State of the game?

Clans got around the pinpoint damage by running 2xGauss + 2xERPPC on their Direwolves, which dealt 60 Pinpoint Damage (+ PPC splash damage) to opponent at extreme ranges. They did de-sync the PPC and Gauss so that it was less of an issue, but for awhile there, it was ridiculous. Did they wind up changing the Gauss charging mechanics as well or did they just limit it to being only able to charge 2 at a time? I'm not seeing this build anymore, so in any case I guess the debuff worked.

 

The main meta builds currently are as follows (and you are likely to see three of these per team in the group queue);

• Dire Wolf with 6 LBX5 or UAC combination or Gauss and PPC.
• Stormcrow boating SSRM6's or regular SRM's or a laserboat.
• Timberwolf with anything is plain meta, that mech does well in any role.
  
• IS medium mechs brawling with SRM's
• Jagers with dual gauss or dual AC20's are still strong and common.
• RVN-3L with ERLLAS or a Narc
• AS7-D-DC as brawler.
  
• ...

The YLW has competition from the anniversary gift - they brough back the CN9-AH which can house a AC20 aswell.

As for who will play with you, I think there are few willing (heh, there came two). I think you have me already but go ahead and add me aswell if not ("Lan"). My unit [SweC] has become fairly active so I rarely drop with less then 3 or more crazy Swedes.

Be aware there is a huge difference between the solo (normal mode for FPS gaming) and group queue (expert). Group queue tends to be a lot more challenging then solopugging.

 

LRM spam is also still meta with the improvements in NARCs and being able to launch UAVs. Make sure you get the Radar Deprivation module to combat this.

 

Solo drops amd group drops are in a different queue now?

 

Oh okay. I was gonna say, if I can't just group up with a couple of buddies and hang out in the casual area...but 1-4 makes sense.

 

Digging around on the oboards leaves me less enthused. I see they implemented 3rd person, CW, amd whispers of achievement systems, all of which draw my ire or at the very least concern for the quality of gameplay.

Hidden values also seem to add complexity, amd I don't really see quirks explained.

 

Time to grind some money for the legendary Timberwolves. It's coming for C-Bills next week! If that is not a reason to come back to the game, i don't know what else reason you else need. Stay and play (even if casually)

 

Third person caused a lot of people to rage for a couple of months, then everyone realized it was a non-issue and shut up about it. They nerfed third-person view so badly that it's really only useful for taking screenshots.

Community Warfare has not been implemented yet, but they are working on it. You basically have to opt in for the matches, and it won't affect the standard team deathmatch games.

They did implement an achievement system a few months ago, but beyond getting a few Cbill/GXP bonuses, all they give you are a bunch meaningless titles that noone else can see that you have.

Quirks will all be explained on November 2 as that is the patch day where they will release a quirk system for every single mech. What they did is rank every single mech on a tier system. Tier 1 mechs (like the Ember or Timberwolves) won't get any positive quirks, or very minimal bonuses, while Tier 5 mechs will get some huge bonuses for specific weapon groups.

 

Ah, okay. I guess I can give it a shot, then.

 

I'll have you know a few of us take great pride in some of the achievements.

 

I thought they changed that so no groups in the solo queue now?

 

3rd person is never ever used, you can't really use it for scouting and the time it takes to go from cockpit to third makes it unrealistic to use in most cases anyway. Combat in 3rd person is useless also.

Achievement system is mainly for newcomers, once you're done with the first bonuses of assists and cadets stuff, then you never see them any more. I don't.

3rd person or achievments has zero impact on gameplay. The latest reward system is actually quite nice though and that has had a impact on gameplay.

Here is some more info on Quirks and the general roadmap forwards.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/173062-october-road-map/

Spoiler: Quirks and example mech

IS Quirk pass update.

I spent the entire day and got about half way done implementing a global change to the initial IS Quirk pass. It always felt that phase 2 of this IS Quirk pass was going to help broaden the reach of what weapons they impacted.

Therefore I decided since the Quirk pass was delayed until Nov 4th anyhow I had time to implement these changes now.

So here is where we ended up by way of example:

Hunchback 4G - Tier 5 Brawler

Additional Armor (RT) +18
Additional Structure (RT) +12
AC/20 Range +12.5%
Ballistic Weapon Range +12.5%
AC/20 Cooldown +12.5%
Ballistic Weapon Cooldown +12.5%
AC/20 Velocity +12.5%
Ballistic Weapon Velocity +12.5%
Energy Weapon Heat Gen -15%
Energy Weapon Range +15%


- Yes all of the values stack with each other.
- Yes Cooldown is represented with a + symbol but that means being able to fire your weapon faster.

So you can see that we still completely accomplish our goal of making a statement that this 4G is about the AC20 and the quirks will stack in a way to make it just as effective as the previous quirk pass I teased last week. However now if you simply must take out AC2's then you will still bring in half of the ballistic benefit.

The new rule set is that each Weapon Specific quirk gives half to the specific weapon and half to the global family.


As compared to the Hunchback 4H - Tier 4 Skirmisher

Additional Armor (RT) +18
Additional Structure (RT) +12
AC/10 Range +10%
Ballistic Weapon Range +10%
AC/10 Cooldown +10%
Ballistic Weapon Cooldown +10%
Medium Laser Cooldown +10%
Energy Weapon Cooldown +10%
Medium Laser Heat Gen -10%
Energy Weapon Heat Gen -10%

I think so too...let's dig.

 

I have not known this to be true. I have yet to see solo peeps on my team when dropping with one or two buddies. They said this would happen, but it didn't seem like it was so I poll my team every now and then.

 

Because I'm sad.....



Yes I am trying to escape the horror of the three day solid compiling of our monthly stats for all the 140 teams I cover.

TLDR if you hate twitter: Solo queue is currently entirely solo players.

Edit - seems to convert that to a "media" snapshot and no idea how to stop that so people can access the whole thread so the relevant bit is:

Bhael Fire ‏@Bhael_Fire 1 Std.
@russ_bullock There seems to be some confusion on the forums; are groups 2-4 in the solo queue currently?

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock 37 Min.
@Bhael_Fire no there not

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock
@Bhael_Fire likely long term as it creates a great solo queue and also helps dramatically for weight times in group queue

 

Think of the Clan ACs like an M-16: burst fire mode

 

Welcome to the 21st Century and Twitter.

 

One word: ChallAnge.... last challenge....
Oh, I got another: Sepmteber (although I don't remember in which context I saw that)