25 replies to this topic

[luxebo]

HindMarauder, on 10 July 2014 - 01:54 AM, said:

I was so excited to know Mechwarrior3 will have another sequel, and its for free!

Welcome to the game sir! BTW, try out all the trials when you can get the game running up and going so you can see what mech you may or may not want. This game is indeed different than older games, while mechs are similar in chassis, they are different. Also, if you are a Clan mech enjoyer, they are available for real life money, but will be out sooner than later for in game money.

BTW, not sure if it's a typo and meant as MW4, but you do realize there is Mechwarrior 4 + Black Knight + Mercenaries + Mekpak 3.1? If you can, you could try to look it up some day and find Mekpak 3.1 with Mercs for free on Google somewhere. It's a great game and technically the sequel to MW3 and Pirate's Moon.

[Alexander Horne]

Welcome fellow newbie

[PANZERKAT]

Despite all the griping and rocky roads, it's still soaking up days of peoples lives every month.

[Karamarka]

Hi and good luck.

Make sure to research your first mech purchase very well.

[juxstapo]

Yo!

One thing I want to say: Do Not, at least initially, think in terms of win/loss (or kill/death ratios.. ugh). Just concentrate on your game. Whether your team tanks, or carries, or does just fine and the other team just happens to do better, or the dice roll you a pair of disconnects or the long-way/wrong-way side of a map... doesn't matter, we're playing MechWarrior, and it's great!
There are so many variables that affect the outcome of a match, most of which are out of your hands, some of which are literally out of everyone's hands, what [I'm-sorry-I-forgot-the-name-already] up there said: "roughly 50/50 wins and losses, don't get frustrated" is super sage advice. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" seems like some malarky you'd tell a primary school soccer team, but it applies here as well. For the first 100, (1000 perhaps?) games, just focus on your own game and have a blast. This game is rather difficult w/a steep learning curve, btw. So relax and chew on one facet at a time, doing a little bit better this match than you did last match is more important than winning or losing. And enjoying yourself and your teammates (while not being a jerk) is paramount over all else.

Individual moments make this game awesome. Shots you never thought you'd make. Shots you completely failed to make. Teeth gritting overheats in the midst of the enemy. Funky accidents you never expected. Heroic stands (yours or theirs). Etc. Spending the time to master a mech, becoming intimately familiar with your ride, it's quirks and nuances. Beginning to think of it as your very own. Seat worn out in just the right places, scratches on the cockpit canopy like old friends.

....annd I've been up for about 30 hours and am not saying anything remotely useful am I. Oh! Yea, hoard your money early on. You've heard people mentioning the "Cadet Bonus". You'll make more money (in this game/franchise they're "Comstar Bills" or "C-Bills"), in your first 25 games than you will henceforth. Don't spend it until you are quite sure what machine/playstyle you prefer. There. There's my contribution to the "real advice" column.
Oh, and search up some of Terciel's and all of Koniving's threads in this forum. They'll teach you (mostly) good stuff.

[Koniving]

KDR will improve with time. Though I destroyed a Jenner's arm, leg, and rammed the living crap out of it several times in a Jenner when I first started (at the time knockdowns and collisions were in so you could literally ram enemies and topple them over; that's supposed to come back later this year early next year), I didn't actually get my first kill for about two weeks.

Of course, the game was a bit trickier, the fastest light was 97 kph, and the typical mech went 64.8 or slower. Except the almighty and now debunct Dragon; man that was a glorious mech in a glorious age, honestly people don't really know how to use it these days.

Then, eventually, I got some kills. Funny enough it was with the most worthless weapon in the game....the Flamer.

Spoiler

Within a week it immediately got nerfed into the ground. It wasn't that anything was wrong with the flamer, as it did 0.004 damage per second; virtually useless as a weapon. But it'd spike your heat by 28% or so...and never raise or lower. Then when you let go it'd be instantly at zero. Obviously that was a problem.

But while that's just a fix... it also got nerfed. I believe this was because at the time, any heat above 80% would systematically destroy your weapons, ammo, engine, actuators, etc, causing an unbelievable repair bill. At the time this was easy due to very low heat thresholds [max heat allowed] and single heatsinks. Even if you couldn't get through the armor, the enemy was slowly dying on the inside. And if the enemy had ammo, as 90 to 98% of mechs currently have some form of ammunition, once that ammo would explode the mech's death is almost guaranteed.

A combination of the Flamer's nerfs to heat generation on enemies, much higher self-heat generation [which exponentially increases with a mechanic called heat retention; working both ways but MORE on yourself than them], and the removal of the melting heatsinks cooking ammo penalty for being too hot...made the Flamer completely worthless.

Yet, I still use them... mainly because they lag the living heck out of lower end computers.

It took about a month before I could steadily make kills. Though I might mention the mechanics were very different. Half second delays on all movement inputs (Want to stop? Press the button. Half a second later the mech reacts and begins to slow down. It took an Atlas roughly 3 seconds to come to a complete stop from 48 kph. Half a second in the delay for the command, and 2 and a half-ish to actually slow down. Many a player has gone off a cliff trying to stop and failing.) Half second delays on all firing. You had to hold your target for at least 0.5 to 1 second for any weapon to have any accuracy what-so-ever. (Miss this one the most; made poptarting nearly impossible without any jumpjet shake). The lack of armlock, too, made pinpoint aim of any sort on a moving target completely impossible without resorting to exclusively arm weapons (which is one of the reasons the Dragon was king at the time).

Now everything is much easier to run and use. But at the same time, it's easier for everyone and not just yourself, so while aiming, moving, etc. is easier.. losing a lot of health in an instant is too, so I'm not sure if it would be me or you that has it harder now.

Still, good luck out there and make your 25 matches soon (you'll be much happier after you do as the first step to having a chance in MWO is being able to customize your mech to suit your playstyle).

More flamers, because flamers.

Spoiler

Edited by Koniving, 14 July 2014 - 06:28 AM.