Locationclimbing Mt Tryhard, one smoldering Meta-Mech corpse at a time
Posted 13 June 2014 - 10:07 AM
There seems to be two extremes developed (shocking that, right?) in regards the Clans.
One, is the DOA, too limited, gonna suck crowd, the other is the hand wringing, OP, obsoleting everything, Buff the Inner Sphere NOW crowd.
Well. From what I have seen, BOTH sides are (mostly) wrong. There will certainly be balance issues (this IS MWO, afterall, lol), but not near to the degree of the handwringing.
Firstly, this is pointed toward Casual Matchmaking, as we don't have enough info to really prognosticate into CW, though, I certainly hope the Clans have a slight edge there, or they are not the Clans.
MatchMaking:
We are soon to see 3/3/3/3 MM, as well as 1 team per side balancing. One of the stretch goals that will be seen also is "Clan Matching". If your team has a Clan Heavy, if at all possible, the other team will have one, also. So in Casual Play, no team should be imbalanced or weighted against with Clan Mechs being a deciding factor.
Weapons Balance:
FLD alphas is the deciding factor in this game.
Spoiler
Clan AC are now DoT. Burst fire, thus not pinpoint precise. A Boomjager is capable of landing, on average much more telling damage with 2 IS AC20, than a Clan Mech with 2-3 Clan UAC20s, because of the Burst Mechanic, and crippling Ghost Heat.
Clan Lasers have extremely long beam duration and are ALL affected by Ghost Heat. Conversely they do have massively superior range, and slightly better damage, and usually much higher heat. This heat is made worse by long beam durations before Cooldown can begin.
Clan Long Range Missiles are stream fire and easily picked off by AMS. Currently they also have the same minimum range as the IS counterparts (though that is being worked on)
Clan LB-X AC have the same damage spread as IS, SRMs likewise spread, and the SSRMs have insanely long cooldowns. Clans do have a Superior XL Engine.
The only serious FLD weapon Clans have is the ER PPC and the Gauss. The ER PPC, like the IS version, is hot as all get out, so more than 2 are rarely effective. And they don't have FLD Ballistics to sync with them. The Gauss is still working with it's charge mechanic, and the Devs have added a sensible Mechanism that one cannot charge more than 2 at a time. Plus the only mechs capable of mounting more than 2 are so slow and lumbering as to fall easy prey to Light Mechs.
Inner Sphere has a decided edge in FLD weaponry, which as long as the Poptart Meta exists will be exacerbated even more.
Chassis Balance:
1) Clans do have a Superior XL Engine. This is NOT as huge an advantage as the doomsayers wish to claim.
Spoiler
For one, most of the recent IS Mechs have vastly superior Hitbox design. While I found very few egregious HitBoxes on the Clan Mechs (the CT of the Direwolf and maybe the Legs on the Summoner), I also found no "Great" ones, either. The have no Mechs with massive Arms that absorb fire and protect their side torsos (Shadowhawk, Victor, Highlander, Griffin, Wolverine, Thunderbolt, Centurion, Firestarter, etc). So twisting is much less effective in a Clan Mech.
Also, many have their firepower just as hobbled, and usually many, more so, than IS MEchs by large Box Launchers that add to torso target profiles.
Clan XLs also can take a total of 3 critical hits, just like IS. Thus, losing both ST still kills a Clan Mech. And few have CT or Head weapon slots, anyhow. No Centy, Atlas, Stalker or Hunchy Zombies running around for the Clans.
On the pro side, Clan Mechs can indeed increase their armor, which means many previously claimed DOA mechs are viable, and have proven very effective when used in their intended roles. One of the most heavily decried as DOA was the Nova, which most testers found to be one of the hidden gems of the test.
2) Because of most weapons requiring lock-ons or using a DoT Mechanic, Clan Mechs, in General, must STARE down their opponents. This too, increases overall vulnerability. You can say "PPC" but again, heat makes that less of a catchall than you would think.
3) Arm reflex. Most Clan Mechs have ZERO lateral arm movement. Any large Weapons, like ER Large, ER PPC, Large ACs, etc, automatically removes the Lower arm Actuator. So they have the ability to track faster targets, akin to a Jenner, Stalker or Jagermech.
Add to this, overall Clan Mech agility was not especially noteworthy, and they will have a harder time, in general bringing that fire power to bear.
4) Engine Caps. Light Mechs are not capable of the solo sniper role, or high speed, run across the open plains and survive, wolfpacks, of the IS versions. The current available ones will top out at 107 AFTER Speed Tweak. Future one will be faster, but still lack a lot of the ability to customize and tweak that extra ton or two, to "Optimize" for competitive play.
And Mechs that start slow? Just ask most Dire Wolf pilots how they felt about mobile battles or large maps. 53 kph gets old real fast.
In summary, overall, as best as can be seen in a short window, on Chassis that are NOT yet in their June 17th release form, it appears PGI did a surprisingly good job of balancing the "Give and Take" of Clan Chassis and Weapons. Only time will give the full picture, and there are bound to be some outliers, but in general, most of the "whooping and hollering" appears to be much ado about nothing.
I am curious, OBJECTIVELY, what the communities thoughts are?
This is Bishop Steiner, your resident extremely jaded, not-so-White Knight, signing off.
***Postscript:
Spoiler
Also, as I have long (despite some considering it hypocrisy to dare spend money on something, but not 100% back their every move, thought or idea) been a believer of putting my money where my mouth is. Thus:
I have an Alternate Account, that I run with Clan Ghost Bear. So I had bought the Thor Package before, as the Thor has always been my favorite Clan Mech. Midway through the test, I upped to the Puma Package. By the end of the evening, I upped to the Masakari. (I will regret that slightly later, though not for gameplay reasons.... just.. a lot of money. Ouch!).
I did it, not because I felt the Clans were so amazingly powerful, but because the more I played, the more I was convinced of their overall balance, and viability, being neither hugely superior to the Inner Sphere, nor were previously announced chassis, notable the Lights, Nova or Summoner, nearly as DOA as proclaimed.
Edited by Bishop Steiner, 13 June 2014 - 11:31 AM.
It is, quite honestly, too early to say. I didn't have nearly enough time on PTS to get a good gauge on how everything will pan out. All I can say for sure is the Clans certainly won't be the death of the IS unless the IS don't bother to show up. How hard it will or will not be for the IS is still up in the air at this point.
All right, Bishop, here's Techie's obligatory post on all your new threads.
I didn't get in on the clan playtesting, but from what I've read around the forums and heard secondhand, and from a bit of my own opinion, it looks like clan units will be somewhat more skill indexed, and have tradeoffs that don't necessarily involve raw numbers, such as the hitboxes issue that you're describing.
Overall I'm just going to wait until tuesday to see what's what. Somehow I think I'll find it fairly balanced.
Although to be honest I wish we were getting PPC arcing on the IS ones too, and slightly lower all PPC heat...
So far after testing some of the LBXs around, the smaller and larger clan LBXs feel great to use. LBX 20s hurt like a ***** and the LBX 5s/2s are great on smaller mechs. SRMs are not bad after the fix! Tho personally Id take normal SRMs over SSRMs. SSRMs also weigh more (A decent bit more if i might add). A lot of the clan LRMs while they are easy to shoot down with AMS, do seem to fly much faster and (They come in a pretty blue) there launchers weigh much less then there IS counter parts. WHich is also nice.
Locationclimbing Mt Tryhard, one smoldering Meta-Mech corpse at a time
Posted 13 June 2014 - 10:20 AM
Bilbo, on 13 June 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:
It is, quite honestly, too early to say. I didn't have nearly enough time on PTS to get a good gauge on how everything will pan out. All I can say for sure is the Clans certainly won't be the death of the IS unless the IS don't bother to show up. How hard it will or will not be for the IS is still up in the air at this point.
Techorse, on 13 June 2014 - 10:13 AM, said:
I didn't get in on the clan playtesting, but from what I've read around the forums and heard secondhand, and from a bit of my own opinion, it looks like clan units will be somewhat more skill indexed, and have tradeoffs that don't necessarily involve raw numbers, such as the hitboxes issue that you're describing.
exactly true. I hope that indeed the Clan Mechs do prove to be the Higher Skill Curve Mechs. That has been my knock on Poptarting. The learning curve is extremely shallow compared to it's effectiveness. I don't mind the Clans actually ending up being "more powerful" potentially, as long as it is something you have to work for.
As it stand, I feel a lot of the mid tier players will end up playing with, and then many returning to their Victors, Highlanders and CTF-3Ds until or unless we see a serious change in the Poptart Meta.
And the Inner Sphere Lights are much much more versatile. While Clan Lights are by no means DOA, they are going to be much more role limited, overall.
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exactly true. I hope that indeed the Clan Mechs do prove to be the Higher Skill Curve Mechs. That has been my knock on Poptarting. The learning curve is extremely shallow compared to it's effectiveness. I don't mind the Clans actually ending up being "more powerful" potentially, as long as it is something you have to work for.
As it stand, I feel a lot of the mid tier players will end up playing with, and then many returning to their Victors, Highlanders and CTF-3Ds until or unless we see a serious change in the Poptart Meta.
And the Inner Sphere Lights are much much more versatile. While Clan Lights are by no means DOA, they are going to be much more role limited, overall.
That said, I see no reason to give up my Griffin!
Oh, I'll be playing both sides of the fence anyway. I ain't married to either side no matter how the balance may shift in the end.
Locationclimbing Mt Tryhard, one smoldering Meta-Mech corpse at a time
Posted 13 June 2014 - 10:24 AM
ToxinTractor, on 13 June 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:
So far after testing some of the LBXs around, the smaller and larger clan LBXs feel great to use. LBX 20s hurt like a ***** and the LBX 5s/2s are great on smaller mechs. SRMs are not bad after the fix! Tho personally Id take normal SRMs over SSRMs. SSRMs also weigh more (A decent bit more if i might add). A lot of the clan LRMs while they are easy to shoot down with AMS, do seem to fly much faster and (They come in a pretty blue) there launchers weigh much less then there IS counter parts. WHich is also nice.
They all feel great! :3
Well, is Smurfys is accurate, Clan SRMs and LRMs have the same speed as their IS counterparts, while SSRMs are 20 fps slower. I think the "streaming cloud" effect gives the illusion of greater speed, possibly. As a morale buster they seemed rather effective, though a single LRM20 was annihilated regularly by AMS when I ran it.
I did enjoy the LB-X I used, and found the 20X pretty solid. The C-UAC10 was probably my favorite overall ballistic, last night, along with those AMAZING sounding MG (which I actually seemed to crit far less with than my IS counterparts)!
I only played for 15 mins yesterday to capture some direwolf pictures for the forums,
the clan mech build is advanced with onipods and very expensive 400K to replace a single Pod.
also i notice burn time on most weapons are longer meaning longer exposure to counter fire, not really a good thing if you ask me even pulse cannons have a burn timer of 1.2 seconds.
guess we will have to see where this road leads us.
Locationclimbing Mt Tryhard, one smoldering Meta-Mech corpse at a time
Posted 13 June 2014 - 10:27 AM
FupDup, on 13 June 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:
That might be because they only do 0.08 damage per boolet, instead of 0.1 damage per boolet like the IS MG does.
Ah! Hadn't checked them yet, but that explains it! Fair trade for half the weight, I reckon, though it's kind of funny as they have so much deeper a report, you'd expect more damage, lol.
I was very pleasant surprised by how well all the weapons are balanced (at least to first order). The only thing that looks iffy to me is the Clan Streaks. The reload time is positively glacial... My first attempt at a Thor Streak boat didn't end well. Fired a salvo with promising results and was then beaten to pulp by my target before they'd reloaded.
exactly true. I hope that indeed the Clan Mechs do prove to be the Higher Skill Curve Mechs. That has been my knock on Poptarting. The learning curve is extremely shallow compared to it's effectiveness. I don't mind the Clans actually ending up being "more powerful" potentially, as long as it is something you have to work for.
Something I'd like to mention about this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in tabletop, I seem to remember IS pilots having a rating of 4/5 (gunnery/piloting) and the clans starting with 3/4. If this were true, it'd "explain" things. The clans have technology that's lethal in more higher and higher skilled hands. Doesn't matter if you have a 8 point LL or an 12 point LL if you can't land hits with anything.
LocationSector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, on a small blue-green planet orbiting a small, unregarded yellow sun.
Posted 13 June 2014 - 10:32 AM
I would just like to point out that the only weapons which disallow the equipping of lower arm/hand actuators are Gauss Rifles, ERPPC's, and Autocannons, even UAC/2's. This excludes Machine Guns, LPL's, and ERLL's.
Quote
Any large Weapons, like ER Large, ER PPC, Large ACs, etc, automatically removes the Lower arm Actuator. So they have the ability to track faster targets, akin to a Jenner, Stalker or Jagermech
EDIT: Otherwise, a very nice post. I am glad that there are some forumites who actually think things through.
I was expecting the Clans to be more powerful, and thought many of the soft nerfs that PGI was attempting were going to fail...
...and no, as it turns out the balance on them was pretty good- The Clan mechs get to be more powerful in some ways but at the same time are not just leaving IS only pilots out in the cold. This is actually looking to be one of the best feature implementations PGI has ever pulled off.
We'll see how things go next week when they get introduced into the public drops where people still complain about LRMs (and half of everything else) being "OP"...but I am pretty happy with this- like I said, this is very possibly the best that PGI has done with any new feature that they have added to the game.
I would just like to point out that the only weapons which disallow the equipping of lower arm/hand actuators are Gauss Rifles, ERPPC's, and Autocannons, even UAC/2's. This excludes Machine Guns, LPL's, and ERLL's.
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That depends on the mech. The Direwolf has only one arm across all three variants capable of equipping a lower arm actuator, no matter what it has equipped.
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