45 replies to this topic

[Apostolos]

After playing over 450+ matches I am starting to think that light mechs are way too 'Tankish' and after doing a little digging through some of my books and comparing to in game values I understand why. Now some of my stats may be old and not up to date, and if so then so be it. However, here is what I have seen:

Jenner: Tabletop (and no I am not looking at it right this second, so the #'s may be off a few points) have about a total armor value of around 65. Yes.. that is TOTAL armor.

Atlas: Tabletop has about 305 total armor. These values are basic and not tweaked out numbers with best of the best, but default stats.

That shows that a Jenner should have roughly 1/5 the armor value of an Atlas. Just looking at one of the base models for Jenners in my mech lab shows 224 with an Atlas at 608. OK I get it that everything is not verbatim matches with tabletop values. However, the ratio should be. (especially considering the speeds and sports car handling of the light mechs) That is greater than 1/3 the armor value combined with the ability to literally drive circles around an assault mech. (not to mention you cannot knock them down anymore, although I think someone said that is coming back.. not sure).

I just believe that the lack of armor disparity needs to be reexamined between the weight classes.

[Axeman1]

At the same time the raven gets destroyed by 3 srm rounds or an errant volley of lrm fire.

Nerf jenners imo

Edited by Axeman1, 01 November 2012 - 02:54 PM.

[ZakarryX]

The reason light mechs are so hard to kill is because the terrible netcode is making a bunch of your shots not even hit.

[Leetskeet]

It's because if they're going faster than 97kph, the lag armor starts piling on to the point that you need to aim like 15 meters ahead of them.

For most other mechs you only have to aim 5~ meters ahead

[Hexenhammer]

MWO uses double armor to make the matches last longer and that made lights capable of taking big hits. If a stock jenner was hit in an arm or leg with an AC/20, said limb was blown off. Now with double armor and other upgrades taking out a light mech with your first hit is near impossible AC/20 is near impossible. Add hit direction and the netcode issue they become stupid tough sometimes.

[Wolfways]

Armour means nothing when you can aim at any point that you like on the mech. It's easier to kill Atlas than Jenners because their speed means it's harder to hit them at all never mind pick an armour section.
Most mechs get killed because damaged is focused, while damage to Jenners gets spread across multiple sections.

Of course that means nothing with the game broken atm. I was just killed by a Jenner, in my K2, because i couldn't hit him at all. I even strafed the whole area with MG's and didn't hit him. Jenners and Commando's (and lolcats, or Streakcats) are the i win button in MWO right now.

[Lycan]

Hexenhammer, on 01 November 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

MWO uses double armor to make the matches last longer and that made lights capable of taking big hits. If a stock jenner was hit in an arm or leg with an AC/20, said limb was blown off. Now with double armor and other upgrades taking out a light mech with your first hit is near impossible AC/20 is near impossible. Add hit direction and the netcode issue they become stupid tough sometimes.

MWO doesn't use double armor to make matches longer, it uses the double armor to deal with the fact that the TT armor values were balanced around a RNG to-hit/damage location table were as the armor in values in a FPS type game have to deal with the pin-point accuracy of the person behind the mouse and keyboard.

[stjobe]

Apostolos, on 01 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

Jenner: Tabletop (and no I am not looking at it right this second, so the #'s may be off a few points) have about a total armor value of around 65. Yes.. that is TOTAL armor.

Atlas: Tabletop has about 305 total armor. These values are basic and not tweaked out numbers with best of the best, but default stats.

That shows that a Jenner should have roughly 1/5 the armor value of an Atlas. Just looking at one of the base models for Jenners in my mech lab shows 224 with an Atlas at 608. OK I get it that everything is not verbatim matches with tabletop values. However, the ratio should be. (especially considering the speeds and sports car handling of the light mechs) That is greater than 1/3 the armor value combined with the ability to literally drive circles around an assault mech. (not to mention you cannot knock them down anymore, although I think someone said that is coming back.. not sure).

I just believe that the lack of armor disparity needs to be reexamined between the weight classes.

Interesting cherry-picking there... There's three Jenner variants in MWO:

JR7-D with 119 points of armour (which would be 60 in TT)
JR7-F with 119 points of armour (again, 60 TT points)
JR7-K with 224 points of armour (which would be 112 points in TT)

Of course you chose the K for your comparison.

If you use the D or F, you get 5.1 times the armour on an Atlas (608 points, which would be 304 TT points). Didn't you say 1/5?

All is right in the world again, and you'll have to find some other explanation that you die to lights. Lag shield seems popular, you could try that one.

[Apostolos]

Cherrypicking? Take any one of those Jenners and you can get the same armor values. The ones you listed are just that low because they packed on tons of equipment.

[Uruz]

Apostolos, on 01 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

you cannot knock them down anymore, although I think someone said that is coming back.. not sure

This is true. Collision is being reworked at the moment because it was buggy.

As to your original question, consider how much easier it is to hit a 'mech compared to tabletop. Disregarding the current "lag armor" and "netcode issues" which increases the difficulty of hitting a light by a few orders of magnitude, it's pretty much point and click vs. ~30% chance to hit.

I say wait until the game is stable before arguing for a nerf against a weight class that is temporarily imbalanced due to bugs.

Until then, carry streaks. We're terrified of streaks.

Edited by Uruz, 01 November 2012 - 03:20 PM.

[Alfred VonGunn]

Apostolos, on 01 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

After playing over 450+ matches I am starting to think that light mechs are way too 'Tankish' and after doing a little digging through some of my books and comparing to in game values I understand why. Now some of my stats may be old and not up to date, and if so then so be it. However, here is what I have seen:

Jenner: Tabletop (and no I am not looking at it right this second, so the #'s may be off a few points) have about a total armor value of around 65. Yes.. that is TOTAL armor.

Atlas: Tabletop has about 305 total armor. These values are basic and not tweaked out numbers with best of the best, but default stats.

That shows that a Jenner should have roughly 1/5 the armor value of an Atlas. Just looking at one of the base models for Jenners in my mech lab shows 224 with an Atlas at 608. OK I get it that everything is not verbatim matches with tabletop values. However, the ratio should be. (especially considering the speeds and sports car handling of the light mechs) That is greater than 1/3 the armor value combined with the ability to literally drive circles around an assault mech. (not to mention you cannot knock them down anymore, although I think someone said that is coming back.. not sure).

I just believe that the lack of armor disparity needs to be reexamined between the weight classes.

You are confusing MAx possible armor with normal armor.. Look at the Stock Jenners they are around 125-135 points which is right on given the 2x armor across the board in the game design.. But no one leaves them that way when they can customize..

[stjobe]

Apostolos, on 01 November 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

Cherrypicking? Take any one of those Jenners and you can get the same armor values. The ones you listed are just that low because they packed on tons of equipment.

Yes, cherry picking. You know, picking the one variant with the higher base armour? Ignoring the fact that the TT rules also allow for more armour on a Jenner? Ignoring that MWO follows the TT rules pretty closely except all armour values are doubled?

Classic cherry picking.

[tenderloving]

stjobe, on 01 November 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

Interesting cherry-picking there... There's three Jenner variants in MWO:

JR7-D with 119 points of armour (which would be 60 in TT)
JR7-F with 119 points of armour (again, 60 TT points)
JR7-K with 224 points of armour (which would be 112 points in TT)

Of course you chose the K for your comparison.

If you use the D or F, you get 5.1 times the armour on an Atlas (608 points, which would be 304 TT points). Didn't you say 1/5?

All is right in the world again, and you'll have to find some other explanation that you die to lights. Lag shield seems popular, you could try that one.

He's showing the max possible. Nobody is running the variants with stock armor unless they are a trial mech.

[stjobe]

tenderloving, on 01 November 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

He's showing the max possible. Nobody is running the variants with stock armor unless they are a trial mech.

No, he's not:

"Just looking at one of the base models for Jenners in my mech lab shows 224 with an Atlas at 608."

That's his whole argument, 224 is not 1/5th of 608 (as 65 is of 305, the TT values). But had he picked one of the other two Jenners, he would have had 119, which *is* 1/5th of 608.

And again, nothing's stopping you from putting more armour on a 'mech in TT either (unless you're already at max - like the Atlas).

[Asatruer]

Lycan, on 01 November 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

MWO doesn't use double armor to make matches longer, it uses the double armor to deal with the fact that the TT armor values were balanced around a RNG to-hit/damage location table were as the armor in values in a FPS type game have to deal with the pin-point accuracy of the person behind the mouse and keyboard.

Do you really think that the increased RoF of weapons had no effect on the decision to double the armor? If it was not for the doubling of armor matches would be over a lot faster, not only because of the increased RoF, but also due to the dropping of RNG hit-location determinate. Either one of these by themself would have made for faster matches. Doubling armor has made matches longer.

[Wispsy]

I have been 1shot numerous times on my Jenner....usually it only takes 2 shots to one side to kill me... how mucher weaker do you want to make us?!

[Asmosis]

max armor values are the same as TT x2. That applies for all mechs equally.

Now, lagshield aside all mechs have about the same level of survivability since the mech models scale pretty well with their armor values. I.E. a jenner might have 100 armor per 1 inch of hitbox, so does an atlas. This is why it seems to take so long to kill one (as well at lag etc).

The "lagshield" is only an issue for international players, or cross country players who dont use a proxy ping service to improve their routing. when you have a 50ms ping hitting a light mech is pretty easy if you can aim. with 200ms plus it is basically impossible so dont waste your time unless you have streaks.

[Vermaxx]

Apostolos, on 01 November 2012 - 02:48 PM, said:

After playing over 450+ matches I am starting to think that light mechs are way too 'Tankish' and after doing a little digging through some of my books and comparing to in game values I understand why. Now some of my stats may be old and not up to date, and if so then so be it. However, here is what I have seen:

Jenner: Tabletop (and no I am not looking at it right this second, so the #'s may be off a few points) have about a total armor value of around 65. Yes.. that is TOTAL armor.

Atlas: Tabletop has about 305 total armor. These values are basic and not tweaked out numbers with best of the best, but default stats.

That shows that a Jenner should have roughly 1/5 the armor value of an Atlas. Just looking at one of the base models for Jenners in my mech lab shows 224 with an Atlas at 608. OK I get it that everything is not verbatim matches with tabletop values. However, the ratio should be. (especially considering the speeds and sports car handling of the light mechs) That is greater than 1/3 the armor value combined with the ability to literally drive circles around an assault mech. (not to mention you cannot knock them down anymore, although I think someone said that is coming back.. not sure).

I just believe that the lack of armor disparity needs to be reexamined between the weight classes.

Yeah, armor values are very flexible within a weight class. Default Jenners sacrifice armor for speed and weapons. You can do more damage in MWO with small lasers than medium because of being able to aim, and not having "turns" in which to act. As such, Jenners can run max armor for a 35 ton mech.

Assault mechs still grossly outarmor light mechs, and should win most fights. A very good Jenner pilot can stay behind a bad Atlas pilot and pick it apart. A very good Atlas pilot can kill inexperienced light pilots. A very good pilot in both mechs is a fight to behold.

Lycan, on 01 November 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

MWO doesn't use double armor to make matches longer, it uses the double armor to deal with the fact that the TT armor values were balanced around a RNG to-hit/damage location table were as the armor in values in a FPS type game have to deal with the pin-point accuracy of the person behind the mouse and keyboard.

Matches ended extremely fast in the original MWO, because people hit where they aimed and blew stock armor away in single hits. The doubled armor to 'offset' this. Clearly, doubling armor did not completely undo the fire rate changes, but they still wanted shots to be able to scare you. If this game played like a tabletop game, it wouldn't be very exciting. There would be no reason to raise the rates of fire if armor exactly counteracted their new rates.

[Onyx Rain]

I'm just here to echo the people who have pointed out that it is netcode, lag, and no knockdown causing the problems. Devs have stated they are rolling back some of the netcode fixes to address this while they fix it for good, and knockdown will be back in when that is fixed. Ya it is a bummer, and lights have more advantage now then they should, but suck it up...It is getting fixed.

Knockdown especially was the great equalizer. Lights have it easy right now...it won't last.

learn to deal with them as they are now, and you'll be even better when all that crap is fixed.

[Apostolos]

Well considering the Atlas I used was pretty much at max in its variant (they all are) I thought it only logical to do the same with the light for comparison.

What I would LIKE to do is to let lights have a longer target acquisition range than larger mechs to help them be more of what they are designed for.. scouting rather than standing toe to toe with the heavy and assault mechs like the are doing now.

Edited by Apostolos, 01 November 2012 - 04:02 PM.