be attempting to punish a tactic that makes perfect sense just because players don't want to think about how to defeat it on their own, if that is indeed what this change was about. As illustrated above and with other posts in this thread, doing so only adds a host of new problems which make no sense at all to have in the game.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 06 June 2014 - 08:48 PM.

[YueFei]

Fall damage isn't the answer to reduce jump sniping, since the good jump snipers don't jump unnecessarily high. They jump the minimal height necessary to make their shot, exposing themselves only from the waist up if possible. That's like an 8 meter high jump.

Meanwhile everyone else that uses jump jets for big jumps and leaping from one spot to the other? Yeah, you're gonna wreck your legs.

Brawlers also typically get close enough that their legs are exposed and a good target to aim for.

While jump snipers, if they keep their jump height minimized, don't expose their legs that much.

[Valdemaar]

In regards to everyone worried about lights taking more damage from this model:

Am I the only one who actually saves a bit of JJ fuel to soften my landing?

[YueFei]

Valdemaar, on 06 June 2014 - 09:44 PM, said:

In regards to everyone worried about lights taking more damage from this model:

Am I the only one who actually saves a bit of JJ fuel to soften my landing?

There are mechs without JJ's, and Light mechs without JJs tend to wreck their legs just from running around on uneven terrain.

Kinda reminds me of the fall-damage that Warriors sometimes took in World-of-Warcraft when charging. Use charge to run at an opponent, at 100% health, and then drop dead instantly from fatal fall damage.

[Cerlin]

Some tweaking will be needed, but seeing Victors pop off legs will be amazing!

[MisterPlanetarian]

Make sure to keep the light mech fall damage very conservative and this is great.


If we go by the jumpjet heat a victor with 4 jets generate alot of heat per second while burning, you can't fire PPC's after a long jump and not take fall damage since you will overheat in the air or not have enough fuel to slow your drop.

Edit:

It would be more realistic to apply the fall damage to the internal structure of your mechs legs since the servos and joints are the components taking the baseball bat when you fall, not your armor.

Edited by MisterPlanetarian, 07 June 2014 - 12:37 AM.

[Kirtanus]

sounds very good!!! waitingwating

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

So, it would seem the new falling damage rule would also apply to any non-JJ mech that falls a great distance, such as an Atlas that falls off one of the cliff sides of the I9 hill on Alpine. This means non-JJ brawling mechs would get a nerf, too!

[MountainCopper]

I agree to this increase in realism. But this will only make sense when one or two things are changed as well:

1. Falling a long distance and then using the JJs for ~0.1 s before hitting the ground will prevent all fall damage...
2. Jumping down the tallest mountain on Alpine Peaks will still not destroy one or both legs?

Edited by GoldenFleece, 09 June 2014 - 11:35 PM.

[anonymous161]

Imperius, on 06 June 2014 - 05:05 PM, said:

Hopefully this stops pop-tarting...

Nah this will be broken and not work at all probably or not the way it was supposed to and there will be more shall we say more rage?

[Reno Blade]

As I look at the formular, I still have a question.

What if your mech is in the air for >1s, (the calculation kicks into action) but you are below 30ft/s speed ? No damage, right?
If your falling speed is always >30ft/s after 1sec in the air, then I'm fine, but I can't imagine the speed (whats that in meters/sec?) by just the numbers here.

I just ask, because if you could "hover" with 1 JJet to poptart, you might use the JJ for 2-3 sec, bot don't get high enough to actually gain enough speed while falling to take any damage.

On a second note, I hope this only counts as vertical fall speed vector, because a jenner running 150kp/h falling 20kp/h (example) should only take damage for the 20kp/h not the 150.
This is just so it's not mistaken somehow and works purely on the fall speed.

[xCico]

Ripvan, on 06 June 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Won't stop it but it will mean that they might not jump so high. They need some fuel to soften their landing.

-- Ripvan

It will stop them, cause when they need to soft their fall they will be longer in the air and can get good amount of damage due that...

[Parmeggido]

I don't think you're going to take damage if you're going less than 30 ft/s, however, I do wonder if it's going to take direction into account. Are speedy light mechs still going to be taking damage more often because they go faster? Quick googling says 151 km/h = ~137 ft/s, which is way higher than 30 ft/s. So, if this only counts 30+ ft/s down, that's one thing. If it counts your speed in any direction, that's another thing entirely.

[Dauphni]

This system seems overly complicated. Why not just base it on actual physics? That would lead to a much more elegant and intuitive implementation. You know the mass and the velocity of the Mechs, so stuff like momentum and inertia are easy to calculate. Then give each Mech a sort of "shock absorber" rating, and start counting damage when it's exceeded.

The way hill climbing works actually has a similar problem. It's just so divorced from actual physics...

[D34K]

This change won't affect good jump snipers, sorry. PGI and the spacepoor forum scrubs here *still* don't understand how jump snipers work. They don't jump high, they jump laterally and as low as possible vs. terrain. This penalty model only makes climbing hills even more silly, for *everyone*.

Really sorry, whilst a nerf to jump jets is a worthy idea this is not it.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Jin Ma, on 06 June 2014 - 05:04 PM, said:

But with the mockup it looks like light mechs will take more damage than they currently do when falling.

With fall damage currently, I can barely hop around my jenner in a match without getting legged. that plus the one leg movement speed nerf a while ago. If you guys consider role warfare a real thing, and actually want to balance the weight classes. you might want to consider lowering the proposed damage (at least for light mechs)

I hope the final numbers will land light mech damage lower than the current 0.3-0.5

It's a good thing that lights can't indiscriminantly fly through the air and fall with little consideration fo damage, it adds more skill to piloting.

Plus... I don't know what you are doing to take significant fall damage during a match....

[Jin Ma]

Marmon Rzohr, on 07 June 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

It's a good thing that lights can't indiscriminantly fly through the air and fall with little consideration fo damage, it adds more skill to piloting.

Plus... I don't know what you are doing to take significant fall damage during a match....

fall damage isn't significant, but going into a battle as a light mech at even 98% leg health is a disadvantage, beceause everyody and their moms will target your legs. plus out runing LRMs mean they land on your legs. So you wanna start at as much leg health as possible.

Edited by Jin Ma, 07 June 2014 - 03:08 AM.

[Logi]

good way to solve the poptart´s problem

[Rubidiy]

This change looks like another nail in a coffin's cover.
It's not going to affect mechs with JJs as much as mechs WITHOUT JumpJets. Yet another nerf, yet another challenge to average or weak players who are a majority of player base. PGI still misses a guy who actually understands definition of word "fun". This game becomes less and less fun, all balance actions cut off existing fun without adding anything in return. Instead of making this game more accessable, PGI makes it more and more hardcore by some extremely questionable tweaks.
- So if you're a novice, and you peek a wrong corner, you're dead.
- If you dropped down in a mech without JJs, it will take ages to return to your team. Usually it means that you're dead.
- If you spawned far away from your team's route in a slow mech, you're very likely to be killed by entire enemy lance, jumping at you. Dead...
- and now if you dropped down during the fight, you have a huge chance of breaking yuor legs.

To clarify my position. I'm ok with it. I'm a hardcore guy. I just don't understand why do 'mechs without JJs should suck even more than usual? Why PGI does not want to recreate all maps to favour normal mechs and normal Mechwarrior gameplay???
Alas, I really don't see this game coming out of it's disgrace.

[Alex Warden]

hm honestly the basic thought is okaym but PLEASE!!!:

take into consideration that a LARGE ammount of "fall damage" doesnt even come from falling on lightmechs,,,,it comes from running ... there are many many small bumps that cause the mech to "fly" a few inches above the ground, sometimes 2 seconds or more...

i would strongly recomment to include "how HIGH did the mech get above the ground " into the calculation, or at least a minimum hights from which it starts counting for damage... of course still scaled by weight...

Edited by Alex Warden, 07 June 2014 - 03:37 AM.