11606 replies to this topic

[Neutron IX]

So last minute before bed, I decide, "Hmmm, may as well capitalize on this Double XP Weekend thing and try to finally make some progress in Mastering my Spiders."

First I roll out in my "basically stock" SDR-5K(C), with a few slight modifications from factory. I've never been an amazing Light pilot by any means, but tonight I'm determined. Drop on Canyon Network, and play my little Spider heart out, and lo and behold, a decent match, with roughly 300 damage, 2 kills, and a handful of assists and spotting bonuses and the like.

Feeling a little bit better about the whole idea, I hop into my SDR-5V (yeah, I know right?), with XL280, BAP, AMS, and 2 MPLs. Traditionally, I have absolutely no idea what to do with this thing, other than just try to scout and call out info and what not, but what the hell, if ever there was a time to grind this thing out, Double XP weekend would be just that time, right? Land on Frozen City, and immediately start running around trying to do what I can to scout the perimeter, and lock targets for Blue, while tossing in a random bust of MPL fire here and there. Even end up scoring the finishing blow on the almost gone CT of a Shadow Hawk that was hiding behind the ice trying to avoid my teammates fire. Uh-oh, too late, realize I'm cut off from my team, and my meager 2 JJs aren't getting me up the ice cliff face back to my them, so I attempt to run around behind the enemy, vault over a Jager and think I've successfully ducked behind a building on my way back to my team, then, BAM! LL from the Jager I'd leaped, and who I didn't think could have a LoS on me takes out my side torso rear and kills my engine.

Hit the mechlab and swap out the 2 MPLs and a ton of AMS ammo for an ERLL, figuring, hey, I had a decent enough match in that 5K, and this just makes it a 5K with BAP and without MGs.

Launch and drop into River City. Nice, seems promising for new intended role of targeting and sniping. The whole match I'm bobbing and weaving in and out of buildings, pulling up short and ducking around to snipe, scoring what feels like hit after hit. 1 kill, then a 2nd one, and then finally, when we're down to our last 3 mechs against their last one, an ECM Raven, the Firestarter on my team and myself get the Raven between us as we circle and snipe at it, and I get the hit to his torso that kills him. So now I'm thinking, "Damn, 3 kills! And I've been sniping and running and being all crazy in this thing, I can't WAIT to see my stats." Match ends, and here's what I was rewarded with...

3 Kills (Nice! Who says a Spider needs MGs, EH KURITA?!), 4 Assists (Great! Sure! I was all over the place, sniping at everyone, so yeah!)...and 49 Damage (Wait...WHAT? 49 as in Forty-Nine? Is there a zero missing? Like, as in not even 50, much less the far higher scores I've been pulling much more often often now days? There's GOT to be a zero missing, right?. Yeah, I think with that I'll go to bed.

I wish I'd thought to take a SS, because that HAS to be some kind of record for lowest amount of damage per kill so far right?

Like, I'd go lay in bed, but now I'm not so sure I'd actually land on my bed if I aimed for it, and might end up on the floorboards.

[L Y N X]

Step 4:

Edited by 7ynx, 23 September 2014 - 12:53 AM.

[Spr1ggan]

CN9 ACE PILOT, on 22 September 2014 - 05:56 PM, said:

Best possible builds don't just happen without them being first tested on real enemies.

Something might look great on paper and be terrible in practice, weapons get buffed/nerfed/modules added quite often, so should i sit on the same build without ever looking for something better? I already had a positive K/D with what you would most likely consider "weak load-outs" and a mech is only as "weak" as it's pilot.

Don't take my dismissive look upon FoM's as a whine, I've been piloting CN9's before, while, and after they were and will be around. You will find it far more common to see people whining when their FoM gets taken away, because they get so accustomed to their crutch that never fills the lack of skill. All 'mechs die just the same when you pump enough shots into them, weather it be a "strong" or "weak" load-out.

There's always going to be exceptions to the rule. However i've seen people running things like an HBK-4SP with only 2 med lasers + 1small laser and getting rekt by poptarts then raging about meta in the chat.

I'm a comp player and in comp it doesn't matter that you may be the best commando pilot in the game. You will not be taking one into a comp match. You play and practice with the best mechs/loadouts possible and discover new ones.

And also you shouldn't be aiming to run bad builds and pump enough shots into to kill them. You take good builds and aim to kill any target you go after in the shortest amount of time possible. The longer you take, the longer you and the rest of your team are taking damage from the enemy.

Edited by McHarg, 23 September 2014 - 03:46 AM.

[Spr1ggan]

IraqiWalker, on 22 September 2014 - 07:26 PM, said:

You're half right.

My "weak" commando, has mopped the floor with the top of the line jenners, firestarters, and ravens (even back when ravens dominated and had awesome leg hitboxes). Not to mention a few mediums as well.

You're basically saying "play the FoM mechs" I see that as bad piloting. Those currently OP mechs will not teach you to be a better pilot. No, they'll help mitigate your mistakes, mistakes you're oblivious to.

It's a big part of the reason why I always recommend the HBK-4SP as the starting mech for new players. Everyone talks about the SHD, but if you want to train an actually good pilot, you don't put them in the SHD, you put them in the Hunchback, where they don't have JJs, and don't have balanced hitboxes, or hard to hit hunches.

Your methodology ends up with okay pilots that will be awful pilots when put in "bad" mechs, instead of good pilots that can perform very well in those bad mechs, and be excellent in the good ones.

Especially considering all those FoM mechs can become suck-tacular over-night. Remember the Highlander. I remember seeing Xie Belvoule wipe out 7 mechs (back when it was 8v8) by himself with a Gauss+2PPC HGN poptart. The guy was a devastating pilot in any mech you put him in. The HGN was the best mech of the time. One round of nerfs to it's JJs, and now you never see one on the field. Those pilots, especially the mediocre ones that deceived themselves, and were deceived by their mech's performance, ended up struggling (some even quit altogether), trying to get back into the game. Because they weren't good. Their mech was, and when the mech was nerfed, they ended up in a higher skill bracket than where they should be, and just kept getting pummeled.

Getting actual experience in a mech, hundreds of matches, can teach you how to pilot that mech to the point where you match, if not out-perform the top of the line mechs. That's why I'm never worried when I'm in Commando. On the other hand, I still can't comfortably replicate those results in my FS9s.

Yes yes. I killed my fair share of superior mechs with the commando as well and i suck in light mechs, that however does not make it a good mech. And personally the only time I ever have to worry about a commando is if my mech is hanging together with elastic bands and cherry crit torsos.

You probably play many different types of mechs though. Where as the bulk of what I was saying earlier was really about folks that just play the same thing over and over and don't adapt to the new metas while whining about getting rekt.

For example say the meta is poptarting. And all i pilot are medium mechs with unoptimised loadouts. I drop in a match and say Villz is on the other team with an assault poptarting mech and reks me. Is that due to the meta? Nope not in my opinion. It would be my fault for not being informed and playing those mechs when I could have gotten better mechs and learned to poptart myself.

And by your logic then most of the comp teams including HoL and SJR must be bad pilots then cos we play the best mechs. Lol.

Edited by McHarg, 23 September 2014 - 07:58 AM.

[draiocht]

Of sidenote, I can't help but find it funny how some people whine about pugs with suboptimal mechs -- complaints of how Hunchbacks, Thunderbolts, and Awesomes are taking up spots where Stormcrows, Timberwolves, and Direwolves could be...

I'm unsure their whine is aimed correctly~

[Jon Gotham]

McHarg, on 23 September 2014 - 03:29 AM, said:

There's always going to be exceptions to the rule. However i've seen people running things like an HBK-4SP with only 2 med lasers + 1small laser and getting rekt by poptarts then raging about meta in the chat.

I'm a comp player and in comp it doesn't matter that you may be the best commando pilot in the game. You will not be taking one into a comp match. You play and practice with the best mechs/loadouts possible and discover new ones.

And also you shouldn't be aiming to run bad builds and pump enough shots into to kill them. You take good builds and aim to kill any target you go after in the shortest amount of time possible. The longer you take, the longer you and the rest of your team are taking damage from the enemy.

If your aim is to win by the most efficient means then absolutely yes.
If your aim is to enjoy the combat in varied manner, then absolutely no.
Playing a variety of mechs will make you more skilled, only going for the utterly best will make you good in a narrow range of things. Eventually you'll not be in that narrow range and flounder. You'll face something that isn't opitimal that you have little xp of and it will kill you.
surely you guys roll in other mechs besides the current meta for training? Take something underpowered to test your skills a bit?

I've recently maxed out my Timberwolves. Pulled a row of shocking games, stomping over everything in sight...I realise though that's the mech performing and not all me. If I want a litmus test of my actual raw skill level, I'll take something weaker-which forces me to adapt and overcome. If I sat in the imbawolf all the time my skills would suffer for it.

[IraqiWalker]

McHarg, on 23 September 2014 - 03:44 AM, said:

Yes yes. I killed my fair share of superior mechs with the commando as well and i suck in light mechs, that however does not make it a good mech. And personally the only time I ever have to worry about a commando is if my mech is hanging together with elastic bands and cherry crit torsos.

You probably play many different types of mechs though. Where as the bulk of what I was saying earlier was really about folks that just play the same thing over and over and don't adapt to the new metas while whining about getting rekt.

For example say the meta is poptarting. And all i pilot are medium mechs with unoptimised loadouts. I drop in a match and say Villz is on the other team with an assault poptarting mech and reks me. Is that due to the meta? Nope not in my opinion. It would be my fault for not being informed and playing those mechs when I could have gotten better mechs and learned to poptart myself.

And by your logic then most of the comp teams including HoL and SJR must be bad pilots then cos we play the best mechs. Lol.

Remember the part where I said the bad players fail to adapt? The pros, I don't worry about. They know the game, and they can adapt to it. Which is why for them, the JJ nerfs were annoying, but didn't end the world for them. Not like it did for the faux-pro players.


I play different mechs, I optimize my builds, and when I lose to the meta, I don't blame the meta, I find the mistakes I did, and how they could have been done correctly, to result in a win. Most people complain because they get these wanna be pro players that run super optimized meta builds, in the casual queue. The complaint I've heard time and again from some of my casual friends is "If these guys wanted to be competitive, they should go play in the competitive queue, not in the casual queue"

For me that makes some sense. The flip side is "if you wanted to win, then you should run the best mechs." does make sense for me, but this isn't the competitive queue. People want to enjoy the game in more than 6 mechs, and when someone tells people to run meta mechs in the PuB queue, that is a huge problem, because it will bring down the level of skill of the entire PuB queue. Everyone will run meta in the casual queue, and due to them not being good/excellent players to begin with, a single round of nerfs will decimate the player base.

Daily Whine: Waiting for the servers to get back up is genuinely annoying. I need to stop waking up early for this.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 23 September 2014 - 10:41 AM.

[Tarogato]

IraqiWalker, on 22 September 2014 - 09:57 AM, said:

The centy isn't going to be injected until October 21st I believe.
Source Read the MC reward section. You have until the 23rd to be eligible, but it's injected into eligible accounts on the 21st.

Except the whole point was to buy the MC so it could use it on the mechbay sale and XP conversion. So I might not buy it now if it didn't go through at all. Buy hey, I didn't know I had another month for the centy, cool. I read that one wrong.

[IraqiWalker]

Tarogato, on 23 September 2014 - 11:05 AM, said:

Except the whole point was to buy the MC so it could use it on the mechbay sale and XP conversion. So I might not buy it now if it didn't go through at all. Buy hey, I didn't know I had another month for the centy, cool. I read that one wrong.

Again, to be clear. The CN9-AH (along with the free mechbay it comes with) will be available for the eligible accounts on October 21st. Everyone else will have to wait for a while before they get it into the game for MC/C-Bills.

[Spr1ggan]

kamiko kross, on 23 September 2014 - 10:34 AM, said:

If your aim is to win by the most efficient means then absolutely yes.
If your aim is to enjoy the combat in varied manner, then absolutely no.
Playing a variety of mechs will make you more skilled, only going for the utterly best will make you good in a narrow range of things. Eventually you'll not be in that narrow range and flounder. You'll face something that isn't opitimal that you have little xp of and it will kill you.
surely you guys roll in other mechs besides the current meta for training? Take something underpowered to test your skills a bit?

I've recently maxed out my Timberwolves. Pulled a row of shocking games, stomping over everything in sight...I realise though that's the mech performing and not all me. If I want a litmus test of my actual raw skill level, I'll take something weaker-which forces me to adapt and overcome. If I sat in the imbawolf all the time my skills would suffer for it.

Sure i do from time to time. However i'm still going for what i feel is the best loadout on that mech. Again though even in mechs like the Timberwolf it depends of your playstyle. You can still improve your tanking/damage spread + accuracy with it if you are being aggressive. It's also a good mech to work on heat control/discipline with the laser vomit build due to the laser heat increases.

Edited by McHarg, 23 September 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[nehebkau]

WHY THE BLAKE DO PEOPLE FEEL THE NEED TO FULLY FILL A CAP WHEN YOU ARE IN A CAP WAR!?!?

[Magna Canus]

Ever have one of those days when you jump into your mech, start up and go... hey, why is this handling so weird.... where are my JJs.... oh $hit, wrong mech. LOL

[IraqiWalker]

nehebkau, on 23 September 2014 - 11:28 AM, said:

WHY THE BLAKE DO PEOPLE FEEL THE NEED TO FULLY FILL A CAP WHEN YOU ARE IN A CAP WAR!?!?

In some cases, because they have the luxury of capping to full, which means it takes the enemy team even longer to un-cap it. Works rather fine in the early game. Late game, no so much.

[Jon Gotham]

McHarg, on 23 September 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

Sure i do from time to time. However i'm still going for what i feel is the best loadout on that mech. Again though even in mechs like the Timberwolf it depends of your playstyle. You can still improve your tanking/damage spread + accuracy with it if you are being aggressive. It's also a good mech to work on heat control/discipline with the laser vomit build due to the laser heat increases.

To be honest, I probably won't use the imbawolf again. It feels unfair-it's a shockingly op mech. It has shocking speed and agility for what it is, can push out some sick damage and can tank huge amounts of it.
Best fight I had was river city in the me vs 4 enemy I walked out, they didn't. I couldn't have done that in anything else...I don't feel imbawolf is beneficial to my skill development when it compensates to such a degree.

[mad kat]

Stop bloomin standing behind me when i move out of cover to make a pot shot then trying to reverse to find some morons moved into my space. Lost count of the amount of times people do this. Or idiots that walk into your line of fire then wonder why your voley of srms have removed half their rear amour.

People cannot drive their cars so it also translates into not being able to drive their mechs without getting in the way.

[Kjudoon]

So I did what I said, showed up to try the new map. 5 matches, never saw it, too ticked off to bother to continue. Running into more and more folks here who are not happy that anyone would want to avoid getting their teeth kicked in by groups they should never be matched in due to elo averaging, and are desiring to keep people from opting out of their little hunting preserve known as Stomptown by creating a small group queue giving them tougher opponents and smaller player pools.

Just shaking my head at the "I got mine and you can all shut up." mentality.

[BLOOD WOLF]

IraqiWalker, on 22 September 2014 - 07:26 PM, said:

You're half right.

My "weak" commando, has mopped the floor with the top of the line jenners, firestarters, and ravens (even back when ravens dominated and had awesome leg hitboxes). Not to mention a few mediums as well.

You're basically saying "play the FoM mechs" I see that as bad piloting. Those currently OP mechs will not teach you to be a better pilot. No, they'll help mitigate your mistakes, mistakes you're oblivious to.

It's a big part of the reason why I always recommend the HBK-4SP as the starting mech for new players. Everyone talks about the SHD, but if you want to train an actually good pilot, you don't put them in the SHD, you put them in the Hunchback, where they don't have JJs, and don't have balanced hitboxes, or hard to hit hunches.

Your methodology ends up with okay pilots that will be awful pilots when put in "bad" mechs, instead of good pilots that can perform very well in those bad mechs, and be excellent in the good ones.

Especially considering all those FoM mechs can become suck-tacular over-night. Remember the Highlander. I remember seeing Xie Belvoule wipe out 7 mechs (back when it was 8v8) by himself with a Gauss+2PPC HGN poptart. The guy was a devastating pilot in any mech you put him in. The HGN was the best mech of the time. One round of nerfs to it's JJs, and now you never see one on the field. Those pilots, especially the mediocre ones that deceived themselves, and were deceived by their mech's performance, ended up struggling (some even quit altogether), trying to get back into the game. Because they weren't good. Their mech was, and when the mech was nerfed, they ended up in a higher skill bracket than where they should be, and just kept getting pummeled.

Getting actual experience in a mech, hundreds of matches, can teach you how to pilot that mech to the point where you match, if not out-perform the top of the line mechs. That's why I'm never worried when I'm in Commando. On the other hand, I still can't comfortably replicate those results in my FS9s.

This deserves some praise.

[NeoCodex]

Hade a game with 5 champion mechs on our side yesterday. One guy said to me and the other guy piloting the TBR; "you timbies better get ready to carry hard". And this was already after about 3 games lost streak.



It was a grim day in Puglandia MWO.

[Arn0ldSchwarzenegger]

It was my birthday yesterday and I didnt play any MWO

[mad kat]

Arn0ldSchwarzenegger, on 23 September 2014 - 11:27 PM, said:

It was my birthday yesterday and I didnt play any MWO

Happy birthday for yesterday. I remember you in your firestarter kicking absoloute arse on alpine peaks and you got 5 kills and 1117 damage (i have the screen shot). While moaning at me for kill stealing in my catapult a1 with four kills.

Lol. Kudos to you!!!