70 replies to this topic

[Gigashot]

I can understand the frustration, but if I can offer any encouragement - players are returning, friends and I started playing again and do almost exclusively Faction Warfare, AND we specifically chose the least populated most underdogged side we could find, excited to be part of making a difference.

We can't be the only ones. Being outnumbered and outgunned just makes the victories that much sweeter, and I think that's attractive to the kind of players we'd want on the Clan side anyway.

[DeathEagle]

I think it just comes down to a balance and numbers factor. Everything, literally everything, that is in the Clan, is more expensive - and there is absolutely no reasoning whatsoever behind it.
The mechs? Some of them cost twice the price of their IS counterparts.

Weaons, still twice as much.

Even with MC little extras that provide no in-game benefit such as cockpit items are more expensive. In the Battetech Lore clan weaponry and mechs were hailed as being faster, having longer range and more destructive.But for "Balancing purposes" they made clan mechs IDENTICAL to IS mechs.

So how can Piranha Games justify such a huge cost hike on Clan stuff?

Simply because "Clans are cool?" Not for f*cking twice the price they're not!


I get that from a business perspective, you want to see money flow in and want the hard work you put into designing and development pay off. But if you actually give a damn about your player base and community, and want to see this game succeed for the long term, you'll ease down your prices on Clan mechs.

Edited by DeathEagle, 04 May 2016 - 03:42 PM.

[Tactically-Insane]

DeathEagle, on 04 May 2016 - 03:40 PM, said:

I think it just comes down to a balance and numbers factor. Everything, literally everything, that is in the Clan, is more expensive - and there is absolutely no reasoning whatsoever behind it.
The mechs? Some of them cost twice the price of their IS counterparts.

Weaons, still twice as much.

Even with MC little extras that provide no in-game benefit such as cockpit items are more expensive. In the Battetech Lore clan weaponry and mechs were hailed as being faster, having longer range and more destructive.But for "Balancing purposes" they made clan mechs IDENTICAL to IS mechs.

So how can Piranha Games justify such a huge cost hike on Clan stuff?

Simply because "Clans are cool?" Not for f*cking twice the price they're not!


I get that from a business perspective, you want to see money flow in and want the hard work you put into designing and development pay off. But if you actually give a damn about your player base and community, and want to see this game succeed for the long term, you'll ease down your prices on Clan mechs.

I completely agree with you, it’s not fair that they nerffed the ba-jesus out of our clan mechs while still maintaining the same c-bill price for these mechs and their weapons. Why do our weapon systems have to make so much more heat than our innersphere counter parts? What good is it that our energy weapons can do more damage if they have a much higher beam duration? The only thing we really have going for clan mechs is that our weapon systems are lighter, SSM4 + SSM6, and components/weapons take less critical space. Our omni mechs are barely omini mechs, there is way too much fixed equipment our mechs. If anything it should be innsphere mechs with all the fixed equipment.

I am just really frustrated with the state of the game.

[demoyn]

DeathEagle, on 04 May 2016 - 03:40 PM, said:

The mechs? Some of them cost twice the price of their IS counterparts.

Weaons, still twice as much.

Even with MC little extras that provide no in-game benefit such as cockpit items are more expensive. In the Battetech Lore clan weaponry and mechs were hailed as being faster, having longer range and more destructive.But for "Balancing purposes" they made clan mechs IDENTICAL to IS mechs.

So how can Piranha Games justify such a huge cost hike on Clan stuff?

Simply because "Clans are cool?" Not for f*cking twice the price they're not!

This isn't really true at all, though. If you add up the prices of COMPLETED mechs, not just stock mechs, then the prices are very similar. In fact, clans are typically slightly cheaper.

[Commander A9]

If one is disappointed in the performance of Clans, well, hell, start practicing to improve one's skills.

Improvement of your team starts with improvement in yourself.

[Brethren]

Commander A9, on 14 May 2016 - 08:46 PM, said:

If one is disappointed in the performance of Clans, well, hell, start practicing to improve one's skills.

Sadly the ability to conquer and hold planets is not purely based on skill. A faction needs active Units across all time zones.
A planet can be reliably conquered by a 12 or 16 player team in one evening session. (at least you can tip it over 50%)
Problem is, from a "european" point of view, as soon as we go to bed prime time in "the americas" starts and the new planet is always gone a couple of hours later.

Edited by Brethren, 14 May 2016 - 10:50 PM.

[Lehmund]

I think the issue is not mechs as they are somewhat balanced between Clan and IS at the moment. The issue is the choices of the playerbase.

A new player interested in CW is presented with a basic core choice: Clan or IS

Clan: 4 factions, a certain selection of mechs + omnipod system for custimizability. + mechs seem more expensive to buy off the shelf.
IS: 6 factions, double the amount of mechs + full customizability + cheaper mechs (sure once you customize a bit, they may be as expensive as clan mechs, but not too sure abou tthat).

On its own, more players will choose IS, just because IS looks like a better deal.

Now, combined with the fact that planets in CW can be defended by any unit/warrior from your side of the conflict (IS or Clan), and the fact that Ghost Drops are possible in CW, IS can more readily dominate in gaining new planets and defending their own.

Let's do some math to illustrate.

Let's assume, due to mech selection and apparent lower cost per mech, 65%of players will choose the IS side to for their CW pleasure.

It means for each 100 players, 66 would choose IS while 35 would choose clan.

Now assuming an even distribution for now between factions, you'd get roughly 11 players in each IS faction and 8.5 in each clan faction.

That means for any Faction vs Clan conflict the IS Faction has 23% more warriors to fight with. ((11-8.5)/11 = 0.227
AND when defending against attack IS has 48% more warriors as a pool to draw from ((66-34)/66) = 0.485

So unless Clan is able to out-organize and outperform and/or draw powerful merc units to fight for them, they will have a hard time fighting the numbers.

Now PGI has set up the Merc system with higher rewards for going with Factions with lower populations to balance things out. It's a way to go about it, for sure, and time will tell if it works or can be tweaked to work etc... I don't think it will be sufficient though can be a self-balancing element that I find fun.

What is needed is a good incentive for players to join and play Clan under the exact system we have. There are some options:
1. As mentioned before, review the cost/price system for the mechs and make sure the cost for similar sized mechs looks just as appealing either way.
2. Pump out more Clan mechs to increase Clan selection.

If you want to go closer to lore and make the game really unique, plus satisfy the numbers disparity in population, modify the mechs so that Clan mechs are more powerful as per lore, and make the matches 12 vs 8 in CW (or whatever ratio that makes sense) (and for QP, MM just makes sure same amount of Clan and IS mechs on either side etc...). This would make for a very interesting choice when choosing a side: i.e. do you want to be the underdog with lower numbers but better tech versus more numbers and lower tech.

(IS vs IS fights would be 12 vs 12, and clan vs clan would be 8 v 8 and whatnot).

Honestly there are many ways to go about all this but I would work on the points above first as players I think want to get a good distribution of players in all factions for this to work, or at least sides to be as attractive than the other etc...

An even better solution would be to make sure Ghost Drops cannot occur. Instead you play vs some hard AI perhaps so that the sector is not auto-won if you have more numbers to field etc...

Ok that's enough thinking for today...

[Hunter Tseng]

If they were to balance the mechs as per lore... there will be even more crying in game and in the forums...

Currently I feel like the mechs are fairly balanced, but not quite there yet... with all the IS quirks (especially the weapons quirks) the IS mechs have a slight advantage... especially when it comes to FW...

In public matches I might not notice such disadvantages maybe bcoz you can have IS mechs friendlies as well to hide behind and hope they carry

[Gigashot]

So obviously they can't balance IS vs. Clans true to lore, can't have 10 Sherman tanks vs. 1 Tiger Tank but Clans need some meaningful love.

The problem is the IS strengths are very intuitive, or how most people play game by default: tankier, less heat generation, Assaults that aren't so niche. It doesn't ask a lot of the IS pilot to use those strengths. If you have a keyboard, mouse, and a pulse you can use those strengths without even knowing it. Clan mechs require a lot more of the player to use our strengths, we have some extra range here, and you can use this Assault but only in this one game mode, on certain maps, if you don't have to move, and also make sure you don't get shot at all. Then it's a great mech.

So, with that scenario, with average skilled players on both sides, IS are going to just face roll over the Clans. And not always, but more often than not, that is what happens in FW games I'm in.

I'm really hoping the Kodiak will tip the scales a little bit closer to addressing this situation.

Edited by Gigashot, 17 May 2016 - 05:21 AM.

[Jon Gotham]

Commander A9, on 14 May 2016 - 08:46 PM, said:

If one is disappointed in the performance of Clans, well, hell, start practicing to improve one's skills.

Improvement of your team starts with improvement in yourself.

Agreed 100% But.....If I put you for argument's sake in an Ebon Jag with a fictional 4 ErLL build and I then put you in an Is heavy with structure quirks, a small say...-15% beam duration quirk and say a small -10% heat quirk you'd play much better in the Is mech most of the time.

Skill does indeed matter, but those quirks DO make huge difference and that is only made more so by increased player skill. what truly astounds me is IS players still harping on about "clanz OP."

[MischiefSC]

If you can't make a TBR/HBR/EBJ/SCR work for you, or the ACH, not much can help you. Clans are not flat out superior all the way around now- it's pretty well balanced. Still top tier heavies and mediums and ACH or JenIIC best lights and now Kodiak top tier Assault, learn to play.

Why are all the mercs in Clans 1/2 the time or more? Because they are not bad at the game and as such can easily keep up with IS and win matches.

Problem is most the Clan players were sulking little pansies who flounced and ran away when they didn't have an advantage.

Nothing of value was lost. Time to step back and evaluate what actually wins, just like the IS did 2 years ago. You can't just bring whatever and expect to win on superior tech. Build good mechs with a strat, coordinate and communicate, get on a single TS with your faction, build groups and play in called drops.

The teams that actually know how to play are so tough in CJF right now nobody is even showing up to play them. If you think the comp units would play inferior mechs "for a challenge" you're high as a kite. They play what wins and they still play Clans plenty.

They just actually got good instead of expecting the game to be slanted to make them seem good regardless.