32 replies to this topic

[BenAran]

So, I think PGI came out and said that the KGC will likely never get a HSL+1 Quirk for AC20s or, god forbid, UAC20s.
I find that bizarre, as the mech really would not be OP with this loadout.
So here are the reasons I think PGI should "gift" the King Crabs (yes, all of them) with this quirk.

#1 Arms:
We all have seen the king crab. We all know what I am talking about here.
The arms are not only very VERY wide and therefore encounter convergence issues when aiming at faster mechs (looking at my friendly neighborhood locust), they are also incredibly low and cannot aim side to side.
If I am completely honest, in my eyes this alone is enough of a reason to give the quirk, but I got more...

#2 Geometry:
When people say "You would not even hit the broadside of a barn" they respond by saying "at least I can hit the CT of a king crab" Seriously, the thing is massive. Even with its armor quirks that give an unquirked king crab almost 150 CT armor, when its impossible to miss, that is still just 3 shots from a sleipnir to open you up, with a bit of random machine gun spray and lasers adding a fourth shot to kill you outright. The only time you lose an ST in a KGC is to LRMs or possibly MRMs due to their wide spread.
This means, you have to either out-DPS your opponent, or twist.
When you twist, you are, yet again, showing another weakness of the chassis: Your arms, while not perfectly in the way, will block a lot of fire when you twist 90° (which takes an eternity) thus again risking the loss of your primary weapon systems.

#3 Other 100 ton mechs:
This is closely related to geometry, but it deserves its own section.
There are currently 7 100 tonners in the game:
Annihilator, Atlas, Direwolf, Fafnir, King Crab, Kodiak and Marauder II.
Some of these have their own problems, like the sluggish nature of the Direwolf and the bad hitboxes of the MADII.
However, most of these mechs have a niche for themselves.

The Annihilator is straight up the tankiest mech in the game and, from my perspective, dominates FP, as it can do a lot of builds that are dangerous up close and at long range.

The Atlas is in a similar position to the Annihilator, but their mix of hardpoints enable it to have better brawling builds with SRMs compared to the Anni that only has the hero to use missiles with.

The Direwolf, while slow and cumbersome, is the one mech that can, if positioned correctly, unleash firepower that is absolutely unrivalled. The UltraViolet with 8 AC2s comes to mind, providing more long range DPS than any other Assault I can think of. Furthermore, although this is less serious, it is the perfect meme-mech due to builds like the direstar and the new and improved Giga Drill 2.0 using HLL instead of ERLL.

The Fafnir can bring Dual Heavy Gauss to the mix, a weapon loadout that not only has 25% more damage than the dreaded double AC20, but also runs heat neutral, has better range than the AC20 and has a much higher velocity, making it much much easier to pop lights with.

The Kodiak brings a lot of fire power, among it the dreaded UAC10/UAC5 build with it. It is also not limited to IS tech, making it arguably the fastest 100 ton mech there is without sacrificing fire power in the slightest.

The Marauder II is arguably in the worst position out of all the comparative mechs here.
It suffers from sub optimal hitboxes, but it also has its niche.
For one, the MAD II has the most brawl oriented build in the form of the 4HP, giving it ludicrous SRM salvos, albeit at near unacceptable heat. It can also bring some of the strongest IS Laservomit without having to sacrifice anything, meaning it can deliver incredible punches.

Where does all of this leave the King Crab?
Its fire power is limited to its arm weapons, most of the time, its usually slower than the other 100 tonners due to the weight of ballistics, it does not have high mounts to use and even then, when face to face with other 100 tonners, it often falls short due to being CT'ed.


Keeping all of this in mind, I want to appeal to PGI with this.
You said on a thread about monitoring the performance of the RFL IIC that you will make adjustments if the playerbase cannot make the mech work as is.
Listing all of these complaints about the KGC, I do not even want to "order" you to give it the HSL+1 quirk, but what I would like to see is to just give the KGC the quirk for either UAC20 or normal 20s for 2 weeks, check how the numbers are, create a feedback poll on the forums to see if the KGC feels better or even OP afterwards.
And just so this argument does not come up:
The current quirks for the AC20 can get toned down or even removed completely. I am fully aware that double 20s and lower cooldown makes for disgustingly high DPS, but I urge you to give this a try.

It worked to make the Boiler a good mech when you gave it the quirk.
You rescued the Awesome from Irrelevance by using this quirk.
I am absolutely certain that this quirk will make the KGC relevant without making it broken.

[Koniving]

In jest, but this is what happens when they insist on having giant-sized mechs (Atlas in bt is at most 13.8 meters tall, the Panther in mwo is almost 13.6 meters tall...) and giving a mech with no pelvis or torso twist... a pelvis and torso twist. KGC was a short but long mech. But oh well. They could've done worse.

[Khobai]

King Crab needs to be 20% smaller. Thats the only thing that will fix it.

[The6thMessenger]

Yep, sounds about right. It's been known for a while that the balance team of PGI isn't playing their own game.

The Kaiju however, honestly, is the best variant in my experience. Put 2x MRM30 + UAC20, and it will wreck faces, and that is because of the highmounted ******** on the top, with reasonably tight convergence.

That being said, the AC20 has a problem on it's own, and that is it's limited to 1 GH with terrible base-stats. Not that I'm saying that King Crab shouldn't be buffed, rather the AC20 should be buffed as well and taken into account.

Koniving, on 23 May 2019 - 12:36 AM, said:

In jest, but this is what happens when they insist on having giant-sized mechs (Atlas in bt is at most 13.8 meters tall, the Panther in mwo is almost 13.6 meters tall...) and giving a mech with no pelvis or torso twist... a pelvis and torso twist. KGC was a short but long mech. But oh well. They could've done worse.

Khobai, on 23 May 2019 - 01:00 AM, said:

King Crab needs to be 20% smaller. Thats the only thing that will fix it.

It will be less vulnerable, but fact is, it will still have problems with convergence and low-slung arms that would carry much of the fire-power, if it were built ballistically inclined.

I'm sure that just as the AC5 having bonus damage will help it immensely, so would an assault having smaller profile. But as opposed of opening another can of worms, it would be probably be best to just buff the god damn buggers. Besides, the vulnerability of slowness and largeness is one of the flavor of playing assault here, they already have dang fire-power to compensate anyways.

Imagine if it were really as TT suggested, with locust being as big as an urbanmech, then it will be easy to hit that would negate the speed it's supposed to compensate for the armor -- or lack thereof. Likewise if assaults were smaller and harder to hit effectively, then they have higher effective-health considering the ease of spreading damage across which essentially buffs their survivability and would warrant the removal of armor-quirks that would end up near the same survivability as before, but now the Clanners would have the advantage because they don't have quirks.

I'd ask for waaaaaay better mobility though. Circle-strafing is a dumb and frustrating strategy that allows fragile light-players to be more brave reckless than what they are supposed to be.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 23 May 2019 - 02:39 AM.

[LordNothing]

i find the kgc to be kind of a glass cannon role among 100 tonners and as such have no problem with the +1hsl. i probably still wouldn't run it though.

a better solution would be buffs to underperforming high end autocannons, but pgi dont want to open that can of worms.

Edited by LordNothing, 23 May 2019 - 01:56 AM.

[Snowhawk]

I would give the King Crab a + hsl for standard ac20's. One can say that that is a lot "pinpoint" firepower but the King Crab is relative slow and an Is-ac20 has just a range of 270m. Also you can see the King Crab from far away because of it's huge profile. This iconic mech deserves it.
But it's debatable with the u-ac20's... if they don't jam you can unleash a lot of firepower. Maybe pgi does not like to see this for balance reasons… who knows.

[The6thMessenger]

Snowhawk, on 23 May 2019 - 03:30 AM, said:

I would give the King Crab a + hsl for standard ac20's. One can say that that is a lot "pinpoint" firepower but the King Crab is relative slow and an Is-ac20 has just a range of 270m. Also you can see the King Crab from far away because of it's huge profile. This iconic mech deserves it.
But it's debatable with the u-ac20's... if they don't jam you can unleash a lot of firepower. Maybe pgi does not like to see this for balance reasons… who knows.

Meanwhile the nightstar-9S has UAC20 HSL+1, with arguably better hardpoints because it's arms is higher up than the king crab. Did that break the game? Obviously not. So even if you gave it HSL quirk that would work both AC20 and UAC20, it wouldn't break the game. The king crab is simply worse.

[Jackal Noble]

Is this a joke or a troll thread?
The KC might not be the meta (nor does it need to be) it’s a damn good 100 ton assault. OP thank you for the entertainment read, but the cases you put forth were of personal or fictitious scenarios put forth in a biased manner. For crying out loud, you really flourished on the heap for the Direwolf, one of the easiest assaults to neuter/kill and moves like a dump truck. The Kodak?! Hahaha, the Kodiak is garbage and a shell of its former self. You implied that the Atlas supersedes the KC in brawling, matter of opinion again - the King Crab can absolutely annihilate in cqb. It has good chops, one of the best turning rates and unless you are building it wrong it should never have a top speed below 52-56. It had a massive armor buff last year.
Regarding face staring 2 heavy gauss Clops; if you allow your opponent to shoot you in the face 3 times without equal or more retribution, one could have all the quirk bonuses in the world and they would still lose.
The King Crab is good and can even run dual AC20s as is just fine.

[GoodTry]

I actually think the 15% heat isn't the worst compromise. If they did HSL+1, you'd have a 60 pt no-ghost-heat alpha with 2 AC20s and 2 snubs, with no charge time and a 4 second cooldown.

As-is, you can still do that but with totally manageable ghost heat. I don't know that there is another mech than can do a 60 pt pinpoint alpha without having to use lasers or UACs with multiple shells.

Edit: Looking at the numbers, with a -15% heat the total heat for firing 2 is just under 20 pts. This is the same amount of heat as firing 2 snubs, but you're doing twice the damage.

Edited by GoodTry, 23 May 2019 - 07:16 AM.

[Koniving]

The6thMessenger, on 23 May 2019 - 01:11 AM, said:

Imagine if it were really as TT suggested, with locust being as big as an urbanmech, then it will be easy to hit that would negate the speed it's supposed to compensate for the armor -- or lack thereof. Likewise if assaults were smaller and harder to hit effectively, then they have higher effective-health considering the ease of spreading damage across which essentially buffs their survivability and would warrant the removal of armor-quirks that would end up near the same survivability as before, but now the Clanners would have the advantage because they don't have quirks.

I confess what I am about to say more directly references sizes stated in novels than straight TT as TT has 3 sizes, normal oversized and Low profile.

But, given a Locust is about 6.x meters in lore and before the visual retcon we're almost entirely scrawny legs with a full-size-pickup as a body, no pelvis and legs hooked up to the STs... That puts them 1 to 1 and a half or so meters smaller with a lot less surface area, even though the Urbanmech is also about 7 meters tall but has short legs in comparison and a lot of body area as well as a lot of armor.

In mwo with the highest points of each mech not counting antennae, even though bt omnimech scales do include everything, the Locust is around 7.8 to 7.9 meters tall, and the Urbanmech is 10 meters tall (taller than some heavies and many mediums of BT, as well as the height that most modern and BT tanks in length, of similar weights and tabletop size profiles.)

So it'd be harder. Not to mention at Locust stock flanking speed it would be running as opposed to walking.

Timberwolf's pre94 scale height was 11.x meters (scale model), and 12.6 meters after 94 thanks to mw2.

Cicada is taller than this in mwo. Warhammer's 13.2 (need to double check the decimal) meters, shadowhawk 2 and lower is 9.63 and 5-onward is a meter larger and thicker (to fit the bulkier XL engine, double heatsinks etc). Both of these are easily over 3 meters taller in mwo and proportionately wider too.

These would be significantly smaller targets, though I admit stuck to lore in sizes, the more XL, DHS, and other bulk equipment it got, the taller and larger it would be, and the overall customization system would be truly broken without restricting it or increasing physical bulk for larger/fatter items of less weight.

[PhoenixFire55]

Don't you know what Devastating Effect on the Back of an Atlas^TM this would have?!?!

[Funky Bacon]

Snowhawk, on 23 May 2019 - 03:30 AM, said:

I would give the King Crab a + hsl for standard ac20's. One can say that that is a lot "pinpoint" firepower but the King Crab is relative slow and an Is-ac20 has just a range of 270m. Also you can see the King Crab from far away because of it's huge profile. This iconic mech deserves it.
But it's debatable with the u-ac20's... if they don't jam you can unleash a lot of firepower. Maybe pgi does not like to see this for balance reasons… who knows.

Supernova Boiler also got +1 to C-UAC/20's and that got a similar profile and hardpoint to the KGC. Granted it is not as tanky as the KGC but still, its a lot of "theoretical" firepower in those dual UAC/20's.

[BenAran]

Jackal Noble, on 23 May 2019 - 04:37 AM, said:

Is this a joke or a troll thread?
The KC might not be the meta (nor does it need to be) it’s a damn good 100 ton assault. OP thank you for the entertainment read, but the cases you put forth were of personal or fictitious scenarios put forth in a biased manner. For crying out loud, you really flourished on the heap for the Direwolf, one of the easiest assaults to neuter/kill and moves like a dump truck. The Kodak?! Hahaha, the Kodiak is garbage and a shell of its former self. You implied that the Atlas supersedes the KC in brawling, matter of opinion again - the King Crab can absolutely annihilate in cqb. It has good chops, one of the best turning rates and unless you are building it wrong it should never have a top speed below 52-56. It had a massive armor buff last year.
Regarding face staring 2 heavy gauss Clops; if you allow your opponent to shoot you in the face 3 times without equal or more retribution, one could have all the quirk bonuses in the world and they would still lose.
The King Crab is good and can even run dual AC20s as is just fine.

This is not a joke thread. the Atlas can pack more firepower and has better hitboxes.
But its good you got a laugh out of it.

[Thiccacuga]

BenAran, on 29 May 2019 - 06:36 AM, said:

This is not a joke thread. the Atlas can pack more firepower and has better hitboxes.
But its good you got a laugh out of it.

I can tell you with confidence that the number next to "firepower" doesn't mean too much when you cannot sustain damage output. You can easily kill an atlas with a KGC with only 3-4 werapons versus his like, 6--8.

[Feral Clown]

It's really hard to try and understand PGI's stance on this when they gave Boiler Maker +1 for UAC20s....

Then again trying to understand PGI's decision making process can lead to an aneurysm (see latest CW update for reference).

[Dauntless Blint]

Assaults can't poke, so heat capacity for dakka would be nice, or RAC spinup reduction. I roll play RAC5's on the KGC so hard to make it work. Favorite mech although not as strong as before the new skill tree.

My old quad UAC5's + 1 LPL on an XL360 used to claim a lot of chassis and damage points. RIP old build. o7 You will never have the same "anchor-turn", top-speed, cool-down, heat capacity and torso twist of the original glass/diamond flanker.

When I logged back on for the first time in a couple of years I found it with half the armor values stripped off to fit all the extra ammo for Faction warfare(over8000rounds). God knows how I used to make it stay alive and get 1000's of damage.

Anything that helps assaults break a rotation with Dakka I'm in favor of as far as perks. When I lost that ability I lost interest in this game as an Assault main, (I feel like assaults lost their agency) now I'm just casual fodder.

Edited by Dauntless Blint, 30 May 2019 - 04:58 AM.

[GoodTry]

Feral Clown, on 29 May 2019 - 10:47 AM, said:

It's really hard to try and understand PGI's stance on this when they gave Boiler Maker +1 for UAC20s....

Then again trying to understand PGI's decision making process can lead to an aneurysm (see latest CW update for reference).

UAC20's are actually less dangerous than the AC20's in this scenario. They shoot multiple pellets, so the target can twist and spread the damage. The AC20's are perfect instant damage, and when paired with two SNPPCs, they have a 60 pt non-spreadable alpha.

[The6thMessenger]

BenAran, on 29 May 2019 - 06:36 AM, said:

This is not a joke thread. the Atlas can pack more firepower and has better hitboxes.
But its good you got a laugh out of it.

More firepower, wut? Tell us what build the Atlas does effectively that King Crab cant.

Here's the thing, the Atlas has 8 total hard points of assorted type, the king crab has 10. It has the means to mass weapons over the atlas, with two components with ballistic hardpoints mean it could spread the slot requirement more leading the use of two AC10 and other heavier ballistic weapons which inevitably better ballistic build offering -- i mean since when could the atlas do a dakka as effectively or as powerful?

The energy-hardpoints not limited at the center torso means they could go larger than single-slot or mass double-slot weapons. The new King-Crab 001 now has one missile hardpoint on one side, means better missile spreading and the King Crab may lurm better as a result.

It can bring 2x AC20 + 4x SRM6 -- a full AC20 above the standard Atlas, and the best part is that it can sustain it. It can bring two gauss rifles, two ac10 and UAC10s, even two UAC20 if you could handle the heat. So far the only heavy ballistic that standard King-Crabs can't do is the LB20X and the HGR. Boar's' Head < Kaiju. It has high-mounted equipment, so doing a 2x LB10X, or 2x MRM30, or UAC10 or AC10, or HGR, or LB20X is kinda better.

Atlas always has been about durability, admittedly better hitbox, access to ECM and additional AMS, but to argue firepower over king crab is laughable.

Disregarding poor forward speed, I like to see King Crab out do this: 4x SRM6 + 2x AC20

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 May 2019 - 05:34 AM.

[stalima]

I believe the main problem here is the LB20, the LB20 has no ghost heat and perhaps even better potential due to its crit capabilities while still being extremely direct damage, to warrant that not having the ghost heat and the AC20 having ghost heat then they need to increase the spread rating on the LB autocannons as they are simply doing too much pinpoint to warrant not having the same limitation (thus why alot of people use them over AC)

both weapons are problematic if they do not have ghost heat due to the fact that they fire way faster than a Hgauss while still being just as direct at close range, however the AC20 has an extra 4 tons of weight per weapon to add even more firepower, alot more than that 5 damage and weaker cooldown you get on a Hgauss.

[RickySpanish]

You've a funny definition of pin point my friend. Yes I suppose if you stick a shotgun down somebody's throat and pull the trigger it is pin point, or perhaps if they are very, very fat.