7 replies to this topic

[Hawk819]

I'll just leave this here. . . .

https://youtu.be/lWN...cVviy-82z-HS6Wi

[w0qj]

Is that a boombox on the mech's shoulder?
(Oops... maybe betraying my age here...)

[Hawk819]

w0qj, on 15 September 2024 - 08:13 AM, said:

Is that a boombox on the mech's shoulder?
(Oops... maybe betraying my age here...)

Yeah, the Clan's Answer to missile Boom Box.

[1453 R]

The Grand Summoner will have the same effective pod space as the Sun Spider, as both are 70-ton OmniMechs using a cXL350, endo, and Ferro with no fixed components like jumpy jets. So 29.5 to 31 or so, depending on how far you shave armor. Jetless Summoners are sad and I will never not hate the MWO playerbase's bizarre and unfathomable disdain for any form of jump capability beyond "ONE JUMP JET TO CLIMB HILLS A LITTLE FASTER, JUMP OVER PEBBLES, AND SOFTEN FALLS", but the 'Mech will be much more MWO-Optimal than the base Summoner. Still has those high chest mount energy for poptart builds, and if they include a configuration with jump jet pods you can get the same build with more weight of armament.

the canon variants are all Summoner-adjacent with relatively low hardpoint counts, but the existence of -P variants offering the needed hardpoint bloat is pretty standard at this point. Honestly at this stage I don't know why they're still bothering with strict hardpoint limits on Omnipods; clearly it's not to avoid overall hardpoint bloat in the game anymore, given how many 'Mechs have 12+ weapons at this stage. They're releasing the Bane for crimmeny's sake, hardpoint bloat is no longer a concern.

[kalashnikity]

1453 R, on 16 September 2024 - 10:05 AM, said:

The Grand Summoner will have the same effective pod space as the Sun Spider, as both are 70-ton OmniMechs using a cXL350, endo, and Ferro with no fixed components like jumpy jets. So 29.5 to 31 or so, depending on how far you shave armor. Jetless Summoners are sad and I will never not hate the MWO playerbase's bizarre and unfathomable disdain for any form of jump capability beyond "ONE JUMP JET TO CLIMB HILLS A LITTLE FASTER, JUMP OVER PEBBLES, AND SOFTEN FALLS", but the 'Mech will be much more MWO-Optimal than the base Summoner. Still has those high chest mount energy for poptart builds, and if they include a configuration with jump jet pods you can get the same build with more weight of armament.

the canon variants are all Summoner-adjacent with relatively low hardpoint counts, but the existence of -P variants offering the needed hardpoint bloat is pretty standard at this point. Honestly at this stage I don't know why they're still bothering with strict hardpoint limits on Omnipods; clearly it's not to avoid overall hardpoint bloat in the game anymore, given how many 'Mechs have 12+ weapons at this stage. They're releasing the Bane for crimmeny's sake, hardpoint bloat is no longer a concern.

I use two Hag20 on the summoner, and it works REALLY well, despite needing to shave so much armor to fit enough ammo. It relies on ammo quirks to work at all. Not sure how it will translate.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Quote

and I will never not hate the MWO playerbase's bizarre and unfathomable disdain for any form of jump capability beyond "ONE JUMP JET TO CLIMB HILLS A LITTLE FASTER, JUMP OVER PEBBLES, AND SOFTEN FALLS"

This tells me, you were not around for Mechwarior 2,3, or 4's multiplayer. So let me tell you a story, a story of mechs, and netcode, and the dreaded... Poptart!

in 1995, MechWarrior combat was "solved" Mass medium lasers, shoot legs, profit. This "meta" grew in the online spaces, however MW2's multiplayer also had directional jumpjets, allowing for surprisingly fast paced jump jet dog fights...

Then in 1999, Mech3 came out, while considered one of the great MechWarrior titles, it's own issues cropped up in multiplayer fairly fast. "Legging" became the complaint of the day, as in MechWarrior 3, losing a single leg = death in combat, as in BOOM your mech goes up in flames at the loss of 1 leg, thus it became improper to fight in Mechwarrior 3 by "legging" your opponents, as you were taking the easy way out of the match. Combined with jumpjets and unstable late 90's era netcode, and it's "Every mech is an omnimech" design philosophy... the multiplayer scene for this was weird...

Then, came MechWarrior 4... Microsoft's turn at the plate and one heck of a beloved mechwarrior title, the graphics may have regressed a bit, but the animation was fast and smart, mechs felt good, but netcode was still... EHHH, it was 2002 by the time Mech4:Mercs came out, and in the 2 years since Mech4-mech4 mercs, a spcific playstyle cropped up, one that dominated MechWarrior 4 lobbies for years: The Poptart Meta.

See, in Mech4, we were still dealing with slow netcode and internet speeds, coupled with high latency if say, playing east to west coast US... thus came what ammounted to an exploit of the netcode by tossing on a few jumpjets, and mounting 2+ppc+gauss... now in Mech4, gauss is an instant firing weapon, no charging mechanic for gauss... so what players would do, is find a building, or a hill, that they could easily jump up from behind, clear their gun mounts, fire off the front loaded damage of 2+ppc+gauss... and by the time the mech in question had an idea where the fire had come from, the opponents mech was back in cover. Rinse, repeat.

"But Sunset, what about if you knew where they were and were ready?" Ahh, dear reader, that's the problem... see because of how bad the netcode and latency was back in those titles, even if you DID get a shot off at the offending "poptarter" in question... they would likely be back behind cover before your weapon's ever hit, or the weapons would "Dust" against the target, doing no damage because the servers decided "nuhuh! you didn't hit."

so, from 2002-2012 Mechwarrior 4 was THE mechwarrior game everyone played, that meant, for a literal decade, the poptart meta proliferated... but as rumors started to spread on forums like the MekTek forums, and various other places, discussion quickly turned to the existing problems within MechWarrior and how to deal with said problems... and one of the biggest issues to come up at that time, was the poptart meta.

Now, you MIGHT think, "But Sunset, that was like 20 years ago, no way that's still a problem now right?!" Well I'll just say this, every single time, PGI has shifted jumpjets to a point where they were "useable" By the average metric, the poptart meta would start to rear it's head again, and while not QUITE as egregious as prior titles... MWO's own netcode issues and hitbox reg issues have resulted in PGI mostly staying away from letting the jumpjet poptart meta to proliferate again.

So... tl;dr, if you don't want weird specifically tuned mechs, that will snipe you out from behind cover constantly without you ever having the ability to return fire... then you want jumpjet's to stay exactly where they are in MWO... but... if you want to return to a "solved" mechwarrior meta... one that's decades long solved... sure let's return JJ's to their former glory.

Up to you though, all I can say is, I lived through the MW3 and 4 era's of multiplayer... and MWO, is in a better state gameplay and build wise.

[Hawk819]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 22 September 2024 - 05:43 AM, said:

This tells me, you were not around for Mechwarior 2,3, or 4's multiplayer. So let me tell you a story, a story of mechs, and netcode, and the dreaded... Poptart!

in 1995, MechWarrior combat was "solved" Mass medium lasers, shoot legs, profit. This "meta" grew in the online spaces, however MW2's multiplayer also had directional jumpjets, allowing for surprisingly fast paced jump jet dog fights...

Then in 1999, Mech3 came out, while considered one of the great MechWarrior titles, it's own issues cropped up in multiplayer fairly fast. "Legging" became the complaint of the day, as in MechWarrior 3, losing a single leg = death in combat, as in BOOM your mech goes up in flames at the loss of 1 leg, thus it became improper to fight in Mechwarrior 3 by "legging" your opponents, as you were taking the easy way out of the match. Combined with jumpjets and unstable late 90's era netcode, and it's "Every mech is an omnimech" design philosophy... the multiplayer scene for this was weird...

Then, came MechWarrior 4... Microsoft's turn at the plate and one heck of a beloved mechwarrior title, the graphics may have regressed a bit, but the animation was fast and smart, mechs felt good, but netcode was still... EHHH, it was 2002 by the time Mech4:Mercs came out, and in the 2 years since Mech4-mech4 mercs, a spcific playstyle cropped up, one that dominated MechWarrior 4 lobbies for years: The Poptart Meta.

See, in Mech4, we were still dealing with slow netcode and internet speeds, coupled with high latency if say, playing east to west coast US... thus came what ammounted to an exploit of the netcode by tossing on a few jumpjets, and mounting 2+ppc+gauss... now in Mech4, gauss is an instant firing weapon, no charging mechanic for gauss... so what players would do, is find a building, or a hill, that they could easily jump up from behind, clear their gun mounts, fire off the front loaded damage of 2+ppc+gauss... and by the time the mech in question had an idea where the fire had come from, the opponents mech was back in cover. Rinse, repeat.

"But Sunset, what about if you knew where they were and were ready?" Ahh, dear reader, that's the problem... see because of how bad the netcode and latency was back in those titles, even if you DID get a shot off at the offending "poptarter" in question... they would likely be back behind cover before your weapon's ever hit, or the weapons would "Dust" against the target, doing no damage because the servers decided "nuhuh! you didn't hit."

so, from 2002-2012 Mechwarrior 4 was THE mechwarrior game everyone played, that meant, for a literal decade, the poptart meta proliferated... but as rumors started to spread on forums like the MekTek forums, and various other places, discussion quickly turned to the existing problems within MechWarrior and how to deal with said problems... and one of the biggest issues to come up at that time, was the poptart meta.

Now, you MIGHT think, "But Sunset, that was like 20 years ago, no way that's still a problem now right?!" Well I'll just say this, every single time, PGI has shifted jumpjets to a point where they were "useable" By the average metric, the poptart meta would start to rear it's head again, and while not QUITE as egregious as prior titles... MWO's own netcode issues and hitbox reg issues have resulted in PGI mostly staying away from letting the jumpjet poptart meta to proliferate again.

So... tl;dr, if you don't want weird specifically tuned mechs, that will snipe you out from behind cover constantly without you ever having the ability to return fire... then you want jumpjet's to stay exactly where they are in MWO... but... if you want to return to a "solved" mechwarrior meta... one that's decades long solved... sure let's return JJ's to their former glory.

Up to you though, all I can say is, I lived through the MW3 and 4 era's of multiplayer... and MWO, is in a better state gameplay and build wise.

Same here. If that wasn't enough, getting my A$$ creamed by a Dire Wolf (and hacked one at that) with no less than ten C-UAC/20's and no heat and unlimited Ammunition to boot! Forget the pop tarts! Those hackers drove me nuts, and almost ruined the game. Luckily we had a leagues on certain web games sites. I miss those days. Totally.

Edited by Hawk819, 22 September 2024 - 07:22 AM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Hawk819, on 22 September 2024 - 07:21 AM, said:

Same here. If that wasn't enough, getting my A$$ creamed by a Dire Wolf (and hacked one at that) with no less than ten C-UAC/20's and no heat and unlimited Ammunition to boot! Forget the pop tarts! Those hackers drove me nuts, and almost ruined the game. Luckily we had a leagues on certain web games sites. I miss those days. Totally.

Glad I'm not the only one who was around for a lot of that, and yeah the NHUA/HOLA debate was another one I'm glad MWO kinda put to bed.

Trying to find Heat On, Limited Ammo matches were soo hard back then, everyone just loved hopping into the mecha deathmatch sim of No Heat, Unlimited Ammo.

I was lucky enough to not really run into the hackers, but you're right about the leagues back then.