366 replies to this topic

[Monkey Lover]

pbiggz, on 15 February 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

He knows its grossly misleading, he just doesn't care. He's pushing a constructed narrative because he's bitter about that TT game he lost 26 years ago when clans got released still, and no power in the world will prevent him from spreading that bitterness to all living things for all time until the moon crashes into the sea and the sun burns out.

Everyone sees through the act Monkey Lover. Nobody respects your opinion when your opinion is informed by blind hatred without reason.

Only clans players can somehow find a way to ignore basic math.

[Wintersdark]

pbiggz, on 15 February 2016 - 07:51 PM, said:

He knows its grossly misleading, he just doesn't care. He's pushing a constructed narrative because he's bitter about that TT game he lost 26 years ago when clans got released still, and no power in the world will prevent him from spreading that bitterness to all living things for all time until the moon crashes into the sea and the sun burns out.

Everyone sees through the act Monkey Lover. Nobody respects your opinion when your opinion is informed by blind hatred without reason.

It's just intensely irritating.

I mean, I get it. I do. I think the IS range nerf kinda sucks, and they should have just focused it more on ERLL's in particular or whatever else. I'm on board there.

But the cries like the sky is falling here, that IS has been horrifically nerfed and Clan's are rolling in buffs that are going to bring back the days of Clan Release style IS vs. Clan balance, it's just stupid. And these people, they know that. That's really what gets at me. I mean, of the clan mechs getting actually buffed, the Mad Dog is alone with actually getting significant buffs (and will still not be a front line Clan Heavy)... The TBR and SCR losing their nerfs is a thing, but not a hugely major thing. In each case, people can already make high laser count builds without substantial nerfs by choosing the correct omnipods. It's a buff, yes, but it's not a spleen ripping buff.

So, yeah, this is a net push clanwards in IS vs. Clan balance, but I garauntee that when the chips are down, you're not going to see a sudden shift in power in the Inner Sphere as a result.

[Dawnstealer]

Prosperity Park, on 12 February 2016 - 03:51 PM, said:

I want the hatchetman times infinity.


THERE! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

YOU'LL NEVER GIT IT NOW.

You're a bad person.

[Wildstreak]

Sereglach, on 14 February 2016 - 09:40 PM, said:

The sad thing is that there were several really good suggestions/conversations about turning pulse lasers into a completely different kind of short-range-pinpoint-brawler weapon system by cutting the cooldown and damage in half (give or take), but also having the burn time only be no more than a half second for even the LPL. It would have been a great way to differentiate the weapon systems in form, function, and purpose.

Instead we've got the laser types that are so close in functionality that there's only modest difference, at best, in the grand scheme of things. We've gotten pulse lasers range increased multiple times, damage increased multiple times and heat brought closer to the standard counterparts. At this point they're just higher damage standard lasers with slightly shorter burn time, at the cost of some weight.

At least they are not OP MW2 Pulse Lasers.
Then there are the other weapons.

[smokefield]

Quote

I see this request so often I've finally gone ahead and filed it. No guarantees if we'll ever get it though.

something to do in those cw ghost games !!!

[ExoForce]

Divide and conquer. Smelling clan sales soon.

Wiktionary: (computing) An algorithm design technique applied to various algorithms, such as quicksort, that solve a problem by splitting it recursively into smaller problems until all of the remaining problems are trivial.

Edited by ExoForce, 15 February 2016 - 10:47 PM.

[Koshirou]

Dee Eight, on 15 February 2016 - 04:19 PM, said:

Exactly... on mechs with a 15% energy boost... 5% loss is 40 meters for a ER PPC... on those wtih 25%... its 120 meters plus shortened. Bad enough they already made clan ERPPCs useless by having them deal the same damage as the IS version for 15 heat.

Not only do Clan ER PPCs deal more damage (splash or not), they also do not produce any more heat than the IS version.

The Clan ER PPC is just plain better than the IS ER PPC because it delivers the exact same performance, plus situationally useful bonus damage, in a smaller and lighter package - and there is no possible BS about burn times etc. to wiggle out of this.

Edited by Koshirou, 16 February 2016 - 12:17 AM.

[Koshirou]

Wintersdark, on 15 February 2016 - 08:06 PM, said:

It's just intensely irritating.

I'll tell you what's irritating. Seeing this inept stumbling about by PGI again and again and again.

As to your argument: The Clan buffs I do not care about. Much. And I don't think most other IS players do. They are certainly not on the game-breaking side, but they do add an extra insult to injury when introduced side-by-side with a blanket reduction of one of the IS Mechs' major advantages.

Also a little question: So you think that the IS ER LL advantage was actually a fairly minor one and did not really affect overall balance at all?
Because, you know, there is no rational way of claiming it was a major IS advantage when it existed, but that taking it away will somehow not be a major IS disadvantage.

As long as we are using sarcasm and hyperbole, if the next patch was "IS Mechs will no longer have the ability to fire weapons", I imagine the following responses:

Russ on Twitter: "People, this is not final. Ability to fire SOME weapons may come back in future patch!"

Clan player 1 (posting from IS alt): "Guys, it's not the end of the world. Wait how this actually plays out before you judge it!"
Clan player 2: "And what about the remaining structure buffs! IS OP!"

Edited by Koshirou, 16 February 2016 - 12:31 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Koshirou, on 16 February 2016 - 12:27 AM, said:

I'll tell you what's irritating. Seeing this inept stumbling about by PGI again and again and again.

No argument here.

Quote

Also a little question: So you think that the IS ER LL advantage was actually a fairly minor one and did not really affect overall balance at all?
Because, you know, there is no rational way of claiming it was a major IS advantage when it existed, but that taking it away will somehow not be a major IS disadvantage.

Did I claim it was a major IS advantage anywhere? I don't recall saying that.

I have said frequently:

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I mean, I get it. I do. I think the IS range nerf kinda sucks, and they should have just focused it more on ERLL's in particular or whatever else. I'm on board there.

And other similar things. I though it was the wrong way to go.

I did, however, think the extreme range is erlls were... Wrong. Make them cooler, do more damage, shorter burn time, sure. But the crux of the is vs Clan tech difference centers around clans having longer range at the cost of higher heat. Note that this isn't a balance concern, but rather a tech flavour concern - and its from someone who plays IS mechs as much as or even more than Clan mechs.

Edited by Wintersdark, 16 February 2016 - 12:36 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Koshirou, on 16 February 2016 - 12:16 AM, said:

Not only do Clan ER PPCs deal more damage (splash or not), they also do not produce any more heat than the IS version.

The Clan ER PPC is just plain better than the IS ER PPC because it delivers the exact same performance, plus situationally useful bonus damage, in a smaller and lighter package - and there is no possible BS about burn times etc. to wiggle out of this.

Wasn't it you that said that 68 mechs where screwed by the range nerf alone? That means that 68 mechs still have longer range ERPPC's than Clan ERPPC's. Many also have heat, cooldown, or velocity quirks too. All those mechs have better ERPPC's than Clan mechs.

But the argument is stupid, because even if Clan ERPPC's where objectively better, unless substantially quirked, ALL ERPPC's, regardless of tech base, are bad weapons.

Oh! Your LBX AC10 is better than mine! Oh noes!

[Jeffrey Wilder]

You know what?

There's a way to overcome all these problems forever.

Everybody just brawl within 270M and nothing else will ever matter.

[Koshirou]

Wintersdark, on 16 February 2016 - 12:40 AM, said:

Wasn't it you that said that 68 mechs where screwed by the range nerf alone? That means that 68 mechs still have longer range ERPPC's than Clan ERPPC's. Many also have heat, cooldown, or velocity quirks too. All those mechs have better ERPPC's than Clan mechs.

No, since that is not nearly enough to offset its advantages - but that's kind of typical for the arguments one hears from the Clan side.
Clan equipment is superior in almost all possible statistical ways, but as long as there is even the slightest numerical superiority of the IS equivalent in so much as one area - whether it be a higher burn time (with still lower DPBT than the Clan version) or even the theoretical possibility of being affected by now-minor quirks - it automatically means that the IS weapon is "better".

What? Our SRMs that weigh half as much do 7% less damage? IS OP! What? Our lighter ER PPC with extra splash damage cannot be affected by quirks and we cannot be arsed to use the weight saved to bring a newly buffed TC to compensate? IS OP! What? The heavier IS MASC, which is mounted on a completely useless Mech, has one minor advantage over our MASC? IS OP!
(None of this made up.)

I feel I was only being slightly hyperbolic with the little scenario above. I am quite sure that many Clan players would only be satisfied "balance" has been achieved once all IS weapons have all their characteristics reduced to below their Clan equivalents' and all weapon quirks on all IS Mechs are removed.

.... no, actually I take that back. In that case Clan players would still nag about IS structure buffs, and if those were removed, about hardpoint placement or geometry, or the scandalous ability to freely mount bulkier ES and deathtrap XL engines etc. etc.

There is an underyling assumption, based on the misapplied (and pretty stupid to begin with) 3050 era TT values and fed by PGI - especially on the part of those that most vigorously deny that assumption - that Clantech superiority is the default setting and that "exceptions" for the IS have to be painstakingly justified.

One need go no further than to the February road map to find this principle in action: "This should ensure that no IS ‘Mechs with ERLL will out-range a Clan counterpart..." they write, as if it is universally understood that this is the way it's supposed to be and that the reverse situation (Clans outranging IS Mechs) is normal for some reason.

Some people - like yours truly - have said that PGI's ideas of balancing won't work since before the Clan Mechs were introduced.
But others have said "Great job PGI! Balance is good right now!" since before the word "quirk" entered the vocabulary of MWO. Can those others, under rational consideration, have been right? I'll let you decide...


...but the answer is "no".

Edited by Koshirou, 16 February 2016 - 02:05 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Koshirou, on 16 February 2016 - 01:58 AM, said:

No, since that is not nearly enough to offset its advantages - but that's kind of typical for the arguments one hears from the Clan side.
Clan equipment is superior in almost all possible statistical ways, but as long as there is even the slightest numerical superiority of the IS equivalent in so much as one area - whether it be a higher burn time (with still lower DPBT than the Clan version) or even the theoretical possibility of being affected by now-minor quirks - it automatically means that the IS weapon is "better".

What? Our SRMs that weigh half as much do 7% less damage? IS OP! What? Our lighter ER PPC with extra splash damage cannot be affected by quirks and we cannot be arsed to use the weight saved to bring a newly buffed TC to compensate? IS OP! What? The heavier IS MASC, which is mounted on a completely useless Mech, has one minor advantage over our MASC? IS OP!
(None of this made up.)

Lots of people say lots of stupid things, on both "sides" (that there are even sides here is stupid, given how very many of us do both)

But here's the thing.

I have never, in the history of this game, claimed IS was overpowered. Not ever.

"Clan players" are no more a unified group than IS players; you're simply cherrypicking random comments and assigning them to anyone with a Clan tag.

So please, stop painting everyone with the same brush.

Quote

I feel I was only being slightly hyperbolic with the little scenario above. I am quite sure that many Clan players would only be satisfied "balance" has been achieved once all IS weapons have all their characteristics reduced to below their Clan equivalents' and all weapon quirks on all IS Mechs are removed.

.... no, actually I take that back. In that case Clan players would still nag about IS structure buffs, and if those were removed, about hardpoint placement or geometry, or the scandalous ability TO freely mount bulkier ES and deathtrap XL engines etc. etc.

There is an underyling assumption, based on the misapplied (and pretty stupid to begin with) 3050 era TT values and fed by PGI - especially on the part of those that most vigorously deny that assumption - that Clantech superiority is the default setting and that "exceptions" for the IS have to be painstakingly justified.

One need go no further than to the February road map to find this principle in action: "This should ensure that no IS ‘Mechs with ERLL will out-range a Clan counterpart..." they write, as if it is universally understood that this is the way it's supposed to be and that the reverse situation (Clans outranging IS Mechs) is normal for some reason.

So please, when addressing me, please address what I say. I can't be held responsible for the statements of others.

Also, if you'd get off your ranty horse and read what I read, I said my objection to the range issue was purely about range and flavor. I specifically said it'd be fine to have the IS weapons be cooler, shorter burn, or whatever else. I don't feel Clan tech should be better.

The goal from the start was different but equal. The Clan tech advantage from day one was supposedly range, at the cost of other factors. I'm fine with that. But IS [b]all you want because I've got a ton of is mechs I play regularly too. It's all good for me.

Just make them better in other ways, so the tech bases remain distinct.

Ideally, give clans range, is heat efficiency. Heat efficiency is BETTER, because most maps and situations present opportunity to close to 400-600m under full cover anyways, while heat efficiency translates to better overall damage output (heat cap and dissipation are what limit damage output more than anything else).

Much like why NOBODY used the old +range +heat modules.

[Dee Eight]

Actually as of at least the Jan whatever patch... if you actually look in the mechlab weapon stats for clan ER-PPC, it says TEN damage with zero mention/note of splash damage.

As to Clan BUFFing and MGs... I do not appreciate losing MG range bonuses and armor bonuses on my kitfox omnipods.

Edited by Dee Eight, 16 February 2016 - 02:37 AM.

[Koshirou]

Wintersdark, on 16 February 2016 - 02:11 AM, said:

I have never, in the history of this game, claimed IS was overpowered. Not ever.

1.) l mention the numerical equality or superiority the Clan ER PPC enjoys over the IS ER PPC in every aspect.
2.) You say "but quirks" and then...
3.) ... you don't continue with "could redress the balance somewhat" or "migitate the Clan advantage", both of which would he very much debatable, but with the immediate, blanket assertion...

Quote

All those mechs have better ERPPC's than Clan mechs.

... which is the exact behaviour I mean. As long as there is any possible aspect, even just one, even just in theory, where an IS advantage might exist, the immediate reaction is "IS is better". And if that is the standard of discussion, then apparently there can be no talk of imbalance unless and until Clan equipment outperforms IS equipment in every single way. Which is patently ridiculous.

P.S.: And no, not all those Mechs have potentially higher range ER PPCs than Clan Mechs. Not even theoretically. Unlike a Clan ER PPC, for example, you cannot mount an IS ER PPC in the CT. In any case: The Clan ER PPC, as a weapon, is superior to the IS equivalent. Period. It can be mounted on a Mech with advantageous quirks, yes. It can also be mounted on Mechs without those quirks.

Edited by Koshirou, 16 February 2016 - 02:46 AM.

[Koshirou]

Dee Eight, on 16 February 2016 - 02:29 AM, said:

Actually as of at least the Jan whatever patch... if you actually look in the mechlab weapon stats for clan ER-PPC, it says TEN damage with zero mention/note of splash damage.

Yeah, the Mechlab does not display the splash damage - and to the best of my knowledge, which I'll happily admit is not complete, it has never done so. Is your experience that it does not cause splash damage?

Edited by Koshirou, 16 February 2016 - 02:51 AM.

[Koshirou]

One final aspect about this entire balancing fiasco. Not all players are 24/7 addicts or big spenders - very much unlike the people who "advise" PGI on this. So it's highly annoying that every time the meta chain is yanked around, you are apparently supposed to throw your existing Mechs into the garbage and level up new chassis. Again, an issue much more keenly felt on the IS side than on the Clan side (where four or five existing chassis will always remain competitive, and the others are not likely to ever replace them.) I for one, am quite glad that I didn't sink any time or money into the QKD for the short period it rose up from the scrapheap of mediocrity where it will now return.

[Bolter01]

November Foxtrot India what you guys are talking about, I'm just gunna load some lights with flammers and shut down as many RifleBoys as I can Day One o7

[Wintersdark]

Koshirou, on 16 February 2016 - 02:43 AM, said:

1.) l mention the numerical equality or superiority the Clan ER PPC enjoys over the IS ER PPC in every aspect.
2.) You say "but quirks" and then...
3.) ... you don't continue with "could redress the balance somewhat" or "migitate the Clan advantage", both of which would he very much debatable, but with the immediate, blanket assertion...

My blanket assertation that all ERPPC's, unless heavily quirked, are bad is absolutely correct.

But the Clan ERPPC is, in practice, NOT better than the IS ERPPC. It's not. How many mechs that CAN mount an ERPPC IS side don't have at least a 10% quirk somewhere? Yes, its lighter and smaller, 1t/1s. Once all those bits are added together, this allows Clan mechs to mount a bit more ammo, an extra DHS, another weapon, or just have a larger fixed engine.

To compensate, basically all is mechs have significant structural and/or agility quirks.

Quote

... which is the exact behaviour I mean. As long as there is any possible aspect, even just one, even just in theory, where an IS advantage might exist, the immediate reaction is "IS is better". And if that is the standard of discussion, then apparently there can be no talk of imbalance unless and until Clan equipment outperforms IS equipment in every single way. Which is patently ridiculous.

P.S.: And no, not all those Mechs have potentially higher range ER PPCs than Clan Mechs. Not even theoretically. Unlike a Clan ER PPC, for example, you cannot mount an IS ER PPC in the CT. In any case: The Clan ER PPC, as a weapon, is superior to the IS equivalent. Period. It can be mounted on a Mech with advantageous quirks, yes. It can also be mounted on Mechs without those quirks.

I said the IS ERPPC was better, not "IS is better". They're different things.

Yes. A Clan ERPPC is better when compared to a totally unquirked IS ERPPC. But that's freakishly unusual.

Look, there's a difference between comparing the balance between two weapons in particular and two factions. If IS Machine Guns did double Clan Machine gun damage, for exams, that would do nothing to IS vs. Clan damage because machine guns are irrelevant (and even doing 1.6dps would still be irrelevant).

I'm fine with IS ERPPC's being better than Clan ERPPC's in some fashions. Actually, I don't care if they where better in every way.

But you keep saying Clan ERPPC's are better than or equal to IS ERPPC's in every aspect, and that's false. On paper, outside of a mech? Sure. But we done fight with ERPPC's outside of mechs (or inside them, because they're garbage).

Once inside IS mechs intended to use them (either via generic or specific quirks) IS ERPPC's are suddenly equal overall or better. And that is ok. That's the goal, more or less. Except it isn't purely weapon to weapon, and its OK if one faction has a better version of one weapon or another, because other factors compensate. This is assymetric balance, and is pretty much mandatory if you're not going to have two functionally identical factions.

[Koshirou]

Wintersdark, on 16 February 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

I said the IS ERPPC was better, not "IS is better".

Exactly. Even though the IS ER PPC is clearly and unequivocally worse on paper (which an earlier poster didn't know apparently), you immediately asserted that because of the quirks, it is actually better.
The thought that the quirks might merely compensate for the Clan ER PPC's size, mass and splash damage advantages or that the Clan ER PPC may actually still be better in spite of them does not even occur to you, it appears. And that is exactly what I've been talking about. As long as any IS piece of equipment has even one potential advantage over its Clan equivalent, it will be automatically considered superior by players who argue like you do. And since this is obviously preposterous, there's little point in a discussion on this.