9 replies to this topic

[XX Sulla XX]

As many of you have noticed the game queues have been a very high percentage of heavies. So I thought I would suggest some very simple ways to help fix that.

(Brief version. Fix 80 ton assaults to compete with the top heavies. Give added cbills and xp to mediums and lights.)

1. Fix 80 ton assault mechs. Small assaults should fall into the same sweet spot as large heavies. That is they should have a good mix of speed, maneuverability, armor, fire power, and range to do OK in most games on most maps. This means they work well for people playing solo, in small groups and also larger groups. If they do not have this mix then you might as well bring a good heavy that has that sweet spot mix like Timber Wolf, Hellbringer, Mad Dog, Quickdraw etc.

But what we seem to have is a PGI mental block when it comes to 80 ton assaults. They do not seem to think of them as ONLY 5 tons larger than a TW but as an ASSAULT. So none of them accept sadly maybe the Gargoyle come close to matching heavies for the sweet spot mix mentioned above. This is only because of a choice from PGI. Any of them could have a quirk pass and instantly be on the same level as the best heavies for the sweet spot. The only one that is problematic is the Awsome because of its basic flaws.

So PGI please lets get two or three of the 80 ton assaults to the same sweet spot area as the best heavies. If you do this you will start seeing lots of them in queue. Also lets be realistic about the state of the Victor etc at the moment. I believe the Victor has a problem of a hang over from its abuse as a jump sniper in the past.

It also would help to fix the larger assaults just in general. Oh say the Highlander and Atlas. They do not have to be OP but just better balanced so there is some reason to take them.

2. Give a better reason to take mediums. Up until know they have made mediums more powerfull and forced large groups to take a mix of weight classes. But if you are playing with 1-3 people the smartest thing to do is to take 3 heavies. That givs you your best chance of carrying a bad team and making the most money per match etc. So maybe the only alternative to get more people into mediums is to have larger Cbill and XP rewards for playing them. Then you might have less of a chance to carry but you have a bonus every game just from being in a medium.

3. Lights have the same problem as mediums and probably the same solution. Give a large bonus to Cbills and XP using them.

I believe if you do these two things it would balance queues more without breaking anything.

>>>>>>>> If you have another or "better" idea then please share it below. If it is just nerfing all heavies until they are like bad mediums I am not sure PGI will go for it though.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 31 March 2015 - 12:18 PM.

[Vandul]

+1 for spelling "Queue" correctly several times.

[ZhaLinth]

Can't speak for the assault and light class because I only pilot medium.

My 2 cents anyway.

There is basically no reason to take a medium over a heavy, less firepower, same speed (with xl).

The only upside is a slightly smaller overall size.

Just adjusting the CBills and XP is not really a solution, people will just use them for the grind to buy a heavy.

Make them more agile and I don't mean top speed.
I want
- better acceleration /deceleration
- faster turn speed
- faster uphill speed
- less speed loss after hitting the ground after a jump
- and for the love of God, please make jumpjets do what their name implies, while I am OK with heavies / assault soaring majestically through the sky like Dumbo, with mediums and especially lights it makes me wanna puke.

[Lord0fHats]

I actually do want mediums to go faster. I know people complain about the Crow being too fast, but really nearly every other medium is just too damn slow. Have been since the game launched. Most of them only manage to be 10-15 kph faster than heavies in my experience. Which is comical. The launch of the fast Clan mechs I hope has only made this problem abundantly apparent. Mediums are too slow. If it were up to me every medium would have a speed (with speed tweak) between 90 and 120. A great many putter along in the low to mid 80s.

That said, I've never felt mech balance is really the issue with the queue. The queue is just TDM. Ignore the game mode check list, it's TDM. The objectives rarely come into play. Given the time and effort, killing the enemy team is the most straightforward and frequent means of victory. Realizing this, players just do what is obvious. They pick the mechs with the most armor and guns so they can kill the enemy team faster. Giving more XP/C-Bills is just a crutch fix to an underlying game flaw and I'd rather PGI fix the problem than patch over it with a bandaid.

MWO needs to be built around objective game modes, or there is zero reason to use anything but the biggest and heaviest mechs other than a personal preference. Real objective game modes (i.e. not the current conquest mode) TDM and the like can be best given to players in the Solaris update, whenever that comes, and that mode can easily be tiered to weight to help eliminate the above problem.

Edited by Lord0fHats, 31 March 2015 - 01:47 PM.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

I do not find my 80 ton assault mechs significantly less agile than my 75 ton Orion, and in some cases more so. As you noted the Awesome has an engine restriction that limits its performance. This isn't so much a problem for 80 ton mechs, but any mech that is a smaller base engine. PGI has attempted to compensate by allowing larger capacity engines, but those options seem a little arbitrary and inconsistently awarded. I am not a huge fan of the quirk system, but since PGI is balancing everything with quirks, having a reduced engine should be worth an additional quirk (same as having JJ or ECM means fewer quirks).

As someone who primarily plays mediums. I don't understand why they are so underutilized, I suppose it is because Heavy and Assault mechs have the same agility. I think monetary rewards will simply mask any underlying problems without actually helping balance. Again if quirks are going to be the balancing tool add more, or allow custom quirks for greater flexibility in builds.

Lights; in another thread I mentioned that lights represent a playstyle that is the antithesis of MWO experience, which is big stompy robots. To introduce light fast mechs makes the gameplay similar to any other twitch shooter that already do it better.

Edited by Agent 0 Fortune, 31 March 2015 - 01:58 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Quote

Make them more agile and I don't mean top speed.

This helps some but you can not go crazy with it. And still unless you make medium get the same damage per match as heavies they will be earning less. And if they are making the same damage and kills per match as heavies the balance is probably a little off. Also speed would help along with the other things.

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there is zero reason to use anything but the biggest and heaviest mechs other than a personal preference.

Thing is that is not true. People are not using just the biggest heaviest mechs. They are using the ones in the sweet spot at heavy. That sweet spot is still there even if you have objectives.

Quote

I do not find my 80 ton assault mechs significantly less agile than my 75 ton Orion, and in some cases more so. As you noted the Awesome has an engine restriction that limits its performance. This isn't so much a problem for 80 ton mechs, but any mech that is a smaller base engine. PGI has attempted to compensate by allowing larger capacity engines, but those options seem a little arbitrary and inconsistently awarded. I am not a huge fan of the quirk system, but since PGI is balancing everything with quirks, having a reduced engine should be worth an additional quirk (same as having JJ or ECM means fewer quirks).

The Orion is not a good heavy. You have to compare the 80 ton mecsh to the best heavies Not to a third rate tier 3 heavy. And its not an engine problem across the board. Victors can use large engine but just do not have enough fire power at medium and long range. And have a problem with the left and right torso.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

XX Sulla XX, on 31 March 2015 - 02:08 PM, said:

The Orion is not a good heavy. You have to compare the 80 ton mecsh to the best heavies Not to a third rate tier 3 heavy. And its not an engine problem across the board. Victors can use large engine but just do not have enough fire power at medium and long range. And have a problem with the left and right torso.

You may need to be more specific about what you want, because on paper, mathematically, the light assaults line up perfectly with the heavy mechs due to the 77-78KPH speed ceiling, which ultimately creates a plateau for the IS mechs. If you are talking about intangibles, be specific, say you want firestarter hitboxes, combined with Shadowhawk weapon mounts, Quickdraw agility, and Atlas armor.

However I get the feeling you want it to be comparable to a specific Heavy mech the Timberwolf.

But that is not going to happen, you can give up that pipe dream. The Timberwolf sits at the pinnacle that 80 ton mechs cannot achieve for several reasons.
1. 75 tons is the optimal weight (tied with 70) for 81 KPH speed, at 80 and 65, your available tonnage drops quickly.
2. It uses light-weight, long-range clan weapons. Which why it able to carry assault class firepower with Medium class agility.
3. It is one of the few Clan mechs with optional jump jets, endo, and ferro, for maximum tonnage savings.

The sad fact is that 80 tons Clan mech is too fat, you are on the back-slope of the efficiency curve for speed and firepower.

[Xetelian]

I fear the day we merge the medium/lights and Heavies/Assaults.

[XX Sulla XX]

Quote

You may need to be more specific about what you want, because on paper, mathematically, the light assaults line up perfectly with the heavy mechs due to the 77-78KPH speed ceiling, which ultimately creates a plateau for the IS mechs. If you are talking about intangibles, be specific, say you want firestarter hitboxes, combined with Shadowhawk weapon mounts, Quickdraw agility, and Atlas armor.

However I get the feeling you want it to be comparable to a specific Heavy mech the Timberwolf.

But that is not going to happen, you can give up that pipe dream. The Timberwolf sits at the pinnacle that 80 ton mechs cannot achieve for several reasons.
1. 75 tons is the optimal weight (tied with 70) for 81 KPH speed, at 80 and 65, your available tonnage drops quickly.
2. It uses light-weight, long-range clan weapons. Which why it able to carry assault class firepower with Medium class agility.
3. It is one of the few Clan mechs with optional jump jets, endo, and ferro, for maximum tonnage savings.

The sad fact is that 80 tons Clan mech is too fat, you are on the back-slope of the efficiency curve for speed and firepower.

80 ton mechs can compete head to head with 75 ton mechs with just basic logical balancing. PGI has a quirks system so they can balance any relationship between mechs as needed.

Lets compare the Victor and TW. And the TW is an outlier that should be nerfed a bit but lets compare them anyway.

1. Speed/Agility - Because of the Victors large engine cap both mechs can run in the same speed range. Both mechs I believe now have the same Movement Archetype. Both mechs have jump jets. And any turning, twisting etc can be set to balance them if needed. In other words they should handle about the same if setup by PGI correctly.

2. Durability, hitboxes etc. The Victor over all is a durable mech except for somewhat easy to hit side torsos and need of an XL engine to get the speed and fire power needed. A single quirk to the left and right toro of a moderate amount woudl make the Victor just as durable as the TW even with an XL.

3. Firepower/range. This is where the Victor has a problem with the current state of the game. It has both a lack of hard points and a lack of quirks. If you remove all nostalgia for the mech you can see how much it is lacking in this department. And if you keep the speed up it becomes even more of an acute problem. But it is also probably the easiest problem to fix because of quirks. You can with quirks adjust range, dps and alpha etc. It is just a matter of deciding on what game play is best for Mechwarrior.

At the moment they have almost no quirks. A moderate amount of logical weapons quirks would make them the equal of any heavy mech. A lot of this would just be making up for lack of hard point instead of any inherent problem with 80 ton mechs. The rest would be making up for OP clan technology.

I personally would prefer nice general quirks that foster mid and close range play. Leaving the 9S the short range brawler. I am always for limiting very long range mechs to only a hand full of mechs so the meta does not shift.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 31 March 2015 - 03:48 PM.

[Chuck Jager]

Take 3 heavies with gauss, or 3 heavies with two that are Hellbringers. Your chance of ending up on a team with more than 3 heavies goes up and the enemy is covered in the cheese that you fling all over them. It is not a sure win exploit, but it does help put the odds in your favor even if there is a longer wait.