314 replies to this topic

[Necromantion]

Josef Nader, on 27 February 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

Then why are SRMs fine on -every other mech in the game-?

No, the problem is inherent with the Catapult chassis. It's got too many good qualities and beans for negative qualities. It's why every cheese build that doesn't rely on a specific gimmick (the PPC/Gauss poptarts and the ECM Cravens) comes out of the Cat.

Actually they are NOT fine on every other chassis:

Centurions are giving up their ballistic arm, a key component of the mech to mount srms and zombie because srms do more damage.

[MustrumRidcully]

Voridan Atreides, on 28 February 2013 - 07:30 AM, said:

I have never said that....

I know, but people "used" it against you, or were going to... It's a common phenomena. The myth that every possible weakness you can conjure up automatically makes things balanced, as if every weakness has equally strong effects and is equally easy to exploit.

It doesn't work like that, which many people don't seem to recognize. It's a sliding scale, not a binary thing. The other "balance" exaggeration is typically: "Just have every weapon deal the same damage, weight the same weight, and have the same range, that's balanced, do you want that?"... *sigh*

In short, I was just (possibly pre-emptively) going through all the usual argument cycles in these discussions, and not criticizing you at all.

[Voridan Atreides]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 February 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

I know, but people "used" it against you, or were going to... It's a common phenomena. The myth that every possible weakness you can conjure up automatically makes things balanced, as if every weakness has equally strong effects and is equally easy to exploit.

It doesn't work like that, which many people don't seem to recognize. It's a sliding scale, not a binary thing. The other "balance" exaggeration is typically: "Just have every weapon deal the same damage, weight the same weight, and have the same range, that's balanced, do you want that?"... *sigh*

In short, I was just (possibly pre-emptively) going through all the usual argument cycles in these discussions, and not criticizing you at all.

Oh okay. Sorry for misreading you post.

[MustrumRidcully]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

This is especially hilarious, because in another thread people are predicting terrible gloom and doom for MWO because "precision weapons are too good".

One thing to consider: Splatapults are not imprecise. They are merely very close range.
At 90m or less, it is not that difficult to hit with SRMs, and most missiles will easily hit the same location. But you'd be lucky to repeat it at 200m.

And hey, convergence is helping them, too. If you're at 45m behind your enemy, without convergence, guess what - half your missiles would just fly by the enemy, while the other half would hit. Without convergence, you would actually need to fire at least each "ear" seperately. Unless the enemy is even wider than the Catapult is...

[Doc Holliday]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 February 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

One thing to consider: Splatapults are not imprecise. They are merely very close range.
At 90m or less, it is not that difficult to hit with SRMs, and most missiles will easily hit the same location. But you'd be lucky to repeat it at 200m.

And hey, convergence is helping them, too. If you're at 45m behind your enemy, without convergence, guess what - half your missiles would just fly by the enemy, while the other half would hit. Without convergence, you would actually need to fire at least each "ear" seperately. Unless the enemy is even wider than the Catapult is...

I strongly suggest you find a dictionary before you embarrass yourself further. SRM fire in MWO is the very definition of imprecise.

[Rhent]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

Unfortunately you've used far too much reason and logic. This will subsequently be ignored as players blinded by hate for the "splatcat" will snatch small portions of your post, then twist them out of context to respond to them with a strawman argument.

Too many "Bads" playing MWO. A good signal of a Bad is someone who immediately goes to forums writing about how OP a Splatcat is. Instead of doing the following:

1.) Is there something wrong with my build? Do I not have enough burst (including heat sinks to use it) in brawl range to take out an arm OR Do I not have enough speed to stay out at 150M range OR do I not have enough long range weapons to decimate the A1 before it can close

2.) Most Bad's have a complete lack of situational awareness. They get 2 shotted in the back by a SRM Cat and then come to the boards crying. The actual question is you had a total of 4 seconds to do a torso turn and return fire rather than leaving the exact same torso location open. Why did you stand there like an ***** and allow yourself to be killed?

The Bad's won't be happy until everyone is stuck with their gimp builds mixing missiles, ballistics and energy weapons. The day I'm stuck with a gimped build that does everything awful, I'm done with the game as will be the majority of the player base. The Bad's will be stuck with a crap user base with crap specs. Oh right, the DEFAULT BUILDS for the mechs, that are absolutely horrible.

Who the hell wants to play a game that a Cat comes with 2 LRM15's with 3 tons of ammo and 4 absolutely useless Medium Lasers for the damage to heat ratio? Bad's do.

[ArmandTulsen]

Skillcat....

Edited by ArmandTulsen, 28 February 2013 - 09:48 AM.

[Josef Nader]

Necromantion, on 28 February 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Actually they are NOT fine on every other chassis:

Centurions are giving up their ballistic arm, a key component of the mech to mount srms and zombie because srms do more damage.

Less the fault of SRMs and more the fault of smaller-caliber ballistics being in a spotty place. AC20s and gauss rifles do respectable damage for their weight, but the AC10, AC5, and AC2 are all pretty piddly. The UAC5 and the gauss is really the only moderately damaging option you can slap in that slot without feeling like you're flicking peas.

[Rhent]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 February 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

One thing to consider: Splatapults are not imprecise. They are merely very close range.
At 90m or less, it is not that difficult to hit with SRMs, and most missiles will easily hit the same location. But you'd be lucky to repeat it at 200m.

And hey, convergence is helping them, too. If you're at 45m behind your enemy, without convergence, guess what - half your missiles would just fly by the enemy, while the other half would hit. Without convergence, you would actually need to fire at least each "ear" seperately. Unless the enemy is even wider than the Catapult is...

Try hitting a spider pilot who actually isn't a Bad, running full throttle and using JJ's at 50M or less using SRM's. If they stay in the fight you will eventually hit them, but you will lose many rounds to take them out. Rounds that you need to take out Stalkers and Atlas. Meanwhile, if the Spider is smart, he's counting your rounds fired to get an idea of how hot you are and then telling his friends to come in to take you out when you are at 80% heat. Of course, a lot of MWO player base are too ignorant to figure out basic strategies for removing specialized mechs.

[MustrumRidcully]

Doc Holliday, on 28 February 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

I strongly suggest you find a dictionary before you embarrass yourself further. SRM fire in MWO is the very definition of imprecise.

Point being - convergence helps them to. A Splatapult wouldn't alpha strike you will all its ears if it didn't have convergence. It would require two salvos at least, one for each ear, each seperately aimed. Requiring more skill than they do now.
(WHich is still more skill than Streak required..)

Rhent, on 28 February 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Try hitting a spider pilot who actually isn't a Bad, running full throttle and using JJ's at 50M or less using SRM's. If they stay in the fight you will eventually hit them, but you will lose many rounds to take them out. Rounds that you need to take out Stalkers and Atlas. Meanwhile, if the Spider is smart, he's counting your rounds fired to get an idea of how hot you are and then telling his friends to come in to take you out when you are at 80% heat. Of course, a lot of MWO player base are too ignorant to figure out basic strategies for removing specialized mechs.

Why should I target a Spider?
(Sorry, you triggered my sarcistic mode).

A more serious reply: An even now, convergence can help you more than not having it - without it, you would need to try to it with each salvo seperately, and even more likely spread damage. (Or is 90 damage overkill?)

[Carcass23]

This is a joke, right? Is the chassis too powerful or SRM's? And ehhhh... you can step out of range. This whole thread is moronic. You play this chassis to show everyone how OP it is? You sir are a knight.

[Moonsavage]

How the hell are we supposed to kill the endless ECM light mechs without punchy SRMs?

[FupDup]

Moonsavage, on 28 February 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

How the hell are we supposed to kill the endless ECM light mechs without punchy SRMs?

I only see like 1-3 lights (both teams added together) each match, so that's hardly "endless."

Lasers and ballistics are good anti-ECM weapons too. Most of the people I see trying to run Splatapults and similar builds as anti-light tend to not hit those aforementioned lights most of the time. As a Raven, I actually have astronomically more trouble with Boomcats than Splatapults because the only people who still use Boomcats are the ones who got good at aiming with them. Plus, it's harder to kite a Boomcat because they've got much longer range (and no spread).

Edited by FupDup, 28 February 2013 - 10:53 AM.

[Valore]

Can someone please explain how being able to take down an Atlas in a certain mech easily now makes it OP?

The whole game is a pretty good rock/paper/scissors balance right now.

Atlases take down lighter more balanced mechs. They get taken down by speedier damage centric mechs, SRM Stalkers/Cats, AC20 Cats, Gausspults, ERPPC/Gauss Phracts, SRM/PPC Awesomes, etc. These mechs in turn get worn down by spotting, LRMs, scouts and teamwork because of their deficiencies in armour/reliance on XL engines while having huge Side Torso hitboxes.

What makes the splatcat so special it has to have its very own nerf topic?

[Terror Teddy]

Moonsavage, on 28 February 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

How the hell are we supposed to kill the endless ECM light mechs without punchy SRMs?

Tripwires.

If that doesn't work we take ACME explosives and paint tunnels on rock faces.

MEEP-MEEP

[Antarus]

BLUPRNT, on 27 February 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

This a short story of a match involving a Splatcat. I had one, I got bored with it and vamped it into something different.
I don't see why these Cats are a problem.

Late last night a friend, 2 other randoms, and I on comms launched into a 6V8 conquest in River City. Our team started with the 6.

Some encouraging words between the two teams were exchanged in chat and we began to move from the Harbor to upper city. Both teams must have had the same thoughts cause it was a hell of a fight.

First 2 targets were Atlas's and the others I can't remember cause everything went really fast after that.
I can remember toward the begining ducking behind a building next to Kappa's collecter to avoid Atlas LRM's. As I backed up from cover I looked left to locate a target to call out and suddenly spotted a Splatcat 400m out rushing at me. I called out Splatcat three times as I ran to take cover around the collecter and by the time I had regained sight of the Cat 4 of our team had him surrounded and destroyed at point blank before I could jump up and get my share of the critter. I only seen one salvo come out of it at me when he was first spotted. I think he was the first to go down and I kind of felt sorry for the guy, but I was really relieved to see it happen.
From then out we focused targets pounding the crap out of 4 of them and at this point we had the upper hand. Somewhere I believe we got split up and were each chasing individual random targets. And one by one we began to fall. I made it third from last. When the last guy fell I did not know our status as the whole event took place in about 90 seconds it seemed and we lost with only 2 of thiers standing. We were out classed and out Mech'd but the other team admitted if we would have had a full team we would have won. Lots of GG and and grats were sent to us from the other team as we disconnected.

We may have lost but I sure felt good in spirit as a winner. It will always be one of my memorable moments.

I wrote this as reminder to what good communication and sticking together can do. Against all odds we can overcome as I believe each of us has what it takes.

The communication is the key.

If you specifically have to call out a single mech every time it is on the field and kill it first, there *might* be a problem with the chassis being OP. God forbid you hit a C/C/A/A drop.

[Calon Farstar]

Ironbound, on 27 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

And this is my formal apology to everyone. If you see me in game, I'm sorry, but I'm probably piloting a skillcat, and it's because when I finish the game with 1000+ damage and 3-5 kills, I want you to hate the mech as much as I do.

Edit: This exploded, which is a good thing. I'll explain my reasoning for hating it.

I've played the skillcat now for probably 100 games in this fashion, saying at the end of each game "Pls go post rage about this on the forums."

Let me direct your rage:

I think the problem is twofold: SRMs are too good at pointblank range, and the Catapult can go too fast.

SRMs are designed to be balanced with all the other weapons in the game as spread weapons, since we borrowed numbers directly from battletech. The problem here is that for the first 50 meters of travel, they go in perfectly grouped little pinpoint bursts, and then after that they spread so hard they do nothing.

This means that a fast mech mounting srms is a nightmare, and is why so many people think SRMs are OP.

When the Catapult, a 60 tonner, can go the same speed as a Hunchback, a 50 tonner, and mount 6 SRMs and jumpjets, we have a problem. My skillcat goes 85 and has room for 3 jumpjets, max armor, 6 srm 6s, and 700 ammo.

Making a mech this fast and maneuverable while also being able to mount tons of weapons whose only drawback is "You have ta be sooper dooper close" makes it OP.

I don't know if the devs intended the Catapult to be a brawler, but being able to mount such huge weapons and turn 270 degrees faster than most heavies and all assaults makes it an incredible one. Its cockpit seems to me to scream "NOT A BRAWLER DON'T DO IT," but maybe that was the dev's attempts at balancing it.

In any case, to fix the Skillcat, we need to either/do both:

1. Make it so srms come out of the launcher at a small spread, and spread less over distance. This "perfect aim to 50 then useless" nonsense is what makes them feel OP.

2. Nerf the Catapult's engine mounting capabilities. I'm sorry everyone who loves them (Me included, my main is a 2 UAC5 4 Mlas K2) but this guy goes too fast and is too maneuverable.

Edit2: Per request, my experience with the mech:

Generally I do much better than I should. When I'm piloting any other good build I get good damage numbers and kills regularly, but nothing like this. I routinely (probably 4/5 games) get 1000+ damage and at least 3 kills, and I've gotten 6 or 7 kills at least ten times since I started.

When I run into literally anything 1v1 within 200 meters I know I can win easily. An atlas with 3 srm 6s, an AC20, and 4mlas is child's play. I literally walk around him, wait for him to show his back to turn to face me, alpha his back. It's yellow internals. Then I hit him again and he's dead. A good Atlas will get me to red armor, a bad one wont even touch me before he's dead. These are brawler Atlases btw, long range ones die very fast.

Any mech lower than an assault has to just stay away. Getting close to me means death. Trebuchets and Centurions can be killed by one well placed alpha to the center torso, hunchbacks lose plenty of weapons after 1, so everyone on the other team has to devote their full attention at all times to avoiding me. Did I mention I go 85 kph and have jumpjets? Yeah. Any big teamfight I just run around and mop up kills.

Sometimes damage doesn't register correctly, but honestly it's not nearly enough to matter. I don't pull the trigger till I'm close enough to gib, and at that range losing a little damage isn't that important.

Now people will say "Stay at range and shoot him!"

The maps are not open fields. None of them so far. Even Alpine Peaks is a playground for my cat. You think it has no cover? Actually play in a splatcat sometime. It has plenty of cover. And even when it doesn't, I just stay with my team. Eventually the mediums and dps heavies come knocking, and I walk up to them and kill them. It might be a meta problem from people used to city maps, but I have had no problems dominating on Alpine Peaks yet.

The only time I feel useless is when I'm against a premade using snipers. One or two snipers is the usual and can be avoided, but two ppc stalkers and four poptarts make my life hard, especially on Alpine Peaks. this is the only time I don't feel OP, but even then it just requires some sneaking. Overall I'd say its a mech that effects each game it's in far too much.

I run a splat cat but I long ago droped 2 SRMS for speed, armor and ammo. makes it much more survivable and less cheasy. Lately I slowed it down and added 2 LRM 5s for those ocasional alpine drops just to keep from being bored with waiting for victims.

Its intersting cause the cannon A1 variant should just have 2 missle hard points. It only droped the other hard points to make room for more ammo and not more weapons. In fact I dont think there is a single variant that has more than 1 missle weapon in each arm. So seems to me that dropping 1 missle HP from each arm and bring it in line with my 4 SRM cat would be a logical nerf that balances both cannon and fun.

But then again I am just some dumb mech pilot and not a video game programer!

[Antarus]

Rhent, on 28 February 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

Too many "Bads" playing MWO. A good signal of a Bad is someone who immediately goes to forums writing about how OP a Splatcat is. Instead of doing the following:

1.) Is there something wrong with my build? Do I not have enough burst (including heat sinks to use it) in brawl range to take out an arm OR Do I not have enough speed to stay out at 150M range OR do I not have enough long range weapons to decimate the A1 before it can close

2.) Most Bad's have a complete lack of situational awareness. They get 2 shotted in the back by a SRM Cat and then come to the boards crying. The actual question is you had a total of 4 seconds to do a torso turn and return fire rather than leaving the exact same torso location open. Why did you stand there like an ***** and allow yourself to be killed?

The Bad's won't be happy until everyone is stuck with their gimp builds mixing missiles, ballistics and energy weapons. The day I'm stuck with a gimped build that does everything awful, I'm done with the game as will be the majority of the player base. The Bad's will be stuck with a crap user base with crap specs. Oh right, the DEFAULT BUILDS for the mechs, that are absolutely horrible.

Who the hell wants to play a game that a Cat comes with 2 LRM15's with 3 tons of ammo and 4 absolutely useless Medium Lasers for the damage to heat ratio? Bad's do.

How do people like you completely fail to realize that people have been through this calculations, and have either gone "Well, ****. It comes down to either "Why am I having to prepare for a single contingency at the cost of everything else because this use case always kills everything" or "Whelp, time to buy a Catapult"

Carcass23, on 28 February 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

This is a joke, right? Is the chassis too powerful or SRM's? And ehhhh... you can step out of range. This whole thread is moronic. You play this chassis to show everyone how OP it is? You sir are a knight.

Part of OP's argument is just that - You cannot 'step away' from a splatcat when it outruns 75% of the mechs in the game.

[Terror Teddy]

Calon Farstar, on 28 February 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Its intersting cause the cannon A1 variant should just have 2 missle hard points. It only droped the other hard points to make room for more ammo and not more weapons.

Not quite - The STOCK LOADOUT is armed with only 2 launchers and Ammo but PGI gave it some more bells and Whistles - after all, the Hunchback designs never has X3 AC/2's but have 3 ballistic points.

It's to give us SOME options instead of NOT having a hardpoint system at all.

[Rhent]

Antarus, on 28 February 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

How do people like you completely fail to realize that people have been through this calculations, and have either gone "Well, ****. It comes down to either "Why am I having to prepare for a single contingency at the cost of everything else because this use case always kills everything" or "Whelp, time to buy a Catapult"



Part of OP's argument is just that - You cannot 'step away' from a splatcat when it outruns 75% of the mechs in the game.

You can replace SRM Cat w/ AC/20 Cat, PPC Stalker, Cent SRM Boat, Hunchback Laser boat, all of them are the same and pack massive Short Range damage. If you are too oblivious to understand the basics of the game, good luck.