85 replies to this topic

[Roger Dabbit]

Having piloted a Piranha with some success using tactics mentioned across the forums (hit then reposition, flank widely using speed, avoid LOS and stealth-drop UAVs on packs), I can't help but think the majority of the issues with most lights seems undeniably: size and agility.

You still have to be more careful with the Piranha than larger mechs, and I've found it unproductive to initiate combat with anything larger than a medium, even carrying a 40 pt alpha. Once they notice you, it's hard to concentrate damage on a torso spot while avoiding getting nuked, and then you factor in incoming missiles and opposing lights providing support before you can chew through front armor. But I can add significant pinpoint damage even to Assaults when larger teammates are drawing all the attention and I have some cover handy. For those Heavy/Assaults, I pick the most damaged portion and try to remove it.

However, I'm no ace, and I'm not tier 1-3, so my success may be as much about my enemy's lack of situational awareness as it is my strategy or skill. Just seems my size and speed is what allows me to utilize these hit and run and stealthy tactics.

[Meep Meep]

Roger Dabbit, on 07 May 2021 - 03:49 PM, said:

However, I'm no ace, and I'm not tier 1-3, so my success may be as much about my enemy's lack of situational awareness as it is my strategy or skill. Just seems my size and speed is what allows me to utilize these hit and run and stealthy tactics.

Tier 4 and 5 play is much easier with lights due to the less experienced nature of the players there and general lack of situational awareness. In tier 1 and 2 lights that screw up get deleted in short order.

[Jman5]

OmgKllL, on 07 May 2021 - 02:04 PM, said:

they are not exactly my cup of tea, I love handling a lot of weapons so I prefer heavies and assaults, scouting/capping/backstabbing bores me out, but I have that little experience in lights.

Guess what? Scouting and capping is boring for everyone.

Pressing R is not fun. The amount of scouting necessary is minimal on most maps where the spawn points are always the same and movement is predictable. It can also be accomplished just as easily with larger mechs, which IMO is the biggest indictment for how badly this game is balanced against traditional Light roles. If you really wanted to make Lights the premier scouter then you would need to significantly change this by nerfing the larger mechs scouting ability and buffing light mechs with unique scouting skills. (ex: if lights have a unit targeted it provides a much more detailed breakdown on the paper doll)

Capping also is not super fun. We do it because it's useful and we often feel obliged, but standing in a square twiddling your thumbs is not really that fun for us light players. Furthermore, the only time this is relevant is Conquest which you are usually not playing.

What is fun in this game though is combat. So unless your objective is to deter people from playing anything but assaults, you have to make combat fun and fair for all weight classes. This does not mean giving lights the same amount of firepower and armor as an assault, but it does mean that the light and assault can have an equal impact on deciding the outcome.

[Wid1046]

Since all skills can be turned into quirks, how about giving a large baseline increase to the target information gathering of all light mechs? It would be useful to be able to tell what you're facing earlier and it would help lower skill players pick up the habit of checking enemy loadouts before engaging.

[Alexander of Macedon]

x Deathstrike x, on 07 May 2021 - 09:21 AM, said:

Are you insane? Survival tree is literally the first thing you skill in a light to increse your survival time.
It's like data said percentage wise lights gain the most from armour/structure nodes so why would you not take at least the left side of survival tree first?

What? Running Survival on lights is bad for the same reason that running Agility on assaults is: the base stats are so low that the gains are marginal and vastly outweighed by the opportunity cost of not spending those points in other areas. The only exceptions are outliers like urbies, Spiders, and Wolfhounds that already have large all-around armor quirks.

If you do the full 16-node left side on a 20-tonner, you're going to get +4 CT/+3 STs/+3 legs or something similar. The "best" gains are things like +5/+4/+4 on the LCT-1V. Generally, the strongest 20-tonners have the fewest armor quirks, either none at all or small leg ones. You're burning ~18% of your skill tree to let your torsos and legs take about one small laser burn worth of damage. It doesn't get any better for unquirked 30-35tonners, you're still only gaining +6/+4/+5 or thereabouts.

All that slight gain does is help mitigate sandpaper damage, and lights almost never die to sandpapering. They die because someone got a solid hit with a PPFLD alpha, or because they got shot by five or six people at once. 30-50 damage PPFLD builds are everywhere right now. That's going to pop a torso or leg regardless of whether or not it has an extra 3-5 armor on it.

Lights don't stay alive by being able to take a tiny bit more damage, they stay alive by not getting hit in the first place. If you spend your first 16 skill points to add +3-5 armor to each component rather than getting 100% radar dep you're genuinely insane (those handful of exceptions aside). If you spend those points on a tiny sliver of extra armor at any point instead of boosting your DPS, cooling, and agility you're nutty. Maximizing accel, decel, and leg turn rate are all critical for improving your ability to move unpredictably. DPS-focused light builds need at least the bare minimum Firepower investment. PPC light builds are downright painful if you don't have at least a decent chunk of -heatgen and cool run.

I mean, granted, in retrospect I have no trouble believing that all of the light pilots I see who just charge into half the enemy team, circle-strafe until they die, and then complain about lights being underpowered are taking survival. If you're not bothering to break line of sight or dodge fire I suppose even a tiny bit of armor is a better investment.

[OmgKllL]

Jman5, on 07 May 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Guess what? Scouting and capping is boring for everyone.

I tried in 2019 when I was in T5, and I found out the game won't allow you to do that.
Scouting isn't that bad though.

Jman5, on 07 May 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Pressing R is not fun.

I don't agree.

It's what matters, it's usually the difference between the team who loses and the one who wins

So few players use that game funtion, but spamming R to spot, to give your team an idea is crucial for winning matches.

I'll personally do it with all mech classes.

Jman5, on 07 May 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

The amount of scouting necessary is minimal on most maps where the spawn points are always the same and movement is predictable. It can also be accomplished just as easily with larger mechs, which IMO is the biggest indictment for how badly this game is balanced against traditional Light roles. If you really wanted to make Lights the premier scouter then you would need to significantly change this by nerfing the larger mechs scouting ability and buffing light mechs with unique scouting skills. (ex: if lights have a unit targeted it provides a much more detailed breakdown on the paper doll)

This is it, it would be magnificent to implement something like that.

Jman5, on 07 May 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Capping also is not super fun. We do it because it's useful and we often feel obliged, but standing in a square twiddling your thumbs is not really that fun for us light players. Furthermore, the only time this is relevant is Conquest which you are usually not playing.

event that I tried in my first games, but I figured that the kill comes first and I'm not saying this is good.

Jman5, on 07 May 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

What is fun in this game though is combat. So unless your objective is to deter people from playing anything but assaults, you have to make combat fun and fair for all weight classes.
This does not mean giving lights the same amount of firepower and armor as an assault, but it does mean that the light and assault can have an equal impact on deciding the outcome.

I can agree to that only if there were no way to make lights do other jobs.

Keep in mind I'm not against the light buffs, people are right to say that if lights were that strong a lot of players will be using lights.

I'm quite against the one who want the assault firepower on light mech, to put it with your words, and as you can read on this topic there are more than just a few

No problems in making a weight class more viable to the people, I'll be happy too about that because right now lights are viable only for super-skilled pilots.