289 replies to this topic

[Kyrie]

Davers, on 10 August 2016 - 06:49 PM, said:

Some people hold out hope longer than others. There are people who still think CW is going to become a war simulator.

I've obeyed the Danteian commandment to Abandon Hope.

[Ultimax]

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 06:04 AM, said:

I haven't looked into it, but this sounds plausible.

Feel free to absorb some of the mountains of salt generated by this on HPG Outreach.

This has been, as far as I can tell, unanimously lambasted for the absolutely awful planning & scheduling from pretty much everyone playing in the tournament. Many players called out issues on DAY ONE of the release of details and even now many of those issues (which could have been avoided) linger.

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 06:04 AM, said:

I'm not upset about this, because the crisis was averted within a week. They usually let things sit for a month or two before responding. UI 2.0 comes to mind.

Averting a crises that they caused through ignorance and bad planning, and seriously mind boggling bad design.

The fact it was fixed fast was irrelevant, the fact that they even conceived this at all and thought it was good as is has easily destroyed a lot of good will and confidence in their ability to develop this game beyond making pretty mechs (this game's singularly consistent good attribute).

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 06:04 AM, said:

I actually support the general idea behind this, which is to make alpha strikes a less common tactic, because it was never that common in the lore. This is one of the few times PGI actually tries to base gameplay around TT and lore (if only they did the same with heat scale penalties), so I appreciate that.

HBS Battletech Demo, the beginning of the fight is a Shadowhawk blasting an alpha at pointblank range.

The creator of Battletech understands that alphas are apart of the game, and if a mech can handle the heat they are going to do it.


The only thing energy draw is going to do is likely cripple some currently viable builds an shift the meta harder towards builds it has already shifted to.

Let's go by Russ statement that the "alpha limit" will be 30.


More 5x LLAS/ERLLAS builds (they don't rely on alphas over 30).
More dakka boats (already upper end meta build, almost no alphas over 30)
More SRM bombers (slight nerf, minimal loss of viability)

Dual Gauss & 3x PPCs will be OK, but 3x LPLs will not, arbitrary limit that makes no sense (just like Ghost Heat).



As Antares102 said, some players will still complain.

This is because of 3 major reasons.

1) They are bad at the game, and probably just bad at FPS games in general. They aren't newbs to excuse it, and they will blame everything but themselves for not being able to survive as long as their over-inflated sense of ability tells them they should be allowed to survive while being ignorant of their rampant mistakes.

2) They don't realize that part of their belief in how long their mechs should live comes (partly from misguided ego) from misjudging how long mechs actually live in TT battles. They mistake the time it takes to roll tons of dice for "time to kill" instead of actually calculating how many seconds in turns mechs actually live once engaged in combat. Here are precious "stock builds" getting wrecked in short order:

3) They believe their way to play is the only "right way" to play. They refuse to adapt, they refuse to play builds that are actually good in some misguided attempt at "purity". They don't wan to change, so they must clamor for nerfs to make their crap builds look at least a bit shinier than a standard ****.


Russ actually said "...maybe we'll see more chainfiring...".

There you go, the height of strategy and skill based play - standing there just chainfiring lasers like noobs and slowly scratching paint. That's what Russ would like to see more of.

No need to play smart, no need to use cover, no need to have good positioning. Just rock'em sock'em dumbots.

Edited by Ultimax, 11 August 2016 - 08:07 AM.

[Kyrie]

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 08:05 AM, said:

Feel free to absorb some of the mountains of salt generated by this on HPG Outreach.

This has been, as far as I can tell, unanimously lambasted for the absolutely awful planning & scheduling from pretty much everyone playing in the tournament. Many players called out issues on DAY ONE of the release of details and even now many of those issues (which could have been avoided) linger.




Averting a crises that they caused through ignorance and bad planning, and seriously mind boggling bad design.

The fact it was fixed fast was irrelevant, the fact that they even conceived this at all and thought it was good as is has easily destroyed a lot of good will and confidence in their ability to develop this game beyond making pretty mechs (this game's singularly consistent good attribute).





HBS Battletech Demo, the beginning of the fight is a Shadowhawk blasting an alpha at pointblank range.

The creator of Battletech understands that alphas are apart of the game, and if a mech can handle the heat they are going to do it.


The only thing energy draw is going to do is likely cripple some currently viable builds an shift the meta harder towards builds it has already shifted to.

Let's go by Russ statement that the "alpha limit" will be 30.


More 5x LLAS/ERLLAS builds (they don't rely on alphas over 30).
More dakka boats (already upper end meta build, almost no alphas over 30)
More SRM bombers (slight nerf, minimal loss of viability)

Dual Gauss & 3x PPCs will be OK, but 3x LPLs will not, arbitrary limit that makes no sense (just like Ghost Heat).



As Antares102 said, some players will still complain.

This is because of 3 major reasons.

1) They are bad at the game, and probably just bad at FPS games in general. They aren't newbs to excuse it, and they will blame everything but themselves for not being able to survive as long as their over-inflated sense of ability tells them they should be allowed to survive while being ignorant of their rampant mistakes.

2) They don't realize that part of their belief in how long their mechs should live comes (partly from misguided ego) from misjudging how long mechs actually live in TT battles. They mistake the time it takes to roll tons of dice for "time to kill" instead of actually calculating how many seconds in turns mechs actually live once engaged in combat. Here are precious "stock builds" getting wrecked in short order:

3) They believe their way to play is the only "right way" to play. They refuse to adapt, they refuse to play builds that are actually good in some misguided attempt at "purity". They don't wan to change, so they must clamor for nerfs to make their crap builds look at least a bit shinier than a standard ****.


Russ actually said "...maybe we'll see more chainfiring...".

There you go, the height of strategy and skill based play - standing there just chainfiring lasers like noobs and slowly scratching paint. That's what Russ would like to see more of.

No need to play smart, no need to use cover, no need to have good positioning. Just rock'em sock'em dumbots.

The basic game design that PGI elected, in closed alpha, was to disregard the heat rules. The heat-scale, in TT, provides severe penalties for getting anywhere near the top of the heat-bar, something that all MWO players must routinely do to be effective.

This was done in part to create a more "lively" FPS and to keep the FPS simpler. The other thing that was done was to shorten weapon recycle times because in the original concept of a 10-second "turn", PGI felt that TTK was way too high.

Almost immediately, PGI had to double armor across the board because lack of heat rules, combined with perfect pin-point convergence, made TTK stupidly low... And off we went on a series of weird design choices because PGI elected not to limit heat correctly and to keep weapon recycle times really, really low.

Edited by Kyrie, 11 August 2016 - 08:19 AM.

[Ultimax]

Kyrie, on 11 August 2016 - 08:16 AM, said:

The basic game design that PGI elected, in closed alpha, was to disregard the heat rules. The heat-scale, in TT, provides severe penalties for getting anywhere near the top of the heat-bar, something that all MWO players must routinely do to be effective.

Those same rules can, and are, circumvented by players playing TT builds - as many of them (who like big alphas) repeatedly post here on these forums.

Those same players I've seen also lament that you can't even build some of the heat neutral (read: no penalties thanks to dissipation) energy boats that you can in fact build in TT.

[Kyrie]

Ultimax, on 11 August 2016 - 08:22 AM, said:

Those same rules can, and are, circumvented by players playing TT builds - as many of them (who like big alphas) repeatedly post here on these forums.

Those same players I've seen also lament that you can't even build some of the heat neutral (read: no penalties thanks to dissipation) energy boats that you can in fact build in TT.

And this is due to the massive PGI-acceleration of weapon recycle times. TTK is of course governed by:

1) Weapon damage, spread of that weapon damage if applicable (from TT mostly some PGI changes)
2) Recycle time for weapon to fire again
3) Armor/Structure values (way different from TT)
4) Heat-constraints (severely neutered in PGI's interpretation)

Weapons recycle too quickly, making it impossible to be heat-neutral for most builds.

[Johnny Z]

.

Edited by Johnny Z, 11 August 2016 - 08:55 AM.

[Malleus011]

HBS will be using the MWO models for their title, at least the ones available before 3025 - they aren't placeholders.

I still log in and play my Warhammer once every week or so, but most of the fun is gone. I have little hope that PGI will improve anything in 2016. Stock Mode may resurrect my flagging interest for a while, and give me means to burn all that banked Premium Time.

Their last opportunity to garner funds from me will come from remaining 3025 'mechs. MWO really isn't in good enough shape (or has enough of a bright future) to deserve purchases of Wasps, Stingers, Valkyries, Crusaders, Assassins, and other classic machines, but I like those 'mechs and am willing to make sure Alex keeps getting paid.

As for anything else? Why bother?

[Alistair Winter]

I love light mechs, but even for the reasons mentioned above, I just can't justify paying for light mechs given how PGI has treated them over the past 3 years. They get tiny buffs every 3-5 months, and if one of them happens to compete with bigger mechs, it usually gets nerfed immediately.

Hotfix: It has come to our attention that the RVN-3L has risen to the height of being mediocre, which is far too good, so we're taking all structure quirks away. The servers will be down for 2 hours.

[Pilotasso]

Don use light mechs for brawling and then you realise they don't need buffs at all. This is a serious problem. Why do you think light mechs are always the last ones standing in like almost every match?

Edited by Pilotasso, 11 August 2016 - 09:32 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:31 AM, said:

Don use light mechs for brawling and then you realise they don't need buffs at all. This is a serious problem. Why do you think light mechs are always the last ones to be killed in a loosing side?

Is that your argument?

So if a Spider with ECM and 1 ERLL is sniping the entire match, "harassing the enemy" (aka being ignored because it's not doing serious damage) and then is the last man standing when the rest of the team got wiped out, you take this as a sign that the Spider is powerful?

First of all, light mechs are made of paper, so they avoid putting themselves in danger too much. Usually, they depend on other teammates to put themselves in danger first, and then they can exploit the distraction. However, when the roflstomp starts, there are no openings for the light mechs to engage, so they often just try to survive for a while and then they are the last man standing.

Second, if the enemy has 2-3 streakboats (Stormcrows, Mad Dogs, Summoners, Timber Wolves, I even see Kodiaks running 4xSSRM6's these days) then it basically means that it's extremely dangerous for light mechs to brawl with the enemy. So instead of getting into the fight, they are left probing the edges of the battle, looking for tiny openings. As soon as someone spots them on the radar, those streakboats will be coming immediately, because streakboats are dropping only to get easy light mech kills. In other words: lots of streakboats in a match = lots of light mechs hiding until the streakboats are gone.

Furthermore, light mechs are often ignored outright and only temporarily chased away when they become a nuisance (e.g. when a Locust tries sneaking behind you), because they don't do too much damage, and the time it takes to chase them down and kill them isn't really worth it, compared to destroying bigger, slower, deadlier targets.

And occasionally, you'll see some kind of 2ERLL sniper who was hiding the whole match, doing 400 damage and getting 2 kills, without ever exposing himself to danger. So when his 11 teammates are dead, he still has 99% health and both he and the spectators figures he's some kind of super l33t ninja and that his mech is super powerful, not realizing that part of the reason his teammates died and he did 400 damage, was because he let everyone else do the tanking, while he was hiding in the bushes.

Light mechs usually survive to the last because their pilots are either actively avoiding dangerous situations (e.g. Spiders and Ravens trying to snipe or "harass") or because their opponents have been ignoring them / chasing them away to deal with bigger threats.

[FupDup]

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:31 AM, said:

Don use light mechs for brawling and then you realise they don't need buffs at all. This is a serious problem. Why do you think light mechs are always the last ones standing in like almost every match?

I really hate the "last man standing" fallacy.

Every single mech in the game can be the last man standing.

All you have to do is stay behind your teammates and use them in meatshields.

I have been the last man standing in every mech ranging from Shadow Hawks to Thors and from Dire Whales to Mist Lynxes.

Being the last man standing doesn't mean squat.

[Pilotasso]

if you find them too fragile then your doing something wrong.

Light mechs aren't about doing damage but rather scouting and getting targets for the team. But the preferred gameplay style is ditch the team behind and go straight at the enemy. They are still the last one standing in most matches, so whats wrong with his picture?

[Antares102]

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:49 AM, said:

...so whats wrong with his picture?

That you are not showing your Tier so that we can have an idea on which level you play...

Oh right and tell "Lights are robust" to those peeps that always die in the first 60 to 90 sec in my games.
They do this constantly... because they are totally clueless. Even with Locust they do not get away.

Edited by Antares102, 11 August 2016 - 10:10 AM.

[FupDup]

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:49 AM, said:

Light mechs aren't about doing damage but rather scouting and getting targets for the team.

Tell that to the Urbanmech, Adder, Panther, Kit Fox, etc.

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:49 AM, said:

But the preferred gameplay style is ditch the team behind and go straight at the enemy. They are still the last one standing in most matches, so whats wrong with his picture?

The problem with this picture is that it's a work of fiction.

Lights that charge head-on into a whole team are not the last ones standing. It's the sneaky backstabbers and ERLL pokers that live to the end.

Edited by FupDup, 11 August 2016 - 09:55 AM.

[Pilotasso]

dont even know where to look at but at the stats page I rank 5215th place LOL

[Bishop Steiner]

Alistair Winter, on 11 August 2016 - 05:33 AM, said:

What decisions have displayed how out of touch they are, in your opinion?


I thought the use of MWO models was just temporary or for certain mechs, and HBS would eventually design all their own mech models. So Alex' designs will actually be in the final Battletech game?

That is my understanding. Perhaps they'll add their own later, but the basic game will be PGI models

[Bishop Steiner]

Malleus011, on 11 August 2016 - 09:20 AM, said:

HBS will be using the MWO models for their title, at least the ones available before 3025 - they aren't placeholders.

I still log in and play my Warhammer once every week or so, but most of the fun is gone. I have little hope that PGI will improve anything in 2016. Stock Mode may resurrect my flagging interest for a while, and give me means to burn all that banked Premium Time.

Their last opportunity to garner funds from me will come from remaining 3025 'mechs. MWO really isn't in good enough shape (or has enough of a bright future) to deserve purchases of Wasps, Stingers, Valkyries, Crusaders, Assassins, and other classic machines, but I like those 'mechs and am willing to make sure Alex keeps getting paid.

As for anything else? Why bother?

Exactly. If it'll get them into Battletech, I'll fund them. If I somehow squeeze some measure of fun of of them here? Bonus.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 August 2016 - 10:06 AM, said:

Exactly. If it'll get them into Battletech, I'll fund them. If I somehow squeeze some measure of fun of of them here? Bonus.

Hopefully the next mech announced is the Assassin and then the Crusader.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 11 August 2016 - 10:40 AM.

[4rcs1ne]

Pilotasso, on 11 August 2016 - 09:49 AM, said:

if you find them too fragile then your doing something wrong.

Light mechs aren't about doing damage but rather scouting and getting targets for the team. But the preferred gameplay style is ditch the team behind and go straight at the enemy. They are still the last one standing in most matches, so whats wrong with his picture?

Seriously, what game are you playing? Whenever I see lights charge into the enemy they do <100 damage, die immediately, and disconnect.

Also,why should lights only be scouters? There is zero incentive to scout right now. To force an entire weight class into a role that is boring as hell and has **** rewards is beyond me.

Edited by Matt2496, 11 August 2016 - 11:06 AM.

[Tordin]

Came to think of it. Before every patch, change, update. I feel we are akinda like this



Ready to let out the critique, alot of harsh non constructive inferno bashing, but also some constructive as well.