585 replies to this topic

[Eglar]

Spoiler

PhoenixFire55, on 04 March 2014 - 12:16 AM, said:

lol ... mere 15 points. Thats 15 points PER GAME, 150 points added to a total score. More that enough to make all the difference between 1st place and 10th place in most classes.

And if you use both arty and airstrike its more likely to be 250-300 points. I doubt there is more than 5% (if any at all) among all top 10 tourney standings who did NOT use both arty/air for each of their top 10 games.

I find it funny when people claim arty is only dropped into large groups of 'campers'. If you are in an assault mech like HGL or ATL you move at 64 kph tops, there is no way to avoid a properly dropped artillery strike due to lack of speed and manouverability EVEN if you move all the time.

Or, when you fight on smth like River City, you mostly fight around that big building in the middle. You can say that teams 'camp' behind it while in reality there is no way to not 'camp'. You go left into open space you get shot by other team, you go right into open space you get shot by other team just the same. I'm not sure how it is in your matches, but in mine, if you stay outside cover for longer than 5 seconds you are dead. So yes, teams tend to 'camp' a lot, but not only 'sniper' builds, but 'brawler' builds as well.

Besides, I've seen arty/air been used on SINGLE assault mechs all the time, even on single scouts in conquest mode, when somebody just drops arty on a certain resource point based on cap meter from like 1000m away from it not even knowing what is capturing it.

Artillery strikes are a needed part of the game, BUT it has to be what it is supposed to be. It is NOT supposed to be a way to boost your damage by 400 points, and it is NOT supposed to be used non-stop every 30 seconds. I've had matches where my team had 10-12 arty/air dropped on it during the match. Tell me, is it MechWarrior Online or Artillery simulator?

Edit:grammar

While I understand your sentiment for arty strikes and at the same time admit that they are hard to evade because of the poor visibility and because you can't make up the difference between arty and air strikes (yes, there's a huge difference), they are perfect tie breakers.

With 12vs12 introduced, people tend to form Mech-balls by sticking closely together. How much chance do you have to survive this with only your weapons?

They require as much skill as it does to fire an LRM-Salvo or an Alpha-Strike, admittedly with a much more devastating result, should it hit. And here comes the drawback: While your Alpha Strike usually instantly hits, your Arty has an 5 Seconds Delay.this leaves most people enough time to evade and brings more dynamic and movement into the game which I personally prefer.

How often do you get to kill a fresh mech with an Arty? once out of 100? I am sorry to say that but If a lance manages to get hit by 3 or more consecutive arty strikes it's their own fault for not moving.

As of now, Arties are a part of the game and I know alot of people who can't bother to buy them because they have to restock them every match - That's okay but than live with it. Every good player would still perform well even if the game didn't have Arties.

[ShinVector]

You can view arty in another way... It is legal cheese from PGI..
Basically an AOE weapon that any mech can choose to use.

With its high damage capability.. Would choosing not to carry one and causing great damage or kill the enemy team with it.
Now is this a good thing or bad thing for your team's winning chances ?

[PhoenixFire55]

Eglar, on 04 March 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

With 12vs12 introduced, people tend to form Mech-balls by sticking closely together. How much chance do you have to survive this with only your weapons?

But people still do it, arty doesn't change it in any way. Its a proper strategy at this point of time in MWO in most cases. Poor game mode design can't be compensated with just as poorly implemented artillery/airstrikes.

Eglar, on 04 March 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

They require as much skill as it does to fire an LRM-Salvo or an Alpha-Strike, admittedly with a much more devastating result, should it hit. And here comes the drawback: While your Alpha Strike usually instantly hits, your Arty has an 5 Seconds Delay.this leaves most people enough time to evade and brings more dynamic and movement into the game which I personally prefer.

I admit it takes some skill to do it effectively, but its not all that hard. Besides, you drop it 10m behind enemy line and they won't ever see it coming. If anything, it discourages brawling just as much as it discourages grouping closely together. So often I see a good brawl ending with a losing mech just calling artillery on itself right before it dies to cripple/kill the mech that is about to kill it. Its not supposed to be like this.

I'm not against artillery, I'm just saying that its broken as it is now. For starters, limit it to command console only mechs.

Eglar, on 04 March 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

How often do you get to kill a fresh mech with an Arty? once out of 100? I am sorry to say that but If a lance manages to get hit by 3 or more consecutive arty strikes it's their own fault for not moving.

Been headshotted twice by arty just this sunday (full head armor on assault mech). People dropping it into single assault mechs all the time, single light capping base/resource points. Not supposed to happen ...

Eglar, on 04 March 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

As of now, Arties are a part of the game and I know alot of people who can't bother to buy them because they have to restock them every match - That's okay but than live with it. Every good player would still perform well even if the game didn't have Arties.

Sure but it had a simple purpose to why it was introduced in the first place. Its not serving this purpose at all now.

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 01:46 AM, said:

Now is this a good thing or bad thing for your team's winning chances ?

Its a bad thing for gameplay, because even tho it is supposed to prevent teams from sitting all together in one place, teams still do it. Not because they are not afraid of arty, but rather because so often you don't have a choice.

My biggest issue remains same, it is used way too much. It is used to purely do damage, not to break large groups of mechs. Something that can do 200-300 damage easy with no heat, weights nothing is hardly matches the terms of balance. Most importantly, it can be used on resource points as well as your own goddamn base in assault to defend it. I mean, really? You defend your own base by bombing the sh!t out of it?

[ShinVector]

PhoenixFire55, on 04 March 2014 - 02:12 AM, said:

Its a bad thing for gameplay, because even tho it is supposed to prevent teams from sitting all together in one place, teams still do it. Not because they are not afraid of arty, but rather because so often you don't have a choice.

My biggest issue remains same, it is used way too much. It is used to purely do damage, not to break large groups of mechs. Something that can do 200-300 damage easy with no heat, weights nothing is hardly matches the terms of balance. Most importantly, it can be used on resource points as well as your own goddamn base in assault to defend it. I mean, really? You defend your own base by bombing the sh!t out of it?

We are playing different games... Even in a light mech... Even I run away the hell away from an arty strike if, I know its coming.

You have to really sit back and read what you are saying.. Pgi gives you a 40K hand grenade to use on mechs and you do not want to use it because it is used too much ??
You are not playing this game to win apparently..

Options are given and players have to adapt to increase their chances of winning...
People who refuse to adapt.. Will eventually get frustrated, quit and move to other games...

Edited by ShinVector, 04 March 2014 - 02:50 AM.

[Kyynele]

Mexicutioner46, on 03 March 2014 - 04:34 PM, said:

Again, this anti-arty/airstrike arguments for the tournament is a moot argurment. Arty/Airstrikes are not heat seeking, gauranteed ~200 damage modules. It still takes some skill to be able strategically place the arty and AA in the most efficient and tactical place. I saw dozens of horribly wasted 40,000 C-Bills placed during the weekend. There is a subtle art to AA/arty placement. And again, they are available to EVERYONE for C-Bills. I spent 80k a match and still made ~180k a match (on the good ones) without premium time and in my non-phoenix mechs (100k profit on good games.)

I'd like to add that placing them strikes well in a mech that can't jump is pretty hard and often pretty dangerous. I also found a bunch of new invisible (expensive!) walls I wasn't aware of before.

One airstrike was particularily memorable for me in this tournament, and not in the way that it dealt crazy damage. In an Alpine conquest match, the opposing side had a Cataphract pilot who was obviously an exceptionally good shot. In a couple minutes to the game, he took down 3 guys from my team and as soon enough I bumped into him, he quickly tore my Cicada to shreds. I barely managed to hide behind a hill fully knowing that the next time I would see him he'd kill me. I got lucky with the last effort airstrike I placed on him, and took him out with that. That strike did 40-80 damage max, so tournament score wise it was pretty insignificant, but at that point it saved my ass and eventually got me a 5 kill 4 assist 850 damage won and survived match, which was not the best ever but significant none the less.

[o0Marduk0o]

Eglar, on 03 March 2014 - 10:52 PM, said:

Shin was on an Firestarter-E 4xMG 4xMLas
Ed was on a Jenner-F 6xMLas
Lord Azurescens was on a Raven-3L 2x ER Large
Coburn was on a Jenner-F 6xMLas
badkilik was on a Raven-3L 2x ER Large if I remember right.
H0rste33 was also ona Raven-3L with 2xER Large according to someone else

[...]

Didn't see/pay enough attention to the others though.

I used a Firestarter-H with 5 MLas + 2 MG

[Ironwithin]

I ran this baby for the biggest part:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b60ec014bb7fe04

+Arty, Air and AdvZoom(I just can't live without it)

Chainfiring the ACs (with a little luck considering the jam-rate) keeps other 'mechs dreadfully busy. Fun to watch.

Competition on sunday was waaaay hard, I just couldn't break into the sweetzone of 240-260 points to increase my score anymore. It was great fun and I haven't been this motivated to play MWO for months.

Edited by Ironwithin, 04 March 2014 - 03:25 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

We are playing different games... Even in a light mech... Even I run away the hell away from an arty strike if, I know its coming.

As long as you have a safe zone to run, sure. Now what if the only way to avoid artillery is to run into an open area with 8 mechs waiting to shred you when you do? In a light, maybe, wicked piloting and a bit of luck will result in little damage, in anything that isn't light you'll be as good as dead.

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

You have to really sit back and read what you are saying.. Pgi gives you a 40K hand grenade to use on mechs and you do not want to use it because it is used too much ??

I don't want to use it just because. Because I'd rather have those extra c-bills, because I'd rather use other modules, because I'd rather not abuse a broken tool. Same reason I hardly ever use LRMs, I don't like weapons that can be effectively used in no-skill mode.

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

You are not playing this game to win apparently..

I'm glad you noticed, now you only need to understand game isn't ONLY about winning.

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 02:50 AM, said:

Options are given and players have to adapt to increase their chances of winning...
People who refuse to adapt.. Will eventually get frustrated, quit and move to other games...

Yeah, right. I'm sure a lot of arty-babies are gonna cry and leave when arty gets nerfed.

[R3qUi3M]

I see one big issue with tournaments like this - ELO rating. Here is my story how i realized how insignificant my score was...

I played in the tournament for 12-14h. Managed to get TOP14 shadowhawk with nearly 2300pts but then i droped last day because i didnt have more time to play (played about 100 games in that tournament). I thought that I was doing realy good considering the fact that i have played only 800 games total in this game so far (i play for 1,5 months till now). Also, half of the time i played with my Shadowhawk 2H (3xAC2 + ML build) to discover later my "vanilla" build on 5M SHD (that skyrocketed my score last day). My ego was satisfied... but here is what happened later...

I played yesterday with couple of friends and found myself doing realy good amount of damage each game with my SHD-5M (average 600 no matter if win or loss). I thought I have improved a lot during the weekend tournament grind, that maybe in fact I'm world top 15 best shadowhawk . I played with another dude from my clan that has like 2.0 k/d ratio and approx 8000 games. And i found myself compleetly DEVASTATED in like 5-6 games in a row (i think my best game was me doing 250dmg, worst at 15dmg and averaging around 80dmg). It wasn't even devastation - i was slaughtered like cattle! I litteraly lived for 2 seconds when i saw any enemy! They hited my center torso cleanly with almost unbelievable concentration of firepower (my other parts was almost always unscratched)! My SHD was just f**ng burned in every game like it's been made of paper! I suddenly felt i have plastic armor and shoot an airgun... Seriously... I realized that my massive dmg in pug play during the weekend was only due to the fact I'm realy low elo with my 800 games and 1.6 k/d ratio. On other words - I totally suck! I'm not even close to beeing top 100 probably!

So the thing about theese tournaments is that ELO either should be disabled for the time of event or score should be multiplied by ELO rating factor. Otherwise score is meaningless - shows only the grind dedication and effort - not skill level of a pilot! So conclusion is that I can just wipe my ass with that 2300pts because there might be a dude there that has 2300pts and can kill my barely scratched shadowhawk with a legged, "pew-pew" laser jenner. ;/ Thats (I realized) how big the skill gap is between me and top pilots...

Edited by R3qUi3M, 04 March 2014 - 04:34 AM.

[WhineyThePoo]

oh! Me wants to whine too!

arty is in the game and it should be in the game, deal with it. However I can agree with that it might be a bit easy to use, that 4 sec delay on improved arty aint leaving people with much time to escape. Make it 6 or even 8 sec, it will still do the job of breaking up larger groups and forcing campers to move. And please for the love of whatever deity you believe make it so that arty cant hit you in the head! I dont know how many times I have had a perfectly good head blown away by an arty strike.


And secondly make a specific tournament drop with ELO disabled, that way you only play with other tournament players and you dont have to get stomped by 4 man groupes sync dropping.

oooh, this feels good! Now I get why people are always whining away on forums

[Brienne]

Noobs vs The world

-I liked this challenge for its high paced fights. Many mediums, faster mechs.

-I disliked it for its (C)Mechs chases

[ShinVector]

PhoenixFire55, on 04 March 2014 - 03:27 AM, said:

I'm glad you noticed, now you only need to understand game isn't ONLY about winning.

Ok... This statement just means we just a have very different views. oh well.. No wonder.

[That Dawg]

ShinVector, on 04 March 2014 - 01:46 AM, said:

You can view arty in another way... It is legal cheese from PGI..
Basically an AOE weapon that any mech can choose to use.

except......it costs, a player can pay to increase damage output. lovely
I want to run AC40's and there is a cost on me- heat and less...something..somewhere
ECM spiders running arty and air strikes? pfffffffft

[wanderer]

If I'd been using Arty/Airstrikes, I'd have probably broken 2K (as it was, I was just below it- 110ish ranking for heavies).

But them's the breaks. It's like whining about Counterstrike when people dump frag grenades en masse. Anyone can get them and if I wasn't using an LRM boat,I'd have been using those instead of the usual mess of electronics.

[ShinVector]

ThatDawg, on 04 March 2014 - 04:46 AM, said:

except......it costs, a player can pay to increase damage output. lovely
I want to run AC40's and there is a cost on me- heat and less...something..somewhere
ECM spiders running arty and air strikes? pfffffffft

Still it take some skill to use properly and not kill your own team mates with it.. hehehe...

[R3qUi3M]

wanderer, on 04 March 2014 - 04:52 AM, said:

If I'd been using Arty/Airstrikes, I'd have probably broken 2K (as it was, I was just below it- 110ish ranking for heavies).

But them's the breaks. It's like whining about Counterstrike when people dump frag grenades en masse. Anyone can get them and if I wasn't using an LRM boat,I'd have been using those instead of the usual mess of electronics.

I wasnt using and broke 2300 but with my elo it doesnt realy matter...

Edited by R3qUi3M, 04 March 2014 - 05:04 AM.

[ZuFFuLuZ]

Eglar, on 03 March 2014 - 10:52 PM, said:

Shin was on an Firestarter-E 4xMG 4xMLas
Ed was on a Jenner-F 6xMLas
Lord Azurescens was on a Raven-3L 2x ER Large
Coburn was on a Jenner-F 6xMLas
badkilik was on a Raven-3L 2x ER Large if I remember right.
H0rste33 was also ona Raven-3L with 2xER Large according to someone else

o0Marduk0o, on 04 March 2014 - 02:57 AM, said:

I used a Firestarter-H with 5 MLas + 2 MG

I also used a Jenner-F with 6MLas. I tried some games with the Raven as well, but it didn't work out.
It's too rare that I hit one of these miracle games with it.

Edited by ZuFFuLuZ, 04 March 2014 - 05:37 AM.

[Dakross]

Doldar, on 03 March 2014 - 04:12 PM, said:

I think the number one complaint I see is that people feel that this unfairly favors those who have a lot of free time. I would propose that scoring be based on a per game average. It seems to me this would balance out a lot of the luck factor (good and bad) as well as the "endurance" factor. I'd also like to see some of the following suggestions considered:

1) Average over all games (see above)
2) No teams for or against. Not only can you not drop as a team, you don't have to worry about facing a team. All games are solo drops for all participants who have opt'd in. This Increases balance/fairness.
3) Changes to scoring: Add points for spotting, capping (once per match), component destruction. This would increase team play and these are arguably valuable events as you get cbill bonuses for them during matches. I'd also like to see a damage taken point value for those who "take one for the team"
4) No points on disconnected players - or have them self distruct when disconnect
5) Publish position with totals. You are 1072/3819 so you can see how you stack up.
6) In weight class events have a total class for the specific chassis event. For example, there would have been an overall Medium category as well in this past event.

Just my $.02. Although I personally would like to see Arty and Air Strikes not count towards totals if this is supposed to be somewhat skill based.

Thanks

+1

[wanderer]

Quote

I wasnt using and broke 2300 but with my elo it doesnt realy matter...

I'm guessing you weren't using something with LRMs as the main gun.

[RickySpanish]

Well gents, if PGI ever implement a proper ranking system into the game, you shall see the same players at the top as you see in these tournaments, regardless of meta, pop tarts, artillery tarts or other tarts. And then what will be the excuse? "Ooh but they're too good!". You're God damn right they are.