ReXspec, on 05 August 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:
Sniping is a low risk, high reward strategy that will always look more appealing to new players because they need to exhibit very little risk to themselves in order to put the most damage on a target. That is already an established fact.
It is also an established fact that brawling is much more dangerous and takes more skill because, you not only need to aim well enough keep your opponents head down while you're closing the distance, but you need to know how to spread damaged over the rest of your body once the distance is closed, while keeping fire on your opponent.
An archer's job is not as dangerous as a knight's, because the archer can sit behind the front lines and pick targets off with impunity. If the archer faces a threat of someone closing the distance, he can simply re-position, and keep himself away from a potential threat. It's really not that hard.
Again, sniping takes skill in two categories of piloting in mechwarrior: Aiming and positioning. Brawling takes skill in four categories: Aiming, positioning, boxing, and movement. Those are the facts. The opinion you are bringing to the table is the opinion of someone who hugs the "meta" for dear life, and then seizures when he realizes that a single playstyle is not viable in EVERY scenario anymore.
We don't agree with this nerf proposal as much as you do, dude. I don't want to see a powerful combination such as a dual Gauss/ER PPC go down the drain because of a SEVERELY nerfed projectile speed, and a clunky weapons lock. There are ways to introduce balance to that combo without outright nerfing it like Paul is proposing to do. You've seen hundreds of reasonable suggestions to do so on this thread alone. Let's keep the suggestions flowing rather then simply white-knighting that particular playstyle with nothing but bluster and a rant against the players/developers, eh?
Again, Mechwarrior is not CS:GO, nor is it an FPS. The day Mechwarrior becomes a first-person, twitch shooter like Counter-strike is the day Hell freezes over.
Plus, you do know all the controversy and design mentality/balance considerations that went into the transition from the weapons in CS:S to the weapons in CS:GO, right?
In CS:S, snipers were king in that game because you just needed to be good in two aspects of gameplay (much like snipers in Mechwarrior Online right now): Aiming and positioning. To make matters worse, the devs at Valve made snipers utterly lack much of the skill that real world snipers have to incorporate to do their job well. In reality, this is what snipers have to account for when picking a target (and this is coming from an Infantryman from the 173D ABCT, 1-503D, so I'd like to think I'm at least somewhat knowledgeable on this subject): Knowing the eye-relief on a scope and being able to account for that eye-relief in as little time as possible (realistically, finding the correct eye-relief on a 10 - 20x scope takes about two seconds), finding the correct sighting appropriate to the range of the target and gaining a proper sight picture, compensating for the bullets travel path/time to the target, and compensating for the targets movement.
ALL OF THOSE FACTORS are what are supposed to go into sniping. In CS:S Valve chopped down those factors into nothing by making the eye-relief time practically nill, by making bullet travel-time instant, and making the bullet itself hitscan with nothing but a simple, barely randomized cone-of-fire manipulating the shots.
CS:GO slightly alleviated this problem by introducing "crosshair blur" by moving, but still, sniping is stupid easy in that game because you're still firing a weapon with no eye-relief compensation, no bullet-travel time, no sighting or ranging a target. In essence, the AWP is a one-shot laser with a slightly blurry and shaky scope when moving.
Even the devs at Valve conceded that the sniper had WAYYYYYYYYYY too much pull in both public and competitive matches. Which is why comptetitive matches only allow one AWP per game now. Not to mention, it is part of the reason why Minh "Gooseman" Le LEFT the developers of CS at Valve because he wanted to create a balanced Tac-ops shooter on his own.
WE DON'T WANT MECHWARRIOR TO TURN INTO CS:GO, E N E R G Y.
If you're expecting Mechwarrior to, one day, be CS:GO then you may want to quit now, because it will NEVER be that way. Not because P.G.I. doesn't want this game to be competitive, but because at least most of the players and P.G.I. know the design differences between a 31st century, vehicular combat simulator, and a twitch FPS shooter.
Oh my dear Christ... are you screwing with us right now? You've GOT to be screwing with us.
I'll say this again, and it will be the LAST time I'll say it: MECHWARRIOR IS NOT AN FPS.
This franchise has always been advertised as a "31st Century battlefield, vehicular-combat simulator."
That does not translate into: "tac-ops, first-person-shooter."
Srsly. GET OFF the notion that Mechwarrior is an FPS, and that it will EVER be equivalent to the design flop that is CS:GO.
Put that thought as far away as possible from your mind and at least PRETEND we're piloting giant, stompy robots with a lot of armor and huge guns. We're NOT playing human Spec-ops soldiers who can take out an opponent with a few good "plinks" to the chest.
You're wanting to turn this game into CS:GO. That's the bottom line of your tirade, right? But you can't recognize that there are fundamental design differences between this game, and CS:GO. CS:GO IS NOT the end-all, be all, of competitive games. I cannot believe that you are implying that CS:GO is the end-all, be-all of competitive games.
Again, we don't agree with Paul's design proposals or decisions as much as you do, but at least we're trying to introduce some sort of balance into that equation by introducing very simple mechanics which will serve to further immerse the player in the game, while simultaneously balancing the gameplay styles and load-outs that are available to players.
As I said before, we don't WANT to eliminate sniping from this game, but we don't WANT to make it THE DOMINANT style of gameplay. In fact, ideally Mechwarrior is supposed to be a game a rock, paper, scissors. There is not supposed to be any one dominant style of play, there are supposed to be a variety of rediculous gameplay styles and load-outs--each with there own unique challenges/upsides.
If you want to take that away, and turn Mechwarrior into a unilateral, repetitive, "meta-war," then we don't want you here. I will not subscribe to P.G.I.'s "meta." I will not subscribe to yours. I will choose a variety of styles that plays best to my strengths rather then hugging a dominant playstyle for dear life and continuously defend it with bluster and tirades. All for the sake of modeling one completely different game into another.
- That's not a fact. Actually, anyone who has taken a basic philosophy class knows that it can be argued whether there are any facts; at all in reality, or rather just an infinite vastness of perceptions of humans that claim them to be facts, to create stability in their mind, and give structure to this, seemingly, "structureless" world. Sniping is just
another playstyle in the infinite pool of
playstyles, that can be described or categorized by the human in question, an infinite number of times, using an infinite amount of adjectives from an infinite amount of words/languages.
2. It is also an established fact that brawling is much more dangerous and takes more skill because, you not only need to aim well enough keep your opponents head down while you're closing the distance, but you need to know how to spread damaged over the rest of your body once the distance is closed, while keeping fire on your opponent."
- Again, not a fact. Furthermore, for the rest of this dissection, I would refer to my opinions of this game, as merely that, just opinions or rather the way I perceive this game. With that being said, I personally think it takes a more complete competition player to play at range, or what the casual base calls "sniping". I believe this because, actually, sniping doesn't even have to be at range (you can "snipe" with medium lasers at 300m in a light for that matter). It's more of a
philosophy, rather than purely based off of "familiar" long range weapons that the community recognizes, i.e. large lasers, ppcs, guass.... It merely has to do with the idea of taking your shot and returning to cover, to expose the least amount of target to your enemy. Now, the reason it is associated with long range is because the
better shooter you are, you can use the range between you and your opponent to
your advantage. So essentially, adding "range" to your arsenal, only accentuates this philosophy; you can shoot, get under cover, and if the range is far enough, and you trained your shot, you will have a higher % hitting
your shot while your enemy will
not (unless your enemy has trained like you). This is seemingly much more complex obviously, than rushing your opponent, and exposing you entire mech or character model (valid in all shooter type games). Obviously, brawling, is essentially the opposite of this tactic, and inherently flawed. I know you state the brawlers turn their torso, but it's incorrect to assume only brawlers do that - snipers do that as-well, even at 800m to avoid incoming shots. And let's be honest, it requires much more prediction and a bigger dice roll to lag shoot PPC shots at 800m vs. something at 100-200m. It's very easy to miss that shot at ~700m and why it takes a bit longer to practice/train to work your "long range" gameplay. You talk a lot about "low risk/high reward" but I do not think you understand the risks of firing a weapon with 2PPC and 1Guass. First, the PPCs are
incredibly hot compared to a comparable brawler build with SRMS and AC20. Furthermore, the guass is
finite and can only be fired so many times before you run out of ammo. If you miss, you are not just losing out on ammo, but also attaining immense heat penalties. All the while, the brawler is steaming into you/rushing you, with no penalties whatsoever, and has the ability to spam you at 200m with much more heat efficient weapons. The only reason why half of players are able to use these loadouts effectively, is due to
skill. It's funny then, because now you are not nerfing the weapons, rather the
disguised skill behind those familiar load-outs, that are actually
worthless, without an intelligent, skilled pilot. I say "work" because we are
not "limited" to long range gameplay. Most of CSJ, and I am confident that most SJr or LORDS would absolutely
wreck the average player on these forums who gloats about "brawling". Once again, you simply overlook the player skill aspect/factor into the equation, and
fail to recognize while you will always be beat-
always, by the more intelligent player, regardless of mech selection or loadout. I go into this further in my conclusion.
3. "An archer's job is not as dangerous as a knight's, because the archer can sit behind the front lines and pick targets off with impunity. If the archer faces a threat of someone closing the distance, he can simply re-position, and keep himself away from a potential threat. It's really not that hard."
- Subjective. It can be argued that the "knights" is
less dangerous (to use your metaphor). In MechWarrior Online, there are already multiple features that makes this game different that the latest installment of MechWarrior (MW4), and actually caters to brawlers,
not snipers. The heat scale is much
higher in this game (making it harder to fight at range and continually fire whilst a brawler is closing the distance), weapons like ppcs and their ghost heat(again, the main weapon of a sniper is completely limited due to heat, allowing brawlers to close the distance), mechs now have exo-armor, making it more difficult to pull off 1v2, 1v3, or 1v4+ engagements (these were totally possible in MW4), the guass has a charge (just another attack at the sniper in MWO), and of course the jump jet heat and vertical thrust nerf (a literal attempt to bring us snipers on your "playing field level" so to speak). Oh, and this is obviously not including the proposed particle velocity nerf on the PPC or the PPC/guass limiter. Gee, who has been the target of more nerfs in MWO, the "sniper" or the "brawler"? (if we are to categorize things I suppose, I really hate categorizing, it just dilutes the dynamic aspects of the subject in question).
4. "Again, sniping takes skill in two categories of piloting in mechwarrior: Aiming and positioning. Brawling takes skill in four categories: Aiming, positioning, boxing, and movement. Those are the facts. The opinion you are bringing to the table is the opinion of someone who hugs the meta for dear life, and then seizures when he realizes that a single play-style is not viable in EVERY scenario anymore."
- These categories are all made up, personally I don't agree with them. You can dissect any play-style and categorize it as you like. For example, by your logic, I could say that light spotting takes more skill because it requires "X" amount of categories:
1) positioning 2) flanking 3)intelligence 4) avoiding being killed 5) risky combat 6) firing on the move 7) strategist for the team 8) high risk/low reward
Second of all, I rarely ever used "meta". I've been using lasers for the past few months. Lasers will be the new "meta" soon, as your pea-brain categorizes it. We at
CSJ, nor any competition player, ever really plays around with these words, because we know the game fluctuates constantly, and what the "casual" base perceives as meta, may not be
meta at all actually.... Actually , since we're on the topic, most of the time, the meta is actually just the scapegoat for the casual base is getting "owned" by at the moment. The AWP/AK47 in CS, The M16A3 in BF3, the .50cal in MW2, same goes for even MOBAS or RTS - you see, everything in the Universe in
one, all humans, all matter ... interconnected. Thus, everything is universal. One could argue a
hologram.
5. "I'll say this again, and it will be the LAST time I'll say it: MECHWARRIOR IS NOT AN FPS."
- MechWarrior
can be whatever it wants to be. Just because MechWarrior may be labeled as a simulation or RPG does
NOT mean it can't have FPS elements, that's silly. You are focusing much too much on "facts" and "categories", and limiting many things due to your imaginary labels. It's not different than someone in society who essentially labels and categories people, oblivious to the idea of individuality and the ambiguous nature of reality.
6. "You're wanting to turn this game into CS:GO. That's the bottom line of your tirade, right? But you can't recognize that there are fundamental design differences between this game, and CS:GO. CS:GO IS NOT the end-all, be all, of competitive games. I cannot believe that you are implying that CS:GO is the end-all, be-all of competitive games."
- Do you even play competitive? I'd wager to put you don't even play competitive Mechwarrior online, nor ever have in any other series. It's hard to respond to that comment because it's so blatantly ignorant and incorrect. Of course MechWarrior involves robots and gauss rifles and CounterStrike AKs and soldiers, but if you read what I wrote I clearly indicated it was the games core values that set it apart from many other games in this era, FPS or NOT, and that every gaming company could only wish to have the success they've had for so many years, let alone the competitive scene or fan base. Obviously, there are others as-well, i.e. Dota 2 It's always possible to make comparisons because despite the games being different, they at the
core, are the same.
7. "Srsly. GET OFF the notion that Mechwarrior is an FPS, and that it will EVER be equivalent to the design flop that is CS:GO."
- You're actually insulting the CS:GO community with that comment, referring to a game that hosts tournaments with over $100,000k+ prizes, huge NA/EU scene, a 200,000 player base,
second only to Dota 2 (who is #1), and gameplay that MWO could only ever
dream of attaining.
8. "As I said before, we don't WANT to eliminate sniping from this game, but we don't WANT to make it THE DOMINANT style of gameplay. In fact, ideally Mechwarrior is supposed to be a game a rock, paper, scissors. There is not supposed to be any one dominant style of play, there are supposed to be a variety of ridiculous gameplay styles and load-outs--each with there own unique challenges/upsides."
- Sniping is merely a style of play. Shooting and getting behind cover. It's done in any game. ANY GAME. You're not trying to eliminate "sniping", you indirectly trying to eliminate a strategy done in almost any competitive online game and doing so by trying to nerf all weapons and functions that aid to it. I would argue it's actually intelligent game-play (i.e. who stands in the open and shoots and stays in the open to take return fire?). It's OK, I know you aren't aware of what you are doing, I'm sure this is your first online PC game, and possibly MechWarrior is the only game you have ever touched in your life. You also probably read the Battletech books as-well.
9. "CS:GO slightly alleviated this problem by introducing "crosshair blur" by moving, but still, sniping is stupid easy in that game because you're still firing a weapon with no eye-relief compensation, no bullet-travel time, no sighting or ranging a target. In essence, the AWP is a one-shot laser with a slightly blurry and shaky scope when moving."
- "Stupidly easy". Want to play some CSGO? Let me guess, you're a gold nova aren't you? Again, another comment so completely absurd, that it's hard to reply to. I can only wonder whether your trying to just impress someone or hope that no one of the MWO forums is knowledgeable on any of these topics, because it's as if you're making stuff up about games that you do not understand at all.
10. "You claim to know the full dynamics of this game, and claim to know what is best for the game based on what? Your tournament ratings? I hate to break it to ya, buddy, but, as I stated earlier, you and your ilk shouldn't be the supreme authority when it comes to balancing changes in this game. Not only because you lack experience and developmental knowledge of games, but because your perspective of gameplay strategy in Mechwarrior is exceedingly narrow."
- Oh, and we should listen to you? Some "beta tester" community college reject? You
don't even have the
first person experience in terms of gaming regarding game dynamics. Let me ask you something - have you ever "figured" a game out" Have you ever mastered or have been "good" at a game? I can tell you right now your grasp on MechWarrior, especially for having played all those older versions (or did you?) is weak at best. Maybe you SHOULD download CS:GO, and get a taste of real competition, maybe expand your cosmic horizons a bit. I mean, it is your career, isn't it?
11. "We don't agree with this nerf proposal as much as you do, dude. I don't want to see a powerful combination such as a dual Gauss/ER PPC go down the drain because of a SEVERELY nerfed projectile speed, and a clunky weapons lock. There are ways to introduce balance to that combo without outright nerfing it like Paul is proposing to do. You've seen hundreds of reasonable suggestions to do so on this thread alone. Let's keep the suggestions flowing rather then simply white-knighting that particular playstyle with nothing but bluster and a rant against the players/developers, eh?"
- I'm not white-knighting a particular playstyle. This is good though, I will use this to
conclude my dissection:
In conclusion, regardless of this trivial "meta" fodder conversation, or even the ppc/projectile/guass upcoming nerf - - It won't make any difference. Yep, that's right, I said it.
It won't. I know it. All the best players in this game know it. Want to know why? It's because for the longest time, and even know, the casual base or other unintelligable gamers
fail to recognize the intelligence behind competitive and skilled gameplay. You point your fingers at the "face" value, seemingly visible scapegoats, like mechs (i.e. dragonslayer/highlander) or weapons (i.e. ppc/guass) or tactics (i.e. pop sniping with JJ's), but you never realize behind all that is an
intelligent, competition grade gamer who will,
will, find another suitable tactic as soon as the current is diminished. Evolution 101 my friends,
kill or be killed. If tomorrow, sniping is killed off, you will see a new style of play by the same top players (i.e. LORDS, SJR, CSJ, etc..) and it will be dubbed the
"new meta". Thus, the cycle will continue.
This conversation will go on therefor once again, as it has for years. We at CSJ know how trivial it is, I guess you could say we are just "passing time" by engaging in this silly arguments back in forth, that go essentially no were. It's like debating religion and claiming who's god is "more real" or "better". Trivial, yes, trivial.
Edited by E N E R G Y, 05 August 2014 - 03:17 PM.
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