2 replies to this topic

[Mr 144]

Articulated Arms on Heavies/Assaults are becoming more and more useless as this game progresses. I've been excited over quite a few mechs, but once seeing the limited articulation range, especiallly the arms, have been greatly disappointed. The same progression can be shown for mediums as well, but I'm only covering 60t and above here. Let's look at the progression of this trend...

Awesome/Atlas/Dragon: 1st Gen Chassis

The Awesome; ...well, no....even with the buff to100/40 from the original 90/40

The Atlas; Started with 90/40 and reduced to 80/40 with only the RS having the hardpoints neccessary to make good use of it's arms. A 102 damage soak single medium laser has always irked me as such a waste, not to mention being so low slung. Honorable mention to the BH, with further reduced 75/45

The Dragon; 90/40 Not the best arm hardpoints, especially ballistics on the arm. Triple AC/2s haven't worked in a long time, and with weak arms, it's hard to justify large crit-slot ballistics in the arm of a 60 tonner. The Dragon of course has a lot of other issues as well.

The Later Released Rest:
QuickDraw; 90/30 (100/35 4G) limited to 1E per arm

Cataphract; 90/20 This represents PGI's start down the gimped road. On release, it had 90/40 with clipping issues and rather than fix the model, they gimped the arms. This was the first low articulated range chassis.

Orion; This chassis sould be the poster child for articulated arms...the VA and K especially, but nope 90/20 gimped arms.

Victor; Oh...My...God...90/10 on half the variants, why even bother?

Highlander; 90/20 again...with split missile hardpoints with torso, making missile use in the articulated arms moot...so basically an off-reticule 20 degree ballistic arm

Throw in arm-lock and the removal of convergence delay, it's fairly obvious that soon after the initial early CB chassis, that PGI decided to much sway was far too dificult to use and actively pursued a design mantra to discourage arm use. The further PGI gimps twist...and they have shown a dedicated propensity to do so, the further the game feels like a standard FPS avatar in moon boots.

So Why, Oh Why can't we get at least 90/40 anymore? Why can't we get decent hardpoints to use on the arms? In previous MW games, arms were fun AND useful with some heavies and even assaults reaching past 120/40, and most with 90/40 as a standard, NOT a maximum.

This isn't about whether a specific chassis is good, bad, or competetive, but rather about the overall lack of arm 'feel' in the game.

Edited by Mr 144, 05 October 2013 - 07:34 PM.

[Sephlock]

Obviously this is evidence of a longstanding conspiracy to make 3PV "normal" while 1PV restricted to a "hardcore" ghetto. .

[Asyres]

I feel like the arm mobility on heavies and assaults has more to do with making them more vulnerable to flanking lights and mediums than anything.

Also, keep in mind that the victor (and highlander) variants with a 10 degree arm swing lack a lower arm actuator, and this is an improvement over previous mechs with a similar arm arrangement.