7 replies to this topic

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Some of the issues I've observed through out the development of MWO and Mech on Mech minimum range brawling with wide spaced weapons.

- Any Mech that has the barrels of it's weapons at the far edges of it's body, still has the ability to shoot directly in front of it's body with these weapons. At 0 to 5m distance.

This should not be possible or happening,
- as the weapons should not be able to rotate till the barrels are nearly touching. Especially if there is a smaller Mech standing directly in front of them, there should not be anything except torso placed weapons that could fire at these extreme close range targets.
~ I won't even go into the 'splash damage' effects of point blank weapons fire from any missiles types or if they even have a chance of arming at that distance.

There are some visual issues that Pilots don't normally register at first when targeting something that appears to be close, the size of the vehicle they are in and how far away something actually is. Without the 'range' indication on the HUD, most Pilots still use or register human size distances for visual clues at distances and ranges. What appears to be rather close in front of you is really 150 feet away due to the 'size of everything'.

- One example; Jaeger with a spider/commando standing directly in front of it.
This places the small Mech inside the outer placed weapons firing arc,

~ now this is still a very dangerous place for the small Mech as it should now be in a location that it could simply be stepped on, or knocked down.(feature to be reintroduced again.)

- Even 2 jaegers locked in face to face positions, their arm weapons should just shoot past there 'in your face' target. Or at the most only strike the extreme outside locations of this Mech.
- If one Mech twists it's torso they might be able to bring one(1) arm into it firing arc, but this would still require one of the Mech' to step back to do this.
(issues with chassis and arms locking on the other Mech, restricting movement. Right now they just magically pass through the other Mech.)
~ If two Mech are face to face at extreme minimum distances, effects like heat and damage transfer from point blank firing should be included in these very close exchanges of weapons fire. This would be from center or side torso weapons only and run the risk of missiles not even arming before hitting there target.
(I seem to remember that the Clans have a 'safety' override that un-locks the min. arming range of missiles but can suffer splash damage if used this way. SRM's, Streaks, and LRM's all included)

This 'inside your weapons' arc effect is seen throughout most of the Mech chassis, from the forward arm placed weapons on the Atlas to the shoulder pods on the Stalker. They simply can not hit a target at this extreme minimum range. In some cases the target is actually below and inside the arc of the weapons muzzle.


Side note:
I can understand why PGI has left this lack of proximity damage out of the game, at this point in it's development there are no consequences for being in extreme close physical proximity to other Mechs. In some cases the Mech's will actually 'faze' through each other when smashing into the front of the other one.
- Where is collision damage? (or even a 'Proximity Warning' of impact.)
- I've seen a large Mech step on a smaller Mech at the match start and damage the smaller Mech's legs, why is this effect not happening when larger Mechs are being swarmed and 'hugged' by small Mech's?

Just some thoughts, as I've watched in spectator mode large Mechs being able to shoot smaller, shorter Mechs that fit inside there arms weapons arc.

Question: Should there be a 'inside your minimum weapons arc' for wide spaced Mech weapons?
- this would lead to needing some weapons centrally mounted for these really close engagements, or suffer the consequences.

9erRed

[Wolfways]

1) BT/MW is not realistic.

2) Brawlers don't need any nerfs.

I understand that "realistically" it makes sense, but imo isn't needed in MWO. At least not before a hell of a lot of other stuff.

[ScarecrowES]

I suppose we could remove super close range convergence if you'd trade if for, say, the ability to push a light over and step on it's cockpit for an insta-kill instead. I mean, since you're going for realism here.

[Bilbo]

I'll give you that if you let me knock these small mechs over when they decide it's prudent to step on my toes.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

You raise good points, and I was thinking to fill the void of not hitting with ranged weapons at such near ranges, I think it would be awesome to have melee damage in such situations.

I've been thinking on what could be looked at to add melee damage and here are some thoughts in the spoiler

Spoiler

Here is a table I came up with:


I know this kind of work for the game is going to be on the back burner, but once Collision Damage code gets worked on one can hope that this kind of stuff will be included.

What I figured is that any mech could Kick and Charge.

DFA would be available to mechs with JJs.

Punching would be available with mechs that have Shoulders and the Upper and Lower Actuators.

Equipping a melee weapon like a sword or hatchet and so on, would require a hand to hold the appropriate weapon, along with enough free tonnage and crit slots.

More thoughts in spoiler

Spoiler

To implement, could set one Weapon listed in the Arm Group for attacks with the arms and if the mech can hold a weapon for those types of attacks. The rate of arm movement to strike and range would be limited by the model.

Kicks could be listed in the Torso Group. It can be setup that the mech must be stationary or will moving stop to kick towards the cross-hair direction. When in motion, if a kick is triggered it could then be a charge strike.

DFA could be executed by kicking in the air. Would require JJs to provide more horizontal speed.

Animating the strikes seem as if they can be pretty straight forward. Where punches could simply be like straight punches or upper cuts moving towards the cross-hair, kicks could simply be a low forward kick (like kicking a soccer ball), for example. And the rest don't need too much animation variety either, once they can apply damage.

The main question I have is, how fast can these attacks be? And the range on most of these will easily be within 20 M of the attacking mech on most of these, which is also why this area is low priority.



Melee weapons should also have an amount of hitpoints as equipped items before being destroyed, could start with 20 to 50 and go from there after testing.

And knockdowns don't need to return, since that aspect seems to have too many variables to tackle anyway, and really isn't necessary to bring back once we are able to deal melee damage due to it's potential stun-locking ability.

[AlexEss]

just pretend they have very limited inward tilting actuators in the shoulders and barrel mounts that ler you tilt them inwards but not outwards...

Problem solved.

[Varent]

Wolfways, on 27 June 2014 - 08:07 AM, said:

1) BT/MW is not realistic.

2) Brawlers don't need any nerfs.

I understand that "realistically" it makes sense, but imo isn't needed in MWO. At least not before a hell of a lot of other stuff.

1) yes

2) yup


3) (added) cant be done anyways, pgi has already said it works against hit reg.

[Wolfways]

ScarecrowES, on 27 June 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

I suppose we could remove super close range convergence if you'd trade if for, say, the ability to push a light over and step on it's cockpit for an insta-kill instead. I mean, since you're going for realism here.

lol i always hated that in WoW my Tauren couldn't just stamp on a gnome

Praetor Knight, on 27 June 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

You raise good points, and I was thinking to fill the void of not hitting with ranged weapons at such near ranges, I think it would be awesome to have melee damage in such situations.

I've been thinking on what could be looked at to add melee damage and here are some thoughts in the spoiler

Spoiler

Here is a table I came up with:


I know this kind of work for the game is going to be on the back burner, but once Collision Damage code gets worked on one can hope that this kind of stuff will be included.

What I figured is that any mech could Kick and Charge.

DFA would be available to mechs with JJs.

Punching would be available with mechs that have Shoulders and the Upper and Lower Actuators.

Equipping a melee weapon like a sword or hatchet and so on, would require a hand to hold the appropriate weapon, along with enough free tonnage and crit slots.

More thoughts in spoiler

Spoiler

To implement, could set one Weapon listed in the Arm Group for attacks with the arms and if the mech can hold a weapon for those types of attacks. The rate of arm movement to strike and range would be limited by the model.

Kicks could be listed in the Torso Group. It can be setup that the mech must be stationary or will moving stop to kick towards the cross-hair direction. When in motion, if a kick is triggered it could then be a charge strike.

DFA could be executed by kicking in the air. Would require JJs to provide more horizontal speed.

Animating the strikes seem as if they can be pretty straight forward. Where punches could simply be like straight punches or upper cuts moving towards the cross-hair, kicks could simply be a low forward kick (like kicking a soccer ball), for example. And the rest don't need too much animation variety either, once they can apply damage.

The main question I have is, how fast can these attacks be? And the range on most of these will easily be within 20 M of the attacking mech on most of these, which is also why this area is low priority.



Melee weapons should also have an amount of hitpoints as equipped items before being destroyed, could start with 20 to 50 and go from there after testing.

And knockdowns don't need to return, since that aspect seems to have too many variables to tackle anyway, and really isn't necessary to bring back once we are able to deal melee damage due to it's potential stun-locking ability.

I think Paul recently said that he wasn't going to touch melee for a very, very long time...if ever.