192 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

CyclonerM, on 22 March 2015 - 03:21 AM, said:

And if not the same as the Trinity, at least all Clan 'Mechs should be viable or at least have their role.

They do have a role ... to be a lesser alternative to the three most powerful Mechs in the game, at lower tonnages, which require Clan pilots to demonstrate greater skill in securing victory rather than falling back on the holy trinity.

That's no different to what an IS pilot has to do. Same as a the Victor is a much lesser alternative to the Crab, the Vindicator is a much lesser alternative to a Griffin, the Locust is a much lesser alternative to a Firestarter, they get to take their lesser Mechs onto the battlefield if they feel like some variety or need to save some tonnage. And IS pilots don't have anything as powerful as the holy trinity to fall back from in the first place, with the exception of the Firestarter/Jenner.

Frankly, I think what's really going on here is that dedicated Clanners want the their non-trinity Mechs to get buffed to the same level as their holy trinity. If that happens, then the game would end up being further imbalanced as a result.

As someone who pilots both IS and Clan Mechs whenever I want, I'd be fine for them to nerf Crows a bit while buffing the other chassis. Buffs all round would be too much.

CyclonerM, on 22 March 2015 - 03:21 AM, said:

Btw, every of us so far has mastered his Clan 'Mechs without quirks, aside from the bonuses/penalties of the pods.

Good. So stop whining about them and keep using them, same I occasionally use my Victors, Vindicators and other crap Mechs, and Adders and Novas etc, just for the sheer diversity of it all.

Edited by Appogee, 22 March 2015 - 04:38 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Appogee, on 22 March 2015 - 04:36 AM, said:

They do have a role ... to be a lesser alternative to the three most powerful Mechs in the game, at lower tonnages, which require Clan pilots to demonstrate greater skill in securing victory rather than falling back on the holy trinity.

That's no different to what an IS pilot has to do. Same as a the Victor is a much lesser alternative to the Crab, the Vindicator is a much lesser alternative to a Griffin, the Locust is a much lesser alternative to a Firestarter, they get to take their lesser Mechs onto the battlefield if they feel like some variety or need to save some tonnage. And IS pilots don't have anything as powerful as the holy trinity to fall back from in the first place, with the exception of the Firestarter/Jenner.

Frankly, I think what's really going on here is that dedicated Clanners want the their non-trinity Mechs to get buffed to the same level as their holy trinity. If that happens, then the game would end up being further imbalanced as a result.

As someone who pilots both IS and Clan Mechs whenever I want, I'd be fine for them to nerf Crows a bit while buffing the other chassis. Buffs all round would be too much.

Even in lore some 'Mechs were utter failure or poorly regarded by MechWarriors, but i do not want half of my 'Mechs to be so less effective that many would question why i bring them in CW.. I would love to use my Gargoyles in CW, for example, but considering the odds we face, the right bid would be to bring the most effective (and mastered) 'Mechs.

It is not like Clans are OP and we could easily destroy a regiment with a single Cluster..

Btw, the Victor is very different from the King Crab. It has more speed and mobility (JJs, smaller movement archetype) and is definitely geared toward brawling.

[Lord0fHats]

Its almost like you expect the team death match that the base game runs on to be a balanced experience. I think that's a fools errand, especially given that many of the balance problems in that realm have nothing to do with mechs or weapons but the map design itself; maps as we have tend to favor long-mid range cover fights. I.E. the mechs with longer range alpha's will always have a leg up. I.E. Stalkers, Dires, anything with clan laser vomit, will always have a leg up.

Victors are superb mechs in CW due to their solid weight and mobility. While far from flawless, is really closer to the kind of game mode MWO needs and the kind of mode the game should be balanced around (unfortunately the maps suffer from many of the same problems the normal que maps have, a preference for long-mid range cover fights). Normal que despite its 'three' game modes always goes the same way; team death match. 95% of the games I play end with an entire side dead because it is the simplest way to victory. In such an environment there really can't be any balance. Not with the way game mechanics are currently being run.

Edited by Lord0fHats, 22 March 2015 - 04:50 AM.

[Appogee]

CyclonerM, on 22 March 2015 - 04:46 AM, said:

Even in lore some 'Mechs were utter failure or poorly regarded by MechWarriors, but i do not want half of my 'Mechs to be so less effective that many would question why i bring them in CW..

We can't have it both ways... There are dozens of Mechs in this game and each has at least 3 variants. To have diversity means that they can't all be as capable as the best Mechs.

Nor can each one have some unique role. Let's face it, there aren't all that many discrete roles in this game either.

CyclonerM, on 22 March 2015 - 04:46 AM, said:

I would love to use my Gargoyles in CW, for example, but considering the odds we face, the right bid would be to bring the most effective (and mastered) 'Mechs.

And there's the problem. We can't have all our Mechs as good as the holy trinity. So we're going to keep taking our holy trinity when we play Clans, and our best three IS Mechs when we play IS.

BTW, one no doubt unpopular alternative would be to nerf the holy trinity a bit while buffing the lesser Clan Mechs a bit, so that there is less of a yawning performance chasm between them all.

But even Noah couldn't deal with that flood of tears.

Edited by Appogee, 22 March 2015 - 05:01 AM.

[Appogee]

Lord0fHats, on 22 March 2015 - 04:47 AM, said:

Victors are superb mechs in CW due to their solid weight and mobility.

Really? What loadout are you using that gives them a survivability warranting their tonnage, while maintaining sufficient speed inside the enemy gates?

[CyclonerM]

Appogee, on 22 March 2015 - 04:52 AM, said:

BTW, one no doubt unpopular alternative would be to nerf the holy trinity a bit while buffing the lesser Clan Mechs a bit, so that there is less of a yawning performance chasm between them all.

But even Noah couldn't deal with that flood of tears.

I see what you mean, however, i would like to point out that while Timber Wolf and Stormcrow (and Firestarter) are just good designs, 'Mechs like Thunderbolt, Banshee and Stalker (in all their flavors - of the month-) are often just that good and used because of the quirks (or buffs to LLs.. Was that ghost heat reduction necessary? Did we just trade 6 PPC Stalkers for only slightly better 6 LL builds?) which are arbitrary. This means that while the "too good" IS 'Mechs can just have their quirks reduced a bit, Timby and Stormcrow (Dire Wolf too, in some ways) could be considered the only "viable" 'Mechs the Clan have.. And i am not sure how i would feel about them having negative quirks. Because they are so arbitrary.

[Appogee]

CyclonerM, on 22 March 2015 - 05:08 AM, said:

...while the "too good" IS 'Mechs can just have their quirks reduced a bit, Timby and Stormcrow (Dire Wolf too, in some ways) could be considered the only "viable" 'Mechs the Clan have..

But maybe that's the problem... The only "viable" Clan Mechs also happen to be "too good".

The IS on the other hand enjoys more consistency of performance, but around a lower baseline, and none are individually as good as the holy trinity (except for the Firestarter/Jenner).

So, we could buff the bad Clan Mechs, and nerf the holy trinity, and thereby make more Clan performance more consistent, like the IS, but around a lower baseline. Nerf the Firestarters and Jenners to be fair to all sides.

No doubt devotees of the holy trinity will hate it.

Edited by Appogee, 22 March 2015 - 05:21 AM.

[Lord0fHats]

Quote

Really? What loadout are you using that gives them a survivability warranting their tonnage, while maintaining sufficient speed inside the enemy gates?

Their tonnage is why they're good. 80 tons leaves a player room for more than a bunch of lights/light-mediums in their drop deck. You don't see many mechs over over 90 tons in cw, because when you only have 240-250 to work with putting 100 tons into a singe mech gimps the rest of your deck. They have enough tonnage to carry the firepower/speed needed to kill and keep up with a rush* and sufficient armor and hitboxes they can afford to duke it out while still leaving the player another 160-170 tons to play with. If IS players want to bring assaults to CW it's Victors and Stalkers (and maybe Zeus haven't seen them enough to decide) that you want to bring. Anything else is too heavy or isn't as good unless you're running a very specific strategy.

*This does not include light rush, which works too well not just because the light rush itself works, but all the weight saved bringing 2 drops of lights frees a lot of weight for heavier assault mechs which I think works well on defense and offense. EDIT: To clarify this, light rush works really well. Anything that manages to survive 2 well executed light rushes, is very libel to simply be plowed over when the opposing team marches in wall of Stalkers, Atlasi, and Battlemasters, which a 2 wave light rush can allow a defending or attacking team do twice.

Appogee, on 22 March 2015 - 04:52 AM, said:

BTW, the unpopular alternative which noone likes to talk about, would be to nerf the holy trinity a bit while buffing the lesser Clan Mechs a bit, so that there is less of a yawning performance chasm between them all.

You'd think that, but how?

The Crow I think might be fine with its hitboxes fixed (I just assume these are real as I've never had the issue hitting the crow) and see where that leaves it. The Dire. It's absurdly strong in TDM because of sheer dakka but it's so slow that it doesn't have much place in CW. The Timber to me is a significant challenge to balance because it's the perfect balance of speed, armor, and firepower. How exactly can they be nerfed without it being stupid or nerfing everything else in the process? I'd like to see some of the Dire's weight shifted to a better engine which might give it some niche use in CW, but clan stuff is so light I don't think that alone would fix it.

Honestly the only way I see to balance the later two is a complete design of Clan gear, adjusting weight, heat, everything.

Honestly I never really liked the way a lot of mechs were designed in MWO mechanically. Hitboxes tend to be poorly placed (a problem that grew worse when PGI just decided to make everything IS XL friendly), the speed tiers just feel off, made worse by speed tweak, and map design tends to revolve around fights over specific pieces of terrain that favor cover fights. There are just a lot of long standing balance issues in game and I just don't feel nerfing the trinity is really what MWO needs. We could do it, but it's just throwing a bandaid on the symptoms of the larger problems that are MWO's balance challenges (and this said, I do think the trinity is very strong, especially the Timber and the Dire, but I just can't justify to myself any of the ideas I've seen for fixing them).

Edited by Lord0fHats, 22 March 2015 - 05:40 AM.

[ThrashInc]

Obviously you've piloted a Stormcrow and Timberwolf, I don't personally feel invincible in them. I can go super tryhard in the TImberwolf if I want to, but just playing it like you would in solo queue (not caring really) it's only strong against bad pilots. That mech will kill you before you core it, but the second you play against someone who isn't terrible you're missing a torso, overheating, and generally having a bad time.

Tryhard mode is a different story, that's when you just get legged because even good pilots lose shots to the insane height jump feathering gives you.

[Pariah Devalis]

Appogee, on 22 March 2015 - 05:17 AM, said:

But maybe that's the problem... The only "viable" Clan Mechs also happen to be "too good".

The IS on the other hand enjoys more consistency of performance, but around a lower baseline, and none are individually as good as the holy trinity (except for the Firestarter/Jenner).

So, we could buff the bad Clan Mechs, and nerf the holy trinity, and thereby make more Clan performance more consistent, like the IS, but around a lower baseline. Nerf the Firestarters and Jenners to be fair to all sides.

No doubt devotees of the holy trinity will hate it.

The hilarious bit is when I was saying the exact same thing, except in reference to the TDR when its quirks were outright bananas, the intelligent voices out there were drowned out in an unceasing tide of Inner Sphere tears.

I don't think it is impossible to make all mech chassis viable in their own way with at least one of their variants each, nor do I believe it is an unreasonable desire to want PGI to set doing so as a goal for the game. Underperforming mechs should be elevated to a point of lethality and effectiveness commensurate with the average TTK PGI wants to set, where over performers should be reigned in a bit to also align with the desired baseline for their tonnage. I say this regardless of Clan or IS tech.

At the same time, people need to understand a 45 ton mech SHOULD NOT be as potent as a 55 ton mech, nor a 65 ton mech as potent as a 75 ton mech in the same exact role, which is something people seem to flat out refuse to recognize. If the quirks were done right, TBR and ONI would be roughly equally powerful - but at their own specific niches. The TBR and Thud should never be equal matchups if they are both playing the poking game. Black Knight, when it comes out, however, should be equal to the TBR in a ranged game vs a range configured TBR as they are both 75 ton mechs.

Hell, I would even go so far as to say a 30 ton Arctic Cheetah should not be as good in a fight against an equivalently configured Firestarter - though with 5 tons of difference it should be close.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 22 March 2015 - 07:38 AM.

[Aethon]

o0Marduk0o, on 25 February 2015 - 10:29 AM, said:

Yes, drop the strong Wave3 mechs and go for IS. When was the last time with a good IS package? Can't remember.

Resistance. I feel borderline OP in my ENF-4R and PNT-10K. I have not used the Grasshopper yet, so the only one in the pack I can really call a türd is the Zeus.

Edited by Aethon, 22 March 2015 - 07:59 AM.

[ThrashInc]

I think the Zeus is ****, but the Grasshopper is a really nice mech. I played all mine with XL's in solo queue and never had a problem, but I think for CW I would try to find a way to STD/maintain firepower. The 5H is probably the best sniper because you can configure your long range weapons on the 2 high torso hardpoints.

[Skarlock]

reddevil, on 25 February 2015 - 09:47 AM, said:

"A little tweet for the Clan players - discussed quirks today - very interesting concept materializing to use the omnipod system - excited: - Russ

I'm thinking this will mean the quirk bonuses will get weaker if you mix and match omnipods, or conversely, get stronger if you stay "pure."
Pure conjecture on my part, and I'm excited to hear more soon.

What are your thoughts?

I think they should just tie all quirks to the CT, period. Let people change out their omnipods to whatever, just keep it so that both the developers and players don't have to read through a huge laundry list of tiny bonuses and add up the quirks and then extrapolate every single possible combination of other omnipods hard points and bonuses. Easier for the players, easier for the developers. Modular bonuses will only be a nightmare for both the players and the people who are in charge of balancing this stuff.