30 replies to this topic

[Runenstahl]

Taizan, on 08 February 2013 - 02:59 AM, said:

- Strafing has no place in this game.

Uhm... THIS is the wiki definition of strafing. Looks VERY much like typical light mech behaviour, doesn't it ?

[Alois Hammer]

valek879, on 08 February 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

FPS's have trained me to expect a certain style of play.

There's your whole problem. This isn't an FPS, and once you get used to that and learn to play MWO as MWO rather than as an FPS, you'll be well on your way.

[Sable Dove]

All I want is for running into a wall to stop the mech. As in, I shouldn't have to wait for the mech to throttle down, then throttle up in reverse when I get stuck on the geometry, which is irritating; especially when the position you get stuck in requires you to stop and reverse out because of how the geometry is set up..

[Alto]

Hi Valek,
First, Welcome to MWO. Good post and sensible well thought responses to others points.

I wish I could sit with you for an hour of play and slap you round the back of the head each time you are holding down a key needlessly (zen master style) or at least remind you of the 'x' key when you need it. Failing that I thought id give you some history and maybe even a suggestion or two as to ways to get used to piloting you warmachine. Please forgive me if these are things you have already discussed. They are meant more as words of encouragement, rather than anything else.

In the past ,there would be a single player campaign that would allow you to get used to piloting a mech in a steady learning curve. Obviously you don't have this with MWO and so you're in at the deep end, like any new player. My first suggestion would be to get hold of the free version of Mechwarrior 4 from Mektek, it might help you get a feel for piloting and it allows a 3rd person view to give you a crutch. Although I would suggest Mechwarrior 2 (if you can find it) over mw4 as it handles more like this game.

You see, mw4 was designed to be used with a joystick and many players of this game use the keyboard and mouse over the joystick because of the way the game handles but would probably prefer a joystick to play it (its kinda a fantasy simulator after all). If i remember correctly 'The Garth' actually uses a joystick whilst playing. Maybe trying it with a joystick with a throttle might well help you get more of a feel for it and get you out of fps reactions.

Also in the heat of battle, relax. Aggressive play and twitch reactions, make a good pilot not. But calm, situational awareness and a steady aim do. Concentrate on keeping in mind your direction and facing at all times.

Edited by Alto, 09 February 2013 - 10:58 AM.

[focuspark]

Runenstahl, on 09 February 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Uhm... THIS is the wiki definition of strafing. Looks VERY much like typical light mech behaviour, doesn't it ?

Strafing has more to do with doing a crab-walk than the actual circling of your opponent, hence the term circle strafing. Effectively 'mechs do not crab-walk.

[roflplanes]

Runenstahl, on 09 February 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

Uhm... THIS is the wiki definition of strafing. Looks VERY much like typical light mech behaviour, doesn't it ?

That looks nothing like what any mech ever would do..... Notice the torso position in those animations. "Strafing" involves crossing your legs or hopping (linebacker style) in a sideways movement while your torso AND hips face forward. Battlemechs, with their gyroscopic balance systems, would probably not be capable of EFFECTIVELY conducting such a movement without grave risk of tripping or losing balance and falling.

[Runenstahl]

Those differences seem pretty small to me.
Yes, mechs don't really move sideways. Instead their legs move forward and they twist their torso in another way. The EFFECT however is the same. You move in one direction, while facing (at least with torso and more importantly WEAPONS) in another one.
But if it'll make you happy I wont call it strafing anymore. I'll refer to it with "tactical out-manoeuvring the enemy" much as we call a retreat a "tactical withdrawal"

[roflplanes]

Runenstahl, on 09 February 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:

Those differences seem pretty small to me.
Yes, mechs don't really move sideways. Instead their legs move forward and they twist their torso in another way. The EFFECT however is the same. You move in one direction, while facing (at least with torso and more importantly WEAPONS) in another one.
But if it'll make you happy I wont call it strafing anymore. I'll refer to it with "tactical out-manoeuvring the enemy" much as we call a retreat a "tactical withdrawal"

You misunderstand, I wasn't bashing, just pointing out that what the OP requested wasn't feasible for a Battlemech like it is for a lightly-armored infantryman (with catlike reflexes and Special Forces balancing abilities [Splinter Cell, anyone?]) and that his control scheme still requires the 'Mech to TURN rather than instantly strafing to one side or the other.

[valek879]

I have had a long day and am only going to reply to three posts, so here it goes.

roflplanes, on 09 February 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

You misunderstand, I wasn't bashing, just pointing out that what the OP requested wasn't feasible for a Battlemech like it is for a lightly-armored infantryman (with catlike reflexes and Special Forces balancing abilities [Splinter Cell, anyone?]) and that his control scheme still requires the 'Mech to TURN rather than instantly strafing to one side or the other.

EDIT: I just realized that while you didn't understand what I was saying, you did say exactly what I was trying to get across, right here:

Quote

still requires the 'Mech to TURN rather than instantly strafing to one side or the other

I understand it isn't feasible I guess the idea I am trying to get across is very specific. I am trying to get tactical out-maneuvering, aka. strafing, down to one button instead of 3. Much like someone else mentioned MMO's I would be interested in seeing that style implemented. So instead of turning the legs to face a direction and upping the throttle, I would be interested in the D key turning your legs to 90 degrees from the way you are facing and raising the throttle to max, much like I would like W to be max throttle.

I believe someone else mentioned earlier the throttle being at max would severely cripple game play but I would beg to differ. I can feather the key to raise the throttle to max and release to have it snapped back to 0 and based on the way mechs gain speed, you could stabilize your mech's speed easily. At least for me, because I remember the racing games where that is exactly what you did to control your speed.

Alto, on 09 February 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

Hi Valek,
First, Welcome to MWO. Good post and sensible well thought responses to others points.

I wish I could sit with you for an hour of play and slap you round the back of the head each time you are holding down a key needlessly (zen master style) or at least remind you of the 'x' key when you need it. Failing that I thought id give you some history and maybe even a suggestion or two as to ways to get used to piloting you warmachine. Please forgive me if these are things you have already discussed. They are meant more as words of encouragement, rather than anything else.

In the past ,there would be a single player campaign that would allow you to get used to piloting a mech in a steady learning curve. Obviously you don't have this with MWO and so you're in at the deep end, like any new player. My first suggestion would be to get hold of the free version of Mechwarrior 4 from Mektek, it might help you get a feel for piloting and it allows a 3rd person view to give you a crutch. Although I would suggest Mechwarrior 2 (if you can find it) over mw4 as it handles more like this game.

You see, mw4 was designed to be used with a joystick and many players of this game use the keyboard and mouse over the joystick because of the way the game handles but would probably prefer a joystick to play it (its kinda a fantasy simulator after all). If i remember correctly 'The Garth' actually uses a joystick whilst playing. Maybe trying it with a joystick with a throttle might well help you get more of a feel for it and get you out of fps reactions.

Also in the heat of battle, relax. Aggressive play and twitch reactions, make a good pilot not. But calm, situational awareness and a steady aim do. Concentrate on keeping in mind your direction and facing at all times.

I may just have to grab one of the early games and play them, having background to the online version would probably make the game much easier to understand. Also I have heard that there are people who play with a mouse and throttle, that idea appeals to me greatly, but I cannot afford it, I am looking to build my desktop finally within the next month and have no spare cash at all...even my clunking engine is being set aside.

I feel like a physical throttle would be an invaluable asset to this game and would probably make the game quite a bit easier for me, because I am the type of person who tends to ignore huds, I watch the map, but only when I am trying to get somewhere unfortunately.

I really don't do twitch gameplay ever actually, which is kind of odd because I know people who are both a lot better and a lot worse at many different video games than myself who do get very tense during combat in video games. I take my time and make every shot count, I just get turned around because I won't realize I am slowing grinding against the side of a cliff.


and finally the guy who thinks I play FPS's on a regular basis.

Alois Hammer, on 09 February 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

There's your whole problem. This isn't an FPS, and once you get used to that and learn to play MWO as MWO rather than as an FPS, you'll be well on your way.

To clarify I rarely play FPS's that is just how I think of the controls because, for the most part many of these controls are heavily modern fps based, with the few difference that I have listed as not being a fan of.

When I play this game, I do not think of it as an FPS, in fact I have been calling mechs, "tanks" for the past week. This is truly because I think of this game as very similar to World of Tanks. This is why I find myself craving the 3rd person view, and holding down the W key. For anyone who doesn't know, WoT is very similar in controls to MW. The things that differ are the fact that the game is mostly played in 3rd person, the throttle is offset from the wasd keys and throttle up is "R" and throttle down is "F", then "W" and "S" act as full throttle in either forward or reverse.

I suppose, and this is very bad to say on this forum, I would like to have MechWarrior mostly redone in the WoT control scheme. That said, it would not work most of the time, but I feel like this would vastly improve the game. Alright, now that I said that flat out. Flame me, I know you want to because I just said blasphemous things!

The main things I would like to see would be 3rd person, if I lose the targeting reticle, that is fine, because fighting in first person is much easier anyway, and I would like simplified controls...including, but not limited to everything I have posted before this, with refinements of course to keep the game "feeling" correct. Also, I think I saw it mentioned somewhere else, but having zoom mapped to the scroll wheel would be much nicer feeling. *hint, hint*

Keep the comments coming, I do like having a large amount of people to bounce ideas off of! Even if a lot of you guys are against it. I would like to remind some of you though, the past is not always better, and nostalgia doesn't work on people who are new. For that matter, the games I have played for nostalgia recently have sucked so hard....

~Val

Edited by valek879, 09 February 2013 - 05:14 PM.

[Z3R0115]

I don't care what the wiki says, Your torso is twisted at a 90 degree angle and your running sideways. you're movement is 90 degree's from the center of your viewing angle.
now since we're in massive war machines we do that much more gradually but we definitely do somewhat strafe.

and before the Flaming starts all I wanna say Is that Valek is one of SEVERAL friends that can't seem to get into the game due to it's current control scheme, or at least that is their main complaint.

A couple of solutions that could be put in the options section of the game.

100% throttle forward mappable
100% throttle reverse mappable
(or just)
De-toggle Throttle (You accelerate and continue at full speed while holding down w and decelerate down to 0 when it is released, vise versa with s and reverse)

and

Soft lock legs to torso movement (Legs follow center of torso but do not move faster than max turning speed ofcourse)

These are options that are in no way game breaking, and really aren't that difficult to impliment (I don't know how difficult soft locking the legs would be, I'm not the greatest programmer so I can't speak for that one, but the others should just be a switch somewhere basically).

I understand 3rd person probably won't be coming and as a fan of realism I'll probably be okay with that (although never seeing your painted mech kind of sucks) But in some of the older games they at least let you have a rear/side view monitor.

Why not add a rear view camera as an upgrade or something to put in one of the monitors?

Just throwing out Idea's here

Edited by Z3R0115, 11 February 2013 - 02:46 AM.

[Shagrat]

They make progress when it comes to configurable controls. We are nearing the free and flexible setup of the 80ies MW2 series now. Ever wondered why it is so difficult, to make a customizable input configuration like MW2 had?
Every MW3 / 4 made things worse!!!
The goal is simple: Every controller, keyboard combos,axis or combination of these maybe assigned to everything.

Our typical cheapy setup in MW2 was: Joystick fwd/aft = Mech run fwd/back, left right = move legs and the mouse to control torso up/down/left/right... next evolution for MW2: GBL was a Thrustmaster FLCS/TQS + Rudder that rocks!
...and Yes, I can't get used to frigging gamepads or WASD + Mouse! I'm over 40, so I have a HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Rudder Pedals and MFDs and TrackIR and would like to use that.

And to make my dreams come true give us really laaaaarge maps (not the brawl arenas full of obstacles like now) so I can play MWO like I used to play MW2 back in the 80ies.
Artillery Mechs with LRM, Gaussrifles, ArrowIV sometime in the future, now Clan weapons... and all the time we end up in between two hills, buildings, whatever shooting at pointblank range? There are scout mechs (Light class) they trade speed for for armor, only to end up in front of building when focussing on a shot, easy prey for a "big" Mechs Alpha Strike.

Give us room to maneuver, space to roam, use scouts to probe the enemy formation. Let this game get tactical! Even in MW3 the spawn points required 1-2 min run minimum to get into contact. Hell I wouldn't care if I could choose a map where we can spread out, position ourselves and act like a real army would do: With a strategy, sophisticated tactics and combined arms warfare. I'm tired of all this quick paced FPS like frag fests where it ends up in counting frags.

I remember some MW3 sessions where we had 3 Arty mechs placed behind the ridge at the village shut down and a "spotter" NARCed the other team and they never knew what hit them, when we spooled up and sent them our LRMs.
They respawned, sweared and looked for our heavies, took them some time to figure out what happens, then they changed their strategy and flanked our spotter, who in turn got harassed by their fastest Mech, carefully avoiding the NARC ... when the heavies raided our position it was slugfest and we made a coordinated withdrawal into the village (using the houses as cover) to find their Adder (light Clan Mech) in our backs at range blasting our rear torsos with PPCs.

We talked of that one even weeks after and I can vividly remember that game, like a lot others, even though this was decades ago.
I would like to get this tactical maps back with some room to operate, set up a trap, or simply run away from a big bully to circle him in my light mech dodging his strikes...