God those wall o text;s how I miss a "quote selected" button on this forum.
Dakkaface, on 23 April 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:
By default? Usually not. But if they're being smart and side-peeking then yes, because it's a smarter target than going for the CT and splashing fire off of invisible terrain hitboxes.
Uhhm? what when the Nova pilot wants to shoot at you, he has at elats to reveal his cockpit, which is in the center area, if his CT would be blocked by a invisible hitbox, he would also only shoot that hitbox in front of him. So everytime a Nova hoots at you, you WILL be able to hit his CT, and even more easily the ST. Also if you have played enough in this game, you already know where those stupid annoying invisible hitboxes are and where to avoid them.
Dakkaface, on 23 April 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:
I'm happy for leg HP because it's got 5 hard-locked JJ on it which means you can try to hop over people and the extra HP both cushions hard landings and helps with shots that you force people to take with Torso weapons. The Nova's torso is not as big as a Dragons, but I do agree with you that it needs more than an 8 Structure buff. 12-16 Structure feels more right. 24 feels more like the realm of a Heavy, which the Dragon is.
I ran my legs with only 40 of 18hp all the time, because people hardly shoot at you legs, and cushion? the 5 JJ's have enough power to leave JJ fuel for cushion. The Nova's Torso is not as big as the dragon ones? Have you compared them in your mechbay? The Dragon ones looks bigger by being cubic. but have you truly looked into the
hitbox localisation thread? have you every 1on1 comapred them in your emchlab? they are at leats the same size, with the Nova's one being easier to hit. And then the dragon is already by nature a more armored mech. Yet it still has gotten 24HP. strangely, the Nova arms, even if big, are the novas least hitboxed problems together with the legs. Further, the "between legs" CT hitbox area of the Nova is extremely wide compared to the Dragons. And the top center area is soemthign the drgaon cna hide with its CT, the Nova also not.
But at this point, I have no idea how PGI decides the "between legs CT area" compare the catapult vs the stalker, one is wide as f... the other tight. Battlemaster vs Awesome. There is nearly no conistency between those choices on the IS mechs.Some have nearly none, some have the entire area between the legs. Knowing these mechs is a key to not care when some of them twist a slong as you can see the front or back of their legs.
Dakkaface, on 23 April 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:
Disarming Novas is very common. If you can't get a shot on the CT you can be almost assured of halving it's firepower with two salvos. One, if you're in another Nova. Base HP on a max-armored arm is 48. On even a ER-small Nova, you could pop the arm by hitting it with both 6-packs. Meanwhile the CT has 70-80 HP.
Wow, great, yes how many HP has the CT more? I mean great you just disamred half the Nova, menaing it still has in worst case 6 lasers to fire at you. How many shots does your CT survive more? If you halfed a nova you now still have to destroy either the other arm, or the CT to destroy it. and just hope he did not put any weapons in the ST's becquse then you have still a ton of possible trouble.
Also, tell me except when totally in cover can you NOT shoot at the CT? the CT is hitable from ANY angle. The only reason to shoot at the NVA arms is when he is not fighting vs you and you can not shoot at anythign else. Otherwise you are always better with just waiting a tiny bit longer and shoot his CT or ST. because ST has not significantly more HP; but means a loss of additional DHS, and internal DHS cooling penalty. + if the other ST pops too its totally detsroyed. A nova with a single arm is still a lot firepower. Dead nova not. And since the Nova is running quite hot, disarming one side is not really taking away massie firepower unless he is running a 12CERSL build. because anythign else runs hot quickly with just 6 lasers as well.
Dakkaface, on 23 April 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:
Oh, and can we straighten something out here? I am not arguing that the Nova is balanced. I'm saying that it's usable, and I'd like to see it further improved by tweaking the quirks it got last patch.
Giving the Nova overall survivability is actually a smart choice, since the omnimech rules basically prohibit it from mounting any heavy weapons of significance without also being ammo-starved or heat crippled. I think it could use tweaking upward, especially in the CT, but it was a overall step in the right direction.
yes that is what it should have gotten, but for this it needed more CT HP, and less arm Hp, and probably no leg HP at all.
Dakkaface, on 23 April 2015 - 07:23 PM, said:
This metaphor is silly because the Nova's quirks can be adjusted with every patch. The players aren't in life or death matches in real mechs, and if the Nova's quirks are dialed up in the next patch, we won't be dead to fail to enjoy them.
Lets go back to my original reply to you, shall we?
"I wouldn't say the SCR is and will always be superior. Keep in mind we've had it confirmed by Russ that the SCR and TBR are getting negative quirks. The SCR may not be the uncontested top dog for much longer. Nova-B is surprisingly tanky - it's already clear they know the Nova is huge and fragile and the Nova quirks reflect that in oodles of bonus structure and bonus armor on easily blown off arms. The CT bonus getting increased is likely given it's massive size. SCR is always going to have a better armament, but NVA is not horrendous, and when it's quirks are mostly finalized and the SCR quirks are in, we may see them even out considerably."
Your response is:
So the main idea of my post - 'It isn't fair to say the SCR is and always will be better' flies right past you and you respond in indignation to the idea that the NVA is at all tank-like.
Compared to it's previously highly fragile nature paired with its huge size? It is in fact 'surprisingly tanky' as my exact words said. I'm no longer disarmed. I can survive more hits by presenting my side to the enemy and letting them try to disarm me while I focus on someone else. I can side-peek more effectively without losing arms. It is more survivable. Do I think it's competitive? No. Do I think it's in a good place compared to the SCR? No, the 'Crow needs to be brought down and the Nova could use a bit more of a bump. It's still better than it was, and I was noting that the 'Crow has been confirmed to be getting nega-quirks.
If they ever buff the and nerf SCR and NVA to a degree where the NVA gets better than the SCR then we have again a balance issue. If that happens balance is a fail. the NVA is a bit lighter mech, it should never be better than the SCR. The SCR pays 5t more in your dropship and by this should have an edge over the Nova. But currently its not an edge it's an entire canyon.
And When a Nova comes vs me, I fear it hardly any more than before the quirks, because the basic issues that created this canyon were not realyl adressed, it has the same base weakness as before: squishy CT. hise 8 more HP were mostly anyways dealt as "overkill damage". This is mostly caued by the "alpha amounts" you have around.
take a dual gauss config, damage comes then in waves of 30, 60, 90 120.
so any arm hp buff on the nova not exceeding 60, does not change the time a dualgauss config needs to disarm you.
The ST buff, the same, from 80 to 88 HP, how much F's given by dual gauss pilots? NONE. Build some of the meta configs, and tell me how many mechs with their current meta alphas actually truly care about those increases?
The sections on a nova are huge, its easy to stay on a single location whn facing a Nova. And most current alpha configs did previosuly needed 2 alphas and now still need the same two alphas. In ranks where people have aim and get their shots to a target, these changes. Same for dual PPC builds. Tell me how many more dual PPC hits do those arms survive more? The same amount. So only those NVA arms gotten the +16hp are truly when it comes to getting hit, a tiny bit more tanky. Because they exceed some of the current pinpoint FLD alpha strike values. But for the most common ones used on the battelfield by skilled pilots its the same squishiness as before. And they will kill the NAV as fast and easy as before. because of exactly those. because as long as MWO is about alphastriking, you have to take those "damage waves" hitting you into account.
This is also a reason why some mechs feel starngely tanky, while others not. because they are by their natural given max armor the ones that esxceed the "2 alpha to death range" which means even if now cored cherry red, they need an entire third strike. Which in time to live basically means 50% suvivability compared to such a 2 alpha 2 death mech.
So even if we ignore for a moment the crappy CT hitbox of a Nova, the SCR has a 108HP ct, by theory, the NVA only 98. The SCR magically gets over such a limit where many common alphastrikes reuire a third strike to kill you. while NVA will die with 2. That the NVa now additionally has a bad CT hitbox, just exponentially increases this problem. And this is only given you would fully go front armor and 0 back armor.
Gargoyle has a similar porblem, he is, even if 5tons more than TBR, not more tanky, because he is in the same "alpha wave" range as the TBR. which makes the GAR only then more tanky when the opponents pilots skill is making him aim inaccurately with wepaons that spread or beam. But on a level where people have a specific skill, TBR and GAR both die equally fast.
Mabye you can understand now, why some people say that the quirks helped, and others say they don't. But those people now better with the quirks, may alos raie in elo, and then may com to regions where that buff suddenly gets irrelevant again.
But when we want to make mechs being a somehwat competitive chocie against each others, we need to quirk them in a way where they improve across the entire board of playerskill.
Some mechs were clearly quirked around the regular mid range player, and this as soon as the higher skilled palyers found their potetial out, created beats of mechs. The Gragon 1N AC buff., the entire Thunderbolting story. Those mechs were and are horrifiying tools in the hands of people that know what they do with them.
The NVA leg HP? what for? reckless poptarts that waste their entire JJ fuel and getting fall damage? Is it bad gameplay we cater now?
What was the entire point of brinign fall damage when many JJ mechs get leg hp's because their pilots still love to pop too high?. Thats just like softly removing the entire JJ change that brought the fall damage.
Many mechs have issues, some are truly mech related, some are entirely player based. And quirks should not cater player based issues. That does not help a mech, it just helps the people being less bad with using a mech wrong.
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