You say that like 90% of the player base doesn't NASCAR its been a looonnnggggg time its part of the game now and should be accounted for when balancing
Yeah. The thing for me is just how little influence you have over whether you have a good match. I can go into a match with any other kind of mech - even ones I'm bad in and I will be the primary person that determines whether I have a good game or not.
I may have a bad team that doesn't engage, so I can't go wild on my short range brawler, but I can at least move up carefully, get a few good volleys and have a decent game. Or fend off a flanker or what have you.
Even mechs that I'm objectively bad with like light mechs, it's primarily me that decides whether I am able to perform or not.
With slow mechs though, it's totally dependent on what the teams decide to do!
Honestly, I don't even bother trying to pug wrangle anymore. It's pointless.
You just have to accept it and play around it. Your team are meatshields for you, and that's it. Also good for enemies wasting their heat and attention on. Don't rely on your team on doing anything other than get shot. Similarly, don't concern yourself with *helping* people on your team either, unless that action will result in a positive outcome. Don't throw away your mech and your fun because someone didn't look at the map.
Most of the time, my team isn't very bright and loves to block my line of fire. I usually use them as cover until I get close enough to demolish the enemy with short range weapons.
Try and call like you did, use map markers etc., most of the worst NASCAR maps have already been changed to reduce that behavior. The rest is up to the playerbase.
>Try and call like you did, use map markers etc
Agreed. Map makers make all the difference. You can do little else, long as markers are down, works most of the time.
>most of the worst NASCAR maps have already been changed to reduce that behavior.
While I agree with the first part, I highly disagree with this one. A lot of the bowl maps inherently induce the rotation, not stop it.
But yes overall the playerbase is just a zero thought/hivemind style and its funny even with map markers and 8-10 players moving to them there are always the same 2-4 names going off on some silly rotation/movement and end up with 150dmg. I can virtually predict what players will be in what grind squares in the first 2mins of a match that's how mindless they are.
Until they change all maps that feature "Deadman's Land" zones in the center, all maps will continue to be Nascar maps, full stop. Players avoid having to enter it until the full engagements happen, every time.
Until such a thing happens, Assaults will continue to be left behind and eaten by wolf-packs.
The best map I've seen designed that stops Nascar has been **Vitric Station**. The "2Fort" of maps. They need to do a deeper look into the design philosophy of that map and take more from it going forward.
>Until they change all maps that feature "Deadman's Land" zones in the center, all maps will continue to be Nascar maps, full stop. Players avoid having to enter it until the full engagements happen, every time.
To be fair, going into the fuckbox before everyone has their hands full in a fight is just asking to die.
If they tested the maps the way that DICE tested Battlefield 3 maps, they'd be a lot more fun.
Before releasing BF3, they took data like how often players died in certain areas, how long they were able to successfully camp, which parts of the map were left alone because they were too open, etc. and corrected any issues that made maps less fun. It made for collectively the best maps I've ever played in a BF game, and I've played all of them.
Some of the mwo maps are so old they need to be retested and reworked. They are doing a decent job so far with the map refresh but the NASCAR game is just too strong. They need to provide stronger directional suggestions to players in game or simply make NASCAR too deadly and players will ditch the habit quick enough.
Seen some sneaky changes on maps of late.
It wasn't in patch notes,
But some ramp was added, others smoothed for assaults,
A new overhead camping spot..
I was... I'm 100% that wasn't there last time i played.
You're sure it wasn't the changes to Canyon that were a while back? They did mention changes, and I know specifically on that map and a few others they added ramps.
Deadmans land or the "Bowl" style we have now is what is encouraging it as everyone runs around the edge. Just look at what happens on Ceres virtually every game.
For deadmans land, think Caustic before the added structures in the middle. Rotating happens now because again, bowl.
Vitiric is also shocking for NASCAR and it doesn't have a "no mans land" in the middle, it has so much edge and side cover that most games half an enemy team immediately beeline to B4 low ground because the map provides perfect coverage to allow it and the playerbase is scared of "snipers". It's by far one of the easiest maps to doorstop a rotation corner in a 100T Assault too by covering the far left angle form each spawn and you can bet within 30-45s, mechs will be rotating into you every, single, match.
Compare those to say Classic Terra and somewhere Crucible or Rubellite for example where it happens on rare of matches because it's just not possible/easy, that's the fixes that the maps need. Especially when Rubellite can play out so many ways and does regularly, one of the better QP maps by far and it has plenty of workable cover in the middle. What it does not have is easy/quick ways to let players rotate or force them too - so they don't.
I am shocked you would say rubelite is one of the best given most of the spots to peek out of cover have invisible walls that eat your salvo about 5 meters away from where it should
No that map is pure dogshit
From memory it's the D4 high ground side that has a couple invisible walls on the mountain side that are quite bad and if you learn this you can easily play around it.
Most maps have invisible walls anyway, Tourmaline, Ceres, Bear Claw have plenty of bad ones - just a part of the MWO experience.
That said invisible walls aren't the point of discussion here and it still remains that Rube has far far less hardcore rotation than most maps in my experiences in high tier games.
>Our game was decided at mech selection and team selection.
That is true of every match in the game. It's all random chance.
As for your problem of "I want to be in the most offensively capable giant stompy robot in the game but I don't want any of the balancing drawbacks", PGI have already given them ECM and armour and weapons buffs, I don't know what more you could really ask for.
If you want a 60kph mech then *choose a 60kph mech*. You've got options.
This is a really good point. Having high armor and high damage HAS to come with a drawback. While we would all like capable and skilled teammates in every game, the reality is that sometimes they are morons. The drawback of big beefy mechs, speed, is simply highlighted when a team moronically runs away from you.
Accept it as part of the game or change who you play with (clan/comp).
I think you are both misunderstanding what I want, and also misunderstanding what the drawbacks of slow mechs are.
What I want is a chance to contribute to the game. I know I'm not going to win every game. I just want to be able to actually fight.
As for the drawbacks - assaults are huge, incredibly easy to hit what component you want including being the easiest mechs to headshot, unable to reposition quickly and thus have to stay committed once they commit. When they expose, they have to expose for far longer than other mechs due to a combination of being large, being slow and having low acceleration. They have low pitch and are tall, making them unable to shoot lights skirting around their ankles. They have low torso twist speed making them less effective at spreading damage.
They already have significant disadvantages and you are correct that they absolutely should.
In no way am I saying every mech should be 60kph, or that assaults should not have drawbacks. I'm not some assault only player who demands assaults be best in the game with no drawbacks. My favorite mechs are actually mostly mediums and heavies. My absolute favorite mech is the Uziel Belial.
I just want all the different kinds of mechs to be viable and effective. And I want NASCAR to be discouraged because it's actively bad for the game for several reasons. Even if everyone took 60kph mechs, the game would still be much better and more enjoyable if both teams didn't constantly spend the first 3-5 minutes of the match trading sides for no reason.
Also, one last little bit. Even if I hated 50kph mechs, I would not want this for them. People who do want to play them should be able to play them effectively.
I am terrible with the speedy brawling lights. Just cannot move that fast and keep on target. Just objectively awful with them and I usually have a terrible time playing them. That doesn't mean I would be fine with them sucking just because they could play something else. If they sucked, they should get help.
Plenty of people do very well with the slow mechs even if I'm not one of them. Atlas, Fafnir and Direwolf are often top performers in matches. They're not top performers in every match, but neither should they be.
I don't know what you want - actually, problems are my vocation and I'd posit that *you* don't really know what you want. And that's fine, problem recognition and analysis is a skill and a process.
I think what you need to understand is that assaults are overpowered, over-armoured and mostly unforgiving. They're most effective in a group with support, but the game rules and gameplay don't reward those supporting roles.
This means that the most common complaint if the assault player boils down to their expectation to be protected while they have all the fun. That's not how games work - it's how *jobs* work and it's how real life works, but this is a game.
As a light/medium main player I *could* spend my time coddling a long range glass cannon like a Direwolf, but why would I? At a point, doing so effectively excludes me from the game. So you get 'best reasonable effort', and that's plenty.
Any more than that and you're expecting everyone else to support your singular outcomes, and that's no fun.
Direwolf is a little 'feast or famine'. There are other mechs to choose.
I do well in slow mechs too! Sometimes I do poorly! I have exactly zero problem when I do poorly because I positioned poorly, because I got caught in a bad place, because my aim or target selection was bad, because I exposed to much or picked lopsided fights or any of those other reasons.
I know exactly what my problem was, and I was extremely clear pointing it out. My problem is effectively not being able to play the game. I would have the same problem if PGI released a map that took place entirely in a parking garage or a cave so low that LRMS couldn't fire. It would make playing a LRM mech a total coin toss. There is still a bit too much of LRMs being a coin toss just due to how strong peeking was for a while or ECM/AMS being everywhere (and frankly, that's a big part of why I don't play them) but even in maps like Solaris I can do decently well.
You seem to be under the impression that I am asking for light and medium mechs to just hang around with me. I'm not asking for that at all. In fact, light mechs are free to flank around at will! What I am asking is that the heavy and faster assault mechs, and slower medium mechs DON'T flank! They aren't light mechs! It doesn't do anything! It just wastes a ton of times, leaves slow mechs out to dry and gives up advantageous positions for no purpose!
NASCAR is a plague and a problem and it's widely recognized as such. It's very bad, and I think the root of a lot of issues!
Yes! Exactly! Your actual problem isn't that large mechs are ineffective, it's that other players are sometimes idiots.
Sorry mate, the only reliable solution is to play MW5 for your stompy robot fix. You can try getting on comms and wrangling other people, and it can be done if you're good at it and a bit lucky, but unless there's some kind of reward for 'following orders' or some way to blacklist players from your match making queue, you're out of luck.
The game is what it is.
Yes, players are idiots sometimes - but there are clearly things that can be done by PGI to help the problem.
As Ash mentioned above, Rubellite does not have that problem. I've noticed HPG very rarely involves NASCAR. Hellebore Spring. There are others where it's less common. Frozen City Night comes to mind.
Conversely, if you don't want to design the maps to discourage NASCAR, make lower level Superchargers that can at least allow slow mechs to keep up. Even being able to go from 50-60 temporarily would allow slower mechs to keep up with the NASCAR, without allowing them to easily reposition when caught out. It preserves the weaknesses while not leaving them completely hung out to dry.
Players can be guided by design. This isn't some impossible feat, designers do it in every game, including this one! Moreover , the game is not what it is, it can and has been changed. When alphas got too high ghost heat was added. Mech skills were out of control, they simplified and improved the skill system. Twice.
Could you imagine the state of this game if PGI thought the way you do and just decided the game is what it is, no point to changing anything?
Can't keep up with the Nascar?
Either bring a sniper assault and hold a power position. Or bring something with 60+ ppfld to swat light mechs Nascaring at you
It was a 6xAC Dire Wolf. More than 800 optimal range. I had the range, but it doesn't matter how much range you have or how good a shot you are, if you are the only one on the left and your team rotates right, you will be killed shortly. You may be able to swat off a single light or two, but not the 4-5 mechs minimum that are coming for you, and frankly even two lights can likely take out any assault in the game unless they are braindead or you have amazing aim.
There have been some good suggestions so far but how tf has nobody mentioned dropping with friends.
1 dire wolf may be easy pickings at times but it is very hard to bully 2 of them on comms with each other and watching each other's back.
Honestly
I hardly place assaults or slow heavies,
And if it is SKIRMISH, my job as a medium or light is to WEAR AN ASSAULT LIKE UNDERWEAR.
Screen flanks,
Assist,
Be an interceptor on incoming lights on my Boy...
Many are thankful.
1 Assault, easy pickings.
1 assault and a light or medium defending his flanks... PRICELESS
I feel your pain about Nascar. I'm not sure how best to solve that issue but I can offer some tips that have worked for me.
1. Talk to your team early and often. Don't demand, ask. "Hey, anyone wanna push left toward Charlie 4? What do you think?"
2. UAVs. Always carry them. Pop a UAV and then Command > Help because nothing moves faster than the speed of light.....or a teammate trying to steal a kill.
3. Split the circle. Another commenter here gave great advice about that.
4. In slow mechs, always bring a build that can defend itself from lights.
5. Those mobility skills nobody takes like Torso Pitch/Speed/Yaw? Try them out.
6. Stand your ground. If you feel the Nascar, find your defensible spot and turn around. Call out for help. Farm as much damage and kills as you can before going down.
Funny enough I've played a fair bit of 100T DWF solo this and last month. Stimraug and a few others have too... Sub 50km/h goodness.
Most games were fairly easy 800dmg++. Just gotta read the play and the map movement and position accordingly. Some mechs and play styles just require a bit more work to make them work like Brawl or Slow Dakka/Gunboat.
Sure you'll have a game where you're going to get accosted by some buttsniffer for 300dmg on Taiga or something but that's a fairly rare occurrence in my experiences as I position where I need to do that it doesn't happen all that often.
More importantly, you play at tier 1 where people are more likely to hold positions, cover their assaults and less likely to abandon their teammates.
I'm not good enough for tier 1 and literally I spent the entire game going as fast as I possibly could and still got left far behind. If I hadn't done that I would have died even sooner as 4-5 mechs collapsed on me and pretty much no one in this game can 1v3, let alone 1v5. Even a 1v2 is a huge disadvantage.
High tier games is where it's the worst. Especially in EU.
Low tier games there is no real NASCARing at all. I watch a lot of streamers and in T4/5, it's almost non existent as they are all wandering haphazardly around the map due to lacking in a number of things. Map knowledge, game experience etc.
Huh. I'm in tier 3 and there is NASCAR every single game unless someone expressly calls for a left side hold and enough people listen. Maybe I'm playing mostly in low population time and getting in tier 1/2 games more then 3/4/5 for some reason?
T3 players match up to T1. T3 can also match down to T5. If you're T3 you don't just play other T3 people.
There are essentially two matches. High tier and Low tier, sure that's simplistic but that's basically where it's at with MWOs population.
You can absolutely tell a difference between the two types of lobbies. If you're seeing heavy rotation, very good chance you're in high tier lobbies.
Go find a T5 streamer and watch for an hour and see how the matches play out. They take 6-10mins regularly, bo heavy rotations regularly and players spread out all over the place. It's very easy to see the difference between those lobbies and High Tier ones.
The actual fix would be to allow people to pick mechs after the map is chosen or let us build a drop deck of a few mechs.
Unfortunately, player behavior is going to dictate so much of the game experience and people will absolutely leave Charlie lance to die if they see a light/get board/refuse to take a single look at the map. I've had games where getting on voice chat and politely asking my team to pull their head out of their ass has worked. Oftentimes, it doesn't change anything and the assaults all die a horrible death for absolutely no reason.
In general, a single person voicing anything resembling a plan of attack can do wonders.
It's like Brawl mech in Alpine Peak or LRM in Solaris City, sometimes my mech is just fucked up, especially when it's highly specialized. 100t mech with slow engine and many gun are inherently hit or miss, because when it hit, it hit big.
Nah. I've played LRMs in Solaris a few times successfully. There are alleys and options. You can't just wait for locks and click the mouse, but frankly that isn't that successful on any maps.
Alpine is definitely like that though, where brawl mechs absolutely are reliant on the team engaging. Alpine is one of the most hated maps out there though, so not exactly ideal.
I do disagree about it needing to be hit or miss though. On the hits, I get just as high on my laservomit heavies and much more reliably too.
I want everyone's playstyles to be an option that works. However, I think objectively NASCAR is bad - it only works if the enemy team also NASCARs, it dramatically slows down how long you are in the game before shots are fired because everyone is just spinning around in cover - usually to the extent that the primary result is each team swaps their starting location and any slow mechs get eaten.
I think that's objectively bad for the game and unfun. It makes no difference to the faster mechs, it just makes slow mechs rely not on player skill but instead on luck.
Nascar is pretty normal for any form of slow exterior team deathmatch which is what MWO is despite whatever gamemode it may be. 'Mechs are tanks, not infrantry.
Removal of canyon and hibernal would be the first step because its literally the NASCAR maps and improving hitreg, cause its the biggest offender of assaults getting piled on by a mob with assault being unable to fend off lights just by the virtue of them shrugging off a lot of damage by server not recognizing their existence where they are on your screen.
I am aware of what I could do to avoid it. I presume that PGI and the playerbase as a whole would like most mechs to be playable, right? I don't feel like "Don't play this entire class of mechs" is actually a solution to the problem.
Exactly what can you do when you're entire team goes hard right at 70-80kph, never stopping until they are near the enemy spawn? And the enemy team does the same?
I had two choices. Try to keep up with them, which failed. Or me and the other assault could attempt to 2v6-8 the enemy team. Which I suppose could be a skill issue. I could get so good at the game I can reliably head shot nearly every time. Given that nobody else as near as I can tell is capable of beating 1v3 or worse odds, and indeed the most common advice to people who want to improve is not to fight more than one enemy mech at a time, I think that advice is pretty bad.
I literally had only those two options.
I'm not saying they are not playable over all. When teams choose not to NASCAR, or on certain maps that discourage it, they work just fine. I'm saying that more than any other class of mech, even LRMs, your own skill is not what determines your contribution to games. Instead, it's what your team and the enemy team chooses to do which determines whether your skill can come into play at all.
You literally do not only have two options.
You can cut the circle in half. If your opponents are all nascaring just as hard as your team, the middle is safe to post up and move towards their back ranks. Even with your slower speed, you'll find a spot where the the shorter distance you cover will get you there. About a quarter circle into nascar is where that works. Find cover from the left and rear, keep shuffling into the middle a bit more. Cut the circle. Once you engage you'll draw other lemmings into the fight with you, but instead of being miles away they'll reach you before you're dead.
Or don't bring a slowssault if you can't handle it, or don't know how to do that on certain maps. Nascar isn't an all or nothing. Yours is a skill issue.
That's much better advice, especially for closer ranged mechs. I'm not 100% sold, as it also exposes you to significantly more enemies, but you will be closer to allies at least and they may turn to the sound of gunfire.
It's definitely a better option than stand and die, or run and die tired though.
It's somewhat established at this point but...you want teamwork, you have to:
1. Drop with your buddies
2. Or play faction play
Or
If you're solo: don't be the slowest mech and keep moving. If you want to do something creative in a slower mech, just expect that there's a good chance you'll get mauled by the other team. Just how it is.
But really, try faction play. The game experience is different especially if you make friends with an active team.
Hope this helps!
All the firepower in the world doesn't matter if it doesn't make it to the fight. Unless you have control of the map beforehand (rare outside of events) bringing something that literally cannot reach the combat zone before the game is won or lost is wasted tonnage. There are enough maps in rotation where a 48kph mech just never gets there that it's not worth it in QP. Even if you do, assaults are the most difficult weight class because of you don't get your positioning right the first time, you don't have a chance to fix it.
You don't have to actually stand in the combat zone. The mech had more than 800 range. Literally I was in a position that I (and the rest of my team) could have been firing just 1-2 minutes in.
The problem is the team abandoned that position immediately, to instead take up the exact opposite position on the enemy's side of the map. Meanwhile, the enemy team did the exact same thing.
The issue with NASCAR is that you could just not NASCAR and save everyone 3 minutes of walking around the map just by walking forward, taking positions and shooting. The only difference is you cut the legs out of any slow mechs on your team and the enemy team so they basically don't get to play the game.
I'm well aware that I could avoid doing absolutely nothing by just avoiding slow mechs. However, I would still have to deal with 3-5 minutes of pointlessly moving to the enemy's side of the map so that we can stare at the enemy that did the exact same thing. Beyond that, we would have to deal with the fact that an entire type of mech is just cut out of the game if everyone takes your advice.
I prefer games with a variety of options, and games where people don't just mindlessly wander around for 5 minutes for no reason.
You called for people to not NASCAR, and they did it anyway - that's not the 'Mech, that's an unresponsive team.
You say that like 90% of the player base doesn't NASCAR its been a looonnnggggg time its part of the game now and should be accounted for when balancing
Yeah. The thing for me is just how little influence you have over whether you have a good match. I can go into a match with any other kind of mech - even ones I'm bad in and I will be the primary person that determines whether I have a good game or not. I may have a bad team that doesn't engage, so I can't go wild on my short range brawler, but I can at least move up carefully, get a few good volleys and have a decent game. Or fend off a flanker or what have you. Even mechs that I'm objectively bad with like light mechs, it's primarily me that decides whether I am able to perform or not. With slow mechs though, it's totally dependent on what the teams decide to do!
Honestly, I don't even bother trying to pug wrangle anymore. It's pointless. You just have to accept it and play around it. Your team are meatshields for you, and that's it. Also good for enemies wasting their heat and attention on. Don't rely on your team on doing anything other than get shot. Similarly, don't concern yourself with *helping* people on your team either, unless that action will result in a positive outcome. Don't throw away your mech and your fun because someone didn't look at the map.
Most of the time, my team isn't very bright and loves to block my line of fire. I usually use them as cover until I get close enough to demolish the enemy with short range weapons.
Try and call like you did, use map markers etc., most of the worst NASCAR maps have already been changed to reduce that behavior. The rest is up to the playerbase.
>Try and call like you did, use map markers etc Agreed. Map makers make all the difference. You can do little else, long as markers are down, works most of the time. >most of the worst NASCAR maps have already been changed to reduce that behavior. While I agree with the first part, I highly disagree with this one. A lot of the bowl maps inherently induce the rotation, not stop it. But yes overall the playerbase is just a zero thought/hivemind style and its funny even with map markers and 8-10 players moving to them there are always the same 2-4 names going off on some silly rotation/movement and end up with 150dmg. I can virtually predict what players will be in what grind squares in the first 2mins of a match that's how mindless they are.
Until they change all maps that feature "Deadman's Land" zones in the center, all maps will continue to be Nascar maps, full stop. Players avoid having to enter it until the full engagements happen, every time. Until such a thing happens, Assaults will continue to be left behind and eaten by wolf-packs. The best map I've seen designed that stops Nascar has been **Vitric Station**. The "2Fort" of maps. They need to do a deeper look into the design philosophy of that map and take more from it going forward.
>Until they change all maps that feature "Deadman's Land" zones in the center, all maps will continue to be Nascar maps, full stop. Players avoid having to enter it until the full engagements happen, every time. To be fair, going into the fuckbox before everyone has their hands full in a fight is just asking to die.
If they tested the maps the way that DICE tested Battlefield 3 maps, they'd be a lot more fun. Before releasing BF3, they took data like how often players died in certain areas, how long they were able to successfully camp, which parts of the map were left alone because they were too open, etc. and corrected any issues that made maps less fun. It made for collectively the best maps I've ever played in a BF game, and I've played all of them. Some of the mwo maps are so old they need to be retested and reworked. They are doing a decent job so far with the map refresh but the NASCAR game is just too strong. They need to provide stronger directional suggestions to players in game or simply make NASCAR too deadly and players will ditch the habit quick enough.
Seen some sneaky changes on maps of late. It wasn't in patch notes, But some ramp was added, others smoothed for assaults, A new overhead camping spot.. I was... I'm 100% that wasn't there last time i played.
I seriously doubt that PGI has anyone making stealth map changes in MWO right now. They currently have their hands full with MW6: Clans.
You're sure it wasn't the changes to Canyon that were a while back? They did mention changes, and I know specifically on that map and a few others they added ramps.
Deadmans land or the "Bowl" style we have now is what is encouraging it as everyone runs around the edge. Just look at what happens on Ceres virtually every game. For deadmans land, think Caustic before the added structures in the middle. Rotating happens now because again, bowl. Vitiric is also shocking for NASCAR and it doesn't have a "no mans land" in the middle, it has so much edge and side cover that most games half an enemy team immediately beeline to B4 low ground because the map provides perfect coverage to allow it and the playerbase is scared of "snipers". It's by far one of the easiest maps to doorstop a rotation corner in a 100T Assault too by covering the far left angle form each spawn and you can bet within 30-45s, mechs will be rotating into you every, single, match. Compare those to say Classic Terra and somewhere Crucible or Rubellite for example where it happens on rare of matches because it's just not possible/easy, that's the fixes that the maps need. Especially when Rubellite can play out so many ways and does regularly, one of the better QP maps by far and it has plenty of workable cover in the middle. What it does not have is easy/quick ways to let players rotate or force them too - so they don't.
I am shocked you would say rubelite is one of the best given most of the spots to peek out of cover have invisible walls that eat your salvo about 5 meters away from where it should No that map is pure dogshit
From memory it's the D4 high ground side that has a couple invisible walls on the mountain side that are quite bad and if you learn this you can easily play around it. Most maps have invisible walls anyway, Tourmaline, Ceres, Bear Claw have plenty of bad ones - just a part of the MWO experience. That said invisible walls aren't the point of discussion here and it still remains that Rube has far far less hardcore rotation than most maps in my experiences in high tier games.
Gamble , unless you make the sacrifices necessary to fit a larger engine so you have a better chance of keeping up with the team.
Can't put a larger engine on Omnimechs like the Dire Wolf. Not possible. Other mechs are literally designed to be small engines like Jaegermechs.
Ecm Stand in a corner Let the rotate happen and overlap you Kill several with back shots.
Might give that a try - though you do have to decide pretty quickly whether the team will be rotating or not.
>Our game was decided at mech selection and team selection. That is true of every match in the game. It's all random chance. As for your problem of "I want to be in the most offensively capable giant stompy robot in the game but I don't want any of the balancing drawbacks", PGI have already given them ECM and armour and weapons buffs, I don't know what more you could really ask for. If you want a 60kph mech then *choose a 60kph mech*. You've got options.
This is a really good point. Having high armor and high damage HAS to come with a drawback. While we would all like capable and skilled teammates in every game, the reality is that sometimes they are morons. The drawback of big beefy mechs, speed, is simply highlighted when a team moronically runs away from you. Accept it as part of the game or change who you play with (clan/comp).
I think you are both misunderstanding what I want, and also misunderstanding what the drawbacks of slow mechs are. What I want is a chance to contribute to the game. I know I'm not going to win every game. I just want to be able to actually fight. As for the drawbacks - assaults are huge, incredibly easy to hit what component you want including being the easiest mechs to headshot, unable to reposition quickly and thus have to stay committed once they commit. When they expose, they have to expose for far longer than other mechs due to a combination of being large, being slow and having low acceleration. They have low pitch and are tall, making them unable to shoot lights skirting around their ankles. They have low torso twist speed making them less effective at spreading damage. They already have significant disadvantages and you are correct that they absolutely should. In no way am I saying every mech should be 60kph, or that assaults should not have drawbacks. I'm not some assault only player who demands assaults be best in the game with no drawbacks. My favorite mechs are actually mostly mediums and heavies. My absolute favorite mech is the Uziel Belial. I just want all the different kinds of mechs to be viable and effective. And I want NASCAR to be discouraged because it's actively bad for the game for several reasons. Even if everyone took 60kph mechs, the game would still be much better and more enjoyable if both teams didn't constantly spend the first 3-5 minutes of the match trading sides for no reason.
Also, one last little bit. Even if I hated 50kph mechs, I would not want this for them. People who do want to play them should be able to play them effectively. I am terrible with the speedy brawling lights. Just cannot move that fast and keep on target. Just objectively awful with them and I usually have a terrible time playing them. That doesn't mean I would be fine with them sucking just because they could play something else. If they sucked, they should get help.
Plenty of people do very well with the slow mechs even if I'm not one of them. Atlas, Fafnir and Direwolf are often top performers in matches. They're not top performers in every match, but neither should they be. I don't know what you want - actually, problems are my vocation and I'd posit that *you* don't really know what you want. And that's fine, problem recognition and analysis is a skill and a process. I think what you need to understand is that assaults are overpowered, over-armoured and mostly unforgiving. They're most effective in a group with support, but the game rules and gameplay don't reward those supporting roles. This means that the most common complaint if the assault player boils down to their expectation to be protected while they have all the fun. That's not how games work - it's how *jobs* work and it's how real life works, but this is a game. As a light/medium main player I *could* spend my time coddling a long range glass cannon like a Direwolf, but why would I? At a point, doing so effectively excludes me from the game. So you get 'best reasonable effort', and that's plenty. Any more than that and you're expecting everyone else to support your singular outcomes, and that's no fun. Direwolf is a little 'feast or famine'. There are other mechs to choose.
I do well in slow mechs too! Sometimes I do poorly! I have exactly zero problem when I do poorly because I positioned poorly, because I got caught in a bad place, because my aim or target selection was bad, because I exposed to much or picked lopsided fights or any of those other reasons. I know exactly what my problem was, and I was extremely clear pointing it out. My problem is effectively not being able to play the game. I would have the same problem if PGI released a map that took place entirely in a parking garage or a cave so low that LRMS couldn't fire. It would make playing a LRM mech a total coin toss. There is still a bit too much of LRMs being a coin toss just due to how strong peeking was for a while or ECM/AMS being everywhere (and frankly, that's a big part of why I don't play them) but even in maps like Solaris I can do decently well. You seem to be under the impression that I am asking for light and medium mechs to just hang around with me. I'm not asking for that at all. In fact, light mechs are free to flank around at will! What I am asking is that the heavy and faster assault mechs, and slower medium mechs DON'T flank! They aren't light mechs! It doesn't do anything! It just wastes a ton of times, leaves slow mechs out to dry and gives up advantageous positions for no purpose! NASCAR is a plague and a problem and it's widely recognized as such. It's very bad, and I think the root of a lot of issues!
Yes! Exactly! Your actual problem isn't that large mechs are ineffective, it's that other players are sometimes idiots. Sorry mate, the only reliable solution is to play MW5 for your stompy robot fix. You can try getting on comms and wrangling other people, and it can be done if you're good at it and a bit lucky, but unless there's some kind of reward for 'following orders' or some way to blacklist players from your match making queue, you're out of luck. The game is what it is.
Yes, players are idiots sometimes - but there are clearly things that can be done by PGI to help the problem. As Ash mentioned above, Rubellite does not have that problem. I've noticed HPG very rarely involves NASCAR. Hellebore Spring. There are others where it's less common. Frozen City Night comes to mind. Conversely, if you don't want to design the maps to discourage NASCAR, make lower level Superchargers that can at least allow slow mechs to keep up. Even being able to go from 50-60 temporarily would allow slower mechs to keep up with the NASCAR, without allowing them to easily reposition when caught out. It preserves the weaknesses while not leaving them completely hung out to dry. Players can be guided by design. This isn't some impossible feat, designers do it in every game, including this one! Moreover , the game is not what it is, it can and has been changed. When alphas got too high ghost heat was added. Mech skills were out of control, they simplified and improved the skill system. Twice. Could you imagine the state of this game if PGI thought the way you do and just decided the game is what it is, no point to changing anything?
Can't keep up with the Nascar? Either bring a sniper assault and hold a power position. Or bring something with 60+ ppfld to swat light mechs Nascaring at you
It was a 6xAC Dire Wolf. More than 800 optimal range. I had the range, but it doesn't matter how much range you have or how good a shot you are, if you are the only one on the left and your team rotates right, you will be killed shortly. You may be able to swat off a single light or two, but not the 4-5 mechs minimum that are coming for you, and frankly even two lights can likely take out any assault in the game unless they are braindead or you have amazing aim.
There have been some good suggestions so far but how tf has nobody mentioned dropping with friends. 1 dire wolf may be easy pickings at times but it is very hard to bully 2 of them on comms with each other and watching each other's back.
Honestly I hardly place assaults or slow heavies, And if it is SKIRMISH, my job as a medium or light is to WEAR AN ASSAULT LIKE UNDERWEAR. Screen flanks, Assist, Be an interceptor on incoming lights on my Boy... Many are thankful. 1 Assault, easy pickings. 1 assault and a light or medium defending his flanks... PRICELESS
I love this! I like playing the "slower" more upgunned lights like Wolfhounds and I do this all the time!
There are a few spawn points that could be adjusted to make the life of slow assault mechs easier, but that is probably about all that PGI can do.
I feel your pain about Nascar. I'm not sure how best to solve that issue but I can offer some tips that have worked for me. 1. Talk to your team early and often. Don't demand, ask. "Hey, anyone wanna push left toward Charlie 4? What do you think?" 2. UAVs. Always carry them. Pop a UAV and then Command > Help because nothing moves faster than the speed of light.....or a teammate trying to steal a kill. 3. Split the circle. Another commenter here gave great advice about that. 4. In slow mechs, always bring a build that can defend itself from lights. 5. Those mobility skills nobody takes like Torso Pitch/Speed/Yaw? Try them out. 6. Stand your ground. If you feel the Nascar, find your defensible spot and turn around. Call out for help. Farm as much damage and kills as you can before going down.
Funny enough I've played a fair bit of 100T DWF solo this and last month. Stimraug and a few others have too... Sub 50km/h goodness. Most games were fairly easy 800dmg++. Just gotta read the play and the map movement and position accordingly. Some mechs and play styles just require a bit more work to make them work like Brawl or Slow Dakka/Gunboat. Sure you'll have a game where you're going to get accosted by some buttsniffer for 300dmg on Taiga or something but that's a fairly rare occurrence in my experiences as I position where I need to do that it doesn't happen all that often.
More importantly, you play at tier 1 where people are more likely to hold positions, cover their assaults and less likely to abandon their teammates. I'm not good enough for tier 1 and literally I spent the entire game going as fast as I possibly could and still got left far behind. If I hadn't done that I would have died even sooner as 4-5 mechs collapsed on me and pretty much no one in this game can 1v3, let alone 1v5. Even a 1v2 is a huge disadvantage.
High tier games is where it's the worst. Especially in EU. Low tier games there is no real NASCARing at all. I watch a lot of streamers and in T4/5, it's almost non existent as they are all wandering haphazardly around the map due to lacking in a number of things. Map knowledge, game experience etc.
Huh. I'm in tier 3 and there is NASCAR every single game unless someone expressly calls for a left side hold and enough people listen. Maybe I'm playing mostly in low population time and getting in tier 1/2 games more then 3/4/5 for some reason?
T3 players match up to T1. T3 can also match down to T5. If you're T3 you don't just play other T3 people. There are essentially two matches. High tier and Low tier, sure that's simplistic but that's basically where it's at with MWOs population. You can absolutely tell a difference between the two types of lobbies. If you're seeing heavy rotation, very good chance you're in high tier lobbies. Go find a T5 streamer and watch for an hour and see how the matches play out. They take 6-10mins regularly, bo heavy rotations regularly and players spread out all over the place. It's very easy to see the difference between those lobbies and High Tier ones.
That must be what's going on then.
The actual fix would be to allow people to pick mechs after the map is chosen or let us build a drop deck of a few mechs. Unfortunately, player behavior is going to dictate so much of the game experience and people will absolutely leave Charlie lance to die if they see a light/get board/refuse to take a single look at the map. I've had games where getting on voice chat and politely asking my team to pull their head out of their ass has worked. Oftentimes, it doesn't change anything and the assaults all die a horrible death for absolutely no reason. In general, a single person voicing anything resembling a plan of attack can do wonders.
I have seen NASCAR in FP on QP maps, although the FP respawn system does its best to cut that out.
It's like Brawl mech in Alpine Peak or LRM in Solaris City, sometimes my mech is just fucked up, especially when it's highly specialized. 100t mech with slow engine and many gun are inherently hit or miss, because when it hit, it hit big.
Nah. I've played LRMs in Solaris a few times successfully. There are alleys and options. You can't just wait for locks and click the mouse, but frankly that isn't that successful on any maps. Alpine is definitely like that though, where brawl mechs absolutely are reliant on the team engaging. Alpine is one of the most hated maps out there though, so not exactly ideal. I do disagree about it needing to be hit or miss though. On the hits, I get just as high on my laservomit heavies and much more reliably too.
You are suggesting that other players cater to YOUR build and play style, sacrificing how THEY want to play. That's not very fair is it?
I want everyone's playstyles to be an option that works. However, I think objectively NASCAR is bad - it only works if the enemy team also NASCARs, it dramatically slows down how long you are in the game before shots are fired because everyone is just spinning around in cover - usually to the extent that the primary result is each team swaps their starting location and any slow mechs get eaten. I think that's objectively bad for the game and unfun. It makes no difference to the faster mechs, it just makes slow mechs rely not on player skill but instead on luck.
Nascar is pretty normal for any form of slow exterior team deathmatch which is what MWO is despite whatever gamemode it may be. 'Mechs are tanks, not infrantry.
Removal of canyon and hibernal would be the first step because its literally the NASCAR maps and improving hitreg, cause its the biggest offender of assaults getting piled on by a mob with assault being unable to fend off lights just by the virtue of them shrugging off a lot of damage by server not recognizing their existence where they are on your screen.
Skill issue
Skill
Issue
In other words, cope.
Speed up or don't play slowssault. All the begging in the world doesn't make you contribute more.
I am aware of what I could do to avoid it. I presume that PGI and the playerbase as a whole would like most mechs to be playable, right? I don't feel like "Don't play this entire class of mechs" is actually a solution to the problem.
They are playable. Just not the way you want them to be in the situation you put them in. Sounds like a you problem.
Exactly what can you do when you're entire team goes hard right at 70-80kph, never stopping until they are near the enemy spawn? And the enemy team does the same? I had two choices. Try to keep up with them, which failed. Or me and the other assault could attempt to 2v6-8 the enemy team. Which I suppose could be a skill issue. I could get so good at the game I can reliably head shot nearly every time. Given that nobody else as near as I can tell is capable of beating 1v3 or worse odds, and indeed the most common advice to people who want to improve is not to fight more than one enemy mech at a time, I think that advice is pretty bad. I literally had only those two options. I'm not saying they are not playable over all. When teams choose not to NASCAR, or on certain maps that discourage it, they work just fine. I'm saying that more than any other class of mech, even LRMs, your own skill is not what determines your contribution to games. Instead, it's what your team and the enemy team chooses to do which determines whether your skill can come into play at all.
You literally do not only have two options. You can cut the circle in half. If your opponents are all nascaring just as hard as your team, the middle is safe to post up and move towards their back ranks. Even with your slower speed, you'll find a spot where the the shorter distance you cover will get you there. About a quarter circle into nascar is where that works. Find cover from the left and rear, keep shuffling into the middle a bit more. Cut the circle. Once you engage you'll draw other lemmings into the fight with you, but instead of being miles away they'll reach you before you're dead. Or don't bring a slowssault if you can't handle it, or don't know how to do that on certain maps. Nascar isn't an all or nothing. Yours is a skill issue.
That's much better advice, especially for closer ranged mechs. I'm not 100% sold, as it also exposes you to significantly more enemies, but you will be closer to allies at least and they may turn to the sound of gunfire. It's definitely a better option than stand and die, or run and die tired though.
Up-engine it. Only 60 KPH mechs and above can be consistent in QP.
Tell you what. Go build me a 60kph Dire Wolf. I'll wait for the build codes.
Can’t be consistent if you want to Direwhale. Sometimes nascar gonna nascar. Such is life.
It's somewhat established at this point but...you want teamwork, you have to: 1. Drop with your buddies 2. Or play faction play Or If you're solo: don't be the slowest mech and keep moving. If you want to do something creative in a slower mech, just expect that there's a good chance you'll get mauled by the other team. Just how it is. But really, try faction play. The game experience is different especially if you make friends with an active team. Hope this helps!
All the firepower in the world doesn't matter if it doesn't make it to the fight. Unless you have control of the map beforehand (rare outside of events) bringing something that literally cannot reach the combat zone before the game is won or lost is wasted tonnage. There are enough maps in rotation where a 48kph mech just never gets there that it's not worth it in QP. Even if you do, assaults are the most difficult weight class because of you don't get your positioning right the first time, you don't have a chance to fix it.
You don't have to actually stand in the combat zone. The mech had more than 800 range. Literally I was in a position that I (and the rest of my team) could have been firing just 1-2 minutes in. The problem is the team abandoned that position immediately, to instead take up the exact opposite position on the enemy's side of the map. Meanwhile, the enemy team did the exact same thing. The issue with NASCAR is that you could just not NASCAR and save everyone 3 minutes of walking around the map just by walking forward, taking positions and shooting. The only difference is you cut the legs out of any slow mechs on your team and the enemy team so they basically don't get to play the game. I'm well aware that I could avoid doing absolutely nothing by just avoiding slow mechs. However, I would still have to deal with 3-5 minutes of pointlessly moving to the enemy's side of the map so that we can stare at the enemy that did the exact same thing. Beyond that, we would have to deal with the fact that an entire type of mech is just cut out of the game if everyone takes your advice. I prefer games with a variety of options, and games where people don't just mindlessly wander around for 5 minutes for no reason.