157 replies to this topic

[Dragonporn]

This is pretty ridiculous thing in terms of gameplay. It is unfair mechanic in itself, because you can only leg hump particular Assaults, or even few Heavies built with no weapons in arms. And only particular Light are able to successfully leg hump, by being really small. Like, go and try leg hump my King Crab with dual RAC5s and x4 LMGs, but if you run Stalker, good luck there...

On the other hand, it is a mechanic that lets Lights beat bigger mechs, while otherwise they wouldn't be able to, and that's unfair too. What I'm saying is: either all Light must be able leg hump all Assaults, or none. This gets even more ridiculous with modes like Solaris 7.

[Vyx]

Wil McCullough, on 31 October 2018 - 08:47 PM, said:

It's why i think lots of mwo grognards can't accept the fact that their monster 100 tonner gets shredded by lights. Decades of "lights are stomped on by heavier mechs" makes it a rude and unacceptable shock.

As you point out, tonnage has always been the determining factor -- even now the game uses tonnage as -the- measure of matchmaking balance.

In a world where if I field a force 1/3rd your cost/weight and win nearly every time, no army would field anything else. This is obviously topsy-turvy; and yes, it is why those with any strategic sense have difficulty accepting the light's "differing" role in MWO.

Additionally, IMO, it was done not for rock-paper-scissors balance. It was done to sell light mechs, and to promote the fast-paced, twitchy, eSport ideal. "Thinking man's shooter" be damned.

[takkom]

im fine with most mechs sizes. if anything i feel like assaults that are that have a similar profile as some mechs half their size should be bigger (granted i also think mediums/heavies with super quirks should not have close or more armor than an assault with 1/3 thei mobility but thats diffrent story)

i think the problem is more that torso movement should be tweaked a bit (dont own an atlas...how do full movement quirks affect leg humping?). also, it is ridiculously bad design that sometimes my aim gets obstructed by UI elements like the map (i clearly remember one time being leg humped and i had trouble shooting him thru the map despite having arm weapons), the directional arrow of the legs (i know it can be disabled but still) and, honorable mentions: the name tag of the target box... why have official abbreviations for each mech if you dont use them. putting the full name of the mech above the target box just obstructs the view. the abbrev is sufficient. we need an option to toggle that along with the player TITLE. you can display that in the score tab.

[Wil McCullough]

Vyx, on 31 October 2018 - 09:01 PM, said:

As you point out, tonnage has always been the determining factor -- even now the game uses tonnage as -the- measure of matchmaking balance.

In a world where if I field a force 1/3rd your cost/weight and win nearly every time, no army would field anything else. This is obviously topsy-turvy; and yes, it is why those with any strategic sense have difficulty accepting the light's "differing" role in MWO.

Additionally, IMO, it was done not for rock-paper-scissors balance. It was done to sell light mechs, and to promote the fast-paced, twitchy, eSport ideal. "Thinking man's shooter" be damned.

So... if the price of light mechs were brought up to assault mech level, it'll silence the whinging?

[Shifty McSwift]

Why did this shift from a conversation about being able to slam into eachother like bumper mechs, that's the issue isn't it? Whether or not hitting a mech should do more damage, I and I am sure others think it should be more.

There's nothing wrong with skillful driving and higher damage rates from ramming wouldn't stop or deter skillful driving, and it wouldn't stop the potential for leg humping entirely, but a high enough ram damage rate would deter people from doing what should be idiotic things, like purposely slamming into mechs 3x their weight because it makes their ping and hit detection go haywire (rubberbanding), auto stops them (likely mid fire/fight) and has almost no downsides for the ramming party.

Simple stuff guys, higher ram damage is the request, for good reasons.

[Wil McCullough]

Shifty McSwift, on 01 November 2018 - 12:32 AM, said:

Why did this shift from a conversation about being able to slam into eachother like bumper mechs, that's the issue isn't it? Whether or not hitting a mech should do more damage, I and I am sure others think it should be more.

There's nothing wrong with skillful driving and higher damage rates from ramming wouldn't stop or deter skillful driving, and it wouldn't stop the potential for leg humping entirely, but a high enough ram damage rate would deter people from doing what should be idiotic things, like purposely slamming into mechs 3x their weight because it makes their ping and hit detection go haywire (rubberbanding), auto stops them (likely mid fire/fight) and has almost no downsides for the ramming party.

Simple stuff guys, higher ram damage is the request, for good reasons.

That would be a band aid fix. If ping abuse is the problem, the solution would be to fix hit registration and hsw. Hsw is a godless pos. Once you start hitting 300-400 ping, landing srms becomes problematic.

Also, one thing is rubbing mechs together may not be a malicious strategy to abuse hit registration and ping. It could actually just be bad piloting. Many players can't track movement direction, torso direction and shoot at the same time, which leads to a lot of lost paint. Higher collision damage may not reduce crotch hugging if this were the case.

[Shifty McSwift]

Wil McCullough, on 01 November 2018 - 01:30 AM, said:

That would be a band aid fix. If ping abuse is the problem, the solution would be to fix hit registration and hsw. Hsw is a godless pos. Once you start hitting 300-400 ping, landing srms becomes problematic.

Also, one thing is rubbing mechs together may not be a malicious strategy to abuse hit registration and ping. It could actually just be bad piloting. Many players can't track movement direction, torso direction and shoot at the same time, which leads to a lot of lost paint. Higher collision damage may not reduce crotch hugging if this were the case.

If the damage to a pilot from ramming wasn't negligible they would have to consider it much more carefully, "may not reduce crotch hugging" I have to disagree, it would all come down to the numbers.

You can't "fix" global pings unless you forcefully localise your servers, which comes back to a big point of my argument in simply increasing ram damage being, the viability of it actually happening as a change, wanting expensive servers and knockdown mechanics, and entire class alterations, versus asking for them to up the ram damage to a point where people actually bother to be concerned with ramming into one another, when the potential is mitigating two pretty large issues with a tiny change, it seems very worth trying.

[Wil McCullough]

Shifty McSwift, on 01 November 2018 - 01:38 AM, said:

If the damage to a pilot from ramming wasn't negligible they would have to consider it much more carefully, "may not reduce crotch hugging" I have to disagree, it would all come down to the numbers.

You can't "fix" global pings unless you forcefully localise your servers, which comes back to a big point of my argument in simply increasing ram damage being, the viability of it actually happening as a change, wanting expensive servers and knockdown mechanics, and entire class alterations, versus asking for them to up the ram damage to a point where people actually bother to be concerned with ramming into one another, when the potential is mitigating two pretty large issues with a tiny change, it seems very worth trying.

I don't think there's a need for new servers. Simply make it such that you don't get assigned to like... 400ms ping games. Solved.
Will ram damage also affect friendlies?

[Shifty McSwift]

Wil McCullough, on 01 November 2018 - 01:51 AM, said:

Will ram damage also affect friendlies?

I would assume the fastest "fix" that incorporated boosting ram damage would be inclusive of friendly damage too, but not necessarily? I don't make the changes so I don't know what a change like that would include.

I wouldn't particularly care if it also effected teammates, you can hit them with guns etc too, but also the point is to deter people from slamming into eachother at all if possible, while obviously not just instakilling or being a "weapon" of its own.

[Ensaine]

Kill2Blit, on 31 October 2018 - 06:29 AM, said:

this is a very specific scenario. simple answer is you lose. lights are meant to punish lone assaults. if you're the last one left in one versus a light mech and you die, that's an assault counter that is working by design. stepping into the game that annihilator had plenty of advantages, the fact that the whole team died and the anni lost its arms and the piranha is still healthy enough to take a shot and have its weapons left and it got close to the anni before the assault could kill it is just asking for the loss, that's a stacked deck that's working as it's supposed to.

This I partially agree on... .in PVP, not TT, lights should be able to go toe to toe with an assault.......with his piloting skills.

NOT running up into an Assault's posterior cavity.

Edited by Ensaine, 01 November 2018 - 02:21 AM.

[Wil McCullough]

Shifty McSwift, on 01 November 2018 - 01:59 AM, said:

I would assume the fastest "fix" that incorporated boosting ram damage would be inclusive of friendly damage too, but not necessarily? I don't make the changes so I don't know what a change like that would include.

I wouldn't particularly care if it also effected teammates, you can hit them with guns etc too, but also the point is to deter people from slamming into eachother at all if possible, while obviously not just instakilling or being a "weapon" of its own.

Im concerned that if the damage is high enough to cause players to be averse to rubbing paint, it may punish newer players still struggling with controls. Rubbing off too much friendly paint can cause temp bans in this case.

[Prototelis]

Ensaine, on 01 November 2018 - 02:21 AM, said:

This I partially agree on... .in PVP, not TT, lights should be able to go toe to toe with an assault.......with his piloting skills.

NOT running up into an Assault's posterior cavity.

So wait, maneuvering around behind someone isn't a piloting skill?

Do you want me to just stand in front of you so you have a "fair chance?"

[Tiewolf]

The worst thing is that Leg Humping will increases after this thread, because it is very effective if done right and has no real counter.

Pros:
Cover(enemy mech) from lrm/ssrm support and other enemys, provokes huge team damage or stops allies of the victim firing at you, no threat from the victim, not much skills necessary and it makes a lot of fun!

Cons:
You have to get close without taking too much damage, field a small mech with enough firepower, take minor damage from collisions and have to know the angle of the friends of the victim if there are any.


Pros>Cons and it is not even very risky as long as the enemy allies do care about team damage.

In my experience, as long as no other light mechs that can counter hug you is around, it is even more benefical if you have some enemys around that shoot at your victim.

Today I even got leg humped myself in a Hellbringer in the middle of my team. I had no chance to do anything because the PIR blocked my movements effectively. The PIR survived and humped 1 more mech to death in the middle of the team till it went off with only mediocre armor damage taken himself. I guess the PIR player was a bit lucky there, but it shows the lack of effective counters to leg humping.

[Tarl Cabot]

Wil McCullough, on 31 October 2018 - 07:43 PM, said:

I said lights are tomato cans in previous games. I didn't say lights are tomato cans in this one. And also, no, i don't count a 2001 "game" that also closed down in 2001 a proper game. Nor does it influence anything.

.....

GoatHILL, on 31 October 2018 - 08:19 PM, said:

MW4 had a key to look down I never played LL what other PvP mechs games were there? And no console crap doesn't count.

I believe you mentioned the game on AOL/Gamestorm MPBT Solaris which ran for 6 years, prior to that was MPBT EGA 3025 (primarily PVE but gameworld Solaris offered PVP) and after that the EA short lived version of MPBT 3025 before they canned almost all non-inhouse games. MPBT Solaris had alternate view to fire arm mounted weapons up/down, left for left mounted weapons, right for right mounted weapons, rear for the few with rear mounted weapons (an Atlas/Dragon) and the mechs were appropriately sized. And there was no mechlab either but lights were no tomato cans but then there was no leg humping, a light not moving was a legged/dead light.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 01 November 2018 - 05:22 AM.

[Astrocanis]

Kill2Blit, on 30 October 2018 - 03:08 PM, said:

You don't need to see their hitboxes when they have a small fraction of the health/firepower you do and your team (which should be nearby or else something very wrong occured) is all shooting at it. Lights that have so little range they're best off leg humping already have it bad enough.

Always "the teammates". Most of them are either blindly fixated on some far off target they are exchanging PPC bolts with just past max range or trying to make the targeting reticle turn red so they can skillurm. MG take almost as much skill as LRMs but do far more damage per second.

Leg humping is a problem as is damage output from some of the lights.

[PobbestGob]

Astrocanis, on 01 November 2018 - 05:31 AM, said:

Always "the teammates". Most of them are either blindly fixated on some far off target they are exchanging PPC bolts with just past max range or trying to make the targeting reticle turn red so they can skillurm. MG take almost as much skill as LRMs but do far more damage per second.

Leg humping is a problem as is damage output from some of the lights.

this is a team-based game. assaults are slow and need the support of the team to thrive, the incompetence of the average MWO pug is no excuse to balance in favor of their stupidity. solo queue is generally bad for slow assaults because pugs like to nascar, but if we tip the scales towards assaults because of that, they'd become OP in any environment where the pilots have a slight idea what they're doing (group queue, faction war, that rare time you get a half decent team in qp). pugs also like chasing squirrels too, so if you call out a light nearby they'll most likely rush in to kill it. the times leg humping is more effective than risky are generally the times it should be

Edited by Kill2Blit, 01 November 2018 - 06:01 AM.

[ShiverMeRivets]

It is not just the leg humping by itself. The 20-25 ton mechs are made it such a way that they exploit a few “gamey” features. These include physically impossible feats like their acceleration, deceleration, and turn rate at full speed, incorrect volumetric scaling that give them “antman” like powers, network issues such as lag and jitter, and bad game design (for some of them) that allows them to carry firepower completely out of proportion to their weight. The Piranah is the most hated light because it makes the most out of every one of these features, while other lights only exploit a few.

It is the combination of the above that allow effective leg humping and the ability to make it to the legs without getting wreked on the way. And don’t tell me how much skill it takes. While I don’t own any 20 tonners out of principle, my 35 ton mechs are the easiest to play. My Grinner in particular is OP as F### and the mech in which I have the highest K/D, and I dont even like to play it that much. Running between the legs of confused fat mechs and shooting them drive-by style does not take that much skill. Taking a Highlander into combat and not dying 60 seconds into the game and before doing 100 damage is a lot more difficult than doing the same in a Wolhound or Urbie.

[General Solo]

I think killing a light mech before it gets that close its bumping your tenders is skill.

And I think getting up into an assualt mechs tenders in a light mech without getting rekt is skill too.

Rest is excuses

I pilot Atlas alot, a bad Atlas with no arm weapons in Quick play Solo que and don't have problem killing lights going for tendors.

Atlas DDC - Dual Rac5, Triple MRM20

They have to practically stand in your shadow before you can not shoot them, so kill them before that.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 01 November 2018 - 06:45 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Again.

Look at the leaderboard, Jarls, all the stats.

Lights lose way more often than assaults and heavies, have a lower overall average match score (by far) and are just flat out less successful at winning matches. Lights need buffs, not nerfs. However you want to manage it lights (and mediums) need a comparable performance profile (as in ability to win matches) as heavies and assaults. Anyone who says 'Well I should win in assaults/heavies vs lights' is literally arguing that the game should be broken in balance to give them an advantage so they can win matches based on bad game design instead of skill. That opinion needs tossed in the trash along with all the other garbage.

You want to make that because of a real, useful role warfare? Okay. Show exactly how. Regardless, the same effort in a light should result in the same odds of winning as that same effort in a heavy or assault. Currently that equates to combat effectiveness. So unless PGI is going to finally deliver on role warfare and information warfare then lights need to be faster, smaller and more nimble.

Right now people complaining because in a big, clumsy assault with poor positioning and situational awareness they can get beaten by a light should try playing a light and running into a well played streakboat. Oh, wait. We're only okay with an absolute, unbeatable counter when it's something we're doing against someone else.

Back to that 'I want game mechanics broken to enable me to win instead of me winning based on skill alone' argument.

[Eisenhorne]

MischiefSC, on 01 November 2018 - 07:12 AM, said:

Again.

Look at the leaderboard, Jarls, all the stats.

Lights lose way more often than assaults and heavies, have a lower overall average match score (by far) and are just flat out less successful at winning matches. Lights need buffs, not nerfs. However you want to manage it lights (and mediums) need a comparable performance profile (as in ability to win matches) as heavies and assaults. Anyone who says 'Well I should win in assaults/heavies vs lights' is literally arguing that the game should be broken in balance to give them an advantage so they can win matches based on bad game design instead of skill. That opinion needs tossed in the trash along with all the other garbage.

You want to make that because of a real, useful role warfare? Okay. Show exactly how. Regardless, the same effort in a light should result in the same odds of winning as that same effort in a heavy or assault. Currently that equates to combat effectiveness. So unless PGI is going to finally deliver on role warfare and information warfare then lights need to be faster, smaller and more nimble.

Right now people complaining because in a big, clumsy assault with poor positioning and situational awareness they can get beaten by a light should try playing a light and running into a well played streakboat. Oh, wait. We're only okay with an absolute, unbeatable counter when it's something we're doing against someone else.

Back to that 'I want game mechanics broken to enable me to win instead of me winning based on skill alone' argument.

That's kind of a quick play attitude though. Lights have a role when tonnage is limited in FP. You have a drop deck with a max tonnage, and the 'cost' of bringing a super heavy assault mech is you need to take 1-2 weaker light mechs. I have no issue with lights being weaker than assaults because of this honestly.

Even in QP though, while lights are generally weaker than assaults, tonnage is balanced between the two teams. Team 1 and Team 2 always have equal numbers of lights, mediums heavies, and assaults. So even though lights are weaker in general, the teams should still have equal numbers of these lights. The real problem I think is that the Piranha is such an outlier in terms of performance if one team brings a Piranha, and another team brings a Kit Fox or Adder or something, the team with the Kit Fox or Adder is at a serious disadvantage because they had a pilot who brought a sub-par mech. That's no different from guys bringing terrible assaults though, so it really isn't an issue I think.

Dealing with the original post though... Arm weapons won't save you from a light. Do you honestly think blind firing a pair of medium lasers or whatever you have in your arms at a mech you can't even see because it's so low on your body will work? You can't aim them, so its random fire at best. Not going to help.

Not really an issue though, if a light is humping me I just hope my team can shoot it off. If not, then I die. Oh well. If the light is caught in the open he dies pretty easy, so not really a problem.