70 replies to this topic

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Victor Morson, on 04 February 2014 - 07:06 AM, said:

Why Wolverine over Griffin?
...
the Wolverine really has yet to impress me. It's not horrible or anything, but it's just so... middle of the road.

Oops, I have a blind spot when it comes to Streaks. In terms of ruining Lights (and other Mediums, really), the GRF is an excellent choice.

And middle-of-the-road is why I choose the Wolverine over the Griffin. I prefer jacks-of-all-trades, is all. That way I'm not boned when I meet someone whose build is a hard counter to a specialised one. And yes, I know, I am a horrible player and in no way competitive and I don't know what I'm doing if I choose that route, yada yada yada. YMMV.

Tesunie, on 04 February 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

I don't know. Preference maybe? Maybe he's got a really mean custom on his Wolverine?

Several, actually.

[Tesunie]

Arnold J Rimmer, on 04 February 2014 - 08:57 AM, said:

And yes, I know, I am a horrible player and in no way competitive and I don't know what I'm doing if I choose that route, yada yada yada. YMMV.

Oh! You know VIctor too! I thought I was just special...

Can you guess what he's called most of my builds? Oh, I guess you already do somehow. Mindreader...

Victor is a competitive player. We (I'm guessing so with you at least) are PUG players. We live at two different realms of this game. What works for Victor doesn't always work for us (such as my Stalker build). He tends to give good advice, but his offhanded way to telling people how "wrong they are" gets a little... annoying...


Edit: I suggest my war blimp... ahh... Stalker because I love how it looks, love the balanced loadout (blow out one side, and I'm still fairly good with half my weapons), and I love missiles and lasers... And pretending I'm a mobile fortress... Or even a T-rex... Or a little ball of death...

Edited by Tesunie, 04 February 2014 - 09:05 AM.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Tesunie, on 04 February 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

We (I'm guessing so with you at least) are PUG players. We live at two different realms of this game. What works for Victor doesn't always work for us (such as my Stalker build). He tends to give good advice, but his offhanded way to telling people how "wrong they are" gets a little... annoying...

Oh, I know Victor. I do keep up with what he says, because it tends to be the most up-to-date data on the min-max game in MWO. I just disagree with him when he says it's the only way to play.

As for me, I play both PUG and 12-man games. And I take my jack-of-all-trades into both (couldn't call them that, otherwise! ) without too much trouble. I let the meta guys focus on taking out the 'dangerous' and 'priority' meta-mechs and shark around the place killing things. Until they realise I'm there, and then I get ten AC/20 shells and forty PPC bolts to the torso and bite it.

[Koniving]

Tesunie, on 03 February 2014 - 11:20 PM, said:

And was there in lore, models, description, other art... It's a signature part of the Shadowhawk. (Just mentioning.)

It's like the tall and wide Awesome. It's part of the mech as that is how the mech looks. You are in part correct. The art was done without consideration to a 3D environment. This has lead to certain things when it is converted into a 3D concept, giving some machines more or less advantages because of their very design and looks. (Basically, I don't know if you where, but don't place any blame on the PGI art staff. If anything, blame lore, and classic BT, and the novels...)

Agreed. Actually, if you go by the armor levels of the stock Shadowhawks, most of them were never meant to brawl. They were tall to see over large cliffs.

Its weapons and design reflect its intention as a recon mech, spotter, and ranged support for a heavy lance.
Sarna:

"A recon and strike BattleMech developed during the Golden Age, the Shadow Hawk is a powerful fusion of maneuverability and firepower. With long-range missiles and a class-5 autocannon for ranged combat, and SRMs and lasers for close-in work, the Shadow Hawk outguns many BattleMechs in its weight class. Jump Jets enhance an already speedy BattleMech's ability to bring its guns to bear and keep better-armed enemies at range. A superior BattleMech for commanding a reconnaissance company or serving as a spotter for heavy and assault lances, the Shadow Hawk is a proven and capable design that has served with distinction for more than five centuries."

"Ranged combat" with some backups. Jumpjets, keeps better-armed enemies at range. Mech for commanding a reconnaissance company. Serving as a spotter. Hmm..

Not a single mention of brawling. Then you look at the starting armor. Inferior to a Centurion and Blackjack whose starting armor is inferior to a Hunchback. The 2H has more than a Centurion but is still inferior to a Hunchback in armor. Only the 5M has more armor and comes with a huge sacrifice in weaponry for it.

Spoiler

So in terms of how it was supposed to be, the Shadowhawk is in no way superior.

But MWO was developed by people who took the all mechs of weight class have the same structure (but not the same armor limits) and then "Oh, well, we'll give them identical armor limits too to make them equal." Mechs were not meant to be created equal. And if that inequality was kept in armor, the inequality in weapons would be much better balanced. Awesome would have more armor as a max over the Victor. Jager would be paper thin as per lore, even when maxed out. Locusts, Commandos 1-B and 2-D, the Jenner-D, and the Cicadas would have identical armor to one another but different structure healths (with the Cicada having significantly more).

So yeah.

But in MWO, the Shadowhawk maintains the lore on everything but armor limits. It starts out with long range weapons and a fear of close engagements. And players turn it into a walking AC/20 and complain about it obsoleting the superior Hunchback, because of the way PGI has given armor equality per weight class and the player's need to optimize everything to exploit every flaw of the game.

[Sandpit]

A stalker is going to be one of the best mechs to learn assaults with as well as giving you a great diverse mech that can fill all kinds of different roles. I'd suggest starting with it and playing around in the mech lab. It's a very forgiving mech and relatively easy to get the feel for

[Koniving]

AngerMaker, on 03 February 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

I've heard things about the wolverine from you guys what's that all about I haven't seen that mech thanks again

It's currently uploading, but I made a video (actually recorded several but this'll do for now) just for you featuring the Wolverine.


It'll be ready when you can see a picture in the window, so check back if it's not up when you see this!

[Victor Morson]

Koniving, on 04 February 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Sarna:

"A recon and strike BattleMech developed during the Golden Age, the Shadow Hawk is a powerful fusion of maneuverability and firepower. With long-range missiles and a class-5 autocannon for ranged combat, and SRMs and lasers for close-in work, the Shadow Hawk outguns many BattleMechs in its weight class. Jump Jets enhance an already speedy BattleMech's ability to bring its guns to bear and keep better-armed enemies at range. A superior BattleMech for commanding a reconnaissance company or serving as a spotter for heavy and assault lances, the Shadow Hawk is a proven and capable design that has served with distinction for more than five centuries."

The thing to remember with with the table top fluff is .. it was often hilariously inaccurate at even describing a 'mechs role even on tabletop.That's why the fluff includes hilarious stuff like "A rear mounted medium laser discourages attacks from behind" and "An AC/2 provides long range striking power." Nobody in their right mind would use the Shadow Hawk as a spotter on Table Top, as it has notoriously poor armor in it's stock configuration.

[Tesunie]

Victor Morson, on 05 February 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

The thing to remember with with the table top fluff is .. it was often hilariously inaccurate at even describing a 'mechs role even on tabletop.That's why the fluff includes hilarious stuff like "A rear mounted medium laser discourages attacks from behind" and "An AC/2 provides long range striking power." Nobody in their right mind would use the Shadow Hawk as a spotter on Table Top, as it has notoriously poor armor in it's stock configuration.

But in fluff (novels, etc), that was it's intended role. It may not have translated into the same role for TT, but that doesn't change what it was "intended" for in lore. If this mech was in a novel, it would probably be having been described using the high AC mount to shoot over tall hills, or to use it's height to spot targets with more ease.

I think the problem is we have several "sets" of lore. The sets of lore stand as:
- Novel and written lore.
- TT and table games.
- MW and computer 3D games.

Each piece of "lore" has different things doing different roles, because it was "effective" in that iteration of imagination/rules.

[Koniving]

Victor Morson, on 05 February 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

Nobody in their right mind would use the Shadow Hawk as a spotter on Table Top, as it has notoriously poor armor in it's stock configuration.

Indeed. If you used said Shadowhawk to navigate around the common territory along edges in an effort to find enemy prey all you need to do was find said targets and shoot them while moving your main force over there.

In said situations, both teams (if limited to only two I've had games where it would be up to 6 teams some with alliances and some without) do NOT share the same number of mechs either. The Shadowhawk was considerably superior to certain other lights and nearly as fast as Jenners, Locusts, Mercuries, etc., while sporting somewhat more armor and superior structure and lots more firepower.

Between them in their stock, would you prefer a Jenner (who has the armor of a Locust) or a Shadowhawk, who has the armor slightly shorter than a Centurion even if vastly inferior to a Hunchback?

[Victor Morson]

Koniving, on 05 February 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

Indeed. If you used said Shadowhawk to navigate around the common territory along edges in an effort to find enemy prey all you need to do was find said targets and shoot them while moving your main force over there.

In said situations, both teams (if limited to only two I've had games where it would be up to 6 teams some with alliances and some without) do NOT share the same number of mechs either. The Shadowhawk was considerably superior to certain other lights and nearly as fast as Jenners, Locusts, Mercuries, etc., while sporting somewhat more armor and superior structure and lots more firepower.

Between them in their stock, would you prefer a Jenner (who has the armor of a Locust) or a Shadowhawk, who has the armor slightly shorter than a Centurion even if vastly inferior to a Hunchback?

Well for a Spotter, I'd even be tempted to take an Assassin over a Shadow Hawk in TT, and the Assassin is pretty bad! The Shadow Hawk, if you've got one (I really don't care for it much in TT to be honest), is a solid little flanking unit to keep hidden and spring on people's rears when you win init. At that, it's pretty decent.

So really if I was writing the fluff I definitely would have framed it as a backstabber, not a spotter. Because that'd fit it very well for what it actually does.

Also I forgot how bad the Jenner-D was for armor in it's stock, heh. I almost exclusively used the Jenner-F is manually picking and lucked out avoiding Jenner-Ds in general in most random games I've played. heh

[Asmudius Heng]

Koniving, on 03 February 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

This is just random...

Spoiler

but if the Shadowhawks (and all mechs) had armor maximums based on what they started with... the Shadowhawk would be -- in terms of armor -- inferior to some mechs including the Hunchback and Centurion. It easily makes up for that with its firepower. Except the Shadowhawk 5M, which has better armor than any Hunchback (by less than 20 points), but its firepower is on par with the Hunchback hero Grid Iron (which is inferior and less heat efficient to other shadowhawks).

The Centurion used to be somewhat faster than Hunchbacks, with superior ability to aim which would make up for the would be inferior armor and sometimes inferior firepower. (The Centurion D and A were inferior in armor, D is faster, the A had impressive arm range, and the CN9-AL had armor that surpassed that of all Hunchbacks.) Meanwhile the Griffin and Kintaro would be on par with the Centurion sans the cannon which gives the Centurion its superiority over them, and Wolverine would be a few steps in the heavy and assault mech direction in terms of armor making up for its lack of 'instant' firepower.

Ah, but one can dream. When you can, check out stock armor values on the mechs in smurfy. What if instead of the global armor value for that weight class, each variant could only use 100 more points of armor maximum from stock values?

For mech differentiation I think something like this would be good. Rather than every mech being the same armour wise the canon variant would determine how much your maximum armour could be so some will always be less armoured as this would be a design quirk.

There would be an information gathering skill then at being able to pick variants and knowing who is going to be the weakest armourwise (but probably has the most guns or speed)

I also think that some mechs need different armour options based on hit boxes. What if the Hunchback could add more armour to its hunch, but you still could not go over the maximum amount of armour allowed so you would need to strip it from somewhere else to compensate.

More differentiation between mechs and varients is welcome and I wish this would be considered so some mechs can BE the armoured hulks of lore and others the glass cannons etc

Build in design flaws and quirks make the game more fun and can be used as balancing agents as well.