83 replies to this topic

[Byk]

I would like AMS to be a little bit more effective. Like maybe shoot down 2 or 3 more missiles by default. Also let it shoot down more missiles if they're tightly grouped together, and less missiles if they're spaced further apart. This should let the AMS be of greater use against people who boat LRM's, but still allow people who use 1 LRM 5 or 10 or something to still do some damage. It makes sense, because if you've got 100 LRM's flying in at you and your AMS shoots some down, all that debris and tight space taken up by missiles is going to lead to more being shot down or hit by debris, logically.

[Noobzorz]

Taemien, on 09 March 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Yup

Course good piloting will beat any amount of ECM or AMS. But thats a taboo to suggest in this community, everyone is a monitor-licking "casual" player so we have to make suggestions they can comprehend and use without having to think about it.

"Play better" is not a valid balance argument, and it never has been.

ECM places extraordinary constraints on the other team. "But this can be countered with good piloting" is not a valid counterargument, because they can put that burden right back on you by exercising the same level of piloting. This isn't some obscure meta thing that we don't get yet. We get it. And it's just very powerful.

And that's fine, but if it's going to be such a core part of the game, we need a mechanism of making sure teams don't drop without it. DotA 2 esque predrop "mech picks" are the obvious answer to this for me, since they can be done quickly and easily, especially since the game doesn't require them to be loaded (this is obvious when you see a new player fill a slot and a mech appear out of thin air).

As for the AMS, any amount of piloting can stop that. With TAG, LRMs, streaks, and Artemis in the shape they are in, the AMS doesn't do a ******* thing, and has changed over the course of a month from essential equipment to such a shabby piece of crap that it's not clear if I should bother when I can just grab some more heatsinks.

My own opinion on this is that I think tag is far too powerful, NARC is far too weak, LRMs are far too strong, and the PPC should disrupt all special electronics for longer than it does, but I'm sure that can all be fine-tuned out.

The simple fact of the matter is that at this moment, if you have enough mechs of a certain loadout, you can be virtually assured of winning, and that's no damn good.

Edit: Quoted this three times for some reason. Removed two.

Edited by Noobzorz, 10 March 2013 - 04:28 PM.

[Steel Claws]

I really enjoy seeing LRM toting DDCs because it means they wasted a perfectly good 100 ton mech. Far more difficult to deal with if it has direct fire weapons on it. I also love the teams that have 3 or 4 LRM boats huddled together. One raven or cicada disables the whole lot of them.

Might I also add that speed is life. I see so many mechs crawling around at < 55 kph. This is death.

[Aim64C]

My opinion on ECM is a little borderline. I -want- to say it's overpowered and unbalanced... but I also play true-blue catapult designs that get plagued by ECM.

However, as I've gotten more experience, I've learned to deal with ECM a lot better. Also, I think it's fair to wager that the ECM we see, currently, is supposed to persist into a much larger and more dynamic game environment; so it's possible that coming implements will see ECM given better overall counters.

It's annoying to deal with - and with much of my damage being done by missiles that need a lock or -very- talented use of dumb-firing, it's potentially disastrous for my team; but I've also been on teams where we were up against a team with a few strategic LRM builds and had no ECM equipped mechs to give us much in the way of leverage.

I, also, recently came from a game where I am going to have to learn better tactics to deal with these types of scenarios. The other team had a considerable number of strategic LRM builds and were dispersed across about 90-120 degrees from my position. Apparently, they had a spotter on me, and buildings I thought would break some locks didn't, and I thought some rocks were going to provide a bit more cover than they actually did. One volley must have had about 80 missiles in it or more - because I took it to the face and damn near died. Barely had time to start seeing clearly before the second volley hit and finalized the lesson.

Probably my shortest match on record.

But I think that's also part of the game... there are times when enemy has the better positioning, the right firepower, and you lack enough information to make a good choice (or act far too aggressively without considering the things you don't know). Then you pay for it. Either you stop and think about what decisions and events led to the undesirable outcome with the purpose of devising a solution... or you blame the game and decide that everything needs to be changed for you.

Even so, I'm still a little borderline on ECM... and I refuse to consume one of my energy weapon slots to put a TAG in place. Those medium pulse lasers, or medium lasers (depending upon my chassis/build) are all I've got when things start to go sideways. Plus... it's fun to chew into the back of an Atlas like I'm a raven, or something. I might eventually cave on my C4, since it only has two energy slots (I errored in a previous post where I mentioned my C4 having 4 medium pulse lasers... that'd be my C1) and is already very missile-bound. That, and it is kind of irritating that it's so ridiculously superior to a Narc that it's not even remotely funny (and people are wanting it to be used to call in these consummable strikes?). But that's me being a fuddy-duddy.