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Please Stop Calling Them Potatoes


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#161 JediPanther

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Posted 19 December 2016 - 10:15 PM

View PostSo You Say, on 18 December 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

We'll I am for one someone who has exhibited as you say "potato" behavior. I am a long time player of a game called RoboCraft where you can build your own mech. In that game their is no friendly fire. The mechs also have side strafing. Having played MWO for two days now I am getting used to the slow to turn and non-strafable mechs. It has been a challenge but I am slowly overcoming my RoboCraft habits.

It is sometimes hard for experienced players of a game to recall what the challenges a different set of controls and physics brings. As with most things practice makes perfect. I avoid playing FP do spare the experienced players from my poor gameplay. This game is definitely one that needs an investment in time to play well.

Don't know yet whether I will stick with this game. There appears to be a huge skill gap that separates players both from a gameplay and "how to understand your loadout" perspective. What is easy for experienced players is hard for new players. We will learn to compete if we can stick through the grind against vastly superior builds and pilots.

A few moments from my first two days playing MWO
  • Having a light mech up my HBK IICs *** (There is a chance I am your potato) blasting his 10 lasers moving faster than I can rotate. That clan L200 in that mech is too slow. Can't afford to upgrade to a L235 though, not enough credits. No fun. It's funny the same things that new players complained about in RoboCraft I am complaining about here. That spectator time was pretty long that game.
  • Why is it I can't join a new game after dying within the first 30 seconds? Is it punishment for being a new player and having only one mech bay?
  • Getting snipped by someone who probably has a zoom module. How the hell could they see me from that far away let alone snipe my arm? Only 4000 more GXP before I can get one Posted Image. Lets see, earning GXP in the low teens per match how many games will I need to play? 250 WTF. All this module and skill **** puts new players at a distinct disadvantage.
  • Getting gang **** by the entire enemy team because habit had me pushing forward to go forward which actually sent me left out of cover. Thanks RoboCraft.
  • Capping Alpha in my Artic Cheetah and rendezvousing with my team to find only one other player left alive with a good part of the enemy team still around. We won thanks to capping points Posted Image
  • Sticking with a group of assault and heavies giving them ECM coverage in my Cheetah. Down to the last three on their side and the last four on our side. The rest of my team was in such sorry shape that the last enemy was able to rush us and we barely killed him for the victory. See I learned to play support Posted Image


Mwo does have a big learning curve from other games. Here's a few tips and comments on the things you brought up. If you need more there is a sub forum called new player help or make a thread in general dis for help. Posting there helps from de-railing other threads.

1. When you have a mech with arm mounted weapons it is easier to fight and shoot with arm lock turned off. You can aim your arm weapons faster and on target with the little circle icon showing where they are aimed. You can toggle it off/on in settings. As for fighting lights always aim for the legs while backing your mech up against a wall or other map feature. I am a light pilot so the moment I notice a mech aiming only for my legs I go the hell away fast as a light with a shot off leg only goes 40kph.

1.a Learn to break our circle-of-death. A light will constantly try running in a circle around you to hit your weakest back armor. Take note of the direction it is going then slam your mech in full reverse the opposite direction. This lets you torso twist and track that light. Fire at the legs with weapons. The faster you learn this the less and less you'll die from behind to lights. It also tells me as a light pilot how experienced you are in fighting me off. Oh he is backing up and tracking me...screw that I got eleven other mechs to back stab.

2. Only having one mech and bay tells me you're using your first or second bought mech. Congrats as you now have full access to the mech lab to tinker and improve your mech. By default you should have 3-4 empty mech bays. You can choose any trial mech and use it for free. You might have the mech checked as "favorite" and be looking at the favorite filter in mech lab. Uncheck the filers and you should go back to default mech lab.

You can sort mech bay by layout and column view as well as by all inner sphere mechs,clan mechs or all. You can also choose to sort by weight class such as medium,light,heavy etc. The 30 second wait time might just be entering the queue and finding a match. It generally takes longer when you play the more popular weight class with heavy class being the most popular. The quick play mode has no respawns like other muti-player shooters.

You get 1 mech per 15 min match. Use it wisely,spectate a lot learn from your mistakes, watch how others play and use the forums for advice. There are 4 respawns in fraction play but I stress fraction play is NOT for people just getting into mwo. In that mode you are best when you know the game pretty well,the mechs are skilled up with a buildout that works well for you and you are in a unit of some type.

3. Being sniped happens all the time. Adv Zoom just helps you aim nothing more. All the skills are going to be redone soon so a lot of people will have to reskill including vets. Those skills go up roughly 2.5-3.5 to a max of ten percent or twelve. I haven't seen the exact number but it is universal. Yes you are at a disadvantage at first but you can play better and smarter. A bad pilot will be bad no matter how good their mech is compared to a pilot who has learned how to use their mech without relying on quirks,skills, or weapon stats.

For example the ecm and lrm missiles. Before ecm people had to learn how to avoid lrms using terrain,moving into and out of the lrm's arc, and using the ams. With ecm most people don't know how to use cover to avoid lrms. They are horrible at avoiding lrms when some one counters their ecm with tag laser,narc beacon,uav module, our just counter ecm from beagle/clan active probe.

4. Using cover when advancing is the best way. Some matches will be a wipe as people make a lot of mistakes and some matches you'll have an easy win.

5. I'm glad you noticed the points. It use to be in conquest you could just kill all the enemy team for the win. Now it is so more about the points. For conquest I find the team that keeps and maintains three cap points the longest wins. As a side note I urge you to take the ecm off the ach and learn to go without it for a while. You'll learn to pilots light mechs a lot better with improved map awareness and learn how to deal with lrms using cover, and how to engage and disengage the enemy better. You'll avoid needing ecm as a crutch.

6. Being support is really good for the team. It sadly goes underappreciated in a lot of matches. When I play the assault class,which I frankly suck at, i'm glad when the light comes to give ecm cover not just from lrm fire but in general so i can get to firing range of the enemy. When you see a buddy under heavy lrm fire you'll see three small missile icons by their mech id box, as long as you are 90m or less you can block the guidance of the lrms and cover them from radar. My support from closed beta was as a catapult c1 lrm-er then I switched to the jenner-d becoming good in both; according to my last stats they are my two top mechs.

#162 Void Angel

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Posted 20 December 2016 - 11:07 AM

Actually, the term "potato" entered into the internet's lexicon with the release of Portal 2:

The various crudely-drawn "potato" memes date from after the game's release. Posted Image

Edited by Void Angel, 21 December 2016 - 11:11 AM.


#163 Jackal Noble

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Posted 20 December 2016 - 11:09 AM

PATARTARS

#164 RestosIII

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Posted 20 December 2016 - 11:22 AM

View PostMaximusPayne, on 18 December 2016 - 06:20 PM, said:

Yeah I don't get the "potato=suck" thing either. Potatoes were cool long before sliced bread. They're very healthy, tasty, versatile, and can even be used as a battery. Hell, nations have fallen due to their lack of potatoes. Calling me a potato will only cheer me up.


Of course this is coming from someone that claims they're from Ohio. Posted Image

#165 RussianWolf

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Posted 21 December 2016 - 10:24 AM

View PostVoid Angel, on 19 December 2016 - 01:12 PM, said:

... Must restrain.... self... manfully... ah, screwit.

"Touche." (Technically with an accent over the e.)

My grandmother was a schoolteacher, so my mom beat English into my thick skull early. Interestingly, however, Google's search prediction makes a great spell checker. =)


I've had matches like this...

I misspelled it intentionally given the second half of my post. lol (spell check even highlighted it)

#166 Void Angel

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Posted 21 December 2016 - 11:11 AM

Well done. "Lol" is missing a capital, and the second sentence lacks end punctuation. Also, a comma after "intentionally" would clarify the first sentence well.

Posted Image

#167 So You Say

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Posted 21 December 2016 - 03:36 PM

View PostJediPanther, on 19 December 2016 - 10:15 PM, said:


Mwo does have a big learning curve from other games. Here's a few tips and comments on the things you brought up. If you need more there is a sub forum called new player help or make a thread in general dis for help. Posting there helps from de-railing other threads.

1. When you have a mech with arm mounted weapons it is easier to fight and shoot with arm lock turned off. You can aim your arm weapons faster and on target with the little circle icon showing where they are aimed. You can toggle it off/on in settings. As for fighting lights always aim for the legs while backing your mech up against a wall or other map feature. I am a light pilot so the moment I notice a mech aiming only for my legs I go the hell away fast as a light with a shot off leg only goes 40kph.

1.a Learn to break our circle-of-death. A light will constantly try running in a circle around you to hit your weakest back armor. Take note of the direction it is going then slam your mech in full reverse the opposite direction. This lets you torso twist and track that light. Fire at the legs with weapons. The faster you learn this the less and less you'll die from behind to lights. It also tells me as a light pilot how experienced you are in fighting me off. Oh he is backing up and tracking me...screw that I got eleven other mechs to back stab.

2. Only having one mech and bay tells me you're using your first or second bought mech. Congrats as you now have full access to the mech lab to tinker and improve your mech. By default you should have 3-4 empty mech bays. You can choose any trial mech and use it for free. You might have the mech checked as "favorite" and be looking at the favorite filter in mech lab. Uncheck the filers and you should go back to default mech lab.

You can sort mech bay by layout and column view as well as by all inner sphere mechs,clan mechs or all. You can also choose to sort by weight class such as medium,light,heavy etc. The 30 second wait time might just be entering the queue and finding a match. It generally takes longer when you play the more popular weight class with heavy class being the most popular. The quick play mode has no respawns like other muti-player shooters.

You get 1 mech per 15 min match. Use it wisely,spectate a lot learn from your mistakes, watch how others play and use the forums for advice. There are 4 respawns in fraction play but I stress fraction play is NOT for people just getting into mwo. In that mode you are best when you know the game pretty well,the mechs are skilled up with a buildout that works well for you and you are in a unit of some type.

3. Being sniped happens all the time. Adv Zoom just helps you aim nothing more. All the skills are going to be redone soon so a lot of people will have to reskill including vets. Those skills go up roughly 2.5-3.5 to a max of ten percent or twelve. I haven't seen the exact number but it is universal. Yes you are at a disadvantage at first but you can play better and smarter. A bad pilot will be bad no matter how good their mech is compared to a pilot who has learned how to use their mech without relying on quirks,skills, or weapon stats.

For example the ecm and lrm missiles. Before ecm people had to learn how to avoid lrms using terrain,moving into and out of the lrm's arc, and using the ams. With ecm most people don't know how to use cover to avoid lrms. They are horrible at avoiding lrms when some one counters their ecm with tag laser,narc beacon,uav module, our just counter ecm from beagle/clan active probe.

4. Using cover when advancing is the best way. Some matches will be a wipe as people make a lot of mistakes and some matches you'll have an easy win.

5. I'm glad you noticed the points. It use to be in conquest you could just kill all the enemy team for the win. Now it is so more about the points. For conquest I find the team that keeps and maintains three cap points the longest wins. As a side note I urge you to take the ecm off the ach and learn to go without it for a while. You'll learn to pilots light mechs a lot better with improved map awareness and learn how to deal with lrms using cover, and how to engage and disengage the enemy better. You'll avoid needing ecm as a crutch.

6. Being support is really good for the team. It sadly goes underappreciated in a lot of matches. When I play the assault class,which I frankly suck at, i'm glad when the light comes to give ecm cover not just from lrm fire but in general so i can get to firing range of the enemy. When you see a buddy under heavy lrm fire you'll see three small missile icons by their mech id box, as long as you are 90m or less you can block the guidance of the lrms and cover them from radar. My support from closed beta was as a catapult c1 lrm-er then I switched to the jenner-d becoming good in both; according to my last stats they are my two top mechs.


Thanks for the advice. I did find the spectating time to be quite a valuable learning time. I have started to apply some of the techniques you mention for dealing with lights such as backing up to a wall and switching to scatter weapons. The latest loadout on my HBK IIC are two EEPC and two MG's. The EEPC for long range and the MG for in your face encounters during EEPC cool down.

Regarding playing a support role. I will try and pair up my AC Prime with a heavy or assault to provide support but I will tell you half the time they don't play their role and I end up leaving their side out of boredom.

Regarding the trial mechs, I have played a few of them but many don't have load outs that I like. I can tell you for someone new it is easier to earn CB's in an assault. Probably comes down to surviving mistakesPosted Image . I would like to see more variety in trial mech load outs to entice players like me to try different bots.

After a few days playing I can definitely say mobility, even on the largest mechs, is of paramount importance. Regardless of how tanky you are if you can't get to cover in a reasonable amount of time you will have trouble. After upgrading, at great expense, from an C -XL-200 to a C-XL-255 on the HBK IIC the difference is night vs day on mobility. And I did end up getting the advanced zoom module. Now I will be the annoying guy who hits you with double EEPC from 1300 meters.

#168 RestosIII

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Posted 21 December 2016 - 03:42 PM

View PostSo You Say, on 21 December 2016 - 03:36 PM, said:

And I did end up getting the advanced zoom module. Now I will be the annoying guy who hits you with double EEPC from 1300 meters.


Just be careful with when/where you use Advanced Zoom, and how long you use it. Too many people use it all the time, and tunnel vision and/or miss shots due to how it works. There's nothing as satisfying as finding a sniper that refuses to leave Advanced Zoom, and getting a free headshot/rear shots out of it, but on the flipside there's nothing as infuriating as seeing an ally using Advanced Zoom to fight a target at 300 meters and missing all their shots and trying to facetank because of it.

#169 RussianWolf

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Posted 21 December 2016 - 06:39 PM

View PostVoid Angel, on 21 December 2016 - 11:11 AM, said:

Well done. "Lol" is missing a capital, and the second sentence lacks end punctuation. Also, a comma after "intentionally" would clarify the first sentence well.

Posted Image

but is that supposed to be LOL or is it a guy hold both arms up going "Goal!!!!!" ;)

#170 The Unstoppable Puggernaut

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 03:06 AM

I feel a bit bad for IS. I played some scouting matches which went far too well/easily. One of the games where I found the enemy. I was sniping them with cERLarges for fun, they wouldn't move. I then had someone trying to shoot me back with large lasers which were well out of range and also a Grid Iron snipe me with lbx10 while I cored 3 of them out with dual cERlarge. I lost 1% health.

Perhaps something more visual needs to be done to show weapons out of range?

Without trying to sound rude, if IS players end up having this grade of players fighting for them, the tonnage will need to be upped again. I'd imagine this is what Tier 5 farming is like, if it is, absolute shame on the people who do this.

#171 Ted Wayz

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 09:06 AM

Potatoes have eyes. And they are watching you!

How about we call them patatoes? Then take the whole day off?

#172 dezgra

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 09:09 AM

I self identify as a "Seasoned Curly Fry".

#173 Commander A9

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 11:56 AM

What else do you prefer we address them by?

Their actual politically correct description?

#174 RestosIII

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 12:13 PM

View PostThe Unstoppable Puggernaut, on 26 December 2016 - 03:06 AM, said:

I feel a bit bad for IS. I played some scouting matches which went far too well/easily. One of the games where I found the enemy. I was sniping them with cERLarges for fun, they wouldn't move. I then had someone trying to shoot me back with large lasers which were well out of range and also a Grid Iron snipe me with lbx10 while I cored 3 of them out with dual cERlarge. I lost 1% health.

Perhaps something more visual needs to be done to show weapons out of range?

Without trying to sound rude, if IS players end up having this grade of players fighting for them, the tonnage will need to be upped again. I'd imagine this is what Tier 5 farming is like, if it is, absolute shame on the people who do this.


Did... did you just say someone was firing an LBX-10 at you from long range?

Posted Image

The sheer idiocy hurts.

#175 Aramuside

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 12:28 PM

View PostAntares102, on 14 December 2016 - 04:33 AM, said:

Unfortunatelly if PGI did it differently (properly) then most T1 won't get a
game within 15 minutes during the lowest population period.
Serious question: What would be preferable? Not playing or playing with potatoes?


Wouldn't they though? It only took me around 1,291 matches to hit tier 1 (that was when I noticed) and that's not really that many in the scheme of things. Are you likely to be new at that stage - well no but there's still a huge gap between mine and protons skill and according to this MM we're the same. ;)

At this stage any player who plays even casually like me is tier 1 quite quickly.

#176 MW222

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 07:26 PM

I think I see the problem, to much starch and not enought salt?

Posted Image



#177 a gaijin

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Posted 26 December 2016 - 07:39 PM

View PostRestosIII, on 26 December 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:


Did... did you just say someone was firing an LBX-10 at you from long range?
The sheer idiocy hurts.


And while that happens they sit in their cockpits 800+ meters away shooting their LBX's off singing to the melody of Lesley Gore's "It's my party" ...

It's my ammo and I'll shoot if I want to♫♪ Shoot if I want to♫♪ Posted Image


Pretty bad, right? Yup...I've actually done that before too. but it was just to "say hi" to someone that was sniping at my team...and that sniper turned and ran afterwards so I stopped wasting ammo at that point.
Was I trolling? Maybe. Did it stop that guy from sniping? At the moment it did so I guess that "tactic" worked. Posted Image

#178 Ovion

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Posted 27 December 2016 - 02:44 AM

View PostRestosIII, on 26 December 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

Did... did you just say someone was firing an LBX-10 at you from long range?

The sheer idiocy hurts.
Depends on the situation honestly.

Each LBX pellet has the impulse of an AC5 shell.
So if your target doesn't see it hit, or there's a lot of fire, they tend to back off as they can't risk getting hit by that many AC5's.

At long range (remembering that an ISLBX10 can reach 1620M), it might not be an effective weapon for damage, but it can certainly be an effective weapon for guiding / getting targets to hide / psychological effect, especially with PUGs who are just so damn timid.

I throw in an extra ton of LBX ammo where-ever I can to allow for long range pegging, just to utilise the effects of that impulse value.

- Now of course, in a scouting match where you can clearly see them, shooting more than 1-2 shots past 500M just to try and get the enemies head down is dumb.

#179 Zergling

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Posted 27 December 2016 - 04:15 AM

I had a Mauler with LBXs shooting from over 600 meters at my BJ-A, where I was sniping at enemies from a hill.

The hits didn't do much damage, but they did annoy me enough to make me change target to the Mauler. He retreated fairly quickly once he realised how horribly outmatched at range he was by my triple ER Large.





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