96 replies to this topic

[pattonesque]

Seelenlos, on 03 September 2021 - 07:39 AM, said:

You misunderstood:
It is your guts and feelings not mine.
I ask for data and testings!

So understand things or ask, or you are putting your words in others moght and I am not that kind to forgive that!

Some of this you're gonna have to take on trust because I a. don't keep exact data and b. don't know exactly what you're looking for.

Here's me on Jarl's List, the publicly available MWO leaderboard which draws from PGI's data. I'm not a competitive-level player but I'm pretty consistently in the high percentiles in quick play. I've been Tier 1 very nearly this whole time save for the Tier reset, which means the matchmaker puts me in matches with, as a rule, other Tier 1/Tier 2 players, with some Tier 3s thrown in. Every once in a blue moon, the matchmaker has to reach a bit and I'll see Tier 4s, like the match I was in where you were playing your X-5.

I do not play stealth lights particularly often and rarely see them in my matches -- perhaps one in 20 matches has a stealth Flea or Commando or Locust in it. There are two reasons for this, from my perspective:

1. A stealth light simply does not have the firepower to contribute meaningfully to a fight. A stealth Flea, for example, maxes out at five energy mounts. A stealth Javelin has four missile mounts and cannot make full use of them due to tonnage restrictions. They have smaller alphas than other lights (compare a stealth Flea to a 7 SPL Flea) and cannot maintain DPS for very long due to stealth armor's heat malus. In order to be truly effective as a killing force, a stealth light has to hit a mech in the back with its entire alpha several times.

2. Players in Tier 1, in general, do not let you do that. If someone shoots me in the back, for instance, unless I'm engaged in a huge brawl, I will immediately turn around and put my back to the wall, likely before they've finished their entire burn. It's also very easy for me at this point to locate the stealth light and start firing at it. In general, absent LRM or ATM builds or if I'm piloting something with truly atrocious agility against a really good light pilot, if I'm in an assault the light has to disengage because otherwise I'll knock its leg off or put an alpha through a side torso. This has also been my experience piloting stealth lights against other Tier 1 players. They will not let you get a full burn off, will turn and locate you, and fire back. The one (1) time I've been killed by a stealth Flea in the past six months, I was running a 4 LPL Timber Wolf alone on the base on Mining Collective, and a really good stealth Flea pilot picked and poked at me while I was heatcapped. And even then, he didn't kill me alone -- a friend rolled up and finished the job for him.

Now, having said that, it's not like stealth lights are useless in Tier 1. A good one can share the attention of the enemy team by hitting and fading and causing players to turn around at the wrong moment or making teams squirrel after them. Crucially, however, this is true of most lights, and if you take something which is actually a threat (like a 7E Flea or an MPL Wolfhound or an SPL or LPPC/SL Firestarter) you can backstab more effectively and fight well in other circumstances.

These observations come from me playing the game a lot over the past few months at a relatively high level. You'll notice other players in Tier 1 will back this up. Again, if you run better builds, don't freak out, and shoot the stealth light, you'll come to the same conclusions.

Edited by pattonesque, 03 September 2021 - 08:53 AM.

[MechNexus]

Seelenlos, on 03 September 2021 - 05:18 AM, said:

By whom? You? You are PGI? You are part of the Calderon?
Very trumpsih approach!!!

This is not the basis and the level to discuss here!

Its all by guts and feelings not numbers and testing!

I was going to dig up earlier posts in the thread, but patton's most recent post sums it up nicely.

The truth is, a stealth mech takes a severe offensive hit in order to maintain it's cloak. The only loadout that can maintain full DPS is an exclusively ballistic loadout, which stealth lights (the main archetype you're having issues with) cannot use - barring Pirate's Bane, with just two ballistic hardpoints which doesn't equate to amazing damage potential.

So, when playing a stealth light, you're forced to either keep your armour on and take a huge DPS hit (something lights are already lacking in compared to assaults), or turn it off when a fight starts and sacrifice the primary benefit, making you vulnerable to lockons as well.

If you need to test this yourself, go grab Grinner and run 5MPL+stealth armour on it in testing. Note how quickly you hit redline with stealth on vs off, then note how long you have to wait between each alpha while redlining with stealth on vs off. Huge difference.

EDIT:
Whenever I see a stealth light on the horizon, I call it's position (grid square, angle of approach, landmark, something) in VOIP to ensure my team has the heads up. Communication is a hard counter to stealth.

Edited by MechNexus, 03 September 2021 - 09:06 AM.

[Commoners]

I will foolishly prioritize killing stealth lights not because they're a threat, but because I don't want them to drag the game on for another four minutes playing a pointless hide and seek when the rest of their team is dead and they're hopelessly outnumbered.

Kind of the same deal with trying to leg or side torso shadowcats and black lanners whenever I see them.

Edited by Commoners, 03 September 2021 - 01:56 PM.

[1453 R]

As a frequent Black lanner pilot, I take offense, sir. I. Take. Offense. DX. My Black Lanners are only ever the last 'Mech alive if the rest of my team is too stupid to live, literally. The Lanner is just about the most perfect pursuit/chaser 'Mech MWO has, people who chickendick in them and screw around not looking for a thousand chances a game to stick lasers up someone's exhaust port are not Black Lanner pilots, they're Black Lamer pilots. They do not deserve the afterburner-blasting jet fighter with feet they're sullying with their cowardly keister and should switch back to being the pointless LRM bloatboat assault their heart truly desires.

Black Lanner: Strike First, Strike Fast, Strike Frequently, or Strike Out.

Edited by 1453 R, 03 September 2021 - 05:52 PM.

[Elizander]

I'd definitely make space for it on my slower mechs that have a harder time tracking stealth lights. It's not like the scaling issues have been fixed. I still can't see a small mech at my big mech's feet.

[Seelenlos]

Elizander, on 03 September 2021 - 08:33 PM, said:

I'd definitely make space for it on my slower mechs that have a harder time tracking stealth lights. It's not like the scaling issues have been fixed. I still can't see a small mech at my big mech's feet.

There are a lot of pilots who like it, but most are scared by the nay-sayers!
And this forums is all about nay-sayers!

Nothing new, nothing progressive, always the old not working mechanics for only a few special-lovers and the big question at end:
"Why do we lose player-base ?"

Implementing the BHABP will not make the game bad, it is an UPGRADE! When didn't upgrades did not got things better ....hmmm let me remember.... ah 2015-2016 -> Windows 10 is shuich a suck -> FF 2021 --> Windows 11 is coming -> all people ask: "will there be a free upgrade from W10 ...

Must I say any empiric/non-empiric argument about upgrades ...

[pattonesque]

Seelenlos, on 04 September 2021 - 10:27 AM, said:

There are a lot of pilots who like it, but most are scared by the nay-sayers!
And this forums is all about nay-sayers!

Nothing new, nothing progressive, always the old not working mechanics for only a few special-lovers and the big question at end:
"Why do we lose player-base ?"

Implementing the BHABP will not make the game bad, it is an UPGRADE! When didn't upgrades did not got things better ....hmmm let me remember.... ah 2015-2016 -> Windows 10 is shuich a suck -> FF 2021 --> Windows 11 is coming -> all people ask: "will there be a free upgrade from W10 ...

Must I say any empiric/non-empiric argument about upgrades ...

playerbase always declines in the summer and is the highest it's been in August since 2018.

[Castigatus]

Seelenlos, on 04 September 2021 - 10:27 AM, said:

There are a lot of pilots who like it, but most are scared by the nay-sayers!
And this forums is all about nay-sayers!

Nothing new, nothing progressive, always the old not working mechanics for only a few special-lovers and the big question at end:
"Why do we lose player-base ?"

Implementing the BHABP will not make the game bad, it is an UPGRADE! When didn't upgrades did not got things better ....hmmm let me remember.... ah 2015-2016 -> Windows 10 is shuich a suck -> FF 2021 --> Windows 11 is coming -> all people ask: "will there be a free upgrade from W10 ...

Must I say any empiric/non-empiric argument about upgrades ...

No one ever said implementing the BHBAP would make the game worse, that's you putting words in people's mouths because you don't like being disagreed with.

What people have been saying is that the role the BHBAP fills in the BT lore and in the tabletop game is one that doesn't mean very much in MWO the arena mech shooter, that even if they could make its role more meaningful it's not something the game really needs, and that any time and effort required to implement it would be better spent elsewhere.

Not to mention the reason you gave for wanting it in the first place, to combat stealth armoured lights, has been shown to be based on a refusal to accept the principal problem lies with your gameplay and fitting choices rather than any sort of issue with stealth armour or the mechs that use it.

[1453 R]

Note: it's just "BHAP". Bloodhound Active Probe. Not Bloodhound Beagle Active Probe. Or Bloodhound Active Beagle Probe. Or Bloodhound Actively Probing Beagle.

...definitely not that last one, honestly.

Anyways. It's clear nobody's gonna make any headway here, the OP is basically in BSOD frothing-mouthed rant mode and refusing to listen to anything within hailing distance of reason. So. Shifting tracks here - how would you folks rejigger EW to make it more interesting and/or less one-sided?

My initial thought is that within the sensing range of a Beagle or Bloodhound probe, you get directional data for targets a'la a UAV, and you can detect targets through intervening cover without line of sight (though they still have to be in your frontal arc/field of view, so as to avoid Heartbeat Monitor nonsense and allow lights some hope). The thing also gives a big boost to target retention, so when you obtain an active lock you retain it no matter how much something circles you.

You'd probably have to push the range of both probes out some, 120/240 meters is nothing in MWO, but making the active probes active is a big one. Both devices would then be useful as scouting and information-gathering tools, rather than just a bunch of passive buffs to your passive sensors. And at that point, ECM could go back to being used as a means of foxing active probes rather than active probes being invented to defeat the equipment invented to defeat active probes. It wouldn't need to be as useful for stealth since its primary goal would be defeating enemy active detection gear, though frankly I don't see an issue with ECM reducing enemy detection range.

I could also see active probe gear increasing the range the unit mounting them can be detected at - you're easier to detect yourself when you've got an active probe blasting your surroundings with transmissions. Being able to equip both ECM and an active probe would be beneficial again, as the ECM could help deal with the AP's increased detection signature.

And since we'd be touching on EW and supporting equipment, we could fix TAG! I don't care that it'd make no sense for how laser designators work - TAG has a one-second burntime, and each tick that hits a target applies a stack of TAG'd to the target four times as long as the tick. Hit something with a full TAG 'burn', it's TAG'd for four seconds. No more face-staring at something with an incredibly visible laser telling the something and its entire team exactly where to find you. TAG it, go. The cooldown on the TAG unit could be tuned to allow the designator to keep one target TAG'd more or less indefinitely, and you could theoretically use quirks or skill nodes to increase the duration of the TAG effect. Either that or make TAG an actual laser designator and GET RID OF THE VISIBLE BEAM! Nobody in the history of ever has used a visible-light designator laser! ARGH!

...anyways. Anyone else have any neat ideas?

[LordNothing]

i think with having 2 sizes for each system and then make them complementary. like make is bap/clan lbap a range booster that comes with the side effect of increasing your radar signature. then make the bhp/clan bap better in the defensive space by giving you a smaller radar signature and providing a counter to ecm while being heavier. gecm can provide a a defensive effect to only your mech and provide a large counter radius while aecm can provide a large defensive bubble but little or no counter, or replace counter with a boosted mode that can buff your defensive radius while increasing your radar signature. tag should always break stealth the way a ppc does. and maybe borrowing the quasi-c3i implementation from mwll rather than free intel sharing would be a good idea.

Edited by LordNothing, 04 September 2021 - 09:55 PM.

[PocketYoda]

Seelenlos, on 04 September 2021 - 10:27 AM, said:

There are a lot of pilots who like it, but most are scared by the nay-sayers!
And this forums is all about nay-sayers!

Nothing new, nothing progressive, always the old not working mechanics for only a few special-lovers and the big question at end:
"Why do we lose player-base ?"

Implementing the BHABP will not make the game bad, it is an UPGRADE! When didn't upgrades did not got things better ....hmmm let me remember.... ah 2015-2016 -> Windows 10 is shuich a suck -> FF 2021 --> Windows 11 is coming -> all people ask: "will there be a free upgrade from W10 ...

Must I say any empiric/non-empiric argument about upgrades ...

You are screaming into the wind here man, too many people here don't want the game to change because they like it as it is in their favor.. You can even tell the light mech pilots..

Its all good i agree with you but as i said certain groups here butter each other up like deserts.. And attack anyone who disagrees with their little sphere of influence.

Wasting your time buddy.

[pattonesque]

MechaGnome, on 05 September 2021 - 04:57 AM, said:

You are screaming into the wind here man, too many people here don't want the game to change because they like it as it is in their favor.. You can even tell the light mech pilots..

Its all good i agree with you but as i said certain groups here butter each other up like deserts.. And attack anyone who disagrees with their little sphere of influence.

Wasting your time buddy.

You’ve complained about this in the past and have been told why stealth mechs aren’t particularly strong and how best to deal with them and your response has been “no” so give me a break dude.

Torso pitch rates have been buffed almost across the board for heavier mechs, as have mobility stats for many sluggish heavier mechs, which means it’s easier than ever to track and shoot light mechs. If you can’t do it at this point, it’s a you problem

[Seelenlos]

16:20 - 05.09.2021

Exactly NOW, I had a match where a Lacost not only was stealth, is also countered my ECM which i changed to Counter!!!
So the pilot not also was invisible, but he also disrupted an Counter-ECM!


THIS IS 2x ECM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

READ THAT, 2x ECM!!!

[VeeOt Dragon]

pattonesque, on 05 September 2021 - 05:21 AM, said:

You’ve complained about this in the past and have been told why stealth mechs aren’t particularly strong and how best to deal with them and your response has been “no” so give me a break dude.

Torso pitch rates have been buffed almost across the board for heavier mechs, as have mobility stats for many sluggish heavier mechs, which means it’s easier than ever to track and shoot light mechs. If you can’t do it at this point, it’s a you problem

actually even with the buffs lights can still hug your legs and take Zero fire from torso mounted weapons. (some mechs don't have arm weapons and some builds don't use them. not saying thats a bad thing honestly as i think not putting weapons in your arms if you can should have a downside in more restricted fire arcs.)

as for changing to needing C3 TC for shared targeting even as a lore hound i don't like the idea. mainly because no one would ever use one (people hate LRM using IDF so would likely not use C3 just for spite even if it cost 0 tons and took up no space) and there would be even less actual team play than the limited amount you do get.

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 05 September 2021 - 07:21 AM.

[pattonesque]

VeeOt Dragon, on 05 September 2021 - 07:19 AM, said:

actually even with the buffs lights can still hug your legs and take Zero fire from torso mounted weapons. (some mechs don't have arm weapons and some builds don't use them. not saying thats a bad thing honestly as i think not putting weapons in your arms if you can should have a downside in more restricted fire arcs.)

as for changing to needing C3 TC for shared targeting even as a lore hound i don't like the idea. mainly because no one would ever use one (people hate LRM using IDF so would likely not use C3 just for spite even if it cost 0 tons and took up no space) and there would be even less actual team play than the limited amount you do get.

Which mechs? This hasn't been my experience in an Atlas or Annihilator

[pattonesque]

Seelenlos, on 05 September 2021 - 06:21 AM, said:

16:20 - 05.09.2021

Exactly NOW, I had a match where a Lacost not only was stealth, is also countered my ECM which i changed to Counter!!!
So the pilot not also was invisible, but he also disrupted an Counter-ECM!


THIS IS 2x ECM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

READ THAT, 2x ECM!!!

look at the locust, shoot the locust, stop complaining about a locust which has purposefully made itself less powerful in order to be slightly more sneaky.

[VeeOt Dragon]

mostly Fleas and Locusts the really small lights. i was in my free Shadow Hawk (3 LPPC, 2 SRM-6 all torso high mounted) and i couldn't hit the locust that was hugging my shins. thankfully i put my back to a wall and tricked it into moving away enough to get a blast into it. it was a week or so ago so hard to remember exactly, i do thing i survived to then end of that match and we won. (also the Atlas has some low slung weapons. i think the same goes for the Annihilator but i can't remember as i don't have one, Annihilator just has to little mobility for my preferred play style. i'm more of a heavy mech player though i have been playing more Mediums after the last patch because those were mechs that got love that i actually own.)

[pattonesque]

I mean I dunno man, a Shadow Hawk should not have that problem

[1453 R]

Worth noting: the Bloodhound Active Probe will do exactly screw-all nada for dealing with shin-hugging. The answer for shin-hugging lights should, by all means, be the "Falcon Kick" button, but Piranha can't handle melee so ehh.

[VeeOt Dragon]

so true, nothing i would like more than to see an Altas Field Goal kick a Piranha half way across the map (then again as an IS FRR loyalist i most therefore hate on clanners as a rule). a flea or locust i would just stomp or better yet Ye' Olde Highlander Burial . (they are IS so deserve at least the respect of a proper burial at least)

as for my Shadow Hawk, those shots were just missing by a hairs breath, it was frustrating. it was a while ago so i might have been in another mech i do know i was running LPPC and missiles of some kind.

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 05 September 2021 - 10:52 AM.