653 replies to this topic

[Vanguard836]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 January 2015 - 05:33 AM, said:

I am against it because that is going against the whole premise of what an OmniMech was designed to do. And OmniMech is set up so a command can swap out damaged equipment quickly and get the vehicle back in the field fast.

It is a military decision for a Military Vehicle. Sometimes you HAVE to stop thinking like a civilian when you want to play a game of war!

Clan Warriors are not supposed to be known for free thinking unless they are from Clan Wolf.

While true for the TT perspective, free modifications of IS mech would not be so easy or so accessible in MWO if IS tech followed TT lore due to most 3050 tech being available only to very few. This is perhaps a similar topic that could be seen moving a little bit away from TT for the sake of better gameplay here.

[Joseph Mallan]

Tombstoner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:35 AM, said:

Sorry Bishop i cant agree. I think the size of the mech, since that defines hit box area should be accounted for during mech design specifically for effective armor protection and critical space.... why does the atlas have exactly the same amount of space as the commando...because its a TT game from the 80's. why does the raven have 2 crit slots in its legs but the atlas also has the same 2 crit spaces.... same reason. however compare the targeting difficulty...raven wins at all speeds. even stationary its harder to hit at extreme range.

Artistic interpretation combined with non uniform mech scaling and creation rules = fundamental problem with game design. This game is lacking systems that account for quantifiable differences that materialise when you port a TT to a FPS. Its fundamental why TTK is out of whack across all tonnages. The average life span of an atlas/diashi is padded by how long it takes to get into combat. Hypothetically if the average life span of an atlas is 6 minutes.... its really 2 since it took 4 to cross the map. where as the raven enters combat within 60 seconds.

TL;DR - Fix the TT port to FPS first and see what happens

You do know that the TT game has "advanced rules" that limit the Crit spaces the smaller a Mech gets right? I used to use them and only 2-5 of (ALL) the Light chassis were unable to "fit" with reduced space.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 09 January 2015 - 05:49 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Vanguard836, on 09 January 2015 - 05:38 AM, said:

While true for the TT perspective, free modifications of IS mech would not be so easy or so accessible in MWO if IS tech followed TT lore due to most 3050 tech being available only to very few. This is perhaps a similar topic that could be seen moving a little bit away from TT for the sake of better gameplay here.

True. And when I get into a "Canon" unit I would have to follow the build requirements of said unit IF PGI were to impose them. But we are Mercs and many Merc units "customize" and even FrankenMech designs. There are even some canon commands that have specified amounts of Mixed tech and advanced modifications that are spelled out in the Merc Sourcebooks.

[Bishop Steiner]

Tombstoner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:35 AM, said:

Sorry Bishop i cant agree. I think the size of the mech, since that defines hit box area should be accounted for during mech design specifically for effective armor protection and critical space.... why does the atlas have exactly the same amount of space as the commando...because its a TT game from the 80's. why does the raven have 2 crit slots in its legs but the atlas also has the same 2 crit spaces.... same reason. however compare the targeting difficulty...raven wins at all speeds. even stationary its harder to hit at extreme range.

Artistic interpretation combined with non uniform mech scaling and creation rules = fundamental problem with game design. This game is lacking systems that account for quantifiable differences that materialise when you port a TT to a FPS. Its fundamental why TTK is out of whack across all tonnages. The average life span of an atlas/diashi is padded by how long it takes to get into combat. Hypothetically if the average life span of an atlas is 6 minutes.... its really 2 since it took 4 to cross the map. where as the raven enters combat within 60 seconds.

TL;DR - Fix the TT port to FPS first and see what happens

kind of utterly unrelated........and never going to happen. Trust me, people have asked that since the game was just TT (and there were some alternate rules for that). But it really has no impact on the topic.

[kapusta11]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 05:07 AM, said:

Why are you ignoring by far the biggest advantage of IS energy weapons? They have way better damage per heat (and the burn duration is a much bigger thing than you give it credit for)

IS LPL: 1.57 Dmg/Heat
C-LPL: 1.3 Dmg/Heat

IS LL: 1.29 Dmg/Heat
IS ERLL: 1.13 Dmg/Heat
C-ERLL: 1.10 Dmg/Heat (this one is close, but IS have the option of standard LL, clan dont)

IS ML: 1.25 Dmg/Heat
C-ERML: 1.17 Dmg/Heat

IS MPL: 1.50 Dmg/Heat
C-MPL: 1.33 Dmg/Heat

And that is before taking into account that any IS mech using energy weapons will have AT LEAST -10% heat generation (or the pilot picked the wrong mech for the job)

Clan weapons have the SITUATIONAL advantage of range (it means nothing if both parties are in range, which for the bigger lasers is 95% of engagements)
Heat efficiency is an advantage ALL of the time.

HOWEVER: I agree that, overall, clan weapons (barring ACs) are better than IS at the moment, but only slightly and its balanced by the locked build choices. If you take those build choices away you force the creation of the silly situation where clan mechs would rather be using IS weapons (which is already the case with ACs)

You should look at bigger picture, you're talking about heat efficiency PER POINT of damage, take a more practical approach and look at final result of combined damage:

5xCERML+1xLPL:
48 damage, 40 heat, greater range, more heatsinks due to lighter weapons, 6 hardpoints, 11 tons.

6xISML+2xLL:
48 damage, 38 heat, less range, 8 hardpoints, 16(!) tons.

5xCMPL:
40 damage 30 heat, 5 hardpoints, 10 tons
6xCMPL:
48 damage 36 heat, 6 hardpoints, 12 tons

7xISMPL:
42 damage, 28 heat, 7 hardpoints, 14 tons

3xCERML+3xCMPL+1xCLPL:
58 damage, 46 heat, 15 tons

6xMPL+2xLPL:
58 damage, 38 heat, 26(!) tons

Edited by kapusta11, 09 January 2015 - 05:56 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 03:52 AM, said:

Im in 2 minds about this. The only already T1 mech it would help at all is the Direwolf and tbh after considering it i dont think it would help it a lot.. it already has plenty of tonnage so only a very few builds would benefit..

But how do you propose it works exactly? Should it be dynamic, like IS mechs or should PGI hardlock the slots in advance? Should mechs such as the Warhawk and Summoner be able to remove Ferro Fibrous and install Endo, or just add Endo? What about the Timber and Stormcrow, can they remove FF if they want more crit space?

I do think as well its possible it might make the Hellbringer and Maddog very, very, very good (especially the Hellbringer if the crit slots are dynamic, since you could force them all into that right arm which no one uses), so there is that to consider as well.

Locked crit slots, predetermined by PGI.

And yes, it would make the Hellbringer probably a tier 1. Mad Dog? Still 60 tons with big STs. I doubt it would be tier 1, but a very strong tier 2, weak tier 1 is not undesirable.

Gargoyle and Summoner could conceivably be tier 2, though would need a few quirks (and the gargoyle would need the Huge Movement Archetype reduced) to solidify. Nova would still be tier 3, because it simply has too terrible a mix of oversizing and hitboxes. But it would hit harder before it dies.

[Lily from animove]

Tombstoner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:35 AM, said:

Sorry Bishop i cant agree. I think the size of the mech, since that defines hit box area should be accounted for during mech design specifically for effective armor protection and critical space.... why does the atlas have exactly the same amount of space as the commando...because its a TT game from the 80's. why does the raven have 2 crit slots in its legs but the atlas also has the same 2 crit spaces.... same reason. however compare the targeting difficulty...raven wins at all speeds. even stationary its harder to hit at extreme range.

Artistic interpretation combined with non uniform mech scaling and creation rules = fundamental problem with game design. This game is lacking systems that account for quantifiable differences that materialise when you port a TT to a FPS. Its fundamental why TTK is out of whack across all tonnages. The average life span of an atlas/diashi is padded by how long it takes to get into combat. Hypothetically if the average life span of an atlas is 6 minutes.... its really 2 since it took 4 to cross the map. where as the raven enters combat within 60 seconds.

TL;DR - Fix the TT port to FPS first and see what happens

why? because an atlas may need bigger gyros and more myomers to move the bigger mechs and so in the end the same amount of crits as in a raven is left. Don't forget the mech is a bit more than just crits and tonnage. yes the 80s game could have given the atlas 2x the crits and make every gyro and actuator consume 2x the crits, but that makes the complex system just even more complicated.

Edited by Lily from animove, 09 January 2015 - 06:03 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 04:26 AM, said:

The ONLY clan weapon that can be considered straight up better than the IS counterpart is the C-ERML. The Autocannons are so much worse as to be never used.

The weight and slot savings on the clan weapons are NOT RELEVANT since the locked in bad build choices mean that the tonnage you gain is wasted in most cases, only final builds matter - case in point: the TBR cannot run Twin gauss on a 75 ton mech, despite having the hardpoints for it and C-Gauss being 12 tons, whereas IS CAN run twin Gauss on 65 ton mechs despite them weighing 15 tons each...

Clan Gauss. IDentical to IS Guss in all ways....except 3 tons lighter.

[Lily from animove]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Clan Gauss. IDentical to IS Guss in all ways....except 3 tons lighter.

true, but its hardly used because the clanmechs hae fixed ES/FF locations makign most of them not bale to dualwield them. and so the lighter gauss is not avalid choice.
And now imagien whats going to happen if we ever make clanweapons available for IS, at these moments the IS ecomes absolutely OP, because they have the full customizeable mechs with all the clanweaponadvantages but no the clanmech construction rule restrictions.

kapusta11, on 09 January 2015 - 05:52 AM, said:

You should look at bigger picture, you're talking about heat efficiency PER POINT of damage, take a more practical approach and look at final result of combined damage:

5xCERML+1xLPL:
48 damage, 40 heat, greater range, more heatsinks due to lighter weapons, 6 hardpoints, 11 tons.

6xISML+2xLL:
48 damage, 38 heat, less range, 8 hardpoints, 16(!) tons.

5xCMPL:
40 damage 30 heat, 5 hardpoints, 10 tons
6xCMPL:
48 damage 36 heat, 6 hardpoints, 12 tons

7xISMPL:
42 damage, 28 heat, 7 hardpoints, 14 tons

3xCERML+3xCMPL+1xCLPL:
58 damage, 46 heat, 15 tons

6xMPL+2xLPL:
58 damage, 38 heat, 26(!) tons

with that broken logic Nova Prime would be a Tier -2 mech, which it isn't.

you have a heattreshold and you can only squeeze a specific amount of dmg out of it, and heat efficiency is what is very important at this point. Why is hardly anyone using CERLL? because they have range but are badly inefficient.

important is to have a proper heatgeneration, because it is generating the ressource you work with, and you have to process this ressource in a proper amount of dmg.

your logic to analyse is flawed, that I don't wonder why some see clans are OP everywhere.

Edited by Lily from animove, 09 January 2015 - 06:04 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Clan Gauss. IDentical to IS Guss in all ways....except 3 tons lighter.

Except that as ive said about 1 billion times you cant look at the weight really because of the bad hardlocked build choices costing the clan mechs lots of tonnage. Case in point: Jagermechs and Cats at 65t CAN run twin Gauss, but the 75t Timber CANT even though it has 12t Gauss, because it is badly overengined.. Hell even the 85t Warhawk can barely run 2 Gauss rifles (due to all the locked DHS)

In FUNCTION, the C-Gauss is 100% identical to the IS Gauss, and in game that is all that matters.

Sure, IS mechs can look at Clan weapons and go OMFG i could do so much with that 12 ton gauss and think its OP, because fully customisable IS mechs WOULD be OP with clan weapons. I think thats where a lot of the crying comes from actually....

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 09 January 2015 - 06:11 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I love seeing the 90s arguments being rehashed in 2015!

[kapusta11]

Joseph Mallan, on 09 January 2015 - 05:33 AM, said:

I am against it because that is going against the whole premise of what an OmniMech was designed to do. And OmniMech is set up so a command can swap out damaged equipment quickly and get the vehicle back in the field fast.

It is a military decision for a Military Vehicle. Sometimes you HAVE to stop thinking like a civilian when you want to play a game of war!

Clan Warriors are not supposed to be known for free thinking unless they are from Clan Wolf.

Weren't there "cheap and efficient" and "optimised but pricey" mechs in TT? If that is true than that is the problem since MWO has only one price - 1 player slot in 12vs12 game. Mechs, as a tools (player skill aside), should not suck because of that kind of differentiation.

[Vandul]

When you said "Endo" the first thing I thought of was

[kapusta11]

Lily from animove, on 09 January 2015 - 06:02 AM, said:

true, but its hardly used because the clanmechs hae fixed ES/FF locations makign most of them not bale to dualwield them. and so the lighter gauss is not avalid choice.
And now imagien whats going to happen if we ever make clanweapons available for IS, at these moments the IS ecomes absolutely OP, because they have the full customizeable mechs with all the clanweaponadvantages but no the clanmech construction rule restrictions.

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Except that as ive said about 1 billion times you cant look at the weight really because of the bad hardlocked build choices costing the clan mechs lots of tonnage. Case in point: Jagermechs and Cats at 65t CAN run twin Gauss, but the 75t Timber CANT even though it has 12t Gauss, because it is badly overengined.. Hell even the 85t Warhawk can barely run 2 Gauss rifles (due to all the locked DHS)

In FUNCTION, the C-Gauss is 100% identical to the IS Gauss, and in game that is all that matters.

Sure, IS mechs can look at Clan weapons and go OMFG i could do so much with that 12 ton gauss and think its OP, because fully customisable IS mechs WOULD be OP with clan weapons. I think thats where a lot of the crying comes from actually....

That's until Dual Gauss capable clan mechs are released, you'll see forums drowned in whining because you can't kill it fast by destroying ST and CASEd armor protect it from transfering damage after explosion. That's why fixed equipment as a tool of balancing anything is flawed. There will always be optimised by lore mechs which will be OP in MWO and "workhorse" mechs that will be pretty meh.

Lily from animove, on 09 January 2015 - 06:02 AM, said:

with that broken logic Nova Prime would be a Tier -2 mech, which it isn't.

you have a heattreshold and you can only squeeze a specific amount of dmg out of it, and heat efficiency is what is very important at this point. Why is hardly anyone using CERLL? because they have range but are badly inefficient.

important is to have a proper heatgeneration, because it is generating the ressource you work with, and you have to process this ressource in a proper amount of dmg.

your logic to analyse is flawed, that I don't wonder why some see clans are OP everywhere.

How is it flawed? There are other reasons why certain mechs suck, bad geometry affects both side from Awesome to Nova. Your argumentation is flawed bacause of convoluted examples you use.

Edited by kapusta11, 09 January 2015 - 06:30 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

kapusta11, on 09 January 2015 - 06:07 AM, said:

Weren't there "cheap and efficient" and "optimised but pricey" mechs in TT? If that is true than that is the problem since MWO has only one price - 1 player slot in 12vs12 game. Mechs, as a tools (player skill aside), should not suck because of that kind of differentiation.

That depends. Do you mean Official or personal games? Remember PGI is the GM of this game. It is their rules we have to play by or leave. What keeps happening here is the players forget it is not their game, they are not making it. It's ok to suggest all you want, but don't EXPECT change. There are to many "visions" of what this game "should" be for PGI to make it how everyone wants it.

There are a couple Billion potential customers after all.

[Widowmaker1981]

kapusta11, on 09 January 2015 - 06:24 AM, said:

That's until Dual Gauss capable clan mechs are released, you'll see forums drowned in whining because you can't kill it fast by destroying ST and CASEd armor protect it from transfering damage after explosion. That's why fixed equipment as a tool of balancing anything is flawed. There will always be optimised by lore mechs which will be OP in MWO and "workhorse" mechs that will be pretty meh.



How is it flawed? There are other reasons why certain mechs suck, bad geometry affects both side from Awesome to Nova. Your argumentation is flawed bacause of convoluted examples you use.

I do see your inherent point, that using locked build choices to balance clan tech causes almost unavoidable internal balance issues within clan simply based on what the orginal TRO designers did with the mech. However, since PGI want to keep the slot and tonnage costs of everything from TT, if they made clan mechs fully customisable they would have to nerf the SH!T out of the individual weapon systems to account for their lower tonnage (and to balance out the Clan XL, the 7 slot ES, the 2 slot DHS, etc), which would end up with the clans having no trace of their TT flavour and would simply be like IS mechs except with more, but FAR crappier, guns. I dont want to see that.

[Bishop Steiner]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Except that as ive said about 1 billion times you cant look at the weight really because of the bad hardlocked build choices costing the clan mechs lots of tonnage. Case in point: Jagermechs and Cats at 65t CAN run twin Gauss, but the 75t Timber CANT even though it has 12t Gauss, because it is badly overengined.. Hell even the 85t Warhawk can barely run 2 Gauss rifles (due to all the locked DHS)

In FUNCTION, the C-Gauss is 100% identical to the IS Gauss, and in game that is all that matters.

Sure, IS mechs can look at Clan weapons and go OMFG i could do so much with that 12 ton gauss and think its OP, because fully customisable IS mechs WOULD be OP with clan weapons. I think thats where a lot of the crying comes from actually....

Galahad? One of the Mad Dog variants carried 2..... with 3 tons from endo that will be a feasible build in MWO.

One can't base it purely on what's here, now. One has to see what is also coming. Clan Weapons are in many ways weaker that IS, true. But IMO it weakens ones stance and argument if we gloss over inconvenient truths.

Not every IS mech carries 2 GRs well, either. But it can be done, comfortably by several mechs on both sides, with more coming. People argue the Clan ER PPC is somehow not superior because they don't have a lower heat std PPC option. That overlooks the fact that the C-ER PPC is still superior to the ER PPC.

Regardless, this whole thing seems like it's veering way off topic, folks.

[Tombstoner]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:48 AM, said:

kind of utterly unrelated........and never going to happen. Trust me, people have asked that since the game was just TT (and there were some alternate rules for that). But it really has no impact on the topic.

It does when your trying to justify adding endo to free up tonnage based on available free space. Yes i am aware of the optional rules set.

p.s. i also agree that it will never happen

Edited by Tombstoner, 09 January 2015 - 06:46 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 January 2015 - 05:55 AM, said:

Clan Gauss. IDentical to IS Guss in all ways....except 3 tons lighter.

true, except for two things.

1) Build limitations; we simply lack platforms where that advantage is actually utilized except the Direwhale. Even our 65,70 and 75 ton platforms are all unable to mount dual gauss even in its smaller and lighter form.

2) Quirks. Every IS chassis where you'dnormally consider mounting Gauss, and particularly dual gauss, has at ballistic quirks. Thus, in practice, IS Gauss fires faster/has higher projectile velocity (and even small percentage gains on 2000m/s are very significant)/has better range.

In fact, very few IS mechs mounting gauss do so at Clan Gauss stats... And those are very much oddball builds.

[Lily from animove]

kapusta11, on 09 January 2015 - 06:24 AM, said:

That's until Dual Gauss capable clan mechs are released, you'll see forums drowned in whining because you can't kill it fast by destroying ST and CASEd armor protect it from transfering damage after explosion. That's why fixed equipment as a tool of balancing anything is flawed. There will always be optimised by lore mechs which will be OP in MWO and "workhorse" mechs that will be pretty meh.



How is it flawed? There are other reasons why certain mechs suck, bad geometry affects both side from Awesome to Nova. Your argumentation is flawed bacause of convoluted examples you use.

No its not lfawed, you were comparing weapons, yes geometry is an isue of course, but geometry is not what you described in your post abut weapons, nor was this point of the weapon comparison. The Nova is bad becauseof gemoetry but hey if clanweaposns would that superior it should still be good. and its alos not the TBR being good because of the CERML and CLPL it has. IS lasers are superior, give clanners IS lasers, and you will see true whine. Because clanpalyers for some reason average analyse better and act smarter. And then you give heat efficient weapons to the clanners who are able to play the strenght of these weapons. Then the IS would get wrecked. But right now, most clanners run extremely fats hot, and then they are done. But most IS pilots except lights don't try to get close, they do still the pop-fights where clanners are just better because that allows them to cool down.
saying the Is lases suck is just not right, they are better if you play them right. Exactly like clanlasers are better, only if you play them right. rangeadvantage is all the clanners have, yet that is not winning you the battle unless our maps look like superlong open plains a l MW 3. And our maps are not like that.

Widowmaker1981, on 09 January 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

I do see your inherent point, that using locked build choices to balance clan tech causes almost unavoidable internal balance issues within clan simply based on what the orginal TRO designers did with the mech. However, since PGI want to keep the slot and tonnage costs of everything from TT, if they made clan mechs fully customisable they would have to nerf the SH!T out of the individual weapon systems to account for their lower tonnage (and to balance out the Clan XL, the 7 slot ES, the 2 slot DHS, etc), which would end up with the clans having no trace of their TT flavour and would simply be like IS mechs except with more, but FAR crappier, guns. I dont want to see that.

it didn't cared in theold MW games, everythign was customizeable there, and the TBR was not the superawesome ultramech, it was below a 80t mehc and above a 65t mehc because tonnage was all that mattered.