19 replies to this topic

[TheoLu]

Mechwarrior 3 was my favourite of the Mechwarrior titles. It had its shortcomincs in terms of fittings, but in terms of gameplay I feel it trumped all the other titles before and after.

One of the biggest reasons was actually quite simple. It was possible to set the game such that if you wanted to change where you were looking with your head, a sort of 'hard/soft toggle', you could set the game so you had to hold a button in order to change where you were looking.

While this button was held or the mode was active, I forget which, you could change where your head, the pilot's head, was pointed. While it wasn't toggled, you were aiming your arm(s).

If using this mode you had to use entirely separate controls to direct your torso separately from the legs and pilot's head.

The result? Your arms actually meant something even if you didn't have head-tracking hardware, a concept which was practically non-existent at the time!

Today I have a 3-point LED clip and am using FaceTrackNoIR to do head-tracking. It's more disorienting than the system I mentioned above, but it achieves to a significant extent the same effect; you can look in a direction with (relatively) fine control and do your aiming.

As MWO is right now I believe the look-around functionality is comparatively limited. Even with a 'hard' look left/right function it seems virtually nobody makes use of this at all. Even in the non-matchmaking CW system I'm finding that people who know well-enough to not expose an armorless center-torso are turning their entire torso on a mech which has the brunt of its weapons on the arm already facing me to fire at me, when I know they could be looking (as in, turning their pilot's head) to that side to aim at me instead.

It oughtn't be overly difficult for you guys to implement this as an option. If at all possible I'd highly recommend you get on it as soon as possible to expand the potential gameplay the game offers. There are obviously mechs which would benefit greatly from this just as there are those which wouldn't at all, so there would be very distinct differences in mechs' overall utility afforded by just this addition.

[Nighthog]

You can lock your torso and aim your arms in free look mode if you hold down shift or control I think. I mostly play only pitch capable mechs but noticed some usability with a newer centurion that had hands. "wasd" will then only turn legs and torso left where you had it and move your arm aim with mouse.

[TheoLu]

That doesn't aim your head around, though, only your arms; your head remains stationary meaning absolute-left/right or even aim-behind functionality still don't exist the way they did in MW3. For you to be able to aim to your absolute left/right you still need to make use of a look-around control and then separately use the 'unlock arms' function.

The mode I'm suggesting (optional) would see the head's position not be returned to center unless the player either pressed a button for it or double-tapped the button used to 'click-drag' the view around with. That way instead of having to use an absolute look-left/right button which is held for the duration of attempting to do such aiming the player can instead 'send and lock' their view in that direction until they're done with it.

People who are going to be playing with headsets like the Rift will have an advantage in this regard as they'll have a very intuitive, 'natural-feeling' way to look to their sides/behind themselves to aim.

The 3-point clip I'm using provides the sort of functionality I'm referring to, but isn't intuitive being that the display area (not the viewing direction; the actual monitor) doesn't move with one's head, easily causing significant, unintentional 'de-centering' of the head to the intended viewing direction and thus aiming direction(s) which need to be very-consciously corrected for.

Edited by AnonyTerrorNinja, 09 January 2016 - 02:21 PM.

[Nighthog]

You have the free look head function with ctrl. you can look around the cockpit like that, though that doesn't aim anything if I remember right. (rarely use)
Then you have the lock torso and head to aim with hands(or reverse depending if you have free look enabled or not). Use both for the combo you are after? Press down shift and ctrl?

[TheoLu]

I'd give that a try, but that'd involve uninstalling the trackir/freetrack stuff which I spent a while to try and get working in the first place to deal with this functionality you're suggesting which didn't seem obvious/possible. That and the fact I'm unable to get into the game right now because of 'unknown failure'.

If you or someone else could instead test it that'd be appreciated.

[Nighthog]

just tested, and I'm unsure. holding down to look around the cockpit(ctrl) overrides the mouse aim with hands.(they center to torso)
shift does as before locks torso where you were looking and you can move the hands.
So no good?

[TheoLu]

That'd pretty much be no good, yeah. With head-tracking it's possible to twist your torso out fully, then look to the side with your head, and arms on your mech permitting have whichever arm is on that side aim 'behind' you. In MW3 and 4 there were mechs would could essentially aim past 180 degrees of their 'front' this way (and mechs which had 360 torso twist, though I might just not have found such a mech in MWO yet).

[Revis Volek]

AnonyTerrorNinja, on 09 January 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

That'd pretty much be no good, yeah. With head-tracking it's possible to twist your torso out fully, then look to the side with your head, and arms on your mech permitting have whichever arm is on that side aim 'behind' you. In MW3 and 4 there were mechs would could essentially aim past 180 degrees of their 'front' this way (and mechs which had 360 torso twist, though I might just not have found such a mech in MWO yet).

Stormcrow can shoot behind itself as it runs...or it used to be able to.

Urbie is the only mech in this game with a 360 torso twist.

[LordNothing]

the way mwo's armlock works makes me nauseous. so i mostly run with my arms locked unless i need to aim out of my usual range. even then a lot of my favorite mechs have few or no arm mounted weapons.

mw3 had the right idea.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 January 2016 - 03:40 PM.

[DaFurryFury]

So I came across this thread somewhat by accident but I thought it was an interesting point. I have only played mechwarrior 4 before MWO but I think I know what you're talking about with the whole arm aiming without totally exposing your center torso.

I'm with Lordnothing in that the side to side motion with arm lock off makes my head spin but I see it's functionality in virtical aiming. There are many instances where I cannot do effective damage unless I disengage arm lock for a shot time, so until now I have had a toggle button for it.

However, with some clever marco making and control exploits I think I have come to a usable solution on simple keyboard and mouse. Unfortunately MWO controls force your aim coursor to stay in an area where both arms can shoot, it will not allow for your left arm to aim where your right arm cannot. I think thats some real BS but this is more proff of concept anyway.

I've uploaded a video of me trying out the system. This is my first time deploying in a real match with these controls so I'm still getting used to it. Plus I'm not that great of a player in the first place so be nice. haha



Whats going on is that when my torso is moving as it normally would the macro is disengaged. This allows my full range of motion. When the aim coursor moves but my torso does not, that is because the macro which is holding down the "free look" button is engaged thus allowing me to aim with my arms but not change the direction of my torso. Unfortunately since the arms apparently cannot aim independantly, this only allows for an extra 30 degrees of motion I would guess. But hey thats something. If you were twisted entirely one way and had to get at a pesky light that is spinning you around maybe it's enough. But the game lets you do that anyway, so the point of this is more for aiming without moving torso at all.

[Khobai]

A lot of mechs dont have side windows in the cockpit, so even if you had the full range of motion with your arms, you still couldnt see what you were shooting. That functionality in MWO is never gonna happen.

As for people not using freelook, its because a lot of clan mechs that laser vomit have mostly torso weapons or dont have arm actuators. But for mechs that have arm actuators and all arm mounted weapons theres no reason not to freelook to help shield your torso.

Quote

Stormcrow can shoot behind itself as it runs...or it used to be able to.

Urbie is the only mech in this game with a 360 torso twist.

Thats not what hes talking about. Hes talking about full range arm movement not torso twisting. Like being able to point your left arm 60 degrees to the left and only fire the weapons in your left arm.

In battletech you could torso twist 60 degrees and then your arm could also move 60 degrees. That allowed arm weapons to fire at any target as long as it wasnt directly behind you.

Edited by Khobai, 11 January 2016 - 08:23 PM.

[Troutmonkey]

DaFurryFury, on 11 January 2016 - 07:56 PM, said:

Whats going on is that when my torso is moving as it normally would the macro is disengaged. This allows my full range of motion. When the aim coursor moves but my torso does not, that is because the macro which is holding down the "free look" button is engaged thus allowing me to aim with my arms but not change the direction of my torso. Unfortunately since the arms apparently cannot aim independantly, this only allows for an extra 30 degrees of motion I would guess. But hey thats something. If you were twisted entirely one way and had to get at a pesky light that is spinning you around maybe it's enough. But the game lets you do that anyway, so the point of this is more for aiming without moving torso at all.

Yeah I do this manually sometimes by just holding control. It's marginally useful on mechs with arms in a way that lets you shoot far to the sides without having to expose your CT. I also use freelook to get a better view behind me by fully twisting and then freelooking. Works better on some mechs than other due to different cockpit windows.

[Koniving]

AnonyTerrorNinja, on 09 January 2016 - 01:19 PM, said:

Mechwarrior 3 was my favourite of the Mechwarrior titles. It had its shortcomincs in terms of fittings, but in terms of gameplay I feel it trumped all the other titles before and after.

One of the biggest reasons was actually quite simple. It was possible to set the game such that if you wanted to change where you were looking with your head, a sort of 'hard/soft toggle', you could set the game so you had to hold a button in order to change where you were looking.

While this button was held or the mode was active, I forget which, you could change where your head, the pilot's head, was pointed. While it wasn't toggled, you were aiming your arm(s).

If using this mode you had to use entirely separate controls to direct your torso separately from the legs and pilot's head.

The result? Your arms actually meant something even if you didn't have head-tracking hardware, a concept which was practically non-existent at the time!

Today I have a 3-point LED clip and am using FaceTrackNoIR to do head-tracking. It's more disorienting than the system I mentioned above, but it achieves to a significant extent the same effect; you can look in a direction with (relatively) fine control and do your aiming.

As MWO is right now I believe the look-around functionality is comparatively limited. Even with a 'hard' look left/right function it seems virtually nobody makes use of this at all. Even in the non-matchmaking CW system I'm finding that people who know well-enough to not expose an armorless center-torso are turning their entire torso on a mech which has the brunt of its weapons on the arm already facing me to fire at me, when I know they could be looking (as in, turning their pilot's head) to that side to aim at me instead.

It oughtn't be overly difficult for you guys to implement this as an option. If at all possible I'd highly recommend you get on it as soon as possible to expand the potential gameplay the game offers. There are obviously mechs which would benefit greatly from this just as there are those which wouldn't at all, so there would be very distinct differences in mechs' overall utility afforded by just this addition.

Here's what you speak of in MWO, using keyboard and mouse.
Head unmoving, torso unlocked but arm aiming.

Head moving, torso locked and arm-aiming.

Mixture of both also shown here.
Occasionally here.

[DaFurryFury]

As I said before, MWO locks both your arms to eachother for some reason. You can't fire one arm where the other cannot. I find this to be a weird limitation considering the amount of control that mechs are supposed to have.

[TheoLu]

Koniving, your videos don't seem to demonstrate what I'm talking about at all, only unlocked arms.
DaFurryFury's video is very close to how I remember things being in MW3¹; in essence, if you set things appropriately you had to actively choose to aim your torso, else your view and arms' aim was moving around instead. You could think of it along the lines of having to use a rudder dial on a joystick or a self-centering stick twist to turn your torso around if you wanted to do that, otherwise your torso didn't move but your head and arms' direction did while moving your joystick around.

In fact, I'd not be overly surprised if those using a combination of throttle, rudder pedals for mech turning and a rudder dial or stick twist for torso turning have this sort of functionality afforded to them. Unfortunately I lack any sort of joystick, let alone pedals, and have at most an Xbox 360 controller available to me.

In said controller, the triggers could manage torso twist left/right, the left stick could manage throttle and mech turning and the right stick could manage arm+head aiming, coupling up/down aiming of the torso to the same control.

¹Sort of like a permanent free-look with your arms following where you were looking at all times. Hold a button and you were aiming your torso instead (even if temporarily).


Now the problems I've noticed with head-tracking so far are such:

• Advanced Zoom and normal zoom always follow your head. There really needs to be a way to turn this off and lock the view to where one is actually aiming while zoomed in, because it's much too easy to loose one's reticule while zoomed in.
  
• There's no option to have your arms' aim follow your head while using head-tracking; this makes things exceptionally disorienting if you've got arm lock turned off since your torso AND arms are now both being controlled using one combined control. An alternative to this would be to have a hold button to aim one's arms independently of moving the torso, similar to what DaFurryFury's system demonstrates. In this way, aiming the arms (but not the torso), becomes a very deliberate, conscious action, rather than its current generally-unintentional and unconscious action.

[TheoLu]

Oh, and for non-head-tracking users, an option to have done what DaFurryFury has demonstrated would already help immensely, PGI.

That is to say: Option to have torso not move unless a hold-button is employed whilst moving the mouse


Having to do this through the use of a macro which instead keeps freelook engaged unless you hold said macro button adds unnecessary complication for something which really ought to be in the game as an option already.

[LordNothing]

the track ir implementation is far from perfect. it creeps a lot (ive had to put a center trackir binding on my throttle) and if you arent dead center things like advanced zoom are useless. further more you seem to be capped to have a very confining view angle and it seems like the rotation multiplier gets scaled down so its 1:1, when it should be like 8:1. some flight sims let you look way over your shoulder cockpit model allowing, and this only takes about 10-15 degrees of head tilt.

the other issue is the startup animation, it always looks wonky with the track ir, headless pilot syndrom and the like (cosmetic but annoying).

the whole joystick system needs to be made zeroth order like it was in mechwarrior 2, but thats getting way out of the scope of this thread. dont worry i mouse.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 January 2016 - 05:20 AM.

[Barantor]

Khobai, on 11 January 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

A lot of mechs dont have side windows in the cockpit, so even if you had the full range of motion with your arms, you still couldnt see what you were shooting. That functionality in MWO is never gonna happen.

As for people not using freelook, its because a lot of clan mechs that laser vomit have mostly torso weapons or dont have arm actuators. But for mechs that have arm actuators and all arm mounted weapons theres no reason not to freelook to help shield your torso.



Thats not what hes talking about. Hes talking about full range arm movement not torso twisting. Like being able to point your left arm 60 degrees to the left and only fire the weapons in your left arm.

In battletech you could torso twist 60 degrees and then your arm could also move 60 degrees. That allowed arm weapons to fire at any target as long as it wasnt directly behind you.

Which is the whole reason for big weapons in the arms in lore. You could turn your torso only so much, but your arms could go further so those side shots on the move were possible. Torso mounted PPC isn't of much use if you can't get it on the target.

It's something I wish they would add to MWO, but lots of folks seem to not like more simulation added for some reason.

[Almond Brown]

Both arms being independent would require a 3rd "reticle" OR some form of coded "override" that knew when a Mechs Torso was Max rotated to the Left, then the Arm "reticle" fires only weapons on the Left Arm. That of course may provide a better lateral firing solution, assuming 1 arm would get more range of motion angle as a single but would reduce the firepower over-all, versus what we have now.

Edited by Almond Brown, 14 January 2016 - 10:36 AM.

[TheoLu]

In MW3 it used overriding from what I recall. A third reticule would still be necessary to give an intuitive means of telling your other arm has locked position and cannot move any further, though, else people will always have to apply guesswork to determine whether the opposing arm is going to fire or be overridden (or do be more mindful of their grouping).