160 replies to this topic

[Jack Spade Ward]

Hello to all

After tukkayyid, and the last patches, i came to some conclusions that i want to share with you.

- Clan tech / mechs are in most part inferior to IS mechs / tech.
- The last nerf was a clan killer, and the IS buff the confirmation of superiority.

Most of the clan loyals complained about this patch, for obvious reasons, while the most IS loyal teams welcomed it. The competitive merc teams said that the balance was good is some aspects, bad in others.
So, as player that have both been in teams of IS and Clans i came to conclude the following.

- Tukkayyid was not won by the clans, it was won by the competitive merc teams. Why were they Clans? Simple, more drops, alot less time waiting. Were they as an IS faction team, they would rolled over any loyal clan team.

- Why the majority of people are IS then? If clan teach/mech is better? Because it is not... Regarding clan tech and mechs, are actually more dificult to use than IS tech/mechs. Takes a while to get used to, and if you tend to do a mistake, one will be destroyed alot easier. As such, clan tech tends to make a better pilot, and if in an organized team, it will make the diference.
With IS mechs, if played well and making use of the current meta with the super-quircked mechs, they can be a monster in battle. I can give you the example of Il mechwarrior, an italian player that made some experinces in CW with IS and Clan meta mechs. IS wins with a huge margin!

- So, how to balance a game with a huge fan base, that has a huge lore behind it, and how to please the majority of its players considering balance/lore/gameplay/MMO? Not an easy task and PGI knows quite well how a fan base, wich the majority of its people are in their 30, that knows alot about the lore, can be a very dificult fan base to manage and to please.

Regarding the last paragragh, i thought of the following, a way to make Lore legal and put the game balanced. For that, lets look at what made IS win, in the lore, in tukkayyid, and operation Bulldog after!
Considering CW:

- Supply lines, numbers, economy! So, how to implement this in the game? Simple, put a full companny of IS mechs (20) vs a clan binary (10) in CW matches!!! This way, IS would get a huge superiority in numbers while the clans couldn complain since this is LORE!

- Unnerf the clans and their tech to what they were when they first came out. Keep the engines and equipment unchangeable as they are now. With superior tech, as the lore demands it, clan players can deal with the high number on the IS side.

- Reduce the super quircks on IS mechs, keep them, but not in a way to make them meta! F.example, the AC20 quircks on the hunchback 4G. Remember that any IS mech is using the superior tech of the Star League (double heatsinks for example) in CW matches, so the tech gap is not has it is in the Lore.

- Introduce Repair stations in CW maps only and exclusevly to IS teams. That way, a mech could repair armor and internals and get back to fight the clanners.

- Put double heatsinks as what they are suposed to be, double! IS heatsinks, besides taking 3 pod spaces, and after the last patch, are still 1.5, very far from the 2.0 of what they are suposed to be... And clan double (single!!!) heatsinks? With 1.1 heat limit they are more of single heatsinks than actually double, and occupying 2 pod space... again, put them with 2.0 like IS double heatsinks. To make this a bit tougher, reduce heat dissipation on both.

- Increase tonnage on IS drop decks! Without the super quirks, IS will need more tonnage, and again, that is LORE legal.

- Keep the nerf on the clans regarding the loss of a side torso.

- Introduce more support artilleries like the tomboy on IS side and not on the clan side, as i said earlier, supply lines, numbers and economy is what makes IS superior to the clans, not nerfing or super quirking.

- Introduce economy in CW. With some historical planets with factories and industry levels. The team that controls it, get those mechs for a small fee, or even c-bills.

- Introduce diferent weapon manufacturers, and those could replace the quircks for IS. For example, one manufacturer makes a medium laser that does less range, but more damage. Another makes one that goes further but more heat. Clans wouldnt get access to those. The planets having these manufacturers would be a prime target between IS factions.

- Put the merc units only against other merc units, and the loyal teams vs other loyal teams.
The merc units would only atack selected planets by the loyal units, these planets could be defended by other merc units. Dont allow clans to use mercs. This way, the clan units would have only loyal units that could fight against IS loyal units and mercs.

- In sum, make CW more atractive, lore legal, giving to each side the advantage it is suposed to have.



Regarding pug drops, i have the solution for that also.

- return to the 8vs8, with that number, more people could be grouped up toghether and would not be needed to to wait long.

- do only clan vs clan / IS vs IS, that way the game wouldn be biased to any side.


To sum it all, i think that these changes would be very well accepted by all. Everyone needs to remember that a game balance should never be acording to the competitive team standarts, so their opinion shouldn never have the weight that it has in our fan comunity.
So please, analyze this everyone, what do you all think about it?
If i think of more, ill be sure to post here.

Edited by Spadejack, 10 December 2015 - 06:58 PM.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Here is the post that i mentioned wich Il mechwarrior made that shows that when you get super-quircked mechs, that is the result:

http://mwomercs.com/...90#entry4867490

[Void Angel]

Well, I looked it over as I promised, and I've gotta warn you - heard all of your suggestions before. It's a mix of problematic suggestions and good ideas, some of which are actually planned by PGI as part of the final development of CW.

First, the good:

Real faction benefits to holding worlds. This is one that's on PGI's list of things they might like to implement in CW. C-bill bonuses, reduced weapon costs, etc. This is slightly more difficult to implement than you might think - a price reduction for Medium Lasers would be quite useless to me, even if they came half off - but it's an interesting idea which has merit if PGI can find a suitable set of bonuses.

Variant weapons! This is a very fun idea, and one I'd like to see - but such a system wouldn't account for the performance difficulties caused by 'mech geometry and hardpoint locations. Another downside is that this would multiply the difficulty of balancing the game Immensely. If you gave people even two extra variants, the effective number of weapon types in the game would triple. However, the quirks sorta-kinda do that already, so the same stats tracking techniques could be used to track variant balance.

Revamping the Heat System. Now, this one is more controversial, and we're probably not going to see it - if only because it would require a complete rebalance of every weapon in the game. But I think it might be better to go toward a high-dissipation, fast-overheat model instead of the lower-dissipation, slower-overheat model we have now. A huge caveat, however: revamping the heat system would help with high-alpha builds, unless those builds were designed to poke from long range and then cool down - wait, that's pretty much the Clan meta. So, while I think it might still be better than what we've got, it's hard to justify suggesting that PGI actually implement such a change.

Now the problematic bits: Basically your suggestion boils down to asymmetric team sizes, with some added global benefits to shore up the Inner Sphere. The problem with this is that it's going to create major population pressure.

The core issue comes down to appeal - and while many of the players here do know Battletech, a fair number of those are only passingly familiar with the fictional trappings of the game. Many more are not familiar at all with Battletech/Mechwarrior, or only know it from previous video game offerings. I can't be sure of the proportions, obviously - even a forum poll wouldn't yield a scientifically meaningful result - but we've no reason to assume the numbers are small. Battletech in the 1980s was played by weird people who knew what a THAC0 was, and even today tabletop gaming just isn't mainstream. Video games, however, are increasingly popularized - so I strongly suspect that, particularly with the Steam release, most players are not going to be terribly fanatical about the lore. Heck, I'm not, and I'm one sourcebook away from being able to simulate a full-scale planetary invasion from jumpship insertion to last 'mech standing - in double blind format.

All this relates to a very important question: given that you're looking to make the Inner Sphere machines half as powerful - less than half, actually - will roughly two thirds of the player base choose to play them anyway? The answer is going to be no; even most lore-savvy players are going to spend a few drops with the Clans striding the battlefield like giants among insects, and simply decide either that they want to be Clans, or that they're only going to fight Inner Sphere, or that they are going to quit. Any of these choices are going to hurt the game by making matches harder to find, if not by reducing the player population in some or all game modes.

BattleValue has similar issues - it comes down to having a game format where every player only controls one unit at a time. Essentially, it may be fun to play the Ogre, or it may be fun to play the opposing army - but for the vast majority of people, it's not fun to play one unit in the army.

[Javenri]

Making pug drops only Clan vs. Clan and IS vs. IS would probably cause a huge number of players abandoning the game. That would defeat the purpose of your suggestion.

[xe N on]

Spadejack, on 10 December 2015 - 05:29 PM, said:

Hello to all

After tukkayyid, and the last patches, i came to some conclusions that i want to share with you.

- Clan tech / mechs are in most part inferior to IS mechs / tech.

I stopped reading here. Are you T5?

The majority of people prefer IS because of fluff. I often run my SHDs, GRFs or Cents ... for nostalgy. However, if I want crushing mechs, I go for my SCRs or TBR.

Normal game in my SCR = 400-600 damage
Normal game in my SHD = 250-350 damage

Spadejack, on 10 December 2015 - 05:29 PM, said:

- Supply lines, numbers, economy! So, how to implement this in the game? Simple, put a full companny of IS mechs (20) vs a clan binary (10) in CW matches!!! This way, IS would get a huge superiority in numbers while the clans couldn complain since this is LORE!

Great idea. Everybody want to play cannon fodder for technical overpowered clan mechs. Are you serious? This is an first person shooter with simulator elements and not an strategy game.

If there might be a chance to follow lore of overpowered clan invaders with superior tech, only by giving every IS playrt in addition to their controllable battlemech AI controlled supplements of Banshees and Tanks to field in. IS battlemechs would work like summoner/pet classes in a classical RPG.

However, with PGI? No chance.

Edited by xe N on, 11 December 2015 - 12:55 AM.

[Lord Auriel]

yeah lol, clantech is INFERIOR.. riiiiight. I have a theory: you are not really that good a player, and you needed the OP clan crutches. since the patch, the gap is smaller between IS and clans, so that's what you are feeling right now.

Edited by Lord Auriel, 11 December 2015 - 02:08 AM.

[Rushin Roulette]

xe N on, on 11 December 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

I stopped reading here. Are you T5?

Stopped reading there myself.

As to the OP. yes, I stopped reading seriously after clan mechs are inferior myself.

Clan and IS mechs are just about equally balanced right now. Some clan mechs need slight improvements, others may need slight nerfs, IS mechs need slightly toned down quirks in a few areas, but all in all the balance is 95% spot on.

The problem with all these players complaining that clan mechs are OP and IS mechs are OP is not that the mechs are really OP, but becauee players are trying to attack them with the wrong strategy.

Against clan mechs in an IS mech? Go in close and personal. Clan mechs have higher alphas, but heat up quicker, making close quarters fighting difficult.
Against IS mechs in a Clan mech? Keep your distance. Clans have much better ranges (with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 IS mechs), damage per weapon and speed. Use it to your advantage and take them apart at distance. Pull back while shooting and try your best at reducing their effective firepower and armour for when they do get close to you.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 11 December 2015 - 04:53 AM.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Lord Auriel, on 11 December 2015 - 02:05 AM, said:

yeah lol, clantech is INFERIOR.. riiiiight. I have a theory: you are not really that good a player, and you needed the OP clan crutches. since the patch, the gap is smaller between IS and clans, so that's what you are feeling right now.

How about trying to keep this discussion a serious one? I tend to see that IS players are biased and even agressive to any suggestion made regarding the balance! And i bet ive been playing this game way longer than you. So, as i said earlier, ive played IS and Clan, have about almost every mech on the game mastered, and i realize that the facts are that if i want to go easy mode, i get IS mechs! Read the suggestions i made, and than give me your own personal opinion

Edited by Spadejack, 12 December 2015 - 01:44 AM.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Javenri, on 10 December 2015 - 09:51 PM, said:

Making pug drops only Clan vs. Clan and IS vs. IS would probably cause a huge number of players abandoning the game. That would defeat the purpose of your suggestion.

Why you think that? This game before the clans, Pug drops were made with IS vs IS only! It is actually the point!
If people would want to go in CW, that would gave you the option to go vs other IS houses and the clans...
Why most IS players pfrefer going agaisnt clans and not against other IS players? Easy mode turned off maybe?

Edited by Spadejack, 12 December 2015 - 02:00 AM.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Void Angel, on 10 December 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

All this relates to a very important question: given that you're looking to make the Inner Sphere machines half as powerful - less than half, actually - will roughly two thirds of the player base choose to play them anyway? The answer is going to be no; even most lore-savvy players are going to spend a few drops with the Clans striding the battlefield like giants among insects, and simply decide either that they want to be Clans, or that they're only going to fight Inner Sphere, or that they are going to quit. Any of these choices are going to hurt the game by making matches harder to find, if not by reducing the player population in some or all game modes.

I dont agree with you on this one, IS mechs are not what they are suposed to be, with that i mean that the Star League Era tech is available, like double heatsinks, LBX cannons, etc.
All IS mechs are as they were part of CommStar or Star League, the upgrades are avalaible. And they should. What the super quircks do however is, among with the nerfs on clan side, superiority over the battlefield! The win on clan side in tukkayyid is a lie, it was won by ultra-competitive merc teams as we both know.
So, putting the quirks down or removing them on IS, and replacing those with diferent variations of weapons would make things more interesting and competitive. So no IS mechs cutted down to half power...

Clan side teams would have the tech edge indeed (not for alot as many would think), but it would require alot more strategy on their part to counter all those 20 IS mechs

[Jack Spade Ward]

Void Angel, on 10 December 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

Well, I looked it over as I promised, and I've gotta warn you - heard all of your suggestions before. It's a mix of problematic suggestions and good ideas, some of which are actually planned by PGI as part of the final development of CW.

Have you seen the link i posted there? Of Il Mechwarrior? And he has alot of examples and proof about how good IS really are, specially when used by competitive teams... he compares it to clan mechs. Can you imagine those super-quircked-meta mechs in the right hands? Its just amazing...

[SkippyT72]

Stopped at the 20 vs 10 idea, a IS company had 12 not 20, 3 lances of 4 not 5 of 4.

The balance is close as others have stated (IMO the structure quirks need to be adjusted on a few mechs and added to a few clan mechs), imbalanced drops are not happening per PGI several times. Ideas are not a bad thing, but everyone has a opinion so let's all just respect it and take the best idea's and hope PGI is listening, they have it really close at this point though.

[Jack Spade Ward]

SkippyT72, on 12 December 2015 - 09:56 AM, said:

Stopped at the 20 vs 10 idea, a IS company had 12 not 20, 3 lances of 4 not 5 of 4.

The balance is close as others have stated (IMO the structure quirks need to be adjusted on a few mechs and added to a few clan mechs), imbalanced drops are not happening per PGI several times. Ideas are not a bad thing, but everyone has a opinion so let's all just respect it and take the best idea's and hope PGI is listening, they have it really close at this point though.

Good post i must say. But i still think that the majority of people still suffers from the pre-thought that clans are better, even though they are not at the moment. As the lore clearly posts, clan tech is better, in every way, until IS catches up after operation Bulldog. After all the balances that PGI has made, clans are not better, and i must say, worse (look at the link i posted before).
PGI must realize that this game has a huge lore behind it, but if it wants to just ignore the lore itself, for balance purpose, than it must give the clans the chance to do the same as in an IS mech, like upgrades... and, why not give everyone the same tech? To clans and IS? The diference between clans and IS would be purelly stectic.
Again, some people suffers from clan-o-phobia and no matter how many nerfs clans had, has and will have, they will be alwys OP. Some other people makes use of this thought and prefers to keep clans nerfed so they can use uber meta IS builds and win (again, look at the link i posted), while crying that clans are OP.
The majority of clan loyal lore players will endure, even though they know the reality, they feel it on the spot, but their love for the lore, and some rpg play also keeps them on the clans. The smart ones leave to make use of the current meta,

All in all, i believe that once people start realizing that who won tukkayyid were the merc units and not clans, they will start to realize that how badly nerfed clans are, and how good IS is.
I, myself, am running the marauders, and these mechs are AWSOME!!!! Im still elliting them and my normal dmg is always around 400-800 average!!! I tryed my Atlas founder, haevent used that mech in a year, and with its buffs, i did 960 dmg!!
And i must say, even using all the meta in my clan mechs, its damn hard to even come close.

Start taking your own conclusions, do some trials with your own mechs, and figure it out for yourselves! You will see that im right.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

First things first:
No asymmetrical team numbers will work. Fair competition means fair playing field. Any asymmetry in the number of players requires, by definition, that 1 techline be superior and the other inferior. To any individual, that's not a fair playing field.

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but the heart of the imbalance issues is the durability of cXL vs the fragility of isXL and/or the sacrifice of weight and speed of STD.

Fix that and we can drop all the ridiculous structure/armor quirks that IS have now.

Other than that, the weapons are pretty balanced right now. Many weapons function differently, but still effectively.

Rushin Roulette, on 11 December 2015 - 02:54 AM, said:

The problem with all these players complaining that clan mechs are OP and IS mechs are OP is not that the mechs are really OP, but becauee players are trying to attack them with the wrong strategy.

Against clan mechs in an IS mech? Go in close and personal. Clan mechs have higher alphas, but heat up quicker, making close quarters fighting difficult.
Against IS mechs in a Clan mech? Keep your distance. Clans have much better ranges (with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 IS mechs), damage per weapon and speed. Use it to your advantage and take them apart at distance. Pull back while shooting and try your best at reducing their effective firepower and armour for when they do get close to you.

This is definitely the way that the two sides should play: Clans have range, IS has brawling.

And that's pretty much where balance is right now, happily.

One caveat: There are way too many IS 'Mechs (not just 2 or 3) that's have range quirks which give them the benefits of IS (shorter duration, lower heat; also sometimes quirked) and better range than the longest range weapon of the long range techline.

That said, they really should return all lasers to original ranges (there was nothing wrong there, problem was heat) and reduce those range quirks on IS chassis to create ranges similar to Clan ranges (but maybe even then a bit shorter).

[krolmir]

Hmm, I feel like your problems on clan mechs stem from not keeping up with meta changes. SRMs are finally fixed, and even LRMs have emerged from the realm of useless. Laser builds as a whole, on clan side more so than IS are nerfed. Heat scale for clans is now inline with IS mechs when you consider they mount more HS, but they add less to heat cap. If you think IS mechs are so tough go run an Awesome and get back to me. Came around the arch in FC today, to my surprise I was staring down a DWF for about 2 seconds and while torso twisting my quirked arse off I still lost all my ST and CT armor, before I could comprehend what had just happened, I was effectively out of the match. Of course I fired back at him, but all I did was turn his armor a little yellow with my paltry 58 point spread damage alpha. Point here is this, name one IS mechs with more than 10 weapon hard points, there are none. Clans have Medium mechs that can mount more than 16!!? Even if you can't use them all at once the potential is there for an insane amount of dps just by chaining groups together; and unlike IS mechs Clan mechs have the DHS and/or speed to actually get away from from battle and live. There is one other fact that you didn't mention, and that is you always balance a game to the highest level of play, and if the "ultra competitve" merc groups are playing clans, its because Clan mechs are holding all the cards that matter.

Edited by krolmir, 13 December 2015 - 07:51 PM.

[cSand]

I'd actualyl say clan/is balance is the best it's been right now.

Although, and I'm primarily an IS pilot, I'd like to see the Clan XL engine nerfs lightened a bit. IE, get rid of the torso twist penalty for losing a side, or something. They were a bit heavy handed.

[Lily from animove]

Spadejack, on 10 December 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:

Here is the post that i mentioned wich Il mechwarrior made that shows that when you get super-quircked mechs, that is the result:

http://mwomercs.com/...90#entry4867490

it always made me wonder why after ILL did this there was no "dragon flood" in CW, because 48 dragons in Is dropships could have rolled ANYTHING.

[krolmir]

I will agree that Clan IS balance is better with a few standouts on both sides that need further reining in to be sure.

[CyclonerM]

I have debated this for so long..

I think the fact that many keep suggesting is promising. However, Spade, i think your particular take on the asymmetric teams solution might be somewhat biased towards IS.. Starting from 20vs10, which is a huge difference (not to mention a standard 'Mech company is 12 strong and i think 12vs10 is already a good advantage).

Without repeating what i said so many times, i still support asymmetric teams as part of a Clan vs IS revamp

[Karl Streiger]

Serious why there is always the 10 vs 12 debate?
What do you have in mind?

How should 10 Clan Mechs make a stand vs 12? Considering current game modes and damage models even with huge buffs [or "lore conformity" of Clan overpowers so stupid it was on the first run when some guys did invent the clans] focus fire will still be the better, because survivability is the same - or even worse for Clan Mechs.

The offensive capacity is fixed its better as IS mechs but only in terms of 1 vs 1 - fighting 10 vs 12 the offensive would hardly be enough to overcome the missing two mechs to soak up damage.

And this is just the first problem.... considering the current MWO Omni Tech stuff - how do you want to balance 10 vs 12 when those 10 could be TimberWolfs today and Summoners and Gargoyles tomorrow?

Last not least who did start to think that 10 clan mechs are equal to 12 IS Mechs even in TT? Maybe when keeping stock Mechs and just take Mechs from the 3050 TROs with SHS and no ES for IS.

But in those few games I've played on 10 vs 12 in TT the margin of failure did depend on the behaviour of the Clans: use zell get stomped, don't use zell, get stomped but with some more kills.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 December 2015 - 06:48 AM.