10 replies to this topic

[AllSystemsNominal]

The best indicator for balance is always what people are playing - humans are simple and always gravitate towards power/wins, with people playing 'low tier' being outliers.

Light Mechs and Medium Mechs are lower %s on the queue list for a reason.

What's the point? In beta 8v8 lights had a role, mediums were...ok at killing lights I guess.

But in 12 v 12 it's all about staying together and lobbing massive arsenals against eachother - which means massive tonnage mechs.

I'm not interested in any fluffy, nonsensical platitudes about how 'light mechs compliment the assault squad by watching their back!' because that's pure hogwash and doesn't translate into anything in game.

[Pezzer]

I will put all of the blame on PGI's decision to make the spawns closer in every game type. Each team used to spawn nearly the whole map away from one another, thereby making Light mechs extremely vital scouts, like how wards in MOBAs are very important in the first few minutes of a match. As with wards, said scouts are important throughout the match but in MWO that's to a lesser extent.

Another reason (that cannot take any blame because it doesn't yet exist) is the lack of Role Warfare in MWO. You get paid for boom-boom, not looksy-looksy. As a result, 100 ton Mechs are a lot better at boom-boom than 20 ton Mechs. Lights/Mediums don't earn a bonus for simply piloting that chassis either. In the opinion of many people, Light/Medium Mechs should get a small bonus for simply being piloted since they earn less in the way of comp destructions and damage. Light and Medium players should also earn money and exp for legging, stripping rear armor, and most importantly gathering targetting info/locations on the battlefield. This is most important for Lights, but in theory one role for Mediums is to back up Lights when exploiting flanks and chinks in the enemy's armor. All of these bonuses would be incorporated into Role Warfare if PGI ever adds it. We will have to wait and see.

While all of this can be played out on the battlefield, lighter tonnages do not earn rewards for doing so. They only receive satisfaction and maybe a win as a way of compensation for their inevitable C-Bill loss (when compared to playing a Dire Wolf; which one do you think is going to get more reliable dmg per match?).

Edited by Pezzer, 19 July 2014 - 04:15 PM.

[Voivode]

Well, almost every game is decided by killing the enemy. None of the game modes have much in the way of non-kill based winning. If killing is the only objective that matters, then more armor and firepower will always be preferred.

[Ertur]

Right now I am grinding exp for my new mechs. That is what determines my choice of mech right now. I've already got the lights and mediums done, now I need to do 3 heavies and 1 assault. Once I am done with that I will go back to mostly running lights and mediums.
It's a good time to run lights, actually, since the field is so heavy lately.
Real lights, I mean, not those horribly slow clan lights.

[Tim East]

Well, mainly the reason I drive lights is to enjoy flying around the battlefield at ludicrous speed. Can't say I feel too good about the fall damage implementation, or the ease with which one is targeted even at maximum speed during lateral movement, or any number of other things that prevents lights from winning, but then again, I get kind of a rush out of playing the underdog.

For every 3 or 4 matches where I don't get a whole lot done, I get one match where I can get a kill, or cause the enemy formation to be completely disrupted, or steal cap points from slower mechs. Then, for every 3 or 4 of those, I can get a match where I literally turn the tide of the battle through a combination of luck and being in the right place at the right time, usually in my COM 2D.

Storytime! I had a battle earlier today where I was doing my Commando support thing, tagging enemies and getting points. I ran around for a bit, shot a couple of streaks at this annoying Firestarter with dual AMS (one of the few things I cannot really deal with in that mech) and managed to turn a 4 to 7 against into a 9 to 8 in favor with a bit of judicious positioning of my ECM bubble and a highly risky distraction run that almost got me back-cored. The game was winding down, and we lucky few wound up in a fighting retreat toward our base, where I would more or less watch for the missile symbol on my allies and run over toward them when it popped up. We got back to the turrets, a Raven, an LRM boat Stormcrow and I, and the raven got into a fight with that same dastardly Firestarter. I managed to get close enough to it due to the Raven distracting it that its AMS couldn't stop my streaks, and I broke its leg. We retreated over the hill, it pursued and got killed by something, I don't know if it was one of our turrets or an ally. I went BACK over the hill, away from the turrets, and encountered their literally undamaged ECM Raven sniper alongside a badly damaged Adder that I'd been painting for missile fire on and off for most of the match. I switched to counter, tagged, locked, and burned the Adder in a lucky pass, avoiding the Raven's counterfire by running around one of the nearby buildings. This seemed to confuse the Raven for some reason, and I somehow wound up behind him, just streaking away like nothing in the world could possibly go wrong. He was all but dead by the time he turned to face me for one last dual large laser salvo to my relatively undamaged face. His right torso was not so fortunate for my retaliatory streak missile fire, and he exploded in a shower of molten metal. Final score, 12 to 8. 2 kills, 4 assists, 6 component destructions, not terrible, but hardly the best I've done.

Just typing out my memory of that experience makes me think we need a light mech only mode. That match was amazingly fun for me, and not just because I won. What made it awesome was how CLOSE it was. One good shot to my rear CT would have done me in, and dancing along the edge of a razor like that is...well, thrilling seems like too mild a word, but I can think of none better.

I suppose I cannot argue that there is a serious balance issue between the mech weight classes at this time, and I don't disagree that the cause of this is the way the game is set up, and I am not surprised that the light queue numbers went from low to incredibly low after the fall damage change that makes it literally suicide to jump off of anything even not particularly high for light mechs. There is little incentive to play a light mech unless you derive enjoyment from it and ignore the fact that everyone has better C-bills, stats, and odds of success than you. Maybe I should petition for a light-only mode. Or get in an outfit that does it. I'd play the heck out of that.

[Ertur]

I like to take a Locust 3S up behind some big, overpowered, 100point alpha Assault mech and kill it.
And then I laugh.

MWHUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Just like that.
That is what is best in life.

[Rushin Roulette]

Why do people insist on blaming PGI for the players lack of skill and practice? Light mechs can and are gamebreakers/winners in the hands of players how know what they are doing.

So often I see new light pilots do and repeat the same mistakes over and over again (Standing still, running in a straight line, not looking out for their heat levels, equipping a too slow engine or not using correct movement tactics to name a few). Players tend to gravitate to the easiest solutions if they find something too dificult for them, which means they move to bigger mechs where heat doesnt matter as much, the armour is high enough to take more of a beating and the speed is slow enough so that they have nore time to make a descision before teh target is out of movement range.

[Tim East]

While skill is a critical component to driving a light, there are a lot of times where you really cannot hurt the enemy properly at all. It can be difficult to use a SPL or SRM brawler when the enemy is in one big clump and you don't want to spend C-bills on consumables. Also, skill is more important for light mechs than any other class, because a single mistake or even simple bad luck will take you out of the game in an instant, whereas an assault can afford a couple of errors as long as they rectify them swiftly enough.

[JC Daxion]

i can't count the number of times i have seen a light, or medium with 700+ damage in a game.... or heavies and assaults with -100... It is not the mech, it is how ya play it, and a good light pilot, or medium pilot, can turn the tide of any battle with proper tactics.. not just trading pop-tart blows

[Tim East]

I'm not saying it's impossible to do well in a light or medium. Lights are my favorite class to play in. I am saying, however, that it is significantly easier to score high damage numbers in a mech that has a higher dps, typically. More guns and more ammo equals more damage, both in terms of immediate, and total. I'm not entirely convinced that high damage is a good thing for lights anyway. If you are back-coring people in the most efficient manner possible, you probably won't have much more than 75 points per kill anyway. Usually less, since people tend to put far less than 15 armor on the back most of the time. Sure, there are exceptions, like if you need to cut off a badly damaged arm or something to make a teammate's life easier, but I really prefer to measure by component destruction, kills, assists, and wins over damage. Same reason I'm not inspired by LRM damage numbers. Sure, you can shave armor all day, but as long as the mech you're making lighter is still fighting back, it doesn't really help your team all that much.

With regards to tactics, this can be a real gamble. Sometimes you get a team that takes advantage of the fact that you've turned 75% of the enemy formation's back to them, and sometimes you don't. I have had battles where a well-timed strafing run resulted in people looking the wrong way (read: at me) and getting nailed in the back, flipping the entire balance to favor our side, and I have had battles where the team kind of just hides behind a rock no matter what you tell them is happening or what you're going to do about it.

[Saiyajin12]

Tim East, on 22 July 2014 - 09:22 PM, said:

I'm not saying it's impossible to do well in a light or medium. Lights are my favorite class to play in. I am saying, however, that it is significantly easier to score high damage numbers in a mech that has a higher dps, typically. More guns and more ammo equals more damage, both in terms of immediate, and total. I'm not entirely convinced that high damage is a good thing for lights anyway. If you are back-coring people in the most efficient manner possible, you probably won't have much more than 75 points per kill anyway. Usually less, since people tend to put far less than 15 armor on the back most of the time. Sure, there are exceptions, like if you need to cut off a badly damaged arm or something to make a teammate's life easier, but I really prefer to measure by component destruction, kills, assists, and wins over damage. Same reason I'm not inspired by LRM damage numbers. Sure, you can shave armor all day, but as long as the mech you're making lighter is still fighting back, it doesn't really help your team all that much.

With regards to tactics, this can be a real gamble. Sometimes you get a team that takes advantage of the fact that you've turned 75% of the enemy formation's back to them, and sometimes you don't. I have had battles where a well-timed strafing run resulted in people looking the wrong way (read: at me) and getting nailed in the back, flipping the entire balance to favor our side, and I have had battles where the team kind of just hides behind a rock no matter what you tell them is happening or what you're going to do about it.

Exceptions of back armor being more than 15: The French Atlas build that someone posted earlier

Sorry, couldn't resist!