Returning Player Gives Their Take: MWO vs. WoT

Thread in 'MechWarrior Online' started by guynodens, Aug 21, 2018.

  1. guynodens

    guynodens Junior Member

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    Hello everyone,

    I haven't played MWO in a long time. I got bored and wandered off to play World of Tanks. I'm thinking about coming back after reading about the Timber Wolf nerfs. This will finally give me a reason to play a Summoner, so why the hell not. It's my fave. Anywho, I wanted to talk about why I left, and why I felt WoT is a better game.

    PART 1: MY MECH IS A FAT TURD

    MWO made me happy to play because it let me return to playing with mechs I remember from MW2 and 3. However, when I played those games I was a kid and had no concept of actually playing well. It was just drive up to a mech, shoot it, and move on. Playing MWO I had to actually try. And boy, did I not like trying. The most egregious part of trying was trying to move my mech's fat corpse from place to place. Mechs in this game are... sedentary. Some medium mechs and all the lights are fine; they move quickly, they're responsive. Anything above that is like having bags of water softener salt tied to your ankles. I absolutely despise this. Every movement feels so deliberate, and so permanent, that I feel afraid to venture out, because if I do, it will take so long to get back into position that PGI will have release 4 new mechs for me by then.

    PART 2: MY MECH CLINGS DESPERATELY TO LIFE

    WoT is a fun game. The sweet spot in my opinion is around tiers 6 and 7, that's where tanks are strong enough to take a punch, but not so tough that it takes an avalanche of vaguely racist (it's a WWII game, it's gonna be racist) punches to bring them down. They also have enough firepower at those tiers to throw solid punches, but not so solid that they obliterate eachother in seconds like at low tiers. MWO is in the avalanche camp. Even medium mechs feel like they take so much firepower to bring down that it's obnoxious. Why is this a bad thing? Because I am only one mech. I am only one person. When the opponent adds torso twisting to their durability, it can take an eternity to claw away at what should be an easy kill buy tabletop standards.

    PART 3: MY MECH IS STAPLED HORRIBLY TO THE GROUP

    These two previous parts create the mechanic of the game that I most dislike: stay in the group, get the group to murderball the enemy murderball. Because mechs take so long to reposition, they can't afford to go out on their own. A misstep can mean they die, because not only are they incredibly slow to retreat, but terrain in MWO is often all-or-nothing; you're behind a giant rock or you're not. There's no such thing as concealment that you can use to hide yourself with a probability, or use to safely peek from.

    In addition, because each mech is far too durable, staying in one giant clump is the best strategy. In WoT, I can peek out, find a target, fire, take away a solid chunk of his hp, and roll back into cover. In MWO, one salvo doesnt' do 1/3rd of the enemy's hp unless you're an assault mech and they're a light. This means that individual surprise is far less important. I can't pop over a ridge, dump a shell on someone's engine deck, and roll back. Instead, I pop out, get spotted by 5 mechs, I get hit for far more damage than I did, and my personal initiative counts for nothing.

    The vast majority of battles I've been in are either 1: everyone warily pokes at the other team until we all die very, very slowly or 2: everyone starts poking, and then momentum starts and one gunline rushes the other gunline and we all brawl until we all die. There's no flank pushing to control parts of the map. There's no organized retreats to encircle someone. There's no use of hull-down tactics in which one entrenched heavy holds off some smaller enemies. It's all MechBlobOnline. Any yes, these are slight exaggerations. Yes, I've been in interesting battles. But they're not common. Battles are largely the same, and they're largely not based on skill or map control or out-thinking your opponent. It's just about who steps out of cover first, and who blobs best.

    PART 4: WHY AM I PLAYING THIS?

    The big draw that WoT had to me, I realized, was reason to play. I liked playing the game, not just because the gameplay was fun, but because the game made me earn things. Your tanks need their better treads and engines and guns unlocked. You earn that huge howitzer, dammit, and then you derp your enemies and cackle as your HE rounds knock out their crew. Your crews have skills they can increase and they're night-and-day differences. Having Sixth Sense, which allows you to know when your tanks is spotted, is a massive power increase that you have to earn, slowly. Having a camo crew makes your tank way, way harder to spot, so you can snipe way more effectively. The skills are way more impactful than they are in MWO and more importantly aren't what make a bad mech okay, they make a good tank even better.

    Most importantly, you can't just buy any tank. You have to earn it by grinding xp out on the tank below it. And then you play more, to get the next one. It's great. It gives me a reason to keep playing that tank line, it feels like I'm earning my tanks and increasing my skills. I'm advancing, I'm getting there, I have goals along the way with each tank line. Playing a tank line is an experience; your tanks start out terrible and junk, and by the end they're monsters that shouldn't exist. In MWO, that doesnt' exist. Got 20,000,000 cbill? Here, have literally any mech you want. Take it. Any weapon? Unlocked. Done.

    What's my motivation to play this mech? It's not getting me a new mech. It's not unlocking a new gun. It's not going to advance to a higher level. It's just... there. And I didnt' earn it. I didnt' have to play through all the Jaguar mechs to get the Summoner. I didn't have to play with medium lasers to unlock heavy medium lasers. I didn't have to play the Prime variant to unlock the other omnipods. I just get everything right away. It's so, so underwhelming. Nothing has any value because it's all immediate. I dont' feel like I've earned anything, and more importantly it doesnt' feel like an experience.

    PART 5: WHAT DO I WANT?

    I don't know. I'm giving this game a swing again. Maybe I'm wrong. But these are why I left. I strongly feel like these are issues that make the game not fun to gamers who enjoy other games in this same, vague genre. And yes, I'm well aware of the problems World of Tanks has. I know that people still hate artillery, I know people hated the Obj. 268 v4, I get it. But that game was still way, way more satisfying to me.
     
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  2. CarloArmato

    CarloArmato Professional Potato Carrier

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    Try bigger engines or clan mechs: IMHO a warhammer with any 300 engine moves at ~70 km/h and is decently fast (and has decent acceleration) for most roles. Some 90 tonners are still quite fast (Mad Cat MkII can achieve 63 km/h with a 350 engine, which is fast for a 90 tonner and that amount of weaponry). If an assault mech mounting 80+ pinpoint damage could be able to move faster, the game would be actually much worse because no one could escape its wrath.

    True about the need of staying in a group and be a murderball: sometimes I felt tired of that too, but that's true mostly only in solo queues.
    IMHO concealment would make the game worse: the point of this game is to use stompy mechs which can take a beating, hiding would feel awkward and fighting an hidden / trenched enemy could not be fun for most people. Also, if poking from a safe spot could be a thing, brawling would completely die.
    Between moving around from corner to corner and fight once I find a target and hide, or hide and wait for my target to appear on my screen, I prefer the former, unless playing aggressively would be more harmful compared to be a little patience (like waiting for the enemy to push a bottleneck, like a valley or a passage).

    The other reason that further stress this need is the fact that most fatties can't deal alone when being focused by small and fast brawlers. Also, keep in mind that hardpoint location would be crippling if Time to Kill would be lower: some builds have very low hardpoints (e.g.: AC20 / Heavy Gauss Atlas), so being in a mech that can't take a beating AND needs to expose most of itself to actually fire properly every weapon would literally murder some chassis.

    You are probably using the wrong weapons: most heavies can deal 50-60 almost pinpoint damage (warhammer dual gauss and quad ERML, most vomit lasers builds and many other single gauss + lasers builds... And I'm not considering the "infamous" assaults builds, like dual Heavy Gauss + 6xML build, with a whopping 80 damage, or the deathstrike / dire whale builds with dual gauss, dual (H)LL + 6/4xERML), so provided you are capable of focusing the damage on a single component, you can actually kill an opponent with only 2 to 4 strikes (maybe 6 if you aim for side torsoes), provided you aim carefully and don't spread the damage while he torso twists.
    If you are using any missile based weapons or a dakka boat, you could deal more damage, but you will likely have a longer TtK if you can't focus fire on a component properly.

    That's probably because you expose yourselves too much or your opponents already knew where you were going to pop up. Part of the game (especially once you are critically damages) is to wait when your opponents are gonna shoot your friendlies and exploit that small cooldown window to free trade.

    Try a fast light, possibly with ECM. Grinner, Artic Cheetah, Osiris are good harassers, while the new Piranha can easily murder anything close range, so if you manage to sneak up on someone, you can easily ruin the day to your target.
    There are also a lot of fast mediums: Cicada, Assassin, Artic Wolf, Ice Ferret... Even the Linebacker (Clan assault) can be used as a fast tackler to murder small targets or to harass big threats while capable of taking a beating.
    Sometimes in group queues you can find a small group of fatties acting as a bait, while the other in fast mechs flanks looking to brawl.

    To me it's not great at all. I don't want to grind my way with pointless tanks which are programmed to be obsolete: it simply means that you are never grasping the full extended and potential of a game.
    My very first mech was a Timberwolf: it was VERY strong at the time and it was a very valid and "tactical" choice: it was able to change omnipods and weapons, so I could change builds from brawler, to sniper, to dakka, to hybrid laser / dakka / gauss, to poptart... And I was not even remotely a good player at the time or made decent builds once I started (dual PPC, dual LRM10/20, LOL), and I still had only a slight grasp of what the game could offer. The following mech was a Raven-3L: light with ECM. Completely different type of mech and gameplay. My following 20-30 mechs were mostly only mechs for FP, where the competitive / top notch gameplay can be found. Also, why max out a mech? Simple, to compete in Solaris or FP, but Solaris has become a kind of a joke even for me and FP is a mess if played in very small groups or solo.

    I haven't played WoT, but from what I can imagine the real difference between MWO and WoT is that once established the new meta, MWO get stagnant if you know what is the best meta and no weapons or mechs are added. WoT is already programmed to change your perceived meta over time and by forcing you to start with trash every once in a while... Not so different from MWO if I think about any unskilled laser vomit/boat.
     
  3. guynodens

    guynodens Junior Member

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    I've played my Timberwolf enough, and honestly it still feels incredibly slow. Every maneuver immediately feels like a mistake.

    Honestly I can't stand the weapons in this game. Every system feels terrible, but the biggest problem is the damage. Yes, theoretically you can do a lot of damage, provided that you can keep your weapons focused enough and they dont' move and they dont' torso twist and they're lighter and you're bigger. I have no doubt that a Dire Whale can do some nasty damage. But I want to be able to do something in a mech other than that or a King Crab. And here's the thing, even in those scenarios you discussed, the assault mechs built to do as much damage as possible, you're not just doing 2-hit kills. You need the stars to align to get a 2-hit kill. That's upsetting. The fact that the biggest mechs with the best damage output have to hope and pray to actually kill something with expediency is a joke. Because it means that every other mech is stuck sitting around waiting for their guns to actually have some effect. I would love if I could do some damage, but holy crap, I can't fit any kind of dangerous weapons on anything under 90 tons.
    And that's a huge, huge problem. The best way to play is to play -passively-. The game mechanics encourage you to wait, not to surprise people. And I get that, it's a good strategy. But it's the -only- strategy. When you combine it with the fact that only assault mechs can actually make aggressive plays, most mechs' job is to sit there and wait for an enemy to get out of position and then shoot them. And usually, that's me.
     
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  4. CarloArmato

    CarloArmato Professional Potato Carrier

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    Because TimberWolf has crappy and huge hitboxes with no HP quirk. Side torsoes of timberwolf are huge and every experienced player knows it and will focus them, that's why you will die in no time. If you use other heavies it won't happen as easily as it does with a timberwolf (try hellbringer or warhammer). Timberwolf sucks for these reasons.

    IMHO King Crab is garbage. Direwolf is garbage except very few builds (which are not optimal), namely the direwhale (96 dmg alpha strike) and the Ultraviolent (8xAC2 / LBX2: very fun, but not meta). There are a lot of valid Assaults, e.g. any Mad Cat, missile boat Cyclops, AC2 boat mauler, Annihilator, laser Marauder IIC, laser Supernova...

    We are either playing different games or you are doing something wrong. The best way to focus damage is to either fire before your target does, or be a little patient and wait for your target to line up a shot on you. If he doesn't return fire and keeps on moving to cover, fire before he actually disappears behind a cover. Is it odd and feels awkward from time to time? Yes, but it is still better than dying or become incapacitated due to some half luck shot from across the map. Also, on the other hand, tanking / torso twisting gives more time to your friendlies to line up a shot on whoever wants to finish you off, encouraging actual team play.

    Don't confuse playing passive with playing smart, and don't confuse playing aggressively with pushing.

    Hiding behind a cover without ever poking is playing passive, because you are actually waiting for the enemy to push / poke at you.
    Using a cover to poke with some frequency to avoid being pushed, overrun or flanked is playing smartly or, even better, safe.
    Also, keep in mind that even if you are not actively pushing, you can be VERY aggressive if you manage to keep on shooting, because you are keeping the pressure and possibly forcing back to cover any target that tries to poke or approach your position whenever your weapons are able to fire. Even if you are not actively getting closer (pushing), you are at worst softening up targets and maybe, best of all, flanking by using different covers or attempting to crossifre the opponents with your team mates, even if you are still in the same tile. There is nothing worse than being fired upon by multiple angles, because you will have a very hard time to keep the whole situation under control and check multiple corners at a time.

    Also, if your build is well thought and balanced (most often seen as OP or meta), there are actually very few or no reason at all to get any closer than your shortest optimal range weapon: why should I move to SRM range (270 / 320-ish meters with skills) if I have a minimum optimal range of 400 meters?

    When and how to be that aggressive depends on how the situations is and the threats you have to face... As in many tactical FPSs, minimizing exposure is key. Also, keep in mind that if someone is actively aiming at your cover and waiting for your poke, you don't have to trade: you could wait a little and see if another team mate manages to land a strike or divert the attention from another cover. If he doesn't diverge attention on another spot (e.g.: your team mates pokes from the very same cover) you can simply stay behind him and fire back at whoever hit your team mate. That's also playing smart and good team playing, as long as nobody shoots each other in the back or body block while retreating.

    I find it more passive to stand still because otherwise you can't aim properly at longer ranges, because, for example, in case of a sniper battle at longer ranges the first sniper to stop earlier has an advantage over the other.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2018
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  5. Shock

    Shock Patron of the Underdog Staff Member

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    It sounds like you're looking for Run & Gun gameplay and that's not what MWO is about. Please note, that's not a problem with you, but MWO isn't trying to meet those expectations. Current development is aimed at increasing the amount of time it takes to kill an enemy, so if anything, what you don't like about the game is only going to get worse.
     
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  6. Aramuside

    Aramuside Star Lord

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    Being a long term WoT player of about 42,000 battles (hovering around the 57.5% WR mark in random, 58% global and 59% ranked so considered to be pretty decent) it sounds more like you just came here to have a moan about MWO not expecting any of us to play WoT. ;)

    I mean have you played super heavy tanks or heavy tank destroyers in WoT if you think mechs in MWO are slow and die slowly? The vast majority of us playing clan battles were using the Object 268 Version 4 massively until recently (often 10-12 on a 15 man side) as it was considered to be so op but I dare you to say that's a fast agile tank?!?!? Now my beloved T-100 LT and Bat.-Châtillon 25 t are definitely fast and agile... but then so are most mediums and lights I play by preference in MWO (I loathe assaults). Now the tier 6-7 you're staying at in WoT just isn't end game its where people play casually to avoid getting sucked into battles where they might face tier 10 tanks.

    For non WoT players the matchmaking system is based on a 3-5-7 template so a battle will have 3 top tier tanks, 5 middle tier tanks and 7 poor bastards in bottom tier tanks that are basically there to die. Its a system loathed by 95% of the player base and why some players understandably stick to tier 6-7. If you want to level up a line up to tier 10 most of your matches will be in tier 8-9 tanks due to the research curve... people suffer.

    Coincidentally WoT also has premium tanks you can buy full researched (so you don't have to level them up) and with bonuses to earnings like hero mechs. Some premiums even have preferential match making which is popular as it allows you to totally avoid tier 10 tanks... you literally pay money to avoid the worst of the matchmaker. Some of the premium tanks, e.g. the defender, are so overpowered that they allow very average players to get far better stats than with any other of their mechs which is telling.Then there are event only tanks, like my Object 907, which are so good that they're significantly better than all similar tanks... but only a handful of the playerbase has. Worse generally they're in the hands of better players which cements the problem if you meet one normally.

    The games just don't play the same at all and in main part that's due to the RNG and penetration featuring so much in WoT (plus gold ammo in every Tier X battle) versus the wide range of very different weapons in MWO and focus on customising your mechs. Where they're very similar is that certainly at high levels they're both very thinking games - when I play competitive in both games we plan everything out before we ever hit launch. In neither game do we play against our advantages or blindly charge out of cover.

    Coincidentally, I'm a bit lost on your assertion of passive play as most decent teams in MWO are very aggressive once you get any sort of advantage. What they don't do is blindly charge in as in MWO if anyone is calling fire you will simply be focused down. Yes I accept that's more a faction/group queue thing but that's because people are playing together not as totally separate entities.
     
  7. guynodens

    guynodens Junior Member

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    I'm very, very aware of the things that are wrong with WoT, and I spend plenty of time complaining about those too. Tier 10 game play isn't fun, I don't like it. But I can choose not to engage in it and still play the game if I want to. The Premium tanks dont' bother me because of the tier system honestly. Any broken Tier 8 premium is going to get rolled by a Tier 10, so it doesn't matter. That and if I'm playing a tier 6 tank, most of my games there won't be ANY tier 8's let alone a broken premium one.

    Well sure, you get the murderball. Which isnt' all that fun to me. What I dislike about MWO is what I tend to see is a vary hard passive/aggressive dichotomy in most matches. In WoT matches flow back and forth a lot more, parts of the map are pushing or falling back separately, the battle is more interesting. It's not just one clump vs. one other clump.
     
  8. Zbloubi

    Zbloubi New Member

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    I enjoyed reading this thread.

    I played quite a bit of Wot (11k battles), and I recently left the game for a few reasons.
    I'll explain them in details, probably too much details for the OP, but I think it'll give non-WoT players some perspective about the game.

    - Looong XP grinds. If the tank is good and enjoyable to play (say an IS3, or a good medium tank) then I don't have a problem with it. But some tanks are absolute garbage, and you need to play 150 battles to get XP to unlock modules and the next tank. Sometimes, garbage tanks unlock several tanks, like the Tiger P, which makes it even worse.
    I would have avoided them if I could, but I "need" to play through them to get to the next - hopefully better - tank in the line.
    The other option is to pay real money to progress by converting general XP of course, which I don't want to do.

    - Impossibility to make money in higher tiers without a premium account or premium tank. It is very hard to play tier 8 and above, and make money. You can even lose money in tier 5 to 8 games, because you "need" to fire premium shells to fight the ridiculous amount of armor the some tanks have. As a result, if I don't have a premium account, and I'm not currently playing a premium tank, I just can't get enough cash together to buy the next one. Or it's going to take bloody ages, because I can maybe get an average of 15 000 to 25 000, when the next tank costs over 3 million.
    So once you've grinded the XP requirement, you need to grind some more in order to get some credits.

    - The RNG.
    > I just hate aiming my shots carefully, and missing because of some random accuracy number that was applied to my gun.
    > I hate hitting my shots, and not do damage because of the random number applied to the penetration value.
    > I hate shooting a guy that has 301hp with my 400 average damage gun, and leave him alive on 1hp because of an unlucky damage roll.
    RNG is not fun, doesn't involve skill, and generally frustrates me. Sure I get lucky sometimes too. I hit some snapshots on the move from 250 meters as well. But that's not skill, just pure, blind, luck that was decided by a dice roll in the game engine.

    - Cancerous amount of power-creep. For me this will never go away, as it's part of Wargaming's business model :
    >Regularly introduce a new line, or new tank, with some ridiculous stats that make it oh-so-much-better than everything else.
    >Leave it in the game for 6 months, maybe a full year, while everybody complains how OP and un-fun it is to play against.
    >Sit back, as people grind for that new overpowered tank, because if you can't beat it, may as well join it.
    >Then nerf the OP tank, and make it fall in line with the others.
    >Gasp at the amount of cash you got from your frustrated players.

    This way of managing the game is probably the main reason why I left. I just had a terrible time with it. And it doesn't matter what tier you play, you'll always have a few tanks that are so much better than everything else, or have some ridiculous stats that make it cancerous to play against.
    Also, with the +2 / -2 matchmaking system, it's hard to get away from the OP stuff, because even at tier 6 you can face the Defender, and some super-heavies like the VK 100.01P and the O-Ho. Good luck trying to kill those with your tier 6 gun, without firing premium ammo. And they can remove two thirds of your health in one shot, so yeah.

    I agree that the dynamics of a typical WoT game were enjoyable though. As you have armor that you can use to bounce shells, and avoid damage completely, you can carry games on your own even if the rest of your team dies around you.
    With the right tank in the right position, you can out-play people, you can win against ridiculous odds, even when you've almost no heatlh left, and you're out-numbered 5 to 1.
    It's always possible, so you have this thrill in the back of your head in every game. Will it happen? Can I do it ? And when it's THE game, you're so satisfied when you manage to pull it off.
    The good games, the fun games, and the ridiculous wins are what made me keep playing for 11k battles. But even as an half-decent player (55% win rate), these games don't happen often enough, and I have to cope with the rest in the mean time.

    Dynamically, MWO is a very different game, but I think that is only due to the damage model.

    In Wot, you have 1 health bar for the entire tank. You armor is always there : it can fail, it can get penetrated, but it never disappears and it can bounce the next shot even if the ennemy hits the exact same spot that was previously pen-ed.
    This allows some tanks to have some invulnerable parts, either due to the raw thickness of the armor plate, or the effective angling of the armor that deflects incoming fire.
    With the right tank in the right position, you can literally get shot at by the entire ennemy team for several minutes, and survive because your armor bounces everything.
    It is sometimes impossible to kill some tanks if they only expose their strongest armor and your team is unable to out-flank them.

    Also with that system, your tank can be fully operationnal, and has the potential to bounce shots - avoid damage - until the health bar is depleted by penetrating shots or splash damage from high-explosive shells.
    What that armor mechanic allows you to do, in addition with the RNG system, is to get lucky. Get lucky long enough and often enough, and you can carry games. It will happen more often if you're a good player, but even the worse of the worse player that decided to camp at the back of the map with his heavy tank will get lucky sometime. And then the bad player will continue to play badly, because hey! sometimes it works, so why bother ?

    In MWO, you have 11 separate health bars (armor, that protects the internal structure from all incoming damage), over 8 additional health bars (internal structure) that also contain the internal modules. Internal modules can't be repaired, and will cripple the mech for the rest of the game if destroyed.
    The main difference with Wot is that the damage to a particular location is guaranteed, and permanent. You can't bounce shots in MWO, so you have to play in a certain way in order to "spend" your armor effectively, to keep the internals protected as long as possible, while firing back at the ennemy's 19 health bars.

    That damage model prevents even the toughest mech to tank fire from the entire ennemy team.
    As a result, you have to stick with some allies to avoid being the only one focused. The larger the group, the smaller the chance of being focused.
    As a result, staying in one giant murderball is the most effective way to not get focused.
    And with that, the only thing making a difference between two murder balls is position and momentum.

    I agree that it is not ideal, it can get repetitive at times. But I've played less that 800 games in MWO, and I probably enjoyed playing 300 of those battles.
    In comparison I was enjoying maybe 1 game of WoT out of the 15 games I played in an evening.

    Appart from the damage model and game dynamics, I feel that MWO is a fair free-to-play game.
    Mechs cost between 1.5 and 10 million credits stock, which is pretty close to Wot considering tank in the higher tiers cost between 3 and 6 millions.
    You then have to pay for upgrades and modules. It's probably more expensive in MWO, since in Wot you generally only have to pay for a gun, engine and tracks, and those aren't too expensive.

    But in MWO, you can make a decent amount of cash every game. You don't pay for ammo, you don't pay for repairs, so even on a loss you make a profit. If you have a good loss, you make a decent profit.
    If you have a streak of good games, you can make 2 millions in 5 or 6 games. Coming from WoT, this is an insane amount of cash.

    As a result, I feel rewarded for playing, rather than financially punished for playing a standard tank in a tier 8 game of WoT.

    The RNG in MWO is minimal, and only applied to spread weapons like missiles and LB auto-cannons. And even with RNG, if you hit you do damage, your shots don't just fly off in every direction, or bounce harmlessly because of a random number.

    The powercreep exists, but not in the same way. In WoT, some tanks are just so outdated that they can't deal with the newer stuff. Not much armor, not enough penetration on the gun, not enough mobility, and these tanks will always get owned in a 1vs1 against a better, newer tank.
    In MWO, some chassis are better than other, but when played right, every chassis has the potential to kill any other mech, or at least do some signifiant damage to it.
    I've yet to find the mech equivalent of the Obj 268 V4.
    The Piranhas are sort of cancerous, but at least they don't have an impenetrable amount of armor and you can cripple them if you manage to hit your shots.

    For me it's unfair to both games to compare WOT and MWO.
    I definitely recommend trying both games, and perhaps also give a chance to War Thunder, it is a good tank game with yet another damage model and gameplay feeling that you may enjoy.
    The progression is closer to WoT, but tanks operate in a more "historical" way, so they are generally slower than their WoT version.

    edit :
    I didn't write anything about maps earlier.
    The main reason why parts of maps in WoT are won and lost, with a back and forth movement, is due to the map design.

    WoT maps are generally built around 2 or 3 corridors, that are shielded from one another either by buildings, mountains or rock walls, or by terrain elevation.
    If you win a corridor, you are then in an advantageous position : you have some cover nearby, which allows you to stay angled, or hull down, and show only your strong armor to shoot at ennemies that are in the open trying to get the corridor back.

    In MWO as you said, you can't play hull-down very effectively in most chassis, so the gameplay is quite different in that sense
    Maps are also built differently, you have more terrain variations, but you also have a lot more open areas. There aren't any corridors where you can advance completely safely until you come out of the other side to flank the ennemies.
    Even on maps like Solaris City, there are large buildings but no real long corridors, you have some opportunities to flank, but you can also get flanked if you stay there too long.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2018
  9. Ch_R0me

    Ch_R0me Benefactor

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    World of Tanks... ugh.

    Maybe I have only ~200 matches only (and mostly tiers 2-3-4 with premium V), I tend to play War Thunder. For more realism, integrated flying, tanking and soon warshipping (along with choppa's coming as well).

    And WoT? Getting pounded every time without giving nothing or mediocre return. And it's too much arcadey. For that I would play Armored Warfare, damnit. PGI should be learning from Obsidian in CryEngine optimizations, because I had solid 30 FPS on my Intel HD 3000 with 4 GB RAM and i3-2350M instead of 2-5 FPS on MwO.

    I'm keeping WoT due to fact that my faction buddy from Elite Dangerous is a WoT fanatic, and another (independent, but ED player as well) is also fanatic, but WoWs. And we all are in our own clan.
     
  10. guynodens

    guynodens Junior Member

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    This is the thing I miss the most from WoT. The bouncing system is great, it makes me feel smart and tactical when I'm hull-down and wiggling and can bounce tanks for a while. Granted you do get bad players base camping but in my experience they get shit on pretty hard in the comments and tend to lose games that way.
     
  11. StolenMadWolf

    StolenMadWolf New Member

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    Good points above.

    Well, there is one thing MWO is better at along with all mechs being useful. Geniunely nicer players overall, yes, they can get annoyed, but not to the silly, five year old toxicity that comes with WoT.

    But as much as it pains me, I would rather play WoT because I can actually act inderpendently or turn a game round into a win. A good player in WoT can easily turn a 7v1 game into a win with the right play. If you try to do the same thing in MWO you will die. Horribly.

    In short, I can actually feel like a badass in WoT whereas in MWO, I feel like I spend half my time just getting ganked in my Timber Wolf or just being a bulletsponge as part of some unguided mob. I need to feel like a badass in a BattleMech, not a redshirt in said mob.
     
  12. Tollas669

    Tollas669 Active Member

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    I tried some of the above mentioned games World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, World of Warships, but mostly Dreadnought and so on but in most of these games the very first thing that turned me away from these is the constant grinding for the sake of grinding. Though i may be mistaken but in Dreadnought they may have removed the need to open all nodes on your current ship in order to get the next tier ship but i haven't been tracking its progress lately too busy playing MWO.
     
  13. Tollas669

    Tollas669 Active Member

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    Don't know if you or the others wanting to feel badasses tried playing light mechs in MWO but they can operate independently from the group a lot of times. Even one light mech dashing in guns blazing to save a flank from collapsing can turn a match into a win. Atleast i did a lot of times and am nowhere near an ace light pilot but the high risk high reward gameplay is worth it of course you cant turn a 7v1 into a win maybe except in conquest or incursion but still.
     
  14. Gun Tuv

    Gun Tuv Well-Known Member

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    I've nothing much to add that people haven't really covered except to say, as a veteran of both games (1000+ hours in each), that they are actually very different. If you find you prefer WoT and find MWO irritating then it's very likely that WoT is simply more in line with your gaming needs rather than there being any inherent faults in MWO. The converse is also true - I greatly prefer MWO to WoT as I prefer both the underlying system, the game mechanics, the pace of play, the community and the franchise of which it is a part.

    Examples:

    1) I've 80 or so mechs and my RL buddy who I drop with regularly has about the same number too. We have many of the same mechs and variants. I tell you now that there is not one mech that is identically fit between us. Why? Because we understand and engage with the underlying system, theorycrafting our fits so they are bespoke to our individual needs. I adore fitting ships/mechs/cars/etc in complex systems - I get great pleasure in coming up with solutions from first principals as well as using/adapting other players designs. When I played WoT I felt trapped into having exactly the same tank as everyone else. Also, grinding 100+ games just so I could get the 'proper' gun was intolerable.

    2) The armour system. I love that there is no penetration in MWO. A gun on a 20 tonner is just as much use as the same gun on a 100 tonner. Add to this the complexity of locations, structure, internal component placement and you have a system that (to my mind) makes for a far more rewarding game.

    3) Teamwork. There is little place for the solo leet CoD kamikaze player in MWO. The afformentioned 100% albative armour system coupled with the slow pace of the units and the usually quite open map design means that working as a team, even if you're just in the solo queue, makes all the difference. I'm in my 40s now and my twitch reflex has definitely dulled a little since my mid-20s MOHAA peak so playing a game that rewards tactical understanding, map reading, enemy assessment and the correct support of my allies is very much to my taste. Don't get me wrong, WoT isn't without tactics or strategy but it's definitely nearer normal FPS than MWO.

    4) I adore the sensation that I am controlling a truly vast machine in MWO. I appreciate that you need serious map knowledge and a good tactical grasp of how the engagement is proceeding to make a 100 tonner actually work in MWO. You go the wrong way or step out at the wrong time and that's all she wrote. Conversely, you lead the push at the right moment because you read the battle right and it's bloody glorious - and it's not because bullets bounce off your Tier 10 hide but because you worked with your allies.

    5) The Lore. I discovered Battletech in 1987. We played the tabletop until the mid 90s, also playing Battletroops, Aerotech, Mechwarrior RPG and Succession Wars. I then played every iteration of the Mechwarrior franchise on everything from PlayStations to PCs. Recently I stuck 100+ hours into HareBrain's turn-based Battletech XCOM-esque release. This kind of life-long investment in the lore cannot help but make me partisan, regardless of points 1-4.

    Anyway point is they are very different games and only pretty casual players would see them as similar. Doubtless some folks enjoy both but I would imagine the differences would mean that most people would find themselves cleaving to one in particular. This is quite normal and not the fault of either game or the individual.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2018
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  15. R1Type

    R1Type New Member

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    Your wrong about the kgc and dwf! They're both very very capable bordering on very strong. They're not front line mechs unless you've got some contrived situation going on but as veeery close behind 2nd line mechs they're exceedingly effective.

    The kgc is a dreadful shape with low arms, but it's very tough, very low to the ground, with missle and energy hardpoints as high as they get. These are to often ignored with most peoples builds and playstyles, seeing you get shot much more than you shoot back. Tried lots and lots of builds, but 2x ac10, 2x mrm30 +ams works great. Seriously its an 650-800 damage a game loadout.
    The dwf, similar story, juggle the omnipods and you get 5 ballistic hardpoints. Thats 2x uac10 and 3x uac5, a disgusting amount of firepower! Max survivability and operations tree and crucially take the right side of the maneuverability tree. You only take a few points in firepower, it's speed, agility and tank that are important. I've had some goofy games with 5 ultra autocannons in a fairly tight grouping like this. Things just fall to pieces in your gun sights and you can have the most glorious last stands it's possible to have in this game, spitting out endless streams of lead.
     
  16. CarloArmato

    CarloArmato Professional Potato Carrier

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    Kingrab always have the main DPS weapons (autocannons) so low and wide you can't either side or hill poke properly, they suffer of bad convergence at longer ranges and it has such a huge CT it could even be scared of an MRM alpha instead of laughing how much bad the MRM spread is like an annihilator or most other assaults does. I've bought and played the king crab for a long time, it was the first assault I have ever sold.
    About the build, I don't like it: even if I would give MRMs another try, projectile speed is so different, if you are shooting a ranged moving target you are clearly going to miss with at least one weapon.

    On a side note, MRM boost damage, but at least half of the damage dealt is meaningless for the final because it is spreaded all over other components. MRMs are great to farm damage and achieve high scores, but with very few exceptions like a quickdraw-IV hugger they won't be the main reason you got a kill.

    Which is basically a variant of the ultraviolent: max ballistic for full sustainable dps at range because poking is a no go on such build. I still own the 2 builds I've posted (dire whale and ultraviolent): they are fun, but they are not optimal or meta for the same reasons the kingcrab isn't (huge ct, bad hardpoints, pretty wide and low arms) with added garbage maneuvearibilty and torso yaw further hindering mech's poking. Can it work well? Yes. Can it work well with other weapons? I'm almost sure it won't.

    Try a 2xAC10 + 2xPPC kingcrab (or similar) and then a 3xAC10 + 2xLPPC annihilator. You will see how an annihilator still requires good positioning but at least can side poke from the right with every weapon, kingcrab can only poke with PPCs (or 2xPPC+1xAC10 if you right poke and wanna give away your position before you can finally see the enemy) unless is fully exposed or committed to a fight.
     
  17. MayTag

    MayTag Junior Member

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    Wow, there's so much here to respond to. I first started playing table-top battletech/Mechwarrior in the early 90's and I'm here to tell you that the murder ball was very much a thing in that game too, if you got isolated and ran into a couple other 'mechs you got dead fast, Granted everything was based on dice so there was no aiming in battletech but you could get lucky; however, if you were using mechwarrior rules then you could take natural aptitude: gunnery which greatly improved your hit/location rolls. My point being that if you are looking for a FPS/arcade experience then MWO is not for you as it is a simulator/team strategy game. Know your 'mech and support your team or lose horribly.

    I play a variety of 'mechs from my Atlas Boar's Head to my Locust Pirate's Bane, depending on how I want to play the next match. If I'm in my locust my strategy is scouting/harassing/poking and occasionally solo-killing any assault 'mech that the other team was dumb enough to leave behind. When and if the other team notices me I run away, but only as far as is needed to lose pursuit. Between ECM, stealth armor, and my 165kph top speed I only get caught or killed if I'm stupid or the last one left alive. When the main engagement occurs I am usually in the thick of it and I survive because I am so small and fast that the other team ignores me or can't hit me. On this particular 'mech I mount 3 ERMLs and 2 light machine guns. It is not uncommon for me to get 400-500 damage and at least 2-4 kills including 1 or 2 solo/most damage done kills.

    My Boar's Head on the other hand is really big and really slow, at a lightning-like 50kph, but has a 90 point alpha and is equipped and skilled to be able to do it 3 times without shutting down, 4 if I override and 5 if i feel like exploding. With good team support I am usually alive at the end of a match with an average damage of 600-800 and several kills. Even without support this 'mech is deadly. In a match just a couple of days ago I found myself face-tanking 4 or 5 enemies and thanks to being fully skilled in the survival tree I managed to kill 3 of them before I was destroyed.

    These are just 2 examples. I play plenty of other 'mechs with differing loadouts and specialties. So in summation I will make a couple of suggestions to you:

    1: If you want to play a game that depends on random numbers and pay to win more than skill and knowledge then go play that and quit complaining.
    2: If you do not like MWO for whatever reason (I'm assuming your's is lack of being instantly good at it because you can't pay to win) then don't play it and don't come to dedicated MWO sites and whine.
    3: Quit being a potato that is complaining about being a potato.
     
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  18. Argent Tnega

    Argent Tnega New Member

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    How about everyone just presses the 2 key and loads the gold to win now? Japanese Super Heavies you have to and even then you can bounce with your real money gold rounds!
     
    Tollas669 likes this.
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