279 replies to this topic

[AssaultPig]

also, can we also expect clan players to stick to their highest-performing mechs? I expect teams composed entirely of dire wolves, timber wolves, storm crows and ECM foxes (or ferrets and lynxes, in the future) would perform better than teams that included adders/novas/summoners.

[Zoid]

Your data shows well what I (and others) have been saying for a while: It's not the clans, it's the Timberwolf and sometimes the Dire Wolf and Stormcrow. They're just too good without any drawbacks to match. The Timberwolf packs as much weaponry as a CTF with an XL engine AND it moves faster (and of course doesn't die when a torso goes).

Another thing that's often overlooked is that these 'mechs are really hard to cripple. Since their weapons are so light they tend to take a lot of them and run hot, so taking out an arm or a torso section just makes them unable to alpha for so much, but their DPS stays the same.

[LordKnightFandragon]

I ha

mongo2006, on 20 September 2014 - 12:11 PM, said:

The OP is right, the clans where over-nerfed for two reason. The basic design of the Timber Wolf, speed, armor, jump jets, and the ability to change the mechs loadouts made it almost impossible to nerf reliably so they had to use a broad stroke across all lasers to try to destroy it's capability along with the Dire Wolf, needless to say that didn't work because that wasn't the problem to begin with.

Now we talking about Quirks, engine heat, slowing down, this will work less than any pilot using a XL engine in a (IS) mech because we will still be able to shoot, so this won't satisfy the unskilled and tactically blind no more than the previous nerfs.

All the mistakes will come to light after CW starts. (IS) pilots will close the gaps, attack as they should (not face clan mechs in firing lines) and we will shut down and die because of heat. We will lose every planet we are tasked to defend, and fail to take enough planets to keep CW going.

True clanners will see this as a challenge for a while then give up and move on to another game, fake clanners will break out their (IS) mechs and leave the clans to join the (IS) ranks. everyone wants to be a winner right..

Clanners and PGI are stuck in this nerf circle because of the power of tears and snot the (IS) pilots have employed on PGI.. I see no end to it.

Maybe why the Timber S never should have been lol. Let the Summoner be the Poptart lol. It is severely limited in pod space and stuff. its fast and agile like a Timby but doesnt pack enough fire power to really make it scary. Balanced.

Direwhale, its a tub of a mech that is a one trick pony. get in it's firing line, you die...dont, you live and can probably circle jerk it to death. ive seen many direwolves get focus fired and are like 1st and primary targets. Not that bad really...

Clan nerfs are the same reason anything else gets nerfed in a game....someone died to it and declared it OP, other like minded players supported it and therefore, the nerf bat gets to swinging. Then, even after the nerfs, the players, commonly terrabads, will keep dying to said weapon and therfore keep QQ, therefore the nerfing continues.

Clans could use more quirks no doubt. seems like PGI didnt really utilize the quirk thing as much as they could have.

[valrond]

AssaultPig, on 20 September 2014 - 02:58 PM, said:

clan energy weapons are still broadly superior to IS equivalents; better range, better DPS, more heat efficient at long range.

You also can't really compare the clan and IS engines straight across as you've done in your table; clan XLs are obviously much better than IS XLs. Clan ballistics are also lighter than their IS counterparts across the board; they have less tonnage for weapons, but they also need less.

Clan energy weapons have range on their side. But they are not more heat efficient. IS ML is 5dmg/4heat. C-ERML is 7dmg/6 heat. Yes, it weights the same and does more damage, but you need extra heatsinks for the extra heat, that, surprise! requires weight and room. Same with the small lasers IS is 3/2 and Clan is 4/3.

Only the bigger weapons weight a BIT less. Clan AC are inferior already because of the stream of bullets, that it's a lot worse than IS ACs. Only one that is better is the gauss, same effect, 3 less tons. But even with that. What Clan mechs can mount a dual gauss/dual uac20/dual lbx20 and enough ammo for a match?. Only the two heaviest ones, at 85 and 100 tons. A simple 65 ton Jaggermech can mount dual gauss or dual AC20, enough ammo and even some backup weapons.

Finally, yes, the XL is slightly better, but it's HEAVILY penalized. How? Pretty simple: you're stuck with the stock engine. Which means, it's very rarely the optimal engine, and that you can't trade speed for weapons or vice-versa. For lights mean they are DOA, barely usable compared to the 150kph+ IS lights. For heavies and assaults like the gargoyle, it means a lot of wasted weight for a little more speed. If that wasn't enough, you get stuck with all the engine heatsinks, additional heatsinks, jumpjets, even if they suck and you only need one, you get them all for more wasted weight. Isn't that enough for the slight increase in survability? If you pilot a clan mech, you now that you lose the center torso and the legs very easily anyway. Playing 30s more with a crippled mech isn't worth all those penalties.


PS: Just think about this: A 65 ton like the Jagermech can put more weapon weight in weapons (quite a bit, actually) than a 70-ton Summoner, an 80-ton gargyle and even an 85-ton Warhawk.

[Wolfways]

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 20 September 2014 - 02:09 PM, said:

Honestly, I've said it before and I guess I can say it again. The clans aren't as OP as everyone clamors about, and many players are learning just how bad the Novass and Sh*t Fox is, and are going to learn how bad the Suckonner is soon.

I actually think the KFX and NVA are okay for what they are.
The KFX is a good support mech with the three AMS and especially the magic box. I never really do high damage in it but that's not the point of it. It's a scout/support mech.
In the NVA i can do quite a lot of damage and get a few kills if I'm not forced into a brawl, which unfortunately is hard to avoid sometimes. It does sometimes feel a little too fragile though.

Mavairo, on 20 September 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

No matter what the Clansmen bring, my TDR and BLR will be there!

(and my salvaged Timber..and soon to be salvaged hellbringers...mist lynx, ice ferrets...)

Some people have no self respect...

[CheeseThief]

Quote

As you can see, once you move into the medium territory, IS has a weight advantage. Even an standard 250 Hunchy has 5 more tons for weapons than a Nova.

These statements really bug me.

Or;
Mr Green Beam vs Stock Nova Prime
320 armour on both (stock)
250 standard vs 250 cXL so they both go the same speed (81/89kmph)
HBK-4P: 9 Medium Lasers (270m), Nova: 12 Clan ER Medium Lasers (400m)
HBK-4P: 7/9 Weapons tied to the torso, Nova: All Lasers in the arms.
HBK-4P: 17 DHS, Nova: 18 DHS
HBK-4P: 0 Jump Jets, Nova: 5 Jump Jets
HBK-4P: 9 hard points, Nova: 12 hard points, can go up to 16

[WhiteRabbit]

CheeseThief, on 20 September 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

These statements really bug me.

Or;
Mr Green Beam vs Stock Nova Prime
320 armour on both (stock)
250 standard vs 250 cXL so they both go the same speed (81/89kmph)
HBK-4P: 9 Medium Lasers (270m), Nova: 12 Clan ER Medium Lasers (400m)
HBK-4P: 7/9 Weapons tied to the torso, Nova: All Lasers in the arms.
HBK-4P: 17 DHS, Nova: 18 DHS
HBK-4P: 0 Jump Jets, Nova: 5 Jump Jets
HBK-4P: 9 hard points, Nova: 12 hard points, can go up to 16

and with max armor the hunchback has same (slightly higher)max sustained-dps while running nine med-las (running 12 med las would tank the sus-dps for the nova down to 3.95 compared to 4.5 for the hunch)

then again it's imo stupid to compare one of the worst Clan mechs to a soso IS mech

[Ultimax]

RavensScar, on 20 September 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

But that's exactly my point. Players won't stick to running those 'mechs - and why should they?

The stats we've been given clearly tell you that Clan teams will win 3 out of 4 public matches with the game as it is set up at present.

No. Because the public queue will continue to exist as it is, mixed mechs with everyone doing as they please.

The balance testing is for CW, where it will be IS vs. Clan.


Why should all clan mechs continue to be nerfed because they are being compared to a wide range of mechs, many of which were considered turds long before the clans ever arrived?

RavensScar, on 20 September 2014 - 02:54 PM, said:

that's not the game that's on the public servers, and it's not the game we're playing.

In the game we are playing, IS teams only win 27% of the time.

The game we are playing right now, has teams able to end up with the best of both factions in the mixed public solo and group queues.


Russ has stated this will not change, so enjoy?

[FatYak]

lol...the irony.....telling IS to stick to the better mech while complaining about some clan mech's not being as awesome as they would like

And very few people mention that the clan chassis is superior to IS, all they complain about is weapons

[Fire and Salt]

You can't change multiple variables and expect to get valid results.




•Different pilots, with different levels of skills
•Different tonnages (there are no 20 or 25 ton clan lights, no 40 or 45 ton clan mediums, no 60 or 65 ton clan heavies)
and finally
•Different tech bases IS vs Clan.



You can't evaluate the 3rd point without controlling for the first 2.

If you disagree with me, you suck at science, plain and simple.

(This post does not attempt to quantify IS vs. Clan balance, it only seeks to invalidate the results of certain tests.)

[Adiuvo]

WhiteRabbit, on 20 September 2014 - 03:52 PM, said:

and with max armor the hunchback has same (slightly higher)max sustained-dps while running nine med-las (running 12 med las would tank the sus-dps for the nova down to 3.95 compared to 4.5 for the hunch)

then again it's imo stupid to compare one of the worst Clan mechs to a soso IS mech

Fine, use 12ERSLs and 4MGs. The actual Nova build.

The Nova is better than the Hunchback entirely.

[Fire and Salt]

Thorqemada, on 20 September 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

the only thing IS has it better is the damage characteristic of the IS-ACs.

Now Stop Crying!

You omitted several things:

Shorter burn time for IS lasers (ex: small laser is .75 IS and 1.0 clan)
Better heat/damage ratio for IS lasers (ex: small laser is 3/2 is and 4/3 clan)
Option of switching engines for IS mechs.
Non-removable heat sinks in clan mechs (nor the ability to add them to the engine in mechs like the stormcrow)
Option of adding/removing ferro/endo for IS mechs, and the fact that crits float, instead of being fixed.


The only question is, did you omit them out of ignorance, or malice?

[Thorqemada]

And you ignore that all C-Laser do more damage at greater range and some weight alos less which makes up for more heatsinks that be smaller than the IS Counterparts so you can stuff more off them and the fixed engine is total no disadvantage bcs the C-XL gives a C-Mech the surviveability of a IS-Std-Mech freeing up much tons for effectful use while all Mechs above the Light weightclss have a competitive if not better speed than their IS-Counterprts with non-Stock-Engines.

Ton for Ton, Slot for Slot, Hardpoint for Hardpoint Clan is better than IS !!!

[Fire and Salt]

CheeseThief, on 20 September 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

HBK-4P: 9 Medium Lasers (270m), Nova: 12 Clan ER Medium Lasers (400m)
HBK-4P: 7/9 Weapons tied to the torso, Nova: All Lasers in the arms.

Well, 12 medium lasers is insane, and the heat makes it un-usable.
And the hunch lasers are better than the arm lasers. The arm lasers are too low, they hit the dirt all the time. On my 4p, i would gladly trade the 2 arm spots for 2 more hardpoints in the high-mounted hunch.

So I must disagree with some of your points.



I think the nova is a well balanced mech...


The hunchback is rather weak, though. Certainly not one of the best IS mediums.
I would love to see 10% faster ballistic cooldown quirks on the ballistic hunchies, 10% faster missile cooldown on the missile hunchies, and 10% better cooling on the 4p.



Nova > Hunchback IMO. Not because the Nova is overly powerful, but because the hunchie is too weak.

[Kassatsu]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 September 2014 - 11:23 AM, said:

while not 100% of the answer?
Timber Wolf.
Storm Crow
and the Meta-Whale.

Re-run the testing with those locked out, and lets see if the results are the same. If so then nerfing the weapons more, is needed.

If not, then itps those specific chassis that need the nerf bat, NOT all things clan.

Also, considering the number of cowardly IS Surat who suicided start of match to avoid fighting the big bad clans, I have to say that may have skewed numbers a bit, too. Out of 12 matches dropped during the test, 8-9 had at least on IS mech suicide by running off map or intentional override/overheat. And half of those had at least a full 4 man do it.

But as of now, if you can look at me, and tell me with a straight face that the Nova, Summoner, Adder or Kit Fox are OP? Heck, even the Warhawk is pretty average for an Assault mech.

My gold Adder is OP.

It has like +50 swag. That's gotta count for something. I don't know what though.

[Fire and Salt]

Thorqemada, on 20 September 2014 - 05:06 PM, said:

And you ignore that all C-Laser do more damage at greater range and some weight alos less which makes up for more heatsinks that be smaller than the IS Counterparts so you can stuff more off them and the fixed engine is total no disadvantage bcs the C-XL gives a C-Mech the surviveability of a IS-Std-Mech freeing up much tons for effectful use while all Mechs above the Light weightclss have a competitive if not better speed than their IS-Counterprts with non-Stock-Engines.

Ton for Ton, Slot for Slot, Hardpoint for Hardpoint Clan is better than IS !!!

I ignore nothing.

You supposedly made a list of all the IS advantages over clan, and included one item:
• Pinpoint ballistics.



I merely refuted your false statement.

[Angel of Annihilation]

valrond, on 20 September 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

I think it's time for PGI to stop nerfing the clans before they are useless. They are on there way there, with only a few chassis being worthy of playing already, but if they continue to be nerfed, they'll be even worse than IS mechs, despite being a lot pricier.

Clan mechs NEED energy weapons. And not because of lore or anything, or even the hardpoints (in some cases, it's all you can field), but because they have a lot less weight for weapons. Yes, you heard that right, they have less room for weapons than IS mechs. The only one that doesn't fit this is the DireWolf, but it is a very slow and clumsy whale.

Here are the stats for all current clan mechs, and the projected max free of some of the upcoming clan mechs (the heavier mechs). All the stats have been taken from smurfy, as it is a lot easier and faster than using the mechlab. All mechs were stripped of everything then put max armor. For the IS mechs, I tried to use the same engine as the clans, or the closest available, they only have the engines, max armor and 10 heatsinks. In the third column, I put alternative engines, closer to what we can see in the matches, some of them standard engines.
Finally, for the upcoming clan mechs, I used inner sphere mechs of the same tonage, with xl engines of the same size, and the engine full of heatsinks, as indicated in the wave 2 page. I reduced the 20% of the armor for ferro fibrous in the mechs that have it.

Here are the results:



As you can see, once you move into the medium territory, IS has a weight advantage. Even an standard 250 Hunchy has 5 more tons for weapons than a Nova.
And don't get me started on the heavies. The Summoner with 20 tons available, vs the cataphract than even with an XL340 has room for 28 tons, and the more usual XL300 has room room for 37 tons of weapons, half the weight of the mech.

Looking at the upcoming mechs, the 80 ton Gargoyle can put even less weapons than a 55 ton Stormcrow.

What this means is that Clan mechs are forced to use 1 big ballistic gun (Gauss, AC10 or 20), or too small ones (AC5, maybe 3 AC2), so the rest of weapons must be lasers and missiles.

Now, Clan big weapons are slightly lighter than IS (1 ton for large lasers and PPCs, and small ballistics like AC2 and 5, and 2 tons for AC10-20, 3 tons for Gauss). Even with that small advantage, you can't put 2 gauss and enough ammo for anything lighter than a Warhawk, while you can put 2 of them on a 65 ton Jagermech or 70 ton Cataphract.

So, as we have seem, only the two bigger clan mechs can rely on ballistic weapons as their main armament. That FORCES the clan player to use energy weapons and missiles. Now, it would be fine if energy weapons were good and effective, but in MWO lasers have never been very effective. PPC were before the speed nerf, but not anymore. After the huge heat nerf (the range nerf was granted), mechs that were already running very hot need to put even less of the few weight available to weapons.


I support the proposal for enabling endo/ff in mech clans. The only advantage they have now is the slightly better chance of survival with the XL engine, and the low weight missiles. Lasers are less heat efficient than IS, Autocannons are worse and you can't use more than 1 big or 2 small ones, and PPCs are so slow that it's very hard to hit a long range target. On top of that, IS mechs can have up to twice the weight in weapons than Clan mechs.

However, I think it should be very restricted. First, as per the Omnimech construction rules, if you modify the mech, it's no longer an Omnimech. Once you activate once of the modifications, than mech may never change Omnipods again. A big warning should appear when you try to do this modification. But, in order to avoid mixmaxing, taking the best omnipod hardpoints a mech has, it should ONLY be applied to one of the variants with the standard omnipods.

That will give to option to clan players to get some of the benefits of endo/ff and reduce the weight difference with the IS mechs at the expense of making the mech a normal mech with suboptimal hardpoint configuration.

Been saying this stuff for a long, long time. When the first introduced the Clan, they felt very balanced with maybe a few weapons needed tweeked both up and down and maybe a few mechs needing some positive or negative quirks to balance it out. Instead PGI started throwing heat at the Clan making them tons more heat inefficient than IS mechs which is very counter to anything lore, battletech or mechwarrior.

Anyway, in general there was never anything wrong with Clan weapons that any of them needed a nerf (well maybe the C-ER ML but they should have nerfed damage not heat.).

[Kassatsu]

Viktor Drake, on 20 September 2014 - 05:14 PM, said:

Been saying this stuff for a long, long time. When the first introduced the Clan, they felt very balanced with maybe a few weapons needed tweeked both up and down and maybe a few mechs needing some positive or negative quirks to balance it out. Instead PGI started throwing heat at the Clan making them tons more heat inefficient than IS mechs which is very counter to anything lore, battletech or mechwarrior.

Anyway, in general there was never anything wrong with Clan weapons that any of them needed a nerf (well maybe the C-ER ML but they should have nerfed damage not heat.).

5 damage small lasers at what was it, 180 meters? Three on an Adder with an LBX20. It was actually a good mech back then. Granted, other mechs (specifically the kit fox) were still better, but it was more than useable as a quick ambush or surprise on an unprepared light pilot thinking he just found an easy kill.

Edited by Kassatsu, 20 September 2014 - 05:19 PM.

[Kain Demos]

stjobe, on 20 September 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

So how do you explain the latest round of IS vs Clan testing then? You know, the one in which Clans still won 73% of matches?

Think for a second on Clan 'mech availability and what the average new or recent player is likely piloting.

[Adiuvo]

Kain Thul, on 20 September 2014 - 05:25 PM, said:

Think for a second on Clan 'mech availability and what the average new or recent player is likely piloting.

That would have been accounted for in the Elo distribution trending towards clans. It did, but not to the level where a 73% win rate would be expected.

Furthermore there are clan trials now, so the new player argument doesn't really apply.