86 replies to this topic

[Capt Deadpool]

TheCaptainJZ, on 27 May 2021 - 03:30 PM, said:

Whether you agree or not, this is one of the reasons I think PGI nerfed the mobility of assualts. The playerbase naturally gravitates towards bigger mechs and thus more power. The best strength of lights and mediums over heavies and assults is mobility. If you make assaults too agile, that cuts down the strength of lights.

Lights are just in a bad spot because they seem to be the hardest class to actually balance in any kind of way. At the 20 ton mark, they can't really load any weapons, and the engine, heatsink, and construction rules really limit what you can do with them. At the 35 ton mark, they are simply too large, physically, right now. Some have ECM, some have stealth. Hardpoints are all over the map. There's some really good variants, and lots of complaints about them, and a lot of very underwhelming ones.

Theoretically, you can scale down lights enough, make them agile enough, potentially increase armor enough, that the average player should be able to contribute to their team as much as the current meta of mediums/heavies/assaults do presently, despite the fact that lights are carrying inferior firepower because the afore mentioned buffs would allow them to engage more often and close range without getting deleted.

The lore-based mindset that lights are 'supposed to suck' and only exist due to manufacturing costs just needs to be thrown in the trash so the class can be balanced against the other classes just as they would in any other video game. I have faith many of the folks comprising The Cauldron understand this concept and am hopeful for a rebirth of the light class at some point in the future.

[PocketYoda]

Medium mechs are in a far worse state than any light mechs.

[Bud Crue]

Wait. Too many heavies and assaults on both teams? I thought the big complaint lately was team imbalance? E.g. see many of the posts in this thread: https://mwomercs.com...s-the-norm-now/
Now we are complaining about teams being relatively equal?

Just kidding (a little). I get where the OP is coming from, but honestly, as an average (at best) player, outside of some event driven reason, shi77y mech Wednesday, or because of a tonnage limitation when dropping as a group; I see no reason to drop in a light other than a K9 (or if I ever get around to buying one a stealth Flea) or even most mediums. In the DPS heyday of old there was no reason for a player like me to play a light, and in this apparently returning era of more alpha-centric peak and poke there is still no reason.

[1453 R]

This whole conversation is what happens when a company is unduly shackled to the conventions of a franchise that is not at all suited to the new genre/medium the franchise's material is being adapted to.

In BattleTech-the-tabletop-game, light and medium 'Mechs can be fielded in greater numbers, repaired for far less cost, use more readily available weapons, and have advantages of tactical and low-level strategic mobility that all allow them to have a strongly relevant place in a commander's arsenal. Light 'Mechs are cheaper than other 'Mechs, they don't (usually) use esoteric and expensive weapons like PPCs or high-caliber autocannons, and they can get to somewhere unprepared to be receiving thirty-ton heavily armored visitors before any other grade of 'Mech can be there. Lights are your cavalry, your outriders, your raiders, your recon-in-force*. They're the fast-response guys that a commander uses when they realize they Dun Heckin' Goofed and left themselves open somewhere, as well as the guys a commander uses to maximize the opportunity when they realize the other guy Dun Heckin' Goofed and left themselves open somewhere.

Absolutely none of those roles are valid in MWO-the-closet-shooter. In all other class-based arena shooters, The Fast Guy has firepower roughly equivalent to everybody else - what he does not have is durability or longevity. In MWO the tabletop build rules unnecessarily penalize light 'Mechs with space and heat constraints for utilizing engines rated below 250 that other 'Mechs simply don't have to deal with. The traditional weapons of light 'Mechs - SRMs, medium and smaller lasers, machine guns - mean little in a game where even medium 'Mechs are all lugging around multiple high-caliber autocannons. Jump jets are one hundred percent ******* pointless in this game for anything save getting out of ditches in Canyon Network, absolutely worthless in any sort of tactical sense, which removes the easy and efficient jump capability of light 'Mechs from the tactical toolbelt they maintain in the tabletop game. A Javelin is dangerous in tabletop because it can jump behind you and blow its wad right up your thermal exhaust port; a Javelin in MWO has no such edge and thus is not considered dangerous.

If BattleTech nerds, 'Mech Dads, and also fans of The Fast Guy in arena shooter games want light 'Mechs to be widely considered as viable and useful as mediums and heavies? Things need to change. We need to discard some of the forty year old tabletop build rules. No more "Your engine's too small to have the same base heat dissipation as everybody else" ******** - ALL engines have the same base dissipation and heat capacity regardless of rating, and nobody needs to expend internal space on exterior-mounted heat sinks just because the forty year old tabletop game says so. Engine heat sinks just need to go away. Jump jets need to work better the less you weigh, not just weigh less, and jet reticle shake needs to be lower for smaller machines. HBS BT already made light 'Mechs harder to detect with sensor systems - the fatter a 'Mech is, the further out you can pick it up. That'd be a good boost to lights. And lightweight, short-range weapons traditionally employed by light 'Mechs need to either be introduced or need to stop sucking. The Cauldron did a lot of good there with the April update, but SRMs are still kinda bad and light 'Mech ballistic hardpoints are still a lolwut waste of space unless you have enough of them to boat a million machine guns. Which are, themselves, generally wastes of space that do not even slightly match the hit-and-run combat style light 'Mechs are forced to make use of.

Either we need Magshots/AP Gauss stat, or Piranha needs to be given the same permission HBS was to simply invent something that fits the needs of this game. It needs a ballistic weapon in the two to four ton range that can be made effective used singly or in pairs at the most, for all the light 'Mechs with one or two ballistic hardpoints they cannot effectively use. That weapon needs to not be a Care Bear Stare facetime gun like machine guns, and obviously it will have to have a pretty drastically short range to not instantly obsolete lower-caliber autocannons. My recommendation, so long as we're pie-in-the-skying this anyways?

SCRAP Gun
The SCRAP (Shot Cannon, Repeatable, Armor-Piercing) Gun is the creation of a dedicated consortium of engineers, scientists, and former BattleMech pilots seeking to address the decided lack of so-called 'Big Punch' weaponry available to BattleMechs below fifty tons. The SCRAP Gun is their answer. Often compared to a magazine-fed Claymore mine or a belt-fed MetalStorm weapon, the SCRAP utilizes large cases containing multiple projectiles and a propellant charge within a disposable structure designed to, more or less, guide the resulting shrapnel explosion in a generally towards-the-enemy direction. The SCRAP gun cuts weight by any available measure, including dispensing almost entirely with large, heavy barrels common to other ballistic weapons. Instead, the SCRAP gun uses a simple shroud designed more to ensure that the weapon doesn't backspray and damage its own firer than to accurately propel shot.

This construction allows the SCRAP gun to come in at a mere three tons, half the weight of even the lightest-weight of Clan autocannons, while packing an overall punch greater than an LB-5/X autocannon shot (7 damage spread across 14 subprojectiles). The drawbacks are the SCRAP's distressingly short effective range of only 90 meters, and the bulkiness and weight of its ammunition cases. Limited to only eighteen shots per ton of reloads, SCRAP Guns generally run dry much more quickly than other ballistic weapons.

While Great House military procurement corps generally consider the weapon dubious at best and see little reason for formal adoption, many of the light 'Mech pilots involved with the project are great proponents of the weapon. It has found a following in the arenas of Solaris VII, as the huge plumes of fire, smoke, and shrapnel it produces are all the pyrotechnic effects a Solaris gladiator needs. Specialist units within the House militaries have also begun experimenting with the SCRAP Gun, seeing potential in the weapon for high-speed raids or headhunter missions. It has also proven remarkably effective against enemy battle armor, making it attractive in the eyes of those seeking an answer to the Clans' terrifying Elemental troops. Lighter 'Mechs with SCRAP guns have begun seeing some introduction as escorts for larger combat units with little defense against an Elemental swarm attack - the SCRAP can easily scrub a victim clean of swarming battle armor with an acceptable level of friendly-fire damage to the more heavily armored asset.


...yeah, I know. Fat chance, Rei. But hey - why not dream? It's fun, and that's what we're all here for in the end.

*Yes, all "scout" BattleMechs are recon-in-force. Even the Spider. Even, in many ways, the bloody Ostscout. You don't send a thirty-ton fusion-powered war machine with multiple tons of vehicle-grade weaponry on a job you could otherwise send one guy with an ATV and a set of digital binoculars to do unless you intend for that thirty-ton fusion-powered war machine to indulge itself in some strikes of opportunity, should their reconnaissance unveil such an opportunity.

[Vlad Ward]

Capt Deadpool, on 27 May 2021 - 10:35 PM, said:

Theoretically, you can scale down lights enough, make them agile enough, potentially increase armor enough, that the average player should be able to contribute to their team as much as the current meta of mediums/heavies/assaults do presently, despite the fact that lights are carrying inferior firepower because the afore mentioned buffs would allow them to engage more often and close range without getting deleted.

The lore-based mindset that lights are 'supposed to suck' and only exist due to manufacturing costs just needs to be thrown in the trash so the class can be balanced against the other classes just as they would in any other video game. I have faith many of the folks comprising The Cauldron understand this concept and am hopeful for a rebirth of the light class at some point in the future.

I agree with the problem statement, but I just don't see raw agility being the solution. MWO has a hard cap on how fast things can move before netcode starts breaking. By setting Lights at that cap, you can only effectively buff their agility by nerfing everything else. That's been a contributing factor in how we got to the current state of big, slow, toasters that can hardly move.

Besides that, spec'ing Lights into mobility just has disparate returns across skill groups. If they're agile enough to avoid shots in Tier 1, they're unkillable in Tier 3. If they're balanced in Tier 3, they're worthless in Tier 1. Player aim shouldn't be the sole driver of balance for a whole class of 'Mechs.

There are really only two options that I see for balancing Lights: Either make objectives meaningful so that their map coverage matters (respawns in QP, removing 'kill all' victory conditions from Domination/Assault/Conquest/Incursion) or give Lights some kind of unique new weapon or mechanic to let them contribute to fights against bigger 'Mechs (COIL Gun, boost-dodge, true 360 sensors).

A Flea and a Timer Wolf should be equally valuable in an arena shooter like MWO.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 28 May 2021 - 09:58 AM.

[Gagis]

Vlad Ward, on 28 May 2021 - 09:57 AM, said:

A Flea and a Timer Wolf should be equally valuable in an arena shooter like MWO.

A flea is currently more valuable.

[Vlad Ward]

Gagis, on 28 May 2021 - 10:16 AM, said:

A flea is currently more valuable.

[Xeno Phalcon]

1453 R, on 28 May 2021 - 07:49 AM, said:

Jump jets are one hundred percent ******* pointless in this game for anything save getting out of ditches in Canyon Network, absolutely worthless in any sort of tactical sense

Oof, all my jumpjets are angrily tweeting.

[Khobai]

jumpjets need

MechaGnome, on 28 May 2021 - 02:37 AM, said:

Medium mechs are in a far worse state than any light mechs.

definitely

medium mechs have to spend more proportional tonnage on engine than any other weight class just to stay faster than fast heavies. unless youre running a medium with a CXL (like the hunchie IIC) which are the exceptions.

thats one of their biggest problems IMO

Edited by Khobai, 28 May 2021 - 12:11 PM.

[1453 R]

Xeno Phalcon, on 28 May 2021 - 12:07 PM, said:

Oof, all my jumpjets are angrily tweeting.

Let me clarify: if you're jumping while people are shooting at you, there are incredibly few ways in which it's possible for you to not be 'Meching Wrong. I'm not talking about **** like machine-gunning the jump button to jiggle your hitboxes and play reindeer games with hitreg without ever leaving the ground - that's a known exploit, bad sportsmanship, and also clearly not the reason jump jets were invented. Nor are light 'Mechs the ones people are gonna try and bake some toaster pastries with, before people start jumping on that claim.

Jump jets are a tactical liability in most cases once open combat has been joined, not an asset. That is deeply frustrating on so many levels.

[Xeno Phalcon]

1453 R, on 28 May 2021 - 12:18 PM, said:

Sounds like a super-fat puttering around on a single JJ, sure the cost in wasted tonnage is severe but iv come to really enjoy the optional vertical options when using my mediums.

[Leone]

Khobai, on 28 May 2021 - 12:09 PM, said:

jumpjets need


definitely

medium mechs have to spend more proportional tonnage on engine than any other weight class just to stay faster than fast heavies. unless youre running a medium with a CXL (like the hunchie IIC) which are the exceptions.

thats one of their biggest problems IMO

Expect you're wrong.

ScrapIron Prime, on 20 May 2021 - 08:22 PM, said:

Not quite. The larger the mech, the larger the tax on the same speed.

a 50 ton mech with a 200 rated engine moves at the same speed as a 75 ton mech with a 300 rated engine. Mathematically, this is about as efficient as it gets. The 50 ton mech spends 13.5 tons on this (27% of its total mass), while the 75 ton mech spends 25 tons (33%). This is for standard engines. XL would make it 9.5 tons (19%) and 15.5 tons (21%) respectively.

if you jack up the movement rate, it gets worse. A 50 tonner with a 250 engine uses 18.5 tons (37%) for standard or 12.5 tons (25%) for XL, while a 75 ton mech with a 375 engine pays 45.5 tons (61%) for standard or 26.5 tons (35%) for XL.

We've been over this before.

https://mwomercs.com...ty/page__st__20

~Leone.

[1453 R]

I mean...

The Linebacker is kinda the quintessential Clan "Fast Heavy", what with clearing a hundred klicks an hour after Speed Tweak. It's got 17 tons of payload/pod space, if you shave the knees some.

A CN9-D Centurion, with the 300LFE it needs to hit the same 97kph base speed as the Linebacker, with Endo and Light Ferro as a reasonable facsimile of the Linebacker's weight-saving tech, has...seventeen tons of payload space.

The two 'Mechs have exactly the same payload space, which equates to exactly the same degree of owchie. Clan gear is lighter weight than Sphere gear, but it's also hotter and jankier to the point where many people actively prefer Sphere gear, so I'm willing to call that a wash. The same Centurion with an XL instead gains five additional tons of payload space, matching the Stormcrow and significantly exceeding the Linebacker. Yes, the Centurion's armor is thinner than the Linebacker's, but the Centurion is also (theoretically) a smaller and more maneuverable 'Mech.

Now to be fair, I've been back on this game for less than a month and I don't know the numbers by heart, nor do I know if MechDB's updated their mobility specs yet, so I can't say for sure whether or not the CN9-D is smaller and more maneuverable than the Linebacker. But I will match you generality to generality and say that medium 'Mechs in general are smaller and more maneuverable than heavy 'Mechs. Heavies that pay a premium in engine tonnage to go real fast, a'la the Linebacker or certain Hellfires, are not carrying any more weaponry than medium 'Mechs - and in fact many medium 'Mechs can easily outgun an over-engined heavy 'Mech. And most medium 'Mechs can also carry enough armor to withstand a solid blow from a heavy or assault. Most of them. Once. Light 'Mechs, on the other hand, cannot withstand even a single hit from a decently built heavy or assault, which requires them to not ever get hit at all. Which changes the entire light 'Mech play paradigm in a way mediums simply don't experience or care about.

A well-designed medium 'Mech is generally quick enough, well-armored enough, and punchy enough to be able to pick its engagement type. Mediums can generally bully lights (configuration dependent, as are all things in MWO) and dance around assaults enough, provided the pilot is competent. heavies can be an issue in MWO, but that's always been the case in BattleTech and in MWO especially - you're always most vulnerable to the weight class directly above you, which can keep up with you enough to put its superior payload to work. 'Mechs like the Linebacker that invest in an ungodly oversized engine are basically cosplaying the class below them - Linebackers act more like medium 'Mechs than conventional heavies, Mr. Gargles acts more like an oddly gigantic heavy than a conventional assault, the Black Lanner acts more like a massively up-armored light 'Mech than a conventional medium, and so forth. Because in all those cases, their oversized engine forces them to sacrifice so much payload that their armaments are akin to the next weight class down, or even less.

Every five points up the engine scale you go costs you a little bit more than the previous five points. There's a reason the 300 is the nigh-universal Galactic Sweet Spot, and not anything larger. Engines in the 250 to 300 range are what you want, almost regardless of your weight class. That gets all your engine heat sinks where they belong - in the god damned engine - and provides mobility ranging from decent to excellent to 'Mechs ranging all the way from 30 tons to 80 tons. Every five points above 300 starts costing more and more dearly, and every 25 points below 250 is a serious imposition on your internal space and also a heat penalty. Also engines above 300 get super pricy, super quick. There's a reason the Linebacker completely failed to do what Clan Wolf wanted it to do and replace the Timber Wolf. Paying 80% of the cost of the larger 'Mech for something with half the weaponry and noticeably less armor because that cXL390 is so disproportionately huge and expensive was a bad buy.

So yeah. Not buying that mediums are in a **** spot. The game is just rewarding the kind of play that heavies and assaults specialize in right now, so people are doing those.

[Khobai]

Leone, on 28 May 2021 - 01:58 PM, said:

Expect you're wrong.


We've been over this before.

https://mwomercs.com...ty/page__st__20

~Leone.

im not wrong though

a medium needs to go faster than a heavy or you might as well just play a heavy

and we have been over this before. you were wrong then too. because you ignorantly thought it was okay for mediums and heavies to go the same speed when in fact its not.

mediums have to spend more proportional tonnage on engine specifically because they need to go faster than heavies.

Quote

Not quite. The larger the mech, the larger the tax on the same speed.

a 50 ton mech with a 200 rated engine moves at the same speed as a 75 ton mech with a 300 rated engine. Mathematically, this is about as efficient as it gets. The 50 ton mech spends 13.5 tons on this (27% of its total mass), while the 75 ton mech spends 25 tons (33%). This is for standard engines. XL would make it 9.5 tons (19%) and 15.5 tons (21%) respectively.

if you jack up the movement rate, it gets worse. A 50 tonner with a 250 engine uses 18.5 tons (37%) for standard or 12.5 tons (25%) for XL, while a 75 ton mech with a 375 engine pays 45.5 tons (61%) for standard or 26.5 tons (35%) for XL.

but a medium and a heavy dont normally go the same speed. thats the flaw in that whole reasoning.

mediums have to go faster than heavies because they have to outrun heavies

why is that concept so hard for you to grasp?

a medium that goes 81 spends more proportional tonnage on engine than a heavy that goes 64. those are the average speeds for stock mediums and heavies respectively.

this is one of the key reasons why mediums feel so outmatched by heavies. theres more of a disparity between mediums and heavies than any other weight class.

Edited by Khobai, 28 May 2021 - 07:28 PM.

[Anjian]

There is also that other problem that mediums, other than the smallest and lightest mediums, don't necessarily have smaller hit boxes or hit areas than heavies.

[Gagis]

Vapor eagle and Vulcan say hello.

[justcallme A S H]

Khobai, on 28 May 2021 - 07:16 PM, said:

im not wrong though

You are basically always. You just can't admit it.

As if Meds are struggling... VGL, HMN, HBKIIC, WVR, VL, BSW, ASN, PHX

All of them are very strong, most of them used at the highest levels of comp play as well... But you know, "struggling"...

[FupDup]

1453 R, on 28 May 2021 - 07:49 AM, said:

-Le Snip-

Just wanna point out here that sub-250 engines are no longer punished in terms of heat. PoorDubs are long gone, now internal and external DHS are equal and have been for a few years.

But the space penalty still applies, unfortunately.

[Catra Lanis]

I'm not sure lights need that much help. Some perhaps but not all. They seem to be doing ok in QP as far as I can see.

Yesterday a Flea was circling me and each time I had a shot he warped a couple of meters and then ran normally. Normal-Warp-Normal-Warp. his ping was good ansd I suspect this happens because the speeds are at the limit of what the game can handle. Increased agility will probably make it worse. Some lights can literally stop like running into a wall, how much better accel/deaccel do you need?

The problem isn't the top speed but the ability to flit around like you have no mass and isn't affected by inertia at all. Someone here mentioned that they behaved more like Iron Mans suit than a 20 ton machine. An apt opinion.

I just leveled a Commando on my alt. I'm very bad at lights, still it has the best K/D of all my mechs. I just rushed in and shot at open torsos. It felt like I could have literally facerolled the keyboard an gotten out of most situations alive.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Catra Lanis, on 29 May 2021 - 10:18 AM, said:

Yesterday a Flea was circling me and each time I had a shot he warped a couple of meters and then ran normally. Normal-Warp-Normal-Warp. his ping was good ansd I suspect this happens because the speeds are at the limit of what the game can handle. Increased agility will probably make it worse. Some lights can literally stop like running into a wall, how much better accel/deaccel do you need?

He was probably MASC feathering, has the same exploit effect as 'micro hopping' with a jump jet, causes the HSR to have a stroke and makes hitting them from that point of view very difficult but very few pilots use that one as its pretty obvious and anyone recording gets them a pretty reliable trip to the ban town.