108 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Mechs have strengths and weaknesses. Strategies work best by picking the mechs that synergizes best with the plan. It just sounds to me you're not using the right strategies rather than the right mechs. Unless you have complaints about the 1000 damage per mech average untapped potential in the Fafnir just laying in your mechbay.

El Bandito, on 03 September 2018 - 08:47 PM, said:

Fafnir is undeniably very strong, but you should know those stats include FP, and Solaris stats, and since you play FP a lot, it is definitely biased.

Looks like the poster plays FP as well, so this argument is negated for now.

[Verilligo]

dante245, on 04 September 2018 - 12:10 PM, said:

ECM is not a make all break all for the most part. it has several counters...the biggest being simply "look in there general direction", cause your not camouflaged, your just have sensor protection. any decent player worth there salt has solid map awareness and will constantly look around or check behind them from time to time to make sure an ECM mech is NOT sneaking up on them. if your getting killed by ECM, bring counters and make sure your team are keeping a watchful eye with UAV, scouts, and simply ..."LOOK AROUND". im not saying i dont love ECM, but to say its a big enough justification to have the mech be weaker, slower, ect is a injustice.

The point of ECM on the Faffy isn't to use it to sneak up on the enemy, the point of ECM on the Faffy is that you can end up being presented with a choice of two or three targets, one of which doesn't show up on sensors. The Faffy may be the bigger threat, but you may not be able to tell where to hit it to cripple it or you might miss it outright because you have other targets taking up your attention.

[dante245]

thing is i know about dif strats for dif mechs. issue is this mech can not perform in the strats it was built for at the same level as the anhi..the anhi is simply a better mech. and that is the problem. ecm or no ecm...the mech is not competitive enough in the roles it can perform. at least in comparison to other 100, 48 kph weapon platforms. which are VERY VIABLE in certain circumstances "such as defense siege, slow pushes, and line holding". and good units do use anhis..almost none use fafnir. at least when they could have brough an anhi.

Edited by dante245, 04 September 2018 - 12:27 PM.

[dante245]

Verilligo, on 04 September 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

The point of ECM on the Faffy isn't to use it to sneak up on the enemy, the point of ECM on the Faffy is that you can end up being presented with a choice of two or three targets, one of which doesn't show up on sensors. The Faffy may be the bigger threat, but you may not be able to tell where to hit it to cripple it or you might miss it outright because you have other targets taking up your attention.

even if you can not tell where to hit it..you can always just aim for the obvious spot since 9 times out of 10 it will be the area everyone else was already shooting and also the place of most important TOO shoot "the torsos with the massive ballistics mounted". 3 of the builds i know you can run on it involve almost all those weapons in those torsos, so not shooting them even if you can not see there health would be dumb.and anyone can look up a mechs stats before they start playing and find out the Fafnir has weakest armor ON the side torsos.

Edited by dante245, 04 September 2018 - 12:29 PM.

[Verilligo]

dante245, on 04 September 2018 - 12:23 PM, said:

thing is i know about dif strats for dif mechs. issue is this mech can not perform in the strats it was built for at the same level as the anhi..the anhi is simply a better mech. and that is the problem. ecm or no ecm...the mech is not competitive enough in the roles it can perform. at least in comparison to other 100, 48 kph weapon platforms. which are VERY VIABLE in certain circumstances "such as defense siege, slow pushes, and line holding". and good units do use anhis..almost none use fafnir.

There are roles the Faffy can perform that the Anni really can't. If you want to poke, for instance, the Faffy does that WAY better than the Anni. Not that poke is necessarily the best place for a 100-tonner, but your guns can clear the ground a lot sooner than the Anni's can, and that DOES make a difference for helping minimize return fire.

Edit: I'd also disagree with your assessment of where to shoot the Faffy if you have no data. The CT is the easiest place on the mech to hit, thus the most likely to run low on armor soonest. If you aim for my STs when I'm running quad LBX10, you're doing me a great service by extending my life.

Edited by Verilligo, 04 September 2018 - 12:30 PM.

[dante245]

Verilligo, on 04 September 2018 - 12:28 PM, said:

There are roles the Faffy can perform that the Anni really can't. If you want to poke, for instance, the Faffy does that WAY better than the Anni. Not that poke is necessarily the best place for a 100-tonner, but your guns can clear the ground a lot sooner than the Anni's can, and that DOES make a difference for helping minimize return fire.

how so? the ballistic mounts are higher on the anhi and tighter packed and the mech is overall taller..so how exactly does the fafnir poke better? "besides saying ecm"?

[Nightbird]

Fafnir is way better when used in its niche than the Anni, I believe I proved that is true in FP. If you have a counter argument I'd like to hear it.

[dante245]

Nightbird, on 04 September 2018 - 12:31 PM, said:

Fafnir is way better when used in its niche than the Anni, I believe I proved that is true in FP. If you have a counter argument I'd like to hear it.

no its not. simplest argument is look at anhi positioning on Solaris seven performance leader boards and the divisions its ranked in...if we are to believe division 1 are the best of the best...almost every anhi is in there...while i dont believe you see a Fafnir till division 2. second...you never see Fafnir in siege defense unless there in replacement of some one NOT owning a annihilator. which you see in invasion all the time. and if some where there is a chart of over all mech performances..the anhi out performs the Fafnir across the board "same tonnage, same speed, same builds".

[Verilligo]

dante245, on 04 September 2018 - 12:31 PM, said:

how so? the ballistic mounts are higher on the anhi and tighter packed and the mech is overall taller..so how exactly does the fafnir poke better? "besides saying ecm"?

...for starters, why do you have an Atlas on the right side? Wrong picture? Regardless, the guns on the Fafnir are basically right in line with the cockpit. There isn't a WHOLE lot of mech above the cockpit of the Faffy, meaning if you see it, you can basically shoot it. The Anni has its cockpit mounted really far above the ballistic mounts on that giraffe's neck it has. So you have to clear a lot more ground before the guns themselves are exposed. Paired with the poor pitch angle of most 100-tonners, I have had MANY instances in the past where the neck and head of the Anni presented themselves as early warnings and I've been able to use terrain to avoid being shot while still able to fire down onto them. You can't do that as well to the Faffy, even moreso with the ECM variants because they can pop up fully in the ~0.4s it takes to recognize and react to them existing without a sensor blip. Some players also get confused by the high cockpit of the Anni every once in a while and don't realize their guns haven't yet cleared terrain/buildings and they'll let off a salvo before they should, giving you a free moment to do some work.

[cougurt]

keep in mind that the annihilator has been out for c-bills for several months now, whereas the fafnir is still only available for real money/MC, which is probably the main reason you don’t see them quite as often.

[Eisenhorne]

dante245, on 04 September 2018 - 12:35 PM, said:

no its not. simplest argument is look at anhi positioning on Solaris seven performance leader boards and the divisions its ranked in...if we are to believe division 1 are the best of the best...almost every anhi is in there...while i dont believe you see a Fafnir till division 2. second...you never see Fafnir in siege defense unless there in replacement of some one NOT owning a annihilator. which you see in invasion all the time. and if some where there is a chart of over all mech performances..the anhi out performs the Fafnir across the board "same tonnage, same speed, same builds".

... Solaris 7 is not an indicator of FP performance, its not very good at 1v1 obviously because it has big weaknesses, as you've seen. You will very commonly see Fafnirs in siege defense. I own the ANH and the FNR, and generally prefer the FNR for close-in work, and the ANH for longer range combat. The ability to peek over hills and fire with the FNR is better than what the ANH can do, and the ECM is helpful. I am not alone in this, numerous EmP / Evil / BCMC players have similar opinions on this mech.

Your opinion is obviously in the minority here, multiple good players are telling you the mech has a niche role that it excels in, and so it shouldn't be buffed further. I suggest you re-evaluate how you play it.

[Chris Lowrey]

So just to add my 2 cents on this discussion as to why we made the change back then:

• No matter what we do with the hitboxes, any 'Mech with prominent protruding geometry is always going to come with some trade offs.
  
• In the case of the Fafnir, the protruding Geometry is minimized in direct faceoff and direct 90° arm shielding situations.

Under the previous tuning, we where seeing side torso's almost instantaneously pop off due to their size of the side torso hitboxes from front, top, and 3/4 profiles when we attempted to get the "side" of the protruding central geometry to "count as" side torso. This is because in order for us to get those sides of the protruding CT, we had to make the side profile exceptionally large from the front and Top profile, with the side torso's almost entirely dominating the 3/4 view.

Given the natural geometry of the 'Mech we are almost always going to have to make a compromise no matter what we settle on. So for this one, our compromise was to level out the torso profiles from a front facing profle, as with zero options for Lower arm actuators, frontal profile engagements where important when it comes to face to face engagements, and the top profile, in order to level out the damage distribution when it comes to LRM rain. The 90° profile already adequately protects the center due to the arm geometry, so leveling out the distribution from the front facing and top facing angles we felt was going to be the things that supported the Fafnir's support the most, while generous CT Armor Quirks are directly to correlate with the compromises we had to make due to the 'Mech geometry.

Naturally, there is never going to be a perfect solution when it comes to hitbox distribution for oblong shaped 'Mechs, but we try to make a compromise across the widest amount of angles present on a 'Mech, and anything that we feel falls short past that are areas that will almost always be targets for corrective 'Mech quirks.

[Eisenhorne]

And most of us feel like you did a pretty good job balancing this mech, Chris.

[Nightbird]

Chris Lowrey, on 04 September 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

I love the mech Chris. I was vocal before the Fafnir released on how bad the geometry will perform in MWO, you guys proved me so very wrong with your choice of hitboxes.

[FLG 01]

Chris Lowrey, on 04 September 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

Given the natural geometry of the 'Mech we are almost always going to have to make a compromise no matter what we settle on.

Natural geometry? There is no such thing. Your artists, especially the 3D-modellers, largely determine the geometry of a Mech. The Fafnir was not ruined as much as the Nightstar (which should be a sleek, elongated design with minimal frontal profile), but it is far broader than it needed to be.
And that, not any "natural geometry", is the reason for large torso hitboxes.

[Hiten Bongz]

Chris Lowrey, on 04 September 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

So just to add my 2 cents on this discussion as to why we made the change back then:

• No matter what we do with the hitboxes, any 'Mech with prominent protruding geometry is always going to come with some trade offs.
  
• In the case of the Fafnir, the protruding Geometry is minimized in direct faceoff and direct 90° arm shielding situations.

Under the previous tuning, we where seeing side torso's almost instantaneously pop off due to their size of the side torso hitboxes from front, top, and 3/4 profiles when we attempted to get the "side" of the protruding central geometry to "count as" side torso. This is because in order for us to get those sides of the protruding CT, we had to make the side profile exceptionally large from the front and Top profile, with the side torso's almost entirely dominating the 3/4 view.




Given the natural geometry of the 'Mech we are almost always going to have to make a compromise no matter what we settle on. So for this one, our compromise was to level out the torso profiles from a front facing profle, as with zero options for Lower arm actuators, frontal profile engagements where important when it comes to face to face engagements, and the top profile, in order to level out the damage distribution when it comes to LRM rain. The 90° profile already adequately protects the center due to the arm geometry, so leveling out the distribution from the front facing and top facing angles we felt was going to be the things that supported the Fafnir's support the most, while generous CT Armor Quirks are directly to correlate with the compromises we had to make due to the 'Mech geometry.

Naturally, there is never going to be a perfect solution when it comes to hitbox distribution for oblong shaped 'Mechs, but we try to make a compromise across the widest amount of angles present on a 'Mech, and anything that we feel falls short past that are areas that will almost always be targets for corrective 'Mech quirks.

I'd like some of your input on this same topic regarding the Sun Spider if you have a few minutes. It suffers from the same wide shape and big torsos as the Fafnir but has tiny arms that cannot shield whatsoever. However this mech has never received any armor quirks etc. to compensate.

I am fully aware that there was a hitbox adjustment a few patches ago with the SNS, but the patch notes literally only state "adjusted the SNS hitboxes" and nothing else. How were they adjusted? Is it possible to get comparison screenshots? As a frequent SNS pilot I still feel like it's incredibly fragile, between no armor quirks, low mobility/twist, unable to shield damage...etc.

Edited by Hiten Bongz, 04 September 2018 - 03:57 PM.

[Verilligo]

Hiten Bongz, on 04 September 2018 - 03:53 PM, said:

I'd like some of your input on this same topic regarding the Sun Spider if you have a few minutes. It suffers from the same wide shape and big torsos as the Fafnir but has tiny arms that cannot shield whatsoever. However this mech has never received any armor quirks etc. to compensate.

I am fully aware that there was a hitbox adjustment a few patches ago with the SNS, but the patch notes literally only state "adjusted the SNS hitboxes" and nothing else. How were they adjusted? Is it possible to get comparison screenshots? As a frequent SNS pilot I still feel like it's incredibly fragile, between no armor quirks, low mobility/twist, unable to shield damage...etc.

What was done to the SNS was that more of the mech became CT, rather than ST. If you look at the SNS, the ST boxes where hardpoints are allocated are attached a segment which is then attached to the visual CT of the mech. Previously, that segment between the guns and the visual CT were counted as ST. Now they count as CT. The STs are now the gunpod and the segment that the arms attach to. This means the mech has ENORMOUS torso hitboxes... and extremely tiny arm hitboxes. This is why the mech is so squishy, you essentially never take arm damage, only CT or ST damage. Given the CT is so large, you can basically hit it from every angle except basically directly from the side, so the mech pops super quick. Before, the CT was so tiny that you were ALWAYS losing your STs before anything else, to the point people were purposely stripping armor off the CT because it was hit so rarely.

You can't really fix this, either. You can minimize the effect by making the arms take up more hitbox space, but they're so far back and up that you're still going to have a hard time shielding with them. You can give the mech armor quirks, but they won't really do much for the mech because all of its vitals are easily struck damage magnets. These reasons also mean that mean that giving it super maneuverability like the Summoner won't do squat, either. The mech also doesn't have the free tonnage of the Nova Cat because so much of its weight is put into its engine. Really, if they were to quirk it, I'd say the SNS is a prime candidate for some strong weapon quirks so that it can really make the most of its glass cannon nature.

[Chris Lowrey]

Hiten Bongz, on 04 September 2018 - 03:53 PM, said:

I'd like some of your input on this same topic regarding the Sun Spider if you have a few minutes. It suffers from the same wide shape and big torsos as the Fafnir but has tiny arms that cannot shield whatsoever. However this mech has never received any armor quirks etc. to compensate.

I am fully aware that there was a hitbox adjustment a few patches ago with the SNS, but the patch notes literally only state "adjusted the SNS hitboxes" and nothing else. How were they adjusted? Is it possible to get comparison screenshots? As a frequent SNS pilot I still feel like it's incredibly fragile, between no armor quirks, low mobility/twist, unable to shield damage...etc.

Sure, I can touch on that,

Much like the Fafnir, the Sun Spider's hitbox changes where to improve the frontal profile, since like the Fafnir, with zero lower arm actuator options, we wanted to improve the distribution of damage from the frontal profile, as well as tighten up the side torso's from the 3/4 profile. The Side torso can still shield from a 90° angle

So the reason that this hasn't been given torso quirks right now is simply because of performance. While venerable, the Sun Spider has a large amount of very high mounted torso weapon options all very tightly clustered with a fairly small profile for its size from a front facing angle where it can shoot at you. The Fafnir by contrast has an easily isolated protruding CT, and it overall has a massive frontal profile on par with 'Mechs like the King Crab. Additionally the 'Mech is similar to other 'Mechs with large flanking profiles such as the Marauder IIC or the Stalker, where you can leverage the large side torso to shield other components making them relatively tanky in certain situations despite no defensive quirks. This, combined with tight weapon clustering, high mounts, and small ridge peak profile from the front sees its overall performance on the higher then average side of the 70 tonner line despite the lack of defensive quirks.

In situations like this, we are fine with the less then optimal hitbox assignment counterbalancing against highly optimal weapon mounts / grouping and smaller ridge peaking profile since those that play to the 'Mechs strengths already perform very well in it, while the 'Mech itself remains venerable to counter-play from players that can exploit it's weakness.

This isn't to say we would never consider them. Some form of change to benefit the torso hitboxes is defiantly on the short list of things we can do to it if we ever feel it needs the buff. Especially if a future change to the game sees it loose out against alternatives. But as of right now, since its already performing adequately against the rest of the 70 tonner lineup, we are leaving it as part of the natural give and take of the Chassis.

[dante245]

FLG 01, on 04 September 2018 - 02:19 PM, said:

Natural geometry? There is no such thing. Your artists, especially the 3D-modellers, largely determine the geometry of a Mech. The Fafnir was not ruined as much as the Nightstar (which should be a sleek, elongated design with minimal frontal profile), but it is far broader than it needed to be.
And that, not any "natural geometry", is the reason for large torso hitboxes.

FLG 01 has a point. at the end of the day the hitbox configuration, is largerly determined by your artist. that being said, i can see how it would be too much work to actually re-profile the mech or shrink it, since its already been implemented. my suggestion would be a simple way of brining a bit more balance and performance to the mech " when judging performance, please compare it to nearest comparable mech" such as the annihilator. yes its going to have draw back because of the prominent protruding geometry, but there are other mechs that are quite good despite this for a number of factors "speed and size "sun spider" rar armor "annihilator" or a mixture of both " mad cat " .

but simply either buffing existing armor quirks or taking some off the CT for the sides "finding that right median" i believe you would see this mech used more in competitive play and faction play alike. its a rare site in comp and faction play even among the better players who can use skill to make up for those week areas. i quite love the design as said in earlier post..i just feel its just shy of what it needs "even more so on the variants with out ECM" the needed durability in on form or another for such a slow mech. and as i can do almost every build this does in an annihilator, i would get chewed out if i brought this over an annihilator in some cases. just something to look into is all im asking. if the performance stats are really that good for this mech, i wont bring it up again. but i truly believe they are not and PGI can easily check to confirm what im saying.

what changes you decide to make i would accept as long as the mech could be competitive.

if my other post about community building and mechs needing a look at are any measure, im not in this for selfish reasons...i honestly would like to see everyone's game improve and see mechs like this, the uziel, and ect see more use in faction play and comp play.

Edited by dante245, 05 September 2018 - 10:03 PM.

[Nightbird]

dante245, on 05 September 2018 - 10:04 PM, said:

simply either buffing existing armor quirks or taking some off the CT for the sides "finding that right median" i believe you would see this mech used more in competitive play and faction play alike.

I see Fafnirs more often in FP than Annis, because they are better.