17 replies to this topic

[Hillslam]

I'm seeing a lot of posts that are coming from a basic premise that, IMO, is dead wrong. And its this:

"Clan pilots are better."

No. No they're not. They're exactly the same.

There seems to be this unspoken assumption among a lot of posters here that all or most of the veteran/competitive/highly skilled players migrated to the clan mechs and that's it.

As if the clan mechs were some tier above IS that you went to if you got gud.

The REALITY is that the clan mechs were a PRODUCT, that people could BUY. With MONEY.

Money. Not skill. Not l33tness. Not reputation. Not tryhard. Not larping neckbeard roleplayage. Money.

And over the past week or so I've personally seen ALOT of REALLY bad clan mech piloting. Bad tactics. Bad aim. Bad driving. Etc. New players to the left and right.

...AND, I've seen a lot of GOOD clan mech piloting too. Vet players to the left and right.

You know, Just Like The IS.

--------

My point is that the mix of clan pilots looks just like the IS pilots. Good. Bad. Mediocre...Vet. Casual. Noob.


So before you post please stop assuming otherwise. It doesn't help any of the balance discussions to come from a place of stereotype ignorance.

thanks
_{(disclaimer: I own and run both)}

Edited by Hillslam, 25 June 2014 - 08:13 AM.

[Napoleon_Blownapart]

My point is that the mix of clan pilots looks just like the IS pilots. Good. Bad. Mediocre...Vet. Casual. Noob.
you left out joystick user.

[Zerberus]

Hillslam, on 25 June 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

My point is that the mix of clan pilots looks just like the IS pilots. Good. Bad. Mediocre...Vet. Casual. Noob.


So before you post please stop assuming otherwise. It doesn't help any of the balance discussions to come from a place of stereotype ignorance.

thanks
_{(disclaimer: I own and run both)}

What about the Steering Wheel Underhive? They seem to have quadrupled in number, but who are they aligned with?

Edited by Zerberus, 25 June 2014 - 08:50 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Well...by the lore, they're supposed to be better. Genetically bred, raised in sibkos...blah blah blah.

As for the actual players....well, since the matchmaker is completely borked right now and there is NO separation based skill or experience, then I would have to agree with your point. Each and every team, be they IS or Clan or mixed, is full of everything from the Best to the Noob. Not much you can do about that.....except turn and kill them every single time they shoot you in spawn. They'll learn eventually, or they'll be doing a lot of spectating.

[Agent of Change]

What about the steering wheel underhive?

surely there are clan pilots trying their hardest not to walk into walls and not drool on their monitor at the same time.

[Belorion]

You are going to have a hard time when CW roles around lol...

You always get this kind of thing when factions are concerned. You will also start seeing Faction A are just better than Faction B... etc. they won't look at Mech differences, or anything like that.

[Belorion]

Best part is when they start claiming that Faction B cheated because that's the only way they could have beat Faction A since everyone knows Faction A are the better pilots.

[Hillslam]

Belorion, on 25 June 2014 - 09:07 AM, said:

You are going to have a hard time when CW roles around lol...

You always get this kind of thing when factions are concerned. You will also start seeing Faction A are just better than Faction B... etc. they won't look at Mech differences, or anything like that.

I won't have any problem at all with CW.

Because as the factions winnow out and some factions get better than others, and I agree with you that will happen, it'll be for a different reason. Player choice.

The difference between Faction A and Faction B is a choice. Since both factions can roll identical equipment.

The ONLY difference at the moment between clan pilots and IS pilots is money.

Or I should better say: the only difference atm between Clan mech piloting players and IS mech piloting players is money. At the moment one cost money to use, the other didn't.

One thing life teaches us all - repeatedly - is that people with money are not necessarily the ones who are smarter, more skillful, etc etc. Sometimes they are.

I look forward to CW and faction play. I can't wait for it actually.

But for now - we really need to stop making assumptions around pilots (pilot skill, pilot experience, pilot social etiquette, pilot shoe size) based on whether they bought a particular toy to play with or didn't.

Edited by Hillslam, 25 June 2014 - 08:22 PM.

[Hillslam]

Zerberus, on 25 June 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

What about the Steering Wheel Underhive? They seem to have quadrupled in number, but who are they aligned with?

EVERYONE.

The SWU, like Rule34, can be found everywhere.

Willard Phule, on 25 June 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

Well...by the lore, they're supposed to be better. Genetically bred, raised in sibkos...blah blah blah.

As for the actual players....well, since the matchmaker is completely borked right now and there is NO separation based skill or experience, then I would have to agree with your point. Each and every team, be they IS or Clan or mixed, is full of everything from the Best to the Noob. Not much you can do about that.....except turn and kill them every single time they shoot you in spawn. They'll learn eventually, or they'll be doing a lot of spectating.

Even when the MM does start "working" - that won't make all the mouthbreathing smacktards driving Direwolves disappear or turn into MWO Chuck Norri (the plural of Norris, natch). Ditto will it neither make all the meta-worshipping IS deadeye snipers evaporate. We'll have heros and peons in every faction forever.

As Charleton Heston intended.

Edited by Hillslam, 25 June 2014 - 08:28 PM.

[Pariah Devalis]

We have a pilot in my Clan. I think he thought using Clan mechs would make his play better. Figured he could rely on the crutch of Clan tech to improve his game instead of actually learning the limitations of his mechs and his own abilities, then pushing them. Of course, it did nothing to help the guy. I mean, I even remember telling him that if he was not doing well in an Inner Sphere mech, a Clan mech would be that much worse for him.

So, yeah. There are Clan pilots who are in actual Clans who are kinda terrible.

On the other hand, there are Clan pilots who finally feel rewarded for having slightly steadier aim, or better heat management, or greater situational awareness and are absolutely thriving in this new environment, myself included.

There is a wide, wide range of player skill going on in either side of the line. I saw an arm locked Stormcrow try and fail to fight a mech on a hill. I saw a Kit Fox last man stand and drop two people in the game I was in. I have seen Orions absolutely wreck face, and Atlas push a charge, and Locusts solo Dire Wolves.

[Roland]

There are a huge number of terrible pilots who bought clan mechs because they thought they would make them into clan pilots.

[Riptor]

Willard Phule, on 25 June 2014 - 09:01 AM, said:

Well...by the lore, they're supposed to be better. Genetically bred, raised in sibkos...blah blah blah.

Wich is why they got their asses handed to them by a hotchpotch alliance of the IS and had an entire clan wiped out?

Thats what you get when you "play" war and expect everyone else to "play" by the same rules.

Anyways OT:

Yep.. especialy the notion that money was what got everyone their clan mechs and not skill cant be repeated often enough. As if pulling out a credit card from your wallet takes any skill.... unless you have no arms... then it does

[Soulscour]

I keep seeing opinion threads left and right of what they think of the clan mechs in terms of balance. I did not buy a package and have been using my usual IS mechs. What I have experienced other than the improvement of SRMs is that the top mechs/builds that I was using before still perform well. I am however having less successful results with the "fun" builds that I play. This leads me to the conclusion that most of the new clan mechs/weapons are at least close to or on par with the the top meta that was being used prior to clan invasion.

[Asmudius Heng]

Clan mech pilots fall into 3 catagories.

- Competiton players looking for any slight advantage they can get, they will pilot IS if its better its just a tool.
- Role playing clanners
--- Either terrible n00bs who love thinking they are elite super warriors and want the shiny toys to win (not that clan mechs are that OP in this iteration though)
--- Any range of skill who just like being clan usually because that was thier intorduction to battletech.

Amusingly there are a LOT of those very bad clan mech pilots, i like killing them - or legging them (they hate that) and watching thier rage.

Silly clams

[Spheroid]

I assume the vast majority of Clan pilots are crap based on the percentage of Clan mechs well behind me on the front lines.

Not slow mechs either, Timberwolves and Stormcrows.

How are these pilots planning on using their superior firepower if they can't get LOS? Just sit around like cowards on Alpine and give up the high ground! What could be wrong with that?

Edited by Spheroid, 25 June 2014 - 09:37 PM.

[MischiefSC]

COMSTAR DISPATCH:

While original reports came back that these invaders, dubbed 'The Clans', were a race of skilled warriors with a premium on skill and a competitive culture designed to weed out all but the best we were surprised and pleasantly so to find that participation in the Invasion was a perk sold to would-be warriors through out their space. Absolutely no competency requirements were involved in members of the Clans getting even the largest of assault Mechs and a position in their invasion fleet. There is even confirmed evidence that advanced Clan mechs and technology were sold indiscriminately through out the Inner Sphere to anyone with the money to pay for them. This has dramatically diluted the power and impact of what would have otherwise have been a crushing invasion of the Inner Sphere.

Blake be praised, it would seem that the omnipresent hand of capitalism and economics has effectively brushed aside this invasion before it ever began. 250 years of planning and preparation, sacrificed for a quick cbill. Comstar finds it soothing to see that honor does, indeed, have a price.

[Ursh]

A lot of the cowards that were playing IS mechs are now in clan mechs, and that's why you'll see a couple of timberwolfs hiding behind a Stormcrow or Hunchback, fully expecting the medium mech to run in and go get shot up so the t-wolfs can run in Boom-Pew-Bang without having anyone scratch their paint. Those guys were doing the same thing when they had their boomjagers, banshees, battlemasters, and orions.

Regarding the lore stuff...remember that the novels were written by 2nd rate authors who knew little about battletech, and many of the books are full of errors regarding not just the layouts, but the capabilities of the mechs they were describing. And there was one huge, gaping hole in the whole clan invasion plotline. The Clans came to the inner sphere knowing exactly how the IS fought, both from historical footage they would have had from the Kerensky exodus, as well as descriptions of the scorched earth tactics of the Amaris civil war. Also, the clans had the whole Wolf's dragoons intel gathering thing going on. They would have been reporting back to the clans quite frequently.

Basically, the clans invading the inner sphere unprepared for inner sphere battle tactics would have been an egregious failure of military intelligence and planning, and doesn't really match up with anything else in the time-line. The people in charge of battletech instead had to turn the clan leadership into manifestations of mentally deficient overbearing jock bullies haunting the dreams of every high school nerd. Oh, except for clan wolf of course. Because they were different...right. Oh, and then they had to make the clans fight each other rather than continuing to fight the inner sphere. That whole Tukayyid thing? Never would have happened. No military would negotiate away all of its advantages to fight a battle that fully catered to the opponents strengths, on terrain the opponent chose.

You don't build a technologically advanced fighting force capable of conquering the inner sphere by being a mentally deficient high school bully. And that's the premise the lore tries to force you to swallow. That's why I say "Thanks for the cool game and mech designs" but I ignore the lore about the inner sphere being the scrappy good guys compared to the clans.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Zerberus, on 25 June 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

What about the Steering Wheel Underhive? They seem to have quadrupled in number, but who are they aligned with?

W/E pug I drop with....