47 replies to this topic

[El Bandito]

I have seen some of my teammates die 30 seconds into the game though. All of them Lights.

Usually in my battles if I survived my Phracts will live with all three torso armor gone or red front and back.

I don't know what people are making a big deal about huge Alphas. During the time when LRMS were king, I had some bad experience but Gauss and PPC damages are either avoidable or mitigable using torso twist. Gauss rifle even has firing delay.

Do people want to punish skill?

Edited by El Bandito, 30 March 2013 - 07:53 AM.

[Pac Man]

With mechs like the Jenner or Cicada, torso twise doesn't mitigate torso damage, nor is it really any better. The side torso's are weaker, and most of the these mechs (All should..) have XL engines. The poptart dual-PPC guass combination can be an insta-kill for these mechs regardless of which way they are facing. The torso can be shot from any angle.

Not supporting the idea that these weapons need nerfing, just that its not necessarily pilot error in not twisting. The only advantage lights have is the speed they can reach, which should make sniping them difficult. If you can hit a light at range who's at full speed for an insta-kill, then all the power to you.

[Mercules]

Pac Man, on 29 March 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

The only advantage lights have is the speed they can reach, which should make sniping them difficult. If you can hit a light at range who's at full speed for an insta-kill, then all the power to you.

Speed doesn't help if you don't see it coming. Our vision keys in on moving things. Get a map with a bunch of little blue blobs that the enemy can blend into for thermal and that they otherwise blend into in normal vision and you can end up mistakenly running right at a sniper. As we all know running right at a sniper is about the same as standing still.

[Ph30nix]

i have never died instantly on any map, i mean maybe its just me but i dont stick my face into the wide open if i can avoid it....

Edited by Ph30nix, 29 March 2013 - 06:07 AM.

[Jakob Knight]

Pac Man, on 29 March 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

With mechs like the Jenner or Cicada, torso twise doesn't mitigate torso damage, nor is it really any better. The side torso's are weaker, and most of the these mechs (All should..) have XL engines. The poptart dual-PPC guass combination can be an insta-kill for these mechs regardless of which way they are facing. The torso can be shot from any angle.

Not supporting the idea that these weapons need nerfing, just that its not necessarily pilot error in not twisting. The only advantage lights have is the speed they can reach, which should make sniping them difficult. If you can hit a light at range who's at full speed for an insta-kill, then all the power to you.

Considering Light Mechs were never designed to enter combat against Heavies or Assaults and survive, the outcome isn't that wrong. A Light mech should be focusing on evasion and scouting, and expect to die quickly if it goes head-to-head with such units.

However, I suspect what happens is one of two things, which are related and I have seen happen.

1) The pilot of the Light mech forgets they are in a Light unit and drives it like a Heavy or Assault. This takes the form of the mech moving slow or actually stopping in full view of the enemy and trying to duke it out.

2) The pilot of the Light mech heads directly towards the enemy, or at a very slight angle. At range, this is the same as sitting still, as it is the transverse angle that makes a Light hard to hit. Coming right at an enemy at long range is an easy shot to line up because the target isn't moving relative to the gunsights of the enemy.

Light mech pilots that keep in mind their unit's abilities and weaknesses survive. Those that forget -should- die, as they are trying to make a Light unit a mainline battle unit, which it is not.

[Voidcrafter]

El Bandito, on 29 March 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

I have seen some of my teammates die 30 seconds into the game though. All of them Lights.

Usually in my battles if I survived my Phracts will live with all three torso armor gone or red front and back.

I don't know what people are making a big deal about huge Alphas. During the time when LRMS were king, I had some bad experience but Gauss and PPC damages are either avoidable or mitigable using torso twist.

Do people want to punish skill?

I would like to say few things, but first I'm interested... what mech are you piloting fella, and what loadout does it have?

[NRP]

I think what people said is true. For too long, light pilots thought they were brawlers. They always go "toe to toe" with anything. Then they get hit with massive alphas. And the tears flow.

[Relkathi]

Totally agreeable. As a light, you need you are just that, a light mech, not a 35 ton assault mech that is designed to give and take a beating. I have piloted a bit of everything, and each class has it own role. You should play to those roles rather than try to make the game adjust to how you want to play.

[BigJim]

Jakob Knight, on 29 March 2013 - 06:10 AM, said:

Considering Light Mechs were never designed to enter combat against Heavies or Assaults and survive, the outcome isn't that wrong. A Light mech should be focusing on evasion and scouting, and expect to die quickly if it goes head-to-head with such units.

While I see your point, I do feel that's a glib, too-oft used reply and is wrong.
If socuts don't have a role to play in combat, then why are they in the game?

* Evasion is just another word for running away. Shouldn't even come into the discussion.

* Scouting is only of use in knowing where and when to enter combat. Sure, you can relay the info to your team (and should, except in pug matches where communication means taking fingers of keys and typing which equals death), but as sophisticated as this game is, it's not so sophisticated as to adequately reward good scouting, not to the extent where a non-combat scout is worth giving up taking any other mech for.

There are no intel-gathering missions, where just finding the disposition of the enemy counts for anything.
There are no rescue missions where stealth & cunning count for anything.
This is why I say the game lacks sophistication, and to be fair to the devs, it's difficult to envision how this could be any different in a purely player vs player game (which is a direction I favour, as it happens)


But more important that all of that, a non-combat role is a fu**ing boring game to be playing.
Back in the "glory days" of tabletop, the player got his fun from the formation of the plan, moving the pieces in the right ways to out-do his opponent, and sure, non-combat roles have a place there.

But this is Mechwarrior - The player gets his fun from shootnig the living sh** out of other mechwarriors in sync with the rest of his team and there is zero-room for a non-combat unit in this game - just another mouth to feed that's not contributing to the fight.
Otherwise you may as well and go join the CoD kids, because they're over there, having more fun than you are.

I understand that Assaults & Heavies are meant to be particularly fearsome, and in the background, a scout would rarely last a few seconds in such a fight, but as I say, this game is not sophisticated enough.
Most matches are packed to the gunnels with Heavies and Assaults, and even the few mediums you see are always hiding behind their mother's skirts, leaving nobody else to fight.

If everyone and his dog can take an Assault or Heavy, then f**k it, I expect to be able to fight them, elsewise the game's no fun and I'm off, playing a genuinely fun game.
This aspect of a game being fun to play must not be lost, otherwise why is anyone even here?

Edited by BigJim, 29 March 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[hammerreborn]

Oh look, a poptart saying alphas aren't a problem. This unbiased report has been brought to you by the Biased Reporting Foundation of America.

And stop using Evasion like it's some sort of roll to dodge chance in WoW. Scouts can't "evade", they run fast. When the entirety of their "evasion" skill is how accurate the other guy is, it's not an ability of the scout.

Edited by hammerreborn, 29 March 2013 - 07:22 AM.

[ElLocoMarko]

Ph30nix, on 29 March 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

i have never died instantly on any map, i mean maybe its just me but i dont stick my face into the wide open if i can avoid it....

When you say "die in 30 seconds" you mean from the start of the match or the start of the firefight?
Of course a heavy doesn't die in 30 seconds. It didn't get there yet.

But from start of engagement, different story. Some engagements start slow where people take potshots and reveal their locations. But if it is an offensive march that comes upon a "pod" (as in whales).. the lead mech *will* die in 0-2 seconds simply because the enemy saw it first. It happens often on Tourmaline desert due to the terrain and significantly less on other maps.

I've resurrected some of my standard engine builds with heavily front loaded armor and seeing much fewer short games. But lots of folks are running XL and big weapons on the hopes that they are on the sending side more often than the receiving side. I tried the epitome of this in the Dual AC20 Jager... That mech is the bipolar disorder of MWO! I'm on top of the world! I suck.... I rule everything! I am rubbish...

[Gallowglas]

El Bandito, on 29 March 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

I have seen some of my teammates die 30 seconds into the game though. All of them Lights.

Usually in my battles if I survived my Phracts will live with all three torso armor gone or red front and back.

I don't know what people are making a big deal about huge Alphas. During the time when LRMS were king, I had some bad experience but Gauss and PPC damages are either avoidable or mitigable using torso twist.

Do people want to punish skill?

I had a match this last week where I was killed with one alpha to the head of my Atlas by a 6 PPC Stalker. Frankly though, I wasn't angry. I applauded the skill (or perhaps luck) it took to make the shot.

[Mercules]

hammerreborn, on 29 March 2013 - 07:21 AM, said:

Oh look, a poptart saying alphas aren't a problem. This unbiased report has been brought to you by the Biased Reporting Foundation of America.

And stop using Evasion like it's some sort of roll to dodge chance in WoW. Scouts can't "evade", they run fast. When the entirety of their "evasion" skill is how accurate the other guy is, it's not an ability of the scout.

That is not true. However "Evading" isn't hard to learn and a skilled shot can still hit an evading mech more often than I like.

Do you know how many Lights will Circle a target. They hold down the turn key and wonder how I can put a PPC shot into the circle each time the are running straight at me.

Some of them will run at an angle perpendicular to me or obtuse to me, but they run at one speed and since they run in a straight line I can lead them and hit them. Maybe the first shot will miss but then I can adjust and hit.

When I run a Light I NEVER run in a straight line. Going toward an objective I weave and will throttle up and down a tiny bit. If I decide to slow down to stay behind a mech I first LOOK around for enemies and then try not to stop completely even if the enemy is.

[MrPenguin]

El Bandito, on 29 March 2013 - 05:55 AM, said:

Do people want to punish skill?

If this forum had its way, we would be using dice rolls for everything.
So yes. People here want to do everything in there power to punish skill.
Because skill is OP.

[hammerreborn]

Mercules, on 29 March 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

That is not true. However "Evading" isn't hard to learn and a skilled shot can still hit an evading mech more often than I like.

Do you know how many Lights will Circle a target. They hold down the turn key and wonder how I can put a PPC shot into the circle each time the are running straight at me.

Some of them will run at an angle perpendicular to me or obtuse to me, but they run at one speed and since they run in a straight line I can lead them and hit them. Maybe the first shot will miss but then I can adjust and hit.

When I run a Light I NEVER run in a straight line. Going toward an objective I weave and will throttle up and down a tiny bit. If I decide to slow down to stay behind a mech I first LOOK around for enemies and then try not to stop completely even if the enemy is.

Once again, that's you able to aim at them and shoot, so you pretty much proved my point that when "evading" is how much you can make your enemy miss, it's the guy that's pulling the trigger that matters. Scouts run fast, bads miss fast moving scouts. That's an aim check, not evasion. I can't see a ppc coming and dodge that ****. The only thing we can "evade" are LRMs, in which I am a true zen ninja master at dodging.

[Teralitha]

Yet another topic about the wrong issue. The root of the problem is heat efficiency and too much of it. Thats all.. thats it.

You can keep your big alphas. Just bring back heat managing skill to balance them. When u fire a big alpha the trade off for that power should be that you shut down after 1 shot or nearly shut down with a second shot fire right after the first one killing yourself from the heat. DHS may be from battletech, but they are not good for a online computer game. Heat efficiency is the center of all balance in this game. Single heat sinks is all there should be, to maintain that balance.

Edited by Teralitha, 29 March 2013 - 08:38 AM.

[Hedonism Robot]

Rather than bring back the old heat system i would rather see double heatsinks only provide a 1.5x in the engine along with std heatsinks. Then have double heatsinks only occupy 2 crit slots instead of 3 and count for 1.5x heat reduction. This would make double heatsinks no longer an auto upgrade, since builds would fluctuate between singles and doubles, we should also be able to switch the upgrade in and out without penalty.

[Mercules]

Doubles would still need to take up 3 crits. Only the Clan have doubles that take up only 2 crits.

[Donas]

Yep. Its heat. Lower the threshold, introduce scaling penalties to accuracy and movement and convergence. tweak the Heat sinks. some, all, or none of the above. But currently heat management is practically a non-consequence, and with consumable coolant pods, its going in the wrong direction.

[Noobzorz]

I agree with OP. . . when I am in my commando or atlas. Some mechs have really enormous CTs that can be nailed from every which angle (the dragon, for example) or have cockpits which are placed in such a way as to lead to lots of zero risk cockpit destructions (fire at the Jagers CT - something you want to do anyway - and every so often you'll just catch the cockpit with a gauss and kill him). When you get dinged by an alpha and cored from a position you thought was safe, it can be frustrating, and it happens frequently.

I'd say Teralitha is right here, and that the big alphas are too heat efficient.

Edited by Noobzorz, 29 March 2013 - 08:50 AM.