140 replies to this topic

[mekabuser]

The title sums it up for me. I started playing mw4 and now play mwll and imo the only thing that matters is that If my guass rifle hits at a glancing angle on the enemy mech,the game mechanics can register the appropriate damage.
To put it another way, I couldnt care less if the graphics are exactly the same as Mw4, I would hope that the first major release of a mw title in ten years would reflect the exponential increase in computing power. The power to "simulate" damage accurately.
It doesnt mean a **** thing how pretty something looks if your ac20 at point blank range does nothing.
NOTHING ruins immersion more in mechwarrior.
I know we got a good dev team here with passion, but I hope more than anything there is at least SoMeOnE ... who knows how important this one aspect is.
THoughts>?

[Erhardt]

I wouldn't hold my breath for that kind of damage model if I were you. Hit detection will be paramount, but burning cycles of code on computing mass and velocity of a Gauss round round vs. angle of attack and density of armor then computing damage applied from there probably isn't in the cards when we're already not getting simple straightforward physical attacks or AI opponents. I'm sure it'll be more along the lines of the traditional "did it hit? yep. apply 15 pts of damage. done"

[Helmer]

Erhardt, on 01 November 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

I wouldn't hold my breath for that kind of damage model if I were you. Hit detection will be paramount, but burning cycles of code on computing mass and velocity of a Gauss round round vs. angle of attack and density of armor then computing damage applied from there probably isn't in the cards when we're already not getting simple straightforward physical attacks or AI opponents. I'm sure it'll be more along the lines of the traditional "did it hit? yep. apply 15 pts of damage. done"

+1 this. Although a more robust damage model would be interesting and could create some interesting gameplay, I think they'll stick for the more traditional way of calculating damage.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Erhardt, on 01 November 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

I wouldn't hold my breath for that kind of damage model if I were you. Hit detection will be paramount, but burning cycles of code on computing mass and velocity of a Gauss round round vs. angle of attack and density of armor then computing damage applied from there probably isn't in the cards when we're already not getting simple straightforward physical attacks or AI opponents. I'm sure it'll be more along the lines of the traditional "did it hit? yep. apply 15 pts of damage. done"

They'll doom this game if they go with a lame *** translation of the TT rules. Piranha needs to take a page out of World of Tanks and implement something more robust and in-line with what can be accomplished in 2011/12.

I don't think a rip-off of MPBT: 3025 (beta) is going to make them any money. It would behoove them to actually, like, y'know... make a good PC game first and worry about some board game rules meant to be calculated by hand written thirty years ago later. They'll doom the game and the IP if they don't put some work into weapon and ballistics models.

[SquareSphere]

World wide players and an extremely wide range of PC spec is always going to make this an issue

[CobraFive]

No, the complexity shouldn't be in minute hit detection. Angle shouldn't matter at all: this would horribly unbalance mechs in ways that can't be anticipated, and it also leads to too many "***?" moments like AC/20 glancing off a Jenner's head because the angle was weird.

The complexity is in the fact that 'mechs don't have a simple "HP" bar. Damage is locational. As long as hit detection works well enough to get that straight, that's plenty fine enough.

[tigerwolf753]

World of Tanks, the ARMA series, and Theatre of War all feature realistic ballistic models accounting for armor thickness, angle of impact, ammo type, velocity, etc. so I don't believe that it is unfeasible to implement in Mechwarrior from the perspective of CPU constraints. Modern computers are more than powerful enough to calculate at least basic ballistics.

[Viking]

tigerwolf753, on 01 November 2011 - 07:35 PM, said:

World of Tanks, the ARMA series, and Theatre of War all feature realistic ballistic models accounting for armor thickness, angle of impact, ammo type, velocity, etc. so I don't believe that it is unfeasible to implement in Mechwarrior from the perspective of CPU constraints. Modern computers are more than powerful enough to calculate at least basic ballistics.

Well, sloped armor is a huge thing when it comes to tank battles. I would imagine that a mech would have a *lot* more sloped surfaces than a tank would, and as mentioned before, would result in weird, often frustrating results. Besides, sloped armor isn't exactly a staple feature of MW or Battletech. It seems like it would be cool, but ultimately would probably be way too much trouble than it's worth.

Edited by Viking, 01 November 2011 - 07:54 PM.

[EagleFire]

Not to mention that almost NO mech in CBT was designed with shell deflection in mind. Hell most mechs have perpendicular surfaces or round sections. Hell just look at the Atlas, good luck trying to get a glancing hit on that thing.

[UncleKulikov]

Client Side hit detection would help a lot of latency issues, and could allow what you see on your screen, to happen to them.

[Space Captain Zor]

Let us not forget: Mech's have reactive vs reflective armor types available to them if I remember correctly. If such a thing is going to be in the level of custom detail on our machines, then that damage mitigation or vulnerability ought to be modeled in, in my opinion.

[Fallen Kell]

Viking, on 01 November 2011 - 07:54 PM, said:

Well, sloped armor is a huge thing when it comes to tank battles. I would imagine that a mech would have a *lot* more sloped surfaces than a tank would, and as mentioned before, would result in weird, often frustrating results. Besides, sloped armor isn't exactly a staple feature of MW or Battletech. It seems like it would be cool, but ultimately would probably be way too much trouble than it's worth.

Actually, it was at least in the books. They would talk all the time about needing to shoot/aim a certain spots on the different mechs due to their being weaknesses there or how they deflected/dispersed a blow by angling the mech in a certain way. It is one of the reasons for the shape of the Hatchman's torso armor (to deflect blows).

[CaveMan]

Count me in with the "tabletop damage model" crowd. A Gauss rifle should do 15 points of damage, the enemy's head should have 9 points of armor and 3 points of structure, and that is that.

I'm much more concerned about the way hits are detected. If the game boils down to who can pay for the fastest internet, it will be hosed!

[Zaptruder]

Do what feels right for a real time simulator. Transliterate the flavour of the game - translating the mechanics as 1:1 as you could would leave a lot to be desired.

For starters, firing rates would all have to be the same - and I'm sure no player would agree that's an intuitive idea.

Also, head armor needs to be beefed up - one shotting a mech might be a staple tension of the board game or books, but in practice, with varying head sizes and the relative ease with which you can hit some of them means that it's a bad idea in gameplay terms.

Also, you'd expect that head of an Atlas to be significantly better armored, intuitively speaking than say... the entire body of a locust.

[CeeKay Boques]

I hope the hitboxes are 1 pixel by 1 pixel, and if your gauss does 15 damage, it does it to a 100 pixel area.

And an armor panel is 400x400 pixels.

Not, the 12. Head, LT,RT,LL RL ...

Did you shoot me in the Hand, wrist, forearm, upper arm or shoulder?

That's what 2012 can add to this game.

[CaveMan]

Zaptruder, on 01 November 2011 - 11:15 PM, said:

Also, head armor needs to be beefed up - one shotting a mech might be a staple tension of the board game or books, but in practice, with varying head sizes and the relative ease with which you can hit some of them means that it's a bad idea in gameplay terms.

Also, you'd expect that head of an Atlas to be significantly better armored, intuitively speaking than say... the entire body of a locust.

I think MW2 basically got this right: the "head" damage region should be restricted to the actual cockpit portion of the head, which is generally a very small target (although there are a few exceptions, like the Urbie, which could do with some careful re-designing), and if the 'Mech animations are done correctly, will be moving quite a bit. So, the faceplate on the Atlas, the bubble canopy on a Stormcrow, etc. As long as there's an appropriate balancing of splash-damage weapons, it will work out.

Besides, the whole point of having every 'Mech have such a vulnerable cockpit in the first place was to make it not impossible for a good light 'Mech pilot to beat an assault 'Mech. Headchopper weapons might seem to dominate, but if the head is a hard target, it will take a hell of a sniper to make them effective, while giving an Atlas' head enough armor that light 'Mechs can't even find a weak spot definitely throws the game to assault 'Mechs.

[Asmudius Heng]

I think there can be some sort of balance here.

Tanks designed on real world stats that take into account the real world scenarios of these things happening are easy to translate into a game. In Mechwarrior (battletech to be mroe prescise) they probably made the mechs look cool first before being functional.

To avoid this being an issue just making sure the shot hits when it looks like it hits and does damage is the most important thing.

However, some level of deflection might be appropriate to differentiate mechs, and to add a little more aiming complexity to the game. However it should be minor not a major factor. IF you take aim carefully you will be rewarded, if you snap shot and glance you should still get damage done but perhaps a little less ... i dunno just a compromise.

It also bring into consideration how aiming works ... most shooters have reduced accuracy when you move and shoot through recoil, sniper sway etc and these are more arcady shooters. Mechs have to bring arms to bear at right angles, line that up with more static chest mountered guns etc ... the MW4 moel wheer you just hit where you aim was easy but it might be nice to take into account the variability so that speed and carefuly aiming also have more reward.

Snap shot guys might hit then, but the shots might scatter all over an enemy rather than all focus fire on the location beign aimed at.

[Name144795]

Easy, go behind a mech, shoot AC20 into the back, problem solved.

All this Hit detection **** is just that, ****. If anything they can use the BT rules, or base it off previous games like MW3-MW4 where damage was on the location of the hit.

[pursang]

Glancing hits would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. It will likely just be a hit-scan based damage model.

[Skoll]

I'd be happy as long as a cockpit hit registers as a cockpit hit and NOT as a midsection hit.

I've used 5 AC 10s on MW 4 before, going for the head, only for it to register as shoulders or torso. It gets annoying.