169 replies to this topic

[Vlad Ward]

YourSaviorLegion, on 18 September 2015 - 07:26 PM, said:

I'M NOT MAD... WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU THINK I'M MAD???

You think?

[Sjorpha]

This event was nice in terms of the score required, which wasn't a silly low token score like previous events. You had to actually have a good game to qualify, that's very refreshing.

But the requirement to play a useless map selection lottery that may or may not give you the chance to get those scores you need ruined it. I'm good enough to get scores like that but I don't have time to play dozens of matches on the "wrong" maps.

Taking the whole map thing out of it and upping the score requirement would have been so much better, make the challenges so that the prizes must be fought for, not grinded for.

[Yokaiko]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 02:45 AM, said:

This event was nice in terms of the score required, which wasn't a silly low token score like previous events. You had to actually have a good game to qualify, that's very refreshing.

So lights not Huggin, FS9 and ACH and most mediums need not apply.

[Sjorpha]

Yokaiko, on 20 September 2015 - 02:49 AM, said:

So lights not Huggin, FS9 and ACH and most mediums need not apply.

If it's not hard to do it's not worth calling a challenge IMO.

I'm sure many pilots can get those scores in most mechs, but even so balance issues in the game is not a good argument for easier challenges. You have to set those requirements towards good mechs for the same reason you have to balance games around good players.

FYI I didn't manage to complete the tier 2 in this challenge, because it was difficult for me to do that well consistently. And that is exactly what made the challenge fun for me. There was a tier one that was easy to get, and a tier 2 that was hard to get.

Ideally a challenge should have rewards that I can get with a little effort and then more rewards that are almost within reach, so I have something to work towards getting better to deserve them.

I'm sure much better pilots than me would have appreciated a tier 3 that even they would not manage easily, something for the best players in the game to strive towards. And for them the event was probably too easy.

Only problem IMO is the map lottery that causes a silly kind of luck based grind and the evidence of exploits in CW and group queue. But there is nothing wrong with making it difficult in a given match.

[Yokaiko]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 03:03 AM, said:

If it's not hard to do it's not worth calling a challenge IMO.

Its quite literally dumb luck I didn't get crimson for three days and something like 80 drops.

Now my biggest thorn is caustic, but since I only get that one 6 times in three days its frustrating, so excuse the poor sportsmanship, I can't waist the time to play competed maps.

[Brizna]

I don't think he was complaining about difficulty but about how inaccurate the score formula is to measure real match performance. This is usually a non issue in most challenges because the challenge is so easy to begin with that it doesn't matter, not so this time.

Incontrovertible proof: Kill an atlas with LRMs or with a head shot, both get points for killing blow, kill most damage and solo kill, total: about 40 points.
LRMs: are very inaccurate and may require you to do 300+ Damage so 150 points. Total ~190 score
Headshot: for about 40 damage so 20 points. Total ~60 score

I don't know about you but I prefer my team mates when they quickly dispose of an atlas with a quick lethal shot than when they spend two minutes throwing tons and tons of ammo at it.

[Yokaiko]

yeah god help you are accurate you actually gimp yourself.

[Sjorpha]

It's not perfect, can be improved, but it's not actually that bad.

Good games translate to good scores, bad games translate to bad scores. And IMO it does so fairly well.

For the atlas example, a headshot is quick and gives you more time to shoot at other things, and a higher chance of actually scoring the kill before anyone else does, The LRM boat is going to waste a lot more time killing the atlas, so if it didn't get a higher score for it it would have wasted all that time for score purposes compared to the headshot that could move on to headshot another mech.

Do LRM mechs generally produce higher scores because of this alleged problem? Nope, LRMs are terrible weapons and produce lower match score consistency. They are not a good weapon of choice to farm this event.

What actually matters is how much sustained DPS you can output in a given time and how many kills you can score with it. So accuracy pays off more even if you get less points per kill since you can kill more mechs with accurate fire.

I completely agree that the map lottery was ******* stupid, that's no reason to conflate different things.

[Vlad Ward]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 03:31 AM, said:

It's not perfect, can be improved, but it's not actually that bad.

Good games translate to good scores, bad games translate to bad scores. And IMO it does so fairly well.

For the atlas example, a headshot is quick and gives you more time to shoot at other things, and a higher chance of actually scoring the kill before anyone else does, The LRM boat is going to waste a lot more time killing the atlas, so if it didn't get a higher score for it it would have wasted all that time for score purposes compared to the headshot that could move on to headshot another mech.

Do LRM mechs generally produce higher scores because of this alleged problem? Nope, LRMs are terrible weapons and produce lower match score consistency. They are not a good weapon of choice to farm this event.

What actually matters is how much sustained DPS you can output in a given time and how many kills you can score with it. So accuracy pays off more even if you get less points per kill since you can kill more mechs with accurate fire.

I completely agree that the map lottery was ******* stupid, that's no reason to conflate different things.

Um. Do you know the match score formula?

It's dominated by damage dealt, to the point where no other stat is particularly relevant.

I can run around in a Gauss Jager, get 7-8 kills with 400 damage (because accuracy yo) and not break 300 score.



LRMs are stupidly good at farming completely unnecessary damage (aka score) precisely because they're useless, inefficient weapons that strip every component off a Mech before finally ending it.

[Sjorpha]

Vlad Ward, on 20 September 2015 - 03:39 AM, said:

Um. Do you know the match score formula?

It's dominated by damage dealt, to the point where no other stat is particularly relevant.

I can run around in a Gauss Jager, get 7-8 kills with 400 damage (because accuracy yo) and not break 300 score.



LRMs are stupidly good at farming completely unnecessary damage (aka score) precisely because they're useless, inefficient weapons that strip every component off a Mech before finally ending it.

But that's not my experience, I rarely see LRMs doing a lot of damage period. My experience is that accurate weapons get both more damage AND more kills with more consistency, while LRMs get both low damage and low accuracy.

I get what you're saying and it certainly makes logical sense when I read it, but what I see in practice is LRMs doing bad in every single way.

[Yokaiko]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 03:50 AM, said:

I get what you're saying and it certainly makes logical sense when I read it, but what I see in practice is LRMs doing bad in every single way.

That is because with the exception of a couple players, LRM are bad.

[Vlad Ward]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 03:50 AM, said:

But that's not my experience, I rarely see LRMs doing a lot of damage period. My experience is that accurate weapons get both more damage AND more kills with more consistency, while LRMs get both low damage and low accuracy.

I get what you're saying and it certainly makes logical sense when I read it, but what I see in practice is LRMs doing bad in every single way.

Oh, definitely true in practice. LRM are one of those weapons that "should" excel for these tournies on paper but aren't that great in the real world where people take ECM and rocks exist.

Clan UACs on the other hand are great. Direct fire, highly accurate with their now old news velocity buff, and crazy DPS so you can choose to farm damage pinatas (Atlai) or get kills when you need it.

It's just rolling with super accurate weapons and aiming for kills that really doesn't work in a score based tournament. Gauss Rifles may be top tier, but they'll never put you on the leaderboards.

[zagibu]

Yokaiko, on 20 September 2015 - 03:22 AM, said:

yeah god help you are accurate you actually gimp yourself.

It's true, they should simply remove damage completely from the equation. Or at least make it a much less prominent factor in the rating.

[Varvar86]

will be firts event when i wont be abale to compleate ANYTHING.
1 - roulette is just frustrating i played canyon only for 1.2 hour
2- never get more than 270 points. You need to be "superhero camper kill-stealer" over 500+ damage do get those points.in public queue? rly?

[Yokaiko]

Varvar86, on 20 September 2015 - 04:29 AM, said:

will be firts event when i wont be abale to compleate ANYTHING.
1 - roulette is just frustrating i played canyon only for 1.2 hour
2- never get more than 270 points. You need to be "superhero camper kill-stealer" over 500+ damage do get those points.in public queue? rly?

It gets better in the CW world, one heavily contested slice you may fight over it for 3 hours if the counters go wrong.

.....and that is all you get.

[Sjorpha]

Vlad Ward, on 20 September 2015 - 03:55 AM, said:

It's just rolling with super accurate weapons and aiming for kills that really doesn't work in a score based tournament. Gauss Rifles may be top tier, but they'll never put you on the leaderboards.

I don't actually find that to be true in practice either. The highest damage scores I consistently get are with dual gauss+lasers, that is the meta builds for KGC(2Gauss+3ERLL) and DWF (2gauss+2cLPL+4cML).

Dual gauss+energy weapons is good for damage maxing because you get to use both your heat and your tonnage so effectively.

And my highest damage games are not my least accurate games, it's the exact opposite. My highest damage games are the ones where my aim is also good and I get lots of kills.

It takes the same time to deal X damage whether that damage is accurate or not, but if it's accurate you get to kill stuff and move to the next target. The idea of damage farming through inaccuracy only works if you fail to find targets to shoot at for so long that it hurts your effective DPS more than those kills and components are worth.

Only dual gauss, yeah that's not good for damage maxing because you aren't using your heat capacity at all. But it's not like there are a ton of chassi where only dual gauss is optimal anyways, it's basically only the Jager S that does that, every other mech has better builds.

So what we have is two examples, LRMs which are so bad that they can't be used to farm anyways and dual gauss without backup which is neither strong or common in the meta.

I don't see any evidence that general inaccuracy with the best builds would result in higher damage averages, and I don't see any evidence that accurate players produce low damage scores.

The truth is that good accurate sustained shooting with as little downtime between targets as possible is both the strongest contribution to winning and the best way to get a high match score. And the rest is a mixture of people excusing themselves from improving and playing theorywarrior. (Exploits like farming components of disconnects and sync drop setup matches are another thing, I'm talking about legit play)

[Vlad Ward]

Sjorpha, on 20 September 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

Dual gauss+energy weapons is good for damage maxing because you get to use both your heat and your tonnage so effectively.

Well, yes and no. Dual Gauss + Energy is good for damage maxing if you aren't pouring your whole duration into the CT, because CTs all have a set amount of hit points and there's really only so much you can deal while only using optimally accurate fire.

I'm not treating the Gauss Jager like it's a strong Mech by any means btw. It's just an extreme example of the trouble with aiming for killshots which award practically no points at the expense of damage.

A Gauss Dire will definitely put out more damage than a Gauss Jager, since your burst and DPS are both higher and you're getting more of each target to yourself. There's an upper limit on how much damage you can inflict without spreading to other components, though. Intentionally spreading solves that problem - and if you're spreading on purpose, the higher DPS weapon wins.

Assuming a 53~ kph Mech can engage all 12 targets in a match is a bit of a stretch, though (both the crab and dire are slooooow). Unless your tier is significantly more organized than mine, chasing down a bunch of spread out Reds is straight impossible for me most games. I may only get 5-6 total targets in an 8 minute game depending on the map and what the rest of my team's doing (a lot of good positions become less viable if the team runs to the other side of the map).

For an event based (almost) entirely on damage dealt, I just feel it's safer to make the most out of the opponents I have in front of me.

[Sorbic]

About to launch my first game of the day. I've still only seen CS once... I have to wonder if I've just never noticed such long dry spells on maps or am I having an exceptionally bad streak of RNG luck.

[Kira Onime]

Don't expect to complete it?
Kay




.. oh wait.

[Alienized]

literally each missile system here is useful to do useless damage. splat srms, dumbfire streaks, throw buckets of lurms. they do a ton of damage just dont kill stuff alone fast enuff.
in the end, my QKD-5K and 2 TBR did the mainjob.
seemed like mainly clan mechs were getting he highscores anyway apart from the usual overquirked BS.
i really hope this balance pass gets it right....