1453 R, on 16 May 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:
@Shar.
I don't expect someone trying to write an effective guide to how to get the most out of the TDR chassis to take into account the fact that one random screwball out there on the forums does better than should reasonably be expected with an XL-engine'd fire support version of the machine.
Someone called for my 'Bolt
TDR-5S From The Blue?
....oh dear, things have gotten quite out of hand around here, haven't they? Goodness, be preoccupied for a day or so and come back to find- where has this thread even
led everyone? This almost looks like the work of the Stanley Parable Adventure Line.
1453 R, on 16 May 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:
When I say that the edge cases don't need support, I do not mean that they need anti-support; i.e. being cut down, belittled, or actively bullied. I went through severe bullying myself, and I find it quite offensive that you're accusing me of it here. When I say that the edge cases don't need support, I mean that an edge case is generally his own support.
(Snipped to avoid overlong post.)
They have to - nobody else is able to tell them how they do their thing. The best guide-writers can do is acknowledge that the edge cases are out there, and that they can/do break the rules, sometimes in ways that look to invalidate the rules...but that the rules are still there for a reason.
While it seems to me like Laser's slipping into hyperbole at points here, he does have a valid argument. You can make a similar case for virtually every situation where there's a 'standard' way of doing things; in steamfitting, where you're building power plants and factories and even things up to transcontinental pipelines (just to pull an example from the aether), there are a lot of standard ways of doing things like fastening pipes together that are carrying deadly chemicals.
These are the methods because they work all the time every time to the point that people don't get killed by chemical leaks.
Could some people do better with different methods? Sure. Would they be encouraged to do that? No. Is that right?
YES. Because prompting people to try risky things results in risk, and risk in that sort of situation gets people killed far, far more often than it results in success.
This is, of course, a different situation. Nobody is actually physically dying (or mentally dying; no rutabegas here!) just because they tried an oddball method of play. But they are creating worse games for themselves, a worse experience if they don't
acknowledge that they're doing something that is unlikely to work out well, and a worse play experience for the other eleven people on their side of the match.
I think the key point Cimarb is trying to make here- on the basis of a tiny but important part of the original post- is one that has already been acknowledged by the 'other side' of the argument: there are methods of play that actually result in a functional, highly contributing missile boat Atlas. The problem is twofold. I'll get back to this in a minute.
Shar Wolf, on 16 May 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:
Ultimately - (I believe) part of the core problem is that a lot of new players come in - look at the LRM (those that notice how to use them anyways) and assume it is an easy mode.
And this is a huge contributing element. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this issue is not restricted to new players. I am a part of the Skye Rangers- I have dropped with people who've been playing since the beginning of the Closed Beta. And I am afraid I have to admit, honestly, that there is at least one pilot (probably more) in the Rangers who refuses to use LRMs because they are 'easy mode', gets absolutely hacked off at LRM-boating enemy pilots because they're playing 'easy mode', and is running around with at least one Founders 'mech.
Unfortunately, that particular point has been belabored fruitlessly; nobody who thinks that LRMs are 'easy' weapons seems willing to concede that they are not just the easiest 'homing' 'fire-and-forget' weapons in the game, regardless of how much is made of the arguments about it. So I'm going to leave that part of it alone for now and just say this:
A significant number of people are of the opinion that LRMs are an extremely easy weapon to use effectively, and this contributes to the frequency of things like LRM-boat Atlases and CPLT-C4s with one medium laser, one tag, and two ALRM-20s (among other stuff I've seen). While that is not necessarily a bad thing, a predominance of the pilots using these 'mechs are not very good at using them.
Void Angel, on 16 May 2014 - 09:27 PM, said:
Now, Shar, I find myself troubled by your accusation of "cyberbullying."
Bullying, cyber or otherwise is the new compassionate social activist fad - and like PTSD, it's well and truly started to be overdiagnosed. Bullying really does happen, and should be curbed, but the emphasis on classifying the misbehavior is looking at the problem from entirely the wrong direction. We should be paying attention to how children should be treating others, not criminalizing/penalizing certain behaviors that are used to make others feel bad. The difference is that the former method focuses on a positive standard of behavior, while the second focuses on identifying behaviors that are deemed hurtful - the latter is far more abusable than the former, since the negative definition would logically encompass anything that might possibly hurt someone's feelings.
I don't think you understand what you're unleashing here - if someone feels bad because they're disagreed with, or because a guide was written that told them not to do something they're doing, or because the people that disagree outnumber them; and they then get to claim protection and consideration because they feel bad and that's hurtful... you have handed them the keys to all discourse. To borrow and paraphrase from one of my favorite authors, it seems very merciful to say that no one should ever have their feelings hurt or feel marginalized. Until you see what lies behind it: the demand that those with hurt feelings should be allowed to blackmail the universe; that until they shall consent to be comforted - on their terms - no one else can have an opinion; that theirs should be the final power - that misery should be able to veto truth.
People should always engage in argument politely - "passion" is no excuse - but there is a vitally important distinction between following the rules of public discourse and condoning an argument from pity.
Frankly, I consider the fact that 'cyberbullying' (Really? A separate entire classification because it's online? What is that? What even
is that? Bullying is bullying, we don't need to tack on prefixes. Holy cow.) has even been brought up to be a detriment to the topic as a whole.
This topic has been getting out of hand in a number of ways for quite a while now (one instance I personally derailed pseudo-incidentally), but at no point has anyone actually been engaged in bullying that I can detect. Admittedly, it's possible that the people conversing here have been following each other to other topics and heckling each other about this one, or engaging in attempts to force one another into negative situations (and how can you even do that, this is an internet), and if anyone's gotten at all close to doing so, it's Cimarb, who refuses to concede the point (please note that I am not saying he should or should not, that is not my goal or intent with this paragraph- only that he hasn't) that the guide is meant for 'Stan McAverage Mechpilot' and not to tell 'Leonard Reallygood Missiler' (see what I did there?) to stop doing the thing that he's actually remarkably good at. This is because the topic was not started by Cimarb and Cim has repeatedly claimed to be done on the basis that 'the other side isn't any good and will never see the light'
and has then returned to the topic to argue more.
There are places where that behavior- righteous or not- will get you banned for trolling (which, let's be honest, is a form of bullying), regardless of whether or not it actually is trolling in that particular instance.
All of that said, I was saying something about a twofold problem? Give me a moment here, I've lost track a bit.....
Right, okay.
The real problem here that has sparked and resparked the argument that occupies the majority of this thread is twofold.
First of all, the thread's title and the start of the original post are functionally a large-font blanket statement: Atlas missile boats are bad and should not be played. This is functionally misleading, because it is not
actually what Void was trying to communicate. While I do not necessarily agree with Cimarb's belief that this requires constant, repeated railing against the idea that an Atlas DDC makes an inferior missile boat in the majority of situations (including the pilot as part of the situation), I do agree with the idea that the lead of this guide should be changed. Be it 'Atlas missile boats are not great builds', 'Most of you people driving this don't seem to know what you're doing', or 'Missiles in general are getting misused and because of the way the game displays numbers at the end of the match you don't even realize'- or even something completely else, I really think the opening statement should be less blankety.
Opening statements of an argument set the tone of the whole thing and establish the way that those observing and participating in the argument are going to receive what is said during the argument, and the current opening statement of this 'guide' (in quotes because I'm not sure this fits my personal definition of a guide, not because of mockery or anything else) sets an attacking tone. As a result, it is unlikely that anyone is going to let the opening post
change their mind on something (the purported intent of this thread existing to begin with) because it is natural when attacked to defend oneself.
At the same time, though, that having been done wrong
does not in any way invalidate what Void is trying to say or request, no matter how hard one argues to the contrary. The first problem is one of intent and the results of poorly chosen words (which is not bullying and I just don't even what).
The other fold of this is going to take some following me a moment here, but I'm sure I'm going somewhere useful. Unlike that ridiculous Adventure Line.
Cimarb succeeds and contributes considerably with his LRM-boat Atlas. (This is not a Truth, this is an assumption I'm making. I don't have the data to confirm this as a Truth, but I feel okay making this assumption for the moment, because it's not actually necessary to the final point.) This is cool and good for Cimarb, who should not feel bad about doing so. This is not cool and good for players who have not devised the 'mech building methods that suit their own natural actions and reactions mid-match, and then see someone like Cimarb doing a good job in an LRM-boat Atlas and go 'He's doing great, I should do that also because clearly it works.'
The reason this is not cool and good for these players is that for a considerable portion (likely a vast majority) of these players, they are not going to succeed and contribute considerably with an LRM-boat Atlas. Unfortunately, because of several elements (the way the game is constructed, the way the end-of-match scores are displayed, individual viewpoint, the fact that you have to be fairly good at something in order to be capable of recognizing whether or not you are actually good at it, and probably a few things I've forgotten or otherwise not noted), these pilots are not
aware of how much of a boat anchor they're being. Even if they are aware that they're losing regularly, they are unlikely to have the right kind of self-consciousness to know when they're doing poorly or well and what they're doing wrong when they do something wrong- particularly because they're always going to see certain numbers.
The intent of this thread is to discourage these people from running Atlases as missile boats just because they saw someone else make it work, on the grounds that the Atlas chassis (in general, and the DDC in specific) is much better suited to either a more diversified weapons load, a different weapons load, or at least a missile load with more than just some emergency backup weapons, assuming that pilot variance is not a thing. This
is true, because missile hardpoints, critical hit slot limitations, an Atlas' vast tonnage capacity, and the ability to distract enemies by soaking shots that they could have been putting into frailer allies are all things. (I will disagree vehemently on the tube-count thing, but that really belongs in a missile-use general topic, not in an Atlas-specific topic.)
Cimarb, however, for whatever reason, believes that he does well in his missile-boat Atlas. Please note that I am using the word 'believes' because Cimarb does believe this, not because it is untrue. It is entirely possible to believe in the truth. The important part of this statement is not whether or not Cimarb's belief is true, but rather that Cimarb holds this belief; because whether or not Cimarb is of a correct belief has nothing to do with the fact that Cimarb acted on this belief.
Now that I've clarified that: Cimarb believes that he does well in his missile-boat Atlas. He also believes that there are other people out there who could do just as well in missile-boat Atlases of their own. (This belief is in all likelihood correct supposing that there are enough people playing this game. I have no idea how many 'enough' is, but I consider it highly probable that 'enough' is considerably less than the number of people who play Mechwarrior Online.)
Because he holds this belief (as I was saying, the belief is the important part, not its accuracy) Cimarb has come here to indicate that it is possible to do well in a missile-boat Atlas. The problem here is that this advocacy should not be needed.
It should not be needed because, as is the point of the original post of this thread, just because you saw someone do it and it worked does
not, in fact, mean that
you can do it and make it work. However, that point keeps getting bypassed in arguments back and forth- arguments that are not flying against each other, but rather at right angles to each other!
One side is arguing that missile-boat Atlases can contribute significantly to a battle.
The other side is arguing that players should not be encouraged to specifically run missile-boat Atlases because there are builds the chassis is better suited to that are more likely to work for more players.
Neither side can convince the other that they are right
because these arguments are not opposites so there is no ground to actually give.
Since neither side can win the tug of war they aren't actually having with each other, both sides are getting frustrated and trying to find ways to pull the other in their direction, both sides are getting emotional, both sides are resorting to stranger and stranger arguments (like the whole bullying thing), and both sides are eating up huge page counts basically yelling at each other to no actual purpose.
Given this, I would like to move that two things be done.
First of all, Void, please change the opening to your original post so that it is not phrased in an offensive (and by offensive I mean in the terms of an offense, i.e. an attack, not offensive 'I am offended by what you have said') manner, and be wary of such in the future; it will help you avoid playing tug-o-war with the wall off to the left of people who are trying to protect themselves.
Second, we should all try to be clear on the following: Just because anyone could and may do a thing does not mean everyone can and should do a thing, and recognizing this is very important to ensuring that you and the people around you have a good time (which is what we all play this game for anyway).
I think this would help immensely and maybe get things resolved so that the topic can be constructive.
Now that I've spent the first hour of my day on this, I'ma go have a shower and breakfast. Hopefully things will be calmer when I get back.
-QKD-CR0
Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 17 May 2014 - 08:19 AM.
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