60 replies to this topic

[Roadkill]

Khobai, on 04 February 2016 - 03:09 PM, said:

Again were comparing the Dire Wolf to the Kodiak. The argument was that the Kodiak would be a bigger target than the Dire Wolf because it has a bigger profile.

Yep. Dire Wolf is about to be resized, presumably smaller. Since it's already very noticably smaller than an Executioner (which, coinincidentally, can also run away) I think the size difference is going to be a big deal.

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But Im saying the Dire Wolf will continue being priority target #1 simply because its the most dangerous enemy mech that cant run away. The Kodiak is just as dangerous but it can get out of a bad situation if it needs to.

If it's running away, it isn't fighting. It's living to fight another day, but that means it is less dangerous in the moment.

I get what you're saying, but doesn't that actually make the Kodiak a higher priority? The Dire Wolf is still going to be standing there in 10 seconds. You have to kill the Kodiak RFN or it'll get away to wreck you from the flank.

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Making it effectively a 108-109T mech.

Kodiak can sink all that extra tonnage into engine, go much faster, and still have firepower that easily rivals the Dire Wolf.

An extra 8 tons from Endo and Ferro gives the Kodiak a "free" 350XL and the 2 heat sinks to put in it. I agree completely - that's a big deal. The question is whether or not ~8 kph makes up for towering over the battlefield. I doubt it, so I'm not worried about it just yet. Executioners aren't that scary at 95 tons, right?

Anything larger than a 350 and you're impacting its firepower relative to the Dire Wolf, and at a prodigious rate because you're at the high end of the engine weight curve. But since speed is part of the appeal of the Kodiak, I think you're going to find that most of them play like tall Warhawks with better heat balance (because Warhawks are forced to carry too many DHS for a lot of builds).

My guess is that the sweet spot is going to be 375XL. ~65 kph with Speed Tweak, ~81-82 kph MASC sprint with ~41 ton payload.

[Lord0fHats]

Like the Artic Cheetah? Or the Ebon Jag? Or the Timber Wolf?

Most mechs that look good on paper, usually come out good in game. The issue generally has been that people (myself included) make certain assumptions about some mechs that upon closer inspection we should have known not to make.

I've been saying this a lot and I'll say it here too; The Kodiak will be good. It has speed, and it has firepower, and it has the armor of a 100 ton mech. Those traits in and off themselves assure that it will be a very strong mech. The question really is how good, and that's largely going to depend on its hit box layout and whether it gets saddled with a stupidly narrow twist range like the Battlemaster and Executioner (note however, that both those mechs are decent and one of them is has been quite good for some time in spite of the limited twist range).

While Russ mentioned scaling down the Dire, which it sorely needs (and maybe if its lucky some hitbox adjustments?), which will help it, but the Dire has always been too slow to truly shine. So yeah. The Kodiak is gonna replace it as the premier Clan 100 tonner, because it would take serious effort to make that not happen. And I mean serious effort. The Dire is slow as hell, has a horribly limited twist range, and horrible hit boxes. The Kodiak at the very least won't have one of those issues.

[Dingo Battler]

Roadkill, on 04 February 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

If it's running away, it isn't fighting. It's living to fight another day, but that means it is less dangerous in the moment.

I get what you're saying, but doesn't that actually make the Kodiak a higher priority? The Dire Wolf is still going to be standing there in 10 seconds. You have to kill the Kodiak RFN or it'll get away to wreck you from the flank.

If you last longer in MWO, you can do overall more damage. A DWF unable to escape is more dangerous at that moment, but an escaped KDK is far more dangerous throughout the match.

[Cy Mitchell]

Khobai, on 04 February 2016 - 03:02 PM, said:

I understand that. But were comparing it to the Kodiak.

If both are equally undamaged, and both have equally devastating builds, and you can target a Direwolf that cant run away. Or a Kodiak thats running away that you have to overextend yourself to chase. Which are you gonna target?

The Direwolf makes itself a target by not being able to get away.

Its the old adage you dont have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other guy. Or in this case the bear just has to outrun the wolf?

Since I highly doubt the Dire Wolf is going to get buffs... The Kodiak is going to have to have some massive downside to balance things out.

I know I am relatively new here but it puzzles me why it seems like some folks think that all 'Mechs must be balanced with one another. Not matter what is done they never will be. Nor should they be.

If all mechs must be equal then why bother to make multiple models. Just make one 'Mech and make everyone use it. Poof! Instant balance. Also, instant boring.

BattleTech 'Mechs are not all equal. MWOnline mechs should not be either.

My $.015

[pwnface]

Roadkill, on 04 February 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

If it's running away, it isn't fighting. It's living to fight another day, but that means it is less dangerous in the moment.

I get what you're saying, but doesn't that actually make the Kodiak a higher priority? The Dire Wolf is still going to be standing there in 10 seconds. You have to kill the Kodiak RFN or it'll get away to wreck you from the flank.

Nope.

If it's running away, it isn't currently killing your team. The DWF is currently killing your team.
You should prioritize targets to take the most DPS off the field as quickly as possible.

I would question why the Kodiak is running away while the Dire Wolf is fighting. If you have multiple 100ton assault mechs on your team, they should probably be next to each other and shooting the same enemy. Either both fight or both run (or better yet not be exposed to enemy fire in the first place).

Edited by pwnface, 04 February 2016 - 05:10 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Khobai, on 04 February 2016 - 03:55 PM, said:

It remains to be seen if MASC will be worth it or not. We dont know how exactly PGI plans to change it (just that it will give a bigger speed boost but last a shorter duration).

They fixed that typo, straight up buff.

Same duration, half cooldown

[Johnny Z]

If it wasn't balanced then there couldn't be an epic duel between the Spirit Bear and the Boars Head.

Its scenarios like this that make balance a must and makes the game awsome, not a lame freakin joke.

Edited by Johnny Z, 04 February 2016 - 05:43 PM.

[Moldur]

Having an engine is OP.

[Grimm Peaper]

Rampage, on 04 February 2016 - 05:08 PM, said:

I know I am relatively new here but it puzzles me why it seems like some folks think that all 'Mechs must be balanced with one another. Not matter what is done they never will be. Nor should they be.

If all mechs must be equal then why bother to make multiple models. Just make one 'Mech and make everyone use it. Poof! Instant balance. Also, instant boring.

BattleTech 'Mechs are not all equal. MWOnline mechs should not be either.

My $.015

Because it's a stated game design goal of the Developers. If certain mechs are outright better, people will only buy the best mechs. They want you to buy all the mechs, which means more money for them. Therefore, all mechs must be equally desirable so that customers will buy more mechs. More mechs, more money, more problems...

[Lord0fHats]

Desirability can be derived from more than just 1 v 1 balance. Expecting the devs to balance every mech 1v1 is a pipe dream and I'm sure the devs know this and don't bother trying to balance things along that line.

There are a fair number of mechs that are 'meh' or even bad that have their devotees, because while they aren't balanced they can be fun. The Gargoyle can be a very fun mech. It's not a stellar mech, but it is fun in its own way. Same for the Ice Ferret, Panther, Dragon, or Summoner. Some of the best mechs in the game are also very boring to play (looking at you Storm Crow!).

I'm sure PGI realized long ago that selling mechs isn't just a matter of balance.

Edited by Lord0fHats, 04 February 2016 - 06:08 PM.

[STEF_]

Do u remember the unquirked Atlas, before it were uberquirked?

Kodiak is going to have the same armor/structure of it, without any quirks, and bad hitboxes because it is very large and big.
And the same mobility, of course.

[Dingo Battler]

No one mentioned it yet, but the Kodiak will be NASCARing it with the rest of the team on caustic, while DWF will get caught by the enemy's team, and eaten for lunch.

The KDK will remove the last excuse not to NASCAR

[Grimm Peaper]

Lord0fHats, on 04 February 2016 - 06:07 PM, said:

Desirability can be derived from more than just 1 v 1 balance. Expecting the devs to balance every mech 1v1 is a pipe dream and I'm sure the devs know this and don't bother trying to balance things along that line.

There are a fair number of mechs that are 'meh' or even bad that have their devotees, because while they aren't balanced they can be fun. The Gargoyle can be a very fun mech. It's not a stellar mech, but it is fun in its own way. Same for the Ice Ferret, Panther, Dragon, or Summoner. Some of the best mechs in the game are also very boring to play (looking at you Storm Crow!).

I'm sure PGI realized long ago that selling mechs isn't just a matter of balance.

We don't expect the devs to balance every mech, THEY have it as their stated design goal. Go look at some old posts:

"[color=#00FFFF]We are aiming to make sure that all types of gameplay are available while keeping all current BattleMechs viable on the battlefield.[/color]"

http://mwomercs.com/...gn-perspective/

Listen to Russ state how he wanted light mechs to be just as viable as assault mechs, and not have everyone just race to heavier mechs:



The DEVS themselves want all mechs equal. They stated it from day 1 as one of their design goals.

[Lord0fHats]

'Balance' is a lose term. So is 'equal.' Note the use of the word 'viable' which is not the same as balanced or equal no matter how general or specific you choose to get. Further, the first rule of PR is never tell people things they don't want to hear, no matter how true those things are

Edited by Lord0fHats, 04 February 2016 - 06:59 PM.

[Cancer Warrior]

Khobai, on 04 February 2016 - 03:09 PM, said:

Again were comparing the Dire Wolf to the Kodiak. The argument was that the Kodiak would be a bigger target than the Dire Wolf because it has a bigger profile.

But Im saying the Dire Wolf will continue being priority target #1 simply because its the most dangerous enemy mech that cant run away. The Kodiak is just as dangerous but it can get out of a bad situation if it needs to.

So whats that mobility going to cost the Kodiak? thats the question... Or is the Kodiak just going to be outright better than the Dire Wolf while PGI lets power creep run rampant?



You forgot endosteel. Direwolf cant have it. Kodiak can. Kodiak is effectively a 105T mech.

Kodiak can have ferrofibrous too although assault mechs generally need the crit slots so it might be tough to fit ferrofibrous all the time. But its certainly doable on some builds. Which is another 3-4 tons. Making it effectively a 108-109T mech.

Kodiak can sink all that extra tonnage into engine, go much faster, and still have firepower that easily rivals the DIre Wolf.

The Bear can't go to a bigger engine, it's already at the biggest CXL 400/

[Khobai]

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The Bear can't go to a bigger engine, it's already at the biggest CXL 400/

what? the bear can have a much bigger engine then the direwolf.

and again the 400xl is stupid in a kodiak. its not worth the tonnage hike. 350-375 are much more efficient engines.

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No one mentioned it yet, but the Kodiak will be NASCARing it with the rest of the team on caustic, while DWF will get caught by the enemy's team, and eaten for lunch.

The KDK will remove the last excuse not to NASCAR

Exactly. All mechs cant be equal when devs wont do anything about deathballing/nascaring which clearly favors fast mechs over slow ones.

Edited by Khobai, 04 February 2016 - 07:47 PM.

[Agent1190]

There will be no pre-release nerfs on the Kodiak. There just won't be any quirks, either, like the Origins. So it will feel pre-nerfed.

[Cancer Warrior]

Agent1190, on 04 February 2016 - 08:00 PM, said:

There will be no pre-release nerfs on the Kodiak. There just won't be any quirks, either, like the Origins. So it will feel pre-nerfed.

The Dire was pre nerfed too.

[Sable]

Just like the atlas is crippled right? such big hitboxes. How many times do people have to have wrong speculation before they learn to wait for the f'in mech to come out?

[Tyman4]

Give it 8 hard locked JJ's and hard locked targeting computers? That would force the load out down to heavy mech levels for effectively no benefit.

Just look at the poor Executioner's hard locks...4 jjs =8 tons for freaking hover jets....It's like watching the space shuttle take off and then land...
Add 6 tons of MASC and the Executioner is effectively a Gargoyle with a little better geometry, JJ's, and small increase in armor....for 15 tons in weight...
Add the Garg's quirks in and it's basically a push...

Tyman4