349 replies to this topic

[Morang]

Great work! I have those tables, but still haven't did the job of extracting correct numbers for currently present MWO mechs.

It can be guessed that FRR has above average percentage of heavies and below average of mediums, as both parent states have this distinction.

[Onlystolen]

The gargoyle only has approximately 20-25 tons for loadouts, i want it to be good but we'll have to see when the time comes

[Jetfire]

The Warhawk is already a superior mech to the Direwolf. The DWF is just a freight train and if you stand on the tracks you die. The Warhawk is harder to pilot but becomes incredible once mastered.

[Phantomime]

Bront, on 27 September 2014 - 05:45 AM, said:

Timberwolf moves just as fast, has better hardpoints, and can mount more of them, at the cost of at most a ton of armor.

Warhawk can go almost as fast, has more armor, and can mount more weapons.

The Dire Wolf is the Dire Wolf.

Gargoyle's niche is in a fast assault group, but if you don't need the speed, the other 2 are better mechs.

yup, the Man is gonna have like 10-20 extra hp in its CT between armor and structure than the Timber, and that is about it. it will be bigger than the TImber and most of its gun are in the arms (unlike the Timber).. Unlike the Victor, it cant run JJ's.. running a group of 3 would be silly imo.

Tesunie, on 01 October 2014 - 08:31 AM, said:

December. Everything changes. A new king is in town...

THE KING CRAB!
It had to be said...

Indeed!

[Pariah Devalis]

Odanan, on 13 October 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

Indeed.
Interesting thing is: Timber Wolf and Dire Wolf are top tier in their classes both in MWO and TT.

For now, yes. Me? I am very, very interested to see how things will shift if PGI timeskips to 3052. Timber Wolf is top tier in the heavy bracket now, but what when the Night Gyr is out? Is the 20 kph slower top speed enough to counteract that monstrosity? Or how about the Turkina, how will it stack up against the DW given it has jump jets and moves quicker, but is still a 95 ton mech with somewhat ludicrous amounts of pod space? Still curious about how the Huntsman will stack up to the Stormcrow, and we know the Arctic Cheetah blows all light mech competition out of the water - at least on paper.

I do not envy PGI's balance team in the next year or so. o_0

[Odanan]

Pariah Devalis, on 13 October 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

For now, yes. Me? I am very, very interested to see how things will shift if PGI timeskips to 3052. Timber Wolf is top tier in the heavy bracket now, but what when the Night Gyr is out? Is the 20 kph slower top speed enough to counteract that monstrosity? Or how about the Turkina, how will it stack up against the DW given it has jump jets and moves quicker, but is still a 95 ton mech with somewhat ludicrous amounts of pod space? Still curious about how the Huntsman will stack up to the Stormcrow, and we know the Arctic Cheetah blows all light mech competition out of the water - at least on paper.

I do not envy PGI's balance team in the next year or so. o_0

Jade Falcon FTW!
I look forward to pilot the Turkina, Night Gyr and Black Lanner.

[Pariah Devalis]

Odanan, on 13 October 2014 - 06:22 PM, said:

Jade Falcon FTW!
I look forward to pilot the Turkina, Night Gyr and Black Lanner.

I will give the Falcons this: they eventually learned from their stupid, stupid, omgstupid mech selecting mistakes of the past. Crazy fetish for needlessly under-armored, needlessly under-gunned, jump capable mechs. Some Clans just need to pull a stupid or three before they start producing quality hardware.

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

Imagine if the Falcons did get the LAM's to work . I am surprised they did not combine the DNA's of Aero and Mech Pilots along with Elemental. 3 Piloting modes needs 3 in 1 Pilots/Warriors. Then imagine a 75 Ton LAM Cluster or Nova (A Galaxy of nothing but LAM's? Hmmm only if there are 3 or more LAM's in that weight range 65-75Tons). I also notice that 7% of Smoke Jaguar Invasion mechs are Cauldron Borns, ME WANT!

[_Comrade_]

Pariah Devalis, on 13 October 2014 - 07:10 PM, said:

I will give the Falcons this: they eventually learned from their stupid, stupid, omgstupid mech selecting mistakes of the past. Crazy fetish for needlessly under-armored, needlessly under-gunned, jump capable mechs. Some Clans just need to pull a stupid or three before they start producing quality hardware.

huhh we used a lot of jump capable mechs. Summoner, Nova, and Timber Wolf-S (Aiden Pryde's mech)
speaking of which isn't the MW2 intro awesome. Two summoner's (designed my JF) kicking some Timber Wolf butt!

[_Comrade_]

Jetfire, on 13 October 2014 - 02:29 PM, said:

The Warhawk is already a superior mech to the Direwolf. The DWF is just a freight train and if you stand on the tracks you die. The Warhawk is harder to pilot but becomes incredible once mastered.

Warhawk prime to me is a troll face mech. Because it's like "hey im big and have a lot of armor but all my stock weapons are long range so im going to stay in the back of the pack rather then in front tanking like a good assault should be and i'll be the last one to die usually, unless someone is piloting a spider on my team....troll face!"

It's still a good mech though i rather be in a warhawk if im playing Alpine Peaks

[Kain Demos]

Yeah....heavy Stormcrow use and they use "bad mechs".

[Pariah Devalis]

Grimwill, on 14 October 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

huhh we used a lot of jump capable mechs. Summoner, Nova, and Timber Wolf-S (Aiden Pryde's mech)
speaking of which isn't the MW2 intro awesome. Two summoner's (designed my JF) kicking some Timber Wolf butt!

Jump jets are fine and all, but the extremely extensive overuse of mechs with 60-70% of maximum allowable armor with either insufficient firepower OR the means to use the firepower they have (ex: Hellbringer and Summoner saturation in Falcon ranks) is so, so questionable. The 3052 mechs pretty much solve these issues, however. As if Clan engineers across the board suddenly realized cost cutting was stupid when you are trying to take over a civilization that outnumbers you 10:1.

Huge shift in design philosophy at 3051-3052 on, whereby mech armor and structure were more optimized from the get go, mech speeds were reigned in a bit, and more tonnage was shifted to pod space and firepower. For example, had the Hellbringer been given FF and ES, it could have maxed out armor and 28.5 tons of pod space when empty, or the Summoner, had it had ES internals, could have had maxed armor and 24 tons of pod space when empty, or the Gargoyle 23.5 tons with maxed armor using Endo.

But then the newer generation of mechs, like the Ebon Jaguar, Huntsman, and Arctic Cheetah, comes with the full upgrade package, or, when they do not, engine sizes are paired down to reasonable levels to free up insane amounts of pod space like the Night Gyr with 38(!) tons of pod space.

Purely out of in game - I have got to wonder why the writers of Battletech chose the route they did, with many of the initial Clan designs being so flawed yet the very next release of Clan mechs being head and shoulders more efficient in terms of chassis optimization.

[Tesunie]

Pariah Devalis, on 15 October 2014 - 04:16 AM, said:

Purely out of in game - I have got to wonder why the writers of Battletech chose the route they did, with many of the initial Clan designs being so flawed yet the very next release of Clan mechs being head and shoulders more efficient in terms of chassis optimization.

I think that clan mech designs may have been determined by their society and warfare rules. For them, matches were suppose to be one on one, and fast and efficient. There was suppose to be as little waste as possible. Their honor codes permitted these mechs to run, and do well, with less "optimized" builds on them (and cut down some costs here or there, minimizing waste again). The 3052 designs are more optimized with heavier armor because, well, they had to fight the IS. They discovered that they needed mechs that still hit hard and could also survive the difference in culture as well as combat style.

As wars tend to do, they had to spend more to keep going. They realized their mechs faults and corrected them in newer designs. This was probably an influence from contact with the IS.


Also, you have to consider game play mechanics of the TT game as well. Clans were deemed powerful right from the start, even with less armor. They may have thought to themselves "Hey, if we make these clans powerful with their weapons, we should leave them a weakness... How about less armor to make them easier to kill when they do get hit?" And yet, the clan mechs still out preformed their US counterparts for a while in TT. If they had released the more powerful (optimized) clan mechs from the start... There would have been even less game balance than there was already upon their release.

(As a note: I was into reading the novels well after Battletech had released the clans. I didn't start playing TT until much later, and even I haven't been able to play it much. I tend to be an IS player, so I'm not that big on knowledge of the clans. What I write here is what I consider to have been a possibility between lore and clan release within the TT game.)

[Carthoo]

Nothing can dehtrone Daishi until later advanced IS/Clan assaults come.

Some assaults can COMPETE with DW, if they meet DW in conditions that fully suit them (laser boat - med range - ice map; atlas DDC built for CC only meeting DW in tunnel/ close range).

But...Dire Wolfs are most often dehtroned coz "IQ" of their pilots....every bad judgement call and bad turn can be deadly for whale...

[Lily from animove]

kamiko kross, on 13 October 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

IF you are one of the imbawolves or trollgoyles yes:P

more the tears of laughs by the direwhales that get tickled by the gargoyles fire while they in reverse storm down the hail of UAC fires.

http://youtu.be/-QM1eTAwOYc?t=1m11s

Edited by Lily from animove, 15 October 2014 - 05:43 AM.

[Carthoo]

Lily from animove, on 15 October 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

more the tears of laughs by the direwhales that get tickled by the gargoyles fire while they in reverse storm down the hail of UAC fires.

http://youtu.be/-QM1eTAwOYc?t=1m11s

Yep, nothing is so funny as guys rushing from tunnel right under the guns of 3 daka wolfs...

[Tesunie]

Lily from animove, on 15 October 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

more the tears of laughs by the direwhales that get tickled by the gargoyles fire while they in reverse storm down the hail of UAC fires.

http://youtu.be/-QM1eTAwOYc?t=1m11s

I have to point out three very important things for the Gargoyle: location, Location, LOCATION.

As people have stated before, the Gargoyle's advantage is going to be speed. If a pilot can't use that speed effectively, then the Gargoyle will not be as effective for them. As far as overlaying agility of the mech, we shall have to wait and see how it actually handles (for turn rates and acc/deceleration rates). If it can be fast enough to get behind said Direwolf, then Direwolf can't shoot back... (I've done it to an Atlas with a Locust with a std100 engine before... If the Gargoyle can repeat what my slow Locust can pull off, then it shouldn't be too bad of a mech.)

Much like many other mechs in the game, it will take a certain skill set to unlock the advantages of the Gargoyle. It probably wont be a mech for everyone.

[Lily from animove]

Tesunie, on 15 October 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

I have to point out three very important things for the Gargoyle: location, Location, LOCATION.

As people have stated before, the Gargoyle's advantage is going to be speed. If a pilot can't use that speed effectively, then the Gargoyle will not be as effective for them. As far as overlaying agility of the mech, we shall have to wait and see how it actually handles (for turn rates and acc/deceleration rates). If it can be fast enough to get behind said Direwolf, then Direwolf can't shoot back... (I've done it to an Atlas with a Locust with a std100 engine before... If the Gargoyle can repeat what my slow Locust can pull off, then it shouldn't be too bad of a mech.)

Much like many other mechs in the game, it will take a certain skill set to unlock the advantages of the Gargoyle. It probably wont be a mech for everyone.

well, CW is going to be about a dropship, I cna put a 5 t TW in it, being the same speed with more weapon tonnage. Why should I add 5 more tons for a lot less weapon tonnage at the same speed with slightly more armor? Bad tradeoff.
And with the current maps in non CW, firepower of a DW > agility of a Gargoyle. Because its not only the Gargoyle who is about positioning. The DW pilot does have this ability as well. Because objectively the Gargoyle is a heavier TW with less firepower. if we could chose mechs after knowing mode and map, then sure, a Gargoyle on Therma Conquest would be a great choice over the Direwolf. But in the city maps, your speed will rarely help you that far.

I will still give the gargoyle a run, because I don't like very slow mechs as the Direwolf. And the DW is a ugly fishhead.

[Tesunie]

Lily from animove, on 15 October 2014 - 07:17 AM, said:

firepower of a DW > agility of a Gargoyle.

And here we start to get situational and theoretical.
If Gargoyle stands in front of Direwolf, Gargoyle dies.
If Gargoyle is behind Direwolf, Direwolf dies.
If Direwolf is behind Gargoyle, Gargoyle dies faster.
If Gargoyle can attack from the side of Direwolf, and remain in it's side out of it's line of fire, Direwolf dies.
If Gargoyle can make better use of buildings to dodge damage and block return fire of Direwolf, Direwolf dies.

Location and situation dependent, sometimes more "dakka" isn't always best. Sometimes, speed is better served than more weapons would have been. (The Gargoyle may also be better served with more close range weapons than a Direwolf, as it can use it's increase in speed and it's armor to get in close easier, faster, better. A Direwolf tends to be better served with more longer ranged weapons, as it's slower and tends to engage more at range.)

It's going to come down to how the Gargoyle acts within the game (an unknown at this time), what builds are created and used (sorta unknown, but we can guess here), and how people use it/how they fit it into their playstyle.

I see the Gargoyle filling a niche role, where it can do well. However, I feel it's going to be a lesser used mech because it's going to benefit from a unique skill set not normally associated with assault mechs nor assault mech pilots. (Similar to the Dragon and Cicada mechs, and possible like most Battlemasters as well.)

[990Dreams]

It has a good speed and can take a nice array of weapons.

On the other hand, it is lighter weight, and will thus not be able to carry the armor or ammo the Dire Wolf can. This will be interesting.