101 replies to this topic

[BlackWidow]

There is a VERY simple solution for this.

CHARGE

In TT you have to actually decide to CHARGE an opponent. At end of movement phase move into same hex. No weapons fire allowed for that round, IIRC.

Implement a CHARGE function/key. Determine required proximity to opponent to use function. CHARGING unit cannot perform action if weapons have been fired within last 5 seconds (or whatever)

Have an algorithm to determine if charge was successful or not and how much damage was done (if any) to both units with chance for knockdown to occur (or either or both units) in addition to any damage done.

FIXED.

[2500kgm3]

There is one single thing that bothers me about collisions, and it's the third person camera view.


It is an immersion breaker for me. This game might not be a full simulator, but it relies on immersion, from the startup sequence to the cockpit rocking when hit by ballistics, I feel I am playing as mechwarrior on a giant warmachine, I am not playing as giant sentient warmachine.

For that reason, having the camera switch to third person view during collision is an immersion breaker for me. Collisions were really common during some battles, and one could spend nearly as much time during a brawl in third person mode as in first person mode, which was not great for immersion. I really liked the removal of collisions because it got rid of this problem as a side efect.

When we overheat, we don't get a third person view of our mech shutting down. Why? because it would be less immersive than remaining in a shut down cockpit, watching A/C ammo coming towards us while we are powerless to avoid it, and wondering if that light has run to our backs and if our rear armor is being stripped right now. Then, Why go to third person view when our mech falls down?

I'd rather watch my cockpit warning lights switch on while an alarm roars and a "IMMINENT COLLISION" message flashes in my screen as my onboard computer takes control of the mech legs to minimize damage (preventing me from controling the mech, as it used to happen with collisions) while I see the ground approach through the glass, while trying not to fall from my seat in the inside of my cockpit.

What vital role does third person camera fill during collisions? making sure you know what did hit you? is that a good reason? wouldn't be better to stand up again in your heavy mech, irritated, turn around ready to smash that damned light mech that rammed your back... Just to realize it is an Atlas that your team allowed to sneak around? wouldn't that create more memorable situations?

Edited by 2500kgm3, 28 February 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[SuomiWarder]

I want knockdown back to push over Ravens.

Regardless of the actual phsycis involved, I feel that a slow moving or standing mech should be harder to knock down than one moving at high speed. Supposedly our pilot's sense of balance is plugged into the mech. Getting rammed while basically standing still should push us back and make us take a step or two but not neccessarily knock us down. Kick a guy standing next to you in the shins and they will not fall over. Kick a guy running past you in a spring in the shins and he probably will.

Add collision damage by mass (again, not worrying too much about the acceleration part of F=MA) and slamming a 35 ton light into an 80 ton assault mech should damage the light far more than the assault. Now taking mediums and lights on collision runs to topple assaults is no longer practical.

Finally keep in mind the difference between an NFL football game / Rugby collsions and demolition derby collisions. Yes, we are in machines. But they are bipedal and linked to our natural sense of balance. We should be seeing running back vs linebacker style collisions rather than a pair of 1970s station wagons bashing into each other.

[Menthro Kerensky]

As long as a jenner running at 150 kph that arcs his jj's right and smacks an atlas in the face can knock him down, I'm game. Risk V. Reward. If the jenner is even a little bit off it doesn't work, but when it does it's awesome.

[Larth]

One word: Charger

[MaddMaxx]

Lights knock down Lights, Mediums knock down Mediums and if they can catch them, Lights.

Heavies knock down Heavies and Mediums, A Heavy is unlikely to catch a Light.

Assaults can knock down Heavies, Mediums, and Lights (if they can catch them) but only Damage each other via direct collision with actual knock downs being quite rare.

Yes! Yes! I know. Everything bigger than a Light could knock down a Light but that would be the Light Pilots issue, not the specific use of a larger Mech per say.

If you can run one (Light Mech) down, or anticipate where you might intercept said Light, then fine. But the larger and slower you are, aka Heavy and Assault Class, the tougher doing that should be.

If a Light Mech runs into a Assault or Heavy class, down they go. If a Light runs into a Medium, bang clang damage applied but bounce/glance off each other with 90% of current speed lost.

If a Medium or Heavy somehow catch a Light unawares, then BAM, damage applied and down goes the Light Mech and they have to go through the whole stand back up under fire routine.

If similar weight classes (within 15t) collide, then bang, clang, damage applied but they bounce/glance off each other with 50% of current speed lost.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 28 February 2013 - 12:09 PM.

[Esplodin]

FupDup, on 28 February 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Thank you.

Finally, somebody on this forum who doesn't want this game to turn into MW4 online. Heavy and assault pilots really do have some sort of superiority complex going on and make up the bulk of most of my matches (I'm the only light most of the time now that class matching has a lower priority!). Aren't mediums supposed to be the historically most common weight class?

The biggest, and pretty much only, downside to piloting an assault was repair and rearm. Assaults will continue increase until there is an economic reason for pause. Mediums were most common in the lore because that was the sweet spot between firepower and support costs. Bring back repair and rearm. Just don't let mechs launch without being 100% health, which is the fix that should have been put to patch up that particular exploit. You can't launch without an engine mounted, so why be able to launch when in most cases it is destroyed?

Collisions should also make for hefty damage - enough to give you an incentive NOT to go bowling. It might also improve people's driving ability. When that Atlas at the spawn walks through the friendly spider and it explodes, that Atlas loses most of the armor on the leg. Team gets to play down one, and the Atlas gets to enjoy leg focus fire. Hope there's no ammo in there! Paper to rock, rock to scissors, scissors to paper

[Voidsinger]

Collisions should also use State Rewind when it becomes available, because they are highly effected by Ping, which limits the pilot's reaction time.

There were other issues:
- Heavier mechs were by design able to stand up before lights, and knock them back down immediately.
- Mechs with no hands stood up faster than those with hands.
- The assumption light mechs are fragile is just totally incorrect (Cube-Square law).
- That instead of shooting at lights (which required gunnery skill), pilots of heavier mechs went for the ram (and yes, hence the lance of heavies and assaults chasing a Jenner). They would use continuous knockdown until their mates arrived.
- There was no skill involved, just a blatant ram. Once caught up, there was no piloting involved, you just went down. Pilots with high pings were hammered, since they were often rammed before their system even showed a target.


Oh yes, collisions do do damage still, just no knockdown.

[Alcatraz968]

The good old days are sadly gone.

[Jonathan Paine]

Man, those videos makes me yearn for the glorious days of the knockdown!

Ok, fine, the code needed some tweaking... but I still miss it and thought it preferable to the current silly run through/ teleport/ rubberband situation

[Caladan Nix]

My only problem with knockdowns were the "Friendly Fire" kinds.

Most of my deaths from knockdown came from Atlas or such on my own team who knocked me down not intentionally or even half the time, actually near me.

Enemy vs Enemy knockdown? Oh yeah, please bring that back on. If we're not going to get Melee combat anytime soon, this is the closest we're going to get.

[Corwin Vickers]

A 35 ton Jenner moving at 150kph hitting a 100 ton Atlas would mean a destroyed Jenner and an Atlas with no legs. That is realism, that is physics.

I don't see why everyone wants to penalize the lights. Assault mechs have lots of weapons and move slow. When they shoot a light it only takes 1 good volley to kill them.

Lights have few weapons and move fast. When they try to take down an assault it takes minutes to get the kill and a whole lot of avoiding the assaults firing arc.

This is balance.

There is no economy in the game anymore other than it's far easier to make money in an assault than a light. Why should assaults be rewarded for bringing a heavier mech to the fight? They haven't risked anything.

I, like the rest of you, have all weight classes in my stable and it is far harder to do well in a light than an assault mech. The reason for this is because the game IS skewed towards heavier mechs. The only thing in a faster mechs favor is that he can avoid the fire of the heavier mech and you want to take that away.

All I see here are guys running their assault mechs with the smallest engine they could put on it carrying the most weapons they can possibly fit, complaining that they have to turn AND torso twist AND AIM to hit the 3 light mechs that are going to need 3 minutes to take him down.

With the last netcode fix light mechs got a lot weaker. I don't understand the need for a knockdown mechanic, especially one that penalizes light mechs.

If you want realism and balance where assault mechs rule the battlefield entirely then you need to add risk and reward. You lose your assault mech in a match then you have totally lost it and all the investment in it. You lose your 2 mil stock Commando to a 25 mil tricked out Atlas and then it's fair if the Atlas had all the advantages.

While you're at it let's add some real death too. You lose your cockpit or an enemy mech kills your ejected pilot then you lose everything, your name, your mechs, your money. On the Btech MUSE I played we had real death and every battle got your heart pumping because you risked everything.

There is no risk in MWO thus there should be only balance.

[Mackman]

Corwin Vickers, on 28 February 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

A 35 ton Jenner moving at 150kph hitting a 100 ton Atlas would mean a destroyed Jenner and an Atlas with no legs. That is realism, that is physics.

I don't see why everyone wants to penalize the lights. Assault mechs have lots of weapons and move slow. When they shoot a light it only takes 1 good volley to kill them.

Lights have few weapons and move fast. When they try to take down an assault it takes minutes to get the kill and a whole lot of avoiding the assaults firing arc.

This is balance.

There is no economy in the game anymore other than it's far easier to make money in an assault than a light. Why should assaults be rewarded for bringing a heavier mech to the fight? They haven't risked anything.

I, like the rest of you, have all weight classes in my stable and it is far harder to do well in a light than an assault mech. The reason for this is because the game IS skewed towards heavier mechs. The only thing in a faster mechs favor is that he can avoid the fire of the heavier mech and you want to take that away.

All I see here are guys running their assault mechs with the smallest engine they could put on it carrying the most weapons they can possibly fit, complaining that they have to turn AND torso twist AND AIM to hit the 3 light mechs that are going to need 3 minutes to take him down.

With the last netcode fix light mechs got a lot weaker. I don't understand the need for a knockdown mechanic, especially one that penalizes light mechs.

If you want realism and balance where assault mechs rule the battlefield entirely then you need to add risk and reward. You lose your assault mech in a match then you have totally lost it and all the investment in it. You lose your 2 mil stock Commando to a 25 mil tricked out Atlas and then it's fair if the Atlas had all the advantages.

While you're at it let's add some real death too. You lose your cockpit or an enemy mech kills your ejected pilot then you lose everything, your name, your mechs, your money. On the Btech MUSE I played we had real death and every battle got your heart pumping because you risked everything.

There is no risk in MWO thus there should be only balance.

Luckily for us, PGI has already confirmed that they will be coming back. However, again luckily for us, I have faith that PGI will take steps to ensure that all mechs remain viable.

Arguing against fixing an incomplete, broken feature on the basis that it will unbalance the game makes literally no sense. Fix the feather, then balance the game.

[Fajther]

It brought a lot of order to the game. I made people pay more attention to the way they moved. How do we prevent getting rammed over again, and again? Stay close to others. Don't go out alone. Otherwise the tackle dragons will eat you!!! I am planning on taking up the strategy I had in the cb. Follow the tackle builds on your own team even if you don't have any plans to tackle people.

[Corwin Vickers]

ATM with ELO in if you play an assault mech some of the time and a light mech some of the time you are at even more of a disadvantage with your light mech. That is more of a disadvantage than the disadvantage we faced before ELO went in recently.

Personally I feel myself resenting that non-ecm raven on my team when we're losing because I know that in our bracket he is not playing up to his potential.

Does this mean people are going to have to play one weight class?

I played during knockdown and found it annoying, mostly because of the warping. It was far too frequent and did not reflect the TT knockdown at all. Here you have a knockdown component that is supposedly skill based on attack but not on defense in that if you get touched at all you get knocked down. Also this crazy 35 ton missle traveling at insane speed hits a 100 ton mech and the 35 ton missle falls down and no one takes damage.

Basically saying "don't worry, they will balance it" doesn't inspire hope or desire for a feature that we have played without for all these months and were perfectly fine without. Especially because it targets a class of mech that is already biased against and recently took another hit.

This thread is a "let's nerf lights because my mighty Atlas is god" thread.

[Psikez]

The problem with knockdown is its not in the game anymore.

[OneEyed Jack]

I think two things need to be in place to make this a viable, balanced mechanic. First is significant damage, to keep repeated knockdowns in control by having the mech killing itself to do it. Second is some mechanic to make the actual knockdown not automatic, regardless of relative mech size. I don't agree that RNG would be totally bad, especially if the chance was low enough. I'm not fond of the key combo to avoid KD idea simply because when used intentionally, the user would always know it was coming and be prepared. How enticing is the chance to knock a mech down if you'll do significant damage to yourself and might end up on the ground while they're still standing?

I like collision as a way to punish sloppy piloting and a last-ditch effort that may or may not be effective, rather than a repeatable "stun."

[Kyone Akashi]

Fajther, on 28 February 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

It brought a lot of order to the game. I made people pay more attention to the way they moved.

No. In the first weeks of CB, maybe - and in that time I did not mind this mechanic at all. Then some people figured out that ramming is the easiest way to kill the now helpless opposition.

In the latter days of Closed Beta, collisions achieved mainly two things:

• Lights ceasing to shoot at each other in favour of ramming
  
• Awkward "baby learns to walk" knockdowns at the start of the match as the densely packed team began to move out of the spawn zone

OneEyed Jack, on 28 February 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

I like collision as a way to punish sloppy piloting and a last-ditch effort that may or may not be effective, rather than a repeatable "stun."

This!

[Yokaiko]

Corwin Vickers, on 28 February 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

ATM with ELO in if you play an assault mech some of the time and a light mech some of the time you are at even more of a disadvantage with your light mech. That is more of a disadvantage than the disadvantage we faced before ELO went in recently.

Personally I feel myself resenting that non-ecm raven on my team when we're losing because I know that in our bracket he is not playing up to his potential.

Does this mean people are going to have to play one weight class?

I played during knockdown and found it annoying, mostly because of the warping. It was far too frequent and did not reflect the TT knockdown at all. Here you have a knockdown component that is supposedly skill based on attack but not on defense in that if you get touched at all you get knocked down. Also this crazy 35 ton missle traveling at insane speed hits a 100 ton mech and the 35 ton missle falls down and no one takes damage.

Basically saying "don't worry, they will balance it" doesn't inspire hope or desire for a feature that we have played without for all these months and were perfectly fine without. Especially because it targets a class of mech that is already biased against and recently took another hit.

This thread is a "let's nerf lights because my mighty Atlas is god" thread.

Wrong, I stopped driving lights when they pulled knockdowns. Be glad I did, I was something of a terror in a Jenner D, and Im worse in a -3L.

However, shouldnt be able to chase your scout back into you entire lance, kill him and waltz off smacking about it. That the heavier mechs cant kick me over is what allows that.

You didn't pull that crap in closed beta, you would get intercepted and killed.

[Corwin Vickers]

The only problem I have with lights is ECM and that's not a light only issue.