467 replies to this topic

[Devlin Pierce]

CyclonerM, on 04 July 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

Different roles indeed! All the lights currently are played either as fast snipers or harassers. I understand that the Firestarter cannot perform its intended role.. Of starting fires (yet?), but there is little place for scouts when you know more or less where the enemy team is and how many of them there are..

However, i am not sure they die quickly. Often a support heavy will have a hard time taking down a Spider or a Jenner.

Besides, i cannot wait to buy a Kit Fox!

I wish you could set trees on fire on some maps, and create a wall of flame that blocks thermals.

[Bryan Ekman]

Devlin Pierce, on 04 July 2014 - 09:41 AM, said:

Perhaps rewards for AMS/ECM and scouting activities. Or a more granular scoreboard that showcases these activities so other players can see more then just damage and kills?

This is our shot term strategy, re-balancing rewards.

[MischiefSC]

Make narc the new ecm.

Ligh/med only.

Reduce lrm buff effect.

Increase duration. Gives faster paperdoll to allies. Ecm only blocks perks, not targetting effect.

Add 2 module slots for lights.

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

Lights take more skill, carry less "stuff", and die more quickly. Along with there not being a ton of specific roles to be played.

We live in a bigger is better world.

And yes we are looking at improving the need and value for lights.

Also - plox to make forums more mobile friendly.

[Sandpit]

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

This is our shot term strategy, re-balancing rewards.

That's probably the best thing we've heard in a long time

Bryan, and the rest of PGI, no amount of trying to "force" players into lights and mediums is going to work. You have to come up with reasons for players to WANT to pilot those mechs.

As you said, almost by default, lights are the hardest class to use efficiently. That means you're essentially trying to get players to use more of the hardest thing in the game to use. It's time to start looking at giving players incentives and options instead of more restrictions. The restrictions aren't working, haven't worked, and won't work. A player is going to, and should be able to, drive whatever they're going to have the most fun with.

[Rampancy]

TBH I don't know if I agree with lights taking more skill

The effective vs. non-effective glass ceiling might be a little higher but my most effective mechs are by far my Jenners, and that's reflected in pretty much every single mech stat we have available for viewing.

[oldradagast]

I'm reasonably certain I've seen 2% or even 1% playing lights.

The painful reality is that they are nearly useless in this game. Why?

1) Game rewards damage dealt too heavily, which thus strongly encourages players to play huge mechs with lots of guns.

2) Pinpoint damage punishes anything with less armor, such as lights

3) Lights require not only a lot of skill to play, but a solid computer and internet connection because of their speed. Oh, and good reflexes, which tends to rule out older players.

What can be done about it?

1) Increase rewards for capping. The rewards on Conquest for capping are pathetic and there's no additional reward for "flipping" enemy cap points back, capping lots of points, etc. Nope... the light mech that runs all over the map and caps 5 points gets about the same - if not THE same - cap bonus as the Assault mech who happens to stand in 1 square for a few moments in the match. That's just poor mission design and discourages capping.

2) Lights should have lots of modules / consumable slots, and perhaps limit strikes to them: What if Lights could carry 2 strikes, Mediums 1, and nothing higher could carry any? It would be an artificial limitation, sure, but it would offer Lights (and Mediums) something special to do.

3) Seismic Sensors should be great on lighter mechs: The lighter the mech, the higher the speed it should be able to move and still get data on Seismic. Similarly, the lighter the mech, the less it should show up on Seismic. So, if a light mech could cruise around at 70 kph and still get full data, while an assault mech would have to be standing still, that would give lights another scouting tool unique to them.

4) Don't overdo falling damage on lighter mechs: Honestly, it seems that they can practically fall apart if they go off a cliff. I understand the desire to increase falling damage to discourage pop-tarts, but it punishes lights for scouting, and who ever heard of a scary light mech pop-tart, anyway?

Just some ideas...

Edited by oldradagast, 04 July 2014 - 10:05 AM.

[MonkeyCheese]

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

And yes we are looking at improving the need and value for lights.

Looking into the lower limit of the new fall damage for lights would be a start. Cliff and mountain falling damage is fine I 100% agree with that but the slope and barely airborne drop damages are just unfair for the locusts, commandos and the jumpjetless ravens.

[Rampancy]

Support c-bill/exp awards are fantastic, anything that boosts the relative combat effectiveness (including things like buffing seismic on lights, limiting calldowns to lights, etc.) of lights are going to break them, though. They're extremely effective fighters as-is, they do NOT needs a boost in that area.

[Sephlock]

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

Lights take more skill, carry less "stuff", and die more quickly. Along with there not being a ton of specific roles to be played.

We live in a bigger is better world.

And yes we are looking at improving the need and value for lights.

In part by adjusting things so that they no longer break their legs whenever they take a little tumble ?

I am all for ****ing on lights- especially via knockdowns, but it kinda takes away a lot of the fun if they are ****ing on themselves before I can even get to them.

[TheCaptainJZ]

1. The clan light mechs...aren't all that great.
2. IS light mechs...tend to die easily with low armor. Those that pilot lights can be really great at them, but lights are generally harder to play well.

Most light mechs never see the light of day because they just can't do anything all that useful. The average player is going to do less damage and get less cbills from them. Anything without ECM is at a handicap. That makes only a couple of variants really worth taking. Remember the Jenner? How many of those do you used to see compared to now?

[xe N on]

What hurts lights the most is that there is no passive radar mode.

[Alistair Winter]

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

This is our shot term strategy, re-balancing rewards.

Why not do something like nerfing heavy / assault mech turning / aiming speed, or making light mechs more agile?

When light mechs are clearly inferior, and you just increase the rewards, it makes it look like you intend light mechs to be for beginners, trying to save up cash to buy the assault mechs. If you want veteran players to play light mechs, surely re-balancing rewards is the wrong approach. Am I wrong?

[Rampancy]

Alistair Winter, on 04 July 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Why not do something like nerfing heavy / assault mech turning / aiming speed, or making light mechs more agile?

When light mechs are clearly inferior, and you just increase the rewards, it makes it look like you intend light mechs to be for beginners, trying to save up cash to buy the assault mechs. If you want veteran players to play light mechs, surely re-balancing rewards is the wrong approach. Am I wrong?

Dude, any enhancements to light mech combat capability is going to make them ridiculous.

If you want to buff me when I'm Jennering, by all means go ahead, but just remember that you asked for the light mechs of doom when you go crying to the forums about them.

[Sandpit]

Alistair Winter, on 04 July 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Why not do something like nerfing

I think most would agree the whole "nerfing" things to make the game easier is getting tiring. There are tons of other options available that don't involve nerfing anything. I'd much rather they investigate those first.

Part of the problem with this game is every time something is added or changed it's immediately called for to nerf it. All that does is continue to water the game down in the eyes of many. If it was the only way to resolve the issue I'd agree but there's plenty of other options

[Gorgo7]

Alistair Winter, on 04 July 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

Why not do something like nerfing heavy / assault mech turning / aiming speed, or making light mechs more agile?

When light mechs are clearly inferior, and you just increase the rewards, it makes it look like you intend light mechs to be for beginners, trying to save up cash to buy the assault mechs. If you want veteran players to play light mechs, surely re-balancing rewards is the wrong approach. Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong.

In so many ways that last paragraph is awful.

Sentence one.-Lights are already VERY agile, Assaults do not need to be less pointy. I have NEVER met an assault that I cannot get around on in a light.

Light mechs are clearly not inferior...they simply are lighter in terms of tonnage. you take a single 80 ton assault with three module slots and I will come at you with 4 locusts and twelve module slots. You die.

Try wrapping your head around that.

[TheFlannelBeard]

Alistair Winter, on 03 July 2014 - 08:00 AM, said:

Yeah, the numbers go up and down a bit. Lowest I've seen today is 6%. Can anyone beat that?

6% light mechs
15% medium mechs
45% heavy mechs
33% assault mechs

More than twice as many heavy mechs as light and medium mechs put together?

It's all working as intended, of course. Assault mechs are endgame, right?

Spoiler

What's this? Another light player complaining? Because the actually majority player base thinks lights are overpowered hard to hit weasels who complain and ***** about not being invincible which they nearly are already?

#mysides

[MonkeyCheese]

TheFlannelBeard, on 04 July 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

What's this? Another light player complaining? Because the actually majority player base thinks lights are overpowered hard to hit weasels who complain and ***** about not being invincible which they nearly are already?

#mysides

What's this? Another fatty heavy/assault master race member that has a problem dealing with light mechs even though you have all that armor and firepower and light mechs are such a rare breed already....

[Sandpit]

TheFlannelBeard, on 04 July 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

What's this? Another light player complaining? Because the actually majority player base thinks lights are overpowered hard to hit weasels who complain and ***** about not being invincible which they nearly are already?

#mysides

how about you read the thread and understand what it's for before making statements like that?

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with the topic. The entire topic is how to increase the variety of mechs seen. So your "omg another light pilot wanting something, lights are "OP" agenda isn't valid here. Why don't you post somethign on topic and constructive instead of attacking someone else?

[Draxist]

Bryan Ekman, on 04 July 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

Lights take more skill, carry less "stuff", and die more quickly. Along with there not being a ton of specific roles to be played.

We live in a bigger is better world.

And yes we are looking at improving the need and value for lights.

Bryan, if I may, and I know this has been suggested before, but can the dev team look into incentives for play just based upon the weight class alone, not the "role play" of a weight class? after a quick discussion with a buddy of mine, he brought up a concept from planetside 2. for those who dont know, the game rewards players with experience and credit boosters (temporary) if your faction is undermanned compared to the other two on the battlefield. while you can play as the faction with the most troops around and conquer the whole map, you wont be getting any bonuses from playing. it encourages players to jump to maps where their faction is less represented as a whole and overall balances out the player base among the theaters of war.

could we do a similar idea with MWO where under represented weight classes over the whole server (for pug matches anyway, dont know how this would play out in CW) would have incentives such as xp/gxp/c-bill bonuses as long as they are a minority? it would draw some players away from the fatties to the lighter mechs in a (hopeful) effort to encourage a greater diversity. obviously those who love their heavies wont care for the bonuses, but it could pull a few players to new chassis.

and to boot, this bonus would be for ANY weight class that is under-repped, meaning that in some distant crazy future, if there are more lights than heavies in the servers, people will be pulling out their old dragons, jagers, orions, what have you, to get a quick bonus (especially if it is c-bills)

this could also benefit new players experimenting with weight classes, so that a newbie in the spider champ trying it out (under current weight class populations) would find more reason to keep trying it out besides the newbie bonus and xp bonus. makes the game more friendly to them and they don't drop the mech after the first try.

sorry for the wall of text, but, thoughts?

[Rampancy]

MonkeyCheese, on 04 July 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

What's this? Another fatty heavy/assault master race member that has a problem dealing with light mechs even though you have all that armor and firepower and light mechs are such a rare breed already....

Light mechs are extremely hard to deal with if they're piloted by competent players.

Source: competent Jenner pilot.