66 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

I suppose my argument is that allowing people to over-specialize is detrimental to game enjoyment, especially when the playerbase absolutely doggedly refuses to Git Gud.

Great example: HPG. Everybody swears up, down and sideways that HPG is ABSOLUTELY UNPLAYABLE for anything other than a blue-laser sniper or LRM boat BECUZ WAL. Allow players to select any 'Mech in their entire inventory when presented with HPG, and they'll all take a wall sniper because the average Puglandian idiot believes with their whole heart and tiny brain that wall snipers are the only thing that can possibly win a game on HPG.

Except you're a compy player Quicksilver, so you know as well as I do that the average wall sniper in HPG is almost completely ineffectual and anyone with more brain cells than fingernails can very easily outmaneuver most snipers on that map. Wall sniping is a trap, not a Killer Strat...but if you gave Puglandians the choice, ten out of twelve nitwits on every team would be crowding the walls being absolute freaking brain rejects pointlessly spraying ineffectual blue-laser fire at guys twelve hundred meters away on the other wall and wondering why they're not automatically winning just because they picked a Wall Sniper on the Wall Sniper Map.

That would become every single HPG match. Every time. Guaranteed. Games on HPG would be even more utterly identical than they already are because nobody would bring mobile 'Mechs or short-range 'Mechs to HPG, it'd be All (Extremely Bad) Assault "Snipers", All The Time.

Replace "Wall Sniper" with whatever the dominant salty butthurt moron "strat" is for any given map, and you get the idea. Polar Highlands? Each team consists of ten assault-weight LRM bloatboats and two actual semi-competent players desperately trying to do the job of twelve people instead, because "POLAR HAS NO COVER LRMS OP". Never mind that Polar has gobs of cover and lock-on missiles are honestly difficult to use well there due to the sheer abundance of Trench Warfare.

People like to harp on the "kitchen sink" builds, but I feel like a true specialist should aspire to the skills to force their specialization. Are you a brawler that dropped on HPG? Don't ***** about wall snipers - git gud, learn how to move on the map, and bring the brawl to the bad guys. Drop in an LRM 'Mech on Solaris? Git gud - learn how to direct fire and be proper close fire support delivering LRM salvoes from a hundred meters or so behind the main brawl. Just the other day I dropped in a Thunderbolt skirmisher Hellspawn on Solaris, and rather than disconnect and ragequit because "LOK MISILS USLES ON CITY MAP", I looked for the proper openings, angles, and timings and scored nearly five hundred damage. On Solaris, in a Hellspawn armed with nothing but five Thunderbolt-1s.

You can absolutely play specialists outside their maps. You just have to be better at being your specialty than the enemy is at being theirs.

Edited by 1453 R, 04 June 2024 - 08:32 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 04 June 2024 - 08:20 AM, said:

I suppose my argument is that allowing people to over-specialize is detrimental to game enjoyment, especially when the playerbase absolutely doggedly refuses to Git Gud.

Agree to disagree.

1453 R, on 04 June 2024 - 08:20 AM, said:

Great example: HPG. Everybody swears up, down and sideways that HPG is ABSOLUTELY UNPLAYABLE for anything other than a blue-laser sniper or LRM boat BECUZ WAL. Allow players to select any 'Mech in their entire inventory when presented with HPG, and they'll all take a wall sniper because the average Puglandian idiot believes with their whole heart and tiny brain that wall snipers are the only thing that can possibly win a game on HPG.

Except you're a compy player Quicksilver, so you know as well as I do that the average wall sniper in HPG is almost completely ineffectual and anyone with more brain cells than fingernails can very easily outmaneuver most snipers on that map. Wall sniping is a trap, not a Killer Strat...but if you gave Puglandians the choice, ten out of twelve nitwits on every team would be crowding the walls being absolute freaking brain rejects pointlessly spraying ineffectual blue-laser fire at guys twelve hundred meters away on the other wall and wondering why they're not automatically winning just because they picked a Wall Sniper on the Wall Sniper Map.

That would become every single HPG match. Every time. Guaranteed. Games on HPG would be even more utterly identical than they already are because nobody would bring mobile 'Mechs or short-range 'Mechs to HPG, it'd be All (Extremely Bad) Assault "Snipers", All The Time.

TBH, I don't think we would see that many players that would actually take to the walls even given the choice to specialize, because they are taking awful mechs to begin with. I don't see BLXKNT or whatever their name is for example suddenly not take a Black Knight or start playing the wall and I think that's honestly going to be the more common thing. Bad players still insisting on bad play, bad builds, etc, etc. Maybe if this were 6-7 years ago where you could more consistently get a match where the matchmaker didn't open the floodgates for tier 1 players it'd be a bit different of a story but where we are now where the average skill level of players just seems to have slowly dropped year after year, naw, I don't honestly see that as a legit concern.

Given how easy it is to lose in the mechlab even in comp, the "git gud" argument doesn't really go far. IMO it's a bad excuse for a bad player experience. Here's hoping if we ever get another multiplayer Mechwarrior they don't repeat that mistake.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 04 June 2024 - 09:23 AM.

[1453 R]

Ehhh...fair enough. I'll admit, I also just find UltraSuperHyperMegaSpecialized play extremely boring. "This 'Mech is designed to engage enemies in the 45~65-ton weight bracket at distances between 253 and 297 meters for precisely 7.83 seconds per engagement; any other engagement is an absolute disaster and renders my 'Mech utterly useless."

It's like...why do people find that sort of thing desireable? I get that extreme specialization leads to very strong chances of victory within that specialization, but it just strikes me as so incredibly boring to constantly produce 'Mechs that are completely incapable of any sort of tactical flexibility. Crap like the Twelve LBX-10 Annihilator that moves eight whole KPH and are completely and utterly incapable of engaging anything except other HypahDreadnaughts in a Domination match because they're so incredibly sluggish and immobile that even Timber Wolves and Linebackers can easily escape their firing arcs make me wonder why "Specialization" is a thing to the degree people keep espousing in comp. Like, is it really, truly possible for comp players to make that walking crime against common sense functional?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

1453 R, on 04 June 2024 - 11:00 AM, said:

Ehhh...fair enough. I'll admit, I also just find UltraSuperHyperMegaSpecialized play extremely boring. "This 'Mech is designed to engage enemies in the 45~65-ton weight bracket at distances between 253 and 297 meters for precisely 7.83 seconds per engagement; any other engagement is an absolute disaster and renders my 'Mech utterly useless."

It's like...why do people find that sort of thing desireable?

To be clear, you typically aren't specializing that far such that a mech is only useful for that narrow engagement window. No plan survives contact with the enemy which is why knowing progressions and mid-rounding are so important. For example the big extreme range assault is the 6 ERLL/7 ERML Stone Rhino because you have the 6 ERLL for extreme range but you can still pressure or punish a blind push with the added 7 ERML thanks to cERML's great range (and is cheap to add, 7 tons and 7 slots isn't much for a 100 ton beast). Typically the higher in tiers you go the more dominant MASC is. Not to say the occasional turtle mech isn't a thing, you just generally want at most 2 and even that's sort of risky. Somehow comp has gone right back to the good ol BESM.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 04 June 2024 - 11:30 AM.

[Gasboy]

1453 R, on 04 June 2024 - 11:00 AM, said:

Ehhh...fair enough. I'll admit, I also just find UltraSuperHyperMegaSpecialized play extremely boring. "This 'Mech is designed to engage enemies in the 45~65-ton weight bracket at distances between 253 and 297 meters for precisely 7.83 seconds per engagement; any other engagement is an absolute disaster and renders my 'Mech utterly useless."

As Quick already said, no one is that specialized. It's more "at what range bracket do you wish to engage?"

Quote

It's like...why do people find that sort of thing desireable?

It obviously doesn't go well in QP, mostly due to how armor is balanced, and potentially not enough ammo, but in comp the mech only part of the experience. Teamwork is all encompassing, if you do not work together, you will (very likely) lose. Strategy and tactics are also extremely important.

Quote

I get that extreme specialization leads to very strong chances of victory within that specialization, but it just strikes me as so incredibly boring to constantly produce 'Mechs that are completely incapable of any sort of tactical flexibility. Crap like the Twelve LBX-10 Annihilator that moves eight whole KPH and are completely and utterly incapable of engaging anything except other HypahDreadnaughts in a Domination match because they're so incredibly sluggish and immobile that even Timber Wolves and Linebackers can easily escape their firing arcs make me wonder why "Specialization" is a thing to the degree people keep espousing in comp. Like, is it really, truly possible for comp players to make that walking crime against common sense functional?

The Annie you describe would probably not ever get used. The comp group I'm a part of use the Annie to hold a place, typically the Theta cap point, to play the cap game. She'e very tough, and three of them will ruin the other team's day completely if they blunder into those guns. At other times, Annie is a sacrificial goat, absorbing the other team's fire so that the rest of our team can surround the other and take them out with focused fire.

It's all about efficiency of fire. If you are the first one singled out, you will die in moments. If you are lucky you get one alpha out. If you're lucky. In that singular moment, would you rather have weapons where cooldown and rate of fire line up, or not?

[foamyesque]

1453 R, on 04 June 2024 - 08:20 AM, said:

Each team consists of ten assault-weight LRM bloatboats and two actual semi-competent players desperately trying to do the job of twelve people instead, because "POLAR HAS NO COVER LRMS OP". Never mind that Polar has gobs of cover and lock-on missiles are honestly difficult to use well there due to the sheer abundance of Trench Warfare.

Polar hasn't been a LRM-friendly map ever since the rework, which is, what, two+ years in the rearview mirror at this point? If someone still thinks that's the play they deserve the losses they have coming.

[martian]

foamyesque, on 04 June 2024 - 05:46 PM, said:

Polar hasn't been a LRM-friendly map ever since the rework, which is, what, two+ years in the rearview mirror at this point? If someone still thinks that's the play they deserve the losses they have coming.

The central area of the map has been reworked to be less LRM-friendly than it used to be, but those outer areas are still quite LRM-friendly.