228 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

hammerreborn, on 20 April 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

That's a terrible incentive. Lights cost as much as an assault when all upgrades are taken into account but instead of gaining 100k a match to afford upgrades you get 25k-50k, on wins.

My average C-Bills per match in lights is 97K, so that 25k-50k thing must be for people who are trying to be targeting droids and neglecting to left click. I don't keep track but my wins are almost never below 100k (usually around ~125k).

I do still agree that some more incentives would be nice to add motivation to the light (and probably mediums too) class. The current state of lights is that they require some specialized skills but get paid less a lot of the time. Rather uncommon, high risk, low reward. That's screwed up. Meanwhile, all the larger mechs basically act like we're supposed to just keep playing lights as a charity to them or something. I'm a friggin' merc, I don't fight for charity.

Edited by FupDup, 20 April 2013 - 07:51 PM.

[Easyvue]

Where did I put that tiny violin?

[hammerreborn]

FupDup, on 20 April 2013 - 07:05 PM, said:

My average C-Bills per match in lights is 97K, so that 25k-50k thing must be for people who are trying to be targeting droids and neglecting to left click. I don't keep track but my wins are almost never below 100k (usually around ~125k).

I do still agree that some more incentives would be nice to add motivation to the light (and probably mediums too) class. The current state of lights is that they require some specialized skills but get paid less a lot of the time. Rather uncommon, high risk, low reward. That's screwed up. Meanwhile, all the larger mechs basically act like we're supposed to just keep playing lights as a charity to them or something. I'm a friggin' merc, I don't fight for charity.

I'm more talking about being an actual scout, like Tagging, capping, and the like, which all have abysmal rewards. If you cap base and only kill one person that comes back to defend you get to walk away with 40k or so.

Today I had a game in TD where I capped, entire team got slaughtered but we won.

Yay, I get 25k Cbills while drastically increasing the payouts and experience rewards for the rest of my team who were completely useless aside from their ability to die.

Edited by hammerreborn, 20 April 2013 - 08:49 PM.

[Vassago Rain]

Easyvue, on 20 April 2013 - 08:40 PM, said:

Where did I put that tiny violin?

[jay35]

Rat of the Legion Vega, on 19 April 2013 - 09:46 PM, said:

Quote

Akulakhan, on 19 April 2013 - 04:32 PM, said:

So you shouldn't be fighting anything but other lights and the occasional medium head on.

Because there's sooooo many of those in matches nowdays.

Then you should have an easy time of capping on Conquest (or Assault if you want to be 'that guy').
You see, there's always an option, you just have to find it.

If the situation is the enemy team has lights and mediums, you have fighting to do. If they don't, you have distracting and capping to do. And in either case, there's scouting and tagging.There's always a job for a good Light pilot, whether alone or with friends.

Not every mech class is supposed to be a brawler. The 3L being a brawler for the longest time was really abnormal. I get that it was fun, and I get that things have changed and it's not practical or as successful to try doing that now, but that's actually a return to something more toward the norm for Light mechs. They can't solo a heavier class other than a lone Stalker or other really slow and unmaneuverable Assault. Kill other lights, tackle mediums with a friend, and harass Assault class mechs. Stay away from decent Mediums and Heavies. Go for a cap if there's no one worthwhile to fight.

Edited by jay35, 20 April 2013 - 09:35 PM.

[Kenyon Burguess]

I never was a light brawler. I jump between hills at 150kph and just do my best to keep targets locked. not much of a change for my playstyle. tho I did take notice of the accuracy of the shots between the heavies and assaults. they seem to be hitting the same weakened armor spots repeatedly instead of just spraying at their targets entire front side.

[Rat of the Legion Vega]

jay35, on 20 April 2013 - 09:32 PM, said:

Then you should have an easy time of capping on Conquest (or Assault if you want to be 'that guy').
You see, there's always an option, you just have to find it.

Tell me how you "easily" cap a team on Forest Colony, River City or even Frozen City that is sitting right near their base (as the sniper teams all like to do nowdays). They send a couple heavies back, you have to bail but are caught in a sniper crossfire by their whole team as you try to escape. You'll be lucky to escape without being one shotted or legged. I just randomly ended up in a PUG match with Hammereborn above in his Jenner, and that was the fate that befell him as we vacated the cap on forest colony. Just alpha snipered to death by a dozen crisscrossing PPCs as he tried to jumpjet to safety. I survived by taking the road less traveled (and they were focusing on him...).

A couple matches later, I was killed in two alphas by a team of Highlanders litterally sitting in their airport base. There was no way for me to cap, so I just circled the battle waiting for the rest of my PUG team to die to poptarts so I could to. In those situations on Assault mode, your light mech is a burden to the team. Imagine the firepower and killing capacity I could've brought in a heavy or assault instead.

Look, I've been testing this discussion out by running lights all this weekend in Assault mode and attempting to stealth cap every single match just to troll the assault only teams. I'll admit I'm having fun doing it (for a weekened) and my win-loss ratio has been surprisingly good (drawing enemy mechs back does work). I'm enjoying the challenge, to a point. In the current ppc stalker poptart meta, it's a nice change of pace. And I daresay I am becoming a better light pilot.

But is "infiltrate in, sit there and cap, draw enemy back, run, hope you don't get one-shotted" really the be all end all future of light mech gameplay? Less hardcore Mechwarrior players aren't going to want to play this patience testing cat and mouse game all day. They're gonna jump into heavies only and start blasting things and earning way more Cbills and XP for doing so. I challenge you to run nothing but lights for a month and tell me you're still loving the gameplay never being able to fight heavies head on and getting one-shotted every 4 matches. There's no future for light mechs among the majority of the player base in that kind of world.

.

Edited by Rat of the Legion Vega, 20 April 2013 - 10:07 PM.

[ICEFANG13]

I haven't noticed a thing. I always played as though they would hit me, so its not their fault if I get killed by it. I'm the fastest mech in the game, I choose when to fight.

[Vassago Rain]

Look, I know you're all really sad, but lights weren't EVER viable. Now that 25 center torso armor is really 25, and not 250, of course you die in one blow.

What were you expecting?

[Silentium]

So the complaint then is that the reward system is borked? no arguments there. I would definately like to see more cbills, but it isn't all that drives me personally. I'm not really sure that it would drive new players either, if only because the initial break in period for a light pilot is so damn brutal ( naturals and phenoms excluded). if the ultimate goal is to get more players into lights, then yeah, revamped rewards might do it, but my inner cynic insists that people will just keep playing big mechs anyway; the (perceived) path of least resistance and all that. Point taken regarding RR as well, I can't really say how this will play out when it is reintroduced, as it has been gone for what feels like a long time. It will suck though if I can't earn enough to keep playing what I like. The flip side of this is that maybe there will be fewer high end builds on the field, as there will be risk in running them.

I can admit this much; i was originally ******** because i was getting hit more. I am still not sure if this is due to HSR or ELO adjustments though

[Silentium]

Hah! I was thinking the same thing vassago. We could always be one shotted, we just weren't getting hit as much before.

[Hammerhai]

Guess in a way that is just the basic BT meta asserting itself after other factors allowing this consequence to be avoided had been eliminated, then. I will give you that, Vassago. You are very probably right. Still get a hard on for cruising around at 140kph with Jump Jets on, though. Fun until the first Alpha.

Sad is though, that I sit with 3 elite Jenners, spent all that time to grind the xp, and am now way behind the curve on other mechs.

Still, I do not enjoy gaming the Meta to the extent the goons for one do.

As an aside: The reason for the price of the Founders package was based on calculations of the R O I it would get the player over the lifetime of the product.

Fact is, that due to the radical changes in Meta game all the time, that that is often not the case. I don't know when last I saw a Founder Cat, or even a Founder Jenner. When last did you see a Wang except the one in the mirror? Most such mechs mostly gather dust. So pricing it from that perspective was pure hogwash and fantasy, PGI. Like we now have 3 MC variants for one of the hardest mechs in the game to play, the DRG.

[KKRonkka]

Light mechs can't brawl anymore, gasp! They... they have to use skirmish strategies now! Blasphemy! But i-it requires S-SKILLS!!

Edited by KKRonkka, 21 April 2013 - 05:37 AM.

[Cymbaline]

The biggest change for me after the past two patches is that there are no more front line assaults for me to compliment. This has made being a supporting front line light a lot harder.

In assault mode, most larger mechs want to stay back and snipe at each other leaving me to either draw the enemy mechs into the open, wait behind our snipers for the fight to get closer, or to try to capture their base. If I decide to stay behind and my team does not have the better snipers then the game is usually over by the time I I get a chance to really help as the end result is usually me against 3 to 6 other assaults. Drawing them out can be successful if I have good snipers on my team. If I do not then I'm usually dead quickly. I prefer not to capture to win so I only do this if there is absolutely no hope to win.

I find that I'm most successful once the two sniping groups close and they are focused on each other. Then I can get in the middle of it and really mess things up. In my RVN-2X I can get between 400-750 damage in this situation. You have to be on your guard though and aware of all of the mechs on the field, their movement, who they are firing at, and their relative heat level. If you get lazy and turn the wrong corner you're going to be missing a leg and rolling down a hill doing an awkward split soon after!

You won't be able to carry a team anymore in a light. There are too many assaults and heavies since the last two patches and in a one on one situation with a good player, of either weight, that is in good health, it's going to get ugly for you. I do not feel this is out of place or wrong though. I think it's exactly as it should be although I wouldn't mind there being more mech diversity. A game with all heavies and assaults is no where near as fun as a balanced game.

Edited by Cymbaline, 21 April 2013 - 07:12 AM.

[Caleb Lee]

Marcus Cvellus, on 18 April 2013 - 07:09 PM, said:

"better breed of pilots" argument topples on itself. If something needs 2x more skill for less gain, it will not get fielded. Specially by new players. Players will always seek easy way out, like we can see by alpha build infestation.

So, it is either balance found, or most of mechs will just sit collecting dust and people getting bored of repetition. Depending on level of imbalance they will even decide on leaving over the fact that they will not accept that they have to pilot something with either above average skill for diminished returns or moving to more efficient class to get fun.

Not sure what you mean 'for less gain'. I still push 500+ damage, a few kills and the rest usually have assists on. I get just as much XP and CBills as my other mechs and sometimes more as I'm running the Founder Jenner-D.

Balance is here already, we are fast, deadly skirmishers and still make a lot of Assaults/Heavies QQ after they go down to a pack of lights.

The issue is that they still haven't implemented tonnage balance. They said they would turn on 0 weight balancing by Thursday and they didn't.

Sure, right now it really sucks as instead of another light mech being your counter on the other team it's probably an Assault. Which means when matchmaker screws up that badly about all you can do is take a few assaults out with you and cap.

[Windsaw]

KKRonkka, on 21 April 2013 - 05:37 AM, said:

Light mechs can't brawl anymore, gasp! They... they have to use skirmish strategies now! Blasphemy! But i-it requires S-SKILLS!!

I'm curious: What are your experiences at solo skirmish attacks against a phalanx of sniper assaults?
Do you survive more than two or three attacks?
Do you consistantly get a damage count that makes you feel like you pull your weight?

[Son of Horus]

Last night in Tourmaline, a pesky Raven was doing his circle dance around my Flame and both me and my best friend Narc0man in his founders Atlas noticed those circles kept getting closer and closer, almost to where my Mech could have reached out and grabbed him, as we headed to Theta.

Eventually those close circles the Raven pilot was emulating from videos inadvertently led him into being temporarily wedged in a gap in the cliff facing not 20 feet in front of me!

I alpha struck his leg completely off with 4 large lasers and Narc0man's Atlas blew off his head! (one shotted him anyway)

"Die you stinking bumblebee!"

Times like that make me love this glitchy game all over again...

Edited by Son of Horus, 21 April 2013 - 08:15 AM.

[Caleb Lee]

Vassago Rain, on 20 April 2013 - 10:36 PM, said:

Look, I know you're all really sad, but lights weren't EVER viable. Now that 25 center torso armor is really 25, and not 250, of course you die in one blow.

What were you expecting?

Tonnage/Class/BV matching... that's all. Mechwarrior/BT was never supposed to be all assault/heavies, they were too expensive to operate. Steiner being an exception and even they had mixes of mediums/lights.

I'm still having a blast playing my Jenners but I don't play solo, if I'm in a light I make sure I have at least one more light mech with me. That way an assault always has his back exposed if we still decide to circle strafe on a more open map like Alpine. We also cap 2x faster... and can mow down any lights that come at us.

But then I like variety and a challenge. It's no longer 'easy mode' to play a light and I'm thriving on the challenge and have once again started playing my lights as before I felt like it was an exploit.

Son of Horus, on 21 April 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

Last night in Tormaline, a pesky Raven was doing his circle dance around my Flame and both me and my best friend Narc0man in his founders Atlas noticed those circles kept getting closer and closer, almost to where my Mech could have reached out and grabbed him.

Eventually those close circles the Raven pilot was emulating from videos inadvertently led him into being temporarily wedged in a gap in the cliff facing not 20 feet in front of me!

I alpha struck his leg completely off with 4 large lasers and Narc0man's Atlas blew off his head! (one shotted him anyway)

"Die you stinking bumblebee!"

Times like that make me love this glitchy game all over again...

Wow... it took him getting stuck for a heavy and assault mech to finish off one light? That was a bad Raven if he was circle strafing an Atlas and Flame who were covering each other. That was poor shooting on both of your parts if it took him getting stuck to kill him. LOL

[Son of Horus]

Caleb Lee, on 21 April 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

Tonnage/Class/BV matching... that's all. Mechwarrior/BT was never supposed to be all assault/heavies, they were too expensive to operate. Steiner being an exception and even they had mixes of mediums/lights.

I'm still having a blast playing my Jenners but I don't play solo, if I'm in a light I make sure I have at least one more light mech with me. That way an assault always has his back exposed if we still decide to circle strafe on a more open map like Alpine. We also cap 2x faster... and can mow down any lights that come at us.

But then I like variety and a challenge. It's no longer 'easy mode' to play a light and I'm thriving on the challenge and have once again started playing my lights as before I felt like it was an exploit.



Wow... it took him getting stuck for a heavy and assault mech to finish off one light? That was a bad Raven if he was circle strafing an Atlas and Flame who were covering each other. That was poor shooting on both of your parts if it took him getting stuck to kill him. LOL

We were actually kind of ignoring him as none of his shots did squat to either of us....we knew he'd follow just a wee bit further where we were uniting with the rest of our lance and were joking about perhaps a circular firing squad!

I think I took some machine gun fire along the way, couldn't be sure.

[Caleb Lee]

Windsaw, on 21 April 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

I'm curious: What are your experiences at solo skirmish attacks against a phalanx of sniper assaults?
Do you survive more than two or three attacks?
Do you consistantly get a damage count that makes you feel like you pull your weight?

First off, stop soloing... unless you only want to scout / TAG which really isn't effective. Find a good light buddy or two as you are most effective in a pack. Especially if one of them has ECM...

Second, the game is borked right now as they didn't implement weight matching like they said they would. They took out class matching a good while back with Elo's implementation and haven't put it back in.

Outside of that, I'm not having any issues playing my lights still. Seriously, get a friend... even circle strafing can still be effective especially in a 2v2 situation or 2v1 as you are still hard to hit and most players have little back armor, with many variants running XL engines. Look for those with XLs as they are easy prey and will go down quickly, then finish off his buddy or move on out for cover to come back when he's focused back on something else.