Kiiyor, on 08 September 2014 - 02:29 PM, said:
It's hard to make a completely concise assessment, as there are a lot of variables, and the data is probably too broad. If I had access to PGI's data coffers, there would probably be time related data in there - who dies when, who dies first etc, and we could definitely use this. Even that 30% general 'betterness' figure I arrived at is subject to nitpicking - there are three clan chassis in particular that are above that 30%, and a few below.
This is actually one of the main reasons I was interested. When you go into the numbers labyrinth if you don't have any idea of where you're going, you won't know if you've gotten to the exit!
It's sort of like saying you have a burning desire to catch the snark... but you don't know what the snark is, what it looks like, how it behaves, or where it lives... but you HAVE to catch that snark! So we go running off into the bush, but because the snark is an unknown to us, we don't find it - instead, we find our preconceptions.
The math will always head where you want it to go, eventually. AKA, with a big enough data-set everything starts to even out, and when we add enough variables, things tend to wind up looking like we want them to, because the variables we choose will be chosen according to our preconceptions. Than we base further math on those maths which we tweaked based on our ideas we brought to them. (witness virtually all political polls, even the "best")
It's best to know what the snark is and where it lives first before we try and make a roadmap to it.
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I guess that's part of the point i'm trying to make with the data - that while having these figures is well and good, there are a lot of factors involved in balance, and that we can at best use these numbers to get an indication, not a conclusion. I think there are just too many mechs for the IS with broad ranges of performance to allow them to close the gap with the Clans and their Svelte and almost uniformly well designed war machines.
Agreed. That's why I only asked three questions when there could have been many more... the more variables you think of and attempt to account for, the more variables crop up that you hadn't thought of before.
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I think part of the issue is also that the IS doesn't have a MadCat, since the nerfs to the DS.
B-B-B-BUT an equal TTK for the IS and Clans sounds like a noble goal, even if the devs themselves seem to think it's unachievable. The unique flavour for each faction is the damage meted out to achieve this - the Clans do it with more damage, the IS with less. I think that should be preserved.
IMO, the devs are correct about the impossibility of = TTK numbers between the clans and the IS. Wholly ignoring the player element (which I agree, is insane) just the tech numbers, even brutally curb-stomped, make it all but impossible.
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Let me toss you a curve ball.
Good "balance" doesn't mean performance and technical equality when all the math numbers are accounted for. Good balance doesn't mean "equal" TTK.
Good "balance" is what allows true tech/weapons advancement (some things can genuinely be better or worse in a = given role) and truely variable battlefield roles to coexist. Scouting; hit and run, totally defensive units, short-ranged flash-bulb builds, titanic damage shotguns, and yes, even the "jack of all trades, weak in none, but master of none" builds.
To make that less vague, A clan ER medium laser and an IS medium laser don't have to be equal in their "overall math" to be balanced. Rather, an IS medium laser should work well everywhere it was intended to; and an CERml should work well everywhere it was intended to.
A great scout should always work as a great scout everywhere it was intended to. An intact first star-league ostscout should scout the bejezus out of any other 'mech in existance. A timberwolf should be just terrifying. An awesome should still be able, if it has a good day and good pilot, to face-roll that timberwolf at the ISPPC's optimal range. A grashopper should die like a joke in most roles, until it's in it's role, where it's a terrifying freak of nature. At six hex (180 meters) an succuession wars tech level atlas should even cause a daishi pilot to break out in hives - if that daishi pilot was dumb enough to LET that atlas get there, whcih geeze, that daishi pilot would have to be a mental MIDGET to do. Etc, Etc, Etc.
Give people a climbable hill, a pot of gold if they get to the top, and a moderate thumping with the stick if they do things that are truly dumb (like trying to use something in a role it's horrible in).
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So you have to determine what roles the tech and weapons were intended for.
This is where people fall flat on their faces. They think that "medium range" means (or should mean) the same thing for clans AND the IS.
It doesn't. The "ranges" are determined by the roles they were built for.
Clan medium range is equivalent to IS long range - and most likely the lower end of IS long range.
This immediately brings up the fact that clan medium range weapons that cover the bottom end of the IS long range brackets will generally out-DPT (damage per turn, I am speaking of the TTop math baseline) their IS long range equivalents.
But nobody stops and asks the question, is this a good or a bad thing? Look to their roles -
they're filling them. Pre-clan tech
was never built to fight the clans. Thus the initial massive advantage the clans in the fiction had over the less-creative IS units. The hidebound traditionalistic thinking here is that this is a bad thing...
it isn't a bad thing.
So, what to do about the clan tech as it relates to the IS tech? Simply - take the blinders off and realize that tech advancement is a GOOD thing. No sane person would say that a tank from churchill's time should in any performance way be equal to a MIA2, for example - but we routinely do exactly that in video game.
What does this mean for the player? Is all super-ceded tech just to be left in the trashbin, never to generate money for the developer? NO. It means you have to add in the NON-tech and performance variables that allow the older tech to "change role" and keep working.
An IS medium range 'mech built with pre-clan invasion tech is ... duh ... a mech that's more than the equal of a clan short range 'mech - and it is because that IS 'mech, even though it likely has to be heavier (maybe even by a whole weight class) is CHEAPER - for whatever reason; either it's more common, or it's easier to maintain, etc. IS forces can beat clan forces because the IS forces, quite frankly, have enough Grist to stop the clan mill. That clan mill is scary-efficient, but it can only handle so much.
But why can the clans only handle so much? Well, first - there are less of them. Second, clan ROE's and clan society at large is FAR less flexible. This is no small thing... and guess what; this can be enforced in an MW game, even in ways that don't inspire rage-quit... and with the full clan weapons and tech advantage, players will be willing to accept that there is an actual numerical limit on the numbers of clan mechs and tec either released, or allowed on a per-game basis. Something about being in a 50-55 ton mech and blasting the stuffing out of an IS heavy that's not built for the same role you are is just SOOOO graatifying, even if you had to work harder to get there and being a clanner forced you to stuff way more eggs into one basket.
On the flip side, as an IS player, figuring out a battlefield role that will let you beat clanners makes up for the fact that clans can otherwise technologically curb-stomp you when you are forced to play their "role game" ... or when you are are dumb enough to play their game on purpose.
Edited by Pht, 09 September 2014 - 08:23 AM.
17
Don't think I'll ever quite hit that limit, but that's handy information.
