5
Many people rant and rave about how unfair Clan mechs are compared to the IS mechs that love and cherish. Many Clan players feel things are perfectly fine while others find playing Clan weapons is too easy and get bored of playing them in CW quickly. Some people point the finger at the extra damage or reduced weight, the "unfairness" of XL engines that don't make losing a side torso a death sentence. Others claim this is balanced due to the high price point of these mechs, citing that since they cost more they should be better. Just to make one thing clear: that is a fallacy, balance is not "this costs more so its better". Balance is everything having clear strengths and weaknesses that makes different playstyles both viable and fair. Balance is a very hard thing to achieve. Moreover a high price point is an artificial barrier that only prevents new players or those with less disposable income from having the same equipment...when in game currency is free and easy to get the price point is moot and only serves to hinder newer players.
Clan tech is not overly better than its IS equivalent because of better damage or heat, its the extreme range that allows it to do overwhelming damage before IS can shoot back that is the problem. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the Large Pulse Laser vs Clan Large Pulse Laser. The IS LPL deals 11 damage and uses 7 heat at a range of 365m, the C-LPL deals 13 for 10 heat at a range of 600m
What is supposed to be a short range brawler weapon is better than most IS long range weapons. with an equivalent or better optimal range. The damage and heat are fine, but that range is what causes Clan mechs to slaughter IS mechs so easily. An extra hundred meters on the C-LPL would be fine, it would still do more damage than its IS counterpart, still have longer range but would use more heat. It would have a clear balancing factor that it just doesn't have.
Now while this may read as a rant against the C-LPL (and to be fair it sort of is), this does apply to all clan weapons and their massive range advantage. This may also come off as another "Oh dear lord clans are so overpowered [Insert crying and screaming]", I should be stressed that it is not. Rather it is an attempt to find the most glaring error and offer up a solution. For the most part Clans and IS are more or less balanced. One step towards better balance and less tears would perhaps be the slightly lowering the range of Clan weaponry while leaving all other aspects of them the same.
Balance should leave systems and mechanics with clear advantages and disadvantages. In previous Mechwarrior games it was heat capacity that balanced the IS and Clan equipment, oft times one would find themselves taking several IS Large Lasers instead of C-ERLL because the Clan versions would cause you to overheat to quickly. In this game, with its different heat system, the true equaliser seems to be the range engagements can take place at. One can stay true to the lore of Battletech and still be balanced, one can stay faithful to the tabletop without copying it.
Edited by Mecrutio, 25 July 2015 - 04:08 AM.
