149 replies to this topic

[nksharp]

I believe that is already in now since it was probably referring to a few patches ago when ssrms would hit center torso, all the time (god a1s were annoying then).

Would be helpful if they actually updated some of these logs since they are fairly old now. I laughed hard the other day when the only recent change to ecm is for ppcs hitting them, so basically no change for ravens at all unless you are standing still or something.

[MWHawke]

Writhen, on 02 February 2013 - 11:01 PM, said:

Yes, not going to take you seriously when you think that us talking about Ravens is the only reason why they're taken over a Commando. Moreover your lack of understanding of pug=/=organized 8 man. And yes, I'll be rude when you don't take the time to read what is being said and throwing out baseless assumptions from a lack of experience.

LMAO! You have the mentality of a 2 year old. You are a waste of breath.

Edit: Oh p.s. since when did you start playing Mechwarrior and how many competitions have you played?

Edited by MWHawke, 03 February 2013 - 08:43 AM.

[MWHawke]

RocketDwarf, on 02 February 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

Have you played a RHoD match? It sounds like you haven't, in RHoD the dynamic is much different then an average PuG match. People don't run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and players are generally more skilled. So it's a bit silly to say that just because a person can get five kills in a PuG, that they can also get the same amount of kills in a competitive match. Edit: not exactly a reply to the above post, more of a reply to some of the things you have been saying on this thread.

Thank you. I never said that you could get 5 kills in competitive play, so I wasn't being silly. My point is that a lot has been said about the Raven. Initially, with poor netcode, it was horrible to go against a 3L. However, with the fix of netcode, it is not so much a monster anymore. We were playing a premade team vs other premade teams. I recognize the teams from the other TS dropships. Not everybody were running around like headless chickens (if those playing Competitive thinks this, then by all means, join in some 4-man premade teams. There are a number of teams who work quite well together and have skilled players).

Not sure all the matches were premade vs premade but the point still remains that the CCD with 5 MLasers performed well. It was not only in 1 match that he got those kills and damage above 500 points. After netcode fix, the Raven has lost some of it's bite. The 5 MLaser killing 3Ls shows that. And before some id10t start sprouting what a great Mech player that CCD was and the Raven must have been a newbie, the CCD pilot took on the Ravens in multiple games and killed them.

All I am saying is maybe if you ventured out of the "Uber 3L" mentality and broaden your horizons with different builds, you might find that the divide between the 3L and other Mechs is not that big anymore.

And if anyone thinks I am totally unschooled in competitive play, I used to play MW4 League and local MW4 competitions, CS tournaments, and whatever.

[Zaptruder]

Streaks need a nerf. The correct nerf is to have it require a higher skill level to use successfully.

The easiest way to do that is to reduce the angle of deviation of the reticle from the target for streak missiles to maintain lock. I believe it's currently at 45 degrees or something absurd like that. Reduce it to 20* degrees... streak lock can be much more easily broken/requires significantly more pilot skill to use and maintain.

*playtest to find most appropriate number

Badadboom. Problem solved.

Edited by Zaptruder, 03 February 2013 - 08:51 AM.

[pistolero]

Protection, on 02 February 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

Basically, the light position was previously one of the highest skill and most fun parts of the game.

Light Mechs were allways the "easymode button" in MWO

With ECM and Streaks it is still the same button ..... just the color changed


p.s.: i forgot the Streaks

Edited by pistolero, 03 February 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[Roughneck45]

+1 my thoughts exactly.

I think something that could help, slow the speed of streaks, and incraese the effectivness of AMS against streaks. The slower missile speed may be all thats required for AMS to be effective too, instead of actually buffing it.

This way, light mechs that cannot access ECM, can still spend 1.5 tons and have an effective defense against streaks.

[TDR3D]

I agree with what Protection has said, it echoes what i've been attempting to say on these boards the last couple weeks.

[Wintersdark]

nksharp, on 02 February 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

I have 23ms, I wish I had a lagshield

If people actually started hitting lights with AC20, that'd be the day I quit or at least call someone a hacker. I don't think it will ever happen though.

I regularly nail 3L's with my Dragon's Gauss Rifle at close range, an AC/20 would be no different. Since the last patch for me lagshields are entirely gone. I do understand that this is not the case for everyone however.

I'd happily take a 6ML Jenner against a 3L Raven, without the slightest concern: The only way that 3L will win the fight is if he's substantially better than me. SSRM dps is too low when you can hold 6 ML's on a Raven easily.

That being said, I do agree with the OP.

With streaks being unable to miss, ECM is far too valuable on a light overall. If you suffer from lagshields at all, the 3L becomes exponentially better. And aside from that, you provide a valuable service for your team w/ the ECM shield, though it's not nearly as potent as it once was.

While one on one I'd put a 6ML Jenner against a 3L Raven without a thought, in the context of a team (and competitive play) you're clearly better off with multiple 3L's.

[Taemien]

Allow me to educate you all on how a light mech works.

First of all, when to use what in what situation:

Streaks - Use these on maps such as Caustic Valley and Parts of River City. Anywhere you will encounter other light mechs and fast movers such as Centurions and Dragons in the open.

Lasers - Use these on maps such as Frozen City where its not very open. Why not just use streaks? Because against a skilled fast moving target, you won't get a lock. This is a little known fact because of the majority of light mech pilots do not have great piloting skills. Some are good, but there is a difference between Good and Great.

SRMs - Use these if you wish to destroy larger mechs. Preferably with lots of cover.


What to fight:

You have the speed and mobility to pick and choose your fights, do this. Don't take on larger mechs with streaks, they take too long to kill them. Use lasers or SRMS instead. The exception is of course if their light mech threat is neutralized. Then feel free as it IS added damage.

When to fight:

Never under any circumstance engage into general melee with the enemy team grouped up. Wait for them to split up. Use your speed to harass from cover and try to get one or two to break off. Failing that, break off and ping their base. Someone will come looking for you. Engage them if its safe to do so, or leave them. You just took one or more from the main fight.

Know your role:

Unless you've got SRMs don't expect high damage numbers. You'll get them, but don't expect them all the time. You have speed no one else does. Get to the fight and out of the fight as quickly as possible. Using ECM defensively if you have it, or offensively as needed. If you have LRMs on your team, get them some targets. Chase down other lights that ping your bases.

Know what You can do:

Not everyone is a vet. Most vets can take on other players 1v1 and win with little to no damage. If you're not one of these players, don't engage solo. Get a buddy to come with. If no one is as fast as you, stay with the group or just behind them and harass lights that come to harass your heavies. If you get their attention run into the fields of fire of your teammates. Once the general melee starts, dart in an out taking opportunistic shots. Remember, anything you can hit, can usually hit you back. Fire and duck behind something.

ECM:

ECM is a nice little tool, but it has to be used effectively to make a difference.

Offensively:

This is when you shut down people using LRMs and SRMs. Get them in the range of effect (180m of you). Remember this is dangerous if you're not a Vet. Take out the missile boats if they're alone. If they are not, stay hidden from view and keep them in the effect while staying out of sight of their buddies. Normally they won't look for you if you're not blowing the crap out of their missile boats. The exception is of course peeps on TS. If someone comes at you immediately after doing this, get out of there.

Defensively:

Most players will do this as they are not Vets (and even some Vets depending on the circumstance and coordination of the enemy, or just luck). If you try to play ECM offensively and get countered by resistance then you'll want to fall back and play this role. This is where you shield teammates from locks. If an enemy ECM comes in you will wish to flip to counter. If you get good enough at situational awareness you can flip from disrupt to counter just long enough to nail the ******* with streaks and then flip back to disrupt again to keep him from returning the favor.

Scouting:

Little discussed use of ECM and the use it was mainly intended (and is the means at which I believe it is the most effective). With ECM up, you can only be detected at range by sight (normal, or thermals). Because all mechs light up like Christmas trees in thermals, take a wide path using cover and concealment to get to the side flank (just at the side of the enemy outside their field of vision). And then target them. Then sit and watch while LRMs pound the **** out of them and they cannot get away from it.

You can also follow other scout mechs and alert your team to the direction they are heading so they can get ambushed.

Variants:

You'll have to figure these out on your own. That is the challenge of MechWarrior. And of course I do have to keep SOME trade secrets. Not that I am afraid of my own tools being used against me (the wielder carries the skill, not the tool). But I'd rather them not be used against my teammates in Community Warfare or League play in the future.

Conclusion:

You are not a brawler
You are not a sniper
You are not god's gift

You are a scout
You are a skirmisher
You CAN be an asset to the team if you play properly.

[MangoBogadog]

I completely agree with the OP here.

One of my team mates also raised this topic a short while back (before the recent net code changes) here:

My suggestions boiled down to this:

• BAP can transmit targeting info to friendlies inside ECM bubble, but will not give you a lock.
  
• TAG can target enemy ECM mechs inside bubble and give you a lock, but will not transmit targeting info to allies.
  
• Streaks target the component aimed for when fired, if your not aiming at the enemy mech when you shoot the streaks will target a completely random component and also have far less chance to hit.
  
• AMS can take out streaks at a much closer range, maybe 40m for 2 streaks, 80m for 3 streaks, 120m for 4 streaks.

Edited by MangoBogadog, 03 February 2013 - 09:56 AM.

[hammerreborn]

Writhen, on 02 February 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Sadly in the RHOD league, you see a variety of mech's in every weight class but the light. Playing both our EU and NA leagues, I have seen maybe one team brand a commando, and one team run 6ML Jenners in one match. Sad thing is the light department has no diversity.

I am glad to see a variety of mechs now in the medium, heavy and assault weight classes.

But that's only in games where you even see a light. In my 6 or so 8v8s last night we only saw one team even field a single light mech, and one or two that used mediums (hunchback and centurion). Most 8 mans (even our "competetive" fellow 8 man) teams are running nothing but heavies and assaults.

8 man balance is just abysmal

Edited by hammerreborn, 03 February 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[Volume]

Game has a terribly low skill-cap in general, streak locks are only the tip of the iceberg.

[Hawkwings]

MWHawke, on 03 February 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Thank you. I never said that you could get 5 kills in competitive play, so I wasn't being silly. My point is that a lot has been said about the Raven. Initially, with poor netcode, it was horrible to go against a 3L. However, with the fix of netcode, it is not so much a monster anymore. We were playing a premade team vs other premade teams. I recognize the teams from the other TS dropships. Not everybody were running around like headless chickens (if those playing Competitive thinks this, then by all means, join in some 4-man premade teams. There are a number of teams who work quite well together and have skilled players).

Not sure all the matches were premade vs premade but the point still remains that the CCD with 5 MLasers performed well. It was not only in 1 match that he got those kills and damage above 500 points. After netcode fix, the Raven has lost some of it's bite. The 5 MLaser killing 3Ls shows that. And before some id10t start sprouting what a great Mech player that CCD was and the Raven must have been a newbie, the CCD pilot took on the Ravens in multiple games and killed them.

All I am saying is maybe if you ventured out of the "Uber 3L" mentality and broaden your horizons with different builds, you might find that the divide between the 3L and other Mechs is not that big anymore.

And if anyone thinks I am totally unschooled in competitive play, I used to play MW4 League and local MW4 competitions, CS tournaments, and whatever.

A couple of things:

1. Your prior experience in competitive play in other games means very little in this game. This game is not MW4, and the tactics that worked there are not the same as the ones that work here. I'm a chess grandmaster, Korean-level skill in Starcraft, and roll pubbies in World of Tanks. Does that mean I'm good at this game? No.

2. 4-mans, even the best ones, can lose in random drops because you have 4 pubbies on your team. If those 4 pubbies are useless, then you're now fighting 4v8 and will likely lose if the enemy is halfway competent. Plus, your opponents are pubbies more likely than not, and even if they're a 4-man group, maybe they have the useless pubbies on their side, and you roll them. So what? Does that mean you're uber? Go to Outreach and look at the threads for all the top competitive groups. Notice they have people talking trash to them, about beating them in 4-mans or even 8-mans. Do you honestly think that if your 4-man group beat Kaos in some random drop, that you're better than they are? Hint: the answer is most likely no.

3. Most 8-man groups suck. And they run terrible drops, mostly assaults and heavies. Your experience in normal 8-man drops means very little in terms of competitive play. See again, people posting in corp threads about how uber they are because they beat so-and-so in an 8-man drop. Newsflash: not everyone runs all serious competitive drops in 8-man groups all the time. The other day we were trying to do mech stacking for fun in an 8-man group. We weren't paying attention to the enemy at all, and barely fought them until they were right on top of us. Still rolled them all. This was with non-optimized builds, standing around for 3 minutes making mech hats, and not taking things seriously. If we ran into a good team doing competitive practice then they would have steamrolled us. But we didn't. Heck, some guy was testing a 4xPPC Cicada for fun, and got 8 kills. Obviously a great mech, right? Validated in an 8-man drop right?

4. More damage does not mean you're better. The best teams often have very evenly spread damage because everyone is shooting at things all the time, focusing fire, etc. And if you're really skilled and go around headcapping people, you'll do almost no damage at all.

Finally: what's a CCD?

[Window]

MWHawke, on 03 February 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

And if anyone thinks I am totally unschooled in competitive play, I used to play MW4 League and local MW4 competitions, CS tournaments, and whatever.

Last I checked those were not MWO.

[Writhenn]

MWHawke, on 03 February 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

LMAO! You have the mentality of a 2 year old. You are a waste of breath.

Edit: Oh p.s. since when did you start playing Mechwarrior and how many competitions have you played?

MWHawke, on 03 February 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Thank you. I never said that you could get 5 kills in competitive play, so I wasn't being silly. My point is that a lot has been said about the Raven. Initially, with poor netcode, it was horrible to go against a 3L. However, with the fix of netcode, it is not so much a monster anymore. We were playing a premade team vs other premade teams. I recognize the teams from the other TS dropships. Not everybody were running around like headless chickens (if those playing Competitive thinks this, then by all means, join in some 4-man premade teams. There are a number of teams who work quite well together and have skilled players).

Not sure all the matches were premade vs premade but the point still remains that the CCD with 5 MLasers performed well. It was not only in 1 match that he got those kills and damage above 500 points. After netcode fix, the Raven has lost some of it's bite. The 5 MLaser killing 3Ls shows that. And before some id10t start sprouting what a great Mech player that CCD was and the Raven must have been a newbie, the CCD pilot took on the Ravens in multiple games and killed them.

All I am saying is maybe if you ventured out of the "Uber 3L" mentality and broaden your horizons with different builds, you might find that the divide between the 3L and other Mechs is not that big anymore.

And if anyone thinks I am totally unschooled in competitive play, I used to play MW4 League and local MW4 competitions, CS tournaments, and whatever.

No, I actually play on an undefeated team in the RHoD league. I have actual basis, like Window, Protection and many others that have posted here, that there is no diversity in the light class. Sadly your lack of reading comprehension and spouting of nonsense has derailed the thread.

We really care about your competitive history.

[J0anna]

I have said this before, I think it's the best solution, make ECM prevent all missile locks, both friendly and enemy when in the disrupt mode. Thus a Raven would have to turn it's ecm to counter to launch streak missiles. In counter mode, all missile locks work (friendly and enemy). This has the immediate effect of making the Raven vulnerable to streaks if it wants to use them.

Sure a good raven pilot could launch streaks and watch then hit, then put ecm on disrupt (putting it on disrupt before they hit would result in them missing), but this would still require more skill than presently.

The next thing I would do is allow streaks to be 'dead fired' like srm's inside an ECM bubble, but their damage would be reduced below srm 2 values. This would allow pilots to bring them to the fight, as opposed to now when it's very chancy they will work at all.

Maybe the changes to PPC's will help in this reguard too, we'll just have to test them and see.

[Phlyk]

Protection, on 02 February 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

• benefit from half lock on time with Artemis IV (at no tonnage cost),

Wait, what? Is this true?

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

MWHawke, on 02 February 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

Wow, you are talking about game-wide mechanics and you mean it doesn't apply to anyone else? Nice.

You know what, I'm going to answer this legit since no one else seems to want to.

Yes these changes will effect gameplay for EVERYONE.

Now let's let that sink in for a moment.

While these changes do effect gameplay across the board, the "Pug" players will see little benifit or really, very little in the way of how this impacts the game, simply because Pug games are not about running what's most effective, or being "SUPER UBER COMPETITIVE!" Now in the Leagues that have sprung up, this would have a HUGE impact due to the way matches play out over all.

The point being made in the "yes a ccd can get 5 kills in pugs but not in RHOD" is really a simple one my friend. Most of what you're seeing on the PUG side of things is a decently skilled pilot who's up against lesser skilled pilots and who's using the chaos of the PUG atmosphere to their advantage. The disorginized nature of PuG matches is what allows builds like this to pull off these amazing streaks. The gameplay environment is HUGELY different in league play, even though we all have access to all the same stuff.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Phlyk, on 03 February 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

Wait, what? Is this true?

Supposively, there's apparently somewhere information someone datamined from the game files that proves that Artemis actually gives a boost to SSRM's with no tonnage increase.

[RocketDwarf]

MWHawke, on 03 February 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Thank you. I never said that you could get 5 kills in competitive play, so I wasn't being silly. My point is that a lot has been said about the Raven. Initially, with poor netcode, it was horrible to go against a 3L. However, with the fix of netcode, it is not so much a monster anymore. We were playing a premade team vs other premade teams. I recognize the teams from the other TS dropships. Not everybody were running around like headless chickens (if those playing Competitive thinks this, then by all means, join in some 4-man premade teams. There are a number of teams who work quite well together and have skilled players).

Not sure all the matches were premade vs premade but the point still remains that the CCD with 5 MLasers performed well. It was not only in 1 match that he got those kills and damage above 500 points. After netcode fix, the Raven has lost some of it's bite. The 5 MLaser killing 3Ls shows that. And before some id10t start sprouting what a great Mech player that CCD was and the Raven must have been a newbie, the CCD pilot took on the Ravens in multiple games and killed them.

All I am saying is maybe if you ventured out of the "Uber 3L" mentality and broaden your horizons with different builds, you might find that the divide between the 3L and other Mechs is not that big anymore.

And if anyone thinks I am totally unschooled in competitive play, I used to play MW4 League and local MW4 competitions, CS tournaments, and whatever.

Sorry I got the wrong idea from your posts. Also, the thing you said about broadening my horizons was somewhat unnecessary. One of my favorite builds is a raven 4X with dual PPCs, I think that counts as broad horizons. 3Ls in my experience are really hard to deal when in a light mech with because streaks always do ALL their potential damage and as an added bonus make the target's screen blur for about a second, making it much harder to aim and do damage back.