41 replies to this topic

[T R 0 U B L E]

Buffing weapons and stuff is one thing. But these these structure buffs to IS mechs and not Clan mechs is going to far. No mech should survive 4 alpha's in the back from a Timber Wolf, or any mech for that matter. You want to balance the game, do away with the side torso's killing XL mechs and boom, balancing done, neither side has reason to complain. But your completely ruining great mechs and what should be an awsome game. And your really making people who have spent literally hundreds of dollars on this game very mad. It's almost like your trying to ruin the game so the population disappears and you no longer have to support it. I know that's probably not the case, but there's no way I'll be spending more on the game with the way things are going.

I'm not somebody who usually complains or makes a fuss. But right now I'm at the end of my ropes when it comes to this balancing crap. I've been looking forward for months to the next tukiyad event and right before the event you completely screwed the clans? I've thrown 100's of dollars your way in mech paks and you completely ruin my investment to make a few drama queens that will never spend a dime on this game happy. If this isn't fixed before Tukiyad so we have somewhat of a fair chance I guarantee you'll never see another dime from me. Yeah I'll still play, and we'll still win. But that's because I'm in a unit that knows how to play together.

Edited by TR0UBLE PRYDE, 02 December 2015 - 05:23 PM.

[The Lost Boy]

PGI has your money. Id like to say they care, but in all good conscious, cant.

[PraetorGix]

I've seen a video about the PTS 4 a couple days ago, where an atlas and a Dire go face to face. The Dire does 600 in about 30 friggin seconds, and the f**king Atlas stands. The Atlas does a measly 250 and that's enough to kill the Dire Wolf.
In the same vid a CATAPULT BEATS A TIMBER WOLF one on one without that much of a sweat.
So yeah, Clans have more range, lighter weapons blah blah blah, but if these people's idea of balance is this sh*t they are not gonna see a dime from me ever again.
Sure these coming months they won't give a flying fu*k about us old players, but mark my words, the novelty will fade away and the Steam boys are gonna migrate as fast as they came...

Edited by Cmdr Hurrell, 02 December 2015 - 05:51 PM.

[DisasterTheory]

So lets put it back the way it was before patch.... where clan mechs are OP? LOL This sounds like the tables have turned suddenly and the easy mode cupcakes are having a cow.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

The OP describes exactly what many predicted and were afraid of (myself included).

Massive durability buffs (structure/armor) do not create balance. They create further imbalance.

The suggestion to make IS XL engines function like Clans (that is, survive one ST destruction) has been made many times over.

I personally cannot understand why it was not tested. It is the single biggest discrepancy and source of imbalance between IS and Clans. With this one change PGI could wipe out the need for any Techline/Chassis based durability quirks (except where it is a feature of the 'Mech).

Just follow it with a +10-20% buff to standard equipment durability (structure/armor/engines) and, voila! You have created balance and meaningful choice in one fell swoop!

[Mad Porthos]

Actually, just something I did recently for the hell of it. Piloted my old Atlases with stock armor. Meaning relatively ALOT of back armor. Then added some more armor cause we joked in my unit about front loading armor, why not back loading armor... so that "baby got back" and turning to face each other and kill the enemy mechs shooting at our fellow assault mechs - which would be sure to follow if we didn't huddle and hide.

We moved to where we could be seen in the Forest Colony water, then pulled back after drawing light predators. 3 arctic cheetahs died alphaing me in the back in that one game alone. 3. It was glorious. It wasn't me killing them, but still it was glorious to see and after spending 2 years watching a succession of light mech chassis (Jenner, Locust, Spider, Firestarter, Arctic Cheetah) take down Atlases from behind, it didn't matter that I didn't happen to be the one doing that killing. I got me some mediums and assaults as I was later able to turn and deal with fire on my forward armor, which still was not too shabby.

4 alphas and then some. No back armor left, and some internal damage - but by back to wall, back to allied assaults and twisting, back stepping, we made sure none of us let those 4 alphas ever hit the same damn panel for full effect. Rage was had in chat channel, actually enough that I considered checking the mute ALL channel option, but it was over soon. Other similar performance occured this evening, both grouped and in a few cases solo when the inevitable dancing light assassin duo came prancing through the lines to try to kill the ECM DDC, or at least disrupt his now quite short ranged cover. There was commentary about hit reg, I believe the word hacks floated across the screen and much ado about inner sphere overquirking ruining the cake walk their cheetah had been experiencing. I believe "this s4it gotta go", or something to that effect was one comment - another response was immediate disconnect after death, then recurring alpha to back, 3 games later from a teamate I realized had been one of those eariler foes. Yes, I died this time. Alphas work fine when you mine your way through the back of a non twisting atlas even now, especially one who's player is typing, "WTH are you doing?".

Now with some consideration, I realize my comments here are probably a bit schadenfreud inspired. But it remains, many many mechs have enjoyed reigns of terror for a long long time. Deniers of this often attribute their own skill entirely for this... e.g. all the best pilots moved to cheetahs, cause why handicap yourself, therefore the reason the mech is seen is as so great is great skill being resented by the ungifted and jealous, nothing else and there fore there is no reason to "handicap" the playing field. Well the thing is, you gotta remember that the Atlas IS supposed to be a holy terror. It ABSOLUTELY is supposed to be formidible enough to make someone go ... "Ah Crp, I don't wanna be here." It has nothing to do with the pilot being Goober Von Pyle, or Max Sterling. So yeah, some mechs do deserve to have some BACK and not fall as a forgone conclusion to your 4 alphas.

Edited by Mad Porthos, 03 December 2015 - 12:23 AM.

[Lord Auriel]

pre-patch:

Best light: clan
Best medium: clan (lol, by far)
Best Heavy: clan
Best assault: clan

Post-patch:

Best light: Tie
Best medium: Clan
Best Heavy: Unclear, seems tied, biased towards IS?
Best Assault: IS probably?

---------

get your perspectives right.

Edited by Lord Auriel, 03 December 2015 - 12:27 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Lord Auriel, on 03 December 2015 - 12:19 AM, said:

Best medium: clan (lol, by far)

blackjacks are clan'mechs?! o.O

[John1352]

Hmm, I'm not sure Blackjacks are better than Stormcrows even now. Most of them are relatively slow, and they didn't get movement quirks to offset the skill losses either. It's close though, which is saying a lot considering how good the Stormcrow is.

[DivineEvil]

Or, if that mech is a lumbering pile of metal with outdated weapons and equipment, then yes, maybe it should.

Clan mechs are fine. I've been capable of scoring over 800 and 2 kills of combat efficiency with Timbers after the patch, and I've mastered them just recently, and it's not even Ebon Jaguars, which are just better Timbers without JJ capabilities.

Clan mech are performing well, but now you can't just march solo into the enemy lance and pillage a mech or two before going down. You need to use your better weapons and mobility, rather than relying solely on having an outright better mech.

[Nedolon]

After so many changes (weapons and mechs), you have to wait a bit and look closer into it, before you can say it is balanced or not. After all, mostly the personal and team performance is still more important then a few points of internals or 100 m maximum range. It's time to adjust again.

Before the patch, the IS pointed out the range and weight of Clan-weapons and the difference in engines, the clans mostly referred to quirked IS-mechs (even if whoever posted was not saying specific names).
If I look at the patch from far away, most of the points got adressed in some way, it might be , that the numbers will have to be tweaked again, but i think, it's a good start.

[Ey3cD34Dppl]

Cmdr Hurrell, on 02 December 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

I've seen a video about the PTS 4 a couple days ago, where an atlas and a Dire go face to face. The Dire does 600 in about 30 friggin seconds, and the f**king Atlas stands. The Atlas does a measly 250 and that's enough to kill the Dire Wolf.

So basically what you say is that the Dire Wolf pilot wasn't good enough to focus on the Atlas's Center Torso and the Atlas Pilot was good enough to focus his damage?

[B0oN]

All hails the IIc-Overlords !
Just wait ^^

[Rogue Jedi]

TR0UBLE PRYDE, on 02 December 2015 - 04:50 PM, said:

Buffing weapons and stuff is one thing. But these these structure buffs to IS mechs and not Clan mechs is going to far. No mech should survive 4 alpha's in the back from a Timber Wolf, or any mech for that matter.

The highest firepower the SDR-5V can possibly have is 12
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...969837d5ce93104
are you sure no Mech should be able to survive 4 Alpha strikes from any other?
That would mean no Mech should be able to have more than 47 internal structure and rear armor total, requiring the internal structure of the 100 ton Mechs be halved and they have a limit of 17 rear CT armor.

That would make the FS9 and ACH truly overpowered, as 2 Mechs, fast enough to get behind most other Mechs which would be able to literally one shot anything,
you would frequently be from full health to dead without any warning.

[Bud Crue]

Can someone post the videos being referenced above? I would like to see the mechs purporting to be able to absorb all this clanner fire. Maybe there is a skill I can learn here, since I run both Black Jacks and Atlases and have never been able to absorb the kind of damage being hinted at above, even with the latest quirks.

[oldradagast]

Cmdr Hurrell, on 02 December 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

I've seen a video about the PTS 4 a couple days ago, where an atlas and a Dire go face to face. The Dire does 600 in about 30 friggin seconds, and the f**king Atlas stands. The Atlas does a measly 250 and that's enough to kill the Dire Wolf.

A more valid question here is: Does it make sense that the Clan 100-ton mech can dish out 600 damage in 30 seconds, while the IS 100-ton mech can only dish out 250 in the same time?

That's not exactly "balanced" either, you know.

Also, if the Dire Wolf couldn't focus his damage - which must be the case since Atlas's do not have 600 points of armor and structure on any torso - that's his problem, not the game's.

Yes, balance is a moving target, and Clans - by being broken by design - are always going to be difficult to balance against IS. At this point, it seems Clans are more offense and IS are more defense. That's fine - at least there's a theme we can work with - but if you honestly expected the Dire Wolf to be able to freely kill a few Atlas's in the above example, that's nowhere near balanced.

Edited by oldradagast, 04 December 2015 - 09:38 AM.

[BigBaka]

haha well said oldadagast! Its really fun to piloting mechs untouched for a year or more right now. I love it to pilot an atlas again and just not being a 20 sec meatshield.

[MechPorn]

[Novakaine]

Don't be a dirty back shooter

[Void Angel]

Cmdr Hurrell, on 02 December 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

I've seen a video about the PTS 4 a couple days ago, where an atlas and a Dire go face to face. The Dire does 600 in about 30 friggin seconds, and the f**king Atlas stands. The Atlas does a measly 250 and that's enough to kill the Dire Wolf.
In the same vid a CATAPULT BEATS A TIMBER WOLF one on one without that much of a sweat.
So yeah, Clans have more range, lighter weapons blah blah blah, but if these people's idea of balance is this sh*t they are not gonna see a dime from me ever again.
Sure these coming months they won't give a flying fu*k about us old players, but mark my words, the novelty will fade away and the Steam boys are gonna migrate as fast as they came...

oldradagast, on 04 December 2015 - 09:36 AM, said:

A more valid question here is: Does it make sense that the Clan 100-ton mech can dish out 600 damage in 30 seconds, while the IS 100-ton mech can only dish out 250 in the same time?

That's not exactly "balanced" either, you know.

Also, if the Dire Wolf couldn't focus his damage - which must be the case since Atlas's do not have 600 points of armor and structure on any torso - that's his problem, not the game's.

Yes, balance is a moving target, and Clans - by being broken by design - are always going to be difficult to balance against IS. At this point, it seems Clans are more offense and IS are more defense. That's fine - at least there's a theme we can work with - but if you honestly expected the Dire Wolf to be able to freely kill a few Atlas's in the above example, that's nowhere near balanced.

Thanks; saved me a post! The only thing that I can add is that the example is also comparing a walking gun emplacement optimized for mid-to-long-range combat to a chassis that only brawls well. The Dire Wolf's stock in trade is having more guns than anything else, and it does generally win those mid- and long-range staring contests - my personal knickname after first seeing the things in action was the "Starebear." But the only thing an Atlas does well is fight close-in, and it's simply unreasonable to expect that the Dire Wolf outperform the Atlas in that arena, as well.