45 replies to this topic

[Wikikomoto]

I'll start by saying the dragon is one of my favourite mechs. but it seems to get no love in MWO. and very few people seem to play it. seeing as its long for an overhaul, i have an idea that i'd love to see implemented. why not raise the right arm up to cockpit level? this is how the mech appears in its original design, and even early MWO concept art. it would give it great hull down capabilities with the AC, but not let it be overpowered, since the left arm bearing the energy payload would still be at an awkward lover level.

just a thought anyways

(plus it looks way cooler with the dedicated AC arm)

[Paigan]

Hoho. No love except for the 200%-250% DPS quirk.
One of THE most overpowered quirks in the game.

So let's just buff it a little more by raising the arm to cockpit level. Yay!

But then again you would have to raise EVERY mech's arms to cockpit level, because every mech is actually capable of doing so, that's what arms are for (the original artistic illustration of the Dragon is next to irrelevant, every mech is capable of raising its arms).

Low arms are also a kind of balancing means: You get perfect aiming and extended firing degree, but you have to pay for it by having lower hardpoints. Although in some cases like the WHK, way too low hardpoints (there's a thread about it).

And if you think about all that, the obvious decision is to rather not raise the Dragon's arm.
Oh and reduce the ridiculous overpowered DPS quirk, of course.

Personally, I'd find it rather ugly to have such an asymmetrical silhoutte. But that's just me and I'll luckily never have to pilot it anyway.

Edited by Paigan, 22 May 2015 - 12:56 AM.

[Pezzer]

If they have humanoid arms, the weapon is low-slung. That's just how MWO works.

I don't like the way it looks and I do not think it would work very well at all in-game. The Dragon is fine as it is, just needs a slightly smaller nose if possible and unique geometry depending for the different equippable weapons.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Because Sarna says so.

[El Bandito]

Dragon's right arm is indeed supposed to be high mounted. However, if one wishes to have higher mounted arms, one will have to reduce AC5 quirk from 50% to 20%.

Edited by El Bandito, 22 May 2015 - 01:41 AM.

[Wikikomoto]

drop the quirks! raise the arm!

[Torgun]

Higher arm and lower quirk does indeed sound reasonable. But that will also require PGI redo the model of the Dragon, so yeah about as probable of that happening as unicorns raining from the skies delivering free bacon for everyone that tastes just like real bacon but has 0% fat.

[bad arcade kitty]

i see plenty of quirk abusers on dragons

[Torgun]

bad arcade kitty, on 22 May 2015 - 02:12 AM, said:

i see plenty of quirk abusers on dragons

Thanks for the input, which has nothing to do with a Dragon redesign.

[bad arcade kitty]

it was the answer to the following phrase from the op post

>very few people seem to play it

it is false
there are plenty of overquirked dragons everywhere

[Torgun]

bad arcade kitty, on 22 May 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

it was the answer to the following phrase from the op post

>very few people seem to play it

it is false
there are plenty of overquirked dragons everywhere

I seldom see any, it often gets its' arm focused down and blown off early on against good opponents.

[Alistair Winter]

Personally, the only reason I don't play the Dragon is because I can't get over how ugly it is. It's basically a horse's head on legs, with huge arms. It feels like the Battletech designers tried to copy some of the Gundam / Mecha designs where humanoid robots have very protruding, cone-like chests, like the nose of an aircraft. But they still look fairly humanoid as long as they have a head. The Dragon just looks like a horse's head.

It would take a bigger redesign to make me interested, is what I'm saying.

That being said, I do think the idea in the OP is a very cheap and good compromise that would probably make a lot of Dragon-enthusiasts happy. It would be nice to see such an iconic Kurita mech being used by Kurita players in MWO.

Not to mention that a combination of high ballistic mounts and high energy mounts would probably make this a good enough sniper that PGI could potentially turn it into a well-rounded mech with good energy AND ballistic quirks, instead of a one-trick pony.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 22 May 2015 - 02:23 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Eh, I can never get into a decent position to actually use the thing, low & wide arms, you basically have to be standing right out in the open for everyone to see.

Terrain or teamates block your shots 8/10 times.

[Torgun]

Mister D, on 22 May 2015 - 02:50 AM, said:

Eh, I can never get into a decent position to actually use the thing, low & wide arms, you basically have to be standing right out in the open for everyone to see.

Terrain or teamates block your shots 8/10 times.

Even before quirks I actually put most of my firepower in the 2 high left torso energy mounts of my 1C because as you've pointed out that arm really is very low and you're exposing so much of your mech to shoot over terrain. Back when PPCs were good I did a dual PPC in the shoulder as a mobile sniper as my main mech.

[Brody319]

yes

[KHETTI]

I like it, simple solution, raise the arm, remove the quirks and see how it does.

[Torgun]

KHETTI, on 22 May 2015 - 03:03 AM, said:

I like it, simple solution, raise the arm, remove the quirks and see how it does.

While it's a buff we're still talking about raising a single arm, totally removing all quirks from such a low tier mech would simply mean a nerf in the end. Jagers have 2 high mounted arms and I don't see them being totally quirkless.

[Juodas Varnas]

Oh, that'd be great.
Even MW:Tactics (R.I.P.) did it that way

And here you can see another thing i liked about MW:T mechs in comparison to MW:O
They kept their bloody legs straight and didn't squat, as if they shat their pants.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 22 May 2015 - 03:28 AM.

[Chuck Jager]

You could raise both arms and put 2 ballistic mounts in them and maybe add some high mount laser points and also keep some basic quirks to compensate for the XL engine. Take a look at the K2

[KHETTI]

Torgun, on 22 May 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

While it's a buff we're still talking about raising a single arm, totally removing all quirks from such a low tier mech would simply mean a nerf in the end. Jagers have 2 high mounted arms and I don't see them being totally quirkless.

If the Dragon got altered this way (Do it PGI! i command thee!), it would need to be run without quirks for a while, only way to be accurate and not end up with and over quirked monstrosity that so many mechs currently are.
There enough over-quirked crutch mechs already, we don't need more of them.