121 replies to this topic

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 26 January 2015 - 09:25 AM, said:

By right My record in lights should have me in the, How is that said, "Underhive Steering Wheel" league when PUGging. I'm not.

Elo seems to work separately for each mech classes. In your Lights' case you might be indeed in the underhive already, but if you fire up other classes, your Elo will be much higher.

I found out that the secret of playing a Light in pugs is just wait for opportune moments. You can't rush into battle like all other classes. Just...wait.

Edited by El Bandito, 26 January 2015 - 06:16 PM.

[TyphonCh]

I find myself avoiding lights because the firestarters with their 8spl can chase any other light down and mangle them. Then it seems on top of that, every game has a doomcrow, or madcat, or mad dog stuffed with x6 streaks, 1 shotting any light that crosses their path.

[InspectorG]

Team Chevy86, on 26 January 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

I find myself avoiding lights because the firestarters with their 8spl can chase any other light down and mangle them. Then it seems on top of that, every game has a doomcrow, or madcat, or mad dog stuffed with x6 streaks, 1 shotting any light that crosses their path.

Thats why Opening to mid match, you hang with your heavies. Scro aint gonna worry about a light if a Whale and Thud are looking at him.
End match you release the Kraken swarm.

[Impossible Wasabi]

InspectorG, on 26 January 2015 - 06:25 PM, said:

Thats why Opening to mid match, you hang with your heavies. Scro aint gonna worry about a light if a Whale and Thud are looking at him.
End match you release the Kraken swarm.

Indeed, the tactical advice of Erich Hartmann still applies: See – Decide – Attack – Break.

A light mech pilot has to know the right moment to attack and when to fall back or break.

Edited by The True Space Pope, 26 January 2015 - 06:36 PM.

[TripleEhBeef]

Well, one other factor that doesn't work in favour of lights is their near absolute requirement for XL engines. I imagine a lot of new players think they're deceptively cheap, then run into all the "hidden" costs and say "F*** THIS POS MECH!".

In comparison, lots of heavier mechs can be run perfectly fine with their stock engines or upgraded relatively cheaply with Standard ones.

Oh well, I remember when mediums were in a low spot back in the days of Void Shield Spiders.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

FupDup, on 26 January 2015 - 12:38 PM, said:

Light mechs run around at significantly higher top speeds than characters in a typical FPS and take much longer to take down opponents than just shooting somebody with an assault rifle in a "normal" infantry-based shooter. They also have at least somewhat less agility than a normal FPS human being (although then again all mechs do, and lights have the lowest penalty for that).

I will however give you that lights can sometimes get killed almost as quickly as characters in a normal FPS. That's the only big similarity that I can think of at the moment.

Don't forget 1/4 of the size.
As for the damage you mention, the lights I meet can generally deal 32 point pinpoint alphas every 2 seconds and that sounds pretty impressive for the 75 and under crowd. As for endurance, they are almost always the last man standing. So guess it is kinda like the playing an FPS with knife-mode and max armor all the time.
But again, the biggest weakness is the general publics desire to play something other than a vanilla FPS, so it keeps the numbers down and the buffs up.
But that is just my street-level view, maybe things are different in your Elo neighborhood and the lights die first and can't cripple a mech in a 2 second run-by.

[Yokaiko]

Team Chevy86, on 26 January 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

I find myself avoiding lights because the firestarters with their 8spl can chase any other light down and mangle them. Then it seems on top of that, every game has a doomcrow, or madcat, or mad dog stuffed with x6 streaks, 1 shotting any light that crosses their path.

Thank CW for that, its basically the only way to stop a light zerg.

Hell we had a 10 man light zerg on DEFENSE today.......

[Artgathan]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

As for endurance, they are almost always the last man standing. So guess it is kinda like the playing an FPS with knife-mode and max armor all the time.
But again, the biggest weakness is the general publics desire to play something other than a vanilla FPS, so it keeps the numbers down and the buffs up.

Are you trying to suggest that people don't play light mechs because they (light mechs) are too powerful? Because we had a case study in that when the Raven was released. It was brokenly OP at the time and everyone played one. People generally don't avoid things because the thing is 'too good'. Yes, there will always be a few special snowflakes who insist on going against the grain, but there's a reason why the automobile came to dominate over the horse as a form of transportation.

[FupDup]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

Don't forget 1/4 of the size.

All of our mechs are dramatically larger than the regular humans running around in everybody's least favorite infantry-based FPS games.

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

As for the damage you mention, the lights I meet can generally deal 32 point pinpoint alphas every 2 seconds and that sounds pretty impressive for the 75 and under crowd.

Most normal FPS games let you kill somebody from full health to dead with a small burst from an assault rifle or even a pistol, and from relatively longer distances than MWO's light brawling weapons (lights with 32 alphas are using short-range weapons by definition).

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

As for endurance, they are almost always the last man standing. So guess it is kinda like the playing an FPS with knife-mode and max armor all the time.

They don't live that long because of being magically superdurable, they live that long because they are a lower priority target. If you see a Dire Whale and a Vindicator on the red team, which will you try to take out first? For that same reason, people don't prioritize lights unless they decide to go into squirrel-chasing mode...

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 07:42 PM, said:

But again, the biggest weakness is the general publics desire to play something other than a vanilla FPS, so it keeps the numbers down and the buffs up.
But that is just my street-level view, maybe things are different in your Elo neighborhood and the lights die first and can't cripple a mech in a 2 second run-by.

Judging by my fairly bleh stats, I don't think I'm super high Elo or anything. I just aim at them and shoot until they either run away or go down (sometimes I'm the one that goes down, but that usually requires me to be significantly damaged ahead of time).


If you want, we can sometime this week arrange for you to fight in a light mech of your choice against my Warhawk in a private match, to put this to the test.

Edited by FupDup, 26 January 2015 - 08:03 PM.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Artgathan, on 26 January 2015 - 07:51 PM, said:

Are you trying to suggest that people don't play light mechs because they (light mechs) are too powerful?

No because the gameplay is like a thousand of other FPS games.
The are broken and overpowered because not enough people play them for PGI to worry about balancing the weight class (that and the fact that role warfare has been completely ignored).

Edited by Agent 0 Fortune, 26 January 2015 - 08:15 PM.

[Impossible Wasabi]

Nah, if they were "broken and overpowered" more people would play them, not less.

The "average" player in MWO has always gravitated towards whatever mech or build he or she believes to be the most "broken or overpowered" this week, month or year.

Claiming anything else is frankly dishonest.

During Beta, the Space Pope did not see Streakcats, Splatcats and then Streakravens because people cared very much if the game felt like a standard FPS. Nay, the playerbase simply wanted whatever mech could let them defeat the enemy with the greatest efficiency.

Similarly, we do not see Timberwolves, Stormcrows, Daishis and Thunderbolts in most matches because they are terrible or particularity interesting to play but because they present a serious threat even in the hands of almost any pilot (not to mention how good they are in the hands of a good one).

It's also why whenever the next "OP/Broken mech" appears on the battlefield, you will quickly see everyone and their grandmother piloting one.

Edited by The True Space Pope, 26 January 2015 - 08:25 PM.

[Artgathan]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:00 PM, said:

No because the gameplay is like a thousand of other FPS games.
The are broken and overpowered because not enough people play them for PGI to worry about balancing the weight class (that and the fact that role warfare has been completely ignored).

Riiight. People don't play them because they hate using mechs that are broken / overpowered. That must be why Timberwolves, Stormcrows, Diashis and Thunderbolts are so rare on the battlefield.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

It sounds like you are attempting to attribute the fact that light mechs are almost always the last man standing with the highest damage and score to "being ignored"?

That is a ridiculous assumption. Most of the time they are priority targets because they have such a high DPS and Alpha, and will wreck you backfiled if ignored, plus they have thin armor when they don't don't completely ignore weapons fire.

If you tell me that lights aren't posting the best numbers in matches, I'll just call it an Elo isolated phenomenon and move on.

[Thorqemada]

And again:
If half the Playerbase is playing Clans they avoid Lights bcs they be underpowered.
IS Lights can move that fast that a majority of Computers can barely maintain it.
IS Lights can move that fast that a majority of Internet Connections can barely maintain it.
Lights are mobile warfare and many Players rather like to shot things than to run around things.
People believe bigger is better.

Firestarters are probably the best Damage to Weight Mech in the game.
Spiders insanely hard to hit and no - i dont believe in the Superskill of Players that hit them at will all the time they want.
The good Players would not drive Streakcrows if Ligths were that easy to hit.
Lights are the only Mechs that survive Banzai attacks and Head on Heads with way bigger Mechs taking way less damage than normal.
Some Lights at the low end of the Weightclass be not competitive and outclassed - like Mechs in other Weightclasses too.
Lights with Standard Engines be a bad idea - Speed is Protection!
Bad Light Pilots die early.

Firestarters are way OP, Huginns are Quirkmonsters etc...

Edited by Thorqemada, 26 January 2015 - 09:38 PM.

[Impossible Wasabi]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

It sounds like you are attempting to attribute the fact that light mechs are almost always the last man standing with the highest damage and score to "being ignored"?

That is a ridiculous assumption. Most of the time they are priority targets because they have such a high DPS and Alpha, and will wreck you backfiled if ignored, plus they have thin armor when they don't don't completely ignore weapons fire.

If you tell me that lights aren't posting the best numbers in matches, I'll just call it an Elo isolated phenomenon and move on.

Actually yes, as a light mech, you survive by timing your attacks for when the enemy is occupied and breaking when (ideally before) they focus on you.

Also, it may surprise you, but being able to outrun most things on the battlefield, tends to aid in survival, because surprise, you can shift your location if you notice the enemy pushing. It's why you see newbies die in a Daishi with 10 damage, because they lack SA and understanding of how to position their mechs as the battle unfolds and thus they die easily (for the simple reason that an Assault mech can rarely maneuver fast enough to avoid a charge).

Lights can post great matches (although the Space Pope will call some confirmation bias here and say that it is not accurate to say that light mechs on average post better numbers than any other class of mech), but interestingly enough, you will seem some very conservative light mech tactics when light mechs are facing organized teams or good players.

Edited by The True Space Pope, 26 January 2015 - 08:53 PM.

[FupDup]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

It sounds like you are attempting to attribute the fact that light mechs are almost always the last man standing with the highest damage and score to "being ignored"?

Again, if you see two enemy mechs, a Vindicator and a Dire Wolf, which one will be prioritized most of the time?

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

That is a ridiculous assumption. Most of the time they are priority targets because they have such a high DPS and Alpha, and will wreck you backfiled if ignored, plus they have thin armor when they don't don't completely ignore weapons fire.

Their alpha is almost always smaller than the alpha of a heavier mech, with few exceptions. The reason they can get close with certain loadouts is because of tonnage-efficient weapons like the Medium Laser and newly improved Small Pulse Laser. Those guns do very good damage per ton, but at the expense of range (particularly the SPL). The loadouts that have good DPS are going to be SPL ones the vast majority of the time, which again restricts them by range.

As for backside wrecking, um everything can do that. Turn your back to a Thunderbolt, Stormcrow, or basically any other mech in the game, and see what the results are. Rear armor isn't supposed to be some kind of super durable shield. Your back should be a vulnerable weakpoint that requires vigilance to protect.

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

If you tell me that lights aren't posting the best numbers in matches, I'll just call it an Elo isolated phenomenon and move on.

Depends on who's in the light and what the circumstances are. They're not posting the best numbers every match, unless they just so happen to be super duper good at their job.



By the way, do you want to do that private match challenge of mine where I get to drive my Warhawk and you get to choose any light of your choice?

Edited by FupDup, 26 January 2015 - 08:54 PM.

[Artgathan]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

It sounds like you are attempting to attribute the fact that light mechs are almost always the last man standing with the highest damage and score to "being ignored"?

That is a ridiculous assumption. Most of the time they are priority targets because they have such a high DPS and Alpha, and will wreck you backfiled if ignored, plus they have thin armor when they don't don't completely ignore weapons fire.

If you tell me that lights aren't posting the best numbers in matches, I'll just call it an Elo isolated phenomenon and move on.

I'm saying you live in a pocket dimension where lights are the best mechs in the game and no one uses them anyways.

Basic human psychology: if thing A is better than thing B, use thing A. It's not hard. This is how people think and act.

What I am saying, and make no mistake about this, is that if light mechs were the best mechs in the game, I wouldn't constantly drop into matches where there are 0 light mechs.

CW is an exception to this, and even there light mechs are only used because they're fast.

Edited by Artgathan, 26 January 2015 - 08:54 PM.

[Impossible Wasabi]

Thorqemada, on 26 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

IS Lights can move that fast that a majority of Computers can barely maintain it.
IS Lights can move that fast that a majority of Internet Connections can barely maintain it.

Disagree.

Does hit registration suck in MWO and could it use some work?

Yes, but that applies to absolutely every class of mech found in the game at the moment and it seems to have more to do with the netcode than any particular quality of computer or internet connection.

The Space Pope hit fine when he was playing on a PC that just barely broke 30 FPS and had a ping of 130-150 and he is hitting fine when he has a PC that puts out 80+ FPS and when his ping is in the low 40s.

Does weird stuff happen and a good PPC shot or SRM volley seem to fail on occasion? Sure, but that happens even when the Space Pope is hitting a massive Assault mech.

Thorqemada, on 26 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Firestarters are probably the best Damage to Weight Mech in the game.

Duh?

Light mechs in general have good damage to weight because firepower does not increase exponentially with size. Which is also why, say a Heavy mech can do comparable damage to an Assault mech (but it can't tank as much damage).

Thorqemada, on 26 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Spiders insanely hard to hit and no - i dont believe in the Superskill of Players that hit them at will all the time they want.
The good Players would not drive Streakcrows if Ligths were that easy to hit.

1) Spiders are not insanely hard to hit, all it takes is a decent ability to aim, more to the point, as the Space Pope has mentioned above, you can't hit any mech all the time at will in this game, because every so often hit detection will magically swallow an alpha regardless of what you or the enemy is using
2) BS, Streakcrows are used because they make killing lights very, very efficient, it has zero to do with good players having particular trouble killing lights

Thorqemada, on 26 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Lights are the only Mechs that survive Banzai attacks and Head on Heads with way bigger Mechs taking way less damage than normal.

Disagree, head on charges or going head to head against anyone that can aim is a death sentence in a light mech.

The Space Pope wishes he could play in whatever bracket these "Banzai" light inhabit, because surely he would be swimming in easy kills.

Thorqemada, on 26 January 2015 - 08:46 PM, said:

Firestarters are way OP, Huginns are Quirkmonsters etc...

Eh, it's more like most other lights are not really useful.

Edited by The True Space Pope, 26 January 2015 - 09:11 PM.

[Brody319]

Lights are one of the most challenging classes to play. You have very little armor, have to keep moving, or risk dying. One stray bullet, one unlucky shot and you can die. All of them require XLs to be really effective which means you can lose your Arms and thats about it. Get legged, you die, lose any torso, you die. Mix in the fact that all lights require max leg armor, and you get less armor on the arms on average.

So you must dodge, keep moving, shoot the enemy, be accurate, and not overheat.

Every skill a pilot needs is brought out in a light. This drives people away. Like the Spy in tf2, you need to know a ton of chassis to know their weaknesses and strengths.

Very high skill ceiling. Lights will always be low, because Heavies and Assaults are easier. Mediums are kinda in between Heavies and Lights.

Stop complaining about the Light Que, It will always be that way.

[Fate 6]

Bubblewhip, on 26 January 2015 - 08:43 AM, said:

Why does no one like piloting these things?

It's hard to coordinate and use effectively with PUGs if you're using a close-in light. If you go in without support you just take a bunch of damage and die without really doing much. Sniper lights are fine in PUGs, but not a lot of people would rather take a sniper light over a sniper medium/heavy because damage.

In coordinated groups, lights are very effective. Even just 2 FS9-As can kill an assault mech in a matter of seconds by legging it. But just one FS9-A in an uncoordinated PUG group ends up not doing enough to threaten the enemy unless it's near the end of a match where it's easy to pick off people.