Pihb, on 21 January 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:
You drive a light mech, you know you have an unfair advantage over everyone else. How do you square this in your head? Put aside the fact that PGI has not called what you do cheating. How do you go out every match, in a mech that you and everyone knows has an unfair advantage. If you were a 13 year old i would understand why you enjoy having an I win button. I loved cheat codes when i was 13.
after driving a hunchie and a stalker i finally switched to a raven 3l... quite frankly it's so glaringly op it's ridiculous. if my hunchie ever walked into a group of 4 mechs, or even my stalker i'd be dead so quick, the odd's of me getting out are next to zero. but on a raven 3l, i get out of that situation 9/10. you put a raven 3l up against ANY OTHER bot who doesn't have an ecm? it's not even a contest. unless they're running dual guass guns and they land a lucky shot or 4 they aren't going to win. in a normal game i can distract 4 mech's for at least 2-3 minutes non stop before i get taken out, if not longer. sometimes i'll kill 1 or 2 of them before i die, and on really rare occasions when they're awful i'll kill all 4. it's completely ridiculous. the ONLY counter is to have another ecm, most effectively a light to counter my ecm and then streak me to death. lasers, ballistics are all entirely useless against a 3L.
until they fix the net code and hitboxes, a good temporary fix for lights is to reduce their base hit points (right now it seems like they base hitpoints are almost as high as their armor, 20 pts or so). leg armor for lights need to be cut in half. 30+ armor per leg is crazy. you can eat 2 full gauss gun shots and still keep running... on a light? that's entirely unacceptable. the rest of their armor could use a 25% reduction at least. once you put in a max engine on a light they're by far the hardest thing to kill, aka take the longest. which is all that really matters in this game, how long it takes you to kill someone. the longer it takes you the higher the odds of someone else coming up and blowing you up. it's either nerf their current survivability, or bring their weapons load down. a 3l might not be so bad even with all their current survivability if say they only had 2 energy hardpoints and 1 missile hardpoint which would cut their dmg output nearly in half. either way the current form for lights lets them have their cake and eat it too. they move fast are hard to kill and dish out effective dmg.
with all that said, i have to admit i justify playing a light because it's fun. compared to my hunchie who basically dies if i get caught out, which is frustrating. my light raven 3l offers me much better odds of survival and therefore i'm in the game longer. the high maneuverability allows me to get alot more accomplished. i can escape engagements that are bad. for isntance say i just turn a corner and i'm met by 4 mechs. in a light i can quickly get the heck out, in a hunchie i'm boned unless they didn't notice me. stalkers are basically the same as my hunchie except with the stalker i can drop a heck of alot more dmg than my hunchie. maybe mediums are just the ******* children in this game but they seem utterly useless to me right now. if you fit them with a big engine to make them maneuverable their dmg output is barely better than a light's. their armor is nowhere near enough when you fit them with decent weapons for high dmg. the only thing mediums are good for is if someone else is distracting the enemy and you go in and hit them hard then hide out around a corner or something. at least with my stalker i can stay in a fight for longer than a few seconds. but even then my light is superior int hat regard, my light can stay in a fight for 5-7 minutes no problem. more often than not people will simply give up on trying to kill me cause it's much easier to kill a medium or a heavy/assault. allowing me to wreak havoc. it's just really stupid all around how strong lights are. a gorup of 3-4 lights with 2-3 ecm's between them can tear apart a pack of 4 mechs of mediums, heavies, or assaults. it's ridiculous.
TLDR: lights are too survivable. they need their armor nerfed, base hitpoints and armor. if not a nerf to their survivability then a nerf to their hardpoints/weapons or tonnage.