224 replies to this topic

[Wolfways]

TheUncle, on 05 October 2013 - 04:12 AM, said:

I hope you are not stating that the conversion from Tt to MWO went wrong, because in that case a light mech would never, unless crazily lucky, have a chance against the big dogs.

So I guess you still feel like Lights, or rather lighter Mechs in general are overpowered vs Assaults, in that speed is much more valuable than armor.
If that is the case, then i disagree. I actually find it great if the most expensive mech in a free to play game can be beaten by the least expensive if played well. This is not about being true to the lore, it's about fun and variety.

In that case then you don't disagree as i never said a light shouldn't be able to take on an assault. I'm saying lights should not be able to brawl so well that they replace mediums.
The game should be, imo, if you want to be fast and brawl use a medium. If you want to be even faster and a hit and run fighter choose a light mech.

[Nryrony]

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 04:37 AM, said:

In that case then you don't disagree as i never said a light shouldn't be able to take on an assault. I'm saying lights should not be able to brawl so well that they replace mediums.
The game should be, imo, if you want to be fast and brawl use a medium. If you want to be even faster and a hit and run fighter choose a light mech.

But this won't be possible if you stick to TT, a hunchy won't be fast enough to brawl, as well as he would lack armor for it.

[Wolfways]

Nryrony, on 05 October 2013 - 04:25 AM, said:

Actually I think your the one not getting the point.

You suggest, because a mech is bigger and possibly slower (hello 80kph Victor...), a smaller mech can simply chose where to put its dmg.

This is not a fact and its not true as well.

So you can't hit a large mechs components by aiming.

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- It works both ways

Every mech has a higher chance of hitting a big mech - or a bigger location twice then on a smaller mech (at least when they move - otherwise it stays the same chance...).

But this doesn't mean that you roll dice when you hit a light mech, you too will hit a light mech multiple times in the same spot - thanks to aiming. (This excludes the Spider ofc.)

So you can hit a small mechs components by aiming.

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All you do is put things into the room and call them "facts", that's a fact.

Okay...

[Nryrony]

You can aim and hit large mech components as well as small mech components, the chance to hit smaller components might be lower. But still, it will be very noticeable over random rolls.

Did you ever play this game btw?

[Cybermech]

Wolfways, on 04 October 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

It's my opinion.
And yes i've heard that assaults are dominating matches and are, in varying degrees, "the most common class" to "the only class worth bringing to a fight". In my matches heavies are the most dominant class by far i'd say, followed by lights, assaults, then mediums.
Actually there's a thread somewhere around here where people are totaling up mechs in their matches and seeing that heavies are actually the most popular. I believe Bryan even said in an interview that Cataphracts are the most popular mechs.

How exactly do you judge the skill needed to pilot a class of mech? Even if you ignore that mechs within a class perform differently there are situations that affect different classes in different ways.
If a pilot does little damage but manages to avoid taking much damage and goes on to win the match by capping is the player a skilled pilot? After all, he used tactics and a knowledge of the battlefield to avoid damage to get a win.
If i'm sitting in a concealed position in my RVN-3L lighting up enemy with TAG for my teams LRM's am i a good pilot? Or do you only consider damage and kills as an indicator of skill? If that's the case then i guess i'm a bad heavy pilot as many times i've left heavily damaged mechs for others to finish off while i go looking for other enemy, but then i don't care about my KDR.

DDC and other atlas's are very popular and those who can pilot them, have stated many times that hitting lights (excluding spiders) is quite easy for them.
Slow turning rate has not been an issue since the skill unlocks have been buffed a long time ago... fact.
You have just proven my point that Ac's have no issue in hitting lights (exclude spider) since it has been proven that heavies are used the most.
Now since AC's have little issue with ammo, heat and hit detection that they are dominating the field.
JJ sniping is still a massive issue and has not been fixed at all.

You list is nearly correct, its Heavies, Assaults, lights, Mediums and Lights are only higher since capping is an option.
I do not care for KDR, I do judge weight class on how much you have to sweat in order to be effective on the field.
This is where Heavies and Assaults are easy, but they are meant to be slow, meant to have torso twisting issues which they do not.
You OP is wrong and not facts, it is your opinion which many people, from Assaults, Heavies and Light pilots has disagreed with your findings.
Yes TT armor got double across the board, but starting off there was already a difference in armor.
Actually doing it the way your suggesting puts the original calculations even more out of whack.

If a light caps the base, it doesn't involve skill at all.
What it mean is the enemy team was lacking the skill/know how to defend their base.
If a light is using ecm and a tag with out any issue then the skill falls to the enemy team not the pilot it self.
These thing involve little skill and little thought to do and lost on why it would be discussed.

I use lights because I can fill the gaps by going from one end to another, I can setup enemy front lines or even get attention to help reduce the enemy ability to focus fire.
Its not easy win, it doesn't work all the time and normally it takes 1 ac20 or 2x PPC to put me in my place.

Once again, skill unlocks are the worse thing to balancing this game and have completely made it very one sided.
Lag shield and ability to cap a base has been the only thing keeping lights alive.
HSR atm and the length of time to cap base has really changed this.

[Wolfways]

stjobe, on 05 October 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

It's very debatable, since several of your "facts" are wrong, and some key points omitted.

Here's just two of the issues with your "facts":

* "Every time you fire any weapon you get the same chance to hit every component."
- Wrong, the chance to hit a certain component depends on facing, and even within a certain facing there's a larger chance to hit certain components. E.g. the arms are twice as likely to get hits as the legs, the CT is twice as likely to get hit as a side torso; if you're firing from the left side you're much more likely to hit the left arm than the right, and so on.

You roll on a random hit location table.

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* "The only thing that reduces your chance of reliably hitting the same component over and over is the speed of the target mech."
- Wrong. Also a factor is the speed of your 'mech, the environment (cover etc), and other 'mechs in the area.

Obviously i'm not including things like cover because then you wouldn't be hitting at all.

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You've glanced over torso twist, a major factor in heavier 'mech survivability, that doesn't really work as well for lights with their much lower armour values. Sure, twisting helps a bit for lighter 'mechs, but it's key to the heavier 'mech surviving longer than the second cooldown.

So torso twisting is as effective as speed?

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You've also left out what actually happens on snake-eyes in BT; Two lucky rolls (snake-eyes followed by boxcars) and you've one-shot an opponent, no matter what weapon did the firing, or what the tonnage difference between the two 'mech was.

What does that have to do with hitting random locations?

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But the most glaring omission of all is the fact that the heavier 'mech gets to aim too. And contrary to your belief, it's not all that hard to hit a light 'mech with our pixel-perfect accuracy. If people can reliably headshot other 'mechs, why do you think it would be an issue to hit a light in the CT twice?

Because it's much easier to hit a slow moving target than a fast one?

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Please, please don't tell me that you think lock-on times with SSRMs are irrelevant?

Not completely irrelevant, but given the extremely short time it takes to get a lock i don't call it too important either. But then i don't use Streaks except on the commando's i've been working up the past few days.

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Heh, thanks. It's been a while since anyone called me a kid - and since I'm feeling my years this morning (really stiff neck), I needed a good chuckle.

In that case i apologize, but when someone resorts to posting pictures to ridicule someone else i just assume they are young and/or immature.

[Wolfways]

Nryrony, on 05 October 2013 - 04:42 AM, said:

But this won't be possible if you stick to TT, a hunchy won't be fast enough to brawl, as well as he would lack armor for it.

That's my point. PGI did stick to TT armour stats. so mediums suffer.
But i also believe that the way players customize mechs hurts the game too. Mediums can brawl, but because customized lights prioritize speed it makes it tougher on mediums who don't specialize in speed. The balance of brawling ability has shifted from mediums to lights.

[Wolfways]

Nryrony, on 05 October 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

You can aim and hit large mech components as well as small mech components, the chance to hit smaller components might be lower. But still, it will be very noticeable over random rolls.

Yes it's tougher to hit a small mechs components because of their speed.

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Did you ever play this game btw?

The TT? I played it about 30 years ago. Not much though, i just read the books a lot

[Cybermech]

actually the centurion is a great example of how torso twisting, turning speeds effects the overall effectiveness of the mech rather then speed.

Centurion-D is the original zombie mech.
Back when 8mans and pug were in the same que I could solo a whole team with a CNT-D and win the game for my team regardless of how many new players where on my side.

Once tweaking came in and the CNT-A got its buffs, mainly to twisting and turning it could do way more then the CNT-D could.
CNT-A with a 200 std engine (cause I like hardcore mode) could get away with more lag shield in corridors more then the CNT-D with a 350xl engine.
I'm talking about lag shield and not the ability to have one torso removed and continue on.

[stjobe]

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

You roll on a random hit location table.

No, you roll on one of five hit location tables (left, front, centre, kick, punch) depending on your angle of attack and degree of cover, and on those hit location tables not all target locations have equal probabilities to be hit.

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Obviously i'm not including things like cover because then you wouldn't be hitting at all.

Partial cover was a thing even in TT, as was attacker speed. You ignore both to try to get target speed to be the only factor. It isn't, not in TT and not in MWO.

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

So torso twisting is as effective as speed?

More so, for a heavy. Both as a defensive tool (since they don't have the speed of a light) and as an offensive tool (to keep the light in their firing arc).

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

What does that have to do with hitting random locations?

It's a result on the Hit Location Tables you seem so keen on referring to. I suggest you go and look at one before arguing further. Roll a "2" and you got to roll on the Crit Location Table, where a result of "12" meant three crits or 'mech destroyed. This could, if you were lucky, happen on the very first hit.

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Because it's much easier to hit a slow moving target than a fast one?

It is, but that difference is not large enough to warrant getting 75% less armour than the slow moving target, especially not on top of you already having about 20% of the total armour of the heavier target.

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Not completely irrelevant, but given the extremely short time it takes to get a lock i don't call it too important either. But then i don't use Streaks except on the commando's i've been working up the past few days.

Perhaps you should use them more, they're very effective against light 'mechs. If you do, you might see that locking on without line-of-sight is a major advantage.

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

In that case i apologize, but when someone resorts to posting pictures to ridicule someone else i just assume they are young and/or immature.

No apology needed, kid

[Wolfways]

Cybermech, on 05 October 2013 - 04:53 AM, said:

DDC and other atlas's are very popular and those who can pilot them, have stated many times that hitting lights (excluding spiders) is quite easy for them.

I agree. I can hit any mech (including Spiders. Whether the damage registers is another matter) but the faster the mech the less chance i have of hitting a component i aim for.

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Slow turning rate has not been an issue since the skill unlocks have been buffed a long time ago... fact.
You have just proven my point that Ac's have no issue in hitting lights (exclude spider) since it has been proven that heavies are used the most.
Now since AC's have little issue with ammo, heat and hit detection that they are dominating the field.
JJ sniping is still a massive issue and has not been fixed at all.

Yeah, i agree with this.

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You list is nearly correct, its Heavies, Assaults, lights, Mediums and Lights are only higher since capping is an option.

Yesterday my wife and i were playing and she mentioned that there seemed to be even more lights around than usual, so we started counting them. Over the course of around a dozen matches there were about six lights per team, with the other six being fairly even between the other weight classes.
That's a little higher than normal but not by much.

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I do not care for KDR, I do judge weight class on how much you have to sweat in order to be effective on the field.
This is where Heavies and Assaults are easy, but they are meant to be slow, meant to have torso twisting issues which they do not.
You OP is wrong and not facts, it is your opinion which many people, from Assaults, Heavies and Light pilots has disagreed with your findings.
Yes TT armor got double across the board, but starting off there was already a difference in armor.
Actually doing it the way your suggesting puts the original calculations even more out of whack.

If a light caps the base, it doesn't involve skill at all.
What it mean is the enemy team was lacking the skill/know how to defend their base.
If a light is using ecm and a tag with out any issue then the skill falls to the enemy team not the pilot it self.
These thing involve little skill and little thought to do and lost on why it would be discussed.

I use lights because I can fill the gaps by going from one end to another, I can setup enemy front lines or even get attention to help reduce the enemy ability to focus fire.
Its not easy win, it doesn't work all the time and normally it takes 1 ac20 or 2x PPC to put me in my place.

Once again, skill unlocks are the worse thing to balancing this game and have completely made it very one sided.
Lag shield and ability to cap a base has been the only thing keeping lights alive.
HSR atm and the length of time to cap base has really changed this.

Are you saying lights have less survivability now?

[Cybermech]

Well sure lights have less survivability now.
especially atm, wow man I been playing jenner for a year and have done some awesome stuff with them.
Its really hard atm to take on a scouting assault, like victor with ac20, 2xml, 3xstreaks.
And its not the streaks, its the ac20.

I don't get the lag shield that once was, can't slow down to aim on certain points since random sniper will punish me for this.
Its actually quite hard and I pug most of my games.

Group of 4 lights have an advantage in certain areas and when they use this advantage they can get what they want out of it.
But it involves the enemy failing to prime a target.
The lights need to engage and disengage when being primary and needs some heavy cover like on canyon for the group of lights to win.
It still falls down to the enemy team and how it picks targets, also down to how the enemy mech reacts to the swarm.

Played plenty of games where enemy team thinks their gods in lights and just get wiped out with ease.

Edit: also depends on how much time the enemy team wastes on the one spider, I seen lots of people lose to this

Edited by Cybermech, 05 October 2013 - 05:49 AM.

[Kaijin]

Khobai, on 02 October 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

Anything you've read about lights in TT is irrelevant. MWO is not TT. Lights fill a completely different role in MWO because theyve been equalized with assaults.

So why do we have assaults again?

[Cybermech]

think equalized is a small bit over the top.
but if you compare them to TT to MWO there more able to compete in situations.

not played TT ever, but going by armor values I'd say lights just were instant death.

[stjobe]

Cybermech, on 05 October 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

think equalized is a small bit over the top.
but if you compare them to TT to MWO there more able to compete in situations.

not played TT ever, but going by armor values I'd say lights just were instant death.

I believe I've posted this before, perhaps even in this very thread:

The main difference between TT and MWO is that one is a turn-based board game with one player controlling anything from four to twelve 'mechs. In that setup, it's okay for one weight-class to totally outclass another, because sides were balanced with battle value; a balancing technique that took not only weight but offensive and defensive capabilities into account. In short, if you were up against an all-assault team and only had lights and mediums, you would outnumber them severely.

The other is a first-person, online PvP game, where each player controls a single 'mech, and sides are always equal in number. In such a setup it just isn't okay to have one weight class totally outclass another, because then the outclassed weight class would simply not be used. All 'mechs need to be viable or they won't be fielded (other than for shiggles).

Hence why PGI started talking about paper-rock-scissors, with the balance being light-medium-heavy-assault-lights; lights were supposed to be able to take out assaults, it was what balanced the paper-rock-scissors equation.

They since seem to have stopped talking about this kind of balance, but the foundation is still there, and it should still be there. If the speediest, most maneuverable 'mechs can't use that as an advantage to take down the slowest, least maneuverable 'mechs, what use is speed and maneuverability? There's nothing negating armour, why should there be anything negating speed and maneuverability (I'm looking at you here, SSRMs)?

So yes, while lights in TT weren't "instant death" (they still could use their speed and maneuverability to be hard-to-hit targets), lights in MWO are more effective fighting machines than their TT counterparts - and this is by design.

[Wolfways]

stjobe, on 05 October 2013 - 05:29 AM, said:

No, you roll on one of five hit location tables (left, front, centre, kick, punch) depending on your angle of attack and degree of cover, and on those hit location tables not all target locations have equal probabilities to be hit.

It's still a random hit location table.

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Partial cover was a thing even in TT, as was attacker speed. You ignore both to try to get target speed to be the only factor. It isn't, not in TT and not in MWO.

But i'm not talking about cover. I'm talking about already having hit the target and then rolling for target location.

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More so, for a heavy. Both as a defensive tool (since they don't have the speed of a light) and as an offensive tool (to keep the light in their firing arc).

Well if i ever see an Atlas that stops me hitting the component i'm aiming at by torso twisting i'll let you know.

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It's a result on the Hit Location Tables you seem so keen on referring to. I suggest you go and look at one before arguing further. Roll a "2" and you got to roll on the Crit Location Table, where a result of "12" meant three crits or 'mech destroyed. This could, if you were lucky, happen on the very first hit.


It is, but that difference is not large enough to warrant getting 75% less armour than the slow moving target, especially not on top of you already having about 20% of the total armour of the heavier target.


Perhaps you should use them more, they're very effective against light 'mechs. If you do, you might see that locking on without line-of-sight is a major advantage.


No apology needed, kid

I was going to respond to the rest but tbh i just don't care enough anymore. I'm actually starting to wonder if i'm playing the same game as everyone else. People claim to have no problem hitting any mech exactly where they want every time, others claim fast mechs are impossible to hit...I personally feel that it's easy to hit any mech, and easy to kill assaults but almost impossible to repeatedly hit a light in the same component.
But then again, when watching others play i often wonder if there are a lot of people letting their pets play

If the game is the way people like it then fine. I'm happy to play it while it's still fun...ish.
But to me weight class balance is...well it's better than weapon balance which is nonexistent atm.

Btw i can see why you like Commando's. Massive survivability (at least compared to my Raven) and the damage isn't bad. Although my best with one so far while working up the basics was only 70 match score and 500+ damage, but considering it was more than double my teammates scores i was happy. Must get out of pug matches...

Anyway, the purpose of the OP was to give my opinion, not start a thread war. So i'm out.
Should have listened to my wife in the first place when she told me not to bother as it's pointless

[stjobe]

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 06:11 AM, said:

Commando's. Massive survivability

Oh my god. Now I've seen it all.

[Wolfways]

Cybermech, on 05 October 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

think equalized is a small bit over the top.
but if you compare them to TT to MWO there more able to compete in situations.

not played TT ever, but going by armor values I'd say lights just were instant death.

Not really because armour matters little to a light, as the main objective is to not let the enemy get a chance to fire at you at all. i.e. attack the rear.
That's how i play lights in MWO...or i did before i realised it wasn't necessary.

[Nryrony]

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

Yes it's tougher to hit a small mechs components because of their speed.


The TT? I played it about 30 years ago. Not much though, i just read the books a lot

Since you admit that, how many AC20 hits can a Jenner take to the CT, and how many AC20 hits can a Atlas take to the CT?

Wolfways, on 05 October 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

Not really because armour matters little to a light, as the main objective is to not let the enemy get a chance to fire at you at all. i.e. attack the rear.
That's how i play lights in MWO...or i did before i realised it wasn't necessary.

And this is the problem, lights are too easy to hit atm (ofc except the Spider).

If there was a Duel mode, I would invite you to duel my Atlas D-DC

Edited by Nryrony, 05 October 2013 - 06:27 AM.

[Wolfways]

stjobe, on 05 October 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

Oh my god. Now I've seen it all.

You don't think that Commando's have good survivability? Isn't that what the whole "speed is life" thing is about?
lol maybe my opponents just suck, or i'm a better light pilot than i thought.