42 replies to this topic

[Jagergrenadiere]

I recall you could still have a good round and not have to produce so much damage. Now everything seems so damage intense. Fell from tier 3 to tier 4 ...and a lot of my mechs are now mostly useless.
Who came up with the idea to make this game all about damage?
I used to have fun. Now I all i do is work and I play this game to alleviate how i feel about work and stress and anger...
Damage should be about setting personal best goals, not the leading achievement aspect of the game.

[crazytimes]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 03:54 PM, said:

I recall you could still have a good round and not have to produce so much damage. Now everything seems so damage intense. Fell from tier 3 to tier 4 ...and a lot of my mechs are now mostly useless.
Who came up with the idea to make this game all about damage?
I used to have fun. Now I all i do is work and I play this game to alleviate how i feel about work and stress and anger...
Damage should be about setting personal best goals, not the leading achievement aspect of the game.

Tier is not an achievement. Yes, tier movement comes about from match score, and match score is a measure of your relative usefulness in a match, however If you are having fun playing the way you want then continue to do so.

You moving down in tiers is just better positioning you to play with people of a similar skill level and will allow you to have the most fun doing things your way. It is not punishment.

If you aren't have fun playing your way in tier 4, then you definitely would not be having fun in the higher tiers anyhow.

[RickySpanish]

^ Don't worry about tiers man, like that guy said. Assume you reached the tippy top tier, then what? You're going to be locked out of playing the vast majority of your 'Mechs because there are only a handful of truly good 'Mechs and loadouts, which you will see over and over again... Assuming you end up in games with just T1 opponents, which probably won't happen given the low population. I wouldn't care about winning or losing, just have fun and if you are getting stressed, spend your free time on something more worthy of your attention.

[Jagergrenadiere]

In the real game and books...it was about piloting and maneuver. Not how much energy you could vomit.

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

sipping my tea

Thanks for the replies, ma dudes

Edited by Jagergrenadiere, 18 August 2020 - 06:58 PM.

[John Bronco]

In this game it's about piloting and maneuvering in order to kill the enemies, which usually involves doing a good bit of damage.

If you want tabletop, play tabletop.

What mechs do you have? I'm sure we can find some effective builds.

Edited by BlaizerP, 18 August 2020 - 08:06 PM.

[Nyte Kitsune]

Positioning helps too. I just had a match in my WLF-1 Wolfhound, Played the entire match thinking I had ECM (forgot that was my Grinner) and yet, managed to not only get a kill but also did some decent damage (Little over 400 dmg), Couldn't figure out why the Stealth Phoenix Hawk was finding me so easily.. lol.. duh, because no ECM. Helped get him in the end. Yes I somehow did not die. Mind.. I am a decent light pilot.

For ideas on builds try GrimMechs General Tier List, I don't use it myself, but many of their builds are almost or identical to mine so I never saw the point, these will generally help you get good scores in matches considering if you have good aim, heat management and situational awareness.

[Nesutizale]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

In the real game and books...it was about piloting and maneuver. Not how much energy you could vomit.

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

sipping my tea

Thanks for the replies, ma dudes

It is still about piloting/positioning. Standing still in the open is a sure way to get killed fast so findnig a good firing position, haveing a look at the map to see where the teams are and move accordingly, its all there.
Movement and positioning are an importend part.

[Bennesto]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

So make every shot do a Diceroll in order to get the BT vibe?

[Sjorpha]

I'd say that in terms of winning, it's about positioning, timing and effective damage. In that order. So no its not all about damage.

[ShiverMeRivets]

BlaizerP, on 18 August 2020 - 08:04 PM, said:

In this game it's about piloting and maneuvering in order to kill the enemies, which usually involves doing a good bit of damage.

Match score is mostly about damage. Damage is a very crude estimator of contribution to your team’s cause (i.e. winning).
Of course more damage is better than less damage, but current system favors setups that produce a lot of splash damage that is not very useful - it penalizes precision and smart d targeting of components. If you want MS on the IS side you go with MRMs or RACs. On the Clans it is boating UACs or any kind of missiles.

If you kill a mech by aiming at his one open torso knowing his build must be XL, you just wasted a lot of match score you could have farmed from it. For this reason match score should give more weight to results such as kills and components destroyed, rather than means which is removing armor by the raw damage. Killing a mech with 250 of total damage takes more skill and is more beneficial than killing it with 600 points of damage.

[crazytimes]

ShiverMeRivets, on 19 August 2020 - 01:34 AM, said:

Match score is mostly about damage. Damage is a very crude estimator of contribution to your team’s cause (i.e. winning).
Of course more damage is better than less damage, but current system favors setups that produce a lot of splash damage that is not very useful - it penalizes precision and smart d targeting of components. If you want MS on the IS side you go with MRMs or RACs. On the Clans it is boating UACs or any kind of missiles.

If you kill a mech by aiming at his one open torso knowing his build must be XL, you just wasted a lot of match score you could have farmed from it. For this reason match score should give more weight to results such as kills and components destroyed, rather than means which is removing armor by the raw damage. Killing a mech with 250 of total damage takes more skill and is more beneficial than killing it with 600 points of damage.

It's not a perfect system- but with the punitive PSR rating system, I feel the current setup is a lot better than it was at least. Ultimately, if someone is consistently staying alive enough to put out big damage regularly... they're probably doing something right.

[Tarl Cabot]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

In the real game and books...it was about piloting and maneuver. Not how much energy you could vomit.

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

sipping my tea

Thanks for the replies, ma dudes

For Lore, hai, piloting and maneuvering, followed by actually hitting your enemy, be it with long range or short range weapons, then the gunnery skills combined with the long/medium/short range modifiers for said weapons, target movement and shooter movement, mech heat, any potential terrain modifiers then the roll of the dice....for each weapon. Only Solaris boardgame had TICs (weapon grouping) but each weapon still had to be rolled to determine hit/miss then if hit, location.

The original PSR setup had low thresholds, to move up on a win all you needed was 101 MS...and for a loss the PSR weren't even close to being equal.

Original PSR values prior to reset.

Player LOSES:
Match Score: 0-100 goes down in PSR by -2
Match Score: 101-250 goes down in PSR by -1
Match Score: 251-400 does not move.
Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +1

Player WINS:
Match Score: 0-100 does not move.
Match Score: 101-250 goes up in PSR by +1
Match Score: 251-400 goes up in PSR by +3
Match Score: 401+ goes up in PSR by +5


Below is how the current PSR values and movement is setup. Not as much emphasis on winning as on MS. Damage contributes approx 42.5% of pts to MS.

https://mwomercs.com...ity-version-10/

The question though is , would you rather be dropping with and against players who are, on average, around your own caliber, reflected Matchscore-wise or would you rather have majority of your drops with and against players who constantly pump out 2-3x your damage/MS, with you feeling like fodder?

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 19 August 2020 - 07:22 AM.

[martian]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 03:54 PM, said:

I recall you could still have a good round and not have to produce so much damage. Now everything seems so damage intense. Fell from tier 3 to tier 4 ...and a lot of my mechs are now mostly useless.
Who came up with the idea to make this game all about damage?
I used to have fun. Now I all i do is work and I play this game to alleviate how i feel about work and stress and anger...
Damage should be about setting personal best goals, not the leading achievement aspect of the game.

Sorry, but MWO has always been about damage and kills.

Moving from Tier to Tier is not a punishment. It is just a measure that should ensure that you will face other players of your skill level and thus you will play more balanced games eventually.

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

In the real game and books...it was about piloting and maneuver. Not how much energy you could vomit.

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

sipping my tea

Thanks for the replies, ma dudes

But even in BattleTech the side that actually kills enemy 'Mechs usually wins (unless it is some kind of scenarie with differently stated victory conditions.

All that "piloting and maneuver", that you mentioned, must lead to dead enemy 'Mechs in the end. Both in MechWarrior Online and BattleTech.

Try to make sure that you always end the game with at least one or two enemy kills, if possible, and that you damage other enemy 'Mechs. Of course, spotting, narcing, tagging and other actions can improve your MS/PSR too, but those things are of secondary concern.

Edited by martian, 19 August 2020 - 09:15 PM.

[General Solo]

My view is that while MS and damage can be farmed, eventually such a player will rise in PSR to a point where they meet players where such a playstyle will not cut it.

My self since the merge and reset have a MS between 246-268 match score, so not alot of damage.
I been killing efficiently with out a lot of damage.
And my PSR keeps trending upward, T1 halfway currently.

So despite the bias toward damage and wins, the system is kinda working.
imo

[Davegt27]

Jagergrenadiere, on 18 August 2020 - 06:55 PM, said:

In the real game and books...it was about piloting and maneuver. Not how much energy you could vomit.

Not terribly worried about tiers. I just wish they would stick to the game rules and include ALL OF THE WEAPONS.

sipping my tea

Thanks for the replies, ma dudes

what your saying is hard to put into words

I understand what your getting at because it is something I been thinking about for a few weeks

of course you get the --dont let the door hit you in the butt on your way out

" I wouldn't care about winning or losing, just have fun and if you are getting stressed, spend your free time on something more worthy of your attention."

people have been headed out the door like crazy

the game has been transformed into a competitive game
that means produce results or get out
bottom line if you don't produce results you are forced to leave the game

to give you a better picture
when you played the old arcade games you played like crazy and had fun
the score was a very low importance

in the early PC games most games had levels of played from beginner to expert level
you the player chose which level you wanted to play at

in MWO we compete for everything from kills, damage, and match score, to most effective builds

do you remember when no one cared about match score

with no new maps or Mechs we are even more focused on competitive aspects of the game

your not only concerned about targeting but the burn time of your lasers

when I first started and stumbled into the stat page I about fell out of my chair

I was also asked why do you care about stats
my answer was because PGI cares about stats and PGI controls the games

they use both passive and active controls

which is the real elephant in the room

[R Valentine]

The game has always been about damage. Without respawns, removing the enemy from the field is the most effective way of insuring victory. They cannot capture points without mechs. They cannot stand on your base without mechs. They cannot stand in the yellow circle without mechs. They cannot shoot your mechs without mechs. Everything about this game is designed with killing the enemy in mind. "Objectives" are a mere after thought.

[martian]

Davegt27, on 20 August 2020 - 06:47 AM, said:

what your saying is hard to put into words

I understand what your getting at because it is something I been thinking about for a few weeks

of course you get the --dont let the door hit you in the butt on your way out

" I wouldn't care about winning or losing, just have fun and if you are getting stressed, spend your free time on something more worthy of your attention."

people have been headed out the door like crazy

the game has been transformed into a competitive game
that means produce results or get out
bottom line if you don't produce results you are forced to leave the game
...

in MWO we compete for everything from kills, damage, and match score, to most effective builds

do you remember when no one cared about match score

with no new maps or Mechs we are even more focused on competitive aspects of the game

your not only concerned about targeting but the burn time of your lasers

when I first started and stumbled into the stat page I about fell out of my chair

I was also asked why do you care about stats
my answer was because PGI cares about stats and PGI controls the games

they use both passive and active controls

which is the real elephant in the room

You compete only because you want to compete.

Otherwise simply play and do no not care about stats, match score, kills, damage, PSR, etc.
It is as simple as this.

Eventually you will drift to Tier 4 or Tier 5 where people do not care about winning, losing, where they do not run most effective builds, etc., where people are not forced to produce results, etc.

You will move to a place where people are having fun and are not stressed.

Davegt27, on 20 August 2020 - 06:47 AM, said:

do you remember when no one cared about match score

Not quite.

Even before the rework of the Match Score, that lead to the current MS system, people knew that having your MS>70 meant that you contributed substantially to your team and that having your MS>100 meant that you played really well.

Davegt27, on 20 August 2020 - 06:47 AM, said:

to give you a better picture
when you played the old arcade games you played like crazy and had fun
the score was a very low importance

in the early PC games most games had levels of played from beginner to expert level
you the player chose which level you wanted to play at

But MWO is PvP game, you can not compare it with PvE game where you can set your opponents' intelligence and skill as you see fit.

[RickySpanish]

Kiran Yagami, on 20 August 2020 - 08:48 AM, said:

The game has always been about damage. Without respawns, removing the enemy from the field is the most effective way of insuring victory. They cannot capture points without mechs. They cannot stand on your base without mechs. They cannot stand in the yellow circle without mechs. They cannot shoot your mechs without mechs. Everything about this game is designed with killing the enemy in mind. "Objectives" are a mere after thought.

I cannot fathom why on Earth, with SO MUCH effort apparently put into map design, into game mode design and overhaul, into the idea of (originally) roles for different 'Mechs, WHY PGI never implemented a resource based respawn mechanic. As you said, with one life or even four lives, you almost completely remove the purpose of objectives other than to kill the enemy ASAP because a dead enemy team cannot do anything.

Seriously, it boggles my mind. I would say this is the single most disasterous gameplay decision PGI made. With respawns, objectives would mean something, holding and contesting areas of the map would mean something, NASCAR WOULD NOT EXIST (well, not around a single point), frigging 'Mech roles would actually exist. Argh!

[martian]

RickySpanish, on 20 August 2020 - 09:24 AM, said:

I cannot fathom why on Earth, with SO MUCH effort apparently put into map design, into game mode design and overhaul, into the idea of (originally) roles for different 'Mechs, WHY PGI never implemented a resource based respawn mechanic. As you said, with one life or even four lives, you almost completely remove the purpose of objectives other than to kill the enemy ASAP because a dead enemy team cannot do anything.

Because respawns have been reserved for Community Warfare, while the casual play Solo queue was designed to be played without respawns?

But since this supposedly "CW End-game content" has flopped completely because of PGI's incomptence ...

RickySpanish, on 20 August 2020 - 09:24 AM, said:

Seriously, it boggles my mind. I would say this is the single most disasterous gameplay decision PGI made. With respawns, objectives would mean something, holding and contesting areas of the map would mean something, NASCAR WOULD NOT EXIST (well, not around a single point), frigging 'Mech roles would actually exist. Argh!

1) People do not play MWO because of objectives, they play MWO because they want to smash enemy 'Mechs.
It was very clearly shown during the time when the MWO players were free to pick their favorite game modes.

I would even say that the PGI's decision to force the MWO players to play game modes, that they did not want to play, was one of the reasons why MWO has failed. ....

2) MWO objectives are joke anyway. MWO objectives are "stand in empty square", "stand in empty circle", etc.
Incursion and Escort have always been the less voted modes in my experience too.

If you talk about the objectives in MWO, then this is what PGI can come with.

3) Respawns are nonsense:
I kill you, but my health is reduced to 50%. → You respawn in a fresh 'Mech and you kill me, but I reduce your health to 50% before I die. → Then I respawn in a fresh 'Mech and I go to kill you, but before you die, you reduce my health to 50%. → After that you respawn and return in a fresh 'Mech to the battlefield to kill me, but I reduce your health to 50% ... etc. repeat ad nauseam.

This was one of the reasons why Mektek's servers lost the majority of MechWarrior 4 players, even though the game was totally free to obtain and to play.
After 10 minutes of such game you felt as complete idiot, playing futile game with no end in sight: Kill one player/get killed by the same player/respawn/kill the same player/respawn/get killed by the same player/respawn/kill the same player/ ...

It was no wonder that the players lost interest quickly.

[RickySpanish]

As MOBAs have clearly shown, the vast majority of players deal with objectives just fine. The problem with CW was the high bar to entry. Just because players didn't play CW does not mean that objectve based gameplay is bad, it just means that CW was bad.

MWO objectives are a joke because they were coupled with no respawns, so yes of course in that case people will vote them out because it gets in the way of the only objective that carries weight - killing.

Respawns are obviously not nonsense, I haven't play mektech, but I have played plenty of multiplayer games, and those games overwhelmingly feature respawns and objectives - Games like League of Legends for example. Now yes, you can trudge along in waves killing the last guy that killed you, but that's ignoring the fact that in an objective based game simply killing the opponent in a *** for tat style engagement won't win you the game.