776 replies to this topic

[Xetelian]

I cannot believe how big the Jenner is.

This is ridiculous and not at all what I was hoping for.


I said in previous posts that the mediums that were as tall as 75 ton heavies or as Wide as 75 ton heavies needed to shrink

The overall shrink for the SHD was nothing. They shrunk the CPLT WAY smaller but the 55 tonners are still too big.

[Bishop Steiner]

Xetelian, on 18 June 2016 - 05:41 PM, said:

I cannot believe how big the Jenner is.

This is ridiculous and not at all what I was hoping for.


I said in previous posts that the mediums that were as tall as 75 ton heavies or as Wide as 75 ton heavies needed to shrink

The overall shrink for the SHD was nothing. They shrunk the CPLT WAY smaller but the 55 tonners are still too big.

except that in the only impartial and unbiased measurement, they are not. And the fact that aside from the KTO (which has some wonky geometry to begin with), none have ever had durability issues, would support that, handily.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 18 June 2016 - 05:43 PM.

[LT. HARDCASE]

Xetelian, on 18 June 2016 - 05:41 PM, said:

I cannot believe how big the Jenner is.

This is ridiculous and not at all what I was hoping for.


I said in previous posts that the mediums that were as tall as 75 ton heavies or as Wide as 75 ton heavies needed to shrink

The overall shrink for the SHD was nothing. They shrunk the CPLT WAY smaller but the 55 tonners are still too big.

Welcome to your scientifically unbiased new world.

Edited by LT. HARDCASE, 18 June 2016 - 05:59 PM.

[Xetelian]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 June 2016 - 05:42 PM, said:

except that in the only impartial and unbiased measurement, they are not. And the fact that aside from the KTO (which has some wonky geometry to begin with), none have ever had durability issues, would support that, handily.

Why is the CPLT the size of a 55 tonner in volume when 10 tons heavier?

Why is the AWS and VTR bigger than the GAR in volume but the same tonnage?


This standardized a few places and they gave the Nova and the CPLT a shrink while giving almost EVERYTHING growth.


You don't want them to balance things by size but that is the only way to make lights more viable. You don't want to admit that size really matters and the less size something is the better it is.

Looking at Navid A1's charts makes me sad. Most of the clan mechs are huge compared to IS mechs.

[Hit the Deck]

Xetelian, on 18 June 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

Why is the CPLT the size of a 55 tonner in volume when 10 tons heavier?

Because it's a chicken walker 'Mech whose big boxy arms take a lot of its volume.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Xetelian, on 18 June 2016 - 05:41 PM, said:

I cannot believe how big the Jenner is.

This is ridiculous and not at all what I was hoping for.


I said in previous posts that the mediums that were as tall as 75 ton heavies or as Wide as 75 ton heavies needed to shrink

The overall shrink for the SHD was nothing. They shrunk the CPLT WAY smaller but the 55 tonners are still too big.

Catapult is more how big the Warhawk and Dire Wolf should be, in terms of height, according to that sillouhette image they have...

[Bishop Steiner]

Xetelian, on 18 June 2016 - 06:00 PM, said:

Why is the CPLT the size of a 55 tonner in volume when 10 tons heavier?

Why is the AWS and VTR bigger than the GAR in volume but the same tonnage?


This standardized a few places and they gave the Nova and the CPLT a shrink while giving almost EVERYTHING growth.


You don't want them to balance things by size but that is the only way to make lights more viable. You don't want to admit that size really matters and the less size something is the better it is.

Looking at Navid A1's charts makes me sad. Most of the clan mechs are huge compared to IS mechs.

because it's NOT. Stop mistaking static PIXEL counts and overall height and width with being the same size. Catapult is a heck of a lot longer than any 55 tonner, for one thing. The box ears? lots of VOLUME.

And you have no way of proving that being tiny beyond reason is the only way to make Lights "viable". Viable for what, anyhow, going toe to toe with Assaults?

[Andi Nagasia]

its odd how many people are measuring a mechs size just by its Hight and Width,
and not also by the Spaces around the arms and Legs, and how thick its arms and legs are,

[Major Tomm]

Locust, pestilence, Pest.

[Bishop Steiner]

Andi Nagasia, on 18 June 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

its odd how many people are measuring a mechs size just by its Hight and Width,
and not also by the Spaces around the arms and Legs, and how thick its arms and legs are,

which is one of the reason pixel count overall fails. As does comparing silhouettes. There is no "perfect" method, that can 100% emulate reality, at least not that a almost any game company can afford or have the resources to manage, hence VOLUME.

fair. Unbiased. Consistent.

From that we can determine if say, Assaults and Heavies, in general need to lose a lot of their agility (possible, but even larger, most Lights haven't lost much if any mobility). But it gives us a solid, inflexible baseline to actualyl find out and try to balance from.

But the emotions and vitriol, as usual,. are too high.

Common Sense says without a baseline you simply cannot really have balance.

So if we have consistent Scale, then we need hitboxes as well laid out as geometry allows.

Once one has that, then one can look at speed/JJs and hardpoints. Mechs with favorable geometry and high hardpoints, for instance should not get as much hardpoint inflation as mechs with Jager Arms.

Once that is sorted, then Quirks can be used to address what might not have been able to be "balanced" with hardpoints and speed... like say the Archer's horrible geometry, that no amount or hitbox adjustment can fix. But it's a lore mech that comes with maximum armor, and a reputation for reliability. Hence, heavy structure Quirks. Etc.

Also, potentially on the Light to Medium Side (with a few heavier exceptions like Catapult) we may finally get to consider infowar and balance.

But no, instead we shoudl stick to a totally subjective and moving "balance" factor. I mean...OMG Mech X is an underperformer, it should be smaller! Oh crap, weapons adjusted and now Mech X is the Meta... so what...do we now make it BIGGER to balance things?

Scale for Balance is abjectly STUPID.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 18 June 2016 - 06:56 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Andi Nagasia, on 18 June 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

its odd how many people are measuring a mechs size just by its Hight and Width,
and not also by the Spaces around the arms and Legs, and how thick its arms and legs are,

Dead space is irrelevant since I can't do damage to dead space, arms and legs are only tertiary targets of opportunity. Height, honestly, doesn't mean anything unless hard-points are spread out vertically and not near the cockpit, but width and depth of the torso can be real killers.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 18 June 2016 - 06:51 PM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Reading that back and forth about absolute and relative size was quite interesting.

It was the standard of scale that was tripping you guys up. Absolute and relative size both have an impact on ability to hit a target, but neither can be considered accurately in a vacuum. The environment provides reference points that are necessary to make those considerations real!

[Mcgral18]

ScarecrowES, on 18 June 2016 - 04:34 PM, said:

The ease of hitting another mech ONLY predicates on relative scale... how exactly does the size of the building next to the mech make any difference to how you target the mech?

If you take 2 mechs, and set it up so the smaller mech takes up a given number of pixels on the screen of the larger mech - the larger of the two mechs will have to aim down x number of degrees to target the head of the smaller mech. It will have to aim down further y number of degrees to hit the feet. It doesn't matter how large or small you set their absolute scale to the world, if their relative size stays the same, you will ALWAYS have to aim down the same x number of degrees to hit the head, and y degrees to hit the feet as long as the smaller mech still takes up the same number of pixels.

Because you didn't change their relative size, nothing else that matters to how you aim at and target the other mech has changed. It will still take the same number of degrees to move across different parts of the mech, you'll still translate those degrees in the same amount of time. The size of the enemy hitboxes will still take up exactly the same number of pixels on your screen. NOTHING has changed.

Yeonne Greene, on 18 June 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

It doesn't matter. The game world is on a fixed scale as a whole and the weapons have the same level of reliable precision they have always had. The 'Mechs have gotten bigger, and they will actually look bigger to me, the pilot inside the 'Mech, who actually has remained static in size. More importantly, my aim has not gotten wobblier in proportion to my 'Mech's size; the same distance I move my mouse now will result in the same distance traveled as it always has on a given 'Mech. A 'Mech's size in this game has never impacted the movement scale of the crosshair.

So, to your example, the 'Mech is not the shooter here, my aiming reticle is. It has the same size and displacement variance that it has always had, and that's the problem. If I had a tendency to spread damage off of a Jenner CT at speed before because my wobbliness is X mm radius, and the new size gives me 2X mm extra margin on that CT, I'm going to kill that Jenner dead because now his CT is so big that my error is smaller than the component.

Take a Hunchback 2C and a Kodiak 3

Mount 2 (or 4) UAC10s, 255/375 engine, and pick a target mech


The Kodiak is considerably larger than the Hunchback, but has similar agility and weapon possibilities.



What happens when you switch from one to the other? Not much. You aim at the target and press the trigger. A Hunchback is no harder to hit in either.


There's an in game example you can test right now to say you're wrong Crow

[Bishop Steiner]

Yeonne Greene, on 18 June 2016 - 06:50 PM, said:

Dead space is irrelevant since I can't do damage to dead space, arms and legs are only tertiary targets of opportunity. Height, honestly, doesn't mean anything unless hard-points are spread out vertically and not near the cockpit, but width and depth of the torso can be real killers.

dead space does matter if you are basing size off it's relative height and width, yet has wide open areas like the armpits on a centurion. Because, in spite of it's perceived height and width those are areas that dont' take damage, whereas on other mechs those areas may well be torso.

[Mcgral18]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 June 2016 - 06:59 PM, said:

dead space does matter if you are basing size off it's relative height and width, yet has wide open areas like the armpits on a centurion. Because, in spite of it's perceived height and width those are areas that dont' take damage, whereas on other mechs those areas may well be torso.

And that dead space likely counts towards the same volume total (from what we can see), and also takes full damage


Catapult Arms do not weight as much as CT or Legs, but are counted as such (thus reduced overall size)
Same with the Nova...but I'm fine with that. He'll be fun until his quirks are removed and he's thrust back into Mediocrity

[Y E O N N E]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 June 2016 - 06:59 PM, said:

dead space does matter if you are basing size off it's relative height and width, yet has wide open areas like the armpits on a centurion. Because, in spite of it's perceived height and width those are areas that dont' take damage, whereas on other mechs those areas may well be torso.

To be honest, you shouldn't even be looking at the 'Mech as a whole, you should be looking at it in parts. The "width" of the 'Mech doesn't include its arms in practical terms, we're concerned with the torso-only in most cases, because that's what's going to make the difference between getting killed easy or being able to spread damage for days. The 'Mechs with proportionally big arms still have big arms and that will not ever change because those are character items.

[Requiemking]

Well, looks like my quad ML Pirates Bane is actually going to be a threat. Also, for those of you complaining about the Highlander and the IIC getting bigger, they both got nothing but buffs in the quirk department this time round, especially the IIC since it finally has quirks, including the accel/decel Quirks that mech desperately needed.

[Bishop Steiner]

Mcgral18, on 18 June 2016 - 07:02 PM, said:

And that dead space likely counts towards the same volume total (from what we can see), and also takes full damage


Catapult Arms do not weight as much as CT or Legs, but are counted as such (thus reduced overall size)
Same with the Nova...but I'm fine with that. He'll be fun until his quirks are removed and he's thrust back into Mediocrity

non existing stuff can't count toward volume. Volume only accounts for what is there.

And yes, am still waiting for a feasible alternative, that is less biased, less subjective.

Yeonne Greene, on 18 June 2016 - 07:04 PM, said:

To be honest, you shouldn't even be looking at the 'Mech as a whole, you should be looking at it in parts. The "width" of the 'Mech doesn't include its arms in practical terms, we're concerned with the torso-only in most cases, because that's what's going to make the difference between getting killed easy or being able to spread damage for days. The 'Mechs with proportionally big arms still have big arms and that will not ever change because those are character items.

and torsos are in 3 dimensions. I deeper, torso like a catapult, will have less frontal area. Amazingly, that's how volume also works. It's not prefect because there is no way (at least realistically speaking) to perfectly factor component density. But it's a lot more unbiased and less subjective than "well the target silhouette is...:"

[Dirus Nigh]

I really cannot tell how the mechs have changed looked at that chart from the patch notes. I need a side by side comparison with old vs new.

[Dracol]

Bluefalcon13, on 18 June 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

I'm face palming now. I don't know what your green and red triangles are saying.

Let's say this: mech a is 12m tall, mech b is 5m tall. If we keep the proportions the same, and shrink them by 50% they are proportionally the same size towards each other. The tree is just bigger. .....

Changing the scaling density of the mechs is exactly like this. If I put an atlas and a Jenner on top an infinite plane in R3 space, then shrink them by the same scale, they are still the same size from the perspective of each other.

With global rescale, the trees stay the same size. If the global rescale increased the average mech's size, like the patch will do, that tree offers less protection. The heavier lights will be just slightly easier to spot as a few pieces of terrain will no longer hid em. One has to stay just a little further back from a corner, else your Jenner's nose will be visible.

Had a smaller standard of size been chosen and mechs on average shrunk, than their survival ability would have been increased slightly due to terrain offering better protection.

Edited by Dracol, 18 June 2016 - 08:29 PM.