14 replies to this topic

[Mott]

Apologies... i'm playing so much catch-up with MWO that I'm sure this has been discussed already, but I can't find where/when.

I just finished reading the "Intro to Clan Tech" piece from PGI. It was good info on how they plan to design and integrate the clans to be "fair" and protect the integrity of the IS mechs and weaponry.

But I was a little confused about a couple things.

1st - PGI justified the ridiculous $$$ for the Clan packs based on the fact that the Clan mechs will essentially be twice as good as their IS enemies.
However, with the proposed changes to lore and proposed nerfing of the Clan tech... the Clan mechs will really only be slightly better than IS mechs... say maybe 1.25x better.

Will folks who got suckered into buying the clan packs get reimbursed a balance for being sold poorer goods?

2nd - Why is the instantaneous knee-jerk reaction of developers to always nerf or "balance" specific components?
The BT universe already had established a few essential influences that balanced battles and allowed the IS to defend itself and combat the Clans, beyond simply relying on Zellbrigen.
- The fact that 12 IS mechs split into 3 Lances would fight 10 Clan mechs split into 2 Stars was a major balancing factor. PGI could have simply worked in a matchmaker trigger that whenever one team had 6+ Omnimechs, they were capped at 10 mechs max for that drop.
- To further that, maybe IS teams would even get an extra tonnage allotment.

I'm sure there are plenty of other options that could keep the game fun and balanced, but let the folks who worship clantech, enjoy it.

For the record, I'm an IS guy... i was actually really looking forward to trying to fight and defend against superior technology. The proposed nerfing robs MWO of essentially all purpose behind introducing Clans at all.

[Pariah Devalis]

While it would have been nice if Clan vs IS was 10v12, think about the current game modes. In two of the three, having even a single mech advantage numerically is a tremendous boon to the odds of winning. While everyone else is forced to fight, the team with the most people on it is free to also capture points, or to capture more points at the same time.

That said, there is actually very little that the Clans have been "nerfed" in so far. The mechlab rules, for example, are almost too literally what the tabletop field refit rules were for Clans. Yes, in field refits, clan mechs COULD NOT change armor, fixed equipment, internal structure, or engines. The problem is that we are comparing Clan field refits to what are currently the equivalent of IS factory refits, and if a Clan mech was given the option for Factory Refits it would have no such restrictions on it.

Clan weapons are still lighter, hit farther, hit (in the case of energy weapons) harder. Trade off is still that clan energy weapons are still hotter - but I hope PGI does not over do that as Clan energy weapons do not need additional heat added to them since they are all ALREADY ER versions with no standard models available, so are, by nature of ER, already hotter weapon systems.

The one major flaw in the current Omnimech construction rules for MWO is the inability to modify the armor points (as opposed to the armor type, which I have no problem keeping it fixed). Many, many clan mechs come extremely underarmored, believe it or not.



Now, as for balancing, on Twitter, PGI stated they want to look into tonnage limits for Clan mechs being lower than IS tonnage limits, in a party wide standpoint. So if 12 mechs in an IS force have, say, 700 tons to work with, the CLan team has only 600 tons to work with.

[wanderer]

PGI basically wants Clanners to function as IS 'Mechs with juggled stats.

That is, if they want to balance them even-up in numbers, that means not only will you see them massively and pre-emptively nerfed....there won't be a drop of technical superiority in the lot.

CINO's. Clan-in-name-only.

The more they imbalance the match basics- tonnage, numbers, whatever - the closer the Clan 'Mech will be to something that performs like it should

[LauLiao]

Mott, on 28 January 2014 - 07:10 AM, said:

1st - PGI justified the ridiculous $$$ for the Clan packs based on the fact that the Clan mechs will essentially be twice as good as their IS enemies.
However, with the proposed changes to lore and proposed nerfing of the Clan tech... the Clan mechs will really only be slightly better than IS mechs... say maybe 1.25x better.

I think it's less a matter of the clan mechs being better and more an issue of them being more versatile. Essentially, with the way they're talking about being able to swap out body parts so you can have the kind of hard points you like where you like them, having 3 clan chassis is more like having 6-9 IS. That is, with IS mechs, if you want a Heavy with 2 energy HPs in the right arm and a ballistic in the left torso (for example) you may have to buy a whole new mech. With the Clan mechs there's a very good chance you can just swap some parts not actually have to spend any more money.

[Mott]

Sure, it's still a form of "better", but in no way approaches the literal claims I've read that were made by the developers and PGI execs to justify the outlandish pricetag they put on the Clan packs.

I know i'd be quite upset if I had dropped that much coin, based on the premise I was getting vastly superior clan tech... only to end up with Mechs that are no stronger, no faster, no better armored and no more dangerous - only slightly more easily modified and with worse heat management.

Promising something better, charging double to receive it.... and then providing something that may not be better, just different... doesn't seem right.

[Pariah Devalis]

To be fair, they announced the "details" of their expected Clan balance shortly after they announced the sale. Knee jerk purchases either bought it ASAP because that is what they were waiting for since MWO was announced (to pilot Clan mechs, as Clan pilots, as opposed to the 19 year long drought of Clan anything), or else they have the wallet control of a 2-year old. After that initial wave, the Clan Breakdown outlines the basic, and mutable goals of Clan tech, so there is some degree of informed purchase there - even if everything in that thread is still open to alteration.

I guarantee people will be screaming that the Clan Post was a "promise" come Clan Day release, only because they have been screaming that everything PGI has stated in the past year was a "promise," even though it always seems to have a disclaimer and qualifiers on it. Reading comprehension fail.

[Pariah Devalis]

Interesting that this thread was moved. Was in Barracks. That said, it does belong here. Even if we have ... Like... Fifty of this same thread.

[Odanan]

Mott, on 28 January 2014 - 07:10 AM, said:

- The fact that 12 IS mechs split into 3 Lances would fight 10 Clan mechs split into 2 Stars was a major balancing factor. PGI could have simply worked in a matchmaker trigger that whenever one team had 6+ Omnimechs, they were capped at 10 mechs max for that drop.

12 IS vs. 10 Clans is not enough.

I would recommend 16 IS vs. 10 Clans (now that's a chalenge for both teams).

[CyclonerM]

Odanan, on 30 January 2014 - 10:03 AM, said:

I would recommend 16 IS vs. 10 Clans (now that's a chalenge for both teams).

That would be fine with OmniMechs with true Clan weapons against more hardly customizable BattleMechs equipped only with 3025 tech. This is not the case, so 12vs10 may be enough

[Silence Jin Mang]

You have to remember the one true advantage that made Omnimechs so much better, was its sheer versatility and unpredictability. IS soldiers had no idea what weapons each chassis was bringing beyond one or two, as each chassis can be altered in so many ways. That advantage however is negated by the fact IS mechs in MWO, for sales purposes, were made to be semi-Omnimechs. The IS mechs had all their weapons hardwired into the mechs chassis, and to change the weapon, the mech had to undergo a very expensive surgery and refit. So the one true selling point for Omnimechs has effectively been negated, making balancing so much harder.

[CyclonerM]

Silence Jin Mang, on 30 January 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

. So the one true selling point for Omnimechs has effectively been negated, making balancing so much harder.

And closing the gap which is supposed to be between Omnies and standard BattleMechs..

[Silence Jin Mang]

I say we just put Battlemechs into their true form and make it a 16v10. But to change weapons in a Battlemech you had to pay Cbills to do. Like a lot of them. Their balanced. Any true clansmen would have no problem fighting outnumbered if they knew the general loadouts of the IS mech, where as the IS had only the terrain to guess how the clan loadouts would be affected.

[Gremlich Johns]

By the time they figure out how to implement Clan tech/Mechs in a fashion that makes even limited sense, I'll probably be in another game's Beta and not interested anymore.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 30 January 2014 - 02:12 PM.

[CoffiNail]

Well at the moment you are still here, still posting. ;-)

[GalaxyBluestar]

Pariah Devalis, on 28 January 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

Now, as for balancing, on Twitter, PGI stated they want to look into tonnage limits for Clan mechs being lower than IS tonnage limits, in a party wide standpoint. So if 12 mechs in an IS force have, say, 700 tons to work with, the CLan team has only 600 tons to work with.

they'll still drop 12vs12 which is not clan and who'd want to play 30mil cbill mechs when you can wreck jsut as well with a 10-cbill mech. seriously only diehard fans would go through those expenses but they've betrayed those fans with no faction support and all this screwing around that makes clan mechs horrible to build and use. if they stick with the TT nerfs vs the non TT nerfed IS then i'd say the extra hundred tons might even be fair going towards the clan team. they paid more than twice as much to field them and will play against masterd IS forces which will be a lot faster and have a lot more options to "synegise" their offensive firepower.

Odanan, on 30 January 2014 - 10:03 AM, said:

12 IS vs. 10 Clans is not enough.

I would recommend 16 IS vs. 10 Clans (now that's a chalenge for both teams).

that's what i'd do to if GH wasn't going to hamper the clans and that the weapon values were untouched, but PGI won't budge that far.

Mott, on 28 January 2014 - 05:35 PM, said:

Sure, it's still a form of "better", but in no way approaches the literal claims I've read that were made by the developers and PGI execs to justify the outlandish pricetag they put on the Clan packs.

I know i'd be quite upset if I had dropped that much coin, based on the premise I was getting vastly superior clan tech... only to end up with Mechs that are no stronger, no faster, no better armored and no more dangerous - only slightly more easily modified and with worse heat management.

Promising something better, charging double to receive it.... and then providing something that may not be better, just different... doesn't seem right.

never mind that real dollar cost it's going to be hell as a F2P if you like clans. want an heavy? pay more than 2x the amount for an equivelent IS assault fully modded. want to start modding your clan mech with "omni" hardpoints because that's what it takes to make the mech omni? payout twice as much c-bills again for parts swapping purposes. the grind to build a clan mech will be crazy, and knowing they're being nerfed to uncustomisable stock layouts {which we all know got junked with this MWO heat system hence champions replaced the trials} means so many chassis will be DOA compared to exsisting IS mechs they're going to be a waste with the current scheme.

you see clan nerfers and balance worshipers. the game is being destroyed by PGI's decesions to nerf customisation ontop of weapon performance ontop of economy. just to shoe horn it into the same old tired system and in the process sacrificing any chances of building up what clans mean to the IS, the gameplay and the franchise. +1 for yet another average joe passer by looking in and seeing PGI's developement for what it is. a deal breaker and a game destoryer.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 30 January 2014 - 09:09 PM.