201 replies to this topic

[Vlad Ward]

Gaan Cathal, on 25 February 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

It's a bit sad really, since a lot of medium mechs are very good at laying the pain on lights. Several can keep up (Centurions, Cicadas) while carrying more weaponry (Centurions, not so much Cicadas), whilst the others can do a good job of driving lights out of brawls (Hunchbacks-4J,-4P) despite being too slow to chase us down.

That latter one really needs to happen more, a pair of Assaults brawling it up gains a huge amount from a -4J/-4P 'satellite' IMO, it carries enough punch to matter in the brawl, and can keep lights off them with remarkable effectiveness if the pilot is inclined to shoot at them instead of throwing his hands in the air and protesting about the lagshield the second he misses anything smaller than a Cicada.

I'd rather just have 3 Assaults. Not only will it have more firepower, but it won't fall over when an enemy Assault sneezes at it.

I one-shot more Medium mechs than anything else in this game by a huge margin when I play my Assaults.

Serapth, on 25 February 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

8man is a massively different beast. In a weight matched system, a medium just needs to take care of another medium to break even. The role of contributing damage is perfectly valid.

In 8man unlimited, well anything but the minmax build dujour ( D-DC, 3l, possibly a CAT ) is a bad pick.


At the end of the day, a big part of mediums appeal in Battletech is cost. That isn't factored into this game.

It's not limited to 8-mans any more. With the new ELO system putting significantly more emphasis on ranking than weight, you'll find plenty of situations like this in the regular queue.

And you're a bit off concerning the restrictiveness of 8-mans. Honestly, most people are. The scrub teams that got sent packing from the queue did a good job of making it out to be far worse than it is.

Edit: And yes. The removal of R/R took away one of the best reasons to use a Medium for anything. Now there's really not much point aside from the fun/challenge/handicap factor.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 25 February 2013 - 06:51 PM.

[Garfuncle]

ATM cheese is king, so Medium mechs that rely on being balanced, with decent speed, armor, and firepower are being minced. Alpine has fixed this a bit, and more maps of that size will continue to do so...

But right now the "comp" builds for the Cent rely on boating SRMs and utterly ignoring the right arm weapon hardpoint entirely. That's pretty sad and should be fixed somehow.

[Alistair Winter]

IMO, this game should be more like a classic rock, paper, scissor, where light < medium < heavy < assault < light.

If some roles (e.g. scout and spotter) and some mechs (e.g. medium) are inherently less effective than others, and the only reason people play them is for the sake of variety or to help their team at the cost of personal benefit, then it's not good for the game.

[Spinning Burr]

Jade Kitsune, on 25 February 2013 - 06:34 PM, said:

The role they're "Ment" to fill in the battletech lore is operation buddy to lights and heavier units. They're ment to have the speed to be one of the first mechs on the frontline, the armor to take a few hits while dealing out their own, then they're ment to fold back in with the Heavy's and Assaults to provide additional punch while the bigger machines deal out the real hurt. Mediums provide something of a backbone force.

The ideal medium should be quick, and decently armored with some ok firepower, nothing stellar, they're jacks of all trades. Ment to lay out hurt, then as I said, fold back into the pack and let the bigger stuff shine on what they beat up.

But the problem with this idea in Mechwarrior:Online is everyone wants the kill, no one wants to just put some damage on something and ignore it after... the KILL is king for players. And that's the wrong mindset from an in-universe perspective. but as a game, what can you do?

In my mediums and heavies I tend to live and let die. In other words, I go in fast and stealthy, unload an alpha on a vulnerable section of an unsuspecting mech, and veer off to avoid return fire and hopefully avoid detection and targeting altogether in order to set up another strike. This is rewarding team play because a crippled enemy is earmarked dead while you avoid potential splash damage from a brawl. Most of these mediums (dragon included) are not brawlers but fast strikers. Cripple 1-2 mechs like this while remaining fresh and you've significantly tipped the match in your team's favor. At the end of the round, I'm looking at component destructions rather than personal kills as my benchmark.

[Gaan Cathal]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

I'd rather just have 3 Assaults. Not only will it have more firepower, but it won't fall over when an enemy Assault sneezes at it.

I one-shot more Medium mechs than anything else in this game by a huge margin when I play my Assaults.

A third Assault doesn't help so much with lights.

That said, I do get your point. I was saying Medium =/= useless, an Assault, Heavy or Light would be more optimal however, in more or less any case.

I actually think they're too big, personally. In terms of physical size the Light-Medium jump is the biggest in the game, which is why Mediums, especially the slower ones, fall apart if anything substantive looks at them funny.

I mean, I had a look at the Trenchbuckets when they appeared and, well they're mostly a Jenner. 4 lasers, 2 missiles, or equivalent. A Jenner. A Jenner with a few more tons to play with, so maybe you can up that pair of SRM4 to an SRM6 (possibly the worst bang-for-buck upgrade in the game without IV, but hey). Some more armour too, for what that's worth. But basically it's a Jenner. Only massive. A massive, upright Jenner.

[slayerkdm]

I really only play mediums, and even I always try to target the medium I see first. We just cant payload enough to kill the bigger stuff fast enough. We are too slow to stay out of harms way, and too ill armored to survive if targeted. My HBK's are simply Splat Cat food. You can play the sniper game very well, as you dont have the tonnage to add enough oomph. You can brawl, but many lights do it better, and for sure the heavys do.

I know my Dragon and Phract are better, I just am a ********* and keep playing my Hunchback. I love em, but I think they are the weakest class in the game.

I have found the best three builds for me on my SP, P and G and none of them are as good as my Illya or my Dragon, which everyone says sucks. They were a bad match up agaisnt the bigger heavys, but are excellent against mediums. I mean its faster and hits harder for goodness sake.

Its a bit discouraging really.

[Serapth]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 06:49 PM, said:

I'd rather just have 3 Assaults. Not only will it have more firepower, but it won't fall over when an enemy Assault sneezes at it.

I one-shot more Medium mechs than anything else in this game by a huge margin when I play my Assaults.



It's not limited to 8-mans any more. With the new ELO system putting significantly more emphasis on ranking than weight, you'll find plenty of situations like this in the regular queue.

And you're a bit off concerning the restrictiveness of 8-mans. Honestly, most people are. The scrub teams that got sent packing from the queue did a good job of making it out to be far worse than it is.

Edit: And yes. The removal of R/R took away one of the best reasons to use a Medium for anything. Now there's really not much point aside from the fun/challenge/handicap factor.

That's not completely true. Mediums have their place... You can go nearly 100 + km/h and pack double the weapons of most lights.

BUT, that is only true for a handful of mediums.

[Signal27]

I'll just throw this out there:

If it's true that mediums have no role that lights and heavies/assaults don't already fill, wouldn't it be nice if they became the "information warfare specialists"?

In other words, they would be the only class that could carry ECM and other goodies like that. All of them.

Edited by Signal27, 25 February 2013 - 07:16 PM.

[Vlad Ward]

Gaan Cathal, on 25 February 2013 - 06:55 PM, said:

A third Assault doesn't help so much with lights.

That said, I do get your point. I was saying Medium =/= useless, an Assault, Heavy or Light would be more optimal however, in more or less any case.

I actually think they're too big, personally. In terms of physical size the Light-Medium jump is the biggest in the game, which is why Mediums, especially the slower ones, fall apart if anything substantive looks at them funny.

I mean, I had a look at the Trenchbuckets when they appeared and, well they're mostly a Jenner. 4 lasers, 2 missiles, or equivalent. A Jenner. A Jenner with a few more tons to play with, so maybe you can up that pair of SRM4 to an SRM6 (possibly the worst bang-for-buck upgrade in the game without IV, but hey). Some more armour too, for what that's worth. But basically it's a Jenner. Only massive. A massive, upright Jenner.

I agree with you for the most part, but I don't really see the scout-hunter role being filled as effectively as it should be by the Medium class.

The only really good ones are the fast Treb and fast Cent, which are pretty useless in any other role (certainly as support in a brawl, they'll be severely undergunned and the XL means they're dead after a single Alpha from a good Assault or Heavy).

As for Lights, they're not really a major concern anyways. It takes a supremely skilled Light pilot to stay behind a good Assault, and even then it's impossible to take 2 Assaults at once. Everything can hit Lights now, it just requires aim. The only real loss is capping, which is still better left to Lights or Pseudo-Lights (the 9-D etc that are, again, useless in a brawl).

Serapth, on 25 February 2013 - 06:57 PM, said:

That's not completely true. Mediums have their place... You can go nearly 100 + km/h and pack double the weapons of most lights.

BUT, that is only true for a handful of mediums.

Most mediums are rolling around 90, same speed as most Heavies but without the armor/guns. The fast Mediums (CN9-D, Trenchy) can go 130, but give up their weaponry advantage to mount the larger engine. On top of that, their significantly larger hitboxes makes those XLs a huge liability compared to their Light cousins.

[SuperJoe]

Their role is pretty much to be fodder for all the splatcats and what not out there. I'll keep on playing with my trebs and hunchbacks though cuz i hate myself. lol

[Ialti]

You know, I was playing earlier in my AWS 8R. I have FLUTTER (as I named him) loaded out with a couple of Arty-LRM 15's, and some streaks and ML for about 30 dmg in-close. Usually I trick little folks into thinking I'm an LRM boat who just wanted a little more ammo, they get in close and bob's your uncle I have roasted Jenner for afters.

I was just in the swing of shelling out some LRM damage on Frozen City when I noticed a hunchie heading my way. I thought he'd be an easy kill--I've fought quite a few of them before and they usually strike me as pushovers--an so I fired a few salvos at him as he approached, softened him up a bit, and when he got in close I chuckled a little bit at the damage he was doing to FLUTTER's fairly well-armored exterior.

Then the second one joined in. Turns out the other group had a sort-of hunchie-pack that tag-teamed and would cover each other to get in close with our mechs and disassemble them together. With just a little teamwork the two mediums dodged around buildings and flitted in and out of my line of sight (and those of a couple teammates who came back to help me) enough that pretty soon we were all smoking piles of ruin.

Played right, mediums are deadly.The good ones just usually get dismissed as pre-mades in a PUG match and left out of discussions like this. My advice: if you're going to play a medium mech, don't try to be a lone hero. It's possible, but your bread and butter should be in coordinated assaults, going after heavies together with one or two other mechs and taking them down, and filling in the damage gaps left behind by the assaults on your team. You'll have the speed and damage to really put the hurt on just about anything if you do coordinated work, the way mediums are meant to.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

As I said, Mechwarrior:Online rewards the kill, instead of rewarding the "class" based apon it's "Role"

The problem there stems from what exactly do you reward, if a light mech takes down the majority of an assaults armor, should it get extra points? That kind of thing. The balance is tricky and as Garfuncle said, Cheese is currently king. if you're not boating SRM's, or running flavor of the month mechs, you're pretty meh at best.

Can you HAVE fun in a medium, of course, I love taking out my founders hunch, or my Centurians, or my YLW. but at the end of the day, I'm not going to do nearly as well as if I'd taken my Atlas, or my Illia. Because while I can do decent work, I'm not getting the kills I can with those other mechs, I'm not out there utilizing ECM, or boating massave ammounts of SRM's.

it's unfortenate really... Mechwarrior:Online has the chance to really reward Class based warfare. Maybe even reward builds that are more varried than just "SLAM ECM AND SRM'S ON STUFF AND KICK EVERYTHING'S ARSE" but it seems like the devs are a bit afraid to do this because it strays WAY too far from what is traditionally done with games of this type, that rewards the kill over anything else.

[Gaan Cathal]

Jade Kitsune, on 25 February 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

As I said, Mechwarrior:Online rewards the kill, instead of rewarding the "class" based apon it's "Role"

I think larger maps will make a big difference. I notice Mediums (like the Dragon, natch) seem to do fairly well on Alpine, especially compared with other maps, as long as the other team isn't stacked with LRMs and (to a lesser extent) PPC snipers. Because if they work together they can move appreciable firepower pretty fast. I think they may've been suffering for the start-you-off-in-weapons-range map design we've seen up until now. If the next slew of maps are all Alpine-large it'll continue to benefit them, I think.

They could still do with shrinking in the wash though. Seriously, the Trebuchet is a HUGE Jenner.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Gaan Cathal, on 25 February 2013 - 07:08 PM, said:

I notice Mediums (like the Dragon, natch)

[drinniol]

Assist rewards tie into damage dealt already.

One of the best games I've had was 4 hunches just swarming beautifully and decimating mech after mech. It was a pug too, everyone just clicked.

[Soulscour]

Doobles, on 25 February 2013 - 06:24 PM, said:

There has to be some role they fill. Is it safe to say they basically rely on speed like lights do? They are easy to hit, don't have the best firepower, so what is up with them?

What does it do? Owns u in the face and leave u wondering why or how underpowered med could kill you.

Edited by Soulscour, 25 February 2013 - 07:22 PM.

[NocturnalBeast]

They blow things up.

[Doc Holliday]

A medium mech does whatever he jolly well pleases!

[OuttaAmmo NoWai]

I get obscene damage numbers in my Cent, often outperforming heavies and assaults -
but yes, as a medium you will expire quicker than tougher mech classes. It's all about how you engage. I run a DPS build with 2xSRM6, 1 UAC5 and 2MLAS, so I kind of joust through brawls and come out the other side. If I get ignored by the big boys I can rack up damage all match and be around for the endgame.

If I scout ahead too early, though - I can get spanked by an assault in 2-3 alphas. You gotta be careful.

[Heeden]

They kinda do what lights do, only harder, and they kinda do what heavies do, only faster. They do half as much as an assault, but they do it twice as often.