1217 replies to this topic

[Hydrophobia]

Firenze, on 05 June 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

JJs are still fun, but now are primarily used for mobility purposes. You wanna snipe still? You still can! With a stable firing platform on the ground. Just position yourself well.

Notice how I didn't mention sniping in my post? I don't think the JJ mechanism is fun in the current implementation.

[Kunae]

Gowan, on 05 June 2013 - 08:26 AM, said:

I didn't see anything about contributing factors to pop-tart hysteria. I know that my outfit, with 34 players, has almost dropped out of the game completely because there were no effective counters to poptarts aside from other high-alpha builds or wolfpack drops, both of which feel kind of cheap and gimmicky. I personally went from playing three or more nights a week to only playing on patch days, with the odd weekend match if I was feeling particularly masochistic. A few of our most dedicated guys just uninstalled last week with no intention of coming back because, in their words, "The game just isn't fun anymore." When I asked them about it, their two complaints were: 1) Poptart builds being impossible to counter without joining the gimmick arms race, and 2) high-alpha builds, which would admittedly be a lot easier to handle if missile boats could find cover without being popped by a JJ sniper.

Now, probably something needs to be done about PPC heat. It was too high before the change, but now it is clearly too low. Maybe hiking it back up to where it was and giving it an added fire effect (fuzzy hud or something, maybe?) would make it less boatable but still worth using? I don't know.

And while shake should be reduced if it is causing people to feel sick, fire accuracy while jumping should come with some kind of a handicap -- a wide circle reticle or something to ensure that you can't place accurate fire in midair outside of, say, 200m? Obviously, that number came from my butt, but you get the picture -- jump sniping killed my unit, and while there is a little bit of a revenge trip with seeing the system neutered, the game itself is better served if the poptarts just learn to do something that requires a little more skill.

It was here, a page or two back:

Kunae, on 05 June 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

Pop-tarts only became an issue due to other changes/fixes/nerfs that PGI did. Namely, SRM damage redux/pattern-spread, PPC heat redux, and the 'arm lock' mechanism.

SRM damage/pattern nerf really destroyed the ability for brawlers to have a decisive punch. They are the natural predators of pop-tarters. My brawler DDC's alpha dropped from 75 to 57 with that. Barely stronger than a Highlander pop-tart's, with less pin-point.

PPC heat reduction allowed people to carry more ppc's, and fire them consistantly.

Arm-lock made it so pop-tarters could fuse their arm and torso high-damage alpha weapons into a pin-point accurate BFG.

Edit: My point being that this JJ nerf could have easily been avoided having a reason to exist. At times it almost feels like PGI is setting up "straw-men" or "fall guys" by doing things to drastically alter the meta to favor some behavior, to **** off the community at those who use it, to justify some bizzare nerf/addition, which has the stated purpose of "countering" the meta which they built in the first place.

I have experienced much the same, as you, with regards to unit-losses. But it isn't the 'pop-tarts' which were the problem. The blame can only fall in one place: whomever makes these design choices.

'Pop-tarts' are merely the latest symptom of a larger problem.

[dyndragon]

Gowan, on 05 June 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

I have to disagree emphatically with that. JJ pop-tart snipers absolutely murdered the game experience for my entire unit. The ability to place 35+ damage on a single point and then instantly fall back behind cover was more than a little bit game-breaking -- after all, you can counter most direct-fire builds with indirect fire, but poptarts were almost immune to IDF. You either had to swarm them with fast-movers or use a high-alpha build yourself, which limited effective gameplay. Things seem a little more even now, and I for one still have no problems using JJs for mobility, which is their real purpose in the game anyway.

True, I can't say they didn't affect my game enjoyment at all. However, with the return of effective LRMs, TAG/NARC bonuses, LRM speed increase and more effective flight path, I felt that JJs had their place, and had a long range counter. The whole JJ+focus fire "problem" in my analysis is a combination of fire convergence, JJ, lack of heat penalties, and only one semi-effective counter (flanking, and getting in their face). Your analysis is pretty much the same as mine.

That's why I am in favor of scaling back the JJ nerf to just reticle shake to solve the problem of JJ and long range sniping. There was only a minimal balance issue with JJs and medium or short range firing in my opinion. Trying to solve a problem with too broad of a fix is what happened I think.

Edited by dyndragon, 05 June 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[UberPotato]

I would also like to add to the "please get rid of hudshake on light mechs". Running around jumping over hills to fire on assault mechs is a very important tactic for lights and the inaccuracy caused by the shake makes it overly difficult to use this strategy. I would imagine this is why scouts have jumpjets in the first place. Jumpjets are the difference in advantage when it comes to a Spider 5d fighting a Raven 3L. If you can't hit the thing while running away and jumping over a hill the Raven can't pass then you might as well not bother, or just shut down and die. I am not complaining, but I feel I just lost an advantage I had against an aim assisted streaker

[C E Dwyer]

I had a sudden realisation...

The Urban mech is Broken!

Before its even Artwork..

Not only has it been crippled with the Nerf bat, its been, Kicked, stomped, poked, and right royally rogered sensless by it

[StonedVet]

Hydrophobia, on 05 June 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

Sooo, basically everyone just wanted to get rid of Highlander poptarts... okay, how about we remove the Highlanders from the game, give peeps who had them their CBills or MCs back? ... AND then undo the crappy JJ shake that ruined it for everyone else.

JJ were FUN and added a great dimension to the game (the 3rd dimension, have you heard of it?), but now they are not and so I guess everyone can just walk instead.

JJ's have always been meant for mobility

[Ursus_Spiritus]

The cry for motion sickness with hud/cockpit/mech shake is overly dramatic whimpering of poptarts. If you are driving a mech in a game, the shake is the least of a pilot's concern when most of the travel time of a mech is going to be ground based.

When a mech is jumping the power levels are temporarily inhibited for weapons, especially larger weapons such as PPC/Gause/LRG lasers/large number of missle launchers.

Jumping in this game is far easier than it should be.
PGI could adjust this if they really wanted.

A pilot is to busy worrying about landing a jumping mech to oshoot if your mech due to struggling with gravity, inertia, balance of both the mech and the pilot's equilibrium. Mech firing while jumping is VERY minimum at best.


Jump jets are solely for movement, not jump sniping.

Edited by 8100d 5p4tt3r, 05 June 2013 - 08:49 AM.

[Esplodin]

dyndragon, on 05 June 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

There was only a minimal balance issue with JJs and medium or short range firing in my opinion. Trying to solve a problem with too broad of a fix is what happened I think.

My spider has a 17 alpha (2 MPL, 1 ML). The only way to take down bigger pray is to be hard to hit and aim for specific sections like a torso or cockpit. That is now impossible to do while jump fighting, even with minimal RNG at close range.

The problem is 40+ alphas, which jumping just makes more effective.

[shabowie]

Lowridah, on 05 June 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

JJ's have always been meant for mobility

You have to be really gullible to believe that. Why do you? Because the developers are now claiming so? This is like some 1984 ****.

They need somebody to unmake this founders video:

http://youtu.be/Koips3QoBO8

Note all the midair attacks. You gotta be real gullible to think they never intended mid jump attacks man.

Edited by shabowie, 05 June 2013 - 08:50 AM.

[Skunk Wolf]

It's the reticle shake for me.

Bizzarely, it's the freaking arm crosshair wiggling all over the freaking place. That little line with the screen shake really tweaks me.

I don't know if it's possible to have the reticle stay put while the guns go nuts everywhere. I'd prefer that.

I'm not saying to get rid of the innacuracy, but there's something really strange/wierd with the frequency of that shake combined with the reticle.

Maybe if I locked the torso to the arms before jumping.

Been playing First person shooters since Wolf 3d, and none of them did this to me, neither did IL2:-1946 with Track IR.

None of my mechs have jump jets.

Just tossing it out there that there are non-jump jet users that think something's kind of wierd with the shake. Remember being able to turn off head bobbing if it makes pukey the clown show up? This is head bobbing.

8100d 5p4tt3r, on 05 June 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

The cry for motion sickness with hud/cockpit/mech shake is crap. If you are driving a mech in a game, the shake is minimal of concern when most of the travel time of a mech is going to be ground based.

Flight time is pretty long if you are skipping across the top in Canyon using a Jenner or Spider. Go try it.

[Ronin13m]

I get motion sick alot when I am not the one driving the car or on a violent amusment park ride.

Now for MWO I have played a poptart and I have been on the receiving end of poptarting. The Jumpjet shake did not make me ill last night maybe because I read a post about it before I started and expected worse then it was. I do not have a computer that can pull more then 45FPS and I turned the motion blurr off in the options menue. So when I am jumping even with the reticul shake and the cockpit frame moving the turain outside the window does not move or even vibrate.

So when I am about to engauge my jumpjets I just focus on the ground out side the window and ignor the rest. I only refocus on the cross hairs after letting off the jumpjets. Worked out well last night. Will try it agian tonight in my heavy metal.

[Esplodin]

8100d 5p4tt3r, on 05 June 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

Jump jets are solely for movement, not jump sniping.

Then why do JJ slow you down, put your mech on a predictable arc, and STOP on landing making you MUCH easier to hit? At present the only use for JJ is to get over tiny ledges and rocks because of crap map design.

[Wintersdark]

8100d 5p4tt3r, on 05 June 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

The cry for motion sickness with hud/cockpit/mech shake is overly dramatic whimpering of poptarts. If you are driving a mech in a game, the shake is the least of a pilot's concern when most of the travel time of a mech is going to be ground based.

Or, you're being fairly ignorant and a bit of an ***.

There's an easy way to tell: Ask person complaining about motion sickness if they'd be happy if the crosshair shake was even worse (cockpit shake doesn't impact aim, just the crosshair shake does) if the cockpit shake was removed entirely. I guarantee most complaining of motion sickness would be fine with that.

Hell, I wouldn't care if my weapons were fully disabled while the jump jets were activated, but the cockpit shake gives me a headache.

Quote

When a mech is jumping the power levels are temporarily inhibited for weapons, especially larger weapons such as PPC/Gause/LRG lasers/large number of missle launchers.

Jumping in this game is far easier than it should be.
PGI could adjust this if they really wanted.

A pilot is to busy worrying about landing a jumping mech to oshoot if your mech due to struggling with gravity, inertia, balance of both the mech and the pilot's equilibrium. Mech firing while jumping is VERY minimum at best.


Jump jets are solely for movement, not jump sniping.

That's fine with me. Mind you, given that, I'd like to see jumping be substantially faster than it is, but regardless...

The cockpit shake has to go. Not the reticule shake and weapon spread - I don't care about firing while jumping - but that cockpit shake is BAD.

[Grugore]

YOU NERFED POPTARTS!!! I LOVE YOU!!! I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Thank you. Seriously.

[Lugh]

Esplodin, on 05 June 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

Then why do JJ slow you down, put your mech on a predictable arc, and STOP on landing making you MUCH easier to hit? At present the only use for JJ is to get over tiny ledges and rocks because of crap map design.

Nope they are very useful for avoiding predictable movement patterns and protecting damaged parts.

[Corvus Antaka]

I've been playing FPS games for 20 years, this is the first time EVER any FPS game has given me motion sickness/turned me off playing.

My spider is useless now, I dropped 300 matches in it, now it is rife for the garbage. Before, it took talent & skill to run, and hitting something accurately was never easy, now it is impossible almost and totally unfun.

again, for the trolls - yeah, we are all glad jumpsniping is dead, but this fix is not a quality good solution.

[DDcross]

Shake is ok, but aiming is way to off...hitting ur own teammates while JJ...sux. Targeting the crosshair should be control by your own mech while shaking,but in this case I can't evan control it.

[Electric Mayhem]

I like the jumpjet shake- it made it the experience a little more immersive, as if I really did have three rockets propelling my 65 ton brick of metal into the air.

[Loc Nar]

Screen shake seems ok to me and actually adds some immersion by making it look/feel like I imagine it should, but the overly jumpy reticule is a little over the top/forced/arbitrary and seems pretty out of place. If the crosshairs behaved that way from thrust, they would be bouncing all over with each step. Note -it doesn't affect my aim much, just provides annoyance and and breaks immersion.

Overall a good approach, just could use some tuning before it'll look/feel right...

[DrKukary]

I can't believe it has gotten this bad. Of course I will add the generic "I am not a poptart" line as I am not. This made my JJ lights completely garbage, along with degrading a lot of my others. I agree that something had to be done about jump sniping, but this solution is too extreme. Instead of just complaining about it, I'll offer an alternative solution.

1 - Set the screen shake back to the previous amount.
2 - Either add a reticule shake, or expand it with a circle that grows in size when jumping.
3 - Adjust reticule size/shake for the right balance of accuracy.

I would prefer a custom reticule for JJ since the shake would be disorienting and hurt my eyes. Say a circle expands over the reticule as you jump and your shots will have the decreased accuracy of that circle (like a shotgun effect). Maybe not big enough to miss an atlas entirely, but enough so that it will be extremely difficult to target a specific component. As to the cockpit shake, it doesn't need to be so intense. A good "vibration" look would do just fine as long as aiming is impaired.

Edited by DrKukary, 05 June 2013 - 09:14 AM.