152 replies to this topic

[Adridos]

CG Oglethorpe Kerensky, on 10 March 2013 - 05:21 AM, said:

Wow...just wow.

You actually saw a mech that could fire 68 SRMs at a single time, and move at 125kph (w/Speed Tweak) and you think it would 'just scratch the paint'. And that you would need to 'get lucky'?

Not only are you in denial about how boating is ingrained in Battletech Lore you ignore given examples of it and launch into a red herring about battlevalues.

So first off. It's 68 TT SRMs, which means damage all around. You won't get close enough to the mechs it actually hurts without lucky dice and others will just laugh at you and one shot you with something more effective. And we're talking Btech, not in-game terms, so speed tweak is out of the picture.

I'm not in denial there are boats in Btech lore. Heck, the Arctic Wolf was my vision of Clan Commando upgrade and Bane is my common example of how PGI screwed up in weapon balance department. However, waht I disagree with is the fact you're talking about boats. You say they are fine, because they are in the lore, what I say, is that they aren't because from the lore standpoint, they are junk.

I have made a 9 ML Catapult for TT that adds just 1 heat by full alpha just for the sake of seeing how great boating actually is in TT. The thing would hit like a truck in MW:O and I could easily go up on the number of MLs, since who cares if the heat goes higher here? It couldn't hit for .... even when me and the target were both standing still and when it did hit, it was spread all around without any noticable harm done. What chances does Arctic Wolf have when it has massive heat output and so many rolls that to actually hit something, it has to stand still, which is not a good idea for a 40 tonner filled with such explosive aramemnt. And that's disregarding the fact of it's BV cost.

[Vocis]

What weapon systems are people "boating"?

SRMs, LRMs and ER PPCs.

If "boating" itself was the problem we would be seeing MG boat builds, Flamer boat builds, etc, etc. Is anyone boating AC2s? Probably not successfully.

SRMs and LRM need nerfs. SRMs just do too much damage.
LRMs are a little more complicated. As it is 0-30 LRM tubes in a match does nothing. 30-100 requires a shift in gameplay. 100+ destroys game balance and makes the game boring. There needs to be a way to increase the effectiveness of a few LRM tubes while decreasing the effectiveness of hundreds of tubes.

PPC/ER PPC boating is at least capped more by player skill than anything else.

[Big Giant Head]

http://mwomercs.com/...nt/page__st__40 (bottom)

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Vocis, on 10 March 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

What weapon systems are people "boating"?

SRMs, LRMs and ER PPCs.

If "boating" itself was the problem we would be seeing MG boat builds, Flamer boat builds, etc, etc. Is anyone boating AC2s? Probably not successfully.

SRMs and LRM need nerfs. SRMs just do too much damage.
LRMs are a little more complicated. As it is 0-30 LRM tubes in a match does nothing. 30-100 requires a shift in gameplay. 100+ destroys game balance and makes the game boring. There needs to be a way to increase the effectiveness of a few LRM tubes while decreasing the effectiveness of hundreds of tubes.

PPC/ER PPC boating is at least capped more by player skill than anything else.

Love this post! its Rick James FTW!

Anyway boating doesnt have to be 6 of something, it just has to be a weapon system that do massive damage when combined in multiples. So 6 machine guns cant be boated. Now 3 PPC's or more is boating, Multipule LRM's (anything over 30 or so ) is boating. SRM's over about 2 (ask any Cent A pilot for refrence) is boating. 2 ac 20's hitting the same spot boating. The weapons on the whole are balanced. Its the unrestrected builds in the Mech Lab and the VERY BAD use of Hard Points that have taken us to this wonderful soon to be a total fail experience.

Edited by Zerstorer Stallin, 11 March 2013 - 01:44 PM.

[Aim64C]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 11 March 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

Love this post! its Rick James FTW!

Anyway boating doesnt have to be 6 of something, it just has to be a weapon system that do massive damage when combined in multiples. So 6 machine guns cant be boated. Now 3 PPC's or more is boating, Multipule LRM's (anything over 30 or so ) is boating. SRM's over about 2 (ask any Cent A pilot for refrence) is boating. 2 ac 20's hitting the same spot boating. The weapons on the whole are balanced. Its the unrestrected builds in the Mech Lab and the VERY BAD use of Hard Points that have taken us to this wonderful soon to be a total fail experience.

Honestly, the problems and advantages of any given weapon system are only amplified by the practice of "boating."

I hardly notice boats, anymore. Sometimes I will notice "Huh... I just busted an AC20 cat wide open. Serves his dumb *** right." Or I'll laugh when I notice that the last enemy mech on the playing field is an irresponsible LRM boat or SRM boat. I'll either slaughter it with my LRMs or close and carve it up with a quartet of medium pulse lasers.

The only boat I bother to notice is the splatcat. I consider it the epitome of dishonorable and will go out of my way to personally educate the pilot in how poorly they are treating their kitty.

Occasionally, some stalker LRM boat will remind me that he exists with a rather punishing barrage of LRMs that I was stupid enough to deserve taking to the face. There's no excuse for getting hit with LRMs from those blundering blimps. Ever time I've died at the hands of one, I deserved it for being stupid.

Now, a 'tactical' LRM user (such as a mobile catapult who is a little on the crazy side and pushes the assault in his fire support chassis) can get into ranges and angles where it's difficult for you to do anything to avoid being hit. Still - there are things you can do to avoid being hit... I can't tell you how many people stupidly charge right at me like they are going to win by eating a torso full of LRM salvos every 300 meters of ground (when I'm not bothering to extend).

Anyway - I'm getting off-topic, here. Even the "out of character" boat designs don't really bother me, anymore. I've gotten better at keeping my mech in areas where it can control the territory it excels in while being difficult to surprise me in areas I'm not so great at controlling. There's nothing I love more than getting a whole team to start blowing their LRMs on me, listening to them slam against buildings or watching them fly wide and useless after the lock is broken.

Better they focus all of that fire on me than the blundering bulks on our team who have much more difficulty dealing with combined team salvos of 150 missiles or more. Even then - I tend to rarely see those builds in my ranking unless they are part of a coordinated team (and even then, those teams will tend to more evenly distribute their LRMs across mechs and run more balanced builds on the whole).

That said - there are plenty of 'mechs in battletech lore that are, by your definition, 'boats.' Most of the stalker variants. The C4 Catapult. Fafnir, Jaggermech, Hunchback, Awesome (3 PPCs ... exactly why it was called the awesome), the list goes on.

Now; few, if any, of these builds were so exclusively 'boats' that they lacked some kind of back-up weaponry - but they were frequently designed around fielding a specific weapon system of a class or in a number out of the ordinary for the weight class of the mech.

Bluntly - the problem is that people don't look at the system and say: "How can I improve?" They see themselves as doing everything 'how it should be done' - and when that isn't working, they want things changed so that 'how it should be done' is the 'real' way to play the game.

But that requires humility and deductive reasoning.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Aim64C, on 11 March 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Honestly, the problems and advantages of any given weapon system are only amplified by the practice of "boating."

I hardly notice boats, anymore. Sometimes I will notice "Huh... I just busted an AC20 cat wide open. Serves his dumb *** right." Or I'll laugh when I notice that the last enemy mech on the playing field is an irresponsible LRM boat or SRM boat. I'll either slaughter it with my LRMs or close and carve it up with a quartet of medium pulse lasers.

The only boat I bother to notice is the splatcat. I consider it the epitome of dishonorable and will go out of my way to personally educate the pilot in how poorly they are treating their kitty.

Occasionally, some stalker LRM boat will remind me that he exists with a rather punishing barrage of LRMs that I was stupid enough to deserve taking to the face. There's no excuse for getting hit with LRMs from those blundering blimps. Ever time I've died at the hands of one, I deserved it for being stupid.

Now, a 'tactical' LRM user (such as a mobile catapult who is a little on the crazy side and pushes the assault in his fire support chassis) can get into ranges and angles where it's difficult for you to do anything to avoid being hit. Still - there are things you can do to avoid being hit... I can't tell you how many people stupidly charge right at me like they are going to win by eating a torso full of LRM salvos every 300 meters of ground (when I'm not bothering to extend).

Anyway - I'm getting off-topic, here. Even the "out of character" boat designs don't really bother me, anymore. I've gotten better at keeping my mech in areas where it can control the territory it excels in while being difficult to surprise me in areas I'm not so great at controlling. There's nothing I love more than getting a whole team to start blowing their LRMs on me, listening to them slam against buildings or watching them fly wide and useless after the lock is broken.

Better they focus all of that fire on me than the blundering bulks on our team who have much more difficulty dealing with combined team salvos of 150 missiles or more. Even then - I tend to rarely see those builds in my ranking unless they are part of a coordinated team (and even then, those teams will tend to more evenly distribute their LRMs across mechs and run more balanced builds on the whole).

That said - there are plenty of 'mechs in battletech lore that are, by your definition, 'boats.' Most of the stalker variants. The C4 Catapult. Fafnir, Jaggermech, Hunchback, Awesome (3 PPCs ... exactly why it was called the awesome), the list goes on.

Now; few, if any, of these builds were so exclusively 'boats' that they lacked some kind of back-up weaponry - but they were frequently designed around fielding a specific weapon system of a class or in a number out of the ordinary for the weight class of the mech.

Bluntly - the problem is that people don't look at the system and say: "How can I improve?" They see themselves as doing everything 'how it should be done' - and when that isn't working, they want things changed so that 'how it should be done' is the 'real' way to play the game.

But that requires humility and deductive reasoning.

so your reasoning isnt that the system might be flawed, its LTP Noob. Thanks... BTW I do well so its not an issue I deal with, but any child can see there is a problem that will 1. Chase off new players. 2. Makes playing the game in PUGS unfun.. (see 1). 3. Distracts from the ability that every HERP DERPer claims is so important, IE the mechlab.

Also if you going to use the very tired arguement of lore, then you leave out the most important parts, THOSE WEAPONS DONT HIT THE SAME PLACE. So if your saying you would like to go to a system that randomly determines weapon location strikes, then I'm on board. Posting this ridiculous wall of text thinking how great your are needs a nerf too.

Edited by Zerstorer Stallin, 11 March 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[SpiralRazor]

"Boats" as you call them, are Canon, both in the tech manuals and in the table top most of us have played.



your arguments and this thread fails.

[SpiralRazor]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 11 March 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

so your reasoning isnt that the system might be flawed, its LTP Noob. Thanks... BTW I do well so its not an issue I deal with, but any child can see there is a problem that will 1. Chase off new players. 2. Makes playing the game in PUGS unfun.. (see 1). 3. Distracts from the ability that every HERP DERPer claims is so important, IE the mechlab.

Also if you going to use the very tired arguement of lore, then you leave out the most important parts, THOSE WEAPONS DONT HIT THE SAME PLACE. So if your saying you would like to go to a system that randomly determines weapon location strikes, then I'm on board. Posting this ridiculous wall of text thinking how great your are needs a nerf too.

Targeting Computer, Pulse Lasers, plus a pilot with a gunnery score of 1 or 2... Ummm...what did you say about not hitting the same place?


Yes, in fact.....it does sometimes come down to L2P im afraid.

[Aim64C]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 11 March 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

so your reasoning isnt that the system might be flawed, its LTP Noob.

Essentially.

Quote

Thanks... BTW I do well so its not an issue I deal with,

If you're doing well in a circuit where boats are causing your team all kinds of problems, then you'll get eaten alive in the one that I'm playing in.

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but any child can see there is a problem that will 1. Chase off new players.

I do not agree with this in the slightest. When many people first start playing a game, they are either going to decide that they like the way the game feels, or not. Initial perceived difficulty has little effect - people expect to encounter a learning curve.

Here's what separates the good players from the whiners. Good players experience something undesirable, then think about what actions and events resulted in that undesriable experience. After doing this, they come to the absolutely novel idea that, perhaps, they can take actions of their own accord to prevent those things from happening. Over the course of the next couple matches, they put these ideas to the test and use their experiences to refine their solution.

Whiners simply experience a problem and decree that there must be something wrong with the balancing or mechanics of the game.

That doesn't mean that there are not balancing issues in a game - but the current state of MWO has no grossly overpowered weapons. There are a few that might need some minor tweaking here and there, and certain systems could use a little bit of balancing; but there is no weapon so horribly overpowered as to warrant the amount of silliness on the forums over it.

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2. Makes playing the game in PUGS unfun.. (see 1).

Nothing is more fun than watching a whole team fire LRMs at you and listening to them all clatter against the side of a building.

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3. Distracts from the ability that every HERP DERPer claims is so important, IE the mechlab.

I do my best to round out all of my builds to have the ability to put effective damage on target in any situation. Not sure what you're talking about, here, though.

Quote

Also if you going to use the very tired arguement of lore, then you leave out the most important parts, THOSE WEAPONS DONT HIT THE SAME PLACE.

Enemy mechs, also, aren't 'moving' or able to adjust their torso to limit the exposed profile or force damage onto an undamaged/sacrificial side.

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So if your saying you would like to go to a system that randomly determines weapon location strikes, then I'm on board.

A number of weapons already have a scattering effect to their fire (autocannons). If you run perpendicular to a salvo of missiles, even a fatlas can substantially reduce the number of missiles that connect (because missiles in MWO behave absolutely ******** and chase targets instead of calculating an intercept vector). Lights and even some of the faster heavies can laugh off substantial volleys of missiles this way.

Your mech has legs for a reason, you know. They are very useful for causing all of those pinpoint weapons to hit where you were as opposed to where you are.

[Khobai]

Wrong. The problem is weapons themselves.

Go compare an SRM6 to a medium laser... SRM6 is outright better for damage per heat. The weapons are not balanced. Boating just make unbalanced weapons more obvious.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

SpiralRazor, on 11 March 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

"Boats" as you call them, are Canon, both in the tech manuals and in the table top most of us have played.



your arguments and this thread fails.

Oh I see you to want to go to a system of random hit locations... oh wait your serious arent you...

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Aim64C... wow I'd take the time to reply but really? There is almost nothing in your post that either one, sounds a bit logical or is true, two im not here to waste my time on anyone who's answer is LTP Noob, Its juvenile and a waste of any possible effort. Since your playing on a level that we cant dream of you, can just ignore us lowly pebs.

[Aim64C]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 11 March 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Aim64C... wow I'd take the time to reply but really? There is almost nothing in your post that either one, sounds a bit logical or is true,

Interesting. "My opinion is detailed and factual. You're an *****, that's all there is to it."

Hence the sweeping generalizations and vagueness.

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two im not here to waste my time on anyone who's answer is LTP Noob,

*shrug* I'm vain enough to continue a conversation well beyond any productive outcome.

Though this does exemplify exactly what I talked about: "There's nothing wrong with me! It's the game!"

Quote

Since your playing on a level that we cant dream of you, can just ignore us lowly pebs.

You're trying to twist words. In the games I regularly play, "boats" are not a problem for most players. LRM-heavy stalkers will regularly go down, doing less than 300 damage, after surviving for at least 6 minutes. 6PPC stalkers may nab a kill or two, but you hardly ever see such builds as they are ineffective. There's often a splatcat running around, somewhere - he may get a kill or two, depending upon how the battle goes - but it's a rare player who can actually make that platform work well against pilots who have a calm mind about things.

I don't have problems dealing with boats, and neither do many of the players on the teams I get paired with through PUGs.

CHWarpath, on 11 March 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Your not very intelligent so stop trying to be please. This Table Top crowd of Dungeons and Dragon's nerds with the eye hand coordination skills of an 8 year old girl is ruining this game like you have the last games. You know nothing about video games and you know of balance. Missiles are lame, lame, lame. Any weapon where you can click on somebody and just click another button and do lots of damage is not balanced.

You mean like lasers?

Or autocannons (when used at their nominal ranges)?

Or a gauss rifle?

Sure - you may have to lead if your target is moving... but missiles are the only weapon in the game that can be avoided -after- they have been fired and require -some- mech or another to be exposed to a direct line of fire during the entire flight of those missiles.

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I'm sorry you have no skill, its not the rest of the world's problem you are lazy and you refuse to work on it.

Seriously, kid?

You have no intelligence. Don't stand and take a face-full of missiles because you're too busy stroking your ... autocannon....

Or if you do, understand that it's because you were not exercising good judgment and could stand to treat it as a learning experience.

Quote

Get this through your head, Parker Brothers does not work in games and especially when they are trying to make money. This active community is what 10,000? Why should I play this game with balance problems with no skill when I can just go play League of Legends that actually requires skill? Its fun to win or be beaten by somebody who is actually better than you, not somebody who decided to lock a weapon on you and spam you to death while they drank a soda and ate a burger in both hands. Get with reality, thanks.

What makes you think, if you are happy playing one game... that those who currently like the play style of this game are going to be receptive to your simplistic train of thought on why this game needs to be the same?

By all means, be a part of a game you enjoy.

Though it may be asking a bit much for you to simply go away.

[MustrumRidcully]

Aim64C, on 11 March 2013 - 04:36 PM, said:

Essentially.



If you're doing well in a circuit where boats are causing your team all kinds of problems, then you'll get eaten alive in the one that I'm playing in.



I do not agree with this in the slightest. When many people first start playing a game, they are either going to decide that they like the way the game feels, or not. Initial perceived difficulty has little effect - people expect to encounter a learning curve.

Here's what separates the good players from the whiners. Good players experience something undesirable, then think about what actions and events resulted in that undesriable experience. After doing this, they come to the absolutely novel idea that, perhaps, they can take actions of their own accord to prevent those things from happening. Over the course of the next couple matches, they put these ideas to the test and use their experiences to refine their solution.

So it's impossible for a good player to find something imbalanced? Or is there a scenario in your mind that would allow the good player to say "this build is too strong"?

If you think a good player cannot possibly find something imbalanced, we just have to agree to disagree.
If you think a good player can possibly find something imbalanced, why do you not concede the possibility that someone complaining about an imbalance is actually a good player?

[Fooooo]

Every good weapon would be boated if it could.

If you could fit 4 ac/20's into an atlas, people would do that.

If you could fit 4 gauss into an atlas, people would do that too.

Doesn't really matter what weapon, as long as its decent when you have enough of them, people will boat them given the chance.

[Royalewithcheese]

CHWarpath, on 11 March 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Why should I play this game with balance problems with no skill when I can just go play League of Legends that actually requires skill?

I wasn't aware that LoL required you to lead targets to hit them.

[Kmieciu]

You talk about boating (taking multiple weapons of the same type), but your problem is with weapon convergence while alpha striking.

6 PPC are scary only when they hit the same location. PPC are very inefficient when you consider damage per heat per tonne.

I was always against weapon convergence, because it makes weapon stacking so powerful. I was against it since the closed beta.

All I was told is that initially there was no convergence in the friends&family beta and it was to difficult to play. And I don`t buy that. My idea was that when chain firing the cross hairs should show where the next weapon will hit, and when using group fire the cross hairs should show the center of your mech. So the weapons mounted on the left hand would hit slightly to the left, and the weapons mounted on the right hand would hit slightly to the right.

Edited by Kmieciu, 12 March 2013 - 06:33 AM.

[Big Giant Head]

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Simply increase heat build up, if you are using more than one weapon in expected hardpoint system, e.g.:

• in 0/3 energy hardpint section putting PPC/ERPPC would be expected
  
• but if decide to put 3 ML in it your gonna have heat cons from it - increased heat generation or reduced heat dissipation from base heat of the weapon
  
• same goes to 1 LL and 1 ML, but numbers heat pushback arent the same

• in 0/2 + 0/1 energy hardpoint you can put PPC/ERPPC
  
• you wont gonna have any heat cons from putting 1 LL and 1 ML
  
• less heat pushbacks if your putting 3 ML than from the 0/3 one

• in 3x0/1 energy hardpoints you cant out PPC/ERPPC
  
• neither 1 LL an 1 ML
  
• most beneficial boating build would be with this hardpoit setup allowing you to putt 3 ML and recevie no heat dissipation pushback

So at the end how to avoid those ugly cookie-cutter splat-cat build (CATAPULT-CPLT A1)
Simply put 0/2 + 0/1 missile hardpoint in each arm...

[Zerstorer Stallin]

SpiralRazor, on 11 March 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Targeting Computer, Pulse Lasers, plus a pilot with a gunnery score of 1 or 2... Ummm...what did you say about not hitting the same place?


Yes, in fact.....it does sometimes come down to L2P im afraid.

Ah so I see you are the guy that no one wanted to play TT with.... noted.

Kmieciu, on 12 March 2013 - 06:27 AM, said:

You talk about boating (taking multiple weapons of the same type), but your problem is with weapon convergence while alpha striking.

6 PPC are scary only when they hit the same location. PPC are very inefficient when you consider damage per heat per tonne.

I was always against weapon convergence, because it makes weapon stacking so powerful. I was against it since the closed beta.

All I was told is that initially there was no convergence in the friends&family beta and it was to difficult to play. And I don`t buy that. My idea was that when chain firing the cross hairs should show where the next weapon will hit, and when using group fire the cross hairs should show the center of your mech. So the weapons mounted on the left hand would hit slightly to the left, and the weapons mounted on the right hand would hit slightly to the right.

yeah there was a pretty big discussion on this subject. There were those that wanted all fire in the same area, then there was the rest of us that knew it was a bad idea. As you can see the CoD crowd won out.

Fooooo, on 12 March 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

Every good weapon would be boated if it could.

If you could fit 4 ac/20's into an atlas, people would do that.

If you could fit 4 gauss into an atlas, people would do that too.

Doesn't really matter what weapon, as long as its decent when you have enough of them, people will boat them given the chance.

This is the very reason that the mechlab is such a bad idea in its current form!

Edited by Zerstorer Stallin, 12 March 2013 - 02:18 PM.

[Targetloc]

Vocis, on 10 March 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

What weapon systems are people "boating"? SRMs, LRMs and ER PPCs. If "boating" itself was the problem we would be seeing MG boat builds, Flamer boat builds, etc, etc. Is anyone boating AC2s? Probably not successfully. SRMs and LRM need nerfs. SRMs just do too much damage. LRMs are a little more complicated. As it is 0-30 LRM tubes in a match does nothing. 30-100 requires a shift in gameplay. 100+ destroys game balance and makes the game boring. There needs to be a way to increase the effectiveness of a few LRM tubes while decreasing the effectiveness of hundreds of tubes. PPC/ER PPC boating is at least capped more by player skill than anything else.

This.

Medium lasers and small lasers also used to be a boat people complained a lot about. Their heat levels were adjusted. Most players agree they're still effective weapons that get a lot of use, but I haven't seen a "HBK-4P is cheese" thread in forever.

When individual weapons are in balance, the boats that use them are in balance.