181 replies to this topic

[KoalaBrownie]

Quote

You realize you are doing the exact same thing....right?

For example my anecdotal evidence you dismissed because I "might not be experienced" enough for me to be qualified enough to judge whether or not your tactic is good.

I cal them potatoes because if I tried that against players at my skill level or higher I'd be dead, because that's how you learn that it is a bad idea, by making those mistakes.

I didn't dismiss your evidence, I dismissed your conclusion. Your argument is basically "I flanked with a heavy once, I was very successful, therefore the enemy team was potato".

Can you prove that they were lower skilled? No of course not. You just assume they were because the result doesn't match your expectation. That's not how research is conducted.

Now what teams do at the pro-level is another matter. But if this game is such that at the pro level, only a few tactics are viable then the game arguably lacks depth.

[Soulless86]

I like playing in a Grinner with 5 MPLs. A Pirahna is basically a free kill if you let one shoot you in the back you've done something wrong.

Alternately use streaks and laugh at them as they come within 300 metres.

Edited by Soulless86, 25 July 2018 - 10:50 PM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Yeonne Greene, on 25 July 2018 - 09:39 PM, said:

The adorable thing is you obviously predicating your entire argument on the core of the game being Quick Play.

Biggest population = the core of the game.
Get rid of quick play and see how fast this game dies.

[HGAK47]

LowSubmarino, on 20 July 2018 - 03:38 AM, said:

Piranhas die soooo quicly. But i gotta admit its pathetically easy to just run up to the back of the nascar traing and then kill assault after assault.

But its the players fault mostly.

They copy builds of really good players with ten thousand times better situational and spatial awerness and copy those back armor values.

If you are just mediorcre.....what are you doing with just 4 - 7 back armor. Tripple that number at the very least if you are a below average or average player. At the very least. You are simply nowhere good enough to survive with low back armor.

MWO QP is nascar. Your back will almost be attacked more heavily than your front. But the funny thing is.....ppl completly and hilariously neglect back armor. When a QP match starts theres already 1 - 3 ppl that are en route right to your back in ffast mechs 1 second into the match. But still you catch ppl with their exposed backs and non existent back armor in every match.

Susshhhhhhhhhh!

[Quicksilver Aberration]

KoalaBrownie, on 25 July 2018 - 10:20 PM, said:

I didn't dismiss your evidence, I dismissed your conclusion. Your argument is basically "I flanked with a heavy once, I was very successful, therefore the enemy team was potato".

I gave you one example because you asked for it and that's the only one that I remember, if you expect me to remember every one of my 15k matches then your insane. I can say this that it isn't the only time I did that either. Remember how I said I mastered the Summoner and forced myself to use different builds on each one? You think that was my first or only match in a heavy brawler, really? The reason I say the enemy team was potato is because of my experience in comp, where that sort of maneuver is scouted and punished. Even small split tactics are risky because you have to be able to respond to a push in the event an enemy tries.

KoalaBrownie, on 25 July 2018 - 10:20 PM, said:

Now what teams do at the pro-level is another matter. But if this game is such that at the pro level, only a few tactics are viable then the game arguably lacks depth.

Now you partially understand why people like me avoid this forum, because balance changes made to appease the lower tiers often just remove yet another choice we have for play in top tier and this forum is full of threads just like this. Whether it be the brutal cSPL nerfs that basically killed brawling drop decs or Gauss/PPC nerfs that brought us back to the Gauss vomit era. Guess what, 2 of the top lights in MRBC boated MGs (the other light being the Wolfhound) so nerfing MGs would be similar to cSPL nerfs which basically was just another nerf to the weakest mechs in the game.

That said, there are only so many changes that can be made and the idea that a solo flanking heavy can somehow be made useful is wishful thinking, especially in a game where there are several mechs that are 50% or more faster than even the fastest heavy (meaning you can get caught and destroyed easily for being "out of position").

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 July 2018 - 07:31 AM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 July 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

You think that was my first or only match in a heavy brawler, really? The reason I say the enemy team was potato is because of my experience in comp, where that sort of maneuver is scouted and punished. Even small split tactics are risky because you have to be able to respond to a push in the event an enemy tries.

I'm saying that your example does not support your argument.
Saying "heavy mech flanking doesn't work against good teams" (paraphrasing) and then giving an example of a successful flank against a team you theorize as being 'potato' are not related.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 July 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

Now you partially understand why people like me avoid this forum, because balance changes made to appease the lower tiers often just remove yet another choice we have for play in top tier and this forum is full of threads just like this.

If the game is balanced around the lower tiers it's because the lower tiers are the most important for the game's success. Other games, like Dota2, balance gameplay around the high tiers because there are enough players in that scene to support it. They don't care if the lower tiers keep complaining about Phantom Assassin because that hero has a bad record in high tier play.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 July 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

Whether it be the brutal cSPL nerfs that basically killed brawling drop decs or Gauss/PPC nerfs that brought us back to the Gauss vomit era. Guess what, 2 of the top lights in MRBC boated MGs (the other light being the Wolfhound) so nerfing MGs would be similar to cSPL nerfs which basically was just another nerf to the weakest mechs in the game.

If a weapon is over-performing it should be nerfed. That's the way balancing works.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 July 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

That said, there are only so many changes that can be made and the idea that a solo flanking heavy can somehow be made useful is wishful thinking, especially in a game where there are several mechs that are 50% or more faster than even the fastest heavy (meaning you can get caught and destroyed easily for being "out of position").

Wishful thinking or not I put it into practice. How successful it is I don't know as I have multiple mechs on the one chassis serving in different roles so the stats are muddled. I plan to get another chassis and build it in the same manner from the start to see how well I do with the strategy.

Someone linked my Jarl's lists stats. Says I played mediums 50+% of the time but these days I barely touch mediums, playing mainly heavies and assaults while mediums are 10% or less so- who knows how accurate those stats are. Much of my play in the past was grinding 3 chassis XP in order to rank one chassis as expert then selling the other two. Thankfully PGI threw that system out the window and instead have us grinding for cash to turn XP into SP.

Also for the people questioning my experience in light mechs, I have 216 games in Cicadas which is pretty much the same thing, arguably worse because you're a bigger target with slower handling. Probably where a good amount of that 50% in mediums comes from.

Edited by KoalaBrownie, 26 July 2018 - 09:30 AM.

[Kubernetes]

This was not an uncommon tactic after the first Clan mechs released. The Timby could run at 89kph, had great agility, and could load up on SRM6s and the good cSPLs. I know a few pilots who would take off at full speed to solo flank with this setup, and with luck could catch one or two isolated enemies. But now? Maybe a Linebacker could do it, but risk/reward barely seems worth it. At best you'll kill two enemies, but you'll likely be so beat up that you can't do anything else. At worst you'll get spotted and hosed down by the entire enemy team before you can do anything.

Edited by Kubernetes, 26 July 2018 - 09:24 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

I'm saying that your example does not support your argument.
Saying "heavy mech flanking doesn't work against good teams" (paraphrasing) and then giving an example of a successful flank against a team you theorize as being 'potato' are not related.

They are related, I don't have a specific example of losing badly doing that against good players but I have done it before. SO the question you have to ask is what allowed me to lose in one situation but be a success in the other. Was it my play or was it the enemies play that doomed me? You can say until you are blue in the face that it is always your mistakes that do you in but that's not how reality has played out. Some tactics are inherently more risky than others and no matter whether you play with ZERO mistakes or not you will be ultimately less effective than someone who chose (and made zero mistakes) to stay with the main body and have more ranged weapons or make a coordinated push with your team.

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

If the game is balanced around the lower tiers it's because the lower tiers are the most important for the game's success. Other games, like Dota2, balance gameplay around the high tiers because there are enough players in that scene to support it. They don't care if the lower tiers keep complaining about Phantom Assassin because that hero has a bad record in high tier play.

Every games lower tiers are important for success, but balance isn't really a thing in lower tiers because of varying levels of understanding of how the game works. If a person doesn't understand how to play the game, can they make good judgements on whether something is balanced? No. What IS important in lower tiers is whether the game is FUN despite whatever state balance is in. If it isn't fun then nothing matters. Had this exact discussion with some of the Isen guys recently.

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

If a weapon is over-performing it should be nerfed. That's the way balancing works.

No, that's not. Probably the most important part of balance is knowing what your desired tempo of the game is. If the game is overall slow and you want to make it faster for example, you would actually buff weapons to ensure the meta has reached the desired tempo. For lights for example, they have been the weakest weight class for a long time, blanket nerfing MGs would nerf 2/3s of the top lights so you either reduce variation in the light class or you overall nerf it. The mere existence of the KDK-3 for example MADE the 2 ERPPC HBK-IIC the GOTO medium, balance is not as simple as so many people like to make it out to be because one change can have a ripple effect on the meta.

Then there is a problem with how you gauge whether a weapon is overperforming, if you are just using pure usage you have a problem.

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 09:10 AM, said:

How successful it is I don't know

..............smh

[KoalaBrownie]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 July 2018 - 09:37 AM, said:

..............smh

Put it this way. I have a 1.38 KDR with the Rifleman-3N which typically runs 2 AC/20s and a 1.04 WLR. But how many games I played before taking that configuration I don't know. I know I played stock 3N a fair number of games before switching over. And I also recently bought and heavily played a second 3N which I immediately turned into a Galahad (2 Gauss Rifle) so that muddies the stats. Total games played: 284 with the 3N across all variants (Avg 316 dam/game)

But I'll buy a Jager-S and turn it into the same dual AC/20 design and see how it fares from day 1.

With my Linebacker-B (UAC/20, 3 ER ML), I have 1.07 WLR and 1.64 KDR over 59 games played and I play it as a flanker but haven't touched it recently. (avg 267 dam/game)

Similarly my Catatpult K2 with HGR, 3 ML has 1.25 WLR and 1.52 KDR over 46 games played. But, I don't flank with that all the time as I never upgraded the engine. (avg 250 dam/game)

*Average Damages from mech weapons only as I never bother with consumables.

Edited by KoalaBrownie, 26 July 2018 - 10:39 AM.

[Soulless86]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 31 July 2018 - 02:30 PM.
unconstructive

[BigBenn]

Any time a light mech can boat 12 of the same weapon and crit a targeted mech in 2 seconds.... something is wrong. Period. PGI done F'ed up with soemthin'.

[Khobai]

just make machine guns generate some totally insignificant amount of heat, then add ghost heat on 8+ machine guns

the only problem with 8+ machine guns is that they can be fired indefinitely. giving them ghost heat would prevent that problem. Pirahnas could still fire 12 machine guns but the ghost heat would prevent them from sustaining that dps forever. Eventually theyd have to drop down to using 8 mgs to cool off.

I mean ghost heat is what they use for everything else, so why not MGs too? Because its not like were ever getting another solution to boating besides ghost heat.


If needed, you could also put a -7% machine gun rate of fire quirk on the pirahna. that would make its 12 machine guns more like 11.2 machine guns.


Those are some ideas for fixing machine gun spam on mechs with 8+ mgs. Without nerfing the mechs that carry less than 8 mgs.

Edited by Khobai, 26 July 2018 - 07:01 PM.

[KoalaBrownie]

Give MGs a bar that fills up with continuous firing like RAC but instead have the MGs generate more heat the higher the bar fills up, forcing players to stop firing in order to cool them off.

[Khobai]

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 07:00 PM, said:

Give MGs a bar that fills up with continuous firing like RAC but instead have the MGs generate more heat the higher the bar fills up, forcing players to stop firing in order to cool them off.

the problem with that is it punishes mechs that only use 4-6 machine guns

when its only the mechs that use 8-12 machine guns need to be nerfed

[KoalaBrownie]

Khobai, on 26 July 2018 - 07:04 PM, said:

the problem with that is it punishes mechs that only use 4-6 machine guns

when its only the mechs that use 8-12 machine guns need to be nerfed

Then add ghost heat on top of it, with mechs using only 4-6 getting punished by a bit of heat but mechs with a lot more generating additional ghost heat that punishes them harder.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Lets be honest there isnt salt over the 8 machine gun Lynx. The salt flows from 1 precise location. 12 machine gun and back up laser Piranha's. This one mech/config is the problem with "machine guns". PGI broke it with the introduction of that single variant.

[Jack Dawes]

Requiemking, on 19 July 2018 - 07:59 PM, said:

I see you've never heard of through armor crits before. I assure you, this happens in TT, and yes, it can be fatal. Seriously, a Locust, with the right rolls, can one-shot an Atlas through the front CT and completely tear the Atlas' engine apart, despite only dealing two damage to the front armor, and thats without rapid-fire rules. In TT, that Piranha would have simply killed your mech outright, as opposed to just taking a heatsink and MPL.

And in TT, when it happened (once in a blue moon) you yelled with delight. In this game, it's every time a mg boat (4, 6, 8, 12) spends any time shooting.

"With the right rolls." I won grand national championship in 1987, miniature rules, and it happened so rarely even with mixed TOE, that you didn't count on it.

FASA made a scenario based on my unit, Rolling Thunder. I'm kind of familiar with the ruleset.

MG in this game are too powerful, despite the "if you only have one, it's practically useless" crowd. If you only have one, it SHOULD be practically useless.

[Villainy]

Man, as a pretty dedicated Locust pilot I thought I absolutely HATED Piranha when they first became the scourge they are now.
Then I bought one for myself. And boy was I right. These things are ******* stupid.
I faced down a Highlander, solo, yesterday. Now, I'm not talking like sneaky sneaky hobbitsy rogue style back stabbing here. I had lost a leg killing two mediums (also solo because PIR is the god of death) and saw him just coming around the corner, into a ramp alley on Mining Collective. He got me once with a good alpha so I decided at least opening some armor would be worth dying for.
I killed him. At 300 M I started slowly approaching him on busted legs, and by the time I was at 50m he was cored.
I took about 20% damage.
Now, I get it. That dude as obviously a **** assault pilot. But this shouldn't be mathematically possible. I shouldn't be able to chew through the entirety of an Assault's front CT armor in a 20 ton light using Mgs. I don't care what magical numbers to add to them. That doesn't make sense!

EDITED: Because phone posting replaces weird words.

Edited by Villainy, 27 July 2018 - 08:15 AM.

[Grus]

Kubernetes, on 25 July 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

Forget Ferro-Fibrous and Stealth, the strongest armor in the game is Dunning-Kruger.

plot armor wins over that comeon man..

El Bandito, on 20 July 2018 - 03:02 AM, said:

PGI can slap negative RoF quirk on MG mechs carrying over certain amount of MGs.

They could also remove ghost heat from micro lasers but both are not likely to happen.

Frankly if i didnt have to qorry about GH on micros then id use that buil more than i am now. With that build i dont have to worry about running out of ammo...

[Jack Dawes]

KoalaBrownie, on 26 July 2018 - 07:00 PM, said:

Give MGs a bar that fills up with continuous firing like RAC but instead have the MGs generate more heat the higher the bar fills up, forcing players to stop firing in order to cool them off.

I can speak from experience that melting your barrel sucks.