25 replies to this topic

[GreyNovember]

I'm not contesting your first point. In spirit, if all the factors are even between the light and assault, then absolutely; the light is going to get rekt if it remains in the crosshairs. an AC40 KGC against a locust? Absolutely. If those AC shells manage to hit, and the locust can't stay out of the crab's crosshair, it's a dead light. No issues there.

I am however, contesting the sweeping nature of the statement. While the Pretty baby is an assault, it's also worth much, much less than a nova at most ranges. Tonnage is hardly the main thing to consider when you want to give mechs a "ratio" to work with.

Your very OP is talking about builds with the TBR. So this isn't completely off topic.

[adamts01]

Requiemking, on 20 July 2016 - 05:55 PM, said:

The Adder and the Kit Fox, when configured into and played as assassin units, are more than capable of taking out even the mighty Direwolf or the Kodiak.

I had to have a little chuckle at this one. My UAC10 4xspl Adder is nasty, but at most it can support another mech that's going after an assault. You can boat SRMs, but even then you have to be able to finish it in 1 shot, because you'll rarely get a 2nd, definitely not a 3rd. So again, you're counting on a weakened or distracted target. If you have a decent team you can run a UAC20, but it's so ammo light you can't carry if you need to.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

GreyNovember, on 20 July 2016 - 06:44 PM, said:

I am however, contesting the sweeping nature of the statement. While the Pretty baby is an assault, it's also worth much, much less than a nova at most ranges. Tonnage is hardly the main thing to consider when you want to give mechs a "ratio" to work with.

Your very OP is talking about builds with the TBR. So this isn't completely off topic.

I gotcha.

Well you're right, not all assaults or lights are equal. And I in no way have an idea what would need to be done to make this idea work... I'm not PGI

I just think it might be an interesting way to highlight the "swarm vs lone powerhouse" and "sort of mech you could normally afford to bring to most engagements" I hear people saying existed / exist in lore.

Edited by Ex Atlas Overlord, 20 July 2016 - 07:51 PM.

[Chuck Jager]

There is no balance or fair.

If you can not actively seek whatever advantage you can, you are not playing to the best of your ability and thus hurting your team.

IE We now see slavery as bad, but it is OK to ship stuff to a country where people look different and do not have environmental or human rights laws and their wages and sometimes living conditions are worse than traditional slavery (lots of room for debate here), but this is still considered a "balanced" approach.

Winning is fun, playing whatever without regards to winning is also fun. BUT you can not separate these approaches with any MM.

basically if we have more than 2 mechs with different builds there will always be an advantage. If the advantage is less it become even more important to take whatever edge is available.

NEVER FIGHT FAIR. Just play lip service to those around you that you support the community doing so.

[Lykaon]

Ex Atlas Overlord, on 20 July 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

1) The games current "balance" based on speed to armor is insanely unbalanced in favor of speed. Which is why heavies are better in the vast majority of fire fights than an assault. The extra 100 armor doesn't mean jack compared to the extra 20-30kph of the heavy.

2) Pretending that giving assaults more "total armor" is a balancing factor is absurd when it can't be allocated however they choose.

3) All that armor on an assault is meaningless when there is virtually an insta-kill button on their backs.

Aka, the current "Speed vs raw armor" is crap.



Literal "single alpha insta-kill"? No.

Multiple quick alphas that are virtually indistingishable from a single alpha insta-kill? Yes, all the time...

Ex) How much damage does a SPL firestarter do in it's 0.72 seconds again? 30? 35? How much damage does it take to kill the average assault from the rear CT (or even ST if it's XL)? 70? 80?......

A difference that doesn't make a real difference isn't a difference.



In a theoretical match using this system, in a theoretical game of 12 players..... if one side had 12 assaults.... the other side might have up to 48 light mechs.... with 12 deployed at any one time.

So sure, all 12 lights run in... kill an assault or two and get wiped.

Next time it's 12v10....and they kill 3 this time maybe..

Next wave it's 12v7....now they kill 4 this time...

Last wave it's 12v3....



1) I don't either, that's PGIs job.

2) The idea that they should be a threat 1v1 is absurb. See how that sort of blanket statement works?



That's why good players and comp teams never use lights and fast mediums right?

B/c they're total trash that are constantly insta-killed on sight?

*logic*

1) you have a point that evasion is greater than absorption. You will run out of armor yet the enemy won't run out of missing.

Except... With the current light mech status ONE alpha strike that lands can cripple or kill a light mech as long as it hits something other than an arm.

Head = dead
CT = dead (granted this would take a larger than average alpha damage output)
RT/LT = dead (XL engines)
RL/LL = crippled and dead on the next salvo.

2) Assault mechs have the exact same limitations on armor allocation as any mech (2x internal structure value per location) So how is this a valid argument? Unless you mean you feel armor should be allocated as desired without restriction?

3) You do know that assault mechs can turn and twist? or is your expectation that an assault mech by virtue of tonnage should not have to make any defensive manuvers when attacked? Or is it that you believe there should be no trade off for front loading your armor and leaving your rear armor stripped to zero or token levels of protection?

Let's look at your "instakill" scenario shall we...

Small pulse laser Firestarter FS9a 8x small pulse lasers has a damage output of 32 in an alpha strike with an efficency of 36% cooling (basically 14 seconds of alpha spam before a shut down ) Weapon cool down is 2.25 seconds an an optimal range of 110m.

A Direwolf will have 42 structure and if the pilot didn't front load everything should have 50 total "health on the side torso.

So in this scenario the direwolf pilot somehow didn't see a firestarter close to 110m on seismic sensors and also didn't bother to twist to protect the soft rear armor.

Ok I will give you that...the dire now has taken 32 damage out of 50.

So now 2.25 seconds goes by and the Direwolf pilot has done what? stood still and allowed it's open back to be targeted again? Well if this moron does this they have it coming because all they have done up to this point is make mistakes.

first mistake failed to use seismic
second mistake failed to twist defensivly
third mistake continued to be an immobile lump allowing the open armor to be easily targeted again.

We can also assume the direwolf pilot has made other mistakes to allow a firestarter to have easy access to it's rear without having to be engaged by the Dire's team mates.

Should failure be rewarded with survival? I don't think it should.

Let's now assume the moron Direwolf pilot has taken two conseccutive alpha strikes to the rear right torso. The right torso and arm are gone,the Direwolf is still functional but in bad shape. The Firestarter now needs 4.5 seconds to do the same to the left side (and we will assume the direwolf pilot is utter trash and does NOTHING to improve it's survival) This engagement will take about 10 seconds for a Firestarter of moderate skill to destroy a Direwolf that is bearly not AFK.

On the flip side a skilled Direwolf pilot with a hard hitting alpha strike will kill the Firestarter on the first hit as long as the hit doesn't land on an arm. With suffucent skill the Direwolf can kill the light mech nigh instantly. There is nearly no way the same can be done by the light mech.

The math does not lie.


Now onto the 12 assaults vs 12 lights.

remember you want lights to be about one fourth of an assault mech. You think they are too powerful now so we can assume your intent is nerf the light mechs by a value to set them at one quarter assault mech value based on apparently arbitrary standards.

Let's look at how to nerf them. Let' reduce damage output. So a light mech has it's damage output reduced to 25% of it's equiped weapon capacity in order to reach the 25% value arbitrarily chosen.

The fire starter in the example now does 8 damage per alpha. And now needs to land eight consecutive hits on a rear side torso of a target Direwolf. If it's the same utterly inept pilot as before he is still dead because he does nothing but let his rear armor get torn up. But if it's a slightly less braindead pilot.... It will take a firestarter making no mistakes at all 8 consecutive hits missing 0% and take around 30-40 seconds (remember the cooling efficency requires cooling and the need to move to line up the targeted area) This firestater is a super ace if they can pull it off in 30 seconds like probably the best pilot ever.

30 seconds of not getting hit? how will this ever happen unless the direwolf pilot is again a total moron.

Morons should not beat ace pilots ever and certainly not on the sole virtue of mech weight.

Or we could nerf the light mech by reducing their armor values by 75% ...so now to kill the Firestarter we would need to deal 10 damage to a side torso to get an XL kill.

How difficult is it to rake several decatons of laser weapons accross a target and get 10 damage applied to one spot? You can accidently do this.

So with the adjusted power of light vs assault how difficult would it be for the assault company to total whipe the 12 light mechs? Probably incidental and could probably be done accidently.

I would venture to guess that with the adjusted levels you recommend the majority of damage sustained by the assault mechs will be friendly fire dealt during the feeding frenzy of light mech slaughter.

For kicks get two teams in a private match take 12 assault mechs vs 12 light mechs see how often the lights win.


And for my closing argument.

If ights are so overpowered and are "easy mode" why is it that on an average 96% of MWo pilots do NOT pilot light mechs?

One would think that with so many free skilless advantages light mechs would be flocked to. But this is NOT the case. Light mechs are the least played and have been this way for as long as I recall.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Lykaon, on 20 July 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

Except... With the current light mech status ONE alpha strike that lands can cripple or kill a light mech as long as it hits something other than an arm.

In a perfect world in which every single point of damage goes into a single pixel moving at 120+ kph... sure.

But I'm talking about actual gameplay... the kind where light mechs don't stand around powered down waiting to be alpha'd

Lykaon, on 20 July 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

2) Assault mechs have the exact same limitations on armor allocation as any mech (2x internal structure value per location) So how is this a valid argument? Unless you mean you feel armor should be allocated as desired without restriction?

When a light mech (or medium for that matter) gives up armor in exchange for speed.... there aren't conditions or limitations on the advantage they gain.

They have less armor.... but every single part on their mech becomes drastically harder to hit b/c of their speed.

On the other hand, assaults being so slow as for it to be virtually impossible for you NOT to hit them.... and in exchange they gain significantly increased armor... *on the front* (b/c again we're talking about actual gameplay here)

They take a huge disadvantage, and gain a conditional advantage. It's bad game design.

Lykaon, on 20 July 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

3) You do know that assault mechs can turn and twist? or is your expectation that an assault mech by virtue of tonnage should not have to make any defensive manuvers when attacked? Or is it that you believe there should be no trade off for front loading your armor and leaving your rear armor stripped to zero or token levels of protection?

This is akin to suggesting that a light mech should have a hitbox on their back 3x the size of all their other hitboxes just b/c they're fast and can move.

It's a cop-out and a bad one.

Lykaon, on 20 July 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

A bunch of stuff working off of the assumption that the players don't know what they're doing

A good light pilot will always get a minimum two shots into an assaults rear before the assault is able to identify the threats location, and manage to actually maneuver around enough that they have a chance of firing back...

At which point a competent light pilot is leaving, or is already gone.

30x2 = 60... more than enough to rip a torso off most mechs (or destroying weapons and crit slots to the point that it might as well be ripped off)... or cripple it's CT structure to the point that the next time a light gets a shot off the assault is dead.

Lykaon, on 20 July 2016 - 11:56 PM, said:

If ights are so overpowered and are "easy mode" why is it that on an average 96% of MWo pilots do NOT pilot light mechs?

One would think that with so many free skilless advantages light mechs would be flocked to. But this is NOT the case. Light mechs are the least played and have been this way for as long as I recall.

1) You wouldn't sound so desperate if you didn't try to exaggerate so much. 4%... smh. As of this second light Q is sitting at 14% and assault is at 17%.

2) The path of least resistance. They can put in work and become good light pilots and wreck face.... or they can put in virtually no work, hope in a heavy mech and wreck 2/3 face. But of course you already knew that.

In summation: Took the troll bait, and wasted time responding to a derail attempt.

Edited by Ex Atlas Overlord, 21 July 2016 - 03:12 AM.