123 replies to this topic

[The Unstoppable Puggernaut]

People still comparing apples to pineapples?
Both have "apple" in them but yet they are quite different.

Laser's biggest drawbacks are the beam times. If you are hitting potatoes all day, you'll burn straight through them with high alphas. If you face off against people who pad the second they hear that noise, guess how efficient your lasers become?

I still believe both sides can pack very good alphas for different reasons. Clans obviously have range covered easily but the heat that comes with it6.

[MischiefSC]

Lily from animove, on 19 October 2017 - 12:08 AM, said:

yeah lets just ignore heat efficiency. And the ability to bring the damage in the relevant component. if you know how to twist you won't find the HML scary. more than 2x the beamduration. but of course vs sitting ducks like lrm's that seems to be op and working increadibly nice to unload high alphas into one segment with low tonnage.

and range matters a lot as well, because not many battles happen at the ranges of the c-HML while the LPL can still be nicely used at 1.5x of it's optimum range. While the HML at this rnage makes nearly no damage anymore.

so yeha nicely gathered numbers, but numbers alone don't make facts, situations ingame create facts to compare weapons.

the efficiency of a weapion is not in it's numbers, it's in it's result on the battefield

how much of the damage the HML fired will land in the desired component. TAHTS what matters.

and here range, heat efficiency and beamduration (because proper opps twist) are way more important than those raw tonnage + damage numbers.

Twisting is irrelevant because the boated HMLs or, even better, HLLs+HMLs do more damage/tic. What that means is over the 0.67s you're shooting at me I'm doing more damage back than you are. Then I'm going to burn the same damage off your ST that I did to your CT and it's going to be more damage than you did to my CT with your full burn. So if you have 3 LPLs and you do 30 pts to my CT, I did 32 to your CT and 32 to your ST. Then I can step back into cover and wait for my cooldown or I can twist and you can do 30 to my ST. Then I twist back and.... dump 64 pts into your ST, which already took 32 damage and at 96 pts I just blew your ST off removing half your firepower, gimping your speed and heat efficiency.

At this point in the exchange you've twisted literally with digital precision. You had better than human ideal reflexes (which, for humans, is at an Olympic level 0.25 seconds to visual stimuli as this game provides) and were always twisted off. However you've taken 32 pts of CT damage and had one ST blown off. I've taken 30 pts of CT and 30 pts of ST damage. Do you see how this works?

The only IS mechs physically fast enough to move into cover while poking in less than 1.2 seconds to avoid the burntime difference are some lights, which can't boat LPLs.

So instead you take 2 LLs and 5 ERMLs plus 6 DHS and you play at 400m and try to keep me out of 350m. You have a 50m band where if you twist perfectly you can do 45pts to me and take about 43pts of damage to 1 location and twist 12 pts off to a ST, because you're outside optimal range for my HMLs. Also if you get really lucky and get 1 full clean hit ahead then you can push to a brawl where our DPS is about even and the otherwise irrelevant 6-10 pts of bonus armor/structure you have (depending on mech) will let you barely survive long enough to finish me in a push.

If I'm any good at all though, at all, I'm either going to trade around 500m with just my HLLs and get ahead on damage and then push in to 300m or so and corner-poke where my bigger alpha is going to absolutely destroy you and my significantly better cooling (dem 3 extra DHS) will let me get my 3rd shot off faster than you can.

IS LPLs are bad now. Nobody seriously uses them. LLs and ERMLs are also still inferior, just not by as much. IS loses in all ways on all fronts in laservomit vs Clans. Even worse with Gaussvomit.

The Unstoppable Puggernaut, on 19 October 2017 - 12:04 PM, said:

People still comparing apples to pineapples?
Both have "apple" in them but yet they are quite different.

Laser's biggest drawbacks are the beam times. If you are hitting potatoes all day, you'll burn straight through them with high alphas. If you face off against people who pad the second they hear that noise, guess how efficient your lasers become?

I still believe both sides can pack very good alphas for different reasons. Clans obviously have range covered easily but the heat that comes with it6.

False. As stated and shown above for the same tonnage Clans have bigger alpha, more damage/tic, more DPS, better heat management. For laservomit they absolutely win on all fronts in all contexts.

[Y E O N N E]

Illuminous Owl, on 18 October 2017 - 10:24 AM, said:

I don't think comparing two laser weapons that do the same damage, have roughly similar range, except one is 1 ton 1 slot and one is 7 tons 2 slots is silly. IS should not have this much of a penalty. It's a huge penalty. 7 Tons... Vs. 1 Ton... For the same damage. I'm not saying HML or HL are OP, I enjoy them very much.

I am saying IS LPL for the same damage is too heavy. IS needs something more efficient. Many IS Mechs have few laser hardpoints, and low ones at that. Just complete disadvantage at every turn. It seems to me a lot of Clan players are just whiners. Again... I enjoy both sides... but it seems like there is a group of Clan players that just want to be unfairly superior for some reason.

You are preaching to the choir here on the imbalance between Clan and IS alpha capabilities and IS needing more efficient weapons than what they have, I just think the comparison is silly because the two are not used at all in a similar fashion and I'd actually rather take a trio of LPL than any number of HML for those reasons. Value does not reside entirely in the damage.

[Pixel Hunter]

Lances107, on 18 October 2017 - 02:08 PM, said:

Op I have one simple question for you. Do you and others like you have the ability to not complain for one day about something the clan has? Is that even possible for you?

ITT: clan members call names and try to justify OP weapons

also:

to be constructive I do feel the IS LPL is with the current spread of clan weapons very, very anemic...this coming from a thunderbolt player who has cut his teeth using LPL's. it's the combo that brought me out of tier 5. but, considering the amount of face melting that can be done with heavy mediums from a clan, I can't see why in blue blazes that they are as good as they are. I'm not one for power creep and I would rather see the LPL have a modest Buff and the clan heavy medium have a large Nerf.

If I had my way I would have the IS LPL have the cool down lowered significantly and the heat slashed making it a fearsome DPS weapon rather than a one hit wonder.

Edited by Gimpy117, 19 October 2017 - 04:06 PM.

[Lily from animove]

MischiefSC, on 19 October 2017 - 12:17 PM, said:

Twisting is irrelevant because the boated HMLs or, even better, HLLs+HMLs do more damage/tic. What that means is over the 0.67s you're shooting at me I'm doing more damage back than you are. Then I'm going to burn the same damage

amazing biased example how you drop back to cover and the oppoennt not and how you land all yoru damage and the opponent not. yeah keep going with these fake examples supporting your point of view but twisting relaity to your point of view.

fact is the HMNL is hardly used because it's poop.

real fact is you waste heat into a less impotant component that takes you out of combat longer before you can appear again, and also, why does your oppoennt twist 2x to the same direction offering you the same St again? Ah yeah biased example thats why. But your efficiency is lower like lrms or streaks who spread because a lot of your heat (which is the true limitign factor for energy builds) goes into irrelevant wasted damage.

but it's ok, just go for those OP HML and MHL makes the job for people leasier that have to face you. Just don't go FP with it please and screw clanside up with inferior choices, thx.

Edited by Lily from animove, 20 October 2017 - 12:42 AM.

[Dogstar]

Helsbane, on 18 October 2017 - 10:28 AM, said:

But....but...LORE! And TABLETOP and STUFF!!!!

Being shackled to rules for a boxed set from the late 80s is why this game can't be balanced....

The thing is that we could use the TT values perfectly easily and balance with other factors (velocity, duration, cooldown, etc), it's just that PGI insists on ensuring that clan tech is always 20% better regardless of anything.

[pheeere]

Quote

amazing biased example how you drop back to cover and the opponent not and how you land all your damage and the opponent not. yeah keep going with these fake examples supporting your point of view but twisting reality to your point of view.


but it's ok, just go for those OP HML and MHL makes the job for people easier that have to face you. Just don't go FP with it please and screw clanside up with inferior choices, thx.

This is the exact mindset that will kill this game. The arrogance of dominance. People are absolutely right in complaining about the long missing balance, but you shut it down with your vitriol. Maybe it really is time for IS to just ignore FP and leave Clanners with 45 minute waiting periods and ghost drops. Have fun, guys and gals.

I seriously can not see this game existing in 12 months from now, because most Clanners will not, by the love of god, accept the glaring issues with balance and Clan preferencing and IS players will stop spending money at all. At least be honest about it, and don't come up with your laughable justifications that present equally optimized strawman-scenarios as the ones you critcize here. Compare the new mechs of the last 6 months, for instance. Uziel and Nightstar vs Arctic Wolf and MadCat MKII. Who won? You decide!

Edited by pheeere, 20 October 2017 - 01:08 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Lily from animove, on 20 October 2017 - 12:35 AM, said:

amazing biased example how you drop back to cover and the oppoennt not and how you land all yoru damage and the opponent not. yeah keep going with these fake examples supporting your point of view but twisting relaity to your point of view.

fact is the HMNL is hardly used because it's poop.

real fact is you waste heat into a less impotant component that takes you out of combat longer before you can appear again, and also, why does your oppoennt twist 2x to the same direction offering you the same St again? Ah yeah biased example thats why. But your efficiency is lower like lrms or streaks who spread because a lot of your heat (which is the true limitign factor for energy builds) goes into irrelevant wasted damage.

but it's ok, just go for those OP HML and MHL makes the job for people leasier that have to face you. Just don't go FP with it please and screw clanside up with inferior choices, thx.

You can twist however you want, you can call the timing however you want. HLLs+HMLs for the same tonnage will beat you damage/tic, total alpha, DPS and heat management. For about 2x the alpha btw.

The only reason HMLs don't get used more often is that for range synergy CERMLs are even better and for up close work MPLs are even better. All of which are a better overall choice in a good build than LPLs. No, I wouldn't take 8 HMLs. I would never need to - HLLs are light enough to take in any laservomit build.

Because I'm doing more damage per tic my efficiency is better than your IS LPLs because over the 0.67 of burn time I'm still doing more damage than you, I've just got a whole other 26 pts of damage I can do.

You're also pretending that twisting is instantaneous or that most mechs can't still get shot in the CT (or even opposite torso) while trying to twist away.

HMLs don't get used often because I can run 2 HLLs and 3 or 4 CERMLs and due to lower heat on the CERMLs run 7 extra DHS, do 57 alpha, 15% more DPS than your 3LPLs and at 25% more range.

It's not that HMLs are bad - it's that Clans have a lot of options that are even better. I could run 8 MPLs and 5 extra DHS for the same tonnage as 3 LPLs, only 35m less range, still a 56 alpha (vs your 30) and a burn time of 0.9 vs your 0.67 - meaning I'm absolutely going to get that burn in on you.

Oh, and 40% better DPS. With better cooling, thanks again to those 5 extra DHS.

All of that without going into the fact that smaller DHS, half size endo and FF and CXL means I'm going to have more slots and tonnage to mount more DHS and maybe a 9th MPL.

Yes, HMLs are a great mid range weapon to partner with HLLs for high alpha trading. If pushed you've still got solid DPS. However any laservomit option the Clans want to bring is going to beat IS LPLs.

[pheeere]

Dogstar, on 20 October 2017 - 12:44 AM, said:

The thing is that we could use the TT values perfectly easily and balance with other factors (velocity, duration, cooldown, etc), it's just that PGI insists on ensuring that clan tech is always 20% better regardless of anything.

The most important thing in TT is the numbers advantage of IS. When Clans lose a Mech, it hurts them really bad. In Alpha Strike rules, the Clan Mechs cost 20%-30% more points on average (roughly). Their stats are OP, yes, but if you can get one of them down you screw up their plans big time. This does not translate to MWO. The Clans have weaknesses that can be largely ignored in current meta and they have got the same numbers. I don't know if Star vs Lance would be a solution, but maybe we should just try it for once.

[Lily from animove]

MischiefSC, on 20 October 2017 - 01:08 AM, said:

You can twist however you want, you can call the timing however you want. HLLs+HMLs for the same tonnage will beat you damage/tic, total alpha, DPS and heat management. For about 2x the alpha btw.

The only reason HMLs don't get used more often is that for range synergy CERMLs are even better and for up close work MPLs are even better. All of which are a better overall choice in a good build than LPLs. No, I wouldn't take 8 HMLs. I would never need to - HLLs are light enough to take in any laservomit build.

Because I'm doing more damage per tic my efficiency is better than your IS LPLs because over the 0.67 of burn time I'm still doing more damage than you, I've just got a whole other 26 pts of damage I can do.

You're also pretending that twisting is instantaneous or that most mechs can't still get shot in the CT (or even opposite torso) while trying to twist away.

HMLs don't get used often because I can run 2 HLLs and 3 or 4 CERMLs and due to lower heat on the CERMLs run 7 extra DHS, do 57 alpha, 15% more DPS than your 3LPLs and at 25% more range.

It's not that HMLs are bad - it's that Clans have a lot of options that are even better. I could run 8 MPLs and 5 extra DHS for the same tonnage as 3 LPLs, only 35m less range, still a 56 alpha (vs your 30) and a burn time of 0.9 vs your 0.67 - meaning I'm absolutely going to get that burn in on you.

Oh, and 40% better DPS. With better cooling, thanks again to those 5 extra DHS.

All of that without going into the fact that smaller DHS, half size endo and FF and CXL means I'm going to have more slots and tonnage to mount more DHS and maybe a 9th MPL.

Yes, HMLs are a great mid range weapon to partner with HLLs for high alpha trading. If pushed you've still got solid DPS. However any laservomit option the Clans want to bring is going to beat IS LPLs.

it's not, you waste maybe 50% of your heat into non relevant damage, ios your setup 50% more heatefficient? it's not that much better in heat efficiency. And once your heatscale is full you are out of combat for a while while the IS setup can much better put out efficient damage. and further wow in yoru example you now shot off one St, with the LFGE's around thats not even the end fo that mech anymore.

sorry oyur examples are still biased, and as logn as you don't try to be objectovely i am nopt goign to take the effort in explaining you a proper example which your bias will ignore anyways.

[Daurock]

Lily from animove, on 20 October 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

it's not, you waste maybe 50% of your heat into non relevant damage, ios your setup 50% more heatefficient? it's not that much better in heat efficiency. And once your heatscale is full you are out of combat for a while while the IS setup can much better put out efficient damage. and further wow in yoru example you now shot off one St, with the LFGE's around thats not even the end fo that mech anymore.

sorry oyur examples are still biased, and as logn as you don't try to be objectovely i am nopt goign to take the effort in explaining you a proper example which your bias will ignore anyways.

The major points he's making are still going over your head.
1st- clan weapon alphas are so much higher than IS ones that their burn rate goes as fast or faster than the IS one. I.E. for that .67 of burn, the is Mech is doing 30 points of damage, and taking 32. After that .67, the clan mech gets free, unopposed damage.

2nd - You'd next say that the clan weapons are now just spraying their extra damage around uselessly due to torso twisting, needlessly overheating themselves. Even if a perfect torso twist was possible possible, the Clan weapons are so much lighter than the IS isLPL that it doesn't matter - the clanner just sticks on some extra Heatsinks, and still runs as cool or cooler than the IS mech. The assumption that you're making here is that the clanner is making a sacrifice by having that extra damage done at the end of his burn. What you're missing is that it's essentially free damage. Heat and damage efficiency don't really have to be there when you can just brute force it by taking more heatsinks due to your lighter weapons.

Instead of attempting to brush the fact that clan weapons do more damage under the rug, a more useful debate would be asking the question "just how valuable is that extra half second of burn damage." I can certainly say that the value of free damage is greater than the 0 that you're attempting to make it seem to be.

[El Bandito]

IS LPL is just outclassed now, once its damage was reduced to 10. ERLL is where it is at.

7 tons is too much of an investment.

Edited by El Bandito, 20 October 2017 - 07:33 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Daurock, on 20 October 2017 - 07:25 AM, said:

Instead of attempting to brush the fact that clan weapons do more damage under the rug, a more useful debate would be asking the question "just how valuable is that extra half second of burn damage." I can certainly say that the value of free damage is greater than the 0 that you're attempting to make it seem to be.

that damage isn't free, it's paid with heat.

[Daurock]

Lily from animove, on 20 October 2017 - 07:55 AM, said:

that damage isn't free, it's paid with heat.

It's free heat they get from extra sinks due to lighter weight

[MischiefSC]

Lily from animove, on 20 October 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

it's not, you waste maybe 50% of your heat into non relevant damage, ios your setup 50% more heatefficient? it's not that much better in heat efficiency. And once your heatscale is full you are out of combat for a while while the IS setup can much better put out efficient damage. and further wow in yoru example you now shot off one St, with the LFGE's around thats not even the end fo that mech anymore.

sorry oyur examples are still biased, and as logn as you don't try to be objectovely i am nopt goign to take the effort in explaining you a proper example which your bias will ignore anyways.

Except the only 'non relevant damage' is damage that doesn't hit the target. Blowing off a ST in a fight, even with a STD, just removed weapons and heatsinks. If I'm still shooting full weapons with full cooling and you just lost half of one and part of the other obviously that's a huge advantage.

So if every trade you do 30 to my CT, I do 32 to your CT and 24 pts to a ST, I'm still winning. By a big margin. That's assuming we're both moving into cover after every shot and you are twisting perfectly and instantly in a mech with the torso twist speed of a light.

So pick a mech. We're probably going to have to look at heavies because a BJ for example has to take an XL just to take 3 LPLs. So lets look at the 60 ton range, because that lets you take a QD (with 20% cooldowns on energy) vs a MDD, which really isn't famed as an energy boat. 3 LPLs, LFE 300, 1 JJ, 14 DHS total. With just 3 LPLs it can go Endo and FF. Honestly it's probably one of the best IS options for taking 3 LPLs.

Here's what I put together.

So a MDD doesn't have Endo. However it was painfully easy to cobble something together that out-performs the QD in every single way. Here you go. See how it does more than 2x the alpha, better cooling efficiency and higher DPS even with the QDs cooldown quirks? Would you like to get into how the MDD has 15 extra structure on each ST vs the QDs 7? So it's also MORE durable than the QD (oh irony).

Here's the other fun part - over the 0.67 seconds of burn for the LPLs the MDD is doing 39 points of damage.

So assuming they both have perfect aim and for the sake of argument in favor of your bias and unrealistic perspective we'll say the QD has perfect, instant twisting, the MDD is still going to win. By trade 3, the MDD will have done 117 to the QDs CT plus 93 pts to the QDs ST, which would have blown that off too. The MDD would have taken 90 pts to the CT which would have burned through his armor and left him with an orange CT. Fortunately he's still got undamaged STs and arms to shield with!

So the best possible 3 LPL build vs Clan setup you can have, QD vs MDD, the MDD still wins. Easily. More realistically the QD goes down on the 2nd trade because human reaction speed is 0.25 seconds at best which hits 120 pts at the end of the second trade. He either goes down on trade 2 or the begining of trade 3 before he's finished his burn.

And that's with everything working out in your favor which also isn't realistic. The MDD is probably going to blast you at least once with the HLLs and cerml outside your LPL range and is going to lead with a twist on the second trade, letting you waste 30 pts on his beefy ST before blowing your ST off and shafting your speed and heat. He should probably just push in and roll the QD because the QD running 3 LPLs is absolute **** vs a equal tonnage (even a sub-par one like a MDD laservomit build) Clan mech.

Edited - my math was wrong.
The MDD is doing 43 pts over 0.67, not 39.

lol. LPLs are crap. Take 2 or 3 LLs and 4 or 5 ERMLs. Still inferior, just not as much.

Edited by MischiefSC, 20 October 2017 - 08:11 AM.

[YueFei]

MischiefSC, on 20 October 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

Except the only 'non relevant damage' is damage that doesn't hit the target. Blowing off a ST in a fight, even with a STD, just removed weapons and heatsinks. If I'm still shooting full weapons with full cooling and you just lost half of one and part of the other obviously that's a huge advantage.

So if every trade you do 30 to my CT, I do 32 to your CT and 24 pts to a ST, I'm still winning. By a big margin. That's assuming we're both moving into cover after every shot and you are twisting perfectly and instantly in a mech with the torso twist speed of a light.

So pick a mech. We're probably going to have to look at heavies because a BJ for example has to take an XL just to take 3 LPLs. So lets look at the 60 ton range, because that lets you take a QD (with 20% cooldowns on energy) vs a MDD, which really isn't famed as an energy boat. 3 LPLs, LFE 300, 1 JJ, 14 DHS total. With just 3 LPLs it can go Endo and FF. Honestly it's probably one of the best IS options for taking 3 LPLs.

Here's what I put together.

So a MDD doesn't have Endo. However it was painfully easy to cobble something together that out-performs the QD in every single way. Here you go. See how it does more than 2x the alpha, better cooling efficiency and higher DPS even with the QDs cooldown quirks? Would you like to get into how the MDD has 15 extra structure on each ST vs the QDs 7? So it's also MORE durable than the QD (oh irony).

Here's the other fun part - over the 0.67 seconds of burn for the LPLs the MDD is doing 39 points of damage.

So assuming they both have perfect aim and for the sake of argument in favor of your bias and unrealistic perspective we'll say the QD has perfect, instant twisting, the MDD is still going to win. By trade 3, the MDD will have done 117 to the QDs CT plus 93 pts to the QDs ST, which would have blown that off too. The MDD would have taken 90 pts to the CT which would have burned through his armor and left him with an orange CT. Fortunately he's still got undamaged STs and arms to shield with!

So the best possible 3 LPL build vs Clan setup you can have, QD vs MDD, the MDD still wins. Easily. More realistically the QD goes down on the 2nd trade because human reaction speed is 0.25 seconds at best which hits 120 pts at the end of the second trade. He either goes down on trade 2 or the begining of trade 3 before he's finished his burn.

And that's with everything working out in your favor which also isn't realistic. The MDD is probably going to blast you at least once with the HLLs and cerml outside your LPL range and is going to lead with a twist on the second trade, letting you waste 30 pts on his beefy ST before blowing your ST off and shafting your speed and heat. He should probably just push in and roll the QD because the QD running 3 LPLs is absolute **** vs a equal tonnage (even a sub-par one like a MDD laservomit build) Clan mech.

Edited - my math was wrong.
The MDD is doing 43 pts over 0.67, not 39.

lol. LPLs are crap. Take 2 or 3 LLs and 4 or 5 ERMLs. Still inferior, just not as much.

While I agree with everything you've said, I just want to point out that some top competitive FPS players have demonstrated reaction times to visual input in the range of 150 milliseconds.

Also, twisting as soon as your burn time is finished doesn't require insane reaction time, because you can get accustomed to the timing and anticipate it. But it's a "double-edged sword" (yes I know that's a stupid figure of speech), because it's one of those things that can lead to mistakes, for example when a gridiron football player is receiving a pass, and takes his eyes off of the ball at the last moment and drops the pass. He's trying to gain a slight edge by being able to catch the pass and move upfield as soon as possible, but sometimes players start looking away too early, and drop the ball. In MWO terms that's like twisting before your burn has totally finished.

And, like you said, even with instantaneous reflexes, leg turn + torso twist isn't instantaneous, so even as you begin to roll, you're still taking it in the CT for a moment.

[Lux Monolithic]

YueFei, on 20 October 2017 - 09:03 AM, said:

While I agree with everything you've said, I just want to point out that some top competitive FPS players have demonstrated reaction times to visual input in the range of 150 milliseconds.

Also, twisting as soon as your burn time is finished doesn't require insane reaction time, because you can get accustomed to the timing and anticipate it. But it's a "double-edged sword" (yes I know that's a stupid figure of speech), because it's one of those things that can lead to mistakes, for example when a gridiron football player is receiving a pass, and takes his eyes off of the ball at the last moment and drops the pass. He's trying to gain a slight edge by being able to catch the pass and move upfield as soon as possible, but sometimes players start looking away too early, and drop the ball. In MWO terms that's like twisting before your burn has totally finished.

And, like you said, even with instantaneous reflexes, leg turn + torso twist isn't instantaneous, so even as you begin to roll, you're still taking it in the CT for a moment.

There are actually a lot of other people that play this game aside from Comp FP players... sometimes people pretend that those are the only people that matter. Not saying you do. Just, it comes up in peoples arguments a lot... using Comp FP players as their example as though its reflective of the entire player base.

Edited by Illuminous Owl, 20 October 2017 - 09:15 AM.

[Rakshasa]

Helsbane, on 18 October 2017 - 10:28 AM, said:

But....but...LORE! And TABLETOP and STUFF!!!!

Being shackled to rules for a boxed set from the late 80s is why this game can't be balanced....

[YueFei]

Illuminous Owl, on 20 October 2017 - 09:15 AM, said:

There are actually a lot of other people that play this game aside from Comp FP players... sometimes people pretend that those are the only people that matter. Not saying you do. Just, it comes up in peoples arguments a lot... using Comp FP players as their example as though its reflective of the entire player base.

The point is, if there's no way for even the top-level players to counter something, you know the game design is broken.

If there is at least a way for top-level players to counter something, then you could argue that it's a learn-to-play issue. As in, "Clan vs IS is balanced, you just need to L2P". When even the very best of the best couldn't possibly hope to overcome this when fighting against players of equal skill, you know you've got bad design.

It's like with LRMs and newbies. Quite a few people new to the game complain vigorously about LRMs being overpowered. But more experienced players can and do demonstrate that it's possible to deal with LRMs, so it's a L2P issue. If anything, LRMs should be improved or the mechanics should be changed in some way to make them more effective, give them a higher skill ceiling, etc.

[MischiefSC]

YueFei, on 20 October 2017 - 09:03 AM, said:

While I agree with everything you've said, I just want to point out that some top competitive FPS players have demonstrated reaction times to visual input in the range of 150 milliseconds.

Also, twisting as soon as your burn time is finished doesn't require insane reaction time, because you can get accustomed to the timing and anticipate it. But it's a "double-edged sword" (yes I know that's a stupid figure of speech), because it's one of those things that can lead to mistakes, for example when a gridiron football player is receiving a pass, and takes his eyes off of the ball at the last moment and drops the pass. He's trying to gain a slight edge by being able to catch the pass and move upfield as soon as possible, but sometimes players start looking away too early, and drop the ball. In MWO terms that's like twisting before your burn has totally finished.

And, like you said, even with instantaneous reflexes, leg turn + torso twist isn't instantaneous, so even as you begin to roll, you're still taking it in the CT for a moment.

That's not reaction speed it's habit; you twist not because you're reacting to enemy fire but your lasers are done, which lets you respond more quickly than reflexes alone would do. 150 is really, really fast but certainly happens -

However as you note reaction speed is important but it's limited by the mechs actual rotational speed.