24 replies to this topic

[Drunk Canuck]

Right now, most people would concede that Clan Mech's are in a very awkward state. The super strong Clan Mech's are still really good, and in the right hands aren't imbalanced at all. I am talking of course about the Arctic Cheetah, Stormcrow, Hellbringer, Timber Wolf and Ebon Jaguar, the position of the Dire Wolf can be argued but players who are good with them are still going to do just fine. Either way, pilot skills plus Clan Mech changes in the re-balance did nothing to curb the inferiority that the rest of the Clan Mech's have.

The biggest balancing factor that really sets in particular the Gargoyle and the Executioner back so far from the Dire Wolf in terms of their practicality is that speed has next to not advantage in MWO, because continual power creep from IS sources plus the attempts to balance the 5 problem Clan chassis, did nothing to keep these two assaults competitive. Sure, MASC is still great for the EXE, but it doesn't change the fact that it is getting out gunned by Mech's 20-30 tons lighter than it. I have some ideas on what could be changed to improve each Clan Mech in some regard and I don't think they are changes that are too difficult to ask for, so I will go over each of them individually. I'd like to see these faster Mech's have more of a brawling focus to them to make use of having less free tonnage than the other Clan Mech's, since many of these Mech's have a lot of speed.

Executioner

Allow all 4 jump jets to be removable. I am going to be honest, these things still feel like hover jets and don't feel useful to me.
OR
Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings
Add some additional torso hard points, scale the arms to be a bit higher on the Mech as well, because screw canon
Mobility quirks

Gargoyle

Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings
Unlock 2 heat sinks in the engine
Create side torso energy and missile hard points, as a Mech with speed can be a good brawler
Mobility Quirks

Warhawk

Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings
Remove 3 of the locked DHS in the left torsos of each variant
Needs to be scaled down a little bit, in my opinion

Summoner

Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings
Needs more torso mounted weapons, maybe some extra torso missile launchers and laser pods since this is another good Mech that is fast, maneuverable and would be a great brawler.

Mad Dog

Honestly, it's a missile platform and there aren't many ways to balance it. Giving it Endo would just mean more ammo for Streak or LRM boating, though it might make the ballistic pods more useful.

Nova

I will reserve opinions on this Mech until the rescale to see how well it performs, but at the very least, it needs SOME energy quirks since that is about all the Mech is good for. Quite frankly the JJ's help it with mobility and removing them would be silly. Sure, it could use Endo or Ferro, but it won't make it much better because it will run out of slot space. Either way, Endo wouldn't hurt it if you wanted to do something like 2 UAC5's so long as you removed the side torso heat sinks from the S variant, or just improve the DPS of UAC2's so that they aren't outclassed by a vanilla Clan AC2.

Ice Ferret

Speed is it's thing, but with max armor it has only 9 tons to play with because of the XL 360. You can at best do 4 SPL and an SRM or Streak 6, but it certainly doesn't leave much to be desired. I don't know what you can do with this Mech to make it better without downsizing the engine. It's profile is great because the damn thing is small for a medium, just the arm mounted weaponry and lack of overall hard points are all major drawbacks and then the engine taking up a whopping 23.5 tons of space. Speed quirk? More energy hard points and torso mounts so it can be a more well armored but less mobile Cheetah without ECM? It needs tonnage as much as it needs more weapon slots.

Shadowcat

Similar to the Ice Ferret, except the locked in 6 JJ's eat up 3 tons of pod space and MASC is another 2 tons, but the engine isn't the problem here. Even unlocking the torso JJ's would only free up 1 ton. Needs more diversity in OmniPods for sure, especially for things like missiles and energy weapons. Speed is it's friend, and would be lethal in rear engagements behind enemy lines with the ECM if it could mount a few more missiles are lasers. The P variant in particular, is pretty bad since Machine Guns have almost zero viability in the current meta game. Mech's die way too fast for them to be effective and they don't deal enough damage to be a primary weapon even with 6 of them.

Mist Lynx

This is one of the Mech's that could really use unlocking. Do what they did to the Adder and unlock the Clan Active Probe. Also unlock 1 JJ from each torso and make all sub 250 XL engines meet the 10 heat sink rule by default. Get rid of the locked DHS and see how well the MLX does. Arm mounted weaponry might be an issue like the IFR, but it has JJ's and is pretty small and nimble, I think it would be OK with a few extra tons to play with, but it wouldn't out pace the ACH or JR7 IIC as far as Clan lights go due to the lack of armor.

Adder/Kit Fox

Armor Quirks for both these Mech's, and some more weapons pod options. They are slow, they are fragile and really the Adder excels at two things, Streak boating against other lights or 5 ER ML. Both need some more durability though if the intention is to use them more as a front line skirmisher. Maybe a Speed Quirk like the Summoner has? Wouldn't hurt them either. My only other suggestion is that more so for the Kit Fox, some additional weapons pods would be wonderful.


I don't think any of these suggestions are going to inherently make the Mech's OP, but they would put them in a better place than they are.

[Hunter Watzas]

Seems reasonable, would be really nice if the executioner or gargoyle could at least match a few of the IS mechs in brawling capacity of similar weight class.

Of course fixing the PPC and UAC registration (and bugs) would also be a benefit to a few omni pods. When UAC is a gamble between working and not working, less likely to bring it and invalidates some of the capability of the "less choices"

[RoboGerbil]

Mad dog needs some structure quirks on the side torsos especially the C variant which cant hold missiles. Every time i run my mad dog people just go for the shoulders since they fall off from a slight breeze. Then the arm goes with it and youve lost half your weapons from 1 shot.

[Vlad Striker]

This is fantasies but Battletech canon still exists and Masakari with heatsink-side exists. And so on.
Ice Ferret have exactly 9t free space by design.

[Drunk Canuck]

Vlad Striker, on 10 January 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

This is fantasies but Battletech canon still exists and Masakari with heatsink-side exists. And so on.
Ice Ferret have exactly 9t free space by design.

Lore has zero matter in this game. PGI unlocked the fixed Flamer on the Adder, so they can do this.

Edited by Drunk Canuck, 10 January 2016 - 08:42 AM.

[Wildstreak]

PGI really needs to close this section of the Forums.

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

there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with the warhawk andd the maddog. Very strong chassis.

[Jack Spade Ward]

Clan tech is dead, and even the 228 moving to jade falcon wont help.
The best clan mechs are way worst than what they once were. Not a match for IS mechs, sad but true.

[CD PBS]

Welcome to Overquirk-IS Online.
A game where devs gives no love for clanners again.

Seriously, Clanners are too squishy, too hot, too slow at this time.

Balancing my 4ss. Its simply a Faceslap for all Clanners.
BJ with Atlasquirks,
Marauder tanky and movable as hell (okay, its a Hypemachine and new),
Thunderbolt on endless Wubmode as some example...
Origins IIc without any Quirks?
Lost the Magical Spells from the IS-Machines ?
Explain this to me. i understand clanners need some nerfs, but please with finetuning, not nerfhammering into ground.

No money from me again unless the Devs quirk the clanners too or remove the dumbest Quirks on IS !!!
I hope the devs learn to Balancing their own Game with Finetuning (!!!!) in near future, not the MAX-Nerfing/Buffing yet.
Dear Devs,
Remember you here are TWO(!) Factions not only one. Clanners are not just the semi-NPC targets for the IS.

By the way, more presence from you in your own Forum are useful. Don't hiding at Twitter.
Clanners needs some answers ASAP.

at least a simple tipp to balancing IS more----you forgot to double the amor for all IS.

facepalm

Edited by CD PBS, 11 January 2016 - 09:20 AM.

[Vlad Striker]

Playing different chassis of same tonnage must be different! If you try the same style you'll fail. Mech is not problem. Pilot is the problem

[CD PBS]

ah yes....sure....by the way, i'm not a Newbie...don't judge me about my posting-count in this forum,.
Clannerfs are the Problem. and i'm not the only one where see this.
You play Clanmechs? You know me?

Edited by CD PBS, 13 January 2016 - 10:27 AM.

[a gaijin]

CD PBS, on 11 January 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Welcome to Overquirk-IS Online. A game where devs gives no love for clanners again.
Seriously, Clanners are too squishy, too hot, too slow at this time. Balancing my 4ss.
Its simply a Faceslap for all Clanners. BJ with Atlasquirks, Marauder tanky and movable as hell (okay, its a Hypemachine and new), Thunderbolt on endless Wubmode as some example... Origins IIc without any Quirks?
Lost the Magical Spells from the IS-Machines ? Explain this to me. i understand clanners need some nerfs, but please with finetuning, not nerfhammering into ground.
No money from me again unless the Devs quirk the clanners too or remove the dumbest Quirks on IS !!!
I hope the devs learn to Balancing their own Game with Finetuning (!!!!) in near future, not the MAX-Nerfing/Buffing yet.

Dear Devs, Remember you here are TWO(!) Factions not only one. Clanners are not just the semi-NPC targets for the IS. By the way, more presence from you in your own Forum are useful. Don't hiding at Twitter.
Clanners needs some answers ASAP. at least a simple tipp to balancing IS more----you forgot to double the amor for all IS. facepalm

Actually I agree with you CD PBS and it's why I stopped playing November 2014 (for a year) and haven't made any purchases since.
I came checking this month to see if PGI figured out that it's complete nonsense to 'change any weapon's range or velocity depending on the chassis it's installed on.'
It really does not make sense.
But sadly they haven't, so it looks like I still regret buying that gold plated piece of crap after all. I put so much faith in PGI ...

Raubwurst, on 13 January 2016 - 02:03 AM, said:

Ok. Remove the buff to the IS 'Mechs + Reduce the nerf to Clan 'Mechs.
Would feel a lot like MechWarrior. Overpowered Clans everywhere, no one could/would play an IS 'Mech anymore.
.... that is madness!

Removing the nonsense weapon quirks (range and velocity only) would not deter players from choosing any chassis over another.

****************************************************************************
Suggestions:

• Return Clan weapons to their canon range, velocity, and damage.
  
• Return IS weapons to their canon range, velocity, and damage.
  
• Allow adjustment of internal structurebut not armor type on Clan mechs.
  
• On "quirks:" regardless of Clan/IS, chassis have specialties that can positively adjust things like turning/torso twist duration, weapon convergence. This particularly stands out with chassis such as Warhawk and Awesome (less weapon heat & possibly faster recharge/reload time makes sense for mechs that have built around a particular weapon system but this would not affect a weapon's range or velocity)
  
• In CW and any Clan vs IS matches, impose "Clan culture batchall" penalties and bonuses (Clans favor 1vs1 fighting for example, even in 12 vs 12 matches). No C-Bills & XP (or 99% reduced gain) for Clan players that fight 'dishonorably.' And make it affect the team: 85% reduced gains when a member of their Star fights dishonorably.
  
  
  "Clan culture" doesn't matter for simple Quick Drop PUG team vs team.

And if that's "too much work" for devs making a MW game (and "too much hassle" for Clan players) then that indicates I'm in the wrong place & pointlessly supporting the wrong game (which would be a real letdown for someone who has been Meching since 97) so I should go ahead see myself out.

Edited by HeroForHire, 13 January 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[a gaijin]

Drunk Canuck, on 05 January 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

Allow all 4 jump jets to be removable. I am going to be honest, these things still feel like hover jets and don't feel useful to me. .

Agree that MWO's jump jets feel useless.

To be completely honest I won't be satisfied with jump jets until I can "jump" the way the Summoner in the MW2 intro video did.
Those were jump jets.


[edit: Want to note that "pop tarting" is a dishonorable tactic for Clansmen.]

Edited by HeroForHire, 13 January 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[Doman Hugin]

I don't like the way people that complain about clan mechs only compare them to meta clan mechs, try comparing them to all mechs of that class not just meta clan mechs or meta IS mechs.

I suspect if you did, you'd find that they are just mediocre rather than realy bad.

[Aiden Skye]

Doman Hugin, on 14 January 2016 - 08:41 AM, said:

I don't like the way people that complain about clan mechs only compare them to meta clan mechs, try comparing them to all mechs of that class not just meta clan mechs or meta IS mechs.

I suspect if you did, you'd find that they are just mediocre rather than realy bad.

I think its a valid comparison. It would be better for the game if the gap was closer between the top and bottom performers.

[iLLcapitan]

Clan Tech is just fine and offer a different (but not unequal) gameplay to InnerSphere mechs.
Some Omnis are left behind, but that is up to finetuning.
Same goes for some IS mechs.

Slowly again: in... a... FPS... you.. cannot... have... one... uberfaction.

Quirks are in my eyes the only way to distinguish one chassis (variant) from another.
Think its a proper way to give some mechs a special flavour and some love due to negative traits.

[Reza Malin]

CD PBS, on 13 January 2016 - 10:20 AM, said:

ah yes....sure....by the way, i'm not a Newbie...don't judge me about my posting-count in this forum,.
Clannerfs are the Problem. and i'm not the only one where see this.
You play Clanmechs? You know me?

I played clan mechs for ages, i was part of a clan unit and called drops. This was the first 6-12 months after clans dropped and they were OP as hell, and everyone who had them loved it. They revelled in reducing IS machines to molten slag and laughing to each other about it, back slapping and wiping the tears of joy away.

Now people are crying about clan mechs because they are balanced better, and they can no longer feel superior. It will never be perfect, but in game terms its much more even. Screw your lore, its a simple fact that people wont play IS if they get humped every time. People just got far too used to clan mechs being better. Some of them are still ridiculously good. The ones that arent as good need specific builds and roles to be successful, just like many IS mechs.

If you want to suddenly boost every average clan mech because they get beaten by IS now, then lets boost all the average IS chassis too?

[DivineEvil]

Drunk Canuck, on 05 January 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

Right now, most people would concede that Clan Mech's are in a very awkward state. The super strong Clan Mech's are still really good, and in the right hands aren't imbalanced at all. I am talking of course about the Arctic Cheetah, Stormcrow, Hellbringer, Timber Wolf and Ebon Jaguar, the position of the Dire Wolf can be argued but players who are good with them are still going to do just fine. Either way, pilot skills plus Clan Mech changes in the re-balance did nothing to curb the inferiority that the rest of the Clan Mech's have. The biggest balancing factor that really sets in particular the Gargoyle and the Executioner back so far from the Dire Wolf in terms of their practicality is that speed has next to not advantage in MWO, because continual power creep from IS sources plus the attempts to balance the 5 problem Clan chassis, did nothing to keep these two assaults competitive. Sure, MASC is still great for the EXE, but it doesn't change the fact that it is getting out gunned by Mech's 20-30 tons lighter than it. I have some ideas on what could be changed to improve each Clan Mech in some regard and I don't think they are changes that are too difficult to ask for, so I will go over each of them individually. I'd like to see these faster Mech's have more of a brawling focus to them to make use of having less free tonnage than the other Clan Mech's, since many of these Mech's have a lot of speed.

At this point, the only direct way to make underwhelming Clan mechs more popular is quirks. Some of Clan mechs are not even bad, but there's unrealistic misconceptions and expectations placed for them, which they cannot and should not meet by their very design. Others are not bad from their individual design, but by the long-living flaws and failed attempts on fixing the underlying basic mechanics of the game. What Omni-mechs are considered superior or inferior is determined by the play-style of Clan players - an Omnimech, that is buit to utilize an advantage, that players cannot benefit from, is considered inferior, exactly the same way as IS mechs.

No changes are difficult to ask, but sometimes they're difficult or pointless to implement nonetheless.

Quote

Executioner Allow all 4 jump jets to be removable. I am going to be honest, these things still feel like hover jets and don't feel useful to me. OR Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings Add some additional torso hard points, scale the arms to be a bit higher on the Mech as well, because screw canon Mobility quirks

Giving the capability to remove Jump-Jets will make them redundant. Much better idea is to simply reinstate Jump-Jet power for Assault mechs, both IS and Clan. The simplest way is to make them just as powerful as heavy/medium class JumpJets, but with longer refill rates. Smart people do not want useless stuff to be removed - they want it to be useful. Works for mechs, works for weapons, and thus must work for equipment.

FF/ES customization is a closed topic for Clan Omnis. This is the price for having swappable Omnipods. If an Omnimech would be capable of customizing ES/FF, then it would only be fair if IS then could use omnipods for their own mechs. Creating exceptions to the rule will only create more confusion.

Quote

Gargoyle Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings Unlock 2 heat sinks in the engine Create side torso energy and missile hard points, as a Mech with speed can be a good brawler
Mobility Quirks

Gargoyle is a good brawler. What undermines them and some other mechs is flawed and perpetually misfigured heat management system. Otherwise Gargoyle is just as good for brawling as Zeus. The questions there are, how many Clan players even try to brawl competetively? How many of them try to turn Gargoyle's speed into an advantage? Do they even know what brawling means?

Quote

Warhawk Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings Remove 3 of the locked DHS in the left torsos of each variant Needs to be scaled down a little bit, in my opinion Summoner Allow Ferro Armor to be swapped for Endo Steel/Give Ferro the same weight savings Needs more torso mounted weapons, maybe some extra torso missile launchers and laser pods since this is another good Mech that is fast, maneuverable and would be a great brawler.

Warhawk is not a brawler, that's why it's speed is inferior to EXE and GARs. EXEs and GARs are made to engage enemies in close-combat, while Warhawks and Direworfs are doing the beating from behind. Warhawk is a solid chassis, that do not need anything aside from a good pilot.

Quote

Mad Dog Honestly, it's a missile platform and there aren't many ways to balance it. Giving it Endo would just mean more ammo for Streak or LRM boating, though it might make the ballistic pods more useful.

Not only there isn't many ways to balance it, but there's also not many reasons to do so in the first place. It's a solid mech which, being built on the same chassis as Timber Wolf, might be a bit too big, but still superior to both IS weight equivalents.

Quote

Nova I will reserve opinions on this Mech until the rescale to see how well it performs, but at the very least, it needs SOME energy quirks since that is about all the Mech is good for. Quite frankly the JJ's help it with mobility and removing them would be silly. Sure, it could use Endo or Ferro, but it won't make it much better because it will run out of slot space. Either way, Endo wouldn't hurt it if you wanted to do something like 2 UAC5's so long as you removed the side torso heat sinks from the S variant, or just improve the DPS of UAC2's so that they aren't outclassed by a vanilla Clan AC2.

Aside from exceptionally and neddlessly large Arm weapon mounts, Novas are perfectly fine. Again, issues with it comes from dishonored heat management system.

Quote

Ice Ferret Speed is it's thing, but with max armor it has only 9 tons to play with because of the XL 360. You can at best do 4 SPL and an SRM or Streak 6, but it certainly doesn't leave much to be desired. I don't know what you can do with this Mech to make it better without downsizing the engine. It's profile is great because the damn thing is small for a medium, just the arm mounted weaponry and lack of overall hard points are all major drawbacks and then the engine taking up a whopping 23.5 tons of space. Speed quirk? More energy hard points and torso mounts so it can be a more well armored but less mobile Cheetah without ECM? It needs tonnage as much as it needs more weapon slots.

Again, if you cannot make the speed work as an advantage, there's little point to bother about this mech. It's like some IS mechs or variants with higher max Engine ratings - you can achieve higher mobility, but you'll have to invest your tonnage into it, not just get the advantage for free.

Weapon hardpoints are not taken out of thin air - they're located according to their Battletech specifications. Additional Energy hardpoints can't amuse me more, as I see this lack of adaptability and learning capacity all the time. Everyone tries to make every single Omni-mech into a laser-vomit, and if it's technically impossible, instantly brands the Omni-mech useless.

Quote

Shadowcat Similar to the Ice Ferret, except the locked in 6 JJ's eat up 3 tons of pod space and MASC is another 2 tons, but the engine isn't the problem here. Even unlocking the torso JJ's would only free up 1 ton. Needs more diversity in OmniPods for sure, especially for things like missiles and energy weapons. Speed is it's friend, and would be lethal in rear engagements behind enemy lines with the ECM if it could mount a few more missiles are lasers. The P variant in particular, is pretty bad since Machine Guns have almost zero viability in the current meta game. Mech's die way too fast for them to be effective and they don't deal enough damage to be a primary weapon even with 6 of them.

All the former points about Ice Ferrets are also valid for Shadow Cats, even to a greater degree. A fairly small, nimble, jumping mech with ECM capability and full upgrade package - there's nothing else to be desired. The only thing which seems problematic is the number of hardpoints, which disallows boating - something, that almost nobody in general player base can work against. Shadow Cat hardpoints are forcing players to combine weapons for different ranges and behaviors. Otherwise, Shadow Cat is technically second only to Stormcrow.

Efficiency of Machineguns is an old topic, which has nothing to do with Clan mechs.

Quote

Mist Lynx This is one of the Mech's that could really use unlocking. Do what they did to the Adder and unlock the Clan Active Probe. Also unlock 1 JJ from each torso and make all sub 250 XL engines meet the 10 heat sink rule by default. Get rid of the locked DHS and see how well the MLX does. Arm mounted weaponry might be an issue like the IFR, but it has JJ's and is pretty small and nimble, I think it would be OK with a few extra tons to play with, but it wouldn't out pace the ACH or JR7 IIC as far as Clan lights go due to the lack of armor.

Again, unrealistic expectations. Mist Lynx is a 25-tonner, same as Commando. It can easily outplay it with better weapons, but it still does not changes the fact, that it stands on a fringe between conventional mechs and unusually heavy exoskeletons. No matter what you'd suggest, it would not change that fact, unless a Blackjack durability treatment is issued.

Quote

Adder/Kit Fox Armor Quirks for both these Mech's, and some more weapons pod options. They are slow, they are fragile and really the Adder excels at two things, Streak boating against other lights or 5 ER ML. Both need some more durability though if the intention is to use them more as a front line skirmisher. Maybe a Speed Quirk like the Summoner has? Wouldn't hurt them either. My only other suggestion is that more so for the Kit Fox, some additional weapons pods would be wonderful.

Neither of these mechs are designed as frontline skirmishers. They're both sniper/support mechs, which is why they use smaller engines as to allow them to pack stronger punch.

Do you know how many of the Omni's we have now are dubbed as scout mechs by Technical Readouts (official Battletech manuals)? One - Ice Ferret.

Quote

I don't think any of these suggestions are going to inherently make the Mech's OP, but they would put them in a better place than they are.

The problem of these suggestions, as much as many similar ones, is that they ignore the general perspective outlook at the game. Hundreds of people are judgemental about PGI's methods of solving general issues by particular tweaks, yet they're so readily make suggestions for exactly these methods to be applied.

To make a valid point for balance tweak, you should first of all see the whole picture, recognize the patterns and shared trends; decipher the the source of a problem and then come to the conclusion about the proper solution, that is directed on the game element responsible for the problem.

Band-aiding particular problems themselves is meaningless - this is why we're in current situation to begin with. When there's clear, unbiased understanding of an issue, the simple and effective fix lies on the surface.

Edited by DivineEvil, 16 January 2016 - 05:30 PM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@OP:

Many Clan 'Mechs do feel underwhelming today. In large part I attribute that to IS 'Mechs being overly durable.

I don't think Omnimechs (Clan or future IS) should be able to swap engine/structure/armor/jump jets or other locked equipment.

What I do think they should do is look closely at each chassis and decide whether or not they could use some upgrade. For instance, Summoner: it really just needs ES and some additional Omnipods.

I'm not talking about Quirks (those are nice, but they should never be the primary method of balance); I'm talking about real Equipment/Omnipod change or addition.

Lore can be generally put to the wasyside. It's great as a guide, but it should not dominate gameplay.

In general most lighter Clan Omnimechs should probably have both ES and FF, and that still wouldn't make them better than current meta.

[Russhuster]

quirks are the most unreasonable, atmosphere-destroying way to unbalance any game

that quirk idiotism has to come to an end - it brings neither balance nor a game feeling of any kind.

These gifts ex nihilo destroy whats left of battlemech feeling in the game and drive players away
because quirks doe have nothing to do with battlemech but are making mechs to look a like robots

Edited by Russhuster, 17 January 2016 - 09:52 AM.