99 replies to this topic

[Caboose30]

Okay, seriously. I hear so many people complaining about how losing a whole leg is a death sentence and it shouldn't be, or how easy lights are to kill and shouldn't be - things along those lines. I'm going to single out the Raven for my example, because that's been my bane. It's called a Light Mech, not an Assault Raven. Everyone who went through the following scenario knows exactly what I mean.

I remember one particular game where an ECM Raven spotted me from across the map (can't remember which one, I think Forest Colony) and made a beeline for me. I drive a Founder's Cat, kept mostly stock. So of course, couldn't do anything with my missiles. Tried hitting it with lasers, but once it got behind me there was almost nothing I could do. Streaks hammered me so hard that I couldn't aim straight, but somehow I managed to get it's armor in the red, and take a leg off it. It promptly disappeared. Suddenly, I'm hammered by more streaks. And then I'm dead. I see the mech take off past my corpse and realize that legging it gave it the perfect speed to stay right behind me and keep pounding me until I died.

It's an extreme example, but it happened with a lot of light mechs. Then the hit detection issue was mostly solved, and all of a sudden "Light mechs need a buff!". Then LRM speed was increased so that fast mechs can't outrun a freaking *missile*, and then "LRMs are OP!". No, they don't, and no they aren't. Light mechs are dying exactly like they should. Play a TT game and square a Jenner against a Catapult - tell me who wins. All players have an enormous advantage here in that they can aim at already damaged portions on a target. You can't do that in TT without a major drawback, so there has to be some kind of other compensation. Get over it. Light mechs are supposed to scout, run, and every now and then confused the hell out of the other team. Aside from that, if they enter a fair fight - they die.

Love you, developers, for fixing one of my biggest banes and putting light mech pilots in their place.

[SuperJoe]

I'm so happy they made light mechs the easiest thing to kill in this game. Thankyou PGI, maybe people will finally get some sense and stop playing them!!!

[FupDup]

JuiceCaboose, on 28 May 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

Light mechs are supposed to scout, run, and every now and then confused the hell out of the other team. Aside from that, if they enter a fair fight - they die.

I don't need a 35 ton pair of binoculars on legs to tell me that the enemy is still camping behind the ridge like they have been for the past eight minutes. The poor little guy won't even get paid worth a damn for his troubles.



If you really want to play the TT card for lights, there are some things you're going to have to consider:

1. Lights in TT were the second most common weight class, second only to mediums. This is because they were very cheap to build and repair, whereas heavies and assaults cost too much resources to spam constantly. In MWO, heavies and assaults are the most common with lights and mediums lagging behind due to resource overabundance and game mechanics that only reward killing and damaging. It's completely backwards from TT.

2. TT had Battle Value. For every Atlas you took, I could take 3.5 Commandos. That's why it was fair for an individual large mech to beat an individual small mech: because of numerical superiority. Your Zealot might be able to beat my Zergling in a 1 on 1, but I could take a lot more Zerglings than you could take Zealots. That doesn't work in MWO. You get a static number of eight player slots regardless of what class they are. This means that each individual class has to somehow be able to contribute to the team in a noticeable way for it to be worth piloting.

3. Not all lights in TT were scouts. Many were designed for fire support/sniping, high-damage hit-and-run, or even brawling. Urbanmech, Hollander, Cougar, Adder, Mandrill, Piranha, Jenner, Commando, Uller, Firestarter, and Panther are the main examples that I can think of for non-scouting lights.




PS: Lights only made up 11% of this game's population before ballistic HSR and non-premium Highlanders (3050 weekend challenge, Heavy Metal release time). Assaults and heavies were each 33% (2/3 combined). Mediums were 22%. Source: http://mwomercs.com/...19#entry2220919. You can take your Steiner Scout Lances back to previous Mechwarrior titles like MW4 where they belong.

What, exactly, is their "place"? Collecting dust in players' garages? You said it yourself that they were "one of your biggest banes" so it appears that you're a rock player wanting paper to be nerfed and scissors to be left as-is.

Edited by FupDup, 28 May 2013 - 06:23 PM.

[Otto Cannon]

[One Medic Army]

You know what I blame for the light mech hate? Elo.
Specifically the player score at the end of the match, and how it's heavily skewed towards dealing damage.

What does this mean? It means that light mechs tend to be at artificially low Elo for their skill since lights are flat out incapable of getting high damage values typically speaking. (Yeah, sometimes it happens, but we all know that lights are usually lower dmg mechs compared to heavy/assault)

So we end up with Lights who are almost impossible to hit by the people they're matched up against, lights who are piloted by people who know how to avoid being hit.

Then we have the false assumption by numerous players that Lights should always lose a straight up fight to something else, despite there not being any other real role for light mechs currently.

And finally there's the pure frustration caused by the way Lights can actually fight out of their weight class. Since solid hits tend to cripple Lights, and they mount less weaponry, we end up with battles where one side is very hard to hit (because they have no armor) and slowly kills a larger mech. The drawn out process can be incredibly frustrating.

[Livewyr]

Light mechs complaining about being nerfed in for combat roles..

like an Atlas complaining that he isn't suited to scout.

[One Medic Army]

Livewyr, on 28 May 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Light mechs complaining about being nerfed in for combat roles..

like an Atlas complaining that he isn't suited to scout.

I seem to recall someone participating in a few Steiner Scout Lances.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 28 May 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Light mechs complaining about being nerfed in for combat roles..

like an Atlas complaining that he isn't suited to scout.

Except that plenty of lights were intended for combat in CBT. The Commando and Jenner, for instance, were of the "striker" role. This means that their job was to hit the enemy pretty damn hard (preferably from behind) and then run away before getting shot. The Commando was even known for having a disproportionally high damage output for its size.

Edited by FupDup, 28 May 2013 - 06:35 PM.

[Squirtbox]

Livewyr, on 28 May 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Light mechs complaining about being nerfed in for combat roles..

like an Atlas complaining that he isn't suited to scout.

So just by me choosing to pilot a light mech I should instantly be unable to contribute any sort of damage to my team? It's already bad enough that my two preferred light mechs are jenners, and my 5d seeing as ravens with streaks just destroy me with very little I can do about it.

EDIT: Spelling is hard.

Edited by Squirtbox, 28 May 2013 - 06:42 PM.

[Tennex]

lights have it bad enough... their old immunity to LRMs were reasonable.

not sure why they removed that.
now leg nerf, seismic sensors, HSR(understandable) we will be hard pressed to see any light mechs in game.


well they had all mech chassis usable until recently. so kudos for keeping it up for that long i guess. Its no simple feat.


With no reason to play light mechs, and no light mechs to keep assaults in check.
Let the arms race begin!

Edited by Tennex, 28 May 2013 - 06:49 PM.

[Tennex]

One Medic Army, on 28 May 2013 - 06:27 PM, said:

You know what I blame for the light mech hate? Elo.
Specifically the player score at the end of the match, and how it's heavily skewed towards dealing damage.

What does this mean? It means that light mechs tend to be at artificially low Elo for their skill since lights are flat out incapable of getting high damage values typically speaking. (Yeah, sometimes it happens, but we all know that lights are usually lower dmg mechs compared to heavy/assault)

end screen damage doesn't really factor into elo.

it does indirectly.
but elo is calculated by win/lose rate. so if light mechs have lower elo, that just means player piloting the tend to lose more.

Edited by Tennex, 28 May 2013 - 06:50 PM.

[One Medic Army]

Tennex, on 28 May 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

end screen damage doesn't really factor into elo.

it does indirectly.
but elo is calculated by win/lose rate. so if light mechs have lower elo, that just means player piloting the tend to lose more.

I thought they were modifying Elo gained/lost by the "match score" you see at the end of round.

[SuperJoe]

if only there was more to scouting than back capping, they seem to be trying to kill it in every way possible with the addition of seismic and what not.

I wish there was more of a role for lights and mediums other than being a possible big detriment to your team.

[Thorqemada]

Just come from a game another Light Wolfpack reaped everything apart in 10 to 15 seconds.
Just come from another game were a Raven stands 1 Medium and 2 other Ravens for an incredible amount of time.
Just come from another game a Spider with an PPC drives everyone insane.
Lights still be viable but they cant no longer mimic Assaultmechs and that is a good change!

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

I love my lights, but I do my best not to get caught in a "fair fight" with anything. I know that one good alpha from an assault, most heavies, and some mediums will take out a leg or strip my CT armor, and I try to maneuver accordingly.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

One Medic Army, on 28 May 2013 - 07:09 PM, said:

I thought they were modifying Elo gained/lost by the "match score" you see at the end of round.

Match score is largely meaningless right now, and PGI has admitted as much. They are well aware that it is heavily skewed toward damage.

That said, the Cicada is a light in medium clothing and I've been having a blast lately leveling mine. My KDR in the things is pretty high, my win rate is good, and it's not unusual for me to be at or near top damage. My Jenners are just as fun, though I've played them enough that I got a bit bored with them.

Streaks are still a huge issue, of course. If you don't have Streaks of your own (Jenner D or K, X-5) then you're as good as dead going up against somebody who has even half a brain to go with his Streaks (incompetents do exist, of course, and it's pretty easy to win a fight when the enemy can rarely manage to get/maintain a lock). Lights will be back in a big way once PGI fixes the splash and guidance issues that they have. Fortunately the BAP change means it's no longer ECM Commandos and ECM Ravens or bust for light v light combat.

[Taemien]

The idea of Lights 'being put in their place' is ridiculous. In TT and Lore, Lights are able to be sent en mass against assaults because well you can write in on a piece of paper and say, "Thats how it is."

That doesn't work in MWO. In MWO a Light mechs costs exactly the same as an Assault mech. A 3 Million Cbill Light costs exactly the same as a 28 million assault. They both cost ONE PLAYER SLOT. Therefor changes have to be made to make them roughly equal (as equal as asymmetrical balance can be). This is not TT where we can have 20 lights face off against 5 assaults and its even.

Now.. if you want to change the match maker so that when you take an Atlas loaded to the brim, then I can take 4 nearly stock Jenners to face off against you, then and only then do you have a point that lights should be put in their place.

Fair is fair.

[Livewyr]

One Medic Army, on 28 May 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

I seem to recall someone participating in a few Steiner Scout Lances.

Well, a single Steiner scout walking right past the enemy team on the sidewalk and being ignored...

FupDup, on 28 May 2013 - 06:35 PM, said:

Except that plenty of lights were intended for combat in CBT. The Commando and Jenner, for instance, were of the "striker" role. This means that their job was to hit the enemy pretty damn hard (preferably from behind) and then run away before getting shot. The Commando was even known for having a disproportionally high damage output for its size.

Precisely, intended for striker as in "Engage, but not be engaged."

Participating in combat means engaging and being engaged; something the light mech is not suited for compared to heavies and assaults. (The flip side of the Atlas not being suited for scouting compared to lights and mediums.)

Squirtbox, on 28 May 2013 - 06:41 PM, said:

So just by me choosing to pilot a light mech I should instantly be unable to contribute any sort of damage to my team? It's already bad enough that my two preferred light mechs are jenners, and my 5d seeing as ravens with streaks just destroy me with very little I can do about it.

EDIT: Spelling is hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

(I said combat, not damage dealing. There is a distinct difference- A naval ship launching a cruise missile 500 miles away is doing damage, but is not taking fire and is therefore not in combat.)

But good try.

[IceSerpent]

JuiceCaboose, on 28 May 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

I remember one particular game where an ECM Raven spotted me from across the map (can't remember which one, I think Forest Colony) and made a beeline for me. I drive a Founder's Cat, kept mostly stock. So of course, couldn't do anything with my missiles. Tried hitting it with lasers, but once it got behind me there was almost nothing I could do.

Uhm, don't get me wrong, but if you are having an issue with somebody getting behind your Cat (120 degree torso twist, JJ-capable), you need to work on your piloting skills a bit more. Just saying...

[ZonbiBadger]

SuperJoe, on 28 May 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

I'm so happy they made light mechs the easiest thing to kill in this game. Thankyou PGI, maybe people will finally get some sense and stop playing them!!!

Lights are lightly armored but not useless. You sound bitter.