50 replies to this topic

[Kaijin]

ArmandTulsen, on 08 January 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

How would you spot an elite assault pilot when you're observing them? The number of kills and/or amount of damage, or is this something else in combination with kills and damage? How does this observation change when you move to lower weight classes? Would there be other things you'd look for then?

A competent assault pilot is constantly on the move, giving their opponent few opportunities to focus their fire on any one location. If they're not shooting at their opponent, they're giving them a profile view, preserving their CT for possible fights to come. I spectated a match last night between a fairly fresh Atlas and a beat up Stalker. The Atlas could have won it easily, except the pilot never torso-twisted. The Stalker did, and ended up coring the Atlas. The same holds true for the other classes.

There are two skill sets in CBT, which place numerical values on skills we use in MWO. Piloting and Gunnery. Piloting encompasses how to move, where to move, when to move, and situational awareness. Gunnery encompasses how to aim, where to aim, when to shoot, and heat management.

(I consider myself an above-average pilot, but only an average gunner. I gravitate toward highly mobile mechs that accentuate my piloting skill, but I'll sometimes drive a slow, short-range Assault if I'm feeling like a brawl, which isn't often, as I find brawling fairly boring.)

Players short in piloting skill will gravitate to slow mechs initially. The slow pace gives them a sense of security - of being in control of their experience. Looking at the Gunnery skill, for the same reason, players who aren't the best shot either by nature or by connection speed would latch on to lock-on weapons, but that's a different kettle of fish.

(I see so much 'Learn 2 Aim' on these forums, but not much 'Learn 2 Drive'. So driving is where it's at for this post, though I will address the L2A in closing.)

So thus we see lots of players with poor Piloting skill, tooling around at a leisurely pace in their ECM D-DCs, with their center torsos constantly aimed at the enemy, or their backside wide open to anyone who wants a piece of that action. But then they get wise, and get themselves a shiny new ECM Raven 3L. (It would have been some other Atlas before ECM, progressing to a Jenner) It doesn't matter if they can't drive, because we have no collision anymore.

In summation, while there are good pilots who drive Assaults, and good pilots who drive Lights, most of the good pilots are driving Mediums and Heavies now, because Assaults are gimped in the mobility department, and without collision, Lights are just cheese.

Prosperity Park, on 08 January 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

I am going to have to drop a line here. This thread is not in the best of tone... "which players are the worst?" The poll is fairly insulting, by nature. I'm moving this down to Off Topic.

I fail to see how this poll is any more insulting than the countless polls tagging lock-on weapon users as lame and without skill. How many of those got moved to 'Off-Topic'?

Edited by Kaijin, 08 January 2013 - 11:09 PM.

[BerryChunks]

TheTrap, on 08 January 2013 - 07:19 PM, said:

Well here are my stats if that helps. I occasionally livestream so feel free to catch the next one this weekend for proof.

2,049 / 645
Kills / Death
80,724,560
C-Bills
1,390,089
XP
1,098 / 463
Wins / Losses
3.18
Kill / Death Ratio
184,023.46
Accumulative C-Bills
Per Match
890.51
Avg. XP Per Match

They used to be way higher till I started afking the last 800 matches or so since I play EVE at the same time lol

Got killed quite a fair bit while afk with 0 damage.



Oh you misunderstand good sir. I'm not interested in whining, just making an observation and was wondering if the community shared the same views.

Rather, I believe in reflecting upon mistakes made in battle as well as improving oneself. No amount of crying will gain me victories. Nor will whining to PGI.

This guy's just as bad as an alt+f4 death avoider or farmer. Going afk on the team to play another game? Just pick one you addict.

[TheTrap]

I'm fully aware I can sound like a **** stroking my epeen, but who cares. Or perhaps its envy that created the term.

I must confess I have recently tired of the game, as well as the skill level of the community as a whole. That said, even going "afk for the first few minutes" I have always managed to stay in the top 3. I reckon that's good enough. No reason to spend every single second in mwo contributing when most of the time people don't anyways. (afks, poor pilot skill, etc.)

Some say it's not the fault of the pilot that he plays badly. I say nay. Half the time I notice sub optimal weapons being placed, poor heat ratio, lack of understanding of roles (sniping assaults with ppcs lol ? Ravens with lrms ?), or maybe just troll value.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine with my w/l. It would be higher if I tried harder, but it's gotten to a point where it's hard to want to try and do my best, because I know everyone else isn't treating every match they enter a life-or-death battle.

I honestly have no interest in trying to "carry", but rather, I really want to be "carried". Unfortunately that almost never happens.

It also can be thought of as an adaptation to being overly aggressive. See, in the past I would often be the first to die while the team cowers playing peek-a-boo with their short ranged weapons/poor gunnery skill. (I believe in quick decisive engagements with superior local firepower) By "attacking together" a team gains momentum and auto focuses on targets. Reversely, getting attacked by a bunch of people puts lesser pilots into panic/oh **** I need to run mode. They hence spend more time thinking of personal survival and their piloting skills tend to drop sharply. This causes a domino effect whereby the losing team tends to lose when this happens. )


Anyways, having finally understood the pug mentality, there's a certain style of gameplay needed to be successful.

[Gaden Phoenix]

Bad Light Players have lag shield and streaks. Between auto aiming and rubberbanding, they come across as useful or ok. Unless they really need to L2P, at which they really cause the team harm.

Bad Medium Players die super fast, unless they are LRM boats, at which even if they detract from the tea,, they do not hurt is quite so badly. Since medium mech die fast, players that tend to die fast usually avoid them.

Bad Heavy Players, are like medium players but start to impact the game much more. But at the same time, tend to be avoided as they die to fast for "certain" player types.

Bad Assault Players face alot of issues which impacts the team hugely:
1. have no lag shield, taking full dmg. Thus ability to spread dmg across mech is very important. If an Assault cannot do it, he will be cored extremely fast as their chests are HUGE targets.
2. Also situtational awareness because important. Assault mechs need to know when to attack to ensure surival at the same time ensuring they stay usefulness.
3. Aiming because more important, as it takes more skill to line up your shoots due to lack of turning speed.
4. To help aim some put Streaks or LRMs. But they are really not the best use of tonnage.
5. To avoid points 1 & 2, assaults can also become LRMs boats. But a Heavy would be a better fit, as it allows someone else to play a Assault mech to help the team on the front lines.
6. Also Assualts are slow, if you find yourself in a bad situation, it is hard to escape.

This is just my view. Thus I agree with OP in that bad players in Assault mechs cause teams the most grief. At the same time, due to their armor or due to MC(s), there are alot of new or not quite up to standard players that prefer them or lights.

Lastly, I agree with OP that I have seem quite a few bad weapons layouts and heat ratio. Like a time I saw a Catapult with 4 PPCs that overheat once all 4 are fired. But then again, mech bay currently is horrible. I can get by, as I played all the mechwarrior/battletech games and also the boardgame.

PGI reallty needs make building a proper mech more intuative and easier.

Edited by Gaden Phoenix, 09 January 2013 - 02:27 AM.

[TheTrap]

Prosperity Park, on 08 January 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

I am going to have to drop a line here. This thread is not in the best of tone... "which players are the worst?" The poll is fairly insulting, by nature. I'm moving this down to Off Topic.

I'd like to appeal against this. How does moving it to off topic make it any less "insulting" if that is the problem ?

No names were mentioned nor was any outcry against a player etc.

It would only logically be insulting unless one identifies with a particular class of mech and took it personally.

But even then, wouldn't it be the same as the other threads/posts calling cheese builds/ecm stackers/pug haters calling pugs noobs/lrm boats having no skill ?

Please reconsider.

[Pariah Devalis]

Tossup between Assault Mechs and Lights, at the moment. Mediums are fragile enough to be aware that they are not too too fast outside of the cicada, heavies are slow enough to easily get rocked if they overextend. Assault pilots think their mechs will save them and light pilots are either old school light pilots that know how to fly, or comprise the 70% that only work because of the lagshield.

What gets me is, at least light pilots do not make a habit of boxing in friendly players. Assaults, like Atlas, seem driven to do so. You park yourself in a well shielded area with a way out behind you and a firing line in front of you, intending to take a shot or two, then escape safely backwards. You are in the process of shooting, then notice the enemy is about to return fire, go to reverse and.... Nope. Jammed in there because an atlas decided to meander directly behind you while you were in the process of attacking. You were so busy dealing with the combat threats you had no opportunity to see the Atlas moving in behind you, and no reason to think an atlas would use you as the lighter mech as armor. So now you are stuck, left to eat all the weapon fire you had planned to avoid because you planned two steps ahead, but did not consider having to fight both your enemy and your atlas friend.

Irritating. Happens often with newer Assault pilots, too.

When it comes to friendly fire incidents, however, it seems about even across the board.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 09 January 2013 - 05:48 AM.

[Adrienne Vorton]

i guess it´s more or less equal, though - as in any game - bad players will try to compensate lack of skill with firepower...which doesn´t work that good in MWO

[ArmandTulsen]

Kaijin, on 08 January 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

A competent assault pilot is constantly on the move, giving their opponent few opportunities to focus their fire on any one location. If they're not shooting at their opponent, they're giving them a profile view, preserving their CT for possible fights to come. I spectated a match last night between a fairly fresh Atlas and a beat up Stalker. The Atlas could have won it easily, except the pilot never torso-twisted. The Stalker did, and ended up coring the Atlas. The same holds true for the other classes.

There are two skill sets in CBT, which place numerical values on skills we use in MWO. Piloting and Gunnery. Piloting encompasses how to move, where to move, when to move, and situational awareness. Gunnery encompasses how to aim, where to aim, when to shoot, and heat management.

(I consider myself an above-average pilot, but only an average gunner. I gravitate toward highly mobile mechs that accentuate my piloting skill, but I'll sometimes drive a slow, short-range Assault if I'm feeling like a brawl, which isn't often, as I find brawling fairly boring.)

Players short in piloting skill will gravitate to slow mechs initially. The slow pace gives them a sense of security - of being in control of their experience. Looking at the Gunnery skill, for the same reason, players who aren't the best shot either by nature or by connection speed would latch on to lock-on weapons, but that's a different kettle of fish.

(I see so much 'Learn 2 Aim' on these forums, but not much 'Learn 2 Drive'. So driving is where it's at for this post, though I will address the L2A in closing.)

So thus we see lots of players with poor Piloting skill, tooling around at a leisurely pace in their ECM D-DCs, with their center torsos constantly aimed at the enemy, or their backside wide open to anyone who wants a piece of that action. But then they get wise, and get themselves a shiny new ECM Raven 3L. (It would have been some other Atlas before ECM, progressing to a Jenner) It doesn't matter if they can't drive, because we have no collision anymore.

In summation, while there are good pilots who drive Assaults, and good pilots who drive Lights, most of the good pilots are driving Mediums and Heavies now, because Assaults are gimped in the mobility department, and without collision, Lights are just cheese.

Good answer. My main is an AS7-D with various, all-around loadouts (sometimes I'll interchange AC/20 with a Gauss rifle, SRMs for LRMs, ML for MPL, that sort of thing). I'd rate my piloting better than my gunnery, and I pay extra attention to my mech's position and its surroundings. It helps develops a kind of.. extra sensory proprioception, if you will.

Edited by ArmandTulsen, 09 January 2013 - 08:20 PM.

[TheTrap]

Adrienne Vorton, on 09 January 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

i guess it´s more or less equal, though - as in any game - bad players will try to compensate lack of skill with firepower...which doesn´t work that good in MWO

No but I believe it irks anyone to see their biggest mech running away from a hunchback (Full HP Atlas)...

I seriously wonder what's going on in the heads of people sometimes :X

Slightly detracting from the topic, is it just me or does Assault still way more profitable than Conquest ? I can make approximately 10-20% more on Assault still....

[Adridos]

Depends heavily on the mech itself, rather than the whole class.

For instance, Catapult is pretty easy to play, but a Dragon is one of the hardest mechs in the game to use properly. And yet they share the same class.

However, it all ultimately goes to light mechs, which are currently over the top as far as skill input : result ratio goes.

[HickstyleZ]

Kaijin, on 08 January 2013 - 11:05 PM, said:

A competent assault pilot is constantly on the move, giving their opponent few opportunities to focus their fire on any one location. If they're not shooting at their opponent, they're giving them a profile view, preserving their CT for possible fights to come. I spectated a match last night between a fairly fresh Atlas and a beat up Stalker. The Atlas could have won it easily, except the pilot never torso-twisted. The Stalker did, and ended up coring the Atlas. The same holds true for the other classes.

There are two skill sets in CBT, which place numerical values on skills we use in MWO. Piloting and Gunnery. Piloting encompasses how to move, where to move, when to move, and situational awareness. Gunnery encompasses how to aim, where to aim, when to shoot, and heat management.

(I consider myself an above-average pilot, but only an average gunner. I gravitate toward highly mobile mechs that accentuate my piloting skill, but I'll sometimes drive a slow, short-range Assault if I'm feeling like a brawl, which isn't often, as I find brawling fairly boring.)

Players short in piloting skill will gravitate to slow mechs initially. The slow pace gives them a sense of security - of being in control of their experience. Looking at the Gunnery skill, for the same reason, players who aren't the best shot either by nature or by connection speed would latch on to lock-on weapons, but that's a different kettle of fish.

(I see so much 'Learn 2 Aim' on these forums, but not much 'Learn 2 Drive'. So driving is where it's at for this post, though I will address the L2A in closing.)

So thus we see lots of players with poor Piloting skill, tooling around at a leisurely pace in their ECM D-DCs, with their center torsos constantly aimed at the enemy, or their backside wide open to anyone who wants a piece of that action. But then they get wise, and get themselves a shiny new ECM Raven 3L. (It would have been some other Atlas before ECM, progressing to a Jenner) It doesn't matter if they can't drive, because we have no collision anymore.

In summation, while there are good pilots who drive Assaults, and good pilots who drive Lights, most of the good pilots are driving Mediums and Heavies now, because Assaults are gimped in the mobility department, and without collision, Lights are just cheese.



I fail to see how this poll is any more insulting than the countless polls tagging lock-on weapon users as lame and without skill. How many of those got moved to 'Off-Topic'?

all true but in the end the 'slow' mech will increase your piloting skill far past that of what a light mech could give you.
and may I add a third skill in there that will kind of take some from piloting and heat management...
TIMING, is everything if you want to be elite you must realize every milisecond you waist being indecisive lowers your chances of winning.
if everyone on your team is on the ball with timing and waists no time its going to be like if your team got a whole 30 second headstart to set up before the enemy could even move.. think Im exagerating?

I'm not ever been in a raid guild?
Some times you lose a 30 minute fight because your team was like 4 seconds to slow over all completing a task that means that 40 people need to shave 4 seconds that means each person needs to shave a fraction of a second... it can get very complicated and convoluted fast if you are trying to statisicially analyze it.

The game designers put extremely specific game mechanisms to work some are extremely subtle and take an extremely adept person to decipher. alot of examples of this can be found in the mechlab, and in the end it all comes down to balance and although some people as a newer players may think the game is unbalanced, its only unbalanced for their skill levels.

What MWO should do is ADD more game modes that cater to the NEW player crowd I.E, 1v1 duel chambers/ story mode.

then they can still have the same "end user balances" for the super elite groups that use teamwork and study the game like a college course.