123 replies to this topic

[Pale Jackal]

High mounted arms are mostly superior. Also, I love the extra crits that high mounted arms give you - one neat little thing about the Catapult C1 is that you can fit a ridiculous 22 DHS due to its hard points locations and 2 actuators per arm. Granted, 2 ERPPC or 2 PPC with 2 ML isn't exactly a great build.

[oldradagast]

It varies A LOT

The Atlas has a rather wide ability to sweep its arms horizontally, and that is pretty useful since you can slap faster mechs with the arm lasers, keep the arm weapons on target while torso twisting, etc.

On the flip side, mechs with low arms and limited sweep angle really don't benefit from the horizontal movement of the arm weapons that much. Cataphracts are all around lousy with arm weapons because they are so low.

Jagers and Stalkers gain a lot from high mounted weapons that can peek over cover... but watch what happens when one of them gets circle strafed to death by a light mech. In those cases, I bet they wish they could move their arms side to side to hit the little pest.

[HammerSwarm]

You have competing issues here:

High slung arms are better for shooting because they are at the level of your cockpit beaning that if you can see you can shoot. But the provide low to no protection of your side or center torso the way a centurion does. A trebuchet would die even faster with jager mech arms.

Low slung arms have the disadvantage of being difficult to fire in hilly terrain and when peaking but they provide protection to your torso spreading that damage to multiple areas and protecting your core from unnecessary side damage.

[Baba Yogi]

For brawlers low altitude arms to help with damage spread. For snipers high altitude to help firing under cover.

[Monkeystador]

The Boz, on 29 September 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

My main mech is an Atlas, and the lower arm articulation is rarely very useful. I can sometimes shoot above or below what my hilariously limited yaw angle would otherwise allow, but it is still useless at fighting small mechs that leghump me. Even while zoomed out, I can't look down enough to aim at them with unlocked arms.
And the the low and wide position of the arms makes it hard to fight in any sort of non-flat environment.

Yeah...the game need a "kick the leghumper" button

[Mr 144]

The sad truth is...is PGI does not want articulated arms. Look at the history of released mechs. Since the very first round of mechs, how many articulate (sway) more than 15-20 (oh my!) degrees? Standard articulation was 35-40 degrees in the beginning, but they have steadily nerfed both arm sway and torso twist. To make matters worse, any mech that does have arm sway has horrible hardpoints for the purpose they are used for....mostly asymetrical...split-with-torso missile points...etc. The removal of convergence delay also greatly marginalized the difference between hardpoint locations other than high/low. Throw in the arm-lock push...and PGI simply has backtracked on making mechs...and prefers standard FPS control as to not to confuse the simpletons. If they could think of a way to get rid of torso twist....they certainly would (what's the last mech with over 90 degrees )

If you gave me 2E+1M symetrically on each arm....with 120 degrees torso and 40 degree arm sway...ballistic hardpoint in a Torso...on a squat assault (no more billboards)...than you would have a pretty darn good reason to choose a low mount chassis over the equivalent high mounts.

This game does not have a "Brawler's Chassis" imho. Arm sway is for brawling, and there's no newer mechs that have the hardpoints to support that. Heck, pretty much the only two chassis that qualify imo are the RS and 4SP, both 1st generation mechs....and just barely at that. The RS exposes at least half his mech to fire before he can return fire...and the 4SP only has the armor for hit-and-run skirmishing. Without the good brawling chassis, it's no wonder it's load up and alpha with what we got

Edited by Mr 144, 01 October 2013 - 08:59 AM.

[arghmace]

I think that even with the big center torso the ON1-K makes up a good brawler exactly because of those low mounted arms. 4 ML's in arms is very good armament to have in a brawl and those arms soak up a lot of hits when torso twisting with an upwards twist. If you torso twist just horizontally everyone will shoot at your chest above the arms but when you throw the arms up, it's a whole different issue.

[DONTOR]

completly role dependant.

[Alistair Winter]

MWO suffers from the fact that the way things work in Battletech is not how it would work in real life. The people who designed those mechs didn't really spend much time simulating the advantages of each design in a game like MWO either.

With that being said, articulated arms should be a lot better, because it allows the Mech to do all sorts of things, like punching enemy mechs in close combat, shooting 90 degrees to the side of your torso or inviting enemy mechs to sit down at a bar and then shooting them under the table because they're starting to make serious threats because you dumped all the cargo you were supposed to smuggle.

I just wish the mechs would elevate their arms when you zoomed, like a real person shooting a gun, instead of always shooting from the hips like some kind of zombie cowboy.

[Monky]

High mounted unless you're in a brawl.

[Aiden Skye]

I prefer high mounted arms. Just tried out a Ctf-4x from my catapult k2...couldn't stop hitting the ground, rocks, hills, teammates getting dual ac10's to the back...

[Wolf Clearwater]

I mostly pilot lights and mediums, articulated arms all the way. I can see that both can have their advatages, but I want to nail you with that shot as I run past/jump over you.....

[Shifty Eyes]

Dependent.

I would never choose high arms over articulated arms on my hunchback; they are too useful for pegging lights with 4x medium lasers or pinpointing other brawlers.

Alternatively, jagers make better cover snipers than cataphracts (maybe besides the JJ variant) simply because of the high arms with more free critical slots.

[MustrumRidcully]

I find it interesting that a lot of people say it is role dependent, and a lot of people say it's high-mounted, but very few say it's actuated arms.

I would hope that the 3rd group is correct, but then I would expect the votes on high-mounted and articulated to be more evenly distributed.

So I tend to believe that the 1st group is correct. It might still be that 3rd is in theory true, but the roles that benefit from fully actuated arms are either a lot less common, or a lot less effective in general, so few people use them.

What could be done about this?

I like the idea of articulated arms being able to change the position so you can raise the arm. That sounds reasonable game balance wise, since you pay for that actuator, after all. The problem might be that you both need a new control element to switch this around, and all existing mech models would need to be changed to support this.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 01 October 2013 - 10:27 PM.

[RandomLurker]

MustrumRidcully, on 01 October 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

I find it interesting that a lot of people say it is role dependent, and a lot of people say it's high-mounted, but very few say it's actuated arms.

It's the Fanboi effect. One group gets an idea (or hears it from someone else), tests this idea, sees that it works, and locks out all competing ideas forevermore. The other group is able to see ideas within their context and continually re-evaluate them on a sliding scale.*

What's interesting is which group ended up with which meta. Obviously articulated arms have their uses; every time I see spectate on an Atlas or whatnot and they drag their lasers around the landscape because they have arm lock on, I cringe. Why did the inflexible group fixate on high mounts? Just rolling with the current meta I guess. Conformists all around.

*-this also explains US politics.

[MustrumRidcully]

RandomLurker, on 01 October 2013 - 10:56 PM, said:

It's the Fanboi effect. One group gets an idea (or hears it from someone else), tests this idea, sees that it works, and locks out all competing ideas forevermore. The other group is able to see ideas within their context and continually re-evaluate them on a sliding scale.*

What's interesting is which group ended up with which meta. Obviously articulated arms have their uses; every time I see spectate on an Atlas or whatnot and they drag their lasers around the landscape because they have arm lock on, I cringe. Why did the inflexible group fixate on high mounts? Just rolling with the current meta I guess. Conformists all around.

*-this also explains US politics.

Are you sure you're n ot just projecting your preferences here?

You think, like me, that option 3 is how things should be. So you presume that people just jump on a bandwagon without reflection. But maybe they actually adopt this because it honestly works better, and their opinion is born out of experience?

How would you tell the difference?

[Sharp Spikes]

The Boz, on 30 September 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:

On an entirely unrelated note, what the HELL are hand actuators FOR!?

Hand actuators in TT are used to fight in close combat with fists, swords, hatchets etc. In MWO they perform the same function as, say, command console.

[Mycrus]

Role dependent...

The same people that say high mounts non articulated own and pilot cataphracts... Which was the lowest articulated mounts in game...

And yes, arms are the only advantage commandos have over other lights... Not many have the skill to run commandos though...

[Wiley Coyote]

Do your guns hang low?
Do they track to and fro?
Can shoot 'em when you're high?
Can't shoot 'em when you're low?
Can't throw 'em on your shoulder
Like a Jagermech soldier
Do your guns hang low?

Do your guns stand high?
Do they shoot when under cover?
Do they see you when you shoot?
Do they rant when they recover?
Can you target into the clear
with a minimum of fear?
Do your guns stand high?

Forgive my poor lyricist skills. While I like my Cataphracts, I prefer my Jagermechs for the higher weapon mounts.

[Livewyr]

Articulated arms used to mean something when frontal engagements lasted more than 3-4 seconds.

Now it's up/down arms, or Arm lock for me... (unless I'm in a brawler, which is rare because brawling is a death sentence in high Elo brackets..)