19 replies to this topic

[Superheterodyne]

I'm a week or so into MWO. Gave it a go because I like to have Baradul's Roguetech content on in the background sometimes, and it kept popping MWO up for me.

Anyway, I hit a thousand damage in a game, hit 5 kills in a game, hit top score in a game, started getting relatively consistent 300+ damage games, and hit tier 4, and generally feel like I'm past the very basics.

There's a whole bunch of "starter" advice out there, some of it rather dated, some of it current, and a lot of it contradictory. This post is an attempt to distil the bits I've found useful into the one post I wish I'd found a week ago.

Background on me: kb+mouse gamer on and off since Quake 1, not "pro" by any stretch of the imagination. Played World of Tanks for a bit a fair few years ago, and Crossout a bit more recently, so I've got some familiarity with PvP team vehicle combat. I also don't like my mechs to be humanoid, so I've dismissed about three quarters of the stable straight out of the gate. But I love me a chicken-walker.

Anyway, have a rambling amalgamation of the bits of advice I've found useful so far. Maybe it will help some people. It's free, so I can promise it's worth at least what you're paying for it!

Advice begins here:

Do the Training Grounds and the Cadet missions (i.e. complete 25 quick-play battles). You will get 28-30 million c-bills (including mission rewards), 100 freely assignable skill points, 3 weeks of premium time (+50% c-bills earned), and a mech bay (for a total of 5). Also 200 of the premium currency, which isn't enough to buy anything except cosmetics.

You can and should use the trial mechs to start this process. They're set up with community-approved builds that are each pretty good at doing something. You're missing skills and consumables versus an owned mech, and you're not able to customise them - but each and every trial mech is capable of doing a good job if used right. If it appears to totally suck, that means you're doing the wrong thing with it.

By all means give them a go, but understand that Assault and Light mechs are much more heavily dependent on metagame knowledge to play effectively. You need to know the maps, the flow of the games, and how to read what is going on around you in order to play them effectively.

Focus on Mediums and Heavies. I suggest you start with heavies, because before you develop map knowledge your battle plan can be "glom onto an assault mech you like the look of, and support them closely, letting them dictate the pace of advance, but adding your firepower (and armour) to theirs by following them into battle.

Stick more to medium and short ranged loadouts. Sniping passively from the back isn't going to teach you much (or help your team much, or get you many rewards), and indirect fire LRMs probably won't either. Both *can* be effective approaches, but don't start with them.

You effectively have a budget of 30m to get your mech stable started. After the starter rewards run out, you'll be getting money *much* more slowly. Also, those 100GSP? That means you can just get the 91 skill points to fully skill a mech, and play it at maximum effectiveness. (There are 300ish nodes to buy for each mech, but you can only have 91 active at a time, so if you buy the right 91, you're already at maximum effectiveness).

By "much more slowly", figure on averaging perhaps 150-200k per match. In time you'll be able to build up cash, of course, but at a rate of several evenings per mech.

(There seem to be a lot of "free stuff" events. 1 free mech a month, just for starters. As someone just starting out, this is basically irrelevant to you unless it's happening *as* you start, in which case, hey, go for it!)

So, really, you need to make sure that before you run out that initial windfall, you're set up with at least one mech that is effective in battle (even with your limited experience), helps you learn, earns you cbills, and ideally lets you experiment with a bunch of other toys.

So I really really strongly suggest picking a suitable "meta" build, spend what it takes to build it exactly as the community has settled on, and investing your GSP into making it perform effectively. Before buying whatever random mech you think will be cool.

Here is (as of early 2024) the place you find meta builds: https://grimmechs.is...ts?list=general

Note that these are builds which are meta for experienced players in tier 1, while you are neither. Note all the stuff I said above about mediums or heavies. (I think heavies are a stronger choice. You don't yet have the map awareness to leverage the greater agility of mediums into better numbers, whereas the greater firepower and armour of heavies will probably translate into bigger numbers and more cbills, even if played straightforwardly). Note what I said about long range builds being a noob trap.

Now, note also that you probably want to play with all of the weapons, and try out all the things. Which is great. You should absolutely do that. Right after you've got a meta workhorse established.

Let's talk about what mechs cost, a moment. You pay the sticker price, you buy weapons, you buy equipment, you buy engines, or you buy omnipods. Weapons and equipment probably cost 2-3 million for a set. Omnipods... could run you up to 2 million for a build that's a total patchwork. Engines, 3-5 million.

So starting from nothing, a meta laservomit Timberwolf S variant, probably costs you about 18 million. That sounds like a lot. Heck, that is a lot. It's more than half your budget.

But I still think it's a good option. That specific mech/build, yes, but also the more general "heavy omnimech" option. Because every build you make on a battlemech (as in non-omnimech) is going to want a different engine to optimise it, so by the third or fourth build on your Crusader, you'll be 10m+ in the hole for engines alone.

Plus, if you want a new hardpoint loadout on an omnimech, it's somewhere between free and 2m to change out the omnipods (realistically you'll only change out 4, max) whereas on a battlemech, it's a whole new chassis.

Basically, if you go the route of spending 15m on an omnimech, 3-4m kitting it out with a single meta build, and your remaining 10-12m getting a dozen more omnipods, and a set of every major weapon type, you'll find yourself with one mech that you can reconfigure to let you do pretty much everything (and will quickly have the 150 points of skills you actually want to use unlocked, too).

Conversely, you could easily get 2 IS mechs with a reasonable loadout each for that price - but you'd be spreading your skill points between them, and you're still really only going to be able to try out about 4 weapon configurations (and even then, you might be compromising on which engines you're using, etc).

Medium mechs are somewhat cheaper. Light mechs have a lower sticker price, but you're running XL engines pretty exclusively in them, so they don't actually work out cheaper than mediums. (The chassis on Assaults aren't much more expensive than Heavies, but the fittings are going to work out a fair bit more, especially engines.)

Two more things I saw recommended, and agree with:

Run ECM if possible. It makes you less of a target when you poke, and less of a magnet for missiles. You're going to make positioning errors in the "poking" phase of a round, and an ECM will make those mistakes a lot cheaper for you.

Also, run simple weapons. Probably a 2 button setup. Midrange 1-2 button poking setups are good (ER/pulse lasers you pop out for a second to shoot, then hide again, whereas RACs or xpulse, you expose yourself and keep shooting. Nothing wrong with large-calibre ACs, or SRMs, on the same principle, although SRMs are short enough range they will probably get you into trouble. Hitscan is one fewer thing to think about than projectile weapons.)

Laservomit isn't the only option, but it *is* a really solid option. Note most builds run 2 large lasers of some sort, and up to 6 ER medium lasers. This is because of "ghost heat", and also the ranges syncing up. Being able to dump 40-50 damage into a torso component of choice from 400m away, and then duck back into cover is very useful, but they are also partially effective if you splash them, have pretty high sustained DPS, and are generally just a nice friendly "starter" weapon, while *also* featuring on tier 1 meta guides, so very much a weapon system you can grow into, while also starting off nicely.

Some solid options I've seen suggested repeatedly:

TMB-S laservomit: https://mwo.nav-alph...=7e09942e_TBR-S

This is what I went for. I dropped the TComp for a little more armour, and put both LPLs on the left torso for better long range poking. I think I've ended up with roughly NGNG's suggested build: (he has a skill layout there, also. I tweaked it, but again, start with something solid).

I like chicken-walkers as mentioned above, the JJ is absolutely worth the hassle of taking, and I got to play with basically every weapon system (except admittedly RACs and MRMs) by swapping omnipods. (Also it was on sale when I was starting, which was, in retrospect, incredible luck. But starting over today, I'd get it again.)

Probably also worth noting that this is the option several people said they would/have taken on smurf accounts to get started on the right foot. So yeah, high skill/potential ceiling, fairly friendly start.

You suffer a bit from low weapon mounts - but you won't be poking super effectively to start with anyway (and again, high torso mounts for the LPLs, so your main poking tool is well positioned), and this is a bit faster and a bit more fragile than some heavy options... but my personal opinion is that a bit more speed will sometimes save you from dying to a noob mistake, whereas a bit more armour rarely will.

Another commonly recommended option is the Hellbringer laservomit: https://mwo.nav-alph...f4b49_HBR-PRIME

(See Baradul's recent setup and skills here: Think he mentions going for a MRM variant to keep it interesting, despite laservomit being a common meta choice - of course, you can easily get both setups if you prefer... )

This would have been a really solid choice also. I didn't pick it because it's humanoid (and besides, the sale), but it was close. Note that this is the "starter clan heavy" in the paid pack, incidentally, so it's probably seen as a good beginner choice.

No JJ. Probably a better shape than the Timber Wolf (better weapon mount positions, better hitboxes).

(There is no good reason to spend money on the game initially. As I hope this rambling essay will show you, you can easily get kitted out with an equivalently effective mech from just the Cadet bonus cbills... and a +30% bonus to cbills earned is relatively meaningless before you've learned to earn lots of cbills. Obviously spend your money how you want, but I figure you'll get more out of it if you get established and learn what you like first).

If for whatever reason, you are trying to get a solid baseline starter mech on a budget (lets say, you blew most of your cash on things that you aren't enjoying), then I'd maybe look at the medium pulse Crab: https://mwo.nav-alph...fd039c99_CRB-27

Note in particular that even with a Standard engine (the cheapest sort), you're barely getting change from 10m on that loadout, even though the sticker price is 3.7m. I don't actually think this is a great option for someone looking to get started, although it's certainly a good option, and a solid mech in general.

One final option to consider: The Huntsman. Medium omnimech, and one with a great selection of builds with basically every weapon system, works out around 13m to do a laservomit build, and obviously you can work outward from there: https://mwo.nav-alph...9ff19_HMN-PRIME

This is probably my suggestion for a "budget" omnimech, to get you started - if you want to do the thing I suggest, and have a solid meta build to work from, and try a bunch of weapon systems, *and* have a chunk of change left to get you started on your next mech much sooner. (Note no ECM, but you are benefitting from smaller and generally good hitboxes, and high mounts). This one is the medium "starter" clan pack mech, which again I don't recommend paying for right away, but shows other people are thinking the same way about it being a good beginner mech.

There are lots of other good mechs. I happen to think those three are great choices for a new player, to give them a solid start with room to grow.

Go buy whatever "you shouldn't start with this" mech you like as your second mech. It's a game. Have fun. I got a Shadow Cat and have zero regrets.

Note, by the way, that all of those mechs have the same "base" speed of 81kph (although you'll probably use skills to increase it in all cases). This is pretty relevant to my next meandering ramble, which is about how to get okay match scores. (I mean, not *specifically* relevant, but those are all fast-ish mechs for the bracket, not slow-ish ones).

The short version of this is: Keep up with the pack, lend your guns to fights whenever you can, but really focus on not dying (until your team starts to collapse, when you just want to go down fighting, rather than dragging it out.)

Now, I don't mean "focus on not taking damage" - because that's not a good way to play in a heavy - I mean focus on never being in a position where you suddenly die from all sides at once.

Because sure, there's advice about doing more damage, and advice about favourable trades, and so on and so forth - but my experience is that if you can be anywhere near the fight, and be in the second half of your team to die, you're *going* to get a fair whack of damage out, and get a score that's at least passable. Conversely, if you mess up positioning, and die early, then it absolutely wasn't worth the extra volley or two you got in first.

As a rule of thumb, if two enemy mechs are both shooting at you, and you aren't immediately pulling back into hard cover, you messed up.

You're going to mess up. The reason you want to be in a reasonably fast/agile mech with a reasonable whack of armour, is that if you notice this and immediately take corrective action, you might survive.

(It seems to be quite common to advise tanky IS medium mechs for new players. I disagree because of the friendly build options on omnimechs, but I *also* disagree because more speed is better at rescuing you from positioning mess-ups than more armour).

Run to friends. A common way you will die is chasing an enemy a bit too far into their friends. Try to return the favour. Cover is nice, but three sets of friendly guns is nicer.

Shoot and scoot. If you poke the same corner three times in a row, the fourth time you'll meet a PPC round coming the other way. Maybe second or third (but ECM helps). You've got the speed to move about a bit. Use it. Don't get separated from your team while doing this unless you mean to.

If you're going out on a flank, make it the right flank to start with. There's a whole counterclockwise rotation meta in MWO for some reason, and being on the extreme left flank is a good way to get steamrolled suddenly 2 minutes into a match. (Interestingly, Crossout has a clockwise meta. Not sure why the difference).

You cannot, as a general rule, shoot your way out of trouble. The *maybe* exception to this is if you are definitely facing a single enemy, have remaining armour at least as chunky as theirs, and pop a cooled shot and start blasting, with a plan for *where* on their mech you are blasting. (But also, remember the adage, "if you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck".)

The best defence against a big assault mech getting in next to you is to be with a couple of teammates so you can take it down together. The best defence against a light mech trying to get behind you is being with a couple of mates so it can't dodge all of you at once and one of you gets a couple of solid hits in. The best defence against meeting a mech your own size around a corner is to have a couple of mates with you so you can quickly defeat them in detail for minimal return damage. Yes that's a theme.

If you get to the point where you've been poking and moving, getting solid shots out, and taking chip damage in return from 1-2 mechs at a time, and you eventually get overwhelmed by the chip damage and taken down, then you should consider that a massive win. Eventually you'll want to start optimising that approach, but for now just worry about not dying of anything else first.

[Void Angel]

Superheterodyne, on 20 February 2024 - 02:35 PM, said:

If you're going out on a flank, make it the right flank to start with. There's a whole counterclockwise rotation meta in MWO for some reason, and being on the extreme left flank is a good way to get steamrolled suddenly 2 minutes into a match. (Interestingly, Crossout has a clockwise meta. Not sure why the difference).

My theory is handedness and biomechanics. About 90% of people are right-handed, and when you're moving the mouse toward the center-line of your body you have more control. Your more used (and dominant) fingers are also on the right-turn key in most keyboard configurations as well. Combine that with Battletech's independent torso rotation, and you're more comfortable turning to the right, and checking angles to the left, resulting in a counter-clockwise rotation.

Crossout's different direction for the same tendency challenges this reasoning, but there are confounding variables - namely the presence of platform gamers using different controls, and the third-person game view. Body mechanics are different on a thumbstick or control pad, but it's still easier to pull in toward your body - which leads to opposite trends in turret/driving control.

In essence, it's easier to do it that way, and people naturally gravitate toward the easiest path unless they're getting something out of doing it harder.

PS: Did anyone recommend This Visual Guide?

[Horseman]

You probably should include one bit of advice: max your armour if you can (or close to that) and frontload your torso armor - leave maybe 5 pts in the back (I used to leave 10 when I started, but in my experience 5 is fine). You don't want to show your back to the enemy much anyway, since that's not where your weapons are. Being frequently in situations where 20 pts of rear armor seem necessary indicates a problem with tactical awareness and no amount of armor will fix that.

Superheterodyne, on 20 February 2024 - 02:35 PM, said:

You're missing skills and consumables versus an owned mech

Actually, the current Trials all have the equivalent of pre-filled skill trees baked into their quirks. You're unable to change them, but the benefits are there.

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By all means give them a go, but understand that Assault and Light mechs are much more heavily dependent on metagame knowledge to play effectively. You need to know the maps, the flow of the games, and how to read what is going on around you in order to play them effectively.

One exception for an Assault: Mad Cat Mk II B. It has enough mobility to compensate and enough firepower to carry you throuh low tiers on brute strength alone.

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(There seem to be a lot of "free stuff" events. 1 free mech a month, just for starters. As someone just starting out, this is basically irrelevant to you unless it's happening *as* you start, in which case, hey, go for it!)

There are also monthly sales on various mechs. Focusing on completing the events helps with currency grind, and the free mechs tend to be at least okay (though not in the stock loadout(). If you find one you completely hate with a passion, you can sell it for C-Bills and reuse the mechbay. (I generally don't recommend selling mechs, but you do what works for you).

Important thing to note: one can get hero mechs as a F2P player, but it takes stockpiling MC from a few events and it's best to wait for a sale even then. There are several major hero sales during the year but most time only a limited selection will be discounted if any at all.

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So, really, you need to make sure that before you run out that initial windfall, you're set up with at least one mech that is effective in battle (even with your limited experience), helps you learn, earns you cbills, and ideally lets you experiment with a bunch of other toys.

So I really really strongly suggest picking a suitable "meta" build, spend what it takes to build it exactly as the community has settled on, and investing your GSP into making it perform effectively. Before buying whatever random mech you think will be cool.

Agreed.

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Plus, if you want a new hardpoint loadout on an omnimech, it's somewhere between free and 2m to change out the omnipods (realistically you'll only change out 4, max) whereas on a battlemech, it's a whole new chassis.

Solid advice.

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(There is no good reason to spend money on the game initially. As I hope this rambling essay will show you, you can easily get kitted out with an equivalently effective mech from just the Cadet bonus cbills... and a +30% bonus to cbills earned is relatively meaningless before you've learned to earn lots of cbills. Obviously spend your money how you want, but I figure you'll get more out of it if you get established and learn what you like first).

There will be some reason to spend money when the criteria for this year's Loyalty Program are announced sometime in September-October.

Basically, for purchasing mechs or MC during the year you're going to get a C-Bill boosted mech - possibly several. These vary - some loyalty programs offered specific pre-determined variants, usually not seen in the game before, others allowed you to pick from hero mechs and/or previous years' loyalty mechs.

This is how it looked last year: https://mwomercs.com...program-returns
I strongly recommend purchasing tactically, with the goal of maximizing your returns. Getting MC can be a good deal if this year also gives you a choice of hero mechs because then you can effectively grab something like the Deathstrike or Ultraviolet for just $7.50 (and still get MC worth that much)

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One final option to consider: The Huntsman. Medium omnimech, and one with a great selection of builds with basically every weapon system, works out around 13m to do a laservomit build, and obviously you can work outward from there: https://mwo.nav-alph...9ff19_HMN-PRIME

This is probably my suggestion for a "budget" omnimech, to get you started - if you want to do the thing I suggest, and have a solid meta build to work from, and try a bunch of weapon systems, *and* have a chunk of change left to get you started on your next mech much sooner. (Note no ECM, but you are benefitting from smaller and generally good hitboxes, and high mounts). This one is the medium "starter" clan pack mech, which again I don't recommend paying for right away, but shows other people are thinking the same way about it being a good beginner mech.

On a Huntsman I personally would advise 2xUAC10, in the same vein as the trial build.

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You cannot, as a general rule, shoot your way out of trouble. The *maybe* exception to this is if you are definitely facing a single enemy, have remaining armour at least as chunky as theirs, and pop a cooled shot and start blasting, with a plan for *where* on their mech you are blasting. (But also, remember the adage, "if you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck".)

Protip: it might be worth looking up some of the more common chassis and learning their hardpoint distribution.

Edited by Horseman, 22 February 2024 - 02:50 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Lots of solid advice here.

Yes, my Timberwolf S is my best performing build. I would also recommend laservomit as a beginner's build. It's the easiest weapon system to use and aim with. But it's not strictly required for a new player to build a meta mech. Effective, yes, from Grimmechs, not necessarily. Picking out a solid chassis is definitely important but there's a number of viable options there and some are better choices depending on weapons. The New Player section is an excellent area for new player to ask for recommendations for their first mech based on their preferences.

After the first mech, or after the first two, if you are strapped for cbills, on Battlemechs (not Omnis) you can take the engine out of a mech and save the loadout, then put that engine into another mech. This only really makes sense if they are within a certain tonnage range from each other, like ~50? But in a pinch, it can temporarily save you a couple million cbills. You can do this with any equipment or weapons too, but the most they typically cost is 1 mil for large caliber guns. You can also take omnipods off if you have another variant of that same chassis to put them on. You don't typically need to do this unless they're exclusive pods from a Hero mech but it's still an option if you buy two of the same chassis and just mix and match pods. Maybe for a Drop Deck.

[Void Angel]

Once you've gotten your 'mech stable up and running, you won't really feel a crunch from c-bills unless you're one of the compulsive collector types. I've got around 150million c-bills, and that's actually chump change compared to some folks.

If you DO ever feel the need to buy c-bills, however - do not buy the cbill package. Buy a champion Cicada, and sell it off (keeping the engine if you don't have any of that rating and type.) It is a LOT better ratio of c-bill to MC.

[Superheterodyne]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Appreciate it.

Horseman, a lot of what you said looks like it might be excellent advice for me *now*, but probably wasn't going to be too big a deal to someone who has yet to buy their first mech. In particular anything relating to sales due to happen months in the future just... shouldn't be a big factor, I think.

(Also, while I 100% believe that the MCII-B is a good and newbie-friendly mech, and I'm very tempted to get one, I still don't think it would have been a good first mech for me to have picked - and I don't think it's currently a Trial Mech. Your correction on the skills is appreciated, and I'd very much expect anyone following this advice and getting a Huntsman to try it with a bunch of different builds, so perhaps they'd find they felt more at home with dakka than vomit.)

When it comes to spending money, I'm mostly thinking of the monetisation model of various other live service games, which put a new player significantly behind the power curve until they have hundreds of hours of grinding, or a cash-shop purchase, to their name. MWO seems to give you enough of everything to get 1-2 fully competitive builds just from the cadet bonuses alone, and while you're going to get your posterior handed to you, it's going to be due to people beating you with skill and experience alone, not a numerical advantage as well. I really respect that from a company (and am depressed at how rare it is).

So what I'm saying is, "get established for free, learn what you like, and then grind or buy towards it, as you see fit", set in opposition to "buy X pack unless you want to grind for 300 hours before you can play the game properly". Which does not apply here.

I'm... quite tempted by the Howl pack, I have to admit. Love messing with MASC on the Shadow Cat, and there really aren't many mechs that have one, and also aesthetics I enjoy - and a punchy, brawly, jumpy, Timby with a MASC just sounds like a fun thing to run around in. I've always been a bit of a SRM person in the Battletech franchise, so why stop now?

The reason I suggest going for an actual "approved" meta build (and didn't talk about maxing armour, but just relied on the meta builds having done that for you, or shaved where it made sense), is seeing a lot of people in "build then fight" type games building badly, not knowing it, and then having a terrible time playing as a result. If I'm in a build a good player can do well in, then I can pretty much discount building wrong as the issue when I lose, and focus on working out how I screwed up in the match itself. There are lots of viable options, but right at the beginning, I know that I don't know if a build is good, and I really want a "known good" baseline to start from.

That might not be the right approach for everyone, but I think it's the right approach for me. And this is, at its heart, a letter to myself a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe I'll come back in a couple of months, write an update, and laugh at myself a bit.

(Oh, and Void Angel, I have another theory about the handedness of NASCAR - quite a lot of mechs with asymmetric hardpoints are built "right handed", so they default to the right of any given obstacle. Add that up, and you get a tendency towards anticlockwise inertia. For Crossout, might do a lot of drive-bys, rather than poking, and shooting to the right as you pass feels a bit more natural (at least to me), pushing you towards clockwise rotation. All very much biomechanics, still, though!)

(And yes, I'd seen Tactics 101. I've also really enjoyed Nep's Guide and the MechNexus Newbie Survival Guide, which give the words and context that Grim is sorely missing.)

[Meep Meep]

If you want to beat the nascar tendencies at least on a personal level(nothing to be done about your team) then you need a detour into light mechs. Their speed and firepower allow for great flexibility to play independently of your team if you wish.

I'd recommend this to get a taste. Fast, good dps and range and with proper twisting can tank surprisingly well for a light as long as you are doing it to evade.

sdr-5d

Skill Tree: af715cd9d744c28460a49cdf5ef207560617a0000404a034a06676c000000

[Void Angel]

Oh, you're not alone in postulating hardpoint positioning as a reason for that right-hand turn - and it might well be a factor. But it didn't attenuate when right-mounted or symmetric hardpoint configurations started showing up. And if you're playing on a console conroller, your thumb is pulling in toward your body to aim right, which gives you better control than pushing away to aim left - so I think the chirality hypothesis is a more robust explanation, making it more likely to be the primary reason.

Of course, we'll never know unless someone kidnaps a bunch of MWO players and does Science to them. There are a few I might volunteer...

[Horseman]

Superheterodyne, on 22 February 2024 - 04:04 PM, said:

In particular anything relating to sales due to happen months in the future just... shouldn't be a big factor, I think.

Think of it as more of a heads up that even if they want to spend money on the game, they should not leap into that head-first. After the loyalty criteria are known, they can tactically minmax their spending for maximum benefits.

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So what I'm saying is, "get established for free, learn what you like, and then grind or buy towards it, as you see fit", set in opposition to "buy X pack unless you want to grind for 300 hours before you can play the game properly". Which does not apply here.

Agreed 100%

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The reason I suggest going for an actual "approved" meta build (and didn't talk about maxing armour, but just relied on the meta builds having done that for you, or shaved where it made sense), is seeing a lot of people in "build then fight" type games building badly, not knowing it, and then having a terrible time playing as a result. If I'm in a build a good player can do well in, then I can pretty much discount building wrong as the issue when I lose, and focus on working out how I screwed up in the match itself. There are lots of viable options, but right at the beginning, I know that I don't know if a build is good, and I really want a "known good" baseline to start from.

Yup. There is room for twiddling with meta loadouts, just as there is room to be effective with off-meta builds, but having a basic grasp of various weapons and chassis before you go there can save you from some facepalm moments.
-- signed, the guy who still remembers blowing a good chunk of his cadet bonus on an XL engine... for an IS Hunchback.

[Superheterodyne]

Meep Meep - I've been trying out the Shadow Cat with a very similar philosophy, I think. (Similar speed with MASC, better jump, heavier pinpoint, more range, bigger hitboxes. B variant So8 with erppcs).
Trying to play it as more of a wide flanker than a sit-back-and-snipe-er, ideally setting up *behind* the enemy firing line and making them very uncomfortable indeed.

I've had some really solid games doing that, and also some spectacular fails. Which is why I got a consistent mech first.

Number 3 is definitely going to be some form of dakka. MCII-B is seeming like an obvious choice, but I haven't decided for certain yet. And I'm pretty sure number 4 is going to be a Kit Fox.

[Void Angel]

Superheterodyne, on 23 February 2024 - 12:08 PM, said:

Meep Meep - I've been trying out the Shadow Cat with a very similar philosophy, I think. (Similar speed with MASC, better jump, heavier pinpoint, more range, bigger hitboxes. B variant So8 with erppcs).
Trying to play it as more of a wide flanker than a sit-back-and-snipe-er, ideally setting up *behind* the enemy firing line and making them very uncomfortable indeed.

I've had some really solid games doing that, and also some spectacular fails. Which is why I got a consistent mech first.

Number 3 is definitely going to be some form of dakka. MCII-B is seeming like an obvious choice, but I haven't decided for certain yet. And I'm pretty sure number 4 is going to be a Kit Fox.

My dakka Assaults are all Clan tech right now, unless you count my Fafnir. I have a Moonwalker set up for dakka, but the best from among the standard variants are my Blood Asp, my Dire Wolf, and of course... Stumbles.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Void Angel, on 22 February 2024 - 07:16 PM, said:

Oh, you're not alone in postulating hardpoint positioning as a reason for that right-hand turn - and it might well be a factor. But it didn't attenuate when right-mounted or symmetric hardpoint configurations started showing up. And if you're playing on a console conroller, your thumb is pulling in toward your body to aim right, which gives you better control than pushing away to aim left - so I think the chirality hypothesis is a more robust explanation, making it more likely to be the primary reason.

Of course, we'll never know unless someone kidnaps a bunch of MWO players and does Science to them. There are a few I might volunteer...

It started showing up when the maps started getting bigger. Post Tourmaline I think. There was that whole poptart meta for a bit. Before that, with the likes of the original River City, Forest Colony, and Frozen City, there just wasn't a way to encircle the middle. Same with Alpine. The original Caustic Valley could be Nascar'd but it didn't really seem to start happening until we got 12v12 and murderballs proved the most effective strategy. Maybe it started with Canyon Network which was designed in a way that produced a counter-clockwise rotation in the middle.

[Void Angel]

TheCaptainJZ, on 27 February 2024 - 09:57 AM, said:

It started showing up when the maps started getting bigger. Post Tourmaline I think. There was that whole poptart meta for a bit. Before that, with the likes of the original River City, Forest Colony, and Frozen City, there just wasn't a way to encircle the middle. Same with Alpine. The original Caustic Valley could be Nascar'd but it didn't really seem to start happening until we got 12v12 and murderballs proved the most effective strategy. Maybe it started with Canyon Network which was designed in a way that produced a counter-clockwise rotation in the middle.

Oh, it definitely started with Caustic Valley. People would just belly up to the caldera and play sniper games at first, then things started to get more mobile, and pretty soon everyone was circling the center like not-too-bright children trying to get onto a merry-go-round.

[Initium Thoth]

Void Angel, on 27 February 2024 - 02:57 PM, said:

Oh, it definitely started with Caustic Valley. People would just belly up to the caldera and play sniper games at first, then things started to get more mobile, and pretty soon everyone was circling the center like not-too-bright children trying to get onto a merry-go-round.

This was called "racetracking" in MW4:Mercs with 8v8 online games. It pre-dates MWO. And it may have existed before that. I didn't play much MW2 or MW3 online. I don't recall if any of the MW2 or MW3 maps that had a circular design.

The Vengence Lunar map and a Mercs tropical volcano map from MW4 created the same kind of situation by providing a central landmark with circular cover. At that time it was embraced as a winning strategy. I understand how it's annoying in PUG matches in MWO because there's no pre-match coordination for a specific map(outside of voting and private/faction drops). But it was not as looked down upon in MW4 as it is here, at least in the groups I played with back in those days.

It's a tactic, but one that can easily backfire if the whole team can't move and shoot or move fast enough.

[Void Angel]

Sure, but it started here in Caustic.

The reason it's looked down on in MWO is because it isn't a tactic here; not really. Coordinated teams can do it, but that's up to your team comp and strategy choices; the difference is that in PuG play, people aren't doing it for a reason. They're literally just trying to find the enemy and get angles on them, and the predominance of right-handed players means they tend to move around obstacles to their left. So they keep on doing it, even though the original Caustic Valley, for example, had good strong points around the caldera, and pretty long stretches without any cover at all. People would just kind of mindlessly circle the drain, and then say it was that all their autocannon hardpoints were on the right torso, or something.

I'm sure that was part of it, too, but the root cause was a lack of tactical analysis - and it led to games being lost and won based mostly on who had the slowest Assaults.

PS: it did start with OG Caustic, though - it got worse with 12v12, because there were just more 'mechs competing for the same cover and vantage points, and slow Assaults were that much easier to overwhelm. It's when people stopped legging Thunderbolts to death, too, but I digress.

[Fnord Asteroid]

no way in hell OP was developed by someone with only a week in the game

[Void Angel]

Sure, why not. Cynicism needs youth, I guess. There must be some sinister plot to deceive us!

[RockmachinE]

Void Angel, on 21 February 2024 - 02:29 PM, said:

My theory is handedness and biomechanics. About 90% of people are right-handed, and when you're moving the mouse toward the center-line of your body you have more control. Your more used (and dominant) fingers are also on the right-turn key in most keyboard configurations as well. Combine that with Battletech's independent torso rotation, and you're more comfortable turning to the right, and checking angles to the left, resulting in a counter-clockwise rotation.

Crossout's different direction for the same tendency challenges this reasoning, but there are confounding variables - namely the presence of platform gamers using different controls, and the third-person game view. Body mechanics are different on a thumbstick or control pad, but it's still easier to pull in toward your body - which leads to opposite trends in turret/driving control.

In essence, it's easier to do it that way, and people naturally gravitate toward the easiest path unless they're getting something out of doing it harder.

PS: Did anyone recommend This Visual Guide?

One of the primary reasons is that a lot of mechs have their "main" weapon on the right side. If you counter rotate you need to expose more of your mech before you can bring your primary weapon system to bare on the enemy. It makes quite a difference.

[Void Angel]

That is a theory that has been proposed - but people do the same thing with 'mechs whose AC hardpoints are on the left, or with unilateral builds.

[semiliterate]

I think you're thinking too biologically. Sociologically, people in groups take their signals from the people nearest them, and you get emergent behaviour, and we're pretty good at divining "intentionality". The reason nascar wasn't a thing on early maps is because people didn't do it, but once it became a known thing you get people who go "if I want to stick with the group, I should move right first". And if you have even one in the game, that intentional movement happens before other people know where they're going, and exerts a force that pulls the entire team to the right. This is why you don't always see it, too - if a Light moves fast enough up the middle, you'll see teams center rush instead because it's a bigger signal.

This is also why having like, even the most basic coordination can prevent it. Like even just one person saying "m going theta" can disrupt the nascar tendencies. You'd expect people to fall back to it repeatedly if they were biologically or mechanically pulled that way, I think.