178 replies to this topic

[50 50]

An additional thought: If the Elementals used the respawn function from allied mechs then this is a way simulates how they rode into battle on the Omnis.
Be nice to have proper mount/dismount function though.

In prior MechWarrior games the elementals have been include as a unit that could be piloted, but they always seemed tacked on and not implemented as well as they could have been.
Given what the cryengine is capable of and all the great stuff the team has done with the mechs etc. I put forward the challenge to the team at PGI:

Build the Elemental so we of the clan can pilot it and see the fear in the eyes of our enemies!
Implement it better in MWO than it has in any previous iteration of the MechWarrior titles!
Build it so we can ride on the Omnimechs of our brethren into the heart of battle and unleash miniature mechanised fury!

[50 50]

So many mechs.
There are over 300 in the game at this point, with more to come and likely even more to be announced.
That, is, AWESOME!

Now we have been recently treated to the upcoming designs for the Warhammer and Marauder.
The are the IIC mechs on the way and I am betting there will be more of those.
But I find myself longing for something unique to pilot.
Something that breaks the mould and gets us excited about other possibilities for the game.
For me, and I suspect others as well, a pilotable Elemental hits that mark.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mechs.
But I would like to see the game break some boundaries and build on the awesome mech combat we have.
I would love to see Pilotable Elementals introduced for the Clan.

[wolf74]

As much as I would love to see Pilotable Elementals you will have a Major Problem do to the Perfect insto-convergance, Even if the Double there Hitpoints that a total of 22 (Normal 10 armor 1 pilot life). That not going to Last Long anywhere near 600m or unless from an enemy mech.

Edited by wolf74, 20 October 2015 - 09:48 PM.

[50 50]

Certainly agree on that point.
With the grouping of weapons and pinpoint damage, alpha strikes and all that, as they are you wouldn't expect one elemental charging head long at an enemy mech to have a chance at all.
Nor should it.
That would be the equivalent of an urban mech charging at an Atlas, not the ideal tactical approach.
Like any mech, learning to use the Elemental appropriately is the challenge for a pilot but there are also a few features that could be applied to them to help improve survivability.

There are a number of suggestions that have been discussed in this thread that have attempted to present a balanced view for how they might function.
How they are detected on radar.
How they can be targeted.
Personally I like the concept of a re-drop option for them (up to 5 to fit with he cannon) to make up for the loss in tonnage and firepower a single unit provides.
There are also options on how to improve their offensive capabilities.

Perhaps they will never be a tier 1 pick, but we should also keep in mind that there are only a handful of mechs out of the 300+ available that are currently considered tier 1.
They will always be more of a support unit, there to compliment another mech in combat.
But is that a good enough reason to not include them?

As something unique to the clans, with such a close team work function when combined with the omnimechs, if we wanted MWO to be complete in what was available ..... it would be a terrible shame not to have them as a pilotable option.

[Vellron2005]

For me, Elementals were always just some minor annoyance that my mech would splatter with one or two shots..

Elementals, tanks and aerofighters would be GREAT for PVE campaigns though, but that's a whole another subject.

Elementals are too week to compete against mechs, and therefore have no place in a regular drop.

[Vetal]

people will suffer by playing elementals, because they can be killed easily from mgs and flamers, i didn't mention even lasers. No one will play them, so it could be either consumable or ai-driven on CW. I think they could be added only after some ai vehicles.

Edited by Vetal, 23 October 2015 - 01:54 AM.

[Repasy Cooper]

Vetal, on 23 October 2015 - 01:54 AM, said:

people will suffer by playing elementals, because they can be killed easily from mgs and flamers, i didn't mention even lasers. No one will play them, so it could be either consumable or ai-driven on CW. I think they could be added only after some ai vehicles.

Naturally, they wouldn't be playable (unless pgi added them as fun extra for private games), but they would make a great ai driven consumable. I think they should be made available clans-only initially, as a consumable star of elementals that follow you, attack the closest/targeted enemy, hold a position, even ride on your mech (omnimech only, during which would restrict use of torso weapons). But it would only be fair if the Inner sphere pilots could use a platoon of 24-ish infantry.

Later on, after IS received some omnitech, they could have their own consumable unit of 6 standard battle armor, and clans could then also use infantry.

[50 50]

Elementals feel like they should occupy a bit of a special spot in the clan arsenal.
While I have no objections to seeing combined arms brought into the game, which may already be in the works for PvE, nor do I have an objection to seeing them used as a consumable ‘artillery’ strike of some sort or some sort of commander controlled unit.
Why not all three options? The more variety and options in game the more depth we get, the better the game becomes… and we have great mech combat, this would add another dimension to it.

So, what are the main reasons to include a pilotable Elemental:

• Choice. We have plenty of mechs and more on the way. This is simply another choice.
  
• Clans don’t have a 20 ton light mech yet. Looking at the loadout for an Elemental, it should be about 4 tons. Then if you have 5 of them, that fits into the 20 ton slot nicely.
  
• 
  It is a unique part of the Clan arsenal and well within the timeline.
  
• 
  If we look at the teamwork aspects of the game, the Elemental has a unique relationship with the Omnimechs and how they work in unison with them.

I am sure there are plenty of players out there who would very much enjoy stepping on, shooting to bits and dropping artillery on Elementals.


I am also sure there are plenty of players out there who would get a thrill out of trying to take down an enemy mech using an Elemental.
I am also sure there are plenty of players out there who would think it was pretty cool to have an Elemental hitch a ride and help them take out an enemy mech.

Then what are the arguments against them? Lets break this up and look at adapting them to suit MWO:

To easy to kill = poor player experience.
Might be able to say that about any mech.
So what gives them a chance?

• They are small. About the size of a leg on a light mech so they will be harder to see, be able to take advantage of more cover and also harder to keep your target on them when they move.
  
• With the difference in the armour in MWO, they might have about 20 points. (1 ton worth)
  May not stand up to a typical alpha strike, but should be enough to survive a single heavy weapon shot or glancing blow.
  
• A player piloted Elemental presents more of a challenge than an AI one will.
  To quote good ol’ Han: “Good against remotes is one thing. Good against the living? That’s something else.”
  
• They don’t have the same radar signature as a mech. I believe with the TT rules you couldn’t get them on radar until they were within 150m or so.
  
• This distance could easily be adjusted or they simply don’t show up at all… (yes, that could mean no lock ons)
  
• Provide a re-deploy option in the spectator view or as a separate pop up. (see below)

Besides, in the middle of a fight, will you turn your attention from a mech bearing down on you to fire on an Elemental that suddenly popped up? Would you even notice it in the heat of the battle?
Their biggest defence is not being spotted.

But they are so slooooow.
True. According to the TT they move around 10.8kph though this differs according to source.
However, it struck me as a rather pathetic speed given the Elemental’s are genetically engineered super soldiers about 3m tall who are wearing powered armour.
For MWO, I would suggest they have the equivalent speed of a Direwolf at 53.5kph (with the speed tweak) for three reasons:

• There is no way to adjust the speed by changing out the engine, as it is with the Omnimechs.
  
• This gives the Direwolf an ideal support unit.
  
• They are genetically engineered super soldiers wearing powered armour.

53.5kph is hardly a speed that will break the system either, but it can be tweaked with testing like anything else.
Don’t forget, they do jump up to about 90m which is pretty handy.

Do we really need another light mech that zips around at 150kph boating lasers?
This is different.

They will be a Hit Registration nightmare.
Why on earth would they have more than one hit box?
I do not expect multiple hitboxes, just the one.
Coupled with a reasonable speed it won't break the game.
Small, yes. But I am sure everyone has had plenty of practice shooting at the legs of light mechs.

With only a small laser, SRM2 and a claw they won’t do anything.
That certainly isn’t a loadout worth bragging about for a mech. Combined as a whole point of 5 and it’s a little different.
5 small lasers, 5 SRM2s and 5 claws. That’s a ferocious little ball of death to step into.
However, I don’t envy the task of trying to implement a unit of 5 individual parts that have to follow the player around and perform properly.
Hence the suggestion to drop as a single unit and have 4 additional drops to represent the full point.
This splits up the firepower into separate drops which makes it less than the whole, but I believe this is an easier and possibly better way to handle it.

The claw needs some special attention. Whether you can actually latch on with it is up to the programmers and how hard that might be to implement.
But it is arguably the most terrifying attack for the Elemental and I would think it would be possible to work out and pretty amazing if they could.
Otherwise it may just be an extremely close range attack that has a high critical chance or something.

The SRM2 with only 2 shots is also pretty useless for a single unit.
Unless there is some customisation options in the mech lab where extra ammo can be put on, I suggest that this item instead be replaced as an Inferno launcher.
Can function similar to the NARC beacon and apply a base heat penalty over a short duration.

Too hard to design and code.
Really?
Less moving parts.
Less detail due to size.
No cockpit internals to design, only the HUD. (You can’t look around inside)
No start up sequence needed. (No shutdown either)
The Heatscale may not be necessary.
If they don’t show up on radar and can’t be target locked you don’t need a new damage readout.
Can get away with a percentage score for the Elemental pilot to view their own status… perhaps a heart rate monitor?
So… a slightly customised HUD.
A few animations for the model would be needed.
Skill tree would be nice, but not necessary. Many of the skills are not applicable anyway.
Don’t need to be able to customise the loadouts, could simply have 3 or 4 ‘variants’. (Be nice to use the camo editor though)
The mech modules don’t really fit the Elemental, so unless the loadouts are customisable or specific modules to the Elemental are introduced, there is no need to have module slots.
The Crysis engine is designed to handle this sort of (large) humanoid avatars.

But MWO is about mech combat. An Elemental isn’t a mech.
No. It’s not.
We have heaps of mech and we have great mech combat.
This is about choice and having all the options.
Elementals were bred and trained to specifically work with Omnimechs and fight against mechs.
It is about as mech like as a non-mech unit can be.

I have mentioned it a couple of times, so I had better explain the idea here:
The Re-Deploy option.
Instead of trying to do the complex programming that would be involved with making an AI the Elemental is instead a solo unit that you can deploy multiple times into a match.
The idea is to have either an option in the spectator view when destroyed, or a separate pop up that allows you to select another mech on your team and deploy from them.
You get 4 additional drops beyond the first so it makes up the 5 Elementals/Point according to Clan lore.
It’s a small adaption to the way the return to dropship works in Community Warfare.
Why use it?

• It doesn’t seem like it would be overly difficult to implement for a start considering there are already some similar features.
  
• It lessens the ‘Squishy’ aspect of them.
  
• It simulates the ability to ride on an Omnimech, though a mount/dismount key would be brilliant.
  
• It keeps with the concept of have 5 Elementals to a point and the equivalent of a single mech.
  
• Less objects to track for the servers.

It was also suggested by Dieter to create the Elementals as 5 parts comprising the one unit. (Bit like the mechs are with separate components)
If that could be done well with the Elementals following each other, conforming to terrain, adjusting their formation and effectively functioning as a single unit, that would be awesome.
So, which ever works.

Edited by 50 50, 27 October 2015 - 01:02 AM.

[50 50]

Great to see the IIC mechs introduced now and we have the classic mechs on the way.
Very cool.
While we can speculate endlessly on which mechs might be next, we can be sure that there will be more of them.
I am actually hoping we might see faction specific variants at some point, ie. totem mechs and house specials that are restricted for use in faction play (not restricted in quick play).

But with all the recent announcements for the Warhammer, Rifleman and now the Archer..... it would be great to get a pilotable elemental for the clans.

So, please PGI, we have some fantastic mechs and great mech combat, can we have the Elementals added for the clans to pilot as something unique and different.

Edited by 50 50, 05 January 2016 - 08:12 PM.

[Lolo van Trollinger]

i can think of a mode where inner sphere or clan elementals are available (there are more then just clan elementals, e.g. kurita kanezushi ) e.g. 4v4 plus elementals.

the main issue would be fracturing an already low player base.

as a close range pest consumeable - sure. why not. main issue - we cant roll our mech in the dust to get rid of them.

[50 50]

Unfortunately, the reverse engineered IS battle armour has a lot of little oddities like not being able to use their missiles while jumping, or not being able to jump until they jettisoned their missiles.
They also rarely participated in mechanised combat where as the Clan elementals were primarily designed to co-ordinate with the Omnimechs.
That's why I am pushing for the clans to get them as a pilotable option to fill the 20 light mech spot. They fought with and functioned like mechs.

I can see how Elementals might work as a consumable, the IS ones might work as an AI unit.
There are a few ideas further back in this post about possible implementations along these lines.

The main way to get rid of the elementals was to jump. A decent fall could do the same thing.
That is if the Elementals can use their claw to latch on.

The biggest challenges I see with them as a pilotable unit is in adding functionality so:
A. They can hitch a ride on a friendly Omni.
Maybe this is the binding of a new key that lets the elemental attach to the rear CT of an Omni mech and each Omni can only carry one.
B. It should be possible to have the claw attack function so that an elemental can latch on. If we think about how the weapons register a hit on a location, then a hit with the claw does the same thing, but then also positions the elemental at that location.
I was suggesting the claw have a similar function to the gauss rifle so that when you activate it/pull the trigger the claw performs the grasping action. Then when you release the trigger, that's when it rips back and does the damage.
As such a close range attack surely this can be worked out.
C. To avoid problems with using the same weapons as the mechs, creating a copy of the flamer, MG, small laser and SRM2 as Battlearmour variants should be done so they can be tweaked and modified without upsetting the mech variants. If we consider that the ammo for the weapons is going to be unique, the Elementals don't have an engine or heatsinks and therefore probably shouldn't generate heat, these systems need to function differently.
D. Looking at the respawn option, this is an adaption very similar to the return to drop ship we have in faction play, but needs to function in regular drops. This doesn't seem particularly difficult but would need an interface and adaption of the functionality.

All up, there is some work but it does not seem impossible but with the structure we have in the game, it's only going to work for Clan Elementals. The IS variants just don't operate the same way.

[Beavis The Great Corn Holio]

From what I'm reading, only way the Ele's will come to the game is if everyone who wants one crowd funds it to make it worth Russ's time.

[50 50]

Bit like the solo mech purchases really.
I would love to have a discussion with Russ/the dev team to see what would be required and I am prepared to back it.
Pilotable Elementals are at the top of my 'things I would like to see' list by an interstellar jump.
I personally believe they would change up the combat more than the addition of any new mechs would.

@Russ, please consider that an open invitation to discuss.



By the way Beavis, great name.

Edited by 50 50, 15 January 2016 - 12:46 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Playable Elementals?
no
simple reason 1 Mech = 5 Elementals ... even when some battlearmors like the later Gnome or the golem have the salvo firepower and one hit durability of a light mech - they are no mechs.

So you have to play 5 elementals at once maybe with some basic "scripted" computer controlled BAs that do the same as you do. Or you have to increase the power of 1 elemental by 5.... resulting in MWLL elementals that had almost the same offensive power as a Mech.

[50 50]

Hey Karl.
Thanks for the feedback.
Please review the suggestions above and earlier in this post about options that have been discussed.
The 'controlling a point of 5' has been discussed.
Personally I am in favour of a respawn/redrop mechanic to make it work.
I don't want a copy of what they were in earlier MW games or in MWLL.
I believe we can do something better than that.

[InFlamezZ Weaver]

i don't see why its so hard to implement Elementals and combined Warfare .. Mechwarrior living legends (FAN BASED MOD!) by wandering samurai studios for Crysis 1 ( and later warhead ) did that already and it was tons of fun.. until they had to stop developing because of MWO.. the way i see it its possible and while yes it would require some balancing coding and thought but hell it would be worth it , you want to create the ultimate mechwarrior expierence ? Theres your solution combined warfare.. tanks battlearmor , vtols, aerospace jets and vehicles. if you dont want to code in jets and vtols fine atleast give us Vehicles/tanks and Battle armor. Another thing i want to point out is that Crysis and MWO both use the cryengine so really , theres no excuse for a fully fledged Dev team to not beeing able to pull of what a small group of modders did.

[Geg]

Also make Machines Guns and Light Mechs good at ant-elementals.

[VinJade]

thing is this isn't LLs, different game.
To be honest I like how this game is only for mechwarriors, it isn't called combined warriors, Aero warriors, tank warriors, crunchy warriors, toad warriors, ect.

I say keep everything else out of it.

I may have my issues with how they do some things but I have a feeling if they did add toads to the mix they will be under gunned for their type and most likely a fern could kill them.

Russ isn't exactly fond of clans it seems.

[Kael Posavatz]

VinJade, on 09 April 2016 - 11:20 AM, said:

Russ isn't exactly fond of clans it seems.

He said back in 2013 that he had been an IS fan-boy for a long time, and that PGI was staffed with like-minded individuals.

He also blamed IGP for forcing them into making a Clan Invasion-era game rather than the 4th Succession War game they wanted to make.

To his credit, he has stopped responding to the first part (even when people ask if there are people in-studio who are Clan-Fans). Frankly, it was a position he should have had from the first, but as result years later there is a lingering perceptions that PGI favors the IS player base and lets it shade their game (he also hasn't totally moved away from blaming IGP for the past).

In regards to topic, well...there is a lot of things that 'could be'.

For example. Clans get Elementals as a consumable. Artillery could become faction-specific (most Clans have no artillery), as could ground-support aerospace. For that matter, there could be a host of aero-unit based consumables (recon, ground-support, air superiority to deny the first two)... Mechs could be locked to specific factions in CW (Ebon Jaguar becomes Smoke Jag-only, Cappies get the 'Phracts, Kurita the Catapult-K2, etc). For that matter, alternative ammunition loads (give the IS options for ballistic ammo, true Narc/Semi-Guided/Artemis LRMs, along with thunder, swarm, inferno, etc. warheads).

Some of this is challenging in different ways. PGI doesn't have the programming talent for the Cluster/Military Ball ammunition for the LB-X, so alt ammunition is out. As for the rest, anything that makes the players think a little more or take a little more care when equipping their mechs, is something else PGI has to program in.

Russ gave us a pretty good synopsis of PGI's intended content release through June/July (some of it was pretty clear, some vague, none of it was grouped concisely [skill trees was addressed near the end, decals halfway through, etc]) and none of this is on it.

[VinJade]

ah I see,
so that is why he tries to screw over you clanners any chance he gets.
besides he should have realized there would be strings attached when claiming to be a 'battletech' game. want to cash in on the brand then deal with what comes attached to it and as the Timber Wolf is one of the most well known mech of the clans as is the Atlas of the IS then the odds are high they have to deal with both.

don't like it then he should step down for someone who has no actual bias towards one or the other.

knowing his hatred towards clans do you really think he will give you guys anything half decent?
remember he screwed you guys over with all of the neg quirks on mechs such as the TW & DW....

so just for that reason I think we would be better off without the toads.

Edited by VinJade, 09 April 2016 - 01:57 PM.