25 replies to this topic

[Wild Kadabra]

Greetings Mechwarriors,
I wanted to open this post to talk about two already well known issues and hear what the community thinks would be good alternatives to it. I personally find 2 specific clan mech chassis to be clan underdogs, and to nobody's surprise probably these 2 are the Summoner (Thor) and Adder (Puma).

What I want to address here is not to debate how poorly or not these 2 chassis are, as i have dealt over 1K damage in a Summoner, but rather the feeling that these 2 chassis do not feel unique and worthy of their own role. You can build almost all the builds u can have in a Summoner in a Timberwolf S and better, with the exception of the of the 5 missiles mech, which timberwolf S can pretty much come close to with 4 missiles and more than make up for the last one with other backup weapons, without being as limited, therefore stripping the mech of any feeling of uniqueness to it. The Adder suffers from the same issue when compared to the Stormcrow. It is possible to argue that some IS battlemechs suffer from the same issue, and it is true, but being in more costumizable in a lot of different areas, makes the issue a little less noticeable.

Once again i wish to remind that the issue is not that you cannot have good builds with these mechs, but rather that there is little reason to pick them up other than you really liking them when there are better options available as they feel devoid of any exclusive trait to them. The Nova for instance is a mech with "personality" as other mechs can fulfill its role better, but its still the only mech that can claim to have 12 energy weapons, hence it has a feeling of uniqueness. The Stormcrow can still achieve much more than a Kit Fox, but the ecm and jump jets, give you a reasons to pick a kit fox over a Stormcrow, whether or not you feel they make up for the firepower difference or not.

There are quirks supposed to give these mechs their own unique feel, but i do not feel they contribute enough to actually make them feel any different, i do not remember anytime ive felt i lost or won a fight cuz of any quirk.

I feel one of the issues with the summoner (you could argue in great detail about other mechs having similar issues but ill address summoner as i feel it is impacted the most) is that it's Prime Variant offers virtually nothing to it's "build variety pool" as the Right Arm, even with its perk is vastly inferior to the D right arm, the left torso is vastly inferior to B's (again it has a quirk but B's offers the possibility of a double AMS which i find much more powerful than a slight quirk), which only the left arm with it's single slot ballistic giving anything to the "build variety pool" which u can offset with a D's right torso since, prime's right torso offers virtually nothing. I feel giving the prime variant more hardpoints, even if they are unused in the Stock build, would give more build possibilities, giving it a better chance of having unique builds you cannot have in a Timberwolf S.

Another alternative if the hardpoints option cannot be considered, would be giving the summoner, more jump jet oriented quirks, since it has 5 dedicated jump jets you cannot remove. Perhaps allowing mechs like the Nova and Summoner who are dedicated jumpers to become exclusive pop tart mechs (not an option i'd personally love but one that would make them more unique regardless) with better jump quirks like being able to fall from a higher distance before they take leg damage and bigger jump jet thrust. Neither of these mechs can have a devastating pinpoint alpha strike (decent yes, but devastatingly pinpoint no) so i feel that allowing these 2 to be pop tart mechs would not be a bad way of giving them a unique feel.

Remember the issue here is not making these mechs on par with other variants, but rather give them their own unique taste. So what do other mechwarriors feel, do you agree, do you have any other suggestions? Let us know and good hunting!

[Brody319]

Cute fox is the best light Clan mech. But I'll probably buy the adder anyway.
I've seen plenty of summoners, The true underdog of the clan is the Nova and the Mad Dog. you can give the mad dog a brawler build, but people would prefer you bring a summoner or timber wolf. Nova is just trash, not compared to the stormcrow, but just trash after the nerf. You have to mount a lot of energy weapons, and if you don't core yourself from overheating, you get ripped apart while you patently wait for your mech to power back up.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

I agree the Adder and Summoner need some help there's no doubt about it, but before it can become a dedicated poptart mech the jump jet system needs a serious overhaul.

The clans quirks in my opinion aren't that great compared to some of the newer quirks I.S mechs are getting the Awesome for example with its new heat quirks actually has better heat dissipation with SHS, this has helped do 2 things.

• Made the Awesome a viable energy boat again
  
• Single Heat Sinks are viable until you can afford the DHS upgrade in which case the awesome becomes twice as valuable.

in my opinion the quirk system is what needs to be focused on to make mechs unique. it has the potential to open up a whole plethora of combinations for quirks, there are plenty of different pieces of equipment on a mech that can benefit from the quirk system.

the way I would brake this down would be

• Design Quirks
  
• Variant Quirks
  
• Equipment/Pod Quirks

Design Quirks would be chassis wide so for example the Summoner Prime B & D would have 2 design quirks for example.

• Efficient Jump Jets - +5% burn time (increases thrust per second)
  
• Efficient Exhaust port - -5% heat (decrease jump jet heat generation)

Variant Quirks would be a specific quirk to that variant. again the summoner as an example.

Summoner Prime

• +5% Heat Dissipation (self explanatory)

Summoner B

• +5% Targeting & Tracking system (improves missile flight path slightly)

Equipment & Pod Perks would be specific to certain locations that mount certain items. for example again the Summoner Prim pods could be something like

• Left Arm +10% Ballistics cool down - +5% pitch speed
  
• Right Arm +10% Energy cool down +5% Pitch Speed
  
• Left Torso +10% yaw Angel +5% Yaw & Pitch speed
  
• Right Torso +10% yaw Angel +5% Yaw & Pitch speed
  
• Right & Left Leg - Improved Actuators -5% Falling Damage

Again I feel that the quirk system is what we need to be looking at, not only to buff under performing mechs but to improves the role ware fare aspect of this game, by adding specific design quirks to certain chassis relating to there intended role in the lore would help a lot of underperforming chassis stand out more, this would obviously require an overhaul of the current quirk system but I think this would be fantastic to help out chassis and role ware fare.

P.S. all Numbers in this are just example and not to be taken seriously.

[Kain Demos]

Weird, I find these 'mechs to both be fine.

If any Clan 'mech needs attention after the last hit from the nerf bat it is Nova prime.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

Brody319, on 27 September 2014 - 11:38 AM, said:

Cute fox is the best light Clan mech. But I'll probably buy the adder anyway.
I've seen plenty of summoners, The true underdog of the clan is the Nova and the Mad Dog. you can give the mad dog a brawler build, but people would prefer you bring a summoner or timber wolf. Nova is just trash, not compared to the stormcrow, but just trash after the nerf. You have to mount a lot of energy weapons, and if you don't core yourself from overheating, you get ripped apart while you patently wait for your mech to power back up.

Mad Dogs barely a week old that's jumping the gun quite a bit imo, nova, I haven't used mine yet so I cant say otherwise, as for summoner its been out for months now and its underperforming still even after the JJ nerf, and it will be completely supplanted by the Hellbrigner once its released into the wild, 28.5 tons of pod space and the dreaded ECM along with a whole bunch of hard point options that make the summoner look like an over weight light mech. :\

[Mcgral18]

Kain Thul, on 27 September 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Weird, I find these 'mechs to both be fine.

If any Clan 'mech needs attention after the last hit from the nerf bat it is Nova prime.

WubFox can't handle the 150% heat nerfs either.

[Deathlike]

Mcgral18, on 27 September 2014 - 02:24 PM, said:

WubFox can't handle the 150% heat nerfs either.

Sub-250 engine makes me sad.

I bought to a Koshi to add to that.

[Mcgral18]

Deathlike, on 27 September 2014 - 02:27 PM, said:

Sub-250 engine makes me sad.

I bought to a Koshi to add to that.

At least tell me you bought the Loki; the only good mech in Wave 2.

[Deathlike]

Mcgral18, on 27 September 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

At least tell me you bought the Loki; the only good mech in Wave 2.

No. I am disappoint (and I'm not exactly ready to hand PGI money hand over first for that... maybe until CW is a reality first).

[Tezcatli]

Well they did say they would give the clans on a quirk pass. So hopefully that'll bring them in line.

[CocoaJin]

Frankly, the Clans should be expected to have underachievers just like the IS mechs. Sometimes a chassis just doesn't have a set up that's useful in the limited/restricted combat environment present in game.

Before we starting asking for chassises to be changed, we should be looking at creating a more diverse engagement environment. If not, changing chassis would only result in less variety as they essentially become duplicates of other chassises, only with a different look/geometry.

As long as the objectives remain essentially same for all matches, as long as the matches are based on enclosed arena-style "play dates", as long as there is no periods of pre/post engagement, as long as there is no persistence, no stand-down periods, no periphery, no secondary support scenerios, etc, etc, then the viable roles and loads will remain restricted to a small compliment of set ups.

I'm not willing to start blaming or calling chassises poorly done until we've had enough variety within the theater of operation to create niches for these chassises to venture into in an attempt to exploit.

[Project_Mercy]

The adder and the cute fox are too slow. At least the kit fox make up for it with the ECM, even though it's terribly placed. The adder is just a crappy jenner that looks less silly. Both of them need bigger engines.

I don't think the Summoner is that bad really, it's just bad when you contrast it vs the Timberwolf. But.. everythings bad when you contrast it vs the Timberwolf.

[Turist0AT]

in a game with 100+ mech there are a lot of mech that feel un-unique.

I hated Warhawk, Adder and Summoner in the beggining but now i like all of them. Summoner have high balistic hardpoints with JJ, great for hilhump. Adder have tonnage for good firepower and Warhawk can make some nice cool builds.

Edited by Turist0AT, 27 September 2014 - 06:12 PM.

[Wild Kadabra]

What im trying to express here is not wether they are good or bad chassis, that's not the reason i feel they need a change, like i said before, i think the summoner is a good mech. The reason i beleive the adder and the summoner need a change is because they do not have any particular build that you can truly call unique to them. Once again i use the nova as an example, whether you think the nova is a good or bad mech, it still has its own unique builds that you cannot achieve with other mechs, even if you think the stormcrow is better, you cannot put 12 beam slots in a stormcrow, same with the kit fox, even if its a slower raven or spider, its still a slower raven or spider with clan weapons, so it is unique. The adder and the summoner lack this element of having a unique element that sets them apart from other mechs that can have everything they have but better. I do not wish the summoner to be on par with the Timberwolf S, what i want is for it to be different to a timberwolf s in some other way than "it is a timberwolf S but with less weight capacity on it"

In short, i do not feel that these chassis need a "buff", more of some sort of element that sets them apart because you can achieve or construct something with them that you cannot achieve with another mech.

Edited by Wild Kadabra, 27 September 2014 - 03:48 PM.

[Brody319]

Kodiak Jorgensson, on 27 September 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:

Mad Dogs barely a week old that's jumping the gun quite a bit imo, nova, I haven't used mine yet so I cant say otherwise, as for summoner its been out for months now and its underperforming still even after the JJ nerf, and it will be completely supplanted by the Hellbrigner once its released into the wild, 28.5 tons of pod space and the dreaded ECM along with a whole bunch of hard point options that make the summoner look like an over weight light mech. :\

Nova has almost no builds that don't overheat. I mean the prime nova they give you as a trial, if you alpha, you die. you pop your engine no matter what map you are on. Unless you wanna roll with firing 2 MLs every few seconds, or be under tonnage because you don't run a bunch of lasers you probably won't get to fire anyway.

Mad dog doesn't carry enough to compete with the other mechs. If it was a medium it would see a lot more play, but in its current state, it runs hot, it doesn't hit hard enough at long range, and compared to the other 2 in its weight class, its pointless. The timber wolf's stock S variant hits harder. Its just stuck in a little niche between the missile boating lighter mechs, and the bigger brawlers.

Summoner is only slightly worse than the Timber wolf because of its profile. Its a wall, but its a wall that can hit back. Maybe give it a small buff in armor for the CT. I've taken down a full HP summoner in a kit fox before, but I'm pretty sure I was just lucky that we were in a city so I could duck between buildings.

Kit fox is fine, Adder I haven't played or seen a lot of play, so I don't know. Man-o-War is shaping up to be under powered as well. lack of weapon slots compared to its competitor. Running all lasers on any Clan mech is suicide right now. So gotta build around it.

I only own a kit fox prime, 2 ER large lasers, srm 4 and 6. 3 extra double heat sinks and max armor. runs pretty cool and hits hard.

[Asmudius Heng]

The Thor needs to be the premier jumper in the clan heavies.

The fact the Madcat has JJs really destroyes the Thors role.

Even with some awesome JJ quirks for the Thor i feel allowing a top end heavy to have JJs without some signficant drawbacks reduces the roles available.

At the very least the Thor should get some amazing JJ abilities so it can excel in that arena.

The Puma .... i dunno ... it looks like a little tank maybe it needs armour buffs??

[FatYak]

person whinging about summoner

fails to admit its still better than 2 of the 3 IS heavies

nothing to see here....

[Mcgral18]

FatYak, on 27 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

person whinging about summoner

fails to admit its still better than 2 of the 3 IS heavies

nothing to see here....

Which is it better than?

It's worse than the Jaeg, Cataphract, I daresay Catapult (but that might be pushing it), Orion.

That leaves the QuickDraw, ThunderBolt, and Dragon. 60s and a 65 tonner. For a 70 ton Clan mech, that's pretty sad.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

FatYak, on 27 September 2014 - 06:11 PM, said:

person whinging about summoner

fails to admit its still better than 2 of the 3 IS heavies

nothing to see here....

thanks for adding nothing to the discussion maybe next time you'll save those typing skills and post something constructive.

[El Bandito]

Wild Kadabra, on 27 September 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

What im trying to express here is not wether they are good or bad chassis, that's not the reason i feel they need a change, like i said before, i think the summoner is a good mech. The reason i beleive the adder and the summoner need a change is because they do not have any particular build that you can truly call unique to them.

No other Clan mech has Quad arm missile points, and the firing arc that comes with it. That's unique enough for the Summoner.

Edited by El Bandito, 27 September 2014 - 11:04 PM.