138 replies to this topic

[Wolfways]

CwStrife, on 04 February 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

Just because your clan mechs can hold 12 lasers doesn't mean you should be putting 12 ML on ur Nova.

Nova Prime has 12 ERML stock so yes you should be able to have 12 ERML on your Nova.

[Cy Mitchell]

Wolfways, on 27 February 2016 - 03:51 AM, said:

Nova Prime has 12 ERML stock so yes you should be able to have 12 ERML on your Nova.

Agreed. You just should not be able to fire all 12 at once without very serious repercussions to yourself.

[Roland09]

Go ahead, bring your Nova with 12x ERML and alpha them all at once. Think of all the damage you will do with that shot! Nobody here says you can't do it.

[VorpalAnvil]

MechregSurn, on 15 February 2016 - 11:19 AM, said:

No, what he is saying is that given equal player numbers, clans are OP and march through the map just like smoke jag is right now.

The only reason clans were almost wiped out was because of a concerted effort by large groups to make their clan mech uber OP. So they all went IS, leaving clan planets undefended, as a trolling effort vs PGI to get what they want...to hell with the game or the rest of the player base.

Basically, they used threats of players leaving, but in the end threatened the steam release by crushing new players and dissuading them from continuing in the game or buying mechs.

It was extortion.

Your tin foil hat is on a little tight...

[Azzgaroth]

Rampage, on 27 February 2016 - 05:04 AM, said:

Agreed. You just should not be able to fire all 12 at once without very serious repercussions to yourself.

ROFL... You do it... You die... You replace med las by small... You also die...

[xe N on]

In fact the basic problem is not IS vs Clan balance. The basic problem is since the beginning of the game mechs vs. mech balance.

Take the Cutefox or an Spider-5V and take it against

a: a Firestarter
b: an Arctic cheetah

You can do this comparison for every weight class and will find out that there will be always bad IS mechs and bad clan mechs.

That some of the clan mechs as the Timberwolf or Stormcrow are one of the best mechs in game is much more an random event. It is not only clan equipment that makes a mech strong (see IIC-mechs). Much more important is the amount of hardpoints, type of hardpoints, location of hardpoints, size, hitboxes and even cockpit visibility.

Mechs need to be balanced first by improving hardpoints and hitboxes. Using quirks is just the lazy method. Give the e.g. Spider-5V more energy hardpoints and suddenly it might even become viable. Reduce the size of Badder and Cutefox and overhaul their hitbox and hardpoint distribution and suddenly they can compete.

In addition, the balancing with quirks on mechs to balance out IS vs Clan equipment is fundamentally flawed.

For example. The ER-PPC, the IS-XL and the IS-Gauss are outright inferior to the C-ER-PPC, C-XL and C-Gauss. Instead of giving some selected mechs some quirks, the equipment itself should get buffed. IS-XL could be buffed by providing additional structure or armor to left and right torso with the absolute value basing on the engine rating.The ER-PPC could be buffed by slightly reducing the heat to e.g. 12 or 13 and/or provide a improved duration to ECM disruption. The IS-Gauss could be buffed to have a lesser chance to blow up if critically hit. And so on.

Edited by xe N on, 28 February 2016 - 12:26 AM.

[Roland09]

Azzgaroth, on 27 February 2016 - 07:26 AM, said:

ROFL... You do it... You die... You replace med las by small... You also die...

Well, why do you think that thing is called 'Nova'? Take a guess...

[Cy Mitchell]

It was actually rather comical watching the chat window comments during the Town Hll meeting. "Clans so OP!", "IS OP", "nerf Clan weapons", buff Clan Weapons", "nerf IS weapons", "IS weapons weak, buff them" , "Clan not fair", "IS not fair", "nerf", "buff", "fix this", "change that", "we need this", "we do not need that", ect ,etc. It is no wonder Russ said he cannot watch the comments during the podcast.

[_demir]

I think a mech is only as good as the pilot, that's the biggest issue. People get rolled by a team of good pilots and think 'Geez, those guys are OP' and then they might complain.

I played on the Clan side when IS was supposedly OP (recently) and we won most of our matches. Yesterday, I was back with the IS (nerfed) side and rolled about 15 matches of CW, only loosing 2.

It was in part an effort to test 'game balance' but at the same time, I like beating people while being the underdog.

Edited by Dimwit Felhard, 28 February 2016 - 05:43 PM.

[Conjure]

Spadejack, on 04 February 2016 - 04:01 PM, said:

How long have you been on the game? Honestly?

If you are a player that plays at least a fair amount of time, you know that streaks are only good against lights or light mediums, against everything else not so good...

Clans use LRMS now because there isnt any other weapon system that works well! If you had played at least a year, you would see that the meta on the clans were the laser vomit build!

Ok, i understand your frustration on how IS will be nerfed, at least the super-quirked mechs... but you will overcome, like always, by crying back to PGI that the big bad clans are so OP!!!!

You mean to tell me, prior to patch, Clan LRM was the only effective weapon? Then you give the OP **** for "how long he has played this game" It is well established among competitive play that LRM is crap. Clan weapons and builds do just fine when used properly. Any Good player/unit is proof of that.

You may have been around a minute but it's obvious to me you completey grasp the game mechanics. *sob The IS ERLL had a range advantage on a small number of mechs, Big freaking deal. It's a worthless weapon against clans with out the quirk buffs. If it can't compete at long rang it has zero place in game play. Why carry a hot weapon when it will only work at the clan defined mid to short range.

[Luminis]

xe N on, on 28 February 2016 - 12:21 AM, said:

In fact the basic problem is not IS vs Clan balance. The basic problem is since the beginning of the game mechs vs. mech balance.

This guys gets it.

There's a huge difference between "Timberwolf OP" and "Clans OP".

[Lily from animove]

CwStrife, on 04 February 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

Just because your clan mechs can hold 12 lasers doesn't mean you should be putting 12 ML on ur Nova. Just like IS running 6 LL on a stalker is suicide with regards to heat.

guess why SCR > NVA. actually SCR does everything better except boating lasers at a rate of around 12 in numbers. And thats why balance is broken, when one mech is superior to another.

and thats just one example of endless many more. And this isn't restricted to clan vs is, its also is vs is, or clan vs clan. balance is horrible too many mechs are obsoleted by others doing the same job just better.

But your second post wow just wow you have NO idea about MWO, Most is mechs can outdps the clanners, you just need to equip and use them right, which is what 90% of the IS pilots fail in. Most clanwepaons spread more or are less heat efficient, meaning IS can dps better. But this requires specific playstyles to use this. And sitting ducks and peek a boo do not belong to these playstyles.

CwStrife, on 04 February 2016 - 12:54 PM, said:

Just because your clan mechs can hold 12 lasers doesn't mean you should be putting 12 ML on ur Nova. Just like IS running 6 LL on a stalker is suicide with regards to heat.

guess why SCR > NVA. actually SCR does everything better except boating lasers at a rate of around 12 in numbers. And thats why balance is broken, when one mech is superior to another.

and thats just one example of endless many more. And this isn't restricted to clan vs is, its also is vs is, or clan vs clan. balance is horrible too many mechs are obsoleted by others doing the same job just better.

But your second post wow just wow you have NO idea about MWO, Most is mechs can outdps the clanners, you just need to equip and use them right, which is what 90% of the IS pilots fail in. Most clanwepaons spread more or are less heat efficient, meaning IS can dps better. But this requires specific playstyles to use this. A

DivineEvil, on 05 February 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

I'm a comp player myself, but I strictly oppose the idea of "alpha based builds" to begin with.

The source of that outlook is broken heat management, which allows these repetetive-high-alpha behaviors to exist. Until heat management is fixed, there will not be a weapon balance, and because of that there will not be mech balance either. Its all hinges on PGI's weird passion towards oversized heat capacity.

Before launching first PTS sessions, Paul even specified that they're going to evaluate mechs by those four pillars - Defense, Firepower, Mobility and Infotech - which is why I preformed that research across weight-classes of IS mechs in the first place, to provide suggestions for distributing quirks accordingly. He also assured, that they will be evaluating each mech and it's variants separately based on all the inbred properties and flaws they possess.

My suggestions, unfortunately were left unnoticed, the info-tech pillar was thrown out of the window for no reason, quirks remained just as random as they were before, and considering our current quirk distribution, the indepth analysis was also completely abandoned.

At this point I cannot do anything more but to keep bringing-up the same points over and over, and argue against balance whines for my amusement. Everything else seems meaningless.

nd sitting ducks and peek a boo do not belong to these playstyles.

The question is how does "infotech" add a real value to the game. Small maps and deathmatch like playstyles require firepower and they require movement to avoid damage. No attemp of infotech PGI tried did work, because they all were irrelevant.

And so left is just "Defense, Firepower, Mobility" and then you have an issue when you compare emchs like NVA vs SCR, SMN vs TRB, FS9 vs any other light IS mech of 35t. Because these 3 pillars will nearly never balance this out unless PGI decides to do more drastic changes liek limiting a FS9 to like 120kph. Mobility = defense. But mobility is also above defense, beacsue it also means offense by allwoing to hit and run and such. Further, with the current "alphapower" upping one lights emch by 20%HP may mean no defense imporvement vs some builds because when you previously had like 20damage overkill and reduce this to 5 damage overkill, you still die at the same time. PGI needs to either heavily limit firepower by a true lower heatscale, or to finally put some proper movement penalties on some mechs. Because the TT rules and lores by values were balanced with Battlevalues, and dices. MWO isn't its one mech, one pilot. And so the agme needs mech balance which will also bring faction balance if achieved somewhat properly.

Not sure how infotech would work, maybe some place may be within the new game modes, or target decay should ahve been significantly buffed on "infotech" mechs. That had some kind of impact on the gameplay.

[B0oN]

In before somebody calls for RPG-styled pilot-mechtrees per chassis !

[IraqiWalker]

Luminis, on 29 February 2016 - 03:02 AM, said:

This guys gets it.

There's a huge difference between "Timberwolf OP" and "Clans OP".

AMEN!

[xe N on]

Rad Hanzo, on 29 February 2016 - 06:03 AM, said:

In before somebody calls for RPG-styled pilot-mechtrees per chassis !

Do calling for a MMORPG adaption of this count too?

https://en.wikipedia...playing_game%29

http://www.sarna.net...rrior_%28RPG%29

Edited by xe N on, 03 March 2016 - 10:59 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Rad Hanzo, on 29 February 2016 - 06:03 AM, said:

In before somebody calls for RPG-styled pilot-mechtrees per chassis !

Dude! Back on page 6, at least. You were there!

[Dawnstealer]

John Stryker, on 05 February 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

I always have felt that quirks on a mech should be restricted to the weapons that it has stock. Why, for instance, would a GRF-3M manufacturer put improved srm quirks on it if the mech carries erppc, lrm20 and a small laser?

I've never understood why quirks would be applied to weapons AT ALL. I get it from a game-balance perspective, of course, but it doesn't make logical sense. Why would the same laser suddenly shoot farther just because you plopped it in a different mech?

If I take a headlight out of one car and put it in another, it's not going to suddenly be brighter, for example.

Quirks should be limited to things that are mech specific: make them jump quicker, turn faster, accelerate, brake, structure, etc. Physical things specific to the mech. I could maybe understand the mech running cooler as a general trait (built in heat dissipation or some other magical, hand-wavy stuff), but quicker cool-down? How?

I think, instead, PGI should implement quirks on the WEAPONS. So structure and performance quirks would be tied to the mech, weapon quirks would be tied to the make of the weapon. You could even have nifty balances built in, so a Large Laser that fires quicker would probably run a little hotter. A long-burning Pulse Laser would run cooler, but maybe have a longer range. And so on.

Then people could build their mechs the way they want, combining these quirks. You could build in layers based on cost, with more expensive makes having better quirks with fewer downsides, thus giving us old-time players something to spend our c-bills on.

Obviously, Clans wouldn't have this wide variation in makes and models because uniformity is the whole point of the Clans.

[Luminis]

Why would a laser shoot farther on one Chassis than another?

Dunno, maybe because there's more energy being used to fire it? Weapons produce less heat because they're better insulated? Cool down faster because the heat sinks are specifically designed to benefit that type of weapon on that chassis?

You can come up with a lot of somewhat "plausible" explanations.

Consider that weapon quirks are used to help 'Mechs that are otherwise not capable enough in terms of offense. Without chassis specific weapon quirks, you'd have a pretty hard time getting a 'Mech's offense up to par if it's lacking hardpoints or has sub-par hardpoint locations.

My impression, a least.

[patoman]

To add to clan balance and LRMs, the clans have the puma light that has 2 lrm 20's, or 2 ppcs

and its not particularly slow, not fastest light but not slowest, its also got good armor

So..... they have quite a few good mechs off the bat, can any inner sphere light get close to that?