259 replies to this topic

[PocketYoda]

I know what i said earlier in this thread but i agree its gotten way worse the erll meta is getting a bit crazy, the damage is fine the range on them is not.

[Pixel Hunter]

PocketYoda, on 06 May 2023 - 03:37 AM, said:

I know what i said earlier in this thread but i agree its gotten way worse the erll meta is getting a bit crazy, the damage is fine the range on them is not.

I guess I'm ok with the range (to a point) but what I'm not ok with is how well ERLL builds still perform up close

[Weeny Machine]

LordBraxton, on 17 April 2023 - 02:45 PM, said:

It's been like this for ages now, and it's why I stopped playing.

Brawling has always been what separates mechwarrior from a tank game.

However, the 'cauldron' people rebalanced the game to fit their favored playstyle and it has been this way ever since.

They should have left PPCs as a niche weapon, and not raised HSL on so many mechs\weapons.

This has been a long ranged boating\camping game forever. I remember I mentioned this years ago, and one of the ego-driver cauldron guys posted a video of him camping tunnel with a LBX boating annihilator in frozen city, to prove that brawling still works rofl.

That's not brawling. That's camping with a boat rofl.

They should nerf the cooldown of all long range weapons by a huge amount, so that when a short range build closes with them, their DPS is just exponentially better.

I am just coming from a couple of games. Each time I had one of the "pro" groups in the enemy or my team it was like: don't move, Ok, light, you can go. The rest stays. *

Guess what started then: the long range fire.

I dunno what these guys actually like about it. They know the best place for the respective side of the map. Then they camp that place and play whack-a-mole. If the enemy team is pug team it gets annihilated anyway. So, what's fun about that play style? And no, I am not refering to getting a ***** because when you listen to some team's banter (not all! some are really nice) you just want to throw up when they congratulate themselves by seal clubbing a pug. I mean the camping and whack-a-mole.

I catch myself playing a couple of weeks and then I am so bored by this that I just log out for months. The cauldron really killed the diversity of playstyles. As soon as groups are involved it is either long-ranged sniping or medium range laser vomit.

Edit: The problem is that brawlers have in a lot of maps not even the chance to close - besides map design which offers a lot of good sniper positions just have a look at laser ranges...if you deny that, jump right at the beginning of the match on the first ridge and you will be shot by lasers from basically nearl the other spawn point.

Another point is, all these extreme range weapons have no real disadvantage being fired at close range. Yes, the dps of short range weapons is higher but what good does it to you when you get soften up already to the point that you get finished off when you close.

Edited by Weeny Machine, 06 May 2023 - 01:00 PM.

[Heavy Money]

Weeny Machine, on 06 May 2023 - 12:51 PM, said:

The cauldron really killed the diversity of playstyles. As soon as groups are involved it is either long-ranged sniping or medium range laser vomit.

Why are you blaming this on the Cauldron? Before the Cauldron, there really was a sniper meta. Brawling and medium range loadouts were far less viable than now. It was all ERPPCs back then. There was even less playstyle variety.

Weeny Machine, on 06 May 2023 - 12:51 PM, said:

Edit: The problem is that brawlers have in a lot of maps not even the chance to close - besides map design which offers a lot of good sniper positions just have a look at laser ranges...if you deny that, jump right at the beginning of the match on the first ridge and you will be shot by lasers from basically nearl the other spawn point.

Another point is, all these extreme range weapons have no real disadvantage being fired at close range. Yes, the dps of short range weapons is higher but what good does it to you when you get soften up already to the point that you get finished off when you close.

Lasers shot from near the enemy spawn point are going to do like 10% of their total damage. Its irrelevant unless they get to do it over and over again.

Weeny Machine, on 06 May 2023 - 12:51 PM, said:

Another point is, all these extreme range weapons have no real disadvantage being fired at close range. Yes, the dps of short range weapons is higher but what good does it to you when you get soften up already to the point that you get finished off when you close.

ERLL DPS and Sustain are not great up close compared to anything else. Unless you're squeaking in with half your mech missing, they aren't going to fight you off. And if you're that damaged, it means something else went badly wrong in the match.


I play plenty of snipers including ERLL, and also plenty of brawlers. Try playing an ERLL boat yourself for awhile and watch how easily people come and kill you. Sure if a single slow brawler rushes at you over open space you're going to take him apart. But that pretty much never happens. The real experience of being an ERLL boat is that you're locking down some firing lane with no targets, and then suddenly there's a fast light or medium up your rear because your team didn't screen. And you can scratch them a bit but you're probably dead or at least your back is opened and they escape, meaning you'll be dead when they come back.

Or if the enemy's mid range mechs get close enough, you're just losing trades. Those ERLL boats start losing trades to regular laservomit at like 700m too.

Or if something like a 2ERPPC Poptarting shadow cat starts harassing you, you're just screwed since they have PPFLD and don't need to expose for long.

Snipers who are locking down a firing lane and are properly screened are super effective, but that's a team effort.

I find pure ERLL to be so anemic in QP that I barely bother with it. I stick to Gauss+ERPPC for IS or Gauss+ERLL for Clan because then at least you have a hope of fighting off a harasser if you can land the PPFLD on their leg or back or something (and the gauss doesn't have heat issues.)

It seems really bizarre to me that people here mostly complain about ERLL when its Gauss+ERLL that's actually super strong. This is a big part of why I don't take a lot of these sniper meta complaints all that seriously and chalk a lot up to confirmation bias or not understanding what happened in the match. Pure ERLL isn't that big a deal in QP. Gauss+ERLL for clan or Gauss+ERPPC PPFLD for IS are where its at. So either people are having trouble with the less powerful snipers, or they aren't even noticing the Gauss. Perhaps its because a lot of this feedback is from lower tiers where people are playing ERLL because its easier to hit with at long range.

[evil kerensky]

Heavy Money, on 06 May 2023 - 03:29 PM, said:

So either people are having trouble with the less powerful snipers, or they aren't even noticing the Gauss. Perhaps its because a lot of this feedback is from lower tiers where people are playing ERLL because its easier to hit with at long range.

they definetly arent noticing the gauss. whats nuts though, is that this is amplified by the prime offenders for extreme range spam getting armour quirks, so even if you do close with them your destined to lose. direwolf has more mobility, jj's, and more armour than an annihilator, and its best builds have 200m more on them than anything the anni can replicate.

serious issue of the cauldron playing favorites. at least before you could chalk it up to ignorance.

what i genuinely cant believe is that the balance people are allowed to play in tournaments and win cash prizes.

[Cheri Entop]

I don't know what kind of change would make you guys happy.

Range has always been a superlative advantage, from the bow & arrow to the ICBM. Battlemechs exist because the major powers agreed to stop nuking planets from orbit.

Nerfing range weapons just sounds like you're saying, "The tactics of warfare are bull****, I don't like it."

The range of these weapons are already laughably short by today's standards. Making future war machine less capable than today's is not very sci-fi, and not very interesting.

The problem is that MechWarrior is not Battletech. In Battletech, you roll die for hit chance, and you have a range modifier. In MechWarrior, if you put your reticle on the target, you score a hit 100% of the time.

All the maps have a lot of terrain, because the only counterplay against PPFLD is to avoid LOS with the enemy. Consult the survivability onion. Sorry, that's the way it is. War sucks.

The only solution I can think of would be to take control of the reticle away from the player. Your 'Mech's fire control system is responsible for locking-on and calculating a fire solution with a % hit chance. I don't know if players would like that though.

Edited by Cheri Entop, 06 May 2023 - 04:08 PM.

[foamyesque]

Heavy Money, on 06 May 2023 - 03:29 PM, said:

It seems really bizarre to me that people here mostly complain about ERLL when its Gauss+ERLL that's actually super strong. This is a big part of why I don't take a lot of these sniper meta complaints all that seriously and chalk a lot up to confirmation bias or not understanding what happened in the match. Pure ERLL isn't that big a deal in QP. Gauss+ERLL for clan or Gauss+ERPPC PPFLD for IS are where its at. So either people are having trouble with the less powerful snipers, or they aren't even noticing the Gauss. Perhaps its because a lot of this feedback is from lower tiers where people are playing ERLL because its easier to hit with at long range.

While I agree that ERLL + gauss (or the sphere gauss + PPC combos) are stronger, particularly in the hands of people who can hit precisely with the gauss, there's a couple of things that lead to complaints specifically about lasers: There's a bunch of really common designs that don't use gauss (such as the twin ERLL ACH or the 8x flashlight Dire), and you can see the lasers way more easily than gauss slugs, so you notice them even when you aren't the one under fire.

Although, in general, I would say that the people who think there's too much in the way of ERLL stuff in the game also think there's too much other long-range stuff in the game as well.

Edited by foamyesque, 06 May 2023 - 04:17 PM.

[Heavy Money]

the check engine light, on 06 May 2023 - 03:36 PM, said:

The sound of a Gauss hit is possibly subtle enough to get lost in other noises (armor sizzle from ERLL), though it's a very distinctive audio cue. I don't remember if Gauss slugs cause cockpit rocking at all.

They do cause cockpit shake. But yeah that could be it. I suspect often people who are getting sniped are often getting shot by multiple people and there's all sorts of stuff going on, so they may not identify exactly what's going on.

evil kerensky, on 06 May 2023 - 03:51 PM, said:

they definetly arent noticing the gauss. whats nuts though, is that this is amplified by the prime offenders for extreme range spam getting armour quirks, so even if you do close with them your destined to lose. direwolf has more mobility, jj's, and more armour than an annihilator, and its best builds have 200m more on them than anything the anni can replicate.

serious issue of the cauldron playing favorites. at least before you could chalk it up to ignorance.

what i genuinely cant believe is that the balance people are allowed to play in tournaments and win cash prizes.

DWF has terrible hitboxes though. It is one of the easiest mechs in the game to bully or counter snipe. Anni is generally the better mech in any comparison with the DWF except its 2GR+4ERLL sniper build. (Not that DWF doesn't have other good builds, but those aren't what anyone is complaining about, and Anni is generally better in all other range brackets and far more durable.)

And its not the DWF overall that's a problem. Its just this one DWF-C 2GR+4ERLL sniper loadout. Which is even easier to counter because its all right sided. It just takes a little bit of counter sniping into the right torso to make the whole thing useless. The problem is that people aren't doing this.

The game balance has multiple rock > paper > scissors situations going on. Yeah, the DWF-C will steam role people who don't shoot the RT. Same way brawlers will steam role people who let them get close, and light harassers will quickly backstab people who don't react to their presence. The game isn't balanced around people just letting something farm them without responding. And it it was, then snipers would all be useless and we'd instead have complaints about other things.

And its not an issue of the Cauldron playing favorites. The DWF was terrible before multiple layers of buffs. Its still not used much except for this one loadout on the C. It wasn't anybody's favorite. The Gauss+ERLL Madcat was already a comp staple mech for Gauss+ERLL previously. If Cauldron was just boosting their favorite mechs, it would have been the Madcat. Why force themselves to play a Whale?

The people in the Cauldron were winning the tournaments before they started having balance input. I've seen this idea put forth that they are rigging the balance so they can win. But they were already winning. Its not like there was some other top team that used to win, but then the Cauldron members came in and stole their spot by sabotaging their mechs or something.

Its a ridiculous idea that they could. Every comp season consists of a phase exploring the best/most meta mechs and decks to use. The meta isn't that complicated. Even if a last minute patch changed something, it would barely matter as everyone can just adjust what they run for a given role. The game isn't that complicated. If you'd been practicing playing phoenix hawks and then suddenly the cauldron makes a change that buffs the vulcan to be slightly better in the same role, then you just switch to the vulcan.

[PocketYoda]

Cheri Entop, on 06 May 2023 - 04:07 PM, said:

I don't know what kind of change would make you guys happy.

Personally i'd love all weapons limited to 900-1000m but i know it will never happen.

[Vonbach]

Cheri Entop, on 06 May 2023 - 04:07 PM, said:

I don't know what kind of change would make you guys happy.

Change the maps. Sniper meta wouldn't be an issue if most of the maps didn't cater to snipers.
Something like three quarters of the maps are sniper bowl maps where you have little blocks of
cover in wide open spaces in a nice bowl or valley so snipers can shoot you from all directions.
If say you had maps more suited to brawling that didn't have wide open fields of fire from all the way across
the map snipers wouldn't be much of an issue and the game would be much more fun.

Edited by Vonbach, 07 May 2023 - 03:58 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Weeny Machine, on 06 May 2023 - 12:51 PM, said:

I am just coming from a couple of games. Each time I had one of the "pro" groups in the enemy or my team it was like: don't move, Ok, light, you can go. The rest stays. *

Guess what started then: the long range fire.

I dunno what these guys actually like about it. They know the best place for the respective side of the map. Then they camp that place and play whack-a-mole. If the enemy team is pug team it gets annihilated anyway. So, what's fun about that play style? And no, I am not refering to getting a ***** because when you listen to some team's banter (not all! some are really nice) you just want to throw up when they congratulate themselves by seal clubbing a pug. I mean the camping and whack-a-mole.

I catch myself playing a couple of weeks and then I am so bored by this that I just log out for months. The cauldron really killed the diversity of playstyles. As soon as groups are involved it is either long-ranged sniping or medium range laser vomit.

Edit: The problem is that brawlers have in a lot of maps not even the chance to close - besides map design which offers a lot of good sniper positions just have a look at laser ranges...if you deny that, jump right at the beginning of the match on the first ridge and you will be shot by lasers from basically nearl the other spawn point.

Another point is, all these extreme range weapons have no real disadvantage being fired at close range. Yes, the dps of short range weapons is higher but what good does it to you when you get soften up already to the point that you get finished off when you close.

They complain about ranged combat in a game with futuristic battle mechs - what would they prefer, no ranged weapons and more of a jousting game like Mordhau? then you have to play them if you don't like ranged combat and modern warfare, otherwise there's no point in complaining about the tanks and fighter-bombers at Battlefield if you absolutely only want to win with a shotgun.

if you don't want to be shot, you should just move outside of the LOS and range, or pack long-range weapons yourself and learn to be able to use them accurately... what do you do in other games where snipers kill you with one shot?

it's the usual whimpering of narcissists who want to change everything so they don't have to change their playing style, everyone has to play in such a way that i win, preferably alone, because i don't want to learn or change anything... the world is evil.. .Snowflake Terror..learn...adapt...or die and play other Games ...for guys like you Bots and Singleplayer better.

im self plays most sucessfull Medium UAC/AC5 Dakka Builds ,and when a Sniper kill me, its my fault

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 07 May 2023 - 03:37 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Vonbach, on 07 May 2023 - 03:13 AM, said:

Change the maps. Sniper meta wouldn't be an issue if most of the maps didn't cater to snipers.

This. I am as irritated by the proliferation of ERLL and other ranged builds and the "hide in the back" teammates and opponents that they encourage as much as anyone, but the increase in this mode of play is as much driven by the maps and map changes of late as it may be by changes to weapons or mechs.

Can you still brawl successfully? Sure. If you are careful, sneak into position (or waiting in some hideyhole for half the match) without getting spotted or taking much damage, find a target of opportunity that you can ambush, etc. But why put in all that effort and waste all that time, when you can simply bring a ranged build, get up on a ridge right next to your spawn (which most maps provide) and start smacking enemies right away? This has become so prolific in my games that some evenings there might be any where from a third to the majority of mechs in play (both sides) just standing on their respective high points trading blue lights, ERPPCs and Gauss rounds; often such matches are going in excess of 12 minutes or even timing out.

Walk warrior online used to be a point of mockery in this game, now it seems we've transitioned to stand in place warrior online. Both are boring af.

[Widowmaker1981]

PocketYoda, on 06 May 2023 - 09:19 PM, said:

Personally i'd love all weapons limited to 900-1000m but i know it will never happen.

Depends what you mean by this..

Do you mean weapons not getting double optimal range and just stopping at their max range? If so, this would have almost no effect on my playstyle or build choices. Basically, i wouldnt care (though im not saying it should happen)

Or, do you mean you think the range on ERLLs, Gauss, ERPPCs and AC2 should be ~halved (and, presumably, LPLs, AC5s and PPCs as well, to keep them shorter than ERs)?

[The Brewer]

I’m not sure what anyone here who dislikes ranged play wants. Do you really think eliminating or weakening it is going to make things go better for you, or the game?

I’m really not trying to be rude here, the problem isn’t range. It’s not the Dire or it’s armor. It’s not close range mechs being too weak.

Record your matches y’all.

[Cheri Entop]

Map design is part of the solution. Being able to choose your 'Mech after map selection is another. Kinda backwards that you would choose your 'Mech without knowing the battlefield. Alpine Peaks would actually be fun if everyone knew to bring long-range weapons beforehand.

[Saved By The Bell]

In past I thought, that gauss stealth Tanatos very deadly. Then I played it.
Well... I was alone and died so many times from lights and mediums, that I changed to racks and tried this and this...

All alone snipers are just free cakes.

Edited by Saved By The Bell, 07 May 2023 - 09:50 AM.

[PocketYoda]

Saved By The Bell, on 07 May 2023 - 09:40 AM, said:

In past I thought, that gauss stealth Tanatos very deadly. Then I played it.
Well... I was alone and died so many times from lights and mediums, that I changed to racks and tried this and this...

All alone snipers are just free cakes.

They are now doing it as groups, hence the problem.. nothing up front to stop the enemy advance or they destroy the opposition by range both seem to have game play issues..

[Saved By The Bell]

I know. So its the problem to understand fast, what to do.

If DATA sniper groups or smth - need to hide from them and wait, killing alone attackers.
If alone sniper - should be killed fast.

Yeah, easy to say.

[BLACKR0SE]

I wish there were large maps as expansive plains and vast deserts as much as there are small maps. It would be great to have such a game mode. We usually engage in close-quarters combat.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 10 May 2023 - 11:08 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

MW Waldorf Statler, on 07 May 2023 - 03:26 AM, said:

They complain about ranged combat in a game with futuristic battle mechs - what would they prefer, no ranged weapons and more of a jousting game like Mordhau? then you have to play them if you don't like ranged combat and modern warfare, otherwise there's no point in complaining about the tanks and fighter-bombers at Battlefield if you absolutely only want to win with a shotgun.

if you don't want to be shot, you should just move outside of the LOS and range, or pack long-range weapons yourself and learn to be able to use them accurately... what do you do in other games where snipers kill you with one shot?

it's the usual whimpering of narcissists who want to change everything so they don't have to change their playing style, everyone has to play in such a way that i win, preferably alone, because i don't want to learn or change anything... the world is evil.. .Snowflake Terror..learn...adapt...or die and play other Games ...for guys like you Bots and Singleplayer better.

im self plays most sucessfull Medium UAC/AC5 Dakka Builds ,and when a Sniper kill me, its my fault

You know, it is always this cheap strawman argumentation pointing a finger at someone and say "you want only that". So, where did I write that I only want brawling? Show me. If you cannot, then stop putting words in my mouth.

Let me explain it once more...very slowly...just for you...

1. When sniping was less powerful, you had more much more variety in builds, mechs and playstyle. Now you see mostly two types: sniping or mid-range laser vomit. When was the last time you have seen a non-laser-spam Hellbringer? I cannot remember.
For you...more playstyles, more fun. Wow...that is hard to understand!

2. Range & Static Gameplay
Agains slowly... when you already can get shot when you walk right out of your starting area, e.g. Canyon or Hyperpulse generator, then it is very effing boring because it causes the game from being stale and static. I have more and more matches were the first minutes it is a whack-a-mole game from extreme ranges until one side loses the patience. Having ECM snipers sitting at the fringe on dark maps and shooting Gauss is the cherry on the cake...this may be fun for the shooter but it is dumb in a game where you have just one mech. A light mech can be crippled with 2 well-placed salvos.

For you...more dynamics, more fun. Wow...that is hard to understand!

3. Balance
A good game balances risk vs reward. A brawler who needs to get close, needs to manage his heat, and take for sure shots himself and/or needs to pull out before the target's friends help is in a much exposed position and should get rewarded for it.
In this game things are different. A sniper can easily hunker back and hide to cool down or reposition but can put out serious damage on extreme ranges often without much return fire if his placement is good.
The same goes mostly for midrange laser vomit.

Sure, there are brawlers but compared to snipers and laser vomitters? Pfff


Anyway, the game is what it is and the Cauldron won't change it because they haven't tried to curb the dominating playstyles...in some cases even the opposite.

No worries, when the Stone Rhino comes out, you will know what I mean.

Edited by Weeny Machine, 10 May 2023 - 12:04 PM.