189 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

What you could do is toggle a rear-view option. You just couldn't pull both off at once.

[himself]

Wintersdark, on 09 January 2016 - 06:11 PM, said:

You realize this is short form for "I'm unable to counter a single argument against my position" right?

Regardless, if you're not able to discuss anything like an adult (whether you are or not) you've nothing of value to offer here. Welcome to my ignore list.

If it gets you to leave the thread and stop posting idiotic reasons to not have a basic game mechanic, I'll sit in there forever.

[Wintersdark]

wanderer, on 09 January 2016 - 06:17 PM, said:

What you could do is toggle a rear-view option. You just couldn't pull both off at once.

Yeah, been covered.

Could be done as a toggle, but that doesn't cover the issues - predominantly how it serves as a massive buff to assaults and heavies, while completely removing an important role for lights - still the least played class overall. How it bypasses slow twist/turn speed as an impediment to local recon.

That's my big problem with it. Those medium/light strikers, they've got enough disadvantages with low armor and perfect weapon convergence. Lighter mechs are hardly swimming in advantages.

[himself]

Wintersdark, on 09 January 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

Yeah, been covered.

Could be done as a toggle, but that doesn't cover the issues - predominantly how it serves as a massive buff to assaults and heavies, while completely removing an important role for lights - still the least played class overall. How it bypasses slow twist/turn speed as an impediment to local recon.

That's my big problem with it. Those medium/light strikers, they've got enough disadvantages with low armor and perfect weapon convergence. Lighter mechs are hardly swimming in advantages.

Advantages that could be covered with things like ECM quirks, lower visibility in heat vision, etc. Rear view wouldn't affect lights in the least because people can still tell where damage is coming from thanks to the indicators.

Lights aren't played more because ECM and AMS cover aren't rewarded, so nobody cares to play them.

You're arguing a non-issue, specially since the main reason Assaults are currently garbage is because of their complete inability to retreat.

Edited by himself, 09 January 2016 - 07:01 PM.

[Mercules]

himself, on 09 January 2016 - 07:00 PM, said:

You're arguing a non-issue, specially since the main reason Assaults are currently garbage is because of their complete inability to retreat.

Large slow weapon platform's drawback is that it is large and slow? Say it isn't so.

[TheoLu]

"Lights aren't played more because ECM and AMS cover aren't rewarded, so nobody cares to play them."

Learned this the hard way after finally getting a Kitfox and realising that I really wasn't getting anything out of it 'points'-wise. At least I'm still having fun with it and contributing something worthwhile to my team.

"When I say an idea won't be implemented because its too complex (destructible cameras), I'm not doing that to be a big bad jerk, but to tell you exactly that"

That's nice and all, but in exactly the same way we're free to discuss these things without you saying things like, and I quote:

"Way too complicated, not going to happen"

Is akin to saying "Just stop discussing things which I believe will never be worked on because I believe they will never be worked on. You're wasting your time and that bothers me."

You've already made your point that what we're talking about isn't technically possible. Great, we get that. It's not technically possible. That doesn't mean it couldn't be theoretically possible and no matter how well you may think you know PGI today you do not know the PGI of two years from now any better than the folks who feel they were 'lied' to about things like the 3rd person camera having a hissy fit over on the Steam community.

A game as large as EVE-Online was transitioned to a completely new engine just 5 years into its life, if I recall correctly. It's not unfeasible for MWO to be transitioned to a new engine which better accommodates its gameplay mechanics from a technical perspective.

I imagine Cryengine's use was to a large extent due to the ease with which they could make something pretty more than something functional, at first. The BM universe has a lot of things to do which require functionality over prettiness.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Would be nice just to have something like

Front View (1st person)

Rear View

(by pressing or holding down a button, 1st person only)

Changing views completely. No PIP. No secondary visuals.

"Lore" freaks, imagine this camera as a "rear facing camera" like that on your phone. The lower quality camera that looks at you. The 3rd person drone that gives you 3rd person view has this secondary, lower quality camera which you may be able to look through while it's docked on your mech.
You cannot look through the rear view camera while in 3rd person (since it's only able to produce a single feed), and is only available while the drone is docked and you are in 1st person view.

I'd also like to see something similar for long range missles (missile camera). But that may or may not be as popular of an opinion.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 09 January 2016 - 10:40 PM.

[Wintersdark]

AnonyTerrorNinja, on 09 January 2016 - 10:22 PM, said:

That's nice and all, but in exactly the same way we're free to discuss these things without you saying things like, and I quote:

"Way too complicated, not going to happen"

Is akin to saying "Just stop discussing things which I believe will never be worked on because I believe they will never be worked on. You're wasting your time and that bothers me."

No; that's not the same at all.

I don't care if you waste your time in the slightest. Waste all you like.

Rather, I'm trying to tell you that it won't be implemented like that, so while you can waste your time freely, just understand you're wasting it. Essentially, I'm telling you if you want to pursue rear camera views in a serious way - that is, something with any chance of actually being implemented - you need to do it in a way that has a minimal cost in development time. Such as - as I said - a simple toggle that flips the whole view to a rear cam view.

It seems you're trying to demonize me to an extent here, but I'm not the bad guy. I strongly disagree that we should have a rear camera, but I'm more than willing to discuss it. I'm interested in what arguments one may have vs. my position on it having severe impacts on stealth gameplay and lights/mediums in general. While you may not believe this, I've frequently had folks on the forums change my mind on all sorts of matters.

Nobody has made the slightest effort to argue why we should have rear cams from a gameplay perspective though.

Quote

You've already made your point that what we're talking about isn't technically possible. Great, we get that. It's not technically possible. That doesn't mean it couldn't be theoretically possible and no matter how well you may think you know PGI today you do not know the PGI of two years from now any better than the folks who feel they were 'lied' to about things like the 3rd person camera having a hissy fit over on the Steam community.

And I moved past that point right away, after my first post in this thread. Note how I've repeated said (and seem to have to keep repeating it) that it COULD be done via a toggle that fully replaced your view. Given that, this whole "theoretically possible" bit seems baffling.

Quote

A game as large as EVE-Online was transitioned to a completely new engine just 5 years into its life, if I recall correctly. It's not unfeasible for MWO to be transitioned to a new engine which better accommodates its gameplay mechanics from a technical perspective.

I imagine Cryengine's use was to a large extent due to the ease with which they could make something pretty more than something functional, at first. The BM universe has a lot of things to do which require functionality over prettiness.

It is possible that they'd move to a new engine, but extremely unlikely. It'd come at a massive cost, to... what gain? I don't know about Eve, but PGI has extensively customized Cryengine. That is why they said very firmly they wouldn't be upgrading to Cryengine 3, despite potential gains in DX12 - it'd be way too much work to have to redo all those customizations, as they're low level changes, not just plug-and-play. Of course, if they're still running in a few more years, it is entirely possible that they may need to do just that to keep up with the graphical Jones's, so to speak.

But that doesn't even really matter - as I said, there's a path to them implementing a rear cam right now if they felt so inclined. That moves us to - from a gameplay perspective - why?

[MechaBattler]

I consider having good awareness part of the game. I wouldn't want rear view in the game. Just another thing to make things easier. Like people not wanting to play on hot maps.

[DrxAbstract]

This again?

Yes it's true Mechwarrior 2 had it. It also had a downward camera, missile view camera and satellite view. Of all the camera options you had in Mech 2, the only ones frequently used in competitive games were missile view for scouting and downward cam to crush cockpits. Rear-view cam was utilized... never. I suspect for the same reason it would never actually be utilized in MWO: 40% of people know it's a pointless function, 50% simply don't care enough to use it and the 10% that insist it fills some mystical tactical purpose will find it's about as useful as cockpit glass.

The truth is it could be implemented by a handful of effective means, and wouldn't really hurt the 'stealth' portion of the game because bad players will still be bad and good players will still be good; It won't make people worse nor make them better. The total accumulative effect on gameplay would be... Insignificant... And that's the fundamental problem with arguing for having rear-view cams: It's an utter, total and complete waste of development time... Just like cockpit glass.

Have you noticed that, since cockpit glass (And even before it), PGI hasn't touched the 'immersion' aspect of the game other than the nifty, but useless, GIF cockpit screens and that was purely a minuscule act of beautifying the game for the Steam launch - It actually served the purpose of making the game appear better to new eyes. Why? Because it serves literally no form or function to make immersion changes otherwise. Rear-view cameras, while not exactly immersion related, share the same extremely low priority and unimportant nature with such features simply because they cost time better spent on far, far more important things that actually have a measurable effect on the game.

You're not getting rear-view cameras. Ever. Get over it.

[martian]

DrxAbstract, on 09 January 2016 - 11:15 PM, said:

Yes it's true Mechwarrior 2 had it. ... Rear-view cam was utilized... never.

Sorry, boy. Speak for yourself, not for other people. The fact that you did not use it does not mean that nobody else used it.

[Wintersdark]

martian, on 09 January 2016 - 11:19 PM, said:

Sorry, boy. Speak for yourself, not for other people. The fact that you did not use it does not mean that nobody else used it.

I would expect a lot of people would use it. Perhaps not so many at the high end comp play(where battlefield awareness is substantially better and people generally don't get a lot of sneaky rear attacks), but in mid-level normal play? I bet a lot would. Particularly assaults.

But that said, I agree that there's pretty much zero chance of it happening. I can't see a good argument for it aside from "But why don't we have one?" Particularly not one showing what real benefit it would bring to the game.

[dario03]

Wintersdark, on 09 January 2016 - 01:13 PM, said:

Because of a cryengine limitation.

Basically, having a rear camera causes double the draw calls, as the game has to render two separate images simultaneously. This isn't technologically impossible, of course, but the way cryengine works makes it impossible in MWO. At least without a massive performance cost, which would basically limit it to only people with high end systems, creating a world where those with more powerful computers have a substantial advantage.

You might want to edit your first post since like you said a toggle is possible but your first post (and most likely the most read) talks about engine limitations without mention of pip/toggle. And the op was talking about toggle only (don't know if it originally talked about pip but it doesn't now).

himself, on 09 January 2016 - 07:00 PM, said:

Advantages that could be covered with things like ECM quirks, lower visibility in heat vision, etc. Rear view wouldn't affect lights in the least because people can still tell where damage is coming from thanks to the indicators.

Lights aren't played more because ECM and AMS cover aren't rewarded, so nobody cares to play them.

You're arguing a non-issue, specially since the main reason Assaults are currently garbage is because of their complete inability to retreat.

Damage indicators only tell you of a enemy once he shoots you. A rearview camera would let you check at any time. A complete view turnaround with the same view as normal would let you very easily check and would definitely affect sneak attacks which are typically done by lights. Now if it was a really bad camera at a low angle like the example above it wouldn't be much but it would be a little bit.

Edited by dario03, 09 January 2016 - 11:44 PM.

[DrxAbstract]

martian, on 09 January 2016 - 11:19 PM, said:

Sorry, boy. Speak for yourself, not for other people. The fact that you did not use it does not mean that nobody else used it.

I'll keep that in mind and ignore the fact the thousands of people, all the units I played in, rear-view cam was pretty specifically cut out in a multitude of Combat Guides as being an irrelevant feature and that actually turning to look meant you wouldn't just see if someone was there, but you also got the 360° pan and could shoot them as well, instead of providing them with those extra few seconds of face time with your rear end and sides while you maneuvered to cover or came about. Did that stop you from getting rear ended on occasion? Nope. But you see, we had this thing called awareness - it's just as heavily emphasized now as it was then. Rear-view isn't going to magically dissolve or even moderately reduce this possibility. The best actions for checking your hindquarters is turning and looking or walking backwards with your butt facing your teammates. The only thing rear-view does is give you that quick half-second "Oh $hit" moment right before the shots hit you in the @ss.

Whether people used it or not is irrelevant. The actual tactical value it has: Next to none. While this may be an opinion, it was one shared by the best players and units of the time. I know this because I was actually there - for several years. Do I speak for everyone? No. I do speak from a very hefty background experience and the shared tactical insight of many, many people.

You're still not getting rear-view cameras.

[martian]

DrxAbstract, on 09 January 2016 - 11:43 PM, said:

I'll keep that in mind and ignore the fact the thousands of people,
...
many, many people.

Your imaginary "thousands of people" do not impress me.

DrxAbstract, on 09 January 2016 - 11:43 PM, said:

The actual tactical value it has: Next to none.

Thanks for your opinion. Unfortunately, it's only that - your personal Opinion - and nothing else.

Perhaps you don't want to - or maybe your are unable to - utilize rear-view camera. That's absolutely okay.

But I would gladly use it any time it would help me in the game.

[TheoLu]

"Rather, I'm trying to tell you that it won't be implemented like that, so while you can waste your time freely, just understand you're wasting it"

Time spent discussing ideas is not time wasted.

"Essentially, I'm telling you if you want to pursue rear camera views in a serious way - that is, something with any chance of actually being implemented - you need to do it in a way that has a minimal cost in development time"

If the developers are presented with a variety of things players want they can determine internally which are possible and realistically feasible in-house. They can also collect information on ideas which aren't necessarily possible and/or realistically feasible in the engine as it is right now, but keep it in mind when they explore the idea of creating their own engine or adopting a different engine for the game.

If people like us don't "waste our time" however, the rate at which they (PGI) are exposed to ideas for things the players may want is reduced. They instead have to sit around twiddling their thumbs thinking of things people MIGHT want but have no input from the existing community on until they actually ask "hey, would you want this?" Worse, if they (PGI) are the ones to suggest something there's a far greater possibility they'd suffer community backlash from purists who don't want their precious to be changed at all; if PGI doesn't present the ideas as purely/primarily their own those community members have to turn some of their energy on someone else instead.

"Such as - as I said - a simple toggle that flips the whole view to a rear cam view"

Which I haven't argued against and which could very-well be an initial implementation. I, personally, am discussing an end-goal of interest to me; what's done between what's available right now and towards that end-goal is for others to decide on.

"Nobody has made the slightest effort to argue why we should have rear cams from a gameplay perspective though"

Well, why shouldn't we have it?

If properly implemented it wouldn't 'eliminate' stealth gameplay in the least. Assaults, slow as they are, are not exactly going to flip around and whack that light which nipped out behind a building or over a hill to take out their camera. In fact, as you or someone else suggested, if someone starts turning to try and cover their back they're not focusing on what's ahead of them and might expose parts of their torso to fire from other directions.

Destructible 'components' appear entirely possible. Equipment, weapons, ammunition can all be taken out.

"I don't know about Eve, but PGI has extensively customized Cryengine"

EVE's developers built their own engines from the ground up using Python.

"That moves us to - from a gameplay perspective - why?"

You're not exactly posing any reasons for why not other than claiming it would outright eliminate stealth play.

I sincerely doubt it'd be nearly as complicated as you think to have a destructible camera implemented. It wouldn't require 'subsystem targeting' (and seriously, how big do you think a camera on a 100-tonne many-stories-tall mech would be anyway, for it to be practical to try and hit it directly using another mech?), it'd require nothing more than the extant mechanics in place for weapons, equipment and ammo.

Where the aforementioned are generally protected by the armour, a camera needing to be mounted at the surface of the armour it's immediately vulnerable to damage by weapons fire. Where some weapons have no increased chance of damaging weapons/equipment/ammo, some (like the LB-X or machinegun) do. Where weapons like the Gauss have an increased chance of being critically hit, the camera likewise has an increased chance of being critically hit.

Which means that aside from implementing it as though it were a weapon or piece of equipment, all the mechanics necessary to support it without it completely ruining stealth play appear to already be in place.

Hell, it could even be made a module the player must fit to their mech, precluding fitting of other modules in the same slot. That way, like the seismic sensor, it becomes a very deliberate choice which costs the player to equip.

"The actual tactical value it has: Next to none. While this may be an opinion, it was one shared by the best players and units of the time"

Cool, so basically since it provides next-to-no actual tactical value and this has been asserted by someone who spent many years on the front line among the best of the best, I guess we can discount Wintersdark's opinion that it would eliminate stealth play. With this there's no need to be concerned with how it would negatively influence stealth play, only focus on the 'cost' of having it implemented.

"You're still not getting rear-view cameras"

That's real neato. Since you've already asserted this at least twice, feel free to stop trying to continue asserting it and let us pipedream away. I'm certain there's another thread for you to make pointless remarks on.

[Squirg]

lol @ all the people saying rear view will kill stealth or not add anything to the game.

Rear view is less informative than seismic, but is stealth dead because we have seismic? No.

And are you trying to say you've never started backing up to get hung up on something, teammate or otherwise? As long as we can walk backwards, being able to see where we're walking will be a nice QOL change if nothing else.

[VinJade]

MW 4 also had reviews so a player can see behind them, no information added ether just lets you see behind you.

as to those who target lore players, mechs could always see behind, seeing as they could arm flip(if they had no Lower arm/hand actuators) and attack enemies from behind them or mechs like the Atlas which had twin medium lasers mount in the rear torso.

so yeah they could see behind them.

[Lykaon]

himself, on 09 January 2016 - 01:08 PM, said:

We need a rear-view camera via view-toggle.

A view-toggle would switch your view from in-cockpit to a camera-feed until you press the assigned key again.


Why has this not be implemented yet?

Get a seismic sensor module. As long as you are not moving you will "see" blips behind you. Best you are going to likely get.

[Mechteric]

Wintersdark, on 09 January 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

Yeah, been covered.

Could be done as a toggle, but that doesn't cover the issues - predominantly how it serves as a massive buff to assaults and heavies, while completely removing an important role for lights - still the least played class overall. How it bypasses slow twist/turn speed as an impediment to local recon.

That's my big problem with it. Those medium/light strikers, they've got enough disadvantages with low armor and perfect weapon convergence. Lighter mechs are hardly swimming in advantages.

Absolutely untrue, I really don't see why you'd think this, its not like they'd be able to turn any faster by looking in their rear, or be able to shoot in their rear arc. As a primarily medium/light mech pilot, I call bullcrap on this.


Being able to peek in your rear would be great for EVERYONE, because of those times where you need to put on reverse and don't realize too late there's a rock, building, or mech behind you in your way and then you get wasted by the enemy because of it. This happens to ALL mech classes.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 10 January 2016 - 07:07 AM.