238 replies to this topic

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 02:30 AM, said:

Except you can totally use them, and ACs, but you won't have the advantage of shooting your sniper weapons from the air anymore. It's like you're forced to expose yourself to shoot people.

However will we cope?

That was the whole point, deal more damage than you receive...kind of the whole point of the game. Stepping out into the complete open is like stupid... kinda of why 90% of the playerbase is fishfood, the feel running across open ground is a good idea.
AC's are a joke in the current game and a total waste of tonnage (aside from the 20)

Then again why would we expect anything less of you, i bet your giddy with glee you can suit up in your A1 SSRM boat, and DDC and feel invincible again.

Edited by DV McKenna, 20 May 2013 - 02:36 AM.

[SgtMagor]

ok, you can nerf the jjets , and stop tarding. mean while any mech that has high mounted weapon arms can still just peak over a hill and snipe without any problems, but a jumping mech seems to be a problem? I don't get it.

[Vassago Rain]

DV McKenna, on 20 May 2013 - 02:35 AM, said:

That was the whole point, deal more damage than you receive...kind of the whole point of the game. Stepping out into the complete open is like stupid... kinda of why 90% of the playerbase is fishfood, the feel running across open ground is a good idea.
AC's are a joke in the current game and a total waste of tonnage (aside from the 20)

Then again why would we expect anything less of you, i bet your giddy with glee you can suit up in your A1 SSRM boat, and DDC and feel invincible again.

You have absolutely no idea how giddy I am. Maybe DPS will also become useful again, since snipers can't ignore the common laws of FPS games.

That'd be great.

[Alex Wolfe]

B-but HM is adding to the poptart alpha metagame too, please see the attached screenshot for proof.

[Chavette]

Rushing in at the right place and time and brawling still works, it just requires an all time high effort of patience, coordination to do it properly.

Unfortunately these qualities are hardly given in any pug team, so nobody is bothering with it anymore.
The meta will shift back towards pressing W at the start of the game and trying to mow everyone down, and then coming here to vent it out if it didn't work out.

Its just the sad relation of making something complex have a high enough risk/benefit for pugs to bother with it will make the same thing a no-brainer in 8v8s.

I just hope the srms don't become mwo-s noob tubes again, bringing back the plague of hugger srmcats a snail could drive.

I'm cool with the nerfs in general, they are doing the right thing of making things weaker and not everything else stronger. If you take into account 12v12 which should be 3-4 patches away, they do need to nerf almost everything to have a battle last longer, as people will die faster when more firepower is given.

In short, it should be whole team going rambo - you get picked apart. Rushing in at the right time from the right direction after enough distraction - you win. Its just bad 95% of the playerbase doesn't know how that would even look like, and TBH, I can't even be angry at them, they simply don't know better. That's why they need broadcasted tournaments, to give the average scope what the game is about, and not spend his day ramboing and complaining.

[Vassago Rain]

SgtMagor, on 20 May 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

ok, you can nerf the jjets , and stop tarding. mean while any mech that has high mounted weapon arms can still just peak over a hill and snipe without any problems, but a jumping mech seems to be a problem? I don't get it.

I'll certainly explain.

In FPS games, snipers ruin you. This is okay. They have to setup firelanes, know the terrain, and practice patience to ruin you.

Meanwhile, a knifefighter will ruin a sniper if he can get to him. He's aided in his task by terrain and movement. This is also fair. Both these are sort of specialists.

The ur example is AWP campers versus P90 n00blars...

Now, if the AWP was flying, and had perfect aim always, we'd have a problem. Terrain would be meaningless, and both snipers and knifefighters would no longer have a reason to exist. In fact, flying AWPs would only really be countered by other flying AWPs.

Which is what poptarts really are. It completely invalidates all other approaches. Thus, for the sake of having stimulating, actual gameplay, it must be killed.

[Chavette]

I like my above post so much, I'll start a thread with a tuned version after next patch, because the issue deserves to be talked about, and is really off-topic from the HM.

Edited by Chavette, 20 May 2013 - 05:30 AM.

[Lee Ving]

They shouldn't even be nerfing JJ until they reimplement proper missiles.

They certainly shouldn't be doing more shake based on more weight - that's more weigh to compensate for the shake via gyros/myomer/wizard space magic.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

You have absolutely no idea how giddy I am. Maybe DPS will also become useful again, since snipers can't ignore the common laws of FPS games.

That'd be great.

DPS has never been useful in a mech game compared with Alpha, even JJ nerfs won't change that.

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

I'll certainly explain.

In FPS games, snipers ruin you. This is okay. They have to setup firelanes, know the terrain, and practice patience to ruin you.

Meanwhile, a knifefighter will ruin a sniper if he can get to him. He's aided in his task by terrain and movement. This is also fair. Both these are sort of specialists.

The ur example is AWP campers versus P90 n00blars...

Now, if the AWP was flying, and had perfect aim always, we'd have a problem. Terrain would be meaningless, and both snipers and knifefighters would no longer have a reason to exist. In fact, flying AWPs would only really be countered by other flying AWPs.

Which is what poptarts really are. It completely invalidates all other approaches. Thus, for the sake of having stimulating, actual gameplay, it must be killed.

It only invalidates other approaches for bad players, and typically solo players will have a harder time.
At least in team vs team play, brawling still works it works better with fully functional SRM's but still.

Either way people should not be happy at the death of an alternative method of play, what they should be promoting is having both short and long range play.

But it's ok you'll be back here in a month defending why SRM's and SSRMs aren't broken because it suits the way you play ;-)

Edited by DV McKenna, 20 May 2013 - 05:38 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Lightfoot, on 20 May 2013 - 01:06 AM, said:

I never see anyone doing this. It would not be the poptart exploit. I can understand wanting to remove things that exploit a weak game mechanic, but anything else is questionable.

And I mean I never see anyone running back and forth along a ridgeline and jumpjet shooting. I see them move from spot to new spot, but not while shooting, unless they are being chased.

I don't know what bracket I am in, but I have been playing MechWarrior since 98, so I think we are playing the same game.

Poptarting is not exploiting anything. I don't like to get into semantics arguments, but this is really a case where you should not use the word.

See, an exploit isn't just something you don't like. It's a deliberate abuse of a bug in game mechanics. Poptarting is not abusing game mechanics, as much as you don't like it - it's just a use of game mechanics. It's one with negative consequences to the game as a whole, but that too doesn't make it an exploit.

Anyways, we're playing the same game, but possibly not against the same people. You should always keep in mind that what you see people doing in game is not what everyone sees - this, interestingly, is where I suspect a lot of forum angst comes from.

Just jumping up and down doesn't mean you're exploiting anything, it just means you're bad at poptarting. A player skilled at it will jump up and down and side to side, unpredictably. It's been my experience that a poptarting player who just jumps up and down dies on his second or third jump, so those poptarts don't last long or accomplish much. After he's popped once, a couple enemy mechs are holding their crosshairs where they suspect he'll pop again. If he does so... splat.

[Vassago Rain]

DV McKenna, on 20 May 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

DPS has never been useful in a mech game compared with Alpha, even JJ nerfs won't change that.







It only invalidates other approaches for bad players, and typically solo players will have a harder time.
At least in team vs team play, brawling still works it works better with fully functional SRM's but still.

Either way people should not be happy at the death of an alternative method of play, what they should be promoting is having both short and long range play.

But it's ok you'll be back here in a month defending why SRM's and SSRMs aren't broken because it suits the way you play ;-)

I don't see any of the actually good players using anything except ridging and tarting. Are you sure you know any good players? Because I know I do.

Poptarting's bad. You know why it's bad. Stop pretending otherwise. I know you're really salty MWO isn't quite turning out the way you'd want it to - that is, MW4 with HD graphics, jumping mechs all day, every day.

Long and short range warfare will both come back when you can't get your AWPs into the air.

[Chavette]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

Which is what poptarts really are. It completely invalidates all other approaches. Thus, for the sake of having stimulating, actual gameplay, it must be killed.

There were the same amount of good poptart players before the highlander epidemic, but the mech was so good everyone started using it. Its not the quality of the players that made the other half mad but the quantity.

For this reason we should take a awp noob against a p9O noob, in the current game state, the p9O makes about 1O damage to an armored guy, and has just enough cover to succeed... it IS on the weaker side, and should be changed, but its closer than most would think from random matches.

[Roland]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

I don't see any of the actually good players using anything except ridging and tarting. Are you sure you know any good players? Because I know I do.

The Snow ravens are most definitely good players. I played against them for years back in the MW4 leagues.

They were actually one of the few teams who weren't confined to the pop-snipe meta that many teams fell into in that game as well.

Just like in MWO, in MW4 tons of folks essentially thought that you HAD to jumpsnipe with ERLL if you wanted to be effective. A few teams, the snow ravens included, were able to exploit this by maneuvering into what you would call knife-fight range. Our unit fought in a similar manner, which is why they stand out in my mind.

Most MWO maps offer enough cover to support brawling if you want... it's just that most folks don't bother, because it requires actually maneuvering in some way that's more than "march towards the enemy".

The current issue isn't jump sniping as much as it's that early beta stages nerfed a lot of the short range weapons, like small and medium lasers, and SRM's... so that the long range heavy hitting weapons aren't at any significant disadvantage even if you do bother to get close.

[Galenit]

Arcturious, on 19 May 2013 - 10:13 PM, said:

1) Physics - on my Spider, I have 6T of Jump Jets for a total of 20% of my mass. On my Highlander, I have 8T for a total of 9% of my mass. The Spider should have much worse shake.

Physics says:

For your spider you need 294199 J to lift it 1 meter.
For your highlander you need 882598 J to lift it 1 meter.

The spider has 6 jjs, every jj need 294kj/6=49kj to lift it 1 m.
The HL has 4 jjs, every jj need 883kj/4 221 kj to lift it 1 m.

1 jj of your HL is nearly as forcefull then 4,5 jjs of your spider.

Thats why the HL gets more shake (vibrations).

It should change with gravity but gravity in this game is only a fancy number without any meaning.

(Dumbed down the math a little, its enough to show what i mean and i dont want to make it to complicated.)

Edited by Galenit, 20 May 2013 - 06:31 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Keep in mind that Omid said in the podcast that shake is tuned per chassis, not by tonnage/number of jets. There is a comment re:size, but that was one of the ngng guys who made that comment. Expect to see spiders have virtually no shake, highlanders and 3d's to have lots.

If only lights and mediums could poptart, I'd shed no tears. Nobody fears the Awesome Spider Poptart, and if Mediums can find a really workable job, all the power to them.

Edited by Wintersdark, 20 May 2013 - 06:57 AM.

[Chavette]

Wintersdark, on 20 May 2013 - 06:29 AM, said:

Keep in mind that Omid said umbrella podcast that shake is tuned per chassis, not by tonnage/number of jets. There is a comment re:size, but that was one of the ngng guys who made that comment. Expect to see spiders have virtually no shake, highlanders and 3d's to have lots.

If only lights and mediums could poptart, I'd shed no tears. Nobody fears the Awesome Spider Poptart, and if Mediums can find a really workable job, all the power to them.

I see tons of erppc spiders, some are better than you'd think.

Galenit, on 20 May 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

The spider has 6 jjs, every jj need 294kj/6=49kj to lift it 1 m.
The HL has 4 jjs, every jj need 883kj/4 221 kj to lift it 1 m.

1 jj of your HL is nearly as forcefull then 4,5 jjs of your spider.

Thats why the HL gets more shake (vibrations).

Going by the physics, if I equipped 1 JJ it should shake less, and I will also not shake while descending. Its going to be some exciting times to see how the game changes.

[Edustaja]

Vibration as a measure of amount of mass lifted has little to do with actual physics and everything do with game balance. Most vibrations can be dampened by sufficient engineering and it could be argued that the jump-capable mechs include such weapon mounts by default.

In my opinion a good way to balance out the jump snipers would be adding a predictable "shake". The shake can be unique to the mech or universal depending on how you want it. Maybe the highlander chassis needs more shake to balance it out, maybe it doesn't.

An example of predictable "shake" is the scope sway in planetside 2. If you don't hold your breath the scope sways in a sine wave pattern.

Fig 1. The basic sine wave.

It always starts to the same direction so it is predictable in both magnitude and direction but still makes aiming harder. You either need to know how to compensate for it or wait the reticule to reach a favourable position.

Jump shake could be made similar. You can vary the actual parameters of the wave (amplitude, frequency or starting phase, number of periods it goes through) or even add a decay to it. It could mean that you have high shake during blast off periods that somewhat even out during the drop down period. Having to jump higher would mean more exposure to the jumper.


Fig 2. a damped sine wave.


I think you just need to introduce some effort but not as much as to completely make jumping unusable. Jumping is supposed to make a shot slightly more difficult than running but not overly so. It's just +1 vs +2 to the hit roll in the boardgame.

I'd still like to see the jumping and shooting be effective but not gamebreaking. PPC's will be put in line by the missiles and ecm changes more or less anyways.

Edited by Edustaja, 20 May 2013 - 07:06 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Chavette, on 20 May 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

I see tons of erppc spiders, some are better than you'd think.

Oh, certainly.

PGI's Brian Buckton here pilots a mean ERPPC Spider (and has become my nemisis, always barely escaping my wrath). But my point is that I'd rather have ERPPC poptart Spiders than 3D's and Highlanders poptarting everywhere.

That Spider is (going to be) smacking people for 10 damage every 4+ seconds, and can be ripped apart with a tiny amount of firepower. The 3D's and Highlanders are one-shotting people with 35+pt strikes while sporting heavy/assault armor.

Edited by Wintersdark, 20 May 2013 - 07:12 AM.

[Paul McKenzie]

My heavy metal doesn't even have JJs, pop tarting is for baby back ******* anyway.

Edited by Paul McKenzie, 21 May 2013 - 07:37 AM.

[valkyrie]

Schadenfreude: The Thread.

That said, high damage pinpoint alpha builds and poptarts both need to go but in a method that lets mechs keep their intended purpose. Stuff like the Stalker should be cycling through different weapons to avoid overheat while remaining effective at all ranges, while the Awesome should be a heat efficient PPC boat that's not eclipsed by the former entirely.