206 replies to this topic

[Flutterguy]

Mystere, on 22 July 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Is leaderboard shaming now the norm?

I do try to avoid it, which is why I don't actually post numbers directly to the thread. However, I do check to see if people tend to be able to back up assertions when they are particularly confident. In this case though, I'm not trying to support an argument. I'm genuinely curious.

[GreenHell]

Flutterguy, on 22 July 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

Ok, I've taken a peek at your light leaderboard stats and I'm very curious if you follow your own advice. Not that your rules are wrong, but it feels like there's a disconnect between what you say and how you play.

I haven't played lights since the leaderboard was added. I've mostly run mediums and heavies. I was a big fan of Jenners back in beta days, and had loads of fun with my Cicada (which is just a big light honestly). I haven't been playing as much recently anyways with work and family events during the summer.

Edit - On a side note, it looks like the leaderboards aren't recording stats right? I swear I've played more games in heavies than it shows..... oh well.

Edited by GreenHell, 22 July 2016 - 03:06 PM.

[Ryllen Kriel]

Lights do have viable combat roles...but being small and fast, they are the best mechs for scouting and spotting. Fighting is always an option for light pilots, but don't expect your assaults to fill a scouting role in return.

[Spr1ggan]

operatorZ, on 22 July 2016 - 02:09 PM, said:

ok do tell, which light is the size of a heavy? I must know.

Wolfhound and FS9 both about as tall as a Catapult...

[Stone Wall]

GreenHell, on 22 July 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

Edit - On a side note, it looks like the leaderboards aren't recording stats right? I swear I've played more games in heavies than it shows..... oh well.

You're right about that. I was AWOL for about 2 years and the Leaderboard was showing my stats incorrectly after the recent patches. I had to look myself up for people.

[process]

Light are still viable, it's just that they can't rely on hitreg/hsr to run through a crowd and expect to make it out alive. Be sneaky. Harass the enemy. Support your assaults.

[Nightshade24]

Matt2496, on 22 July 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

There is a strong rhetoric on these forums that lights should only be relegated to only scouting or capping. Because of this rhetoric, lights, the least played chassis in the game, have been nerfed by PGI from quirk reductions to being enlarged…in some cases to the size of heavies! In addition, this ideology has created an imbalance in this game in two senses:

1. Light queue percentages are at all-time lows. People only want to play mechs that will produce the most damage. Therefore, heavier mechs are better for this.

2. There is a divide between the pro-light crowd (Mostly consisting of higher tier players with a few exceptions), and the anti-light crowd (Mostly consisting of lower tier players with a few exceptions).

Personally, I believe that lights should be given offensive roles within the confines of Mechwarrior Online. Why, you ask?


1. The only way to maximize c-bill output is damage output (More specifically, KMDD). Capping and scouting have terrible rewards.

2. As stated previously, light percentages are at an all-time low. For the sake of queue balance, it would be better if lights were more viable as offensive machines.

3. It would teach people to use some ounce of situational awareness. Rather than standing still all the time, players would learn the following:
a) To stick with their team.
b ) To constantly move and be aware of their surroundings.

4. It’s a heck of a lot more fun!


Now it’s time talk about the social injustice lights face. Here is a post by TheCharlatan that sums it up perfectly.



Do certain people not see the problem with this mentality? You can’t just relegate lights to scouters or cappers unless scouting and capping:


A) Get better payouts
B ) Are more fun (More meat and depth)
C) Are more relevant


Therefore, it would take PGI implementing a proper and deep information warfare system. My expectations of PGI are set so low right now that I just don’t see them ever making changes like this.

Finally, just because a light killed you, doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed. Very few people ever use this argument if a medium, heavy, or assault killed someone. Why are lights viewed as if they should be inferior compared to their bigger, manlier counterparts?

Summary: The point of this post is to get folks to understand why lights should be given offensive roles in a game where damage is king and to shed light on the social injustice lights face. If you're in the anti-light crowd, this post may or may not convince you (Hopefully it will ). If you're in the pro-light crowd, well, this is just old hat .


Thanks ,
Matthew

1) I think the lights are at an all time low due to the introduction recently of the phoenix hawk and viper, both very low weight mediums that play like "a light" (because somehow we know how a weight class plays as in MW: O community?). They are fast, agile, got jumpjets, and are new shiny toys. But it is true about people wanting more armour and damage. It's why the medium and heavy weight classes are so popular as well as the fact that assaults often also dip low on the play list because it isn't balanced in these attributes.

2) Well the reason why lights are as 'pathetic' as they are now is because PGI wanted to heavily enforce the offensive roles while not supporting the information warfare roles that they should be the best at. You can't tell me right now with a straight face that an atlas with a TAG and NARC will be far better then a Raven.

3) Being a tier 2 player I fight tier 1, 2's, and 3's often while tier 4's rarely. I have never won a match standing around with pugs and in fact these are one of the only reasons I ever loose. because 90% of the team unable to engage or do not want to engage the enemy while the poor sobs that are in harms way get blown to bits.
However back in 8 vs 8 days it was far more easy for a light mech to engage lone 'Mechs as due to smaller teams there were a lot 'more lone 'mechs and such .
Nearly everyone I know is highly situational aware besides a poor guy getting rushed by 2 atlas's frontally and do not give a single care in the world that a SRM 6 mad dodg popped up behind him because more or less in this situation he's done either way.

4) reading the stuff after 4 seems like I misunderstood you for the whole 'offensive' point. Was thinking you meant it in terms of you know... pew pew. Shoot this guy, etc.


The only time I ever complained about light mechs are the over quirked ones (Spider 5K, Locust 1V, Looking at you).

In all honesty Lights work pretty well as far as the game goes right now. Problem is it's just a minority. In gaming things can be a minority not because it's to hard or that it is underpowered but just because it's not most peoples cup of tea.
I really do want info warfare to make light mechs unique scouts. (by unique I do not mean give every information warfare related quirk possible to each mech, Maybe make some lights and stuff able to see targets further then the other but can't get info as fast or something)

I think the upcoming "battle value" or "MechWarrior Online Battle Value" may help us with lights as it sort of encourages on lower end 'Mechs, lighter mechs, smaller 'Mechs, etc... but it also wants to see less FF, Endo Steel, XL engines, etc....

[Darian DelFord]

GreenHell, on 22 July 2016 - 01:45 PM, said:

Really... I've heard people say the exact opposite to the OP.

Imho, lights ARE combat effective. There is no better mech to destroy an assault that gets separated from it's team. There is also no better mech to quickly re-enforce a trouble area on the battlefield. They also make some of the best harassment / distraction / ambush mechs.

As I've posted before
Rule #1 - Never take a fair fight. Always have the advantage.
Rule #2 - Speed is life. You go slow, you die.

You have not spent any time in lights recently have you?

operatorZ, on 22 July 2016 - 02:09 PM, said:

ok do tell, which light is the size of a heavy? I must know.

Most of the 35 tonners are pretty damn close.

Mystere, on 22 July 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Is leaderboard shaming now the norm?

I'll do it when people spout out nonsense they have no experience with. The good thing is, most of us forum warriors know what we pilot and which weight classes are our favorites. I mean we all know I am ALL about the Atlas!!!!

While I will not go as far to say that lights are AS combat viable as say heavies. I will say that since the re-scale light combat has been re-defined.

Knfie fighting in anything other than a locust or a cheetah is all but dead. Most lights are now reserved for Medium range poking... which is about all we do in this game any more with the maps they have coming out being nothing but peek a boo snipe fests.

Plus the population as a whole has learned to stick together a bit more than when MWO first launched. Targets for lights are getting few and far bewteen. Add in the over inflated agility of the heavy and assault mechs (Except for a few) and the huge alphas being boated around.... why the hell play a light?

Personally if they would just somehow "quirk" the rewards so lights are not treated the same as heavies I would be happy. As I posted above... he fact that a light has to work 5 times as hard to get the same damage as a heavy for the same exact reward is just stupid.

Edited by Darian DelFord, 22 July 2016 - 03:40 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Players who have been playing MWO for years and haven't figured this out, will never figure it out. If you don't agree with the OP, I simply question your ability to analyze games in an intelligent fashion. At this point, it's not really a matter of perspective or experience anymore.

If you think that light mechs are where they need to be, if you think it's simply a matter of picking your targets or keep moving at all times, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.

"Oh, but look at this screenshot!"
"Oh, but lights are supposed to scout and cap!"
"Oh, but just make sure you outnumber enemy mechs!"

[Stone Wall]

I showed mine recently. but I'm in newb Tier with too much experience in mech combat. So it's not the biggest battle to get 2-5 kills per match on average.

Edited by Stone Wall, 22 July 2016 - 03:44 PM.

[4rcs1ne]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 22 July 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

I say they are seriously combat effective. I'll just leave these here as proof:

Both in my Arctic Cheetah today

I'm sorry, but two screenshots of decent matches with the best light in the game doesn't prove anything.

[4rcs1ne]

Ryllen Kriel, on 22 July 2016 - 03:11 PM, said:

Lights do have viable combat roles...but being small and fast, they are the best mechs for scouting and spotting. Fighting is always an option for light pilots, but don't expect your assaults to fill a scouting role in return.

Did you not read the part where I said:

Matt2496, on 22 July 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

You can’t just relegate lights to scouters or cappers unless scouting and capping:


A) Get better payouts
B ) Are more fun (More meat and depth)
C) Are more relevant

Fighting is not an option unless your enemy is severely weakened or a terribad.

Edited by Matt2496, 22 July 2016 - 04:00 PM.

[Lykaon]

Marack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 22 July 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

I say they are seriously combat effective. I'll just leave these here as proof:

Both in my Arctic Cheetah today

Congradulations you have correctly identified one of the very few light mechs that can when expertly piloted get results.

I can with more than a little accuracy also tell you your mech's loadout.

ECM 6 Sml Pulse Lasers

I know this because not only are there very few effective light mechs there are even fewer builds that will allow you to get those results.

[davoodoo]

They are combat effective, against same tonnage.

How do you expect for 20-35 ton mech to outgun lets say, crab, marauder or fatlas.
But still i have 1e locust with max engine and 6 mlas, if i dropped engine for dhs i would probably have something close to 6 mpl crab with less armor.

Im not even sure how could they get more combat viable unless you really go overboard with quirks, but then enter prenerf locust...

Edited by davoodoo, 22 July 2016 - 04:30 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Like I said in the other Lights topic, they are fine for experienced pilots against legit players. They can even be completely over powered like the Arctic Cheddar is most of the time.

I do very well in my short range ECM Raven and its never been close to over powered. My sniper Raven has the highest scores I have ever seen on some faction play maps getting into 1300 damage for a single mech.

I also use a Commando and Urbanmech for lights. Both of those are a serious challenge to do well in. But with a good team its possible to pull mediocre scores easily and even do really well on the rare occasion. 4 kills in a single match with my Urbanmech is best score yet. But that's one really good score out of all the matches I have played with that Urbanmech.

I should add I play lights more often than not because they are least used in the queues.

Edited by Johnny Z, 22 July 2016 - 04:46 PM.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

Lights used to be a class of mech I enjoyed play, but I moved on to other mechs that also clicked with me, but, I am always sad when I launch into a match and see one or two lights on my team and 4+ heavies. It is a shame, honestly. Heavies and Assaults have the easiest time getting massive games and big payouts due to large payloads. Heavies obviously are the easiest as they are the opposite of the coin of the Medium class, they go a bit slower, have much more armor, and much more tonnage for weapons allowing use of pretty much everything in the game with impunity due to this game is overly focused on damage dealt, .5xdamage goes to your match score so it is hardly ignorable, it is why we keep going higher and higher on alpha damage builds or super heavy ballistic builds able to strip an archer of it's CT armor in .6 seconds.

We need to have a multiplier based on tonnage (and possibly also how well the mech itself on average preforms) to a person's match score and earnings. If you scout in an Assault something is wrong or you are Steiner, scout in a light or up to a 45 ton mech? Great, that is one aspect of what those mechs can do. If a light does 300 damage that should be on a loss plenty to give them a healthy payout and keep them equal on PSR. If a person can do more damage than it takes destroy their entire mech if max armor they should be rewarded because they pulled their weight.

I want there to be rolewarfare due to it is incentivized, lights get better payment for hit and run, for component destruction, for flanking, for scouting, for spotting assists, basically if a mech lighter than 50 tons does something it should be rewarded more because they are taking a far bigger risk and in doing so making their contribution far more worth it. I also would love to see the idea from infotech that tonnage or maybe even cross sectional area of a mech that is seen impacts detection, lights need to remain unseen, it is why the Cheetah and Raven 3L do so well than their equivalent speed peers, there are other things like hard points, jump jets, and hitboxes that influence this as well.

In short, lets give an incentive to taking mechs that are lighter into combat, make it so seeing a light doing 300 damage is great while seeing a heavy doing 500 is mediocre. I want it so when I do well in a mech like the Phoenix Hawk, or Locust, or the non oxide Jenner's it to be reflected in the match score and not "well, I did well for this mech, but, game gives me nothing to show for it" while someone else takes into combat a Griffin 2N and pulls away 500 damage due to he was ignored and gets big scores even though that should be high and not outstanding work for a chassis like that.

In short, make lighter and worse mechs get better payout than presently so we get more variety of mechs in the field and people aren't so worried about not making enough cbills, xp, or high enough match score that pigeon holes them into exceptional mechs and 65+ ton mechs.

[sneeking]

Had a satisfying match in ma good old panther late last night after a few brews.
The bog map.
I didn't score big and wasn't the hero of the match but that little mech did ok dishing out narks on some flankers that almost caught a few of our slow movers off guard, i was able to support their retreat with my 2xLL. A couple of them fell but not before the flank attempt was abandoned. On my way back to the main force i managed another few narks on a group who had taken some high ground that they had engaged.
We did win it was a close match that ended in a brawl, i survived heavy damaged but right arm and both legs still attached and someone noticed because i got a mention over voip for my narks.
Im not talking about farming Cbills here i didn't earn much but i would definitely launch that panther in solo again because im fairly sure i managed to play a part in that victory with it which makes it combat viable.

Edited by sneeking, 22 July 2016 - 04:51 PM.

[Darian DelFord]

sneeking, on 22 July 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

Had a satisfying match in ma good old panther late last night after a few brews.
The bog map.
I didn't score big and wasn't the hero of the match but that little mech did ok dishing out narks on some flankers that almost caught a few of our slow movers off guard, i was able to support their retreat with my 2xLL. A couple of them fell but not before the flank attempt was abandoned. On my way back to the main force i managed another few narks on a group who had taken some high ground that they had engaged.
We did win it was a close match that ended in a brawl, i survived heavy damaged but right arm and both legs still attached and someone noticed because i got a mention over voip for my narks.
Im not talking about farming Cbills here i didn't earn much but i would definitely launch that panther in solo again because im fairly sure i managed to play a lart in that victory with it which makes it combat viable.

Sometimes its just fun to do something different. :>

[Lehmund]

Mawai, on 22 July 2016 - 02:21 PM, said:

Agreed that lights should be capable of decent combat roles.

However, your post seems to imply that they aren't capable whereas my experience seems to indicate otherwise.

Lights are hard to play. They need a lot of situational awareness, good aim, fast reflexes, never stop moving, and a certain amount of caution.

Lights can be very effective, even today.

However, you can't play a light like any other mech. You can't look at your opponent for even a few seconds, even running directly towards an opponent for the length of time required to fire your lasers is an invitation to die. If they happen to be looking your way and are ready to fire then you are at high risk.

For these reasons it is much harder to earn cbills in a light than most other classes. They have lower alpha, need to get lots of shots to rack up damage, are vulnerable to the slightest mistakes ... these are the reasons why the light queue is typically less than the others. However, it doesn't mean that lights do not contribute and aren't in fact competitive ... they often just have to work harder to get there.

I too would like to see PGI build the role warfare system they have so long talked about ... however, i won't hold my breath.

Agreed with you here. Lights require a different kind of skill than slowly moving towards a target and shooting high alphas.

When played by an experienced light pilot however, they can not only dish out the damage but also set up kills for the team and prevent flanking attacks too due to superior movement, dodging and superior positioning.

I do think it would be nice to have more roles needed for a win on QP and Invasion modes. Most likely lights would then fit in more roles then.

[DAYLEET]

Mystere, on 22 July 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Is leaderboard shaming now the norm?

is it shaming to point out that OP has 7 games in light, did OK in them and yet he write a book about improving light? The pros residing in this thread http://mwomercs.com/...tire-playstyle/ Those with REALLY good ratios/stats strongly believe their stats(which are really good already) should be better. Maybe they should become better if they want to be better. I do just fine with lights when i dont fkup and i dont think they need more firepower. Why are the people with high KDR and WR people asking for stronger lights? makes no sense. Everygame have easymode class, in other games people who play them gets ridiculed, here everyone wants to be easymode and do good while licking windows.