144 replies to this topic

[Teralitha]

Adrian Carino, on 25 June 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

You know what though? Even IF a light mech can take down an Assault Mech, if given half the chance, an Assault Mech will absolutely obliterate a light mech. Try to dance toe to toe with say a Mauler and a Raven. The Mauler will win every time. Now of if the Raven is on the move, keeping the Mauler off balance and using every dirty trick possible to win, the Raven will pull through every time. Moral of the story? Light Mechs need to constantly keep moving or else face obliteration.

Moral of the story - light mech pilots must be very skilled to be successful. While assault pilots do not? It depends on the scenario, in a game where there are tonnage limits, there might be 1 or 2 assaults. The biggest targets usually get all the attention so those assaults might not last long, unless they too are very skilled. I wont argue that toe to toe, the assault has way more firepower, but if the 2 engage from range with cover between, then the assault emch will not have an easy time of beating the light, especially a light scout with sensors that the assault doesnt have. Light hits and run, hits and runs... assault is doomed. The bane of a light mech however, is the medium.

[Zorob]

Wraeththix Constantine, on 25 June 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

This is a multiplayer game. Everyone wants to be "the greatest pilot ever". "I should be able to take my Jenner and run rings around everyone and show off my crazy Max Sterling-esque stunts." But it's just not balanced, and it doesn't make for a good game.

I just want to be part of a GREAT TEAM! That is how you make the game fun is by the people you play with and against.

[Teralitha]

ScrapIron Prime, on 25 June 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

Solo... that better be ONE good jenner pilot, johnny on the spot with the jump jets and laser aim!

heh.. DFA anyone?

[ScrapIron Prime]

Teralitha, on 25 June 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

heh.. DFA anyone?

Not a good bet with a light mech. Tabletop rules, even if a Jenner does a successful DFA on an enemy mech, there is only a 1 in 36 chance that all the damage will hit the head. And since it does 11 points, and the head has 9 armor and 3 internal structure, the enemy mech may very well still be alive afterward.

That said, this ain't tabletop. And people are going to have to try it. What I'm wondering is how the doubled armor value (as compared to tabletop) is going to extend the lifespan of a mech versus headshots. Will a Gauss Rifle still be an auto-head popper?

[Adrian Carino]

Teralitha, on 25 June 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Moral of the story - light mech pilots must be very skilled to be successful. While assault pilots do not? It depends on the scenario, in a game where there are tonnage limits, there might be 1 or 2 assaults. The biggest targets usually get all the attention so those assaults might not last long, unless they too are very skilled. I wont argue that toe to toe, the assault has way more firepower, but if the 2 engage from range with cover between, then the assault emch will not have an easy time of beating the light, especially a light scout with sensors that the assault doesnt have. Light hits and run, hits and runs... assault is doomed. The bane of a light mech however, is the medium.

This is highly accurate. And like you said, Assault Mechs that are confirmed to be on the field will get lots of attention. Assault Mechs are for heavy fire support, and are excellent distractions as I said in previous threads. When playing Mechwarrior 4 or Mechwarrior 3 I'd roll out in an assault mech and let my buddies the medium and light mechs flank the boyos that would run in at me. Apparently an Atlas or an Annihilator were pretty compelling targets.

Edited by Adrian Carino, 25 June 2012 - 07:17 PM.

[Braedin]

ok, now that is just mind boggling. a med laser is a med laser. i dont care if it is on a scout mech or and assault mech, they do the same amount of damage. same with a ppc, or large laser or lrms or whatever weapon system. any person who thought different needs to go have their head examined.

[Teralitha]

ScrapIron Prime, on 25 June 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

Not a good bet with a light mech. Tabletop rules, even if a Jenner does a successful DFA on an enemy mech, there is only a 1 in 36 chance that all the damage will hit the head. And since it does 11 points, and the head has 9 armor and 3 internal structure, the enemy mech may very well still be alive afterward.

That said, this ain't tabletop. And people are going to have to try it. What I'm wondering is how the doubled armor value (as compared to tabletop) is going to extend the lifespan of a mech versus headshots. Will a Gauss Rifle still be an auto-head popper?

MW4 devs made it so that no hitbox was a 1 shot kill. Instead if the cockpit was critted, the hud went fuzzy, and zoom was disable, making it very hard for the pilot to aim at range. But, they also made it so that a mech who did a DFA would take moderate leg damage. Not only that, but the splash damage would make you not want to DFA otherwise you would get hit by splash if you got the kill, AND the DFAer also was knocked over after the DFA. Totally not worth it. Now, if they made it so a successful DFA didnt make a mech explode but just simply killed them.... that will be another thing jumping lights can do to beat assaults, but again... takes skill.

[Kobold]

Cole Christensen, on 25 June 2012 - 05:51 PM, said:

This just in: MWO will have similar, tried-and-true game mechanics that existed in almost all previous MW titles. More at 11.

I love you.

In every previous MechWarrior game, in every previous incarnation of the tabletop rules, weapons worked this way. Yet because an unrelated game comes up with a stupid mechanic as a money grab, people get panicky it will happen here.

[Insidious Johnson]

Cool, so lights can kill assaults. Hhhmmm, so why do we need players again, exactly? Yes, they CAN, but doesn't mean they always will. Player skill has to come into the equation or every match will be the foregone conclusion of any given rock, paper, scissors scenario.

Edited by Insidious Johnson, 25 June 2012 - 10:20 PM.

[Elizander]

I'm looking forward to hearing people complaining about how they couldn't kill assaults in their dual machine gun + small laser config 20 tonner after going toe to toe with an Awesome then saying "But the devs said lights could beat assaults! Lies!!1!1one!1one"

[Scimitar]

To throw my 2c in,

In theory all mechs are capable of mounting the exact same weapon systems on any type other type of mech. Those 4 medium lasers you'd pop on a light would do exactly the same amount of damage as if they were mounted on an assault. The only difference is the amount of hits from these the different weight classes can take.

[Stunner]

If you look at any previous MW title or the TT rules the mechs had very little back armor which made them weak to rear attacks.. For those Wot'ers out there even in WoT the rear armor is weaker. In Mechwarrior sometimes it's normally a huge difference between the CT armour and the rear armor.

Is it possible for a Jenner to kill an Atlas? Yes. likely? no too many factors would have to work in the Jenner's favor. Terrain, enemy distracted, etc. If the Atlas get's a clean shot off he'll probably win by damaging the Jenner too much and disabling it.

If the Atlas is distract by facing other's and shooting at enemy mechs while the Jenner is behind the Atlas shooting then the Jenner can do decent damage to the Atlas and even core it from behind if the pilot isn't paying attention. Could this happen in WoT? Much more unlikely due to how armor and tiers of weapons work out and in fact some cases weapons would just bounce off.

At least in MWO the lights can do damage to the assaults and contribute to the fight besides just being scouts for the artillery.

Also note anyone piloting an Atlas will probably get targeted by the enemy team first which is one of the reasons the Atlas has so much frontal armor.

Me I'll be piloting my catapult plucking a few missles at the Atlas while my Jenner scout friend is sneaking up from behind.

[LordTracker]

Yes a light can take down an assault mech its a matter of the light pilot knowing his advantages and the assaults weaknesses. that and being a good pilot.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Braedin, on 25 June 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

ok, now that is just mind boggling. a med laser is a med laser. i dont care if it is on a scout mech or and assault mech, they do the same amount of damage. same with a ppc, or large laser or lrms or whatever weapon system. any person who thought different needs to go have their head examined.

Yep a medium laser is a medium laser, and a Jenner mounts 4 of them plus an SRM 4. A Stalker carries 4 medium lasers, 2 SRM 6's, 2 large lasers, and 2 LRM 10's. And a Jenner has 4 tons of armor vs the 13.5 tons of armor for the stalker. Its not that a medium laser is the same on any weight mech, it is that the larger the mech gets the more armor and weapons (in general, looking at you Charger) it will have. Armor works like hit points, so yes weapons work the same for any mech, doing a set amount of damage, but assaults will have the most hit points.

[Murku]

Couple of other comparisons to think of:

Black Prophecy. First reaction is to gear your ship up with everything you can, giving you a 35 ton slug that gets eaten by sub 15 ton killers with no shields and a single gun.

Tank vs Kite classes in every MMO. The Tank has no 'Out' if he thinks he's no going to win an engagement, he's committed. A Kiting Class can try their luck and if things go badly they have a chance to bolt.

I think the size factor will be the hugest difference in balancing. Not strictly canon, but they have made the weight classes size range quite extreme. It was only after seeing this I felt like I understood the better balancing. Before that there seemed no reason to field a light, you can build a better scout medium in the Mechlab (for example: 9D centurion with endo steel and FF armor, 300XL w/ MASC, swap the loadout for a Gauss Rifle with 3 tons of ammo and a Meduim Pulse Laser. Every Slot used)

Edited by Murku, 27 June 2012 - 12:52 AM.

[Slepnir]

Hehe lights have always been a threat to big slow assault mechs on the TT. you just have to be the last to move in initiative order and get behind them.

[Rorusbass]

I see it happening when a light would be able to kite... but besides that put 12 assaults vs 12 lights and see who wins. Taking any 12 assault team on will be hard enough provided they have the range to do damage. The only advantage the opposite time has will be recon and speed, while the first one is good the speed is not enough to hold back an atlas alpha

[William Thor]

I see this as a good thing that lights are a threat to assaults. The lights job is to scout, harass and skirmish with opponents. If an assault gets out of position all on his own-some loan-some, he should be vulnerable to circle death. The assaults job is to push the front where the fight is fiercest, tank, and provided large amounts of supporting fire power, a light charging the front deserves to be on the receiving end of an alpha strike.

This kind of discussion helps highlight the role of mediums and heavies on the battlefield. Heavies will make great general purpose pushers and will generally will be responsible for providing the much need long range fire support. A scout will need this support to beat the assault, making heavies valuable assets to scouts. Likewise, not only will mediums be great for their flanking attacks, mediums will most likely become heavily valued by assaults as escorts. Mediums should have the extra agility to keep the scouts and fast mediums out from behind the assaults rear arc.

This is about role warfare, each class should have the upper hand over other classes when playing to the strengths of its role, and be vulnerable when its fighting out of role. Looping this back to lights killing assaults. A light mech should be able to kill any other class it encounters as long as its playing to its roles strengths, conversely that mech should be extremely vulnerable cannon fodder when it strays too far outside its intended role.

I think this is one of the best parts about MWO!

Edit: Grammar and spelling.

Edited by William Thor, 27 June 2012 - 03:44 AM.

[Phasics]

Perhaps what they should have said is light can contribute to taking down assaults

2 med lasers on a light and 4 med lasers from a medium , its still going to take 6 medium lasers a while to chew through an assaults armour

[BFalcon]

I think people need to remember that "Light", "Medium", "Heavy" and "Assault" are just convenient tags - each covers a large tonnage range - I think people forget that sometimes.

That having been said, I'm glad they kept the BT balance where "biggest is not always best" is a truism, especially if you're playing the TT right and rolling randomly for mech classes in any unit, using the Field Manual rules... some mech chassis are just not happy in anything but their preferred situation.