136 replies to this topic

[Ghogiel]

Lily from animove, on 19 September 2014 - 12:03 AM, said:

Lol, totally not. I can run my XL phract very well, and I can decide what section my opponent hits, becasue it has way better hitboxes and I can efficiently hide specific sections from the line of fire. Furthermore most people do not put a XL into a phract and so most opponents don't specifically aim at your Sidetorsi.
I can phract at zombie mod having 1laser and 1 missile pod left, or 2 missile pods.

Its not poop or inferior, its the way you play them. But when you deisgn a mech and stick with the wrong playstyle it will of course fail. Poeple say lrms in atlas or catapharacts are bad, And I palye dnoth and it works well too. It is just something you need to adapt and take into account with your placement. And when 2 King crab arrives with DDC spammign AC 20's to the clanners because those pilots know how to use their mechs, then those Clanners are torn apart in no time.

The biggets issue of IS pilots who are freebies is that they never played clanners. When you paly clanmechs, you experience whats troubling you and what things do not work. And whne you go back to your IS chassis you know what tricks youc an use to give the clanners a hard time. Therra therma and caustic are absolutely in favor for the IS, low slung arms and DW Sidetorsi mounted AC's are a big disavantage in this terrain. If you position you downhill vs a DW his superlow pitch angle makes all of his Sidetorsi weapons useless.

Actually, PGI should be clever and add trials for all clan chassis now. because then IS pilots can experience these clanners. AND it would also possibly increase a la carte sales for their wave 1 package.

I am pretty sure I would own you every single time 1v1 if you took IS and I took clan.

[L A V A]

I think if you take a snapshot, then the Clans clearly come out on top.

However, the vast majority of IS mechs are built to fight against IS mechs. It is only recently that the Clan mechs have been injected into the game, and it will take some time before IS pilots adapt their builds. Until the general community begins adapting IS mechs configured to fight against Clan mechs, we shall not know the exact extent of the disparity between the two.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

You will never be able to balance weapons for the lack of player skill. So if we try to balance mechs and their loadout properly, we should assumje, we have a pilot that is capable of using his/her mech. If someone fires LRMs without a lock-on, then you can buff LRMs all the way you want, that pilot would still not hit with a single missile. This also counts for every other aspect of the game.

So assuming, we have an acceptable pilot and completely disregarding all the "bad" pilots (including the ones rushing alone into an enemy lance, pilots not being able to lock on a target or those with terribad setups... you all know the drill), we can now start to talk about weapon balance.

First:
Clan weapons are supposed to be stronger, as well as their mechs. As you can fit more DHS into a Clan mech, you would have to nerf Clan weapons *BELOW* IS-Weapon to get parity in sustained DPS. As you can also fit in *MORE* weapons intoi a Clan mech, as their weapons weight less, you also gain a higher alpha AND you are faster, beginning at the medium battlemechs.

This means: You cannot balance both in a 1:1 manner. So how do we fix it?
1. We could fix it via a hidden Battle-Value
We take some sort of average battle-value for every mech base-chassis and add the equipment on top of it. The result is modified with values for heat efficiency, alpha, sustained dps and speed. Now, we take the pilots Elo as the final modifier, ranging from a value of 0.5 (bloody beginner) to 1.5 (AAA-pilot) and are done with it.
2. We balance the mechs via tonnage. Evfery base chassis will get a base-Battlevalue depending on the average outcome of that chassis from all matches played. This would mean, that a Dragon would have a less BV/ton than a Quickdraw, while still having the same tonnage. The same goes for the Clans. Primary indicator is the match-score (which may have to be modified also regarding ECM-abilities, TAG/NARC, spotting etc)
3. We take the system from above, but instead of just trying to get a matchmaker-balance, we also give the player a C-Bill bonus if they take an inferior mech. This is only based on the base-BV for the chassis, not depending on the loadout. So driving a Dragon would give me for example 10% C-Bill bonus - in the end, you should get the same amount of C-Bills as you could have done with a Quickdraw, depending on the total average of the community.
It also means, that taking a light-mech should give you a larger bonus that driving an assault mech
4. We need to fix all the broken mechanics, as you cannot balanjce a system on a broken foundation. This includes hitboxes, hit-registreation (spiders, Clan-Laser, inv. walls), a working alternative for Ghost Heat etc. pp.
After that, we could talk about balancing Light vs. Assaults in some sort of role warfare. But having a spider charging into 4 Assault mechs and surviving it, while a Centurion gets one-shotted in the same situation is somewhat... bad - you know?

The points above are just suggestions/brainstorming stuff - take them witrh a grain of salt.
If everything fails, we could still go the long way of implementing 10. vs. 12, which PGI hates to do as it invokes a lot of workload - but in all honesty, would be the best solution.

[Joseph Mallan]

Ghogiel, on 19 September 2014 - 03:09 AM, said:

I am pretty sure I would own you every single time 1v1 if you took IS and I took clan.

I'd take that bet. How many total Matches? Statistical perfection like you just claimed is impossible. Given enough matches you will lose some.

[Ghogiel]

Joseph Mallan, on 22 September 2014 - 04:05 AM, said:

I'd take that bet. How many total Matches? Statistical perfection like you just claimed is impossible. Given enough matches you will lose some.

Autism?

If you took that lurm atlas It's not impossible either XD.

[Richard Warts]

Perhaps before nerfing Clan tech any further the devs could try buffing the IS heat sink efficiency. This would allow for us to sustain our fire longer before overheating. Clans would still have the advantage when it comes to range, higher damage output per alpha and being more survivable. I'm not saying this would fix everything but it would be interesting to see how this balances the win/loss ratio between IS and Clan teams.

[mongo2006]

Tabu 73, on 22 September 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

Perhaps before nerfing Clan tech any further the devs could try buffing the IS heat sink efficiency. This would allow for us to sustain our fire longer before overheating. Clans would still have the advantage when it comes to range, higher damage output per alpha and being more survivable. I'm not saying this would fix everything but it would be interesting to see how this balances the win/loss ratio between IS and Clan teams.

The damage is done bro, clan mechs can't take any more heat nerfs, you can see that with the demise of the Nova. Torso damage is pretty much the only option they have left to destructively balance Clan mechs. But when they find out that not even that will produce the results the NERF IT's desire.. they will have to buff (IS) with quirks as you can see is on the table. But what they will find out is those won't work either if the (IS) stay at range...lol

[Brody319]

Before we can have any real conclusive data on the viability of ISIS mechs. I think we need to change the trials. 1 mech in each weight class, 1 ISIS and 1 Clan mech. This will allow people to factor in skill because both are avalible to everyone.

If a dev reads this, when the DWolf is released for Cbills. I suggest you guys change the trials to 1 Clan and ISIS mech in each weight class. This will allow the removal of skill because anyone, new or old to use the same mechs. I also suggest switching the Nova out. after the nerf, alphas can pop your engine on a cold map.

[Richard Warts]

Well, perhaps they could try scaling back on some of the heat penalties for the Clans but still give the IS the heat efficiency buff and see how that works.

also,

Having both IS and Clan trial mechs would be very helpful for new players.

Edited by Tabu 73, 22 September 2014 - 05:13 PM.

[Mawai]

Snowseth, on 17 September 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

There must be some nerfs! Specifically, the ST-loss 'nerf' for C-XL engines.
I think that 'nerf' alone would be exactly what is needed.
Hell, there may need to be a round of Clan un-nerfs following it, depending on how devastating it that ST-loss is (loss of speed, extra heat, loss of engine heat sinks [remember engine DHS are 2.0 not 1.4], etc).

Clan double heat sinks aren't 1.4 anyway. I did some testing a while back using C-ERPPCs on a kitfox and clans seem to have a lower overall heat cap and higher heat dissipation rate.

[mongo2006]

Tabu 73, on 22 September 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

Perhaps before nerfing Clan tech any further the devs could try buffing the IS heat sink efficiency. This would allow for us to sustain our fire longer before overheating. Clans would still have the advantage when it comes to range, higher damage output per alpha and being more survivable. I'm not saying this would fix everything but it would be interesting to see how this balances the win/loss ratio between IS and Clan teams.

Bro none of this nerf crap will work becuase of the first hit mechanics (I coined that) This is how it works, clan mechs have longer range, as soon the (IS) pilots start getting hit they run for cover.. at or about clan max damage ranges 300-600m while the (IS) is at it's minimum damage range. Most (IS) pilots never get close enough to do the max damage of their weapons. They get sniped, Alpha'd at long range, missiled and die.. then comes the snot and tears, clan mechs are OP!!!

The fact is they play outside their element and now clan pilots are being forced to deal with unreasonable mechanics to compensate for the (IS) pilots lack of skill with the use of their mechs.

Edited by mongo2006, 22 September 2014 - 08:14 PM.

[Murphy7]

mongo2006, on 22 September 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

Bro none of this nerf crap will work becuase of the first hit mechanics (I coined that) This is how it works, clan mechs have longer range, as soon the (IS) pilots start getting hit they run for cover.. at or about clan max damage ranges 300-600m while the (IS) is at it's minimum damage range. Most (IS) pilots never get close enough to do the max damage of their weapons. They get sniped, Alpha'd at long range, missiled and die.. then comes the snot and tears, clan mechs are OP!!!

The fact is they play outside their element and now clan pilots are being forced to deal with unreasonable mechanics to compensate for the (IS) pilots lack of skill with the use of their mechs.

Not at all to be confused with the simpering and whining about an eroded tech advantage also chipping away at your elite piloting self-image.

[Richard Warts]

mongo2006, on 22 September 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

Bro none of this nerf crap will work becuase of the first hit mechanics (I coined that) This is how it works, clan mechs have longer range, as soon the (IS) pilots start getting hit they run for cover.. at or about clan max damage ranges 300-600m while the (IS) is at it's minimum damage range. Most (IS) pilots never get close enough to do the max damage of their weapons. They get sniped, Alpha'd at long range, missiled and die.. then comes the snot and tears, clan mechs are OP!!!

The fact is they play outside their element and now clan pilots are being forced to deal with unreasonable mechanics to compensate for the (IS) pilots lack of skill with the use of their mechs.

Except what I was proposing wasn't a nerf.

[Hoax415]

Responding to Mongo as if he gives a damn about facts logic or reality...

please stop guys

[oldradagast]

While I'm not a fan of heavy-handed nerfs, or nerfing entire weapon systems to somehow "compensate" for certain chassis being too good (while others are terrible), I find the concept absurd that IS pilots alone somehow "suck." So... paying real world money for Clan mechs makes you a better pilots? Right...

Typical nonsense - look for every excuse to defend one's own edge...

Edited by oldradagast, 26 September 2014 - 12:20 PM.

[Archon]

Can we please just wait for the IS mech review and subsequent buffs before everyone continues to scream "ERMAGERSHH! NERF TEH CLERRNZ!"?

I think we'll will like what we see. Buffs are so much better than nerfs anyways. Nerfing has been the "go-to" in MWO for far too long and it just robs the game of its fun.

[Brody319]

Archon, on 26 September 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

Can we please just wait for the IS mech review and subsequent buffs before everyone continues to scream "ERMAGERSHH! NERF TEH CLERRNZ!"?

I think we'll will like what we see. Buffs are so much better than nerfs anyways. Nerfing has been the "go-to" in MWO for far too long and it just robs the game of its fun.

We already got a nerf to the engines coming. Lose a side torso, lose some heat sinks in your engine.
They've also said they are waiting till after the buffs to decide how to nerf the clans. Though I doubt they will need to nerf them very much after they buff the IS mechs.