1
I do not feel I am the best mechwarrior on the field but I win 95% of one on one fights and when I'm in my Atlas I can usually win a two on one fight (barring ECM). There were endless debates about stats for WoT and while each of them generally do not matter I will say that I have a 3.5 K/D ratio (but it really doesn't matter because we're missing a wide array of stat information tracking for this game. note I have never D/C when I was about to be killed but I have often avoided death through clever play). I've mastered countless mechs before open beta but have currently mastered 15 with 3 waiting to be finished for the master tier should I decide to finish them. I have finished the following mechs: Atlas, Stalker, Hunchback, Catapult, and Commando. I mastered the Atlas three times in the beta and I can say it is my favorite mech. This is not a bragging post as I know there are people playing this game who are better than me; this is just part of an obligatory introduction. This might help you understand where I am as a player and how you can relate to me based on your experiences.
Generally speaking this game is like paper rock scissors although there are 4 categories instead of three (so let's ignore mediums for a minute). Lights kill assaults while heavies kill lights and Assaults kill heavies. I choose to ignore mediums for a minute because some mediums are more like heavies and other play like lights; depending on the model and loadout you can literally be a heavy light or a light heavy. Everything seemed to be working fine until ECM rolled around and made rather ridiculous changes to the game. Let me be clear to note this is not an ECM rant thread as I plan to cover mostly everything.
The three most powerful mechs currently in the game are the Atlas D-DC, Commando 2D and the Raven 3L. Note it is not ECM that makes them powerful but the combination of ECM and streaks. If you break down the weapons into heat/weight/damage you will notice that the streak is pound for pound the strongest weapon in the game once you factor in the 100% hit ratio. Regular SRMs hit harder but due to the cluster changes (from mid beta) they have much less accuracy at range. And while lasers should be a hitscan weapon they are currently not and as such they lose a lot of damage potential unless you are shooting a slow (60 kph) or stationary mech.
We all know there is a hitscan problem as some mechs (particularly some problem lights) take far more damage than an Atlas could ever hope to sustain. The counter to this was streak missiles. If you had streaks and a light came to harass you he would either die or leave. That was a good balance imho. Streaks were great at killing lights but do poor damage to Assaults and heavies. If you carried streaks you were protected against lights but fared more poorly against similar weight class enemies. The problem is that the arrival of ECM broke this balance chain.
By carrying ECM and streaks you can kill anything provided you have more ECM (and possibly enough ammunition). What's the counter to ECM? The answer is more ECM and that is just not working. While AMS seems well balanced against LRMs there seems to be something of a problem with SSRMs. Unless I am mistaken the AMS will only fire against streaks from 150m or more. Given the fact that ECM seems here to say I ask why AMS does not function against streaks at point blank range as a balance measure. I can see that once lasers are hitting light mechs moving at fast speeds that they will be what I would deem fairly killable. Right now at times it seems as though lights have 19 tons of armor with the lag shield in place. I think the problem too is that streaks have always been a little too good at killing lights (until recently now that streaks target non torso regions). If we had AMS always firing at streaks but we returned streaks to only shooting at the chest I think we would have a nice balance. This would create a dynamic where you can't go stop speed, have enough ammunition/the strongest weapons, ECM AND AMS. Somewhere along the line you would need to sacrifice. I feel it is pretty stupid that you do not need AMS on a light anymore if you have ECM (note same weight allowance just about 500% better). The other alternitive is to have ECM and streaks be mutually exclusive and that would also solve the problem. This would mean if you have ECM you can't lock on with streaks but could still use the combination with a bit of teamwork and planning.
I think it would be in poor taste to make ECM more common. If a module were to be introduced that granted any mech ECM I think you would quickly find it on 16/16 mechs in any random match much less any pre-made game. Even if the module cost 25,000 GXP and 10,000,000 CB I think most players would realize the extreme necessity. But at the same time the problem is that there is little reason to play a Jenner right now when you could bring a Commando or Raven instead. The problem here is that any light mech with streaks and ECM can kill any other light who does not have streaks unless it runs (or leaps) away. It's really hard to run away from a Commando moving at 149.7 kph. And it is a sad day when a Commando can just run circles around any light, medium, heavy or assault and kill it because it has the broken combination of ECM and streaks (don't forget the lag shield).
Let us move away from ECM as it should not be the entirety of this post. I am tempted to mention DHS but realize that if I do this post will seem like nothing more than a rant. As such I will leave it alone but I cannot let the LPL fall along the wayside. The Large Pulse Laser should be an extremely powerful weapon.... yet it is almost exclusively absent from 99% of working builds you will encounter (note the word working). Generally speaking Medium Pulse Lasers are also absent. I can only recall back to a brief moment when both were viable when the heat situation was slightly more viable (for about a week).
Long story short the LPL is a 7 ton behemoth requiring 2 critical slots and 23 heatsinks to make one heat neutral. Compare that to the medium laser. For 1 critical slot and 1 ton (6 tons less weight) the medium laser does half as much damage per second and only requires 10 heatsinks to be heat neutral. Note both weapons have nearly the same range and there is only a 30m difference (which is doubled for max range). The LPL has a .25 second beam advantage but that is a complete joke. If the LPL had a .75 second beam advantage (meaning .25 duration) people might use it. The medium laser seems well placed in terms of balance while the LPL is a complete waste of tonnage. On the other hand the LPL is positively the best sounding energy weapon in the entire game (more on this later).
I know most people don't like math but this is a game that caters to the min/maxer and as such we must briefly broach the subject. There is a problem when 4 medium lasers deliver the same damage as 2 large pulse lasers. It is utterly inconcievable that 4 tons of weapons can be 95% comperable to 14 tons of weaponry. There is no way you can justify 10 wasted tons when you are 6 heatinks less efficient and all you get is .25 less beam duration.
I propose that we radically alter the LPL to make the weight justifiable. The problem with this is that if we make it more heat efficient or have a higher damage to justify the weight then we will see lights spamming LPL all over the place. I personally want to see Assaults almost always carrying LPLs because it is such a cool weapon (that is utter trash in this game). The only way to balance the LPL for a fps game is to give it a flat buffs (damage, heat and beam duration)
Imagine for a moment if the LPL had 50% less heat generation. That means that instead of 46 heat and 40 damage you would be looking at 23 heat for a pair and 40 damage. Let us compare that number to something like an Autocannon 20 and see what happens. An AC/20 gives us 20 damage and needs 15 heatsinks to be neutral. In order to justify the weight you should probably bring at least 3 tons of ammunition so that brings the total weight to 17 tons. It would not be fair to have a double damage weapon (pair) that has infinite ammunition, only needs 23 heat sinks and weighs 3 tons less.
Since the weight of two LPL is identical to the AC/20 without ammunition I can only guess that the heat difference should be at least double. That would suggest we consider a LPL requiring 15 heat sinks to be heat neutral. And that's still not enough because 2 LPL is double the damage of a single AC/20 for nearly the same weight. What all this seems to be telling me is that the heat is honestly probably about right (maybe it should be 18-20 HS to be neutral) but the damage needs to change.
I don't see why the LPL should do less damage than a PPC. They weigh the same and while there is a critical slot difference the PPC has almost double the range. What if the LPL was bumped up to 3 damage per second? That meas you would be doing 12 damage per shot (15 shots per minute with 4 second cooldown/duration). The PPC would still have its desirable sniper role and the LPL would be a close range heavy brawler weapon. Note that the AC/20 does more damage than a Gauss rifle but has less range. I feel the LPL and the PPC should share the same relationship in order for the LPL to be a functional weapon.
Looking back at the whole picture imagine a LPL with 3 damage per second and 18 heat required to be neutral. For 14 tons you would have 24 damage per shot and 36 heat. With the medium lasers you would have 20 damage and 40 heat. That means that assuming you can bear 10 extra tons you will deal more damage for less heat. That starts to make sense. If you combined that with a .25 beam duration boost the LPL suddenly looks very appealing (note the refire delay would be bumped up by .25 to compensate).
Finally let us compare that to a pair of Large Lasers. Two LL are 10 tons 18 damage and 14 heat while two LPL are now 24 damage and 36 heat. Note that the LL has a significant range advantage over the LPL and is far more heat efficient. But with the superior beam duration of .5 seconds the LPL is suddenly a very appealing choice assuming you can handle both the heat and the weight. The LPL with these stats has a clearly defined role as a heavy brawling laser.
And while I would like to continue on to other topics I feel I have alredy said enough for one post. In closing I would like to mention that I feel all "regular" lasers should be 1 second duration and all pulse lasers should have a 0.5 second duration. The small laser is benefiting from a pulse laser duration with good weight heat and damage. Its only drawback is easily circumvented with speed (or by combining them with LRMs on larger mechs). I would have liked to cover the MPL and SPL as they are currently rather worthless. Anything the SPL can do the medium laser does better for the same weight. Meanwhile the MPL has less range and is just to hot to justify double weight over a medium laser.
Edited by Glythe, 22 January 2013 - 05:23 PM.
