64 replies to this topic

[Vodrin Thales]

Talimar1, on 07 June 2013 - 12:55 AM, said:

Wrecknor, you have never played a spider. That is obvious. It is COMPLETELY different from playing the heavier poptarts. Spiders were never considered to be poptarts as they lack one essential feature:High damage alpha strike. To play a spider, one has to hit a ton of times. The spider is THE jump jet mech. If they nerf jumpjets to oblivion(HINT:They have, not just this patch, read the patch notes from the past) then there was no point in putting the spider in game at all. It could barely do damage before the patch, and those shots while flying through the air were the only things keeping the spider even playable. Hate the other poptarts all you want, but they are at the least playable. The spider was only in a very, very limited sense competitive and what they have now done to it is to make it completely unplayable. This is not good design, no matter how much you hate poptarts. They changed the wrong mechanic because you lot bitched about poptarts without realizing the implications of what you were suggesting. The real way to change poptarts is with heat and/or power limits for weapon discharges, you know, LIKE IN THE LORE. I really don't mind the shaking aspects other than the levels, but the completely random weapon offset that is unpredictable and not indicated is definitely a problem.

Also to those of you characterizing my post as wanting the poptarts back, it is obvious you did not read my post.

I pilot jenners and jump capable trebuchets and I just can't understand what you are so bent out of shape about. The kinds of tactics you have been using became more difficult, but not nearly impossible to use.

It's also kind of funny that you are saying this change is not consistent with the lore. BT TT does have a substantial aim penalty for shooting when jumping after all.

[Milt]

SMDMadCow, on 07 June 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

Perhaps you should learn to time your shots after you let off the jets so you have a clear sight picture and no random deviation, or when you land and use the jets for bugging out. It sounds like you are still trying to poptart and its not going to work, and thats a good thing for everybody. Adapt and figure out how to manipulate the situation to your advantage, thats where real skill comes in.

you totally missed my point. a spider is moving at 150kph and jetting around like a lunatic just to survive. your window of opportunity to get off a shot is ridiculously small. by the time the game responds to me letting of the jets im behind cover and still moving. im quickly wearing out my spacebar with the amount of times im pressing it. feathering the jets, quick burst to change direction, quick burst to brake, long burst to clear obstacles, randomly changing flight arc, etc. its what keeps this fragile little mech alive and what makes it a freakishly fun mech to pilot. atm with the screenshake i can still accomplish these things but i come away with a severe eye-strain headache. poptarting isnt what i do, but it is a tool i have in my toolbox. now lets see to play a hvy or assault poptart, i can stll pop up shoot hit what im aiming at and survive without the headache. so who was punished, the poptart or the spider pilot?

Edited by Milt, 07 June 2013 - 05:58 AM.

[Talimar1]

The problem is it is not just bs whining. These are real issues that need to be discussed. Besides the nausea and headaches that have been reported, lighter mechs have been nerfed much more than the poptarts, so much that the spider has been nerfed out of the game. That is a gameplay balance issue. It needs to be discussed. Don't read if you don't care or are tired of the discussion.

By the way:

A spider does not and never did poptart. It flies. There is a huge difference. A poptart's primary use of jump jets is going straight up and down, or at most an arc with a very steep angle. A spider uses jump jets to make a very shallow arc. Targets have to be spotted "on the fly" while also lining up the shot and trying not get hit, all while going 151kph. And even if we hit we do 10 damage. That playstyle is how we stay alive. If we can't shoot in that time, we can't do damage. It is simple as that. We have so little armor and nearly no weaponry, that we have to rely on cover and maneuvering, with that shallow arc as an integral part of our toolkit. Now we can't do that, and that reduces by an order of magnitude(I may be exaggerating, but only very slightly) our already very limited damaging potential. Yes, we can shoot when we land, unfortunately if we land where we can see an enemy they can generally do quite a bit of damage to us because we pause. We have less armor than ravens and jenners, and only a couple points more than a commando. JJs were the spider's domain so with JJs so far nerfed ipso facto the spider is nerfed out of the game.

Play a spider for a while before saying anything about the JJ changes. It will give you a different perspective entirely on the JJ changes.

BTW, my comment about the lore was related to the books etcetera, not the tabletop, though the table top does come in. There is a -2 modifier to running and a -3 to jumping, so if we are going to go by that then there should be only a marginal difference from piloting your mech at full speed!

Edited by Talimar1, 07 June 2013 - 06:13 AM.

[SMDMadCow]

I cant really say anymore withput actually playing with you guys and observing you, but try not to focus on the cross hair when you jump until you let off and try keeping your main shots for when you are on the ground.

[Reith Dynamis]

Talimar1, on 07 June 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

El Bandito, I have asked you to leave if you have nothing more to add to the discussion. I have adjusted playstyles on the spider but cannot play more than 2 or 3 games due to the nausea inducing effects. I want you to go and play about 50 games in a spider and see if you can stand it.

By the way, my erppc shots that missed widely were not from a long range, they were from about 300 meters. Against an atlas.

I take offence to you calling me a no life fool for trying to make this game better than a piece of ****. You are harassing me and I don't appreciate it. I want this game to be good. You have a self righteous hate because you won on the poptart side of things. I get it. Poptarts sucked to fight. I was right there with you on the hate, but I ADAPTED and learned how to counter the poptarts.

Telling me to adapt or learn to play is trolling. I have been in a spider since the day they came out. That is the reason I started playing. I have adapted to every change in the meta, all while playing my spider. Sure, it sucked at times but I adapted. This change however has made the spider unplayable, not merely noncompetitive, so I haven't been playing. I have been advocating for it instead. There were more far reaching effects for this JJ change than simply getting rid of the poptarts. I am detailing my experience with it. This change is adaptable to an extent, but makes the spider worse than a commando.


I am not advocating for a return of Poptartwarrior Online. I just want my spider to be able to contribute to the battle as effectively as it can with its' very limited weaponry. Not **** face everywhere like I can in the Jager I bought and play with 2 ac20s(some of that may be elo cause I don't play heavies all that much, but still, AC20s are a little out of control. That is what happens when this kind of cycle takes place, and we have seen it with LRMs, Poptarts, etc)

Ok, no mech should be able to shoot while in the air, never happened in BT. And El Bandito can say whatever he wishes, its not like you have not already been putting down his opinion because it doesn't coincide with yours. If you don't want him to antagonize u any further maybe ignor what he says and take it with a grain of salt.

[Milt]

Reith Dynamis, on 07 June 2013 - 06:12 AM, said:

Ok, no mech should be able to shoot while in the air, never happened in BT. And El Bandito can say whatever he wishes, its not like you have not already been putting down his opinion because it doesn't coincide with yours. If you don't want him to antagonize u any further maybe ignor what he says and take it with a grain of salt.

i disagree, i distinctly remember jumping straight up and down in a phawk to gain the movement + jump modifier to my opponents targeting when i was at range so i could take advantage of partial cover and fire off a LL with little to no heat. and if you want to go that route, an ac/2 only did 2pts of damage in a 10sec round. TT references just dont hold alot of water with how far off the reservation pgi has already gone

[Xeno Phalcon]

I dont have any issues for the most part, I know to get my break dancing crosshairs roughly where the enemy is then cut my jump jets, quickly adjust aim and fire. And I do quite a bit of bouncing around over terrain and buildings, im especially fond of rooftop hopping. Though its worth mentioning that im using a blackjack right now, and its high weapon mounts afford me a greater window of opportunity to fix my aim and fire on my target then say a highlander with its near hip level weaponry.

[Milt]

poptarting is still easy to do, that is really not the point of this thread. playing a spider to its full effect and to survive in it ... well thats a totally different story. thats the real reason i believe the nerf missed its mark. a hgn can go up take some hits, return fire, and survive. just like always. a spider can't expose itself long enough and hope to survive

Edited by Milt, 07 June 2013 - 06:35 AM.

[Talimar1]

Honestly guys, part of the problem for me is playing my beloved spider gives me a headache after 3-5 games. Seeing myself miss an atlas at 300m because of a random factor and so blatantly pushed me over the edge. My crosshairs were both on him and I had a quarter of a second to get a shot off before he went out of view and I saw it go to my far right for no reason. That is extraordinarily frustrating. There need to be changes, it is simple as that. The devs did not seem to consider any other mechs than the ones that were whined about, and there is an increasing frustration from me because I have seen many people leave this game due to poor handling of game balancing and thought like you all that they were that they just weren't adapting to handle it. You really don't know what this is like until it happens to you directly, especially if your style of play was not the one targeted but was unintentionally the greatest affected by the change.

If any of you want to play with me just add me as a friend in game and I will play, but don't expect me to play long in my spider. Send me a private message here and we can arrange a time. Much of the time, the random offset doesn't effect your aim all that much but does cause misses quite often. A bigger issue for me personally is how it makes me feel(headache) and the fact that I disagree on a design level on random factors that can't be known at all. But doing all three of these things in one patch was a huge hit to the effectiveness of my favorite mech, and was heavy handed. That is the only way PGI knows how to balance this game apparently. They take sledgehammers to penny nails.

Edited by Talimar1, 07 June 2013 - 06:48 AM.

[Milt]

this needs a bit more attention

[Homeless Bill]

No. Putting a single shot on target is not skill. I've been in the 732 for two months, and it's not skill. It's like taking a shot with a rifle in an FPS. If you have marginal aim, you have the "skill" required to poptart. The random offset shouldn't be able to be overcome. You shouldn't be able to fire on the way up.

It does need to be less violent for lighter chassis.

And the Highlander was not designed as a poptart. There was no CBT poptarting. Poptarting is a legitimate tactic now that it can't be done on the way up and takes some real skill.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 07 June 2013 - 11:30 AM.

[SMDMadCow]

Milt, on 07 June 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

i disagree, i distinctly remember jumping straight up and down in a phawk to gain the movement + jump modifier to my opponents targeting when i was at range so i could take advantage of partial cover and fire off a LL with little to no heat. and if you want to go that route, an ac/2 only did 2pts of damage in a 10sec round. TT references just dont hold alot of water with how far off the reservation pgi has already gone

Ok, not correct, you must be misremembering the rules: jump moves give enemies an extra +1 to hit you on top of the mod for distance, so a jump of up and down is distance 0. You then gaina +3 for your own shots for jumping. Partial cover is only another +1,so you are giving your opponent a +2 to hit you while incurring a +3 to hit them. So no, poptarting is not viable in TT.

[Milt]

SMDMadCow, on 07 June 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Ok, not correct, you must be misremembering the rules: jump moves give enemies an extra +1 to hit you on top of the mod for distance, so a jump of up and down is distance 0. You then gaina +3 for your own shots for jumping. Partial cover is only another +1,so you are giving your opponent a +2 to hit you while incurring a +3 to hit them. So no, poptarting is not viable in TT.

no, i remember the rules its just a different interpretation of the rules. sounds like you played with only horizontal spacing on the board. we played where vertical movement also counted as spaces moved. the rules weren't exactly crystal clear in that regard. house rules so to speak

Edited by Milt, 07 June 2013 - 12:14 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

Milt, on 07 June 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

no, i remember the rules its just a different interpretation of the rules. sounds like you played with only horizontal spacing on the board. we played where vertical movement also counted as spaces moved. the rules weren't exactly crystal clear in that regard. house rules so to speak

Ok so...

"You couldn't do it in TT"
"Yes I could"
"Er..TT rules didn't allow it"
"Oh, I know. I made up some that did so I could in TT"

I think you missed the point of the fella who said you couldn't do it in TT. I run with a guy who plays the ERPPC-spider and he's finding that he just needs to forward-plan his jumps more. Jet between cover, plan where you release the jump key. If there's a viable target there, take it, if not then them's the breaks. Basic testing (nowhere near the same no. JJs) in a Raventart means I'm tending to believe his assessment.

[Milt]

Gaan Cathal, on 07 June 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

Ok so...

"You couldn't do it in TT"
"Yes I could"
"Er..TT rules didn't allow it"
"Oh, I know. I made up some that did so I could in TT"

I think you missed the point of the fella who said you couldn't do it in TT. I run with a guy who plays the ERPPC-spider and he's finding that he just needs to forward-plan his jumps more. Jet between cover, plan where you release the jump key. If there's a viable target there, take it, if not then them's the breaks. Basic testing (nowhere near the same no. JJs) in a Raventart means I'm tending to believe his assessment.

no no no, what part of the rules weren't exactly clear on it didnt you understand? if you are playing a TT game and the rules are not clear you make a group determination on how to interpret it, fella. obviously we interpretted it differently.oh and don't put words into my mouth, you aren't quailified.

[Gaan Cathal]

http://bg.battletech....html#msg575950

That took moments to google. There is clearly no vertical "movement" in terms of traversed hexes. You added a house rule to the TT, that in and of itself is fine. But it's a house rule. You admit that yourself earlier. Poptarting in TT is not a thing - not least because movement is resolved before weapons fire, and ergo you can't fire mid-jump at all. A skim of the 'quick start' rules tells me that and I've never played TT outside a brief dabble in the MWTactics beta.

[Tarl Cabot]

You do realize that firing while during a jump was first introduced with the Solaris 7 box set, hai? And was utilized before that with the Virtual World and the original Mechwarrior.

And there has been pop tarting since the jenner was introduced but it was at a much closer range than many of the configurations being made today. To put YOUR definition of poptarting out there, ya know where you can put it , so *******.

So sticking with only one component of the BT line is BS and shows how narrow minded some people really are. And the BT box rules used the KISS principle, whereas the Solaris rules were meant to expand on those rules for a more complex game.

Many here do not disagree that some tweaks needed to be done, it is HOW they were done. Imagine PGI thought something else that was thought to be OP cause people were using it in a way not envisioned by PGI, but instead of applying tweaks on something that has been live since the beginning they decided to hit it with 3 severe negative effects, not one, not two but three. And a combination of all of those effects caused you mild to severe discomfort due to some of the changes, forcing YOUR eyes to constantly readjust/strain. How would YOU feel then when other people who did not really use that item, that particular weapon told YOU to not use that weapon since you have issues with it, to adapt to it?

The lack of empathy is fraking pathetic on these boards, and that some of PGI/IGP staff endorsed the negative feedback with some of their posts is really sad. Last night (I think it was last night) in one of my matches the game was down to a 1 on 1 and I was in my highlander (dropped all but 1 JJ, need to NOT focus on the screen, look off when jumping - eye strain) and had a few of my team comment on the screen shake and other effects. And reviewing some of the recordings I had taking, during a game I fired approx 25%-30% of the time from the air, hitting about 60% of my shots, and most of the jumps were in what you would call brawling range. And none of those 4ppc setups.

imho, and there are a few who agree that PGI went the wrong route, they went overboard but with comments of reducing some of the things. My question is, what is wrong with an actual cone of fire? Do they really think that their current approach will impress those who will join up here in the future?

Screw it, EA with 3025 did the pinpoint alphas, which sucked even if we were in stock mechs. At least MPBT EGA/Solaris firing tics were handled by cycling through the weapons, firing one after the other to reduce the pinpoint stuff. PGI current approach is a.. nm.

I have said my peace.

[Gaan Cathal]

Tarl Cabot, on 07 June 2013 - 03:27 PM, said:

Many here do not disagree that some tweaks needed to be done, it is HOW they were done. Imagine PGI thought something else that was thought to be OP cause people were using it in a way not envisioned by PGI, but instead of applying tweaks on something that has been live since the beginning they decided to hit it with 3 severe negative effects, not one, not two but three. And a combination of all of those effects caused you mild to severe discomfort due to some of the changes, forcing YOUR eyes to constantly readjust/strain. How would YOU feel then when other people who did not really use that item, that particular weapon told YOU to not use that weapon since you have issues with it, to adapt to it?

If anyone's actually saying the physical discomfort to the player is a nonissue, their opinion can be safely ignored. PGI have said they're adjusting to account for this (yes, I'm aware that means you might be waiting a year or so, but lets face it what better are you going to get by yelling at other players on the forum?). Likewise they've said that they will be adjusting shake values per mech tonnage.

Tarl Cabot, on 07 June 2013 - 03:27 PM, said:

imho, and there are a few who agree that PGI went the wrong route, they went overboard but with comments of reducing some of the things. My question is, what is wrong with an actual cone of fire? Do they really think that their current approach will impress those who will join up here in the future?

Because when they started out they thought they could make MW:O into a competitive game. That would (and does) require the ability to select which components you're targeting. They then messed up their convergence mechanic and now everyone cores everyone else in three shots minimum at Heavy or above. CoF would actually be better than what we have currently, but that's because what we have currently is so, so bad. Proper convergence mechanics would be superior to CoF, and since they've got to implement one or the other they may's well implement the better one (assuming they do it right this time).

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 07 June 2013 - 10:45 PM.

[Icewraith]

Wouldn't your shot unaccountably discharging way over on the side of your screen while moving at high speed at close-ish range be a convergence issue? That sounds really familiar.

[WaddeHaddeDudeda]

I love to read all these "poptarting doesn't takes skill" comments.
I highly advise all you naysayers to do it SUFFICIENTLY against someone decent. See how "easy" and "skill less" it is by then.
(Talking from over 10 years of MW4 online experience.)

Apart from that: the JJ shake will fix nothing...until PGI is pulling their heads out of their collective a**** and start to actually put PPCs back in line with other weapons. And by that I don't mean that laughable "4 s Cooldown" change.