1 Topic by Lupus Aurelius (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2011-05-22 23:52:34)

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Topic: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Looking at current PVP activity, Thelodica mechs and heavy mechs are at a distinct disadvantage.  For reasons I will discuss below, there is little to no reason currently to employ a Thelodica mech, due to some striking limitations.

Incursions:  Currently, intrusion PVP favors Gropho's heavily. Ranged DPS, speed, and missle heavy squads are the norm now.  A decently skilled pilot with good equipment can achieve almost an 800m locking and optimal range.  Damage is decent, with significantly less line-of-sight issues. Low plants, or slight landscape elevation variations between the Gropho and the target have no effect on delivered dps.  Also, you can get the Gropho to go over 60 kph with Navigation to 10, and the right equipment.  Mesmer, well, line of sight and significantly reduced range  limit it's usefulness except at close line defense with massive DPS capablity, yet is still faster than the Gropho, and can easily keep up with the rest of the squad.  Whereas the Seth has equivilent, or even better range, line-of-sight issues effectively reduce it's effectiveness, and max speed you will get in a properly fit Seth is UNDER 60 kph, slower than the Gropho.

Roaming PVP:  Speed is the key for any roaming gang, and here the Kain is the king.  Even with it's limited range, it can close on any other mech easily, and deliver massive amounts of DPS quickly.  Line-of-sight issues at close range usually not an issue, and if the target is behind a landscape feature, you have enough speed to get back on target.  Tyrannos has significantly less speed, but does not have line-of-sight issues that the Kain and Artemes do, and can get over 600 optimal and locking, decent ranges for a roaming gang.  The Artemis, whereas it has excellent range, mid to upper 700's, is got line-of-sight issues galore, and also is SLOWER than the Tyrannos, with both at Nav 10 and fitted with decent equipment.

At this time, there really is no role in PVP for the Artemis and Seth that cannot be better performed by another race, for intrusions or for roaming. For the intrusions, Seth is too slow and can't consistantly deliver DPS as well as the Gropho, for roaming, the Artemis is too slow and cannot consistantly deliver DPS as well as the Tyrannos or Kain.

For the purpose of this discussion, I have not included the EWar Mechs.

Discuss.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

you forgot to mention that most Artemis mechs you see are going out with med firearms.
what reasons would you see in that?

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

it's the reasons why i only use my Seth to bash reactor plasma and  only use Ewar thelodica for pvp.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Thelodica have no place in PVP. Name a role and a combat thelodica is usually outdone by another robot.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Hi, im not a lot into pvp; but i ride thelodica and i see what u mean but in a diferent way.
Problem with line of sight is huge disavantage and gets explioted everytime, but there are some situations Seths or Arties can be quite deadfull, so defender ambushes and opefield only fights its our place for now if u ask m.
Any LOS tweak would be welcome thou.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

they are tanks, aren't they?

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7 Reply by Alexander (edited by Alexander 2011-05-23 18:14:55)

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Line wrote:

they are tanks, aren't they?

Which are useless in the current fights. I'll balance out if people stop only using the SAME robot.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

oh well then place them on mountains and fit for sniping

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9 Reply by Malakian (edited by Malakian 2011-05-23 09:49:45)

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Yes, I forgot you can bring with in your bot your very own inflatable hill for every engagement. Not as fast as blue bots, and not so effective as green in range due LOS nightmares. Is a sad time for yellow fatties during big battles. Anyways is more a metagame problem than a design problem imo.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

The problem root:

5 months old patch : nerfing ALL thelodica bots speed to equal to pelistal. (when was a big whine about intakt speed).

Get back thelodica speed between pelistal and nuimqol, and bring Kains speed in line with any other robot category. Just Kain have much more speed than its needed to be.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

no need to carry hills with you. just take your position and cover it. can be useful for mining.

everything is possible imho, just some things are harder than others. also i think every patch that adds some new stuff/abilities will cause such threads. to prevent that i'd better recommend to do allthe robots more customisable. there was some thread about crafting, upgrades, bonuses and prototyping. such things can really help - players will be able to "balance" robots by themselves.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Exomorph wrote:

The problem root:

5 months old patch : nerfing ALL thelodica bots speed to equal to pelistal. (when was a big whine about intakt speed).

Get back thelodica speed between pelistal and nuimqol, and bring Kains speed in line with any other robot category. Just Kain have much more speed than its needed to be.

only the intakt was nerfed to be in line with other yellow bots.
Yellow bots actually can fullfill the role of tanks, but pretty immobile tanks if you take a closer look:

1. you really need to fit all low slots with tank equip to do so -> no place for a lwf
= 50% less speed (30% lwf, + heavy armor)
2. medium armor repair on yellow bots will always need more AP then it repairs per cycle
= to tank you need at least two repair tunings ontop your seismic ERP
3. The penalty on Range extender doesn't really affect green bots. how much do they care about slower recharge. A Yellow bot has to fit something into the legslots - oh wait, that means at least 1 less tank equip.
= green bots can be fast, long range and capstable with self repair
= yellow bots can't be long range, capstable and Tank and be fast.
4. ECM, Supressor, Interference has much more effect on non-green bots due to locktime-bonus of green mechs. ECM hits? who cares if i can relock in 2-3s

...

IMHO the two main reasons why laser bots are less effective are the mass/speed formula and the missing penalty on range extender for greens.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

On release, everyone specced into intakts. With first resets, people specced into blue/yellow further. After this "free EP reset", everyone and their mother specced blue/green.

... Stop the resets.

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14 Reply by Alexander (edited by Alexander 2011-05-23 18:14:30)

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Keep the resets, balance faster. I like that a different faction is better than another every week but this is due to PLAYER choices. NOT balance..
Less resetting and more people playing when you're over the best counter to the current flavour of the month.

If we choose rock and you choose rock is an interesting fight of who has more rocks.
If we choose paper and you choose rock then we get a nice easy fight no matter how many rocks you've brought.

What's the saying? Know thy enemy?

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

The real question would be are we playing a FPS game where everyone changes classes every now and then, or a sandbox MMO.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Syndic wrote:

The real question would be are we playing a FPS game where everyone changes classes every now and then, or a sandbox MMO.

I asked the Devs the same question months ago. I am still awaiting an answer. big_smile

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Yes, thats why I completely disagree with respecs. There is no consequence atm, people rerolling and changing names specs whatever... The 1 respec in 45 days was fine. You would learn the game, find what you enjoy and stick with it. Pilots would become valuable for their choices, there would be reasons to cross-spec between mega-corps.

Choice matters... Choice brings consequences. Atm, there is not much choice, and zero consequence.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

The Artemis, whereas it has excellent range, mid to upper 700's, is got line-of-sight issues galore, and also is SLOWER than the Tyrannos, with both at Nav 10 and fitted with decent equipment.

That is completely untrue, max speed for a fully fit Tyrannos is 70, and that's with an alt behind you remote sensor amping so you can fit more lighter range extenders and no local rep.

Edit: Troll removed - DEV Calvin
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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

So here's the contradiction;

On one hand we are telling new players that EP and extension levels aren't that important, and you can still be productive in the PVP game. On the other hand, there's the conception that mis-placing a couple thousand EP is game breaking and requires an EP reset. Even if it's 10,000EP; it's just a week's time. If you can't make up a week's worth of mistake, then the 'premise' that new players can be effective is completely false.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Noobs can't be min/maxers... duhhhhhhh....

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Is that noob as a noun or verb...

22 Reply by AgY (edited by AgY 2011-05-23 22:30:03)

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Real balancing issue lies elsewhere. Its not just thelodica mechs.
The most important characteristics on almost everything in this game are Speed and Range.
So first thing you realize when you want todo PvP is that you need all speed and range related existensions at 10.

Now if you look at the bot classes you can see that Thelodica bots have neither a advantage if it comes to speed nor if it comes to range. Ofc you can build a nice tankfit .. but thats worth nothing because your enemy can either stay out of range or run away.
There wont be any real balance as long as bots differ in range and speed.

And new players are doomed todo support roles until they have enough EP to get into something that can hit (with EWAR or DPS) at 800m (tbd).

Edit: oh and ofc .. there are only a few bots/weapons that can effectivly hit at 800m.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

i just wonder what robot you will ask to balance after artillery will be implemented.

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Line wrote:

i just wonder what robot you will ask to balance after artillery will be implemented.

Assault, and
Assault, and not to forget

Assault

i mean, have you seen an "assault" with that class of robot (which is slower and weaker then all of its possible targets)

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Re: Mech roles - Thelodica disadvantage

Annihilator wrote:
Line wrote:

i just wonder what robot you will ask to balance after artillery will be implemented.

Assault, and
Assault, and not to forget

Assault

i mean, have you seen an "assault" with that class of robot (which is slower and weaker then all of its possible targets)

Why drive Assault when you can drive Mech. That's the issue. Weapon stabilisers was a bad move IMO.
Mechs and Assaults should be classes of their own. Rushing to mech should not be how to win the game.