135 replies to this topic

[MechNexus]

I should probably point out that the reason why you're seeing so much laservom, gaussvom and PPCs is because two mechs that can run one or more extremely well with ECM got released last week.

[pbiggz]

MadBede, on 26 July 2021 - 03:08 PM, said:

So now you just come here and trying to state gid gut. Ok right, bye

We're in the middle (not the beginning, not the end) of a massive rebalance so its not at all fair to say "the devs have gone too far" with something that is only half done.

That said, if you're getting slapped more often, consider that you might be personally responsible for at least some of it.

Its not being good at clicking the bad robots that separates the good players from the bad, it is, quite literally, introspection; the ability to recognize the limits or failings of ones own abilities. The few players who create threads on here not to complain, but to ask for more information on how a given strategy or mech can perform best, soar above those who create threads to whine about how "the guns my opponent used are too strong and should be nerfed forever and the guns that I like to use are too weak and should be buffed forever so that I always win".

For example I am a spectacularly mediocre player. My aim is firmly middle of the road and I don't have a good sense of positioning, which is why I tend to perform alot better when I play with a friend or two, who then guide me in terms of positioning. In another world, I'd have blamed dying alot on say, snipers being too strong and brawlers being too weak, but lucky for me, I know that in those cases, it wasn't my mech being bad, or the enemy being too good, but simply me making a mistake.

[R Valentine]

In a 12v12 game, life is cheap. There is simply no way you can ever nerf damage enough that a single player can avoid folding instantly when focused by 12 mechs. Or even 8 or 10 mechs. Or even 6 mechs. Laser vomit isn't even as good as it used to be, because cERML used to do 7 damage. They do 6.5 now. Before the cauldron buffs, players still died more or less instantly, they just died to different weapons. Brawling mechs with MPL and LBX accomplish the same result. Games before the cauldron patches were often less than 5 minutes. Sometimes less than 4. They're actually longer now. The problems of the game are the same as they always were: there are too many mechs on the field. Soup queue doesn't help, because 4 coordinated players can have a profound effect on the game's direction, even if all 4 of them are complete morons. They just affect the game the opposite way that good players do.

[MechNexus]

tomzah, on 28 July 2021 - 06:47 AM, said:

You just misinterpreted my post. I said "ECM AND laser nerf" as in the ECM should get nerfed to compensate for the PGIs ecm mech spam. As I mentioned in my previous post few pages back, there are so many ECMs now that it shuts down any kind of lock-on missile play. Locking through terrain is pretty much impossible and with tag you just have way too much exposure and usually take more damage from pp and lasers vomits than you can inflict if your missiles even connect. And before you jump to conclusions, no I'm not a lurmer. I just see what's happening and I'm trying to keep an open mind. LBX, UACs and MRMs are struggling as well.

LBX, UACs and MRMs are not struggling in the slightest. They're still just fine.

As for the ECM spam? As I said - PGI just released variants of two already strong (well, newly strong for the timby) mechs with ECM, and there's an ongoing event for running them - Of course you're gonna see a load of ECM.

[Bud Crue]

tomzah, on 28 July 2021 - 06:47 AM, said:

You just misinterpreted my post. I said "ECM AND laser nerf" as in the ECM should get nerfed to compensate for the PGIs ecm mech spam. As I mentioned in my previous post few pages back, there are so many ECMs now that it shuts down any kind of lock-on missile play. Locking through terrain is pretty much impossible and with tag you just have way too much exposure and usually take more damage from pp and lasers vomits than you can inflict if your missiles even connect. And before you jump to conclusions, no I'm not a lurmer. I just see what's happening and I'm trying to keep an open mind. LBX, UACs and MRMs are struggling as well.

Thanks for clarifying. In any case I just don't see any need for nerfs to laser weapons you are claiming are over represented. I see plenty of laser vomit certainly, I just don't see it being a problem, at all. As to lock on weapons, I guess I just have very different experiences than you. Still see plenty of LRMS, ATMS and Streak boats. Only ECM mechs that are "problematic" (to me) are the Fleas an PBs and that's because I can hardly hit the little buggers even without ECM.

[R Valentine]

tomzah, on 28 July 2021 - 06:47 AM, said:

You just misinterpreted my post. I said "ECM AND laser nerf" as in the ECM should get nerfed to compensate for the PGIs ecm mech spam. As I mentioned in my previous post few pages back, there are so many ECMs now that it shuts down any kind of lock-on missile play. Locking through terrain is pretty much impossible and with tag you just have way too much exposure and usually take more damage from pp and lasers vomits than you can inflict if your missiles even connect. And before you jump to conclusions, no I'm not a lurmer. I just see what's happening and I'm trying to keep an open mind. LBX, UACs and MRMs are struggling as well.

Lock-on missiles are always a touchy subject, because anytime they're remotely performing greater than average the use of them spikes into absurdity. They require very little effort to use and no skill to aim. A game where everyone fires from absolute safety, save against other lock-ons, is not a game anyone wants to play.

And laser vomit representation is large because of the consistency. You can miss half the volley and still pull in damage, and you can pull in damage against extremely difficult to hit targets. Scratch damage against lights is no small deal when they only have 20 armor to begin with. The same is true of most poptarts. The sacrifice you make is in face time. If you're cherry red, the odds of you dying the next time you go to apply to damage to anyone is almost 100% unless you settle for a tiny percentage of your potential alpha. On the other hand, you can have full damage for only a fraction of the exposure time with PPFLD, but it's feast or famine. If you miss, you miss it all. If you only hit the arm of a mech with no arm weapons, you still wasted the volley. The same is true of brawlers. Feast or famine. If you can get inside of your optimal with armor in tact, you can rip laser vomit mechs to shreds. On the other hand, you could lose too much armor so they can just single alpha you into oblivion when you do get to range, or fail to get into range altogether. Laser vomit is the middle ground of all play styles. Mid range, mid alpha damage, mid exposure time, mid DPS, and mid skill cap. So it's no real surprise that its representation on the field vs. other play styles is disproportionate.

[1453 R]

So I was gonna break down the strengths of each weapon type, but frankly I don't have as much time for that as I thought today. Instead, as someone who holds a strong preference for both laservomit and gaussvomit builds, loves stealth, and who's been in their element in the new Warden 'Mechs, I'll just say this.

Laservomit is hot as blazes and proper Gaussvomit is heavy as hell and thus restricted to big, slow 'mechs. They have weaknesses. Laservomit folds like a towel against sustained pressure and gaussvomit doesn't have the mobility to avoid pushes.Brawly hammerblow 'Mechs that play to their strengths can easily take both types of machines if they can find/force the right engagements. It's a matter of whether you're better than the other pilot, and whether you let their inflated Alphalfa numbers scare you or not. They want to scare you. If they shoot you with their big, hot, obnoxious Supa Alphalfa and you get scared and run away, they get time to cool off from their near-shutdown and prepare to do it again. If you take the shot and keep on charging? They can't do squat about it.

[Thorqemada]

Or they simply use Cool Shot - Alpha you a second time and kill you on the spot...

[1453 R]

Any build plan that relies on consumables is a bad build plan. if your build doesn't work without cool shots, then your build doesn't work, end sentence. You only ever get two per match, and burning both of them means burning your entire C-bill payout for that match to boot. Consumables are a weak, deeply unnecessary, and actively annoying element of this game that contributes absolutely nothing of any value to MWO, and even people who like them should know better than to say "Cool Shot fixes this build!"

[Thorqemada]

I am gutily of exactyl doing that - not using any consumable.

Yet, every comp match i see high amounts of consumables are used if not prohibited.
So you say comp players use flawed tactics and builds?

[1453 R]

Comp players in comp matches are using whatever edge they can to win a competition. They're not trying to make a reliable workhorse 'Mech build that will function for hundreds of games, or trying to figure out game balance for thousands of players. They're trying to win a best-of-five competition and will do whatever it takes to do so.

That said? A comp player will recognize that if their 'Mech requires Cool Shot to function, then their 'Mech is capable of functioning exactly twice per match. An Ultracomp at the highest level can ensure those two uses are two kills, more than any other player...but they're still dead in the water after two shots. If their 'Mech doesn't have a plan for when their cool shots are expended, they may as well eject after using their two shots. Which is why compy builds do not require Cool Shot. Many of them will use Cool Shot as a slap patch for bad situations, or to press and finish a fight they'd otherwise not be able to close out, but they do not require Cool Shot to work.

I imagine most any Ultracomp worth their salt would agree. Especially in Puglandia, where you have no support and have to be 100% self sufficient at all times.

[Thorqemada]

Well, i dare to disagree, a Mech that uses coolshot obviously does not work twice a match - he works until the match ends or he is destroyed!

Now, why should he be destroyed when nobody survives or stays strong enough to invoke said destruction?

See, even if you are highly heat inefficient it does not matter as long you managed to do the following:

A - kill your target
B - cripple your target so much its firepower is so diminshed that it can not take advantage of your heat inefficiency.

See, i think what we debate about is efficiency vs effectiveness and imo effectiveness trumps efficiency when the combatants have equal numbers bcs the effective party manages to get the initial kill advantage thus their team achives dps advantage from that point on even if less efficient.

Ofc their is some balancing to be done i can not be done reckless but as long as you either manage to do A or B it will very probably work to your advantage!

Edited by Thorqemada, 28 July 2021 - 03:53 PM.

[Mad Strike]

Well............is a shooter game with walking machines of course your human oponents will seek to deliver the biggest amount of damage the can and for that they customize their mechs..............nobody customize a mech just to say hello.

[Biggerfish]

Wildstreak, on 26 July 2021 - 05:46 PM, said:

Cake Walk? Never read some of those who do talk about MW5?

Lets be honest, if you're any sort of decent MWO player you can burn through MW5.

Especially with the limitless range ac's. If you have trouble with MW5, MWO is going to be a rough place for you.

[pattonesque]

Biggerfish, on 28 July 2021 - 06:42 PM, said:

Lets be honest, if you're any sort of decent MWO player you can burn through MW5.

Especially with the limitless range ac's. If you have trouble with MW5, MWO is going to be a rough place for you.

well, I'll give it this -- when I first played MW5 near its release, there were some missions where you pretty much had to hit every shot because you'd be up against like 80 tanks. So I can see some of the mechdads having issues there

[PocketYoda]

MechNexus, on 28 July 2021 - 04:41 AM, said:

I should probably point out that the reason why you're seeing so much laservom, gaussvom and PPCs is because two mechs that can run one or more extremely well with ECM got released last week.

The reason you see it so much is lasers are the best in high ping scenarios which this game has in spades.. Lasers are the best weapons in the game because they hit consistently server wise...

1453 R, on 28 July 2021 - 02:11 PM, said:

Any build plan that relies on consumables is a bad build plan. if your build doesn't work without cool shots, then your build doesn't work, end sentence. You only ever get two per match, and burning both of them means burning your entire C-bill payout for that match to boot. Consumables are a weak, deeply unnecessary, and actively annoying element of this game that contributes absolutely nothing of any value to MWO, and even people who like them should know better than to say "Cool Shot fixes this build!"

How is a 90+ damage alpha mech with multiple cool shots a bad plan.. Whats a bad plan is PGI allowing mechs to boat these crazy high alphas then giving them crazy heat to mitigate it.. then in turn allowing players to again mitigate the whole thing with multiple coolshots...

That whole design is asinine.. And needs to go..

Edited by MechaGnome, 28 July 2021 - 10:23 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 03:28 AM, said:

Seems you missed what i meant to say - it does not matter to your perception of time how many rounds you play and what the timesetting per round is - what matters is how many minutes in real time it takes to play through these rounds.

Your Inner Clock is math ignorant you know?

im understand you a TT round is standing for 10 seconds Real BattleTech Battle time, far away which time you use for the Round in the Today realtime , with dices, Recordsheets ,heatscale and all the logistic porcedere and you feel only the real Doing Time

Kiran Yagami, on 28 July 2021 - 05:24 AM, said:

In a 12v12 game, life is cheap. There is simply no way you can ever nerf damage enough that a single player can avoid folding instantly when focused by 12 mechs. Or even 8 or 10 mechs. Or even 6 mechs. Laser vomit isn't even as good as it used to be, because cERML used to do 7 damage. They do 6.5 now. Before the cauldron buffs, players still died more or less instantly, they just died to different weapons. Brawling mechs with MPL and LBX accomplish the same result. Games before the cauldron patches were often less than 5 minutes. Sometimes less than 4. They're actually longer now. The problems of the game are the same as they always were: there are too many mechs on the field. Soup queue doesn't help, because 4 coordinated players can have a profound effect on the game's direction, even if all 4 of them are complete morons. They just affect the game the opposite way that good players do.

so by a 8 vs 8 or 2 vs 2 and Team 1 has 2 Veterans and Team 2 have 2 Morons the matchs longer and better?

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 29 July 2021 - 02:06 AM.

[Scout Derek]

MW Waldorf Statler, on 29 July 2021 - 01:50 AM, said:

so by a 8 vs 8 or 2 vs 2 and Team 1 has 2 Veterans and Team 2 have 2 Morons the matchs longer and better?

If you don't wanna play PVP against potentially better or worse opponents, I suggest you should find a PVE game instead. I heard Mechwarrior 5 is a great experience for PVE.

[Scout Derek]

tomzah, on 29 July 2021 - 02:51 AM, said:

Denial in face of changes for the worse is typical human reaction. The other type of reaction to take advantage of the situation and just go with the flow. When it comes ot MWO this is what we see as diminishing build variety. Mid/long range laser vomit was one of the strongest weapon classes, if not the strongest, even before Cauldron started butting in. They did not need any buff, maybe with exception of heavy lasers. Cauldron took the arguably strongest and most reliable weapon category and turned it into a god-tier. And how do you counter something like this when you don't want to/can't rely on the team? By using even shorter exposure weapons such as LPL, PPC and gausses... Oh what a coincidence... almost looks like pretty much all you see on the battlefield nowadays at highest tiers. You can claim other weapon classes are doing fine all you want but the reality is different. If you give universal boost to weapons that have immediate impact over mid-long ranges and minimal or no splash depending on player, then all the other weapon classes that have delayed impact and bigger splash that the player can't really affect other than by facehugging the enemy are gonna lose out on the deal. It's simple math. The only thing you can claim is that is still OK, kind of like the attitude we assume towards climate change. Luckily for us, the state of this game doesn't threaten our existence. Cauldron screwed up and that is the truth of the matter. The only question is if they will admit their mistake and fix it or play innocent. In case of latter the mid/long range laser vomits will essentially replace ATM veagles, except there will be swarms of them, not flocks. Yesterday I played a game with 10 laser vomits on the enemy side - 2 battlemasters (a group, ERLRG), 2 grashoppers (LRG/MED), 2 timbys (ERMEDLPL), 1 direwolf (ERLRG), 2 madIIC's (ERMEDLPL) and a raven (ERLRG). You can imagine how it went down. You may claim that I'm making it up or that it's just an extreme case and it's only people skilling new mechs up but I don't share your optimism. People don't like to give up god-tier toys and that's what mid/long range laser vomit is today.

I have a feeling you really haven't kept up with the Cauldron or watched any podcasts, at all.

[Scout Derek]

tomzah, on 29 July 2021 - 03:14 AM, said:

No I haven't. I just play the game. Unless they are planning a giant nerf, because more buffs will only cause more damage (no pun intended), I don't see the relevancy of your comment. Could you elaborate?

A few weeks back, Bear Claw, one of the Cauldron members, had a talk with Sean from NGNG on a podcast. Basically said they screwed up streaks, and were working on fixing them. There's also talks and rumors of nerfing some mechs in order to bring back other styles of play since they're too hard.

It's also worth noting they have a page that is routinely updated for the plans they have for each weapon, mech, and piece of equipment in the game.

https://www.mwocomp.com/patches.html

So the relevancy of my comment is:

They already have admitted some mistakes made. I don't keep up consistently of what's said, but I do keep up with the changes being made or pitched towards the game, and the game will be better at the end of this all, almost guaranteed.

It's also worth noting that, Jarls has been tracking the amount of unique players per month;

https://leaderboard.isengrim.org/stats

(I'm pretty sure what happened between May and June is likely related to school/college than it is the balance of the game, including regulation changes with COVID)