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Discussion On Light Mech Diversity

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#41 R5D4

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 01:28 PM

View PostFupDup, on 22 May 2018 - 01:24 PM, said:

There is the third option of quirks that let us manually give certain mechs better performance without having a ripple effect out to other units.


I don't know why but PGI has been extremely hesitant to quirk the lights. Especially the 35 tonners like the Jenners. Every quirk pass they've been overlooked/avoided for some unknown reason (at least unknown to me)

#42 Exilyth

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 02:35 PM

Why suffer running a hardpoint starved, 'large' or slow light when you can run a PIR or some other meta chassis instead?

#43 R5D4

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 03:06 PM

View PostExilyth, on 22 May 2018 - 02:35 PM, said:

Why suffer running a hardpoint starved, 'large' or slow light when you can run a PIR or some other meta chassis instead?


Why not allow some diversity of the lights by improving the under-performers with quirks and a re-size like they did to the commando and locust (remember back when they used to under-perform?)

#44 Erronius

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 03:28 PM

View PostBishop Six, on 22 May 2018 - 02:42 AM, said:

I never saw something like this and it was 10x more impressive for me than all the Damage-Dealer-Pro-Player together. You did 3,5 k damage? Nice, but this Raven-Pilot is a damn hero!

You see...you can do everything in this game if you just want to Posted Image


I mean...sure, that's great. Especially if your team can take advantage of all the work the guy put into NARCing everyone. I haven't NARCed much myself, but I remember having games where I went NARC-raving mad and then realized everyone was using direct fire builds.

I found NARC to be such a heavy launcher with the ammo having so few reloads that the severe sacrifice you have to make to take it on a Light mech is questionable. Why not take a pure damage build instead? I suppose there are arguments for and against, but I honestly don't know if I'd purposely take a Light with NARC unless I'm dropping as part of a group built around it (and I drop solo in QP 99% of the time...so....)

Then you look over at the PIR pilot with 5 or 6 kills...

View PostExilyth, on 22 May 2018 - 02:35 PM, said:

Why suffer running a hardpoint starved, 'large' or slow light when you can run a PIR or some other meta chassis instead?


^This

I'll even extend this to the Vulcan release, at 40 tons. It looks cool, but why buy it? It looks like overall it will have more ballistic hardpoints than the Assassin...but the max is what, 4? I can get that on a bunch of IS Light mechs already, and 4 just doesn't seem that impressive anymore. 8+ on a few variants and I would buy that in a heartbeat, quirks unseen. A 40t IS mech with 8+ ballistics and a bit more weight to take mass IS machine guns? Delicious...almost Chicken and Waffles levels of flavor . But no...I feel like it's going to be another "meh" mech release.

I'm actually sad that I might buy a Vulcan pack only to end up playing a MLG variant instead...and why that doesn't seem to bother PGI is a mystery to me. I'm not stingy with my monies, but I literally don't know WHY I'd want to buy a Vulcan pack, besides "it looks cool".

Edited by Erronius, 22 May 2018 - 03:28 PM.


#45 Exilyth

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 03:36 PM

View PostR5D4, on 22 May 2018 - 03:06 PM, said:


Why not allow some diversity of the lights by improving the under-performers with quirks and a re-size like they did to the commando and locust (remember back when they used to under-perform?)


I'm all for more chassis being viable - I was merely naming the reasons we do not see more variety in lights currently.

#46 Nightbird

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 03:45 PM

Even a quirk pass wouldn't save most light mechs. The game modes all favor brawling, and most lights have too few hardpoints to support sufficient small weapons/MGs to be a threat, on the IS side anyways. No clan omni lights have this problem.

Edited by Nightbird, 22 May 2018 - 04:31 PM.


#47 R5D4

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 04:30 PM

View PostNightbird, on 22 May 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

Even a quirk pass wouldn't save most light mechs. The game modes all favor brawling, and most lights have too few hardpoints to support sufficient small weapons/MGs to be a thread, on the IS side anyways. No clan omni lights have this problem.


I don't think you need much weaponry imo to be 'viable' for a light (mileage may vary with that term viable ofcourse).
I for one can get more than a few good pokes in with a Commando and it's pretty darn limited in fire power. What makes it more viable to me than say an Adder or a Jenner is that it is smaller and typically more agile than those two mechs. This to me means the Commando can get out of trouble when it gets into it which is MANY degrees more difficult in the other light mechs I mentioned before.

Firepower would also be welcome though as there have been far too many nerfs to weapons lights should carry again imo. SPL I've said many times used to be a weapon worth taking on some of these mechs but not so much anymore.

Edited by R5D4, 22 May 2018 - 04:33 PM.


#48 Flutterguy

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 04:41 PM

View PostNightbird, on 22 May 2018 - 03:45 PM, said:

Even a quirk pass wouldn't save most light mechs. The game modes all favor brawling, and most lights have too few hardpoints to support sufficient small weapons/MGs to be a threat, on the IS side anyways. No clan omni lights have this problem.

Quirks can fix that. The old Huggin SRM4 quirks certainly made up for its limited hardpoints.

#49 Alexander of Macedon

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 04:43 PM

It's still ******* mindboggling the twisted PGI logic that went into nerfing IS SPLas.

"A handful of clan mediums and heavies are doing well by boating cSPLas. This should be resolved by nerfing the cSPLas into the ground, cutting 33% of its damage. But we can't have clan weapons with less damage than IS equivalents, so we need to nerf the IS SPLas too."

So in an attempt to spite the Nova and Stormcrow they gimped the only viable loadout of half the lights in the game. Clan lights were borderline unplayable garbage after that until they started getting all the MG-spam omnipods and variants despite having the advantages of cXL, 2-slot DHS, &c.

And now it's just IS lights getting ****** over by an attempt to curb clan mediums... which happily went right on over to boating cERSLas instead.

#50 mistlynx4life

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 04:46 PM

It's one of those things where you don't want all Lights to be the same because then why bother having so many different ones but you also don't want them to be so wildly different that there are obvious choices for consistent performance over some that a player might prefer just for nostalgia or what have you. The challenge is to find one that isn't 'meta' enough to be widely known for all its strengths and weaknesses and then learn how to use that. It's what I love(d) about Mist Lynxes - before August '17, people literally ignored me. That was my greatest strength. At that point it becomes more of a personal challenge and you just have to kind of not worry about The Best Light anymore. Just have fun. I can't tell you how many times I died pre-MLX-G to a pair of Assaults or more and they would shout out something like: "Stoopid Links trash T5 mek" and I'd reply "Sure, but it took you thirty seconds at point blank range to take me down so... maybe work on your accuracy a little?"

You gotta define your own win. ;)

#51 Khobai

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 05:04 PM

the whole concept that lights should be as good as assaults at combat is inherently flawed anyway not to mention utterly ridiculous

lights should be weaker than heavies/assaults at combat. but they should be better at other roles like electronic/sensor warfare which should exist in the game but are sadly absent.

#52 mistlynx4life

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 05:10 PM

View PostKhobai, on 22 May 2018 - 05:04 PM, said:

the whole concept that lights should be as good as assaults at combat is inherently flawed anyway not to mention utterly ridiculous

This is incorrect. If you are defining combat as standing in front of each other, blasting away, then obviously the Assaults should usually win (but I could tell you stories... lol). If you allow the Light to circle-strafe, jumpjet, and use hit-and-run tactics like it should then it's totally acceptable for the Light to win. That's balance.

#53 Khobai

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 05:13 PM

Quote

This is incorrect. If you are defining combat as standing in front of each other, blasting away, then obviously the Assaults should usually win (but I could tell you stories... lol). If you allow the Light to circle-strafe, jumpjet, and use hit-and-run tactics like it should then it's totally acceptable for the Light to win. That's balance.


that same light is pretty much always going to be inferior to a heavy. wheres the balance there? why does assault mobility need to be nerfed for the sake of lights? but heavies are fine? that just further perpetuates heavies being the best weight class.

the weight classes are very poorly balanced and lights/mediums mostly get the short end of the stick compared to heavies/assaults. weakening assaults is not the solution.

there needs to be something "more" for lights/mediums beyond combat. something they can do that heavies/assaults cant; electronic/sensor warfare for example.

because lets face it, making assaults worse at the role theyre supposed to be good at just so lights can be better at a role most of them arnt supposed to be good at in the first place is a totally idiotic way to balance things. especially when the dominance of heavies is completely ignored--weakened assaults just make heavies that much better.

Edited by Khobai, 22 May 2018 - 05:23 PM.


#54 mistlynx4life

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 05:27 PM

Ah, I misunderstood you. I thought you meant in a 1v1-type scenario. I see what you're saying now. I agree. More things for Lights to do would be nice. Gotchya. My bad.

#55 Yosharian

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Posted 22 May 2018 - 06:39 PM

PGI doesn't care about diversity because diversity doesn't sell mech packs.

#56 Old dirty B

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 12:20 AM

View PostKhobai, on 22 May 2018 - 05:13 PM, said:

there needs to be something "more" for lights/mediums beyond combat. something they can do that heavies/assaults cant; electronic/sensor warfare for example.


We are all here to shoot and do combat, how one does combat is depending on the mech and its abilities. I like to do very mobile combat, using speed and agility to defeat my opponents. Thats why i choose for a light mech (or actually the lightest) because it offers the most mobile gameplay possible.

As a light pilot i see no value in adding "more things to do as a light", the game already offers the most important ingredient which is mech combat.

If the reason to do this is because lights are supposably inferior in combat then i suggest first to invest in the most important factors in combat success: skill and tactics. I see way too often light pilots that totally rely on the mech and the build but really don't have a clue how to properly pilot a light. They "just" run around and tag enemies without doing any serious and effective damage. Attracting attention and alot of firepower that really isn't necessary. Totally neglecting your own weakness and the opponents strengths. I see so often a light running straight at an opponent frontally or doing a pointless circle strafe and the only reason this light is still in the game is because its opponents are just as bad. The list of bad behaviour as a light pilot is a lot longer then this...

A light mech is not just a "smaller" and "speedier" bigger mech. A light mech has some significant weaknesses (armor!) and gameplay should be adapted to account for this.

The reason why you see so few lights is because most players don't know how to adopt to light mech combat and thus fail to be effective. They don't have the dedication to practise, gain experience and improve their game as a light pilot. And thus the player base for light mechs remain rather small. A small player base also lacks the numbers to show the same diversity in mech choice as the other weight classes. In other words, if the light class is roughly 1/3 of the other classes then you probably also see 1/3 of the mech diversity.

So lets stop requesting to add unimportant stuff to the game to keep lights from complaining, instead lights should work on their own gameplay.

Edited by Old dirty B, 23 May 2018 - 12:40 AM.


#57 Weeny Machine

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 01:31 AM

View PostKhobai, on 22 May 2018 - 05:13 PM, said:


that same light is pretty much always going to be inferior to a heavy. wheres the balance there? why does assault mobility need to be nerfed for the sake of lights? but heavies are fine? that just further perpetuates heavies being the best weight class.

the weight classes are very poorly balanced and lights/mediums mostly get the short end of the stick compared to heavies/assaults. weakening assaults is not the solution.

there needs to be something "more" for lights/mediums beyond combat. something they can do that heavies/assaults cant; electronic/sensor warfare for example.

because lets face it, making assaults worse at the role theyre supposed to be good at just so lights can be better at a role most of them arnt supposed to be good at in the first place is a totally idiotic way to balance things. especially when the dominance of heavies is completely ignored--weakened assaults just make heavies that much better.


Not only that. In Battletech lighter and faster units were required to keep the heavier elements from being outflanked and outmaneuvered. In MWO a heavy is as nimble as hell


View PostOld dirty B, on 23 May 2018 - 12:20 AM, said:


So lets stop requesting to add unimportant stuff to the game to keep lights from complaining, instead lights should work on their own gameplay.

Funny. A shitload of nerfs hit the light mech class because heavy and assaults couldn't do what you preach but wanted to loltunnelvisionalphalol

Edited by Bush Hopper, 23 May 2018 - 01:33 AM.


#58 Old dirty B

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 01:47 AM

View PostBush Hopper, on 23 May 2018 - 01:31 AM, said:

...
Funny. A shitload of nerfs hit the light mech class because heavy and assaults couldn't do what you preach but wanted to loltunnelvisionalphalol


I'm not an assault pilot so i cant really comment on that. But from my perspective as a light pilot i see, apart from a few exceptions (as with the light class), not much good from assault pilots either... So i guess the same applies there too, there's more to be gained working on skills and tactics rather then complaining about buffs and nerfs.

In then end it will be the same players that suck and complain but then about other under or overpowered mechs and variants... In that regard you will also see mucho crying about bad netcode, lousy hitreg, unhoronable legging, wall hugging, hiding, alphaing and what not to complain about...

Edited by Old dirty B, 23 May 2018 - 01:51 AM.


#59 BurningDesire

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 01:59 AM

Mg boating it a little overpowered when a 20-25T mech can chew through a 30-40t mech who has to deal with heat while they can stand there and face tank the hell out of whats being thrown at them safe in the knowledge that they will chew the legs off faster than they take any damage.
Why cant the do neg quirks like the timberwolf on the problem children mediums, but base it on weapon types not just a broad brush laser nerf.

have you tried any lights outside the MG boats vs a MG boat, it is really crap and pushes you back to the MG boat because its got no heat issues and craps out the damage

#60 Old dirty B

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Posted 23 May 2018 - 02:22 AM

View PostBurningDesire, on 23 May 2018 - 01:59 AM, said:

have you tried any lights outside the MG boats vs a MG boat, it is really crap and pushes you back to the MG boat because its got no heat issues and craps out the damage


I've dropped the Piranha on Scouting but deliberately avoided the MG variant because its considered cheap and actually doesn't really suits my playstyle (i'm used to a Locust 1E with small pulses). I like a bit of challenge, so for scouting ive used the hero (mix of mg's and micro pulses) but found the all laser variant (Pir-3) with small or micro pulses the most exiting and rather similar to my Locust 1E. But i find myself drop more on the IS side with my Locust 1E, Pirates Bane or Oxide rather then with the Piranha's on the Clan side.

So no, i dont feel pushed back to the all mg variant .. at all

Edited by Old dirty B, 23 May 2018 - 02:24 AM.






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