19 replies to this topic

[Gryz]

As someone whose played just about everything battletech/mechwarrior out there I can say the biggest fault Mechwarrior 3 and Mechwarrior 4 had is you didn't feel like you were piloting a giant machine of destruction.

I love mouse look on my first person shooters so this sticking point sort of even causes me pause. Mechwarrior 2 was AWESOME probably the best in-cockpit game to date (mechcommander games were probably on par in my opinion). Honestly why was MW2 so good? Because of it's clunky controls. Using the entire keyboard to try and line up your shots or using a joystick felt natural. When the change to mouse look came you had this clunky moving robot that could somehow move his arms as nimbly as a spry elf.

The only fixes I could think of for this would be to make the mouse sensitivity really low, but since you can change your DPI on a mouse people can get around this.

Mechs' shouldn't feel spry! I want to feel each foot plant and feel the gears turn when I twist the torso and the cannons on my arms raise when adjust for height. Imagine playing an A1 Abrams simulator where you can spin your turret like a top! not very realistic is it? Mechs are the TANKS of this universe they need to feel like tanks!

SCALING is important I remember the mechwarrior games for the Xbox felt like sort of average sized sort of midsized robots and jumping on buildings. I want to STEP on buildings in an atlas well... small buildings. SCALE is important.

[Brixx]

A topic like this has been posted like 10 minutes ago already. http://mwomercs.com/...feel-like-fats/
But again... yes... I think thats possible. Shouldn´t be that kind of a problem with new graphics/physics engine anyway imho. Every no/low-budget game has working physics nowadays show adding in the feeling of sluggishness while piloting a 100tonner should be doable.

[Havoc2]

-1 to this.

This isn't 1990 (Robot Jox anyone?). This is set in the 31st century.
Think of how the Transformers movies look. Maybe not "spry" but the actions should be fluid.
Look at any videos of an M1A1 Abrams tank in action, shooting while moving at 60MPH, how smoothly (and fairly quickly) the turret can move around. This is what the movement of 'Mechs should be thought to be.

[mbt201188]

I agree with you. Battlemechs are massive massive vehicles and should feel as such.

[Amarus Cameron]

Neg my friend, sorry but with myomer muscle technology mechs move much more similarly to humans than not.

[Brixx]

}{avoc, on 03 November 2011 - 11:51 AM, said:

-1 to this.

This isn't 1990 (Robot Jox anyone?). This is set in the 31st century.
Think of how the Transformers movies look. Maybe not "spry" but the actions should be fluid.
Look at any videos of an M1A1 Abrams tank in action, shooting while moving at 60MPH, how smoothly (and fairly quickly) the turret can move around. This is what the movement of 'Mechs should be thought to be.

Again my main moto: Balance is the key. Don´t overdo it but don´t let it feel like you are piloting a papermech. You just can´t undo the laws of physics. You move 100 tons of metal... it should feel like that.

[Gryz]

My point is I don't want MechWarrior to feel like a First person shooter. It is for all intents and purposes a tank simulator of giant robots. If you want a first person shooter go play the 10,000 out there (I do) but I expect and want mechwarrior to feel different. I want to feel like my movements have purpose. Circle strafing an opponent 10 feet away using your mouse to stay on target. Is that really what you imagine 100ton battlemechs to do in the 31st century?

[Gryz]

}{avoc, on 03 November 2011 - 11:51 AM, said:

-1 to this.

This isn't 1990 (Robot Jox anyone?). This is set in the 31st century.
Think of how the Transformers movies look. Maybe not "spry" but the actions should be fluid.
Look at any videos of an M1A1 Abrams tank in action, shooting while moving at 60MPH, how smoothly (and fairly quickly) the turret can move around. This is what the movement of 'Mechs should be thought to be.

So you disagreed with me to agree with me? If you want to play transformers there's a very good game called War For Cybertron that is a transformers game. If you want fast mechs there are plenty of that too. Armored Core series is very good. These are giant mechs that should behave like such.

Amarus Cameron, on 03 November 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

Neg my friend, sorry but with myomer muscle technology mechs move much more similarly to humans than not.

Humans in giant clunky armor and heatsinks maybe. There is still reaction times to be considered. And moving through the uncountable tons of plating on top of those muscles that have to be pushed through.

I think the easiest solution would be 2 separate reticules where your mouse is and where your arms are. maybe Missile salvo's would be an exception they are modified though by flight time.

[saber15]

Amarus Cameron, on 03 November 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

Neg my friend, sorry but with myomer muscle technology mechs move much more similarly to humans than not.

You aren't carrying around 40 tons of cannons armor, and ammo on the highest point in your body, however. The torso would have a huge amount of inertia when turning.

[Joel47]

So make it so that mouse-look works as normal -- but the targeting reticule follows more slowly. You get flanked, you turn to look, then wait (seemingly forever) for your 100-tonner to turn to face the new enemy.

[Perfecto Oviedo]

I actually thought Mech 3 did a great job making it feel like you were piloting something that actually had weight, more than Mech 2 did. Mech 4 felt like a ****** arcade shooter. Shouldn't be anything like Mech 4

[Phytochrome]

Gryz, on 03 November 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

I think the easiest solution would be 2 separate reticules where your mouse is and where your arms are. maybe Missile salvo's would be an exception they are modified though by flight time.

Joel47, on 03 November 2011 - 02:51 PM, said:

So make it so that mouse-look works as normal -- but the targeting reticule follows more slowly. You get flanked, you turn to look, then wait (seemingly forever) for your 100-tonner to turn to face the new enemy.

I like these ideas. Have the player move the reticle and then the arms "catch up" with it, perhaps moving past the aim point due to inertia and then correcting. Taking a shot when the arms first line up (before overcorrection) would depend on the player's reactions (and perhaps other factors like the mech's balance and movement) and would allow skilled players to gain an edge in combat. How heavy-burdened the mech arm in question is might also play a role. For example, the heavily-armoured arm of an Atlas might take longer to acquire your reticle than the gun-pod on the side of a Jenner. Heavier, clumsier mechs would need to trust in their armour, firepower, positioning and lance-mates to prevent faster, nimbler mechs from running circles around them.

[Phytochrome]

And to return to the original topic of the thread, I think a good way to emphasise the size/power of mechs would be to have differing servo noises for the various models or weight classes. If you think about it, the motors turning an Atlas' torso are working under quite different conditions than those in a Jenner's torso, and perhaps they'd sound different to reflect this. It makes intuitive sense that a big scary assault mech would sound more intimidating in motion as well.

[ice trey]

Gryz, on 03 November 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

Mechs' shouldn't feel spry! I want to feel each foot plant and feel the gears turn when I twist the torso and the cannons on my arms raise when adjust for height. Imagine playing an A1 Abrams simulator where you can spin your turret like a top! not very realistic is it? Mechs are the TANKS of this universe they need to feel like tanks!

I partly agree with you, this being one of the few exceptions. The "Spry"-ness of a 'mech should be proportional to it's weight class and engine speed. A Jenner is going to be light and zippy. If it isn't, that means that speed has little effect on gameplay, and we find ourselves back in the "Bigger is Better" Category of many of the earlier mechwarrior games. Mechs are not the tanks of this universe. Tanks are the tanks of this universe - the designers just saw fit to remove them from this game (and the last designers saw fit to make tanks out of paper and dynamite). Mechs are the monolithic war machines made from Steel, diamond weave, and Myomer bundles. In universe, they are supposed to be even more nimble than any of the Mechwarrior games have rendered them (Due to programming restrictions).

But I do agree with you that the scaling was WAY off in the Mechwarrior games. A Mech is between 8 to 14 meters tall, but every game made it feel like the 'mechs were only about man-sized toys walking around a miniature landscape full of christmas-trees and fridge-crate buildings. Care needs to be taken to make that even that 30-ton war machine feel like it's a 30-ton war machine, that you're perched 10 meters above the ground in it's cockpit, and that a "fall" in a mech should give players vertigo.

Edited by ice trey, 03 November 2011 - 03:44 PM.

[Heatsink Junkie]

On one hand I agree with the op in spirit, why I'm excited for this game, why I loved my previous time with this series was that this was does really well and the immersion impressed me, moments had the weight and controls had the feel of attempting to control a giant metal biped, and I never sesce t be impressed on how well this felling came across on the other hand, I'm not sure about the examples he uses to found his worries, as my only prevoius experience in this franchise was mechwarroir 4, which he insists lacked in this area. wait, the other thing this could mean (besides the op's conclusions being wrong or objective) is that mw4 does all this all a scale impressive to someone knew to the franchise, mw2 does it better? should I just take this as a recomendation to get mw2?

[ice trey]

Heatsink Junkie, on 03 November 2011 - 04:18 PM, said:

On one hand I agree with the op in spirit, why I'm excited for this game, why I loved my previous time with this series was that this was does really well and the immersion impressed me, moments had the weight and controls had the feel of attempting to control a giant metal biped, and I never sesce t be impressed on how well this felling came across on the other hand, I'm not sure about the examples he uses to found his worries, as my only prevoius experience in this franchise was mechwarroir 4, which he insists lacked in this area. wait, the other thing this could mean (besides the op's conclusions being wrong or objective) is that mw4 does all this all a scale impressive to someone knew to the franchise, mw2 does it better? should I just take this as a recomendation to get mw2?

Mechwarrior 2... doesn't really do it better, but that's more due to graphical limitations. Mechwarrior 3 got the size closer to right (also the sounds. Those footsteps were thunderous) Mechwarrior 4, though - the whole game felt too cartoony. The colors were too bright, paint jobs too clean, and buildings didn't feel like buildings so much as boxy lumps next to you. The key thing is that the way the 'mechs were animated and rendered - it made them feel like itty-bitty toys. Man-sized at the largest, and that the rest of the world was scaled to fit. When you saw the little sprites running along the ground of deer or pit teams, they didn't feel like they were man-sized, they felt like miniscule bugs that got in your way.

There are ways to trick the eye into making it think that something is bigger or smaller. Mechwarrior 4 did not so much as try to achieve this. The closest it came was by adding camera-shakes as your 'mech walked during cut-scenes.

Edited by ice trey, 03 November 2011 - 06:44 PM.

[Havoc2]

Gryz, on 03 November 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

So you disagreed with me to agree with me? If you want to play transformers there's a very good game called War For Cybertron that is a transformers game. If you want fast mechs there are plenty of that too. Armored Core series is very good. These are giant mechs that should behave like such.

Never did I mention I wanted to play Transformers, I don't want to play Heavy Gear or Shogo:MAD. I want a freaking MW/BT game that I can enjoy again.

'Mechs shouldn't feel like a 1950s block on block on block robot. No, I don't want it to feel like a COD FPS but 'Mechs shouldn't feel "clunky" just to give you the impression that you're piloting a giant robot.

Should 100 tons of steel feel slower/less responsive than a 35 tonner? Definitely, but not by going backwards with technology. Scaling can be given by your surroundings/environment.

The devs mentioned joystick support. To me this means that the reticle will move significantly slower than your standard FPS mouse look.
Can you imagine trying to draw a bead with a joystick controller if the targeting was that quick?

Hopefully, the targeting is similar to MW4 (I hate to refer to any MicroSoft product in a positive manner) but with more responsive 'Mech handling.

As said, myomer muscles and gyros were designed to give the 'Mechs a responsiveness similar to that of a live person.

[Razor Kotovsky]

First person only solves this.

[pcunite]

The original video showed robot movement to be just fine I think. The devs will get it right.

[Heatsink Junkie]

Razor Kotovsky, on 04 November 2011 - 04:30 AM, said:

First person only solves this.

ice trey, on 03 November 2011 - 06:43 PM, said:

Mechwarrior 2... doesn't really do it better, but that's more due to graphical limitations. Mechwarrior 3 got the size closer to right (also the sounds. Those footsteps were thunderous) Mechwarrior 4, though - the whole game felt too cartoony. The colors were too bright, paint jobs too clean, and buildings didn't feel like buildings so much as boxy lumps next to you. The key thing is that the way the 'mechs were animated and rendered - it made them feel like itty-bitty toys. Man-sized at the largest, and that the rest of the world was scaled to fit. When you saw the little sprites running along the ground of deer or pit teams, they didn't feel like they were man-sized, they felt like miniscule bugs that got in your way.

There are ways to trick the eye into making it think that something is bigger or smaller. Mechwarrior 4 did not so much as try to achieve this. The closest it came was by adding camera-shakes as your 'mech walked during cut-scenes.

I should have mentioned this earlier, but I should also mention that all said proir experience was frist person, and I that boxy lumps thing was also a graphical limitation, as well as this, point the poster made made, I think his photo makes anouther good point, in that it appears to be from a human outside a cockpit prospective, I think at least a small section of the game being on foot through the same exact same map you take a mech through later would serve a great purpose in establishing scale, if the buldings feel like buldings when not controling a mech, then when you see the exact same buldings (as the map is the same it would really be you controling a larger object) realtivitly it would set the scale going forward, allso, this is helped would be helped greatly if there was some methoid for steroscoping consolidation, that being that the viewpoint in the map iis not one point that then shows up on your screen from that prespective, but two at the scale distance that would be the scale between the eyes, merdging a "3D" visualization in to somethign along the lines of something drawn towards a vanashing point, since this distortion factor of the distance between the two "eye" input points could be scaled, this would add anouther factor for frist person view giving a sence of size, since its your same eyes in the larger body essentally. (if anyone knows.... what would the approved feild of study for having a clue about what ever I was trying to talk about be? that wants to correct or eloberate on this, plese do.) for that reason, I think a sense of scale cant really be done in third person, so yah...