1978 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

The fact that the Clan mechs are not automatically just better means that the balancing in working to some degree. The IS will have a mobility advantage and the Clans will have a firepower advantage. It remains to be seen what how that plays out when CW and the additional game types come out.

It doesnt remain to be seen. Go try to play a Raven with an AC/20 and see how far your firepower advantage gets you.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

"Sprouticus'
Feedback on the feedback:

Wow, there is a LOT of anger here. Some of you folks need to take a step away from the game or something.

• Russ has already implied on twitter that weight balancing for clans will occur.
  
• The UI/CW complaints post folks don't realize that they are planning way ahead LIKE THEY SHOULD and including us in the conversation LIKE THEY SHOULD. Nothing in this affects the efforts in UI.CW (not saying those are not behind, just that they are not realted to this.
  
• The cost of the package in $10/mech. Not bad really. There is no benefit to buying the package early, so who CARES when they introduce it.
  
• The gold mechs are an uber luxury item. They cost PGI almost nothing to implement time wise. it is just something people with way too much money will buy. It doesn't impact most of us so who cares.

Not Feedback on the action post


Overall some good ideas, some bad. About what I would expect in a first draft.

• Lasers: Suggested changes work. Have no idea how you are going to balance PPC's and UAC's though. I think the suggestions of a DoT for PPC's is an option. Still not sure on UAC's though.
  
• SSRM's: even 2- per will not make these anything other than light killers. SSRM2's do a good job now. Cant imagine how it will be better
  
• LRM: Like almost everyone on here, I think changing weight is just silly. There are a couple of other ways to change LRM's that will have big impact.

• Make omni pod LRM's only have 5 launchers. This will severely reduce their impact.
  
• PREVENT clan LRM's from maintaining lock indirectly. If they are direct fire only, their impact on the game will be far less
  
• Limit ammo per ton

• UAC's : make them multiple projectiles, there is no other way to balance them. This is frankly long overdue.

As for the other stuff:

• I like the omni model. Very elegant way of doing it. There WILL probably be an optimal setup, but then again that would be with pure omni slots too.
  
• Limited armor is a good balance, although some mechs will be DOA. Perhaps instead you should allow VERY limited changes +/-20% ish.
  
• Almost all Clan omnimechs already have DHS/FF/ES by default. I am ok with making these static, but what if the arm of one config has different # of FF or ES slots than another, you may break some stuff. Not sure if that is a real issue though

Lastly, even with all of this you WILL need tonnage differential. It just has to happen."


This includes most of the points I wanted to make, although I would be happy with leaving the armour as is.
Clans must be separate from the IS, perhaps even with an alt player ID, certainly a separate mechbay.
As a confirmed IS player, to paraphrase Wispsy; Your Clans, I refuse them.

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 15 December 2013 - 12:10 PM.

[tuffy963]

Thanks for the information.

My hope is that this work will get prioritized BELOW UI 2.0 and CW. If anyone is working on Clan mech designs, please send them over to the team working on UI 2.0 and CW projects. This supporting staff can become UI 2.0 testers, CW design production and feedback support, and personal admins. Anything to speed up the delivery of these critical features.

[GI Journalist]

With the initial Clan invasion there's no reason to do match making with anything other than homogeneous forces on each side, either Clan or Inner Sphere.

With the current plan, it would appear that matches will run with 12 Inner Sphere Mechs (company) on one side vs. 10 Clan Mechs (binary) on the other.

I would rather see Clan Mechs with significantly more powerful equipment, and match up players with 12 Inner Sphere Mechs (company) vs. 5 Clan Mechs (star). This would require significantly different tactics than our current matches and better reflect the Clan/Inner Sphere conflict.

[Kristina Sarah McEvedy]

Helmer, on 14 December 2013 - 02:18 PM, said:

Just a reminder, this is feedback on the Clan Technology - a design Perspective post. Let's please use this thread on feedback regarding the design ideas contained there and use the other Feedback posts for their intended purposes ( I.E. Clan Collections - Feedback )

No need to cross the streams.... you never want to cross the streams Egon.



Cheers.

Translation: "PGI doesn't want you talking about the mess they've made and are failing to address. Go into this other post to do so, so that we may immediate lock it and continue to ignore all of your feedback as the these wonderful companies drive this game into the ground."

NOT ONE MORE CENT TO PGI until A) we get the features that were promised to be RELEASED almost a year ago, and B ) PGI starts giving a damn about our feedback instead of just shrugging it off and ignoring it.

PGI, are you so prideful that you're willing to continue ruining this game instead of admitting you're wrong and have been wrong continually over the past two years? Is you're pride so inflated that you think you know what is best for this game and us players to a point where you blatantly and obviously ignore your players trying to help make this game better so it doesn't die and so your company continues to exist?

I've tried remaining hopeful, I've continued to support this game even though my better judgement was telling me not to. I've continued to put my faith into this company in the hopes that they finally deliver on things promised or at least delivering on improving this game. What has my hope and faith got me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. For all the money I've put into this game, I have nothing to show for it. I don't have the MWO game I was promised when I helped fund it by being a Founder. I don't have a good chunk of the things I was promised when I purchased Phoenix.

With that said, thank you for clarifying Clan Tech and how you want it to work. I don't agree with a lot of the changes, but others have voiced the same concerns I do about this new mess so I don't need to go into that any further. Now can you please answer player's other glaring concerns that came in the bundle with concerns about Clan Tech? Such as...

1) What is with the price-gouging for these Clan Mechs and, for that matter, what is with the extortion-leveled prices in-game?

This is easily and singlehandedly the most expensive game I've ever played. I though League of Legends, with their $15 Legendary Skins, was expensive, but you guys take the cake by leaps and bounds. You guys want to make more money? Lower your pre-order mech package and MC prices. All of them. I know that may not make sense to you, but take a lesson from big box stores: lower prices mean more sales. It's Business 101. The only way you can get away with charging such high prices is if the product we're getting in return is of the absolute highest premium value. This not only means the item we're buying, but the game we're buying it for as well. At the moment, this game and nothing in it are worth the prices you guys are slinging.

2) Where is the Clan Invasion event or are we even getting one? Also is the Inner Sphere going to be allowed to use them (Clan Mechs and Weaponry) at all and, regardless of the answer, why did you choose to do it this way?

3) Can you tell us how far along UI 2.0 and Community Warfare are and some actual dedicated details? Please be honest.

It would show a great deal of good faith if we could actually see the progress with our own eyes via screenshot or something, because at this point not many people are willing to take your (Russ' or PGI) word on anything and this would be a step in the right direction at getting your customer base to trust you again.


Until these questions are answered and the issues I, and many other players, have are address, I will not spend one more cent on this game and will not be buying the Clan Mech pre-order until at least most, if not all, of these things have been addressed. I'm tired of spending money on this game and having nothing to show for it in terms of the game being improved. I'm tired of dropping money into a company who has an extremely hard time keeping their promises on what is being delivered. I'm tired of being price gouged and feeling like the money I have spent is just going into some kid of black hole that just takes, takes, takes but never gives.

Edited by Joseph Marik, 15 December 2013 - 01:21 PM.

[DocBach]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 15 December 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

• PREVENT clan LRM's from maintaining lock indirectly. If they are direct fire only, their impact on the game will be far

• UAC's : make them multiple projectiles, there is no other way to balance them. This is frankly long overdue.

• Almost all Clan omnimechs already have DHS/FF/ES by default. I am ok with making these static, but what if the arm of one config has different # of FF or ES slots than another, you may break some stuff. Not sure if that is a real issue though

Totally like the no indirect fire LRM idea for Clanners. They don't like sharing kills and all, so things like supporting fires and sharing targeting information would be dishonorable.

For Ultra AC's, they need to implement a recoil system where the larger Ultra AC's have more deviation between the point of aim and point of impact of both rounds. This was actually simulated in the board game where you had to determine if both rounds even hit, and then you had to determine where both rounds hit individually. We're shooting a burst of 120mm cannon shells, it's pretty hard to put both of those rounds into the same hole!

As for fixed ES/FF/DHS slots, the equipment is fixed in the base variant, meaning that all subsequent variants will have that equipment in the same place, so mixing limbs/torsos/whatever won't be an issue with critical slots.

[Scratx]

tuffy963, on 15 December 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

Thanks for the information.

My hope is that this work will get prioritized BELOW UI 2.0 and CW. If anyone is working on Clan mech designs, please send them over to the team working on UI 2.0 and CW projects. This supporting staff can become UI 2.0 testers, CW design production and feedback support, and personal admins. Anything to speed up the delivery of these critical features.

*facepalms*

Not going to happen for so many good reasons. Have you worked in software projects? There's an old adage... "adding people to a late project will make it later".

And they can't afford the risk of being late in delivering the mechs anyway. Besides... frankly? Their skillset is far better used actually making more content. If they want "monkeys" to test the UI, they have better options.

Joseph Marik, on 15 December 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

*snips*

Oh, boy. Stop polluting this thread, please. This is about clan tech, not about the package, pricing, CW and UI delays and so forth. I'm not happy about those, either, and that will reflect on my decision to withhold buying anything until I see real progress. With that said, keep that feedback where it belongs.

And it is not here.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

After rereading the Command Chair section about how Clan BattleMechs could be Built/Customized, I was thinking that having separate individual Clan Omnimech's for each Configuration is going to unnecessarily overfill the Mechlab since the base configuration, the core of the Omni will not be changing between them (which I happen to like as it stays to the rules as mentioned in the post).

Currently the largest packages will include 24 Mechbays for example to handle that. Then from what I've looked at so far Omni's can have plenty of Alternate Configurations.

• Warhawk (Masakari) - Prime plus seven Alt. Configs
  
• Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) - Prime plus ten Alt. Configs
  
• Stormcrow (Ryoken) - Prime plus ten Alt. Configs
  
• Adder (Puma) - Prime plus seven Alt. Configs
  
• Dire Wolf (Daishi) - Prime plus nine Alt. Configs
  
• Summoner (Thor) - Prime plus thirteen Alt. Configs
  
• Nova (Black Hawk) - Prime plus nine Alt. Configs
  
• Kit Fox (Uller) - Prime plus eleven Alt. Configs

So, I was thinking, instead of having so many redundant core Omnimechs (three of each in the package) taking up all of those Mechbays, what if the packages would instead be 1 Mechbay for 1 core Omnimech, that then provides the appropriate number of modular pods (with weapons, ammo and equipment) for each included configuration (the Prime and two Alt Configurations)?


Having the Pods with various hardpoint layouts is certainly a good idea to have and there would simply be a need to have a new category Tab in the Mechlab to swap Pods on the core Omni; similar to how we have the Weapons Tab, Ammo Tab and so on to customize the Omni's.

So the number of included Pods for each unique Omnimech in the Clan package could be:

• Head - three, one for each configuration in the Package
  
• Left Arm - three, one for each configuration in the Package
  
• RIght Arm - three, one for each configuration in the Package
  
• Left Torso - three, one for each configuration in the Package
  
• Right Torso - three, one for each configuration in the Package

Therefore, the package would have, for example, with the Kit Fox (Uller) package, one mechbay for one omni and 15 modular pods to use to build the Prime Configuration and two Alternate Configurations along with the appropriate equipment on each configuration.

That's something I'd like the devs to explore.

[Quinton]

*post redacted do to authors inability to coherently articulate the rage felt after seeing the clan sale and reading the clan technology update*

[arghmace]

Just issue Battle Value for all mechs. If for instance an Atlas has a battle value of 100, a Daishi could have 200. So the match maker would regard a Daishi the equivalent of 2 Atlai. You could also use this to balance out mechs in general. For instance if you look at 80-tonners, the Victor is obviously better and more used than the Awesome. So set the Victor's Battle Value to 85 and the Awesome's BV to 75. Then just look at the statistics: which mechs are used a lot and which aren't and adjust the battle values until everything is used as much.

[Abivard]

Putting the horse before the cart before the horse again PGI? IS weapons are not balanced, HSR hit detction hitboxes are not yet in good working order, so how can you even hope to attempt to balance clan tech against IS when IS is not balanced?

Does no one else see the utter futility of trying to balance a new thing to an old thing when the old thing is not even balanced?

[DevilCrayon]

What are Badges?
What are Titles?
What are Warhorns?
What are Bonus Modules?
What are Unique Bonus Modules?

[Felicitatem Parco]

Sounds like some promising balance plans.

I always thought that Clan Mechs would have fewer hardpoints than IS Mechs to reduce the number of large specialized weapons they could stack (i.e. a Clan Mech with 1 default missile weapon in a location would not get 3 missile hardpoints to use for customization).


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.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 15 December 2013 - 01:03 PM.

[Noth]

Abivard, on 15 December 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

Putting the horse before the cart before the horse again PGI? IS weapons are not balanced, HSR hit detction hitboxes are not yet in good working order, so how can you even hope to attempt to balance clan tech against IS when IS is not balanced?

Does no one else see the utter futility of trying to balance a new thing to an old thing when the old thing is not even balanced?

Balance will be forever on going. If games waited for balance before working on new content, that content would never come out.

[Kunae]

6 months from now, all references to Paul's post, by PGI, will be: "That was just our position at that time."

[Cola]

Changing tonnage and crits, is a bad idea. Many stock variants will simply not work.

[Erasus Magnus]

Ryvucz, on 14 December 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

Some people wanted to know about Clan tech, this covers it.

It also covers some information regarding the Clan sales.

It is not meant to cover Community Warfare, UI 2.0, etc.

Thanks for the info on this!

People are overly hostile towards the devs these days. It really is nothing but a toxic behavior now that they even derail threads that are meant to provide solid Information on a future feature into the ancient old "broken promise" babble.

Really, I am with you on the "fix SRM/LRM, DX11 and CW and UI2.0 naow" train but thats no reason to derail a thread that has nothing to do with any of these.

On the topic: I could see this implementation of the clans actually work.
especially the restriction on customization of armor, engines and electronics is golden. I even feel the clans could be a bit too weak then, so adjustments have to be made on the equipment side of things. But this is a surprisingly solid first impression of the clan Omnis i must admit.

At least for me it sounds reasonable.

arden, on 15 December 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

Changing tonnage and crits, is a bad idea. Many stock variants will simply not work.

The only gripe I have thus far, I agree with arden here.

Edited by Erasus Magnus, 15 December 2013 - 01:18 PM.

[NyxOOX]

kuangmk11, on 15 December 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

Also remember that you can only do the swap if its an approved configuration. Nobody knows what swaps they will allow but all AC Jumping Assault is probably not one of them.

I never said anything about including JJs, although you're right about us now knowing what Dire Wolf configs are approved. Logically one would assume that the approved configs will be the ones that only include tech from this era, which gives us the Prime, A, B, S (Jump Jets), and W, which is the Wolf's Dragoons variant.

[Kristina Sarah McEvedy]

Scratx, on 15 December 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

Oh, boy. Stop polluting this thread, please. This is about clan tech, not about the package, pricing, CW and UI delays and so forth. I'm not happy about those, either, and that will reflect on my decision to withhold buying anything until I see real progress. With that said, keep that feedback where it belongs.

And it is not here.

I have no interest in posting any further about such topic on this thread, what is said is said and there's no point in me re-iterating it on this thread anymore. Mark my words though, PGI will gloss over all the other problems in the other thread, lock the thread, never speak of the issues again and act like nobody is angry at them.

I've dropped a metric ton of money into this game and I'm not satisfied with them dodging the issues and questions anymore. Russ chose to ignore the vast majority of glaring issues people brought forth previously in order to explain Clan Tech. Why did he do this? To keep the focus on these Clan Mech Packs and not the glaring problems people are getting sick and tired of. It's a political tactic, nothing more. As I said in my post (if you bothered to read it, which you obviously didn't) I'm grateful that he answered questions about Clan Tech, now how about the dozen other major concerns players want answers or information on?

I'm tired of PGI dodging the issues and trying to gloss over these problems. I'm tired of the "just wait and see, the game will get better" attitude they've been stringing me along with for the past two years while continuing to deliver NOTHING except "features" which give them money.

You want my input on the mentioned Clan Tech? Here you go: a lot of it sucks. I can understand the weapon balancing, that's fine, I was expecting them to butcher it anyways so I'm just happy that Clan Tech is actually different.

What I'm not happy about is them trying to justify an obvious cash grab as "balancing." The entire way Omni Hardpoints works doesn't say "balancing" to me at all, it says "we came up with this idea after figuring out how we could force people to spend money on Clan Mech variants, just to get the baseline use out of their Clan Mechs." It's a slap in the face and an insult to my intelligence that they would think I wouldn't notice this mechanic being the cash grab that it is, especially after the obvious Cash Grab mentality of the recent Clan Mech Pack announcements.

[Chunkylad]

This thread is lolz. The only reason I even come to the forums is for fan art anymore. Thanks PGI for at least moving one thing in the right direction.