244 replies to this topic

[Soy]

I still pull off 360noscope1shotsusmcsniperwolf420yoloshots, dawg, dunno what you're on about.

[giganova]

Yoloshots are the worst.

[Thaar]

Hotthedd, on 10 June 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Personally, I think shake is needed when running, also. Perfect accuracy should require you to be perfectly still.

I think the same. Movement should penalize pinpoint accuracy. The faster you go the harder to hit.

[Vodrin Thales]

Chavette, on 11 June 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

Because you play against incompetents who can't shoot a 90ton hopper in the 3-4 seconds you need to rise and fall before you take a shot.

Poptarting should have only ever been effective if your target was not looking at you. If they know where you are, the mech not jumping should have the advantage.

As for shake and random aim when running, I think that would make the game a bit too static and therefore less fun.

[Hammertrial]

Shinikaru, on 04 June 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

I do not "pop-tart" ever as the SOLE means of play, but You chose to listen to a minority of whiners and ensured that in addition to solving the total non-issue of "pop tarting";

I can now no longer do lots of core battle things:

1. USE JUMPJETS AS A MEANS OF SIGHTING OVER RIDGE LINES (TOO MUCH SHAKE).

2. USE JUMP JETS AS A MEANS OF FIRING OVER A TEAMMATE IN A CLOSE IN BRAWL.

3.USE JUMP JETS AS A VIABLE WAY TO LINE UP AN AC/20 TO A MECH IM FIGHTING WHEN WE ARE FIGHTING ON A SLOPE (COMMON) AND IT IS ABOVE ME.

Those are just 3 basic ones that pop into my head and are totally drastically noticeable after ONE game post patch.

The sad thing is this only breaks your combat even more as far as balance goes for any mech with a jump-jet. Other than being able to pop over a ridge slightly faster than walking there is no point to having JJ's now.
Why even bother having Classes or variants, your making mech combat so vanilla there is little point to playing.

Uh....if you fail at 1 you're bad.

2 and 3 ARE POPTARTING.

No freaking wonder no one wanted poptarting nerfed. No one admits to doing it!

Nah dude, I don't poptart. I just jump up in the air and shoot people.

[One Medic Army]

Chavette, on 11 June 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

Because you play against incompetents who can't shoot a 90ton hopper in the 3-4 seconds you need to rise and fall before you take a shot.

No, I only do it once before moving somewhere else, and don't do it very often.
It takes people time to realize that I'm popping up, it takes them time to aim, and it takes them time for their weapons to recycle if I've timed it properly.

[Mechsniper]

I have 3 Jump jets on 3 of my highlanders and 4 on the last one, thank you. (5 on a highlander, only if you pay for the Heavy metal?) And you must be modifying your files, because my highlanders have the screen and reticle shake until they are almost back on the ground, and most people I play with are having the same problem. You can't see anything until your jump is pretty much over. Shoot prior to this and your weapon fires randomly away from the reticle into space. There is no spotting your target on the way up, unless they were standing right in front of you, lol. If you think highlanders were 180 quick scopers, you have no idea what you are talking about. Jenners.... maybe. L2P is pointing right back at you fella's, and I would LOOVE to hear how you are jump sniping at the moment more so. A little script kiddie magic, maybe.... maybe a difference in systems is at work, as performance with different video cards has shown to affect gameplay. CI has a fairly full set of dropships in our TS server, and no one I know is able to use a jump sniper at the moment.

Edited by Mechsniper, 11 June 2013 - 02:38 PM.

[Hotthedd]

Jump-sniping is still being effectively done by many good players.

They jump up. Press 'R' (if they haven't already), Quit their burn, and fire as they drop back down. It takes practice and patience.

[Mechsniper]

So how is it they are overcoming the reticle shake sending their shots off across the screen when they have quit jumping and are halfway back to the ground or more??? Even with R targeting the shots are NOT going toward the reticle, maybe 10-30 degrees offset in a random direction....

[Petroshka]

Mechsniper, on 11 June 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

So how is it they are overcoming the reticle shake sending their shots off across the screen when they have quit jumping and are halfway back to the ground or more??? Even with R targeting the shots are NOT going toward the reticle, maybe 10-30 degrees offset in a random direction....

That's weird. must be some client side issue, because as soon as I cut my jets (in my metal) the aim centers and shots go exactly as if i was stationary.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Hammertrial, on 11 June 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

Uh....if you fail at 1 you're bad.

2 and 3 ARE POPTARTING.

I disagree ... using jumpjets for maneuverability is not the mechanic that was being abused.

"Poptarting", as I understand it (granted, my definition may be wrong) is ... Using jump jets to peek over a ridge, fire a high-damage pinpoint strike, and then immediately drop behind cover.

The problem with the tactic is that it is high reward, minimal risk ... especially if someone else is spotting for you. It gave certain mechs (specifically CTF-3D, HGNs, and to a much lesser extent, lighter energy/JJ builds) a demonstrated advantage over others.


On a different, but related note:
People complain about the developers not anticipating balance problems, not reacting to balance problems fast enough, or adjusting things too much (or too little) too late (after some of the community has adapted to the new imbalance).

While they do catch some things, there's no way they will anticipate everything ... and some new changes may be part of their vision for the game. The arms race between game designers trying to keep things balanced and players trying to exploit the rules is as old as organized competition.

Not acting fast enough / too late ... I think they're watching the game metrics more closely than we can ever know, watching trends for weapon usage, win-loss trends by weapon, mech, etc. I think they add things to the game, test the balance, observe trends over time, and then make a measured tweak, which takes a bit of time to implement in their test lab, a while to test, and a bit more time to integrate into the next patch. All the while, the trends in game may be changing because of the imbalance tha has not yet been corrected.

They will not get everything right (they've proven that a few times this past year), but I think their process is sound.

[ArmandTulsen]

OP's three points are perfectly valid. Jumping and shooting over teammates was one of the things I did a LOT! Also, fighting on slopes were made a hell of a lot easier thanks to JJs, especially on hilled maps like Caustic and Alpine.

Now that JJs have been gimped beyond oblivion, their only use is scaling terrain.

JJs were the only reason I bought and mastered the highlander. Now I feel like I just wasted 20 odd million c-bills.

[Ragnar Darkmane]

ArmandTulsen, on 11 June 2013 - 03:22 PM, said:

Now that JJs have been gimped beyond oblivion, their only use is scaling terrain.

Oh really? And here I was, thinking that this was the only thing they were supposed to do in the Battle Tech TT...

[ArmandTulsen]

Ragnar Darkmane, on 11 June 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

Oh really? And here I was, thinking that this was the only thing they were supposed to do in the Battle Tech TT...

It's supposed to give you a tactical advantage. That includes additional firing tactics.

[Mechsniper]

THIS IS NOT TT!!!! I never played TT, have no care for TT, and trying to bring the values of the TT game into the video game world is something PGI recognized early on, just won't work. The randomness of terrain, speed, weapon time of flight, and 100 other variables, including the user skill, that was simulated by dice roll values, has no place in a physics based world that a video game such as this is trying to replicate. The skill of players varies, their capability to compensate for the randomness of the opposing players actions, and directions/speed of travel are all things that dice rolls dumb down by less chance of a "hit" when in game those things are affected by how the player handles the mech and weapons he is given. Dumbing down accuracy and capability only works to try to allow those with less skill to be able to play on the same level as the better players. Put into effect exp based servers with min/max on entry and allow open servers for all to test themselves as teams. That is how you handle new guys. If they roll with the big dogs in a trial mech on week 3 of their MWO experience they have to understand someone with all the toys and a year of experience may come along and pop their mech like a balloon when rolling in the "open" server. Se' La Vis'. It happened to us all when we started at some point. On the other hand when they kill a dev or someone higher up in that trial mech, the reward is that much sweeter!

[Ragnar Darkmane]

ArmandTulsen, on 11 June 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

It's supposed to give you a tactical advantage. That includes additional firing tactics.

Only to get you to a better firing position. Using your JJs came with a +3 penalty to hit, which is a HUGE malus.

[One Medic Army]

Petroshka, on 11 June 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

That's weird. must be some client side issue, because as soon as I cut my jets (in my metal) the aim centers and shots go exactly as if i was stationary.

Pretty much the same here, and I have a fresh unmodified install. (660GTX vid card, newest drivers)
I cut the jets, reticule returns to center of screen, and no deviation I can detect. Not much time to aim, but generally I only pop when I know where the enemy is ahead of time.

I'll re-install fraps and make a vid on the training grounds.

[PanzerMagier]

Shinikaru, on 04 June 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

I do not "pop-tart" ever as the SOLE means of play, but You chose to listen to a minority of whiners and ensured that in addition to solving the total non-issue of "pop tarting";

I can now no longer do lots of core battle things:

1. USE JUMPJETS AS A MEANS OF SIGHTING OVER RIDGE LINES (TOO MUCH SHAKE).

2. USE JUMP JETS AS A MEANS OF FIRING OVER A TEAMMATE IN A CLOSE IN BRAWL.

3.USE JUMP JETS AS A VIABLE WAY TO LINE UP AN AC/20 TO A MECH IM FIGHTING WHEN WE ARE FIGHTING ON A SLOPE (COMMON) AND IT IS ABOVE ME.

Those are just 3 basic ones that pop into my head and are totally drastically noticeable after ONE game post patch.

The sad thing is this only breaks your combat even more as far as balance goes for any mech with a jump-jet. Other than being able to pop over a ridge slightly faster than walking there is no point to having JJ's now.
Why even bother having Classes or variants, your making mech combat so vanilla there is little point to playing.

The little bit of nausea aside. I can still totally do the 3 things you just mentioned with this jumpjet shake. Hell I can actually use a poptarting mech now and feel good when I land a snipe shot jj'ng. JJ shake made half of the combat for me exciting again.

Because I hated how ppc's and JJ turned into the most noob friendly things, where both required great skill to use effectively. Just giving my end of the spectrum's point of view.

[Mawai]

CancR, on 04 June 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

Makes JJ feel useless for my jenner.

Interesting but I disagree. I've driven a Jenner for a long time. It is now harder to hit with the lasers on a Jenner during the first half of the jump. However, only the initial aiming point appears to be randomized so if you are quick you can pull the lasers back to the target and keep them on target during the jump ... ignore the reticle. SSRM still have no problems locking and hitting while jumping. The added maneuvering ability due to jump jets has not changed.

The only tactic that is harder to use with a Jenner (which was mentioned by the OP) is firing over a team mate into a brawl while jump jetting. This has always been potentially risky ... however, now it is highly risky

The other two tactics mentioned by the OP ... jump jetting to fire over a ridge and jump jetting to fire up an incline are both forms of pop-tarting. The jump jets can still be used to move up the hill and the weapon can be fired during the second half of the jump or top of the arc though there is less time to line up the shot.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Well personally I never thought "poptarting" was an issue as it just seemed to me that it was just as easy to hit a poptart as it was for him to hit me. In fact I found when I attempted the tactic that it lead to me recieving more damage than I recieved. To me it was just a viable tactic and all the shake does is make everything even more vanallia.

However the biggest issue with JJ isn't the shake, it is the range. I know people hate table top comparisons but 3 jump jets are suppose to propel a Highlander 90m not 17m and by limiting the range so drastically JJs really are more a novelty than useful in most cases. Adding shake to them just adds insult to injury.