86 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

Medium 'mechs are useless because of BattleTech. Stop trying to blame PGI on this.

Mediums are flat out inferior to heavies and heavies, outside of a few exceptionally mobile designs, are flat out inferior to Assaults. Lights and super fast mediums are good for backstabbing primarily in TT.

Bottom line is if you took 7 Highlanders and a Raven in TT against a mixed force of Centurions, Catapults, Dragons and Jenners.. you're going to get the exact same result you see in MW:O. The exact result.

Class balance without a Battle Value or Tonnage limitation at a lobby level has never been possible without destroying BattleTech's foundation, honestly. Other games like Hawken solve these issues by introducing class specific weaponry and such that would NOT fly in MW:O. Thus, a lighter unit can in fact be matching an assault. This cannot happen with a BattleTech based game.

If you introduce tonnage and BV some people might cry for a bit they can't run assaults in every match, but once they settle in, they'll realize that by being the majority force, mediums actually become the most important element on the field despite not being individually even to the heavies and assaults in the match.

Until we get tonnage/BV we will never see Mediums being useful. Just look at tonnage leagues run by players: Mediumsare very important!

[SuperJoe]

Until they add some sort of BV or tonnage limit to drops there isn't much point in piloting a medium robot unless you really hate yourself. Like me. ):

Man i just want medium robos to be good and fun again. It was great when the game tried to balance matches by class type.. even though that was sort of flawed itself.

[badaa]

ive been running a cn9-a with gauss rilfe and 2xmls and 80% of the time im wrecking ****

[Fiona Marshe]

aniviron, on 30 May 2013 - 07:13 PM, said:

Trebs and cents are gigantic, and hunchbacks have no weapons if you have the brains to aim for the massive, lightly-armored SHOOT ME box. Blackjack is a decent platform, but it doesn't have enough weapons to play a combat role without an XL engine, and it doesn't go fast enough to scout (as though scouting were a legit way to play this game at all, but that's a different balance issue). The only one that really has a home is the cicada, but it's just an oversized light, and does the jenner's job but not quite as well- a JR7-F can take the same weapons loadout, armor load and move at the same speed (speed cap) with a marginally better cooling efficiency while having a smaller hitbox to boot.

And yes, OP is correct about the speed, size, and armor factor. I am tempted to just disconnect every time alpine comes up because there is just nowhere to hide, and a medium chassis just cannot take a pounding at 800m. Here is my mech after getting hit twice; this is why nobody plays medium:

Probably not a good example to use, as your paperdoll says you've taken an alpha shot in the Rear CT (so something got behind you).

[Blacke]

LordBraxton, on 30 May 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

I play a heavy like a flanker\striker

my cataphracts have 4.0 kdrs

my stalker 3f has a 6.0 kdr

you know what kdr means?

nothing

so I am real sick of people quoting their kdrs as "PROOF' that something is OK or BALANCED

There are actually two things to look at, KDR and damage done. Both are important. Both help win matches, earn money, and xp. I also seriously doubt you have a 6.0 KDR. One single match where you only got a single kill would require 7 games with a perfect 8 score to recapture your 6.0 KDR. Simple mathematics says your statement is 99% likely to be a falsehood.

Also I never said the game was balanced, i just said mediums are not useless.

Proper strategy and tactics can be employed to make them workable. I don't employ a single alpha strike loadout. I very rarely get taken out by an alpha strike mech because I use situational aware and proper tactics to not be in that position. Once a alpha stirke mech has fired once or twice they are usually in deep trouble if engaged in a prolonged fight.

[aniviron]

Fiona Marshe, on 30 May 2013 - 09:14 PM, said:

Probably not a good example to use, as your paperdoll says you've taken an alpha shot in the Rear CT (so something got behind you).

Was turned to shield my ct with the arm and hunch so I didn't just straight up die; turned slightly too far, and if you can see one degree of back armor you can hit it. Even if it had been a front shot, I would be cored to yellow. I routinely get my legs blown off or to no armor and red in one hit in my hbk; that's more than enough to wreck my ct as well.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

aniviron, on 30 May 2013 - 10:02 PM, said:

Was turned to shield my ct with the arm and hunch so I didn't just straight up die; turned slightly too far, and if you can see one degree of back armor you can hit it. Even if it had been a front shot, I would be cored to yellow. I routinely get my legs blown off or to no armor and red in one hit in my hbk; that's more than enough to wreck my ct as well.

So sniper high alpha meta no skill aiming at pixels ruined your game! LOL

[Tekadept]

So medium Mechs are useless?? Sheezus, Maybe I can do better then below when they are fixed.. INB4 the QQ No AFK farming here. It's not the mech, Its how you play it. If you play a Medium as if its a front line brawler, you will die. Play smart and you will W1n more often.

[p00k]

Blacke, on 30 May 2013 - 09:25 PM, said:

One single match where you only got a single kill would require 7 games with a perfect 8 score to recapture your 6.0 KDR. Simple mathematics says your statement is 99% likely to be a falsehood.

you suck at math

even if you died in the one match where you got a single kill

if you get a perfect 8 score, that means you didn't die. because, you can't kill 8 enemies and die. there's no one left to kill you. even if the enemy is an lrm boat and has missiles in the air and you kill him before the missiles land, and the missiles "kill" you after you kill the last guy, that 8th kill stops the game progress, and on the final scoreboard you'll still be counted alive. even if in-game you "died" a split second later.

which means, 1st round, 1 kill 1 death. the next 7 rounds, 8 kills, 0 deaths. which means, a 57 KDR, not a 6 KDR. so yes, your exaggerated example backfired and demonstrated your math fail

[Corvus Antaka]

ridiculous. medium mechs are only struggling because of tonnage mismatches. My medium mechs perform well in matches, its a question of using them properly and hoping the other team doesnt out-ton you by 2or300 tons

[ivr56]

my BJ-1 and TBT-7M beg to differ with those statements

[aniviron]

IV Amen, on 30 May 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

So sniper high alpha meta no skill aiming at pixels ruined your game! LOL

Nah, wouldn't say they ruined it. It does make it less fun, though. There's just not a lot of reason for me to take my hbks out of storage when I can load up any light or assault and do as well or better with much less effort. As a semi-competitive fps player, I also don't disparage those with aim- the player who shot me in the shot I posted made an excellent shot, and deserved to be rewarded for it.

In short: you're reading far too much into my post. My point was that mediums are large, relatively slow targets that often do not have the firepower to make an opponent rethink standing on a ridge and raining hot death downward. I do not support introducing cones of fire or changing how convergence works. I do support giving mediums a way to be competitive with mechs that are the exact same as them but with the ability to carry 20 tons more of weapons and armor.

[stjobe]

Mediums (and lights) struggle only because of a simple fact:

The usual PUG team is 6 assaults/heavies.

Unless we get a good way (that doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the game) to get people into lighter 'mechs, we may as well just delete anything below 70 tons from the game; in practice that's just about already happened.

When I drop in my Blackjack I'm usually the only one on my team under 70 tons. Same when I drop in my Cents.
When I drop in my lights there may be another light or a medium, but 5-6 of my team is almost guaranteed to be assaults and heavies - mostly assaults.

The game NEEDS incentives for people to run non-assaults; currently it has none. Those of us that do run lights and mediums don't do it because the game rewards us for it, we do it despite not getting rewarded, for a number of different personal reasons.

If the game rewarded playing all the weight classes evenly, there would be much less skew towards assaults (although there will always be a slight skew because "giant stompy robots, right? The bigger the better").

[Victor Morson]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 May 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

ridiculous. medium mechs are only struggling because of tonnage mismatches. My medium mechs perform well in matches, its a question of using them properly and hoping the other team doesnt out-ton you by 2or300 tons

This 1000x.

Mediums are still fine, if a little underpowered due to the state of SRMs. But they're nowhere near extinct due to gun balance, just due to the lack of tonnage restrictions.

8 mans are the worst because if you want to have a reasonable chance, you need to do it too, otherwise you'll be just get frustrated trying to fight with your hands behind your back.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Divine Madcat, on 30 May 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

Why?

There is no reason why torso mounted weapons cant be on gimbles. Sure, aiming 5 feet in front of you is a bit off, but it only needs 10-15 degrees to make almost any of the shots.

Because when you combine it with the HTAL system, the game sucks.

There's your reason.

[Lord Ikka]

In 8-mans with a default setup of 2 every Class, Mediums can be the game winner. Fast enough to stop Lights, decent enough armor/weaponry to finish off the big boys after an engagement. Unfortunately, the Elo system tries to balance skill for tonnage in pug matches. Higher skilled Medium pilots have to face lower skilled pilots that are using larger Mechs. No matter the skill of the pilot, tonnage plays a big part of the match- more tons means more armor and weapons used against the skilled. Quantity has a quality all its own after all.

[SirLANsalot]

I see mediums making a comeback once drop-ship mode comes in. Reason being, it will be up to you to decide if you want to re-spawn 4 times or only 2 times with the 4 mediums or 2 assaults you have with you. You could split the difference the take one assault and 2 medium and maybe a light depending on the drop limit. This mode will just about stop pure assault mech runs dead cold, as now you have a maximum tonnage to think about.


Mediums now, are yes very much dead and have a massive identity crisis, but this has heald true in ALL of the Mechwarrior games. If you want guns, you will go slow, but don't have the armor to slug it out. If you want to go fast, a light can still outrun you and carry more ML's then you can at those higher speeds. That is the issue mediums have now, but with drop-ship mode....they may be the mainstay that there supposed to be like in BT.


Since in BT lore ect, mediums are the workhorses of the IS, and for good reason. On an drop of a new planet, you have only your drop-ships, and they can only carry so many mechs at once. You can still take some assaults, but you mostly want to take lights and mediums and just zerg rush your enemy on a planet. Thats where mediums step in, they do have decent armor while carrying good speed and a good spread of weapons. Heavys are also very good at being the big backup for the lace of mediums on a drop as they can keep up with the mediums a little better then assaults can (think CPLT's and DRG's). The Overlord drop-ships can carry quite a few of these mechs, but can only carry about half of what it could carry in mediums, in heavy's, or a quarter of that in assaults. This is also just assuming your taking all of the same chassis, each mech is a little different in wight, so things change there.

[Liberator]

Skyfaller, on 30 May 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

Medium mechs have little to no chance in this game

This is simply not true, I have great scores in my hunchbacks and it is really fun.
You just shadow your own assaults, and pop out to own when you can.

I have previously offered my idea of expanded pilot trees, with choices between gunnery and piloting, this added inn with collisions would mean that snipers would sink all their points into pin point accuracy and convergence, but this renders them slower and more prone to being knocked over by those that have invested in piloting.

I really want to see something else than MAX EVERYTHING in the pilot lab.

[mekabuser]

useless. LOL. oooo kay

[Coralld]

I wouldn't call them useless but they are in a rather bad spot at the moment for several reason. First off, look at the size of them, they are just to damn big. As stated by some here, a Treb is nearly as tall as an Atlas and a Cent is about as tall as an Awesome, and a Hunchy is as big and even as tall or if not taller than a Jager or a Dragon... Ummm... WTF?! How are 50ton mechs as big or even bigger then mechs that are 50% heavier or even TWICE their weight?! They need to be made smaller!

Secondly, speed. Average speed for most Mediums is suppose to be around the 80kph range which is suppose to be enough for them to easily out pace and even dance around anything heavier then they are. Sadly, Heavies can also reach these speeds while having nearly twice the firepower and armor. The only solution I can think of is to reduce the STD Engine size for Heavies and Assaults to force them to run XL Engines. If you want your big bad Heavy to have the speed of Mediums then you are going to have to be squishy. Now some mechs, like the Dragon, Awesome, and the up coming Victor should be exceptions to this rule as they were meant to go fast for their weight class. I don't quite like this idea but I see no other way. I have Hunchies that run at 80kph with 220 or 225 STD Engines and yet I am being passed by Phracts, Cats, and Jagers, which just doesn't seam right to me, unless they are packing XL Engines, which they are not. Now I know some will say that they pay for it in weight, but the problem is this, they are heavy enough that they can afford to pay for the heavier weight of larger STD Engines.

Thirdly, is the high alpha builds, which really only Heavies and Assaults can do, with Assaults being the biggest offenders. Ala 6 PPC Stalker any one? Now don't confuse my dislike of high alpha builds as something against boating, I have no problem with boating, its just that there is currently zero down side to high alpha energy builds. Simply shutting down isan't enough as they just laugh at it and hit the override and fire again, shut down, override, rinse, repeat, profit.
And just let me stop any one who will say that they use lights and eat bloat boats for breakfast and they do it by dancing around the big bruiser and sticking to their backside like glue, because I agree, the problem is, is that it only works if you can get the guy alone and fight them in a sudo 1 v 1 situation, but MWO is 8 v 8, not 1 v 1, any team with half a brain knows to watch their bloat boat buddies back side. I have played enough games running in as well as leading light mech teams in 8 man vs an all bloat boat teams (which are usually PPC builds) and they completely trash us regardless if the map is either tourmaline or Caustic and they are shutting down almost every time they fire, and they win by shoot at the Lights that are on their team mates rather then focus on the Light attacking them selves. I also have dropped in 8 man bloat boat teams fighting against Light teams as well. Its a complete and total joke... And horribly terrible joke at that.

Edit:
I agree that SRMs need to be buffed, but making Mediums only viable based on one weapon system, SRMs, is just stupid considering the fact that 2/3 of Mediums don't have missile hard points.

Edited by Coralld, 31 May 2013 - 06:41 AM.