23 replies to this topic

[Thunderfrog]

I play it whenever events prompt me to, but I haven't really replaced my quick play ques with the format yet.

My question is whether or not there's room in Solaris ques to play anything but srm boats that walk in a straight line and run into each other, which has mostly been my experience with most opponents.

I like lights. I like mediums. I like stealth armor and jump jets and hit and run.

Is there a place for that in Solaris, or am I better off wading through the QP quagmire?

[Ghost Paladin117]

Yeah man, there is a place in some of the divisions for those play styles.

Also if a brawler is simply walking up to you he isn't doing it right. On the other hand some divisions don't favor brawlers.

[Dionnsai]

Check out my stream @ http://www.twitch.tv/dionnsai


I drop Solaris pretty much daily and fight all comers in all divisions. Also check out the leaderboards for ideas.

Edited by Dionnsai, 06 April 2019 - 12:09 PM.

[Ghost Paladin117]

Yeah Thunder, if you are interested in Solaris watch Dionnsai. He streams Solaris more than anyone I know.

[Makenzie71]

It's hard to get away from SRM builds in Solaris because SRM's are one of the most potent weapons in the game. Aim for their legs. Run piranhas and fleas and get under them (most of the SRM builds are full torso builds). Bring two large lasers and snipe out o range.

[Ghost Paladin117]

If you take a piranha in div 2 prepare for salt. Lot of mechs in that div have little to no arm mounts and can't hit a piranha when it hugs. So it takes little to no skill to kill those mechs with a bug like that.

[Horseman]

Thunderfrog, on 05 April 2019 - 12:20 PM, said:

My question is whether or not there's room in Solaris ques to play anything but srm boats that walk in a straight line and run into each other, which has mostly been my experience with most opponents.

Depends on the opponent. Some SRM boats can't manage elevations well, for one (eg: KTO-18) so by using jump jets to get above them you'll have an advantage there.
ECM and Stealth Armor don't really work in Solaris - ECM can actually hinder you by signalling to the opponent that you're close by, and Stealth Armor nerfs your heat dissipation which is a disaster in a mostly brawl-oriented mode (unless you're running some very cold weapons I guess).
Hit and run absolutely is a thing, however.

[Thunderfrog]

Thanks for the replies.

I watch some streams and see.

[Thunderfrog]

Ghost Paladin117, on 07 April 2019 - 07:50 AM, said:

If you take a piranha in div 2 prepare for salt. Lot of mechs in that div have little to no arm mounts and can't hit a piranha when it hugs. So it takes little to no skill to kill those mechs with a bug like that.

Just out of curiosity, is it really considered a bug? Mech sizes and classes differ, and if you are playing in Div 2 where you know Pirahanas live, isn't it kind of on the pilot to make sure he has an anti piranha weapon or risk losing his legs to one ever so often?

I know people like taking 80/120 alpha mechs, but I don't think it's a bug taking something that counters the meta.

[Dionnsai]

When a piranha runs up to the leg of an atlas or a cyclops, its no longer a fight, its just stand there and shoot leg while the guy in the cyclops can barely move.

This is where things are broken, the: 20 Ton Piranha can literally prevent a 90-100 ton mech from moving in the direction it is blocking, and the 20 ton mech cannot be knocked down or stepped on....

[Thunderfrog]

Right, so wouldn't the answer be to instead load up a mech with low slung arms and actuators, if you want to be able to defend against the pirahna? I don't mean to be contradictory in the same thread in which I admit I don't play hardly any solaris, but it being a little rock paper scissors seems like a good thing.

There's a lot of mechs in division 2. So if you take a Artic Wolf, that beats a pirahna but loses to an atlas, which in turn beats the wolf but loses to the pirahna, it seems like there's some internal balance happening?

[Dionnsai]

the correct answer would be either:

A. If Cyclops kicks piranha, piranha either takes damage or falls over, thereby forcing the piranha to use a strategy other than leg hump.

B. Move piranha to a more suitable division, anywhere from 3-7

That said, the piranha is far less problematic this season due to the presence of a few assaults with arm mounts like the boiler making it far less successful in the current season.

[Makenzie71]

I’ve only had piranha issues in my atlas and cyclops. Some players ers manage to get under my blood asp. My main in 2 is a nightstar...with it i just let them get on my legs and then...welll...shoot them. End of match.

I like the idea of melee damage but man would it be hard to pull off. If an atlas can kick a piranha over, then a piranha just running into any inanimate object would do damage. I think it’s trying to put too much physics into the game. Just looking at the size of a gauss round in lore...firing a gauss into the center torso of a 100 ton machine in the game does it’s 15 damage, but if you start making a big deal about physics then that same round would produce almost as much force than the mech weighs.

This is arcade first person shooter, not a simulator. I think i would like a version of this game that is a simulator, but it would be a different game played very differently.

[Alcom Isst]

Makenzie71, on 08 April 2019 - 05:43 PM, said:

I like the idea of melee damage but man would it be hard to pull off... This is arcade first person shooter, not a simulator. I think i would like a version of this game that is a simulator, but it would be a different game played very differently.

Well don't think of it as a sim then. Ignore concepts of realism and focus on the problem and the potential solution. The problem is that small mechs can hug assault mechs and destroy them uncontested, and we want to solve this by adding some sort of attack that uses legs.

It's practically a trope. A large figure stomps on the ground, causing damage and knockback to smaller figures nearby. No physical contact needed, just a stomping animation, a radius where damage occurs, some dust particle effects for the shake, and lots of playtesting. Knockback is not an option but a reticle shake would be a good substitute. You could add this as an active ability to all Assault or applicable mechs.

MechWarrior Online is too wheelistick for such a concept, I wish it wasn't though. It sounds cool as heck.

[Dionnsai]

What alcom said, the other thing is knockdown exists as an in-game mechanic already, its just disabled due to the problems people had with dragon-bowing back in the day.

It could be reintroduced in a limited fashion where assault mech bumps light mech and light mech gets knocked-back/down.

This doesn't make it so the light mech can't still circle/poke fight assaults, it just means they can't leghump

[Makenzie71]

I still think it’s trying too hard to fix something that isn’t that big a deal...all you big boys can bring me down without a lot of drama and i can bring down piranhas without drama, you shouldn’t be struggling with them. You’re only vulnerable to a piranha if you made yourself that way and then...well...that’s on you, not the piranha. You guys complaining about piranhas is like if i came in here saying pgi needed to fix all the face-hugging cyclopses.

That said...i don’t think it matters anyway. With all the interest pgi has given solaris, and all the interest players have given solaris, i don’t see it lasting anyway.

[Dionnsai]

Alot of people will argue that legging is a perfectly valid tactic in a fight, and it definitely is, especially in a faction play setting, where it can be required tactically to deal with things like ASN rushes...

Legging in many cases is the most expedient way to win a match in as little time with as little effort as possible.

I personally choose not to leg mechs on most occasions simply because I know that it tends to feel cheap to the guy who lost, and it is likely to exacerbate the low population problem in solaris rather than help it. If Solaris is reduced to a game where everyone legs everyone all the time, it won't be fun for anyone anymore and rather than having a few people we can play with, no one will play.

Having a matchup in a division where one of the two mechs can literally run right up to the other and the other mech can in many situations have no countermeasure left is unacceptable. I'm not saying that the piranha is by itself unacceptable, I've fought many light pilots who poke and dodge with er-mediums and ppcs, it takes practice skill and mech knowledge to accomplish this. Running up to someone's legs and holding the fire button takes comparatively little, which is why people feel cheated in such a situation. Yes, you can beat it in the mechlab, and thankfully, enough pilots take mechs that do beat the piranha that it isn't a problem like it once was. I only VERY rarely see piranhas in d2 this season, there are just too many mechs that spank it hard.

[Makenzie71]

I don’t think it’s a thing we’ll be able to agree on...you drop in a mech that has that very specific vulnerability. On purpose. You built it without any weapons that have full articulation. You have options that make that machine virtually impervious to a piranha, you know what these options are, you choose to run the risk. That’s not a flaw in the game, that’s you judging the risk justifiable.

And i would contend that facing a piranha would not discourage new players. I very seldom see 1500’s with meta drops. They drop in QP builds, or pre-mades, and those machines can handle a piranha. I would argue that it’s way more discouraging to face an srm36 cyclops that can just absorb any damage you throw out while it lumbers up to you, hugs your face, alpha’s twice, end of match. Not that discouragement matters. Solaris is discouraging by design.

[Dionnsai]

a bit pessimistic tho, solaris in and of itself isn't designed to be discouraging, the problem is the lack of pilots dropping

if 20 pilots were actively dropping per division, you would see much more balanced matches where potatos fought potatos and skilled pilots fought skilled pilots

Solaris also suffers from the too-many-buckets problem where there are a full 14 separate divisions to drop in and a lack of ability to see how many people are dropping in a given division without actually being in them.

[Makenzie71]

I cankt argue with that asside that I don’t feel it’s pessimistic...you can’t expect a product to succeed when they aren’t trying. With a little encouragement and some small changes (like seeing all the queues please) solaris could be great.