136 replies to this topic

[VanillaG]

Well if you only allowed weapons to mixed and not structure, engines, armor, and heatsinks I don't think it would be all that bad when you take into consideration that all of the clan lasers are the hottest in the game. Hardly anyone is running around with the ERLarge and if you don't have access to clan heatsinks, running those clan lasers are going to get you toasted pretty quick.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Merky Merc, on 30 March 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

That clan medium is really expensive. Good thing I can buy some Clan weapons to stick in my HBK so I'm not outgunned and so my favorite mech doesn't serve as target practice for clanners.

Oh hey triple clan UAC/10 Ilya. I would not be upset about the inclusion of clan weapons + my shiny (ish) hero mech.

Clan Mechs are better than Inner Sphere Mechs, even if the Inner Sphere Mechs have Clan weapons in them. There is no contest.

Pinselborste, on 30 March 2013 - 05:52 PM, said:

if clan tech is overpowered and is only available to clans, nearly every player will switch to clans, wich will make the servers obsolete cause the game will be dead than.

Not true, plenty of us would stay behind. I for instance would stay with Steiner and just kill Clanners everyday. While many people will switch, it's foolish to state "all" will do so. Many players like IS Mech designs or Houses and would either return or simply stay put. What we don't want however is for our stuff to become obsolete, which WILL happen if the stuff isn't kept out of House hands. You'd rather have an entire game of Clanners instead of just some Clan factions? You're saying everyone will switch. Well, rather than then everyone, in every House, using Clan stuff anyway just to be competitive.

[Merky Merc]

Bluten, on 30 March 2013 - 07:03 PM, said:

Clan Mechs are better than Inner Sphere Mechs, even if the Inner Sphere Mechs have Clan weapons in them. There is no contest.

How do you figure? I mean in some ways so far as torso twist and what not I could see it. But if the difference between my Ctf and a Thor is 15mil Cbills and I can just slap some Clan weapons in my mech, I suspect I'll be able to hold my own.

[DaisuSaikoro Nagasawa]

Victor Morson, on 29 March 2013 - 02:00 PM, said:

With Clan equipment looming on the horizon, I am growing increasingly concerned with the current MC direction. Namely, that Clan equipment will be available for Inner Sphere pilots on a wide scale, including chassis.

No. No, no, no. NO. Do not do this.

I'm entirely behind allowing Clans into the game, and supporting them, but the minute you allow people in the IS to buy Clan tech, even at enhanced prices, all you're going to do is muddy the faction line and not make being IS/Clan mean anything at all.

I would be OK with some exceptions, like "Experimental builds" with 1 or 2 clan hard points - but if you start allowing Inner Sphere pilots to buy Mad Cats, they will, and then that's pretty much all they will use.

You'll hurt the faction dynamic and utterly crush the game if you do large scale mix-tech. You'll accelerate this even further if you make crossteching an MC thing. Just leave a clear divide between the factions and let players go to where they'd like: Worry about balancing through other methods like BV or some kind of Clan limitation.

tl/dr: Do NOT give the IS the ability to buy Mad Cats, and don't give the Clans the options to buy IS 'mechs, either. Keep the factions separate. Maybe introduce experimental IS 'mechs that can use Clan tech, or 2nd line mechs that can use IS tech, but that should be the absolute maximum extent of cross-tech.

I am a clanner. I already own 3 variants of each IS mech (except the spider). What would you suggest for those who have already put time in to building up a collection of IS mechs?

[Jman5]

I feel like many of you are doing your best not to see the obvious:

Everyone and every mech will be able to equip clan tech, and it wont be OP like the lore claims. It will have heat issues, perhaps lower damage, or range. Some of you are conveniently forgetting that they have been adjusting the TT values for IS gear since before beta started. Why are people thinking that we're suddenly going to go back to TT with clan tech?

They can't balance clan gear by costs because it just doesn't work well in the context of this game. R&R was taken out for a reason. And god help you if you make it MC only. The screams of P2W will be deafening.

They are not going to restrict it to clan mechs. Also, they will not obsolete IS gear because then you might as well throw out a year of developer time and millions of dollars it took making IS mech/weapons.

You can't do uneven teams. It would be ridiculously difficult to balance and would prevent friends from playing together unless they all go IS or Clan. Then you have issues with PuGs and matchmaking.

So everyone better get over it now, because there is no other logical way to do it. Clan Gear will be for everyone and it wont be OP. I'm sorry, but this is an issue of gameplay and balance requirements trumping lore.

Edited by Jman5, 30 March 2013 - 07:46 PM.

[FupDup]

Jman5, on 30 March 2013 - 07:38 PM, said:

I feel like many of you are doing your best not to see the obvious:

Everyone and every mech will be able to equip clan tech, and it wont be OP like the lore claims. It will have heat issues, perhaps lower damage, or range. Some of you are conveniently forgetting that they have been adjusting the TT values for IS gear since before beta started. Why are people thinking that we're suddenly going to go back to TT with clan tech?

They can't balance clan gear by costs because it just doesn't work well in the context of this game. R&R was taken out for a reason.

They are not going to restrict it to clan mechs. Also, they will not obsolete IS gear because then you might as well throw out a year of developer time and millions of dollars it took making IS mech/weapons.

You can't do uneven teams. It would be ridiculously difficult to balance and would prevent friends from playing together unless they all go IS or Clan. Then you have issues with PuGs.

Better get over it now because there is no other logical way to do it.

While I agree with a "tradeoffs" system of making Clan tech have a different flavor than IS tech (as opposed to trollolollol upgrade or just reskins), it would cause utterly colossal rage. Think of the pre-adjustment Coolant Flush, combined with 3rd person, with Pay2Play CW sprinkled on top...and multiply that by 12 to get roughly how much people will tizzy about it.

[Bagheera]

Old news. Simple solution:

Implement 12v12

Keep Clanners as Clanners, keep IS as IS.

All Clanner VS IS matches are 3 IS lances (12 mechs) vs 2 Clan stars (10 mechs)

Start from there, check balance, tune equipment as needed.

[Jman5]

Just one more point to add about this:

Quote

tl/dr: Do NOT give the IS the ability to buy Mad Cats, and don't give the Clans the options to buy IS 'mechs, either. Keep the factions separate.

You can't restrict mech purchases by faction affiliation. It just can't work.

Imagine I want to be a clanner when they come up. Ok, what happens to all the mechs I've purchased? Do I get fully refunded? What about mechs I paid MC for? Does PGI give me all my MC back?

Or are you going to force everyone who wants to pilot a madcat into creating an alternate account? So everyone is running around with dual accounts now? I'll have to re-grind for all those module slots now? I have to pay more MC for stuff I already have on my other account? Has all the grinding and c-bill accumulation been pointless?

There are logistical realities here that make your dream of neat faction lines impossible for MWO. Maybe if all this stuff was rolled out together at Open Beta's launch, but now it's way too late.

Edited by Jman5, 30 March 2013 - 08:22 PM.

[Diomed]

This is how it will happen folks: in a few months a new 'hero' mech will appear, The MadCat. It will be for MC's only and cost about $50. It will be insanely overpowered and will steamroll all other mechs. There will be no zel, no asymmetric drops, no changes to the game at all. The MM will still post it as a 75 ton mech and the owners of MatCats will obliterate everyone else. Its gonna happen and you know it.

[FupDup]

Diomed, on 30 March 2013 - 08:05 PM, said:

This is how it will happen folks: in a few months a new 'hero' mech will appear, The MadCat. It will be for MC's only and cost about $50. It will be insanely overpowered and will steamroll all other mechs. There will be no zel, no asymmetric drops, no changes to the game at all. The MM will still post it as a 75 ton mech and the owners of MatCats will obliterate everyone else. Its gonna happen and you know it.

Hellbringer would be funnier, because it comes stock with ECM.

Edited by FupDup, 30 March 2013 - 08:22 PM.

[Johnjw72]

they should have 12 vs 10 or 8 vs 6 not alow clan mechs into IS for at least six months as all clan omni mechs would be perchased by the giant mech companies/governments for research and have a limited selection or clan weapons we could equip after salvage beating a clan force.
I think the idea of having a clan pilot also is a good Idea so we do not all have to switch to to clanners to experice that side

[Victor Morson]

Merky Merc, on 30 March 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

We can already use mechs across "factions" that are supposed to be faction specific. Apparently we're already doomed anytime any non-Liao is in a ECM mech, or any (er) pulse laser user that isn't a kurita.

Mechs/weapons being specific to certain factions is not going to work. Making certain things cheaper for certain factions will. And a FedSun pilot in a Mad Cat isn't going to suddenly kill off community warfare in whatever form it ends up taking.

First off, that is a rough example. The IS is kind of incestuous, and even in the hardest of lore, officers and merc units representing just about any house are likely to have gear from the other factions. In particular in 3050 where the factions begin cooperating a lot. Like I said earlier, story wise, FWL is selling their latest technology right now.

And yes, locking 'mechs and weapons to specific factions is going to work. There's no reason not to. I'm VERY opposed to restricting pilots from having access to both tech pools, but only as alts from a CW standpoint. If you're playing an IS pilot, you should not have Clan gear. The ONLY reason to allow the IS pilot to have Clan stuff (or Clan one to have IS stuff) is to appease people who aren't really thinking this through.

Long story short, yes, I want you to own your Mad Cat AND your Atlas. But I don't want you to be able to field your Mad Cat on behalf of the IS or vice versa. That's the distinction.

[SirLANsalot]

Clan tech on IS mechs makes many of the IS mechs what they were supposed to be. Prime Example is the Catapult C4, a LRM20 mech, that has all 20 tubes on it. Right now it cannot by any means carry 4 LRM 20's that it has hardpoints for due to the fact that IS 20's are 10 effing tons. Clan 20's are 5 tons, so you can take a stock C4, takes its IS 20's off and put on the 2 Clan 20's its supposed to have, all for the same tonnage. Not to mention the ER Medium Lasers....that are still 1 ton.

A great many IS mechs get 2-5x better when they get clan tech, the one mech that seems to not handle it well (at least from MW4) was the Atlas. That poor 100 ton mech got out stripped so hard in that game due to how MW4's slot system worked. Yet here I think Clan tech will at least help the old mech, with like UAC20's/CERPPC/CERLPL and ERMPL. Again, every IS mech BENEFITS from clan tech, even if it was JUST THE WEAPONS, IS mechs get 5x better. Add in, say at a later date, the clan DHS and clan XL eng's and some of the IS mechs start becoming even stronger then some clan mechs (think UAC20 on a HBK 4G with clan XL eng.....ya, scarey).


So sorry bubs, it will happen, go play your hard core BT on the table top....where it belongs.

Edited by SirLANsalot, 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM.

[Victor Morson]

SirLANsalot, on 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

Clan tech on IS mechs makes many of the IS mechs what they were supposed to be.

I .. what.. huh wha..

SirLANsalot, on 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

Prime Example is the Catapult C4, a LRM20 mech, that has all 20 tubes on it. Right now it cannot by any means carry 4 LRM 20's that it has hardpoints for due to the fact that IS 20's are 10 effing tons. Clan 20's are 5 tons, so you can take a stock C4, takes its IS 20's off and put on the 2 Clan 20's its supposed to have, all for the same tonnage. Not to mention the ER Medium Lasers....that are still 1 ton.

You aren't meant to carry 4 LRM20s. Why would you assume you were meant to carry 4 LRM20s? That's for carrying, say, 4 LRM10s, 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM5s, or even 2 LRM20s and 2 SRM6s or some such. It wasn't "meant" to carry 4 launchers. Why on Earth would you think this?

SirLANsalot, on 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

A great many IS mechs get 2-5x better when they get clan tech, the one mech that seems to not handle it well (at least from MW4) was the Atlas. That poor 100 ton mech got out stripped so hard in that game due to how MW4's slot system worked.

The fact they get 2-5x better is why it's an awful idea. Clans should be balanced in some other way than "IS gets more DAKKA!" pretty much.

PS: The Clan enhanced Atlas was the absolute king of mixtech MW4/BK designs. Not so good in Mercs/HC.

SirLANsalot, on 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

Yet here I think Clan tech will at least help the old mech, with like UAC20's/CERPPC/CERLPL and ERMPL. Again, every IS mech BENEFITS from clan tech, even if it was JUST THE WEAPONS, IS mechs get 5x better. Add in, say at a later date, the clan DHS and clan XL eng's and some of the IS mechs start becoming even stronger then some clan mechs (think UAC20 on a HBK 4G with clan XL eng.....ya, scarey).

Again, that's the point: You're just putting in more "BETTER" weapons, meaning you're ruining the OLD weapons. If you leave Clan tech in the hands of the Clans, and balance them through weight or BV or any kind of metagame balancing, you'll end up with a far more interesting game where the vast majority of equipment has a reason to exist.

Mix-tech: Dumbing down. Period.

SirLANsalot, on 30 March 2013 - 09:45 PM, said:

So sorry bubs, it will happen, go play your hard core BT on the table top....where it belongs.

Again, this has nothing to do with a love for the lore, though I do think the spirit of it should be respected. This has to do with good game design. Mix-tech only worked out in a single player environment in past MWs and there was a reason every single MP league of note banned it.

It'd be like an RTS, say StarCraft, having just Terrans and then introducing the Protoss, but instead of making the Protoss a second faction, just gave all the Protoss units to the Terrans. Does that sound like a good idea?

If you answer yes, you're wrong. heh

EDIT: A game where a star of clan medium 'mechs is a fair fight for a lance of IS assaults is a fun game. It's way more dynamic with all kinds of possibilities emerging. The only reason to wish against this is if you are an IS fan and you want it to be even on the ton-for-ton instead of the overall size/weight.

Edited by Victor Morson, 30 March 2013 - 10:21 PM.

[SirLANsalot]

Victor Morson, on 30 March 2013 - 10:18 PM, said:

You aren't meant to carry 4 LRM20s. Why would you assume you were meant to carry 4 LRM20s? That's for carrying, say, 4 LRM10s, 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM5s, or even 2 LRM20s and 2 SRM6s or some such. It wasn't "meant" to carry 4 launchers. Why on Earth would you think this?

4 missile slots, with 20 tubes per an arm. Running anything less then an LRM20 on that mech, is literally wasting the amount of launcher tubes you have on that mech. You would be better off getting an A1 or C1 then that mech due to the number of tubes.

I can see where your coming from, and are simply not getting the fact that people will, and forever will, min/max there mechs. Weather that be running the biggest guns possible, or utilizing every slot a mech can offer to its full power. Hence why the C4, and pure support mech, along with the A1, with clan tech, would be able to use every slot that mech offers. An A1 would be able to use 6 LRM15's with ease, the C4 with its 4 LRM20's, the list gose on and on. Like the Hunchback example, with a UAC20 and ERML, the mech will become much more powerful, and something people will want from the get go.

If techs are split and "balanced" in some other lame way, short of just firepower vs firepower, no one will want to play IS at all or the game for that matter until they can use clans. This would call for one of two things, either allow the cross tech from the start, or time jump the game to the point where clan tech is readily available to the IS anyways. Even the battle of Tukayyid clan tech was being used against them by that point already, even if it was by Com Guard (and that fight isn't too far off from now time wise). I mean the IS took the clan stuff they did get and adapted it very quickly to there mechs SINCE IT WAS BETTER and they recognized that, now why can't you.

So theres your Lore reason why cross tech will be enabled.

[MustrumRidcully]

Even though I understand the reasoning to do otherwise,I want at least Clan weaponry and tech in my IS mechs, even if I can't have their mechs. I want to build that Double Clan Gauss Rifle Atlas!

Victor Morson, on 29 March 2013 - 02:00 PM, said:

EDIT: As talked about through much of the thread, I am also very much behind the idea of players having multiple pilot profiles with different loyalities, so everyone CAN access their Clan / IS tech at will, but you can't represent an IS/Merc faction with Clan gear and vice versa. I'm all for letting people have all the toys, but not at the same time.

This should definitely be possible. I don't want to acquire a new account (without Founder perks and all my MC unlocks?) to try Clan mechs.

[Congzilla]

If every player cannot buy a Mad Cat the day it is released on the account they already have the community will explode causing Garth to be sucked into a black-hole of nerd rage.

MIX ALL THE TECH!

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Merky Merc, on 30 March 2013 - 07:12 PM, said:

How do you figure? I mean in some ways so far as torso twist and what not I could see it. But if the difference between my Ctf and a Thor is 15mil Cbills and I can just slap some Clan weapons in my mech, I suspect I'll be able to hold my own.

Clan Mechs, even at the same weight, are either faster or can fit more weapons in them than an Inner Sphere Mech. Their Mechs are flat out more advanced. You can slap Clan weapons into your IS Mechs all you want; but you're still at a disadvantage vs Clan Mechs. But even if they allowed you to do this, and even if it didn't give a disadvantage, everything I said is still true. Instead of Mechs+Weapons becoming obsolete, it'll just be weapons or devices. Reducing the size of the problem is not a solution to the problem. A solution is to simply keep it out of House hands altogether.

[Dr Killinger]

If I could have it my way, I'd have asymmetrical matches, so that Clan mechs can be powerful, but IS can have a shot. I don't want clans diluted, I don't want mudane tech uplifted.

If they allow tech mixing, then everyone would just equip IS with Clan tech, and when IS tech actually advances, no one will care.

Perhaps a module allowing a single clan weapon to fit an IS mech or something, but not an Atlas fully retrofitted with Clan tech... that's nigh-on impossible in the fluff.

[Congzilla]

Bluten, on 31 March 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

Clan Mechs, even at the same weight, are either faster or can fit more weapons in them than an Inner Sphere Mech. Their Mechs are flat out more advanced. You can slap Clan weapons into your IS Mechs all you want; but you're still at a disadvantage vs Clan Mechs. But even if they allowed you to do this, and even if it didn't give a disadvantage, everything I said is still true. Instead of Mechs+Weapons becoming obsolete, it'll just be weapons or devices. Reducing the size of the problem is not a solution to the problem. A solution is to simply keep it out of House hands altogether.

Well I'm not a member of a house, so why can't I have it? Last I checked this was mwomercs.com not mwohouseflunkies.com

Edited by Congzilla, 31 March 2013 - 04:47 AM.