228 replies to this topic

[YueFei]

Or people will just jump sideways in a parabolic arc... like many people already do right now, to make themselves a harder target to hit.

[Xhaleon]

FupDup, on 25 June 2021 - 01:16 PM, said:

Another idea would be to make the JJ formula exponential rather than linear, i.e. 1 JJ should be absolute garbage but mounting the full allotment should have actually good mobility, which forces a real sacrifice of tonnage (and thus you have to downgrade your weapons or something to accommodate it)

This is one of those things that I'd put a lot of development focus on. How do we make it so that 1 JJ isn't "good enough" but giving a mech it's ideal or proper canon JJ allotment will make it fly (but not too much for MWO!), without necessarily requiring an engineering change? I bet that if the shake recovery time were to be tweaked to be long enough then having more JJs = faster initial rise = more time to settle aim back to stable by the time the jump zenith is reached. Some others have said this as well in this thread I think.

I do wonder how MW5's JJs work. The mechlab says the majority of the height is gotten from the first JJ but only a little bit for every additional one, though I haven't gotten around to actually fielding a 1 JJ mech yet to see how that works. We should be looking to do the exact opposite for MWO in my opinion.

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Edit: Wait a minute, what about landing? If fall damage was actually scary instead of just being a minor annoyance on the same tier as walking into people on spawn, then that's a soft reason to have extra JJs because you need the reserves to land properly from a jump where you tried to squeeze out every last meter for a clear shot.

Edited by Xhaleon, 26 June 2021 - 04:27 AM.

[Vxheous]

Xhaleon, on 26 June 2021 - 04:21 AM, said:

This is one of those things that I'd put a lot of development focus on. How do we make it so that 1 JJ isn't "good enough" but giving a mech it's ideal or proper canon JJ allotment will make it fly (but not too much for MWO!), without necessarily requiring an engineering change? I bet that if the shake recovery time were to be tweaked to be long enough then having more JJs = faster initial rise = more time to settle aim back to stable by the time the jump zenith is reached. Some others have said this as well in this thread I think.

I do wonder how MW5's JJs work. The mechlab says the majority of the height is gotten from the first JJ but only a little bit for every additional one, though I haven't gotten around to actually fielding a 1 JJ mech yet to see how that works. We should be looking to do the exact opposite for MWO in my opinion.

---
Edit: Wait a minute, what about landing? If fall damage was actually scary instead of just being a minor annoyance on the same tier as walking into people on spawn, then that's a soft reason to have extra JJs because you need the reserves to land properly from a jump where you tried to squeeze out every last meter for a clear shot.

landing hurts your legs far more than getting bumped in spawn

[Nightbird]

Navid A1, on 25 June 2021 - 09:50 PM, said:

Have to check that boost_inst variable to make sure it is initial velocity

That is the source of inconsistency... I'll have to reverse calculate the initial time period

I edited my post after your, saying basically once you get within 1 meter of the results, it should be good enough to not be worth further refinement. It's was only because the previous graph was off by 10-15% that I saw value in working on it.

[Nightbird]

Just a random guess, the cryengine's physics engine is coded for 60 ticks (60fps) but PGI's engineers reduced it to 50 ticks for performance without make necessary scaling adjustments, so there you have 0.83.

[JediPanther]

pbiggz, on 25 June 2021 - 03:50 PM, said:

Jenners SHOULD jump.

They should be a lot of things but are not. They are op with jump jets hence they got no mobility in the recent patch. I've been told jump jets make them all superior to the oxide and other light mechs.

[justcallme A S H]

JediPanther, on 26 June 2021 - 01:14 PM, said:

They should be a lot of things but are not. They are op with jump jets hence they got no mobility in the recent patch.

Not true

You were clearly told the Jenner received no mobilty because it was already best in class and even after the mobilty patch the Jenner is still best in class by a decent margin.

When something has been clearly explained don't then still continue to misrepresent things. That is dishonest discussion.

[il1il]

Is there any way they could just eliminate the initial jj rate? It seems to me that getting off the ground is sluggish and changing from initial rate to the faster rate ends up losing height as it changes. and the player is encouraged to empty their whole tank and have nothing for soft landing. (although gaining fuel during fall could also help that) Also your horizontal speed seems to change height gained which makes no sense to me.

[Xhaleon]

Vxheous, on 26 June 2021 - 10:34 AM, said:

landing hurts your legs far more than getting bumped in spawn

It's still only a tiny bit all things considered. It's all too common for people to happily walk off 60m cliff drops if it means escaping from an enemy deathball, most don't even pay attention to it.

Why do I even bring this up? Because it is another soft way to justify stronger jump jets. It becomes a player choice to choose between a safe landing and getting max poptart height while suffering substantial leg damage. It also affects the mechlab choices of how many jumpjets and thus reserve thrust to equip.

Just another idea I'm throwing out there to provide more ways to "justify" stronger, faster liftoff jump jets and wanting to equip more of them. The last test videos that were posted in the previous page still looked rather anemic. If they use the modified formula to get that last bit of height its still a bit meh. And of course going with only 3 JJs instead of the 4 that the chassis can mount.

il1il, on 27 June 2021 - 02:12 AM, said:

Also your horizontal speed seems to change height gained which makes no sense to me.

I think you might be thinking about the effect of moving into a ramp or wall? Eh, gotta check it out sometime if free standing jump height is noticeably worse.

[il1il]

Xhaleon, on 27 June 2021 - 04:29 AM, said:

I think you might be thinking about the effect of moving into a ramp or wall? Eh, gotta check it out sometime if free standing jump height is noticeably worse.

Your comment inspired me to do a much more controlled test of the phenomena, and I believe I am simply in error on that point.

But boosting by moving into walls does not make sense that player is encouraged to hug walls especially when there are so many overhangs that you don't know if they stop your height gain or not. and surfaces that bug out and throw you way into the air. Very noticeable in solaris city and mining. and friction from a wall would lose height not gain.

[Khobai]

pbiggz, on 27 June 2021 - 02:14 PM, said:

Thank you for your minimal contribution to this conversation.

And thank you for your horrible idea of adding more forward impulse to jumpjets. no thanks.

If anything they should remove the forward impulse from jumpjets completely and hire an engineer to add vectored jumpjet thrust as well as the countless other things they need an engineer for.

give players direct control over which direction their jumpjets thrust in like the other mechwarrior games did.

il1il, on 27 June 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

Is there any way they could just eliminate the initial jj rate? It seems to me that getting off the ground is sluggish and changing from initial rate to the faster rate ends up losing height as it changes. and the player is encouraged to empty their whole tank and have nothing for soft landing. (although gaining fuel during fall could also help that) Also your horizontal speed seems to change height gained which makes no sense to me.

the horizontal component to jumpjets does reduce the height your mech jumps unfortunately. which is why it should be removed. it would immediately result in all mechs jumping 10% higher. and the frustration of having to compensate for the unwanted forward thrust would be gone.

Im not sure initial thrust needs to be increased but Ive always felt jumpjet fuel should replenish while youre midair. it makes no sense that it stops replenishing just because youre in the air. You should be able to spend all your fuel thrusting up then replenish enough fuel midair for a soft landing by the time you touch down again.

Those changes would be preferable to buffing jumpjet distance across the board. Along with the baseline buffs for assault jumpjets I suggested and fixing the jumpjet skill tree so its actually worth putting points into.

Edited by Khobai, 27 June 2021 - 04:13 PM.

[Nightbird]

You already have perfect control over where you jump, the normal jump is only slightly forward from standing still, but inherits your movement, so if your mech is moving back/forward/left/right/any diagonal as you jump that is the direction of the arc you'll take.

You can greatly increase the forward impulse via skill tree, but most don't use it.

[Khobai]

Nightbird, on 27 June 2021 - 04:47 PM, said:

You already have perfect control over where you jump, the normal jump is only slightly forward from standing still, but inherits your movement, so if your mech is moving back/forward/left/right/any diagonal as you jump that is the direction of the arc you'll take.

And again you have to compensate for the forward thrust by moving backwards. That is IRRITATING. Id rather the 10% forward thrust component just be removed and my mech jump 10% higher instead. since your jumping inherits your momentum you can still move forward before jumping if you want to jump forward.

I also dont think you understand what I mean by vectored thrust. I mean you should be able to thrust in any direction. Up, Down, Forward, backwards, left, right, counterclockwise, clockwise, etc... thats perfect control over your jumpjets.

thats how jumpjets worked in other mechwarrior games. you could use them to strafe in any direction or to turn very rapidly.

Quote

You can greatly increase the forward impulse via skill tree, but most don't use it.

Which is why the jump jet skill tree should be buffed. So people do use it.

That makes more sense than blanket buffing jumpjets for free and leaving the JJ skill tree in a state of unuse.

The whole reason theres a jumpjet skill tree is because PGI wanted players to have to make a tradeoff for better jumpjets. They just didnt do a very good job of balancing it with the other skill trees.

Giving players better jumpjets for free doesnt solve the problem of a useless jump jet skill tree, it continues to ignore that problem, and defeats the overall purpose of the skill tree which is to force choices on players. The skill point system should not just be about maximizing points into operations, survivability, and firepower all the time. Leaving the other skill trees weaker just continues to facilitate that...

That was the problem with blanket mobility buffs too. It removed the need to put points in the mobility skill tree. Instead of fixing what was wrong with the mobility skill tree.

Edited by Khobai, 27 June 2021 - 05:11 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

With the JJ proposal the JJ tree will be viable to use.

Navid already explained that and even posted videos showing it - so people can/will use it.
I have mechs with JJ tree already, if proposed values go in that will be excellent for them.

[pbiggz]

Khobai, on 27 June 2021 - 04:51 PM, said:

And again you have to compensate for the forward thrust by moving backwards. That is IRRITATING. Id rather the 10% forward thrust component just be removed and my mech jump 10% higher.

I also dont think you understand what I mean by vectored thrust. I mean you should be able to thrust in any direction. Up, Down, Forward, backwards, left, right, counterclockwise, clockwise, etc... thats perfect control over your jumpjets.

thats how jumpjets worked in other mechwarrior games. you could use them to strafe in any direction or to turn rapidly.

It's widely accepted that mechwarrior 2's jumpjets were insanely broken. You're demonstrating a consistent lack of understanding of this game if you can't figure out why.

Khobai, on 27 June 2021 - 04:51 PM, said:

Which is why the jump jet skill tree should be buffed. So people do use it.

That makes more sense than blanket buffing jumpjets for free and leaving the skill tree in a state of unuse.

The whole reason theres a jumpjet skill tree is because PGI wanted players to have to make a tradeoff for better jumpjets. They just didnt do a very good job of balancing it with the other skill trees.

This is a strawman you keep bringing up. Nobody is arguing that we should blanket buff JJs and NOT buff the skill tree. The skill tree is slated for a full rework anyway so this isn't ******* relevant, please shut up about it.

[1453 R]

I mean, I love jump-capable 'Mechs and find tremendous fun in the high-speed cavalry playstyle. MechWarrior 2 was the first video game I ever played; it's what got me started on BattleTech in the first place. I still remember cruising around in my Nova made of pipes and Lincoln Logs using machine-gun pulse lasers to lay waste to the battlefield. Primarily because I had Saturn 5 lifters attached to my legs and could exit the map at any time, just take a breather and grab a sammich, cool off, then jump several hundred meters back down and resume winning.

MW2's jump jets were overwhelmingly busted. Those things wouldn't have been out of place in a Gundam game. There's an ocean of possibilities between current MWO Kindergarten HoverJets and MW2's orbital launch devices.

[Nightbird]

justcallme A S H, on 27 June 2021 - 04:56 PM, said:

With the JJ proposal the JJ tree will be viable to use.

Navid already explained that and even posted videos showing it - so people can/will use it.
I have mechs with JJ tree already, if proposed values go in that will be excellent for them.

I'm not sure, we'll see. It's all about relative efficiency of tonnage savings for nodes and also whether poptarting is viable in the first place. For example, I see class 1 JJs as still being too anemic that you won't want to put 3 on for 6 tons and then invest 6 nodes only to still not be able to poptart effectively (i.e. takes 15 seconds per poptart cycle).

Edited by Nightbird, 27 June 2021 - 05:06 PM.

[Bud Crue]

pbiggz, on 27 June 2021 - 04:59 PM, said:

The skill tree is slated for a full rework anyway so this isn't ******* relevant, please shut up about it.

Wait a sec...

Can anyone provide more details on this? I don't doubt pbiggz, but this is the first I've heard that any aspect of the skill tree was up for revision. I feel like this is too much to hope for.

[FupDup]

Bud Crue, on 27 June 2021 - 05:12 PM, said:

Wait a sec...

Can anyone provide more details on this? I don't doubt pbiggz, but this is the first I've heard that any aspect of the skill tree was up for revision. I feel like this is too much to hope for.

Yeah, especially given that there's literally like only 4 people working on this game and they couldn't even get all the agility buffs into one patch.

[justcallme A S H]

It is on the roadmap - as far as a fix or anything - there is nothing quantified there.