61 replies to this topic

[Monky]

Recently decided why not, decided to give it a go and test the new crit system now that it has been put in.

1st: The chassis itself is easily the most favorable for this tactic, as it has good arm reach and the MG's are on the arms. This allows you to essentially always have your guns on the target even if your angle of aproach is off or you'r in a high speed circle - further, it prevents you from having to look dead ahead at the enemy and give them easier CT shots.

On top of this, it's perfectly viable to run with a standard engine, meaning your mech can lose 5 sections before being wiped out, as opposed to a maximum of 3 sections with an XL engine which on a light mech that also has hit detection issues, is an incredibly strong situation. The standard engine spider seems about as tanky as a medium or heavy when you get into a decent groove.

In my opinion, these two points are the primary reason you see people clamoring about 'MG spiders' and not 'MG cicadas' or 'MG Jaegers'

2nd: The MGs themselves are incredibly easy to use, simply spray and pray. The spread ensures even fairly off target shots are going to have a chance at that CT destroying crit, poor target lead is less of an issue, and holding fire on the target is less of a waste of ammunition if you don't have a clear shot.

This is a big factor becuase it really only takes a few lucky crits to completely destroy even a massive mech. I cut through a few heavies/assaults rear armor with my medium laser to see their insides go from yellow to black in 2 seconds. I'm not complaining about time to kill here - the survival time in a head on spider fight is actually greater than most mechs - but the 4/6 MG combo is absolutely lethal in the most frustrating of ways; random chance.

In light of this, I have a few suggestions;

1. Set a maximum number of damage a section can take from 'critical damage overflow' when you damage a component. This should probably be no higher than 75% of inner structure max health, to ensure that a few simple dice rolls don't completely explode a mech if a 4/6 MG mech rolls up and gets lucky. AKA; There should be an actual opportunity for fire exchange in all situations, and while this situation isn't common it isn't super rare either based on what I've seen, meaning people are getting instagibbed by lucky MG streaks with some frequency.

2. Significantly reduce cone of fire on MG. This makes aiming far more important. My current strategy is simply waving my arms wildly over the enemy when I pass in front of an exposed section, it takes no effort and is highly rewarding with either a destroyed component or a kill. If I'm going to benefit from a mech's CT self destructing, I should at least have to aim for it.

Edited by Monky, 18 August 2013 - 11:05 PM.

[Tor6]

If the spider didn't have MASSIVE hit detection problems it would explode when looked at funny and no one would complain about it.

[Monky]

I agree - about 80% of the time. that other 20% it doesn't seem to matter how well someone does the MG's will simply instagib someone. It's easy to overlook something like that when you're benefitting from it or only occasionally inconvenienced by it, but that doesn't mean it's healthy for the game, which is why I suggest a crit overflow damage cap. The other issue is it is simply far easier to use than any other light while still providing killing blows with as much effectiveness as any other mech. Upping the difficulty by reducing spread will mean people have incentive to use other light mechs, rather than just FOTM spider with MG's because they can get the same job done with less effort.

[Matta]

Do you know what would happen if you tighten the spread of MGs ?
You would get minority of great Spider pilots who would be even more deadly because they can aim very good.

Therefore - no, to your suggestions.

You cannot fix one problematic variant (it's not even entire Mech line!) by changing weapon that's also in the use by other Mechs.

MGs are fine as it is. We don't need it back in gutter again.
Once PGI fix Spider hitbox this issue will be fixed by itself.

[Monky]

That's a pretty baseless assertion - it doesn't take into account the other fix. Capping the crit damage overflow prevents even the best of the best from benefitting from the insta gib mechanic as it removes the potential to instagib.

Also, why on earth would anyone be against skilled players being rewarded for their skills? What you are saying by extension is that Medium Lasers are only good in the hands of the elite because they require you to actually aim them.

Edited by Monky, 19 August 2013 - 12:48 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

It's just the spider'***** detection. A jag has more 'crit potential,' but will pop in 6 seconds, while it takes an hour to kill a spider with lucky dice rolling.

[William Mountbank]

Spider hitboxes are the size of a Spider mech. 'Fixing' them would give us the only mech in the game with hitboxes larger than the actual mech.

Please instead direct your ire at netcode problems, which affects all mechs but are simply more obvious on the Spider due to it being the thinnest and most nimble mech chassis.

[627]

I'm running a 4x MG Cicada and a 6x MG jagermech and if i solo a MG spider in one of these, in 8/10 cases i'm scrap metal.

It is indeed a hit detection problem which make the spider survive longer.

I'm running often with some jenners and spiders in that cicada and can do well in that wolfpack but if i have the attention of our enemy i will go down fast. If they focus on one of the spiders, we'll kill them.

However, even if it's a bit FOTM, 4x MGs are way too entertaining at the moment. Paired with one or two big energy weapons you can make some big dents in those targets.

[Matta]

Monky, on 19 August 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

That's a pretty baseless assertion - it doesn't take into account the other fix. Capping the crit damage overflow prevents even the best of the best from benefitting from the insta gib mechanic as it removes the potential to instagib.

Your other fix is about gimping MGs again. I stress once again, MGs are at the moment finally usefull.
MGs are c*r*a*p against armored Mech.
MG's wider spread is considered bad thing, not a good thing (like you present it).

When you talk about your fixes, you take only Spider 5K as a "problem". What about other Mechs that are carrying 1-2 MGs (Cicadas, Ravens, etc) ?
Have you considered what would your fix do to them ? It would render their MG hard point almost useless.

Spider 5K is finally good for something (since scout role is practicaly useless and unrewarded at the moment). And that something are fast strikes against stripped-armor targets. Considering that those strikes needs to be performed at point blank range, that you have to aim well to compensate for the spread, that 5K doesn't have ECM for shielding, I say it's pretty well balanced for now - for current meta.

Monky, on 19 August 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

Also, why on earth would anyone be against skilled players being rewarded for their skills? What you are saying by extension is that Medium Lasers are only good in the hands of the elite because they require you to actually aim them.

I'm against that because MGs are fine now, considering pros and cons. Give them tighter spread and you'll have even more deadly weapon.
All that if we don't take into consideration your other fix, which I explained up.

William Mountbank, on 19 August 2013 - 01:01 AM, said:

Spider hitboxes are the size of a Spider mech. 'Fixing' them would give us the only mech in the game with hitboxes larger than the actual mech.

Please instead direct your ire at netcode problems, which affects all mechs but are simply more obvious on the Spider due to it being the thinnest and most nimble mech chassis.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a light pilot (Spiders included) and I have my fair share of dying, therefore I'm not in "OMG_SPIDERS_HAVE_HITBOX_ISSUES_NERFNERF" camp.
Because of that I just go with the flow and say "til the spider hitbox is fixed" since we are talking about Spiders here, not other Mechs or all Mechs. Furthermore, PGI in one of the posts explictily mentioned Spiders as Mech with hitbox issues.
I do however have problem with Jenner hitbox which is almost one big giant CenterTorso. But that's another story...

Edited by Matta, 19 August 2013 - 02:46 AM.

[Monky]

Yes, I have taken into account what the fix would 'do' to lower MG builds - still allow them to knock out huge amounts of internal HP with crit bonuses, while still doing DPS.

The issue this corrects is not MG's being able to kill people (which they should be able to do), just not being able to kill people in 1-2 seconds with lucky crits due to mass spam. MG's DPS is still perfectly capable of whittling down small remaining sections of hp on internals.

You seem to think that MG's only do damage through the crit bonus. This is untrue. Further, it would be made up for by increasing the accuracy. The accuracy change has the side advantage of also making it a mid effort build rather than a low effort build where you just wildly fire at any exposed target.

Aim and accuracy should be rewarded, not irrelevant.

It seems to me as if you're not understanding this is a two part change - it removes the ability of large groups of machine guns to instagib a mech while leaving the vast majority of the damage MG's can do through crit overflow in, while making up for that slight nerf with higher accuracy. Effectively what it accomplishes is less -randomness- and more -skilled play- without actually affecting the machinegun's viability.

Edited by Monky, 19 August 2013 - 02:50 AM.

[VIPER2207]

William Mountbank, on 19 August 2013 - 01:01 AM, said:

Spider hitboxes are the size of a Spider mech. 'Fixing' them would give us the only mech in the game with hitboxes larger than the actual mech.

On Saturday-Evening, i was playing with my YLW, map was Caustic...
The match ended with my legged YLW and an enemy legged Spider (don't know the exact variant anymore) standing like 20 meters away.
I gave him 3 direct hits with my AC20 straight into his face and he was still alive... we lost the match because he killed me.

So please, don't tell me there is no issue with this hit detection

[xenoglyph]

VIPER2207, on 19 August 2013 - 03:09 AM, said:

On Saturday-Evening, i was playing with my YLW, map was Caustic...
The match ended with my legged YLW and an enemy legged Spider (don't know the exact variant anymore) standing like 20 meters away.
I gave him 3 direct hits with my AC20 straight into his face and he was still alive... we lost the match because he killed me.

So please, don't tell me there is no issue with this hit detection

Go re-read what he posted. He agrees there is a problem with hit detection. Artificially inflating the hitboxes would just be masking some of the symptoms of the actual problems.

[stjobe]

Monky, on 18 August 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

1. Set a maximum number of damage a section can take from 'critical damage overflow' when you damage a component. This should probably be no higher than 75% of inner structure max health

So now that MGs finally can kill 'mechs, you want to effectively and irrevocably stop them from doing that.

No. Just no. [insert Michael Scott "no god no nooooooo" meme here]

Remember, just two weeks ago, a MG kill was a statistical fluke. Do you really want to relegate MGs into uselessness again?

I sure don't.

Monky, on 18 August 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

2. Significantly reduce cone of fire on MG. This makes aiming far more important. My current strategy is simply waving my arms wildly over the enemy when I pass in front of an exposed section, it takes no effort and is highly rewarding with either a destroyed component or a kill. If I'm going to benefit from a mech's CT self destructing, I should at least have to aim for it.

While I agree that MG spread should go, I'm not at all sure it would have the effect you want it to. All of a sudden I would be able to put the full DPS of the MG exactly where I wanted it instead of spreading it all over the target.

The MG would become substantially more deadly if this were to happen, and it would likely require a new rebalancing pass. At the moment they're fine; circumstantially useful but not overpowered.

If I had my way, the MG would be reworked to remove the crit bonuses, remove the spread, and just be a regular damage-dealing weapon on par with the Small Laser. But PGI won't let go of the idea of "crit weapons", and they want the MG to have higher damage versus internal structure and components than it has against armour, so I'm not going to complain now that MGs aren't a waste of tonnage any more.

I say just leave them as-is. There's bigger fish to fry with MWO.

[Monky]

stjobe, on 19 August 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

So now that MGs finally can kill 'mechs, you want to effectively and irrevocably stop them from doing that.

No. Just no. [insert Michael Scott "no god no nooooooo" meme here]

Remember, just two weeks ago, a MG kill was a statistical fluke. Do you really want to relegate MGs into uselessness again?

I sure don't.


While I agree that MG spread should go, I'm not at all sure it would have the effect you want it to. All of a sudden I would be able to put the full DPS of the MG exactly where I wanted it instead of spreading it all over the target.

The MG would become substantially more deadly if this were to happen, and it would likely require a new rebalancing pass. At the moment they're fine; circumstantially useful but not overpowered.

If I had my way, the MG would be reworked to remove the crit bonuses, remove the spread, and just be a regular damage-dealing weapon on par with the Small Laser. But PGI won't let go of the idea of "crit weapons", and they want the MG to have higher damage versus internal structure and components than it has against armour, so I'm not going to complain now that MGs aren't a waste of tonnage any more.

I say just leave them as-is. There's bigger fish to fry with MWO.

So, with part 1, the MG becomes useless, and once we add in part 2, it becomes super death beam.

It's like I stepped into bizarro world.

This is a TWO PART SOLUTION.

1 - remove instagibbing, still allow MG to deal tons of crit damage. This removes random deaths the second CT's are penetrated (happens a small but real % of the time)
2 - make aim more accurate to compensate - both overcoming any nerf from above and encouraging more skilled play.

Not gonna repeat myself any more this thread.

Edited by Monky, 19 August 2013 - 05:07 AM.

[Deathlike]

It's simply easier to reduce the crit multiplier (it's 12.5 for MGs, which is obscene) if you wish to reduce the spread.. as the spread is the problem IMO...

Once you reduce the crit multiplier to 10 or 7.5 or less (it will indirectly make your internal component destruction become slower as well), then it can become an acceptable change.

[Devilsfury]

Just fix the spider hitboxes. Case closed. BTW, I have never once owned a Spider until a few days ago. So I load up my Spider with the typical machine gun build and ran 3 matches. Stats:
Game 1: 289 damage, 1 kill, 6 assists
Game 2: 296 damage, 1 kill, 7 assists
Game 3: 497 damage, 3 kills, 5 assists

Imagine if I was mastered or elited with 2x basic bonus? And the fact I could run through an entrie 12 man team and not only survive, but rn freely running around taking very little damage. Its easy to see why people use a "bugged" mech. Takes zero skill to play something that takes 10x more damage to kill.

[Monky]

Devilsfury, on 19 August 2013 - 05:17 AM, said:

Just fix the spider hitboxes. Case closed. BTW, I have never once owned a Spider until a few days ago. So I load up my Spider with the typical machine gun build and ran 3 matches. Stats:
Game 1: 289 damage, 1 kill, 6 assists
Game 2: 296 damage, 1 kill, 7 assists
Game 3: 497 damage, 3 kills, 5 assists

Imagine if I was mastered or elited with 2x basic bonus? And the fact I could run through an entrie 12 man team and not only survive, but rn freely running around taking very little damage. Its easy to see why people use a "bugged" mech. Takes zero skill to play something that takes 10x more damage to kill.

Except that those damage numbers are totally fine. I'm not trying to nerf/buff the MG, or the MG spider, just trying to remove instagibs and promote play that actually requires aiming.

[stjobe]

Monky, on 19 August 2013 - 05:05 AM, said:

So, with part 1, the MG becomes useless, and once we add in part 2, it becomes super death beam.

It's like I stepped into bizarro world.

This is a TWO PART SOLUTION.

1 - remove instagibbing, still allow MG to deal tons of crit damage. This removes random deaths the second CT's are penetrated (happens a small but real % of the time)
2 - make aim more accurate to compensate - both overcoming any nerf from above and encouraging more skilled play.

Not gonna repeat myself any more this thread.

It's bizarre indeed, but that is because you don't seem to understand the consequences of your own suggestions.

Suggestion 1 effectively stops MGs from killing 'mechs, since they cannot take sections further than 75% damage. Your "solution" removes any hope of having MGs kill by anything other than the 10% chance of ammo explosion. This is such a major nerf your other suggestion becomes irrelevant.

Suggestion 2 would if suggestion 1 was implemented make no difference; MGs that can't kill 'mechs have no use for better accuracy. If suggestion 1 was not implemented suggestion 2 would be a huge buff to MGs, as skilled pilots wouldn't have a problem with putting all the MGs DPS on a single section of armour. No more would the damage be spread all over the target, and MGs would likely need to be nerfed damage-wise.

I see no reason to implement any of your suggestions at the moment. MGs are fine right now, useful but not overpowered. That the Spider has hitbox issues is a totally non-related topic.

[MustrumRidcully]

There are no insta-gibs with MGs.

Unless you count it as "instagib" when someone with 1 point remaining on his CT structure is killed by a medium laser swiping over its entire body.

Unless you speak of the table top game. Instagibs there are possible for pretty much all weapons and all mechs in any state, simply because of the through-armor crit rules (we don't through-armor crits in MW:O. At least not by design, if you're aware of any "unintended features" in that regard, contact support and make a thread.)

[Monky]

stjobe, on 19 August 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

It's bizarre indeed, but that is because you don't seem to understand the consequences of your own suggestions.

Suggestion 1 effectively stops MGs from killing 'mechs, since they cannot take sections further than 75% damage. Your "solution" removes any hope of having MGs kill by anything other than the 10% chance of ammo explosion. This is such a major nerf your other suggestion becomes irrelevant.

Suggestion 2 would if suggestion 1 was implemented make no difference; MGs that can't kill 'mechs have no use for better accuracy. If suggestion 1 was not implemented suggestion 2 would be a huge buff to MGs, as skilled pilots wouldn't have a problem with putting all the MGs DPS on a single section of armour. No more would the damage be spread all over the target, and MGs would likely need to be nerfed damage-wise.

I see no reason to implement any of your suggestions at the moment. MGs are fine right now, useful but not overpowered. That the Spider has hitbox issues is a totally non-related topic.

I give up. If people are going to pretend that a mech at 25% health can't be killed by MG DPS then this is a non starter due to community density.

MustrumRidcully, on 19 August 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

There are no insta-gibs with MGs.

Unless you count it as "instagib" when someone with 1 point remaining on his CT structure is killed by a medium laser swiping over its entire body.

Unless you speak of the table top game. Instagibs there are possible for pretty much all weapons and all mechs in any state, simply because of the through-armor crit rules (we don't through-armor crits in MW:O. At least not by design, if you're aware of any "unintended features" in that regard, contact support and make a thread.)

Except that I have been doing it all damn night. If I had a decent video recording software I'd just make a video and show you, but it is happening with alarming frequency - approach mech with little/no armor left and yellow internals, 2 seconds later, dead. Doesn't matter if it's assault or not.