206 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Ghogiel, on 16 October 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

I think you will find that good players aren't just picking off a target here and there. They are doing significant dmg and have a high W/L and that is what makes them good.

No, he has a point.

A lot of the best players in solo use the strategy whereby the team is a shield to buy them time to single-handedly demolish half of the enemy team. Often, it works. Often, it doesn't. It's a brute-force method rather than a synergistic one.

It's why I like players like bear claw, who usually plays with the team rather than in spite of the team.

[Aresye]

Appogee, on 16 October 2016 - 05:50 AM, said:

Ideally, we'd be playing a game where different playstyles, from sniping to brawling and in-between, are all viable. But while there are certain very powerful Mechs with high-mounted hardpoints able to deliver massive PPFLD while staying 90% behind cover, it's no wonder people are adopting the poking gameplay style.

All those play styles you mentioned ARE viable. The problem is there will always be only one play style that allows players to be self-sufficient (aka: not relying on their team), and that's mid-long range poke.

Long range ER trading requires extensive teamwork in the form of team movement, trying to maximize range for the entirety of the game. Brawling requires extensive teamwork in the form of focus fire, aggression, and team movement. LRMs require extensive teamwork in the form of NARC, TAG, UAV support, and holding locks. PPFLD requires little to no teamwork to work.

All these play styles are viable (well...maybe not LRMs). Some of them are even counters to others (ex: brawl beats ER, ER beats mid-range PPFLD, mid-range PPFLD beats brawl). The main reason you don't see many players choosing other play styles over PPFLD has nothing to do with balance, but rather has everything to do with a lack of coordination and teamwork.

[Ghogiel]

Yeonne Greene, on 16 October 2016 - 07:38 AM, said:

No, he has a point.

A lot of the best players in solo use the strategy whereby the team is a shield to buy them time to single-handedly demolish half of the enemy team. Often, it works. Often, it doesn't. It's a brute-force method rather than a synergistic one.

It's why I like players like bear claw, who usually plays with the team rather than in spite of the team.

That's a straw man. Good players use the assets as best they can on their team. That's why they win. You can pretend some usual suspects are good... but no lol.

Edited by Ghogiel, 16 October 2016 - 07:46 AM.

[El Bandito]

Snowbluff, on 16 October 2016 - 06:11 AM, said:

And Bandito, clans literally only have 2 weapons that can PPFLD. Leave 'em alone.

1. Not when those two weapons are on top of everything else in the PPFLD game. In addition to Clan tech being superior to IS tech. That has already been proven in the MWO Championship matches.

2. Balancing base tech doesn't necessarily mean PGI has to nerf Clan weapon/equipment BTW. I'd rather have them buff IS equipment and weapons instead.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 October 2016 - 07:49 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Ppfld is meta because of the nerfs to lasers and dakka. What's funny is there was a time that dakka/lasers/ppfld had parity. How does PGI respond? Nerfs Black Knight, Warhammer 6D and Black Widow, and Grasshopper. So when you nerf the front runners for two out-of 3 viable play types, it's no wonder the PPFLD Timber and WHM-6R take over. The Night Gyr and Kodiak happen to be very good at PPFLD as well.

By the way, if one mech makes you wish for Energy Draw, there is a problem with the mech, not a need for a added restrictive mechanics.

[sneeking]

Continously switching meta and nerfing paid mechs is no way forward for this game.

Paid content should be modes and events where any mech regardless of when you bought it should be able to participate and be viable.

Pgi has it all *** backwards they keep nerfing the things you bought while offering no reason to keep using them and expect you to buy more of them.

When you know what will happen why would you buy more ?

[Deathlike]

razenWing, on 16 October 2016 - 06:04 AM, said:

Though I am fairly sure that damages beyond just killing blow counts as point reward, because I use NARC every other blue moon, I can't say for sure. So you maybe right, happy? (And this is assuming that I said narc dmg from tracking gives bonus beyond the killing blow, right?)

The only time NARC rewards are given revolved around LRMs+Streaks hitting the target while the target is under NARC. NARC kill bonuses are rare because a kill via anything but those two weapon systems produce zero NARC kill bonuses.

[Aresye]

El Bandito, on 16 October 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

1. Not when those two weapons are on top of everything else in the PPFLD game. In addition to Clan tech being superior to IS tech. That has already been proven in the MWO Championship matches.

Guess you missed the many Warhammers, Grasshoppers, HBK-4SPs, and Spiders that the top teams still favor in their MWOWC drop decks?

[El Bandito]

Aresye, on 16 October 2016 - 07:56 AM, said:

Guess you missed the many Warhammers, Grasshoppers, HBK-4SPs, and Spiders that the top teams still favor in their MWOWC drop decks?

Their appearances were minor compared to the amount of Clan Battlemechs and the Timbies. The truth is that PPFLD on Clan mechs is dominating the comp scene.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 October 2016 - 08:11 AM.

[sneeking]

Untill they learn i will never buy another thing from them....

[Y E O N N E]

Ghogiel, on 16 October 2016 - 07:45 AM, said:

That's a straw man. Good players use the assets as best they can on their team. That's why they win. You can pretend some usual suspects are good... but no lol.

And another person who improperly uses the term "straw man."

Did I set up an argument for the purpose of defeating it? No. Not a straw man.

What I did do was point out a strategy they use which doesn't always pan out. There are reasons why it doesn't always pan out, and in my experience those reasons have a lot to do with them essentially attempting to solo the enemy team rather than actually "use the assets as best they can." Ignoring the other 11 people on your team and what they are doing is most definitely not efficient use of resources.

[BattleBunny]

sneeking, on 16 October 2016 - 07:52 AM, said:

Continously switching meta and nerfing paid mechs is no way forward for this game.

Paid content should be modes and events where any mech regardless of when you bought it should be able to participate and be viable.

Pgi has it all *** backwards they keep nerfing the things you bought while offering no reason to keep using them and expect you to buy more of them.

When you know what will happen why would you buy more ?

This summs up my feelings on this as well.

[Ghogiel]

Yeonne Greene, on 16 October 2016 - 08:01 AM, said:

And another person who improperly uses the term "straw man."

Did I set up an argument for the purpose of defeating it? No. Not a straw man.

What I did do was point out a strategy they use which doesn't always pan out. There are reasons why it doesn't always pan out, and in my experience those reasons have a lot to do with them essentially attempting to solo the enemy team rather than actually "use the assets as best they can." Ignoring the other 11 people on your team and what they are doing is most definitely not efficient use of resources.

You did use a straw man, The straw man you are beating up on is this whacky notion that good players use this "strategy". If they are good, they don't. You are talking about some other type of player and not good ones.

[Tristan Winter]

sneeking, on 16 October 2016 - 07:52 AM, said:

Continously switching meta and nerfing paid mechs is no way forward for this game.
Paid content should be modes and events where any mech regardless of when you bought it should be able to participate and be viable.
Pgi has it all *** backwards they keep nerfing the things you bought while offering no reason to keep using them and expect you to buy more of them.
When you know what will happen why would you buy more ?

I don't understand how it's possible to maintain this perspective. Have you really contemplated the alternatives and considered the actual consequences of your view?

It's interesting that you specifically object to nerfing, which is another strange objection that is common, but still incomprehensible. Why is buffing ok, but nerfing is bad? What if I buff every mech in the game to make them twice as powerful, except I never touch the hero mechs? By the "nerfs are bad" logic, I didn't hurt the mechs people paid for. They are exactly as advertised. They just happen to be much worse than all the other mechs that got buffed now.

Buffing and nerfing is effectively the same thing. It's like having a pair of scales. Putting extra weight on one scale accomplishes the same thing as taking weight off the other scale. You're still adjusting balance, regardless of whether you're adding or subtracting.

The only alternative is to never balance the game ever. Because then people would never experience the sadness of buying something like the OP Dragon Slayer and then watching it get nerfed. Everything would stay the same, until power creep made the old top mechs obsolete.

When the meta changes, when certain playstyles or weapons or mechs increase or decrease in popularity, it's a direct consequence of changing the balance. The only way to avoid a meta change is to never balance the game at all. Now, look at the most popular PVP games out there and show me how many of those are never balanced at all. How many successful PVP games remain completely static after they go live? It's a tiny, tiny minority. For two reasons:

• It's basically impossible to get good balance right off the bat
  
• When people exploit an imbalanced game over time, the gameplay becomes boring and uninteresting. (ref: poptart era)

[Y E O N N E]

Ghogiel, on 16 October 2016 - 08:05 AM, said:

You did use a straw man, The straw man you are beating up on is this whacky notion that good players use this "strategy". If they are good, they don't. You are talking about some other type of player and not good ones.

Sounds like you don't actually have a clue. You think ALKAL1N3, wuckTech, proton, Heimdelight, Rickrom, W1LDF1R3, no0btal1ty, etc. are not good? I have played more than enough matches to know that they all do this. At this point it might be less of an intentional act and more of an ingrained response, but it is precisely how they play.

[Ghogiel]

Yeonne Greene, on 16 October 2016 - 08:13 AM, said:

Sounds like you don't actually have a clue. You think ALKAL1N3, wuckTech, proton, Heimdelight, Rickrom, W1LDF1R3, no0btal1ty, etc. are not good? I have played more than enough matches to know that they all do this. At this point it might be less of an intentional act and more of an ingrained response, but it is precisely how they play.

Who decided rickrom was good XD? Anyway that is a gross generalisation of their many different playstyles imo. Most of those players you listed actually do use pug assets quite well imo.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Appogee, on 16 October 2016 - 06:14 AM, said:

Come to think of it, the game really is a train wreck of balance issues at the moment, isn't it. You play on Canyon, and Gauss/PPC Kodiaks will line up below the lip of the canyon, 90% in cover, just high enough to fire all their PPFLD weapons at 700m or more at anyone not fully in cover. Meantime, there will be a 6xSRM6 Jenner IIc and an Arctic Cheetahs approaching from behind, delivering one shot kills into the backs of any Assaults too slow to keep up with the NAScar. Add to all that the LRM gazillion guys who are standing behind the hill 800m from battle, farming remote locks. Personally, I think I need to just stop buying and leveling Mechs.

Wow this actually sounds like "Real Life" combined warfare tactics. Amazing that things like this actually turn up in a game based on military tactics and strategy, who would have thought?

As far as the competitive meta, who cares. 90% of us don't play in the competitive meta and I am sick of having the game I do play, get totally destroyed to accommodate 10% or less of player that make up the competitive scene.

Also, why do people even look to the competitive meta as meaning anything? Name one competitive sport that doesn't take things to extreme. Competitive bicycler's will spend $15,000 on a bike and train 3 hours or more a day. Pro Football players spend a 40 hour work week training to play the game. This is very different from the rest of us who will buy a $500 bike for exercise or maybe throw the ball around on the weekends. Same goes for competitive players. They will always look for that edge and optimize things as far as they can. They will also practice together and use teamwork to utilize that optimization to the fullest potential, ie build Kodiaks with PPFLD that can hide behind stuff and snipe at 700m, use Jenners and Arctic Cheetah in coordinated attacks behind enemy lines and LRM boats to provide long range indirect artillery fire because that is what it means to be competitive. For the rest of us, we just want to play a fun game.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 16 October 2016 - 08:27 AM.

[sneeking]

I never said buffing was ok...

Why plant words i never typed ?

One is bad as the other and each is one and the same thing respective to each other relatively.

[General Solo]

Getting Rekt time and time again from a lack of team support I guess makes you consider alternative stratergies.

After a while you get a feel for how the games going to pan out about 2 minutes in.

Is team scattered, do they return fire or flee etc, then you ajust accordingly.

[sneeking]

All im saying is that while no new reasons to play exist then the downward spiral in quality of content i already paid for gives literally no incentives....