15 replies to this topic

[Kaishaku]

Been thinking with the coming of the Clans I was thinking of a way to implement Clan tech into the inner sphere in a way that was cannon. Basically only the champions of the Inner Sphere get access to clan tech eg Delvin Stones Atlas that contains both IS and Clan tech. This is because the amount of captured Clan equipment available to the IS is limited and is reserved for only the best pilots - this way our current mechs dont become obsolete straight off the bat, especially for the players who have invested MC in this game. My idea goes like this.

Clan IIC variants: These mechs are the revised versions of IS mechs that the Clans have rebuilt from scratch. Because of their superior tech they have better hard points and quirks than their IS counterparts and are only accessible to the clans. Can only use clan hardware.

IS Hero mechs: By their nature of being hero mechs these mechs automatically have access to the limited amount of clan hardware that is out there. However because clan tech is rare there is a hefty C-bill cost associated with purchasing clan equipment.

IS Champion/standard mechs: These mechs normally DO NOT have access to clan tech unless certain criteria are met. Both need a one off upgrade that allows for them to access clan tech which will probably cost MC and for non-champion variants they must reach master rank as well. That way if we want to we can upgrade our favourite variants with the best tech there is to offer without having to defect to the clans. Of course clan gear will cost more C-bills.

Will this make the game pay to win - probably unless match making auto-balances teams with the number of hero mechs they have or give these variants a higher value when it comes to balancing.

Anyway let me know what you guys think about my idea of keeping IS mechs viable post Clans

Edited by Kaishaku, 14 June 2013 - 11:28 AM.

[Lord Ikka]

You are not really making IS viable. Using MC in any way to allow paying players to gain an advantage, here having IS Mechs get Clantech, makes the game P2W and will lose lots of casual players. Aside from that, you aren't giving any option of making IS viable, just giving IS Clan weaponry- why not simply buy a Clan Mech then?

[Seanamal]

Lets get IS tech balanced first. Then we can worry about balancing clan tech. Everyone is so bloody eager to put the cart before the horse on these forums.

[TibsVT]

Clan tech runs hotter then IS stuff. I see people cook their Mechs at least once every few games on the cooler maps, what chance will they have in a Clan Mech?

Instant balance.

On top of that engines, armour and structure are not changeable. I also don't think people realise just how claustraphobic the pod space allowance will be.

Edited by KelesK, 14 June 2013 - 11:14 PM.

[Skadi]

KelesK, on 14 June 2013 - 11:04 PM, said:

Clan tech runs hotter then IS stuff. I see people cook their Mechs at least once every few games on the cooler maps, what chance will they have in a Clan Mech?

Instant balance.

On top of that engines, armour and structure are not changeable. I also don't think people realise just how claustraphobic the pod space allowance will be.

you also forget clan heatsinks... and clan XLs, smaller. more heat efficient. balances things out quite nicely, and to the master pilots such changes will be trivial.

[Pando]

Seanamal, on 14 June 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

Lets get IS tech balanced first. Then we can worry about balancing clan tech. Everyone is so bloody eager to put the cart before the horse on these forums.

Why are people still raving about balancing IS tech v/s IS opponents. IS is going to be battling the Clans. To say "wait for proper balance" would mean to say Clan vs IS needs to be balanced. I would rather balance clan and IS weaponry at the same time.

I am opposed to seeing how IS weaponry preforms against IS opponents. I am inclined to see how Clan weapons preform against IS opponents and vise-versa. That is where "true balance" would need to be present. Heat is probably going to be a huge player....and DHS/SHS balancing.

@OP, no to hero mechs having access to clan tech. Realistically IS couldn't use clan-tech for...the first 2 years of the war? It will not be that way here either. No to giving IS clan tech early.

[Thorn Hallis]

Pando, on 15 June 2013 - 12:43 AM, said:

IS is going to be battling the Clans.

Only a small part of the IS will be battling the Clans.

[Zerberus]

Kaishaku, on 14 June 2013 - 11:26 AM, said:

Been thinking with the coming of the Clans I was thinking of a way to implement Clan tech into the inner sphere in a way that was cannon.

The only canon way to do it would be to force players to wait until 3054 (2017) to implement mixtech, because until the DCMS captures the FIRST pieces of clan tech in 3052 (2015), the IS has zero access to clan tech. And it takes another 2 years to successfully reverse engineer it.

Therefore, the rest of the post falls smack on it`s face, solely becasue the idea completely invalidates the entire premise under which it was posted.

Skadi, on 14 June 2013 - 11:34 PM, said:

you also forget clan heatsinks... and clan XLs, smaller. more heat efficient. balances things out quite nicely, and to the master pilots such changes will be trivial.

This implicitly assumes that clanners will remove weapons and mount more heatsinks to compensate, which would itself also "balance" out the firepower capability by, well, removing firepower.

Clan heat sinks do not weigh Zero tons as many seem to assume, therefore to mount more of them requires removing somnething else... another factor "conveniently" on the "forget every time"list when tallking about clan vs IS.

Or it assumes that clan mechs with, say, 100 tons limit regularly ran around in canon /TT with 90 ton loadouts, which is an even more more preposterous assumption.

The basic rule of "overheating? then mount less weapons and more heat sinks" applies to the clans just as much as to the IS, regardless of how much wishful thinking the IS proponents apply. If clans overheat faster, they will have to mount more HS to compensate = removing weapons.

No amount of wishful thinking and praying to Comstar will ever make 1+1 =3

PS: clantech on Hero mechs only will make the entire comunity (not just these forums) explode in a rage of (very valid) P2W QQ that will make 3PV look like a mouse fart.

Edited by Zerberus, 15 June 2013 - 03:27 AM.

[Kaishaku]

Guess that's a resounding no then

Just an idea

[Pinselborste]

if it wouldnt be PGI that is making MWO i would say clan tech will get balanced, but since they love TT stats so much, they will just be totally broken for atleast 10 years, might take longer since they have more weapons and it seems like its so hard to Change a single number in a file and test it.

[Charons Little Helper]

I say that the best way to balance the Inner Sphere vs. Clan matches isn't to balance the mechs. Clan has better mechs. That's fine.

Balance the matches with IS creeps.

Basically the clans challenge the IS to a battle with ___ # of mechs. IS agrees - then sends in a bunch of tanks / artillery / copters to even the odds. Clans wouldn't as they're honorable - Inner Sphere just wants to win.

Even if you made the IS side have more mechs, it'd be really hard to balance variable power levels. Instead, just tweak the number of creeps until balance is found.

[Zerberus]

Charons Little Helper, on 17 June 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

I say that the best way to balance the Inner Sphere vs. Clan matches isn't to balance the mechs. Clan has better mechs. That's fine.

Balance the matches with IS creeps.

Basically the clans challenge the IS to a battle with ___ # of mechs. IS agrees - then sends in a bunch of tanks / artillery / copters to even the odds. Clans wouldn't as they're honorable - Inner Sphere just wants to win.

Even if you made the IS side have more mechs, it'd be really hard to balance variable power levels. Instead, just tweak the number of creeps until balance is found.

I actually like this idea, a few IS aligned NPC vehicles that aren` really important to the mission objective, but can`t be completely ignored, either. A PPC tank here, an LRM launchers there....

*edit* THe more I think about it, teh more I like it to be honest..

*edit2* An IIRC, the devs did state a few weeks /months ago in ATD that there would be NPC vehicles at some time...maybe they`re smarter than we think .

Edited by Zerberus, 17 June 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[Grey Black]

tl;dr: Balancing clan tech and IS tech is a moot point, as one can use the game system to encourage a certain mindset from the players.

The long version:

All this talk of "balancing Clan and IS tech" is likely going to be rendered moot by the in game mechanics. What we have in this game is not simply going to be a "whoever has the best tech wins" scenario, as PGI and IGP have, without our knowledge, been subtly influencing how the game is supposed to be played.

First, I'd like to discuss the XP/Cbill mechanics we have in place at the moment. For us right now, what sorts of actions are incentivized in combat? Well, we get XP/CBills for assisting with kills, for spotting for another player's LRMs, we get bills for actually getting kills, our CBill payout is incentivized by how much damage we do to enemy mechs, by capturing the points, etc. This all points to the fact that PGI wants us to play a team game*.

In fact, this even goes so far as to incorporate itself into mech design. Each mech you build has to have a role. Sniper? LRM boat? Brawler? Scout? What role do you want to play as on your team? No mech can do everything and, if they try, they wind up looking like a trial mech with worse heat efficiency.

Now, look at Clan tech for a moment and, in particular, Clan mechs. All these point towards a single combat model where you are your own sniper, LRM boat, brawler, and scout simultaneously. As such, you aren't playing a team game any more at that point; you don't rely on your teammate, so you just smash whatever Mech is in front of you. He wants to play the LRM game? Okay, you're fine with that. He wants to brawl? Sure, why not?

Now, back to incentivization: I highly doubt that PGI is going to do a full on mix tech build system, as Clan tech without restriction is strictly better. As such, let's review these points:

1) The IS works together to accomplish their goal and have a game build to incentivize this.
2) Clanners are build to accomplish every role without support from their teammates

Therefore, it seems that the Clans might be built to incentivize their single combat model. Instead of receiving XP for kill assists, you actually take a CBill/XP penalty. Spotting for an ally? XP/CBill hit. Interrupting a duel? CBill/XP hit. Imagine playing this game as is but without team support 10 players your side, 12 on theirs. You may have better tech, but you're also fighting 1.2 enemies each. You aren't rewarded for assisting your teammates, you're actually penalized. Think about how much harder that would make this game?

Now, obviously, the argument is that the Clans can simply ignore Zellbrigen and play by the same rules as the IS. Well, then the penalties for not following Zell should be so big that not doing so actually makes the game not only hard mode, but impossible to progress. Obviously, if you win, you win and that's awesome, but imagine not making _any_ money off a win because you couldn't follow Zellbrigen and you assisted in too many kills/did too much damage to an enemy you weren't engaged in combat with? That in itself would probably scare a lot of people away from the Clans and balance each match accordingly. Actively rewarding players for playing by your rules is probably the best way to balance the Clans: after 2 or 3 matches in a Mad Cat without a paycheck, you'll start to smarten up as to how to make your money.

This also has the added benefit of adding variety to the game: The two would play like the difference between the Protoss and the Zerg in Starcraft. The Zerg (IS) would simply swarm the enemy and eat them with overwhelming numbers, whereas the Protoss (Clans) fight with honor and technology while being severely outnumbered (4 zerglings to every zealot).

Not saying this will work or not, but it's certainly a better idea than letting hero mechs be P2W.

[Aslena]

Wasn't the typical fight between Clan and IS something like 12 vs 5 or 8 vs 5? I would assume that is how it would be balanced.

Edited by Aslena, 17 June 2013 - 10:25 PM.

[B0oN]

Aslena, on 17 June 2013 - 10:23 PM, said:

Wasn't the typical fight between Clan and IS something like 12 vs 5 or 8 vs 5? I would assume that is how it would be balanced.

Which was already proposed countless times before and will surely be proposed countless times ahead.
But shall we maybe not get too far ahead of what we have right now, do our jobs as BetaTesters and try to balance out what we already have instead of drool-dreaming what might be once upon a time ?

Tl;Dr :
Reign in your horses, Clans are faaaaaaaaaaaar, faaaaar away.

[TibsVT]

Skadi, on 14 June 2013 - 11:34 PM, said:

you also forget clan heatsinks... and clan XLs, smaller. more heat efficient. balances things out quite nicely, and to the master pilots such changes will be trivial.

The thing you fail to realise short of those only saving you one and two critical slots respectively is that Omni's, unlike regular Mechs don't rely on tonnage and critical space. They rely on Pod space.

The Mad Dog C variant is the best example of this, it trades 26 tonnes of LRM's and lasers (Prime) for a mere 12 tonnes of two Gauss rifles. The variant effectivly removes the arm pods and the shoulder pods. I personally wouldn't do that but others would. Effectivly you're wasting, after ammo (4 tonnes) is taken into account, 12 tonnes of your pod space. Bear in mind, neither of these setups have heatsinks placed in pod space.

You can't just keep shoving stuff on an Omni and think it's going to work. It doesn't. It has X tonnes of allocated pod space. Pod space which you put your weapons in. Now while I have no idea exactly how heavy a clan 300 XL is for this example but as the Mad Dog is a 60 tonne Omni, if you get rid of it's pod space you're only left with 32 tonnes of free space in which you need to fit an XL engine, heat sinks and armour. That's not a lot of room to play with when you start taking critical space into account either.

People need to learn that Omni's aren't BattleMechs, you can't just duct tape equipment on them like a battlemech and expect it to work, it doesn't work that way.

The Timber Wolf, the one Omnis that everyone is so afraid someone will end up 'taping' Clan ER PPCs to only has 27.5 tonnes of pod space. Now while I have no idea how pod space will effectivly work, if you notice the larger weapons, PPCs, Gauss Rifles, generally take up whole pods which can usually be split between the regular lasers (Small, Medium, Large), and as I showed above, depending on the Omni, can require the entire disassembly of other pods to fit. Even the Assaults can only manage two ER PPC's per arm (not to say the Dire Wolf probably couldn't fit a third in both but the sacrifice would be substancial).

Basically the heavier the weapons you fill those pods with, the bigger your disadvantage especially depending on the Omni you actually pick as all of them vary depending on pod allowances. You pick heavy weapons, you risk not only overheating but ending up with less fire power then someone who split their weapons into smaller, more heat efficient groups much alike those ******** PPC Stalkers you see that manage to cook themselves on the ice maps.

We all get a little embarrassed when we see them. Now imagine you did it in a Clan Omni... People just seem to overlook the most basic of ideas when they point out their 'inbalance' arguement. If you are complaining about Clan tech being too overpowered, then you are clearly not here for any of the right reasons. We chose to play the Clans because we will be at a disadvantage in both numbers and, technically, technology. Sure, it's lighter, takes up less space, does more damage even. But what we sacrifice for those benefits more then makes up for what we gain. We all know the first person who jumps in a Clan Mech thinking he is some kind of diety is going to walk into an Atlas, cook the damn thing and end up making us all look like idiots.

Stepping away from the Mechs themselves I did notice a rather exensive post above about being hurt for not following the Clan's individualistic mannerisms much alike we are hurt for friendly kills at present. This could also be added on top of the Omni mech's already extensive list of fallbacks.

Edited by KelesK, 18 June 2013 - 02:55 AM.