89 replies to this topic

[Paigan]

Bush Hopper, on 09 February 2017 - 06:06 AM, said:

...and warns you when you were tunnel visioning in your heavy while a light mech worked his aßß off to get into your back or out of LoS on your flank. Yeah, totally irrelevant module...

/facepalm

Actually this is the reason why people recommend it so much

I'm usually one of those fatty snipers sitting tunnelvisioned and killing stuff at range without having (significant) danger for myself.
And literally EVERY time my seismic warns me about some light sneaking up on me (followed by me throwing out an UAV, unzooming, turning, unlocking arms and killing the poor ba$tard) I think "god, is this thing OP".

So it should be nerved, yes.
Or at least pushed into BAP/CAP as Juodas said (good idea! Sadly, no cookie for you )
Or even only enabled for some real infotech-role chassis (scouting lights and meds and some special heavies like maybe the Cyclops or whatever)

Until then, though, I'll have it in EVERY Mech

Edited by Paigan, 09 February 2017 - 07:51 AM.

[Davegt27]

Nerf seismic
Op do you have any videos so we can see the problem

[Ascaloth]

All I see here is "Nerf something because *I* don't know how to counter it". You can change the words "Seismic Sensor" for "LRMs", because this post is exactly like the "nerf lrms" posts.

If you are having trouble to backstab Assaults with your light mech, I'll give you a protip: use your JJs to approach the assault within 300m from behind. Seismic Sensor can't read flying Cheetos. You're welcome.

[AphexTwin11]

adamts01, on 09 February 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Every once and a while there's a legitimate nerf post, and this is one of them. Oxide and Kodiak were out of control, the Wubberine, the Firestarter and Cheetah when they were over-quirked...... Then you get **** nerf posts, like anything currently complaining about lights or LRMs..... Anyway, powercreep is real, balance is never-ending, and nerfs are a necessity of competitive PvP games.

QQ more

[Weeny Machine]

Attank, on 09 February 2017 - 07:03 AM, said:

Can you expain what do you mean for a light to "work his *** off" in order to get into an heavy/assault back?
Pushing 2 buttons (W and AorD) for about 1 sec is all a normal light pilot need to position himself on an enemy mech's back.
Does not sound like a titanic effort...
More, except for very dumb players, even without seismic you will know there is someone on your back simply by looking at your damage indicator after the first hit.
A good light pilot is not the one that sneak unnoticed onto your back, is the one able to keep position advantage.
Simply knowing that you have a light on your back does not make him explode into pieces. Nor it gives you 360 degree turning ability, or autoaim.
99% of the time i meet a good light pilot on my back i'll be toasted no matter if i see i blinking dot on my radar or not.
He will keep outmanouver me and finish his job, unless i got some help.

I have no idea in which tier you are, however, in T1 people usually aren't spread out too much to assassinate random assaults or heavies in-time before they get help.That means that if you want to get good shots in you need literally to sneak up on your target and one UAV or seismic screws you over.


The point is: a whole playstyle got wrecked when blanket after blanket direct or indirect nerf hit the light mech class. Don't get me wrong, there were points were the Huginn, FS, Oxide etc were OP. However, the nerfs were just too much and now a whole class is condemned to harassing tactics or sniping (ineffectively) away like a Raven with 2 ERLL

"99% of the time i meet a good light pilot on my back i'll be toasted no matter if i see i blinking dot on my radar or not."
Heavies turn like fat ballerinas. If you cannot keep a light in your firing arc ( and this also goes for some assaults) then the issue is you and not the "good light pilot", sorry. Even if you are in a slow assault you can park and put your behind facing an obstacle. Gratz. You just reached at least a stalemate and if the light still wins, then again the issue is you, not the "good light pilot" because in this situation you have an alpha which is 3 times his alpha.


"Can you expain what do you mean for a light to "work his *** off" in order to get into an heavy/assault back?
Pushing 2 buttons (W and AorD) for about 1 sec is all a normal light pilot need to position himself on an enemy mech's back."

Yup, you clearly play light mechs.What stupid trash talk

Edited by Bush Hopper, 09 February 2017 - 09:14 AM.

[Mystere]

fat4eyes, on 09 February 2017 - 03:52 AM, said:

Since were about to get a new skill system and everyone's going to get their module money and xp back, I'm bringing up something I wanted to say for a long time:

Seismic is too powerful. It needs to be nerfed HARD.

Seismic does what UAVs and scouts do at zero risk, and virtually no cost. Because of this both UAVs AND scouting are diminished as a result. Why send a teammate to scout behind enemy lines when you can just stand behind a wall and tell how many enemies there are? Why use a UAV that can be shot down when you can just stop moving for a bit and see where all the enemies are?

A single module deprives the game of so many 'look out he's behind you!' team chatter that its depressing. The game would be so much more exciting if teammates actually had to watch each other's backs instead of just watching their radar.

As for what the nerf will be, it has to directly affect the most powerful aspect of seismic: it lets you know how MANY enemies there are. Most times this is all the info you need to decide whether to push or not. It giving precise positiinal information is also powerful, because you can anticipate enemies rounding corners and plan attack routes.

Here's some of my suggestions on how to nerf seismic:

1. Have it show only directional information, not positions. It only will show you the direction of the biggest group of enemies without giving you a hint of how many they are or how far they are.

2. Make it unreliable (i.e. give it a +50% false positive/negative rate). Weaker than the first one, but at least you don't get 100% reliable info and there's always a RISK in deciding to believe your seismic info.

3. Severely reduce its refresh rate. Have it update every 10 seconds so you have to take the risk of waiting for the next update or relying on old info. This would still need to be combined with one of the above to prevent seismic from reporting precise numbers and positions.

4. Limit it to certain mechs. They do this to ECM, why not to seismic?

5. Completely remove it from the game. The scorched earth solution, but since everybody's getting their money back this may actually be workable. Good players will adapt as they always do, and it's one more way to level the playing field between the space-rich and the space-poor, leading to more balanced and interesting games.

FLAME ON!

Drop a 20 to 100-ton weight on your head and see if no one within 300 meters notices the commotion.

Edited by Mystere, 09 February 2017 - 09:36 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Juodas Varnas, on 09 February 2017 - 04:26 AM, said:

I'd personally would roll the seismic sensor into BAP.

Because, i'm pretty sure, canonically BAP contains seismic sensors in addition to all the other crap.
Then at least, seismic sensor would have some sort of critslot/tonnage cost associated with it.

I cannot imagine how making it a BAP fuction wouldn't help remove it as an option for tonnage strapped lights and handing it to assault and heavies who can more afford something like that.

Edited by Ghogiel, 09 February 2017 - 09:40 AM.

[razenWing]

To the OP, no one use seismic for scouting. If you do, you are doing it wrong.

/end discussion

[TercieI]

razenWing, on 09 February 2017 - 09:40 AM, said:

To the OP, no one use seismic for scouting. If you do, you are doing it wrong.

/end discussion

On this, no, you are wrong. Seismic is a key scouting tool (though not the only one nor as good as it was once).

Edited by TercieI, 09 February 2017 - 09:44 AM.

[Paigan]

razenWing, on 09 February 2017 - 09:40 AM, said:

To the OP, no one use seismic for scouting. If you do, you are doing it wrong.

/end discussion

Even if just one point would be false (which is not the case, but rather you have no idea what you are talking about), the whole topic is discarded?
Do you understand how you sound?
Ok, obviously not. But I can't explain it to you because I would get reported for it.

[Dino Might]

Seismic is purely a light nerf, and so I am all for getting rid of it completely. Never should have been in the game, at least not in the form it takes currently. It does nothing to hurt heavies and assaults, and does everything to hurt lights, when almost ALL of the "lights should be weak" crowd claim that lights should only be viable as backstabbers. Well, you can't backstab someone if they know you're coming. So, it's quite obvious why these folks only wanted lights to be able to fight that way, because seismic makes it so they can't fight well at all.

TL;DR: GET RID OF SEISMIC

[Catra Lanis]

Who put it on lights? I've been backstabbing people for two weeks in a Huggin on my alt. with no modules. Assaults need seismic, they can't flick around like lights or even mediums to check their six.

Edited by Catra Lanis, 09 February 2017 - 10:49 AM.

[Ziogualty]

Bush Hopper, on 09 February 2017 - 09:11 AM, said:

"Can you expain what do you mean for a light to "work his *** off" in order to get into an heavy/assault back?
Pushing 2 buttons (W and AorD) for about 1 sec is all a normal light pilot need to position himself on an enemy mech's back."

Yup, you clearly play light mechs.What stupid trash talk

Trash talk or not, i see you cannot still provide an answer.
And believe me, "work your ** out" means a LOT of effort, which i still would like to be explained.

Since Seismic sensor work if you stand still (stand still is the focus point here) i can assure you less than a couple secs is more than enough to maneuver around a static target. If you are not able to do so, it is not a seismic issue.

But i don't like trash talk or short-nonsense answer, so we can still debate.

All the points you are talking about have a glimpse of sense if you are a solo player, grinding lights, in Quick play with Pug matches.
Asking for a nerf is logic only if the item/modules is OP in every situation, not just a specific one.

Lights are not lone ninjas, backstabbing everyone. This is not their role, even if sometimes, with the right scenario, it could work great.

A Light could be extremely valuable and effective no matter a blinking point to the enemy radar when you are near. And i can tell you what a light does not ever ever want is to be targeted (a thing Seismic don't do), but sometimes wants to be seen, just to disrupt firing line, or hoping someone panicked or is fool enough to turn his back to more deadly enemies just to try land a shot on a trespassing fast light.

Edited by Attank, 09 February 2017 - 10:55 AM.

[FupDup]

If I had my way with the skill tree, you'd have to spend massive amounts of SP to unlock Seismic. And when I say massive I mean at minimum 50 of your 91 total SP. If you want your wallhack, you're going to have to pay up for it. You'd have to specialize yourself as a pure scout mech to get it.

Edited by FupDup, 09 February 2017 - 10:50 AM.

[Dino Might]

Attank, on 09 February 2017 - 10:50 AM, said:

Trash talk or not, i see you cannot still provide an answer.
And believe me, "work your ** out" means a LOT of effort, which i still would like to be explained.

Since Seismic sensor work if you stand still (stand still is the focus point here) i can assure you less than a couple secs is more than enough to maneuver around a static target. If you are not able to do so, it is not a seismic issue.

But i don't like trash talk or short-nonsense answer, so we can still debate.

Asking for a nerf is logic only if the item/modules is OP in every situation, not just a specific one.
All the points you are talking about have a glimpse of sense if you are a solo player, grinding lights, in Quick play with Pug matches.
Asking for a nerf is logic only if the item/modules is OP in every situation, not just a specific one.

Lights are not lone ninjas, backstabbing everyone. This is not their role, even if sometimes, with the right scenario, it could work great.

A Light could be extremely valuable and effective no matter a blinking point to the enemy radar when you are near. And i can tell you what a light does not ever ever want is to be targeted (a thing Seismic don't do), but sometimes wants to be seen, just to disrupt firing line, or hoping someone panicked or is fool enough to turn his back to more deadly enemies just to try land a shot on a fast light.

Your supposition is that lights are just good to be the bait - soft and chewie cookies. That's fun play for some, but not for most. I, personally, can only take so much of a bullet-hell game.

Remember, to successfully backstab, you have to get behind the enemy undetected. It may be easy to get behind an enemy, but not without him knowing.

If a blip is seen in the rear arc of any unengaged mech, that mech will turn around, ruining the light's chances of heavily damaging/destroying that mech. So, for a light to sneak in behind an enemy, it has to avoid detection of ALL 12 enemy mechs, which is rather difficult in some cases when they are moving, shooting, looking different directions, and the light does not know where every enemy mech may be or may be facing.

So, consider that it is far more than mashing W and A or S. I've played Locusts since they were released and had no quirks. I can tell you that sneaking up on enemies in 12 v 12 is challenging without seismic - it is impossible if even half the enemy team has seismic and knows how to use it.

FupDup, on 09 February 2017 - 10:50 AM, said:

If I had my way with the skill tree, you'd have to spend massive amounts of SP to unlock Seismic. And when I say massive I mean at minimum 50 of your 91 total SP. If you want your wallhack, you're going to have to pay up for it. You'd have to specialize yourself as a pure scout mech to get it.

+10 points for this idea! No free lunch.

Edited by Dino Might, 09 February 2017 - 10:55 AM.

[razenWing]

Paigan, on 09 February 2017 - 10:08 AM, said:

Even if just one point would be false (which is not the case, but rather you have no idea what you are talking about), the whole topic is discarded?
Do you understand how you sound?
Ok, obviously not. But I can't explain it to you because I would get reported for it.

Oh please, don't be so white knight about it. Go re-read his "premise" on why you think it should be nerfed. It's not a list of reason, it's pretty much 1 reason in that seismic replace uav/whatever in scouting and is way too powerful. Where you learn to read? Imagination land?

"Imagination land, where we teach you to invent 10 thoughts out of 1."

(not a bad tagline for Trump's America)

TercieI, on 09 February 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

On this, no, you are wrong. Seismic is a key scouting tool (though not the only one nor as good as it was once).

Nope. By definition of scouting, the process is active. By the time the enemy is 300 meters within your main attack force, your scouting sucks and it's no longer a scouting situation. Does it have value to put seismic on a scout mech? Sure. But a passive process is horrible scouting practice.

Let me give you an example.

(and hopefully you'll understand that intel gathering is NOT the same as scouting.)

When we want to see Russian movement near Alaska, we don't sit on our radar base in Anchorage. We sent spy planes to fly over Russian bases in Siberia and take pictures. That is scouting. (or satellites, whatever)

Now, we DO keep track of activities over Bering Sea using radar stations, and it's a vital part of intel warfare. But that's called "monitoring."

By definition, scouting is an active process. If your scouting consist of placing in strategic location passively guesstimating a 300 meter radius, again, you failed as a scout.

From Merriam Webster:


Definition of scout

• 
  
  intransitive verb
  
• 
  
  1: to explore an area to obtain information (as about an enemy)
  
• 
  
  2a : to make a searchb : to work as a talent scout

Note how there is no 3rd definition that states to sit around passively waiting for intel? Perhaps you are getting the umbrella term "info warfare" with "scouting" itself confused.
-----------

Now, whether info warfare needs to be nerfed, that's another discussion. Though I am on the side that we are in the freaking 31st century, stop trying to make the game like WWII soldiers. Rather than nerf, PGI should introduce countermeasures to better highlight the tech part. I've always advocated for counter UAV, holographic projector, and stuff like that. Maybe we can add a seismic decoy to the list.

But then, you guys don't care about any of that. You care about your meta talk where either side just going to drone on and on about some pointless whether this is too powerful debate that will never have any point of convergence.

So, with that said, I'll leave you guys so that you may continue your worthless meta talk. I bid you goodday!

Edited by razenWing, 09 February 2017 - 11:01 AM.

[Ziogualty]

@Dino Might: i agree with you, i can even agree on a max range of 180 with all the buffs. But yet i think a static target is the most vulnerable thing on the battlefield. I used Seismic often, then i gave up because most of the matches i cannot afford the luxury of slowing down to a complete stop in order for it to activate.

I only use it on FW Scouting, where is quite valuable to detect enemy lance ambushes, but it is a unique game mode, where things are really quite before the engagement starts.

Seismic or not (same as UAV) is always dangerous for a light with short range weapons to adventure on the enemy territory with 3 lances alive. Is a matter of patience, mobility, good use of ECM and JJ. And seen from my humble perspective, lights usually shine after the fight is on, at the start of the match it is a very rare event.

Edited by Attank, 09 February 2017 - 11:12 AM.

[MechaBattler]

It's decently deep in the sensor tree. You have to make some sacrifices to get it. And those that rely more on situational awareness can just put points elsewhere.

[NighthawK1337]

You call getting within 250m and stand still no risk? At least UAV allows to get locks, seismic doesn't even relay mech weight class, and it's only for the player that's using it not for the whole team. Last I check hill humping and PPFLD was the meta, not brawling so making UAV useless by just getting near the enemy and camping there isn't conducive to the meta. It's fine the way it is, just adding it to BAP is good enough. If anything, every mech should have it since it's standard in the lore.

[LT. HARDCASE]

If you're want to roll seismic into BAP, Inner Sphere BAP would need to be made 1 slot and 1 ton, like the Clan version.