Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 February 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:
What mech exactly has competitive firepower? Just out of curiosity. For example what IS heavy can compete with the Night Gyr's 40 PPFLD alpha? What IS medium can compete with the output of the HBK-IIC-A? What IS light can do as much as a 6 cSPL Cheetah?
- No matter of range? Battlemaster, Atlas, King Crab, Mauler, Stalker, Awesome, Cataphract, Thunderbolt, Warhammer, BlackKnight, Crab, Griffin, Trebuchet, Centurion. Light IS mech really have low firepower and can only use speed and agility... not always with good result. Another question
about range. Most of them have only short or medium battle range and just can't go to close to target on open space. Some mech have great range with low heat impact - but yes, their alpha much lower sometimes not bigger than 30. But again - what mean long range? If team have well skilled spotter - ERLL + LRM can do really huge impact. Since more fragile clan Gauss - well skilled sniper can take 1-2 c-gauss of game. But before that pilot need live longer.
And there we come back to engine change.
If you get 40PPFLD to your XL torso - you dead even if you have some power to answer.
If you get 40PPFLD to your XL torso and have speed penalty - you can fire back with same or less power and do damage to that lucky gauss user, maybe take its weapon out of play. Difference in seconds, but they change balance to right direction.
Same with brawling - you get some seconds of battle by sacrificing one of your side torso
without weapon in it or less part of it.
Also, if we get Energy Draw system from PTS - all alpha will be reduced to 30-32 safe range or mech take huge impact for using bigger power than allowed. So we get more "split alphas" and in same time a bit more space to maneuver. Yes, 40 pinpoint damage still lethal - that why I vote for taking off death penalty and replacing it with something else.
In same time. HBK-IIC-A pretty weak with armor and can be beaten with proper build of strong enough IS mech. Another thing that HBK-IIC-A still live after loosing side torso and have at least 1\2 of firepower with alpha burst or cold chainfire, whyle all other IS mech dead in same situation. About Clan light - Adder pretty slow and wide. Only few builds really deadly. Jenner IIC just better model of IS. Kit Fox easy to take off game by ripping its hands. Mist Linx all weapon have in one arm. Well, take one arm off not so problematic. Cheetah - right. Good mech mostly because of ECM and best mech to fight with it - Wolfhound, Firestarter and, maybe Panther. But only if they have no death penalty of using XL. Most problem from Cheetah have IS heavy and assaults. Because they don't see danger and easy lost back armor plate. Also not so many IS light have ECM, because modular construction of Clan mech make possible place ECM on each model if at least one have it by replacing omnipods.
What else... oh. Clan have no more light mech.
IS have great sniper light mech and some nice fast scouting like commando and locust. But team run for damage not for teamplay activity like really scouting, spotting and support fire. And even counting it - IS light easy frag in medium skilled hands.
Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 February 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:
FFS, IS vs IS was not a common thing. Barely anyone played Faction Warfare so using that as some proof that there was no problem is asinine, because in other queues this HAS been a problem since the introduction of Clans.....but by all means keep living in this alternate reality where IS vs IS matches were a commonplace thing.....
- Back days I mostly fight in IS vs IS conflict rather then vs Clan. Population of good pilots was nearly in balance and those who have no will to fight against "OP Clans" or OP armored IS" fight against same faction. So yes. before Clans it was a problem, but less than now. Again, in QP with mixed technology and 1\3 IS mech on both side - game go nice. But when we put only IS mech and only Clan mech in conflict on different sides - we see problem of low TTK. To change that - we have buffs, but they don't work because it placed on whole mech surface. +3-10 armor to side torso won't change result if it gets 1-2 shots with power equal to 4\5 of all armor and structure points.
And yes - in IS vs IS we have lower alpha and side torso was able to sustain 3-4 shots before mech come to optimal range.
What about queue problem - that was result of stand alone houses. 6 houses each of which was enemy to other unless they come to fight against clan. Making not whole pool for IS but 2 general faction from 3 hauses each and 2 general clans with 2 clan in each = preserve IS vs IS conflict in more live state. If population changes - recalculate to make 1 more populated house main and add 2 less populated houses to it. Same with other. It's easy mechanic. Quite not a canonic maybe, but good for gameplay. Also that make merc migration less impactfull.
Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 February 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:
It is a higher TTK, but still not equivalent to Clans which is my point.
- Higher. Yes. Those few seconds of battle make pilot better sometimes and TTK become longer. If pilot take shot and loose speed he use weapon to fight back as long as he can. Next time he change build to make one longrange weapon preserved to fight back more effective. Some abttle after he learn how to twist torso to save speed till last moment and use medium weapon near enemy. He get time to learn instead of simply death and go to another match where he die again and... so on.
That's why I call it a first step.
Still we have STD which great on mech from heavy to assaults. And there many builds which works perfectly. More of it - I have some IIC mech and use STD engine in them because I don't won't have my builds affected by heat and speed penalty as Clan XL have.
So taking death penalty and giving speed penalty already make learning curve for new and medium skilled pilots much better.
If we have 1-2 week of PTS server test such mechanic - you'll see how IS mech become more popular and how some bulky models come to live again. And I talking about hero also - which purchased by real money.