170 replies to this topic

[Widowmaker1981]

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2015 - 04:23 AM, said:

I think balancing the weapons (and other equipment) should be based on the tech alone. Balancing the quirks is done through comparing different popular builds.

I assume then, since you are a proponent of balancing each individual system, that you would also support unlocking ALL hardlocked equipment on Omnis, including engines? Since with each individual system balanced with its counterpart, the locked equipment on Omnis would make them strictly inferior to Battlemechs. No, the Legomech system doesnt balance that, not even close.

[Lily from animove]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 04:35 AM, said:

I assume then, since you are a proponent of balancing each individual system, that you would also support unlocking ALL hardlocked equipment on Omnis, including engines? Since with each individual system balanced with its counterpart, the locked equipment on Omnis would make them strictly inferior to Battlemechs. No, the Legomech system doesnt balance that, not even close.

it would still not balance hardpoint locations and geometry which is a major factor in a shooter game.

[Lugh]

Astrocanis, on 26 July 2015 - 05:57 AM, said:

Lore is meaningless. The Clans were, quite possibly, the worst thing ever added to the "lore". They were a game changer, deus ex machina, meaningless construct that was there to affect the balance of power.

Want lore? When a clan mech attacks an opponent, only one clanner can attack that opponent. The rest have to stand there with there thumbs up unmentionables. And the clanners weapons are DISABLED unless he attacks that opponent.

You can't bring Zellbrigen into this conversation because, despite the role play, nobody here is a clanner. We have to ENFORCE that behavior if you want to bring the stupidity of the lore into this game.

Equal but different is the only way IS and Clan can work in this game.

Again you'll never have that in this game when Clan tech is only ~10% better on paper and actually ~10% worse in practice (HPS is terrible so DPS is terrible in a sustained brawl)

[Livewyr]

The analysis fails to recognize locked Engines, Ferro, Endo, JJs, MASC, and some times CAP- as a balancing factor.


The comparison shown is against one of 3 ideal clan mechs that happen to fall into the sweetspot of locked equipment.

[Hit the Deck]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 04:35 AM, said:

I assume then, since you are a proponent of balancing each individual system, that you would also support unlocking ALL hardlocked equipment on Omnis, including engines? Since with each individual system balanced with its counterpart, the locked equipment on Omnis would make them strictly inferior to Battlemechs. No, the Legomech system doesnt balance that, not even close.

Why are you suggesting that I (assuming that I was in charge of balancing) should let Omnis change engines? Should I also let IS 'Mechs change their imaginary pods? We try to keep the rules intact while we balance the tech.

If there are bad or OP 'Mechs then we try to balance them by giving them quirks.

This is basically the PGI way of balancing.


EDIT: grammar etc...

Edited by Hit the Deck, 27 July 2015 - 04:47 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2015 - 04:41 AM, said:

Why are you suggesting that I (assuming that I was in charge of balancing) should let Omnis change engines? Should I also let IS 'Mechs change their imaginary pods? We try to keep the rules intact while we balance the tech.

If there are bad or OP 'Mechs then we try to balance them by giving them quirks.

This is basically the PGI way of balancing.


EDIT: grammar etc...

Do you think, from a balance perspective, that the advantage of fine customisation of engines is equal to the legomech system? Because if so, you are COMPLETELY WRONG. All any battlemech has to do to invalidate the advantage of the legomech system is have good hardpoints, which many do, whereas the stock engines (with their locked heatsinks) are almost uniformly a bad choice, especially when considering a non energy based build.

TT lore/rules are already being thrown out of the window by mechs equipping engines whose rating is not an exact multiple of their tonnage, by the way

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 27 July 2015 - 05:25 AM.

[zagibu]

The best way to get a balanced and fun MWO back would be to just remove clans and clantech from the game. Seriously, it was much more enjoyable for me before the clans invaded.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

So part of the basic idea is to boost up the performance of IS XL engines?

My only concern is that when the timeline progresses, the newer Light Fusion engines would need some sort of additional quirking to keep them as a valid option to choose from between the three options of Standard, XL and then the Light (LFE, I believe?).

Either way, I certainly would like to see an improved crit system in place.

---

And I feel that another way to help parity between Clan and IS is to make adjustments to Heat Capacity.

With Clan mechs able to add more HS than IS mechs on average, they are also able to then fire more weapons for bigger alphas and still have reasonable Heat Dissipation, since they have more speed and agility from their typically larger engines.

So, I'd like to test having DHS give 0.8 Capacity and 0.4 Dissipation with SHS at 0.4 Capacity and 0.2 Dissipation. Then I'd have the gifted 30 Capacity lowered to a value between 14 to 17.

That means that 20 DHS would still provide a Capacity in the range of ~30 safe Heat (before reaching the toggle-able Override Shutdown point) that would be combined with faster Dissipation, for example.
[Also with such a reduction, we'd need to see adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties in terms of how much heat they add to troublesome weapons fire.]

And remember that we'd likely still see Heat Generation quirks remain in place, and I'd also like to adjust some Damage and Heat Values, such as restore cERLLs to 10 damage, 12 Heat, raise IS ERLLS and LPLs to 10 Heat, while also restoring cLPL damage to 10, cMPL to 7 and so on, at the very least.

[Widowmaker1981]

Praetor Knight, on 27 July 2015 - 05:33 AM, said:

So part of the basic idea is to boost up the performance of IS XL engines?

My only concern is that when the timeline progresses, the newer Light Fusion engines would need some sort of additional quirking to keep them as a valid option to choose from between the three options of Standard, XL and then the Light (LFE, I believe?).

Either way, I certainly would like to see an improved crit system in place.

---

And I feel that another way to help parity between Clan and IS is to make adjustments to Heat Capacity.

With Clan mechs able to add more HS than IS mechs on average, they are also able to then fire more weapons for bigger alphas and still have reasonable Heat Dissipation, since they have more speed and agility from their typically larger engines.

So, I'd like to test having DHS give 0.8 Capacity and 0.4 Dissipation with SHS at 0.4 Capacity and 0.2 Dissipation. Then I'd have the gifted 30 Capacity lowered to a value between 14 to 17.

That means that 20 DHS would still provide a Capacity in the range of ~30 safe Heat (before reaching the toggle-able Override Shutdown point) that would be combined with faster Dissipation, for example.
[Also with such a reduction, we'd need to see adjustments to Heat Scale Penalties in terms of how much heat they add to troublesome weapons fire.]

And remember that we'd likely still see Heat Generation quirks remain in place, and I'd also like to adjust some Damage and Heat Values, such as restore cERLLs to 10 damage, 12 Heat, raise IS ERLLS and LPLs to 10 Heat, while also restoring cLPL damage to 10, cMPL to 7 and so on, at the very least.

Welcome to Gauss + AC5 online. Bring energy, shut down and get Dakkad! (Or try to chainfire and get Dakkad) Cant even fire 2xERPPC from cold and stopped without shutting down!

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 27 July 2015 - 05:40 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 05:39 AM, said:

Welcome to Gauss + AC5 online. Bring energy, shut down and get Dakkad! (Or try to chainfire and get Dakkad) Cant even fire 2xERPPC from cold and stopped without shutting down!

Come on, and isn't that simply hyperbole?

For example with the stock Warhawk Prime, would gain 16 capacity from 20 DHS and 8.0 Dissipation a second. So its capacity to a safe point is 30 if we start with a gifted 14.

So the mech would be able to fire 2 ERPPCs at a time at 27.6 Heat with current quirks. HPS would be between ~7.26 to ~8.31 depending on Fast Fire and the Cooldown module.

That's a sustainable rate of fire and can then see improvements slapping on more DHS. And adjusting either the starting gifted value, Heat Gen Quirks and so on.

As for Gauss / Ballistic builds, I'd explore reducing damage per projectile and incorporating it into a different structure of Heat Scale Penalties, where more weapons are in a reduced number of buckets with penalties adjusted to the lowered Heat Cap. It would almost mimic this idea, using code that already exists in MWO.

And if push comes to shove, why not expand the Gauss capping code to other weapon combos with a reduced Heat Cap?

[Hit the Deck]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

Do you think, from a balance perspective, that the advantage of fine customisation of engines is equal to the legomech system? Because if so, you are COMPLETELY WRONG.

No, I don't think that they are equal. In fact, I don't even know how "equal" they are, but they are what makes Onmis and Battlemechs feel different which is a good thing. We don't like sameness and prefer asymmetrical balance, right? I'm sure you would agree!

The upcoming Clan BattleMechs are about to break this thing we have.

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

All any battlemech has to do to invalidate the advantage of the legomech system is have good hardpoints, which many do, whereas the stock engines (with their locked heatsinks) are almost uniformly a bad choice, especially when considering a non energy based build.

It's just Clan don't have the Night Gyr yet. I'm sure you will love your relatively slow but can mount dual Gauss Heavy robot!

You said that "any Battlemech has to do is to have good hardpoints", but how can one assure that? The same thing also applies to Omnis: all they have to do is to be in a good weight/tonnage and preferably mounts a somewhat slow engine so I can mount a dual Gawss!

Again, Clan Battlemechs will be more flexible than IS versions so they can do something not yet done, like mounting a dual Gauss on a side torso (Orion IIC).

And this is also why balancing weapons/equipment on basis of current viable/popular builds is not ideal because you don't know what you will get. On each arrival of new 'Mechs you should do a balance pass if this system applies - which is not good!

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 05:22 AM, said:

TT lore/rules are already being thrown out of the window by mechs equipping engines whose rating is not an exact multiple of their tonnage, by the way

Yes, but here we don't move in "whole" numbers of hexes - so BattleMechs can equip whatever engines they want. In this case, we can throw this particular rule out because it just makes sense. One can enforce it if he/she wants in his/her game.

[Widowmaker1981]

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2015 - 05:56 AM, said:

No, I don't think that they are equal. In fact, I don't even know how "equal" they are, but they are what makes Onmis and Battlemechs feel different which is a good thing. We don't like sameness and prefer asymmetrical balance, right? I'm sure you would agree!

The upcoming Clan BattleMechs are about to break this thing we have.


It's just Clan don't have the Night Gyr yet. I'm sure you will love your relatively slow but can mount dual Gauss Heavy robot!

You said that "any Battlemech has to do is to have good hardpoints", but how can one assure that? The same thing also applies to Omnis: all they have to do is to be in a good weight/tonnage and preferably mounts a somewhat slow engine so I can mount a dual Gawss!

Again, Clan Battlemechs will be more flexible than IS versions so they can do something not yet done, like mounting a dual Gauss on a side torso (Orion IIC).

And this is also why balancing weapons/equipment on basis of current viable/popular builds is not ideal because you don't know what you will get. On each arrival of new 'Mechs you should do a balance pass if this system applies - which is not good!


Yes, but here we don't move in "whole" numbers of hexes - so BattleMechs can equip whatever engines they want. In this case, we can throw this particular rule out because it just makes sense. One can enforce it if he/she wants in his/her game.

You are correct, but for larger mechs the requirement to have MPxTonnage is a big hindrance - for a 75 ton mech a 300 is too slow, but a 375 is too heavy, so best is something in the 325 to 350 range. Impossible for any Omni, because they ARE limited to MPxTonnage since they cannot change their engine.

You are completely correct that IICs will ruin the balance. They should not have introduced them imo.

Night Gyr will be low mounted twin gauss, itll be good but not great imo. Id rather have the Nova Cat tbh, its arms are vastly higher (plus it can do triple UAC5 in one arm, with actuators in the other..)

[Hit the Deck]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 06:02 AM, said:

You are correct, but for larger mechs the requirement to have MPxTonnage is a big hindrance - for a 75 ton mech a 300 is too slow, but a 375 is too heavy, so best is something in the 325 to 350 range. Impossible for any Omni, because they ARE limited to MPxTonnage since they cannot change their engine....

Now, this is one argument that I think has merits. In this case, this rules doesn't really matter in TT (because hexes) but here it does.

[Duke Nedo]

Widowmaker1981, on 27 July 2015 - 04:03 AM, said:

LordOfHats is exactly right, and i wish people would listen to the fact that you need to compare final, non useless, builds and NOT individual weapon systems.

They wont though, because a large portion of this community hate clans with a totally biased, never ending rage for 'ruining TT' and therefore will continue to cherry pick arguments which support their viewpoint, while ignoring the balancing factors or pretending they do not matter. These people do not want balance, they want Clans GONE.

If that's aimed at me you're missing completely. We usually agree if I remember Your posts correctly. I am in no way interested in destoying clans. The comparisons I have chosen here are to ILLUSTRATE the two big elephants that make IS vs clan balancing really difficult. 1. clan XL survivability and 2. laser weight efficiency. There are other mitigating factors, as I have written, that allows some mechs and some builds to overcome part of this handicap. Add quirks to that and a few builds are balanced or near balanced to the good clan mechs. These are the ones that are used in CW.

What I try to promote here is a better understanding, for some People, of why we have/are getting quirks as strong as this... and try to lobby a bit for balancing these two elephants FIRST, before a New set of quirks are Applied as band-aid. That way we will need much weaker quirks and quirks can be focused on buffing the weaker chassi of each faction.

Most perceptive People know very well about the Power gap, I am just trying to visiualize it in a way that even more People can relate to.

Lugh, on 27 July 2015 - 04:29 AM, said:

They are flat out worse in HPS and DPS. Which isn't how it should be either.

Liar... only if you choose to build that way (high alpha, high heat).

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2015 - 04:23 AM, said:

I think balancing the weapons (and other equipment) should be based on the tech alone. Balancing the quirks is done through comparing different popular builds.

If I interpret that right we fully agree!

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

Duke Nedo, on 10 July 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

Sorry, yet another balance thread... but the reason I post this is not to argue what is OP and what is not. It's an attempt to get everyone on board by trying to illustrate why quirks were introduced, any why they are as strong as they are. This will be old food and obvious stuff for some of you guys that understand all this very well, but after reading so many extremely biased opinions lately I really need to get this out of my system...

To illustrate, lets compare the Thunderbolt with the Ebon Jaguar. Both are 65 tons, both have good hardpoint locations. For now, let's ignore hitboxes, geometry and quirks. Since techs are not directly comparable, lets do several to paint the picture.

Comparison 1: similar speed/durability/alpha

TDR-5SS: STD315, FF/endo, 7x MPL, 42 dmg alpha, 16DHS, 3.97 sustained dps, 11.69 burst dps, 220m range, 0.6s duration
EBJ-Prime: cXL325, FF/endo, 7x cSPL, 42 dmg alpha, 13DHS, 4.90 sustained dps, 14,00 burst dps, 165m range, 0.75s duration

TDR has 0 free slots, 1.75 free tons
EBJ has 26 free slots, 22 free tons and less range/more dps weapons

Comparison 2: similar speed/durability, same weapon selection

TDR-5SS: STD315, FF/endo, 7x MPL, 42 dmg alpha, 16DHS, 3.97 sustained dps, 11.69 burst dps, 220m range, 0.6s duration
EBJ-Prime: cXL325, FF/endo, 7x cMPL, 56 dmg alpha, 18DHS, 4.07 sustained dps, 14.56 burst dps, 330m range, 0.85s duration

TDR has 0 free slots, 1.75 free tons
EBJ has 16 free slots, 10 free tons, and flat out superior weapons

Comparison 3: similar speed/durability, same weapon selection, quirked 5SS

TDR-5SS: STD315, FF/endo, 7x MPL, 42 dmg alpha, 16DHS, ~4.5 sustained dps, 13.33 burst dps, 330m range, 0.6s duration (+30 ST structure)
EBJ-Prime: cXL325, FF/endo, 7x cMPL, 56 dmg alpha, 18DHS, 4.07 sustained dps, 14.56 burst dps, 330m range, 0.85s duration

TDR has 0 free slots, 1.75 free tons
EBJ has 16 free slots, 10 free tons, and better weapons

Comparison 4: reduced speed, similar durability, same weapon selection, quirked 5SS

TDR-5SS: STD300, FF/endo, 7x MPL, 42 dmg alpha, 20DHS, ~5.3 sustained dps, 13.33 burst dps, 330m range, 0.6s duration (+30 structure)
EBJ-Prime: cXL325, FF/endo, 7x cMPL, 56 dmg alpha, 18DHS, 4.07 sustained dps, 14.56 burst dps, 330m range, 0.85s duration

TDR has 2 free slots, 0 free tons
EBJ has 16 free slots, 10 free tons, and comparable weapons (better alpha/burst dps, worse sustained dps and duration)

So, by looking at those numbers you can see how the admittedly strong range quirks on the 5SS helps it to approach the EBJ (gives IS MPLs the same range as clan MPLs). Optimizing engine size helps a bit more. But... the EBJ still has 10 tons left. This is how big the advantage of safe XL engine is in tons!

Now, we could argue all day long which comparison is fair, I should compare different mechs, I should have used LL build, etc, etc, but I hope everyone can see the general picture and not bury themselves in details. As long as IS requires an STD engine to reach clan level of survivability, the difference is this big, and this is why we sit here today with super-quirks.

On top of this we do of course have many layers of factors that mitigate some of this handicap for some chassi, most notably hitboxes, geometry and hardpoint placement. The Stalker is a fine example of all three factors helping the chassi to mitigate most of the non-cXL-engine disadvantage. The Stalker has excellently placed hardpoints, en masse, and its geometry is small and slim for the tonnage, and most importantly its CT hitbox is very slim. Therefore, when using a STD engine it will quickly lose one ST, but can use it to tank its remaining ST and the CT very efficiently, giving it great durability. There is also the opposite, with slim or very fast mechs that can more safely equip an XL, that mitigates a lot of this disadvantage but not all. Especially with better HSR now.

These are examples of asymmetric mitigation of the underlying problem of clan XL engines. That doesn't solve balance, just as little as locked equipment solves it for clans. We really should push together for PGI getting to the root of the problem, and that is to reduce the power-gap between IS and clan XL engines.

I therefore suggest we support mcgrals thread about normalizing engines. I fully support it and has suggested similar things myself.


Something along these lines. I don't care for the implementation or details, but I think that direction is the right one. Perhaps the only sustainable one.

With something like that in place we can reduce quirks, we can unlock clan customization and we can fine tune weapon balance. PGI could also more safely introduce new tech like IIc and LFEs without completely overthrowing whatever quirk balance they have achieved....

Thank you, now I feel better.

_____________________
Edit: Just to clarify, I am not pro clan nerfs or any form of blanket nerfs. What I try to promote is that the baselines for clan tech and IS tech are brought closer by getting rid of the biggest elephants. I think it's dangerous to rely on quirks to achieve clan-IS balance. It's an excellent tool for promoting diversity within each of the factions, but it quickly becomes a dead end if used alone to balance factions.

I also don't have any strong preferences for IS or clans.

_____________________
Edit 2: some comparisons later in thread

Here's another comparison that is quite illustrative. The SCR vs SHD-2K.

The SHD-2K is/was considered a good mech by IS standards, mildly quirked. Both have high E hardpoints etc.

Basic podspace in general due to engine + common trade-offs:

SCR 330cXL (106.9 kph): 23 tons
SHD 330XL: 23 tons
SHD 330STD: 11 tons
SHD 300STD: 17.5 tons
SHD 280STD (90.7 kph): 20.5 tons

So, depending on how much speed/agility you want to sacrifice, a cost somewhere between 2.5 and 12 tons.

Example builds:

SHD-2K, 3x ERLL, STD300, -0.5t armor: 27 dmg alpha, 675m range, 1.25s duration, 6.0 burst dps, 2.70 sustained dps

Similar SCR, -0.5t armor, 2x cLPL, 26 dmg alpha, 600m range, 1.12s duration, 5.94 burst dps, 2.80 sustained dps

Not perfect but rather similar. 1p less alpha, 75m less range, but ~10% shorter duration. The SCR has higher agility though and larger engine. If we just say that this is comparable, but not identical. How many tons do this SCR have left to spend on additional stuff after matching the SHD?

SCR free pod space: 11 tons and 23 slots. There are no negative quirks on these pods, but the SHD gets 7.5% heat gen.

As before, if we say add a TC1 to the SCR to make it a more fair comparison, then it's 10 tons. If we then cut it in half for arguments sake, it's down to a 5 tons advantage, which then again is the tonnage locked up in JumpJets on the Summoner. Ponder.

And once again, I am not crying nerf, but I'd like to illustrate the power gap.
________________________
In the TDR example, it was between 10 and 22 tons (!) less for mimicing the TDR-5SS MPL/STD engine build on a EBJ, depending no which weapons you choose. A 5x cMPL build would probably have been most similar, in that case using 14 tons less than the TDR to achieve the same effect.

In the SHD example, it was 11 tons less for a 3x ERLL build when built on a SCR.

For fun, I tried a SMN vs CTF-3D comparison. If I do that on the 1x gauss+4xcERML build, the corresponding performance would require 1x gauss, 3x LL on the CTF-3D, and in order to squeeze that in I'd need to use an IS 280 XL engine (vs the SMN 350 cXL), and in addition to dying from a ST loss and having much worse speed/agility (89 kph+5% + agility quirks vs 71 kph), it's also slightly worse in heat efficiency, alpha and jumpjets.

This one I won't argue if you call it a pointless comparison, but anyways a bit interesting. That's the Suckoner vs a "tier 1" IS mech (heh) before quirkening 1.0.

Once again, I am not writing this up because I want clans nerfed. I write this up because it has to be said, so many people in denial when it comes to balance.

My agenda if I have one is that in order to improve this game, I believe that PGI needs to address IS XL side torso death. This penalty is too harsh and creates this huge powergap (let's be honest now), in measurable tonnage. More tonnage than clan mechs have locked away in (functional) equipment. The only thing that makes it bearable is that IS have customization and can therefore choose their weakness, opposed to the not-so-good clan mechs like the Summoner. The smaller the mech becomes, the more you can live with this penalty, but for many mediums and nearly all heavy/assaults this is a really important balance factor.

Bring the baseline for clan tech and IS tech closer to each other, then you'll not need (as powerful) super quirks, or locked clan equipment.

Peace.

Tell me something... were all IS mechs perfectly balanced against each other before quirks and before clan?

Why I present this, is that all of this "Balancing" theorycraft on the forums and being done by PGI between Clan and IS is moot... because each faction was never balanced against their own mechs from the start.

There is no baseline expectations or "gold standard" to compare against within their own. You could remove one faction entirely, and still have glaring balancing issues.

Edited by 00ohDstruct, 27 July 2015 - 07:58 AM.

[Lugh]

Duke Nedo, on 27 July 2015 - 07:37 AM, said:

If that's aimed at me you're missing completely. We usually agree if I remember Your posts correctly. I am in no way interested in destoying clans. The comparisons I have chosen here are to ILLUSTRATE the two big elephants that make IS vs clan balancing really difficult. 1. clan XL survivability and 2. laser weight efficiency. There are other mitigating factors, as I have written, that allows some mechs and some builds to overcome part of this handicap. Add quirks to that and a few builds are balanced or near balanced to the good clan mechs. These are the ones that are used in CW.

What I try to promote here is a better understanding, for some People, of why we have/are getting quirks as strong as this... and try to lobby a bit for balancing these two elephants FIRST, before a New set of quirks are Applied as band-aid. That way we will need much weaker quirks and quirks can be focused on buffing the weaker chassi of each faction.

Most perceptive People know very well about the Power gap, I am just trying to visiualize it in a way that even more People can relate to.



Liar... only if you choose to build that way (high alpha, high heat).



If I interpret that right we fully agree!

I'm sorry are you a mech god of mech building that you can EASILY build a clan mech that isn't laser vomit to have a low heat option (the clan UACs run hotter too) ???

I'll save you the trouble of answering because you simply can't. There is no such thing as a LOW heat clan build outside of the weird outlier of gauss direwhale.

[Duke Nedo]

Livewyr, on 27 July 2015 - 04:38 AM, said:

The analysis fails to recognize locked Engines, Ferro, Endo, JJs, MASC, and some times CAP- as a balancing factor.


The comparison shown is against one of 3 ideal clan mechs that happen to fall into the sweetspot of locked equipment.

Actually, locked Equipment etc is not a balancing factor really, you always have to Balance against the best mechs. Locked stuff is only a breaking factor for the poor chassi that suffers from it and has nothing to do With clan vs is Balance really, unless every single clan mech would have it based on the performance... but that is not the case, what we have is "random" wreckage based on Lore... I am the first to wish that PGI helps clan mechs that suffer from this, either by quirks or by just unlocking them.

[Duke Nedo]

Lugh, on 27 July 2015 - 07:42 AM, said:

I'm sorry are you a mech god of mech building that you can EASILY build a clan mech that isn't laser vomit to have a low heat option (the clan UACs run hotter too) ???

I'll save you the trouble of answering because you simply can't. There is no such thing as a LOW heat clan build outside of the weird outlier of gauss direwhale.

If you really want dps, use cSPLs. I don't think you really do though since it's an Alpha game... http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3a7e89d84e8ab77

[Duke Nedo]

00ohDstruct, on 27 July 2015 - 07:42 AM, said:

Tell me something... were all IS mechs perfectly balanced against each other before quirks and before clan?

Why I present this, is that all of this "Balancing" theorycraft on the forums and being done by PGI between Clan and IS is moot... because each faction was never balanced against their own mechs from the start.

There is no baseline expectations or "gold standard" to compare against within their own. You could remove one faction entirely, and still have glaring balancing issues.

I agree, there is need for both inter-faction and intra-faction Balance... but by first moving IS and clans a bit Closer to each other, intra-faction Balance will become much easier and reduce the need for Super-quirks.

[Widowmaker1981]

Duke Nedo, on 27 July 2015 - 07:37 AM, said:

If that's aimed at me you're missing completely. We usually agree if I remember Your posts correctly.

It wasnt aimed at you at all specifically, its just that a lot of people deliberately use the obvious fact that clan tech is in and of itself better as justification for obvious OP, while deliberately (i assume) ignoring the drawbacks of locked customisation. If the Tech wasnt better, they would be worse. much worse.

Quirks for very poorly optimised clan chassis, and all IS chassis to one degree or another are in my opinion the best way to balance while keeping the flavour of the mechs different. If you balance the systems individually, since PGI arent going to break stock builds, clan weapon tech has to be worse then IS, because it lighter and smaller, and that really feels wrong. I want overall mech parity, not individual system parity, and some of the better IS mechs are in a good place imo, though i think IS SSRM 4/6, ERM/SLs and possibly LFEs should be released early.