57 replies to this topic

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Requirk the FS9 for the weapons it was actually built for and the problem simply goes away. It was meant to be a flamer carrier, so make it a viable flamer carrier. For starters, you might consider making flamers not be terrible anymore instead of respeccing the 'Mech for a different role that it now performs better than the 'Mechs that were actually built for that role, like the JR7. The present quirks for the thing are just silly.

IMO Commandos were in a pretty good place relative to other lights, right up until quirks dropped.

[Foxwalker]

PS WrathOfDeadguy, on 22 April 2015 - 10:03 AM, said:

Requirk the FS9 for the weapons it was actually built for and the problem simply goes away. It was meant to be a flamer carrier, so make it a viable flamer carrier. For starters, you might consider making flamers not be terrible anymore instead of respeccing the 'Mech for a different role that it now performs better than the 'Mechs that were actually built for that role, like the JR7. The present quirks for the thing are just silly.

IMO Commandos were in a pretty good place relative to other lights, right up until quirks dropped.

Sounds good, so you are suggesting that they make them so no one will take them? I cannot imagine what they could do to flamers that would actually make them more than a troll weapon.

Many of the quirks are actually a lot of fun. I am still not sure you can make the Commando equal to anything except other 20-25 ton mechs. In very early closed beta, before ECM and BAP, you could run the 2D with 3 Streaks and 1 medium laser with enough ammo. The required 1.5 tons for the ECM or BAP now makes it run out of ammo too fast. At one point in Beta, it was the only thing that could actually chase down and take out a Jenner, due to the hit reg issue. A1 Streak-a-pults were good but lacked the speed necessary.

It would be cool if they found a way to make the Commando more viable. I am not sure giving it more hard points would help. Maybe an 8 small laser variant instead of 4? Remember it was a little beast in TT, compared to Wasps and Stingers.

[AEgg]

The one thing the commando really has going for it is it's arms. They're fully articulated so you can hit at angles that almost no other mech can. Firestarters to be fair have arms that are almost as good, but jenners and locusts have no arm movement at all, and that's actually pretty significant at close ranges moving very quickly.

[dimachaerus]

Honestly, I'd like to have maneuverability and Armor/Structure quirks for it. it's a sneaky little brawler mech and that should be supported more than trying to inflate it's hardpoints or re-quirk it into something it's simply never going to be.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Commandos don't really need more weapons, they just need to be able to do more with less, and with most variants being a missile platform, they need some dead-fire SRM love too (and at least not sacrifice too much, to carry 1 to 3 tons of ammo)!

Commandos could be made a tad tougher at least in their arms (although overall boosts, along the lines of the 3V boosts, are also welcome. And I'd like to see those kinds of boosts extended to the rest of the Locusts, Mist Lynxes, Spiders and Urbies).

For all Commandos

Add Medium Laser Heat Generation so that the combined value is 25% on each variant, for MLs (so heat goes from 4 to 3).
Add Medium Laser Range boosts, so that each variant can average 300 Meters without the Range Module.
Add Medium Laser Duration, 0.67 to 0.75 beam duration is a good area (Can and probably should replace Cooldown boosts)

Add Structure to the Torsos, increase Leg and Arm Structure.
Add Armor (like the 3V values).

*General Heat Dissipation Quirk to compensate for external DHS below 10. It would be nice to tie this to the engines somehow, so that going with an XL 170 or XL 175 can handle the same dissipation rates as the XL 225, for example. Unlikely, but still gonna add it to the list!

COM-1B

Swap Medium Laser Cooldown for Large Laser Heat Generation, at 10% that gives a total of 20% (with existing boost it has).
Modify CT Hardpoint to allow it to fire an SRM-6 in one salvo, with increased missile velocity and reduced spread, that gives the variant another ideally viable customization option.

COM-1D, COM-2D, COM-3A

Add Missile Velocity Boosts and decreased Missile Spread, this way they can better hit fast targets and be more concentrated.

Because, if any Commando intends to run SRM 6's, the spread is high and can be hard to land against fast targets, And SRM-6 cannot even make use of Artemis in the CT.

COM-TDK

Additional boost to Arm Armor and Structure

---

Just wanted to note, I personally can live with reducing the Engine rating on Commandos in exchange for such quirks, if it's a necessary measure for balancing.

[Hans Von Lohman]

Give the Commandos a 3rd consumable slot.

[Karl Streiger]

Well you can see the multiple stages of MWO development everywhere.

You have more restrictive tube sizes on Mechs that got their "geometry screwed it up" fix first: Victor; Catapult or not yet - Stalker
While "the screwing of 3D modells of Mechs after Clans have inflationary missile tubes -> 55 possible for the Centurion!!!!!
And of course also the size is different those 20 tubes on a Centurion are smaller as those 5tubes on a Catapult or Victor.

Well yes we are talking about Hardpoints of the Firestarter - that get in the game "after" the JaegerMech - that imho was the first that started a complete new level of "inflationary" HPs.

Why 4 missile HPs rather than 2 for the JM6-A? Why 4 E-HPs for the King Crab? - and so on.

The lack of love for details is everywhere in MWO (no activators for Gargoyle C - but the StormCrow B will get them) - as well as the failures of the past (geometry fix for Catapult)-

Its is really necessary to rework every Mech again.

• normalize the number of hardpoints - ClanMechs are perfect for numbers - for everything else you have quirks
  
• normalize the size of hardpoints (at best combine both for "size" hardpoints")
  
• normalize the numbers of tubes (much for dedicated boats - few for everything else)
  
• include anti infantry weapons hardpoints (Flammer,MachineGuns)
  
• include electronic warfare hardpoint (BAP, TAG, NARC)

[SweetJackal]

PS WrathOfDeadguy, on 22 April 2015 - 10:03 AM, said:

Requirk the FS9 for the weapons it was actually built for and the problem simply goes away. It was meant to be a flamer carrier, so make it a viable flamer carrier. For starters, you might consider making flamers not be terrible anymore instead of respeccing the 'Mech for a different role that it now performs better than the 'Mechs that were actually built for that role, like the JR7. The present quirks for the thing are just silly.

IMO Commandos were in a pretty good place relative to other lights, right up until quirks dropped.

Flamers have been in a broken state for a long time and from the most recent Town Hall I wouldn't expect any changes to the weapon functionality from coding. Seems that the programmer responsible for the general weapon code isn't working for PGI anymore and the code itself was a mess that others don't understand. So, he coded for "job security" and didn't properly document his work. Seems like fixing it would take a good chunk of time and resources while putting other features on hold, from my understanding anyways.

The stock loadouts of the Firestarter aren't exclusively Flamers either. The S and A models carry medium and small lasers to have them fill a wider range of roles, the K model carries large and small lasers as a more combat focused unit.

[Storky]

Yeonne Greene, on 21 April 2015 - 10:47 PM, said:

The Commando cannot boat missiles or lasers, unlike the LCT-3M, LCT-1E, and LCT-3S. This hurts it. It always has a mix, like the LCT-1M. The LCT-1M, despite popular opinion, is actually quite good, but it also lacks another problem the Commando has: it's not 25 tons. The 25 ton class requires a heftier engine to reach those lofty speeds and, in a strange twist of math, the Locust winds up with a better optimized weapons payload. So, the Commando has inferior hardpoint combinations and placement and is saddled with a heavy engine that gives it less than a half-ton advantage over a max-engine Locust with full armor. You can stretch that to 7 free tons by shaving away all but one point of head armor, but then the Locust can also just shave down to 5 points to get 6.5 free tons. You aren't really going to do anything with that extra half ton except maybe drop a half-ton of ammo to replace one of the SRM2 with an SRM4, and I'd say that's not a good trade. So, there's not much of an impetus to run a Commando when a Locust is cheaper, just as fast, and gets some amazing quirks. Commando needs help.

Victor is not buffed, but latest nerfs on arm and torso movement also was removed.

[Mechteric]

The problem is that tonnage in this game doesn't mean much, because your commando will be matched up evenly against a firestarter despite being 10 tons lighter than it. That wouldn't be so bad if across the team they could match tonnage somehow so some will be heavier and others lighter across the weight classes.

[Ph30nix]

the Death Knell is still a contender having all weapon points on arms with INSANE arc of fire is not something that should be underestimated.

they do need something though overall. Even if its just better Heat quirks

[Tombstoner]

Karl Streiger, on 23 April 2015 - 12:52 AM, said:

Well you can see the multiple stages of MWO development everywhere.

You have more restrictive tube sizes on Mechs that got their "geometry screwed it up" fix first: Victor; Catapult or not yet - Stalker
While "the screwing of 3D modells of Mechs after Clans have inflationary missile tubes -> 55 possible for the Centurion!!!!!
And of course also the size is different those 20 tubes on a Centurion are smaller as those 5tubes on a Catapult or Victor.

Well yes we are talking about Hardpoints of the Firestarter - that get in the game "after" the JaegerMech - that imho was the first that started a complete new level of "inflationary" HPs.

Why 4 missile HPs rather than 2 for the JM6-A? Why 4 E-HPs for the King Crab? - and so on.

The lack of love for details is everywhere in MWO (no activators for Gargoyle C - but the StormCrow B will get them) - as well as the failures of the past (geometry fix for Catapult)-

Its is really necessary to rework every Mech again.

• normalize the number of hardpoints - ClanMechs are perfect for numbers - for everything else you have quirks
  
• normalize the size of hardpoints (at best combine both for "size" hardpoints")
  
• normalize the numbers of tubes (much for dedicated boats - few for everything else)
  
• include anti infantry weapons hardpoints (Flammer,MachineGuns)
  
• include electronic warfare hardpoint (BAP, TAG, NARC)

You forgot - -normalize the affects of mech size interactions with speed

[Madcap72]

IDK, I like it.



throwing an LRM 5 on is HILARIOUS.

[MechWarrior3671771]

With all the light mechs to choose from, if only one is considered the workhorse for competitive play, something is out of balance.

From my experience, Firestarters carry too much DPS for their tonnage and have hit reg issues.

Fix one of those, please.

[Windsaw]

I've been a Commando pilot since closed beta.
I still like it very much. I think some of the points being made about the Commando being a bad mech are not valid, although many still are.

So, from the perspective of someone who still pilots it a lot:

The lack of hardpoints is not a problem for me. They are pretty much what can be fit into them for their tonnage.

What gets on my nerves most is the fact that it has an ECM variant. I hated ECM from day one and still do. For a long time, the only valid Commando was the 2D and for months the ECM-Streak combo was almost auto-win in the hands of a decent pilot. This may be a thing of the past but if I bring a Commando into a fight I am still expected to bring the ECM one by my teammates. I still boycott it and any other ECM mechs.

I agree that some Locusts are formidable. Most of them are LL-peekaboos. But in the months since the Locust came online I have never had a Locust in battle that felt superior to my Commandos. In 1:1, the Locust almost always loses. I have piloted Locusts myself, and maybe it was just personal preference, but I would never dare to go against a healthy Commando.

There was one time when I wasn't afraid of going against a Jenner in my Commando. That was when there still were knockdowns. My tactic was circling and using my lower arm actuators to target the Jenner when it could not retaliate. Once that doesn't work anymore I rammed the Jenner. After getting up I would have a single alpha against him and those SRM really hurt! I am still waiting for PGI to fulfill their promise that the removal of knockdowns would only be temporary. The day when knockdowns were removed was the day when skillful piloting as lost. A good Commanod pilot could make up for a lot of its disadvantages if the pilot was good.

Currently I drive two Commandos: The Death's Knell and the 3A. The Knell because it really is fast as hell and gives me the hero bonus. But it has bad quirks. I would love to see some better quirks on it. The 3A was always a decent allrounder Commando. And because of the massive SRM4 quirk it is again. Last saturday I had a match with 5 kills and 850 damage in it. It is not the best mech against other lights but it can be downright deadly against heavies and assaults.
As for the other variants, I have not played them in a long time.

One thing is sure however: The Commando is useless in competitive games or CW. I get very good results in PUG matches however. My average damage and kill ratio is still better with Commandos than with other mechs I mastered. But maybe I'm just worse in other meches. In PUG matches I don't get the average results of my Commando in Catapults (except the gausspult), Centurions or Shadowhawks. I only get constantly better results in my Jäger, Banshees or Firestarters.
(I know, it's strange for the Shadowhawks, but I never learned to handle it properly)

[DONTOR]

Prosperity Park, on 21 April 2015 - 06:50 PM, said:

Also, where are the Huge Quirks? Why did the Commando not get massive quirks to make it combat-worthy?

Because those of us proficient in the ways of the Commando dont need massive quirk buffs!

[Karl Streiger]

Tombstoner, on 23 April 2015 - 08:58 AM, said:

You forgot - -normalize the affects of mech size interactions with speed

You think about that obvious stuff like giving chicken walkers a penalty for climbing hills rather than mount it on model hight?

A good example for Cause Pgi - they tend to keep true to Bt when the outcome is bad for the game.

For example Hellbringer sure the Ecm is in the Lt - but for the game the placement in the CT would have been better.

[Y E O N N E]

DONTOR, on 23 April 2015 - 02:35 PM, said:

Because those of us proficient in the ways of the Commando dont need massive quirk buffs!

Well, neither did us Locust-fu practitioners, but we got 'em anyway. Think of the children!

Windsaw, on 23 April 2015 - 01:24 PM, said:

~Good words, snipped for tidiness~

I know that feel. If I want to serious up in regular drops, I'll pick a Locust variant. I consider Commandos to actually be more dangerous than your average Firestarter because it can usually out-turn and out-run me, and it doesn't take much to damage a Locust. That said...I have only ever lost to a Commando when it had friends (and it was a DFA T_T), because it also doesn't take much to hurt a Commando! It's basically payload versus agility when it comes to comparing Locusts and Commandos, and I don't think the differences are so great that it's not ultimately a test of piloting proficiency.