578 replies to this topic

[Roland]

One thing that always amazes me is that some folks seem to harbor some kind of resentment for players who are better than they are. They throw around terms like "tryhards".

If you call someone a tryhard, you know what that means? It means you are bad. Period.

Not caring much about winning is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not nearly as competitive now as I was when I was a kid playing MW4.

But there is a problem when you refuse to exert the effort to get better at a game, and think that the problem is the guy who is better than you. If you care about winning, then you need to put in the work to win. You can't expect other people to simply fall down to your level.

If you say that you "play for fun" and then you complain when someone beats you, it means you're an imbecile.

[DaZur]

xDeityx, on 24 July 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

It sounds like you would be much more satisfied with a game mode that never ends and has infinite respawn so you can play with 'mechs without having to worry about winning or losing. But when you're in a game mode where there are winners and losers the entire concept is predicated upon the assumption that all of the players are doing their best to try to win.

Quite the contrary... I enjoy the win/loss scenario.

That said, I play to "have fun"... so yes, I occasionally sport unconventional builds. Does this preclude I'm not playing to win?... If you ask a competitive player their answer is a resounding "yes". In their eyes I'm not doing everything I can to ensure I carry my weight and forward the goal of winning.

[PropagandaWar]

Master Q, on 24 July 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

Short answer: "Yes."

Longer answer: watching aggregate behavior, I suspect approximately 10-15 names I've seen recurring to load/disconnect are simply reloading if they don't see certain optimal-to-broken mechs (Stalker variants, Firebrands, etc) loaded on their side, trying to pad their win count. So yes, "competitive" players doing that can break the game since every time they drop they leave their team undergunned.

Paddings the worst. Especially when said padder could have possibly turned the tide in battle. I love getting called everything in the book if I'm down and I see the culprit exhibiting that type of behavior. Problem is the rest of the team sees it and starts calling them on it too. As far as comp mech builds the only ones I abhor and hate seeing them try and take credit on is 900 point damage spiders and the like. When you seeing them getting hit with everything and the kitchen sink and feel they earned that 900 points when clearly the HSR wasn't working is laughable at best. As to the rest why not? If it works for them it works for them. How many real life military tanks field different loadouts? I like diversity but am not against units using what works best for them.

[Lootee]

Competitive players are great. They can only use the best builds and best weapons and equipment so it makes it easy to see the relative power levels of the items in the game.

Where PGI goes wrong is listening to them for advice on what needs to be fixed or not. It's in their best interest to change nothing so they can continue to keep winning by running whatever they currently do. PGI should be looking at which weapons and mechs are overly represented in high level play and nerfing the **** out of them.

Bring them in line with the less competitive pieces of equipment and it still won't really affect the ultracompetitive players. They'll find another way to win, but the overall game balance will be more even. Use them as beta test guinea pigs, that's their purpose at this stage of the game right ?

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 24 July 2013 - 10:10 AM.

[East Indy]

A small number of pragmatic, mechanically inclined players discover optimal configurations that happen to stray from the spirit of the game.

A much larger number of players copy and use these configurations.

The first group is providing a valuable beta-testing service. The second group is much more likely to damage grassroots expansion of the player base.

[DaZur]

scJazz, on 24 July 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

It is a blind spot caused by their Competitive nature that they ask for balance by demanding buffs to everything because buff = good as opposed to nerfs.

To piggy-back your premise... I argue the constant forward to nerf actually accomplishes opposite their desired want.

In order to balance the apex weapons (PPC, AC/20 & Gauss) should be further distanced from the middling weapons in order to encourage their viability. Right now the apex weapons do not have enough soft-nerfs to differentiate them from the middling weapons...

Why take a middling weapon with moderate hit-scan damage when I can take an apex weapon with front-loaded damage and use them with neigh impunity regardless of the range.

A Comp. player does not appreciate it this because, as you eluded to... are seeking the most efficient means to dispatch their opponent.

Edited by DaZur, 24 July 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[DragunSlayer]

Video games are rarely perfectly balanced. Starcrafts, some other esports. For the rest, the exploitable holes will be exploited by the hardcore. So yes, they absolutely exacerbate the situation. For example, I thought how cool it would be ir "Power up detected" was said when someone who was shutdown powered up. Then I realized some groups would shutdown back and forth non stop to flood your headphones, because... well they're those kind of people.

[Purlana]

DragunSlayer, on 24 July 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

For example, I thought how cool it would be ir "Power up detected" was said when someone who was shutdown powered up. Then I realized some groups would shutdown back and forth non stop to flood your headphones, because... well they're those kind of people.

That's fine with me, I would just blast them with some SRMs while they are powered down...

[xDeityx]

DaZur, on 24 July 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

Quite the contrary... I enjoy the win/loss scenario.

That said, I play to "have fun"... so yes, I occasionally sport unconventional builds. Does this preclude I'm not playing to win?... If you ask a competitive player their answer is a resounding "yes". In their eyes I'm not doing everything I can to ensure I carry my weight and forward the goal of winning.

You ignored an important part of what I said, which is that the entire concept of a game with winners and losers is predicated upon the assumption that all players are trying their best to win. When you equip a loadout that you know is objectively worse than another possible loadout, then you aren't doing your best to win. Yes, you're still trying to win with your less-than-optimal loadout, but you know that you could be doing better. By doing this you invalidate the entire premise of the competitive game, that the winner is the better player. What you're doing is totally understandable because you're trying to salvage some fun out of a boring game. That's fine, but my problem is when you try and blame the people who are doing their best to win for taking the fun out of the game. PGI did that.

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

It's in their best interest to change nothing so they can continue to keep winning by running whatever they currently do. PGI should be looking at which weapons and mechs are overly represented in high level play and nerfing the **** out of them.

I hope you realize that the exact opposite is happening. The competitive community is all but unanimous in their agreement that PPCs are too powerful. If what you said was even remotely true, they would be united in trying to keep PPCs on top.

Edited by xDeityx, 24 July 2013 - 10:17 AM.

[Royalewithcheese]

You don't have to be particularly good at robots to know what builds you can do with them. The second they announced the jagermech*, the "jagermech = no lower arm actuators = AC40 + XL = 40 pinpoint at splatcat speed" lightbulb popped up over everyones head at once. The second they announced the Highlander, people were talking about what variants and what level of jumpjet thrust you would need to poptart with it.

And, anyway, players being good enough at the game to know what is balanced or not or powerful or not is both inevitable and pretty much unquestionably a good thing for a competitive game.

*not to my knowledge a particularly competitive build when the 3D exists,but certainly a rage-inducing one.

[Coolwhoami]

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

Competitive players are great. They can only use the best builds and best weapons and equipment so it makes it easy to see the relative power levels of the items in the game.

Where PGI goes wrong is listening to them for advice on what needs to be fixed or not. It's in their best interest to change nothing so they can continue to keep winning by running whatever they currently do. PGI should be looking at which weapons and mechs are overly represented in high level play and nerfing the **** out of them.

Bring them in line with the less competitive pieces of equipment and it still won't really affect the ultracompetitive players. They'll find another way to win, but the overall game balance will be more even. Use them as beta test guinea pigs, that's their purpose at this stage of the game right ?

If these people are bringing forward these weapons as being overpowered, are they not consequently telling pgi what is unbalanced? Are you seriously arguing that competitive players will mislead the developers to keep the meta the same, when that is demonstrably false?

In fact, despite the fact that there has been a lot of comments regarding how strong ppcs are right now, we got heat scale instead. So who's to blame here?

[Homeless Bill]

No.

They are the most useful tool for finding imbalances a game developer has. It's incredibly helpful to watch a virgin play-through of your game to see what they don't "get" right off the bat and to see what they do wrong. When it comes to balancing, however, it's all about the competitive players.

Competitive players take the time to figure out which weapons are the best, which weapon combinations are the best, which chassis are the best, etc. You can say they cause imbalance because they run those things, but what's the solution? Is it for them to arbitrarily gimp themselves? Only run one PPC? None? Put an LBX on every build? What the **** would they do to fix it?

It's ultimately up to the the developers to fix balance - not the burden of competitive players to play less competitively.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 24 July 2013 - 10:58 AM.

[Kunae]

xDeityx, on 24 July 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

I hope you realize that the exact opposite is happening. The competitive community is all but unanimous in their agreement that PPCs are too powerful. If what you said was even remotely true, they would be united in trying to keep PPCs on top.

Exactly, xDeityx.

These bad whiners who project their own exploitive attitudes on the people who trounce them, are the real issue. They're the same folks who look for cheat-codes for single-player games. Contemptible.

People who want to play more competitively want things to be balanced. If everyone is running the same "cookie-cutter" build, it gets boring, really fast. Everything should be viable, for the role the mech is trying to fill. Everything should have a counter.

[Rippthrough]

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

Where PGI goes wrong is listening to them for advice on what needs to be fixed or not. It's in their best interest to change nothing so they can continue to keep winning by running whatever they currently do.

A common thought amongst many of the people on these forums, with the only slight flaw in it being it's 100% BullS***

The competitive players will win no matter what mech and loadout they are made to run. They don't give a crap what's currently best, they just want everything to be competitive so we can all run mechs how we like.

[Lootee]

xDeityx, on 24 July 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

I hope you realize that the exact opposite is happening. The competitive community is all but unanimous in their agreement that PPCs are too powerful. If what you said was even remotely true, they would be united in trying to keep PPCs on top.

Sure some people might be saying that, while others are saying everything is fine l2p. Regardless of what they say it's irrelevant. Look at their actions instead: what mechs they're running, which weapons, what type of tactic being used, etc...

That's a more reliable method than just taking them at their word.

[xDeityx]

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Sure some people might be saying that, while others are saying everything is fine l2p.

No, man. You are just making stuff up at this point. Quote somebody who is a competitive gamer who recently said "L2P" in response to a criticism about PPCs being overpowered.

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Regardless of what they say it's irrelevant. Look at their actions instead: what mechs they're running, which weapons, what type of tactic being used, etc...

That's a more reliable method than just taking them at their word.

What? This is just...I don't even.../facepalm

[Roland]

Yes, good players will tend to have absolutely no problem adapting to whatever set of weapons you give them.

And most of them are bored of the PPC/Gauss meta. They want the game to be more complex.

They want the garbage tier weapons to be useful, so that they can use them.

[Blood78]

This is how I define competitive in MWO until PGI institues Ladder System which they said they would (see Ask Devs 41).

• Competitive Drop (8 man drop)
  
• Competitive Player (plays to get KDR, win/loss ratio in non-competitive drops)

Competitive players will utilize the most efficient build that fits their playstyle. It doesn't necessarily means using the latest fad build. As matter of fact, some competitive players will leave the game because the game balance changes negatively affect their build and playstyles.


In competitive drops, its a different ballgame and you can't win 8 man with 8 6PPC stalker (before heat change) or 6 Atlas DDC with SRM and AC20. You need a balance and good mix so these fad builds while are incorporated, its not like in non-8 man drops.

To answer the question, No.

If anything in the future, it'd be more of a tweak on the mech itself such as twist ratio, arm movements, etc. That's result of competitive elite players vs. regular mortals...especially so if MWO gets popular and lives long enough to have a Pro scene.

Good example would be League of Legends and other MOBA games. Both Champions and items get tweaked but more often, its the champions that get tweaked as direct result from elite competitive players using them.

Edited by Blood78, 24 July 2013 - 10:38 AM.

[Roland]

xDeityx, on 24 July 2013 - 10:31 AM, said:

No, man. You are just making stuff up at this point. Quote somebody who is a competitive gamer who recently said "L2P" in response to a criticism about PPCs being overpowered.

Ya, I think the folks who tend to point to the obviously OP stuff and say that it's fine tend NOT to be the competitive players. They instead tend to be the garbage players who have simply never witnessed those weapons in the hands of competent pilots.

[Kunae]

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Sure some people might be saying that, while others are saying everything is fine l2p.

Try breathing through your nose, once in awhile...

Learning to play is essential. People who complain about dual-AC20 mechs, really need to learn to play. People who complain about "'splat cats", need to learn to play.

The PPC meta is a different creature, as PGI chose to buff these and remove all effective counters to them. If SRMs hadn't been nerfed, back in Feb/March, the "ppc problem" would have been minor, at worst.

Now, people had/have differing ideas on how to "fix" this problem that PGI created, mostly without realizing that PGI did create this mess, just like pretty much every other OP'd issue in this game. Thus they come up with silly "solutions" without understanding the problem, or they came in late enough that they think complaints about it are over-blown, without understanding the context.

This is completely on PGI's head... and it's sooooo easy to fix, yet they choose to throw in some over-complicated, overworked BS "solution" instead.

PanchoTortilla, on 24 July 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

Regardless of what they say it's irrelevant. Look at their actions instead: what mechs they're running, which weapons, what type of tactic being used, etc...

That's a more reliable method than just taking them at their word.

That's just a load of bull-crap.

Again it comes down to you wanting people to play by your imaginary "unicorns with fairies and rainbows" rules, rather than the rules that PGI has set down.

Learn to play, within the current meta. Or go back to licking windows.