1978 replies to this topic

[SonOfSamus]

I read through the article and it seems like the design team recognizes the challenge of implementing clan technology in MWO. Furthermore it seems as though a lot of careful consideration is going into it, which is encouraging. The model approach as described seems completely sound.

I am curious if other ideas of balance had been explored such as having clan weapons, equipment and omni-mechs maintain more of their technological superiority but bear a price tag commensurate with their relative availability to Inner Sphere pilots (scarce as hen's teeth). Or perhaps requiring more expensive mech and pilot skills to use Clan Tech proficiently. I can foresee that this perhaps merely 'gates' the diffusion of clan tech into the innersphere, rendering the IS tech obsolete in time, but that's what kind of happens in the lore anyway. In time, as a direct consequence of conflict with the Clans, the IS tech catches up with Clan tech. So purchasing an IS laser manufactured in 3063 should be much improved over one manufactured 'today'. Perhaps instead of nerfing clan tech and running the risk of erasing a portion of their flavour, one might start introducing 'mark II' variants of IS weapons/equipment? New variants of existing mechs could be added bearing new loadouts to reflect the improved technology.


Anyway, the game is a lot of fun, you guys are doing a great job keeping this franchise fresh and accessible. Best mechwarrior game since Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. (All you need now is an intro cinematic that is as awesome as it is chilling).

[Asmudius Heng]

MonoXideAtWork, on 17 December 2013 - 04:40 PM, said:

Hello!

First off, I want to specify that this is my first mechwarrior game. I recognize that I am not the core battletech/mechwarrior demographic.

That is a good thing. You ARE the target demographic because they want NEW players to come on board.

Welcome by the way, use old timer mech jocks are actually pretty cool despite the uproar recently. Just passionate

If a new to the franchise player is questioning the strategy as well as us crusty oldies then there is a serious issue.

[Jerik]

It is true that the early stages present a problem. But by a couple years after the clan invasion the innersphere had some pretty bangin tech as well. Since I suppose the timeline no longer means !!!!, why not just introduce that tech as well!

But I'm only after Bushwackers and heavy gause's , so im kinda biased!

[BlackIC]

seems like a square peg round hole kind of problem. how about an option for clan only or IS only matches in which the clan weapon stats apply without modification....

or maybe a challenge matches where the clan side maxes out at say 6 mechs and the IS gets 12; but clan weapons remain under normal rules....

or use elo to balance out fights, putting clan on one side and IS on the other (like in the lore). assign each mech a point value, and when making a match give the IS team X points more then the clan team, and the match doesn't settle/go for lesser conditions in the match up.

I like the idea of recreating the IS v clan fights and balance out on the elo side with number of mechs/tonnage

[Fizziwig]

Yea, I can just say I'm tired of waiting. No fixes No purchases.

[Ronin Cahill]

wow my post deleted and didn't make it in. I essentially concur with my fellow mech collegues. Clan Tech is not supposed to be balanced, its simply better. DO NOT change it in stupid ways for the sake of balance when there should not be any. When in RL any power invents a new wpn everyone else wants it and eventually gets ahold of it and copies it. Clan tech should be available to anyone who can afford the higher price it should bring. so drive your battlemaster with clan wpns on it..hot dog you can now deal it out to a clan mech pretty much on par. This desire to change the dynamics or appeal of clan gear because your DEV team is messed in the head is simply perplexing. I signed up in closed beta with the excitement of clan mechs and gear, which I played in mech 3 starlance league. I have only hung on this long with the hope that you would not mess with it, BECAUSE ITS SUPPOSED TO BE SUPERIOR. For gods sake why would you make people pay so much cash for these mechs only to find out ghost heat on 2 clan er large lasers self destructs you. Or my Blackhawk with an engine stuck at 86 kph cause that's what you feel it should do. The streak idea is mega stupid BTW. if i wanted groups of 2 id buy more 2's .JUST LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.

try
1. clan stuff costing a lot more
2. give clan mechs a higher +% drop ratio (making 12-8 style drops)
(this presumes you dont limit clan mechs)

[Marcus Tanner]

Here's an idea.

Give Inner Sphere mechs lots of extra module slots compared to clan tech. So, if a clan mech gets 1 or 2, then an IS mech gets 13 or 14 or 15. That way the clan mech can have much better tech, while not necessarily having a bigger impact on the match. Throw out a bunch of new modules that offer performance increases or durability buffs and you could reach parity of effect.

Is anyone still reading constructive feedback at page 52?

No?

Aww, fiddlesticks.

[McHoshi]

mark v92, on 14 December 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

they can have a lot of armor but if there is a lot on the back you will miss that on the front. if you take a look at the atlas DDC which has almost full armor. it has 28 armor on the rear and 82 on the legs. who needs that? you can get an other 10 points on your front which helps a lot and well for the legs you can get rid of 40 points on both legs

The atlas consists of 100 (standing/walking/running) tons and thus need definitely this huge amount of leg protection


btw. i hope u guys at pgi will do it right... i realy hope so

[Minsk and Boo]

I'll tackle this from the perspective of an engineer who's been gaming for 30 years, including every Mech* game ever made.

Throwing some ideas into the pot:
1. Don't add the weight multiplier on a group Clan vs IS basis. Track the average ELO (with ELO decay with disuse) of each Mech class and tune the weight multiplier per Mech until ELOs of all Mech designs are equal. As a bonus, good pilots of under-used Mechs will perform unusually well, leading to more Mech diversity on the field. If one team goes over X total value, the team deploys with fewer than 12.
2. Keep all Clan weapons stock, allow them on IS mechs, and allow them to make IS weapons obsolete. Nobody will cry over the loss. No balance issues, no long term harm done, consistent with canon. Cut back the value of X in point 1 if (when) the Alpha'splosions become too crazy, or people will learn to be very, very cautious.
3. Provide a 'pure' and a 'mixed' game mode so people can select Clan v Clan, IS vs IS, Clan vs IS OR Mixed vs Mixed.

If you start 'balancing' weapons (it's impossible, btw), beware Clan fans and/or canon fans and/or people who've had their favorite weapon nerfed relative to game history or canon and/or people who have invested significantly in IS Mechs. Oh wait... I just described everyone.

*Full disclosure: At this stage I'm planning to run an IS Mech with Clan weapons. I'm seriously considering the Clan pack but I'm worried about stock armor distribution, canon or no. For the record, I thought the limited size per weapon slot of MW4 was far more elegant than heat-gimping.

<unrelated>
1. Remove gold mechs. Please. They're an insult to fans and an embarrasment to you, the devs.
2. Variability in the temp of each map to simulate weather would add some spice.
</unrelated>

[NovaFury]

Regarding being unable to modify armor or engines on Omni-chassis;

Well, it's a good thing the hellbringer isn't included then. Over-heat and under-armored, it would be an unsalvageable mess. Most clan mechs are paper thin and rely on ER and high damage weapons to engage their contemporaries.

If this goes through, the only Omni frames that will see use will be the ones with traits closest the current meta, and have max-per-weight CT armor. (Absolutely suicide to not max CT in this game due to gunnery skills.)

Basically none, save maybe the Summoner.

Edited by NovaFury, 17 December 2013 - 07:08 PM.

[4tonmantis]

There's a reason I don't come to the forums. You guys are living in some fantasy land... PGI owes us money? PGI lied to us? Devs are incompetent? But wait.. most of these people don't log in or.. they do log in and play.. and then whine about the game they're playing.. I'll take my lumps.. I log in, hop into my Victor or founder cat and get cored out insanely fast.. and I'm man enough to know this is a game. If you guys are heartbroken over this, I've played SWG, Magic Tactics, Gotham City Impostors, Matrix Online, and any number of other games that became abandonware. Keep shouting down what the devs are doing and you'll push this game in that direction. If you're not happy just stop playing and stop being a bunch of whiney *explitives*

As for the clan tech. The only thing I dislike about this is that it is clearly an advantage to own clan tech. Currently, the grind to purchase a mech in the game is insane (I've been grinding for a month+ to get a new victor) and it looks like I'll have to turn around and do it all over again. I would love to see a double credits event for the first month this is out.. or SOMETHING to make it easier to transition.

[FijiFury]

I'm unwilling to read 52 solid pages of comments, but having looked at some feedback I would suggest the following:

1) Lasers
Since Clan tech is based on SLDF technology (lore) then why mess around the energy weapons too much? The 3050 Inner-Sphere (IS) weapons such as pulse laser and ER Large laser were supposed to be based on recovered SLDF memory cores, were they not? An energy weapon balance would be as simple as keeping the ER Large laser the same for both IS and Clans. Clans could start with ER Small and ER Medium lasers too, just ones that are heat, range and damage scaled to he ER Large laser. The if IS Mechs start equipping them you end up with no imbalance between the factions. As an added design bonus we'd all end up with ER Small and ER Medium lasers with the same damage as mundane lasers but higher heat and range (different but at a cost).

Pulse lasers could do with some upgrading anyway... so why not have Clan pulse lasers be an improvement over IS ones but at a heat cost? Example:
Large Clan Pulse -- 7 tons, 11 damage, 11 heat, 480m range
Med Clan Pulse -- 2 tons, 6 damage, 6 heat, 240m range
Small Clan Pulse -- 1 ton, 3.4 damage, 3.4 heat, 120m range

Clan ER PPC might look like this:
7 tons, 15 damage, 20 heat, 810m range

None of these are old TT values exactly, yet do represent some upgrades without being totally ridiculous, and each upgrade comes at a price/cost in use, not just based on purchase price. Something similar to this proposal could be viable without automatically making IS energy weapons obsolete.

SRM, LRM and AC are a whole different kettle of fish.

LRM's, SRM's and AC's are a whole different kettle of fish. There are ways to make them different yet not totally overpowered, but those adjustments will certainly be more challenging to balance out.

I would much rather see the Clan technology have balance with IS tech so that the Clan equipment is not an auto-win vs. IS equipment. In other words: lore can take a back seat to better game design. My preference would be to have Clan ammo tech with weight and size advantages without better range and at a trade-off of higher heat and/or slower reload times.

[Master Maniac]

There is SO much awful 4chan bileranting back there, and there is NO way I'm going to deign to pick through more than two pages of it. As a result, I'm sure that I'm repeating someone else's suggestion when I say this, but whatever. I'll say it anyway.

OmniMechs should possess select hardpoint slots capable of accepting any type of weapon, as in MechWarrior 4. Simple. Efficient. Easy-to-understand. And it WORKS.

That "swapping components back and forth from other variants" {Scrap} is rotten, rotten nonsense and needs to DIAF. It's nothing more than a grind scam, and a poorly-veiled one at that. You're better than that, PGI. You fellows have done right so far in avoiding the ROFLGRIND crumminess of FTP. Don't let this be your first misstep.

[Ian Snow]

Complete *********.

I'm already fed up to the gills with this game. It's sad, too, because it's really amazing with just what they have so far.

But, as I feared, the dev team has completely thrown "true to the source material" out the window in favor of "balance"...and it's still not balanced.

Want to balance Clan tech? Enforce Clan ROE. If you break zellbrigen, you lose all rewards for the mission. Don't like it? Don't play Clan, it's that simple.

The distortions to basic construction stats already in the game have already just about kicked me over the edge. This is just too much...it's ridiculous. Every day we get a new sale, and every day the bugs go unfixed, promised content goes unfulfilled.
So feedback? See the first line of this post.

[StormPaladin99]

As it has been said above just give the tech to everyone i mean since the timeline doesn't matter any more. The IS eventually got the tech and used it to win the war.

Also as a light pilot i am pissed about the idea of a fixed engine size in mwo you have to be a fast light mech and the prime adder and kit fox only have a top speed of 97.2 kph. they will not last more than 20 seconds in combat if you don't allow engine customizations.

Edited by Stormagedon99, 17 December 2013 - 07:24 PM.

[Killashnikov]

Why are Clan chassis so restricted when you are already planning to derate the weapons? Lords above - you are reversing the concept - Battlemechs are now fully customisable and Omnimechs are locked designs....

Silly.
Just make a Clan mech of certain tonnage take up a higher tonnage in matchmaking - say 10 to 20 tons. That way a clan mech has to engage and destroy a heavier IS mech to break even in the match. In order to take a 100t Omni a side has to significantly sacrifice weight in other classes...

Edited by Killashnikov, 17 December 2013 - 07:30 PM.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Fuckedous.

I support free-to-play games that are made by developers with players in mind and a pure transparency in how they operate; Digital Extremes (Warframe) being one of many. I've spent over $300 WILLINGLY on Warframe because I like how they operate. They explain what they're working on and why, they are completely responsive to criticism and issues, the consistently communicate to their playerbase, and get ready for this; They don't charge hundreds upon hundreds for advantageous gear.

You've lost all of my respect PI. I'm never giving you a dollar. Get your head out of your *** and do things right. You're better than this.

[Xathanael]

Yeah Just Nerf the Clans... that makes sense

[Pale Jackal]

I actually think the Mr. Potato style of swapping parts is a good way to ensure that 'mech variants retain some differences between each chassis.

However, I do think it's a bit ridiculous to alter Clan tonnages after so much time and effort has been spent to ensure that stock variants keep their stock configurations.

Given that engine weights and armor will be set in stone for Clan 'mechs, I think that tweaking heat and damage values for Clan weapons will probably be sufficient.

Edited by Pale Jackal, 17 December 2013 - 07:39 PM.

[Alaric Hasek]

The Clan 'mechs not being able to customize engines, etc. is a good idea, but with most of the Clan equipment being better (most importantly - less heavy) there really is no reason to play an IS 'mech. People play them because they have to. Once the Clan 'mechs are in the wild noone will play anything else.

The only way to encourage people to play IS 'mechs is to allow IS 'mechs to buy certain types of Clan equipment or to make Clan 'mechs horribly crippled in some way, but that seems unlikely to please people who paid $250 or more.
Actually, there might be another - Clan 'mech armor values being very light compared to an IS 'mech of the same weight. That may well turn the tide as well.

I don't know. The cynic in me thinks this a play for a bunch of funds before the project wraps up.

Edited by Alaric Hasek, 17 December 2013 - 07:48 PM.