49 replies to this topic

[Riverboat Sam]

I played MWO a lot when I first found it. Formed a team with four friends. Eventually we all soured on it and dropped it. I didn't even log in for at least six months. I was interested in getting back into it recently so I watched some YouTubes to try to get warmed up to it again.

Spike Brave gave two pieces of advice in one of his videos that have completely changed the experience of playing this game for me.

First, he said don't bother trying to build the, "most effective", meta build for your mech. No. That's a quick path to hating this game. No. Instead pick a mech you like and then build it out for the play style you enjoy most. Build it for YOU to have fun in. Not with any other purpose.

Second, and this is the big one, he said he normally plays 100 matches in a build before he makes a decision about whether or not he likes it. That's right. 100 matches. I used to agonize over my builds after each and every match. Now I sit down on an evening and just drop into at least 10 pug matches as fast as I can hit the button. Spike was really right about this. MWO as a pug is like panning for gold. You will get just awful matches, mediocre matches, and sometimes great matches. You have to play a decent number of matches in any build before you will truly have any idea if you like it or not.

Following his advice has totally revitalized this game for me. I'm having a lot of fun with it again!

[Asmudius Heng]

That is good advice, mostly about playing lots of matches. You cannot judge fun or effectiveness from a single match or even a few you need to play a bunch to see all sides of teh PUG lottery, different maps, situations etc before a build can be judged on its merit of design - and its merit of fitting your profile for playstyle and fun.

[Kenyon Burguess]

Nice. Your next experience enhancement will be joining a teamspeak of like minded casual players and training for CW.

[FlipOver]

We all know and acknowledge the games limitations, but if we get past that and into the real feel of mechwarrior we can indeed have fun.
The best examples of fun on this game came from players like theBeef.
He always finds ways to have fun and explore the boundaries between competitive play and just casual fun times.

Get into a mech, fiddle with the loadout, make it ridiculous (anything between mixing TAGs with SML Las or just fit as many ER PPCs as possible, make absurdly colorful camos or take an extremely powerful mech and make it absurdly different to what it was intended to be) and try to take the best out of each match.

This game has one of the best customization modules out there. Use it and have fun with it.

[Rogue Jedi]

that is absolutely correct, do not be hasty, early in my MWO career I disregarded a build after 3 bad matches in a row, a year later I went back to it and it is now one of my favorite Mech builds (SDR-5D with 2 ML and ERLL)

I have many Mechs, I have decided I do not like some within 10 matches ^{e.g. I know I really hate the Dire Wolf, it is unbearably slow and sluggish and after 14 matches in the prime and I am not even half way through basic skills which means that I am truly terrible in that thing,} however Mechs which I do OK in have 50+ drops, I will usualy get a build worked out in the first 20 or so matches, in many cases is is a minor variation on the default build, then again for others like the SDR-5D, my most played Mech, I have 2 go to builds so I purchased a second and leave both builds (3 MPL or ERLL + 2 ML with less jumpjets) setup and decide on which to take based on what the rest of the team are using.

[Riverboat Sam]

I've got every clan package so far and find I only really like and use the Summoner Prime and Mad Dog Prime...LOL. I'm considering branching out to try the Hellbringer.

[Koniving]

Riverboat Sam, on 14 April 2015 - 03:57 AM, said:

First, he said don't bother trying to build the, "most effective", meta build for your mech. No. That's a quick path to hating this game. No. Instead pick a mech you like and then build it out for the play style you enjoy most. Build it for YOU to have fun in. Not with any other purpose.

Second, and this is the big one, he said he normally plays 100 matches in a build before he makes a decision about whether or not he likes it. That's right. 100 matches. I used to agonize over my builds after each and every match. Now I sit down on an evening and just drop into at least 10 pug matches as fast as I can hit the button. Spike was really right about this. MWO as a pug is like panning for gold. You will get just awful matches, mediocre matches, and sometimes great matches. You have to play a decent number of matches in any build before you will truly have any idea if you like it or not.

Following his advice has totally revitalized this game for me. I'm having a lot of fun with it again!

The first bit of advice is something I've been indirectly telling new players and debating against how "such and such is the only way to play" for... well years.

"What do you like to do? How do you want to play?" And I'd build something that goes with what they're trying to do.
Usually to get shot down, "Why would you suggest something like that? Such&such is useless!"
As of late I've been pretty discouraged in trying, though now and then I do what I can.

The later part, well truth be told I don't go that far. I play with a build until I encounter a fatal flaw. Then I address the flaw.
Got killed from a backshot before I could react? Adjust the armor a bit.
Couldn't track the enemy fast enough at close range? Adjusted weapons to have something that would do it for me (changed SRMs to Streaks).
Did ECM ruin my day? Found a way to fit 1.5 tons and two slots (BAP) on there.
What's that, ran out of ammo? Not enough, gimme all the ammo!
Sudden ammo explosion? Where was it? What's wrong with it? Not enough crit padding due to free slots? Too much of an ammo to 'padding' ratio (crit padding was destroyed leaving only ammo)? Then we adjust.
Too hot? What would be easier, dropping one of the weapons or slipping in more heatsinks?

Things like that. Mind you addressing fatal flaws isn't changing the whole build, it's making minor adjustments.

Glad he was able to make it fun for ya. Building for how I want to play is all I do myself. It results in stuff like this.

Spoiler

Three player group. Koniving in Battlemaster, F1restarter in Orion, and Lordred (filming) in Commando.

Five player group. Konving (Orion), F1restarter (Orion), Verrick (Timberwolf), Heketon (Centurion), Lordred (Commando)

No meta here. Just good times and good fun.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Do fun your way.

People who will tell you that you MUST BUILD A CERTAIN WAY are doing so because, to them, the way to have fun is to win and not winning is never fun. This is an assumption about what you find fun and is thus not sound advice in the way it is presented.

Absolutely the first thing should be to make sure you enjoy driving your 'mech, for the reasons that make it fun for you. Yes, for some people, that is purely about what wins the most, but for others it won't be and claiming otherwise is either the result of ignorance (whether unwitting or feigned) or a failure to understand that people are inherently different from one another.

Neither definition of fun is actually wrong, but failing to take into account the fact with which I began this sentence is wrong.

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 14 April 2015 - 01:18 PM.

[Void Angel]

I advocate balance; The Meta is meta for a reason - but one of those reasons is that players think it's The Meta. It's the Thomas Theorem in action. I have no problem strongly recommending effective builds... but I also remember a "conversation" in these very forums about how frontloaded pinpoint damage was "always" superior to DPS. Any amount of DPS. Some jerk was haranguing a newbie about switching out his Gauss Rifle for two AC/5s - the new guy even noted that it wasn't as good for sniping, but he liked the versatility of being able to fire faster in a brawl. This caused Captain Jerkface's uberitis to flare up, and I took issue with his heavy-handed and rude approach. So I showed him, with math and illustrations, that there were indeed situations where that AC/5 stack would outperform a Gauss Rifle (e.g. "blow off both of your legs and walk away laughing before you even got through a side torso.") Didn't matter to him; all I got back was "NUH-uh! I'm Captain Jerkface, and I'm right, because Torso Twisting is Magic!" He ended up being the first in my ignore collection for this game. I don't see him any more, and the forums are a smarter place for it.

Another example was my Shaman in vanilla WoW. The common wisdom was that "Shamans are healers," because they had healing spells, and people couldn't understand that the game gave you more healing than damage for mana because healing was less valuable. Even when certain European guilds proved that a group consisting of a Shaman, a Warrior, and three Rogues would outperform any other combination of classes as a DPS group, people just kept on insisting that "Shamans are Healers," and "Mana Tide Saves Raids!" No amount of math would dissuade them.

I do have to caution about the Special Snowflake school of thought, however. Yes, we're all different; but we're also much the same - that's why psychology is a thing. The reason that people get annoyed with "off-meta" build advice isn't that they think "the only way to have fun is to win." It's that they understand that futility isn't fun, and they believe that non-meta builds will lead players into futility (there was an argument to this effect on a recent "LRM Help" thread.) They might also, like me, have had to deal with players who progress toward competitive play and argue that their pet preference should be allowed despite the team's chosen tactics ("but I can't hit anything with an AC/20; can't I just take my two ERPPCs? It's just as much damage, and I'm good with them!" "... we're running brawlers!")

This isn't to say that people should be dogmatic about The Way You Play. That kind of rigid inflexibility is counterproductive, even from a competitive mindset. Everyone should learn to use LRMs, for example, regardless of how often they are used in competitive CW. Still, we shouldn't discount the mechanical advantages certain builds have over others simply because we want everyone to be A Unique and Beautiful Flower, particularly when they're newbies asking for advice. New players should understand that certain weapons or builds enjoy a mechanical advantage and be told that it's ok to experiment and have fun. It doesn't have to be one way or the other.

[Spike Brave]

Thanks for the shout out! I did want to address the 100 match thing for clarity on why I do that. I do that before making one of my TRO videos to ensure the build is performing okay. I want to ensure I'm showing a build that is somewhat competitive, so I look for a postive win/loss kil/death ratio after 100 matches.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Yay! I'm happy to hear when players finally understand how games are meant to be played. They are meant to be FUN and not FRUSTRATING! Too many players run in with questions like "Okay.. what's the BEST 'mech in the game and what's the BEST loadout for said 'mech?" without even thinking of what they're accustomed to using compared to what other players consider to be most effective for themselves instead of "What works for others may not necessarily always work for yourself in the field."

It's understandable though when players are slightly afraid of being laughed at by more experienced players but that's normal and can't really be avoided. Wide variety of 'mechs and loadouts available to choose from and they're all effective in their own way (so long as they follow proper builds where you don't load LRMs and equip ammo for SRMs and such) depending on the pilot using them. I've been laughed at for some of my builds but I'm the one enjoying my loadouts and not them. "OMG U R SO SLOOOW! NO XL ENGINE!? U SUK! LOLZORS U LOZER!" kind of taunts against me. *shrug* I figure if I don't enjoy the game.. what's the sense in playing?

Again, happy to hear someone helped you find a way to enjoy the game. May your pew pews/pow pows/whoosh whooshes be many and your downfalls be few.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Play for fun is prime advice.

Play 100 matches before tweaking a build? Bad advice. Maybe the 100-game threshold is useful when you have no idea what you're doing and no c-bills or item inventory to play around with, but once you find out about Smurfy's, learn how the different weapons behave, and get some solid ideas about the underlying gameplay mechanics and how they interact with different kinds of mechs, etc., 10 games might be a more reasonable evaluation period.

[Spike Brave]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 14 April 2015 - 05:49 PM, said:

Play for fun is prime advice.

Play 100 matches before tweaking a build? Bad advice. Maybe the 100-game threshold is useful when you have no idea what you're doing and no c-bills or item inventory to play around with, but once you find out about Smurfy's, learn how the different weapons behave, and get some solid ideas about the underlying gameplay mechanics and how they interact with different kinds of mechs, etc., 10 games might be a more reasonable evaluation period.

Yeah sorry I need to be more clear. I tweak the mech, then after I feel it's in a good place I run the 100 match test. I probably play 200+ matches before I make a TRO video. That's why I don't have that many.

[grendeldog]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 14 April 2015 - 05:49 PM, said:

Play for fun is prime advice.

Play 100 matches before tweaking a build? Bad advice. Maybe the 100-game threshold is useful when you have no idea what you're doing and no c-bills or item inventory to play around with, but once you find out about Smurfy's, learn how the different weapons behave, and get some solid ideas about the underlying gameplay mechanics and how they interact with different kinds of mechs, etc., 10 games might be a more reasonable evaluation period.

I agree with you that 100 games may be excessive to determine if you like a chassis (provided you're not testing it for possible video / streaming on Twitch / etc), but I think 10 is too few. I would say maybe 10 per variant, so 30 total, but even then I have misgivings. This is because that likely isn't going to be enough games to get each chassis to elite, and definitely not enough to get to elite and then get speed tweak and fast fire - to say nothing of finishing out the elite skills to get the doubled first tier skill values. And in some cases those bonuses can make all the difference.

Case in point: I'm currently getting my Grasshopper up to elite. I got the 4H basics finished yesterday, and loved it; XL330, 2 LPL, 1 LLas, 4 ML is a heck of a lot of fun. Today I got the basics done for the 4N and hated every minute of it - I only got two kills - with the same XL330, 7 MPL, and one ERLL. But I know that when I get speed tweak and fast fire and doubled bonuses for heat management and capacity that it will play a lot differently and be a lot more fun, so I'm reserving judgement on the 4N until then.

That's why I would say at least 10 per variant, and for me personally probably more like 20 per variant to see if I like it. That's just my opinion though, your mileage may vary.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

grendeldog, on 14 April 2015 - 08:59 PM, said:

I agree with you that 100 games may be excessive to determine if you like a chassis (provided you're not testing it for possible video / streaming on Twitch / etc), but I think 10 is too few. I would say maybe 10 per variant, so 30 total, but even then I have misgivings. This is because that likely isn't going to be enough games to get each chassis to elite, and definitely not enough to get to elite and then get speed tweak and fast fire - to say nothing of finishing out the elite skills to get the doubled first tier skill values. And in some cases those bonuses can make all the difference.

Case in point: I'm currently getting my Grasshopper up to elite. I got the 4H basics finished yesterday, and loved it; XL330, 2 LPL, 1 LLas, 4 ML is a heck of a lot of fun. Today I got the basics done for the 4N and hated every minute of it - I only got two kills - with the same XL330, 7 MPL, and one ERLL. But I know that when I get speed tweak and fast fire and doubled bonuses for heat management and capacity that it will play a lot differently and be a lot more fun, so I'm reserving judgement on the 4N until then.

That's why I would say at least 10 per variant, and for me personally probably more like 20 per variant to see if I like it. That's just my opinion though, your mileage may vary.

10 was per build, not per variant. Run 10 games with your 5x MPL 2x PPC Awesome 8Q before you swap to a 4x ML 3x PPC build, then do 10 with that before you change to 5x MPL and 2x LPL.

The point is that you don't have to waste time in a build that you just don't like, but you should at least give it a fair shakedown before reworking the thing.

It should go without saying that any changes you make you should test build in Smurfy's before touching the thing in MWO's mechlab.

It should also go without saying that you won't get the best feel for a variant until the thing is done with Elite (Master is best, since then you get the bonus module slot, which can be very meaningful). You may well find that a build that works for leveling won't quite do the job once you get your unlocks done, or can be outdone by something that the mech couldn't handle without the efficiencies.

[Nightshade24]

Good advice, Same one I often give people.

+1

[dragnier1]

I remember reading somewhere that different people have different ways of how they define "fun".

Try to find what's fun for yourself. The 100-200 games on one mech might work for some but not for others.

In my case i usually clock 90-130 matches on each mech, before i move on to my next new SHINY

[MechWarrior3671771]

Wrapped up in a bumper sticker slogan by someone wiser than me:

"We don't want to work the game, we want to play it"

[Inveramsay]

Competitive certainly doesn't necessarily mean fun or the other way round. One of my most fun mechs is my Locust 3S with 3xSRM2 and a Mlas. It isn't a great mech though I can reasonably often pull off good games with it especially if the enemy team leave their assaults behind. On the other hand, the staggering levels of crap builds you come across every now and then boggles my mind. Sure you don't need to have a very effective mech to have fun but come on.

[Josef Koba]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 14 April 2015 - 05:49 PM, said:

Play for fun is prime advice.

Play 100 matches before tweaking a build? Bad advice. Maybe the 100-game threshold is useful when you have no idea what you're doing and no c-bills or item inventory to play around with, but once you find out about Smurfy's, learn how the different weapons behave, and get some solid ideas about the underlying gameplay mechanics and how they interact with different kinds of mechs, etc., 10 games might be a more reasonable evaluation period.

I love threads like this; seeing warriors find appreciation for the game and others offering their advice and support. But I was thinking exactly what Levi said the entire time I was reading it. Taking 100 matches to determine the effectiveness or enjoyment level of a build seems excessive to me. I can usually tell within five matches if I'm going to continue on with a particular build and tweak it to better its effectiveness. Sometimes even one match if it's a particularly crappy build. Some builds look great on paper but just don't cut it. And I just know it isn't going to work out. So I might conduct some minor tweaks or major tweaks or even scrap it all together and make something different. I'll admit, I'm an obsessive tweaker of builds. But at this point I think I have enough of a feel for the game and its mechanics to know pretty quickly whether or not something is going to work. I just don't see the need to continue trotting out something I don't like/won't enjoy or isn't that great just for the sake of getting in X number of matches. Time is short. I know my play style and what I'm most effective doing in the game. For example, I'm never going to be anything more than a middling pilot of light mechs, save perhaps the occasional great match in a Firestarter. No build is going to change that and no amount of forced matches is going to convince me that I should stick to the lights. I might do ten matches in a light and have to go back to my heavies and assaults out of pure frustration. Of course, newer players might need more time to determine these things.

However, I can't agree more with the advice to build your mechs to suit your own playstyle and enjoyment level. Meta builds are great for certain things, but sometimes I like to find diamonds in the rough. I'm probably never going to play this game at the competitive level, though I am quite good in PUG life. So I enjoy odd builds, some of which are deceptively effective in PUG matches. It's all about fun and finding a happy medium between fun builds and being utterly frustrated because some builds are just garbage. No one wants to lose every match, but I don't want to trot out the meta for every match. One of my favorite builds is a King Crab with 2 Gauss, 1 LRM10, 4 medium lasers, and 3 SSRM2s. It's kinda meta with the Gauss, but the rest is like a wild hodge podge of different ranges and utility.