619 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

If a person is always seperated, from the group, of course lights will feast on that person, over and over.

Lone wolf is the favorite dish of lights.

team work is mostly an alien concept in random battles in all PvP games not just MWO.

[Brizna]

C E Dwyer, on 26 June 2021 - 11:27 AM, said:

If a person is always seperated, from the group, of course lights will feast on that person, over and over.

Lone wolf is the favorite dish of lights.

team work is mostly an alien concept in random battles in all PvP games not just MWO.

That is correct when the isolated mech is taken unaware and the pilot is not good, but if the pilot is good, which usually leads also to being aware... light mechs might discover not to pick fights with fish bigger than them. Also dependant on weapon load outs, ofc.

[pattonesque]

MrMadguy, on 25 June 2021 - 11:24 PM, said:

One of a reasons, why I hate PVP games - is that when some guys are OP and you say on forums, that they're OP, they seem to start to hunt for you in game exactly to prove this fact - that they're OP. This makes situation with balance twice worse. Of course they think, that they prove, that you're noob. But it's just their misconception.

Some Light 'Mech hunted me, when I was in Assault today, in order to backstab me. I guess, in order to prove, that I'm one of that "noobs, who strip all back armor". And of course he two-shot (literally) my back. And I didn't even see him. He appeared for the moment on my radar.

I just hate this argument about "stripped back armor". Why? Because. How much back armor is enough to protect me from Lights? 50/50? Is it joke? Sorry, but I'm not one of that noobs, who strips all armor from back, arms and legs in order to fit maximum firepower. There is reasonable armor distribution. I usually have full armor on CT, STs and arms. Leg armor is usually stripped a little bit in order to pad free tonnage to nearest integer value. And I use some reasonable front/back ratio not to gimp myself against front attacks too much, while having reasonable amount of back armor not to die instantly from back attack.

If Lights require TOO MUCH attention, skill and OMG teamwork to counter them, then, well, it just proves initial statement - they're OP.

lights just require you to acknowledge the light exists, to shoot at it, and to hit your shots.

Like, am I reading this correctly in that you're upset someone recognized you from the forums, correctly divined that the above three steps were too much for you to handle, and used that information to get a kill. It's a PVP game, man, you can't count on folks making it easy for you.

Like, look, you ask how much back armor you need to protect yourself from lights and then say you're not a noob who strips back armor to fit more firepower. This is a revelatory statement. Players do not strip back armor to fit more firepower, they strip back armor and move it to the front, because good players use a combination of minimap awareness, situational awareness, and the Mk. 1 Eyeball to reduce the number of times they get shot in the back by a huge amount over a similarly unaware player. The answer to your question about back armor is: The actual protection you have from lights is yourself.

[bbihah]

TBH there are only two things that bother me about lights. Them being able to magically soak stupid amounts of damage due to hit registration, even when moving at slow speeds.

And (clan) lights being able to fit 50+ damage alphas without much effort and still remain 140+ kph.

How fair does it seem when you run an IS medium, and you don't even have a big engine, you run XL because otherwise weaponry is not a thing for you, you have 4-5 hardpoints of different types and maybe 12-16 tons available for weapons at the lower tonnage of medium and maybe a absolute max of 20 on the heaviest chassis. You run into a clan light mech and the guy can not only run in and out of combat as he please, evade majority of your damage just through hit registration but he also has 2-3x your alpha damage and most likely the same if not better dps albeit will probably only be able to fire 2 times every 15 seconds or so. But he dictates when and where the fight happens in the first place, so its not like thats a problem for him.


When the lightest mechs in the game can pretty much face tank your alphas even at low speeds and out damage you even if you did manage to get some damage through the damage gatekeeper known as hit reg then its not really ok.

I'm just hoping at some time in the future we'll have a mwo2 ala Mw5 and they forget everything about how they handled clans in this game. Clan tech is supposed to be good, yes. But I think MWO is pretty exclusive in the Battletech franchise with keeping clan tech only usable by clans and does a poor job balancing that.

If you really want one side of the aisle to have "elite" technology and the others be forced to scur around with "inferior" and outdated tech then maybe # of people in one team is where the balance should lie next time around. 1 Clan star vs 2-3 IS lances.

[Vindicated]

bbihah, on 27 June 2021 - 12:06 PM, said:

TBH there are only two things that bother me about lights. Them being able to magically soak stupid amounts of damage due to hit registration, even when moving at slow speeds.

And (clan) lights being able to fit 50+ damage alphas without much effort and still remain 140+ kph.

How fair does it seem when you run an IS medium, and you don't even have a big engine, you run XL because otherwise weaponry is not a thing for you, you have 4-5 hardpoints of different types and maybe 12-16 tons available for weapons at the lower tonnage of medium and maybe a absolute max of 20 on the heaviest chassis. You run into a clan light mech and the guy can not only run in and out of combat as he please, evade majority of your damage just through hit registration but he also has 2-3x your alpha damage and most likely the same if not better dps albeit will probably only be able to fire 2 times every 15 seconds or so. But he dictates when and where the fight happens in the first place, so its not like thats a problem for him.


When the lightest mechs in the game can pretty much face tank your alphas even at low speeds and out damage you even if you did manage to get some damage through the damage gatekeeper known as hit reg then its not really ok.

I'm just hoping at some time in the future we'll have a mwo2 ala Mw5 and they forget everything about how they handled clans in this game. Clan tech is supposed to be good, yes. But I think MWO is pretty exclusive in the Battletech franchise with keeping clan tech only usable by clans and does a poor job balancing that.

If you really want one side of the aisle to have "elite" technology and the others be forced to scur around with "inferior" and outdated tech then maybe # of people in one team is where the balance should lie next time around. 1 Clan star vs 2-3 IS lances.

A lot of clan weapons (namely laser vomit, UACs) are worse against light mechs. Clan lasers do more damage but they have longer duration which makes the effect you are talking about more pronounced. Clan UACs do the same due to their increased pellet count (laser duration equivalent) over the IS equivalents (especially since IS UAC5 is 1 pellet PPFLD which is easy to use against lights). You lose a good amount of your damage shooting light mechs.

Also whatever hit registration you deal with against the Piranha, that will be worse against a Flea with magic MASC.

[bbihah]

Difference is the flea might fit a 10 damage alpha, meanwhile the Piranha can and will fit up to 6x that.

I'm equally annoyed by all lights, but a light that is soaking up my damage but not really dealing much in return is much more tolerable than one that has more damage than me in a mech that is 2-3x heavier.


One thing that frustrates me the absolute most at the moment is that you still get the damage credit for the damage dealt even if the damage is not registered onto the light mech. I had a match earlier today where i ended up fighting a flea, while occupying a direwolf. I did maybe 60-70 damage on the direwolf with two mrm 30 alphas and some long range ER mediums. But the rest of all my derps went onto the flea and that thing really took all match for me to kill. Damage numbers at the end of the match? 650. God I hope they start with the netcode next time and not just slap on some used code from a different game and call it a day.

Edited by bbihah, 27 June 2021 - 12:33 PM.

[Vindicated]

bbihah, on 27 June 2021 - 12:29 PM, said:

Difference is the flea might fit a 10 damage alpha at most, meanwhile the Piranha can and will fit up to 6x that.

I'm equally annoyed by all lights, but a light that is soaking up my damage but not really dealing much in return is much more tolerable than one that has more damage than me in a mech that is 2-3x heavier.

From grimmechs:
6SPL+ 1SL Flea 17 build, obviously 10 damage alpha. MechDB (nav-alpha.com)

Mechs I play personally with less sustained and peak DPS than the above build (because they're running mid ranged energy weapons)
BJ1X Laservom MechDB (nav-alpha.com)
BJ3 HPPC MechDB (nav-alpha.com)
HBK-4P Laservom MechDB (nav-alpha.com)

I assure you though, the Piranha is far less survivable than you think it is. The best advice I can give you is go play it yourself, then you can learn to beat it, or if it is really as OP as you think it is (it is against people that do not shoot it or do not have good aim I suppose) then you can abuse it. Though again I assure you, some PPCs or other PPFLD will very quickly leg, disarm, or flat out kill it.

[pattonesque]

yeah the Piranha boats an extraordinary amount of firepower but that and speed are its primary selling points, and it's not even that fast. It has to get very close to you in order to do its thing and if anyone is looking at you, you're boned.

[bbihah]

I don't have any issues beating it, Its not like im getting **** on by a bunch of light mechs. I don't generally fit weaponry that lets me beat the hit reg and thats the issue. They have more alpha than I do regardless. And how is a 27.8 alpha build even remotely comparable to that of a piranha? even those mediums you linked are getting out damaged by a 20 ton mech.

I have a anti light mech build i run sometimes when there are a lot of lights running around, like when the piranha came out. its SSRM6s and snub ppcs in an assassin or other fast medium mech.


When I get around 500 damage done against a flea and the system is giving me the thumbs up saying thats cool man, then there is sort of more going on than the HUE HUE GIT GUD scrub from a clam nub. Like you.

pattonesque, on 27 June 2021 - 12:52 PM, said:

yeah the Piranha boats an extraordinary amount of firepower but that and speed are its primary selling points, and it's not even that fast. It has to get very close to you in order to do its thing and if anyone is looking at you, you're boned.

147 kph is not even fast? uhhhh. Ok.

Edited by bbihah, 27 June 2021 - 12:54 PM.

[pattonesque]

bbihah, on 27 June 2021 - 12:54 PM, said:

147 kph is not even fast? uhhhh. Ok.

Commandos, Fleas (with MASC), Locusts, Incubi, Osiri, and some Javelins and Spiders are all faster than a Piranha with the engines they typically take. You will note that when you quoted me you left out a key word in your response. Piranhas are fast, like you said, but they are not that fast when compared to their competition. Given the Flea's MASC (which basically every build takes), it's the slowest 20-tonner.

[ThreeStooges]

If my OP pnt was so godly how come it doesn't have the highest kill count? It only did the most damage. For every "good" match in a light you have about twelve that just sucked where you die in the first three minutes with only one kill.

[Castigatus]

Vindicated, on 27 June 2021 - 12:46 PM, said:

From grimmechs:
6SPL+ 1SL Flea 17 build, obviously 10 damage alpha. MechDB (nav-alpha.com)

Mechs I play personally with less sustained and peak DPS than the above build (because they're running mid ranged energy weapons)
BJ1X Laservom MechDB (nav-alpha.com)
BJ3 HPPC MechDB (nav-alpha.com)
HBK-4P Laservom MechDB (nav-alpha.com)

I assure you though, the Piranha is far less survivable than you think it is. The best advice I can give you is go play it yourself, then you can learn to beat it, or if it is really as OP as you think it is (it is against people that do not shoot it or do not have good aim I suppose) then you can abuse it. Though again I assure you, some PPCs or other PPFLD will very quickly leg, disarm, or flat out kill it.

^ this.

So many times I've seen a piranha needlessly expose themselves or make an unwise attack only to get half his torso blown off the first time someone takes the time to shoot him properly because he may as well have strapped digestive biscuits to his mech instead of armour. Now dont get me wrong, good piranha pilots are absolutely infuriating to play against but a major part of that is that they know how not to give people more opportunities to shoot at them than they absolutely have to. The same sort of thing goes for Fleas, Locusts, and other lights of that kind, they absolutely cannot take any sort of serious fire without falling apart. The only mech in the category that can be considered even remotely survivable is the Commando, and that most often skimps on either speed or firepower to do it.

Like Vindicated said, try it for yourself and you'll see it's not what you believe it is.

[pattonesque]

ThreeStooges, on 27 June 2021 - 01:02 PM, said:

If my OP pnt was so godly how come it doesn't have the highest kill count? It only did the most damage. For every "good" match in a light you have about twelve that just sucked where you die in the first three minutes with only one kill.

yeah and like, compare how hard you gotta work to get those results in a panther compared to how hard the WHM or COR on your team probably did.

[Vindicated]

bbihah, on 27 June 2021 - 12:54 PM, said:

even those mediums you linked are getting out damaged by a 20 ton mech.

Yes that is the whole point of mentioning it. Against IS mediums mechs that are often played (I didn't mention any more comp/FP specific ERLL or ERPPC mechs), the IS flea still a damage advantage over some mediums from its weapons (assuming it can get into range) That is the tradeoff, shorter range weapons have an advantage over longer ranged weapons if they are within range.

bbihah, on 27 June 2021 - 12:54 PM, said:

When I get around 500 damage done against a flea and the system is giving me the thumbs up saying thats cool man, then there is sort of more going on than the HUE HUE GIT GUD scrub from a clam nub. Like you.

Like I said IS weapons are strong against lights. I also play IS mechs, especially in FP where 12 man Piranha wave is common. IS AC (any), UAC5, PPC, Gauss PPFLD weapons are effective against them, especially outside their firing range. Even in QP, 4 IS UAC5 is fun to play and works very well against lights (though you cannot run it on an IS medium)

[Maker L106]

So after all of this I'm going to weigh in here and say that the only real time I've seen this be an issue isn't even specifically related to lights. Most of the advice on dealing with them here is solid, unless...

The light is running ECM / Stealth armor, and is in a pack of more than 2.

There are some specific scenarios like a 1v1 assault fight, then the light rolls by. In unique scenarios like that the assault has to shoot the light and kill it or get cored. In that way the Light mech saves the Assault either armor, death, or component loss by either dying. Which that's just a 1v1 becoming a 2v1 scenario which may or may not be unwinnable depending on any number of factors, in this niche example however the light is the most dangerous option theoretically as it has the ability to end the fight extremely early by comparison.

All that said the real root of most of these issues are ECM and how TAG / NARC work with locked weapons, specifically streaks. NARC doens't last long enough on mechs equipped with any of the ECM build setups, even enhanced NARC is significantly cut off by ECM coverage or dependent on having enough things narc'd to cut out the ECM bubble... however due to NARC factors, that's highly unlikely.

Tag would be the logical fix to this IF tag cut through the entireity of ECM cover to actually give the mech trying to shoot the other one locks. but if you're inside many ECM bubbles no Streaks for you. Good luck with whatever else you brought, assuming you did... since you're specifically trying to counter lights. But if your lights are a bunch of ECM flea / locusts / whatever else has it, who knows i'm not a light pilot. Then that entire option isn't.

Leaving you to as stated, precision high damage weapons, SNUB/LightBoat/ER-PPC's Single shot Dakka, and if you are the bravest of lunatics, a bunch of heavy lasers to attempt a few leg sweeps at a gross heat deficiency. That also hinges not only on those weapons being equipped in the arms of a mech, but the pilots ability to aim. 50/50 depending on where you like to load your stuff. Combining this with most of the PPC's having a 90m or so dead zone up close means you're still looking for more dakka or specific PPC combos and not all dakka do that well.

I've clipped side torso's off of Spiders, high speed trash cans, lolcusts and the like with light gauss at silly ranges, it's doable if not sometimes a little bit of guess work depending on weapon, but up close all those horizontal holds tighten up and you should be able to get shots on target. PPFLD setups work really well as others have mentioned, but they require you to either hold a steady aim with lasers, or be setup specifically for that single projectile volley.

Lights OP? No way. But there are very irritating circumstances that they can take advantage of that most other mechs wouldn't catch flack for. Also the newer ramped to death maps don't help with that. Being attacked by one light is not usually a problem, being descended upon by the flock, that's another issue entirely and an entirely different issue.

Edited by Maker L106, 27 June 2021 - 02:01 PM.

[Kanil]

Maker L106, on 27 June 2021 - 02:01 PM, said:

Being attacked by one light is not usually a problem, being descended upon by the flock, that's another issue entirely and an entirely different issue.

I mean, being descended upon by a flock of anything is a great way to have a bad time, regardless of it's weight class.

I'd rather try to 1v4 a group of Piranhas than try to 1v4 a group of Kodiaks, and ideally I'd like to just stick with my team and 4v4 a group of Piranhas...

[kalashnikity]

0Elric0, on 09 June 2021 - 10:37 AM, said:

just woundering if others feel  that light mechs are too powerful. in my opinion with a decent pilot a light is the most powerful mech in the game. I have witnessed to many times a light run around the feet of another mech, take him out move on to the next take him out etc, with me in my med mech trying to protect him often with others trying to hit the little guy, and alot of the time he turns to me and takes me out. if this were real world nobody in there right mind would ever drive anything but a light mech. in my opinion a light mech should be a scout (getting targets for LRMs, leaders calling out targets. electronic counter measures etc)

u ever been piloting a light and got took out with one shot from an assault?lolIf anything Assaults need to get shrunk a bit, to be in compliance with lore.

[Khobai]

Maker L106, on 27 June 2021 - 02:01 PM, said:

All that said the real root of most of these issues are ECM and how TAG / NARC work with locked weapons, specifically streaks. NARC doens't last long enough on mechs equipped with any of the ECM build setups, even enhanced NARC is significantly cut off by ECM coverage or dependent on having enough things narc'd to cut out the ECM bubble... however due to NARC factors, that's highly unlikely.

Tag would be the logical fix to this IF tag cut through the entireity of ECM cover to actually give the mech trying to shoot the other one locks. but if you're inside many ECM bubbles no Streaks for you. Good luck with whatever else you brought, assuming you did... since you're specifically trying to counter lights. But if your lights are a bunch of ECM flea / locusts / whatever else has it, who knows i'm not a light pilot. Then that entire option isn't.

I have suggested reducing the ECM penalty for lockon time. I believe thats one of the big problems right now. 50% is way too punitive. It should be lowered to 25%. ECM remains a horrendously overpowered piece of equipment. So I see no issue with nerfing it slightly. Maybe even reduce the global lockon time by .25s too.


I also agree that NARCs base duration should be increased. Probably by +15s. And also the enhanced NARC skills shouldnt be located in such a bad place in the skill tree. It would also be nice if NARCing gave more matchscore. NARCing feels very thankless right now especially if your team has no LRMs. And if PGI ever gets another engineer they should add a secondary function to NARC like making it explode for a couple points of damage when its duration expires so its a little more useful on its own without needed LRMs on your team.


On a sidenote Id also like to see a new utility hardpoint added to certain mechs so they dont have to give up energy or missile hardpoints for support equipment. Equipment like TAG or NARC should be able to use either a utility hardpoint or an energy or missile hardpoint respectively.

Edited by Khobai, 28 June 2021 - 01:58 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

Khobai, on 28 June 2021 - 01:43 AM, said:

I also agree that NARCs base duration should be increased. Probably by +15s..

NARC is already a death sentence for the mech it hits and you wanna add +15s to it?

Heavens above... Another absolutely unbalanced idea.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 28 June 2021 - 03:33 AM.

[pbiggz]

justcallme A S H, on 28 June 2021 - 03:33 AM, said:

NARC is already a death sentence for the mech it hits and you wanna add +15s to it?

Heavens above... Another absolutely unbalanced idea.

Giant NARC buffs are the kind of thing someone suggests when they don't understand what they're talking about.

Edited by pbiggz, 28 June 2021 - 05:40 AM.