Mechwarrior Online

[Ironwood]

No, you're not missing anything, apparently I'm a tit.

Wolverine not one I'm familiar with and the Sarna pic looked so much like the BM.

[Lantyssa]

They're in very similar poses.  I had to do a double-take to not see the Battlemaster as well.

[Samprimary]

I'm real impressed with the people in PGI who are making the maps and doing the visual mech design.

I just can't really be happy at all about how all this good visual design is in thrall to people who really cannot manage the game's design and balance.

Anyway. Right now the game is a very simple equation with a very simple answer. Cataphract or Highlander. 1 gauss, 2 ppc. Jump jets. Poptart.

This sucks, because I own neither the cata nor the highlander, nor do I have any practice poptarting. I don't know if I want to purchase my way into the meta, or just hold out and hope the game goes somewhere else less excruciatingly boring.

[Falconeer]

I don't know where I stand ranking-wise but while there's definitely plenty of the builds you mention at my level too I really don't see as many as you claim. Last few patches definitely stimulated people (in lower brackets) to try some new stuff. But I don't doubt you one bit and I know you are telling the truth, which probably means you are in a very high ELO bracket, Sam. From what I heard the higher your ranking, the cheesier the game gets. And that's also what killed 8 vs 8 with the present meta, since all you get there are supercheesy FOTM high alpha builds. Anyway, not trying to justify the poor design that allowed this.

At least, seems like they are aware. PPC heat is going up, there's a rumor Gauss will get a heat penalty of some sort, and by launch tonnage restrictions will limit the number of heavies and assaults on the battlefield.

[Samprimary]

Well, here's my experience:

When SRM's broke, we caved to the Long Range High Alpha Meta and I doled out a stalker with 5 PPC's. We would find a specific vantage point for each map which was largely considered to be the poke hole, then we would wait. Sure enough, individual mechs and the clump would ease forward into excellent firing range. I didn't think it was particularly optimum, but stalkers were my chassis and I was actually pretty good at making the most of it through well-plotted positioning and patient cover advancement.

the 50 alpha was also an excellent counter to poptarters of the time, as they would hop off to plink off 35 damage alphas, and would get hit with 50 in return. Worked for me.

Using a squad of alpha stalkers and catas, we got our way up into that nether-realm where everyone was doing it because you couldn't win against anyone who was doing it if you weren't doing it. this was a netherworld of:

1. mandatory 4-man you were dropping with, cause every enemy team had one too, and that's why they were up there
2. mandatory long range high alpha
3. mere seconds of unintentional exposure would determine whole matches
4. 4-5 people autoquitting fucking Alpine if they saw their team had no lights
5. what's a medium mech? i heartell stories of them but we know not of them around these parts. what purpose would they serve??

when i took a break on that and basically suicide farmed my way through the two worthless raven chassis, I plummeted in ELO down back to where the game was kinda nifty and varied and I could spar with people. By using a really bad mech (the 2-machinegun raven with no ECM) I was challenging myself greatly and getting in brawls with people who weren't exactly, uh, proficient with the stock atlases they were bringing into battle. yeehaw.

When I got my ravens maxed out, I sadly tromped back into the meta, i turned my stalker into a 4ppc build so I could mount a large standard engine and 22 heatsinks. We careened back to the top SO FAST. Again, I don't think it was very optimal (though MAYBE it was during the time that poptarting was fairly penalized by shake) but we did amazingly well. So well, in fact, that we were back to where the game was fuckoff boring again.

When they reset SRM's back to where they were again, I decided to try them out. I kitted an actual honest-to-god brawler just like the old days: 5 medium lasers, 5 SRM 6's.

The verdict was that SRM's are still too hot to justify the damage they do at the ranges that they do, especially with the spot alpha being gone, so .. brawling still wasn't particularly feasible against the sniper meta. Any organized team could usually shut it down given patience and coordination, especially given that the mandatory Seismic Sensor really dicks close range mechs over, as your approach is ALWAYS known to the enemy, even through walls and in caves.

However, there were quite a few golden games we played in which we were squaring off against people who had been sniper zombies for so long they no longer had an adequate response to a brawler showing up next to them. I'd show up with 85 damage alphas IN THEIR FACE and they would just be like "what .. what the fuck is this, this mech is using alien weapons I am not accustomed to, what do I do"

those games aside, SRM's were meh, so brawling was still profoundly inadequate.

The boating heat penalty also effectively ended the 4ppc stalker for me; you had to be really careful with firing two at a time or your heat would jump up 85% in a single volley. Whoopsie. Not worth it. The actual best mechs were running 2ppc/1gauss though, so they were COMPLETELY UNTOUCHED by this fix. Go Go PGI Balance!

Anyway. Game's still in a pretty awkward and lame state compared to the way it used to be before HSR. If anyone wants me to kit them out with an optimum mech design for current meta, I can do that.

[Falconeer]

New Map, Terra Therma, coming tomorrow.

[schpain]

what kind of nerdeurism would ensue if they made the damage on a ppc distribute to the location hit, and the nearest two armour points evenly? (ie hit CT and its 1/3CT 1/3LT 1/3RT)  it breaks canon but would be more interesting and lead people to sniping with lower caliber AC's. 

also a grief change to tip over mechs that pack two gausses.  let them equip them, let them join the match; then the mech just tips the fuck over and they have to wait the whole match looking at the sky 

[Falconeer]

Schapin, they hinted to the possibility of changing PPC damage that way. I think it would be a great idea. Then again, I think the forums would explode. Just because.

[schpain]

well lets sacrifice a goat and cross our fingers that PGI can make a good balance change  

edit: oh, and can you still plink away for 20 dmg at 600m with an AC20, or did they fix that?

[Falconeer]

Mmmh as far as I can tell, you plink at 600m with AC20, but for something like 7 damage.

[Kageru]

You won't though, because they have pretty tight ammo limits.

I'll install the game again when the match variety is more than a snipe match or a circle strafing cluster-fuck in the center of the map. Changing weapon balance is mostly just alternating between those two rather than making the game varied and interesting.

[Llyse]

You won't though, because they have pretty tight ammo limits.

I'll install the game again when the match variety is more than a snipe match or a circle strafing cluster-fuck in the center of the map. Changing weapon balance is mostly just alternating between those two rather than making the game varied and interesting.

You should check out themittani MWO posts for some good analysis posts. But yeah I'm slowly replacing MWO with CS:GO as my multiplayer hit. I'll still tag along with Falc but hitting top tier ELO doesn't interest me.

[Falconeer]

My "STATE OF THE GAME" post, as of July 31st 2013.

So, first post-patch observation is that multiple-PPC boats are quite dead for real. What has been killed is not the boating, but the alpha strike. Try to shoot 4 ppc of any kind at once and see your heat scale go crazy. You can really kill yourself now with that, and I've seen people blowing themselves up left and right. Quite funny.

There's even some idiots on the boards complaining about the changes claiming 4+ PPC alpha strikes were legit and now the game has been dumbed down to accomodate those who were not "skilled enough" to counter that. Yeah, OK.

Not sure how efficient is the LRM boat linking for heat penalty as you can avoid the penalty simply by chain firing then, but I noticed less missiles in the sky yesterday. Just not sure if it's a consequence or a coicidence. SRM linking has hurt the huge alpha of Splatcats, not a bad thing if you ask me. They are still useful with the constant barrage of scree-shaking heavy hitting missiles.

Anyway, pulse lasers are getting buffed next week and PPCs and ERPPCs are getting another nerf (the delayed +1 heat). And the new map, Terra Therma, while obviously a map meant for 12 vs 12 (which means at the moment is a bit painful to find the enemy) is not easy on snipers with its narrow gnarly passages and plenty of cover to close distance gaps without being hammered.

As Sam predicted these changes pushed lots of people towards the Gauss+2PPC variants, which means you are gonna get 35 damage Alphas over and over. Definietly better than in the recent past (after all, 30 damage alpha was over presente in the golden days of closed beta too, thanks to the K2 Gausscat), but still annoying considering pretty much every Assault 'mech (except the Awesome of course) can use it, including those abomination with jump jets.

At this point I wonder if they will acknowledge that everyone is running that build or an improvement of it (and if they are not, they will) or will just state that 35 heat neutral pinpoint damages every 4 seconds are fine and we just have to deal with it. It would be too bad as no matter how convoluted they are, these changes have improved my general experience.

Another problem, which they are aware of, are Spiders. Due to netcode issues they have a gigantic lagshield which drives everyone crazy and basically make them incredibly frustrating (unless you are driving one).




TL;DR:

- Recent heat penalties to alpha striking and weapon ongoing rebalancing has been slightly reducing the sniping. More sniping reduction next week with the +1 heat PPC nerf.
- "Some" brawling is back due to said long-range alpha nerf coupled with short-range weapons buffs.
- Seismic is still questionable but the range nerf is significant.
- Spiders' hitboxes are messed up, so they are tiny murdering machines you can't hit due to bad netcode. Need a fix as soon as possible, before real rage ensues.
- Gauss + PPCs is the most efficient alpha-striking build and it's getting annoying even though it is "only" 35 damage (unless they are close and top that with some more weapons). Also growing fast multiple AC5 and UAC5 builds, because they hit hard, fast, and don't overheat.

[Lantyssa]

Seismic should give you a general location at far distances instead of an exact at close range.  Make it so the equipment is too sensitive to pick up stuff right on top of you.

[Falconeer]

Kintaro, a 55-tons missile based medium, is almost certainly gonna be the next 'mech. Files have been found in the code.

Here's the thumbnail from the test client files.

[Kageru]

Looks much like a trebuchet and will probably be about as useful / common.

[Falconeer]

Someone already dug out the variants from the game files. It's a 55 tons thing, so armour goes up. It should fit up to 370. The Hero has 5 missile hardpoints (two of which in the CT) and 2 Energy. The others have little differences, one more or less Energy, one more or less Missile. No standard variant has 2 Missiles in the CT though, only 1. There is no ballistic whatsoever on the Kintaro. They can all mount up to a 360 Engine which pushes it at 116 Kph.

Looks like a brawler to me, or a Lights hunter.

[Ironwood]

It was originally meant to be a NARC delivery system.

Which means it's another mech put in that's not going to be looked at.  Why use this when you can use a Raven and also do damage ?

[Falconeer]

Here it is.

[Ironwood]

The four Spider teams queuing for that new magma map are fucking obnoxious.

[Samprimary]

Of all the things to terrorize this game's already fragile and dwindling playerbase ...

.. arachnaphobia

[Falconeer]

Spiders are insanely broken at the moment, but hit registration is in a very messy state that needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

This is a video I took the other day during the Third Person View test. It pissed me off so much, look at my first SRM6 Alpha Strike.

[Ironwood]

It's not even that, chaps.  That Map is a fucking Light Paradise.  If it's straight up fight, you can get your base nicked by lights and if it's a resource game, you're PROPER FUCKED.

That map was clearly designed for 12 and it shows so very, very much.

[Falconeer]

Wait a second, can you even have a resource map (Conquest) on Terra Therma? I don't think you can, can you? I've played more than 30 matches there already and never got a Conquest, only Assault. I don't think they have implemented Conquest there yet, probably holding it off until 12 vs 12 is in. I might be wrong though...

Anyway, you are right about everything else. At the moment the only way to play Terra Therma without wanting to stab the Devs is to leave someone behind to guard the base, OR to take Command and starting to give people instructions on where to go, what choke points to guard and so on. I was so frustrated with the map that I deciided to do something about it and took Commander Status to at least try. To my surprise, at least five other folks decided to follow my directions and we won. I repeated the experiement a few more times and we won again and again. Turns out it makes all PUG matches better, but it's stressful so not gonna do it more than a couple times every night.

[Ironwood]

You're Wrong.  They have.  It's fucking AWFUL.

[schpain]

Firstly i'd like to couch my response with the following disclaimer:  I haven't played this game in two months.

But why are we hating a map that's light mech skewed?  Weren't we upset that lights weren't getting enough of the spotlight?  i mean, barring dodgy hitboxes on spiders (buggy?) i thought we'd be happy to see more lights and maps for lights to do well in...

[Ironwood]

Yes, quite ;

But the thing is this :  There's no matching based on weight worth a damn, so while we're ok with teams that have a mix, having nothing but heavies or nothing but lights is something you can't control.  The Map (thermal) is so fucking large that if you don't have the same or several skilled light pilots, you can't walk away from bases or resources without them nipping in.

My particular annoyance was 3 games in a row where 4 Spiders dropped in.  It's like people are doing this on purpose and queuing for the resource game on Magma, so it kinda sucks.

It was just quite obnoxious and it shouldn't really happen, but I guess cheese is cheese.


(Also, Spiders have real issues and they ADMIT that Spiders have issues, so there's that, as you say...)

I want fights that you can take any mech to and have fun, but I don't like ones that lead to 'easy win' behaviour.  I'm complaining about this in the same vein as I complain about the Alpha shite that's been going on.

[Falconeer]

The biggest problem, as Ironwood points out, is that you can't pick a 'mech based on the map. And that's a big problem on Terra Therma as it is on Alpine Peaks. Nothing is less fun than dropping in those maps with a short range brawler or a warm 'mech in Tourmaline. It's gonna be fixed with UI 2.0, but at the moment it can be really painful.

[schpain]

that's absolutely a fair call, the 'you can't pick your mechs for your map' and 'you can't weight limit teams' is a long-standing issue, in fact i remember talking to mates prior to the beta going up and we raised those exact issues BEFORE EVEN PLAYING THE GAME.  nice QC there, PGI.

i guess my personal way around it was to run mediums almost exclusively.  that way i had a mix of speed and weaponry if done correctly, but obviously had to be careful because i can't stay on top of a spider and can't face off an atlas...  it has its own drawbacks.

[Falconeer]

Video for the new Hero 'mech, the Kintaro, codename Golden Boy, coming with tomorrow's patch.

[Ironwood]

Golden Boy with the Feet of Clay ?

Clever.

[Falconeer]

I know you didn't miss me last night Ironwood, as I was about to blow you up, but a power outage killed my connection in the middle of the match. Sad.

[Ironwood]

Your team was shite and got utterly humped.

Just so you know.

I was the highest on the board.  Are you saying you didn't see that, you bastard ?

[Slayerik]

That's why I always screenshot the domination of those I know!

[Falconeer]

I was about to say: sorry Ironwood. Screenshot or it didn't happen.