114 replies to this topic

[Ultimax]

Penance, on 02 July 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

Nooblet question...what do you mean by 'meta'?

The way I know the term is: to think of the kind of mechs you'll face and build a mech to counter them. If anyone here plays magic the gathering it's that form of metagame, thinking of the decks you'll likely see in a tourney, then building your deck to counter.

In mwo though it seems to mean a particular type of build?

I think meta tends to get misused around here, but what you describe is accurate.

The issue is that in this game, for quite a long time, there are no decks to counter the "top deck".

So there is only one deck (mechanic) basically, and because of that it is constantly referred to as "the" meta.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 02 July 2014 - 05:48 AM.

[Livewyr]

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 05:08 AM, said:

I disagree.

This is what would be different:

1) More mechs would be "viable". As opposed to now where only a small handful can actually run the builds.
2) We're all arguing for a change in the mechanics of delivery. This alone would mean that getting hit with 30 point alphas are no longer pinpoint alphas. The damage would be spread better.

1: Most IS mechs can run the builds, even Dragons run the builds. Jagers, K2s, etcs..
Griffins and Trebs get left in the cold on Ballistics, but they can mount 2 PPCs and still do the work just fine.

2: It would not solve the issue of a weapon with 2-3x the range having the same RoF.. CoF or not, it can still hit a target at range, even if it is not as precise- and when it closed range, it would still perform just as well as the short range. (who also have a CoF)

PPCs and Gauss would still reign supreme. They have no drawback for their vastly superior range.

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 05:08 AM, said:

You seem to think we are saying "Do nothing".

We are not saying "Do nothing" - we are saying "Don't nerf individual weapons. Adjust the delivery mechanics"

Well, when individual weapons have a clear advantage, and not just in jumpsniping, to say "do not touch individual weapons" is to say "Do nothing."

Even if they did create a [sic] cone of fire mechanic for everything. (Including lasers with some justification..)
PPCs/Gauss would still reign supreme because even if they are not as accurate, they can still hit at range, where as short range weapons cannot. Period. At all.

And then, beyond that, when they get into range, they can still fire as frequently as the short range weapons, not giving the weapon a significant draw back.

Applying CoF to everything would not change the dominance of long range weapons that are just as effective at short range.

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 05:08 AM, said:

Yes because pinpoint convergence is superior to spread damage, even when the weight to damage ratio is massively in favor of the spread weapons.

Because 3 weapon systems are allowed to converge on a single, tiny point.

Because you can also fire those 30 tons of multiple weapon systems in half second snapshots after a short jump without suffering massive accuracy penalties.

You forgot to add: Because they shoot at the same rate as the short range weapons. They are effective at all ranges.

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 05:08 AM, said:

There is a trade off.

The trade off is weight to damage ratio.

The problem is that the benefit of that weight to damage ratio is lost because spread mechanics are inferior to pinpoint mechanics. Not because of RoF.


SRMs have an "optimal" range of 270m - except firing them at targets 270m away is like farting in their general direction while - this is a delivery mechanics issue.

Even if you get point blank, the delivery is still a mess. You lose way too much damage in the spread.

And if you want the PPCs to be even remain useful at range (a 4m spread at 540m for example- capable of miss at range), at short range they would still pick out components.

Aside from SRMs, PPCs have the best damage/weight ratio, only match is the AC20, at 10/7, with half the range. And then on top of that, the PPCs have the exact same rate of fire. (Heat on reg PPCs is not a concern with DHS.)


--------------------

Any way you stack it- having the same RoF and 2-3x the range makes the weapon superior.

[C E Dwyer]

blah blah two ac5 better than four srm6

over heat blah blah

Well of course they do four , 4 srm6's get effected by heat scale

Try three

[Ultimax]

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

1: Most IS mechs can run the builds, even Dragons run the builds. Jagers, K2s, etcs..
Griffins and Trebs get left in the cold on Ballistics, but they can mount 2 PPCs and still do the work just fine.

The "builds" really require jump jets. That was my meaning.

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

2: It would not solve the issue of a weapon with 2-3x the range having the same RoF.. CoF or not, it can still hit a target at range, even if it is not as precise- and when it closed range, it would still perform just as well as the short range. (who also have a CoF)

You keep saying this, because you seem to not understand the difference in weight to damage ratios and how that should (but doesn't) benefit the spike damage weapons.

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

PPCs and Gauss would still reign supreme. They have no drawback for their vastly superior range.

You mean aside from PPCs having poor heat to damage output and a 90m min range?

You mean aside from Gauss having a charge up time and barely more DPS than an AC 5?

If you have 2x AC 5s and your opponent has 1 Gauss, do yourself a favor and rush him. Because your DPS will outstrip his by nearly double.

Just 6 tons of Medium lasers = 30 damage vs. 15 from the Gauss. This is weight to damage ratio advantage.

Which brings us back to delivery mechanics.

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

Even if they did create a [sic] cone of fire mechanic for everything. (Including lasers with some justification..)

Lasers, especially pulse lasers, should have the least or even no CoF. That would be their advantage.

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

PPCs/Gauss would still reign supreme because even if they are not as accurate, they can still hit at range, where as short range weapons cannot. Period. At all.

Short range weapons are all lower weight. That is their compensation.

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

And then, beyond that, when they get into range, they can still fire as frequently as the short range weapons, not giving the weapon a significant draw back.

I covered this.

Weight to damage ratio. Go through all of the "short range" low weight weapons, and look at their weight to damage efficiency.

[PappySmurf]

First off all you fools tell me what META MWO has? hahahaha its a joke MWO is nothing more that a 12 Vs 12 FREE FOR ALL battle type no meta no nothing.

The last time i played a real meta type MechWarrior game it was MechWarrior4 Mercinaries playing in a league called NBT= http://www.netbattletech.com/nbt-mp3/ playing planitary battles with drop decks. Or playing MWL league for MW4.

Untill MWO transforms into MechWarrior it will always be a boring FPS game period.

[Rasc4l]

I agree.

[Penance]

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 05:47 AM, said:

I think meta tends to get misused around here, but what you describe is accurate.

The issue is that in this game, for quite a long time, there are no decks to counter the "top deck".

So there is only one deck (mechanic) basically, and because of that it is constantly referred to as "the" meta.

There really are no builds that are a real counter to any build in my opinion. The counter to a build is tactics, there isn't anything here that's a counter to something else from what I see...the exception is ams.

Guess I was confused as to how the word is being used...it's not being used right..technically there really isn't a metagame, since you can think you'll face gauss cats, you can't build a counter to that.

Edited by Penance, 02 July 2014 - 06:40 AM.

[Sjorpha]

Here's an idea:

Make weapons converge only within a 200m range span around their optimal range, so a ppc for example would converge between 440 and 640 meters.

This would have a number of implications, for example that only is small lasers and the like would converge when really close, ppcs and gauss wouldn't converge perfectly at any range and so on. Firing any weapon at the wrong range would be made difficult w without introducing any random factors.

[Livewyr]

Due to concerns with the Forum choking on divided quotes, I will respond in italics. (With Bold as emphasis where desired.)

Ultimatum X, on 02 July 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

The "builds" really require jump jets. That was my meaning.

They really do not, there is still corner and hill-humping. That is why the DS is used over the 9S, it has a shield said and can also corner hump along with Jumpsnipe. They are just different forms of peekaboo. If you eliminated JJs altogether, you would still get peekaboo shots.


You keep saying this, because you seem to not understand the difference in weight to damage ratios and how that should (but doesn't) benefit the spike damage weapons.

AC5 (we will call it short range for this): 8 tons for 5 damage.
AC10 (12 tons for 10 damage)
AC20 (14 tons for 20 damage- same ratio as PPCs at 7 for 10- and not a huge difference in heat.)
ML (1 ton for 5 damage- over one second.) [Does not allow for snapshot and shield arm defense.]
MPL (2 tons for 6 damage- over .6 second) [Does not allow for snapshot- also has pitiful 220m range.]
SRM2 (1 ton for 4 damage, spread out with 300m/s speed .)
SRM4 (2 tons for 8 damage, spread out with 300m/s speed.)
SRM6 (3 tons for 12 damage, spread out with 300m/s speed.)[Intense leading, and actually able to be dodged, with 270m capped range]


You mean aside from PPCs having poor heat to damage output and a 90m min range?

PPC (7 tons for 10 damage, instant.) [Higher heat mitigated by paying the DHS tax][90m minimum only problematic if a light gets in close 1 on 1]

You mean aside from Gauss having a charge up time and barely more DPS than an AC 5?

Instant frontloaded 3x damage with 3x over-range. DPS does not matter in the peekaboo game. Only in the facebrawl game, where it matches it.

If you have 2x AC 5s and your opponent has 1 Gauss, do yourself a favor and rush him. Because your DPS will outstrip his by nearly double.

Depending on the range (has has 3x overrange, where you cannot touch him). Also, he can peekaboo pop you, and mitigate most of your DPS advantage. Also, once you are in range, he can give you the cold shoulder to eat out your constant DPS while not touching his vitals.. then he turns and delivers a 15pp hit, turns back.

Just 6 tons of Medium lasers = 30 damage vs. 15 from the Gauss. This is weight to damage ratio advantage.

Same problem of 2xAC, only add excessive heat and terrible range disparity.

Which brings us back to delivery mechanics.




Lasers, especially pulse lasers, should have the least or even no CoF. That would be their advantage.

ERLL becomes the meta. a Mech at 600-1000 meters could do surgery with relative impunity due to the CoF of other weapons. (I already use the SCR-Prime with 3 ERLL and 4 ERML for that purpose.)


Short range weapons are all lower weight. That is their compensation.

That does not balance Long Range disadvantage, when the long range can effectively fight at short range. (That is why you do not see a bunch of short range weapons in tourneys- aside from maybe light mechs.) The advantage is not appreciable.


I covered this.

Weight to damage ratio. Go through all of the "short range" low weight weapons, and look at their weight to damage efficiency.

I did.

[RussianWolf]

oO

You enjoy winning, but not the build you are using to win......

1)find another build that you do enjoy. Nothing is making you play that meta except for your desire to win.

2)learn that you are here for your enjoyment. If the only thing that you are enjoying is winning, you are screwed since you are going to lose about half your matches regardless. Winning isn't everything. Trying to win in sub-optimal builds is very challenging and much more fun.

[PappySmurf]

(oO

You enjoy winning, but not the build you are using to win......

1)find another build that you do enjoy. Nothing is making you play that meta except for your desire to win.

2)learn that you are here for your enjoyment. If the only thing that you are enjoying is winning, you are screwed since you are going to lose about half your matches regardless. Winning isn't everything. Trying to win in sub-optimal builds is very challenging and much more fun. )
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First lets define game META shall we?

Metagaming is any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself.
In simple terms, it is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one's in-game decisions.

• In role-playing games, a player is metagaming when they use knowledge that is not available to their character in order to change the way they play their character (usually to give them an advantage within the game), such as knowledge of the mathematical nature of character statistics, or the statistics of a creature that the player is familiar with but the character has never encountered. In some RPGs, players may metagame when they rename a character with a false name to their real name. For instance, in Final Fantasy VII, Red XIII's real name is Nanaki but gamers don't find that out until much later in the story line. Renaming Red XIII to his real name when given the opportunity is using out of game knowledge, which constitutes as meta gaming. It also comically breaks the game later when the game script will say, "What? Nanaki's real name is Nanaki?" In general, it refers to any gaps between player knowledge and character knowledge which the player acts upon.

• Computer game development projects, in which the game company seeking to develop new and better games will set its developers to propose and test alternative designs and rules among themselves, until they arrive at a new design that they can expect will be popular. This development process is itself a kind of metagame.

• In the game Blockland, there is a gamemode consisting of spectators, prisoners, and guards. If a prisoner is caught with contraband, he/she can be killed by the guards. The prisoners must hide all of their contraband until they need to use it. If one of the spectators were to witness a prisoner pick up contraband and tell one of the guards, he/she would be metagaming, due to the fact that he/she "goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game"

• In popular trading card games, such as Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game players compete with decks they have created in advance and the "metagame" consists of the deck types that are currently popular and expected to show up in large numbers in a tournament. The knowledge of metagame trends can give the players an edge against other participants, while playing (quickly recognizing what kind of deck opponents have to guess their likely cards and moves) and more importantly in the deck building process, by selecting and adapting designs to do well against the popular deck types at the expense of performance against rarer ones. It's also possible to bluff opponents into expecting cards that aren't there, or to surprise the competition with novel decks that nobody is prepared for. The secondary market of cards is heavily influenced by metagame trends: cards become more valuable when they are popular, often to the point of scarcity.^[3]

• In fighting games such as Super Smash Bros. Melee, metagaming may occur at the character select screen. The opposing character has various strengths that can be avoided and weaknesses that can be exploited more easily depending on the character you choose provided you are aware of those strengths and weaknesses (called a "match up"). For a basic example, a character with a projectile attack has the advantage over a grappler who must be close to the opponent to be effective. Match up metagaming is very important in tournament settings. In recent fighting games, blind select has been implemented for online modes. This makes it so that neither player can see what character the other player chose. In tournaments, players have the option to opt for a blind select where they tell a judge in confidence the character they intend to select in the match, making their character choice mandatory. A newer trend in more recently released titles is to allow the selection of multiple characters at once which the player can then switch between on the fly, rendering match-up picking excessively hard and virtually impractical.

• Many logic puzzles allow an analogue of metagaming. By convention, logic puzzles are only considered well-constructed if they have a unique solution. When solving a puzzle, one might notice that if a certain candidate symbol were placed in one square, there would be multiple ways to complete another part of the puzzle, and no extra information could possibly decide between them. Ruling out that candidate on these grounds would be metagaming.

Im truly sorry but MWO has no meta and if you think changing mech builds is META I feel dam sorry for those that do.

Edited by PappySmurf, 02 July 2014 - 10:07 AM.

[LastPaladin]

Alwrath, on 01 July 2014 - 11:50 AM, said:

I agree that even though srm6's work now as intended, its still not enough damage to use it over the long range pinpoint weapons in high elo. They need thier damage buffed to 2.75 or 3.0, then we might see top elo brawls.

Yeah, SRMs need to do more damage than a comparable weight of pinpoint weapons, or why take them? Just one SRM6 with Artemis and 2 tons of ammo (pretty much minimum requirements to make that weapon viable) takes 6 tons and does 12 spread damage only out to 270m. For one more ton, I could mount a PPC to do 10 pp damage out to over 1000. Why pick the SRM? The only really logical reasons to do it now are to cut down on heat, or if you are short on hardpoints.

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 01 July 2014 - 11:03 PM, said:

Fun fact: The M256 120mm Rheinmetall gun on the M1A1 Abrams MBT has a cone of fire of 35 meters at 8,000 meters.

that's interestingly useless what is its cone of fire at 800 meters? that would be more appropriate

[stjobe]

Livewyr, on 02 July 2014 - 04:42 AM, said:

What is the Abrams CoF at 500 meters? (for shiggles)

2.2 m

Blacksoul1987, on 02 July 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

that's interestingly useless what is its cone of fire at 800 meters? that would be more appropriate

3.5 m

Those values assume the error is linear from 0 to 8,000 meters; I don't really know whether that's true or not.

[SoHxPaladin]

Dr HaxZaw, on 01 July 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

Any nerf to the PPC/Gauss is going to see LRM use explode in pub games... It's already incredibly bad but they don't need another excuse for terrible players to load up on more LRMs

the meta is more aimed at the competitive folks. LRMs are NOT in the comp drops at all, effectively. they will not be overly prominent in the long run because of the time it takes to get a lock, hold lock, get hits and keep from getting waxed yourself against knowledgable players. Your point is invalid there.
LRM's are meant to be effective at controlling the engagement ranges and locations of your enemies as well as soften them up before the "brawl" happens, sometimes, they core ya out anyway, too bad that cover you tried to use is ineffective because the LRM arc angle is insanely high and they twist and turn like my jenner. (i do hate the lrm rain that blocks out the sun as well). If they nerf anything with the meta, which i hope they do, i hope they nerf the lrm's in some capacity to make this game go back to the brawl of the closed beta i so loved.
Now, PUG matches, if the meta is destroying your cbill earning fun, suck more so you do not have to fight those folks that are good in the meta, till the meta is no longer worth running at all. (yea that is a dumb answer for you, but oh well)

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 11:10 AM, said:

2.2 m


3.5 m

Those values assume the error is linear from 0 to 8,000 meters; I don't really know whether that's true or not.

it isn't linear btw as it moves farther out it loses velocity and becomes more susceptible to environmental effects and to reach that range the gun must be elevated and windspeed may change at higher altitudes. I would honestly be surprised if its cof was much larger than 1m at 800m

edit: also at 8000 meters you are getting really close to being indirect fire and any variation in propellant wind speed etc. would have a massive effect on its longitudinal spread but I really think that its deviation from center at 800 meters is likely much less than 1m. but i'm not an expert, I've studied firing patterns from battleship guns and at low elevations the guns tend to be extremely accurate bordering on pinpoint.

Edited by Blacksoul1987, 02 July 2014 - 11:29 AM.

[stjobe]

Blacksoul1987, on 02 July 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

it isn't linear btw as it moves farther out it loses velocity and becomes more susceptible to environmental effects and to reach that range the gun must be elevated and windspeed may change at higher altitudes. I would honestly be surprised if its cof was much larger than 1m at 800m

edit: also at 8000 meters you are getting really close to being indirect fire and any variation in propellant wind speed etc. would have a massive effect on its longitudinal spread but I really think that its deviation from center at 800 meters is likely much less than 1m. but i'm not an expert, I've studied firing patterns from battleship guns and at low elevations the guns tend to be extremely accurate bordering on pinpoint.

I'm sure you're correct; I'm not a tanker (I trained as a 120mm mortar gunner among other things - a long time ago).

My point was not actually what the accuracy numbers of the M256 at different ranges is, the point was that there's no such thing as "perfect accuracy" unless the projectile is (self-)guided. Even one of our present-day's most accurate guns has a non-negligible cone of fire, most every other FPS game has some sort of cone of fire - so why is that concept so anathema to (certain) MWO players?

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 11:38 AM, said:

I'm sure you're correct; I'm not a tanker (I trained as a 120mm mortar gunner among other things - a long time ago).

My point was not actually what the accuracy numbers of the M256 at different ranges is, the point was that there's no such thing as "perfect accuracy" unless the projectile is (self-)guided. Even one of our present-day's most accurate guns has a non-negligible cone of fire, most every other FPS game has some sort of cone of fire - so why is that concept so anathema to (certain) MWO players?

cone of fire on sniper rifles is pretty much negligible I think even the most skilled snipers will fail before the rifle does. Sniper rifles in any modern FPS are pinpoint accurate instead they add reticle sway to make it more difficult, moving while firing even with computer targeting may be difficult I could imagine. I'm not entirely opposed to cone of fire the mechanic is a valuable tool for balancing DPS weaponry but to put it on single shot weaponry? that's not going to keep a lot of fans. I do agree though that something needs to be done to curb the pinpoint sniper meta, but making long range weapons inaccurate just does not sit right with me. I'm all for things such as inherited velocity recoil, etc... but cof has never had a place on single shot weaponry and it never will (unless it is specifically applied when moving).

Edited by Blacksoul1987, 02 July 2014 - 11:52 AM.

[stjobe]

Blacksoul1987, on 02 July 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

cone of fire on sniper rifles is pretty much negligible I think even the most skilled snipers will fail before the rifle does.

The rifle is generally pretty accurate, but even at FBI requirements, it's allowed 4 inches at 800m (Army is 8 inches at 800m). And that's with the rifle bolted to a stand, mind you. Here's a nice chart from the U.S. Army:

Blacksoul1987, on 02 July 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

Sniper rifles in any modern FPS are pinpoint accurate instead they add reticle sway to make it more difficult, moving while firing even with computer targeting may be difficult I could imagine.

Cone of fire can be used to simulate lots of factors; breathing for a sniper, wind effects, movement, and so on.

[Blacksoul1987]

stjobe, on 02 July 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

The rifle is generally pretty accurate, but even at FBI requirements, it's allowed 4 inches at 800m (Army is 8 inches at 800m). And that's with the rifle bolted to a stand, mind you. Here's a nice chart from the U.S. Army:




Cone of fire can be used to simulate lots of factors; breathing for a sniper, wind effects, movement, and so on.

yeah that's pretty much what I expected and I would imagine that the M1 accuracy is somewhere in that area as well given similar muzzle velocity. So 8" at 800 may have somewhat of an effect when shooting a human but that's gonna be negligible when shooting a Center Torso that is bigger than the buick I have parked in my driveway.