6 replies to this topic

[Miles McQuiston]

Seems with all the "quirks" and PTS (Sensor/Structure) discussion the fundamental problem still lies in trying to balance IS vs. CLAN. A problem not easily solved.

My suggestion, as ill-received as it may be, is to simply reduce the difference between IS and clan weapons. Reduce the weapon range differences to near marginal numbers 50-75 meters. Reduce the damage numbers to 1/10 - 1/12 more damage than the IS version.

Clan mediums would do 5.5 instead of 7. Larges do 9.7-9.9 instead of 11 and so on and so forth. Thus they still get weapons with better range and more damage, but to a degree that has far less impact. I am for a weapon damage reduction across the board of about 10-12% anyway. There is no reason to stick to the tabletop here. We just need a balanced game.

Now to factor in the reduced weight of Clan weapons, we need only take into account the tonnage saved on any given build. So a medium clan mech might get rated similar to a IS Heavy based on weapon loadout. Essentially Any tonnage savings over an IS equivalent weapon would translate directly into an increase in the "size" of the chassis. For an example take a Stormcrow with 4XLRM10. On an IS Chassis that would be 20Tons of weapons on a Clan chassis it is 10Tons. Thus the Stormcrow would get rated as a 65 ton mech to reflect the 10 additional tons of weapons it is able to carry. The same would be true of energy and ballistic builds factoring in that the difference in weapon weight and a 10%-12% of the total weapon weight. Simple example a Nova with 12ERML. The total weapon weight is 12 tons in each case, but the damage output of the nova is 10% more thus 50 tons multiplied by 10% = 5 tons. Equivalent mech on the IS side would be 55 tons. If a difference falls somewhere in between simply round up to the nearest 5 tons. At 100 tons well the equivalent mech is still only 100 tons nothing needs to be done here.

This takes us to the last problem which is those side torso safe XL engines. Part of this would already be taken into account by factoring in that the tonnage difference would translate into more armour soaking potential on the IS side. I don't actually think any further tweaking would be necessary for public queue play. For CW just give IS more tonnage or less tonnnage based off how it plays out.

Clans have UAC10-20. Potentially an advantage, but with the multiple rounds in a shot probably works out about the same in the end.

Clans weapons would be superior still, but not excessively so, and we could get rid of all the IS "quirks" that are just plain ridiculous right now. Match the ghost values for IS and Clan since the weapon damage values would be equivalent.

I look forward to enhancements in the information warfare/sensor portion of the game.

Edited by BAHS, 02 October 2015 - 07:42 PM.

[Vetal]

All mechs were produces and equipped(IS mechs) by different facilities with different stats of weapons. Even clans have their own quirks. Therefore current system is more "realistic to universe".

[tokumboh]

I don't believe they should be balanced. I would prefer that IS have numerical superiority in game. I would go with 12 v 8 in community warfare or at least give IS a tonnage advantage. In PUGs I'd differentate by having more XP, Cbill and PSR points for running IS and more point CBills for damage versus Clan for example.

I think making the differentiation in rewards stark and bring back repair and reload cost would start to help with the balance in my view

[Stitchedup]

The balance seams fine to me, you are always going to get one mech better then another and this is reflected in its cost I thought the introduction of the quirks at least broadened the type of mechs used

[War Steiner]

I am one of those that believe the clans should be better. They are better pilots and have advanced tech (in lore). That said, they suffer from two things: Supply and Drop Tonnage. The IS, who live and garrison the plannet will have defenses, equipment, supply lines, and an endless line of people willing to strap themselves into a fusion reactor. They may not have the best quality, but they have numbers. They also have more jumpship, dropship and supply capacity. Conversely, the clans have limited numbers of mechs, pilots and delivery tonnage to assault a planet. And that doesn't even take their bidding process into consideration. Even when they take a planet and garrison it, they are still conquers and have to maintain forces to prevent insurrection. So with that as a background, the possible solutions I see are:

1) Allow the IS a greater tonnage advantage. I'm not confident on the math process but I was thinking something like a 1.2 multiplier. That number could be adjusted over time to find the right balance with new meta.

Or

2) Have drops be 12 vs. 10.

[Mazzyplz]

disagree with every entry on this thread.

-12 vs 10 is not a good use of the servers; and introduces too many wild differences to have the clans outnumbered
-tonnage negates the fact that all mechs should be equally good; which is still possible in theory
-@OP: making the lasers exactly equal is a bit of a lame solution because it removes all the flavor, there are better solutions that have been proposed; i will outline some:


solution#1 for weapons: balance by modules make it so clan range is longer, but their modules give less of a boost; and the inner sphere modules give a lot of range boost; this way the ranges with modules even out; and if you do not wish to use the modules, then you can still have your flavor.

solution#2 for weapons: balance by vision mode only - make it so that clans dont have heat vision mode, but they have an enhanced imaging mode that will tell them which locations are damaged in an enemy like the terminator only on highlighted mechs; this gives the clans a tunnel vision weakness that the inner sphere can exploit; and it limits their effectiveness at hill humping and low visibility long range. the tunnel vision also serves as an artificial zellbrigen, because only targetted mechs would be easily seen by the clanners - making them more deadly on a 1v1 but less so when trading on ridges.
if this tunnel vision is a big enough nerf to clan tech, you could even buff the clan weapons even more and have them be truly fearsome without breaking game balance, because their mechs would be in a way more clunky
enhanced imaging would make it feel like authentic clan tech not just a paint job, and it is a throwback to mw2 and lore, and all things good and holy

solution for matchmaking: remove 3/3/3/3 - the problem with the matchmaker is that it does not try to make balanced 12vs12 matches because those are unpredictable; what the matchmaker does is throw you into a match it expects you to either win or lose.
to combat this; we add a balancing pass once the 24 players are in dropship lobby ready screen; we move em around based on w/l ratio and k/d ratio factoring in tonnage, instead of enforcing 3 of each weight class.
with these 24 players alone we can move them around and have a more even match even if we remove 3/3/3/3; so everyone can be useful and it doesn't matter if it's 12 ravens and 12 dire wolves; the match would end up 6&6 vs 6&6.
at least for pug matches and 2-4 man this could be an option if you average out their stats and tonnage. and you could even re-integrate 2-4 man back into pugs.
for 8 to 12 man we can have it run without any matchmaking balance.
lets face it, 3/3/3/3 is a crutch to make people use light mechs; just make light mechs a little bit more tanky with less hsr artifacts, and don't enforce any tonnage restrictions.
under my proposed matchmaking system you could never have 12 dire wolves vs undertonned mechs anyways; so it would not even be needed.

Edited by Mazzyplz, 03 October 2015 - 03:56 AM.

[Miles McQuiston]

I like to stick to lore as much as possible as well, but after all the quirk passes etc., we are still left with balance issues and only some viable chassis. Clan mechs would still be superior in this model, just not ridiculously better. You are not going to achieve a balance with the weapons like they are. It is just too much of a difference. You can play with sensors and everything else, but balance will be a joke. Do you realize that all the quirks essentially were to get rid of the huge difference in weapons (quietly chassis by chassis). Clan LRMS are half the weight, double the fire rate of LRMs for IS mediums (4J, 7M, etc.). The 5SS with its range quirks and heat reduction (let’s make those lasers as similar to clan as possible without adding damage). Sure IS lasers didn't get more damage, but they got better duration, cooldown, and heat generation. So essentially the having a difference everyone is looking for is moot. Instead we get quirks that make certain mechs worthwhile and the rest a joke.

In the end you get structure buffs to IS mechs to further compensate for the fact that clan weapons are wrecking them, so instead of balancing weapons an acknowledgment is made that IS mechs need to be harder to kill so the clan mech can do more damage, but in the end the two mechs die about the same time. This is ridiculous.

12 v 10 without heavily quirked IS mechs will still not be even. 12 v 10 has to also specify what two mechs the IS will have the clans won’t. Does the IS get two extra king crabs or two extra locusts. So this magic 12 v 10 everyone wants (3 Lances v 2 Stars) is great in concept, but not practical in a true balance.