30 replies to this topic

[Sunstruck]

Lets face it. when you see 12 Timber Wolves or 12 Black Knights or 12 Jagermechs or 12 Atlas on the opposing team. They probably aren't in it just for fun, its for loyalty points and taking planets. Ya it gets boring but on the other side of the coin these mechs are some of the best in the game, so you can't blame people from wanting to run them.

But I agree, sometimes it gets boring fighting the same units all running preset drop decks. I think thats one reason I like Marik, because its never the same, were like chaos in liquid motion. Our CW drop bays are a mix of units and if we pull something like 12 King Crabs with AC2s its more for fun than anything.

[ice trey]

Bud Crue, on 14 April 2016 - 06:24 AM, said:

That said, anyone else think it's kind of boring? If so what can be done in terms of CW? Or does this just come down to the Crow and Timber have always been the best, and the BK is the best IS mech atm and the only way that will change is via another balance pass? Curious what others' take on this is or if what I experienced was an outlier.

Yes, I find it painfully boring.

I was really hoping that the devs would have included planets to fight for by this point, but no such luck. It would be nice if mechs that one's faction held a factory for received some sort of C-bill or XP bonus similar to hero/champion mechs, kind of coaxing each faction to use specific machines.

But, eh. you're totally right. Only a tiny handful of "Meta" machines ever see use, and by this point you could easily just put 80% of the existing chassis on the chopping block and most players wouldn't even notice. Every time I bring it up, I get accused of "Wanting Pokemech", but whether it was Mechwarrior titles, or Capcom VS SNK, or any number of games, having to fight the same characters over and over again just gets boring and flavorless. 80 character roster, and nobody can be arsed to learn anything but Ken, Ryu, and Akuma. Oh... My bad, You learned Evil Ryu and Shin Akuma? That's a mighty expanded portfolio, there. But the same can also be said about match modes. Everything in MWO is just glorified deathmatch. I'd accuse them of not being creative, but I can see from the community that that is EXACTLY what they want. Drop, Deathmatch, Lather, Rinse, Repeat. All of the old match modes that included alternate win criteria were watered down to the point that nobody bothers with objectives unless the last guy is hiding. Somewhere along the lines deathmatch doesn't get obscenely boring for them.

Edited by ice trey, 17 April 2016 - 06:16 AM.

[Telemachus -Salt Wife Salt Life-]

It's called the meta, the thing that PGI doesnt understand they create with each quirk pass.

Edited by Telemachus Rheade, 17 April 2016 - 11:17 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Sunstruck, on 17 April 2016 - 02:48 AM, said:

Lets face it. when you see 12 Timber Wolves or 12 Black Knights or 12 Jagermechs or 12 Atlas on the opposing team. They probably aren't in it just for fun, its for loyalty points and taking planets. Ya it gets boring but on the other side of the coin these mechs are some of the best in the game, so you can't blame people from wanting to run them.

But I agree, sometimes it gets boring fighting the same units all running preset drop decks. I think thats one reason I like Marik, because its never the same, were like chaos in liquid motion. Our CW drop bays are a mix of units and if we pull something like 12 King Crabs with AC2s its more for fun than anything.

Some of us love a sense of unity and group efficiency and performance. Synergy can be a lot of fun - success as a group over success as an individual. Winning is certainly more fun than losing. For some of us a 12man synergy drop is a hell of a lot of fun; a lot more fun than just being part of a herd of derps who are just all derping around, doing their own thing and seem to feel that just vaguely going in the same direction as the team is a huge concession to 'teamwork'.

Not saying that's you but keep in mind that for a lot of us (especially those teams that consistently roll everyone else) teamwork itself is fun and rewarding. Teamwork absolutely wins. For some teams teamwork is 'everyone get to Alpha gate'. For some teams teamwork is 'Okay, after we echelon around the corner everyone pivots right and shoots the 3 guys hiding there on the way past. Don't stop, we're going to F3.'

[HeavyMetalRider]

Yeah, it's pretty sad to see so many people rely on meta 'Mechs/builds to win. To me, that kind of mentality discourages diversity and shows a lack of willingness to truly learn how to play well, but it has existed in every multiplayer game that's out there and will always be the case for people who feel they can't do better otherwise. The really sad part is when people become convinced that is the only way to win and encourage others to go that route as well. And yet, there have been so many people who have proved that if you have the discipline to learn to play without using the EZ mode way, you tend to be a lot better of a player overall.

[Bud Crue]

Finally back home (Long weekend with far away relatives. Best not to dwell on it. Traumatic.). Back to mwo and fun.

Thanks for the responses, observations, and those who got what I was getting at, your thoughtful responses.

As to my original OP, my observation was not one of criticism of the "meta" or even of one's desire to specialize in a limited number of mechs for CW (hell I went through the specialization phase hard). No. Rather, my point/issue/observation was that in my limited recent exposure to CW, what I saw was a very limited variety of mechs; and that got me to wondering if anyone had given any thought as to mechanisms that could be instituted to allow specialists ("meta" players or otherwise) to continue playing as they see fit, but ALSO encourage more variety (e.g. random drop deck weights, monthly LP % bonuses given to infrequently played mechs as determined by PGIs metrics, etc.).

We all like to win, and I get that meta builds generally speaking increase ones chances of that (I have finally come around to enjoying most "meta" builds tbh). I'm not being critical of that fact. I'm just wondering if the game could have features/mechanisms to encourage more variety in addition to the meta builds that I am currently seeing and what those features/mechanisms might be.

[Carl Vickers]

MechregSurn, on 16 April 2016 - 03:58 PM, said:

Structure quirks are not a major factor. If they were armor quirks it might be a different story, but as it stands IS mechs are just not on par ton per ton. Remember, the structure quirks just balance one clan alpha, otherwise everything would die in one shot.
As I stands, IS mechs just lose all their weapons and run around as an underpowered zombie or a stick. It isn't armor.Since the Feb patch, my Kurita loyalist team has lost about 60% of our active members, CW became too unbalanced in favor of the clans.

Nope

[MischiefSC]

HeavyMetalRider, on 17 April 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

Yeah, it's pretty sad to see so many people rely on meta 'Mechs/builds to win. To me, that kind of mentality discourages diversity and shows a lack of willingness to truly learn how to play well, but it has existed in every multiplayer game that's out there and will always be the case for people who feel they can't do better otherwise. The really sad part is when people become convinced that is the only way to win and encourage others to go that route as well. And yet, there have been so many people who have proved that if you have the discipline to learn to play without using the EZ mode way, you tend to be a lot better of a player overall.

Knowing what works and what doesn't, how and why it works and doesn't, is fundamental to being able to play well.

A good craftsman knows the importance of good tools. He doesn't try to build a deck using a rock, he uses a hammer. In fact ideally he's got a nail gun. Why? Because better tools make better products. Knowing the best tool for a given job is part of what makes a good craftsman.

Knowing what works best, how and why is part of being good at something. Using an inferior tool (mech/build) doesn't make you better - it just teaches you bad habits to try and work around a self-imposed handicap. The best players in the game use what works best when push comes to shove. That's exactly what 'meta' is in this game - whatever works best. They play other mechs and do great *because* they can use the meta so well. They understand the how and the why and can carry that into other things.

That doesn't mean the meta isn't better - nobody is taking LRMs into finals on MRBC. None of the best players use bad builds or bad mechs; they use the best meta for that match and the strat their team is deploying. When you see them in non-standard mechs it's because they're goofing around.

When you can play like Proton you can make your own meta. Aside from that, when you play something other than 'meta' then you're intentionally choosing to play something inferior. That's okay, well all do it, variety is fun. Mistaking that for being as good as however is completely misunderstanding the situation.

The meta is the meta because it's what works best. Playing with something else isn't 'making you better', it's probably teaching you bad habits. If you're good enough however that it's not really a risk, then great. Otherwise at least be honest about it.

[zeves]

good news then with the pug que in cw youl see alot more mech varriety.
atleast until the cry for the merge gets to big and theyl roll back to normality

[MischiefSC]

zeves, on 18 April 2016 - 08:17 AM, said:

good news then with the pug que in cw youl see alot more mech varriety.
atleast until the cry for the merge gets to big and theyl roll back to normality

That's true. In pug queue you'll get to watch people shooting gates to 'open them', pounding LRMs into walls, builds that are so terrible it would be hard to kill a shutdown mech with them all over the place, people scattering like locusts.... all the stupid, painful stuff you normally only see in T5 QP, played out in a game environment designed to reward teamwork. That'll be great! All the variety of things that don't work. That's way better than finding better ways to do what does work.

A million monkeys with a million typewriters might, in theory, pound out Romeo and Juliette over a million years. 1 William Shakespeare did it in a few years, because he actually knew what the **** he was doing. That's not an advertisement about how awesome watching 1 million monkeys fap on 1 million typewriters for a million years is; it's pointing out that doing what works is the smart way to do things for a reason.

[Grave Dancer]

Bud Crue, on 14 April 2016 - 07:12 AM, said:

2fast2stomy,

I get WHY people bring the mechs I mentioned (see my OP), I just wonder if their prevalence (or not) is a bad thing?

If my admittedly limited observation is in fact the norm, then it seems to me that the game needs a mechanism to encourage variety in CW. I mean if dropping in the same mech over and over is your thing, that should be fine, but it seems like that would get boring imho. Boring is kinda bad in an entertainment product like a video game.

So I am just wondering if others are seeing this sort of 'deck monotony' (obviously at least a couple people above aren't seeing this so maybe it is a non-issue) and if they too think some mechanism should be in place to encourage variety in drop decks and what such a mechanism might be. Maybe something like an option to have random drop deck weights, etc.

Bottom line... people for the most part like to win. They believe (sometimes incorrectly) that taking the best mechs possible gives them the best chance to win. What determines the "best chassis" usually revolves around what mech can effectively wield the highest number of the "best" weapons. This usually means mechs that can put out the highest alpha comprised of weapons with the same or similar aim points. You will notice that most of the more prevalent chassis are the best energy boats in their weight class.

Only way to change that dynamic would be to balance the game such that every mech had identical efficiency (in other words, make all medium mechs ton for ton as efficient as a black jack, or all heavies ton for ton as efficient as a Twolf), but the only way to do THAT would be to eliminate boating altogether by limiting the max number of a given weapon system that could be mounted on any mech. Of course, that would result in all mechs basically being the same, which is what you wanted to avoid in the first place.