44 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

IceCase88, on 19 January 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

The Cult of the FotM will brand you as a heretic and burn you at the stake. How dare you suggest people be individuals and think for themselves?! Repent from your individualistic thoughts and rejoin the hive mind! How dare you suggest people develop a semblance of skill or versatility?! Repent and rejoin the Collective or you will be assimilated!

Over my dead, smouldering body!

My Favorite Assault Mediums are the 3, 4, and 5 PPC Swayback, the 2 PPC + AC/20 Hunchback 4G, the 3 AC/5 Shadowhawk/Hunchback, the twin LRM 20 Hunchback SP/J, the SRM 22 + ERLL Shadowhawk, and other fun Mechs with too many guns and not enough armor.

You call them Glass Cannons.. I call them Class Cannons...

Edited by Prosperity Park, 19 January 2014 - 05:07 PM.

[Mystere]

IceCase88, on 19 January 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

The Cult of the FotM will brand you as a heretic and burn you at the stake. How dare you suggest people be individuals and think for themselves?! Repent from your individualistic thoughts and rejoin the hive mind! How dare you suggest people develop a semblance of skill or versatility?! Repent and rejoin the Collective or you will be assimilated!

[Navy Sixes]

Prosperity Park, on 19 January 2014 - 04:10 PM, said:

"The Trend" will change drastically when Weight Limits are introduced

I am not trying to buck the trend, for the trend will change shortly. I am trying to precede the forced change in trend by suggesting we change now, before being forced to change.

Practice now = better results when team weight limits are enforced.

Thisthisthisthis.

Started in a Cat, and right about the time I mastered it, the announcement of impending weight limits came down. Still waiting, but whatever. So when I was going to start on my next mech, I had to make the choice of going heavier or lighter. Everyone was saying assault was where it's at, and that Vic did look sweet, but I figured it'd be better to get good with lighter mechs than be yet another "I only pilot atlai [sic]" herp-a-derp trying to find a match.

I bought the Storm/ Sabre package instead. I've been running mediums ever since (although I still take my Cat out every now and again, whenever I see too many people running without AMS... gotta keep 'em on their toes!) I've even gone below those 55 ton sweethearts; right now I'm mastering my little Black Jack, and I love it.

I'll get around to those Locusts, next, probably...

[Marmon Rzohr]

Hmmm... interesting idea. How fast do these run ?
(no access to smurfy's atm to check for myself)

I personally shy away from anything slower then 70-72 kph. (with speed tweak at least)
It just feels too sluggish for solo-PUG play since you often need to reposition quickly to win the match or not get rolled.

[Escef]

In light of this thread, I give you...

The Shadowlander!

Almost 3 million c-bills cheaper than the it would cost you to buy and kit out a HGN-733C with the Champion load out! Faster! More than 50% of the armor of the Highlander! Over 30% smaller! Get one before your neighbor does!

[Barantor]

I'll stick with my "no skill" LRMs as always.

[LastPaladin]

LordBraxton, on 19 January 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

2ppc 2ml jumping fatkid quickdraw

I upgraded mine to 2 ppcs, 2 large lasers, it's pretty fun:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b5440e0bbb2ee1f

[LastPaladin]

Ok, I guess you can call this the "Drawesome"... or something. I couldn't figure out anything good to do with the FANG, so I just strapped 3 PPCs and an SRM-4 on it:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...594f95212ba5e45

[Roland]

FotM builds are popular for one reason.. they are effective.

There's nothing that says they're the only effective builds possible, but just wishing that garbage configurations are good doesn't make them so.

None of this has anything to do with "individuality". It has to do with the fundamental mechanics of the game as it exists today.

If you want more variety in what you see on the field, then tell PGI to fix the garbage weapons... If there were more viable close range infighting weapons, then you would see more variety in the metagame. As it is, weapons which should be providing the core to infighting, LBX, Machine Guns, Small Lasers, SRM's... are all pretty nerfed. The MG and LBX specifically are just terrible for the current game mechanics.

If LBX were as effective an infighting weapon as it was in prior mechwarrior titles, things would change significantly. The same goes for Machine guns and SRM's.

As it stands, the long range sniping weapons are basically just as good at close range as the weapons which only work at close range, and that's why you don't really see the short range stuff much.

The answer is to get PGI to fix their weapons balance, not to just run garbage mechs "for fun"... because all that will do is pollute the data and give PGI dissincentive to fix the weapons which need fixing.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Roland, on 20 January 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

FotM builds are popular for one reason.. they are effective.

*ensuing discussion of weapons*

I'm actually not talking about long-range vs short range stuff, but rather how there are too many Assault Mech Pilots who will be requesting too much team tonnage, and that they might wanna consider playing lighter Mechs to prevent the inevitable problem of MatchMaker Assault Saturation Syndrome (MASS for short). You see, when you have too many players who insist on bringing high-tonnage Mechs, then you will get a MASS problem. The only way to reduce this MASS is by lowering the number of Assault Pilots in the Matchmaker.

It boils down to this: If you want to Assault the enemy, you can do it from an Assault Mech and use two players' worth of tonnage, or you can use a single player's worth of tonnage and fit better into the Matchmaker while giving the Assault Mech players on your team high quantities of auxiliary firepower support.

[Jody Von Jedi]

I totally agree with most of what's been said here about medium mechs. I'm a dedicated medium chassis player as well. I have a Victor, but I don't like all the attention it gets, draws way too much fire.

Forty to fifty damage alphas from a 50 ton mech and still running over 90 kph is where it's at.

[LORD TSARKON]

Lostdragon, on 04 December 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

You have to hold it down though, there should be a toggle on/off button that you don't need to hold down.

Almost as bad as the fact this game has no Mouse Wheel support in game menus.... you have to use game files to make it happen.... just lazy programing..

Escef, on 20 January 2014 - 02:15 AM, said:

In light of this thread, I give you...

The Shadowlander!

Almost 3 million c-bills cheaper than the it would cost you to buy and kit out a HGN-733C with the Champion load out! Faster! More than 50% of the armor of the Highlander! Over 30% smaller! Get one before your neighbor does!

You need to add ARtemis to those Streaks.... even though PGI said they fixed them they lie (or messed up) and infact it shortens the lockon time..

[IceCase88]

Roland, on 20 January 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

FotM builds are popular for one reason.. they are effective.

There's nothing that says they're the only effective builds possible, but just wishing that garbage configurations are good doesn't make them so.

None of this has anything to do with "individuality". It has to do with the fundamental mechanics of the game as it exists today.

If you want more variety in what you see on the field, then tell PGI to fix the garbage weapons... If there were more viable close range infighting weapons, then you would see more variety in the metagame. As it is, weapons which should be providing the core to infighting, LBX, Machine Guns, Small Lasers, SRM's... are all pretty nerfed. The MG and LBX specifically are just terrible for the current game mechanics.

If LBX were as effective an infighting weapon as it was in prior mechwarrior titles, things would change significantly. The same goes for Machine guns and SRM's.

As it stands, the long range sniping weapons are basically just as good at close range as the weapons which only work at close range, and that's why you don't really see the short range stuff much.

The answer is to get PGI to fix their weapons balance, not to just run garbage mechs "for fun"... because all that will do is pollute the data and give PGI dissincentive to fix the weapons which need fixing.

That maybe effective to some but not all that use them. It is not that the PPC/AC meta is the most effective way to play. It is the fact everyone wants to be a "sniper." They want to prolong their gaming experience by not entering the fray. Which is also why they play heavy to assault mechs almost exclusively. Far too often in pugs players will not engage. They walk up at 30-50% slowly meandering to the front losing vital strategic territory. The game is inundated with twitch shooting players with no semblance of tactical thought or ability. Even in the alleged high ELO games it seems to be the case. I would gladly run one of my lights or mediums up against a PPC/AC or LL/AC sniper combo. Good luck hitting a fast moving target with projectiles.

Just because a build is not a meta build does not mean it is not a viable or effective build. It means you lack imagination and are utterly incapable of using the strengths of each weapon. Take the LBX as an example. It is not a main weapon to use to tear a target it open. It is a great finishing weapon though. SRMs need to be chainfired right now

Edited by IceCase88, 20 January 2014 - 02:09 PM.

[ThermidorFallen]

Can the flavour be mint chocolate?




.....I apologise if this joke has been done before...repeatedly.

[Escef]

LORD TSARKON, on 20 January 2014 - 01:56 PM, said:

You need to add ARtemis to those Streaks.... even though PGI said they fixed them they lie (or messed up) and infact it shortens the lockon time..

Yeah, I forgot to click the Artemis tab... Oops.

As for the Artemis/Streak interaction, as far as I know, PGI said they were aware of it and had no intention of fixing it until a lot of other (more important) stuff was taken care of.

[Duke Hector]

i'm waiting for the clans, so i can dump 2 Clan Ultra AC20s in my Cataphract 3D

[Rushin Roulette]

Yup. Ive noticed that trend a lot. Especially in the 12v12 drops. We have been paying with weights between 600 and 800 Tons for our trainings as we refuse to go for complete cheese. Well, it gets challenging against the CotM teams with their 1-2 Lights, 2-3 SHD-2D2 and 8 Assaults... but not impossible.

However if we lose to one team and they get cocky about their "Skills" we will ton up to just under their setup and wipe the floor with them (Havent found a team of these cheesebuilders who had any semblance of skill once they are up against a practiced team with near equal weight).

Usual comment from our side close to the end of the match is "Weight does matter then?" and we get the funniest ranged of excuses as to why weight doesnt matter and how it was just coincidence that they lost that round;

• If you would have caught us a little later, then we would have been able to group up and you would not have had a chance -- solution= get faster mechs so that you can group up faster then.
  
• Weight doesnt matter, it was close. - Observation: Yea right, with us much lighter we lost 7-12, with us nearly the same weight we won 12-1.
  
• We were still getting into position - Solution= Learn the maps better then and try for "positions" which are easier to reach or get faster mechs so that you get into your "position" faster.

[BOWMANGR]

NRP, on 19 January 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

I think tonnage limits will be worse for the game, not better. A lot of people drive Assaults because . . . a lot of people want to drive Assaults. Take that choice away, either directly or indirectly, is going to have negative consequences. But I'm going off topic.

I'm willing to bet that for every Assault pilot that WANTS to play an Assault there are 2 pilots that are FORCED to play an Assault simply because they feel handicapped in any other chassis type due to the current meta "balance".

When I started playing I naturally piloted Mediums even after it was evident that Heavy/Assault is the recommended winning option. After a while I tired of matches where there were my team had 2 Assaults, 3 Heavies, 2 Lights and me in my Medium {remember 8vs8 back in the day?}, I bought a Stalker. It seriously felt like easy mode, I kid you not. After being in so many matches with my Medium, piloting an Assault felt like I was playing a different game, like I had activated a cheat code.

I fully understand why people play with Heavies/Assaults. Some of them enjoy their gameplay style but other simply want to win no matter what. If you want to just win more games than yeah, use the easy mode. I'd do the same if I were them. After 20-30 matches with my Stalker I just went back to my Mediums and also bought a Heavy. What did I bought? A Dragon. Yeah, another underperformer. I don't care. I don't play to just win. I play to have fun. The Dragon is WAY more fun than a Stalker {or any Assault for that matter} for me. If it happens that I beat an 'easy mode' mech in the process it feels like a real accomplishment too.

or I could just buy a Highlander 733C with its double PPCs and ACs and pogostick my way to victory using easy mode.

It's all about choices. Unfortunately, there is no way to just divide the player base to those who want to win and those who want to have fun so there has to be a middile ground. If PGI wants to keep only the "I want to win" guys then they shouldn't nerf ANY weapons they should NOT add tonnage restrictions and they don't really need to bother with balance. Just let the game be as it is let the 'easy mode' guys play their OP mech for months and the rest of us will just find another game to play.

or

maybe they can actually reduce the power of the OP weapons and restrict the 'easy mode' mechs with tonnage restrictions so that we can finally have some fun {and TACTICS} with more than the usual 3 OP chassis and 2 OP weapon loadouts. Just saying...

[Blood Rose]

Im in for this. I always enjoy making the underdog Mechs work, such as my Dragon, and my K2(I ran it before the big hit box reboot, you know, when headshots happened 99% of the time). I have also run mediums(I had a very successful HBK 4SP that was very close to the original loadout, and it worked amazingly. Until the SRM hitreg error, anyway. If you want to do Gentleman games, then please count me in. Because I am tired of everyone worshipping the Meta.

[Evil Ed]

Rushin Roulette, on 21 January 2014 - 12:30 AM, said:

Yup. Ive noticed that trend a lot. Especially in the 12v12 drops. We have been paying with weights between 600 and 800 Tons for our trainings as we refuse to go for complete cheese. Well, it gets challenging against the CotM teams with their 1-2 Lights, 2-3 SHD-2D2 and 8 Assaults... but not impossible.

Yes, after skirmish was implemented many of the non-competitive 12-mans have tonned up. But - I rather take a close loss with a light dropdeck then run 900 tons and win. Our under 700 tons had some epic wins against 900-tons dropdecks yesterday, and it's a great feel when our last guys did neuter one highlander and got inside the 90 meters of the now out-of-ammo second highlander...