180 replies to this topic

[Vindicated]

FinnMcKool, on 30 June 2021 - 11:30 AM, said:

in quirk play you don't get a lot of choices, of who your team mates are, but you still need them or your just as bad as you say they are (just playing for yourself)

Technically, yes basically every mech requires the team in some way, though not the 12 mechs in one grid square or chasing one enemy as some people think and want their team to do.

Technically the heavy mechs and slow mediums trying to follow light mechs are the ones responsible for causing nascar. They do not have the speed to flank and should be anchoring around the assaults, not following the fast mechs.

Lights and fast mediums can move away from the team to flank. They have some leeway to leave the line of sight of their team because they can fall back to be supported by their team quickly, but importantly they also require the team to engage from a DIFFERENT ANGLE to make a flank work. At the most extreme, it's to give a mech a choice to a. get shot in the back by a light mech or b. turn around and shot in the back by bigger mechs. If the rest of the team is NOT engaging, then the flankers take more fire which prevents them from engaging.

With an assault mech, you can deal a lot of damage before being overwhelmed by the enemy, but if the team is running away and not engaging, it does not help either. The responsibility here is two way. The assault mech is putting pressure on the enemy to not push or at least not expose which protects the rest of the team. It's not a guarantee and if the enemy pushes, that is really the time for closer ranged members of the team to move in and capitalize. Fighting outnumbered at close range is obvious a disadvantage, but the result of controlling enemy movement should be taken advantage of.

Anyways if you see something like a DWF sitting back on some elevated ground with great sight lines, the WORST thing you can do is run around out of its line of sight and then die to the enemy team because you just threw away that mech's firepower. I'm pretty sure I've had games in an AMS Corsair where the team runs away (sometimes letting the corsair die because enemy lock-on users want it gone) and then gets killed by ATMs. Same concept. If you have some member on your team that specializes in doing something, capitalize on it.

[FinnMcKool]

Vindicated, on 30 June 2021 - 12:09 PM, said:

Technically, yes basically every mech requires the team in some way, though not the 12 mechs in one grid square or chasing one enemy as some people think and want their team to do.

Technically the heavy mechs and slow mediums trying to follow light mechs are the ones responsible for causing nascar. They do not have the speed to flank and should be anchoring around the assaults, not following the fast mechs.

Lights and fast mediums can move away from the team to flank. They have some leeway to leave the line of sight of their team because they can fall back to be supported by their team quickly, but importantly they also require the team to engage from a DIFFERENT ANGLE to make a flank work. At the most extreme, it's to give a mech a choice to a. get shot in the back by a light mech or b. turn around and shot in the back by bigger mechs. If the rest of the team is NOT engaging, then the flankers take more fire which prevents them from engaging.

With an assault mech, you can deal a lot of damage before being overwhelmed by the enemy, but if the team is running away and not engaging, it does not help either. The responsibility here is two way. The assault mech is putting pressure on the enemy to not push or at least not expose which protects the rest of the team. It's not a guarantee and if the enemy pushes, that is really the time for closer ranged members of the team to move in and capitalize. Fighting outnumbered at close range is obvious a disadvantage, but the result of controlling enemy movement should be taken advantage of.

Anyways if you see something like a DWF sitting back on some elevated ground with great sight lines, the WORST thing you can do is run around out of its line of sight and then die to the enemy team because you just threw away that mech's firepower. I'm pretty sure I've had games in an AMS Corsair where the team runs away (sometimes letting the corsair die because enemy lock-on users want it gone) and then gets killed by ATMs. Same concept. If you have some member on your team that specializes in doing something, capitalize on it.

so we are in an agreement

[justcallme A S H]

Khobai, on 30 June 2021 - 07:16 AM, said:

please present my suggestion to cauldron since you always claim cauldron listens.

+7.5% max speed quirk for direwolf
and
+25 max engine cap for annihilator and other mechs that max out at 300 engine rating

I will raise when it comes time, like all things.

That said knowing how the quirk discussions so far I can tell you before even table it - it's highly unlikely to get any support from the group.

Despite your view the DWF is already strong due the loadouts and hardpoints it has and now it can also twist far better. It's set for quirks like armour and some other toys although currently undecided.

[justcallme A S H]

Vindicated, on 30 June 2021 - 10:11 AM, said:

And then throws matches. If a team doesn't nascar and instead sets up to predict a probable movement from the left flank, they have the upper hand. From past experience, two assault mechs in a good position can stand up quite well to the nascar, enough to win the game.

A lot of people say nascar is a winning strategy and that is more of a skill gap than anything. If the people at the back are better players and better shots, they will stand up better. If the people in faster mechs nascaring are better players and better shots and have good awareness, they will take down the enemy faster than the enemy takes them down.

Yeah I don't know where the everyone comment comes from. I don't NASCAR so everyone, is already incorrect. I haven't rotated for a very long time and have a base WLR 2.0-3.0 in those games.

Simply place a map marker. Tell the team not to rotate. Win far more often. Assaults being played and holding strong positions can absolutely manhandle a game solo.

Holding strong positions in Quick Play is ridiculously overpowered as the rotating enemy team funnel themselves into bad positions bringing about a win with relative ease in many cases.

Oddly enough in T3-5 matches teams/players generally don't rotate either. Sometimes yeah, often. Not though.

[FinnMcKool]

when i think of how much/ many things it takes to balance this game it stagers my mind, it must have been and still be a night mare just to get as far as it is now, everyone wants a boost to their gameplay and a curb on those who screw things up for them

every time you change one thing it off sets an other

you cant control those players who are playing a single player FPS, you just cant
and I'm sorry but the reward system doesn't help.

changing top speed will not help, many people made those builds knowing how
people play and they still made them

[Valdarion Silarius]

I'm in favor for a engine cap increase for lower engine cap starved mechs until we get a proper rework for all maps that induce nascaring. I see it as a temporary fix until all of the maps in the game are reworked to discourage nascaring from general QP. Since we can't fix human stupidity and ignorance, the best thing I could see the Cauldron doing is lifting some of the engine cap restrictions until some better solutions are proposed. I agree that positioning is key in playing a heavy fire support mech, but I really doubt that helping some of the lower engine capped mechs is really going to contest any of the top tier high mobility mechs anytime soon.

[justcallme A S H]

Balance is definitely not fast or simple. There is a LOT to take into account. Often you see ideas presented and you can tell it's made in a sort of vaccum. They don't understand or realise the impacts it have in the greater picture.

Cauldron discussion is pretty intense at the best of times as a result. One weapon or quirk can take 2-3 days to hash out as a result once all angles are taken into account.

Of course Cauldron doesn't always get it right either, SSRMs being one and SPPC another. Easy enough to tweak them in an ongoing fashion as with some many moving parts sometimes you just have to make a change and see how it plays out in the wild.

[FinnMcKool]

I still think just 2 things would solve a lot of problems,

1: some how we need to encourage more team play / Awareness (understand we cant really do this, maybe some extra rewards?)

2: Random spawn points (From what I understand this is not as easy to do as it may seem)


just think about it?

PS why did my font change in the middle of this post?

[pbiggz]

FinnMcKool, on 30 June 2021 - 12:50 PM, said:

I still think just 2 things would solve a lot of problems,

1: some how we need to encourage more team play / Awareness (understand we cant really do this, maybe some extra rewards?)

2: Random spawn points (From what I understand this is not as easy to do as it may seem)

Random spawnpoints is a misnomer because I think this is the go-to aswell, but what it really should be is slightly less snappy Random from a Set of Spawn Points. The possible points are still handpicked, ideally by Francois, to ensure they arent completely non-functional, but which set you get is different every match.

I also think there should be random objectives, or, just like above, random from a set of objectives, with sets of random spawnpoints placed around them. That way, you can have matches playing out on different parts of larger maps, or in different directions. It's a great way to leverage all that art and development time (i.e. money) that's currently being wasted because we have alpha gamemodes that never got replaced.

So, so, so very much of this game, including the much improved new maps, dies on the sword of gamemodes that don't do them justice, and while i cant say it would be easy, i cant say it would be hard either to spruce them up. I really do think its worth the development time. If quickplay is to be our chief queue, the gamemodes in it should be of the highest quality.

FinnMcKool, on 30 June 2021 - 12:50 PM, said:

PS why did my font change in the middle of this post?

ctrl-I turns on italics but i've noticed it behaves strangely on this forum.

[Vindicated]

FinnMcKool, on 30 June 2021 - 12:50 PM, said:

I still think just 2 things would solve a lot of problems,

1: some how we need to encourage more team play / Awareness (understand we cant really do this, maybe some extra rewards?)

Rewarding team play is actually going to be tough because lance in formation and protected light/medium promotes deathballing 12 mechs in 1 grid square. This works in QP when the enemy is not paying attention and worse tries to stare at assault mechs, but it's not "good" as it reduces map coverage and is easy to flank. The enemy just needs to spread out to attack you from more angles and you're going to be locked down, hopefully not in the dread canyon network trench.

In fact, playing a light flanking on the side (which can be good if it's done smartly) removes the protected light reward. The flanking reward is a bit odd and unreliable (I seem to get it more playing ERPPCs). Protected light is only really effectively farmed by mechs which are light by tonnage only (and don't flank to a big extent) like the Cougar, Kit Fox, and to a lesser extent the K-9.

Technically team play is promoted by living longer and getting more kills or wins. A lot of mech builds require more time than usual to get their damage out which really requires the team to survive longer. Unfortunately if you go too far in the other direction, the team robs you of damage. Ultimately that's probably solved a bit by MS recalculation.

You also can't solve the guy that blindly runs into the enemy team and then says "assaults didn't push". Whatever you do, that guy is going to throw his mech away off the bat.

[Monkey Lover]

justcallme A S H, on 30 June 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

Yeah I don't know where the everyone comment comes from. I don't NASCAR so everyone, is already incorrect. I haven't rotated for a very long time and have a base WLR 2.0-3.0 in those games.

Simply place a map marker. Tell the team not to rotate. Win far more often. Assaults being played and holding strong positions can absolutely manhandle a game solo.

Holding strong positions in Quick Play is ridiculously overpowered as the rotating enemy team funnel themselves into bad positions bringing about a win with relative ease in many cases.

Oddly enough in T3-5 matches teams/players generally don't rotate either. Sometimes yeah, often. Not though.

From the games I have seen you play you're not running solo.
I would be able to take 20kph mech too if I had 2-3 top players In the game on my side not running away from me. Lol.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 30 June 2021 - 01:33 PM.

[pbiggz]

Monkey Lover, on 30 June 2021 - 01:31 PM, said:

From the games I have seen you play you're not running solo.
I would be able to take 20kph mech too if I had 2-3 top players In the game on my side not running away from me. Lol.

Your sense of what groups can afford you is vastly overinflated, especially since you are limited to groups of no more than 4 in quickplay, so you can take that tired old line and put it away.

[Monkey Lover]

pbiggz, on 30 June 2021 - 01:35 PM, said:

Your sense of what groups can afford you is vastly overinflated, especially since you are limited to groups of no more than 4 in quickplay, so you can take that tired old line and put it away.

I fight groups every weekend. It's rare to kill a 99% 4man group. You understand Ash is not a average player right? Even two 99% players will flip the odds of winning.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 30 June 2021 - 01:53 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Monkey Lover, on 30 June 2021 - 01:31 PM, said:

From the games I have seen you play you're not running solo.
I would be able to take 20kph mech too if I had 2-3 top players In the game on my side not running away from me. Lol.

My WLR Grouped is 6.0-9.0. I was not talking about that.

Prior to SoupQ I played some 7,000+ games SoloQ. That is where I had a 2.0-3.0 WLR. I maintain that dropping Solo currently in the SoupQ and every match I sure enough, don't NASCAR. I mark power positions on the map and the team holds them.

Running a slow Assault isn't an issue and I can categorically state that there are plenty of players who don't rotate. To claim everyone does it, is false.


Slightly off topic - I play around 80 / 20 - Grouped vs Solo. Be that 2-4 players, it varies.
When grouped lately I've even had brand new players joining my groups who come past my stream/discord wanting to learn/improve. I find that despite claims that there are no new players - the last 3 months, I've seen heaps and heaps of them.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 30 June 2021 - 01:54 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

justcallme A S H, on 30 June 2021 - 01:51 PM, said:

My WLR Grouped is 6.0-9.0. I was not talking about that.

Prior to SoupQ I played some 7,000+ games SoloQ. That is where I had a 2.0-3.0 WLR. I maintain that dropping Solo currently in the SoupQ and every match I sure enough, don't NASCAR. I mark power positions on the map and the team holds them.

Running a slow Assault isn't an issue and I can categorically state that there are plenty of players who don't rotate. To claim everyone does it, is false.


Slightly off topic - I play around 80 / 20 - Grouped vs Solo. Be that 2-4 players, it varies.
When grouped lately I've even had brand new players joining my groups who come past my stream/discord wanting to learn/improve. I find that despite claims that there are no new players - the last 3 months, I've seen heaps and heaps of them.

That is one thing with this game I have learned. Timezones, tiers, groups and even serves make completely different games. I basically play same 100 people over and over. On the weekend in group matches on NA servers I might see us hold once every few weeks. I these cases we will win maybe half. Everything else is move or die.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 30 June 2021 - 02:29 PM.

[FinnMcKool]

some reward ideas would be

less reward for damage
more for winning game
more for taking caps
more for UAVs
more for scouting / spotting
more for covering others with ECM
more for covering others with AMS
points for staying with Assault mechs

i would say mainly more for winning less for damage, getting damage is a reward all by its self

lets face it rewards go to Damage, then to damage and then to damage maybe a lil more to damage and the the other things

winning seems to take a back seat to that damage

[pattonesque]

FinnMcKool, on 30 June 2021 - 02:08 PM, said:

some reward ideas would be

less reward for damage
more for winning game
more for taking caps
more for UAVs
more for scouting / spotting
more for covering others with ECM
more for covering others with AMS
points for staying with Assault mechs

i would say mainly more for winning less for damage, getting damage is a reward all by its self

lets face it rewards go to Damage, then to damage and then to damage maybe a lil more to damage and the the other things

winning seems to take a back seat to that damage

I would penalize people for stuff lol

every time they have the opportunity to fire at someone but do not and it's not because of heat it's a FIFTY DKP MINUS or the like

[Vindicated]

pattonesque, on 30 June 2021 - 03:22 PM, said:

I would penalize people for stuff lol

every time they have the opportunity to fire at someone but do not and it's not because of heat it's a FIFTY DKP MINUS or the like

To tie back to the original topic, I think the biggest penalty should be for assault mechs or slow mechs in general going off to remote caps. I still see this from time to time. If it's conquest and the assault is going off capping, it's not going to have a considerable impact without being able to quickly get from cap to cap or give out damage while doing so.

Of the 11 other mechs on the team, there is bound to be at least one that is better against light mechs and is fast enough to take on multiple caps

[Leone]

Okay, so why penalize the one mech that realized caps matter during conquest and tried to ensure the victory, rather'n the faster mechs who couldn't care less?

~Leone.

[pbiggz]

I think some of us are getting lost in the sauce here. Gamemodes that aren't complete trash, mixed objective locations, and respawns, pretty much invalidate huge issues people have with the current game. We're trying to treat a cold by putting corks up the patient's nose right now.