34 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

I don't think it's too wild to suggest that "Kick and Punch with big robot sound good" is a shared sentiment.

But realistically speaking, how often would this come up, and which weight classes could most effectively utilize it?

Working off the assumption that we go by TT calculations:

• Punches do 1 Damage / 10 tons of mass ( Atlas does 10 per punch, Charger does 8, and a Piranha would do... 2.)
  
• Kicks do 1 Damage / 5 tons of mass (Atlas does 20 per kick)

MW5 exists with a quick boop animation, which is fine for a single player game. I imagine that you'd probably want to have more of a windup before swinging or kicking in a multiplayer environment that has to consider latency, as well as to give a sense of weight to the mech performing the action. It'd be goofy to have something suddenly jab as if it was in a fighting game, completely ignoring the torso rotation speed, no?

Kicks would probably need you to come to a halt, on top of being range limited based on how far the physical leg will actually be allowed to move given the shape of the mech's body. For this reason, we can probably discount this as a likely implementable facet of melee, and ignore it in favor of the more flexible punch.

In the best case scenario for damage and hittability, you have two 300-rated engine 100 ton assaults at point blank, throwing hands at each other for 10 damage a pop, disabling usage of their arm weapons and likely making torso weapon aiming a problem as the chassis twists to perform the punch motion.

In most circumstances, I imagine this isn't a realistic use case. Most mechs have guns to engage just a little beyond smelling distance, and their teammates aren't likely to just sit there and watch what amounts to a slapfight without generously contributing.

Another popular use case is on light mechs, and the perceived puntability of them. "If I could punch these leg humpers would be TERRIFIED of me and I'd come out on top every time!", or something to that effect has probably been said or heard for as long as MWO lights have killed anyone in game ever.

So let's look into that.

Same 100 ton assault trying to punch... Let's say a 20 tonner with no survivability quirks. Once again, this is the equivalent of hitting a light mech in MWO with an AC10 or a PPC, assuming you DO actually manage to hit them with the punch as they scurry around you. But let's give it the best case scenario; the light is RIGHT up against the Assault's crotch, refusing to budge, and the Assault will land each and every shot as the light mech stands perfectly still, firing it's weapons to damage race it.

• Unquirked, an IS 20 tonner has 36 theoretical Front CT HP assuming they just dump everything there and max it out.
  
• Unquirked, an IS 20 tonner has 30 theoretical Front ST HP, with the same assumption.
  
• Let's also just say they didn't put any skill nodes into survivability, because they're all about speed and damage output.

Let's also just give the IS 20 tonner an XL Engine, because that's usually what you'd expect.

This sounds great then! In this example where:

• We have an unquirked 20 tonner with maxed front armor
  
• They stand perfectly still
  
• They don't twist to shield their torsos or spread your damage
  
• They stand RIGHT in front of you within reach of your arms
  
• Nobody is around to interrupt this exchange
  
• You land every single punch in the desired section

You can kill the lightest class in the game with 3 punches to the side torso! 4, if it's a clan mech or you just REALLY want to be sure you off the IS light through the CT.

Though, of course, if the light mech is doing the standard circle of death at 100-200m from the assault, it's unlikely that this will ever happen. So realistically this goes right back to assaults trying to shoot something zipping around at 130-150kph and snapshot it with pinpoint damage in a vital location, or to keep laser burn on target long enough to matter.

Robo Punching feels more like a thing you want to be a thing, because it was a thing in the source material, not because it's actually useful. Without significant damage or range, it feels very much like a weapon of last resort that comes into play when two mechs that only carry ammo, are out of ammo, but still somehow have at least one arm left.

But do let me know if I missed something about how effective melee actually would be, or got a fundamental aspect of the tabletop incorrect.

[BlueDevilspawn]

I posted this elsewhere so posting it here.

Melee would be horrible to adapt into MWO. It's a nostalgic holdover from the TT game where everyone remembers smashing a fist through someone's cockpit.

Why is it bad? First of all, all the mechanics behind it would need to be adapted (e.g., a new weapon with 2m range). What's really bad though would be the actual function. Remember all those times you run into teammates or targets and clip around, bounce off, warped, get stuck? That's the game's collision meshes at work. It's already janky and glitchy and deliberately implementing a higher damage version of it is asking to incentivize that clipping/glitching even more. Hard pass.

[Meep Meep]

We had a melee knockdown mechanic once. It devolved into dragon bowling. I'm good.

[GreyNovember]

I'm not even considering knockdowns as part of this.

I'm just evaluating it as the minimum viable product that it probably will be, if it ever exists, and keeping expectations down.

As hilarious as it would be for mechs to occasionally fall over just because 4 IS ML completed their full burn on target, across all components, I don't think anyone's asking for source accurate knockdowns in good faith when you consider how much damage is slung around in the average QP match.

[Meep Meep]

I guess the point is any attempt at a melee mechanic is going to be glitchy and prone to abuse. Besides the discussion is moot because mwo is no longer in active development past volunteer community balancing and ports of new mechs from the mw5 game with the odd new map once in a while. Something like this would take active dev time and that just ain't happening especially after the recent pgi layoffs.

[LordNothing]

mw5 has this and i never use it.

reason i like batletech/mechwarrior and not some anime mecha is that i prefer fighting with military tech rather than kung-fu. nobody ever karate chopped an a-10 into submission.

Edited by LordNothing, 31 January 2025 - 08:37 PM.

[GreyNovember]

I can say I have used melee.

But only because I was an idiot and walked my mech into clobbering distance against an AI that only understands to move forward-ish and shoot, panicked, and realized I was still cycling my weapons.

So I slapped the enemy mech for minor damage before alphaing again and awkwardly waddling away from it.

In every other circumstance, the only time melee came out was for style points.

[PurplePuke]

Put me down for not interested in melee at all.

[Will9761]

Given the types of players you can run into, it's not worth the risk. While melee may look cool, it will cause a huge amount of headaches in MWO. As I stated in another thread, there are some really petty-minded or childish players who would use this as an opportunity to gut if you didn't get out of their way in time or teamkill you just for fun. How would you like a Hatchetman causing 20 damage to your side torso and destroying your weapon systems because you accidentally got in his way, or a Banshee coring your rear torso with a single punch because he though it was funny? If you have people who would shoot off your bolt-ons for fun or cause team damage because they have beef with you or just to troll you, what would stop them from chopping you up to get you out of their way? It's just not a good system to have when you know people will abuse it.

If I want melee, I'll go to MW5, HBS BattleTech or MegaMek.

Edited by Will9761, 01 February 2025 - 09:36 AM.

[sycocys]

I recall seeing a bunch of variants with rear mounted weapons, if adding some protection from close enemies is the goal wouldn't it be far easier (and probably within PGIs capabilities) to just add a selection of weapons to drop in the ams slot that have a 10-20m range and auto fire?

[kalashnikity]

LordNothing, on 31 January 2025 - 08:37 PM, said:

mw5 has this and i never use it.

reason i like batletech/mechwarrior and not some anime mecha is that i prefer fighting with military tech rather than kung-fu. nobody ever karate chopped an a-10 into submission.

you're missing out, especailly with the Mechlab addon and "yet another ____" mods, You can just about one shot a lot of mechs if you have an assault with an axe and all the melee upgrades.

Yes, getting close can sometimes be challenging, especially since the MW5 ai tends to want to keep it's distance, but there are always good opportunities, especially if you can strategically work for them.

I would love to see it in MW2. Yes, there is a big trade off in weight and hard points, but it can definitely be worth it.

I've had some great success with it in certain scripted missions, especially in ones where CQB is likely, such as in cities.

[kalashnikity]

Put in a turbocharge, work for a bigger engine so you can close easily when the opportunity presents.

there are upgrades like better actuator, a melee gyro, etc, you can bump those numbers up until the axe/sword can take an arm off in one hit, or a couple hits to a torso.

[GreyNovember]

kalashnikity, on 01 February 2025 - 01:18 PM, said:

you're missing out, especailly with the Mechlab addon and "yet another ____" mods, You can just about one shot a lot of mechs if you have an assault with an axe and all the melee upgrades.

Yes, getting close can sometimes be challenging, especially since the MW5 ai tends to want to keep it's distance, but there are always good opportunities, especially if you can strategically work for them.

I would love to see it in MW2. Yes, there is a big trade off in weight and hard points, but it can definitely be worth it.

I've had some great success with it in certain scripted missions, especially in ones where CQB is likely, such as in cities.

At the same time, everything you're suggesting is modded content that tries to make it better than it should be.

Which... I suppose works, if the goal is to increase the numbers.

You'd just have to weigh it against being able to shoot at someone past point blank, and the tendency for anyone who sees you kitted out like that, to not engage you at the distance you want.

PVP, remember?

[GoatHILL]

Meep Meep, on 31 January 2025 - 04:08 PM, said:

We had a melee knockdown mechanic once. It devolved into dragon bowling. I'm good.

Everyone cries about Dragon bowling, the Dragons were bugged with a massive amount of mass, 600,000 tons if I remember right.

Had they had their correct mass it would not have been any different than any other mech.

Had they kept knockdowns the game would have been much better, it spreads the mechs out, it stops ankle biting lights, and it makes brawling a lot more interesting.

[LordNothing]

kalashnikity, on 01 February 2025 - 01:18 PM, said:

you're missing out, especailly with the Mechlab addon and "yet another ____" mods, You can just about one shot a lot of mechs if you have an assault with an axe and all the melee upgrades.

Yes, getting close can sometimes be challenging, especially since the MW5 ai tends to want to keep it's distance, but there are always good opportunities, especially if you can strategically work for them.

I would love to see it in MW2. Yes, there is a big trade off in weight and hard points, but it can definitely be worth it.

I've had some great success with it in certain scripted missions, especially in ones where CQB is likely, such as in cities.

you try doing melee with vr goggles on. yaml, etc never worked with the vr mod for some reason.

Edited by LordNothing, 01 February 2025 - 06:24 PM.

[sycocys]

GoatHILL, on 01 February 2025 - 02:39 PM, said:

Everyone cries about Dragon bowling, the Dragons were bugged with a massive amount of mass, 600,000 tons if I remember right.

Not sure this was the issue because it was equally if not more effective to bowl with Commandos.

[Strelok7]

Yes FOR Melee, BUT with zero team damage.

[GoatHILL]

sycocys, on 02 February 2025 - 04:17 AM, said:

Not sure this was the issue because it was equally if not more effective to bowl with Commandos.

I never saw a Commando knock over heavies or assaults.

In fact a Com worst nightmare was running into an Atlas leg.

[sycocys]

GoatHILL, on 02 February 2025 - 01:56 PM, said:

I never saw a Commando knock over heavies or assaults.

In fact a Com worst nightmare was running into an Atlas leg.

I remember knocking down atlas, and everything else with commando, was great for setting up non-guardable focus fire with a small hitbox.

My understanding is that it had more to do with the acceleration rates versus the tonnage, but that was forever ago.

[kalashnikity]

GreyNovember, on 01 February 2025 - 02:38 PM, said:

At the same time, everything you're suggesting is modded content that tries to make it better than it should be.

Which... I suppose works, if the goal is to increase the numbers.

You'd just have to weigh it against being able to shoot at someone past point blank, and the tendency for anyone who sees you kitted out like that, to not engage you at the distance you want.

PVP, remember?

I haven't research all the various extra stuff in YAML, but I assume it's all cannon.

Yes, there is a big trade off in carrying an axe.

Just like every other weapon system. The farther you can shoot, the less your DPS.

Get down to contact range? Very high DPS.

It would create some very interesting situations in PVP, that's not necessarily a bad thing. .