219 replies to this topic

[RedDragon]

Just to throw in my 2 cents here: I guess the Clan Invasion will be the next huge debacle for PGI and MWO. Nothing in this game works the way it's supposed to, most of the core features aren't implemented, some are not even beyond the drawing board, and nevertheless they want to introduce a feature that will most likely play havoc on the whole game. It would be a huge step even if MWO would be running perfectly, balance was fine and all the features and interfaces would be in place. But as it is now? Not a chance. They will sell clan mechs, people will be happy to buy them, but the game will go down the drain with it.

[Green Mamba]

I wonder if this will hurt the sales of the Dire Wolf Hero Mech?

[J0anna]

Sorry lame clan weapons and mechs are NOT battletech. If clan weapons and mechs are not clearly superior to IS mechs, it's a deal breaker. There's taking liberties and then there's perverting the concept - you make your choice, we'll make ours.

When the clan mechs appeared in "Crescent Hawks Revenge", I got chills as I realized exactly what happened and that I was getting a chance to play out the stories I loved. Remove the lore, and this game becomes a shallow imposter of Battletech. It's bad enough you insist there is a "Federated Suns" and a "House Steiner" as opposed to the actual "Federated Commonwealth" which is supposed to be around in 3050. Turning Clan omnimechs into lame innersphere versions, ruins the immersion and makes "Mechwarrior" a pale imitation.

[Victor Morson]

RedDragon, on 04 December 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Just to throw in my 2 cents here: I guess the Clan Invasion will be the next huge debacle for PGI and MWO. Nothing in this game works the way it's supposed to, most of the core features aren't implemented, some are not even beyond the drawing board, and nevertheless they want to introduce a feature that will most likely play havoc on the whole game. It would be a huge step even if MWO would be running perfectly, balance was fine and all the features and interfaces would be in place. But as it is now? Not a chance. They will sell clan mechs, people will be happy to buy them, but the game will go down the drain with it.

Fixing flamers? Impossible.
Fixing NARC? What was Narc again?
Fixing MGs? We tried.

Knowing how to balance Clan mechs? NO PROBLEM!

[Predyz]

Why nerf the clan tech due to imbalance when you can use the game structure to neutralize that imbalance without getting anyone angry?

Clan tech is overpowered? Then casual matches must be set up only IS or clan oriented, and not with mixed mechs inside.

So Timberwolf squadrons will be fighintg other timber wolf geeks, without any poor catapult getting involved in the map.

Clan wars can be regulated by dropship limitations in wich players can use 1-2 clan mechs at once, leaving the leaders to choose who is the best player that can bring the team to victory by using the only "overpowered" clan mech wich can be deployed in battle.

There are TONS of solutions better than a brutal equipment nerf in the name of lord balance...

[Roadbeer]

Moenrg, on 04 December 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:

Sorry lame clan weapons and mechs are NOT battletech. If clan weapons and mechs are not clearly superior to IS mechs, it's a deal breaker. There's taking liberties and then there's perverting the concept - you make your choice, we'll make ours.

When the clan mechs appeared in "Crescent Hawks Revenge", I got chills as I realized exactly what happened and that I was getting a chance to play out the stories I loved. Remove the lore, and this game becomes a shallow imposter of Battletech. It's bad enough you insist there is a "Federated Suns" and a "House Steiner" as opposed to the actual "Federated Commonwealth" which is supposed to be around in 3050. Turning Clan omnimechs into lame innersphere versions, ruins the immersion and makes "Mechwarrior" a pale imitation.

Roadbeer, on 04 December 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

Clans: Good for a story, bad for game balance. Accept it.

Roadbeer, on 04 December 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

Quote

MWO: Is there any part of MechWarrior you’d love to just take straight out of canon?

RB: I’ve said many times over the years that if I’d been there the game mechanics of the Clan weaponry would be very different. It’s not just how powerful those weapons are, but that it seemed from the get go to violate the story aesthetics as presented.

Here were these great, in-your-face warriors and yet they had weapons that allowed a player, in game to simply walk backwards and fire at crazy distances to down your enemy. When we introduced the Clan Heavy Lasers years ago those were more along the lines of what I thought the Clans should’ve had all along…really dangerous and powerful weapons, but shortish range, where the Clanner would be in his element, able to take down 3 and 4 enemy BattleMechs in a whirling dervish of expert maneuvering and markmanship.

http://mwomercs.com/...2-randall-bills

Just in case you missed all that has come before.

[Victor Morson]

Predyz, on 04 December 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Why nerf the clan tech due to imbalance when you can use the game structure to neutralize that imbalance without getting anyone angry?

Part of me thinks it's because the numbers are too low to split the factions.

Most of me thinks it's so they can convince people to fully replace their 'mech bays with Clan tech.

I cannot buy them understanding why/how Clan tech is good when they think the Atlas is the "top tier mech."

[Bront]

Cryptogear, on 04 December 2013 - 12:55 PM, said:

2- Bring back R&R only more aggressively

No. No, no, no, no no!

Some of you folks have tons of cbills, but many of us are barely scraping by, and R&R is a huge Noob tax.

[Victor Morson]

Bront, on 04 December 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

No. No, no, no, no no!

Some of you folks have tons of cbills, but many of us are barely scraping by, and R&R is a huge Noob tax.

Yep.

R&R just causes a "Rich get rich, poor get poorer" scenario. It was terrible.

All the newbies trying to run crappy standard frames and stuff because they couldn't handle the Endo repair bill, allowing those of us with great 'mechs to dominate them entirely.

R&R was a really bad failed experiment.

[Chemie]

If you make clan tech equal to IS tech, don't you just have the same basic weapons with different names?

You can argue that clan tech made IS tech obsolete (which it did); I would agree that if they release per TT then IS is useless and we only have clan tech out there. However, if they make it the same as IS, has anything changed?

EDIT: Also, given how long balance was messed up with the IS, I can garantee that either they miss on one side and clan is useless or they miss on the other and despite their promises, there are 1-2 game breaking weapons that take ECM time to fix.

Edited by Chemie, 04 December 2013 - 02:44 PM.

[Bhael Fire]

While I absolutely believe Clan mechs can be balanced with weight limits and drop sizes in MWO, the TT values do need to be nerfed a bit as well.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 04 December 2013 - 02:55 PM.

[Cryptogear]

Bront, on 04 December 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

No. No, no, no, no no!

Some of you folks have tons of cbills, but many of us are barely scraping by, and R&R is a huge Noob tax.

You missed the part about upping the cbill intake by a substantial amount I take it?

[Koniving]

Jak Darren, on 04 December 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Paul. You are taking 30 years of a franchise and almost entirely rewriting it. Why would you use this licence if you are not going to keep one of the most PIVOTAL and compelling subject matters by castration? If you're going to just change stuff willy-nilly, why don't you start a new IP?

That's okay. We got "rifles" instead of "autocannons" for MWO autocannons and as such the UACs have had so many issues, and unlikely combinations in real time (PPCs + autocannons) are ever so popular because of it.

In MWO's current form, clans would be absurdly overpowered. Inner Sphere maximum alpha strike threshold, 88.56 + 20% (106.272). Clans? 120+ prior to threshold increasing skills (Heat Containment). Now is that true in lore or tabletop or past games? Nope. 30's the limit, and the heatsinks only affect cooling rate. MWO? Heatsinks raise your alpha strike threshold. Note: It is important to reiterate that with every turn on tabletop, you get 10 seconds of cooling too. In real time you have to wait 10 seconds, so it doesn't actually increase your alpha strike ability in tabletop.

Now what about autocannons? Inner Sphere has things like the AC/20 Chemjet Gun, a 4 round slow burst (5 damage per shot) weapon. Or the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon, which is an AC/20 of a rapid fire burst or slower-firing MG-type (depending on which of the two manufacturers you get it from) that fires 10 shots of '2' damage each. The list goes on and spreads across all autocannons. There actually is not an Inner Sphere single shot AC/20. There is one of an AC/10. But not a 20.

Let's compare two particular mechs yet similar mechs. The Hunchback 4G versus the Hunchback IIC. Their lore-specific AC/20 versus twin UAC/20s as described in fluff.

Spoiler

The 4G has a Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20.

5 shot 180mm AC/20. (Each shot does 4 damage). The Tomodzuru is Depicted here in MechCommander (compared to lore this much faster). (Also notice all mechs are using burst shot or full auto ACs.)

It is a burst-fire type. That means it will load a magazine called a cassette. When the trigger is pulled it fires the entire contents of the magazine, ejects it, and takes several seconds to reload a fresh cassette. Burst-fire types will deal the rated damage with each cassette. In MWO, that'd be 20 damage per cassette, 7 cassettes (magazines/trigger pulls) per ton of ammo. The amount of time the 4G requires on target would depend on how long the burst lasts (let's say 0.8 seconds for kicks, that's 1 shot every 0.2 seconds, coming out to 5 shots. 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, reload.)

The IIC sports twin Devastator UAC/20s.

In what I read, the Devastators are a machine gun type (fully automatic, chain/belt fed) which akin to our current MGs, requires the IIC to focus on the target for the entire duration of its firing.

Add to this that they are reported to be 6-shot weapons (6 shots = 20 damage), with an ultra firing mode that doubles their firing rate (spewing 12 shots per gun at the same unit of time it would normally just fire 6 per gun).

Machine gun types also have zero cooldown time, so to speak. There's no long gap to wait, only the time between shots. The shots have to spread out to MWO's 4 seconds, putting regular fire at 0.667 seconds apart.

This already puts the IIC at a disadvantage against the Inner Sphere Hunch. In addition to having to hold onto target, each UAC/20 requires 6 shots to connect instead of 5 to get 20 damage, and even with ultra mode, (time between bullets cut down to a savage 0.333 seconds per shot), both the 4G and the IIC could have a rather brutal battle against one another.

Detailed comparison.

The 4G would only need to press the trigger once every 4 seconds, and be able to hold on (in this example) for 1 second, leaving 3 seconds to do whatever it pleases. As it happens MWO medium lasers also work in tune with this, thusly complimenting each other.
the IIC would have to hold his trigger constantly and tap the lasers once every 4 or so seconds. Yes, it has more range. Yes, it can stop firing at any time ('no waste', better control). In regular mode it can't jam, but in ultra it can.

The 4G would receive his MWO's 6 heat over the 1 second he fired, spreading per bullet at 1.2 heat per round.
The IIC would receive significantly less heat per shot, which assuming it is identical to MWO's 6 heat, is spread out over 4 seconds on regular fire at 1 heat per shot.
If each mech started firing 1 autocannon, with the same number of heatsinks, they would overheat at the same time.
In the same scenario, if the IIC switched to ultra-mode, it'd fire twice as fast and thus generate 12 heat in the same 4 seconds, thus overheating sooner (assuming the gun didn't jam).

With a burst-fire type, the 4G doesn't have to always face the target.
With an MG type, the IIC does when he wants to fire.

With a burst-fire type, the 4G cannot fire for 3 seconds after his burst (4 seconds from his trigger pull). The 4G cannot stop firing mid-burst to conserve ammo.
With an MG type, the IIC can fire at any time and stop firing at any time if the target is lost.

Add to this that UACs (which is mostly clan tech) would jam permanently when using Ultra-mode. Tack on that only Inner Sphere ACs can use different ammunition types.

If it were this way, I don't think we'd have to worry about Autocannons versus clan-tech UACs in MWO.
The Hunch versus Hunch demonstration is using exclusively their lore-based AC / UAC details of a single variant of AC and UAC respectively.

Lasers can easily be tweaked with longer and shorter beam times.

It then boils down to the missiles and the heatsinks. But, sadly, Russ said very early on he didn't want autocannons to be DPS weapons. So instead we have Rifles in the guise of Autocannons.

Edited by Koniving, 04 December 2013 - 06:38 PM.

[Bront]

Victor Morson, on 04 December 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

Fixing flamers? Impossible.
Fixing NARC? What was Narc again?
Fixing MGs? We tried.

Knowing how to balance Clan mechs? NO PROBLEM!

Flamers are... well, at best they're situational, but they've always been that in lore/tt as well. They're not in a great spot, but they're hardly the pieces of {Scrap} they were earlier.

NARC? Yeah, junk currently, but that's because it was mostly junk in TT, and the bigest issue they have (it weights 3 tons for the launcher) they will never change.

MGs? For a half-ton weapon, they're pretty good. Could use a little more ammo, but otherwise, they're in a reasonable place (which is, again, light weight no heat weapon that doesn't do a lot of damage, but does enough to worth having on occasion).

If these are your top 3 most imbalanced weapons, you need to check out Pulse Lasers and Autocannons.

Cryptogear, on 04 December 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

You missed the part about upping the cbill intake by a substantial amount I take it?

Doesn't matter. R&R is still a newb tax, that punishes death (something newbs will do a lot) and rewards using builds designed to avoid the costs, or players who are good enough to not need to repair. It also punishes tanking mechs, who take punishment so that the squishier mechs don't have to.

[Cryptogear]

Victor Morson, on 04 December 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

Yep.

R&R just causes a "Rich get rich, poor get poorer" scenario. It was terrible.

All the newbies trying to run crappy standard frames and stuff because they couldn't handle the Endo repair bill, allowing those of us with great 'mechs to dominate them entirely.

R&R was a really bad failed experiment.

As it should be. In ALOT of Battletech lore running into a 100% good to go Atlas meant you were gonna have a bad day NOT "I'll let that teammate go ahead of me and see how far down he gets that Atlas then reassess my situation."

I don't want tricked out medium mech pilot who decides to lead a charge then blame his teammates on his failing because he ran into 3+ enemy mechs an got destroyed on my team. I would much rather have close to standard build mech who sticks with the team and SUPPORTS his lance.

[Randalf Yorgen]

They could bring in Clan Tech as it was in the Lore and they would only have to make sure that there were 300 planets that the Clans had to go through before the IS could match them with advanced Pilots and numbers. Nothing wrong with the Clan Tech.

The ISSUE lies with the on line player who is L33T and an Ashhat. The only reason Clans were able to be stopped was because Comstar (lead by Victor Davion) made the perfect BATCHALL that forced the Clans to fight in accordance with their Zellbringen (Honor Code) while the IS could still ******** Clanners.

The L33T Ashhats who jump into clan mechs won't follow one once of Honor. (those who are actually going to roll play the clans correctly are NOT included in this) They will Break to Grand Melee right off the bat and the IS will Melt before them. Insert Community Warfair, now have those same players not winning the planets they want when playing IS mechs. They now Buy Clan Mechs, group up and drop again and this time rollostomp the IS defenders.

Clan Tech has to be Nerfed to counter these ashhats and that's the only reason is has to be nerfed. I would love the chance to test myself against a Clan Mech in one on one combat but the actually chances of that happeneing is extreamly slim given my house, my unit and my likely deployment areas.

IF there was some simple way to enforce proper Clan honor (there isn't) then I say leave it as it is. That however is apipe dream that will never see the light of day because of the Ashhats in this game.

[Iqfish]

Helsbane, on 04 December 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

'I bought summin that eryone luvs! IMMA CHANGE IT!!!'

This is one of the reasons that I hope MWO fails and does so quickly, so someone else can grab this IP and do it right. It's becoming less 'Mechwarrior' and more WTFWYT with each decision PGI makes.

I think someone who is incapable of using the simplest BB code to integrate "I hate PGI" .gifs into his signature should not be so harsh with the devs

And let me tell you something:
MWO is the last big thing we will ever hear from Mechwarrior. There is a reason why nothing has followed after MW4...

[Viges]

I say make Clan Mechs destructible - so they be like unicorns. Powerful but crazy expensive and rare.
(and more $income for devs too )

Different weight limits for Clans Vs IS is ok too - but not that fun

Edited by Viges, 04 December 2013 - 03:43 PM.

[Thorn Hallis]

I don't think MWLL is a good example for balancing tech as it never got a 'Mechlab (plus I never felt that the IS or Clan weapons were any different there).

Anyway, I'm totally ok with "rewriting" Clantech. If they wouldn't do it THEN people would be "forced" to buy a whole new libary of 'Mechs just to stay competitive. Asynchron drops are all fine, but who would willingly drop with totally inferior tech?

[Helsbane]

IqfishLP, on 04 December 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

I think someone who is incapable of using the simplest BB code to integrate "I hate PGI" .gifs into his signature should not be so harsh with the devs

And let me tell you something:
MWO is the last big thing we will ever hear from Mechwarrior. There is a reason why nothing has followed after MW4...

Yeah, I linked it, had to run and pick up the kids and never checked it to see if it was functional. I'll own up to that one. In my day job, I have to check to make certain things work correctly or they fall on folks and injure / kill them. Wish PGI had those issues....