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Forest Colony Scaling


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#1 Chaosity

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 11:36 PM

Why, when I look around at the vegetation, do I feel like my mech is only 2m tall? Typical bush blocking my view in a heavy or assault? Great artwork, but somebody forgot to tell the artists how tall mechs are. And I am sure that this will go unresolved forever because the man hours to fix it are too high.

So why the post? It's the hope that this will be taken into consideration in future maps. We will always be running midget mechs in FC. That's a given. But please not in future maps.

#2 The Basilisk

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Posted 20 August 2015 - 11:53 PM

That was also an issue with Viridian bog.
As result the map is even more hated then terra therma.
Not because the Artwork is bad or the idea is crap, no absolutely not...
Its because all those feaking large Insect carapaces and those ultra large rocky outcroppings make your mech feel like a child wandering throug some theme park.
IT TOTALY KILLS EVERY BIT OF IMMERSION
The very practical reason is you cant maneuver there. There are still hundrets of places where you hit below water objects you can get over full tilt forward but when backing up you are stuck.
Dont know how often I died because terrain does not interact like one would expect. Its just annoying.

Again. The Ideas and designs are great, but please dear artworkteam:

REALIZE WE ARE WALKING BIG STOMPY ROBOTS :wub: and not little groundpounders

#3 B0oN

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 12:06 AM

I like the map .
Funnily my opinion about the vegetation contrasts extremely to yours.
I feel like I am in a proper wood on a properly alien planet, as a Mechwarrior should be and while the bushes/ferns/whateveryoumightcallit blocks view in a few spots another warrior might even know what to do with that .

The only gripe I´m having with this and any other map in this game is the ridiculous notion of battlemechs not being able to lift their feet high enough to get over pebbles and small stones ... I mean, a battlemech has articulated legs, they surely can be lifted higher than those 5 cm´s for striding .
Fix the stiff hip and knee-joints of all our Battlemechs, the re-vamps of the old maps are good and, more importantly, they feel not only fresh, but also are more worthy grounds for battlemechs to move around in because the size is good (although maps still could be bigger ... Altis/Chernarus-size^^) which benefits role-warfare imo.

#4 Nightshade24

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 12:23 AM

Problem: most of the larger IRL trees are bigger then the stompy robots you love, for eg...

Posted Imageas you see here, one of the biggest mechs- the Executioner at 14.4 meters is pretty tall right?


Posted Image
Well this tree right here reaches a normal optimal 83.8 meters high and it's width is bigger then some mediums and lights alone as well as some heavies heights.
Not the exact tree we see in FOREST colony, but it is more of less similar.
Now I would also like to factor in the fact we do not know the atmospheres composition on the planet where Forest Colony is located. Depending on it's contents and gravity we may have trees up to 40% more taller then on Terra.

An executioner jumps 120 meters with no MW: O nerfs so it may barely jump to the top of the tree. However with the MW nerfs it doesn't have the chance to see the tops.

The problem with 'scales' is that you always look at the bigger stuff and the thing with mechs is they are not some animegandum mecha that deffy logic that is a 30 ton mech that has more weapons then the total US military in 2014 as well as be the size of godzilla with weapons the lengths of sky scrappers. MW is to a point realistic and it will have situations where there may be poles, antenna, dishes, buildings, trees, etc bigger then you...

However look around forest colony, only 5% of the trees are bigger then you, most of them are smaller and get crushed.

The biggest thing that can bring a sense of scale into MW: O is ai vehicles. as then you will look at these cute Humveees with no armour and a SRM 2 or an APC with a single machine gun and think "awh, how cute. ALPHA STRIKE!" -and then a random demolisher comes in and shouts 'surprise motherf***er' and duel Ac 20's you-
Point is. scale is just how you look, you can see lots of things in many maps that can make you feel huge but you often ignore it as it isn't a form of cover, most often not terrain you need to think about, or not a enemy that goes pew pew.

#5 Chaosity

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 06:58 AM

Nice, but you missed the point, We are not talking about the few huge trees. We are talking about the 5,200 smaller trees and bushes that make me feel like I'm in a child's toy robot, not a big stompy thing crashing through stuff that shouldn't be any higher than my knees.

#6 Lily from animove

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 07:05 AM

View PostChaosity, on 21 August 2015 - 06:58 AM, said:

Nice, but you missed the point, We are not talking about the few huge trees. We are talking about the 5,200 smaller trees and bushes that make me feel like I'm in a child's toy robot, not a big stompy thing crashing through stuff that shouldn't be any higher than my knees.



same for streets, the streets especially those 2 "tire" like lookig gones llook odd.

Posted Image

The "2 lane" streets are actually working on th size of those trucks, yet those two lanes have a way too big gap of green between eahc others. it makes them look like typical roads created by a vehicle making one side with the tire and the other as well. yet a vehicle needed on that size does not exist in MWO.

Edited by Lily from animove, 21 August 2015 - 07:05 AM.


#7 Brian Windover

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 07:58 AM

The small trees are the same trees in RiverCity and are to 'Terra scale' if you want to give a scale factor. As for the two lane road if you look at the big freight-car trucks the width is correct between the two treads (few examples of this are in forest colony).

As for lasers and flamers setting trees on fire and then slowly burn down. We have thought of this many times but there are some issues that arise from doing this. An example would be making it cheap enough so its not a performance hit, since it has to show for everyone because of game play mechanics.

Now for the rocks and small stuff people are getting stuck on or feel like they hit a wall. This is fixed and will be in the next patch.

#8 Luscious Dan

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 08:35 AM

View PostBrian Windover, on 21 August 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

The small trees are the same trees in RiverCity and are to 'Terra scale' if you want to give a scale factor. As for the two lane road if you look at the big freight-car trucks the width is correct between the two treads (few examples of this are in forest colony).

As for lasers and flamers setting trees on fire and then slowly burn down. We have thought of this many times but there are some issues that arise from doing this. An example would be making it cheap enough so its not a performance hit, since it has to show for everyone because of game play mechanics.

Now for the rocks and small stuff people are getting stuck on or feel like they hit a wall. This is fixed and will be in the next patch.


Nice! Collision mesh updates are always welcome.

Introducing forest fire mechanics would be interesting tactically (light a fire to destroy enemy visibility as you escape, or to overheat enemy mechs) but I agree it could be disastrous for performance. That many trees burning would pwn my computer, which doesn't like drowning in smoke/flame effects.

Dropping crushable cars into the old maps would be such an awesome update... Crimson Strait is pretty close as it is, and some more immersion like crushable cars would be awesome sauce.

Did the game feature foot prints in the ground at any point? Or am I thinking of something else... how cool would it be to scout ahead and ascertain enemy movement this way? B)

#9 Lily from animove

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 10:30 AM

View PostBrian Windover, on 21 August 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

The small trees are the same trees in RiverCity and are to 'Terra scale' if you want to give a scale factor. As for the two lane road if you look at the big freight-car trucks the width is correct between the two treads (few examples of this are in forest colony).

As for lasers and flamers setting trees on fire and then slowly burn down. We have thought of this many times but there are some issues that arise from doing this. An example would be making it cheap enough so its not a performance hit, since it has to show for everyone because of game play mechanics.

Now for the rocks and small stuff people are getting stuck on or feel like they hit a wall. This is fixed and will be in the next patch.


nitpick time?

But first the map has many great tiny details,

the cave behind the (missing) waterfall

the anteanna and its surrounding with the small pathway through the rocks.

Posted Image

I really like that one.

But those pathways look too human, maybe it would be a bit better to change their appearance a bit and add some tire trails on them or some small tiny grass stripe in its middle?
Because the small vehicles seem to use them and their tires would hardly create such a pathway. it's soemthing human feet do since they center.

similar to this:
Posted Image
soem kind of green middle on them to indicate a car pathes there regulary.

also this:

Posted Image

also this one, there is even stuff IN those containers, no one ever in a battle would look in there or ralise this LOL. But its great.


And so e coem to the nitpicking now.

When with the big vehicles you mena those:

Posted Image

there is a bit of a tiny incorrection on the map.

The container dock actually where the containers are shipped is havign one of these vehicles. yet ther eis no doublepathway leading to or from there. Nor is the street leading to and from thre wide enough to be done by them.

Posted Image

Same for the village at J10. It seems to be made out of those containers that these vehicles also are carrying. Yet there is not double trail pathway leading to this village. While form all the area it seems to be area which would have the most traffic by those vehicles.

Another part on the double trail pathway is this:

Posted Image

I doubt those vehicles could pass thsi area, the rock is too close to the trail, also that downward ramp there, its way too big to be crossed by a single side of those vehicles. It would mostlikley get stick in there or partially flip in.

I really know it's nitpickign, btu those small things especially the trails coudl need this tiny change to give a better scale indicator. because the way they are togetehr with the large trees make look the entire scene to "human scaled". Especially with the small trees that suddenly start to look like saplings.

thast the wood I lived close to as a child:
Posted Image

except form the big trees being more dense the wood size feelign is giving the "human scale" feeling to the mech. But by scale, the MWO big trees are our normals, the MWO small trees are the saplings, and the MWO bushes are the grass.

Edited by Lily from animove, 21 August 2015 - 10:38 AM.


#10 The Mech behind you

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 01:47 PM

The bushes you're talking about might be small trees. Like in one of the pictures posted above my post. Those look like bushes but if you look closer they're trees.

Last week, I learned from a TV show that trees on Earth can grow up to 130m. Trees can't pump up the water any higher in their veins that's why it's capped at 130m. A tree on a different planet with less gravitation than Earth could grow even bigger ofc.

#11 FireDog

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Posted 21 August 2015 - 02:58 PM

Look around at the details hidden in the foliage. I have found lots of scaling hints. Stepped on a quiet few trucks parked along side the roads. And have found many moss covered buildings hiding in the woods.





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