stjobe, on 14 April 2015 - 11:13 AM, said:
The thing is that lights are supposed to have one advantage over heavier 'mechs - their speed and agility.
With the engine-rating-affects-everything and pilot-skills-improve-agility mechanics, this advantage is effectively nullified. Even a stock Atlas with no skills unlocked can track any target that's outside of 25 meters, no matter how fast that target moves. Customized and elited, you have little chance of staying out of its firing arc unless its pilot is incompetent or otherwise preoccupied.
The reason lights tend to go with max engine is that most players in the PUG queue aren't very good at hitting fast-moving targets. They can track them fine, but they can't hit them. Move to where there's players who do know how to properly lead and hit a fast mover though, and you'll see that if they can track you, they can hit you. And all that vaunted speed and agility counts for little.
If everything was slowed down and less agile, then lights and mediums might get a bit more traction out of being fast and agile.
Nerfing speed and agility across the board is actually an indirect buff for both lights and mediums. And I think they need it.
Actually, it doesn't buff Lights or Mediums at all. A nerf is a nerf, especially if it is across the board.
Case in point, let's say, for the sake of argument, that we have a Locust with an engine rating of 190 and an Atlas with a rating of 360. Their respective speeds are 170 and 64 kph (rounded and quirked). The ratio of their speed then is 2.83. Now, let's nerf them across the board by removing the quirk. That gives the Locust a speed of 154 kph and the Atlas a speed of 58 kph (rounded). The new ratio is 2.66. That actually means that the Locust was disproportionately affected (2.83 - 2.66 = 0.17 decrease in speed advantage). In short, a Locust pilot will have a harder time evading an Atlas pilot after such a nerf than beforehand.
Now, if you were to take agility and nerf it across the board, the same disproportionate effect would be visible. This is because, even though you may be nerfing by a percentage, the amount of the actual nerf is different based on the overall numbers. A 10% nerf to individual chassis may nerf by the same rate within said chassis' range of engine, but between chassis and weight class there will be varying effects, as we saw with my Locust and Atlas example. The Atlas, already moving as slowly and clumsily as it does, isn't particularly effected by your nerf and takes it in stride. The Light Mechs, by contrast, will take it as hard as they would an AC/20 shell to the cockpit.
It's simple math and logic really. The current system is fine; up your game and stop calling for nerfs without doing the math and considering all the consequences. I personally find my Lights to be very powerful right now. Fewer people play them because of the steeper learning curve (something you can't fix with nerfs) and because they lack the firepower of bigger chassis (everyone knows it's a lot more satisfying to slam an AC/20 home than to burble SPLs). I love my Lights and do not want them moving any slower. Such a nerf would cause a greater decline in the number of Light Mechs in the queue than we already see. I would probably end up selling mine and playing only my Mediums if such a nerf were to occur.
Judging from your tone, you would rather Assaults not be able to track anything moving outside of 25 m. I think that's stupid, personally, but you are entitled to your opinion. Nerfs like the ones you suggest would cause a decrease in the number of Assault Mechs being played as well as Light Mechs. In short, the Medium and Heavy queues (the two most commonly played ones I might add) will balloon while the two least played queues will deflate. As difficult as Assaults are to pilot now, the last thing we need is to destroy their functionality as hard-hitting tanks by negating their ability to hit moving targets.
Finally, if you were any good as a Light pilot, you would have no problem staying out from in front of an Atlas' guns; next to the Daishi, it is perhaps the easiest Assault Mech to solo in a Light. Shoot, even a complete noob Light pilot can do it once he realizes that the Atlas can't aim down far enough to hit him in many Lights; he can just hug the Assault's leg and blaze away to his heart's content.
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