37 replies to this topic

[BLACKR0SE]

Heavy Money, on 21 April 2023 - 06:07 PM, said:

Yeah you should run whatever mechs you want. But do try to optimize your loadout. The Cauldron is trying to have all mechs be viable. But not all possible loadouts on all mechs, that's impossible. If you run inefficient setups or bracket builds or whatever you're going to have a bad time.

to use some structures as redundant is to compromise power. and loss of score.

A riftleman sniper mech is inherently weak if you put it in a dogfight.
is slow.
his arms are long.
cannot make sudden maneuvers.

with high shoulders to aim well.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 21 April 2023 - 06:20 PM.

[BLACKR0SE]

Bud Crue, on 21 April 2023 - 04:42 PM, said:

Screw the meta (within reason) and ignore your PSR/tier. Play what you want and you will enjoy yourself much more than worrying about what is ideal/optimal. Hell, me and mine regularly play the worst mechs we can think of on "shi77y mech Wednesday" and often even more frequently than that, and I have only managed to drop to T-2. Just play what you find enjoyable.

My favorite machine has a life of 2 minutes in the game how can I enjoy it

mini crab

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 21 April 2023 - 06:25 PM.

[Heavy Money]

TAMTAMBABY, on 21 April 2023 - 06:16 PM, said:

to use some structures as redundant is to compromise power. and loss of score.

A riftleman sniper mech is inherently weak if you put it in a dogfight.
is slow.
his arms are long.
cannot make sudden maneuvers.

with high shoulders to aim well.

Yes?

[BLACKR0SE]

you find a 4x err ppc build inefficient.
I find a mixed structure inefficient.
because it doesn't give a lot of scores.
Even if the team is successful, I can't get scores.

This is how I get enough scores when I hit critical 4 5 hits.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 21 April 2023 - 07:04 PM.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

so..
-you don't wanna change mechs.
-you don't wanna change loadouts on mechs you have.
-you don't wanna change your playstyle
-you don't wanna change tactics
-you DO want the other 23 to play differently, in a nutshell (over 2+ threads here right now).

good luck with that.

[JediPanther]

Scrap them for parts or play the dumbest lol yolo build you can come up with. 4x tags,lams and a narc on a jenner is one such build since lams counts as a weapon same as a narc does.

[PocketYoda]

Sell them or mothball.

[VulkanNo1]

Meta changes based on what people do. I run a commando with a heavy PPC. they may become meta at some point. or prehaps my Highlander brawl build. ( not the keeper ) anything can become meta. you just have to experiment. ^^

[Storky]

Meta depends on the time period. European prime time has always been the best for aggressive pushing builds. However, during European midday, if you play aggressive, you will be betrayed by campers.

[Meep Meep]

VulkanNo1, on 25 April 2023 - 10:38 AM, said:

Meta changes based on what people do. I run a commando with a heavy PPC. they may become meta at some point. or prehaps my Highlander brawl build. ( not the keeper ) anything can become meta. you just have to experiment. ^^

Try this instead. Great rof with full cooldown nodes and fairly heat efficient too plus no annoying 90m min range so you can take out other lights with ease if you have good aim. A couple of alphas to the ct dissuade most lights from screwing with you and it eats pir alive long before they can get in knife fighting range.

com-1b

Edited by Meep Meep, 25 April 2023 - 12:40 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Tam Wolfcry, on 21 April 2023 - 08:29 AM, said:

So just coming back to the game after years of not really playing. I've got a fairly large stable of mechs and have noted that most are staying in storage for two big reasons:

1) they can't compete in the current meta (low hard points)
2) near guaranteed PSR drains

If they have ECM, that may allow them to see the field. Maybe.

Honestly, that sucks. But there is no way some of my light mechs can realistically do much. They simply don't have the weapon slots to compete against the new mechs. I don't care if they are micro lasers...when you have 12 of them, they are going to slag my ML and 2MG locust. Or my Javelin with 4 missile slots. Or my clan mechs that have 3 hard points. Are those all regulated to snipers now?

The low weapon count means it is hard to get damage numbers up. Low damage numbers means an almost guaranteed loss of PSR even on a win.

Or is the best option to sell those mechs, free up mech slots, and just start buying mechs that fit the meta?

Can't believe no on has brought up QUIRKS. In order to make some of the obsolete mechs more viable, they should all have gotten some additional quirks. May be useful for you, maybe not. And with the changes in the mechlab readout, the detailed listing will show you the base quirks and the quirk + skills so you can always see what it comes with natively. You're free to sell things that you just don't enjoy, but you might want to play it later if it suddenly gets buffed down the line or for a special event in the Event Queue. The Cauldron has been tweaking quirks on a small subset of mechs every month. As long as you don't need the mechbay or cbills from selling, just keep it. Yes, boating weapons is pretty powerful and hard to counter, but you just have to figure out how to play around that if your mech can't do it. Or if you can't beat them, join them! Whatever is more fun for you!

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 25 April 2023 - 03:01 PM.

[sycocys]

TheCaptainJZ, on 25 April 2023 - 02:59 PM, said:

The Cauldron has been tweaking quirks on a small subset of mechs every month. As long as you don't need the mechbay or cbills from selling, just keep it. Yes, boating weapons is pretty powerful and hard to counter, but you just have to figure out how to play around that if your mech can't do it. Or if you can't beat them, join them! Whatever is more fun for you!

The problem with the cauldron's quirks (at least since I've returned) is that they -
1 - pigeonhole builds/weapon systems
2 - tend to additionally buff the already well performing mechs while furthering number 1
3 - debuff an entire line of mechs because there's a single build on one mech in the bunch they find "s-tier"

[feeWAIVER]

sycocys, on 28 April 2023 - 04:48 AM, said:

The problem with the cauldron's quirks (at least since I've returned) is that they -
1 - pigeonhole builds/weapon systems
2 - tend to additionally buff the already well performing mechs while furthering number 1
3 - debuff an entire line of mechs because there's a single build on one mech in the bunch they find "s-tier"

I'm not seeing this..
There's a ton of examples of mechs with, for example LbX 10 or Lrm 10 quirks, that got changed to just general LBX or LRM quirks- letting you choose what size to use. Example, the LRM Hunchback used to be only quirked for 10s.

Buffing an already performing mech is often to keep it as a performing mech in the new environment.
I can't think of any example of line of mechs that got nerfed because of one build.

[TheCaptainJZ]

sycocys, on 28 April 2023 - 04:48 AM, said:

The problem with the cauldron's quirks (at least since I've returned) is that they -
1 - pigeonhole builds/weapon systems
2 - tend to additionally buff the already well performing mechs while furthering number 1
3 - debuff an entire line of mechs because there's a single build on one mech in the bunch they find "s-tier"

I take issues with the quirking philosophy too. Honestly, it's always been a problem, but it is at least more consistent now with the Cauldron looking at all quirks whereas before, they got set once and never looked at again. I still think we have too many quirks and too strong of skills especially since you can easily max out skills you could not before, making your weapons faster and cooler. It's weird to me if we have to buff assaults with more armor just to make them feel tanky. It seems to me the problem might be the power of weapons not the weakness of mechs. But I guess that's just my opinion.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 28 April 2023 - 10:02 AM.

[LordNothing]

with some of the mixed hardpoint variants, the quirks are very questionable. they might lean towards one specific build when id rather the quirks on those be as generic as possible so i can maximize their usage in the build. quirks left on the table will make any build weaker, and this happens significantly more often on the mixed builds. the cauldron to their credit has done this one some mixed builds.

velocity is nice as you can run lppc+mrm+ac10 for example gives good midrange performance and will maximize velocity quirks. heat, range and cooldown are always nice and can apply to a wider range of configs. but when you have quirks for heavy weapons, like gauss rifles (im looking specifically at the gridiron here), actually using those quirks usually means not using the other hardpoins, and thus the missile and laser quirks go to waste.

Edited by LordNothing, 28 April 2023 - 10:19 AM.

[sycocys]

feeWAIVER, on 28 April 2023 - 05:23 AM, said:

I'm not seeing this..

I can't think of any example of line of mechs that got nerfed because of one build.

Crab-27 is a great example of an already very well performing mech getting over quirked and pigeonholed during a recent pass. And most of the rest of the variants were quirked into particular builds/weapon systems in the same pass.

The HBK-IIC across the board structure reduction when the only mech that was considered top tier was the B variant, and only one build of it at that.
-- edit, sorry it was the A variant. Always get the iic's mixed up in order since the first one doesn't have a designator.

TheCaptainJZ, on 28 April 2023 - 10:02 AM, said:

I still think we have too many quirks and too strong of skills especially since you can easily max out skills you could not before, making your weapons faster and cooler. .

The hardpoint inflation has been a serious issue, but in my opinion a larger one that was never addressed early on and only made worse with following iterates is the skill node/tree system - it should have always been zero sum. It would make a bunch of the loud comp types angry but fixing that would do a lot for giving them the ability to actually balance out across the board.

Edited by sycocys, 29 April 2023 - 04:04 AM.

[Joanna Conners]

Play what you have fun with. Sell what you don't. I used to be awesome at the game. Now I'm just happy when I don't suck. But I'm here for fun.

[BLACKR0SE]

Joanna Conners, on 29 April 2023 - 06:08 PM, said:

Play what you have fun with. Sell what you don't. I used to be awesome at the game. Now I'm just happy when I don't suck. But I'm here for fun.

Everyone is here to have fun. The problem is we're not having fun