73 replies to this topic

[WolvesX]

... my guess, SRM buff + state rewind for missiles! Brawler will be back in game and there goes xPPC boater. Jumpjet shake will do the rest. Penaltys for overheating (green, yellow, red, 100%, boom) will influence the balance heavily!

Whats your guess?

[Thanatos676]

i agree with you actually.

[El Bandito]

PPC boating Stalkers will never go away unless something is done about convergence.

PGI's supposed nerf to high alpha build will turn out to be quite laughable, I predict.

Edited by El Bandito, 31 May 2013 - 10:46 AM.

[Livewyr]

Unless PPCs are fixed, given their one drawback, back- PPCs will be the meta until the server goes offline. (And jumpsniping too, just like MW4)

The brawling meta only ever worked because lights and mediums could harass (before HSR) to get brawlers close enough to.. brawl.
Now the lights and mediums just get legged and die, and the brawlers get PPC'd to death on the way in.

Bringing a bigger knife to a gun fight isn't going to change anything.

[Victor Morson]

If they don't do something drastic about upping damage, Gauss + PPC.

[Tombstoner]

Well the weapons list is kind a small....what has the biggest change i think is the number and type of slots in new mechs.
The mercy is a great example.... PGI released a money mech that took advantage of the games meta and no one cried money grab....
Highlander... poptarding...
Raven ECM

so if you want to know what's the next meta will be, look at the next hero or champion mech that co coincides with changes in weapon stats or ability to boat big alphas or new items like ECM.

How about the fire starter mech.... it can show case how cool shots are not just for high heat alphas. everyone needs to use cool shots now that the inferno hero mechs is available.

Edited by Tombstoner, 31 May 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[RG Notch]

Livewyr, on 31 May 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Unless PPCs are fixed, given their one drawback, back- PPCs will be the meta until the server goes offline. (And jumpsniping too, just like MW4)

The brawling meta only ever worked because lights and mediums could harass (before HSR) to get brawlers close enough to.. brawl.
Now the lights and mediums just get legged and die, and the brawlers get PPC'd to death on the way in.

Bringing a bigger knife to a gun fight isn't going to change anything.

So much anger towards HSR. Lets give people their lag shield back and I guess things will be fine again.

[Jman5]

I try not to underestimate the knee-jerk over-reaction people have to flavor of the month, but I don't think PPC snipers will go away any time soon. Of course a lot of people will switch simply because they are sick of playing them.

I do agree that brawlers will now be more powerful and viable after these changes go live, but core concepts will not change. What I mean is that snipers will always be good in their element. You can't make a brawler good against a sniper when you're at 700 meters and there is only open ground between you two.

Closing the range gap has and always will be tricky for slow brawlers on big open maps and 2 of the last 3 maps are absolutely geared toward long range snipe-fests. The Jury is still out on canyon, but tiered cliff design definitely make it jump jet friendly at least. We will never be back to the 2012 days when you only had mostly tiny brawler-centric maps.

My belief is that we will see fewer pure PPC boats, but a build like 2 ppc/Guass wont be killed outright. Players will pound out their PPC/Gauss until they in danger and then be careful to only use their 1 heat Gauss for a bit.

Long range precision weapons are simply good by design and it's difficult to balance them without making them either OP or useless.

Edited by Jman5, 31 May 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Chemie]

JJ shake will not stop the current meta. High alopha, point damage, good at distance and up close.
i.e. PPC/ER-PPC, (gauss) boats

[AntiCitizenJuan]

HSR is a good thing. Hopefully, next patch the game gets magically balanced and most weapons become viable again

[Chemie]

SRM will not benefit from HSR (much)

[Deathlike]

Considering that SRMs have NO splash (as stated in the Ask the Devs section), they need a major damage buff. HSR will not be enough.

The meta should change when we have some sort of "all seeing eye", like we'll have some sort of long range satellite module for our mechs that can spot enemies at a distance. It'll complement the Seismic Sensor (ETA nerf in 2+ weeks).

[Doomstryke]

They really don't need to change weapons at all. They need to change the maps. If you start getting more maps like the new one of one for example. Or one full of buildings like lower city on river city things like long range sniping and poptarting becomes useless because you can't jump over or fire from long range. I think as more maps get added and maybe more maps based around close quarter brawling it will force people to use more of a balanced based load out OR those people will just get destroyed when they land on those maps and at that point your rolling the dice on your chances of being effective

Edited by Doomstryke, 31 May 2013 - 11:52 AM.

[Mrllamaface]

Chemie, on 31 May 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

JJ shake will not stop the current meta. High alopha, point damage, good at distance and up close.
i.e. PPC/ER-PPC, (gauss) boats

Very true, all it will do is limit jump sniping, but in the end will have little impact on ppc boating.

[AnnoyingCat]

clan ppc boating

[cyberFluke]

Gonna quote myself from another thread here as it's relevant...

cyberFluke, on 31 May 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

[snip]

Frankly, weapons should miss more often. The game is far too easy at present. The previous MechWarrior titles' main focus was their Single Player Experience, against cpu controlled mechs. CPU mechs don't mind getting owned every time, so the games were geared to making the Single Player feel like the saviour of the story. Pinpoint accuracy was common in Single Player games, but is fading away as players get better, and better mechanics become standard design methodology.

In a competitive Multi Player environment, the whole point is to entertain our natural competitive instincts, rather than tell a story with you the player as the main protagonist. To this end the mechanics of the experience should be tailored to offer an easy to pick up, but difficult to master system. To offer up such a simplistic, thoughtless aiming mechanic with so little depth as PGI have is quite simply unfair to the new players on the receiving end.

All this, not even considering the fact that a major part of weapon balance is it's "to hit" modifier, it's accuracy. All this talk of weapon balance, and not one of you has mentioned the accuracy of a weapon having *any* bearing whatsoever.

The biggest problem here is, I believe, some of the players of any older MechWarrior title in a multiplayer setting. A lot of them seem to feel that their perceived "skill" from the older games should make them automatically better than most, their feeling of superiority is threatened and thus are against any deviation from pinpoint accuracy. To anyone who thinks pinpoint accuracy is acceptable I say, "grow a pair" and man up. If you're as skilled as you think you are, you'll be able to compensate for weapon inaccuracy with planning, awareness, strategy and teamwork. This is what MechWarrior is supposed to be, epic battles of towering walking war machines, not twitch two-shotting each other at super-1km ranges, not melting each other with missiles that fly round cover in seconds.

[tenderloving]

Livewyr, on 31 May 2013 - 10:51 AM, said:

Unless PPCs are fixed, given their one drawback, back- PPCs will be the meta until the server goes offline. (And jumpsniping too, just like MW4)

The brawling meta only ever worked because lights and mediums could harass (before HSR) to get brawlers close enough to.. brawl.
Now the lights and mediums just get legged and die, and the brawlers get PPC'd to death on the way in.

Bringing a bigger knife to a gun fight isn't going to change anything.

What if you could launch the knife out of a tube? Maybe use a chemical propellant of some sort, and make the knife out of a heavy soft metal so it is stable in flight and transfers its energy well.

[Livewyr]

RG Notch, on 31 May 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

So much anger towards HSR. Lets give people their lag shield back and I guess things will be fine again.

LoL, RG you really are reaching..
I love HSR, I'm looking forward to the missile one.

My post was about the stupidly overpowered PPCs, go be obtuse somewhere else.

[Stone Profit]

YOUR MOM!

[Livewyr]

tenderloving, on 31 May 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

What if you could launch the knife out of a tube? Maybe use a chemical propellant of some sort, and make the knife out of a heavy soft metal so it is stable in flight and transfers its energy well.

I knew someone would make that joke.
That could arguably be called "Gauss." Except electric propellent, not chemical. (Chemically propelled knife leans more toward Sabot)