81 replies to this topic

[Agamemnon78]

After successfully shrinking the community of poptarters down by adding shake and heat, including gauss-fire-mechanisms, you sucessfully paved the road for the next stage of lame-12-premade-play:

Instead of buffing the arty-damage from 10 to perhaps 20 or 25 you raised it to monstrous 40 points.
Not bad, if you look onto them as a single asset.

But the actual meta in 12-premade look like this:

Enemy Lights incl. Shadowhawks are scouting a bit around.

You succesfully positioned your men at key-positions and are planning the next step, according to the enemies actions.

The enemy scouts locate your men and start spamming them with airstrikes, after some seconds the arty, after some more seconds the next airstrike and so on,

Parallel to that, jumping Victors, jumping Shadowhaks, jumping Highlanders, jumping Cataphracts start bunny-hopping and poptarting (thnx to that ******** idea of reducing the screenshake through the gyro-module), all the while they pop out some arty or airstrike which they got left in their pants.

You, all the while, can do whatever you want, you get softened up by arty, the rushing poptarters snipe, well-protected by a magical lag-shield which is active while bunny-hopping.


W*F has happened???

And do not be so silly as to say L2P!

What happened to the idea of Arty-Strikes which only the Commander can activate, through the Command Console he has to buy??
Is it really intended to be able to bombard the enemy with arty every 30-somewhat seconds??
What about much higher jj-cooldown for those lagshielded poptarters??


Actually you got some lagshielded Shadowhawks, jumping around lag-shielded, while carriing a nice AC20 and some arty and airstrike for the fun of it.

It totally flipped the meta in the absolutely wrong direction. We got the high-alpha-poptarter-builds again, accompanied by a barrage of arty and as if that isnt enough, they are lag-shielded.

Thnx.
The work of some 3 months of 12-man-play has been screwed.
We all got to hold our flag where the wind actually blows or we got to die.
Zod off !!!

I have never been so disappointed...

[Fuerchtegott]

Is that true? Does for examlpe the screen shake modul do what you say?
Didn't knew it works that way, have to look it up. :-)
I hope you're right.


Did some research in the thread right over there.
Told me:

"

• Improved Gyros:
  
  • Reduces the amount of screen shake when being hit by enemy fire. "

So I don't get the part where this modul drives players toward jumpsniping.

Edited by Fuerchtegott, 01 December 2013 - 02:12 PM.

[Thorqemada]

Jumpsniping is still very possible and if you have area damage weapons shaking does not matter anyhow though i cant say anything about 12mans bcs i solo all the time.

But logic and experience tell me that their gameplay will move in that direction...

Edited by Thorqemada, 01 December 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[Agamemnon78]

Yes, yes... as usual in this forums start chewing at some bits and pieces and talk it down instead of simply observing the actual meta.

In 75% of 12-matches its as depicted above, and it gets worse with every week. If you continue picking at details of a thread or not.

[Helsbane]

Jump Jet shake vanishes as soon as you release the jump key, crosshairs stop dancing, rounds on target, land back behind cover. You don't need a module for that.

Also, I'm glad they increased the damage output of Arty and Air to current level. For ground based units, both Arty and Air have always been a devastating force. Watch for smoke and bug out when it pops. Hell, even jump jetting mid spread cuts the damage down. Get out of your neighbor's pocket and you won't seem like such a great target for a one-shot item.

[Tesunie]

JJ Shake is not reduced by any modules I am aware of, unless it isn't working as advertised. Jump snipers never disappeared, and they may be making a resurgence, but it isn't anything new. As someone else stated, JJ shake only happens when you are pressing the jump button. As soon as you release it the shake stops. It's not as easy to do as many people think.

Artillery strikes are becoming a little more popular, as in from almost not seeing them to seeing one or two every so often (for me at least). Though, to be honest, there is an easy counter to this, stay on the move. It's only deadly when you stand still for a while, or you walk into the smoke. I've never been killed (yet) by an art or air strike (just cursed myself now). I have been surprised before by a smoke bomb behind me where I couldn't see it. I didn't notice it till my mech turned yellow from the strike and I turned around and saw the fading smoke...

As far as Lag Shield goes, HSR does have bugs still, but you shouldn't see much lag shield per say (depending upon what you mean). If you are personally experiencing large problems with lag shields (may need more explanation here), it's probably not so much the game as it might be your internet connection. What's your ping? Is it stable? Does it fluctuate much? HSR has a harder time with ping that changes too quickly too often. It can still handle high ping and low ping as long as it's stable and not changing too much.

As for weapon balancing and how PGI does it, I'd have to agree. Changing it by such large numbers tends to lead to over or under compensation, making weapons tip greatly from one side to another. It also influences players as well, as when they see such large changes they tend to react and jump. Like the changes to the Spider. They are minor in play terms, but so many people have not panicked that they stopped playing the mech without even testing the changes, saying how much they suck now. When PPC heat went up, suddenly everyone dropped them and converted to large lasers. I'm thinking that, honestly, this is another overreaction from players to an announced change in the game. Is it a bad thing? Maybe. I don't use module based weapons so I can't say. Maybe it needed the jump? I went from not seeing it at all to seeing it every so often now. I personally haven't been seeing it "every" match, and it's normally only one or maybe two mechs tops when I do happen to see it in a match who use them. Still, to get an item from "not/hardly used at all" to "used" isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it? (Some people will take it merely as a "free" tonnage/heat/crit weapon.)

[Coralld]

Arty and Air strikes are fine where they are at. Before they were POS but ever sense the damage buff they have gained in popularity. Also, they are mostly AoF weapons where that 40 damage per shell is spread on your mech, unless you had the misfortune of having them hitting you directly, which has happened to me before, it sucked, but nothing worth really crying over sense you can avoid them 90% of the time.

The Gyro Module doesn't reduce the shake and shimmy when using your JJs, at least it shouldn't anyway, if it does then that's a bug. How people are being able to shoot accurately is because as soon as you let go of the JJs you get your 100% accuracy back and in that split second is when people fire their shots. Even though you only get a split second before being dropped back to Earth, its still super easy to do.
However I would have to agree that poptarting should never be a valid tactic sense you really couldn't hit anything as per TT and lore. Simply letting go of your space bar while in mid air should not make it so you have perfect accuracy. Poptarting is annoying in pug and 4 mans, but in 12 mans they are the go to tactic as that's what every one uses as it allows people to let off their alpha and fall safely behind cover. It makes the game stupid and boring, and I my self had my fill of that back in MW4 Merc and is the reason why I don't play 12 mans.

[Asmosis]

Its easier to fire on the way down anyway, the shake on the way up really didnt hinder jump sniping at all. As for artillery, two things. You can't spam it (only one can be active at a time, and theres a time limit before someone else can launch one) and two, its very very easy to avoid. situational awareness, if your standing around twiddling your thumbs you can't really blame anyone else. Its also very expensive, your losing cbills regardless unless you manage to hit everyone in their team with it.

[Agamemnon78]

We got over half a dozen 12mans and in most of them we got literally spammed by arty and airstrikes, softended up by them and then crushed by flying PPC/Gauss-Victors or Highlanders an Shadowhawks, accompanied by small numbers of the usual AC_Jaegers and Cataphracts.

Wheres the point in using the ground for your tactical advantage?
Wheres the point in getting to "good ground", where the one half can hold and the other half is going to flank?
Where the point of all that, when the only way to have a REAL advantage is through spreading out bunny-hopping, poptart with high-alpha-builds and spam arty and airstrikes every half a minute?
Role-Warfare?? LOL !
Tactical gameplay?? LOL !
Mech-Sim?? LOL !

Thnx a lot to all those smart-guys for destroying the game once more. It´s been good for some weeks, now you can throw it into the dustbin. Again.
Well done!

The alpha-poptarters not just returned, they are lag-shielded during flight and now they can get out of cover pop the arty and laugh.
That done for 3 times and your 3-4 assaults in the heavy lance are softended up to the point of bursting.
And theres no point in "getting away" with a 90-100ton Assault.
Even Heavies got problems with getting away.
But that would not be a problem, hence arty would be useless.
The problem is, that you can bring 24 arty/strikes in the game and throw them in dramatically short order, you just need to rotate (air - arty- air- arty...)



When giant mechs are the weapons of the superior future, why hasnt anyone noticed that half a dozen artillery-pieces from WWII are sufficient to burn them up ??


I bet next week just more 12mans will "have the idea" of depending on that lamer-{Scrap}, cause thats the "tactic of the week" .. lol.. "tactic"

[Atheus]

Asmosis, on 01 December 2013 - 08:22 PM, said:

Its easier to fire on the way down anyway, the shake on the way up really didnt hinder jump sniping at all. As for artillery, two things. You can't spam it (only one can be active at a time, and theres a time limit before someone else can launch one) and two, its very very easy to avoid. situational awareness, if your standing around twiddling your thumbs you can't really blame anyone else. Its also very expensive, your losing cbills regardless unless you manage to hit everyone in their team with it.

"Easy to avoid" = lol. For starters, you will only see it if it's in front of you. Even if it's to your left or right, you will not see the smoke unless by coincidence you happen to torso twist in that direction at the exact moment the smoke appears. Secondly, suppose someone does put it in front of you so you can see it. You have 4 seconds to react. Typical human reaction speed is about 0.5 seconds, but in addition to that, you have to get your mech facing in another direction (because it's in front of you), then, if you were standing still, you have to accelerate to speed, which takes a full second to get to top speed. Or, you can try just backing up, which will probably be more effective than trying to turn around, even at the greatly reduced speed of reverse. In anything other than a light/medium mech, this basically means that you will not be able to put any substantial distance between yourself and the air strike in your 4 second window of opportunity. At best you may get 15m further away than you were when the smoke appeared, which will certainly reduce the damage you take, but not eliminate it. Still, people who use them know to drop them slightly behind their target, so chances are you'll never get to see the smoke until after you've eaten the strike.

Anyway, nice attempt at pretending that strikes are easily avoidable. "Standing around twiddling your thumbs" really makes people who get struck seem like fools, doesn't it? They deserve what they get for *gasp* letting their mech come to a full stop anywhere on the battlefield. It's as if you're a light pilot who has absolutely no idea what gameplay entails for heavier mechs. Your contribution of false information is very helpful to consideration of this issue.

[QuaxDerBruchpilot]

I'm 100% with you, Agamemnon78 ... that's the same reason I stopped playing MWO for some weeks now. Funny thing is .. even in PUG games (where it counts nothing at all) you are pawned by endless arty/air barriages.

PGI moved a long way from it's "thinking man shooter" ... sad ...

[Ecto Cooler]

Agamemnon78, on 01 December 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

I have never been so disappointed...

You must be young, there will be much more disappointment in the future. But about important things, not people playing a video game in a way you don't like.

L2P.

[Agamemnon78]

lol, young. . .

Last time I was called young, I got some hair left on my bald head.
I´m mid-thirty, got a wife since 2001 and a little daughter of 4 years, a little house, some cars and a nice Moto-Guzzi.
Also some nice papers at my personal "i-love-me-wall" from universities and military-academy.

So plz just do not be so quick in your judgement just because


I love(d) to play MW:O as a means of spare-time-activity, invested quite a bunch of Dollars and time into the game and our clan

just to see

that the game, which has got lots of potential and really EASILY avoidable "deathpits" in gameplay

steers into the wrong direction and from one broke meta to the next.

That all-knowing "L2P" is the most annoying thing one can say. Besides it only shows what kind of player one is:
Obviously someone who needs victory in a computergame AT ALL COSTS just to cover up for his disappointing real-life.

But maybe I was just a little to quick with my judgement, too.

[Redshift2k5]

Stop crowding together behind the same rock and you stop letting Arty soften your whole team.

Lagshields are not a huge issue for mainland North America since that's where the server is. Sorry for anyone who is playing from the opposite side of the planet, but you can't expect perfect performance from Germany on a NA server.

[Evil Ed]

The arty needs to have the dmg reduced or modified to avoid instakill by headshot. Also the the time needs to be extended a couple of seconds so the target have some kind of chance to get out of the area of impact. This combined with new mechanics for jumpjets where the recharge time is dependant of the number of jumpjets would push the balance in the right direction. This said by a notorius poptarter.

Edited by Evil Ed, 02 December 2013 - 05:50 AM.

[Ecto Cooler]

Agamemnon78, on 02 December 2013 - 05:22 AM, said:

That all-knowing "L2P" is the most annoying thing one can say. Besides it only shows what kind of player one is:
Obviously someone who needs victory in a computergame AT ALL COSTS just to cover up for his disappointing real-life.

L2P means you need to adapt to the current meta of the game. You have the same abilities as the other 12 man team, so you can't complain they're playing "cheesy" because you don't want to use the same rules.

People are too quick to cry nerf instead of learning to adapt and change their styles to fit the current game.

[Agamemnon78]

It´s simply not "right" if someone is FORCED to adapt to a playstyle where:

bunny-hopping
arty-spam
poptarting with Alpha-builds

is "state of the art".

There is a difference between how its MEANT to be played and how it IS played by the community.

If one can´t have a honest victory without using exploits and bugs, its the kind of game MWO should not be,
whether you are willing to slipping in and out of the recent trendy-meta or not.

@RedShift: Nice suggestion... usually it does not fit for Assaults or heavies. Every veteran-player says : "Use cover!", "make use of your surroundings!", "do not walk around heedlessly or into the open!".
All good meant, until the recent developments.

So whats the alternative?
Walking around and around, just to avoid standing still for 5 Seks, just to get poptarted to hell by Alpha-builds who just wait till the enemy goes into the open?
Smart, really smart redshift. Really a thought worth thinking twice or thrice, perhaps it makes sense at the end...

We surely find a way to adopt to that crappy heap of *bananas*, but it stays a dissapointment, whether one "learns to play" that kind of *bananas* or not.

[Ecto Cooler]

Agamemnon78, on 02 December 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

There is a difference between how its MEANT to be played and how it IS played by the community.

According to you.

You can't tell others how the game is meant to be played because you have a preconceived notion of what MW:O should be. Otherwise you can develop your own game and make the rules whatever you want.

[Shredhead]

Agamemnon78, on 02 December 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

It´s simply not "right" if someone is FORCED to adapt to a playstyle where:

bunny-hopping
arty-spam
poptarting with Alpha-builds

is "state of the art".

There is a difference between how its MEANT to be played and how it IS played by the community.

If one can´t have a honest victory without using exploits and bugs, its the kind of game MWO should not be,
whether you are willing to slipping in and out of the recent trendy-meta or not.

@RedShift: Nice suggestion... usually it does not fit for Assaults or heavies. Every veteran-player says : "Use cover!", "make use of your surroundings!", "do not walk around heedlessly or into the open!".
All good meant, until the recent developments.

So whats the alternative?
Walking around and around, just to avoid standing still for 5 Seks, just to get poptarted to hell by Alpha-builds who just wait till the enemy goes into the open?
Smart, really smart redshift. Really a thought worth thinking twice or thrice, perhaps it makes sense at the end...

We surely find a way to adopt to that crappy heap of *bananas*, but it stays a dissapointment, whether one "learns to play" that kind of *bananas* or not.

Instead of investing time into crying on the forums, why didn't you take some time to think about the obvious counters, Mr. "military academy"?
Always these lazy folks demanding "but I want no change!", stomping their feet like little children, it's disgusting!
So, what are the obvious counters? Simple. Stay mobile, move from cover to cover and force CQC, whether you charge or defend doesn't matter. Kill their scouts, then let them come to you, or chose a well covered route and close in on their position. Btw, Arty strikes also work for you!
So, stop being lazy and L2P!

[Agamemnon78]

ohh.. thanks for the flowers.
I just counted the minutes till some post like this dropped off. At least something one can be sure of.

Obviously there are enough folks left who think that this actual meta is what MW:O is meant to be.
Most probably the other ones left the forums.

Of course there are counter-measures, but, even if you cannot comprehend the complexity of the problem, there is something called "good gameplay". And what the 12mans are forced to do to stay competitive atm is the exact opposite thing.

But as much as there are people who state the obvious downsides, there are enough who simply pull the most profit out of the actual bugs, exploits and so on. Gooooood boys... well done...
Learn to win without them, and we can talk again.

Its not about whether one can adapt or not.
Even the ones who adapted should see, that bunny-hopping-alpha-poptarting accompanied by calling an airstrike or arty every 30 sek or so is the worst way for the meta possible. You could play CStrike or something else if you prefer that gameplay.
But if one sounds off his absolutely justified opinion he gets smashed by "L2P" and "stop whining". That´s a statement about the players, for sure.

But since PGI seems to be deaf to criticism, even afraid (K-Town...) and some bunch of "WeFindEveryMetaGoodAsLongAsItBringsMeprofit"-guys rule that area here, I just let you dwell in your own world. I´m actually to old for that kind of childsplay.
Greetz...