152 replies to this topic

[Eidoloth]

And?

[GreyNovember]

GETREKT4K, on 27 February 2025 - 07:11 PM, said:

And?

Being blunt, this actively detracts from the claims that the mech is broken.

Because if the prior claims were true, you'd have shot volley after volley into me as I limply crested the hill, doing substantially less damage than expected as I wiggled my small lasers at you from beyond effective range.

I exploded the minute people actually turned around, saw there was a legged light mech, and shot at it.

[Flash Riprock]

Meep Meep, on 27 February 2025 - 10:40 AM, said:

Been watching a few streams where said streamer is used to rolling out in something large and menacing and collecting heads and salt. These certain streamers are not very happy with the state of affairs atm. Not so much about the fire moth directly but more of how its the straw that broke the big meany face mech metas back. They can no longer reliably roll out in a doom splat assault and get 600+ match score and their 'agency' has been dramatically reduced. This segment wants a general nerfageddon across the board to bring back balance to the force. I've got my popcorn waiting.

Exactly this.

There is no "light mech problem" and there is no "assault mech problem".

The problem is lack of cohesive team play. An assault should never be in the position of being alone and getting wrecked by a light or a swarm of them. Neither lights nor assaults are meant to operate solely on their own.

The REAL problem is that "proper" light mech play is not rewarded. If I got rewarded for all the call outs, distraction, holding locks, popping UAVs behind the enemy, etc like doing damage, KMMDs, etc, I might be more inclined to "nerfing" lights.

As it is, if I want a decent PSR or match score, I must do damage and get kills. To do THAT, I must be able to survive.

The solution to lack of team play is not nerfing or buffing mechs.

Edited by Flash Riprock, 27 February 2025 - 07:58 PM.

[1453 R]

GETREKT4K, on 27 February 2025 - 06:31 PM, said:

If something gets hit to everyone playing the game, flashes, plays animation that it got hit, but then reports 0 damage. Yeah. It's broken. No other mech in the game has this problem, nor has one EVER had this problem.

Were...were you not here for the halcyon days of the 'Arctic Cheater'? I can give you a Clan Sea Fox-backed guarantee that the Arctic Cheater uproar was so much worse than anything the Fire Moth may be doing.

GETREKT4K, on 27 February 2025 - 06:31 PM, said:

I haven't posted on the forums in YEARS. I'm only here because we need to call something out when it's there.

Mm-hm. Sure, buddy. Tell me, when was the last time you deigned to drop in anything that weighed fewer than 85 tons?

"SMOL ROBIT BAD(!!!)" complaints will never not be frustrating and pointless...

[Eidoloth]

1453 R, on 27 February 2025 - 07:58 PM, said:

Were...were you not here for the halcyon days of the 'Arctic Cheater'? I can give you a Clan Sea Fox-backed guarantee that the Arctic Cheater uproar was so much worse than anything the Fire Moth may be doing.



Mm-hm. Sure, buddy. Tell me, when was the last time you deigned to drop in anything that weighed fewer than 85 tons?

"SMOL ROBIT BAD(!!!)" complaints will never not be frustrating and pointless...

I actually pilot almost exclusively lights, with the occasional cicada or blackjack. I am intimately familiar with how "hit reg" is supposed to work against a light, and how it feels.

Edited by GETREKT4K, 27 February 2025 - 08:25 PM.

[Samziel]

Anyone else feel like enemies go absolutely insane trying to kill you in a Firemoth? Even dying to achieve that. I've been dived in the middle of my team if my legs are open. Missile boats target me over bigger targets next to me. Half the team sometimes starts chasing just me (when flanking)

Might just be random chance but I have a feeling people hate this thing.

Edited by Samziel, 28 February 2025 - 01:15 AM.

[Meep Meep]

It's hate from all the moth spam especially the first few days when people still didn't know how to deal with them. If there is just one or two on a team its not a huge deal. But when four or five of them swarm you its over fast and since they move around so fast as a pack they could usually snatch up to the slow mechs less than a minute into the match.

[Void Angel]

The Fire Moth has no armor quirks beyond its arms - but it does have a 12-point full-body structure bonus. This makes the 'mech more durable than a Locust, and I think a lot of what's making people complain is that they're not seeing the structure color change when they hit an open component like they would with a Locust, Commando, or Flea.

[1453 R]

Samziel, on 28 February 2025 - 01:12 AM, said:

Anyone else feel like enemies go absolutely insane trying to kill you in a Firemoth? Even dying to achieve that. I've been dived in the middle of my team if my legs are open. Missile boats target me over bigger targets next to me. Half the team sometimes starts chasing just me (when flanking)

Might just be random chance but I have a feeling people hate this thing.

This is also at least partially the Chewy Cookie effect. Light 'Mechs are highly disfavored targets, people hate engaging them...until they see a weak leg. Then "SMOL ROBIT BAD!!!" and "I sense weakness!" combine to turn many a player into a frothing animal. It is often one of the only times you'll see random Puglandians show an aggressive willingness to suffer armor damage in exchange for a chance to deal violence to their enemies - if they sense a light 'Mech that can be de-lighted through leg loss, they will actually do the thing they should be doing all the time and pursue that opportunity even if it costs them a few moments' exposure to enemy fire.

The Fire Moth hatred is magnifying that effect, but everyone who spends significant time in lights knows that once you have an open leg, you become way more visible and attract vastly more enemy ire as people try and harvest that leg so you stop being a Bad Smol Robit and turn into a free kill instead.

[Flash Riprock]

That is all true. The choices people make continue to amaze me. When engaging with big mechs with big weapons, turning to instead engage and chase a light. I see it all the time. Then getting their backs blown out by the big mechs with big guns.

It all goes back to what i keep preaching....it isn't the mech, it is poor teamwork and decision making.

[Flash Riprock]

Leaderboard is broken. I played about 8 games last night and it still has the same score as it had all day yesterday.

Edited by Flash Riprock, 28 February 2025 - 07:24 AM.

[1453 R]

Flash Riprock, on 28 February 2025 - 07:24 AM, said:

Leaderboard is broken. I played about 8 games last night and it still has the same score as it had all day yesterday.

That means none of the eight games you played were any better than the ten games you already have logged for the 'Mech. Remember, the leaderboard only counts your ten best/strongest/highest-scoring games for each 'Mech. Once you've played more than ten matches, new matches have to actually be good ones to count, to stop no-lifers from shoving everybody else off the boards through sheer game glut.

[Flash Riprock]

1453 R, on 28 February 2025 - 07:45 AM, said:

That means none of the eight games you played were any better than the ten games you already have logged for the 'Mech. Remember, the leaderboard only counts your ten best/strongest/highest-scoring games for each 'Mech. Once you've played more than ten matches, new matches have to actually be good ones to count, to stop no-lifers from shoving everybody else off the boards through sheer game glut.

That's right. I forgot about that. Thank you.

[CAPITAL LETTERS]

I think the moth does have some legitimate hit-reg issues. I am not saying it is invincible, and good team play can absolutely stop them. That said, they seem to weather way more fire than any other light on the field, simply because a lot of the damage doesn't register. They have 24 points of leg health (armor+structure) unskilled, any assault or heavy carrying 35+PPFLD should be able to leg them, as you can to other lights. I have yet to see this happen in one shot, to me that seems like a hit-reg issue. I run lots of incubi, and fast, but still a good pilot can leg me in one shot with HGAUSS or some AC10 or AC20 type build. I wouldn't say the mech is broken, or even OP, but there are some hit reg issues.

Edited by CAPITAL LETTERS, 28 February 2025 - 09:54 AM.

[Meep Meep]

Fire moths have 48 total points in each leg after armor and structure nodes. Only a double heavy gauss or other high damage ppfld can insta leg them. They also get a 'ghost' 12 rear armor from the structure quirk bug so most are frontloading and that helps with getting shot in the face too.

[CAPITAL LETTERS]

Meep Meep, on 28 February 2025 - 10:42 AM, said:

Fire moths have 48 total points in each leg after armor and structure nodes. Only a double heavy gauss or other high damage ppfld can insta leg them.

Thanks, haven't run them myself so wasn't sure of skilled totals. There are a lot of 50+PPFLD builds running around right now, and while convergence issues may spread some of the damage I don't think you can really say it accounts for all of it, some of the chassis have great convergence. Just for contrast an INC has around 60 leg armor skilled out, a bit of variance depending on allocation and chassis, but let's say 60. Still 'one-shottable' with a high PPFLD and a nice crit bonus. Though realistically as a light your legs are going to take damage, people aim for them, fall damage, bumping into ish, w/e. So to get that 'one-shot' rarely requires overwhelming the full health of the component. I have many times been hit with a 40-50 alpha that took my leg off from yellow(armor). Conversely, I've dumped 4xAC10s and 2 plasmas from a kodiak (decent convergence) into the legs of a moth, and the damage spreads between components, and does not seem to account for full totals. I am pretty sure it is a known issue of the engine that high speeds and rapid acceleration/deceleration make it harder for hits to register accurately. Certainly seems that way anyway.

Edited by CAPITAL LETTERS, 28 February 2025 - 11:33 AM.

[Flash Riprock]

Already disappearing from the battlefield. Now that event is over, I am seeing only one, maybe two per game.

[1453 R]

That could easily just be "I have played nothing but Fire Moths for the last ten days to do my dual events, I am desperate to play something else". Things will normalize.

[Void Angel]

CAPITAL LETTERS, on 28 February 2025 - 09:48 AM, said:

I think the moth does have some legitimate hit-reg issues. I am not saying it is invincible, and good team play can absolutely stop them. That said, they seem to weather way more fire than any other light on the field, simply because a lot of the damage doesn't register. They have 24 points of leg health (armor+structure) unskilled, any assault or heavy carrying 35+PPFLD should be able to leg them, as you can to other lights. I have yet to see this happen in one shot, to me that seems like a hit-reg issue. I run lots of incubi, and fast, but still a good pilot can leg me in one shot with HGAUSS or some AC10 or AC20 type build. I wouldn't say the mech is broken, or even OP, but there are some hit reg issues.

A word or two about convergence: just boating a pinpoint damage alpha does not guarantee that your rounds all hit the same place. This is true for two reasons - relative motion, and instantaneous convergence.

Relative motion is simply the fact that your target is moving fast - and often, it's moving back and forth, up and down. Unless all of your weapons have precisely the same velocity, they are going to hit at different times, and with something moving as fast as a Firemoth's legs, this can lead to partial misses within an alpha (or spread damage, if we were talking about burst or burntime weapons.)

Instantaneous convergence is a game mechanic where MWO draws the trajectories of your weapons from their actual mounts, to wherever your rounds land. So, if I shoot a 'mech, all of my rounds (assuming we're within effective range) will land on the same spot, damaging the same component - if that 'mech is standing still. If the 'mech is not standing still (or running directly toward/away; a zero-deflection shot.) the rounds will converge where the line from your target reticle intersected the enemy 'mech. And if you are shooting PPFLD guns at a Light 'mech, your rounds will converge on the ground some distance opposite your target - because you had to lead him, and aim at the ground a little forward and beyond your target.

A separate, but related point is that the Firemoth's hefty structure bonuses mean that it has more, relatively quite a bit more, structure than armor in the legs. This means that their structure is going to take a bit more damage than people might be used to before changing colors. T

hese factors can and do cause partial misses from PPFLD alphas. Not that this precludes hit registration issues with the Firemoth. It's pushing the limits on how fast the game engine can handle moving a Battlemech, so it's possible that it's having hitreg issues on that regard. But since all the evidence so far is anecdotal, it's important to look at factors that might account for players' experiences. Rest assured that the devs are closely monitoring the 'mech, and if it is indeed having issues due to speed, they'll sadly have to slow it down.

[Void Angel]

As for the topic of this post, I bought the Firemoth a few days ago, and have been playing with it ever since. I'm an experienced Light pilot, so it's not an altogether different piloting style from 'mechs I already own.

The Firemoth is a lot of fun to pilot. It is also hard mode. Literally everyone will drop whatever they are doing to shoot at you and track you down - players are bringing streak builds and high-velocity weapons just for that purpose. That's the reason for the influx of other Lights, as well. Finger-painting laser builds abound, and it's very hard to just... do your job as a Light. I've had people shoot at me and my stock FMT-Prime while being crushed by an Assault 'mech standing next to me - which is great for the team, but not so much for me. Any map with long sight lines can turn hellish if my team decides to be passive, because I need the a dynamic combat environment to really optimize the 'mech's performance.

Not that the Firemoth is too weak! It's got great leg durability (my locust is over there in the corner sulking at you with a hurt expression, PGI,) and the light-weight Clan weapon options let you fill out a ton of effective builds. But it's also not some overpowered monstrosity that doesn't take damage, because you totally hit him with six Gauss rounds and you couldn't have missed or be wrong. The irritation some people are feeling with the Firemoth is partly the result of collective laziness on behalf of the player base. People often don't seem to know how to fight Lights, since if they just pick an Assault, most Lights will harass them a bit, but not bother to try trading them down - and the Assault only has to connect with one good swing to kill or cripple most Light 'mechs.

So now you have a new 'mech, and a bunch of us using it because it's new and we're trying it out. You had a leaderboard challenge, so higher-skilled competitive players were using it. And the response from the player base is to use Light-hunting builds and/or Light 'mechs to counter the increased Light population - which is perfectly fine. So you're seeing a lot of Lights, and a lot of Firemoths, and some good players driving them. And some people, who don't do any of the things that I see successful players to to counter my Lights, complain bitterly about all these firemoths in voice chat, or rail against it on the forums.

It's not that bad. It's a good 'mech, but I'm not seeing a night-and-day difference between it and other Lights I own. Maybe I'm just rusty and I haven't plumbed the depths of what the 'mech can do, but hey - this is the initial feedback thread! I enjoy the 'mech, it's not the most powerful thing I own, and most of the problems people have with it seems to be their own collective learned helplessness in dealing with Lights.

Edited by Void Angel, 01 March 2025 - 01:13 AM.