521 replies to this topic

[Johnny Z]

As an only Inner Sphere pilot I am so tempted to get one. I will wait for the next test server instead like I did with the Timberwolf.

[Mystere]

Deathlike, on 10 August 2016 - 09:57 PM, said:

It's bad when it is consistently the least queued up class, let alone just gathering stats for it would bear that out anyways.

If it was "fine" as people had claimed, there shouldn't need be an event to prove otherwise.

I am at a point that I want light queue to stay at 0% for days or weeks just to see what happens next.

[Mystere]

PJohann, on 11 August 2016 - 05:22 AM, said:

Nice thread. Full of "lights are weak hurr durr ACH is not op at all"
Good friend of mine, long time fan of BT universe brought me here couple years ago, currently spending his time playing tabletop. And just couple days ago we played in group queue and discussed various things about game including light mechs. He's avoiding playing ACH because "its overpowered ******** that should not exist". When I started to argue, that lights are squishy, he just grabbed trial cheetah and said "now look at me". Ended with over 900 damage and winned round .__. In first match.Now I cant argue about this thing being broken.

Now ask him to do it 100 times against highly competent players.

[Johnny Z]

Mystere, on 11 August 2016 - 06:33 AM, said:

I am at a point that I want light queue to stay at 0% for days or weeks just to see what happens next.

To be a good sport I almost play lights exclusively, because the light queue is the lowest amount of players. I use the Commando, Urbanmech, Raven, they all do fine. I even have an excellent match now and then.

Trying to carry the match in the Commando or Urbanmech is really tough though. Not to hard with the Raven since its not to hard to take down the first enemy mech or lure him and his friends into friendly guns and start the roll.

Edited by Johnny Z, 11 August 2016 - 06:53 AM.

[Baulven]

Surn, on 11 August 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

arctic Cheater is the name for a reason... stop whining to keep your broken mech and play fair.

It was called the cheater because when it was originally released it really was broken. It's not a clear outlier like the nova from the medium event.

[Baulven]

Mawai, on 11 August 2016 - 06:24 AM, said:

Well ... here is my opinion

The Arctic Cheetah is an example of a balance issue. Is the Arctic Cheetah better than every other light mech? I'd say yes.

Anyone care to disagree?

Just look at the scores on the light leaderboard event. The Arctic Cheetah out scores EVERY other light by a significant amount. The average scores over the top 75 are 10% to 20% higher than the next best light mech and are 50% or more higher than the less competitive lights. The leaderboard event compared light mechs under comparable circumstances driven by pilots trying to get their light mech to perform at optimal levels. The numbers may not be comparable to other mech classes but they should certainly offer some insight into relative balance among lights.

On that basis, Arctic Cheetahs effectively have a built in quirk on the order of 10% to 50% over all other lights. Is that unbalanced ... in my opinion YES.

Is the Arctic Cheetah OP? Maybe since it is strictly better than every other light and is unbalanced ... does this make it OVER-powered ... depends on how you define OVER. Is the Arctic Cheetah an instant win button? Obviously not. You can kill Arctic Cheetah's just like every other mech.

In order to get BALANCE in a game ... you have to toss away your bias. A lot of folks say "Arctic Cheetah is fine ... doesn't need a nerf" ... mostly because they like playing it the way it is ... at least in part BECAUSE it is the best light mech out there. If you play ANY mech because you think/feel it is the BEST then you are implicitly saying it is unbalanced since it is better than any other.

I have my favourite mechs that I do well in, that cater to my preferred playstyles, that I enjoy playing ... CPLT-J, JM6-S, JR7-D, HBK-4G, various MAD ... but they are middle of the pack in terms of overall performance and they take some effort and work to get good results. On the other hand, a while ago I bought Stormcrows for cbills ... and that is a GREAT mech. Lots of loadouts, fast (very fast for a medium), great firepower, good hit boxes ... I can still have bad games in it ... but it is a bit easier to get decent results than my other mechs. Arctic Cheetah, Stormcrow, Timberwolf, Kodiak, Dire Wolf can all be extremely effective ... they are probably at the top of their respective mech classes still. The advantage is probably on the order of 10% to 50% (top to bottom of mechs in the weight class) ... but they are still not BALANCED against the other choices,.

The question is how far out of balance can a mech get before it is OP? Most of those I mentioned aren't really OP anymore .. but they are still unbalanced. What is an acceptable range for mech capability within a weight class? There will always be a BEST and a WORST in any category ... the balance question to PGI is really how BIG that difference should be AND what sorts of changes would be acceptable to close that gap?

----------

tl;dr ... Arctic Cheetah is still the best light mech ... PGI needs to come up with a balance strategy that can address clan vs IS balance, tonnage balance and weight class balance ... quirks of one sort or another can probably be used but PGI needs a unified design strategy to do so. When that happens, the relative ranking of all mechs will change.

The ACH did slightly better than the other top mechs, which there is also one mech that will edge out the competition in these events. If this event happened prior to the rescale it would have been the oxide hands down, as it took a double nerf (size and movement profile) to bring it down to above average.

Everything that came close to the arctic cheetah also outscored the bad lights by about 50% you realize that right?

No one is saying ACH isn't a fairly good light mech, but the other mechs should be brought up to its level. Lights need a lot of love after the movement profile and rescale changes which gutted a large portion of the class usefulness. Jenners (other than the oxide), mist lynx, commando and more all need love.

[Mcgral18]

PJohann, on 11 August 2016 - 05:22 AM, said:

Nice thread. Full of "lights are weak hurr durr ACH is not op at all"
Good friend of mine, long time fan of BT universe brought me here couple years ago, currently spending his time playing tabletop. And just couple days ago we played in group queue and discussed various things about game including light mechs. He's avoiding playing ACH because "its overpowered ******** that should not exist". When I started to argue, that lights are squishy, he just grabbed trial cheetah and said "now look at me". Ended with over 900 damage and winned round .__. In first match.Now I cant argue about this thing being broken.

This isn't a robot issue, this is a Terribad issue

You see, some people are unable to hit robots, which causes them to get silly ideas.


Oh, if only you'd have seen the God Quirk Cheetah in action. Structure quirks bloody everywhere (+15 leg), heat gen quirks, longer range lasers due to blanket nerfs.
The thing got me multiple 1300 damage, 6+ kill games???but sadly Mr Gargles murdered me before I could get 10 kills and 1400. Gosh darn it Mr Gargles, you're supposed to roll over and die! Not LOLpha an uberquirked Light mech.

Because, even when he had good quirks, he died when people shot him. Of course, he had considerably more
HP, but against non-Terribads, he died.


I kinda miss having a good light, and especially miss veryical thrust on HoverJets...

[Y E O N N E]

Good news! Russ said in the Twitter discussion, in reply to someone's incredulous statement saying they can't believe this is even being discussed, that it is "nothing to worry about."

Looks like we can put the pitchforks away, the bads will not be having their day.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 11 August 2016 - 08:34 AM, said:

Good news! Russ said in the Twitter discussion, in reply to someone's incredulous statement saying they can't believe this is even being discussed, that it is "nothing to worry about."

Looks like we can put the pitchforks away, the bads will not be having their day.

Yeah, I won't believe it until the nerfinator confirms the Cheetah isn't in his crosshairs.

[ice trey]

Mole, on 10 August 2016 - 03:30 PM, said:

I also recall a 6 ER Large Laser Nova Cat in MW4 that could instantly core out pretty much any assault by jumpjetting for a split second over a hill, alpha striking, dead assault, and then dropping down and cooling off.

I also remembered this, too.

It's the main reason why I stayed way the hell away from multiplayer.

[Satan n stuff]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 August 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

Does anyone else feel this way? I just saw this tweeted to Russ... watch out for Arctic Cheetah nerfs coming up soon! I just thought it was a top light because it didn't get wrecked by the rescale like the rest. Any light pilots care to comment about the OPness of the Arctic Cheetah?

I'm not scared of Cheetahs going on on one with my Wolfhounds and that's probably the worst light that can take comparable builds, but they do last a lot longer under fire due to their size and clan XL engine. As for the mech being OP, not even close. It's one of the few lights that's anywhere near as good as it should be so it sticks out compared to all the slow, poorly armed and/or oversized lights.

[Tarl Cabot]

Satan n stuff, on 11 August 2016 - 08:45 AM, said:

I'm not scared of Cheetahs going on on one with my Wolfhounds and that's probably the worst light that can take comparable builds, but they do last a lot longer under fire due to their size and clan XL engine. As for the mech being OP, not even close. It's one of the few lights that's anywhere near as good as it should be so it sticks out compared to all the slow, poorly armed and/or oversized lights.

The underlined part is the most critical part of it there, even before the rescale that sacked most IS lights (except the locust) How would the IS lights run if the isXL engine was as durable as the cXL but with a greater negative effects with one ST loss? When I pilot an IS light I die more often from a ST loss than I do from a CT or legs. Why...99.99% of IS lights are using an XL engine so it is easier to hit more of the ST, front/back than it is the CT. Though I was in one mech where a teammate was using a standard engine, tad slow for sure, he never went solo, and that mech actual lasted til the end of the match missing a LA, RT/RA and legs shy of a few points of damage of falling off.

Structural quirks are not the answer. PGI can up the weapon quirks but that is also a band-aid.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 11 August 2016 - 01:20 PM.

[DAYLEET]

adamts01, on 11 August 2016 - 02:15 AM, said:

Lights definitely aren't snipers, they lose a single trade to even a medium and they're gimped or dead. Don't even get me started on standing in squares for fun. They can be fast harassers, but mediums can be fast killers. It's not a dueling game..... Ok, so lights should team up on their target? Guess what, any other mech can team up and do it better. Increasing speed reaches a point where it stops being beneficial, and armor/guns are much more important. Assaults are very easy to hit, heavies and mediums are easy enough, and now that lights are just as easy to hit as mediums, there's no reason not to take a medium.



Regarding fighting being the only option: Sure we all have stories of the handful of times scouting really paid off, or being a dedicated spotter, but for the other 98% of matches, it's all about sending pain downrange. In case you're going there, I don't recognize standing in stupid little squares a real mode.

Agreed, lights arent snipers in the sense that they definitely should not play the trading games, in no scenario should they play the tradign game. What they can do is quickly relocate to take that sniping/flanking/disrupting/killing/locking/uav/arty shots while keeping a low profile. Its a light, it should play differently. Most of what i just said dont matter if you get to play with a group on coms who are very good at coordinating and focusing fire, You will move forward the enemy and just roll them and none of that warrent changing lights or any mech/weapon. Dont balance a part of the game on those match. Lights are still fun, they are still relevant and now thank god we have the rescale as an excuse for when we do a bad move or get stuck on a rock trying to manoeuvre tight places or poke when we shouldnt(i poke all the time and i now pay dearly, less forgiving for sure).

Maybe the skill and knowledge required for lights to perform well was increased, so? All the good pilots i used to see before the rescale still are top performer and outclass most of the team. I have no idea how their stats were affected but they should consider sucking if they want me to believe them.

As for the queue, it was never high even in their best days. Theres many reasons, aside from being harder to play they get no release. Release a light and the queue will rise. All we get now are heavies and assault and a few meds. The last time we got a light was 9 months ago in the IIC pack and prior to that was R2 pack 11 month ago and those 2 pack also had meds/heavy/assault so once again the least favourite weight got 3 competitor on their release. We get nothing, no **** the queue is low.

Im not saying dont ever touch light, god knows id like to feel more nimble and have more yaw range/speed, but people who dismiss lights as crap now probably dont belong in one.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 August 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Well after we saw how well it outdid the lights for the recent leaderboard, we shouldn't be that surprised, especially since we know that lights aren't allowed to be remotely as good as bigger mechs. We aren't allowed to have lights that are actually worthwhile.

Really kind of the gist of it. If the top light can't throw up scores and carry matches like the top heavy or assault at the same skill and effort level then wtf are we arguing about?

Either we want lights to just be flat out inferior in which case give them a cbill bonus or infotech handwavium superpowers (zomg sensor range boost like op Cyclops amirite) or balance every other light UP so the ACH is average for a light and lights are as reasonable a choice as any other mech.

Oh, and for the love of God people just shoot it's ****ing arms off and ignore it until everything else is dead. They just fall with a bit of harsh language and then he's 2xspl or 2xcersl and a lot of ragey tears.

We need to decide how we want balance to be. If bigger = better then add incentive to lighter mechs and roll with it and expect bigger mechs to be more common. If we actually want to do what PGI keeps saying we're doing which is all mech classes have equal "value" how about we actually ****ing do that.

It's like Clan weapon balancing. Before Clans were released it was all "we want to keep 1 to 1 balance" and "we will aggressively rebalance as needed to get it right" followed by 2 years of the sound of PGI fapping furiously with their mech balancing hand and f***-all nothing getting done until we canceled a ton of pre-orders and FW exploded in nuclear fire then BOOM, oh we just did quirks.

PGI is is like that employee who just won't do anything until he's on a written warning of dismissal, then he does the minimum to avoid being fired for another month. They're so ineffectual on anything serious they blur the line between business and politics.

[MadHornet]

The ACH was broken at first due to it's ridiculously tanky weirdness. But really? A nerf now? The 'mech is fine now, it's still a good 'mech and works as it should. Does not need more attention! D:

[Bud Crue]

The AC does not need a nerf, rather the clanners need more choices for light mechs.

Edited by Bud Crue, 11 August 2016 - 11:40 AM.

[dario03]

They just nerfed it. And that was what the third or forth time? It didn't even need the last nerf or two, it definitely doesn't need another nerf.

[dervishx5]

dario03, on 11 August 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

They just nerfed it. And that was what the third or forth time? It didn't even need the last nerf or two, it definitely doesn't need another nerf.

It needs to be nerfed until John Q. Badmech can kill it more than it kills him.

[dario03]

dervishx5, on 11 August 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

It needs to be nerfed until John Q. Badmech can kill it more than it kills him.

Start the match legged then?

[dervishx5]

dario03, on 11 August 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

Start the match legged then?

Or when you click launch when selecting an Arctic Cheetah your computer just shuts down.