64 replies to this topic

[Nesutizale]

I have some ideas about these CW balance issues...go back to the lore of BT.

What is it that I mean with it?
Well there are some things and one of them will most likely get me burned in flames but anyway here it comes:

1) Power in numbers
The IS outnumbered the Clans on allmost all battlefields. Its hardly possible to reproduce the bidding system in an online game, while it would be fun but setting up IS vs Clan on the scale of a company vs a binary is pretty realistic.
So would I vote for 10 vs 12? Definitly

2) Stock Mechs in CW
I guess this isn't what people want to hear but I would suggest to remove custom Mechs from CW.
Why? People are, from what I read, mostly complaining about the laser vomits (sound funny but isn't) and missile boats and stuff. So with stockmechs...thats gone! Mostly at least. We still have mechs like the Nova or Catapult but they have their disantvanteges so it balances itself out.
Also its much harder, that at least is my impression, to fight in these Mechs. So fights would be much more interesting then getting 5 C-ERLL in your CT and instant death.

It will also give back some of the original tactics used on both sides.
Clans used tactics that where focused on duels. Fast and hard. There Mechs where equiped to reflect that. Most common was the use of balistic and missile weapons. So in a drawn out fight they would get into trouble.
This could help to give even 12 vs 12 fights a more depper tactical part as it would now make more sense for the IS to hold the line while the clans are forced to get in close and fight hard.
Basicly Clans shouldn't play like the "other" IS with just better weapons...that leads to the next point

3) Punish non clan behavoir
Yes you read right. Punish those who don't follow Clan doctrine (and yes I know that it would allow a clansman to concentrate fire on and opponent that targets many clanmechs but even then most claner would refuse to do so.)

Where IS gets points for going in formation, shooting the same target and support each other the Clans should be the opposite.
Clans is the lone Wolf player type. Everyone wants to be the best, get the most damage and kills.....
Make the Clans DIFFERENT from the IS.

It also helps with balanceing. Currently focused fire from Clans is very hard hitting, espacialy at range.

Overall make CW more a Battletech game then doing a shooter with mechs. I think the BT lore gives more then enough ideas on how to balance Clans and IS out without stuff like ghostheat and quirks and stuff like that.

[Homeskilit]

In the Lore the Clans would send Clusters vs Regiments, Trinaries vs Battalions, and Stars vs Companies.

This 10v12 stuff is not accurate. If you are gonna go down that path do it right.

Edited by Homeskilit, 02 October 2015 - 03:41 PM.

[Kissamies]

Yes, back when the Clans were announced, I thought it should be 10v12, the clans should have different score bonuses to encourage clanlike behavior and there should be an alternate money system (something like "prestige" or "requisition points" instead of cbills). The money system is probably out of the table, but I still think the other two would be good ideas.

I didn't think of CW only back them, but it makes a lot of sense. Not like the non-CW has clan vs IS anyways. Alternate could be having only 3 slots in clan drop decks, but don't drop the tonnage in same propotion. In the lore Clans favor heavy 'mechs and IS mediums, but IS tends to outnumber them 2 to 1.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Vetal, on 02 October 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

we'll see how many players play it)
So, don't be too much happy about that)
I predict that nobody will play ballistic and missile mechs, because they need either much more powerfull weapons or much more amount of ammo.
Most of players will be dissapointed of it. You'll play just laserboats.

Never played with us Stock huh?
So you would know that your predictions are totally false and missed.

[Nesutizale]

Homeskilit, on 02 October 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

In the Lore the Clans would send Clusters vs Regiments, Trinaries vs Battalions, and Stars vs Companies.

This 10v12 stuff is not accurate. If you are gonna go down that path do it right.

Would love to do that but does MWO have so many players in CW that we could actualy do it? My impression is that currently CW suffers from a lack of people, so creating even bigger groups is out of the question. So it is a compromise that is as close as possible to the lore.

[Vetal]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 03 October 2015 - 04:32 AM, said:

Never played with us Stock huh?
So you would know that your predictions are totally false and missed.

I played stock mechs and they didn't impressed me at all. Tell me pls what you will do with 2 tons of ac2 ammo and a pir of med lasers against heavy and assault laser mechs. If you like bdsm it doesn't mean that anyone else has to like it and you don't have any rights to make people do it.

Edited by Vetal, 03 October 2015 - 05:28 AM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Vetal, on 03 October 2015 - 05:24 AM, said:

I played stock mechs and they didn't impressed me at all. Tell me pls what you will do with 2 tons of ac2 ammo and a pir of med lasers against heavy and assault laser mechs. If you like bdsm it doesn't mean that anyone else has to like it and you don't have any rights to make people do it.

Playing Stock in Full Custom Public has nothing to do with playing in Full Stock Environment.
If you would have play with us and you would have any experience in that you would not say so false and rubbish statements.

I think you are not fully aware what are we talk about.
Stock Button is promised for Privet Lobby to make easier to play Stock Mode in Privet.
If we speak about Stock, we think about Full Stock Mode.
So... Foreseeing your next argue.
If everybody have bad meks, no one really have.

Edited by Jaeger Gonzo, 03 October 2015 - 06:08 AM.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Nesutizale, on 03 October 2015 - 04:41 AM, said:

Would love to do that but does MWO have so many players in CW that we could actualy do it? My impression is that currently CW suffers from a lack of people, so creating even bigger groups is out of the question. So it is a compromise that is as close as possible to the lore.

10v16 is just 2 more then 12v12.

[Vetal]

I think it'd be great if you play separately from other players, in order to avoid indefinite shout in game chat about "disbalance and only stock mechs, clan forever e t c ". I vice versa DO NOT forbid you to play stocks, I've just said that your decision to play stocks mustn't concern ordinary players, who are the vast majority of the battletech society.This mode will be just your own sandbox for no more than 150-200 players in all over the World. I really hope you'll be happy.

Edited by Vetal, 03 October 2015 - 07:29 AM.

[Nesutizale]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 03 October 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

10v16 is just 2 more then 12v12.

Why 16?
A Binary is 10 and a Company is 12 Mechs. Where do you get the 16 from?

Homeskilit, on 02 October 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

In the Lore the Clans would send Clusters vs Regiments, Trinaries vs Battalions, and Stars vs Companies.

This 10v12 stuff is not accurate. If you are gonna go down that path do it right.

Lets see.

Stars (note the s, that makes at least two) = 10 Mechs
Company = 12 Mechs

10 vs 12...that seams to be pretty right. Why is it not accurate then?

Trinary = 15 Mechs
Battalion = 36 Mehs

Cluster = Thats a bit complicated since its a mixed units..so I will just quote "Though varied by nature, a typical Cluster would consist of two Battlemech Trinaries, an Elemental Binary, an Aerospace Binary and either a "mixed" Trinary or a Supernova Trinary."
Regiment = 108 - 180 Mechs

I doubt that CW would get a Cluster VS Regiment going but that could be awesome.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Vetal, on 03 October 2015 - 07:11 AM, said:

I think it'd be great if you play separately from other players, in order to avoid indefinite shout in game chat about "disbalance and only stock mechs, clan forever e t c ". I vice versa DO NOT forbid you to play stocks, I've just said that your decision to play stocks mustn't concern ordinary players, who are the vast majority of the battletech society.This mode will be just your own sandbox for no more than 150-200 players in all over the World. I really hope you'll be happy.

You still not get what we talk about.
And We are many, more then you think and would be even more when people see how Stock Mode offer different and fun game play experience.
Stock Mode is around MechWarrior games I suppose since the beginning, always with decent popularity.
Actually most of real Battletech society is begging for Stock Mode since beginning of MWO. Just twitch shooters crowd seams to not understanding what we are about. Stock Mode is about the only Thing that would made Battletech real fans to comeback to MWO, as most of them left already.

Nesutizale, on 03 October 2015 - 09:20 AM, said:

Why 16?
A Binary is 10 and a Company is 12 Mechs. Where do you get the 16 from?

Balance is better in 10v16 and is closer to what TT balance would be, 10v12 is too insignificant.
We played Stock Mode ISvClans and best balance we found around 5v8, so 10v16 is next in line.

[Karl Streiger]

Vetal, on 02 October 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

we'll see how many players play it)
So, don't be too much happy about that)
I predict that nobody will play ballistic and missile mechs, because they need either much more powerfull weapons or much more amount of ammo.
Most of players will be dissapointeed of it. You'll play just laserboats.

Well at least it depends on the players - a ton of ammunition is still enough to do some serious damage - if you aim well.
In Closed Beta I did not use more as 2ton per weapon system - i did use a Crusapult (Crusader Loadout - 2t LRM, 1t SRM, of course you don't spam - considering that i hit a Jenner with LRMs multiple times - and killed that Jenner a Hunchback and damaged several other Mechs - even low ammunition is not a problem - that its not necessary to aim propperly with current unlimited ammunition mode is a problem - and the Stock mode is the answer.

Yeah you might say - you would take the Thunderbolt 5SS all the time before even thinking about a Jaegermech A or S - simple ignore the fact that the Jaeger would be able to frontload serious damage at range

[Homeskilit]

What I meant was 10v12 is not accurately balanced. Provided the sides are locked Clan vs IS then the drops should be 5v12.

Each Clan Mechwarrior is required to kill two IS Mechs and a couple of the better Mechwarriors need to kill three.

They would also be required to focus on one target at a time per the Clan rules of engagement.

Edited by Homeskilit, 03 October 2015 - 12:13 PM.

[Nesutizale]

@Jaeger Gonzo
Now I understand. I was thinking about unite sizes in the lore and you about gameplay experiance from the TT.
Its been quite a long time since I played the TT but I think we nearly halfed the Clans tonnage to balance it so its pretty similar to what you did.
From that point of view I can agree on a 10/16 regulation. It works for the TT.

From the CW experiance I had so far I wouldn't go as far though. I have seen matches where just one or two players on the clan side where missing and that where the matches where IS had a hard fight but it was allready a differance. Still you would have to do testruns with this to see if its statisticly reasonable or just a fluke.


About Stockmechs
My point of view in this is...

Currently battle behavior evolves mostly around hide and fire behavior. Most battles aren't about any interesting tacticall thinking on the spot but taking out your calculator, do the math of heat and then go with that. No options, no nesessity of real decicion making.
Just fire and forget. Go into cover, get out, fire everything and get back....repeat.

It makes gameplay kinda boring. I see more of a chalange in haveing a stock mech with limited ammo, bad heat management and when a target comes into view I have just a second to decide what to do. Is that target worth my ammo? Do I risk overheating or not?

Another point is that IS and Clan have quite different "philosophies" about fitting their Mechs. This is quite interesting as it creates different tactics to be used in battle. It makes Clans not IS with better weapons.

Next point that would come to my mind is balanceing. The stock Mechs are much more balanced. We woulnd't need quirks, ghostheat and other tweaks if people would run with the stockmechs. At least most of them have a nice risk/reward system in them.

Thats why I think stockmechs would be a more interesting and chalangeing option for CW then the current costum mechs. Also it might get people to use more different mechs then the two or three you currently see because of the allmighty META gameplay.

Also woulnd't it be interesting to have units that use more mechs of their faction? Seeing all of the avaible Mechs on the battlefield instead of the same mech over and over again?

[Nesutizale]

Homeskilit, on 03 October 2015 - 12:10 PM, said:

What I meant was 10v12 is not accurately balanced. Provided the sides are locked Clan vs IS then the drops should be 5v12.

Each Clan Mechwarrior is required to kill two IS Mechs and a couple of the better Mechwarriors need to kill three.

They would also be required to focus on one target at a time per the Clan rules of engagement.

Okay...mh 5 vs 12. I think that could be quite harsh if you concider the loadouts of most mech currently in use. They are far to efficent I think for that.

As for the Clan rules of engagement. Getting these into the game is quite difficulte as we haven't grown up in that culture.
Most players have a "winning at all cost" mentality...getting them to not use the advantage to concentrate fire is difficulte.
So far I could only imagne that you give minus points for not following the rules and bigger rewards for "most damage" and "solo kill"

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Nesutizale, on 03 October 2015 - 12:15 PM, said:

@Jaeger Gonzo
Now I understand. I was thinking about unite sizes in the lore and you about gameplay experiance from the TT.

No, I was about game play experience from MWO in Stock Mode pre quirks time.
In TT you would have more like 5v12.

Edited by Jaeger Gonzo, 05 October 2015 - 09:30 AM.

[grayson marik]

10v12 is not needed. a working BV is.

[Nesutizale]

While in theorie a BV system would be much more accurate, I imagne it to be practical very difficulte to do in CW. For Soloplay it should be easier.
I think waiting times would go up if you regulate this to strictly...so a margin of error has be to applied. Then its questionable if the margin of error is not about the same as if you do 10 vs 12 at the end.

But its an option....have to look up the values for the stock versions and do some calculations.

[grayson marik]

Nesutizale, on 05 October 2015 - 08:43 AM, said:

While in theorie a BV system would be much more accurate, I imagne it to be practical very difficulte to do in CW. For Soloplay it should be easier.
I think waiting times would go up if you regulate this to strictly...so a margin of error has be to applied. Then its questionable if the margin of error is not about the same as if you do 10 vs 12 at the end.

But its an option....have to look up the values for the stock versions and do some calculations.

Read my linked thread, its even more simple in CW.

[Nesutizale]

Sorry I was thinking about the values give in the manuals or drawingboard...missed the link.

As for your idea. That is an realy interesting way of doing it. Do I understand it right that you are basicly using this system with MWO? I have just quickly overflown the innerspherewars stuff.

If it realy works that well it should be used.

Edited by Nesutizale, 05 October 2015 - 11:37 AM.