53 replies to this topic

[ibex230]

Basically an ECM timber wolf.
75 tons, endo, ferro, 8 laser hardpoints, 2 ballistics, 375xl engine AND 5 jj's

Produced 3051

Looks like a baws as well, a jet airplane on legs

Edited by ibex230, 11 February 2015 - 04:59 AM.

[Metus regem]

Clan battle mech...

That's problem number one....

Balancing a clan battle mech is problem number two...

Variants, lack there of, is problem number three for clan battle mechs....

Note battle mechs, are different from Omni mechs, as in they should behave like IS mechs in terms of customization.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Its because it isn't a Black Python, it's a Monty Python.

Its too busy delivering coconuts to King Arthur and his band of merry men.

P.S. look at it this way. If you like the looks of the mech (I do anyway), the Cougar looks ALOT like it (the statue more than the pic). The Cougar won't be here for a while though.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 11 February 2015 - 05:17 AM.

[ibex230]

Metus regem, on 11 February 2015 - 05:10 AM, said:

Clan battle mech...

That's problem number one....

Balancing a clan battle mech is problem number two...

Variants, lack there of, is problem number three for clan battle mechs....

Note battle mechs, are different from Omni mechs, as in they should behave like IS mechs in terms of customization.

Ya but is this really an issue?
The viper already comes with it all; monster engine, speed, huge weapon loadout and both armor upgrades.
Variants could be created by PGI so that's not really an issue.

What is there to balance? Clan battlemechs would just bring another flavour.

[Mindwipe]

I'm hoping we'll see Clan BattleMechs and Inner Sphere OmniMechs sooner rather than later. Not really sure how much the IS would really benefit from Omni tech but the Clans really need some options. I'd love to have the Vixen (Incubus) in game myself.

[FupDup]

ibex230, on 11 February 2015 - 05:18 AM, said:

What is there to balance? Clan battlemechs would just bring another flavour.

Basically, Clan BM's get the same tech strengths of Clan Omnis while having the same customization as the IS. They get all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses. It would be kinda crazytown in some cases.

[Alistair Winter]

So... a 75 ton Cougar?

Spoiler

[FupDup]

Alistair Winter, on 11 February 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

So... a 75 ton Cougar?

Spoiler

It also has the same speed as its 35 ton counterpart...take from that what you will.

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2015 - 05:28 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Alistair Winter, on 11 February 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

So... a 75 ton Cougar?

Spoiler

I feel the same way lol.

A question to more knowledgeable BT people than me.

Isn't Clan Battlemechs and Clan IIC mechs basically treated the same?

I know IIC variants were IS battlemech reworks where as Clan Battlemechs were probably original to the Clans.

I ask because I always had the feeling Clanners don't "like" these mechs. They are for old Mechwarriors, free births, and bondsman, that are relegated to doing garrison duty. Not the kind of mechs the Clanners would be using for front line engagements.

[FupDup]

MeiSooHaityu, on 11 February 2015 - 05:33 AM, said:

I feel the same way lol.

A question to more knowledgeable BT people than me.

Isn't Clan Battlemechs and Clan IIC mechs basically treated the same?

I know IIC variants were IS battlemech reworks where as Clan Battlemechs were probably original to the Clans.

I ask because I always had the feeling Clanners don't "like" these mechs. They are for old Mechwarriors, free births, and bondsman, that are relegated to doing garrison duty. Not the kind of mechs the Clanners would be using for front line engagements.

From a construction standpoint they're exactly the same. They have all the same combat attributes. The difference is mostly just lore/fluff/flavor text.

What's ironic is that a large number of "second line" "garrison" Clan Battlemechs actually have superior loadouts, optimization, and min-max than most "front line" Omnimechs do. Some like the Bane and Rifleman IIC are particularly hilarious.

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2015 - 05:40 AM.

[Remarius]

FupDup, on 11 February 2015 - 05:35 AM, said:

From a construction standpoint they're exactly the same. They have all the same combat attributes. The difference is mostly just lore/fluff/flavor text.

What's ironic is that a large number of "second line" "garrison" Clan Battlemechs actually have superior loadouts, optimization, and min-max than most "front line" Omnimechs do. Some like the Bane and Rifleman IIC are particularly hilarious.

Ahhh the Stone Rhino.....

[kapusta11]

ibex230, on 11 February 2015 - 04:57 AM, said:

Why no Black Python (Viper)?

Because it's "unseen", as most second line Clan BattleMechs from 3055 TRO, so you'll probably never see it in game, which is sad.

See no problem with the fact that it's BattleMech though, locked equipment is a dumb idea to begin with, Clan TECH should be rebalanced and customization unlocked. Huntsman is a Stormcrow with JJs, Night Gyr is better than Timberwolf, Kodiak is better that Dire Wolf, it's all just a matter of time. IS Omnis for example will be DOA because of fixed XL engines, some don't even have endo steel upgrade. And if you're lore junkie and fine with locked equipment saying that it's true to canon then ask PGI to forbid any customization of IS BattleMechs and make Clans 3 times stronger.

Edited by kapusta11, 11 February 2015 - 06:08 AM.

[FupDup]

kapusta11, on 11 February 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

Because it's "unseen", as most second line Clan BattleMechs from 3055 TRO, so you'll probably never see it in game, which is sad.

Harmony Gold, the reason why we can't have nice things.

kapusta11, on 11 February 2015 - 06:03 AM, said:

See no problem with the fact that it's BattleMech though, locked equipment is a dumb idea to begin with, Clan TECH should be rebalanced and customization unlocked. Huntsman is a Stormcrow with JJs, Night Gyr is better than Timberwolf, Kodiak is better that Dire Wolf, it's all just a matter of time. IS Omnis for example will be DOA because of fixed XL engines, some don't even have endo steel upgrade. And if you're lore junkie and fine with locked equipment saying that it's true to canon then ask PGI to forbid any customization of IS BattleMechs and make Clans 3 times stronger.

The Huntsman is slower than the Crow, which somewhat balances it (89 kph). It's also 50 tons instead of 55 tons. Still probably a great medium though.


Anyways, I do understand where you're trying to come from on this, but honestly I actually like Omnimechs and Battlemechs not being reskins of one another. Playing Mister Potatohead with pods was actually a lot more fun than I originally anticipated it to be.

I tried the gunbag construction system in MW3 and MW4 and it was bland/boring, now that I look back on it. Yes, there are of course a good number of them that get pooped on in the process, although that's primarily because of massive equipment effectiveness gaps.


For example, why does nearly every goddamn mech in the game have to have Endo Steel to be considered effective? Why is carrying 5 Jump Jets considered a weakness? Why are Flamers worthless? Etc. I view those (and other cases) as symptoms of underlying game mechanic problems.

The hardlocked Omni construction merely highlights and brings those issues into the forefront because you can't remove them from the mech.

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2015 - 07:29 AM.

[kapusta11]

FupDup, on 11 February 2015 - 06:49 AM, said:

Harmony Gold, the reason why we can't have nice things.



The Huntsman is slower than the Crow, which somewhat balances it (89 kph). It's also 50 tons instead of 55 tons. Still probably a great medium though.


Anyways, I do understand where you're trying to come from on this, but honestly I actually like Omnimechs and Battlemechs not being reskins of one another. Playing Mister Potatohead with pods was actually a lot more fun than I originally anticipated it to be.

I tried the gunbag construction system in MW3 and MW4 and it was bland/boring, now that I look back on it. Yes, there are of course a good number of them that get pooped on in the process, although that's primarily because of massive equipment effectiveness gaps.


For example, why does nearly every goddamn mech in the game have to have Endo Steel to be considered effective? Why is carrying 5 Jump Jets considered a weakness? Why are Flamers worthless? Etc. I view those (and other cases) as symptoms of underlying game mechanic problems.

The hardlocked Omni construction merely highlights and brings those issues into the forefront because you can't min-max them out of the mech.

What would highlight ALL the issues this game has is full customization with no restrictions whatsoever, not even hardpoints and with doubled dissipation and heat cap of say 40 (should depend on the amount of heatsinks though but whatever).

There is no such thing like min-max, you just stack pinpoint weapons of the same type and fire, PGI, intentionally or not, forced this way of play when they spit on hit allocation. It's not even about FLD, there is nothing wrong with single PPC or single AC10 or Gauss, it's about massed weapons.

You don't pick chassis with bad geometry. You can't stack weapons if you don't have enough hardpoints. You can't stack Gauss and PPCs anymore because of projectile desync. You can't stack ACs because they are heavy and some mechs don't have enough hardpoints. You can't stack SRMs because they spread damage and go against the very idea of MWO type of boating. You can't stack more than 2 PPCs because of Ghost Heat. You cant stack a lot of energy weapons because of low dissipation and the way heat system works in MWO. You can stack lasers however, as long as you can dish out two high damaging alphas and not shut down in the process.

These are the rules of MWO and the reason of why certain chassis/weapons/builds suck. You can use quirks as a band aid to balance stuff or you can fix core issues and use quirks as a way to give mechs (BattleMechs/Omnis) or mech variants some different flavor.

Edited by kapusta11, 11 February 2015 - 07:56 AM.

[FupDup]

kapusta11, on 11 February 2015 - 07:47 AM, said:

What would highlight ALL the issues this game has is full customization with no restrictions whatsoever, not even hardpoints and with doubled dissipation and heat cap of say 40 (should depend on the amount of heatsinks though but whatever).

There is no such thing like min-max, you just stack pinpoint weapons of the same type and fire, PGI, intentionally or not, forced this way of play when they spit on hit allocation. It's not even about FLD, there is nothing wrong with single PPC or single AC10 or Gauss, it's about massed weapons.

You don't pick chassis with bad geometry. You can't stack weapons if you don't have enough hardpoints. You can't stack Gauss and PPCs anymore because of projectile desync. You can't stack ACs because they are heavy and some mechs don't have enough hardpoints. You can't stack SRMs because they spread damage and go against the very idea of MWO type of boating. You can't stack more than 2 PPCs because they are hot. You cant stack a lot of energy weapons because of low dissipation and the way heat system works in MWO. You can stack lasers however, as long as you can dish out two high damaging alphas and not shut down in the process.

These are the rules of MWO and the reason of why certain chassis/weapons/builds suck. You can use quirks as a band aid to balance stuff or you can fix core issues and use quirks as a way to give mechs (BattleMechs/Omnis) or mech variants some different flavor.

Yes and no...if we did manage to "fix" all of the "broken" issues, there would still be power gaps. Battletech itself has a history of this even starting in 3025 (but not as bad as later timeline years). Some of our issues today are inherited from that environment, and to be fair yes a few are also PGI caused.

--------------------------------

For builds, Tabletop's philosophy of equipping 6+ entirely different weapons on a single chassis is almost impossible to make effective. "Wheel of fortune" frankenmechs are never good, no matter what you do with the game's mechanics. It's always better to have a more modest number of weapon groups that have some form of synergy or purpose.

Just slapping on a Small Pulse Laser, LB 10-X, 2 Machine Guns, LRM10, and SRM4 would be garbage in Battletech and it's garbage here as well. Those loadouts are nearly impossible to save unless we somehow did something like heat to penalize using more than 1 of a single weapon type.

More practical mixed builds like having Gauss for long range and some SRMs for short range can work, but the wheel-of-fortune 6+ weapon group loadouts are just badly designed even in TT. Boats and weapon stacking were also extremely good in TT, especially for weapons that didn't have a drastic weakness of some kind.

--------------------------------

...For hitboxes in particular, those are actually a specific thing caused by a real-time game. The only way to make mech physical model geometry not matter in combat is to copy and paste Tabletop's hit location tables, where you roll a pair of dice for a number 2-12 to determine where your shots will hit, if they even hit at all. If we have any control over aiming whatsoever, a target's physical dimensions will always be a factor.

--------------------------------

...In a broad sense, all mechs and guns weren't created equal, not by a long shot. Many just existed for "flavor," because only including the top handful of mechs and guns in the whole lore would seem more boring. In particular, the construction rules tended to give way more benefit as you climbed the tonnage scale. For example, a 30 ton mech is basically always superior to a 25 ton mech, if all other factors like tech level were kept equal. A Timberwolf was always superior to a Summoner if you weren't a space poor who couldn't afford one, etc.

Basically, the problem is that we're playing a game that was meant to be a multi-unit strategy game with armies fighting armies, but instead we only get a single individual unit per player. It would be like turning Starcraft into an FPS and then watching everybody choose to be Battlecruisers or Archons instead of Zerglings and Probes.

--------------------------------

Every MW game to date has had problems trying to make playing a Zergling just as fun and viable as going straight for a Protoss Carrier or Ultralisk. Most didn't even try, and just made the player begin the game in light mechs and then buy/unlock assaults as they progressed in the singleplayer mode.

Only PGI has made some effort for class/mech/weapon balance or "role warfare" (and even then there's still quite a bit of work to do...). We're not anywhere near perfection yet, but we're certainly not as far from it as this IP in general is known for...

Edited by FupDup, 11 February 2015 - 08:21 AM.

[Deathlike]

FupDup, on 11 February 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:

Every MW game to date has had problems trying to make playing a Zergling just as fun and viable as going straight for a Protoss Carrier or Ultralisk. Most didn't even try, and just made the player begin the game in light mechs and then buy/unlock assaults as they progressed in the singleplayer mode.

Only PGI has made some effort for class/mech/weapon balance or "role warfare" (and even then there's still quite a bit of work to do...). We're not anywhere near perfection yet, but we're certainly not as far from it as this IP in general is known for...

Since Light mech rushes were effectively "removed" for the most part because of 3/3/3/3, I can't use the phrase "for the swarm" anymore... because it was hilarious trying to kill larger mechs with Jenners and other Lights...

Sadly Lostech.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 February 2015 - 08:25 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Well, I can think of ONE big reason we don't see this Mech currently..

It's not produced until 3051.

On top of that, there's only 2 Variants until after the Jihad/Dark Ages remake, since the 3 and 4 use a weapon not developed until 3059.

[FupDup]

Kristov Kerensky, on 11 February 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Well, I can think of ONE big reason we don't see this Mech currently..

It's not produced until 3051.

On top of that, there's only 2 Variants until after the Jihad/Dark Ages remake, since the 3 and 4 use a weapon not developed until 3059.

Lack of variants isn't really an issue anymore because PGI invented a non-canon Enforcer variant (5P) for the Resistance pack.

[kapusta11]

FupDup, on 11 February 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:

Yes and no...if we did manage to "fix" all of the "broken" issues, there would still be power gaps. Battletech itself has a history of this even starting in 3025 (but not as bad as later timeline years). Some of our issues today are inherited from that environment, and to be fair yes a few are also PGI caused.

--------------------------------

For builds, Tabletop's philosophy of equipping 6+ entirely different weapons on a single chassis is almost impossible to make effective. "Wheel of fortune" frankenmechs are never good, no matter what you do with the game's mechanics. It's always better to have a more modest number of weapon groups that have some form of synergy or purpose.

Just slapping on a Small Pulse Laser, LB 10-X, 2 Machine Guns, LRM10, and SRM4 would be garbage in Battletech and it's garbage here as well. Those loadouts are nearly impossible to save unless we somehow did something like heat to penalize using more than 1 of a single weapon type.

More practical mixed builds like having Gauss for long range and some SRMs for short range can work, but the wheel-of-fortune 6+ weapon group loadouts are just badly designed even in TT. Boats and weapon stacking were also extremely good in TT, especially for weapons that didn't have a drastic weakness of some kind.

All good points, however I can't agree that timeline advancement will bring power gap issues. If everyone were running with either reflective or Reactive or Hardened or Stealth armor, have Endo or Composite or Reinforced structure and Light Fusion of XXL Fusion engine carrying something like AC20 + Heavy PPC + a bunch of SRMs loaded with Tandem-Charge missiles or just AP ammo for AC doesn't sound like a bad idea. This would also force you to pick your targets making "boating" a role, a counter to specific builds, not a way to go. Not going to happen in case of MWO though, is something like 50 "mech packs" away from now.

As for current state of the game, MWO type of "boating" needs to be addressed one way or another since it makes way more weapons/mechs/builds useless than TT tech advancement ever could.

Broken geometry can be addressed with quirks, you can make exception for that.

Lights are tanking damage with speed by avoiding it, and compensate for lack of firepower with more opportinities to fire due to greatly reduced exposure time and less risk involved. It's the thing that MWO balances nicely.

Edited by kapusta11, 11 February 2015 - 08:51 AM.

[Thorn Hallis]

Mindwipe, on 11 February 2015 - 05:21 AM, said:

I'm hoping we'll see Clan BattleMechs and Inner Sphere OmniMechs sooner rather than later. Not really sure how much the IS would really benefit from Omni tech but the Clans really need some options. I'd love to have the Vixen (Incubus) in game myself.

Most IS Omnis would be DoA, unless PGI finally realizes what makes a 'Mech XL friendly and what not.