51 replies to this topic

[Andi Nagasia]

as we sit right now IS & Clan are neck & neck,
the problem Clan is supposed to be superior in most every way,
why? because by 3060 IS has closed the Tech Gap finding balance,

wheres why our current Balance situation is wrong,
right now Clan weapons are being balanced to IS weapons,
IS Medium and small laser balanced against Clan ER lasers,
IS AC are being balanced against Clan LBX and Ultras,
IS has no Engine option between STD and XL,


now onto 3060 Tech,
this is the Tech each side will receive by progressing the time-line,
all the Below Tech is readily available by 3060, or just after,

=IS get=
LFE
Acts as Clan XL but for the IS,
weighs only 75% of a STD engine,
was developed in 3053(Wolfs Dragoons),
became full available 3060-3062,

ER-SL/ER-ML
Extended range Variants of the IS Small&Medium Lasers,
increasing their range to be much closer to Clans ER-Lasers,

SSRM4/SSRM6
Extended Variants of the IS S-SRM Launchers,
increasing their use with more variants,

X-Pulse-Lasers
XSPL/XMPL/XLPL
Extended range Variants of the IS Small/Medium/Large-Pulse-Lasers,
increasing their range to be much closer to Clans Pulse-Lasers,

PPC-Capacitor
gives any IS PPC the ability to charge then fire,
PPCs equipped with this Capacitor can still fire with out charging,
however charging then firing adds +5 damage to your PPCs damage,

Light-Gauss/Heavy-Guass
Lighter Gauss version for weight and space Saving,
Heavier Gauss version for Damage and Power,

IS Ultra ACs
U-AC2/U-AC10/U-AC20
Ultra Versions of All IS Auto-Cannons,

IS LB-X ACs
LB-AC2/LB-AC5/LB-AC20
LB-X Versions of All IS Auto-Cannons,

MRM
MRM10/MRM20/MRM30/MRM40
Medium Range Missiles, unguided but can go up to medium range,
used for Blanketing an area in missiles for support or assault,

=Clan get=
ATM
ATM3/ATM6/ATM9/ATM12
Advance Tactical Missile System fires Guided Missile at Medium Ranges,
the launchers are heavy but they can hold 3 different types of ammo,
because of problems with this we can expect 3 launchers,
ATM-HE / ATM-STD / ATM-ER

Heavy Lasers
SHL/MHL/LHL
designed to do alittle more damage than standard ER-Lasers,
but due to the increased damage they have reduced Laser Range,

as you can see with-in the next 10 years IS gets much more than Clan,
and what IS gets allows them to now directly compete with the stronger Clan,
and with this equipment and these weapons Clan would lose their advantage,


i created this Topic to Explain why i feel the Time-line needs to move up 10 years,
if we are to stay at 3050 and the Clans keeps getting balanced to a weaker IS,

i fear when these do come out will make IS/Clan balancing much harder,
as we will have to be balanced all over again with the New Weapons,
wasting months on balance, when it will have to be repeated later,

if we could move the time line up sooner rather than later,
i feel allot of the balance problems will be much easier to solve,
as well as allot of the Anger/Worry here on forums,


i understand some feel this may hurt what makes both sides unique,
but IS still will have their Battle-Mechs, and Clan still has their Omni-Mechs,
what it will do is give IS pilots more options when it comes to mech construction,

with 3060 weapons theses pilots would be able to choose between Range vs Heat,
they would be able to choose more advanced, ER-ML for more range more heat,
or they could choose to stick with normal ML for less heat at less range,


also remember eventually the time line will progress,
and IS will probably be getting this equipment in the future,
so it is coming, i would just rather it be sooner rather then later,
if for nothing else than for balance sake,


Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Please Vote, & Thanks,


see something i missed?
a piece of equipment or a weapon i forgot to add?
please post below or PM me, Thanks!

Edit- Spelling
Edit2- Notes
Edit3- Poll Change
Edit4- ATM note
Edit5- Added SSRM4-6

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 24 December 2015 - 07:17 PM.

[SuperPignouf]

My personal opinion is that it would in fact nullify the taste difference between clan and IS by giving clantech to IS, and nullify the use for quirks, which are currently used as the main balancing tool between clan and IS mechs.

[Andi Nagasia]

i dont think it will nullify what makes both sides unique,
IS still will have their Battle-Mechs, and Clan still has their Omni-Mechs,
what it will do is give IS pilots more options when it comes to mech construction,

with 3060 weapons theses pilots would be able to choose between Range vs Heat,
they would be able to choose more advanced, ER-ML for more range more heat,
or they could choose to stick with normal ML for less heat at less range,

also quirks where initially designed to help give under-preforming mechs find their place,
they were not initially designed to balance IS vs Clan, as they have been used now,
clan under performers also are getting a quirk pass so as i said mech vs mech,

i think moving to 3060 will solve more problems that it will cause,
clan will still have some lighter weapons with some more damage,
but IS will get more options to play with, and perhaps it will help,

[Kenyon Burguess]

I don't want to skip. I want to see all the great battle occur between the two time periods. besides, the treaty would pretty much mean clan vrs clan, is vrs is

[Andi Nagasia]

Geist Null, on 30 December 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

I don't want to skip. I want to see all the great battle occur between the two time periods. besides, the treaty would pretty much mean clan vrs clan, is vrs is

on the grounds of Lore Time line, Russ stated that MWO and CW are alternate time-line,
as in the Fed-Com never gets formed and some battles like Tukayyid may never even happen,
so as such any truce that is or isnt formed, would be up to the players, not the Time-Line,
as such being alternate time-line, Tech could come out sooner if necessary,

[SuperPignouf]

Yeah... in fact that would simply add more features and customization possibilities which is always nice. IS would have higher weapon choice than clan, but clan would still have omnimechs, giving the possibility to make more brutal, optimized builds.

I'm still not sure if giving clan-like XL engines to IS mech would be nice though, wouldnt it simply nullify the use of old fashion IS XL engines ?

[Andi Nagasia]

SuperPignouf, on 31 December 2014 - 01:46 AM, said:

Yeah... in fact that would simply add more features and customization possibilities which is always nice. IS would have higher weapon choice than clan, but clan would still have omnimechs, giving the possibility to make more brutal, optimized builds.

I'm still not sure if giving clan-like XL engines to IS mech would be nice though, wouldnt it simply nullify the use of old fashion IS XL engines ?

Russ has said that we will time jump eventually,
and when we do its likely we will get this equipment,
i personally would love ER-MLs on my LCT-3M,


true, Clan do have Omni-pods and can optimize,
but lets look at what weapons Clan will get in 3060,

Heavy-Lasers= damage of a C-Pulse, but the weight of ER-Lasers, but the range lesser lasers,
LHL= Range-400, Max-800 / MHL= Range-200, Max-400 / SHL= Range-100, Max-200,

ATM-Launchers= Heavier than Clan LRMs, but with Missile numbers like SRMs, and 3 ammo types,
because of the problems in having multiple ammo types in a weapon we can probably count on 3 types,
Weight/Space= ATM3= 1.5Tons, 2Crit / ATM6= 3.5Tons, 3Crit / ATM9= 5Tons, 4Crit / ATM3= 7Tons, 5Crit,
Damage/Missile&Range= ATM-HE= 3D/M, R-300 / ATM-STD= 2D/M, R-200-700 / ATM-ER= 1D/M, R-200-1500,


i dont think so,
lights will always have a use for XL Engines as if your in a light,
a single mistake can kill you, losing a Leg, your CT getting cored,
and STD will always have a place for those who want more ST weapons,
for Large ACs in Side-Torsos its almost required,

Edit- Spelling

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 31 December 2014 - 09:48 AM.

[Firewuff]

Adding new weapons like this is functionally the same as renaming the existing ones and doing nothing. Remeber this is a PvP game so clan IS balance needs to be done on that basis. Making one vastly superior would just make no one play IS which is why it is balanced the way it is.

Mwo isnt and never will be the TT. Simple as that. I love this game for what its and not what it is in realtion to the Tt

[Mad Porthos]

Ultimately this makes a problem also with some of the methods used for balancing inner sphere vs clan autocannons, because all IS autocannon remain large caliber single shot, or double shot in the case of UACs. If they advanced the timeline they would encounter a big issue they do not want to face, as you would suddenly again have a decreasing ttk, as uac20s start delivering 2 x 20point hits to the same components. They dealt with this for clans by deciding that clans autocannons had moved to burst fire, such that for example an uac 20 fires 4 rounds doing 5 damage each, so a double tap would spit out 8 rounds over a second or two spead out, spreading 40 damage over several components in groupings of 5, rather than on 20-40 same component in a half second of time, which would be the inner sphere UAC.

It seems to me this is going to be a real sticking point, because if you decide that the timeline advances by ten years, you must address these effects. If you do so by deciding that suddenly all old innersphere auto cannons are suddenly burstfire, then you are throwing away the solution they came up with, eliminating the big differences they previously used to balance the UAC and prevent clan UAC from being too overpowered, compared to inner sphere normal AC. If burst fire and smaller calibers are not brought into the IS autocannon line, you will have Jagermechs using 2x UAC 20, dropping 80 points in same location in a split second with double taps. However, if you do the exact same thing to all preexisting inner sphere cannon, every one of them become totally obsolete, because even like a normal UAC5 which the inner sphere has had all along, becomes far less effective over night as it becomes several smaller projectiles all of a sudden, splattwring over several locations possibly, whereas it never would have splashed damage around before.

Something would HAVE to be done, and the backlash from IS players seeing their old trusty autocannon suddenly change would be ugly, possibly unpalatable. HENCE I believe PGI will avoid this can of worms for years to come. After all, they have not even finished implementing all the commonly available weapons of 3050 yet (arrow IV, mech mortars, etc.) - why jump to 3060?

P.S.: Andi, your poll is flawwed and leading for its second question. The first question appropriately gives a chance to say no, to disagree - but to finish the poll and have you negative - no result counted, you also have to answer the second question giving a date you think the time line should advance to 3060. The question pretends to address this with 'IF the timeline was advanced...', but any one who answers no to the first poll question will not be then telling you one of those three unrealistic dates in the next year... they dont and shouldnt have to throw their vote into a poke question that would tout their number/vote towards the opposite of their opinion... a set date for timeline advance. Yet to get your vote against a 3060 advance counted, you have to answer BOTH poll questions, and the second does not have a 'NO' option, or other option representing what the developers have stated WILL BE THE INTENDED advance of time, one year for one year. With out that option, or a never option on the second poll question, you basically gather a mix of mostly yes answers to your 3060 advance proposal, while all the no's who answer that way, then basically have to say yes to a 2015 date that they dont actually support, just so they can finish the poll and get their NO counted, without an error message and http error. The way you set it up, they have to answer both poll questions to successfully submit, possibly saying yes to one of your 2015 dates just to get their no answer counted - which isnt right. Fix it please.

Edited by Mad Porthos, 31 December 2014 - 11:15 PM.

[SuperPignouf]

The only balancing issue you raised is IS UAC 10 / UAC 20 that would be OP. Imho you can make them burst fire like clan UAC while keeping IS UAC5 and UAC2 shoot high caliber.

Time jump means more features, more features is good. You fear balancing issues ? That's the job of developers to take care of those issues. Who could say no to new features.

A sidenote would be that before spending time adding new weapons, it would be nice to have all available weapons be actually useful... For instance right now (U)AC2's and Flamers are really underwhelming and should imho be tweeked to actually be of use...

[Max Liao]

No. No. 1000 times ... NO!

First of all, the timeline should have started at 3025 with LESS technology. Start small, get the basics going and working well, THEN progress into more technology. Once the basic game was working well, they could have released one new item every so often - as research was being done on the Star League memory core.

PGI has time and time again demonstrated that they have trouble introducing components and technology. They keep reinventing the wheel, followed by weeks of unintended consequences which causes more chalkboards and napkins to be covered in more polyhedral wheel designs.

If they had started the game with the simple 3025 era tech, we probably would have a much better game. It would certainly be easier to balance and would have given them more time to work on the Clan solution. Plus (I speculate) that we'd have more maps, some new tech filtering in, and a more advanced community warfare.

[Vaniyz]

Right now we were supposed to be at January 3052. Which if Community Warfare had came out back at launch as had been the scuttlebutt we still would have been off for the clan invasion. And in 3052 a lot of stuff goes down. So June 2014 we got rolled back to 2049; http://mwomercs.com/...rning-to-3049/.

Now even if we were in 3052, and had somehow had events for all the major battles along the way as-intended, an eight year tech jump would not be a good idea. Especially with still plenty of mechs in this current timeframe not yet released, and Community Warfare being hardly a finished product. So by what you're suggesting, rather than continue to work on balancing the weapons that already exist (with the strong stat emphasis for ballistic weapons even though many clan mechs were supposed to be laser boats, and at present do so much more poorly than they "should"), they add more weapons to balance, we skip the clan invasion entirely, wipe out clan Smoke Jaguar, ComStar opens their information vaults, and a ton of hilarity ensues with the houses.

Heck, we don't even have clan verus IS mechs dropping in the right quantities. For non-CW matches it makes sense for the clan mechs to be essentially balanced down so their IS counterparts have a chance, but in CW they should be dropping 12v10. Three lanaces against two stars. Though that's something I doubt will be rectified. The "wider appeal" audience doesn't care about that.

[Andi Nagasia]

Vaniyz, on 01 January 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

Right now we were supposed to be at January 3052. Which if Community Warfare had came out back at launch as had been the scuttlebutt we still would have been off for the clan invasion. And in 3052 a lot of stuff goes down. So June 2014 we got rolled back to 2049,
Now even if we were in 3052, and had somehow had events for all the major battles along the way as-intended, an eight year tech jump would not be a good idea. Especially with still plenty of mechs in this current timeframe not yet released, and Community Warfare being hardly a finished product. So by what you're suggesting, rather than continue to work on balancing the weapons that already exist (with the strong stat emphasis for ballistic weapons even though many clan mechs were supposed to be laser boats, and at present do so much more poorly than they "should"), they add more weapons to balance, we skip the clan invasion entirely, wipe out clan Smoke Jaguar, ComStar opens their information vaults, and a ton of hilarity ensues with the houses.
Heck, we don't even have clan verus IS mechs dropping in the right quantities. For non-CW matches it makes sense for the clan mechs to be essentially balanced down so their IS counterparts have a chance, but in CW they should be dropping 12v10. Three lanaces against two stars. Though that's something I doubt will be rectified. The "wider appeal" audience doesn't care about that.

you misunderstand stand me, i under stand that this would cause problems, but i also feel it will solve problems,
no matter how much you try to balance MWO an IS-ML cant be balanced against a C-ER-ML, its not right to ether,
major battles would assume that PGI would make single or Co-op conflicts which they can still do with the move,
what im saying is that with the added tech it would make IS and Clan more balanced,

Russ has already said their will be a time jump as some time in the future,
i personally dont want to wait 8 real life years to get true faction balance,

and if this is about the Lore Battles that could happen, Clan where over powered at the start of the invasion,
is was 3060 when tech came out balance both sides and place them both on an even playing field,
you cant have lore battles and 10vs12 with clans as they are now, as they will lose 9-10 times,

this isnt about wanting your 3025 battles, or your 3054 battles, those battles could be made as shards,
as russ has already stated in 2 town halls, in case of these shards of time, it would be a large map,
with some well known location and objectives, you can replay, thats what these shards sound like,
not that they would make one of these shards for 3053 and only have it for a year,
this is a game you could play it over as many times as you want, as rush has said,

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 01 January 2015 - 12:50 PM.

[Vaniyz]

Andi Nagasia, on 01 January 2015 - 12:50 PM, said:

you misunderstand stand me, i under stand that this would cause problems, but i also feel it will solve problems,
no matter how much you try to balance MWO an IS-ML cant be balanced against a C-ER-ML, its not right to ether,
major battles would assume that PGI would make single or Co-op conflicts which they can still do with the move,
what im saying is that with the added tech it would make IS and Clan more balanced,

I didn't misunderstand. With the current tech PGI added to their own woes by trying to balance to multiple gametypes with IS/Clan. Attempts were made to give an IS mech a fighting chance against an equivalent weight and role Clan mech due to, at the time, the only game modes being Assault/Skirmish/Conquest. That way everybody gets to matter in a 12v12 game. Clan mechs have significantly less advantage than they should, and everybody that runs lasers runs hot because DHS' aren't as effective as they're "supposed" to be. For a hodge-podge everybody throw in their mechs gametype that makes some sense. As using an IS mech is just inferior which would be invariably frustrating. But in CW, where you have firmly divided IS and Clan mechs, a company is not the equivalant strength of a Binary plus a partial star. It's almost on par with a Binary. And that's where at least some of the lore balance comes from.

Yes, with the current attempted balance for Assault/Skirmish/Conquest for clan mechs, they would probably lose a lot more engagements at 10-strong. My point is that's not where they should have been balanced to if community warfare is the main focus of the game. But time and time again "This is what lore says," "this is what TT says," "this is what other MW games have said," have been shot down as not mattering.

I don't disagree that clan weapons being balanced down to IS weapons is wrong. But this game is supposed to be set in the 3050s, and we're "eventually" supposed to be able to participate in major events along this decade. But there's always been a disparity between vision and implimentation with this game.

And as previously stated, we don't even have everything that's supposed to be fairly common in terms of weaponry and mechs at the present time.

[Andi Nagasia]

@Vaniyz
i think we are on the same page, and i can respect you opinion,
we both feel things need to change just in different ways,

[Vaniyz]

I agree about us being on the same page, and appreciate you don't just think I'm being stubborn.

Moving the timeline forward would help to fix a lot of the clan/IS disparity. But then we'd just have the balance issues we had before the Clan mechs were out. It's not a bad idea, I just think my biggest concern with it is it strikes me as another piecemiel approach to fix part of the problem. (Knockdown, Boating, DHS weight:cooling, LRMs a half dozen times, SSRMs hitting center of mass, Jenner netcode/hitbox gremlins, UAC/5 unjam macro, AC/2 chainfire Macro, PPC/Gauss Poptart, quirks, etc). Some of them are just a normal part of QA testing (SSRMs hitting center of mass from a rapidly running and bouncing mech made little sense, for example), but some of them have implimented huge changes that have significant detriments to the game.

The example I cite a lot when talking to people is the Nova Prime. The Nova's been my favorite mech for a long time. Do I like that they gave it a waist and it's no longer the low-slung goofy legged mech I've always adored? Nah, but I get it and only having its 15° or whatever twist would be a severe detriment to gameplay. Does it function to a level I'd classify as "usable" thanks to ghost heat? No, no it does not. I'd go on but I'm already digressing.

[Threat Doc]

I want the time to advance the way it should advance, and no faster. Since I can't have the Third or Fourth Succession War, or the War of '39, at least not right now, it's important that we fight the Clan Invasion, once the servers get out of Beta and Community Warfare is completely established, at least until 3052/2017, and by then maybe we'll have the fights I want to fight, in addition to the Clan Invasion, and I can go fight where I prefer to be. That, or when PvE modules come out for Single-Player, if that remains a thing, like it is for now.

[cybex]

That would be nice but the game must have like a big update to add more stuff before that. I mean like other type of maps and four legged mechs of the era etc...

[kosmos1214]

well im not voteing as i would rather not see mwo have to jump but i will say that it would help with balance a bunch
and there are peaple who felt that mwo should have started in the 3060s to begin with

[Alan Davion]

I've thought about making a thread similiar to this, however with one or two big differences.

In my opionion, MWO should not be set in 3050 or whatever it is right now, the game needs to be regressed back to about 3025, all the buffs/nerfs applied so far should be reset, CW should be IS only for AT LEAST a full year, get all the IS mechs into the game, get them balanced, THEN bring back the Clan mechs, add in which ever Clan mechs haven't been added, and then get them all balanced.

As it is the timeline is so completely messed up it's not even funny.

Now, the reason I say regress the timeline back to 3025... 1. Make it more in line with the original "Mechwarrior 5" game, 2. It would allow the IS mechs to be properly balanced, and for a lot of missing mechs to be brought in. And 3. Get the timeline back on track.

The reason for having CW be IS only for at least a full year, has everyone forgotten how long it takes to travel the Inner Sphere? Jumpships could sometimes take WEEKS to get to their destination and back, possibly even longer than that if going from one side of the IS to the other.

This way, it would make every real month about an in-game year, so after two real years, we would be back to 3050 and the Clans could once again show up and ruin the day, but, everything would be more balanced and possibly with more features than we have right now.

As it stands there are at least 20 some-odd IS mechs that, really should be in the game that aren't, where as there aren't that many Clan Omnimechs left... I think there's maybe 6 Omnimechs that haven't been added. I'm working on getting that squared away for an actual post at some point.

Edited by Alan Davion, 22 January 2015 - 09:06 AM.