322 replies to this topic

[YueFei]

Joseph Mallan, on 21 February 2015 - 10:42 AM, said:

In Sports. In Combat it is better to be a generalist.

That's why they make ships that can submerge *and* sail on the surface to launch fighter planes *and* also lob massive volleys of cruise missiles, right?

Oh wait, no they don't. In fact, they even specialize between different *types* of subs, as in attack subs and nuclear missile-armed subs.

[YueFei]

Sarlic, on 21 February 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

If you want to brag about your post: Watch the Rugby Six Nations in the UK. They only function with a optimal mix of both roles. Mind you?

Even if your original premise is correct, that particular argument you used is flawed with even a single counter-example of a team-based sport that revolves around specialists. Your particular argument in support of your premise was that because MWO is a team-based game, it's not for "specialists". Essentially an argument along the lines of:
If A then B.

All I needed was a single counter-example to show that assertion is false. One does not necessarily imply the other.

[NovaFury]

Why bother when your mech is quirked and moduled for a single weapon system? There is a thing called efficiency, after all.

[Sarlic]

NovaFury, on 21 February 2015 - 12:00 PM, said:

Why bother when your mech is quirked and moduled for a single weapon system? There is a thing called efficiency, after all.

This is why the whole quirkening scheme is silly. And i scratch my head when PGI says it's based on 'Player feedback'.

[Harrison Kelly]

Sarlic, on 26 February 2015 - 07:40 AM, said:

This is why the whole quirkening scheme is silly. And i scratch my head when PGI says it's based on 'Player feedback'.

Without the quirk system, there'd be a lot more 'Mechs that are absolute trash. (Awesomes, Thunderbolts, etc.) A lot more of the Inner Sphere Mech pool is viable because of quirks.

My feedback to PGI is that the quirk system is great and that your argument in favor of inefficient 'Mech builds for the sake of making generalists is the silly one.

[Sarlic]

Harrison Kelly, on 26 February 2015 - 08:51 AM, said:

Without the quirk system, there'd be a lot more 'Mechs that are absolute trash. (Awesomes, Thunderbolts, etc.) A lot more of the Inner Sphere Mech pool is viable because of quirks.

My feedback to PGI is that the quirk system is great and that your argument in favor of inefficient 'Mech builds for the sake of making generalists is the silly one.

So, you rather have laser vomit online? Because that's is what it currently is.
Honestly, how can you even in the slighest way justify the current quirks? Have you even seen the quirks?

I agree that some Mechs were going to be obseleted soon. But the way how PGI handles the quirks and, you for example accepting it is one major issue.

Edited by Sarlic, 26 February 2015 - 08:56 AM.

[Harrison Kelly]

Sarlic, on 26 February 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

So, you rather have laser vomit online? Because that's is what it currently is.
Honestly, how can you even in the slighest way justify the current quirks? Have you even seen the quirks?

I agree that some Mechs were going to be obseleted soon. But the way how PGI handles the quirks and, you for example accepting it is one major issue.

It's only laser vomit online for the Clans, really. And that's because most of their other major weapons suck hard. What else do you want them to use? Clan Gauss are okay. C-ERPPCs are . . . a bit worse. Clan ACs are pretty horrible. Clan LRMs are bugged and . . . they're still LRMs. Good for pugging. I'm not really sure on C-Strks or C-SRMs, but they seem to get some use but are still really short ranged?

I've seen quite a few Hunchbacks running around making use of that AC20 quirk. I've seen quite a few PPC Awesomes, and the King Crabs are certainly not carrying all lasers. So for you to say it's "Laser Vomit Online" is a pure fallacy. There are numerous competitive Griffin/Shadow Hawk/maybe Wolverine builds that rely heavily on SRMs. Maybe if your Mechs are limited to Lights that might be true . . . but energy and the occasional missile tube have predominated on Lights in basically every MechWarrior game. They're just too small to carry most ballistics.

The obvious solution is not "remove quirks." It's "fix non-laser Clan weapons". And yes, I saw what quirks did. They turned a bunch of unimpressive IS chassis (e.g. the Hunchback, the Awesome, the Thunderbolt, Griffin, etc.) into 'Mechs worth bringing. And that's a good thing.

Is the situation fully balanced? No, of course not. This was the second pass of what'll probably take a few times to get right. And maybe LRMs and missiles in general need an overhaul. But to say that quirks are bad for the game when they 1) have brought a lot of chassis more viability and 2) encourage weapon diversity overall (e.g. AC20s are really good on certain chassis now thanks to quirks, while Gauss is a lot better on others instead of everyone just picking whichever of the two is stronger) is such a narrow-minded statement.

But then again, you're the guy who thinks I should strip off one of my lasers to put SRMs and Machine Guns on my 3 ERLL/Gauss sniper build so I have a more balanced loadout.

[Sarlic]

Harrison Kelly, on 26 February 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

It's only laser vomit online for the Clans, really. And that's because most of their other major weapons suck hard. What else do you want them to use? Clan Gauss are okay. C-ERPPCs are . . . a bit worse. Clan ACs are pretty horrible. Clan LRMs are bugged and . . . they're still LRMs. Good for pugging. I'm not really sure on C-Strks or C-SRMs, but they seem to get some use but are still really short ranged?

I've seen quite a few Hunchbacks running around making use of that AC20 quirk. I've seen quite a few PPC Awesomes, and the King Crabs are certainly not carrying all lasers. So for you to say it's "Laser Vomit Online" is a pure fallacy. There are numerous competitive Griffin/Shadow Hawk/maybe Wolverine builds that rely heavily on SRMs. Maybe if your Mechs are limited to Lights that might be true . . . but energy and the occasional missile tube have predominated on Lights in basically every MechWarrior game. They're just too small to carry most ballistics.

The obvious solution is not "remove quirks." It's "fix non-laser Clan weapons". And yes, I saw what quirks did. They turned a bunch of unimpressive IS chassis (e.g. the Hunchback, the Awesome, the Thunderbolt, Griffin, etc.) into 'Mechs worth bringing. And that's a good thing.

Is the situation fully balanced? No, of course not. This was the second pass of what'll probably take a few times to get right. And maybe LRMs and missiles in general need an overhaul. But to say that quirks are bad for the game when they 1) have brought a lot of chassis more viability and 2) encourage weapon diversity overall (e.g. AC20s are really good on certain chassis now thanks to quirks, while Gauss is a lot better on others instead of everyone just picking whichever of the two is stronger) is such a narrow-minded statement.

But then again, you're the guy who thinks I should strip off one of my lasers to put SRMs and Machine Guns on my 3 ERLL/Gauss sniper build so I have a more balanced loadout.

You are so naïeve. Sorry. But please, use your wonderful loadout. You fail to see the point as many pilots do. Which is very unfortunate.

Numerous people have brought up the convergence and the quirkening alone as a issue. The way how PGI handle the quirks could have done on a better way exactly to encourage a diverce more loudout.

I have told you before you would generally see more of those fantastic loadouts like yours, and it's exactly what happened. See those threads regulary popping up about the whole vomit technology here?

I am not going to write a full story, but if you can't see further then the applied bandaid solutions so far then who am i to invest my time further in a guy who tends to 'specialists' only..

Time will tell.

Edited by Sarlic, 26 February 2015 - 12:06 PM.

[Harrison Kelly]

Sarlic, on 26 February 2015 - 12:02 PM, said:

You are so naïeve. Sorry. But please, use your wonderful loadout. You fail to see the point as many pilots do. Which is very unfortunate.

Numerous people have brought up the convergence and the quirkening alone as a issue. The way how PGI handle the quirks could have done on a better way exactly to encourage a diverce more loudout.

I have told you before you would generally see more of those fantastic loadouts like yours, and it's exactly what happened. See those threads regulary popping up about the whole vomit technology here?

I am not going to write a full story, but if you can't see further then the applied bandaid solutions so far then who am i to invest my time further in a guy who tends to 'specialists' only..

Time will tell.

Oh, I SEE your point. I just disagree with it. Pursuit of "diverse loadouts" is something I actively don't want to see in this game, not that there's any real danger of that happening barring drastic action from PGI.

Diverse loadouts/builds are less effective. I'm not talking about something like carrying lasers to go with your Gauss. I'm talking about garbage like the stock Highlander. SRM-6, 2 mediums lasers, an LRM 20, and a Gauss. What in the name of Kai Allard Liao is that monstrosity supposed to do? Suck at everything? Only from 180 to 270 meters can that Mech ever utilize all of its weapons effectively, and even then, you have a weapon that requires lots of face time (LRM 20 for lock), 1 pinpoint weapon, 2 DOTs, and 2 scattershots. Inefficient and gross.

And you know what else? Let's say you and the vocal minority that agrees with you has their way. PGI finds some new UberMechanic to force diverse loadouts. Congratulations, you might have solved weapon loadout diversity, but you just killed Mech diversity. Because if MWO required you to take a wide array of weapons (think along the lines of MechAssault, where they gave you 1 energy, 1 ballistic, and 1 missile weapon), well, a lot of chassis just went extinct because of hitboxes or poor hardpoints. At least with quirks, we see variety in what 'Mechs appear on the battlefield. Individual weapon balance is a far better solution to "All Lasers All the Time" (which you still haven't actually proven is a real problem outside of the Clans) than nixing quirks outright.

I would rather each 'Mech variant be able to do something well rather than have a a few 'Mech variants be able to do everything well.

Edited by Harrison Kelly, 26 February 2015 - 12:20 PM.

[Abisha]

their is zero reason to carry a AC20 with only 1 ton ammo.
but their is 1000 reasons to carry 2x AC20 with fully loaded ammo.

on top the modules only 2 weapon slots=more effective weapon single type.
fault is Pgi not the player.

[Dock Steward]

Harrison Kelly, on 26 February 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

It's only laser vomit online for the Clans, really. And that's because most of their other major weapons suck hard. What else do you want them to use? Clan Gauss are okay. C-ERPPCs are . . . a bit worse. Clan ACs are pretty horrible. Clan LRMs are bugged and . . . they're still LRMs. Good for pugging. I'm not really sure on C-Strks or C-SRMs, but they seem to get some use but are still really short ranged?

I've seen quite a few Hunchbacks running around making use of that AC20 quirk. I've seen quite a few PPC Awesomes, and the King Crabs are certainly not carrying all lasers. So for you to say it's "Laser Vomit Online" is a pure fallacy. There are numerous competitive Griffin/Shadow Hawk/maybe Wolverine builds that rely heavily on SRMs. Maybe if your Mechs are limited to Lights that might be true . . . but energy and the occasional missile tube have predominated on Lights in basically every MechWarrior game. They're just too small to carry most ballistics.

The obvious solution is not "remove quirks." It's "fix non-laser Clan weapons". And yes, I saw what quirks did. They turned a bunch of unimpressive IS chassis (e.g. the Hunchback, the Awesome, the Thunderbolt, Griffin, etc.) into 'Mechs worth bringing. And that's a good thing.

Is the situation fully balanced? No, of course not. This was the second pass of what'll probably take a few times to get right. And maybe LRMs and missiles in general need an overhaul. But to say that quirks are bad for the game when they 1) have brought a lot of chassis more viability and 2) encourage weapon diversity overall (e.g. AC20s are really good on certain chassis now thanks to quirks, while Gauss is a lot better on others instead of everyone just picking whichever of the two is stronger) is such a narrow-minded statement.

But then again, you're the guy who thinks I should strip off one of my lasers to put SRMs and Machine Guns on my 3 ERLL/Gauss sniper build so I have a more balanced loadout.

Edited by Dock Steward, 26 February 2015 - 12:40 PM.

[zortesh]

You can be a generalist.

Which is to say you can be...
A crappy sniper
A crappy brawler
a crappy lrmboat(which is a weird distinction)

Problem is generalists are only good if the enemy also brought crappy builds, one of those things that only works in theory.

Pure dedicated snipers are the true generalists.. since a sniper can be good at range, and equally good at close range...

[Sarlic]

Harrison Kelly, on 26 February 2015 - 12:18 PM, said:

Oh, I SEE your point. I just disagree with it. Pursuit of "diverse loadouts" is something I actively don't want to see in this game, not that there's any real danger of that happening barring drastic action from PGI.

Diverse loadouts/builds are less effective. I'm not talking about something like carrying lasers to go with your Gauss. I'm talking about garbage like the stock Highlander. SRM-6, 2 mediums lasers, an LRM 20, and a Gauss. What in the name of Kai Allard Liao is that monstrosity supposed to do? Suck at everything? Only from 180 to 270 meters can that Mech ever utilize all of its weapons effectively, and even then, you have a weapon that requires lots of face time (LRM 20 for lock), 1 pinpoint weapon, 2 DOTs, and 2 scattershots. Inefficient and gross.

And you know what else? Let's say you and the vocal minority that agrees with you has their way. PGI finds some new UberMechanic to force diverse loadouts. Congratulations, you might have solved weapon loadout diversity, but you just killed Mech diversity. Because if MWO required you to take a wide array of weapons (think along the lines of MechAssault, where they gave you 1 energy, 1 ballistic, and 1 missile weapon), well, a lot of chassis just went extinct because of hitboxes or poor hardpoints. At least with quirks, we see variety in what 'Mechs appear on the battlefield. Individual weapon balance is a far better solution to "All Lasers All the Time" (which you still haven't actually proven is a real problem outside of the Clans) than nixing quirks outright.

I would rather each 'Mech variant be able to do something well rather than have a a few 'Mech variants be able to do everything well.

Good. Apologies, then you are one of the few. But again, the quirks are flawed. Not going to point out, obvious threads out there discussing the scheme.

The example you are giving of the Highlander is not 'gross' at all. You have to learn to play with it. It can be effective in te hands of a (allround)good pilot. The mindset of some people is just wrong when they are slapping 5 LL in a Stalker and call that a specialist. Give me a break.

While divers loadouts are perhaps ineffective you still need a optimal mix of these two. With the last two lines is your own personal preference. Its a teambased game for a reason and too many specialists wander on their own. Great fun though, out in the Solo que and having almost all specialists on close range. Because, that is what it's currently killing the game balance while we have still to deal with convergence. (Which i dont see it changed anytime)

Edited by Sarlic, 26 February 2015 - 01:28 PM.

[Dock Steward]

Sarlic, on 26 February 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

Good. Apologies, then you are one of the few. But again, the quirks are flawed. Not going to point out, obvious threads out there discussing the scheme.

The example you are giving of the Highlander is not 'gross' at all. You have to learn to play with it. It can be effective in te hands of a (allround)good pilot. The mindset of some people is just wrong when they are slapping 5 LL in a Stalker and call that a specialist. Give me a break.

Because people would go for the highest alpha, wich you need.. Here it comes... To press one button to maintain that high alpha is just a shame.

While divers loadouts are perhaps ineffective you still need a optimal mix of these two. With the last two lines is your own personal preference. Its a teambased game for a reason and too many specialists wander on their own. Great fun though, out in the Solo que and having almost all specialists on close range. Because, that is what it's currently killing the game balance while we have still to deal with convergence.

I still don't see why the number of buttons being pushed matters. I can fire 6 completely different weapon systems with 1 button if I wanted. I could fire 6LL with 6 different buttons if I wanted. How in the name of Zeus does the number of buttons being pushed matter in any way?

Also, even after 12 pages, you still have no real logical reasoning that supports a link between a player's loadout and their willingness or ability to work together as a team...

[Sarlic]

Yeah, scrapped it earlier. Got ninja'ed. Because that line was not ment to put there.

Not going to reply on you Dock. Sorry.

Edited by Sarlic, 26 February 2015 - 01:31 PM.

[Dock Steward]

Sarlic, on 26 February 2015 - 01:30 PM, said:

Yeah, scrapped it earlier. Got ninja'ed. Because that line was not ment to put there.

Not going to reply on you Dock. Sorry.

Okay, so you're just going to make this HIGHLY CONTENTIOUS statement and then never back it up in any way?

Sarlic, on 17 February 2015 - 05:34 AM, said:

Tired of seeing these builds over and over again and shows that people only play as a invidual for getting the highest damage as possible.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

I already run varried loadouts. works great on CW, less so in standard pug matches. Because people just want to min/max to the win. Instead of having to utilize weapon/range brackets and function as a help, they just want kills and money.

[Macksheen]

This is the same as the boating thread.

The deal is, it's incredibly difficult as a PLAYER to manage weapons with vastly different characteristics in terms of rate of fire, speed of projectile, etc. such that consolidating to fewer systems is incredibly useful to help with aim, precision, etc.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Macksheen, on 26 February 2015 - 01:50 PM, said:

This is the same as the boating thread.

The deal is, it's incredibly difficult as a PLAYER to manage weapons with vastly different characteristics in terms of rate of fire, speed of projectile, etc. such that consolidating to fewer systems is incredibly useful to help with aim, precision, etc.

All it takes is practice to overcome this hiccup.

[Harrison Kelly]

Macksheen, on 26 February 2015 - 01:50 PM, said:

This is the same as the boating thread.

The deal is, it's incredibly difficult as a PLAYER to manage weapons with vastly different characteristics in terms of rate of fire, speed of projectile, etc. such that consolidating to fewer systems is incredibly useful to help with aim, precision, etc.

I know, right? To go back to my Highlander example, I can take my 3 ERLL + Gauss build out and know that I want to stay at 700+ meters from the main furball with it. I want to snipe, and the modules will allow me to pack ERLL Range + Gauss Cooldown, along with Radar Derp and Advanced Zoom. Great. I have boosts to all of my weapons, sufficient Gauss ammo to make lots of holes in enemy robots, and at my chosen range (700+), all of my weapons are effective. I also know that my exposure time is basically the beam duration of a LL (about the same as a Gauss charge), and I only have 2 weapon group to manage. Perfect.

If I go with the diversified approach that Sarlic is advocating (stock HGN in this case), I have an SRM 6, a Gauss Rifle, 2 Medium Lasers, and an LRM 20. All with low ammo counts, mind you. At 700 meters, my SRM 6 and 2 ML are useless. Within 180 meters, the LRM 20 is useless. The LRM 20 lock-on minigame is rather hard to execute while using Advanced Zoom, but ideally I'd be using the Gauss and the LRM 20 together. I need at least 3 weapons groups, all of which have different exposure times. The ML are DOT weapons. The SRM 6 is burst. The Gauss is PPFLD with a charge time. The LRM 20 requires me to watch the target and is indirect fire. It's a lot more confusing and a lot less efficient. At most, I can only have modules on 2 of my 4 weapon types, unless I want to sacrifice Advanced Zoom or Radar Derp. I can't boost all of my weapons with modules, and the presence of an SRM6 and 2 ML is not going to help me beat out a dedicated brawler. The lack of long-range firepower makes me lose to any dedicated sniper, even something as small as a Gauss + 2 ERLL Heavy (i.e. a Dragon, a Mech 2/3rds my size). A single LRM 20 doesn't faze anyone. I lack module boosts and ammo.

Why in the name of anything would I want to pilot that? I'm not interested in the argument that "a good pilot will make it work." A good pilot wouldn't handicap himself like that! (I mean, unless it's a pure stock Mech match where everyone is doing that).

And at least in many cases all the quirks still apply to the stock build. Imagine if they didn't!

Edited by Harrison Kelly, 26 February 2015 - 02:24 PM.