Bush Hopper, on 07 June 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:
Yes, the agility and speed wasn't nerfed (if you invest in Mobility). However, a class which is all about speed and agility to survive got (in case of 35t mechs) its size enlarged to a degree where it is ridiculously easy to hit. The skill tree was a chance to make them worth to field again. Instead the same old problem exists: they cannot evade much damage from heavies and most assaults which make you feel quite fragile, especially when you have mostly T1-3 players in the match.
As for skirmishing etc.
1. Sniping - you are a second rate sniper at best. What you can do is done better by a fast medium
2. Skirmishing/Harassing/flanking - if you want to pack a punch and not sprinkle some damage over the enemy like a LRM boat then you need to load up many close range weapons simply because out of weight reasons. Which brings you near the fatties again.
My Wolfhound didn't take any damage, had invested ca. 20 points in Survival and still one alpha from an Atlas did take his arm off - my "mistake" was that I was flanking and I peeked in the wrong place where the enemy Atlas was idling. Had I not reacted immediately and turned, this alpha would have hit a torso.
Do not get me wrong. I can get matches like these, too (a screenie from yesterday). However, the effort I have to put in achieving such numbers is completely different than playing for example a heavy mech. This is simply not balanced.
I think the problem lies in the idea that lights are supposed to be doing the same amount of damage as mediums, heavies and assaults. And yes, I am fully aware that right now MWO basically only rewards damage and everything else is secondary.
However, the problem is the light mechs, it's the way MWO incentives people to play light mechs. Lights should almost never equal the damage of a heavy mech if all things in the match are equal. One reason is because lights should be hitting rear armor the majority of the time which means less total damage points before a mech is destroyed. Another reason is because mobility is a factor in and of itself. Lights have more mobility than any other mech and that is part of the reason why they should be giving up damage to compensate.
When doing damage is the only metric people begin to care about then their opinions of what makes a mech strong or weak also begins to change. PGI needs to give lights some more roles besides just damage. Scouting isn't hugely useful since we can see across the entirety of the maps in most cases. Target locks are nice but at some point lights are needed for that.
What if lights were the only ones who could put a priority target icon over a mech though? The light would get additional match score points for people attacking the priority target.
Lights could have a much faster targeting info boost so they see the damage ragdolls faster and provide that boost to everyone within 120m.
There are other ways where lights could be more about combat multipliers than just damage. A role they fill in the TT but is currently poorly translated to MWO.
As long as the only role of lights is to do damage then there will never be balance. Their speed and ability to do high damage in close means they will either be too strong or too weak. The only solution is for PGI to get a little bit creative and get away from the idea that damage is end all/be all. Until then I firmly believe that most light pilots underestimate the power of speed and mobility which makes them fail to see just how strong, OP even, the better light chassis can be.