238 replies to this topic

[Chavette]

Johnny Reb, on 19 May 2013 - 09:18 PM, said:

I really don't understand ppl complaining about changes till they actually happen. This also covers new mechs and what will and wont be good.

I addressed that exact thing in the op.

Still, being in the mech subforum, and numerous disclaimers weren't enough to have these guys put aside their feelings reguarding their numerous lost battles because of poor positioning and weapon choice, so they try take it out on the most relevant thread.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

Happy Heavy Metal owner here that will be happier once I can use my preferred laser loadout in it competitively again.

Do you really think Rhonda Snord (and her pink highlander) became famous in battletech fiction for popping up and down behind a hill like a cowardly tard?

I hope PGI buries the poptart broken mechanic so deep it's never seen in this game again. A real Highlander Burial TM.

[Wintersdark]

Unless they are changing how the shake works, it's a purely visual effect: it does not actually move your aim. Just like the shake from incoming fire, you can fire into the middle of that big red square and still reliably hit. Sure, it's hard to target individual systems, but it's not that big a deal. And, of course, one can simply wait for the shake to stop (when you stop thrusting) to aim and fire.

, this won't stop poptarting, it'll just get rid of the bad ones a opportunists.

[Vassago Rain]

Wintersdark, on 19 May 2013 - 09:39 PM, said:

Unless they are changing how the shake works, it's a purely visual effect: it does not actually move your aim. Just like the shake from incoming fire, you can fire into the middle of that big red square and still reliably hit. Sure, it's hard to target individual systems, but it's not that big a deal. And, of course, one can simply wait for the shake to stop (when you stop thrusting) to aim and fire.

, this won't stop poptarting, it'll just get rid of the bad ones a opportunists.

It will move your aim. It won't be like in MW3, where your screen is wobbling, but your crosshair is still right in the middle of the screen.

[Chavette]

Wintersdark, on 19 May 2013 - 09:39 PM, said:

Unless they are changing how the shake works, it's a purely visual effect: it does not actually move your aim.

Omid said in the interview just that, the coming change will put your aim off too, in addition to a visual shake.

5th Fedcom Rat, on 19 May 2013 - 09:35 PM, said:

Happy Heavy Metal owner here that will be happier once I can use my preferred laser loadout in it competitively again.

Do you really think Rhonda Snord (and her pink highlander) became famous in battletech fiction for popping up and down behind a hill like a cowardly tard?

I hope PGI buries the poptart broken mechanic so deep it's never seen in this game again. A real Highlander Burial TM.

I liked the 3ll one too, but I was forced to go with the others, as it is better in the current meta...

Edited by Chavette, 19 May 2013 - 09:50 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Yup... I'm pretty happy to have a good reason to go back to my 3LL HM as well. I'm a huge fan of arm mounted large lasers, but with ppc's doing more damage, cycling faster, breaking ecm and being front loaded damage... it lead directly to poptarting.

I didn't buy my HM specifically to be a poptart, as that would have been foolish. You had to know changes would come sooner or later making poptarting less effective, as well as ppc nerfs. I bought my Heavy Metal purely because Highlanders are awesome, death music, and pink (though I didn't keep the pink)

Edited by Wintersdark, 19 May 2013 - 10:05 PM.

[Arcturious]

I guess I'll wait to see it, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be crappy. Few reasons:

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.

2) I never ran a pop tart. I run 1x PPC and a guass on my 732. I run 1x AC20 on my 733C and 2x LL on my 733. I rely heavily on the JJ in brawling, to quickly position over buildings, manoeuvre around cover and jump over enemies while getting snap shots off. If I miss because of an RNG and not skill, this will be a very bad change. It's hard enough hitting that Jenner / Cicada etc now as it is. Let alone say I'm in close combat with streaks and my cockpit is already shaking, clouds of smoke blinding then the JJ that might have given me a chance make it worse? May as well power down now and just get it over with.

3) Related to point 2, my last comment is that let's say the change turns out to be "Not that bad" and I can keep playing without much impact. In that instance, I have to say "Why the hell put it in if it does nothing but annoy you anyway?".

No matter how I look at this, the answer is bad, short term goals put ahead of proper game development, immersion breaking, random skill denying factors and just general poor game play mechanics. Sure I hope in wrong, but I foresee a complete rebuild off every single JJ mech I have to make them even more powerful, though less fun builds with the extra tonnage I just freed up.

Maybe I'll have to start boating PPC's like all those Stalkers I see - you know, those ones that won the Assault competition? Not the Highlanders that even with JJ couldn't compete with a smaller mech?

Not even going to get into how this may screw over the Blackjack before its even had a chance - as both of these aren't in yet. Why take a smaller Jager when you can take the real thing if not for JJ? Sigh.

Edited by Arcturious, 19 May 2013 - 10:24 PM.

[Volkite]

Fix:
Jumpjets have vertical lift. This goes down 0.85% per 1% below max speed the 'mech is running. Standing still and poptarting means you're staning at a waist-height barrier to be able to shoot over it, and so to really poptart you have to be mobile, and actually a realistically dangerous opponent rather than just boring as all hell.
Also, bring back collisions, FFS! No highlander burial and all jumpsnipe makes MWO a dull boy.

[Chavette]

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

3) Related to point 2, my last comment is that let's say the change turns out to be "Not that bad" and I can keep playing without much impact. In that instance, I have to say "Why the hell put it in if it does nothing but annoy you anyway?".

I haven't thought of that, it just seems like barely possible to get it right at all. Too little, and nobody will care about it, too much and it will be a hassle and make variants, mechs useless.

The stalkers never got bad, the FOTM just got took over from them for a while, I reckon they will have some showtime until they get served by the alpha nerf. After that, the one that got nerfed less will dominate.

Edited by Chavette, 19 May 2013 - 10:37 PM.

[Johnny Reb]

Well, regardless im sure my "poptart" lrm highlander will not be effected.

[John MatriX82]

I'm sorry for the OP and his heavy metal. That's why I'm planning no more to buy Hero Mechs: ballast, gameplay/metagame may render them useless or less effective than what they are supposed.

Take the Ilya Muromets (which I own): in the current direct fire hell, you stand no chance in it when compared to a standard CTF-3D. Got MC's? Instantly any mech you have becomes a hero, you can level to master many variants and mechs in no time and you earn more cbills using whatever you want than being "forced" to use the hero mech.

Anyway, about the screen shake.. if the screen will shake but the crosshair will stand still (like when you get hit by AC fire) poptarters will never have any trouble in shooting stuff away.

Besides this what should really be fixed is the number of JJs. As it is now, basically you can jumpsnipe fine enough with 2JJs on everything, be it a TBT, a CTF-3D, and Highlander or a Catapult. I think a lander with 2JJs should be barely able to leap over very low stuff. I'd increase the overall weight of the JJs by half a ton for every class and make that the screen shakes less as many JJs you dedicate.

Think about it, an highlander would need to find 7.5 tons for 3 JJs (rather than 4 for a couple of them like it is now) and only a 733C or an HM would be good for poptarting (since the former could sport 4 and the latter 5), while the others would simply gain better mobility since they are stuck to 3.

Edited by John MatriX82, 19 May 2013 - 10:44 PM.

[Lightfoot]

Roland, on 19 May 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

This would actually make jump sniping even MORE easy to do, since anyone who is any good doesn't just pop directly up and down, as it makes it infinitely easier to hit them.

By making JJ's function as you suggest, it becomes trivial since you just turn your legs parallel with your cover, and the JJ's will give you a nice little arc to fire from.

This would be a high skill shot. Have you ever tried it at long range? I never see any poptarters doing this. They do the easy shot which is up, down, shoot, back behind cover.

There is also no exploit in the method of JJet shooting you describe. What you are declaring is that these problematic JJet snipers move along the ridgelines and jump, shoot, while moving. That is a very hard shot to pull off and it's just not the poptart exploit. I think we all know how to do poptarting, but I am not going to give detailed instructions in a forum post. I hate the poptart gameplay style myself and I am waiting for DFA's to be enabled before I use JJets on mechs.

Just saying, having the mech vibrate from using JJets will do squat to stop poptarting, unless they keep shaking for a few seconds after use. And sure, they could do this, but it seems like overkill at that point and not a sim anymore.

You Devs know how to poptart in the exploit style? I am assuming you do.

Edited by Lightfoot, 20 May 2013 - 12:49 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Lightfoot, on 20 May 2013 - 12:36 AM, said:

This would be a high skill shot. Have you ever tried it at long range? I never see any poptarters doing this. They do the easy shot which is up, down, shoot, back behind cover.

There is also no exploit in the method of JJet shooting you describe. What you are declaring is that these problematic JJet snipers move along the ridgelines and jump, shoot, while moving. That is a very hard shot to pull off and it's just not the poptart exploit. I think we all know how to do poptarting, but I am not going to give detailed instructions in a forum post. I hate the poptart gameplay style myself and I am waiting for DFA's to be enabled before I use JJets on mechs.

Just saying, having the mech vibrate from using JJets will do squat, unless they keep shaking for a few seconds after use. And sure, they could do this, but it seems like overkill at that point and not a sim anymore.

I almost always do lateral jumps, and if I do jump straight up, I'll pretty much never do it twice in the same spot unless I've got nowhere good to go. Sadly, practically everyone else does the same. It's much harder to nail unpredictably jumping poptarting. At my Elo bracket anyways.

As to the lateral jump, it doesn't substantially increase the shot difficulty at long range, in fact, long range shots are easier than short range ones when jumping that way.

Edited by Wintersdark, 20 May 2013 - 12:48 AM.

[Lightfoot]

@John Matrix82,

I do fine in the Muromets. I never use the unique option of three large ballistics, but these mechs can only carry so much and you pay for JJets with less armor and damage which is a fair trade-off. I have a 3D, but I use the Muromets or the 3F?, the missile one.

Pretty Baby stopped me from buying Hero mechs for the most part though. It just sits in the mech hanger stripped of weapons and engine. So I know what you mean.

[Lightfoot]

Wintersdark, on 20 May 2013 - 12:46 AM, said:

I almost always do lateral jumps, and if I do jump straight up, I'll pretty much never do it twice in the same spot unless I've got nowhere good to go. Sadly, practically everyone else does the same. It's much harder to nail unpredictably jumping poptarting. At my Elo bracket anyways.

As to the lateral jump, it doesn't substantially increase the shot difficulty at long range, in fact, long range shots are easier than short range ones when jumping that way.

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.

Edited by Lightfoot, 20 May 2013 - 01:15 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Chavette, on 19 May 2013 - 10:45 AM, said:

I hope so. TBH I don't really give a damn if poptarting goes away.

my problem is that the heavy metal has a very specific role currently and these changes could leave it useless.

Í don't see the Heavy Metals role as jumping up, shooting its guns, and then falling down.
Jump Jets give any Highlander manoeuvrability. You can jump onto buildings or hills and attack from unexpected positions, and locations that other mechs cannot follow so easily. The change doesn't seem to affect these features.

[Vassago Rain]

RIP, heavy metal. There's no way you can fit 3 large lasers, a gauss, and some streaks in the mech. Truly, your only redeeming quality was poptarting.

[Tahribator]

So, you went ahead and bought a 35$ hero mech "just" to abuse the current meta with 3PPC+Gauss?

I have bad news for you, the meta changes.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Tahribator, on 20 May 2013 - 02:01 AM, said:

So, you went ahead and bought a 35$ hero mech "just" to abuse the current meta with 3PPC+Gauss?

I have bad news for you, the meta changes.

2 PPC Gauss, you nearly got it right.

Whatever they do, they will do Chav.

We'll be back to rushing D-DC's across 700M of open ground because nobody can put any damage on them at range, and the PPC will return to the land of nobody uses it.

Apart from the PPC stalkers, who will still arm pop over the hill.

And the meta will lurch back into the SRM/SSRM era.

Edited by DV McKenna, 20 May 2013 - 02:26 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

DV McKenna, on 20 May 2013 - 02:23 AM, said:

2 PPC Gauss, you nearly got it right.

Whatever they do, they will do Chav.

We'll be back to rushing D-DC's across 700M of open ground because nobody can put any damage on them at range, and the PPC will return to the land of nobody uses it.

Apart from the PPC stalkers, who will still arm pop over the hill.

And the meta will lurch back into the SRM/SSRM era.

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?