209 replies to this topic

[LoneUnknown]

Guys, when a certain mech has been stated being the favorite of the lead designer....
expect it to have a few advantages over the rest.

Oh and edit.. the only "problem" catapult seems to be the A1, right? Then reduce the engine rating on that model only, considering it is designed solely as a heavy missile boat.

Edited by LoneUnknown, 27 February 2013 - 08:47 AM.

[Flashback37]

Having just started leveling up a K2, I can say that the Cat is easy to headshoot. half my deaths are to headshots.
i need to get the hang of this thing, lol.

[Darknight99]

Id give up a bit of my twist for greater vertical range. People seem to go on higher/lower ground and I cant shoot at them then.

Edited by Darknight99, 27 February 2013 - 09:30 AM.

[Nostram]

Darknight99, on 27 February 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

Id give up a bit of my twist for greater vertical range. People seem to go on higher/lower ground and I cant shoot at them then.

If you give the catapult the ability to nod the complaint threads will make the forum explode.

[Headlessnewt]

Nerfing the max engine rating a bit would be fine. Reducing it to it's current default would be stupid.

The reason the Cat has such insane twist is that its arms don't have any sideways twist of their own. This is actually an ADVANTAGE for the K2: their torso-mounted weapons and arm-mounted weapons tend to be only a few degrees off from each other at the very most, making those 4-PPC builds much more accurate. Also, unlike most longer-armed mechs, the Catapult's arms are UP meaning that you can hide your lower torso behind cover while still shooting arm-mounted weapons.

I'd be okay nerfing Cat twist from 270 to maybe 240, though. No further than that, I don't think or it becomes even more dead against lights than it already is.

Edited by Headlessnewt, 01 March 2013 - 04:05 PM.

[Maliconus]

JUST PLAY THE GAME...Not everything has to be Nurffed...95% of the threads on this fourm are about nurffing something.

[Trev Firestorm]

ElLocoMarko, on 26 February 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

As far as I can tell the original poster has at least an Ilya Muromets, a Centurion, and affection for Stalkers.

All of which are plenty good enough to wreck a cat's day... so yeah... the Cent might sweat a little in that fight but still...

Cats really aren't a problem, used more than dragons yes, but that is more because of the way class matching works(ed) and that the dragon is 5tons lighter (why take a 60 tonner when you can get a 65 or 70) the AWS has the same issue as the dragon so only those who /really/ like them will be running them.
Edit: also symmetry is nice.

As others have said, easy to core (ct gets hit alot more than anywhere else so that "extra" armor does relatively little) Easiest mech in the game to headshot (a title briefly taken away by the AWS before it got buffed) head is large, and up front-and-center.

The cheese:
Splatcats can be scary in their range, but the A1 is also the absolute worst of the cat varients, every weapon in those ears. Staying out of srm range is easy if you play well (read: situational awareness, positioning, and teamwork), or with a decent team, they are also primary targets to be focused down once identified. If it gets in range there's a chance of being one or 2 shot but the cat should be hurt enough to finish by this point... twisting wildly /can/ spread the damage out... if you die and theres no teammates around to finish the cat then you have done something wrong by now and the cat deserved the kill.
The boomcat is also scary, but slower and so even easier to keep out of reach.
Gausskitty is made of self-destructing glass.


To cut off any dumb personal attacks ahead of time:
I run none of those builds on my "finished product" mechs:
c1f alrm15s tag and mls
c4 lrm5s srm6s mls (sounds like crap but works like a charm)
k2 erppcs mpls
Also run Cents and Catas as my mains, working on stalkers trebs and cicadas, have played every variant of every mech that was in cbt.


So all you nerf crazed posters, quit your bitching and learn to play (yeah thats right, its not the game thats broken, its YOU)

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 01 March 2013 - 05:48 PM.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Trev Firestorm, on 01 March 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

All of which are plenty good enough to wreck a cat's day... so yeah... the Cent might sweat a little in that fight but still...

Cats really aren't a problem, used more than dragons yes, but that is more because of the way class matching works(ed) and that the dragon is 5tons lighter (why take a 60 tonner when you can get a 65 or 70) the AWS has the same issue as the dragon so only those who /really/ like them will be running them.
Edit: also symmetry is nice.

As others have said, easy to core (ct gets hit alot more than anywhere else so that "extra" armor does relatively little) Easiest mech in the game to headshot (a title briefly taken away by the AWS before it got buffed) head is large, and up front-and-center.

The cheese:
Splatcats can be scary in their range, but the A1 is also the absolute worst of the cat varients, every weapon in those ears. Staying out of srm range is easy if you play well (read: situational awareness, positioning, and teamwork), or with a decent team, they are also primary targets to be focused down once identified. If it gets in range there's a chance of being one or 2 shot but the cat should be hurt enough to finish by this point... twisting wildly /can/ spread the damage out... if you die and theres no teammates around to finish the cat then you have done something wrong by now and the cat deserved the kill.
The boomcat is also scary, but slower and so even easier to keep out of reach.
Gausskitty is made of self-destructing glass.


To cut off any dumb personal attacks ahead of time:
I run none of those builds on my "finished product" mechs:
c1f alrm15s tag and mls
c4 lrm5s srm6s mls (sounds like crap but works like a charm)
k2 erppcs mpls
Also run Cents and Catas as my mains, working on stalkers trebs and cicadas, have played every variant of every mech that was in cbt.


So all you nerf crazed posters, quit your bitching and learn to play (yeah thats right, its not the game thats broken, its YOU)

Delusional on all accounts. The splat kat can deliever a 90 alpha strike at 65 tons, not even an atlas can do this. Its fast nearing 90k, and pilots dont care if they die when they rush in and kill 2 or more and wound some other too. Mean time their team mates are shooting too. Small maps ( yes not apline) makes it so any child could pilot a splat cat into short range.
All this is not the problem though. ITS STACKING, or otherwise know as BOATING. Hard points were designed to stop it, but PGI has failed to follow even a basic concept of mech design allowing boating to be the go to design. Its easy to pilot, weapons are tend to be pin point. That goes for dual ac20's, dual gauss, x4 PPC or ERPPC, and 6SRM x6 builds. Its Broken, period.

[Trev Firestorm]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 01 March 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Delusional on all accounts. The splat kat can deliever a 90 alpha strike at 65 tons, not even an atlas can do this. Its fast nearing 90k, and pilots dont care if they die when they rush in and kill 2 or more and wound some other too. Mean time their team mates are shooting too. Small maps ( yes not apline) makes it so any child could pilot a splat cat into short range.
All this is not the problem though. ITS STACKING, or otherwise know as BOATING. Hard points were designed to stop it, but PGI has failed to follow even a basic concept of mech design allowing boating to be the go to design. Its easy to pilot, weapons are tend to be pin point. That goes for dual ac20's, dual gauss, x4 PPC or ERPPC, and 6SRM x6 builds. Its Broken, period.

Yes scary scary boating, high alpha builds that have huge drawbacks and are easily countered. The small maps do help splatcats easymode, but only because bad players don't pay enough attention or work together to counter them.

Edit: I will agree that having 3+ of these things bullrush your team will almost certainly let atleast one in range to cause some serious damage.

Edited by Trev Firestorm, 01 March 2013 - 06:03 PM.

[Livewyr]

I wouldn't complain about bringing the torso twist down by about 10 degrees on each side.

[Mechteric]

Livewyr, on 01 March 2013 - 06:14 PM, said:

I wouldn't complain about bringing the torso twist down by about 10 degrees on each side.

as an owner of 3 Catapults I think it needs more of a cut than that (currently 140 degrees, that would only bring it down to 130). My view is that is should have about a 90 degree arc, that would be slightly more than a Stalker 3F and the same as a Trebuchet (also primarily a support mech).

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 01 March 2013 - 08:55 PM.

[Moromillas]

SpartanFiredog317, on 26 February 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

....will be completely balanced....

You're gonna need something more substantial than just saying "this will be balanced." I would first suggest proving that all the Mechs you're talking about are OP.

[JimSuperBleeder]

[MustrumRidcully]

I wouldn't alter its max engine ratings. Just its torso twist.

When they come around with quirks for the Catapult, they should pick the least used Catapult, and keep it with its current torso twist,and then lower the torso twist of all the others. (Maybe to compensate, give them larger max engines).

And if anyone is wondering why the torso twist rate of the Catapult might be unbalanced:
You know these things in some mech arms, "Lower Arm Actuator"? That's what is supposed to allow the horizontal movement of the arms. Having them is a drawback because you have a crit slot less in your arm, but an advantage because you get more movement range.

The Catapult doesn't have a lower arm actuator, but it has a torso twist rate that allows its a firing arc equivalent to a mech with a lower arm actuator, with the added benefit that its torso weapons (if it has any) also benefit from this. For what reason does it get the perk? It doesn't even fit its standard roles - long range fire support (be it with missiles or energy weapons) doesn't need a particularly wide firing arc - the enemy is usually far enough away that you don't need much twist ability.

The only mech I could see having a good reason for such torso twist rate might be the Jagermech, since its by lore a mech designed also for an anti-aircraft role. Tracking fast moving aircraft might indeed require a good firing arc.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 02 March 2013 - 01:34 AM.

[SgtMagor]

my short time playing, Cats seem to have a shorter life than an Atlas, in unorganized pug games, as soon as someone sees a Cat they are swarmed with weapons fire and die off very quickly, even with all off its so called perks, that big head of the Cat is hard to miss, and those mickey mouse ears are just begging to be shot, don't see any reason to nurf the CAT...

Edited by SgtMagor, 02 March 2013 - 02:23 AM.

[Jestun]

Cats are perfectly fine.

Advantages such as twist & weapon layout countered by GIANT head hitbox and easy to shoot off arms.

There are very few actual balance issues which I have come across in MOW, none of them involve the cat (except for how ECM invalidates many cat setups...)

[shintakie]

Jestun, on 02 March 2013 - 02:28 AM, said:

Cats are perfectly fine.

Advantages such as twist & weapon layout countered by GIANT head hitbox and easy to shoot off arms.

There are very few actual balance issues which I have come across in MOW, none of them involve the cat (except for how ECM invalidates many cat setups...)

Easy to shoot off arms dont mean much when you turn a corner and there's a splat cat right there that can alpha you to death with a single volley.

Edit - And even if the first alpha doesn't kill you, the second alpha will. Unless you're really really good at head shots and can put in enough damage with a single alpha to kill the splatcat, chances are you'll be dead within 3 seconds.

Edited by shintakie, 02 March 2013 - 02:50 AM.

[Yokaiko]

shintakie, on 02 March 2013 - 02:49 AM, said:

Easy to shoot off arms dont mean much when you turn a corner and there's a splat cat right there that can alpha you to death with a single volley.

Edit - And even if the first alpha doesn't kill you, the second alpha will. Unless you're really really good at head shots and can put in enough damage with a single alpha to kill the splatcat, chances are you'll be dead within 3 seconds.

You should drive a faster mech

[Jestun]

shintakie, on 02 March 2013 - 02:49 AM, said:

Easy to shoot off arms dont mean much when you turn a corner and there's a splat cat right there that can alpha you to death with a single volley.

Edit - And even if the first alpha doesn't kill you, the second alpha will. Unless you're really really good at head shots and can put in enough damage with a single alpha to kill the splatcat, chances are you'll be dead within 3 seconds.

You can replace "cat" with any mech with short range weaponry and the ability to aim in the above quote and it will be just as accurate.

What we can learn from this is that walking blindly into an enemy mech is foolish (unless it's an LRM boat...)


If a cat is at tiny range to me I unload into it's GIGANTIC head hitbox.

Do you honestly have a lower alpha than the armour on a cat's head?

[shintakie]

Jestun, on 02 March 2013 - 03:10 AM, said:

You can replace "cat" with any mech with short range weaponry and the ability to aim in the above quote and it will be just as accurate.

What we can learn from this is that walking blindly into an enemy mech is foolish (unless it's an LRM boat...)


If a cat is at tiny range to me I unload into it's GIGANTIC head hitbox.

Do you honestly have a lower alpha than the armour on a cat's head?

Considerin I pilot a Cicada, yes, yes my alpha is lower than that of a cats head. His alpha is enough to one shot me. All it takes for me to be killed by a splat cat is for me to take a single bad turn and for him to have a pulse.

Even disregardin that, you're now at a impasse and it becomes a game of who was more twitch reflexes. The Splat cat, which can 1 shot pretty much any mech under 60 tons with a single alpha unless they go abnormally high on the front armor or the splat cats a bad shot. Or the other person who has to probably deal with convergence since most likely they're backin an arm mounted weapon and a torso mounted weapon.