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This post Is for the amusement of those who don't know the history. While you're here though...why not take a trip down memory lane? It's also an opinion piece don't take it TOO seriously.
Almost any game type in MW3 was dominated by Shadowcat, Strider, and other small mechs. There wasn't a brilliant system in place to enforce this but this was the natural way the metagame went. The position of your mech was different from what your opponent saw due to bad net code in the game. Normally that's a deal breaker for any game but in MW3 it actually worked well to balance the game online.
Let's say a Shadowcat is moving in front of you. It's "actual" position was maybe 2 mech lengths ahead of what was being displayed on your screen. In order to hit that target you had to compensate for lag by aiming 2 mech lengths ahead of him that's where his "lag spot" is. At a slower speed maybe it was less than two.
The same player in a large mech (Daishi or Annihilator for example) would have a lag spot much closer to (or on) his or her mech because they move much slower. You would only have to slightly lead the target to register a hit because the difference between their "actual" location and their displayed location was smaller. Often times aiming directly on a large mech would register a hit so they were often free kills.
Each opponent was unique based on their location in the world...the quality of their connection...and the way they happened to be routed by their ISP that particular hour of that day.
The meta game was: move like a mad man to hide your lag spot while desperately looking for your opponent's lag spot. It was to the point where I started every game single-firing lasers until I saw a small bit of damage. I would say things to myself like "ok I aimed 2 mechs ahead of him and hit his right torso...if I aim 2.2 mechs ahead I will always hit the center and maybe even the head." It didn't take much time to find the lag spot so it was bearable. (unless they were some jerk from Australia.)
As clunky as it was and as bad as it sounds it made light mechs really good. When someone went heavy...most of the time it was as a joke build or just someone very confident they can find the lag spot first and brute force their way to a win. If you did go for big weaponry on a big mech you would choose a medium mech such as the Madcat. It had enough speed to reasonably hide your lag spot and the capability to hold much heavier weapons than a Shadowcat or Strider.
I honestly believe that if the netcode was good and they found a legit way to make small mechs viable...it would have been a really great game.
Instead nothing got fixed and MW4 came out with better netcode but it also removed the following:
- speed
- maneuverability
- the ability to move the Crosshair
- a reason to use small mechs
- my heart <3
Respectfully: I was never a fan of the sim style and I am not knowledgeable on the universe so forcing a mech game to be fast paced is probably never going to happen and I have to accept that. I wanted a game that gave MORE in those areas compared to Mech3 but that's not what Microsoft released with MW4. They released a different game entirely and it didn't feel like a Mechwarrior game. It wasn't just me longing for the days of laggy opponents..I'm saying that core game mechanics were thrown out and replaced by something I refused to recognize as a Mechwarrior game.
Still I look forward to giving MWO a try and I'll probably enjoy it for what it IS and NOT what I wish it could be.
Edited by FFK ClouD, 25 June 2012 - 07:38 AM.
