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On June 22 2012 03:18 Risen wrote:
Damn... iGrok has me getting all hype and shiz for this... and it's still months away :<
Theres nothing quite like the feeling of standing on top of a skyscraper in a 50 ton mech, completely shut down with no sensors, waiting for Recon to tell you when OPFOR had passed you so you and your buddy could power up behind them and shoot them in the back with PPCs.
Like I said, our goal wasn't #1 ladder, it was to have fun, so we tended to try out tactics that might seem a bit... silly. Once we did a stupid 7 Flamer Novacat on Inner City (basically no damage but caused enemy mechs to overheat, shutting them down and if their heat went too high they'd blow up). Stuff like that is incredibly dumb, but when it works, the results are just too hilarious to pass up. He and a Flare Gun/SSRM kit fox would go out picking off singleton mechs. Pubstomp build, would never have worked in a real match, but so much fun.
Its not that Flamers are bad, don't get me wrong. Our Thors used to run 2 each to fit in the Laser slots since most of their tonnage was filled with LBX10s. In a brawl, flaming your enemies is really effective if you can get 2+ mechs with multiple flamers targeting them. But loading a fat mech with 7 of them is just... dumb lol.
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Do they suck at balancing, like Blizzard and Wargaming?
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On June 22 2012 06:12 Perscienter wrote:
Do they suck at balancing, like Blizzard and Wargaming?
We don't know yet. But its a lot harder to screw up Blizzard-style since forces aren't asymmetric (or at least don't have asymmetric options), and harder to screw up wargaming-style because in BattleTech, Armor is point based. Every weapon does some damage to your opponent's armor. A Medium Laser on a Jenner does the same damage as a Medium Laser on an Atlas. 30 Medium lasers (for example) will always burn through the CT armor on an Awesome. We'll have to see what they do with Hardpoint balancing, since thats the only way they will be able to balance individual chassis.
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From what I've read around the nets, they do seem rather responsive to changes on what is seen as either "too strong" and "too weak" as far as the beta goes. Mind you again that's just what I've read. So who knows.
In general so long as they follow roughly the tabletop rulesets it'll be fairly well balanced(due to being Pre clan). Already I hear stories of Jenner's being able to actually out play heavier mechs so anything to avoid seeing matches of all ASSAULT is a good for me. Things like the Hardpoint system they are using and the greater implementation of the Role Warfare seems like it'll make for actual Lance's working together for the desired effects and greater chances of winning.
In short, less fps and more tactical shooter if that makes any sense.
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PGI are the most responsive developers I've ever encountered. One look at their forums is enough to give you an idea of how attentive they are to their community. Almost too attentive, honestly, considering how rabid most CBT/MW fans are regarding their pet universe.
Will there be balance issues? Sure. There have always been weapons that turn out to be stupidly OP, but I'm confident they'll at least try to address the problems that crop up.
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iGrok do you have nay more stories? They're awesome.
I unfortunately barely played MW. I just always thought the idea had an innate sense of awesome and read some BT/ the Davion lore book. A liquid clan sounds sweet.
On a side note, did they release a list of the mechs in the game? Also I think they said they were going to try and keep the universe 1:1 with our days... so that's not too too long before the clans start lurking about neh?
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anyone playing the MW4:Mercs on the Mektek servers? im playing the mw4 campaign and its awesomesauce... cant wait for having some multi.
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On June 22 2012 16:04 Sabu113 wrote:
iGrok do you have nay more stories? They're awesome.
I unfortunately barely played MW. I just always thought the idea had an innate sense of awesome and read some BT/ the Davion lore book. A liquid clan sounds sweet.
On a side note, did they release a list of the mechs in the game? Also I think they said they were going to try and keep the universe 1:1 with our days... so that's not too too long before the clans start lurking about neh?
Mechs in so far:
Catapult
Centurion
Commando
Dragon
Hunchback
Jenner
Atlas
Awesome
Raven
Cicada
Cataphract
Stalker
Trebuchet
Clans should hit a little sooner than a year post-release, depending on how soon they stop being rumors and we actually get to take them on.
More stories? Well, I suppose. I'll have to write them up tomorrow though.
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Wow, I must say I am super pumped, especially after that awesome writeup iGrok! My brother and I played MW4 Vengeance on MSN Gaming Zone long ago, but we were nowhere as advanced (read: 14 year old nooblets) to ever have experienced the game on such a level. Please keep them coming!
What joysticks will you guys be using / recommend? We had a Sidewinder Precision Pro and a Force-Feedback that we used at the time, but it seems like getting them to work on newer PC's will be a pain (no gameport and gameport adapters don't provide full functionality it seems TT).
The Artemis joystick that is being launched for MWO seem quite nice, although a bit gimicky:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/05/razer-artemis-is-a-custom-keypadjoysticktablet-peripheral-for-mechwarrior-online/
Any thoughts?
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For anyone interested in an insight into competitive MW4, I'd direct you to two archived resources that I've only just discovered are even still hosted. The internet is a wonderful place.
They're written by two guys who were both field commanders for top-tier teams back in the day. Both are pretty hilariously long (like, thousands and thousands of words) and are pretty heavy going because they're intended as instructive resources rather than stories for public consumption, but they but might be worth a skim-through if iGrok's story made you sit up.
Insanity's is a general guide to no-respawn MW4, including all the minutiae of how to pilot, how to pick and use different weapons, how to use sensors well, how to work with teammates to combine fire, etc etc. He also includes an example drop at the end that I found to be quite an interesting read.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040817014502/http://www.dropshipcommand.com/field_manual/mw4/mw4_nr_guide.html#heavy
Wolf and {HRR} had fought many times previously, and we knew each other pretty well. Wolf had amazing snipers. They could hit anything, and were deadly accurate. In addition, they often had the advantage of Clan tech (Novas, Madcats) in their combat drops due to the way the league was set up. This combination had been giving us fits for a while because {HRR} likes to get in on people and bust heads. Often, the previous conflicts had been determined by who had been able to hold to their strategy. If it ended in a sniper war, Wolf won, if it ended up a brawl, {HRR} won. So, we wanted a brawl, and badly. Throughout this league, the Clans had been beating the snot out of us because of their sensor advantage in the Loki. With ECM/BAP, they knew where we were before we did. We wanted to have sensor parity, but the only way to get that was to take a Raven.
We knew going in that we'd have about 350 tons to work with versus their 390 tons. As is our tradition, we wanted to mix up our weapon ranges giving us more options. We ended up taking a two Thanatos, two Uziels, a Catapult, and a Raven (for the sensors as a scout). The Thanatos were set up primarily for infighting with LBX, though they did have some ERLLs. The Uziels were primarily fast snipers with some ERPPCs, Light Gauss, and ERLLs. The Raven was all long range with an LRM20 and an ERLL. We knew they were going to have a bunch of snipers, so we all put on our Reflective underoos.
We decided on a general plan. The drop was going to be on Timberline, at night, with moderate fog. This is ideal for Wolf, because it makes their sensors that much more effective and their sniping at night was downright scary. We wanted to find them, set up a good position on them, and utilize our long-range capabilities before closing and punching them in the gut. Couldn't afford to stay at range because they had the advantage with their ERLL snipers. So, the initial plan was to find a safe place, then send out the Raven (me) to scout for OpFor. That was the extent of the pre-game planning, the rest would be off the cuff during the game.
Stalker's was aimed at players who wanted to lead drops and act as commanders, and goes through tactics and lance compositions. http://www.mechwarrior4.net/rgmu/manuals/MW-Tactics.pdf
This document will explore several of the basic tactical ideas of warfare and of how they relate to mech combat in particular. Many of the principles of modern armored combat can be applied directly to mech combat while others need to be refined to deal with the specifics of the game and the equipment available to choose from in order to become useful to us.
In military studies there are three theories of warfare; Attrition warfare, Maneuver warfare and Revolutionary or Low intensity warfare. The first is not practical for MW4, a commander does not have a reserve of mechs to call upon to replace his losses, indeed he may not even have a numerical advantage to begin with in which case attrition warfare would be dangerous to attempt. The last also does not apply, an attacking unit will always be prone to counter-detection and fire and lacks the ability to fade away against superior numbers or firepower. We are left with maneuver warfare, the theory of which has many applications in mech combat. It does not rely on numbers or firepower to succeed but boldness, initiative and surprise. The size of forces taking part has no correlation to the end result of the battle, it is the concentration of effort at a critical time and place against an enemy weakness that counts most strongly toward victory.
Some of this stuff (stalker's in particular) can sound pretty pretentious, but both these guys had records that more or less speak for themselves.
I have a few stories of my own I might type up later.
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Holy crap please more stories iGrok, they should hire you as a promoter xD
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Anyone know how long the founders program will be available for? $60 is something I don't have to spare atm, and I was wondering if it will be too late by, say, mid July-ish?
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On June 23 2012 00:18 nohbrows wrote:
Anyone know how long the founders program will be available for? $60 is something I don't have to spare atm, and I was wondering if it will be too late by, say, mid July-ish?
some of the mod posted it possibly it would be up till july 17th but there was no concrete date. sadly i want to buy the legendary but i feel like there is so little information on the game.
the pack deals seem really great but to invest any money into the game without knowing what iam buying is hard.I dont wanna do what i did with league and not buy starter pack when it could have saved me hundreds of hours gaining the champs i own today.
from the vids the game looks great but iam wondering what kind of matchmaking system they have along with other infomation such as they dont know when they are going to even start the premium monthly service.(like automaticaly start the 17th when open beta starts or when the game gos gold).
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cant wait for this so i can finally drop world of tanks :D super hyped
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I thought the posts on the site clearly stated the founder's pack would be available right up until the aug 7th beta, that's what everyone on the forums over there seems to agree on too. I don't see why they'd shut it off before that date because that's when OPEN starts, so you have time.
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"Ekman also promises that while players will be able to buy items with real money, nobody can buy anything that will confer a tactical advantage. “Anything that would affect or give you a tactical advantage, you can’t purchase with real cash. You have to earn that by playing the game,” he says."
Can someone put in plain what the hell does "tactical advantage" really mean? Are they gonna sell mechs, weapons? Or is it just like xp/c-bill boosters and pure cosmetics or what? I'm not gonna pick the game up if you can find clan tech from the store for cash while others are stuck at IS tech >_<
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On June 23 2012 05:56 ParanoiaDHerO wrote:
I thought the posts on the site clearly stated the founder's pack would be available right up until the aug 7th beta, that's what everyone on the forums over there seems to agree on too. I don't see why they'd shut it off before that date because that's when OPEN starts, so you have time.
ya you are right I had the date confused with some date my boss was excited about
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On June 23 2012 06:11 daemir wrote:
"Ekman also promises that while players will be able to buy items with real money, nobody can buy anything that will confer a tactical advantage. “Anything that would affect or give you a tactical advantage, you can’t purchase with real cash. You have to earn that by playing the game,” he says."
Can someone put in plain what the hell does "tactical advantage" really mean? Are they gonna sell mechs, weapons? Or is it just like xp/c-bill boosters and pure cosmetics or what? I'm not gonna pick the game up if you can find clan tech from the store for cash while others are stuck at IS tech >_<
It means you cannot buy superior things with real money but it won't be cosmetic only. Think how LoL does it you are able to save time and look pretty by spending money, but nothing you buy gives you a tactical advantage over anyone else (provided they spend their in game currency wisely)
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On June 23 2012 05:12 WiljushkA wrote:
cant wait for this so i can finally drop world of tanks :D super hyped
Hypehypehype.
WoT sucks anyway, come play DotA 2 with me!
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Better be a Highlander in the game. Gauss some mutha fuckaz
oh and those battle reports are cool. I played MW4 online but only pub servers. I will read those guy's articles
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EPT
