70 replies to this topic

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

FYI, arm lock is far more punishing on a mech without lower arm actuators than many people realize.

One of the main benefits of arm lock is forcing horizontal alignment of arm and torso weapons. What it also does, though, is limit vertical traverse, which can leave you terribly vulnerable to enemies at different elevations from your own.

Since mechs that don't have lower arm actuators naturally have horizontal alignment of arm and torso weapons, all you do is lose when you leave arm lock active on such a mech.

As for arm lock on a mech with lower arm actuators, it is an active disadvantage to have it engaged in most circumstances, most especially when a fight is mobile (which includes pilots twisting to spread incoming hits as well as actually moving to maximize positioning advantages). For those mechs, arm lock is, as others have said above, most useful when trying to maximize the impact of a particular volley, particularly with PPFLD loadouts that are mixed between arm and torso mounts (the Cataphract 3D, Victors, etc.).

Personally, I only run with arm lock off. It's a failing of mine that I don't take advantage of the toggle, though I flatter myself that I've learned well enough how to keep the two crosshairs aligned when it matters that it's not a meaningful disadvantage.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I have to be honest, I do prefer the way aiming was in Mechwarrior-3.

Having free arm control without it dragging your torso was nice for shooting while on the run.

It gave you a much greater degree of accuracy when you weren't fighting the crosshair every time you pan around or were making a turn.

On the other side though, its fairly fluid with what we have now, and makes it easier to smoothly control your torso for spreading damage and shielding.

Maybe there should be a cone of say 10 degrees in the center that allows for free arm movement without turning the torso, and once you reach that 10 degree boundary, your torso will start to chase your crosshair as it does now.

There will always be the ARM lock feature that you can just hold down to line up both where your crosshair is pointed.

[Navid A1]

um... isn't what the OP is suggesting the same mechanic we have now as default?

currently the view is focused on the arms.. not torso. torso follows as fast as it can to reach the arms. (which is a very good double cursor aiming mechanic).

The real change needed here i think should be binding the advanced zoom pip to the arms instead of torso... so your shots goes to where you are pointing in pip instead of the point in 4x standard zoom.

I'm not sure what the OP is suggesting.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Hold down left control and you can move the arm cursor freely. It's handy for doing things like shooting off to the side while taking hits on the side instead of the front.

[MonochromeGoat]

Slightly unrelated question: does armlock prevent the arms from going spastic because of the borked terrain hitboxes?Too many did it happen that i had cover to my left, crosshair was aimed at a target in the distance and the right arm decides it's a good moment to aim hard left and give that wall a scratch.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Oh man, if we could toggle the PIP advanced zoom to track the arm point instead of Torso..
I would be in love.

[Serpieri]

Arm Lock - should be automatic if you don't have lower arm actuators or when destroyed - this game so needs a proper crit system. And don't forget to give that mech a reverse fire option. Cause Choices makes a game more tactical.

Edited by Serpieri, 02 February 2015 - 04:14 PM.

[CocoaJin]

Navid A1, on 02 February 2015 - 04:01 PM, said:

um... isn't what the OP is suggesting the same mechanic we have now as default?

currently the view is focused on the arms.. not torso. torso follows as fast as it can to reach the arms. (which is a very good double cursor aiming mechanic).

The real change needed here i think should be binding the advanced zoom pip to the arms instead of torso... so your shots goes to where you are pointing in pip instead of the point in 4x standard zoom.

I'm not sure what the OP is suggesting.

The arm cross moves across the screen, your view stays centered on the center torso cross hair. The torso and it's view follows the arm reticle, but your view is always centered on the center cockpit screen.

My idea would pan our view across the cockpit screen with the arm reticle always center in our view...and with the torso reticle trailing behind, off center until it converges/meets up with the arm reticle aim point.

[terrycloth]

That's not what I've been seeing. Your view follows the arm cursor. The windows of course stay centered on the torso cursor, but you can see extra bits of your cockpit showing up at the side as your pilot's head turns.

[Blast Thickneck]

There should be a toggle to have the advanced zoom module track to arms not torso. Not a huge thing but would be a nice addition.

[CocoaJin]

terrycloth, on 02 February 2015 - 05:12 PM, said:

That's not what I've been seeing. Your view follows the arm cursor. The windows of course stay centered on the torso cursor, but you can see extra bits of your cockpit showing up at the side as your pilot's head turns.

That doesn't make any sense. If your view follows the arm reticle, then it can't be center on the torso cursor set the same time. There may be a small off set in the camera, but it is not following the arm reticle, otherwise the arm reticle would remain centered and you'd see a lot more of the cockpit side/peripheral screen...and the center cross hair and center cockpit screen would move in to center up on the arm reticle.

[Bloodweaver]

MoonUnitBeta, on 02 February 2015 - 01:52 PM, said:

There is free look in MWO.. I've never played MW3 though. Is it different?

Completely different. MWO doesn't have true free look. For one, your pilot can't even look directly to the side (90 degree turn) much less look over his shoulder. This has always been one of my biggest pet peeves with MWO, how little you're able to actually twist your head. Also, your head is tethered to center position. Once you release the button, your view snaps back to center. Which isn't a reflection of how your neck works in reality at all.

Mechwarrior 3 had two different view settings, similar to the way MWO (now) has two different view settings. With the first setting, your view didn't move around, your reticle did. So your screen would stay where it was and you could move the reticle around the screen. The second setting kept the reticle in the center of your view at all times, and you could move your head around. In both settings, the reticle moved independently of the torso(unless you chose to keep the torso tied to the reticle, which was a separate button). You could move the legs, torso, and arms/point of view all at the same time, with each one going in different directions, and it felt completely natural.

So, in short, instead of "arm lock on/off" like we have in MWO, it was "pilot head lock on/off." With the head "locked," you could move the reticle around the screen, and with it "unlocked" the reticle was your viewpoint, but you had complete freedom of movement. Like in the more modern flight simulators. And really, it was pretty damn cool. Both functional and immersive. It was a huge part of why MW3 is the best Mechwarrior game in terms of making you feel like you are the PILOT of a huge war machine, instead of being the huge war machine yourself.

I should also point out that neither of these settings had a "tethered to center" feature. Your reticle or POV (depending on if your head was "unlocked" or "locked," respectively) would move so long as your mouse/joystick/keyboard told it to, and once you released that control input, it stayed where it was. So, more akin to the way the torso works in MWO than the arms do. More like a mouse pointer than a rubber band. Much more natural.

Also, the reticle controlled both torso and arm weapons. But, torso weapons had a much more narrow range at which they could be fired. And if you were looking far enough to the side, only your arm weapons on that side would be available. AND, depending on the 'mech, once you started moving your reticle to the side, your arm weapons on the opposite side would gray out (becoming unavailable for use) before your torso weapons did, because - !!! - they would have hit your own torso! Always thought that whole setup was pretty damn cool, and was seriously hoping MWO would implement it. What they have instead is, OK... But not nearly as cool, or adaptable, or immersive.

Edited by Bloodweaver, 02 February 2015 - 05:41 PM.

[HUAAAANG]

Just makes me wish we had separate(auxiliary?) controls for torso twist so we could twist and keep the arms going at the same time-spread damage AND keep firing. Another thing that bothers me: the lurch when you turn your legs while trying to maintain a target(ESPECIALLY in the twitchier mechs). I don't understand why the aim controls are hardwired to center of legs when it would make sense to disconnect the two. Sure, you wind up moving your aim more, but still...

[GenghisJr]

Why would you use arm lock on a mech with arms? Its not a "challenge" - its the only way. Turn it off and for the occasions when you want it, just hold shift, it does take some practice to use the shift key in game but its easy enough. The way it works now gives you the best of both worlds whereas before it was either on or off.
Having the view follow the arm would make moving difficult - no thanks.

[Ghogiel]

I don't like the responsiveness of the arm reticule in this game tbh. The drag on it is cumbersome imo, kind feels like I have to fight it's pull to get solid component shots when moving fast. Having said that I use both modes and go inbetween them when it suits, ie lock when I need to align for the alpha and unlock to twist use arms only.

Anyway it could use a little TLC to make it feel better.

[Navid A1]

CocoaJin, on 02 February 2015 - 04:55 PM, said:

The arm cross moves across the screen, your view stays centered on the center torso cross hair. The torso and it's view follows the arm reticle, but your view is always centered on the center cockpit screen.

My idea would pan our view across the cockpit screen with the arm reticle always center in our view...and with the torso reticle trailing behind, off center until it converges/meets up with the arm reticle aim point.

You mean something like this in normal mode (without holding a button):

Spoiler

instead of this:

Spoiler

... yup.. i agree with you.

[PitchBlackYeti]

I don't like the arm reticule "pull" either. The high elo elitists may laugh all they want, I simply get better results with arms locked, unlocking them only when I lack torso twist/elevation to track a target. With arm-mounted beam weapons it's virtually impossible to deal reliable damage without spraying all over the target because of the torso gravity that pulls the arm reticule back to the center all the time. If there was a toggle to center the view on the arms reticule, that wouldn't be that much of a problem.

Edited by PitchBlackYeti, 02 February 2015 - 11:19 PM.

[Navid A1]

PitchBlackYeti, on 02 February 2015 - 11:19 PM, said:

I don't like the arm reticule "pull" either. The high elo elitists may laugh all they want, I simply get better results with arms locked, unlocking them only when I lack torso twist/elevation to track a target. With arm-mounted beam weapons it's virtually impossible to deal reliable damage without spraying all over the target because of the torso gravity that pulls the arm reticule back to the center all the time. If there was a toggle to center the view on the arms reticule, that wouldn't be that much of a problem.

I had a different experience regarding arm lock... i find it very hard not to have horizontal arm movement... it reduces my accuracy by a great degree.

Also... when the view is centered om the torso reticle, it does not pull the arm reticle towards itself as far as i know .(unless you are holding a button to move your arms and view)

[0rionsbane]

honestly this is one of my pet peeves too, I hate it so much I usually take lrms or ssrms so I get a nice big lock on it with its over my enemy. The thing that annoys me the most is the band that follows it around, I would much prefer it was bigger and had a cross hair instead of a small circle. or make it like mw3's which is a bigger circle with a dot for dead center. maybe ill go find it and mod it, cant be that hard.

[PitchBlackYeti]

Navid A1, on 02 February 2015 - 11:26 PM, said:

Also... when the view is centered om the torso reticle, it does not pull the arm reticle towards itself as far as i know .(unless you are holding a button to move your arms and view)

Unless you're holding down ctrl to free-look the screen is always centered on the torso reticule. The torso movement is following the arms but thanks to the aforementioned feature it feels like the arms reticule is constantly being dragged back to the center and it's very annoying having to fight this pull 24/7. It results in very twitchy behaviour of the arms reticule. When running with arms unlocked I'd prefer to focus on arm mounted weapons and I'd like to have an option (toggle button preferably) to center the view on the arms, without disabling torso movement (ctrl).

Edited by PitchBlackYeti, 02 February 2015 - 11:38 PM.