1978 replies to this topic

[Noth]

GalaxyBluestar, on 14 December 2013 - 10:08 PM, said:

THERES BETTER IDEAS TO AVOID THAT THAN KILL GAME FUNCTIONALITY OUTRIGHT!

Virtually none of those ideas fix the issue of an arms race, let alone remotely balance them.

Edited by Noth, 14 December 2013 - 10:13 PM.

[Devil Fox]

So to balance clan's... we're allowed to hardpoint swap (within variants).

BUT they screw nearly every weapon balance wise (LRM extra tonnage and dmg ramp under 180m... no thanks)... lock our engines, and upgrades and armour allocation into place. Right there is ZERO reason then to play a Clan mech but for the tech, IS mechs will be faster, better armoured and better armed!

All Clan has going for it is range... but even then that's going to be nerfed to balance the clan weapons... it's just disgusting...

[Lucian Nostra]

Another question if you limit armor to stock values how is the Kit Fox not going to suck? 9 points of CT armor in TT is doubled up to 18. 8 points of leg armor doubled to 16.

Going 97 kph? this mech will be hot garbage

Edited by Lucian Nostra, 14 December 2013 - 10:18 PM.

[Appogee]

I'm still thinking the implications through, but I take heart that PGI's plan at least attempts to address the balance issues of Clan tech.

However, there continues to be no excuse for the glacial pace of development of the core game.

[stinkypuppy]

i like the interchangeable slots but DON'T CHANGE CRIT SIZE AND TONNAGE because err well... its illegal to build stock mechs if you change it. but i'm just wondering how interchangeable parts will be balanced, why should i buy a Thor and a mad cat when i could have a Thor and change up its components for what i want?
also with everything else being fixed like armor, upgrades, engines and more i must agree with apostal in how its a terrible idea

other than that im going to hold out buying clan pack for now unless ui 2.0 and cw turn out being good and additional info ends up being useful. also im planning of buying a low tier and upgrading with time depending on trust and i just need to know if i buy the daishi pack and want to up to war hawk later it will only cost another 120 right? or will i have to pay one 120 and then 240 if i want to upgrade because of some kind of things being poorly implemented?

i wish pgi the best of luck with trying to have a successful run of things but for right now they are going to have to rely on the mosty kind community on providing them money.

oh and by they way if i see a gold mech on the battlefield i am going to really badly die inside while my team mates are in the process of legging your 500 dollar mech, you better hope your exclusive module is something that prevents friendly fire.

[Noth]

Apostal, on 14 December 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

All Clan has going for it is range... but even then that's going to be nerfed to balance the clan weapons... it's just disgusting...

And damage, weight, and crit slots. The clans would still have all the advantages when it comes to weapons, they just wouldn't be as severe

[GalaxyBluestar]

Noth, on 14 December 2013 - 10:12 PM, said:

Virtually none of those ideas fix the issue of an arms race, let alone remotely balance them.

then enjoy the mediocrity of arena shooter with a complete innersphere 2.0. no customisation other than swap a few weapons and arms around!? that's balance!? the fun is stopping here.

[Mr 144]

Apostal, on 14 December 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

So to balance clan's... we're allowed to hardpoint swap (within variants).

BUT they screw nearly every weapon balance wise (LRM extra tonnage and dmg ramp under 180m... no thanks)... lock our engines, and upgrades and armour allocation into place. Right there is ZERO reason then to play a Clan mech but for the tech, IS mechs will be faster, better armoured and better armed!

All Clan has going for it is range... but even then that's going to be nerfed to balance the clan weapons... it's just disgusting...

IS better armed? Doubt that...Lighter weapons = more room for (2 crit space) DHS...and even without swapping, Clan mechs have far more hardpoints than IS....furthermore, some of the clan chassis do not lack in armor, and the speed is acceptable....even the glass cannon mechs will bring twice the firepower than IS equivalents

[Noth]

GalaxyBluestar, on 14 December 2013 - 10:17 PM, said:

then enjoy the mediocrity of arena shooter with a complete innersphere 2.0. no customisation other than swap a few weapons and arms around!? that's balance!? the fun is stopping here.

If it limits the arms race, then I'll be more than happy as it would give us more options instead of just running clan tech.

[Blackadder]

where do i sign up for my high heat, high weapon damage mech that can do significantly more alpha and burst damage at greater ranges then my enemies, while still being able to crush lights at 90 meters with LRM's, and double tap for 40 damage on UAC 20's.

[xXBagheeraXx]

Noth, on 14 December 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

They don't want an arms race to clan tech. Sorry, but that is the right call in a competitive game. Second the packages are not just one mech. The 240$ packages gets you all the mechs and variants (24) and mech bays to go with them, along with other stuff. It comes out to be almost the exact same value as the PP.

Hate to break it to you, it WILL be an arms race to clan weaponry regardless. I WILL clan tech nearly all my mechs for nothing else but the reduced weight and crit space. Especially with clan endo steel . Certain innersphere weapons however will remain useful, like the ac20, IS lrms, especially if you have artemis, the Light gauss when it is introduced, Etc. Honestly the only weapons made obsolete would be the streaks, medium lasers, Larges, and PPC's. All the other weapons retain usefulness even deep into the high end clan tech....And are you forgetting The heavy and Impoved gauss rifles that will come down the line? It wont COMPLETLY be clan or ****, innersphere still retain quite a few nice weapons the clans do not get. There isnt a need for this "no engine change no internals change" BULLCRAP they are introducing. Ghost heat was the wrong way as it is with innersphere weapons, its going to be worse with the clan tech? No thank you...

[StormDll]

Only one question. As clans scout or hunt for light mech if stock engines 180-210 with speed 94-97 km? Then you need to raise the stock engine to 300 and change weapons!

[The Big Stick]

forget balance... I hate games where items that are supposed to be better get nerfed ... a uac5 should be better (most of the time) than a ac5 ... unless you are unlucky enough to have a jam..

Clan ER large laser should be better than a IS one but don't make them for sale through the store...
Make clan tech salvage only... Make it available immediately if you can kill one of clan mechs that were purchased (with $) and win ... you want a mad cat... kill a mad cat and ... once that's done it would unlock a mad cat in the store.


What I'm thinking is the mech and its components would be added to your "store" ... If it has 1 ER laser on it then there is one clan ER laser in the store. The cost of purchasing that ER laser represent the cost to repair the tech. Once you purchase a piece of clan tech it's removed from your store...

If you can afford to fully restore the complete mech (buy an unlocked mech from the store) then you get the complete mech with all it components. If you buy a few individual components first, then when you restore the mech you get the mech minus the components you you previously restored.

One of the best parts of BT was the salvage... It was way more important than just having the cbills in the bank. In BT you might play for weeks/months without being able to buy a piece of equipment so getting it from salvage actually meant something. This game completely eliminates that part of the game play. Clan tech would be a great opportunity to bring it back.

PS... clan lrms should be los only... (that is a substantial balancing factor)

Edited by The Big Stick, 14 December 2013 - 10:36 PM.

[Noth]

xXBagheeraXx, on 14 December 2013 - 10:24 PM, said:

Hate to break it to you, it WILL be an arms race to clan weaponry regardless. I WILL clan tech nearly all my mechs for nothing else but the reduced weight and crit space. Especially with clan endo steel . Certain innersphere weapons however will remain useful, like the ac20, IS lrms, especially if you have artemis, the Light gauss when it is introduced, Etc. Honestly the only weapons made obsolete would be the streaks, medium lasers, Larges, and PPC's. All the other weapons retain usefulness even deep into the high end clan tech....And are you forgetting The heavy and Impoved gauss rifles that will come down the line? It wont COMPLETLY be clan or ****, innersphere still retain quite a few nice weapons the clans do not get. There isnt a need for this "no engine change no internals change" BULLCRAP they are introducing. Ghost heat was the wrong way as it is with innersphere weapons, its going to be worse with the clan tech? No thank you...

It won't be nearly as bad as the other MW games though. That is the point. You keep the IS weapons competitive so that the need to use clan tech is not as urgent or as required.

[DukeDublin]

Paul Inouye, on 14 December 2013 - 01:38 PM, said:

ENDO/Double Heatsink Tech – Design Approach
Upgrade Technology in the MWO universe has always been an over-powered set of weapons and BattleMech items. This encourages an arms race to get to advanced equipment and makes Basic Tech rather obsolete. This is something we do not want to see in MechWarrior Online and we have decided to take some heavy hitting steps to make sure that this arms race does not come to fruition.

They need to fix the current arms race before they can fix the next.

[StormDll]

show me in MWO at least one stock actually playable mech, which does not need to increase armor, change the engine or structure or ferro?

[Hunter Watzas]

I read through about 8 pages: Everytime i finished one another spawned so i quit:
Sorry if anything is repeated.

Overall, i think this is a good start. Unfortunately, as of lately you, PGI, have failed to keep on track with deadlines and other content that should be already available. Instead, you release how to balance Mechs that are VERY costly before even finishing the method.

Weapons:
Lasers seemed reasonable. Ghost heat isn't terrible, it forces you to learn how to play better and etc. The beam time basically makes it equivalent to a regular large laser damage per second. 8 in 1 sec to 10 damage in 1.+ seconds.

Missiles didn't make much sense. S-SRM6 fired in groups of 2 isn't a terrible idea. It basically equates itself into a 3xS-SRM2s but only taking up one hardpoint, makes sense and is fairly balanced, assuming the heat is increased over the time frame.

LRMs are even more of a problem. I am not much for lore and TT but LRM 20s weighing in 5 tons is terribly destructive, especially with no minimal range. Perhaps don't give those LRMs bonuses from NARC, TAG, etc. Change the flight path might work, make them less agile or whatever seems best.

Although your work is solid, have you considered just increasing the recycle time (weapon cooldown). Keep same damage, heat, and all that jazz but just decrease the amount of times it can be fired in a given time frame. Higher alpha damage but lower sustained damage output. After all TT is "10 second" duration turns if i understood right.

Mechs
I actually like the idea of the way Omni-Mechs are going. Its not perfect and I understand certain mechs will be worthless due to their lack of engine capacities. A light mech running 90kph is terrible, even with all of its hit register bugs and terrible hit boxes. However, i think that instead of a fixed value, perhaps allow a little bit of lee-way. Instead of locking them into one engine type & rating, have it a +- 30 ratings on the engine. This will allow for a little more customization for the players to feel in their mechs.

I absolutely love the idea of how the hard point swap will work. It balances the IS mech customization and creates a different/unique feel for the Clan customization. It also adds tactical benefits that people will never be able to know the enemy mech completely.

I think this is a good step that you are providing information. Perhaps though you should halt the sale/reconsider your actions until you have delivered the CW, UI 2.0 and all the bug, hit boxes, and hit detection fixes first. A lot of people are simple upset that you constantly ask us for money but yet as of your game release, you still hadn't finished your CW design stage.

[xXBagheeraXx]

The Big Stick, on 14 December 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

forget balance... I hate games where items that are supposed to be better get nerfed ... a uac5 should be better (most of the time) than a ac5 ... unless you are unlucky enough to have a jam..

Clan ER large laser should be better than a IS one but don't make them for sale through the store...
Make clan tech salvage only... Make it available immediately if you can kill one of clan mechs that were purchased (with $) and win ... you want a mad cat... kill a mad cat and ... once that's done it would unlock a mad cat in the store.


What I'm thinking is the mech and its components would be added to your "store" ... If it has 1 ER laser on it then there is one clan ER laser in the store. The cost of purchasing that ER laser represent the cost to repair the tech. Once you purchase a piece of clan tech it's removed from your store...

If you can afford to fully restore the complete mech (buy an unlocked mech from the store) then you get the complete mech with all it components. If you buy a few individual components first, then when you restore the mech you get the mech minus the components you you previously restored.

One of the best parts of BT was the salvage... It was way more important than just having the cbills in the bank. In BT you might play for weeks/months without being able to buy a piece of equipment so getting it from salvage actually meant something. This game completely eliminates that part of the game play. Clan tech would be a great opportunity to bring it back.

My clannies were talking about that in teamspeak...The Devs coudl have stars randomly drop in pug games with full decked out clan mechs...The innersphere teams could then turn neutral and try to defeat the clan star, if they win, everyone gets random mech salvage, or salvage what you killed. THAT WOULD BE TOOOOTALLY AWEOSME! No announcements no nothing just random pearl harbor in the middle of your match as a decked out madcat randomly ruins your duel with that atlas you nearly cored....

[Noth]

Hunter Watzas, on 14 December 2013 - 10:35 PM, said:

I read through about 8 pages: Everytime i finished one another spawned so i quit:
Sorry if anything is repeated.

Overall, i think this is a good start. Unfortunately, as of lately you, PGI, have failed to keep on track with deadlines and other content that should be already available. Instead, you release how to balance Mechs that are VERY costly before even finishing the method.

Weapons:
Lasers seemed reasonable. Ghost heat isn't terrible, it forces you to learn how to play better and etc. The beam time basically makes it equivalent to a regular large laser damage per second. 8 in 1 sec to 10 damage in 1.+ seconds.

Missiles didn't make much sense. S-SRM6 fired in groups of 2 isn't a terrible idea. It basically equates itself into a 3xS-SRM2s but only taking up one hardpoint, makes sense and is fairly balanced, assuming the heat is increased over the time frame.

LRMs are even more of a problem. I am not much for lore and TT but LRM 20s weighing in 5 tons is terribly destructive, especially with no minimal range. Perhaps don't give those LRMs bonuses from NARC, TAG, etc. Change the flight path might work, make them less agile or whatever seems best.

Although your work is solid, have you considered just increasing the recycle time (weapon cooldown). Keep same damage, heat, and all that jazz but just decrease the amount of times it can be fired in a given time frame. Higher alpha damage but lower sustained damage output. After all TT is "10 second" duration turns if i understood right.

Mechs
I actually like the idea of the way Omni-Mechs are going. Its not perfect and I understand certain mechs will be worthless due to their lack of engine capacities. A light mech running 90kph is terrible, even with all of its hit register bugs and terrible hit boxes. However, i think that instead of a fixed value, perhaps allow a little bit of lee-way. Instead of locking them into one engine type & rating, have it a +- 30 ratings on the engine. This will allow for a little more customization for the players to feel in their mechs.

I absolutely love the idea of how the hard point swap will work. It balances the IS mech customization and creates a different/unique feel for the Clan customization. It also adds tactical benefits that people will never be able to know the enemy mech completely.

I think this is a good step that you are providing information. Perhaps though you should halt the sale/reconsider your actions until you have delivered the CW, UI 2.0 and all the bug, hit boxes, and hit detection fixes first. A lot of people are simple upset that you constantly ask us for money but yet as of your game release, you still hadn't finished your CW design stage.

I just wanted to quote this as how feedback should be done. Most people on this forum could take a lesson from this guy (including myself).

[Ronious]

I feel that this information about how Clan Technology will be implemented was absolutely necessary on behalf of the devs. Their customers are not completely mindless cash cows. PGI cannot sell their product without giving at least some information of how it might work. Might work because the details on clan technology are vague and subject to change. It is mostly a statement to loosen our wallets.

Mech packs make money. On release, I was amazed at the number of Project Phoenix mechs out there. PGI must have made a fortune. It makes good business sense for PGI to sell Mech Packages. It appears that PGI can deliver on the promises of adding mechs to the game so they have chosen to completely monetize it. If we are willing to pay for mechs without the other promised content, PGI has no real incentive to give it to us. They can simply focus on the next mech package to sell. The feeling I get is we are being probed as to how much we are willing to pay. If we will pay $500 for a mech, why not $1000 on the next Mech pack.

I have no problem with having to wait for a mech if i don't want to pay up front. The question I ask is, Where is the return on investment? We watch the can being kicked down the road on features that have been promised since the founders days. StandingCow hit it on the head.

I guess I never really got around to giving feed back on the Clan Technology. As far as balance goes. In each one of the IS/Clan comparisons Clan tech had the advantage. So unless IS mechs are able to equip Clan weapons IS would appear to be at a disadvantage.

(I may just be raging because I just realized I accidentally spent 1000MC on on a color while customizing my mech.)