20 replies to this topic

[Kdogg788]

As you know, the final IS mech announced is the Flea, which is scheduled to arrive in July. At this point in my own game, I have 21 mechs and 36 million Cbills with nothing to save for until the Orion is released, and by that point, will have many more. At the same time, I've heard of hardcores with nearly every mech and half a billion Cbills in the bank. My question is, once the last IS mech is released, could that spell the end of viable content for inner sphere factions for some time? I have no plans on spending all of my income on consumables, nor do I expect to try to buy out every mech chassis to find a use for the Cbills I've earned as I have the mechs I want, and don't see the purpose of leveling out every mech in the game just to find a place to spend the in game currency.

-k

[627]

The day there will be no new mechs is the day they shut down the servers.

Have Faith, there will be new mechs to buy. You'll be able to sink all your money on the clans or in solaris, don't worry

[Ralgas]

Several mechs are in final testing i believe lore wise ( hey mauler!!) And theres no indication of what the six "almost ready to go but not announced" mechs are

[Kdogg788]

The six are no doubt clan mechs. Point is, I believe I've evolved my stable of mechs to the point where I have nearly all of the ones I want from the existing chassis, bar perhaps the Stalker hero on-sale, or the release of a Jager hero. Now that we've reached the point where they will focus on clan mechs and technology, would you reason that we have all there is for the foreseeable future in terms of inner sphere equipment?

-k

[Mechteric]

Community warfare is a few months out they've said. Until then there's some community-run leagues you can participate in.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 06 May 2013 - 06:08 AM.

[Erata]

It's going to be a nightmare for them to make any attempts to balance clan weaponry. Most of them, to my admittedly limited understanding, are almost entirely direct upgrades.
They generate more heat, I hear you say. Well, use Coolshot on your Pilot Tree Master mech to help compensate for it at the cost of 0 weight and a paltry C-Bill penalty.

[Kdogg788]

CapperDeluxe, on 06 May 2013 - 06:07 AM, said:

Community warfare is a few months out they've said. Until then there's some community-run leagues you can participate in.

Even with the inclusion of CW, I will pretty much be just accumulating Cbills with no forseeable avenue of expenditure besides consumables, and if I feel like grinding out additional modules which I already have. Not saying the game isn't going to be fun with CW, but have we reached our technical limit in terms of IS mechs and equipment?

Erata, on 06 May 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

It's going to be a nightmare for them to make any attempts to balance clan weaponry. Most of them, to my admittedly limited understanding, are almost entirely direct upgrades.
They generate more heat, I hear you say. Well, use Coolshot on your Pilot Tree Master mech to help compensate for it at the cost of 0 weight and a paltry C-Bill penalty.

There's no telling whether IS mechs will be able to use clan weapons, since allowing them to be used by IS factions instantly obsoletes any existing weaponry if implemented in a strict canon manner.

-k

Edited by Kdogg788, 06 May 2013 - 06:27 AM.

[RenegadeMaster]

Erata, on 06 May 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

It's going to be a nightmare for them to make any attempts to balance clan weaponry. Most of them, to my admittedly limited understanding, are almost entirely direct upgrades.
They generate more heat, I hear you say. Well, use Coolshot on your Pilot Tree Master mech to help compensate for it at the cost of 0 weight and a paltry C-Bill penalty.

When Clans hit, PGI should really have trial by fire sale that includes a discount on GXP conversion so more people can afford to get the "9 by 9" upgrade for Cool Shots

[FrostCollar]

There's going to be a pretty long period between the final release of CW and the introduction of the Clans. I find it very likely we'll get more IS mechs in the interim. There are other available weapons from the IS that could be added too, like the Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle and the Binary Laser. We haven't seen the last of the Inner Sphere, I think.

[Sable]

Its like you aren't even familiar with how many IS mechs there are... In either one of their magazine articles or an Ask a Deve session they even said they have 6 more mech designs that they haven't made any announcement for. They are saving up for a big content announcement. Plus have you even seen the cost of Clan mechs? What was it like 25 million for a timberwolf? and you want to get 3 of them to get elites?

Go to sarna.net and look around at all the battlemechs before you waste space on the forum.

[Target Rich]

Key here is going to be balance...

Their problem is that they are following a timeline...

Simply put...Clan stuff one on one SLAUGHTERS IS stuff..

It's designed that way...

That's why the IS came up with their omnimechs...that took those IS chassis and retrofittedcaptured clan technology onto their hardpoints when and where they could get it off the battlefield and reverse engineer it.

That's also why the BT metagame was designed to outweigh the huge unit cost of that superior Clan Technology against the cheap and mass produced IS stuff. The IS overwhelms the clan by sheer numbers of cheap junk.

Be interesting to see how PGI does it all.

[HighlandCoo]

I foresee PvE for the clans. IS Players vs CPU Clans.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

Maybe something like 10 Clan vs. 16 I.S. (to keep Star/Lance unit size correct). Or even 5 v 12 with a weight/ELO advantage going to the Clans.

[Kanatta Jing]

The extent of the current Meta is the Economy. And that meta is almost done for most of us. We have the mechs we want. We have jumped through the hoops to get them trained up and fitted just the way we want.

Until comunity warfare comes out and introduces us to a new expanded meta the game is won.

Except for the Blackjack and the Flea. I need to master those and put them into my stable. And I'll buy a month of premium just for that purpose.

[John MatriX82]

Since devs stated that they have 6 full mechs designs ready and that Clanmechs will be with us basically within ONE year from now, we're speaking of a total of 24 IS mechs.

By this, considering clan mechs available in 3050, we will have a total of 16 omnimechs + 4 IICs (jenner, HBK, Orion, Highlander).

So no, we're not nearing endgame, unless the servers and the playerbase will die. At this release rate, however, we have
-this month: blackjack
-June: Orion
-July: Flea (always if MASC is making it in time)
-August: 5th unannounced assault
-September: another medium (Dervish?)
-October: 6th heavy
-November: 6th light
-December: 6th Assault

Hopefully we'll see clan mechs starting from january, but I doubt it. Otherwise 5 out of 6 of those ready designs are Clanmechs, but then this would go in conflict with their statements about clantech ready for the next year, and this would mean months and months without new mechs to play with in the meantime, which is something I don't believe or hope it's going to happen.

Edited by John MatriX82, 07 May 2013 - 01:15 AM.

[Chemie]

I do not view mechs as content anymore. Once you have 3-4 in each weight class, there is no real difference between the mechs. Very little combination of hardpoints, JJ and twist numbers represents new content.

Yes, when clan mechs show up, they MIGHT be new content but it depends on how PGI does it. We already have something close to omnimechs. If PGI makes them real clan mechs, then all IS mechs are useless and let the QQ begin. If they make them the same as IS mechs, then who cares? Making them different but balanced? Well PGI has not shown great ability on the balance dept up to now but we will see.

CW is supposed to be the compelling game, but depending on how they implement it, who knows? Not many patches between now and CW release and if the last two patches are any indication of progress, I expect CW will be the exact game we have now but with a IS map overlay that pretends like your assault drop mattered.

[armyof1]

HighlandCoo, on 06 May 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

I foresee PvE for the clans. IS Players vs CPU Clans.

I don't think so, they'd have to design a whole slew of mechs but not being usable and most importantly not being able to make versions to sell for MC?

[Stormfury]

FrostCollar, on 06 May 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

There's going to be a pretty long period between the final release of CW and the introduction of the Clans. I find it very likely we'll get more IS mechs in the interim. There are other available weapons from the IS that could be added too, like the Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle and the Binary Laser. We haven't seen the last of the Inner Sphere, I think.

You sure about that? My definition and yours for Long must be very different. Both CW and Clans have been announced as coming out this year. If that's true, it doesn't give PGI very long to get CW balanced before they release the clans. Heck in almost a year, they have failed to get limited IS mech weapons balanced and they are expecting to have CW balanced in what 3 months before Clans are released?

[FrostCollar]

Stormfury, on 10 May 2013 - 06:25 AM, said:

You sure about that? My definition and yours for Long must be very different. Both CW and Clans have been announced as coming out this year.

Where did you hear that? There are two hard-ish dates I've heard for introduction of clan content:

• 6 months after release
  
• 2-3 quarters after release

That puts the Clans well into 2014.

[Kdogg788]

What I'm getting at is this: At this stage in the game, I have a fully developed mech roster that is not that far off from being fully mastered (*until I pick up the Orion), and with RnR being off the table, is there really any reason for a player in my position to ever really need to re-up on premium once it has run out? I've theoretically bought ever item I can with Cbills, and by the time my premium time runs out, I will have an obscene amount in the bank. I'm not into buying out mech chassis for the purpose of playing through mechs I have no interest in, nor do I see myself indulging in consumables frequently. Perhaps if they one day implement decals, I wouldn't mind spending quite a bit of Cbills setting up each mech with Kurita emblems, but there is no ETA on that.

-k