518 replies to this topic

[MustrumRidcully]

Heffay, on 23 January 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

You take their sniper lance and make them hide for 30 seconds. Rinse. Repeat.

Even if you get them to back down from a ridge for a second so you can hold your side, you change who gets the first shot. If they come up, you can fire and duck down before they have a chance to aim and fire.

Who is to say they hide? Maybe they just live with the fact that the enemy can fire at them anyway and they can fire for longer?

And then, as the metagame evolves, people realize that sniping alone isn't a safe bet anymore, because you expose yourself to LRM fire. But LRM fire has a weakness - close range builds. So people will counter those happy LRM boating Narcers with brawlers. Maybe people will start mixing up things, and keep LRMs, Brawlers and Snipers in a team so they can react to the enemy tactics and movements with the right counter.

Of course, I am not so naive to belive that this is what will absolutely happen - it could very well be the change is too little to change the dynamics, or that its too strong and brawlers still can't help the situation against the new LRM/Narc flavour. THat's all possible. It will very likely require further tweaking.

But this alone could be a goal - if LRM / Narcers don't counter Snipers? Buff it some more. If Brawlers fail to counter the new LRM/Narcers, buff either brawlers, or if you worry about Time To KIll getting too short, nerf LRMs and Snipers again.

[Kjudoon]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 January 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

I'm just not scared of this version of NARC...even when I don't have ECM, LRM's don't really scare me. Between movement, jump jets and cover...it's just not hard to avoid it.

I mean I guess using NARC you could scare someone into hiding for 30 seconds.

But half the problem in PUG's is...you bring NARC...but there is only one LRM boat...so it's basically a waste of time.

Everyone else is sporting PPC's/AC's/ER Large Lasers.

Now THERE is a smart pilot. Good on you, sir!

But obviously, you have not played against me and my fellow lancemates much. More often than you'd think, we have 60-120 LRM tubes between us with someone spotting. Then the Pain Train makes a missle stop tour at every station.

Choo-choo.

[Fais]

Well that only took a ~couple years....

[Kjudoon]

Effectz, on 23 January 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

How about looking at SRM's Paul,they've only been broken for months,I guess NARC beacon takes priority of course.

OP ECM was the bigger problem. NOW I'd say SRMs and LRM speed is high on the list.

[DocBach]

Kjudoon, on 23 January 2014 - 01:37 PM, said:

Now THERE is a smart pilot. Good on you, sir!

But obviously, you have not played against me and my fellow lancemates much. More often than you'd think, we have 60-120 LRM tubes between us with someone spotting. Then the Pain Train makes a missle stop tour at every station.

Choo-choo.

In a pug match or four man with pugs, that might be scary, because it's hard to rally your pugs to move to contact. They like to give up the initiative at the first sign of danger and turtle up behind the same piece of cover, usually one that traps them like fish in barrels.

Against some more disciplined or smarter opponents who use cover and concealment to hide behind and jump sniper, or even advance into your minimum range, not so much.

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

Wait, how does one four ton weapon invalidate 60 tons of weapons? ECM only weighs a ton and a half.

If you NARC a DDC atlas with 45 tons of weapons in it's loadout, keeping it behind cover while your team advances under suppression fire from a missile boat because they'd get nuked in short order, that is shutting down those weapons which could be dealing damage over that same time period. That is how a single NARC round can counter that weight. On an HGN meta, that's 2 UAC5s and 2 PPCs not firing at you for 30 seconds. A LOT can happen in that time.

[DocBach]

Kjudoon, on 23 January 2014 - 01:41 PM, said:

OP ECM was the bigger problem. NOW I'd say SRMs and LRM speed is high on the list.

ECM is still unbalanced - put Narc on a scale with ECM, see which one weighs more and still does less.

[Kjudoon]

Mystere, on 23 January 2014 - 10:50 AM, said:

Let's be honest here. ECM just got nerfed, and in a big way too. So everyone should rejoice, unless of course you were using ECM as a crutch.

Right. You've nerfed BAD ecm pilots. Good ones who used cover and smart play anyway... they're not as affected. Why? Because they're not gonna catch a NARC beacon in the butt. Now if the NARC Beacon actually has a radius effect knocking out multiple ECM signals inside it's radius, then it'd be OP. If it only knocks out that one source's ECM, meh. Not OP. I'd be good on either being the case too.

[DocBach]

Kjudoon, on 23 January 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

If you NARC a DDC atlas with 45 tons of weapons in it's loadout, keeping it behind cover while your team advances under suppression fire from a missile boat because they'd get nuked in short order, that is shutting down those weapons which could be dealing damage over that same time period. That is how a single NARC round can counter that weight. On an HGN meta, that's 2 UAC5s and 2 PPCs not firing at you for 30 seconds. A LOT can happen in that time.

So why does the D-DC being Narc'd stop the Highlanders? They're still only targetable for a moment when they pop for their shot, and you lose lock once they pop back down. Even if you keep lock, the cover they are behind will absorb the missiles.

Now, if Narc made missiles traverse better over hills......

[Kjudoon]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 January 2014 - 12:02 PM, said:

This basically.

LRM's abuse bad players, this new NARC will amplify that. But it's not something you'd see in serious match play.

I weep for CW, when matches matter. People are going to get yelled at for using things like LRM's or LBX-10's.

With how buffed ACs are right now, cry me a river. I just can't care. LRMs need a niche to put them back on par with them. Heck, right now ballistics travel faster than lightning. that's sick and wrong. LRMs don't even travel a quarter the speed of the slowest ballistic. Again, horsecrap. I've no sympathy for those screaming this NARC puts LRMS into OP-land.

that's malarky of the first water.

[DocBach]

Kjudoon, on 23 January 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

With how buffed ACs are right now, cry me a river. I just can't care. LRMs need a niche to put them back on par with them. Heck, right now ballistics travel faster than lightning. that's sick and wrong. LRMs don't even travel a quarter the speed of the slowest ballistic. Again, horsecrap. I've no sympathy for those screaming this NARC puts LRMS into OP-land.

that's malarky of the first water.

He's not saying that LRM's are overpowered, he's saying that even with a Narc counter to ECM LRM's are still largely inefficient for the amount of effort it takes to use them in this game with ECM retaining the function it currently has; serious players will continue to use direct fire, pinpoint alpha builds and chastise players that don't.

Edited by DocBach, 23 January 2014 - 01:54 PM.

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

So why does the D-DC being Narc'd stop the Highlanders? They're still only targetable for a moment when they pop for their shot, and you lose lock once they pop back down. Even if you keep lock, the cover they are behind will absorb the missiles.

Now, if Narc made missiles traverse better over hills......

NARC that HGN and he's on the other side of cover with a crybaby going 'shoot here shoot here', you've got 30 seconds to get me and that's enough time for 5-8 salvos that he probably can't hide from them all. How do I know this? I've been learning how to be a counterbattery against those same poptarts with actually good success when the conditions line up. This will just make my job all the easier.

[DocBach]

Now think about the effort it takes to provide counter battery against one target....

Does it seem like a fair return on investment to turn off ECM to use LRM's?

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 01:53 PM, said:

He's not saying that LRM's are overpowered, he's saying that even with a Narc counter to ECM LRM's are still largely inefficient for the amount of effort it takes to use them in this game with ECM retaining the function it currently has; serious players will continue to use direct fire, pinpoint alpha builds and chastise players that don't.

in that regard, you're right. LRMs aren't pinpoint. Nothing but ACs and PPCs are. It's why that's all I see on most teams in competative play from the meta runners. But they do have their downsides LRMs can overcome, and as Hit Box Detection improves, they too will improve. There is a place for LRMs in competative play, but it's coming. Every new tactic discovered and weapons tweak changes the meta. This will never change. Of course, 44 points of LRMs with Artemis with LOS... you may as well have been hit by an AC 40, or some other scary damage dealer.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

WOW DUDE, SO COOL. Your 4 man premade kills PUG's! Good job. You are right, when I'm solo dropping, if I run into your team, I'm probably going to lose unless ELO put me with 11 other good players and stuck you with a bunch of noobs.

On the other hand, if I'm in a 4 man of equal skill to yours? One of two things is going to happen, we're going to sit behind cover and kill your spotter, then jump snipe you to death. Or we'll use cover to move on your position and slaughter you one by one because of your dead zone.

And god forbid my group has 4 ECM light mechs, because guess what? Your group of LRM mechs won't touch us at all while we bum rush you. Because LRM's suck against light's and you aren't stopping 4 ECM's.

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

Now think about the effort it takes to provide counter battery against one target....

Does it seem like a fair return on investment to turn off ECM to use LRM's?

Depends on your style of play, what you're good at and how well your equipment works in game. I'm sure I'll use LRMs less if ever my framerate improves to stay over 16fps at all times. If DX11 does what it's reported to do, I look forward to it more. Some people are bad shots but great at timing, patience and battlefield awareness. Others, excellent shots and make great snipers. Both should have an equal place on the battlefield.

Nicholas Carlyle, on 23 January 2014 - 02:01 PM, said:

WOW DUDE, SO COOL. Your 4 man premade kills PUG's! Good job. You are right, when I'm solo dropping, if I run into your team, I'm probably going to lose unless ELO put me with 11 other good players and stuck you with a bunch of noobs.

On the other hand, if I'm in a 4 man of equal skill to yours? One of two things is going to happen, we're going to sit behind cover and kill your spotter, then jump snipe you to death. Or we'll use cover to move on your position and slaughter you one by one because of your dead zone.

And god forbid my group has 4 ECM light mechs, because guess what? Your group of LRM mechs won't touch us at all while we bum rush you. Because LRM's suck against light's and you aren't stopping 4 ECM's.

One of my greatest joys is watching that spider/commando/raven thinking they're invinciblle against a missle boat get double legged when they realize I have more pewpew on my mech than LRMs and can really klll them close in too.

Please run. You'll only die tired. With the new NARC? Twice as fast.

[DocBach]

Yes, the meta will shift and what competitive players prefer shifts with changes.

But this Narc shift isn't going to change much at high end levels of play as it will for players in public matches.

The best way I would say to shift balance towards LRM's would be to tone down ECM, speed up LRM flight time so you can't casually walk back behind a rock and laugh them off, and give AC's accuracy deviation to represent recoil/external ballistics/etc to make them less precise.

I'm sorry you only get 16fps, but if you had the ability to turn and track targets you'd see that there are more effective ways of killing the enemy than LRM's. Ask Joe Mallan - when he started playing he was on an i3 laptop without a graphics card and got about 4fps on average and played strict LRM support.

We pitched in on Veteran's Day a couple years back and built him a desktop and he found a completely different game to play.

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

In a pug match or four man with pugs, that might be scary, because it's hard to rally your pugs to move to contact. They like to give up the initiative at the first sign of danger and turtle up behind the same piece of cover, usually one that traps them like fish in barrels.

Against some more disciplined or smarter opponents who use cover and concealment to hide behind and jump sniper, or even advance into your minimum range, not so much.

That is true. Against serious competative groups like Sword of Kentares, ACES Wild, QQ Mercs, Steel Jaguars and Smoke Jaguars... they are good enough to be disciplined through it all. Been there, done that, can provide a map to my smoking corpse. NARC will hardly effect them. They are hardcore meta players and with thousands, if not tens of thousands of 12 man drops between them to back it up. Then again, those groups, I'm just happy to get 1-4 kills on them since when I am in 12 man drops I'm no where NEAR their level of skill or practice. It's like comparing High School or Triple A college ball to NFL playoff teams or NCAA football to pop warner.

[Kjudoon]

DocBach, on 23 January 2014 - 02:06 PM, said:

Yes, the meta will shift and what competitive players prefer shifts with changes.

But this Narc shift isn't going to change much at high end levels of play as it will for players in public matches.

The best way I would say to shift balance towards LRM's would be to tone down ECM, speed up LRM flight time so you can't casually walk back behind a rock and laugh them off, and give AC's accuracy deviation to represent recoil/external ballistics/etc to make them less precise.

I'm sorry you only get 16fps, but if you had the ability to turn and track targets you'd see that there are more effective ways of killing the enemy than LRM's. Ask Joe Mallan - when he started playing he was on an i3 laptop without a graphics card and got about 4fps on average and played strict LRM support.

We pitched in on Veteran's Day a couple years back and built him a desktop and he found a completely different game to play.

Now that's a great group of guys right there. I'm a bit better off than that, and agree, at the top level of play, you can't deviate from the meta much if at all because it is, in the end, the most efficient way to slay an opponent with two caveats.

Meta requires high quality (read expensive) equipment and controls
Meta requires high level of skill (read lots of matches and practice)

We almost do need a skill tier section. I don't think it's in play for 12 men or somehow PuG skill is being counted as 12man skill.

[Imperius]

Thank you!