425 replies to this topic

[Sifright]

EyeOne, on 03 December 2012 - 07:33 AM, said:

Oh dang, no one told me. I guess all those kills I got with it don't count.

You can get kills with any mech with how terrible most pug players are.

That you can get kills with something that is objectively terrible doesn't mean the mech is viable. IT just means you were playing against scrubs.

[cmopatrick]

it will be interesting to see how the "Trial by Fire" bit works out. imo, trials are really only balanced against themselves.

and yes, i played my other persona completely from scratch. if you do not have all day for several days to play and you refuse to waste money for a commando, then you suffer a long time in them (took me a week to get a jennie).

[Captain Midnight]

BFalcon, on 03 December 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

It's a Goon source - you always need to read between the lines when you read Goon material... they like to cause mischief sometimes with emphasising some parts and forgetting to mention others. Just think of them as Loki or Pan...

Yeah but he actually did say it if you listen to NGNG.

[Taizan]

Sifright, on 03 December 2012 - 07:31 AM, said:

Trial mechs are so badly built for MWO I openly laugh at them when i fight against them.

... and in final MM you won't be fighting them any more, assuming your ranking is above that of a new / inexperienced player who regularly use trial mechs or even better trial mechs only get pitted against other trial mechs.

Maybe the penny dropped now.

[Adridos]

OpCentar, on 03 December 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

I think they will be fine if they match trials vs trials only.

Agreed.

When the last reset hit and everyone way in trial mechs and when being in one myself, it was a load of fun, basically this just without cheese builds and heat-immune mechs. But only in trial v trial and if possible, rookie v rookie enviroment.
Outside of that, you are really gimping your team by taking one of them.

[BFalcon]

Captain Midnight, on 03 December 2012 - 07:39 AM, said:

Yeah but he actually did say it if you listen to NGNG.

Sadly not for a week or two - the live broadcasts are late starting for us Brits...

But yeah, he does have a point - they ARE (usually) viable, but only against other stock (or near-stock) mechs - we've had the tech 2 stuff hit full-on since then... which has made them, along with some questionable choices, less so.

[Joseph Mallan]

OpCentar, on 03 December 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

Yes trial mechs are bad vs highly customized variants but are they really that bad when matched vs other trials?


I think they will be fine if they match trials vs trials only.

No the trial mechs are not bad. Pesco has the right of it. If you have a faster heat recycle time (Move, fire, vent, fire,vent,fire,vent) The Trial Mechs would work as intended. Since we are using Solaris rules (Move, fire, fire, fi(VENT)re)Sinks are not working as designed. Sinks should vent every 3.5-4 seconds to keep up with what TT intended Mechs to do in combat. also give us movement heat. An Awesome is supposed to be able to Alpha Strike 2-3 times before having some heat problems. Not 2-3 times and shut down. Fix this, and you will see what TT Configs are supposed to do. They will be weaker than custom, but they will be able to stack up better.

[Nightfangs]

I didn't think about that topic for a long time. I just assumed that finetuning and customizing your mech to match your personal preferences made the difference, not the loadout itself.

Then the open beta wipe came, and I was forced to play a stock mech for a few battles.
Man, was I wrong!
Using a stock mech feels like driving a bike not using your petals but pushing off the ground with your feet.
They are not useless, but they feel kind of "castrated" if you are used to your finetuned mech.

[MustrumRidcully]

Are wer sure Russ is actually ever playing his own game?

Fundamentally, there are plenty of mechs that are pretty good even with stock stats and can rip apart "custom"-made mechs of similar weight just as easily as other stocks. Some stock mechs from the table top are indeed bad.

In MW:O, the good stock mechs are bad, and the bad stock mechs are worse.

If this is Russ honest opinion and shared in the office, then he's pretty mistaken, and I fear that the game balance and the stock mechs will never improve.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 03 December 2012 - 07:46 AM.

[whiskey tango foxtrot]

Really ??? what else would you expect him to say???

The latest assault trial mech is a joke...

[Blark]

What the heck is Russ talking about?

Trial mechs are horrible.. all of them, I would never consider touching them.

[pesco]

S3dition, on 03 December 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

There are a lot of good variants. But no variant can top a custom made mech

And I say that means if you use them, you put yourself at a deliberate disadvantage. Sure, it's okay if customizing your Mech tailors it to your playstyle and that means you become more effective in that Mech, or it only gives a slight advantage that doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme. But stock mechs tend to be noticeably worse regardless of playstyle, mostly due to heat.

Of course, splitting the matchmaking so that trials fight trials or something to that effect, would help new players not get stomped, but it doesn't solve the problem and still does not validate Russ's claim that stock variants are fine. In fact, the existence of such a system would very much confirm that there is a problem.

[Erik Jast]

Have feedback been given to the developers? I would be surprised if there wasn't already a high number of tickets where people show what their experience in Trial Mechs are. So far, I have piloted mostly the Awesome and Hunchback, both seem to be very heat inefficient. I get the heat warning constantly which forces me to not return fire and just take hits. It's rather frustrating.

[Sifright]

Taizan, on 03 December 2012 - 07:41 AM, said:

... and in final MM you won't be fighting them any more, assuming your ranking is above that of a new / inexperienced player who regularly use trial mechs or even better trial mechs only get pitted against other trial mechs.

Maybe the penny dropped now.

which is going to be about three to four years away at the games current rate of change.

Maybe the penny dropped now?

[Dechan Fraser]

Well he can't be playing the same game I'm playing, that's for sure..

[MustrumRidcully]

pesco, on 03 December 2012 - 07:46 AM, said:

And I say that means if you use them, you put yourself at a deliberate disadvantage. Sure, it's okay if customizing your Mech tailors it to your playstyle and that means you become more effective in that Mech, or it only gives a slight advantage that doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme. But stock mechs tend to be noticeably worse regardless of playstyle, mostly due to heat.

Of course, splitting the matchmaking so that trials fight trials or something to that effect, would help new players not get stomped, but it doesn't solve the problem and still does not validate Russ's claim that stock variants are fine. In fact, the existence of such a system would very much confirm that there is a problem.

I am trying to come up with a viable comparison in other genres, but it's difficult. The Trial Mechs are kinda like having to use WW2 planes to fight Jet Fighters, but that's not the correct comparison - WW2 planes were awesome in their time frame, and if you had a WW2 only mode in a flight sim, people would probably love it. There isn't anything in the real world that really compares to this. Maybe having a racing game where the default cars do not have enough fuel to make more than 3 laps and you need 30 laps to win, and everyone that customizes lowers his top speed by 30 kp/h to add enough fuel to last 10 laps?

[wanderer]

Stock 'Mechs are good- against other stock 'Mechs. And all Trials are stock.

They simply fail to compete in most cases vs. customs. At best, a stock 'Mech can compete with extremely delicate management of it's firepower- something most newbies in Trials lack. At worst, it's the Awesome-9M burning itself out in a single alpha because Russ thought that actual 2.0 DHS were somehow broken.

You want Trial 'Mechs to stop being treated like fodder, stop putting them in the same matches as customs. It'd help reduce the newbie stompings, too.

[Scratx]

I strongly advise everyone responding to this thread to read the whole interview first (or at least the start and up until the trial mech stuff), the context in which this shows up is actually rather important and not transmitted by the quote.

The second thing is that I largely agree with Russ in the sense that trial mechs have an undeserved reputation. Yes, a few of them are made of fail... but the majority isn't. It's all about how you use them, and the major advantage of custom mechs over trials is that when you design your own mech, you make it operate like you want it to. You don't have to adapt to the mech, you adapt the mech to you. And because you also have access to tech that's usually (but not always) not deployed on trials, you can make them generally better, too.

Therefore, to people used to custom mechs, the trials are horrifying.


But the real problem, and why trial mech newbies are just outright stomped, is the matchmaker. Newbies in freakin' trials should never be matched against pros in custom mechs.

[Taizan]

Sifright, on 03 December 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

which is going to be about three to four years away at the games current rate of change.

More realistically (based on Phase 1 -> 2) 2-3 months, for you it may feel like three or four years though.

[wanderer]

Purlana, on 03 December 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

The trial mechs blow.

Oh, and keep giving new players mechs with XL engines. The experienced players love blowing out side toros...

Seriously 2 times in a row the trial assult mechs have XL engines.

Forget the side torsos. The Awesome has such anemic firepower I leg the things for huge amounts of salvage money.

320XL, most valuable item in a stock 'Mech to date, making the Cicada and Awesome great money when you just shoot the legs off. Not like the Awesome doesn't shut down so often it's trivial to do it.