92 replies to this topic

[adamts01]

RIP

Back in Beta you could actually tank with this thing. There's just zero place for it in the game, especially when a single Locust alpha is all it takes to overcome it's structural bonus. Sad days, sad days indeed.

[Juodas Varnas]

I blame the Clans.

[RestosIII]

I dunno, the Atlas is still a wonderful laxative for me when piloted by a non-potato. It's definitely not dead.

[Bombast]

The Atlas still has a place as an ambush brawler, but yah, not great at tanking.

But that's just how the game plays. It's not friendly towards tanking in general.

[Commoners]

It has to operate within a team push. Tanking is only effective if you're actually tanking damage that would otherwise hurt teammates. If you're the only target available and they're shooting you it's not tanking, it's being dumb.

In a team push the atlas either eats up all the enemy damage/heat capacity while the rest of the team pushes in and takes next to nothing, or it gets ignored and belts people in the face/back with 4 SRM6As and an AC20. A lone atlas is garbage, but even just running a pair of them can make horrendous things happen.

Torso twisting intelligently is also incredibly important. Those arms can eat up a whole lot of damage to extend the life of your STs, and once you have a busted side torso abusing damage transfer means you can extend the life of your CT by a huge amount. I've fought so many atlas pilots that just face stare me and let me chew through their CT instead of forcing me to either hold fire until they twist to alpha me or force me to sandpaper through the hundreds of armor and structure that is in their arms and side torsos.

And then you have the people who put LRMs on them, in which case that player and their mech is a total waste of a team slot.

Edited by Commoners, 23 December 2016 - 07:51 AM.

[DoctorDetroit]

Agreed, lets double the structure quirks and make them armor quirks instead. Take away weapons and mobility quirks and we could double or triple those armor quirks again. Then it definitely has a role as a push leading TANK.

[QuantumButler]

Remember when, according to Russ, the Atlas was a Top Tier End Game Avatar?

[Paigan]

DoctorDetroit, on 23 December 2016 - 07:33 AM, said:

Agreed, lets double the structure quirks and make them armor quirks instead. Take away weapons and mobility quirks and we could double or triple those armor quirks again. Then it definitely has a role as a push leading TANK.

Why not ten-fold Atlas HP right away?
Or give it a super duper protective force field?

Nonsense.

The only proper way to balance Mechs with bad hardpoints like that is if it is like only a third or so of the drop budget "value" (not necessarily tonnage, maybe more like a "combat value") a for example Kodiak "costs", so a single player could drop 3 Atlas for 1 enemy Kodiak (or comparable).
Everything else, even PGI's overused quirks, will make a bad chassis like that never become good.

Edited by Paigan, 23 December 2016 - 07:48 AM.

[El Bandito]

Juodas Varnas, on 23 December 2016 - 07:21 AM, said:

I blame the Clans.

12 v 12 also contributed.

[InspectorG]

adamts01, on 23 December 2016 - 07:20 AM, said:

RIP

Back in Beta you could actually tank with this thing. There's just zero place for it in the game, especially when a single Locust alpha is all it takes to overcome it's structural bonus. Sad days, sad days indeed.

Atlas is plenty tanky. You just cant Leeroy i it because, HINT: MWO is a game of combined firepower - not 1 v 1 fights.

Edited by InspectorG, 23 December 2016 - 07:55 AM.

[DoctorDetroit]

Paigan, on 23 December 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

Why not ten-fold Atlas HP right away?
Or give it a super duper protective force field?

Nonsense.

The only proper way to balance Mechs with bad hardpoints like that is if it is like only a third or so of the drop budget "value" (not necessarily tonnage, maybe more like a "combat value") a for example Kodiak "costs", so a single player could drop 3 Atlas for 1 enemy Kodiak (or comparable).
Everything else, even PGI's overused quirks, will make a bad chassis like that never become good.

Completely wrong here man. Your drop deck budget wont work. IS needs to equal clans, not zerg them in your imaginary clan rpg fiction. Quirks are the answer. They just need to be carefully used with the goal of creating more specialized roles for underperformers which the atlas is definitely classified as. You could give the atlas 2 to 3x it's structure quirks and people will still take it down, it will just be able to fill the tank role at a barely acceptable level.

[Bud Crue]

Still can play Atlases in pug QP. But in group queue they are nearly useless. The ppfld from all tbe gauss and ppc just doesn't give you a chance to close and do much if any brawling. In solo they are still plenty of fun.

[Darian DelFord]

adamts01, on 23 December 2016 - 07:20 AM, said:

RIP

Back in Beta you could actually tank with this thing. There's just zero place for it in the game, especially when a single Locust alpha is all it takes to overcome it's structural bonus. Sad days, sad days indeed.

As a dedicated light pilot including locusts, I have to disagree with this statement. While on pure numbers you are almost correct, in actual practice you are just dead wrong.

In a skill on skill 1v1 atlas vs a locust.... the atlas wins 9 out of 10 times. In order for the locust to defeat the atlas your way the atlas would have to be standing still. Any vetran assault player the moment they start taking damage will twist and spread that damage.

For a locust to do a Back CT kill on an atlas would have to fire at a minimum 64 strucutre +31 extra strcuture + 5 armor = 100 points of damage. That is 20 ML hits..... for a locust 1E that is 3 alpha's and then 2 solo shots from a ML.....

I am sorry but if you let a locust get 3.4 clean alpha's on your back in the same section, you are doing it wrong

Assault mechs in general are to agile as it is. It is almost impossible for a light mech to stay in the back arc of an assault mech.... ESPECIALLY since the Re-Scale.

El Bandito, on 23 December 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

12 v 12 also contributed.

This caused far more problems than it solved.

[InspectorG]

El Bandito, on 23 December 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

12 v 12 also contributed.

Hush!
Math is too hard!

These peeps want an Atlas to be able to just Leeroy across the field against the whole enemy team so they can facetank like zombies without needing positioning, twisting, timing, etc etc etc.

So, tank Atlas needs:

Guestimate average alpha at 45 damage. 12players x 45 = 540. Its gonna take that Altas a while to get across Polar so lets give it the ability to eat 5 such alphas from the enemy team. 540 x 5 = 2700 HP.
And that tank shouldnt get legged or lose an arm on its glorious Leeroy so, 2700 HP per component. 8 x 2700 = 21600 total HP.
Its gonna need triple AMS as well...


So 21,600 HP so tanky Leeroy Atlas can waddle over, fire some LRMs within 1000m and eventually facetank and try to hit with an LB10 and 2 SSRM2s...


Yeah... no.

Better to just learn how to pilot and brawl.

[Darian DelFord]

Bud Crue, on 23 December 2016 - 08:00 AM, said:

Still can play Atlases in pug QP. But in group queue they are nearly useless. The ppfld from all tbe gauss and ppc just doesn't give you a chance to close and do much if any brawling. In solo they are still plenty of fun.

This is because Long Range Weapons are just as effective at short range as they are long. For the atlas to do its thing.... it has to get close. But in its defense that is difficult in the current game climate. Why bring SPL's when LPL's are more effective and have much longer range

[Battlemaster56]

Little off topic here, but is the Atlas worth or should I save up for some Battlemasters?

Edited by Battlemaster56, 23 December 2016 - 08:11 AM.

[InspectorG]

Darian DelFord, on 23 December 2016 - 08:03 AM, said:

I am sorry but if you let a locust get 3.4 clean alpha's on your back in the same section, you are doing it wrong

Assault mechs in general are to agile as it is. It is almost impossible for a light mech to stay in the back arc of an assault mech.... ESPECIALLY since the Re-Scale.





This caused far more problems than it solved.

This is a pilot who knows.

You forgot to add the RARE instance of that Locust getting a 1 v 1 vs an assault in the firstplace.

Battlemaster56, on 23 December 2016 - 08:09 AM, said:

Little off topic here, but is the Atlas worth or sjould I save up for some Battlemasters?

Do you like brawling? If yes with all the hardships it entails, then go Atlas.

If you prefer something more proficient at MWO at large, go Battlemaster.

[Tristan Winter]

The ultimate responsibility lies with PGI, since they're the guys with the finger on the button. But also, keep in mind that the MWO community would rather eat a bowl full of broken glass than see any of their own mechs get nerfed. There is a common attitude in the community that PGI shouldn't nerf things that are broken, only buff all the other things to make things balanced. This is because "I paid real money fer this here Timber Wolf, dagnabbit! Y'all can't nerf somethin' that I paid fore!"

Hardpoint inflation, weapon modules, weapon quirks. But PGI can't really nerf the firepower of the unquirked clan mechs (and mechs like the Timber Wolf and Stormcrow tend to be the measuring stick for what an unquirked mech should be like), because negative quirks are the spawn of Satan and universal nerfs to the most powerful weight classes in the game would cause an uproar.

Hopefully, the new Skilltree will bring back tanking again. But I'm worried that the new offensive skills will balance out the defensive skills, and the Atlas is still going to crumble pretty fast in 2017.

[DoctorDetroit]

Battlemaster56, on 23 December 2016 - 08:09 AM, said:

Little off topic here, but is the Atlas worth or should I save up for some Battlemasters?

Battlemaster 2 C is currently the king of IS assaults, officially displacing the Stalker 4n over a year ago.

[Tristan Winter]

El Bandito, on 23 December 2016 - 07:46 AM, said:

12 v 12 also contributed.

Yep.

I wonder how many people prefer 12v12 over 8v8 at this point, for QP. I think it would have been nice to restrict the epic 12v12 for FP and keep QP as 8v8.