110 replies to this topic

[Lukoi Banacek]

Diznitch, on 13 May 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

You know a lot of talk about meta and mechs.

At the end of the day I think the real issue is that without built in VOIP, it is too hard to communicate as a team. With good VOIP the team effect wold help to negate all this meta crap. Strategy would matter. As it is, this is not a PUG option, so only the clanners with time to fool with TeamSpeak are using VOIP.

Really? Because I play games like BF-series without using VOIP the majority of the time and do just fine when it comes to a lack of communications. VOIP is incredibly helpful and damned near necessary in a competitive environment, but it won't do a damned thing against meta builds themselves.

There are clear, obvious reasons the meta builds exist and are saturating the playing field. They are the most optimal way to go, without significant downsides or counters outside of more meta. Why else do I play a frankenmech in 4-mans or internal Clan events and typically switch to a DS with PPC/AC5 for Tournament play? Because the latter builds better results every time in that environment.

Hell, it's clearly more efficient. The two mechs share nearly identical KDR's yet I spend 140 points more damage killing mechs with the BNC (3xAC5, 3xML) than I do with the DS on average, over the course of hundreds of games. That's a telling statistic. To get the same number of kills in the BNC, I have to spend more time/ammo/damage vice the more efficient pinpoint-poptart.

Two teams of equal skill using VOIP, one playing meta, one playing frankenmechs. Watch that go down 100 times and I'm confident that meta will win out 75% of the time or more.

[IIIuminaughty]

You know...if you know how to pilot correctly...the streak cat and srm cat still is bad ass.

[Phlinger]

Just a few ideas to remove Poptarts----- Some serious, some not.......
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Increase the damage done to legs on anything over 35 tons when landing. they can poptart, but it kills them unless they control their thrust.

Increase chance to crit a leg on landing, even with armor intact for mechs over 35 tons.

Make PPC's shoot red flags that say "Pop" when airborne.

Remove Jump capable Victors from the game.

Make PPC's fired over recommended range give splash damage like an LBX.

Not allow more than one PPC to be fired at the same time, must be chain fired. This can be done for all weapons that do not have a continuous beam for damage delivery, AC's as well. Decrease chain firing time, making AC boats Gatling gun mechs that splash damage.

When A person jumps and fires a weapon, a flash on screen alerts the entire red team to your position for an instant lock.

Make the terrain destructible, jumping causes damage to yourself and the ground.

Remove double heatsinks.

Firing more than one of the same weapon at the same time damages the weapon.

Make hard points on mechs require a certain type of weapon unlike the system now....... I.E. short range laser type = medium/small long range laser type= large laser/ppc long range AC or short range AC LRM or SRM slots
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Just a few ideas that might make the game a bit less attracted to one or two weapon types.

Oh, and Poptarting, I hate those guys....

[Jun Watarase]

Mellifluer, on 13 May 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

is it just me or is the PPC+AC or just straight lurms really thick as of late?

just played a match where 9 of the enemy had some combo of 2ppc+ac and the other 3 were just lrm boats.

i mean in the end i could care less because it just means i know that my striker mechs are the go-to solution.

but really it is getting stale to watch my team die consistantly to poptarts.

or to see that most of my team is poptarts anyway thus making things like pushing/brawling an unrealistic tactic.

Seems to happen more often at the higher ELO levels, especially at NA prime time...

Unfortunately, cancer killing MWO.

[Grimmrog]

Tezcatli, on 13 May 2014 - 04:16 PM, said:

Jump jets generating heat would help reduce the effectiveness or at least the frequency that poptarts operate. They should also increase the fall damage based their weight. There should be consequences for not breaking your fall.

something I always wondered about. a small tiny flamer is heatign up the mech. It does use plasma from the engine.
Now 5 rather big a whole mech elevating JJ's also using Plasma form the engine do something like 0 heat. Amazing logic. JJs should generate enough heat that firing a single PPC is all you can do in a jump. everything past that should cause overheating. Still there would be the Gauss sniping thing left to prevent overheating.

[Khobai]

PGIs approach to balancing weapons is not so good. Its obvious that pinpoint damage is overpowered and something needs to be done about it. But also the whole nerfing of whatever weapon is the strongest doesnt work either.

What PGI does: constantly nerf whatever the top weapon is, subsequently causing its replacement by a new top weapon, in an endless vicious cycle. All while ignoring underlying problems with pinpoint damage.

What PGI should do: balance all weapons so that every weapon excels at something different. The ideal goal is to have several different emergent playstyles including sniper, brawler, support, etc... the weapons should be balanced in such a way that you can play whatever style you want without being at an inherent disadvantage. Also PGI needs to explore solutions to pinpoint damage (i.e. burst damage, arcing damage, increased internal structure, etc...)

Edited by Khobai, 14 May 2014 - 12:07 AM.

[Grimmrog]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:01 AM, said:

What PGI should do: balance all weapons so that every weapon excels at something different. The ideal goal is to have several different emergent playstyles including sniper, brawler, support, etc... the weapons should be balanced so that you can play however you want to play without being at an inherent disadvantage.

This a proper wepaon laodout should also have a proper working niche. Sure, sometimes the map may not provide this niche. And some situations may be not suited. But this is then what it is about, knowing your strenghts and weaknesses of your loadout and use the stregth of it. But atm you can get a strong loadout without much weaknesses and thats why its the "forced" meta

[Khobai]

Quote

This a proper wepaon laodout should also have a proper working niche. Sure, sometimes the map may not provide this niche. And some situations may be not suited. But this is then what it is about, knowing your strenghts and weaknesses of your loadout and use the stregth of it. But atm you can get a strong loadout without much weaknesses and thats why its the "forced" meta

Agreed. PPCs should not be as universal as they currently are, giving them a charge-up instead of gauss would make PPCs and ACs synergize less effectively, fixing most problems. Gauss should not have a charge-up at all, instead it should be given a relatively long cooldown as well as a minimum range. That would make Gauss poor at brawling but still good at sniping.

[Ursh]

The insta-convergence has made the meta since HSR implementation be some version of ppc boat/ppc+ac/ppc+gauss.

Literally nothing has changed that basic formula of long range high alpha pinpoint strikes.

I bought an Ilya and tried to play fun builds like 3xLB10X, with mostly mixed success.

Then I put on 2xPPC and 2xAC5 and it magically performed better. Something about doing 30+10+30+10+30 etc. damage to pinpoint locations makes other mechs fall over and die faster.

Edited by Ursh, 14 May 2014 - 12:56 AM.

[Livewyr]

I honestly couldn't tell you what their logic is.. I really can't think of any reason why I would do many of the things they've done.

Maybe it's NGNG?...ear/mouth piece of PGI.. and they're yesmen.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mellifluer, on 13 May 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

is it just me or is the PPC+AC or just straight lurms really thick as of late?

just played a match where 9 of the enemy had some combo of 2ppc+ac and the other 3 were just lrm boats.

i mean in the end i could care less because it just means i know that my striker mechs are the go-to solution.

but really it is getting stale to watch my team die consistantly to poptarts.

or to see that most of my team is poptarts anyway thus making things like pushing/brawling an unrealistic tactic.

Lets see.
We have 3 classes of weapons
Energy
Ballistic
Missile

So what combination of weapons are you expecting to find on the battlefields?

BiB* is a thing you know.


*Bigger is Better

[Flaming oblivion]

Harathan, on 13 May 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

Uncanny how many of those scrubs are competitive 12-mans.

Uncanny how may of those 12 mans think there competitive , If I'm playing yu gi oh and stack the deck so I have all the advantages and the least draw backs , My skill isn't winning the game infact the only reason I have to play with such a advantage is because i'm actually pretty terrible at the game, that is all.

[SubXulu]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 May 2014 - 05:37 PM, said:

... And we know PGI is adverse to effort.

. It wouldn't surprise me if all the developers with a shred of 'clue' had long since left PGI and the reason nothing ever gets done is they don't have anyone left who can do it ...

Edited by SubXulu, 14 May 2014 - 02:41 AM.

[Mudhutwarrior]

In all my matches its nice to see the real player running a no meta build and doing well. Of all those I respect most its that guy. In 9000 matches I think i have reached as good as it gets which is very far down in the pecking order. I will never be good at this but I enjoy a challenging fight and a just plain sharp player. It makes the game fun. Its just too bad they get lost in the team stomp meta we are in right now. I am hoping bringing voip in game will change that more than anything else and the exploiters will be countered and the meta builds will be less meta more quickly. Variety is the spice of life and there isnt much right now.

[Mister Blastman]

Mellifluer, on 13 May 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

is it just me or is the PPC+AC or just straight lurms really thick as of late?

Yes. Every match. For MONTHS. It is by far the absolute best way to play the game. It offers advantages so far above and beyond anything else that other weapon configs are severely disadvantaged.

But according to Paul, the game is balanced™.

[Haji1096]

PGI should get rid of HSR, re-implement convergence.

Problem solved.

[Flaming oblivion]

I don't know if I agree with lrms they are a death sentence to equip pugging (because your team only tends to think of its self) with premades they may be genuinely viable ...... . But they have a lot of draw backs , where as the ppc ac meta has one drawback 90m minimum range if you can call that a draw back.

[Joseph Mallan]

Flaming oblivion, on 14 May 2014 - 02:35 AM, said:

Uncanny how may of those 12 mans think there competitive , If I'm playing yu gi oh and stack the deck so I have all the advantages and the least draw backs , My skill isn't winning the game infact the only reason I have to play with such a advantage is because i'm actually pretty terrible at the game, that is all.

Is there a Prize at the end of the match/tournament? I remember back in the day playing Pokemon with my daughter, her friends, and in the Pokemon League... If I brought a for fun Deck... I was giving the other players an advantage. If there is a prize to be won you'd be an imbecile to bring less than your best.

[Flaming oblivion]

Joseph Mallan, on 14 May 2014 - 04:03 AM, said:

Is there a Prize at the end of the match/tournament? I remember back in the day playing Pokemon with my daughter, her friends, and in the Pokemon League... If I brought a for fun Deck... I was giving the other players an advantage. If there is a prize to be won you'd be an imbecile to bring less than your best.

Prizes are all well and good but at what cost ? The majority of people wont play a game where one load out in specific mechs have a massive advantage , so the majority use the same mechs , And ever match is exactly the same , I've played a month now and I see a map I can tell you exactly where the battles going to be , where the snipers will camp , where the boats will camp, etc etc, And with around 90% certainty I can lock a mech from 1k out and tell you just by the mech and model whether he's meta / brawler / boat .

A game like this will not hold on to the majority of players.

Edited by Flaming oblivion, 14 May 2014 - 04:09 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Flaming oblivion, on 14 May 2014 - 04:08 AM, said:

Prizes are all well and good but at what cost ? The majority of people wont play a game where one load out in specific mechs have a massive advantage , so the majority use the same mechs , And ever match is exactly the same , I've played a month now and I see a map I can tell you exactly where the battles going to be , where the snipers will camp , where the boats will camp, etc etc, And with around 90% certainty I can lock a mech from 1k out and tell you just by the mech and model whether he's meta / brawler / boat .

Combat game. A team oriented Combat game... Do combat forces use a lot of "different" equipment or do they normally bring "like" equipment to stream line logistics? Everyone basically knows what weapons work best, and they will bring them. No matter how well PGI balances the game, there will be dominant weapons and sets of weapons.