444 replies to this topic

[Timuroslav]

Almond Brown, on 02 December 2014 - 09:54 AM, said:

2 exact Mechs, one gets a New Player Pilot, the other a Veteran Pilot. Tell me that the Pilots will not decide who wins. Your argument to the contrary makes little to no sense...

Because you have to take the Pilots'(PLURAL) skills out of the equation if the argument is going to progress. Saying pilot skill matters is very true, but we're not talking about Pilot skills. We're talking about mech-balance. Some mechs versus other mechs.

If you keep spamming pilot skill matters. You're just making your self a troll in order to derail the topic. You're correct, but you are also changing the subject.

On topic:
Based off of what I've observed I would say that...
Clan Ballistics are inferior because of the dispersed bullet damage[-]. However they have better range [+].=0
Clan LRM are different, in a way inferior in a way better. streamed missiles [-] Damage at point blank [+] Lighter launcher [+]=1
Clan Streaks are Better more range [+], lighter weapon [+] =2
Clan Srms are Better, less Damage [-], lighter weapon (They're half the weight) [+]=0
Clan Lasers are Better longer range[+] Hotter[-], but lighter weapon [+] =1
Clan Gauss lighter weight [+]=1
They also go 81 kph on Average for Free. Which helps them stay in a group better, and control the field so that's a +2 in my book

No wonder why people think Clan weapons are better. At first glimpse they are better! They're lighter weight which means you can fit bigger weapons on. And the Average clan mech has more Hard points and goes 81kph on average.
Luckily the Heat penalty is high, and the hit boxes are bit bigger. The large Hit boxes are justified as every clan mech has Ferro Fibrous armor built in. Which is true.

People claim the Nova is a gimped Medium mech, but it gets 12 Energy Hard points. I wish my Hunchback 4P could have that many weapons with superior range.

So the four things that are Really making Clan Mechs Balanced despite their superior hardpoint numbers and gear.

is Heat
Large Hitboxes,
Quirks
and
Broken up ballistics.

Oh Look the two factors that the Meta hounds want to fix. IF Clan UAC20 get to be doubletapped like IS mechs.
Say good bye to IS mechs for good.

So yea Cry about your engines.
But, let's Compare
a Hunchback 4SP has 7 Weapons and goes 71kph
a Nova Prime goes 89kph with 12 ******* weapons!

Yea, you can make a IS mech go that fast, but you'll never have the range or damage or durability to match a clan mech. So the Fixed Clan Engine argument is bogus. Considering their weapons are lighter, and no Side torso blowouts. Thank God IS got quirks.

how can you argue for more weapons on your omni pods. That's like asking to be OP

Are all Clan mechs broken? No, But introducing broken Omni pods can break any bad Clan Mech.
Personally, I don't consider the Kit Fox a good mech. It's really exists to be a Mobile utility platform. It is not a true scout mech, or Skirmishing Light. But, that's kind of its funny niche. It's not supposed to be a scout mech. It has a lot of hard points to protect the missile boats.

Edited by Timuroslav, 03 December 2014 - 10:26 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Timuroslav, on 02 December 2014 - 09:58 AM, said:

Honestly, as much as pilot skill, is the biggest most important Variable in this game... It needs to be ruled out if this game is ever going to be balanced. Otherwise balancing the equation becomes impossible. Don't get me wrong, I like mechwarrior a ****-ton because it relies on all different kinds of Skill so much.

But, if we want a Fun game it needs to be balanced or Fair in some shape or form.
Unbalanced games get boring really fast. To increase player retention the game needs to be more fair.

Depends on Pilot skill is a valid answer But,
for the sake of Arguments

It is an abused answer, that just derails topics.
so I agree with Sjorpha.

Balance has to be on paper, human skill adds the uncontrolled variable, exactly.

Though some types of "desired" balance are near impossible. In the hands of a nub to average player, a Light Mech, will never be as easy as a Heavy to use. Not without all sort of crap that would make them utterly broken in the hands of skilled players. It will always be "easier" to lumber and rely on actual armor, and massive firepower, than the patience, and reflexes needed to use a mech relying on speed and light firepower, in a 1v1 fight.

[Water Bear]

No, because the clans have the Dire Whale.

[Brody319]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

No, because the clans have the Dire Whale.

"Nuffin kan b gud b3cuz teh Klan haz Dire whales, 'n Wolves!"

[Revis Volek]

Sjorpha, on 01 December 2014 - 04:30 PM, said:

Whether a certain build is invalidated in the metagame or not depends on a number of factors like how strong it was before, how much it's direct competitors were buffed, and how much other things were buffed in general. Best case scenario you strike a balance where several builds are viable. It is certainly not as straightforward as the quirked loadouts always being optimal, for example small lasers are not the optimal laser to put on a pirate's bane, but there is not ever a buff in a vacuum that doesn't effect other parts of the game, whatever gets left behind stays behind until adressed.

"Power creep" is just my description of the effects in raising the average offensive power of mechs in the game, it is also a nerf to mechs defensive capabilities and could have been achieved in that form as well. You can use whatever words suit you as long as we try to understand each other.

Edit: Oh, right..answer the question. Yes, it does. But only a little and not necessarily enough to make the ballistic build worse than the PPC build, buffs to other ballistic mechs would of course have a much bigger impact in this case.



Did I say quirks are bad? I don't think quirks are bad, on the whole I applaud the quirks with unfettered enthusiasm.

Most I like, some I don't. None of them exists in a vacuum though, all buffs are nerfs and all nerfs are buffs, and that is what must be kept in mind when looking at them. For example a buff to specific AC20 carriers affects negatively the relative viability of AC20s in other mechs. And when you have a large collection of such changes like the quirk pass, you get very significant effects of this kind. It's as simple as cake really, and quantifiable too if you have access to statistical game data over time. I have no idea why that is a controversial observation.

As for dealing in absolutes, well the game IS an absolutely closed system. So is probably the universe, but the difference is that we are unable to fully measure the universe. MWO and other games is limited enough to measure completely, and as such the only room for subjectivity is in either the lack of access to data or limited comprehension in the observer. So in that sense, for a given value of "absolute", I would agree with you.

But I disagree also because neither you or I have the data access or tools to actually deal with absolutes, which is why I stick mostly to principal statements that are necessarily true.

Also in another sense I am doing the opposite, since I am saying that there is no absolute buff or nerf. Only the illusion thereof. These are two different senses of absolute.

That is what I could answer, but I'm not even sure what some of this paragraph means, so I feel I can't answer all of it in a meaningful way. Maybe you can rephrase it so it is less about your (strangely off) projected view of my view and more about whatever it is you are trying to tell me.

There is nothing more I can tell you...You think if White Bread goes on sale it ruins the market for all other kinds of breads. But i dont even like white bread....

[Bishop Steiner]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

No, because the clans have the Dire Whale.

if you really think the DW is that good, well, you'd be wrong. Slow, clumsy, tactically inflexible, usually hot as heck and easy to flank. Only great in a "power wedge" with a lot of support, or against bads. It's a good mech, but with huge limits. And one or two broken builds.

[CDLord HHGD]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 December 2014 - 09:34 AM, said:

Only time a Jagermech is "as lethal" as a Timby is if you are in a GaussJager way in the back being ignored, or a boom jager with a clean shot on the Timby's back.

Lower armor, lower speed, barndoor side torsos and insta-death XL if you want any mobility with those big guns means that while situationally, the Jager can best it, in total, it's inferior, and not particularly close.

A member in HHGD runs a DD, called "It" that nary a mech can stand toe to toe with. Granted he's only got about 7 seconds of sustained fire, but in those 7 seconds, stuff dies. And he usually gets 3-4 kills with it before he's reduced to just his small laser (and funny enough, occasionally, he'll get another kill or two with it). I'm not a fan of meta, but to hear him giggle like a school girl as he's laying waste is an experience to behold.

Edited by cdlord, 02 December 2014 - 10:13 AM.

[Water Bear]

Brody319, on 02 December 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

"Nuffin kan b gud b3cuz teh Klan haz Dire whales, 'n Wolves!"

I am answering the title of this thread. When you sum all the mechs on the inner sphere side and compare them to those on the clan side, the dire whale is so important that it alone makes the clans look better than the IS.

[Gyrok]

Clan Ballistics < IS Ballistics (PP FLD = WIN)
Clan SRMs < IS SRMs (IS SRMs do more damage per missile)
Clan LRMs < IS LRMs (IS LRMs have a nasty bunch fire mechanic, clans cannot touch this)
Clan Energy ~ IS Energy (Clans have ~15% more range + ~15-20% more damage for ~40% more heat...a debatable trade...IS has std PPC + short beams)
Clan Chassis < IS Chassis (Customization is king here...)

[Water Bear]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 December 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

if you really think the DW is that good, well, you'd be wrong. Slow, clumsy, tactically inflexible, usually hot as heck and easy to flank. Only great in a "power wedge" with a lot of support, or against bads. It's a good mech, but with huge limits. And one or two broken builds.

I'm not so sure. It has builds that give it the single highest dps in the game. It's not significantly slower than other 90-100 ton mechs (a 60 kph atlas is all of a whopping 7 kph faster than a tweaked whale). As far as I can tell, every other mech in the game has to hit full reverse if it comes face to face with a whale, almost no matter the build.

[Xythius]

cdlord, on 02 December 2014 - 10:12 AM, said:

A member in HHGD runs a DD, called &quot;It&quot; that nary a mech can stand toe to toe with. Granted he's only got about 7 seconds of sustained fire, but in those 7 seconds, stuff dies. And he usually gets 3-4 kills with it before he's reduced to just his small laser (and funny enough, occasionally, he'll get another kill or two with it). I'm not a fan of meta, but to hear him giggle like a school girl as he's laying waste is an experience to behold.

Which prooves Bishop's point. ONE player in ONE build can lay waste to other 'mechs. That does not a meta make. It just hammers a point that in that one particular situation, that 'mech can outperform 'mech largely considered to be OP. But what happens after he runs out of ammo? He's a sitting duck. Hopefully he put his team up enough that he can skate thru the match after that while contributing very little.

~Xythius

[Brody319]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

I am answering the title of this thread. When you sum all the mechs on the inner sphere side and compare them to those on the clan side, the dire whale is so important that it alone makes the clans look better than the IS.

The only time the Direwolf is scary is when its 20 FOV is aimed at you. From pretty much any other angle you are untouchable. so shoot off its arms and side torsos

[Water Bear]

Brody319, on 02 December 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

The only time the Direwolf is scary is when its 20 FOV is aimed at you. From pretty much any other angle you are untouchable. so shoot off its arms and side torsos

Is there any other mech in the game that's scary when it's not looking at you?

[dezgra]

When the Grasshopper is introduced, I predict many Clan Tears.

[Water Bear]

Xythius, on 02 December 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

Which prooves Bishop's point. ONE player in ONE build can lay waste to other 'mechs. That does not a meta make. It just hammers a point that in that one particular situation, that 'mech can outperform 'mech largely considered to be OP. But what happens after he runs out of ammo? He's a sitting duck. Hopefully he put his team up enough that he can skate thru the match after that while contributing very little.

~Xythius

Agreed.

I have said this before many times and will say it again since apparently it's relevant in this thread.

Just because someone did well in something doesn't make it good. If a chess master can beat opponents by starting his game with half as many pieces, you'd be a fool to assume that starting a game with half as many pieces as your opponents is a strong strategy.

The best measure we have for experimentally testing balance is the following. Take a lot of players of equal Elo rating. Have one of them use mech A, the other use mech B. Crash all those players against each other over and over again. Using statistics, determine if the win rate of mech A is high enough (or low enough) to be statistically significant. If it is, then you can make a judgment about the balance of mech A vs mech B.

In other words, an imbalance exists if when two players of equal skill face off, the use of mech A is statistically correlated to victory in a positive or negative way.

Statisticians exist because there are ways to (try to) determine when data indicates a statistical correlation between choices and outcomes.

[Brody319]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:25 AM, said:

Is there any other mech in the game that's scary when it's not looking at you?

Difference is, the whale is a slow turner, easy to hit side torsos, and arms cant move left or right, only up or down. So if you just stand slightly to the right, they might not see you, and will be slow to turn anyway. plus they don't have a lot of back armor. just don't face tank it and you can win.

[Bishop Steiner]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

I'm not so sure. It has builds that give it the single highest dps in the game. It's not significantly slower than other 90-100 ton mechs (a 60 kph atlas is all of a whopping 7 kph faster than a tweaked whale). As far as I can tell, every other mech in the game has to hit full reverse if it comes face to face with a whale, almost no matter the build.

7 kph is huge at that speed, as is the twist range of pretty much everything over the DW. It does have massive firepower, so yes, standing toe to toe with it is a bad idea. But even that mere 7 kph speed advantage allows a mech to stay on one side and negate half the firepower.

[Gyrok]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

I am answering the title of this thread. When you sum all the mechs on the inner sphere side and compare them to those on the clan side, the dire whale is so important that it alone makes the clans look better than the IS.

You must be smoking crack...the Dire Wolf is not even the 3rd best clan mech...lol.

[Water Bear]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 December 2014 - 10:36 AM, said:

7 kph is huge at that speed, as is the twist range of pretty much everything over the DW. It does have massive firepower, so yes, standing toe to toe with it is a bad idea. But even that mere 7 kph speed advantage allows a mech to stay on one side and negate half the firepower.

As a guy who owns Atlases and a Whale, I just don't believe you. Have you ever launched in an Atlas and spawned in a lance with a whale? The 7 kph difference between speeds means that over short distances it looks like you're traveling at the same speed. You have to walk a long way to notice a speed difference that small.

I've noticed the same is even true of heavy mechs. Moving at 71 kph vs 60 is an 11 kph difference. A legged Awesome moves faster than that. And that's so slow that you're almost not moving.

The difference in twist speeds is more noticeable.

Gyrok, on 02 December 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

You must be smoking crack...the Dire Wolf is not even the 3rd best clan mech...lol.

I might not know the best clan mechs, but the Timber and Whale are both far better in their respective categories than 90% of IS mechs. In an IS vs. Clan comparison, then, the clans win in my mind because they have the best heavy and the best assault (and because of the storm crow, probably the best medium, too).

[Bishop Steiner]

Water Bear, on 02 December 2014 - 10:44 AM, said:

As a guy who owns Atlases and a Whale, I just don't believe you. Have you ever launched in an Atlas and spawned in a lance with a whale? The 7 kph difference between speeds means that over short distances it looks like you're traveling at the same speed. You have to walk a long way to notice a speed difference that small.

I've noticed the same is even true of heavy mechs. Moving at 71 kph vs 60 is an 11 kph difference. A legged Awesome moves faster than that. And that's so slow that you're almost not moving.

The difference in twist speeds is more noticeable.



I might not know the best clan mechs, but the Timber and Whale are both far better in their respective categories than 90% of IS mechs. In an IS vs. Clan comparison, then, the clans win in my mind because they have the best heavy and the best assault (and because of the storm crow, probably the best medium, too).

as a guy who owns them all, has used them all, and with 20k matches I honestly don't care what you believe. Hate to break it to you.