619 replies to this topic

[Moldur]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 08:55 AM, said:

because lights dont do as much damage as assaults.

being successful in a light often means doing things that arnt quantified by stats or the scoring system

like when a light turns an enemy around so teammates can shoot it in the back. do you get credit for that? no.

is shooting an enemy in the back worth more than shooting an enemy in the front? no lights get punished for killing enemies by doing less damage while assaults get rewarded for killing enemies through the front.

do lights get anywhere near the points they should get for capping? no.

when you get half the enemy team to pull off the front line to chase you. is that worth anything? no. the chaos and discord that lights sew in the enemy ranks doesnt get accurately reflected in stats/scoring.

stats also get distorted by playing in a group vs playing solo. someone who plays in a group is going to have a way higher W/L ratio and a higher KDR than someone who plays solo. the game really should differentiate between group stats and individual stats.

thats why stats mean absolutely nothing.

I don't really care. Nobody cares what goes into a sausage. They just know it tastes good in the end. If whatever unquantifiable mystical light mech weapons and tactics school crazy high skill ceiling kung-fu mastery ultimately produces underwhelming results, then that is the reality.

I would rather take 12 shooters that are really, really good at blowing up mechs and more importantly winning matches. I don't care how they do it. I don't care if they put a ton of damage on the screen or get 7 kills with 150 damage. Whatever they're doing is winning matches.

There's no need to over-complicate things.

Edited by Moldur, 12 June 2021 - 09:28 AM.

[Khobai]

Moldur, on 12 June 2021 - 09:27 AM, said:

I don't really care. Nobody cares what goes into a sausage. They just know it tastes good in the end. If whatever unquantifiable mystical light mech weapons and tactics school crazy high skill ceiling kung-fu mastery ultimately produces underwhelming results, then that is the reality.

I would rather take 12 shooters that are really, really good at blowing up mechs. I don't care how they do it. I don't care if they put a ton of damage on the screen or get 7 kills with 150 damage. Whatever they're doing is winning matches.

There's no need to over-complicate things.

yeah but the scoring system actively hurts lights. its pretty ridiculous actually.

if a light kills a mech doing 50 damage through the back it gets less points than if an assault kills a mech by doing 200 damage through the front.

rather than a kill just being worth X points which is how it should be. kills are the only thing that should matter not damage.

the only thing damage should be used for is to calculate partial kills based on the percentage of lethal damage you did to a mech. lethal damage being damage that actually contributed to killing the mech not useless damage done to hit locations that didnt matter like hits to arms or hits to legs if the mech didnt die by legging.

kills should also not just go to the person who gets the last hit in but be divided up among everyone who helped get the kill based on the percentage of lethal damage they did. so for example if you did 40% of the lethal damage to a mech you should get .4 kills. and then each kill would be worth X match score.

that kindve scoring system would work much better to reflect how lights play the game by shooting mechs in the back. a back hit is worth more than a front hit and should be calculated as such.

it would also reward you properly for being accurate and deadly with your hits. and not reward you for farming damage off non-lethal hit locations. why are you rewarded more for shooting everywhere except the places that kill mechs? that makes no sense.

Edited by Khobai, 12 June 2021 - 09:48 AM.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

yeah but the scoring system actively hurts lights

if a light kills a mech doing 50 damage through the back it gets less points than if an assault kills a mech by doing 200 damage through the front.

rather than a kill just being worth X points.

This is why I always say that scoring should be based mostly on results, not on effort. This means that kills and components destroyed should be worth a lot more than pure damage. Light mechs are finishers - they identify an enemy with an opened component and go straight for that - maximum effect for minimal damage. Making scores based on how much armor you stripped from enemies favors big mechs with lots of splash alpha doing random damage. Sure that helps the team and is worth something, but actually destroying things and crippling/securing the kills is even more so.

[Capt Deadpool]

To sum up:

Khobai thinks assaults should be invincible.
Khobai claims he 'doesn't even play assaults'
Khobai gets called out for the fact that he has played assaults more than any other class, as jarls shows.
Khobai then says that is irrelevant information because he will not play assaults again until he deems them invincible.

You are pretty lucky you have not been temp-banned for itentionally and incessantly polluting the discourse of every thread you post in to the point helpful posts have been drowned out, which is confusing and detrimental to the community.

[Moldur]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 09:29 AM, said:

yeah but the scoring system actively hurts lights. its pretty ridiculous actually.

if a light kills a mech doing 50 damage through the back it gets less points than if an assault kills a mech by doing 200 damage through the front.

rather than a kill just being worth X points which is how it should be. kills are the only thing that should matter not damage.

the only thing damage should be used for is to calculate partial kills based on the percentage of lethal damage you did to a mech. lethal damage being damage that actually contributed to killing the mech not useless damage done to hit locations that didnt matter like hits to arms or hits to legs if the mech didnt die by legging.

kills should also not just go to the person who gets the last hit in but be divided up among everyone who helped get the kill based on the percentage of lethal damage they did. so for example if you did 40% of the lethal damage to a mech you should get .4 kills. and then each kill would be worth X match score.

that kindve scoring system would work much better to reflect how lights play the game by shooting mechs in the back. a back hit is worth more than a front hit and should be calculated as such.

it would also reward you properly for being accurate and deadly with your hits. and not reward you for farming damage off non-lethal hit locations. why are you rewarded more for shooting everywhere except the places that kill mechs? that makes no sense.

Oh yes, I certainly agree. The scoring system is not perfect and lights should get much much more credit for what they do. No argument about that here. I think some sort of weighted scoring system should be in place to incentivize lights. Getting that right would take a few iterations and tweaks, but I think it could be implemented over a reasonable time period without too heavily allowing players to "game the game" by say, playing terribly as a light but coming out ahead anyway.

[MrMadguy]

FLG 01, on 11 June 2021 - 11:04 AM, said:

The average match scores of the lights in this game is 159. That is well below the global average.

And that's supposed to be op? How much below the global AMS is not considered op then?

Well, I was asked to show match, where I have more than 300MS in Light 'Mechs. I've done it. And now I hear only excuses, trying to invalidate it.

[Meep Meep]

I like how this morphed from a lights are op rant to a lights don't get enough love with the scoring system rant.

[Leone]

MrMadguy, on 12 June 2021 - 11:51 AM, said:

Well, I was asked to show match, where I have more than 300MS in Light 'Mechs. I've done it. And now I hear only excuses, trying to invalidate it.

What? No. What folk are saying is that amongst the eight lights provided by that screenshot, matchscore was under par. Sure, you got a high score. Nice. Also, unimportant to the claims stated in the Opening Post. Statistics cares not about the outliers. Do you want me to post a screen shot of assaults getting crap scores and claim they need buffs? You are missing the forest for a tree.

I have screenshots of every weight class of mech getting top damage. One match does not prove a point.

~Leone.

[MechNexus]

Meep Meep, on 12 June 2021 - 11:56 AM, said:

I like how this morphed from a lights are op rant to a lights don't get enough love with the scoring system rant.

Parkour!

[Khobai]

Leone, on 12 June 2021 - 12:18 PM, said:

I have screenshots of every weight class of mech getting top damage. One match does not prove a point.

~Leone.

yes it does. kitfox op. NERF KITFOX.

Edited by Khobai, 12 June 2021 - 01:50 PM.

[dario03]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 05:22 AM, said:

they dont really have the most firepower because of heat caps and ghost heat limits

a lot of the time you can build a heavy with the same firepower that goes way faster and is more survivable

thats why heavies are the most popular weight class and not assaults. if assaults did the most damage and were the most survivable they would be the most popular weight class not heavies.

Heat caps and ghost heat do not stop assaults from having the highest firepower.

[MechNexus]

dario03, on 12 June 2021 - 03:29 PM, said:

Heat caps and ghost heat do not stop assaults from having the highest firepower.

Isn't one of the classic long range trading assaults on IS side a 5/6 ERLL battlemaster? And of course there's the classic 4ERPPC Warhawk Prime as well... point is, there's some examples why Khobai is wrong.

The real reason assaults are unpopular is because they rely on their team not leaving them out to dry to do well - they're slow and while they can take punishment, they still melt quickly if they make a wrong turn and face the whole enemy team and don't back out quick enough. They take a certain level of co-ordination and gamesense that most people aren't up to (either out of lacking confidence or not trusting anyone else in the soup), whereas heavies tend to hit that sweet spot of firepower, durability, and mobility.

[Tarl Cabot]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 07:41 AM, said:

Im not saying assaults shouldnt be bigger than other weight classes.

Im saying theyve made them disproportionately bigger to such an extent that its detrimental.

/looks around... grrr... I am so going to regret this...

I agree with Khobai to an extent... Anyhow, a few lights.. a few are simply right at or below absolute minimum size for this game, while others are scaled larger than they should be, the 35 tonners. And, imho, a majority of the other weight classes, including assaults, are larger than they should be. PGI lack of volume scaling sucks, which there are threads about that from other players.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 June 2021 - 04:47 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

ok been busy working last couple days, time to catch up.

MechaGnome, on 12 June 2021 - 02:26 AM, said:

Yes sure keep BSing, after all these years and you still don't.. And MWO Host State Rewind is garbage and doesn't work right..

Works completely fine for me with 240ms-260ms when playing.

I play at the highest level. I can hit lights without any drama. I've legged many lights at 700m in a single shot.

Ping / HSR is not the reason you are unable to hit them. Keep blaming it though.

Dogstar, on 12 June 2021 - 01:11 AM, said:

Data/Ash - do you know if the sensor range of mechs can be changed in xml or is it set in code?

I'm not sure for mech specific. Quirks are easy as DATA said and some lights will get such a quirk added hopefully as part of a quirk pass

1453 R, on 12 June 2021 - 09:00 AM, said:

Spoiler

So...the whole summation of this new argument, Khobai, is:

"I wanna pilot assault 'Mechs, and then be completely invincible because assault 'Mechs should be the best, strongest, shootiest, armor-iest combat monsters in all of BattleTech and it's Just Not Fair™ that these little things so much smaller than me are allowed to threaten me. Assault 'Mechs deserve to have no good counterplay and to be the pinnacle of MWO, and I just don't like that assault 'Mechs are supposed to have drawbacks."

Is that about right? Because that's really what this latest pointless tangent on scaling is coming off as.

Near enough lol.

[justcallme A S H]

Capt Deadpool, on 12 June 2021 - 11:03 AM, said:

To sum up:

Khobai thinks assaults should be invincible.
Khobai claims he 'doesn't even play assaults'
Khobai gets called out for the fact that he has played assaults more than any other class, as jarls shows.
Khobai then says that is irrelevant information because he will not play assaults again until he deems them invincible.

You are pretty lucky you have not been temp-banned for itentionally and incessantly polluting the discourse of every thread you post in to the point helpful posts have been drowned out, which is confusing and detrimental to the community.

It's funny that other users are really picking up / noticing it how prolific it is lately.

I felt a bit of a minority in 2019/2020 - however 2021 has rolled around and now part of a majority. People are wising up and seeing the constant contradictions

Feels good.

[Khobai]

dario03, on 12 June 2021 - 03:29 PM, said:

Heat caps and ghost heat do not stop assaults from having the highest firepower.

of course it does. theyre subject to the same heat cap and ghost heat limit as heavies. they can carry more weapons but in most cases they can still only fire the same number of weapons due to ghost heat and the same number of times before their heat bar maxes out. The cant carry substantially more DHS either because they have the same number of critslots as heavies. A direwolf can have what like 16-18 energy hardpoints? but how many of those can it actually use because of ghost heat and heat capacity? it cant even use all the hardpoints it has properly unless it uses LOL micro lasers which suck on a direwolf. Why give it so many hardpoints if it cant effectively use them all? The direwolf was obviously designed with a higher heat cap in mind and when that cap was lowered it hurt the direwolf tremendously.

not only that but heavies are better able to maneuver and bring that firepower to bear. a hellbringer for example does a 7-8 laser medium range poking loadout way better than any clan assault. clan energy assaults like the executioner are a total joke compared to a hellbringer. the executioner needs some massive buffs to offset the fact its forced to spend so much of its tonnage on useless jumpjets.

the only exceptions are a couple super heavy ballistic loadouts like triple CUAC20 that only assaults can do but theyre not particularly good in the current meta with their 400m range. for more reasonable loadouts the CUAC2 is so superior to the CUAC5 and CUAC10 right now it allows heavies like the night gyr to run x6 CUAC2 builds and easily outdps a lot of assaults like the MCII with three CUAC5s and a CUAC10. only ultraviolet outdpses it and ultraviolet sucks in comparison because of how damn huge and slow it is. maybe it wont be as bad after buffs. I will however say the blood asp is very good for an assault but thats an exception rather than the rule. Why arnt all assaults as good as the blood asp?

When I play heavies I can consistently do more damage than the assaults on my team. I just havent been playing heavies much because ive mostly been playing mostly lights this season. But theres a reason heavies are more popular than assaults its because heavies get all the best aspects of assaults with none of the downsides and are still able to move 65-80kph. Heavies are easily the best weight class in the game. The game is so obviously biased towards heavies if cauldron wants to balance something, balance that.

justcallme A S H, on 12 June 2021 - 08:12 PM, said:

It's funny that other users are really picking up / noticing it how prolific it is lately.

I felt a bit of a minority in 2019/2020 - however 2021 has rolled around and now part of a majority. People are wising up and seeing the constant contradictions

Feels good.

maybe they should wise up to the fact I play lights and mediums way more than assaults and heavies.

i definitely do not want assaults to be better for my sake. assaults are boring as **** to play why would I want to play walking simulator and spend like 3 minutes walking on maps like polar highlands. Although PGI could easily fix all that with closer spawn points and save both teams the 3 minute walk.

But I do understand other peoples frustrations with assaults right now. Theyre slow as ****, bad at poking in a poking meta, obnoxiously huge with massive hitboxes, often have terrible hardpoint locations in low slung arms, get abandoned by faster teammates that consider them burdens, are prime targets for other mechs because youre essentially a huge pinata full of matchscore candy, and they cant even bend over enough to shoot at lights that are attacking them because assaults are too damn tall. ive even seen them struggle to hit 50 ton crabs that are facehugging them. So yeah the frustration is real.

Edited by Khobai, 12 June 2021 - 10:36 PM.

[dario03]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 09:26 PM, said:

of course it does. theyre subject to the same heat cap and ghost heat limit as heavies. they can carry more weapons but in most cases they can still only fire the same number of weapons due to ghost heat and the same number of times before their heat bar maxes out.

A direwolf can have what like 16-17 energy hardpoints? but how many of those can it actually use because of ghost heat? it cant even use all the hardpoints it can have properly.

not only that but heavies are better able to maneuver and bring that firepower to bear. a hellbringer for example does a 7-8 laser medium range poking loadout way better than any clan assault. clan energy assaults like the executioner are a total joke compared to a hellbringer. the executioner needs some massive buffs to offset the fact its forced to spend so much of its tonnage on useless jumpjets.

the only exceptions are a couple super heavy ballistic loadouts like triple CUAC20 that only assaults can do but theyre not particularly good in the current meta with their 400m range. for more reasonable loadouts the CUAC2 is so superior to the CUAC5 and CUAC10 right now it allows heavies like the night gyr to run x6 CUAC2 builds and easily outdps a lot of assaults like the MCII with three CUAC5s and a CUAC10. only ultraviolet outdpses it and ultraviolet sucks in comparison because of how damn huge and slow it is. maybe it wont be as bad after buffs.

When I play heavies I can consistently do more damage than the assaults on my team. I just havent been playing heavies much because ive mostly been playing mostly lights this season. But theres a reason heavies are more popular than assaults its because heavies get all the best aspects of assaults with none of the downsides and are still able to move 65-80kph. Heavies are easily the best weight class in the game. The game is so obviously biased towards heavies if cauldron wants to balance something, balance that.

Ghost heat just cuts back on how much you can alpha certain weapon combos. It doesn't stop something like ac10/ac5 Annis or (u)ac2/lb2 Dires from having a higher alpha or dps than similarly built heavies. Just like heat cap doesn't stop a 4lb10x Cyclops from being pretty good. Where as weight does stop the Warhammer from a good 4lb10x build. Can you build some heavies to have more dps than some assaults? Sure, but it will have some disadvantages like range to do it. But overall if you want to focus mostly on pure firepower, an assault does it best.
Heavy mechs do not get all of the best aspects of assaults with none of the drawbacks. They generally have a bit less of the best aspects in regards to firepower and armor and a bit less of the drawbacks in regards to speed and agility. Maybe your builds and playstyle fit heavies better, but that doesn't mean assaults don't have more firepower potential.

[Khobai]

I would still argue a heavy like the Night Gyr with x6 CUAC2s can put out just as much ballistic DPS as most IS assaults and do it from a much greater range. And im not giving up anything significant to do it.

Its DPS rivals most annihilators and surpasses the DPS of an LBX10 cyclops while outranging both.

On the IS side the assault I probably fear the most is the mauler with x3 rotary AC2s and x3 AC2s. Which has very decent high hardpoints and very high dps if it gets in its range sweet spot for the rotary 2s. But the Night Gyr still outranges it by a good margin.

I do think heavies have become a little too good in the game. Especially CXL heavies because that crap is still not balanced. Somewhere along the line assaults on the whole fell behind heavies and have never really recovered. Theres still good assaults for sure but theyre the exception now not the rule.

Edited by Khobai, 12 June 2021 - 11:48 PM.

[Kanil]

Khobai, on 12 June 2021 - 09:26 PM, said:

the only exceptions are a couple super heavy ballistic loadouts like triple CUAC20 that only assaults can do but theyre not particularly good in the current meta with their 400m range. for more reasonable loadouts the CUAC2 is so superior to the CUAC5 and CUAC10 right now it allows heavies like the night gyr to run x6 CUAC2 builds and easily outdps a lot of assaults like the MCII with three CUAC5s and a CUAC10. only ultraviolet outdpses it and ultraviolet sucks in comparison because of how damn huge and slow it is. maybe it wont be as bad after buffs.

Congrats, you've caught on to the thing assault 'mechs do good -- lots of heavy ballistics. You already know the Ultraviolet carries more firepower than the Night Gyr, 33% more, so we can move on to a couple other builds.

The Night Gyr runs three 5s and a 10, the MCIIs are definitely running two 5s and two 10s. That's 20% more firepower.

Similarly, the Night Gyr can only fit 3 LBX-10s, but the assaults can run 4, again for 33% more firepower.

Now, you don't think the added firepower is worth the cost of the hit boxes and the agility, I can appreciate that. But maybe the problem isn't that assaults are bad, but rather that they're just not your cup of tea? Personally, I find assaults really slow and boring... but I use them exclusively because they're the strongest -- it's a lot easier to do 1200 damage in an assault than it is a heavy.

[Khobai]

Kanil, on 12 June 2021 - 11:28 PM, said:

Congrats, you've caught on to the thing assault 'mechs do good -- lots of heavy ballistics. You already know the Ultraviolet carries more firepower than the Night Gyr, 33% more, so we can move on to a couple other builds.

The Night Gyr runs three 5s and a 10, the MCIIs are definitely running two 5s and two 10s. That's 20% more firepower.

my night gyr runs six CUAC2s which will outdps any MCII CUAC5/CUAC10 build and outrange it severely. I have almost a 1000m optimum range. Why would I use CUAC5s/10s theyre inferior in virtually every way. CUAC5s have worse range, worse dps per tonnage, worse velocity, more heat per damage, and way worse jamming duration and inconsistency when fired in ultra mode, for what advantage? They do 2.5 burst damage instead of the 2 that CUAC2s do. Thats their only advantage. CUAC5s are just inferior to CUAC2s right now. CUAC10s dont compare very good to two CUAC2s for the same tonnage either.

and if its night gyr vs ultraviolet my money is still on the night gyr to win that fight. the direwolf is a horrible mech in long range poking fights. getting all 8 of its CUAC2s to clear terrain is miserable and forces it to expose itself terribly.

yes the ultraviolet has higher potential for dps. the problem is bringing that dps to bear requires it to expose itself a lot more. that makes it a worse mech IMO. a lot of the time ultraviolets get isolated from their team because of how slow they are so a light mech can just kill them lol. The Night Gyr is fast enough to stay with its team.

Thats also why the blood asp is a better assault than the direwolf IMO. Going slower than 55-60kph is basically just asking your team to abandon you. The blood asp is really the only clan assault I consider to be any good right now. Its reasonably fast with high hardpoints and doesnt have weird protruding CT geometry that gets hit from every angle.

The blood asp should be the norm for clan assaults though not the exception.

Edited by Khobai, 13 June 2021 - 12:33 AM.