77 replies to this topic

[Kamiko Kross]

It's the experience of brawling, rather than the effacy of it that's underpowered. It's not as readily accessible to the average player as sniping is.
I've always tried to brawl, but as an average player (also hindered by nerve damage that affects my hands) I find the experience of it to be very up and down, it's also unduly affected by team behaviour
Long range has a more "smooth" player experience curve.

TP Pokethrough, on 09 December 2024 - 03:56 AM, said:

The stories people cook up to justify bad behaviour, poor teamplay or acting the victim is always astounding.

Quite a lot of that on this thread already....

[foamyesque]

Bassault, on 06 December 2024 - 01:31 PM, said:

Well you see it actually is in reality, because I've played a lot more than you have and I'm a lot better than you are, I know what I'm talking about. You have no valid reason to dismiss my statements about how to brawl. You obviously don't nascar in the open, you walk through cover, it isn't rocket science. I see brawlers in every match, I don't know what game you're playing.

Brawling isn't dead by any means -- there's a number of machines and pilots who, especially coordinated, can be extremely nasty to fight against with a PUG. The Scaleshot, the Warthog, the Flea, the Warlord, the Scorch, and so on are all examples of 'mechs that can take a 360m or under base optimal and make it work.

But they are vastly, vastly outnumbered by the number of machines and groups that can and do stick some ERLLs or whatever on and then fort up somewhere. Even in pure PUG v. PUG fights, you're much more likely to be able to put together a sniper group out of your randos than you can a good brawl push.

It is quite simply easier and less stressful to play, and you get huge amounts of map control if you can win or significantly contest a long range matchup. This has been especially true ever since HAGs dropped and dramatically boosted long range alphas, but that was just an amplification of a pre-existing situation.

Bassault, on 06 December 2024 - 01:37 PM, said:

So what about applying this to the opposite then? You are saying I think brawling is easy if you tried but really I'm some super genius and it's actually super hard for the average person. So with that idea in mind, what about things I find harder, like sniping? Every time I try to snipe I want to tear my hairs out of my head. Poptarter at 8' o clock permanently shooting my back, I'm too slow to NASCAR, I try to shoot the poptarter, the enemy NASCAR light horde tears me to pieces, I'm being shot from 4 different angles before I inevitably die 500m away from spawn. THAT is hard, to survive the spawn coin toss with a low dps mech. Even if I escape spawn and get into a good position, I have to aim far better than anyone else and I have to make sure I'm not sitting and doing nothing while my team dies off screen. To me, that is far more difficult than queueing up in the 1E or the Warlord and holding W (through cover of course) until I find an enemy, clobber 2-3 people and then clean up or watch my team snowball through the rest of the enemy.

The funniest thing about this post is the complete lack of consideration given to playing anything lighter than, like, a Stalker.

Edited by foamyesque, 10 December 2024 - 03:03 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

foamyesque, on 10 December 2024 - 02:32 AM, said:

But they are vastly, vastly outnumbered by the number of machines and groups that can and do stick some ERLLs or whatever on and then fort up somewhere.

Are there though? There aren't many ERLL boats that are honestly that great. I think most people just struggle with the ones carrying ECM because of bad eyesight or this game just being awful at contrast between mechs and terrain.

Half the time I play an ERLL mech I just end up against an aggressive opponent and do much less damage than a dakka/mid laser vomit mech would because QP is about burning and churning through the opponent, not really about good strategies (because PUGs rarely ever take good terrain). Teams that die to ERLLs were probably going to lose anyway because of how passive they were. The biggest pain in QP isn't the builds, it's everyone afraid to, well do anything. People think hiding/retreating is the way you win rather than say, always trying to position yourself so that you can make a play, otherwise you are just delaying losing barring the enemy making a huge mistake.



Also, if you are still dying to HAG spam at long range, you're doing something wrong. HAGs are still best at mid range where you are much more likely to land your shots plus you can stack them with heavy lasers to give yourself a huge alpha on squishier heavy/assaults to justify poking. Most of the time I see people doing well with HAGs (like the MAD-IIC-D spam we used to have), it's farming heavies/assaults standing still in open firing lanes just asking to get shot by anything.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 10 December 2024 - 08:21 AM.

[foamyesque]

HAGs work just fine at long range, still. I know this because I use them. You're correct that at longer ranges it helps significantly to have a bigger, slower target, but one of the key things about long range is that you get those. People stand still a lot more when they don't release they're about to be shot.

Edited by foamyesque, 10 December 2024 - 09:03 AM.

[Void Angel]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 10 December 2024 - 08:07 AM, said:

The biggest pain in QP isn't the builds, it's everyone afraid to, well do anything. People think hiding/retreating is the way you win rather than say, always trying to position yourself so that you can make a play, otherwise you are just delaying losing barring the enemy making a huge mistake.

I've thought about that a fair amount, and even wrote a guide to try and help mitigate it (got accused of advocating "lemming bullrush tatics,") and I think a lot of it comes down to operant conditioning. Delayed rewards are more effective at shaping behavior than immediate rewards; the same is true of punishments. So players immediately feel it when they expose for a bad trade, but the rewards of maneuvering to get better positioning are delayed - so it pushes players toward unconsciously equating timidity with tactics. Similar processes probably drive other problem attitudes, such as learned helplessness against snipers, LRMs, and Light 'mechs.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

foamyesque, on 10 December 2024 - 09:02 AM, said:

HAGs work just fine at long range, still. I know this because I use them.

I mean I do to, but against non-potatoes their weaknesses become VERY apparent. They are farm weapons at range, good for making your numbers look good until you see just how much damage was spread and unconcentrated.

Sure I've caught people just standing still and blasted them with a full or almost full salvo but those are rare occasions, lasers are no different especially since they have no impulse so people are less likely to react to it. While I pushed for HAGs to get splash to limit the damage potential for people getting blindsided, there is a limit to how far you balance weapons for players just being dumb and standing still in open sight lines.....

Void Angel, on 10 December 2024 - 09:23 AM, said:

I've thought about that a fair amount, and even wrote a guide to try and help mitigate it (got accused of advocating "lemming bullrush tatics,") and I think a lot of it comes down to operant conditioning. Delayed rewards are more effective at shaping behavior than immediate rewards; the same is true of punishments. So players immediately feel it when they expose for a bad trade, but the rewards of maneuvering to get better positioning are delayed - so it pushes players toward unconsciously equating timidity with tactics. Similar processes probably drive other problem attitudes, such as learned helplessness against snipers, LRMs, and Light 'mechs.

Well it doesn't help that it can create a vicious feedback loop: team is timid giving up map control, enemy takes advantage of that and tightens the noose, team scrambles to hide even more, giving people uncontested angles/damage against either those that are actually trying to shoot or just those who are caught not hiding creating a snowball effect in a game already known for snowballing.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 10 December 2024 - 03:59 PM.

[Bassault]

foamyesque, on 10 December 2024 - 02:32 AM, said:

The funniest thing about this post is the complete lack of consideration given to playing anything lighter than, like, a Stalker.

Scaleshot

Edited by Bassault, 10 December 2024 - 09:55 PM.

[foamyesque]

Bassault, on 10 December 2024 - 08:11 PM, said:

Scaleshot.

Bassault, on 06 December 2024 - 01:37 PM, said:

So what about applying this to the opposite then? You are saying I think brawling is easy if you tried but really I'm some super genius and it's actually super hard for the average person. So with that idea in mind, what about things I find harder, like sniping? Every time I try to snipe I want to tear my hairs out of my head. Poptarter at 8' o clock permanently shooting my back, I'm too slow to NASCAR, I try to shoot the poptarter, the enemy NASCAR light horde tears me to pieces, I'm being shot from 4 different angles before I inevitably die 500m away from spawn. THAT is hard, to survive the spawn coin toss with a low dps mech. Even if I escape spawn and get into a good position, I have to aim far better than anyone else and I have to make sure I'm not sitting and doing nothing while my team dies off screen. To me, that is far more difficult than queueing up in the 1E or the Warlord and holding W (through cover of course) until I find an enemy, clobber 2-3 people and then clean up or watch my team snowball through the rest of the enemy.

Almost all of this post describes your woes as a sniper in such a way as to make very clear you're only playing assault snipers (unsurprising since you are essentially a pure assault pilot), and the one sentence that describes brawl builds namechecks two one hundred ton IS mechs.

Exactly what portion of this is talking about you piloting a Scaleshot again?

Edited by foamyesque, 10 December 2024 - 09:42 PM.

[Bassault]

foamyesque, on 10 December 2024 - 09:40 PM, said:

Almost all of this post describes your woes as a sniper in such a way as to make very clear you're only playing assault snipers (unsurprising since you are essentially a pure assault pilot), and the one sentence that describes brawl builds namechecks two one hundred ton IS mechs.

Exactly what portion of this is talking about you piloting a Scaleshot again?

I misinterpreted. Heres what i can say about what you meant. There are very few long range mechs smaller than a stalker that can have a meaningful amount of DPS with er large and gauss. Most bad players who feed themselves to snipers are complaining about big turreted long range assault mechs that actually have a meaningful amount of guns

[foamyesque]

Bassault, on 10 December 2024 - 09:55 PM, said:

I misinterpreted. Heres what i can say about what you meant. There are very few long range mechs smaller than a stalker that can have a meaningful amount of DPS with er large and gauss. Most bad players who feed themselves to snipers are complaining about big turreted long range assault mechs that actually have a meaningful amount of guns

We're not talking about bad players. We're talking about you, a top percentile world-championship type, allegedly finding sniping difficult and frustrating and unrewarding because of a lack of mobility.

Now, me personally, I've seen the numbers you put up in assaults of various kinds, so I don't really buy the woe-is-me thing, but if you're serious about the 'I get picked to death by poptarts and lights and can't leave spawn without getting shredded' thinking there is an alternative. Means you need to give up some firepower, but firepower you can't use because you can't get into position isn't really doing much for you anyway, right?

Edited by foamyesque, 10 December 2024 - 10:06 PM.

[Bassault]

foamyesque, on 10 December 2024 - 10:05 PM, said:

We're not talking about bad players. We're talking about you, a top percentile world-championship type, allegedly finding sniping difficult and frustrating and unrewarding because of a lack of mobility.

Now, me personally, I've seen the numbers you put up in assaults of various kinds, so I don't really buy the woe-is-me thing, but if you're serious about the 'I get picked to death by poptarts and lights and can't leave spawn without getting shredded' thinking there is an alternative. Means you need to give up some firepower, but firepower you can't use because you can't get into position isn't really doing much for you anyway, right?

If I played a slow brawler I would be able to fight off the light/nascar hordes a lot easier, and I wouldn't be incentivized to stop ever because I would need to get closer by nascaring.

A player at my level could have even higher numbers if I played mechs that had more speed or stopped trying to play snipers. Although I have to admit some mid range assaults are very good nowadays, but sniping is just a dice-roll for a map/spawn that doesn't **** you over.

Edited by Bassault, 10 December 2024 - 11:15 PM.

[foamyesque]

Bassault, on 10 December 2024 - 11:13 PM, said:

A player at my level could have even higher numbers if I played mechs that had more speed

This is literally what I am suggesting you do on a mech with long range weapons, to address your complaint about getting got by fast machines and not being able to get into position in time.

Why is this raising your defenses? If you think you'll get better numbers by going faster -- i.e. disproving your own argument that you can't get 'meaningful DPS' on a mobile sniper -- why not do so?

You certainly'd be able to get more'n 500m from your spawn, at least.

Edited by foamyesque, 11 December 2024 - 12:08 AM.

[Void Angel]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 10 December 2024 - 03:57 PM, said:

Well it doesn't help that it can create a vicious feedback loop: team is timid giving up map control, enemy takes advantage of that and tightens the noose, team scrambles to hide even more, giving people uncontested angles/damage against either those that are actually trying to shoot or just those who are caught not hiding creating a snowball effect in a game already known for snowballing.

That positive feedback loop is a good part of why the game is known for snowballing. It's literally the same process as stage fright, and very hard to break people out of after it starts. You essentially have to get in some good licks in order to reduce the enemy's numbers and put them on the back foot in order to regain momentum.

But this is a thing in real battles, too. Most rounds fired in combat are fired to keep the enemy's head down; that's the real reason military rifles have the largest magazines that are practical for the weapon (and also part of why we've gone from the 30-06 Garand (7.62x51 NATO) to 5.56mm NATO in the US military.) People underestimate the psychological factors in any contest, and then sometimes turn around and blame "game balance" for behavioral issues...

[Bassault]

foamyesque, on 11 December 2024 - 12:05 AM, said:

This is literally what I am suggesting you do on a mech with long range weapons, to address your complaint about getting got by fast machines and not being able to get into position in time.

Why is this raising your defenses? If you think you'll get better numbers by going faster -- i.e. disproving your own argument that you can't get 'meaningful DPS' on a mobile sniper -- why not do so?

You certainly'd be able to get more'n 500m from your spawn, at least.

Because nobody is complaining about erppc thunderbolts or erppc cicadas. They're complaining about big snipers with actual DPS. I also didn't say I would get better numbers with a fast sniper, I would get better numbers with a faster mid range mech, which would then mean I'm not sniping.

Edited by Bassault, 11 December 2024 - 06:55 AM.

[Bassault]

You need to understand that in MWO the cost of sniping requires a lot of tonnage. Yes you could run a handful of erlarge on a smaller mech but that's extremely useless in the vast majority of QP applications that you would be gambling on getting alpine peaks to have a chance of being useful. Er larges require many heatsinks to be able to fire enough times to make a difference, and that requires tonnage. Brawlers and other mechs with way more damage per tonnage could mindlessly throw themselves at you and you would be helpless, or they will kill your team while you can't do enough damage to stop them. This is why the biggest baddest ER Large + gauss assaults are required, they can meet the DPS requirement for being able to kill most things before they get near while sniping. Gauss is another gateway of entry for long range small mechs. Gauss is super valuable for sniping because it's DPS is high and it gives you a high upfront alpha. It also lets you defend yourself in closer ranges and kill light mechs with a well placed shot. You need two gauss to be very effective but two gauss alone is very bad. Anything smaller than a night gyr cannot really run two gauss and multiple erlarges effectively.

The cauldron has repeated nerfed the **** out of er large and clan doubleheatsinks to the point where the DPS of these mechs is lower than it has been previously, so they can no longer stand their ground at the pugs encourged to gamble their lives with a mindless push. This is compounded by the fact that lights, meds, and all manner of bigger brawler mechs have immense quirks and agility buffs throughout the years so they are stronger than ever.

The only alternative to big-tonnage sniping is skirmishing, which is effective, takes skill, and to an extent we should all approve of. This is mechs that have low DPS but can fire safe shots and run away easily. PPC poptarters basically. But I'm sure the intent of this post and the stereotype of the "sniper haters" is not necessarily the blistering firepower of 2 erppcs, it's them complaining about big snipers that are sitting in one spot waiting for food to walk into the open.

I'm not going to argue if it's a good thing that brawlers are super strong and snipers have been repeatedly nerfed over the years. I think you can all assume my opinion on that. I just want you to realize how good brawlers have it now compared to the past. Brawlers are great right now, but mostly when they can also trade. That means big alphas at close range so they can poke, but also they aren't afraid to hold W into someone if they have to. Hellspawn with srms, snub ac20 atlases, snub only assaults/heavies, things like that.

Edited by Bassault, 11 December 2024 - 06:47 AM.

[foamyesque]

Bassault, on 11 December 2024 - 06:15 AM, said:

Because nobody is complaining about erppc thunderbolts or erppc cicadas.

You are complaining about sniping feeling bad because you can't move anywhere, but also you'll do better in a faster mech, but also you aren't actually talking about doing better in a faster sniper mech because you'd have to give up weapons and you think you need all those guns to do anything, except you say you die before you can use them because the mech is too slow, but you're also a top-level player who routinely puts up a thousand damage.

ok

Edited by foamyesque, 11 December 2024 - 08:30 AM.

[Bassault]

foamyesque, on 11 December 2024 - 08:26 AM, said:

You are complaining about sniping feeling bad because you can't move anywhere, but also you'll do better in a faster mech, but also you aren't actually talking about doing better in a faster sniper mech because you'd have to give up weapons and you think you need all those guns to do anything, except you say you die before you can use them because the mech is too slow, but you're also a top-level player who routinely puts up a thousand damage.

ok

It's not just not being able to move anywhere but it's not being able to adequately defend myself. I said before if I was a snub anni left behind in the NASCAR I could probably survive a lot easier since I'd just clobber anyone who ****** with me. If you're fast you can almost always decide when to fight or not. When you're slow you can't always decide when to fight. Therefor, when you are slow you must be able to win hard in a straight up fight because often you will be foisted upon by mechs that want to fight.
Yes you're starting to understand. If I try to snipe with adequate firepower I'm too slow to escape the nascar death squads and although I have good DPS, it isnt sufficient for this many mechs at closer ranges. If I try to snipe in a faster mech that still isn't skirmishing it just kinda sucks. Therefor if I don't want to play skirmishes or snipe, have to play mid range assaults or heavies, which usually have more dps and/or more speed so they can defend themselves in a ****** situation more easily or they can follow the nascar easier.

Anyway the whole point of my post talking about how **** sniping is in QP is to point out that it's harder than brawling, and the people who say brawling sucks often cite the "sniper meta" which is detached from reality.

Edited by Bassault, 11 December 2024 - 01:17 PM.

[Void Angel]

Bassault, on 11 December 2024 - 01:15 PM, said:

Anyway the whole point of my post talking about how **** sniping is in QP is to point out that it's harder than brawling, and the people who say brawling sucks often cite the "sniper meta" which is detached from reality.

Some of that perception comes out of the shift from 8v8 to 12v12. The larger teams mean that when you expose yourself now, particularly if you screw up, there's more firepower available to punish you for it. This can feed into a self-reinforcing cycle of learned helplessness where players become more hesitant to peek or maneuver, then make more bad plays because they're not getting practice in exposing, then become more hesitant to expose, etc. Add the negative reinforcement of getting sniped from long range, and popular mythology becomes increasingly detached from actual mechanics - and not just with sniper builds.

It's like Shamans in vanilla WoW, but I digress. =]