54 replies to this topic

[Agamemnon78]

I´m in since Summer 2012. Right from the start. Played MWO for 2 years since on daily basis for hours.

You, PGI took this franchise and created a game with such an amazing bunch of variety and possibility. We all are gratefull for that.

But in the end, it all results in ever-identical giant mech-blobs, consisting of around 3 Mechchassis which are up-to-quirk-date and which are using mostly one single, sometimes 2 weapon-types.

It´s not whining.
Its an opinion out of my experience of 3,5 years of consistend MWO-playing.

Role-Warfare is nonexistent
Information-Warfare is nonexistent

The blessing your approach promised is your curse: Possibility and diversity.

The current incentives are misleading the course of the whole game.

Every single mechs only gets judged by those categories:
- can i boat something with it?
- do the quirks favor it even more?

You can turn virtually every chassis into something it never was meant to be.

Moreover, due to whichever reasons, you have two main-factions, one of which is generally much harder to win with and more expensive to buy and level. Units grab their pants and left. Usually you have to "pay" them, to join this side when you start another event.

From the viewpoint of our unit:
We lost inumerable members which could no longer cope with that lopsided approach.
The are burned out and frustrated.
On even terms, the chances of getting bashed stood clearly against us. To often.
Members left and joined IS-units, just to play IS-mechs. They have fun.
New members got all clan-Mechs levelled. Painful and near the limit of motivation.
They tried Thunderbolts, Jaegers and Dragons, Marauders and SEE, they were amazed at how much fun they are to play! Less heat-Problems, easy to brawl with, mostly slender design and thus harder to hit, Ballistic weapons which deserve the name and quirks to get your pants wet.


Usually at this point, the mono-opinional-forums-gods begin writing their "learn to play!" or "the usual whiny clanner"-sort of thing.
Please don´t. Its wasted on me.
I´m a fan of even chances and well played matches.
At the moment we are forced to play a style not favoured, just to grab those few percents of chance, if we want to win at all.

Stop reading if you consider yourself member of those all-knowing gods of mech-gaming.

All others:

Imagine!

- Only the heavies and assaults can carry LL and PPC, AC20 and big lurm-throwers

- LargeLasers do not do full damage from the start. Technically they are optimized to focus their "heat" at longer distances. So lets play with the idea of a LL making full-damage at 300m and above and the damage falls again from 9oo up.
--> No longer universal-laser-boats approaching LL blazing from 1300m and then entering a nice brawl.
You got long-range Firepower? Use it at longe range. You fear getting caught close up? Start using some small and medlaser as backup.
AS INTENDED!

- Tiny Light-mechs carrying giant Laser-weapons, even sometimes two of them --> ridiculous.

- All mechs beeing able to carry every module to fulfill every role is contraproductive

- All mechs beeing able to switch their laser in the slot x from small to large is contraproductive

Give lights a role! Let them combine with their big brethren!
--> they ought to have the best sensors.
--> give them a beacon for artillery/Airtstrike.
--> Only assaults should be capable of a command-console (perhaps built in from the start) and thus able to call in artillery. Assaults target the beacon and call arty.
Both got XP. Both are forced to play together.
--> only lights can NARC and TAG
--> they should not be the ones killing 6 mechs and going out nearly unscathed.
They are supporting scouts.
As it is, its the only "mechanized" game I know, where the fast and light class can easily outclass his heavier enemies.

Mediums and heavies fulfil the fast brawling-role or the occasional fast sniper.

All engines got a energy-limit.
Loading lasers needs energy. More lasers need more energy. Energy should be limited by the reactor.
You alpha with to many lasers? Got to wait longer for the recharge.

Categorize the slots into classes.
f.e. Energy-slots in 2-3 classes.
So you can switch a SLaser with a Medlaser, But no 3 MEdLasers for 2 LargeLasers.
Energy-limit allowing.

Give Clans some proper ballistic-weapons. One bullet. Done.
Even terms. Not more.
We already have the ******** hardpoints and the bigger target-surface.

All those proposals seem to range in the area which should be applicable.
Nothing really revolutional.
Shouldn´t be to complicated a programming-Einstein-skill to restrict some slots and give the player in the mechlab a simple text-feedback why its not possible to build 2 Largelasers into his tiny light-runner.

At the moment, and thats the plain truth, many players left the game and much more will follow, cause its
1. pointless to play, aside from the usual levelling
2. lopsided for 50% of the player-base (ok, its perhaps just 30% cause the rest isnt insane enough to play Clan)

Its sad, but at the beginning you said, that you wanted the Clans making FEEL different.
At the moment its exactly so.
You feel outclassed by chassis which should be evenclassed or which should be outclassed by YOU.
You (un?)intentionally took every aspect of the battle-mechanics so hard-fought balanced before the clan-invasion, and gave them aspects which made them inferior. Not different. Inferior in (too) many aspects. Not all (thank god!).

Your playerbase is bleeding away and new players quit as soon as they realize the plight they are in.

Go, take a look from above, outside the details and tiny follow-up-problems to follow-up-problems.
Start seeing the forest again, do not debate about single trees.

Many players will return, cause many players love Mechwarrior.

[GreyNovember]

You upset my Urbanmech with your talk of "No Light mechs can carry heavy weapons".

The mech's got the tonnage for it. Who are you to say what my Urbie can and can't do?

[Russhuster]

but he is right,.. an Raven carrying an AK20 is ridiculous and and yet seen, there are just the quirk buckets left

Wubbolts, wubbknights Wubbmasters rule and above all the 45 Ton Atlas called blackjack
Iam just waiting the BJ getting 100 Ton weapon capacity - in an 45 ton mech

The feeling of Battletech has been destroyed utterly - This isnt a game anymore worth to support

MWO isnt an athmospheric BT-game at all anymore, just a comon mecha-shooter

Edited by Russhuster, 24 January 2016 - 06:21 AM.

[GreyNovember]

AC20 Ravens also tend to not live long, skimp heavily on armor, have a downgraded engine, and few shots.

Same with ERLL Ravens. If anything with so much as 3ML finds them, they're in trouble.

They aren't exactly making no compromises with these ludicrous builds you're talking about.

[Sigmar Sich]

I do agree with most statements, except for "poor clans" part (problem is in just few IS chassis having quirks of ridiculous power + their ability to boat quirked stuff), and hard restrictions for classes.

Before the quirks all mechs was judged by same parameters - 1) can it boat, 2) hardpoints position and hitbox geometry.
Weapon quirks made it even worse..
I was so exited when rebalance was tested. But suddenly all good stuff was abandoned, and we get another quirk pass, sometimes very ridiculous.

Lets try to identify core problems. In my opinion it is unshackled boating.
I see two ways to limit boating.
1) Fastest way - weapon quirks works only for the hardpoint, where weapon was in stock. This way most boats will lose their quirk power.
2) Guess it is to late for this, but mechlab needs sized hardpoints. But implementation have to be smarter then just "=stock weapon size". Mechs should recieve some bonus slots for multiple same-class weapons in location, and bonus slots for big weapons. (lets say stlaker hand - two ML = 2 slots +1 bonus slot. Enough to mount single PPC, or to change one ML to LL.)

Well, such stuff was suggested many times.. Anyway, at least rebalance as it was intended would be good. Maybe we will have it someday.
Just wait and hope. I play the game far less frequently since UI 2.0 (was a real hit to my belief in devs competence), saving appetite till one day, when MWO will be healed from its major flaws. I guess it is real - current UI became better, maybe quirks will walk the same road.

[man du]

Agamemnon78, on 24 January 2016 - 04:53 AM, said:

I´m in since Summer 2012. Right from the start. Played MWO for 2 years since on daily basis for hours.

You, PGI took this franchise and created a game with such an amazing bunch of variety and possibility. We all are gratefull for that.

But in the end, it all results in ever-identical giant mech-blobs, consisting of around 3 Mechchassis which are up-to-quirk-date and which are using mostly one single, sometimes 2 weapon-types.

It´s not whining.
Its an opinion out of my experience of 3,5 years of consistend MWO-playing.

Role-Warfare is nonexistent
Information-Warfare is nonexistent

The blessing your approach promised is your curse: Possibility and diversity.

The current incentives are misleading the course of the whole game.

Every single mechs only gets judged by those categories:
- can i boat something with it?
- do the quirks favor it even more?

You can turn virtually every chassis into something it never was meant to be.

Moreover, due to whichever reasons, you have two main-factions, one of which is generally much harder to win with and more expensive to buy and level. Units grab their pants and left. Usually you have to "pay" them, to join this side when you start another event.

From the viewpoint of our unit:
We lost inumerable members which could no longer cope with that lopsided approach.
The are burned out and frustrated.
On even terms, the chances of getting bashed stood clearly against us. To often.
Members left and joined IS-units, just to play IS-mechs. They have fun.
New members got all clan-Mechs levelled. Painful and near the limit of motivation.
They tried Thunderbolts, Jaegers and Dragons, Marauders and SEE, they were amazed at how much fun they are to play! Less heat-Problems, easy to brawl with, mostly slender design and thus harder to hit, Ballistic weapons which deserve the name and quirks to get your pants wet.


Usually at this point, the mono-opinional-forums-gods begin writing their "learn to play!" or "the usual whiny clanner"-sort of thing.
Please don´t. Its wasted on me.
I´m a fan of even chances and well played matches.
At the moment we are forced to play a style not favoured, just to grab those few percents of chance, if we want to win at all.

Stop reading if you consider yourself member of those all-knowing gods of mech-gaming.

All others:

Imagine!

- Only the heavies and assaults can carry LL and PPC, AC20 and big lurm-throwers

- LargeLasers do not do full damage from the start. Technically they are optimized to focus their "heat" at longer distances. So lets play with the idea of a LL making full-damage at 300m and above and the damage falls again from 9oo up.
--> No longer universal-laser-boats approaching LL blazing from 1300m and then entering a nice brawl.
You got long-range Firepower? Use it at longe range. You fear getting caught close up? Start using some small and medlaser as backup.
AS INTENDED!

- Tiny Light-mechs carrying giant Laser-weapons, even sometimes two of them --> ridiculous.

- All mechs beeing able to carry every module to fulfill every role is contraproductive

- All mechs beeing able to switch their laser in the slot x from small to large is contraproductive

Give lights a role! Let them combine with their big brethren!
--> they ought to have the best sensors.
--> give them a beacon for artillery/Airtstrike.
--> Only assaults should be capable of a command-console (perhaps built in from the start) and thus able to call in artillery. Assaults target the beacon and call arty.
Both got XP. Both are forced to play together.
--> only lights can NARC and TAG
--> they should not be the ones killing 6 mechs and going out nearly unscathed.
They are supporting scouts.
As it is, its the only "mechanized" game I know, where the fast and light class can easily outclass his heavier enemies.

Mediums and heavies fulfil the fast brawling-role or the occasional fast sniper.

All engines got a energy-limit.
Loading lasers needs energy. More lasers need more energy. Energy should be limited by the reactor.
You alpha with to many lasers? Got to wait longer for the recharge.

Categorize the slots into classes.
f.e. Energy-slots in 2-3 classes.
So you can switch a SLaser with a Medlaser, But no 3 MEdLasers for 2 LargeLasers.
Energy-limit allowing.

Give Clans some proper ballistic-weapons. One bullet. Done.
Even terms. Not more.
We already have the ******** hardpoints and the bigger target-surface.

All those proposals seem to range in the area which should be applicable.
Nothing really revolutional.
Shouldn´t be to complicated a programming-Einstein-skill to restrict some slots and give the player in the mechlab a simple text-feedback why its not possible to build 2 Largelasers into his tiny light-runner.

At the moment, and thats the plain truth, many players left the game and much more will follow, cause its
1. pointless to play, aside from the usual levelling
2. lopsided for 50% of the player-base (ok, its perhaps just 30% cause the rest isnt insane enough to play Clan)

Its sad, but at the beginning you said, that you wanted the Clans making FEEL different.
At the moment its exactly so.
You feel outclassed by chassis which should be evenclassed or which should be outclassed by YOU.
You (un?)intentionally took every aspect of the battle-mechanics so hard-fought balanced before the clan-invasion, and gave them aspects which made them inferior. Not different. Inferior in (too) many aspects. Not all (thank god!).

Your playerbase is bleeding away and new players quit as soon as they realize the plight they are in.

Go, take a look from above, outside the details and tiny follow-up-problems to follow-up-problems.
Start seeing the forest again, do not debate about single trees.

Many players will return, cause many players love Mechwarrior.

Lot's of interesting ideas! I like the idea of actual info warfare for lights. BUT! I used to leg and kill Atlases with a Locust in the original MechWarrior on our family's Tandy computer in the Nineties. No mouse. Had to aim with Up,Down,Left and Right and move with WASD. I jumped at the chance to play this game when I heard about it for the opportunity to get a pilot a Locust in that capacity again! I enjoy the rewards of smart but aggressive Light piloting, the adrenaline rush of getting the jump on a Dire unawares and only being one wrong move away from immediate obliteration.

I circle, I try to use cover, take advantage of battlefield conditions and communicate my doings to my teammates so they can either help me kill my target or direct me to someone else to shoot.

Please don't be upset at a skilled Light Pilot that takes you out when you're in a very large 'Mech. When I get my butt handed to me in that fashion, I send my compliments to the enemy for good shooting and piloting.

[Elyam]

Yes, adjustments to better play need to be made - even BT's designers have known this. Some of your ideas need to be a little different and need to tilt toward (not away) from the established BTU (not just for the sake of it, but because the original concepts are superior and the reason the fan base is so large), but that's easy. The thrust of your post is on target.

[Agamemnon78]

I´m somewhat surprised not having to endure the usual shitstorm such posts as this seem to start.

So, there are some guys who share the same direction of understanding.
And if they dont, they can behave themselves and discuss properly.

thats something, we dont usually see in the german parts of these forums (sadly).

Hope dies last (or what you say).

[Agamemnon78]

Could someone be so nice to link this thread to the BOSS on twitter.

Cause it seems its the only way he and his team get input at all.
These forums seem to be solely unable to give a serious unbiased opportunity to affect the course of the game

Edited by Agamemnon78, 24 January 2016 - 11:20 AM.

[AbyssalTyrant]

So you are a fan of even chances , which is why you want the clans to be best at everything again? Did that somehow make sense when you thought it up?

Edited by AbyssalTyrant, 24 January 2016 - 11:46 AM.

[TELEFORCE]

I agree with some of what the OP said, but light 'mechs carrying big guns is a real thing in BattleTech. Just look at many configurations of the Adder and Kit Fox, even the later Cougar. On the Inner Sphere side, you have the UrbanMech, Hollander, and the Panther.

Just like all other classes, light 'mechs have to pick two out of three of the following: Speed, durability, firepower. They definitely make sacrifices for all that firepower, and I don't think that's a problem at all.

Regarding the command console, that piece of equipment can only be mounted on heavy and assault 'mechs to begin with. The lore reason is that light and medium chassis don't have the physical size in the head section of the 'mech to mount one alongside the cockpit.

Edited by TELEFORCE, 24 January 2016 - 12:12 PM.

[Agamemnon78]

1. I know the lore-restirictions. And they our exactly that. Grown and traditioned restrictions.
2. Many things in BT make little to no sense at all, cause its FICTION from the nineties.
3. Nothing to do with that "clan-ought-to-be-better"-nonsense at all. Really not one ounce of it. I would be totally glad, if all weapons, regardless of Clan or IS, would be essentially the same and just he colour differing. You would hav ENOUGH to differentiate between Clan and IS, and you would achieve a balance. The Clans werent even balanced in the good ol´ TT.
4. I put in the CC, to make a point. I generally want to have the ability to call in Arty to some specific classes/roles.

As it is now: Many possibilities and variety only lead to Franken-Mech-min-maxing and destroys the game. Some people find it a good thing cause they exploit it and are happy with easy wins.

Edited by Agamemnon78, 24 January 2016 - 12:53 PM.

[Lugh]

Russhuster, on 24 January 2016 - 06:18 AM, said:

but he is right,.. an Raven carrying an AK20 is ridiculous and and yet seen, there are just the quirk buckets left

Wubbolts, wubbknights Wubbmasters rule and above all the 45 Ton Atlas called blackjack
Iam just waiting the BJ getting 100 Ton weapon capacity - in an 45 ton mech

The feeling of Battletech has been destroyed utterly - This isnt a game anymore worth to support

MWO isnt an athmospheric BT-game at all anymore, just a comon mecha-shooter

It already does thanks to ghost heat...

Agamemnon78, on 24 January 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

1. I know the lore-restirictions. And they our exactly that. Grown and traditioned restrictions.
2. Many things in BT make littel to no sense at all, cause its FICTION from the early eighties.
3. Nothing to do with that "clan-ought-to-be-better"-nonsense at all. Really not one ounce of it. I would be totally glad, if all weapons, regardless of Clan or IS, would be essentially the same and just he colour differing. You would hav ENOUGH to differentiate between Clan and IS, and you would achieve a balance. The Clans werent even balanced in the good ol´ TT.
And they should have advantages here. Right now they don't. Thanks to quirkening 3.0 they don't have a range advantage, they run hotter, and their burn times on lasers are longer. That means they are also inferior by and large at brawling.

Fixed

[Sjorpha]

Short version.

1. Imply Clan mechs are underpowered.
2. make preemptive insult against anyone who might disagree, plus tell them not to respond (just in case).
3. Add mechhipster speech about "diversity".
4. Present "solution" to your own invented "problem".

Add 2 tablespoons of icky melodramatic rhetoric and stir.

Summary brought to you by SJORPHA, the all knowing mech god of gaming.

[Red Shrike]

We're not even off the first page, and there is already someone who feels threatened.

I know your pain, Agamemnon78.

[ZenFool]

You realize population numbers have been going UP, not down right? Other than that and your opinion on clan mechs I could go for some iteration of your suggestions.

I don't think you should prohibit weapons by mech size, but a little bit of work and you could perhaps limit it chassis by chassis. That way I can still take a guass or ac20 on my hunchback(canon). Some light mechs were known for carrying ppcs as well, especially on clan side. They should still be able to do that.

Its when you take a mech like the Stormcrow and turn it INTO a Nova laser build with better hitboxes that you negate the very thing that makes the Nova special. Some mechs were made to boat weapons and they should still be able to.

Of course, you weren't the first to make a suggestion like this. Also, the others that made it were trying to help out the game as a whole. You started it out by mentioning the "failing" population numbers and how clan mechs are so bad now...

I've played on both sides recently and I must say balance is pretty close right now, though it favors IS pug v pug since clan mechs are a bit touchier to use for the average player.

[Tarl Cabot]

Has all the work been completed for MWO? I see it as a work in progress, but generally slow progress.

PGI is a small company. From the twits/posts or lack thereof, there would appear to be no committee to bounce ideas around, thoughts. It did have IGP overseeing it, pushing it in one direction but not necessarily a good direction but it was there.

Take that and put yourself in the shoes of the CEO/President/etc and you are making THE decisions. does the employees have the ability to provide feedback that ranges outside the viewpoint of the person signing their paycheck? It is telling that we do not see any real feedback/discussions from the others. Wonders if the gloved fist is a tad too tight? Or that they are in it so tight that it is near impossible to see outside the box?

MWO still has promise cause it is still being worked on, there is room for change, both good and bad. One of the questions though, is how to present it to PGI in a way that it is taken seriously and actually considered?

You lost me at the buying clan mech privilege part though since said mechs eventually become purchasable via other means.

Take current example of Ghost Heat. It was input from some players. Was it implemented in the form and manner that the had expected? /shrugs What did occur is that both Max Heat Scale damage AND Ghost Heat after xAmount of specific weapons used was introduced about the same time.

Spoiler

Introduced July 2013.
http://mwomercs.com/...general-update/
http://mwomercs.com/...cale-the-maths/

Again, ghost heat is simply an example that affects both techs. Remember there is now a damage cap in place, what would the effect be without ghost heat for both sides?
Example would be ISLL could be fired like Clan's CERML (baby LL, before the max range reduction). Both IS and Clans would be able to fire more ERLL at one time. Simply showing an example.

What would the effect be if GH was tweaked to where instead of ghost heat multiplier after a set number of specific weapons are fired, it was an overall multiplier in smaller increments.

http://mwomercs.com/...cale-the-maths/

Right now a Clan mech can fire 2 CERLL and 6CERML with no ghost heat (whether or not it exceeds heat cap doesnt matter atm). IS mech can fire 3 ISERLL and 6ISML without ghost heat. Change it so the multiplier hits when two or more weapons are used. A smaller multiplier but overall heat management is still critical but there is not that unexpected ghost heat spike. Would that provide a change for the better, overall?

Other actions, such as the slowing down the velocities of both ballistics and ppcs to COUNTER a specific type of combat action, the so-call poptarting, and said velocity changes that were never reverted, even though jumpjets were basically castrated for some heavies and all assaults, both current and future mechs that have the ability to use JJ for more than simply overcoming terrain. The original boardgame may not have had that as a visible effect but both the Solaris boardgame and all other PC games have.

As for Clan mechs, if you are coming from the CW view, the current set tonnage limits (should change more often), the inability to field more than one viable assault, sensibly, flipflopping population via larger merc units, but even more so the influx of NEW players dropping into CW with trial Clan mechs, and more than a couple of newer players on each time definitely does not help. But then the IS side has been used to that. As for the few IS mechs (it is only a few, as the vast majority being used in the CW would be a huge compromise), there are issues there and it really does make one wonder WHY?

Just remember, like flavors, preferences changes over time.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 24 January 2016 - 02:42 PM.

[Mawai]

I generally disagreed with most of your comments

What I do agree with:
- more role warfare would be nice. They started down this path with the last PTS with different sensor strengths and lock times but seem to have backed away from it.


Some of your comments:

"But in the end, it all results in ever-identical giant mech-blobs, consisting of around 3 Mechchassis which are up-to-quirk-date and which are using mostly one single, sometimes 2 weapon-types."

We clearly play in different tiers and yours appears to be far less fun than mine ... I am in tier 3 at the moment and the mech variety is fun and quite refreshing. Lasers still play a big role but they have always played a big role since they tend to be the go-to filler weapon on most builds. However, there is a decent variety of ACs as well as the occasional PPCs and quite a few SRM and LRM boats and the occasional mixed build. Over a dozen games I probably see most of the chassis if not all the variants in the game.


"On even terms, the chances of getting bashed stood clearly against us. To often.
Members left and joined IS-units, just to play IS-mechs. They have fun.
New members got all clan-Mechs levelled. Painful and near the limit of motivation.
They tried Thunderbolts, Jaegers and Dragons, Marauders and SEE, they were amazed at how much fun they are to play! Less heat-Problems, easy to brawl with, mostly slender design and thus harder to hit, Ballistic weapons which deserve the name and quirks to get your pants wet."

The above paragraph is basically saying that in your opinion clan mechs are terrible and that IS mechs all stomp. I have a bunch of clan mechs and they can be harder to play ... you can easily overheat them when alpha striking in a brawl ... but perhaps that is because folks choose to boat high heat weapons? Perhaps throw in some missiles or ballistics with lower heat to go along with those lasers? Or chain fire? Or create groups for firing when near the heat threshold? If people take clan mechs boating lasers because of their high alpha then please don't be surprised that they have issues in some situations. The quad UAC10 Dire Wolf is extremely punishing and doesn't tend to overheat. On the other hand, maybe that isn't seem in whatever tier you play in? Anyway, the point is that perhaps it is the build that is limiting your ability to enjoy the mech in all play circumstances?

As for IS mechs, there are some that are overquirked in my opinion ... the Blackjack has too large a structure quirk for example. I think PGI was attempting to compensate for bad hit boxes with additional structure but I don't think their strategy worked in all cases.

As for feeling outclassed if you drive a clan mech. I am sorry to hear that since in almost every one of my matches there are clan mechs stomping all over IS mechs though these days the IS mechs can often also put up a decent fight.


I guess in the end we can argue about effectiveness all day ... what I would like to see from PGI are the following stats:

- mech chassis usage by tier

- mech performance data by tier ... aggregate average damage done, KMDD, Kills, Assists, average xp, average match score, deaths

- all of this data by tier and categorized by solo, group and CW

If you had a table of such data then you'd have an objective way, across all pilots and builds, over all game modes and queues, to see which mechs are typically the most effective and get an idea of where mech balance actually sits between clan and IS and between quirked and unquirked mechs. Take this data for a month over thousands of matches at different skill levels and I think PGI would have a decent idea of whether mechs are balanced or not. They should already be doing this and I hope that they are and that their balancing decisions are ultimately based on such data.

Finally, I disagree with most of your suggestions.

- Big weapons on small mechs are a common theme in Battletech .. the Urbanmech would not exisit except for that. Changing that would remove some of the fun and flexibility and to be honest most of these are joke builds.
- Adding weapon damage modifiers for range. Folks on the PTS didn't like reduced effective ranges if you didn't have a lock. I I suspect that they would not like the added complexity of effective range brackets. On the other hand, it might be interesting.
- lasers blazing at 1300m are more of an irritant than anything else and give away the firers location. Lasers aren't effective at that range unless both firer and target are stopped ... you don't actually stop your mech in this game do you?
- Changing weapon recharge times based on engine size will just mean folks with the largest engines will have greater DPS .. not exactly fair.


Finally, the biggest reason that folks leave MWO is not for any of the reasons you cite (in my opinion). The problem is that the game becomes REPETITIVE and BORING after enough drops. Adding more maps helps but the law of diminishing returns kicks in eventually. CW doesn't have a broad enough appeal and doesn't let casual players feel like they are contributing or that the match means anything more than the 25 minutes of shooting other mechs. The same goes for matches in the solo and group queues. When a game is repetitive and boring, anything that causes frustration and irritation becomes a reason to leave ... but the underlying issue is still the lack of motivation to play the next game.

To address this PGI could do some of the following:

- build a decent XP system so that each variant of every mech you own can have different skills relevant to the role and weapons you like to use on that mech. Charge MC to respec and it becomes a revenue stream.
- add a Solaris game mode (though this may have limited appeal since it might be just too chaotic) ... also, allow solaris matches with teams like 4 groups of 6 or 6 groups of 4.
- ongoing leader boards ... for organized groups as well as solo play. Who is the best? Some people care and it motivates them to play.
- decent PVE content with both battles and storyline missions... both solo and cooperative group play. Rewards can carry over into MWO.
- do some redesign on CW so that groups are interested and so that the occasional map reset doesn't just kill interest and enthusiasm. Resetting a map that folks spent a few months fighting over is just a morale breaker ... but it has to happen so find a way to offer up something beyond a title that makes fighting a campaign worthwhile.

[MischiefSC]

So at the core it's a request for Clans to be OP again.

No.

The competitive teams and the mercs who always traveled between IS and Clans have pretty much universally said it's balanced now. As close as it's ever been. If that's not your personal experience I get that - the problem is that your personal experience is inherently skewed.

You go used to OP Clan tech. X effort produced Y result. You had inherently superior mechs and tech and so you learned to play from that perspective. Now the same effort that got you a win before no longer does. So it feels broken.

What people in that situation don't get is that the problem is their perspective, not balance. IS mechs play different and most the remaining Clan players (except CJF and the aforementioned mentioned units) are playing badly because they are wanting to pretend their mechs are OP still.

You now have to adjust to a balanced field and put in more effort to get the same level of success. The frustration you are getting from IS players is that we've had to adapt to always playing with inferior tech since CW came out. We won on skills, not tech advantage. To see the Clans, after all the hubris and bragging of the last year, all just void their factions when they are reduced to just an even field and we've been playing at a huge disparity for a year...

Yeah. Of course we're mocking these sorts of threads. It's like Zoolander when Derek says he's got the black lung because he spent 1 day goofing around in the coal mine.

Clan and IS tech is better balanced than it's ever been. If there's a discrepancy on some mechs it's a fraction of the variance we've had for the last year. If that's not fun for some people I get that. Playing with the deck stacked in your favor can, I'm sure, be a lot of fun
Overall though it makes for a bad game.

I recommend playing with and against the big units when they are playing Clans or with/against CJF. You'll see how Clans work on a balanced field.

[jaxjace]

Lasers are overpowered on all sides. Doing more damage than in TT while ammo dependent weapons did not have their ammo doubled to compensate for double armor everything.

Increase laser durations for all and reduce their damage, problems solved. (increase PPC velocity)