35 replies to this topic

[Hagoromo Gitsune]

N0MAD, on 03 September 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

There are two types of players in MWO atm, those that know Clans are OP and those that own Clan mechs...

EXACTLY!

[Joseph Mallan]

Hagoromo Gitsune, on 03 September 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

EXACTLY!

And WRONG.
I don't have Omnis and I find them Underwhelming!

[Hagoromo Gitsune]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 September 2014 - 03:42 AM, said:

And WRONG.
I don't have Omnis and I find them Underwhelming!

U LIE!... everybody lies.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hagoromo Gitsune, on 03 September 2014 - 03:52 AM, said:

U LIE!... everybody lies.

Including you Sir!?

Everyone would include yourself you know!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 03 September 2014 - 03:55 AM.

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 September 2014 - 03:42 AM, said:

And WRONG. I don't have Omnis and I find them Underwhelming!

Even in your Clan account?

[Hagoromo Gitsune]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 September 2014 - 03:54 AM, said:

Including you Sir!?

Everyone would include yourself you know!

Did I said that I do not have clan mech? Nope. I got stormcrow and TW and they are still OP.

El Bandito, on 03 September 2014 - 03:57 AM, said:

Even in your Clan account?

Exactly!

[Joseph Mallan]

El Bandito, on 03 September 2014 - 03:57 AM, said:

Even in your Clan account?

Even there. I did not buy any Omnis... Yet. I will get the Nova and Stormcrow for my Goliath Scorpion.

[IsaAurinkoinen]

N0MAD, on 03 September 2014 - 01:32 AM, said:

My son just said this while reading the OP (yes he does play both IS and Clan)
There are two types of players in MWO atm, those that know Clans are OP and those that own Clan mechs...

How about me. I own clan mechs and still say that 3 of them (dire, storm and timber) are too good and should be fixed to make game more fun and better.

Edited by IsaAurinkoinen, 03 September 2014 - 04:34 AM.

[Marmon Rzohr]

Prosperity Park, on 02 September 2014 - 06:55 PM, said:

There is a verry simple metric that can be used to determine if Clan Mechs are balanced against their Inner Sphere counterparts.

"If a brand-new player is more successful in an Inner Sphere Mech compared to its Clan-equivalent, then the Mechs are balanced. If a New Player is more successful in a Clan Mech than its Inner Sphere equuivalent, then the Clan Mech is not balanced."

This metric is 100% derived from PGI's rule-of-thumb that a player's skill should determine how well they can perform in a Clan Mech, instead of merely riding on the Clan's technology-coattails. If a new player can thrive in Clan Mechs moreso than IS Mechs, then that means they are riding coattails, and those tails should be trimmed. Only skilled players should be able to utilie Clan Mechs to a potential that out-classes IS Mechs.

I know that there are MANY people who think that lighter and smaller equipment should be more battlefield-effective than their heavier and bulkier counterparts by default (an utter fallacy, by-the-way... complete fallacy). I feel that, on the contrary, the lighter and less bulky equipment should only be more powerful when wielded by very skilled hands, and the heavyweight, bulky weapons should be more effective than the lightweight stuff in the hands of a newbie.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I think you have a very good idea. In general this is exactly how balance should be looked at. While it's good to analyze DPS/DPG and other quantifiable things about mechs and weapons, ulitmately it comes down to in-game performance.

This is how Riot games does things for instance. They look at how champions perform in solo q and competitive matches and see if they are doing what they want them to do and is any of them too dominating.

However, there are a few things I think should be considered in addition:

1) You have to consider how mechs perform at the top of the skill ladder as well. If the Clans, for instance, would have a high skill reqirement and once that is reached, they start outclassing the IS tech, that would mean that Clans would have a great edge in CW.

2) You have to consider more than raw numbers. If one or the other tech is plainly more fun to play, then the balance is not good, even if players get equal win rates etc.


- A good example of this can be seen on the Clan vs. IS leaderboard challange. Clan mech scored higher. The Clan mechs also scored higher compared to previous leaderboards meaning they bring more power for certain. I don't know how player's win rates changed with the coming of the Clans, but even if they sayed the same or changed minimally, the leaderboad is scored based on kills, assists and damage done, the "fun parts" of the game, meaning most players will likely find Clan mechs more fun even if they don't win a lot more games.
Those are the two reasons why we can be quite certain the game needs rebalancing. Some of the Clan weapons need nerfing and the IS needs some changes to make it feel distinct and not just outdated.

I'm not saying the weapons need buffs (apart from pulse lasers), but something like "quirking" all the IS mechs significantly along with an update to hitboxes and coming Clan weapon nerfs might be all the IS needs to feel fresh.

Edited by Marmon Rzohr, 03 September 2014 - 04:41 AM.

[Gamuray]

As one who has piloted both clan mechs and inner sphere mechs recently, I can say that they have the same performance as one another, but different play styles. Clan mechs needs to be out in the open much longer to do their damage than inner sphere mechs, but have more of a reach. Inner sphere mechs have a shorter reach, but can do all of their damage in a shorter period of time. If both are used to their proper advantages and to the opponents disadvantages, they really are quite balanced.
As with IS builds, the Clan mechs have certain vulnerabilities, but they haven't been out as long, so people haven't adapted yet. (trust me, clan mechs have big strengths, but also big weaknesses.)

[Dakshinamurthy]

You're drastically over complicating this. All you have to do to determine balance is compare numbers, and they aren't big or complicated numbers, there's no fractions or multiplication to do. Somebody who never played mech warrior in their life can determine mech balance as easily they can add 1+1.

It literally just takes basic arithmetic. 6th graders get harder math questions than this.

Takes less than 2 minutes to objectively determine balance after each patch.

Edited by Dakshinamurthy, 03 September 2014 - 07:59 AM.

[Trainwreck]

These kinds of threads always drive me nuts. Clan tech is superior to IS tech its that simple. How do you think the Clans cut thier way almost to earth in the invasion? It sure as heck wasn't Zellbringen or the Batchalls that did it.

The whole idea of balance between the Clans and IS kinda ridiculous at this point in the timeline. The only comparable unit in the IS to the Clans are the Dragoons and they are clanners too. If the clan mechs were anywhere near thier canonical counterparts the inner sphere mechs would be getting wrecked, it wouldn't even be remotely fair. So I make the argument that the clan mechs have already been nerfed as it is.

[Zolaz]

Asmudius Heng, on 02 September 2014 - 09:28 PM, said:

R&R was terrible please no. It did awful things for player behaviour.

Like I am saying at every turn .... they need a system based on LOGISTICS. This should never be linked to cbills but should simulate that less effective mechs would be cheap and top end ones expensive

See Rolands post for one way to deal with this. Cant find the link but it a market based approach where lesser used mechs would be cheaper to field for a team for instance but the meta mechs would be harder to field.

R&R was not terrible. It did penalize bad pilots for being bad though.

[mongo2006]

Man are you crazy? Your way of thinking is the same as PGI, you can't regulate skill or motives. The only way to assure balance is by regulating possible damage output. Now if a pilot isn't skilled enough to stay alive or use the mech to it's full potential then it's not the mechs fault but yours.

[Asmudius Heng]

"R&R was not terrible. It did penalize bad pilots for being bad though."

It penalised new pilots trying to learn

It made people terrified to scratch their armour and cower

It made being a tank an even more thankless task because the more damage you took the more YOU had to pay

It made richer and more experienced players able to run better tech so poorer players always went in gimped

It did not encourage teamwork, it was a negative feeling in the back of everyone's mind that did not make people feel rewarded for good individual and team performance.

The IDEA behind it at a meta level of curtailing higher more expensive technology did not work in the game as it stands now and probably never will.

The march to better tech is simply a part of the F2P grind now. I can live with that, but there still needs to be a sense of logistics in CW where it is somehow easier to field less effective mechs like the locust than say a Jenner. There are many ways to do hi but it can NEVER be linked to the cbill grind .. that is the engine the F2P model works on and is a very personal thing ... CW need limitations on how often you can take mechs, or limits based on some sort of BattleValue ... something that makes the economy of the inner sphere seems like it actually exists because cBills are infinite effectively.

[Atheus]

The OP's premise is a little silly to me. The whole calculation is directed at how newbies perform in mech A vs. mech B. What the heck would the majority of the player base - experienced players - care how well newbies can pilot a certain mech? Balancing mechs around that data is beyond absurd.

I guess I'm just saying what Mystere said in different words.