592 replies to this topic

[Mike McSullivan]

Dassh, on 08 December 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

On the cliché that "Clan 'Mechs are more expensive":

In my experiences they aren't really, definietly not with a huge margin. Sure, a stock IS 'Mech costs less than a Clan one but you have to upgrade DHS and Endo and get a new engine right away (even XL engine) so you can easily spend 10 mil. more before buying a single laser. After buying a Clan 'Mech you have no other worries than buying the weapons and even some omnipods.
If you compare the overall cost of two 'Mechs from the same weight class they will be roughly the same.


On using trial 'Mechs (aimed for newbies mostly):

If you have to use trial 'Mechs for CW or an event for any reason (what I agree on that is anything but a good idea), go for Clans. IS trial 'Mechs are badly inferior due to their stock STD engines and single HS, lack of Endo etc. A Clan trial still will be nowhere compared to its well-customised counterpart but it will have XLs, DHS, Endo, Ferrous. So, imho if trial 'Mechs then defo go for Clans, never IS.

Your first part is right.
for the second part i have to correct you
IS-Trials are normal (C) Mechs, nowadays. Some even have endo+ferro (Jenner/RVN). All of them have DHS and big engines. The only thing..eh mech that is debatable is the Catapult (too slow+srm6A). All others are at least playable.
After the last switch, the Clan-Trials are also useable (last round was pure thrash). So, here you are right again

All in all, i am against Trials in CW.

[Kuritaclan]

Mike McSullivan, on 08 December 2015 - 02:31 PM, said:

Dassh, on 08 December 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

On the cliché that "Clan 'Mechs are more expensive":

In my experiences they aren't really, definietly not with a huge margin. Sure, a stock IS 'Mech costs less than a Clan one but you have to upgrade DHS and Endo and get a new engine right away (even XL engine) so you can easily spend 10 mil. more before buying a single laser. After buying a Clan 'Mech you have no other worries than buying the weapons and even some omnipods.
If you compare the overall cost of two 'Mechs from the same weight class they will be roughly the same.

Your first part is right.

The first part is not true at all. Sure for all IS Mechs that gets an XL Engine put in that somewhat holds up. But since swaping out engines is a possibility and also most bigger mechs use STDs in most cases cut down costs on a fair share untill your acc floating over with c-bills, and it will not matter anymore.

And just for new players. Who for example by a mech and equip it with a expensiv XL-Engine (Lights/Mediums mostlikely). He than can swap this into the other variants for leveling up the other chassis to master it. While for mastering a clan mech you actually buy all 3 chassis with an XL Engine each included, what ups the C-Bills of them compared to their tonnage price. Next point on the list weapon prices. Sure you can swap out too. But inital costs are higher. IS AC20 for IS 600k C-UAC20 960k, IS ML 80k vs. C-ER-ML 160k and so on. And also if you wanna play certain mechs without swaping around omnipods - guess what they will cost you also a lot on c-bills depending on the chassis weight DWF 438k for an Omnipod. And those are bought, since most people can not insta dump 50 Million C-Bill into 3 DWFs swap around a bit the Omnipods. Since some omnipods are supperior to other (ECM Pod on the Hellbringer is no brainer) you may wanna equip them onto a second/third mech of the same chassis you run into cw for example or just level up. Howerver the last one is so to speak cheaper as if you buy a second TDR 5SS for example i know some guys did for filling up the cw Dropdeck.

So in a nutshell you are also wrong on this.

Edited by Kuritaclan, 08 December 2015 - 04:47 PM.

[JaidenHaze]

Dawnstealer, on 08 December 2015 - 09:39 AM, said:

Mentioned in a CW link somewhere, but my thought was that Clan players get zero cbills and XP for an assist, but get a comparatively huge bump for solo kills. You can't force people to play in character, but PGI could at least encourage and reward it.

I just remember there was one time in the early days of CW, during a 5-47 stomp, my last mech was flying in, I challenged any Clan player to a one-on-one. I was focus fired the second I landed by twelve mechs.

Clan warriors abandon the idea of zellbrigen when they are shot by multiple enemies or when they think they are being deceived. While CJF is one of the stricter zellbrigen clans, they saw that more relaxed at the time of the battle due to their loses previous to that.

Edited by JaidenHaze, 08 December 2015 - 04:51 PM.

[KursedVixen]

Also Zellbrigen doesn't apply to mercenaries, as they are considered dishonorable. So since technicly all Innersphere pilots are mercs since your able to take a "Contract"....Yeah I think that you can pick it up from there an yeah i know other clan pilots are mercs too.

Edited by KursedVixen, 08 December 2015 - 06:45 PM.

[Arkhangel]

KursedVixen, on 08 December 2015 - 06:43 PM, said:

Also Zellbrigen doesn't apply to mercenaries, as they are considered dishonorable. So since technicly all Innersphere pilots are mercs since your able to take a "Contract"....Yeah I think that you can pick it up from there an yeah i know other clan pilots are mercs too.

in all honesty, if we were following lore, not one merc on clan side would own a mech, they dispossess them, if not execute them (mostly Crusader Clans for the latter). it's why Wolf's Dragoons are such a special case.

[KursedVixen]

Arkhangel, on 08 December 2015 - 07:08 PM, said:

in all honesty, if we were following lore, not one merc on clan side would own a mech, they dispossess them, if not execute them (mostly Crusader Clans for the latter). it's why Wolf's Dragoons are such a special case.

orignally Wolf's dragoons had no clan mechs just star league relics, they were meant to be spies for the clans to gather information freeborn warriors were mostly chosen and they were given old mechs that the IS had not seen in ages because they were just so old of designs. Also the dragoon compromise that made the Wolf's dragoons was the idea of Clan wolf they wanted to halt the invasion, Wolf was the largest and most powerful warden clan. Jade falcon largest most powerful Crusader and both were bitter rivals.

[Arkhangel]

KursedVixen, on 08 December 2015 - 08:30 PM, said:

orignally Wolf's dragoons had no clan mechs just star league relics, they were meant to be spies for the clans to gather information freeborn warriors were mostly chosen and they were given old mechs that the IS had not seen in ages because they were just so old of designs. Also the dragoon compromise that made the Wolf's dragoons was the idea of Clan wolf they wanted to halt the invasion, Wolf was the largest and most powerful warden clan. Jade falcon largest most powerful Crusader and both were bitter rivals.

actually, as of 3050, the Star Adders were the biggest Warden Clan, but they'd had bad luck in the trials for who got to invade the IS. good lore bit, though. at the time they sent the Dragoons out, it was probably true, though.

[Armando]

Battle of Tukayyid 2.0 Review in ten words or less:

Edited by Armando, 08 December 2015 - 09:54 PM.

[Thoman Coston]

Arkhangel, on 08 December 2015 - 09:39 PM, said:

actually, as of 3050, the Star Adders were the biggest Warden Clan, but they'd had bad luck in the trials for who got to invade the IS. good lore bit, though. at the time they sent the Dragoons out, it was probably true, though.

Small correction, the Star Adders are crusaders but their Khan Cassius N'Buta was a very wise man who warned the Clans against invading the IS at that time because the Clans were not yet ready for long drawn campaigns. Clan were used to fighting trials with no collateral damage, agreed battle terms and short campaigns. He was right, the IS invasion was a logistical nightmare and a war against an enemy that does not play by Clan rules.
Not all crusaders are keen invaders.

[Javenri]

In every MMO I have played the endgame content is moderated for new players and that happens for a good reason. Veteran players want to enjoy the endgame content fighting equal opponents without the drawbacks a new player may have. Allowing new players with all their drawbacks often destroys the experience for veteran players (I think that was quite evident reading some posts here). There are two main approaches on other MMO games for handling endgame content:
-One is to prohibit a new player from participating by adding experience/gear restrictions in order to register.
-The second one is to equalize the gear/skills between players for a certain event (regardless their experience/level) so everyone fights in a more or less equal base.

CW is supposed to be end-game content and for this reason moderation should apply. Since both skill and a good mech are needed, the second approach would not be sufficient. I believe the first approach should be followed. I would suggest not only prohibiting trial mechs, but allowing only mechs that have Elite skill tree to register in CW. That should be enough to create both an experience and a gear requirement. It will ensure a player has played a good number of games and has some understanding of battle mechanics and team coordination as well as some descent mechs before joining what is supposed to be endgame.

Edited by Javenri, 08 December 2015 - 11:48 PM.

[B0oN]

Soooo, DivineEvil, you say that MS actually needs to use "loopholes" and such things ?

How cute of you to say so, thank you very much for the unneeded compliment, man, you should really stop stuffing our egos any further, as with being back-to-back support for Clan Wolf´s very succesful Tukkayid endeavours (for the 77th Grey Guards first under CWDG landing 3rth or 4th overall in Clan with 19 active payers , now as Mercenaries under MS with a "bit" more support ) we might be a appearing a bit "overjoyed" .

That is thanks to relentless dropping, following our DC´s, having proper dropdecks .
Most fun though was always had by us when encountering proper 12man teams, just like YOURS, DivineEvil .
For some time I even called TCAF my "most beloved enemies" since we had awesome CW games against you guys with nothing but fun, kills and both-sided respect .

And what´s that now, brother of the Tikonov Communality ?
You really want to get on the bad side of 77th Grey Guards and other units in MS now just because you cannot comprehend anymore HOW we have fun and STILL deliver quality-games ?
Are you SALTY I NEED TO ASK ?

What changed from last Tuk to now, hm, Divine russkij ?
I tought that between our units (TCAF and 77th Grey Guards) at least was some respect and looking eye-to-eye, not anymore, eh gospodin ?

[Hydrocarbon]

I played 36 CW games during the event, at least 24 were with 8+ MS. NEVER did we dunk the objectives. In all those games we went against skittles or 10+ man teams, and our first wave was only beat down in games with turrets. In general MS players have great drop commanders & rarely "wander off" to do their own thing.

The other games were I played with a different group of friends had the same results. We lost 2 games to NS (they build & pilot mechs very well), the rest we fought to the end for points.


It is very unfortunate if anyone DID get "cheated" by an MS team rushing objectives. However I'd *highly* recommend you try playing a week on the clan side. Both hot maps are absolute HELL, and w/o focus fire you can't kill s***. At one point I had a Wang tanking my ebon like he was on PCP. Red core (blinking showing hits), not moving/twisting, and he took 3 full 40pnt alphas to the CT. Later that match a fresh Griffin tanked & killed 3 clan heavies. Meanwhile it feels like a RVN-3L can rip thru your TBR's armor with a quick sweep of blue...

Edited by Hydrocarbon, 09 December 2015 - 01:32 AM.

[Hydrocarbon]

Dassh, on 08 December 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

On the cliché that "Clan 'Mechs are more expensive":

In my experiences they aren't really, definietly not with a huge margin. Sure, a stock IS 'Mech costs less than a Clan one but you have to upgrade DHS and Endo and get a new engine right away (even XL engine)

I've actually done some tests with smurfy, and there are cases where IS Meta builds can be cheaper than clan mechs.

THE MAIN PROBLEM is that most new IS players have no clue how much endo & DHS's help them. We were discussing that in-game so I started asking a few IS pug teams if they all have DHS's. At least 1-2 players on each team asked, "What is a DHS", followed by "What does a Double Heat Sink do?" after I spelled it out. I had a fluke game of 999 with a SHS Cent, but beyond that SHS's suck.

Another problem is an IS player needs to learn how to play a certain weapon 2-3 different ways depending on what mech it's used in. A c-ERLL will play the same in almost any clan mech, meanwhile an AC5 will have different speed/range/DPS depending on what mech you use.

As far as trial mechs, all of them are built very well. However - they're still meta builds designed for old quirks. That helps & hurts certain mechs on both sides.

[draiocht]

Dawnstealer, on 08 December 2015 - 09:39 AM, said:

I just remember there was one time in the early days of CW, during a 5-47 stomp, my last mech was flying in, I challenged any Clan player to a one-on-one. I was focus fired the second I landed by twelve mechs.

There are some units who are fair for the 1vs1, but more often than not, it's just a greedy clanner in a fresh heavy calling dibs on the last spheroid. It might not be story-friendly, but getting obliterated before your mech touches the ground is actually the most fair to the other 23 players.

[Dassh]

Javenri, on 08 December 2015 - 11:48 PM, said:

In every MMO I have played the endgame content is moderated for new players and that happens for a good reason. Veteran players want to enjoy the endgame content fighting equal opponents without the drawbacks a new player may have. Allowing new players with all their drawbacks often destroys the experience for veteran players (I think that was quite evident reading some posts here). There are two main approaches on other MMO games for handling endgame content:
-One is to prohibit a new player from participating by adding experience/gear restrictions in order to register.
-The second one is to equalize the gear/skills between players for a certain event (regardless their experience/level) so everyone fights in a more or less equal base.

CW is supposed to be end-game content and for this reason moderation should apply. Since both skill and a good mech are needed, the second approach would not be sufficient. I believe the first approach should be followed. I would suggest not only prohibiting trial mechs, but allowing only mechs that have Elite skill tree to register in CW. That should be enough to create both an experience and a gear requirement. It will ensure a player has played a good number of games and has some understanding of battle mechanics and team coordination as well as some descent mechs before joining what is supposed to be endgame.

This is the whole propblem from my point of view: "In every MMO I have played". MWO isn't an MMO and it shouldn't be an MMo at all. Actually They want to make it into an e-sport and an MMO can't be e-sport (for many reasons, I'm telling this after wasting a decade on Quake, many years as comp).
They would just had to make one step forward to make this an MMO and they would lose me for sure. I'm glad that with the new patch they are steering back to the good direction.

To be honest if I would be in charge, I would erase every skill tree and XP/GXP gathering thing as a whole right away. I would erase quirks completely - necessary changes had to made on the chassis themselves, other options like sensor and structure buffs should be modules (at least we would have more than 3-4 modules with some reason to buy). Oh and modules wouldn't have XP cost just C-Bill. The only grind would be for money what you could easily bypass with spending some real money on the game.
And despite I'm against any kind of tiers and ranks, I see the reason behind them, so I would keep them. But I would make a proper tier ranking and not some silly experience level what you can grind up just buy wasting time. So it would be a zero sum system - meaning you can jump from tier 5 to 1 in 1-2 games if you are that good. Your rating has to be rely on your personal performance, so no more points for win or lose (what is a team issue and you aren't involved more than 8%) and there must be other measures of success than damage dealt (for this gamemodes have to be redesigned - like making conquest with just 4 cap points far to each other and lowering cap-time to 3 seconds (yeah, 3 seconds if no enemy within) and if it still just a deathmatch even changing that when one team perishes the opposition has to have the more cap-point aswell in order to win). So there must be a better measure of individual skills and people have to be sorted into tiers based on them, since it is "skill level" and not a bar to grind. And the system should based on who you fight against, like if you are tier 2 and losing to tier 1 nothing happens but if you lose to tier 4 you drop down quickly. Sure, some people whould never make it to highest tiers but again: it isn't an XP bar to grind. And tiers have to be more separated, no reason for tiers if you will play with tier 5 newbies even at tier 2.

And I could carry on long how this game could move to the direction of being a competitive game and this direction is anything but to move the direction of MMO systems what are build clearly on operant conditioning and only awards time wasted, nothing else actually (so everybody can be a "winner" even dumbers and everybody has to spend a lot lot of time on it doesn't matter how good they are - and hopefully real money too - to reach that fake success).

So imo no, don't make MWO an MMO and just carry on getting rid off every silly MMO feature what somehow find its way into the game.

Edited by Dassh, 09 December 2015 - 08:28 AM.

[Daidachi]

Thoman Coston, on 08 December 2015 - 10:04 PM, said:

Small correction, the Star Adders are crusaders but their Khan Cassius N'Buta was a very wise man who warned the Clans against invading the IS at that time because the Clans were not yet ready for long drawn campaigns. Clan were used to fighting trials with no collateral damage, agreed battle terms and short campaigns. He was right, the IS invasion was a logistical nightmare and a war against an enemy that does not play by Clan rules.
Not all crusaders are keen invaders.

At the time of operation revival, the star adders had yet to absorb the burrocks, and therefore sat in the mid tier of homeworld clans - their prudence in all honesty owed more to Absalom Truscott's teachings (the guy who planned operation klondike).

As for the question far earlier in this thread about the dragoons - their sparring partners (to help them gel as a unit prior to insertion into the IS) were Clan Goliath Scorpion's heartvenom cluster.

[Dassh]

Hydrocarbon, on 09 December 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

I've actually done some tests with smurfy, and there are cases where IS Meta builds can be cheaper than clan mechs.

Sure, I never said they are equal all the time but that there are no huge differences (same weight etc..). I think some IS Builds are actually more expensive than their Clan counterparts. And some Clan Mechs are more expensive ofc.

Hydrocarbon, on 09 December 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

THE MAIN PROBLEM is that most new IS players have no clue how much endo & DHS's help them. We were discussing that in-game so I started asking a few IS pug teams if they all have DHS's. At least 1-2 players on each team asked, "What is a DHS", followed by "What does a Double Heat Sink do?" after I spelled it out.

Yes, I've seen these things aswell :-) There's nothing we can do about it.

Hydrocarbon, on 09 December 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

Another problem is an IS player needs to learn how to play a certain weapon 2-3 different ways depending on what mech it's used in. A c-ERLL will play the same in almost any clan mech, meanwhile an AC5 will have different speed/range/DPS depending on what mech you use.

I can't really agree on this one. I mean you are right if you are talking about skilled players and Mechs optimized to the edge but not about newbies. For them 1.0 or 0.85 laser duration doesn't really matter I'm afraid. Like the guy I spectated the other day who kept shooting with med lasers at 800 m - with a quite good acuuracy to be honest - but haven't realised how pointless it was...
I think for them they are just red pewpew and green pewpew.

Hydrocarbon, on 09 December 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

As far as trial mechs, all of them are built very well. However - they're still meta builds designed for old quirks. That helps & hurts certain mechs on both sides.

True. As Mike McSullivan wrote above, I was wrong. I checked the new trial Mechs and they aren't just better but they even switched from the BT loadouts to some common setups in MWO (like 2 LL RVN, 3 LPL TDR,...) what is a good idea - since newbies will really have a feeling what these Mechs are all about in-game.

[Dawnstealer]

KursedVixen, on 08 December 2015 - 06:43 PM, said:

Also Zellbrigen doesn't apply to mercenaries, as they are considered dishonorable. So since technicly all Innersphere pilots are mercs since your able to take a "Contract"....Yeah I think that you can pick it up from there an yeah i know other clan pilots are mercs too.

The 5th RCT, which I'm the CO of, has a permanent contract with Steiner. And in my previous example, my mech was the last one dropping in - there were no other mechs shooting at them because my mech was all that was left.

I don't really care - honestly, I kind of get it; at that point, just get the pain over with and go on to the next match, but I did offer up something fun and in character. I was in a pre-quirks Banshee, so it might have been an interesting fight.

[Dassh]

Kuritaclan, on 08 December 2015 - 04:43 PM, said:

So in a nutshell you are also wrong on this.

I can't agree on these things. Talking about how many Mechs you have to buy to master a chassis and can you switch engines or not are over the point that how much a Mech costs. And I don't have a single IS Mech where I would use the stock engine.

Not to mention that different builds use different engines. So just to try the Lrm boat, LL boat or Srm+ML brawler build suits him best, a newbie has to buy an XL 310, STD 300 and STD 285 engine. Is this noob-friendly? I don't think so... (not to mention switrching back and forth ferrous)

My very first Mech in this game was a Mad Dog and I think it was a very good decision for than few extra million on it. Since I was able to experiment with different builds (I did several Lrm boats, Splatdogs, pure lasre builds...) with just a small cost of new omnipods. It was a much better start than any IS Mech.

To be honest by the point when I decided to take the effort (XP and C-Bills) to master a chassis I already had 3 Mechs (And it was a Locust - I still love my / SPL LCT-1E :-) ).

But this is a different arguement and has not much to do with the fact that one fully customised IS Mech and a roughly same Clan Mech won't have a too much price difference most of the time.

[Grothaus]

Dassh, on 09 December 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

I can't agree on these things. Talking about how many Mechs you have to buy to master a chassis and can you switch engines or not are over the point that how much a Mech costs. And I don't have a single IS Mech where I would use the stock engine.

Not to mention that different builds use different engines. So just to try the Lrm boat, LL boat or Srm+ML brawler build suits him best, a newbie has to buy an XL 310, STD 300 and STD 285 engine. Is this noob-friendly? I don't think so... (not to mention switrching back and forth ferrous)

My very first Mech in this game was a Mad Dog and I think it was a very good decision for than few extra million on it. Since I was able to experiment with different builds (I did several Lrm boats, Splatdogs, pure lasre builds...) with just a small cost of new omnipods. It was a much better start than any IS Mech.

To be honest by the point when I decided to take the effort (XP and C-Bills) to master a chassis I already had 3 Mechs (And it was a Locust - I still love my / SPL LCT-1E :-) ).

But this is a different arguement and has not much to do with the fact that one fully customised IS Mech and a roughly same Clan Mech won't have a too much price difference most of the time.

Its been awhile since Ive had IS mechs, Im a Clanner 100%.

From my experience, and pretty much everyone I knew back in beta/launch days, It didnt take long until I never needed to buy an engine. Most of the players I knew, including myself, ended up buying extras from pure laziness (not wanting to take the time to switch them out) and an excess of money.

Clan mechs are never cheap, and i think IS definetly has an edge in the overall mech price area, not admiting so is just bias.

Also, there were many IS mechs that were purchasable with ideal engines, XL and standard. Many times the ideal engine for one mech, might be acquired buying another mech that has it. Either way, unless you are constantly selling engines and not thinking long term, a player will collect engines quick, and soon never have to buy engines again.

Actually, at a certain point, your buying mechs, and selling the engine because you already have 1 or more of that type.... which makes IS mechs overall even cheaper then their list price!

Edited by Grothaus, 09 December 2015 - 11:03 AM.