143 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Hillslam, on 11 August 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

OP raises perfectly good point/question and provides PGI with game ID link to match to look into it.

Clan forum lawyers swoop in from the woodwork to pick apart ancilliary and pointless peripheral parts of his question/premise in order to obfuscate.

DEPLOY THE WORDS!
CAST ASPERSIONS!
MUDDY THE WATERS!

(AKA - never EVER post anything supporting the possibility that what may be required is a nerf to our clan mechs. We are uber role playing neckbeard kings and we require our paid-for uber boss gear to impose our self-image of being better on the rest of the players because our skills aint getting that done)

And the "Underhive Thug" never questions his position, or the position of those who don't torso twist.

Edited by Mcgral18, 11 August 2014 - 04:49 PM.

[Aresye]

Hillslam, on 11 August 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

OP raises perfectly good point/question and provides PGI with game ID link to match to look into it.

Clan forum lawyers swoop in from the woodwork to pick apart ancilliary and pointless peripheral parts of his question/premise in order to obfuscate.

DEPLOY THE WORDS!
CAST ASPERSIONS!
MUDDY THE WATERS!

(AKA - never EVER post anything supporting the possibility that what may be required is a nerf to our clan mechs. We are uber role playing neckbeard kings and we require our paid-for uber boss gear to impose our self-image of being better on the rest of the players because our skills aint getting that done)

Just because you think the OP's argument has merit doesn't mean it's right, nor does it mean people don't have a right to disagree with it or offer a valid counter-argument. All you've accomplished is making a post that largely ignores anything the OP is talking about in order to call out others claiming that they're ignoring anything the OP is talking about, whilst saying it in a manner that gives you as much credibility as an anon on 4chan.

Edited by Aresye, 11 August 2014 - 06:31 PM.

[Hillslam]

Then how about you all deal with his main point head on? Instead of this passive-aggressive picking-at-the-edges sideways chickensh1!t BS.

Lets roleplay that shall we?

OP: "The Direwolf is over-armed and too powerful for the game's good."

You: "Yes it is powerful. But it is fine being as powerful as it is and that doesn't hurt the game. Here's why: ..... etc...."

See? Not so hard is it? Why don't you talk like grown men instead of middle school Mean Girls? Explain to him in respectful terms (because his opening post looked fine to me) why its fine the Dire Wolf is ok being the face melting machine it is.

I'll start:
1 - The clans took Atlases with them when they left. They had a clearly defined engineering target to beat. They returned with the response to that. So of course its more powerful than an Atlas.
2 - SOMETHING has to be "the most powerful". What's wrong with it being the Direwolf? It bakes in plenty of flaws to get that.

Edited by Hillslam, 11 August 2014 - 06:46 PM.

[Gideon Grey]

Look. A DW is a big bag of guns no doubt. It generally eclipses the raw firepower of an Atlas but with severe maneuverability disadvantages. Truth be told, in my mind the biggest advantage is that one one one assault v assault the Whale is more forgiving than the Atlas. Both can absorb identical damage (assuming the Atlas is not a suicidal XL Atlas) and both can be partially neutered by removing a side torso. In this case the raw firepower is a definite advantage and allows the Wolf pilot a good.chance even if he makes minor mistakes. The Atlas is a bit less forgiving, and needs to be ready to take advantage of mistakes.

Examples: I've actually had a couple 1:1 fights with Atlases recently, both on Alpine, with me in two different Whales. I'm not pure pro, but I do ok.

1st encounter I was in my Behemoth, kitted out with 6LL for chits and googles. Not a typical build for me, but I wanted to give it a try. I was in the corner of the upper base at the foot of a hill firing up at the Atlas. We were both moderately damaged at the time. I chain fire a couple pairs of lasers clipping him a bit and he returns fire (MLs I beleive) scratching me as well. He advances down the hill and as he falls through my line of fire I screw up and trigger an alpha by mistake ( new load out ). I of course immediately shutdown, and he is right next to me now. Worse I am facing towards the hill almost directly exposing my back. He should have had me easily, but he apparently got over excited or didn't think clearly because he unloaded into my side rather than maneuvering for my back. I was shut down a good ten seconds or more ( felt like 30) but he just kept trying to go through my side torso. I powered back up finally and faced him snapped of a pair of LL into his face/CT twisted away as he fired, twisted back and finished him off with another pair of LL. I actually was so stunned to have survived that I don't know if I actually took his head or finally on bed through the CT. But it was a close one. Again, he should have had me. I made a huge mistake, but he failed to capitalize on it.

2nd encounter. I'm in Glacier. My semi-meta beast with twin Gauss (which I've only recently begun using again because I hated the charge change) plus 2 LL and 4 ML. Nearly the same location. I'm heading out of the upper base via the lower ramp. I hadji at if she'd off a Hunchback with LLs and was heading to regroup when a DDC "snuck up" on me from behind. He announced his presence by blowing out my right torso and arm, cutting my weapons in half. I spun like the obese ballerina I am to see him standing still firing another volley. I manage a snap shot (of sorts) with the Gauss to his pretty beat up CT and follow with 2ML and a LL to finish him. So again. Really close and he could have won, but he made eh mistake by stopping. Maybe he felt he needed the stability to hit me hard that first shot, but fact is if he had been moving he might have gotten a second back shot or almost certainly avoided my panicked Gauss shot. Also he half neutered me due to the DDCs ECM with is a pretty good advantage as well.

So, basically I'm saying yeah the Wolf is powerful, but the Atlas still has it's advantages and opportunities as well. And also, I think the roles are reversed when fighting faster mechs. In that case the Atlas is definitely more forgiving and the Dire Wolf has very little margin for error. The Whale is an Assault killer, the Atlas is a bit more flexible.

[nehebkau]

Well,
I've already had my satisfactory answer when an earlier post indicated that Paul and the rest of PGI know that convergence is a big problem and that it's too difficult for them to fix it right away given server/client speed differences and Hit-reg. I can be patient and recognize that some redesigns are more substantial then others.

For me, its not a matter of boating the most weapons, its a matter of these giant 1 to 20 ton weapons converging nearly instantly on the same point on a mech regardless of how big they are or where they are on the mech..

Edited by nehebkau, 12 August 2014 - 05:22 AM.

[wwiiogre]

The real problem lies in convergence and the crying it caused. We even have skills that supposedly make convergence better. We pay gxp for that skill when it reality it does nothing. Since Convergence is currently nonexistent in MWO at the moment.

What would real convergence do in the game. It would require direct fire weapons that are on different parts of a mech to take more than a second to achieve pin point accuracy. The cone of fire would be similar to an LBX if I was doing the coding. Meaning the farther away you are the more likely you are going to miss. The cone would also be bigger because of physics if the mech is a larger mech. Weapons are farther apart, thus spread is bigger and it takes longer to achieve convergence. Once again physics is the key. It takes a shorter time to achieve convergence at longer ranges. The real penalties will be seen upclose.

PGI was on the right track when it was going to make torso weapons not converge. But currently they do converge and you can get pin point accuracy from weapons mounted in LT, RT and CT. Which should not be converging at all but shooting straight ahead. Now if this were true, and we had a known trajectory it would be like hard aiming wing mounted weapons on a fighter plane. While nose mounted weapons would fire straight ahead. Then a pilot could configure his mech to either have no convergence and have his torso weapons fire straight ahead but with a known spread. What does that mean, well if your torso weapons have a spread say larger than a commando, all of your weapons fired at the commando at the same time might have some of them miss because of the known physical spread of the weapons.

What would this do? It would require more skill from the pilot, less firing alpha strikes from all weapons from different hard points. More grouping of weapons on same hard points and possible even different colored cursors for each torso mounted weapon that is direct fire. Now to me this sounds like some serious coding. But, having played many, many simulation games this has been done before. Take the Char B1 from world war two or some of the assault guns. They had forward firing weapons but very little room to target it, while having to whole sale move the beast to target the big gun. This took time, which current is not how it works in MWO. It was how it worked at one time in closed beta. But so many meta players using nothing but max dps and alpha's cried that PGI nerfed and then completely removed convergence.

This led to what we have now. Boating, Boating, Boating, Alpha, Alpha, Alpha, cool shot, arty/air spam. Etc. Not a whole lot of skill involved when you have pin point accuracy combined with high alpha dps build meta direct fire mechs. That can one or two shot most mechs in the game. Combine that with very small maps, over powered ecm that allows mechs to move into position unmolested and you get an Atlas facing a Dire Wolf and being destroyed in seconds.

Combine it with the worst matchmaker in any team game I have every played. And you get so many mismatched one sided lopsided stomps than I have ever seen in any game. When the matchmaker says a Dire Wolf is the Same as an Atlas and that a New Player is the same as a player with 10,000 drops and that a non ecm mech is the same as an ecm mech and that a mech with modules, upgraded equipment and weapons and double heat sinks is the same as a stock mech then yeah, there is a problem. Its PGI, using a social experiment elo matchmaker that does not make fair or balanced matches but merely stacks the match so that one side will win, thus ensuring the other side loses and bringing most players to the average win/loss marker and then PGI can claim nothing wrong with the game most people have near 50/50 win/loss working as intended. Instead of PGI actually balancing matchmaker and acknowledging that some parts of their game are so broken that it directly effects matches. But Denial and pride are bad things and PGI is full of it. But, eventually PGI has shown over a year or two they get around to fixing some things. Either way, MWO is what we have, its better than any MW game yet. Hopefully it gets better.

Its been two years, it has gotten better. Its not good enough yet.

Atlas vs Dire Wolf is yet another example how what PGI says is the same in their matchmaker and is balanced, clearly is not. Like I said. Test this yourself, take a dire wolf and atlas on 1v1 private match and play 10, 20, 30 games and if the atlas pilot wins 50% of those one on one matches I would be surprised. And I would say you fixed the matches.

Chris

[Ovion]

Aside from, the required 2.6 seconds of burn time, plus the 3 seconds cool down, means you had to stand still for a full 5.6 seconds to get cored.

5.6.

If you'd torso twisted at all, it'd have spread damage across numerous parts.
Circling would have been helpful too.

Yes, standing in front of a Direwolf will ruin your day, but that's why you don't stand in front of a Direwolf and do nothing.

[PappySmurf]

All that needs to be said at this point is CLAN MECHS TAKE x4 the damage InnerSphere mechs can take and with a higher alpha or DPS there just better mechs overall. The only sane way to fight Clan Mechs right now is DeathBall them 2-6 Vs1 then they will die. PGI is so close to PAY2WIn with Clan mechs its just not funny anymore.

So I say fix all the IS mechs so they can exleast take some damage to compete better in the Battles.

Edited by PappySmurf, 12 August 2014 - 06:11 AM.

[PappySmurf]

wwiiogre (The real problem lies in convergence and the crying it caused. We even have skills that supposedly make convergence better. We pay gxp for that skill when it reality it does nothing. Since Convergence is currently nonexistent in MWO at the moment.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not to change the subject but I have to answer this.When I first decompiled PC MechWarrior4 Mercenaries and started to study the code to mod it I noticed right away All but 3 weapons in the game were spread damage weapons.The exceptions were the Guass Riffles AC2 and AC5 they were direct fire pinpoint weapons and like I said the rest were all spread damage weapons in the game.

What this did in MechWarrior4 was spread the damage around the mechs allowing longer game play time per battle for all the mechs and pilots. I don't understand why all weapons in MWO are pinpoint accurate weapons that core a mech in 2-3 seconds and the playing time per battle even for skilled players just sucks so bad its unreal.

I can imagine all the new players that have come to this game installed MWO played a few games lasted under 30 seconds and quickly uninstalled the game.

Edited by PappySmurf, 12 August 2014 - 06:29 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 August 2014 - 06:36 PM, said:

I drive a D-DC... I only die that fast when Tangling with 4 or more enemy (Omni)Mechs.

You can build a Direwhale to kill an Atlas in 5 seconds, but no less. You can do the same with a Banshee or a Stalker, and in all cases you'll shutdown or will be dangerously close to it. It's also fairly easy to survive being targeted by any of those if you torso twist and keep moving, if the enemy is trying to do this they will most likely fire an alpha strike, allowing you to safely return fire afterwards if they don't have backup.
If there's a Dakkawhale shooting at you, it can kill just as fast as a high alpha build and you can't safely return fire at all but you'll be able to spread damage much more. It's also more heat efficient than the high alpha builds but it takes more damage on average to get a killshot with one.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 12 August 2014 - 07:29 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Satan n stuff, on 12 August 2014 - 07:28 AM, said:

You can build a Direwhale to kill an Atlas in 5 seconds, but no less. You can do the same with a Banshee or a Stalker, and in all cases you'll shutdown or will be dangerously close to it. It's also fairly easy to survive being targeted by any of those if you torso twist and keep moving, if the enemy is trying to do this they will most likely fire an alpha strike, allowing you to safely return fire afterwards if they don't have backup.
If there's a Dakkawhale shooting at you, it can kill just as fast as a high alpha build and you can't safely return fire at all but you'll be able to spread damage much more. It's also more heat efficient than the high alpha builds but it takes more damage on average to get a killshot with one.

So...treat direwhales like fat banshees.

[Satan n stuff]

Ghost Badger, on 12 August 2014 - 07:30 AM, said:

So...treat direwhales like fat banshees.

Basically, yes. Most can't aim sideways either, so the comparison works quite well.

[POWR]

I died in my Atlas in a few seconds to a TW Hardly had time to deal damage to him.

[Faith McCarron]

I recently died in a DW, and I'm pretty sure the killing blow was delivered by an Adder. Plz nerf.

[wwiiogre]

Now lets get back to this whole nonsense about torso twisting would have saved the atlas. An atlas has most of its weapons in its torso. They have to point straight ahead to hit a target. They have a range of 270m to do max damage. Less damage is done out to 540m.

The Dire Wolf has all of its weapons that do max damage past the same distance that an Atlas' weapons do max damage. So a Dire Wolf can engage an atlas armed with medium lasers, 3xsrm6 and an ac20 (this is the best damage dealing atlas that is closest to heat efficient for the ddc) outside of the entire damage range of the atlas while still doing full damage with all of its weapons.

If the Atlas wants to hurt the Dire Wolf, it must be 270m or closer. Which should never happen, but in MWO and the small maps and use of ecm to move mechs close without being seen or targeted it happens all the time and PGI designed the maps so it could happen. Unfortunately, every map design was based on IS mechs and IS weapons and this was pointed out to PGI that small maps would bring bad things when clan came out.

Now if said atlas did first see a Dire Wolf at 270 meters. Atlas fires all its weapons 10 damage for medium lasers (pin point), 20 damage for ac20 pinpoint, 36 damage from srm but spread out over entire dire wolf and some missiles probably missing. Dire Wolf fires, ( I will use just one of my builds 6 merl for 42 damage pin point, 5 uac5 for 50 damage pin point) 92 damage pin point vs 30 pin point and 36 spread. And the Dire Wolf wins on heat used and recycle time but has a chance a uac5 will jam. Both mechs can torso twist but because of the delay for recycle on the ac20 is different than the srm 6 and the ml for the atlas it actually has to stay exposed longer in the torso firing arc to put more damage downrange.

And because the srms are spread the Dire Wolf can ignore torso twisting altogether and maintain firing and focus pinpoint damage the entire time and unless the atlas completely turned his back to the Dire Wolf a good shot in the DW can still hit CT even when Atlas is completely turned sideways. Sucks being a fatlas when you can't dodge ct shots or even rt/lt shots even when turned. Do not believe me, go on to the trial range and shoot some atlas from all angles and sides. Find the hit boxes your self.

An atlas is not an equal to a Dire Wolf. Yet Matchmaker says it is. Torso twisting will never save an Atlas 1v1 vs a Dire Wolf. Want to prove me wrong, then you take your atlas and I will take my Dire Wolf listed above and we will play some premium one on one and test it. Otherwise your argument is a bit light on proof.

Torso twisting may make the battle last a few more seconds because the Dire Wolf pilot has poor aim. But the Dire Wolf will never be in danger from the Atlas pilot. NEVER. Since the atlas pilot has to face forward to deliver damage and must time his facing to match with all his recycle times of all his weapons meaning he has actually lowered his dps to spread damage.

Meanwhile the dire wolf can nonchalantly just not move knowing his dps will drop an atlas in 5 seconds or 8 seconds either way Atlas dead, dire wolf taking half or less damage it delivered and not as much pin point which is the issue.

Pappy was right, the one thing that PGI has not used is what FASA used to balance the system. It was not allowing many weapons to do pin point damage and spreading the damage over multiple areas and not allowing players to choose the targets except under extreme situations. The only time you could aim at a specific hitbox in BT was when a mech was immobile. Unless you had a targeting computer and were clan, then you could do it, but it was the equivalent of reticle shake or a shot at long range while jump jetting and getting hit by lrms and srms at the same time. Very difficult, near impossible unless mech was shut down and immobile. But in MWO we get perfect accurate shots each time, every time with every single direct fire weapon and convergence is non existent.

Which I believer was the original intent of the OP, to show that because of these broken systems and designs of MWO we have very short games of MWO. We have mech life in seconds now when exposed to almost any fire. ECM is overpowered and is arguably so when PGI restricts its use and then has to spend a year attempting to nerf then balance it with other systems. When in truth it was just plain broke from the beginning. Same as their shared targeting idea which in reality is C3 and does not exist. Without c3 you do not need broken ecm, etc, etc. Garbage in gets garbage out. Bad ideas spawn more bad ideas. Bad implementation begets more bad implementation.

I still love MWO, its all we have at the moment. But it could be better, a whole lot better.

Chris

[Fut]

CheeseThief, on 09 August 2014 - 05:39 PM, said:

A Direwolf and an Altas meeting 30 seconds into the game takes something special to achieve, let alone meeting without the rest of their lances getting involved.

Exactly what I was thinking!

Besides, the Atlas pilot has now learned a very important lesson - do not stand face to face with a DireWolf, regardless of how tough you think your Mech is.

[Ovion]

wwiiogre, on 12 August 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Spoiler

Now lets get back to this whole nonsense about torso twisting would have saved the atlas. An atlas has most of its weapons in its torso. They have to point straight ahead to hit a target. They have a range of 270m to do max damage. Less damage is done out to 540m.

The Dire Wolf has all of its weapons that do max damage past the same distance that an Atlas' weapons do max damage. So a Dire Wolf can engage an atlas armed with medium lasers, 3xsrm6 and an ac20 (this is the best damage dealing atlas that is closest to heat efficient for the ddc) outside of the entire damage range of the atlas while still doing full damage with all of its weapons.

If the Atlas wants to hurt the Dire Wolf, it must be 270m or closer. Which should never happen, but in MWO and the small maps and use of ecm to move mechs close without being seen or targeted it happens all the time and PGI designed the maps so it could happen. Unfortunately, every map design was based on IS mechs and IS weapons and this was pointed out to PGI that small maps would bring bad things when clan came out.

Now if said atlas did first see a Dire Wolf at 270 meters. Atlas fires all its weapons 10 damage for medium lasers (pin point), 20 damage for ac20 pinpoint, 36 damage from srm but spread out over entire dire wolf and some missiles probably missing. Dire Wolf fires, ( I will use just one of my builds 6 merl for 42 damage pin point, 5 uac5 for 50 damage pin point) 92 damage pin point vs 30 pin point and 36 spread. And the Dire Wolf wins on heat used and recycle time but has a chance a uac5 will jam. Both mechs can torso twist but because of the delay for recycle on the ac20 is different than the srm 6 and the ml for the atlas it actually has to stay exposed longer in the torso firing arc to put more damage downrange.

And because the srms are spread the Dire Wolf can ignore torso twisting altogether and maintain firing and focus pinpoint damage the entire time and unless the atlas completely turned his back to the Dire Wolf a good shot in the DW can still hit CT even when Atlas is completely turned sideways. Sucks being a fatlas when you can't dodge ct shots or even rt/lt shots even when turned. Do not believe me, go on to the trial range and shoot some atlas from all angles and sides. Find the hit boxes your self.

An atlas is not an equal to a Dire Wolf. Yet Matchmaker says it is. Torso twisting will never save an Atlas 1v1 vs a Dire Wolf. Want to prove me wrong, then you take your atlas and I will take my Dire Wolf listed above and we will play some premium one on one and test it. Otherwise your argument is a bit light on proof.

Torso twisting may make the battle last a few more seconds because the Dire Wolf pilot has poor aim. But the Dire Wolf will never be in danger from the Atlas pilot. NEVER. Since the atlas pilot has to face forward to deliver damage and must time his facing to match with all his recycle times of all his weapons meaning he has actually lowered his dps to spread damage.

Meanwhile the dire wolf can nonchalantly just not move knowing his dps will drop an atlas in 5 seconds or 8 seconds either way Atlas dead, dire wolf taking half or less damage it delivered and not as much pin point which is the issue.

Pappy was right, the one thing that PGI has not used is what FASA used to balance the system. It was not allowing many weapons to do pin point damage and spreading the damage over multiple areas and not allowing players to choose the targets except under extreme situations. The only time you could aim at a specific hitbox in BT was when a mech was immobile. Unless you had a targeting computer and were clan, then you could do it, but it was the equivalent of reticle shake or a shot at long range while jump jetting and getting hit by lrms and srms at the same time. Very difficult, near impossible unless mech was shut down and immobile. But in MWO we get perfect accurate shots each time, every time with every single direct fire weapon and convergence is non existent.

Which I believer was the original intent of the OP, to show that because of these broken systems and designs of MWO we have very short games of MWO. We have mech life in seconds now when exposed to almost any fire. ECM is overpowered and is arguably so when PGI restricts its use and then has to spend a year attempting to nerf then balance it with other systems. When in truth it was just plain broke from the beginning. Same as their shared targeting idea which in reality is C3 and does not exist. Without c3 you do not need broken ecm, etc, etc. Garbage in gets garbage out. Bad ideas spawn more bad ideas. Bad implementation begets more bad implementation.

I still love MWO, its all we have at the moment. But it could be better, a whole lot better.

Chris

An Atlas needing to be inside 270M to hurt the Direwolf is a bit false.

500M sure, but not 270.

Furthermore, with Torso Twisting (which you obviously aren't familiar with), means you turn side to side, slowing slightly and firing when your reticule is over your target, then turning again, presenting less vital parts to your enemy.

This spreads damage across the mechs body, rather than letting it be focused on a specific point.

[AlmightyAeng]

wwiiogre, on 12 August 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

Snip.

If I cared enough to buy premium, I'd totally take you up on that with my D-DC.

[Mcgral18]

Ghost Badger, on 12 August 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

If I cared enough to buy premium, I'd totally take you up on that with my D-DC.

I'm sure some of the Post to Whine players can play third party, or anyone interested in science.

Heck, you could probably jump onto any TS server and ask if people want to do Duels.

[AlmightyAeng]

Mcgral18, on 12 August 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

I'm sure some of the Post to Whine players can play third party, or anyone interested in science.

Heck, you could probably jump onto any TS server and ask if people want to do Duels.

Truth...a number of the Kell Hounds have clan mechs they're playing around with...we're always too busy dropping and having fun to do science, though.

While I'm at work? I'm curious. Once I actually get in game? I just wanna relax and blow **** up with friends lol