31 replies to this topic

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

A clan ER PPC generates the same amount of heat as an inner sphere ER PPC.

It carries advantages of dealing 15 damage to an inner sphere ER PPC's 10, weighs one ton less, and occupies one slot less than an IS ER PPC.

Clan weapons are better than inner sphere equivalents in virtually every way.

Devs have said they intend to "balance" things so that clan mechs have no advantage over inner sphere mechs.

Does this imply we'll see clan weapons with reduced stats to make them near to equivalent with inner sphere analogues?

Or might inner sphere weapons receive bumps in their base stats to allow them to better compete with superior clan technology?

.

[FupDup]

It's going to be direct and heavy nerfs to the Clans, not buffs to the Inner Sphere. We can see evidence of this in multiple places...

A. There has not been a weapon damage/lethality increase in a rather long time. Most changes these days are trivial and nearly useless adjustments like Pulse Laser heat reductions or AC speed nerfs.

B. In some other thread, Paul chimed in that they don't like buffing things because they feel that mechs currently die too fast.

C. It's been mentioned in some dev posts in the past that Ghost Heat will be used more harshly against the Clans than the IS.

D. Looking at the Command Chair about Clan tech, we can read some brainstorm nerfs that they are already planning (i.e. minimum range for Clan Lurms).



With all of that being said, however, the biggest issue with the Clans isn't going to be their weapons, because their guns are still smaller and lighter. It's going to be their Omnimech "base" configs that will have locked engines, armor type, internals type, and other miscellaneous gear. Several mechs will be trash because of what Tabletop has cursed them with (i.e. slow lights, overengined and overjumpjetted Thor, etc.). Some others like the Ryoken stand a good chance of being beastly, however. This kind of scenario is exactly why board game values shouldn't be expected to work in real-time shooters.

Edited by FupDup, 14 March 2014 - 05:07 PM.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Yes...the devs' have made it abundantly clear that they are going to be nerfing clan tech a great deal to the dismay of BT fans, as it will no longer really be clan tech as all have known it in the past. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out...only a couple more months and we shall see just how distorted clan tech will be.

[Amsro]

xMEPHISTOx, on 14 March 2014 - 05:11 PM, said:

Yes...the devs' have made it abundantly clear that they are going to be nerfing clan tech a great deal to the dismay of BT fans, as it will no longer really be clan tech as all have known it in the past. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out...only a couple more months and we shall see just how distorted clan tech will be.

I'm just hoping this will be the end of the current heat system. Balance has become so distorted and skewed with Ghost Heat that a reset is needed.

I expect all the "pro Ghost Heat" people will be singing a different tune once Clans are HEAVILY trolled.

I'll have snacks ready for the QQ.

[Lootee]

I'll be watching as this train wreck unfolds.

I predict the only clan mech worth driving will be the Gladiator. 95 tons, jumpjets, runs at 81kph with MASC engaged, prime config has 1 ballistic and 2 energy hard points in the arms and 1 more ballistic in the torso. Near max armor and free CASE on every location along with that sweet 10 crit XL engine.

It would be a straight upgrade from the Highlander in every way. King of the Poptarders fo sho.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 14 March 2014 - 05:43 PM.

[Bhael Fire]

I Zeratul I, on 14 March 2014 - 04:57 PM, said:

A clan ER PPC generates the same amount of heat as an inner sphere ER PPC.

It carries advantages of dealing 15 damage to an inner sphere ER PPC's 10, weighs one ton less, and occupies one slot less than an IS ER PPC.

Clan weapons are better than inner sphere equivalents in virtually every way.

Devs have said they intend to "balance" things so that clan mechs have no advantage over inner sphere mechs.

Does this imply we'll see clan weapons with reduced stats to make them near to equivalent with inner sphere analogues?

There's a post by Paul that states exactly how they plan on keeping clan stats similar while nerfing the clan tech with existing mechanic in the game.

In the example of ER PPCs, I imagine that extra 5 points of damage could easily be offset by a reduction in projectile speed and an increase in cooldown time.

Follow this philosophy through and you'll see how easily they can nerf clan weapons without directly changing very many TT values.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 14 March 2014 - 06:29 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

It's been mentioned in some dev posts in the past that Ghost Heat will be used more harshly against the Clans than the IS.

Obviously. Clan ERMLs for example do 7 damage. Which means the ghost heat limit is going to be 4 probably.

Which is really dumb because the Nova has 12 ERMLs...

I really dont understand why PGI cant just increase the cooldown of all weapons to somewhat fix their horrible heat system. Consequently increasing cooldown on weapons would also increase time to kill.

[Spleenslitta]

Having the engine locked to either Std or XL hurts but that's fair i think. The engine rating being locked as well will make clan lights into only slightly faster mediums.

I wanted to buy a clan pack but with lights being impossible to survive in i think i'll pass.

[DarkDevilDancer]

Light clan mechs lose speed but carry the firepower of a medium it's an offset to be sure but one that could work.

[Chemie]

Bhael Fire, on 14 March 2014 - 06:28 PM, said:

There's a post by Paul that states exactly how they plan on keeping clan stats similar while nerfing the clan tech with existing mechanic in the game.

In the example of ER PPCs, I imagine that extra 5 points of damage could easily be offset by a reduction in projectile speed and an increase in cooldown time.

Follow this philosophy through and you'll see how easily they can nerf clan weapons without directly changing very many TT values.

Which is why clan assaults and heavies will be hugely OP. PGI will do these tiny litlte tweaks on speed, heat and damage and clan mechs will still be walking around with 60-80 pin point alpha damage and be one shot killers.

Don't you think that 4xUAC10 will be a monster?

There are 100 ton clan mechs which have 50 tons available for weapons and lots of hard points to support. About the only restriction will be the crit slots but I still expect there will be some chassis which will wreck.

(You are correct that clan lights will be DOA...only a sniper mode but IS lights will seek them out and kill them)

[JohnnyWayne]

Amsro, on 14 March 2014 - 05:19 PM, said:

I'm just hoping this will be the end of the current heat system. Balance has become so distorted and skewed with Ghost Heat that a reset is needed.

I expect all the "pro Ghost Heat" people will be singing a different tune once Clans are HEAVILY trolled.

I'll have snacks ready for the QQ.

Hey just because I like heat penalties, it doesn't mean that I like the current heat system. Clans will probably be broken hard due to their limitations.

They can't move their arms to the side if they build in a single ppc (thats so laughable its even smaller than an IS one). Heat will be limiting as [fudge] becasue 1.4 for only high heat weapons is a joke.

Spleenslitta, on 15 March 2014 - 03:56 AM, said:

Having the engine locked to either Std or XL hurts but that's fair i think. The engine rating being locked as well will make clan lights into only slightly faster mediums.

Engine lock to bigger mechs won't matter. If you lose both side torsos you can't do much anyways. Therefore you just can die, NVM.

Edited by miSs, 17 March 2014 - 09:45 AM.

[FupDup]

DarkDevilDancer, on 15 March 2014 - 04:40 AM, said:

Light clan mechs lose speed but carry the firepower of a medium it's an offset to be sure but one that could work.

Their firepower might be similar to a medium, but their durability is far, far lower. It isn't worth the tradeoff, similar to how building an assault mech with too large of an engine is a waste. The Ryoken will be 100% superior to the Clan lights in every imaginable capacity because it moves at identical speed, while also having significantly more pod space and a lot more armor.


Also, even with the lighter weight of Clan weapons factored in, my Phoenix mediums can still probably pack an at least somewhat heavier punch than the Clan lights, while having dramatically more armor and almost as much speed (I always use XL300 in my 55 tonners).

Edited by FupDup, 15 March 2014 - 06:14 AM.

[Lootee]

I'm sort of looking forward to seeing Smoke Jaguars in their Masakaris, Daishis and Gladiators freely intermingling with and fighting along side their bitter mortal enemies the Kuritas (who incidentally will also be driving clan omnimechs) against the neutral FWL.

400 years of BattleTech history, flavor and stories tossed out the windows to make an 'e-sport' Quake game with mech skins. The Clans will be reduced to a bag of hard points. There will be no mention of the Invasion, Batchall, Zellbrigen, Wardens vs Crusaders, the Remembrance, or anything else that makes the 3050 era epic.

Clans = new bags of hardpoints to poptart with

@whee? Like I said this is all going to be a train wreck and it's going to be spectacular.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 15 March 2014 - 06:19 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Chemie, on 15 March 2014 - 04:51 AM, said:

Which is why clan assaults and heavies will be hugely OP. PGI will do these tiny litlte tweaks on speed, heat and damage and clan mechs will still be walking around with 60-80 pin point alpha damage and be one shot killers.

Don't you think that 4xUAC10 will be a monster?

There are 100 ton clan mechs which have 50 tons available for weapons and lots of hard points to support. About the only restriction will be the crit slots but I still expect there will be some chassis which will wreck.

Fortunately, the Daishi is the only one that would be able to pull off such a loadout.

Both the Masakari and the Daishi use XL engines (which, for Clan XLs, means the loss of 2 criticals in each side torso), both have a set of fixed external-to-the-Engine Double Heat Sinks, and the Masakari has seven non-dynamic FF criticals.

• The Daishi has one fixed DHS in each side torso (reducing the available crits to 8 per side-torso) and one in the Left Leg (filling it completely).
  
• The Masakari has four fixed DHS in the Left Torso (which, together with the XL criticals and two FF criticals, fills the LT completely; of note is that the Masakari's LRM-10 is actually mounted on the Left Arm, crit-wise), one fixed DHS in the Right Torso (which, together with the XL criticals and two FF criticals, leaves only 6 criticals open in the RT... which also limits the size of the Targeting Computer), one fixed DHS in each leg (filling the legs completely), 1 FF critical in the Head (filling it completely), and one FF critical in each arm (reducing the maximum available number of crits per arm to 9).

The Masakari (which would require combining the Right Arm of the Masakari A and the Left Arm of the Masakari B in order to get ballistics in more than one location) starts with 32.5 tons of pod space; it would have to sacrifice nearly half of its armor (which starts at 13.5 tons of Clan FF) to free up the tonnage for four UAC/10s (at 10 tons & 4 criticals apiece), and then lose even more armor to carry ammo for the guns. While a quad-UAC/10 Masakari might be theoretically possible to build (if both the Right Arm of the Masakari A and the Left Arm of the Masakari B receive more than one ballistic hardpoint as a result of hardpoint inflation), it would be a nigh-armorless "glass cannon".
The realistic extent of the Masakari's ballistics capabilities is, essentially, "slower, more-heavyset, more heavily-armored CTF-4X", and it completely lacks the ability to hide ammunition in its legs (which isn't as much of an issue since each location on a Clan 'Mech essentially has free CASE).

A quad-UAC/10 Daishi (Daishi B side-torsos + Daishi Prime arms) is far more likely to fre better. It would be able to carry one gun in each side torso & one in each arm, plus have 10.5 tons remaining to split between ammunition & secondary armaments. However, it must be noted that having the Daishi's Engine locked at a 300 XL means that its agility and maneuverability (acceleration/deceleration & torso twost speed) are locked at that level (in addition to not having Lower Arm Actuators as a result of having ACs in the arms), as part of the price it must pay for such substantial damage output capability; if alone against a circling Light or Medium (with at least a semi-competent pilot) at close range, even the Daishi will take substantial damage (if not lose the fight entirely).

Chemie, on 15 March 2014 - 04:51 AM, said:

(You are correct that clan lights will be DOA...only a sniper mode but IS lights will seek them out and kill them)

Like how the Oxide was "DOA"? Or like how the Shadow Hawk was "DOA"?
The phrase "DOA" ("Dead On Arrival") seems to becoming one that gets bandied-about willy-nilly, with little actual consideration for what it actually means...

[Chemie]

or play in any competent 4 or 12 man where lone 1-1 light-assault just does not happen

[Strum Wealh]

Khobai, on 15 March 2014 - 08:34 AM, said:

or you could just put lasers on the daishi so you can fight a light mech.

Then, it would probably be like fighting a Stalker - effectively certain-death if you're in front of it for any significant period, but it's particularly vulnerable from the sides (due to the lack of Lower Arm Actuators) and rear & still slow enough that a fast lighter 'Mech could keep out of its sights for a time without undue difficulty.

Chemie, on 15 March 2014 - 08:47 AM, said:

or play in any competent 4 or 12 man where lone 1-1 light-assault just does not happen

Firstly: I call your bluff on the as-yet-unsubstantiated statement that weight-disparate 1v1 "just does not happen" with "competent" players.
Secondly: It goes both ways, then - competent "n" Assaults vs equivalently-competent "n" Lights/Mediums would probably yield similar results.

[CarlBar]

Personally i'm looking forward to the inevitable tears that will accompany the Hunchback IIC. Twin UAC20, (You can drop the ERML's for extra ammo), doesn't matter how hard they nerf, that thing is going to dominate.

On the other end the Bane is absolutely going to be DOA stock, with the current heat system 10 UAC2's is totally non-workable.

[Mcgral18]

CarlBar, on 15 March 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

Personally i'm looking forward to the inevitable tears that will accompany the Hunchback IIC. Twin UAC20, (You can drop the ERML's for extra ammo), doesn't matter how hard they nerf, that thing is going to dominate.

On the other end the Bane is absolutely going to be DOA stock, with the current heat system 10 UAC2's is totally non-workable.

In the current game, it might be the most game breaking thing without ghost heat, assuming no jams that's 80 DPS....80 damage per second...with long range capabilities. The heat would restrict it even without ghost heat, since you know, 20 times TT heat and damage levels.

I think I'd throw lots of MGs and choice pieces of dakka. I am curious how the clan UACs are going to work, especially the 20 and the 2, since the 2 wouldn't work with current ghost heat protocols, and the 20 would just be insane damage, without the risk of the cannon jamming permanently.

[Khobai]

Quote

I am curious how the clan UACs are going to work

Theyre not going to work. Theyre going to have absurd ghost heat penalties, higher base heat, and insanely long cooldowns. Because PGI adamantly refuses to properly balance weapons and heat. Paul's solution to every overpowered weapon is to either increase heat or bog it down with convoluted mechanics until its no longer fun to use.

[Mcgral18]

Khobai, on 15 March 2014 - 12:42 PM, said:

Theyre not going to work. Theyre going to have absurd ghost heat penalties, higher base heat, and insanely long cooldowns. Because PGI adamantly refuses to properly balance weapons and heat. Paul's solution to every overpowered weapon is to either increase heat or bog it down with convoluted mechanics until its no longer fun to use.

At least we have the LBx series....well...maybe not.