413 replies to this topic

[Terick]

verybad, on 07 December 2011 - 01:34 PM, said:

They already said that it WON'T be, at least innitially and that it would have to be balanced carefully.. I personally don't want it, and I think punch bots is rather dorky.

This is rather ironic since the original devs for battletech MEANT for mechs to be melee monsters and not gunners.

Personally if you let some one get to close to you you deserve to be punched/kicked. In Tabletop being able to melee and thinking of it can win you a lot of matches. Especially when your fighting the clans who are poor at melee.

Being able to get close and kick also evens the field for lights, they can get in position and kick that Dire Wolf while the Dire Wolf can lay them out if it can hit them.

[Alex Wolfe]

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:05 PM, said:

This is rather ironic since the original devs for battletech MEANT for mechs to be melee monsters and not gunners.

Perhaps it is. Things change, designs evolve. It took Battletech some time to find its feet design-wise, from Japanese-conceived anime mecha, with hands, guns with visible magazines and gaudy flair on their heads, to the lovable walking tanks bristling with gun barrels we have these days (I do hope the artstyle sticks to it, and won't "progress" into the abominations of 3060 readouts though...).

It does kind of make sense that a machine that can shrug off a gauss shot or a cascade of rockets wouldn't care much for a kick to the shin, seeing as it's incapable of feeling pain, its joints can withstand landing after a hundred-meter jump without breaking (that way more force than a kick or punch), and has a gyro and armor that can keep it standing through alpha strikes. Barring a lucky cockpit breach, melee combat doesn't seem especially viable, like ramming a tank with another tank. I realize it is viable in TT, it may be described so in some canon works, but it doesn't seem plausible. Bringing a fist to a cannon fight?

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM.

[Haeso]

Melee is devastating in TT. Think of a leg as an AC/20 with no heat and 1 range.

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 07 December 2011 - 03:23 PM, said:

Melee is devastating in TT. Think of a leg as an AC/20 with no heat and 1 range.

So I hear, but what I mean is "it doesn't make particular sense that it is so", so I certainly see why game designers decided to, pardon the pun, axe it in every production so far. It's not the matter of coding after all, if one can animate a mech running, he can animate it punching.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 07 December 2011 - 03:26 PM.

[Terick]

Some thing that doesn't happen in the MW series is hitting the head a lot. In table top a hit to the head happens on a 12 with a pair of 6 sided dice, a 1/36 chance. Not often. Punches though have a 1/6 chance of hitting the head. Meaning even a light mech can down any mech with a few punches if they are lucky.

More importantly it isnt' the damage to the mech. Every hit to the head hurts the pilot inside the mech. So that punch might not do much to the armor but the pilot might be KOed from the hit.... Only way to do that in a game like this is to make the mech stunned (stops and can't move or fire). But that would really make people mad.

Kicks can do worse things, lets go back to teh Dire Wolf, 100 tons running at full speed. As long as the joints move the way they are supposed to no problems. But if a force pushes form the side... the force might be enough to knock the leg out of alignment or worse make the leg hit the ground wrong. It is like a person kicking you on the side of the leg while running... good chance your going to fall.

Then there is the fact if the armor is gone... the kick might hit and damage the actuators in the leg, so now your hip or knee isn't working.

The funniest for melee isn't punching or kicking though, it is charging or punching. Charging is ramming and pushing is what the name says. Using a medium mech to push a dire wolf of a cliff is funny.

There are a lot of things that just can't happen when you can't really use your giant humanoid robot to do melee. Then it becomes rather straight thinking and linear... and boring. Just have to shoot things. Not is it better for m to kick this guy in the leg that is damaged or should I shoot him in the torso...

As for ramming a tank, yes. Ram a tank with your tank in to water or a hole it cant' get out of. I have pushed 80 ton tanks into deep holes or water with other tanks to take them out of the fight. Tanks just don't like water to much.

Edited by Terick, 07 December 2011 - 03:31 PM.

[Haeso]

Alex Wolfe, on 07 December 2011 - 03:24 PM, said:

So I hear, but what I mean is "it doesn't make particular sense that it is so", so I certainly see why game designers decided to, pardon the pun, axe it in every production so far. It's not the matter of coding after all, if one can animate a mech running, he can animate it punching.

Actually, a kick or punch from an assault 'Mech is going to be far more devastating than anything but ship-mounted weaponry. Something that large moving at high speeds? The atlas punching a masakari should be a fine illustration of what melee combat should be like.



It really is a matter of game design and code, plus the ever present input method issues. You really don't understand how much would go into making melee combat and making it right, it's not as simple as having an arm jutt forward and registering damage unless you want it to look and feel idiotic. It's along the same lines as overall agility, there isn't an input method that can handle it.

[Alex Wolfe]

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

Some thing that doesn't happen in the MW series is hitting the head a lot. In table top a hit to the head happens on a 12 with a pair of 6 sided dice, a 1/36 chance. Not often. Punches though have a 1/6 chance of hitting the head. Meaning even a light mech can down any mech with a few punches if they are lucky.

An average light mech (especially chicken walkers) likely couldn't even reach an assault's cockpit, to be honest (as in, physically) at a threatening angle. Put even a relatively huge Wolfhound next to a Mauler and see.

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

More importantly it isnt' the damage to the mech. Every hit to the head hurts the pilot inside the mech. So that punch might not do much to the armor but the pilot might be KOed from the hit.... Only way to do that in a game like this is to make the mech stunned (stops and can't move or fire). But that would really make people mad.

Yeah, successful cockpit ram could be nasty. I wouldn't mind this much (with very low chances of course), as well as DFA.

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

Kicks can do worse things, lets go back to teh Dire Wolf, 100 tons running at full speed. As long as the joints move the way they are supposed to no problems. But if a force pushes form the side... the force might be enough to knock the leg out of alignment or worse make the leg hit the ground wrong. It is like a person kicking you on the side of the leg while running... good chance your going to fall.

That one I agree with. If something's moving, no matter the size, it can fall.

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

Then there is the fact if the armor is gone... the kick might hit and damage the actuators in the leg, so now your hip or knee isn't working.

How does a kick strip armor off a mech, if same armor could withstand a gauss rifle shot and stay in place? Fishy.

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:29 PM, said:

The funniest for melee isn't punching or kicking though, it is charging or punching. Charging is ramming and pushing is what the name says. Using a medium mech to push a dire wolf of a cliff is funny.

As someone with some wresting background, that's not even remotely plausible. You can't "just push" something active (as in "even minimally mobile") that's twice your weight, especially with limited surface contact (as mechs aren't built to "fit") and low traction (metal on metal). Not a snowflake's chance in hell, I'm serious here.

Haeso, on 07 December 2011 - 03:35 PM, said:

Actually, a kick or punch from an assault 'Mech is going to be far more devastating than anything but ship-mounted weaponry. Something that large moving at high speeds? The atlas punching a masakari should be a fine illustration of what melee combat should be like.

It really is a matter of game design and code, plus the ever present input method issues. You really don't understand how much would go into making melee combat and making it right, it's not as simple as having an arm jutt forward and registering damage unless you want it to look and feel idiotic. It's along the same lines as overall agility, there isn't an input method that can handle it.

Yeah, I know this pic. It's neat. Please note though that it's an Atlas punching a Mech with small cockpit surface area while holding it in place with its other arm, thus making sure the force is both concentrated on a point, and fully transmitted to the Masakari (otherwise a lot of it would be "wasted" by the other mech falling backwards).

This pic kind of makes some sense because of all those circumstances. DFA makes sense (mech providing mass, gravity providing acceleration and the vector is making sure there's "nowhere to go" for the target). But a small mech threatening a big one with leg kicks? Nope. No matter how much force a mech's leg can produce, I bet that an alpha strike would do more, and it cannot be dissipated by "simply" falling.

The "lighter mechs pushing heavier ones off cliffs" readily demonstrates how tenous those rules' grasp on physics is. It's not easy to stagger, let alone hurt a human with punching or kicking, if it was - martial styles wouldn't exist. Am I to believe that a machine who can turn their hips a measly 50-ish degrees per second, can deliver an effective punch to another machine and cause serious damage on a thickly-armored section? No way. Force is mass times acceleration, and a mech may have mass but its acceleration plain sucks. They are stiff. No matter what there says in a rulebook, it cannot work unless they'd move like Japanese mecha in Macross or such. They move like icebergs in comparison. It would change to a push, not a punch. The counter to push is half a step back, or falling.

Ramming, yes, but ineffective. DFA, yes, but risky. Lucky cockpit breach, sure thing. Effectively punching an armored section, no. That stretches my suspension of disbelief further than fusion reactors and FTL travel, since there's no physics that would allow it.

I know there are rules for it, but those are just rules, and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance to them because they make. No. Sense.

Sorry for the offtopic, I guess I'll drop it now.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 07 December 2011 - 04:27 PM.

[Terick]

Haeso,

I ave to agree. Putting in melee properly would be and is a real pain. Probably why they aren't working on it right now.

Alex,

All mechs and I mean ALL mechs are roughly the same height. The LCT (locust) by the rules is not much shorter then an AS7-D (Atlas).

Now for MW they have changed heights to make something seem more intmidating. Also as fans some of us have asked how can a LCT or STK (Stalker) punch....? They don't really have arms.

In battletech armor degrades. so enough kicks will strip the armor off and leave a kick to hit the exposed areas underneath. Or if on your way to close you constantly shot the leg and stripped the armor off before your kick, there is no armor left.

For pushing you can, but you are thinking of two objects sitting still, not two objects in motion. One pushes the other wile it is in motion and diverts the path. Now that path goes over the cliff face it was running next to.

Edited by Terick, 07 December 2011 - 03:51 PM.

[Damocles]

Alex Wolfe, on 07 December 2011 - 03:40 PM, said:

How does a kick strip armor off a mech, if same armor could withstand a gauss rifle shot and stay in place? Fishy.

Sorry but since when does armor withstand a gauss rifle shot?

[Alex Wolfe]

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

All mechs and I mean ALL mechs are roughly the same height. The LCT (locust) by the rules is not much shorter then an AS7-D (Atlas)

Now for MW they have changed heights to make something seem more intmidating.

Thanks for reminding me, guess I got really used to those redesigns. I do remember them being very close in MechCommander... ages ago, indeed. Still prefering the redesigns though... many of the original designs don't really look their mass...

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

Also as fans some of us have asked how can a LCT or STK (Stalker) punch....? They don't really have arms.

I always imagined the "punching" as "ramming arm-first" anyway (or nose-first in the case of the aforementioned two), seeing how clumsy mechs are in comparison to other mainstream "unarmed-combat-capable-mecha".

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

In battletech armor degrades. so enough kicks will strip the armor off and leave a kick to hit the exposed areas underneath. Or if on your way to close you constantly shot the leg and stripped the armor off before your kick, there is no armor left.

That's precisely what I have issues with here... I know how it works, it's just... so implausible, that's all. Stripping armor with actual guns and ramming your mech's gun or anything into the "wound", yeah, that much I see. But stripping with melee just... doesn't click.

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:41 PM, said:

For pushing you can, but you are thinking of two objects sitting still, not two objects in motion. One pushes the other wile it is in motion and diverts the path. Now that path goes over the cliff face it was running next to.

Ah, now that's more clear, thanks! Yeah, definitely more plausible (as I said, if something is moving, you can do nearly anything to it if you know how). Should have no trouble readjusting though, as the heavier of the two (even deeper into the off-topic marsh, but like I said - physics of pushing, pulling and involuntary aerial trips are a pet peeve of mine, and those don't change much regardless of scale).

Damocles, on 07 December 2011 - 03:45 PM, said:

Sorry but since when does armor withstand a gauss rifle shot?

If there's more than one ton of it, always? I mean, if that grade armor isn't immediately obliterated, so I suppose it wouldn't budge much under the tremendous force of 70 degrees/sec twist chicken kick.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 07 December 2011 - 04:22 PM.

[Pht]

I wonder how many times this is going to come up...








---------------------------------------------

"Blue" is mislabeled. It should be "equipment" which mostly means you can put heatsinks there, maybe ammo.

Should be pretty straight forwards.

Things that those familiar with the MW4 lab and the parent game won't see so obviously:

Don't allow internal structure type to be changed - don't allow engines to be changed (instead, look to the things in Tac Ops, like sprinting, for a wide 'Mech performance envelope). cockpit, gyro, and actuators (hip, arm joints) should not be allowed to be messed with (with the single exclusion of omnimechs with omni arms removing the hand and I think the lower actuators for using ppcs and gauss?).

Omnimechs can't modify their armor or otherwise do anything that would cross over from non-omni areas into omni-slots - otherwise, they're no longer modular, in addition to the above restrictions.

This gives a quick way to resolve penetrating hits and allows for the armor/damage behaviors to be ported with ease in a way that fits the fluidity of a VG with ease, and it stops (as much as the original mechs meant to!) munchkins from lunacy.

Omnimechs might have to be somehow restricted in number, because they'll be (as they should be and as the Lore blurbs them) scary, as far as loadouts are concerned.

One of the other things this would necessarily bring with it is that all the variant chassis of a base chassis (non-omnimech chassis, that is) would actually have to be in the game. There would be a large field to choose from - which would be even more fun if they managed to get the combat setup where they could handle the 'Mech quirks (marauder is supposed to be deadly in combat, that sort of thing).

This would stop the MW3 problem where all 'Mechs are rendered into nothing more than visually different bags full of guns - munchkin min/max Sheol misery, and still allow for a LOT of customization.

[Phades]

Alex Wolfe, on 07 December 2011 - 03:16 PM, said:

Perhaps it is. Things change, designs evolve. It took Battletech some time to find its feet design-wise, from Japanese-conceived anime mecha, with hands, guns with visible magazines and gaudy flair on their heads, to the lovable walking tanks bristling with gun barrels we have these days (I do hope the artstyle sticks to it, and won't "progress" into the abominations of 3060 readouts though...).

It does kind of make sense that a machine that can shrug off a gauss shot or a cascade of rockets wouldn't care much for a kick to the shin, seeing as it's incapable of feeling pain, its joints can withstand landing after a hundred-meter jump without breaking (that way more force than a kick or punch), and has a gyro and armor that can keep it standing through alpha strikes. Barring a lucky cockpit breach, melee combat doesn't seem especially viable, like ramming a tank with another tank. I realize it is viable in TT, it may be described so in some canon works, but it doesn't seem plausible. Bringing a fist to a cannon fight?

It is not always the direct force of the attack, but where it lands. Someone that knows how to kick someone can take the legs right out from under you. A battle mech in motion is no different. Also, mass plays a huge role in this not just how well an object can penetrate another.

It is not always about the damage either. The physical attacks were more of a control element seeking to knock down the target and injure the pilot crippling the machine over time. Inferno missiles and flamers served a similar, but different purpose and many of the machines that mounted those were rather good up close scrapping like rocky balboa. In other games this is referred to as crowd control. Of course, you would also choose to ignore triple strength myomer entirely, but that is understandable if you seek not to see any real custom designs or melee combat at all. Axe hit from a TSM build is the most damaging single weapon I can think of (32 damage, do you want it? You can have this.). The fact that heat generation is non-existent really is just icing on the cake in addition to not forcing a build that was light on total weapon mounts to quit the field was a bonus too. Of course you are also introducing other micromanagement elements into a turn based game such as opting to shut off heat sinks among other things, but I think you get the point.

A greater design error from even the first edition renditions of the game is the base premise of scale while on the ground. This is one of the few things the Aerospace stuff got relatively right. The game is horribly small scaled in distance, but the machines are obstinately huge. An infantry unit only moving 29.4 meters in the space of 10 seconds (17 hexes=500 meters, pretty simple math)? Are all humans like the ones seen in wall-e? Small motorized vehicles can not exceed the speed of an Olympic athlete today on foot (they would be better off riding horses if that were the case...)? Jump pack infantry? Same deal. This was mainly due to the fact they couldn't have most everything outpace the mechs as the walked across the field. But then again, even agile mechs could cross at least half the field before things like MASC were considered (9 spaces ~ 95.29 kph). So, if the maps are pretty small and the weapon ranges are tiny with somewhat slow machines, it actually makes a lot of sense that there would be a lot of brawling in melee going on.

[Pht]

Actually, the reason 'Mech melee combat is viable (as long as your opponent is STUPID enough to let you get that close) is because 'Mech armor is only up to a max of maybe a few CM thick, and it's SUPER hard - so any attack that bends the armor plates "just" enough causes the super-duper hard outer layers to shatter like tempered glass.

[Datum]

If I remember the Battletech system, it had to be "balanced".
Mechs, as they were described, are complicated machines, tuned for their particular loadout so it might be at its finest. Deciding to replace your LRM-5 with an AC-20 causes more problems than it solves. Even if there is tonnage and space, it is sort of cludged in, and is subpar in quailty. This was represented by either adding +1 to the piloting skill rolls (in the case of ******** up on the torso) or +1 to hit (if you ***** up an arm). Basically, if the tonnage and critical changes don't match up, you're going to have problems.

[Mason Grimm]

Gold Leader: It's no good, I can't maneuver!
Gold Five: Stay on target.
Gold Leader: *We're too close!*
Gold Five: Stay on target!

For those who haven't seen Star Wars (both of you need to go rent it right now) that's an indicator that we are drifting a little bit from the OP topic of "customization".

[verybad]

Terick, on 07 December 2011 - 03:05 PM, said:

This is rather ironic since the original devs for battletech MEANT for mechs to be melee monsters and not gunners.

I've never heard that in the past. I've been playing since Battledroids Sounds like you may have been given some incorrect information.. There were no Hachets at the time, I don't recall if there were punching and kicking. I'm pretty certain you couldn't jump on other people at the time (I could be wrong, this was over 20 years ago.) There was certianly no indication that the creators wanted it to be mostly melee however. If it had, the game probably wouldn't have done well in the market however, it would have been rather low on tactics.

Running up to mechs and repeatedly pressing the "punch button" just doesn't sound too interesting to me.

Edited by verybad, 07 December 2011 - 10:58 PM.

[guardiandashi]

part of the issue with melee has to do with how battletech armor puts up with damage.

being a long time battletech (fan) and having also played rpgs like robotech and rifts I have a few thoughts on the subject that helps me visualize it in a way that makes sense to me.

battletechs ablative armor plates are strong I mean really really insanely strong. the weapons also are very strong so that they are able to damage the really strong armor. in the case of lasers gauss rifles and to a lesser extent missiles and autocannon you are more or less attacking the armor in a way that you are trying to overcome its maximum strength directly.

on the other hand mechs take proportionally huge amounts of damage from falling down and physical (melee) attacks. Why does this work? because the armor while really tough and hard is brittle, and also for ease of repair, and ablation the armor is attached in segments. the attachment mechanisms CANNOT take the stress as well as the plates of armor themselves so you get situations where comparably low speed/energy strikes across a large area "pop" plates loose /off the structure so that they stop providing protection, or they damage the underlieing framing /intregity of the armor/structure.

in my personal conversion to the robotech/rifts crossover I had some "house rules" to represent this.
example
battletech armor is "the next step past "mega damage" (I called it giga damage) each point of mech armor was equivalant to 100 mdc, and any hit of 100 mdc or more would automatically destroy armor plates equivalant to the full damage done devided by 100. any "left over damage" had a percentage chance equal to the mdc done to "Pop" and additional plate off. so mechs cannot "ignore" damage from mdc attacks, but they are not real weak to them either.

battletech weapons due to the fact that they are optimized to work against the massively tough battletech armors tend to have issues when going against conventional mdc armors of "overpenetrating" and punching tiny holes right through the structures. mech grade weapons did 1D10 X10 mdc per point of mech scale damage so you could have a case of a mech weapon blowing a little 3cm (in the case of a small laser) all the way through a rifts or robotech vehicle, but not doing any significant damage... because it didn't happen to hit anything "important"

anyway back on customization.

IMO weapons refits should be relatively quick and easy as long as you don't significantly change the weight and crits in a location
example swapping a ppc for erppc or vice versa ~2 hrs "base" time swapping from a large laser, medium laser, and HS to a ppc or vice versa is going to be a bit tougher/more time consuming because the "crits" are most likely changing

going from 10SHS to 10DHS is ~40-60 "hours" worth of work (base) and requires maintance level resources. technically a mech bay such as on a dropship or in most "permanant" bases would qualify

making "structure" changes, requires access to "factory" level resources at least under the current (strategic operations) rules.

additionally any refit has a chance of making the unit "unsound" IE causing permanent ballance or other issues

now the big issue here is in a interactive game such as MWO are people going to be willing to put up with taking a unit offline for say "40-60" or more hours while a "refit" is going on?

from what I have seen some of the "I don't give a !@@#" about battletech "lore" people insist that would be a "deal breaker" for them. but personally I would rather be more true to the lore even if it DOES irritate and frustrate the "add aflicted" gamers. the only problem is in some ways they are the target audience, so they need to be catered to at some level. I am just not sure where the "line" should be drawn.

[Mchawkeye]

guardiandashi said:

now the big issue here is in a interactive game such as MWO are people going to be willing to put up with taking a unit offline for say "40-60" or more hours while a "refit" is going on?

from what I have seen some of the "I don't give a !@@#" about battletech "lore" people insist that would be a "deal breaker" for them. but personally I would rather be more true to the lore even if it DOES irritate and frustrate the "add aflicted" gamers. the only problem is in some ways they are the target audience, so they need to be catered to at some level. I am just not sure where the "line" should be drawn.

What you are suggesting, as I read it, is to cripple the game because of the 'lore'. which is exactly what shouldn't happen. We know the game operates in real time, day for day, so to put your mech out of the battle for the two/three days you suggest is probably the quickest way to have people lose interest as quickly as possible. you spend your bucks on doing up your mech, camo scheme and all. hula girl in the cockpit (physics et al) and you only get to use it twice a week? That's not going to fly with anyone other then the super hard core.

I'm all for an immersive galaxy and game play/meta-game system. I want it be be complex and exciting. But I don;t want it to adhere so strongly that it destroys itself from within.

The line you think needs to be drawn? It gets drawn at the point where it's a good, enjoyable game.

[Raeven]

verybad, on 07 December 2011 - 01:34 PM, said:

Just because it matches the TT game doesn't make it better. If you want table top, just play MegaMek, it seems to have everything you want.

Gee, so snarky.

I don't like MW4's 'Mechlab because it screwed the Clans and was a bit too limited for the Inner Sphere. It missed the whole point of Clan modulation and was far to restrictive to the Clan 'Mechs in an attempt to balance the game against "previous" games. I highly doubt we will see unfettered customization of any sort in this game and I'm perfectly fine with that.

[Terick]

verybad, on 07 December 2011 - 10:53 PM, said:

I've never heard that in the past. I've been playing since Battledroids Sounds like you may have been given some incorrect information.. There were no Hachets at the time, I don't recall if there were punching and kicking. I'm pretty certain you couldn't jump on other people at the time (I could be wrong, this was over 20 years ago.) There was certianly no indication that the creators wanted it to be mostly melee however. If it had, the game probably wouldn't have done well in the market however, it would have been rather low on tactics.

Running up to mechs and repeatedly pressing the "punch button" just doesn't sound too interesting to me.

This is actually pretty recent. Came out when they started Dark Age. *almost vomits saying Dark Age*

They brought back the original developers and they came out and said they meant for the mechs to be melee monsters... most of us were like.. WHAT! Make sense when you look at the DA stuff and there is all sorts of melee and not nearly as many guns.