Josef Nader, on 09 October 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:
Again, you're showing a complete lack of understanding of how competitive players work, how a metagame is defined, and how meta-humpers try to make up for their lack of skill by using what people consider to be the "best" loadout. This "boy howdy golly gee wilikers this mech is super special because it can use this one specific weapon" is meaningless if the mech has bad hitboxes and limited ability. The Wolverine has agility, jump jets, and good survivability, but you don't see it lighting a fire under the metagame because it's hardpoints are innately inferior to the Shadow Hawk or Griffin. Kneecapping the Shad and the Griff isn't going to make the Wolverine better, it's simply going to bump those mechs down into the unused bin with the Wolverine.
I am fully aware of how competitive players work: you pick the builds that give you a statistical advantage. Currently that means PPC/Gauss or multi-Gauss for long range using high-mounted hardpoints, backed up by SRM spam for short range. Low-slung hardpoints are always disfavored because you can't use cover as effectively.
But suddenly, what if the low-slung hardpoints had a competitive advantage because they could mount heavier weapons? What if dual Gauss builds simply ceased to exist, except on Assault mechs and certain fragile/otherwise-subpar variants designed specifically for that purpose? What if poptarting only worked with mechs that had other significant drawbacks? The whole game changes.
Your argument here is that "The WVR is worse than the SHD and the GRF, so nobody will play it... but if we nerf the SHD Hawk and the GRF, nobody will play any of them". What will they be replaced by, then? KTO? TBT?
Maybe there will be more than 2 obvious choices for the best IS Medium?! It's almost like you're finally working out the argument that we've been trying to make since the beginning.
You're pretty mistaken in assuming that "meta humpers" compensate for lack of skill by using statistically optimized builds: if you're a skilled player who likes to win, why would you handicap yourself? Also, how do you think that people figured out these "meta" builds in the first place? It was because competitive players kept playing around until they found the most powerful combinations.
The idea is to dilute the powerful combinations in such a way that the "meta" expands from 2 or 3 obvious choices to being
many obvious choices. Taking a bunch of ERSL on a DWF will always be a bad idea, but taking an AC/20 on a HBK should be a good idea at some point.
Quirks won't increase TTK. Hardpoint sizing will increase TTK. Want to increase TTK? Restrict hardpoints.