281 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

Grus, on 02 April 2018 - 05:55 PM, said:

I still don't understand why people wanna nerf a mech that has less armor than a wet paper bag.

It's simple. It consistently massacres them due to their own mistakes but would rather go to the forums than better themselves.

As a side note, online gaming -- especially online "competitive" gaming -- is largely a "monkey see, monkey do" environment. As such, if the Piranha was really OP, you'd expect them to be the dominant Mech in terms of numbers. But they're not.

Terrified of the little fishes? Then drop in a load out that's prepared to handle them. <shrugs>

Jack Booted Thug, on 02 April 2018 - 06:17 PM, said:

Some people do consistently well in the piranha, really well.

But.... more often than not I see people doing sub 200 damage in them.

I think they are a bit OP, but when I see so many people doing terribly in them, do we balance around the top tier or lowest common denominator?

Please do not give the whiners more ammunition by hedging your posts with statements like the one underlined above.

Edited by Mystere, 03 April 2018 - 07:01 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Samial, on 03 April 2018 - 06:27 AM, said:

When we had the FP event i saw clan pre mades drop in all lights piranhas Myst lynx Gs and ACH mg variants 1 or 2 is tough but 12 at a time just literally rip the other team to pieces and this was pre mades vs pre mades (i was a rare pug in IS side) they literally just massacred the IS side.

IS Assassins and lights just died in seconds the heavies and Assaults didn't stand a hope to match them..

While I agree that Piranhas need a bit of a nerf, this isn't the best measure indicator. I've been on IS premade teams where we do a first wave light rush on Defense maps (or on maps like Polar, where the clanners often drop nothing but ER Laser boats or LRM boats) and massacred them with Assassins, Javelins, Wolfhounds, etc. Any organized 12 man of good light players will take apart a disorganized 12 man pug pretty quickly, regardless of IS or Clan.

Mystere, on 03 April 2018 - 06:36 AM, said:

As a side note, online gaming -- especially online "competitive" gaming -- is largely a "money see, monkey do" environment. As such, if the Piranha was really OP, you'd expect them to be the dominant Mech in terms of numbers. But they're not.

Because it costs $15.00 USD. It's still one of the most common real-money-only mechs out there. I am willing to bet that unless it's nerfed, it will become the most popular clan light mech by quite a wide margin.

Edited by Eisenhorne, 03 April 2018 - 06:40 AM.

[El Bandito]

Racerxintegra2k, on 03 April 2018 - 06:31 AM, said:

After catching up with this thread, i'm leaning toward the amount of clan machine guns it can boat being the problem. Much like when the Kodiak could fire 4 UAC10's (with a level of agility unseen by any competing mech) with impunity even the 2 uac5's and 2 uac10's.

Yep, If Clan MG/LMG costed 0.5 ton like that of IS, instead of 0.25 ton, then Piranha-1 would have been more limited. PGI could nerf Clan MGs so that they will do much less damage/crit potential than IS MGs, if they do not wish to break TT tonnage rules.

TT tonnage/slot rule is stupid archaic peace of **** for balance in this game BTW, no matter what the neckbeards might say.

Edited by El Bandito, 03 April 2018 - 06:54 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Sjorpha, on 03 April 2018 - 05:58 AM, said:

4: The definition of something being overpowered in a PvP game is that it has an abnormal average match impact and trends towards dominating the metagame.

Maybe in other PvP games that is how they define over powered but around here PGI has never looked at things in these terms...or at least they don’t often care whether or not something meets this criteria, to have reason to “balance” things. I mean, c’mon, we’ve all seen how PGI does things, and we’ve all bitched about it for years. PGI nerfs things all the time that are not OP by any comparative measure that we as players can see in game and is just as likely to leave OP things just as they are for extended periods.

From things like the 2016 repeated nerfs of all the Grasshoppers BUT the then meta 5P, to nerfing jam chance on mechs like the Enforcer 5P because it performed “above its internally established target values”; to pre-nerfing the Kodiak 1 and 5 because Russ thought they would be “energy monsters”, and even the justification for smashing medium lasers that Paul used last October (they only weigh a ton and three are comparable to a large laser); none of the justifications that PGI applied when doing these things were impacted by a perception that actual in game performance of these things were trending toward dominating the meta game. In contrast, PGI often lets specific mechs and weapons dominate the meta game for extended periods of time (see every Deathstrike thread ever), and for shits and giggles may even nerf under performers in that meta for unknown reasons (see the whole “unfunning of MWO” discussions).

So yeah, something may be overpowered under the terms of your definition, but PGI has never even pretended to give a rat’s rear about that aspect when they look at things in terms of buffing or nerfing, and certainly not when they do pretend to make an effort at balancing so that ALL mechs are a viable choice with a comparable impact in the idealized PvP game you are describing.

Anyway, I guarantee the Piranha and/or Machine Guns will be getting a nerf. Deserved or not. Its coming.

[Mystere]

Viktor Drake, on 03 April 2018 - 05:15 AM, said:

MGs are anti-infantry weapons and were never intended to be used against battlemechs in the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe, it is just ridiculous how much damage they do.

From sarna:

Quote

The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers, while still being effective at damaging BattleMechs.

I think I've said enough.

Edit:
Oh! There is also this thing about ablative armor.

Edited by Mystere, 03 April 2018 - 06:55 AM.

[Mystere]

Samial, on 03 April 2018 - 06:27 AM, said:

When we had the FP event i saw clan pre mades drop in all lights piranhas Myst lynx Gs and ACH mg variants 1 or 2 is tough but 12 at a time just literally rip the other team to pieces and this was pre mades vs pre mades (i was a rare pug in IS side) they literally just massacred the IS side.

IS Assassins and lights just died in seconds the heavies and Assaults didn't stand a hope to match them..

In the early days of CW, some groups had a wave composed of lights. Quite a number of players were terrorized by them as a result.

However, the good players quickly learned to anticipate and deal with such a wave.

[Mystere]

Eisenhorne, on 03 April 2018 - 06:38 AM, said:

Because it costs $15.00 USD. It's still one of the most common real-money-only mechs out there. I am willing to bet that unless it's nerfed, it will become the most popular clan light mech by quite a wide margin.

Here is a prediction based off 5 years of playing this game: light Mechs will generally still be the least used class.

That was my point.

[naterist]

Problem is that any ******* can get an enemies back in a pirahna for more then a handful of seconds, i can do it while drunk AND high. The OP-ness stems from the fact that it takes <half of those few seconds to deprive the enemy of, no ****, ALL of their weapons. so when the heavier mech has turned to counter you, he cant because no more offensive capabilities, unless hes got arm or head weapons.

The trade off of risk-reward for a few seconds of backshots is skewed. Theyre too easy to do, and you get too much for doing it.

[Darian DelFord]

Samial, on 03 April 2018 - 06:20 AM, said:

Theres op then theres next level machine gun lights op... big difference, i'm ok with dying to a light wolf pack but those machine guns instantly killing armored non cored mechs is just bogus...

Anyway if nothing is done i'll get some payback on my fleas...

Please get your facts straight..... a Piranha CAN NOT instantly kill an armored opponent.... If you think so I suggest you sit in the front of an atlas and fire at his front CT and tell me how long it takes to kill him vs him killing you

Mystere, on 03 April 2018 - 07:03 AM, said:

Here is a prediction based off 5 years of playing this game: light Mechs will generally still be the least used class.

That was my point.

Aye and I proved that point in the first page...

There are 18 Light Variants
There are 26 Medium Variants
There are 25 Heavy Variants
There are 22 Assault Variants

People get into a light and then realize how awful they are in regards to surviveability. Then rage quit

naterist, on 03 April 2018 - 07:09 AM, said:

Problem is that any ******* can get an enemies back in a pirahna for more then a handful of seconds, i can do it while drunk AND high. The OP-ness stems from the fact that it takes <half of those few seconds to deprive the enemy of, no ****, ALL of their weapons. so when the heavier mech has turned to counter you, he cant because no more offensive capabilities, unless hes got arm or head weapons.

The trade off of risk-reward for a few seconds of backshots is skewed. Theyre too easy to do, and you get too much for doing it.

Once again why does this happen?

1. The assault is left alone and vulnerable

2. The assault has forsaken Seismic Sensor

3. The assault has little to NO back armor

4. When their back armor lights up they do not realize it as they are in zoom mode trying to LRM and or Snipe their target

5. They do not realize that backing up immediately and SPREADING any damage will make them last ALOT longer

6. and last but certainly not least.... TURN OFF YOUR DAMN ARM LOCK

[naterist]

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

Once again why does this happen?

1. The assault is left alone and vulnerable

2. The assault has forsaken Seismic Sensor

3. The assault has little to NO back armor

4. When their back armor lights up they do not realize it as they are in zoom mode trying to LRM and or Snipe their target

5. They do not realize that backing up immediately and SPREADING any damage will make them last ALOT longer

6. and last but certainly not least.... TURN OFF YOUR DAMN ARM LOCK

Lol, no, this happens regardless of all that noise. It takes, no ****, less than 3 seconds to have everything removed from a mech. Unless your bigger mech is really hauling *** in the speed department, then a pirahna really only needs to catch you from the side to end your match, especially when theres more than one. Thats why you see them and other machine gun boating mechs so often. Get in, get their backs, get out, come back in a minute or 2. If you dont stop moving then you could do it to a mech thats surrounded by buddies without much difficulty., at least i can, maybe your just terrible at lights and cant recreate the scenario, but competent pilots can do it while their lit AF without batting an eye.

[Jman5]

People who think any of the lights are OP, need to put themselves in the light's shoes. Yes, allowing a light sneak up behind you and kill you can be frustrating. However, you know what else is frustrating?

• When some Assault mech with 50+ alpha just annihilates you in one hit.
  
• Being unable to do anything very useful because all your guns are short range and the teams are trading from range.
  
• Knowing that at any moment a single strike could cripple or kill you outright.
  
• Trying to make a difference in time while the other team's ringers are all pooping out 1000+ damage games in their high-performing assault mechs.
  
• Living in abject terror of the Gauss Rifle, AC/20, and dual PPC.
  
• Being expected to be the team's Objectives B*tch while the rest doesn't lift a finger to help.
  
• Being blamed for "leaving your assaults behind" whenever they decide to set up a 1-man firing line against the incoming deathball without telling anyone.

There is a very good reason why the Light mechs have and always will be the least played weight class. Because they're difficult and often frustrating to play consistently well. What you guys see on youtube are the highlights. When a great player is piloting, when the opposing team is full of fat, high-hitpoint assaults to farm, when the stars align, the strikes land, the enemy is clueless. etc...

But for every Piranha highlight reel match, there are 10 other piranha matches with mediocre or poor performance. Because all it takes to ruin your game is some dope in a Double AC/20 jagermech who happens to be looking your way when you turned a corner.

Edited by Jman5, 03 April 2018 - 07:44 AM.

[InspectorG]

Racerxintegra2k, on 02 April 2018 - 03:01 PM, said:

Is it time yet ?

Maybe better to buff aim and situational awareness.

Plus it's not out for Cbills yet.

[Eisenhorne]

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

1. The assault is left alone and vulnerable

Yes, but it's not just assaults that will die to Piranhas this way. Any heavy mech will also die very quickly to one, if it gets your back for a second or two. Given it's small size and speed, its not that hard to wait until your team engages and get behind something.

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

2. The assault has forsaken Seismic Sensor

Seismic is useless if you're moving, which you really should be. It also only has a 200 meter range, and once the Piranha is in 200 meters of your back you're already dead.

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

3. The assault has little to NO back armor

... of course? Even if it has 12 back armor (high for an assault) the lasers the Piranha usually carries + the MG's will tear through it in less than a second, exposing the internals, which are then critted out in about another second.

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

4. When their back armor lights up they do not realize it as they are in zoom mode trying to LRM and or Snipe their target

Come on. A Piranha needs 2-3 seconds on your back to render you completely combat ineffective. If playing an assault mech, it takes me that long to turn around. Give it a second to actually realize I'm being killed, and I'm dead before I can move. Heavies have a better shot, but even if I see the Piranha heading towards my ***, and preemptively start to twist, it's usually game over unless the Piranha is a bad pilot.

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

5. They do not realize that backing up immediately and SPREADING any damage will make them last ALOT longer

True, but again, you only have 2-3 seconds to react and try to turn, or you will be combat ineffective as your torso weapons are ripped off.

Darian DelFord, on 03 April 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

6. and last but certainly not least.... TURN OFF YOUR DAMN ARM LOCK

Doesn't help if I can't see you, and even if I can, most of the heaviest weapons are torso mounted. The couple of lasers on my arms firing blindly below my cockpit as the Piranha hugs me to death won't save me.

Edited by Eisenhorne, 03 April 2018 - 07:46 AM.

[naterist]

Jman5, on 03 April 2018 - 07:40 AM, said:

People who think any of the lights are OP, need to put themselves in the light's shoes. Yes, allowing a light sneak up behind you and kill you can be frustrating. However, you know what else is frustrating?

• When some Assault mech with 50+ alpha just annihilates you in one hit.
  
• Being unable to do anything very useful because all your guns are short range and the teams are trading from range.
  
• Knowing that at any moment a single strike could cripple or kill you outright.
  
• Trying to make a difference in time while the other team's ringers are all pooping out 1000+ damage games in their high-performing assault mechs.
  
• Living in abject terror of the Gauss Rifle, AC/20, and dual PPC.
  
• Being expected to be the team's Objectives B*tch while the rest doesn't lift a finger to help.
  
• Being blamed for &quot;leaving your assaults behind&quot; whenever they decide to set up a 1-man firing line against the incoming deathball without telling anyone.

There is a very good reason why the Light mechs have and always will be the least played weight class. Because they're difficult and often frustrating to play consistently well. What you guys see on youtube are the highlights. When a great player is piloting, when the opposing team is full of fat, high-hitpoint assaults to farm, when the stars align, the strikes land, the enemy is clueless. etc...


But for every Piranha highlight reel match, there are 10 other piranha matches with mediocre or poor performance because some dope in a Double AC/20 jagermech happened to be looking your way when you turned a corner.

Which is why its not really the mech, its the machine gun crit chances, which are balanced around a max of, i assume, 6 being shot at once. Let it machine guns keep their damage numbers and remove a bit of its crit chance to be balanced around 8, or 12, and youll be gtg. Pirates bane does the "hit and run" thing better than the pirahna on a chassis level, but you dont see it more because it isnt the mech thats broken, its the fact that the weapon system is balanced around a lot less machine guns firing at once then is currently happening.

[JediPanther]

Pir are only op if they can catch you off guard. Hell I killed one last night in a 1 vs 1 in the IS Founder Jenner with only 4 mls. Yeah it sucks when they ninja you but that's how lights work. Everyone knows they won't be bad touched nerfed until c-bill release same as all other op mechs have been in the past. Surprisingly most assaults and heavies still don't know how to counter a light.

It isn't that 60-90 alpha unless you have very good aim and low ping. just like any other light you go for what makes it strong.
For all those who need the visual:

[DiabetesOverlord Wilford Brimley]

People who think 12MG aren’t OP and obviously in need of a balance pass are the ones who don’t understand balance.

[GabrielSun]

The only time piranhas have actually done me in is when they sneak up on me when 90% of my armour is gone and take STs before I can turn and kill them.

Just learn how to shoot properly and you will see how paper thin their armour is.

[DiabetesOverlord Wilford Brimley]

GabrielSun, on 03 April 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:

The only time piranhas have actually done me in is when they sneak up on me when 90% of my armour is gone and take STs before I can turn and kill them.

Just learn how to shoot properly and you will see how paper thin their armour is.

Just hide properly when I’m trying to hit you with a 80 point alpha.

See how that just shoot better mentally works?

[Jman5]

naterist, on 03 April 2018 - 07:46 AM, said:

Which is why its not really the mech, its the machine gun crit chances, which are balanced around a max of, i assume, 6 being shot at once. Let it machine guns keep their damage numbers and remove a bit of its crit chance to be balanced around 8, or 12, and youll be gtg. Pirates bane does the "hit and run" thing better than the pirahna on a chassis level, but you dont see it more because it isnt the mech thats broken, its the fact that the weapon system is balanced around a lot less machine guns firing at once then is currently happening.

Nerfing machine gun crit chance so that only the piranha can effectively crit is just a giant nerf to every single machine gun mech that isn't the piranha. Also you say let it keep its damage, but machine gun damage is HEAVILY based on crit chance. You alter crit chance at all and damage will go down. Crit seeking weapons like the machine guns do special extra damage to the mech (not just components) when they roll crit.

I'm just going to quote what I wrote up in the last piranha OP thread since you bring up the locust.

Jman5, on 25 March 2018 - 11:12 AM, said:

A lot of back and forth, so I decided to actually get some hard numbers and look at all my games from the month of March to see how well the Piranha is actually doing.

I split them into four categories by damage and here is what I saw:

• BAD (sub 200 dmg): 9
  
• AVERAGE: (200-499 dmg): 23
  
• GOOD: (500-999 dmg): 6
  
• HEROIC: (1000+ dmg): 0

The average damage was just 335. In fact I went a step further and looked at Locust numbers which didn't do all that worse at 291 damage. (about 45 damage difference). When you consider the piranha is a Pay-2-Play Clan mech while the Locust is a free IS mech, the piranha players are probably on average more experienced than the locust players, so the difference is probably negligible if you adjust for skill.

When PGI looks at their spreadsheets this is probably something close to what they are going to see. A well performing Light, but otherwise somewhat average compared to all the other mechs in the game.

Anyone who is terrified of crit chance really needs to re-examine the builds they are running. Can you improve your crit-padding. Have you considered playing Inner Sphere mechs with max Reinforced Casing skills. IS gear has more hitpoints than Clan gear. If that's not enough there are mechs with reduced crit-chance quirks (there are 11 of them). Also invest in Seismic sensor skills to catch that sneaky piranha trying to backshot you.

[yrrot]

They're good against assaults when they get behind them. But that's also what light mechs should be good at. It's definitely annoying to have one on your back when you're already engaged.

The problem with it is that it outshines almost all other lights and a number of lighter medium mechs. How well does a mist lynx hold up against the piranha? Those nice, boxy arms full of guns are just asking to get crit out in a hurry. Meanwhile the piranha has a fairly slim torso that splashes damage that gets put on it and arms that are just there to be blown off.

Again, though, being the best of the weakest weight class doesn't mean it needs a nerf. It can just as easily mean that lights need some love and more incentive to play them. Of course, we'll see how crazy the game is when it's out for C-Bills.