183 replies to this topic

[Xiphias]

As someone who has primarily piloted lights since closed beta I'm all for collisions being added back in.

First, it will help thin out all the lights who can't actually pilot well, granted these have been thinned a lot since the heyday of the indestructible Raven.

Second, It also adds a challenge and a lot of fun to piloting. With this I think they should allow light mechs to make tighter turns than they currently do. This would allow lights to better fill their role and maneuver better in tight spaces without having to slow down to lethal speeds.

Third, this will finally put to rest the endless complaints from assault and heavy pilots who think the only reason they can't kill lights is because the unfairness that is the lack of knockdowns. If you can't watch your back, don't think that being able to back up will suddenly allow you to crush light pilots.

What I expect to fill the gap of this complaint is the new whine about how assault mechs shouldn't be able to be knocked down or seriously damaged from a collision. A Jenner weights roughly 1/3 of an Atlas and travels about 3 times as fast, both have effectively the same momentum. If a light rams into an assault at full speed it should hurt the assault, a lot.

If knockdown gets added back in I'm also waiting to see the domino effect when an assault tries to back up out of a strike and results in half the team getting knocked down and struck. I'm sure there won't be any complaints from assaults about that happening.

[Alistair Winter]

Krivvan, on 15 November 2014 - 12:24 AM, said:

Who says realism is the right direction...?

It says so in the Bible.

Mat 16:2
"Blessed is He who falleth down when he crashes his Battlemech into a building, for that is most realistic and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord."

[BlackBeltJones]

Keira RAVEN McKenna, on 15 November 2014 - 12:33 AM, said:

Battlestar Galactica right? I KNEW I'd heard that before

Quite right. And we know how that ended

[Keira RAVEN McKenna]

haha yeah... rapidly.

Writers strike ruined a good story

[KuroNyra]

Keira RAVEN McKenna, on 15 November 2014 - 12:33 AM, said:

Battlestar Galactica right? I KNEW I'd heard that before

BlackBeltJones, on 15 November 2014 - 01:15 AM, said:

Quite right. And we know how that ended

Keira RAVEN McKenna, on 15 November 2014 - 01:46 AM, said:

haha yeah... rapidly.

Writers strike ruined a good story

On Topic: I'm concerned too about the collision return. I remember the days when we had it and it was... Well,horrible with the Dragons.
I really hope they will do it right this time.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Xiphias, on 15 November 2014 - 01:04 AM, said:

With this I think they should allow light mechs to make tighter turns than they currently do

I think there should be pilotting rolls then. WEhen you turn at high spweed you make a roll or go flying.

[SweetJackal]

I'm just going to drop this little note about collisions. Mass times Velocity Squared.

This means that a 25 ton mech slamming into something at 100 KPH will have the same force as a 100 ton mech slamming into something at 50 KPH. So expecting that you'll always be squeaky clean from lights because you've got 100 tons under your rear is just sitting in that absolutely wrong idea of "Lights Should Always Lose To Assaults."

Tonnage difference should without a doubt determine how they walk away from the collision in terms of damage taken, a light mech slamming into a heavy mech at high speed should have the light mech on the worse end of damage received. This should already be covered in the difference between armor and internal structure.

The strongest considerations for collisions should be speed, facing and bracing. A mech should be more resistant to collisions from the front as you should be able to brace yourself. A mech should be more vulnerable to collisions from behind as in the current iteration of the game you wouldn't be aware of them. A mech should be more vulnerable to collisions from the side as lateral movement of the legs is much more limited, the machine cannot brace itself as well. Facing should be determined by the facing of the legs and not the torso.

Personally I believe that doing collisions properly will involve removing the movement of our mechs from auto-pilot and cruise control, instead using a system that takes the concept of the player being assisted by the Gyro yet the player maintaining balance instead of just walking around. For a good example of how this was done take a look at Steel Battalion.

Anyways, my 2 cents on the issue. Collisions, Charge Attacks and changes to what is expected of the player to even move go hand in hand in my books.

[TexAce]

How stupid can some of you be please?

Dragon bowling was something we had because some collision numbers were tweaked in favor of the dragon.

Who in his right mind thinks that those variables and values would be taken without looking into them when they re-introduce knockdowns??
Sometimes you people really make me believe in human extinction.

DUH.

Edited by TexAss, 15 November 2014 - 05:16 AM.

[KuroNyra]

TexAss, on 15 November 2014 - 05:16 AM, said:

How stupid can some of you be please?

Dragon bowling was something we had because some collision numbers were tweaked in favor of the dragon.

Who in his right mind thinks that those variables and values would be taken without looking into them when they re-introduce knockdowns??
Sometimes you people really make me believe in human extinction.

DUH.

Tex, stop being an @ss.
*Bada-Tzoïng*
More seriously, we still can have our fear Quiaff?

Just look at the Catapult and the horrible stuff they did to it and still not solved that.

[Troutmonkey]

I'm certainly looking forward to not only behind teleported about when piloting a light near another mech, but getting laid flat on my arse and being destroyed for it too. I also love doing mediocre damage, having no armour, and getting paid in peanuts.

On second thought maybe I'll just pilot my Assaults and Heavies from now on.

[oldradagast]

Troutmonkey, on 15 November 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

I'm certainly looking forward to not only behind teleported about when piloting a light near another mech, but getting laid flat on my arse and being destroyed for it too. I also love doing mediocre damage, having no armour, and getting paid in peanuts.

On second thought maybe I'll just pilot my Assaults and Heavies from now on.

Indeed!

This new mechanic will be so much "fun"

1) Match begins. You get knocked on your back by an idiot pilot who plows through you while before you'd both just get knocked to 99% armor.
2) Somebody else steps on you, continuing the stun-lock and damage. Or, another mech trips on your flaying body and lands on you - more damage, yeah! And remember, you weren't the cause of this pile up.
3) Team finally gets it's self sorted out and upright. Other team, assuming they didn't do the same thing, now has an advantage. Yeah. Again, you still haven't done anything wrong to deserve this "fun."
4) You finally get a foe in range and swing in to brawl him. Oh, wait - it's a Dire Wolf, one of the weakest mechs in the game that badly needed a buff... right... Thanks to server issues and the quantum state of mechs, the game thinks you ran into him... as far as you can tell, you didn't, but that's okay because you're now face first in the dirt, getting shot up because you entered the "Earthquake Zone" around an assault mech.
5) Assuming you're still alive at this point (since assault mechs are known to have very little firepower, thus needing a stun-lock mechanic to aid them against faster mechs), you proceed to get knocked down again by a ramming Timber Wolf, another very underpowered mech that badly needs a stun lock mechanic introduced that will reward it's extreme speed for its high mass.
6) You die, having done very little in the game.
7) Repeat the process all over again, except this time you hide in the back sniping, because that's another thing this game needs more of... right...

I don't see how anyone can think knock-downs are a good idea.

Edited by oldradagast, 15 November 2014 - 06:35 AM.

[oldradagast]

Alistair Winter, on 14 November 2014 - 10:16 PM, said:

Again, this is the worst of all possible scenarios. They will likely not make knockdown happen as a result of mechs bumping into each other, and collision damge will probably be very low from the sort of collisions happening at the start of the game. Major damage and knockdown is likely to happen when mechs crash into each other at great speeds, e.g. head to head with both mechs running 60+ kph. How often does this really happen right out of the gate?

Unless you're in the lowest reaches of the steering wheel underhive, I can't imagine this will ever be a problem. And even then, it should be a minor one.

With all due respect, PGI hasn't exactly demonstrated excellent skill at balancing this game thus far. How many jump-jet tweaks/nerfs/buffs were there? And then there's weapon balance... only 2 years to make pulse lasers useful, and how about those flamers? With a track record like that, you'll forgive me if I'm not looking forward to them introducing a potential stun-lock mechanic when they can't even make all their point-and-shoot weapons reasonably balanced against each other.

You also seem to think that mechs crashing into each other at great speed is only something that happens with bad piloting. That's true now, but when knock-downs become a viable stun-lock tactic, heavier mechs need only shift themselves to block and tackle lighter ones. So, you'll see a lot more of this type of "bad piloting" when it allows you to shut down other players.

Again, I see no advantage to introducing stun locks in a game that already has very low time to kill, heavily rewards hiding and sniping, and punishes light, fast mechs. Knock-downs will do nothing but bring us MORE of what we already have too much of: assault mechs (safer from knock-downs), sniping (lets you avoid knock-downs), and short time to kill (if you're knocked down, you die.)

[Sarlic]

Thank you for the update. Much appreciated.

[oldradagast]

Hades Trooper, on 15 November 2014 - 12:09 AM, said:

Obviously then you don't have the skills to pilot a light, i played back in closed beta in my jenner and loved collisions, it meant you had to think as a light rather than just now being invincible as no one can touch, you.

Get in close expect to be knbocked down pest

You do realize that the "lag-shield" that made you invincible in beta has been gone for over a year, right?

Lights are nothing but target practice now. A well played one - or pack - can be a threat, but the same pilot would probably even more dangerous in a fast medium.

I repeat: this game does NOT NEED A STUN-LOCK MECHANIC.

That is all knock-downs are. Yes, yes... mechs should not pass through each other - I agree with that. But knocking mechs down should be very difficult, if not impossible, since stun locks suck the fun out of a game and punish fast, light mechs, the type that are already on the edge of extinction.

[Lootee]

I drove mainly lights in the Closed Beta and as soon as I saw another light mech I'd converge on it for the body check. We'd both go down but my teammates would murder the other guy during the stand up animation.

There was no dogfighting or tactics or gunnery involved, just smack into the other mech as quickly as possible. It was boring and not really fun for either of us.

Another way I found to abuse the mechanic was to run out of bounds and then do a 180 and body check whoever was following me. Then we would both explode from out of bounds timeout before we could stand back up and run back into the map. This was great for taking an enemy with you if your team derps out and leaves you the lone survivor, but it was also a quite cheesy tactic.

The Centurion with 400XL engine was also capable of knocking down just about every mech in the game. It could knock over any opponent lighter than an Atlas. Now you have to settle for a 390XL engine, but that won't make much difference, it's still going to be a 130kph torso pushing everyone down over and over.

As much fun as I had doing all that in CB (it was our job to exploit abuseable mechanics after all) I do not want to see those days come back, especially if this game is going onto Steam for a wider audience.

[SgtMagor]

collisions and knockdowns, the most exciting bit of news snce the King Crab annoucement. I wanna see mechs dropping on the ground from weapons fire to mech on mech action.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Xiphias, on 15 November 2014 - 01:04 AM, said:

As someone who has primarily piloted lights since closed beta I'm all for collisions being added back in.

First, it will help thin out all the lights who can't actually pilot well, granted these have been thinned a lot since the heyday of the indestructible Raven.

Second, It also adds a challenge and a lot of fun to piloting. With this I think they should allow light mechs to make tighter turns than they currently do. This would allow lights to better fill their role and maneuver better in tight spaces without having to slow down to lethal speeds.

Third, this will finally put to rest the endless complaints from assault and heavy pilots who think the only reason they can't kill lights is because the unfairness that is the lack of knockdowns. If you can't watch your back, don't think that being able to back up will suddenly allow you to crush light pilots.

What I expect to fill the gap of this complaint is the new whine about how assault mechs shouldn't be able to be knocked down or seriously damaged from a collision. A Jenner weights roughly 1/3 of an Atlas and travels about 3 times as fast, both have effectively the same momentum. If a light rams into an assault at full speed it should hurt the assault, a lot.

If knockdown gets added back in I'm also waiting to see the domino effect when an assault tries to back up out of a strike and results in half the team getting knocked down and struck. I'm sure there won't be any complaints from assaults about that happening.

Do you remember collisions? It was far worse for lights especially being that Atlases basically couldnt be knocked down

[LordKnightFandragon]

Alistair Winter, on 14 November 2014 - 04:44 AM, said:

Which part of the latest Town Hall meeting made you most excited? You can find the cliff notes here, if you didn't listen to it.

For me, this was definitely the most exciting news:

• Mech collisions and knockdowns are a "top priority" after CW is released, hopefully Dec 15th. This will be a big game changer. Not without major bugs and lots of tears, I'm sure. But it will push the game in the right direction. Towards more realism and less arcade-style.
  
• New maps may be released as often as every month after CW is released. I doubt that will actually happen, but it would be crazy cool. Small maps may also be taken out of rotation, so I think the quality of the maps we're going to play on will increase dramatically in 2015. Bigger, better and more numerous.
  
• A lot of work is being put into making MWO more friendly to new players, such as letting new players fight 4 vs 4 matches on small maps and improving UI. This doesn't affect me directly, but it means that we'll hopefully get a lot of new players when this game hits Steam. And they won't quit out of frustration. Which means the number of players may stay the same, or even grow a little. Which means the game will stay alive longer.

Knockdowns and New maps........lets hope maps come out a little slower then every month, ive read many threads saying Mining Collective is still buggy and crashes peoples computers....we need less of that....for sure.

But knockdowns? Cool lol, now if only massive amounts of fire into lights can knock them on their asses.......then Clan UAC might have an advantage over a IS AC.....and if it becomes so, I would find it funny if people started wanting Clan UAC over IS.

[krash27]

Bigbacon, on 14 November 2014 - 05:19 AM, said:

yea! more reasons for folks not to use lights.

now that small pebble that makes you fly into the sky and take leg damage will now make you fall over also along with the million other poorly made map objects.

when they re-add knockdown, I will never use my lights again cause I'm sure the other mechs won't be falling over.

either that or leave knock down to CW only.

Yes because lights should be able to run into anything and everything at full speed and take little to no damage or fall down right.

[oldradagast]

krash27, on 15 November 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

Yes because lights should be able to run into anything and everything at full speed and take little to no damage or fall down right.

Yes, because finding yet another reason to discourage players from playing anything but assault mech is exactly what this game needs... right...

Half the posts on this thread seem to be nothing but assault mech pilots whining that their Dire Cheese can actually be threatened by something. "Whaaaaa!!! It's not enough that I have the firepower of 2 Atlas's taped together! I should be able to stomp mechs into scrap! I should be able to stun lock mechs just by running over them! I shouldn't have to work as a team, worry about being slow and clumsy, or be threatened by anything!!! Whah!!"

At this rate, we may as well just give everyone a maxed out set of Timber Wolves and Dire Wolves, remove everything else, and call it a game.

LordKnightFandragon, on 15 November 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

But knockdowns? Cool lol, now if only massive amounts of fire into lights can knock them on their asses.......then Clan UAC might have an advantage over a IS AC.....and if it becomes so, I would find it funny if people started wanting Clan UAC over IS.

Yes, because it's not enough that Clan has absurd firepower, let's make it so they stun lock people, too, with that hail of autocannon fire. Because blinding foes and having higher DPS is not enough... right...

Why don't we just rename this thread "I want knock-downs back because I hate aiming and being threatened by anything less than an assault mech!?"

Edited by oldradagast, 15 November 2014 - 10:11 AM.