9 replies to this topic

[fullfrontal77]

Hi, I once read some battletech novels and in the 25th anniversary pdf there was a story about deathmach between an awesome and an atlas short story. many others novels that I have read told me about the deathmatch and in those matches, battlemechs can do real brawl what I mean they can use their fists or kicks (jumping mech death from above) so the punches and physical factors are also important...but hey...I just read the novels...not that I wanted the MWO to be like that but it's kinda cool right? to have your mech do some punches like boxers?

[S 0 L E N Y A]

I would LOVE to see all the classic BT melee attacks worked into MWO.
Punching, death from above, kicks. Even working in axes and clubs (where is my hatchetman??!?)

I dont know if the engine can support it, BUT I would be willing to bet it would change the game so much that most players would poop themselves and complain to no living end.

[Dan Baxter]

Yeah, melee combat would be pretty cool if they managed to pull it off ingame. Long ago during the days of early Open Beta, you could literally knock over enemy mechs by running into them at a good speed (though you did risk falling over yourself). However, this feature was removed as it played quite a bit of havoc on servers with rubberbanding and at least one incident where a merc unit kept knocking down a dev ingame with Dragons (There was also some issue with the 60-ton Dragons which made them exceptionally good at knockdown, which for a time was called Dragon bowling).

[SnagaDance]

That's why I also love the board game. Had a battle where an enemy Cicada tried to run past in a city but skidded on the asphalt and slammed into a building, only to have its head caved in by the mech it tried to outflank!

[Koniving]

fullfrontal77, on 01 February 2016 - 07:57 PM, said:

Hi, I once read some battletech novels and in the 25th anniversary pdf there was a story about deathmach between an awesome and an atlas short story. many others novels that I have read told me about the deathmatch and in those matches, battlemechs can do real brawl what I mean they can use their fists or kicks (jumping mech death from above) so the punches and physical factors are also important...but hey...I just read the novels...not that I wanted the MWO to be like that but it's kinda cool right? to have your mech do some punches like boxers?

Naturally I would love to have all this and I have personally been designing ideas of how to implement it. However, I couldn't and wouldn't trust PGI with implementing this.

However, I can show you some "Melee" in MWO.

Closed beta.
Enjoy.

[Koniving]

This said: In a VERY recent post of mine in another thread helping a new player, I put a true story from a Battletech skirmish into a spoiler.

This quote has cut away MOST of the post and left the spoiler.

Koniving, on 02 February 2016 - 07:45 AM, said:

A Clan XL engine has only 10 slots, and 2 spill into each side torso. This sounds unfair and in MWO, it really was (it now throws in so many slap on the wrist penalties that it is almost fair; but if you're trying to kill a Clanner by the torso you should be dragged out to the road and shot anyway; go for the legs).

It's a ~lot~ more fair in the source material between through-armor criticals, drastic consequences for ANY damage to engine, etc.
Related but not: (Read inside for melee!)

Spoiler

I once had a Nova (also nicknamed a Blackhawk) lose its side torso. Because the real BT Novas do not have torso twist or a pelvis, losing the left torso removed one arm and one leg. In addition, 2 engine crits was adding 10 heat per 10 seconds with a shutdown threshold of 30 and a massive side effect threshold that begins above 46% heat. Add to this pilot fatigue and pilot injury. I'm physically injured, my mech has one leg [it's completely gone!], I'm not even able to limp so I have to jumpjet with an uneven set of jumpjets. It's hotter than hell, sweat going into my eyes reducing weapon and piloting accuracy. I'm having to fight 'black outs' as in I could lose consciousness. And I'm having to run from a Battlemaster who just kicked a Dire Wolf, breaking two of its actuators before SRM'ing, lasering, and PUNCHING it to death. And I just barely killed the Shadowhawk that was helping it.

There was an Adder (nicknamed Puma) that tried to help, but no sooner than he emerged from the building he just blasted through, the Battlemaster ran up and tackled it, breaking the Adder's leg, and then cockpit shot the Adder while it tried to get up. Sucks to be too close to your target.

I managed jumping over buildings, jumping over some 60 meters (length) of forest, Found a legged Locust that I legged early in the fight and left there. It was in deplorable condition, it couldn't get up. With my lasers on 3/7ths power to keep the heat low, I fired 6 ER MLs at it (each laser doing 3/7th damages to generate 1 heat each). The heat was so intense I had to remain still for a while and almost lost consciousness. Battlemaster was catching up, bulldozing through trees. Along the way he picked one up. In this process, I managed to melt yet another heatsink. I'm down to 5 DHS.

I leaped again, managing to vault over a wall. Sure, the Battlemaster COULD attempt to climb that wall, but he chose to go around to the gate. He didn't want to drop that tree. Personally, I didn't make it over the wall unscathed. The toe hit the wall. I toppled forward. The Transplast® transparent armor plating had been roughed up and breached. Part of it is now in my gut, ensuring that if I did win this fight I would be still be dead. Still, I'm going out shooting. I won't let this freebirth filth take me without a fight.

Still, after getting up (with 1 failed attempts), I shut the engine off. I couldn't cool artificially. I couldn't heat up.

Some 30 seconds later, he came at me. Though I waited with the engine off, another DHS had melted in this time bringing me down to 4. The sheer heat of my engine damage is astronomical. I flipped it on and I waited another 10 seconds, I wanted my enemy to be close enough to make out past the blur of my eyes so I could hit him. It didn't help that the HUD had stopped working when the cockpit armor had been breached. The air... outside air... smelled toxic with the smoke billowing from my machine. "Come on, you dishonorable *******!" I shouted out to him. But as I shouted again, something was wrong. "Try your barba...ric.." No. Not now. "melee skills...on me...n--"

I blacked out, finally. I lasted between a minute and 20 to a minute and 30 seconds before losing consciousness. As it happens, between a minute and 30 to a minute and 40 seconds, the engine shut down.

The Battlemaster walked up to my 'Mech...and shoved the tree branch-end fist into the cockpit...and twisted it.

Battlemasters are lunatics.
(Actual online tabletop battle description; Koniving versus Lordred.)

[Koniving]

Dan Baxter, on 01 February 2016 - 08:05 PM, said:

(There was also some issue with the 60-ton Dragons which made them exceptionally good at knockdown, which for a time was called Dragon bowling).

Little known fact that might interest you: This issue wasn't intentional to this extreme, but it was done deliberately.

From Here.
rmor coverage for the Dragon's ten tons is thick around the torso, and especially the rear, for when it is surrounded by opponents, while the squat design gives it a smaller profile and makes it harder to knock over.

PGI failed to give it a smaller body (the canonical size of the Dragon is just over 10 meters tall....then again we can't use that PGI didn't make any mech its canonical size; closest thing to canonical sizes in MWO is the Urban mech and Commando), however they did give the "toughter to knock over" tidbit... by giving it the 'knockdown' ability of a 100 ton mech. You add 81+ speeds to this... or since there were no engine restrictions originally, a 400 rated engine...

Rawr.

It's a shame that PGI didn't learn until after the quirkening that extremely high settings are NOT a good way to balance or test things.

[juxstapo]

Koniving, on 02 February 2016 - 02:29 PM, said:

or since there were no engine restrictions originally, a 400 rated engine...

Semi-related fun memory; That jiggity bit also led to Hunchbacks packing XL300s known as "Fastbacks"; and Commandos running 1 point of armor per body section and XL360s... which actually moved so fast that the crap netcode of the period would slideshow whichever clients were trying to render them, this was the original meaning of the term "Trollmando". But naturally the phrase stuck around and was liberally applied to whatever silly 'Mando build the kids thought of next.

[Leone]

....And that's why we can't have Firemoths. Cuz Cry Engine.

Also, personally love Melee in Table Top, but acknowledge we'll prolly never see it.

~Leone

[Koniving]

Leone, on 02 February 2016 - 10:38 PM, said:

Cuz Cry Engine.

Actually, combination cry engine, scale ("too small"), and "host state rewind." PGI might not like to admit this, but calculating positions of something as fast as 200+ kph and compensating for lag, etc. is just significantly unreliable.