200 replies to this topic

[Speedy Plysitkos]

Kmieciu, on 07 October 2015 - 01:33 AM, said:

We all know Crab will not be resized, even though it's shorter than a Cicada.
All the other medium mechs will not be resized as well, since it's a lot of work and no profit for PGI.

dont touch crabies...

[Karamarka]

now fix cicada, trebuchet, kintaro, nova

[bad arcade kitty]

nova is actually getting fixed... soon ™
it will be funny if it ends up the size of the crablet

[MrEdweird]

Centurion is fine imo, yeah, it's bloody huge, but from personal experience, the YLW and AH kick so much damn ass, especially the AH - I think the size works nicely as a balancing factor for something that spams AC/20s and SRMs with ridiculous hitboxes and runs circles around you at 90+ kph. Even use the thing in CW to maul clanners...

[Paigan]

Lordhammer, on 06 October 2015 - 04:41 PM, said:

Well there is the point of argument, i saw one right next to a raven and it was just as tall, and it was really smaller than my cicada. Actually when i was engaging another from far away i felt like fighting against a firestarter siluette. Seriously was it so hard to make it a bit bigger? I understand it has dragon level protrusion but that rarely matters unless you flank the guy. Discuss

I noticed the same thing in a similar way:
I had a team mate crab next to me yesterday.
I switched to 3rd person and thought "That thing isn't even HALF the volume/mass of my WHK".

Absolutely seen, the crab might have a better scale, but then 95% of all other mechs should be scaled down accordingly.

The Urbie was a joke, so be it, little trash can, but every "proper" Mech should be roughly in a consistent size to every other.
It's a matter of both balance AND aesthetics and it relatively trivial to do (don't care how complicated PGI's tooling procedures are. It's a scale factor, that's all there is).

[bad arcade kitty]

cent could be slimmer

[MeiSooHaityu]

The Crab isn't a humanoid mech, it has an aircraft shaped torso instead. It's mass is more horizontal than vertical like other mechs of similar design. That is why it has that big protruding snout (which a humanoid style wouldn't have). If you took that mass and stood it on end, it would probably be as tall (if not taller) than many existing mediums.

It's actually pretty decent in it's size really and that is more than I can say for a few mechs in MWO.

[bad arcade kitty]

MeiSooHaityu, on 07 October 2015 - 03:55 AM, said:

The Crab isn't a humanoid mech, it has an aircraft shaped torso instead. It's mass is more horizontal than vertical like other mechs of similar design. That is why it has that big protruding snout (which a humanoid style wouldn't have). If you took that mass and stood it on end, it would probably be as tall (if not taller) than many existing mediums.

It's actually pretty decent in it's size really and that is more than I can say for a few mechs in MWO.

just compare it with non humanoid cicada which is 10 tons lighter

[Juodas Varnas]

bad arcade kitty, on 07 October 2015 - 03:58 AM, said:

just compare it with non humanoid cicada which is 10 tons lighter

Well, cicada is shorter(length wise) and much more box-like, with non-existent arms (as opposed to massive claws) and skinny, but long legs (which are almost completely straight), while crab's legs are wider and in a crouching position.

bad arcade kitty, on 07 October 2015 - 03:47 AM, said:

cent could be slimmer

Koniving's edit

Koniving, on 03 July 2015 - 05:38 PM, said:

While Treb and Quickdraw do need rescales, the Treb is skinny compared to the Centurion...

But honestly, on the left is MWO's Centurion. On the right is the same Centurion rescaled to match the limb and body thickness of the concept art.

Yes. I will continue to post this everytime someone mentions "centurion" and "slimmer"

PGI MAKE IT HAPPEN ALREADY, it was needed since you released the concept art, back in closed beta.

[MeiSooHaityu]

bad arcade kitty, on 07 October 2015 - 03:58 AM, said:

just compare it with non humanoid cicada which is 10 tons lighter

The torsos are almost the same height, but the Cicada has a bit more of a squared off "shoulder". The legs of the Cicada are longer which makes it stand a bit taller.

The Crab is also a TON wider because it has arms and no little shields tacked on. As a side note, It's main weapons also far more vulnerable because of that.

Lastly the Cicada is a box. It is as long as it is wide. The Crab is WAY longer than the Cicada. It might be twice as long. I bet in a side by side comparison, the Cicada's torso is as long as the Crab's torso...up to the cockpit. Everything forward of that cockpit sticks out farther than a Cicada.

So yes the Cicada is 10 tons lighter, but it would be the same tonnage if it had that huge snout tacked on that doubled it's length lol.

[Jin Ma]

Ultimatum X, on 06 October 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

You mean aside from the fact that most Mediums are too damn big to begin with and is a detriment to almost the entire class of mechs?

Or how we have years of mechs with oversized hitboxes or bad geometry being consistently bad?


Mech size is a balance issue, and the crab isn't too small. It's fine.


Is anyone actually having trouble hitting this?

Pretty sure i never said it was okay for most of the mediums to be too big. And yes the crab is too small.

jss78, on 06 October 2015 - 10:52 PM, said:

I agree with this general sentiment. All mechs should simply be the correct size (specifically: volume) for the tonnage. Using scaling as a balancing tool would be seriously contrived, and other avenues should be sought.

Yes, because mech speed/fire power/ armor/ whatever the hell number can be adjusted with a slider. A mech's size cannot be adjusted once created. Size should NEVER be used as a balance tool.

[Tennex]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 07 October 2015 - 01:28 AM, said:

And we still don`t have proper volumn chart.

Yes i would love to be able to get volume charts.
But due to the complexity of the mechs we never will. I love that people use this chart when supporting their arguments. "the nova is too big, the catapult is too big look at this chart, rabble rabble, rabble"

But when its something they dont like to hear all of the sudden its not good enough "oh the crab is the PERFECT size. this chart doesn't show volume."

Edited by Tennex, 07 October 2015 - 04:25 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Someone needs to Photoshop the Crab's torso standing on end (vertically) and attached to it's torso , and then compare it to other mediums.

I think some people may change their mind about the scale if they saw the mass of the mech shown that way (vertically). I think many players interpretation of it's scale is unfairly determined by it's height from a head on view perspective, and they aren't taking it's rather large surface area ( especislly of it's sides) into consideration.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 07 October 2015 - 04:24 AM.

[Brizna]

It is way too small, as in completely unacceptable small. That thing is about as high as an spider. On the toehr hand the side profile is adequate in size but completely lacks arm shielding.

[GrimRiver]

Crab is small? I don't own 1 but given how long that mech is I would say it's size is about right.

[Juodas Varnas]

Tennex, on 07 October 2015 - 04:20 AM, said:

Yes i would love to be able to get volume charts.
But due to the complexity of the mechs we never will. I love that people use this chart when supporting their arguments. "the nova is too big, the catapult is too big look at this chart, rabble rabble, rabble"

But when its something they dont like to hear all of the sudden its not good enough "oh the crab is the PERFECT size. this chart doesn't show volume."

It'd say it's fine for comparing 'mechs with similar body-shapes, but the problem comes with different bodytypes, because something like a crab, not only has a narrow and small front profile, but also has a lot of overlap when it comes to its side profile, which might lead to faulty numbers.

Someone should just export the models (somehow) and measure their volumes (i have no idea if that's even possible), but that's the only way to get actually accurate stats.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 07 October 2015 - 04:34 AM.

[Erkki]

Where it wins in height and area of frontal silhouette in loses in side silhouette(a looooong barn) and the fact that great part, majority of in one variant actually, of its firepower is in low arm mounts. Its not a BJ with 6 or HBK with 7 high mounts or a SHD-2K that can mount triple LPL on the shoulder.

[Ano]

Tennex, on 06 October 2015 - 08:02 PM, said:

This is a useful chart as a guide, but there's a further element which isn't accounted for (and it's hard to account for, so it's not a criticism of the chart) and that's to do with the composition of the front/side area.

In the case of the crab: it might have a relatively small surface area by this measurement, but from the side you've got basically a free shot at the ST (or possibly the CT -- I haven't seen the hitboxes yet) as with it being so long, there's no shielding from the arms and if you were to shoot at a crab from the side, you'd have to work hard NOT to hit it's nose.

I can't say yet whether the crab is a problem -- I've killed a couple in the matches I've played post-patch, but not driven mine yet as I'm taking the opportunity to level the BK while the heavy queue is slightly less swamped. I did notice that up close, the BK was struggling to look down far enough to hit the crab, but from other matches it felt like my unbasiced BK was struggling with vertical pitch range anyway.

Edited by Ano, 07 October 2015 - 04:38 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Brizna, on 07 October 2015 - 04:27 AM, said:

It is way too small, as in completely unacceptable small. That thing is about as high as an spider.

But it is much wider that a Spider and much...MUCH longer than a Spider.

Height shouldn't be the defacto measurement. This is most true when comparing humanoid to non humanoid mechs. Humanoids house their mass vertically where mechs like the Crab house their mass horizontally.

A humanoid might be taller in general, but it can torso twist and it's profile stays slim. An aircraft style torso like the Crabs might be squat, but twisting exposes a huge amount of surface area to fire. It is kind of the tradeoff between both designs.

So sure the front profile is about the size of a 10 ton lighter Cicada, but if a Cicada twists, it doesn't make it's size larger to the attacker. A Crab twists, and it increases it's size to the attacker almost 2 fold. That is a drawback to the Crab few are looking at.

[Livewyr]

I just shot a Cicada CT over the top of a crab, from down an incline.

It is whee little bugger.