172 replies to this topic

[Jeff K Notagoon]

Thanks for agreeing I guess?

Unless you somehow think that atlases being super easy to headshot is good for balance

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

SpiralRazor, on 08 December 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

Stalker on the 18th, cockpit like the Catapult. Dont see an issue?

Take another look at the Stalker concept art. The cockpit on that thing is up high and heavily shrouded in armor, which is a far cry from the huge window on the end of the nose that the Catapult has.

I don't see any issue with the Stalker head.

[Seanamal]

Yeah it's a ***** to HS an Atlas, but not impossible.

First: It's high up on the head, so either: wait for him to overheat and shut down, or get above him somehow.

Second it's the right side eye when facing him (his left eye) ONLY. No hits to the side or back, those will be torso hits.

Third: It's a tiny hitbox that's especially hard to hit with torso mounted weapons.

Fourth: It's got like 22 health, you'll need an AC/20 and a couple srms or lasers to assure destruction.

That said, I've done it on more than one occasion. Sometimes more than once in a match. It ain't impossible, just really hard.

[Tarman]

ODonovan, on 08 December 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

Exactly the point. For playability purposes, the Catapult should not be any easier to kill with a headshot than an Atlas. Likewise, the Atlas should be a BIT easier to kill, rather than having to basically rely on the occasional lucky shot. The heads of the 'mechs were traditionally their weak spot. The game does need to reflect that vulnerability a bit more on the Atlas and a bit less on other 'mechs which still have relatively huge head hitboxes.

After all, if the argument which got the Atlas' hitbox reduced was that it shouldn't be as large as the entire head area because then they were too easy to kill and useless ingame, why isn't that principle just as valid for other 'mechs with large cockpits like the Catapult?

Standardize the size. Be fair to EVERYONE!



-Irish

Do you also wish to standardize the weights and hardpoints? After all, they operate differently. The mechs are being designed to operate differently as much as possible, even within variants. It gives them character and lets people find a ride that fits them as closely as possible. It's a game development decision, and the whole point of having different vehicles in the first place. They're not SUPPOSED to be the same. Because they are not the same. That's what makes picking one over another have any point at all.

They are fully realized three-dimensional models operating inside a 3d realtime combat environment. Having them be highly similar takes a huge amount of the flavour of the game completely away. That makes not balanced gaming, but identical and boring gaming. Symmetry =/= balance. Making things the same does not mean that any balance has been achieved, only that variety has been removed.

[Shadowsword8]

I'd say less than 0.5% of mechs deaths are the result from headshots. So, does it really matter? The Atlas head is not invulnerable, I sometimes end matchs with damaged head armor. But I could say the same about any other mech. So it seems balanced to me. Or, if it isn't, it is so minor it is negligible in practice, that it should be assigned the lowest of priorities.

Edited by Shadowsword8, 08 December 2012 - 10:42 PM.

[Kaijin]

Tarman, on 08 December 2012 - 09:53 PM, said:

Do you also wish to standardize the weights and hardpoints?

1 energy hardpoint on a mech is the same as 1 energy hardpoint on another mech. 1 ML does the same damage whichever mech it's put on. We already have standardization in place. It seems really unbalanced that the mech capable of carrying the heaviest weapon load and the most armor has the most difficult head hitbox as well. But hey - I'm all for keeping it hard to hit, provided all the other mechs have equally difficult to hit ones.

Shadowsword8, on 08 December 2012 - 10:41 PM, said:

I'd say less than 0.5% of mechs deaths are the result from headshots.

You'd be wrong if you said that. Catapults die quite frequently to headshots. Hunchbacks, Cataphracts, and Awesomes too.

[Asmosis]

Duncan Fisher, on 06 December 2012 - 09:15 PM, said:

It's in no way invulnerable, just shoot CT like usual. The Atlas is so big and slow as is, if headshots were as simple as pinging one of those giant eyes it'd be a death trap.

You missed the point entirely. The HEAD is invulnerable, not the CT. thats the problem.

I've used dual gauss to try and get a headshot on a shutdown, 100% health Atlas, all the time in the world. I ended up coring him without doing any damage to his head, while shooting directly at his eye.

It is a problem dispite what atlas pilots will tell you. Same thing with catapult head being too large.

I'm not suggesting it be the entire head like it used to be (thats just silly) but it should be approximately the same size as the other mechs hitboxes. Currently its about 20% the size of normal ones and 10% of a catapults.

Edited by Asmosis, 08 December 2012 - 10:52 PM.

[Glythe]

LethalMezzle, on 06 December 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Back in the earlier days of Closed Beta, the Atlas' head hitbox was the size of his head and not his cockpit window. As a result the Atlas was laughably easy to kill. Hence why the hitbox is so small now.

It's fine the way it is, the Atlas is supposed to be able to take a lot of punishment.

^ This.

It takes a lot of skill or lots of LRMs to blow out the head of an Atlas now. Before it was a joke. The Atlas is designed to be hard to kill and it feels perfect right where it is.

[SpiralRazor]

I honestly do not believe these other guys saying they got headshots with a snap of there fingers. It happens rarely, if at all, and is more luck then skill based.

Most times when an Atlas has head damage, its because of missile blasts doing partial damage to the head box simply from splash.

I repeat, the Atlas headbox should not require luck to hit...this game isnt rolling dice(except UAC5). Its based on aiming skill, and ive run the test to prove it...and also spent a long, long time in the Atlas chassis back when the mech tree first came in.

Aiming skill needs to be rewarded. Its quite easy for me to kill Catapults, Hunchbacks, Cataphracts, and Awesomes if they overheat. Once I really started to shoot Dragons and Jenners and observed the effects, i learned how to head them if they shut down as well.

Only the Atlas is ridiculous.

It needs to be reevaluated.

Edited by SpiralRazor, 09 December 2012 - 03:17 AM.

[Insidious Johnson]

Duncan Fisher, on 06 December 2012 - 09:15 PM, said:

It's in no way invulnerable, just shoot CT like usual. The Atlas is so big and slow as is, if headshots were as simple as pinging one of those giant eyes it'd be a death trap.

Um, it kinda is that simple. They've just made it much less simple by mech blocking us hard. It is an inherent byproduct of rebalancing a balanced game while porting it to a media for which it was just not designed. If you can hit it, you can kill it. If you can't, you've been nerfed for being too skillful.

[DrnkJawa]

First atlas head is too big, now its too small....make up your minds people! sheeesh!

[Ricama]

Wolfways, on 06 December 2012 - 09:35 PM, said:

The Catapult head hitbox got fixed?
But it's like...the size of a small country!

I know, I sometimes have a hard time missing it when I'm trying to core the dern thing.

[CocoaJin]

Ive also attempted to shoot a powered down, AFK Atlas in his eye for no damage. I was literally point blank, facing it as its torso leaned forward and allowed the head to dangle over me. Point blank lasers on the eye did nothing, but thats not the worst of it......

If you hit the Atlas with too much of an alpha, the whole damn mech rocks...and not in the direction of the weapon impact, but to the damn side. So even if you do hit the eye with lasers, the mech automagically dodges with a duck and weave...like some 100 ton Sugar Ray Leonard!

[SpiralRazor]

DrnkJawa, on 09 December 2012 - 03:22 AM, said:

First atlas head is too big, now its too small....make up your minds people! sheeesh!

Theres no wishy washyness about this....First incarnation, it was too big...way to big...Atlas wasnt feared it was head shotted and on to the next target.

But in a classic fail developer move, it was crazy overbuffed to the point where it is now, which is to say, the Atlas might as well not have a head box location.

[Zero Neutral]

Pr8Dator, on 06 December 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Atlas head shot can only be done from the front right on the face. The back of the head counts as torso incase you are one of those shooting from behind and wondering why the torso goes red. It is that well armored and protected. Also, its cockpit hit is only on the left eye and not anywhere else on the head.

That just seems silly.

[SpiralRazor]

It is...especially compared to the Awesome and Id bet money, the Stalker.

[Wolfways]

I want a game where mech are getting ripped apart, not 1-shot in the head
I'd like all mechs to have a hard to hit head hitbox!

I'd also like all mechs to have more ct and st armour (except the K2's with huge weapons in tiny st's) which would give us more reason to go for something other than constant ct shots.

[Kadassa]

If you changed the size of the hitbox to the side of its head then you might as well just take it out of the game completely because changing the cockpit hitbox to the head instead of the eye would completely ruin the Mech. There slow and its easy to shoot them in the face. In fact I often like shooting them in the face. Cus its big and ugly and I like to make its nose glow like Rudolph's Hitbox in the eye is perfect it, if you think it needs to be changed then you might as well ask them to take it out of the game.

to the size of its head..sorry for the error

[Kaijin]

Wolfways, on 09 December 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I want a game where mech are getting ripped apart, not 1-shot in the head
I'd like all mechs to have a hard to hit head hitbox!

Well, you'd think if it was so easy to pop these mechs in the head in canon, they'd be putting a heck of a lot more armor on them. Fact of the matter is it should be a luck shot on all mechs - not a skill shot.

[Wolfways]

Kaijin, on 09 December 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

Well, you'd think if it was so easy to pop these mechs in the head in canon, they'd be putting a heck of a lot more armor on them. Fact of the matter is it should be a luck shot on all mechs - not a skill shot.

In TT hit locations were random so headshots were rare i guess (only had a couple of games about 30 years ago).