448 replies to this topic

[Feral Clown]

Void Angel, on 19 August 2019 - 05:09 PM, said:

Actually, no; though I advise that, as well. I just want people to understand that being seen can be a powerful asset, and one that the Hiders in the Back aren't utilizing properly - it's like the concept of threat in chess, a little.

I absolutely agree with your ideology.

Seemingly though there is a great deal of the population that do not think. Which in many ways I can appreciate as my tendency in quick play leans towards playing fast mechs and being very much reactionary instead of deliberate and purposeful.

However it is getting tiresome when I am running 130+ to have to a great deal of the time, herd players back into position and stop following me. Just the basic thought seems to not occur to people running slow assaults that following that Viper may not be wise.

Also your Timidity is Not a Tactic guide is becoming increasingly more appropriate. In a game this mature, with a mature player base, how does the average player at this point not understand or appreciate that aggression wins the vast majority of the time??? I mean I hear people verbalize over comms all of the time and turn around and that same guy is trying to hide somewhere. It's also difficult at times to even move about with frightened players all clustered in a ball, which half the reason I like to go fast is to get away from my own team and not trip all over them.

A rant I know but it is becoming increasingly frustrating and I am saying this while having undue success and feeling kind of empty about it.

https://imgur.com/a/lhpcJEv

[Void Angel]

Throw in things like an automatically generated combat efficiency rating to help faction commanders judge the combat potential of various guilds, and it sounds like a lot of fun. But to get it all to work right, you need to start with board game design.

[Prototelis]

Void Angel, on 19 August 2019 - 05:44 PM, said:

Right; and it still has odd holes and discrepancies (not to mention just really bad fiction.)

Which are mostly solved by denoting levels of canonicity.

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The thing about Battletech lore in MWO is that some people are emotionally attached to it

People are really attached to a lot of things that have been soft rebooted and gone on to reach a much wider audience.

Quote

The important bit is to realize that enjoying the lore isn't a suicide pact with MWO.

It is when that lore is bad and doesn't attract a wide audience, or tries to shoe horn board game mechanics into an action game "because muh luore"

Faction play was never going to work the way they described it; this IP doesn't have the level of appeal needed to get that many people into the game to begin with.

[Void Angel]

Feral Clown, on 19 August 2019 - 05:54 PM, said:

I absolutely agree with your ideology.

Seemingly though there is a great deal of the population that do not think. Which in many ways I can appreciate as my tendency in quick play leans towards playing fast mechs and being very much reactionary instead of deliberate and purposeful.

However it is getting tiresome when I am running 130+ to have to a great deal of the time, herd players back into position and stop following me. Just the basic thought seems to not occur to people running slow assaults that following that Viper may not be wise.

Also your Timidity is Not a Tactic guide is becoming increasingly more appropriate.

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A rant I know but it is becoming increasingly frustrating and I am saying this while having undue success and feeling kind of empty about it.

The original title for that guide was "Cowardice Is Not a Tactic," but I changed it after it got stealth modded (with no documentation, hrm...) to Krakatoa. I wrote it specifically to vent my own frustration in a constructive manner - it was that or snap into a poo-flinging rage monkey until I dropped dead from an aneurysm or got banned.

[Void Angel]

If you made Faction Warfare a board game for seven to 10 (ish) players, then adjudicated faction decisions on a representative basis (players vote for declarations of war, how much to pay for merc contracts, etc,) it wouldn't matter how much lore appeal the game had. Make it fun, and the lore isn't too relevant - don't make it fun, and no amount of True Fandom will save it. PGI has already gotten away from the only thing that's really game-breaking from the lore - in intent, anyway. Clantech is supposed to be roughly equal to Spheretech; whether it actually is has been hotly debated since the Clan Invasion - but that's another difficulty. I really don't think you can lay any inequality in the tech bases at the feet of the old books and whatnot at this point.

[Y E O N N E]

Void Angel, on 19 August 2019 - 05:54 PM, said:

I was thinking more of the strategic overgame than the individual maps. I would love some way for faction loyalists to elect a controlling body for their faction, and then actually play out the Succession Wars and/or Clan Invasion that way. If you included catch-up mechanics for underpopulated factions, you might be able to prevent things like the MercStar "It's Not Technically Prohibited" Alliance from hijacking that system, and then off you go - see how it works. But it should act like a board game, with planetary battle outcomes standing in for rolls of the dice. That would both hearken back to Those Golden Hours of Yesterday so beloved by the True Fans of BattleTech, and provide a potentially deep strategic playground to incentivize guild membership. Heck, you could even use a hex map for the conflict areas!

The over-game only has to do two things:
1. Display faction progress resulting from the primary game-play loop
2. Provide some tangible feedback into the primary game-play loop

That's it. The primary game-play loop is where the attention needs to be focused because that's going to be the bulk of the experience. To that end, that makes No. 2 on that short list the most critical element of the over-game. PGI face-planted at the core game-play loop and at plugging the over-game back into that core loop.

[Void Angel]

And the Battlemech models only have to have distinguishable hit locations, and give feedback on hits and damage - but embellishments are appreciated.

[Bombast]

Void Angel, on 19 August 2019 - 06:06 PM, said:

Clantech is supposed to be roughly equal to Spheretech...

Since when?

[FupDup]

Bombast, on 19 August 2019 - 06:27 PM, said:

Since when?

Since PGI's first attempts to balance Clan tech.

Whether or not they succeeded in that goal is different than whether or not they had that goal.

[Bombast]

FupDup, on 19 August 2019 - 07:03 PM, said:

Since PGI's first attempts to balance Clan tech.

Whether or not they succeeded in that goal is different than whether or not they had that goal.

Oh, I thought he was referring to the series as a whole. My bad.

[Void Angel]

Bombast, on 19 August 2019 - 06:27 PM, said:

Since when?

This kind of confusion is why I always cringe when I see people conflating "this is how tabletop/books/flavor text was" and "this is what MWO is supposed to do." We're so used to seeing that kind of idiocy, your confusion is understandable. So many bad arguments about balance over the years...

It's almost as bad as "multirole" builds...

Edited by Void Angel, 19 August 2019 - 08:53 PM.

[Tiantara]

Alienized, on 19 August 2019 - 11:32 AM, said:

just a question: what do you understand as "sniping"?

- "Sniping"? Pinpoint damage from 30 to 50 points to vital part of mech like: side XL torso of IS mech, weapon bay in asymmetric build mech both IS and Clan (like rip off 3\4 of weapons from one side), arm with ammo or weapon, back (side torso or central engine part, especially if there no armor) and so on... So - take range advantage and do as much as possible damage to make target less effective or more damaged for teammates to finally kill. Or, kill target when it busy trading fire with other teammates. So - erppc, gauss, lightgauss, ac2x6, erll - boat mech with short cooldown and better heatmanagement, which have high weapon hardpoints (like battlemaster) are great for sniping. All thing about do as much damage as possible before target come to optimal for her range.
That also great works when target under LRM shower and in same time got critical hit to already red part of mech.

[Wil McCullough]

Y E O N N E, on 19 August 2019 - 05:31 PM, said:

The Blackjack is sub-par in a flanker role because it's slow more than anything else. The BJ-1X can run flank just fine.

~~Carry on~~

Yeah its mediocre speed is an issue but i think it's less detrimental to the chassis compared to how it's built like a board and has sticks for arms. I have a srm/flamer variant (the loyalty bj2 and i think that's the one proto was mentioning) and it does... okay. It puts out alright damage when you pop up behind the line for surprisebuttsecks but it can't trade alphas because it can't shield all its important bits.

At least you can play around the low speed with good positioning, timing and a little patience.

[Prototelis]

Step 1. Unlock arms
Step 2. Look all the way down when you twist away

[Wil McCullough]

Prototelis, on 20 August 2019 - 05:09 PM, said:

Step 1. Unlock arms
Step 2. Look all the way down when you twist away

Duh. Doesn't change the problem that the bj's arms are scrawny and don't cover much.

[Tiantara]

- Now I remember why I put 2xRAC2 in DRG-5N... because 2xUAC5 don't fit in arm. And 2xUAC2 do less damage than 2xRAC2 and jammed too often. So, yes, Dragon have nice perk but UAC10 have shorter range and mech not suitable for midrange combat.

Edited by Tiantara, 21 August 2019 - 12:54 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

That's why most people put 3 UAC2s in that arm...

[Horseman]

Tiantara, on 21 August 2019 - 12:51 AM, said:

- Now I remember why I put 2xRAC2 in DRG-5N... because 2xUAC5 don't fit in arm. And 2xUAC2 do less damage than 2xRAC2 and jammed too often.

3xUAC2, with the jam reduction nodes and 8 cooldown nodes, will do as much DPS as the RACs at full spin. The difference is that the UACs don't waste time on spinning up - by the time your 2xRAC2s have spun up, the UACs have fired a first full salvo of 11.460 damage, have cooled down over 0.605s and have fired a second full salvo for an average 22.92 damage before the RACs fire a single projectile.

Quote

So, yes, Dragon have nice perk but UAC10 have shorter range and mech not suitable for midrange combat

UAC10s have 450m optimum and 900m maximum. Seems like you're confusing mid and long range.

[Tiantara]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 21 August 2019 - 12:56 AM, said:

That's why most people put 3 UAC2s in that arm...

- But that need more light engine and all weapon will be in one arm which easy to rip off...

Horseman, on 21 August 2019 - 01:19 AM, said:

3xUAC2, with the jam reduction nodes and 8 cooldown nodes, will do as much DPS as the RACs at full spin. The difference is that the UACs don't waste time on spinning up - by the time your 2xRAC2s have spun up, the UACs have fired a first full salvo of 11.460 damage, have cooled down over 0.605s and have fired a second full salvo for an average 22.92 damage before the RACs fire a single projectile.
UAC10s have 450m optimum and 900m maximum. Seems like you're confusing mid and long range.

- I spin RAC before target in sight, by spending 2 ammo in air I put all other in enemy mech keeping mech behind corner. But without jam at all. Also I got more ammo than with 3xUAC2. Also I have 2 lasers which don't need ammo in case of loosing arm with RAC, ams and heatsink as well.
- I measure weapon on its optimum range. So, if weapon have full power at 450-500m its a midrange for me. And it's possible that I got much bigger damage from mech which range bigger. Comparing it with not well design of Dragon - midrange not good for that mech at all.

Edited by Tiantara, 21 August 2019 - 01:35 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

RACs im only use in Assaults with more as 3 (or groups to 2x2 or 3x2) in chainfire mode ...so jams not a Problem...one RACs firing to long =Jam

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 21 August 2019 - 02:09 AM.