Kiiyor, on 27 June 2015 - 09:32 PM, said:
I guess people fear it because it was the #1 tactic. You either joined the poptarts or were beaten by them. All other tactics #2 or lower.
I don't think that's entirely true. It might be more accurate to say poptarting was extremely trendy and fun at the time. That's the reason it was embraced. Effectiveness wasn't the reason for it being widely adopted.
El Bandito, on 27 June 2015 - 09:45 PM, said:
And here are some people who think what is good for the game, is limiting their freedom. You want the year of suck--2013 back with all the poptarting glory? Be my guest, and watch MWO burn in Steam release.
I've never had a problem with poptarts. I've put plenty of AC20 & gauss rounds into poptarts faces after their head clears the top of a ridge. I've had the same done to me when I was poptarting.
A poptart has maybe a 30-40 point alpha max. Maybe that was a lot in 2013. These days, there are people running around with 40-70+ point alphas. In the past, there used to be a lot of heavy and assault mechs with standard engines that were slow and didn't cover much ground. With the introduction of clan mechs we now have plenty of heavies and assaults that are extremely mobile and move at 70 - 80 kph. That additional mobility translates to lances being tougher to pin down in a specific area so poptarts can pick them apart. The tendency towards higher mobility makes it harder for poptarts to set up a firing line. And the higher mobility translates to better flanking which is a weakness of poptarts which require something to hide behind to be effective, given that they sacrifice tonnage and slots mounting jump jets and are less effective in normal combat.
Things have changed enough in terms of high alpha, speed and mobility that poptarts are no longer the dominant playstyle of choice. One might say poptarts in the modern world are just easy kills waiting to happen.
I for one would welcome our poptart overlords back, I could use the KDR/WL stats boost.