86 replies to this topic

[Anton Shiningstar]

My Centurion-A is my second most successful Mech, right behind my Jager-A

[Coralld]

stjobe, on 31 May 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

I don't know if I'd really call it a bug or broken mechanic; I sure wouldn't call it abuse. It certainly isn't unknown, it's just damage transfer combined with the debris left when arms get shot off.

What happens is this: When you shoot the arm off a 'mech, there's some debris left at the shoulder. When you hit that debris, it counts as an arm hit, and only 50% of the damage done gets transferred to the side torso. Now if the side torso is destroyed, it isn't removed at all, and any damage to it only transfers 50% to the center torso.

So if you hit a 'mech with a destroyed arm and side torso in the debris of its arm, only 25% of that damage will transfer to the center torso (50 % reduction first on arm to side torso, then another 50% reduction on side torso to center torso).

It works the same for all 'mechs, but here's why the Cent is especially protected by this: It has giant arms and side torsos but a very narrow CT. The debris left over from a shot-off Cent arm is also larger than on just about any other 'mech, so it's still there, acting as a shield for the side torso and CT.

So you see, it's no mystery or well-kept secret what's happening; it's been posted on these forums before and I'm sure the devs are well aware of it.

You want to kill a Cent? Make sure you hit the CT, not the arms or side torsos.

Full aware of this mechanic, and as you pointed out, the Cent appears to benefit from this greatly, thus, is an abuse in its own way sense people know about it. I see far more Cents than Trebs, Cicadas, and Hunchies. Perhaps PGI can look into resizing the hit boxes to mitigate this shield of sorts, however, having PGI mess around with hit boxes and the like to such a fine degree scares me.

Edited by Coralld, 31 May 2013 - 09:06 AM.

[frag85]

I've been having good luck with Mediums lately. Cicadas and Cents are extremely powerful if played correctly. The only downside is that i'm often killed in a few alphas from an assault, and SSRMs only damage the front center torso so anything with streaks ****** up even if I'm boating 6 or 8 MLs.

[Trauglodyte]

stjobe, on 30 May 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

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").

Granted, it is completely anecdotal, but it has become common place in game for me to look at the 8 man roster and see 3-4 assaults every match. Again, I have no factual basis other then what I see but it is really hard to play a game and be successful when you're lighter in weight when there is a lance, or near it, of mechs that double, if not triple, your weight. Add to that the impact of heavy projectile damage alphas (ie, 20s or Gauss+PPCs) and you're in trouble in a hurry.

Now, that doesn't mean that running a Light, Medium, or low weight Heavy makes you useless. That is just bad board QQing right there. What it does, though, is force your game style into less damage by taking the long road around (not always possible based on the map being played) OR you're restricted to Heavy/Assault support because you can't risk putting yourself out there for fear of getting demolished.

[Skyfaller]

Butane9000, on 30 May 2013 - 08:34 PM, said:

I disagree that they are useless.
...
If you use your medium to support assaults and take shots of opportunity you'll find you do a lot better.

Liberator, on 31 May 2013 - 02:40 AM, said:

You just shadow your own assaults, and pop out to own when you can.

I can do that with a 6 laser jenner. Granted, only the 8 energy BJ and 9 energy hunch have more punch but the jenner has jumpjets, very small size and much higher speed...and practically same damn armor.

This is at what i'm getting at. The mediums have such a weak 'advantage' its not really worth the effort to use them considering you could perform just as well with a jenner or much better with a heavy.

the change to convergence makes the boating of weapons not have pinpoint damage capability (unless its arms mounted) which increases battle time for ALL mechs (and its a good thing) since they dont die as fast...and the perks for the mediums are needed to give them an edge over the just-as well armed, just as well armored, much smaller and faster lights.

[Thorqemada]

The weakness of any Medium Mech is the leg, even a Jenner can kill every leg of a Cent in two passes each which means a good Light Pilot kills you in around 12 seconds.
Now imagine you face two or more of them.

The 6 PPC Stalker needs 1 well placed Alpha and every leg is gone which means it can kill every Medium in 4 seconds.

There is really no need to complain about Zombie Cents that soak a bit more Torso damage than the Bigger Punch Hunchback and the more mobile Treb - this is a Mech characteristic and not a Problem!

The Cents legs are that big you cant miss...which makes it weaker than any of the other Mediums!

Edited by Thorqemada, 01 June 2013 - 03:12 AM.

[Gremlich Johns]

I do not know what the OP's problem is, I got 543 damage in a match last night in my HBK-4G(F). With all of my mediums (4G, 4SP, 4P, Cent-9A), I get, on average, upwards of 400 damage.

[Corvus Antaka]

Anton Shiningstar, on 31 May 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:

My Centurion-A is my second most successful Mech, right behind my Jager-A

One of my centurions has never been killed yet

[Gremlich Johns]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 01 June 2013 - 12:18 AM, said:

One of my centurions has never been killed yet

It's all about the pilot. I can't stand the cicada, but there are some guys that really make it a terror.

[Accursed Richards]

Syllogy, on 31 May 2013 - 06:41 AM, said:

I disagree. My Blackjack-3 has a 10:1 K/D

My Cicada has an infinity +1 k/d, I win (and also have a bigger Yen Lo-Wang than you).

[Coralld]

Once again, just pointing out that every one who says they are doing super dooper well are piloting Cents. So if Cents benefit from the mechanic far better than any other Medium as stjobe stated, then those piloting Cents and stating that you are great and Mediums are fine would be like those saying they do great in Lights and every thing is fine when they piloted the Raven 3L back when they had hit detection issues and were dominating over every other Light mech. Same concept. And no I am not bashing the Cent, I love the Cent and I even have a Cent, the problem is I want to do well in a mech by using my skill, not exploiting a game mechanic that allows the Cent torso to tank like an Atlas due to its over all shape, which I am sure was unintentional.
Its rather sad, IMHO, that you need to leg a Medium that's not running like a Light mech in order to kill it.

[FupDup]

Accursed Richards, on 01 June 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

My Cicada has an infinity +1 k/d, I win (and also have a bigger Yen Lo-Wang than you).

You probably have more BJs than he does as well.

[Coralld]

Accursed Richards, on 01 June 2013 - 05:56 AM, said:

My Cicada has an infinity +1 k/d, I win (and also have a bigger Yen Lo-Wang than you).

FupDup, on 01 June 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

You probably have more BJs than he does as well.

Sexual puns are sexual... And funny.

[InRev]

Trauglodyte, on 31 May 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

Granted, it is completely anecdotal, but it has become common place in game for me to look at the 8 man roster and see 3-4 assaults every match. Again, I have no factual basis other then what I see but it is really hard to play a game and be successful when you're lighter in weight when there is a lance, or near it, of mechs that double, if not triple, your weight. Add to that the impact of heavy projectile damage alphas (ie, 20s or Gauss+PPCs) and you're in trouble in a hurry.

Now, that doesn't mean that running a Light, Medium, or low weight Heavy makes you useless. That is just bad board QQing right there. What it does, though, is force your game style into less damage by taking the long road around (not always possible based on the map being played) OR you're restricted to Heavy/Assault support because you can't risk putting yourself out there for fear of getting demolished.

This chart which I am shamelessly crossposting from hammerreborn's mech diversity study from April shows that empirical data tends to back up your anecdotal evidence.

Spoiler

Light and medium usage combined don't even add up to assault or heavy usage alone.

[Halrajih]

Limit the number of assaults per match and you would see the benefit of mediums more on the field.

[Coralld]

Halrajih, on 01 June 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

Limit the number of assaults per match and you would see the benefit of mediums more on the field.

That is a long term goal by using weight or BV drop limits. However, for the short term, as well as this needs to happen any way, is to re-size Mediums so they are smaller as well as reducing the STD Engine sizes for most of the Heavies and Assaults so their speeds don't overlap unless they are using XL Engines, and adding in more and proper heat penalties.

Edited by Coralld, 01 June 2013 - 08:42 AM.

[El Bandito]

When I see my opponent boating lasers instead of PPCs, I tell myself, "Free C-Bills."

Streakcat player BTW.

Edited by El Bandito, 01 June 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[xRaeder]

Trauglodyte, on 31 May 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

Granted, it is completely anecdotal, but it has become common place in game for me to look at the 8 man roster and see 3-4 assaults every match. Again, I have no factual basis other then what I see but it is really hard to play a game and be successful when you're lighter in weight when there is a lance, or near it, of mechs that double, if not triple, your weight. Add to that the impact of heavy projectile damage alphas (ie, 20s or Gauss+PPCs) and you're in trouble in a hurry.

Now, that doesn't mean that running a Light, Medium, or low weight Heavy makes you useless. That is just bad board QQing right there. What it does, though, is force your game style into less damage by taking the long road around (not always possible based on the map being played) OR you're restricted to Heavy/Assault support because you can't risk putting yourself out there for fear of getting demolished.

There were far fewer assaults when they had R&R. It needs to be brought back.

[WildeKarde]

Mediums can get kills as they can mop up the battered heavy's and assault but they aren't great as a choice a lot of time. You can get an alpha straight to the face without even seeing the enemy mech. You can get good KDR's but it means nothing in the grand scheme, in fact I've a 5.0 KDR in YLW but doesn't mean it'll turn a battle on it's own.

There are more reasons not to play a medium than to choose it and as has been said they need to revamp the matchmaking to account for what a mech is actually carrying. Once their is a BV for each mech and piece of equipment then it'll balance out more.

And reduce the mediums size .....

[Trauglodyte]

Well, you can't fault people for wanting to play Heavies and Assaults. Look at the environment that we play in - everything is heavy alphas. So, if you assume that you're going to be on the other end of a 40+ alpha, you've got to make the decision of whether you're a good enough pilot to avoid it OR go in the other direction and take a mech that has enough armor to be able to survive it. The kicker on the latter option (ie, the bigger mech) is that it, too, allows you to take a massive alpha loadout which means that you are now contributing to the same problem that you're trying to survive. Its akin to a dog chasing his tail. None of this will change until either heat is altered, hard points are limited, or a combination of the two. I'm all for creativity in mech design but, for the health and long term survivability of the game, something needs to be done to curtail the current game direction.