183 replies to this topic

[Impossible Wasabi]

The Space Pope agrees, atm it is one of the best mechs.

[CyBerkut]

nostra, on 10 January 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

My thoughts exactly

ROFL!

You think if players avoid talking about it in the forums, people won't realize it's going on? Anybody who is paying a modicum of attention can see it for themselves. It's not like Tolkien, et al, let the cat out of the bag... there are already a large number of people running Raven 3Ls.

And Tolkien makes a very good point... we are BETA testing this. We ARE supposed to break it, so the devs can address those problems. If somebody is highly concerned about having a fully balanced, polished product to play (and can not enjoy it until it is), then they should probably seriously consider coming back after Beta is done.

[ohtochooseaname]

You know, one of the other big problems with the ECM system is that it makes Ravens the ultimate light hunter and guarantees that a light will be present. So basically, your team is +1 at the start if the Raven brings a non-Raven on the other side, and that's a very high likelihood of a win. For every non 2D/3L light I see on my team, I cringe, and when I see 4 of them, I know it's a sure-fire loss. If people would stop playing the other lights, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem...those selfish people who like running around in a Jenner and ownsaucing all the mediums/heavies who don't carry streaks anymore because they're now useless.

Edited by ohtochooseaname, 10 January 2013 - 04:14 PM.

[EmCeeMendez]

ohtochooseaname, on 10 January 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

You know, one of the other big problems with the ECM system is that it makes Ravens the ultimate light hunter and guarantees that a light will be present. So basically, your team is +1 at the start if the Raven brings a non-Raven on the other side, and that's a very high likelihood of a win. For every non 2D/3L light I see on my team, I cringe, and when I see 4 of them, I know it's a sure-fire loss. If people would stop playing the other lights, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem...those selfish people who like running around in a Jenner and ownsaucing all the mediums/heavies who don't carry streaks anymore because they're now useless.

This argument can be made for anyone running LRM's, any Assault except the D-DC or potentially quad PPC/LL Stalker, any non-SRM Medium, etc. If it's not an AC-20 Cat, Splatapult, D-DC, or Raven-3L, you're chancing dropping against a superior mech.

Does anyone remember StalkerWarrior online week, where the smart Atlas D-DC pilots had a field day? They dropped ECM, 3 SRM-6, AC-20 and 2LL versus a group of guys learning to play a brand new mech, sans ECM. If you can't keep up with the uber-mechs in your weight class, switch mechs or switch classes. If you don't you're gonna be that guy hamstringing your team.

This is assuming even player skill. With PUGS, the learning curve looks even sillier.

[ohtochooseaname]

EmCeeMendez, on 10 January 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

This argument can be made for anyone running LRM's, any Assault except the D-DC or potentially quad PPC/LL Stalker, any non-SRM Medium, etc. If it's not an AC-20 Cat, Splatapult, D-DC, or Raven-3L, you're chancing dropping against a superior mech.

True...those are all good examples, however, the utter domination of the 3L/2D vs other lights is an order of magnitude higher. It doesn't matter how well played or their loadout, any other light can be killed with almost no risk, even sometimes with a half blown torso section at the start. You can even risk chasing the light all the way back to his team, kill him there, and run off scot free if there isn't another 2D/3L around. The fact is that the 3L/2D has the speed to find and destroy other lights with impunity, whereas, none of the other OP builds really has that freedom to operate.

[EmCeeMendez]

Fair enough. I'm still thinking the D-DC is factors of magnitude the best Assault, but you're right, not to that extent.

[Budor]

Do not get to comfortable with this variant. Once the nerf and/or counter gets patched in you might be in for a sore suprise.

[Ravennus]

I started playing this game early december, just after the patch that introduced ECM.
At the time, I wasn't up on all the info.

But when it came time to buy my first mech, I looked them all over and saw the ECM, TAG, BAP and NARC on the Raven.... I made my choice.
Now in past Mechwarrior games and BT Tabletop, I'm a Heavy/Assault kind of guy... but I thought I would start simple.
Get a handle on good mech piloting with a light, and hopefully contribute some decent scouting despite my newbness.
No other mech had this equipment, and I didn't know if other mechs would be able to or how much they would cost... so the Raven 3L was a clear choice.


I had no idea of the shitstorm I was walking into.


I almost quit the game because of the abuse I was taking in chat, and even had a team mate TK me at the start of the game because of the mech I chose.
The only thing that saved me... is that I'm stubborn and a die-hard BT fan. I came on the forums and went to the wiki sites and educated myself.


Long story short, I seem to be one of the rare players who don't get a lagshield. I tested this with a friend in Australia, and even at full 150kph speed he could hit where he was aiming at my mech.
I chalk that up to the fact I live in Canada where the servers are.

I have no doubt lagshield exists for some, but it's definitely not effecting everyone equally.

Either way, I get abuse for picking a mech I had no idea was so capable after this last patch.
I get abuse when I die quickly, due to not having any lagshield protecting me.
I get abuse when I actually get better and have a good match, because I'm a "cheater" and "exploiter"....

*sigh* I've mostly retired my Ravens for now because of this.


Interesting story though... I'm leveling my Hunchbacks now, and my last match of the night yesterday was Frozen City Conquest.
Another Hunchback (who I later learned only had a SINGLE ERPPC as a weapon) and me in my 4P (2 MLAS, 7 SPLAS) gunned it for Epsilon.

We ended up having one of the most fun fights I've ever had. 2 Hunchbacks VS. a Raven 3L (usual 3 MLAS/2 Steak build) and a 3 Streakmando.

According to prevailing forum wisdom, the 3L and 2D should have blown us apart. And I don't yet consider myself a great player, and the other guy only had a single ER PPC. They should have kicked our *****.

But we won.

We legged them both, and I was down to Internals on most components, but we legged them both and went on to win the match.

So lights, and especially ECM lights, are far from Invincible. They definitely have an advantage, especially against certain builds, I won't deny it... but you can win matches against ECM stacked teams when PUGing.
As long as you aren't facing a good pre-made murder of Ravens, you can do it and I'm glad to see it happening more.

[Regrets]

Ravennus, on 10 January 2013 - 06:33 PM, said:

So lights, and especially ECM lights, are far from Invincible.

Agreed. I know I'm getting much better against lights, so prepare to get legged by lasers and/or eat a hail of SRM fire as you turn the corner.

[Ravennus]

Oh! I just thought I would share... this is just a fun little alternative 3L build I devised.

It still has ECM, but no streaks. This is meant to be an actual long range scout and TAGer.
If I ever join a group, I'd love to play this more as it would benefit a lot from team work.

RVN-3L


No missiles at all. Just an ERPPC for long range sniping and harassment, a MLAS for up close and a TAG for scouting and LRM spotting. If they ever improve BAP, I'd love to make room for that.

You aren't going to top any damage charts in this, but it's great if you have a good team and you don't try to brawl like a typical 3L.
Obviously the streak-boating ECM lights are your bane, but you are still fast enough to get back to your team for support.

[Tolkien]

Budor, on 10 January 2013 - 06:23 PM, said:

Do not get to comfortable with this variant. Once the nerf and/or counter gets patched in you might be in for a sore suprise.

I hope you're right! I strongly believe ECM needs to be broken into 3+ different 1.5 ton pieces for all it does. Right now it's a better AMS than AMS is, and that's just 1/3 of its functions. That said they are still advertising for a lead network programmer so I am not so confident it will be completely fixed soon. They might change it so the players with low ping will utterly dominate over the players with moderate ping, but that would be dangerous for player retention unless they do it at the same time as local severs for Europe, Asia and Australia.

nostra, on 10 January 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

See...this is why I have a problem with internet-living metagamers. You not only live to break a game like this, you live to support cheese over fluff. You take advantage of a game's current glitches or netcode errors or any other sort of loophole you can manipulate, and use it to make the game less fun and less fair for everyone.


You wonder why people are bitching about ECM Ravens, Streak-cats, and Gaussapults? BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE KEEP METAGAMING TO MAKE THEM OVERABUNDANT AND BROKEN!!!! One person coming up with the idea is cool and unique....fifty doing it because one person started the trend is what destroys gameplay.

Thank you for the feedback

In all seriousness I need to reply with two points:

1) I hate this build and the fact that it is so damn effective - this is why I called it the Craven 3L craven meaning cowardly and mean spirited!

2) I am of the opinion that ECM needs to be seriously modified. Lights used to be held in check by guided missiles, so the hard counter of ECM against missile locks is a terrible idea. Additionally for 1.5 tons ECM is a better AMS than AMS, and yet it also does so much more... balanced my eye.

I tried to get the devs eyes on this in the last two ask the devs, but even though asking the devs to justify the design of ECM got 200 likes they ignored the question. Since then I've done data collection and tabulated the results to prove to myself that ECM strongly influencing (or at least correlating with) match outcomes was not a figment of my imagination. Long story short my data shows if you're on the team with more ECMs you are 4.1x more likely to win than the enemy team is.

For this reason I have had to switch to helping the new players learn the state of the meta game and play it for all it is worth. If we don't force the devs to balance this, they won't.

[Regrets]

Make it like 4 crits, they have probs with crits then lol. No FF+ES+DHS. (I don't really care tho for real.)

Edited by Regrets, 11 January 2013 - 12:57 AM.

[Boomer Screeee]

Tolkien, on 10 January 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

Your'e not convinced?
Well I did some testing by dropping with a friend on skype - we counted up our ECMs and their ECMs and looked if there was a correlation between more ECMs and winning....
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1709146
long story short, I can say with >99.999% confidence (statistical confidence, not hypberbole or feelings) that the team with more ECMs is more likely to be the winning team. I can also say with >97% confidence that the team with at least 1 more ECM than the enemy is at least 2x more likely to win. On paper this is horrifically imbalanced, to the point of questioning the results even though I was there and collected all of the data myself. I've asked Garth for some sample data taken at random so I can remove myself from the equation, but for the time being this is the only statistical study of ECM effects I am aware of, and it clearly shows that ECM is not just influencing the match, but deciding it in most cases.

Flawed statistics are flawed.

I know you are aware of it, you mention it yourself, but your stastics are not a proper sample. Any conclusions based on your flawed statistics will be flawed themselves.

If I were doing a survey of customer satisfaction for Product X, but I only interviewed customers who were satisfied with Product X. I could get a 99.999999% confidence level that Product X customers are satisfied. It's a tautology, but with numbers! This tells us nothing, but you sure can mask it like it means something.

So saying, "I got this super high number, so even though the data is flawed (I'm trying to get the data, honest!), it clearly shows ECM is OP!", is being very disingenuous at best.

I neither agree or disagree with the conclusion, but own up that your statistics are no better than having no statistics at all.

[toaster79]

Haven’t played that much yet, but from what I've seen the R-3l seems pretty strong indeed.
Guess it will be my first own mech

[Ursh]

I'm curious if part of the lagshield isn't net based, but rather computer based.

Some people are running this game on substandard machines (I'm not one of them), and I wonder if their insufficient hardware is taking longer to report their location to the server.

This is just an honest question. I don't know enough about programming and network dynamics to make any assumptions or conclusions.

[Tolkien]

Boomer Screeee, on 11 January 2013 - 01:08 AM, said:

Flawed statistics are flawed.

I know you are aware of it, you mention it yourself, but your stastics are not a proper sample. Any conclusions based on your flawed statistics will be flawed themselves.

If I were doing a survey of customer satisfaction for Product X, but I only interviewed customers who were satisfied with Product X. I could get a 99.999999% confidence level that Product X customers are satisfied. It's a tautology, but with numbers! This tells us nothing, but you sure can mask it like it means something.

So saying, "I got this super high number, so even though the data is flawed (I'm trying to get the data, honest!), it clearly shows ECM is OP!", is being very disingenuous at best.

I neither agree or disagree with the conclusion, but own up that your statistics are no better than having no statistics at all.

Could you clearly explain the flaw, and how you believe it's influencing the outcomes? Is it because I'm in an ECM mech myself, or is there something else that you think is fundamentally undermining the results?

I'm asking since there is no observer mode in which I can do the data collection so taking a fast mech that can easily sneak around plus a friend is the only way I've currently to get an accurate count on ECMs on the field while also having someone double check the results.

I considered asking people at the start of the match but most people on the enemy team will keep quiet or lie.

Also, I can see from your profile that you have existed for 1 day and have exactly 1 post. Welcome to MWO and thank you for making your single post ever one against me. I'll send you a message, but please answer on your main account not this one.

Ursh, on 11 January 2013 - 01:24 AM, said:

I'm curious if part of the lagshield isn't net based, but rather computer based.

Some people are running this game on substandard machines (I'm not one of them), and I wonder if their insufficient hardware is taking longer to report their location to the server.

This is just an honest question. I don't know enough about programming and network dynamics to make any assumptions or conclusions.

I believe only the devs can answer this question conclusively, and that it will change as the network code is evolved and improved. Right now I vaguely recall seeing that the game is affected by both your lag and your targets lag (the recent patch notes had a change note about making it so only your own ping would now affect your targeting, but they pulled it since it wasn't ready yet, and then revised the patch notes to remove it). The fact that your enemy's ping affects how hard he is to hit has lead to some people exploiting by intentionally saturating their connections - you'll sometimes see people in games with 700ms pings. They are either playing via satellite internet, or trying to break their connection on purpose.

If PGI implements their proposed fix to lag shields (making the game only depend on your latency to the server, not the targets) it will 'fix' the problem for people close to the servers, but anyone with a ping over 100 is going to have a very bad day. This will be similar to 1999 era counter-strike in that anyone playing local with the server, or the server admin will head shot you before you even see him appear. Europeans, Australians etc. will be easy targets.

Edited by Tolkien, 11 January 2013 - 02:40 AM.

[Sir Roland MXIII]

Well, as one of the (I'd hazard a guess) few pilots who planned to run a Raven 3L prior to joining MW:O, which I did back in September, I can honestly say that I will be happy once the new paradigm comes in and my ride will be less villified.

Yes, that's right, I've been running them for as long as they've been live, I didn't need ECM to be good with them, and I'll still be running them after all the bandwagoners drop off.

Frankly, the sooner that happens the happier I'll be.

Anyways, Tolkien, thanks for putting a name to your build. I will never run it, and while I tested a duel SSRM2 build I didn't like it. My builds been XL 295, Endo / Ferro / DHS, max armor, ECM, and 2 ML / 1 SRM6 / 1 SSRM2 / 1 TAG for some time now. I expect it won't change anytime soon, either.

Edited by Sir Roland MXIII, 11 January 2013 - 02:48 AM.

[Kmieciu]

For me the netcode got worse in the last patch so the Raven 3L got even better. That`s why I`m currently unlocking 2X and 4X variants, in order to master the 3L.

RVN-3L might not be THE best mech right now, but it`s certainly one of the easiest to run. And don`t forget that the deadliest enemy or a 3L is two 3Ls :-)

[Hansh0tfirst]

If you find yourself often fighting other lights and are capable of "dogfighting", I'd recommend swapping out the three medium lasers for two small lasers, a TAG, and AMS.

What you'll lose in alpha damage, you'll gain in sustained dps (3.98 v 3.57), heat efficiency (82% v 54%), survivability, and targeting support (not to mention C-Bill and XP bonuses).

[Tolkien]

Hansh0tfirst, on 11 January 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

If you find yourself often fighting other lights and are capable of "dogfighting", I'd recommend swapping out the three medium lasers for two small lasers, a TAG, and AMS.

What you'll lose in alpha damage, you'll gain in sustained dps (3.98 v 3.57), heat efficiency (82% v 54%), survivability, and targeting support (not to mention C-Bill and XP bonuses).

That's good advice, but with TAG I'd only recommend that if you know you will be dropping with a friend on voice comms who will be carrying the LRMs, just to make coordination easier. The nice thing about putting TAG on a Craven 3L is that you can be confident that your message will get through - the problem with TAG on a non-ecm mech is that it is knocked out if the enemy is within 180m :/

As for AMS, your mileage may vary. I tried that out on my Trollmando 2D build since Cravens with streaks would eat it, and found that due to the very short range fighting and fast travel speed of streaks and standard SRMs the AMS just was not doing much. Hopefully they will buff AMS to make it more effective against S/SRMs.