35 replies to this topic

[martian]

Extra Guac, on 26 December 2021 - 10:23 PM, said:

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.

Well, in BattleTech maybe not kill you, but you would suffer some amount of damage, plus maybe additional damage from fall.

In MWO? The worst that can happen to Flea is some scratched paint.

[Anjian]

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

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?

There are robot or mecha games that exist, that both shoot, and has melee. Here's one for the PS4, and now being optimized for the PS5.




Game engines handle melee all the time, like knights with swords, just as they can handle quads, like used for monsters like dragons and so on.

For this to happen, you need to create MWO2 to begin with, starting with a new game engine. Using the Unreal Engine such as MW5 is a good start.

Doing all these is more than technically feasible, the tools are already in the game engine, all you need is the developers, the corporate will and the resources to say yes to it.

But that's really the hard part, the corporate impetus to say, let's make a new game and put this feature on it.

Edited by Anjian, 27 December 2021 - 12:31 AM.

[PocketYoda]

Complex like Battletech tabletop sure.. Complex like Call of Mechwarrior... no.

[Anjian]

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.



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!

This is really how all games are made. You sit down as group, then decide carefully what's going in and what's not going in.

Games do not need to be overdone.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Nomad Tech, on 27 December 2021 - 01:14 AM, said:

Complex like Battletech tabletop sure.. Complex like Call of Mechwarrior... no.

Well that's the thing. I was always wanting PGI to put in a more involved "campaign mode" than what we got with Faction Play. but then HBS Battletech came out and I changed my opinion. A long campaign is perfect for that game, while shorter term stuff is better in MWO. and PGI did put it into MW5, which is also great.

So yeah, Faction Play need more life, but it doesn't have to be that.

[PocketYoda]

ScrapIron Prime, on 27 December 2021 - 08:16 AM, said:

Well that's the thing. I was always wanting PGI to put in a more involved "campaign mode" than what we got with Faction Play. but then HBS Battletech came out and I changed my opinion. A long campaign is perfect for that game, while shorter term stuff is better in MWO. and PGI did put it into MW5, which is also great.

So yeah, Faction Play need more life, but it doesn't have to be that.

Faction Play is nothing like the tabletop, running four times to die or destroy mechs is tedious and not fun. It needed a lot more game modes and far better maps.

Edited by Nomad Tech, 27 December 2021 - 05:12 PM.

[martian]

Nomad Tech, on 27 December 2021 - 05:11 PM, said:

Faction Play is nothing like the tabletop, running four times to die or destroy mechs is tedious and not fun.

Some people still play FP, so it is probably fun for them.

Nomad Tech, on 27 December 2021 - 05:11 PM, said:

It needed a lot more game modes and far better maps.

That train departed many years ago.

[Bamboozle Gold]

ScrapIron Prime, on 27 December 2021 - 08:16 AM, said:

Well that's the thing. I was always wanting PGI to put in a more involved "campaign mode" than what we got with Faction Play. but then HBS Battletech came out and I changed my opinion. A long campaign is perfect for that game, while shorter term stuff is better in MWO. and PGI did put it into MW5, which is also great.

Planetside 2 does the short campaign quite well. I think it averages 45 minutes on a large map with multiple simultaneous engagements and a lot of flexibility in choosing where you want to push. Very short TTK and quick respawns. ESO used to do long campaigns well. 7 or 30 days of continuous map control - now the PVP there sucks due to power creep from DLC.

For MWO I'd be happy you could do individual drops throughout a week and contribute to an overall faction campaign.

[martian]

Bamboozle Gold, on 30 December 2021 - 05:13 AM, said:

For MWO I'd be happy you could do individual drops throughout a week and contribute to an overall faction campaign.

During the early development phase of MWO, I had hoped for something like that.

But after PGI unveiled the Community Warfare, it became obvious that Russ Bullock's idea (regarding what CW should be) was completely different.

[YueFei]

martian, on 30 December 2021 - 05:19 AM, said:

During the early development phase of MWO, I had hoped for something like that.

But after PGI unveiled the Community Warfare, it became obvious that Russ Bullock's idea (regarding what CW should be) was completely different.

Yeah, the way FW was done was a mistake IMO, because it lets you use the C-Bills you earned from Quickplay (and the Mechs and equipment you bought with it) and spam matches in FW using that gear. Mechs magically repair and rearm themselves immediately for the next match.

FW should have had its own separate economy, players would use another inventory set and C-Bill account for it. Here you'd be restrained by travel time, repair and re-arm times, maintenance costs, and logistics.

You can play an unlimited number of Quickplay matches, as we do now, and there's no repair or re-arm to worry about. Its arena-style combat would be like a "simulator", and the money you earn in QP stays applicable only to QP.

The FW matches would be the sweaty serious-faced matches, where you might only get 1 battle in a day, but that battle would mean something. Win or lose, you would then need time to repair and re-arm your mechs, which means... you could just go off and play QP to your heart's content. I'd also structure the battles so that reinforcements can enter battles dynamically. This would be a great way to encourage participation even from lesser-equipped or less-skilled pilots. Even if you're going up against elite players, and you find yourself losing, every bit of damage you can do to them makes a difference because if you've got buddies queued up waiting to enter the battlefield, it could really give them a big edge when they come in after you fall. Hell, you could even tell them the opposition's composition and mech builds and where they're hurt.

This would encourage a greater feeling of community, and everyone feels they contributed even in a defeat. I think this would be a better approach and see much higher participation.

Edited by YueFei, 30 December 2021 - 10:51 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Extra Guac, on 26 December 2021 - 10:23 PM, said:

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.

A flea is a bit bigger in Battletech tabletop. And only does 114kph with MASC.

Edited by Nomad Tech, 30 December 2021 - 11:15 PM.

[martian]

Nomad Tech, on 30 December 2021 - 11:14 PM, said:

A flea is a bit bigger in Battletech tabletop. And only does 114kph with MASC.

Some variants of the Flea go 151 km/h.

[Catra Lanis]

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.

Wouldn't drastically upping collision damage prevent it from being abused?

[MrTBSC]

just throwing in my 2 cents ... aside from a few things that could see betterment gameplaywise
i enjoy MW:O as is .. i don´t need it to be more complex/simulationy ... it´s also already bit complex as is just with how mechdamage works and the various builds ...

right now my only issue is that skirmish as a gamemode is redundant, .... since any other mode is skirmish with a bit extra ..

the rest is a matter of PSR/matchscore to propperly reward more supportive than purely aggresive mechs ..

Edited by MrTBSC, 31 December 2021 - 10:47 AM.

[martian]

MrTBSC, on 31 December 2021 - 10:26 AM, said:

the rest is a matter of PSR/matchscore to propperly reward more supportive than purely aggresive mechs ..

Well, the game is called "shooter" ...

[ScrapIron Prime]

MrTBSC, on 31 December 2021 - 10:26 AM, said:

the rest is a matter of PSR/matchscore to propperly reward more supportive than purely aggresive mechs ..

It does cater to that to a certain point. Staying in formation, shooting down missiles, lights and mediums sticking in close proximity to the larger mechs... all those are worth bonus match score points. Not as much as shooting things, of course, but if you're a medium mech and you glue yourself to an assault buddy to shoot what he shoots and cover him in ECM/AMS and keep the fleas off him... it adds up.