MaddMaxx, on 20 February 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:
Victor, welcome to the Forums but you should perhaps familiarize yourself with the MWO design. It will not have a rear facing Laser.
I'm actually glad to hear that; but my primary concern is the AC/5 primary weapon. The AC/5 has been notoriously hard to balance in both TT and MechWarrior; it's just too heavy for it's other properties. The only game to date that's made it useful has been the Living Legends mod, but that's because of it's use against aircraft and infantry, which to my knowledge won't be a part of MWO, or at least a large part (I'm unsure if there's NPC aircraft as a command ability as it stands).
That said, I'm mostly arguing against the original table top Dragon. I'm absoultely positive that even if they remain true to the canon vanilla Dragon, they'll provide a way to upgrade it into something drastically more useful. I'm definitely not knocking anyone designing MWO for implementing the Dragon; like I said in the post, MW4 made the Dragon not only viable but a very good 60 tonner by allowing it to carry very heavy ballistics. To be fair, even the BattleTech game designers realized the Dragon was underpowered (amusingly as far as tournament stats go, it is quite literally in last place for effectiveness and being used), which is why they created the Grand Dragon; there is even a version of the Grand Dragon "variant" for the regular Dragon. Replacing the AC/5 with a PPC allowed for drastic improvements to it so I hope we can see something similar to that in the game; it uses the same visual model so I suspect we can.
MaddMaxx, on 20 February 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:
As to the Dragon, it runs well, covers all Ranges well and has pretty good armor, as noted already.
What is it with the whole "can't Alpha strike" deal. It is truly brutal to think that so many people play(ed) MechWarrior games and all they could ever do with any Mech was fill it with ONE weapon type, then run in and "Alpha" everything to death or die horribly.
But that's only without comparison to all other 60 tonners available in the year; the majority, not minority, run as fast or faster than the Dragon while carrying large amounts more firepower, ranging from 50% to 120% damage potential, without ammuniton concernts and even holding similar ranges. Speaking in Tabletop terms, the Dragon is terrible; speaking in MWO terms, I suspect you'll be able to modify the design or select a variant that remedies these problems.
MaddMaxx, on 20 February 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:
If what we think is coming, actual does appear the "Alpha" folks will be at a lose as how to play the game. Whereas, those who can adapt and fight with what their machines provide should find the experience very gratifying.
(fingers crossed the Dev no better than the ("Alpha'ers)
I was mostly stating alpha because of the forward facing, singe-damage capabilities of the Dragon in TT: It's ability to damage a single target is hurt by the rear firing weapons.
That said, in a MechWarrior game, you generally do want to have weapons with a lot of synergy that allow you high alpha damage; it doesn't necessarily mean you want a single type of weapon (though that can be effective with designs such as the Awesome). For example a mech sporting Gauss, PPC and LRMs can work really well because the Gauss & PPC have similar properties (or had in previous games) for aiming, and while aiming you won't have a problem getting an LRM lock. Designs that are more scattered - say, an SRM, LRM, AC and Lasers tend to be pretty terrible because none of the weapons operate on any similar level to the other. Some people
do like these designs but they're not very effective. The vanilla Dragon kind of falls into this category even if the laser is now forward facing, but not so bad that it'd be unusable; the bigger concern is how the AC/5 could be balanced to be useful.
Anyway long story short, I am greatly hoping for an effective Dragon in MWO and I'm sure we'll get it. I love the redesign imagery and as I've stated I
really want to like it: It is, after all, the Combine's flag mech. I'm unsure of how the mechlab is being handled (or if we need to purchase preset variants) but if they give us a selection of variants with some more punch to them, I'm sure I'll completely enjoy driving one. Though, that could be said about any 'mech in the black sheep thread if were impelented; so I'm mostly going off it's mainline BTU abilities and reputation when I'm saying it's really not good.
ScreamingSkull, on 20 February 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:
It's great that some people *anecdotal* evidence of a Dragon performing, but what it comes down to is that 60 tons is the WORST mech weight. Depending on what you want to make 60 tonners can actually end up having less usable tonnage for weapons and armor than a 55 tonner because of the increase in jump jet tonnage, internal structure tonnage, among some other factors I can't recall atm.
That's actually a good point in regards to 60 tonner limitations and why they don't fill some roles very well, despite there being some great 60 tonners; it's more in spite of it, than because of it. Honestly I think the single best IS 60 tonner out there is the Argus in Tabletop (ironic since the game that created it made it little more than a slightly heavier Bushwacker); the model with an ER PPC and 2 LRM15s is pretty stellar as a support 'mech.
It's kind of a shame that we likely won't get to see 'mechs of that era unless MWO does a timeline jump later on. Oh well, there's plenty of awesome (and overlooked!) 'mechs to choose from in the setting!
Edited by Victor Morson, 20 February 2012 - 04:09 PM.
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