31 replies to this topic

[RickySpanish]

OP if you have SP to spend, be careful. It's generally hard to acquire and costs both xp and c-bills, and if you are only just returning now the skill maze will look pretty intimidating. In reality there's not too many builds available as there are certain must haves such as the left edge of the survival tree to get armour bonuses. However, you can test skill allocation without buying the sp by selecting the nodes you want, and then entering the testing grounds from the mech build screen. The UI is a complete cluster**** by the way.

[thievingmagpi]

NoxMorbis, on 04 November 2020 - 10:19 AM, said:

I did notice that. I do have SP to reallocate, but don't even remember what SP does or how to use it--lol. What was the 3 mech rule?

Hang out on the SP for a bit (depending on how much you have I guess). Figure out what builds and/or mechs to run and then go from there.

Note that my skill trees are about 95% similar across mech weights and probably about 98% similar within them.

Basically for most mechs I get armour, firepower, and then a bit of aux (for consumables), Ops (cool run if a very hot build), and sometimes a bit of Radar Dep on sensors.

Remember as well that nodes are percentage based. 15% duration decrease on an ER Large Laser, okay. 15% on a Small Pulse... meh.

You can fill out your tree as desired then flip back to your loadout screen without saving the skill tree to check how it affects armour, weapon range/cooldown/etc.

You can also mess around with the skill tree and without saving it, launch into the testing grounds again, just to see how the heat/cooldown/duration and/or agility changes feel.

So I'd fiddle with those a bit to familiarize yourself with just what they do and how they change how your mechs feel, and then- depending on how much SP you have (91 nodes to complete a tree) dump a few in. If you're swimming in SP who cares, just clear the board. If you're a little light on SP like a few hundred, maybe partially fill in the tree, start with 15 or 16 nodes filled in and play a few battles. You can unlock nodes with GXP as well which is earned in game. When I'm tight on SP I save them for must have nodes like an extra coolshot, radar derp, a bit of extra armour etc.

Edited by thievingmagpi, 04 November 2020 - 12:33 PM.

[NoxMorbis]

LordNothing, on 04 November 2020 - 10:38 AM, said:

you used to need 3 variants of a chassis to unlock the top level skills. they got rid of that with the skill tree redux.

Oh yeaaaah. That's why I have 3 of everything. lol. Thanks for that.

Anyone have any ideas abut the small super small text in mech bay and etc?

[LordNothing]

NoxMorbis, on 04 November 2020 - 10:00 PM, said:

Oh yeaaaah. That's why I have 3 of everything. lol. Thanks for that.

Anyone have any ideas abut the small super small text in mech bay and etc?

dont run at 4k.

seriously pgi a little gui scaling would be nice.

[D A T A]

-Less alphastrike (ghost heat)

-assaults are less mobile, lights are more mobile (if a lights get between your legs your mobility is so nerfed that you can't even look at him and shoot back, and you just watch him farming you and there is nothing you can do)

-assaults got overnerfed, lights and 40 tonners got overbuffed

-LRMs got overbuffed (they have more than twice the velocity they had in 2012 and AMS got turbonerfed into the oblivion)

-lasers returned to be turbo **** like they were in beta in 2012

-FP was introduced (respawn mode)

[NoxMorbis]

LordNothing, on 05 November 2020 - 05:37 AM, said:

dont run at 4k.

seriously pgi a little gui scaling would be nice.

Serious. I can barely see my screen text in the game settings area, mech bay panels etc. I'm running 1080 on a 24" monitor. Stuff should be rather large. It was before I quit, and was easy to see. I noticed devs asking people what we wanted because it looks like they will start developing MWO again. First thing: FIX THE SCALING! I have to st 4" from the screen to see sh**.

D A T A, on 05 November 2020 - 06:13 AM, said:

-Less alphastrike (ghost heat)

-assaults are less mobile, lights are more mobile (if a lights get between your legs your mobility is so nerfed that you can't even look at him and shoot back, and you just watch him farming you and there is nothing you can do)

-assaults got overnerfed, lights and 40 tonners got overbuffed

-LRMs got overbuffed (they have more than twice the velocity they had in 2012 and AMS got turbonerfed into the oblivion)

-lasers returned to be turbo **** like they were in beta in 2012

-FP was introduced (respawn mode)

What is Ghost heat?

Looks heavies got nerfed into idiocy. That's sad.

FP respawn?

Sorry, not up on all the acronyms.

[GARION26]

NoxMorbis, on 05 November 2020 - 01:03 PM, said:

What is Ghost heat?

Looks heavies got nerfed into idiocy. That's sad.

FP respawn?

Sorry, not up on all the acronyms.

Ghost heat means certain groups of certain weapons (i.e. 3 or more PPCs, 2 UAC 20s, 6 or more medium lasers) will generate extra heat above and what you would expect based on the heat per weapon. This is to help reduce the natural efficiency of being able to boat weapons with identical cool downs, and range profiles. The mech building screen will have a warning triangle at the top if you are going to trigger ghost heat. You can work around that by having a 1 second or so delay between firing two weapon groups that would otherwise trigger ghost heat.

Heavies aren't bad - I only started in the last six months but I like a lot of my heavies - (marauder, ebon jaguar, catapult K2 for example.)

FP respawn is Faction Play Respawn - you drop in Faction play with 4 mechs in the most common mode and when the first gets killed you respawn with the next mech in your drop deck. Faction play is a bit harder to get a match in my experience but it's a fun and different experience from quick play.

My suggestion is look up Baradul on youtube - his videos got me into trying out the game and I have learned a lot from watching. While they aren't designed as tutorials he talks through his design thought process on each mech including hard points, quirks and hit boxes and he talks through his in game decisions real time.

I have old eyes as well so I get the challenge of a small screen and a fast moving sometimes game!

[w0qj]

[Edit: Thanks to Aidan Crenshaw, Ghost Heat details in (2a/2b) below had already corrected for errors, as below!]

1a. While inside the MWO game interface itself:
[Settings]>>[Video]>>[Screen_Resolution]

==>Try this for your (presumably) 16:9 aspect ration screen:
1280x720, or ==> 720p

==> Remember to press [Save] to finalise your video settings!

1b. I've just tried Windows 10 desktop resolution (adjusting from 720p to 4k and settings in between).
Windows 10 desktop resolution does not affect your MWO game interface (how big/small the fonts/panels).
See (1a) above. And tried two (2) LCD monitors. No MWO display issues for me.

2a. Ghost heat was implemented to prevent boating.
ie: firing too many weapons of same/similar type at once:
Search for "Heat Penalties per weapon":

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...eapon_heatscale

~Max 3x Large Lasers for Clan, before extra exponential heat penalty kicks in (hence "ghost" heat).
~Max 6x ER Medium Lasers for Clan, before ghost heat kicks in.
~Max 6x ER SML Lasers for Clan, before ghost heat kicks in.
~Max 2x ER PPC for Clan, before ghost heat kicks in.
~Max 2x Guass Rifle for Clan, hard coded into the game now.

2b. There are linked weapons groups for ghost heat also, as some players had previously tried to bypass the ghost heat issue by boating similar weapons within the same Weapons Group.
eg: lots of ERPPC + Guass

Hence Ghost Heat groups, where weapons of pre-defined similar types are treated counted the same:
PPC / Guass rifles (and the variations of these weapons).

2c. There are exceptions to this once in a while, in the form of "hsl" Mech Quirks. Mostly because the stock mech weapons layout it came with slightly exceeded the Ghost Heat limits.
https://mech.nav-alpha.com

eg: Hunchback HBK-4P on the IS side:
+2 Standard Medium Laser hsl (ie: +2 max Medium Laser count before ghost heat penalty kicks in).
+2 ER Medium Laser hsl (ie: +2 max ER Medium Laser count before ghost heat penalty kicks in).

3a. Heavy mechs are OK, and is a good starting mech to use.
Most can quickly torso twist to protect your Center-Torso (CT), which is a good habit.
(Playing Assaults may give you bad habit, like not twisting to protect your CT).

Also, Heavy mechs are more forgiving of your mech mistakes, since more armor.

3b. It's the Medium mechs that's having a relevancy issue.
It's good for hunting down Lights, but only if you know what you're doing.
Medium mech armour is quite thin (ie: see (3a) Heavy mech above).

4. FP Respawn = Faction Play
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong--have not played FP yet)

NoxMorbis, on 05 November 2020 - 01:03 PM, said:

Serious. I can barely see my screen text in the game settings area, mech bay panels etc. I'm running 1080 on a 24" monitor. Stuff should be rather large. It was before I quit, and was easy to see. I noticed devs asking people what we wanted because it looks like they will start developing MWO again. First thing: FIX THE SCALING! I have to st 4" from the screen to see sh**.

What is Ghost heat?

Looks heavies got nerfed into idiocy. That's sad.

FP respawn?...Sorry, not up on all the acronyms.

Edited by w0qj, 06 November 2020 - 02:10 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

Corrections.

2A) ~small lasers only do ghost heat for clans, not IS
~max 2 Gaussrifles (the charge-up mechanic effectively prevents Ghostheat because you can charge only 2 Gauss at the same time) Gaussrifles are in the same Ghostheat group with PPCs of all varieties.

see https://mwo.smurfy-n...eapon_heatscale for reference

[Arugela]

Leafia Barrett, on 03 November 2020 - 09:12 AM, said:

Okay, so last time I played this game was somewhere in late 2013. After that, hardware changes caused me to fall out of the game, and I never got back into it. Earlier today, I had an idle memory of the game and decided to look into things, now that I finally have a powerful computer again, so I'm able to run the game at a respectable framerate. So what's changed? I was a Light mech specialist, primarily working with Spiders and Jenners.

Engine decoupling destroying all balance at the top of the game. Unless you like overly spinny atlases the big mechs are useless now. Except for maybe the new ones released after the engine decoupling. which of course cost money... "Hint hint."

Edited by Arugela, 06 November 2020 - 06:36 PM.

[w0qj]

What exactly is this "engine decoupling" that had been frequently mentioned?

Was not around when it happened...

[RickySpanish]

w0qj, on 06 November 2020 - 08:13 PM, said:

What exactly is this "engine decoupling" that had been frequently mentioned?

Was not around when it happened...

Engine size used to scale the agility of your 'Mech as well as its speed.