135 replies to this topic

[Dudeman3k]

Every time I hear the word "competitive" and "MWO" in the same sentence (let alone the same paragraph) I shutter a little bit. The game has no real diversity in it's core playing mechanics, as MIN/MAX'ing is the defining line between victory and defeat. Here are some issues that make it so, and combined, kill all notion of a competitive game in the future. (PGI states most of them are "competitive" gamers, but their product says otherwise.)

The issues:

- weapon convergence -

When every equipped weapon, at any speed, and while in motion, manage to pin point area's for damage calculation regardless of range, you end up with high damage, low duration games. MAX'ing as we all know it in the game. You are punished for trying to "round out" builds, and rewarded for "boating". The only real counter to the said issue is another MAX'd player, with the opposite characteristics. I.E. PPC boat vs SRM boat. Arguably, both DO have defined "weaknesses" but the issue isn't IF you can kill these builds, it's HOW can you, the player, MAXIMIZE on the opponents "weaknesses". A well rounded mech (which in theory do very well, like the M4 carbine), say CN-9A will not stand a chance at any range vs. a SRM boat, concerning its far range "rounded" build isn't strong enough to kill or even soften the opponent at that given range, and most certainly will die when the opponent closes in (which he will).

PGI has "tried" to address this issue by doubling armor, making fights more "enjoyable" and making games longer... but In fact it did the opposite. Now "rounded" builds have absolutely NO chance to make ANY difference at ANY range in ANY way. Now mechs with said "weaknesses" are x2 more durable to a "rounded" mechs arsenal, meaning unless you are also packing the equivalent fire power, you wont be doing much in those 2 minutes of game play.

IF weapons had a more realistic convergence system in place, we could see how stock variants and trials can be VERY effective, even if used for competitive play, but alas convergence is "working as intended" with no competitive edge unless your MAX'ing.

- Equipment -

Like some of the biggest E-Sport games (Starcraft in paticular) you will notice upgrades and how they beifit you if invested apon (like the siege tanks siege mode). It isn't necessarily game breaking if you do not chose to invest in those tech upgrades, in particular because with every tech advance, your opponent can use his tech advances to effectively counter your tech. I'll stress again, you can still win WITHOUT these tech upgrades, because they have a equal counter-able property.

In MWO you have a few upgrades that are MANDATORY in order to be "competitive". Here are a few.

Endo-Steel Chassis - reduces tonnage to fix more fire power. Counter - WAS Repair-Re-arm, now NONE, it just gives you 100% obligation to invest in it, as there is no downside.

Double Heatsinks - as implied as is, makes engine HS VERY effective. Counter - WAS Repair-Re-Arm, now NONE. If you're a ballistics mech, you dont need anymore HS other than the ones provided by the engine, and if your boating PPC's you NEED DHS. With the "coolant-flush" now in play, you can max weapons slots, ENDO-STEEL, even FF armor, and rely on your flush to cool you off with out waisting tonnages on extra HS's, or space.

ECM - Beating a dead horse with this one, you know what it does. Counter - another ECM (PPC's do not counter ECM, as the effects do not last long enough to un-obsolete the weapon systems it disables just by being around, and TAG does not counter the way it cuts off your location to friendly units and it does not un-obsolete the weapon systems it disables). As with ECM it becomes a slug fest of AC and lasers. With the weapon convergence making it's real debut here, this is where the uncompetitive MAX'ing really shines. the only way to tip the scales of these MAX'ing wars is to posses MORE ECM in order to use the Weapon systems ECM nullifies. The REAL ISSUE is there is NOTHING other than another ECM that can equally counter this piece of equipment. making it must have for a competitive match, as it is the 1,000 ton weight on the scale of balance.

BAP, AMS, and the Command Console provide little to no benefit. A rock side can do a lot more than what these can provide. really.

- Arsenal -

Don't deny it. There are weapons in this game that actually HURT you more than HELP you.... its backwards, I know, making multiple chasis NOT USEABLE for competitive play. Like the 4 ballistic cicada. If MG's aren't worth mounting, switch them with AC2's.... now you you're only effectively using 2 of the 4 weapon slots granted, making it the weakest of your variants, it's not MAX'ing in anything, so competitively it is worthless.

In competitive play, everything must be viable in some way, shape or form, but in MWO, the line is few and far between. It's awful.... and I dont see a competitive future for a product as this.

[Purplefluffybunny]

A great post! Paragraph 3, on the increase in armour, is bang on IMO.

[sj mausgmr]

Here's my response in bullet points because busy.

- If it wasn't alpha strike it would be DPS, min maxing happens in any game.
- It's more about the team loadout in competitive play than the individual loadout - lots of loadouts have 'jobs', you have to balance the range of these roles accordingly.
- precision fire can vary when you take different weapon speeds into effect, the common alpha cata 3d actually suffers because of a speed difference between ppc and gauss that cannot be compensated for against a moving target without volley firing.
- not having double armour would mean my 8 man of coordinated experienced players would cut apart 8 enemy mechs in under a minute with little difficulty, this would mean a large portion of people would stop playing the game.
-Endo steel means some high heat laser boats cannot manage their heat due to lack of slots, it is by no means 'mandatory', just recommended and build based.
- ECM is far from god in competitive play because A) organised players don't need a radar to go "shoot the lead Atlas in the head" it isn't mounted on that many 'useful' chassis, C) I'd rather take more guns over ECM, and D) if an enemy group with ECM 'surprise' you your doing it wrong.
- Some mech variants are bad, some are good, that's typical of a lot of games with a lot of options, that aren't purely designed to be 100% perfectly competitive from the offset (starcraft is one of the few real examples of this). How many 'bad' guns were there in counterstrike? how about bad set ups in Guild Wars?

tldr : Play competitively because it's better than pubbing.

Edited by sj mausgmr, 07 April 2013 - 12:56 PM.

[Roadbeer]

I am Roadbeer, and I approve of this thread.

[Utilyan]

I remember watching I think Solaris tournament they had like live video. It look like a streetfighter match with guns. Almost always centurions with just zombie med lasers. The torso twist was fast so they would shoot block shoot block.....It was insane....like boxing.

IT was like the brawler back then knew kung fu.....not like the brawlers we might see. If you were to spec them its like the whole thing is just a blur. I might have to hook up a cent see how it is now.

[Woska]

I have felt all along that weapon convergence was a bad idea for these kinds of games. You should have a cone of fire that may or may not hit the target. I think doubling the armour was actually a good idea. But I think they should have doubled or tripled the internal structure as well, so that you have a long fight with lots of manouver, plus the slowly dwindling functionality of the combatant mechs due to internal critical damage.

I think you're completely wrong that those upgrades are completely mandatory. It depends on the chassis and the desired load out. Sometimes I just don't have room for double heat sinks or Endo-Steel if I want the weapons I'm after.

I do agree that the machine gun really needs a boost. It already has a really short range. Making it actually able to deal some damage would turn it into a viable weapon for a change.

[80Bit]

A few notes.

1) R&R was never a balance to anything as far as competitive play goes. Competitive players have virtually unlimited C-Bills due to the number of matches they play.

2) Min/Max building is present is almost any competitive game. League of Legend character builds are a good example of this.

3) The diversity of MWO matches is not from the builds used, but from the fact you have eight (soon to be twelve) players per side, meaning you have to have a lot of group coordination and planning.

[sC4r]

well the game IS competitive ...hell even TIC-TAC-TOE or Rock-paper-scissors are competitive games... they are not some high level games for some pro scene

same for mwo... it is competitive but not yet on the level of e-sport
it may get there in time... or may not

as for your rant... coz its rant:
i also play SC2 and i can tell you that what you said in your Equipment is total crap
upgrades there are fundamental there just like here... 3/3 units rip apart units that are 0/0 at upgrades (provided equal skill)
same goes here
well upgraded mech will rip apart mech that is stock if both players meet on some straight up battle and are both equally good

weapon convergence... yes maybe they could tinker a bit about recoil from balistics or some small inaccuracy but im kind of oposed to this-> take a look at WoT... its pure randomness when you are shooting... unless its point blank... sometimes the RNG will screw you there like 98% of tank is in your reticule but the system decides to put the shell on the outer edge of your reticule thus you will miss despite good aim

[DocBach]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 07 April 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

All I read was blah blah I didn't make the cut so I am going to ***** about it on the forums blah blah.

More poor me I suck and I will forever be in a PuG because I got no skills blah blah...


Blah blah I really do want competitive but its to hard to break into now blah...

Wow man, for a 35 year old your reading comprehension really sucks, then.

Your skills equate to cookie cutter flavor of the month builds where none of the features we were told were going to be included (and viable for fun gameplay) have a place in this game, where all builds more or less are the exact same, goaded into roles that frankly a whole lot of players don't find enjoyable.

That's cool, though, PGI didn't need the support of paying customers, anyways.

[Texas Merc]

l2p

[General Taskeen]

PGI apparently doesn't "get it" still for some reason. I'd rather have this friggin' game balanced and the bugs fixed before the game is supposedly 'live' at the end of the summer.

[Slaytronic]

competitive this game never 1. It's not popular enough 2. It's a game where one person can kill the whole enemy team
3. It's not skill based 4. many more reasons

[The pessimistic optimist]

Well siad this game is fun to pug in but competitive play is not good at all right now.

Edited by SirSmokes, 07 April 2013 - 02:37 PM.

[p00k]

Dudeman3k, on 07 April 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

- weapon convergence -

spoken like someone who hasn't made the transition from better build to better pilot, not to mention better team

Dudeman3k, on 07 April 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

- Equipment -

there's a clear difference between upgrades you accumulate resources for and spend during the match with RTS's, and upgrades that happen outside the battle, and have no opportunity cost (you don't have to sacrifice building fewer turrets in exchange for upgrading your tanks, or you don't have to bring fewer mechs in exchange for your mechs having DHS/ES)

also just want to point out, the counter to ES wasn't R&R; ES only minimally affected your repair cost. ferro was a lot more noticeable. but moot point, as i said above

Dudeman3k, on 07 April 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

- Arsenal -

yes there are some weapons that are crap. no one uses those weapons though. that in no way makes a game not competitive. there are garbage units in most RTS's that players simply avoid. there are garbage characters in fighting games that players simply don't choose. there are garbage weapons in FPS's that players simply don't use

---
now, there certainly are issues with the game that make it unlikely to become an esports core game, but your complaints are not them

Edited by p00k, 07 April 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[Tennex]

2 things to make MWO competitive

1. MWO needs a better balance team.

2. MWO needs private match making. teams need to practice. against themselves. against others.

[Duncan Fisher]

Okay sure, but this is exactly what the competitive side of a game like mechwarrior will always become. I don't see any purpose to these complaints....? It's like complaining that in a game like Magic: the gathering people use the best combinations of cards to win instead of the ****** cards. That's just what it is, if you don't like it you should stick to single player.

[Little Nemo]

I don't understand what you're getting at. Competitive play is fine. I would like a run-down of the loadouts of each team in this reality of yours.

Seriously. Type out how a match of your liking would go.

[Slaytronic]

Duncan Fisher, on 07 April 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Okay sure, but this is exactly what the competitive side of a game like mechwarrior will always become. I don't see any purpose to these complaints....? It's like complaining that in a game like Magic: the gathering people use the best combinations of cards to win instead of the ****** cards. That's just what it is, if you don't like it you should stick to single player.

ok i hate the game but i will use it as a example in league of legends there is a counter to every character the game is huge because it has balance no game will ever be competitive until there is true balance
One character can be really strong but another one wipes the floor with him and so on

[LiminalSpace]

The OP appears to be a veiled "I don't like alphas or min-maxing" dressed up as "why MWO is not competitive." Min-maxing is a fact of ANY competitive game where you get to build your mechs, or skills, or weapons, or talents, or whatever. WoW certainly, certainly had many FotM min-maxed builds and teams. GW did, too.

The only games I've played that don't are ones where each side has an extremely limited set of options, such as America's Army where you get to choose one of many roles, but ultimately each team only got exactly the same set of roles and weapons.

Your example of competitive RTS doesn't make any sense, as this is not an RTS. The tradeoffs are all different, and there are most *definitely* cookie-cutter min-max tactics and builds to use in RTS.

[Slaytronic]

LiminalSpace, on 07 April 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

The OP appears to be a veiled "I don't like alphas or min-maxing" dressed up as "why MWO is not competitive." Min-maxing is a fact of ANY competitive game where you get to build your mechs, or skills, or weapons, or talents, or whatever. WoW certainly, certainly had many FotM min-maxed builds and teams. GW did, too.

The only games I've played that don't are ones where each side has an extremely limited set of options, such as America's Army where you get to choose one of many roles, but ultimately each team only got exactly the same set of roles and weapons.

Your example of competitive RTS doesn't make any sense, as this is not an RTS. The tradeoffs are all different, and there are most *definitely* cookie-cutter min-max tactics and builds to use in RTS.

then lets go on to world of tanks which this game steals much from