97 replies to this topic

[Bobzilla]

Defending is easier than attacking. (If you don't agree with that statement stop reading as you're already too far off from reality to understand.)

Brawling is attacking, range is defending. On top of that, short range weapons aren't actually attacking until in range, where as the defenders are defending the whole time. This imbalanced would be equal if all long range weapons had a minium range, but they don't so short range weapons need a large advantage when they get in close.

For example, a mech with LRMS vs an identical mech with SRMS of the same weight, is evenly hatched if the pilots have the same skill. Now if we took the min range off the LRM mech it would have the odds.

It could be said that brawling is more effective on conquest, but that would be like saying my member is bigger than a flea's, it doesn't say much.

[Varent]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 12 March 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

The ER Lg Laser generates 2.0 Heat/Second (8.5 heat burst), does 9 damage at an optimal range of 675m
vs.
Medium Laser with 1.0 Heat/Second (4 heat burst), that does 5 damage at an optimal range of 270m


I have no reservation about taking and ER Lg Laser into close combat, it is only 1 damage less than 2 medium lasers, but with 2.5x the range for the same Heat/Second and only a single energy hardpoint.

your not including the fact of 5 tons versus 2. Wich allows for extra heat sinks/armor/other weapons. Thats what makes the medium lasers better brawling items as upposed to the ER-Large. what is the ER-Large losing for its range in regards to that weight that the brawler is gaining.

[Amsro]

Varent, on 12 March 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

Ive never, ever experienced PPC being good at brawling... ever.... Ive always had players close the distance and then im regretting life. That said sure they have advantage at range. But from what ive seen so far with the nerf its equalized quite abit. With ac it depends. AC5 arent amazing, UAC it depends... some games you will feel lke a god some games you will stare at all your ac jammed. AC2 are abit of both... but any good player will usually roll the damage from an ac2 in a brawling situation over themselves then focus fire them down as they have to stare at you. I dont like ac10 myself... so I wont speak on it. the ac20 yes, is damn good at brawling. For the size, weight, speed, and ammo restrictions, it should be.


I play with srms all the time. There not as bad as you think, trust me on that one. UAC5 is long range yes... but its used in brawling quite abit as a high risk high reward. so are large lasers. so maybe there both I suppose? And I agree there not overly impressive (ac-10 and l-plse) but I was just saying they are out there.



2 weeks ago I would have said yes. Now... with the changes to JJ? Gonna have to disagree. The gaps have closed significantly.

Then you play vs perfect ping players that can't seem to shoot you past 270m to nullify your weapons. SRM's aren't scary, doing well with them would take a medium that can close ranges, even then your armor takes a beating, good players don't just let you close the gap.

The JJ didn't buff any weapons as far as I can tell. The long range mechs likely swapped a STD engine for XL + 3-5 JJ.

SRM's are confirmed to have hit detection issues, as well 2.0 without splash and wave pattern Artemis its severely nerfed, regardless of your or my personal opinion.

[Varent]

Amsro, on 12 March 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Then you play vs perfect ping players that can't seem to shoot you past 270m to nullify your weapons. SRM's aren't scary, doing well with them would take a medium that can close ranges, even then your armor takes a beating, good players don't just let you close the gap.

The JJ didn't buff any weapons as far as I can tell. The long range mechs likely swapped a STD engine for XL + 3-5 JJ.

SRM's are confirmed to have hit detection issues, as well 2.0 without splash and wave pattern Artemis its severely nerfed, regardless of your or my personal opinion.

Cover, movement, good tactics = ability to overcome range. Not saying it beats it. Im saying with the changes it has balanced quite abit. Im not saying SRM dont have hit detection issues. Im saying even with them, they are good. I dont think 'severely nerfed' is an applicable term for the state of srm currently.

Regarding JJ. Victor already was running XL. They went down in speed, the thrust still is rough and allows for exchange of shots and they cant turn mid air anymore to get the damage on there arms. (its pretty bad). They also dont run away as well as they used to and very much succumb to flankers.

The xl in the highlander is doable perhaps but I havent seen any do that yet and I think the victor would be better overall since the JJ on the Highlander feel like your moving in glue.

The Cata was already running an xl but didnt get hit too much by the changes. That said it is ALOT slower now because of some extra jj and is very very susceptible to flanking maneuvers.

[YueFei]

Varent, on 12 March 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Regarding JJ. Victor already was running XL. They went down in speed, the thrust still is rough and allows for exchange of shots and they cant turn mid air anymore to get the damage on there arms. (its pretty bad). They also dont run away as well as they used to and very much succumb to flankers.

You bring up a good point. I don't think most players appreciate the nuance of how fast-JJ-turning allowed poptarts to shield themselves faster after firing their shot in mid-air. Most mediocre players (like myself) merely try to torso-twist in mid-air to arm-tank hits. I doubt most players have even *thought* of trying to JJ-turn while twisting to get the maximum swing-rate on their torso to block incoming fire.

Now that I remember it, it's another mechanic that needs to be fixed, you can JJ-turn without burning your jets as long as you have some fuel left. JJ-turning should require active application of jets and burn up your JJ fuel....

Edited by YueFei, 12 March 2014 - 11:22 PM.

[Varent]

YueFei, on 12 March 2014 - 11:21 PM, said:

You bring up a good point. I don't think most players appreciate the nuance of how fast-JJ-turning allowed poptarts to shield themselves faster after firing their shot in mid-air. Most mediocre players (like myself) merely try to torso-twist in mid-air to arm-tank hits. I doubt most players have even *thought* of trying to JJ-turn while twisting to get the maximum swing-rate on their torso to block incoming fire.

Now that I remember it, it's another mechanic that needs to be fixed, you can JJ-turn without burning your jets as long as you have some fuel left. JJ-turning should require active application of jets and burn up your JJ fuel....

Varent, on 12 March 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Regarding JJ. Victor already was running XL. They went down in speed, the thrust still is rough and allows for exchange of shots and they cant turn mid air anymore to get the damage on there arms. (its pretty bad). They also dont run away as well as they used to and very much succumb to flankers.

Thats where the JJ nerf hurt the victor, ths turning speed in mid air at higher elo was a pretty big deal. Allowed for quick responses to flankers who came around a corner as well as negating damage to arms and torso from the center more.

Alot of people just see Jump snipers in game still and say "Oh gawd they are still ehre the nerf failed!" Not realizing how much of a dramatic hit these players have now taken.

Its pretty bad, they are pretty susceptible to flankers and brawlers now.

[INKBALL]

Kaeb Odellas, on 08 March 2014 - 10:01 PM, said:

The problem with Conquest is that deathballing is still pretty much the best tactic for most maps. Sure, you'll start off losing on points, but you more than make up for it if your deathball runs into one of their capping elements and crushes it. Killing the enemy is still the most important objective in the game. Dead mechs can't cap points, after all.

Yes, but if you deathball to eps and theres 1 mech capping (or even 0) and you dont even kill it on the spot, you kinda lose, you'll often have a -200pts situation (like when we wait for the 2 53kph ddc) and 4 red caps and in no situation to take back the map but full rush and then hell is falling on you.

But yes, the ball is good, but not at all always. And if the weight balance come in play, it might change that also ( cause we will have situations of slow small/medium vs faster)

[Kaeb Odellas]

INKBALL, on 13 March 2014 - 04:50 AM, said:

Yes, but if you deathball to eps and theres 1 mech capping (or even 0) and you dont even kill it on the spot, you kinda lose, you'll often have a -200pts situation (like when we wait for the 2 53kph ddc) and 4 red caps and in no situation to take back the map but full rush and then hell is falling on you.

But yes, the ball is good, but not at all always. And if the weight balance come in play, it might change that also ( cause we will have situations of slow small/medium vs faster)

You don't have to kill it on the spot, though. You should be able to chase it down with your light mechs, unless you're unlucky and don't have any lights. It's rare that just one mech decides to cap a point on his own. Either way, that guy is probably going to take a lot of damage, so he's going to be relegated to cap duty for most of the match.

If only encounter little to no resistance on that point, then it's possible the enemy team deathballed as well, and it was a good idea to deathball yourself anyway. If they split their forces evenly between points, depending on the map you could rush one of their points en-masse (leaving a light to finish the cap) and do a lot of damage before they can get away or enemy reinforcements arrive. In any case, you only ever find yourself in 4-1 cap situations if you don't have light mechs to contest the caps, and you were probably going to lose that match to a cap loss anyway.

[Varent]

Kaeb Odellas, on 13 March 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

You don't have to kill it on the spot, though. You should be able to chase it down with your light mechs, unless you're unlucky and don't have any lights. It's rare that just one mech decides to cap a point on his own. Either way, that guy is probably going to take a lot of damage, so he's going to be relegated to cap duty for most of the match.

If only encounter little to no resistance on that point, then it's possible the enemy team deathballed as well, and it was a good idea to deathball yourself anyway. If they split their forces evenly between points, depending on the map you could rush one of their points en-masse (leaving a light to finish the cap) and do a lot of damage before they can get away or enemy reinforcements arrive. In any case, you only ever find yourself in 4-1 cap situations if you don't have light mechs to contest the caps, and you were probably going to lose that match to a cap loss anyway.

TBH. I like Conquest, its always felt more interesting to me. From my own experiences what tends to ACTUALLY happen in most conquest games is a number of tactics.

Some teams Deathball
Some teams split with there lances, often 3 lances each going for a point, or one large 8 man lance and one 4 man.
most lights group together immediatly and sprint for the mid cap or closest cap.
And in between there sometimes there will be people setting up to try and attack people capping.

Now in conquest speed is pretty important most of the time, for example if your playing a medium flanking lance you often have alot of advantages versus jump sniping builds. Mostly because you can get to a point before another group does, cap it, and then move on. Now if your playing a jump sniper you usually will be reaching that same point by the time the enemy has already grabbed it and then rushed off. If multiple lances are doing this, this tends to be ideal, especially against the death ballsince they will only go for one point.

I think the major premise most people are missing in the post is the idea of just how conquest should work and how many (smart) players are using this to there advantage to brawl.

If you play brawling medium mechs, rush in and cap, then spread and dont engage, you force the enemy to do one of two things. Constantly chase you (and lose to cap) or spread out to try and cap themselves. The moment jump snipers spread out they pretty much tend to be very open to flanking maneuvers, wich brawling and especially faster medium mechs excel at.

Now all this said, there are indeed times where death balls and jump snipers win out the day. But more often then not when you have people that actually know what they are doing playing conquest brawling mechs have the advantage as long as they play it right.

[Charons Little Helper]

Varent, on 13 March 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

I think the major premise most people are missing in the post is the idea of just how conquest should work and how many (smart) players are using this to there advantage to brawl.

If you play brawling medium mechs, rush in and cap, then spread and dont engage, you force the enemy to do one of two things. Constantly chase you (and lose to cap) or spread out to try and cap themselves. The moment jump snipers spread out they pretty much tend to be very open to flanking maneuvers, wich brawling and especially faster medium mechs excel at.

Now all this said, there are indeed times where death balls and jump snipers win out the day. But more often then not when you have people that actually know what they are doing playing conquest brawling mechs have the advantage as long as they play it right.

I couldn't have said it as well myself. (and looking back - I don't think I did )

Oh - and for just that reason - I've even begun transferring my cap accelerator from my lights to my medium brawlers.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Varent, on 13 March 2014 - 09:59 AM, said:

TBH. I like Conquest, its always felt more interesting to me. From my own experiences what tends to ACTUALLY happen in most conquest games is a number of tactics.

Some teams Deathball
Some teams split with there lances, often 3 lances each going for a point, or one large 8 man lance and one 4 man.
most lights group together immediatly and sprint for the mid cap or closest cap.
And in between there sometimes there will be people setting up to try and attack people capping.

Now in conquest speed is pretty important most of the time, for example if your playing a medium flanking lance you often have alot of advantages versus jump sniping builds. Mostly because you can get to a point before another group does, cap it, and then move on. Now if your playing a jump sniper you usually will be reaching that same point by the time the enemy has already grabbed it and then rushed off. If multiple lances are doing this, this tends to be ideal, especially against the death ballsince they will only go for one point.

I think the major premise most people are missing in the post is the idea of just how conquest should work and how many (smart) players are using this to there advantage to brawl.

If you play brawling medium mechs, rush in and cap, then spread and dont engage, you force the enemy to do one of two things. Constantly chase you (and lose to cap) or spread out to try and cap themselves. The moment jump snipers spread out they pretty much tend to be very open to flanking maneuvers, wich brawling and especially faster medium mechs excel at.

Now all this said, there are indeed times where death balls and jump snipers win out the day. But more often then not when you have people that actually know what they are doing playing conquest brawling mechs have the advantage as long as they play it right.

Brawler mediums aren't necessarily the best mech for that tactic, though. 35-tonners are better for that role. They can cap faster and react quicker to an ambush, have a greater ability to escape from bad situations, and can reinforce a beleaguered force more quickly. Mediums are too big and too slow to really avoid damage, which is why that weight class generally underperforms compared to the others.

[Varent]

Kaeb Odellas, on 13 March 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

Brawler mediums aren't necessarily the best mech for that tactic, though. 35-tonners are better for that role. They can cap faster and react quicker to an ambush, have a greater ability to escape from bad situations, and can reinforce a beleaguered force more quickly. Mediums are too big and too slow to really avoid damage, which is why that weight class generally underperforms compared to the others.

going to have to disagree with you there. They pack more firepower and are faster then the typical jump sniping meta. They also do very well against it when they can flank and brawl. Light mech usually lose alot of conquest if you have to many since they can't really fight over points or engage a full lance as a full lance. The Wolf pack of lights excels at brining down one or two assaults but not a full lance. The Wolf pack of mediums is much better at it. Especially against jump snipers.

[Samual Kalkin]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 March 2014 - 08:33 AM, said:

Honestly though, with the way the game is...I'd rather have 11 guys alive, CRUSHED the opponent...and lose to a shut down Locust earning points.

Why?

Winning doesn't mean anything.

Much more visceral fun to crush the opponent.

I have been on both sides of that equation.

No matter which side you are on, a CRUSHED opponent is boring as sh**, unless you are such completely pathetic loser in all respects, that CRUSHING an outmatched team is your only means of justifying your pathetic lack of self-worth.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Varent, on 13 March 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

going to have to disagree with you there. They pack more firepower and are faster then the typical jump sniping meta. They also do very well against it when they can flank and brawl. Light mech usually lose alot of conquest if you have to many since they can't really fight over points or engage a full lance as a full lance. The Wolf pack of lights excels at brining down one or two assaults but not a full lance. The Wolf pack of mediums is much better at it. Especially against jump snipers.

Having played a lot of brawler Wolverine and poptart Victor in recent days, I'm going to have to disagree with the notion that a brawler medium lance is going to overpower a poptart Victor lance. As big as mediums are, 100-110 kph simply is not fast enough to avoid getting hit by PPC and AC5 salvos, and even when you close to sub-90 range, dual AC5s are still plenty effective in brawls. Plus, the poptart lance can always space themselves out enough to be able to cover each other with their PPCs, so there's no guarantee you're eliminating those as weapons either.

Ask yourself this: How often are you seeing packs of brawler mediums dominate Conquest matches? And how often are you seeing the poptarts dominate?
Mediums are not fast enough to rush a point, cap it, and leave before the enemy arrives. The maps and spawn points are just not built that way. In the the smaller or more linear maps (River City and Forest Colony), caps hardly ever matter, and when a cap victory is won, it's always by a light mech.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Samual Kalkin, on 13 March 2014 - 01:30 PM, said:

I have been on both sides of that equation.

No matter which side you are on, a CRUSHED opponent is boring as sh**, unless you are such completely pathetic loser in all respects, that CRUSHING an outmatched team is your only means of justifying your pathetic lack of self-worth.

You totally missed the point of that post. The concept is fighting is more fun than capping and winning is irrelevant currently.

[Joseph Mallan]

Samual Kalkin, on 13 March 2014 - 01:30 PM, said:

I have been on both sides of that equation.

No matter which side you are on, a CRUSHED opponent is boring as sh**, unless you are such completely pathetic loser in all respects, that CRUSHING an outmatched team is your only means of justifying your pathetic lack of self-worth.

I'm sorry, Your attempt to shame people on the internet needs to be polished and reworked into something more stinging. I play to have fun. Winning is fun, Killing enemies is fun. Getting killed is less fun but I have had fun dying in loud gratuitous manners over the years. When I get crushed I accept the opponent was in fact that much better than I was, and I will endeavor to get better so that next time the show will be on the other foot.

[Voivode]

I run with a corps that's pretty big on the brawl. I love the panicky attempts to flee when we round the corner on five or six poptarts and just put our {Richard Cameron} in them. Good fun!

The benefit of the longstanding "ranged meta" is that when you get a dedicated brawling group together, none of the "meta" players remember how to win a knife fight.

[Samual Kalkin]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 March 2014 - 07:49 AM, said:

I'm sorry, Your attempt to shame people on the internet needs to be polished and reworked into something more stinging. I play to have fun. Winning is fun, Killing enemies is fun. Getting killed is less fun but I have had fun dying in loud gratuitous manners over the years. When I get crushed I accept the opponent was in fact that much better than I was, and I will endeavor to get better so that next time the show will be on the other foot.

Shame him? Not particularly, I was venting out of disgust. You cannot shame someone who takes pleasure in rolling over a weak opponent. They lack the sense of self-worth that would make them fell shame. They are the kind of people who would hit an 80 year man over the head with a steel pipe from behind, then brag about how bad-a** they are.

If you feel winning is fun when you crush a weak opponent, like him, you will never understand how pitiful that really is, People with so little self-esteem as to think that bullying the weak is an accomplishment never understand how pathetic they really are.

For myself, I find a stomp match to be boring, win or lose. There is no sense of accomplishment, no elation over winning, just boredom.

As for stinging remarks, I'm terrible at making them, since I am too pedantic by nature. I can sometimes come up with a good insult, when I'm disgusted enough by a person, but to come out with a good zinger on someone, I d have to respect them, and even then, it is extremely rare.