33 replies to this topic

[Poisoner]

I haven't played one of these since I mastered them in closed beta. With the quirks this variant has you can barf PPC like no ones business. I believe it reinforces that fact that if you can't make the mech work, it might not be the mech.

[Hans Von Lohman]

Or that the mech is too wide and thus easy to hit.

Personally I like my Awesomes. I have a positive kill ratio on all of them.

[jlawsl]

I hear a lot of people say that its easy to kill. I really haven't noticed it since the last few quirk passes. Thing could stand a little extra armor, and it gets hit, when aimed at(big torso), but I don't die too easily in it. Just adjust play style, don't expect to run head first into an enemy, contrary to common belief, assault mechs are more of fire support, or security support, not line breaking. The AWS builds that people play tend to be medium to long range, so of course they are gonna be weak up front. Put 2-3 LPL on an 8q and fill the rest with mpls and you have a mean brawler there.

[Corrado]

i personally like several 8Q builds. the pure 4 PPC build, the 2 PPC 2LPL 3ML build, the 3LPL 4ML build. it's surely funny in every way, but in puglandia, often real tanks are the ones that give the spearhead what it needs. After all, sooner or later, someone has to soak the damage in a push. Awesome can't... Dires, Crabs and stalkers can.

[Virgil Greyson]

Aim for the nipples.

[Otto Cannon]

One problem with the Awesome is that in a game where people get rewarded for personal kills they tend to focus on weak targets that go down easily. Regardless of how good or bad the Awesome is, it has a reputation among players for being easily killed which means that they tend to prioritise it. I've seen pug teams literally racing each other to kill one as soon as the mech name showed up. The only other thing to get that reaction is usually a disco 'free kill' on the enemy side.

It's a vicious circle because the more Awesomes get focus fired aggressively because of their reputation, the more of a reputation for dying quickly they get.

[Alistair Winter]

I really wish the amount of PPC damage decreased gradually under minimum range, like Clan LRMs, instead of being 0 damage at 89 meters. Because one major challenge for the AWS-8Q is that people know that you're absolutely defenseless if they get close enough. And if you're lucky enough to have a close match, where you're AWS-8Q is one of the last guys standing, or even the last guy standing, then you're basically just a gun shield for your enemies to hug and hide behind in the best of times. And at worst, you just stare at your opponents as they slice your limbs off, one by one, to maximize their profits.

I always run stock weapons on the AWS-8Q btw. Quad PPC is probably better, but... meh. When I get a kill with my cockpit-mounted small laser, it makes it all worthwhile.

[Kiiyor]

I love Awesomes, they're my favourite mech, to both pilot and kill.

I enjoy piloting them because they feel like hard mode to me, making my triumphs all the more sweet.

As a target though, there is no mech in the game easier to kill - in my experience anyway. Hitboxes worse than a DireWolf with 80tonne armour, and a huge number of vulnerabilities to exploit. If you engage them from medium range at any type of elevation, there's a good chance those low weapon hardpoints will either discharge their payload into the dirt at their feet, or into terrain hitboxes near yours.

The quirks are great, but in my experience they still do a poor job of overcoming the venerable mech's plethora of limitations.

[Scurry]

Alistair Winter, on 03 April 2015 - 03:00 AM, said:

I really wish the amount of PPC damage decreased gradually under minimum range, like Clan LRMs, instead of being 0 damage at 89 meters. Because one major challenge for the AWS-8Q is that people know that you're absolutely defenseless if they get close enough. And if you're lucky enough to have a close match, where you're AWS-8Q is one of the last guys standing, or even the last guy standing, then you're basically just a gun shield for your enemies to hug and hide behind in the best of times. And at worst, you just stare at your opponents as they slice your limbs off, one by one, to maximize their profits.

I always run stock weapons on the AWS-8Q btw. Quad PPC is probably better, but... meh. When I get a kill with my cockpit-mounted small laser, it makes it all worthwhile.

Maybe they should make that min range thingy a quirk - on certain Mechs, diminishing min range on PPCs instead of hard limit. Would be handy to have that on mechs like the Panther and Awesome.

[oldradagast]

From an absolute perspective, Awesomes are a step above junk. They CAN pose a threat because they can carry weapons appropriate for an 80-ton mech, but that's not saying much... It's not as if they are a stock Charger with no ability to change weapons.

They also, however, lack ballistics, jump jets, or ECM. They have no high-mounted weapons, and also have a front torso profile LARGER than a Dire Wolf, which is insane. Yes, it is easier to hit the key parts of an Awesome than a Direwolf...

So, they die easily, and while the quirks are nice, I hate how they've become a random crutch for bad mech design. The Awesome doesn't need a pile of quirks to make it a glass cannon. It needs a total redesign to make it a tough threat, as it was in lore. But until that happens (read "never"), the best we can hope for is doing lots of damage until somebody notices us. I like my Awesomes, but I'm under no illusions about how bad they are.

I also hate depending upon quirks to make a mech useful because quirks can change, as we've seen in the past, while the mech itself is unlikely to change. The only 2 changes to mechs that I can think of in the 2+ years I've been playing was the ECM position lock to the left torso and the changes to clan omnipods and jump jets. No appearing or vanishing hardpoints. Quirks, however, could be something else by next week. They could easily buff the PPC, vastly reduce the PPC quirks, and turn the 8Q back into an overheating pile of trash.

Edited by oldradagast, 03 April 2015 - 03:12 AM.

[Deathlike]

I've seen this build, and it's hard to honestly take the build seriously because it's not hard to shoot off the weapons (the side torsos are easier to shoot off).

It's also not hard to facehug a slow mech either.

If you want PPCs to not suck up close, you would have to reinstate damage at min range, but using an exponential curve (the same used by Clan LRMs) instead of a linear damage scale.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 April 2015 - 10:54 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Poisoner, on 02 April 2015 - 11:53 PM, said:

I haven't played one of these since I mastered them in closed beta. With the quirks this variant has you can barf PPC like no ones business. I believe it reinforces that fact that if you can't make the mech work, it might not be the mech.

I like this.

I like it a lot. Awesomes are already the preferred meal for my Hunchback. Please help me find more of them to feast on!

Deathlike, on 03 April 2015 - 10:53 AM, said:

I've seen this build, and it's hard to honestly take the build seriously because it's not hard to shoot off the weapons (the side torsos are easier to shoot off).

It's also not hard to facehug a slow mech either.

If you want PPCs to not suck up close, you would have to reinstate damage at min range, but using an exponential curve (the same used by Clan LRMs) instead of a linear damage scale.

or even something as simple as a static 50% dmg under 90 meters.

[DarthPeanut]

I just picked up the Awesome 8Q personally but I went right to the 3 LPL, 3 med, and 1 med pulse. Might have to try the PPC build at some point but in general I am not a fan of PPC, quirked or not.

[N a p e s]

Bishop Steiner, on 03 April 2015 - 11:00 AM, said:

or even something as simple as a static 50% dmg under 90 meters.

That'd be neat

[verybad]

I wish PPCs had a chance of misfiring under 90 meters rather than a non damage system.

In the boardgame, theyr'e simply less accurate under 90 meters, but they're still as accurate as firing at medium range by and large. So a non damage system is to harsh IMO.

Give them a 0-25% chance of misfiring and needing to reboot/recharge under 90 meters. A misfire would turn the PPC off for twice it's recharge time but still cause the heat. There, it's essentially less accurate under 90 meters,but it's not useless under 90 meters.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Alistair Winter, on 03 April 2015 - 03:00 AM, said:

I really wish the amount of PPC damage decreased gradually under minimum range, like Clan LRMs, instead of being 0 damage at 89 meters. Because one major challenge for the AWS-8Q is that people know that you're absolutely defenseless if they get close enough. And if you're lucky enough to have a close match, where you're AWS-8Q is one of the last guys standing, or even the last guy standing, then you're basically just a gun shield for your enemies to hug and hide behind in the best of times. And at worst, you just stare at your opponents as they slice your limbs off, one by one, to maximize their profits.

I always run stock weapons on the AWS-8Q btw. Quad PPC is probably better, but... meh. When I get a kill with my cockpit-mounted small laser, it makes it all worthwhile.

Or we all hope and pray one day ERPPC are worth their weight in dinosaur **** and people actually can use them again....

[Alistair Winter]

LordKnightFandragon, on 03 April 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

Or we all hope and pray one day ERPPC are worth their weight in dinosaur **** and people actually can use them again....

I used to run 2xERPPC + 1xPPC + 1xSL on my AWS-8Q. But then they nerfed ERPPCs and gave it PPC quirks, so that build got screwed hard.

[Metus regem]

I've been running my 8Q with three PPC's, AMS and a 300 standard engine, so long as I stay in the second line, or 90m away, she's beastly.

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 03 April 2015 - 11:00 AM, said:

or even something as simple as a static 50% dmg under 90 meters.

I disagree with that notion. If Clan LRMs had that behavior... the IS side would complain massively about said imbalance.

The reason for having min range is to force (or at least at give a reason for) the use of backup weapons. Part of the PPC era was where having 2 PPCs w/o backup medium or small lasers was kind of a norm... something I don't think that was shared in even TT loadouts (not that I'm trying to use that an excuse, but even the stock Awesome-8Q had a backup weapon).

I'm aware that other weapons had min range (AC2, AC5, Gauss) but there are some legit reasons for not including it (the AC2 had a large min range, which is not practical considering how bad the weapon is in the game... Gauss's min range is technically a joke, given the range it has in this game)... but PPC min range has kinda been carried around a bit in some of the older MW games (MW2 Mercs had it IIRC... and MW4 reintroduced it), so it's kind of a balancing thing that was always needed when compared to the IS ERPPC.

[Bishop Steiner]

Deathlike, on 03 April 2015 - 11:58 AM, said:

I disagree with that notion. If Clan LRMs had that behavior... the IS side would complain massively about said imbalance.

The reason for having min range is to force (or at least at give a reason for) the use of backup weapons. Part of the PPC era was where having 2 PPCs w/o backup medium or small lasers was kind of a norm... something I don't think that was shared in even TT loadouts (not that I'm trying to use that an excuse, but even the stock Awesome-8Q had a backup weapon).

I'm aware that other weapons had min range (AC2, AC5, Gauss) but there are some legit reasons for not including it (the AC2 had a large min range, which is not practical considering how bad the weapon is in the game... Gauss's min range is technically a joke, given the range it has in this game)... but PPC min range has kinda been carried around a bit in some of the older MW games (MW2 Mercs had it IIRC... and MW4 reintroduced it), so it's kind of a balancing thing that was always needed when compared to the IS ERPPC.

yes, and forcing the use of a backup weapon would be reasonable...if PPCs were worthwhile in the first palce.

So, as long as they are firing such ridiculously slow projectiles, in such a heat addled game, there is a trade off that needs to happen.

Either we buff PPC/ER PPC projectile speed to a point where they are used by mechs without ridiculous 40% quirks, and keep the minimum range, or we toss them a bone and give them some sort of usability.

If you think that 10 heat 4 second cooldown "Medium Lasers" are suddenly going to become the rage, lol...well, IDK what to tell you.