143 replies to this topic

[Kiiyor]

oldradagast, on 05 September 2017 - 04:11 PM, said:

Light mechs are not red-shirts that "somebody else should play" just so much heavier mechs can feel godly by squishing them by the dozens.

[Electroflameageddon]

Lights are dominating?

Where?

Try running one. Yeah you have speed, nerfed agility and mostly medium to short range weapons.

The lights that have the slots to boat a large laser or two have the worst hit boxes.

One or two focused shots can usually destroy a light.

Are they annoying? Yes. Can a coordinated team effectively neutralize them? Yes. The best counter to lights is stay in a group and don't wander off by yourself.

Because personally, there is nothing more satisfying than ripping apart an assault who is by itself in a light. Especially 100 tonners. It may take awhile but it is fun....

[JP Josh]

uummm its a light mechs job to hunt down and eat alive wounded and stripped mechs.... just be glad we dont have any tunnles short mechs can fit threw that other mechs cant.


and you might want to read up on battle tech lore.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

JP Josh, on 05 September 2017 - 09:35 PM, said:

tunnles short mechs can fit threw that other mechs cant.

There are actually places where only really short mechs can go.

Some of the roots in Forest Colony are actually high enough that only Locusts can go through without jumpjets. HPG under ramps? Commandos and Locusts only.

But this assumption that light mechs are dominating...what...? You do realise that the top 1% of Light Mech Pilots' average match score is equal to the lowest 95% of heavy and assault mechs' average match scores, right?

[Jun Watarase]

Gladius Vittoris, on 05 September 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

Lights are dominating..... YOU.

Only you because you are a potato.

Otherwise, gimme a reason why such OP class is ALWAYS the less populated.

Not saying that lights are OP, but the simple answer to that might be because most people enjoy having lots of armor/weapons. It is also much easier to play and more forgiving. Same reason why A-10 pilots admit that they like using the gatling gun the most even though they admit that it is not very effective compared to the missiles they carry.

Due to the way MWO works, 100 ton assaults are usually shoe horned into being ballistic boats as running anything else is ineffective. The more ballistics you can boat, the better since they run cool and deal massive DPS. The AS-7D's loadout is just inferior to the usual 4x UAC king crab/sleipnir for example.

Another example : Tabletop direwolf has 4x ERLL and the heatsinks to alpha it. This is a dumb idea in MWO because it runs too hot, has way too high a burn duration, the lack of high mounted hardpoints prevents firing over hills, etc, etc, which is why the most popular and effective builds involved boating UAC 5s.

Edited by Jun Watarase, 05 September 2017 - 10:11 PM.

[MrMadguy]

Rifleman89, on 05 September 2017 - 09:45 AM, said:

It's a design flaw IMHO, that really needs fixing.
Ask yourself--how does a light have as many slots for the SAME size weapons and SAME SIZE engine as a heavy that is twice its size and weight, in general????

Compare a SDR-5K and a RFL-3N with the same engine and weapons loadouts:
XL 195, Gauss + 2t ammo, Lt Ferro, Endo, DHS

I know, bad design for both, BUT possible. The Spider has to have a bit less than max armor and weighs in at 30t and sports a 105.3 kph speed. The Rifleman can take full armor, weighs in at 37.9t and only goes 52.7kph. Hmmmm........

A 20% Weight increase on the same engine cuts speed in half? Yes, bigger mech, more structure, and more fibers to move said parts, but it's weight that matters right? OK that's really a side point, the real point is a Gauss rifle and engine that are the same size, but take up less space, somehow in the light mech.

Notice ALL mechs currently sport 66 slots. The slots are the 'same size' when it comes to all components, weapons, engines, ammo, etc. -- ALL!?!?! How is this possible???? A skinny, tiny, puny arm and hand of the Spider takes the same weight and size GR and 1t of ammo than the bigger, beefier Rifleman? How does the smaller arm and actuators move a weapon half its overall weight, much less stay standing?? True, structural and armor enhancements are percentage based, but the effect to space and size remains the same. Are you starting to see it?

If I pack a rather large XL into a light it's gonna have to spill over into the side torsos more than the 3 it takes in the double size/weight heavy-- it's the same engine!! A medium laser needs to take up 2 spots in a light or reduce the number in the arm slots to 6 not 12, then the same weapon "fits" on the light the way it should. It can't be half as big and all the weight and do the dame damage??. Same reduction needed for CT and side torsos, and even the head. The same seat and controls for a Raven are all you need for an Atlas, but it has the room for a bigger targeting computer, its triple the size!!

Mediums might need to loose a few slots and certain IS Light engines that are bigger might have to take 3 spaces in the torso, like XLs, Assaults gain some space. The easier way, of course is to revamp weapon sizes and weights, but that won't fix the problem with equal space for all mechs. Perhaps a combination of the 2??

They"ve erroneously made the number of spaces for differing weight classes the same and it"s adding to the Light dominance we see today. This would fix this. Make space with weight matter again. I know this is HUGE for PGI to consider, but it's the right thing to do....

Thanks for reading this.

We actually had such system in the past - sized hardpoints. Gauss requires 3 slots? Just don't allow Lights to have more, than 2-slot hardpoints. Problem solved.

Problem is with armor - it doesn't serve it's purpose in MWO. Assaults are intended to be tanks, who should simply suck incoming damage. Their core design implies it - they're big, slow and have wide low hardpoints, so they just can't use cover properly. They're intended to perform direct attacks on enemies. But in MWO any Medium can simply pop out of cover for the moment and two-shot them. Therefore armor should be doubled, tripled, if not even quadrupled.

Edited by MrMadguy, 05 September 2017 - 10:33 PM.

[qS Sachiel]

Lol what lights do you see taking heavy / gauss?... Lololol

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Oh gee golly whiz, another bad heavy got fondled by a light 'Mech. Time to nerf everything under 40 tons again.

Firstly.

There are lore builds in Battletech canon which mount large weapons such as PPCs, AC20s and Gauss rifles on light 'Mechs (the Kit Fox, Urbanmech and Urbanmech IIC, Cougar, Adder, Hollander, and Panther all come to mind). Changing the construction rules would break all of those builds, many of which are present in the game already (stock UM-R60L carries AC20, stock COU-C carries CGauss, stock ADR-Prime carries 2xCERPPC- and so on). Some of the light Omnimechs would become straight up impossible to create any valid build for as more than half their crit slots are already occupied by non-weapon equipment- double the crit cost for their hardware and you end up with negative crits- the Cougar and Mist Lynx are among those so affected.

Loadout restrictions designed to eliminate heavy weapons from light 'Mech builds would be totally nonproductive in any case. PGI would either have to remove several 'Mechs from the game, or provide specific exceptions to the construction rules to accommodate those 'Mechs. Build restrictions are pointless as long as any one 'Mech in a given weight class can carry a weapon- people would just use the 'Mech with the exception if they wanted to run that weapon.

Secondly.

Big-gun lights are most emphatically not even in the same area code as anything that's overpowered. They make huge sacrifices to carry such weapons, especially on the IS side. Go ahead, build an AC20 Urbie. I'll wait. I guarantee it will either be stupid slow or armored with tissue paper- probably both- and probably with a very, very limited ammo supply. The same chassis can carry 4xERML for the same alpha strike, reach 100m further, run max engine, max armor, and never have to worry about ammo. An AC20 Raven, likewise, is objectively inferior to a 2xLPL Raven; the energy build doesn't require ammo (and is therefore lighter by the cost of the AC20's ammo despite the guns themselves requiring the same tonnage), and the weapons reach farther, for the same alpha damage.

Either the 4xERML Urbie or the 2xLPL/2xERLL Raven would still work if the OP's crit-screw were implemented. They'd run hotter and likely a tad slower, but they'd still be doable, whereas the AC20 Urbie would become flat out impossible despite being far closer to the spirit of the lore for that chassis.

If someone is good enough to kill you with an IS light running a large ballistic weapon (RAC5, LB10X, or heavier), then I can state with some degree of confidence that you deserve to be dead.

Thirdly.

The ulterior motive behind this thread is absolutely transparent, just like it is with any discussion of sized hardpoints, "role warfare," or other such nonsense. The examples given are always light 'Mechs. The posters always skip straight past the lore, straight past the construction rules, and tailor their suggestions to do as much damage as humanly possible to the combat viability of light 'Mechs- then go back and try to retroactively justify their proposed nerfs with a few cherry-picked bits of official material. It is beyond obvious that what the OP wants is to neuter a weight class to make the game easier. That's all it ever is with these threads.

Finally.

Tabletop construction rules, which MWO loosely follows, are representational. Custom build rules simplify everything by making every single model of medium laser weigh exactly one ton and occupy exactly one crit, because otherwise the rules would quickly become so complex that not even a supercomputer could figure out how to put a 'Mech together. Component weights and crit requirements may be taken as shorthand for the challenges of mounting a piece of equipment on a chassis, rather than as an official statement that every example of that type of equipment is the same.

In lore, each piece of equipment was custom-fitted to each model and variant of 'Mech, and none of it was interchangeable. If you ripped the Tomodzuru AC20 out of a Hunchback 4G, you could not just drop it into an Atlas D whose AC20 had been destroyed. Neither could you take the STD240 engine out of a Rifleman and expect it to work in a Spider, despite that being the stock rating of both 'Mechs. All 'Mechs have the same number of crits, and all equipment is standardized for customization, because both 'Mech and equipment are reduced to math. Crits are an abstract... and tonnage is enough of a balancing factor already.

'Mechs are able to carry heavy asymmetric loads, by the way, because they are able to dynamically shift their balance. That is one of the advantages of legged locomotion. Try it for yourself: pick up a 30lb barbell using just one arm. Did you topple over sideways? No? Can you still walk and run while carrying that weight? Of course you can- because you shifted your body to compensate for the off-center mass. That's exactly what 'Mechs do. MWO doesn't have the graphics technology to show the difference in the gait of a light 'Mech carrying a Gauss rifle in its arm as opposed to one with a more symmetrical loadout, but in lore it would simply walk a little funny just like you would with an asymmetric mass.

[qS Sachiel]

Voted for prez

[9thDeathscream]

They aernt really dominating. They never have. They are a pain to kill with the ****** hit reg. But that's it!

Edited by Kharonn, 05 September 2017 - 11:30 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Battlemaster56, on 05 September 2017 - 11:15 AM, said:

This is why I use the superior PS4 controller can do everything a xbob controller can but better!!!

Nothing beats the steering wheel.

[The6thMessenger]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 September 2017 - 11:58 PM, said:

Nothing beats the steering wheel.

I see your steering wheel, and raise you to Doritos, a Mountain Dew, and what appears to be a pistol controller.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 06 September 2017 - 12:05 AM.

[JP Josh]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 05 September 2017 - 09:47 PM, said:

There are actually places where only really short mechs can go.

Some of the roots in Forest Colony are actually high enough that only Locusts can go through without jumpjets. HPG under ramps? Commandos and Locusts only.

But this assumption that light mechs are dominating...what...? You do realise that the top 1% of Light Mech Pilots' average match score is equal to the lowest 95% of heavy and assault mechs' average match scores, right?

i know those spots i ment by places only short lights can go threw are actuall tunnels tunnels that allow the small mech to get some very devestating flank on the enemy or run away and be completly safe. vines/under bridge dont allow this if the enemy comes from a certian angle.


and where did i say light mechs are op? i said the light mechs job was to hunt down and finish alerady crippled mechs that arnt a huge threat but can continue being direct fire support from behind the line.

in addition to the other dutys but i mainly play my lights as the role above.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

JP Josh, on 06 September 2017 - 12:30 AM, said:

i know those spots i ment by places only short lights can go threw are actuall tunnels tunnels that allow the small mech to get some very devestating flank on the enemy or run away and be completly safe. vines/under bridge dont allow this if the enemy comes from a certian angle.


and where did i say light mechs are op? i said the light mechs job was to hunt down and finish alerady crippled mechs that arnt a huge threat but can continue being direct fire support from behind the line.

in addition to the other dutys but i mainly play my lights as the role above.

I guess I should've been clearer in my reply, sorry. The second half of what I said was directed at the OP.

But yeah it really annoys the crap out of me when a fatmech pilot claims lights are OP when they get killed once. What about the other bajillion times when a light just explodes because a LBX40 looks its way just once in a match?

[Lykaon]

Rifleman89, on 05 September 2017 - 10:09 AM, said:

Go ahead and flame all you want. Lights packing weapons they way they can is the problem you are ignoring. How about countering the intent of the post, the design flaw? Sure it's easier to post a few quick, snippy comments that you think will keep me in the mech bay and off the battlefield, but you're wrong about that and aren't addressing a glaring problem. I didn't say I was having trouble with them nor their play style and need on the battlefield. You've addressed something entirely different and many in game and in the forums have commented about this. I was curious about the issue and was only pointing out why they can carry weapons loadouts that are "unreal"......because they are. Prove me wrong on that point...

Where is the glaring problem? Your example spider is,frankly ridiculous and a blatant strawman cherry picked to illustrate a point of view that you have isolated from the actual main context of the game. Your compareson is fundamentally flawed by ignoring a full one third of the Rifleman's potential used weight ( it's example loadout is about 20 tons light) and the spider is no where near "nearly max armor" with 2.5 tons remaining for armor it's less than half it's max armor!

In actuality the Rifleman's weapon payload alone can equal the total tonnage of the Spider and that is just the weapon payload! not including max armor engine structure etc only the weapons and on an actual viable build players do actually use.

At least present your argument with something that is not deliberatley misleading.

In general practice the light mech can use the same weapons as any other mech but is restricted by it's significantly lower payload.

Sure a spider can mount a gauss rifle...but the rifleman could get 2 gauss rifles.

How about a "real life" example.

Myst Lynx G (being one of the top performing lights currently) will frequently be found with a 6.5 ton weapon payload consisting of 4 ER Small Lasers 8 LMGs and 2.5 tons LMG ammo. and of course the locked 6 jumpjets and 10 DHS.

This mech has a 20.62 damage alpha strike with a 51% heat efficiency ( around 30 seconds of constant fire before shut down) and an optimal combat range of 200m.

It has 172 total armor value and a top speed (unquirked/skilled) of 113.4 kph

Compare this to a 65 ton Linebacker( I will use a fairly common loadout for this mech as well one that actually sees use)

The Linebacker will have 4 CSRM4 w/4.5 tons ammo,4 ER Medium Lasers 18 DHS. a 20.5 ton weapon payload (about triple the light mech's payload)

This mech has a 60 firepower alpha strike (nearly three times more potent than the Myst Lynx G) with a 35% heat efficiency ( around 10 seconds constant fire before overheating) with an optimal range of 270m and a 400m optimal range on the lasers alone.

The line backer has 422 armor points (well more than double the Myst Lynx) and a top speed of 97.2 (unquirked/skilled) only 16.2 KPH slower than the light mech.


So we have in an actual in the field use compareson a heavy mech and a light mech side by side.

Light mech armor 172 heavy mech armor 422 ( a 250 point advantage for the heavy)

Light mech weapon payload 6.5 tons heavy mech payload 20.5 tons ( 14 ton advantage for the heavy)

Light mech firepower rating 20.62 heavy mech firepower is 60 (39.38 damage advantage for the heavy mech)

Light mech heat efficiency 51% Heavy mech heat efficiency 35% (light mech advantage by 16%)

Light mech optimal weapon range 200m Heavy mech optimal weapon range 270 (400m for lasers) (another plus for the heavy mech)

Light mech top speed 113.4 KPH Heavy mech speed 97.2 ( advantage for the light by 16.2 kph)

And of course the target profile has the light mech being about one third the size of the heavy (advantage to the light mech)

Looking at this break down the edges the light mech has are speed (a modest edge in this example of 16.2 kph) target profile (about one third) and heat efficiency (16% )

Meanwhile the heavy mech has significant edge in firepower ( nearly three times as much) armor ( more than double) weapon range (70m for the SRMs and double the light mech's range for the er meds at 400m)

this look to me like it favors the heavy mech overall. And this is probably why the percentages of light mechs in queue are frequently under 25% of the heavy mechs in queue.

Edited by Lykaon, 06 September 2017 - 01:46 AM.

[Kiiyor]

MrMadguy, on 05 September 2017 - 10:23 PM, said:

We actually had such system in the past - sized hardpoints. Gauss requires 3 slots? Just don't allow Lights to have more, than 2-slot hardpoints. Problem solved.

Problem is with armor - it doesn't serve it's purpose in MWO. Assaults are intended to be tanks, who should simply suck incoming damage. Their core design implies it - they're big, slow and have wide low hardpoints, so they just can't use cover properly. They're intended to perform direct attacks on enemies. But in MWO any Medium can simply pop out of cover for the moment and two-shot them. Therefore armor should be doubled, tripled, if not even quadrupled.

That does indeed solve a problem - the problem of light mech viability. They were pretty garbage in that game.

[chucklesMuch]

Lol NO!!


lights are definitely NOT OP... they can be a fun, but you are constantly at risk of being instagibed...


sorry but if you are being dominated by lights then this is an opportunity for self improvement. Whether mech builds, postioning, postional awareness or aiming...

[Valhallan]

Oh lordy, lights are better in MWO compared to previous MW yes, because noone wants a bv system. So in order to not invalidate more than 50% of the lineup they needed to get buffs here and there (quirks, the rest is actually normal). If there was a bv system i can already see 80% of the casual base complaining about extreme wait times because they wanted to drop in heavy *** high bv mech no.x and so they had to wait their *** until a bunch of masochists playing low bv mechs were available for them to get slotted with.

Heavier=/= better even in TT the ABSOLUTE BEST at general jobs were mediums and heavies, mediums for close-in work and heavies for longer engagements. Assaults were for when you had to force a small cramped entrenched fire zone (hence ASSAULT) and lights were for scouting/flanking. As for those using RL to justify, heavies =/= better is also true here, there is a reason super-heavy tanks are no longer a thing and why even the US is diversifying to lighter vehicles (sure a heavy tank would blow a light vehicle all the time in pitched combat, but would the heavy tank even make it through the terrain?, would it even catch the light vehicle who would likely just circle round and kill your more difficult logistics?). BT is also not 1/1 applicable to RL, it may be "hard" scifi, so RL science still works as the basis somewhat, but it is still scifi. Which is why fusion and that jump engine are things even if we aren't even remotely close to either of those (especially the jump drive which is full-on fantasy).

[Gladius Vittoris]

Jun Watarase, on 05 September 2017 - 10:04 PM, said:

Not saying that lights are OP, but the simple answer to that might be because most people enjoy having lots of armor/weapons. It is also much easier to play and more forgiving. Same reason why A-10 pilots admit that they like using the gatling gun the most even though they admit that it is not very effective compared to the missiles they carry.

Due to the way MWO works, 100 ton assaults are usually shoe horned into being ballistic boats as running anything else is ineffective. The more ballistics you can boat, the better since they run cool and deal massive DPS. The AS-7D's loadout is just inferior to the usual 4x UAC king crab/sleipnir for example.

Another example : Tabletop direwolf has 4x ERLL and the heatsinks to alpha it. This is a dumb idea in MWO because it runs too hot, has way too high a burn duration, the lack of high mounted hardpoints prevents firing over hills, etc, etc, which is why the most popular and effective builds involved boating UAC 5s.

You examples brings assaults with loadouts (and of course armor) that a light simply cannot never have.
OP is just saying the opposite.... and tbh, best anti-light weapon is gauss, a thing a light cannot have (please don't give example of reddiculous gauss urby, to prove me wrong )

[Luminis]

This entire topic is very obviously a result of insufficient player skill. Situational awareness and semi-decent aim take care of the entire "Lights OP" issue. Simple as that.

Just let threats like these die off in the future. We're all better off that way.