20 replies to this topic

[GildaGriffon]

Don't get me wrong. I fully understand that this game is based on an rpg and system that are set in stone (And paper), but I feel like assaults have a disproprtionate battlefield presence. I agree that having a sliding spectrum of small and fast to big and ponderous is a great mechanic, but there is one fatal flaw in it.

Weapons are not restricted by speed. This means that no matter how fast or dodgey you are, in a fight between evenly matched players, the larger mech always has a greater chance of winning. I feel like the problem is that even assault mechs can twist their torse in more than enough time to strike smaller mechs. A more balanced approach would be tuning assaults to only be able to track mechs one size tier lower for any period of time, causing lasers to only skim faster vehicles, thus dealing a more proportionate amount of damage. As it is, larger mechs have no realisticly applicable downside compared to smaler mechs.

Just a dumb thought. :3 Thanks for a great game, can't wait for more updates!

[Regrets]

Match maker pairs equal class mechs against each other. If you can't beat a heavy in your light, beat the other light that is on the other team, and your heavy should beat the heavy. T E A M, whats that spell? Team. Ez game.

[Garth Erlam]

Wait a sec, does that mean I am (twice!) better than 9/10 Assault pilots I face in my Cicada? I feel like... nothing can stop me...

[GildaGriffon]

Good to know, though there is still disparity between lighter and heavier mechs even within their own tier size. Cataphracts and dragons are not equal in presence. I would say that dragons and centurions are not even equal, with the centurion having the upper hand. In a balanced game, weapons should always be equal in-tier, and weight should only contribute to armor, not to both armor and weaponry. Speed does not contribute more than both stronger weapons and defenses. Not when weapons are not restricted by speed, anyhow.

In any case, I don't expect this to change, just stating an openion for the sake of input.

[Screwaname]

Just to add to the dragon-centurion argument, it makes no sense to me that dragon, the heavy mech, cant equip AC-20 while the centurion can. Anyone?

[Adridos]

Screwaname, on 11 January 2013 - 12:49 PM, said:

Just to add to the dragon-centurion argument, it makes no sense to me that dragon, the heavy mech, cant equip AC-20 while the centurion can. Anyone?

Neither does the Centruion without cutting off part of his arm. And let's face it, Dragon with a non-twistable ballistic arm? It's one of his best features.

[IceSerpent]

GildaGriffon, on 11 January 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

This means that no matter how fast or dodgey you are, in a fight between evenly matched players, the larger mech always has a greater chance of winning.

GildaGriffon, on 11 January 2013 - 12:25 PM, said:

I would say that dragons and centurions are not even equal, with the centurion having the upper hand.

You seem to contradict yourself here. Are you sticking to the story that larger mech is always better or that 50t Centurion is better than 60t Dragon?

[blinkin]

not to be rude but a decent light mech pilot will devour an assault because of the speed difference.

my catapult only goes 86kph and i have never met a lone atlas that i didn't completely tear appart. they take a while but i have never seen a lone atlas even break through a single armor segement on his own. most light mechs break at least 100kph. a skilled assault pilot can SOMETIMES kill a dumb light pilot that has made a mistake in close combat.

assaults are battering rams. the siege equipment of the mech world. very good at breaking front lines but very vulnerable to cavalry (light mechs).

an assault that has been flanked dies almost as quickly as a stationary light mech.

[GildaGriffon]

Yeah, I kinda did, but only in as much as centurions are medium and dragons heavy. Centurions (and hunchbacks, for that matter.) Are typically slower and more heavily armed than dragons, though.

And as far as lights vs assaults is concerned, a light can certainly outmaneuver and destroy an assault. But if the assault is competent enough to land hits with an ac20 or gauss, the light wont stand a snowflakes chance in hell.

When both pilots are equally competent, an assault can turn the fastest light into mulch.

Edited by GildaGriffon, 11 January 2013 - 01:52 PM.

[blinkin]

GildaGriffon, on 11 January 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

Yeah, I kinda did, but only in as much as centurions are medium and dragons heavy. Centurions (and hunchbacks, for that matter.) Are typically slower and more heavily armed than dragons, though.

And as far as lights vs assaults is concerned, a light can certainly outmaneuver and destroy an assault. But if the assault is competent enough to land hits with an ac20 or gauss, the light wont stand a snowflakes chance in hell.

When both pilots are equally competent, an assault can turn the fastest light into mulch.

land hits with an ac20 or gauss?

this requires a really dumb light pilot, or indescribable levels of luck.

i have a jenner with an ERPPC. even with a high speed mech that can keep pace or outrun other lights, trying to hit with a weapon you have to lead is at best difficult.

i have 3 jenners and have trained up the first tier skills on 2 of them. i can think of exactly 1 incedent where i died to ballistics fire while moving at speed. i honestly should have congratulated him for such a skilled and/or lucky shot.

there are plenty of cases where i have danced around in front of mechs to draw fire. ballistic rounds landing all around me and laser fire briefly sweeping across me.

light mechs rarely die to anything larger than a medium mech. and most light mech deaths involve a horrible mistake on the part of the light pilot.

Edited by blinkin, 11 January 2013 - 02:05 PM.

[Tombstoner]

In the context of using only stock mechs i can agree with the OP.
Except that once you upgrade a light to max game speed. the light has a significant advantage. its only through the help of
others that an atlas wont be gutted alive by a commando one on one.

[Regrets]

L2P. Find a wall so he can't run circles around you, or stand next to a teammate who shoots him while he tries to kite you..

[blinkin]

Regrets, on 11 January 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

L2P. Find a wall so he can't run circles around you, or stand next to a teammate who shoots him while he tries to kite you..

you didn't read anything at all besides the title did you?

[Regrets]

blinkin, on 11 January 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

you didn't read anything at all besides the title did you?

blinkin, on 11 January 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

light mechs rarely die to anything larger than a medium mech. and most light mech deaths involve a horrible mistake on the part of the light pilot.

LOL, no I read your posts. Thanks for playing the internet smart guy game tho.

Edited by Regrets, 11 January 2013 - 02:35 PM.

[IceSerpent]

GildaGriffon, on 11 January 2013 - 01:50 PM, said:

Yeah, I kinda did, but only in as much as centurions are medium and dragons heavy. Centurions (and hunchbacks, for that matter.) Are typically slower and more heavily armed than dragons, though.

It's not really that much of a difference. The max speeds (not accounting for speed tweak skill) are:

Hunchback: 84.2
Centurion: 126.4 (on CN9-D), 90.7 (on YLW), 84.2 (on others)
Dragon: 97.2

Quote

And as far as lights vs assaults is concerned, a light can certainly outmaneuver and destroy an assault. But if the assault is competent enough to land hits with an ac20 or gauss, the light wont stand a snowflakes chance in hell.

You can't land a hit on a target parked squarely behind you. And no good light mech pilot is going to face tank an Atlas.

[blinkin]

Regrets, on 11 January 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

LOL, no I read your posts. Thanks for playing the internet smart guy game tho.

ok now i understand.

honestly i tend to hunt light mechs in my srm catapult. my whole point was that a lone assault mech that is facing down a single light mech is,in most cases, at a very thorough disadvantage.

a supported assault mech is deffinitely going to be an engine for destruction, but that comes down to how organization effects matches and not about individual mech prowess.

i was by no means saying that light mechs are OP. i honestly think that all of the mechs we have are fairly balanced, although some of the weapons themselves need a little adjustment (*cough* lrm *cough*).

Edited by blinkin, 11 January 2013 - 03:31 PM.

[GildaGriffon]

blinkin, on 11 January 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

land hits with an ac20 or gauss?

this requires a really dumb light pilot, or indescribable levels of luck.

i have a jenner with an ERPPC. even with a high speed mech that can keep pace or outrun other lights, trying to hit with a weapon you have to lead is at best difficult.

I have personally blown the face off many a 3L trying to flank me with my gausscat, and since I've never had much trouble alligning shots of other varieties with assaults vs lights, I wouldnt think it too terribly difficult to do, assuming you are good at timing physical objects in motion. It's easy enough to cut the leggs off them with large lasers, also.

It takes a lot of effort to hit lights, but I usually manage to do it. Maybe I'm just perpetually lucky.

[Regrets]

Aside from maybe ECM Atlas, JJ Catapult is best mech (in competent hands) and is a Heavy.

[Oppresor]

GildaGriffon, on 11 January 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

Don't get me wrong. I fully understand that this game is based on an rpg and system that are set in stone (And paper), but I feel like assaults have a disproprtionate battlefield presence. I agree that having a sliding spectrum of small and fast to big and ponderous is a great mechanic, but there is one fatal flaw in it.

Weapons are not restricted by speed. This means that no matter how fast or dodgey you are, in a fight between evenly matched players, the larger mech always has a greater chance of winning. I feel like the problem is that even assault mechs can twist their torse in more than enough time to strike smaller mechs. A more balanced approach would be tuning assaults to only be able to track mechs one size tier lower for any period of time, causing lasers to only skim faster vehicles, thus dealing a more proportionate amount of damage. As it is, larger mechs have no realisticly applicable downside compared to smaler mechs.

Just a dumb thought. :3 Thanks for a great game, can't wait for more updates!

In theory, if an Assault Mech was to get a decent Alpha Strike into a Raven, Commando or Jenner it should do some really serious damage. In MechWarrior 4 it did. I remember taking the leg off a light Mech using my Heavy Gauss Rifle with one shot; awesome. Unfortunately in MWO this doesn't seem to be the case, and its not just me that has noticed it; several MechWarrior's have commented that they have engaged with what should be enough fire power to core a light unit, and that it has had limited effect.

This is the flip side to your argument and talking from the point of view of an Assault Pilot, I would really like to have some sort of CIWS system to take out or at least suppress light units that catch me in the circle of death.

[M4rtyr]

Someones never had a good team of Lights chew him to shreds.

There are balance issues with MWO, none of which have anything to do with Light vs Heavy. Its been tried and true in all formats of the Battletech universe from the start.

The OP said that given equal skill a light would always lose to an assault. This is true if that equal skill was bad. But if they were both good pilots that light mech is going to give the heavy a real run for its money.

But as someone else has stated, can we all say TEAM here? You shouldn't be engaging 1v1 unless you are the last ones alive. If thats the case then just disengage and cap the points to win the match, everyone forgets its not deathmatch. But you let the assualt engage one of you're heavies then you kill it by hitting it in the *** where his armor is as thin as everyone elses.

There's never been a balance issue with mech sizes, Its armor and firepower vs speed and agility.