27 replies to this topic

[Darklord]

What i'm asking is should all the mechs be balance from light to assault to be able to compete with each other,Or should light mechs fear other weight classes and so on.
VWE had a policy to make sure all mechs had a chance against each other no matter the tonnage because the games were more towards the free for all instead of lance vs lance.
In MWOL i see it being more lance vs lance and so i think mechs need to worry what might be around the next corner and be smart with tactics and less of the "barbarian charge" attacks.


DL

[Asmudius Heng]

I think the roles the mechs play will determine the usefulness in certain situations.

Heavier mechs are gonna pack more guns and have more armour thats a fact. Additional mobility for lighter mechs migth compensate somewhat but not completely and that is fine.

As long as the roles of the mech are done well everyone should contribute to the victory.

[Havoc2]

There's no way that light 'Mechs should be able to stand toe-to-toe against a similarly skilled pilot in an assault 'Mech. That would pretty much reduce the 'Mech classes to cosmetic only. Like what colour the hair of your avatar is.

The name of the game for MW (in my mind) has always been teamwork. You get 4 skilled pilots who work by themselves against 4 skilled pilots who work together, the team who works together will win together.

[Phoenixfire]

Have to have a way for lights to contribute without kills. Maybe set up some mission based gameplay where fast light mechs are at an advantage for completing the mission. I have to say though that even in MW4, Lights could take out the heavies as long as you weren't on a map with a large flat terrain.

[AJC]

Absolutely there should be a way to give all mech sizes some niche to see play since even one of the core elements of the universe is stuff like scout lances of light and smaller medium mechs relaying info to bigger guns of high end mediums and higher classes so that the big guns can deploy their lead were it needs to be while the smaller guys keep the flankers from munching on the rear ends of the big guys.

[Scott Wolfpack Rider]

When an Assault or even a heavy gets a Light mech in its reticule *SPLAT* is the order of the day. I tend to pilot recon mechs and we never expect to take down the big boys alone. However, the higher mobility and good approaches mean we can get in, NARC a beasty, and call for indirect fire over the coms while hightailing it out of the AO. After the initial chaso and damage, hit and run attacks even with smaller weapons can mean the difference.

[Jack Gallows]

There's really no way to "balance" an Assault against a Light 'mech, other then each has it's own advantages. Atlas versus Locust is a pretty uneven match, since the Locust pilot has to be really really really good to take down something with that much armor alone (it's not impossible) without slipping up before the Atlas can vaporize the poor Lowcost.

That's where strategy comes into play. A smart light/medium/etc. pilot is going to learn and know his limits and the limits of his enemies and use them to his advantage. That Atlas firing a lot to try to end the fight? He's probably running hot..keep him like that and wear him down when he gets close to shut down...keep in cover until he lightens up to cool down and hit him from behind.

Also, seeing as this is team play, you probably aren't going to get stuck in that kind of situation very often, so that Locust might spot for his team and allow them to strike at the Atlas and his pals easy, thus being a powerful member of the team. On the flip side, that Atlas might be a Commander type role, helping to give bonuses to his allies ability to hit or detect enemies/etc, and may help them remove the Locust from the equation before it can help his own team.

Each weight class is going to be better suited to certain roles, or be able to fill more then one. It's up to the players to mix and match to their own play styles and find a team that works for them.

[CobraFive]

They've already talked about this, in interviews especially. They want every mech class is viable. In their own words, they don't want a lance of four assault 'mechs to be the end-all-be-all. Their goal is to make the best lance be one of each class- Light, Medium, heavy, Assault.

My concern is this: They have described several times how they want light 'mechs to be effective, with the electronic warfare systems. And we already know why Assault 'mechs are the best at what they're meant to do. But what about the other classes? Why go half way? Moreover, why not go 1 light for scouting and three assaults?

[Spoon]

cobrafive, on 02 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

They've already talked about this, in interviews especially. They want every mech class is viable. In their own words, they don't want a lance of four assault 'mechs to be the end-all-be-all. Their goal is to make the best lance be one of each class- Light, Medium, heavy, Assault.

My concern is this: They have described several times how they want light 'mechs to be effective, with the electronic warfare systems. And we already know why Assault 'mechs are the best at what they're meant to do. But what about the other classes? Why go half way? Moreover, why not go 1 light for scouting and three assaults?

A valid question, how will mediums fit in all of this?

[Asmudius Heng]

cobrafive, on 02 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

My concern is this: They have described several times how they want light 'mechs to be effective, with the electronic warfare systems. And we already know why Assault 'mechs are the best at what they're meant to do. But what about the other classes?

I think that different weight ranges can all perform different roles as wlel though.

An assault can be a sensor mech, it might not be as fast so cannot scout, but if it has a very powerful sensor it might be a vinding force for a lance who stay around it for its sensor vision. It might have to be less powerful weapon or amrour wise to do this perhaps?

I think lumping each weith class into a role is not the way they will do it. I think each individual mech type needs a role possibly be able to do more than one.

That still leaves us with the problem of why everyone would not just take an assault and I think that will have to be handled another way anyway. There needs to be some sort of emchanics, or limitations and I am sure there will be otherwise it still will become top heavy I am sure.

[Jack Gallows]

spoon, on 02 November 2011 - 07:13 PM, said:

A valid question, how will mediums fit in all of this?

Well, mediums and heavy. We all know the bread and butter of most Assault mechs.

cobrafive, on 02 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

Why go half way? Moreover, why not go 1 light for scouting and three assaults?

Hopefully it'll be addressed by roles. If you've got an enemy team with one light to help scout/counter the other light mech, and those 3 Assault have to basically wade in blind, a couple of decently fast Medium or Heavies might be able to take advantage of singling out each Assault in turn.

Going to have to wait for more info, hard to say really how it'll actually happen in game.

Edited by Jack Gallows, 02 November 2011 - 07:36 PM.

[theginganinja]

The mediums and heavies will have the same purposes as in the other games and the novels - they're the middle ground between the extremes of fragile scout and mighty glacier. As you go up through the weight classes, you get more weapons and armor at the cost of speed and, based on the devs' comments, electronic warfare components. Basically, they allow you to be more of a generalist or jack-of-all-trades. You can do more stuff, but you won't be perfect at it.

[Xhaleon]

Asmudius Heng, on 02 November 2011 - 07:17 PM, said:

An assault can be a sensor mech, it might not be as fast so cannot scout, but if it has a very powerful sensor it might be a vinding force for a lance who stay around it for its sensor vision. It might have to be less powerful weapon or amrour wise to do this perhaps?

Yes, a Cyclops could do that, and is iconic enough to fill the role if you aren't stuffing MWO with hundred designs or so.

Hell, it wouldn't be right if we couldn't field a good proper Steiner scout lance of 4 Atlases.

The way I see it, Lights handle scouting and rear-ending Assaults that are too slow to keep up. Mediums hunt lights and provide distractions and interceptors for heavier classes to get into position. Heavies hunt Mediums and provide the backbone of the the force and fire support against anything else, although Heavy mechs in general are good for everything. Finally, Assaults make Heavies and careless Mediums into mincemeat, but have problems facing zippy lights that poke their **** and call in ambushes from their own Assaults and Heavies.

Yeeeah... it's definitely not Pokemon.

[VYCanis]

Well if the game only involved straight up slug matches where you always know where the enemy is going to come from and the only goal is wipe out the other team, then yeah, its gonna be heavies and assaults aw day, erry day.

However when your precious assaults and heavies run the risk of getting outflanked, put through ECM, and are getting barraged by long range weapons that you can't catch up with, and every movement you make is being broadcasted to the other team by scouts, those lowly lights and mediums can return to base to repair and rearm and be back again 3 times for every time one of your assaults does, and they've captured or destroyed every objective before you get there, then people will see the value of a balanced team.

Edited by VYCanis, 02 November 2011 - 07:46 PM.

[Neutron IX]

Darklord, on 02 November 2011 - 05:59 PM, said:

What i'm asking is should all the mechs be balance from light to assault to be able to compete with each other,Or should light mechs fear other weight classes and so on.
VWE had a policy to make sure all mechs had a chance against each other no matter the tonnage because the games were more towards the free for all instead of lance vs lance.
In MWOL i see it being more lance vs lance and so i think mechs need to worry what might be around the next corner and be smart with tactics and less of the "barbarian charge" attacks.


DL

http://www.sarna.net...ercer_Ravannion here's some interesting anecdotal information regarding how Lights stack up versus higher weight classes, at least so far as Battletech canon is concerned.

[Ossie]

xhaleon, on 02 November 2011 - 07:43 PM, said:

Yes, a Cyclops could do that, and is iconic enough to fill the role if you aren't stuffing MWO with hundred designs or so.

Hell, it wouldn't be right if we couldn't field a good proper Steiner scout lance of 4 Atlases.

The way I see it, Lights handle scouting and rear-ending Assaults that are too slow to keep up. Mediums hunt lights and provide distractions and interceptors for heavier classes to get into position. Heavies hunt Mediums and provide the backbone of the the force and fire support against anything else, although Heavy mechs in general are good for everything. Finally, Assaults make Heavies and careless Mediums into mincemeat, but have problems facing zippy lights that poke their **** and call in ambushes from their own Assaults and Heavies.

Yeeeah... it's definitely not Pokemon.

That looks like a pretty good assessment of what we should expect. Coupled with a variety of terrain, it sounds like they will be incorporating generalized roles for each class of mech that a team can either take advantage of or ignore at their own risk.

[HanaYuriko]

There's been nearly three decades of play testing for 'mech designs from the table top to MW4. Some designs are excellent for their weight class while others are lacking.

Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each machine as they are currently designed by their TRO specifications and the skill to put that knowledge to use should be the key to a simulation style game. Not trying to balance out the weight classes or designs to make for an even game play mechanic across the board.

So in other words:

*smears makeup and gets the ugly cry going*
Leave Britt...er...The 'mechs allloooonnne!!!"

[Rodney28021]

we'll just have to wait for the game to release and find out how it plays.

[BlazeKaiser]

The difference is classes determines largely what you can mount.

There are some small mechs that mount big guns, such as the Hollandeer, but they often are extremely unbalanced. Hollander for example has no secondary weapons, no advanced equipment, its very slow for a light mech, and has very limited ammo.

larger mechs fix all those problems by cost more overall.

a rule of thumb is to determine weight for equality. 2 50 tons mechs can mount similar firepower to 1 100 ton.
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for the most part the levels would be progressive like start with light and work your way up to assault class. If you miss the light mech speed, you can made a blitz style asssult mech with high speed at the cost of low armor and/or firepower.

if there are objectives beyond simpply destroying all mechs like Capture the Flag, Spot the Target, and other non mech classes, light mechs would still be useful even at high levels.

[GHQCommander]

Keep in mind this is a team game. Don't ever think of how you'll fight alone and think about how you will play as a key part of any team.

Light mechs are also harder to hit, many may do a lot of jumping just as your about fire LRM etc. They will be great for using as bait, the opposing team using up some ammo and increasing their heat firing on a hard to hit target. The target suffering little damage as a result.

It's a tactic