107 replies to this topic

[DANKnuggz]

I boat for 1 main reason... when an enemy mech is in range for 1 of my weapons, they are in range for ALL of them.... simple as that.

Mixed loadouts have mixed ranges and often only a portion of your weaponry will be effective at any given range.

Say you're half long range and half short but I'm all medium.... at long range I'm ducking for cover and trying to present as little of a target as possible but once I reach medium range I'll stop getting closer and trade my full weapon load out against half of yours and if you try to get closer to bring your short range weapons to bear all I have to do is move away and keep you at medium... Even if you do manage to get within short range your long range weapons will most likely be far less effective at that range so you're still only 50% (maybe a little more depending on which long range weapon you have) of your max effective firepower while my medium range weaponry retains most if not all of its effectiveness at that range...

This is one major reason why the LPL/ML combo is so effective and widely used... both weapon types have similar range and duration allowing them to all be used effectively at the same time and the damage applied mostly to the same location.

[Dee Eight]

If this game hadn't adopted the optimal/maximum range system in the first place, you'd see less single/double weapon boated builds and more variety from many mechs as they needed things that were effective at different ranges. Fortunately even when things do overlap their optimal/maximums with different weapons... most players don't take the time to even check to see if they're in the optimal ranges of both...in examples of things like the LPL/ML combo, let alone close to the maximum of the either part of the group. Plenty of times I end up on the receiving end of a light show where I take a couple points of damage from the large pulses and nothing from the medium lasers. Or my mech shudders from zero damage gauss hits that are followed by PPC shots that only do a few points.

I exchanged fire with a guy in a trial kodiak yesterday and I was in my super nova with 6 ERLLs during a frozen city assault game. A common poking battle across the valley ensued between the teams while each side waited for the other to flinch first and push across open ground.Now the range was a touch over 1200 meters between me and the kodiak... so his UAC/10s were doing nothing at all and the UAC/5s were maybe doing HALF a point of damage each so his crosshairs triggered the red flash every time he hit. So he thought he was doing a great job. Meanwhile my fully range noded out and TC assisted lasers were doing about 6 points for each hit from each laser. So I slowly stripped him of armor/components and by the time I blew both his side torsos... he'd apparently emptied his ammo bins and maybe taken 5% off my health because boy was he swearing up a storm on all chat about hacking.

Edit : tonight for the assassination and heavy duty damage score challenges I've been using a HGN-2C-B with a UAC/10, triple MPL and triple streak-6 with double maxed improved Arty and Coolshots among its loadout and nodes. I've used the arty once to spectacular fashion. On Mining colony I came around a corner to a face full of black knight who promptly shuts down after missing me with half his weapons. I alpha'ed into him jamming the UAC in the process..then still at full throttle jumped OVER him and layed my arty on his head as I was doing so, when I touched down I rounded the corner and kept going...he re-started just in time for my arty to blow off a now exposed side torso with an XL engine in it. The mech itself is boated in the sense the ranges mesh well together for brawling... the MPLs were 330m optimal but the TC1 kicks their range to 343m which is close to the 360 of the streak missiles, before the 15% of range nodes boost them both. Essentially if its in streak range, its also in range for the UAC and similarly the lasers are doing nearly full damage or better as well.

Edited by Dee Eight, 27 June 2017 - 10:42 PM.

[Davegt27]

go boat or go home lol

Edited by Davegt27, 27 June 2017 - 10:03 PM.

[Pjwned]

Ultimax, on 27 June 2017 - 03:31 PM, said:

Well, I don't understand why long time vets who can't escape T3 feel compelled to discuss balance issues - but hey that's life eh?

Yeah what a shame, I haven't casually played enough games to fill my XP bar yet after an extensive hiatus from the game.

Nice to know you don't have an argument though.

[Kaptain]

As someone who runs mixed builds I actually like firepower now (did not at first).

Need to run MLs over MPLs to save wait for a ballistic or missile system? Laser duration helps.
Build too hot to fire all you guns? Get heat gen from both sides of the tree.
Energy+Ballistic+Missile leave you with limited ammo? There is a skill for that.

I like it. One of the few trees I mostly like.

[MustrumRidcully]

Dialectic, on 27 June 2017 - 07:29 AM, said:

I'm new so don't stab me - what's wrong with boating? Is it a lore thing? From a standalone game perspective it makes total sense. Rarely in games like this is mixing weapons better than concentrating weapons. What does it matter though?

What is wrong is that the lore is full of non-boats. Mechs with bracket builds and what not. It's clear that this is, by MW:O rules, suboptimal to do, but it is basically the pre-dominant build style in lore. Why? Are all mech engineers and designers dumb idiots? Or is the problem that MW:Os game rule fail to model the rules by which those mech engineers and designers operate that lead to these non-boat builds?

Of course, lore also uses boat builds. It's not like they are impossible or ineffective. The thing is, both can be effective in lore, or at least is treated as such, otherwise they wouldn't both exist. In MW:O, the clear advantage goes to the boat.

Quote

The truth of the matter is that TT's heat system was more forgiving than any Mechwarrior game heat scale ever. Sure, you had incremental penalties, but you can BUILD YOUR MECH TO AVOID THE PENALTIES with obnoxiously trivial ease. TT is much friendlier to laser boats than MWO.

PGI seemed to have been really scared by heat neutral builds. The truth is - yes, you an build heat neutral mechs in the table top game. But you probably shouldn't, since when a heat neutral build and a "hot" build encounter each other, the hot build will be able to deal more damage for a while, and this might be what kills you. Dead mechs are the coolest, but not very effective.

This is more pronounced in M:WO then in TT - in TT, RNG can turn your 60 damage alpha strike into a whiff , taking down a bit of armor on 5 different locations, even if all of the attack hits - in M:WO, your alpha strike is very likely to really hurt your enemy, all focused in one or two locations. If you can launch a few more of them, you're basically guaranteed to get through his armor and take him out - and his cooler but lower alpha strike capability will not hur tyou as much. You'll hot mech can then cool off over the debris of your enemies.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 28 June 2017 - 12:45 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

PhoenixFire55, on 27 June 2017 - 08:46 AM, said:

The problem is you have neither enough ranged DPS with just two ERPPCs without heatsinks to tear anything up, nor the close range DPS to finish anything off, let alone outbrawl a dedicated brawler. In fact you would have a better chance with just PPCs minus the SRMs, since your ranged DPS will increase due to extra heat sinks and you probably will be able to at least open a full brawler of your own tonnage before it gets in range.



LOL ... with the team, really? Your team has 12 brawlers, my team has 11 brawlers shielding my one 50-pinpoint-at-700m mech. At least two of your teammates are going to be open CT even before they get in range, that is two mech advantage right off the bat. You then either choose to brawl up my 11 fresh teammates with what you got left allowing me to carefully take out your rear side torsoes, legs and whatever I want ... or you rush me through my 11 teammates thus effectively killing me while suiciding your entire team.

Bringing up "teams" into equation hardly benefits your point. You can have a mixed team with 1 PPC and 2 SRMs on each mech vs a team of 2 PPCs on 6 mechs and 4 SRMs on 6 other mechs, and regardless of the setup the latter will win, because if you engage in a trade its 12 PPCs vs 12 PPCs, an already even trade that can go either way even without considering the fact that during said trade the remaining 6 full brawlers are closing in unopposed to slaughter your mixed frankenmechs. Even if you somehow manage to retreat from trading against 6 ranged mechs entirely, the damage would already be done, and the 24 SRMs vs 24 SRMs would end up on my favor since you are damaged while I am fresh. And before you say it, using additional PPCs in a brawl is just a waste of heat and DPS.



It happens to all of us, what matters is how you approach it. When you boat you do one thing effectively and you stick to doing that one thing. When you don't boat you will simply try going against people who boat, and since boats will do only "their" thing you will literally lose every engagement you throw yourself at.

Holy crap that advice is terrible, and do you have any proof to all these claims?

You happily suggest using your team like meatshields, throwing away any kind of build diversity and just sticking to a singular role throughout all games, I guess no one should be left wondering why you bring up scores so often, it is all that seems to matter in your world, farming QP score.

Why even try to play the team game when you can use your teammates for a better score right? This guy.

[Cato Phoenix]

Gaussfather, on 26 June 2017 - 07:59 PM, said:

2) The weapon skill tree really encourages people to boat even more... a well rounded build (i.e. with some lasers, 1 ballistics, and missiles -- think Atlas or Malinche) is less effective since you have to use too many skill points on the weapon tree your mech pilots like a "paper pig" (I just made that up). Or you just don't have enough DPS to compete against the meta laser vomit, LRM vomit, SRM vomit, or Dakka vomit builds...

Yeah, I said this exhaustively in the pre-skill-tree months. The skill tree changes did not promote diversified loadouts over boating, it just allowed diverse loadouts to take advantage of universal nodes. However, if you're dipping into the tree to get any specific nodes you still have to spend more to do so than a boat does.

An SRM/LBX hybrid, for example, does have both weapons benefit from cooldown and velocity, but will have to spend more nodes to fully improve both weapons than an SRM/LBX boat. Thus, boating remains more min/max-able.

[Pjwned]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 June 2017 - 11:27 PM, said:

What is wrong is that the lore is full of non-boats. Mechs with bracket builds and what not. It's clear that this is, by MW:O rules, suboptimal to do, but it is basically the pre-dominant build style in lore. Why? Are all mech engineers and designers dumb idiots? Or is the problem that MW:Os game rule fail to model the rules by which those mech engineers and designers operate that lead to these non-boat builds?

The reason is because MWO and TT are completely different games.

Stock mechs are bad too, must be a failure of MWO and not the fact that an online multiplayer video game is different from a turn based board game with completely different rules, right?

Edited by Pjwned, 28 June 2017 - 12:01 AM.

[Gwahlur]

MustrumRidcully, on 27 June 2017 - 11:27 PM, said:

Are all mech engineers and designers dumb idiots?

Which mech engineers and designers? I don't think they really exist mate

[MustrumRidcully]

Pjwned, on 27 June 2017 - 11:58 PM, said:

The reason is because MWO and TT are completely different games.

Stock mechs are bad too, must be a failure of MWO and not the fact that an online multiplayer video game is different from a turn based board game with completely different rules, right?

Pjwned, on 27 June 2017 - 11:58 PM, said:

The reason is because MWO and TT are completely different games.

Stock mechs are bad too, must be a failure of MWO and not the fact that an online multiplayer video game is different from a turn based board game with completely different rules, right?

Certain things are completely a failure of MW:O. Like stock loadouts being overheating nightmares, regardless of how heat efficient they were in the table top game. That is not a problem of this being a multiplayer video game FPS shooter game. It's completely their screw-up in implementing an adaptation of the table top rules for the medium.

The boating stuff - that is far more understandeable. It's hard to sell people the idea that they would have to shoot each weapons seperately, without group-fire. It's been a staple of every mechwarrior title, even the first one. And it would be weird to not allow aiming with the mouse. Even though such a mechanic cannot explain why in TT, a HBK-4P could feasibly manage to spread his attacks across 8 locations, even with the most competent gunner around.

They failed however to correctly adapt the statistics to what they did. For example, if you know that people can much more reliably hit the intended hit location then in the table top game, they should have reworked the armor distribution so that there would be a reason to not just go straight for the CT. Arm structure and max armor could have been lowered in favor of side and center torso armor and structure. Of course, arms would need some perks to be worth using, like giving arms free and instant convergence, but not giving it to torso weapons, or giving it a fixed convergence points (set in the mech lab?).

None of that happened, but that it didn't happen doesn't have anyhtnig to do with this being a mutiplayer video game FPS shooter game.

Gwahlur, on 28 June 2017 - 01:19 AM, said:

Which mech engineers and designers? I don't think they really exist mate

Neither do mechs. But within the fictional universe, both obviously exist, and they must have reasons for doing what they do, don't they?

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 28 June 2017 - 01:26 AM.

[Gwahlur]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 June 2017 - 01:23 AM, said:

Neither do mechs. But within the fictional universe, both obviously exist, and they must have reasons for doing what they do, don't they?

Yeah, your wording was just funny though. I was gonna ask if we should include what's written in the Discworld series to the list of how the game should work since they're also books, but you limited it to this fictional universe, so I can't
(Mustrum Ridcully is the "boss mage" on Unseen University right?)

Anyways, I'd kind of say the mech engineers and designers are dumb idiots. We've tested their designs in a live environment, and they've been found lacking.

[Pjwned]

MustrumRidcully, on 28 June 2017 - 01:23 AM, said:

Certain things are completely a failure of MW:O. Like stock loadouts being overheating nightmares, regardless of how heat efficient they were in the table top game. That is not a problem of this being a multiplayer video game FPS shooter game. It's completely their screw-up in implementing an adaptation of the table top rules for the medium.

Right, the reality that 1 player = 1 mech--unlike TT because this is an online Mechwarrior game--and the fact that equipment costs & BV don't exist as balancing factors--again because this is an online Mechwarrior game and not TT...that's apparently not relevant.

Coolest story I've ever heard. Maybe you should just go play HBS Battletech exclusively if you can't deal with the reality of MWO being a completely different game?

Quote

The boating stuff - that is far more understandeable. It's hard to sell people the idea that they would have to shoot each weapons seperately, without group-fire. It's been a staple of every mechwarrior title, even the first one. And it would be weird to not allow aiming with the mouse. Even though such a mechanic cannot explain why in TT, a HBK-4P could feasibly manage to spread his attacks across 8 locations, even with the most competent gunner around.

And which of those earlier games had an actually successful, balanced multiplayer component?

Oh, none of them? Okay.

Quote

They failed however to correctly adapt the statistics to what they did. For example, if you know that people can much more reliably hit the intended hit location then in the table top game, they should have reworked the armor distribution so that there would be a reason to not just go straight for the CT. Arm structure and max armor could have been lowered in favor of side and center torso armor and structure. Of course, arms would need some perks to be worth using, like giving arms free and instant convergence, but not giving it to torso weapons, or giving it a fixed convergence points (set in the mech lab?).

You have it partially right by mentioning convergence, but that implementation is extremely sketchy and so is screwing around arbitrarily with armor values.

PGI also already compensated for that issue a long time ago by doubling armor & structure values, they just need to do a bit more by addressing the perfect, instant, pinpoint convergence at all times and then it will be actually good instead of getting stupid **** like ghost heat.

Quote

None of that happened, but that it didn't happen doesn't have anyhtnig to do with this being a mutiplayer video game FPS shooter game.

You usually have to have a good idea with actual details for it to be considered.

Edited by Pjwned, 28 June 2017 - 02:53 AM.

[Jiang Wei]

What is wrong with boating? Many mechs are boats by design.

Edited by Jiang Wei, 28 June 2017 - 06:42 AM.

[Ultimax]

Pjwned, on 27 June 2017 - 11:15 PM, said:

Yeah what a shame, I haven't casually played enough games to fill my XP bar yet after an extensive hiatus from the game.

Nice to know you don't have an argument though.

Why would I bother giving you a proper argument after you went on a ridiculous rant about crybabies?

If you play the game so little to have moved the needle on your experience bar, then really why are you in threads like these posting on balance you apparently haven't experienced enough to even make a real contribution?

[warner2]

Gaussfather, on 26 June 2017 - 07:59 PM, said:

Having played with the new skill tree concept I have to begrudgingly say that I like it except for two reasons:

1) We need to be able to save templates for our favorite skill tree combos and not have to start from scratch each time...

and more importantly:

2) The weapon skill tree really encourages people to boat even more... a well rounded build (i.e. with some lasers, 1 ballistics, and missiles -- think Atlas or Malinche) is less effective since you have to use too many skill points on the weapon tree your mech pilots like a "paper pig" (I just made that up). Or you just don't have enough DPS to compete against the meta laser vomit, LRM vomit, SRM vomit, or Dakka vomit builds...

So when I play in the PUG que I seem to just face more and more meta BOAT builds as opposed to some diversity in loadouts... how is that good for the game?

How are mixed load outs "good" for the game? You should probably start there if you are going to imply boats are bad for the game?


Indignant threads that seek to dictate to others how they play are hilarious.

[warner2]

Pjwned, on 26 June 2017 - 08:54 PM, said:

Yeah I know, it's really difficult to make a varied loadout with all these range, cooldown, and heat generation nodes that apply to every weapon.

You might have to give up a whole 1 or 2 nodes for laser duration or something, and that alone takes varied loadouts completely off the table.



It probably wasn't implemented because it was bad, especially the part about varying amounts of firepower skills per chassis, and having a guaranteed amount of firepower skills is stupid because it removes the whole point of making choices.

In the current system, if you want more firepower nodes then you can give something else up, or conversely you can have less firepower nodes to have more of whatever else, and that automatically makes this system better than Solahma's proposal which removes that aspect just for the sake of appeasing crybabies.

I don't know why people still cling to that **** idea, just shut up about it; boo hoo this arbitrary trash idea that I uncritically accept as gospel wasn't implemented so I'm going to cry about it for months on end.

Some parts of it were good right? Why does PGIs effort force me to take a whole load of range nodes on a PPC/Gauss build to get to the nodes I actually want? I think most weapons on most skilled up 'mechs have a blanket X % of extra range because that tree forces everyone through those range nodes. That's just bad design.

[MustrumRidcully]

Pjwned, on 28 June 2017 - 02:49 AM, said:

Right, the reality that 1 player = 1 mech--unlike TT because this is an online Mechwarrior game--and the fact that equipment costs & BV don't exist as balancing factors--again because this is an online Mechwarrior game and not TT...that's apparently not relevant.

Coolest story I've ever heard. Maybe you should just go play HBS Battletech exclusively if you can't deal with the reality of MWO being a completely different game?



And which of those earlier games had an actually successful, balanced multiplayer component?

Oh, none of them? Okay.

I am sure, one day such a game will come along.

[Pjwned]

Ultimax, on 28 June 2017 - 09:54 AM, said:

Why would I bother giving you a proper argument after you went on a ridiculous rant about crybabies?

Obviously because you don't have an argument in the first place, and you getting told hard because I'm right doesn't mean that was a "ridiculous rant" since I did make an actual argument, unlike you.

Quote

If you play the game so little to have moved the needle on your experience bar, then really why are you in threads like these posting on balance you apparently haven't experienced enough to even make a real contribution?

It's actually moving up at a pretty steady pace because in most of my losses my PSR doesn't change, aside from when I'm screwing around with a new build or something or I just have the occasional bad game where I do poorly since I'm not perfect; it apparently takes a while to move up when you start near the bottom of tier 3 due to not playing for so long beforehand (but still apparently knowing the game better than you).

Keep acting like that XP bar matters though and keep getting baited by it; people like you are why I show my PSR tier.

Edited by Pjwned, 28 June 2017 - 09:32 PM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Shifty McSwift, on 27 June 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

Holy crap that advice is terrible, and do you have any proof to all these claims?

W/L is the only proof you ever need. And since yours is ~1.0, i.e. since you are irrelevant, so is your opinion on exactly how "terrible" my advice is. When I have more than twice your W/L, I'll stick to my own advice, tyvm.

Current stats for the reference ...



Try harder forumwarrior? ...

Shifty McSwift, on 27 June 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

You happily suggest using your team like meatshields ...

Lie harder, would you? ... Quote the exact line where I've suggested anything like that.

Shifty McSwift, on 27 June 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

throwing away any kind of build diversity and just sticking to a singular role throughout all games ...

Read harder ... the entire discussion I've had here was about throwing away build diversities. Heck, the name of the thread should have given you a hint.

Shifty McSwift, on 27 June 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

I guess no one should be left wondering why you bring up scores so often, it is all that seems to matter in your world, farming QP score.

For someone like myself who've for example played in all nine MRBC seasons QP scores hardly matter. The thing is, I can achieve mine without even trying all that hard, while you, even tho you deem yourself an expert on every subject can barely raise an inch above irrelevant in W/L and still can't achieve even par in KDR.

Shifty McSwift, on 27 June 2017 - 11:33 PM, said:

Why even try to play the team game when you can use your teammates for a better score right? This guy.

If you are such an expert on tactics and teamplay, then where is your amazing W/L ratio? ...

If I was using my teammates only in order to better my score then I couldn't possibly have W/L ratio anywhere near as good as such an amazing team player like yourself, right?

All in all my dear troll-fanboy ... not impressed. 1/10