143 replies to this topic

[BoPop]

Profiteer, on 04 April 2013 - 09:33 PM, said:

Why would these self confused medium lovers NOT want mediums to get a little love?

interesting.

well what do you suggest? i'm close to having all my cents mastered and they've been a fun mech to play. easier to level than my atlas, far more enjoyable than mastering the ravens, and i wonder if that has to do with psychology...
"Bah that's just a centurion i'll deal with it after that atlas."
but guess what that cent is actually dropping some damage on you. and by the time you go "Ow, that cent actually just popped me", turn to deal with it, DOH the atlas booms ya. cent did his job and is moving on, or helping to finish you off.

i'm not saying mediums don't deserve some love (because i don't have enough mechs under my belt) but what do you suggest?

[aniviron]

MadPanda, on 04 April 2013 - 09:14 PM, said:

I used to run hunchies, got 3 of them even mastered. You know what killed them for me? State rewind for lasers. I don't think people realized how much mediums also benefited from the lag shield. Fast hunchies and dragons were viable because of the lag shield (I know dragon is heavy but it feels like a medium). Now you can no longer do the run-around-brawl with them because everybody will hit you with their lasers and as a medium you just can't take those hits for long. Mediums are after all just above light mechs, so not a lot of armor for them either.

Now I'm not saying bring back the lag-shield, lol . Mediums (not cicada) should just get a max engine buff so they can go even faster. Gives them a little better chance to avoid damage in the absence of lag shield.

Yeah, when they did the first pass on netcode a few months back, my 4SP dropped about 200 points of damage per round. HSR combined with the SRM nerf has been pretty brutal to the 4SP and 4H; makes the 4P an excellent light hunter though, as long as you don't try to engage anything heavy.

[Richard Strong]

Was doing pretty sweet in my Hunchback 4-SP before the Trebuchet came out. Now I have almost the exact same loadout (1SSRM2, 2SRM6, 3ML 325XL) with jumpjets and 115kph and it rocks, I can safely say I do things that heavies and lights can't do. IE I can consistently strafe heavies and assaults in the back while they have a hard time seeing me, let alone hitting me. Yes lights can do that but not with the amount of firepower I have, and they are easy prey for me to boot. Yes, I am a glass cannon but I can usually get away when I feel pressured.

My Yen Lo Wang also does really well, though it is harder to specify why. I guess maybe because it is the fastest viable AC20 mounting mech in the game (90kph on mine, could go faster). It has a pretty easy time getting on target, then disappearing when anyone pays attention to me. The Cent-A was also pretty badass before the missile nerf, and it will come back if SRMs do.

My buddy has a PPC Cicada that is among the best snipers I have ever seen. It gets on target more often than heavies, then disappears when anyone decides to pay attention to it. Other snipers have a hell of a time sniping it due to its speed. I've also seen an X5 that destroyed our team with the 360 degree targeting module. It just ran into the scrum and dodged us while his buddies rained hell on us with LRMs, showing me that Cicadas and LRMs are still very viable.

Mediums are viable, play smart and get better. End of story.

Caveat, I would say that the hunchback needs some love as it is not really the best at anything anymore. YLW is a faster, easier to use AC20 platform, Trebuchet outclasses the 4SP, and the laserboat version never does that well either.

[El Bandito]

I am more scared of facing against HBK-4SP or CN9-A/L than any heavy mechs. Any.

They can do as much sustained damage as many heavies and are mobile as hell. My Atlas prefers not to tangle with them.

OP can think what he wants but mediums do well in MWO.

Edited by El Bandito, 04 April 2013 - 10:40 PM.

[Cik]

centurion 9-al is one of the best machines in the game, and is used ubiquitously competitively. mediums are perfectly fine.

[slayerkdm]

I was just getting super frustrated with my HBK's. I think that they just don't fill any distinct role. I switched for a break and have been playing only heavies. My Ilya, my DD and my Dragon. Everything is just easier and more satisfying.

Harder to kill, kill faster, nearly as fast or faster than my HBK. Im not saying mediums are terrible, or going to rant, but they are certainly tougher to play, with a less defined roll. I think as flanker/strikers, which I pictured them as, Heavies fill that role better.

Besides, they are more well balanced, and harder to cripple than mediums.

I will certainly go back to playing my 4G, and maybe my SP again, but it wont be easy.

At this point, in my mind, you can take away the medium class, and not notice it much in game play, the heavies could fill the gap, I dont think that can be said of the other three classes. Heavies are the work horses in MWO right now, not the mediums.

I think they are too big, and not agile enough. Since many of them are ballistic or missle heavy, you really cant just make them faster, as then you reduce their fire power. Might as well run a light.

Lights have decent offense, and defense in the form of speed. Heavies have strong offense, and defense in the form of armour and speed. Assaults have great offense and defense in the form of superior armor.

Mediums have weak armour, and fire power barely above lights. Assaults serve a different purpose, as do lights. Heavies perform the same purpose, but do it better.

[Dreamslave]

You and others like you can keep on thinking mediums are useless. whilst my team and I continue winning match after match with our drop group that uses multiple mediums.

[Sephlock]

Also, it would really help medium mechs if certain weapons were better...



Like, say... if the AC/20 shells didn't travel so damn slowly.

That way you could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee with the just-barely-usable-due-to-tonnage-or-other-constraints weapons, like the AC/20.

[The Silent Protagonist]

valkyrie, on 04 April 2013 - 07:33 PM, said:

well, I've never actually seen Garth win a match.

I did... I lost...



Garthmobile vs TDK = NO^^E9001

It was my first match in the little blue f**ker as well. I have since beat him into shape. The blue paint hides the bruises well. I feel better for having shared, but no less ashamed...

[Kraven Kor]

Yet I'm still having my best matches in a Centurion.

*shrug*

[Wolf Ender]

personally i don't feel mediums are exceptionally good or extremely bad either. I think they're pretty balanced, although I still think the Trebuchet ought to have a 4 missile variant - still pissed about that but overall mediums have their place

i do believe mediums should be the most common mechs, weight limited drops should force pilots into medium mechs a lot. there has to be something like that implemented for CW because we cannot do CW with these ridiculous drops that have 4 DDCs in them.... that's just going to be ********.

i am not sure what the right way to implement it is, but i think the devs need to do *something* to make mediums the go-to mechs because you don't have the tonnage to take all heavies and assaults

[Inyc]

I'm hitting top score, high kills every match. And that's with having the speed to cap when needed. Please buff me, it'll be hilarious.

[LordBraxton]

Riffleman, on 04 April 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

When the devs first started making this game, they promised every mech would have a VIABLE roll to fill on the battlefield, in particular mediums, the workhorse of the battletech world. Cheap and tough, with weight restrictions in the works a good medium mech would be a great boon. Unfortunatley they have all but abandoned their original vision for elo rating, a scale that does not take into account mech weights, as I said it wouldnt when it was first proposed. There is nothing a medium mech does that a good light or heavy dosent do better.

Mediums in general are a hinderance to your team, because anyone who claims they do good in their medium would do better in a light or heavy almost all the time. I cannot think of one specific roll they fill, besides the gimic poptarters, or overengined lightly armed scout killers. Mabye in the future, when masc is working, and lights are hitting 200kph, they will ease off on these engine restrictions which really were put in place at first to cull the stupidly powerful lag shielded swaybacks and such. Letting mediums reach an average of 100+ again would at least keep them viable. As is, why take say a hunchback g, when you could take an equally speedy jager sporting two ac 20s. If you are talking about the average 12 points more on the center torso to the jagers squishy xl side torsos, that dosent do much to comfort you when you lose the hunch torso anyway and end up a 5 or 10 damage dealer regardless.

People's Epeens will get in the way of their reason time after time.

I LOVE mediums, but the OP is 100% right. There's no way my trebs\cents can dish out the punishment a heavy can in capable hands.

[Null Signature]

Rocdocta, on 04 April 2013 - 07:27 PM, said:

i drive mediums because they are fun and its what i want to use. I dont get into the whole optimisation idea. It is a game after all...

So young. So naive.

I guess if you have no concerns with being competitive then optimization doesn't matter to you. However, most people want a game where the most possible choices are viable and competitive. This is good game design. What we have now is not good game design.

[Tigris]

LordBraxton, on 05 April 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

People's Epeens will get in the way of their reason time after time.

I LOVE mediums, but the OP is 100% right. There's no way my trebs\cents can dish out the punishment a heavy can in capable hands.

It may have been said, but they really aren't supposed to dish out what a heavy does, or even take the same hits. The trade-off should be in mobility and speed, but obviously not as much as a light. A Medium mech is for force support, flanking, maybe rear-guard, etc. Somebody who can get enemy attention and hold out long enough for a heavy to arrive. Lights can do this, sure... but, theoretically, lights should be easy prey for a heavy or two and shouldn't hold enough firepower to really cause concern.

I guess my point is yeah... Heavies and Lights can fill the role, but not as well. A light *should be too squishy and a heavy *should be too slow.

In the meantime, I love the hell out of the 'bucket. Fast obnoxious fire support.

[irony1999]

As someone who plays a lot with my Founders Hunch, I say its a load of foo-ey. People do not prioritize medium mechs as targets - letting them get opportunities that other mechs can not get. In a scrum I often get ignored, letting me get free kill shots with my AC-20.

I am not a great player. I'm probably not even a good player. I average a 50/50 K/D on heavies. But on my Founders Hunchback...

3-1 K/D Ratio! 3-1! Thats not skill. If it was I'd do better than 1/1 on other weight classes. Thats me getting ignored because I'm not a heavy weapons carrier, or a a fast threat.

[MaddMaxx]

As to the Rolls of Mediums. I will sometimes Roll left. Other times I will Roll right. I have even been known to Roll forwards and backwards. And with a few Beers on-board, I can even Roll up and down.

I think Mediums have lots of Rolls.

[Trauglodyte]

Its always been my observation, anecdotal as it is, that non-assault mech drivers try to play their mechs like assaults. There is a big scrum and into the scrum the mediums go. There are no strafing hit and run attacks. Its just a bunch of people rolling into the fight, STOPPING (I still don't get this, though I do it from time to time when I'm not noticed), and blasting away with alpha strike after alpha strike. And it seems like every Medium mech that I see is always relegated to short range fights (md lasers, srms, etc).

So, while I have no statistical data to back up my observations, it isn't so much that Mediums are bad. But rather, it is a damning issue of poor builds designed around 3 shoe box sized maps (Forest, Frozen, Lake) and a game that currently has no options outside of the rumble. To add to that, WE actually contribute to the limitations of the Medium because, as I said earlier, we keep focusing the fight in one area and on area only. When 12v12 gets there, it is going to be the same thing only with more people in the scrum. At least on Tourmaline there is a little bit of flanking going on. You don't have a lot of hiding space to do it on Alpine and it isn't really supported on Caustic because the fight is always on the top of the Caldera and you're exposed the second you try to circle around.

[PropagandaWar]

Demoned, on 04 April 2013 - 07:13 PM, said:

when i go out in my 4SP, i dare teams to focus fire on me

Challange Accepted! Oh wait I mainly pilot an SP. Crap.... Out of respect for other Med pilots they are usually the last on my list to fight.

Boydsan, on 04 April 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

For the person complaining about mediums...

Do not play your medium like an Atlas. Likewise, do not play it like a Raven. Did you know a Hunchback or Cent or Treb can literally kill a light or assault 1 vs 1? I have seen Hunchback SPs literally out manuever an Atlas and hit rear Atlas armor multiple times and then chase down Ravens and shoot them down with superior weapons and have more armor than the Raven.

Then I have seen oddles and oddles of LRMs being blobbed by Mediums. Worse yet, they have the speed to keep out of range against a slow charging Atlas that is all small range.

So... does this not fit your workhorse... a mech that can kill anythign from lights to assaults, a mech that can go short range or long range, and a mech that is much cheaper and easier to get than an assault?

Thank you.1v1 I have the hardest time against other meds but throw down quite well against any other class. Sometimes if they are not so great even 2 v1.

The last few days i was playing heavies. I would do 100-300 points of damagae. Get blown to bits, maybe have a few exceptional games but meh otherwise. The second I got into my medium with a couple thousand games logged I was 400-700 damage games.

Edited by PropagandaWar, 05 April 2013 - 09:52 AM.

[everwake]

funny, I thought the same as the OP, until I kitted and learned how to play my tbt-7k, and got 771 points in a game yesterday.

I might have scored higher in a splatcat, but I would probably have run out of ammo before then...

being able to keep pace with ravens and jenners is also quite rewarding...