44 replies to this topic

[Steel Prophet]

Maybe take a look at one of your old Mech sheets for the Awesome :-) I don't think that has changed a lot in the past 25 years.

[Darksteps]

As far as the whole 'legging' is dishonorable BS... think of that like this. You're on the open seas in a destroyer and a battleship comes over the horizon **** bent on killing you and every man or woman on board. Do you try and take out all his weapons, bridge, and crew or do you try to sink that sucker. Or when running against tanks, is taking out their treads thus immobilizing them dishonorable or tactically sound?

The people that feel that legging is dishonorable are the morons that are stacking the armor up top leaving their legs unprotected. If you're that stupid, then you deserve to be legged.

And considering that this game is being built on Cryengine 2, which is a physic dependent engine, taking out the legs would be a sound decision when the thing you're attacking is top heavy anyway. MW4 was the game where they tried to take legging out by over armoring the legs, but give a good pilot a good choice of weaponry and that leg will come off easier than that torso. The gentleman's war went out with the Civil War, you don't stand in line formation and stare your opponent down on the battlefield waiting for the official to call the time and start firing. The only honor that truly exists in war, is don't shoot the non-combatants, i.e. civilians.

So if you have legs on your mech, unless they've changed the rules and put in the HKs from Terminator in the game, being a sniper, I'll sit back and wait and trip you up as often as I can. Assuming they stick to canon and allow legging. If not, I'll just have to charge or DFA you, if they put that in the game. If none of it goes in the game, I'll stick to BF3 where some degree of realism exists.

Edited by Darksteps, 26 August 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[Tyrnea Smurf]

in the original mechwarrior 'legging' was a good tactic as I recall. Doesn't seem to be in this one, as in the original mechwarrior once the mech was down, it was down (you could try to stand back up, but anything and everything would knock you back over, damaging you in the process) in this version of the game the rule looks like hit it where its as big a target as it can be to try and take out weapons, engine, or if your incredibly lucky getting a head shot in.

[Tamanier]

In MW2 legging did produce a kill, but I believe in MW2:Mercs and MW3 it did not.if I recall correctly. Don't know anything about MW4, I deleted that game after seeing the mech build screen...

[Hellgardia]

Darksteps, on 26 August 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

As far as the whole 'legging' is dishonorable BS... think of that like this. You're on the open seas in a destroyer and a battleship comes over the horizon **** bent on killing you and every man or woman on board. Do you try and take out all his weapons, bridge, and crew or do you try to sink that sucker. Or when running against tanks, is taking out their treads thus immobilizing them dishonorable or tactically sound?

The people that feel that legging is dishonorable are the morons that are stacking the armor up top leaving their legs unprotected. If you're that stupid, then you deserve to be legged.

And considering that this game is being built on Cryengine 2, which is a physic dependent engine, taking out the legs would be a sound decision when the thing you're attacking is top heavy anyway. MW4 was the game where they tried to take legging out by over armoring the legs, but give a good pilot a good choice of weaponry and that leg will come off easier than that torso. The gentleman's war went out with the Civil War, you don't stand in line formation and stare your opponent down on the battlefield waiting for the official to call the time and start firing. The only honor that truly exists in war, is don't shoot the non-combatants, i.e. civilians.

So if you have legs on your mech, unless they've changed the rules and put in the HKs from Terminator in the game, being a sniper, I'll sit back and wait and trip you up as often as I can. Assuming they stick to canon and allow legging. If not, I'll just have to charge or DFA you, if they put that in the game. If none of it goes in the game, I'll stick to BF3 where some degree of realism exists.

Actually the game is being built on the CryEngine 3...

On-Topic - I agree that legging is a viable attack plan. If you don't want to get legged, don't under armor the legs...

[LackofCertainty]

Some quick info from dev updates and such that invalidates a lot of the speculation in this thread:

In Mechwarrior Online, destroying 1 leg doesn't prone a mech. Instead they are slowed down. (limping basically) If both legs are destroyed, then the mech is killed.

In Mechwarrior Online, Lasers are damage over time weapons. In other words, when you click to fire, the laser stays on for somewhere around a second. During that time it deals damage to whatever it is hitting. So lasers are more likely to spread damage over multiple locations, and are less effective at punching through/coring one location.

In Mechwarrior Online, weapons are not pinpoint accurate to your cursor. There is convergence where, whatever you're currently aiming at, your weapons will slowly adjust to be "zeroed" at that distance. Example: If I am aiming at an enemy that is 50m away, then abruptly turn and fire at an enemy 600m away, then my weapon systems will still all converge at a point 50m away from me. This means that A. it's harder to do pinpoint accurate shots than it was in any other mechwarrior game. and B. that aiming at a leg is a riskier proposal. If you aim for CT and convergence makes your weapons off, you'll still probably hit RT/LT or at worst RA/LA. If you're aiming for legs on the other hand, convergence might make some of your shots completely miss.

To sum up:
1. Destroying 1 leg only slows mechs down.
2. Lasers do damage over time, so it's harder to core out one specific location.
3. Convergence makes leg shots more risky than just aiming for center mass.

Hopefully that gives you guys some ideas as to why beta vids rarely show people aiming for legs.

[OneThousandNoms]

SakuranoSenshi, on 25 August 2012 - 11:22 PM, said:

Technically, you do indeed breach NDA talking about this. PGI have not publicly detailed armour values and the like, for one. Anyway, point is that as the man says, there's no good reason to shoot legs unless all you want to do is slow someone down (and they're still harder to hit than the torso and arms taken as one large area).

I wouldn't say he's breached the NDA about this, personally. If i'm not mistaken, PGI is trying to follow as closely as is logical to the rules already laid down, so it could be that he's simply quoting the values from TT or earlier games.

[Caballo]

Darksteps, on 26 August 2012 - 09:20 AM, said:

Legs are easy to hit moving or not, mechs legs don't move very fast. If you're using any kind of laser once you find the player's lag, it's actually quite easy.

...Throws and... missed

[Agent KI7KO]

SakuranoSenshi, on 25 August 2012 - 11:22 PM, said:

Technically, you do indeed breach NDA talking about this. PGI have not publicly detailed armour values and the like, for one. Anyway, point is that as the man says, there's no good reason to shoot legs unless all you want to do is slow someone down (and they're still harder to hit than the torso and arms taken as one large area).

Well established rules say hi. They'll have to change A LOT if legs can't be heavily armored.

Also "no legging" rules sprouted from people who put only a tiny fraction of armor on their legs and expect no one to shoot there. If you have rapid fire weapons you could technically hunt for players doing this and leg them, if any of the previous MW games are to be believed.

[Azurszem]

Tamanier, on 26 August 2012 - 11:52 PM, said:

In MW2 legging did produce a kill, but I believe in MW2:Mercs and MW3 it did not.if I recall correctly. Don't know anything about MW4, I deleted that game after seeing the mech build screen...

I did not play MW2 but in MW3 if you destroyed one leg that indeed count as a kill, the mech was destroyed. In MW4 destroying a leg merely slowed down a mech and you had to destroy both legs to kill it. Thats why in MW4 it was easier to just CT a mech and get a kill.

Edited by Azurszem, 27 August 2012 - 04:05 AM.

[Banekane]

Ghostrider45 hope that dont break the NDA

[Haroldwolf]

Darksteps, on 25 August 2012 - 07:30 PM, said:

Why doesn't anyone ever go for leg shots? All I ever see people aiming at are torsos and arms. Take out the legs, prone the mech, and stomp him into the ground.

Trying to shoot the legs off a mech that is moving like a Jack Russel Terrier is pretty tough. Torso shots are easier.

[Z0MBIE Y0SHI]

While I don't think I can get into real details as to why legging is entirely situational in MWO...

What I can tell you is if you immediately go for the legs first, you will die and your killer will walk away with all weapons intact. In other words your team is down a guy and you accomplished nothing except being an annoyance.

[Eegxeta]

SnakeShady, on 25 August 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

I think legging can be a useful stragy if it renedered the mech unable to move, if no, fogetaboutit!

Yes and now all I've lost is some manuvaverbility and you would lose your mech. Have you actually tried shooting the legs of a mech? It is one of the hardest shots to make and that is coming from logic and my experiance in MW4. The legs are moving fast and, small target to begin with, and most importantly will only kill a mech if you destroy both. You also have to remember the guy isn't just going to sit there and let you do it he will try to kill you and he will because you aren't trying to kill him.

[Renthrak]

Based on the focus of the discussion in this thread, perhaps I am in the vast minority. I acquired a habit of leg targeting for the sake of salvage. There doesn't tend to be much valuable equipment in the legs, so destroying one or both usually leaves most of the Mech's payload intact. Depending upon the game, this would also allow the whole Mech to be salvaged and repaired.

From that perspective, the system in MWO eliminates the legs as a primary target. With no direct salvage system, there is no point in preserving the equipment on your opponent's Mech. Aside from that, other reasons to target the torso have already been mentioned.

[Vermaxx]

As was said by someone who checked what we are allowed to say:

One leg destroyed slows a mech. There is no fall check, it just slows way-the-heeell down.

TWO legs destroyed kills a mech. Given people often have 30+ armor in each leg and you have to kill both (80, math is awesome) PLUS internal structure points, you're probably looking at 70-90 points of damage to kill a mech with legs.

An XL engine lets you kill a mech with a side torso hit. A center torso kill ALWAYS kills a mech. It is also bigger, not flying back and forth in a running motion, and generally right at base aim level. It's also probably half the damage you need to kill both legs.

[Felicitatem Parco]

By default, an Atlas 7D (the generic, Prime variant) has less than 1/2 the armor of a single leg on its Rear Center Torso, and only 1/4 the armor of a single leg on its Rear Side Torsos...

Back-shots are better than Leg shots, if you have a choice. And if you can't go for the back, then the front Center Torso has only 20% more armor than a single leg on it... so good luck shooting both legs off an Atlas.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 27 August 2012 - 10:51 AM.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Afoxi, on 27 August 2012 - 03:59 AM, said:

Well established rules say hi. They'll have to change A LOT if legs can't be heavily armored.

Also "no legging" rules sprouted from people who put only a tiny fraction of armor on their legs and expect no one to shoot there. If you have rapid fire weapons you could technically hunt for players doing this and leg them, if any of the previous MW games are to be believed.

None of which at all touches on what I said. The poster was speaking from his knowledge in the beta or at least it could be assumed he was, however, the mechanics discussed are essentially those of the tabletop game too, so... discussing where they do really differ would certainly breach the NDA (without first getting permission, at least). What exactly was your point again? :-)

[Kdogg788]

It was a viable tactic in Solaris, however people complained endlessly about it and whether it was "dishonorable" or not. It does sound a bit unrealistic for a mech in motion to be hit with enough damage to destroy a leg and not fall. A heavy mech like an Atlas is going to have heavy armor nearly everywhere, so it's still realistic and sometimes safer to target the legs with hit and run attacks when using a smaller machine. Hitting the thighs has not been difficult in any MW/BT game.

I can still recall though the slow motion toppling of legged mechs in Solaris, and the typed angry responses of the victims, hehe.

-k

[Banekane]

as i said before ill say it again some mechs will use legs for storage of ammo and is by all rights a feasible target to take out the ammo as well as cripple the mech as if you hit a ammo storage in the legs with a crit as devs already said you have a chance to blow up their ammo storage as with a all beam energy mech the only point of hitting the legs would to either slow it down but as many have said you don't really want to wast your ammo on non vital targets it is better to aim at weapons or possible ammo stores than to stop its movement just cause a mech has no legs doesn't mean it cant fight if there is working weapons a mech halted can still fire weapons if it still has power to fight