18 replies to this topic

[Spheroid]

I am not saying there aren't many very good pilots using that combination to great effect, but all ELO levels are now copying it and to me the results really are not that lethal.

The projectile speed difference is significant as is the cycle rate. The other night I was on Mordor in a Jager when I saw a Dragon Slayer, scanned his loadout and went right for him. I won the battle with not that much damage despite him having fifteen tons on me.

Why is this preferred meta?

Edited by Spheroid, 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM.

[zagibu]

You do realize the only reason PPCs are part of the meta is because most mechs can't boat a full ballistic loadout like the Jagermech?

Also, great work on winning against an obviously hotter running loadout on one of the hottest maps in MWO.

[LastPaladin]

Spheroid, on 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

Why is this preferred meta?

High pinpoint damage.

You can do more DPS in your Jager, with multiple ACs, but when the Victor has cover to hide behind, he can win a long range fight by doing his damage in smaller bursts, then hiding to escape damage.

[Poptimus Rhyme Wallace]

It is a preferred meta because the skill bar is alot lower for decent performance, its easy to learn to poptart and as long as you have your team out doing the real footwork you can relax and crank out massive damage and appear to be real good and a match saver on the final scoreboard...

In the hands of a skilled pilot however the "meta"-build looses out to a proper loadout on versatility and capability.
A meta-tart is deadmeat on his own unless the enemy is already torn up and have exposed components, however most of the time your 8 "team-mates/cannonfodder pugs" will make sure to give you the advantage, its a play-style that neglects proper team spirit and relies on the teamwork of others and their sacrifices to succeed.

in short its the easy way out to get alot of cbills without trying to hard or putting in any effort.


Addendum: I am biased against this playstyle, being a clan warrior, honour means more than petty cash to me.

Edited by Poptimus Rhyme, 18 March 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[DONTOR]

Well that DS pilot should not have been in a position like that, where his PPCs are of no use and to let a jaeger get within close proximity. He messed up and you took advantage which is perfect. As some have already said its the most efficient way to get 30 pinpoint damage (heat/trajectory/weight. There are trade offs and thats one of many reasons I dont use 2PPC and 2AC5s.

[Deathlike]

There are weaknesses in every build, so it matters whether the pilot can mitigate its weaknesses. When that is achieved, then it becomes difficult to counter.

As the opponent, you have to find a way to expose said weaknesses and the difficulty of exposing it can require a lot, or a little effort, depending on your opponent.

So, it's a matter of who is able to outmaneuver the other better. The actual difficulty/ease of countering determines whether or not a particular "meta" is OP or not.

[Madw0lf]

zagibu, on 18 March 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

You do realize the only reason PPCs are part of the meta is because most mechs can't boat a full ballistic loadout like the Jagermech?

Also, great work on winning against an obviously hotter running loadout on one of the hottest maps in MWO.

LastPaladin, on 18 March 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

High pinpoint damage.

You can do more DPS in your Jager, with multiple ACs, but when the Victor has cover to hide behind, he can win a long range fight by doing his damage in smaller bursts, then hiding to escape damage.

So you take your cooler, higher DPS 'Mech, and dont let them hide. Meta problem solved.

EDIT: Also OP, what is the build on your Jaeger for comparison?

Edited by Madw0lf, 18 March 2014 - 11:45 AM.

[Curccu]

Spheroid, on 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

I am not saying there aren't many very good pilots using that combination to great effect, but all ELO levels are now copying it and to me the results really are not that lethal.

The projectile speed difference is significant as is the cycle rate. The other night I was on Mordor in a Jager when I saw a Dragon Slayer, scanned his loadout and went right for him. I won the battle with not that much damage despite him having fifteen tons on me.

Why is this preferred meta?

and what was your loadout?

[Escef]

The meta works, and results speak louder than anything else.

If you get results out of something that isn't meta, well, results speak louder than anything else.

I'm a big fan of results.

[Bishop Steiner]

Spheroid, on 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

I am not saying there aren't many very good pilots using that combination to great effect, but all ELO levels are now copying it and to me the results really are not that lethal.

The projectile speed difference is significant as is the cycle rate. The other night I was on Mordor in a Jager when I saw a Dragon Slayer, scanned his loadout and went right for him. I won the battle with not that much damage despite him having fifteen tons on me.

Why is this preferred meta?

I must agree, that as far as efficaciousness goes, it is definitely the low end of the meta pool. And TBH, still the PPCs carrying the lions share. I find it more obnoxious that overpowering, mostly because so many people will go to any lengths to poptarts, instead of actually IDK; L2P?

Escef, on 18 March 2014 - 12:23 PM, said:

The meta works, and results speak louder than anything else.

If you get results out of something that isn't meta, well, results speak louder than anything else.

I'm a big fan of results.

I play video games. If I wanted to be a pogostick, I would get off my duff and play on one. I play video games for fun. fun is more interesting than results. especially results that don't make me more successful in life, earn me money or get me scads of hot women. I'll leave "results" for IRL, and instead leave video games for fun and distractions.

[Blue Hymn]

One or two poptarts with ac/ppc combo ain't too bad to deal with.
It's when you get 4+ of mechs poptarting with those loadouts that makes it so meta. Worse when they get the uac's involved. Even more so when they focus fire, in which you're better off just grab a picnic basket and camp behind a hill or something. Also, if you haven't noticed, ballistics barely attract heat as vividly as energy weapons. If you're overheating in a energy mech during a sustained firefight in, let's say Mordor, you usually have to wait at least 5-10 seconds just for the heat to become manageable before getting back into combat.

Compare that to a ballistic mech, which can still throw down damage while waiting for its heat to drop...
And you wonder why so many people drive a Victor/Highlander/Phract/Shadowhawk?

[Kubernetes]

Poptimus Rhyme, on 18 March 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

It is a preferred meta because the skill bar is alot lower for decent performance, its easy to learn to poptart and as long as you have your team out doing the real footwork you can relax and crank out massive damage and appear to be real good and a match saver on the final scoreboard...

This just sounds like sour grapes reasoning to me. So there's a low skill bar for hitting targets at range with pinpoint weapons while jumpjetting? What are the high skill bar builds, LRMs and medium lasers? I don't go with that build very often, but I would be lying if I said I thought it required low skill to use effectively.

And yes, people gravitate to such builds because once you've put some practice into maneuvering and aiming, they're pretty damn deadly against anything that walks, runs or flies in MWO. Critics seem to forget that players will naturally start moving towards weapons and builds that work well in actual games. I don't prefer JJs because I read about it in a forum--actual experience tells me that the mobility advantage from JJs is huge. I don't use PPCs because someone told me they're cool--I actually avoided PPCs when I started playing because of the heat and min range issues, but over time I learned that their advantages outweigh those concerns.

Poptarting happens because PGI made it so you get perfect targeting and convergence on descent. As long as that mechanic exists, people will take advantage of it. Heck, who avoids weapons/tactics/maneuvers that allow you to hit and not get hit in return?

[Odins Fist]

Spheroid, on 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

"Ac-5 + Ppc An Overated Meta?"

Not if you can consistently AIM well...

[Escef]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 March 2014 - 12:29 PM, said:

I play video games. If I wanted to be a pogostick, I would get off my duff and play on one. I play video games for fun. fun is more interesting than results. especially results that don't make me more successful in life, earn me money or get me scads of hot women. I'll leave "results" for IRL, and instead leave video games for fun and distractions.

I like to get results from my game play. I didn't play Ninja Gaiden on the NES to lose, I played it to win... Didn't stop me from losing a crapton before I beat the game, that was a damn hard game.

When I play MWO, it's a game first. But I still want results, I still want to do well. And I want to use tactics I find entertaining. That's part of why I don't bother with pop-tarting unless I'm in a situation where I have few other choices (only happened a few times) and don't build around the tactic. I also rarely run LRM boats, because I don't usually find it too fulfilling. Most of my medium and heavy mechs are striker/skirmishers, because that's the way I like to play. But within that paradigm, I build for results. Because, really, who the hell goes out of their to play stuff they don't get results from? Try a build idea for a few drops, if it doesn't work, change it up and try again... That And I don't like having the same build on multiple mechs, there's over 20 mechs you can run 2xAC5 and 2xPPC on in this game, and that would make the game boring, which defeats the purpose of playing a game in the first place.

[CheeseThief]

The AC5/PPC Meta works because it is easy.

On the Highlander or Victor, the loadout can be stuffed into one side so it has minimal convergence issues while the PPC's and the AC5 have extremely similar projectile velocities for the ultimate mash up of ease of use, sustainability and durability. I think the build itself is pretty bad, but the advantages of the Victor and Highlander chassis more than make up for any short comings so it will be interesting to see if these recent round of nerfs to these mechs make any difference.

I personally would never use a 2PPC/2UAC5 build on my Atlases, and my Hunchbacks rejoice whenever they find a Cataphract posing as Meta because it's 'barn door wide without assault levels of HP' face is about to get stomped in, so I'd say it's the Highlander and Victor hardpoints and jumpjets fueling the meta more than the build itself being actually any good.


Every mech essentially gets boiled down to one or two effective builds that everyone copies because they are easy. The ECM + 2 ERLL Ravens are popular because they are easy, the max LRM Stalkers are popular because they are easy, the Shadowhawks running around with maximum AC2's or SSRM2's are popular because they are easy. The 2PPC/2AC5 Victors and Highlanders are popular because they are easy. 30 points of damage with zero convergence issues or projectile breakup makes for an easy to use poptart build, with the jumpjets and health to cover any of their builds weaknesses up close.

While the preferred 'easy' builds are going to stick around, 3/3/3/3 matchmaking will limit the saturation of firepower they can bring so they won't be nearly as effective, and the latest round of jump jet and mobility nerfs creates new weaknesses in the build that can be exploited by more mobile opponents. The builds will certainly remain no matter what PGI does, simply because they are easy, but they shouldn't be as dominant as they were previously.



PS: Easy.

Edited by CheeseThief, 19 March 2014 - 04:04 AM.

[Lightfoot]

Lag was a factor, but as I read earlier didn't they remove Lag of under one second with the current patch? Meaning you aim straight and you hit regardless of your lag to the server. If so it's time for round two vs that Victor. AC5's and PPCs are deadly at range when they hit. As always, you spread damage on your mech by moving laterally to your target even if spiraling in towards them. Even an Atlas.

Just last night I out-shot an Atlas in a Heavy just by stepping forward and backward while they moved straight at me. They missed a lot, I didn't miss much because they were stationary in my sights.

[Trauglodyte]

Spheroid, on 18 March 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

I am not saying there aren't many very good pilots using that combination to great effect, but all ELO levels are now copying it and to me the results really are not that lethal.

The projectile speed difference is significant as is the cycle rate. The other night I was on Mordor in a Jager when I saw a Dragon Slayer, scanned his loadout and went right for him. I won the battle with not that much damage despite him having fifteen tons on me.

Why is this preferred meta?

The meta is what it is because front loaded damage will always win out versus anything that spreads (lasers, missiles, and LBs). Prior to ghost heat, people were running 4 PPC builds because 40 points of damage to one spot was hard to recover from. Or, they were running 2-3 PPCs w/ a Gauss Rifle because 45 poitns of damage is even harder to handle. When Ghost Heat was added, the heat was too much to work with so people shifted to equally cool weapons whose velocities matched the PPC while not having to invest more weight (GR = 15 tons, 2 AC5s = 16 tons). So, now we've got people running around doing 30 point alphas at the same speed with instant convergence and heat that is now much more managable.

The truth about the meta is that people are lazy but in a good way. The old addage reads, "Work smarter, not harder." Using LRMs means that you've got to maintain a lock and hope that AMS, ECM, and cover aren't available. SRMs require that you get lucky with HSR. And Lasers spread damage around due to terrain changes, torso twisting, and JJs. When it comes to single projectile weapons, all you have to do is aim and pull the trigger (unless we're talking about AC20s and then you've got to hope like Hell that HSR is on your side; Dev says that changes are coming soon). So, would you rather put all of your damage in one location, which is the most efficient way of killing a mech and, in turn, surviving longer as well, or would you rather work harder for the same result and taking longer to do so? Sadly, the community like all games is lazy and the masses tend to copy those that originate the new ideas.

In the case of the Victor, though, you're talking about a mech that is essentially a really bad design. It is built around a heavy AC (10, 20, or Gauss depending on the variant) backed up by two short ranged lasers and SRMs. The thing is, lasers don't synergize well with projectiles so most people opt for PPCs. And LRMs aren't really an option because they're really ineffective unless massed and none of the Victors have enough tubes to do anything crazy. So, you're pretty much resigned to heavy energy and ACs. If you run 20s w/ SRMs, you need some level of range to put pressure on people as you advance. If you run a Gauss, then short ranged weapons work but beam weapons and missiles don't really mix well. A lot of people don't like the AC10, thanks in part to the velocity nerf and that it is a poor man's really heavy PPC, so you opt for double AC5s at which point we go back to the current meta. The mech itself SCREAMS meta even if you don't want it to do so.



PS> For the record, the Hatamoto-Ku (the Kurita ripoff of the Victor) is stock meta. 65kph base with 2 PPCs and an AC5. The only difference is that it doesn't come with JJs. So, we can't even really complain about the Victor meta cause it is kind of stock.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 19 March 2014 - 08:58 AM.

[Roughneck45]

Poptimus Rhyme, on 18 March 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

It is a preferred meta because the skill bar is alot lower for decent performance...

...In the hands of a skilled pilot however the "meta"-build looses out to a proper loadout on versatility and capability....

[3rdworld]

Roughneck45, on 19 March 2014 - 09:25 AM, said:

Oh SJR, u crazy.