228 replies to this topic

[Son of Horus]

I was practicing yesterday in a few matches with my Spider I'm wanting to upgrade and could not believe how many large mechs just seemed to offer up rear shots, barely trying to do anything but move forward to get away!

I didn't kill any due to the janitor brigades, but I sure got a buttload of assists!

[Caleb Lee]

Son of Horus, on 21 April 2013 - 08:17 AM, said:

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.

Yeah, all that confirms is the Raven pilot was really bad. He shouldn't have been circle strafing two mechs, but if he did he should have cored out your Flames side torso at least and if you had an XL finished you off and if not taken out half your weapons at least.

[SVK Puskin]

I agree.

[Son of Horus]

Caleb Lee, on 21 April 2013 - 08:26 AM, said:

Yeah, all that confirms is the Raven pilot was really bad. He shouldn't have been circle strafing two mechs, but if he did he should have cored out your Flames side torso at least and if you had an XL finished you off and if not taken out half your weapons at least.

IKR?

Especially since at that point I'd only ever been in 30-40 matches ever (started playing this week) and I'm still learning the basics.

My friend was coaching me via speakerphone lol, and tried to stay back a bit to let me learn how to react for myself. He agreed with you, that guy was a baddie, otherwise he would have unleashed his 3 60 damage alphas to bail my n00b arse out!

[Gremlich Johns]

theDeimos, on 17 April 2013 - 01:07 AM, said:

Tough times to be in a light mech now. We gotta change tactics fellow light pilots. No more anklebiting in cqb.

Learn to use the light as a scout instead of a medium brawler - sneak, peek, retreat - and you may find you'll survive longer.

That's part of the "Role Warfare" PGI is trying to implement, might as well give it a spin.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 21 April 2013 - 08:50 AM.

[deranda]

While it is obviously a good thing for the game as a whole if lights are not artificially hard to kill due to lag, it still begs the question why - according to quite a lot of posts - lights are supposed to require an insame amount of skill to be effective and not just a one-shot-target for our beloved poptarts & co. It's not like you need to be extremely good at the game to contribute to teamfights in a meaningful way when riding a heavy or assault; and nobody is asking for it to be that way. Seems kinda off to me...if a player is that amazing that they can own in a light mech, why would they not put their skill to use in a mech that is inherently good at, you know, getting things done?

I at least don' quite see the point in playing a light if all they are supposed to do is cap a little here and there and being a neglegible annoyance.

[SuperJoe]

Mystere, on 17 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

As I always keep saying:

Adapt. Overcome. Prevail.

aka buy a heavy or assault

[Silentium]

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?

If this is the opposing teams main component, then it means I have to wait, and work REALLY hard to get in some safe shots. Ultimately, it depends on the situation. If it is just me? yeah, a few attacks is all I am typically good for. My damage count is much less consistent since Tuesday. I am still adjusting <shrug>.

Frankly, watching my mates get mowed down is a real drag, and I never feel like I am pulling my weight in that circumstance. This is usually when I lose my cool, and start making mistakes.

[Mystere]

SuperJoe, on 21 April 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

aka buy a heavy or assault

That's one way. Another is to get better and/or play smarter:

• cap and watch the thunderous QQ instead of going toe-to-toe with the big boys
  
• or hit-run-hide stab-in-the-back tactics if the above is "beneath you"

Edited by Mystere, 21 April 2013 - 09:10 AM.

[Voidsinger]

You know something. This whole discussion shows what happens when a bunch of "elite" heavier mech pilots do to make excuses.

Lights are still just fine. Play them right, and HSR isn't that bad. It seems to me the real bad press for lights is from heavier pilots who still can't hit lights not wanting as many lights out there. Hence, they say lights are now easy targets.

I had my first 7 kill match this weekend. The opposition team was all heavies and assaults (seeing that a great deal). I was in a Highlander myself.

Why do lights need to engage in combat? Because perceptions at PGI are that the jobs lights do (like capping) shouldn't be rewarded, unlike doing damage. Lights need to fight to get XP. The result is matches where the mission goal becomes less relevant than the brawl.

Streaks? They are perhaps a great invention most usable by lights. The fact they have been implemented as guided missiles unlike SRMs by PGI is the issue. They save ammunition, heat and mass, and people shouldn't be ashamed to use them, only to become too dependent on them that ECM makes your mech useless.

Ravens are simply a combination of many exploitable issues in one chassis (played a 2X this week with reasonable success).

It seems once all the FoTM 3L pilots leave, lights will be the elite pilots. Assaults in Battletech were the ride of elite pilots. It seems in MWO, the heavier you go, the lower the proportion of decent pilots.

Host State Rewind has killed a great many excuses for heavier mech pilots. All they have left now is to whine for collisions, failing to remember that in closed Beta, the collisions and recovery were deliberately slanted to favour heavier mechs. If collisions come back without that favouritism, what will the next excuse be?

[TungstenWall]

A day in the life of TDK.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJ-9bhUVNE#t=1m49s

[bmortime]

I don't claim to be an amazing light pilot, but I do love my jenners.

I don't claim it takes more skill, but it takes a different set of skills to pilot a light over a bigger mech. Shoot, my friends gave me a challenge to pilot heavies and assaults for a week. Ugh, I was terrible. The skill sets for each mech size is different is all.

For those complaining what can a light do?
There is much you can do, that you don't get rewarded for with c-bills and xp, but it is fun and vital.

Flanking an enemy team is always useful, and even if you just hit the lrm boats once or twice before they pay attention to you, you are helping the rest of your team out.

I work with my Atlas buddy, Scop, to help him with missile locks. I also will run enemies to him, or Blighted (Heavy pilot). It has worked out well. Before collision was taken out, I used to charge enemy lights that were attacking my friends and make them helpless for their alpha strike.

Yea, I may only get 1 or 2 kills a game, and 5-7 assists, with only 200-400 damage a game, but I have fun. But, I also think the most important part of every match is your team winning, and if that means I just ran around being chased by heavy's and assaults for two minutes before they cored me, and the rest of my team annihilated them, I am happy with the game.

[Ilwrath]

Was driving my jenner for the entire poptart tournament weekend. Great fun. God how I love people that get angry at cappers. Feels so good to run away from them when they are returning to base for cap preventing.

I am right back at where I left in closed beta. Lights are fun again. Last patch greatly increased fps and that helps with driving fast. Only need regional servers now.

[Xetherius]

Hi there. Still PUGing away. Still piloting my HBK-4SP. Post missile nerf. I know, heretical right? Still posting decent numbers too. Strategy helps.

Ran into some bad Ravens earlier. Tried to 1v1 me. Just stood there. Firing their machine guns. I drank their tears.

P.S. Wispsy's the man. Can make a light dance in ways few others can. Beautiful. Your soul. He'll claim it.

[William Warriors]

Once nailed 3 commandos in a single game with my AC20s Cat... one shot one kill.. good old times..

[LTGear]

Corbon Zackery, on 17 April 2013 - 10:59 AM, said:

The tactic for light mechs are still the same there are 2 main builds.

Light mech killers: High speed with low heat builds small lasers and streaks.

Heavy mech softeners: M. laser, Large lasers, SRM 2, 4 , 6, 134 to 150 KPH.

If your moving any slower than 134kph your going to get you legs shot off very quickly there are a lot of crack shots out there who are hitting lights with ac 20. At some point they need to take the speed restrictors off light mechs. Were doing 85 to 93.3 miles per hour over open country. Yet were still being hit by most or all weapon systems.

Most heavy mechs are going 40 miles per hour over open country.

the reason why u get hit is we shoot a little ahead of your light mech when it's running, a small latency delay is actually what protecting u from hitting ur mech so we have to shoot ahead and it's great when we guessed where your real spot is. this explains why you Claimed ACE Light Pilots keep running while you shoot ur enemy eh? i rest in peace now

[KKRonkka]

Light mechs have a difficult role as the current concept of capping is as wrong as it can be. More sensible objectives would offer more options for them.

ECM/Streak spam or insta run to base and match is over in 2 mins. Haven't seen other options in matches for ages (no, machine gun spiders walking behind you are just some odd illusion caused by excessive Tourmaline heat).

[Ilwrath]

KKRonkka, on 22 April 2013 - 02:26 AM, said:

Light mechs have a difficult role as the current concept of capping is as wrong as it can be. More sensible objectives would offer more options for them.

Light mechs got more objectives than any other class on the field. It starts with either get to base for splitting of enemy team or engage light mech that try to do the same but after that, depending about what the enemy team does about your capping, you have to decide if you should keep on capping or join the fight and if you join the fight, you got so many ways to play your role.

Flank? run around in the chaos? Stay at max range and "snipe"?

That is what is so great with light mechs, they are so versatile. Its more challenging to pilot than something heavy because you need to think fast and there will be no room for mistakes. You fuckup - you die. But at the same time its easier because you are so ******* mobile. You can use that mobility to force slower mechs to play the way you want.

And what can be a more sensible objective than getting behind that Assault and continuously alpha its back?

Edit; I HATE scouts when I am not driving one myself.

Edited by Ilwrath, 22 April 2013 - 02:40 AM.

[Der BruzZzler von Wiesndoof]

Can't agree with OP. I don't have any problems with my JR7-D(F). It's still a successful mech.

[Curccu]

Yes its horrible that now piloting light mech actually needs some skill and tactics to survive and kill.
Me and couple dudes from my unit ran Light/Cicada lance last weekend and most of the times opposing force was 8 assault mechs with ppc/LL/gauss weaponry, yet we didn't lose more than 1 or 2 games...