112 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

Mystere, on 15 August 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

But, but, but ...

There are people who claim they are "elite" "top level" "high Elo" "competitive" players precisely because they were in the top 10 of these so-called "tournaments".

The people that get in the top 10 overally, or top five earned it. You literally have to work your backside off AND be skilled to get there (if you aren't abusing new accounts).

[El Bandito]

MischiefSC, on 15 August 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Heavies were nerfed by design. Ask the Dragon or QD about their hitboxes.Or the Phract. Or the Catapult. Or the Orion. Better hitboxes, quirks and give all Clan XLs a huge heat slap with a side torso blown off.

That's not called "nerfs". Nerf is something that happens after the release. Cataphract hitbox was actually buffed after release.

Besides, one can even argue that T-Wolf hitboxes are not that good due to protruding CT. No, the difference lies in Clan tech advantage T-Wolf enjoys.

IS Heavies can either get an XL and be squishy, or get a Std and be undergunned or slow as hell. T-Wolf is neither undergunned, nor slow, nor squishy. Another main difference is that T-Wolf can have amazing variety of loadouts due to omnipod system, while QDs are energy only for example.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 August 2014 - 06:43 PM.

[MischiefSC]

El Bandito, on 15 August 2014 - 06:36 PM, said:

That's not called "nerfs". Nerf is something that happens after the release. Cataphract hitbox was actually buffed after release.

Besides, one can even argue that T-Wolf hitboxes are not that good due to protruding CT. No, the difference lies in Clan tech advantage T-Wolf enjoys.

IS Heavies can either get an XL and be squishy, or get a Std and be undergunned or slow as hell. T-Wolf is neither undergunned, nor slow, nor squishy. Another main difference is that T-Wolf can have amazing variety of loadouts due to omnipod system, while QDs are energy only for example.

The point though is to make the IS heavies TW caliber. I absolutely agree on Clan energy weapons - lasers need dialed back in range and damage. ACs are alright, missiles are alright.

IS heavies need hitboxes reworked so they're not so fragile. They need some 'hardpoint inflation' and buffs across the board in perks to make them rock solid and fun.

That's the difference. The TW is *fun* to play. It's not about having an advantage; I love playing my TW against other TWs and Clan mechs. IS mechs, conversely, are often unfun to play - on purpose. Needlessly fragile, having limited variants of which all but 1 are nerfed to be less enjoyable to grind *on purpose*. Most of the IS mechs are all around garbage - *on purpose*.

That's the issue. Balance weapons, balance Clan XL, but make the TW the new benchmark. Everything should be that FUN to play. It's a game. All the balance decisions that have treated FUN like it's some reward for having suffered enough or that not everything should be FUN, like it's some OP perk like ECM that only certain mechs get....

That's a fundamental design flaw of the game. That needs fixed.

[Asmudius Heng]

Why is the Madcat 'fun' ?

[Roland]

Asmudius Heng, on 15 August 2014 - 06:56 PM, said:

Why is the Madcat 'fun' ?

Cause it beats everything's asses and you can get 6 kills in it?

[Joseph Mallan]

MischiefSC, on 15 August 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

The point though is to make the IS heavies TW caliber.

Nooooooooo. I will hate this game if that happens. I truly will. Very few IS Heavies were a match for the Timber Wolf. It took sneaky with a dash of Luck to beat a Timber Heavy v Heavy.

[Roland]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 06:57 PM, said:

Nooooooooo. I will hate this game if that happens. I truly will. Very few IS Heavies were a match for the Timber Wolf. It took sneaky with a dash of Luck to beat a Timber Heavy v Heavy.

To be clear, you actually want an imbalanced game.

[Asmudius Heng]

Roland, on 15 August 2014 - 06:56 PM, said:

Cause it beats everything's asses and you can get 6 kills in it?

I just wanted to see what justification apart from pure power people could possibly give

[MischiefSC]

Roland, on 15 August 2014 - 06:56 PM, said:

Cause it beats everything's asses and you can get 6 kills in it?

I enjoy the Timber Wolf against other Timber Wolves. It's just flat out fun to play.

Why?

In short, it does what I want it to do. It doesn't have any glaring, intentionally pointless weaknesses - like all low slung weapons, huge hitboxes. I take missiles off my TW and the pods go away. I take missiles off my Orion and I have.... good signage space.

The missile boxes on the Catapult. TW doesn't have that. Ever.

Why is it fun? Because nobody went out of their way to paint some BAD on it because otherwise it.... wouldn't be bad?

That's what makes the TW so imbalanced. You can put an XL375 in an Orion and super-survivability aside, the Orion is still worse. Worse hitboxes, worse weapon placement. TWs arms are still higher even though its shorter overall. I can put ACs, lasers and missiles o my Orion, but the TW is 10x better. Why?

All those reasons.

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 06:57 PM, said:

Nooooooooo. I will hate this game if that happens. I truly will. Very few IS Heavies were a match for the Timber Wolf. It took sneaky with a dash of Luck to beat a Timber Heavy v Heavy.

You couldn't fill 5 matches with the game you want it Joe. Cold hard truth man. you'd have 98% of the players as Clans. You, the two other people who like getting ROFLSTOMPED match after match and 9 newbies in trial IS mechs would be the only IS team against which Clanners would wait hours to take turns destroying you.

Your game would never have any sort of CW. Would never happen.

For your game to work you need Co-op vs AI. Then you can have your uberAI Clanners. You can even have them act like Clanners.

That's never gonna be MW:O though.

[Joseph Mallan]

Roland, on 15 August 2014 - 07:09 PM, said:

To be clear, you actually want an imbalanced game.

Yes.

I came here to play the Clan Invasion once again. I want to have that up hill ass beating with the occasional By the short hairs victory, till better Mechs come out, then I upgrade, and begin kicking it back into the Clan's teeth.

Why, You came here for fair and balanced?

[VanillaG]

MischiefSC, on 15 August 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Heavies were nerfed by design. Ask the Dragon or QD about their hitboxes.Or the Phract. Or the Catapult. Or the Orion.

Better hitboxes, quirks and give all Clan XLs a huge heat slap with a side torso blown off.

Great, the heavies are even better using the complaints that mediums mechs try to use. When will medium mechs catch a break?

[Joseph Mallan]

MischiefSC, on 15 August 2014 - 07:17 PM, said:

You couldn't fill 5 matches with the game you want it Joe. Cold hard truth man. you'd have 98% of the players as Clans. You, the two other people who like getting ROFLSTOMPED match after match and 9 newbies in trial IS mechs would be the only IS team against which Clanners would wait hours to take turns destroying you.

Your game would never have any sort of CW. Would never happen.

For your game to work you need Co-op vs AI. Then you can have your uberAI Clanners. You can even have them act like Clanners.

That's never gonna be MW:O though.

Then you switch gears and make it a Clan Only game in light of those assumed facts. I have no problem being a Star Adder!

[Roland]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 07:17 PM, said:

Yes.

I came here to play the Clan Invasion once again. I want to have that up hill ass beating with the occasional By the short hairs victory, till better Mechs come out, then I upgrade, and begin kicking it back into the Clan's teeth.

Why, You came here for fair and balanced?

Uh, yeah, I came for a fair and balanced game.

I don't really feel like playing garbage mechs for years until the IS develops better technology.

[Monkey Lover]

Asmudius Heng, on 15 August 2014 - 06:56 PM, said:

Why is the Madcat 'fun' ?

Other than running at 150 like a IS light it can do anything. Sniper, brawler, lrm boat, support mech and a very good mixed weapons mech. It almost never gets legged like the summoner. It can used Jj in any amount wanted. It can run any heavy weapon. It has a fast twist and good hitboxes. Damage spreads very even. Its the best mech in the game until they nerf it in 5 months when it hits cbills.

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 07:17 PM, said:

Yes. I came here to play the Clan Invasion once again. I want to have that up hill ass beating with the occasional By the short hairs victory, till better Mechs come out, then I upgrade, and begin kicking it back into the Clan's teeth. Why, You came here for fair and balanced?

Yes, cause it is an MP only arena game. If we had missions, or tanks, or single player aspects, then I can accept deliberate imbalance.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 August 2014 - 07:23 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 15 August 2014 - 07:22 PM, said:

Yes, cause it is an MP only arena game.

Yes but this isn't the game. Not till CW arrives, that will determine if it is a game I want to play or not. I've done this Demo to death already, I want the game!

Roland, on 15 August 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

Uh, yeah, I came for a fair and balanced game.

I don't really feel like playing garbage mechs for years until the IS develops better technology.

Then we are here for different reasons.

[Roland]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

Then we are here for different reasons.

Obviously.
I came to play a good game, you came to play a terrible one.

[MischiefSC]

Asmudius Heng, on 15 August 2014 - 07:12 PM, said:

I just wanted to see what justification apart from pure power people could possibly give

Let me repeat this here -

Clan CERLL needs beam duration back to 1.5, damage down to 10, range down to 800, heat change stays.

CERML needs damage to 9, range back to 400, heat the same.

Pulse lasers need to work like... pulse lasers. Damage same, heat raises, range same, beam duration reduced to 0.8. Possible reduction in cycle time.

Everything else mostly the same, save UAC rounds need to be faster.

IS weapons -

MLs need 1 less heat.

ACs need to be DoT bursts but burst lenght 75% of Clan counterparts. They get even more speed boost. For example IS AC20 needs to be 4 shots of 5 instead of 5 shots of 4 and in a tighter group.

All IS weapon cycle times need reduced to match Clan weapons for DPS, with a few tradeoffs. i.e. IS LL is a bit better DPS than CERLL but ISERLL is the same, etc.

IS missiles all do slightly more damage per missile than Clan missiles.

All PPCs as DoT - 1 second beam, does 5 pts over the 1second and 5pts pinpoint at end of beam. Like lasers heat functions the same way. Heat gains by 1 tic for the second with 5pts of heat at last tic.

IS pulse lasers get their beam duration cut in 1/2 and cycle time reduced even more. Almost to laser MG status - if you don't mind frying in the heat. Balanced for DPS of course but shorter range/higher total DPS than Clan counterparts.

Clan side torso destruction needs to add 10 heat and 15% speed reduction. It would also be good to give it the flickering HUD that ECM normally gives.

All IS mechs need Awesome style quirks and gimped variants need additional cool ones. This idea that IS variants need to be crap except 1 is bad, terribad.

My TW has my lowest W/L of every heavy I currently play. I have more drops in it however at this point than even my Banshee - in fact I just finished my 475th drop in a Timber Wolf. yet my W/L is exactly 1.0, which is the lowest I have in any mech with over 10 drops.

I don't play the TW because it wins. I play it because it's fun. It's maneuverable, flexible and most of all - not inherently gimped. My hardpoints can load almost anything. There is not some intentional arbitrary limitation on most of them to keep me from having access to a specific weapon, like how my BM can't load an AC20. Nobody would say it has great hitboxes but they're not terrible.

That's the point. We're so used to things being intentionally BAD that we get something that's just AVERAGE but access to superior weapons (which Clan weapons are) and suddenly it's way OP.

That sucks. That needs fixed.


Addendum -

In tabletop I loved IS mechs. Hated the Clans. I don't want to play a TW. I want to shoot them. I want to play a Centurion and have solid odds of winning or at least doing well. Or any medium for that matter. I don't want to have to go all Bishop Steiner and struggle to get good enough with Mediums to be able to force a few of them to hold their weight.

I'm tempted to say this but....

maybe a solution is to make IS XLs work similar to Clan XLs, but you lose a torso and take a heat penalty and speed penalty. XLs were never made with pinpoint shots in mind. In the same way that cockpits are almost impossible to hit (as opposed to them getting stuck about 1 in 45 in tabletop or 1 in 6 with a called 'high' shot or punch/melee attack) the same should probably happen with XLs. Something needs to balance them.

BT, at its best, involves lots of weapons, explosions and blowing **** up and off of mechs. That's the best part, it's why it's not CoD. You blow their freaking arm OFF. I get the attraction to PPFLD and one-shot kills and the like but in the end.... well, it pushes the game in a less enjoyable place.

High end competitive play should be the *most* fun. Not the least. PPFLD marginalizes everything else by its nature. Fragile 'make this mistake and you die' mechanics do the same thing. With Clans now you just can't go with an XL in an IS mech, so you're slower. All these sorts of mechanics are bad.

I get that it's not the game Joseph Mallan wants but for the rest of us....

In the end, either that or convergence needs to happen.

Edited by MischiefSC, 15 August 2014 - 07:38 PM.

[FDJustin]

Bishop Steiner, on 15 August 2014 - 04:07 PM, said:

worthy adversaries, and worthless teammates.

All it is really doing, is drawing a crapton of friendly fire into my back for the second weekend in a row.

Clan's wear blue right? BLUE MECH SHOOT IT!

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 August 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

Yes but this isn't the game. Not till CW arrives, that will determine if it is a game I want to play or not.

But that's like telling me to buzz off for months until we make a game that may or may not be to your liking. I already accepted the fact that CW is not coming anytime soon--even after 2 full years. If the current imbalance stays then there is no reason to play even this pre-CW BS. Why login at all?

Edited by El Bandito, 15 August 2014 - 07:35 PM.