3 replies to this topic

[Kvidar]

Hello,
I think that the best way to balance clan and inner sphere technologies would be along the lines of the direction PGI is currently heading, though with a few tweaks. Clan weapons NEED to be nerfed because they are inherently far too strong for an online game, but I think they should maintain roughly [10-20%] better damage/heat/range/tonnage and compensate for this by giving the Inner sphere mechs/pilots melee weaponry.

In cannon clanners did not use melee combat, and it makes sense if that were to continue. If clan weaponry maintained an advantage over inner sphere technology, then having clan mechs would change tactics from having inner sphere mechs, thereby promoting a more tactical playstyle and rewarding strategy. Knowing what you're up against would matter more (Looking at you information warfare!) and commanders who are able to strategize and out manuevre their opponets would be rewarded for their efforts (imagine sneaking up on a clan star with ECM and melee weapons, then crashing down on them at short range where you are able to circumvent their advantage, or forcing that inner sphere lance to come down the bottleneck where your sharpshooters are on overwatch )

Whereas if clan tech is turned into a purely flavor based choice with no mechanical benefit, (like if lasers deal more damage over a longer time, but effectively the same heat/second and/or heat/damage) then the game would be headed closer to a homogenized BORING gameplay that requires little to no tactics and doesn't reward pilots for building and playing specific roles.

I also believe that melee weapons should deal an extremely large portion of damage, lopping off an entire limb or dealing severe damage to a side torso, but this would be balanced by a [4] second animation of removing the weapon from the mech you just impaled/chopped during which time the attacker is unable to do anything and is vulnerable to counterattack from both the melee'd pilot and his allies.

Further along this idea we could use the melee dmg rules from tabletop, [Hatchet "dealing a point of damage for every five tons of weight." Sword "dealing a point of damage for every ten tons of the 'Mech's weight, plus an additional point."] This would force inner sphere pilots to further define their roles (and tonnage!) for what they want to do, being a melee specialist with a only 5 ton hatchet wouldn't make much sense, and using 5 tons on a weaponry based mech for a melee weapon wouldn't make sense either, further promoting role warfare and most importantly an extremely well balanced mechanic that allows people to specialize for what they want to do, be good at it, take their glory and honor in excelling at it, while not ruining the game or making anything overpowered.

Comments/ideas for how you think this should be done are liked and encouraged, lets discuss it and if we all like this then lets present it to PGI people ^.^

[Deathsani]

I strenuously disagree with the idea of implementing melee weapons in the near future. We have way too much face humping as it is and this would make the rubber-banding not only obnoxious, but frustrating for all those involved. I know it is a big TT things but this is NOT the TT and the logistics of this would be a nightmare.

Plus watching a bunch of giant robots bonking each other with over-sized nerf swords would look incredibly goofy.

[MemeTeam]

Kvidar, on 28 January 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

Hello,
I think that the best way to balance clan and inner sphere technologies would be along the lines of the direction PGI is currently heading, though with a few tweaks. Clan weapons NEED to be nerfed because they are inherently far too strong for an online game, but I think they should maintain roughly [10-20%] better damage/heat/range/tonnage and compensate for this by giving the Inner sphere mechs/pilots melee weaponry.

In cannon clanners did not use melee combat, and it makes sense if that were to continue. If clan weaponry maintained an advantage over inner sphere technology, then having clan mechs would change tactics from having inner sphere mechs, thereby promoting a more tactical playstyle and rewarding strategy. Knowing what you're up against would matter more (Looking at you information warfare!) and commanders who are able to strategize and out manuevre their opponets would be rewarded for their efforts (imagine sneaking up on a clan star with ECM and melee weapons, then crashing down on them at short range where you are able to circumvent their advantage, or forcing that inner sphere lance to come down the bottleneck where your sharpshooters are on overwatch )

Whereas if clan tech is turned into a purely flavor based choice with no mechanical benefit, (like if lasers deal more damage over a longer time, but effectively the same heat/second and/or heat/damage) then the game would be headed closer to a homogenized BORING gameplay that requires little to no tactics and doesn't reward pilots for building and playing specific roles.

I also believe that melee weapons should deal an extremely large portion of damage, lopping off an entire limb or dealing severe damage to a side torso, but this would be balanced by a [4] second animation of removing the weapon from the mech you just impaled/chopped during which time the attacker is unable to do anything and is vulnerable to counterattack from both the melee'd pilot and his allies.

Further along this idea we could use the melee dmg rules from tabletop, [Hatchet "dealing a point of damage for every five tons of weight." Sword "dealing a point of damage for every ten tons of the 'Mech's weight, plus an additional point."] This would force inner sphere pilots to further define their roles (and tonnage!) for what they want to do, being a melee specialist with a only 5 ton hatchet wouldn't make much sense, and using 5 tons on a weaponry based mech for a melee weapon wouldn't make sense either, further promoting role warfare and most importantly an extremely well balanced mechanic that allows people to specialize for what they want to do, be good at it, take their glory and honor in excelling at it, while not ruining the game or making anything overpowered.

Comments/ideas for how you think this should be done are liked and encouraged, lets discuss it and if we all like this then lets present it to PGI people ^.^

yes,yes,yes,yes,yes.

[Koulkrith]

I don't think it's THE idea of the year. It is cannon... it is in the lore... ok. But :

If clan doesn't use melee, it's for a reason. And that reason is... Inner sphere are technologically cavemen. Most of their mechs are or have been at some point lostech. You could then suppose that some of the armament and ammunitions are or were too...

So what do i do if i am a inner sphere mechwarrior and I have a precious U-AC5 with 25 bullets... the likes of which cost approximately the equivalent of my mech OR/AND are not known to be fabricated anymore ? I melee because i don't want to risk this precious piece of lostech. Cause you know... in mwo, you regain all your stuff upon death / reentry in a match... In lore, you don't. If your U-AC5 is broken beyond repair, you can just cry over it and find a way to get one other back. (not at all points in time... but after the first succession wars...)

Let's face it... against clanners, it's totally useless in a 12 vs 12 match.

The difference between clanners and inner sphere at that point is that clanners never lost any tech or science or know how... So they stood with the short / mid / long range combat style, while the inner sphere kept things out of combat because they were rare and probably not rebuildable upon destruction.

That is probably the reason why they had melee weapons... And that's not a strategical advantage, far from that... It's a pain in the ***.

Now think of it as an ingame asset :

Clanners : "Melee mech right ahead... Shoot."
Inner sphere : "Why has he taken the deadman walking weapon ? Noob..."

Last point. Mechwarrior online is probably set in a late era where lostech is still present but far more rarely than before (AKA... Yeah... Inner sphere finally made a step towards rediscovering How to build many mechs and weapons...) So melee becomes useless. That's to say : Inner sphere regained its tech, but it's way behind Clan anyways... (centuries behind if I'm not mistaken...)

If you want to reinstate the melee weapons, then you should take in account that most kinds of advanced weaponry would be far more expansive, you should accept that your precious weapon could literally be destroyed and that you should buy it a second time...

So melee is not a feature that's interesting for mwo. At best it would take months of balancing for clan / inner sphere mechs do get it to do the job properly. So it would take time to develop, time that is better employed elsewhere.

Edited by Koulkrith, 29 April 2016 - 06:14 PM.