96 replies to this topic

[Tesunie]

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Good stuff.

I must say, I can agree, yet disagree with what you say at the same time. Boating has been around as a concept for a long time, and it is effective. But there can be a beauty to being able to do something at every range. At the same time, sometimes you do need to also pick a role and stick with it. Other times (heavier mechs normally), you can spread out a little, to as you put it, help cover your weaknesses.

I do wonder, what is your opinion on my Stalker/Griffin? They are really rounded and will not "be great" at either role. Neither one boats LRMs, or their close range weapons. Yet, personally at least, I find it to be a great blend of weapons. (Especially when I get people into that kill zone.) I do better in any of those designs than what I was running in the past.


For the record, I do agree about some weapons being a general purpose weapon. And meta builds are meta for a reason (though I typically hate them). Funny thing is, what I am good at using in the game so far, have not become meta when I was using it. It's always when I'm using it that it isn't meta. I don't plan on it that way though! (I'll use what I enjoy using, and wont care if it's meta or not. As long as I find it fun and effective for me.)

Oh, and Koniving. He seems to be able to make anything work. Just saying. (Though no one else is Koniving at the same time.)

I'm going to send my sleep deprived brain to bed... so if this sounds random, makes no sense, or seems like gibberish, it probably is! I'll check in when I get out of work tomorrow, when I'm all good and tired after an 11 hour shift...

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Well, we're not talking about "firepower consistency;" we're talking about whether to build a mech with significant investment in different roles. You can, and should, take weapons which are somewhat multipurpose (autocannons often fit this bill, which is part of why they're a bit overpowered,) or even "splash" some low-tonnage weapons (i.e. Medium Lasers) to fill in critical weaknesses - but if you try to be effective as both an LRM attacker and a brawler, you will fail at both roles. A real brawler will hug cover and work you over up close, while a real LRM boat will stomp you flat and laugh at your return salvos.

Right, see, now you've hit a bit of a crux point. Y'see, the thing is, if you try to focus like an LRM boat on heavy LRM barrages and then focus like a brawler on close combat- yes, you will fail, because using weapons with range overlap or a mixed loadout in the same style as a focused loadout is like trying to use LRMs like AC/5s or SRMs like lasers. This is nothing new, and not what I was saying people should try to do.

As demonstrated by my MWO:Mechlab - CTF-1X Thresher (the most effective Cataphract I've assembled), MWO:Mechlab - CN9-A Growler (the most effective Centurion I've assembled), MWO:Mechlab - ON1-VA Quarterback (not the most effective Orion I've assembled, but not far behind it), MWO:Mechlab - TDR-5S From The Blue, and MWO:Mechlab - TDR-5SS Thundershock (most effective Tbolt I've assembled), it is possible to make an effective and fun to play 'mech that is not focused on a single range band at the expense of all else. Of those five 'mechs, only the Quarterback could be considered a 'boat', with it's quad LRM-5s, and even that just barely, as the autocannon and lasers outweigh them. Trying to use any of these 'mechs as though it is focused on only a single range band is not only ineffective, but silly- the Thresher is more dangerous in close range, but ignoring long range shots loses you valuable hole-punching, the Growler is most dangerous to lights, but can still gnaw an arm or leg off of something heavy given half a chance, ignoring the Quarterback's close-range armament voids the entire reason it has an XL engine, skipping the From The Blue's autocannon and SRMs would be ridiculous, and not using the LRMs on the Thundershock means avoiding a valuable source of missile alerts that can keep heads down and keep the pilot out of trouble for the opening stages of a battle (as well as allow for indirect fire and eating AMS ammo so that actual missile boats can get more damage through).

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Min-maxxing has been a staple of gaming since ever - and for good reason. If you generalize your build, you generally cannot use all of your capabilities effectively; this is true in games ranging from D&D 1st Ed to Hearthstone - MWO is no exception.

I'm going to have to cry 'incorrect' here- If you generalize your build, you generally cannot use all of your capabilities effectively at the same time. The overall strengths of a generalist, in any game (Magic, all editions of D&D, any form of Battletech or Mechwarrior, Hearthstone) are things like not being made irrelevant by a single counter-tactic, or not being useless in any situation outside the one you're built for, or having multiple options so you aren't just doing the exact same thing over and over again forever.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

You can, however, focus on one role and try to play to your strengths.

True, but the 'focus on one role' part is not always the best option.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

If I choose to field a Missile Boat (and this is a boat, by the way,)

It certainly is, and I would never drive it these days, even after the LRM speed buff.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

I will have to be sure to maneuver close to my team so that they can support me against enemy scouts and brawlers. If I instead try to make Some Kind of Hybrid, I'm going to be hard-pressed to perform well in either role, no matter how well I play - enemy AMS will take a much higher proportion of my salvos than the one launcher removed might suggest, and my ammunition for both ranges will be drastically curtailed.

I find this part of your argument very amusing, because your 'Some Kind of Hybrid' looks very driveable and useful to me, particularly since it's not much different from MWO:Mechlab - STK-3F Prowler, the best-performing Stalker I've built.

If ammo is really a concern, then perhaps the MWO:Mechlab - STK-5S Predator would be more to taste? It also functions quite well- these two are the two Stalkers I kept, because they outperformed MWO:Mechlab - STK-3F, MWO:Mechlab - STK-5M, and MWO:Mechlab - STK-5M for the position, all three of those built in a much more 'focused' fashion.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Every permutation along these lines will result in this kind of problem, and that's with a Battlemaster, which has a lot of hardpoints and tonnage to play with; a Hunchback, for example, will fare Much Worse.

This is an extreme case. This is essentially the worst Hunchback to try to weapons-diversify- not only are you choosing a very tightly-built 'mech to tweak, you've picked one that has super-restrictive limitations and chosen to retain the second-highest-weight (and absolute largest) weapon currently in the game. I can only assume one of two things: Either you're trying to set up a strawman (practically the most common event on the internet short of pornography appearing), or somehow you've gotten the impression that when I say/type 'It's better to diversify weapon ranges' I mean 'YOU MUST ALWAYS FOREVER CHOOSE DIVERSELY RANGED WEAPONS OR YOU'RE A BAD PLAYER' (which I'm going to presume is the case because it's the kind of an argument- though not actually the direction of argument- that a lot of people seem to make online and you don't seem like the type of person to set up strawmen for the sake of arguing). I certainly don't mean that, and if I came across as meaning that, then I'm sorry.

What I actually mean is 'It's a good idea if you have the resources available to ensure you are capable in more than one role, to spend those resources to do so, as it will prevent you from ever being locked out of function'.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Resorting to Tabletop examples is no good; you can't rely on pure range and stomping through woods hexes to give the enemy a real chance to miss you, nor will he roll for hit locations, or overheat at the same rate - this game is a drastically different format.

.....I'm forced by this to wonder if you were actually paying attention to what I said, or are just the kind of person who saw the word 'tabletop' and went rabid. Which is strange, to me, because you haven't seemed like either of those would be the case previously.

What you have typed here makes it seem like I'm going 'tabletop is a good game, this is not; this game should be tabletop, then it would be good' and that's not what I'm saying at all. I was not referring to anything involving to-hit rolls, terrain modifiers, or the heat methodology of the two games either, so where that came from, I really have no chestbump facegrinding idea. I'm kind of insulted that you brought those up as samples of tabletop for this argument, honestly.

What I'm saying is this: Like this game, the tabletop game has weapons with multiple effective range bands. Like this game, the tabletop game allows for customized weapon loadouts (to varying degrees depending on with whom you are playing, naturally). In the current field of gaming, the tabletop game is the only game that I am aware of that uses weapons with multiple effective range bands in customisable weapon loadouts that has similarly fast range-increment shifting during the combat (as EVE Online mostly involves staying at one range the entire fight if you can help it although it does allow similarly customizable and multi-range weapons- or at least involves such at the levels of play I got to before getting bored absolutely to tears and not playing anymore). Therefore, the best reference I have to the effects of using weapons with differing but potentially overlapping preferable ranges on the same machine and firing more or less consecutively is the tabletop game. Conveniently for this comparison, the tabletop game involves a lot of the same costs and limitations for these weapons (tonnage, critical hit slots) and a similar cost system in other important respects (heat, ammo) despite not being identical (variance of values in heat and ammo, hardpoints/no hardpoints). Given that the weapons have comparable range bands (to a certain degree) and weapons by similar names have similar functions in combat (not identical, but relatively similar), it is reasonable to conclude that similar (if variant for the aforementioned reasons) methodologies of 'mech construction and gameplay should still apply (potentially with modifications).

I hope I've added on and in enough information and conditionals; I'd hate for you to still think I was saying what it seems like you think I was saying, because what it seems like you think I was saying is, frankly, stupid, in addition to not being what I was saying at all.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

This isn't to say that you have to boat all the time, or that there is no legitimate variance in builds to account for player tastes. In that missile boat, I know people who would have put an even smaller engine in there, and used more launchers. Personally, I didn't want to be that slow (and clumsy fighting lights/mediums) in the PuG tournament environment. Now that fewer people seem to be playing LRM boats - and more people have AMS - I may actually go That Route, but I digress. My point is that while you can certainly tailor your builds to pilot taste, you should do so without compromising your primary role. That Missile Boat I mentioned had just enough heat sinks to sustain its maximum rate of fire temporarily in heavy combat, and its close defenses were intended to convince light 'mechs that I wasn't worth the effort more than anything else. These kinds of decisions are pilot-driven, and there's often no clear better or worse option - but in other cases there is. In many cases you can see mathematically (I love Smurfy's WeaponLab tool) how much you're losing by trying to generalize too much.

Except that as you just pointed out the game isn't just math- there's pilot-driven elements constantly interfering with that. Plenty of people will argue all day that mathematically you're losing out by using an LB 10-X instead of an AC/10, but the fact remains true that when I swapped all my AC/10s for LB 10-Xs, my performance in all of those 'mechs improved significantly. Since, speaking in pure mathematics, these people are actually correct, the source of the difference can only have to do with the ways in which I pilot and use the weapons in question.

No matter how much anyone wants it to be otherwise, the math in this game and any game can be, will be, is, and has been, superceded by the choices made by the players playing it.

If I'm in a light 'mech- or even just a decently fast one (Hi, Quickdraw, Dragon, fast Centurion, etc.)- and I see a missile boat that has only three medium lasers on it, I'm going to have a field day either stackpoling its most-likely ammo-bearing legs or just staying in its rear arc and blowing out its back armor. Unless, of course, it's sticking with allied 'mechs that can cover for it, in which case not only is it the pilot choice during the match that's the determining factor (not the math or the 'mech), but it's not the missile boat that I'm worrying about in the first place.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

Take the "Some Kind of Hybrid" and "Much Worse" links above: compared to their examples, these builds lose firepower/longevity and vital levels of speed/agility (respectively) in exchange for the benefits of being able to fight less well at two separate ranges.

Well, that's because you mixed heavily ammo-reliant long range with high-ammo-consumption short range on the first (which bears a striking resemblance to my planned MWO:Mechlab - BLR-1S Warlord II but with the addition of some rather excessive LRM support given my LRM experiences), and your second example there is an extreme case with an otherwise very tightly-built 'mech.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

But these capabilities cannot be used together very well: the Battlemaster trades long-range punch for mediocre short-range power, and the Hunchback does the converse, throwing in reduced agility (movement and twist speed) to boot. The brawler will almost never be able to use his brawling and his LRMs effectively together, and the Hunchback can only use that ER laser by exposing himself to fire, reducing his ability to brawl.

True, but that's assuming (for some reason) that what you've labeled a 'brawler' is primarily a brawler (which it isn't, with that much extra expense and tonnage devoted to virtually exclusive LRM support), and the second is a player who keeps that ER laser on the same side as the hunch instead of learning to peek around rocks with an ER Large Laser on the left arm, where he won't lose all his weaponry if the hunch goes and where he can sustain damage without putting that big fat AC/20 at risk.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

In both of these instances, build effectiveness was a math problem with graphics, and I gave the wrong answer.

The only 'wrong answer' I see here is the one that says 'the game is a math problem in which no variables ever change'.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

You can only get so much mileage out of "different strokes for different folks." At some point, we have to acknowledge the implications of the fact that we are all playing the same game under the same rules - some builds are empirically better than others, and player preference is less important than many of us would wish. The only time I can really get effective use of an entire multi-range array of weapons is if I'm charging at the enemy over open ground. It seems counter-productive to design my 'Mech so that I can only get the most out of it while I'm committing suicide.

Not only does my belief and experience with this game and other games tell me that you're not getting a decent mileage out of 'dsfdf', but you're saying that something that you experience is somehow more relevant than what other people experience. My experience disagrees with yours, and it seems that to a different degree, so does Tesunie's. Which only further emphasizes that this is a game with people involved, not a math problem labeled 'solve for Best Mech Build'.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

At the end of the day, I recommend that you design your 'mechs by picking a role and adding equipment only to support that role - either by using multipurpose weapons or filling in critical weaknesses (e.g. use Medium Lasers on LRM boats.) If you try to mix LB-10Xs with ER Lasers, you're going to lose to someone who brought an AC/20, or a UAC/5 with PPCs.

Funny enough, I have done just this and won more often than I lose in the straight-up stand-up fights.

Void Angel, on 26 March 2014 - 09:58 PM, said:

If, on the other hand, you start with a couple of PPCs and then add UAC/5s (which just happen to have similar ballistic characteristics and range) as an all-purpose burst damage weapon to complement them, you'll end up with a fully effective long-range jump sniper with backup close-range combat ability - and, incidentally, the cookie cutter meta build.

This is also a valid tactic for people who are good at it and can stomach it. For my part, I'm mediocre at snap-aiming and I find nothing enjoyable in the experience of trying to poptart, so I don't do it. Instead I have other tactics that I use, and I endorse those tactics because very few other people do- they instead do what works best for someone else, and I know that at least some of them are missing out on opportunities to have more fun or pilot something that's more suited to how they react to a given situation (similar to how I know that at least some people who copy 'the best' Magic: the Gathering deck to play with in tournaments and such are missing out on similar opportunities concerning deckbuilding).



To put it in straightforwards fashion:

My experiences tell me you're wrong about the majority of your assertions, not because your assertions are always wrong, but because you insist that these assertions are always right.

Clarifying:

I do not think that you are a bad player, nor that you are in some way a bad person. I think you play the way that works best for you and that's not the way that works best for me. But I do not agree and cannot imagine ever agreeing with your declarations that what Tesunie and I have been discussing/suggesting is flat-out wrong and a bad way to play the game.

[Void Angel]

I'm not going to chop up your post into tiny slices to respond to every single point, sometimes separating quotes from important context - we'd end up spiralling down into endless fractals of longer responses to smaller quotes of longer responses to smaller quotes of... That way lies madness.

Instead, I'm going to address two of the problems I see with your position.

First, you're (still) trying to get way too much mileage out of "but it works for me!" Your or my player skills are less important in 'Mech design than the build's actual engineered potential. That is not a purely subjective opinion on my part - I've seen it demonstrated. See, I've had these "but I do better this way" conversations with people in my guild, with the kind of performance we had in matches was what you might expect. But once we put our foot down and said, "look, I know you're more comfortable that way, but we need you to bring these kinds of guns to fill this kind of role for the team," we saw an immediate jump in performance. People weren't getting used to the weapons and then improving with practice over time; the difference was just there. We weren't aping the meta, by the way - people still had flexibility to bring different guns, so long as they weren't trying to bring ERPPCs to a brawl or somesuch - but the engineering potential of the more focused builds increased objective performance even though it was outside the pilots' comfort zones. You assume that people's preferences are much more important than they actually are.

Second, you are accusing me of not understanding your arguments, or even possibly engaging in straw man fallacies. This, while you yourself admit that you're mystified by some of my points. Take the Tabletop example:

Quote

What you have typed here makes it seem like I'm going 'tabletop is a good game, this is not; this game should be tabletop, then it would be good' and that's not what I'm saying at all. I was not referring to anything involving to-hit rolls, terrain modifiers, or the heat methodology of the two games either, so where that came from, I really have no chestbump facegrinding idea. I'm kind of insulted that you brought those up as samples of tabletop for this argument, honestly.

You go on to talk about how I don't know what you meant, and how it's insulting and a straw man and so on, and so forth. In reality, you've completely missed my point, and spun two paragraphs out of it. Allow me to explain: The claim that mixed-range builds could be effective in Tabletop has no bearing on this game, since the mechanics are so different, particularly with heat dissipation and the actual presence of to-hit rolls, range, and cover modifiers. Short- and long-range weapons compare much differently in Tabletop than here, because the mechanics and format are drastically different. Here, focused builds are much more effective, because of the way the mechanics - such as pinpoint damage- interact with the first-person mouse-aim environment.

In the end, I'm afraid I'm arguing with you, but not for you. I oppose your opinion because I do not want others to assume that there is no contrary position, not because I have any hope that you will give my reasoning consideration. You've made it clear, In fairly large letters, that you are offended by my actually presenting my disagreement as valid, even going so far as to engage in a straw man fallacy - claiming that I think my assertions are "always right." The irony is astounding, since you accused me of a straw man in an earlier part of your two-post monster response. You're engaging in rank hypocrisy, here - your objections to my position, though completely subjective, are valid. But my objections to your position, which you erroneously claim to be completely subjective, are invalid, because I believe my reasoning to be correct? Clanner, please. To be fair, I don't think you're being deliberately hypocritical; your thought process is alarmingly common these days. But the extent to which post-modernism is damaging the minds of a generation is definitely off-topic - and nearly impossible to explain to post-modernists.

Edited by Void Angel, 27 March 2014 - 11:21 AM.

[Harathan]

I think this can be summed up pretty easily: Void Angel's point is correct, but there are plenty of reasons to dislike why that's the case.

In any game I've ever played in any formet that enabled kit customisation, I've always generalised. Always. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool generalist. I can't help it, it's how my brain works. With a lot of games, you can get away with it.

MWO? Dedicated role builds using weapons with similar range profiles, every time. If I'm running an AC20 the only other weapons I'm going to stick on there are equally short ranged. Why would I treat MWO differently to every other game I've ever played?

Because as much as I hate it, that's what *works*.

Edited by Harathan, 27 March 2014 - 11:51 AM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

I'm not going to chop up your post into tiny slices to respond to every single point, sometimes separating quotes from important context - we'd end up spiralling down into endless fractals of longer responses to smaller quotes of longer responses to smaller quotes of... That way lies madness.

Instead, I'm going to address two of the problems I see with your position.

First, you're (still) trying to get way too much mileage out of "but it works for me!" Your or my player skills are less important in 'Mech design than the build's actual engineered potential. That is not a purely subjective opinion on my part - I've seen it demonstrated. See, I've had these "but I do better this way" conversations with people in my guild, with the kind of performance we had in matches was what you might expect. But once we put our foot down and said, "look, I know you're more comfortable that way, but we need you to bring these kinds of guns to fill this kind of role for the team," we saw an immediate jump in performance. People weren't getting used to the weapons and then improving with practice over time; the difference was just there. We weren't aping the meta, by the way - people still had flexibility to bring different guns, so long as they weren't trying to bring ERPPCs to a brawl or somesuch - but the engineering potential of the more focused builds increased objective performance even though it was outside the pilots' comfort zones. You assume that people's preferences are much more important than they actually are.

Filling a role for the team is not what I understood we were discussing at all. My understanding of the discussion was 'what makes a good design', which automatically changes the moment a role compared to specific other roles gets involved. Especially when it becomes presumed that fulfilling a role compared to specific other roles is the primary or only concern rather than one of a number of concerns. Further, filling a role for the team works better when the person filling the role is suited to that role- which is what you're saying here if I've understood you correctly- but that also applies to mentality and personal reaction. You can shove someone who doesn't like or doesn't understand good LRM use into an 'indirect fire support' role, and having them use a 'mech suited to that role will help, but putting someone whose mentality or methodology is suited to that role will have a better effect as well. Combining the two is, naturally, optimal.

Additionally, you're talking about this as though I'm speaking only of preference, and not including a player's natural modus operandi or inherent skills in any way. Perhaps I was, in which case I'm sorry, because that's not what I meant to say. But I thought I was being clear that I'm talking about what a player does without thinking about it or is capable of as well. In my particular case, for instance, I am only mediocre at snap-aiming, and time and practice haven't alleviated that to any notable degree- hence part of my disinterest in pop-tarting.

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

Second, you are accusing me of not understanding your arguments, or even possibly engaging in straw man fallacies. This, while you yourself admit that you're mystified by some of my points. Take the Tabletop example: You go on to talk about how I don't know what you meant, and how it's insulting and a straw man and so on, and so forth.

I also thought I worded my response there to indicate that I would prefer being corrected as to what you meant. You haven't done this, and while on a technical level I understand that you have a reason for doing so and what that reason is, I don't understand why you consider that a good enough reason.

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

In reality, you've completely missed my point, and spun two paragraphs out of it. Allow me to explain: The claim that mixed-range builds could be effective in Tabletop has no bearing on this game, since the mechanics are so different, particularly with heat dissipation and the actual presence of to-hit rolls, range, and cover modifiers. Short- and long-range weapons compare much differently in Tabletop than here, because the mechanics and format are drastically different. Here, focused builds are much more effective, because of the way the mechanics - such as pinpoint damage- interact with the first-person mouse-aim environment.

Okay, so we'll throw tabletop out of it. I still disagree with you. My experiences (such as improved performance in my two Stalkers compared to a variety of more focused alternatives that I tried, or the loadout that I leave in my Cataphract 1X because it's worked better than any other loadout I've tried for it) do not show the necessary information to reach the same conclusions as you have. Having multiple range bands or overlapping fire brackets or whatever you want to call it- even 'unfocused', since that seems to be where you're going (unless I'm wrong about where you're going, in which case by all means correct me on that point)- prevents the 'mech being unusable in some situations.

I would rather have some of my 'mech be useless all of the time than all of my 'mech be useless some of the time, because that means my presence is always relevant. Further than that, the experiences I've had playing the game- both conforming and disconforming to expected build strategies, have supported this preference with improved overall performance when I follow through on it.

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

In the end, I'm afraid I'm arguing with you, but not for you. I oppose your opinion because I do not want others to assume that there is no contrary position, not because I have any hope that you will give my reasoning consideration. You've made it clear, In fairly large letters, that you are offended by my actually presenting my disagreement as valid, even going so far as to engage in a straw man fallacy - claiming that I think my assertions are "always right."

I am not offended. I made those statements in large letters to highlight them. You seem to think I'm upset. I wasn't until about this point in your post, and at this point I am only upset because a: we seem to be having communications failures and your post gives no indication I can discern that you want to resolve these errors, and b: you have reached the conclusion that I consider your argument completely invalid or have drawn my reaction from nowhere.

You did not present your argument as conditional in any way that I was able to discern. I was reacting to a post that, to the best of my understanding, said 'I am not arguing this because it is my experience or because it works this way for me- I am arguing this because it is right, full stop.'

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

The irony is astounding, since you accused me of a straw man in an earlier part of your two-post monster response.

I was not trying to accuse you of a strawman. In fact, I specifically said that I didn't believe you were using a strawman. Please reread that part more carefully. My actual statement was that 'this could be interpereted as a strawman but I think what's actually happened is that you've misunderstood me'. I am sad to see that I again failed to communicate effectively with you.

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

You're engaging in rank hypocrisy, here - your objections to my position, though completely subjective, are valid. But my objections to your position, which you erroneously claim to be completely subjective, are invalid, because I believe my reasoning to be correct? Clanner, please. To be fair, I don't think you're being deliberately hypocritical; your thought process is alarmingly common these days. But the extent to which post-modernism is damaging the minds of a generation is definitely off-topic - and nearly impossible to explain to post-modernists.

....other than that I am now very concerned that I might have been engaging in hypocrisy, the only thing I can derive from this paragraph is confusion. Your use of 'clanner' makes no sense to me, I have no idea what you're talking about when you bring up post-modernism, and above all I cannot figure out what makes your position objective and mine subjective- my entire ending statement, in fact, is that I disagree completely with your argument that your arguments are objective and not subjective. Whether or not your arguments are valid has nothing to do with whether they are objective or subjective, and I had thought I was emphasizing that. Apparently, I was wrong, but I don't know how that happened either, and I would really appreciate it if you would explain how you got from where I was to where you were (or is it where you were to where you are? Gah, metaphor.) or what exactly it was that gave you these impressions that I wasn't trying to convey.

Edited by Elli Gujar, 27 March 2014 - 11:58 AM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

.........

While there is a lot of reason for what you are arguing for - you really have to keep in mind that for a lot of people - "focused" builds just do not work.

At the height of the Centurion's zombie-hood strength I could not make the SRM6 or SRM4 builds work to save my life - I could work similar builds on other mechs (Hunchback for example)- but those slight differences between the Centurion and those other mechs made it a living hell to try and make it work for the Centurion.

Meanwhile - those two Centurion builds I linked to one page one were scoring between 3 and 4 time that - because the Zombie build denied me the ability to help my team outside of that 270 meter range.
Part of that being the fact that I tend to - and will continue to - be "that guy" who actually stands on the cap-points (we won't whine about people hiding in skirmish! thats not the point of the game mode - so no one will!.... just like people put standing on the cap-points in conquest first eh?)- and it doesn't matter what meta build you bring - when no-one else is standing on the cap points (or for the LRM boats - even targeting due to ECM or otherwise) there is absolutely nothing you can do to help.

By most of your arguments (and keeping in mind that I fully understand - and even mostly agree with them) I should either be not bringing any weapons - or not standing on the cap points.

The weapons bit as there was almost never anyone to fight - and that tonnage could have been put into a bigger engine - or other optimizations toward capping...not even the other light mechs would stand on the cap points - and we should be optimizing our mechs based off of our own personal experience, no?
After all it does absolutely no good to bring 8 tons of whatever ammo if you only live to fire 3 of them - and it does no good to bring only 3 (even if that is the META!!!!1111!) if you are running out all the time.

Case in point - I do a lot more damage with LRM than most people - even before the change - my accuracy before the change was ~50-60% (now 30-40 because the people I dropped against were those newbs who could actually use cover - and with the change were focusing on it)
My "LRMBoat" builds bring far far less ammo than "is wise" - and yet I score high with them - would I score as high with any meta build? My experience says NO.




I am sorry for getting upset about this - but the attitude you are bringing into the conversation - is the exact attitude that I got into fights with Victor Morson over.

It is not entirely wrong - it is, in fact, more often right than not.
But it is no more 100% true than the arguments Victor made.


Good grief - I actually started this post with the intention of telling everyone to call down (you weren't even the one I was going to start yelling at since you weren't the one "yelling") - but I think I am a little to close to the discussion myself to even try to act like a middleman. >.<
Dagnabit.

Edited by Shar Wolf, 27 March 2014 - 12:20 PM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Shar Wolf, on 27 March 2014 - 12:13 PM, said:

Good grief - I actually started this post with the intention of telling everyone to call down (you weren't even the one I was going to start yelling at since you weren't the one "yelling") - but I think I am a little to close to the discussion myself to even try to act like a middleman. >.<
Dagnabit.

I hope it wasn't (but suspect it was) me. If it helps any, I tend to use bold, italics, underline, and large font for emphasis, not to indicate yelling.

THIS IS YELLING. (er proximation thereof)

[Void Angel]

Shar Wolf, on 27 March 2014 - 12:13 PM, said:

I am sorry for getting upset about this - but the attitude you are bringing into the conversation - is the exact attitude that I got into fights with Victor Morson over.

It is not entirely wrong - it is, in fact, more often right than not.
But it is no more 100% true than the arguments Victor made.


Good grief - I actually started this post with the intention of telling everyone to call down (you weren't even the one I was going to start yelling at since you weren't the one "yelling") - but I think I am a little to close to the discussion myself to even try to act like a middleman. >.<
Dagnabit.

No, no, no. The attitude WE got into fights with Victor over was that all-or-nothing "meta or bust" attitude of his where everything is binary - either you aped the meta, or you were a bad player. This is not what I'm saying; even in competition, you can use builds other than the standard cookie-cutter meta in order to make things work. But while you don't have to ape the metagame and only bring what common opinion deems to be the "top tier" of weapons, 'mechs, and builds, there are better and worse ways of approaching 'Mech design.

I'm not telling you that you have to be completely focused on short-range combat in your Centurion, for example, or that you have to ape the zombie tactics that people used (and then found out how good they really were at piloting mediums when their amazing damage reduction was stripped down a bit - but I digress.) Particularly in the PuG environment, it can be very useful to have multi-use weapons which at least give you something to do when people ignore capture points¹or hide behind rocks for ten minutes. You don't always have to use PPCs for long-range firepower in casual play; you're not just stuck aping the meta.

However, simply because there exists an error where people assume that pilot preferences are unimportant next to the Holy Meta, it does not follow that there is no error in the opposite direction. We have to be careful of thinking as though the subjectivity of experiences means we have no basis for arguing about facts when those experiences are invoked. This is part of what I find troublesome about Pippy Longpostings up there - (s)he really doesn't get that simply saying "but my experiences" isn't reason enough to argue for a philosophy of 'mech design.

Take me, for example - I'm mediocre at using PPCs. It's a hole in my skill set. The way I prefer to pilot 'mechs, and my overall skill at, you know, hitting distant targets with PPCs hampers my effectiveness with that weapon. I can respond to this in several ways: I can avoid long-range energy combat builds and simply focus on brawling; I can use autocannons or LRMs instead; I can even substitute ER Large Lasers and try to hilltop snipe with them. What I can't at all afford to do is decide that PPCs aren't really the best weapon in the long-range energy sniper role, and just never play with them because, in my experience, other guns are better "for me." PPCs are empirically superior to hitscan weapons that fill their role - The ER Large Laser has slightly higher dps/heat, but suffers from more drawbacks at range. So if I want to be the best energy sniper I can be, I probably need to get better with the PPC.

In design philosophy, there's a similar dynamic. If I tailor my design philosophy around my weaknesses, I'm going to feel more effective, but at the cost of retarding my skill development - and very possibly being subject to bias confirmation. It's the same kind of thing I see with premade groups - the premades think "PuGs are useless," so they run off on their own to go be 1337. The PuGs usually get slaughtered because the premade isn't cooperating with them, but the premade thinks it's because the PuGs are stupid and useless "Elo counterweights." Once they believe that the failures caused by themselves are actually their victims' fault, their skill (and everyone else's ineptitude) becomes a part of their experiences. I'm not just arguing my subjective opinion from my own play: I've seen it over and over from a third-party perspective in an organized environment where I could see the differences clearly - focusing builds, even though the pilots weren't comfortable with those kinds of builds, made them more effective in spite of themselves.

Remember that we're talking about design philosophy here. "Ape the Meta Builds" is as poor an example of design philosophy as "Do Whatever You Want." The Holy Meta changes, and it's important to have a philosophy of design that accurately reflects how the game's dynamics work together in general, not simply what the "top players" have been building ever since MW3. If we decide that the empirical characteristics of weapons are less important than our piloting preferences, we're designing around our weaknesses, not our strengths. Of course we should use weapons and build with which we are effective - but what I'm trying to explain here is that too much generalization is not going to lead people in the right direction in 'mech design. Be multipurpose; put an ER laser on your shotgun brawler (if you can afford the heat,) by all means! But remember that trying to fill two roles at the same time will leave you performing poorly in both of them.


1:though it is generally better to seek a decisive engagement on Conquest, and then worry about taking more than a couple of cap points once you win/lose, or it bogs down. Insisting on always using the capture points no matter what is just as dangerous as ignoring them completely.

Edited by Void Angel, 27 March 2014 - 01:46 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Elli Gujar, on 27 March 2014 - 12:35 PM, said:

I hope it wasn't (but suspect it was) me.

Umm.....yes?

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

No, no, no. The attitude WE got into fights with Victor over was that all-or-nothing "meta or bust" attitude of his where everything is binary - either you aped the meta, or you were a bad player.

True dat - time for a disclaimer I should have put into the last post
(and actually logged back in to put in, hoping in vain you had not responded yet)

My brain is not functioning well lately - stupid spring seems to be an appropriate term for it (and allergies haven't even started yet ) so I have only been skimming the bulk of the conversation.

Very much a bad bad thing to do.
Doesn't change the fact that my previous post was (embarrassingly) badly written in general (left out more than half of what I had meant - including qualifiers for why I compared you to Victor please don't let all this qualify as name-and-shame Vic had good points for why he argued the way he did)

In my defense - your tone was starting to come across very similar to Victor's.
Not much of a defense I know

General point was meant (I think I can do it this time!) that there are "on-paper" optimal builds - but that doesn't mean that they are, in practice (part or full time) optimal.
IE: heaven knows on paper my fire support build is garbage.
But then - so is stock Boar's Head - and that was the first mech I broke 700 damage with, and with MPL, it was pretty darn focused to.
"helped" that my team dissolved in the first few minutes.
I think I am going back into my corner now.

Edit: TLDR? My last post was a rant that (probably) shouldn't have happened.

Edited by Shar Wolf, 27 March 2014 - 02:15 PM.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Void Angel, on 27 March 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

Stuff

This has a much different flavor (to my eyes) than what you were saying before. Thank you for putting it in a different way like this.

Now I understand where you're coming from a lot better.

That said, I don't wholly agree with you on some aspects (I'd love to see some sort of elaboration on why you think PPCs are flat out better long range weapons than ER Large Lasers, and whether that applies only to ER PPCs or to PPCs as a whole, and the actual reasoning behind this, because again- I haven't seen anything that would indicate any 'empirical' superiority- just as an example) but I do agree that some degree of focus in a design is not a bad thing.

I would also like to point out something.

You keep talking (seem to keep talking?) about how I refer to my experience as though it invalidates facts. This is not the direction I am trying to go here.

Specifically, I refer to my experiences because my experiences are the defining information I can work off of outside of the raw numbers for the game. I don't have your experiences or anybody else's experiences, I have mine. The degree of hyperbole and exaggeration that surrounds most conversations on these boards about what happens during the game makes it virtually impossible to trust these as sources of data (See: LRMs are useless, LRMs are n00bweapons, LRMs are OP, LB 10-X should never be used, Gauss Rifle is unusable weapon, etc.). And while there's just no way I'm going to spend hours of time watching videos of other people playing the game when I could be playing the game, I have observed quite a few matches post-death and MooCubed a few play videos as well- and what happened in those instances fell in line with the experiences I've had.

Edit: I just realized I never got to the point of that paragraph. The point is this- I refer to my experiences to emphasize that, being as they are my experiences, what I think is not 'truer than fact' or 'righter than you'. What I say is based on what I think based on what I know, and, like the derived opinion of any other human being, subject to change, error, and the whims of random chance.

That also means that as long as you are willing to make similar allowances (pointing out that you are basing your opinions off of your experiences or admitting same, and making arguments on that basis rather than claiming that you are arguing from a 'superior position' of absolute fact) then I'm... well, I'm still going to argue with you, but I'm not going to argue that you're wrong.

But what you posted just now, Void, is either not what you posted before, or what you posted before couched in different enough terms and from a different enough angle as not to mean the same thing to some portion of readers (within which category I fall).

Edited by Elli Gujar, 27 March 2014 - 02:46 PM.

[Void Angel]

Don't worry about it. There are a lot of people who seem to post only to stamp this:

On ideas with which they disagree - so I understand that things can get misinterpreted. I'm trying a new thing of restating my overall position in response, rather than going point-by-point, in order to avoid getting bogged down in the madness cycle of arguing points about points about points about the original argument. Don't sweat it. =)

In answer to your earlier question, Elli, post-modernism is a kind of insane philosophical position that takes the very true observation that our observations can be in error and magnifies it into a psychosis. The idea is that because everyone's perceptions of reality are subjective, we cannot be certain what reality, er, really is. Thus, it's arrogant and wrong of people to think that their opinion is more valid than another person's. This can seem reasonable, particularly if it's phrased differently, but it actually contradicts itself - all opinions are subjective, except the opinion that all opinions are subjective. This fails the Law of Non-Contradiction, so it can't possibly be true. This is why no one really believes this if you start asking them questions - but because this kind of thought has been pushed at us so often in Western culture, we often fall into the trap of talking and thinking as though it were true. There's more to it than just that, of course, but we're already waaay off-topic with just the one paragraph.

Edited by Void Angel, 27 March 2014 - 04:46 PM.

[Tesunie]

Okay okay now. We all know the truth. It's simple.

I'M RIGHT! YOU ARE WRONG!
RIght?

Anyway, foolishness aside, each of you are correct.


In Voids Corner, yes. Boating is efficient. There is a reason the Streak/splatcat did so well. And the AC40/dualguass Jager. And the... Meta doesn't come about becomes that weapon is "nice". It comes about from weapons (or weapon combos) being seen as highly effective on the battlefield.

Always fielding a lot of the same weapon will sharpen the focus of that weapon's role to a fine point. This makes them the most deadliest, and makes it in a stand up fight the person who boats the most wins. (Like 8 med lasers vs 4 med lasers, in optimal range of med lasers. The 8 most likely will win. LRM80 vs LRM30. In an LRM dual, the 80 count will probably carry the day.)

However, Elli Gujar is also correct. A balanced build, and weapons one is familiar with and have good experiences with, can be good too. This can lead to more fun, and a more generalized performance on the battlefield. It can open options and a more stable performance a purely focused build might not have. Instead of having a few great matches of a ton of kills/damage, and as many poor matches with little/no damage/kills, a balanced/general build will probably see a more stable and level field performance. (My Stalker was that way till I found my balance point with it.)

If that AC20/ERLL hunchback meets up with it's AC20, 2-3 med laser cousin at long range, the ERLL version can pick at it's closer range cousin, choosing (more or less) how it wants to engage, giving it control of the fight. It might be able to cause enough damage to either render the other mech invalid/dead before it can engage, or easy to kill when it gets close enough to use the AC20s.

Same can be said in reverse. If they crash into each other rounding a corner, starting in close combat, well, it might become close (pilot skills included), but the AC/med laser hunch will probably carry the day in that case, having the control of the field, more sharper focus.


Each philosophy has it's place and concepts. On one side, if you focus too much, you can gain weaknesses. You can overcome those weaknesses, and play to your strength, but they will be there. Balance too much, and you will be too weak in any one role, making you less effective overall. True "Balance" I find runs someplace in the middle, a combo of using a mostly focused build and generalized a little, while also keeping enough focus to make yourself usable but generalized enough to be able to fight in any given situation (even if the odds are not in your favor). (I'd take dealing a few points of damage in retaliation, than completely nothing and just die.)


I also see Voids argument, as in team play you have more freedom of focus. A team can afford to have a few dedicated LRM boats, with no defensive weapons at all to speak of. They can communicate enough, or assign roles/have another mech focused to protect the dedicated boat. Even if the pilot does not normally like to boat, it is able to be done under these conditions.

In Elli's counterpoint, in PUGland (and I know Void understands this), things can run different. You might not have anyone to protect you, or spot for you, or support you. A more generalized build helps to keep you going when things get rough and you fall out of your strength. You have to plan on being solo, and yet trying to work within a very loosely formed team. A too sharp of a focus here can get you killed, and fast. Were as the generalized build might be able to stand tall and win the day.


On the account of weapons, and user experience. I'd have to also agree with each of you. Using weapons you seem to be naturally good for you can make the game more enjoyable, even if they are considered some of the worst weapons in the game. If you can get it to work, and work well, by all means. However, like with Void, you don't want to completely focus on "your preferred weapons", when there might/are better preferred weapons for the task. This is why I always tell people to experiment from time to time. Hate PPCs? Give them a try from time to time. Gain experience with the weapon, even if you suck at using it and they are just bad for you. Ex: Like me with ACs. I still use them, but I don't use them often. I'm mainly a PPC/laser and missile (LRMs mostly) guy. But this doesn't mean that I'm not willing to see the advantages of the ACs. This doesn't mean I don't pick up SRMs from time to time, and see how they run. The more experienced you become with all the weapons (and same goes for mech classes/chassis), the better player/pilot you will be. I know with all the LRM complaints going around, most of them were made by people who never used LRMs. I've been using them for a long time, so I know how they work. Increased speed? Better chance to hit? Really? Not so much on me. I know how they work, and thus I know how to dodge them. Same goes for other weapons. The more you use them, the better you understand them, The better you know how to counter them.


So, to sum up:
Yes. Void is correct.
Yes. Elli is correct.
Yes. I'm always right! (MAHAHAHA! Joking...)
(A lot of this I mentioned above. Though I feel balance is better, I acknowledged that even boats have their place, and there are strengths to them as well, and weaknesses.)

[Karl Streiger]

Oh there is another advantage of balanced builds... .you don't need to modify them every time meta changes.

I did play those both Mechs since Januar 2013 - and they are still absolute work horses.

Stalker F
its first appearnce with me on the controlls was to view on Twitch -- where Garth made 4 Kills.... thanks to well placed LRMs with LOS plus a burst of ER-PPC... and of course those 4 MLAS are a constant tread against lights:

STK-3F
and a slower version with more anti light weapons:
STK-3F


And of course my sole creation the Kingslayer:

AS7-D
During the height of the PPC meta - and the reign of the Hex Stalker this baby - beat them all.... i attacked Hex stalkers at short range.... others where kept at range - always with a 35 PinPoint Strike - while closing the gap - (with constant heat buildup) while at short range Gauss, LPL and SRMs help to cool your Mech down.

[Sarru]

Tesunie, on 14 April 2014 - 04:55 PM, said:

My Stalker 3F with that loadout had these stats: (Mind, this was before the LRM changes)
Total games played: 39 (with this specific load out.)
W/L: 21/18 or 1.1667
K/D: 31/22 or 1.40909 (I tend to not get a lot of kills, but a lot of assists. Too bad they don't keep track of assists.)
Damage done: 16791
Damage per match: 430.5385
Damage per ton per match: 5.0652
...
Any farther discussion about this I think should be shifted over to my other thread, where the topic would be more inline with the thread: http://mwomercs.com/...-mech-building/

As i thought. Good enough for half-boat build, but totally unimpressive. True LRM-boat like that Stalker-3H works better (at least for me). And if that Stalker-3F is one of your best mech, why so little matches? 39 are not even enough for statistics to be more or less accurate.

[Tesunie]

Oisha, on 15 April 2014 - 04:52 AM, said:

As i thought. Good enough for half-boat build, but totally unimpressive. True LRM-boat like that Stalker-3H works better (at least for me). And if that Stalker-3F is one of your best mech, why so little matches? 39 are not even enough for statistics to be more or less accurate.

Well, I had mastered the mech long before they started to keep individual mech stats. Back then, I ran it with something close to this configuration. It ran well for it's time, but for a long time I didn't want to spend the c-bills on the mech to change it when I already had it mastered. (Was working on other mechs.) (And yes, I know. SHS. Could use improvement. Guess why I updated it?)
After they started to keep mech stats, I played this mech 21 times (which was subtracted from the old numbers, as I took a screen shot of my stats at the time of build change). After I changed it, I played it 39 more times and calculated the stats. I was impressed with it.

Spoiler

The stats for the Stalker 3F seen here were deducted from my total archived Stalker 3F stats for the stats on my new Stalker 3F build.


This picture is my total ending archived stats:


Plus I played one match with it in the new patch, first match with it, and I did 711 damage with 4 kills, 0 deaths. I think the new LRM changes will be a help for this mech, and I expect to see continued improvements in it's stats (I expect average damage to be around 400-500 damage a match when I start to get more matches behind it).

By the time I played 39 matches with the mech, the Phoenix Mechs came out, so I started to work on them. This design was so successful for me in average performance (as in, when the stats say I typically do 400 damage a match, that is what I tend to see. Not 700 damage for a few matches with some 200 damage matches making an average of 400, if you get what I am saying) that, after a while of trying other loadouts first, I placed my other missile mechs into the same configurations.

My Griffin has really been working well so far. It's got the needed blend of mobility, jump, agility, and weapon balance to really be a performer on the battlefield. Hence, it's been doing over 7 damage per ton per match. (The 9 matches I played with the 3M before LRM changes, I had 329.22 damage per match, with 5.99 damage per match per ton. I expect to see a similar improvement for the Stalker's overall stats with the new LRM changes.)

I'll be working with my Stalker again soon, as my Griffin is almost mastered now... After all, I consider the Stalker to be my flagship mech in my hanger, with probably my Thunderbolt (P) being my c-bill printing mech. (Only for 30% c-bill boost. Add in MGs, and it can get a lot of component destruction near the end of the match. Stats posted above are not wholly when the Thunderbolt was in that configuration, but was also includes it's time with LRMs and an LBx10 mix.)

[Void Angel]

Karl Streiger, on 15 April 2014 - 02:41 AM, said:

Oh there is another advantage of balanced builds... .you don't need to modify them every time meta changes.

I did play those both Mechs since Januar 2013 - and they are still absolute work horses.

Stalker F
its first appearnce with me on the controlls was to view on Twitch -- where Garth made 4 Kills.... thanks to well placed LRMs with LOS plus a burst of ER-PPC... and of course those 4 MLAS are a constant tread against lights:

STK-3F
and a slower version with more anti light weapons:
STK-3F

Neither of those are really balanced designs. What you have in either case is a hybrid ERPPC/LRM long range build with a light 'mech's worth of short-range backup weapons. Honestly I'd recommend that you try ditching the ERPPCs for normal PPCs - especially on the medium laser build, where it will give you an extra six seconds of brawling time.

Right now, your close-range arsenals will overheat you (from a cold start - in combat, you'd have some net heat) within 12-14 seconds (depending on the build.) That's not enough to kill before shutdown; of course, you could drastically improve your heat efficiency by letting up off the ERPPC's trigger... but then why use the ER in the first place? The standard PPC's heat/damage is much better, and while its effective range is much shorter than the ER, it's still at about the optimal engagement range for LRMs - particularly with the rather light ammo loads you're carrying. =)

[Alaskan Nobody]

Karl Streiger, on 15 April 2014 - 02:41 AM, said:

Oh there is another advantage of balanced builds... .you don't need to modify them every time meta changes.

Quoted for truth and fun!

[Karl Streiger]

Void Angel, on 15 April 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Right now, your close-range arsenals will overheat you (from a cold start - in combat, you'd have some net heat) within 12-14 seconds (depending on the build.) That's not enough to kill before shutdown; of course, you could drastically improve your heat efficiency by letting up off the ERPPC's trigger... but then why use the ER in the first place? The standard PPC's heat/damage is much better, and while its effective range is much shorter than the ER, it's still at about the optimal engagement range for LRMs - particularly with the rather light ammo loads you're carrying. =)

I know - but i love it to have the ability to hit targets beyond the 1000m barrier -with some damage.
There are few weapons that can deal a good ammount of damage at this range (and Spiders - are easy hits at this distance - because they don't expect to be hit)
And of course i won't use the ER-PPC at short range - only when I think its necessary to drop that target in front of me - NOW

Edited by Karl Streiger, 16 April 2014 - 12:37 AM.

[Void Angel]

Which is how I figured you were using it - I just wanted to give you my two cents worth.

A word of caution, however: As we get better with our favorite 'mechs, we're going to start running into better pilots with more focused builds; this may make builds that are working now stop working -and many of the players who advocate focused builds (including some I know personally are very good) are from the upper echelons of the player base.