39 replies to this topic

[Geminus]

I've been reading the Posts for awile now. I've been a life long battletech/mechwarrior player.
For the life of me I can not understand this Min/Max plauge that is spreading through the players.
What are you talking about?
Battle tech is a team game, with roles to be filled.

If a team encounters a Mech which is devoted to Long range missle support, Its a "missle boat", and now lets whine becuase he is "min/maxing" and it's not fair.
if a light mech is fast as hell, and has all small lasers, he is "min/maxing" Thats not fair.
If an assault mech is all direct fire laser weapons, with no missles, or ballistics, than thats min/maxing, and thats not fair.

Dig this cats and kittens, The light mechs job is to be a scout, to identify targets, and perform hit and runs. That means its going to have to be fast to survive. If its slow, its dead. If it has slow cycling weapons, its inefecitive.

That LRM support mech, has a job to do, support you while you slugging it out toe to toe, or scouting. Without the other mechs to target, it cant function well.

That atlas's job is to get in your face, and blast you to scrap.

This is not min/maxing. This is called tactics.
That LRM support mech will get shreaded if you close the distance.
The Light mech will be reduced to rubble when you can land your hits.
That atlas can be brought down from behind my a medium, or light.

There is no super mech. There is no mech that is going to step onto the field, with LRMs, SRMs a Large laser, a Medium laser, a Flamer, a Gauss, An AC-5, and fill every role.
The point is to speciallize.

If you specilize in long range, the price is weak at short. if your energy heavy, the price is overheating.
ballistics run out of ammo. The price of being as fast as you can be is that your weakly armored.

So please, can we please stop the battle cry of the "min/max", the "its not fair", the "spaming lasers".

Iinvite you to post the specs on your Fair, un min/maxed mech, that can do it all, and do it all well, and is "fair".

Conversly lets adress this. lets knock it out. You post the "un fair" mech. We'll pinpoint its weakness and drawbacks for you so that the rest of us don't have to suffer another post about how every mech but the one your in is not fair.

It's a team game. Pick a role, learn it. Support your team. Communicate.

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 04:48 AM.

[Ilfi]

Mmm... I have a feeling Medium Laser Awesomes will be more popular than the proper PPC version.

That's the nature of the game, though, so I don't particularly mind.

[Alymbic]

Not sure if your in the right forums or not pal.

[Geminus]

Please, direct me to the proper one.

[Outrider01]

Depends on min/max...like say direct fire energy weapons in an assault mech loaded with heat sinks, basicly letting him alpha blast the opposing mechs with no thought to ammo loss and he knows he will barely over heat yet the opposing mechs just wither under his firepower....yeah that is an issue that needs to be resolved more so the a fast annoying light mech, a support boat loaded with LRM ammo, or a monsterous Atlas comming at you with a mixed bag of weapons. See, min/maxing without repercussions I hate like an energy boat that will almost never over heat without fear of ammo loss more so then a catapult that is filling the support role but has the consequences of being unable to defend its self at short range or it will run out of ammo before it can fulfill its role without reaching empty in 60 seconds, the light mech that cannot really scratch a heavy or assault except to paper cut a thousand times, or the lumbering assault mech that cannot get to position should he be left alone....they have a weakness, the energy alpha boat has close to zero because the player has removed and/or reduced the weakness.

[Ghogiel]

You seem to want to suggest that min/maxing doesn't exist but then go on to pretty much say everyone should at least consider doing it because that is the best way to get ahead.

[Geminus]

One, that is the assault mechs job. To wither you under its firepower. The trade is its so slow. Aim, hit its head. Run behind it, hit its back.

This week I have an awesome. It has 7 Med lasers. I can not alpha strike you wihtout reprocusion. I will overheat.
I aim, I pace my shots.

From table top days till now, my primary mechs were all energy. I do not like ammo. If I specilaity build, like a sniper type mech, than i go with ammo weapons. Or LRM support.

Its NEVER with out reprocussion. This is what i'm talking about. For everything there is a trade off.

this is why I say, post the mech. Post the build that will aplha strike you with lasers without ever overheating.

I can shoot forever with 4 medium lasers and never overheat. But what damage am I doing? Or, I can put in 2 Large, 4 medium, do more damage, and CONTROL MY FIRE.

If you make that monster of a mech, that has the hardpoints, that has 7 lasers, like mine, than there all small or medium. But I cant mount the heat sinks to shoot forever without having the speed of a building. Thats the trade off. I like to move. So I have a good speed, and I will still overheat.
I can trade the speed, shoot longer, but then that medium or light walks behind me and my advantage is nulified.

So post the mech. Post the mech that you speak of that can fre forever, with effective damage, and not overheat. I promise you it is paying for it in other ways.

It's a team game. Pick a role, learn it. Support your team. Communicate

[Geminus]

Ghogiel, on 04 August 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

You seem to want to suggest that min/maxing doesn't exist but then go on to pretty much say everyone should at least consider doing it because that is the best way to get ahead.

A sniper rilfe is a sniper rifle because it has the highest accuracy it can have. It has superior range. It posseses optics to see beyond the human eye and deliver a precise shot.
The trade off is, its heavy, its hard to engage targets at close range, It is slow for follow up shot.
At range the sniper is king. up close, the assault rilfe will end him.

We should call the worlds armys and tell them to stop fielding snipers, there min/maxing.

What im saying is, if I build a LRM support mech, My stregth is distance engagments. I will not build it wihtout adding weapons to defend myself. That said, up close I am very vulnrable. Thats my choice for that mech. Its my choice to play that ROLE. The role of LONG RANGE SUPPORT.
How effective at my LRM role will I bee with 2 LRM 5s, 4 tons of ammo, and the rest close range weapons? I would suck at it.

People are complaining that the game will become the dreaded arms race to the assault mech, but then complain when the light mechs posses the ability to run behind their assault mech and take it out from behind.

Players complain when they start getting "spamed" with missles from theat heavey with neverending missle reserves. That heavy is using that light to target you.

If i start taking missle hits, i seak cover. I close the distance, i use my streaghts agaist his weaknesses.
People complain about the Min/Max because its not fair, its not ballanced. Well your min, is someone elses max, and thats the balance.

The more you choose to MAX something, the bigger your advangte is in that ONE area. The bigger youo MAX, something, the more exagerated your MIN becomes. You chose to rock that max armor, and super firepower, you chose to be slow and have heat and or ammo problems. Dont curse that mech, evaluate it, and exploit the HUGE weakness it built into its self. It all balances its self out. It's not your mech against the world.

It's a team game. Pick a role, learn it. Support your team. Communicate

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 05:46 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Geminus, on 04 August 2012 - 05:41 AM, said:

If i start taking missle hits, i seak cover. I close the distance, i use my streaghts agaist his weaknesses.

What is your secret sauce, which is it, do you take cover or close the distance?

[Geminus]

The only time there is a valid complaint for "min/max" Is when (ill keep this in mech warrior terms) one player takes say, all Large lasers, and the heat sinks to fire them to infitity. And now that player is unstoppable, unless the other players are forced to take the same thing, or else. they cant compete.

That is a MIN/MAX complaint. It unbalances the gameplay.

Well, the laser heavy mechs are complaing that that the missle mechs are min maxing.
The missle mechs are complaing that the the laser mechs are min maxing.
slows are saying fasts are minmaxing.
Fast are saying slows are minmaxing.

But each can take the other out. ITs balanced.
This min max complaing is whining.

Oh god, the Atlas will rule the battlefield, its unstopable. But lets complain about the the "lasser boating" on the light mech because it can kill that atals by playing his stregths agaisnt the atlas's weakness. Speed.

Thats why i say, the illiusion if min max. Its not there. Its not causing unbalance, It is the balance.

[Geminus]

Ghogiel, on 04 August 2012 - 05:51 AM, said:

What is your secret sauce, which is it, do you take cover or close the distance?

Secret sauce?
Asile 4, its called: Tacticle thinking and the abiltity to read youor situation and adapt.

Oh no! missle hits from behind cover and outside my weapons range!
Step one. I will seek cover behind this building, causing follow up missles to strike said building.
Step two. Look out my cockpit window, or use map and spot next hill or building. Move to the cover of that building. Repeat until in weapons range of missle mech.

Or,

Oh No! missle hits from the catapult 500 meters in front of me on that hill.
Step one. Charge at full speed to inside 180 meters (to close for LRMs to exploade)
Step two. Fire my weapons.

It's a team game. Pick a role, learn it. Support your team. Communicate

So you also have the option of typing on team chat, to those other things that look like you and are not shooting at you,

Taking missle hits, Anyone see where he is?

Light mech goes and gets target lock, your missle suport returns fire.

thontor, on 04 August 2012 - 05:54 AM, said:

perhaps one of the BETA forums?

Theres not an issiue with the beta.
I'm starting a dialog about the a demographic of the comunity and what they perceive min max to be.

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[errmoop0]

Ghogiel, on 04 August 2012 - 05:51 AM, said:

What is your secret sauce, which is it, do you take cover or close the distance?

What he is probably implying, is that he seeks cover, waits for the enemy to lose it's lock-on, and closes the distance while he has a chance to move. If you think about the scenario taking place, it's not that hard to believe. You should try it.

[Geminus]

errmoop0, on 04 August 2012 - 06:06 AM, said:

What he is probably implying, is that he seeks cover, waits for the enemy to lose it's lock-on, and closes the distance while he has a chance to move. If you think about the scenario taking place, it's not that hard to believe. You should try it.

THANK YOU.

You sir sound like a team player who has picked a role, learned his role and comunicates with his team.

Also, even if there is still a lock, if you hug a hill or building closely, and it is tall enough, some or all missles will strike the cover.

We part friends.

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 06:10 AM.

[errmoop0]

Geminus, on 04 August 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

Secret sauce?
Asile 4, its called: Tacticle thinking and the abiltity to read youor situation and adapt.

Oh no! missle hits from behind cover and outside my weapons range!
Step one. I will seek cover behind this building, causing follow up missles to strike said building.
Step two. Look out my cockpit window, or use map and spot next hill or building. Move to the cover of that building. Repeat until in weapons range of missle mech.

Or,

Oh No! missle hits from the catapult 500 meters in front of me on that hill.
Step one. Charhe at full speed to inside 180 meters (to close for LRMs to exploade)
Step two. Fire my weapons.

It's a team game. Pick a role, learn it. Support your team. Communicate

So you also have the option of typing on team chat, to those other things that look like you and are not shooting at you,

Taking missle hits, Anyone see where he is?

Light mech goes and gets target lock, your missle suport returns fire.

'Nuff said.

[Incunabulum]

Outrider01, on 04 August 2012 - 05:01 AM, said:

See, min/maxing without repercussions I hate like an energy boat that will almost never over heat without fear of ammo loss more so then a catapult that is filling the support role but has the consequences of being unable to defend its self at short range or it will run out of ammo before it can fulfill its role without reaching empty in 60 seconds, the light mech that cannot really scratch a heavy or assault except to paper cut a thousand times, or the lumbering assault mech that cannot get to position should he be left alone....they have a weakness, the energy alpha boat has close to zero because the player has removed and/or reduced the weakness.

If your energy boat can constantly alpha then he's not min-maxed - he has a good mix ofwepons and heat dissapation but sacrifices instant firepower for being able to fire more often.

There *are* always consequences to your loadout choices - a real energy boat may have alpha'd his target into oblivion but he's now effectively unarmed and vulnerable to heat attacks for a short while. His vulnerabilties are redcuced or removed when he's part of a team, runs his role, and is properly supported.

In "real" warfare almost all vehicles are heavily specialized for a single role - look at tanks for example. Pretty much nothing beats a tank for destroying other tanks but they sacrifice fire-power in the anti-infantry and anti-air roles while air defense vehicles will chew up the skies and go down to a single well thrown grenade.

IMO most of the PnP designs are crap since they tend to put a bunch of different weapon systems with different characteristics on a mech so it has a little fire power in the L/M/S ranges but can rarely concentrate its fire.

[Incunabulum]

Geminus, on 04 August 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

The only time there is a valid complaint for "min/max" Is when (ill keep this in mech warrior terms) one player takes say, all Large lasers, and the heat sinks to fire them to infitity. And now that player is unstoppable, unless the other players are forced to take the same thing, or else. they cant compete.

That's not min-maxing - What you are describing is a tank. And there are still counters to it, most probably he's either slow or has crap for armor, send in a scout as bait and then gang up on him.

[Geminus]

Incunabulum,

That was poetry

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 06:26 AM.

[Steven Dixon]

Personally I see min/maxing as rather different from specialization. Specialization is when you create a missle boat for long range support or a fast mech for recon, ect. These are defiantly part of the game and while I've heard some complaints about this I don't really think that's what people are afraid of. Min/maxing is when a weapon, configuration and/or mech has a slight advantage and so players will exclusively use it. This can make the game seem less diverse and it has the potential to make people that don't use that 'optimal build' seem like they're playing the game wrong.

For example (note this is a completely made up example and has absolutely nothing to do with the state of the game) if AC/10s offered a slightly increased DPS than any other weapon and were plain better then it would be rather foolish not to use one. And lets say that the Stalker-Q6 has a bunch of ballistic slots and other features that gives it an advantage, then you might have the potential to mostly see Stalkers with AC/10s, in fact min/maxers will probably find the optimal engine, heat sinks, armor, ect which people will just copy and paste.

Now having said that I have no real fear of this happening in the game. The hard-point system helps minimize extreme min/maxing as do other features of the game. In addition tactics and coordination (as the OP was talking about) will usually destroy a bunch of min/maxed solo players. Min/maxing will be part of the game because many people want to get the most out of their mech that they can and to a lot of people (including myself) it can be fun to figure out a build that offers a 1% increase in DPS (I'm using DPS as just 1 metric, a true min/maxer will work on many metrics though). We will just have to wait until release to see what happens, but I feel good about it.

[Geminus]

Steven Dixon, on 04 August 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

Personally I see min/maxing as rather different from specialization. Specialization is when you create a missle boat for long range support or a fast mech for recon, ect. These are defiantly part of the game and while I've heard some complaints about this I don't really think that's what people are afraid of. Min/maxing is when a weapon, configuration and/or mech has a slight advantage and so players will exclusively use it. This can make the game seem less diverse and it has the potential to make people that don't use that 'optimal build' seem like they're playing the game wrong.

For example (note this is a completely made up example and has absolutely nothing to do with the state of the game) if AC/10s offered a slightly increased DPS than any other weapon and were plain better then it would be rather foolish not to use one. And lets say that the Stalker-Q6 has a bunch of ballistic slots and other features that gives it an advantage, then you might have the potential to mostly see Stalkers with AC/10s, in fact min/maxers will probably find the optimal engine, heat sinks, armor, ect which people will just copy and paste.

Now having said that I have no real fear of this happening in the game. The hard-point system helps minimize extreme min/maxing as do other features of the game. In addition tactics and coordination (as the OP was talking about) will usually destroy a bunch of min/maxed solo players. Min/maxing will be part of the game because many people want to get the most out of their mech that they can and to a lot of people (including myself) it can be fun to figure out a build that offers a 1% increase in DPS (I'm using DPS as just 1 metric, a true min/maxer will work on many metrics though). We will just have to wait until release to see what happens, but I feel good about it.

Well put. Yes. Min max is when it ruins gameplay because you are forced to use it because everyone else is.
Specilization is not. Its a role.

I felt the need to start this because there are just so many topics in forum and people on the in game chat calling the specilization min maxing and calling to the devs for a change. Mechwarrior is Battletech. And battletech had been around for many many a year with the mechs, weights, and weapons values staying the same.
I think by now, out of all the game plays issiues that need to be worked out, that one is not it.

I akin that to playing a five on five game of rock paper scissor, and complaing that everone on the other team took rock and whooped all your scissors.

Just take paper! Or at least another rock!

If the other team is all rocks, and you have rocks and papers and scissors, then you have a team, and their going down.

Edited by Geminus, 04 August 2012 - 06:35 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Geminus, on 04 August 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

Secret sauce?
Asile 4, its called: Tacticle thinking and the abiltity to read youor situation and adapt.

That's not secret sausage, or having anything to do with min/maxing, That's just playing the game> getting shot at, duck. Have short range weapons, get close and point blank sloodge all your warm green glowy streams of love on their faces. Have LRM, stand the **** back and drop the kids off to play in the park.

'Min/maxing' is probably more advantageous than not imo. It's just not an illusion, complaining about it itself or complaining that people are complaining about min/maxing seems.. humm

Edited by Ghogiel, 04 August 2012 - 06:35 AM.