59 replies to this topic

[Dan Nashe]

When clan mechs were announced my thought was:
Nova and summoner: No endo steel or ff, costing them 3 and 4 tons of pod space.
Ryoken and Mad Cat: Endo, Ferro, No JJ.

Note: as far as I'm aware, almost all competive mechs take endo steel, so the loss of 14 crits is not a crippling weakness esp. With automatic case. (Clan endo and Ferro Fib are 7 each).

So it looked balanced.
I could not decide if I wanted the TimberwolfģMad Cat or Summoner/Thor.
Then they announced mad cat S ... easy choice.
But no Ryoken S. ( i would play a Ryoken with JJ over a Timberwolf).

So PGIi seems to be conscious of avoiding JJs on max tonnage mechs.
Esp. When those mechs are just as fast or faster and carry 10 percent more gear.

So why the Mad Cat S?
Rumor I've heard is that the Mad Cat Pryde jumps, and without the S variant, the Pryde would probably have been P2W by allowing all Timberwolves to jump only if you paid $40.

Random thoughts?

Edited by DanNashe, 27 June 2014 - 12:56 PM.

[FupDup]

The way they could solve "P2W" Clan heroes would be to have the Omnipods available for C-Bills. But why pay MC for a hero, you ask? You'd still get 30% more C-Bills and a fancy paintjob.

[AlexEss]

as good a theory as any i guess.

[Roland]

Honestly, they should just make all the hero mechs availible for CBills, and just jack the price of them way the hell up...

If you offer stuff for ingame currency, even if it takes a huge amount of grind to get it, then it's no P2W... It would solve a ton of the issues.

[Sug]

DanNashe, on 27 June 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Random thoughts?

I'm confused. Have they announced a Pryde hero mech somewhere? Pretty sure I see jumping TWs every match so I'm not sure what you getting at.

[Alexandrix]

Sug, on 27 June 2014 - 09:39 AM, said:

I'm confused. Have they announced a Pryde hero mech somewhere? Pretty sure I see jumping TWs every match so I'm not sure what you getting at.

He means to say that they went ahead and gave the TWolf jump jets now,because they plan to introduce a hero variant of the TWolf later,based on aidan pryde's jump jet equipped TWolf from the books.If the normal cbill variant TWolfs had no JJ capability,but the hero mech TWolf did....well...people would complain P2W.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 27 June 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

The way they could solve "P2W" Clan heroes would be to have the Omnipods available for C-Bills. But why pay MC for a hero, you ask? You'd still get 30% more C-Bills and a fancy paintjob.

and unique hardpoints.

And unless they nerf how effective Omni-JJs are, available omni JJs for everyone just further relegate the hardwired Jumpers to obsolescence.

So no, I really don't think it should be "JJs for everyone", dude, sorry. (Unless, again, the JJs are significantly less efficient than the hardwired ones, which would still leave the Omni-JJs with a net advantage in most scenarios, but a niche for dedicated Jumpers.)

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 June 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

and unique hardpoints.

If you restricted hero Omni hardpoints to the hero only, it would be P2W unless the hardpoints were giganerfed into the ground with negative quirks. Different hardpoints don't work with Omnis as well as they do for IS heroes, because you can play Mister Potatohead with your pods.

Edited by FupDup, 27 June 2014 - 10:02 AM.

[Willard Phule]

FupDup, on 27 June 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

If you restricted hero Omni hardpoints to the hero only, it would be P2W unless the hardpoints were giganerfed into the ground with negative quirks. Different hardpoints don't work with Omnis as well as they do for IS heroes, because you can play Mister Potatohead with your pods.

Not to mention the negative quirks you get for using the pods from the S to allow the jets in the first place. -7.5% torso twist speed, cumulative (I believe) for each torso pod.

[Bishop Steiner]

DanNashe, on 27 June 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Random thoughts?

In effect, yes, that is a fair summation. The obvious "money" TWolf is the Pryde, as for many Clan players who know the IP, it is every bit as iconic as the Yen Lo Wang or Protector is for the Inner Sphere.

And from a more casual player outlook, having JJs is still a better selling point than NOT having them.

What annoys me, is the "S" did not even exist, and is a retconned in (CGL really pisses me off with this constant wave of retcon crap, like the Laser AMS (though I believe this was possibly a FanPro retcon, not a CGL, in this instance), which not only goes against lore, but also was NOT available to players during the actual Clan Invasion, and was introduced as experimental tech in the mid 3050s, first by the Inner Sphere.) version almost specifically and obviously, so they can offer the "Pryde".

Sadly overlooked is just how awesome the Timberwolf is WITHOUT JJs, and how much it would have helped to avoid continuing to bolster the Poptart meta, had they simply not added a jumping TWolf. A Vlad Ward hero TWOlf would have been just fine, though probably not as big of a seller.

Willard Phule, on 27 June 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

Not to mention the negative quirks you get for using the pods from the S to allow the jets in the first place. -7.5% torso twist speed, cumulative (I believe) for each torso pod.

which has next to zero in-game effect. Go ask HoL and SJR how nerfed their WolfTarts feel.

Heck my brawling TWolf-S with quad SRM6 has zero issue out dueling any Summoner.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 27 June 2014 - 10:14 AM.

[Octavian]

TW Pryde is a ****** mech anyways

Also, OP there is no such thing as a Stormcrow S. In fact, no canon Stormcrow variant has ever had jumpjets. The S were urban combat variants, and the Stormcrow already had some nasty city fighters.

Edited by Octavian, 27 June 2014 - 10:25 AM.

[Khobai]

Dont have a problem with the madcat having jumpjets

Do have a problem with the jumpjets having no downside. If the jumpjets were properly balanced you would see just as many madcats without jumpjets as you do with jumpjets.

But the fact the jumpjets arnt balanced means theres no reason to not take jumpjets on a madcat ever.

[SilentWolff]

What's a Timbeewold?

[Damocles69]

Pretty much. Ya. It is the best mech in the game by a wide margin

[Dan Nashe]

SilentWolff, on 27 June 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

What's a Timbeewold?

It's what happens when you cross a timberwolf and a smartphone with boredom while walking up 16 flights of stairs :-).

Nerfing JJs on the S to be useless would be an option I guess. But kind of sad :-p.

It just feels like the existance of the TMB-S completely obsoleted the Summoner. In every way. The loss of 4 plus tons from no endo or ff is a killer.

Either PGI is making a conscious choice to not use JJs as a chassis balancer or there was another reason for the S (e.g. the Pryde)

And if they want to make jjs worse, making 2/3 of the terrain unclimbable when the only point of humanoid mechs is their climbing ability was an odd choice!.

[GreyGriffin]

AFAIK, the S variants were designed and introduced with the intelligence gathered from the Dragoon compromise, and were considered standard configurations by the time the invasion force rolled out.

[El Bandito]

"Pryde" should be a Summoner and T-Wolf S' JJs should be removed or the entire config replaced. P2W argument averted and the reign of the Timbertarts, over. Win win.

Aidan Pryde would have agreed. Except PGI won't earn as much money. Bad PGI, bad.

Edited by El Bandito, 28 June 2014 - 01:50 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I will say absolutely not if you are running max or near max JJs. That 4-5 tons, plus those 4 to 5 critical slots make a huge difference in the performance of the Timberwolf. So far my S, no matter what the build, has preformed poorly compared to either the Prime or C variant, you just give up too much to get a really good weapons load out with 4-5 tons of JJ.

There might be some argument for a 1 JJ Timberwolf giving a significant but from one I understand, very soon 1 JJ builds are going to be useless (thank god they are getting rid of that stupidity).

Oh and I guess I should add that I don't find the Meta builds all that useful at my ELO bracket. For some odd reason, poptarts don't do well in my ELO. Generally they get blow out of the sky when they jump up and expose themselves which is one of the reason why I always question if the meta really exists or rather it it consists of a bunch of players who think they are good but in reality suck. Then again prehaps at my ELO, people are so poorly skilled that they fail at poptarting hehe.

In any case, no I really don't feel the S variant trivializes the other Variants or any other mech in the game. Also I think the Stormcrow is the best mech in the game right now and would kill to get my hands on a JJ capable version (though it would probably suffer the same issue as the Timberwolf S and give up too much firepower/heatsinks when mounting JJs).

[Bishop Steiner]

GreyGriffin, on 27 June 2014 - 01:39 PM, said:

AFAIK, the S variants were designed and introduced with the intelligence gathered from the Dragoon compromise, and were considered standard configurations by the time the invasion force rolled out.

it was first introduced in 3050, and as such, would not have been in the first waves of Operation Revival. It would have been available by the return from Strana Mechty.

But it is still a retconned, not truly accurate Configuration that was not in play for the actual Clan Invasion, or even the Twilight of the Clans. Hence my hatred of retcon. I played the tournaments for those invasions. Would have loved to have the S. Didn't REALLY exist til the 3050 Upgrade TRO was released.

[Zolaz]

Hmmmm, my S variant TW did better than the other two. JJs just help clearing terrain for LRMs or ERPPCs/Gauss. I pretty much ran stock pods while leveling up my TW for the extra exp. The TW is probably the best mech from the Clans at the moment, which means it will be nerfed.