81 replies to this topic

[Phoenix 72]

I am beginning to think that the people that complain about the consumables being unbalanced have a point...

I just had a match on Solaris City, with my Hellbringer. Domination. I follow the team into the middle and see pretty much all the enemy. I happily drop an Arty strike on them. For about 2 seconds, I am the only one from my team they see, so I eat one alpha from all of them. Side torso gone, one weapon left. I managed on alpha. I am now cursing like a sailor. We are down 0:2.

I am in a bad position, the people that were with me in the center are retreating or dying. I drop a UAV and see the whole enemy team is on the other side of the building. No way out for me. I say **** it, try to retreat and drop an Artillery behind me. I think I manage something like 2 shots with my remaining weapons and I am blown up. We are now 0:4.

Okay, this was embarrassing. I have not died this quickly in ages... I am really surprise, but somehow my team managed to eke out a 12/9 win. I look at my end results, ready to apologise for my lousy performance... 1 kill, 7 assists, 2KMDD, 566 damage, 359 match score. WTF? I managed one alpha and 2 hits with 1 weapon. The rest is Artillery damage. Most of the enemy team must have rotated directly into my second Arty.

I am beginning to think that these things do a little too much damage...

[Phoenix 72]

BTW, in case somebody wonders... Strillery Strikes are the ones right next to Artillery Strikes...

[Prototelis]

No.

[Karl Streiger]

OP no, but still, when you consider MWO a skill based team shooter they don't have a place.

Reasons:
Damage is more or less applied random - some might say killing other Mechs via headshot and artillery is skill based but I need to see proof.
The "red smoke" really great so some maps a couple of players wont be able to see it.

Artillery would be ok, if it is applied by active spotting, and if it is an asset for designated spotters and need hardpoint, weight and crits.

[RickySpanish]

Consumables are extremely strong, and are often worth their c-bill cost if used correctly. I can tell you without a doubt that they have boosted my win rate. I now view 5 points in the consumables tree to get double arty plus three slots as absolutely crucial. I have updated all of my builds to include this and outside of Solaris would never, ever consider anything less.

When I was in T3 and below, I carried when I pushed into brawling range in my Scorch. Now in T2, each and every game where I feel I have made a significant contribution has begun by launching a UAV or artillery strike. Think about it - an arty forces the enemy team to relocate at your convenience, or risk getting cored. A UAV immediately shuts down a flanking attempt's element of surprise.

Honestly consumables are absolutely mandatory, and I don't know if that is a good thing or not, certainly they require a bit of thought to use smartly, but only a bit.

Edited by RickySpanish, 09 March 2019 - 01:25 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

No, but I wouldn't care if they were removed either.

[Brizna]

For every time you place an artillery that great you throw 3 other that deal almost no damage or none at all. I think they are in good spot now, becuase if you use them right they are good but can very easily not be worth a quarter of what they cost if you don't.
Some might say they are bad becuase they require no skill but the fact that you can use them right or wrong proves the statement false, it is just a different kind of skill than simple mouse to eye coordination.

[Antares102]

Air/Arty strikes are OP when they have a good hit.
How often people miss with their strike and due to the strike mechanic eat damage for several seconds before they can set it, nobody talks about.

EDIT:
Brizna said about the same thing. Didnt read that before.

Edited by Antares102, 09 March 2019 - 02:03 AM.

[BIOHAZARD]

I agree with the op completely. Arty strikes derail the concept of this game by allowing to attack numerous targets at once. They negate heat buildup, take no pod space, no tonnage. Good strike will win a game. And since you buy those...
I've seen matches where the two teams would land strikes one after another, while they had any left, until the end of match.

This has been proposed before: make them take a slot and weight a little, like a ton each. And make them cost twice as much: 80k.

[Prototelis]

Karl Streiger, on 09 March 2019 - 01:08 AM, said:

OP no, but still, when you consider MWO a skill based team shooter they don't have a place.

So how do you feel about lrms?

BIOHAZARD, on 09 March 2019 - 02:35 AM, said:

This has been proposed before: make them take a slot and weight a little, like a ton each. And make them cost twice as much: 80k.

OH yeah, so only light mechs can't have them. lawl.

Edited by Prototelis, 09 March 2019 - 02:43 AM.

[Besh]

I do not think Strikes are OP, but I DO think they are ridiculous, and should not exist in MW:O the way they are . I never use them, simply because I hate the concept . I hate that ( referring to SoloQP ) a Match not rarley will be deicded by which Team brought more strikes/uses them more effectively .

Looking forward to getting shot down 'cos of me being a lousy Pilot with abysmal Jarl's Stats. I would love to be able to see Stats which actually differentiated strikes out though .

p.s.: also eagerly awaiting all the critique about me gimping my Team/being stupid/gimping my performance by refusing to use Strikes .

edit: added text in italics to first sentence .

Edited by Besh, 09 March 2019 - 04:21 AM.

[YueFei]

There's no problem with artillery doing lots of damage to a bunch of enemies. That's what it should be capable of doing.

The problems with artillery and air strikes are:
1.) They're individual consumables. They really ought to be on-map assets which you can call upon, and which the enemy team could potentially destroy to deny your team its use.
2.) Lack of information/warning for players that an artillery or airstrike is inbound on them.

The smoke is designed to help with (2) but clever placement can deny players any knowledge that a strike is inbound.

The whole smoke mechanic is silly anyway. There shouldn't be a smoke marker. Rather, the mech's sensors should be able to track inbound artillery rounds (as modern CRAM does, and shoots them down too), or track an inbound aircraft, and warn them of the projected impact zone.

The decision would still be left to the player whether to move out of the way (potentially leaving cover and getting shot at directly) or stay put and tank the incoming artillery or airstrike.

Thus a well-placed and well-timed strike would still place enemies in a dilemma, and be effective, but you wouldn't necessarily get smashed by a strike that you had no way of knowing was coming.

[PhoenixFire55]

The problem with the strikes was always not what they do as is, but rather the fact that they, just like all other consumables, are absolutely free in terms of tonnage and slots they take. Hence everybody spams them, hence the issue with oversaturation of strikes.

[Bud Crue]

Strikes are fine...

...except on Wednesday night when I managed to drop 1 by accident at the wrst possible moment of a 12-0 stomp, just as we were all going around the corner to get the last straggler and I managed to do 356 team damage (no tks though!) which I didn't think was possible. That got me a bit of a time out.

[Grayson Dillinger]

Ya know,
I bet artillery and air strikes would cause a whole lot less chaos if people, oh... i don't know...

Put more than 4 points of armor on the back of their heavys and assaults???

Crazy concept

[Grus]

Only if you dont use WSAD hacks....

[Valdarion Silarius]

OP? Not at all. Annoying? Incredibly.

I see artillery strikes as more of a harassment tool and something that can be used late game. Assaults that are 54 kmph and slower should get resistance bonuses towards artillery strikes, since I often see friendly Annihilators, Atlases, and Kodiaks struggle the most to evade painted markers. I don't think slower, larger assault mechs should be punished since they are arty magnets and have to suffer with critocalypse issues on top of that.

[AncientRaig]

Honestly? Yes. While it's true that you can throw down a strike and do nothing the fact that you don't even have to expose yourself if you have mech-high cover and you go into third person to potentially do 2-300 damage, is something that needs to be changed. Especially when you get into group play and you get an organized team using them. I've died solely to arty strikes that I had no idea were being dropped on me because I couldn't see the smoke and nobody on my team called it out. I didn't take a single point of damage from enemy weapons fire, the sheer number of arty strikes from 6-8 people cored me out from the rear. Note, I usually run 10-12 points of rear armor on my mechs because accidents happen on the firing line and I'd rather not get opened up because someone hits me with an ML burn for half a second.

Carrying the strike itself doesn't need to weigh anything, but you should have to bring a TAG laser in order to use them. The TAG should have to be painted on the location you want to drop the strike on, and any mechs in the radius should get an audio warning similar to LRMs. Instead of smoke being dropped, you get a blast radius warning on your minimap. This way, strikes still serve the intended purpose of breaking up blobs and pushing people out of position (because the automatic instinct will be to get out of that radius), but it gives people on the receiving end of the strike a chance to actually get out of the way. The fact that you can use the third person drone to drop arty smoke into a position your target cannot see without even needing to expose yourself to enemy fire is just flat out unacceptable.

Edited by AncientRaig, 09 March 2019 - 04:55 PM.

[Gristle Missile]

combined with enough jumpjets to get prime angles for strikes, its pretty strong
but overall I dont think they are OP
They counter passive gameplay. Clumping up and then never going anywhere is a really bad move in general, should be punished for it


The only thing thats kinda broken is striking an area enemies can never see coming (like striking the basement floor in HPG and hitting everyone above)

Edited by Gristle Missile, 09 March 2019 - 05:01 PM.

[Grayson Dillinger]

AncientRaig, on 09 March 2019 - 04:50 PM, said:

I've died solely to arty strikes that I had no idea were being dropped on me because I couldn't see the smoke and nobody on my team called it out. I didn't take a single point of damage from enemy weapons fire, the sheer number of arty strikes from 6-8 people cored me out from the rear. Note, I usually run 10-12 points of rear armor on my mechs because accidents happen on the firing line and I'd rather not get opened up because someone hits me with an ML burn for half a second.

You do realize that only one person ON THE ENTIRE TEAM can fire off a strike, and then it goes on cooldown, again, FOR THE ENTIRE TEAM. There is a 20 to 30 second cooldown between strikes.
There is no "6 to 8 people coring me from the rear" and not taking a "single point of damage from enemy weapons fire" without you being AFK for 2 or 3 minutes and letting it happen and doing nothing but watching.