325 replies to this topic

[KursedVixen]

C337Skymaster, on 29 August 2023 - 12:55 AM, said:

I do remember there being combat waves as an option in there. You stand where the turrets are, but walk into a different beam of light (I wonder when they removed the floating letters?) and waves of progressively heavier 'mechs come running in from the sea at you. I think they shoot, too. I feel like I got shot by a Thor as part of doing that, but it's entirely possible it was just a Thunderbolt. It's been a hot minute.

Also, PGI has never released an Omnimech variant if it can be built in-game, already. I don't think they see the point of duplicating omni hardpoints.

For example, I've got four or five KFX-Primes, because they build the -A, -B, -F, -K, (prime, obviously), and can use the arms to build the -W and -J.

i think that's the shooting gallery the problem with that is you just shoot mechs once there's no feedback other than the range you hit them at i want to see damage output.

Well we started with like some basic config/variants and added more... Like i don't remember having e's and stuff and I bought the packs so I didn't have some of the mechs which means they added more. there was also the BH for the timber.

Edited by KursedVixen, 29 August 2023 - 06:18 AM.

[Tarteso]

KursedVixen, on 28 August 2023 - 10:14 AM, said:

hey tier 1 person see what happens when you act like a pompous snob?

Dear friend: no sarcasm here, but a genuine wake up call for PGI, if they are interested in player retention

[smokefield]

Void Angel, on 28 August 2023 - 12:52 PM, said:

'Mech sizes are a balance issue, but remember where we came from to get to the current scaling. Lights were hardmode for a long time. It's the whole format thing again; you can only get so far with Lights with tabletop-based characteristics when you're not playing a game format where one player controls mutiple 'mechs, with balance constructed on a force-on-force basis. In other words, with MWO's team structure, you have to let Lights be formidable, where in Tabletop, your Locust was simply not threatening an Atlas by itself. And really, it doesn't in MWO either - ask me how I know. But all Light 'mechs are more powerful than they would be in a tabletop simulator, because they have to be.

OK, back to the history: Lights were hands-down the hardest and least effective 'mechs to play for most of MWO's history. Gauss Rifles have low heat, but they're heavy. Other ballistics are hotter, but still cooler for the damage than energy weapons. The balance mechanics are interlinked, not always perfectly - but when translated into a shooter format, a balance mechanic completely absent from the tabletop games was implemented: target size.

So Lights were getting hammered all across the battlefield, because they couldn't compete with the armament of bigger 'mechs, and their speed alone wasn't making up for that shortfall. The rescale helped most Lights a lot, and the quirk system did more for them. We could argue (in another thread) for a long time about how well they're balanced as-is, but scaling Lights "correctly" (i.e. making them bigger) has already been done. It wasn't pretty.

C337Skymaster, on 28 August 2023 - 01:57 PM, said:

So while all of that is true, one other thing is also true: Scale has not been readdressed since Engine Desync, and that overhaul made some 'mechs much more maneuverable than they were when their size was set, and some 'mechs much less maneuverable than they were, originally. Fleas, at the moment, are tiny, compared to their power and their peers. On the other end of the scale, the poor Executioner, once able to dance away damage, is now a plodding mass like the rest of its brethren, but head and shoulders above any of them.

Valid points...if you think just in the past.

currently lights are not balanced.

and the reason that they "need" to be competitive vs other categories does not hold any weight. they are a support mech or a scout mech. not a fight one. that's one of the reasons the games gets wrong the balance, cause at the core mechs had differet roles on the battlefield, but in MWO people wanted mechs to be equal. and since we dont have anything else bar this stupid QP and FP modes...there is no point in wanting anything else.

[KursedVixen]

Tarteso, on 29 August 2023 - 08:38 AM, said:

Dear friend: no sarcasm here, but a genuine wake up call for PGI, if they are interested in player retention

sorry I had a bad interaction with a tier one person who was full of himself... I'm just irratated too so alot of stuff going on. people need to be more helpful...

[Der Geisterbaer]

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

Valid points...if you think just in the past.

Are you certain that you aren't the one "thinking in the past" or rather "the wrong game and an incorrect understanding of that game" ?

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

currently lights are not balanced.

"Not balanced" in what sense? If you are suggesting that they are too powerful: Why are Lights the least played weight class, with the lowest average damage / score per match (which leads pages like jarl's list to mathematically correct their stats to even become comparable)?

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

and the reason that they "need" to be competitive vs other categories does not hold any weight.

So far you made three claims with zero arguments and the first one is deeply rooted in a fallacy. I'll hold it with Christopfer Hitchens there: That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

they are a support mech or a scout mech.

In a team death match FPS shooter like MW:O there are no "support" / "scout" mechs and even in original Battletech (both in terms of Lore and the actual table top game) Lights were not exclusively limited to these roles => You're wrong.

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

not a fight one.

Ambushing and skirmishing are "fighting" roles that many Lights are assigned. => You're still wrong in that two parted fouth claim

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

that's one of the reasons the games gets wrong the balance, cause at the core mechs had differet roles on the battlefield,

Which you don't actually seem to know.

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

but in MWO people wanted mechs to be equal.

The game's setup / design actually necessitated that and the overall weak spot of Lights now is actually a remnant of PGI originally following your (incorreect) line of thought and had to change it.

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

and since we dont have anything else bar this stupid QP and FP modes...there is no point in wanting anything else.

Well, then all your claims so far are rather useless.

[martian]

smokefield, on 29 August 2023 - 09:23 AM, said:

Valid points...if you think just in the past.

currently lights are not balanced.

and the reason that they "need" to be competitive vs other categories does not hold any weight. they are a support mech or a scout mech. not a fight one. that's one of the reasons the games gets wrong the balance, cause at the core mechs had differet roles on the battlefield, but in MWO people wanted mechs to be equal. and since we dont have anything else bar this stupid QP and FP modes...there is no point in wanting anything else.

You are wrong.

Many light 'Mechs of the BattleTech universe were designed with the direct combat use in mind:

• UrbanMech - designed for city-fighting
  
• Jenner - designed as close-range fighter
  
• Solitaire - light 'Mech designed to threaten even assault 'Mechs
  
• Mjolnir - light 'Mech designed around a weapon system
  
• etc.

You can find combat-oriented light 'Mechs in all BattleTech eras. Not every light 'Mech must be like the stock tabletop Raven or Ostscout.



As for MWO, the game is advertised as "a tactical, 'Mech-based online shooter". See? "Shooter" ... And people play this game to shoot other 'Mechs.

Since the very beginning of MWO, light 'Mechs have been used in direct combat. May I remind you that when PGI was choosing the four original Founders 'Mechs, the light 'Mech chosen was the Jenner? Combat-oriented light 'Mech carrying lasers and SRMs?

Depriving light 'Mechs of their combat ability would mean that there would be no reason to take them because they would not be viable in MWO.

Thus, you are wrong on both counts: You do not understand the role of light 'Mechs in BattleTech and you do not understand the role of light 'Mechs in MWO.

[smokefield]

u ok man? chill out dont get a heart attack...

[JumpingHunter]

Void Angel, on 28 August 2023 - 12:52 PM, said:

'Mech sizes are a balance issue, but remember where we came from to get to the current scaling. Lights were hardmode for a long time. It's the whole format thing again; you can only get so far with Lights with tabletop-based characteristics when you're not playing a game format where one player controls mutiple 'mechs, with balance constructed on a force-on-force basis. In other words, with MWO's team structure, you have to let Lights be formidable, where in Tabletop, your Locust was simply not threatening an Atlas by itself. And really, it doesn't in MWO either - ask me how I know. But all Light 'mechs are more powerful than they would be in a tabletop simulator, because they have to be.

OK, back to the history: Lights were hands-down the hardest and least effective 'mechs to play for most of MWO's history. Gauss Rifles have low heat, but they're heavy. Other ballistics are hotter, but still cooler for the damage than energy weapons. The balance mechanics are interlinked, not always perfectly - but when translated into a shooter format, a balance mechanic completely absent from the tabletop games was implemented: target size.

So Lights were getting hammered all across the battlefield, because they couldn't compete with the armament of bigger 'mechs, and their speed alone wasn't making up for that shortfall. The rescale helped most Lights a lot, and the quirk system did more for them. We could argue (in another thread) for a long time about how well they're balanced as-is, but scaling Lights "correctly" (i.e. making them bigger) has already been done. It wasn't pretty.

While you are right about lights being hard mode in MWO for a long time, light mechs are actually supposed to be a hard mode for pilots in direct combat, both canonically and logically. There is a reason why light mechs were used as a fast scouts, or as anit-personnel weapons, or as a very fast but underarmored flankers/strikers, but not as just straight up fighters in TT and in older Mechwarrior games. They actually are the hard mode in direct fight, in exchange for being better at fullfilling other battlefield jobs, like scouting, spotting, finishing off heavily damaging targets and dealing with infantry.

It's just that MWO can't handle the things that light mechs were supposed to do, cannot give us proper info warfare with lights being best BAP, ECM and other sensor stuff carriers, can't give us proper scouting action with proper CBills and XP rewards, which are basically the primary things that lights are supposed to do, cannot give us interesting base defense mode (i would love to see a gamemode for QP that would allow us to reenact the "Operation Bulldog" short animation - with light mech in the protagonist role, mind you), and some other things that would make MWO more friendly to lights NOT by making them comparable with assaults and heavies in terms of survivability and firepower, but by giving them the job that they actually can do, and were supposed to do in a first place. AMS carriers, control point or base cappers, flag/important asset carriers - anything that can be done without bringing up insane armor or insane firepower. Lights are horrifically overquirked and overarmored while being undersized and while having issues with hit registration because of speed - they stack every benefit that they can squeeze out of MWO, and it's not right.

Lights were a hardmode in MWO for a long time simply because PGI refused to add any activity that canonical proper light mechs were supposed to be an easy mode in. Not because they JUST were not supposed to be in a first person simulator real time game in a first place.

Even if i am wrong about them having no jobs that they could do without being as strong as they are right now, they are definitely not supposed to be an easy mode for fignting, like they are now sometimes.

Edited by JumpingHunter, 29 August 2023 - 01:01 PM.

[JumpingHunter]

Der Geisterbaer, on 29 August 2023 - 10:19 AM, said:

Well, then all your claims so far are rather useless.

Your claims that lights being comparable with heavies and assaults by firepower and armor while also being 2-3 times faster and having hitreg screwed 50 times over on them is completely ok in FPS game are also useless too then.

Here is a useful suggestion - make a tonnage limit for the teams and let players pick mechs after the map is selected, like it is in Faction Play, and THEN make light mechs actually be not overbuffed and closer to their canonical design, and then give them, lets say, 2 times more XP and CBills rewards for everything, like how frontline Landsknechts got 2 times more money for being at the risk all the time.

Lights were supposed to be a hard mode in fighting, so why not make them generously payed hard mode, instead of overbuffing them over any common sense.

[JumpingHunter]

martian, on 29 August 2023 - 10:56 AM, said:

Depriving light 'Mechs of their combat ability would mean that there would be no reason to take them because they would not be viable in MWO.

Now you are wrong too. It would not make them not viable if PGI would make them better for performing jobs that don't require direct face-to-face combat that they simply should not logically be able to withstand. Info Warfare, better base captures, control point captures, capture the flag gamemode, any consumables that send in some infantry or lighter vehicles, anythng that will give lights some job to do and to get pain for while heavier mechs are beating the sh!t out of each other. And when control ponint is captured and lighter vehicles are blown up, lights can go and suddenly strike down beaten-up assault or heavy mech from behind. Suddenly, and after their main job is done. And not just go in, take no damage because of hitreg, zoom behind painfully slow assault and blow it to peaces in one or two super overquirked alphastrikes.

Besides, i think that majority of complaints about light mechs are not about those that were in game from the start. Jenner if very much fine, in fact i don't see it on battlefields that much anhymore, because everyone are using horrifically overquirked or just overbuffed in general machines like piranha, mist lynx, courgar with its insane RoF, arctic cheetah, and other that bring a large number of antiperssonnel weapons that for some reason drill through armor better than anti armor PPFLD weapons. That's where all the complaints are coming from, not about proper fighter lights like jenner, panther, wolfhound, raven or others.

[Void Angel]

JumpingHunter, on 29 August 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

light mechs are actually supposed to be a hard mode for pilots in direct combat, both canonically and logically.

Incorrect on both counts. First, because tabletop and fluff canon doesn't apply to this game format. You can't have a 'mech that simply cannot perform in combat when combat is the whole game. Your second point is wrong for the same reason.

I'm not going to bother to quote individual/entire posts because that wastes people's time and clogs posts... but man. You've got your head on exactly backwards here. Lights are not equivalent to Heavies and Assaults in either survivability or firepower. They can't go toe to toe with those 'mechs, and shouldn't be able to do so - what they can do is leverage their mobility to harass heavier elements while dealing enough damage that the enemy needs to pay attention to them. This is a good thing.

Hit registration issues happen - but the idea that they happen enough that Lights "take no damage" is a fantasy, and shows that you don't spend enough time in Light cockpits to know what you're talking about very well. That conclusion tracks with your assessment of 'mech effectiveness. For example, at my level, I never see a Jenner. Once in a blue moon, maybe - but the thing is huge for its tonnage and doesn't carry near enough firepower to make up for its hit boxes. Cougars are not unknown, but they're not exactly dominating the battlefield either. Some Lights may be overquirked, or undersized; Urbanmechs come to mind. But if you go into the game and mouse over the Quickplay button, Light 'mechs will not be dominating the match queue. There's a reason for that.

Your assertion that Lights should be rebalanced to take advantage of game mechanics that don't actually exist is nonsensical. I wouldn't dignify it with a response, except that it illustrates a real problem with your reasoning. You're not actually criticizing game balance here. You're wishing that the game was dramatically different than it is, and affecting to be concerned with balance.

If you want your analysis to be taken seriously, go pilot some Lights and maybe stop insisting that big guns are "anti-armor," or that Machine Guns are "antipersonnel" weapons in Battletech - when they have always damaged 'mech armor, were present when the game didn't include any infantry, and still damage 'mechs to this day, so far as I know. That novel you read one time doesn't trump what the actual game entails.

PS: "Let them take inferior 'mechs so they can get double the c-bills for losing" is not as useful a suggestion as you might believe.

Edited by Void Angel, 29 August 2023 - 04:09 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

Der Geisterbaer, on 29 August 2023 - 10:19 AM, said:

"Not balanced" in what sense? If you are suggesting that they are too powerful: Why are Lights the least played weight class, with the lowest average damage / score per match (which leads pages like jarl's list to mathematically correct their stats to even become comparable)?

Reason #1 that light 'mechs are the least played 'mechs in the game: they are the least numerous 'mechs in the game. If every 'mech received exactly the same quantity of playtime, lights would be the least played 'mechs in the game, because there are the least number of them, and by a substantial margin.

Going to the profile page and sorting solely by weight class we get:
Lights: 182
Mediums: 276
Heavies: 275
Assaults: 289

So Lights can't help but be played the least, even with the ever elusive "perfect balance" achieved.

As for lowest average damage: I feel as though that's averaging Tier 5 with Tier 1. In Tier 4 where I am, and Tier 3, where I've been, and Tier 1, where I was before the PSR reset, Lights frequently outperform assaults for raw damage numbers. Overall, apart from your one or two meta outliers (8x LBX/2 DWF, for example), Assaults tend to be the least damage dealing 'mechs in most of the matches I play.

In the words of everyone's favorite 'mech combat trainer: "In battlemech combat, speed is life. You go slow, you die". Tier 5 is the home of everyone learning the game who may have never played any previous MechWarrior title, before. It's the home of everyone who's taking in the sights and seeing what's what, learning their way around, etc. And thus, Tier 5 is the home of the light 'mechs that stand still and stare while they line up a shot.

Conversely, most Tier 1 light 'mech pilots are capable of using their 'mech's size, speed, and hitreg issues to prevent themselves from taking any damage or losing any components, internal or external. I have personally seen a Flea get 1500+ dmg in QP, and have heard of one achieving 1900 dmg in QP.

For these reasons, I don't especially trust the statistics in either Tier 1 or Tier 5 to be wholly representative of the 'mech, so much as they're representative of the pilots in those tiers, and unless you can give statistics which only cover Tiers 2, 3, and 4, I'm going to be suspicious of the results, "average" or not. (The median statistic might be more representative than the mean, because if we've got 100 pilots in Tier 5 for every one pilot in Tier 1, it's going to skew the results down).

Edited by C337Skymaster, 29 August 2023 - 06:53 PM.

[Lionheart2012]

Hi folks. My proposal to make X-pulse more effective, increase heat scale limit. Mediums to 7 or 8. Larges to 4.

Nerf HAGs to slower cooldown and greater spread.

[KursedVixen]

Lionheart2012, on 29 August 2023 - 07:19 PM, said:

Hi folks. My proposal to make X-pulse more effective, increase heat scale limit. Mediums to 7 or 8. Larges to 4.

Nerf HAGs to slower cooldown and greater spread.

So you want to totally break the balance and make IS just straight out OP?

No Hags are fine

BInary cannon will get it's GH fixed and X-pulse will be modified somehow.

Edited by KursedVixen, 30 August 2023 - 08:24 AM.

[McGosy]

What a nice patch!
I`m not done testing all the mech quirk changes but those look very good. Ihave a lot fun rearranging some Phoenix Hawks and Gargoyles atm. It all seems fine and testing other loadouts id fun time. There is only 1 change i think it`s lill overpowered. The PHX-3S -20% Laser Heat quirk is too much imo. It halfes the heatcap on PHX using LL/BLC. Due to new Binary Laser Cannon it should do better maybe way better on this variant too, but double the dmg output on LL range is too much imo, maybe u can reduce it to -10% Laser Heat and give it something else if u feel so, there is other than energy hardpoints which could make this variant a fun mech.

Thank You for redesigning of the minimaps "Domination Zone", it`s good to use!
Scrapyard`s visibility is way better, and compareable to most other maps.

The new LGD mechs appears to be fun, just the combination of giga ammo quirk and 6 missile hardpoints on the LGD-Viper is too crazy imo, the different quirk-levels for SO4/6/8 are interessting.
All new weapons need some balance, but those all show great potential to be a good and fun add to mwo`s weaponary, thank You!
Please be more carefull with typing numbers in future. GH3 settings for Binaries is fun atm, but will produce a lot of crying if u take it away again soon. it`s obviously overpowered and ppl are wasting hours in mechlab to build obsolete mechs:(, i just can hope the reroll will work out smooth.

Thanks for all the upgrades°°7

[martian]

JumpingHunter, on 29 August 2023 - 01:10 PM, said:

Now you are wrong too. It would not make them not viable if PGI would make them better for performing jobs that don't require direct face-to-face combat that they simply should not logically be able to withstand. Info Warfare, better base captures, control point captures, capture the flag gamemode, any consumables that send in some infantry or lighter vehicles, anythng that will give lights some job to do and to get pain for while heavier mechs are beating the sh!t out of each other. And when control ponint is captured and lighter vehicles are blown up, lights can go and suddenly strike down beaten-up assault or heavy mech from behind. Suddenly, and after their main job is done. And not just go in, take no damage because of hitreg, zoom behind painfully slow assault and blow it to peaces in one or two super overquirked alphastrikes.

Those things that you described (consumables calling in infantry or light vehicles, etc.) have never been in MechWarrior Online and almost certainly they will never be. Thus, it would be a nonsense to balance light 'Mechs with the respect to such scenarios.

As I said, in the current MWO light 'Mechs must be able to kill enemy 'Mechs. Nobody would buy and pilot light 'Mechs geared towards situations that can not happen in MWO.

JumpingHunter, on 29 August 2023 - 01:10 PM, said:

Besides, i think that majority of complaints about light mechs are not about those that were in game from the start. Jenner if very much fine, in fact i don't see it on battlefields that much anhymore, because everyone are using horrifically overquirked or just overbuffed in general machines like piranha, mist lynx, courgar with its insane RoF, arctic cheetah, and other that bring a large number of antiperssonnel weapons that for some reason drill through armor better than anti armor PPFLD weapons. That's where all the complaints are coming from, not about proper fighter lights like jenner, panther, wolfhound, raven or others.

How often do you pilot light 'Mechs? I guess you do not spend too much time using them in MWO.

If you wish to complain that light 'Mechs are OP and should be nerfed, the right thread is here: Light Mechs Are Screwed Up

As a heavy or Assault 'Mech player, you can kill or cripple them with one shot.

And by the way, thanks for giving me a good laugh. This is the "horrifically overquirked and overarmored" PIR-1 Piranha:



This "overquirked" 20-tonner has one Operations quirk. The "overarmored" Piranha can carry massive ... 138 points of armor and those additional armor quirks make no big difference in the battle. Not in the game where 50-point alpha strikes are nothing unusual.

[Void Angel]

C337Skymaster, on 29 August 2023 - 04:57 PM, said:

Reason #1 that light 'mechs are the least played 'mechs in the game: they are the least numerous 'mechs in the game. If every 'mech received exactly the same quantity of playtime, lights would be the least played 'mechs in the game, because there are the least number of them, and by a substantial margin.

Going to the profile page and sorting solely by weight class we get:
Lights: 182
Mediums: 276
Heavies: 275
Assaults: 289

So Lights can't help but be played the least, even with the ever elusive "perfect balance" achieved.

As for lowest average damage: I feel as though that's averaging Tier 5 with Tier 1. In Tier 4 where I am, and Tier 3, where I've been, and Tier 1, where I was before the PSR reset, Lights frequently outperform assaults for raw damage numbers. Overall, apart from your one or two meta outliers (8x LBX/2 DWF, for example), Assaults tend to be the least damage dealing 'mechs in most of the matches I play.

Your logic is wrong on the first point: it really doesn't matter how many chassis are available in a weight class, since players are going to develop their favorites and play those more often than not. Wanting to play every 'mech equally is going to be a pretty niche, compulsive habit - possibly such a person should seek help.

Damage in your matches seems like a skill floor issue with Tier 4. With Tier 4 matches, you're going to see T2 pilots tackle T5 Assaults, and those Assaults will generally not know how to maneuver. Tier 1 matches do not normally feature Lights outdamaging assaults today.

[Ralph Edwards]

So is there something planned to allow HAG the bonus it is supposed to receive from targeting computers?

[C337Skymaster]

Void Angel, on 30 August 2023 - 01:32 PM, said:

Your logic is wrong on the first point: it really doesn't matter how many chassis are available in a weight class, since players are going to develop their favorites and play those more often than not. Wanting to play every 'mech equally is going to be a pretty niche, compulsive habit - possibly such a person should seek help.

Damage in your matches seems like a skill floor issue with Tier 4. With Tier 4 matches, you're going to see T2 pilots tackle T5 Assaults, and those Assaults will generally not know how to maneuver. Tier 1 matches do not normally feature Lights outdamaging assaults today.

It actually does matter how many 'mechs are available in a weight class when making a statistical comparison, because everyone's favorites will be different, and over a large enough sample size, will eventually even out. When's the last time you saw a QP match that was 24 Timber Wolves all duking it out? The closest I've seen is about 10 of the same 'mech for two weeks after a brand new one is added to the game. Thereafter, 'mech frequency evens out considerably.

The number of available chassis will influence the total amount of absolute time (in seconds, minutes, hours, whatever unit you want to use) that class of 'mech gets played in comparison to its peers.

There's 653 unique chassis when you filter for standards and heroes (filtering out duplicates). If there are 653 players in MWO, everyone will have a different favorite 'mech, and all the 'mechs will be played exactly evenly, call it 60 minutes per day.

When you sum up the total time in each weight class, Lights come up short, because they don't have as many 'mechs with which to accumulate time played.

Now 653 players is an incredibly small sample size for this to be true, but as the sample size increases, this becomes a more and more accurate generalization.

As for your second point, you and I are saying the same thing: Tier 5 performance is a reflection on the pilots, not on the 'mechs. The same goes for Tier 1. Tiers 2 through 4 are where you'll see a more accurate representation of how the 'mechs fare against each other.

[Void Angel]

You're making huge assumptions that are not factually true. The math is simple: players do not select things they like at random. They select them based on their own subjective criteria, but those criteria are weighted by how well the 'mech in question actually performs for them. You don't see an even distribution of available 'mechs in any weight class. You, personally don't; I don't; no one does. Because the 'mechs aren't all created equal. If you see someone piloting a Battlemaster 1D today, that person is a masochist - take it from a Phoenix Project owner. The handful of high weapon mounts are offset by the 'mech's unfortunate architecture. So while it's fun to have a RAC that never jams, the chassis just isn't the equal of a Stalker, which carries similar loadouts in the same weight class, but does literally everything better. This will push players against playing certain 'mechs, so the assumption that people are going to pick 'mechs by some kind of stochastic variation isn't valid, and your reasoning falls apart after that.

You're not saying the same thing that I am in the second point either. 'Mechs shouldn't be balanced to shore up weak player skills (like with Mages in WoW.) They should be balanced against the performance of players who have achieved general competence in MWO. A Tier 4 who hasn't developed the skills to maneuver his Assault (not to mention possible marksmanship deficiencies) fighting a Tier 2 Light pilot abusing a meta build to farm that poor semi-newbie just isn't a good measure of relative balance. You need to be looking at matches between T1-T3 players for a truer picture of how the 'mechs fare against each other.

Edited by Void Angel, 31 August 2023 - 01:29 PM.