1978 replies to this topic

[GalaxyBluestar]

aniviron, on 15 December 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Yep, six months should be pleeeeeenty of time.

these are the same devs who took 9 months to fix advance zoom

the same devs who worked for a year to make missiles function properly and still SRMs aren't registering properly

the same devs who "balance" info warfare with ecm by taking a year to introduce modules, nerf buff weapons and equipment see- lurms, ppc emp, tag, artimus etc and destory BAP by turning it into eccm

the same devs who took 5 months to implement poor nerfs to curb ppc sniper floods

just remember that. 6 months is more like 2 weeks to PGI

[Devillin]

Hythos, on 15 December 2013 - 09:37 AM, said:

Simply add to that, a restriction of not firing on someone else's target... You know, like their Code of Honor restricts them to?? You know, like the intended and actual spirit of the Clans????
If they fire on someone elses target, they forfeit the match - plain and simple.

Make Clan tech more powerful, but also make the pilot be more responsible... as intended.

The idea I had was to have the game impose targeting penalties for each additional star-mate who targets your current target. Target reticule shake that increases for as long as one of your star-mates holds your target. A negative percentage assessed on how many missiles hit a target (like a negative NARC/TAG). Missiles going wide of target, someone else has a lock on it. Your reticule jumping all over the place like you are getting hit with AC20s? Get on the comm and tell folks to stop targeting Bravo. Use the mechanics that are already in the game.

[RedDragon]

xhrit, on 15 December 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

Tabletop battletech is dead because instead of investing their profits into their core business, FASA decided to spend all its money branching out into things like theme parks and saturday morning cartoons.

Can you imagine if Games Workshop developed video games in house instead of selling the liscence? Instead of being a revenue stream, video games would become a loss.

If FASA didnt waste all its money trying to be a video game theme park development studio, then maybe they wouldnt have gone bankrupt and sold the IP to microsoft.

http://en.wikipedia....iki/FASA_Studio

This and BT lacks a modern marketing concept. The try with Dark Age failed miserably (and rightly so, the back story was horrible, the mechs looked horrible...). Catalyst Labs is on a good way with the current marketing, but they rather concentrate on keeping the core community sustained with new material than getting new customers.
BT could become more widely known again if they marketed it right. Like tie-ins with MWO (if that was remotely successful) or something like this. You can perfectly well play TT with BV, it's done on countless conventions, on Megamek and wherenot. You just have to use some common sense with it.

[Thunder Child]

Well, I'm gonna just say this and get it over with.
The Clans NEED to be nerfed, if they are to be introduced into this game. The reasoning is very, very simple. The reason the Clans got away with being ludicrously OP in TT, was because they had an Honor system. This system involved a pre-engagement Bidding ritual, where each Star Captain bid for the right to take a planet, with the lowest bid winning the right to engage.
This meant that Clan mechs were usually outnumbered 2 to 1.
Additionally, each individual Clan Warrior followed their own code of honor, which (to the best of my memory) resulted in only one clan mech engaging a target, unless another clan mech was fired upon by said target.
When the clans were played this way, balance was achieved.
Neither of these systems can be applied to MWO, simply because 95% of Clan users will use the Tech, without the Fluffy Honor rules attached. They will just want the easiest way to kill an opponent, and then claim it was skill.

HOWEVER. I do not believe the current approach to the Great Nerfing is the smartest. Clan tech should have superior range, superior damage, and superior weight/crit requirements. Weapon Heat (NOT that Ghost Heat BS), and Cooldowns, and possibly volley mechanics should be used to compensate.
A Clan Large ER should run much hotter than an IS version, thus requiring more Sinks to dissipate it.
The Streaks could have a longer Lock time for the larger racks.
As to the LRM, I believe it should have no minimum range, but due to being a "trajectory" weapon, perhaps have it that the minimum Arc Distance is 180m. So yes, if someone is hugging your launcher, you'll do 20 points of damage to their face. Or if you can time it right to catch that Spider in the missiles upward arc, he'll eat missiles. But if you fire at someone 90m away, chances are the missiles will arc straight over him. A secondary option, would be to reduce the MAXIMUM range of Clan LRMs to 750m, but allow them to direct fire at anything under that range. And besides, it's 20 points of damage, spread all over the target, with a 5 sec CD. The UAC/20 will be 40pts of pinpoint damage every 4 secs. Yes, the LRM Launcher is lighter, yes, it has a longer range, but pinpoint damage is still king in this game.
On a positive note, I like the idea of the Pod Changing, BUT, I believe it should be free (No C-bill cost) if you own the alternate chassis. In fact, make it that you can freely swap pods between any variant of the Chassis, But must OWN the chassis to unlock it.

Anyways, sorry about the Wall of Text. I think this could work, they just need some constructive criticism to get it right, instead of all this DOOM AND GLOOM from the Forum Dwellers.

[Euri Yggdrasil]

I was thinking of a few ways to balance Clan Tech without changing Damage, Range, Heat, Weight, or Space. I believe this could be a good start:

1) Not allow Clan gear on IS mechs. Story-wise, it took the IS engineers a while to make this work anyway.
2) Limit ammo to tabletop amount. One of the weaknesses of the Clans has always been their dependance on ammo, especially Pre-Tukkayid. Conversely, boost the ammo/ton for IS weapons.
3) Recycle rate. Since Clans are used to fighting trials and 1v1, there is no need for the recycle time like IS weapons. IS pilots are less elegant in their combat styles. Maybe as much as 2x the recycle time of IS weapons, for example, making a Clan UAC2 recycle twice as slowly as an IS AC2, giving it similar DPS but only in double fire rate.
4) Higher Ghost Heat rate. This would severely hurt clan energy boats (Warhawk, Nova), but not cripple due to the more compact nature of their DHS.
5) Clan LRMs <180m. There should be a high chance of each missile missing under 180m, so mechs are not all packing SSRM15/20.
6) Extreme range. Clan weaponry usually has much higher max range. Since we have Extreme range past Max range in MW:O, Clan weapons would be effective far beyond what is intended. I suggest that damage drop off be half what IS weapons are at, so energy damage reaches 0 at 150% of max, and ballistic damage reached 0 at 200% of max, instead of 200% and 300% for IS.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Thunder Child, on 15 December 2013 - 05:42 PM, said:

Anyways, sorry about the Wall of Text. I think this could work, they just need some constructive criticism to get it right, instead of all this DOOM AND GLOOM from the Forum Dwellers.

Prosperity Park, on 15 December 2013 - 01:01 PM, said:

Note to everyone: Please stop talking about Community Warfare and U.I. 2.0. This thread is for discussing Clan balancing plans. I am boggled by the number of people who thing every single thread on this forum belongs to them and they can post about whatever they want. It's like walking into a party and interrupting everyone else's conversations because you think what you have to talk about is more important than what they are talking about. Plain rude.

the lack of progress madness, the madness has taken us all!

[Aersion]

Stupid. There is no better way to describe every single thing said here. If you will not implement clan tech as designed and you only want to balance it, that means you want to have the same exact things that just work a tiny bit different. In other words: totally useless. If this is what you want the answer is: DO NOT PUT IN CLAN TECH.... but that is just as stupid. So EASY ANSWER: implement clan tech the way every one wants UNBALANCED AND OVERPOWERED as it should be, BUT, all fights are Innersphere vs Innersphere, or Clan vs Innersphere in which you have 3/4 clan mechs vs Innersphere, for example 6 Clan vs 8 Innerspehere, or 8 Clan vs 12 Innersphere. Done.

But, you all do not care what would work best, you just want and overly balanced stale game, so whatever.

[N0MAD]

Got a couple questions, Is the Clan XL engine smaller in crit slots than the current XL engine. To confirm, all clan mechs have ferrous + Endo?

[TELEFORCE]

N0MAD, on 15 December 2013 - 06:10 PM, said:

Got a couple questions, Is the Clan XL engine smaller in crit slots than the current XL engine. To confirm, all clan mechs have ferrous + Endo?

Yes, Clan XLs are smaller, so an XL'd Clan 'mech can survive side torso destruction (although it's dead when both side torsos are gone).

And no, not all Clan 'mechs have both endo and ferro fibrous. The Summoner only uses Ferro Fibrous, while the Dire Wolf has standard armor and a standard chassis. Remember that Clan ES and FF take up half the crits as the IS versions.

And BattleTech table top is FAR from dead. If anything, Alpha Strike will help bring new players to the game with less-complicated play.

Edited by TELEFORCE, 15 December 2013 - 06:17 PM.

[Mystere]

Devillin, on 15 December 2013 - 05:39 PM, said:

The idea I had was to have the game impose targeting penalties for each additional star-mate who targets your current target. Target reticule shake that increases for as long as one of your star-mates holds your target. A negative percentage assessed on how many missiles hit a target (like a negative NARC/TAG). Missiles going wide of target, someone else has a lock on it. Your reticule jumping all over the place like you are getting hit with AC20s? Get on the comm and tell folks to stop targeting Bravo. Use the mechanics that are already in the game.

I am sorry to say this but, this is the second most ridiculous suggestion I have ever heard of.

Why not just have Thor's magical hammer fall down from the sky and strike the mechwarrior dead by flattening his omnimech like a pancake?

And I am saying "second" only because something actually beats yours.

Edited by Mystere, 15 December 2013 - 06:21 PM.

[Buckminster]

I think that making changes to the fundamental base stats (tonnage, slots, ranges, whatnot) is just a bad idea. It'll only steamroll into a long list of unintended consequences.

The simple fact is, there is no way to balance clan tech vs IS tech. Canon, TT, whatever you try and base it on, clan tech was superior. Period.

Your only real option is going to be to try and balance based on weight, and doing something like counting clan as double weight. Because any attempt to modify the numbers of clan tech to make it equal with IS tech is doomed to fail.

I like the limit of the customization of clan mechs, I think it's a nice flavor. But when combined with some of the other ideas that you are floating, it's still a disaster waiting to happen. There's nothing to stop this from becoming an arms race.

I was considering buying one of the clan packages. Based on this, I intend to wait.

[Acrius]

Quote

In this case, the ability to customize hardpoints comes with the tabletop OmniMech restrictions.

I just wanted to point out that while OmniMechs in TT do have customization restrictions, standard Mech can not be customized at all. The MWO mechlab has no TT counterpart (unless you design a Mech from scratch). Swapping parts is an interesting idea.

[Noth]

Buckminster, on 15 December 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

I think that making changes to the fundamental base stats (tonnage, slots, ranges, whatnot) is just a bad idea. It'll only steamroll into a long list of unintended consequences.

The simple fact is, there is no way to balance clan tech vs IS tech. Canon, TT, whatever you try and base it on, clan tech was superior. Period.

Your only real option is going to be to try and balance based on weight, and doing something like counting clan as double weight. Because any attempt to modify the numbers of clan tech to make it equal with IS tech is doomed to fail.

I like the limit of the customization of clan mechs, I think it's a nice flavor. But when combined with some of the other ideas that you are floating, it's still a disaster waiting to happen. There's nothing to stop this from becoming an arms race.

I was considering buying one of the clan packages. Based on this, I intend to wait.

I don't think their ultimate goal is for Clan tech to be completely balanced, but instead closer to what, the IS is with the IS maybe having a small advantage in an areas while the clan tech has more advantages overall.

I do agree that they shouldn't touch weight or crit slots though.

[N0MAD]

So all clan Variants of the prime have same armor configs, as in if prime has endo only all variants have endo only also.

[Hillslam]

I approve of Paul's approach.

[TELEFORCE]

N0MAD, on 15 December 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

So all clan Variants of the prime have same armor configs, as in if prime has endo only all variants have endo only also.

That is correct. The chassis remains the same (armor points, armor type, structure type, engine) across all variants of a chassis.

[Dez Telinov]

Sounds like a smart approach. Best of luck. I believe this is the best we will get and need to support the developer. Do not cry like a sibkin. Be of good cheer...THE CLANS are here.

[Outlaw]

Overall I feel that IS mechs are way to customizable as it is, and I have felt this way ever since closed beta. It is also this level of customization that is ruining the fun for a large portion of players who don't feel like being forced to pilot cookie cutter mechs with cookie cutter layouts because that is what the majority of the community is doing.

In canon, there were no heavily customized mechs like you see in here. If a Awesome 8Q came off the assembly line it was stuck running Standard Structure, armor, engines and Heatsinks. The reasons for this is as follows;

The Internals are what create the stability of the mech, you cant just rip it out and play with it. That is why you only seen brand new models coming off the assembly line using Endo-Steel not field modifications, and it the material was quite rare due to the requirement of manufacturing it in Zero-G environments which most of the orbital facilities capable of producing the material were destroyed during the 1st Succession War.

The Engine requires a complete overhaul of structure and engine housing in order to change it out, and upgrading to an XL is practically out of the question as it takes up a great deal more space. Most canon custom modifications that even made an engine change usually involved downsizing the engine instead of increasing the size, major instance would the Charger SB.

An upgrade to heatsinks requires that all heatsinks be removed, including the ones that are integrated into the engine (meaning that to upgrade from SHS to DHS you will more than likely need a completely new engine) and flushing the coolant lines to replace the coolant with a solution that is compatible with the materials used in the construction of the Double Heat Sinks. Very few mechs were upgraded from SHS to DHS, the only cases that i can think of were "Hero" characters in the novels who were particularly attached to their mechs.

Armor changes can be done during the maintanance cycle, and personally adjusting armor locations and things like that are far more feasible than any of the other upgrades mention above, the problem is however that Armor is not modular and still requires specialized equipment to increase, decrease or completely overhaul the materials used for armor plating (IE Ferro).

Weapons are one of those things that the writers tended to be wishy washy about as in some cases they state excessive modifications to a mech usually tend to have negative consequences due to the fire control system not being intended for certain weapon combinations, while others state that it is possible to do out in the field.

For the sake of MWO the issues that I see with weapon customization are some of the superfluous hard points available on some mechs which cause the balancing issues. If you limited the Hardpoints on IS mechs to a 1:1 ratio for every weapon that the stock layout currently mounts some of the balance issues would be resolved. That being said, if you were to lock in the Structure, Engine and Heat Sinks on IS mechs then yes, limiting the customization options of clans would be fine.

If things remain unchanged the Clans will be at a gross disadvantage. Im not saying the Clans have to be 100% overpowering in terms of technology, and I am open to balancing the technology in some ways, but to allow IS mechs full customization while heavily limiting the customization of Clan mechs will throw things out of whack. The only way I could approve of the OmniMech system proposed here is if Clan weapons tech remains unchanged.

[N0MAD]

Well, Timberwolf is Dead before arrival, with current design thinking,,, do the math. Hint look at crit allocation, number and weapon weights as suggested, then look at the Timberwolf prime.
If you start looking at their design idea on way the the clans mechs are modified, with fixed crit allotment, you will see major problems looming, laughable ones really,, i see very litle time without any real research has been spent on this.
Its funny that Clan mechs will be way more restricted in modification than IS mechs which are using the omni slot system currently.
They did say its preliminary, so i see big changes need to be made already, cause their initial draught is DoA already.

[gasolinehands]

Tolkien, on 14 December 2013 - 02:07 PM, said:

I would love to believe anything said at this point.... I really would.... but the management seems out of touch.



Maybe the management doesn't actually know what's in the game? That's the only conclusion I can think of when Russ ignores the missing Phoenix badges and the unimplemented loyalty points. Or maybe it's just cognitive dissonance to prevent him from thinking himself dishonest?

What assurances to be have that clans won't turn out the same way as phoenix with targeting computer being another command console? In the game for what.... 15 months now with no function?

[Redacted]

This ^

Seriously Russ, the players are begging for a bar that shows progress (wrong). You're asking 500$ gold 'mech? (wrong)