372 replies to this topic

[Mercules]

Wolfways, on 21 July 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

How the **** can you think it's fair to penalize someone for playing a mech they like?

I know right! Why I am constantly being penalized for bringing a Light mech? I don't get it either.

[Deathlike]

Trauglodyte, on 22 July 2014 - 07:13 AM, said:

Which means that all of you will ignore them. SWEET!

*ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

*Somewhere, a lolcust dies.*

[Vodrin Thales]

MonkeyCheese, on 19 July 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

If only they would undo the changes to light mech fall damage and jumpjets... = more light mechs

This is what I don't entirely understand. All of these changes were obviously intended to balance pop tarts, so why not make them only affect medium mechs and up as light mech pop tarts are not a problem.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Trauglodyte, on 22 July 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

That's it, my Locust is now my main and I'm going to hunt down every one of you 25-35 ton sobs. FEAR THE LOCUST!!!

My 2xppc 4mgun Ember accept your challenge.


Fear the paper mache monster!

[stjobe]

nehebkau, on 22 July 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

For example, there are many rewards for choosing smaller, more energy efficient cars in the USA. There are even state and federal programs that provide real cash advantages for choosing those vehicles. Yet there has been no real change in automotive buying habbits as a result of these programs per giant SUVs and Trucks.

So people are complex and not entirely motivated by cash in their automotive purchases; big revelation.

Now imagine if there were cash penalties and special traffic regulations for smaller cars and you're closer to the situation in MWO.

I've stated before, and I'll state it again for your benefit: I don't think just adjusting rewards are magically going to get a majority of people playing lights, but the way the current reward system is structured is in no way helping people on the fence chose lights.

PGI isn't helping here, their reward system is pushing people away from lighter 'mechs instead of to them.

nehebkau, on 22 July 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

Bringing this to mechwarrior, you assume people are playing for rewards -- they aren't.

I specifically and very consciously included play experience as part of the rewards I was talking about; fun being one of them. People play what they think is fun and rewarding - since fun is a kind of reward - and currently lights are neither fun nor rewarding for most people. That needs to change.

nehebkau, on 22 July 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

People I know in game like to drive mechs with more weapons so they can blow s*** up. Do you think that 20% more cbills or experience is going to dissuade someone from piloting their 6 UAC5 Direwolf and switching to a 4ML Jenner? People play big mechs because they like lots of DAKKA or PEW-PEW and mistakes don't matter as much. For those people the FUN aspect is blowing someones arm or leg off with an alpha. You can't 'reward' people into light mechs. The only thing you can do is get them to like playing them and the only way that is going to happen is if they actually play them and get better at doing so.

And this mentality is actively fostered by the game mechanics and structure; that's what I'm saying needs to change for the betterment of the game.

It is supposed to be "a BattleTech game" after all, and in BattleTech heavies were 20% of the 'mechs and assaults only 10% - the rest were mediums (40%) and lights (30%). Sure, some companies were composed differently, but that's the lore numbers for IS 'mechs.

And before you go off half-cocked, no I'm not saying those numbers should be enforced by the matchmaker. PGI has already decided they want 3/3/3/3 matches, so I think it's way past time they made sure all four classes are equally fun and rewarding to play. That's the only way we're ever going to get close to an even spread between weight classes.

nehebkau, on 22 July 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

The only thing that rewards would do is reward the people who would be playing lights and mediums anyway.

I disagree. The current game mechanics and reward structure is making people that would otherwise play lights and mediums not do that, since it's more fun and rewarding to play a heavy or assault.

[Cybermech]

Use raven-3l over the last 2 weeks narc, uav, tag.
have had some mixed game play, sometimes die early, something I live.
leg damage is a massive issue, alpine is the worst for me since its a long game, you need to bounce around a lot and it can take a lot off your legs.
it is quite easy to take off a lights leg, not hard at all, anyone who is good at aiming knows this.
c-bills at the end is kind of low, if you are doing your job right and not trying to tag all targets but doing it more tactical and using your mech more of an ewar mech you don't always get the high scores. this those need looking into.
have to see what masc brings

Edited by Cybermech, 22 July 2014 - 11:17 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Lefty Lucy, on 19 July 2014 - 06:37 PM, said:

I'm not that good, but I play with plenty of people who hits lights just as easily as anything else.

I can hit them just fine, but that's largely because most light players aren't actually all that good. I know a few light players who can dodge obscene amounts of incoming fire, even from players who routinely one or two shot lights. Sure they take the occasional lucky shot but more often than not they spend the entire match keeping the enemy distracted while the assaults and heavies finish them and take all the credit.

Simple things like running serpentine, accelerating and decelerating while strafing and running from cover to cover can greatly increase your life expectancy, but there are an awful lot of light players who never do any of those things and because of that they are easy targets.

[Trauglodyte]

Deathlike, on 22 July 2014 - 09:58 AM, said:

*ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

*Somewhere, a lolcust dies.*

mwhighlander, on 22 July 2014 - 10:24 AM, said:

My 2xppc 4mgun Ember accept your challenge.


Fear the paper mache monster!

Why must you all hurt me?

In all honesty, I don't find running a Light to be that problematic. Even the Locust, in all of its card board armor, can do exceptional things. The problem really lies in what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time:

Why take a 20-35 ton mech to spot when a) maps are mostly the size of shoe boxes where some allow for damage on targets within the first 5s of the game [looking at you, Forrest Colony], maps are essentially whittled down to 40% of available space due to choke points or open spaces [hello Forrest Colony, River City, Alpine, Crimson, etc], and c) a much heavier mech can achieve the same objective within a few seconds of said Light while maintaining a much higher survivability and heavier and more substantial weapons payload?

I'm not getting paid more for doing what I do in a Locust than I am when I do the same thing in my Cicada. I'm not doing it any faster or better in my Locust vs Cicada. And I'm incapable of pulling the same damage output in my Locust vs Cicada. The 20 tonner goes 152kph while my 3M goes 147kph with ECM. So, exactly what is my motivation for taking something much smaller? In the case of the Commando, Firestarter, and Jenner, you're actually putting yourself in a much worse off position because the predominant weapons for those mechs are all short range. Pre-clan invasion, the life expectancy of these mechs, given our latest weapons to-hit adjustments, would have been ok but still awfully scary. Post-clan invasion, you have half that. So, while PGI wrestles with how to fix things, they need to start with the question of, "Why would I want to?" Just so happens that some of us are crazy enough to do it, enjoy it cause it is nuts, and don't ultimately mind driving something really small to do very little so that the rest of the team can pick up the slack.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 22 July 2014 - 11:44 AM.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Trauglodyte, on 22 July 2014 - 11:36 AM, said:

Why must you all hurt me?

In all honesty, I don't find running a Light to be that problematic. Even the Locust, in all of its card board armor, can do exceptional things. The problem really lies in what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time:

Why take a 20-35 ton mech to spot when 1) maps are mostly the size of shoe boxes where some allow for damage on targets within the first 5s of the game [looking at you, Forrest Colony], 2) maps are essentially whittled down to 40% of available space due to choke points or open spaces [hello Forrest Colony, River City, Alpine, Crimson, etc], and c) a much heavier mech can achieve the same objective within a few seconds of said Light while maintaining a much higher survivability and heavier and more substantial weapons payload?

because PGI sucks at both creating maps large enough to support 24 mechs + turrets (River fucklng Shltty) and a reward system for lights flanking a dug in position of 8+ mechs sniping away your team.

[M0rpHeu5]

@OP

Stop trying to speak sense into Paul's department, it's a waste of time.

[Wolfways]

Mercules, on 22 July 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

I know right! Why I am constantly being penalized for bringing a Light mech? I don't get it either.

If you don't like the rewards from playing lights then you tell PGI to fix it. You don't tell them to penalize other players by not letting them play as often.

[Thorn Hallis]

I think PGI would have to completly change the scope of the game to make lights (and mediums to some degree) viable choices for more then just the enthusiasts.

[stjobe]

Thorn Hallis, on 22 July 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

I think PGI would have to completly change the scope of the game back to what they said they would make two years ago to make lights (and mediums to some degree) viable choices for more then just the enthusiasts.

There, FTFY.

[divinedisclaimer]

It's the leg damage, period, end of story. Ask any exclusive light pilot; it's game breaking. Specifically, leg breaking. At 150+ small hills turn into small ramps.

Not literally, you can't gain upward momentum like that the way this game was programmed. But horizontal velocity on the downward slope of a hill can result in a short jump that takes 3% of your light with it.5555

Literally anything anyone else cites as a reason is subjectively wrong, until the fall damage patch they were consistently 15-20%, which seems reasonably representative of how many players would be interested in playing a mech that can be one-shotted by half the weapon systems in the game.

Edited by divinedisclaimer, 22 July 2014 - 03:15 PM.

[Syncline]

The problem with lights is that it is a horrendous grind to get C-Bills or experience in a light. There is no incentive to play the way lights were "intended" to play, which is relay information, spot for artillery/LRMs, and so on.

PGI can reduce the monetary and exp rewards for kills and assists, they can increase the rewards for spotting targets, using TAG/NARC, etc, or they could give a flat WIN/LOSE reward to every player on the team.

Modify the current completely jacked-up and nonsensical reward system and I bet a lot more players would pick lights. It's simply more economically beneficial to play not-light mechs.

Edited by Syncline, 22 July 2014 - 03:20 PM.

[ollo]

FupDup, on 19 July 2014 - 06:27 PM, said:

No, it isn't a surprise. The arm's race to bigger and superior robots is a problem inherited from every previous MW game as well as Battletech itself, and PGI's original Role Warfare idea to address this never came through...

This ist the main problem i think. Of course you can still harass a single enemy with 2+ lights, 1 gets harder with every HSR-patch, but in the end there's no real benefit. ECM will still win the game in many cases, no matter if on a 30 or 100 ton mech, and there is no incentive to playing lights, as all the bonuses are the same over all classes. I don't have to put much effort in a couple of kills and several hundreds of damage in a heavy/assault, but levelling the light mechs is comparatively still a PITA and often utterly boring.

P.S.: slam some bonuses on light mechs performance for spotting, tagging, NARCing and also killing significantly heavier mechs. XP- and CB-wise.

[Ph30nix]

saw this post and i was just about to make a new post asking if anyones noticed the % of lights and mediums......

gotta say F YOU FALL DAMAGE CHANGE!!!!

my 171kph deathknell is not as fun as it could be when the slighted bump in the ground gets me air time and i take damage......

[Mad Porthos]

divinedisclaimer, on 22 July 2014 - 03:13 PM, said:

It's the leg damage, period, end of story. Ask any exclusive light pilot; it's game breaking. Specifically, leg breaking. At 150+ small hills turn into small ramps.

Not literally, you can't gain upward momentum like that the way this game was programmed. But horizontal velocity on the downward slope of a hill can result in a short jump that takes 3% of your light with it.5555

Literally anything anyone else cites as a reason is subjectively wrong, until the fall damage patch they were consistently 15-20%, which seems reasonably representative of how many players would be interested in playing a mech that can be one-shotted by half the weapon systems in the game.

It is the leg damage, fully agreed with this guy, but as I mentioned earlier, it's also that LIGHTS as a class are treated uniquely when legged, penalized more than any other class in several different manners. First, like any mech, they are half speed when legged. Second, if that speed would be greater than 40kph, it is limited to 40kph. Third, if they take any damage, even .08 from a single machine gun bullet to ANYWHERE ELSE on them, even a fully armored area, they are stun locked to 15kph for like 5 seconds. If that 5 seconds pass, they get to limp at 40kph again for a moment, but another splash of machine gun, perhaps a teensy bit of long range laser grazing across thier arm... stun lock again, 15kph for 5 seconds.

So far as I've seen, no other class has this third penalty. It was added in one pass or another because people were STILL having trouble hitting legged light mechs because they were small and hit registration was still bad for a very long time. Now, as hit registration has improved markedly for many weapons, laser, ballistic, srms and more... they are savagely penalized in a way no other mech class suffers, due to factors that once may have merited this penalty, but no longer apply.

Edited by Mad Porthos, 22 July 2014 - 03:50 PM.

[Be Rough With Me Plz]

Introduction of highly mobile, maneuverable, sturdy Clan Mechs with increased effective range of Clan Tech + New "3/3/3/3" MM system.

When it comes to Win/Loss the new "3/3/3/3" plays a huge part in wanting to bring the most effective Mech in terms of damage and kills (read: ability to influence a fight). You can't count on having 6-8 Assaults on your side so each Assault pilot bears more burden to excel/put up better numbers than a Light. If you get stuck with an LRM/LL Atlas w/o ECM then you're f*cked no matter what you do.

The new Clan lasers are killer though. Before, everyone shared the same engagement envelope. When Clan Tech was introduced the effective engagement envelope for the C-ML nearly doubled. That alone puts Light at a huge disadvantage because now we're taking more damage just attempting to close the distance. As a Light, that extra range can dictate whether you survive or die on a disengage.

I had issues with fall damage when your X-speed counted towards your Y-fall distance after hitting a little bump, but I feel like the fix they implemented is working alright.

There are ways to pilot a Light that makes tracking/leading difficult to do against you with lasers/ballistics, but the margin of error has become much smaller.

There are matches that make me smile where you have 5/2/3/2 v. 3/4/2/3 (roughly) and you see your team destroyed because everyone is focusing on the big boys while the little sh*ts are shooting everyone in the back. Even when on the receiving end of that kind of battle, I still laugh at the awesomeness of the Light Pack.

All in all, the Light field has become even more restrictive which was probably an unintended side-effect of "3/3/3/3" and Clan introduction, but they are still viable if you have teammates in Assaults/Heavies that have the balls to close with the enemy.

[ApolloKaras]

Yeah as an avid light pilot, they (PGI) makes it even harder to run these things. JJ heat, not necessarily the heat but the cease in cooling. The damage we take when we hit the ground (especially if you are flightless). The amount of elevation we got now with a jj or 2... It's frustrating