46 replies to this topic

[Decoy3]

storm0545, on 30 June 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

As for weapon balancing I can already forsee once the devs get the Clan LBX changed to where it can fire alternate ammo slugs all clan mech builds capable of mounting any Ballistics will gravitate to that as it will give the clans an equal to the amount of FLD Inner sphere mechs can currently produce compared to most clan mech builds.

LBs won't fire single round slugs; they'll fire bursts just like the current clan ACs.

[Phlinger]

I see a lot of players pointing at the Clan mechs and saying.... They got something that we didn't, fix their stuff.....

While many of the people that did get the Clans mechs are saying.... These new mechs are where the game needs to be, bring IS in-line with them.....

Since the Clans came out I pilot 3 mechs only, my Stormcrow, my Summoner and my Timberwolf.... why? Not because they are overpowered, because I don't think they are, but because ever since the Clans came out and I put my hands on the 3050 BT Sourcebook, I always have liked them better. If they add the Hellbringer(Loki) and the Maddog(Vulture) to the game, I will use those ones as well.

The Clan mechs are where the game needs to be and are really well balanced. The IS Mechs need Chassis specific quirks to help them find a new niche and being resistant to any changes isn't going to help matters much.

But, please, stop asking for nerfs before you experience them yourselves.

[LastPaladin]

Ronyn, on 20 June 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

Yes, Clan has better range, but their beams burn longer and generate more heat. Inner Sphere has less range, less damage but shorter beam times, hence a quicker delivery system when those beams do get into range, and less heat, with a customizable heat system.

Except that isn't actually the case with the Clan ER-Ms. They are superior to IS M lasers in just about every measurable way, except for heat, and the Clan version is only 0.16 heat/second more than the IS version, which is pretty negligible.

I have no problem with the trade-off system the devs designed, where clan weapons get an advantage in one area for a disadvantage in another, but it should be a consistent system at least. As it stands, they have excluded probably the most commonly encountered clan weapon from their balancing strategy.

[LastPaladin]

Ronyn, on 19 June 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

The Clan lasers are balanced, and the limited space the Clans have to customize is why.

That's a pretty poor argument. The limited customization of the Clan mechs is already a trade-off for other things, like free CASE in every section, ability to lose side torsos with XL engines and still live, ability to custom tailor your hardpoint arrangements to your liking, weapons and eq taking fewer slots, more ammo/ton, etc.

So, you can't suddenly use that for an excuse to make a common clan weapon clearly superior to the IS equivalent, unless you are willing to give up some of those benefits I listed in return.

[Phlinger]

LastPaladin, on 09 July 2014 - 02:07 PM, said:

That's a pretty poor argument. The limited customization of the Clan mechs is already a trade-off for other things, like free CASE in every section, ability to lose side torsos with XL engines and still live, ability to custom tailor your hardpoint arrangements to your liking, weapons and eq taking fewer slots, more ammo/ton, etc.

So, you can't suddenly use that for an excuse to make a common clan weapon clearly superior to the IS equivalent, unless you are willing to give up some of those benefits I listed in return.

I would love to have the ability to place a standard engine into one of my Clan mechs so I can Zombie in it. Please show me how I can do this.

I would love to be able to remove a few JJ's from my Summoner like ALL IS mechs can. I'd love to be able to use a PPC that has 10 heat. I'd love to be able to go with 10 Heat Sinks and not the 10-20 Hardwired ones.

It's all a BIG package deal, one that I accepted when I bought them and IS still likes to whine about. You guys get your perks, deal with it. In a few weeks you can buy them with C-bills so you can play without having to pay for them, in the mean time, here, make me a build that compares to the same tonnage IS mech Cataphract.

SMN-PRIME

ILYA MUROMETS

CTF-3D

Maybe I'll start complaining about how IS weapons are overpowered and how we should nerf them into the ground. PPC's anyone? Single shot AC's?

[John80sk]

Clan lasers>IS Lasers
Clan Ballistics<IS Ballistics

Clan vs IS balance wasn't a one for one type deal.

[LastPaladin]

Ronyn, on 09 July 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

It's all a BIG package deal, one that I accepted when I bought them and IS still likes to whine about. You guys get your perks, deal with it.

Utter nonsense. When mechs I purchased, like Victors and Highlanders got nerfed, or their weapon systems got nerfed, could I complain "it was a package deal"? Nope. Weapons and other systems are subject to balancing after purchase, as many posters love to remind anyone who got screwed by the balancing. So you clanners can deal with it just like everyone else.

PGI has already tweaked some clan weapons already, and I'm sure they will continue to do so. It's not out of bounds to suggest obvious areas that they still need to address.

[Phlinger]

LastPaladin, on 10 July 2014 - 08:23 AM, said:

Utter nonsense. When mechs I purchased, like Victors and Highlanders got nerfed, or their weapon systems got nerfed, could I complain "it was a package deal"? Nope. Weapons and other systems are subject to balancing after purchase, as many posters love to remind anyone who got screwed by the balancing. So you clanners can deal with it just like everyone else.

PGI has already tweaked some clan weapons already, and I'm sure they will continue to do so. It's not out of bounds to suggest obvious areas that they still need to address.

I don't have access to the raw data that PGi does, so if they see a discrepancy in the usage and overall effect in determining the balance of weapons, then unless it is absurd, I'll roll with the punches and adapt. Kind of like how you are still bitter about Victors and Highlanders, yeah, I won't do that.

A point that many here refuse to acknowledge is, with Inner Sphere weapons and mechs, Medium Lasers are an add-on weapon to help augment the main weapon systems. That's it, they help fill in the gaps and give you something to do between Gauss rounds or AC dakka or when lights get close to the LRM boat, they aren't your main weapon system.

With Clans, the medium IS your main weapon system on many mechs, and on the heavier mechs where it can be added to flesh out the build and carry heavier ballistics like AC's, they also don't have pin-point, front-loaded damage accuracy so your damage, while it may be higher in the end, you will get less kills because Inner Sphere weapons are more efficient at killing, where Clan weapons are more efficient at raw damage.

Look at the score boards sometime at the end of the match. You'll see Inner Sphere mechs with 300 damage and 3 kills because their weapons can select what and where they will hit. Clan mechs will be at 600 damage and 3 kills because in order to get those kills, they had to tear through several components and wear the opponent down.

Edited by Ronyn, 10 July 2014 - 09:52 AM.

[LastPaladin]

Ronyn, on 10 July 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

With Clans, the medium IS your main weapon system on many mechs...

Even more reason to make sure the weapon is properly balanced. It doesn' t matter much if small lasers are not properly balanced, since nobody uses them, but for a common weapons system, it is all the more important.

Ronyn, on 10 July 2014 - 09:48 AM, said:

Look at the score boards sometime at the end of the match. You'll see Inner Sphere mechs with 300 damage and 3 kills because their weapons can select what and where they will hit. Clan mechs will be at 600 damage and 3 kills because in order to get those kills, they had to tear through several components and wear the opponent down.

Yeah, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether one particular weapon is properly balanced or not.

[Phlinger]

LastPaladin, on 10 July 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

Even more reason to make sure the weapon is properly balanced. It doesn' t matter much if small lasers are not properly balanced, since nobody uses them, but for a common weapons system, it is all the more important.



Yeah, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether one particular weapon is properly balanced or not.

Please then, give me your definition of "Properly Balanced"

I have a feeling it means, You kill me and I can't fight back.

[Vermaxx]

Other than guns shown to be statistically worse (like pulse) I would always choose clan tech.

It does higher potential damage, lower weight, smaller crit footprint. Every mech runs hot, heat is a terrible issue in this game so having extra heat is irrelevant to me.

An average pilot put into a clan mech will do at least as much damage as he used to simply by virtue of the weapons being more powerful, even with wasted beam time, and will carry more weapons and armor in a faster mech. A poor pilot will probably do as well too, or close. A GOOD pilot will do far better. And that is the problem - they are at least as good as the IS crap they replace, and potentially far better. No one is going to get a clan mech and do significantly worse without some other factor.

PGI is talking a big game about what CW will be doing to eliminate mixed teams, but in the end if there is nothing done to PENALIZE CLAN PLAYERS and ENTICE IS PLAYERS, there will be an inevitable shift toward most everyone being in a clan mech regardless of what irrelevant flag they pick.

That's fine, we can all be "clammers" of one flavor or another...but I'd much rather have a hero variant IS mech which allows clan tech, or a significant financial/meta reason to STAY IS IN AN IS MECH instead of just cashing out for the new min/max.

[Jonny Taco]

1.5 or 1.6 seconds in the er m is way too long...

I think the best approach would be to lower the beam duration of IS ml, ll, and er ll to .9 seconds and increase the beam duration on the clan erm to 1.35. The clan erll should also have it's beam duration reduced to 1.35 The result is a beam dps of 5.55 for the is ml, 5.16 for the clan er ml, 10 for the is ll and erll, and 8.33 for the clan erll.

[cleghorn6]

Add the IS pulse weapons to your analysis. You'll probably see that the Clan pulse weapons have approximately the same trade-off as the IS ones do. Or at least within scale of the difference between the IS/Clan.


Full Disclosure: I love my WUB WUB and will still use them, even if it's not "efficient".

[Water Bear]

I really hope someone's already said this:

You computed damage per .1 second of burst.

How about computing damage per second?

I bet $5 you will find that the clan medium pulse laser has the highest dps of all the medium lasers.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Why are we looking to balance Clans around sub optimal IS builds?

[StainlessSR]

I find that there is a bit of misconception in this comparison. Ronyn had it right in that the Clan med laser is a main weapon while the IS is not, this can be shown in a comparison of damage IS/Clan.


...................... C-ERSL...IS-ML.....C-ERML....IS-LL......C-ERLL.....IS-ERLL
Damage......... 4.00........5.00........7.00.........9.00.........11.25 .......9.00
Heat............... 2.00........4.00........5.00.........9.00..........8.50.........8.50
Cooldown....... 2.25........3.00........3.00.........3.25..........3.25.........3.25
Range............ 200.........270.........450..........450...........890..........675
Max Range.... 400..........540.........900..........900...........1780.......1350
Duration..........1.00..........1.00.......1.30.........1.00..........1.50........1.00

Looking at this it is plain that the role in combat of the IS-ML is filled by the C-SL, while the C-ERML is more synonymous with the IS-LL for range and damage and designed role as a main damage weapon. Names are irrelevant here, what is important is the role that the weapon is designed to fullfill. Looked at this way Clan is only op in that they can load more weapons for a role than a comperable IS mech (but they lose in having to stay on target for a longer time than an IS weapon in the same role plus chassis nerfs). The lose of total damage in the role is mitigated by the lower heat generated.

Lets take a specific example, the C-ERML is in the same role as the IS-LL as the ranges are equal
1.The lose of 2 damage is made up for by the 4 lower heat generated
2. The lower cooldown is made up for by the .3 longer duration
3. The only points that are not congruent is the slots and tonnage which is taken into account by other clan nerfs.



TL:DR Compare C-SL with IS-ML and C-ERML with IS-LL when compalining.

Edit:lined up the stupid chart as spaces don't work

Edited by StainlessSR, 11 July 2014 - 08:05 AM.

[LastPaladin]

Ronyn, on 10 July 2014 - 03:58 PM, said:

Please then, give me your definition of "Properly Balanced"

I have a feeling it means, You kill me and I can't fight back.

No, I mean following the same balancing principles for the ER M-Laser that have already been laid out by the Devs, and followed for the other weapon systems. At least that is the first step, to balance the weapons consistently. Then we can look at their performance and see if any tweaks need to be made, if those principles did not achieve the desired balance.

[StainlessSR]

LastPaladin, on 11 July 2014 - 09:40 AM, said:

No, I mean following the same balancing principles for the ER M-Laser that have already been laid out by the Devs, and followed for the other weapon systems. At least that is the first step, to balance the weapons consistently. Then we can look at their performance and see if any tweaks need to be made, if those principles did not achieve the desired balance.

you cannot balence the Clan ER M-laser with the IS M-Laser. apples and oranges dude. That is like trying to balence a Pickup with a passenger car in a towing contest.

[CaptainDeez]

StainlessSR, on 11 July 2014 - 09:45 AM, said:

you cannot balence the Clan ER M-laser with the IS M-Laser. apples and oranges dude. That is like trying to balence a Pickup with a passenger car in a towing contest.

Ok then, drop the weight of the IS-LL to 1.5 or 2 tons if you want to make that the comparison. You seemed to have forgotten weight on your chart.

[StainlessSR]

Do all assault rifles weight the same? no, they don't nor do they have the same effective range, yet they all fill the same role in the equipment chart of an army. And if you had continued reading you would have read

Quote

3. The only points that are not congruent is the slots and tonnage which is taken into account by other clan nerfs.

meaning that while the weapon weighs less for the same role, there are other nerfs ourside of the weapon enviroment that are put there to balence them out.

Am I saying that there does not need to be any more balencing work done? NO I AM NOT. But, when comparing things be sure to compare the right things. Personally, Clan er-med might need to should follow the IS large laser ghost heat table, which would be a correct balence in my opinion as it would limit the number that could be fired at the same time before gost heat kicked in while their lower base heat amt would balence that VS IS-LL.


Edit: Correction shown

Edited by StainlessSR, 11 July 2014 - 10:42 AM.