Mechwarrior Online

[Lantyssa]

Did they turn off matchmaking?  Played 10 games in a row and all but one were very lopsided.

I was seeing that, too.  Only one match was 8v8.

The funny moment of the night is my surviving a furball with no armor anywhere.  Ambling towards the last guy in a cave, my teammate had a misfire and killed me.  Only death of the match on our side, ten seconds before it was over.

[HaemishM]

I actually had the opposite last night - a PUG match that was seriously competitive right to the end. Myself and a teammate survived while two of the enemy survived. We both avoided each other and tried to cap points, but they had the resource advantage on us when we started so they eked out the win by about 20 resource points. Real nailbiter. In other news, my Catapult (nicknamed Madcat because FUCK YOU CATAPULT) has gotten to be quite fun to play. 2 ML, 2 LL, 2 Streak SRM2's can lay some damage on a mech. Ran up to a Dragon and blasted both his arms off in 2 volleys.

[Ironwood]

Currently running my Trenchie and my Marmoset and enjoying the hell out of both.  The income boost from running a marmoset is really opening up other areas of fun also.

Tonight I shall be running about in my first ECM Enabled Atlas DC.

[Segoris]

Grats on your DDC, they're a good bit of fun.

After a couple matches late last night, a couple impressions (spoilered for those who don't care to read this babbling:

[Arthur_Parker]

Mechwarrior Online - Afterchill

[Segoris]

Changes to consumables due to feedback complaints. Big part is more details on the consumables and the tier 2 cbill module is upgradeable to be equal to the MC purchased one.
tier 1 cbill: 10k cbill, cools 6 heat
tier 2 cbill: 40k cbill, cools 9 heat
tier 2 upgrade: 15,000 GXP, does not require additional module slot, just perma upgrade to purchased tier 2 modules as this is a pilot tree option
upgraded tier 2 module: 40k cbill, cools 18 heat

tier 3 MC: 15MC,  cools 18 heat


Tier 1 can be combined with tier 2 or tier 3. Tier 2 and tier 3 cannot combine with themselves or each other



How this will reduce your heat -

Every BattleMech has a default cooling dissipation of 40. This is a base of 30 + 10 (from each of your minimum required heat sinks.)

 In the case of the CF-100 module, you get 6 points of cooling. This equates to 6/40 or 15% heat reduction on your Mech’s heat meter.

 Let’s now say you have 15 single heat sinks on your BattleMech. Your cooling dissipation is now 45. The CF-100 module now does 6/45 or 13% heat reduction on your Mech’s heat meter.

 My personal CPLT-K2 has 19 single heat sinks on it. The cooling amounts are as follows:

 CF-100 = 6/49 = 12%
 CF-110 = 9/49 = 18%
 CF-100 + CF-110 = 15/49 = 31%
 CF-110U or CF-200 = 18/49 = 36%
 CF-100+CF110U or CF-200 = 24/49 = 49%

 If you have Double Heat Sinks, you will change your heat dissipation to 2 for each engine heat sink and 1.4 for each external DHS on your Mech.

So yeah, at a cost of 50k cbills while making 90-200k without using premium, hero, or founders - this looks good to me

There is info on artillery strikes - the run down is 6 missiles doing 10 dmg + splash damage with an 8second "cast time" and 15 second cooldown for basic cbill purchse, upgraded in a similar fashion as coolant flush is to be equal to the MC purchased one. The mc/upgraded cbill one is 10 missiles at 10 damage with a 6.5 second "cast time" and 13.5 second cooldown. The cooldown is the time which prevents teammates from calling their own strikes, to prevent spam a bit

[Shannow]

Does the other team know when an arty strike is coming in?

[HaemishM]

They will eventually. 

[Segoris]

They will eventually. 

Does the other team know when an arty strike is coming in?

Yeah, it was explained in the link. Basically, from the moment it is called to the point the strike arrives and starts bombing, there is a smoke signal at the point where the strike was called to

When a player targets a location for artillery, a smoke canister appears at the location and continues to smoke for the duration of the barrage.

[Ironwood]

I really hate the way Ferro-Fibrous doesn't round up.

 

[Hoax]

Five games in thoughts:
-Feels like the whole game revolves around who notices/tracks enemy movement better. I will like but for now I wish I could just tell where people were shooting from.
-ECM has got to be the biggest boon to premades in any game ever. All it takes is 2 let alone 3 or 4 people working together under the ECM aegis to just fucking shitstomp everyone else. See point one.
-Man this game can't be fun for people who don't like giant robots. Half the times an enemy pops up its surprising, the other half your dead. Torso twisting takes getting used to like always.
-Good fucking god this game needs built in voice comms. Dota 2 has completely spoiled me I literally am gnashing my teeth playing a game with pubs that I can't talk to. I desperately need someone telling me what to do so I don't feel like I'm just picking a random direction and walking there.
-The HUD is not helping enough. I'll adjust but right now it feels like its actively telling me as little as possible about what is going on. Combine that with a targeting system that feels insanely awkward..

*bonus thought* For real, what the fuck is with the targeting? I have two buttons I think. One of them just deselects the current target and is useless though I believe it thinks its going to pick up another target for me but it never seems to. The other targets something that I have my mouse close to (so an enemy I'm aware of already and looking at) so that I can achieve missile lock and see their damage and whatnot. Something feels wrong with all this. I'll play more and get used to other shit but I can tell there is an "aha" moment waiting for me with regards to how to assess and locate targets.

*double bonus thought*
What grind? It seems like I'm making over 250k per match and more in the realm of 500k which from looking over chasis costs seems pretty generous. What am I missing?

Oh I see now, what a stupid thing this cadet bonus is. Get me used to one rate of c-bill gain then take it away? That seems very. Poor.

[ezrast]

That's the newbie bonus. It only lasts for your first 20 matches and then you'll start making about 1/5 of what you are now. Whenever I design a loadout it usually costs around 10 million. I wouldn't mind it if I had a loadout I liked a lot to start with, but I'm not quite willing to play 100+ matches with a mech I only kind of like before I get to the really good stuff. There needs to be a first win bonus; I could stomach playing a couple games a day for good rewards.

[Ironwood]

Practice area is awesome.  You just go in and clobber people who aren't moving.  It's like being part of a pre-made.

[Arthur_Parker]

Hoax think about the first mech you buy very very carefully, as it will likely sink or swim you on this game.

[Hoax]

Doubtful, I'm a long time BT nerd, but I get your point.

Just top-4'd in a newb Stalker, which I thought was pretty cool considering that thing is a tub and every other match with it I was in 6-8th.  *edit to add* Managed to top-4 the 4N Stalker 3/5 next attempts. But the two where I didn't were just sad. Its just too easy to get stuck in a bad situation and have no hope of maneuvering out and it has zero chance dealing with speed if caught and isolated.

I got first finally. It all comes down to having the competent team versus idiots but still felt good to finally get #1 slot and 50 more damage than anyone else on team in the 7M Treb.

*last edit for the night*
ended the day w/ 11.3mil but only 800exp, the cadet bonus has been gone for a bit. I've found uses for the Stalker and the Treb but I use the Treb mainly about 2/3rds of the time. Not touching that Commando or Dragon. If I remember to I play the Stalker only one the 2 base game type because otherwise idiot team will leave me behind running around dying instead of fighting tactically because omfg the points! Even though I've seen maybe 10% probably less of those games go to points instead of a team being wiped out. I did manage to get 550 damage in the 4N, whose heat is becoming that much more manageable with practice.

Please tell me you can look up pilot stats somewhere?

[Arthur_Parker]

http://mwomercs.com/profile/stats

[Hoax]

Thanks Arthur! So I ended the day at 23-20 with a pretty poor .63 KD ratio 19 kills and 30 deaths.

200 damage avg with the Treb and 270 damage avg on the Stalker.

My laser accuracy is 86% on both large and med after a ton of shots but I'm using missiles wrong or something? I'm seeing 2X% hits with LRM's and 40% with SRM's is that really low or does it calculate missile hits strangely?

[Arthur_Parker]

No idea, stats generation for things like that have only been in a few days, also trial mechs are shit so very difficult to factor them into anything.  If you're hitting things and getting the odd kill in a trial mech, you're doing well.

[Lantyssa]

Great stats for a newbie.  They're better than mine.  (I'll cut myself a little slack due to my preferred 'mechs, but still, with practice you'll do much better.)

[Merusk]

Missiles seem to count hits for each individual missile.  My SRM6's are at 40% as well, and I know that I get at least one hit with each volley because I get in so close.   So LRM volleys should be really low, because I don't think more than 2-3 missiles out of a 15-missile volley ever hit.   

That's one of the reasons I gave up on them.  Lots of weight, heat and delay for almost no actual damage.   They feel more like a suppression weapon so your brawlers can get in and rip them apart with ballistics.  Which absolutely destroy shit.

[satael]

My lrm (with artemis) stats are:
LRM20    26.95% (717 hits out of 2,660 fired)
LRM10    27.51% (476 hits out of 1,730 fired)

but even funnier is the machine gun: 16.89% (62 hits out of 367 fired for the grand total of 2 damage!)

[Falconeer]

I wish we could see the stats in the game client. I also wish we could see our ELO rating. I also wish we could see ELO ranks of some sort so you can have an idea not only of where you stand in the grand scheme of things, but a chance to compare yourself with friends (and enemies).

I also wish they would completely ripoff the Star conflict UI, the shipyard screen, the achievements, the contracts and the loot fake-minigame.

Damn. I love this game so much it hurts to see everything except actual combat so blatantly underdeveloped.

[satael]

I wish we could see the stats in the game client. I also wish we could see our ELO rating. I also wish we could see ELO ranks of some sort so you can have an idea not only of where you stand in the grand scheme of things, but a chance to compare yourself with friends (and enemies).

I also wish they would completely ripoff the Star conflict UI, the shipyard screen, the achievements, the contracts and the loot fake-minigame.

Damn. I love this game so much it hurts to see everything except actual combat so blatantly underdeveloped.

I'll settle for decent community warfare 

[Ghambit]

Personally, I'm not coming back until Community Warfare is implemented.

[Ironwood]

Why ?  What's that going to change for you ?

[Hoax]

Why ?  What's that going to change for you ?

I'll answer. You get to know your team and you get to know your enemy. Units will be formed to help win planets or whatever and if you are good enough you get recruited which is an entirely different guild environment than joining some yahoo guild that spams general channels taking on everyone with a pulse who will join. So now you are playing with a goal (capturing xyz, kicking the shit out of xyz opponents that you know are skilled from past encounters) with other people of similar skills and on voice.

That's only 10,000 times more fun than random TDM matches with faceless randoms who are on your team one match and against you the next.

[Segoris]

Yes, for missiles it is counted per missile fired, but between proper terrain usage and AMS, LRMs will definitely be much lower accuracy.

My laser accuracy is 86% on both large and med after a ton of shots but I'm using missiles wrong or something? I'm seeing 2X% hits with LRM's and 40% with SRM's is that really low or does it calculate missile hits strangely?

Just a heads up - laser accuracy is not a completely useful stat right now. Yes, it tells you how many times you fired and actually hit something with the duration of that laser shot, but not how much of the laser worked since it does not reflect Time on Target as lasers are channeled.

Here is the calculation they need to add to these stats to see how well you are really doing with lasers  (hit*weapon damage)/total damage

Weapon damage for lasers are
Large pulse: 10
Large and ER Large: 9
Medium Pulse: 6
Medium: 5
Small and Small pulse: 3

 

[Hoax]

Ok so for LLAS I'm hitting 89.5% of the time and doing 72% damage I think and MLAS I'm hitting 85.5% of the time but for 67% damage which sounds about right since most LLAS shots are dead on at range while there are a lot more raking/glancing MLAS takes.

I have 12mil, not sure I feel the need to spend it. I'd get the 2xPPC Awesome but it'll be ass until I can actually zoom. I'm not buying a Raven though they are clearly imba as fuck. I don't need a Jenner because Ravens are just better..

Which Cataphract is the best? I was liking some of the loadouts I've seen on the 2X. Same question for Centurion was liking the 9-A loadouts.

I find myself wishing I could get more xp. My real problem is not having some of the pilot xp perks.

[Ironwood]

I'll answer. You get to know your team and you get to know your enemy.

Wut ?

Units will be formed to help win planets or whatever and if you are good enough you get recruited.

Wut ?

So now you are playing with a goal (capturing xyz, kicking the shit out of xyz opponents that you know are skilled from past encounters) with other people of similar skills and on voice.

Wut ?

That's only 10,000 times more fun than random TDM matches with faceless randoms who are on your team one match and against you the next.

Wut ?  It is ?

You just made all that shit up.  Entirely.  From your own head.

I'll tell you what will actually happen.  Community Warfare won't be ANYTHING like is in your or Ghambit's imagination and you still won't play because of that fact.

If you really wanted, you could be in a nice group right now, pretending to do all that shit you're currently wishing for.  I honestly believe that what's coming in community warfare not only won't do it for you, but will be miles shorter in terms of what everyone wants that they can deliver.  Because these chaps innovate and we've seen that already.  Community Warfare is going to release exactly the same as the game is just now, except you get to pick planets and say 'Assault' or 'Capture The Flag'.  It won't change shit at first.  And actually having any type of 'planet taking' that the Goons won't SHIT ALL OVER AND WRECK YOUR AMBITION ?

Well, you can fucking forget that.

But hey, I log in and shoot big robots.  It's enough for now.  I feel bad for you chaps for whom it isn't enough.  Mostly because I don't think it'll ever be quite what you want.

Hey ho.  We live and learn.

[Arthur_Parker]

The vast majority of people playing are complete idiots.  

I suspect Community Warfare is going to be crap, which is a pity as I really like the game.  Either they make high end territory control a numbers game, in which case it's slanted towards large groups, or they limit it to the outcome of a set number of matches.

If it's limited match results, then you'll need organised teams, which is fine for better gameplay but is more likely to make you burn out, presumably there will have to be a set time to play and it limits your mech choice to the flavour of the moment.

A combination of the two is unlikely, like two set scheduled matches with a tie breaker match randomly spawning if needed.  That way the decider match gives the more numerous side an advantage with the number imbalance offset with pugs.

It's not a good sign that the events so far have been grinds but maybe they'll do something more interesting, it's going to be low tech though, clans are meant to launch this year I believe.  It's possible their 1 mech a month schedule has secretly been two, with the clan one held back, but I'm not counting on it.

[Segoris]

Ok so for LLAS I'm hitting 89.5% of the time and doing 72% damage I think and MLAS I'm hitting 85.5% of the time but for 67% damage which sounds about right since most LLAS shots are dead on at range while there are a lot more raking/glancing MLAS takes.

I have 12mil, not sure I feel the need to spend it. I'd get the 2xPPC Awesome but it'll be ass until I can actually zoom. I'm not buying a Raven though they are clearly imba as fuck. I don't need a Jenner because Ravens are just better..

Which Cataphract is the best? I was liking some of the loadouts I've seen on the 2X. Same question for Centurion was liking the 9-A loadouts.

I find myself wishing I could get more xp. My real problem is not having some of the pilot xp perks.

I notice the same thing, situationally Large lasers are just easier to land more damage with for that exact reason. As for the 2xPPC and zoom...zoom module is shit. Just use heat vision and 3.0x zoom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d0ObwvqYto

For the Cataphract, it depends what weapons you want to use but it is tough to go wrong with them. The 2X is the most versatile, and would have a tough time choosing between that and the 3D or 4x. You will probably want them all anyways to be able to unlock the higher pilot crap so just go with the one you think you'll enjoy the most first. My process for buying mechs has been to eliminate the one I dislike the most and not buy it. In this case, the one I would rank last would be the 1x since an extra energy hardpoint is not worth loss of jump jets compared to the 3D and does not really have any other value imo.
Centurions are okay, but I would just get a trenchie over them for similar build-outs being available, as well as jumpjets on some models and faster speeds being possible. Or even a hunchback, which I still enjoy more than the CN9, but think the trebuchet may be the best medium out of the cent/hunch/treb. If you're still set on a CN9-A, maybe something like AC5, 3xSRM6, 2xMlaser, XL250-260

XP will come, it's tougher solo though, and based on your complaints about group/solo I'm wondering if you did not check earlier posts for this TS3 server. Yes, it is still randoms, but lots of good people who are cool with newer players and generally improves the MWO experience.

[Merusk]

Community warfare isn't going to be anything but large-group centric.  MAYBE you'll be house vs. house but that'll be it.  Which means Goons and whatever very-large guilds form will roflstomp.  Woo, awesome.

[Zaljerem]

As it stands, I'm having an excellent time playing this alone and regularly with 2-3 friends. I've purchased every Hero mech, as well as many others with C-bills, I regularly pay for premium time and sometimes even purchase camo/colors.

I would really like several more gametypes (how is there NOT King of the Hill yet? It's Assault with one base!) and a few more maps.

I'm sure Community Warfare will never live up to everyone's expectations, but as I have no expectations, I'm doing fine.

Am I one of the "complete idiots" that Arthur speaks of? 

[Goreschach]

Am I one of the "complete idiots" that Arthur speaks of? 

Well, you did purchase a Yen Lo Wang. 

[Merusk]

Am I one of the "complete idiots" that Arthur speaks of? 

No, you're just having fun wrong because you're playing to kill time and enjoy yourself instead of proving your leet skillz in a game that "matters."   Or some other such snarky nonsense.

Never give up playing just to have fun.  If it's fun, continue enjoying and forget about the rest.