Hoax415, on 18 September 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:
That said I'd like to see you explain how giving the SMN endo and then nerfing all clan mechs is a better plan then going after the remaining 2-3 major problem clan chassis directly, leaving SMN without endo and fixing 35/55/75/100 so that there is more reason to consider using all tonnage value mechs.
I already told you.
Going after the problem chassis won't help the chassis that are bad. At all. Even if the TW is nerfed, the Summoner will still be useless, unless they nerf it so much, that the mechs are about equal strength per ton. This will require more drastic measures than I personally, or the community would be happy with. Taking drastic measures is not a good option, when any future properly-built omnimechs will also be forced to be nerfed heavily, until they are as bad as the worst omnimechs.
Nerfing everything is not a good solution. It will just leave everyone sour and unhappy. People want to drive good mechs, not bad ones. It is an infinitely better solution, that there is a large amount of good mechs, from which players can choose.
Then there are the Clan second line non-omnimechs. These would obviously follow IS mechbuilding rules, as they do not have the omni system, and would be able to fit all of the technology. If any of them get introduced, they will be forced to be nerfed with quirks extremely heavily to match omnimechs, which you can customize less.
In short, relaxing building rules and nerfing elsewhere is an infinitely better solution and MUCH MORE FUTURE-PROOF than just nerfing every good chassis as they get introduced.
Moreover, I also said that I do not really care about IS<->Clan balance. That is true, and there are several points to this.
Firstly, in a competitive enviroment and pre-arranged drops, the rules are already decided and for example the european league is restricted to IS mechs. The IS-Clan balance does not matter in this situation, as it is controlled for where it is most needed.
Secondly, clans being better is a large part of what makes them cool. I own mostly IS mechs, and regularly play against clans, and one of the cool things about the game is, that I realize the clan mechs are more dangerous. Thus, I have no problem with them having a higher powerlevel than my mechs. The solo and group drop queues are in no way balanced and the highest random element is contained within who spawns in your team, so the Clan-IS balance is not important FOR ME.
Thirdly, I understand that the Clan-IS balance is very important for some, because it feels like P2W. I can accept that. If that is the case, a better option is to make the queue 10vs12 clanvsIS or allow 1 IS heavy in the other side for each clan medium or something of the order. This would preserve the cool element of technological superiority, but would still allow non-clan players to win regularly. If 10vs12 is not enough, have 9vs12 and so on. The balance is found at some point.
Fourthly, if balance cannot be found that way, the remaining option is to bring the clan tech very close in powerlevel to IS tech. The best clan mechs will always exist, and thus, if the fact that they are more powerful than the IS is unacceptable, the only way to truly achieve balance is to balance the technologies in a way, where a properly built clan mech is equal in powerlevel to a properly built IS mech. In short, the clan mechs and clan tech does not need to be better than the IS. I would personally like them to be, but if the majority of players does not want that, then that's how it has to be.
Fifthly, balancing the technologies themselves is much better than balancing a couple of single outliers and leaving everything else lackluster.
I could also say, that nerfing the TW will rip the people who bought the TW from the value of their purchase, which will make them very angry, but I do not really think that way. Cost (either c-bills or dollars) is no way to balance a game and that is what I was arguing against when we still had R&R.
Hoax415, on 18 September 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:
1. Every nerf to clan weapons hurts mechs that don't need to be hurt (Clan lights for instance).
2. Another nerf to clan weapons interacts with a ton of interlocking systems. While hurting the TBR specifically with negative tweaks like was done to the Highlander or Victor does not. That makes weapon changes across the board more work and more likely to screw up unintended things.
3. Nerfing weapons again is much more damaging to player enjoyment than making the TBR a slightly less no brainer best mech in the game. We shouldn't even be aiming to make it NOT the best mech in the game. Hear me out. Some mech has to be the best. Its a 75 ton, very well designed clan mech that has crazy hardpoints and a crazy jump step animation for dodging. Its fine if that is the best mech for its tonnage. But it can be toned down and still be the best, which means its probably still too good.
I will now answer to your specific points, even if I believe I already did.
1. You are right in the sense, that clan lights move slower than IS lights, and for that, suffer heavily. However, even with nerfed weapons, the Kit Fox, for example, would still have a role. It would be optimally built within its weight envelope and speed. If you ever actually wanted a Clan light with a lot of weapon space and moderate speed, you could take it. It is questionable that this would ever be the case, but it is certainly different from the situation we have now, where several mechs have no role at all.
Secondly, looking at the state of the game, the clan weapons will get nerfed further in the future. That is a given. They will be nerfed until the TW and SC are fair and that is that. That is where we are going at the moment. At that point, the Kit Fox will be ****, Adder will be ****, Nova will be **** and so on ad nauseam. The situation will be as we have now, but even more exaggerated, with even less reasons to have a Clan mech other than SC and TW.
An infinitely better option would be just to unlock the engine size for lights, but even if we can't have that, I'll take a slow light with a lot of weapons over a mech which I never want to pilot.
2. I've answered this above. Nerfing a single chassis won't work, as the game will have many others in the future. You need to nerf them so hard, that it's not funny, and to do it each time. The difference between a Summoner and a TW at the moment is so large, that this won't do as an option. When Cauldron Born comes out, its free space difference against a Hellbringer will be in the order of 6 tons or more, which is absolutely huge. The difference between a heavy and an assault.
The same can be said about the Gargoyle. It will be extremely undergunned compared to everything and won't have any role in the game when it will get released. It has less pod space and is slower than mechs that are barely more than half its weight. This just makes absolutely no sense and I doubt that you can buff the Gargoyle enough for it to become a sensible option. Even if you can, it will feel very strange and the build will be extremely dependent on stacking ERML or some other weapon, which is way above the balance curve at that given moment.
3. This argument is just blatantly wrong. No mech has to be the best mech in the game, and the IS lineup proves it. None of those mechs is even close to being above their competition and many can be used and selected for a variety of roles. The name for this is GOOD GAME DESIGN. I simply don't get why Clans cannot partake in it?
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