17 replies to this topic

[Remorce]

I haven't played since roughly 2 months after the game went live! I used to play a 7 small lsr Jenner effectively if that tells you anything. What have I missed? What should I be on the lookout for? What are the new "must haves"?

[Kain]

Read on the announcement forums, the topics which are dated 2 months ago and newer, will help you updated.

But it is mostly still the same, the only "memorable" updates are:
- Skirmish mode added
- Some (hero / champion/ phoenix)mechs added
- Some camo added
- Some cockpit items added
- HPG (moon) map added
- Clan mechs announced

Upcoming:
- UI 2.0 in February, which will not be an improvement of the current UI in user experience, it only looks prettier, but user interaction is much worse.
- CW, soon ™

And the current metagame is: "Bring your ballistics and PPCs"

[Ngamok]

7 Small Laser Jenner eh?

Anyways, If you do a light hunt pack it still works good. But Kain summed it up.

[Rhaythe]

Kain, on 17 January 2014 - 07:47 AM, said:

And the current metagame is: "Bring your ballistics and PPCs"

Are we hating on ECM this month or not? I can never keep up.

[Escef]

Shadowhawks and Thunderbolts are now available for C-bills. The SHDs are very good. The Thuds are kinda' unexceptional.

[Remorce]

Yeah 7 small laser jenner, 340xl, alphas for daaaaaaays. It was so fun to just stay behind assaults and annoy the {Scrap} out of them.

Any mechanics changes at all? Just metagame?

[Ngamok]

Escef, on 17 January 2014 - 07:58 AM, said:

Shadowhawks and Thunderbolts are now available for C-bills. The SHDs are very good. The Thuds are kinda' unexceptional.

Thunderbolts aren't bad really. Depends on what you do with them I suppose. I was pretty successful with them.

Remorce, on 17 January 2014 - 08:02 AM, said:

Yeah 7 small laser jenner, 340xl, alphas for daaaaaaays. It was so fun to just stay behind assaults and annoy the {Scrap} out of them.

Any mechanics changes at all? Just metagame?

I'd like to buy a Jenner with 7 lasers.

[Kaijin]

Remorce, on 17 January 2014 - 08:02 AM, said:

Yeah 7 small laser jenner, 340xl, alphas for daaaaaaays. It was so fun to just stay behind assaults and annoy the {Scrap} out of them.

Any mechanics changes at all?

Well, you won't be able to run your Jenner with 7 small lasers and a 340XL engine. Jenners were restricted to 6 energy hardpoints way back when closed beta started, and the biggest engine you can put in one is a 300.

[Escef]

Ngamok, on 17 January 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

Thunderbolts aren't bad really. Depends on what you do with them I suppose. I was pretty successful with them.

Didn't say they were bad, just unexceptional. The Dragon is exceptional negatively, the Victor positively. The Thud is unexceptional, neither notably good or bad. Put a good player in a well kitted out mediocre mech and I expect good results all the same.

Edited by Escef, 17 January 2014 - 08:43 AM.

[wanderer]

Remorce, on 17 January 2014 - 07:38 AM, said:

I haven't played since roughly 2 months after the game went live! I used to play a 7 small lsr Jenner effectively if that tells you anything. What have I missed? What should I be on the lookout for? What are the new "must haves"?

From what you're saying, you mean "2 months after the game was in closed beta", not "live" (that was last Sept)- since that was when your build would have been possible.

A mega-ton of changes. While the Jenner is still one of the measuring sticks by which a light is considered, you have the elusive and speedy Spider and the multipurpose Raven competing with it, and the dinky Locust at 20 tons along with the missle-scrubby Commando at 25. ECM changes a lot, Streaks are to be respected, and there's more 'Mechs that can keep up with you, including the 40-ton Cicada on the ground.

There's a lot of mediums- some of which make excellent scout hunters, even if they can't move as fast as you. In fact, the 'Mech chassis population has skyrocketed in general, rather there being 1-2 choices per weight class. Read up on them, or you may be surprised when that Victor takes to the air and lays 80 tons of hurt on you instead of being an easy jump behind cover like the Atlas dodging was.

Ballistics and PPC's are much more popular these days, regular SRMs less so since they nerfed them (due to a bug in how splash damage was applied). ECM is a HUGE change, as it means you might think there's only one 'Mech nearby, but three-five more are hidden until you get close...too close. Use your eyeballs, red triangles aren't everything now.

Matches go as high as 12v12. Heat sinkage has changed- doubles cool better in the engine than outside, though they're an advantage to both. Engines have limits on how high you can uprate them (or downgrade them), generally a multiplier based of weight class but there ARE exceptions.

You will be relearning some, and learning a lot new.

[Remorce]

I'm sorry my wording was bad! I suppose to be more accurate, I stopped playing after the raven released! And sorry on the engine/laser count! I just knew it was above 5. >_<

Thanks for all the details guys! Sounds like the game has grown exceedingly well!

[Bishop Steiner]

easy way to update yourself.

Play the game.

[Hans Von Lohman]

You stopped when the Raven came out, like last spring? "Launch" of the game was September, 2013.

Ok, for that far back there have been a lot of changes.

1. Ghost heat. Nowhere in the game does it tell you this, but there is now extra heat generated if you fire a bunch of the same weapon at the same time. I won't go into all of them, but you cannot just put in a bunch of the same weapon and hold down the trigger. The most notable ones are the biggest weapons who can only fire 1 or 2 at a time for normal levels of heat. Firing 3 or 4 PPC's will double the heat they generate.

Just rotate your fire instead of alpha striking.

2. Project Phoenix mechs. The rights to SOME of the oldest mechs for the game have been dealt with. So we got 8 more mechs that we shouldn't have. Locust, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine, Griffin, Thunderbolt, and BattleMaster.

3. New maps, and most of the old maps have had the spawn locations changed, and changed again for the other game modes (you won't spawn in the same spot for a game of Assault vs a game of Conquest). The smaller maps can't fit changes like that, so Frozen City and Forest Colony have not changed. Also, Alpine Peaks map for Conquest has had most of the flags moved to the center of the map, and nobody starts near a flag, and you also don't get any flags at the start of a game.

4. New game mode, Skirmish. It is like Assault, but they ditched the home base flags. To win you have to kill them all.

5. Beagle Active Probe now counters ECM at close range (under 200 meters). PPC cannons also knock out an ECM for a few seconds if you hit the enemy ECM carrier. Those two changes have nerfed the overpowered ECM to the point that nobody is complaining about them anymore, yet ECM is still worthwhile.

6. New modules, in particular the consumable coolant flush, artillery strikes, air strikes, and UAV drones that counter ECM and target everything in range.

7. New LRM and SRM shot patterns. The SRM in particular now works much better at it's full range of 270 meters as the missile spread happens at short range, and then all of them fly parallel from then on. (Note: SRM's currently have a bug and sometimes do no damage when they hit)

8. Guass Rifles now have a "charge up" time. You have to hold down the fire button for 1 second before you can fire. This is also known as the "hold breath" mechanic from other FPS shooter games for snipers, and the Guass Rifle is now the game's sniper rifle style weapon. In reality this change was probably due more to the fact that Ghost Heat doesn't affect the Guass Rifle, and still doesn't, so something else had to be done to make it have a down side to having two of them.

9. 3rd person view. You can hit F4 to get an external viewpoint of your mech. It also launches a small, indestructable drone with a blinking red light to explain how you can have such a view, and yet it makes it clear to the enemy where you are. If you can see them, they can see your camera drone.

People complained about it that it would be cheating, but your mech arms lock and you lose some of your field of fire, and you also see your crosshair move around as you pass it over close and long range terrains, messing up your aim. You also lose your mini-map/radar screen in 3rd person.

It was thought to be a horrible, game breaking change, but the downsides of 3rd person view are significant enough that it is rarely seen, and barely anybody even mentions it anymore. Currently there is a bug where going into 3rd person turns off your ambient engine noise when you return to 1st person view, although shutting down and powering back up reset that sound effect.

Edited by Hans Von Lohman, 17 January 2014 - 11:03 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Hans Von Lohman, on 17 January 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

You stopped when the Raven came out, like last spring? "Launch" of the game was September, 2013.

Ok, for that far back there have been a lot of changes.

1. Ghost heat. Nowhere in the game does it tell you this, but there is now extra heat generated if you fire a bunch of the same weapon at the same time. I won't go into all of them, but you cannot just put in a bunch of the same weapon and hold down the trigger. The most notable ones are the biggest weapons who can only fire 1 or 2 at a time for normal levels of heat. Firing 3 or 4 PPC's will double the heat they generate.

Just rotate your fire instead of alpha striking.

2. Project Phoenix mechs. The rights to SOME of the oldest mechs for the game have been dealt with. So we got 8 more mechs that we shouldn't have. Locust, Shadow Hawk, Wolverine, Griffin, Thunderbolt, and BattleMaster.

3. New maps, and most of the old maps have had the spawn locations changed, and changed again for the other game modes (you won't spawn in the same spot for a game of Assault vs a game of Conquest). The smaller maps can't fit changes like that, so Frozen City and Forest Colony have not changed. Also, Alpine Peaks map for Conquest has had most of the flags moved to the center of the map, and nobody starts near a flag, and you also don't get any flags at the start of a game.

4. New game mode, Skirmish. It is like Assault, but they ditched the home base flags. To win you have to kill them all.

5. Beagle Active Probe now counters ECM at close range (under 200 meters). PPC cannons also knock out an ECM for a few seconds if you hit the enemy ECM carrier. Those two changes have nerfed the overpowered ECM to the point that nobody is complaining about them anymore, yet ECM is still worthwhile.

6. New modules, in particular the consumable coolant flush, artillery strikes, air strikes, and UAV drones that counter ECM and target everything in range.

7. New LRM and SRM shot patterns. The SRM in particular now works much better at it's full range of 270 meters as the missile spread happens at short range, and then all of them fly parallel from then on. (Note: SRM's currently have a bug and sometimes do no damage when they hit)

8. Guass Rifles now have a "charge up" time. You have to hold down the fire button for 1 second before you can fire. This is also known as the "hold breath" mechanic from other FPS shooter games for snipers, and the Guass Rifle is now the game's sniper rifle style weapon. In reality this change was probably due more to the fact that Ghost Heat doesn't affect the Guass Rifle, and still doesn't, so something else had to be done to make it have a down side to having two of them.

9. 3rd person view. You can hit F4 to get an external viewpoint of your mech. It also launches a small, indestructable drone with a blinking red light to explain how you can have such a view, and yet it makes it clear to the enemy where you are. If you can see them, they can see your camera drone.

People complained about it that it would be cheating, but your mech arms lock and you lose some of your field of fire, and you also see your crosshair move around as you pass it over close and long range terrains, messing up your aim. You also lose your mini-map/radar screen in 3rd person.

It was thought to be a horrible, game breaking change, but the downsides of 3rd person view are significant enough that it is rarely seen, and barely anybody even mentions it anymore. Currently there is a bug where going into 3rd person turns off your ambient engine noise when you return to 1st person view, although shutting down and powering back up reset that sound effect.

really? I hope they dont fix that bug as the Griffin makes some rather annoying noises...... so I would love to use this to kill them.

[Jay Kerensky]

Some people are still morons too - you can spot them though when you're on a team and they all run off and die one by one

[Adran]

Jay Kerensky, on 18 January 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

Some people are still morons too - you can spot them though when you're on a team and they all run off and die one by one

I think it's impossible to tell the smart people from the morons then. It seems to me that everyone does this.

[Jay Kerensky]

Adran, on 18 January 2014 - 02:09 AM, said:

I think it's impossible to tell the smart people from the morons then. It seems to me that everyone does this.

Occasionally, mostly though I can't be bothered, it's worth taking command and trying to get everyone to group up at a good sector of the map. I've had a a couple of games where this paid off and it was the other team that came in ones or twos against our whole force. Simple, but effective and still not one of the really satisfying games that comes down to the wire with only one or two survivors. While those sorts of games seem to be rare when pugging, it keeps you going, hoping for more like it.

[Remorce]

Thanks Hans! I really appreciate the detailed explanations!