58 replies to this topic

[TheMagician]

Tune into RHOD's podcast episode #4 for a discussion by Steel Jaguar's Runz & TheMagician, and Wolf Spider's Warlock & Cutter, on topics including how the Cataphract affects competitive play, upcoming inclusion of cammo, and how map changes affect strategies. The podcast is currently available via TwitchTV (www.twitch.tv/runhotordie), and youtube:




We are currently working to get RHOD on iTunes. But in the mean time you can add our feed to iTunes, or any other podcast application: http://www.runhotord...me=1&format=raw

[Glory in the Highest]

Bit of a different direction than the previous RHOD casts, getting into our main intention: talking about the competitive side of the game, and the things which affect it. (And some other stuff when it comes up, you know...)

Sorry about the echo in the first half of the cast, it was noticed and fixed later on.

Edited by Glory, 25 November 2012 - 05:51 PM.

[Lefty Lucy]

Listening to the first 5 minutes, you guys have some pretty glaring errors.

The CTF has more armor than the cat. The CTFs side torsos have more armor than the CAT's side torsos. The difference is that the side torsos are actually possible to aim for.

[TheMagician]

The comment about the Cataphract was that its survivability is lower. As for the side torso armor, I couldn't say. I haven't checked, but I'm sure Cutter will comment if he sees this. The Cataphract's side torsos are harder to hit than the Catapult's though (not sure if this is what you were saying).

[Kaldor]

TheMagician, on 25 November 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

The comment about the Cataphract was that its survivability is lower. As for the side torso armor, I couldn't say. I haven't checked, but I'm sure Cutter will comment if he sees this. The Cataphract's side torsos are harder to hit than the Catapult's though (not sure if this is what you were saying).

Are we playing the same game? From a straight on shot the Cat is a ***** to hit the side torsos. The Phract is a wide mech, so hitting side torsos is the same as every other mech built like this. From the side, the Cat is pretty easy to hit the side torso, but the Phract has the advantage of arms, so better protection from side shots.

Also, unless MWO Mechlab is incorrect, the armor differences between the 2 mechs is pretty minimal. 88 CT for Phract, 84 CT for Cat. Side torsos are exact at 60 max.

[TheMagician]

In my experience, the Cataphract's side torsos are harder to hit than the Catapults. Partly because the CT is just so easy to hit on it. Which is why it dies quickly.

[Lefty Lucy]

Kaldor, on 25 November 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

Are we playing the same game? From a straight on shot the Cat is a ***** to hit the side torsos. The Phract is a wide mech, so hitting side torsos is the same as every other mech built like this. From the side, the Cat is pretty easy to hit the side torso, but the Phract has the advantage of arms, so better protection from side shots.

Also, unless MWO Mechlab is incorrect, the armor differences between the 2 mechs is pretty minimal. 88 CT for Phract, 84 CT for Cat. Side torsos are exact at 60 max.

Armor max should be similar as they're only 5 tons apart. It looks like I was incorrect about the CTF having more side torso armor though. As you note, the CTF has side torsos that are easier to hit from the front, and the CAT has side torsos that are easier to hit from the side. Neither mech has side torsos that are as vulnerable as a HBK or Atlas though.

[Glory in the Highest]

Again a reminder, this cast is from the competitive perspective. That means there's a holistic view taken on the game.

While the spreadsheets may say the Cataphract technically has more total armor, and the 'Mech profiles say the Cataphract's sides should be a lot easier to hit than the Catapult's but this doesn't tend to be the case in practice. The Cataphract dies to direct CT hits as much as or more than a Catapult. And, frankly, I find Cataphracts die like flies while Catapults currently take much more of a beating. As Magician said, that's due to the massive CT on the Cataphract that attracts fire like a magnet.

Edited by Glory, 25 November 2012 - 06:50 PM.

[Wolf Ender]

i agree withe the guys on the podcast, I have noticed that (even if the phract has more armor) somehow they made it really easy to kill, in all the games i've been playing i just notice the cataphracts just go down easy.

they are very dangerous but they're fragile too. some people like that, and as cutter mentioned some individual pilots who have played in the phract love it and swear by it

but i think the general point they were making on the podcast is that the catapult K2 as a sniper platform is just all around more balanced in terms of speed, power, protection and precision. all around its a better platform when you fit it into the team equation.

i agree with this entirely. there will always been individuals who make a particular mech work for them, but overall in a general sense and as a well balanced sniper platform as part of a team that works well together... the K2'pult gausscat is a more reliable and consistent sniper mech.

[ciller]

The podcast does bring up a good point, where is all the money going? 4 maps? That's it? No night and day cycle, no night vision, etc etc etc. There seems to be a vast chasm between the money pgi has made compared to what we are really getting out of it. IGP please don't ruin PGI.

[TheMagician]

ciller, on 25 November 2012 - 07:07 PM, said:

The podcast does bring up a good point, where is all the money going? 4 maps? That's it? No night and day cycle, no night vision, etc etc etc. There seems to be a vast chasm between the money pgi has made compared to what we are really getting out of it. IGP please don't ruin PGI.

I'm sure its reasonable and within normal game dev. Its just, as a fan, sounds/feels strange to think of those numbers compared to the product we have thus far. Due to Kickstarter, we start to get a sense of what certain games are expected to cost to make (which we don't really know if its accurate or not). However, I have a feeling that there's a lot more content mostly completed than we see so far, thus its just waiting for quality control, or, as I mentioned, perhaps they have developed a lot of the assets they'll need for the clan invasion. But even then with 40 developers, you are looking at salaries of probably over 3 million alone for a year of development (since it includes salaries, and other things such as insurance), then you include office space, servers, hardware, licensing costs, and who knows what else, and the numbers start to feel a bit more reasonable. That being said, it doesn't feel like a 10 million dollar game yet.

[Nikoliy]

Wow... sry but you have some idiots their. Get rid of the Wolf Spider guys, they just seam to be talking out of their ***... The dragon over the Cataphract?!? lol... Animation for the Cataphract, really didn't notice the moon walking?

Ill check on you guys a few episodes later. GL

[Taizan]

So I watched the whole thing and after the echo-ing thing got fixed, you guys somehow all had different volumes, maybe this could somehow be normalized :-D

I am completely confused about the camo thing now and how it works with cbills/MCs etc. and am also a bit iffy about it. I really enjoyed the idea of a day/night cycle/weather variation for the 4 (!!!) maps we have.

[Lefty Lucy]

Glory, on 25 November 2012 - 06:50 PM, said:

Again a reminder, this cast is from the competitive perspective. That means there's a holistic view taken on the game.

This game does not yet have a competitive scene to provide a competitive perspective. There has been one tournament? That tournament was also well before some major updates to available tech and mechs. When the 4th hits, we'll hopefully be seeing some real competition.

[Runz]

Hey good morning guys, thanks to everyone who has watched and commented so far; we really appreciate you guys taking the time to give us some feedback

I'm glad you guys didn't find the echo too distracting; hopefully we shouldn't get that anymore no we found the problem.

@Taizan I'll see what I can do about normalising the volume levels; the livestream is done via a combination of xsplit and skype which can be a little inefficient when trying to provide content like this. I'll have a look at the problem this week and see if we can get it resolved. As for the camo costs first let me say that no costs have been finalised as yet but it is slated to cost a small amount of MC to purchase visual customisation for your mech (between 250 to 750 according to current screenshots), The crux of the problem we were trying to highlight is that purchased customisation is not permanent; you have to buy customisation for individual mechs not just for chassis. On top of that if you buy a new 'skin' you completely lose your old design which is going to limit people's willingness to experiment if its costing them MC everytime they want to try out a new look. Bryan's post on the visual customisation is over here -----> http://mwomercs.com/...zation-phase-1/

@Kaldor it's no so much about the armour value of the Cataphract, its the vulnerability of the side torsos compared to the gaussapult. It has a broader front making the side a much easier target to hit in most brawls or long range snipe match compared to the Gaussapult, You also make the point that the arms provide protection to the Cataphract's sides - great except for the fact that you're mounting your main armament in the arms. Whilst the Cataphract can, individually, be a good mech to play in PuG matches, from a team perspective it is just plain inferior to the Gaussapult in that sniper role and much easier to kill because its easy to target down those big side torsos. The Cataphract pilot is then left with a choice, risk dying to easy side torso kills due to XL engine or possibly even ammo explosions if you don't have CASE, or don't take the XL which again makes you inferior to the K2.

@Lefty Lucy I can assure you the game has a thriving competitive scene, just because it is not 'officially supported' as yet does not mean it doesn't exist. There are currently tons of competitive based teams regularly scrimming against other teams. The Run Hot or Die League currently has 40 competitive teams lined up for Season One on the North America Division and 13 teams signed up for the EU Division (http://www.runhotord...-as-of-10-12-12). I understand where you're coming from, yes competitive matches have stopped due to the matchmaking and everyone is eagerly awaiting Phase 2 (particularly us so we can start the league again), but to say there is no competitive scene to provide a competitive perspective is wrong; there are lots of teams doing regular practice (usually 3+ nights a week) and as such they have considerable insight. Will that perspective change come Phase 2? Of course it will, but at the same time that perspective will probably change every single patch we get. Also ty for fact checking and reddressing your own post (although editing your first post so it wasn't the first thing people saw when its wrong would be appreciated rofl), I've already covered the Cataphract so I won't go into all that again. I agree the side torso is not a vulnerable as perhaps the Atlas or the Hunchback but we were looking at some of the specific roles the Cataphract is used in and with the twin Gauss sniper role it can be strongly argued that it is inferior to the Catapult K2 for that role in competitive matches.

@Wolf Ender As always you seem to be on exactly the same page as us; in the sense of a sniper platform the K2 is just plain more reliable than the CTF. Thanks for your comments dude ^^

@Ciller I think you're right that there is concern about the supposed amount of money spent compared to what we currently have in game. Now I know game development is expensive, especially when you're using other people's game engines etc, but for that amount of money spent you *should* have a lot more in the game. More is coming, we know that and that's great but there seems to be a tendency for PGI to go off on tangents (3rd person view) rather than sticking to their core design brief and a prioritisation of revenue generating content (visual customisation) over long standing issues that need to be resolved (problems with those for duo cores, the disconnects/crashes to desktop, matchmaking etc etc).

I know it sounds like we dig on PGI a lot, it's only because we love them and want to see them and MWO succeed, we're passionate fans and as such we can't help but raise the alarm when we see PGI appear to veer off course. However, we try to stick to concerns that are expressed by the majority of the community rather than our own pet peeves and we try to make our criticism constructive.

@Nikoliy There may well be (as in definitely is) some remaining animation or model issues with the Cataphract such as some moonwalking but the point expressed was that overall this was a far smoother introduction of a new mech than just about any other since the original four. Give credit where credit is due PGI has done better with this mech and both the model and the animations are pretty well polished - I have seen far worse in released AAA titles (see just about any Bethesda game ever). As for the Dragon over the Cataphract - well that's a choice for WSB and their playstyle but I think the point CutterWolf was making was that in a competitive match the CTF is just doesn't excel in any field particularly well and for that reason he would take the reliability of a Dragon instead. Currently SJR takes neither Cataphracts nor Dragons as competitive team mechs. It is worth noting that you may play a CTF in a PuG match far better than you play a DRG; in fact there are a load of customised mech options that play really well in a PuG environment which are totally useless in competitive play (it's one of the most common issues we have when accepting former solo players into teams) so I would ask you to bear that in mind. To dismiss WSB's use or none use of certain mechs is wrong as you are not aware at all of how their team tactics play out which is very different from the PuG game you currently play.

Wow what a reply lol, hope I didn't miss anyone out and I've answered any questions you guys have had.

Thank you for continuing to support the show, the response and the amount of feedback we've had so far has been great. We're still working on improving things and as such I hope you will see the overall quality of things improve as we work out the kinks and bugs ^^

Runz

PS reference bugs in released games...



I think we can cut PGI some slack on the Cataphract, overall I stand by my call that the overall model and animation quality is damn good all things considered.

Edited by Runz, 26 November 2012 - 06:14 AM.

[Milkshaker]

You guys complain a lot.. I havent watched the whole podcast, so maybe it changed after I dropped out.

In general, it seemed like a very negative podcast, which is fine, but I feel that the game has a lot going for it, also for competitive play. Maybe talks about team tactics, general tips and perhaps in the future tournament reports or viewing and discussing lance tactics (even if the group is half PUG), would be much more valuable than all the complaints, which are already voiced thoroughly on the forums

Good luck with your show guys!

[Runz]

Hey Milkshaker, thanks for your feedback

I wouldn't say we complain so much as try to highlight various issues affecting the community and the competitive game. For example talking about the CTF, we're not slamming it. It's a fun mech to play, it looks great and feels suitably weighty but in the context of our discussion in terms of taking it as a competitive mech it just does not weigh up as well as other mechs, particularly the K2 when it comes to gauss sniping. We were also very critical of the current pricing structure and the costs of non-permanent visual customisation because it is a big and emotive issue - PGI needs to get it right in order for MWO to be a success.

We do talk about the map changes which most of us were very positive about (although as with any panel type discussion you're going to get differing points of view which is what we want - we want disagreement and different perspectives).

Tournament reports and shoutcasts are planned for the future as soon as we get Phase 2 and the RHOD league up and running again but sadly not much we can do about that just yet. I like the idea about discussing team tactics and it's definitely something we're going to look at further ^^

[TheMagician]

Milkshaker: What you'll often hear from us is that while we love the game, there are issues that we fear will keep the game from thriving. Understand, that one of our major concerns is the new user experience. The people who love the game, such as ourselves, will play through thick and thin, but we want PGI to succeed, we want MechWarrior to succeed. I think we all get frustrated at various things, and as leaders of teams, we know how what PGI does affects our players. When they changed netcode a few patches back, the hit recognition severely decreased, and some of our more distant players (such as Aussie) had issues beyond what most of us experienced. As avid gamers, we recognize that if we tried out a game, and got the 'yellow HUD' bug, or DC'ed, in one of our first few matches, that we wouldn't necessarily stay. Of course, PGI knows this.

Certainly, we could talk more about all the great things, and trust me, this will be happening soon, as we re-enter the competitive season in a couple weeks. So look forward to upcoming episodes, where we will break down the previous week's results, discuss upcoming key matchups, discuss tactics/strategies that are working, interviewing team leaders, and more.

[Kaldor]

Runz


You raise some good points but I will be willing to be that we will be seeing a K2 nerf in the form of build limitations on certain slots. Id also be willing to bet that with the upcoming weapon changes, gauss are going to take a hit in general. Making them more fragile, and a possible increase on cycle time. AC buffs are going to bring them back into play. This overall is great for diversity. When there is no other reason to run any other ballistic weapon, there is a balance issue. To the devs credit, they are addressing this.

As far as Cat vs. Phract, sorry man, I will take a Phract over a K2 anytime. A good light pilot and even a Hunchy or Cent at 90 kph will chew up a K2 in pretty short order. The Phract has the advantage of arm mounted weapons, which is huge in a range of motion battle. Not to mention from the side the Cat in general is very vulnerable in the side and front torso.

[Runz]

Hey Kaldor,

Well that's thing isn't it; nearly everyone has a different opinion on good mech builds and what is viable in terms of a competitive team build. Neither SJR nor WSB run CTFs at the moment but that's not to say we're right and everyone else is wrong (or indeed vice versa) the idea of raising it in the podcast is to open it up to discussion for the community and we love seeing your responses on these threads. If we're promoting some discussing, whether that is disagreeing or agreeing with us, we're doing our job right. The podcast isn't just a head nodding exercise where we can all sit around smoking pipes, drinking cognac and expressing how knowledgeable we are rofl - we want to hear your opinions on the things we talk about!

Thank you so much for your comments though it's exactly what we want to see. I will still maintain that in terms of the competitive team drop decs then the K2 remains a more reliable gauss sniper and really good teamplay will prevent the harassment from light of fast hunchy mechs (if you're letting your support mechs get chewed up at the back well unless you have a serious plan you're doing it wrong lol). Again different teams and different pilots are going to have differing views on this and something we're really looking forward to is shoutcasting and highlight different team tactics once the RHOD League starts (come on Phase 2 matchmaking ^^ ).

In terms of changes to the gauss recycle times and fragility - I believe increased fragility has already been introduced and doesn't really seem to have changed a lot. Don't think increased recycle time has been mentioned yet but imo it's needed. But regardless those are changes that may or may not come in the future which ofc will change the competitive scene but we're very much analysing what we're seeing in the game right now - every patch is going to change the game to some degree but we can't run mechs inefficiently now because something might change next patch, instead we wait for the patch and change our mechs appropriately then if you catch my drift ^^

Edited by Runz, 26 November 2012 - 07:18 AM.