371 replies to this topic

[Josef Nader]

It seems like every cheese build that rolls out that -doesn't- involve ECM involves Cats. The Catapult is, bar none, the most powerful heavy chassis in the game. That's not to say that the 'Phracts or Dragons aren't solid mechs, but as far as raw power, they can't match the Catapult.

Why is that? Well, primarily it's because the Cat is a very boat friendly chassis, and boats will always be popular in MW. They're easy to play, and they tend to be rather powerful. So obviously, we nerf the hardpoints to make it a less viable boat, right? Well hold on, the Cat needs a niche, and as a heavyweight energy/missileboat it serves our needs just fine. I don't really have a problem with it being a good boat.

So, how then can we knock the Cat down a peg without overnerfing it? How can we keep the Cat as a really solid chassis while narrowing the gap between it and the other heavies?

Simple. The Cat has an advantage that no other chassis can hope to replicate. It's torso traverse. Catapults can turn almost all the way around, and with a big engine it can do so very quickly. This makes the Catapult the undeniable brawl king, as it can track mechs well beyond the point where any other chassis would be able to keep them in the crosshairs. You can't outmanuver Cats as they are. Their turret-like upper torsos just make them too damn agile. So, how do we nerf the Cat's superiority without taking away hardpoints or changing much about how it plays? We give it a blind spot. We decrease the insane amount of torso traverse (matched only by the Hunchback's Torso+Arms and the Spider's Torso + Arms) and the Catapult suddenly becomes a lot less insane in a brawl.

Look at the Stalker. I'm not saying it has to be decreased -that- far, but the Stalker is still an insanely powerful fire support mech while not being completely dominant in a brawl, and Stalker brawlers can burn down anything they can keep in front of them.

The idea struck me while I was trying to circle around behind a splat cat in my Centurion, and I realized that he could hit me far outside of my traverse with very little effort in a turning battle. It struck me as a little funky that a second line fire support mech can easily beat a main-line battlemech in a turning battle.

Like I said before, I really don't have a problem with all the boat builds. Splat cats, Streak cats, Gauss Cats, KC20s, there's nothing wrong with them and they're certainly beatable. They just seem a little too good compared to the other mechs you can bring. Gaussaphracts just aren't as good as Gausscats. An SRM Stalker isn't really as good as the splat cat. I think the biggest reason behind this is the amount of torso traverse the Cat has, and I'd be very interested to see what reducing the traverse would do to make the Cat a little less dominant.

EDIT: Added a poll.

Edited by Josef Nader, 29 January 2013 - 02:32 PM.

[Darwins Dog]

I was making the same observation the other day. The catapult gets more complaints than any other chassis out there. Nerfing the torso twist might actually be a good way to bring it back to it's intended role (which is essentially as a faster and slightly more agile Stalker).

EDIT: spelling

Edited by Darwins Dog, 29 January 2013 - 07:46 PM.

[TheForce]

This would help.

But in general why bother implementing a hard point solution when you make mechs like the A1? We may as well have the full customization we had in MW2...

[Redshift2k5]

The CPLT is also the mech with the easier to shoot head hitbox, and it's arms are an easy target from a long way away.

[Solis Obscuri]

I'm disinclined to scream nerf, but the huge twist range of the Catapult does combine with the no-convergence layout to make it a really powerful platform.

[deforce]

people see a SRM cat running at them and they freak out and run away.... yes exposing your back a one shot alpha kill is exactly what you should do :/

[Kensaisama]

Solid observations. The real question is will PGI agree this is an issue. I will however say that I agree with the assesment and solution provided.

[EvilCow]

The only problem is the A1 and only because missiles seems to be able to converge at distance zero from the arms somehow. Imagine how the "ears" would have to bend to do that....

Probably they should add a minimum convergence distance for arm mounted weapons. And specifically, the Catapult should not be able to make SRMs converge at all because lack of actuators in the arms.

[Splitpin]

Sorry can't agree. Catapults are a versatile agile mech, true, but does that ipso facto mean they need a nerf ? No, they are vunerable and fragile. Every 'boat build' Catapult has it's own big weakness.

[BLUPRNT]

Cats do not have lateral arm travel. They cannot lock LRM's and fire while face shotting lasers into another like I can on on my Hunchie. And as far as the A1 what do people expect to do with a 6 missles only mech. I tried a combo of missles on one and with ECM and no ability to tag, what then? Of course in a well organized team a combo would be viable, but in a PUG forget it. I'd be open to something else. Anybody?

[Blair]

Splitpin, on 29 January 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

Sorry can't agree. Catapults are a versatile agile mech, true, but does that ipso facto mean they need a nerf ? No, they are vunerable and fragile. Every 'boat build' Catapult has it's own big weakness.

This, along with the fact that every time I'm in my Cat, I seem to be the primary target of both enemy lances.

I would say there is more than one way ... [puts on sunglasses] ... to skin a Cat.

[LoganMkv]

I can't agree. The game allowing SRM cats to be viable is the problem, not cats themselves.

Ecm approach is fine, now we need something like adding active sensors to BAP and model codenames on minimap. So if you have a scout with probe at front you can notice sneaking splatcat from afar.

[Serapth]

It's the k2 variant that shouldn't exist in game. A to SRMs, they should simply give them a minimum range of say 20 feet if fitted arms.

[Wolfways]

I'd be happy with a reduction to the torso twist. Catapults are supposed to be "long-range" support mechs and shouldn't need such a huge torso twist.
But they should also have the ridiculously huge head hitbox reduced.

K2's would be used as intended if PGI hadn't ignored the playerbase in CB saying they shouldn't be able to use big ballistics. But i think PGI couldn't care less about mech roles.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Serapth, on 29 January 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

It's the k2 variant that shouldn't exist in game. A to SRMs, they should simply give them a minimum range of say 20 feet if fitted arms.

Just, no.

SRM cats are so nice because of the absurdly huge raw SRM damage. Same problem with LRMs -- too much raw damage despite the fact it spreads.

K2's aren't all that great when you look at the sniper firepower you can put on to Cataphract or Atlas-RS, anyway. Plus, Gauss cats are soo fragile if they have an XL engine its not even funny.

The only real problem here is that people love to brawl (naturally in the tiny-*** maps) so when a decent sniper mech comes along, they lose their heads and yell "OP" when 30 damage isn't even all that high, anyway! The best argument here is that a Catapult's torso twist is crazy high! I'd argue that if PGI nerfed their torso twist ability and fixed missiles like they should, all these problems regarding cats would vanish.

[Josef Nader]

Splitpin, on 29 January 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

Sorry can't agree. Catapults are a versatile agile mech, true, but does that ipso facto mean they need a nerf ? No, they are vunerable and fragile. Every 'boat build' Catapult has it's own big weakness.

The complaint is not that the cat is versatile or agile. The complaint is that there really isn't competing with the cat in a heavyweight chassis.

Let's take a look at the Cataphract vs the Catapult in a classic build for both mechs, the twin gauss. For all intents and purposes, the twin gauss 'Phract -should- be better than the Gausscat. The arm mounted weapons make it more easy to pick your shots (in theory) and it's got 5 tons on the little kitty. This should equate to more sustainability, more firepower, and more popularity. Yet, in practice, this isn't the case. Why? Because the K2 has perfect convergence, it can out-twist the 'Phract by 30 degrees, the weapons are mounted much higher up (preventing the turfing of shots when playing peekaboo), and the hit profile is much better than the 'Phract. Well, we can't change the hit profile or the position of the guns, nor can we fix the fact that the cats have better convergence (even if we put the ballistics in the arms, they're still torso locked and therefore perfectly convergent). So, the solution to bring the two more into line is decreasing the Cat's insane twist rate. It's what makes the Cat so much better in a brawl than a Gaussaphract.

BLUPRNT, on 29 January 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

Cats do not have lateral arm travel. They cannot lock LRM's and fire while face shotting lasers into another like I can on on my Hunchie. And as far as the A1 what do people expect to do with a 6 missles only mech. I tried a combo of missles on one and with ECM and no ability to tag, what then? Of course in a well organized team a combo would be viable, but in a PUG forget it. I'd be open to something else. Anybody?

Yes, but their torso twist affords them greater reach than any other mech in the game including mechs with arm mounted weapons. Like I said, the only mechs with anywhere near the same reach are the Hunchback (with it's arm lasers) and the Spider (again, with it's arm traverse). No other mech in the game even comes close even after arms are factored into the equation. You can verify this for yourself here. Like I said, though. I have no problem with Splat Cats or Streak cats or any of the A1 boat builds. I just think they should be made slightly less awesome by lowering the insane reach of their torso. Again, I offer the Stalker as an example. It's terrifying to be in front of, but it also has some serious blind spots that keep it from being insanely powerful. Again, we don't have to lower the Cat's twist -that- far, but bringing it down to compare with other heavies would go a long way.

LoganMkv, on 29 January 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

I can't agree. The game allowing SRM cats to be viable is the problem, not cats themselves.

Ecm approach is fine, now we need something like adding active sensors to BAP and model codenames on minimap. So if you have a scout with probe at front you can notice sneaking splatcat from afar.

Again, there's nothing wrong with SRMs on any other mech. Yes, the cat can boat 6 of them, but this is at the cost of some serious ammo problems and being absolutely useless at 271m and above. The Splat and Streak cats are fine builds, just a bit too powerful in relation to the other heavy mechs. Again, lowering the torso traverse would go a long way to bring them into line and make other heavy mechs a more serious option.

Edited by Josef Nader, 29 January 2013 - 02:31 PM.

[Deamhan]

Put size restrictions on the hard points. With regards to the A1, if they first changed the slot usage of the SRMs to one for the SRM 2, two for the SRM 4 and three for the SRM 6. Then, if they place a three slot restriction on one hard point, a two slot on the second and a one slot on the third, the most you can have is....

LRM 30 (I'm not even sure what the most you could have before was)
SRM 12 (Instead of a SRM 18)
SSRM 6 (Same as before)

The K2 should have its ballistic hard point relocated to the arms.

Combine those changes with the fact that the arms on the Cat are easy enough to shoot off, this should tune it down a bit.

The Cat isn't the only mech that can benefit from weapon size restrictions on hard points.

[Josef Nader]

That would require major changes to how the current game mechanics work. Reducing the torso traverse would not. Again, think about why the Cataphract or the Stalker aren't quite as scary as the Catapult. It's the limited traverse that makes it much easier to outmaneuver these mechs in a close fight, so skilled pilots can beat them despite their superior firepower. You can work your butt off to get behind a Cat only for him to turn around like Regan from the Exorcist and put twin AC20s or 36 SRMs into your face. Again, I have no problem with a cat mounting twin AC20s or 36 SRMs. I'd just like to be able to outmaneuver them in a close fight, rather than having to try and beat something that can out-traverse most of my mechs by 20-30 degrees or more.

[eaglemaster42]

The catapult is really just too fragile to stand above the other heavy mechs. The torso twist is a bit ridiculous, but they effectively end up with the same radius that other mechs can fire on due to their arms not being able to move side.

[Josef Nader]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/#

It has 10 degrees of twist on the Dragon, and 30 on the 'Phract.

Let's also not forget that it can alpha at it's full traverse and land every shot, unlike the Dragon and the 'Phract, who can only land arm-mounted weapons at full traverse.

It also has 20 more points of max armor than the Dragon, while only having 10 fewer points of max armor than the 'Phract. It's no more or less fragile than any of the other Heavies, comparatively.

Edited by Josef Nader, 29 January 2013 - 02:49 PM.