22 replies to this topic

[ShivaPT]

Cause I like ripping people a new one.... while not using the "uber" meta.

Cause its not that uber.



Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

So I am doing 500+dmg games (pugs, admittedly)... with a hunchback. With zero gauss zero ppc zero ac20s.

I am using a hunchback 4P loading 4 LLasers. Since its not "THE" meta, I go largely ignored in-game. (it helps that I try to stay out of the way, and make myself a difficult target).
And since the lasers cause no cockpitshake to the target, they dont generaly return fire, as I'm just a minor annoyance.

Until I start ripping off limbs, that is. Or CTs. Or Legs...
Also, avoiding snipers at long range can be quite a sport. Just move erratically, perpendicularly to them. Go, stop, go stop and see rounds flying everywhere. Dont charge face first into a sniper nest. Or better, calmly go around, and shoot them from the side. Or rear.


My Atlas RS is also loading a pretty weird config: 4 LLasers (sometimes 2ERLL and 2 LLs), and a couple of... LRM15s.
And I discovered (after trying a build with 4 LLs and 1 gauss), that the LRMs are actually pretty awesome. You just have to use them right.

LRMs are not "first blood" devices. They are meant to be used when the brawl really starts, and people begin to engage earneastly. Wait until some shooting matches have commenced, you can start making it rain with relative inpunity.

Another role I have been happily ding is taking a ECM commando, load it with an ERPPC (ergh, but for this its usefull), and use it to light up targets for the lrmboats.
I take the erppc so I can shoot some people with no trace (no long blue beam signalling exactly where I am), and since its a ERMAGERDPPC, the entire team turns around to deal with the OMGPPCBOAT. Then I dissapear, sowing havoc with a lowly 25ton mech.


Then again, this DOES require DESPERATELY some tonnage balancing: Either
a) Matchmaking requiring both team's total tonnage be only 10-15 tons of total difference (maybe even doing 8vs 6, if its 6 assaults vs 8 mediums/heavies)
Matchmaking with minimum/maximum of mech classes (2 lights, 2 meds, 2 heavys, 2 assaults) max - much easier to do when we get 12 mechs battles
c) Give a money multiplyer by weight class. Giving the same c-bills for damage done to a stalker (which only has to sneeze at someone's general direction to rake in 100 damage) as to a commando (which to rack up 100dmg has to be shooting for 8 hours straight). Is skewing mech choices towards heavier mechs. Especially since lights and mediums can be a bigger asset to a match than an assault mech.

Give big bonuses for spotting (not just for LRMs - give the bonus when you are lighting up the target on radar, reporting the location and said target gets hit by anything), scouting (first to spot a mech).
Change the scouting bonus to be a LARGE % of the damage done (so a light lighting up an atlas that consequently gets killed gets a ton of cbills) - this would encorage lights to actually, like... SCOUT and bring BAPs to the field.

[tenderloving]

Just you wait until you start facing good opponents. It sounds like you should be in a higher skill bracket than you are, and I imagine your philosophy is going to change greatly.

[xDeityx]

ShivaPT, on 11 July 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

This is simply not true and you can prove it with a thought exercise. Reduce the argument to the absurd extremes (this is known as a reductio ad absurdum) and you will see how it falls apart. What if everyone believed that a 1-flamer Atlas was the best build? Clearly that doesn't make it the best build. So being the best build (or even a good build) seems to be entirely independent of player opinion.

I know where you're coming from - using nothing but the same weapons over and over again is boring no matter what weapons they are. Sometimes it gets to the point where I'd rather run a build that I know is inferior just because it is different. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the problem that only a very small fraction of the available weapons are intelligent choices if you want to win. And although you can still have success while avoiding the most powerful weapons, unless you are some special snowflake you would almost always do better with them.

A well made game doesn't make you choose between winning and having fun. That's what we're trying to help PGI understand.

[AvatarofWhat]

I get 500+ dmg games with all sorts of non-ppc builds. It says little about the current meta and more about me and the opponents I'm facing.

I'm sure you are a very good player, and when your Elo catches up and you face the same 4-man teams over and over, you'll start to understand where the rest of us are coming from.

[Pyrrho]

xDeityx - the reasoning is circular. You can't say in your thought exercise that if everyone believed that a 1 flamer Atlas was the best build that people wouldn't believe it was the best build. When you say "Clearly this is not the best build" it is because, outside of your absurd extreme, you are applying your current belief.

If everyone believed that the 1 flamer Atlas was the best build, the forums would be full of "OMG NERF FLAMER!!!" threads and the parrot defense reply force of "lulz, flamers, L2P."

Also, thought exercises shouldn't be for proving things. They are for consideration.

[BillyM]

...does the 1-flamer Atlas make center-core your medium in two shots?

3-6ppc+/-1gauss does...


To the OP, the fact that you are doing multiple 1-second-duration ranged firings without instantly losing your hunch indicates that you aren't playing against the top-tier groups who have been fully-invested in the poptart/ppc/gauss/ac40 meta. You won't do those damage numbers against those players, simply put..

--billyM

Edited by BillyM, 11 July 2013 - 06:15 AM.

[xDeityx]

Pyrrho, on 11 July 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

xDeityx - the reasoning is circular. You can't say in your thought exercise that if everyone believed that a 1 flamer Atlas was the best build that people wouldn't believe it was the best build. When you say "Clearly this is not the best build" it is because, outside of your absurd extreme, you are applying your current belief.

That isn't what I'm saying though. What I'm saying is that regardless of what people believe, the 1 flamer Atlas is not the best build. And that isn't just something that I believe, that is a 100% true statement of fact that you can prove empirically. It shouldn't need to be proven because it is so self-evident, but you could.

Pyrrho, on 11 July 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

If everyone believed that the 1 flamer Atlas was the best build, the forums would be full of "OMG NERF FLAMER!!!" threads and the parrot defense reply force of "lulz, flamers, L2P."

Ok.

Pyrrho, on 11 July 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

Also, thought exercises shouldn't be for proving things. They are for consideration.

Thought exercises are great tools for disproving theories and they can save you a lot of time.

[theta123]

ShivaPT, on 11 July 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

Cause I like ripping people a new one.... while not using the "uber" meta.

Cause its not that uber.



Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

So I am doing 500+dmg games (pugs, admittedly)... with a hunchback. With zero gauss zero ppc zero ac20s.

I am using a hunchback 4P loading 4 LLasers. Since its not "THE" meta, I go largely ignored in-game. (it helps that I try to stay out of the way, and make myself a difficult target).
And since the lasers cause no cockpitshake to the target, they dont generaly return fire, as I'm just a minor annoyance.

Until I start ripping off limbs, that is. Or CTs. Or Legs...
Also, avoiding snipers at long range can be quite a sport. Just move erratically, perpendicularly to them. Go, stop, go stop and see rounds flying everywhere. Dont charge face first into a sniper nest. Or better, calmly go around, and shoot them from the side. Or rear.


My Atlas RS is also loading a pretty weird config: 4 LLasers (sometimes 2ERLL and 2 LLs), and a couple of... LRM15s.
And I discovered (after trying a build with 4 LLs and 1 gauss), that the LRMs are actually pretty awesome. You just have to use them right.

LRMs are not "first blood" devices. They are meant to be used when the brawl really starts, and people begin to engage earneastly. Wait until some shooting matches have commenced, you can start making it rain with relative inpunity.

Another role I have been happily ding is taking a ECM commando, load it with an ERPPC (ergh, but for this its usefull), and use it to light up targets for the lrmboats.
I take the erppc so I can shoot some people with no trace (no long blue beam signalling exactly where I am), and since its a ERMAGERDPPC, the entire team turns around to deal with the OMGPPCBOAT. Then I dissapear, sowing havoc with a lowly 25ton mech.


Then again, this DOES require DESPERATELY some tonnage balancing: Either
a) Matchmaking requiring both team's total tonnage be only 10-15 tons of total difference (maybe even doing 8vs 6, if its 6 assaults vs 8 mediums/heavies)
Matchmaking with minimum/maximum of mech classes (2 lights, 2 meds, 2 heavys, 2 assaults) max - much easier to do when we get 12 mechs battles
c) Give a money multiplyer by weight class. Giving the same c-bills for damage done to a stalker (which only has to sneeze at someone's general direction to rake in 100 damage) as to a commando (which to rack up 100dmg has to be shooting for 8 hours straight). Is skewing mech choices towards heavier mechs. Especially since lights and mediums can be a bigger asset to a match than an assault mech.

Give big bonuses for spotting (not just for LRMs - give the bonus when you are lighting up the target on radar, reporting the location and said target gets hit by anything), scouting (first to spot a mech).
Change the scouting bonus to be a LARGE % of the damage done (so a light lighting up an atlas that consequently gets killed gets a ton of cbills) - this would encorage lights to actually, like... SCOUT and bring BAPs to the field.

I build a nice, balanced victor, kinda like MWO shoud be.
Then people like you come and kill me at close range with 2 shots



no just no

[tenderloving]

Pyrrho, on 11 July 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

Also, thought exercises shouldn't be for proving things. They are for consideration.

You don't prove anything with thought exercises. However you can easily disprove things with thought exercises. So this case is a valid use of a hypothetical.

Edited by tenderloving, 11 July 2013 - 06:32 AM.

[xDeityx]

tenderloving, on 11 July 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

You don't prove anything with thought exercises. However you can easily disprove things with thought exercises. So this case is a valid use of a hypothetical.

I think I confused him by using negatives. In my first post I said "this is not true and you can prove it with a thought exercise." I said prove but was actually disproving.

Edited by xDeityx, 11 July 2013 - 06:39 AM.

[Novakaine]

When ya get outta the sand box you'll be facing real players
Come see us.

[Tsula]

this guy is a troll he ran around in his commando with no weapon wasting time. a 4 larger laser hunchy is a alpha in its own right when it was only med. chassis saw it in Closed beta. Now with heavier and more tuning its turned into 3ppc gauss rifle. Ignore 36 points of damage with no heat problem. sorry man don't feel you on this Get your ElO up in your class and come only reason I dropped probably is I am trying out assault class and my ELO is low for them.

Edited by tsula, 11 July 2013 - 07:10 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

ShivaPT, on 11 July 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

Cause I like ripping people a new one.... while not using the "uber" meta.

Cause its not that uber.



Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

So I am doing 500+dmg games (pugs, admittedly)... with a hunchback. With zero gauss zero ppc zero ac20s.

I am using a hunchback 4P loading 4 LLasers. Since its not "THE" meta, I go largely ignored in-game. (it helps that I try to stay out of the way, and make myself a difficult target).
And since the lasers cause no cockpitshake to the target, they dont generaly return fire, as I'm just a minor annoyance.

Until I start ripping off limbs, that is. Or CTs. Or Legs...
Also, avoiding snipers at long range can be quite a sport. Just move erratically, perpendicularly to them. Go, stop, go stop and see rounds flying everywhere. Dont charge face first into a sniper nest. Or better, calmly go around, and shoot them from the side. Or rear.


My Atlas RS is also loading a pretty weird config: 4 LLasers (sometimes 2ERLL and 2 LLs), and a couple of... LRM15s.
And I discovered (after trying a build with 4 LLs and 1 gauss), that the LRMs are actually pretty awesome. You just have to use them right.

LRMs are not "first blood" devices. They are meant to be used when the brawl really starts, and people begin to engage earneastly. Wait until some shooting matches have commenced, you can start making it rain with relative inpunity.

Another role I have been happily ding is taking a ECM commando, load it with an ERPPC (ergh, but for this its usefull), and use it to light up targets for the lrmboats.
I take the erppc so I can shoot some people with no trace (no long blue beam signalling exactly where I am), and since its a ERMAGERDPPC, the entire team turns around to deal with the OMGPPCBOAT. Then I dissapear, sowing havoc with a lowly 25ton mech.


Then again, this DOES require DESPERATELY some tonnage balancing: Either
a) Matchmaking requiring both team's total tonnage be only 10-15 tons of total difference (maybe even doing 8vs 6, if its 6 assaults vs 8 mediums/heavies)
Matchmaking with minimum/maximum of mech classes (2 lights, 2 meds, 2 heavys, 2 assaults) max - much easier to do when we get 12 mechs battles
c) Give a money multiplyer by weight class. Giving the same c-bills for damage done to a stalker (which only has to sneeze at someone's general direction to rake in 100 damage) as to a commando (which to rack up 100dmg has to be shooting for 8 hours straight). Is skewing mech choices towards heavier mechs. Especially since lights and mediums can be a bigger asset to a match than an assault mech.

Give big bonuses for spotting (not just for LRMs - give the bonus when you are lighting up the target on radar, reporting the location and said target gets hit by anything), scouting (first to spot a mech).
Change the scouting bonus to be a LARGE % of the damage done (so a light lighting up an atlas that consequently gets killed gets a ton of cbills) - this would encorage lights to actually, like... SCOUT and bring BAPs to the field.

Your right on the money with this point. I recently did a test of the Quad PPC Stalker to see what all the hype was and found out it was compeltely overblown. There was absolutely nothing special about it other than it was a decent build and easy to use. However it definately wasn't a build that dominated all others and in fact I found about half a dozen flaws with it that could be fixed by a more mixed load out.

I have also did these sort of tests with an Awesome to see if they were as bad as people claimed (they weren't), and also tested out the claims that a medium mech can't compete to see if I could put out competitive performance to my heavies and assaults (they did).

I love this quote:

Quote

Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

This sums it up nicely. Perception trumps reality as has and always will and what we have going in in MWO is alot of mistaken preception.

tenderloving, on 11 July 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

Just you wait until you start facing good opponents. It sounds like you should be in a higher skill bracket than you are, and I imagine your philosophy is going to change greatly.

Ah the old ELO arguement. People love to jump on this high horse and every one of you claim to be in that higher skill bracket. However no one knows what bracket they are in. For all they know, they might be in the lowest (and largest) bracket and their opinions are only valid there and have ZERO relevance to higher skill brackets.

I mean hell, I took 20th place in the Heavy vs the World tournament in a field of over 2000 partisipants in my choosen mech. That puts me in the top 1% of players in that mech. Does this mean I am in a high ELO bracket playing at the highest skill levels? Honestly I have no clue. For all I know, I just happend to be the best player in the lowest ELO bracket for that tournament.

Lets look at this quote again.

Quote

Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best builds are what people believe they are.

Now we can also apply it to your precived skill level and change the quote a bit.

Power resides where people believe it resides. Conversely, the best pilots are who they believe they are (whether in reality they are or not).

Basically, you think your in the highest ELO bracket and are a great pilot, well PROVE IT. Oh wait, we can't because we have no leaderboard. In that case, get off the horse because your probably no where near as good as you think you are and I use the word "you" collectively to mean everyone who uses the, "Wait till your playing at a higher ELO" arguement.

[Master Q]

Wow. This is such nonsense.

Power resides in belief sometimes. But other times, power resides because people have done the number crunching and determined numerically where the power is residing.

An AC40 K2 or Jager has a 40-point alpha that generates almost no heat and goes precisely where it's aimed using the linked, fast-converging arm-arcs. That is math. The convergence on those shots is 100% at all times because PGI has not yet understood the basic premise that instant convergence and total convergence are both ( antithetical to the base game they are drawing their information from and ( absolutely deadly to the gameplay model they are trying to create.

Looking at all the other things that people say come close, they're not even remotely close. PPC or ERPPC boats at least have heat to contend with. LRM boats can, yes, get absolutely savaged once something gets in under minimum range (although the recent nerf to AMS is doing nothing for game balance either). Laser boats have to deal with the issues of the laser aim-over-time structure, heat, and torso/arm disconvergence. Even a quad-UAC Cataphract has to deal with armor issues and the high chance of jams.

It's not lost on me that when I've dropped in the past two weeks I've steadily seen more and more K2's and Firebrands in the drop. It's also not lost on me that when I see a drop without K2's and Firebrands, I tend to also see someone on the team missing them mysteriously "drop connection" in the first 10 seconds of the match and sometimes even before the match drops and making the game even more imbalanced. It's blindingly obvious that these players are just reloading their drop to team only with "optimized" mech chassis on their teams.

That's something PGI needs to start getting. Instant convergence is causing problems. Absolute convergence is also causing problems. The AC40 boats would not nearly be so overpowered if they couldn't guarantee that their alpha strike all hit the same panel at once.

Edited by Master Q, 11 July 2013 - 09:51 AM.

[Roland]

Viktor Drake, on 11 July 2013 - 07:17 AM, said:

I recently did a test of the Quad PPC Stalker to see what all the hype was and found out it was compeltely overblown. There was absolutely nothing special about it other than it was a decent build and easy to use. However it definately wasn't a build that dominated all others and in fact I found about half a dozen flaws with it that could be fixed by a more mixed load out.

Has it occurred to you that perhaps you weren't really playing that mech to its fullest potential?

[Kunae]

Roland, on 11 July 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

Has it occurred to you that perhaps you weren't really playing that mech to its fullest potential?

That's a problem with a great deal of the brown-nosers around here. They've only dabbled in a particular config and don't understand what it can do, or how it functions, in the hands of a skilled player.

[3rdworld]

Kunae, on 11 July 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

in the hands of a skilled player.

Does not compute.

[Dreamslave]

tenderloving, on 11 July 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

Just you wait until you start facing good opponents. It sounds like you should be in a higher skill bracket than you are, and I imagine your philosophy is going to change greatly.

Exactly this. Either you are new to the game so your lolELO hasn't been set yet, you are not as good as you think you are and are stuck playing with people who are terrible at the game, or are delusional.

[Master Q]

[REDACTED]

Seriously? I take the time to point out that there's math involved and just like any game there are actual ways to calculate damage, FPS, and work on the question of convergence.

For instance, compare:

- Damage spread of one AC/40 alpha strike (linked shots with perfect convergence that hit a single panel) versus accumulated heat: 12.
- Damage spread of a 40-LRM salvo alpha (either two LRM20s, four LRM10s, two LRM15 plus one LRM10, or another config) which spreads all over the targeted mech instead while also requiring target lock and minimum distance and accumulated heat: 12-16 depending on config.
- Damage spread of four PPCs, most likely not completely converged since at least two have to be on torso instead of arms and still having a minimum fire distance. Accumulated heat: 32
- Make it four ERPPCs instead, remove the minimum fire distance but jump the accumulated heat to 44.
- Medium lasers? You'd need 8 of them to get there. If you can find the chassis for it, accumulated heat is still 32 while convergence is still arms/torso split and you have the fire-time to hold targeting = damage spread, not concentrated.
- Large lasers? 4 of them is 36 damage, heat is still 28 with all the downsides of the Medium Lasers still.

Don't flame me or call the numbers "tinfoil hat" just because you can't do math.

Edited by Destined, 11 July 2013 - 12:29 PM.
unconstructive

[H Seldon]

I hate the current meta, can't wait for it to change. I don't use PPC/gauss/ac40. Haven't in months. Of course the game is harder, but I like challenges...