39 replies to this topic

[Korz]

Now that we have build saving. Can we please get the ability to choose the build for the selected mech after we see what map and game mode we will be playing? Just a screen that gives us the build list for the current mech and we can pick the build we want to drop with. Might also help by giving more time for those connection issue people.

[Eisenhorne]

I really wish they'd give us a FP-style lobby in QP, just restrict us to the tonnage we have selected. They have already shown they can implement tonnage limits in FP lobbies with scouting. Just after map selection, load us into a FP lobby with 1 minute to see the map / mode and pick mechs at the same tonnage (so I can swap from a battlemaster to a stalker, but not from a battlemaster to an Annihlator).

Would greatly improve match quality if people could avoid taking LRM boats to Solaris or HPG.

[dario03]

I don't think load/save for builds will bring this to QP. If PGI wanted us to be able to pick mechs/builds after knowing the map/mode they would have just made QP like FP and let you pick your mech in the lobby before the match started but after knowing the map and mode. Pretty sure the not knowing part is done on purpose to prevent everybody from taking the same builds by min-maxing for the map.

In other words, I don't think its a technical issue, its a design decision.

Edited by dario03, 09 July 2018 - 07:10 AM.

[Spheroid]

How would that help? It would turn polar into a complete hell. Rethink your idea and realize the obvious downsides.

[Ssamout]

Random nature of QP map/mech is one its main charms. How else you end up in polar highlands against lrm masters with a brawly team, and show them the power of aggression. Sure most of the times you just get annihilated by homing missiles, but having the "wrong" loadout sometimes creates the best matches because you gotta think how to make it work.

[Agent of Change]

Ssamout, on 09 July 2018 - 07:17 AM, said:

Random nature of QP map/mech is one its main charms. How else you end up in polar highlands against lrm masters with a brawly team, and show them the power of aggression. Sure most of the times you just get annihilated by homing missiles, but having the "wrong" loadout sometimes creates the best matches because you gotta think how to make it work.

With the glaring exception of Solaris city (which is a map that seem to be all but explicitly designed to mostly nullify LRMS) it is my general belief that if you cannot run your build on any map it is not a good build for you. I will say again if you have trouble running your build on Caustic or Terra Therma... the problem is your build is bad or you are not as good as you think you are. If you want to never ever see Polar Highlands because you might get lrm'd, learn to use AMS, ECM, aggression, and cover effectively.

Build a mech that can perform on any map and you are building a good mech.

[Haipyng]

In previous iterations of the game You knew where you were going before you selected your mech and dropped. It makes sense, after all you wouldn't send your troops in desert gear to fight in the arctic, why would you send an LRM boat to Solaris. You should have the intelligence to know where you are dropping. Maybe even if all it is a drop deck of three pre-selected mechs to choose from, heck even just one alternate would be a savior.

That said it is MWO and it plays different than any other MW Title so far. Polar could turn into LRMageddon, but that could be interesting too. AMS boating Novas and ECM Mechs could have a serious role to play.

[Nameless King]

Korz, on 09 July 2018 - 07:01 AM, said:

Now that we have build saving. Can we please get the ability to choose the build for the selected mech after we see what map and game mode we will be playing? Just a screen that gives us the build list for the current mech and we can pick the build we want to drop with. Might also help by giving more time for those connection issue people.

Absolutely horrible idea as usual. How about you just lean to use your Mechs on all the maps.

[Korz]

Nameless King, on 09 July 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

Absolutely horrible idea as usual. How about you just lean to use your Mechs on all the maps.

I know how to use my mechs and I build them out for general purpose. But that makes a lot of mechs basically garbage cause you can't come up with special builds that work really well on specific maps. I am trying to add life to less then good mechs and add variety to the game..

Spheroid, on 09 July 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

How would that help? It would turn polar into a complete hell. Rethink your idea and realize the obvious downsides.

Yes there would be downsides but also upsides. And it might mean people pick other maps to avoid picking polar all the time.

Agent of Change, on 09 July 2018 - 07:30 AM, said:

With the glaring exception of Solaris city (which is a map that seem to be all but explicitly designed to mostly nullify LRMS) it is my general belief that if you cannot run your build on any map it is not a good build for you. I will say again if you have trouble running your build on Caustic or Terra Therma... the problem is your build is bad or you are not as good as you think you are. If you want to never ever see Polar Highlands because you might get lrm'd, learn to use AMS, ECM, aggression, and cover effectively.

Build a mech that can perform on any map and you are building a good mech.

So you give up the chance to specialize your build so that you can bring the kitchen sink when you go out to play?

I build for the current game and do fair. This is not about skill or lack of skill. This is about options and no options. More options are better.

[Nameless King]

Korz, on 09 July 2018 - 09:00 AM, said:

I know how to use my mechs and I build them out for general purpose. But that makes a lot of mechs basically garbage cause you can't come up with special builds that work really well on specific maps. I am trying to add life to less then good mechs and add variety to the game..



Yes there would be downsides but also upsides. And it might mean people pick other maps to avoid picking polar all the time.



So you give up the chance to specialize your build so that you can bring the kitchen sink when you go out to play?

I build for the current game and do fair. This is not about skill or lack of skill. This is about options and no options. More options are better.

Then you clearly dont know how to use your mechs. If you want option you would want Random maps and Modes, being able to pick the mech after the maps would mean less options for most.

Like I said learn to play what ever mech (which includes any build you want) on any map.

Random Maps and Modes is the way to go.

[MechaBattler]

I would prefer 100% random. Let's go back to random maps while we're at it.

[Nameless King]

MechaBattler, on 09 July 2018 - 09:42 AM, said:

I would prefer 100% random. Let's go back to random maps while we're at it.

Heck Yea This Guy gets it.

[Agent of Change]

MechaBattler, on 09 July 2018 - 09:42 AM, said:

I would prefer 100% random. Let's go back to random maps while we're at it.

100%

at least then i'd have less chance of getting 5 matches in a row on HPV or canyon slog

[Agent of Change]

Korz, on 09 July 2018 - 09:00 AM, said:

So you give up the chance to specialize your build so that you can bring the kitchen sink when you go out to play?

I build for the current game and do fair. This is not about skill or lack of skill. This is about options and no options. More options are better.

It's a fair question and practically i don't. MWO, being just an arena team deathmatch with flair, only has one type of build that is worthwhile: The one that does the most damage as quickly as possible to the enemy without dying. There need be no concessions to objectives or tactics... because the only tactic you really need is find your team stay together and focus your fire, until you or they are wiped out.

With that in mind the ONLY build choices you have that can possible matter in MWO given map variation are these:

LRM or No LRM - to whit, bring LRMS to alpine heights and Polar highlands especially, don't bring'em to Solaris city, all other maps are pretty much a wash. so the only purpose build choosing serves is to spam LRMS on teh maps that are good for them and not bring them to the city.

Hot map or Not - in which case if you were to know it was cold map you could bring a mech build that would be silly to run in caustic or terra therma otherwise what else would you actually change?

Neither of those are 'tactical' decisions so much as wishlisting to make power gaming easier. I mean no offense but the opportunity to build mechs out in an interesting way for the terrain, mission, or OpFor in MWO is a tactical pool about ankle deep.

Edited by Agent of Change, 09 July 2018 - 10:08 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Spheroid, on 09 July 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

How would that help? It would turn polar into a complete hell. Rethink your idea and realize the obvious downsides.

My main problem with random is that you should always take a mid to long range trade mech to ensure you're always useful. Things like Gausshammers, Laservomit EBJ/HBR, etc. Things that can hit hard at like 500-750 meters and fade back around a corner. They can do OK closer maps like HPG / Mining, and they can do OK on long range maps like Alpine and Polar. It ensures you're always useful. if you take a pure brawler, and get stuck on alpine or polar, you are pretty much useless unless you get lucky and the enemy team is also running brawlers. If you take LRM's and get solaris, you are also useless.

It just incentivizes all-rounder builds, and makes it so taking a specialized build is a very bad idea unless you are OK with occasionally dragging your team down.

[Nameless King]

Eisenhorne, on 09 July 2018 - 10:52 AM, said:

My main problem with random is that you should always take a mid to long range trade mech to ensure you're always useful. Things like Gausshammers, Laservomit EBJ/HBR, etc. Things that can hit hard at like 500-750 meters and fade back around a corner. They can do OK closer maps like HPG / Mining, and they can do OK on long range maps like Alpine and Polar. It ensures you're always useful. if you take a pure brawler, and get stuck on alpine or polar, you are pretty much useless unless you get lucky and the enemy team is also running brawlers. If you take LRM's and get solaris, you are also useless.

It just incentivizes all-rounder builds, and makes it so taking a specialized build is a very bad idea unless you are OK with occasionally dragging your team down.

A brawler is never usless except in the hands of those not skilled enough to play them.

[Haipyng]

Agent of Change, on 09 July 2018 - 10:06 AM, said:

It's a fair question and practically i don't. MWO, being just an arena team deathmatch with flair, only has one type of build that is worthwhile: The one that does the most damage as quickly as possible to the enemy without dying. There need be no concessions to objectives or tactics... because the only tactic you really need is find your team stay together and focus your fire, until you or they are wiped out.

With that in mind the ONLY build choices you have that can possible matter in MWO given map variation are these:

LRM or No LRM - to whit, bring LRMS to alpine heights and Polar highlands especially, don't bring'em to Solaris city, all other maps are pretty much a wash. so the only purpose build choosing serves is to spam LRMS on teh maps that are good for them and not bring them to the city.

Hot map or Not - in which case if you were to know it was cold map you could bring a mech build that would be silly to run in caustic or terra therma otherwise what else would you actually change?

Neither of those are 'tactical' decisions so much as wishlisting to make power gaming easier. I mean no offense but the opportunity to build mechs out in an interesting way for the terrain, mission, or OpFor in MWO is a tactical pool about ankle deep.

Don't forget long range or short range. You can make due with long range on a brawling friendly map (until you start brawling in earnest anyway), short range on distance friendly is a non starter.

It's the trifecta of rock, paper, scissors.

Eisenhorne, on 09 July 2018 - 10:52 AM, said:

It just incentivizes all-rounder builds, and makes it so taking a specialized build is a very bad idea unless you are OK with occasionally dragging your team down.

The flip side of that is that sometimes on favorable maps and game types you could be carrying your team and considered "OP" relative to the generalized builds of everyone else.

Maybe go "full random" mode and have mech selection be random too.

[Kubernetes]

Spheroid, on 09 July 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

How would that help? It would turn polar into a complete hell. Rethink your idea and realize the obvious downsides.

I disagree. Map choice means everyone can bring appropriate mechs. If you're scared of Lrm-ageddon in that scenario, remember that mech choice means you can also bring AMS and ECM. CW games on Polar are fine because everyone expects to see LRMs and long range weapons.

Edited by Kubernetes, 09 July 2018 - 03:05 PM.

[Kanil]

Nameless King, on 09 July 2018 - 07:47 AM, said:

Absolutely horrible idea as usual. How about you just lean to use your Mechs on all the maps.

I can use my 'mech on all the maps, but the problem is there's no reason to bring any other 'mech. Like, if Solaris comes up, I could use the Orion IIC which would probably perform better... but I'd never drop with the Orion IIC because on most maps it's just worse. So my Orion IIC just sits in the hangar because while it's good, it's not good enough to justify using in bad situations.

It would be nice to be able to use niche 'mechs without shooting yourself in the foot most of the time.

[Prototelis]

Because gaming maps is going to add a ton of variety to this game.