83 replies to this topic

[Water Bear]

What Bishop and Appogee said. Also CW win records seem to indicate that clans are still ahead, if not by as much as when they were released. There are other indicators that current balance is something like clan 60-55%, IS 40-45%, respectively.

[Bishop Steiner]

xe N on, on 06 June 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

I really do not understand why the Stalker 4N is fielded here.

It is a good mech with some advantages and some drawbacks.

Advantage: excellent energy hardpoint location in addition to some solid but not OP quirks. Small center torso.
Disadvantage: slow and quite limited in torso twist range. Low alpha (28). Large side torsos, can only use STD engines. No shield arms.

The 4N is quite balanced.

Not sure I agree 100%. No mech that is "balanced" get's fielded as heavily as the STK-4N is. That said, it's certainly not near as egregious as the old TDR-9S was or overall the TDRs remain. And yet all those chassis are probably a 5% quirk reduction, or less, from being on point, for the most part.

Still a few that are more headscratchingly over quirked though. Honestly the only thing I think keeping the game being flooded with Gridirons is 1) Medium mechs are hard(er) for noobs to figure out and survive, and 2) even though it's not that hard to learn the Gauss mechanic, it's still harder than spamming lasers.

Only reason I can think of for a super high mounted Gauss on a relatively mobile (and very agile) Mech firing a 15 PP-FLD/ no heat / 2000 m/s projectile every 2 seconds isn't more common. (and one that can also fire an AC20 every 2.32 seconds and an AC10 every 1.45 seconds, thus matching the 4G and 4H in all but projectile speed, essentially)

And the masses are always going to pursue the path of absolute least resistance.

[Kira Onime]

Water Bear, on 06 June 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

What Bishop and Appogee said. Also CW win records seem to indicate that clans are still ahead, if not by as much as when they were released. There are other indicators that current balance is something like clan 60-55%, IS 40-45%, respectively.

Win % needs to be taken with a large grain of salt since multiple reasons will influence it.

-Faction population
-Good/bad players in each faction.
-Mercs

[Aresye]

What they need to do is an IS event.

The past 2 large events (Tukayyid/Clan Invasion) heavily favored the Clans, because PGI decided to be nice and let people swap their contracts.

Doing large events to encourage participation is good, but if they were doing these events to gauge balance (which I don't doubt they were), then the statistics are going to be screwed.

Example: For the Clan Invasion event we had MercStar, SJR, EmP, QQ, 228, CSJx, and a few more competitive units all on the Clan side. That's a huge chunk of the competitive scene, so if any balance decisions were made (or will be made) from that data, it's going to be inaccurate.

Tukayyid was a bit more even, but the wait times for the IS teams was enormous. Let's say both IS and Clan had 5 competitive units of equal skill. The competitive units for the Clan side would be able to drop more often and have a higher likelihood of running into pugs, whereas the IS competitive units would drop less often and have a higher chance of running into an organized team.

[Water Bear]

KiraOnime, on 06 June 2015 - 01:14 PM, said:

Win % needs to be taken with a large grain of salt since multiple reasons will influence it.

-Faction population
-Good/bad players in each faction.
-Mercs

I honestly don't think that the most competitive teams draw their players from whatever faction they are affiliated with. In all likelihood they first choose the players they think are good, then choose a faction accordingly. The most competitive teams will almost certainly choose their technology based on what they think is most effective, Inner Sphere or Clan.

At least I would think.

[Bishop Steiner]

Water Bear, on 06 June 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

I honestly don't think that the most competitive teams draw their players from whatever faction they are affiliated with. In all likelihood they first choose the players they think are good, then choose a faction accordingly. The most competitive teams will almost certainly choose their technology based on what they think is most effective, Inner Sphere or Clan.

At least I would think.

Aresye Kerensky, on 06 June 2015 - 01:27 PM, said:

What they need to do is an IS event.

The past 2 large events (Tukayyid/Clan Invasion) heavily favored the Clans, because PGI decided to be nice and let people swap their contracts.

Doing large events to encourage participation is good, but if they were doing these events to gauge balance (which I don't doubt they were), then the statistics are going to be screwed.

Example: For the Clan Invasion event we had MercStar, SJR, EmP, QQ, 228, CSJx, and a few more competitive units all on the Clan side. That's a huge chunk of the competitive scene, so if any balance decisions were made (or will be made) from that data, it's going to be inaccurate.

Tukayyid was a bit more even, but the wait times for the IS teams was enormous. Let's say both IS and Clan had 5 competitive units of equal skill. The competitive units for the Clan side would be able to drop more often and have a higher likelihood of running into pugs, whereas the IS competitive units would drop less often and have a higher chance of running into an organized team.

would any of those units have chosen Clan for a big to do if they were not the cutting edge of Meta?

[Burktross]

Mister D, on 06 June 2015 - 11:46 AM, said:

Only a handful of IS mechs are, while a good majority are still complete crap.

Russ & Paul need to sit down and do another quirk pass, bringing the OP mechs down a notch, and all the rest up a notch.

Same thing with clanner mechs too-- endo should help with that a bit.

Edited by Burktross, 06 June 2015 - 01:46 PM.

[Zoid]

Nope, clans are still just fine. The only thing that's changed is that now you have to take the good clan 'mechs in order to compete. Before the nerfs and buffs it was optional and you could still do decently well with some Summoners, Adders, Novas etc. Now if you don't take the TBR/SCR combo you will lose to the Stalkers and Thunderbolts.

[Kira Onime]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 June 2015 - 01:42 PM, said:

would any of those units have chosen Clan for a big to do if they were not the cutting edge of Meta?

Would any of those same unit have chosen IS if IS had minute long queues during Tuk?

IS got royally screwed during the Tuk event with their massive population.

[Tristan Winter]

It was never really about the Clans or Inner Sphere being OP. It was more about certain mechs being OP, on both sides. I'm glad they nerfed the Timber God and Skill Crow laservomit. Now it's time to nerf the Thunderbolt laservomit. The Thunderbolt doesn't need that good energy quirks to be viable, really. People used to say "We need the Thunderbolt laservomit to compete with the TBR and SCR".

Well, those mechs are nerfed now. So let's nerf the TDR too.

[Xetelian]

Firepower difference remains the same.

Clan has lighter weapons (bad ballistics)
Clan has longer range (cascading missiles)
Clan has more damage (higher heat but able to fit more DHS)

So to match that most of us are dropping with XL engines and maybe 30-40 armor torsos and if we can't keep up with the charge we're screwed doing no damage.

Outside of clanwar in the solo queue you see a lot of slow mechs where in Innersphere we're talking ~60kph which doesn't do nearly as bad here than it does in clanwar until the nascar wraps around them.

The CTF 0X got structure and armor which made it a lot friendlier for the XL and makes IS closer in the arms race.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 June 2015 - 01:42 PM, said:

would any of those units have chosen Clan for a big to do if they were not the cutting edge of Meta?

KiraOnime, on 06 June 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

Would any of those same unit have chosen IS if IS had minute long queues during Tuk?

IS got royally screwed during the Tuk event with their massive population.

QQ broke our contract with Steiner with the full intention of going Clan for that event because we found Clantech to be leaps and bounds beyond IS tech at the time. I think some of the other units broke their IS contracts for the same reasons, you'll need to get confirmation from them though.

We didn't predict there would be ridiculous wait times for IS, we actually thought the Clans would have the longer wait times, which is why we were hesitant to break our contract at first.

[Bishop Steiner]

KiraOnime, on 06 June 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

Would any of those same unit have chosen IS if IS had minute long queues during Tuk?

IS got royally screwed during the Tuk event with their massive population.

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 06 June 2015 - 02:44 PM, said:

QQ broke our contract with Steiner with the full intention of going Clan for that event because we found Clantech to be leaps and bounds beyond IS tech at the time. I think some of the other units broke their IS contracts for the same reasons, you'll need to get confirmation from them though.

We didn't predict there would be ridiculous wait times for IS, we actually thought the Clans would have the longer wait times, which is why we were hesitant to break our contract at first.

so, you were saying?

[Johny Rocket]

Always the 4N, out of my 4 Stalkers its the worst performer, 1 v 1 a well built 3F will kill a 6 LL 4N. Better quirks for better weapons and way more torso twist and twist speed.

I only play IS because I hated the clan mechs I tried, wish I had my cbills back.

Also I don't mind being the underdog, makes my achievements more gratifying.

[Mr Ezzquizo]

armor clan sucks DW and WHK

[Kira Onime]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 June 2015 - 02:55 PM, said:

so, you were saying?

Clan op nerf plz.

/jk

Edited by KiraOnime, 06 June 2015 - 03:27 PM.

[Burktross]

ezzquizo, on 06 June 2015 - 03:23 PM, said:

armor clan sucks DW and WHK

What?

[L A V A]

Water Bear, on 06 June 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

I honestly don't think that the most competitive teams draw their players from whatever faction they are affiliated with. In all likelihood they first choose the players they think are good, then choose a faction accordingly. The most competitive teams will almost certainly choose their technology based on what they think is most effective, Inner Sphere or Clan.

At least I would think.

The most competitive teams play both and in competition will bring the best mechs which serve their tactics, IS or Clan.

[Mr Ezzquizo]

Burktross, on 06 June 2015 - 03:35 PM, said:

What?

pick a DW and play

[Burktross]

ezzquizo, on 06 June 2015 - 05:08 PM, said:

pick a DW and play

Clan armor is the same as IS armor dude, whatchu talking about?