165 replies to this topic

[SaltBeef]

Same Could be said about The current customization Rules for Clan Omnimechs. The Current restrictions were not written in until 2007- 2009 tech manuals. Even the tech readouts under Weight and Space Allocation did not mention the engine size. Just Heatsinks, endo ferro crit spaces and sometimes a ecm, bap, flamer. Components Nothing about the Engine size just that it was XL.

Engine was listed in Equiptment outside of the fixed weight and space table. We should be able to swap engine xl sizes pre 2007.


1st thing I would do is Speed that Dire wolf up and sacrifice some of that weapon loadout.
Speed that adder up and go to streak 4s

Edited by SaltBeef, 17 December 2014 - 12:29 PM.

[Davers]

The Clans seem to be doing alright in CW.

IS players will say that the Clan mechs are OP. Clanners would like to believe they are superior pilots making the most out of inferior mechs. I would say there is a fair amount of bias on both sides.

[pwnface]

Kmieciu, on 17 December 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

And what that does tell you? That only the most absurdy quirked IS mechs have a chance to match a TBR or a SCR.
I drop with TDR-5SS, TDR-9S, Dragon-1N and Hunchback-4SP because they have unbelievable quirks. 4SP has 15 DPS from SRMs alone.

But I cannot count how many joke builds I see on the IS side. Almost every IS mech that does not use quirks is a joke compared to the meta TBR/SCR. And I have to carry those jokers when I PUG. While the Clanners can just field more SCR/TBR.

Why would you run an IS mech ignoring the quirks that exist? How is running an unquirked (read UNOPTIMIZED) build any different than running one of the sub-optimal clan chassis? You are complaining about the choices of mechs that your teammates are running, that isn't a problem with gameplay or clan vs IS balance, it is a problem with having crappy teammates running crappy builds. Clanners could have teammates that want to run a bunch of gargoyles and and adders and have the same exact problem.

[pwnface]

What wins more frequently in a 1v1 between a TBR or a DRG-1N?
Obviously the TBR. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that.

I'll tell you what though, there isn't a TBR build in the world that can get you 1300 damage in less than 4 minutes of battle. I've had 1400-1500 damage matches in my TBR but that always happens when I am one of the last mechs alive like 12-14 minutes into the match.

Yeah, I know, just shoot off the arm they said. A good player won't make it easy though.

[Adamski]

Clan Mechs weakness is in being unable to change some of their equipment.

Which means that for the mechs that have a good engine and upgrades, and few to none mandatory filler items, the compensating strength of clan weapons (extra range, lighter) makes them OP.

That PGI took it a step further, and not only doesn't enforce Zellbrigen or Batchall,but also gives Clanners an Artillery or Airstrike, makes it feel pretty ridiculous from the IS side.

I would rather PGI make the Clan mechs fully customizable, and then balance them as a whole (or bring enough IS quirks to balance them). Than have clear outliers that skew the entire balance so badly.

[Lily from animove]

pwnface, on 17 December 2014 - 02:33 PM, said:

What wins more frequently in a 1v1 between a TBR or a DRG-1N?
Obviously the TBR. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that.

I'll tell you what though, there isn't a TBR build in the world that can get you 1300 damage in less than 4 minutes of battle. I've had 1400-1500 damage matches in my TBR but that always happens when I am one of the last mechs alive like 12-14 minutes into the match.

Yeah, I know, just shoot off the arm they said. A good player won't make it easy though.

Not if the match would start close enough fro the dragon, or if the dragon cna use te terrain to not be sniped. the ac 5 godhand can be very devasting even at 600m range. Further more the dragon is 15t less mech, so of course it should be a bit lesser in strenght.

[InspectorG]

Grantham Besat, on 16 December 2014 - 01:16 AM, said:

Ok so you fear the clans. Why you fear them makes little to no sense. You have better ballistics, short burn lasers, and most importantly quirks. The erppc and med pulse Thunderbolts are ten tons lighter and more than up to wrecking a Timber or Hellbringer when piolted decently. You have the Dragon with its AC5 that never stops. Now the game favors burst damage and your assaults like the Banshee or Awsome cam drop a quirked alpha and twist a shield side up to take the hits before their next alpha. Clans cant do that. Range is your gripe well try being a clan mech with erll and be in a long range fight with any of the Erppc range and velocity quirked is chasis. Look at the vindicator 40% velcoity? So clans at range have to hold a laser on target while eating ppfld return fire. Clans in a brawl are eatting wub or ppfld ballistic from mechs that have shield arms and sides to twist while the clanner has to hold on target with his ultra or laser weapons. Even the dreaded storm crow is just a generalist and will die to its quirked IS counterparts when they build to their quirks. So your issue is not clans are op your issue is that you dont use the amazing mechs you have in abundance.

True. Certain IS mechs are showing as reliable work horses.

I think the real concern, mech-wise, is chassis choice and loadout. I see many un-optimized builds in otherwise good mechs.

-disclaimer- I hate LRM, but it may have a role in CW.

I think the meat of the issue is 12mans vs solo/rogue units.

CW is more about coordination than Pug or Team drops. VOIP is likely the largest advantage.

Coordinated teams structure their tactics and drop decks.

Like a regular old team drop but over 4 chances. Good teams will think in waves. Solos have a snowball's chance.

[Astrocanis]

Grantham Besat, on 16 December 2014 - 03:33 AM, said:

How many maps make it easy to stay at range?

I seem to do ok. I think it's less the map and more the pilot/tactic.

[pwnface]

Lily from animove, on 17 December 2014 - 03:40 PM, said:

Not if the match would start close enough fro the dragon, or if the dragon cna use te terrain to not be sniped. the ac 5 godhand can be very devasting even at 600m range. Further more the dragon is 15t less mech, so of course it should be a bit lesser in strenght.

I'm not sure what you are arguing here? Are you saying a TBR should lose to a DRG-1N in a 1v1?

[Grantham Besat]

I hearded they are turning down some quirks shortly anyone else see where that got said.

[Satan n stuff]

Lily from animove, on 17 December 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

yeha maybe, but how many raavens in % in this game go by lore? looks like every IS player had a acenstor using one or is a rich brat.

That would be impressive considering that the chassis is basically brand new in 3049. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Raven
It still doesn't exclude the battlefield repairs, mercenary salvage etc as an explanation.

Either way complaining about customization in a franchise that was literally built on it is rather silly in my opinion. Tabletop and literally every licensed MechWarrior game have mech customization, and most of them have a lot fewer restrictions than this game does.

[Krivvan]

The Mechromancer, on 16 December 2014 - 02:55 AM, said:

as long as all things are not equal in all aspects, there will always be a degree of imbalance.

I would not put much stock into what one very good group is running.

How about virtually every very good group?

[Krivvan]

InspectorG, on 17 December 2014 - 03:52 PM, said:

Coordinated teams structure their tactics and drop decks.

Like a regular old team drop but over 4 chances. Good teams will think in waves. Solos have a snowball's chance.

We really don't for CW to be honest outside of special circumstances. People tend to just bring whatever they want, and I at least have mostly stuck to solo and 2-4 people groups for CW.

The general consensus among the comp units is that Invasion is rather simplistic and easy at the moment.

[Shalune]

Krivvan, on 18 December 2014 - 02:23 AM, said:

How about virtually every very good group?

To be fair units chose sides given their knowledge of IS vs Clan tech in the context of the time (lacking experience with CW). There are builds that work better and worse in this mode, particularly because of how important speed is.

I wouldn't dare suggest clan tech is UP in any way, but I think the point the rational people in this thread are making is that which side you're on is no excuse for losing. As your own group is fond of pointing out there's next to no one playing this game who plays at competitive levels equivalent to established and respected esports. So even if one side's tech is moderately better, the better team will generally win.

[Sudden]

aah pfft I don't fear clans they run too hot

[Chuck Jager]

Macksheen, on 16 December 2014 - 07:03 AM, said:

Truth is, their strengths are asymmetric - and that wigs people out.

There are some things IS does better. Some things clan does better. The top / best mechs "in game" are a mix of both - but depending on which side you want to get the boost, you skew your argument.

To me, that sounds pretty balanced at the top. Some more tweaks to bring the lower mechs up a bit to be closer would be great, as well as a bit more variety on CW drops and we'd be in a good spot. If they could add random factors to maps (say, turret types or number) that would rock even more.

Exactly - everyone looks at specific details and misses the big picture.

My own experience was that I wanted to play IS because there is a range of very specialized mechs that have unique playstyles, and I only had the cheap Scarecrows I got on sale. Well the unit I was with chose clan and I had to drop them and break my contract, but still play Clan for 2-3 days. Well with 3 Scarecrows and a trial Twolf I had some really good games. 2 Scrows with ErLLas and Guass and A splat Crow plus trial Twolf and some mech modules in the Crows. As a pug I had one 1-2 defeats (approx 3-4 to 1) while defending, which was the 2 out of every 3 drops, and it was a better than average win ratio attacking.

As a IS pilot I have really good damage builds, dual Guass Cata 3-D, 4ac5 Cat 4x (surprise quirk best damage/kills so far), The cheese Grid Iron (may be replaced for faster close in), and Cent D with xl325 and ton of ammo for base rush light defense. All of these mechs have modules and very tested builds and in standard Pug or group que their specifics outweigh the flexibility of the clan mechs. In clan warfare these specialities become liabilities, compared to the speed and non-xl survivability of the storm crows and twolves. My experience has been basically miserable playing against Clan. Every win has been a nail biter and every loss is almost expected. Also for some reason I have ended up attacking (usually counter attacking) on the hot map and then 1 of 4 times defending. I will be going back to clan as soon as this 7 day contract is up, because as far as I am concerned dropping solo on IS is not worth the hassle.

A huge part of the equation that is going to be hard to balance is the number of non-team/meta oriented IS pilots who can barely look past who got the kill. Also many of these pilots have heard about the OP of the lights, but have zero knowledge of how to organize and sustain the initial and secondary push. The worst part with all PUGs is stopping and avoiding the objective to play at combat. I did find that on Clan drops these weak links were a minority, but not with the IS side. I have been playing about 2-3 months and of the approx 65 folks in my friends list from group que only about 15 have IS tags (even though many of them do enjoy playing IS mechs for fun). There are very good IS units, but they do not have the depth to be in the majority during the drops. The IS pugs are just more numerous and have more of an outcome on battle. (yes these are only my observations)

At the end of the day the best number to look at is going to be the win loss ratio of the 2 sides (admitting there are a ton of factors) and this will be how steps to correct the problems start to become addressed. I have a feeling that for whatever reason the number of Clan victories will be significantly higher and this will lead to changes in the game or like most other online games many people are going to skip the storyline and just join the winning side sooner or later. I know I am when this contract ends.

[Chuck Jager]

Macksheen, on 16 December 2014 - 07:03 AM, said:

Truth is, their strengths are asymmetric - and that wigs people out.

There are some things IS does better. Some things clan does better. The top / best mechs "in game" are a mix of both - but depending on which side you want to get the boost, you skew your argument.

To me, that sounds pretty balanced at the top. Some more tweaks to bring the lower mechs up a bit to be closer would be great, as well as a bit more variety on CW drops and we'd be in a good spot. If they could add random factors to maps (say, turret types or number) that would rock even more.

Exactly - everyone looks at specific details and misses the big picture.

My own experience was that I wanted to play IS because there is a range of very specialized mechs that have unique playstyles, and I only had the cheap Scarecrows I got on sale. Well the unit I was with chose clan and I had to drop them and break my contract, but still play Clan for 2-3 days. Well with 3 Scarecrows and a trial Twolf I had some really good games. 2 Scrows with ErLLas and Guass and A splat Crow plus trial Twolf and some mech modules in the Crows. As a pug I had one 1-2 defeats (approx 3-4 to 1) while defending, which was the 2 out of every 3 drops, and it was a better than average win ratio attacking.

As a IS pilot I have really good damage builds, dual Guass Cata 3-D, 4ac5 Cat 4x (surprise quirk best damage/kills so far), The cheese Grid Iron (may be replaced for faster close in), and Cent D with xl325 and ton of ammo for base rush light defense. All of these mechs have modules and very tested builds and in standard Pug or group que their specifics outweigh the flexibility of the clan mechs. In clan warfare these specialities become liabilities, compared to the speed and non-xl survivability of the storm crows and twolves. My experience has been basically miserable playing against Clan. Every win has been a nail biter and every loss is almost expected. Also for some reason I have ended up attacking (usually counter attacking) on the hot map and then 1 of 4 times defending. I will be going back to clan as soon as this 7 day contract is up, because as far as I am concerned dropping solo on IS is not worth the hassle.

A huge part of the equation that is going to be hard to balance is the number of non-team/meta oriented IS pilots who can barely look past who got the kill. Also many of these pilots have heard about the OP of the lights, but have zero knowledge of how to organize and sustain the initial and secondary push. The worst part with all PUGs is stopping and avoiding the objective to play at combat. I did find that on Clan drops these weak links were a minority, but not with the IS side. I have been playing about 2-3 months and of the approx 65 folks in my friends list from group que only about 15 have IS tags (even though many of them do enjoy playing IS mechs for fun). There are very good IS units, but they do not have the depth to be in the majority during the drops. The IS pugs are just more numerous and have more of an outcome on battle. (yes these are only my observations)

At the end of the day the best number to look at is going to be the win loss ratio of the 2 sides (admitting there are a ton of factors) and this will be how steps to correct the problems start to become addressed. I have a feeling that for whatever reason the number of Clan victories will be significantly higher and this will lead to changes in the game or like most other online games many people are going to skip the storyline and just join the winning side sooner or later. I know I am when this contract ends.

[Fenris Ulfr]

Chuck YeaGurr, on 18 December 2014 - 04:26 AM, said:

Exactly - everyone looks at specific details and misses the big picture.

My own experience was that I wanted to play IS because there is a range of very specialized mechs that have unique playstyles, and I only had the cheap Scarecrows I got on sale. Well the unit I was with chose clan and I had to drop them and break my contract, but still play Clan for 2-3 days. Well with 3 Scarecrows and a trial Twolf I had some really good games. 2 Scrows with ErLLas and Guass and A splat Crow plus trial Twolf and some mech modules in the Crows. As a pug I had one 1-2 defeats (approx 3-4 to 1) while defending, which was the 2 out of every 3 drops, and it was a better than average win ratio attacking.

As a IS pilot I have really good damage builds, dual Guass Cata 3-D, 4ac5 Cat 4x (surprise quirk best damage/kills so far), The cheese Grid Iron (may be replaced for faster close in), and Cent D with xl325 and ton of ammo for base rush light defense. All of these mechs have modules and very tested builds and in standard Pug or group que their specifics outweigh the flexibility of the clan mechs. In clan warfare these specialities become liabilities, compared to the speed and non-xl survivability of the storm crows and twolves. My experience has been basically miserable playing against Clan. Every win has been a nail biter and every loss is almost expected. Also for some reason I have ended up attacking (usually counter attacking) on the hot map and then 1 of 4 times defending. I will be going back to clan as soon as this 7 day contract is up, because as far as I am concerned dropping solo on IS is not worth the hassle.

A huge part of the equation that is going to be hard to balance is the number of non-team/meta oriented IS pilots who can barely look past who got the kill. Also many of these pilots have heard about the OP of the lights, but have zero knowledge of how to organize and sustain the initial and secondary push. The worst part with all PUGs is stopping and avoiding the objective to play at combat. I did find that on Clan drops these weak links were a minority, but not with the IS side. I have been playing about 2-3 months and of the approx 65 folks in my friends list from group que only about 15 have IS tags (even though many of them do enjoy playing IS mechs for fun). There are very good IS units, but they do not have the depth to be in the majority during the drops. The IS pugs are just more numerous and have more of an outcome on battle. (yes these are only my observations)

At the end of the day the best number to look at is going to be the win loss ratio of the 2 sides (admitting there are a ton of factors) and this will be how steps to correct the problems start to become addressed. I have a feeling that for whatever reason the number of Clan victories will be significantly higher and this will lead to changes in the game or like most other online games many people are going to skip the storyline and just join the winning side sooner or later. I know I am when this contract ends.

It really boils down to the fact that people are going to play to win or not so the number of not play to win people in any given faction or power will gimp it. The clan mechs are new and very pricy to get with cbills. It takes a casual along time to grind cbills and master a mech. It is very hard to judge which side is op based on purely win.loss raitios when it is faction warfare and unit skill is the most important factor and hard to judge it in pub quee when the win or loss is almost entirely elo related.

[Lily from animove]

pwnface, on 17 December 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Why would you run an IS mech ignoring the quirks that exist? How is running an unquirked (read UNOPTIMIZED) build any different than running one of the sub-optimal clan chassis? You are complaining about the choices of mechs that your teammates are running, that isn't a problem with gameplay or clan vs IS balance, it is a problem with having crappy teammates running crappy builds. Clanners could have teammates that want to run a bunch of gargoyles and and adders and have the same exact problem.

you know those quirks were given to buff certain builds to be not useless, yet this does not automatically imply that the quirked build is the optimised build.

I pilot my adder in CW with much success, 1200+ dmg in it yesterday, the Sidetorso hardpoints are excellent weapons for the initial battle at the gates without getting much or any return fire.

[InspectorG]

Krivvan, on 18 December 2014 - 02:28 AM, said:

The general consensus among the comp units is that Invasion is rather simplistic and easy at the moment.

Yeah.