91 replies to this topic

[Fitzbattleaxe]

Lights are overpowered. Mediums are fine. The problem is that we don't have role warfare, and so a medium is expected to do the same job as a heavy. If we had more complex missions and drop limits, there'd be a place for every class. But since everything has to be able to either brawl or snipe, then a medium won't be as good as something that's twice as heavy and costs twice as much. Nor should it be.

[Jess Hazen]

The adulterations they made with their balance tweaks to weapons and armour, and big brother (engine) limiting approach to customizing your mech are to blame.

Specifically the medium laser, the workhorse weapon of all factions.

[aniviron]

BladeSplint, on 25 April 2013 - 06:58 PM, said:

You tell me:

Yes, it's great that you did well in your medium. One game proves nothing. Please observe the following:



Now you could look at this screenshot and go, "Wow anivirion, 780 damage and three kills and you lived to tell about it? Your mech must be great!" Well, maybe. You could also keep looking at the screenshot for a while until you realize, "Oh hey, that guy only did 138 damage in his 4P, and he was one of the first to die. That mech is pretty bad."

It's nice that you can have a good game in a medium. If you're a good pilot, it's going to happen every now and then. But this doesn't change the fact that if I'd been in a heavier mech that round, I probably would have had over a thousand points of damage, and with less effort to boot. For that matter, it goes to show you that anecdotal evidence means nothing. Every time an "x is underpowered" thread comes up, someone posts a screenshot of how well they can do with x. Sure, you did great, and I'm proud of you. But what isn't posted is the dozens of rounds where the object in question has middling or awful rounds, or how a player who hasn't spent too much time in this game does with it.

In short: statistics are more meaningful than stories. And given that heavies and assaults absolutely dominate in percentage of mechs dropped, this implies that there is a problem with lights and mediums. By and large, players play what works, and what helps them win, because losing over and over isn't fun. Which makes one wonder why so few players are playing lights or mediums.

[Keifomofutu]

Fitzbattleaxe, on 25 April 2013 - 09:55 PM, said:

Lights are overpowered. Mediums are fine. The problem is that we don't have role warfare, and so a medium is expected to do the same job as a heavy. If we had more complex missions and drop limits, there'd be a place for every class. But since everything has to be able to either brawl or snipe, then a medium won't be as good as something that's twice as heavy and costs twice as much. Nor should it be.

Cost doesn't help game balance. Cost's only real function is to hopeful prevent people from speed grinding assaults first every time.

I don't consider lights overpowered in general. They have a very real role and function and are useful to their team. Every single mech class should have this. If mediums don't then they need a little something something. The obvious choice is to stop making them as easy to hit as a heavy.

[Lord de Seis]

I have been playing in my Hunchbacks and getting 350 damage minimum all games with some as high as 600 and 700. It is all a matter of how you play, from what I see I don't see much issues with the medium mechs they seem to play their role quite well.

[Destoroyah]

I think the only real problems with mediums is that in the absence of a proper match lobby and weight restrictions mediums are generally outfavored by heavies and assaults that can pack much more firepower and some are even able to about match medium speed. They are outfavoured for lights cause the lights are noticeably smaller and can easily reach high speeds. A weight limitation in matches would really make players look at having a more mixed assortment of mechs in their mechbays. At 200tons-225tons a lance you would get a healthy mix of mech weights in a match. Maybe even allow a lance to go 50-75tons above the limit but at penalties to your earnings and increased rewards for your opponents.

Edited by Destoroyah, 26 April 2013 - 12:39 AM.

[Demos]

A smaller size of medium mechs would keep them alive longer; therefore they would be able to inflict more damage...

While I' a propojnent of weight limitation it could easily end up with a mix of Lights and Assaults only...
In a 12v12 fight I'd love when at least 2 of every weight class would be in a game.

[Gaden Phoenix]

I for one would like to have
1. mediums to have small hitbox,
2. weight balancing (I never knew the Inner Sphere was so rich till I played MWO).

[Keifomofutu]

Demos, on 26 April 2013 - 12:50 AM, said:

A smaller size of medium mechs would keep them alive longer; therefore they would be able to inflict more damage...

While I' a propojnent of weight limitation it could easily end up with a mix of Lights and Assaults only...
In a 12v12 fight I'd love when at least 2 of every weight class would be in a game.

Yea this. You have to figure if total weight was the only factor you'd take a skirmishing light over a medium every time. Of course they could design the system to force teams to take mediums. But then you've got a similar situation to someone arguing who has to take the kid who's bad at sports on their team. Mediums should be taken because they bring something to the table not because teams HAVE to take them.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 26 April 2013 - 09:25 AM.

[Will HellFire]

Actually, I think mediums perfect for screening the main group in 8vs8 man matches. Cents have a decent speed and much more firepower than the ravens you usually find. If they stay and fight, most of the time you can kill them easily. If they break and run, your screening purpose is completed anyway. Yes, defending against cap is a problem, solved with good positioning on the battlefield, but a problem anyways.

I would like Cents to have a smaller profile, but the assimetric hardpoints are in fact, an advantage. And no other Mech has the Cents survivability and endurance, even if its in zombiemode you can still be useful and it takes a LOT of damage to bring you down, damage that put in the right spot can bring an XL heavy pretty fast.

I think the un-popularity of the meds is more due to the fact that you can take any mech without restrictions, and you would always do more damage in a heavy or go faster in a light. Meds are a nice mix, jack-of-all-trades Mech, favored by a minority of pilots (like me).

[Joseph Mallan]

Medium... Middle of the road Jack of all trades. A medium Mech will never be consistently as good as its larger or smaller brethren. Smaller Mechs will always be faster and larger mechs will always be better armed/armored than the Medium. The Medium is the Devil Dog of the Mech world. It gets the job done in spite of any handicap.

The few, The proud, The mediums!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 26 April 2013 - 07:31 AM.

[SirDubDub]

Yes. Anything a medium can do someone else can do better, but don't forget the flip side of the coin as well. A medium can do something better than any other class on the field.

Mediums are (usually) stronger than Lights
Mediums are (usually) lower priority targets than Heavies/are fast enough to use cover more effectively.
Mediums can (usually) outmaneuver Assaults

This does mean, however, that a medium pilot's situational awareness has to be off the scales at all times in order to be effective.

[Wildman13]

I don't get the arguments here. Mediums by definition should not be as powerful or well armored as a heavy or assault. That's why they're mediums. If you want something with more armor and/or more firepower, don't drive a medium. If you want something faster and more agile, drive a light.

It's like buying a 4 door sedan and complaining it can't haul things a pickup truck can.

[FunkyFritter]

Most of them move too slowly to fulfill their intended role. They tend to sit around the 80-90kph range, that doesn't allow them to track down 150kph lights or outmaneuver 60kph heavies. I'd like to see slightly larger engine sizes on everything except the cicada. If every hunchback and centurion variant had the option of reaching 100-110kph with an XL engine it would give them the relative speed they need to compete.

Edited by FunkyFritter, 26 April 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[Skunk Wolf]

Demos, on 26 April 2013 - 12:50 AM, said:

A smaller size of medium mechs would keep them alive longer; therefore they would be able to inflict more damage...

While I' a propojnent of weight limitation it could easily end up with a mix of Lights and Assaults only...
In a 12v12 fight I'd love when at least 2 of every weight class would be in a game.

ALL the scaling is wonky right now. There needs to be a consistency pass for everything on every map.

Some things didn't translate well from table top, like silhouette, a staple in armour design.

Give mediums an appropriate silhouette from tonnage, use the Atlas's profile as a baseline and scale em from there.

The game that will not be named does it all the damn time, with sometimes hilarious results.

[blinkin]

FunkyFritter, on 26 April 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

Most of them move too slowly to fulfill their intended role. They tend to sit around the 80-90kph range, that doesn't allow them to track down 150kph lights or outmaneuver 60kph heavies. I'd like to see slightly larger engine sizes on everything except the cicada. If every hunchback and centurion had the option of reaching 100-110kph with an XL engine it would give them the relative speed they need to compete.

you don't need to be as fast as the light mech to be able to hunt it down as long as you have ranged weapons. you do have to be somewhat smarter about it but i have seen plenty of decent medium pilots mangle light mechs. in fact my catapult C4 goes 86kph and (lag shield permitting) it mangles light mechs. if they want to dodge the damage coming from larger mechs they most likely need to turn instead of going in a straight line. as light mechs turn away from a direct line heading away from you their relative velocity heading away from you is reduced. so the simple solution is fire at them and make them manuever.

all i need is 86kph, jump jets, and my 2x medium lasers (the SRM generally don't get used unless the enemy light was stupid and left an opening or the occasions when i have the chance to lead the shots properly). with those two things i can give even some of the fastest light mechs a bad day.

[Keifomofutu]

FatDaddy, on 26 April 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

I don't get the arguments here. Mediums by definition should not be as powerful or well armored as a heavy or assault. That's why they're mediums. If you want something with more armor and/or more firepower, don't drive a medium. If you want something faster and more agile, drive a light.

It's like buying a 4 door sedan and complaining it can't haul things a pickup truck can.

People complain because the fast heavys make better mediums than the mediums. A fast heavy with an xl has medium lvl speed and terrifying firepower. A light with an xl has the best speed and still decent firepower. An xl medium isn't that much faster than the heavy thanks to the engine limits and is I feel the easiest mech to kill in the game. Yes easier than lights.

That's what I feel people are unhappy with. Medium survivability in general thanks to their very poorly designed hitboxes. Thanks to that lack of survivability mediums are forced to take standard engines and give up a lot of their speed and firepower.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 26 April 2013 - 09:07 AM.

[Zyllos]

Keifomofutu, on 25 April 2013 - 08:06 PM, said:

My current beef with mediums is that there is always a better chassis for a job. It does come with the territory as a jack-of-all-trades type class.

The lights are always going to cap faster than you, and they are also better at general distraction purposes thanks to their common ecm(only medium with ecm is basically a big light). Mediums will never put out the firepower of a heavy.

But where I feel they are lacking an advantage that they really should have is in evasiveness. Lights have evasiveness in spades thanks to their 150km/h speed and extra small hitboxes.

But unfortunately pgi didn't seem to program the mediums to have any of that inherent evasiveness and they should have. Mediums goal isn't fat damage numbers. Meds goal should be to get flank shots on thinner armor.

But with the wonky, extra tall, and extra wide profiles many of them have they can't get to the flank without getting hit too much for their 1/3 extra armor over a light to handle. A 50ton medium is not that much tougher in overall armor than a 35t light, but it has 2-3x the size and a much poorer hitbox design. This leads to having to never use xl engines and having similar firepower to many lights to have any survivability.

The only medium with a half decent hitbox design the hunchback was made nearly as slow as a heavy. So again no real inherent evasiveness.

As a caveat medium is actually my favorite class. I don't want to go around capping I want to get in the fight and fight at a high speed. But I feel more useful to the team in anything else right now.

Then what is the point of slow Lights?

According to the community, nothing. They bring absolutely nothing to the game, but isn't that what the Commando is suppose to be? A slow Light that hits hard for it's tonnage?

Once you balance a reason to take a slow Light, you will balance Mediums. And the only way I know how to do this is by adding a tonnage system.

Need fire power but only have a few tons left? Get a Commando or Jenner. Commando has better DPS over the long haul over a Jenner but the Jenner has much better alpha strike potential (extremely higher due to pin-point convergence) and can deal with other Lights and Mediums much better.

[FunkyFritter]

blinkin, on 26 April 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

you don't need to be as fast as the light mech to be able to hunt it down as long as you have ranged weapons. you do have to be somewhat smarter about it but i have seen plenty of decent medium pilots mangle light mechs. in fact my catapult C4 goes 86kph and (lag shield permitting) it mangles light mechs. if they want to dodge the damage coming from larger mechs they most likely need to turn instead of going in a straight line. as light mechs turn away from a direct line heading away from you their relative velocity heading away from you is reduced. so the simple solution is fire at them and make them manuever.

all i need is 86kph, jump jets, and my 2x medium lasers (the SRM generally don't get used unless the enemy light was stupid and left an opening or the occasions when i have the chance to lead the shots properly). with those two things i can give even some of the fastest light mechs a bad day.

You kind of made my point for me, mediums don't have a niche when heavy mechs can achieve comparable speeds. The speed difference between lights and everything else is tremendous when compared to the speed advantage most medium mechs offer. If a hunchback could break 100kph it would offer distinct advantages over heavier mechs, that's what the mediums need to find their role again.

[Yokaiko]

FunkyFritter, on 26 April 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

You kind of made my point for me, mediums don't have a niche when heavy mechs can achieve comparable speeds. The speed difference between lights and everything else is tremendous when compared to the speed advantage most medium mechs offer. If a hunchback could break 100kph it would offer distinct advantages over heavier mechs, that's what the mediums need to find their role again.

Only one heavy can get to decent medium speeds, that is the Dragon, and you have to knock it down to 40 firepower or so to get that much engine in.

Get the Hunch and the Cent out of your head speedwise they are among the SLOWEST mediums in the timeline, the average is actually more like the Trenchbucket at 86kph.