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What Is More Valuable - High Positioned Arms, Or Articulated Arms?


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Poll: What is generally better? (357 member(s) have cast votes)

What do you think is better to have?

  1. High Mounted Arms (shoot over cover and obstacles) (185 votes [51.82%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 51.82%

  2. Articulated Arms (wider firing arc, but lower mounted)) (18 votes [5.04%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 5.04%

  3. Almost entirely dependent on your role (145 votes [40.62%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 40.62%

  4. Undecided (9 votes [2.52%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 2.52%

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#101 YueFei

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Posted 07 October 2013 - 10:59 PM

View PostMr 144, on 07 October 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

So, excluding the miraculous 4SP arms/twist....and the Atlas 40 degree arms...what specific mechs/variants are all of these people using that makes suh good use of minimalistic 20 degree arm sway over full component targeting of linked crosshairs?


I sometimes use free-look to shoot my Centurion's right arm weapon at enemies while presenting a bare minimum of it, making it harder for them to hit and destroy. I've found that when I get lazy and don't do it, the right arm gets shot off alarmingly fast.

I've also used the Awesome's arms and free-look in order to maintain LRM lock to continue firing while maneuvering evasively and slimming down my profile by presenting an oblique torso twist angle.

Take the Jager as a counterpoint. Fantastic fire-support mech. It can stalk a ridgeline, moving laterally, and presenting a very small target while laying down fire. But take it into a brawl, against people who know how to shoot out a side-torso, who know how to aim under the Jager's "armpits", and it gets crippled or killed very quickly. The AC/40 Jager has a distinction because it can kill enemies so quickly in its preferred range, but it pretty much *has* to kill those enemies quickly because otherwise it will get killed first.

With the way the game has low heat dissipation and high heat capacity, sometimes all you gotta do is outlast someone's heat threshold, and once their DPS drops into the gutter from overheating, you can live much longer. Eat everything to the CT and maybe you die just as soon as your foe starts to overheat about 15 seconds into the fight. But tank 40 or 50 damage on the arms, and suddenly you have a healthy CT and an overheating opponent, and now it's gonna take him 30 or 40 more seconds to dish out enough DPS to core through your CT.

And having arms to soak damage is a fantastic thing for an XL-equipped mech. My Catapult-K2 has vulnerable side torsos, and sometimes making one wrong step means death. Even if I twist fully 90 degrees away, I die because my arms don't cover the sides.

Edited by YueFei, 07 October 2013 - 11:01 PM.


#102 Mr 144

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Posted 08 October 2013 - 02:30 AM

View PostKarandor, on 07 October 2013 - 01:20 PM, said:

The orion actually has great arm movement.

The orion is one of the few newer chassis that have decent hardpoints for arm use, but with only 20 degrees of sway are far from great...in fact, to me it's the poster child for a failed design.


View PostYueFei, on 07 October 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

.....Centurion's right arm .....Awesome's arms....


Yep, thrown in the Atlas, and Hunchback, and you have the original mechs that still had decent sway, albeit with usually poor arm hardpoints (RS, 4SP, and 8T excluded).

Starting back with the Cataphract, not one mech has been released with 40 degrees of arm sway since. Those of us who remember the two weeks of the phract release, realize what a nerf 20 degrees of sway is, yet now we all take for granted that mechs simply have horriblly gimped arm movement.

Edited by Mr 144, 08 October 2013 - 02:57 AM.


#103 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 08 October 2013 - 03:01 AM

The lower arm movement range seems to be an attempt to "balance" all the new mechs against the old, but... It seems to just cripple them and make arm movement even less valuable to have.

#104 Mr 144

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Posted 08 October 2013 - 03:03 AM

View PostMustrumRidcully, on 08 October 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

The lower arm movement range seems to be an attempt to "balance" all the new mechs against the old, but... It seems to just cripple them and make arm movement even less valuable to have.


/agreed...or an attempt to dumb down the game (cough, arm lock) by increasingly making articulated arms more of a niche than an actual benefit.

They really missed it with the orion...such iconic arms wasted with poor movement.

#105 stjobe

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Posted 08 October 2013 - 03:18 AM

View PostMustrumRidcully, on 06 October 2013 - 12:19 PM, said:

Why spread your damage like that in the first place? Wouldn't it be better to bring all your guns into position and focus your fire on one guy?

Back in closed beta, I had the distinct pleasure of dispatching two enemies at the same time in my Centurion; one with the two MLs in the CT, and one with the AC/10 in the right arm - by aiming the two reticules at the two different targets.

I haven't been able to reproduce that since then, most likely because it needs two enemies in rather specific positions and each less than 10 points of damage away from death.

But there you have it; two dead enemies is preferable to one live enemy ;)

#106 Mr 144

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Posted 08 October 2013 - 03:22 AM

View Poststjobe, on 08 October 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

Back in closed beta, I had the distinct pleasure of dispatching two enemies at the same time in my Centurion; one with the two MLs in the CT, and one with the AC/10 in the right arm - by aiming the two reticules at the two different targets.

I haven't been able to reproduce that since then, most likely because it needs two enemies in rather specific positions and each less than 10 points of damage away from death.

But there you have it; two dead enemies is preferable to one live enemy ;)


And back in closed Beta I crusaded for 'split reticules' where both torso and arms could be independantly controlled. The 'blanks' are there in the control options, and I had some developer support....but PGI went a different route...away from advanced control support...and away from a SIM feel ;) Articulated arms would be awesome with that ability, for it's defensive purposes alone.

#107 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 13 October 2013 - 06:41 AM

This thread seems to be about a similar topic: http://mwomercs.com/...ange-of-motion/
Torso Twist Motion is also a big factor in why articulated arms aren't that crucial often. Many of the mechs without fully articulated have an extended torso twist rate compared. The Stalker seems to be the only serious exception to that.

#108 topgun505

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Posted 13 October 2013 - 07:11 AM

IIRC in Tac Ops rule-set, when a mech is knocked down it takes longer/and is more difficult to get back up into a standing position depending on if the mech has arms or not (i.e. has lower arm and hand actuators). This could easily be implemented here as well (if they ever bring back collisions/knockdowns) and would be a nice way to give mechs with arms some sort of an advantage over mechs like the Jager and its 'hull down' capability.

#109 Roland

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Posted 13 October 2013 - 07:47 AM

What they need to so is make it such that when you lock your arms, mechs with lower arm actuators actually RAISE their arms and lock their elbows.

This will make it such that they can shoot over obstacles and stuff, and remove the disadvantage they currently have.

Mechs with lower arm actuators are not supposed to have any disadvantage over mechs without them. They pay a cost in critical slots for the actuators, but they are supposed to have flat out superiority when it comes to aiming with their arms.

#110 Prezimonto

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Posted 13 October 2013 - 08:13 AM

The simple truth is, as long as there is no melee combat, no game modes where being able to pick up supplied/gear is important, and always perfect and instant convergence (instead of only for arm with full actuators), there is no reason to want them.

They are components that take up slots for no added utility outside of a wider fire arc, that's also unsteady(hard to aim lasers for effect at range) in all but the most competent of hands.

The come with the following negatives:
take up slots
take up slots in important hard points to AC20 can not be equipped on most arm ballistic points
actually making aiming harder if you don't fix the arms on the cross hair
they are positioned, at best, in the center of your mech, requiring you to expose 30 to 50% more of your mech than high mounted arms to fire all your weapons.

The negatives much outweigh the single positive.

#111 Victor Morson

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Posted 13 October 2013 - 03:29 PM

I can make a case for low mounted arms to:

- Use them as damage sponges in a fight, as they get hit way more
- Dedicated brawlers that want more aiming range

However in every other case, high mounted weapon slots are almost universally better, no matter if it's arm or torso.

I really don't think they put much thought into this when they make 'mechs but seriously, if you gave the Cataphract Rifleman-esque arms for example, it'd render it vastly OP overnight.

EDIT: Exception - non-arm arms. Things like the Catapult missile pods are a huge liability.

Edited by Victor Morson, 13 October 2013 - 03:30 PM.


#112 focuspark

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Posted 14 October 2013 - 08:47 AM

Lights & Mediums I find articulated arms superior.

Heavies & Assaults I find high mounted arms superior (except Catapult arms, which are just missile housings)

#113 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 29 October 2013 - 01:22 AM

The issue is of course still around, though I wonder if it isn't sometimes a bit overstated: http://mwomercs.com/...ster-is-too-low

#114 Training Instructor

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Posted 29 October 2013 - 03:15 AM

My problem with articulated arms is that to use them you have to split up weapon groups that you wouldn't normally split up.

On an Atlas D, for example, I often have 4 medium lasers, but only two are in the arms. So I leave arm lock on, and use the default ctrl button to move them when I'm getting circled or when I need to twist them a bit more.

It would be easier as well if the arm reticle was easier to visually track. It's a small blue circle that I can barely see in the middle of a firefight, or even against certain terrain.

#115 Joseph Mallan

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Posted 30 October 2013 - 05:27 AM

High mounted articulated arms!

#116 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 02:02 AM

View PostJoseph Mallan, on 30 October 2013 - 05:27 AM, said:

High mounted articulated arms!

Your Choice in reply:

Spoiler

Spoiler


#117 Homeless Bill

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 03:00 AM

It depends on your role, but the role to play right now is the hill-peeking alpha.

#118 MustrumRidcully

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 09:24 AM

View PostHomeless Bill, on 30 November 2013 - 03:00 AM, said:

It depends on your role, but the role to play right now is the hill-peeking alpha.

I wonder if hill-peeking isn't always a very useful feature to have - even at close range. Though I admit I mostly think of Tourmaline here. Actuated arms seems mostly useful to track fast mechs. You don't need them when you fight a heavy or assault mechs, because those are never that fast that you can't track them with torso and your own movement.

In the table top it was a bit different since you couldn't just react almost instantly to changes - everything happened in turns and phases. If you lost initiative, it was not unlikely to find yourself looking in the wrong direction, and you were glad if at least the arms could still shoot. THen you could also still use your arm weapons when you leg was destroyed. And on the "non-fully-articulated" arm side - there was no advantage other than you had a crit more. There was no concept of high-positioned arms - a Cataphract or a Jagermech's arm weapons would have the same ability to fire over cover.
Unless PGI gives mech the ability to raise fully articulated arms to shoot over cover (be it as an active choice done by the player or automagically), this will never really be fair.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 30 November 2013 - 09:30 AM.


#119 Tahribator

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 09:41 AM

Brawling - Articulated arms with high horizontal yaw range
Sniping - High mounted arms of any kind.

#120 Bishop Steiner

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Posted 30 November 2013 - 09:44 AM

View PostMustrumRidcully, on 29 September 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Simple question.

In the days of the Quad PPC Stalker and Jagerbombs, it seems clearly that high mounted arms was better than fully articulated arcs. But how are things now, or in general?

Depends entirely on play style.

If you hold back and fire from cover, then, the High Mounts make most sense.

If you get into the brawl frequently, then the high mount are a detriment as they leave your Side Torsos totally exposed, and you do not have fast lateral movement for dealing with peripheral threats.

Anyone who thinks that one is definitively better than another is delusional. It is entirely predicated by role.





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