33 replies to this topic

[MasterGoa]

Hi all.

After reading Paul's desire to reduce boating with PPC
joint fire penalties, (of at least, this is how I read it),
why is this necessairy?

If I am part of a clan or team and I have a specific role,
it is normal for me to have a specific build and not simply
have a 4ML, SRM6 AC10 build over and over with
all team mates...

Having a Misery, I tried, with a tiny engine, 4ER PPC and a Gauss.

Massive 55 point alpha, but also, I can only two two alphas
because i cook my chassis. So it is a VERY long range
build that needs a LOT of skill to fire and use correctly.

So there ARE many drawbacks already to boating.

Why bend rules a mathematics further?
We already have 1.4 DHS, "hotter" chassis, etc.

Personally, I use 4LL and an AC20 in a Misery, but
I cant understand why the inherent flexibility of this game
must be contained when there are already a plethora of rules
to govern heat, damage, weight, etc.

Discuss.

Edited by MasterGoa, 19 May 2013 - 04:19 PM.

[shabowie]

Yes, also statements like "it takes a lot of skill to use a build that has a 55 point alpha."

If it takes so much skill why are lots of people doing it?

[Chavette]

Hmph, that build is probably the only thing the misery has going for it.

But on the bright side, if you actually hit 4-5 times you've pulled your weight.

[MasterGoa]

I do not understand how you can say that this is like X vs Y.
It is simple math.

An ER PPC has no many heat and so many weight.
But now, magically, having multiple of the same weapon
will actuall consume more than the sum of it's mounted locations...

So, I understand that people do not like certain builds, but
the games already has a structure that works...

Also, about skill, it is all ballistic, there is no painting a
laser canvas to get a hit... So yeah, it requires skill.
Especially using cover, etc as you only have two shots
before you shut down...

[Johnny Reb]

Boating in alot of mechs is not only effecient but what they are designed for, the hunch 4p, jenner F, catapract 1x and soon the BJ 1x. Why penalize them? The Huncie got nerfed with engine caps and im sure the BJ 1x is not gonna be that great. However, these mechs depend on boating.

Edit: also what is a Com-D gonna do without boating streaks? 2 ssrms and one dumbfire to screw his tonnage?

Edited by Johnny Reb, 19 May 2013 - 11:15 PM.

[Ryllen Kriel]

I generally believe that boating is fine, and it's nice to fill out a niche in a team that is missing. There is a big difference between boating and meta-boating however, and I'm not sure too many penalties are needed. A lot of people meta-boat and it's funny when their highly specialized mech gets torn apart in a bad situation because they didn't put on any close ranged weapons or it overheats and they are a smoking target after their few alphas. It's a risk people take with a meta build. Meta builds are cheesy in my opinion but sadly effective. If people want to take that risk and die in hilarious ways it's fine by me.

[DarkDevilDancer]

Boating is great I love people that take nothing but ERppcs, the panic you see when you get close in a scout mech is priceless, oh they might take a token streaksrm but any half decent pilot will run circles around a boat.

But it's gotten to the point where even scouts take multiple ppcs now, and that's not how it's meant to be anyone with common sense can see that.

Mechs should be armed to handle combat at multiple ranges, and at the moment everyone is only focused on long range.

[Zerberus]

MasterGoa, on 19 May 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

...

Long story short: People whine about whatever kills them regularly instead of even considering thow their own playstyle might be part of the problem. They often just want it changed so they can walk aroung picking daisies with impunity instead of thinking tactically.

From Rambos geting HSed with the AWP in CS, to the railgun and BFG in Quake, thorugh the classic "Rogues are OP! No they aren`t, Frost Mages are" WoW circlejerk, to the one after the other nerfs of weapons (often justified) and now "boating" here.

People are no longer capable of accepting that EVERY weapon and tactic in a givel level of technology always has some form of viable counter at the same technological /tactical level or lower, and are usually just too lazy to search for it when whining about it is so much faster. That`s why in most of the whine threads people present rational, factual counterarguiments that the OP and /Or his supporters summarily dismiss as invalid, even at the cost of self contradiction.

For example:

A sniper can be discharged by a scout with a knife sneaking up behind him
He can in turn be torn up easily by lightly armed security forces that spot him from their position
They can get steamrolled by an Armored Personnel Carrier that happens to be flanking
Which will get shredded by a Tank that just came out of hidin in the garage
Which which will get blown up by an attack helicopter that popped up over the ridge
Which will get taken down by a fighter jet that was loitering at 25000 feet
Which is vulnerable to surface to air missiles hidden in the forest.
Which can be exposed and eliminated by a single Sapper burning the forest down.
Who can be nullified by the original Sniper simply shooting him from the mountaintop.

There is ALWAYS a viable counter, to everything. Actually finding it and using it is what separates the warriors and players from the cannon fodder and whiners

Edited by Zerberus, 20 May 2013 - 04:17 AM.

[DarkDevilDancer]

PPCs are being used in place of all other weapons and that is a problem, where once the humble medium laser was the workhorse of every weight class it's now more common to see a spider with a ppc then a laser.

PPCs have their place but when that's all people are using that's then an issue that needs to be addressed.

[Ph30nix]

there is nothing wrong with boating, people just dont like it because either too many people are doing it or they feel it ruins the game.

Which it really doesnt but it does tend to highlight problems in the game, currently the PPC craze, which isnt a problem with PPC's not by a long shot, the problem is with alot of other weapons being completely useless in comparison.

Nerfing PPC's wouldnt fix it, making the other weapons better would. Personaly i feel all beams should have a lower cooldown (since they already suffer an additional delay since cooldown doesnt start till the beam ends)
also the heat on beam weapons while it looks perfect on paper just feels off to me.

like to see a situation where all the laser weapons had their heats reduced slightly, i mean while yes 2 mediums doing the same heat as 1 ppc (roughly) sounds perfect, same damage so should have same/similar heat.

The fact they have that duration just makes it feel wrong to me.

but in the end there really isnt anything in this game that is game breaking to me aside from streaks in a light vs light scenerio.

[Hotthedd]

Did the OP really say that it takes a lot of skill to land a 55 point alpha in a game with instant auto convergence while generally standing relatively still from a safe enough distance?

Sorry, but I must disagree.

[Mister Blastman]

MasterGoa, on 19 May 2013 - 07:55 PM, said:

Also, about skill, it is all ballistic, there is no painting a
laser canvas to get a hit... So yeah, it requires skill.
Especially using cover, etc as you only have two shots
before you shut down...

Any ****** with a pulse can hit with PPCs in one single torso location given their velocity and the broken convergence system right now. Don't fool yourself, it takes very little skill.

Couple that with..

a. You only have to click once and not hold your aim... Click... bam single torso location damaged. Pro move, bro.
b. You only have to expose yourself long enough to click the button. No holding in the open for lasers to do damage.
c. You are free to torso twist/duck for cover immediately after firing.
d. See a again; you don't have to hold your hand steady to do damage to just one spot.
e. No ammo.
f. Broken heat system allows you to alpha twice--second alpha would destroy you instantly in tabletop or previous MW games--not shut you down instantly. In fact, alpha striking ONE time would destroy you in previous games practically.

I could go on. Don't fool yourself. The current way PPCs work does not require much skill. It is easy mode on a couch.

[Chavette]

Mister Blastman, on 20 May 2013 - 06:47 AM, said:

Any ****** with a pulse can hit with PPCs in one single torso location given their velocity and the broken convergence system right now. Don't fool yourself, it takes very little skill.

Couple that with..

a. You only have to click once and not hold your aim... Click... bam single torso location damaged. Pro move, bro.
b. You only have to expose yourself long enough to click the button. No holding in the open for lasers to do damage.
c. You are free to torso twist/duck for cover immediately after firing.
d. See a again; you don't have to hold your hand steady to do damage to just one spot.
e. No ammo.
f. Broken heat system allows you to alpha twice--second alpha would destroy you instantly in tabletop or previous MW games--not shut you down instantly. In fact, alpha striking ONE time would destroy you in previous games practically.

I could go on. Don't fool yourself. The current way PPCs work does not require much skill. It is easy mode on a couch.

If the game would take such small skill as talked about in these forums, I'd never see people in the sub 200 dmg range, just sayin.

[Blood Rose]

I have to say that i run a K2 sniper. I personally believe that this current fad will soon be blown over due to the number of scouts that are capable of getting in close. I actually fear a well piloted Raven or Spider more than the OP`s Stalker. This is due to their ability to get in close and rip my armour apart. I do have a brace of mediums to try and deal with them but these little buggers have no real counter short of another light. Infact i prefer to have assaults and heavys to face-bigger targets and slower moving. Infact these dreaded long range boats are almost useless in the built up maps of River City and such. There long range is no protection against up close attacks. Also ERPPC`s generate well to much heat for me to take them.

[Mister Blastman]

Chavette, on 20 May 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

If the game would take such small skill as talked about in these forums, I'd never see people in the sub 200 dmg range, just sayin.

The reason you see sub-100s and 200s is there are players that are just... that... bad.

Maybe they gimp themselves by using a joystick... or playing with their pinky finger... or doing something insane like trying to play Mechwarrior with a Toddler in their lap and a newborn in their arm while trying to feed it with a bottle tucked under their chin. I don't know man.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 20 May 2013 - 07:16 AM.

[Blood Rose]

Mister Blastman, on 20 May 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

The reason you see sub-100s and 200s is there are players that are just... that... bad.

Maybe they gimp themselves by using a joystick... or playing with their pinky finger... or doing something insane like trying to play Mechwarrior with a Toddler in their lap and a newborn in their arm while trying to feed it with a bottle tucked under their chin. I don't know man.

Or maybe they have a specific role and stick to it, such as say crippling enemy heavys and assaults for the rest of the team to finish off.

[Mister Blastman]

Blood Rose, on 20 May 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:

Or maybe they have a specific role and stick to it, such as say crippling enemy heavys and assaults for the rest of the team to finish off.

The only time in history I've ever seen an Military endorse a role such as... "Die to enemy fire no matter the cost" was in World War II with the Japanese Banzai warriors.

... It didn't work that well for them.

[Hotthedd]

Chavette, on 20 May 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

If the game would take such small skill as talked about in these forums, I'd never see people in the sub 200 dmg range, just sayin.

Unless they were insta-ganked by said 4 PPC sniper builds. You do not do much damage when you are dead.

[Little Nemo]

It's not.

[1453 R]

There's boating, and there's bloating.

Awesomes carry three PPCs. They pretty much always have and largely always will. Certain Hunchbacks carry a metric pile of medium lasers, and we all know what Nova Primes can do. There are chassis designed to carry multiple weapons of a given type, and what's more there are weapons which seem designed of their own selves for use in groups. Typically lighter weapons, which make up for their individual weaknesses by attacking enemies like a swarm of Piranha. Whatevs, that's how the game was meant to be played.

...and then you get a**holes with six PPCs on a Stalker thinking they're the most amazingest thing EVERZ because they can pop someone's cork from forever away with one trigger pull, and never mind that such a machine is a horrific bastardization of what MechWarrior is supposed to be. Or, for the old-fashioned types, putting eighty LRMs on a Stalker (yes yes, I know, Longbows and Vikings. Ahem: bleh). Because apparently nobody can look at a Stalker, see that it has both missile and energy hardpoints, and realize that God intended Man to use neither to the exclusion of the other/sanity.

The problem, I've come to believe, originates not in the weapons themselves, but in Piranha's bizarre, high-tolerance low-dissipation heat system. Older MechWarrior games had lower heat tolerances and harsh penalties for breaching them too often or severely, but also bled off heat noticeably faster than most MWO machines do. In addition, shutting down was never meant to prevent damage to the BattleMech from overheating, but instead to stop the 'Mech from overheating further and to allow it to bleed off the overheat it had generated faster. The idea was to avoid overdoing spike damage while allowing MechWarriors with A.) reasonable builds and/or B.) disciplined trigger fingers to continue fighting relatively normally.

If a**holes in PPC-bloated Stalkers risked going up in a thermonuclear fireworks display every time they fired their second alpha strike, they'd probably stop being a**holes in PPC-bloated Stalkers. Ludicrous alpha strikes would go way down, or go back to being a thing mostly encountered in close range, via medium laser platforms like the HBK-4P or Nova Prime. Which, firstly, have to close to effective range for their weapons rather than spawn-snipe, and secondly have to hold their beams on target for the duration of the attack in order to do damage. Aware targets can twist under fire to mitigate the single-location damage of the attack, and poor players will be unable to hold their lasers on target for a single-location evisceration.

In summation: less heat tolerance, more heat dissipation, and Stalkers are balance issues with feet no matter what you do to weapons or heat systems to try and reduce bloating. Get used to it, even if you hate it like blazes (which I do), because there will always be douchewhales more interested in collecting their paycheck than having good fights.