592 replies to this topic

[Hunter Watzas]

Dodger79, on 06 December 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

The problem is, you cannot speak of "IS can do this and Clans can do that" anymore. Range advantage for Clans is gone when the IS picks several special chassis with nice bonusses on range. Same to dps. And while a BJ1X outperforms way heavier chassis, a Summoner still kinda sucks compared to what other Clan chassis are capable of. So we do not only have a imbalance between Clans and IS, but between the chassis. And as long as this is not solved there will never be a truly working balance between the factions because it all depends on which chassis you take.

And i think THAT is what bothers most Clanners: they are constantly reminded at all the advantages they have like range and dps and then they look at some specific IS-Mechs and think "wait, what? We are getting nerfed because we have better equipment, but this IS-Mech has more range and more dps? Why do my Mechs get nerfed, then?!?"

Additionally, getting more and more IS-Merchs to Clan-level-performances, is lowering the ttk even more. So we need global Clan-nerfs concerning their weapons (lower damage and range then now, only slightly better then IS-tech, not 2-3 times better like in the start) and IS has to get rid of their quirks. Atleast most of them, some can stay for the special feeling of specialized Mechs (like no ghost heat for the 3rd PPC on an Awesome and stuff like that). And thenrework some other weapons, too, to give IS more variety and choices (e.g.: the PPC needs to get rid of its minimum range just like AC/5 and Gauss have lost theirs).

But nonetheless: the outcome of this battle does not really say anything about balancing but about the organization of the different factions. The Clanners seem to can manage to run big premades quite constantly while the IS has a lot of pugs and their premades have to wait much longer to get a drop (and therefore dropping fewer then Clan-premades). And it's about activity all the way, if you have to live a life during this event you might be too short of time to really achieve great things for your faction/unit, while really big units can divide the "work" on much more shoulders.

Finally someone who understands what is going on with the balance! I am IS pilot but I decided to actually give my Clan Mechs some love this fall by switching over. The variation between chassis is so annoying on IS and this recent nerf killed the already non existent clan mechs more. My direwolf builds have problem with slots because the ratio between firepower and heat sink is terrible. Especially when you consider the direwolf costs 18 million cbills but is as good as an IS assault which is half as much.
I had to strip off a good quarter of my weapons this past balance around to keep the same heat efficiency by adding more heat sinks, sure i dissipate more heat but that doesn't help when a thunder bolt can shoot 3 times successively with his pulse lasers before i remove the heat i generated from one volley.

Granted I do think the pug match vs pug match was pretty well balanced, but that was mainly because IS pugs were running everything and not organized with their drop builds. The times i got steamed rolled were when we went up against groups of well coordinate drop decks of IS meta. The weapon quirks for IS mechs need to be toned down more. I have seen 12 man thunderbolt armies wipe the floor of 48 clan mechs like it was a walk in the park.

Nothing makes you feel bad when you are in a timberwolf and a blackjack is holding more fire power, moves as fast and can tank as much damage. If they are going to leave the heat as is, remove some of the weapon nerfs for clans or apply the same for both sides (2 Large lasers -> if it is already this why aren't stalkers blowing up instantly?).

[PeeWrinkle]

My first thought on this event is it is totally and completely awesome. That is the same thought I had before the first Battle of Tukayyid event.

I get into these events by imagining I'm part of the lore and in this one I am fighting for the right to occupy Terra. Usually I am in an IS faction, but with little warning about the event I could not change back, so I am fighting as a Clanner. In many ways I am glad because my queue times are much better this time around because there are less clan players (or at least loyalists).

Beyond that I actually have a lot of issue's with the structure of the event. The Battle of Tukayyid was actually fought between the Clans and Com Star, not the IS Houses. It was also not a battle where one side attacked and one side defended. The battle was on a neutral planet, both sides bid then dropped and slugged it out.

As for game balance, that has always been a problem, even in table top. Even Jordan Weisman was not happy with how powerful he made the Clans originally. But that was kept in check by Clan rules of combat and the IS gorilla type of tactics. As well as the Clans bidding process and the fact that they always battle with less tonnage.

At least PGI has allowed IS to have a max of 250 tons per player, giving them a potential extra 120 tons per match. They didn't do that at first, which I always thought was crazy. I also never understood why they just didn't have three lances of four for IS and two stars of five for clans. Your basic 12-10 scenario. That would have gone a long way towards balancing the two sides (I think at least).

What I find ironic is PGI also did not like they way Clans were done originally and wanted to focus and find ways to make them not as over powering as they were in the original table top game.

I do think when you look at what the Clans are in this game in many ways they succeeded, but I would say they did so in ways that don't make much sense.
The Clans first and foremost have superior technology. Here is a condensed list:
Weapons are cooler
Weapons do more damage
Weapons have longer range
All components take up less crit space
Many weapons weigh less
XL Engines can survive the loss of a torso

So instead of limiting any of those things PGI gave them all those same advantages. With the solution being quirks and ghost heat penalties. Neither make much sense to me. Quirks I can almost wrap my head around, but you would think they would be very similar from one variant to the next in the same chassis. It's not like they have factories for each variant of a chassis. They would probably all be made at the same factory.
Worst of all is Ghost heat. Yes I can justify needing Ghost heat and even come up with scientific explanations for it. But then you come out with the IS, with inferior technology will not build up Ghost heat until they fire more than three large lasers, but Clanners, with superior technology can't figure out how to fire more than two. Just makes no sense.

Then come the nerfs. I wish I could have been in the room when they were talking about Clan double heat sinks. The idea PGI seems to have settled on is to make them less efficient that IS single heat sinks (no quite, but its getting close).

At some point this nerf and quirk system is going to collapse on itself. I love this game, and I force myself not to think about that because it makes me a bit crazy when I do.

What really shocks me is why no one ever thought of just giving Clans some of their tech perks and not all from table top. For example, everything takes less crit space, their XLs survive the loss of a single torso, and there weapons fire at greater range and weigh less. Those are great perks, so why not make them do the same damage as IS weapons and generate the same amount of heat as IS weapons? For some reason I think that would be much more balance than what we have now, and would probably even help the quirk system significantly.

I'm not saying that is the right solution or even the only solution, but it makes better sense than lets nerf and quirk constantly. Which truthfully is probably very difficult for PGI when you think that they not only are using that system to balance IS vs Clan technology, but also to balance out variants within a chassis, as well as chassis of the same weight class and technology.

That is a ton of variables they have to manage and is not easy. But in the end it really hurts the player and makes the learning curve much steeper. If you are a new player and you started with a mech that had large lasers at some point you might think "I like LLs and really have them figured out". So believing that you get another mech and put large lasers on it only to find they feel and perform completely different. That would be very confusing and hard to grasp for a player new to MWO in my opinion.

Anyway sorry for rambling on. Just had a lot pop into my head reading the last several posts here.

[Steve Pryde]

Dodger79, on 06 December 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

The problem is, you cannot speak of "IS can do this and Clans can do that" anymore. Range advantage for Clans is gone when the IS picks several special chassis with nice bonusses on range. Same to dps. And while a BJ1X outperforms way heavier chassis, a Summoner still kinda sucks compared to what other Clan chassis are capable of. So we do not only have a imbalance between Clans and IS, but between the chassis. And as long as this is not solved there will never be a truly working balance between the factions because it all depends on which chassis you take.

And i think THAT is what bothers most Clanners: they are constantly reminded at all the advantages they have like range and dps and then they look at some specific IS-Mechs and think "wait, what? We are getting nerfed because we have better equipment, but this IS-Mech has more range and more dps? Why do my Mechs get nerfed, then?!?"

Additionally, getting more and more IS-Merchs to Clan-level-performances, is lowering the ttk even more. So we need global Clan-nerfs concerning their weapons (lower damage and range then now, only slightly better then IS-tech, not 2-3 times better like in the start) and IS has to get rid of their quirks. Atleast most of them, some can stay for the special feeling of specialized Mechs (like no ghost heat for the 3rd PPC on an Awesome and stuff like that). And thenrework some other weapons, too, to give IS more variety and choices (e.g.: the PPC needs to get rid of its minimum range just like AC/5 and Gauss have lost theirs).

But nonetheless: the outcome of this battle does not really say anything about balancing but about the organization of the different factions. The Clanners seem to can manage to run big premades quite constantly while the IS has a lot of pugs and their premades have to wait much longer to get a drop (and therefore dropping fewer then Clan-premades). And it's about activity all the way, if you have to live a life during this event you might be too short of time to really achieve great things for your faction/unit, while really big units can divide the "work" on much more shoulders.

Truly spoken like a clanner... I mean mechwarrior, just kidding.

Summoner/Thor for example was my favorite mech in mechwarrior 4 because I liked it and not cause it was op or something. And was is it in MWO? Just garbage because lack of endosteel, lack of hardpoints and not removable jump jets/double heat sinks. But its the same with other ****** clan mech chassi that nobody plays (Ice Ferret, Myst Lynx, Executioner and other mechs).

[KursedVixen]

TheLuc, on 06 December 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

First problem of MWO is not sticking with source material, second is lack of balance in match making, a team of 12 organized players versus 12 puggers is hardly balanced.

the team at PGI try to balance the game with weird solutions and just doing it wrong, at this rate we will end up with HAWKEN, that is some thing I really don't want.

CW at this moment doesn't give any real gratification, Russ should really drop the dream of making MWO a ESport, he should just concentrate on making the game as a true Mechwarrior experience, at this moment it is not sadly.

Russ also need to drop his dangit Innersphere Bias. i don't think this game has ever been balanced ever becuase PGI is constantly nerfing the "Flavor of the month" which will end only when everything is nerfed so badly it will be HAWKIN.
examples
jump jet nerfs (What?)
ERPPC/PPC nerf( no sniping with a sniper weapon)
Guass nerf(once again no sniping with a sniper weapon)
Clan laser nerf (No sniping with clan lasers.) PGi:NO BAD CLAN NO LASERS, BAD!!!!
small laser buff (No sniping but you can brawl)
Black Jack buff (Black jack good at brawling not so much sniping due to ballstic points0

And yeah i was really excited for my Summoner ,but then I couldn't use it it really doesn't have anything i want.

Edited by KursedVixen, 06 December 2015 - 03:13 PM.

[Sigmar Sich]

Dodger79, on 06 December 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

The problem is, you cannot speak of "IS can do this and Clans can do that" anymore. Range advantage for Clans is gone when the IS picks several special chassis with nice bonusses on range. Same to dps. And while a BJ1X outperforms way heavier chassis, a Summoner still kinda sucks compared to what other Clan chassis are capable of. So we do not only have a imbalance between Clans and IS, but between the chassis. And as long as this is not solved there will never be a truly working balance between the factions because it all depends on which chassis you take.

And i think THAT is what bothers most Clanners: they are constantly reminded at all the advantages they have like range and dps and then they look at some specific IS-Mechs and think "wait, what? We are getting nerfed because we have better equipment, but this IS-Mech has more range and more dps? Why do my Mechs get nerfed, then?!?"

Additionally, getting more and more IS-Merchs to Clan-level-performances, is lowering the ttk even more. So we need global Clan-nerfs concerning their weapons (lower damage and range then now, only slightly better then IS-tech, not 2-3 times better like in the start) and IS has to get rid of their quirks. Atleast most of them, some can stay for the special feeling of specialized Mechs (like no ghost heat for the 3rd PPC on an Awesome and stuff like that). And thenrework some other weapons, too, to give IS more variety and choices (e.g.: the PPC needs to get rid of its minimum range just like AC/5 and Gauss have lost theirs).

Very true.
I hoped for something like that when rebalance was announced, and was very excited. Alas.
Though one thing should be kept in mind - mechs anyway have "hardwired" quirks - hitboxes and hardpoint positions. So i think quirks should stay in some form for underdogs (structure, armor, sensors, agility, cooling; but not ranges).

[KursedVixen]

Sigmar Sich, on 06 December 2015 - 03:21 PM, said:

Very true.
I hoped for something like that when rebalance was announced, and was very excited. Alas.
Though one thing should be kept in mind - mechs anyway have "hardwired" quirks - hitboxes and hardpoint positions. So i think quirks should stay in some form for underdogs (structure, armor, sensors, agility, cooling; but not ranges).

personally speaking SIg, I think all weapon quirks should go Period. general heat gen should replace any specific weapon heat gen quirks on mechs like the nova and such that need it. no more l cooldown or duration for any mechs or weapons as far as quirks go the structure armo sensors and stuff like that are fine it's just these silly weapon quirks that are driving everything to insane proportions. But I have to ask Why are clanners penalized for fixed jump jets?" *points to timberwolf S*

and PPC lose it's minumum range? no that's not how the gun works if you want no minimum range use an ERPPC same weight but a little hotter it's a trade off and a fair one I think.

Edited by KursedVixen, 06 December 2015 - 03:32 PM.

[Major Lag]

nvm.

Edited by Major Lag, 08 November 2016 - 03:08 PM.

[Major Lag]

nvm.

Edited by Major Lag, 08 November 2016 - 03:08 PM.

[Bluttrunken]

Don't worry according to my anonymous sources the next patch for MWO includes tissues for all pure clan players. It really must be hard on you to be only able to play with EBJ, TBR, SCR, HBR, DWF, WHK, ACH. Everyone knows these mechs are nigh-useless. Could as well make dropdecks compromised of Locusts for all what Clantech is worth.

Edited by k05h3lk1n, 06 December 2015 - 03:57 PM.

[KursedVixen]

let's hope they lessen the laser nerfs on the timberwolf... give me a reason to use summoners, novas and other clan mechs that seem to be underrated.

[freud2b]

it's possible to obtain two rewards "clan and IS" if I change my contract during the event ???

[PeeWrinkle]

freud2b, on 06 December 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

it's possible to obtain two rewards "clan and IS" if I change my contract during the event ???

Nope, they said the rewards were cumulative, so you will only get one set.

[tee5]

freud2b, on 06 December 2015 - 04:24 PM, said:

it's possible to obtain two rewards "clan and IS" if I change my contract during the event ???

3 day penalty for breaking your contract.

If your contract expires in the middel of Tukayyid, maybe.

[PeeWrinkle]

tee5, on 06 December 2015 - 04:34 PM, said:

If your contract expires in the middel of Tukayyid, maybe.

Tournament page states "Changing sides mid-event will carry over your current Personal Challenge Match Score, but you will not receive retroactive rewards from your new allegiance. You will only receive new rewards according to your new allegiance."

So you will only recieve one set of rewards even if you can play both within the 3day penalty.

[freud2b]

tee5, on 06 December 2015 - 04:34 PM, said:

3 day penalty for breaking your contract.

If your contract expires in the middel of Tukayyid, maybe.

yes my contract expires in only one hours , So it worked ?

[Dassh]

freud2b, on 06 December 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

yes my contract expires in only one hours , So it worked ?

Probably not. It's based on how you interpret the sentence what PeeWrinkle cited above (actually how PGI interprets it...).
So very likely no.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Fifty hours since the first matches ended ...

Faction: Wins (Percentage of Total)
Wolf: 15519 (23.2%)
Jade Falcon: 12357 (18.5%)
Ghost Bear: 6309 (9.4%)
Smoke Jaguar: 3979 (6.0%)
Clan Total: 38164 (57.1%)
Rasalhague: 7489 (11.2%)
Steiner: 6306 (9.4%)
Kurita: 5211 (7.8%)
Davion: 4994 (7.5%)
Liao: 2732 (4.1%)
Marik: 1949 (2.9%)
IS Total: 28681 (42.9%)

Total Wins: 66845
Matches Played (66845 / 24): 2785.2
Average Matches per Hour (2785.2 / 50) : 54.6
(I don't know why the total isn't divisible by 24, and frankly don't care ... I'm just looking at the statistics.)

Just as a point of reference, if one 12-man group played for 50 hours straight, averaged two complete matches per hour, and won every match, they would have earned 1200 total wins.

Edited by Kageru Ikazuchi, 06 December 2015 - 05:38 PM.

[Liveish]

Thanks for the event, IS was a pain in the *** did not win one game ( playing by myself)

Unlocked everything in 13 games.

Moved over to a new clan account, with trials only and need 13 games ( did not loose once)

(Man the trials for clan rock, 1700 - 2500 damage most games)

Saying that about trials they need to be banned for CW, so many people running them getting 100 damage with 4 mechs, total let down for your team


Has been fun

Edited by live1991, 06 December 2015 - 09:05 PM.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Hey kageru, is it maybe because teams like the 228 are fighting clans?
What if they were in IS? Wouldn that be the way around?
I know that the 228 just switched to Wolf so they could get drops in this event and not wait 30 min. But think about one thing, as the comp teams are usually IS, dosent that say something to you?

[Sigmar Sich]

KursedVixen, on 06 December 2015 - 03:29 PM, said:

personally speaking SIg, I think all weapon quirks should go Period. general heat gen should replace any specific weapon heat gen quirks on mechs like the nova and such that need it. no more l cooldown or duration for any mechs or weapons as far as quirks go the structure armo sensors and stuff like that are fine it's just these silly weapon quirks that are driving everything to insane proportions. But I have to ask Why are clanners penalized for fixed jump jets?" *points to timberwolf S*

and PPC lose it's minumum range? no that's not how the gun works if you want no minimum range use an ERPPC same weight but a little hotter it's a trade off and a fair one I think.

I agree, weapon quirks should go, especially for specific weapons. Structure, armor, sensors should be used to degree. I thought i wrote exactly that
As for PPC min range - i dont mind BT rule, but it seems not very logical - as i remember PPC min range explained with shot interference with engine shielding. But why ER-PPC dont have min range? But anyway, i accepted it long time ago.