143 replies to this topic

[Asym]

Nema Nabojiv, on 05 September 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

Come on. Apart from the strange conclusion that lights dominate anything, he has actually a good point on crit slots for some reason being equal regardless of mech size.

Op not only has a point, but is correct in many things he brings up.... This is a game that really is all mumbo-jumbo science....
Logic and physics are not used in this game....sorry... If it were, we'd have an extremly lethal battlespace where just about everybody would be destroyed in the first few minutes.......kinda like real life out there.... But, its a silly game with goofy physics that make absolutly no sense sometimes and PGI has to nerf, tweak, buff and balance the imaginary physics so as to not lose 1/2 of the player base.......

Please, give the OP a break. He is trying to make a valid point.... Lights, right now, many of them, are "out-of-balance" in the convoluted world of this imaginary century... Some lights are min-assaults and are creating a larger fuss that before. OK, it's their turn.

Don't worry, all good things in MWO will pass.........Pretty soon Solaris and MW5 and then, MWO will "be something else...." and many will look back and wish for now to be again....

Edited by Asym, 05 September 2017 - 01:25 PM.

[SeventhSL]

Lights are not dominating. Lol

[kuma8877]

So, it's agreed then, lights need a buff! Hear Hear!

[ocular tb]

I get the OP's premise and can see from a logic standpoint how lights shouldn't have the same amount of crit slots. But being that this is a game and is so far removed from reality, I think it's fine how it is. If lights also had to contend with fewer crit slots they would be even worse off than they are and that wouldn't make for a good game. Some realism and immersion is fine but not at the expense of good gameplay.

[Admiral-Dan]

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

and it"s adding to the Light dominance we see today.

[Rhent]

There are two choices to fix this mess:
1. Nerf the hard slots on the light mechs.
-PGI has never done this on a release mech.

2. Add ghost heat to MG's, increasing it from Light to Regular to Heavy.

3. Nerf the damage potential of the MG's across the board and increase the hitscan to make them less aimed.

Realistically we'll see option #2 in the near future as the fix.

[kuma8877]

In the context of MWO things have been simplified to such a degree for the sake of player customization\fun. In lore there are many weapons/mech manufacturers and major refits take major time, money and facilities to complete (and build rules are stricter). There are good balancing trade offs between the weight classes for the most part in MWO imho. I fully expect every match in my lights to end very abruptly because of those trade off mechanisms.

[Admiral-Dan]

Rhent, on 05 September 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

There are two choices to fix this mess:
1. Nerf the hard slots on the light mechs.
-PGI has never done this on a release mech.

2. Add ghost heat to MG's, increasing it from Light to Regular to Heavy.

3. Nerf the damage potential of the MG's across the board and increase the hitscan to make them less aimed.

Here is the fourth and most important of your two choices.
4. Learn to hit targets which are smaller than assaults.

[Shadowomega1]

I see several factors that lead to people seeing this.

HIt detection (Hitting a mech dead on with a AC 20 or even ER PPC and the HUD shows they didn't take a single point)

You teams Light/Mediums not doing their role. Early match Lights if their not scouting/hitting objectives should be sticking close to the main group and harassing enemy lights and mediums trying to go for their drop members. If the enemy isn't doing they should be poking around to see whom they can assassinate/kill secure.

No one bringing hard counters to a perceived menace, in this case lights which are hard countered with Streaks and LBx weapon systems. Streaks are the best if you properly mix in the right equipment and position yourself to gain the best lock on position and reduced time to target for the missiles Also Streaks are immune to hit detection issues due to the lock on mechanic. I have actually had people say streaks sucks, or are only good for one thing and then die to that mech type they counter.

Team awareness and team accuracy. This here is also a nasty one due to the fact I have seen many players just ignore or not even see a light run right through the team without being a single shot going in its general direction. Or worse are the people shooting at a light and hitting the ally, causing even more damage to said ally.

GrimRiver, on 05 September 2017 - 11:08 AM, said:

...light are dominating?

Looks at qq: 7% Light - 28% Medium - 40% Heavy - 22% Assault.

This is actually just a glance at a moment of time that you captured. Over the weekend I have seen the light queue up as high as 35%, and even the assault queue up to 50% with heavies down to 20%. Check that and watch it change between matches.

[Deathlike]

J0anna, on 05 September 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

They did have their 'day in the sun' many years ago. Back when there was a thing known as lag shield, and groups and solo used to play together (in the old 8 v 8 days). I distinctly remember running a 4 Jenner group that obliterated everything, dropping and knowing that whatever the other team had didn't matter, iirc we went 21 -0, before we got tired of killing everything.

The only time Lights were "dominant" was during early beta, where CT-seeking Streaks and ECM were a real thing (ECM was orders of magnitudes stronger than it is now, with the ability to remove opponent's from their own friendly radar as one of the notable examples). It's been that way since the removal of CT-seeking Streaks (or even previously to that).

Shadowomega1 said:

This is actually just a glance at a moment of time that you captured. Over the weekend I have seen the light queue up as high as 35%, and even the assault queue up to 50% with heavies down to 20%. Check that and watch it change between matches.

Selective timing where the majority of the time, it's usually what been said before... Light queue is nominally sub-10% queues most of the time. If you saw it higher, it was certainly under very different circumstances (especially when it comes to events, where it may require Lights for the achievements).

Edited by Deathlike, 05 September 2017 - 02:55 PM.

[Yellonet]

Lights as a class are not OP. Some light mechs are though.

[DivineTomatoes]

******* idiots crying again.

Lights are consistently one of the least played and most nerfed classes and here you are wanting to nerf them further.

Lights are not the problem here, YOU ARE.

[Prototelis]

Shadowomega1, on 05 September 2017 - 01:59 PM, said:

harassing enemy lights

Oh God no.

Light on Light is always bad.

And it depends on whether you play a fast or slow light.

Like the Pirates Bane has no place in a firing line.... ever. Much better at gathering target data and getting big reds to turn by drawing a little aggro and fading.

[Tarl Cabot]

Crits slots, engine sizes, etc is simply a representation. Component size and weight is the balance. In TT open game there are no weapon type restrictions. Imagine being able to fill 8-12-etc MG in a light mech, No engine cap, etc.

The only issue I have with lights is the scaling differences between lights and other classes. In MWO lights should have a absolute minimum size, due to hit reg, etc with locust being right under the wire. The other classes, from assaults down, imho, are scaled too large.

Of course with the Skill Tree, it takes lots of points to get those Seismic Sensors. What I would give to have the ability to switch views and have a toggleable full rear view (a mirror would be too resource intensive, based on previous information).

[Lykaon]

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.

Um...doesn't the rifleman have around 20 tons left over while the spider is maxed out and has about 1/3 of it's potential full armor value? (only 2.5 tons of armor)

While the slots are the same and the weapons and equipment weigh the same for all mechs the larger mechs fit more and larger.

For example the rifle man can pack two gauss rifles and still have tonnage to spare for a bigger engine or back up energy weapons.

What happens is the Spider gets a glass cannon gauss build that is unforgiving and frankly impractical the Rifleman however gets a viable ranged support build with excellently placed high ballistic mounts.

Now if you go and start looking at energy builds the heavier mechs still retain an edge in combat longevity. Simply put the heavy and the light may be packing the exact same weapon paylod but the heavy mech can fire it far more often.

[Prototelis]

Tarl Cabot, on 05 September 2017 - 03:13 PM, said:

What I would give to have the ability to switch views and have a toggleable full rear view (a mirror would be too resource intensive, based on previous information).

Why, so you can watch the mean ol' light shoot you in the butt? Then what? Switch views start slogging around and ooops it's behind you again. Guess you can watch yourself get shot in the butt again lol.

[Xiphias]

*Read thread title is about how lights are dominating
*Look up OP in the leaderboards to see how many matches they have played in light mechs
*Yep, looks like zero matches in lights
*Another heavy pilot complaining about a class they know nothing about

Any mech that takes an engine smaller that a 250 is going to be penalized in crit slots by having to take extra external heatsinks. Lights also are practically forced to take XL engines, endo, and usually FF to gain the tonnage they desperately need. These effectively reduce the number of crit slots that light mechs have. As a heavier mech you can afford to not take things like FF which balances things out.

You don't see good lights running heavy weapons anyway. Most lights are running SLs, MLs, MGs, and SRMs. A few are running LLs. Ballistics are pretty much off the table for any serious light mech and ammo based weapons are usually fairly limited on either the number of launchers or the ammo for them.

At the end of the day it's just the way Battle Tech was designed. If the game was realistic all the mechs would actually float in water.

I would challenge you to try playing light mechs for a while and see how overpowered they are then. The light thing light mechs need right now is another nerf.

[Xiphias]

Prototelis, on 05 September 2017 - 03:11 PM, said:

Oh God no.

Light on Light is always bad.

Depends. If I see a light who is obviously bad (doing things like standing still, running horrible loadouts, etc.) I will engage that light because I know I can kill them quickly (a few alphas) and without taking much return fire. I've one-shot many Locusts from behind for example. Slow lights and mechs that can't really fight back like the ERLL Raven can be killed off pretty quickly if you have the right build and know what you're doing.

If there is a light in a decent build who appears to be competent I will try to avoid fighting most of the time. It wastes a lot of time I could be doing more damage to bigger targets and even if I win I'm likely to come out with a significant amount of damage. The best targets to shoot are the ones that don't shoot back.

[MechWarrior5152251]

This ain't a "science game" and since its science fiction you still can't predict whether larger engines or smaller engines would be more efficient since the science is not invented yet.

[oldradagast]

TL, DR:

Lights are dominating the OP because he doesn't know how to fight against them. Therefore, despite lights being objectively the weakest and least played class in the game, as shown by the numbers, we need to nerf them into oblivion so big, lumbering derps can just slowly plod into the center of the map against each other with no risk of anything different happening each game.