80 replies to this topic

[Kubernetes]

"I don't do the meta."

This is a familiar refrain from people trying to rationalize their poor play (along with "My mechs aren't skilled up" and "Stats don't mean anything"). I have asked such folks numerous times to define the current meta, but no one ever responds.

So what is it? Anyone? If you could point to any specific weapons, mechs, builds, playstyles, etc., and say "That's meta," what would those be?

[K O Z A K]

I've always assumed anything that's remotely optimized. It was much more clearly defined when we had weapons and loadouts that stood above everything else. In today's world of everything is kind of meh balance, it's become much harder to define. Nobody ever responds because for all the meta bashing they'll have to admit that the bottom line is they suck both in the mechlab and in the drops, but hating on the "meta" means they can pretend to only suck in the mechlab and in their eyes not using "meta" is a legitimate excuse for their poor historic performance.

[Mr Andersson]

If you are talking about solo queue quick play, then I would say any mech that can combine reasonable (or better) mobility with high DPS.

[Feral Clown]

I'd say it's you in the vulCAN.

Really though any IS mech right now with five or six med pulse is going to do consistently well in nascar that is quick play. I can do the same Clan side in LBK pulse build.

I suck at assaults but it is pretty hard to be terrible in an MKII B or BAS A/B (currently have over 2 wlr this season in assaults running BAS A which is not normal for me). Sleipnir falls in there for me too.

Got up to 474 avg match score on this acct in Veagle 1 PPC build. Considering my skill level I think this points to the mech being very, very strong and perhaps a better pilot could do it in a Warhawk or Whammy PPC build.

I mean I am answering you sort of but not really since I know you have more than a solid grasp. Really hope this thread does it's job and points some folks in the right direction.

[Dale Grible]

Typically min/max or boating certain weapons. Dual Gauss is nice because of FLPPD Front Loaded Pinpoint Damage.

15 dmg x 2 =30. 30 dmg on one area. Dual heavy gauss is 50. Gauss has no heat

Boating 6ml plus dual gauss was popular and still is. Lasers are focused dmg at one point but with "burn time" so not Front Loaded but it is Pinpoint dmg.

Anything that spreads dmg is typically not favored. Ppc is FLPPD but hot in a non ppc quirked mech

I like srm6 Artemis but not really a meta.

Lrms not meta and frowned upon due to people lobbing them ineffectively from 900m and expecting others to face tank to hold lock and not share your armor. However, supporting your team by sharing armor at 300m and getting your locks is very nice

You can make anything meta but there is better weapon balance. Hell, IS Ac20 and 4 srm6 can be meta in the right hands

Back to armor sharing, coordinated team effort in a mech loaded to what you are effective with is meta

[BCAW]

Disclaimer: newly minted Tier 2 scrub. I'll take a shot at this as a way of checking my understanding of the game thus far.

The term "Meta", to my knowledge, is an acrynom for "Most Efficient Tactic Available". Thus, the meta in MWO does not refer to specific weapon systems or mech chasis. Rather, the term refers to playstyles that are considered more efficient, meaning more effective at contributing to wins and getting kills. From there one can derive what constitutes meta weapons; these are weapons that work well in the meta playstyle(s). By extension, meta mechs are the mech chasis that are able to make good use of those meta weapons by the virtue of characteristics like hardpoint number and location, mobility, hitbox etc.

As for what specifically is the meta at the moment, I would say that on average, the meta is mid-range DPS. The weapon that supports such a playstyle, in my humble opinion, are primary mid-sized ballistic weapons and their combinations, such as the ever-popular MCII-B with its complement of dual UAC-5s and 10s. The secondary meta would be mid-range Alpha/Poke, which generally mean various flavours of laservomit, although these lose to the DPS builds without sufficient amount of cover to work with, which can and does happen sometimes. The HBRs are arguably the best for that particular meta.

Other metas are more situational/map-dependent. Long-range poke with things like ERLLs and gauss n PPCs work well in long-range maps like Alpine and Polar, but are at a disadvantage when the range gets below 700 meters. Brawling with the likes of SRMs and small lasers can be strong on maps like Mining, but getting into range can be a struggle, especially with how passive people can be sometimes, unless you are in something like a Piranha, but good light mech pilots are few and far in between.

That being said, I do ascribe, at least partially, to the "I don't play meta" camp. Gaming is to me a form of self-expression, particularly in games that allows for a great degree of customization. Sure, I can copy and paste some build code from Grimmechs and have a top-of-the-line build, but I would not feel like that build says anything about me, or that I put a bit of myself into the build. However, when I build my own mechs, I do try to keep certain playstyles in mind, and build and play accordingly.

To demonstrate, take my Fafnir build for example: https://mech.nav-alp...#b6b96adf_FNR-5
Yes it is a bit slow for comfort. Yes the light PPCs aren't quite meta weapons. Yes the double UAC5 and double 10 build is probably stronger. But this build was not done without some thought into it. It is intended to engage at around 600 to 800 meters, and most of that damage happens to be pinpoint too, thanks to how IS UAC5s work. The light PPCs were chosen specifically to complement the pinpoint nature of the ballistics, allowing me to dish out a pinpoint alpha that is equivalent to a pair of gauss while being able to DPS if needed to be. The near-identical projectile velocities is a bonus too.

Edit: Since y'all will probably check anyways, let me save you the trouble of typing: https://leaderboard....g/search?u=BCAW

Edited by BCAW, 04 September 2019 - 04:39 PM.

[Prototelis]

"Synergy"

Nah, it actually;

G: Get your own locks
I: Introspection
T: Terrain Control

G: Game sense
U: Understanding the mechlab
D: Decisive action

[GeminiWolf]

Kubernetes, on 04 September 2019 - 04:02 PM, said:

"I don't do the meta."

This is a familiar refrain from people trying to rationalize their poor play (along with "My mechs aren't skilled up" and "Stats don't mean anything"). I have asked such folks numerous times to define the current meta, but no one ever responds.

So what is it? Anyone? If you could point to any specific weapons, mechs, builds, playstyles, etc., and say "That's meta," what would those be?

ATM Vapor Eagle, is the current Meta that I have observed most lately. I am not disagreeing with you my friend, but when my mechs are not skilled up I play them far worse than when they are. Also my main account on Jarl's List has way worse stats than say my Smurf accounts which I started playing after I knew how to position and aim better. So I would say there is some merit with some of the comments you hear, but I understand where you are coming from.

Your Community Mate,
GW

[Feral Clown]

Prototelis, on 04 September 2019 - 05:18 PM, said:

"Synergy"

Nah, it actually;

G: Get your own locks
I: Introspection
T: Terrain Control

G: Game sense
U: Understanding the mechlab
D: Decisive action

****ing tryhard

[JediPanther]

Any mech/build lets you 1-2 alpha kill another mech. Depends on amount of derp on your team vs the other team and map positioning. In days of old there were wolf packs of jenners/ravens/comandos. Threads crying for mech___ op plz nerf! Or when the sub 3 tiers cried lrm op must nerf and this the lock reticle area was cut in half.

My Oxide with a 72 alpha could kill direwhales in one-two alphas giving the build the name of harpoon. The Raven-H,Ember,Atlas were once meta now rust in mech bays as hanger queens as ani and fnr dhgs replace them.

[General Solo]

Most effective tactic available
Wud eva dat iz

I think it's focus fire, the team that does focued fire best wins in quick play

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 04 September 2019 - 06:02 PM.

[Shanrak]

IMO Meta is a combination of the following ranked in priority:

• Hard points
  
• Hard point location
  
• Hit boxes*
  
• Mobility/Torso agility
  
• Quirks

*ECM can mitigate some of the hit box issues by helping you attract less attention

• Good hard points is obvious, you need to be able to boat weapons, preferably multiples of one type.
  
• Hard point location is also very important, you want guns at cockpit level or higher. Having them in arms with lower actuators can be good too (MCII-B ) but most people like having weapons in the side torsos so they can min/max by stripping armor from the arms.
  
• Good hit boxes = better damage spread, slightly more important than good mobility/agility imo.
  
• Good mobility is obvious, being able to get out and back into cover fast is useful for trading. Good torso agility lets you twist damage more easily.
  
• Good quirks makes the mech better, but not absolutely necessary. Some of the best meta mechs do not have any particular quirks for their weapons. Having armor/structure quirks though is nice.

Lets examine some of the meta mechs mentioned in this thread:

---

1. VGL-3

• 5/5 hard points (3 ATM12s on a 55 tonner is crazy good, especially with clan xl engine), and its not omni so you can drop that engine a lot to fit more weapons.
  
• 4/5 hard point location, 2 in the torsos one in the arms, with ATMs, hard points is not as important as direct fire but they're still nice and high so you have to minimally expose before you can shoot
  
• 4/5 hit boxes, not the best hit boxes but pretty good at spreading damage, just the arms fall off a bit too easily so you have to protect it. However, the VGL's torso agility is quite good for a medium so it can twist damage pretty well.
  
• 4/5 mobility, clan xl engine means you can move relatively fast for the amount of firepower you pack, you also have jump jets to pop with
  
• 1/5 quirks, clan mechs usually don't get quirks, having JJ quirks is better than nothing

---

2. vulCAN (I'm assuming the 5T variant)

• 4/5 hard points, 5 energy hard points 4 in the torso, 1 in the arm. Can pack a decent amount of MPLs If it had 6 energy hard points it'd be 5/5.
  
• 4/5 the hard points are all pretty high for easy peeking
  
• 4/5 hit boxes, can spread damage relatively well
  
• 5/5 mobility, very agile with JJs to boot
  
• 3/5 quirks, has a nice range quirk and a good amount of structure

---

3. Sleipnir

• 5/5 hard points, 2 ballistics in each torso, what more could you ask for
  
• 4/5 hard point location, relatively high on the torso
  
• 5/5 hit boxes, spreads damage very well, good shield arms
  
• 5/5 mobility, great acceleration for an assault, can torso twist very well
  
• 1/5 quirks, very little quirks, but not needed on this killing machine

---

4. La Malinche (crappy hero mech for comparison)

• 2/5 hard points, 1 side torso ballistics, also4 energy hard points, but all in different components (1 in the head so it is rather useless), 1 missile slot. Having 1 missile slot means you can't really boat anything, you are forced to use a big MRM in it if at all. Ditto with just 1 ballistic slot. If you go with anything big in the ballistic slot, you are forced to give up that energy hard point and stuck with a standard engine as well.
  
• 2/5 hard point location, the height of the weapons are actually not bad, but they're spread out all over the place so your convergeance will be terrible with the 4 energy weapons. The torso ballistic is mounted well below the cockpit though, you are forced to expose 1/3rd of your mech before you can clear the ground. The only good hard point is the right torso missle slot where you can put in a big MRM.
  
• 1/5 Hit boxes, very large CT and side torsos and front profile in general, making it very easy to pick apart
  
• 4/5 Mobility, its almost as agile as the sleipnir in terms of acceleration and torso mobility
  
• 3/5 quirks, great quirks for the few hard points it does have, not much on the survivability side

You can still pack a ridiculous alpha onto the La Malinche with a MRM40, AC20, and a bunch of medium/large pulses. But in the end terrible convergeance, hard point location, and hit boxes makes this mech terribad. Yes it can still perform in the hands of a skilled player who's aware of positioning and timing, but its not meta.

[Brauer]

BCAW, on 04 September 2019 - 04:28 PM, said:

Disclaimer: newly minted Tier 2 scrub. I'll take a shot at this as a way of checking my understanding of the game thus far.

The term "Meta", to my knowledge, is an acrynom for "Most Efficient Tactic Available". Thus, the meta in MWO does not refer to specific weapon systems or mech chasis. Rather, the term refers to playstyles that are considered more efficient, meaning more effective at contributing to wins and getting kills. From there one can derive what constitutes meta weapons; these are weapons that work well in the meta playstyle(s). By extension, meta mechs are the mech chasis that are able to make good use of those meta weapons by the virtue of characteristics like hardpoint number and location, mobility, hitbox etc.

Meta is just a word for beyond. So roughly it's the game beyond the game. So the metagame is as you describe different playstyles, build choices, and generally the strategy an individual or team is using to win. There are a lot of different ways to metagame MWO, but as you note not all are created equal. Recently, in the ISC Tournament for example, MPLs and fast brawl were quite effective on a number of maps, but overwatch strats, dakka firing lines, and I am sure other ideas were also effective.

Personally, I think the most effective QP meta is likely still relatively low-risk mid-range laser vomit builds. They work on a variety of maps and can more reliably contribute than pure brawl or long-range builds. Recently, I've enjoyed running a laser vom Black Knight in solo. It's got good armor, decent range, and decent damage. Hardpoints aren't good, but I can usually work around that. Hellbringers, and other mid range mechs are also good.

Part of the metagame, I'd say, is determining what you do well, or how you like to play, and finding mechs and builds that suit that style (as well as experimenting with others both to learn and diversify your skills). One of the reasons I like the Black Knight in QP is I tend to be pretty aggressive, which doesn't always work out in a squishy, if in some ways objectively better, mech like a Hellbringer.

[justcallme A S H]

META

Hvy/Assault - UAC Dakka / Gauss-Vom. To a degree ATMs if you know what you're doing.

Heavy/Med (Slower) - ATM / Gauss-Vom - UAC Dakka

Light/Med (faster moving) - IS MPL is king. cMG and a laser PIR are ok, niche circumstances.

The overall though - For QP - Running at above 62-65km/h because of the STUPID ROTATION Clown Fiesta that's become a QP staple over the past 12-18 months as lower skill players climb to "Tier 1".

Lasers overall are in an average-at-best place for QP. IS Lasers not too bad, long as the mech is quirked. Clan lasers mostly junk - cSPL, cMPL, HLL being the worst and all have taken nerfs or repeated nerfs.

General AC ballistics are still mostly rubbish. IS AC20 for example the velocity needs a massive buff in the face of HGauss existing and we are told we can't even have two AC20 without ghost heat yet HGauss is better in every way.

SRM/MRM are mostly rubbish and only good on quirked mechs. cSRM is just a disgrace with the spread it has.


It's the age old whack-a-mole. Knock one thing down and others just appear in their place. Laser vom got nerfed and UAC Dakka replaced it overnight.

Weapons shouldn't be constantly nerfed. MWO TTK is extremely high for a FPS. The lacklustre weapons should and NEEDED to be buffed-UPWARD. Alas the Community Balance Document tried to do that 2 years ago to stop the attrition of the playerbase and it fell on deaf ears and we get LRM buffs and mechanic changes instead

Edited by justcallme A S H, 04 September 2019 - 11:22 PM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

justcallme A S H, on 04 September 2019 - 11:19 PM, said:

Weapons shouldn't be constantly nerfed.

100% agree ESPECIALLY when there aren't new weapons being added to the mix.

[Gagis]

The Metagame is the game around a game of trying to become aware of how others are likely to be playing and trying to find a way to play of your own that will be as effective as possible to counter what others will do. A stable metagame goes around in circles with people trying to out-predict each others' attempts at predicting them, until a new idea disrupts the stalemate. The stable metagame in MWO currently includes a fairly large number of mechs and playstyles you need to be aware of.

Refusing to play the metagame and only play the core game will limit your enjoyment of any multiplayer game by a great deal. Even for games like Magic: the Gathering, the metagame consists of a large part of why the game is fun in the first place, and same goes for larger scale online games.

Edited by Gagis, 05 September 2019 - 12:12 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Kubernetes, on 04 September 2019 - 04:02 PM, said:

"I don't do the meta."

This is a familiar refrain from people trying to rationalize their poor play (along with "My mechs aren't skilled up" and "Stats don't mean anything"). I have asked such folks numerous times to define the current meta, but no one ever responds.

Speaking only for myself, of course, but I find that what is considered “the meta” in terms of a given build, is often beyond my skill or forces me to play in a manner contrary to my chronic (bad) habits of play. I mean I try to play what other, far better players tell me is the meta, and more often than not I play it ineffectually. So, for me, yeah I play the meta as often as I can, I just more often than not, screw it up.

Kubernetes, on 04 September 2019 - 04:02 PM, said:

So what is it? Anyone? If you could point to any specific weapons, mechs, builds, playstyles, etc., and say "That's meta," what would those be?

Specific?

Well, as indicated above, I can only give you these sorts of specifics based on what I see better players consistently bringing to a match and how they play it.

Assaults: MKII Gauss [edit] vomit and of course UAC spam. These two are thee most common assaults, with IS Gauss (and HG) vomit via Fafnirs and Cyclops (with the latter sometimes wielding HG, 4UAC5 and sometimes 4 LBX10). All other assaults are far less common. Though the last couple of weeks there has been a resurgence of Annihilators, and occasionally I will see a Boiler with 2 UAC20s and 3 ASRM6.

Heavies: Lot more variety here in terms of mechs, but still mostly Gauss vomit, and UAC spam, laser vomit is still a thing as well (Ebons) but not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Seeing lots of ERPPC Summoners of late too. Still see plenty of MRM IV-4s too.

Mediums: Vulcans with MPL, Bushwackers running 3 RAC2s, lately I’ve seen plenty of Streak Crows suddenly returning but I assume that is just to troll all the lights running around. The most terrifying sight though is a group of good players running Veagles. Yes, the 3, with ATMs (every one talks about 3-12s, but I see 2-12s and a 9 far more often), but the 3 ERPPCs seem to be just as effective for some of these guys.

Lights: It used to be Wolfhounds and Urbies (both running MPLs) and Piranhas (massed micros or MGs) but for the last few months Fleas with 5ML or 7SPL seem to be everywhere.

Just my 2 cents based on what I see the usual suspects of better GQ players commonly bringing.

Edited by Bud Crue, 05 September 2019 - 03:44 AM.

[LordNothing]

FRAGTAST1C, on 04 September 2019 - 11:55 PM, said:

100% agree ESPECIALLY when there aren't new weapons being added to the mix.

too expensive, and their weapon system requires mech model retrofits for every mech in the game. that said newtech was one of the best content releases in the game and pretty much the only time i remember pgi doing something right. i even bought a mechpack.

Edited by LordNothing, 05 September 2019 - 02:11 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

LordNothing, on 05 September 2019 - 02:10 PM, said:

too expensive, and their weapon system requires mech model retrofits for every mech in the game. that said newtech was one of the best content releases in the game and pretty much the only time i remember pgi doing something right. i even bought a mechpack.

Almost right. A lot of the values on the weapons in the initial release were out of whack and some still are out of whack.

[Jackal Noble]

IDBNTRGFHG

idiotic deathball nascar turn right go fast heavy gauss