98 replies to this topic

[DjPush]

With the engine decoupling and nerfs to mobility, the Atlas, Direwolf, Highlander, Banshee, Annihilator and Executioner are just 3D models in the mechbay (I'm sure there are others but I don't feel like naming them all). They don't stand a chance on the battlefield. Kind of sad considering I cut my teeth in this game piloting the Atlas. I have always enjoyed stomping around in large mechs with weapons that decimate anything in front of them. Now, most of these mechs are laughable. Easy targets with no ability to turn, or torso twist. Even with a full mobility tree, they are just to cumbersome to compete.

[Armored Yokai]

Highlander P stronger than everything and worth it.
But yeah the Atlas is a JOKE....

[Khobai]

um a 90+ ton mech should be cumbersome. working as intended.

but a 90 ton mech should not be as easy to kill as it is. reducing their torso twist speed negatively affected their survivability in a profound way. but im not sure making them into ballerinas again is the right direction.

assaults need to be harder to kill but without making them as agile as they used to be.

also jumpjets need to be better for 90+ ton mechs. at 2 tons a pop they should be way better than they are.



1) change the mobility tree so heavier mechs get bigger bonuses proportionally. like how the survivability tree gives bigger bonuses to lights than assaults. make the mobility tree more worthwhile for assaults to dip into. it wont fix all assaults, but the assaults that are supposed to be agile, should get back to where they need to be.

2) give more torso structure quirks to assaults. like why does a king crab get !@#$ing bonus arm structure? It needs CT/ST protection. The size of its torso is ridiculous. And why nerf the annihilator's survivability rather than making the atlas tougher instead?

3) buff class I jumpjets to justify the absurd 2 ton cost.

4) make the atlas' eyes glow ominously again so you can see them from all the way across the map. that was the coolest thing in the game till you removed it. put a on/off toggle in if crybabies cant handle being sniped.

Edited by Khobai, 16 November 2017 - 09:58 PM.

[Shifty McSwift]

The issue to me becomes apparent with comparative ideals across the size gaps just blurring the lines too much, on top of ideals of what is generally considered "optimal" both in theory and practice.

This is why you have such heavy leanings into heavies and mediums, as they often have the general abilities of assaults or lights without the lacking of lifepools that lights get and the burdensome mobility of the super heavy assaults.

Why bother risking travelling slower and getting hit more often to have a staggered alpha of huge proportions, when you can have higher speeds with a single alpha volley, and almost always utilise that speed to make staggered volleys more ineffective vs you?

It does bring me back to other notions I had in the past about trying to make a distinction within the assault class of "weapons platform" assaults, who get amazing weapon bonuses through hardpoint grouping/locations, quirks good weight restrictions etc at the cost of general mobility and survivability, and "juggernaut" assaults, who suffer the bad weapon groupings/locations and are much more impacted by their engine weights etc but who have incredible survivability and or mobility along with a generic assaults weapon profile.

I really think some kind of extra distinction for assaults could help too, the idea their generic firepower can be matched by some mediums is terrible.

[Jack Booted Thug]

JJ's for assaults need help for sure, absolutely worthless.

[JediPanther]

Atlas is done. Even with max survival, std or lfe 350 and as many fire power nodes for heat gen it sucks. I do far better in the locust than atlas by a very far margin. The only atlas I see used are the ddc for its ecm or the L for the missiles. It can't move or torso twist at all compared to clans. 68 arm armor but you don't have the twist speed to use it.

Kgc is also slow as crap with the torso twist. Ghost heat means you can't fire both ac 20s but don't worry the clans can fire both lbx 20s and dual heavy guass just fine. I almost laugh when I see dire whales. They are easy targets. Hbrs and line backers are more worrisome.

i've quit the game until the piranha comes out. I didn't buy any pack of it because I'd rather see how a mech works in game first and not believe the ngng hype video the day before it drops.

[MischiefSC]

Here's the problem -

Deathstrike, MC MK IIs in general, Dire Whale Gaussvomit/laservomit. They're absolutely badass. At 85 tons the MAD IIC is beastly at pretty much anything it wants to do.

However I wonder at times if PGI is aware that those are not, actually, the only Assaults in the game. It feels like it if you like to win, but their shadow seems to bury every other assault mech.

Banshee has 0 structure quirks. It's actually more fragile than a great many Heavies which do have armor/structure quirks - the tradeoff, of course is its..... mostly mid to low mounts I guess? The ability to take a 400XL, thus being absolutely certain you're one of the first to die? Especially with the engine decouple.

You can't just buff their mobility or you start a trickle-down issue; suddenly heavies have to be even more mobile or they're just flat out inferior to assaults, etc.

Knockdown would be a great solution. Or brawling. Those big mechs could just steamroll stuff. Otherwise, I hate to say it but....

Quirks. Not structure or armor, firepower. Give all the assaults I didn't list above some amazing weapon quirks. Low mobility means structure/armor quirks are of little use; what you want is assaults for whom the best armor they have is a wall of hot lead and plasma.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Khobai, on 16 November 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

1) change the mobility tree so heavier mechs get bigger bonuses proportionally. like how the survivability tree gives bigger bonuses to lights than assaults. make the mobility tree more worthwhile for assaults to dip into. it wont fix all assaults, but the assaults that are supposed to be agile, should get back to where they need to be.

3) buff class I jumpjets to justify the absurd 2 ton cost.

Agreed on these 2. Mobility should work for Assaults the same way Survival works for Lights, with a bigger boost due to a lower starting point. Class I JJs being worth a damn may make me take more 1 than (some cases 0) on the 90-100 ton 'mechs that have the option.

[Tiewolf]

The death for assaults are the surreal high pin point alphas and the MGs. You can`t torso twist fast enough to splat the damage and you lose your weapons/structure in no time when you are striped of your armor in one component.

The survivability skill tree gives you in theorie a lot of extra armor/structure, but it is evenly destributed around your hole mech. So it is less usefull if you can`t splat the damage or against pin point damage in the first place. The only thing that prevents the laservomit/MG pin point damage is good concealment, speed, high mobility and close hitboxes.
Thats why some heavy and medium mechs look scarier these days as an Atlas. All assaults that are still viable bring high mounts (= good concealment) and at least one of the three other properties with them. The rest are dead weight because armor/structure is unprofitable in this current meta.

Edited by Tiewolf, 17 November 2017 - 12:40 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

How about we completely remove ghost heat from Assault class only? For a quick fix.

Won't affect gauss vomit and clan laser vomit mechs (mostly can't really use any more heavy lasers due to heat), but this will definitely help everything else.

[Shifty McSwift]

The Lighthouse, on 17 November 2017 - 12:34 AM, said:

How about we completely remove ghost heat from Assault class only? For a quick fix.

Won't affect gauss vomit and clan laser vomit mechs (mostly can't really use any more heavy lasers due to heat), but this will definitely help everything else.

Remove it? Nooohohohoooo.

But maybe work it to give assaults slightly better ghost heat potentials, yeah I could get behind that.

[Bucket of Joy]

I'm pretty happy that IS assaults aren't very good. Clan assaults are great and that's TT lore. Working as intended.

Its weird that people have a problem with this.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Bucket of Joy, on 17 November 2017 - 01:49 AM, said:

I'm pretty happy that IS assaults aren't very good. Clan assaults are great and that's TT lore. Working as intended.

Its weird that people have a problem with this.

It's weird people want balance in a PVP FPS with no respawns & equal sized teams?

[lazorbeamz]

its not a bad thing considering the cross class balance.

IE i wish one day a medium and a heavy/assault will be equally profitable in competititve scenarios with no class restrictions ie not when they force you to take mediums in 8v8. And reducing assault twisting is one step towards it.

Its really good for assault vs heavy/medium/light balance.

Edited by lazorbeamz, 17 November 2017 - 02:13 AM.

[Curccu]

My MKII, Supernova, Mauler, Cyclops and Annilators work just fine. Maybe it's player thing instead of mech thing...
Kodiak and Direwolfs are decent, not great anymore but far from useless.

[PyckenZot]

It all depends on the builds and how you exploit their strenghts.

eg.

Annihilator-2A
Matches: 18
Wins: 11
Losses: 7

Kills: 29
Deaths: 8

My other Annis suffer from the issues you describe, this one wrecks faces.

And the same goes across chassis and weight classes. Do all Assassins scare you as much as the ASN-21? Or are some less effective?

[Defender Rococo Rockfowl]

Just read this entire post. I hate to say but it’s proof that PGI doesn’t know what the what hell they’re doing with this game.

In game lately I see sometimes that you’ll have less wait if you drop in ASSAULTS. You would never ever seen that before 2015 for sure.
Something is very wrong with this game and is really sad to say.

Sidenote, I drop in lights now sometimes and I never used to and I do pretty well in them now which is surprising because when I tried that back in 2013 and 2014 it was suicide.
Again, something is very wrong with MWO.
However, looking at the silver lining in the cloud, lights & mediums are fun as hell to use now

[Bud Crue]

I stopped playing IS assaults when they took the agility. Most of them just aren’t any fun and many are by the numbers and in practice worse than heavies. I’ll take an Orion or a Marauder over an Atlas anytime.

On the clan side the Mad-IIcs are my go to, and I will play those over any other clan Assault including my MK-IIs (I don’t have the Deathstrike). Kodiaks feel like a chore, and I almost always take a Night Gyr of similar build over a Kodiak, and the NG isn’t exactly spry either, but its still more fun than the Kodiak.

[Slambot]

Assaults need to be part of a group to be effective. If you are not doing well in an assault then you most likely are not sticking with a group. Almost every match I see some mech go off by itself and usually it dies first and usually its an assault.

[mogs01gt]

DjPush, on 16 November 2017 - 09:29 PM, said:

With the engine decoupling and nerfs to mobility, the Atlas, Direwolf, Highlander, Banshee, Annihilator and Executioner are just 3D models in the mechbay (I'm sure there are others but I don't feel like naming them all). They don't stand a chance on the battlefield. Kind of sad considering I cut my teeth in this game piloting the Atlas. I have always enjoyed stomping around in large mechs with weapons that decimate anything in front of them. Now, most of these mechs are laughable. Easy targets with no ability to turn, or torso twist. Even with a full mobility tree, they are just to cumbersome to compete.

umm no. They are the most important mechs on the battlefield. Sadly when you have bad pilots in them, the match is pretty much over.