31 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Simbacca, on 23 October 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

The Atlas-RS© was introduced before the ugly change to the Gauss Rifle....

And the even uglier changes to LRMs.

[Dazi_Shimazu]

AvatarofWhat, on 24 October 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

False. Next youll be telling me the 9 flamer hunchback is a viable mech as long as you are "in tune" with it. I'm not saying its the worst mech, ive even gotten 600+ damage with it on an alternate account with fresh elo, but you cant take this to a high elo match and expect to come out on top.

Flavor of the month mechs aren't a great thing to follow as a rule of thumb. They change constantly! Someone will come up with something they like, bandwagon will roll in and then next you find them every where and dying all the same. So it is completely relative. Besides, regardless of games, the mentality of players are still easily impressionable and this is a team sport. If you don't pull the numbers but live and you are still hitting targets and in support of your team, plus winning, who is anyone to say you are wrong. If they died, you didn't and are engaged, and in support of your team. Take for instance, AC/2 support suppression build. Using it at the longer ranges does nothing much however it will keep an enemy team moving, to try to bunker, or to keep them hunkered down. It may cause them to find you and in turn you can lead them to your team. Either way, you have control of that situation when they think they do. Sometimes "fear is the mind killer" and that alone could, in turn, be the reason you won. That person only doing 200 to 250 supporting his team and not that you, on your own, pulled high numbers (hypothetic only, not saying you play on your own). Sometimes in order to win a battle you have to think strategy and not "I am going to do 600+ damage."

MarsAtlas, on 24 October 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

So yeah, there's all the mechs based on the given "noob-friendly" criteria as defined by many of us as well as by using the standards PGI uses.

And the selection pretty much sucks. A lot of those remaining are still pretty hot mechs to run in. Hopefully with UI 2.0 it'll solve the problem of Ghost Heat, the Gauss Rifle, and XL engines, but its here yet, so the problem stands - less than half of all mechs are noob-friendly mechs viable to be trial mechs.

My idea would be to just have community suggestions, and some of the ones that are judged to be the best are used as trial mechs for the next period of time until new trials come out. I'm sure that the community could come up with plenty of mechs that exemplify their weight class while remaining an asset to the team and isn't an oven for its pilot. Of course, it would be highly unlikely that the developers would do this, because it would mean admitting that they made a blatantly bad design choice. One can dream though.

Info from Battletech on XL Engines (dunno if you were referring to XLs not existing in the original game) -

Spoiler

From Battletech Wiki (sarna.net):
The Extralight Fusion Engine (often shortened to XL Fusion Engine) is mechanically similar to a Fusion Engine but uses much lighter radiation shielding. Replacing the dense tungsten carbide of standard fusion engines with a crystalline polymer similar to that of double heat sinks, the XL fusion engine is half the mass for the same performance.
There is a penalty in bulk, however. The Inner Sphere XL fusion engine is twice as large as the standard fusion engine, while the Clan model is about two-thirds larger. The larger volume of the engines makes them much more likely to end up in the path of penetrating hits. Further, these bulkier engines intrude into the side torso bays of a BattleMech, exposing the 'Mechs to catastrophic engine damage from structural damage that would be otherwise survivable.
There is also a penalty in cost; an XL fusion engine is four times as expensive as a standard, a component that is already usually the largest cost in a BattleMech. Despite this, the allure of huge weight reduction means that the technology sees wide use (as evidenced by the long list of manufacturers below).

Gauss Rifles are Kinetic weapons which do require a magnetic charging system and a reload. That a similar to weapons created all ready on Youtube just look up Gauss guns or Railguns as they are exactly the same and you will see the charging function required. Also the charging is reflective in this excerpt about stored energy capacitors from the Battletech wiki about the explosion of one. Capacitors do not reach full storage immediately to fire a large projectile like this as the capacitors required would be monsterous. All though they need a very minor look over I do not think they are garbage just the mechanics changed to what you were accustomed to.

Spoiler

However, if the weapon itself is struck by enemy fire, the capacitors that power the electromagnets will release their stored energy, with an effect similar to an ammo explosion.

Ghost heat is a problem in which the heatsinks are less effective due to residing climate temperatures as well as firing heat based weapons will inturn increase the heat generated on these terrains. That is why you should not have a problem on frozen maps but will on hotter maps. It would be the same as trying to put your pc out in the desert and running it out in the sun as opposed to running it in the tundra. Playing a game in these conditions would naturally ramp up the heat generation on your system as your video card generally runs hotter/colder as well as the heat displacement would be even less effective/more effective depending upon it too. There are other more advanced environmental conditions that can alter these situations but for the most part ghost heat is not really ghost heat. It is more a heat you have to understand to know the truth of it and is a poor term for this other than a ghost can surprise you.

PGI did fine for the most part but they added in more advanced elements that most people are not comprehending. Yes they took liberties in the game to make it even more realistic as the old Battletech system; done with paper, with these complications, would have been a headache to figure out. I am just wondering how they calculated these effects and if they are really true or hypothetically could be IRL founded.

Not saying all is perfect as no game ever is. Just saying look into this from more perspectives. I want them to fix graphics issues, framerate spikes, and better SLI/Crossfire support. Oh and fix collision along with adding physical combat.

Edited by Kain Jackyll, 24 October 2013 - 08:23 AM.

[AvatarofWhat]

Kain Jackyll, on 24 October 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Flavor of the month mechs aren't a great thing to follow as a rule of thumb. They change constantly! Someone will come up with something they like, bandwagon will roll in and then next you find them every where and dying all the same. So it is completely relative. Besides, regardless of games, the mentality of players are still easily impressionable and this is a team sport. If you don't pull the numbers but live and you are still hitting targets and in support of your team, plus winning, who is anyone to say you are wrong. If they died, you didn't and are engaged, and in support of your team. Take for instance, AC/2 support suppression build. Using it at the longer ranges does nothing much however it will keep an enemy team moving, to try to bunker, or to keep them hunkered down. It may cause them to find you and in turn you can lead them to your team. Either way, you have control of that situation when they think they do. Sometimes "fear is the mind killer" and that alone could, in turn, be the reason you won. That person only doing 200 to 250 supporting his team and not that you, on your own, pulled high numbers (hypothetic only, not saying you play on your own). Sometimes in order to win a battle you have to think strategy and not "I am going to do 600+ damage."

Hunchback with 9 flamers is flavor of the month?

You could perhaps make the enemy fear your trial atlas(which I think will be difficult), or you could kill them with a real atlas... you know one that has enough ammo for its weapons or at least tag for its lrms, etc. If all the atlas on your team is accomplishing is keeping an enemy pinned down at long range with an lrm-30 then its not doing its job... Anyways if its psychological effect and fire suppression your looking for im sure you could choose something that doesnt take up 100 tons, and is much more efficient at what it does.

As it is this atlas is bad against long range except against enemies out in the open(basically never happens in high elo games), and even worse in a brawl with its explosive gauss and horrible dps. God forbid the enemy carries ecm...

[IllCaesar]

Kain Jackyll, on 24 October 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Info from Battletech on XL Engines (dunno if you were referring to XLs not existing in the original game)

I meant in MW:O. There's no real information about them in-game here's the description of a STD 275.

"A standard engine with a 275 rating"

Here's the description of an XL275 engine.

"An XL engine with a 275 rating. Requires 3 critical slots in each side torso."

Mentions absolutely nothing about being able to die for side-torso destruction. Three of the five most recent trial mechs run an XL engine. New players will notice themselves dying, when they shouldn't be, for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Thats why I excluded XL engines.

Quote

Gauss Rifles are Kinetic weapons which do require a magnetic charging system... from the Battletech wiki.

Stop right there. Right there, you had to go to a source outside the game itself to figure that out. That means the developers ****** up. You should never, ever have to go to a source outside the game to know how to do something within the game unless you're provided with it upon ownership of the game (a manual, for instance). Its not acceptable game design. I'm not upset about the Gauss Rifle, I'm upset there's absolutely no information on how to use it in game. None. Its been years since I played a MW when I started playing MWO a little while ago. First time using a Gauss Rifle, couldn't figure it out. Had to find out on the forums. That is a failure on the part of the developers.

Quote

Ghost heat...

My beef isn't with ghost heat, its that there's zero information about it in-game. None whatsoever of any kind. Yeah, there's a ton of charts outside the game, but if I have to go outside the game, the developers ****** up. For no game should I have to go to the online forum to understand why "so-and-so" is happening, or to know that "so-and-so" is even happening at all.

Quote

PGI did fine for the most part but they added in more advanced elements that most people are not comprehending. Yes they took liberties in the game to make it even more realistic as the old Battletech system; done with paper, with these complications, would have been a headache to figure out. I am just wondering how they calculated these effects and if they are really true or hypothetically could be IRL founded.

None of these are a problem. The fact that they are in absolutely no way introduced to a new player is my problem. I don't even think there's any loading screen tidbits that tell you about any of these (not that those are acceptable anyways).

When I started MWO a few months ago, there wasn't even a movement tutorial. This game is awful in terms of introducing new players into the game. The time investment you have to make just to understand half of what is going on is not acceptable. Imagine if this game was a monthly-subscription game - it would be utterly trashed online, have one of the worst reputations of an MMO out there.

I could introduce my girlfriend to just about any of the previous Mechwarrior games out there (never played LL, so I wouldn't know about that one), and not run into any problems, even if I left her to her own devices. Why? Tutorials. A detailed mechlab. A manual that comes with the game disc. A single-player mode with difficulty settings so she could gain some actual experience, rather than fire twice, overheat, get blown up, and rage quit.

Edited by MarsAtlas, 24 October 2013 - 09:14 AM.

[Oppresor]

I would never deliberately take an Atlas into a Brawl and certainly not with the configuration set on the Trial Atlas (C); it's just suicidal. I now run three variants of Atlai; DDC, D and RS and the one thing they all share in common is that their primary role has evolved in to Sniper. They are at their best fighting at extreme range in a similar way to a Support Mech like a Catapult; the difference is that they have awesome armour and enable you to make full use of the 4x Zoom module to accurately hit enemy units. I have found that the best primary weapon loadout for the Atlas Sniper is twin ERPPC's; these things rock.

[NRP]

^^ No. Just . . . No.

[Bishop Steiner]

Alistair Winter, on 23 October 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

Now I understand why people aren't doing better with it. I figured it was pimped to the max with all the best gear that money can buy. Actually, it's a terrible waste of good equipment and it comes with useless weapon groups (which helps explain why new players are always firing their weapons at the wrong time with this mech)


Atlas RS Champion build

• 2x LRM15 + Artemis, and the Atlas RS has 10 + 6 tubes. Seriously.
  
• Gauss rifle, the most difficult weapon to use right in the game. Shouldn't really be on a trial mech.
  
• 4 medium lasers in 2 different weapon groups. Wtf?
  
• 20 rounds of ammo for the gauss, 3 tons of ammo for the LRM. These are the main weapons of this mech, and you're going to run out of ammo in the first three minutes.
  
• Main weapons are very difficult to use in a brawl, and brawling is what comes naturally to new players.
  
• An exploding gauss rifle makes it less than tempting to go first and shield your teammates from damage.

All in all... if you're going to have a trial assault mech for new players, at least make it a standard assault mech that suits new players. If you're trying to teach new players the intricacies of MWO by giving them this "unconventional" build, you're doing it wrong.

odd, I have a 4&1 KDr with it. There are a few items I would move around, but it is actually rather effective. I tend to stay in back, firing LRMs with my Gauss, then after my LRms run dry move in to use lasers and Gauss to mop up.

MarsAtlas, on 24 October 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

My idea would be to just have community suggestions, and some of the ones that are judged to be the best are used as trial mechs for the next period of time until new trials come out. I'm sure that the community could come up with plenty of mechs that exemplify their weight class

Most of the champions have been from community created designs. The first was specifically from it, and if you look, most of the others were ones that were entered into the contest

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 October 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

Most of the champions have been from community created designs. The first was specifically from it, and if you look, most of the others were ones that were entered into the contest

That is not accurate at all.

The first one, the Dragon-5N Champion, was the community made one that had a contest and vote. The entire contest was specifically for Heavies.

The rest of them have been PGI creations AFAIK, with the one that has the least original or "most common" is the Hunchback-4P and the Spider-5K.

Edited by Deathlike, 24 October 2013 - 08:36 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Not all Trials are for noobs, some pilots want to try mechs they don't have the scratch for.

[Bishop Steiner]

Deathlike, on 24 October 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

That is not accurate at all.

The first one, the Dragon-5N Champion, was the community made one that had a contest and vote. The entire contest was specifically for Heavies.

The rest of them have been PGI creations AFAIK, with the one that has the least original or "most common" is the Hunchback-4P and the Spider-5K.

I'd suggest you look over the submissions. Most of these are based off the various ones.

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 October 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

I'd suggest you look over the submissions. Most of these are based off the various ones.

Wait, are you suggesting they are getting this from Mechspecs or something?

[rdmgraziel]

Koniving has recently and repeatedly pointed out his findings as to why limited tubes for LRM boating isn't a BAD thing, but based on what he was saying, if you had to, I think an LRM 15 and an LRM 10 would be better for the RS, and the DDC could do it better.

The tube thing isn't all bad because:

Staggers heat-load despite the longer-cooldown on the weapons.
Initial volley absorbs most of the AMS rounds, and will tend to be a blob of missiles which spreads damage; the secondary volley, since it's much smaller will be closer to CT seeking. (I think a third volley is probably still wasteful, since it isn't following up as rapidly on the initial blob as the second so it's more likely to be the victim of AMS. This is ME saying this part, not Koniving. He deserves credit for making me less narrow-minded on tube limitations by pointing out the advantages.)
As to Gauss, just about everyone ran Gauss on high-heat Atlas builds before the Gauss mechanic change. 0 Heat brawling/sniper weapon? Yes please, time to use quad Large Lasers!

This build isn't as bad as it was before the changes to tube limitations on Atlases (tubes on the RS were 5 and 4 not so long ago). But it's still not as efficient.

As to stock builds being "awful", that's more a result of heat scaling and how {Scrap} single heatsinks and what-not are and the fact that most players focus on specialist builds rather than generalist builds, with the latter designed to be part of a full unit of coordinated generalists. 1 Cent with an LRM 10, an AC10, and 2 medium lasers is "meh". 4 Cents with that build = LRM 40 plus AC40 when used in a coordinated fashion. (assuming proper upgrades such as DHS of course)