84 replies to this topic

[Brody319]

I get plenty sense of scale when I am in a light and looking up at an assault.

[Impyrium]

CocoaJin, on 16 November 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

I think a major reason why scale feels off is because even though the mechs are to scale, the internal cockpits are not.

The choice to use larger than scale cockpits was great for increasing FOV from the cockpit, but it essentially shrunk the world around it from a pilot viewing perspective. So until that scale mis-match is reconciled, there is nothing that can be easily done to fix it.

Actually so much this. I never noticed it until someone pointed it out and then... well, now I can't un-notice it. There's other things as people above have stated, but this is really noticeable for me.

[White Bear 84]

Krivvan, on 16 November 2014 - 02:18 PM, said:

The problem with the earlier mechwarrior games (in your screenshots in particular) is that it's essentially a big open area without any cover whatsoever. I shouldn't have to explain why this wouldn't work very well in this game.

^This.

And the fact that mechs are not actually that big when you look at the scale... ...in some cases you can compare mechs to the in game cars and the cockpit of the mech is actually larger than the whole car so if anything either cockpits need to shrink or certain geometry needs to be shrunk - but not the whole world...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

AUSwarrior24, on 16 November 2014 - 04:30 PM, said:

Actually so much this. I never noticed it until someone pointed it out and then... well, now I can't un-notice it. There's other things as people above have stated, but this is really noticeable for me.

Im willing to bet all previous entries have done this (I know MW4 did at least). So if you believe either of them scaled things correctly, then the cockpit not being to scale isn't an issue.

[Mycrus]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 16 November 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

First of all, I'm thrilled to see that Viridian Bog is finally giving MWO the lush, vivid, colourful enviroment that fans have been asking for since 2012. I view it as a sign that MWO is now paying more attention to what fans are asking for, combined with the fact that they know enough about CryEngine to give us stuff that they didn't know how to do before.

That being said, there's still two major issues with most of the maps in MWO and Viridian Bog looks like it has the same issue. First, there's no sense of scale. It doesn't feel like I'm piloting a huge 100 ton walker. Whether I'm on Tourmaline, Terra Therma, Alpine, HPG (especially this one!) or Canyon Network, it's very hard to get a sense of just how big my mech is.

There are some scattered cars and buildings here and there, but they are few and far between. If you're standing on any given position on the maps mentioned above, you're probably looking at a view that would be just as appropriate for a normal FPS like Halo.

The urban maps are a lot better. Frozen City, Crimson Strait, River City. Which leads us to the second issue: not feeling like you're piloting a big and powerful mechs. While these maps do give you a good sense of scale, you're still smaller than most buildings. You can't even destroy trees, traffic lights or cars, let alone skyscrapers.

Previous MW-games had several areas that gave you both the sense of scale and the sense of power that you want from a Mechwarrior game.

Spoiler

I'm really hoping that future maps will both establish a firm sense of scale, so it's always easy to see that you're actually ten or twenty meters off the ground, and also give the player a sense of power by letting him or her walk through settlements, bases and forests like a huge hulking monster, without being blocked by massive skyscrapers and vastly overgrown alien plants all the time.

I made this illustration to explain what I'm looking for.

I B4 Heffay's spot on perfect™

[Tekadept]

The fertilizer on this world is Orders of Magnitude greater then any other world.

[norus]

While plenty of stuff to give a sense of scale is great, a tree is a very bad way to make a mech feel big. A douglas fir (common northwest USA tree) in an old growth forest (one which hasn't been logged to oblivion) can often reach 60 meters in height. An atlas is ~15 meters so seeing a tree 4x your height isn't out of the realm of possibility. Since it's an alien world that looks extremely undeveloped in that new map i'd say that is most likely old growth. That good picture would work fine for something tiny like an apple tree I guess. For the giant flowers, well i've no answer there.

[Impyrium]

WM Quicksilver, on 16 November 2014 - 07:11 PM, said:

Im willing to bet all previous entries have done this (I know MW4 did at least). So if you believe either of them scaled things correctly, then the cockpit not being to scale isn't an issue.

No, I never said previous titles did better. In fact, I messed about with MW4 the other day and the cockpits are easily the worst in the series. Terrible models (MW3 puts it to shame), terrible scaling and very very wrong locations. I'm not sure if MW3 did better, in fact I think it's more or less the same, but it handled cockpits in MW really, really good to the point it didn't matter.

MWO cockpits are easily the most detailed, unique and cool looking cockpits in the series so far. But something still feels off about them.

[Zanathan]

Well part of the reason for PGI making things bigger, like buildings and plants, etc is for cover .. because you know, you probably don't want to be in an open field fighting with no cover.

I'm sure I don't have to explain why cover is important.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

AUSwarrior24, on 16 November 2014 - 08:55 PM, said:

No, I never said previous titles did better. In fact, I messed about with MW4 the other day and the cockpits are easily the worst in the series. Terrible models (MW3 puts it to shame), terrible scaling and very very wrong locations. I'm not sure if MW3 did better, in fact I think it's more or less the same, but it handled cockpits in MW really, really good to the point it didn't matter.

MWO cockpits are easily the most detailed, unique and cool looking cockpits in the series so far. But something still feels off about them.

I was talking about scaling (which is what I believe he was bringing up), not detail. The actual cockpit models are large, you just don't realize it. The MW4 cockpit models were often as large as the mechs (during a cutscene, change view modes and you will see them). MW3 was probably the same way considering this is somewhat standard protocol for the difference between outside perspective and first person.

[CocoaJin]

I'd be tempted to see how the current map models would feel if we had properly scaled cockpits and msg importantly properly scaled FOVs to go with them. Imagine a FOV compressed to 1/3 the current FOV and therefor requiring a hat switch or "Q & E" buttons to snap one's view to center on 45 and 85 degrees left and right of center.

If we had to swing our heads around to take in the surrounding game world we currently see in a panoramic like view, we'd get a better since of scale.

[LordKnightFandragon]

How big do you think a mech is? The biggest mechs are only roughly 3 stories high......mechs stand about right in game. walk up next to any building on River city or Crimson, you will see you stand anywhere between the 2nd and 3rd story of the building.

Ofc, Lights and thier artificial down sizing, they could walk in the front door of the hotel and check in.....but anyway..

[Karl Streiger]

LordKnightFandragon, on 17 November 2014 - 01:40 AM, said:

How big do you think a mech is? The biggest mechs are only roughly 3 stories high......mechs stand about right in game. walk up next to any building on River city or Crimson, you will see you stand anywhere between the 2nd and 3rd story of the building.

Ofc, Lights and thier artificial down sizing, they could walk in the front door of the hotel and check in.....but anyway..

Maybe the scale is ok, from the theoretical part - but not from the "feel" there are "leaked screenshots" from the Catapract vs the Koshi -
the fact that the pract cockpit is as big as the Koshi Torso, or the Catapract Arm seems to have the mass of the 25t Mech - turning the 70t in something about 200t - if you accept that the Koshi weights 25t... or you accept the 70t for the Catapract and have a 7t ProtoMech Koshi.
Anyhow - at this given picture - there was a hill (alpine) in the background - that hill looked like 600m or even more away - but I'm pretty sure it was only 50m or even less.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 17 November 2014 - 01:52 AM.

[Lily from animove]

by the devlog 10, that giant dead thing probably is a centipede? in that size? what does it even eats? entire trees? I doubt it would even find other animals to eat, yet how cna a planet or maybe not planetwide biome even house multiple of these creatures to ensure a population, yet also the food it requires. WOW, just eyecandy off the logic.

the same we have in river ciry, ever had a look at the giant lanet in the background? How can it even be hat close? The speed required to keep such a low orbit at this gravity would be increadibly fast + I doubt such a planet would allow an environment housing living nature.

Mining colony is the same, we have quite a lot gravity for being on a cobble in space where another one is that close.


I really hope our maps in future get build with a bit more detail for physics and logic.

also the giant cabbage

Edited by Lily from animove, 17 November 2014 - 03:57 AM.

[Sarlic]

I am not so sure. I do agree on scale though. Alot seems to be off.

One word: no scale reminders. That's about it.

Where do you want to have cover? For example a 100 ton Atlas. That's a big guy there.

[Krivvan]

CocoaJin, on 16 November 2014 - 10:11 PM, said:

If we had to swing our heads around to take in the surrounding game world we currently see in a panoramic like view, we'd get a better since of scale.

I've played MWO with an Oculus before, yeah it does help a bit.

Sarlic, on 17 November 2014 - 02:30 AM, said:

Where do you want to have cover? For example a 100 ton Atlas. That's a big guy there.

An Atlas can go down in a second to focus fire. Not very good cover an Atlas is.

Edited by Krivvan, 17 November 2014 - 02:36 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

Gonna have to make this short. I wrote a long reply and the forum decided I wasn't logged in anymore.

#firstworldproblems

norus, on 16 November 2014 - 08:51 PM, said:

While plenty of stuff to give a sense of scale is great, a tree is a very bad way to make a mech feel big. A douglas fir (common northwest USA tree) in an old growth forest (one which hasn't been logged to oblivion) can often reach 60 meters in height. An atlas is ~15 meters so seeing a tree 4x your height isn't out of the realm of possibility. Since it's an alien world that looks extremely undeveloped in that new map i'd say that is most likely old growth. That good picture would work fine for something tiny like an apple tree I guess. For the giant flowers, well i've no answer there.

I get that. Some trees can be big. Let's say trees are between 2 and 60 meters on average. At lower sea levels, especially when sheltered from strong winds, the trees can grow very tall. At high altitudes, exposed to wind and snow, the trees are typically shorter.

I'm sure you could even invent some sort of scientific explanation for why Viridian Bog has a 200-meter long centipede (denser atmosphere allows greater insect size) or why it has huge standing lilies that an Atlas can easily walk under.

But a major selling point for Mechwarrior games is "Would you like to pilot a 15 meter tall, 100 ton robot with guns?" With that being kind of important to the concept of the game, why would you focus so much on environments with huge trees, huge buildings, huge mountains, huge dinosaur / insects, etc? I know you need cover, but you don't need huge skyscrapers and mountains to give cover for a mech. Canyon Network has lots of cover.

If you want to give the players an experience where they're piloting a really huge machine, just pick some smaller trees instead of huge trees once in a while. A small cactus here and there. A small building. More scattered cars, trucks and buses on the maps. Tents, bunkers, gas stations. Abandonded tanks, helicopters.

The Tyrannosaurus was about 10-15 meters long from head to tail. Why do we need a map with 200 meter long dinosaurs?

Zanathan, on 16 November 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

Well part of the reason for PGI making things bigger, like buildings and plants, etc is for cover .. because you know, you probably don't want to be in an open field fighting with no cover.
I'm sure I don't have to explain why cover is important.

Do you expect me to reply when you didn't even read the OP or the posts made before yours? We already talked about that stuff.

LordKnightFandragon, on 17 November 2014 - 01:40 AM, said:

How big do you think a mech is? The biggest mechs are only roughly 3 stories high......mechs stand about right in game. walk up next to any building on River city or Crimson, you will see you stand anywhere between the 2nd and 3rd story of the building.
Ofc, Lights and thier artificial down sizing, they could walk in the front door of the hotel and check in.....but anyway..

I think a mech is about this size.

Spoiler

And like I said in the OP, some maps do a good job of creating a sense of scale. Others do not. Just read the OP again, it's all there.

Tennex, on 16 November 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

Someone dropped the MWO mechs into cryengine and shows that trees are larger than mechs. So atleast in that regard MWO has the trees correctly sized for the most part. Although i wouldnt mind more smaller trees.
http://imgur.com/a/bvxiD#0

As mentioned above, I don't think huge trees are outside the realm of possibility. Nor are huge buildings. But I think the MWO map designers are working against a major selling point in the game when they focus on the huge terrain features rather than trying to make the players feel big. If trees are between 2 and 60 meters tall, they tend to work at the upper levels of that scale, instead of the lower levels. You can justify both. But part of the charm of Mechwarrior games is to pilot a huge robot. And you're really not selling that part of the experiece when you make the player feel small in comparison to his surroundings.

Tennex, on 16 November 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

I feel like MW4 did a really great job with tents and stuff.. MWO could use a healthy smattering of small objects here and there to remind us of the scale.

Agreed. Tents and bunkers are a nice way of creating scale while keeping polygon count low. The same with cars and houses, potentially.

Edited by Tristan Winter, 06 April 2015 - 03:09 PM.

[Revorn]

The Sizeof the Mech seems to be oki, but what about the Size of the Pilot?

I get the Feeling, as if i would be the Pilot, i would be verry large. Just my impression.

Edited by Revorn, 17 November 2014 - 04:14 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Revorn, on 17 November 2014 - 04:13 AM, said:

The Sizeof the Mech seems to be oki, but what about the Size of the Pilot?

I get the Feeling, as if i would be the Pilot, i would be verry large. Just my impression.

depends on the cockpit, phract has some huge one, probably scaling the pilot too large, others are quite fine. Also the point of view fom up there makes of course look those cars tiny.

go to any building on the second floor or 3rd and have a look down. they are quite small.

Edited by Lily from animove, 17 November 2014 - 05:02 AM.

[Revorn]

Lily from animove, on 17 November 2014 - 04:24 AM, said:

dpends on the cockpit, phract has soem huge one, probably scaling the pilot too large, others are quite fine. aso the point of view fom up there makes of course look those cars tiny.

go to any building on the second floor or 3rd and have a look down. they are quite small.

Agree, i guess too, that it depens strongly on the Cocpitt somehow.