35 replies to this topic

[Vercors]

It's general discussion so...

I don't know if you feel that MWO is a simulation game, for me it's more a FPS game. No problem with that for me, but I wondering if an evolution of this game (even if it is not planned) could be more "realistic" (as much as one can be realistic with something that does not exist). For example, mechs can fall down, pilot injuries, implement hand to hand combat and other complex actions...

I'm not a programmer, it's easy for me to speak about this but I wondering how players of this game feel about that?

[ScrapIron Prime]

Mechs could fall down in Beta, it was a disaster, as people quickly evolved a tactic of working in teams to render lone mechs completely helpless by having one mech constantly knock them over while the rest shot the defenseless mech to bits. Bad mojo, it was removed.

melee combat has long been desired, but the game engine won’t (or won’t easily) support it and it’s aged to the point that there are few people well versed in programming it. Long promised but unable to be delivered on. They DID implement melee combat in MW5, so perhaps melee combat might exist in MWO 2.0 if they go that route and use that engine.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 26 December 2021 - 05:38 AM.

[Vercors]

ScrapIron Prime, on 26 December 2021 - 05:37 AM, said:

Mechs could fall down in Beta, it was a disaster, as people quickly evolved a tactic of working in teams to render lone mechs completely helpless by having one mech constantly knock them over while the rest shot the defenseless mech to bits. Bad mojo, it was removed.

Without pilot injuries, players can volontary charge an other mech and abuse of this tactic. Maybe less in the opposite case.

[martian]

Vercors, on 26 December 2021 - 05:28 AM, said:

I don't know if you feel that MWO is a simulation game, for me it's more a FPS game.

MWO is described by PGI as "a tactical, 'Mech-based online shooter".

[Verilligo]

There's nothing inherently wrong with knockdowns, by which I mean ONLY knockdowns caused by weapons fire and not from running into someone, and I used to be in favor of them. Being able to continuously knock someone down without a substantial immunity period between falls, or even worse any knockdowns caused by running into a person, is absolutely wrong, although that can be addressed with the previously mentioned immunity period. The real kicker, though, is that all forms of knockdown preferentially disadvantage lighter mechs. Not just lights, but mediums as well. And it can easily get to the point where the most effective tactic available is to force a knockdown on a mech and then just blow through an XL engine or backshot someone while they're down and unable to fight back.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that knockdowns simply don't make sense in a no-respawn game. It's a fun-killing experience when placed into that context. The only way you would be able to get them to fit into the game is if they were restricted to being the result of a successful DFA... which would require adding DFA into the game as well. And while DFA has always been a neat bullet point to add onto a feature list, it has NEVER been a viable tactic in any game that has it. At that point you may as well use the development time on better things.

[LordBraxton]

ScrapIron Prime, on 26 December 2021 - 05:37 AM, said:

Mechs could fall down in Beta, it was a disaster, as people quickly evolved a tactic of working in teams to render lone mechs completely helpless by having one mech constantly knock them over while the rest shot the defenseless mech to bits. Bad mojo, it was removed.

melee combat has long been desired, but the game engine won’t (or won’t easily) support it and it’s aged to the point that there are few people well versed in programming it. Long promised but unable to be delivered on. They DID implement melee combat in MW5, so perhaps melee combat might exist in MWO 2.0 if they go that route and use that engine.

This is completely wrong and either you didnt play beta or you are getting old and your memory is based on youtube videos rather than actual events.

Knockdown was never a problem. If you are close enough to an enemy mech to get knocked down, one of you is so out of position that gunnery will\would finish you off soon anyway.

Knockdown was used to troll a developer in an online video. However the reality was it wasnt used to screw up a game, the game was already won. The developer's team had already been trounced, and the dev was left alone against a conga-line of mechs who kept knocking him over.

This was in no way overpowered, they could have just shot him and finished him off. Instead they chose to play with their food. The humiliation of it made them give up on knockdowns.

Knockdowns never should have been removed. They were never a problem.

At the end of the day, if you are alone against a group of enemy mechs, it doesnt matter if they can knock you over repeatedly, youd be dead either way.

Edited by LordBraxton, 26 December 2021 - 09:43 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

LordBraxton, on 26 December 2021 - 09:42 AM, said:

This is completely wrong and either you didnt play beta or you are getting old and your memory is based on youtube videos rather than actual events.

Knockdown was never a problem. If you are close enough to an enemy mech to get knocked down, one of you is so out of position that gunnery will\would finish you off soon anyway.

Knockdown was used to troll a developer in an online video. However the reality was it wasnt used to screw up a game, the game was already won. The developer's team had already been trounced, and the dev was left alone against a conga-line of mechs who kept knocking him over.

This was in no way overpowered, they could have just shot him and finished him off. Instead they chose to play with their food. The humiliation of it made them give up on knockdowns.

Knockdowns never should have been removed. They were never a problem.

At the end of the day, if you are alone against a group of enemy mechs, it doesnt matter if they can knock you over repeatedly, youd be dead either way.

Well aren't you polite.

I don't reference the Paul video. i reference what happened in multiple games to myself and the unit I was with at the time. You pop around a corner, see 3 mechs, squeeze off a shot, and seek cover. By that time, one of the mechs, often a Jenner, has closed the distance with you, slammed into you and knocked both of you down. His two friends then have time to round the corner you peeked around and shoot you while you are still helpless.

A murderball of mechs does prevent this as you are suggesting, but a mech on a flank was particularly vulnerable to this. Search your memory, you may recall it.

[Novakaine]

Knock downs were horribly implemented if I crashed my F150 into a M1 Abrams I might slow it down.
But to keep slowing it down with repeated hits aint gonna happen.
My F150 would be reduced to a F25 on the second hit.

[John Bronco]

LordBraxton, on 26 December 2021 - 09:42 AM, said:

This is completely wrong and either you didnt play beta or you are getting old and your memory is based on youtube videos rather than actual events.

Knockdown was never a problem. If you are close enough to an enemy mech to get knocked down, one of you is so out of position that gunnery will\would finish you off soon anyway.

Knockdown was used to troll a developer in an online video. However the reality was it wasnt used to screw up a game, the game was already won. The developer's team had already been trounced, and the dev was left alone against a conga-line of mechs who kept knocking him over.

This was in no way overpowered, they could have just shot him and finished him off. Instead they chose to play with their food. The humiliation of it made them give up on knockdowns.

Knockdowns never should have been removed. They were never a problem.

At the end of the day, if you are alone against a group of enemy mechs, it doesnt matter if they can knock you over repeatedly, youd be dead either way.

Knockdowns always sucked regardless of the video. Removing them improved the game.

[YueFei]

MWO is definitely no simulator. Nor should it aspire to be one, not unless you enjoy something like DCS. MWO player population is already fairly low as it is, introduce yet another barrier to entry like that and the remaining overlap in the Venn Diagram of people who would enjoy MWO-like Mech gameplay but with DCS-like complexity would shrink to probably just hundreds, and the game would be dead.

Hell, even as simplified as MWO is, you got players who have been playing MWO for years and still haven't really got a handle on basic best practices.

I will say that I did prefer MW3 physics over MWO's physics, due to MW3 physics being closer to real life:
Projectiles inherit firing platform's velocity vector.
Recoil from your own shots.
Impact physics when struck by enemy weapons, along with gyroscopic precession as your mech's gyro stabilized you afterwards.

Mechs in MW3 could also crouch. Would lean significantly into the direction of a turn at speed, requiring you to compensate your aim point by elevating up. And your arms could articulate fully to 90 degrees to the side to shoot at enemies without exposing the CT or the opposite side torso.

Problem in MW3 was non-pulse lasers being instantaneous, essentially hitscan PPFLD, and a single leg destroyed was a kill, such that shooting at legs was always the optimal choice. IIRC, there were also no hardpoints in MW3, so you could stack weapons where-ever on your mech.

So PvP gameplay-wise, MWO is better than MW3.

If it were up to me, I'd take MW3's physics and mech articulation (and make it so that you can somewhat move whilst crouched, instead of being stationary), but otherwise use MWO's gameplay mechanics, like doubled armor&structure, hardpoints, weapons stats and mechanics (such as laser burn durations), quirks, etc.

Edited by YueFei, 26 December 2021 - 11:21 AM.

[Vercors]

there is already a topic of how bad the falldown was implemented in MWO:

https://mwomercs.com...s-falling-down/

Maybe we could speak if implement this in a new Mechwarrior game is a good idea. And also, seeing legged mech walking (and others ideas)...

Edited by Vercors, 26 December 2021 - 11:27 AM.

[Vercors]

YueFei, on 26 December 2021 - 11:20 AM, said:

MWO is definitely no simulator. Nor should it aspire...

I have not play MW3, but it seem we lose interesting part of this game.

[FupDup]

YueFei, on 26 December 2021 - 11:20 AM, said:

IIRC, there were also no hardpoints in MW3, so you could stack weapons where-ever on your mech.

Correct. The only limits were tonnage, slots, and a 16 weapon cap.

It was really broken to equip stuff like 16 Heavy Machine Guns and literally two-shot fresh assault mechs through the frontal CT.

[martian]

Vercors, on 26 December 2021 - 11:40 AM, said:

I have not play MW3, but it seem we lose interesting part of this game.

In MechWarrior 3 it really felt like piloting multiton war machines.

[Hobbles v]

LordBraxton, on 26 December 2021 - 09:42 AM, said:

This is completely wrong and either you didnt play beta or you are getting old and your memory is based on youtube videos rather than actual events.

Knockdown was never a problem. If you are close enough to an enemy mech to get knocked down, one of you is so out of position that gunnery will\would finish you off soon anyway.

Knockdown was used to troll a developer in an online video. However the reality was it wasnt used to screw up a game, the game was already won. The developer's team had already been trounced, and the dev was left alone against a conga-line of mechs who kept knocking him over.

This was in no way overpowered, they could have just shot him and finished him off. Instead they chose to play with their food. The humiliation of it made them give up on knockdowns.

Knockdowns never should have been removed. They were never a problem.

At the end of the day, if you are alone against a group of enemy mechs, it doesnt matter if they can knock you over repeatedly, youd be dead either way.

Of course knockdowns wernt a problem for you. You almost exclusively play heavies and assaults.

With knockdowns you didn't need a group to be abusive, one bigger mech could repeatedly do to a smaller one by itself.

Also meeting the enemy point blank doesnt always mean out of position. If he has ERLL and you have autocannons, getting close is a huge advantage.

There is only one instance I think knock down would be okay in a pvp game, and thats when someone gets legged. They have that instance where they pretty much come to a dead stop. Instead have them fall over amd get back up.

[YueFei]

Vercors, on 26 December 2021 - 11:40 AM, said:

I have not play MW3, but it seem we lose interesting part of this game.

MW3 was still by no means a simulator. As far as I know, knockdowns from weapons impacts in MW3 were purely RNG, which meant you had no influence on them. In other words, you couldn't use leaning or footwork to avoid falling if you took a nasty high-impact hit. It was entirely up to RNGeesus.

If MW3 were a true simulator, whether you fell or not would depend on your piloting inputs. E.g.: you're running forward but you've already reached top speed, so you're not leaning, when an enemy smacks you with an AC20 in the upper torso. This pitches you backward so you compensate by chopping the throttle to decelerate to make sure you get your feet underneath yourself and then pitch the torso forward to maintain balance.

All Mechwarrior titles have been action shooters. Making them complex for complexity's sake, just to try to grab at being branded as a "simulator", isn't worth it. Anything that we add to MWO ought to contribute to the gameplay and make it deeper, giving players more agency. Knockdowns, for example, remove player agency, leaving you lying helplessly on the ground.

Sometimes less is more.

FupDup, on 26 December 2021 - 11:42 AM, said:

Correct. The only limits were tonnage, slots, and a 16 weapon cap.

It was really broken to equip stuff like 16 Heavy Machine Guns and literally two-shot fresh assault mechs through the frontal CT.

Yeah, the Mechwarrior 3 gameplay mechanics were not setup to handle players using optimized builds, in which case all the content was trivialized. The only way it didn't feel cheesy was to play kitchen-sink / stock builds.

Like I said, I would not want MW3 game mechanics. MW3 physics and mech articulation: yes please!

[PocketYoda]

Novakaine, on 26 December 2021 - 10:35 AM, said:

Knock downs were horribly implemented if I crashed my F150 into a M1 Abrams I might slow it down.
But to keep slowing it down with repeated hits aint gonna happen.
My F150 would be reduced to a F25 on the second hit.

You wouldn't even slow it down.. and if you hit it at the front you'd be squashed in seconds.

[Vercors]

YueFei, on 26 December 2021 - 03:08 PM, said:

MW3 was still by no means a simulator. As far as I know, knockdowns from weapons impacts in MW3 were purely RNG, which meant you had no influence on them. In other words, you couldn't use leaning or footwork to avoid falling if you took a nasty high-impact hit. It was entirely up to RNGeesus.

If MW3 were a true simulator, whether you fell or not would depend on your piloting inputs. E.g.: you're running forward but you've already reached top speed, so you're not leaning, when an enemy smacks you with an AC20 in the upper torso. This pitches you backward so you compensate by chopping the throttle to decelerate to make sure you get your feet underneath yourself and then pitch the torso forward to maintain balance.

All Mechwarrior titles have been action shooters. Making them complex for complexity's sake, just to try to grab at being branded as a "simulator", isn't worth it. Anything that we add to MWO ought to contribute to the gameplay and make it deeper, giving players more agency. Knockdowns, for example, remove player agency, leaving you lying helplessly on the ground.

Sometimes less is more.

There is no need to complexify piloting like you think i want. Gyroscopes are now sufficiently advanced to take into account the unforeseen:

But the other stuffs you talk about in MW3 are interesting for giving more freedom in the mechs use.

Edited by Vercors, 26 December 2021 - 09:31 PM.

[martian]

YueFei, on 26 December 2021 - 03:08 PM, said:

MW3 was still by no means a simulator. As far as I know, knockdowns from weapons impacts in MW3 were purely RNG, which meant you had no influence on them. In other words, you couldn't use leaning or footwork to avoid falling if you took a nasty high-impact hit. It was entirely up to RNGeesus.

I experienced such knockdowns when taking multiple LBX hits, for example when fighting enemy Annihilators.

[Extra Guac]

In theory I like the idea of knockdowns. It should take a certain amount of momentum to achieve one - not just incidental contact. Knockdowns would greatly benefit mechs like the Atlas, and you could give "knockdown quirks" to brawler mechs like the Orion.

Lighter, faster mechs would have to use their maneuverability to avoid the knockdown. It's more realistic & would make MWO a more dynamic game. Hard to implement correctly though.

Honestly, it's pretty stupid that you can crash a Flea going 160 kph directly into an Atlas, and walk away with a scratch. That should really kill you right there.