46 replies to this topic

[zverofaust]

How is the game?

I heard a small handful of new things were added like ECM/ECCM and some paint ability.

But I have to ask, will I even be able to see this stuff without first spending 30 hours accruing enough money in Trial Mechs? If not then forget it. Not worth it.

How is gameplay? Does RNG still reign supreme?

And feel free to tell me about anything else on your mind.

Thanks in advance for your answers!!!

Edited by zverofaust, 12 December 2012 - 02:20 AM.

[anonymous175]

Welcome back zverofaust.

I have no answers to your questions.

[Kaijin]

Come back in another month, unless you want to blow 7 bucks (per mech) for a lovely string of christmas lights for your cockpit.

[Jadel Blade]

play or dont play why do we care?

The economy is fine and always was. Its super easy to earn credits. If its not fast enough for you buy some premium time.

[Armorpiercer M82]

1501 posts..... what about to play a few games, and see it yourself ? expirience is non-sharing....

[zverofaust]

Kaijin, on 12 December 2012 - 02:23 AM, said:

Come back in another month, unless you want to blow 7 bucks (per mech) for a lovely string of christmas lights for your cockpit.

Lol whut?

:Looks at Launcher ad:

OH GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS LOLOL

[MustrumRidcully]

ECM
If you already got a Raven-3L, you got ECM. But you'll see ECM anyway, because people will use it.
It alters the metagame considerably. LRMs require a TAG-using spotter, and typically the game will result in a brawlfest. Which on the one hand is fun, but on the other hand, a bit stale. And brawlingnis more fun if you're the brawler and at least some of the other guys aren't designed for brawling. Streak Cats are unpopular, Streak ECM Commandos rock.

The paint business.
You'll need to grind your new mech first before you can use any of this.

It's basially as expensive as repairing your mech when it costs C-Bills, and the MC stuff will cost you a few $, and if you ever decide to change your colors or a pattern, you have to spend all the money again. If you got the PC gamer skin, you can customize some mechs, however, completely for free. With one pattern and a choice of 3 colors only, and not all mechs support it.

A Christmas cockpit item costs about as much as a real world equivalent item can cost. but you cannot move it between cockpits, like you could move a christmas decoration from one car or one room to another.

Gauss Rifle / Weapon Balance
The Gauss Rifle now finally explodes, they finally fixed the bug that avoided that from happening, and jsut for good measure they also lowered its hit points to 3. I am still not sure if the latter was an overnerf or inconsequential, considering how fast an AC/20 is taken out in MW:O, it may quite possibly not make one bit of a difference.

Double Heat Sinks are still Truedubs in the engine and Round(Sqrt(2),1) Heat Sinks outside the engine. PPCs, ER PPCs, Large Pulse Lasers, ER Large Lasers still suck.

Ultra AC/5s now jam 25 % of the time, but non Ultra AC/5s no longer jam. (Yes, non Ultras accidentally could jam.)

Mechs
The Cataphract has a hero variant that could theoretically carry 3 Gauss Rifles, but it's not a wise idea to do so. They nerfed his arm movement so the arms wouldn't clip into the torso gun barrel, without compensating for the drawback so far. ON the plus side, they changed his hit boxes.

Next patch should bring the Stalker.

Next Patch
Next patch may bring a new "New User Experience". Could possibly make the trial grind more fun, or remove it, or something. Check around on the 18th or 19th if you like.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 12 December 2012 - 02:45 AM.

[zverofaust]

MustrumRidcully, on 12 December 2012 - 02:39 AM, said:

If you already got a Raven-3L, you got ECM. But you'll see i tanyway, because people will use it.
It alters the metagame considerably. LRMs require a TAG-using spotter, and typically the game will result in a brawlfest. Which on the one hand is fun, but on the other hand, a bit stale. And brawlingnis more fun if you're the brawler and at least some of the other guys aren't designed for brawling. Streak Cats are unpopular, Streak ECM Commandos rock.

The paint business.
It's basially as expensive as repairing your mech when it costs C-Bills, and the MC stuff will cost you a few $, and if you ever decide to change your colors or a pattern, you have to spend all the money again. If you got the PC gamer skin, you can customize some mechs, however, completely for free. With one pattern and a choice of 3 colors only, and not all mechs support it.

A Christmas cockpit item costs about as much as a real world equivalent item can cost. but you cannot move it between cockpits, like you could move a christmas decoration from one car or one room to another.

The Gauss Rifle now finally explodes, they finally fixed the bug that avoided that from happening, and jsut for good measure they also lowered its hit points to 3. I am still not sure if the latter was an overnerf or inconsequential, considering how fast an AC/20 is taken out in MW:O, it may quite possibly not make one bit of a difference.

Wow that sounds like a garbage solution. Oh this weapon is a tad OP so let's make it randomly blow up because players in competitive online games love nothing more than having their weapons ripped from their hands based on random number generation! Seriously.

I don't have the Raven whatever.. or is that a Trial Mech? I have no owned Mechs I can't afford any, I've spent the last month and a half using Trial Mechs because I really can't force myself to play this ****** game with these ****** Mechs on the off-chance that I'll finally be able to have fun sometime down the road.

[Scratx]

zverofaust, on 12 December 2012 - 02:19 AM, said:

How is the game?

I heard a small handful of new things were added like ECM/ECCM and some paint ability.

But I have to ask, will I even be able to see this stuff without first spending 30 hours accruing enough money in Trial Mechs? If not then forget it. Not worth it.

How is gameplay? Does RNG still reign supreme?

And feel free to tell me about anything else on your mind.

Thanks in advance for your answers!!!

Answering the questions...

ECM/ECCM is in, yes. In 4 variants you can equip the Guardian ECM for 1,5t and 2 crit slots (take out AMS and swap this in).

It's a gamechanger due to its effects and generally the team with fewer (or NO) ECMs is at a real disadvantage. There's plenty of posts about it but the TL;DR of it is "under ECM, you're nearly immune to lock-on missiles, nobody can target you to know your variant/loadout and if you get close to an enemy they drop out of their teammates' intel network, aka they no longer show up on radar, nor can they achieve missiles locks on anyone"

You can paint your mechs too, now. Most patterns and colors cost MC, but there are some C-bill colors. Oh, you pay for the change, not for the pattern/color itself... which is kind of effed up when you start to think about it and considering how much they cost.

Gameplay is quite a bit more slanted towards pew pew with lasers and ballistics and SRMs because *points at ECM* but there's still room for LRMs and SSRMs... you're just asking for a ripping if you boat them exclusively in a non-ECM variant. The biggest RNG factor atm is the matchmaker in that if it drops ECMs in one team but not the other ... well, I sure hope the non-ECM team got a 4-man on its side to even things up!

Ah, right. 8v8 premades are in but there's no weight balancing so it's "bring whatever you want". Your mileage may vary, but it's a horrible way of making C-bills or XP'ing. NOT because of the obvious "much harder to win" factor but because matches generally take longer and more time is wasted between matches for people prepping up and so forth. This is the reason why 4-mans are still popular... besides the point that SOME people thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread while they were ripping through PUGs and suddenly realised they kind of aren't...

As for the New Player Experience, I have to say it hasn't changed ... yet. I believe changes have been announced for the next patch in the 18th, where we'll be seeing the Stalker, a new map AND game mode, econ changes and supposedly the start of the New Player Experience revision.


If anybody wishes to add anything, feel free, just please no QQ'ing

[xenoglyph]

You're pretty good lookin, for a girl

[Jadel Blade]

why are you people responding to this guy?

hes trolling plain and simple.

oops .. responded

[PurpleNinja]

Come back in three months, maybe six.

[Rifter]

Its still ****** buddy, come back when they add CW is my suggestion.

[Kaijin]

zverofaust, on 12 December 2012 - 02:43 AM, said:

Wow that sounds like a garbage solution. Oh this weapon is a tad OP so let's make it randomly blow up because players in competitive online games love nothing more than having their weapons ripped from their hands based on random number generation! Seriously.

Gauss rifles exploding when hit and doing damage to adjacent location is canon. Seriously!

[Az0r]

I wouldn't waste your time. ECM only furthered the gap between trial (stock) mechs and custom mechs.

[Jelan]

I'm intrigued and would like to subscribe to the OP's 'Trolling for Beginners' guide

Son, I am disappoint

[Kaijin]

Jadel Blade, on 12 December 2012 - 02:48 AM, said:

why are you people responding to this guy?

hes trolling plain and simple.

oops .. responded

While some of his content has been of a trollish nature, and I have found myself in disagreement with zverofaust more often than not, he has produced some other material that is both insightful and thought-provoking. As a fellow CB tester, I won't begrudge him an answer to his question.

[MustrumRidcully]

Kaijin, on 12 December 2012 - 02:53 AM, said:

Gauss rifles exploding when hit and doing damage to adjacent location is canon. Seriously!

True. But it doesn't actually get destroyed from a crit any easier than any other weapon or item. It just also explodes when it is critted.
Also ECM doesn't do what it does now in canon. Neither does canon say that a PPC needs 30 heat sinks to be fired at its full rate of fire without overheating. So I am not sure whether "canon" is relevant anymore.

I think the real reason why it's "fair" that the Gauss Rifle explodes is that other ballistics have exploding ammo, and that is usually much worse than the Gauss Rifle exploding. Sure, you lose your gun and take a lot of damage - but ammo explodes usually for much more damage and your likely to lose any other ammo stored with it, and the enitr ehit location, and quite possible the entire mech if you don't have CASE.

[Scratx]

zverofaust, on 12 December 2012 - 02:43 AM, said:

Wow that sounds like a garbage solution. Oh this weapon is a tad OP so let's make it randomly blow up because players in competitive online games love nothing more than having their weapons ripped from their hands based on random number generation! Seriously.

I don't have the Raven whatever.. or is that a Trial Mech? I have no owned Mechs I can't afford any, I've spent the last month and a half using Trial Mechs because I really can't force myself to play this ****** game with these ****** Mechs on the off-chance that I'll finally be able to have fun sometime down the road.

Actually it's BT canon that Gauss Rifles always explode (note, it's 100% there. In here you actually might get away with it) for 20 damage (which if we adjusted for hitpoint doubling would mean 40 damage here) when they get critted.

If anything the game is more lenient than TT.

But the biggest effect of this is that it's now actually a real choice you have to do... instead of pretty much always getting the gauss over an AC20 or something, you now actually have to think about whether you're willing to put up with having a weapon that'll explode when it gets hit with a small laser. (remember, the AC20's ammo explodes for a LOT more damage, while gauss ammo is inert)

This is a positive change. And by the way, triple gauss cataphract, even without the gauss nerf, would be a pretty horrible build because you'd have paper thin armor, slower movement than an Atlas and little ammunition. I really do not need to say how bad an idea it is to trade so much for a 45pt alpha...

[MustrumRidcully]

Jadel Blade, on 12 December 2012 - 02:48 AM, said:

why are you people responding to this guy?

hes trolling plain and simple.

oops .. responded

Seriously? He's asking a question that's not particularly harmful to ask or reply to.
Such questions are very common in game forums, there are always people that stop playing for a while and then return to get an update.

If it's a trolling attempt to ask on the state of the game and how the game has changed over the last few weeks, I am afraid it says more about the game than the poster.