119 replies to this topic

[Battlemaster56]

Personally I don't like stripping down my mechs. I got standards, exposing so much structure, with so little armor...is lewd.

[Zookeeper Dan]

This reminds me a lot of the Hunchback IIC when it first came out. It's a pretty big glass cannon too and had to be played so differently than the IS Hunchback that it took some time to find it's place. I think the same thing will happen with the Rifleman IIC. The IS Rifleman is great mid-range support but if needed it can brawl as long as you don't get into short range. The IIC you need to hide if you are being shot at.

Like most people have said, twist too far and you loose an arm but wiggling from side to side still means everything hits your CT. I think a small hitbox adjustment would be good but no structure or armor quirks. Return fire resulting in a lost torso would still mean the loss of a lot of combat effectiveness without the instant death of a CT kill. You would still have to play it like a glass cannon.

The IIC no letters is too hot for me. I found I was constantly on the bad end of trades. I'd either get noticed after 1 alpha and come away with a red CT or get to hot to make it worth holding position. This is unskilled. And I'm awful at energy builds...

I'm liking the IIC-2 but I've always had a thing for lots of dakka. The issue I'm having is it doesn't have the tonnage for enough DHS to keep up fire if you have a good position (unskilled). I put in 6 LB2-X but the firepower was lacking. Now I'm running 4 LB2-X and 2 UAC2's and it seems to have the right mix. As it gets skilled I may go up to a 3/3 or 2/4 split with LB/UAC. Still, would I play it over the Dakka Dragon at about the same weight? Maybe...

I'm Looking for builds for the IIC-3, maybe 4UAC5 and 2 HML. But that looks really hot. Maybe I'll try the UAC/LBX split while I skill it up.

[RickySpanish]

Battlemaster56, on 25 May 2019 - 04:11 AM, said:

Personally I don't like stripping down my mechs. I got standards, exposing so much structure, with so little armor...is lewd.

You know what? Dressing down like that is NO EXCUSE for Toxic Mad Cats to UAC all over my side torsos. It's my choice to wear 30 points of structure and nothing else, so check those arm pods, crit lord.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Zookeeper Dan, on 25 May 2019 - 04:59 AM, said:

I'm Looking for builds for the IIC-3, maybe 4UAC5 and 2 HML. But that looks really hot. Maybe I'll try the UAC/LBX split while I skill it up.

Try out 2HLL and 2UAC10's on the IIC-3. Been having success with that build. It does run a little hot but it's manageable.

[Valdarion Silarius]

So in recent news, someone from Outreach HPG released hit box guesstimated approximate locations of the Rifleman IIC. This may be not 100% accurate according to the poster, but it would sure explain why a majority of everyone's deaths are CT related now. I think that radar dish definitely needs to be more ST adjusted while the center is way toned down.





If this is accurate (which it probably is), then that CT needs to be adjusted ASAP.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Arnold The Governator, on 25 May 2019 - 08:29 AM, said:

.. then that CT needs to be adjusted ASAP.

WhammyIIC says: "get in line.." @waiting to get fixed ;-)
the Roflman at least has some builds that look good and fun going for it (as long is it's not getting shot at )

[CanadianCyrus]

Arnold The Governator, on 25 May 2019 - 08:10 AM, said:

Try out 2HLL and 2UAC10's on the IIC-3. Been having success with that build. It does run a little hot but it's manageable.

Triple UAC5 + a UAC10 seems to be real solid on either the -2 or -3.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Captain Caveman DE, on 25 May 2019 - 08:36 AM, said:

WhammyIIC says: "get in line.." @waiting to get fixed ;-)
the Roflman at least has some builds that look good and fun going for it (as long is it's not getting shot at )

I think at least with the Warhammer IIC it got some structural armor quirks after the resizing of the mech. I mean, don't get me wrong I like bigger tanky mechs, but in the case of the Warhammer IIC I think it should have received the -crit % chance receiving quirk when it initially launched since that was a lore thing that would have really helped the mech significantly. It boggles my mind that the Rifleman IIC got better treatment than the Warhammer IIC considering the fan base of the two.

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 25 May 2019 - 09:26 AM.

[Slambot]

This mech is literally all CT. Ive never had a side torso even lose all of its armor. This is an EXCEEDINGLY fragile mech, almost to the point of non-viability. The arms are very large yes, but that's where all your weapons are. The arms are very fragile too with only 40 points of armor. So, you have a choice, let your arms take the hit and not be able to fire back or let the CT take the hit because the mech effectively has no side torsos.

[justcallme A S H]

After another 10 or so games in the Rifleman IIC ...

I'm done. I won't play them again until the hitboxes are revisited. They are not a necessarily strong mech due to engine limits so they have a good/different flavour with the quirks they have.

The issue however with the CT hitboxes as large as they are not even a player at my level is capable of making them be consistent. It is all CT, all day & I'm over it.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Slambot, on 25 May 2019 - 10:54 AM, said:

This mech is literally all CT. Ive never had a side torso even lose all of its armor. This is an EXCEEDINGLY fragile mech, almost to the point of non-viability. The arms are very large yes, but that's where all your weapons are. The arms are very fragile too with only 40 points of armor. So, you have a choice, let your arms take the hit and not be able to fire back or let the CT take the hit because the mech effectively has no side torsos.

justcallme A S H, on 25 May 2019 - 11:26 AM, said:

After another 10 or so games in the Rifleman IIC ...

I'm done. I won't play them again until the hitboxes are revisited. They are not a necessarily strong mech due to engine limits so they have a good/different flavour with the quirks they have.

The issue however with the CT hitboxes as large as they are not even a player at my level is capable of making them be consistent. It is all CT, all day & I'm over it.

Hope Chris sees posts like this and they adjust the mech accordingly in the next patch.

[RickySpanish]

Arnold The Governator, on 25 May 2019 - 12:54 PM, said:

Hope Chris sees posts like this and they adjust the mech accordingly in the next patch.

They will adjust depending on aggregate data not a couple of complaints, but I imagine that the info they have will show a disproportionate number of CT deaths. I tanked my MS piloting this thing but it has begun to pick up, Ash is right it's inconsistent but strangely fun to play nonetheless. It manages to not outsuck the MAD 2 so... Every silver lining.

[Kiiyor]

RickySpanish, on 25 May 2019 - 02:34 PM, said:

They will adjust depending on aggregate data not a couple of complaints, but I imagine that the info they have will show a disproportionate number of CT deaths. I tanked my MS piloting this thing but it has begun to pick up, Ash is right it's inconsistent but strangely fun to play nonetheless. It manages to not outsuck the MAD 2 so... Every silver lining.

Yep, I'm fairly certain the data will support the Singularity-CT design. I started taking screenshots of all my deaths to SCIENCE the probability of CT explodification, but pretty much all of them ended up being CT destruction and there was little SCIENCE involved.

The only ST destruction I have experienced so far occurs when the corresponding arm goes first, and someone chews through the ST to get to the CT. In fact, if all my components are intact, the only time I ever seem to take ST damage at all is from strikes, heh.

Even my Awesome takes less CT damage. That's including pre-hitbox buff.

It's just the design of the mech. It's a little like the Stalker with it's hitbox weirdness, but far more fragile. With the Stalker, it doesn't take much twist to present an ST instead of CT. With the Rifleman, it's the same, but with the arms, and it seems like all or nothing - where you're either losing an arm if you twist, or taking only CT damage if you don't. Seeing as the firepower of the Rifleman is concentrated so much in the arms, it's hard to force yourself to justify deliberately losing one, as it effectively cripples your match anyway.

You're just so option-limited when it comes to taking damage, and the low engine cap coupled with the design of the mech forces you into situations where you have to take damage to be able to dish it out. Want to stop and peek? You're going to be in trouble if your blob is even remotely mobile. Want to stay close to the front runners so you don't get swept away? Keep that W key mashed, stopping is death, and you're likely going to be well inside comfortable support range anyway.

As far as fixing it goes, i'm not sure a hitbox redesign will be that effective, due to the overall design of the mech. I'd like to see more quirk tricks, instead of maybe flat DPS or survivability buffs:

• Give it decent duration buffs in addition to the HSL buffs, cement it as a peeker a little more. 10% laser, 10%LPL.
  
• Give it huge target gathering buffs, so you can identify and exploit weak points better.
  
• Give it lock time buffs, so you can be more dangerous if ATM's float your boat.
  
• Give it a far greater torso twist range, so you can still be dangerous at the rear of the pack as you struggle to maintain pace in mobile matches.

It's a support mech. Let's make it easier to be dangerous in that role.

[RickySpanish]

Kiiyor, on 25 May 2019 - 07:57 PM, said:

Yep, I'm fairly certain the data will support the Singularity-CT design. I started taking screenshots of all my deaths to SCIENCE the probability of CT explodification, but pretty much all of them ended up being CT destruction and there was little SCIENCE involved.

The only ST destruction I have experienced so far occurs when the corresponding arm goes first, and someone chews through the ST to get to the CT. In fact, if all my components are intact, the only time I ever seem to take ST damage at all is from strikes, heh.

Even my Awesome takes less CT damage. That's including pre-hitbox buff.

It's just the design of the mech. It's a little like the Stalker with it's hitbox weirdness, but far more fragile. With the Stalker, it doesn't take much twist to present an ST instead of CT. With the Rifleman, it's the same, but with the arms, and it seems like all or nothing - where you're either losing an arm if you twist, or taking only CT damage if you don't. Seeing as the firepower of the Rifleman is concentrated so much in the arms, it's hard to force yourself to justify deliberately losing one, as it effectively cripples your match anyway.

You're just so option-limited when it comes to taking damage, and the low engine cap coupled with the design of the mech forces you into situations where you have to take damage to be able to dish it out. Want to stop and peek? You're going to be in trouble if your blob is even remotely mobile. Want to stay close to the front runners so you don't get swept away? Keep that W key mashed, stopping is death, and you're likely going to be well inside comfortable support range anyway.

As far as fixing it goes, i'm not sure a hitbox redesign will be that effective, due to the overall design of the mech. I'd like to see more quirk tricks, instead of maybe flat DPS or survivability buffs:

• Give it decent duration buffs in addition to the HSL buffs, cement it as a peeker a little more. 10% laser, 10%LPL.
  
• Give it huge target gathering buffs, so you can identify and exploit weak points better.
  
• Give it lock time buffs, so you can be more dangerous if ATM's float your boat.
  
• Give it a far greater torso twist range, so you can still be dangerous at the rear of the pack as you struggle to maintain pace in mobile matches.

It's a support mech. Let's make it easier to be dangerous in that role.

Agree 100%, I don't know how they would sort out the torsos in a way that wouldn't just make it too good at shielding damage, or just making the side torsos the bullet magnets instead. Like you said, it's a support 'Mech so making it very good at its role is probably better than trying to make it something it isn't. I just played a round where I lost an arm then almost my CT in a UAC volley. That's crazy! Shooting through my side AT MY ARMS bypassed the side torsos completely. There's no fixing hitboxes that fubar!

Edited by RickySpanish, 25 May 2019 - 09:14 PM.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Kiiyor, on 25 May 2019 - 07:57 PM, said:

As far as fixing it goes, i'm not sure a hitbox redesign will be that effective, due to the overall design of the mech. I'd like to see more quirk tricks, instead of maybe flat DPS or survivability buffs:

• Give it decent duration buffs in addition to the HSL buffs, cement it as a peeker a little more. 10% laser, 10%LPL.
  
• Give it huge target gathering buffs, so you can identify and exploit weak points better.
  
• Give it lock time buffs, so you can be more dangerous if ATM's float your boat.
  
• Give it a far greater torso twist range, so you can still be dangerous at the rear of the pack as you struggle to maintain pace in mobile matches.

It's a support mech. Let's make it easier to be dangerous in that role.

These are honestly not bad suggestions. Since the currently existing quirks are geared towards linear type builds they honestly do try to trap players into playing whatever that quirk is geared towards that single type of weapon. After we get a CT hitbox rework and if they wanted to rework some of the quirks this is what I would change:

• Give all of the variants some slight arm structural armor bonuses. This will encourage torso twisting but will not punish players for trying to shield damage with their arms since about 95% of the Rifleman IIC builds rely on arm mounted weaponry
  
• Keep the Clan Large Pulse Laser HSL +2 quirk on the Prime and (S) variants, but possibly consider adding an additional 5% reduced energy duration quirk to perhaps encourage some build variety with other energy based weapons
  
• Keep the IIC-2 as is, it is one of the strongest of the mech variants simply due to the engine cap not being an issue with the mech
  
• The IIC-3 seems like the weakest link out of all the variants, keep the heavy laser quirks but perhaps add an additional ballistic quirk like a 5% reduced ballistic heat gen quirk to help control heat management
  
• The IIC-4 is redundant with the bonus ATM range quirk. Just remove the ATM quirk and change all range to 15%.
  
• The IIC-A tries to bait people into UAC5's with the 5% cool down quirk, which I think is the most useless quirk out of all of the variants. Change this to a 5% decreased jamming chance for all clan UAC's.
  
• Same thing with the Chironex. Change the useless 5% cool down quirk to 5% reduced jamming chances for UAC's.

Those are my suggestions. These may be just flat out buffs, but I really have no other ideas that would encourage build diversity while encouraging players to play different builds to help complement whatever they are running. It's kind of an odd spot for balancing but if anyone can suggest better quirk reworks then feel free to post your ideas.

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 25 May 2019 - 09:41 PM.

[Battlemaster56]

Arnold The Governator, on 25 May 2019 - 09:27 PM, said:

These are honestly not bad suggestions. Since the currently existing quirks are geared towards linear type builds they honestly do try to trap players into playing whatever that quirk is geared towards that single type of weapon. After we get a CT hitbox rework and if they wanted to rework some of the quirks this is what I would change:

• Give all of the variants some slight arm structural armor bonuses. This will encourage torso twisting but will not punish players for trying to shield damage with their arms since about 95% of the Rifleman IIC builds rely on arm mounted weaponry
  
• Keep the Clan Large Pulse Laser HSL +2 quirk on the Prime and (S) variants, but possibly consider adding an additional 5% reduced energy duration quirk to perhaps encourage some build variety with other energy based weapons
  
• Keep the IIC-2 as is, it is one of the strongest of the mech variants simply due to the engine cap not being an issue with the mech
  
• The IIC-3 seems like the weakest link out of all the variants, keep the heavy laser quirks but perhaps add an additional ballistic quirk like a 5% reduced ballistic heat gen quirk to help control heat management
  
• The IIC-4 is redundant with the bonus ATM range quirk. Just remove the ATM quirk and change all range to 15%.
  
• The IIC-A tries to bait people into UAC5's with the 5% cool down quirk, which I think is the most useless quirk out of all of the variants. Change this to a 5% decreased jamming chance for all clan UAC's.
  
• Same thing with the Chironex. Change the useless 5% cool down quirk to 5% reduced jamming chances for UAC's.

Those are my suggestions. These may be just flat out buffs, but I really have no other ideas that would encourage build diversity while encouraging players to play different builds to help complement whatever they are running. It's kind of an odd spot for balancing but if anyone can suggest better quirk reworks then feel free to post your ideas.

Wouldn't say 3 is the weakest link as it can do UAC 25 and 30 build with not much problem beside heat, the 2 have engine and mass boating power. But the rest I can agree with here and there.

[Zookeeper Dan]

I was surprised playing last night how few Rifleman IIC's I saw. I think in an hour there may have been two on opposing teams and none on mine. I wouldn't expect too much from a rework. Chargers and Hatamoto-Chi's got a quirk adjustment after they disappeared and they still are never played. With good reason.

[lobsterhierarchy]

justcallme A S H, on 25 May 2019 - 11:26 AM, said:

After another 10 or so games in the Rifleman IIC ...

I'm done. I won't play them again until the hitboxes are revisited. They are not a necessarily strong mech due to engine limits so they have a good/different flavour with the quirks they have.

The issue however with the CT hitboxes as large as they are not even a player at my level is capable of making them be consistent. It is all CT, all day & I'm over it.

I have yet to lose a side torso and I’ve been trying out the mechwarrior wiggle to spread damage - even LBXs seem to all hit CT too. I’ll stare someone down and get them down to structure and then take some return fire and get the immediate Betty warning, and I know SQ players aren’t the best shots.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Arnold The Governator, on 25 May 2019 - 12:54 PM, said:

Hope Chris sees posts like this and they adjust the mech accordingly in the next patch.

what little optimist remains in/off me says "yeah sure".
then the realist comes along and says "it's gonna get a 5-15% increase in size, ct-hitbox gets widened by 20% - but we'll get a nice +3 structure to compensate ..... "

[Valdarion Silarius]

Zookeeper Dan, on 26 May 2019 - 06:20 AM, said:

I was surprised playing last night how few Rifleman IIC's I saw. I think in an hour there may have been two on opposing teams and none on mine. I wouldn't expect too much from a rework. Chargers and Hatamoto-Chi's got a quirk adjustment after they disappeared and they still are never played. With good reason.

Well I think in case of the Rifleman IIC, it has more of a distinguished role compared to the Charger and Hatamoto-Chi. The problem with the Charger and Hatamoto-Chi is I don't think they really brought anything new to the table when they released, while the Rifleman IIC is really the first dedicated clan fire support mech. Fire support mechs is not going to be everyone's forte since it was somewhat niche in battletech.

However, the fact that it has the capabilities on paper for some brawling potential, but can't even face time in short range or trade a few hits from any distance is what is preventing the folks who bought the mech pack from playing it. Once we get those issues fixed, and once they become more accessible you will probably see them commonly deployed as the Jagermech/IS Rifleman are on the battlefield.

Also have to keep in mind the restricted engine cap and videos like Kanajashi recommending people to let the mech go for C-Bills instead of pre-purchasing when it was announced doesn't exactly help either. Not that I can blame those folks for playing it safe, but I think it boils down that the clans have alot of variety to offer in the 65 ton weight bracket. Also the fact that the current meta favors mechs like the Hellbringer and Ebon Jaguar, while I was hoping new contenders like the Rifleman IIC would challenge those said mechs while shaking up the meta while doing so.

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 26 May 2019 - 09:17 AM.