102 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

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Any reasonable person will automatically think about ECM as the most obvious thing that effects "sensor Warfare" ECM interacting with pretty much everything that has to do with targeting .

And I said that the role of sensor warfare needs to be greatly expanded.

Since damage is the one thing players care about more than anything, reducing damage of all weapons by 30% when you dont have a sensor lock is the best and easiest way to make sensors actually matter. Then all you have to do is make sure lights/mediums have significantly longer sensor range than heavies/assaults to create a dependency on lighter mechs.

[MadCat02]

Khobai, on 17 April 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

And I said that the role of sensor warfare needs to be greatly expanded.

Since damage is the one thing players care about more than anything, reducing damage of all weapons by 30% when you dont have a sensor lock is the best and easiest way to make sensors actually matter. Then all you have to do is make sure lights/mediums have significantly longer sensor range than heavies/assaults to create a dependency on lighter mechs.

So by your suggestion . Canon needs a lock on to deal full damage .

Goodbye .

Edited by MadCat02, 17 April 2016 - 12:34 PM.

[Khobai]

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So by your suggestion . Canon needs a lock on to deal full damage .

yes all weapons should require a sensor lock to deal full damage. lasers, cannons, missiles, etc... if you dont have a sensor lock you dont do full damage. its a simple, effective, and logical way to make sensors matter.

how else are you going to make sensors matter? the ONLY way to make sensors matter is to tie them into the one thing players care about more than anything else: damage. damage is literally all players care about and the only thing that will force them into using sensors. nothing else is gonna work.

if you can come up with another way to make sensor warfare crucial to the game then tell us... because I have not seen anyone come up with a better suggestion for making scouting/sensor warfare actually matter and restoring purpose to lights/mediums.

Also I dont know what youre complaining about because cannons are generally only effective at ranges where sensor locks are easily obtained anyway (under 800m).

Edited by Khobai, 17 April 2016 - 12:43 PM.

[Kdogg788]

@OP: just figuring out most lights are underpowered?

@Fupdup: in theory, only lasers would need full target lock to do full damage as they are composed of a focused beam. Ballistic weapons could still do the same damage whether locked on or not. If I shut my eyes and shot something with a handgun the bullet would do the same damage as if I was looking, would it not?

-k

Edited by Kdogg788, 17 April 2016 - 12:45 PM.

[2fast2stompy]

You're so wrong it hurts.

If you're running ER small lasers on a light, you need to stop.
The standard SPL ARC has max DPS of 12.5 for 9.5 seconds until it overheats.
The standard SPL FS9-A has max DPS of 12.1 for 16.3 seconds before it overheats.

One has ECM, the other has durability and a bigger engine (agility). Seems pretty equal to me.

Jenner IIC is broken in the same sense that Oxide is broken, you just see more of them because C-bills. The laser variant falls apart if someone looks at it.

The part about "risky IS XL engines" on a light is downright ********.

Edited by 2fast2stompy, 17 April 2016 - 12:53 PM.

[Omaha]

Sensors already matter, and matter by a whole hella lot.

Seriously your not gonna charge a maddog until you find out it's not packing streaks am I right?

Also, where is the enemy? Unless you have line of sight? Or a UAV up. There is no way to know.

ECM is also abundant, so sensors do not matter? Then why is ecm so king of the hill?

Edited by Omaha, 17 April 2016 - 01:03 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Kdogg788, on 17 April 2016 - 12:45 PM, said:

@OP: just figuring out most lights are underpowered?

@Fupdup: in theory, only lasers would need full target lock to do full damage as they are composed of a focused beam. Ballistic weapons could still do the same damage whether locked on or not. If I shut my eyes and shot something with a handgun the bullet would do the same damage as if I was looking, would it not?

-k

This is why I prefer removing convergence without a target lock. If all weapons fire straight forward, while you don't reduce damage you do spread it dramatically and make it much more difficult to precisely cut mechs apart. Some chassis do have lots of hardpoints grouped tightly together, but not very many and those that do aren't very strong to start with, and/or will still tend to spread damage. Take the executioner for example. It's laser arm will still tend to spread damage over 2 components without a target lock.

Khobai's suggestion is stronger in force (and would work better) except for the plausibility issue. It bothers me, too - and if it only affects lasers it'd just shift the meta to ballistics and otherwise not change anything at all. This was one of the major issues with the trial system PGI tested with laser ranges being impacted by target locks.

Whatever is done needs to affect all weapon types.

Omaha, on 17 April 2016 - 01:00 PM, said:

Sensors already matter, and matter by a whole hella lot.

Seriously your not gonna charge a maddog until you find out it's not packing streaks am I right?

Also, where is the enemy? Unless you have line of sight? Or a UAV up. There is no way to know.

Getting target info matters (though a streak-packing mad dog is only a threat to lighter mechs, and even then only randomly), but in regular play sensors really don't matter very much**. Certainly not enough (and this is the critical point!!) to make the less combat capable lights and mediums valuable.

** By this, I mean, simply pressing R is good enough to get that info now, and that's totally useless for improving those scout mechs.


Which is the point. Make infowar matter more, and you have another avenue to make a great many less viable mechs have a real purpose in game, without having to just tack on more direct combat ability - which simply isn't an option.

Edited by Wintersdark, 17 April 2016 - 01:05 PM.

[Omaha]

Dude knowing where the enemy is ONE HUGE thing. What else is there that really matter in sensor warfare? Beside spoofing that information?

To make sensors matter more we need things like smoke, mines, and decoys. Not limits on dmg output.

I want to edit this because I want to add, they could screw with things in a way that make silhouettes unrecognizable until you have sensor range. Isnt that the reasoning behind removal of the Atlas glowing eye? Since we as pilots arent viewing the battlefield with our naked eyes. We shouldnt be able to see what type of mech that is off in the distance, nor should we be able to see those huge nipple gauss rifles protruding out of it's torso's.Make fog of war matter more, and sensors warfare will follow. Use ecm as evidence to that notion.

Edited by Omaha, 17 April 2016 - 01:29 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

MadCat02, on 17 April 2016 - 12:30 PM, said:

So by your suggestion . Canon needs a lock on to deal full damage .

Goodbye .

is this your only argument, if its not canon its bad ?

[Tristan Winter]

Nah, lights are totally on level with any other mechs. Weight doesn't really matter in MWO, it's all about using each mech according to their role.

That's why there are no arbitrary weight restrictions to force players to combine different weight classes. It's also why the world championship doesn't force teams to bring a 2-2-2-2 distribution. Mixed weight classes happens organically due to role warfare. Simply put, you can't really win a match by just bringing a full team Black Knights! Because you need just as many light mechs as heavy mechs to scout and harass and gather information. And let's not forget the medium mechs - the glue that binds the team together.

Right?

#rolewarfare

[Wiley Coyote]

Cathy, on 17 April 2016 - 01:12 PM, said:

is this your only argument, if its not canon its bad ?

I'm guessing he meant "cannon" and not "canon".

[C E Dwyer]

Wiley Coyote, on 17 April 2016 - 01:16 PM, said:

I'm guessing he meant "cannon" and not "canon".

I can see that loading round shot into a camera isn't going to get you far in life

Have we missed talk like a Hollywood pirate day ?

If not

"Four points to the wind, me hearties, don't fire until you can see the whites in the Claners eye's, then give em a whiff of double shot haa haaa"

[Rhent]

An oxide running 4 SRM4's for instance can easily cripple single assaults. A FSH running 6 SPL's can easily destroy opposing clan lights. IS lights has the ability to swap engines and upsize to have max speed, which is what clan lights lack.

[Darian DelFord]

Khobai, on 17 April 2016 - 10:44 AM, said:

Theres no role warfare at all in this game. Thats why everyone just defaults to playing heavies because they give you the best mix of all attributes.

The easiest way to make lights/mediums more relevant is to add proper sensor warfare. Damage should be reduced by 30% unless you have a target lock. And lights/mediums should have way better sensors than heavies/assaults. That would force heavies/assaults to depends on the lighter weight classes to maximize their damage.

Not until they make target selection a hell of alot easier using sensors. Can not tell you how many times I have had my reticle on a make shooting it, hit the R key only to have it select some damn random mech barely in my field of view.

[jss78]

Well I don't pilot lights that much, but I feel like lights are actually working as they should. We have a handful of fast (but not fastest) lights with good firepower, "strikers", which are doing OK in the game, as mentioned in several posts above.

Then we have other lights which struggle -- but they were never intended for combat against mechs anyway!

The real problem is that any of the other roles don't exist in the game. A 20-tonner will always suck in a mech-vs-mech deathmatch on a small map where scouting is not necessary, but I'm not sure this is a problem that could or even should be fixed.

Edited by jss78, 17 April 2016 - 01:30 PM.

[Omaha]

WEll if that 20 tonner could spoof it's location somewhere else in a duel it could in theroy give that better mech a nice back alpha or cripple shot. Or lead it into a minefield.

Or even b4 the distanced of sensor range was closed, make the enemy think it's a direwolf, or some other large more firepower mech, lets just say unknown mech And completely keep teh duel from happening in the first place.

I'm just a firm believer that being able to see mechs as silhouettes and knowign what type they are, is a big no no. In fact b4 even getting sensor information, you can pick priorities.

Sensors aren't a priority, because the fog of war as implemented now, is all but fog of war. IE: you can see the mech weight by just looking at it, and can guess it's loadout prrtty reliable with the exception of a few mechs/weapons. You can always see points of interest ont eh battlefields just by viewing the map, and they are mostly in the same places.

There is also elements to this stuff that pgi cannot change, things like mech and player behaviors. Say they scramble being able to visually see mech weights frmo outside sensor ranges, you will know that one unknown mech out in front of the group, could mostly likely be a light, observe a little more and you'll see it movement is errattic and fast, yup it's a light. Then there is the metas, yes pgi can adjust things but the meta will always be a meta. It changes and evolves. If you see a mech you can make a good guess from it's meta. This is not PGI's fault. It's player behavior and information sharing. Lot's of ppl copy others.Simple as that.

Even if they hidden from view and made points of interest on maps in randomized locations, maps are only so big. Places can only be where others arent. The process of elimination can never be nerfed.

This is why I believe this game needs to evolve into some form of persistant (larger instances) or connected instances of battlefields, so you can walk outside border and load up a new instance. So make maps appear larger without making them larger. Match by match play will only ever get you rush mode tactics, due to time restrictions, and size of the fields of play. With limited point of interest (objectives) in areas that you can guess even if you can't see them. With things you'lll always know, Yup there is 12 guys here we must fight. Not much of a scouting thing happening besides the skirmish scouting tactics. We are here ont eh map, so they must be there...... So much for information warfare. But what if they actually werent even on the same instance of the map? What then? What if you could run away because you're loosing a 12v3 battle only to load up a new instance and become the savior of the day reinforcing a 12v7 battle?

IMO that was one of the draw backs of the table top, and the resonsing behind match style play. Because you had to setup the field, so being based on table top in that aspect hurts this game. Limiting it's potential for so so much more then just Here is a 12x12 square, FIGHT! What if the maps were fixed in a design aspect but there were multiples of them connected Randomly generated in a much much larger field of play? I could go on and on, and am very passionate about it.

I play (havent lately, for personal issues) and still love the game because I'm a huge fan of the mechs, and lore of the universe. But the match by match style chosen caught me off guard when I first signed up, and when community warefare started I was again caught off guard with it's match by match style as well. In my eyes this style of play puts hard limits on what you can really do with information warefare, and other things, that would again, IMO make the game more enjoyable, and at the same time eliminating the need for some things, but also creating the need for some others. Plus it does in fact also get sorta stagnant, and repetative. Limiting its re-playability other then choosing different mechs to mortal kombat in.

Edited by Omaha, 17 April 2016 - 02:56 PM.

[Coolant]

MadCat02, on 17 April 2016 - 10:33 AM, said:

There really is not that many different light mechs being played at Tier 1 which makes this game dull and boring . You have huge amount of mechs that are made obsolete by Artic and IIC Jenner and you can't blame people for playing mechs that are clearly superior .

Actually I can. They are solely to blame. Since there are other choices available, and no one put a gun to their heads then they clearly have made a choice. They could choose to challenge themselves instead of easy mode. They choose not to. Please let's not put blame on anyone, including PGI, except the pilots that pilot them because they have free will.

[Salticidae]

I think giving lights a sensor that turns them in to a half range UAV would be good ( like a ecm bubble), they could hide around the enemy and give free targets for there team. Or hang around assaults and pick up other lights flanking before they get their rear armour shredded.

[2fast2stompy]

Zyne, on 17 April 2016 - 01:41 PM, said:

they could hide around the enemy and give free targets for there team. Or hang around assaults and pick up other lights flanking before they get their rear armour shredded.

They can already do all that.

Edited by 2fast2stompy, 17 April 2016 - 01:51 PM.

[Deathlike]

Having read this thread, I just want to vomit (laser or otherwise).

While the title is true, the reasoning is so flawed and it needs to be addressed point by point...

I'll sum up my opinion with this... our balance overlord has no clue and that's generally why most Lights are not really taken.

MadCat02, on 17 April 2016 - 10:33 AM, said:

There really is not that many different light mechs being played at Tier 1 which makes this game dull and boring . You have huge amount of mechs that are made obsolete by Artic and IIC Jenner and you can't blame people for playing mechs that are clearly superior .

Firestarter is still a thing.. though only anyone really cares about the Firestarter-S. The rest is forgettable for the most part.

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People often play different lights to have fun but they know that few other Light do like everything else better . Clan Lights also have few things going for them that are simply not counter weighted on Inner Sphere side .

Biggest Factors :

Huge performance Difference between Small Laser and Clan Small laser

Clan ER Small laser for me is bread a butter of supplementary DPS (It is extremely important weapon for lights with large amount of energy hardpoints ). It is so DPS efficient that I actually run it on Mediums and Heavies as free damage if I have spare Energy slots and it works ridiculously well .Where Inner Sphere Small Laser Deals 2 Less Damage has ***** optimal range making it a complete garbage that I would never use .

Its like Complete Opposite . Useful for what it is and not usable at all .

Dealing 3 Damage and having 135 meter Optimal is unacceptable in this game as far as common sense goes .

Small Laser 3 Damage , 135 Meter Optimal 4 Damage , 160 Meter optimal . That 1 less heat on Inner sphere Small laser does not make one bit of a difference PGI . Currently this weapon is unusable .

The only time the IS SL is relevant is with the Firestarter-A, but even then it runs 8 SPL.

Let's be clear, the IS SL is bad for the most part, and while the CERSML is better, anyone with a brain will tell you that the primary build for Clan Lights involving a small laser is the CSPL. I don't even subscribe to the lame ACH Champion build mostly due to stare time (duration is slightly longer than the IS Med Laser).

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Inner Sphere Lights are too slow without risky Inner Sphere XL engine

Its very uncommon for light mech to loose both shoulders before death but you can easily die from loosing 1 shoulder especially if someone manages to tag you on the back where you have almost no armor .

Inner Sphere Light mechs are pretty much forced to run XL engines because otherwise they cannot move fast enough to dodge most of laser beam's damage. Even then they have to sacrifice some firepower to go same speed as Clan mechs .

Perphas to avoid effecting other weight classes you could buff some of the Inner Sphere Light with 3 shoulder armor . Not sure how you calculate 3 ( because I mean like 3 in front and 3 in a back )

I personally think that Inner XL Engine needs to be drastically redesigned . Maybe it should reduce your speed by 50% and deal damage to nearby components when it explodes . You will still be basically dead but not completely out of the fight .

What?

Eventually there will be more Clan Battlemechs coming along, but you completely ignore their existence. While the ACH and other Clan Lights are chained to their engines (due to being Omnimechs), that's not really gamebreaking with the current state of Clan XL.

I'm not going to subscribe to Gyrok's "Clan XL is bad" BS, but let's be clear.. if you're losing your side torsos instead of your leg.. there's something wrong with your opponents. Outside of a Jenner's soft and squishy CT (minus the Oxide's super buffed quirks), if you're not aiming at the legs, you're honestly doing it wrong (exceptions would be the slow Clan Lights). Too many players as it is screw this very simple issue up. I don't know what excuse you can have there really.

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2-3 Clan Mediums can Act as decent mid range poke with 440+ buffed range

I know some people love to debate that Clan Mediums are too hot . ( yes they are ) . However you have to understand that this game is not all about DPS ( alpha striking and range poking is a big factor ) Light mechs have limited amount of space so if you went 2 ERL you would have low heat efficiency .

Now 2-3 Clan Mediums even with their high heat make a very good 3 Ton worth of 21 damage at mid range . Inner Sphere Mediums Lasers in best case scenario are short of 440+ optimal buffed Clan Mediums

I would like to see Inner sphere mediums receive more range and maybe increase heat by 1 .
Right now they basically like better Small lasers. Only few mechs with 10% range bonus can use them properly for mid range .

I don't even know how this is relevant to your argument.

CERMEDs are wonderful for what they do, but when you're forced into a brawl, they become a little less palatable. I know people will run CERMEDs to torture mechs at range, but once you get within brawl range, it's not ideal for what they are doing. If you really needed range while in a Light, CMPL is a better solution. Tonnage will be problematic though, but that's the tradeoff.

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Laser Range Bonuses should have been selective . Not overall nerf .


Panther Is a very underwhelming light to play . He has up to 3 lasers in one arm ( ouch ) and they are in low location ( ouch again )

He was a terrible mech with 20% range bonus . Gets nerfed because of heavier mechs using ERL .

I liked that some crapy mechs had huge bonuses . Now why would anyone play them?

Panther suffers a lot of problems... most notably that one of the variants have no energy gen bonuses/quirks (and I don't mean the awful 10P). If a Light doesn't have the speed, it would need to dominate at range. I still don't take the 2 ERPPC Panther seriously, and for the most part, there's already a better option. For Panthers to be relevant, it literally needs better quirks.

I would actually advocate for the Jenners (including the IICs, minus the Oxide) to get actual structure quirks. For whatever our balance overlord is thinking, IS Jenners that are not named an Oxide have not been a consideration since quirks were introduced. I don't know how incompetent one must be over a year+ of quirking to not realize how the IS Jenner has been superseded by the Firestarters... but that's besides the point (I mean, the Mist Lynx has been trying to wave its stub of an arm for years).

There's still virtually little reason to take a Commando over a Locust (well, the 1E anyways with a few other Lolcusts).


As much it sounds easy to just blame one thing over another... one thing is clear...

Our balance overlord needs a clue.