152 replies to this topic

[50 50]

I would have thought that it only becomes a problem when out of 300+ mech options you only see that same handful of mechs running the same builds.
However, there are also those who call out other players on bad builds, not constructively, but in an abusive manner and want to force particular builds on everyone.

Players take a build that works for them.
We are all different, have different levels of ability and capability.
Part of the fun is in finding these builds.
Some will look to others for assistance, others want the experience of finding the builds themselves.
Everyone should have their own meta. If this happens to be the standard, then that might suggest more of a problem with the weapons, mechs and balance in the game more than anything else.

[Sjorpha]

[BLOOD WOLF]

what meta?

[Goober Gabber v2]

BLOOD WOLF, on 07 December 2016 - 09:17 PM, said:

what meta?

TAG boating.

[DaZur]

Honestly, I don't necessarily hate the meta...

I hate the players you cling to it like their lives depended upon it. Who denigrate anyone who has not succumb to the meta and who's myopic view of "having fun" is wholly dependent upon the inference that "fun" is only derived by winning.

[Cementi]

I have always disliked the meta but not truly hated it. Usually in mmorpg's though not using the meta just meant the boss fight took 2 mins longer than normal. So long as the raid leader was not a complete jerk not a big deal.

In this game I absolutely despise the meta because no mater what the new meta is it ends up being the most boring game play possible. Pop tarting was mind numbing. Alpha warrior online is mind numbing, ridge hump ppc+gauss is mind numbing.

I dont run lore builds but I do tend to run alot of multi range bracket builds so that I am prepared for whatever the group decides to do. Usually gives me respectable numbers just not great. Thats ok though as I have no urge to rush my inevitable climb to T1, getting too close to T2 as it is. If I played as much as I used to I would be there allready and would have to put up with ridge hump corner poke.

[meteorol]

davoodoo, on 07 December 2016 - 06:33 PM, said:

Well lets check that.

If terrain was mostly flat like it was in tt
[...]
And list goes on, most of mwo problems are bred from **** pgi changed from tt.

Lol

[I_AM_ZUUL]

DGTLDaemon, on 06 December 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

OK, I've been wanting to ask this question for a long time, because after spending almost a year in MWO, there's something I still fail to understand about this game's community. I personally come from an RPG background, and have played a variety of games of this genre over the years - from classic isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, to action/RPGs like Diablo and Dark Souls, and all the way to "hybrids" like Mass Effect and Deus Ex. In all those games, there was some sort of a character development system present, which, in combination with the inventory/equipment system, allowed you to "build" your character in a way that would make it effective under the specific game rules while at the same time suiting your personal preferences. And as far as I can remember, trying to build your character in an optimum way has never been frowned upon in any gaming community I was ever engaged in. Well, if you became overzealous with your optimizations, you could earn yourself a nickname of a "power gamer", but that was not necessarily a bad thing However, MWO is the first game in my experience where any attempt to look at the available options, analyze the current game rules, and try to build your "character" (or, in this case, your mech) in a meaningful way rather than slap a random selection of weapons and gear all over it is met with an almost universal hatred. The last such thing that actually prompted this post from me was a reply in a thread where we discussed possible MC costs of respeccing under the new skill system:



And this is what I've seen a million times on this forum. Trying to build your mechs in an optimum, meaningful, performance-oriented way that is consistent with the current state of the game rules? Then you need to be punished for that, because... Because what? All I hear is that "meta ******" and "meta chasers" are "ruining the game for everybody else". But why? What is so objectionable about using the customization options that are an integral part of this game to achieve the desired performance? I know that I'm starting a potential flame war here, but this is an honest question. I am truly baffled here. Can someone from the anti-meta crowd at least try to explain why you hate meta builds and meta gamers so much? Or is it some sort of underlying, self-evident concept of MWO that doesn't warrant an explanation?

See i dont like them for a very different reason... they are WORTHLESS! the "Meta" game has always revolved around long range ppc/gauss/erll builds and some poptarting thrown in for seasoning, with the exception of lrmageddon but everyone was doing that. they are the CoD campers, absolutely irrelevant to the team in this game... if the team wins or the team loses, they had absolutely no bearing on that outcome. If you point out that them hiding in the corner with ecm while the team got lrm'd to death or that a Pokebear hiding 841m in the back cant push or hold a point, they point to their damage like that matters. So optimize your Mech to the best you can, Im an unabashed power gamer from way back... so my problem isnt with "meta" mech but the players who play them. They arent even power gamers, cause this is a team based game so if you arent optimizing for the TEAM then you have utterly failed.

they are just cancerous campers that are an infection in the game and ruin whatever team they are by being campers not team players.

[Requiemking]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 07 December 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

See i dont like them for a very different reason... they are WORTHLESS! the "Meta" game has always revolved around long range ppc/gauss/erll builds and some poptarting thrown in for seasoning, with the exception of lrmageddon but everyone was doing that. they are the CoD campers, absolutely irrelevant to the team in this game... if the team wins or the team loses, they had absolutely no bearing on that outcome. If you point out that them hiding in the corner with ecm while the team got lrm'd to death or that a Pokebear hiding 841m in the back cant push or hold a point, they point to their damage like that matters. So optimize your Mech to the best you can, Im an unabashed power gamer from way back... so my problem isnt with "meta" mech but the players who play them. They arent even power gamers, cause this is a team based game so if you arent optimizing for the TEAM then you have utterly failed.

they are just cancerous campers that are an infection in the game and ruin whatever team they are by being campers not team players.

And the there is me, the brawling Orion K who thinks he is a Light pilot.

[Ghostrider0067]

The "meta" to me is boring. I'm outfitting my mech how I see fit and what suits my style of play. I come out ahead far more times than not and seeing as I'm not getting paid to play this, I could care less what the setups are that may seem to be most effective. Your results may vary and if they do, that's great.

Play with what makes you happy and how you see fit. If that's with the meta, so be it; if it's not, that's just as well.

[MischiefSC]

1453 R, on 07 December 2016 - 12:31 PM, said:

Good* to see Mystere's still on the "nobody should ever hit anything they shoot at ever again!" warpath.

Keep on truckin', Mysty. Maybe in MW5 they'll let you fire/miss eight times for each single successful hit.

On the original subject: Yeah, it's mostly the old TT vs. the MechWarrior/vidja gaemr crowd thing. Old TT heads want the game to be more about a long, bitter, drawn-out battle of attrition with failure-prone systems and single shots from single weapons, a'la the TT game, while previous MechWarrior players/regular gaemrs are used to a more brutal, violent pace of gameplay and significantly more agency over their character/avatar/machine than TT players are willing to accept.

For the TT guys, the joy and the fun was in managing to somehow defeat the million and three random acts of happenstance conspiring against you. Your 'Mech is unreliable, your pilot is unreliable, your weapons are unreliable, the battlefield is unreliable. It takes absolutely Herculean effort to so much as keep the damned thing upright, you have almost no actual control over what the 'Mech does and pretty much flat-out zero control over what its weapons do, and yet somehow you have to win battles this way. They enjoyed that feeling of triumphing over utter chaos and figuring out how to squeak out just a little bit more performance from the bunch of broken-down junkheaps and the batch of jumped-up drunks they have to work with.

Regular gaemrs, presented with a game where their 'Mech doesn't do what it's told to do, their weapons don't do what they're told to do, the maintenance/repair techs don't do what they're told to do, and everything else is as wildly unreliable as everything in TT was, would tell the developer that their face is unreliable and go find another game where inputting commands actually leads to actionable results. The level of control we have over our 'Mechs is superior to most Clan trueborn pilots trained from birth to handle these things, because it needs to be in order for the game to be a commercially competitive product with its peers.

Nobody wants to play a game where you're almost guaranteed to die every single match because random dice rolls you can't control or influence in any way says that suddenly all your actuators stop working, or your targeting system shuts down, or your ammo feeds fall out the back of the 'Mech, or your reactor spontaneously goes into meltdown.

TT guys want none of that control and precision, though. They want that barely-controlled chaos back, that feeling of heaving to struggle furiously for every gain they get, and they tend to see the 'meta' crowd as the poster children for why this game is RUINED FOREVER. Ergo, why 'meta' is erroneously a dirty word 'round these parts.

Don't worry, though. Most of them'll be gone when HBS BattleTech rolls around, and the vitriol should thin out significantly.

*Not actually good, still kinda disgusting.

Not quite.

I just want a premium on accuracy again. A small COF effect if you don't have convergence, with a brief (as in like 1 or in extreme cases with some weapons and no lock at most 2 second) convergence issue. So you've got a COF based on convergence if you don't have a locked target. Lights take longer to lock and are harder to lock at longer ranges than assaults, etc. Remember the IW stuff from that PTS years back?

You tie IW to getting precision FIRST (not having precision at all) and you add the premium back on accuracy. Certain mechs help with that; dedicated scouts like the Raven 3L, etc. have perks like faster/longer range locking shared with teammates, maybe even a 'lock everything with LOS' sort of effect.

Adds potential for a sort of IW and Role Warfare back in.

IW has to be tied to effectively doing damage or it's never going to matter.

The COF should be small enough that it should be largely irrelevant at 150m or less, unless it's a very small mech. So snapshots at an ankle biting light are no big issue nor brawling. The point is to make the mid to long range game work better with scouting/support.

The reality is that being able to do 40pts+ at 500m+, especially with pixel perfect precision will always trump other tactics, especially if you can poke and shoot on the fly. The only reason comp teams tend to push in to brawl after 2-3 kills is to just close the match - they could just as easily stay back and dig the other team out for another 3 or 4 mechs but that's just boring.

Most other FPS games have a COF or accuracy effect. The very best and most challenging (like ARMA) have very complex and unforgiving accuracy mechanics. Comparing a top tier competitive ARMA team vs a top tier competitive COD team is like comparing the world champion at Whack-A-Mole and the world champion at juggling or slight-of-hand. Yes, both have great eye-hand coordination, you could probably argue that the Whack-A-Mole guy is faster with a mallet. The other guy however has mastered a broader suite of the same skills.

Nobody who's seen anything I post on balance is going to think I'm a fan of dumbing down or devaluing skill in MW:O. Quite the contrary - the problem is that the skill curve is too brief. It needs more depth and complexity added to the combat mechanics to widen the curve and allow a more gradual and graduated progression from average to top tier. Yes, that also means that the top tier competitive players will be even better in the game than mediocre players than they are now. My ideal situation would be to have a depth of useful skills in MWO sufficient that the very best, absolute best players could consistently beat 'average' in 6v12 matches in comparable mechs.

Look at any other sport, look at the caliber and graduation of skill curve from 'average' to 'olympic'. It's a longer, more graduated arc. A premium on accuracy is the best, most reliable and friendly way to get that IMO.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 08 December 2016 - 01:58 AM, said:

IW has to be tied to effectively doing damage or it's never going to matter.

Not necessarily true, if we actually allowed scouts to have non-LOS sensors and added mechanics focused around that, IW could be useful to something outside damage. Knowing where the enemy is without having to expose yourself to potential damage is pretty huge (just look at seismic). Granted that is technically tied to avoiding damage so it is still related to damage in some fashion. This pretty much is the ultimate problem when IW gets brought up, the only thing that really matters is positional data, the problem is no one wants to expand that functionality everyone is focused on all the wrong things.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2016 - 07:18 AM.

[1453 R]

MischiefSC, on 08 December 2016 - 01:58 AM, said:

Not quite.

I just want a premium on accuracy again. A small COF effect if you don't have convergence, with a brief (as in like 1 or in extreme cases with some weapons and no lock at most 2 second) convergence issue. So you've got a COF based on convergence if you don't have a locked target. Lights take longer to lock and are harder to lock at longer ranges than assaults, etc. Remember the IW stuff from that PTS years back?

You tie IW to getting precision FIRST (not having precision at all) and you add the premium back on accuracy. Certain mechs help with that; dedicated scouts like the Raven 3L, etc. have perks like faster/longer range locking shared with teammates, maybe even a 'lock everything with LOS' sort of effect.

Adds potential for a sort of IW and Role Warfare back in.

IW has to be tied to effectively doing damage or it's never going to matter.

The COF should be small enough that it should be largely irrelevant at 150m or less, unless it's a very small mech. So snapshots at an ankle biting light are no big issue nor brawling. The point is to make the mid to long range game work better with scouting/support.

The reality is that being able to do 40pts+ at 500m+, especially with pixel perfect precision will always trump other tactics, especially if you can poke and shoot on the fly. The only reason comp teams tend to push in to brawl after 2-3 kills is to just close the match - they could just as easily stay back and dig the other team out for another 3 or 4 mechs but that's just boring.

Most other FPS games have a COF or accuracy effect. The very best and most challenging (like ARMA) have very complex and unforgiving accuracy mechanics. Comparing a top tier competitive ARMA team vs a top tier competitive COD team is like comparing the world champion at Whack-A-Mole and the world champion at juggling or slight-of-hand. Yes, both have great eye-hand coordination, you could probably argue that the Whack-A-Mole guy is faster with a mallet. The other guy however has mastered a broader suite of the same skills.

Nobody who's seen anything I post on balance is going to think I'm a fan of dumbing down or devaluing skill in MW:O. Quite the contrary - the problem is that the skill curve is too brief. It needs more depth and complexity added to the combat mechanics to widen the curve and allow a more gradual and graduated progression from average to top tier. Yes, that also means that the top tier competitive players will be even better in the game than mediocre players than they are now. My ideal situation would be to have a depth of useful skills in MWO sufficient that the very best, absolute best players could consistently beat 'average' in 6v12 matches in comparable mechs.

Look at any other sport, look at the caliber and graduation of skill curve from 'average' to 'olympic'. It's a longer, more graduated arc. A premium on accuracy is the best, most reliable and friendly way to get that IMO.

The issue I’ve encountered is that, as you’ve said, you want accuracy at a premium. That inherently means that if you pay the premium, you get the accuracy.

Most of the things I’ve seen Mystere and his crowd tout, or otherwise seen people put up, is more akin to the TT description above, where accuracy isn’t a premium, it’s a myth. They want hard stops, not mitigating factors. You’re talking about briefly delaying weapons convergence (if technically possible, given engine/HSR limitations and the like); a lot of the old TT folks and those who follow them want it excised from the game forever.

You constantly hear nonsense about how “every other shooter has Cone of Failure!” and such, but every single time I point out to them that MWO has a lower rate of fire and vastly higher effective HP than any of the games they hold up as Shining Examples of Glorious Anarchy – even World of Tanks has noticeably less sheer redbar to chew through than MWO, even if half of your shots don’t count due to deflection – they either fail to respond or come up with some new name to call me rather than try and tell me why allowing weapons with four-second cooldowns, on average, attacking targets that need dozens of solid hits to bring down, should be as wildly inaccurate as a Call of Duty hipfired sniper rifle with no scope option.

As I said above – players of video games require a degree of agency that many TT players seem unable to tolerate. If a game centered on the FPS interaction of aiming and shooting at the target makes the “aiming” part effectively impossible, it is a bad game and it will not have players for long. I know Mystere won’t accept that and will continue to kvetch horribly about how the game is an INSULT TO THE MOTHERLAND(…BOARD) until such time as all gunfire is ‘controlled’ by server-authoritative backend queries to Random.org every time a trigger is pulled, but every time this crap comes up I can only hope I managed to swing at least one new reader out there back onto the path of logic and rational thinking.

You talk about IW being an integral part of damage-dealing via its effects on weapon accuracy and shot placement. Is there any other way for IW to be relevant? I understand the issues with the comparative value of secondary bits like paperdolls versus primary bits like seeing the enemy with eyeballs and shooting them, and why IW is difficult to meaningfully implement in a game where sensors aren’t really necessary to find and shoot the bad guys most of the time. But what you said earlier kinda nails it – accuracy at a premium.

That premium needs to be actively payable, and not just by doing stupid schitt like stopping dead-still at zero heat and firing one medium laser at a time the way Mysty and crew keep going on about. If we’re talking about accuracy at a premium, it needs to be a premium that can be paid in real combat by real people, without necessarily forcing them to forfeit any options they have of defending themselves or maneuvering for advantage.

Every (good) game with Cone of Failure has ways to mitigate or outright eliminate Cone of Failure for your attacks. Their premiums for accuracy are payable, usually in a relatively quick and intuitive manner. That’s the bit that certain old TT blowhards keep forgetting, and it’s the part people need to remember. If you can never pull off skilled shots or improve your ability to do so because the game is built to basically be a string of random dice rolls to Better Simulate The Authentic Tabletop Experience© of our A BattleTech Game™, then nobody will play anymore. Not in a one-man-one-‘Mech, first person cockpit simulator.

If you want that sort of idiocy, HBS’ BattleTech is inbound next year.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

1453 R, on 08 December 2016 - 08:25 AM, said:

The issue I’ve encountered is that, as you’ve said, you want accuracy at a premium. That inherently means that if you pay the premium, you get the accuracy.

Every (good) game with Cone of Failure has ways to mitigate or outright eliminate Cone of Failure for your attacks. Their premiums for accuracy are payable, usually in a relatively quick and intuitive manner. That’s the bit that certain old TT blowhards keep forgetting, and it’s the part people need to remember. If you can never pull off skilled shots or improve your ability to do so because the game is built to basically be a string of random dice rolls to Better Simulate The Authentic Tabletop Experience© of our A BattleTech Game™, then nobody will play anymore. Not in a one-man-one-‘Mech, first person cockpit simulator.

If you want that sort of idiocy, HBS’ BattleTech is inbound next year.

This isnt a FPS... it just has some of the trappings, very fun trappings but still not relevant to the base fundamentals of the game. This is a game of chess where the pieces shoot at each other... I had to stop watching the Championship it was so painful watching what were the supposedly the best teams in the game playing so badly that they were doing what I berate PUGs for doing. Hack one of the teams tried the same opening maneuver twice in a row that is by far the worst thing Charlie lance can ever do on Mining, the shooting part of the game is almost irrelevant in PUGs because Positioning is way more important than Twitch. Shooting is apparently totally irrelevant at the highest levels of the game as well because they don't even know that positioning is important. It was so painful to watch teams Lose when I wanted to be watching teams Win, a fitting analogy would be beating a football team that fumbles the ball 3 times and throws 4 interceptions is never impressive.

[H I A S]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 08 December 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

This isnt a FPS...

i play in first person only.
i shoot stuff.
it is an FPS.

Quote

I had to stop watching the Championship it was so painful watching what were the supposedly the best teams in the game playing so badly that they were doing what I berate PUGs for doing.

bring seven buddies and beat top5 NA/EU.

Edited by arivio, 08 December 2016 - 09:45 AM.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

arivio, on 08 December 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

i play in first person only.
i shoot stuff.
it is an FPS.



bring seven buddies and beat top5 NA/EU.

See what I mean... Its not CoD, hell it's not even CS:GO. Playing at the top level should be where Twitch is actually relevant because both teams know positioning & maneuvers so that "Die Rolls" are actually important. But after watching them do outrageously bad maneuvers that outright lost them the game BEFORE A SHOT HAD EVEN BEEN FIRED, it really made it clear that people severely misunderstand the game we are playing. Its one thing where over half the maps across the different modes are an autoloss just by Charlie lance going the wrong way around an obstacle at spawn in PUG matches happens, it's entirely different when the best teams in the game ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY FROM SPAWN!!!

I can predict over 60% of how games are going to end by the end of the first minute & over 90% by 2 minutes (not counting weekends or European server cause both teams are terrible and it takes longer to figure out which team is the extra terrible team.) So long before shooting as even started, the games are won or lost by movement/coordination/positioning of the first 2 minutes in the vast overwhelming majority of matches.

Flanking, Sweeps, Defensive or Offensive positions, creating temporary tactical advantage and pressing it home... that's what is fun to me, yet I'm stuck just trying to get people not to ridgeline themselves which is basic combat 101.

[H I A S]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 08 December 2016 - 10:12 AM, said:

See what I mean... Its not CoD, hell it's not even CS:GO. Playing at the top level should be where Twitch is actually relevant because both teams know positioning & maneuvers so that "Die Rolls" are actually important. But after watching them do outrageously bad maneuvers that outright lost them the game BEFORE A SHOT HAD EVEN BEEN FIRED, it really made it clear that people severely misunderstand the game we are playing. Its one thing where over half the maps across the different modes are an autoloss just by Charlie lance going the wrong way around an obstacle at spawn in PUG matches happens, it's entirely different when the best teams in the game ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY FROM SPAWN!!!

I can predict over 60% of how games are going to end by the end of the first minute & over 90% by 2 minutes (not counting weekends or European server cause both teams are terrible and it takes longer to figure out which team is the extra terrible team.) So long before shooting as even started, the games are won or lost by movement/coordination/positioning of the first 2 minutes in the vast overwhelming majority of matches.

Flanking, Sweeps, Defensive or Offensive positions, creating temporary tactical advantage and pressing it home... that's what is fun to me, yet I'm stuck just trying to get people not to ridgeline themselves which is basic combat 101.

I personally looking forward to the records of the best dropcaller of MWO leading his Team to victory.

pls PM me when done.

btw: you know why EMP are the #1 of MWOWC? it was all about mapcontroll.

Edited by arivio, 08 December 2016 - 10:36 AM.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

arivio, on 08 December 2016 - 10:30 AM, said:

btw: you know why EMP are the #1 of MWOWC? it was all about mapcontroll.

Ok... Hard to be worse than 228WO running Charlie lance up the C line from spawn on Mining, TWICE!!! Just focus them down real quick and the game was over, which they did. I can get teir 4/5 PUGs to pull off that maneuver & regularly do since I'm hoping the enemy team is going to play that badly which rewards my hopes at least 1/3 of the time. My entire point is... That should never happen in the Championship matches for the Championship to mean anything.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

I_AM_ZUUL, on 08 December 2016 - 10:56 AM, said:

Ok... Hard to be worse than 228WO running

228WO isn't even in the top ten teams within MWO, the skill gap between NA/EU and Oceanic is pretty large. They got to the WC because of PGI's stupid region rules, not because they are one of the top teams in MWO.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2016 - 10:59 AM.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

I honestly HATE meta in general in any game. I suppose you call me hipster or something, but to be honest, the idea of meta to me is like being a sheep; hence why I often say "meta sheeps" when I talk about it. As a "creative" person, submitting to the meta is like willingly selling your soul to a machine with no creativity, no individualism, no life and in turn, you yourself becomes a machine.

Of course you could argue that it's the most optimal way to customize your mech so you can win, To me, winning is not everything in a game. Having fun is one of the most important thing to have in a game IMHO. But I suppose fun is a very subjective term that differs from pilot to pilot.

When you're playing against the same things over and over and over and over and over again, it gets stale pretty quick, especially when the best way to "counter" the meta is to join the meta. It gets stale and boring and we have to remember that MWO at the end of the day is a video game - a form of entertainment. If you easily get bored because the game failed to entertain you, then the game fails. IMHO, the meta is killing MWO for me and I guess that explains why I'm always on and off with this game. I play against the meta for a bit, leave then come back to deal with the next meta.

But that's my personal opinion and the way I see meta. I know you can't really kill the meta, but the meta can be changed so that it doesn't become the driving force of the game.