Posted 30 June 2012 - 08:29 PM
You're mistaken in the PURPOSE of an Assault mech. Sure, the Assault Mech is going to be the giant walking death machine that takes on all comers and likes it, but he's not going to be doing it wherever he wants to. The assault mech's purpose is to be the thing that dictates the hotpoint of the map for your team. If you devide the map into zones and stick an assault mech in 2 of them, those are 2 zones the other team does not want to be in. However, the rest of the map exists. In a game where the rest of the map exists the assaults need to be used PROPERLY as they're only as useful as where they are. The advantage of lighter mechs, especially ones that are, no joke, 3-4x faster than the assaults are, is they get to fight where they want to.
A faster lighter mech with a long-range loadout can dictate the range of the encounter, allowing it to fire from a point of servicable cover in another zone that could negate a lot of the assault's advantage. If the assault, on the other hand, is out in the open... he's gonna be out in the open for a long, long time. The lighter mech could run away in a similar situation and do so easily. But, the lighter mech would need to be aware of where the assaults are at all times, as running up to one is a death sentence. Lighter mechs can ferret out the other lighter mechs, bringing them into domain of the assault mech to tear asunder by forcing them to retreat from their preferred positions, but its not like an assault is going to really be able to chase you up that hill and then back down around the windy cliff ravine you've been saving as a fallback point... If you can keep a hill between you and assault guy, he's not worth much.
On the other hand... The assault mech can march right toward the enemy base or wherever it needs to be on the map and its going to be pretty hard to tell him he can't go there. You would need to coordinate a strike from multiple angles, or muster your own assault mech, to handle the problem of an offensive assault mech trying to accomplish a dedicated goal.
The problem with the all assault team is that that team is literally a sitting duck. Some of these maps are HUGE and none are the wideopen zones of nothing like previous mechwarrior games were. You could be spotted by light mechs you simply don't know about, getting shot at by guys with LRMs from behind hills and inside ravines. And you'll have no way to chase them or force them out of hiding. None. And when you do get close... well, there's a lot of map and this guy is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster. On the other hand, if you had a mixed group of lights and mediums harassing their own lights and mediums, they could direct them right into the scope of the assault mech, and the assault mech will be more than happy to obliterate them.
This WILL NOT be a game of 1v1 dueling and 2 sides being lined up to charge at each other, like the other MW games were. I remember my Fafnir blowing out an Atlas in 2 alpha strikes, sure, and everything else in 1 hit... But none of those games even play like this one. Your assault mech is a perfectably viable mech to take into combat. But it has a specific role on the battlefield, as does everyone else. Assaults need scouts and scouts need assaults. If all you do is bring the hammer, but forget the anvil, you won't be making anything.
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Yoseful Mallad, on 30 June 2012 - 08:11 PM, said:
