Posted 16 December 2013 - 12:08 AM
I think that PGI's attempts at making the game fair and accessible to everyone, although noble, are simply insuring that the clans are at a serious disadvantage from the get go.
Allow me to explain. When initially the Clans invaded, they simply swept everything aside. Despite their numerical disadvantage, they penetrated deep into the inner sphere due to their distinct advantage in weaponry and mechs, in other words, they were technologically superior, equally in terms of logistics, martial science and weapons technology. It is only once the Inner Sphere learned to adapt their tactics and introduced new technologies (captured clan tech, that is) that they were able to mount a more effective defense. By that time, the Clans had penetrated deep and wide.
Now, seeing as PGI has removed these distinct advantages from the clans, they place them in a situation where the Clans and the Inner Sphere could potentially have a stalemate from the onset of the conflict, thereby robbing the Clans of the vast majority of the worlds they would otherwise conquer and use as a foothold in the Inner Sphere. With their foothold gone, the Clans could find themselves knocked out early on in the conflict. That is, if PGI doesn't give the Clans any abstract advantages or arbitrary territorial gains. PGI's intentions seem to be for an organic evolution to the conflict, which is great, but their way of going about has the flaws I mentioned above.
There is, however, a way of implementing clans, along with their advantages, in a far more organic manner all the while preserving their technological superiority and lowering the need or potential for PGI's intervention.
The reasoning is simple, introduce the clans and their technologies in such a way as to reflect the Clans from the lore. For reasons of intitial game balance, make the Clans drop with either 2 Stars or the equivalent of 2 IS lances, in other words, 8-10 mechs. More powerful mechs, more powerful technologies but less of them. That should, in theory, give the clans enough of an advantage to pierce IS defenses but not enough to give the clans an unfair advantage.
As the conflict endures and the clans forge further and further into the Inner Sphere, and by consequence lose some mechs, which are in turn salvaged, Clan technologies then start making their way into the Inner Sphere and are implemented on a limited scale. For the sake of argument, let's call this Phase 1. This is where the IS starts to form into a more serious challenge for the Clans with the more elite units, which had more success against the Clans were able to equip the equipment salvaged from their skirmishes. This leads to more casualties in Clan forces which leads to more trickle-down effects and the IS becomes a more important adversary. This could be Phase 2. Where Clan technologies come to the IS market and everyone could acquire them, though, at a significantly higher cost to reflect their still scarce nature. This, now leads to a situation where the Clans face stiff resistance with the IS employing Clan technologies to fight the invaders. At this point, Phase 3 would be implemented where the Clans are able to field a full 12 man and the Inner Sphere can now acquire not only Clan mechs but clan weapons and modules through the market at normal prices.
By that time, hopefully, the Clans would have penetrated far enough to establish a viable foothold, the Inner Sphere would have acquired the use of new technologies in an organic manner and, well, Clan tech is still superior to Inner Sphere tech.
That being said, I do think that Clan Tech does need a down-side, they cannot be at the same time stronger, lighter, smaller and generate less heat in if the game-setting doesn't evolve. They would end up being the end-all and be all of weapon technology and would render our present technology not only obsolete but also undesirable. Thus, there has to be a GOOD reason to employ both. Logically, the advantage of the less powerful IS tech would be far lesser heat generation at the cost of less range and power. Inversly, the advantage of Clan tech would be better firepower at the expense of added heat generation.
Now, I realize that I might be wrong, but I do think that my vision is superior to that presented by PGI.