62 replies to this topic

[xVLFBERHxT]

Have high hopes for the awesome!

[C E Dwyer]

TrapJaw80, on 09 June 2016 - 12:40 PM, said:

Have high hopes for the awesome!

only if it's modelled that way, otherwise you'll have wide hopes

[Ultimax]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 June 2016 - 12:36 PM, said:

source?

I know of several Heavy and Assaults changing.

Several of them are changing, yes, I should have been clearer.

My point is that overall all mechs should be scaling downward to match mechs that are considered slightly undersized - not the other way around.


Why?

So they don't have to keep nerfing the hell out of weapons, playing wack-a-mole and destroying entire weapon systems for years at a time.

So they don't need to keep laying heaps of structure quirks onto all of the mechs.

Making all targets a bit harder to shoot will both lengthen TTK and also increase the skill threshold for targeting components.

Both are good changes.


Think about this, The Atlas which needed truckloads of structure quirks because of how large it is - now has a chance to actually get even larger.

Does that make any sense to anyone?


The Vindicator which is way too large, is considered "just right" by PGI and they will scale other mediums UP to match.

The Grasshopper might end up fatter and taller, the Zeus will likely get bigger. Really? How does this make sense?

I just don't understand why PGI is going in this direction, this rescale has so much potential to help so many poorly designed mechs.

Edited by Ultimax, 09 June 2016 - 12:47 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimax, on 09 June 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

Several of them are changing, yes, I should have been clearer.

My point is that overall all mechs should be scaling downward to match mechs that are considered slightly undersized - not the other way around.


Why?

So they don't have to keep nerfing the hell out of weapons, playing wack-a-mole and destroying entire weapon systems for years at a time.

So they don't need to keep laying heaps of structure quirks onto all of the mechs.

Making all targets a bit harder to shoot will both lengthen TTK and also increase the skill threshold for targeting components.

Both are good changes.

OK, that I could get behind. Mechs in canon (humanoid ones anyhow, walkers and quads don't conveniently fit the same scale) are between 8 meters for a Wasp/Stinger to 14 meters for an Executioner or Banshee. Atlas and Kodiak are actually closer to 12-13 (since it's an estimate based on very inconsistent art) being so much broader and wider than most Mechs. And some like the Grasshopper and Victor or Summoner should be taller and thinner, though most source art give the SMN a rather stocky aspect (Pity too, as the general design looks really good stretched and thinned a bit)

I would imagine a Jenner would be a good meter or so shorter than an equivalent humanoid like a Wolfhound, being so much longer, front to back.

I would kill for closer to TT heights in general. Not 17 meter Atlases.

Ah well, won't ever see it.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 09 June 2016 - 01:04 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 June 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

OK, that I could get behind. Mechs in canon (humanoid ones anyhow, walkers and quads don't conveniently fit the same scale) are between 8 meters for a Wasp/Stinger to 14 meters for an Executioner or Banshee. Atlas and Kodiak are actually closer to 12 being so much broader and wider than most Mechs. And some like the Grasshopper and Victor or Sumoner shoudl be taller and thinner, though most source art give the SMN a rather stocky aspect (Pity too, as the general design looks really good stretched and thinned a bit)

I would imagine a Jenner would be a good meter or so shorter than an equivalent humanoid like a Wolfhound, being so much longer, front to back.

I would kill for closer to TT heights in general. Not 17 meter Atlases.

Ah well, won't ever see it.

Atlas, Exe and Kodiak are like 15m tall. If they are 17m in game now, yeah, they need to come down 2m in height.

[Bishop Steiner]

LordKnightFandragon, on 09 June 2016 - 12:50 PM, said:

Atlas, Exe and Kodiak are like 15m tall. If they are 17m in game now, yeah, they need to come down 2m in height.

actually, according to Herb Beas, line developer of Battletech, 14 meters is the tallest.

And the atlas has never been the tallest in canon TT. Even flat out states "Ugly and foreboding are two apt descriptions for the Atlas. Though some ´Mechs might be taller and heavier, none have the Atlas´ aura" in the ortiginal TRO.

Also most depictions are of a stocky mech. Simple fact is a stocky 100 ton mech is going to be shorter than a skinny one. Atlas and Kodiak are both stocky. Yes previous MW titles listed them as the tallest mech in each game.. and were, as is normal in MW compared to TT, wrong. Admittedly, the Atlas' lore height is never actually given (and the novels were all over the map on any mech height), but taking the info given and applying common sense deductive reasoning, it's not too hard to approximate.

Pre dark age, the tallest acknowledged mechs were the Banshee and Executioner, though admittedly post TRO 3060, mechs were never really put into any sort of perspective.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 09 June 2016 - 12:56 PM.

[ScarecrowES]

Ultimax, on 09 June 2016 - 12:31 PM, said:

No, you are wrong.

If they make all of those smaller mechs bigger, they will clearly be WORSE than they are now because larger targets are easier to hit in this game.

Bro... seriously.

If you increase an ant to the size of a person, and then increase a person so that large ant looks ant- sized again... how is the interaction between the person and ant going to be any different in either case? It's not. Regardless, the ratio between the two is going to be the same.

It doesnt matter what number you plug into the equation... the equation is still the same... the results you get will have the exact same ratios.

Now... what you might mean is that SOME mechs will be easier to hit than they were before, because SOME mechs will have increased in size relative to the average size change across all mechs (which should be a zero sum if done correctly).

And in that, you'd be right. Mechs like the Grasshopper, Crab, and Blackjack (which are all increasing in size by some amount) will all be easier to hit by varying degrees from the seat of an Atlas, which is not changing. But a Hunchback will be no harder for an Atlas to hit than before because it's not changing either.

On the other hand... Locusts, Dragons, Novas, Catapults, Warhawks, Dire Wolves, etc... will all be much harder to hit from the seat of an Atlas because every one of those is being reduced in size by no less than 7%. In fact Novas will be harder to hit by any mech other than another Nova, since it's dropping the most weight of any mech.

Shadowhawks and Centurion will also be slightly harder to hit. Because they're getting a small reduction too.

But, if you're in the seat of a Locust, your perspective will be different, won't it? To you, every mech in th game but the Nova and the Catapult will be getting A LOT easier to hit.

Most mechs are not getting bigger. Some are getting bigger, some smaller, and some stay in the same. So your whole point is baseless.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I think people are focusing Soooo much on height and width, forgetting that depth holds the key to weight.

Q. What do you call a Mech that is shaped like an Atlas, tall as an Atlas, wide as an Atlas, but half as thin when viewed from the side?

A. 50tons.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 June 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

actually, according to Herb Beas, line developer of Battletech, 14 meters is the tallest.

And the atlas has never been the tallest in canon TT. Even flat out states "Ugly and foreboding are two apt descriptions for the Atlas. Though some ´Mechs might be taller and heavier, none have the Atlas´ aura" in the ortiginal TRO.

Also most depictions are of a stocky mech. Simple fact is a stocky 100 ton mech is going to be shorter than a skinny one. Atlas and Kodiak are both stocky. Yes previous MW titles listed them as the tallest mech in each game.. and were, as is normal in MW compared to TT, wrong. Admittedly, the Atlas' lore height is never actually given (and the novels were all over the map on any mech height), but taking the info given and applying common sense deductive reasoning, it's not too hard to approximate.

Pre dark age, the tallest acknowledged mechs were the Banshee and Executioner, though admittedly post TRO 3060, mechs were never really put into any sort of perspective.

Cool, so PGI should make it so. 14m as the tallest mechs, 8m as the shortest. Rescale everything to be inbetween there, making similar weight classes the same height if need be, if they cant find a TRO height to the thing. I know the Centurion in Mechcommander is a tall as lanky, ugly ******. I doubt the mech we have in game could even possibly be the same size as that one.

Prosperity Park, on 09 June 2016 - 01:11 PM, said:

I think people are focusing Soooo much on height and width, forgetting that depth holds the key to weight.

Q. What do you call a Mech that is shaped like an Atlas, tall as an Atlas, wide as an Atlas, but half as thin when viewed from the side?

A. 50tons.

A: An AMX-50B.

[Gryphorim]

Part of the problem with pushing the mech scale so the largest would be 14m tall, is that would effectively "Commando" every cockpit view/scale of every mech. By which I mean the internal view would not actually fit in the mech. If it ever becomes too obvious, they'd lose that suspension of disbelief, and be forced to remodel every internal view, and maybe even redesign mechs with bigger relative cockpits.

[Mcgral18]

ScarecrowES, on 09 June 2016 - 01:09 PM, said:

Bro... seriously.

If you increase an ant to the size of a person, and then increase a person so that large ant looks ant- sized again... how is the interaction between the person and ant going to be any different in either case? It's not. Regardless, the ratio between the two is going to be the same.

It doesnt matter what number you plug into the equation... the equation is still the same... the results you get will have the exact same ratios.

Now... what you might mean is that SOME mechs will be easier to hit than they were before, because SOME mechs will have increased in size relative to the average size change across all mechs (which should be a zero sum if done correctly).

And in that, you'd be right. Mechs like the Grasshopper, Crab, and Blackjack (which are all increasing in size by some amount) will all be easier to hit by varying degrees from the seat of an Atlas, which is not changing. But a Hunchback will be no harder for an Atlas to hit than before because it's not changing either.

On the other hand... Locusts, Dragons, Novas, Catapults, Warhawks, Dire Wolves, etc... will all be much harder to hit from the seat of an Atlas because every one of those is being reduced in size by no less than 7%. In fact Novas will be harder to hit by any mech other than another Nova, since it's dropping the most weight of any mech.

Shadowhawks and Centurion will also be slightly harder to hit. Because they're getting a small reduction too.

But, if you're in the seat of a Locust, your perspective will be different, won't it? To you, every mech in th game but the Nova and the Catapult will be getting A LOT easier to hit.

Most mechs are not getting bigger. Some are getting bigger, some smaller, and some stay in the same. So your whole point is baseless.

Bro, are you suggesting MWO has melee combat?

Lasers are Lasers, ACs are ACs, and larger targets are easier to pinpoint if the target gets bigger, but the weapons stay the same.


You do realise that, right?

Edited by Mcgral18, 09 June 2016 - 02:27 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

I also feel like I heard that the Victor was "right" for 80 tons, and the Zeus is too small, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about shrinking the Victor.

[Ultimax]

ScarecrowES, on 09 June 2016 - 01:09 PM, said:

Bro... seriously.

If you increase an ant to the size of a person, and then increase a person so that large ant looks ant- sized again... how is the interaction between the person and ant going to be any different in either case?

No, you are still wrong.


1) Not all mechs would get smaller. Mechs volumetrically 'smaller than average' (according to PGI's metric, such as the Crab) now would stay the same. This is our fixed reference point.

If an Atlas gets resized to be the size of a Grasshopper, it will now be a harder to hit target with smaller hitboxes.



2) The Terrain, the game world, won't change size. This is our second fixed reference point.

Cover now potentially blocks more of a mechs body, mechs that are huge can now utilize cover better.


All of the mechs getting bigger are getting nerfed. Because PGI has chosen the wrong fixed reference points - mechs that they think are "just right" but are actually TOO BIG.


We're not talking about scaling everything up or down across the board in some gigantic dramatic fashion - we are talking about choosing mechs that are currently considered by PGI as volumetrically undersized and using them as our fixed reference points to compare other mechs to and then scaling them down to match.



I can't make it any simpler for you, if you are incapable at this point of getting it then you are just obstructing the idea for your own agenda (which I suspect has to do with an inability to hit smaller mechs) or you are simply beyond help.

Edited by Ultimax, 09 June 2016 - 03:14 PM.

[Volthorne]

LordKnightFandragon, on 09 June 2016 - 02:02 PM, said:

Cool, so PGI should make it so. 14m as the tallest mechs, 8m as the shortest. Rescale everything to be inbetween there, making similar weight classes the same height if need be, if they cant find a TRO height to the thing. I know the Centurion in Mechcommander is a tall as lanky, ugly ******. I doubt the mech we have in game could even possibly be the same size as that one.

No. No they shouldn't. Some of the canonical heights listed for LIGHT 'Mechs in the TROs have them taller than some Mediums and Heavies. None of the physical measurements - despite being canonical - are ever in the realm of "yeah that makes sense". More importantly, this is a shooter, and giving one 'Mech half of the possible equipment of another despite being the same size (ie: canonical Shadow Hawk (55 tons) vs canonical Atlas (100 tons)) is f*cking dumb and a great way to unbalance your game exceedingly fast.

Edited by Volthorne, 09 June 2016 - 03:37 PM.

[cazidin]

Just out of curiosity and because I am too lazy to look. Which Light mech is the tallest and/or stockiest?

[LordKnightFandragon]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 June 2016 - 02:41 PM, said:

I also feel like I heard that the Victor was "right" for 80 tons, and the Zeus is too small, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about shrinking the Victor.

Really? Zeus looks like its about right really. Zeus isnt the wide tubbutt that the Victor is.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Volthorne, on 09 June 2016 - 03:36 PM, said:

No. No they shouldn't. Some of the canonical heights listed for LIGHT 'Mechs in the TROs have them taller than some Mediums and Heavies. None of the physical measurements - despite being canonical - are ever in the realm of "yeah that makes sense". More importantly, this is a shooter, and giving one 'Mech half of the possible equipment of another despite being the same size (ie: canonical Shadow Hawk (55 tons) vs canonical Atlas (100 tons)) is f*cking dumb and a great way to unbalance your game exceedingly fast.

I dont mean in that way. Go ahead, make light mechs smaller, medium mechs medium and so on. But right now, they have all the scales so hosed its disgusting. Warhawk, an 85 tonner being the size of a 100 tonner. The Centurion, a 50 tonner is like the size of the Warhawk, although its a little skinnier. We have the light mechs, some are so small they are practically protomechs instead of battlemechs, where its questionable how a pilot even fits inside it......

No, light mechs should not be little pint sized things like they are now. Small? A believable 20-35 tons? Sure, but the Locust, its a 20t little midget that barely has enough mass to it to even be anything more then an RC robot...

[ScarecrowES]

Ultimax, on 09 June 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

No, you are still wrong.


1) Not all mechs would get smaller. Mechs volumetrically 'smaller than average' (according to PGI's metric, such as the Crab) now would stay the same. This is our fixed reference point.

If an Atlas gets resized to be the size of a Grasshopper, it will now be a harder to hit target with smaller hitboxes.



2) The Terrain, the game world, won't change size. This is our second fixed reference point.

Cover now potentially blocks more of a mechs body, mechs that are huge can now utilize cover better.

No, it's just that you literally don't make any actual sense.

To illustrate...

We don't know by how much, but the Vindicator is getting smaller, and the Blackjack is getting larger. Given that they weren't called out by PGI as being well beyond target, the amount of change for each is going to be less than 3% each. Both mechs weight the same. Whatever density value was chosen for all mechs put the Vindicator as having too much volume for it's mass, and the Blackjack as having too little volume for it's mass.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that based on whatever scale PGI came up with, the Vindicator was 1.5% too big, and the Blackjack was 1.5% too small. This puts them 3% apart currently. But after the rescale is accomplished, they will both have the same volume, and thus will be 0% apart.

Now, let's say that, instead, we follow your base suggestion and establish the "correct" volume based on the mech we feel is slightly undersized... in this case, the Blackjack. Ok, so now we normalize to the Blackjack instead. This means that instead of getting 1.5% larger, the Blackjack just stays the same size. The Vindicator, though, will now have to drop by 3% instead of 1.5% in order to have the correct volume based on the Blackjack... since they were 3% apart to begin with.

And in reality, that's all you've done for all mechs... dropped the entire scale down by 1.5%. So the Nova, which I believe has been amended to be dropping 18% under the chosen scale, would simply drop 19.5% instead. The Locust, which is dropping 12% will drop 13.5%. We don't know how much the Crab will be enlarged, but it's expected to be the greatest increase in size mechs will get under the rescale... let's say that was getting 7% larger under the current system. It'd now get increased by 5.5% instead using the Blackjack as reference.

You've shifted the entire average volume set down 1.5% over what was currently planned... that's it. But you've done absolutely nothing at all to the relative sizes between mechs you'll get. The ratio of the Nova to the Blackjack... from the Blackjack to the Vindicator... from the BlackJack to the Dire Wolf... those will all be exactly the same regardless of the reference point you use. It doesn't matter which mech or arbitrarily chosen starting point you begin with, once you've normalized every mech to that point, they'll all end up with the same ratios to each other - though their absolute size my vary a little.

And what we can guess, easily, based on the fact that the Blackjack is getting larger and the Vindicator smaller, is that they can't be changing by much. And that means it's absolutely assured that there will be no noticeable change in average mech scaling to the environment - it can't be more than 2%. So think about that realistically. Not only will all mechs be scaled the same to each other regardless of your reference point, but any common sense reference point will not modify the total scale of mechs by any noticeable measure.

So given that, regardless of reference point chosen... the end result will be that - whenever you are in a particular mech and viewing another particular mech - it will always look the same size relative to yourself... AND that it will not have varied from the established scale by more than a few percent to begin with.

So not only does the mech not appear any larger or smaller to you from a relative perspective, it almost certainly wouldn't from an absolute perspective either.

You cannot disassociate yourself and your perspective from the mech you are piloting. You're not a pilot sitting on the ground, which has an absolute and disassociated scale to the world. You are the mech, your scale is the scale of the mech. That mech has a predetermined scale to other mechs. Your perspective will change based on that scaling.

Hence why, if you were to be made 100 times larger, and an ant were to be scaled correctly to your new size... even though the and is also many times larger, it won't be any easier a target to you. You are larger. Your eye is larger. Your hand is larger. The only way the ant gets easier to hit for you is if IT gets bigger, and YOU don't.

But, obviously that can't happen in this scaling process. You and the ant will always be the same size relative to each other.

Quote

All of the mechs getting bigger are getting nerfed. Because PGI has chosen the wrong fixed reference points - mechs that they think are "just right" but are actually TOO BIG.


We're not talking about scaling everything up or down across the board in some gigantic dramatic fashion - we are talking about choosing mechs that are currently considered by PGI as volumetrically undersized and using them as our fixed reference points to compare other mechs to and then scaling them down to match.

Neither of these statements makes any sense. If you chose a reference point for all mechs that has them ALL get smaller, then are you not, in effect, merely buffing some mechs a little, and others a lot, based on how poorly scaled in the first place?How is that, in any way, different than merely buffing some mechs, leaving some mechs neutral, and nerfing some mechs, based on that same scale? And given the choice, why would you reduce the size of all mechs rather than establishing a normal that doesn't modify the total average scale for mechs?

And then your next statement comes in super confused. It seems that you're suggesting that, rather than scaling all mechs based on a universally-applied objective standard, that you instead choose representative mechs based on what "feels" right, and then just scaling other mechs to those mechs... also based on "feels." And maybe not even universally. But that doesn't seem like a smart thing to suggest, does it? Because obviously you could only establish a real standard based on those "feels" mechs if your intuition about their size could be corroborated in a totally unbiased and mathemetically quantifiable way.

You're still balancing by dart board. You've just replaced PGI's old dart board with one that you made up yourself with duct tape and crayons. It's no more "correct" than the old method PGI was using... which was "eh... this looks about right."

Quote

I can't make it any simpler for you, if you are incapable at this point of getting it then you are just obstructing the idea for your own agenda (which I suspect has to do with an inability to hit smaller mechs) or you are simply beyond help.

And of course, as I've demonstrated again, I don't get it because you don't make any sense. Your points are meandering and contradictory. And if you look for any point in them at all, the only sense you can get of your particular goals is that you have no interest in a unified scale, and still want PGI to balance by "feels" - just your feels instead of their feels.

Edited by ScarecrowES, 09 June 2016 - 05:25 PM.

[oldradagast]

Ultimax, on 09 June 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

Think about this, The Atlas which needed truckloads of structure quirks because of how large it is - now has a chance to actually get even larger.

Does that make any sense to anyone?

The Vindicator which is way too large, is considered "just right" by PGI and they will scale other mediums UP to match.

The Grasshopper might end up fatter and taller, the Zeus will likely get bigger. Really? How does this make sense?

I just don't understand why PGI is going in this direction, this rescale has so much potential to help so many poorly designed mechs.

Yep.

The Community: "Dear PGI. TTK is rather low, and keeps lowering, and some mechs are just too big for their tonnage."

PGI: "Cool! We increased the size of the smaller mechs so nothing is too big for its tonnage!"

Sigh... Really, aside from the Catapult and Nova, this is just going to nerf a bunch of borderline useful mechs into uselessness. And then wait for quirks to be stripped from the marginal mechs since clearly balance is nothing but making everything scaled properly.

Edited by oldradagast, 09 June 2016 - 06:00 PM.

[oldradagast]

Prosperity Park, on 09 June 2016 - 01:11 PM, said:

I think people are focusing Soooo much on height and width, forgetting that depth holds the key to weight.

Q. What do you call a Mech that is shaped like an Atlas, tall as an Atlas, wide as an Atlas, but half as thin when viewed from the side?

A. 50tons.

A DEAD 50 tonner. While I support normalizing volume, that cannot be the end all of balance, which I fear it will be. Wide and flat = dead, while tall and narrow = spreads damage easily and probably has high-mounted weapon points.