165 replies to this topic

[Omaha]

P.S. Where's my engine crit explozzzzions!?

Here!?

Jus make clans blow up moar! Pweeeze?


So how bout that for balance, everything remains the same, cept on crit side torso, there is a chance at fusion explosion. Now clans can have the survivalist, by chance. But they can also dmg friendlies, and enemies in prox.

And, since clans have slightly more range, chances are they will be hurting friendlies more so then enemies. Also will make the death ball tactic less viable, teaches you the correct mech spacing for firefights. Loads and loads of tactical options. I just cant think of a negative thing about it. Cept when it happens to you, but hey thats part of the game. (Stupid cockpit artillery shots lmfao!)

IS mech can do the same, yet lower chances (XL). STD engine almost nil. on ct crit. only.

That way everyone is happy PLUS WE HAVE PWETTY FIREWORKS!


PGI YOU KNOW U WANNA! If you thought battles can be tense and full of action now, if only this could happen, hehe. IT MUST HAPPEN FOR THE LOVE OF HARDCORE BT!!!!!

Edited by Omaha, 11 November 2015 - 11:28 PM.

[Duke Nedo]

Pjwned, on 11 November 2015 - 07:53 PM, said:

No it isn't, IS XL engines are fine as they are and it's the clan XL engines that are out of line, it is not that IS XL engines are too weak and clan XL engines are fine.

That's partly why the LFE would be introduced, so that IS mechs also have an option for a lower weight engine that survives a side torso loss, with the added benefit of the LFE not being completely unbalanced like your suggestion would be.

As far as "fixing" IS mechs by introducing insane power creep and saying it's not power creep, that is a laughably bad argument.

Again, there is no power creep as long as clan mechs are still the best. The best are still the best, nothing has changed except that we have more balanced tech lines and the need for super quirks is reduced.

You could nerf clan XL, but in practice that's not really viable at this point. It should have been done at Clan invasion in that case but that chance is gone forever. People would totally freak out if clan XLs were nerfed enough to be at parity with ST death. The combination of making clan XL as bad as IS XL and at the same time not having the option to swap it out for a clan STD engine would be quite harsh too, I wouldn't like that either.

You know, some IS mechs are XL engine death traps. The Stalker comes to mind for example. There are clan bots that lose a ST just as easy, most notably the Mad Dog, it's would be completely impossible to play with an XL as bad as an IS XL. The Timber would hurt quite badly too, it just wouldn't work.

No, the most viable route forward is to
1. Allow IS XL to survive the loss of an ST. I.e. set "nr of crits = death" to 4 instead of 3 (if we had had them)

2. Scale the penalty for ST loss so that IS hurts more than Clans for it, that way we keep some flavor. Not exactly "Lore", but close enough for them to be different while allowing techs to be balanced without super-quirks. I'd like to see penalties in the 20-30% range for heat and speed, that can be tweaked and tweaked again until you find the level where it hurts to lose a ST, but it doesn't outright destroy the rest of your round.

3. Buff both IS and Clan STD engines to make them viable options. The standing suggestion is to add significant amounts of CT structure. Edit: one can play with the idea to also boost the STs a bit if the CT is not enough.

4. Now, it is possible to reduce IS quirks. There is still need for some quirkening due to clans having weight(/space) advantages in endo/ff, gauss, missiles and equipment, but the quirks can be much much weaker and focus mainly on the bad chassi on both sides.

5. Tweak weapon stats. Mcgral's thread is an excellent starting point.

Aftermath: We end up with faction balance that is not depending on quirks. Quirks are freed up to be used to balance clan vs clan and IS vs IS chassi, i.e. help the weak robots, give them flavor and give players a reason to use them.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 12 November 2015 - 12:16 AM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Pretty much onboard with Duke Nedo here.

Only thing is that if the heat and movement penalties are different for Clans and IS after ST destruction, they shouldn't be too different.

-25% movement for Clans
-30% movement for IS
-(X/3) engine mounted heatsinks where "X" is the number of heatsinks the 'Mech has in its engine.

This sounds about right to me.

[Hotthedd]

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

On the 3 crits, true for the board game, but it was also based on RNG/dice and not pinpoint accuracy, which is another discussion. Which IS mechs would see a power creep, especially if the current quirks are reduced/removed (as per PTS3)?

First off: 2D6 is NOT a random number generator, it is a PROBABILITY CURVE generator. There is a huge difference.
Which IS 'mechs would see power creep? Well for starters every single 'mech that already uses an XL engine, especially lights. Also every 'mech that could benefit from a lighter engine and can make room for 6 critical slots. So that is pretty much every single IS 'mech in the game.

Despite my current faction tag, I play both IS and clan 'mechs, as I am sure the majority of players do.

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

Right now, for those IS mechs that do take the ISXL and are competitive do so primarily for the speed (firestarter as example) while other competitive laser vomit mechs are simply slower than their Clan brethren. With PGI intention to modify the Skill Tree percentages, many IS mechs that can field ballistics have to drop their standard engine to low numbers/slower mech to equip anything meaningful or take an XL to free up weight and keep/increase speed but becomes a glass cannon.

Yes. It is the essence of the hard choices one has to make. It is the universe of BattleTech. Take that away, and PGI should also take away the "A BattleTech Game" script from the MW:O logo.

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

My idea of mixtech is salvaged equipment, noted as salvaged equipment, basically be weapons tagged differently which do not perform the same as the original equipment. But what if PGI continues to keep that line of no mixtech? That would keep a majority of IS mechs out of the competitive line up without major quirks, even then...

I like that idea, and it would be cool to have a "technician" line in the skill tree that improves performance of salvaged equipment, but that kind of immersion seems to be for the next MechWarrior game I am afraid...
I disagree that major quirks are necessary to balance the weapons. Some quirks make sense, and making the weapons play differently (especially having different manufacturers) would go a long way to solving that problem. Have aiming penalties for group fire, and make clan weapons have a longer cooldown, and the IS gets some advantages, while the clan gets some advantages. Making all of the weapons the same makes for a duller game, IMO.

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

The end though is to keep things interesting for incoming new players to want to stay, have more positive comments than negative ones and purchase things. To make things "appear" to be common sense for those who do not initially get into the "lore" of the game instead of seeing a sharp contrast between ISXL/loss of ST/death and CXL/loss of ST/alive but some sort of penalty. If they do get into the lore later on, then there would be some understanding that moving the game from a boardgame played with dice to a 3D computer game in a purely PVP environment meant looking at how convert things and make it workable.

Any mechanics that seem to contravert common sense should be fully explained, lore-wise, in the tutorial and the Academy. BEFORE the purchase of that first 'mech. That part is on PGI.

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

For myself, /shrugs, I will make due until I cannot do it anymore, but for the newbies coming in, MWO already has a high learning curve but the tutorial is the right step and being improved on but I want PGI to be able to keep more of them than not. MWO needs to develop and keep a healthy community, which means more funds for PGI to keep its doors open while continually adding and improving the game.

And the other side of that coin is to keep the players who are here because of the BT franchise. It does little good to hope to entice new players while alienating the players you already have. Honestly, I believe that MW:O would have more success if they built the game they originally promised, then went after the thousands of players they have already lost by making the game LESS BattleTech. Just my humble opinion.

Tarl Cabot, on 11 November 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

But hey, this isn't on Twitter, so it has been good discussion it, even though....

It HAS been a good discussion, with good points made on all sides. Even with those ideas with which I disagree, it is obvious that players want to improve the game.

And your twitter comment hits the nail on the head. That is the saddest part.

[Tarl Cabot]

Concerning the twitter remark, attempting to have a back and forth discussion on these forums, I think I would find using twitter much easier, especially if I was more of a smartphone communication type person than computer/forum person. The major improvement is if the website, in the forum's area, could be tagged for multiple twitter account inform, besides the one MWO on the main page.

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Which IS 'mechs would see power creep? Well for starters every single 'mech that already uses an XL engine, especially lights. Also every 'mech that could benefit from a lighter engine and can make room for 6 critical slots. So that is pretty much every single IS 'mech in the game.

Hai, good points have been made across the board, but as mentioned, the Clans were the power creep when they were added. What power creep though? You mean death by something other than the loss of a ST? And part of the idea is to increase TTK, which means all of those IS lights would live a tad longer (/shudders), putting them in the same boat as the Clan's Cheetah. Sweep the legs!!!! For some mechs it would not matter, such as the jenner which is nothing but CT. I swear I can not remember a time when a jenner died to anything else but a cored ct.

For other mechs, such as the T-bolt, Stalker, Battlemaster and some of the mechs currently used in CW, the primary difference would be a slight increase in speed. For some no real difference due to engine cap. The other, as you mentioned, that is 6 crit slots. iirc for some of those mechs, due to lack of room, may actual result in the lost of at least 1 DHS. A Clan mech can put 3 CDHS in the same space as 2 ISDHS, and like the Clans which can not equip said items in CT/legs, nor can IS mechs.

The other side of the coin is the heat penalty, which should be a tad higher for a ISXL due to loss of 3slots instead of 2slots. A stalker/Tbolt/battlemaster with an XL - heat penalty w/loss ST. Even due to low hardpoint placement, BlackKnight/Grasshopper, with the current settings (Skills/quirks) would be a tad more viable. It would make severa of the ballistics carrying mechs better but due to lack of hardpoints would only bring them up a tier or tier but not to tier 1/2 mechs, but would given them a better sense of worth.

Did MW2/3/4 actually had death by loss of ST? At least MWO did not follow the route of death by loss of one leg but if there were alternate full views, not just pic-in-pic, it would be sweet to finish your opponent's CT while you were flat on your back. I enjoyed doing that in MPBT a number of times.

[DivineEvil]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 11 November 2015 - 07:22 PM, said:

@DivineEvil:

I'm not going to address every point of you made in your response. But, I will say that your position is highly subjective. Not everything is "either/or".

There are shades of gray.

Empty assumtions do not bother me. You have to provide substantial arguments. Saying that I'm wrong does not proves it.

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The assertion that you can't have two way imbalance is just not true.

If we buff IS structure, XL using IS 'Mechs still die on ST destruction. But now, it's that much harder to destroy other locations on IS 'Mechs, too, and all Clan hit locations become fragile by comparison.

You're just stating facts. I'm good enough to see what the changes are going to do myself, thank you. I don't see the negative part though.

Two-way balance is a fault of common sense. If one thing is good for one thing, and another is good for another, it's called balance.

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How each side plays is minimally affected, but equally skilled players will always survive better in the IS 'Mech. You haven't achieved balance, you've achieved further unbalance.

What? How can you tell how each side will play? Do you have a private server to test how it will feel?

And what does it mean, survive better? You have one mech, that can take more damage, and another that can dish out more damage. Prior to that there were a mech and a better mech. At which point that situation suddenly became further unbalanced?

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IS players (not diehard BT fans, but normal players) will still feel that the loss of a single ST = death sucks. Clan players will feel that their 'Mechs being made of glass is ridiculously undercutting the advantages they retain.

So who's subjective here now? I've never said a thing about how anybody is going to feel. Now you're trying to simulate asserted people's feelings? Good luck with using that as a valid argument.

Dying from ST destruction might be unpleasant, but it's a choice, that IS mechwarriors have. Would you be in a tougher mech with less speed or equipment? Or would you be in a faster or better equipped mech with weak spots? Clan mechwarriors do not have that choice - they can't even change the class of the engine. In this particular case, additional structure just offsets the fact, that clan XL is plainly better.

Now, Clan XL survives ST destruction, but it happens much faster, than in case of IS XL. Carrying IS Standard engine allows to survive both ST torso destructions, while also being tougher, which compensates the significantly reduced tonnage for equipment. Thus, IS mechs has a choice of two extremes, and Clans has to cope with the case in-between. What a player seems to be more comfortable with, or what better suits his needs, is up to him to choose.

What someone feels doesn't matter. Whenever it works or not is what does means something. Quirk system with its present values is what you'd get if you care for what anyone's feels.

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How the casual player base reacts to a change like that in the long-term is frighteningly unknown for a company like PGI.

You can use that argument against any change. Besides, how people react in the beginning is almost always worse, than what it comes to in the long-run. It was like that about everything that MWO has ever endured. Silly people whine about everything from the day one, smart people always adapt and get used up to it. Who would they listen to and care for is up to PGI.

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Your assertion that "Creating a baseline in IS/Clan balance is IMPOSSIBLE" is just your opinion. There are many ways that we can create baselines that can be applied to both IS and Clans equally without creating sameness.

Weapon value ratios, for example. Making IS and Clan XLs function similarly, for another. Increasing the durability of standard equipment across both techlines, for a third.

You're contradicting yourself. You're creating sameness right here. Or rather, you're reducing the differences.

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Not wanting to do something doesn't make it impossible.

Nobody is talking about who want or don't wnat anything. You simply cannot make a baseline for two things, one of which were initially made to be different from the other. You only can make them the same. It's funny, yet astonishing for me, how you cannot understand such a simple thing.

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We can still maintain features like the omnipod system. We can still have Clan range and damage higher. We can still make IW equipment differentiated.

Which means, that Clans will still be superior after all you "efforts". All things you're suggesting are not going to achieve balance. They're going to reduce imbalance at best, until you hit a moment, where you no longer can go further without misfiguring the whole idea of IS/Clan disparity.

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You mention StarCraft as an example of balance. But do you think StarCraft didn't start as mathematical balance? Each side has units to fill every role to counter other roles. Their unit damage and HP are carefully calculated to ensure no side has a clear advantage in any aspect. StarCraft is a game that was newly built from the ground up around careful checks and balances.

Fundamentally wrong. Starcraft initially were concieved as "Warcraft in space", at which point Blizzard decided, that this approach is lazy and boring. Then they remade the entire thing from the ground up with three fundamentally different factions.
- Terrans, with their flying buildings, technological addons, resource repairs, mobile ranged approach, medium pricetags.
- Zergs, with their Hatchery-based larva-unit production, creep-limited expansion, Overlord-based unit limit, regeneration, burrowing and quantity-over-quality aspects.
- Protoss, with their pylon-centric infrastucture, autonomic construction, shield-related mechanics, abundance of unit abilities and upgrades and the overall quality-over-quantity philosophy.

Everything that made those factions unique and different from one-another is what Starcraft begun from. Only on top of all that variety of buildings and tech-trees and units of different roles and sizes, any values has to come. All original values were assumed relative to cost, and costs were distributed between three factions from a single row of values.

Only by live testing online, any balance changes had to come. Starcraft factions were originally concieved to be equal, yet completely distinct from one another, and acquiring victory by vastly different approaches to economy, tactics and micro-management.

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MWO, on the other hand, is a new incarnation of a series with a long history. And people insist on having the past values implemented in the new game.

The affect? MWO is not allowed to stand as its own game and is thus prevented from achieving balance.

I thought we've already thrown past values out of the window. What is that remark about? Any suggestions of balansing is deviation from past values.

Again, the problem is not that Clan mechs are different. The problem is that Clan mechs were originally designed to be better than IS by all aspects and means possible, to be vastly outnumbered, but never outgunned. THIS is what has to change. PGI will never achieve any balance by "toning down the values" or "making IS things just as good". This is not just my opinion. This is math and conventional logic.

Edited by DivineEvil, 12 November 2015 - 08:52 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Apart from 'muh lore' (and btw, lore and TT rules are two different things) can anyone explain why the following changes to engines would be a bad thing? (obviously specific value can be tweaked). ER = Engine rating.

IS / Clan STD engines: Only dies on CT destruction, +ER/10 internal structure to CT, +ER/15 Internal structure to each ST

Clan XL: Dies from CT or both STs, losing 1 ST = -20% internal heatsinks, -10% speed

IS XL: Dies from CT or both STs, losing 1 ST = -30% internal heatsinks, -20% speed

Imo that still leaves STDs viable for huge toughness, increases overall TTK (IS mechs die slower in all cases) and closes the yawning gap between clan XL and IS XL - making overall tech balance easier to achieve - and overall tech balance MUST now be achieved, because clan IICs mean the balancing factor of locked mechlab is no longer in play.

Making this one mechanic change does NOT mean homogenizing clans and IS. They are FAR more differentiated by the different weapon mechanics than by the engine in terms of feel.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 12 November 2015 - 09:13 AM.

[Fubbit]

It seems pretty obvious that making IS XLs behave like clan ones is the quickest (cheapest?) way to get closer to parity.

The intent of the rebalance is to get IS and clan tech close enough that quirking can be done minimally to less attractive chassis (on both sides.)

This would have the added benefit of increasing average TTK as IS XLs would live longer.

That just leaves a bit of tweaking to the weapon systems and we're pretty freaking close to fair. (Most clan weapons are just better right now. Seriously, you know it's true.)

Lore-wise. If you gotta pretend the IS pilots are the uber-elite of the inner sphere and the clan pilots are all joe the clan guy then do it. The intent (of MWO) is that the two sides (on a ton for ton basis) are (semi) equal. Get over it.

[Repasy Cooper]

Khobai, on 11 November 2015 - 09:36 PM, said:

yes I use IS mechs. thats why I have a jade falcon banner

you figured out my secret plan to buff IS mechs I dont even play.

way2go.


[/list][/list]A lot of these are extremely bad ideas. TTK is already pathetic. And you wanna make it worse with these crits? no thanks.



Reset TTK back to battletech levels first, then maybe we can talk about debilitating crits.

... resetting back to Battletech levels would mean no quirks + half armor for every mech in the game. If you're an advocate for higher TTK then I doubt that's the supporting argument you intended, but in any case...

I didn't mention anything about the odds of getting a crit because I would leave that up to the discretion of PGI, if they were to implement some of the ideas I just stated. Getting a crit would be a rare occurrence so long as an enemy had armor coverage. No armor coverage over an internal would significantly increase the odds of getting a crit, but by that point the internal section would probably be close to destruction anyways. At most, TTK would only decrease slightly, due to the rare possibility of getting sufficient engine crits before torso destruction. This would not affect the IS mechs at all, because as it stands IS XLE blow up with single side torso destruction regardless of crit system or not. Clan XLE, however, would have an increased rate of destruction, because after a single side torso destruction you would only need one more lucky engine crit to take it offline. That could be done relatively easily by continuing to fire on the destroyed side torso - you would be damaging the center torso internals, bypassing the CT armor, and at the CT you are three times more likely to get an engine crit on a Clan Omnimech.

In short, my idea would slightly decrease TTK for Clantech, and be relatively insignificant to IStech. It would also increase immersion by being more accurate to a Battlemech simulator, by having more realistic consequences for damaged parts.

[Bud Crue]

I play only IS. If anything I think clans could be more powerful, but they should also cost significantly more as well. Leave their engines alone.

[Khobai]

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It seems pretty obvious that making IS XLs behave like clan ones is the quickest (cheapest?) way to get closer to parity.

it is obvious.

1) its a buff. and a buff is easier to sell to the playerbase than a nerf. nerfing clan xl is not gonna go over well with clan players.

2) its a very quick and easy change that goes a long way towards restoring parity between IS and clan mechs.

3) the only problem is that the STD engine would need a buff, but if you gave it a decent CT internal structure increase I still think people would use STD engines.

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In short, my idea would slightly decrease TTK for Clantech, and be relatively insignificant to IStech

no thanks. the game doesnt need even lower TTK. I would rather see TTK increased by buffing ISXL to be the same as CXL. And buffing STD engines with an internal structure increase.

Edited by Khobai, 12 November 2015 - 02:11 PM.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

I've said it before in my various balance manifestos.

Fundamentally given a choice between a STD engine, CXL, and IS XL there should be a reason to choose to run each of them.

Personally I like the idea of removing spead tweak from clan XL engined mechs (with quirks to differentiate the few mechs that warrant a bit of extra speed) and applying some small mobility penalties on CXL equipped mechs. These penalties should be magnified greatly when one ST is destroyed. Something like a 1/3 to 1/2 reduction in top speed, acceleration, and turning rates depending of course on how the play test data goes.

IS XL should go the other way, retaining speed tweak and gaining some fairly hefty mobility buffs so you can spread out the damage a bit better and use better positioning to avoid damage altogether. Of course if you lose a ST you explode and die like you currently do.

STD engine should receive speed tweak and potentially a small structure bonus proportional to engine size due to the denser fusion reactor to make up for the extra time it takes to move into position. This should make the speed difference between a 4/6 heavy/assault (stock Orion, Marauder, Victor, Zeus, and Battlemaster) and a 5/8 heavy is about 10 kph vs the current 20 kph.

[Pjwned]

Duke Nedo, on 11 November 2015 - 11:50 PM, said:

Again, there is no power creep as long as clan mechs are still the best. The best are still the best, nothing has changed except that we have more balanced tech lines and the need for super quirks is reduced.

"Power creep is not power creep" is still a laughably bad argument and it's self evident why that is.

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You could nerf clan XL, but in practice that's not really viable at this point. It should have been done at Clan invasion in that case but that chance is gone forever. People would totally freak out if clan XLs were nerfed enough to be at parity with ST death. The combination of making clan XL as bad as IS XL and at the same time not having the option to swap it out for a clan STD engine would be quite harsh too, I wouldn't like that either.

It's never too late to balance properly, and if needed there can be other changes to compensate for the cXL nerf such as making Ferro Fibrous armor not objectively inferior to Endo Steel structure so that certain omnimechs don't get screwed over as hard; in fact that should happen regardless of cXL being nerfed or not.

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You know, some IS mechs are XL engine death traps. The Stalker comes to mind for example. There are clan bots that lose a ST just as easy, most notably the Mad Dog, it's would be completely impossible to play with an XL as bad as an IS XL. The Timber would hurt quite badly too, it just wouldn't work.

Maybe if you didn't keep ignoring that's why the LFE would be used in mechs like the Stalker, you would understand the point. There's nothing wrong with the IS XL as it is, the only problem for Inner Sphere is that IS mechs lack a middle ground option, and if somebody still wants to use an XL engine in their Stalker then they can have fun with their glass cannon if they want.

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No, the most viable route forward is to
1. Allow IS XL to survive the loss of an ST. I.e. set "nr of crits = death" to 4 instead of 3 (if we had had them)

2. Scale the penalty for ST loss so that IS hurts more than Clans for it, that way we keep some flavor. Not exactly "Lore", but close enough for them to be different while allowing techs to be balanced without super-quirks. I'd like to see penalties in the 20-30% range for heat and speed, that can be tweaked and tweaked again until you find the level where it hurts to lose a ST, but it doesn't outright destroy the rest of your round.

3. Buff both IS and Clan STD engines to make them viable options. The standing suggestion is to add significant amounts of CT structure. Edit: one can play with the idea to also boost the STs a bit if the CT is not enough.

Puke.

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4. Now, it is possible to reduce IS quirks. There is still need for some quirkening due to clans having weight(/space) advantages in endo/ff, gauss, missiles and equipment, but the quirks can be much much weaker and focus mainly on the bad chassi on both sides.

That's how it should be anyways.

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5. Tweak weapon stats. Mcgral's thread is an excellent starting point.

I do agree that weapon stats also need to be tweaked, and I actually made my own topic about overall weapon balance a while ago.

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Aftermath: We end up with faction balance that is not depending on quirks. Quirks are freed up to be used to balance clan vs clan and IS vs IS chassi, i.e. help the weak robots, give them flavor and give players a reason to use them.

Making both factions equally unbalanced is stupid.

Edited by Pjwned, 12 November 2015 - 06:30 PM.

[Khobai]

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Personally I like the idea of removing spead tweak from clan XL engined mechs (with quirks to differentiate the few mechs that warrant a bit of extra speed) and applying some small mobility penalties on CXL equipped mechs

No thats dumb. You cant nerf the only engine omnimechs can use. If omnimechs had a choice to use STD engines then it might be okay. But they DONT have a choice. They HAVE to use CXL... so you cant penalize CXL with ridiculous movement penalties. Youll just end up making clan mechs unfun deathtraps that die as soon as they lose a side torso. Nobody wants to play a mech like that.

Not to mention it makes shooting legs entirely pointless if blowing out a side torso accomplishes the same thing. You basically remove any reason to ever shoot the legs off a mech. Which is equally dumb. You shoot legs to reduce movement. You shoot the side torso to reduce weapons. Different reasons for shooting different locations. Thats how it SHOULD be.

Again the solution is simple: make ISXL identical to CXL. Its the easiest way to bring IS and Clan engines into parity with eachother. And it doesnt require the unpopular nerfing of clan mechs or daftly reducing TTK even further. It only improves TTK which exactly what the game needs. Destruction of a side torso should NEVER result in the death of a mech, either directly, or indirectly with dumb speed penalties.

The reality is PGI dug themselves into a hole trying to balance IS vs Clan 1:1. And the ONLY way they can get themselves out of said hole is by making both equal. If theyre not equal you cant have 1:1 balance. Clan weapons can be asymmetrically balanced because theres a variety of different stats that can be tweaked for weapons. But its much harder to asymmetrically balance engines, because engines dont really have any tweakable stats to make them "equal but different". So in the case of engines, its easiest just to make ISXL and CXL identical.

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No it isn't, IS XL engines are fine as they are and it's the clan XL engines that are out of line, it is not that IS XL engines are too weak and clan XL engines are fine.

Wrong. Its definitely ISXL engines that are too weak.

In tabletop you had random hit locations. So it was much harder to blow out side torsos. But in MWO you can aim specifically for side torsos and converge all your weapons into someones side torso. Which makes blowing out ISXL engines super f-ing EASY compared to their tabletop counterparts. Aiming/convergence are specifically why ISXL engines are in fact too weak and need to be buffed to survive a side torso destruction.

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Maybe if you didn't keep ignoring that's why the LFE would be used in mechs like the Stalker

Wut? Stalker has an engine cap of 310. Theres absolutely no reason to EVER use an LFE in a Stalker. It can already take a STD 310 engine and fit all its weapons. Taking a LFE 310 wouldnt give you any advantage whatsoever, in fact it would just reduce your crit slots, and result in not being able to take as many heatsinks. It would also result in losing 5 internal DHS when one of your side torsos gets blown out, which is bad for the energy heavy Stalker.

Assaults with higher engine caps like the Atlas would definitely benefit from the LFE being added. But the Stalker would not benefit from the LFE at all. And in fact taking an LFE would actually be detrimental to the Stalker.

However theres been no indication at all from PGI that the LFE is being added anytime soon. So making ISXL and CXL identical is an easy stop gap measure until such a time when the LFE is added; at which point engine balance can be revisited so every engine type is equally worth using.

Edited by Khobai, 12 November 2015 - 09:42 PM.

[Pjwned]

Khobai, on 12 November 2015 - 08:54 PM, said:

Wrong. Its definitely ISXL engines that are too weak.

In tabletop you had random hit locations. So it was much harder to blow out side torsos. But in MWO you can aim specifically for side torsos and converge all your weapons into someones side torso. Which makes blowing out ISXL engines super f-ing EASY compared to their tabletop counterparts. Aiming/convergence are specifically why ISXL engines are in fact too weak and need to be buffed to survive a side torso destruction.

Fixing the symptom instead of the problem, great.

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Wut? Stalker has an engine cap of 310. Theres absolutely no reason to EVER use an LFE in a Stalker. It can already take a STD 310 engine and fit all its weapons. Taking a LFE 310 wouldnt give you any advantage whatsoever, in fact it would just reduce your crit slots, and result in not being able to take as many heatsinks. It would also result in losing 5 internal DHS when one of your side torsos gets blown out, which is bad for the energy heavy Stalker.

Assaults with higher engine caps like the Atlas would definitely benefit from the LFE being added. But the Stalker would not benefit from the LFE at all. And in fact taking an LFE would actually be detrimental to the Stalker.

I wasn't the one arguing that Stalkers are an XL trap, the intent was to demonstrate that "XL trap" mechs would no longer be an XL trap with the LFE available.

Would I put a LFE or XL in a Stalker? Maybe if I was using a more missile focused variant, but otherwise no.

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However theres been no indication at all from PGI that the LFE is being added anytime soon. So making ISXL and CXL identical is an easy stop gap measure until such a time when the LFE is added; at which point engine balance can be revisited so every engine type is equally worth using.

That doesn't make the proper solution less correct, nor does it justify insane power creep for IS XL engines.

Edited by Pjwned, 13 November 2015 - 12:51 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

Pjwned, on 12 November 2015 - 06:25 PM, said:

"Power creep is not power creep" is still a laughably bad argument and it's self evident why that is.



It's never too late to balance properly, and if needed there can be other changes to compensate for the cXL nerf such as making Ferro Fibrous armor not objectively inferior to Endo Steel structure so that certain omnimechs don't get screwed over as hard; in fact that should happen regardless of cXL being nerfed or not.



Maybe if you didn't keep ignoring that's why the LFE would be used in mechs like the Stalker, you would understand the point. There's nothing wrong with the IS XL as it is, the only problem for Inner Sphere is that IS mechs lack a middle ground option, and if somebody still wants to use an XL engine in their Stalker then they can have fun with their glass cannon if they want.



Puke.



That's how it should be anyways.



I do agree that weapon stats also need to be tweaked, and I actually made my own topic about overall weapon balance a while ago.



Making both factions equally unbalanced is stupid.

1) Due to IIC mechs coming, there needs to be parity (not mirroring, parity) between the tech bases, because you cant use the locked mechlab as balance anymore

2) The only way the XL engines can be balanced with each other at all, is if they both need the same number of STs to die. Anything that leaves IS dying on 1 ST and clan on both will not end the whining.

3) Making Clan XL die on 1 ST loss will instantly and completely kill most of the Omnimechs. Non humanoid shaped mechs are almost universally XL deathtraps (see stalker, king crab), and most Omnimechs are non-humanoid. You would have to completely fail to understand the game not to see you simply CANNOT make Clan XL kill on 1 ST loss.

4) Given the above statements, what option is there but to buff the IS XL such that both STs are needed for death? Again, IIC mechs are coming, and will not be limited to the currently announced 4 mechs. Fully customisable clan mechs.

edit: MAYBE adding the LFE would be enough, but i dont think so - the whines would be still unending, because the C-XL is still exactly the same thing but a lot lighter.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 13 November 2015 - 10:21 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Pjwned, on 13 November 2015 - 12:50 AM, said:

That doesn't make the proper solution less correct, nor does it justify insane power creep for IS XL engines.

Everything you write is only true if clans did not exist. Know what? Clans have been around for a very long time now and exchanging quirks for tech balance is not power creep. It's common sense.

[InsaneRotta]

Omaha, on 11 November 2015 - 11:00 PM, said:

P.S. Where's my engine crit explozzzzions!?

Here!?

Jus make clans blow up moar! Pweeeze?


So how bout that for balance, everything remains the same, cept on crit side torso, there is a chance at fusion explosion. Now clans can have the survivalist, by chance. But they can also dmg friendlies, and enemies in prox.

And, since clans have slightly more range, chances are they will be hurting friendlies more so then enemies. Also will make the death ball tactic less viable, teaches you the correct mech spacing for firefights. Loads and loads of tactical options. I just cant think of a negative thing about it. Cept when it happens to you, but hey thats part of the game. (Stupid cockpit artillery shots lmfao!)

IS mech can do the same, yet lower chances (XL). STD engine almost nil. on ct crit. only.

That way everyone is happy PLUS WE HAVE PWETTY FIREWORKS!


PGI YOU KNOW U WANNA! If you thought battles can be tense and full of action now, if only this could happen, hehe. IT MUST HAPPEN FOR THE LOVE OF HARDCORE BT!!!!!

Can we also get a delayed self destruction / fusion explosion via ejecting the mech, if the engine has been critted prior to ejecting? XD

[Khobai]

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Can we also get a delayed self destruction / fusion explosion via ejecting the mech, if the engine has been critted prior to ejecting? XD

most scifi writers clearly dont understand how fusion reactors actually work and its propagated the myth of fusion reactors exploding. fusion reactors dont explode when they lose containment. thats what makes them a much safer alternative to fission.

fusion reactors are typically doughnut shaped and they heat up a hydrogen plasma to several hundred million degrees in order to fuse it into helium. the reaction is contained by magnetic fields using superconducting magnets that have to be cooled very close to absolute zero. if theres a containment breach in the magnetic field, and some of the plasma vents, it hits the liquid nitrogen and the plasma immediately cools into a gas and stops fusing.

worst case scenario some radioactive tritium escapes. but theres no meltdowns or giant mushroom clouds.

Edited by Khobai, 13 November 2015 - 09:55 AM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Those of you arguing that Clans SHOULD be more powerful just fail to take into account that a great amount of restrictions that existed in TT just don't and CAN'T exist in MWO.

Table Top had:

1) Restrictions on availability of tech, ESPECIALLY Clantech. You couldn't just go to the digital store and buy whatever you had cash for!

2) Disconnect between the player and the "pilot". In TT, you were not the pilot, you were more like the commander. In MWO you are the pilot and your skill is of absolute importance. In TT your "skill" was a non-issue... because it didn't exist!

3) Hit probability that was imprecise. If not random, it was at least governed by mitigated chance.

4) Clans initially introduced to be "bad guys" presenting overwhelming odds and challenges for the IS "good guys". Thus their initial superiority; which makes little sense in the current evolution of the two sides as neither "good" nor "bad".

@Widowmaker1981
"btw, lore and TT rules are two different things"
^This!!!

Thank you! Lore is the story and the flavor that comes out of it. TT rules are just a ruleset for ONE (1) game. We don't need to even try to adhere to TT rules.

Let this game stand as it's own thing.

From that, the whole idea that "Clans must be superior" falls apart.

Darwinism people. Things that change and adapt, survive and flourish. Those that don't, die and go extinct.

@DivineEvil:
Your post is mostly just inflammatory. Please try to refrain from the personal. You're not Donald Trump!

But, I will add:

Durability is the single most valuable thing a 'Mech can possess.

The whole reason for this discussion is that IS is currently not as durable as Clans. Swinging it in the other direction and making IS more (functionally) durable than Clans is not a real solution, it just keeps that pendulum swinging.