Joseph Mallan, on 22 February 2015 - 07:05 AM, said:
No, swordfights just really don't last as long as they do in movies. Most swordfights are pretty boring to watch actually, movies have to spice them up to make them fun. Even at the olympic level of fencing, it's often barely even one second between when one of them commits and someone scores a solid torso hit (which would generally end a real swordfight too, as most people don't take well to being skewered). When some countries who teach very aggressive styles are involved, the round is over one way or the other almost as soon as it starts.
Most of the time to live in pre-gunpowder combat was spent not being engaged in the first place. Once you've engaged in melee, either you're going to die very quickly or your opponent is. Parrying is a thing, but because half the point of a parry is to also open up your opponent's defense you usually only have to parry once.
And really it kind of applies to most forms of combat. The best way to maximize your TTL (time to live) is to not get hit, even in high TTK games (because "high" really does usually mean "more than 1 second, unless you're getting focused").
Still the real reason we don't get cored by a single AC20 shot is that the players and designers of mechwarrior want an excuse to have 6+ guns mounted on a single platform. So mechs end up as a funny mix of tanks and land-battleships. If BT weapons where highly lethal, there'd be no reason to not just field normal tanks with a single gun that can core any mech it sees.
I generally have plenty of time to fire all my guns against any mech I engage, usually several times, so TTK seems to be working as intended.