27 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Mcgral18, on 09 October 2014 - 04:18 AM, said:

He said they didn't want to touch them anymore, which means my Wub will always be terrible, and that balance won't a dynamic thing where balance is slightly changed every patch.

Really...?

So, flamers will always do more heat to the person firing them than what they're firing at? And IS MPLs will always weigh twice as much as regular ones, and have a shorter range, and do only 1 more point of damage per shot? And CLRM10 and 15 and 20 will always weigh more per point of damage than CLRM5s? And, and, and...

That's just bizarre. There is no way are some of the less regularly used weapons are actually balanced at this point, which is why they're not regularly used.

[Mcgral18]

Appogee, on 09 October 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

Really...?

So, flamers will always do more heat to the person firing them than what they're firing at? And IS MPLs will always weigh twice as much as regular ones, and have a shorter range, and do only 1 more point of damage per shot? And CLRM10 and 15 and 20 will always weigh more per point of damage than CLRM5s? And, and, and...

That's just bizarre. There is no way are some of the less regularly used weapons are actually balanced at this point, which is why they're not regularly used.

Let's hope that was just their position at the time.

Perhaps an actual quote would shed more light on it. Forum hearsay isn't exactly reliable.

[Lefty Lucy]

People who repeat the "clans have fixed equipment so they need better stuff" are not really using a valid argument.

Fixed equipment does not make Clan mechs worse, it just severely restricts the viability of inter-clan chassis balance. It's why the Timberwolf will always be better than other heavy Omnis, because its chassis is pretty damned near perfect, whereas the other heavy mechs have huge flaws, such as ferro over endo or fixed JJ.

It's also why the Timberwolf will always be better to IS mechs without Clan/IS weapon balance parity: because it's already as good as you can make it.

[FupDup]

Lefty Lucy, on 09 October 2014 - 08:26 AM, said:

People who repeat the "clans have fixed equipment so they need better stuff" are not really using a valid argument.

Fixed equipment does not make Clan mechs worse, it just severely restricts the viability of inter-clan chassis balance. It's why the Timberwolf will always be better than other heavy Omnis, because its chassis is pretty damned near perfect, whereas the other heavy mechs have huge flaws, such as ferro over endo or fixed JJ.

It's also why the Timberwolf will always be better to IS mechs without Clan/IS weapon balance parity: because it's already as good as you can make it.

Well, let's pretend that we made every 1 ton of Clan guns 100% equal in every way to 1 ton of IS guns.

So, a Clan SRM6 would have the same damage as an IS SSRM2, a Clan ERLL would be strictly inferior to an IS ERLL, the Clan Ultra 20 would have the same DPS as an IS AC/10, a Clan ERML would have the same effectiveness as an IS Small Pulse Laser (both are 1 ton), and so on. Inner Sphere FF would need to be superior to Clan FF. Inner Sphere Endo would need to be superior to Clan Endo. IS XL would need to be superior to Clan XL. IS DHS would need to be superior to Clan DHS.

Let's look at, say, the Summoner, after those changes above were made. It gets 21 tons of pod space after adding more armor. For reference, my Shadow Hawks and Griffins can have up to 26-27 tons of "pod space." If Clan guns didn't have higher weight-efficiency than IS guns, that would make the 70 ton Summoner have less firepower than a 55 ton Shadow Hawk. Should heavy mechs carry less firepower than mediums? Let's not even get started on the Man O' War. In fact, the currently overpowered 75 ton Mad Cat would now be reduced to the same firepower as an Inner Sphere medium, with 28 tons of pod space available. Lol.


How would the mechs with gimped base chassis ever have any semblance of viability without the extra tonnage efficiency? Would they have to get quirked to armageddon and back 10 times over? Do we make the equipment no longer fixed? Or just leave them as unusable as "legacy features" like Flamers? Yes, Mad Cats and Doomcrows rule their weight classes right now, but they're not the only Clan mechs out there. Most of them don't get so lucky.

Edited by FupDup, 09 October 2014 - 08:41 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Lefty Lucy, on 09 October 2014 - 08:26 AM, said:

People who repeat the "clans have fixed equipment so they need better stuff" are not really using a valid argument.

Fixed equipment does not make Clan mechs worse, it just severely restricts the viability of inter-clan chassis balance. It's why the Timberwolf will always be better than other heavy Omnis, because its chassis is pretty damned near perfect, whereas the other heavy mechs have huge flaws, such as ferro over endo or fixed JJ.

It's also why the Timberwolf will always be better to IS mechs without Clan/IS weapon balance parity: because it's already as good as you can make it.

Night Gyr might be another. 75 ton Omni, only 12 harwdwired DHS, 4 JJs also hardwired, Endo+Ferro, 38 tons of pod space with nearly max armour.

Dual gauss comes stock, head missile or E hardpoints, CT E hardpoint, hardpoints spread everywhere, and enough of them, unlike the Suckoner.

Moving at the PeaceDoves 64/71 isn't too slow, with the XL300.


Would it outclass the TimberWolf, with those extra 10 tons of pod space?


Now, what can be done to help those bad mechs? Is quirking the hell out of them the only option?

Edited by Mcgral18, 09 October 2014 - 08:39 AM.

[Splatshot]

Lexx, on 08 October 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

I can't believe anyone here still tries to use this argument. The Clans were better on TT, but they always fought outnumbered at least 2 to 1. The way PGI implemented the clans they fight against even numbers here with roughly even weights. Unless their weaponry is roughly equal, the clans will always have an unfair advantage.

PGI has never said the clans are supposed to be superior or "dominate" in MWO. In fact they have said they intended to make them "different yet equal". Your argument is completely invalid here, and you should know that by now, and yet some still insist on using it.

Who said dominate, Clans have always been better, TT and all the other versions of the video games, just get used to it if you want to play the side with worse equipment.

And why should it be fair....oh I forgot all battles and wars at all times are fair and square.

Pick a side and fight.

[Lefty Lucy]

FupDup, on 09 October 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Well, let's pretend that we made every 1 ton of Clan guns 100% equal in every way to 1 ton of IS guns.

So, a Clan SRM6 would have the same damage as an IS SSRM2, a Clan ERLL would be strictly inferior to an IS ERLL, the Clan Ultra 20 would have the same DPS as an IS AC/10, a Clan ERML would have the same effectiveness as an IS Small Pulse Laser (both are 1 ton), and so on. Inner Sphere FF would need to be superior to Clan FF. Inner Sphere Endo would need to be superior to Clan Endo. IS XL would need to be superior to Clan XL. IS DHS would need to be superior to Clan DHS.

Let's look at, say, the Summoner, after those changes above were made. It gets 21 tons of pod space after adding more armor. For reference, my Shadow Hawks and Griffins can have up to 26-27 tons of "pod space." If Clan guns didn't have higher weight-efficiency than IS guns, that would make the 70 ton Summoner have less firepower than a 55 ton Shadow Hawk. Should heavy mechs carry less firepower than mediums? Let's not even get started on the Man O' War. In fact, the currently overpowered 75 ton Mad Cat would now be reduced to the same firepower as an Inner Sphere medium, with 28 tons of pod space available. Lol.


How would the mechs with gimped base chassis ever have any semblance of viability without the extra tonnage efficiency? Would they have to get quirked to armageddon and back 10 times over? Do we make the equipment no longer fixed? Or just leave them as unusable as "legacy features" like Flamers? Yes, Mad Cats and Doomcrows rule their weight classes right now, but they're not the only Clan mechs out there. Most of them don't get so lucky.

Yeah, that's exactly my point. With Clan weapons and equipment having superiority to IS weapons (in many cases at least), then we have the "optimal" clan chassis as just generally OP, because they're better than the other Clan mechs as well as being better than the IS mechs that fill the same weight class slots.

If we nerfed clan weapon and equipment so that the best clan mechs were equal to the best IS mechs, then the rest of the Clan mechs will just be unuseable trash.

In either case, we'll only see 4 clan chassis on the field in any match that matters, but in the first case the Clans will dominate tournaments/CW.

Personally I'd like to see a real attempt at asymmetrical balancing to prevent the bizarre situation where Clan mechs have better chassis but worse weapons than IS mechs, which is the logical end point of trying to balance Clan and IS for the same number of mechs on each team.

However, the devs have told us that's absolutely off the table.

[FupDup]

Lefty Lucy, on 09 October 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

Yeah, that's exactly my point. With Clan weapons and equipment having superiority to IS weapons (in many cases at least), then we have the "optimal" clan chassis as just generally OP, because they're better than the other Clan mechs as well as being better than the IS mechs that fill the same weight class slots.

If we nerfed clan weapon and equipment so that the best clan mechs were equal to the best IS mechs, then the rest of the Clan mechs will just be unuseable trash.

In either case, we'll only see 4 clan chassis on the field in any match that matters, but in the first case the Clans will dominate tournaments/CW.

Personally I'd like to see a real attempt at asymmetrical balancing to prevent the bizarre situation where Clan mechs have better chassis but worse weapons than IS mechs, which is the logical end point of trying to balance Clan and IS for the same number of mechs on each team.

However, the devs have told us that's absolutely off the table.

With the current situation at hand, the easiest/best choice is probably quirks. Be that either negative quirks to the optimal Omnis and/or positive ones to the sub-par ones. Many of the weapons could probably stand to retain a bit of a tonnage efficiency edge, so we can get by with more moderate quirks rather than quirking the living bejesus out of the sub-par models (I'm talking about the magnitude of something like taking the current Victor negative list and flipping it all to positive...crazy stuff).

The Omnimech customization restriction system is wonderful and successful for creating distinct faction flavor (as opposed to MW3 and MW4 where both factions were just open-ended gunbags), but it tends to make balancing difficult...