146 replies to this topic

[Tiamat of the Sea]

That Dawg, on 04 May 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

OP, I have never, ever typed this out before.
Stunningly long and mind numbing

TLDR

All I walked away with with was: nerf them

You are not contributing to anything that could honestly be called 'discussion.' Please leave the thread.

Fate 6, on 04 May 2015 - 11:16 AM, said:

@OP
Find the pictures of the SCR and Timber Wolf hitboxes and put them in your post. The SCR one in particular really shows just how insanely perfect that mech is. From every angle the hitboxes are perfectly layered and spaced (and it's a very spindly mech to begin with).

Otherwise, very good analysis. From a damage numbers perspective these 2 mechs aren't hugely stronger than other Clan mechs - it just happens that they are top tonnage in their weight classes and also get the good stuff on top of that (Endo, Ferro, TBR JJs/SCR huge engine upgrade)

I would disagree that it's purely about 'getting the good stuff'. They certainly have nice weight savings from the Endo/Ferro combination, but the main balance culprits here really don't seem to be in raw speed, the availability of jump jets on its own, or the total weight savings (Ferro only adds a ton or two tops even on the TWF). The Stormcrow in particular just seems to be a huge collusion of torso twist benefits in multiple directions at once.

I'll go dig up those pictures, though.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Knyx, on 04 May 2015 - 11:22 AM, said:

lol TW does not have good hitboxes, it did when JJ sploiting was a thing, but not anymore.


As it stands, playing both sides, I would take a jager, Tbolt, or a Stalker over the TW anyday of the week (obv only certain variants of those IS mechs ) and with any of those variants I can not only out perform my TW, but eat up a TW in a 1v1

Can you explain how it doesn't have good hitboxes?

As far as taking an IS 'mech over them- that's not really the point here. The point is that if you look at the Tukayyid stats and, I suspect, CW stats in general, Timber Wolves and Stormcrows are all over the place for a good reason- overall, they're just better. It's not a matter of a similar thing to the Thunderwub or the Huginn or the 1N Dragon, because it's not one individual element overpowering them, rather that they each have a group of cross-enhancing traits that combined make them considerably superior to the alternatives.

Personally, I'd like to see the Huginn and the 1N Dragon and so on get their extreme 30%+ quirks reduced and other quirks put in. The Dragon's a particularly good example, because the only one that's remotely competitive is the 1N Dragon, and only in its role as an AC/5 caddy. Dragons should really have gotten a chassis set of quirks to compensate for the chassis shortcomings of the volvo hood and reliance on heavy arm weapons, and then after that been assigned quirks based on improving the weapons themselves to differentiate them.

[Kain Demos]

Burktross, on 04 May 2015 - 11:20 AM, said:

Zero valid points? How would you know, isn't it TL;DR?

Obviously you have no idea how to work to game balance then. Would you still keep that perspective if they seriously implemented Urbanmech's Death Blossom?

Oh no, I read it all. I used the TL/DR as a way of showing it was all for nothing because at the end of the day it is just another "clams OP, PGI nerf" post.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Kain Thul, on 04 May 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

When someone has zero valid points I tend to call it "crying".

They are invalid only if you have a reasonable argument as to why they aren't, otherwise you are the one crying.

[Burktross]

Kain Thul, on 04 May 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

Oh no, I read it all. I used the TL/DR as a way of showing it was all for nothing because at the end of the day it is just another "clams OP, PGI nerf" post.

You know what TL;DR stands for... right?
Also anything about nerfing clans, no matter what point(s) it raises, is instantly disregarded without so much as a single counterpoint? Seems legit.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Kain Thul, on 04 May 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

Oh no, I read it all. I used the TL/DR as a way of showing it was all for nothing because at the end of the day it is just another "TBR and SCR OP, PGI nerf" post.

FTFY.

The very fact that you assume that the Timby/Doomcrow = ALL THE CLANS is telling of another problem.

[That Dawg]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 04 May 2015 - 11:24 AM, said:

I'll go dig up those pictures, though.

OMG, please do!

[Tiamat of the Sea]

The images are up in the first post.

[That Dawg]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 04 May 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

The images are up in the first post.

links please

[Fate 6]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 04 May 2015 - 11:24 AM, said:

You are not contributing to anything that could honestly be called 'discussion.' Please leave the thread.



I would disagree that it's purely about 'getting the good stuff'. They certainly have nice weight savings from the Endo/Ferro combination, but the main balance culprits here really don't seem to be in raw speed, the availability of jump jets on its own, or the total weight savings (Ferro only adds a ton or two tops even on the TWF). The Stormcrow in particular just seems to be a huge collusion of torso twist benefits in multiple directions at once.

I'll go dig up those pictures, though.

Sorry, I should have mentioned the perfect storm of geometry in conjunction with those. I agree with you and that's what I (poorly) intended to convey.

I basically meant to convey the fact that if the SCR was a 45 ton mech it wouldn't be very viable because it would be too slow to function like a light and too light to make use of the hitboxes while doing damage. In fact the 45 ton SCR basically exists - it's called the Ice Ferret.

On the other hand, the 65 ton Timber Wolf comes out in 2 months (Ebon Jaguar), and it will likely be amazing because the 50-65 ton range is the most weight efficient (can go 89kph without needing an inefficiently large engine and gets 10 true dubs)

Edited by Fate 6, 04 May 2015 - 12:13 PM.

[Apnu]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 04 May 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

OP stuff, there's a lot of it.

Wow, that's some deep thought you put into that post. Bravo.

Nice analysis, the SCrow frustrates me in game more than any other mech, even the goddamn spiders on my mech's back. Trying to hit that thing while moving is one of the hardest things in the game. I've watched weapons pass through the bugger and in between body parts. The Scrow really hit the Pick-6 of the design lottery. I've had same experiences with the TWolf (shots passing through the CT like its not there, or passing under and between the arm and torso) but not as often and it is still easier to hit than the Scrow. Those things just wash off damage like water.

But instead of changing them so much, what can be done to bring the underperforming clan mechs (Summoner) up to their level? More hard points? Uber quirks?

Or should the Clan holy trinity nerf down a bit while we buff the T3 and T4 mechs up?

[Aiden Skye]

Honestly as a TBR pilot I don't think it's that out of line. I usually run PPC's on mine with a few backup weapons. I don't find it particularly hard to dismantle the meta wolves out there that everyone seems to rave on about as so OP. Right torso, left torso, down for the count.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Apnu, on 04 May 2015 - 12:13 PM, said:

Or should the Clan holy trinity nerf down a bit while we buff the T3 and T4 mechs up?

Well, there's a lot in this one question.

First off 'clan holy trinity'. I've seen this refer to two different things- the Timber Wolf and Stormcrow are always part of it, but sometimes the third member is the Dire Wolf, and sometimes it's the Hellbringer.

In the case of the Hellbringer, my experiences say that this is not an overpowered 'mech. It's only really a special concern when it has ECM, which would indicate that it's the ECM that makes it great, not anything about the Hellbringer itself.

The Dire Wolf, I don't really see that as an overpowered 'mech. It's nasty to get caught in front of, yes, but it's slow, has squishy hitboxes, presents a giant side profile- it's great in face-to-face confrontations, but outside of that it's not anything special- arguably worse at soaking damage than the Atlas.

So as far as the 'holy trinity' thing is concerned, I just can't see it.

As far as 'nerfing' goes, that depends on how you mean it.

The original meaning of 'nerf' was making something useless by reducing its power so much that attacking with it and expecting results is like trying to murder someone by shooting them with a Nerf dart gun, or to such a degree that you could make a similar comparison- the result is so incredibly different that it goes from being amazing to bad, or acceptable to utterly worthless.

I don't believe in that kind of rules adjustment.

If by 'nerf', you mean 'adjust to be less powerful than before', then yes, I think the strongest 'mechs- Both Inner Sphere and Clan!- should have their overall capability adjusted downwards. I certainly agree that underperformers should be adjusted upwards.

I don't believe in 'tiers', though. All the 'mechs in the game are different from all the other 'mechs in the game, after all. That means that if you're going to create tiers, you have to decide- often arbitrarily- where the division between one tier and the next is. That's no good.

It's especially silly to divide the 'mechs into tiers when you can't blanket apply anything across the tiers reasonably- if we go back to the pre-quirk tier listing, for instance, we have to ask- would giving a +10% torso twist quirk have the same effect on, say, the Commando and the Locust? No, of course it wouldn't, despite that they were listed as being in the same 'tier'.

It makes much more sense to apply quirks holistically. Does the Dragon get destroyed more easily than comparable 'mechs? Yes. Okay, so why, and what can we do to mitigate that without altering the model, hardpoints, engine size, or hitboxes? Probably some kind of agility-related quirks would be part of this. Possibly durability quirks. The result would then be a set of quirks that mitigate the Dragon's weaknesses and enhance its strengths without creating new strengths ala +50% AC/5 fire rate. Choose a starting size for the quirks in question, and then adjust them a little bit at a time until it's reasonably close to the centerline balance for an Inner Sphere Heavy 'mech in terms of durability. Does it still underperform? Then apply quirks to weapons types or individual weapons to bring its damage rate or damage dealing capacity up until its overall performance is reasonably close.

By a similar rote, any attempt to bring the Stormcrow and Timber Wolf into line has to account for why they are out of line in the first place, and how.

I absolutely don't want these 'mechs nerfed into the ground, but it's tangible that they're outperforming their equivalents in their own technology base, and it's a drastic outperformance in the Stormcrow's performance in particular. That's not okay any more than the ERPPC Thunderbolt's hilarious particle spam was.

W A R K H A N, on 04 May 2015 - 12:29 PM, said:

Honestly as a TBR pilot I don't think it's that out of line. I usually run PPC's on mine with a few backup weapons. I don't find it particularly hard to dismantle the meta wolves out there that everyone seems to rave on about as so OP. Right torso, left torso, down for the count.

I don't think the Timberwolf is hugely out of line. But it's outperforming other Clan Heavies enough to create internal balance problems within the Clan 'mech set, and that's something that should be fixed. There's a reason I don't propose huge changes to the Timberwolf- I don't think it's vastly out of place, but it is enough so to warrant adjustment.

[Eider]

Hilarious but you fail to mention that along with said strenghts the two big elephants in the room. Feathering.. and stormcrow hitboxes are broken as i have seen shots go right through it *Many have its a well known fact* Along with said listed strenghts pushing them up to god mode.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Eider, on 04 May 2015 - 01:02 PM, said:

Hilarious but you fail to mention that along with said strenghts the two big elephants in the room. Feathering.. and stormcrow hitboxes are broken as i have seen shots go right through it *Many have its a well known fact* Along with said listed strenghts pushing them up to god mode.

As far as feathering goes, I haven't seen it since PGI announced they fixed the animation up, and I can't go off of information I can't observe. Furthermore, it hasn't even been getting mentioned recently, lending credence to the supposition that it's no longer a thing. Please corroborate with recent video.

Regarding broken hitboxes- I haven't seen that at all. What I have seen is spindly limbs moving around a shot. This may be a result of my consistently sub-80 ping allowing me faster communication with the game servers, and people with higher ping seeing it happen (when what I'm seeing is closer to what the server sees). This is also what I've been seeing with the Firestarter and Spider, despite people claiming they still have lagshields as well. Can you provide recent corroboration for this as well?

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 04 May 2015 - 01:07 PM.

[Eider]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 04 May 2015 - 01:06 PM, said:

As far as feathering goes, I haven't seen it since PGI announced they fixed the animation up, and I can't go off of information I can't observe. Furthermore, it hasn't even been getting mentioned recently, lending credence to the supposition that it's no longer a thing. Please corroborate with recent video.

Regarding broken hitboxes- I haven't seen that at all. What I have seen is spindly limbs moving around a shot. This may be a result of my consistently sub-80 ping allowing me faster communication with the game servers, and people with higher ping seeing it happen (when what I'm seeing is closer to what the server sees). This is also what I've been seeing with the Firestarter and Spider, despite people claiming they still have lagshields as well. Can you provide recent corroboration for this as well?

Trust me.. its a thing.. lol i took out a stormcrow/timber and jenner on my kitfox abusing feathering. Makes me laugh every time. And yes firestarter and spider have the same broken mechanic. I just call it phase armor in order to accept it for what it is. Issue being a stormcrow can has more firepower. And its not lag shield, people say that but i have had all these mechs in a position where they are shutdown and shots go through them, i think its intentional to help lights last longer in a fight. Why apply it to the crow i have no idea.

Oh and to further add fire to your last statement.. yes its true. My spider can tank an entire team as a result.

Edited by Eider, 04 May 2015 - 01:20 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Good arguement OP.

Who ever compared the black jack torso twist and the ctorm crow torso twist, excellent point............ extra dots for emphasis.

Trolls, no point as per usuall, well done.

And ya nerf the cheese wolf and storm crow to what ever is fair. This is supposed to be a first rate SIM game and deserves a dynamic but also fair playing field.

Lastly and this cant be over stated, this may be the toughest game to perfect balance ever. Again, ever. So dont be to hard on the balance guys. Over nerfing would give IS easy mode like the clans have now and thats the worste possible outcome. Period.

[1453 R]

Excellent work, Quickdraw. I've known for a while that both the TBR and the SCR were overperforming due to a combination of multiple factors rather than "this is the ONE THING you have to do to fix it!" that everyone keeps espousing, but I've never seen such a superb breakdown of specific geometry, hitbox, and hardpoint advantages in the forums. Well done.

While I really hesitate to want to do anything to the Stormcrow given how execrable the medium class in general tends to be (we have ONE medium 'Mech people actually have to pay attention to, I would like to keep it q_q), at this point I'm largely resigned to the necessity of twist nerfs to the thing. The Stormcrow's bouncy gait and its tremendous torso mobility do make for exceptional damage-spreading capabilities. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the thing's arms are unimportant - you do still only get a max of 3E in the torso, or some quad-stacked combination of E and B - but an armless Stormcrow can almost always still fight and often fight reasonably well, which is somewhat rare on Clan machines. Perhaps de-emphasizing the machine's twist, to try and rein in its damage soak a bit, could be accompanied by slight tweaks to the machine's arms? Try and emphasize its arm-mounted firepower a bit more, make people regret losing their arm guns rather than running a torso-specific Stormcrow. You probably don't need to actually do anything, but...blah. I just really hate the popular notion of, as one guy said, 'removing 60 degrees' from the Stormcrow's twist arcs and hammering it into the dirt because CW pilots have been suffering bad touches over a 55-ton 'Mech actually able to fight.

As for the Timber Wolf...well, we can't get any 'Mech resizes because apparently that requires an entire rebuild of the model from the ground up. I have no bloody clue why that is, but that's what Piranha's said. Short that...there's really no single thing you can do to the TBR. You have it precisely correct - it's not that the Timber Wolf is overperforming in any given area, it's that the machine is in the top quarter of the performance bracket everywhere, and nerfhammering any one aspect of the machine is both unfair and not likely to really solve the problem. The best notion I've ever been able to come up with is to use some negative heat quirks, both capacity and dissipation, to effectively eliminate two or three of those engine-mounted heat sinks, thus forcing TBRs to either run hot(ter) or to devote more space to heat sinking, thus reducing effective payload. That would help limit its effectiveness in the scrum and force TBR pilots to make an honest choice between high-alpha strikers or sustainable brawlers, rather than sustainably brawling with a high-alpha striker, but even with additional quirked-in heat problems I don't think people would change their reactions to the machine.

At this point the Timber Wolf's advantages are psychological as much as anything else. A significant number of players are convinced it's the God Machine™ and that the minute they find themselves face-to-face with one their goose is cooked. They just assume the TBR will win even before they bother to try, unless the thing's already three quarters mangled. That's not how it goes, but by now the Timber Wolf's fearsome reputation is almost palpable with some folks, and that's a problem you can't fix with numbers tweaks or geometry rework.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

I really don't want to see anything get hammered into the dirt any more than I want to see anything given a jetpack. Way too many propositions regarding 'mech adjustments, and far too many of PGI's initial quirk amounts and balance adjustments have involved initial steps in the 15+% range of modification. That's not a good way to work on game balance or game imbalance, and it's not a good way to make adjustments whose results you then need to appraise with an eye towards modifying those adjustments. I absolutely don't want the Stormcrow genuinely nerfed for the same reason I don't want to see the Urbanmech limited to an engine size range of 60-110, the Thunderbolt's ERPPC insanity to return, or the Dragon 1N's double-rate AC/5s stay. Extreme outliers like that are for after trying everything subtler and finding that it doesn't help at all.

Generally speaking, regardless of your tech base, 3E is all you need. Two large pulse and one ER/Standard Medium laser is plenty of firepower to wreck face and isn't too hot to be sustainable. I should probably reword what I said, as what I meant is that relative to the torso hardpoints, the arms are unimportant, which is part of why the seemingly much anticipated 6E right arm on the Stormcrow hasn't actually been seeing use at all.

I agree quite heartily on the Timber Wolf's advantage being partly psychological, which would account for its being called 'Timbergod' despite not actually performing beyond its weight to anything like the degree of the Stormcrow.

[Malleus011]

Excellent analysis, OP.

I find a number of Ryokens that I engage (at whatever my ELO is; I'm an average pilot, so nothing impressive) rarely even bother to torso twist. The geometry of their hitboxes and gait shields them from a significant amount of damage. At high level play (which I get into occasionally when with a unit) I see them twisting a lot more, and generally getting legged to death.

All that to say I'm not sure twist speed would fix all the Ryoken's amazing durability. Hitbox adjustments are probably necessary. (I don't disagree with you about twist speed, but I don't think it would fix the entirety of the imbalance).

The Mad Cat is a tougher nut to crack. I find both the Mad Cat and Ryoken to be 'easy mode' 'mechs; they're simply much easier to do well in that a Hunchback or Orion. But assuming the JJ exploit for the Mad Cat has indeed been fixed, and that PGI won't rescale the whole 'mech (which they've resisted every other time it's been suggested for anything) the only thing I can really see to do with it is to make it, overall, more sluggish. Slow down the torso twist, slow up the accel/decel, and generally make it a skosh less responsive all around. I'm sure someone who knows Clantech better than I could suggest exactly which Omnipods should do what.

To answer an earlier post - there's really no reason that the 'easy mode' Clan mechs can't be eased back while the weaker machines are slowly nudged towards usefulness.