101 replies to this topic

[B0oN]

Most of the time its hard work and a test of one´s nerves .
So, all in all considered I wouldn´t call it fun in the "classical" instant-gratification sense, but damn well rewarding once things start sliding towards a win for oneself in the odd game .

[mailin]

Two points that were previously stated can't be stressed enough. For me, the keys to getting better were situational awareness and spectating after I died. The minimap is a huge deal. Also, occasionally press B to pull up the big map to see where you're friendlies are going and possibly where the enemies are or are not concentrated.

When you're spectating, look at everything, including weapons and enemies, but also look at the player's minimap. Very often you'll see that they missed an enemy that was behind them, which may be moving to fire on their tender backside. Don't make that mistake! Another thing you'll notice about a lot of players is that they don't lock their targets. This is a very, very bad idea. You want your buddies to help you make kills. Plain and simple.

If your team has 3 enemies approaching and one is smoking, lock him and see if he has any weapons left. If he does, finish him off. If he doesn't, he's what we call a zombie, and save him for later. Once you choose a target, keep firing on him until he's dead, unless he has become a zombie. Never, never, never fire on a zombie unless he's the last enemy standing.

If you get isolated, get back to team quickly, unless there is a reason why you're isolated. Ex: in an ECM Raven and going to be spotting and tagging for your lrms.

In answer to your original question, it can be fun, but it can also be very, very frustrating. Just so you know, those 4-man teams, don't always have an easy time of it. Very often I will drop with my very experienced group of friends in a 4-man and we will get rolled. Not because we have died, but because our new players have died and turned the numbers balance against us. All you can do when you get rolled is learn from it and drop again.

[Onyxian]

I've got to get more work done than I did last week when I was posting a lot one day, but for what it's worth, I did have a much better wkd than the wkd before.

A huge huge help was turning the mouse settings down/off as someone suggested. Thank you!

I still lost far more than I won, but I'm actually doing some damage now

And I had the honor of being killed this wkd by Eglar and Darling One.

[Malorish]

Onyxian, on 07 April 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

I've got to get more work done than I did last week when I was posting a lot one day, but for what it's worth, I did have a much better wkd than the wkd before.

A huge huge help was turning the mouse settings down/off as someone suggested. Thank you!

I still lost far more than I won, but I'm actually doing some damage now

And I had the honor of being killed this wkd by Eglar and Darling One.

First, a couple things about how awful the "Metagame" (also abreviated "meta", means what works and what doesn't essentially) is for new players:

1. MWO Meta is long range sniping and LRM boating for Med-Assualts, and sniping or quick close quarters attacks by lights. The former emphasises map knowledge, mech knowledge (especially hardpoint placement and weapon effective range), precision aiming (knowing where to hit precisely is more important than just hitting them), and tactical knowledge (especially that Defensive >>>> Offensive).

2. MWO Meta is very mech build and mech skill level oriented. A fully tricked out mech at master level with modules is such a huge advantage it isn't even funny. They turn faster, accelerate/decelerate faster, dissapate heat faster, torso twist faster, they've got double heat sinks (because double heat sinks!), they can zoom in (for snipers) more than you can or hold their targets (LRM boats) longer than you can. Not only do they have experience, their mechs are just significantly better than yours.

Overall this combines for a hugely punishing Meta for newbies. Newbies want to get out "and shoot something". Because the meta heavily punishes even small mistakes in leaving cover, those newbies are usually either dead or essentially cored very early in games. Most of the time, they can't even see who it is who is wrecking their face.

Overall the Meta needs to change for a number of reasons, but I'd put new player brutality at the top of the list.

Now let's focus on what you can do to overcome this:

1. Figure out what kind of meta allowed strategy you like. Your options are Sniping (any weight class), LRM Boating (some mediums but mostly heavy/assualt), Target spotting (light), and hit and run/swarm (light or cicada).

2. Master 1 mech class. That means you need to buy 3 variants. Look very carefully at each type and see how much the variants cost. Some of them with XL engines - like the centurion will have one variant that is nearly double the cost of the others. Remember, that is going to slow you down. A great way to do this is to master the same mech that's also offered as a trial, so you can build XP on that variant without having to buy it yet.

3. Do the minimum necessary to master that class. Using a mostly ballistic build? Then you won't need Double Heat Sinks. Save the 1.5 Million C-bills. Struggling with a heat heavy build? Make sure you take that heat dissapation skill ASAP, and spring for the double heat sinks before looking into adding more weapons. Once you've got 8/8 in basic, you're now just saving up for your next mech.

4. Spectate, but don't waste time once you buy your second mech. You can learn a lot spectating. But you can also just be wasting your time when you could have relaunched in your other variant you've already got basic on. Remember, you'll need more XP to get master on those mechs, so it's time well spent to launch again.

Hope that gets you started.

FYI - I learned the hard way. My first mech was an Atlas - lol!!! - and then I mastered the centurions (god that was painful). I'm mostly an LRMer after the recent change, and it generates the highest amount of cbills per hour for me.

Good luck!

[Bartholomew bartholomew]

I always thought they should have a starter elo bracket Kinda kiddies pool thing, not to be insulting. But you gotta learn quick right now. And The matchmaker starts you at dead even. Which is probably the very worse place to start.

Sometimes announcing you are new will get you help. Some of us will occasionally wingman unless you go a rambo'ing.

Edited by Bartholomew bartholomew, 07 April 2014 - 02:02 PM.

[BigFatGator]

To answer the original question, yes this game gets fun, even if you're mostly or exclusively pugging which I do. I had two matches today that were 12-10 and semi-epic, the last one ending with me putting the final shot into the back of a Shadowhawk about to kill my last teammate. My current experience is that the games I'm in are about 50/50 close vs. not so much (both ways). My W/L ratio after about 800 games is 0.85 and K/D 0.9.

The learning curve is just brutal in this game however, and matching your mech to your playstyle is very individualistic. Eventually you get a mech that just clicks, and then it will seem to get easier and more fun. I think I had about 100 games before I finally broke 200 dmg, and that was when I finally got a JM6-A and equiped with 3xLRM15 and finally stopped being a liability to my team.

Soon afterwards I found some JM6-S and DD builds that worked well for me and moved away from LRMs for the most part. Get more damage with a 3xAC5/4xML build now.... but that is where the individualism comes in, I found I do much better with 3xAC5 vs 2xAC10... although the latter build should be better it never clicked for me.

There is clearly a Meta with snipers dominating for the most part, but at least in what I assume is the lower-mid ELO brackets I see a wide variety of builds.

Hang in there, it will get fun.

[ThatBum42]

Over the last couple days I've actually been having a lot of really SUPER AWESOME FUNTIMES matches. There's a variety of builds, including some cheese, which makes me feel kinda flattered that MM thinks I can go up against them/am on the same level as them in my balanced builds. There is good communication, fellowship, and unified decision-making within the team. Stomps at most are 12-6, fairly even win/loss, matches last nearly the whole time limit as teams deliberated, positioned, scouted, and so on. Once, when it was down to the last few battered mechs on both teams during Assault, no one wanted to go to the other's base for fear of the turrets, and we decided to win on points. Instead of the usual raging from the dead players about holding up their grindfest, we just had a bit of a pleasant chat about the meta and whatnot, and a few guys even found lancemates for their next match.

Did I somehow work my way up to the "Heaven" bracket? I dunno. Either way, I think a lot of the nigh-political bickering that goes on in some sections of the forums doesn't actually make itself ingame to those who really enjoy just sittin' down and playing. No offense intended, just an observation.

Just chill and be Zen about it, each defeat is an opportunity to learn something. Also, contrary to popular belief, you can learn from a victory too, if you observed how your team was victorious.

Edited by ThatBum42, 08 April 2014 - 02:53 AM.

[Jody Von Jedi]

Another thing I've found that works well for me is, even on a heavy chassis with all 3 hard point types, is to stick to just 2 primary weapon groups. Having to manage more than 2 gets too confusing for me. I'll do 3 if I have to, but my most successful builds only have 2 groups.

For example, this BJ-1X build has 2 groups, 2xLL on group 1 and 6xML on group 2. I usually group fire the medium lasers until I heat up and then switch to chain fire. I have a 2.29 K/D ratio with this build.

I'll even take different weapon types, say Medium Lasers and SRMs and put them on the same group because the both have the same 270 meter range. I'll group fire them on stationary targets. On a moving target you have to lead the SRMs, so you'll either switch to chain fire or just accept a miss with laser while leading with the SRM. ML and SRM4s have the closets recharge time to each other, so that's what I tend to group. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it works for me. Switching from chain fire to group does take a little getting used to.

This build only has a 1 weapon group, 1xAC/20 and 2xML. It rarely over heats, but surprises the heck out of people when a TBT-7K hits them with a 30 pinpoint alpha. If I need to fight off a light attack, I have the ML set up on both group 1 and 2, so I can fire group 2 on faster moving targets.

I tried a new build last night on my Ilya M. with an AC/20 and 2xERLL group fired with good results. Only works as a group at close range though as the projectile speed on the AC/20 is soooo slow now. So I have 2 weapon groups, 1 with the AC/20 and ERLL and group 2 with just the ERLL for long range.

Play around with your weapon grouping. It may make a big difference.

Jody

Edited by Jody Von Jedi, 08 April 2014 - 05:46 AM.

[Onyxian]

I'm a big fan of KISS, both the band and the principle Keep It Simple Stupid. I agree, I generally keep just a couple wpn groups, but if I have Lrms I set them to group 3

I bought a BLR with my cadet bonus, and was terrible at it. Got some cbills saved and am thinking something like this..

<a href="http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=118&l=c243e5a45423764c42b8781d4d9a66cbbf2f4a88">BLR-1G</a>

Sorry, don't know how to enable a link here. I would have the 2 ac5 and ERLL set to group 1, with the 4 ML set to group 2 and the lrm on 3

[cleghorn6]

BLR? Oh my. My preference is for the G but everything you need to know is here: http://mwomercs.com/...emaster-builds/

You have chosen ... wisely.

My build

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...bc5230443ab33cb



EDIT: Forum failz.

Edited by cleghorn6, 08 April 2014 - 06:28 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Its less fun bcs it has taken the road from a game about Mechfights to a game about Mechkills - a good Shot, a good Premade of Pilots can kill any Mech in a matter of a few seconds.
Most of the time it is work with some amount of winning satisfaction - you hunt the few fun games the day may offer and often enough it will be a quite frustrating hunt.
Over the day the gameplay varies - you have to find out at what clock you have the most fun and that may change with your ELO-Rating as well.
Even if you do not want to let the Meta trap you in its grips you will go nowhere if you not at least buld yourself a Mech that is Meta-Resistant and develop yourself accordingly a Piloting-Style for it.
Pretty much as PUG-Player you will be an Opportunity Coward and hope the PUGs Fate is with you.

Edited by Thorqemada, 08 April 2014 - 06:37 AM.

[JC Daxion]

Time of day seems to change things.. I will say, going off EST time.. my best play times are morning, like 10-12.. though sometimes the afternoon gives me good matches.. Evening, 7-12, those seem like the times that i get the most lopsided victories.. then the late night crowd like 2-5am is another time that i tend to get a lot of great matches.


I think it is because at Peak times more Great teams are around, and they can really lift everyone else up.. the other times it seams more casual players out to just have fun.

but yea, even being good, you can get 12 matches in a row where you just get stomped. Best advice i can say is either work through it.. take the small victories, like if you lost 12-4, and you were in on all 4 kills, then that is a good thing..

[Ssamout]

For me, I didn't get good games until:

- Most important, situational awareness , to look at the minimap all the time. Know where you, your friends, and enemies are.

- Had found good mech for me, (Catapults), and until they were leveled up. Fully buffed K2 kicks ass. New mechs that you don't know how to pilot, are prone to get slaughtered, or at least get minimal damage done.

- Use R to target enemies, and look at what parts are already damaged and concentrate fire there. This really helps.

- Know the maps, then you know from where enemies usually come.

- Don't be first, anywhere you go, let others be first targer. After you start to know what you are doing, you can get bolder.

- Oh yea, team up. I haven't and 50% games suck. PUG-life.

[Davers]

Problem is that players on both extreme ends of the spectrum had problems finding games. So the Devs expanded the search range, which basically screwed everyone in the middle- the majority of players, who could now be placed with very poor players as well as very good ones. When they put in the 3 Elo 'bucket' system on April 29th it should help things more.

[Tannhauser Gate]

In addition to all the great suggestions, when the new Launch Module comes out in May the public matches will be more level. Any premade group over 4 will be in another queue. All drops will be 3-3-3-3 (i.e. 3 lts, 3meds, 3 hvs, 3 aslts) so there wont be 8 assaults vs 3 assaults anymore. Pugs will be less of a 99% slaughterhouse for newbs.

[Sarlic]

Make sure to learn as much as possible. A thread with a collection of guides just created.

Find it here: http://mwomercs.com/...uidestutorials/

[ManaValkyrie]

A couple of comments on this thread I believe should be expanded on ELO and MM. ELO, is the system used to 'rank' you amongst the player base, it's exact formula is not mentioned, but does combine parts of your stats, win/losses, match scores and the such, because your ELO can go up even when you lose matches.

MM or Match Maker, utilizes your ELO and places you into a game, the idea being is that MM builds a 'roughly' equal ELO score between each side. However, it is designed to drive you to a 50% Win/50% Loss average, sometimes it will feel like the MM is stacking the deck against you.

Presently this has been made worse as pointed out by the fact that the 2 end extremes were having difficulty finding matches, so PGI widened the 'ELO search' which means that new players who come into the game with a medium point ELO, now get thrown in with Higher level ELO players.

Now if MM was working properly both teams would still have a fairly good balance, but, Weight difference, mech builds, 2-4 man groups, and players own luck then skew the match further. I have seen a lot more new players in my matches recently and I do feel sorry for them, this is both when I solo and group drop. Especially as I have seen some Higher ELO players/groups actively running pure troll builds and stomping newer players.

However, I will say this, the game can be fun. I have had some tremendous matches both wins, losses, rolls/stomps (from both sides) just by nature of the game itself. My initial start into MWO was brutal, the trial mechs were stock loadouts, with SHS.etc and that was brutal.

After a while, I started grouping with other players, found a unit, and started to watch other players in games, both good and bad. I have played with and against most of the Top/Competitive players in the game to date at various points. I don't really follow Flavour of the Month or must have Meta play.

I run allsorts and have done for a long time, it does get better with more practice and a lot of patience.

[Malorish]

I played for about 4 hours last night . . . and man did my teams seem to get roflstomped about 75% of the time.

I was on the winning side of a couple laughers as well, but I got team killed twice in an hour (alpha'd both times when I was beat up and the match was still relatively close).

Just feel like the survivability of the mechs needs to go up, and the range of AC 2/5, PPCs, LRMs (even though I'm using them!), and ER LLs needs to come down about 20% for new players to even have a chance.

I did my best while spectating last night, trying to teach a couple of players things like leading their targets with ACs, that LRMs have a minimum arming range, and that Mlasers don't do any damage at 1000m. But it was a hard night . . .

[Lyoto Machida]

Onyxian, on 04 April 2014 - 05:01 AM, said:

Just started last week, and love Mechwarrior/Tabletop BattleTech.

My team gets absolutely annihilated every single game. 12-2, 12-1. A great game for my team is only losing 12-4, wow that feels good.

My question is, obviously losing constantly isn't any fun... is it any fun for you elite, awesome players, that have been playing for a while, always drop in pre-mades, and kicking the ever loving shite outta us new players? Is that really fun? Because winning > losing, but fun > winning. At least to me, maybe I'm a moron.

How the hell can this company justify dropping premades in the same game as newbs? And why doesn't my team seem to have any of this elite premade sexiness going on? We all huddle together like cattle around the atlases, me included, and get flanked and torn up.

How much of the potential player base has PGI turned away in their first week of play because they uninstall after getting destroyed constantly as their first experiences in Mwo? Because after just a weekish of playing, I know I'm damn near ready to stop wasting my time with a game that isn't any fun (at all) and uninstall.

And before everyone says "get teamspeak", its not an option for me.

Sorry for ranting, back to my original question. Is this game any fun, even for you cool kids? Because for the fat transfer from outta state, it's no fun at all.


EDIT- I define fun as a good, tight game. Lots of back and forth, both sides have a chance to win. Which is exactly the opposite of my experience with Mwo so far. I love playing chess with my 7 year old, but as far as the game itself goes, I'd destroy him every time if I wanted to, and that's not fun or fair.

Why is Teamspeak not an option for you? Just because you don't have a mic doesn't mean you can't listen to commands, scout reports, etc...

Or do you play with the sound completely off???

[ThatBum42]

What MM does is it builds the two teams with total Elo ratings close to each other, but one is slightly higher. It then predicts the team with the higher Elo to win. If this does happen, the winning team's Elo score goes up a small amount, and the losing team goes down a small amount. Perhaps not at all, actually. However, if the result of the match defies MM's prediction, then the winning team's Elo goes up a larger amount, and the losing team's goes down a larger amount.

Eventually the Elo score should stabilize in a bracket you're comfortable with. It takes a long time because the performance of a single player usually does not guarantee a team to win or lose.

Onyxian, on 08 April 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

Onyxian's BLR-1G

Links are made with the Link button in the forum's editor, under the font size dropdown. Use the "Plain Link" from Smurfy's, HTML does not work in posts.

Anyway, looks like it could use some improvement to me. So, here's my take on it.

It didn't look like it had enough ammo. With two AC/5s, the 60 rounds will only be good for 30 volleys, which goes by quick for their relatively high rate of fire. The general convention is to have 4-5 tons of ammo if you have two guns. I have 5 tons/150 rounds of AC/5 ammo on my dual AC/5 BJ-1 and I still run out of ammo occasionally if I consistently find good line of sight throughout the match. Same for the LRM ammo, only 12 volleys (180/15).

Also, note that the missile hardpoint says (10) by it. This means it has 10 missile tubes. Another undocumented feature, I know. When you fire the LRM 15 from that slot, it will fire 10 missiles, pause, then fire another 5. This is not good because enemy AMS will eat up missiles in small groups before they hit the target. I changed it to a LRM 10 because it's lighter, has a higher rate of fire, runs cooler, and isn't bottlenecked by the tubes.

Putting big gun ammo in your CT is a bad idea. If your CT is crit and you get shot there, the ammo might explode and damage you further. Many builds put ammo in the legs because people don't usually go for the legs of heavier mechs (corollary note: do not put ammo in the legs of lights). Also the head is a good option since it's a rarely hit place.

You also might have some heat problems, 27% is not great. The figure means that you're dissipating heat 27% as fast as you'd be generating it if you were firing everything. Note that you're usually not firing everything all the time since the weapons are good at different ranges, so this heat efficiency might be acceptable to your playstyle. Still, I changed it to a large laser because the build seems to be designed mostly for brawling and you have some long range support already with the LRMs.

The Beagle Active Probe isn't too useful with LRMs in my opinion, since you should be shooting at large, slow targets anyway, and will have plenty of time to get a lock, especially if you have spotter teammates. BAP is more useful if you have SSRMs and you need to lock fast to shoot down a light.

That's all I got, let me know what you think! I'm primarily a medium pilot so I might not have any idea what I'm talking about, but it looks sensible to me.

Edited by ThatBum42, 08 April 2014 - 03:46 PM.