I know that I'm coming into this discussion a little bit late, but I would like to share my views on this subject. I, personally, don't think lights are necessarily in a bad place in terms of the damage they provide for their tonnage. What really hinders them is the value that they provide their team when compared to heavier mechs, particularly in the solo que. In an ideal world light pilots would feel like they have just as much as an impact on an MWO match as assault pilots, just in different ways.
To evaluate lights properly you must consider what they are supposed to be good at. To me, personally, lights should excel at scouting and harassing the enemy. They should be capable of doing both of these things in a match, while some particular light mechs obviously doing better in one category than other and vice versa.
The value of the scouting that a light mech can do in MWO, while perhaps more important in the competitive scene, is really rather low in solo que. There are two main things there that come into play. The fact that any mech, regardless of its weight, has the same ability to detect enemy mechs as any light chassis really limits the amount of role warfare that can happen. The caveat to this point is ECM, which is available on more light chassis than any other mech class in the game. That being said, only 4 light mech variants can run ECM, and is limiting effective scouting to just these few really a good decision? I'm not saying give all light mechs ECM, in fact I'm against that. I am, however, saying that if lights don't bring dps to the table, they should at least be able to provide better or faster sensor information than heavier mechs. Lights should be the best scouts in the game but right now they excel in this role to a far lesser degree then assaults do at dealing damage and area denial.
Compounding this problem is the fact that scouting is not really awarded any value in the match score that is displayed at the end of the games. Even the spotting assists and narc assists, which are an attempt to incentivize information gathering, are only accrued for providing lrm firing solutions. If you devote your time to NARCing in solo que or getting into a position to provide spotting assists, it’s a role of the dice whether or not your teammates have brought lrms. What is more, these rewards do not even factor into the match score which is displayed at the end of the game. Lights, even if they do a great job scouting, are not publicly lauded for the roles. Lights should be able to have incentives, both in terms of gameplay advantages and in terms of cbills+xp awards, to scout and acquire information without regard to their own team’s composition. If a light provides a target for a sniper to shoot at, shouldn't the light get rewarded as well?
In terms of the valuation of lights' ability to harass other mechs, I feel that in this area they are in a better place than their ability to scout. That being said, there still seems something wrong about the risk-reward ratio of harassing currently. When one encounters 50 (+10 splash) damage pinpoint alphas that are coming from some Dire Wolfs these days all they have to do is look at you to leg you. It is clear that amount of risk that a non-ecm light pilot has to take in order to provide even minimal fire support is really inordinate considering that turning the wrong corner can result in a near instant death. While shooting the back armor of a mech is certainly something lights can do, there should be other options for lights to contribute to the fight so that their damage is more meaningful.
I'd like to point out one other thing that I feel is really hindering lights in general as a class in terms of popularity. Consumables are great on lights. They are perhaps the best artillery spotters and uav placers in the game, and to be honest I feel if every light was given a significant discount on UAVs and arty strikes, the popularity of light chassis would skyrocket. No one ever expects the average atlas to be carrying a UAV, but lights are often expected to perform such roles.The balance decision to view lights as the primary delivery vehicles for arty and uavs (look at the Raven 3l or the Jenner K) forces players to spend cbills to get the most out of their mechs. While having so many module slots is indeed an advantage that light mechs have over other classes, for the average player grinding cbills it serves as a deterrent to their use.
I'd like to finish this post by saying that I honestly feel that people would play light mechs more if they felt they could achieve important things in them. As a light pilot I'd like to be able to carry a match just as hard as an assault pilot, just in a different way. I've talked to multiple competitive (Siri, Adi, Jaeger) gamers and they've all agreed with me that carrying a match in a light is generally much harder to do than carrying it in a heavier chassis. I'm not saying that it can't be done, hell I've had a 1200 damage game on alpine in an ember, but that only happens once in a while under extraordinary circumstances. I want to go into a match knowing that I'm just as vital to my teams success as the guy piloting a 100 ton behemoth. I don't want to feel like a second class mech pilot simply because my mech is smaller.
Edited by rusticatedcharm, 21 July 2014 - 02:12 AM.
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Yokaiko, on 20 July 2014 - 11:52 AM, said:
