53 replies to this topic

[ImperialKnight]

You'd think people who invented giant bipedal combat machines would have thought of the ability to at least gingerly step over ankle high rocks

I don't mind steep terrain but really? ankle high rocks?

[Iqfish]

I would like to see the return of moving feet accordingly to terrain, as much as I finally want to see destructible environment, I mean it's 2014 and this is CryEngine 3

[SmokinDave73]

Some actual work on the game would be nice.. New mechs and CW is great and all but if the gameplay sucks then theres kind of no point playing even if we had planets to conquere and shiny new gold mechs to stub our feet with.

[Impyrium]

Iqfish, on 25 April 2014 - 05:21 AM, said:

I would like to see the return of moving feet accordingly to terrain, as much as I finally want to see destructible environment, I mean it's 2014 and this is CryEngine 3

Wait... this was in the game in the first place? This is one of my little gripes I have when I see a 'Mech kick a hill-- I mean walk up it. Why was it removed?

I agree though, while it's something fairly core and unlikely to change, for too long MW has felt like a tank with leg animations. The whole idea of legs is to be extra maneuverable around obstacles.

[Deadpool79]

This issue supprised me a lot when I got killed in one of my first matches because I got stuck trying to back over some stupid pebbles. Away with tripping on ankle high rocks.

[Bunduki]

Cliffs are one thing, but I've gotten stuck on pebbles and gotten killed because of it more than once - there's no reason a 40 foot tall Atlas or some other mech should be stopped or even slowed by a rock or ledge which even a 20th century tank would barely notice.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

BattleTech lore wise;
- The Mech's in Lore, do know what is around them and do walk, step around objects as part of the Mech's Di computer avoidance systems, all with out pilot input. The pilot directs the Mech to walk this direction, the Mech plots its route and moves, but can be overridden by the pilot at anytime to actually crash its way forward. (say walking through woods)

Game wise;
- what the pilot see's as the actual ground may not necessarily be what is physically out there.
- Terrain geometry being drawn and actual environmental mesh may indeed be two separate heights.
~ what we see as a small structure from the cockpit may actually be an 8 to 10ft high well embedded object, and could be in the area of 4 to 8 tons of mass, think iceberg here.
- The Mech's model and how the actual legs/feet interact with the terrain mesh need work.
- Articulating the model may not have any physical relationship to that surface mesh.
(as we see with a Mech only employing it toes in contact with the "ground" to walk up any incline)
- Nothing changing in the angle of any Mech's feet with relation to the current terrain, coding the Mech's feet to terrain angle follow is not happening, again this may be related to the mesh and drawn terrain.
- The lack of deformation of any terrain while a Mech moves through it, which would require destructible terrain and objects. ( requiring quite a few resources and taxing most systems.)
- giving the Mech the ability to push or crush smaller objects in its path requires deformable or destructible objects, and retaining all those separate objects in memory. (I don't think we are at that point yet.)

Some of the Mech models we have now do have restricted movement in the legs and height they can lift there feet, the "Stalker" and "Atlas" probably being some of these. Although both of these Models appear to have knee joins that could actually lift the feet higher when required. Movement collision with errors in the maps, causing a movement stoppage, again mostly related to objects in the mesh not really being where they are designed to be. (read: errors in the map/mesh)

- There is the entire Lore related component that isn't modeled yet, that most of the current Mechs were able to kneel down or squat to one leg. (one leg to the knee, the other forward.) This posture was for stability as well as concealment, and sometimes had or brought additional benefits to the computer related gameplay. (stabile platform for firing, quicker lock on to targets) Now with the games it required a full stop and selecting the key to assume that position, both assuming it and returning to standing posture. [Note: The Atlas doesn't kneel] Fluff wise, the Mech had to be stopped for the gyro to compensate for the large shift in mass/weight to kneel.

So quite a bit of game modeling, artwork, and map cleaning up to be done yet. What we have now works, mostly, and as I stated, most of these objects that some are getting stuck on are not actually suppose to be there. (map errors) The sooner that QA and the designers have identified these issues, the quicker they go away. This requires assistance from us, the players, to actually report them. And a quick F9 and screen shot to log the location.
(I'm sure the backlog of these objects is growing, and as they complete map pass's are corrected.)

We would probably need to hear from David Bradley, Omid Kiarostami, Alexander Schmidt, and Brian Windover to understand were the design limits are in the current game. And what we may see in additional content, design as the game and the code progresses.
- Some of these in-game Mech models were designed a while ago, as the Dev. engineers, designers, build the newer Clan Mechs there skill and talent is improving. We do need another few pass's on all the models, but that is a rather time consuming process and costly. It will probably lead to structural model and armature changes not just art work. As the Dev.'s work with the CryEngine they are also showing improvement so it may just be a time and resources issue now. Get the core elements out then refine the design.

Just some thoughts,
9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 26 April 2014 - 03:33 PM.

[Warrior UK]

I have to agree with this, its not like we dont have enough things to gripe about in this game, but when it comes down to a small rock that would be like a grain of sand to a mechjust to step over, it is one of my biggest hates when under fire just to find you cannot move because some small stone has turned into the himalayas or start rubber banding off it

[depreciator]

making at first foot(&leg anim) adaptative at slope of 45° is already a bug
that can be see in any games
but that not a great chalenge for someone skilled in math geometry programming

in fact the real problem is the mech original design dont care of physical rule nor ability to just walk
because gravity center is never respected on any models
(when it lift a leg than all the weight go to the other and obivously without a complex correction of all folder {who often not exist at all} it will fall in the other sens)
worst of all you can see ingame than the foot are not lifted enought for pass more than a tracked vehicule (of the same lenght) can do
and if ever you folded more the members than the geometry will collide
who drawed the mecha at the orign made it just for cosmetic rule of cool without knowelge or care for realism
actually i work in designing such model (who look not cool at all) but got the ability to climb better than a tank can do
just compare what a human can climb without help of his hand = its about half his own height and by jump his whole tall
worst of all using hands ( halfs of mecha own ) a body can climb walls more than vertical (mean reverse slopes like 120° or 135°)
did you feel good than actual ingazme mech get foot more walking in the void as it was not enought ?
or you prefere the total redesign of the MWO universe?
i bet both will never hapend

Edited by depreciator, 27 April 2014 - 08:31 PM.

[Kaldor]

Movement penalties = another genius idea....

Only reinforced the need to play mechs with JJs for me. Other than a few exceptions, I simply do not play anything without JJs anymore because of the huge advantage mechs with JJs have over their grounded counterparts.

[ImperialKnight]

an alternative to redesigning the physics of the mechs would be to remove the collision detection for small rocks and vehicles. they are just there to look pretty anyway. the mech can just pass through them.

at the end of the day, it makes no sense that a mech should be stopped dead by a small rock

[depreciator]

it make not sens than a mech pass trought anything or walk a foot in the void
but if you remind well the mecha can climb the crates in the volcano plateform
just ask the devs to make slope inside rocks or to redraw the rock more sloped
in evry manner it suck from cockpit view how we are stopped by slopes
and from other player view it suck how you climb insanly
if i remind well the climbing is not the same at all speeds

[That Dawg]

SmokinDave73, on 25 April 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

Some actual work on the game would be nice..

indeed

knightsljx, on 28 April 2014 - 08:20 AM, said:

they are just there to look pretty anyway. the mech can just pass through them.

wait.........you mean...................like..............TREES??!!???

[DeadlyNerd]

step over? more like crush and grind to dust, if not submerge into terrain. that's 100t mech vs a 2t rock.

[MoonUnitBeta]

AUSwarrior24, on 25 April 2014 - 07:14 PM, said:

Wait... this was in the game in the first place? This is one of my little gripes I have when I see a 'Mech kick a hill-- I mean walk up it. Why was it removed?

I agree though, while it's something fairly core and unlikely to change, for too long MW has felt like a tank with leg animations. The whole idea of legs is to be extra maneuverable around obstacles.

It was a performance issue I think that decided it’s removal. It was about a year ago or even November 2012 they mentioned something about it.

It was cool. People would stand on an incline sideways and they’re legs would bend and adjust to the terrain, or if there was a rock under one foot and not the other, one leg would be higher.

I'll try to find that post, but it's likely deleted by now or archived inside concrete and burried.

[MoonUnitBeta]

DeadlyNerd, on 29 April 2014 - 03:46 AM, said:

step over? more like crush and grind to dust, if not submerge into terrain. that's 100t mech vs a 2t rock.

Haha, and my favorite is those crates in Forect colony that scatter out infront of the middle of the ship.... It's a maze trying to get out if you ever get stuck in there, and it's excruciating if you get stuck in there with an atlas. If I'm under fire, and I can't get out , i give up and watch myself die.
I'm not going to put myself through that kind of frustration of trying to unstick my mech. I avoid that area as much as possible, but sometimes you forget and.... now you're stuck, good luck.

[Kenyon Burguess]

I want a pilot check for stepping over that pebble in place first, then you can proceed.

[DAEDALOS513]

MoonUnitBeta, on 29 April 2014 - 02:38 PM, said:

Haha, and my favorite is those crates in Forect colony that scatter out infront of the middle of the ship.... It's a maze trying to get out if you ever get stuck in there, and it's excruciating if you get stuck in there with an atlas. If I'm under fire, and I can't get out , i give up and watch myself die.
I'm not going to put myself through that kind of frustration of trying to unstick my mech. I avoid that area as much as possible, but sometimes you forget and.... now you're stuck, good luck.

Don't go there..

[depreciator]

the crate in the volcao are climbables but the trucks semi trailers in the city night map (who use the same crate it seem) are not
no mention at car that are ghosts and trees same

[Geeks On Hugs]

LOL walking around in an assault 'Mech can be frustrating.

One of my favorite random comments in game so far has been along the lines of "A gentle upward slope. The natural enemy of the Atlas."

Of course the heavier 'Mechs should be less manueverable than smaller 'Mechs but as it is now it is unrealistically frustrating. While we're on the subject how about boosting Hill Climb to 20% or whatever it takes to feel it and not have to feel like you are convincing yourself that you are feeling it.