65 replies to this topic

[GHQCommander]

I didn't really want to read another one of these threads. Ideas for something that won't be coming to a game, that is not even out yet. Forum is looking like fluff now. Time to sit patient for a couple of weeks.

Edited by GHQCommander, 26 June 2012 - 10:04 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

It's quite simple. 1 you have asymetrical forces, ie IS outnumber Clan. 2 No one can switch/join Clan until they have reached Elite level 1 or 2 - this fits with lore and stops people just switching for the shinies without being a good pilot.
I don't know how the numbers stand now but earlier polls showed that a large number of people were going to stay IS.

[Firelizard]

Another couple of possibilities:

Clan gear could be available with ease only for the clans. IS would pay out the nose to field, AND fix it. Make it expensive enough that, if IS pilots do get their hands on clan gear, they would go broke trying to use it regularly.

Matches involving Clan forces would automatically have the Clanners underweight to take into account either bidding on the Clan side and/or IS attempts to outnumber/outgun them.

Edited by Firelizard, 26 June 2012 - 10:20 AM.

[xNightAngelx]

you could just keep players at IS Tech and then during the clan invasion make it co-op pve content that could be relased in chapters as the fight goes on matching up with key events that happened during the clan wars.

[Elwood Blues]

After thinking about it, there is a way to do bidding. Tie the rewards to the challenge. For clans specifically, before the match starts, the clan players have to bid some factor (total tonnage, c-bill value, etc.) worth of their forces. The lower the bid, the greater the reward for victory. The more equal the forces, the lower the reward. If it is dead even, then there is virtually no reward for them. In fact the battle may cost the players in repair costs. Intersphere rewards would remain the same as they usually are.

[BFalcon]

Elwood Blues, on 26 June 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

After thinking about it, there is a way to do bidding. Tie the rewards to the challenge. For clans specifically, before the match starts, the clan players have to bid some factor (total tonnage, c-bill value, etc.) worth of their forces. The lower the bid, the greater the reward for victory. The more equal the forces, the lower the reward. If it is dead even, then there is virtually no reward for them. In fact the battle may cost the players in repair costs. Intersphere rewards would remain the same as they usually are.

I would say that the break-even point should be around 1/3 of the IS BV (or price) total - the further over that they go and they start losing money. Either the clanner mechwarriors will get better so that they can win with their tech or they'll start spending money to keep repairing.

Playing a clanner should be hard-mode, not easy.

Also: make the Trials part of getting to play one. Before you can play a clanner, they go through the Trial of Position - fail and you go to the back of the queue with the dev team opening up new slots as the player base increases. This would stop the Clans from outnumbering the IS but also stop them just being full of wannabes. Have them able to be challenged to Trials of Grievance once in a while and if they want a promotion, they need to do a Trial of Position.

Having them have the Trials all the time would help to limit their impact, but also having TWO sides in the foyer before a match against an IS side and have them do a Batchall against each other would be an excellent way to limit their impact - the losing team would have to look for another match - only the winner would get to play. Full Batchall rules would apply with the losing team leader getting to decide (in private) whether or not to allow the winning team to call for reinforcements if they request them (most likely replacements for downed mechs).

[Tekkiller]

xNightAngelx, on 26 June 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

you could just keep players at IS Tech and then during the clan invasion make it co-op pve content that could be relased in chapters as the fight goes on matching up with key events that happened during the clan wars.

This ^^

[Glythe]

Elwood Blues, on 26 June 2012 - 06:45 AM, said:

In tabletop, you would have bidding. IS forces were more or less defined from the start and the player who bid the least amount of clan forces took the field. I'm just not sure how it can be easily balanced in MWO.

They've already mentioned blind auctions for who gets to attack which priority target with clans.

As this is a F2P game most likely clan tech will be balanced with an extreme cost in addition to weight balancing mechanisms. After all it only makes sense that you can use a clan mech if you are on premium right?

[Elwood Blues]

I don't plan on playing Clan but I look forward to seeing them in the game none the less. Extreme cost won't balance it out because it only works at the beginning. Which means the clans would start off slow, which doesn't really fit how the invasion should work. Also, once players have earned the scratch to catch up it will be a non-factor.

The auctions will likely be the biggest factor. The IS forces should be able to have superior numbers and dirty tricks.

The clan invasion, done right, could be one of the best implemented online invasions yet. I think it is the biggest challenge the developers have.

[Vasces Diablo]

Something to keep in mind is that from TT, where it's all math, yes the Clans are way better. In a TT 1 vs 1 battle of same weight class, the clan mech is going to win 99 out of 100 times. TT by definition is just more letheal, it has to be for time reasons. (30 min of TT prob equals a out 30 sec of MW video game play).

Video game play is inherently less lethal (at least it has been in past MW games) otherwise games would be over in minutes. This is the whole "blazing away with mediums" just to pierce armor, then the same number of shots would melt a whole mech to slag in TT.

I say all this to present a point: We are all assuming clan mechs/tech must e as over powered as they are in TT. Further more, TT can't replicate simply being a good pilot. 1 on 1 clan mech may win 99/100 in TT, but I'm guessing it would be more like 70/100 in online play simply because of player skill vs the pure math random rolling that is TT.

If it was 5 vs 12 as some have suggested, I would guess IS would win the majority of the time. Really, anything that produces a 2 vs 1 advantage for the IS players should equal a win. 1 mech to engage while one gets behind the clan mech, because again, we most likely won't see insta kills at range from clan mechs like you do in TT, this gives IS pilots time to maneuver.

I think 8 vs 12 is prob a closer fight in online play.

Edited by Vasces Diablo, 26 June 2012 - 12:19 PM.

[wanderer]

StandingCow, on 26 June 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

So, it is pretty much impossible to balance clan mechs and items against IS stuff... so instead of trying to balance it what about making it fully destructible? As in, if your mech dies or you have a clan weapon blown off... you lose it and would to purchase a new one (With Cbills of course).

I'd be happy if such things were simply Clan -parts- and if destroyed, could not be replaced simply by buying them. Occasional random awards, or else we see people grinding out Clantech nightmare machines solely to hose everyone else. This way, if somehow said nightmare machine happens, we can just gang up on them and blast the offending Clanner to flinders.

[Papertarget]

I have had this idea, and put it on the forums in another thread.

In the case of the clan mechs, how about the only people that can have access to them, are people that have already fought, and defeated a Clansmen? As a first limit, this will slow down the actual spread of Clan Tech. Then, for those that DO have access, the mech should be highly expensive to buy/initial repair. This will also make the mechs by slow to expand into the IS player base. As a third aspect, make it so that after drop repairs are much more expensive then they would be with an IS mech. In these ways, you get access to the mechs based on your skill, but you will be very leery of just taking them into battle, as they are so hard to maintain. All of this would follow Canon, and it would also keep IS mechs viable, and you would only rarely see a Clan mech.

Edit: Dang. Just had a thought. This is a possible trap... If the only way you could use a Clan Mech with regularity is to use a lot of C-Bills, would this fall under the "Pay-2-Win" category? If it actually does, I honestly don't know how to work with it. Maybe have it so that you have only random access to clan tech to repair the mech?

Edited by Papertarget, 26 June 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[wanderer]

Glythe, on 26 June 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

They've already mentioned blind auctions for who gets to attack which priority target with clans.

As this is a F2P game most likely clan tech will be balanced with an extreme cost in addition to weight balancing mechanisms. After all it only makes sense that you can use a clan mech if you are on premium right?

They've already said there's no pay-to-win, and that would include being able to pilot a technologically superior in every way 'Mech vs. non-"premium" players.

[Terror Teddy]

The best way would be a combination.

Total cost of Lances AND taking in consideration of the Tonnage of the mechs.

Total C-Bill cost of Lance determines the size of the match. Total weight of the Mechs decides how many mechs you can have in total.

So an IS group of 4 100-tonners might face off against a group of up to 16 light 25 tonners from the clans. Most likely they would be around 8 due to the increased cost of said mechs.

[Fl3tcher]

Vasces Diablo, on 26 June 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

Something to keep in mind is that from TT, where it's all math, yes the Clans are way better. In a TT 1 vs 1 battle of same weight class, the clan mech is going to win 99 out of 100 times.

TT is mostly points based, the only time you would play a tonnage based game against clans is if your both using clan tech. For example,
Timberwolf Prime is 5835 pts
MAD- 5M Marauder is 5448 pts

That 400 odd points may not seem like much of a difference. but the equipment / vehicles/ infantry you buy to augment your forces can mean the difference between defeat and victory.

Also, the devs have said that the clans are coming, nothing has been said that they'll be playable has there?

[Noob Weapons]

StandingCow, on 26 June 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

So, it is pretty much impossible to balance clan mechs and items against IS stuff... so instead of trying to balance it what about making it fully destructible? As in, if your mech dies or you have a clan weapon blown off... you lose it and would to purchase a new one (With Cbills of course).

How about make clan mechs and weapons unpurchasable to keep this from being a Pay to Win game? This game will be stupid if everyone goes and buys Clan mechs and leaves all the mech that the designers made behind because the new overpowered mech just got released.

[Future Perfect]

Fl3tcher, on 26 June 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

TT is mostly points based, the only time you would play a tonnage based game against clans is if your both using clan tech. For example,
Timberwolf Prime is 5835 pts
MAD- 5M Marauder is 5448 pts

That 400 odd points may not seem like much of a difference. but the equipment / vehicles/ infantry you buy to augment your forces can mean the difference between defeat and victory.

Also, the devs have said that the clans are coming, nothing has been said that they'll be playable has there?

In my mind the Clans will be a NPC faction.

And I think that the devs will trickle out Clan mechs and weaponry over time.

Edited by Future Perfect, 26 June 2012 - 12:40 PM.

[Sierra19]

Remember, clanners fight in Stars of 3 mechs, instead of Lances of 4 mechs, so there's the main balancing factor.

[Eximar]

Sierra19, on 26 June 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

Remember, clanners fight in Stars of 3 mechs, instead of Lances of 4 mechs, so there's the main balancing factor.

Except that clanners use stars of 5.

[Future Perfect]

Eximar, on 26 June 2012 - 12:42 PM, said:

Except that clanners use stars of 5.

Yes because a star has five points, right?