27 replies to this topic

[karrade85]

Ok so loaded it up, I don't realy meet recommended specs but if I keep everything on low video it seems to run fine. That being said....What F* tard designed these controls and matchmaking setups/rankings???
I'm just learning on how to walk in the direction I'm trying to aim and I seem to be facing the right hand of god every time I see the enemy as they slaughter me with ease!? Try sticking behind your buddys and long range it? Fat chance the only thing I caused damage to was mother earth as I ravaged her hills and plains with missed lasers and whatever other shiny stuff my mech fired. Get close? well only good thing about that is my being ***** ends quicker. Seriously don't they setup newbs to play newbs? Granted I need to get a different mouse I can see, the track ball sucks for the percesion control I need in targeting but I have never sucked so hard. My best match was 45 dmg, most matches range in the 20dmg/next to nothing category though. When I use missiles I seem to not be grasping something like whether I'm locked or not, hell don't know if I'm in range. I understand these are trial mechs but if I can't do crap in a prebuilt how do I know what I want to use in future or even if I should bother and the successive ****** will just continue? I'm using the bigger mechs just to because I can't control the mobility of the faster mechs. I played EVE back in the day and that learning curve seems like nothing compared to this one, please help any suggestions?

[IraqiWalker]

karrade85, on 20 September 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Ok so loaded it up, I don't realy meet recommended specs but if I keep everything on low video it seems to run fine. That being said....What F* tard designed these controls and matchmaking setups/rankings???
I'm just learning on how to walk in the direction I'm trying to aim and I seem to be facing the right hand of god every time I see the enemy as they slaughter me with ease!? Try sticking behind your buddys and long range it? Fat chance the only thing I caused damage to was mother earth as I ravaged her hills and plains with missed lasers and whatever other shiny stuff my mech fired. Get close? well only good thing about that is my being ***** ends quicker. Seriously don't they setup newbs to play newbs? Granted I need to get a different mouse I can see, the track ball sucks for the percesion control I need in targeting but I have never sucked so hard. My best match was 45 dmg, most matches range in the 20dmg/next to nothing category though. When I use missiles I seem to not be grasping something like whether I'm locked or not, hell don't know if I'm in range. I understand these are trial mechs but if I can't do crap in a prebuilt how do I know what I want to use in future or even if I should bother and the successive ****** will just continue? I'm using the bigger mechs just to because I can't control the mobility of the faster mechs. I played EVE back in the day and that learning curve seems like nothing compared to this one, please help any suggestions?

Sounds par for the course actually.

MWO and EVE are usually brought up in the same breath when discussing difficulty of entry.

First things you should have done would be to go into settings and adjust things, such as your mouse sensitivity. Stop spawning/playing in 3rd person view (it's supposed to help new players, but I have yet to see a case where it actually does.)

see what the controls do, and rebind the ones you feel iffy about, and also use the training grounds early on to learn how to pilot a mech before jumping into the shark's mouth.

If you want, I would be more than happy to help you get the hang of things. Either here, on the forums, or in-game, using Teamspeak.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Suggestions? Sure.

1.) Post about it in New Player Help. I see you've got that one figured out. Congratulations.

2.) TESTING GROUNDS. It's there for a reason. USE IT, for crying out loud. Want to learn to use the controls before you go get toasted? THAT is where you learn to move, fire, etc. TESTING MOTHER LOVING GROUNDS.

3.) TUTORIAL! Well, the current one needs, like, A LOT of work. Someone pointed that out to PGI. Like, EVERYONE, and for a LONG TIME. So, whaddaya know, TUESDAY we should be getting a whole new, revamped tutorial. Complete with throwaway characters and a new-to-MWO AI opponent system! There was a public test of it not long ago. Due out in a day and a half.

4.) That's pretty much it.

No sense talking tactics or best practices, if you can't even control what your mech is doing. Learn that. Drop into TG and refuse to quit until you've got the hang of it.

Oh, and I'm a weirdo in that I recommend KEEPING the trackball for any/all FPS type games. Mouse clicks don't run the chance of knocking your aim off, and you don't need any more space for it than what it takes up on your desk/table.

Anyhow. Testing grounds. Day and a half, Tutorial. And don't sweat doing piddly damage and getting wrecked--it's common for a brand-new player in a Trial mech to do REALLY poorly in comparison to experienced players. Otherwise, we wouldn't call you 'noobs'...

[IraqiWalker]

TheRAbbi, on 20 September 2015 - 09:39 PM, said:

Suggestions? Sure.

1.) Post about it in New Player Help. I see you've got that one figured out. Congratulations.

2.) TESTING GROUNDS. It's there for a reason. USE IT, for crying out loud. Want to learn to use the controls before you go get toasted? THAT is where you learn to move, fire, etc. TESTING MOTHER LOVING GROUNDS.

3.) TUTORIAL! Well, the current one needs, like, A LOT of work. Someone pointed that out to PGI. Like, EVERYONE, and for a LONG TIME. So, whaddaya know, TUESDAY we should be getting a whole new, revamped tutorial. Complete with throwaway characters and a new-to-MWO AI opponent system! There was a public test of it not long ago. Due out in a day and a half.

4.) That's pretty much it.

No sense talking tactics or best practices, if you can't even control what your mech is doing. Learn that. Drop into TG and refuse to quit until you've got the hang of it.

Oh, and I'm a weirdo in that I recommend KEEPING the trackball for any/all FPS type games. Mouse clicks don't run the chance of knocking your aim off, and you don't need any more space for it than what it takes up on your desk/table.

Anyhow. Testing grounds. Day and a half, Tutorial. And don't sweat doing piddly damage and getting wrecked--it's common for a brand-new player in a Trial mech to do REALLY poorly in comparison to experienced players. Otherwise, we wouldn't call you 'noobs'...

Actually, we'd call them "newbs" . Which indicates they're new. "noobs", is usually reserved for bad players who've been around for a long time.

[Omi_]

Even just walking around is a bit like riding a bike with training wheels at first due to the tank/fps hybrid nature of the controls. However, it all amounts to a pretty fun game, and the movement controls lend very well to the design of the game.

It just takes time to learn as it is something new to most people, but most players who come from other MechWarrior games feel right at home here.

[Rogue Jedi]

As the others have said, do the tutorial, look through the controls and remap any you do not think make sense, then go to the testing grounds and practice moving while shooting the target Mechs.

Or just wait about 37 hours after I make this post and play the new tutorial, there is a compulsory bit then there are several other optional activities, I would advise trying all the activities before launching into a match.

[karrade85]

Wow, well it's encouraging that people are willing to reply to help out right away. I did do the tutorial and yes it left a lot to be desired but new one coming out you say huh? Anyways maybe the sensitivity on the track ball is my main issue I'll have to play with it. I find myself unable to aim at a target with any degree of accuracy. The walking thing throws me, I find myself using the F key a lot to auto align myself but I feel it's a crutch and that I could find a better way. I certainly cannot walk and shoot right now though and I'm gathering that everyone else is using that advantage to pop in and out of cover.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

karrade85, on 20 September 2015 - 09:59 PM, said:

I certainly cannot walk and shoot right now though and I'm gathering that everyone else is using that advantage to pop in and out of cover.

Yup. It's something that's pretty easy to practice in Testing Grounds. The Caustic Valley map should work just fine, for the basic shoot-on-the-move stuff. Terrain's a little uneven, but nothing too challenging. Plenty of cover for you to practice with.

[IraqiWalker]

karrade85, on 20 September 2015 - 09:59 PM, said:

Wow, well it's encouraging that people are willing to reply to help out right away. I did do the tutorial and yes it left a lot to be desired but new one coming out you say huh? Anyways maybe the sensitivity on the track ball is my main issue I'll have to play with it. I find myself unable to aim at a target with any degree of accuracy. The walking thing throws me, I find myself using the F key a lot to auto align myself but I feel it's a crutch and that I could find a better way. I certainly cannot walk and shoot right now though and I'm gathering that everyone else is using that advantage to pop in and out of cover.

Sneak peak of the new one

[SnagaDance]

TheRAbbi, on 20 September 2015 - 10:07 PM, said:

Yup. It's something that's pretty easy to practice in Testing Grounds. The Caustic Valley map should work just fine, for the basic shoot-on-the-move stuff. Terrain's a little uneven, but nothing too challenging. Plenty of cover for you to practice with.

Good suggestion for a map to use as testing grounds. When I started 2 years ago I was much like you. Running into terrain, shooting everywhere but the enemy and mostly dying really fast (none of it helped by the fact I was using a Light Jenner mech).

So I dropped in the Testing Grounds and started to experiment there. Trying to hit the dummy mechs at different ranges while standing still, then when moving, moving faster, moving over uneven terrain and shooting, moving with jumpjets and shooting. And when finally I felt like I wouldn't be a total emberassment to the team anymore I jumped back into the real game where the real learning started (moving targets that also shoot back sure are a lot harder ).

And keep in mind that I was used to the mech controls from Mechwarrior 2, 3 and 4. What I didn't know then though were those mouse sensitivity setting. Tweaking those helped immensely.

Good luck and see you on the battlefield!

[Lily from animove]

join the testing ground, and lern walking around until you are familiar enough with the movement. then try playing vs others.

and stop using lrm's they suck, because pilots with some experience will simply know how to take cover and make them hit dirt.

Edited by Lily from animove, 21 September 2015 - 02:09 AM.

[DrnkJawa]

Okay lets start with missiles that also help in every other ***** situation. To find out if you have a lock or not press R on the sucker you want annoy, center your well aiming thingy on him(the mouse aiming thing), then wait for the yellow circles to tighten and become red circles and then you unlesh the missiles(do it within 1000m range or else you might aswell try real life spitting on them to demoralize them).

Next up press F3 for cockpit view and to actually have a map infront of you, press Left Ctrl button to admire the little touch to details, when done look at your HUD to figure out which arrow is your showing your leg direction(trust me on higher torso twist mechs under heavy fire you will loose all track of direction because on some mechs max reverse can look like crawling forward). Basicly if you played any tank game this is the same.

Matchmaker can be like an angry ex...just roll with it

shoot the red ********, blue ones are you friend

Oh yeah C is not for cookie, its for centering your torso with your legs (like standing at full attention)

And finally nobody was born knowing, so use medium mechs (incase you get gangbanged the lose of you wont be as punishing to the rest of your team) cause they are smaller, less attention grabbing, great teaching tools (think of it as learning to drift in an AE86) and mostly fun death machines.

Enjoy your stay and everything you learned in EVE you can throw out the window, it wont help here.

[Kurvi]

Relatively new player here, so I feel your pain. The good news is that it does improve. I've only been playing for a few weeks and I've gone from 20-30 damage on average to 150-200. It's still not great (I regularly come out lowest in match score) and I get killed quite often, but I am seeing improvement.

Some pieces of insight, that may or may not be useful:

- Stick to using trial mechs for a while and switch them up. Don't buy a mech until you are sure of your style of play, because getting a second mech is a long grind.

- I initially found aiming at extreme long range to be hard. Learn how to do the medium/short ranges first, then increase your range. There are a lot of other things to master.

- This is mainly for lasers, but don't be afraid to shoot at something that's far away just because you don't think you'll hit. Even if you shoot a single laser and kinda wave it around, there's a chance you'll paint the target for a split second and do a bit a damage, and every bit counts. If nothing else, your opponent will feel targeted and it might make them flinch/put their head down. Shooting in the general direction of the enemy for "cover fire" is a time honored tradition. The psychological effect is greater for lasers because you see that mass shining lights pointed in your general direction.

- Heck, I'd go so far as much to say that if you know there is no friendly mech ahead of you, I don't think it's a bad idea to get into the habit of firing off a laser every time you make a turn. Of course it goes without saying that you don't alpha every other second -- you need to save heat (and ammo) for when you need it.


- I personally like medium mechs. It's not as bad for your team if you die doing something stupid, and you've got enough armor/weapons that you are not automatically relegated to the scout/hit and run role which I have found quite hard to master.

- I admit that it took me a while to realize this intellectually, and I haven't quite gotten it instinctual, but when I keep my head long enough to follow it, it usually pays off nicely: WAIT FOR IT. Basically, the nature of these battles is that it always starts off at long range, then gradually gets closer as the mobs converge. If you're not in a long range sniper or heavily armored tank, your job (esp. as a newb) is to wait for your chance to shine. Hide behind a rock or assault mech and wait. Inevitably, one of the groups will try to charge or flank the other (or something more clever), and other mechs will try to close with the long range ones on your side. That's when you unload your alphas.

[Mad Ox]

Simply get the best FPS you can. This game is simply unplayable in lower FPS, recently put in a new GFX Card and revisited this hell until I figured out right settings. You will beat yourself senseless trying to make game work with it. unless game is streaming smoothly your in for a nightmare.

Modify the default sensitivity and setting related to mouse have yet to have a friend play it that didn't go insane with game until I walked them through changing it. Defaults should get someone shot at PGI.

Keep to mechs with speed at or below 100KPH anything higher your going to have a very hard frustrating time especially combined with bad FPS. Mediums/Heavy should be entry point.

[Sonny Black]

karrade85, on 20 September 2015 - 09:59 PM, said:

Wow, well it's encouraging that people are willing to reply to help out right away. I did do the tutorial and yes it left a lot to be desired but new one coming out you say huh? Anyways maybe the sensitivity on the track ball is my main issue I'll have to play with it. I find myself unable to aim at a target with any degree of accuracy. The walking thing throws me, I find myself using the F key a lot to auto align myself but I feel it's a crutch and that I could find a better way. I certainly cannot walk and shoot right now though and I'm gathering that everyone else is using that advantage to pop in and out of cover.

May I also suggest Spike Brave's You Tube Channel Chock full of good information.

[Chados]

I didn't start getting the basics of hill humping and corner peeking til I was two months into the game. Hint: I'm ten weeks in with 900 drops, and eight elited mechs (five are mastered) and I still am green as Kentucky bluegrass in springtime. The game is the least friendly to new players that I have ever seen.

This forum:

http://mwomercs.com/...des-strategies/

Lot of helpful tips. Catalina Steiner's "How to Become A Pro LRM Boat Pilot," http://mwomercs.com/...lrm-boat-pilot/ , is the thread that started turning me around from chump to not-quite-champ but way better than I was. There's another one Sarlic did about supporting the Atlas, and Rabbi's light mech tactics thread, that all are very helpful and translate across weight platforms. There are several guide threads in that forum and they are all worth looking at.

Good luck, Mechwarrior. Hang in there. It gets better over time. Ten weeks ago I was just like you. Today I can manage an average of 250 damage in a match and that with lasers, and often do better; I had an outing in the Victor last night that netted one kill. Five assists, and 442 damage-penny ante for most of these guys, but Goddess of War material for me!

[Koniving]

karrade85, on 20 September 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Ok so loaded it up, I don't realy meet recommended specs but if I keep everything on low video it seems to run fine. That being said....What F* tard designed these controls and matchmaking setups/rankings???

I'm just learning on how to walk in the direction I'm trying to aim and I seem to be facing the right hand of god every time I see the enemy as they slaughter me with ease!?

Tutorial "Training Grounds" (there's a better one being beta tested on the public test server called "Cadet Academy" or somesuch).
There's also under Home -- "Testing Grounds." which lets you do anything and gives you things to shoot that won't shoot back.

That said, the basic controls are the same as any tank vehicle in any FPS such as Battlefield, Call of Duty, and even the on-foot and vehicle controls of Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain (incredible game btw).

These controls enable this sort of advanced gameplay. Though leg damage kinda reduces it a bit. Computer voice and alarms added through editing and timed to missiles in a certain proximity.

My real question is what mech are you using? If Hellbringer trial, don't. (Paper thin armor.)

Quote

Try sticking behind your buddys and long range it? Fat chance the only thing I caused damage to was mother earth as I ravaged her hills and plains with missed lasers and whatever other shiny stuff my mech fired.

Sorry; I had to do it.
"...Man stood in the ashes of Mother Earth."
"...Human blood already stained the ground. Mother Earth lay helpless..."

Killing things at long range.

Quote

Get close? well only good thing about that is my being ***** ends quicker. Seriously don't they setup newbs to play newbs?

Shiny stuff. (short clip.)
Pay attention to the upper right indicators that appear for each victim. Their damage is shown, I just picked at their bones so to speak to look this awesome.

There's been a recent change in how matches are setup; it will need some time to iron out. It gives you a score and uses attributes of what you did to affect it, and matches within X amount of score per person. Now one thing to mention, the longer it takes to find a match the more likely it'll expand those numbers until it throws them out entirely. So if a match takes a bit like 1+ minutes; cancel out and try again.

Quote

Granted I need to get a different mouse I can see, the track ball sucks for the percesion control I need in targeting but I have never sucked so hard.

Yeah. Laser mouse all the way.

Quote

My best match was 45 dmg, most matches range in the 20dmg/next to nothing category though. When I use missiles I seem to not be grasping something like whether I'm locked or not, hell don't know if I'm in range.

LRM use in a Stalker trial mech. Its full of instructions during actual gameplay in my first two runs with it. Good 500+ damage matches considering the thing's as fragile as a clear plastic tote left in the sun for 3 years and hit with a sledge hammer.

Since that vid is 26 minutes long, this much shorter one showcases an LRM boat called the ROFLPult.

Quote

I understand these are trial mechs but if I can't do crap in a prebuilt how do I know what I want to use in future or even if I should bother and the successive ****** will just continue? I'm using the bigger mechs just to because I can't control the mobility of the faster mechs. I played EVE back in the day and that learning curve seems like nothing compared to this one, please help any suggestions?

Gargoyle is made of paper. Victor is pretty solid; here's some gameplay using a similar Victor to what is in the trial build.
Banshee can do pretty good but you need to rig the LPLs on one trigger and the MLs on the other. See either spike brave's tutorial on it or my Stalker LRM video above near the beginning for how to redo weapons.

Try a Thunderbolt, going by this trial mech list. Very simple loadout. Good, solid mech.

Sorry if there's a little vid overkill there. Good luck. I suggest working with "Heavies" over "Assaults." Just don't use the trial hellbringer.

[karrade85]

Thanks to all those of you who replied with the helpful info:) After some setting adjustments as recommended and learning more about targeting I got a lot better. I was getting 60 dmg on regular bassis no kills but heh improvement, I then did a little soul searching through the mechs trying them out and then hit gold. I enjoyed the Trebuchet trial mech by far, only get a kill 30% of the time but at least 3 or 5 assists and usually in the 200 or above damage range which is a far cry from anything else I've used. One match had 1 kill 5 assists and almost 400 dmg which by the way makes you just want to play more. Please don't groan about not another LRM newb I'm not ignorant of strategies and I'll be reading up before jumping and buying one. I understand that sticking a bunch of missles on a heavy assault with nothing else and camping until the light mechs finish me off isn't probably the way to go. That being said will be finding a spot to post a thread on suggested LRM mechs to start out on and possible builds.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Just a few days to go from 45 damage to 200+? Awesome work! And to be perfectly honest, I think at least the public queue needs a few more LRM boaters. Ignore the haters. Play your game, PLAYA!

Trebuchet is a really cool medium. Mostly, it's the LRM nightmare medium, but there are some other options in case you decide to expand your horizons. And medium mechs are where you're best off to start. Heavier mechs tend to be slower, so getting out of position is harder to overcome. Lighter mechs carry less armor and firepower generally, so you have to master fast movement cover-to-cover to survive in them. Mediums are right where you want to be when you start out. Trebuchet or Hunchback for IS, Storm Crow for Clan.

Also, have a look at metamechs.com for build suggestions. The author's hate for LRMs notwithstanding, it's a pretty solid reference for what works best on a lot of different battlemech chassis.

[Rogue Jedi]

karrade85, on 21 September 2015 - 07:44 PM, said:

Please don't groan about not another LRM newb I'm not ignorant of strategies and I'll be reading up before jumping and buying one. I understand that sticking a bunch of missles on a heavy assault with nothing else and camping until the light mechs finish me off isn't probably the way to go. That being said will be finding a spot to post a thread on suggested LRM mechs to start out on and possible builds.

if you like LRMs then that is fine, just bear in mind as you get better LRMs will become less useful (because you will be up against pilots who know how to deal with them).

there are a few ways to use LRMs,

1) you can try to be the slow LRM heavy/assault who sits at the back and throws LRMs at the enemy, that in my experience is the worst possible way to use LRMs, you are not really contributing, just waiting for someone else to do the work so you can press the fire button, however this does work fine for a brawler with a single launcher to use until it can get into brawling range.

2) a much better tactic is the LRM Skirmisher sometimes abbreviated to LRMisher, you try to stay close to the front but at least 200m away from enemies, get your own lock (preferably assisted with your own TAG to tighten missile grouping) then fire your missiles, this is far more effective than option 1, and a far more enjoyable playstyle in my opinion

3) the so called "LRM chainsaw" builds, take a lot of LRM5s, BAP and a TAG, get and hold your own lock and keep chain firing LRMs, for me this is the best way to run LRMs, as firing more missiles at once means they spread out more, firing just 5 at a time means they will mostly hit CT (or whatever is between you and the CT), if you run Artemus LRM5s then they get an even tighter grouping, any Mech with 5+ (A)LRM5 launchers set to chain fire will be firing nearly constantly and mostly hitting CT, meaning you kill the Mech rather than just strip armor, the shaking imparted by the constant missile hits is also quite useful as it makes it harder for the enemy to accurately fire back.

I would not advise option 1. for options 2 or 3 any Mech with enough launchers and able to move 70+ should suffice.
a good basic rule of thumb for LRMs is to take 1 ton of ammo for every 5 tubes, so if you take 2 LRM20 (40 tubes) you should aim to take 8+ tonnes of ammo.
I find Artemus LRM15 to be more effective than LRM20
some of the better Mechs for LRMs include, Trebuchet, Kintaro, Griffin, Stormcrow, Mad Dog, Catapult, Summoner, Timber Wolf, Awesome, Warhawk, Stalker, Battlemaster.

look them up on http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab, where you can have a play and see if you like the look of any specific variants, then try building it and see how much it will cost to do a specific build.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 22 September 2015 - 12:17 AM.