75 replies to this topic

[Kimberm1911]

I've enjoyed this game for quite a while. I really like it a lot. However,the game has been incredibly frustrating to play lately. It frustrates me because I feel that the game has so much potential to be an incredibly rewarding experience, but it continues to fall further and further into becoming another Call of Duty arch typical game, and continues to become seemingly less balanced as the game goes on (Gameplay wise, not mech wise.). The novelty of playing a game with awesome mechs, cool game play mechanics, and a deep customization system is starting to wear off, and the faults the game has are starting to become more apparent. I'd like to get other peoples input on what they think, so I'm going to post a couple of things that I think are a problem with the game, and see what you folks on the forums have to say about them.

While I don't think it would benefit the game to have mechs that have a ridiculously long Time to Kill, the current TTK on mechs is a bit alarming to me. I understand that a large part of the game is strategizing and making sure that you don't get caught in the cross hairs of the entire enemy team. However, I have had MANY games where I leave cover for a short amount of time to poke, and one-two enemy mechs almost completely strip off my armor, leaving me vulnerable for the entire rest of the game. From a meta game perspective, that is the consequence of high alpha builds, and is a viable tactic, but I think in order to create a better game experience, that should change. I understand some will say, "Torso twist," but torso twisting doesn't save you from a 52 point alpha that is delivered in .75 seconds, and pinpoints your torso armor easily. If the enemy team has multiple laser vomit mechs shooting at you at once, you can essentially die from peeking out of cover for .75 seconds. Again, some will say, "Don't peek out of cover if you know multiple enemies are going to shoot you," but this is a mech game, and I want to be able to feel like I can take multiple rounds before going down. Part of the reason the component destruction mechanic is there, is to be able to systematically take down the opposing mech, but that doesn't happen in the meta. Everyone shoots CT, because everyone can knock of any mechs front armor in 1-2 alphas.

Part of the cause of the low time-to-kill, I believe, is the prevalence of boating weapons. If you don't boat weapons, you CAN NOT win in upper tiers. It's impossible. Because weapon boating has become so huge, all mechs are starting to become boats, and the mechs that can't boat, due to hardpoints, are generally discarded. Now, I have conformed to this meta too, out of necessity, but I do not find it incredibly fun, and that is another big part of my frustration. It gets boring to play the same builds over and over again. I have the same build on my banshee, as I have on my battlemaster, as I have on my awesome, and all my close brawling assaults have incredibly similar builds to each other too. There's no variation. If you look at the mechs that people have success with, you can sum up the builds very easily. Large pulse lasers and mediums, multiple SRM 6's, or large quantities of AC 5's. Those really are the only builds that work, besides maybe boating LRM's, but a good team can get around those.

While I have several more things that cause me frustration, the only other one I'll mention is that there is a clear lack of roles in the game. Because of the nature of the meta, all mechs kind of blend in together in what they do. Maybe it's because I don't play competitively, but something tells me it is not. All mechs try to cram as many high powered weapons as they can on board, and poke and shoot the enemy as much as they can. Once the enemy team is injured enough, the SRM boaters rush in and insta core anything that isn't already. There really isn't any room for roles. Do you want to be a PPC sniper, nope, that's 7 tons you could have used to boat medium pulse lasers. Want to use an AC/20, that's not effective unless you are piloting an AS7-S, the only mech which can survive that .75 second 52 point laser alpha, or that 48 damage srm blast that just hit your CT. Role specific mechs simply do not function well in the current game. While I'm not a huge lore buff, and for game purposes it hinders the balance, lots of the bigger mechs that are supposed to be huge and scary, suck, really badly. Triple PPC awesome can't even remotely compete with anything, and the King Crab with dual AC/20's is a joke. The atlas used to suck until that they uberquirked it, and they nerfed most of the scary clan mechs to absolute mech trash (It's gotten to the point in game that I am no longer scared of Dire wolfs. Two shots to the uber beefy Side torsos and it's game over for the whale.).

Perhaps many of these problems relate to assault mechs alone. I really only pilot assaults, as that is what I enjoy piloting, so I don't have much other perspectives. However, I feel that from an observational standpoint, most chassis have the same problem. Hopefully you guys can provide some of your own insight. I'd be interested to hear it, especially coming from people who pilot more then assaults. At this point, I'm pretty close to taking a break from this game, the only reason I haven't is because I preordered the kodiak and I don't want to waste money.

[Khobai]

dont worry im like 99.99999999% confident that PGI will fix boating and low TTK with bandaid 2.0

[dervishx5]

"Brevity is the soul of wit"

-William Shakesman

Condense your thoughts, man.

Edited by dervishx5, 03 May 2016 - 10:13 PM.

[YourSaviorLegion]

There's nothing wrong with the time to kill

[Afuldan McKronik]

As long as you ask for a refund nicely, they will give it to you. And before the mech becomes available for play.

[Kimberm1911]

"There's nothing wrong with the time to kill" is probably subjective. As an assault pilot, it's extremely difficult to maneuver and get out of the way of a 52 point alpha. So when multiple enemy mechs endeavor to kill you, there's nothing you can do, and you go down in seconds. Even fighting an enemy mech one v. one is difficult. It doesn't seem entirely fair that medium mechs can boat almost as much firepower as you can, move much faster, and because of the current meta survive longer because not getting hit is more important then taking hits. I can't even function effectively as a meat shield for my allies I go down so fast. I don't think dying without scoring kills would be as frustrating if I knew I helped the team by drawing enemy fire. Heavies and assaults go down so fast that's not possible.

I think I'll keep the kodiak play it a bit, and then maybe take a break.

[JediPanther]

As a light pilot specialist for my unit ttk is extortionately short. I've also run assaults having mastered the atlas and kgcs.

"While I have several more things that cause me frustration, the only other one I'll mention is that there is a clear lack of roles in the game. Because of the nature of the meta, all mechs kind of blend in together in what they do. Maybe it's because I don't play competitively, but something tells me it is not."

In comp and fraction play roles are a must. I act as a scout and light hunter-killer. The most common light mech I run into is the ach prime with ecm and spls. My mech is dedicated to countering it with the same weapons,bap,modules, and uavs. We use team speak as well but due to health problems I can not use it thus i've adapted a bingo style of scouting.

High alphas are defiantly a problem but not the only one as pin point weapon convergence adds to it as well as the whole quirks combined with cool down and range modules. You can easily make a mech be a terror when you focus on maxing the potential of the system.The cent with lbx quirks becomes almost machine gun like with its cool down. Ghost heat was added to game to stop some of it.

Assault mechs are the slowest mechs with the heaviest firepower. Even a front loaded mech with 101 armor can't take more than a few seconds of combined fire from two or more mechs. The hardest thing about using the slow movers is positioning. You want to be closer to your own team than the enemy. Always put your back to a wall or use another team mate for a shield to keep lights like me off your rear.

Take breaks from the game. It's what keeps me coming back or just run some derp builds and forget about always wining a match. A lrm assult or all er ppc build. Something for the lol.

[YourSaviorLegion]

Of course you're going to die if you walk out in front of several mechs and stand there... The issue isn't TTK, it's bad positioning.

[dervishx5]

DELETE ME

Edited by dervishx5, 03 May 2016 - 10:13 PM.

[Triordinant]

YourSaviorLegion, on 03 May 2016 - 09:42 PM, said:

There's nothing wrong with the time to kill

PGI disagrees with you. Russ said in one of the Town Halls that the TTK in MWO is too short and he wants 'mechs to be able to withstand more enemy fire. PGI's problem is they're struggling to come up with a way to achieve that. Right now they're working on some kind of "power draw" system to limit alpha strikes but I have no idea if it'll work. I sometimes wonder what they'll try next if it doesn't.

[AmazingOnionMan]

Yet another reason to campaign for the Stock Mode-button.

[kesmai]

It is not that this community has no ideas about how to solve most of the problems.
Some of you may still remember the reign of poptarts?
We all know how how long it took pgi to solve that problem and what the solution for it was.
I'm in for a positive surprise, but i expect the kind of solution we got used to.

[Kimberm1911]

YourSaviorLegion, on 03 May 2016 - 09:58 PM, said:

Of course you're going to die if you walk out in front of several mechs and stand there... The issue isn't TTK, it's bad positioning.

I've played almost 1,500 games in assault mechs alone, and several hundred more in other types of mechs. I may not be a great player, but I know the maps and I know how to position myself. If I move out to engage an enemy medium, and lose almost half my armor due to his 42 point alpha strike, and I'm too slow to move back into cover, that's not bad positioning, that's a too squishy assault fighting a medium who is both mobile, and has almost as much firepower. My KGC-000 is 100 tons with a 50 point alpha strike. The stormcrow is a 50 ton mech with a 41 point alpha strike. 50% of the weight with 81% of the firepower, while going 40kph faster.

Edited by Kimberm1911, 03 May 2016 - 10:19 PM.

[YourSaviorLegion]

Triordinant, on 03 May 2016 - 10:08 PM, said:

PGI disagrees with you. Russ said in one of the Town Halls that the TTK in MWO is too short and he wants 'mechs to be able to withstand more enemy fire. PGI's problem is they're struggling to come up with a way to achieve that. Right now they're working on some kind of "power draw" system to limit alpha strikes but I have no idea if it'll work. I sometimes wonder what they'll try next if it doesn't.

Honestly the system we have right now isn't that bad however everybody likes to gripe about how the game is horribly unbalanced.

[Sader325]

Kimberm1911, on 03 May 2016 - 09:22 PM, said:

I've enjoyed this game for quite a while. I really like it a lot. However,the game has been incredibly frustrating to play lately. It frustrates me because I feel that the game has so much potential to be an incredibly rewarding experience, but it continues to fall further and further into becoming another Call of Duty arch typical game, and continues to become seemingly less balanced as the game goes on (Gameplay wise, not mech wise.). The novelty of playing a game with awesome mechs, cool game play mechanics, and a deep customization system is starting to wear off, and the faults the game has are starting to become more apparent. I'd like to get other peoples input on what they think, so I'm going to post a couple of things that I think are a problem with the game, and see what you folks on the forums have to say about them.

While I don't think it would benefit the game to have mechs that have a ridiculously long Time to Kill, the current TTK on mechs is a bit alarming to me. I understand that a large part of the game is strategizing and making sure that you don't get caught in the cross hairs of the entire enemy team. However, I have had MANY games where I leave cover for a short amount of time to poke, and one-two enemy mechs almost completely strip off my armor, leaving me vulnerable for the entire rest of the game. From a meta game perspective, that is the consequence of high alpha builds, and is a viable tactic, but I think in order to create a better game experience, that should change. I understand some will say, "Torso twist," but torso twisting doesn't save you from a 52 point alpha that is delivered in .75 seconds, and pinpoints your torso armor easily. If the enemy team has multiple laser vomit mechs shooting at you at once, you can essentially die from peeking out of cover for .75 seconds. Again, some will say, "Don't peek out of cover if you know multiple enemies are going to shoot you," but this is a mech game, and I want to be able to feel like I can take multiple rounds before going down. Part of the reason the component destruction mechanic is there, is to be able to systematically take down the opposing mech, but that doesn't happen in the meta. Everyone shoots CT, because everyone can knock of any mechs front armor in 1-2 alphas.

Part of the cause of the low time-to-kill, I believe, is the prevalence of boating weapons. If you don't boat weapons, you CAN NOT win in upper tiers. It's impossible. Because weapon boating has become so huge, all mechs are starting to become boats, and the mechs that can't boat, due to hardpoints, are generally discarded. Now, I have conformed to this meta too, out of necessity, but I do not find it incredibly fun, and that is another big part of my frustration. It gets boring to play the same builds over and over again. I have the same build on my banshee, as I have on my battlemaster, as I have on my awesome, and all my close brawling assaults have incredibly similar builds to each other too. There's no variation. If you look at the mechs that people have success with, you can sum up the builds very easily. Large pulse lasers and mediums, multiple SRM 6's, or large quantities of AC 5's. Those really are the only builds that work, besides maybe boating LRM's, but a good team can get around those.

While I have several more things that cause me frustration, the only other one I'll mention is that there is a clear lack of roles in the game. Because of the nature of the meta, all mechs kind of blend in together in what they do. Maybe it's because I don't play competitively, but something tells me it is not. All mechs try to cram as many high powered weapons as they can on board, and poke and shoot the enemy as much as they can. Once the enemy team is injured enough, the SRM boaters rush in and insta core anything that isn't already. There really isn't any room for roles. Do you want to be a PPC sniper, nope, that's 7 tons you could have used to boat medium pulse lasers. Want to use an AC/20, that's not effective unless you are piloting an AS7-S, the only mech which can survive that .75 second 52 point laser alpha, or that 48 damage srm blast that just hit your CT. Role specific mechs simply do not function well in the current game. While I'm not a huge lore buff, and for game purposes it hinders the balance, lots of the bigger mechs that are supposed to be huge and scary, suck, really badly. Triple PPC awesome can't even remotely compete with anything, and the King Crab with dual AC/20's is a joke. The atlas used to suck until that they uberquirked it, and they nerfed most of the scary clan mechs to absolute mech trash (It's gotten to the point in game that I am no longer scared of Dire wolfs. Two shots to the uber beefy Side torsos and it's game over for the whale.).

Perhaps many of these problems relate to assault mechs alone. I really only pilot assaults, as that is what I enjoy piloting, so I don't have much other perspectives. However, I feel that from an observational standpoint, most chassis have the same problem. Hopefully you guys can provide some of your own insight. I'd be interested to hear it, especially coming from people who pilot more then assaults. At this point, I'm pretty close to taking a break from this game, the only reason I haven't is because I preordered the kodiak and I don't want to waste money.

These arent "Rare" games. They're pretty much the norm.

solo queue is pretty much a joke at tier 1, so to me it sounds like you're making excuses for getting killed. Because I have no problem running non meta, and actively stay away from it while dicking around in solo queue.

Edited by Sader325, 03 May 2016 - 10:32 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

"There's nothing wrong with the time to kill"

The devs disagree. So do most of the forum regulars. TTK is definitely way too low.

Its one of the reasons the tournament is 8v8 and not 12v12. Because 12v12 makes TTK really pathetic.

12v12 is a big part of the problem. weapon boating is too.

If PGI made quickplay 8v8 again (leave CW as 12v12 though) and came up with a better system than ghost heat, I think it would largely fix the problem. It wouldnt be an ideal fix but it would be a fix.

Edited by Khobai, 03 May 2016 - 10:30 PM.

[Kimberm1911]

Here Dervishx5, this post is for you.

I've become frustrated with this game. The low Time to Kill and large amount of mechs boating weapons have made it difficult to find enjoyment in the boring and stale atmosphere. As an assault pilot I die quickly to mechs much smaller than I am, and that is frustrating. Mechs lack dedicated roles in PUG play, and certain mechs are unplayable.

Better?

[adamts01]

Kimberm1911, on 03 May 2016 - 10:15 PM, said:

I move out to engage an enemy medium, and lose almost half my armor due to his 42 point alpha strike

Weak, 42 points is nothing for a medium, are you sure you weren't hit by a 72 point Clan Oxide?

I agree with your entire post. This year alone I've taken a 6 month break then a 3 month break. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this game evolves but I'm not counting on it.

[MechWarrior414712]

Sader325, on 03 May 2016 - 10:24 PM, said:

-snip-

Here's the ape linking to his videos again. Don't forget to subscribe guys!

[Kimberm1911]

Sader325, on 03 May 2016 - 10:24 PM, said:

These arent "Rare" games. They're pretty much the norm.

solo queue is pretty much a joke at tier 1, so to me it sounds like you're making excuses for getting killed. Because I have no problem running non meta, and actively stay away from it while dicking around in solo queue.

"Making excuses for getting killed." It's a game, I don't have to make excuses for anything. I'm merely stating my opinion on the game.

I would also like to add that your builds are not "unmeta" builds. They use the exact same mechanics every other meta vomit build does. Your video with the ebon jag...... You have 6 medium lasers on board, how is that not exactly what I was talking about in terms of laser vomit mechs. That's a 42 point alpha strike on top of the 20 damage worth of PPFLD you've got with the PPC's. That really doesn't support your point that somehow I am making an unreasonable claim.

I'm not really sure what your point was aside from mildly shameless self-promoting.