70 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

1453 R, on 12 September 2022 - 07:17 AM, said:

Fair enough.

I do think range is has always been dominant though, it just has become even more so under Cauldron.

[1453 R]

I think higher-level players, especially competitive sorts, are going to have a natural preference for longer-ranged games simply because they have phenomenal aim and can take maximum advantage of precise, pinpoint weaponry. Comp players, for example, have almost always favored PPCs far more than the average Puglandian simply because a comp player will hit what they shoot at when they shoot at it. Their enemy cannot count on the comp players' aim being off, and that does transform how games are played. Obviously if brawling is powerful enough comp players will brawl regardless, but a comp team can wring far more effectiveness out of a coordinated long range game plan than any amount of disorganized Pug Soup can.

Like, yes - a four-man group of tightly coordinated comp snipers that decide for whatever reason to drop into Puglandia with their best comp sniping lance is going to absolutely dominate that game. That event is, however, so outlandishly rare that it's not worth considering for game balance purposes, and frankly the same four comps can drop as a tightly coordinated lance of anything and have the same effect. That isn't even a MWO thing, it's the way things go down in any team-based PvP game. MWO is just the only game with a playerbase so up its own butt that it won't stop complaining about it.

[TheCaptainJZ]

What "killed brawling"? More weapons with longer range. Clan weapons started it. Civil war weapons added to it. 270 m doesn't go far when you have more and lighter weapons that can shoot 800 m and deal damage. Map design can contribute to it too. We went from a few really small maps to larger ones, but there are ways and places to brawl on most maps.

[PsionicMantis]

I pretty much only run brawlers or "hit and run" builds anymore. Ive been having a great time with the centurion hero runing a snppc and ac20 combo.

[feeWAIVER]

Lockheed_, on 12 September 2022 - 10:19 AM, said:

All brawl builds (SRMs, Small Lasers, AC20, Snubs) played in the current meta, while having severe health issues that impact my abilities. All matches played in T1 where all the evil competitive cauldron people are sniping.
Brawling is very much viable.

Jesus do you take a screenshot of every game you play wtf?

[1453 R]

Some people keep records, yes. It can be a big help when forum randos start up their latest nonsensical crusade of WTFery.

[Nightbird]

Lockheed_, on 12 September 2022 - 10:19 AM, said:

All brawl builds (SRMs, Small Lasers, AC20, Snubs) played in the current meta, while having severe health issues that impact my abilities. All matches played in T1 where all the evil competitive cauldron people are sniping.
Brawling is very much viable.

You keep using the word viable. Medicore, Underperforming, Bad weapons can still be viable. The word I'm looking for is balanced. Is brawling balanced against long range? Can you say that brawling has the same WLR, same average damage, same KDR as long range?

If you go into your stats and look at those mechs, your honest answer will be no, not even close.

[RickySpanish]

I don't know folks, Cauldron's the only reason I kept playing, to say that they somehow reduced diversity in the game seems ignorant to the point of malicousness. Cauldron have buffed nearly every underperforming weapon system in some way, and have seriously buffed 'Mechs via quirks. There are some many play styles that are viable now, even close range play. Brawling AND blue laser spam took a hit from the snub buff sure, but brawling as defined by 'running into the enemy and shooting until they are dead' was a pants way to play to begin with, so srm/mrm eejits getting beaned as they run straight at you is perfectly fine by me. If you want to 'brawl' though you still can, you just need to do it via close range skirmishing instead. Maybe mix a snub in with those srms OP.

[Nightbird]

RickySpanish, on 12 September 2022 - 10:46 AM, said:

I don't know folks, Cauldron's the only reason I kept playing, to say that they somehow reduced diversity in the game seems ignorant to the point of malicousness. Cauldron have buffed nearly every underperforming weapon system in some way, and have seriously buffed 'Mechs via quirks. There are some many play styles that are viable now, even close range play. Brawling AND blue laser spam took a hit from the snub buff sure, but brawling as defined by 'running into the enemy and shooting until they are dead' was a pants way to play to begin with, so srm/mrm eejits getting beaned as they run straight at you is perfectly fine by me. If you want to 'brawl' though you still can, you just need to do it via close range skirmishing instead. Maybe mix a snub in with those srms OP.

If you feel so, great! But do you actually feel so? Jarl's shows you are playing a lot less in the years after Cauldron compared with the years before.



This is also true for the rest of the pop. Despite the new maps, the new mechs, all the awesome Cauldron changes, and even if we disregard the declining pop, the people remaining aren't playing as much.



I don't think the Cauldron is responsible though, but this is because I think the changes were too conservative. A few mechs fell into and out of meta, but all the major styles of play plays exactly the same.

[Nightbird]

Lockheed_, on 12 September 2022 - 11:18 AM, said:

You seem more and more like a gaslighter here.
He never said he's playing more, he said the cauldron is the reason he's still playing, yet here you are making it all about play time. For a person seemingly obsessed with data your are handling information pretty poorly.
And with that I'm out, have fun with your mind acrobatics.

Your opinion doesn't match the population's. Sorry that reality isn't what you wish it to be.

[YueFei]

Nightbird, on 12 September 2022 - 10:38 AM, said:

You keep using the word viable. Medicore, Underperforming, Bad weapons can still be viable. The word I'm looking for is balanced. Is brawling balanced against long range? Can you say that brawling has the same WLR, same average damage, same KDR as long range?

If you go into your stats and look at those mechs, your honest answer will be no, not even close.

I win more often when I use my brawl mechs.

My WLR for my brawl mechs is significantly higher, >1.5 WLR, versus my mid-range or long-range mechs where I'm around ~1.1 WLR.

That said, I can also see why some people think brawl is bad. I think it's because certain mechs are still just terribly bad, even after the buffs they've received from the Cauldron. I played an entire month in a HBK-4SP in a "classic+" config (MLas+ASRM6), and had a losing WLR (<1.0).

Contrast that with my favorite mech, the Shadowhawk-2D, with 696 games played, which has a WLR of 1.63.

I'd venture to say that most mechs in the game are not suitable as brawlers. If you were to pick a mech chassis/variant at random, chances are high that it will suck as a brawler.

[Curccu]

Abisha, on 12 September 2022 - 04:58 AM, said:

you can read that new "players" because it's like around 2500 players per season is new (season is 3 months?) it means from season 43 to 73 it would be 40.000 players new (the above said average of 20.000 players) in season 25 you see around 22.000 players playing MWO that means no new players being added to the player base.

Season is 1 month...
And old players quit also... out of my 200+ friend list got 10-20 online at good evening. Out of my units 43 members 5 is not retired in Jarls.
So not just new players quitting, old ones also.

[Nightbird]

YueFei, on 12 September 2022 - 12:14 PM, said:

I win more often when I use my brawl mechs.

My WLR for my brawl mechs is significantly higher, >1.5 WLR, versus my mid-range or long-range mechs where I'm around ~1.1 WLR.

That said, I can also see why some people think brawl is bad. I think it's because certain mechs are still just terribly bad, even after the buffs they've received from the Cauldron. I played an entire month in a HBK-4SP in a "classic+" config (MLas+ASRM6), and had a losing WLR (<1.0).

Contrast that with my favorite mech, the Shadowhawk-2D, with 696 games played, which has a WLR of 1.63.

I'd venture to say that most mechs in the game are not suitable as brawlers. If you were to pick a mech chassis/variant at random, chances are high that it will suck as a brawler.

I believe you, from Jarl's it looks like you play medium mechs exclusively. I think the number of good mid/long range mechs can be counted in one hand for mediums and lights. It is due more to tonnage on heatsinks and weapons, where hotter and heavier long ranged weapons are too punishing to bring. (There are exceptions, like the veagle)

In heavy and assault categories though, which are used maybe 60-70% of the time, mid and long reign supreme.

[PurplePuke]

I do lots of brawling in Tier 2/3, especially a Shadowhawk with SRMs and an AC20. Works great. Thanks Cauldron.

[Pixel Hunter]

I would say the core balance comes down to the average player, not extremely skilled players or anecdotal instances where brawling overcomes the meta of long range sniping or laser vomit. It stands to reason that if we tend to see a playstyle that is the more common (long range poking) it is most likely superior.

[sayerszero]

There are a lot of responses here, and I won't be able to easily respond to all of them.

First and foremost, my idea of brawling isn't walking at the enemy and continuing to mash buttons until one of us die. My idea is intelligently using cover to advance toward the enemy and get close enough to shred components and continuing to move in and out of cover. Lately, I can't get away from LRMs or Snipers from ANY angle. Clan LRMs in specific will either drop in a perfect arc behind cover or I will have snipers on all sides railing.

For everyone saying that brawling is viable, as long as you're not in an assault. You're saying that if I want to play an Assault, and do well, I shouldn't build a brawler. That's an artificial restriction in place, which is bothersome.

Next, folks posting tables of data, where is this coming from?

Someone else has addressed the issue of QP vs Faction and how it's better because you get intel prior to Dropship selection. I wish QP had this as well. That would drastically change how the game is played, I would think anyway.

Finally, I really have been enjoying the events going on. Urby Derby was hilarious and wish more of these kinds of things happened on the regular. I think smaller player pool events should be a permanent addition with a rotating schedule of some kind, they allow fun play and shake up the standard 12v12 drag.

[1453 R]

Pixel Hunter, on 12 September 2022 - 02:42 PM, said:

I would say the core balance comes down to the average player, not extremely skilled players or anecdotal instances where brawling overcomes the meta of long range sniping or laser vomit. It stands to reason that if we tend to see a playstyle that is the more common (long range poking) it is most likely superior.

The popularity of sniping (or rather, "sniping") has nothing to do with sniping being superior. Not in Puglandia. "Sniping" is popular because it feels safe. You're a thousand miles away from the fight, almost nothing on the enemy team can effectively hurt you. The fact that you, for the most part, cannot effectively hurt the enemy doesn't matter, because occasionally you get a good whack in, and also the game's hit indication gives the same feedback from a full damage AC/20 whack as it does from an extreme range PPC poke that only dealt half a point of damage. "Snipers" get to hang back, operate slower than the rest of the game, fire with impunity, and when the enemy wins the power play at the front line and hunts down the "sniper", the sniper will blame their team for not doing the team's job instead of blaming themselves for contributing d@#$-all nada bupkis from the back line.

The way MWO works, mechanically, means that players often don't feel like their own misplays contributed to their team's loss unless they die early. Bad brawlers die first; bad snipers die last. Bad brawlers know they failed their team, however much they holler about "THANKS FOR NOT PUSHING JERKS"; bad snipers think they've been doing well the whole time and their team failed them. If only the team had held strong, they would've won! And when the team manages to beat the odds and win, the bad sniper doesn't ever realize their piddling contributions to the fight were effectively meaningless and they had no impact on the victory. All they know is they won, they did damage, and they barely took damage, so they must have done something right!

The game actively, psychological trains that sort of Timidity into people. Void Angel wrote an absolutely phenomenal treatise on it nearly ten years ago now, called Timidity Is Not a Tactic. Frankly I consider it a seminal work on MWO and it should really be a must read for all new players, especially since it perfectly explains this idea that the game psychologically conditions selfish, self-preserving plays over aggressive, risky, but game-winning plays. Those exact same factors explain the preponderance of "snipers" in Puglandia, while meanwhile the people who play more powerful mid to short-range sluggers are less common but far more impactful on a game. After all, how many matches can you remember where the fight came down to one guy on one of the teams finally ballsing up and pushing in to start laying people the f@#$ down with some massive brawly murder loadout, scoring five kills as they mow throw a bunch of weakened "snipers" like a mortar blast?

Sniping feels safer than brawling, people want to feel safe, so they snipe. But it sure doesn't win games the way a well-timed brawl in well chosen ground does.

[BellatorMonk]

I am a returning player as of July/22. I hit it hard on my return, crap load of games played to learn to play again, see what the new meta is and dropped a few hundred on mechs, etc after a 5 year break from the game that was failing back then.

Now, if I lose 75% of the 1st 5-10 games of the day/night I log and play something else. Pretty simple. It's obvious there is a lot broken still and a lot that has changed good or bad.

This will remain a niche game I play 5-10 games every couple of days. I have learned not to beat my head against the "wall" that is a broken match maker for whatever reason people state. There are plenty of other fun games to spend time and money on instead.

Complaining won't change what has been broken for what...10 years now? I get my damage in no matter the objective (I rarely bother with the objective because the "git gud" players will leave you to die on it so they can farm their damage). If my teams win, I keep playing. If I lose 3 in a row...I log out. Easy peasy.

[Nightbird]

BellatorMonk, on 12 September 2022 - 05:03 PM, said:

I am a returning player as of July/22. I hit it hard on my return, crap load of games played to learn to play again, see what the new meta is and dropped a few hundred on mechs, etc after a 5 year break from the game that was failing back then.

Now, if I lose 75% of the 1st 5-10 games of the day/night I log and play something else. Pretty simple. It's obvious there is a lot broken still and a lot that has changed good or bad.

This will remain a niche game I play 5-10 games every couple of days. I have learned not to beat my head against the "wall" that is a broken match maker for whatever reason people state. There are plenty of other fun games to spend time and money on instead.

Complaining won't change what has been broken for what...10 years now? I get my damage in no matter the objective (I rarely bother with the objective because the "git gud" players will leave you to die on it so they can farm their damage). If my teams win, I keep playing. If I lose 3 in a row...I log out. Easy peasy.

This is kind of off topic considering the thread, but my data shows most people are like you... so you're in good company.

[Bassault]

BellatorMonk, on 12 September 2022 - 05:03 PM, said:

I am a returning player as of July/22. I hit it hard on my return, crap load of games played to learn to play again, see what the new meta is and dropped a few hundred on mechs, etc after a 5 year break from the game that was failing back then. Now, if I lose 75% of the 1st 5-10 games of the day/night I log and play something else. Pretty simple. It's obvious there is a lot broken still and a lot that has changed good or bad. This will remain a niche game I play 5-10 games every couple of days. I have learned not to beat my head against the "wall" that is a broken match maker for whatever reason people state. There are plenty of other fun games to spend time and money on instead. Complaining won't change what has been broken for what...10 years now? I get my damage in no matter the objective (I rarely bother with the objective because the "git gud" players will leave you to die on it so they can farm their damage). If my teams win, I keep playing. If I lose 3 in a row...I log out. Easy peasy.

The only thing that's broken is your ability to understand how the game works. Here's what I'll do. If I get 3 matches in a row where my teammates decide to mindlessly nascar when the enemy pushes me from the left I'll just hop on a sniping mech and start using you as pug armor. The "git gud" players use you as pug armor because when you decide to NASCAR every time that's the only thing you're good for. Can't be relied on to hold a good position, can't be relied on to deal damage or confront the enemy, so to adapt to these circumstances, I must engage in an independent play style, that allows me to be effective far removed from my stock car racing enthusiasts labeled "teammates".

Edited by I LOVE ANNIHILATORS, 12 September 2022 - 07:19 PM.