139 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Tristan Winter, on 22 January 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

I still haven't figured out if certain things are deliberate or if they happen by accident. I think that's why the dartboard jokes are common. It's hard to spot any kind of consistent logic. Even bittervets who accuse PGI of P2W balancing are scratching their heads.

It's a bit of both.

It's deliberate when they want certain mechs to be the new meta and sell some packs (see ACH, KDK-3), but it's haphazard when you don't understand the mech in detail (see Archer).

[jjm1]

Farewell glorious energy quirk. Might be a good game to go out on.



4 arm mounted MPLs and 1 epic troll-NARC. And I touched everyone

[MacClearly]

Catra Lanis, on 21 January 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

I'm inclined to agree with RestosIII here that it is indeed an XP bar. Like him I'm roughly average at best and I'm in T2. I got there from T4 when the system was introduced after 1000 matches in a Victor-9K. Average player+below average mech, it should not happen even after 1000 matches.

Except that if it was an experience bar you would go up with experience. This system however is a heavily biased towards wining.

[Deathlike]

MacClearly, on 22 January 2017 - 04:43 PM, said:

Except that if it was an experience bar you would go up with experience. This system however is a heavily biased towards wining.

TBH, any matchmaking system SHOULD be biased to winning.

The difference is that your contribution should be meaningful.

If you are the first one to die and deal no damage, there's no reason to move up in ratings. You might as well have not been there.

[Maker L106]

A bit of Insight on the Shadow Cat can be had by its Poptart PPC build or its peerless mobility for its weight. good JJ's AND MASC make that thing very fluid to pilot. I typically ran it with 2LPL's ECM and NARC to great effect (when not running narc just tag in 3cMG's.) Granted take a look at my tier placement.

That said It's one of very few mechs I played where I felt it was the best of its kind. DPS typically only matters if you can hold it up and mids hit / run game is matched only by lights, which that Cat can track down and kill. Bottom line, it has top tier mobility for a mid and may be restricted on hardpoints but is very good within its weight class and grouping.

Now to be fair I don't understand why it got nerfed in the way's ive read and I've yet to pilot it afterward to see if it's affected me at all, but I'm sure making the shadow cat more squishy is something I wont like. Then again I prefer Lighter mids and heavier lights (armor vs speed mix) for exactly that reason. Hopefully my 150+k exp on the SCat isn't down the can after the skill trees release.

[MacClearly]

Deathlike, on 22 January 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

TBH, any matchmaking system SHOULD be biased to winning.

The difference is that your contribution should be meaningful.

If you are the first one to die and deal no damage, there's no reason to move up in ratings. You might as well have not been there.

If you do no damage in a win you get an equal sign and don't go up. If you run a narcing Raven you can still get a decent score even without high damage and go up in a win which is likely what the system intended. It is however hard to play a mech like that in a loss and get enough of a score to go up. It is easier to use a high alpha assault to manipulate the system however or even a heavy.

All that said the system does weed out the truly terrible.

[Dee Eight]

Albino Boo, on 21 January 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

Why is your view more valid than that of tier 3 player? There are more of them than tier 1 players.

And some of us play waaaaaaayyyyy more games than T1 forum complainers. In another thread I think friday, some T1 said he rarely sees the poptart HBK2C ERPPC build and thus didn't understand them being nerfed with less torso twist... I commented I see them about 20% of my games. On a hunch I looked at his leader board results for just the current month just to count matches. About 50 FW games and 110 QP games. I'm currently at 98 FW and 542 QP games.

[Deathlike]

Dee Eight, on 22 January 2017 - 08:24 PM, said:

And some of us play waaaaaaayyyyy more games than T1 forum complainers. In another thread I think friday, some T1 said he rarely sees the poptart HBK2C ERPPC build and thus didn't understand them being nerfed with less torso twist... I commented I see them about 20% of my games. On a hunch I looked at his leader board results for just the current month just to count matches. About 50 FW games and 110 QP games. I'm currently at 98 FW and 542 QP games.

You may play more... but that doesn't make you good.

[Dee Eight]

Maker L106, on 22 January 2017 - 06:13 PM, said:

A bit of Insight on the Shadow Cat can be had by its Poptart PPC build or its peerless mobility for its weight. good JJ's AND
Now to be fair I don't understand why it got nerfed in the way's ive read and I've yet to pilot it afterward to see if it's affected me at all, but I'm sure making the shadow cat more squishy is something I wont like. Then again I prefer Lighter mids and heavier lights (armor vs speed mix) for exactly that reason. Hopefully my 150+k exp on the SCat isn't down the can after the skill trees release.

The nerf doesn't arrive until the january patch on the 24th. And the nerf is restricted to removing the arm and leg structure quirks and the VERY minor MG rof boost which isn't needed since they upped the MG damage and shrunk its cone of fire in the december patch. Oh and the set of 8 bonuses lost the minor engine quirks (none of which was more than 5% anyway). The A set bonus picked up 10% missile cooldown and 5% laser range, the B got a missile cooldown and accel/decel all at 10%, the P got a 10% ballstic range, 5% ballistic cooldown and its right arm pod got its ballistic cooldown raised up to 5% and the gauss cooldown also raised to 5%, and the prime pics up a 10% ball cooldown and 5% energy cooldown.

[MacClearly]

Dee Eight, on 22 January 2017 - 08:24 PM, said:

And some of us play waaaaaaayyyyy more games than T1 forum complainers. In another thread I think friday, some T1 said he rarely sees the poptart HBK2C ERPPC build and thus didn't understand them being nerfed with less torso twist... I commented I see them about 20% of my games. On a hunch I looked at his leader board results for just the current month just to count matches. About 50 FW games and 110 QP games. I'm currently at 98 FW and 542 QP games.

Think about these torso nerfs. They might effect guys poptarting in tier 3. It might effect them because they to need the range are popping up too high and shooting down. Likely because it takes them longer to aim and fire. I am willing to bet guys who are really good at it won't even notice.

[a gaijin]

Sniper09121986, on 21 January 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

Well, I find Titanfall's take on ultraheavy protomechs very entertaining Actually Battletech franchise is in a position when ANY kind of popular game would do it good, even if it were CoD level stuff (the original CoD before MW were actually quite decent). That would give the franchise enough popularity to warrant the development of more... developed games Games Workshop was not afraid to go PC with the original DoW and right now both WH franchises are skyrocketing. PGI really needs to go through their priorities and pick a direction they want to go. So far I am not convinced they know what to do with their product, and the confusion pointed at by the OP is symptomatic.

Well there certainly is a market for Titanfall. A few ppl at work played/play it.

It's just not for me though. Same thing with CoD/Modern Warfare (seems to have stolen the "MW" abbreviation too ).
These new fangled shooters just do nothing for me. But I guess that's cause I've been burnt out on FPS since Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament 2003.

Actually, I think the mechs in MWO move way too fast...but I "forgive it" cause this is the only MechWarrior we got. I prefer the dirty, grimy, angular, look and "realistic" movements and weapon systems of MechWarrior (and BattleTech even though I don't play it).

I don't want to play GundamWarrior Online or Pacific Rim Online. I want good, ol', familiar MechWarrior.

I realize I may be a "niche" gamer but that's okay because the less games I like the more $$$ I can throw at the studios I actually do like

It actually makes finding new games to play easier for me because there are so many I don't like.
**cough**Zenimax Media is a gaming industry cancer**cough**

[Nightshade24]

Tristan Winter, on 21 January 2017 - 05:35 AM, said:

Here's what it seems like to me:

• SHC and SMN were underperformers for a long time, ever since they were released. SHC was outclassed by Nova and Stormcrow, SMN was outclassed by Hellbringer and Timber Wolf.
  
• People struggled to find more than 1 or 2 decent builds for these mechs.
  
• PGI buffed CERPPCs
  
• PGI gave SMN some Energy nipple hardpoints.
  
• SHC and SMN became popular poptart builds.
  
• PGI nerfed SMN and SHC.

To my eyes, it seems like PGI is basically making it harder to play the SHC or SMN without poptarting PPCs, which was the main thing they were good at before.


SHC now has zero bonus leg structure and also lost structure quirks for the ECM omnipod. Weapon quirks are tied to 8-set bonuses, but most of the stock omnipod configurations are bad. Also, combining different omnipods with different bonuses (legs had either structure, acceleration or turn rate bonus) was one way to put together different builds with different abilities, but you can't do that now.

SMN now has less torso twist, which makes it a worse brawler but doesn't affect its poptarting that much. It also has less energy weapon quirks, which reduces its already terrible DPS for anyone who doesn't have loyalty omnipods. Have fun with your OP 2LPL+2ML build without energy heat reduction. You can always equip a single SRM6 for that massive alpha strike.

Someone please explain. Are comp players using some other builds for the SHC and SMN that I don't know about? Is the CUAC10 + 3CERML Shadow Cat back? Is the SRM-Summoner taking over? What's going on?

Personally I found it like this (as a tier 2 player, playing since 2013, and nearly hitting tier 1)...

• As the way I saw it, Shadowcat was always good even without quirks. I loved the 'mech before quirks and I love it after it. It is very fast and sure a Nova does more damage then it but the Shadowcat does more damage then a kitfox, adder, or ice ferret which most of which I just listed this thing out runs. Summoner? I found it quite decent recently. I checked most of the 'nerfs', most of them are minor, to strong omnipods BUT if you look there is a few counter-buffs to help it out. I do very well in these mechs in tier 2.
  
• I struggle to fend myself from buying more Summoners and Shadowcats to restrain myself from doing more builds I find fun and competetive ( I already bought 2 Shadowcat primes...). Of course to many people try to use the same cookie cutter of meta across all mechs... hence why some people use the same build on their Direwolf as they did in a Kit Fox with some changes. Double these weapons... throw in a gauss, etc.
  
• Not a bad thing
  
• Not a bad thing
  
• They always were since release...
  
• They also buffed MG's and ER PPC's, they changed the quirks accordingly. For eg that MG quirk nerf is response to the buffed MG's (that and you remember PGI hates MG spammers so it's better this then them nerfing MG's again like they did last time 2-3 years ago).

You may have issues but I got no problems with it. I will enjoy these mechs thoroughly and I am patiently awaiting what exciting hero the Shadowcat will recieve.

Lily from animove, on 21 January 2017 - 07:10 AM, said:

I also find it quite bad that a mech gets a nerf for all it's playstyles while it is just one that makes it excel

I find this also annoying. At least I can see where the MG nerf came from.

[a gaijin]

Mystere, on 21 January 2017 - 06:21 PM, said:

Dreams sometime eventually have to face reality. In PGI's case, that reality is probably rooted on economics and the niche nature of the BT IP.



Damn! I need to get myself some of those.

In the meantime, I'm going to make do with this:

I haven't had that. As long as it's kind of dry the taste might be similar.

Chuhais (or Chu-hi) are really good. And one is never enough.

Come to Japan!

Actually there are a few here I wouldn't mind sending a 6-pack to

Edited by Star Commander Horse, 23 January 2017 - 01:39 AM.

[Tristan Winter]

Nightshade24, on 22 January 2017 - 10:48 PM, said:

You may have issues but I got no problems with it. I will enjoy these mechs thoroughly and I am patiently awaiting what exciting hero the Shadowcat will recieve.

After my ACH, Hellbringer and Warhawk, my SHC-Prime has the highest KDR and WLR of my Clan mechs. It even outperforms my SPL Nova, which is madness. It's madness because my SHC-Prime has Gauss+ECM+2CERML, which is not really considered a good build.

People have different playstyles and, in the solo queue, playing against pugs, average players can get good results with non-standard mechs and builds. You'll see Elettro get good results in his PPC Vindicator, for example. He's been playing that for years.

But that is no way to balance a game. First of all, while I may get good results in my SHC, that doesn't change the fact that most people don't. And second of all, while I may get good results against potatoes, I am under no illusion that I would be able to get good results against teams of good players in my "super stock" Shadow Cat Prime. Just because it works for me in solo queue, doesn't mean it would work for elite players going up against elite players.

[Lily from animove]

And thats why we need negative quirks.

One build makes a mech exceed, so it gets nerfed, and suddenly all possible builds get nerfs. Which isn't a build that balances. it imbalances more than it balances.

and thats why we need negative quirks, it's one of the only ways to tone own specific builds like PPC ones. A general downgrade of quirks on the pod itself would hurt all builds utilising th pod and thats not good form ab alance point of view.

Quote

Summoner Design Notes: As indicated in the November Patch Design Notes, our data shows the Summoner continues to perform much better than its perceived popularity may suggest, even prior to the release of the Loyalty variants;

I really start to wonder where those data come from.

Edited by Lily from animove, 23 January 2017 - 02:10 AM.

[QuantumButler]

Lily from animove, on 23 January 2017 - 02:09 AM, said:

And thats why we need negative quirks.

One build makes a mech exceed, so it gets nerfed, and suddenly all possible builds get nerfs. Which isn't a build that balances. it imbalances more than it balances.

and thats why we need negative quirks, it's one of the only ways to tone own specific builds like PPC ones. A general downgrade of quirks on the pod itself would hurt all builds utilising th pod and thats not good form ab alance point of view.

[/size][/font]

I really start to wonder where those data come from.

From their imagination.

[kesmai]

One could say stupid decision by pgi, especially when i take a look at the mar2c powercreep they introduced.
Oh, wait...

[Ghogiel]

MacClearly, on 22 January 2017 - 04:43 PM, said:

Except that if it was an experience bar you would go up with experience. This system however is a heavily biased towards wining.

W/L is the only stat that demonstrates a players effect on the outcome of matches. It's the main stat.

Secondly, it's not. PSR is heavily biased on dmg, it barely gives a **** about wins.

[0bsidion]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around reading a sentence that includes Shadow Cat and over-performing and isn't satire or sarcasm. But then I thought the same thing about the SMN and broke it out after ages of collecting dust and did pretty well, (for me), in it with a similar to lore build, not even doing some meta poptart thing.

[Natred]

If they mess up the shadow cat or huntsman to the point they are unplayable, compared to how smooth and agile they have been I will be sad. Niche Mechs getting hit. Sad day.

Edited by Natred, 23 January 2017 - 07:58 AM.