64 replies to this topic

[Shifty McSwift]

Prototelis, on 04 November 2018 - 01:01 PM, said:

Except that no one has claimed that strikes are exclusively for area control, in the same way that UAVs are not exclusively used to give sandbagging lrm boats leech locks.

Sure but it does seem like the intent was to make them that way, and some people think they are/should be. It's hardly nobody claiming a nothing here, this topic alone proves that as hyperbole.

[Prototelis]

This is like the hundreth thread about strikes.

It is the nature of the playerbase of this game to come here and cry about the things that kill them, rather than trying to improve.

Strikes have many uses, area control is only one of them.

[Shifty McSwift]

Prototelis, on 04 November 2018 - 01:45 PM, said:

This is like the hundreth thread about strikes.

It is the nature of the playerbase of this game to come here and cry about the things that kill them, rather than trying to improve.

Strikes have many uses, area control is only one of them.

Well, I wasn't complaining about strikes because they are killing me that's for sure lol, strikes IMO are pretty lame as they are, I can't speak for others there obviously. People can dislike something out of feelings other than fear or rage.

[Tiewolf]

Vxheous, on 04 November 2018 - 12:19 PM, said:

Avoiding strikes is also a skill, even with "hidden" smoke

In general i have to agree but not for "hidden" smoke. You can have skills or strategies to lower your chances to get hit but you can`t avoid what you can`t perceive or predict. If skill would be a counter to strikes, they would be useless in comp play. I hope you can agree that strikes are not useless in comp play.

Honestly i want to see your slow assault mech avoiding a hidden arti strike or air strike when you allready see the aircrafts. If they are hidden you can`t know if you have to move or stay to avoid em. Everything could be wrong or right.
If an arti is placed right behind your Annihilator your chances are allmost 0 without team mates warning you. You can have skills like you want but you have no rear camera. Even if you are constantly on the move or in a light mech you could turn around a corner and boom the arti you couldn`t see before goes of.

Don`t get me wrong I have nothing against strikes in generall. My main concerns are that they are only spammable by a very selected playerbase (c-billionairs like you i assume), they are too frequent and that the warning is often not perceptible or the timeframe to move away is too short for some mechs.

Edited by Tiewolf, 04 November 2018 - 02:46 PM.

[Prototelis]

Once again, there are many aspects in regard to the skills required in avoiding strikes.

If you already know the most common places engagements take place you already know the best places to hide them, or at the very least know a half dozen places where smoke can be placed unseen to you.

Vxheous isn't claiming to be impervious to strike usage, nor am I, but there is much you can do in the way of not being in position to eat a lot of strike damage and that is a skill.

[Tiewolf]

Prototelis, on 04 November 2018 - 01:01 PM, said:

Except that no one has claimed that strikes are exclusively for area control, in the same way that UAVs are not exclusively used to give sandbagging lrm boats leech locks.

No one has claimed that. My point is that spamming strikes matter in deciding a games outcome. If something that matters is only exclusively usable by a minority that can afford it and is often impossible to counter (UAVs can allways be detected and eliminated), it is not a mechanic that is benefical for the gameplay or the future of MWO.

[Prototelis]

We've also been over this.

I had no problem affording consumables when I started the game and had no premium mechs/time.

Generous consumable usage in practice only increases your own grind, which is why they cost in game money to use.

You're skirting around using the phrase "pay2win" but that is really what you're getting at. Strikes are "Grind4advantage," the same way grinding out new mechs, equipment, and skills are.

[Vxheous]

Tiewolf, on 04 November 2018 - 02:43 PM, said:

In general i have to agree but not for "hidden" smoke. You can have skills or strategies to lower your chances to get hit but you can`t avoid what you can`t perceive or predict. If skill would be a counter to strikes, they would be useless in comp play. I hope you can agree that strikes are not useless in comp play.

Honestly i want to see your slow assault mech avoiding a hidden arti strike or air strike when you allready see the aircrafts. If they are hidden you can`t know if you have to move or stay to avoid em. Everything could be wrong or right.
If an arti is placed right behind your Annihilator your chances are allmost 0 without team mates warning you. You can have skills like you want but you have no rear camera. Even if you are constantly on the move or in a light mech you could turn around a corner and boom the arti you couldn`t see before goes of.

Don`t get me wrong I have nothing against strikes in generall. My main concerns are that they are only spammable by a very selected playerbase (c-billionairs like you i assume), they are too frequent and that the warning is often not perceptible or the timeframe to move away is too short for some mechs.

Strikes are actually used for area denial in comp and do get avoided a lot. As an example, lets say Im playing comp on Canyon Network. I know my opponents are on Epsi ridge behind some of the cover there. They know that I know they're there. I still drop a strike on them knowing they will probably avoid it, but to avoid it, they have to side step their power position, or back off the ridge slightly. Forcing my opponent to make that move allows my team's lights to potentially sneak theta. In turn, my opponents drop a strike on theta to prevent my team from taking it.

When players take strike damage in comp, they either chose to remain in position to eat the strike, or got maneuvered into taking that damage. Another example is I see someone poking from behind cover to trade with me so I drop my airstrike on that cover. This person is now potentially forced to stay out of cover after the trade while the strike hits, opening them up to potentially getting shot by another player on my team, or trade with me, back into the cover and eat the strike as well.

As for assaults avoiding getting striked, I dance around strikes in my Mad Cat Mk II all the time, it's a matter of anticipating the strike as well as backing off cover at 45* angles. Its not perfect but I usually only get hit by maybe 10% of the strikes thrown my way. Play around enough power positions and you almost get a 6th sense about predicting if/when you might get striked, even if you can't see the smoke.

Edited by Vxheous, 04 November 2018 - 04:31 PM.

[K O Z A K]

Vxheous, on 04 November 2018 - 03:16 PM, said:

Strikes are actually used for area denial in comp and do get avoided a lot. As an example, lets say Im playing comp on Canyon Network. I know my opponents are on Epsi ridge behind some of the cover there. They know that I know they're there. I still drop a strike on them knowing they will probably avoid it, but to avoid it, they have to side step their power position, or back off the ridge slightly. Forcing my opponent to make that move allows my team's lights to potentially sneak theta. In turn, my opponents drop a strike on theta to prevent my team from taking it.

When players take strike damage in comp, they either chose to remain in position to eat the strike, or manuveured into taking that damage. Another example is I see someone poking from behind cover to trade with me so I drop my airstrike on that cover. This person is now potentially forced to stay out of cover after the trade whike the strike hits, opening them up to potentially getting shot by another player on my team, or trade with me, back into the cover and eat the strike as well.

As for assaults avoiding getting striked, I dance around strikes in my Mad Cat Mk II all the time, it's a matter of anticipating the strike as well as backing off cover at 45* angles. Its not perfect but I usually only get hit by maybe 10% of the strikes thrown my way. Play around enough power positions and you almost get a 6th sense about predicting if/when you might get striked, even if you can't see the smoke.

There's probably less than 100 players left in this game that can do what you're describing, probably quite a few less

[Tiewolf]

Prototelis, on 04 November 2018 - 03:00 PM, said:

Once again, there are many aspects in regard to the skills required in avoiding strikes.

If you already know the most common places engagements take place you already know the best places to hide them, or at the very least know a half dozen places where smoke can be placed unseen to you.

Vxheous isn't claiming to be impervious to strike usage, nor am I, but there is much you can do in the way of not being in position to eat a lot of strike damage and that is a skill.

I use almost the same strategies like you to avoid as many strikes as possible and you describe perfectly in detail what i allready said as a general axiom

Tiewolf, on 04 November 2018 - 02:43 PM, said:

You can have skills or strategies to lower your chances to get hit but you can`t avoid what you can`t perceive or predict.

But my main points remain. The profiteers of the possibility to spam strikes are only a very selective group that can afford it, even with skills you might eat less strikes but that there are no hard counters for strikes like with UAVs and that strikes are too frequent to be an enjoyable game asset.
PGI does not care anyway so we can stop debating consumables because it is pointless no matter how off they are.

[El Bandito]

Hazeclaw, on 04 November 2018 - 03:39 PM, said:

There's probably less than 100 players left in this game that can do what you're describing, probably quite a few less

Comp queue already has established meta and rules, and the maps are very repetitive so it is easy for comp players to anticipate the strikes. On QP it is less predictable. Rule of thumb is: If you saw an enemy looking at you, however briefly, there is already smoke at your feet.

[Vxheous]

Hazeclaw, on 04 November 2018 - 03:39 PM, said:

There's probably less than 100 players left in this game that can do what you're describing, probably quite a few less

Yes, that is probably true, but strike avoidance isn't really that hard to do, but you already know that.

El Bandito, on 04 November 2018 - 04:30 PM, said:

Comp queue already has established meta and rules, and the maps are very repetitive so it is easy for comp players to anticipate the strikes. On QP it is less predictable. Rule of thumb is: If you saw an enemy looking at you, however briefly, there is already smoke at your feet.

I'm talking about general avoidance of strikes, which applies to quickplay as well. There have been many times in solo quickplay that I'll use VOIP and tell my team not to stand exposed in certain areas, or over stay, or clump up because they'll be strike bait. Avoiding strikes isn't strictly a comp thing. People whine that PGI said this is a "thinking man's shooter" but don't actually use their brains, and would prefer to just lemming NSR around the map.

Edited by Vxheous, 04 November 2018 - 04:35 PM.

[SFC174]

I think strikes add a useful flavor to the game, but....

- 2 per mech is too many
- Cooldown between them is too short
- They might be better served as a company commander controlled asset of limited uses
- If players still get to stock them as a consumable I think they should have much longer cooldowns but an increase in damage to make them more significant when used both in terms of opportunity cost and impact if used correctly (instead of just throwing strikes around to move someone off a snipe perch, etc.).

I'm not about to say I know how long a cooldown they should have and how much damage they should do, but doubling or tripling the current cooldown and increasing damage by 20-30% would be interesting to try.

[tutzdes]

SFC174, on 04 November 2018 - 06:00 PM, said:

- If players still get to stock them as a consumable I think they should have much longer cooldowns but an increase in damage to make them more significant when used both in terms of opportunity cost and impact if used correctly (instead of just throwing strikes around to move someone off a snipe perch, etc.).

The damage with skills is fine as is. Less damage would make assaults laugh at strikes. More damage:

This Flea (this variant is durability quirked) with maxed survival tree was fresh, then hit by one strike.
Strike can instagib some mechs already, no need to make it stronger.

Making skill tree/consumables class specific would be nice. Fatties don't really need strikes, yet some players spam those. Some lights without consumables are so pathetic (some Spiders for instance), so these could benefit from a consumable specific buffs (like extra UAV detection range, one free UAV per match).

[Xulld]

This game is a crap heap for several reasons...


1) I am not a great player but somehow have arrived at T1.... I hate it..your PSR system sucks. I hate it and I hate this game mostly because of it. If I could play with other low skill noobs that want to run sub par configurations that would be great....
2) You have made the build system complex with things like Ghost heat and limited hard points. We have Assault mechs with 3 missile and 4 laser and that is it....we also have mechs with 11 energy hard points and because of Ghost heat have to use them in 2-3 groups making it a pain and really not usable at all...
3) Match maker is TERRIBLE. This game is a game of STompy Robits you configure with various specialized loadouts mostly for given drop zones... this has always been the case. But in this games general play you have no idea what map you are going to drop on with whatever configuration you choose to take.... making it very frustrating or BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRIIIINNNG as you either wait for the herd to get into range or die in a second after 3 strikes and 2 trades at bad angles because the sensors in these mechs are so bad you can have the entire team around the corner and not know it unless you drop a consumable.... f off dude.

This game sucks. I have spent waaaay too much money and year after year it gets worse not better and there is no hope to fix the real problems that make it sooo BOOOOORRRRRRRRRING.

All suggestions to join a group or play in any other way that is not essentially super casual will fall on deaf ears and really misses the point. This game sucks and only people who really love it play it anymore..That I play it and continue to spend money on it must mean I am insane because I have come to hate it.

Strikes being so prevalent is really just the crap icing on the poop cake.

Edited by Xulld, 05 November 2018 - 04:32 AM.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Consumables was a terrible idea, but the wound has already been infected for a very long time so might as well pick at it before it festers to the point no one will touch it. Bypassing the fact that I dont think they should have been in the game from the begining, they should be moved to deep sensors or operations or something of that nature to be able to use arty/air strike - only one, and in exchange no longer a consumable but is instead simply a one shot per match deal long as you have the skill node active.

But this is sort of like breaking out some nail polish to hide a scratch after your car has thrown a rod - there are bigger problems.

[IronWatch]

Strikes have a hard counter in basic situational awareness and communication. With those on your side, the enemy just wastes cedits.

Xulld, on 05 November 2018 - 04:28 AM, said:

This game is a crap heap for several reasons...


1) I am not a great player but somehow have arrived at T1.... I hate it..your PSR system sucks. I hate it and I hate this game mostly because of it. If I could play with other low skill noobs that want to run sub par configurations that would be great....
2) You have made the build system complex with things like Ghost heat and limited hard points. We have Assault mechs with 3 missile and 4 laser and that is it....we also have mechs with 11 energy hard points and because of Ghost heat have to use them in 2-3 groups making it a pain and really not usable at all...
3) Match maker is TERRIBLE. This game is a game of STompy Robits you configure with various specialized loadouts mostly for given drop zones... this has always been the case. But in this games general play you have no idea what map you are going to drop on with whatever configuration you choose to take.... making it very frustrating or BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRIIIINNNG as you either wait for the herd to get into range or die in a second after 3 strikes and 2 trades at bad angles because the sensors in these mechs are so bad you can have the entire team around the corner and not know it unless you drop a consumable.... f off dude.

This game sucks. I have spent waaaay too much money and year after year it gets worse not better and there is no hope to fix the real problems that make it sooo BOOOOORRRRRRRRRING.

All suggestions to join a group or play in any other way that is not essentially super casual will fall on deaf ears and really misses the point. This game sucks and only people who really love it play it anymore..That I play it and continue to spend money on it must mean I am insane because I have come to hate it.

Strikes being so prevalent is really just the crap icing on the poop cake.

Did you come here to talk about consumables or just whine to an audience?

[Magnus Santini]

I think they should change the pricing to 10% of your match earnings per consumable you use, instead of 40k cbills or whatever. That way, beginners don't have to lose money on a match if they are trying these things out. Overwhelming numbers of strikes would make the game no fun, but I have only ever seen that in faction or comp videos, so not my problem.

[Xulld]

Its the same problem with UAV's. Basically if you want good sensors you are going to use a consumable. If you are going to have good cooling you are going to use a consumable. If you are going to get early damage . . . you are going to strike areas of common interest and positions of early advantage.

Consumables are not casual friendly. Period. Then the fact this game takes eons to get good at and have any real success drives off newbs and makes old salty casuals like me hate the game.

IronWatch, on 05 November 2018 - 06:44 AM, said:

Strikes have a hard counter in basic situational awareness and communication. With those on your side, the enemy just wastes cedits.



Did you come here to talk about consumables or just whine to an audience?

You ignored my points and the context and then implied my intentions are to get attention.... did you see my post count buddy?

I am complaining that the game is not fun. That strikes, running away from them, giving up good positions and having to pay for the means to use them is annoying and unfun.

Did you miss my points? Counter my reasoning or just continue to look silly making inane comments..

Edited by Xulld, 05 November 2018 - 08:05 AM.

[Xulld]

Its funny to me the people with thousands of posts complaining about players complaining. Your life must be truly unfun.