76 replies to this topic

[MechaBattler]

Is OP whining that he has to pay for mechs to be competitive? seriously? People with 3 years of experience are better because they've been playing 3 years. Not because they purchased mechs with cash. Is anyone pay to winning in the Black Lanner?

[Spheroid]

[Novakaine]

Hmmmmm.

[mogs01gt]

Bud Crue, on 27 February 2018 - 06:31 AM, said:

You’re selling the “fun” aspects of the game short. Much fun can be had in the following:
On the clan side we have:
MKII- Gauss/Vomit.
Clan assault thru medium mechs running 5-6ERML and 2 HLL or ERLL vomit, preferably in Hellbringers or Ebons but hell give a Hunchie a try too.
For the more skilled player there is also the Summoner dual ERPPC jump sniper.
MG boating Piranah, Mist Lynx and even the 6MG HSL Cheetah is fun too.

On the IS side we have:
The Dual HGauss “fun” plus flamers or medium (ER) lasers to taste in the Annihilators or Cyclops.
ERLL vomit in the Battlemaster.
IS energy vomit on a Warhammer
Spraying MRMs in an IV-4. (You ******** and your MRM 30s and 40s are going to get my favorite mech nerfed)
Spraying SRMs in a Bushwacker or Assassin.
MPLs in Wolfhounds and Urbies.

There. That is all the “fun” to be had right now in this here game. Scores of weapons, hundreds of mechs, thousands of builds and PGI and their unfunning of the game has left us with a couple dozen builds (tops) that represent the epitome of what is potentially “fun”, or rather, what is least unfun.

The clan builds you mentioned is part of the issue, they are boring. I got rid of most of my IS mechs, they are useless. I have a few cents and a griffin left, ohh and a Firebrand.

Edited by mogs01gt, 27 February 2018 - 11:58 AM.

[Bud Crue]

mogs01gt, on 27 February 2018 - 11:58 AM, said:

The clan builds you mentioned is part of the issue, they are boring. I got rid of most of my IS mechs, they are useless. I have a few cents and a griffin left, ohh and a Firebrand.

I know. I agree with your premise that most mechs are boring, I just don’t put as much weight on the Clan v IS aspect that you do. To my way of thinking there are about 18-24 builds that aren’t outright crap or just lame in this “balance is nearly perfect” world of PGI’s. Its sad AND boring.

[Brain Cancer]

Anjian, on 27 February 2018 - 08:03 AM, said:

Last year or so, I focused mainly on Dakka (UAC, RAC, AC). It seems to work much better for me --- consistent 500 to 1000 damage range --- than heavy reliance on lasers.

Remember that damage comes in various kinds of quality.

1000 with MRMs is not 1000 with autocannons is not 1000 with HLL/ERML Hellbringer, simply because of spread rendering some of your damage moot for other than padding. But that's solid for ballistics. Sometimes, you just click with a given weapon type.

[NRP]

You guys should know better than to argue with a drunk.

[ipaam]

MadBadger, on 27 February 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

A couple of thoughts:

-The skill tree looks fussy the first handful of times through. After that you will basically know "Hmmm this mech needs armor (click 18 times on Survival tree), lasers (click 38 FirePower nodes) oh and it's got ECM (click 9 Sensors nodes) and I guess I will dump the rest in Mobility." Once you've built about 4 different mech types it'll become routine.

-You may have spent a lot on MWO but as others have pointed out, the game doesn't require it. Most of the meta mechs are available for C-bills.

-It is always harsh coming back to a game after a long break. I just took a stab at World of Tanks this past week to help out a friend with some goals. I don't recognize half the tanks, nearly everyone is shooting premium/gold ammo, there are super fast tanks with auto-loader guns that just rip you apart etc etc. New gear, new equipment, new rewards systems. The MM is terrible and the players are worse, and frankly I'm not much better.

Essentially, you are saying you took over a year off, come back, and want to play at the same level you did before right away. Without practice, learning what has changed, getting some time out on the battlefield etc. You want the game to have completely stagnated while you were not interested in playing. That would be death for MWO.

You would be better off to lower your expectations, ignore your battle results for a while, and just deal with one thing at a time. Skill tree, then new tech, then recent meta (surprise, it's PPFLD!), and as you do that you will learn to recognize new mechs and new builds on the field.

Yeah I guess that you got it best.

For me It's extremely frustrating to have missed such a game changing event as an overhaul to the mech tree and modules. Not to mention how many mechs have been released in the past year. I know in order to play well or close to how I had played, I'd pretty much have to spend time to research what has changed. What works and what's been nerfed.

I know it's F2P and I ran my account for almost a year without paying. It was annoying as heck (back when you were limited on slots and had to level up 3 at a time) I had to keep selling and buying the same mechs. I also started an alt account around 3 years ago which I ran into the same problems of low c bills, and long grind, it probably didn't help that I had been using a consumable or 2 each match and if your team losses it's like you lost 20k cbills or more. Since I'd played before, instead of selling mechs to level I'd just wait till events came up with free mechbays and only sell the variants I didn't want after all were mastered. As F2P goes it's not as bad as WoT but It did take a considerable amount of time for a new account to get a good drop deck and decent amount of mechs to play with a group. The couple of friends that I got to play the game sort of realized this and quit playing after a couple of weeks. On my main account I have 48,892,469 cBills so I could afford newer mechs, I honestly forget what the last mech was that I got.

To me, this game has always been 2 main parts: 1) How good can you build it (weps, armor, mods, and skills). 2) how good you are at a FPS (shooting, timing, map position and teamwork). With the buffs, nerfs, heat changes, and MRMs (I missed that too) I get caught up in not knowing which way to go in the skill trees. I'm thinking 'why heck do I have to unlock all those other points to get to having the the full increase damage to [insert weapon type]?' Then once I hit 91 point used, I end up flipping screen to screen trying to figure out where to take points away from when I just need 4 more points on a different tab. So I guess It feels like I really suck at the 'building it' part so I get feed up and haven't really got back on in a few months.

I do remember long waits for drops or if I was in a group of 8+ we'd do well for a few games and then we'd hit a 8-12 unit all running meta builds few times in a row. Keep in mind over half of the team I'm on is running whatever they feel like or are trying to level it. The group would usually dwindle down to go to PUG matches after the second match. Has there been improvements in the match maker and total player base size in the past year?

[Jackal Noble]

For me, it's extremely unfun to play the NCT-Prime.

[Scyther]

@ipaam:

Yes, the waits are getting longer when the group size is larger. Several units have started dropping in 4-6 mans to get faster or even just 'less unbalanced' matches.

Personally I use non-game, but non-productive time (like when making dinner etc) to bring up one of my mechs in Smurfy's, poke around with some of the new tech, then I pop open a window to one of the skill planners like https://kitlaan.gitlab.io/mwoskill/ and fiddle with the skill tree until I have something I like. I might also bring up the Quirks links on http://snafets.de/mwo/quirks.htm to match my skills/build with the mechs quirks.

That saves me some 'game time' when/if I do fire up MWO to try out that mech, and also gets me more familiar with potential changes I can make if I want to try something else.

[Nema Nabojiv]

JackalBeast, on 27 February 2018 - 02:36 PM, said:

For me, it's extremely unfun to play the NCT-Prime.

No wonder, they were dead on arrival.

[blood4blood]

Skill tree sucked the first week or two I messed with it, but once you get used to it, it's easy enough, and honestly, there's a lot of things you can go up or down with a few slots with very little practical effect (1-2% range or heat differences, yeah there's an effect but not usually one you can't overcome by piloting to adjust). Others are either take-it-or-you-don't-get-to-have-it (extra consumable slots, speed tweak, radar derp, etc.). You've just got to decide what's important, and what isn't. Playing trial mechs with nothing unlocked helps give perspective.

As for P2W, I'll compare MWO to SWTOR, where you can't even get a full set of skillbars unless you subscribe - it'd be like MWO saying you can only have two weapons groups and one vision mode and you can't toggle ECM or AMS unless you buy Premium time, in which case everything is unlocked. (No, PGI, don't go getting any ideas!)

[Mystere]

Catten Hart, on 26 February 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Maybe don't try using the skill tree when drunk, then. And actually, you know, be patient before you complain about it.

Better yet, just don't use the skill tree. Just look at it as the "challenge" of using "vanilla" Mechs.

[ipaam]

Diablobo, on 26 February 2018 - 10:13 PM, said:

Buys gold mech and wonders why everyone goes out of their way to shoot him.

I barely played with the Gold but for some reason when I did It felt like I'd loose a torso way quicker and some pilots would go too offensive to the point where they'd try to run right through my whole team to get to me. I did get my one of my highest damages with the Gold, but that was when I was in a 6 man group and pugs vs a 12 man unit(I forget unit name). The 12 pilot unit hid in one corner of mining collective. They tried to pick off players from a distance that got too antsy and charged. I got allot of alphas off on various mechs and ended up getting above 1400 dmg. At that time, my avg dmg for that mech was usually 350-800 unless early cored due to positioning or being gold.

I noticed that one of the best things to do with a gold mech is be a bait.

[Ruccus]

ipaam, on 27 February 2018 - 04:25 PM, said:

I barely played with the Gold but for some reason when I did It felt like I'd loose a torso way quicker and some pilots would go too offensive to the point where they'd try to run right through my whole team to get to me. I did get my one of my highest damages with the Gold, but that was when I was in a 6 man group and pugs vs a 12 man unit(I forget unit name). The 12 pilot unit hid in one corner of mining collective. They tried to pick off players from a distance that got too antsy and charged. I got allot of alphas off on various mechs and ended up getting above 1400 dmg. At that time, my avg dmg for that mech was usually 350-800 unless early cored due to positioning or being gold.

I noticed that one of the best things to do with a gold mech is be a bait.

Personally I have zero problem with anyone piloting a gold mech. I salute you for helping to support the game.

That being said, you really don't have to buy all the newest mechs. When they fixed the Blackjack's heat quirk I decided to take my Blackjack BJ-1's Gauss+4ML and AC20+3ML builds out just for old times sake (I have over 850 matches in my BJ-1) and had a really good time. It felt comfortable and I still did good damage even though it's a really old mech.

Just drop into the training grounds in one of your old mechs and fool around with it. Tweak the build to where you feel comfortable then take it out for a few matches with the objective of just having fun.

[PocketYoda]

I agree PGI need to step up on all but a few IS mechs or see the populations dead by april.. i know i'll be playing Battletech not this one sided farce.

[Anjian]

Samial, on 27 February 2018 - 05:11 PM, said:

I agree PGI need to step up on all but a few IS mechs or see the populations dead by april.. i know i'll be playing Battletech not this one sided farce.

The game's new content can be as much as Pay to Lose as much as Pay to Win. Generally though, it seems Pay to Lose if you buy up an IS mech and Pay to Win if its a "hit" Clan mech. Its Win or Lose mainly because of the artwork that determines the hit boxes. This game, is extremely unusual because of the collusion between artwork and survivability, instead of having these two issues totally separate and non dependent.

Overtime, it feels that more and more the content is rushed and released half baked. The in game 3D modeling is crap, the animations are crap, the balancing is crap, the hit box and shooting positions are crap. There are also many crap designs before but seems to occur almost every time now, as little passion, thought, attention to detail and quality control are applied to the content before they are released. Its like at this point, PGI doesn't care at all except in releasing the mechs the fan base wants to buy. The only thing that seems good is the poster art in the sales page. The mechs don't feel any special, feels like they could have came out of the shelves in Wal-Mart.

The new skill tree for me, well I benefited from it as it felt like it did improve my performance. My mech lasts longer, shoots better, etc,. But in hind sight, the skill tree is a cop out, as if PGI no longer cares about the work of balancing and tuning the mechs, and decides to sell you a plain vanilla unfinished piece of material, and its up to you to finish and fine tune it. This is another indication that PGI wants to churn content as quick as possible, with the least cost as possible.

[ipaam]

Anjian, on 27 February 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

The in game 3D modeling is crap, the animations are crap, the balancing is crap, the hit box and shooting positions are crap. There are also many crap designs before but seems to occur almost every time now, as little passion, thought, attention to detail and quality control are applied to the content before they are released.

I almost forgot about that! I think the HBR was the worst offender of that! Halcyon Clearwater and I went to private scrim and determined that if you shot the elbows of the HBR (when it first came out) damage went right to CT. It was horrible.

[ipaam]

Brain Cancer, on 27 February 2018 - 01:18 AM, said:

Much as I tend to laugh about people grabdealing, OP is in even a worse space.

He thinks you have to grabdeal to win and then uses this to justify not winning.

<--- another F2P guy doing just fine without opening his wallet.

So you're telling me to buy the collector pack of the "Blood Asp" with hero add on within the next 24 hours?

[Bohxim]

MechaBattler, on 27 February 2018 - 11:04 AM, said:

Is OP whining that he has to pay for mechs to be competitive? seriously? People with 3 years of experience are better because they've been playing 3 years. Not because they purchased mechs with cash. Is anyone pay to winning in the Black Lanner?

Hush u. I paid for it and won 1 game! One! So technically I did pay to win!