164 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

But if one playstyle is hit or miss

And another playstyle isnt hit or miss

The playstyle thats hit or miss should get buffed.

Thats the problem brawling has now. It cant overcome its inconsistency on certain maps. While midrange and longrange builds are extremely consistent on just about every map.

The fact brawling is much more inconsistent makes it deserving of a buff IMO. Because I dont believe theres currently a proper risk vs reward factor for brawling.

And after playing a few SRM builds to complete the recent challenges I have to say im not really impressed with the current state of SRMs. They feel incredibly weak to me. In most cases MRMs seem straight up better for the extra range and better hardpoint compression.

Edited by Khobai, 23 June 2021 - 10:34 AM.

[RUSTY RASTIL]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 23 June 2021 - 03:28 AM, said:

anywhoo - brawling in QP: as much as it pains me, but: just don't. taking "the easy route" is so much more rewarding than the fun-route way more often than not.

Im just gonna say i enjoy brawling as an atlas, but in lights and mediums i just get melted before achieving anything.

[FinnMcKool]

it would be nice if we could choose our mech after the map has been picked

like all games it comes down to:

Rock
Paper
Scissors

[1453 R]

You're missing the bloody point, Khobes. Again.

A generalist build - in this case your oh-so-despised "midrange trader" - generalizes. They're 60% effective everywhere. A medium-range 'Mech with a mildly bursty, mildly-deepsy armament ranging from 65 to 85kph will find a way to be moderately useful in basically any game it finds itself in, provided the player doesn't find the entire enemy team with her face.

A specialist build - a sub-50kph assault 'Mech with a hundred-point brawling alpha, let's say. Or a purely ERLL beam sniper. Or a knife-fighter high-speed light 'Mech. Or any other form of specialist - will trounce that generalist build like a five-dollar ****** in Murder Alley while acting within its specialization. The brawler will win a brawl against the midrange generalist nine fights out of ten - more, if the brawler plays well. The ERLL sniper will turn the midrange generalist into fondue if it can get the 800+-meter exchanges it wants. if the knife-fighting light can get in and act one-to-one, get the engagement it wants, it will also do bad things to the midrange generalist.

HOWEVER. All of those builds have decided weaknesses. The brawler can't do a damn thing much outside 300 meters - and if it's an overly-slow assault brawler it's also terribly vulnerable to enemy fast dagger fighters. The sniper folds like a towel if its enemy can shoot back since its weaponry is super hot and has terrible DPS and facetime. The dagger-rogue light 'Mech CAN NOT engage multiple enemies at once, or even successfully engage an aware, canny enemy without severe risk. The generalist medium-range design has no such glaring issue. It brawls...all right-ish. it trades...all right-ish. It duels...all right-ish. A well-designed, well-piloted generalist is one that capitalizes on the "I'm better than you everywhere but your one specialty" to deny enemies the engagements they're after and win against their foes' weakness. A mediocre pilot in a mediocre generalist is still able to beat a mediocre brawler outside a brawl, or a mediocre sniper outside a sniper's duel, and otherwise trade more-or-less even against everything but a better generalist.

You're completely forgetting the "Hit" part of "Hit or Miss". A medium-range generalist is consistently average, yes. A brawler either scores a sub-200 damage bust because it can't find its fight, or it scores an 800+-damage blowout because it managed to get in and find its fight. Same with beam snipers. Same with other specialist designs - either their specialty works and they rock or it doesn't and they suck. That's the price you pay for playing a specialist.

Don't like that? Play the generalist. That is actually factually its job - being 60% effective in as many situations as possible.

[FinnMcKool]

Khobai, on 23 June 2021 - 01:06 AM, said:

then why has the meta shifted so heavily away from brawling and so obviously towards midrange and long range PPFLD?

you say brawling hasnt gotten weaker but people are definitely playing brawlers less.

I bet you if PGI released the stats of what the top builds are right now youd even see that.

And buffing jumpjets is definitely going to push things even further in favor of midrange/longrange over brawling. thats my main concern is that buffing jumpjets is going to push things too far out of favor for brawlers.

If mechs like executioner are already good enough for comp play with x3 ERPPCs then buffing its jumpjets is going to make it even better. so that kindve proves my point that sniping builds will get better. its not brawlers that benefit from better jumpjets they dont need to jump around that much.

personally i think its the maps and even the drop points........
what if they dropped the teams on top of each other?

Edited by FinnMcKool, 23 June 2021 - 11:27 AM.

[Gagis]

You sure have a way with words 1453 R.

Thats why there's a lot more brawlers or long range mechs in competitive play and faction play, since you can coordinate an entire team for a uniform plan to take advantage of mutual strengths given the map, which makes both map control strategies and brawl strategies much more likely to succeed.

Rather than mid-range skirmishers or traders though, at least prior to cauldron changes, the rock-paper-scissors was more like the frontloaded damage dropdeck beating the dps focused dropdeck trough short periods of exposure but dps focused traders having a better chance of taking on brawlers as a firing line while brawlers are much more likely to beat the low-dps high-alpha traders that cannot kill them fast enough.

Edited by Gagis, 23 June 2021 - 11:26 AM.

[FinnMcKool]

jj can help brawlers you can turn around faster and make moves you otherwise couldn't, but i agree with you about the snipers and pop tarts

[1453 R]

It kinda boggles my mind that I have to spend so many of those words trying to explain basic-*** concepts like "Specialists win in their specialty but lose outside of it" to people who are ostensibly much better players than I am. Do...do people not actually realize that "brawler" is a specialist build, not a generic default MWO thing?

Edited by 1453 R, 23 June 2021 - 11:54 AM.

[Maker L106]

FinnMcKool, on 23 June 2021 - 11:16 AM, said:

it would be nice if we could choose our mech after the map has been picked

like all games it comes down to:

Rock
Paper
Scissors

I don't mean to be combative with this, but please god no. Not every game regardless its start needs to look at this as a good idea. If it is, don't enforce it, don't support it, etc:. This kills motivation and want.

[Khobai]

FinnMcKool, on 23 June 2021 - 11:22 AM, said:

personally i think its the maps and even the drop points........
what if they dropped the teams on top of each other?

would make for a better game IMO

1453 R, on 23 June 2021 - 11:17 AM, said:

You're missing the bloody point, Khobes. Again.

A generalist build - in this case your oh-so-despised "midrange trader" - generalizes. They're 60% effective everywhere. A medium-range 'Mech with a mildly bursty, mildly-deepsy armament ranging from 65 to 85kph will find a way to be moderately useful in basically any game it finds itself in, provided the player doesn't find the entire enemy team with her face.

A specialist build - a sub-50kph assault 'Mech with a hundred-point brawling alpha, let's say. Or a purely ERLL beam sniper. Or a knife-fighter high-speed light 'Mech. Or any other form of specialist - will trounce that generalist build like a five-dollar ****** in Murder Alley while acting within its specialization. The brawler will win a brawl against the midrange generalist nine fights out of ten - more, if the brawler plays well. The ERLL sniper will turn the midrange generalist into fondue if it can get the 800+-meter exchanges it wants. if the knife-fighting light can get in and act one-to-one, get the engagement it wants, it will also do bad things to the midrange generalist.

HOWEVER. All of those builds have decided weaknesses. The brawler can't do a damn thing much outside 300 meters - and if it's an overly-slow assault brawler it's also terribly vulnerable to enemy fast dagger fighters. The sniper folds like a towel if its enemy can shoot back since its weaponry is super hot and has terrible DPS and facetime. The dagger-rogue light 'Mech CAN NOT engage multiple enemies at once, or even successfully engage an aware, canny enemy without severe risk. The generalist medium-range design has no such glaring issue. It brawls...all right-ish. it trades...all right-ish. It duels...all right-ish. A well-designed, well-piloted generalist is one that capitalizes on the "I'm better than you everywhere but your one specialty" to deny enemies the engagements they're after and win against their foes' weakness. A mediocre pilot in a mediocre generalist is still able to beat a mediocre brawler outside a brawl, or a mediocre sniper outside a sniper's duel, and otherwise trade more-or-less even against everything but a better generalist.

You're completely forgetting the "Hit" part of "Hit or Miss". A medium-range generalist is consistently average, yes. A brawler either scores a sub-200 damage bust because it can't find its fight, or it scores an 800+-damage blowout because it managed to get in and find its fight. Same with beam snipers. Same with other specialist designs - either their specialty works and they rock or it doesn't and they suck. That's the price you pay for playing a specialist.

Don't like that? Play the generalist. That is actually factually its job - being 60% effective in as many situations as possible.

medium range generalists arnt really "average" though. you can consistently do 500-700 damage in a mech like a hellbringer on most maps without much effort.

where brawlers are hit or miss and even when they hit they struggle to compete with midrange builds like the hellbringer for damage.

its extremely difficult for a brawler like my orion IIC to compete with my hellbringer when it comes to damage even when brawling conditions develop. brawling exposes you to so much more risk without any real reward. brawlers take the full brunt of every hit while midrange builds can mitigate a lot of incoming damage just by staying at longer ranges. its easier for midrange builds to duck in and out of cover too since they dont have to worry as much about closing distance with the target.

theoretically brawlers have an advantage when it comes to heat efficiency but with mechs dying as fast as they do now its hard for a brawler to stay alive long enough to leverage its heat efficiency advantage.

I just dont see any incentive to even playing a brawler anymore. its too inconsistent. inconsistency is not fun.

Edited by Khobai, 23 June 2021 - 01:46 PM.

[1453 R]

"Dear Piranha,

Please nerf Scissors. Scissors is out of hand. It's just too good, I can't even consistently have fun anymore. Nobody even plays Rock anymore.

Sincerely,
Paper."

You're embarrassing yourself, Khobai. The fact that you can't get good results in a brawler 100% of the time doesn't mean that Brawling Is Terrible Forever and everything else needs to get hammered into nonexistence. It mostly just means that maybe you're not as turbo-amazeballs at brawling as you think you are, or that maybe brawling builds that can't go above 60kph or shoot past 300 meters are super specialized designs that aren't amazing in Puglandia.

Besides, Sir Smurfsalot. Aren't you a T1 player slumming your *** off on an alt in T5 all the time where you can club seals for free every drop? Man, if you can't put up numbers in a brawling build playing three or four tiers below your actual execution level, maybe you just need to sell the Onion and stick to what works for you.

[Verilligo]

Khobai, on 23 June 2021 - 01:17 PM, said:

medium range generalists arnt really "average" though. you can consistently do 500-700 damage in a mech like a hellbringer on most maps without much effort.

Yes. That's average. 500-700 damage is pretty average. Applied effectively, average is plenty enough to make lots of kills, but it's still average.

Quote

where brawlers are hit or miss and even when they hit they struggle to compete with midrange builds like the hellbringer for damage.

its extremely difficult for a brawler like my orion IIC to compete with my hellbringer when it comes to damage even when brawling conditions develop. brawling exposes you to so much more risk without any real reward. brawlers take the full brunt of every hit while midrange builds can mitigate a lot of incoming damage just by staying at longer ranges. its easier for midrange builds to duck in and out of cover too since they dont have to worry as much about closing distance with the target.

theoretically brawlers have an advantage when it comes to heat efficiency but with mechs dying as fast as they do now its hard for a brawler to stay alive long enough to leverage its heat efficiency advantage.

I just dont see any incentive to even playing a brawler anymore. its too inconsistent. inconsistency is not fun.

Why are you playing brawlers when looking for consistency? Brawling isn't about consistency. Brawling is about the visceral enjoyment of being in someone's face and smashing them while they panic. Done intelligently, you can absolutely leverage your upfront burst as well as superior heat efficiency to overwhelm the higher heat of midrange poke and long cooldowns of snipers. It might be possible that you're just not much good at brawling?

___, on 23 June 2021 - 01:52 PM, said:

id like to point out another play style that is heavily discriminated against.. the CASUAL playstyle.

You should not need a min max build and an aimbot just to do over 100 damage.

You don't need a min max build and nobody ever needs an aimbot to do over 100 damage. You just have to play like you have the sense God gave a watermelon. It is physically impossible to cater to anyone that decides to play without any care about winning or losing.

[Thorqemada]

Well, the thing with Weapons, Waeponcharacteristics and Ranges is, that Brawling allways has the range disadvantage as it is a short range fighting style and needs to close the distance to the target while exposed more or less to incoming fire.

By the time the Brawler is in fighting distance there is a healthdeficit (decreased Armor, maybe even Structure) that the Bralwer has to make up with due to superior DPS - the brawling weapons have to bridge the gap between reduced health and thus reduced time oportunity to kill of the target by doing more damage.

But usally that Brawing DPS is not focused DPS (Pinpint Damage) but spread DPS (SRM, LBX, Chainfire/Streamfire etc.) so while doing maybe large damage numbers its all over the place often enough aside of a few killer builds that probably should not be called brawling Mechs bcs they dont brawl they simply kill...shorter range focussed DPS Mech killers...there is probably a name for that.

Yet, long range builds (aside of the LRM types and the poor IS PPC) are not at a disadvantage at short range at all as long range direct fire weapons do usualy very focussed damage on all targets regardless of the distance.

There would be a myriad of reasons why long range weaponry is less suited for short range combat like tracking ability, tracking agility, tracking accuracy, rate of fire, self damage preservation, whatsoever that prevent long range weapons from being good at brawling but these are not in the game.

Though you could simply for specialized long range weapons invert the damage curve and make them weaker at short range like short range weapons have a damage fall off at long range.

That would discern the playstyles and the side that skillfully controls the range of engagement would have the better chance to win instead of having combat weapons that are good for anything at any range and some that are higly situational and even then at best equal for their general lack of focus damage.

Aside of the number of Maps that favour mid to longe range...

Shuffling numbers around may not be able to solve the root problem that in all of MWOs lifetime short range Weapons allways sucked at mid to longe range while mid to longe range weapons rarely suck at short range and the few that do usually be LRM and the focus vs spread damage characteristic of most brawl vs mid to long range weapons.

The AC 20 does not suck at focus damage but comes at such a high "cost" usually a Gauss is allways better....

I dont see that touched at all...

Edited by Thorqemada, 23 June 2021 - 02:12 PM.

[FinnMcKool]

Maker L106, on 23 June 2021 - 01:14 PM, said:

I don't mean to be combative with this, but please god no. Not every game regardless its start needs to look at this as a good idea. If it is, don't enforce it, don't support it, etc:. This kills motivation and want.

well i don't really understand, what your saying, except you don't want us to bring the mech that fits the map

don't worry they will never give quick play the same option as CW, if for no other reason newer players would really be at a disadvantage, and i understand why

so don't worry about my rants, only 2 times did they ever listen to me

1: chain fire, ..... i asked that they bring it into game

2:i asked if we could have a chance to test drive mechs before we buy them ,,,,,they came up with Trial mechs

but the days of any one listening to me are long gone

really it would be bad for new players so i support not doing it.

[1453 R]

Yikes.

Okay.

So.

First of all: An AC/20 has significantly higher DPS than a Gauss rifle. The AC/20 fires and starts cycling - not only does the Goose Waffle have a longer cycle time for lower damage, but it's got to charge for a secondish before you can shoot. Goose waffles are bad in close fights unless they're heavy geese that hit for nearly two standard geese's worth of damage. AC/20s win brawls against goose waffles. Pretty much period.

Second of all: most traditional 'sniper' weapons are in fact pretty butt at close range. The ER Large Laser, both Sphere and Clan varieties, is hot, heavy, and has an abysmal burntime which makes it easy to outmaneuver and outdamage in close. Yes, you absolutely can shoot someone with an ERLL in a scrum, but that someone's four or five medium lasers they get for the exact same weight will blow you out of the water. To say nothing of the destructive power of massed SRMs or other brawly weapons, compared to ERLLs, AC/5s or AC/2s, or the aforementioned slow-firing, easy-to-blow-up Goose Waffle. Trust. Snipers are plenty concerned with being outbrawled.

Third, they're fixing map imbalances. Maps don't necessarily favor snipers over brawlers, they just don't give the brawlers a brawl for free by spawning everybody two hundred meters apart in a Circle of Sequels. You have to exert the minimum required effort of getting close to your enemy, while longer-ranged 'Mechs are given their fair chance to extract their toll from you before you do.

So yeah.

ANyways.

@Finn: Maker meant "please don't deliberately, mechanically build for Rock Paper Scissors". A game in which X hard-counters Y hard-counters Z hard-counters X is absolute garbage - there's no skill or gameplay involved there, simply rolling the dice to see if you get to be the hammer or the nail in any given engagement. Hard-coded rock paper scissors makes for awful, awful games.

[FinnMcKool]

i think he misunderstood me, thats not at all what i meant
what i meant was we have to suffer because thats what happens in games


I guess I've become jaded and too sarcastic

Edited by FinnMcKool, 23 June 2021 - 02:35 PM.

[1453 R]

Selecting 'Mech, then dropping into an effectively randomized map/gamemode means you throw your sign at the same time everybody else does. It cuts down on overtly abusive nonsense, such as "Oh, the map is (Old) Polar! Errybuddy get out yer godawful LRM-80 assault 'Mech except for the one designated NARC guy!" Giving you access to your entire collection of BattleMechs after map selection on every match would be like letting people throw their sign on 4, instead of 3, after saying on 3 "Scissors wins this match by default".

There's ways Piranha could get away with allowing an EXTREMELY LIMITED(!!!!!!!) selection between two to four AT THE ABSOLUTE MOST 'Mechs after map selection, but it would require Piranha to A.) give the slightest **** about MWO, B.) be a competent game developer, and C.) have the slightest clue how to handle a live-service game. The first one is an obvious negatory, the jury's out on the second, and PGI is sorta the industry's living, breathing example of what happens if you handle a live service game poorly, soooooo...

Yeah.

No picking your 'Mech after the map. Hyperspecialists are annoying enough as it is.

[FinnMcKool]

so i am forced to argue against my self

the real reason it is bad is because
players (new players)
with limited mechs and builds
would always be at an extreme disadvantage

I know this ,, its plain to see
sorry i said anything about it


but it would be fun

[justcallme A S H]

Khobai, on 23 June 2021 - 10:21 AM, said:

But if one playstyle is hit or miss

And another playstyle isnt hit or miss

The playstyle thats hit or miss should get buffed.

Thats the problem brawling has now.

As has been pointed out numerous times - May 2021 - brawling weapons were at the forefront of feedback as being overpowered.

Balance until the 3 passes are done - will not be perfect. Cauldron members have been saying this for months. It will likely take a number of iterations after quirks to further fine tune many values.

Passes so far:

• Weapons
  
• Mobilty
  
• Quirks

Then ongoing tweaks (monthly iterations). The one piece still to go - is a very large one too and quite complicated, QUIRKS.


Sensationalist posts/comments when things aren't even complete is like saying the Sistine Chapel when 3/4 finished was an eyesore. Like, brah, c'mon...

A few users in the community really just need to calm down, take a breath, relax and most of all be patient. "Brawling is dead" is not remotely helpful commentary.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 23 June 2021 - 03:19 PM.

[Vxheous]

FinnMcKool, on 23 June 2021 - 02:54 PM, said:

so i am forced to argue against my self

the real reason it is bad is because
players (new players)
with limited mechs and builds
would always be at an extreme disadvantage

I know this ,, its plain to see
sorry i said anything about it


but it would be fun

I'm not sure what you were attempting to reply to, but while new players may be limited in the amount of mechs they own, there is nothing stopping them from making good informed decisions about the few mechs that they could buy off the start. There is nothing stopping a new player from building a proper "generalist" mech, aka mid range jack of all trades mech, and be useful most of the time in quick play.