Khobai, on 19 May 2019 - 08:37 PM, said:
yes but it could put three atlases on one team and three annihilators on the other team. that isnt balanced.
I think it's a negligible difference. The only issue is that better players are more likely to be in the Annihilator than the Atlas. That's the problem with a lot of meta-balance discussion. In order to make a good comparison you have to control for skill, practice time in mech, and practice time with weapon loadout.
ShiverMeRivets, on 20 May 2019 - 12:34 AM, said:
Absolutely true, but there is a very simple solution to that, that requires no delicated balancing - don’t play light mechs.
There are some hidden assertions by many players that light mechs must be in this game, they must be made equal to the other classes, and players should choose to play them as often as the other classes.
All 3 assertions are wrong.
Starting from the last, I see no problem that one class is less popular than another - this is not social justice. Don’t like a mech? Play another. The mech will not be insulted by you shunning it. You could not play it becuse it is underpowered, because it is ugly, or because you do not like its playstyle - regardless if it is 20 tonner or 60 tonner.
Classes should not be balanced to anything. Individual mech, perhaps, but still this is not mandatory. There are plenty of sub par mechs and the game is not broken by them not being popular. Sure, a veriaty of equal choices is preferable, but not everything must be as powerful as the others.
All mechs should be strong, viable, and fun in their own way. Right now, I think many lights are fun and pretty good despite being a bit underpowered in the grand scheme of things. Re-balancing the game so ~1/4 of mechs are just complete trash is unacceptable. It is not only a gigantic waste of time on the part of the developers to create assets that are DoA, but it's a terrible design philosophy.
Asymetric balance is what the goal should be. You don't make the Locust as tanky as an Atlas to balance it. You make the Locust strong in its own way so that it's really good at things the Atlas is not. Those things need to be valuable and fun.
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Finally, that we must have mechs down to 20 tons. Why? Why not 10 ton mechs? Or 1 ton mechs?
Because 20 tons is essentially the lower limit of a mech that is still combat-viable against other mechs. Because the game's engine and netcode has trouble handling things going faster than what we already have in the game. Are there any canon 15 ton combat mechs in our current timeline?
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Why not be able to play an elf ranger, or a friggin shark with an extended range medium laser beam?
Why?
There is NO real reason why!
Um, because as far as I am aware there are no Elf Rangers and pilotable sharks with lasers in the Battletech universe and this is a game focused on mech combat.
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The game caters to some audience. Most of this audience expects to play heavily armored, slow monstrosity of machines against similar machines without having to contend with elven rangers, or lasered sharks that were “balanced” to fight them. Others absolutely would love to destroy 100 ton assults with an elven bow and ruin the fun of the formers. The game can exist without the elves, the sharks, or the 20 ton mechs. The game can exist with them in the game but being completely useless and not played as well.
Trying to equate Light mechs with Elven Rangers makes no sense. Light mechs are an integral component of the battletech universe. Elf Rangers are not. Saying we should just not have small mechs in the game, or that it's fine if they are useless in combat because you seem to not like dealing with them is equally dumb. They're in the game. Plenty of people like playing them. PGI has spent many months creating and balancing them. Therefore they should continue working toward making these mechs fun and viable in their own unique way.