86 replies to this topic

[Stargazer86]

Riffleman, on 06 December 2012 - 07:25 PM, said:

Sure jump on the bandwagon. Half the groups that were praising the team matches like the coming of the messiah are back cheeze stomping in 4 mans vs pugs already.

Im sorry but there shoulnt even BE the option to drop with 4 unless its GUARANTEED the other side has the same. Half the bad teams quit and the pug players have to pay the price.

Hey, it's either limburger in 8-mans or swiss in 4-mans. Frankly, I think most people would rather have the swiss than go up against 5DDC ECM Atlases, a Gausscat and 2 ECM Cicadas.

Force 8-mans to bring balanced 2-2-2-2 builds. Then we'll talk.

It's much more fun losing to a balanced team, since then you can say "Alright. We were out-played. No question. Good job guys." Losing to 8 Atlases just makes you disgusted.

Edited by Stargazer86, 06 December 2012 - 07:44 PM.

[Vermaxx]

AC, on 06 December 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

The problem with what we have now is that PGI keeps trying to balance the weapons when the issue is the mechs themselves. Gausscats, AC20Cats, SHOULD NOT EXIST. That mech was designed for 2PPC, and NO ONE runs it with PPC. They need to figure out a new slot system.

We make builds that are entirely possible, even toned down, from what we could do in the tabletop mech design rules. We also make builds that mirror other mechs.

it is completely irrelevant that you think these builds shouldn't exist. They can exist, they do exist, and until PGI puts in the actual mechs that carry them, we will continue to use the tools at hand and bash them into the shapes we want.

[Codejack]

Vermaxx, on 06 December 2012 - 07:43 PM, said:

We make builds that are entirely possible, even toned down, from what we could do in the tabletop mech design rules. We also make builds that mirror other mechs.

it is completely irrelevant that you think these builds shouldn't exist. They can exist, they do exist, and until PGI puts in the actual mechs that carry them, we will continue to use the tools at hand and bash them into the shapes we want.

There are a lot of people on here who seem hell-bent on making this game overwhelmingly favor their playstyle, and care nothing for balance.

[Kobura]

Stone Wall, on 06 December 2012 - 07:18 PM, said:

Well those mechs you mentioned have weaknesses. Range and heat are two major weaknesses.

I've never seen a Gausscat shut down...or get usefully outranged, without several mechs working in concert to distract/indirect/precision damage them. When there's basically several Gausscats (other all-Gauss mechs being considered in the same category, admittedly) just sitting in the same place, with ultra-heavy one-trick CQB mechs, just sitting in that same place, with many ECMs, just sitting in that same place... it very much appears to be a "can't beat em, join em" situation, and we refuse to join that sort of thing.

SinnerX, on 06 December 2012 - 07:24 PM, said:

Yes, you focus fire the ENTIRE team. I know it's tricky, but the key is waiting for one mech to die before shooting another.

Or you just come here and complain about it. Up to you, I guess.

I...think I stated I wasn't complaining, and mostly asking about the future of the design direction...but tl;dr what you want I guess. As well, all eight of them in one place, and us trying to do anything tactically useful at all, besides sit behind cover and cower in fear of the enemy team's dozen Gauss for 15 minutes, hard to focusfire anything besides your cover in frustration.

*EDIT*

Stavros Mueller, on 06 December 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

8v8 won't have unrestricted weights forever. New game modes might require some extra speed. Just be patient. These things come in waves.

This is the sort of response I was looking for. Not a playstyle bash, not "tl;dr you suck", not 'we fluke-won this way', but a "This is not how it will stay". That's relevant to my ACTUAL question.

Thank you.

Edited by Kobura, 06 December 2012 - 07:57 PM.

[Ricama]

First I was going to say something along the lines of to some winning is fun then I had another look at your post. an AC20cat, one aforementioned D-DC, no less than two Gausscats, a dual-Gauss Illyas... a smattering of other ECM mechs. So 6 different mech designs. I'm actually really surprised about the D-DC, I thought the current meta was an AC-20 instead of a gauss.

The 8 vs 8 meta is way too new right now for anyone to have tactics against any power team (although I thought that was the point of 8 vs 8: no holds bar bring your best), which means you get to be the first, please let us know when you crack it.

I'm actually curious what you're bringing to matches, where do you think the line is between effective and cheesy.

[Stone Wall]

Kobura, on 06 December 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

I've never seen a Gausscat shut down...or get usefully outranged, without several mechs working in concert to distract/indirect/precision damage them. When there's basically several Gausscats (other all-Gauss mechs being considered in the same category, admittedly) just sitting in the same place, with ultra-heavy one-trick CQB mechs, just sitting in that same place, with many ECMs, just sitting in that same place... it very much appears to be a "can't beat em, join em" situation, and we refuse to join that sort of thing.

Well of course. I didn't list every weakness for every mech. But here are two for Gauss:

1) making the spot the weapon is equipped in Crit, will make it explode
2) people using Gauss have to sacrifice armor and speed(they have to hide from LRMs and pray that Lights don't eat their backsides)

Stone Wall, on 06 December 2012 - 07:18 PM, said:

Well those mechs you mentioned have weaknesses. Range and heat are two major weaknesses.

Those weaknesses I listed in post #2 were for ballistics and missles.

Edited by Stone Wall, 06 December 2012 - 08:01 PM.

[SpiralRazor]

Reign Of Courage, on 06 December 2012 - 07:32 PM, said:

Well a bunch of us random players (not even a Clan) formed a premade on the EU TS & faced a premade of "Squawkers" who had that setup of gauss cataphracts, cats, atlas ddc etc & we won via the strength of our 2 scouts working in tandem (dual ECM) & good LRMs (Yes LRM fire support surprise!) from our LRM guy (I think we only had 1). That plus the opposition were too overconfident, they rushed in & we had some good calling of targets & focus firing.

Lol...uh huh....

AC, on 06 December 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

The problem with what we have now is that PGI keeps trying to balance the weapons when the issue is the mechs themselves. Gausscats, AC20Cats, SHOULD NOT EXIST. That mech was designed for 2PPC, and NO ONE runs it with PPC. They need to figure out a new slot system.

AC, on 06 December 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

The problem with what we have now is that PGI keeps trying to balance the weapons when the issue is the mechs themselves. Gausscats, AC20Cats, SHOULD NOT EXIST. That mech was designed for 2PPC, and NO ONE runs it with PPC. They need to figure out a new slot system.

Did you ever wonder why no one who is competitive uses a PPC?

[Kobura]

Ricama, on 06 December 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

First I was going to say something along the lines of to some winning is fun then I had another look at your post. an AC20cat, one aforementioned D-DC, no less than two Gausscats, a dual-Gauss Illyas... a smattering of other ECM mechs. So 6 different mech designs. I'm actually really surprised about the D-DC, I thought the current meta was an AC-20 instead of a gauss.

The 8 vs 8 meta is way too new right now for anyone to have tactics against any power team (although I thought that was the point of 8 vs 8: no holds bar bring your best), which means you get to be the first, please let us know when you crack it.

I'm actually curious what you're bringing to matches, where do you think the line is between effective and cheesy.

Sure! Forgive me if I don't splat the loadouts right here, but we've got a few main rules we hold ourselves to:
Don't stick Gauss or tank guns in machinegun ports (AKA no K2 with AC10s, Gauss, AC20s)
Don't abuse poor netcoding/client performance/packetloss to our benefit (we self-restrict our mechs to in the 115-120 range, and don't use Flamers at the moment for how spastic they make some minspec computers)
Don't suicide by heat, out of bounds, or friendly fire to cheat the enemy of a kill
Don't be a tard.

Don't do things that'd make the game ferociously unfun not only for your team, but for the other team. It's largely subjective, if we find something that some other side is doing is 'wrong', by general decision, we usually don't do it. And what's more, it's not something that we impose on our group, it's something the group was founded on. Fair play, fun, victory by skill and ability...instead of flowchart.

Not to say we don't optimize builds, but for instance, we've had PPC-main Atlas. Triple LargePulse Cat-C1. We have an Awesome that moves in the upper 80s. It's not about "what's best", it's about "what's fun", and then we make it the best we can.

Hopefully what's both fun and not ludicrous will stand a chance when piloted competently in the future. I really ought to say, generally speaking, we have done spectacularly well, this being the Sharks' first cohesive foray into 8v8 (even with the extreme technical problems after about 9pm EST resulting in many 7-6v8s or other handicaps), totalling around 11W/3L give or take one on either number, for the ones I participated in or spectated or watched on one member's Livestream.

Those three losses were, one to Blazing Aces with spectacular coordination of a highly mobile hammer/anvil team, one to a Steiner Recon Company of D-DC ECM AC20-SRM18 baserush clump, and one to the team I described originally.

Yes, we did well. We probably deserved the W/L we have currently running. But I'd really have liked it to be more to good teams, instead of good spreadsheets.

[Vassago Rain]

Well, you're the premade elite team, right?

[Kobura]

Vassago Rain, on 06 December 2012 - 08:17 PM, said:

Well, you're the premade elite team, right?

Actually we were raring to go against other well-coordinated prebuilt teams, we didn't like both our 4 as well as the whole other team spinning the wheel of Pugfortune, with random suiciders and disconnects and 1-person "AFK-ambushes", we wanted the playing field to be level and vicious and hard-fought.

By small-teams, we meant 2s and 3s a lot of the time. When we're small, we usually play other games.

[AC]

Vermaxx, on 06 December 2012 - 07:43 PM, said:

We make builds that are entirely possible, even toned down, from what we could do in the tabletop mech design rules. We also make builds that mirror other mechs.

it is completely irrelevant that you think these builds shouldn't exist. They can exist, they do exist, and until PGI puts in the actual mechs that carry them, we will continue to use the tools at hand and bash them into the shapes we want.

They don't exist... that is the point. There is no 65 ton twin AC 20 mech in battle tech. The only twin AC20 mech that comes to mind is the King Crab and it is 100 tons. You can't convince me that because PGI has a poor excuse for a chassis balancing system, that everything is ok.

[Kousagi]

Welcome to 8v8's, get with the cheese or die.

[Kobura]

Kousagi, on 06 December 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

Welcome to 8v8's, get with the cheese or die.

If trolling, I'm laughing, if not trolling... I'm still laughing

Only places I like cheese is on Phila-cheese steaks, and NY-style cheesecake. CheeseWarrior Online better come with a strawberry on every slice, or I'm not leaving a tip!

[Dukov Nook]

Kobura, on 06 December 2012 - 07:14 PM, said:

So, Gausscats. AC20cats, Gauss-Illyas, Gauss/ECM/SRM18 D-DCs. Focus-fire them, right?...so, focus-fire the entire team?

Just had a match with an AC20cat, one aforementioned D-DC, no less than two Gausscats, a dual-Gauss Illyas... a smattering of other ECM mechs.

What is someone supposed to do? Yes, it was 8v8. No, our team doesn't want to resort to this sort of un-funnery.

And this statement, right here, is why PUGS get stomped with regularity.

[Dmitri Valenov]

I'm just curious how exactly the enemies were positioned so that you couldn't skirt around them. The best way to defeat a set up like this is to leave a pair of relatively tough/slow mechs back near your base and have them pop in and out of cover to keep the enemy busy while the entire rest of your team moves under the cover ECM to cap their base.

"To fight and conquer all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance, without fighting." -Sun Tzu

This might have been a bit difficult in Caustic Valley, but the other maps offer plenty of cover.

[MorgN]

SpiralRazor, on 06 December 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

Lol...uh huh....





Did you ever wonder why no one who is competitive uses a PPC?

Yeah, the PPC is a eunich weapon. I have NEVER scored a kill with one.

[Dukov Nook]

AC, on 06 December 2012 - 08:40 PM, said:

They don't exist... that is the point. There is no 65 ton twin AC 20 mech in battle tech. The only twin AC20 mech that comes to mind is the King Crab and it is 100 tons. You can't convince me that because PGI has a poor excuse for a chassis balancing system, that everything is ok.

There is a 50 ton one, however..

[Kobura]

Dmitri Valenov, on 06 December 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

I'm just curious how exactly the enemies were positioned so that you couldn't skirt around them. The best way to defeat a set up like this is to leave a pair of relatively tough/slow mechs back near your base and have them pop in and out of cover to keep the enemy busy while the entire rest of your team moves under the cover ECM to cap their base.

"To fight and conquer all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance, without fighting." -Sun Tzu

This might have been a bit difficult in Caustic Valley, but the other maps offer plenty of cover.

They were in the sheltered valley immediately adjacent to the lower base on Forest Colony, "defending" that same base.

When after minute 5 nothing happened but being ultrasniped out by Gauss any time we checked to see if it was still daylight, we launched a two-prong attack, fast lights and a fast Awesome through the water, moving as cluster between cover, with slowbies through the tunnel. It was actually coordinated perfectly.

Several lagshielded ECM lights (yes, going 140-150 is lagshielded) intercepted our fast-movers and demolished them because we couldn't figure out how many mechlengths to lead ahead with our lasers, and the other five heavy-mobile team got eviscerated despite exactly right timing because of 3x6SRM/AC20/(the ever maligned) Gauss-CQB spam.

Other than being continually super-punished by either incredibly lucky, or inhumanly aimed Gauss (one of our Atlas had no zero not even yellow damage except to his Gauss torso which he lost before even moving around in cover significantly, ~minute 2) our assault team was pristine until we hit, with their entire combined firepower.

But then, many lagshielded lights with ECM...Streaks were useless, lasers were useless, anything but basically a Long Tom or ArrowIV for AOE would've been useless against them. And the enemy heavy column had either 1 or 2 ECM in it, so no LRMs, which fortunately we didn't bring any anyway.

[Dreadp1r4te]

Dukov Nook, on 06 December 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

There is a 50 ton one, however..

http://www.sarna.net...i/Hunchback_IIC

...and it's Clan Tech, which obviously hasn't been encountered by Inner Sphere forces just yet... therefore your arguement is null and void, because we would also have Clan ER PPCs which do as much damage as a Gauss Rifle, weigh 2 tons less, and generate less heat. =\

Oh, and we'd have a Mad Cat too. <3

[Elizander]

If they had a good mix of close and long range mechs then isn't that a balanced build? You can easily replace Gauss with LRM / AC2 if ECM wasn't out and maybe ER Large Laser or in the next patch, PPC. It's just a long range weapon that's effective and it will always be one of those that will be plinking at your armor from afar.

It's a competitive game, especially in 8v8 where people are expecting other teams to put their best foot forward. Your best bet is to wait for proper match making where it will pit people with higher win rates and better machines with like-minded teams. Under a system like that, you will generally bounce between min-max teams and 'fun' teams at a nice 50% win/loss ratio.

It's unfair diss to other teams who pick the most optimized configurations and 'optimized' is still quite vague with no restrictions in place. They expect to come across other teams who are of like mind and they are certainly out there to win. If this bothers you, I can only recommend that you tune down to 4-man teams and semi-pug it out if it annoys your friends too much to do 8v8, at least until P3 comes around or you just have to adapt to the current meta (which will probably keep changing as more stuff keeps getting added).