71 replies to this topic

[Der Geisterbaer]

Prototelis, on 27 January 2019 - 12:21 PM, said:

You're free to look at Jarl global stats and interpret how you like.

~laugh~ The global stats are showing the normal distribution I've been talking about. Not much to "interpret" from there.

Prototelis, on 27 January 2019 - 12:21 PM, said:

It would be interesting to put a timeline on the graph of nerfs/buffs, events, mech releases, etc but I'm not going to do that.

And here I though you'd add something more substantial to your claim ... ~shrug~

[Jman5]

When I broke down the last 93 light mechs in my games by damage it went like this:

• 0-199: 50.5%
  
• 200-399: 38.7%
  
• 400-599: 6.5%
  
• 600+ : 4.3%

[Unnatural Growth]

OP nascars around and catches a Fafnir in the open. Starts shooting him in the back. While he's out in the middle of the "open". Fifnir is *probably* on voip (well, ok maybe, but OP has no way of knowing), the whole time hollering for help from his team. Because he's a Fafnir. Caught by a light. Out in the open.

There's diddly squat the Fafnir can do about the light behind him. No way a Locust can't stay behind a FAFNIR, who's turning speed can be measured in MINUTES.

All the Fafnir pilot can do is call for help. Sounds like he didn't get any.

So the OP comes to the forums and makes a thread about it.

Yeah, it was the FAFNIR's fault.

Totally legit.

Edited by Unnatural Growth, 27 January 2019 - 02:00 PM.

[Darian DelFord]

Unnatural Growth, on 27 January 2019 - 02:00 PM, said:

OP nascars around and catches a Fafnir in the open. Starts shooting him in the back. While he's out in the middle of the "open". Fifnir is *probably* on voip (well, ok maybe, but OP has no way of knowing), the whole time hollering for help from his team. Because he's a Fafnir. Caught by a light. Out in the open.

There's diddly squat the Fafnir can do about the light behind him. No way a Locust can't stay behind a FAFNIR, who's turning speed can be measured in MINUTES.

All the Fafnir pilot can do is call for help. Sounds like he didn't get any.

So the OP comes to the forums and makes a thread about it.

Yeah, it was the FAFNIR's fault.

Totally legit.

First off, never said anything was the Fafnir's fault.

Secondly Arm Weapons

Thirdly Keep moving, he literally got to the door and stopped.

And the list keeps going.....

There are a few things the Fafnir could have done different. Again I am not saying anything was anyone's fault. Stop implying idea's I never said.

[Y E O N N E]

Der Geisterbaer, on 27 January 2019 - 12:29 PM, said:

~laugh~ The global stats are showing the normal distribution I've been talking about. Not much to "interpret" from there.

You can see how each season's distribution compares to the previous for 29 seasons to see what the AMS was for the whole and within each tail. See if AMS dropped, fell, or stayed the same in each. See if the distribution flattened out over time or became peakier.

[Cementi]

Didn't think anyone really considered the Pirates Bane OP. Solid and fun to play certainly. I love mine but it's hardly OP.

Piranha on the other hand......when that thing got released half the time I would just get up and go get a drink when I heard MG's on my back. Usually all my weapons were gone before I could set my headphones down and I was dead by the time I got up from my chair. Ya I could have twisted and prolonged it for a few seconds but I didn't really see the point as at best I would be alive with no components.

I have no idea what it's like now though as I kinda stopped playing around that time and mostly just linger to see if any interesting changes are going to pop up.

A tier reset and matchmaker adjustment would probably get me playing semi regular again.

A friend of mine who stopped playing years ago thinks the Piranha is literally the devs trolling the players. Not really sure he is wrong to be honest.
[

Edited by Cementi, 27 January 2019 - 03:18 PM.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Mole, on 27 January 2019 - 12:16 PM, said:

Yeah no, I know. I've been playing lights since Day 1 and a lot of the people who complain about them being OP don't even bother to turn around until you've practically finished killing them.

Now days maybe, save for the occasional guy on dailup warping around, but iv got a desk around here still with a dent in it from the days bygone of spiders being nigh immune to ballistic/ppc hits. (good ol 'flickering paperdoll, no real damage done') After putting five AC20 HITS into one with my hunchback and he killed me with nothing less than yellow armor - yeah KAPOW rage.

Now they arnt terribly bothersome to deal with, honestly people dont know how good they got it against lights now lol.

[Unnatural Growth]

Darian DelFord, on 27 January 2019 - 02:10 PM, said:

First off, never said anything was the Fafnir's fault.

Secondly Arm Weapons

Thirdly Keep moving, he literally got to the door and stopped.

And the list keeps going.....

There are a few things the Fafnir could have done different. Again I am not saying anything was anyone's fault. Stop implying idea's I never said.

Ok,

Point taken.

But I think I was more responding to the "other" light pilots chiming in here on the thread, about how it's usually the assaults fault for not reacting to getting shot, and used your story as an example of how the assault pilot gets ganked, and then "comes to the forums to complain about lights being OP".

When a slow azzd assault gets caught out in the open, and is getting ganked by a small, fast light, there is about diddly squat he can do about it, except call for help. If his team left him to die, well then that is his fate. Just don't expect him to be entirely satisfied with his game experience on that drop.

So in your particular case, there was really nothing the Fafnir could have done different. I'm sure he already knew he was screwed. Fun for you, but sucks to be a Fafnir pilot, at least on that drop.

Maybe he'll come to the forums and post a salty thread about "Lights are OP, Pleeze nurfff"?

[Unnatural Growth]

Cementi, on 27 January 2019 - 03:17 PM, said:

Didn't think anyone really considered the Pirates Bane OP. Solid and fun to play certainly. I love mine but it's hardly OP.

Piranha on the other hand......when that thing got released half the time I would just get up and go get a drink when I heard MG's on my back. Usually all my weapons were gone before I could set my headphones down and I was dead by the time I got up from my chair. Ya I could have twisted and prolonged it for a few seconds but I didn't really see the point as at best I would be alive with no components.

I have no idea what it's like now though as I kinda stopped playing around that time and mostly just linger to see if any interesting changes are going to pop up.

A tier reset and matchmaker adjustment would probably get me playing semi regular again.

A friend of mine who stopped playing years ago thinks the Piranha is literally the devs trolling the players. Not really sure he is wrong to be honest.
[

Well I don't know about dev's trolling us with the Pirahna... that's a funny premise to think about. I'd say it was more that they had NO idea how it would impact the game.

I'd agree Locust and Pirate's Bane are not OP. But when one gets behind a super slow assault that's alone, OP or not, that assault is screwed unless it can back into a corner before it gets fully ganked. Unless it gets help from a team mate, which lets face it, in QP, that's almost never going to happen.

[Shadowomega1]

Koniving, on 27 January 2019 - 09:32 AM, said:

*snip*

Normally though, ECM lights seem really surprised when I'm reacting before they even fire the first shot. Some are so complacent in the fact that the common player is oblivious that they don't even use the trick of turning ECM off when really close to the enemy. If they did that, they'd truly go undetected.

Some of the more blissfully unaware might do well with Seismic... but if they can't even see the low signal...Seismic won't improve them either.

That is why when in my ACH I will often turn ECM off on final approach and If I noticed someone has been running seismic sensor I will even jump the distance before bugging out.

[LordNothing]

Tarl Cabot, on 27 January 2019 - 07:04 AM, said:

They can be OP when they can pin an assault in a corner. Of course said assault usually has no arm mounted weapons and does not have enough pitch to bring torso mounted weapons to bear, which Darian touches up on. As for being buffed? iie, unless we are speaking about resizing the 35-tons which are larger than they should be, imho. I am still waiting to see when PGI will drop the hammer on the wolfhound. It would not and is not the first time "quirks" have been "adjusted".

As for your scenario, was the assault pilot aware it was a light close to him or being shot from far away? Or he had hit the forward key and was doing something else. Or he was aware of you but the best thing he could do is to get to his buddies, having been caught more than once in a bad spot chasing a light...

not if the assault is a total potato. when im in an assault i usually deal with the problem immediately. and different assaults handle lights differently. oddly mechs like dires, warhawks and king crabs seem to do the best against squirrels as their low guns tend to be right at the level of 30 tonners (and tend to be arm mounted). i think the worst is the anihilator, arm mounts but the cockpit is so high the lights can just punch you in the crotch with impunity.

every now and again im in a situation where i cant immediately deal with the squirrel, like where turning to face the light puts a heavy in my back. the other day i was working on a medium and cored it out when i noticed a light chewing through my buttplate. but i took the time to finish the medium and i still had time to turn around and kill the light. and keep in mind i play both ends of the spectrum, so i know exactly what that lights going to do.

and to be fair there are potato squirrels too. you can tell those easy, they are the ones standing still.

[PhoenixFire55]

Prototelis, on 27 January 2019 - 11:50 AM, said:

Average match score per player has mostly gone down since it peaked in season 17. (We're in a strong peak right now, but I believe it will fall again. We'll see)

A large part of that are the changes to side torso damage reward, but in general the skill level seen in game has gone down. The only real difference I see between my low tier alt and my tier 1 main are build choices.

Very few players achieve over 300 AMS (I can't do it either, fwiw), and that number has been steadily declining.

I can make 12 headshot kills and get like ... 200 matchscore. Just saying.

[Darian DelFord]

PhoenixFire55, on 28 January 2019 - 01:52 AM, said:

I can make 12 headshot kills and get like ... 200 matchscore. Just saying.

And this is one massive issue with how C-Bills, XP and Match score are calculated..... WAY Way Way to reliant on damage.

[Horseman]

Unnatural Growth, on 27 January 2019 - 03:19 PM, said:

Ok,

Point taken.

But I think I was more responding to the "other" light pilots chiming in here on the thread, about how it's usually the assaults fault for not reacting to getting shot, and used your story as an example of how the assault pilot gets ganked, and then "comes to the forums to complain about lights being OP".

When a slow azzd assault gets caught out in the open, and is getting ganked by a small, fast light, there is about diddly squat he can do about it, except call for help. If his team left him to die, well then that is his fate. Just don't expect him to be entirely satisfied with his game experience on that drop.

So in your particular case, there was really nothing the Fafnir could have done different. I'm sure he already knew he was screwed. Fun for you, but sucks to be a Fafnir pilot, at least on that drop.

Maybe he'll come to the forums and post a salty thread about "Lights are OP, Pleeze nurfff"?

I was in a direwhale a few days ago, and got jumped upon by a Piranha, Commando and a Nova. Guess what... went two for three before they finally took me down.

[PhoenixFire55]

Darian DelFord, on 28 January 2019 - 04:29 AM, said:

And this is one massive issue with how C-Bills, XP and Match score are calculated..... WAY Way Way to reliant on damage.

In the end tho, the more damage you do, the more likely you are to win the match. There is no 'pointless' damage as all damage done, even to non-critical components, leaves less components to 'roll' damage. Considering the 'averageness' of solo quickplay, people with average aim will spread the damage across the mech quite a lot on both sides.

Its been suggested before, since its quite simple to implement, by myself and others, that matchscore and especially stats like KMDDs should track not just the raw damage numbers, but also the % of damage that goes to the component, the loss of which causes the death of an enemy mech (i.e. CT if a mech died via CT, RT if a mech died via RT, both legs if a mech died via losing them etc.) as well as the loss of its firepower.

However, there are always things that are hard to track. For example I can take a Pir-1, find an assault and crit all his weapons through the rear armor doing like 20 damage at most, then just leave him weaponess and nearly fully fresh. In the end somebody else would 'farm' the damage on said assault, and regardless of that damage being effective or spread, it will be entirely irrelevant. There are a lot of considerations like this, which we both know are too advanced for PGI to even think about, let alone track in-game.

All in all I don't see that much of an issue with current matchscore as players who actually do something useful and carry the team nearly always end up with highest matchscores anyway.

[IVeoRR]

I just bought an Atlas on sale a week ago and took it out for some loadout test spins. We were fighting on Frozen City in the Domination game mode. Mid game the brawl had moved to circle and I was engaging a MkII Madcat when I was suddenly killed from behind. I consider myself a veteran with good awareness. I heard nothing but 1 laser alpha in my headphones...now here's the variables: 1) This particular Atlas,the AS7-D came with a +28 CT armor quirk. I decided with the mech being completely unskilled I'd leave that as the back CT armor value. My point: it would have taken more than 1 alpha to chew through my armor and structure. *I'm not sure of my armor at the time other than a few scrapes. I'm guessing almost full back armor. 2) I was firing 2 RT Racs at the MkII focusing on his weak components when I went down. My point: it was noisy in my headphones, did I miss the sound of another alpha? 3) The Piranha pilot had enough skill to stay far enough away that I never got the telltale "low signal," to detect his presence. 4) I swear, A SPLIT SECOND, after I heard the audible warning that I was cored, I went down in ashes. My point: Fellas, it happened so fast I didn't even have time to react. 5) I was with my team and this particular pilot sacrificed his life to take mine as he was killed instantly after killing me.

I imagine I got alpha'd the first time without noticing because of how hard I was focusing on the MkII, the sound of the RAC's in my headphones and the fact the Piranha pilot stayed far enough away to avoid detection. By the time that I noticed I was getting assraped, it was too late.

Not saying that all those assaults you got were potato's and vice versa, but there are many circumstances that allow light pilots to easily succeed at mauling assaults. This is my most recent experience.

[Horseman]

IVeoRR, on 28 January 2019 - 07:33 AM, said:

My point: it was noisy in my headphones, did I miss the sound of another alpha?

Did you miss the visual damage indicator on your screen as well?

Quote

3) The Piranha pilot had enough skill to stay far enough away that I never got the telltale "low signal," to detect his presence.

It has nothing to do with his skill. Piranhas don't carry ECM.

[PhilTKaswahl]

LordNothing, on 27 January 2019 - 06:53 AM, said:

anyone who thinks lights are op needs to play them enough to get littlest helper.

Only recently started playing and gravitated toward lights because highly mobile hit-and-run is my preferred play style, so that was the first class achievememt I got.

Sooooo many instances of You Have Been Destroyed staring me in the face from just one moment of inattention or lapse of judgement--or enemy players landing a shot when it counted despite everything else going reasonably right.

Edited by PhilTKaswahl, 28 January 2019 - 09:09 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Here it the thing. Generally when your fighting, more often than not, you have something with a whole lot more firepower pointing their guns at you than the light mech trying to gut you. You can only react to one or the other so you ignore the light mech in favor of reacting to the Annihilator who has decided to give you his love and attention. While this is going on, your hoping beyond hope, that you teams sees what is going on and drives off or kills the light mech.

Additionally, often if your in a much larger mech, your not exactly in the best position to engage the light mech standing 2 inches away from you. You team probably is but your not. Again your relying on your team to kill or drive away the light mech or at least your hoping that will be the case.

Notice the pattern? The reliance on the team to support you? Yeah that is kind of what is going on. Unfortunately your team lets you down more often than not.

Finally let say you do stop and engage that light mech. What happens? Yep he runs this way and that often spinning you around so that you expose your back armor to that nasty Annihilator that you have decided to ignore while your tying to kill or drive off the light mech and down you go. In fact that is one of the easiest ways for a light mech to get a kill...well a kill for his team anyway. Also the second you think you have the light mech driven off and you re-focus back on the Annihilator, he pops back out and is chewing threw your back armor yet again like a bad case of Herps you can get rid off.

So yeah, sadly, unless you happen to be totally out of the enemies line of fire, ignoring the light and hoping your team can kill or drive him off is usually the best tactic.

There is one exception though. The dreaded MG Light. Have one of them show up and that whale of an Assault mech is backpedaling and flailing about to be anywhere but near an MG mech cause that 12 MG PIR is more scary than half a dozen Annihilators and will probably kill your faster to boot.

Oh an for the record, I have PIR-1, Grinner, PB...well all of the scary light mechs except for the Flea so I definitely see it from both sides. Also since I play those mechs, they are ALWAYS a priority target. I have a "They must die" attitude because I recognize just how powerful they are.

[The Lost Boy]

Koniving, on 27 January 2019 - 09:32 AM, said:

It is sad, isn't it?

When I do it, there's less of a lack of reaction and more of a "there's something more dangerous that I need to deal with first." In this case I was fighting an assault with a meta laser vomit build, if I turned my back I'd die instantly.
But after I fried the ******, I got the fish too.
Died later to a single long range shot while on my way to E5 to fight on. But you can see from the damage and kills, that assault was a hell of a damage sponge. Then again I was face to face with an Annihilator laser boat that had strong torso twisting instincts.





So stuff happens.

Normally though, ECM lights seem really surprised when I'm reacting before they even fire the first shot. Some are so complacent in the fact that the common player is oblivious that they don't even use the trick of turning ECM off when really close to the enemy. If they did that, they'd truly go undetected.

Some of the more blissfully unaware might do well with Seismic... but if they can't even see the low signal...Seismic won't improve them either.

That King Crab build tho! Good damage, but that build!