68 replies to this topic

[Lupis Volk]

Well i do have to say thanks to many of you community members who helped me over the past few days. It's nice to see so many help a new players.

I though i'd give my thoughts here of how i'm going so far and my thoughts on the game.

1. Community. I'll admit my first taste for the community was the toxic element that was on Steam. Working hard to scare anyone away while hold grudges that appear to be years old. Once i came to the official forum though it was a completely different environment. People went out of their way to help beginners instead of spewing nonsense about "p2w" or "developer is bad" Also Shout out to all the Units who went to Steam to try and support new players.

2.game it self. It's fun. yes there's a grind but honestly i've seen worse grinds. *cough* Destiny *cough* It runs well on my rig and is enjoyable. I have sunk a "small" sum of money to get several mastery bundles to make my life a little bit easy. My only pet peeve is there's no easy ready button when your in a group. Games like War Thunder and World of Tanks have spoilt me in that regard. Oh well i'll get used to it.

3. Faction Wars. Now here we have a competitive game mode that from what i hear was a ghost town before steam and has become thriving after steam. Now i've only played under 20 matches in it. I do think it's fun but the lack of tutorial for the game modes it has is a issue. New players will have no idea how to open a gate. This area needs to have more TLC done to it for veterans and newbies alike.

4. F2P or P2W? I do laugh when people say hero mechs are P2W since they cost MC. I've killed my fair share of heros and been killed while in them. I do think there's no P2W element. However i do think the mechs you can pre-order could be considered somewhat P2W since they are launched unbalanced. No i don't mean their OP, i mean they haven't gone through all the balancing hoops yet when they are sold for irl money. By the time their out for MC or Cbills, yeah sure.

well that's my thoughts so far for MWO. Overall it's a fun game with a helping community in the right places.

[SilentScreamer]

Glad you are having a good experience!

Lupis Volk, on 17 December 2015 - 03:15 PM, said:

4. F2P or P2W? I do laugh when people say hero mechs are P2W since they cost MC. I've killed my fair share of heros and been killed while in them. I do think there's no P2W element. However i do think the mechs you can pre-order could be considered somewhat P2W since they are launched unbalanced. No i don't mean their OP, i mean they haven't gone through all the balancing hoops yet when they are sold for irl money. By the time their out for MC or Cbills, yeah sure.

Agreed, newly released mechs are pretty random. Artic Cheetah, Executioner and Black Knight had bad hitboxes when released, made the Cheetah an even better mech and the other two were deathtraps...all have been adjusted afterward. Most recently the Marauder has been a big hit and the IIC mechs don't seem to be popular.

Even Hero mechs can be earned for free with enough MC from in game events. Spending real money just lets you get something sooner. Remember there are sales pretty regularly for just about anything ( still waiting for another module sale though).

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Most hero mechs don't have any outstanding qualities the standard versions don't have.

More often than not the biggest attraction is some of em look cool and they earn you c-bills faster.

[Duvanor]

Lupis Volk, on 17 December 2015 - 03:15 PM, said:

4. F2P or P2W? I do laugh when people say hero mechs are P2W since they cost MC. I've killed my fair share of heros and been killed while in them. I do think there's no P2W element. However i do think the mechs you can pre-order could be considered somewhat P2W since they are launched unbalanced. No i don't mean their OP, i mean they haven't gone through all the balancing hoops yet when they are sold for irl money. By the time their out for MC or Cbills, yeah sure.

This can be true. But on the other hand, just like SilentScreamer mentioned, new Mechs can come with rather bad hitboxes. Ask around how fun the first day with Cataphracts in game was. I've never suffered so many headshots in so little time again. Plus new Mechs tend to come with less quirks. Those are applied later when the Mech does not perform very well.

Besids that - glad to hear you like the game.

Edited by Duvanor, 17 December 2015 - 04:42 PM.

[Lupis Volk]

now i have a big issue. i have around 20ish mechs and 16m Cbills and i'm too afraid to use the Cbills to upgrade or buy a mech.

[Creag]

You could also check out the community warfare page. This is where you shall find factions and merc groups that are willing to help new players. Welcome to the game.

[Lupis Volk]

i'm 77 hours into MWO from steam launch. I have 19/21 mech bays used with 10 mediums, 6 lights and 3 heavies. I now have 16mil and with my crippling fear of wasting my Cbills i've been stock piling it and am too afraid to buy any mechs or experiment with builds.

Anyone have anything to help me get past this?

[Ace Selin]

Take a look for inspiration and smurfy for possible builds ...

http://metamechs.com/
http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

[DarthHias]

Well, at first you should decide on a chassis to master. Then proceed by upgrading the 3 Mechs from that chassis. Things that you always need: Endo steel and Double Heatsinks. Then proceed to find nice builds for the mechs and play the crap outta them. Be carefull with bying engines, those are expensive.

You can always state which chassis you want to play extensively and we can help you with builds.

[Lupis Volk]

I know fo the sites. I just...i dunno. the prices of the mechs make me less inclined to branch out of what i have. Out of fear i find one i don't like. I've already had that happen with my search for a IS heavy.

[Rogue Jedi]

Lupis Volk, on 18 December 2015 - 01:14 AM, said:

i'm 77 hours into MWO from steam launch. I have 19/21 mech bays used with 10 mediums, 6 lights and 3 heavies. I now have 16mil and with my crippling fear of wasting my Cbills i've been stock piling it and am too afraid to buy any mechs or experiment with builds.

Anyone have anything to help me get past this?

if you want your builds to work well you do need to experiment, if you have the option to change it all Mechs want the Double Heat Sink upgrade ^{(1.5 million cbills but that doubles the power of the first 10 in engine heatsinks, all other heatsinks are 1.4 times as effective as standard heat sinks)}, fiew and far between are the Mech builds which work well without them

Endo Steel is another upgrade which most Mechs will eant if it can be added, that gives you extra tonnage equal to 5% the Mechs weight in exchange for 14 critical slots

Clan Omnimechs come with fixed upgrades so you cannot change heatsink type ^{(but they all come with double anyway)}, structure type or armor type however they can swop arms, torsos (except CT), legs, head ect with other varients, to customize there hardpoints.

most stock builds are pretty bad, you want to be playing using customized Mechs if possible, because a Mech customized to your playstyle should be far more effective than the stock build, many stock builds come with low armor, or are too slow, or have weapons which do not complement each other.

before spend anything use this site: http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab to experiment with builds, it will tell you exactly how much you need to spend to buy a Mech and make a specific build,
also experimenting in the MWO mechlab is free until you click save

[-Vompo-]

Lupis Volk, on 18 December 2015 - 01:14 AM, said:

i'm 77 hours into MWO from steam launch. I have 19/21 mech bays used with 10 mediums, 6 lights and 3 heavies. I now have 16mil and with my crippling fear of wasting my Cbills i've been stock piling it and am too afraid to buy any mechs or experiment with builds.

Anyone have anything to help me get past this?

If you haven't already jump into FRR hub teamspeak server. There are plenty of friendly and helpful players veterans there who can help you and drop with you if you so wish.
http://mwomercs.com/...er/page__st__20

[Ano]

edit: damn, a lot of people answered while I was typing! Silly iPad keyboard...


On the off chance you don't know about it, http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab will let you experiment with building mechs to your hearts content without spending a penny, and even includes the ability to save your builds into a 'mechbay' and will tell you what the cost of your build would be, assuming you don't have any of the components in your inventory.

I always recommend that new players strip the equipment from mechs they're not currently using so items can be reused in other mechs. Particularly with the larger weapon systems and with engines, you can save a lot of cbills if you swap them between chassis rather than buying new ones outright each time. Obviously if you want to take part in Faction Play (Community warfare, or CW) using your owned mechs then you'll need enough components to fully equip 4 mechs, but you don't necessarily need to keep the others ready to drop.

Finally, re: spending cbills, it depends what you're wanting to do.

If you want to try a different chassis, first check whether there's a trial version currently available. It might not have the same load out of the variant you really want, but it'll give you an idea at least.

If you want to try a different weapon system (particularly the expensive ones), again, check out the trials and find one carrying the weapon you want and run a few matches in it.

Assuming you have IS mechs (given the FRR tag), then for almost all builds, the double heatsinks upgrade is a good one -- most would say mandatory. Endosteel is often also a good choice, but for experimenting with what endosteel and ferro fibrous get you, head to Smurfy, load up you chosen chassis and try it out. Just make sure that you set your armour values first!

Another thought: if you create the build you're thinking about on Smurfy, and post it either in new player help or in the battle mechs section, people will offer opinions and counter suggestions

Edited by Ano, 18 December 2015 - 01:35 AM.

[Lupis Volk]

what would be some more Noob forgiving ballistic mechs? i have around 13mil after getting my 2 remaining IS mechs double Heat Sinks.

[Audacious Aubergine]

Lupis Volk, on 18 December 2015 - 01:53 AM, said:

what would be some more Noob forgiving ballistic mechs? i have around 13mil after getting my 2 remaining IS mechs double Heat Sinks.

Blackjacks - high mounts so you don't have to expose yourself too much, good speed so you can get in and out of position before the cows come home

Hunchbacks - High mount for a big gun (or missiles depending on variant) and 5 tonnes heavier than the Blackjack to allow for more armour

Jagermech - The Blackjack's bigger brother, does everything the Blackjack does only a little bit slower but doesn't die when a mouse farts on it

EDIT: Also, Urbanmech. Because trollolololol

Edited by FreebirthToad18999, 18 December 2015 - 02:02 AM.

[Rushin Roulette]

The main problem with finding a mech that you like is always going to be personal taste and prefferences. Maybe you could give us a few pointers to giving you better advice as to what mechs may be to your liking

• What style of gameplay do you prefer? Brawling, Sniping, Scouting, LRM support (however I would really not advise this at all for CW due to the extra difficulty of facing lots of ECM on the clan side which makes LRMs nearly useless).
  
• What mechs do you already have and like?
  
• What mechs do you already have and do not like?

The easiest way of quickly finding out what mechs are OK for you is to make a tour through all of the trial mechs (Most of them are actually not too bad... they were much worse in the past). Dont forget, you can not edit any of the trial mechs, but you can at least get a good feel of how they handle that way. Try to play at least 4 or 5 games with each before making a judgment on how they are, as a lucky or unlucky single game may give you a wrong picture of the mech.

[Rogue Jedi]

Lupis Volk, on 18 December 2015 - 01:31 AM, said:

I know fo the sites. I just...i dunno. the prices of the mechs make me less inclined to branch out of what i have. Out of fear i find one i don't like. I've already had that happen with my search for a IS heavy.

Which heavy Mech? why did you not like it?

Often you can customize a Mech which you do not like to make it playable, but if you are afraid to experiment you will have trouble finding anything you like, especially with IS Heavies they are mostly rather slow stock ^{(usualy 64kph which to me is too slow)}

[Lupis Volk]

FreebirthToad18999, on 18 December 2015 - 02:01 AM, said:

Blackjacks - high mounts so you don't have to expose yourself too much, good speed so you can get in and out of position before the cows come home

Hunchbacks - High mount for a big gun (or missiles depending on variant) and 5 tonnes heavier than the Blackjack to allow for more armour

Jagermech - The Blackjack's bigger brother, does everything the Blackjack does only a little bit slower but doesn't die when a mouse farts on it

EDIT: Also, Urbanmech. Because trollolololol

yeah it'd buy a Urbanmech when i have the money to "fully" kit it out.

Rushin Roulette, on 18 December 2015 - 02:10 AM, said:

The main problem with finding a mech that you like is always going to be personal taste and prefferences. Maybe you could give us a few pointers to giving you better advice as to what mechs may be to your liking

• What style of gameplay do you prefer? Brawling, Sniping, Scouting, LRM support (however I would really not advise this at all for CW due to the extra difficulty of facing lots of ECM on the clan side which makes LRMs nearly useless).
  
• What mechs do you already have and like?
  
• What mechs do you already have and do not like?

The easiest way of quickly finding out what mechs are OK for you is to make a tour through all of the trial mechs (Most of them are actually not too bad... they were much worse in the past). Dont forget, you can not edit any of the trial mechs, but you can at least get a good feel of how they handle that way. Try to play at least 4 or 5 games with each before making a judgment on how they are, as a lucky or unlucky single game may give you a wrong picture of the mech.

I mainly play lights/fast mediums.

Rogue Jedi, on 18 December 2015 - 02:13 AM, said:

Which heavy Mech? why did you not like it?

Often you can customize a Mech which you do not like to make it playable, but if you are afraid to experiment you will have trouble finding anything you like, especially with IS Heavies they are mostly rather slow stock ^{(usualy 64kph which to me is too slow)}

Thunderbolt SE9 i think. The thunderbolt that could handle 3 large pulses. I later got the quickdraws and am enjoying them.

[Rogue Jedi]

Lupis Volk, on 18 December 2015 - 01:53 AM, said:

what would be some more Noob forgiving ballistic mechs? i have around 13mil after getting my 2 remaining IS mechs double Heat Sinks.

Hunchback HBK-4G, HBK-4H or (for MC) HBK-GI are all good or any Enforcer would be my recommendations, both chassis are viable with standard engines, so will be around 7.5 million each Mech to fully upgrade and outfit, so by the time you have done the basic skills on the first you would be able to afford the second.

you can use an XL engine on the Enforcer, the IS XL Engine is a trade off, extra tonnage ^{(weighs about half what a Standard engine does)} and reduced durability ^{(die to loosing any side torso which a Standard does not)}, if you want an XL engine enforcer get the 5P, it comes with an XL250 and Double heatsinks for 6.7 million, the 5D comes with an XL but not DHS, if you want to build with a standard engine get the 4P first, as it comes with a standard 250 arguably the best standard engine for that Mech along with DHS, Endo and fero for 4 million.

the Hunchback is better without an XL, I strongly recomend for any hunchback upgrading to DHS and Endo then using the remaining tonnage to put in a STD250 and extra heatsinks or ammo depending on the varient

[The Basilisk]

Thunderbolds are odd mechs. Either you love or you hate them.
I'm one of the second faction since I can't seem to adapt to the cockpit offset to one side.
There are other great energy wpn mechs besides the thunderbolt.
Its....*competitiveness* ... is mainly derived from its compact outline and its very distributed weapon hardpoints, making it difficult to neuter. Also its weight is the sweetspot for CW.
Have you tried the Grasshopper ? Its only 5tonns heavyer, got jumpjets and is more symetric while still having many hardpoints distributed all over its body.