154 replies to this topic

[Vaktor]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 20 May 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:

I don't think anyone is trying to say that Mediums are completely useless.

I think what people are saying is if you take skill out of the equation, they are probably the worst mech class in the game. And you should avoid them if you want to be competitive.

Note I do not take my own advice, and pilot my Cent's regularly.

I pilot Cent's most of the time and even in the current system I know if I bring my Centi it means that I will have one other medium mech to deal with on the other team... Of course I will also have a bunch of Assualts and Heavies.

The benefit of this situation is simple... I go toe to toe with a heavy mech and bring it down and I have just removed 60 to 75 tons from the battlefield... Even if I do nothing else and die directly after that it's a net loss of 10 to 25 tons for the other team.

Of course I am not going to be able to tank like the big dogs but I add my firepower and it is a pawn takes bishop situation... worth the trade.

Edited by Vaktor, 20 May 2013 - 07:44 AM.

[Sybreed]

all in all, I think having BV or a drop weight limit would help balance mediums a lot. People would need to bring in mediums, not just 90 tons assaults to make the team.

[Satan n stuff]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 20 May 2013 - 07:37 AM, said:

Yes because your lone experiences are the end-all-be-all of MW:O.

If you do fine in your X-5, it's obviously better than every other light mech.

Congratulations.

I guess that's why we see so many X-5's in 8v8's and being used by the better units.

I apologize and bow to your greatness!

Sarcasm doesn't substitute a good argument. The actual argument for that matter, isn't that good either. If there is this general preconception that medium mechs aren't as good as other mechs then you're not going to see a lot of them in 8 man teams. Regardless of whether or not it's actually true.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

***** n stuff, on 20 May 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

Sarcasm doesn't substitute a good argument. The actual argument for that matter, isn't that good either. If there is this general preconception that medium mechs aren't as good as other mechs then you're not going to see a lot of them in 8 man teams. Regardless of whether or not it's actually true.

Sarcasm is just that, sarcasm. You are the one who linked your own stats trying to use them as some sort of proof that your assertion is correct.

I stopped bothering after that.

Vaktor, on 20 May 2013 - 07:43 AM, said:

I pilot Cent's most of the time and even in the current system I know if I bring my Centi it means that I will have one other medium mech to deal with on the other team...

Yeah but that's the problem. It's not true.

I've run enough matches where my team has no lights, and their team does to know that's not how the current system works.

So you are gambling that you end up with a medium on their side.

[Petroshka]

Anecdotal information is awesome.

[Terror Teddy]

Deathlike, on 19 May 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

On average (give or take 1 kph) the speed of the various classes look like this:
Assaults - 60kph (66kph w/tweak) - exception being the 9M/PB
Heavies - 78kph (85.8kph w/tweak) - exception being the Dragon (honorary medium)
Mediums - ~89kph (97.9kph w/tweak) - exception being the Cicada (honorary light), and 2 speed medium variants (Cent-D/Trebuchet-3C) - difficult to compare all 3 meds
Lights - 135+kph (148.kph w/tweak) - exception being the Raven-2X/4X

Personally I think all those speeds are INSANE.

The average speed of ALL those mech classes are your numbers -20 to -25 as an average Medium moves at 65-70 km/h and most assaults at between 40-45.

The main reason for this speed fetish that is going on is mainly the twist/tilt bonus a higher engine value gives you and the extra internal heatsinks.

I do agree that speed equals life but in this game it has gone a bit bonkers.

Engine limits gives different chassis different abilities and I have no problem with it - what I would like to see is a proper heatscale that affects all aspects of movement the higher the heat.

Engine rating should never impact tilt/twist speed as it would also make each chassis unique.

Would a Jenner with 6ML be much of a problem if its acceleration / maximum speed / turn rate / twist rate was lowered by 5% for every 10% of heat above 50% of its maximum heat?

Would we worry about X4 ERPPC boats if their heatsinks have a gradual progression of efficiency depending on their heat level? Imagine a Stalker having -20% to heatsink efficiency due to being at 90% heat level?

[Satan n stuff]

Petroshka, on 20 May 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

Anecdotal information is awesome.

Yes because this one match... oh wait did I say one match? I meant dozens of matches with no prior experience with that particular variant, and not having used a 150kph mech in about two months. That's not exactly insignificant, and the mech in question does in fact perform better than most mechs I've used since these stats became available.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

***** n stuff, on 20 May 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

Yes because this one match... oh wait did I say one match? I meant dozens of matches with no prior experience with that particular variant, and not having used a 150kph mech in about two months. That's not exactly insignificant, and the mech in question does in fact perform better than most mechs I've used since these stats became available.

Yeah except, we have no idea what ELO you are in. Or whether you were in premades. Or whether the lights you killed were trial lights.

Or basically anything at all.

It's stupid to link your own stats to prove a point. End of story.

[Ph30nix]

i have always felt that mediums are more of a loadout dependant situation,

You can either be able to do some comparable damage but with an easier to reach top speed then the heavies

or you can

Have comparable speed to a light but still have more firepower and armor, but you no longer have enough to be a major threat to heavies.

basicly you can either be an anti light medium or a anti heavy hit and run medium.

Which yes you cant do either of those better than some other mechs but thats the point of the medium, its a Gap filler you could call it. It also can do the above things cheaper in some cases. (higher speed than a heavy with a smaller engine so its cheaper but you can still bring decent firepower)

Mediums do get forgotten about (i love my Treb-7M though and my cicadas get some decent love i see them as the big brother to the jenner) and ya know i was about to say that speed tweek isnt the real reason why... but your sort of right.

to me though it has more to do with other issues
by far the biggest to me s

ALL MECHS HAVE SAME # OF BASE CRITICALS!!!!!
best example i can give, look at the poor hunchback, his side torsos are larger then normal and are basicly giant SHOOT ME HERE signs, ive run a hunchie without anything vital in my side torso's and ya know what people STILL focus on them (yes it gets rid of the arm too but still....)
and in the end for this huge bullseye they get no perk for it. i would think they should get more critical slots in those hunches, but they dont.

also you forgot for the light mechs to pull off what you describe they also usualy have to take both endo steel internal AND ferro armor which again since they have the same # of criticals as everyone else they can afford too.

another big problem is the speed cap i think, but i wasnt around before mech's were reaching the current cap so i cant speculate. Part of me thinks without it then upping light max speeds say if they max at 150 now their new max is 155-165, then giving medium mechs the same speed boost (so my Treb 7m that currently goes 106ish with tweak will now got say 116 with tweak.) would make mediums a bit more useful.


as for the criticals i think the current # should be the base that lights have, then mediums get like +5 more (hunchies get an additional say +2 per hunch or in case of one single HUGE hunch they get +4?) heavies get +10 and assaults get +15. this would open up more build potentials as well.

only problem is the anti boat crowd would have a rage gasm at the potential increase to boating..... BUT actually i dont think it will make much of a differnce in alot of cases sure you might see differnt boat loadouts, but the current damage levels wont change since most boats already use their weapon slots to the max in regard to tonnage so extra room wouldnt help them fit more. and it wouldnt be enough to get endo/FF and still have enough extra slots to put in bigger weapons.

[Lugh]

Sturmforge, on 19 May 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

Will not work as Mediums will replace lights.

Once Knockdown comes back and lights are tripping over each other an the people they facehug through...Mediums will replace lights more often.

Why? Stupid is as stupiddoes....

[Satan n stuff]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 20 May 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Yeah except, we have no idea what ELO you are in. Or whether you were in premades. Or whether the lights you killed were trial lights.

Or basically anything at all.

It's stupid to link your own stats to prove a point. End of story.

I said none of those lights were trial mechs and believe me, I do keep track of these things. As for the rest, The fact that I rarely even see trial mechs and mostly run into cookie cutter builds indicates that my ELO score is above average at least. I was in a premade group for all of those matches, and most of those matches had a premade group on the other side as well.
And seriously? "It's stupid to link your own stats to prove a point. End of story."
Really? Because I sure as hell can't see any other stats and the number of matches played clearly indicates that it's not a fluke. I'm fairly certain that playing a mech is a valid way of gathering statistics on that mech, so don't go chewing me out for not having access to anyone else's stats. If you want to prove me wrong, buy a Cicada, build it like you would an equivalent Jenner, play it and see what the actual difference is.

[Shae Starfyre]

I don't understand this thread.

I have written tons of stuff, multiple times, and erased it.

The one thing that keeps entering mind, though, is tactics. What is the biases for more speed requirement on Mediums? What are the facts being based on? A comparison between heavies and lights? Why is that required? What does that have to do with a medium's performance in the right hands?

Is this a one on one engagement were using for comparisons?

I am about to erase this too. None of this makes any sense. I am going back to the "Pop-tart threads"

Edited by Aphoticus, 20 May 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[Ningyo]

.This is something I made for myself out of curiosity, it seems fairly relevant to this discussion, personally I have to agree with the OP, Speed tweak does seem to throw things out of whack a little.


Light and medium mechs I am including endosteel, not including it for heavy/assault
Including up to minimum 10 Heatsinks for engines below 250 rating
The at 100/80 kph is based on non tweak Speed is normal/speed tweak
Armor is weight of max armor for variant(not using ferro-fibrous)
the armor() is number of armor points


Mech__________Speed______Standard__XL_____100 kph___80 kph____Armor Commando_____136/149____8.5_______13_____15_5______16_5______5.06(178) Spider_________138/151____9.5_______16_____19_5______20_5______5.69(210) Jenner_________139/153____8_________17.5___22________24_5______7.44(238) Raven_________113/125____15________21_____22________24_5______7.44(238) Raven-3L______137/150____9_________18_____22________24_5______7.44(238)

Cicada________138/152____4_________17.5____25.5______28_5______8.56(274) Centurion_______89/98______26_______33.5_____________35________10.56(338)
____CN9-D_____126/139____N/A_______17.5___30________35________10.56(338)
____Wang______97/107_____22_5______32____30_______35_________10.56(338) Hunchback_____84/93______28________34.5_____________35________10.56(338) Trebuchet______105/116____17________28.5___30________35________10.56(338)
____TBT-3C____126/139____N/A_______17.5___30________35________10.56(338)

Dragon________97/107_____17________33.5___33.5______41.5_______12.56(402) Catapult_______79/86______33________43_5____________43.5_______13.19(422) Jaggermech____79/86______33________43.5_____________43.5_______13.19(422) Cataphract_____79/87______32.5______46_______________46________13.56(434)
____CTF-4x____59/65______47.5______54_________________________13.56(434)

***switching to***____(no Endosteel)_____________80kph_____50kph

Awesome_______61/67______47________56.5_____________59.5______15.44(494)
____AWS-9M____78/86______21.5______43_____43________59.5______15.44(494)
____BABY______81/89______12.5______38.5____40.5______59.5______15.44(494) Stalker_________59/65______49________59_______________63.5______16.44(526) Highlander______59/64______50.5______62_______________67________17.44(558)
____METAL_____59/65______49.5______61.5_____________67________17.44(558) Atlas___________58/64______50_______66.5_____________72.5_______19.19(614)

Editted: Formatting might have to do this a couple times since its giving weird spacings

Edited by Ningyo, 20 May 2013 - 11:27 AM.

[Ningyo]

Based on this you can see that the trade off between:

Raven 3L - Cicada 3M gain 2 missile launchers giving streak option : lose weight below 100 kph
Raven 3L - Cicada X5 gain ECM : lose weight below 100 kph
Jenner - Cicada Gain jump jet capability and better hardpoint locations : lose weight below 100 kph

So while I love playing my cicadas, and they are not much worse than the best lights, the lights do have an edge on them. Personally I think its fine though cicada vs light.

The problem comes in with the other mediums they lose out huge on the size/speed vs lights, and gain almost nothing compared to the heavies.


Other Mediums vs Lights you lose out on weight, speed, and size at high speeds

Other Mediums at 80 kph vs heavies
vs Dragon they lose 4.5 tons at max armor
vs catapult and jaggermech they lose 6 tons at max armor
vs Cataphract they lose 8 tons at max armor (also a 100 armor point difference)

Edited by Ningyo, 20 May 2013 - 11:48 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Does an a Dragon with a 300-rated Engine have the same acceleration, deceleration and torso twist rate as a Hunchback with a 300 rated engine?

If that is the case, maybe that is one of the things one should change - have torso twist speed and acceleration/decleration depend completely on the speed of the mech. So a Hunchback with a 200 rated engine will be more manoeuvrable than a Atlas with a 300 rated engine.

If that is insufficient, an additional boost to all Mediums could be to increase their torso twist range and their arm movement range. (The Hunchback is already pretty good at this, IIRC).

Personally I definitely want to find a solution where you don't have to have mediums running 100 kp/h all the time. Not because I dislike fast mechs that, but because I believe this simply limits the options for mediums too much. There should be a reason in this game to not always run the largest possible engines.

Maybe we could also raise the max possible armour on lights and mediums - put it at the same value the Dragon can carry. You still need to bring all that armour, and you still have poor internal armour, but if you want a slow medium, you can at least armour it appropriately.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

MustrumRidcully, on 20 May 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Does an a Dragon with a 300-rated Engine have the same acceleration, deceleration and torso twist rate as a Hunchback with a 300 rated engine?

If that is the case, maybe that is one of the things one should change - have torso twist speed and acceleration/decleration depend completely on the speed of the mech. So a Hunchback with a 200 rated engine will be more manoeuvrable than a Atlas with a 300 rated engine.

If that is insufficient, an additional boost to all Mediums could be to increase their torso twist range and their arm movement range. (The Hunchback is already pretty good at this, IIRC).

Personally I definitely want to find a solution where you don't have to have mediums running 100 kp/h all the time. Not because I dislike fast mechs that, but because I believe this simply limits the options for mediums too much. There should be a reason in this game to not always run the largest possible engines.

Maybe we could also raise the max possible armour on lights and mediums - put it at the same value the Dragon can carry. You still need to bring all that armour, and you still have poor internal armour, but if you want a slow medium, you can at least armour it appropriately.

I agree, I spend so much time right now trying to make sure I stuff the biggest engine I can into mechs (not just mediums). And it seems like that is the driving factor in all of my builds.

It's also freaking expensive. Right now i'm saving to buy 1 more Highlander variant AND an XL325.

[Deathlike]

MustrumRidcully, on 20 May 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

If that is insufficient, an additional boost to all Mediums could be to increase their torso twist range and their arm movement range. (The Hunchback is already pretty good at this, IIRC).

It's been a non-issue for the Cents last I checked.

Quote

Personally I definitely want to find a solution where you don't have to have mediums running 100 kp/h all the time. Not because I dislike fast mechs that, but because I believe this simply limits the options for mediums too much. There should be a reason in this game to not always run the largest possible engines.

The only way to do this is provide more hardpoints or weapons to produce more often. Given that the Centurion primarily is a short range brawler, it thrives on speed to be effective. The Hunchback has a lot more offensive capabilities, so giving it a 100kph speed option would be unfair, compared to the rest of the mediums.

Quote

Maybe we could also raise the max possible armour on lights and mediums - put it at the same value the Dragon can carry. You still need to bring all that armour, and you still have poor internal armour, but if you want a slow medium, you can at least armour it appropriately.

You've already doubled armor, and want to make further adjustments to lights and mediums over it... nothing good will come of that discussion.

Edited by Deathlike, 20 May 2013 - 01:28 PM.

[Deathlike]

MustrumRidcully, on 20 May 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Personally I definitely want to find a solution where you don't have to have mediums running 100 kp/h all the time. Not because I dislike fast mechs that, but because I believe this simply limits the options for mediums too much. There should be a reason in this game to not always run the largest possible engines.

I took a bit of time to rethink this.. and tell me what you think of it.

If you think the Cent doesn't need to run @ 100kph max across the board (which means the A and AL variants), what would you say about adding 1 laser hardpoint to all Cents (including the YLW) in the RT? There are major implications of doing that, and would change the Cent's meta dramatically IMO.

[Vassago Rain]

Lugh, on 20 May 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

Once Knockdown comes back and lights are tripping over each other an the people they facehug through...Mediums will replace lights more often.

Why? Stupid is as stupiddoes....

Knockdown isn't coming back.
They have no interest in reviving the stunlock mechanism.

[Sybreed]

Vassago Rain, on 20 May 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

Knockdown isn't coming back.
They have no interest in reviving the stunlock mechanism.

it's coming back, just much much later than we all hoped.