157 replies to this topic

[Mole]

****'s sake, guys. I've been a light jockey since day 1 of playing this game and I speak from experience when I say the only time an assault 'mech is fresh meat for a light is if the assault pilot is a potato. Taking an assault 'mech that displays good situational awareness in a light isn't an easy thing to do. In fact, I've gotten burned so many times trying to solo an assault that had a skilled pilot in its cockpit that generally I don't even try if I realize the target I've chosen is halfway competent. If someone starts displaying that they know how to handle themselves with a light on them then I just bug out and go find someone stupider to kill. Light 'mechs don't prey on assaults, light 'mechs prey on stupid.

[Jables McBarty]

GoatHILL, on 31 October 2018 - 11:32 AM, said:

Learn to drive.

My biggest problem when they took knock downs out of the wasn't no more knock downs it was that everyone just started walking over/through eachother.

That's the thing, it's not just you having to L2D, it's also that one guy in your lance who is sipping coffee while texting at the beginning of the match who just turns around and drills into your ***. It'll turn this game into 1 v 23 for anybody with less than 40 armor per leg.

Armored Yokai, on 31 October 2018 - 01:28 PM, said:

Lights shouldn't be a counter to an assault unless there is 2 of them and people who suggest otherwise are advocates for "BIG STOMPY ROBOT GAME RAINBOW LIGHT" the only thing that should counter assault mechs are long range poke and speed....NOT AVOIDING THE ENEMY'S CROSS-HAIRS FROM LEG HUMPING.

I don't... I don't even know how to respond to this. So... only sniping should be able to counter assaults? What about the fact that assaults can also carry sniping weapons and snapshot right back at you? Do you know how long it takes a Raven 3L to core out an assault with its two ERLL? And I'll bet a million Cbills that when we remove leg-humping, Assault pilots will come to the forums to complain about OP Ravens that are just too darn sneaky.

Armored Yokai, on 31 October 2018 - 08:11 PM, said:

It's not a nerf nor do I think lights are OP My suggestion is stopping the people who are abusing PGI's inability to code in knockdown or melee.
What you said is true, those players deserve those kills by being able to dodge and maneuver my attacks...Unlike the exploiters who just run up to an extremely tall mech and just move a small rotation around whilst hugging the legs, if i had melee I'm sure people would think twice by humping my leg like some mangy mutt .

MW4 did have facehugging lights but they were easily demolished with a very neat feature that only needed to be activated with the M key, It let you look down at your feet and fire right there.

Right now it's stompy robot wars with point and click adventures.

1. It's not PGI's inability to X or Y, there hasn't been melee in any MW title that I'm aware of.

2. I wasn't around for knockdowns, but my understanding from hearsay was that you got a fast dragon to run around and knock people down, then the dragon's allies focused on the fallen 'mech. SOOOOoooo, tell me how that was superior?

3. You keep saying "exploit" and "broken," but like, that's just your opinion man. It's not an exploit, it's just something that pisses you off. Everything in the game has weaknesses. Nobody can see directly behind themselves. Are you suggesting we increase torso pitch and yaw to 90* for every 'mech? Why have different reticules for arms and torso weapons--maybe we should be able to aim one torso weapon to the left and another to the right?

Vyx, on 31 October 2018 - 09:01 PM, said:

Additionally, IMO, it was done not for rock-paper-scissors balance. It was done to sell light mechs, and to promote the fast-paced, twitchy, eSport ideal. "Thinking man's shooter" be damned.

Astrocanis, on 01 November 2018 - 05:31 AM, said:

Leg humping is a problem as is damage output from some of the lights.

WTF are you people smoking? Lights > Assaults and rock-paper-scissors was one of the core concepts for original MW5.

Sell lights? You mean those 'mechpacks they finally introduced for $15 years after the game had established these mechanics? Or the "first floor" of the packages, where in order to buy the Black Knight, the Grasshopper, the Cauldron-Born or the Hellbringer you were forced to buy the Wolfhound, Panther, Arctic Cheetah* or Myst Lynx?

Damage output is a problem? Yeah, it's too low for most lights.

ShiverMeRivets, on 01 November 2018 - 06:08 AM, said:

It is the combination of the above that allow effective leg humping and the ability to make it to the legs without getting wreked on the way. And don’t tell me how much skill it takes. While I don’t own any 20 tonners out of principle, my 35 ton mechs are the easiest to play. My Grinner in particular is OP as F### and the mech in which I have the highest K/D, and I dont even like to play it that much. Running between the legs of confused fat mechs and shooting them drive-by style does not take that much skill. Taking a Highlander into combat and not dying 60 seconds into the game and before doing 100 damage is a lot more difficult than doing the same in a Wolhound or Urbie.

You chose the two tankiest* IS lights as your example. Average Urbie (30t) has 20+14+14+10+10+14+14 = 82 bonus armor (not including skills) and confusing geometry. Average Wolfhound (35t) has 11+11+11+8+8 = 49 bonus armor, plus really good geometry and mostly torso-mounted weapons. These are basically the only lights that can "drive by" with limited fear; the 20/25-tonners are skittering all over the place dodging fire; the other 30/35 tonners have giant hitboxes and no survivability. When's the last time you saw a JR7-anything and didn't lick your lips?

*Panther has better armor quirks than the Wolfhound, but since 99% of its hardpoints are in the arms it lacks true durability.

[Throe]

[deleted by user]

Edited by Throe, 08 November 2018 - 02:56 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

Eisenhorne, on 01 November 2018 - 07:23 AM, said:

That's kind of a quick play attitude though. Lights have a role when tonnage is limited in FP. You have a drop deck with a max tonnage, and the 'cost' of bringing a super heavy assault mech is you need to take 1-2 weaker light mechs. I have no issue with lights being weaker than assaults because of this honestly.

Even in QP though, while lights are generally weaker than assaults, tonnage is balanced between the two teams. Team 1 and Team 2 always have equal numbers of lights, mediums heavies, and assaults. So even though lights are weaker in general, the teams should still have equal numbers of these lights. The real problem I think is that the Piranha is such an outlier in terms of performance if one team brings a Piranha, and another team brings a Kit Fox or Adder or something, the team with the Kit Fox or Adder is at a serious disadvantage because they had a pilot who brought a sub-par mech. That's no different from guys bringing terrible assaults though, so it really isn't an issue I think.

Dealing with the original post though... Arm weapons won't save you from a light. Do you honestly think blind firing a pair of medium lasers or whatever you have in your arms at a mech you can't even see because it's so low on your body will work? You can't aim them, so its random fire at best. Not going to help.

Not really an issue though, if a light is humping me I just hope my team can shoot it off. If not, then I die. Oh well. If the light is caught in the open he dies pretty easy, so not really a problem.

The problem is, then they would have to admit that the mistake is on their part and they are to blame not an "op light mech which slays half of the enemy team single handedly"

[Jables McBarty]

Vyx, on 31 October 2018 - 09:01 PM, said:

As you point out, tonnage has always been the determining factor -- even now the game uses tonnage as -the- measure of matchmaking balance.

In a world where if I field a force 1/3rd your cost/weight and win nearly every time, no army would field anything else. This is obviously topsy-turvy; and yes, it is why those with any strategic sense have difficulty accepting the light's "differing" role in MWO.

Exactly. How would an Atlas not suffer if going against 5 locusts? If we are talking about realism - which I think is an important question - why wouldn't your Assaults be subject to the Bismarck/Yamato conundrum? A giant asset too expensive to really use because it will get immediately focused by enemy forces and destroyed.

If Lights were really that much better against everything else, we'd regularly see QP matches with 6 lights and a spattering of everything else - when the reality is just the opposite. I regularly drop in matches where there are two heavies in Alpha Lance.

And you wouldn't need tonnage restrictions in FP, because a 4-light dropdeck would be as valid as as a 4-assult one.

You're confusing the effect with the cause. Tonnage as balancing tool is a band-aid to fix the fact that L <> M <> H <> A. More tonnage is objectively better, so to force variety, they introduced tonnage restrictions.

[Throe]

[deleted by user]

Edited by Throe, 08 November 2018 - 02:53 PM.

[Mister Glitchdragon]

I don't think leg humping is an exploit to be "punished." Nor do I think we should be making light-play harder than it already is. If anything, we need to buff lights (IMO, scale is probably the best lever to pull; some of the lights in this game are absurdly large).

However, I was sold on this game a while ago as a "mech simulation," and it has always rankled me that any mech can drive into anything at over 100kph and suffer no consequences (besides slowing down. A little. Sometimes). Why do an Atlas' legs take damage when you drive off a cliff, but a locust can drive face-first into that Atlas' legs at top speed over and over and suffer no adverse effects at all?

I have no doubt that having to watch your driving at over 120kph would sour lights for a lot of players, but for the dedicated, skilled light pilots who are actually good at it, would more robust collision mechanics be so bad?

Edited by Mister Glitchdragon, 01 November 2018 - 11:16 AM.

[Koniving]

Armored Yokai, on 30 October 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

Leg humping is a broken and unsavory mechanic that allows small size to abuse another person, Leg humping players that impact the opponents leg should take 5-25 damage depending on the mech size to prevent lights from easily crushing an assault.

No, Lights are not OP. It's the Leg Humping that's the issue because we don't have melee or knockdown to punish the mechs that facehug your legs.

You are in an Annihilator. You and only a piranha remain. The Piranha loses most of it's torso to a well hit AC shot. Piranha runs to your leg and you can no longer aim at it because your arms have been blown off but you still have every torso gun. Mgun Creature then laughs because you stood no chance like an lrm boat.

With Mediums,Lights,Heavies there isn't issue because you are small enough to hit them and I'm talking about Assaults because many Assaults suffer from this issue.

Hey, uh, dude? Did you know you can shoot these leg humping idiots?

Here's an example. As this Locust leaves my sight, I shoot it. From a Hunchback. With it completely out of sight.

"But that's not an assault!"

These were.

Koniving, on 29 October 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

So all the tears I see about Piranhas.. what are you guys doing wrong?

Because according to someone who was in the top 50 for a brief while (I think his team carried him)...says I'm a terrible player. And yet...


The fish die.

Koniving, on 27 October 2018 - 05:22 PM, said:

I've been out in Rabies today. (Named by another player that saw it...)

So here's my experience with the fish over the past few hours.

Spoiler

Note: By ignore, I mean I refused to engage it as I was too busy with something much heavier...plus it was stuck between my legs behind me, so I couldn't back up even if I wanted to, but eventually when the other guy was dead he got in front of me and though I hit it, someone else killed it.

To be fair, this fish seemed to have two types of MGs and nothing else. But it had a lot of them.



Two of us left against a bunch. As soon as I was told a grid square I was one shot by a Marauder.

SLs not SPLs.



Another fish tried my back. And failed.





That fish didn't get me either, but damn did it try.

This next one didn't have a fish...

To be honest I feel for Piranhas...

I mean really, what kind of view is this?

And the fish come.

Koniving, on 29 October 2018 - 08:39 AM, said:

So I found mo' fish!

Spoiler

ZOMG a fish! Oh... its dead.



Dat poor fish.

Oh wait, Kon stopped using King Crabs and has an MK II with ballistics, 2 terrible wazer guns, and a pair of streaks? Fish totally got dis! Especially after Kon spent the first full freaking minute complaining about how the MK II's turning speed was the SLOWEST he had EVER experienced...EVER.

Da fish got this, Kon's screwed!

Da fish don't got dis! But you can see it tried so hard. Poor fish!



"Just because I can't turn for ****"

Doesn't mean a fish has a chance.


I killed da fish... and got ripped apart by 3 mechs because MKII can't turn, stop, or torso twist...

Save the fish; they's gon' get nerfed 'cause people don't think "kill da fish" and in order to kill da fish, ya gotta "hit da fish."

Da poor fish. The poor, pathetic, miserable little fish have to work so damn hard just to have a chance, and we either butcher them -- which is the best thing to ever happen to them -- or we cry and fuss and whine about how overpowered they are...because people are too damn stupid to have about 10 armor on the back.

And yes, all three mechs had 10 armor on the rear.
Amazing, isn't it? Fish after fish after fish after fish after fish after fish, each thwarted time and time again because....
I had armor on my butt.

Poor fish. Gon' get nerfed because some people min/maxed their front armor.

And the fish die again.

Why are you all having so much trouble with fish?
Don't marry the fish; kill the fish. It isn't complicated. You aim, you shoot, they die. Oh they behind you? Throw in reverse about 1/3rd to 2/3rds (works best if you vary your speed a little as necessary) and both turn and twist in the opposite direction they are going. Apply weapons fire as necessary, tracking them with twisting but only turning with the legs as necessary; and as soon as they get too far switch in the opposite direction again and apply death to them in excessively ample amounts until desired results are achieved.

Wait was that complicated?
Go backward. Turn the OPPOSITE direction. Shoot da fish.
Repeat til da fish is dead.
Success!

(Edit: Spoilers added because lots of images proving the snuffing of fish.)

Now here's your mission. Kill some fish while they leg hump. It's the easiest time to do it. Turn off armlock, shoot da fish, snuff da fish, snap da fish, share da fish. Lets slaughter da fish together.

[Koniving]

Honestly the best time to kill a light is during a leg hump; they're perfectly still and the hit registration is perfect. If they're behind you, they have to move away to get behind you again when you turn; especially since a 1/3rd speed turn is FASTER than a stationary or a full speed turn!

[Wil McCullough]

Throe, on 01 November 2018 - 09:19 AM, said:

In MW3, you started off in a Bushwhacker, and were never really expected by the campaign mode to use anything lighter than that. There were no missions where using anything lighter would grant you any kind of benefit.
In the SNES version, the lightest 'Mech in the game was also the most powerful, simply due to it's speed making it impossible to catch. The only missions that you couldn't use it in were the missions which required that you defend a base on the planet, which the AI would prioritize over you, if you were further away from them than it was.

yeah that's why i said it varies sometimes. in one of the mw4s, you start in a shadow cat. iirc, in vanilla mw4, you salvage a full hellspawn in one of the first two missions as well. in the most recent game (hbs bt), you start in a blackjack. and that game has a "dekker rip" meme because... he starts in a spider and lots of players lose him in the first mission. as a whole, players try to move their pilots out of lights as soon as possible.

i just realized the similarity of this discussion with goldeneye's oddjob. lol

[General Solo]

Whole thing sounds more like a match maker issue

[MischiefSC]

Eisenhorne, on 01 November 2018 - 07:23 AM, said:

That's kind of a quick play attitude though. Lights have a role when tonnage is limited in FP. You have a drop deck with a max tonnage, and the 'cost' of bringing a super heavy assault mech is you need to take 1-2 weaker light mechs. I have no issue with lights being weaker than assaults because of this honestly.

Even in QP though, while lights are generally weaker than assaults, tonnage is balanced between the two teams. Team 1 and Team 2 always have equal numbers of lights, mediums heavies, and assaults. So even though lights are weaker in general, the teams should still have equal numbers of these lights. The real problem I think is that the Piranha is such an outlier in terms of performance if one team brings a Piranha, and another team brings a Kit Fox or Adder or something, the team with the Kit Fox or Adder is at a serious disadvantage because they had a pilot who brought a sub-par mech. That's no different from guys bringing terrible assaults though, so it really isn't an issue I think.

Dealing with the original post though... Arm weapons won't save you from a light. Do you honestly think blind firing a pair of medium lasers or whatever you have in your arms at a mech you can't even see because it's so low on your body will work? You can't aim them, so its random fire at best. Not going to help.

Not really an issue though, if a light is humping me I just hope my team can shoot it off. If not, then I die. Oh well. If the light is caught in the open he dies pretty easy, so not really a problem.

Except FW is barely a thing. Role warfare is barely a thing in as much as on a couple of maps, specifically for FW, you can get good use out of NARCs.

That's not good justification for bad game balance.

Remember when lights were decent? You had specific strategies (that were not a gen rush) for taking a light wave and counter-strats for dealing with a light wave. It was a strategy thing. Remember when FW was full of strats and counter-strats? It changed every couple of weeks. You had a constantly changing and evolving set of strategies and counter-strategies because there wasn't just a couple of clearly superior approaches to everything.

If lights were good you'd still have value in tonnage limits and balances - it's just based around designing your waves around how you split that tonnage up. It's not a clear 'best vs worst' scenario like it is now. All that we have now is a system that strongly rewards front-loading tonnage around a tiny handful of clearly superior assaults and a couple of clearly superior heavies for a couple of clearly superior roles.

I miss FW with a bit of depth. I mean it was never more than waist deep but we've gone to ankle depth at this point. That's just one part of why without a FW specific event you can end up with ghost drops on either side now.

[Dimento Graven]

Armored Yokai, on 30 October 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

Leg humping is a broken and unsavory mechanic that allows small size to abuse another person, Leg humping players that impact the opponents leg should take 5-25 damage depending on the mech size to prevent lights from easily crushing an assault.

No, Lights are not OP. It's the Leg Humping that's the issue because we don't have melee or knockdown to punish the mechs that facehug your legs.

You are in an Annihilator. You and only a piranha remain. The Piranha loses most of it's torso to a well hit AC shot. Piranha runs to your leg and you can no longer aim at it because your arms have been blown off but you still have every torso gun. Mgun Creature then laughs because you stood no chance like an lrm boat.

With Mediums,Lights,Heavies there isn't issue because you are small enough to hit them and I'm talking about Assaults because many Assaults suffer from this issue.

OP: The cure is to bring back knockdowns. With knockdowns, the wee little ******** would need stay back at least far enough to be seen.

Of course this happened:

And apparently it was so traumatic to Paul that very shortly after that PGI pulled knockdowns out and decided they'd never be able to make it work...

So now we get to suffer lights being allowed to leg hump with extremely low risk.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 05 November 2018 - 09:55 AM.

[Prototelis]

Leg humping is only low risk against hopelessly isolated opponents.

Back shotting a side torso and running is by far a lot safer.

[S O L A I S]

What would make sense to me would be for PGI to come around to understand that the limitations mechs currently have to their pitch makes the game less fun. Even with torso weapons a mech should be able to look down and shoot but are artificially prevented from doing so.

It baffles me to why PGI finds this necessary or what function in their rock/paper/scissor model it fills considering lights have speed and turn radius already as a huge advantage. Leg humping is certainly frustrating as a mechanic as it allows for unskilled cheap tactics for unskilled players, and highly exploitable cheap tactics too effective when done by the better players. A buff to pitch for pretty much every mech would be the best change in my opinion since this recent weeee fun heat vape bufferino.

[Armored Yokai]

It's not whining, let me show you guys proof on why you are wrong.
I even posted a picture.

Edited by Armored Yokai, 07 November 2018 - 12:59 PM.

[PobbestGob]

Armored Yokai, on 07 November 2018 - 12:59 PM, said:

It's not whining, let me show you guys proof on why you are wrong.
I even posted a picture.

Just went into testing grounds for that commando. The closest he can get to you is 8 meters, that's when collisions will start pushing him back. The annihilator arms can hit the commando when he's 11 meters away. That gives him 3 meters of clearance, so he'd have to be jamming his face between your legs at all times to avoid hits, and even then server ping and wonky collisions would probably still allow you to hit him because 3m is hardly any distance at all. If you absolutely couldn't hit him, all you need is one ally nearby. Just one. The circumstances where this tactic would be viable are extremely rare, to the point that it's a non-issue. Check map awareness/positioning, that's likely where the problem lies. Worst case, a couple mobility nodes will eliminate the 3 meter clearance entirely.

[Prototelis]

I can tell you for a fact that in an actual game you can be hit.

Even if you couldn't, that light is locked in place. A locked down near stationary light is a dead light, even if your team is full of potato.

I pilot slow assaults frequently, and only occasionally get caught out so bad that a lone light mech is a serious threat. It really isn't that hard to note where the most frequent engagement points are and find a good path to them.

[Armored Yokai]

Kill2Blit, on 07 November 2018 - 01:56 PM, said:

That gives him 3 meters of clearance, so he'd have to be jamming his face between your legs at all times to avoid hits.
[color=#959595]all you need is one ally nearby.[/color]

With that my loadout you wont stand a chance simply because of he AC2s, I shouldnt be forced to change an entire build all because some light decides to abuse leg humping. The Annihilator is a slow and lumbering mech, by the time you try and move your arms to shoot he will already be on the other side and see you moving so he can easily just scooch over to the side to avoid you. The only way i can beat light is if they don't abuse leg humping, it's that simple.

Oh yeah, that isn't going to work either, unless I have teammates that have good map awareness people will just ignore me even when I am 250m away from them and I'm now being forced to fire at them to get their attention, QP is a nightmare because everyone decides to NASCAR and leave the assaults behind or just focus on mechs that are behind enemy lines.

Spoiler

Stay with the team? Can't do that when everyone decides to leave you behind, even after you tell them that you are slow.
Pay Attention to map? Of course I do but people will always push forward and there's always going to be that one person that goes out of their way to focus you, even when you have 2-3 people around.

[PobbestGob]

having one ally nearby forces the light to move, which eliminates the leg humping. about the NASCAR:
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6183371