107 replies to this topic

[KingCobra]

Bassault, on 02 September 2023 - 05:49 PM, said:

This is a very complicated issue. People like to play with their friends in groups. Removing that from people would be terrible. You aren't suggesting that, but the problem is that the population right now isn't large enough to support a group and a solo queue, so effectively, it probably would do this. I also would like more evidence that groups really carry games. I've seen some very bad groups that bring down a team as many times as I've seen groups of Div A players that stomp. I think groups can ruin matchmaking, in either direction. Either way, the biggest issue is that the population just isn't big enough for them to be split anymore, queue times would be tremendous.


This is a skill issue. Getting shot in the back is you not having situational awareness or you having poor positioning.



I think time to kill is really low right now simply because of the bug with binary lasers and the prominence of hags. The binary bug allows people to fire 3 without ghost heat, so some insane builds are out there. Unfortunately there are many builds that can use binaries with 1+hsl, so they will not be effected by this change, and they are very strong and probably are power creeping. I think we should at least investigate into removing these hsls.

Another alternative is something I've suggested for a very long time now. Nerfing lasers would make alphas lower or make big alphas less prominent, which means mechs will take longer to die and less "oh wow my CT was opened instantly" moments. As for your comments about movement, buffing agility even further would just promote even more lasers alpha vomit metas since ballistics suffer the more agile mechs become, and the only alternative for mid range besides ballistics is laservomit.

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Well as far as a new group que my suggestion would be start the GQ as a 8v8 if there are not enough players to fill a match have the MM drop it to a 6v6 then if there is not enough drop it to a 4v4 and drop into the battle. This way you could always have 8v8-4v4 battles dropping at fast rates to satisfy the group only player base and still retain both solo and team based ques.

As to nerfing laservomit or any meta would it not be easier and faster to change the server scripts for better armor and higher defensive skill attributes on all mechs? your right over the years power creep has been a huge problem to ttk I have seen good games that have lasted up to 5+ minutes and most lately under 2 minutes per match.

If I'm to blame on situational awareness why in 10+ years as a player have only been 1 shot a few times? this is different players know these weapons have the power to 1 shot kill fast and are changing their tactics to reflect this and exploiting their opportunities to get damage and kills and this issue is just not me alone I hear it on game coms all the time players complain about this issue.

[Bassault]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 06:31 PM, said:

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Well as far as a new group que my suggestion would be start the GQ as a 8v8 if there are not enough players to fill a match have the MM drop it to a 6v6 then if there is not enough drop it to a 4v4 and drop into the battle. This way you could always have 8v8-4v4 battles dropping at fast rates to satisfy the group only player base and still retain both solo and team based ques.

4v4 is a terrible idea imo, would be radically different than what we're used to in QP. But 8v8, that is a great idea. I'm not sure if it would be enough to fix the queue times but it sounds like a good idea.

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 06:31 PM, said:

As to nerfing laservomit or any meta would it not be easier and faster to change the server scripts for better armor and higher defensive skill attributes on all mechs? your right over the years power creep has been a huge problem to ttk I have seen good games that have lasted up to 5+ minutes and most lately under 2 minutes per match.

Adding more armor would just be ridiculous. It would effect every other weapon's interaction to radically. The solution isn't just add more armor over and over. MWO mechs already have double the health values of their TT counterparts. Many mechs already have generous armor quirks. Simply adding more armor is not a comprehensive solution. Nerfing lasers is, because lasers are the biggest culprit to having a low TTK since they don't spread much and they deal a lot of upfront damage so when you peek you suffer instantly.

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 06:31 PM, said:

If I'm to blame on situational awareness why in 10+ years as a player have only been 1 shot a few times? this is different players know these weapons have the power to 1 shot kill fast and are changing their tactics to reflect this and exploiting their opportunities to get damage and kills and this issue is just not me alone I hear it on game coms all the time players complain about this issue.

People have been using one-shot-to-the-back builds for years. Sneaky Snek runs an srm jenner that often one-shots unaware players. Many people run the black lanner and one-shot you with many heavy medium lasers. Clutch, the unit, often runs groups of Ice Ferrets to backstab people. Although they sometimes can get anyone, if you are frequently dying to this tactic it means you have a problem with situational awareness or you are incredibly unlucky. I cannot speak for your anecdotal experiences, but this is a general rule that has to be true, because many higher skilled players who play quickplay hardly run any rear armor, and they die less and win more games than the average person. Their situational awareness makes it so that they rarely get shot in the back.

[Saved By The Bell]

You still can do it:

[KingCobra]

Bassault, on 02 September 2023 - 06:44 PM, said:

4v4 is a terrible idea imo, would be radically different than what we're used to in QP. But 8v8, that is a great idea. I'm not sure if it would be enough to fix the queue times but it sounds like a good idea.


Adding more armor would just be ridiculous. It would effect every other weapon's interaction to radically. The solution isn't just add more armor over and over. MWO mechs already have double the health values of their TT counterparts. Many mechs already have generous armor quirks. Simply adding more armor is not a comprehensive solution. Nerfing lasers is, because lasers are the biggest culprit to having a low TTK since they don't spread much and they deal a lot of upfront damage so when you peek you suffer instantly.


People have been using one-shot-to-the-back builds for years. Sneaky Snek runs an srm jenner that often one-shots unaware players. Many people run the black lanner and one-shot you with many heavy medium lasers. Clutch, the unit, often runs groups of Ice Ferrets to backstab people. Although they sometimes can get anyone, if you are frequently dying to this tactic it means you have a problem with situational awareness or you are incredibly unlucky. I cannot speak for your anecdotal experiences, but this is a general rule that has to be true, because many higher skilled players who play quickplay hardly run any rear armor, and they die less and win more games than the average person. Their situational awareness makes it so that they rarely get shot in the back.

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Well, each player that posts have different ideas on how to solve MWO game play which is great for all of the player base which they could be solo, or team-based groups. I know your points have merit LOL I will have an eye exam to see if I'm going blind or just being too old to adapt.

I personally loved scouting mode in Faction play so my 8v8-4v4 game play would be great news for me as I could play GQ all the time and always switch to solo que whenever i wanted as for coms in group play we always used team speak or discord to chat and strategize during drops so i dont see a issue there as far as playing and chatting with friends during games.

Like I said groups in solo quick play are in fact exploiting it for kills and damage and kill stats by sync dropping more than 4 player each into battles that give them 5 players and not 4 in the que and also have other teammates on private coms team damaging teammates on their side to farm teams for damage and kills which is a violation of the MWO TOS a clear advantage in battles.

[KingCobra]

Saved By The Bell, on 02 September 2023 - 06:51 PM, said:

You still can do it:

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Nice vid bud reminds me of the old GQ or faction play back in the day with drop callers and players having fun )

[kalashnikity]

Saved By The Bell, on 02 September 2023 - 06:51 PM, said:

You still can do it:

Pacific Rim theme song was what pushed it over the top, :-)

I use an ECM Atlas with 2SNPPC, AC20, MRM 40 and a couple jump jets (you know which one, way to stealthy and jumpy to have any business being in this game) , and it is just sick. It doesn't one shot anything except the occasional Piranha, but what it does do hulk smash. I have a few other mechs with similar loadouts, the SNPPC/AC20/MRM(40-60) is a great combo. It's got enough heat management to alpha ~3 times, which will kill anything if you can land all the hits in the same place.

I was forced to develop this build style a few months ago, when the shenanigans began in earnest.

I have a Corsair build that is similar but I put an extra 4 LRM5 on it for more better fun. IIRC 2SNPPC, AC20, MRM30, 4LRM5

I played the Solaris games with the murder atlas a few days ago and it got boring, I was literally falling asleep while getting kill after kill, I only got killed 3 times in over an hour of playing it, I finally switched mechs and started leveling up new ones because of the boredom.

Well, the punch line is 2SNPPC/AC20/MRM40 builds are not a newly available thing, One of the only people to kill me in solaris (it was a close match, but I missed a couple of shots, so he won) commented that he was using the exact same build as me. It's a good build and lots of mechs can use it.

This "alpha power creep' stuff has readily available counters. Pop tart mediums PPFLD builds will absolutely give them a bad day. Put a couple of PPC on something fast and mobile and start peck away, peck, reposition often and as needed.

With that said, the nerfing of LRMS to satisfy the egos of "elite" Kaldron Bois, is BS. Istead of developing tactics to deal with lrmers, they just want to nerf the weapons that interfere with their desired play style.

What do you expect when the devs hand a comp team control of the game...

[Bassault]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 07:05 PM, said:

Like I said groups in solo quick play are in fact exploiting it for kills and damage and kill stats by sync dropping more than 4 player each into battles that give them 5 players and not 4 in the que and also have other teammates on private coms team damaging teammates on their side to farm teams for damage and kills which is a violation of the MWO TOS a clear advantage in battles.

Does this really happen? Do you have any proof? To be quiet honest I've never seen this happen before and I doubt it is very common.

[kalashnikity]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 10:26 AM, said:

I'm not a bad player in MWO but not close to the best player by far but for 10+ year I have had for the most part fun in this game. MWO was never for me the game I played for or even desired to play as most of us older MechWarrior 2-4 players expected an updated version of Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries with the MekTex Mod installed and everything updated with a new game engine.

We all paid in $5,000000 USD upfront, and we were all fooled and MWO was in fact a World of Tanks clone with Mech skins but this was the past and now MWO is becoming a game that I never wanted to play as it is obviously becoming a one shot kill game as some of these new weapons are so overpowered in 10+ years of MWO game play I have never been one-shot kill so much.

Plus adding teams into SOLO quick play to me has been a horrible experience as there abusing the system with sync dropping and farming teams for fun. Coordinated teams are fun to play on when there in their own MM Que and playing against each other in better balanced game play.

And I personally can tell you playing the same maps over and over each night is horrible PGI needs to get rid of map voting place all the MWO maps old and new and go back to Random map selection Ex least we could play some of the old and new maps each night of game play.

Also PGI has always decided their decisions about this games meta and features based on what the comp, Faction play and Devs and Cauldron wanted and very little of what the normal player base wants.

Now MWO has become a Bad E-SPORT version of WOT or War Thunder which are boring, and this game has become farther from its roots as a true MechWarrior game like Mechwarrior2-4 where and it is sad to see all of its potential wasted that only want an Arcade style one shot one kill game.

AS an Afterthought I can say well Russ you finally got the game you always wanted a clone of an FPS one shot one kill game that we used to play on the MekTek servers long ago with no strategy needed or defensive capabilities and repetitive game play.

P.S what's next? Russ your favorite game play style? NO HEAT UNLIMIED AMMO GAMEPLAY? that will be the end of MWO for sure. And thanks for no real social lobby system for 10+ years.

I must disagree with removing teams/groups. There is no better way to recruit new players than to be able to bring a friend with you into a match, as a team mate.

The recent team nerf of "two groups of 2" or "one group of 3 and one group of 3" or "one group of 4" really put a damper on recruiting, but I see your point.

But this game will finish dying if new players are not recruited, and the best way to recruit new players is... as stated, being able to find a friend willing to go into the game WITH you, so you can coach them and show them the ropes. Further limiting the ability to bring a battle buddy will finish this game off.


I'll concede that making it "groups of two only" but then allowing at 3 groups (or more) groups of 2 at one time (per side)would be a positive move, provided that unit tags are split into opposite groups.

[kalashnikity]

Bassault, on 02 September 2023 - 07:20 PM, said:

Does this really happen? Do you have any proof? To be quiet honest I've never seen this happen before and I doubt it is very common.

undoubtedly, but...

wait for it...

this is a...

Team Game

In my years playing I've noted that units normally get put on opposite sides,

And people in the units I played in on discord did not do any such thing. Since (being on opposite sides) we would mute comms until the match was over, and no quarter was given, if anything we would aggressively target out unit mates over others.

Maybe there are some teams with players willing to fall on their sword, but I haven't seen any. This is not the type of game that attracts betacucks.

[KingCobra]

Bassault, on 02 September 2023 - 07:20 PM, said:

Does this really happen? Do you have any proof? To be quiet honest I've never seen this happen before and I doubt it is very common.

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Yes, sir I could prove this, but would I be banned for it? most likely. I have many new and old teams and game friends on TeamSpeak and discord still that I visit and still play faction and group play in solo que at times from season 1 to now.
And you are right not all teams and players Agree this is a good way to play MWO.

Look under my name what do you see? Does it say member? no it says CLONE a title that Russ and staff gave me long ago as retribution on my account as well as nerfing my account on the server so I cannot do fully damage in battles or have the proper stats on my mechs resulting in faster deaths on this account and I can also prove this as well.

When I was making my own Mechwarrior 4 servers on Apache we cloned it and the source code which gave us the ability to do what I'm talking about as well as many aspects of how a game server and clients worked, we made many mods for Mechwarrior and other games.

But my objective is not to punish or have banned those few groups or players doing this it's to make PGI aware there is a problem and of course fix the issue for all of the MWO player base solo and groups.

[kalashnikity]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 07:40 PM, said:

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Yes, sir I could prove this, but would I be banned for it? most likely. I have many new and old teams and game friends on TeamSpeak and discord still that I visit and still play faction and group play in solo que at times from season 1 to now.
And you are right not all teams and players Agree this is a good way to play MWO.

Look under my name what do you see? Does it say member? no it says CLONE a title that Russ and staff gave me long ago as retribution on my account as well as nerfing my account on the server so I cannot do fully damage in battles or have the proper stats on my mechs resulting in faster deaths on this account and I can also prove this as well.

When I was making my own Mechwarrior 4 servers on Apache we cloned it and the source code which gave us the ability to do what I'm talking about as well as many aspects of how a game server and clients worked, we made many mods for Mechwarrior and other games.

But my objective is not to punish or have banned those few groups or players doing this it's to make PGI aware there is a problem and of course fix the issue for all of the MWO player base solo and groups.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm nerfed r/t LRM locks. I really feel there are times when people can not only lock onto me a lot faster than they should be able to, but also they are able to maintain locks a lot longer than they should, like 2 or 3 alphas after I dropped out of line of sight (yeah do the math, the lock should drop before another salvo is ready, I know they do when I am using LRMS), and no, there are no UAVs up or spotters who could see me under these suspicious circumstances. I routinely get hit with additional 2 salvos AFTER dropping out of line of site. I don't say this to ask for another LRM nerf, in fact I think LRMS should be buffed.

If you want to go one step further into tin foil hat land, there is a non-zero probability that this game is just a data mining op for future AI controlled kill bots, if an AI compiled all the data from these millions of matches, it would ahve a significant data set for possible outcomes and tactics.

Conspiracy theory has become conspiracy fact far too often in these last few years. So there is a non-zero probability I am right, and every match we play is being added to the AI, well, that is fact regardless of whether PGI (or their "international holding company's EGI score loving Board of Directors) is intentionally part of it.

Edited by kalashnikity, 02 September 2023 - 07:54 PM.

[KingCobra]

kalashnikity, on 02 September 2023 - 07:27 PM, said:

I must disagree with removing teams/groups. There is no better way to recruit new players than to be able to bring a friend with you into a match, as a team mate.

The recent team nerf of "two groups of 2" or "one group of 3 and one group of 3" or "one group of 4" really put a damper on recruiting, but I see your point.

But this game will finish dying if new players are not recruited, and the best way to recruit new players is... as stated, being able to find a friend willing to go into the game WITH you, so you can coach them and show them the ropes. Further limiting the ability to bring a battle buddy will finish this game off.


I'll concede that making it "groups of two only" but then allowing at 3 groups (or more) groups of 2 at one time (per side)would be a positive move, provided that unit tags are split into opposite groups.

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This is not about removing groups this is about giving them a better reason to play MWO in their own environment of game play to many times have i heard them say I hate playing in solo quick play with all these potato players with no skill? So, a GQ would enhance their experience in MWO like Faction play does when its more balanced game play.

I also blame PGI for long ago not making a social lobby system in MWO to recruit and train new players like the old MSN gaming Zone was I personally recruited 23 players in one night for our team GB using this tool by bringing players into our own team room chatting dropping into 1v1-4v4 battles to test and train new recruits.

Solo que was never intended for this and the MWO small chat system is not even a real viable system to use ether. PGI does have a private server drop system still I believe but charging for it was a total disaster from day one. Most players reading this will not truly understand my comments or know how the MSN gamming lobbies really worked and even today they are considered state of the art lobby systems for games.

[kalashnikity]

kalashnikity, on 02 September 2023 - 07:53 PM, said:

Sometimes I wonder if I'm nerfed r/t LRM locks. I really feel there are times when people can not only lock onto me a lot faster than they should be able to, but also they are able to maintain locks a lot longer than they should, like 2 or 3 alphas after I dropped out of line of sight (yeah do the math, the lock should drop before another salvo is ready, I know they do when I am using LRMS), and no, there are no UAVs up or spotters who could see me under these suspicious circumstances. I routinely get hit with additional 2 salvos AFTER dropping out of line of site. I don't say this to ask for another LRM nerf, in fact I think LRMS should be buffed.

If you want to go one step further into tin foil hat land, there is a non-zero probability that this game is just a data mining op for future AI controlled kill bots, if an AI compiled all the data from these millions of matches, it would ahve a significant data set for possible outcomes and tactics.

Conspiracy theory has become conspiracy fact far too often in these last few years. So there is a non-zero probability I am right, and every match we play is being added to the AI, well, that is fact regardless of whether PGI (or their "international holding company's EGI score loving Board of Directors) is intentionally part of it.

ETA: and I may have experienced my first cheater (aimbot) during the last solaris event. While I did get two cockpit kills during the event, (lucky PPFLD alphas) I got repeatedly hit in the cockpit in one match by another player until he got a head shot on me. The rest of my mech was pretty fresh. indicating he either had really good aim (plausible) or he was using an aimbot. To make matters interesting, I even had a head decal, with the atlas skull offset on my atlas to further reduce the probability, and I had full armor on my cockpit. I'm not going to say for sure, since I did get two headshots on atlases in one game a few years ago, but the countermeasures I use make it a lot less likely. Especially the offset decal.

[KingCobra]

kalashnikity, on 02 September 2023 - 07:53 PM, said:

Sometimes I wonder if I'm nerfed r/t LRM locks. I really feel there are times when people can not only lock onto me a lot faster than they should be able to, but also they are able to maintain locks a lot longer than they should, like 2 or 3 alphas after I dropped out of line of sight (yeah do the math, the lock should drop before another salvo is ready, I know they do when I am using LRMS), and no, there are no UAVs up or spotters who could see me under these suspicious circumstances. I routinely get hit with additional 2 salvos AFTER dropping out of line of site. I don't say this to ask for another LRM nerf, in fact I think LRMS should be buffed.

If you want to go one step further into tin foil hat land, there is a non-zero probability that this game is just a data mining op for future AI controlled kill bots, if an AI compiled all the data from these millions of matches, it would ahve a significant data set for possible outcomes and tactics.

Conspiracy theory has become conspiracy fact far too often in these last few years. So there is a non-zero probability I am right, and every match we play is being added to the AI, well, that is fact regardless of whether PGI (or their "international holding company's EGI score loving Board of Directors) is intentionally part of it.

===============================================================================================
Its possible but the easer solution to your post would be some players are still using the MWO wall hack that came out in season 3 and has been revised and updated by its creators for a USD cost download. MWO truly has very few 1-4 mods that have ever been made and have worked or have been updated by their creators after every patch.

P.S If you don't know how the wall exploit works for games you can research it yourself.

Edited by KingCobra, 02 September 2023 - 08:02 PM.

[KingCobra]

Well night all may the stompy robot gods give you luck in future battles GB_Ghostrider my real tag from Mechwarrior2-4

[kalashnikity]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 07:55 PM, said:

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This is not about removing groups this is about giving them a better reason to play MWO in their own environment of game play to many times have i heard them say I hate playing in solo quick play with all these potato players with no skill? So, a GQ would enhance their experience in MWO like Faction play does when its more balanced game play.

I also blame PGI for long ago not making a social lobby system in MWO to recruit and train new players like the old MSN gaming Zone was I personally recruited 23 players in one night for our team GB using this tool by bringing players into our own team room chatting dropping into 1v1-4v4 battles to test and train new recruits.

Solo que was never intended for this and the MWO small chat system is not even a real viable system to use ether. PGI does have a private server drop system still I believe but charging for it was a total disaster from day one. Most players reading this will not truly understand my comments or know how the MSN gamming lobbies really worked and even today they are considered state of the art lobby systems for games.

^^^ QFT

It feels like the devs have zero interest in building this game up, ~12 years now of "mistakes", this game started with a player base of over 100,000 active players, the graphs show a steady decline of time.

There are numerous models they could copy loosely or directly, from actually successful games. I've mentioned World of Warcraft a few times on the forum, it's a wildly successful game with it's roots in the same type of systems, RPG/RNG based table top game.

Clan v.s IS could easily be copied form the "Horde vs. Alliance" format of WoW, where there are PVP capture of maps/areas, (like Wintergrasp, for instance) which could be directly and easily implemented. And PVE missions could easily be implemented, or a combination. We have very minimal PVE in this game, the old Atlas escort is one, but only turrets and maybe drop ships in game currently.

There are only two main possibilities I can think of, either

1- the people who run this game don't care about making money from the player base, since the actual main funding comes from the intelligence community (tin foil hat time) or EGI score bonuses.

Or more likely 2. the people who run this game are too narcissistic to admit they made mistakes, and too narcissistic to listen to the player base.

Edited by kalashnikity, 02 September 2023 - 08:26 PM.

[kalashnikity]

KingCobra, on 02 September 2023 - 08:00 PM, said:

===============================================================================================
Its possible but the easer solution to your post would be some players are still using the MWO wall hack that came out in season 3 and has been revised and updated by its creators for a USD cost download. MWO truly has very few 1-4 mods that have ever been made and have worked or have been updated by their creators after every patch.

P.S If you don't know how the wall exploit works for games you can research it yourself.

Interesting, I was not aware of anything beyond the fact that, in a few maps there are a few buildings that one can partially see through at the right angle/spot. I have used that fact a handful of times to predict when to fire a shot, but my brain is not good enough (or I don't care enough) to memorize those spots or make repeated use of it. It's just an opportunistic thing for me. Like I know there are ways to get inside a few buildings in Solaris City, but I don't have them memorized, nor do I use that to my advantage.

I was unaware of the mod(s) related to wall hacking. I have heard of aimbots, but never personally seen one while spectating. After that Solaris event I do (finally) suspect that some people may be using such an aimbot mod, but maybe they just have crazy good skills, such people do exist. I know I have occasionally made shots that could make people scream "aimbot", I don't have access to the stats that would tell me more, but if a person is getting a high percentage of head shots on fast moving/far away targets I would question it.

Edited by kalashnikity, 02 September 2023 - 08:27 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

As someone who wasn't sold the initial pitch of MWO, I can't share the same pain of any founder who was disappointed with the final product. But I know it's easy to market and to promise, it's hard to actually deliver, and that is why I am wary of giving money on anything but a complete product, and why it's contentious for me to pay for a game that is still being actively developed -- even if it is still getting attention.

I guess what I am saying is to keep your expectations in check, and you won't be that disappointed.

[MrMadguy]

Weeny Machine, on 02 September 2023 - 12:51 PM, said:

2. Light mechs - apart from the tiny mechs like 20-25t the 30-35t mechs are too big and easily hit. However, that is not enough, the turning was nerfed with the resizing while the heavies and assaults turn like fat ballerinas. It is extremely hard or even next to impossible to stay out of their firing arc for a meaningful time

My idea - in order to be balanced, Lights should have size, that is proportional to fire power, they can carry. If 'Mech can fit 20 MGs, then it should have medium size. Because, you know, if you prefer stealth actions - then you just play wrong game. You shouldn't be 100% invulnerable. We should have at least 1% chance to hit you.

Lights/Mediums are already way too overpowered. I had 2 weird matches 2 days ago. First Hunchback simply chewed my legs, while they had 172HP. Wasn't it easier to chew my CT, that had ~100HP? And then it was fully CT and ST red cored Nova, that survived several MRM40+4xML point blank hits.

[martian]

Bassault, on 02 September 2023 - 04:57 PM, said:

[Brawling weapons] ... Because they usually weigh a lot less, so brawlers can have more weapons that are tonnage efficient, and these weapons always out DPS longer ranged weapons of the same tonnage.

Clan sniping weapons
Clan Gauss Rifle - 12 tons, 6 slots
Clan ER Large laser - 4 tons, 1 slot

Clan brawling weapons
Clan UAC-20 - 12 tons, 8 slots
Clan LBX-20 - 12 tons, 9 slots
Clan HLL - 4 tons, 3 slots

So no, brawling weapons do not weigh "a lot less". They weigh exactly the same, while sniping weapons need less slots that can be used for additional sniping weapons or equipment.

And when you finally get to that sniper in your battered brawling 'Mech, you are facing a fresh Daishi whose pair of Gauss Rifles hits almost as hard as a pair of brawling Class 20 cannons.

Also, while you were busy attempting to close in to that sniper, you actually did not contribute much to your team's effort, while that sniping enemy assault dished out the damage every few seconds, thus contributing to the enemy team's effort very significantly.