29 replies to this topic

[WarZ]

Kaeb Odellas, on 06 December 2013 - 06:06 AM, said:

You never had to endure the months-long reign of triple-PPC+Gauss poptart Highlanders. There wasn't much you could do against a full lance of those things dropping 45 point alphas on single components while only remaining visible for less than 2 seconds. It was the worst.

Dont worry, they still exist and have already made a very strong comeback. Its currently the top end meta right now. For a time people thought it was nerfed, then they started trying them again, and realized that its still overly powerful.

Its a low risk with very high reward loadout. People love to exploit that. The drawback ? Anyone else who pilots something different is at a big disadvantage.

But I'm sure PGI will leave it in the game for anther 9 months before even attempting to address the issue again. Just like last time.

[Twilight Fenrir]

Kaeb Odellas, on 06 December 2013 - 06:06 AM, said:

You never had to endure the months-long reign of triple-PPC+Gauss poptart Highlanders. There wasn't much you could do against a full lance of those things dropping 45 point alphas on single components while only remaining visible for less than 2 seconds. It was the worst.

Um... Myself and a friend kind of brought that tactic into the game ^^; That's what alot of MW4 was about... It may not have any deliberate weaknesses... but, if you use the terrain you can get in close and eat them alive. If the whole enemy team was in them, yeah, you'd be screwed to the wall.... but, that's kind of true of anything.... an entire team of light mechs can reek havoc too, if they swarm....

But, as new mechs come out, new tactics come out.... Remember the big thing before the HIghlander came out? It was rapid-fire Cataphracts... but they started getting their butts handed to them by high-yield point-sniping.... A few mechs later, and we'll get something else that's 'OP', and makes short work of them.... There are many builds that an entire team of will devastate the other. That's.... sort of how it should be o.o As we get more mechs, there will be more great builds. And they'll all get lost in eachother.

They did do something effective to make jump-sniping more difficult though, the wiggling crosshair makes you wait until you start falling before you fire, giving yourself a lesser window of attack, and making you jump up higher so you have some time to aim while you fall. It's still viable, but that's a good way to deal with it, rather than nerfing perfectly fine weapons, to try to deal with tactics. Tactics evolve to make use of weapons. There will always be optimum tactics, no matter how you nerf, or tweak.

Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 06 December 2013 - 07:39 AM.

[Asmudius Heng]

Twilight Fenrir, on 06 December 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

Tactics evolve to make use of weapons. There will always be optimum tactics, no matter how you nerf, or tweak.

As long as there are a variety of workable tactics and counters - once the variety shifts towards a single optimum then things are dire.

There will always be a top end - as long as that top end is as varied as possible.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Don't surrender to the fatalist attitude of "there will always be an optimal tactic". That will always be true, but that doesn't mean you can't balance the game so that the "best" builds and tactics aren't dramatically or overwhelmingly more effective than all the others.

How were you supposed to counter a 45 pinpoint alpha from a 90 ton mech you can only see for 2 seconds? You say "use terrain to your advantage", but there are two maps where that is pretty much impossible. Even if you do manage to close the distance without losing half your mech, what are you going to do then? SRMs have been underpowered garbage since they found the bug with the splash damage. The Highlander still has a 45-point alpha and jumpjets to stay out of your firing arc. And this is just a one-on-one situation. He's going to have his lancemates blasting holes in you with their 45-point alphas, so you better hope to god your team is paying attention and backing you up, or else you just died a pointless death. You just became that useless pubbie who only did 53 damage before dying.

About the only tactic I've found to have any chance of success was to simply hide behind cover until they get bored and charge you, which isn't going to work without communication (totally absent outside of your premade lance, or full premade teams), and definitely isn't going to work in Conquest.

There's a reason the PPC+Gauss build Highlanders and PPC Stalkers were on top for so many months. It wasn't because no one had found a viable counter. It's because there wasn't a viable counter. It was ghost heat that finally killed the 4 PPC Stalker. Poptarting didn't go away until they added jumpjet shake, and came right back in when they dialed the shaking back after complaints. PPC+Gauss remained on top until they added the Gauss delay, but then everyone just switched to the other hard-hitting ballistics. Pinpoint damage is still king after all. SRMs are still garbage. LRMs are still utterly dependent on friendly and enemy team compositions to be successful.

At least with the weapon nerfs the poptarts now have to contend with higher heat, range limitations, or the weird Gauss fire mechanic if they want to stick with the Gauss. Poptarting is still the most effective tactic in the game. It's only a little less powerful now. PGI needs to either nerf it as a tactic, or buff other builds to create effective counters. As it stands, I'm for nerfing. Time-to-kill is way too short as it is

[Corvus Antaka]

Twilight Fenrir, on 04 December 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

I miss mechs falling over. (Not the horrible glitches that went with that though) *still has nightmares of a dragon just flipping reverse, and repeatedly tackling my mech* XD

I miss the sweet Matrix bullet-ripple gauss rifles used to have

I WANT AN ANNIHILATOR!!! XD

me too

Good post!

[Zerberus]

Joseph Mallan, on 05 December 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

I'll give you this one on za house

Here you go.

Dude, you got hosed, someone replaced the AC with a Cigarette lighter

[Twilight Fenrir]

The problem people seem to have with Gauss Rifles, more than anything, is their use for 'pop-tarting'.... The solution to this is very easy, if you convert it to what would happen in the real world...

AC/10s, 20s, Gauss Rifles... These are very high caliber weapons being fired at high velocity, especially the gauss rifle. At the current 12 shots per ton, each slug weighs almost 200 lbs, and accelerates from 0, to hyper-sonic velocities within the blink of an eye. The recoil from this would be MONSTROUS. This is my first time calculating this sort of thing... but, I believe that works out to (roughly) 150,000 ft/lbs of force! And that's assuming it takes a full second for the gauss slug to accelerate. It takes quite a bit less time than that, so that number is VERY conservative.

Mechs are based on myomer, muscles like in the human body, so they distribute the load to the legs and counteract these forces. But, in the air, there is nothing to brace against. Firing any ballistic weapon, but especially high caliber ones should knock your mech out of control. Sending you crashing to the ground for massive damage.

The same would apply to TAKING damage. If you are in the air, and you get hit by an AC, a gauss rifle, or god forbid missles, you should be smacked right back down to the ground, again, taking damage, both from the weapon impact, and from crashing.

You could still fire lasers while jumping without difficulty. PPC's as well... Missles should be fine, as their launch tubes have vents out the back, and shouldn't impart TOO much energy on the mech as they are launched. But doing anything else would have catastrophic results.

Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 13 December 2013 - 08:58 PM.

[Pakundo]

Twilight Fenrir, on 04 December 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

I miss rearm-repair. It added that much more of a sense of depth to the game...

But seriously, so much no, repair and rearm was the last straw that made me ragequit MW:O for good.

Edited by Pakundo, 14 December 2013 - 03:32 AM.

[Dauphni]

Pakundo, on 14 December 2013 - 03:24 AM, said:

But seriously, so much no, repair and rearm was the last straw that made me ragequit MW:O for good.

Cool. Since you haven't played in over a year, can I have your stuff?

[Krivvan]

DaZur, on 05 December 2013 - 07:02 AM, said:

I chatted with quite a few new players since GH ( My kids friends who he's indoctrinating... most don't visit the forum surprisingly)... and I was surprised by the number that didn't know what GH was... Had no preconceived disposition toward it and as a result truly did not feel as though they were handicapped by it...

Even after explaining it to them, they essentially shrugged it of as "BT universe magic"...

It was one of those "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?" moments...

While GH has clearly brought about changes in MW:O play mechanics... I think sometimes our intimate knowledge of play-mechanics and exposure to the wild tangents of this forum makes us susceptible to influence and become overtly sensitive to the changes...

This is what I say/think whenever people bring up how ghost heat cripples new players and turns them away. It really doesn't unless they start memorizing heat values. Most won't notice it. There are far more other more significant factors that affect how they're doing.