115 replies to this topic

[Hanged Man]

I'm all about Wolf and Ghost Bear. GIve me a chance to hop into a Timber Wolf or Kodiak and there's a real chance I'll be digging out my wallet if need be.

[Romolus]

Well, I'm not as schooled as most, but if I had to choose a clan, I'd go nova cat, I think... maybe... idk

[geck0 icaza]

dymlos2003, on 04 April 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

I hope it stays IS only... sorry Clanners, I just think it would be for the best.

yeah, pretty messed up to tell a set of people that love those factions that "hey, your special, and these guys here are are QQing so here's the shaft".

Started a thread on this kind of stuff and why it's crap that people are giving the potential clan players so much grief because of their own hang ups.

http://mwomercs.com/...962#entry162962

[Thomas Hogarth]

geck0 icaza, on 04 April 2012 - 07:45 PM, said:

yeah, pretty messed up to tell a set of people that love those factions that "hey, your special, and these guys here are are QQing so here's the shaft".

Started a thread on this kind of stuff and why it's crap that people are giving the potential clan players so much grief because of their own hang ups.

http://mwomercs.com/...962#entry162962

Yeah, pretty messed up to expect to be able to play a powerful faction with technology the other guys can only dream of and 'Mechs that allow you to change loadout at will without some sort of moderating controls. "hey, we're special, and we get the cool toys - but we'll QQ if it's at all harder to play as our faction."

Note that I'm not only replying to your attitude here, but also on the post that you linked. Normally, I wouldn't go as far as citing another post in another thread, but you opened that door with the link.

I'd like to take a step back, and discuss this from a logical angle. As someone that hopes to play IS primarily and Clan as a secondary (see my previous post in this thread to see my fantasy of how that would work), making Clan weapons equal to IS weapons with slightly shifted capabilities (more heat for more range, MW4 method, etc) is unacceptable. Clan tech should be superior to IS tech. The balance should come from making Clans harder to play. I disagree with a trial method, and prefer my "sink or swim" method. Clan players should be dedicated, talented, and resourceful - good mirrors of what Clan Mechwarriors are in canon. Anything less leads to everyone going Clan, and more than 50% of the playerbase being Clan would lead to an ungodly loss of immersion.

[Kell Pryde]

Thomas I am not trying to brown nose, but you have some great ideas IMHO with regards to clan implementation. My only two cents to coincide with your ideas is to have the matches if they are IS vs Clan be star on company sized. The Clans would always be outnumbered (a fair representation of canon), their technology could be scaled accordingly without breaking the game, they still would require skill to win, and hopefully given that they wouldn't be an automatic win button it would keep the bandwagoners away. Regardless, good stuff!

[Eximar]

Thomas Hogarth, on 04 April 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

The balance should come from making Clans harder to play. ... Clan players should be dedicated, talented, and resourceful - good mirrors of what Clan Mechwarriors are in canon. Anything less leads to everyone going Clan, and more than 50% of the playerbase being Clan would lead to an ungodly loss of immersion.

I would put forth that there will be no practical way to make a faction harder to play. More expensive? Sure. More time consuming? Sure. Just not harder. In the end, you are a player in a mech. If your mech is better, then skill is the only thing that will bring your opponent victory over you. That will certainly happen, of course.

I would also put forth that you will get an incredibly small percentage of people who are willing to role play canon Clanishness.

I absolutely agree with your last sentence. Poor Clan implementation is the one thing, imho, that will quickly ruin this game.

[Banshee Bullet]

The only reason I would likely rejoin the clans is for clan tech but honestly, that's what salvage is for.

[Slyck]

I'd like to point to this decently sampled poll that shows that only third of the player population is interested in switching over to the clans.

But when it does happen I hope the cost of mechs and their repairs continues to help diversify the mechs in the field. I expect that it will be hard to keep an Atlas continually restocked repaired and in the field, and omni's are significantly more expensive then the Atlas. So I figure that if you get your Dire Wolf trashed in one game it'll take a dozen games in a second line mech to finance it's repairs.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Kell Pryde, on 04 April 2012 - 08:04 PM, said:

Thomas I am not trying to brown nose, but you have some great ideas IMHO with regards to clan implementation. My only two cents to coincide with your ideas is to have the matches if they are IS vs Clan be star on company sized. The Clans would always be outnumbered (a fair representation of canon), their technology could be scaled accordingly without breaking the game, they still would require skill to win, and hopefully given that they wouldn't be an automatic win button it would keep the bandwagoners away. Regardless, good stuff!

Thanks!

The problem I find with Clans vs IS as the standard battle mode is that it might play havoc with the matchmaker. Also, any unbalances are far more damaging in random battles where one side is all X and the other is all Y: Consider WoT, where random matches DON'T mix the countries. At any point in time, it may become almost impossible for a single faction to find enough players to start a game.

This would be even worse with MWO, where there are more factions, and more factions where there are far fewer individuals. Players in those factions would be SOL most of the time for finding a game. I don't particularly like the idea of everyone fighting alongside different houses in random matches, but the alternative may be far worse.

Eximar, on 04 April 2012 - 08:36 PM, said:

I would put forth that there will be no practical way to make a faction harder to play. More expensive? Sure. More time consuming? Sure. Just not harder. In the end, you are a player in a mech. If your mech is better, then skill is the only thing that will bring your opponent victory over you. That will certainly happen, of course.

I would also put forth that you will get an incredibly small percentage of people who are willing to role play canon Clanishness.

I absolutely agree with your last sentence. Poor Clan implementation is the one thing, imho, that will quickly ruin this game.

I don't know if it's impossible to make it more difficult to play a certain faction. My first post in this thread outlines how I would make the Clans more difficult to play. I'll TL;DR it here for you: Basically, a Clan Mechwarrior must deliver somewhere between 1.3 to 2 times the amount of damage to the enemy than they receive in order to break even on their form of currency. (numbers obviously very very loose)

Notice I said "break even" - if they go below that, they lose currency, which can eventually cause Bad Things to happen. This is happily also in line with canon. I'll spare you the long description.

The idea is to balance it so better players have a better chance of being able to hack it in the Clans. The player whose skill level isn't up to the level to not go into negatives will quickly find themselves locked out of their expensive Clan machines and nice Clan weapons.

No part of this requires roleplay in any capacity. It's all automatically added up for you. You just need to play and be good.

Slyck, on 04 April 2012 - 08:55 PM, said:

I'd like to point to this decently sampled poll that shows that only third of the player population is interested in switching over to the clans.

But when it does happen I hope the cost of mechs and their repairs continues to help diversify the mechs in the field. I expect that it will be hard to keep an Atlas continually restocked repaired and in the field, and omni's are significantly more expensive then the Atlas. So I figure that if you get your Dire Wolf trashed in one game it'll take a dozen games in a second line mech to finance it's repairs.

Well, 1/3 of the playerbase going clan would be quite a lot of the playerbase. Also note the small sample size of the poll.

But I LOOOOVE the idea of heavies/assaults costing more to operate than lights/mediums. Also, lostech and Clan tech in IS hands should cost that much more and again. I think being required to run your 3SW medium to pay for the operation of your Lostech heavy is a fine concept that would promote a 50/50 split between lights and assaults. Alas, I seem to recall hearing that PGI has no intent of using financials to attempt to shape 'Mech selection beyond assaults costing more to purchase. I don't think role warfare - especially since roles can be performed in any 'Mech - will be enough to drive a 50/50 split.

The problem with applying a huge maintenance number on Clan 'Mechs in Clan employ is that a) the second-line 'Mechs didn't come around to the IS until a bit later than the Omnis, and Clanners generally have massive amounts of wash-outs to fill their tech slots, so maintenance is no thing for them.

[William Petersen]

I have a second account and name reserved specifically for the occasion of the Clans' introduction.

Clan Wolf, of course. Though as a Crusader, I'd probably be killed off in the Refusal war (which promises to be a very fun event whenever we make it there, what, 8 years away?)



EDIT:

Slyck, on 04 April 2012 - 08:55 PM, said:

I'd like to point to this decently sampled poll that shows that only third of the player population is interested in switching over to the clans.

But when it does happen I hope the cost of mechs and their repairs continues to help diversify the mechs in the field. I expect that it will be hard to keep an Atlas continually restocked repaired and in the field, and omni's are significantly more expensive then the Atlas. So I figure that if you get your Dire Wolf trashed in one game it'll take a dozen games in a second line mech to finance it's repairs.

That's good, IMO, Clans should have a smaller player base. =)

Edited by William Petersen, 04 April 2012 - 09:51 PM.

[geck0 icaza]

@Thomas Hogarth

I apologize for the attitude as it was not directed at you but at the person I was quoting.

I have been a die hard Jade Falcon since my start in MW/Battletech. I Played MW2/3 but barely. I really fell in with MW4. Looked up battletech lore and fell in love. The clan culture drew me in and I was hooked from there. I bought every source book and novel I could get my hands on. Me and a buddy of mine started and ran a JF clan for years. It became one of the defining experiences of my life. When MW4 waned I realized the game didn't keep me there but the clan did. Eventually I fell off, but I was not out. I became so starved I started playing mechwarrior dark age. And eventually started playing battletech to which I still play. The entire time holding the Clan character and being sure to stay close to the story because its the best part of battletech to me.

So when someone arbitrary says "**** your faction" you can understand why I'd be upset.

You do in fact have some great ideas. Some I happen to agree with. It should be hard to play a Clanner, unless your talking about lethality. If you make it like it is in battletech (and EVERYTHING we have been told thus far leads to this conclusion) and I think they will. The clans will be made they way they were and they will be pitted against the proper obstacles and the IS will have to dig deep to fight them.

Dec Interview 4:

"[Omid] I both love and dread the thought of bringing the first Clan 'Mech into the game. The Inner Sphere 'Mechs of 3048 are a really rich palette to start with. And as someone who thinks carefully about controls and mechanics and balance, there's a lot to work with there. So even though I care about balance and how different 'Mechs from different classes interact, when the Clans arrive in our timeline... a part of me really wants to bring over that first Clan 'Mech in all its unbalanced, overwhelming glory. I want to say “To hell with balance, things weren't fair: This is the way it happened.” I really look forward to how we're going to tackle that.
So basically I want to create this fun, tactical, balanced game... just so we can thrash it all in a years time with an epic invasion."

Now, no one has said "this is how it's going to be". But given every piece of info thus far, the people who are part of the creative team have consistently leaned toward sticking with the lore. Heck, even the new "hard point" mech lab system is almost verbatim upgrade rules from strategic operations.

So I'm not really worried about any of these issues. The devs have earned my confidence in them and I am sure they will do what is right. The only reason I post against such counter clan ideas is to be constant reminder there are players out there that are not in it for the shiny toys. We respect the IS players. We don't want to face roll everyone we see, we don't want to auto win, we want it to be hard and challenging. That is what it means to be Clan. We just want the opportunity to play them as they were.

So I again apologize for the spill over in attitude. That's what happens with months of forum's with no game to get your gun off.

[verybad]

I can't wait for the Clans to invade

I'll enjoy killing them.

[geck0 icaza]

verybad, on 04 April 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

I can't wait for the Clans to invade

I'll enjoy killing them.

I will enjoy not making it an easy task, and whomever the winner may be, let them be satisfied in the triumph.

[Thomas Hogarth]

geck0 icaza, on 04 April 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

>snipping bro-tier post in interest of space

Oh dang, we cool. My turn to apologize: I thought you were one of the entitled Clan players - been proven wrong.

Hail from Chico, CA btw!

[BTBWolf]

Clan Wolf...(squints at Will)...but honestly, other than MechWarrior 2 and the not-as-good-as-it-seems MechWarrior: Living Legends, I don't know too much about BattleTech stuff. Read a few novels, that's about it. :/.

[Karl Streiger]

Adridos, on 04 April 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

Neither Clan. I wouldn't betray my friends for prettier toys.

Nothing to add...
But i hope we won't see a third exodus...leaving only a couple of brave and bold in the IS while the main part is fleeing to reach clan space

Edited by Karl Streiger, 04 April 2012 - 11:42 PM.

[geck0 icaza]

BTBWolf, on 04 April 2012 - 11:34 PM, said:

Clan Wolf...(squints at Will)...but honestly, other than MechWarrior 2 and the not-as-good-as-it-seems MechWarrior: Living Legends, I don't know too much about BattleTech stuff. Read a few novels, that's about it. :/.

i suggest the blood of kerensky trilogy. There is a lot of clan wolf in it and it is stackpole's love child. Search the internet and I'm sure you can find it. Thats what I did. I re-read it last month and man it was fun. If you can find it, the wolf Source book is good too. I have the JF version and it was a great source of knowledge. Now if you are really looking into the future, Twilight of the clans is a good series and to go even further wars of reeving will make your mind = blown as the clans implode into awesome.

Thomas Hogarth, on 04 April 2012 - 11:19 PM, said:

Oh dang, we cool. My turn to apologize: I thought you were one of the entitled Clan players - been proven wrong.

Hail from Chico, CA btw!

nice, I'm just south of you in the Dublin Area

[Cruiser]

I defer to my signature.

[Thomas Hogarth]

geck0 icaza, on 04 April 2012 - 11:45 PM, said:

nice, I'm just south of you in the Dublin Area

There's a lot of BT activity at Endgame in Oakland, but I think you might already know that.

[Stormwolf]

I would love to play as a Clan Wolf mechwarrior, I am not all that keen on being cheated out of my favorite faction while all the IS players get to have theirs.

Edited by Stormwolf, 04 April 2012 - 11:59 PM.