229 replies to this topic

[Ngamok]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 22 April 2014 - 10:14 AM, said:

Sometimes I have to wonder just how big a spread the MM draws from. Does it go entirely on average Elo for a team, or does it have a total range it can draw from, or does it pull in players who are within a certain range of other players (allowing for a cascade effect of Elo ranges; 3000 pulls in a 2800, which pulls in a 2600, which pulls in a 2400, etc., resulting in a 3000 Elo player and an 1800 Elo player on the same team).

Pretty sure it casts a wide net sometimes to get a match going. But it tries to do a good job on the matchmaker. It's not perfect because some people that I play with that are newer, I tend to do really well that match because it puts our team ELO lower so it makes me look good at the end, lol. When I drop solo or with some of the older better players, I tend to get in with people like Bishop or Deathlike or any number of the above average players and I look average myself.

[Sigilum Sanctum]

That I did not know, so thank you. I run 3 SRM4s in the RT. But my other 2 shadowhawks I use LRMs so that will be helpful in the future

Edited by Sigilum Sanctum, 22 April 2014 - 11:00 AM.

[Ngamok]

I just toggle with the left shift key. It's only a few mechs that are set up to benefit from arm lock when shooting anyways. I love arm mounted weapons.

[Coolant]

Arm lock is easier for pinpoint damage....plus MW4:Mercs had arm lock. Anything that is like that game is a plus

[Bishop Steiner]

Techorse, on 22 April 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Armlock is definitely a crutch. I have a lot of respect for ya, Bishop.

However, I am getting a bit tired of the idea being "maximize your skill" in every single game I sign up for. I'm also tired of being called "scrub" or whatever if I'm not making maxing my skill level my main goal in a game.
What I'm saying is, calling armlock a crutch is fair, but hating or looking down on players for using it is not. Unless of course you are playing in a tournament or league. Then you should really try to max your skill

Fair enough. and how does being "required" to use it to "compete" sit with you as a position?

You see, I feel my outlook is kind of the opposite of what you say. SJR and the Comp guys bring out that to run at "peak efficiency" in comp, you need every trick in the bag. And sadly, in Comp Play, this is pretty much true.

So being "required! to use a crutch to "maximize" skill, doesn't bother you, but me saying quite honestly, if you don't use it, your skill will naturally progress is bad? Because that is what I am saying. Not that one has to use it or not. But that learning to play without it is akin to learning to swim without fins, or shoot without a scope. At the extremes those things can be taken, you take the add ons you are given. But one is always benefited from learning how to do it without the ****, first.

I choose not to use it at all. But the crime, so to speak is the way the tutorials are implemented, and the feature itself buried in the UI, so as to cripple new player growth in the first place. You wanna learn to drive? Start on a stick. You can always go to an automatic later, but you never know just when knowing how to use a stick might save your life. (and yeah, there is a true life story tied to that analogy)

[FireSlade]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

I'm rather partial to Mediums myself, and in your face knife fighting. Possibly why I hold such disdain for arm lock. Why limit my ability to shoot mechs I'm NOT facing, and expose my core to enemy fire? Makes sense on a poptart (even if it's one more reason to dislike the meta), but none at all, IMO for CQB jocks, and especially ones in faster machines.

egads, could you imagine trying to run a YLW with arm lock on?

Same reasons why I hate it too and since I almost always run XL engines facing the enemy giving predictable shots to my side torso seems like suicide. It is also the reason that I learned to twist twist away to protect my armor-less section and hold "left ctrl" and aim my arms without my torso following. Tricky to learn but effective.

Also the YLW basically runs with the yaw locked and only allowing the pitch to change. I think that it should have a little side to side play to account for the shoulder joint but nowhere near the amount with the lower actuator.

Edit:

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

You wanna learn to drive? Start on a stick. You can always go to an automatic later, but you never know just when knowing how to use a stick might save your life. (and yeah, there is a true life story tied to that analogy)

Just make sure whoever is teaching to drive stick is inside the vehicle. Was trying to teach the misses how to let the clutch out on my Bronco (needed to move it forward in the parking lot to access the tailgate) and much to my surprise she did not stall it. Then there was me running trying to jump in the cab and cut the engine, her hitting the gas by accident, me falling and grabbing the steering wheel so that I would not go under the rear tire (my leg was against it), then she found the brakes. The out come was that she is now scared to death of the truck, and my jeans were shredded with my boxers hanging out. She still hates me for that lol.

Edited by FireSlade, 22 April 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ngamok, on 22 April 2014 - 10:58 AM, said:

Pretty sure it casts a wide net sometimes to get a match going. But it tries to do a good job on the matchmaker. It's not perfect because some people that I play with that are newer, I tend to do really well that match because it puts our team ELO lower so it makes me look good at the end, lol. When I drop solo or with some of the older better players, I tend to get in with people like Bishop or Deathlike or any number of the above average players and I look average myself.

well, we should start a support group for Average Players Anonymous. That way we don't sully the feet of our betters!

But seriously, yeah, I can't figure MM out, cuz their are times I drop with against Curccu or the like, and I'm looking around at our team, and I'm alpha lance..... and I start thinking...well, isn't this quaint, lol. I got no delusions about my place in the grand scheme, I have neither the time nor desire to be one of the "L33Ts", and I am certainly not a scrub. What I am is a pretty solid team player with a perspective built by having more matches than even some of the elite competition. What is funny is how certain members of that fraternity think they got nothing to learn from "average" players. Whereas the really good ones seem to be the most open to thinking outside the accepted wisdom, even if they don't necessarily agree or embrace the ideas. They tend to be the ones to catch the shifts in meta right away, because it's scrubs like you and me who experiment with the non "accepted meta" and discover when things are actually viable again.

[Ngamok]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

well, we should start a support group for Average Players Anonymous. That way we don't sully the feet of our betters!

But seriously, yeah, I can't figure MM out, cuz their are times I drop with against Curccu or the like, and I'm looking around at our team, and I'm alpha lance..... and I start thinking...well, isn't this quaint, lol. I got no delusions about my place in the grand scheme, I have neither the time nor desire to be one of the "L33Ts", and I am certainly not a scrub. What I am is a pretty solid team player with a perspective built by having more matches than even some of the elite competition. What is funny is how certain members of that fraternity think they got nothing to learn from "average" players. Whereas the really good ones seem to be the most open to thinking outside the accepted wisdom, even if they don't necessarily agree or embrace the ideas. They tend to be the ones to catch the shifts in meta right away, because it's scrubs like you and me who experiment with the non "accepted meta" and discover when things are actually viable again.

When I drop solo and I am in Alpha Lance, I just say, "well poop"

[Suko]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 April 2014 - 10:16 PM, said:

Except our Boars Head had his lasers in arms lock. Could barely track the other mech. And after an excruciating 2 minutes of fat guy circling the fox, dies, costing us the game. GG JoolNoret, you fought well, our fatty should have won, but your skill was better than his. (And hey you killed me too, though I was trashed by the time we met. Still well done, sir!)

I think I had this guy on alpine. Boars Head with 4 Large Pulse Lasers and an LRM 15. Arm lock on and ALL weapons on 1 group......yeah. It was incredibly frustrating watching him botch so many opportunities to help the team out.

[Pjwned]

I use arm lock the majority of the time because it's a pain in the ass having my crosshair sway all over the place all the time, but when I do need to turn it off I simply hold the shift button while aiming.

I could probably use it better on mechs with lower arm actuators though because I rarely use it to swing my crosshair to the side even when it could be really valuable to do so. Maybe I'll work on doing that more in the future actually, although now that I think about it I don't use too many mechs with LAA so that's probably why.

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 22 April 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

If you run SSRMs or LRMs on your Shawk then arm lock cripples you even if they're torso-mounted, since it makes it significantly harder to get and retain locks with your missiles. The worst is when someone has big energy guns on the arms and a lot of SSRMs on the torso and has arm lock always on, because they not only can't they hit with their lasers or whathaveyou, but they can't get a lock with their missiles.

A lot of people don't realize that locks are based on the arm reticule, not the torso crosshair.

Well crap I didn't know that either and I do have a streakhawk I've been running recently so that's good to know; would be nice if it was a little more obvious that's how it works.

Edited by Pjwned, 22 April 2014 - 11:57 AM.

[Turist0AT]

You know what grinds my gears.

Is that button for arms lock toggle is not actually a toggle you need to keep pressing it for it to work. Why cant it be toggle, like it says!!!

[East Indy]

Aresye, on 21 April 2014 - 11:38 PM, said:

I can easily deactivate it for the brief period I actually need it for.

Thread should've ended here.

If I need to hit a target with an arm-mounted weapon, I unlock. Otherwise, I have no problems hitting what I need to while twisting/rolling appropriately.

[Bishop Steiner]

ShadowVFX, on 22 April 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

I think I had this guy on alpine. Boars Head with 4 Large Pulse Lasers and an LRM 15. Arm lock on and ALL weapons on 1 group......yeah. It was incredibly frustrating watching him botch so many opportunities to help the team out.

Naw, different build. It's possible that the guy changed it, but I think it far more likely a symptom of certain chassis.

When newer players look to get their "golden bullet" one would naturally think the biggest hero would be the baddest boy on the block. And sadly, the Boarshead really isn't. But Sadder is that most players, tutorial or not, seem totally unaware that you can deactivate armlock. So you get a rash of relatively new players hamstrung by PGIs UI design and poor communications skills with the community.

As I told the guy I dropped with, he did contribute to the game earlier, he had 2 kills, and decent damage. But he was not even aware of the armlock issue, and so got torched. My frustration ain't with him, but with the whole design of it, in the first place, and still laughably lackluster new player immersion and instruction 2 years in.

Turist0AT, on 22 April 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

You know what grinds my gears.

Is that button for arms lock toggle is not actually a toggle you need to keep pressing it for it to work. Why cant it be toggle, like it says!!!

IDK...I think....if I were to use it I would prefer it like it is now. because then it's there when you "need" it, but the rest of the time you have free range to improve your ability to hit peripheral targets and enhance missile locks.

East Indy, on 22 April 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

Thread should've ended here.

If I need to hit a target with an arm-mounted weapon, I unlock. Otherwise, I have no problems hitting what I need to while twisting/rolling appropriately.

Yup, thread should end because of your opinion. Love it!

[Samziel]

I have it toggled and CTRL to unlock it whenever I need my arms.

Edited by Samziel, 22 April 2014 - 11:30 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Samziel, on 22 April 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

I have it toggled and CTRL to unlock it whenever I need my arms.

i prefer my free look for enhancing my arm tracking to stay there too much. Another symptom of my inferior play style, I reckon!

[warner2]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 22 April 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

It is certainly not an accident that the toggle has a key mapping. Players who have found comfortable use in the Arm Lock in tactical situations are free and welcome to continue doing so. Our goal is to offer a wide range of ways to pilot a Mech with no one particular way right or wrong (Except a few rounds I played the other night last night...Mistakes were made.)

The arm-lock is not a toggle. It's a modifier, like free-look is a modifier. Chain fire is a toggle.

[Bishop Steiner]

warner2, on 22 April 2014 - 11:35 AM, said:

The arm-lock is not a toggle. It's a modifier, like free-look is a modifier. Chain fire is a toggle.

and TAG should bloody well get a toggle.

[Ngamok]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

and TAG should bloody well get a toggle.

I hate jamming a coin in my #6 key to keep it on.

[East Indy]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

Yup, thread should end because

Because that player's problem was not using arm movement at all, rather than swinging that cursor around like kool kidz. There are better ways for you to offer breathless, blanket condemnations.

[Dawnstealer]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 April 2014 - 12:13 AM, said:

Naw, the Atlas had him dead to rights a dozen times...if he could have moved his arms. I'm sure it was a n00b player who thought he could go "P2W" by buying the biggest Hero, but seriously...... it was bad. Wish I had recorded it for posterity as a good training video for n00bs why "arm lock is bad" (yeah, for experienced players it can be a useful exploit.... but it should not be a default. Seriously, within 5 matches I figured out torso and arm movement. How much do we need to coddle modern players? Has CoD really dumbed people down that much?)

I've actually done this to new players before in a variety of zippy mechs. I feel bad for them but not, you know, bad enough to not kill them.