I recently created a thread after consulting people on both Kong Interstellar & Reddit about jump sniping and systems which could be implemented to help cut down on the number of jump sniper builds without making the entire tactic invalid - rather harder to do and requiring more skill to perform. Thread here: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/113578-suggestion-to-reduce-jump-sniping/ Please give it a read and offer suggestions / comments if you wish So I thought I would also come to MechSpecs because you guys are also a big voice in the community to get opinions on jump sniping - is it a current problem? - should it be fixed? - how / suggestions General Jump Sniping discussion.
Jump Sniping is both fine and not fine. When one person does it then its an individual who is using tactics to support his team. When everyone does it then it becomes fucking annoying and has actually caused me to spend more time watching TV shows than getting actual drops in. Jump Snipe Online isn't what I enjoy.
This is indeed that I mean - I understand its a legitimate strategy but if everyone is doing it then the game becomes not very fun since the only way currently to counter jump sniping is by jump sniping yourself. Trying to find that balance that will allow good players to jump snipe and also at the same time deter everyone from jump sniping since its not always the best viable option.
There is no way to really combat it without severe penalty or nerfing... I started an idea over at MWOMERCS about Power Requirements being installed for weapons and systems... So that your weapons recharge consecutively, instead of concurrently, based upon priority levels you set in the mechlab. This would slow down alpha boaters and maybe even jump snipers a little bit. It wouldn't remove them though. I guess you could also add this to Jump Jets. Something like JJ require so much power that not all your weapons are able to discharge (or recharge) due to the JJ being used? I don't know (shrugs) But then people bitch and complain "Ohhhh they use fuel blah blah blah". Or make it so that every time you jump there is a chance that your landing will damage your legs... This would severely reduce jumping as the risk of killing yourself increases greatly? Here is my original post from over there Maybe find a way to tie jump jets in to this system? Give each jump jet a 30 second recharge time as fuel is being moved around to recharge it? That would be 1m 30 seconds for a mech using 3 jump jets etc?
I think reticle shake is a simple fix. High-end players may still do it, but it will eliminate 95% of it in the game.
I like the idea of reticle shake the best. It adds difficulty for snipers, but also helps to reduce ALL shot accuracy, further extending combat time. I also think that JJ simply shouldn't be as effective as they are for large Mechs. I don't know much about the MW lore, I started my MW "career" with MW4, and then played some of the older games, so maybe the lore says they work perfectly well for heavy and assault Mechs, but it just seems to me that they are too effective right now. At the very least, they should take longer to recharge on larger Mechs. Perhaps the explanation would be that while they can lift large Mechs, they generate so much internal heat in doing so that they have to cool off for longer than on smaller Mechs. This would still allow large Mechs to use them to get around the map, just not as jump snipers as often. Re-increasing the damage of SRMs and LRMs would help also, I think. Right now, NO ONE runs missiles, so I'm betting a certain percentage of the jump snipers are really just former LRMers, looking for a similar gameplay experience with direct-fire weapons. And by giving people reason to run more SRMs, you'll create more brawlers again. I'd say, some of the problem will be fixed in future patches' balance fixes, but adding in reticle shaking would certainly help. Also, I think PPCs and ERPPCs might be a little too powerful at the moment, but I don't really have any rational reason to think that, other than a gut feeling. It would also help if people would do something other than stand in place and get shot by the snipers. I had a match in Tourmaline yesterday where there were several jump snipers, and most of my team was just milling around in the valley getting killed while trying to chase a Jenner. It seemed fairly obvious to me that the other team decided it was the Jenner's job to just keep people busy in the valley so the snipers could pick them off. I got some good shots in on the snipers, and even killed one Mech that tried to come after me, but we lost like 8-3 because most of the team were just sitting ducks. So, some of those people will figure it out eventually, and some of them will rage-quit the game, and jump sniping will become less fun.
I don't have much of a problem with it really as Michael says...if 2 guys in a 4 man or something are jumpsniping to cover brawlers or something like that....No big deal but when you see 4 mans of 4 ppc 733P that post up and never do anything but jump snipe it is horribly annoying and unfun. There are various fixes that may work but I think that before nerfs and re balancing are done to jump sniping in general a few things should happen first. Missiles should be fixed fully(well to what ever standard that PGI wants them to) Highlander needs to not be Flavor of the Month anymore(Wait till something else becomes that and "the problem" I think maybe even wait till State rewind for missiles is out so that all weapons are on equal footing so far as hitting things. I say things need to happen first because right now the Highlander is out, a jump sniper's wet dream. It is new and shiny and has an AC20 version with movable arms and an energy version that can mount many ppcs. It is a good mech so it is going to be flavor of the month for a while like the daka cataphracts and the ecm everything and AC20 Jagers before it. That needs to die down first in my opinion. All of that died down and now the world is not calling for a nerf. Some always will but not the world. Also there are balance things to be delt with. To change something like Jumpjetting without the missiles being at their greatest potential (or as high potential as PGI wants them) would most likely cause even more problems. What if the missile change pushes people back into their A1s because aiming sucks and thats a pair of tripple shotguns ducktaped to a mech and the Jump Sniping dies down a bit. Atlases with triple SRM6 can agian do the damage that they used to. LRM boats with tag Artemis bap and moduals can lock a poptart before it hits the ground or have a scout run up and watch the target from a hilltop and rain down hell apon its fruity filled face. All of this could (Not saying it definitely will) curb the jump sniping. There may be other factors and I could very well be off base here but I would much rather we wait a bit and let missiles change and see if the Jump Sniper stuff dies down before then.
I run a Highlander and enjoy jump sniping, but not for the entire drop. The problem with jump sniping is if you get focused on that tactic then that pesky Jenner is going to enjoy sitting on your six chewing the rear CT to pulp. And yes I agree that HUD shake similar to AC hits needs to be part of any jump targeting instead of the opposite happening like now. In the TT game, there is a higher difficulty in actually firing during a jump, and during the Virtual World days jump firing was very difficult to pull off without spending massive hours practicing and that was because you actually had to control your jump. The other problem with JJs in VW was the amount of heat they generated. So my two cents, HUD shake and increased heat generation like the (D)HS do not dissipate heat during a jump, as they are expelling the jumpjet exhaust heat. How many jumps before you shutdown? There is still a lot of balancing that needs to take place, and this is one of them. Forgive me since I am not sure how to pull quotes out but Vorus above questions PPC and ERPPC balance. In the old "games" the biggest downfall to PPC's were that the heat load was higher than the damage output (PPC 10D & 11H, ERPPC 10D & 13H). Why people ran with them was the range was the best of any energy weapon and in VW PPCs caused HUD static (guess that is why they disrupt ECM now?).
I play a poptarting cataphract 3D, and its great fun and very effective at times, and a great support mech, but I agree, you shouldn't have whole teams doing it. I think some reticle shake while jumping is the solution, as long as its NOT RANDOM spread mechanics but your reticle actually moving beyond your control, so you can get perfect shots in if you have excellent timing at long range, but its much harder. It would simulate 70 odd tons of metal flying through the air on spears of flame accurately as well, there is no way anything suspended on rocket boosters would be stable.
Moving up and down as much as a 'mech does would drag the arms of the 'mech down. I would say that weapons should converge more slowly while jumping. That, and falling damage should go straight to the leg's internal structure.
I can understand the Highlander not taking as much damage from hard landings, see Highlander burial, but others should, as there is no canon evidence to suggest that they have reenforced internals on the legs.
The bigger mechs JJs weigh more, so it makes sense they would be powerful enough to lift them. Extra fall damage would have consequences elsewhere, mainly on non-JJ mechs being able to jump off of ledges. I don't think that's the right fix. Extra heat would just slow down the poptart. It wouldn't make it go away. Reticle shake (not random spread mechanics, as mentioned above) would be the simplest implementation, and it's what everyone I've talked to about poptart snipers has suggested. PGI just needs to do it.
I do not understand the 'poptart' appeal, honestly. I mean, I know the practical appeal as in being harder to hit, reduce lock on time, etc., but all the best snipers I've seen don't use jump jets for their sniping. I love my sniper K2, and it can't even fit jump jets on the variant. Any light mech can scare a hopper off of his game just by getting close. On a heavy or assault, I just like the free kill as they sit up in the air at their apex for a second, begging for a couple of large lasers to the face. There are enough detriments that I can't see this as a valid advanced strategy. ... so yeah. Clearly, I don't see folks poptarting as a problem. XD
