75 replies to this topic

[Alan Davion]

Gas Guzzler, on 04 May 2016 - 07:40 AM, said:

Being able to count on your enemy missing makes a game easy, not harder.

Spoken like a true tier 1.

I actually find WoW games to be much harder than MWO games, because unlike in MWO, you have to be CONSTANTLY on the move, and positioning is even more important.

In MWO, you can just park yourself behind a mountain, poke out, shoot a poor slob and duck back into cover.

MWO is freaking boring by comparison.

Edit: Seriously? How many more words are you guys going to filter out here?

Edited by Alan Davion, 04 May 2016 - 08:19 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Alan Davion, on 04 May 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:

In MWO, you can just park yourself behind a mountain, poke out, shoot a poor ******* and duck back into cover.

This is a rudimentary play style and will only get you so far. You SHOULD be on the move more often than not. Games that have longer range poke mechs consist of the two teams constantly trying to out position each other. Guess what? If you park behind a mountain and poke there repeatedly, you are going to get wrecked as soon as the other team realizes where you are (typically after your first shot they will know where you are, and either adjust their position so you can't shoot them, or adjust the rest of the team to be able to shoot you when you poke again).

Seriously, you should be on the move more in MWO. Stagnant teams typically lose, as they allow the other team to get good angles on them making it impossible to trade with them.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 04 May 2016 - 08:21 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Alan Davion, on 04 May 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:

I actually find WoW games to be much harder than MWO games, because unlike in MWO, you have to be CONSTANTLY on the move, and positioning is even more important.

Tell that to a Light Mech pilot lol. In a Light Mech (and some Mediums), movement is often the difference between life and death.

[Livewyr]

WoWS is an example of too much RNG. I rage quit for the final time after throwing 12 16" AP shells into the side of a Yamato at 3km at near 90 degree to have the Citadel hits bounce and the superstructure hits perform a clean pen.

MWO is an example of having zero variation. (not to be confused with pure RNG)
Outside of MASC/JJs
Your reticle floats as though you are hovering.
It never twitches.
Never sways
Never does anything but sit perfectly where you put it, as though you were playing a side scrolling shooter game.
All of your weapons go directly where that reticle is. (Outside locking weapons)

Combat mechanics are essentially: "Candy Crush" (mixed with some turning your torso to lessen the effects of their return candy crush)

[Lightfoot]

Yep. MWO mechs fold more than twice as fast as mechs in previous games. PGI never got this right. The big stop sign was when they had to add a charge-up to the relatively weak Gauss Rifle. That doesn't fix why the Gauss Rifle was overpowered in MWO and not any other MechWarrior game.

The weapons only get more powerful from here on so PGI needs to act now.

[Khobai]

Quote

PGI never got this right.

Actually it was pretty close to perfect during open beta.

It was still 8v8 so you didnt have the absurd focus fire of 12v12. You also didnt have clan tech, modules, or quirks.

[Kael Posavatz]

There are numerous problems with the TTK wrapped up in how weapons/damage/armor are implemented. This has resulted in a sequence of band-aids (Double armor, ghost heat, charge gauss, Clan Nerfs, IS quirks) that addressed symptoms without ever actually addressing the inherent problems.

These problems only got worse when, first a new set of weapons was introduced with a goal of having them be 'different' but not 'op'. This problem was further exacerbated by the introduction of CW/FW in that game balance had to be achieved in the same mech/weapons for essentially two different games. In one game teams of mixed-tech prevailed. In the other, teams of homogenous tech, but four waves of mechs. These are very different games, and deserve to be addressed independently, but because they use the same assets they have to be addressed simultaneously.

If the weapon/armor issue can be addressed (remove ghost heat and a plethora of other irritants at the same time) it would be great. Simply setting out to 'fix TTK' will only cause problems because while it may improve match quality in the public matches, unless a great deal of care is taken, it will most likely adversely affect the quality of matches (already not particularly high) in FW.

Which brings me to what is, I think, probably the second biggest weakness in MW:O: the grouping v. pug mechanic.

Back in Beta groups were routinely pitted against teams of pugs with the predictable result. The way this was 'fixed' was first by limiting the 'pug queue' to groups of four, and creating another queue for groups of eight. Eventually this became the solo-queue and group-queue of MW:O's public game mode. At the same time this was happening improvements were made to the match-maker, going from ELO, to different ELOs for each mech weight class, to PSR (many variations and incremental improvements between each to 'improve' the Match Maker), and finally the tonnage bracket for groups (goodbye 12-direwolf teams, so long 12-locust rush). These took a number of years, but eventually got to a point where the public game mode will regularly yield a good, high-quality match. (Not always, but more often than not).

FW is essentially back where the game was in closed beta in regards to pitting players against one another. FW is on a first-come/first-served basis and twelve-man teams can regularly drop against 'skittles'. There is no effort to split groups from solos, or to pit against one another teams of similar relative skill. The 'non-unit player queue' that was recently tried might have been nice for those that didn't want to be in a unit and to pug casually, but it did nothing to improve the quality of matches in the 'unit player queue'.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Lightfoot, on 04 May 2016 - 08:40 AM, said:

Yep. MWO mechs fold more than twice as fast as mechs in previous games. PGI never got this right.

That's an over exaggeration lol. I enjoy watching let's plays and I've seen enough MW4 footage to see mechs evaporate under fire pretty quickly. Some mechs take 2 alphas and are exploding in that wonderful ********* of an explosion.

It probably feels like TTK is longer in the other titles because you are generally playing with AI opponents with equipment weaker than what you are taking (not to mention repair bays scattered about).

If anything, TTK is probably low in any MW game because of how TT values translated to a FPS style of video game. PGI doubled armor values to help, but it can only help so much when weapons hit as hard as they do relative to armor.

Maybe if all weapons had extended cool downs, it would help, but that would feel boring. What else is there to do? Ghost heat? Ghost energy? 3x Armor?

Its not an easy or clean answer unfortunately. Still, it's not like this is the only MechWarrior game with this problem, it's just more obvious when you play with human players of various skill and heavy assaults play with lighter mechs, etc...

[Mystere]

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.

Absolutely zero convergence.


<just kidding>

AmazingOnionMan, on 03 May 2016 - 10:12 PM, said:

Yet another reason to campaign for the Stock Mode-button weapons convergence on target lock.

FTFY.

<And I'm serious this time>

[Afuldan McKronik]

OP, try taking a chassis you initially have no experience in and no intrest in trying. Really. I had NO intention of piloting a Locust. I am in the process of trying to master them now. And they can be hilariously good fun. Shake up your playstyle. It can be invigorating. At least I found so after mastering 3 heavy chassis in a row (HBR, WHM, MAD.)

[Kimberm1911]

Novakaine, on 04 May 2016 - 08:10 AM, said:

Agreed find a good group and get to actually learn the nuances of the game.
There is a learning curve that frankly people fail to see.
I primarily run a Stalker 5M lrm boat or either a Orion lrm boat.
Both average mechs at best, but I have fine matches in them.
Hell I even got 7 kill match in a Hunchback J.
How do I survive running lrm boats.
A few simple points and I think applies to every mech in the game.
1. Positioning, if you lumber out in front of the whole enemy assault lance, it's your own fault.
2. Torso twist, a simple but highly effective technique.
Just last night I watched this guy in a Atlas just wade thru five mechs - that's five kill in a damn row.
Granted they were not fresh mechs, but that was one torso twistin fool.
3. Pay attention to your armor readout, if your armor is weak shift your damn tactics.
Fall back and let fresher mechs use their armor and use your long range weapons.
If your a short range brawler hang back and hit the ct red assault your team will thank you.
Come people use your damn noodles this ain't CoD.

Thanks for the advice. However, I really am implementing all that you are suggesting. I've played enough games to know where I should be as an assault relative to where my team is and where I am on the map. I torso twist like crazy, and despite this, insta-gibbing is a real thing. If you are running any engine lower than a 330 on an assault, and don't have twist quirks, your twist is too slow to prevent the enemy from getting a solid amount of damage on your CT. A large pulse laser deals 11 damage in .75 seconds. If you move out of cover as an assault mech to engage an enemy mech, especially a medium or fast heavy, that enemy can deliver a full alpha before your mech is even fully out of cover, and can move itself back into cover by the time your guns have a clear line of fire. Now, there was another individual on the forum who suggested twisting as you emerge from cover, but in my experience, that only works for mechs attempting to close brawl distance. If I were to peek against an enemy mech at say, 300-500 meters, they could get back into cover by the time I twist around to bring my guns to bear. And while their alpha may have only hit an arm or side torso, they still did a considerably decent amount of damage.

I do have a group that I play with, and we all are decently okay players, but that doesn't address fundamental gameplay issues. Sure, I'm not going to be insta-killed from behind by the clan jenners, but it still doesn't do anything about losing over half my armor to a single medium mech's alpha.

[Cy Mitchell]

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

There's nothing wrong with the time to kill

Yeah, it is just about perfect for a respawn game like CoD or CS. For a Mechwarrior game. Not so much.

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.

He did not say he was walking out in front of several Mechs. He said 1 or 2 and .75 sec of exposure. The Alpha strike meta and boating IS a problem for this game whether some want to admit it or not. I am not just talking about Laser Alphas either. You have the same thing with SRMs and ballistics. Alphas were never meant to be the norm for Mechwarrior games. They are meant to be last gasp efforts to save yourself. The consequences of using them were dire. In MWO there is no negative consequence to abusing them. The negative consequence is if you are NOT using them.

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.

What they were looking at doing is not going to work so they are back to the drawing boards looking for a solution. Russ said he thinks it will be in by late Summer. We will see.

AmazingOnionMan, on 03 May 2016 - 10:12 PM, said:

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

I have never supported this but i have begun to see whay some folks campaign for it. The problem is that I like tailoring my Mechs to my playstyle and experimenting with builds in the MechLab too much.

Even though I started playing MWO during the early Beta, I have not burned out on it yet. That is largely explained by the almost 5 year break I took off from it. I do feel that it plays too much like a typical FPS and not enough like Mechwarrior. I still enjoy the game and I am optimistic that PGI can walk it back a bit in the Mechwarrior direction. The next few months and the changes that are scheduled to come out in that time will be what helps me make my decision of whether I continue to play and buy Mechs or whether I move on and cut my losses.

Most of my old Mechwarrior friends played MWO but have long since quit. The majority of my experience in CW was done using one of their accounts because they had mastered Mechs and drop decks that I did not have on my account at the time. Those guys will never come back because they say this is not a Mechwarrior game. I also know a few guys that are FPS fans who have tried MWO. They have also left and are not interested in the game because they say it is too slow and does not compare to "good" FPS games. They openly laugh at the whole "Thinking man's shooter" slogan.

PGI is trying to straddle the fence and appeal to both of these types of gamer but in doing so they are making too many compromises and satisfying no one. They need to decide what they want to be and then just let the chips fall where they may. I hope they choose to be Mechwarrior. That is their niche and that is where they have an exclusive. In my opinion, the players that love that IP and genre are who they should be catering to. It will be interesting to see if they try to maintain the status quo or whether they make a decision and move one way or the other when they make all these changes this summer.

If they do decide to make it a Mechwarrior game then they need to address the Alpha strike meta and adjust the TTK to decrease the the insta death meta.

Edited by Rampage, 04 May 2016 - 10:30 AM.

[Lozruet Gravemind]

Rampage, on 04 May 2016 - 10:13 AM, said:

Yeah, it is just about perfect for a respawn game like CoD or CS. For a Mechwarrior game. Not so much.



He did not say he was walking out in front of several Mechs. He said 1 or 2 and .75 sec of exposure. The Alpha strike meta and boating IS a problem for this game whether some want to admit it or not. I am not just talking about Laser Alphas either. You have the same thing with SRMs and ballistics. Alphas were never meant to be the norm for Mechwarrior games. They are meant to be last gasp efforts to save yourself. The consequences of using them were dire. In MWO there is no negative consequence to abusing them. The negative consequence is if you are NOT using them.



What they were looking at doing is not going to work so they are back to the drawing boards looking for a solution. Russ said he thinks it will be in by late Summer. We will see.



I have never supported this but i have begun to see whay some folks campaign for it. The problem is that I like tailoring my Mechs to my playstyle and experimenting with builds in the MechLab too much.

Even though I started playing MWO during the early Beta, I have not burned out on it yet. That is largely explained by the almost 5 year break I took off from it. I do feel that it plays too much like a typical FPS and not enough like Mechwarrior. I still enjoy the game and I am optimistic that PGI can walk it back a bit in the Mechwarrior direction. The next few months and the changes that are scheduled to come out in that time will be what helps me make my decision of whether I continue to play and buy Mechs or whether I move on and cut my losses.

Most of my old Mechwarrior friends played MWO but have long since quit. The majority of my experience in CW was done using one of their accounts because they had mastered Mechs and drop decks that I did not have on my account at the time. Those guys will never come back because they say this is not a Mechwarrior game. I also know a few guys that are FPS fans who have tried MWO. They have also left and are not interested in the game because they say it is too slow and does not compare to "good" FPS games. They openly laugh at the whole "Thinking man's shooter" slogan.

PGI is trying to straddle the fence and appeal to both of these types of gamer but in doing so they are making too many compromises and satisfying no one. They need to decide what they want to be and then just let the chips fall where they may. I hope they choose to be Mechwarrior. That is their niche and that is where they have an exclusive. In my opinion, the players that love that IP and genre are who they should be catering to. It will be interesting to see if they try to maintain the status quo or whether they make a decision and move one way or the other when they make all these changes this summer.

If they do decide to make it a Mechwarrior game then they need to address the Alpha strike meta and adjust the TTK to decrease the the insta death meta.

Recently talked with a long time friend and TT Battletech player. Even TT the mechs where balanced as long as they werent custom built. You start throwing the custom built BV ones, like you would see at Tournaments, and all balance was thrown for a loop. I love my BH2 with AC/20 and 6 Mediums but if I was forced to run it stock and work around its flaws I think Id have more fun having to work with those flaws then I have simply kitting it out to work better.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Kimberm1911, on 03 May 2016 - 09:47 PM, said:

"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.

So, if multiple mechs want to kill you, you believe you should be able to survive that? Cut frame to Counterstrike when you round a corner and five Taliban Terrorists open up on you with their AK's, ripping you apart. If you are in a position to get ganged up on, your only hope is your team engaging the targets. PGI can't help you with this.

[Kimberm1911]

GAGONMYlOCK, on 04 May 2016 - 01:33 PM, said:

So, if multiple mechs want to kill you, you believe you should be able to survive that? Cut frame to Counterstrike when you round a corner and five Taliban Terrorists open up on you with their AK's, ripping you apart. If you are in a position to get ganged up on, your only hope is your team engaging the targets. PGI can't help you with this.

The difference between MWO and counterstrike is that counterstrike doesn't have you piloting a multi-ton war machine specifically designed to protect against high powered anti-armor weaponry. I'm not saying you should survive when multiple mechs are trying to shoot you, focused fire is how to bring down an assault mech. As I said, it's the fact that assault mechs go down in SECONDS, when being fired on by even medium mechs. I know some have insinuated that I somehow want assault mechs to be these OP super mechs, but that is not the case. I just want to be able to survive more rounds so that I can actually feel I have contributed to my team when I die, rather than being a slow waste of tonnage that goes down faster than heavies and mediums who carry the same amount of firepower. What is the purpose of an assault in MWO if you aren't tanking for your team? All you have as an assault is extra armor. Medium mechs, heavy mechs, and even some light mechs can alpha strike the same amount of damage you can, and are much faster. Part of the problem is bad teamwork, as assaults often get left on the front lines when a team relocates, but that's a secondary issue to game play mechanics.

[YourSaviorLegion]

I took sustained fire in a Atlas for nearly a minute by torso twisting, I really don't see the problem