219 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

Snitchkilla, on 05 December 2013 - 03:52 AM, said:

Jordan Weisman,(the creator of battle tech) has stated many times that he only made the clans weapons more powerful in table top because "it was the only way to represent the superior training of the clans and the fact that they were born and raised to be mech warrior and that none of the video games every too this fact in to account".

so there it is from the man himself so if jordan weisman doesn't have a problem with clan tech being balanced then why should we ? oh i know cuz this player base is made up of an over abundant of cry babies .for real every time i turn around it is some new QQ fest over whatever new feature pgi releases . man at this rate i can see why pgi might "ignore" their "core players" . most of these players are rude, demanding,and consumer entitled. and on top of that i wonder how many of these people really understand what it takes to create a game like this ,most prob think they "could do it better" but yet they dont have a video game company ... why not they can do it better,RIGHT? oh yeah that would require real work and you can create a game by crying on the forums . if it was up to most of these people we would be playing MW4 and wishing for a new mechwarrior .LESS QQ MORE PEW PEW!!!!

Yeap, bold the important part there, "more powerful in table top" and that change was made after the first series of play testing where the clans were only using Star League era equipment, and were stopped before getting very far into the Innersphere using a boardgame with randomization of hit/miss and random locations. And that was while the IS was primarily fielding 3025 tech and non-customized mechs.

Now move to video games, MWO version, with pinpoint accuracy for grouped/tic weapons and a non-static heat scale, among other things. How well does a company of stock 3025 mechs do against a company of customized mechs?

I am interested in seeing how MWO will approach this. Besides the obvious items, and something that has already been mentioned, will be the actual size of the mechs. That will also be one of the tipping points. The range of the weapons, imho, will only be a real determining factor on some of the current maps, in the same vein as the gauss/ppc before their last round of tweaks. Add that Clan's med range weapons compared to IS long range weapons have about the same range but are lighter and smaller (crit wise), allowing more to equipped.

Many here have been on one end or another of a light pack. Now imagine what a clan light pack will be like, especially if the profiles are kept small. As a pilot in one, that gives me goosebumps but as a pilot in a heavier mech facing one it gives me even more shivers.

There are simply many variables but without a good foundation it may very well be a train wreck. The other thing to remember is that you are not piloting a Warhawk against a NPC in a customized Battlemaster/Victor/Atlas but another person. And if both of you have about the same skill (in same mech tis 50/50 )and the Clan mech wins 9 out 10 times due to no real balancing scheme in the game, how long do you it will be before at least one of you becomes either bored and/or frustrated and leaves? In MWO ya can not play by yourself...

In a unit vs unit game, mechs can complement each other but if the same scenario above happens, what will become of this game?

Just some food for thought

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 05 December 2013 - 08:36 AM.

[pbiggz]

I dont understand why this is still even being debated, people are battling it like they think what they say will stop the nerfs that ARE coming.

No amount of broken english or half baked arguments about how "IS tech are OPS and u can put AC20 wherever u want" is going to justify just how powerful Clan Technology is.

Some things don't translate from TT to a simulator very well, so why would anyone be stupid enough to think that clan tech, which did not work very well in TT, never mind simulators, would escape this rule.

Edited by pbiggz, 05 December 2013 - 09:47 AM.

[William T Riker]

I wish they would just copy LL (again) for clan weapons. I would even take no mechlab if thats what it took.

Edited by William T Riker, 05 December 2013 - 10:27 AM.

[Karyudo ds]

pbiggz, on 05 December 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

Some things don't translate from TT to a simulator very well, so why would anyone be stupid enough to think that clan tech, which did not work very well in TT, never mind simulators, would escape this rule.

Well I don't think Clan tech was really meant to work very well, at least not in how it came out. I wouldn't expect to see it done the way Battletech did it but it seems to me that it should be better than what the Innershpere gets and with fewer players to feel like Clans. The differences to me wouldn't even have to be very much.

I just find it lazy when they take two wildly different forces and nerf one into oblivion for the sake of perfectly even teams. One of the reasons I was disappointed in Space Marine was the use of that logic robbed the game of Orks in multiplayer when it could have been doable.

Besides our input might mean a little if they're designing them still. Not much if anything, but maybe a tiny bit.

[Nimura Nekogami]

Cryptogear, on 04 December 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

I bet you wont IF you have a chance of actually losing money in a drop. Think of it as a high risk/reward scenario. If you drop in a... lets say 15.2 mil Cbill Mad Dog and get blown to pieces (lose arms/side torso's/leg) you will have to cough up about another 15.2 mil (lets round down and say 10 mil depending on loadout) just to get that thing operational again.

It will REQUIRE people to start think more tactically again. This WAS advertised as "A thinking persons shooter" in the beginning. NOT CoD with giant robots.

I could rember the R&R phase of MWO. It was like an asian grind game. (i hate those games )
Also. Think about those "hiding guys" in this phase. You know. Those who hided to prevent repair costs in an loosing game. At the moment you just have to deal with some KDR-e-peen guys that are trying to hide at the end of lost battles. Still anoying but not that extreme like in the past.

The way you speak of CoD tells me you never played it in a league or Clan.
(well......i quit it after testing CoD MW2 with my squad leader. )
This game is like CoD 4 in ultra-softcore and slower. If you want a real tactical shooter you are also wrong with MWO. You should switch to ARMA.

To the Topic:
Fully agree to Homeless Bill

(Edit: your/ you are ....still getting confused with it )

Edited by Nimura Nekogami, 05 December 2013 - 01:06 PM.

[RedDragon]

Guys... I guess discussing how Clan tech will be OP etc. is kind of pointless without looking to the plans (haha good one) PGI has for CW.
Let's look at it from another perspective. How will we even fight Clan vs IS? We didn't even fight a single planetary battle yet and nevertheless we are speculating how IS will fare against the Clan invasion.
There are some possibilities how it could go on with CW:

• PGI implements CW and postpones the Clans for a good while so we can actually play the intended CD-system, i.e. fighting for certain planets on the borders. Then at some point the Clans will invade and it will be like an add-on, the story shifts to defending/attacking in the invasion with real progress according to lore.
  
• PGI introduces the Clans and throws their current plans for CW over board. There won't be any fighting for border planets while the Clans are invading.
  
• PGI introduces the Clans and keeps to their plans for CW. This would be pointless in regards to the lore. There won't be an invasion. So we could as well shift the time line to some point after Tukayyid when we actually have border skirmishes.

So we see the following: If PGI introduces the Clans and has no plans for an actual invasion game-play mechanic (in my opinion the most likely scenario because it takes the least work), i.e. we cling to the current plans for CW with border skirmishes, we could as well go a large step forward in the time line. At this point the IS has better equipment and already uses Clan tech to some degree.

If PGI would make it right on the other hand (highly unlikely IMO) and come up with a good idea for the invasion, it would be absolutely possible to balance superior Clan tech. There are many ways, one only has to be creative about it. Just to give an example: Clans are a long way from their supply lines, so they are vulnerable to wars of attrition. Make a game mode that reflects this. The IS forces don't have to win their battles, they win by doing a certain amount of damage, killing a certain amount of enemies, staying alive for a certain time...
Or give IS forces some advantages they have lore-wise, like artillery, mines, prepared battle fields, whatever.
There are countless ways to achieve a really cool invasion experience without nerfing the Clans if one is willing to think out of the box.

[verybad]

I wish FASA had looked forward enough to think about balance when the Clans came out.

Every single fing OP loving player went clan after they came out.

Anyone that thinks the clan tech is anywhere near balanced in TT must be drunk.

I expect the Clan tech to be the same in weight as it is in canon, but they may slow the reload down for half weight LRMs (as an example) or make the Clan ERPPC do a bit mroe damage, but recharge slower.

The game needs to be fun for people playing it, not just fanaticsthat think the canon was anywhere near balanced.

[Whatzituyah]

verybad, on 05 December 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

I wish FASA had looked forward enough to think about balance when the Clans came out.

Every single fing OP loving player went clan after they came out.

Anyone that thinks the clan tech is anywhere near balanced in TT must be drunk.

I expect the Clan tech to be the same in weight as it is in canon, but they may slow the reload down for half weight LRMs (as an example) or make the Clan ERPPC do a bit mroe damage, but recharge slower.

The game needs to be fun for people playing it, not just fanaticsthat think the canon was anywhere near balanced.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

If I want to follow the lore Id play tabletop or read some of the BT books. As it stands I just want to pilot stompy robots and pew pew other stompy robots in the face.

If this game had a single player story driven mode Id agree with you. But no matter how you want to slice it. This is only a FPS game. Nothing more nothing less.

[GalaxyBluestar]

ssm, on 05 December 2013 - 03:35 AM, said:

This don't mean squat. "Oversized = Worse" arguments were only viable until Shadow Hawk release.

so...

clans will still be OP if:

their ct takes up 65-75% of their hitboxes

are 20-35% larger in general to their IS counterparts

have their pilot tree bonuses reduced in comparrison to IS mechs by at least 50%

have thier torso twist-pitch etc 30-55% less than IS mechs

have their weapon cooldown times 50% longer than IS weapons.


seriously this game has enough varibles to make the original weapon stats be mounted on completely useless mechs, mechs that make awesomes more than awesome. it's the only way to do it without corrupting the clan loadouts for crits and tonnage etc in mechlab.

so either they get hit with all these debilitations which is outside the TT schemetics or yes they will break the game.

but yeah PGI... nuff said.

[Koniving]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 04 December 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

i never heard of jumpsniping or the end-game meta we have in MWO in lore either.

Jump sniping did exist. It was more akin to 'flying' and 'shooting rapid fire weapons'. Most mechs that could do that for extended periods of time (light mechs) could only carry smaller variants (even if they could, per sé, carry an AC/10, AC/20, or Gauss Rifle, they would be of very low caliber / many shot variants as small mechs in lore could not 'stand' move while using medium caliber variants, and high caliber variants would cause them to fall on their backsides. Even in the case of the Gauss Rifle, there is always a special variant used and even then the barrel is as long as the mech is tall [see Hollander]).

As such, jump sniping was the equivalent of 'running sideways while shooting a machine gun semi-blindly.'
With proper thresholds, the heat between jumping and firing more than 1 PPC would cause a shutdown in mid-air. Thus... no jumping meta as we see it in MWO. The ACs would be too bursty/machine-gunny with too much recoil and the PPCs too hot. A Gauss might get away with it, and that's it. Even then, the bullet would not fire straight, but straight with the momentum of the jump-sniper's fall (something that does not occur in MWO, the player's momentum is not transferred into the shots).

The end game meta, the plethora of assaults, doesn't exist in lore because it's too expensive. In fact in many cases it is too expensive to field light mechs, and thus tanks, infantry, etc. were used. However complaints about the grind would be too great. Repair and rearm is the closest to bringing the lore 'meta' about, otherwise we'll have the spoiled rich kids in the star league era meta.

Sephlock, on 04 December 2013 - 10:59 PM, said:

The AC/2 ghost heat thing just broke my spirit in that regard .

That did significantly hurt both the game and role warfare. Suppression roles were ultimately eliminated, reducing the potential of the game. 3 AC/2s can still work but the macro timing is very difficult and too slow to be worth while even if it is faster than a single AC/2.

There's a build I want you to see.

AC/10, 2 MGs, 3 AC/2s.

Edited by Koniving, 05 December 2013 - 05:30 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Rizzwind, on 05 December 2013 - 07:33 AM, said:

Will not work in a FPS with pinpoint shooting.

Why not?

Battle Value could address LOADOUTS as well as 'mechs. It'd even make bad equipment like SHS and Standard Frames worthwhile because it'd allow different things to fit into configs "on the cheap."

Ghost Heat = Abomination
Increasing the price of a unit based on how many weapons it has in the same category? = Totally acceptable.

If a 4 PPC 'mech took more resources to run but operated fine on the field, it's suddenly an option, not a closed one. And it has the desired effect to keep specific combos in check.

[ssm]

GalaxyBluestar, on 05 December 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

so...

clans will still be OP if:

their ct takes up 65-75% of their hitboxes

are 20-35% larger in general to their IS counterparts

have their pilot tree bonuses reduced in comparrison to IS mechs by at least 50%

have thier torso twist-pitch etc 30-55% less than IS mechs

have their weapon cooldown times 50% longer than IS weapons.


seriously this game has enough varibles to make the original weapon stats be mounted on completely useless mechs, mechs that make awesomes more than awesome. it's the only way to do it without corrupting the clan loadouts for crits and tonnage etc in mechlab.

so either they get hit with all these debilitations which is outside the TT schemetics or yes they will break the game.

but yeah PGI... nuff said.

They won't inflate CT hitbox because it'll won't play along with actual models, and they won't inflate the models because it'll look silly and break immersion. Let's be realistic.

As for other things you mentioned - pilot tree bonuses, torso twist, wepon cooldown etc. - I'll be ok with that - as long that they keep the mechs transferable to TT (weight, crits...)

Victor Morson, on 05 December 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:

Why not?

Battle Value could address LOADOUTS as well as 'mechs. It'd even make bad equipment like SHS and Standard Frames worthwhile because it'd allow different things to fit into configs "on the cheap."

Ghost Heat = Abomination
Increasing the price of a unit based on how many weapons it has in the same category? = Totally acceptable.

If a 4 PPC 'mech took more resources to run but operated fine on the field, it's suddenly an option, not a closed one. And it has the desired effect to keep specific combos in check.

Bad idea. Why would anybody ever want to fit into configs "on the cheap"? If we're talking balancing IS vs Clans only marginally viable IS units would be fully optimised Heavies and Assaults - of comparable BattleValue to corresponding Clan Mechs.

[RockWolf]

This is what I want with clan tech. I want to retrofit my cataphract with clan tech or pilot a thor. Face a team of 8 people and be outnumbered 8vs5. The stress would be very exciting. OR even 16 vs 10. 4 Lances vs 2 stars. Quantity vs Quality. I want that.

Edited by RockWolf, 05 December 2013 - 05:35 PM.

[CHH Badkarma]

Edweird, on 04 December 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

I think you'd be a fool to believe the game would work with the blatant technological superiority of the clans.
He said they'd be giving them an unique flavor - they may still have the technological superiority.

It's just not going to manifest itself in the game as it was in previous iterations because it wouldn't fit the game.

We have all seen pgi's unique flavor, custom paint and camo paterns. Nerfwarrior online continues. Flashlights and nerbats online

Edited by Jason Radick, 05 December 2013 - 05:48 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

ssm, on 05 December 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

They won't inflate CT hitbox because it'll won't play along with actual models, and they won't inflate the models because it'll look silly and break immersion. Let's be realistic.

As for other things you mentioned - pilot tree bonuses, torso twist, wepon cooldown etc. - I'll be ok with that - as long that they keep the mechs transferable to TT (weight, crits...)

well they're doing the hitboxes passes to apply different sections to different hitboxes ie; talking ct crotches and making them leg hitboxes, cuting down the CT sides to make the ST's area spread thus more hitable ST and less CT. apply that into reverse for clanners and it would be very hard to hit ST's. thus XLs are no longer an advantage at all for clan chassis, every shot by noob and expert alike would take out the CT armour, some might exploite that by cutting ST armour down to fit more weapons {risking arms blown off though for a sudden ST loss} but people would do that anyway with xl engines surviving the ST punch out.

the main thing is that weapons and clan tech should be tweaked LAST and be ballanced aside all the chassis/pilot nerfs i've outlined. try and preserve as much of the clan build and functionality as possible otherwise we're just playing IS.20

RockWolf, on 05 December 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

This is what I want with clan tech. I want to retrofit my cataphract with clan tech or pilot a thor. Face a team of 8 people and be outnumbered 8vs5. The stress would be very exciting. OR even 16 vs 10. 4 Lances vs 2 stars. Quantity vs Quality. I want that.

yeah but no mix tech, IS mech chassis need all the distinctive advantages such as hard to hit CTs torso twist tactics viability etc. the clans should be lumbering bullseyes. IS mechs with clan tech in pure form would tottally break the game and i'd considere the game broken/pointless if clan tech was watered down to make mix tech possible.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 05 December 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[Kanatta Jing]

Here look at this Timberwolf, and focus down on it's prime config and grab the nerf bat.

It starts with 2x ER medium las, 2x ER large las, 2 LRM 20, 2 machine guns and a medium pulse.

Lets jam in the Heavy Laser versions in instead of the ER Las. It's 2.3 times as hot as a regular las for the same range and double damage. They are better for DPS up until the heat cap is reached and then they are slightly worse.

Up until we have evidence to suggest that Heavy Lasers aren't significantly better then IS standard we'll put a "clan only" tag on them.

Now we come to the first problem. The Clan ER Large and Heavy Large Las are each one ton lighter then the IS equivilant. Lets correct this and pump both of those up to an even 5 tons making the build 2 tons over weight.

But it's two tons. This build has a single Medium Pulse looking all dorky on it, so lets just rip that out.

Now lets look at those LRM 20s. The Clan version is 5 tons, or half the weight of the IS version. There isn't much choice but to slash them down to LRM 10s. But 2x LRM 10s is a respectable long range solution in MWO and saves missles.

Lastly we grab a file and shave off a half ton of armor to fit the full weight of the two machine guns.

The last stage of the nerfing can be adjusting the Clan XL into an IS XL of the same weight and speed. Except that the IS 375 XL is a full 7 tons heavier then the clan version. The IS xl of the same weight is the 330 and a 75 ton mech can go 71.6 rather then 86.4. A 15km speed drop kinda hurts it really does.

With the XL we have 43 slots, -6 for lasers, -4 for missles, -2 for MG, -3 for Ammos, gives us exactly 28 so it could fit the IS versions of Ferro and Endo.

Except we forgot 2 of the double heatsinks that can't fit into the engine anymore.

Well lets just upgrade the Engine 2 tons to an XL 345, for a speed of 74.5.

There, it looks like a Timberwolf, hits like a Timberwolf, moves like a Timberwolf but it doesn't poke you to death from 1776m like a Timberwolf. It has to do so from within 900m.

2.3 times heat for 2x damage can be applied to PPCs to create Heavy PPCs.

Now as for the Auto-cannons... I really don't know. We could just apply half the range of the IS cannon line to the total batch?

[Whatzituyah]

Kanatta Jing, on 05 December 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

Here look at this Timberwolf, and focus down on it's prime config and grab the nerf bat.

It starts with 2x ER medium las, 2x ER large las, 2 LRM 20, 2 machine guns and a medium pulse.

Lets jam in the Heavy Laser versions in instead of the ER Las. It's 2.3 times as hot as a regular las for the same range and double damage. They are better for DPS up until the heat cap is reached and then they are slightly worse.

Up until we have evidence to suggest that Heavy Lasers aren't significantly better then IS standard we'll put a "clan only" tag on them.

Now we come to the first problem. The Clan ER Large and Heavy Large Las are each one ton lighter then the IS equivilant. Lets correct this and pump both of those up to an even 5 tons making the build 2 tons over weight.

But it's two tons. This build has a single Medium Pulse looking all dorky on it, so lets just rip that out.

Now lets look at those LRM 20s. The Clan version is 5 tons, or half the weight of the IS version. There isn't much choice but to slash them down to LRM 10s. But 2x LRM 10s is a respectable long range solution in MWO and saves missles.

Lastly we grab a file and shave off a half ton of armor to fit the full weight of the two machine guns.

The last stage of the nerfing can be adjusting the Clan XL into an IS XL of the same weight and speed. Except that the IS 375 XL is a full 7 tons heavier then the clan version. The IS xl of the same weight is the 330 and a 75 ton mech can go 71.6 rather then 86.4. A 15km speed drop kinda hurts it really does.

With the XL we have 43 slots, -6 for lasers, -4 for missles, -2 for MG, -3 for Ammos, gives us exactly 28 so it could fit the IS versions of Ferro and Endo.

Except we forgot 2 of the double heatsinks that can't fit into the engine anymore.

Well lets just upgrade the Engine 2 tons to an XL 345, for a speed of 74.5.

There, it looks like a Timberwolf, hits like a Timberwolf, moves like a Timberwolf but it doesn't poke you to death from 1776m like a Timberwolf. It has to do so from within 900m.

2.3 times heat for 2x damage can be applied to PPCs to create Heavy PPCs.

Now as for the Auto-cannons... I really don't know. We could just apply half the range of the IS cannon line to the total batch?

I bet you will see alot of Battletech fans walk out of the doors of MWO to the classics because this would be too much for them to handle.

[CHH Badkarma]

If there are any left by the time clans arrive.guess we will have to wait and see

[Kanatta Jing]

It's a free to play game. Getting into the game and comming back to the game are both free.

You can totally sit back and completely forget about MWO until PGI sends you a mail saying that the Clans have arrived and then just jump back in.