32 replies to this topic

[AntiSqueaker]

It's been said over and over that medium mechs are too big. Or heavy/Assault mechs are too small, one way or the other.

PGI has said it would be too difficult to rescale mechs so that my 50 ton Centurion isn't the size of a Cataphract, or my Wolverine the size of a Victor.

So in higher ELO/competitive circles mediums are considered to be kinda trash, with the Shadow Hawk being the lone exception because of the high mounted ballistic and JJs with acceptable armor values compared to the 50 tonners. Why take an AC/20 hunchback when you can fit more ammo, 2 PPCs, more armor, and Jump Jets into a package thats only a third bigger?

[Boss Awesome]

It really is pretty silly how big mediums are. I was standing next to a Griffin and a Kintaro and I swear they were bigger than my Cataphract. This game would be SO much more balanced if mech size was actually scaled by tonnage.

[Jin Ma]

Obligatory

[CarlBar]

The core of the issue is that PGI just never took account of how being a bigger target affects accuracy and how speed isn't as effective as on TT.

Let's look at an obvious comparison. A Hunchback 4G firing it's AC-20 at a Cicaida 3M firing it's UAC5 back.

To hit rolls in TT are rolled on 2D6, Default to hit roll is a 4 or more.

You can find the Modifiers table over at Sarna wiki by searching for "attack modifiers table". But in basic terms a Cicaidia running flat out inflicts a +4 modifier to the required score due to monument and suffers a +2 modifier due to it's own, whilst the Hunchback inflicts and suffers +2 modifiers for it's movement. In addition an AC-20 has a short range band of 90m whilst an IS UAC5 is 180m, this means the Cicaida can inflict a further +2 modifier on the Hunchback.

Result the Cicaidia needs an 8+, the Hunchback a 12+. Or in probability terms, 1 in 36 AC-20 shots will hit while 15 in 36 AC-5 shots will hit. As a result the Cicaida packs a much nastier punch vs the Hunchback than vice versa. What counterbalances this is that if the Hunchback does hit that AC-20 is going to do ridiculous damage to the cicaida, and more importantly that same extreme punch (and random hit distribution), gives a Hunchback a good chance of surviving a couple or more turns in close against something like an assault, An AC-20 still strips a respectable amount of armor from an assault, and if it's been softened up allready by something it could do a lot of internal damage.

And the thing is that Cicaida could do the exact same thing to an Atlas, only the Atlas's slower speed would make the accuracy of the Cicaida even higher and if stays in the right range band it's far enough out the Atlas can't do much with it's SRM's and AC-20 and ML's, but close enough in the LRM rack is nullified. Sure the sheer armor advantage of the atlas and the presence of so much ammo and the extra ML's will ultimately be telling, but the Cicaida can make a real pain of itself for a long time and force the Atlas to waste a lot of shots on it.

The catch of course is that TT as a balancing mechanic makes high speed a lt more effective and screwing up aim than it ever is in game. Whilst said cicaida is certainly going to hit with nearly every UAC5 shot, the Hunchback, (or Atlas), is also going to hit with a modest percentage of it's return fire instead of need pure luck. The change in hit rate's ultimatum disfavors the Cicaida really heavily even without the weapon DPS differences taken into account.

Without some kind of compensation factor the Cicaida is never going to be as good as it could be on the table top.

[Johnny Reb]

They are way to big but pgi will not change it!

[Tahribator]

I think pretty much everyone agrees that they're too big in this community. The only decent sized ones are Blackjack(and look how popular it is) and Cicada to some extend.

So, do what everyone else does and pretend that they don't exist and heavies are the mediums of MWO. Then, treat mediums like "end game" content, they're the stuff you want to pilot when you want the biggest challenge.

[Whatzituyah]

You do realize that the mech is refering more to weight rather then size? So a mech could be larger but they could move faster if they are medium.

[SgtMagor]

dunno, never seemed to have a problem with the scale of mechs, but a Sherman tank weighs about 30tons. but it doesn't have arms. or legs. you stand it on end it would be almost 20 feet tall, so I can see a light humanoid mech being close to 30 feet tall. just trying to get an idea about the size of mechs.
Weight 66,800 pounds (30.3 tonnes; 29.8 long tons; 33.4 short tons) Length 19 ft 2 in (5.84 m) Width 8 ft 7 in (2.62 m) Height 9 ft (2.74 m) Crew 5 (Commander, gunner, loader, driver, co-driver)

[Mycrus]

Nope, assaults are just too small...

[SgtMagor]

been thinking the same thing too, maybe the assaults are to small, and everybody is looking at this scale thing the wrong way?

[Sephlock]

[oldradagast]

Roland, on 08 January 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

It's been almost universally accepted by the playerbase that medium weight chassis are too large.

However, this opinion has been continually disregarded by PGI, not only to the extent that old mechs are not resized, but they continue to make NEW medium weight chassis which are equally huge.

Thus, the problem just keeps getting worse, and makes it less and less likely that they will ever fix it.

Precisely.

The two mech chassis I would say that see the least play are the Trebuchet and the Quickdraw. Both suffer from abnormally large models and have nothing really in their favor regarding hitboxes, and their weapon loadouts are not that special, so there's no reason to play them.

The Centurion, while also oversized, still sees some play thanks to its durability. Shadowhawks, while too tall, are still good mechs, and the Griffins and Wolverines also seem pretty good.

Overall, some of the oversized mechs are playable, but that's only because the hitboxes happened to work out to be extremely good and more than enough to balance out the oversized model. In other cases, the oversized mech is simply fragile and next to useless.

As you said, Medium mechs suffer from this more than any other class. The 55-tonners are all a bit too big or too tall, the Centurion is too large, and the Trebuchet is as well. No other weight class has any many oversized mechs, and it's a known fact that oversized mechs are comparatively fragile and see less play, regardless of weight class (Quickdraw, Awesome, etc.)

Sadly, fixing this takes a bunch of time and effort, and thus I doubt anything will be done about it... though I'd be happier if future mechs were not out of scale, but this also isn't really happening. The 55-tonners are all large, the Thunderbolt is rather big for it's size - at least it's hitboxes are good - and so on. The lack of consistency is noticeable and unfortunate.

[Ph30nix]

Im still in awe that a mech the size of the thunderbolt is only 65 tons.... correct me if im wrong but isnt the damn thing the same size as an awesome?