70 replies to this topic

[Sjorpha]

DarthRevis, on 09 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Well this is a lot of stuff we already knew....nice job. But what is the point of this thread? Just to talk about them? Are you griping?

Nerf Clams?


I just dont understand WHY this is here....and this has been done like 300 times. Not to rain on your parade but if you had scrolled down some in ANY of the forums you would find 2 or 3 threads where someone already did this.

BTW they are in the midst of redoing balance as we speak so you are a little late on this. You may have to re do this all in the next few weeks FYI.

The point of comparing IS and Clan weapons at their basic level, without quirks, is to understand what it would take to remove the need for quirks as a faction balance tool.

If we want quirks to be reduced to something reasonable that they are actually a good tool for, a way to help underperforming chassis in both factions, then we must first have the basic tech reasonably balanced.

When IS and clan tech is balanced at their base level we can remove most of the quirks, but to get there it is necessary to first understand balance in a theoretical model without quirks.

The empirical way would be to completely remove all quirks now, unlock clan endo and ferro, then let that play out a few weeks and see in practice what the true extent of faction imbalance is. From that point balance the equipment and weapons until there is faction parity, and from there add quirks to the underperforming mechs on both sides. The problem being that many in the community wouldn't be patient enough to go through that phase, even if it would truly be the best way to do it in theory.

[El Bandito]

Powerbomb256, on 09 July 2015 - 11:04 AM, said:

Comparisons: CERML to Large Laser. Not quite as similar as the previous two were, the CERML is still quite close to the LL in terms of performance. It deals nearly 80% of the LL's damage, though an extra 0.15 seconds hurt its burn time. The IS LL also has it beat in damage per heat, though this is much closer. Both have nearly identical range profiles, with the CERML having 10% less range. Where the CERML really shows its power is in its weight, weighing a staggering 4 tons less than the LL, a mere 20% of its total weight. If you feel like throwing ghost heat into the equation, it can also fire twice as many lasers without ghost heat.

Do not forget that CERLL is the only Large class laser that has only 1 slot, so it can fit into the head section of Clan mechs such as Hellbringer, and Direwolf.

I kept telling people that Clanner have better lasers, but those people in denial...

Sjorpha, on 10 July 2015 - 04:26 AM, said:

The point of comparing IS and Clan weapons at their basic level, without quirks, is to understand what it would take to remove the need for quirks as a faction balance tool.

If we want quirks to be reduced to something reasonable that they are actually a good tool for, a way to help underperforming chassis in both factions, then we must first have the basic tech reasonably balanced.

When IS and clan tech is balanced at their base level we can remove most of the quirks, but to get there it is necessary to first understand balance in a theoretical model without quirks.

The empirical way would be to completely remove all quirks now, unlock clan endo and ferro, then let that play out a few weeks and see in practice what the true extent of faction imbalance is. From that point balance the equipment and weapons until there is faction parity, and from there add quirks to the underperforming mechs on both sides. The problem being that many in the community wouldn't be patient enough to go through that phase, even if it would truly be the best way to do it in theory.

We had similar testing--it happened just before (in PTR) and after (live) the Wave I release. The IS did not have hyper quirks at the time, and were trashed badly. Then came the quirks to salvage the situation.

Edited by El Bandito, 10 July 2015 - 04:29 AM.

[Lugh]

Necromantion, on 09 July 2015 - 11:57 AM, said:

This post is just another one dimensional perspective post. Throw in some heat reduction, cooldown and beam duration quirks and BOOM IS lasers easily out perform clan.

The stats as portrayed show only one thing. The ONLY clan laser that is flat out superior is the C LPL.

So all the whining SHOULD shut up. But it won't.

[Y E O N N E]

Mcgral18, on 09 July 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Redundant? No, a starting point.


I'm not going to map out 100 different robots with different quirks, but that's the only way to get an accurate depiction.


Use the outliers to prove a point, if you want. Using vanilla stats isn't exactly accurate, when things have double range, 3x RoF (not for lasers) nor do they account for weapon mounts (not entirely related, but overall balance needs to take them into consideration).

Trying to analyze it with all of the quirks is just making more work for yourself than is necessary.

What matters is exactly how each piece of vanilla gear performs relative to the rest. Without that, you can't possibly know how to quirk it fairly, if it even needs it at all.

[FitzSimmons]

Nice data treatment, but...
As people will equip what is quirked, or chose a chassis that emphasizes the weapons they use, using the average quick seems useless.

It seems more appropriate to instead use an average decent quirk (-20% heat or 20% range or what not) when comparing weapons, or focus on a specific chassis for each weapon, i.e. Thunderbolt 5SS for MPL, Stalker for Large Lasers, Banshees for LPLs, (or whatever, I'm not an expert).

Edited by FitzSimmons, 10 July 2015 - 07:00 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

FitzSimmons, on 10 July 2015 - 06:59 AM, said:

It seems more appropriate to instead use an average decent quirk (-20% heat or 20% range or what not) when comparing weapons, or focus on a specific chassis for each weapon, i.e. Thunderbolt 5SS for MPL, Stalker for Large Lasers, Banshees for LPLs, (or whatever, I'm not an expert).

Doing that only tells you the state of the game now, neglecting the history leading up to the current state and providing only skewed, tainted insight on what needs to be done to improve it.

[Necromantion]

Prosperity Park, on 09 July 2015 - 01:21 PM, said:

So, you are saying that Clan Lasers are, indeed, overall better than IS Lasers, but quirks are the only thing keeping IS Mechs alive?

It's nice to hear a Clanner admit that ClanTech is OP.

This thread is proof-positive that the Clans and IS are unbalanced, since "Balance" can only be achieved by quirks that don't even cover the majority of IS Mechs.

Please tell me how the quirks on my Centurion are supposed to make my Lasers and SRMs as potent as Clan weapons. Please tell me how the Clan ERML is equal to the IS ML after quirks? I have zero Mechs that give the IS LL a 80% weight reduction quitk, FYI.

What I am disappointed in most is that we have to confess that "balance" is also supposed to be achieved by limiting the Clanner s' ability to change their equipment. That actually comes across as rude to me, as I interperate that as the developers saying "here, you can have better equipment, but you can't do what you want with it."

I see youre being your usual self and spinning things how you want. Yeah without quirks Clan equipment is better however youre acting like the majority of mechs dont have quirks that you can choose to use.

Clan weapons are supposed to be different and to facilitate that difference they need to find some balancing factor and quirks are that otherwise we may as well have no clans and IS and just have a mech free for all with all the same weapons which would be homogeneous and boring as heck.

Raggedyman, on 10 July 2015 - 03:34 AM, said:

So his mathematical analysis is wrong because of your anecdotal evidence and you don't need to back it up with figures because everyone has the same feels as you?

M'okay, whatever

No his mathematical evidence was wrong because he didnt bother using quirks in his first posts "analysis"

Also even now with it updated to show quirks he isnt even using quirk values that most of the better IS mechs would typically have 10%+ reduced heat, burn time etc. Yet already all IS weapons on his sheet show that they are higher damage per heat.

Whatever indeed.

[FitzSimmons]

Yeonne Greene, on 10 July 2015 - 07:04 AM, said:

Doing that only tells you the state of the game now, neglecting the history leading up to the current state and providing only skewed, tainted insight on what needs to be done to improve it.

I get your point, but the weapons systems just don't exist in a vacuum.

[Necromantion]

You know ultimately whats funny about this whole thread. Now that with quirks it can be mathematically shown that IS weapons with the right quirks stand toe to toe if not better clans in various contexts (which I am totally fine with) people are now whining that the problem is without the quirks the mechs would be bad.

So are all IS crybabies just martyring for the hell of it? What more do you want, you whined that you wanted your mechs to be able to fight clans successfully and now that you have that youre going to complain that underneath the adjustments made the mechs wouldnt be ok without them?

How the heck is that any different than them upping the damage or stats to the same as the clans? Its a change to make things even, whether its quirks or weapons tweaks does it matter? Would you whine if your weapons suddenly changed in another way that made them comparable?

Good grief stop your crying.

[FitzSimmons]

TBR-Prime MPL (+8% duration, cooldown)
Base: 8 dmg, 6 heat, 3sec cooldown, 0.85sec duration, 330 range
Effective: 8 dmg, 6 heat, 3.24 cooldown, 0.918 duration, 330 range
Dmg per heat: 1.33
DPS: 2.47
DPS (burn time): 8.71

TDR 5SS MPL (Range +50%, Heat -15%, Cooldown -15%)
Base: 6dmg, 4 heat, 3sec cooldown, 0.6sec duration, 220 range
Effective: 6 dmg, 3.4heat, 2.55sec cooldown, 0.6sec duration, 330 range
Dmg per heat: 1.76
DPS: 2.35
DPS (burn time): 10.0

Now of course there factors not represented here (e.g. 2 vs 3 slot heat sinks) but the comparison here seems fairly even. The clans trade extra heat, duration, and cooldown for higher alpha and a very slight edge in DPS.

[Y E O N N E]

FitzSimmons, on 10 July 2015 - 07:36 AM, said:

I get your point, but the weapons systems just don't exist in a vacuum.

No, they don't, but you can safely assume that quirks are broken and need to be re-figured.

[Necromantion]

FitzSimmons, on 10 July 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

TBR-Prime MPL (+8% duration, cooldown)
Base: 8 dmg, 6 heat, 3sec cooldown, 0.85sec duration, 330 range
Effective: 8 dmg, 6 heat, 3.24 cooldown, 0.918 duration, 330 range
Dmg per heat: 1.33
DPS: 2.47
DPS (burn time): 8.71

TDR 5SS MPL (Range +50%, Heat -15%, Cooldown -15%)
Base: 6dmg, 4 heat, 3sec cooldown, 0.6sec duration, 220 range
Effective: 6 dmg, 3.4heat, 2.55sec cooldown, 0.6sec duration, 330 range
Dmg per heat: 1.76
DPS: 2.35
DPS (burn time): 10.0

Now of course there factors not represented here (e.g. 2 vs 3 slot heat sinks) but the comparison here seems fairly even. The clans trade extra heat, duration, and cooldown for higher alpha and a very slight edge in DPS.

The thing that people dont realize is that DPS as shown on smurfy or whatnot is an awful indicator of effective damage. Not only is it contextual to the amount of factime you can have and is required but the bigger factor is Heat per Point of damage and when you combine lesser burntime required for IS weapons with quirks and heat reduction it brings IS mechs with those attributes a good edge to stand toe to toe with clans or excel in brawling situations.

[FitzSimmons]

Comparing 3 C-ER Large Lasers fired from a non-negative quirked clan omnimech to 3 Large Lasers fired from a Stalker-4N:

Clan:
33 damage, 37.20 heat, 3.25sec cooldown, 1.5sec duration, 740 range

Stalker 4N (+10% range, -15% cooldown, -15% heat):
Base: 27 damage, 21 heat, 3.25sec cooldown, 1.0sec duration, 450 range
Effective: 27 damage, 17.85 heat, 2.76sec cooldown, 1.0sec duration, 495 range

Damage per heat: 0.89 clan vs. 2.07 STK
DPS: 10.15 clan vs. 9.78 STK
DPS (Burn time): 22 clan vs. 27 STK

Yes: if you fire 3 clan ER Larges you have the same DPS for double the heat as a 4N for 250 extra meters.

Edited by FitzSimmons, 10 July 2015 - 08:13 AM.

[process]

Here's a direct comparison between IS and Clan weapons, without quirks, using an index, where "positive" values are on top (e.g. damage, range) and "negative" values are below (e.g. heat, tonnage). A higher index value correlates to a better weapon.



As you can see, Clan and IS weapons are, in theory, fairly well balanced. The two main outliers are the Clan's ER Small Laser and ER Large Laser. In this comparison, the C-ER Large Laser's inflated number seems to be due to its number of slots.


However in practice, many of these values aren't useful. Slots and Weight don't factor in to battlefield performance, and with peak-and-poke fighting, cooldown isn't a significant factor. Essentially, with the game as it's played most of the time, the massive advantages gained from close quarters fighting evaporate. Additionally it's much easier to focus fire at longer ranges. If we focus on the values that have the greatest impact, we end up with something like this:



And I think this seems to match most people's perception about relative performance: the Clan Large Pulse Laser being king, and IS Large/Large Pulse laserboats being the counterweight.

[Necromantion]

process, on 10 July 2015 - 08:10 AM, said:

Snip

Fantastic post, can you do a comparison now with a 10% heat reduction and 10% reduced burn time that is available on various IS mechs?

[process]

Necromantion, on 10 July 2015 - 08:15 AM, said:

Fantastic post, can you do a comparison now with a 10% heat reduction and 10% reduced burn time that is available on various IS mechs?

Here you go:

[FitzSimmons]

Comparing 2 C-ER Large Lasers from a SCR-Prime to 2 ER Large Lasers fired from a RVN-4X

SCR (-8% cooldown, duration)
Base: 22 damage, 20 heat, 3.25 sec cooldown, 1.5 sec duration, 740 range
Effective: 22 damage, 20 heat, 3.51 sec cooldown, 1.62 sec duration, 740 range

RVN-4X (Energy range +30%, Energy duration +30%)
Base: 18 damage, 16 heat, 3.25s cooldown, 1.25s duratioin, 675 range
Effective: 18 damage, 16 heat, 3.25s cooldown, 0.875s duration, 877.5 range

Damage per heat: 1.1 SCR v 1.125 RVN
DPS: 6.28 SCR v 5.54 RVN
DPS (burn time): 13.58 SCR v 20.57 RVN

So a RVN-4X would trade an edge in DPS (~13%), while maintaining a DPH advantage and half the burn time for an additional 130 meters range.

[Gas Guzzler]

Since when do weight and slots not factor in?

How convenient to say that weight and slots don't matter when comparing to IS.

Of course weight and slots factor in, because they leave more room for DHS!!!! Seriously, how many DHS can a Timber Wolf fit with a 4 cER LL loadout (which you can now do with 0 negative quirks)? Now compare that to how many DHS you can fit in a Grasshopper with 4 ER LLs.

That's where the off set in balance comes, you can fit a max of 18 or 19 DHS on a Grasshopper with Endo.

There are TBRs with 25 DHS. Because you know... 2 slots and all.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 10 July 2015 - 08:43 AM.

[FitzSimmons]

Nice work Process. I'm very surprised the C-ER Medium didn't edge out the IS Medium. I've always felt the C-ER Med was the one laser where the Clans had moderate edge still.

Gas Guzzler, on 10 July 2015 - 08:26 AM, said:

Since when do weight and slots not factor in?

How convenient to say that weight and slots don't matter when comparing to IS.

Of course weight and slots factor in, because they leave more room for DHS!!!! Seriously, how many DHS can a Timber Wolf fit with a 4 cER LL loadout (which you can now do with 0 negative quirks)? Now compare that to how many DHS you can fit in a Grasshopper with 4 ER LLs.

That's where the off set in balance comes, you can fit a max of 18 or 19 DHS on a Grasshopper with Endo.

There are TBRs with 25 DHS. Because you know... 2 slots and all. But that's right slots don't matter.

Process included Slots and Weight in his formula.

[Gas Guzzler]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...7702a29ad668849

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d97b18bc43123fb

"Weight and slots don't matter" I'll remember that one.

Anyway, this is where the quirks come in, and why IS ER LL aren't zOMG way better than Clan ER LL.

FitzSimmons, on 10 July 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

Process included Slots and Weight in his formula.

process, on 10 July 2015 - 08:10 AM, said:

Slots and Weight don't factor in to battlefield performance

I do agree with the statement that cLPL is king, with IS LPL and IS LL being a shorter range but close comparison, mainly because you can use three of them without ghost heat, which stacks up against 2 cLPL pretty nicely.

Too many times I see people forget that the hotter lasers are offset by being lighter and being able to bring 2 slot DHS, that's why not taking those things into account is a mistake, because Clan laser boats always have more DHS than IS laser boats do.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 10 July 2015 - 08:42 AM.