18 replies to this topic

[mekabuser]

Its important how you die.
This thread assumes ragdoll are part of the deal here for MWO. A confirm or deny if anyone knows is welcome.
Anyways, you all know how gunfights<in the movies> go , the guy takes alot of damage, but then its over.
what do the say in the animes,? awari da!
And hes dead on his feat for 2 seconds and then they fall.
Well , theres no reason not to have that coded in to the death animations like this.

First.. When your dead on your feet, I mean your dead. Your not coming back, your looking out the window, but the mechs gonna go and you cant eject or power down or anything. Its inevitable.
How long?
weight dependant.
commando? 1 sec tops, more like half a second.
atlas.. 3,4? seconds.. its a long time already.

I propose the mech thats dead on its feet be subject to incoming fire at a reduced ragdoll effect.
Once again, imagine those scenes in movies where target x is taking fire.

why do this? its an opportunity to provide variety to the ways mechs die... which is important for the overall feel of the game. A huge amount of variety in death adds serious sauce to the battle that led to the death of mech x.
Its situational because you are expending heat and ammo on a mech that is already dead.
BUT
If you do so, any fire you pour in credited as a live target.

there are definite times that you wont want to waste the resources, but near the end of rounds? into an enemy you know you want to kill? with overwhelming numbers? be nice to be able to add a final shot or two in whatever manner you like

that being said., there should be a certain percentage of hitpoints the mech can take,In Total, before weapons fire initiates whatever "death by fire "animations our devs have prepped for us.
A hunchback enters its1.5-2 second walkin dead window, but gets hit by two mechs.Mech one almost punches all the way through the hunchbacks death armor at .4 seconds, by smashing it in the back shoulder. This sends the hunchback forward and downward , but is followed at .6 seconds by a second blast that destroys it.

If there were No second mech, or additional weapons fire hunchy continues forward, dies by whatever other death animations the devs have.. The fall?, the small explosion.?

But can u imagine?, an assault... and you could plink away at it.. make it dance... you could do all kinds of cool things.. Id imagine an lbx ten to the shoulder and maybe some other fire from the same direction would knock it right over.

Its an exclamation point to the battle.

This whole suggestion can also be further implemented as a variable in the way you die piggybacking the existing system

Edited by mekabuser, 11 March 2012 - 06:36 PM.

[Dlardrageth]

Okay, as long as I get a box I can tick to opt out of this. I personally have no interest at all in "ragdoll dancing" or whatever which adds nothing for me to gameplay itself. And seems an utter waste of bandwidth and computer/graphics resources to me. Perhaps the devs might endeavour coding something like this if they ever sit at their workplaces looking at each other not knowing what to do a given day/week. I somewhat doubt the reality of this scenario, though.

And the whole concept is pretty much averse to the MVP concept the devs admittedly adhere to. The development resources poured into realizing this seem hardly worth it. Because the effective benefit for the game as a whole seems rather negligible. To me. YMMV.

[stabwest]

While this might seem fun to make a dead mech's corpse dance around as if it were bag of meat like a human being shot reapeatedly by a machine gun, it's not very realistic. Especially for the heavy and assualt mechs, once those massive giants start falling in one direction, it would probably take an alpha strike from an assualt to alter it's course it all. Also even though myomers might act like muscles, they don't have the full range of mobilty mainly because they're covered in armor, so I don't think they'll have them go all limp and ragdoll like dragons from Skyrim.

[mekabuser]

oh boy..
For one, i dont think its all that much code.
Second? taking up computer resources? what the hell are you talking about... You mean the same exact resources that were in play while the mech was operational>?

third, you didnt understand what I mean by dance.
Fourth, from what I saw there is some kind of ragdoll in effect already as seen by the jenner getting killed in release vid.. Just dont know if I liked the mechanics of it.

[nubnub]

I do support a little death time - there should be just enough time for me to walk over the downed mech, set throttle to 0, and press 'C' repeatedly...

[mekabuser]

stabwest, on 11 March 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

While this might seem fun to make a dead mech's corpse dance around as if it were bag of meat like a human being shot reapeatedly by a machine gun, it's not very realistic. Especially for the heavy and assualt mechs, once those massive giants start falling in one direction, it would probably take an alpha strike from an assualt to alter it's course it all. Also even though myomers might act like muscles, they don't have the full range of mobilty mainly because they're covered in armor, so I don't think they'll have them go all limp and ragdoll like dragons from Skyrim.

yes... but a heavy getting hit by an assault in the shoulder Should be evidenced by some movement... probably a pretty good amount in that scenario.. Furthermore, i dont know if I put it in OP but I thought I said a reduced rag doll , a percentage so its not overly dramatic..
iirc, transformers movies kinda did a good job illustrating what Im thinking.

[mekabuser]

nubnub, on 11 March 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

I do support a little death time - there should be just enough time for me to walk over the downed mech, set throttle to 0, and press 'C' repeatedly...

actually, the thought occured to me in OP that it could be... teabagging, just with weapons...
Not that I condone that. Essentially, how and where you shoot your weapons dictates the tone.

[Kleine Vidan]

I dunno. I think this can be a sort of implementation, as well. Imagine having to be in a team game where you're pretty much the heaviest thing in your group. Everyone else is a glass cannon. You know you won't make it when your mech's about to die on you. But there's still a chance for the team to win. The enemy focuses their fire on your dead-standing mech, closing in for more carnage. wasting their ammo. all the while, your teammate behind you isn't getting hit and is getting ready to fire all his weapons the moment you go down. BAM! surprises for everyone.

Or perhaps your lancemate decides to stay behind and act as a wall with his/her dead-standing mech, buying you precious seconds you can use to go ahead and finish an objective that would basically mean victory for your group.

[Kenyon Burguess]

players shouldnt be allowed to punish other players mechs, no matter how cool it might look. i hope the kill damage sets a cutoff in the repair costs.

[ChapeL]

That's the kind of death animations I'd like to see, mostly gyro failiures, critical engine hits, ammo explosions. Rarely does a mech get its engine shot straight out of its back ( I'm exagerating a bit ), so you have mechs falling down like buildings in an earthquake or staying upright when the engine ( or pilot ) ceases to function, like that first catapult at the 0:25 second mark. ( and notice that it's still up even though clearly out when the rest of the CSJ star comes walking by ) I thin the only one that gives us a "stackpole boom" is the Timber Wolf.

I'd rather not see mechs fall down like a puppet whose strings have been cut... or blow up every time...à la MW4. Again I find myself pointing at MW3 for an acceptable compromise.

[Kleine Vidan]

Geist Null, on 11 March 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

players shouldnt be allowed to punish other players mechs, no matter how cool it might look. i hope the kill damage sets a cutoff in the repair costs.

I don't think "punishing" is the goal when the OP suggested this particular idea. It's more like a possible reaction for mechs that have lost power or cease function to just stay there, standing, as if it was powered down in a hangar... not always exploding as soon as it's thrashed.
(IMHO, a mech exploding so suddenly just because it lost the use of both legs in MW4 doesn't really make such a convincing defeat.) As such, it should still behave as a persistent, interactable object in the game... until it really goes BOOM, or falls into pieces. Notice a few mechwarrior games where you find an unoccupied mech, powered down and such... it still takes hits and damages... you can shoot it and it jerks or topples over when you hit it?

the OP suggested to implement that kind of interactivity against defeated mechs in-game, and give more plausible destruction/defeat animations in a mech's repertoire other than just blowing up. Kind of like how dead tanks just stay on the ground without having to just explode. That video cutscene posted above shows the possibilities.

[Polymorphyne]

Try watching the gameplay/interview video- you can clearly see what direction they are going with death animations.

[mekabuser]

Geist Null, on 11 March 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

players shouldnt be allowed to punish other players mechs, no matter how cool it might look. i hope the kill damage sets a cutoff in the repair costs.

no, once the death walk timer starts the dead mech is not penalized with additional damage/repair. Its just for the attacker to decide whether its worth the ammo/heat for the joy of putting rounds in the enemy mech. I would say that the person firing would get credit for damage on target, however that will be implemented by devs.
Basically , I am hoping for at least the variety we currently have in MWLL with additional features that should be able to be implemented by a pro team with financial backing as apposed to a volunteer mod with serious manpower and engine constraints.

[Shai tan]

I`m all for anything that adds dramaticly to my immersion factor. To denounce anything that doesn`t add to the gameplay when you are clearly out of THE gameplay is not logical. You are dead effectively, and if my seeing your dramatic death adds to my immersion, I want it.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I'm up for physics based death animations. Ragdoll and the like. BTW you can get limits on ragdoll and even AI behaviors so it looks more realistic. They don't just have to crumple. Its always neat to see them spin in realistic ways rather than just play the same death animation.

[Dihm]

I rather enjoy the locked limb falldown from the gameplay video for mech destruction/shutdown falling.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Dihm, on 12 March 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

I rather enjoy the locked limb falldown from the gameplay video for mech destruction/shutdown falling.

Its fine the first 100 times, but wouldn't it be cooler if every death was different? Maybe different ragdoll settings if the engine died, the gyro died, the pilot died, etc. There are a ton of different settings in ragdoll programs to get different looks. Its just a matter of tuning it.

[Dihm]

Of course, but first I'd like them to focus their animation power on making sure all the mechs move in a unique manner while alive.

[Vininator]

How about a city block leveling explosion like in Mechassault?