619 replies to this topic

[Ekson Valdez]

Thread closed during investigation.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Uh oh the Feds here! *Flees*

[Ekson Valdez]

Thread re-opened. Please stay on topic, make constructive responses and avoid picking fights, thank you.

[Captain Caveman DE]

Xeno Phalcon, on 15 June 2021 - 02:56 AM, said:

Uh oh the Feds here! *Flees*

[martian]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 14 June 2021 - 03:59 PM, said:

then why do lights get close to top dmg in 99% of matches then

I can not quite agree with your claim that light 'Mechs are dominating the game so much.

[Khobai]

Y E O N N E, on 14 June 2021 - 11:59 PM, said:

You said Lights are OP because you out-damage Assaults regularly with them, but then you post a screenshot of you out-damaging your Lights and claim you also get scores like that regularly.

You realize you have just destroyed the entire line of reasoning you were using to claim Lights OP, right?

Are you out-damaging your Assaults with Lights more often than you are out-damaging Lights with Assaults? Or is it the reverse? It can't be both.

makes sense to me. he sets new records for damage each time he switches weight classes.

[1453 R]

Staying way clear of the minefield for a moment...

I kinda wish Match Report Screen offered component destruction numbers as well as just damage/kills. Most light 'Mechs don't score as much damage as an assault 'Mech, and frankly when a light scores 800+ damage it more makes me wonder wat the faq the rest of the team was doing than go "man that light pilot was on fire!"

Note: an 800+ damage light pilot is absolutely on fire. But still.

Whenever I play lights (and don't spud myself into an early grave) or spectate light pilots that know what they're doing, I see pursuit, redirection, and cavalry as their most successful roles. A light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it runs down a wounded enemy and finishes it off rather than allowing it to escape and deal damage to your team again - a job which nets the light relatively little overall damage but can often be an important kill that saves your side from taking more fire or even losing weakened 'Mechs yusselves.

A light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it acts as roving reinforcements and rushes in to turn a duel into a 2v1, distracting an enemy with its annoying, hard-to-hit presence and contributing firepower for a larger teammate to have an easier time winning that fight - again, a job which does not necessarily lend the lightweight itself a lot of match damage, but which makes winning the match much easier for their team.

And a light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it uses its movement and positioning to direct the enemy team's own movements - when it uses the enemy's Chase-The-Squirrel tendencies against them to break up a murderball and let their own team power-play a smaller fraction of the enemy's strength. Lights don't get any match damage at all for effective squirreling, the game offers absolutely no metric whatsoever for determining if a light 'Mech successfully managed to play Pied Piper and haul the enemy to defeat by their noses, but we've all been in games where a superiorly effective squirrel managed to turn an enemy murderball into a fractured, disorganized, thoroughly turned around mass of easy pickings.

The problem is that the game does not recognize any of these efforts and instead judges all 'Mechs by assault 'Mech standards - raw deepz. That's the easy metric, and we all know Piranha's a huge fan of the Easy way over the Right way, so easy it is. And it's absolutely trained people to look for damage instead of kills, and kills instead of victory.

Edited by 1453 R, 15 June 2021 - 04:55 AM.

[STORM BANDIT]

1453 R, on 15 June 2021 - 04:54 AM, said:

Staying way clear of the minefield for a moment...

I kinda wish Match Report Screen offered component destruction numbers as well as just damage/kills. Most light 'Mechs don't score as much damage as an assault 'Mech, and frankly when a light scores 800+ damage it more makes me wonder wat the faq the rest of the team was doing than go "man that light pilot was on fire!"

Note: an 800+ damage light pilot is absolutely on fire. But still.

Whenever I play lights (and don't spud myself into an early grave) or spectate light pilots that know what they're doing, I see pursuit, redirection, and cavalry as their most successful roles. A light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it runs down a wounded enemy and finishes it off rather than allowing it to escape and deal damage to your team again - a job which nets the light relatively little overall damage but can often be an important kill that saves your side from taking more fire or even losing weakened 'Mechs yusselves.

A light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it acts as roving reinforcements and rushes in to turn a duel into a 2v1, distracting an enemy with its annoying, hard-to-hit presence and contributing firepower for a larger teammate to have an easier time winning that fight - again, a job which does not necessarily lend the lightweight itself a lot of match damage, but which makes winning the match much easier for their team.

And a light 'Mech is being effective and doing its job when it uses its movement and positioning to direct the enemy team's own movements - when it uses the enemy's Chase-The-Squirrel tendencies against them to break up a murderball and let their own team power-play a smaller fraction of the enemy's strength. Lights don't get any match damage at all for effective squirreling, the game offers absolutely no metric whatsoever for determining if a light 'Mech successfully managed to play Pied Piper and haul the enemy to defeat by their noses, but we've all been in games where a superiorly effective squirrel managed to turn an enemy murderball into a fractured, disorganized, thoroughly turned around mass of easy pickings.

The problem is that the game does not recognize any of these efforts and instead judges all 'Mechs by assault 'Mech standards - raw deepz. That's the easy metric, and we all know Piranha's a huge fan of the Easy way over the Right way, so easy it is. And it's absolutely trained people to look for damage instead of kills, and kills instead of victory.

This!!!!

Playing soup queue is like a game of herding cats. Each cat is out doing its own thing, mostly not caring what the cats around it are doing. The only way to heard them is to throw treats, ie isolated mechs that can be picked off quickly before moving onto the next treat. How many times have you seen half you team YOLO after the squirrel leaving you behind to be the treats for the murderball rolling into view in front of you????

Or the team nascars away from the slower assaults leaving them isolated and dinner for the wolf pack. Conversely when you are an assault pilot saturated by lights and some of your teams turns around and kills or drives the lights away the experience is totally different.

Its not lights being overpowered in and of themselves, it's the lack of cohesion (cat mentality) of the team you happen to be on.


Lights are not the problem in and of themselves, its the way we play the game.

[LordNothing]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 14 June 2021 - 03:59 PM, said:

then why do lights get close to top dmg in 99% of matches then

assaults are magnets for bad pilots, while lights tend to attract a significantly more skilled kind of player. its especially true for inexperienced players who only see the advantages of a more heavily armed mech and never consider the deficiencies. light pilots go in knowing full well that they cant just use brute force to take down the enemy, you hunt the weak and be sneaky about it.

or worse, they expect their team to keep them alive, and then when their lerm atlas gets torn apart by a flea its 'stupid team'. they dont realize that when im in that flea and i see incoming lerms coming from somewhere isolated, im going to investigate. then if i find a lerm atlas im gonna cut it down. both teams will be happy that i removed such a worthless potato from the game.

if you are going to run assaults you need to be capable of ensuring your own survival. there are many ways to do this. you can install anti-light weapons or ams, or put a little extra armor in the rear if you find yourself getting backshat a lot, you can use map knowlege and learn to position yourself without broadcasting your position to the whole map. you can stay near your team. you can be awake when the match starts. other players don't want to risk their mech to save someone who couldn't even be bothered to cover their own butt, because those kind of players are not very useful to the team.

Edited by LordNothing, 15 June 2021 - 03:03 PM.

[FupDup]

LordNothing, on 15 June 2021 - 02:58 PM, said:

assaults are magnets for bad pilots, while lights tend to attract a significantly more skilled kind of player.

I wouldn't say that lights "attract" skilled players, because a quick look at Jarl's list shows most of the top players being assault mains. It's more like that lights punish less skilled players so hard that people who aren't skilled enough move on to bigger classes quickly.

[pattonesque]

Lights, I think, are way more forgiving of positioning mistakes -- if you're out of position as a light, you can get to safety, but if you're in an assault you're more likely to be stuck where you are.

Assaults are more forgiving of engagement mistakes -- if you YOLO around a corner in a light and come face to face with an Annihilator, there's a good chance it's GG immediately, whereas if you're in an assault you'll live through the initial pain,

Lower-skilled players, I think, tend to have very bad positioning, so they get caught out often in assaults. But they also try to avoid engagement, which means when they play lights they can avoid dying for longer.

[LordNothing]

FupDup, on 15 June 2021 - 03:48 PM, said:

I wouldn't say that lights "attract" skilled players, because a quick look at Jarl's list shows most of the top players being assault mains. It's more like that lights punish less skilled players so hard that people who aren't skilled enough move on to bigger classes quickly.

it certainly takes a certain type of player to run lights. i can get into the zone with lights sometimes. usually depending on what lights i run and what tier im in at the time. running lights in t2 is significantly harder than in t3, because you usually drop against players who can aim and you really have to use meta squirrels to approach a non-negative psr trend. however in t3 taters abound and its easy to do well.

Edited by LordNothing, 15 June 2021 - 04:20 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

1453 R, on 15 June 2021 - 04:54 AM, said:

I kinda wish Match Report Screen offered component destruction numbers as well as just damage/kills. Most light 'Mechs don't score as much damage as an assault 'Mech, and frankly when a light scores 800+ damage it more makes me wonder wat the faq the rest of the team was doing than go "man that light pilot was on fire!"

Note: an 800+ damage light pilot is absolutely on fire. But still.

You will find great light players produce these numbers with very reasonable consistently.

Lights can get to an engagement and start shooting on many maps much sooner than the rest of the team. Often they can get an extra 60-80s of firing time quite easily depending on how a game plays out.

That and fatter mechs will tend to attract more fire leaving lights to go about their business somewhat uninterrupted at times. They can also get in/out of spots faster where Assaults may take 10s to reposition to fire, lights don't.

The times they do get interrupted however is when they go 600m+ away from the team on a "flank" without realising the enemy is paying attention and 2-3 turn around and promptly yeet it into the atmosphere.

Then you'll see 200dmg efforts.

[Helsbane]

You wanna get better against lights? Find a buddy that's a good light pilot and train against them in a private lobby. Listen to their feedback about how they killed you, then actually try something different next time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Learn your lead with ballistics.

Practice staying on target with lasers against moving targets.

Fire ahead of them with SRMs and MRMs so they run THROUGH them instead of shooting where they were just a second ago.

Load a mech with Streaks and tweak it for a fast lock and hold for off bore shots.

In short, you're gonna have to work at it, but if you train for it, you'll eventually 'git gud'.

[JediPanther]

Helsbane, on 15 June 2021 - 07:57 PM, said:

You wanna get better against lights? Find a buddy that's a good light pilot and train against them in a private lobby. Listen to their feedback about how they killed you, then actually try something different next time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Learn your lead with ballistics.

Practice staying on target with lasers against moving targets.

Fire ahead of them with SRMs and MRMs so they run THROUGH them instead of shooting where they were just a second ago.

Load a mech with Streaks and tweak it for a fast lock and hold for off bore shots.

In short, you're gonna have to work at it, but if you train for it, you'll eventually 'git gud'.

All good things to do. When I was heavily involved in fp I was our unit's light mech specialist. We had many nights of mech training when we weren't goofing around. One night might be hbk 4g guass sniper training, another might be a lol ac 20 4x flocks.

I miss the unit days/nights but life and better games came and went. At the very least shoot any thing you can at a light. Even minute damage adds up and it is a very stupid light that doesn't run away if the mech he was trying to attack shoots back aiming only for the legs.

[MechNexus]

Kroete, on 16 June 2021 - 03:32 AM, said:

Please provide evidence to there claims!

Ash's Jarls list shows 10,000 games played since Aug 2016. Given that his percentile at that point was 98.66%, he's clearly been playing for even longer. I think he's allowed to say stuff like that.

Edited by MechNexus, 16 June 2021 - 05:06 AM.

[1453 R]

justcallme A S H, on 15 June 2021 - 07:52 PM, said:

You will find great light players produce these numbers with very reasonable consistently.

Lights can get to an engagement and start shooting on many maps much sooner than the rest of the team. Often they can get an extra 60-80s of firing time quite easily depending on how a game plays out.

That and fatter mechs will tend to attract more fire leaving lights to go about their business somewhat uninterrupted at times. They can also get in/out of spots faster where Assaults may take 10s to reposition to fire, lights don't.

The times they do get interrupted however is when they go 600m+ away from the team on a "flank" without realising the enemy is paying attention and 2-3 turn around and promptly yeet it into the atmosphere.

Then you'll see 200dmg efforts.

I could see that. Admittedly, 'great players' are thin on the ground in this game, but it lines up with what I've observed in my own efforts since my return. Non-ECM light 'Mechs are not meant to play Doctor Flankenstein and go on long-winded jaunts around the whole-*** enemy team within two minutes of match start. One single ghost of a beboop from somebody on the enemy team who just so happened to be pointed the right way at a bad moment and the light's whole approach is busted wide open. At that point it takes a very canny, very aware pilot to play Squirrel Games and use their presence to try and disrupt/disorient enemy positions. Anybody else just gets banished to the shadow realm, like ye said. I see it far too often - light 'Mechs thinking they're immortal and can get away with any bad maneuver they feel like instead of waiting for their moment.

If you don't have ECM and at least 60% Raderp, you don't get to pull that ****. I wish more light pilots could realize that and wait for their moment. But...ehh. At least a light 'Mech trying to pull Doctor Flankenstein moves is seeking out the enemy and trying to do them harm, ne? Better than assault 'Mech chickendickery.

[Vlad Ward]

1453 R, on 16 June 2021 - 06:17 AM, said:

If you don't have ECM and at least 60% Raderp, you don't get to pull that ****. I wish more light pilots could realize that and wait for their moment. But...ehh. At least a light 'Mech trying to pull Doctor Flankenstein moves is seeking out the enemy and trying to do them harm, ne? Better than assault 'Mech chickendickery.

ECM and Raderp are fully hard-countered by the Mark I Eyeball.

[justcallme A S H]

Kroete, on 16 June 2021 - 03:32 AM, said:

Please provide evidence to there claims!

You're really going to ask for evidence that:

Lights can reposition faster than Assaults?
That Lights can get to engagements faster than Assaults?
That Assaults draw more fire than lights?


It's clear now all you're doing is trolling because surely no-one playing lacks that amount of basic gameplay sense.

No one is going to take someone seriously if they are continually trolling.

[1453 R]

Vlad Ward, on 16 June 2021 - 06:27 AM, said:

ECM and Raderp are fully hard-countered by the Mark I Eyeball.

Sure, but the Mark I Model 0 doesn't chirp for your attention and flicker a big red box, however briefly, on the screen to tell you it's picked something up. It's easier to fox the ol' Mark I's than it is to stay 100% undetected by enemy electronic systems, especially without any sort of electronic camouflage. Especially on dense, overgrown maps with a lot of visual clutter/cover, or when the pilot dresses their 'Mech in muted, camouflage-y colors rather than putting the loudest, most obnoxious paintjob they can on the thing.