Jazzbandit1313, on 12 October 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:
The Current Light Meta And Why It Needs To Change
#21
Posted 12 October 2015 - 06:45 PM
#22
Posted 12 October 2015 - 06:50 PM
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Thats true. Except in tabletop, when a light got in your rear arc and fired, all its weapons didnt hit your rear center torso; Instead, they got split up between arms, legs, right torso, left torso, center torso, etc... because battletech had random hit locations.
The problem is the same problem its always been: convergence. It should not be possible for ANY mech to vomit all its weapons into one location. PGI has repeatedly failed to address convergence and balance has only gotten worse because of it.
Initially, beam duration on lasers did somewhat solve this problem, at least until clan weapons came out. The CSPL has such short beam duration that putting all 6 damage in one location has again become too easy.
Edited by Khobai, 12 October 2015 - 07:03 PM.
#23
Posted 12 October 2015 - 06:58 PM
Endost33L, on 12 October 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:
You got jumped by a light and rage quit, thus. lights are broken.
Man, maybe I should quit MWO every time my Jenner get's insta-correct by Dual Gauss Dual CERPPC dires from a kilometer away.
A piece of advice, stay with your team, and be aware of your surroundings. Keep a mental note of where the enemy is and don't let lights get behind you. Either he got you because you were oblivious (and don't run any back armour), or because that player was very skilled and knew how to position themselves effectively.
#24
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:00 PM
Your suggestions are completely horrid and would result in light mechs being entirely useless. You essentially want to relegate a class to playing second fiddle to anything heavier, in some sort of quasi 'support' role when the concept doesn't exist in MWO, and cannot without a change in fundamental mechanics of the game.
If a light mech is even close to reaching the damage numbers of any properly built assault or heavy mech in an organized environment, the team heavily screwed up or the light player had an incredible match. It can happen with some regularity in pug play. If that's the case, the light pilot was either lucky or better than the assault/heavy player. The range on bigger mechs is typically triple, and the alpha strike roughly double. Problem is a bad player is too scared to ever poke out or bad at it to the point where they'll lose every trade. If you sit behind a building all day long while the friendly light is weaving back and forth taking pot shots, you deserve to get out damaged.
#25
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:04 PM
Endost33L, on 12 October 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:
If you're still at spawn in a 70kph mech in the time it takes for a light to cross the map, you either were AFK or running around in random directions. Furthermore, you can only get one shot if you're running an XL engine with minimal back armor. Running minimal back armor is a perfectly fine thing to do and is often optimal, unless you have poor situational awareness in which case you should put enough on so that you can't get one shot.
Edited by Adiuvo, 12 October 2015 - 07:08 PM.
#26
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:04 PM
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I agree.
But it doesnt make convergence as the game's #1 balance problem any less relevant.
It applies to light mechs as much as assault mechs. No mech should be able to fire all its weapons into a single hit location.
#27
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:10 PM
Troutmonkey, on 12 October 2015 - 06:58 PM, said:
Is this really what you understood from my post despite me being so carefull in my words? I urge you to spend a few more seconds to read it more carefully.
Also my point here was not to ask for how to learn to avoid dying from a light when driving a heavy but if you read again
"Accidents like that make people asking for balance and yes some lights need it bad"
#28
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:12 PM
Endost33L, on 12 October 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:
"Accidents like that make people asking for balance and yes some lights need it bad"
The point is that it's an accident that is entirely the fault of the player, not game mechanics. Therefore there correct response isn't to change game mechanics, but to change player behavior.
#29
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:12 PM
Khobai, on 12 October 2015 - 06:50 PM, said:
The problem is the same problem its always been: convergence. It should not be possible for ANY mech to vomit all its weapons into one location.
#30
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:18 PM
Khobai, on 12 October 2015 - 06:50 PM, said:
Thats true. Except in tabletop, when a light got in your rear arc and fired, all its weapons didnt hit your rear center torso; Instead, they got split up between arms, legs, right torso, left torso, center torso, etc... because battletech had random hit locations.
But anything under 55 tons usually had less than 4 points of armor on it's rear side torsos, and maybe 1-2 points more on it's CT torso. If a light could get behind any ammo carrying medium, you could kill it with a single medium laser.
#31
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:18 PM
If you want to make NARC and TAG relevant, you have to actually make LRMs relevant... a very difficult proposition, especially at higher levels of play where they can be neutralized or be made ineffective.
Besides, those "support" Light mechs get torched by damage focused or "high alpha" Light mechs built to kill everything equally. Defend that Spider-5V (or any sub-Firestarter/Arctic Cheetah class mech) with 1 MPL while carrying TAG (or NARC in the crappy Anansi)? Good luck with that.
Edited by Deathlike, 12 October 2015 - 07:23 PM.
#32
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:21 PM
Adiuvo, on 12 October 2015 - 07:12 PM, said:
I never wrote anything about changing game mechanics, where did you find that, i just stated that some light mechs need balancing.
#33
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:21 PM
So they whined until they had enough firepower to make the armor the assaults have pointless, and now just abuse the massive hitboxes on every mech larger than them.
Want to make ECM better.... make the ecm carrier immune to narc, have ecm counter artemis and tag in it's bubble and do nothing else....perhaps have it slow down paper doll time if the ecm carrier is locked onto.
Want to make LRMs better... make every missle actually hit whatever you're locked onto so they actually do a fixed amount of damage like everyone other weapon in the game...increase their speed a little so they can actually reach a target.....then make them hit the specific component that the tag laser or narc is on (once again sticking to the energy weapon not needing ammo motif)....then increase their weight so they can't be uber boated beyond whatever amount PGI decides the biggest LRM chassis's should have.
Leave AMS as it is.... When you think about it, it's already pretty awesome. I wish I could fit a few tons of equipment and reduce damage from every ballistics projectile by 3 or 4 points. The forums would crash from everyone bitching about how OP the ABS systems was.
Edited by The Atlas Overlord, 12 October 2015 - 07:38 PM.
#34
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:21 PM
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Exactly. Rather than nerfing lights it makes far more sense to focus on adding some kindve damage distrbution mechanic to the game to combat convergence.
A proper damage distrbution mechanic could even mean the end of ghost heat
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You could kill a direwolf with a single gauss rifle shot. Yes tabletop had lots of one hit kills.
But do we want RNG one hit kills in MWO? No.
#36
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:24 PM
The Atlas Overlord, on 12 October 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:
So they whined until they had enough firepower to make the armor the assaults have pointless, and now just abuse the massive hitboxes on every mech larger than them.
If your assault mech has the damage output of a light mech, you're doing it wrong.
When comparing the firepower of a light mech to an assault mech, the assault mech will have at least one of the following advantages or multiple of them:
A. More alpha strike.
B. More heat sustainability / DPS.
C. More range.
D. More concentration (e.g. PPFLD weapons or Pulse Lasers).
#37
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:28 PM
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Thats not entirely true. They didnt have to whine for lights to get the same firepower as assaults. The Jenner was one of the first mechs released. And it always rivaled heavies and some assaults for firepower.
The reason was convergence. The Jenner could blast 30 damage wherever it wanted. Especially into back arcs of mechs where armor was weakest.
The whole reason medium lasers could be 1 ton and 1 crit in tabletop is because boating them meant hitting different locations. That was the whole justification for them weighing as little as they did. But convergence completely upsets that balance by turning a several lasers into one big deathstar super laser that does all that damage into one spot.
Convergence is the enemy. It always has been.
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When comparing the firepower of a light mech to an assault mech, the assault mech will have at least one of the following advantages or multiple of them:
A. More alpha strike.
B. More heat sustainability / DPS.
C. More range.
D. More concentration (e.g. PPFLD weapons or Pulse Lasers).
Except good lights put their damage into back arcs where armor is weak as hell. Thats a huge damage multiplier compared to shooting front armor. Lights have a much easier time getting into other mechs back arcs than assaults do.
Whats gonna hurt more? 30 damage to your back from a Jenner? Or 60 damage (half of which is spread damage from SRMs) to your front from an Atlas? The back damage is gonna core you out and kill you much faster.
The combination of backstrikes and convergence is a bad one and never shouldve been allowed. Its why the game desperately needs some kindve mechanic that severely lessens or eliminates convergence. And an added bonus of that is finally getting rid of ghost heat.
Edited by Khobai, 12 October 2015 - 07:34 PM.
#38
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:30 PM
Jazzbandit1313, on 12 October 2015 - 04:57 PM, said:
Here's what we need to see more of:
1. Builds that support the team by targeting, relaying information, deploying UAV's, rather than headhunting the entire round.
2. NARC's, lots and lots of NARC's.
3. TAG lasers anyone?
4. LRM5/10's for long range harassment.
5. MIXED laser loadouts.
While I understand how many players can be frustrated by lights, I don't think this will help.
You could give me all the scouting rewards in the universe, and i'd still never pilot a light if that was the role I was shoe-horned into. I play robots to fight, and for me, the joy in light mechs lies in out-maneuvering your enemies, striking at weak points, and singling out weak members of the herd to cull. Lights are jackals. They're opportunists. They offer a refreshingly different dimension of gameplay than the peek'n'shoot-alpha-warrior builds that dominate the heavy and assault queues.
I've set up lights to play as support mechs innumerable times in the past, and I find it far more feast or famine than your typical knife-fighting SPL FireStarter or ACH. NARC can be amusing, but if there's enough ECM on the enemy team, or a lack of actual missile boats on yours, it sucks. You have to rely on your teammates for any sense of gratification, and in the blasted wastelands of the PUG queues, relying on anyone else is a fools errand.
As far as loadout diversity goes, in lights, you either specialize or go home. You're either a knife fighter, a medium range poke mech, or a long range sniper - you just don't have the tonnage to spread your firepower over multiple ranges and make enough of an impact on enemy armour - though the same can probably be said for just about any other mech below 70 tonnes.
They're a good check to assault mechs also. If I pilot a Dire, or any other typically over-gunned and under engined monstrosity, I enjoy the threat of a light mech tingling in the back of my mind, like moonlight glinting off a drawn blade caught out of the corner of your eye. It's thrilling.
#39
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:33 PM
Khobai, on 12 October 2015 - 07:28 PM, said:
Whats gonna hurt more? 30 damage to your back from a Jenner? Or 60 damage (half of which is spread damage from SRMs) to your front from an Atlas? The back damage is gonna core you out and kill you much faster.
You have to get there and stay there first.
#40
Posted 12 October 2015 - 07:43 PM
FupDup, on 12 October 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:
Changing game mechanics usually refers to a more general overall change in a game, balancing some mechs that are out of hand is something different.
There are light mechs that need that balance. For example 2 days ago i bought an FS9-A and started leveling it , in my second match i did ~750 dmg and 4 kills (lost the game tho damit) first thing that came in my mind was what is going to happen if i elite this one up, its allready performing amazingy
Another guy streaming this week facekilled 3 assaults in his ACH (heimdelight?) in a 10 second period (that was awesome btw), these things of course piss off players and they are going to ask for balance, you cannot deny that nomatter how biased you are.
Edited by Endost33L, 12 October 2015 - 08:15 PM.
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