44 replies to this topic

[FrostBear]

MustrumRidcully, on 18 April 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

Why are poptarts and alpha strike boats so popular right now?

• Because they work.
  
• Because there is a new mech in town that can do it, and everyone wants to test the new mech.
  
• Because LRMs were severely weakened.

The first point is particularly interesting to me.
They work. If they didn't work, people would ditch them quickly.
Why do they work?

1) Convergence.
If you fire multiple weapons with similar properties together, all your weapons will hit the same spot. (Convergence isn't actually 100 % perfect, so sometimes they actually don't hit the same spot. But your chances of hitting the same spot are good.

2) Heat Capacity
Many of these builds require a high heat capacity. 6 PPCs require the ability to deal with 48 heat in one shot. It would be bad to overheat on every alpha.

3) A certain damage threshold is reached.
6 PPCs deal 60 damage. 60 damage is enough to take off most of the armour on an Atlas arm or side torso, a second hit would destroy it. 3 hits would core an Atlas.
4 PPCs and 1 Gauss Rifle deal 55 damage. 2 hits would core a Cataphract.
2 PPCs and 1 Gauss Rifle deal 35 damage. 2 Hits would core a Cicada. 3 Hits would core a Hunchback.

The first 2 are enabling mechanics - these mechanics allow alpha strike builds in the first place and give them advantages over chain-firing and sustained DPS builds.

But the 3rd is probably crucial why they work - the damage you can inflict is really significant, and it doesn't take very long to severely hurt any enemy you face. Because you can kill many mechs in 2 hits, you don't need sustainable firepower. Most players will probably not be good and lucky enough to hit the same mech on the same hit location twice in a row, but with range and possibly jump jets at your aid, you have time to cool off a bit and try again.

And if you have team mates that can do the same and you focus fire a bit, you have a good chance of taking out enemy mechs quickly. And especially teamed up, the damage can come so fast that a defender might not realize that he needs to react and get into cover before it's too late.

How to deal with this I leave as an exercise to the reader. (For now, at least).

One easy solution to the jumpboys and the deadly yeah i killed it with one hit boaters, would be pgi does a aimconvergeance to the targeting, and the weapons can spread in that circle, like world of tanks or other fps games does, the longer you aim, the better the hit and the weapons can spread in that circle , so no onehit ppcs boats, and far lesser jumpmybuttintheair snipers, cause then you have to think, will i hit or not. But, PGI accepts boatloads and jumpysnipers, its the way to get killed at the moment, its fashion.

[Imagine Dragons]

Im pretty sure the proper technique of poptarting completely negates LRMs anyway...

So any counter using them is just... silly...

[Skye Storm]

jay35, on 18 April 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

Sounds about right. But really, practically nothing mounts 4 PPCs plus a Gauss. There are a couple builds where you can mount 3 PPC and a Gauss, which is 45 damage.
Also, you're assuming perfect aim.



3 PPCs + 1 Gauss is roughly the same targeted damage as an AC/40 K2 or Jager. It's really not any different in the damage output. Remember the Jager also has 2xML, so technically they're dealing more damage than the mythical PPC/Gauss sniper beast.


That's the case regardless of builds.

Situational awareness is always important on the field of battle.


Give it time for the Highlander to stop being the FOTM and balance to come back naturally, as it always does. Last month the AC/40 Jager was all the rage and the QQ threads were prolific. Then, magically, new content arrived and now they're not the most common mech on the field. What changed? There was no nerf. None was needed. People mastered their Jager variants and moved on. New content arrived. People learned how to counter AC/40 Jagers and to better prioritize their targets according to danger/risk/threat level. All of these factors played a part.

An unwillingness to learn and adapt is the primary source of 90% of the QQ and nerf request threads.

You good sir, are a genius.

[Jonathan Paine]

Either all of this, or we simply stop alpha strikes from delivering all of its damage in one area. Spread out alpha damage, keep chain fire accurate if there is a small delay between each shot.

[Tresch]

One mechanic that I've always thought would be neat would be something where chain-fire has a slight heat benefit over alpha-strike. Right now, as far as I know, heat accumulation is linear. Firing 4 shots over 4 seconds second gives the same amount of heat as firing 4 shots all at once. Or, more specifically, the heat-to-damage ratio is equal, but firing all at once has the benefits of better convergence.

What if there was a benefit to chain fire? Say, when generating a little bit of heat at a time, the heat can efficiently be carried off to the heat sinks through whatever system of heatpipes or whatnot the mechs use. However, if you generate a ton of heat at once, the heat transport system wouldn't work as efficiently and a certain amount of that heat is absorbed into the mech instead of the efficient heatsinks, taking longer to cool off.

The effect could be subtle, but if you got, say, an extra 15-20% cooling efficiency from sustained fire style over an alpha strike style, it might help diversify the battlefield a bit!

Edited by Tresch, 22 April 2013 - 11:30 PM.