76 replies to this topic

[Simulacrum]

I really love my MARAUDER IIC-D and I really love to snipe with it.
As Brethren meantioned very early it is about area denial and about something like look-out/guard positioning.
If you find a good position you can force enemy 'Mechs back so they don't flank your team comrades. Or you shoot their rear armor to prevent them from engaging your team.

Sniping in MWO is not about "doing damage without any risk" (in fact you're alone and Lights are always a high risk for a single 'Mech) it is about keeping a flanking side clean in best case or about distracting enemy 'Mechs in worst case.
On some maps it is easier to get to your position on other maps you constantly need to reposition.

[Thiccacuga]

I have a stalker with 4xERLL and 2xSnoobiedoobie pooper schlooper boom boom cannons. I have spent all of march tickling the dangly parts of all of the enemy team, and just left T5 doing so. I will continue to do the climbings until something stops me, but until then:

[Void Angel]

Just don't fall into the trap of camping at your favorite Snipar Spotte, and you'll be fine. Long range weapons like the ERLL or ERPPC have lower dps and/or inefficient damage placement (e.g. laser spread,) so you need to be willing to move around to maintain your rate of fire. Do that, and the primary adjustment you'll need to make as you level up in tiers will be which weapons loadouts you carry, and how to position yourself relative to your team.

[Thiccacuga]

Void Angel, on 09 April 2019 - 05:50 PM, said:

Just don't fall into the trap of camping at your favorite Snipar Spotte, and you'll be fine. Long range weapons like the ERLL or ERPPC have lower dps and/or inefficient damage placement (e.g. laser spread,) so you need to be willing to move around to maintain your rate of fire. Do that, and the primary adjustment you'll need to make as you level up in tiers will be which weapons loadouts you carry, and how to position yourself relative to your team.

Oh I never pick the same spot twice, not gonna go into detail of where or how, but I find a nice spot, lots of coverage, and have sights, poke literally everything I can see (not target, SEE) and go from there.

[Void Angel]

Well, I don't mean "never go to the same spot," so much as "move so that you can focus fire with the rest of the team." If I'm not positioned to support the main fight - either directly or by suppressing their own long-range elements - I'm probably not helping the team. If you can keep up with the team and just hammer the enemy constantly, it's better than engaging random targets of opportunity, in my experience.

Ideally, you want to be able to kill damaged 'mechs that are trying to disengage or poke while still maintaining your standoff distance and not being targeted too much. But in general, so long as you're maintaining that rate of fire, you're probably doing good deeds.

Edited by Void Angel, 11 April 2019 - 09:49 PM.

[General Solo]

Bishop Six, on 18 March 2019 - 02:09 AM, said:

Hey Superprofi.

Your Ace of Spades is faked like by everyone else. You seems to really love your epeen and i bet you are one of those only long range poptart dudes and i bet you use your teammates as meatshields for your own stats. Congrats, there are also news for you: You are funny.

Sincerely
your Bishop

Sounds like your saying you cant get Ace of Spades without faking it.

Sometimes when match maker is against you the meat shield strat is needed FTW.
Who is gonna carry and clutch harder a semi decent player or sum LRM leach.
Sum days the air is filled with missile leaches, so what ya gunna do, Long Range Direct fire snipe and meatshield FTW


OR Fast brawl FTW

OR Backstab light FTW

So much variety

But meat shield is good one when you must ensure victory
FTW


If someone has a problem with winning that's their problem not mine.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 12 April 2019 - 02:27 AM.

[General Solo]

B0oN, on 18 March 2019 - 07:14 AM, said:

That´s my man, PhoenixFire55, didn't expect less from you
Also : A nearly perfect write-up of how "efficient/impressive" poptarting really was .

Weapons balance is better these days (skill gap due to matchmaker not weapons
Old days PPC/Guass or bust.....today much better
Narc is a whole lot better, so theirs more counters to poptarting
And they should let it return abit..........maybe jump boost quirk for higherlanders and other crappyish assaults wid jumps

[B0oN]

OZHomerOZ, on 12 April 2019 - 02:18 AM, said:

Weapons balance is better these days (skill gap due to matchmaker not weapons
Old days PPC/Guass or bust.....today much better
Narc is a whole lot better, so theirs more counters to poptarting
And they should let it return abit..........maybe jump boost quirk for higherlanders and other crappyish assaults wid jumps

I countered them poptarters mostly with my 2ERPPC+2SL CTF-3D poptart that ran 81kph

[Steel Raven]

.... this is still a topic?

Might as well ask 'why do people lurm?'

[Void Angel]

So your counter to the poptart meta, B00n, was the poptart meta. =D

The idea that poptarting was just one of many viable "play styles," and "easily counter-able by other play styles" is a pure myth, and one which has been disproven by empirical evidence. Yet even today, some people are living in a blessed memory land of their own devising, though to be fair a lot of people talked like that back then, too. But when the chips were down and reputation was on the line? When PGI hosted their first ladder tournament for comp teams?

Poptarts reigned:



You can skip ahead to the team composition Here:

Both of these finalist teams revolved around their poptarts, especially the winning team. Lights and Mediums were used to support the poptarts and to seek/prevent caps (and to allow more poptarts because of the tonnage limits.) But the main combatants were long-range, poptart 'mechs; even the Atlases on the winning team were there to prevent (with ECM) focus fire on the poptarts - and they were armed with PPCs themselves to support the long-range portion of the meta.

Sure, you could make other things work in PuGs; I ran an Atlas brawler out of sheer stubbornness. But the poptart meta really was the most effective strategy, and all the competitive teams knew it - the one team in that tournament to try running a counter-tactic was eliminated early on. They might have made it to round 2, but I can't remember.

Edited by Void Angel, 12 April 2019 - 12:05 PM.

[Thiccacuga]

Poptarting is garbage anyway. In the 3-4 seconds you're in the air, you're gonna take a lot of hits, plus landing hard does even more damage to your legs.

Jump jets are not as maneuverable as people think.

[General Solo]

Guid players don't pop tart like that.

I have spectated some and they jump enough so weapon mounts just clear terrain.
So you usually only see their upper torso for a second or less.

If you also jump laterally to the enemies POV makes you harder to hit as the enemy now has to lead vertically and horizontally. As many in the game dont have perfect aim this works well.

Also reserving some jump juice for landings is advisable to avoid leg damage.

Where you learn to Jump Jet?
The Academy?

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 12 April 2019 - 06:57 PM.

[B0oN]

Void Angel, on 12 April 2019 - 11:22 AM, said:

So your counter to the poptart meta, B00n, was the poptart meta. =D

The idea that poptarting was just one of many viable "play styles," and "easily counter-able by other play styles" is a pure myth, and one which has been disproven by empirical evidence. Yet even today, some people are living in a blessed memory land of their own devising, though to be fair a lot of people talked like that back then, too. But when the chips were down and reputation was on the line? When PGI hosted their first ladder tournament for comp teams?

Poptarts reigned:



You can skip ahead to the team composition Here:

Both of these finalist teams revolved around their poptarts, especially the winning team. Lights and Mediums were used to support the poptarts and to seek/prevent caps (and to allow more poptarts because of the tonnage limits.) But the main combatants were long-range, poptart 'mechs; even the Atlases on the winning team were there to prevent (with ECM) focus fire on the poptarts - and they were armed with PPCs themselves to support the long-range portion of the meta.

Sure, you could make other things work in PuGs; I ran an Atlas brawler out of sheer stubbornness. But the poptart meta really was the most effective strategy, and all the competitive teams knew it - the one team in that tournament to try running a counter-tactic was eliminated early on. They might have made it to round 2, but I can't remember.

Please DO NOTE that I did NOT only rely on meta mechs (HGN anyone^^) or weaponpairing (PPC+Gauss, PPC+AC10, etc.) . And yeah, the CTF 3D was meta, but not with my loadout .
ERPPCs only .
On the other hand I loved to have close and personal chats with the poptarters aswell … in a RVN with ERPPC, 2ML, and 2 SSRM´s (iirc) .

P.s.: It still puzzles me to no end how poptarting was deemed OP … a bit of teamwork, attention and snapaiming with AC20´s or mass-SRM volleys neatly neutralizes them .
Nowadays you could easily take ERLL Battlemasters and dissect poptarters mid-air without much sweat thanks to hoverjets TM .

Edited by B0oN, 13 April 2019 - 03:49 AM.

[Void Angel]

But it didn't, though. It never did. Sure, after jump jets were finally nerfed back into overall sanity, current meta builds will beat outdated tactics - but back during the meta, there was a reason none of the competitive teams used anything else in competition. And it wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy either. My own team drops ran into plenty of comp teams during certain hours, running anything and everything under the sun. AC/20 Shadowhawk drops, swarms of fast 'mechs, LRMs, dakka, counter-snipers, you name it. They were always trying new things either to test their effectiveness or just have fun. I once saw a post by Jaeger (from the video) expressing his annoyance with complaints about the meta: he felt that people just complained about it because that was what he and other comp players were killing them with. He rightly claimed that he could kill most people with any tactic, brawling, dakka, LRMs... but when the chips were down, and reputation was on the line, he used the poptart meta.

CuddlyZebesian, on 12 April 2019 - 04:48 PM, said:

Poptarting is garbage anyway. In the 3-4 seconds you're in the air, you're gonna take a lot of hits, plus landing hard does even more damage to your legs.

Jump jets are not as maneuverable as people think.

I envy you your youthful, unscarred enthusiasm, that you can talk about poptarting in such a carefree way. You do not know; you need not remember. (Also, we're talking about the time before the meta; if the mechanics that enabled that meta were put back in place to morrow, you would find out how painfully wrong your analysis would have been back then.) =)

P.S. BO0n, your proposed counter is ineffective, I'm afraid You have to get close to the poptarts without having critical components on your 'mech too weak to out-brawl them, and that's just not going to happen against a good poptart. I have no doubt that it worked for you against scrubs from time to time, but good poptarts were tougher to fight. Yes, it was nigh-impossible to get people to leave cover and close with the poptarts (Atlas brawler, remember.) but that cowardice had been beaten into the general player base - with Gauss Rifles and ERPPCs.

P.P.S: The reason that simply counter-firing at poptarts didn't work was that the poptarts had several advantages over you: they could present a target moving in three axes rather than two; they could focus fire with greater speed and precision (because ECM shell games with identical Highlanders:) and they could still use jump jets to cross obstacles and reach firing positions that other 'mechs of their size could not. When the most effective poptart was the Cataphract, these advantages were mitigated by the tonnage and hit boxes of the 'phract. But with the introduction of a jump-capable 'mech with Atlas-level durability, ideal weapon mounts, and good hitboxes, the meta was on like Donkey Kong, and it simply didn't stop until the jets that enabled it were nerfed.

Edited by Void Angel, 13 April 2019 - 05:11 PM.

[Bishop Six]

Void Angel, on 13 April 2019 - 05:10 PM, said:

But it didn't, though. It never did. Sure, after jump jets were finally nerfed back into overall sanity, current meta builds will beat outdated tactics - but back during the meta, there was a reason none of the competitive teams used anything else in competition. And it wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy either. My own team drops ran into plenty of comp teams during certain hours, running anything and everything under the sun. AC/20 Shadowhawk drops, swarms of fast 'mechs, LRMs, dakka, counter-snipers, you name it. They were always trying new things either to test their effectiveness or just have fun. I once saw a post by Jaeger (from the video) expressing his annoyance with complaints about the meta: he felt that people just complained about it because that was what he and other comp players were killing them with. He rightly claimed that he could kill most people with any tactic, brawling, dakka, LRMs... but when the chips were down, and reputation was on the line, he used the poptart meta.


I envy you your youthful, unscarred enthusiasm, that you can talk about poptarting in such a carefree way. You do not know; you need not remember. (Also, we're talking about the time before the meta; if the mechanics that enabled that meta were put back in place to morrow, you would find out how painfully wrong your analysis would have been back then.) =)

P.S. BO0n, your proposed counter is ineffective, I'm afraid You have to get close to the poptarts without having critical components on your 'mech too weak to out-brawl them, and that's just not going to happen against a good poptart. I have no doubt that it worked for you against scrubs from time to time, but good poptarts were tougher to fight. Yes, it was nigh-impossible to get people to leave cover and close with the poptarts (Atlas brawler, remember.) but that cowardice had been beaten into the general player base - with Gauss Rifles and ERPPCs.

P.P.S: The reason that simply counter-firing at poptarts didn't work was that the poptarts had several advantages over you: they could present a target moving in three axes rather than two; they could focus fire with greater speed and precision (because ECM shell games with identical Highlanders:) and they could still use jump jets to cross obstacles and reach firing positions that other 'mechs of their size could not. When the most effective poptart was the Cataphract, these advantages were mitigated by the tonnage and hit boxes of the 'phract. But with the introduction of a jump-capable 'mech with Atlas-level durability, ideal weapon mounts, and good hitboxes, the meta was on like Donkey Kong, and it simply didn't stop until the jets that enabled it were nerfed.

I remember. For casuals like us it was impossible to counter Pro-Poptarters.

It was ******* frustrating to play against this play style because you cant fight back like in a realfight. Hits from left, nothing, hits from right, nothing, hits from front, nothing. Nothing to shoot at.

This meta drove away about 70 % of my unit and friends from FP.

I remember.

[Grus]

Bishop Six, on 14 April 2019 - 01:01 AM, said:

I remember. For casuals like us it was impossible to counter Pro-Poptarters.

It was ******* frustrating to play against this play style because you cant fight back like in a realfight. Hits from left, nothing, hits from right, nothing, hits from front, nothing. Nothing to shoot at.

This meta drove away about 70 % of my unit and friends from FP.

I remember.

Poptarting is very min/max and can be countered by closing to brawl range. MOST poptart mechs are very heat inefficient, thus, if you can close and get in a knife fight, you'll win. Also, by closing the distance, you remove their biggest advantage, cover.

[Void Angel]

Grus, you're using the present tense - we're talking about the Bad Old Days when it was meta.

[Thiccacuga]

OZHomerOZ, on 12 April 2019 - 06:51 PM, said:

Guid players don't pop tart like that.

I have spectated some and they jump enough so weapon mounts just clear terrain.
So you usually only see their upper torso for a second or less.

If you also jump laterally to the enemies POV makes you harder to hit as the enemy now has to lead vertically and horizontally. As many in the game dont have perfect aim this works well.

Also reserving some jump juice for landings is advisable to avoid leg damage.

Where you learn to Jump Jet?
The Academy?

You'd be surprised how many people bork the last part.

Void Angel, on 13 April 2019 - 05:10 PM, said:

But it didn't, though. It never did. Sure, after jump jets were finally nerfed back into overall sanity, current meta builds will beat outdated tactics - but back during the meta, there was a reason none of the competitive teams used anything else in competition. And it wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy either. My own team drops ran into plenty of comp teams during certain hours, running anything and everything under the sun. AC/20 Shadowhawk drops, swarms of fast 'mechs, LRMs, dakka, counter-snipers, you name it. They were always trying new things either to test their effectiveness or just have fun. I once saw a post by Jaeger (from the video) expressing his annoyance with complaints about the meta: he felt that people just complained about it because that was what he and other comp players were killing them with. He rightly claimed that he could kill most people with any tactic, brawling, dakka, LRMs... but when the chips were down, and reputation was on the line, he used the poptart meta.


I envy you your youthful, unscarred enthusiasm, that you can talk about poptarting in such a carefree way. You do not know; you need not remember. (Also, we're talking about the time before the meta; if the mechanics that enabled that meta were put back in place to morrow, you would find out how painfully wrong your analysis would have been back then.) =)

Maybe it was way way WAY back before I started. I definitely really started playing before the ghost heat, but before that I ain't remember ****.

[YueFei]

CuddlyZebesian, on 12 April 2019 - 04:48 PM, said:

Poptarting is garbage anyway. In the 3-4 seconds you're in the air, you're gonna take a lot of hits, plus landing hard does even more damage to your legs.

Jump jets are not as maneuverable as people think.

Back when Poptarting was king, the good players weren't exposed for that long. They would be exposed for less than 1 second. The jump jet upward lift was a lot stronger back then, and we still have triple gravity even now.

It also made it so that their exposure was so short, you couldn't counter with hit-scan DoT lasers, because they'd be down and out of line of sight before your laser burn even finished.

Combine that with a high enough effective DPS and damage-per-heat, and there wasn't enough margin against good teams with strong positioning to brawl-push them, either.

Hence back then the only feasible counter to poptarting was more poptarting.

[Void Angel]

They'd also play differently than the ones just aping the meta. Meta apes would find their favorite piece of cover, and just jump up every time the jets recharged. The meta setters used that mobility. They'd shuffle around behind cover, flank aggressively, and come for your cookies as soon as they smelled blood. There was a qualitative difference in how they used the builds that was... instructive. And when the meta was justly (if abit overzealously) nerfed, they moved on to the next set of tactics and never looked back - except to write a spate of posts about how they were being singled out because bad players complained. They were nostalgic for the tactic from older MechWarrior multiplayer games, I gather, and some of them were really rectally injured that their old toy was taken away. =)