127 replies to this topic

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Unfortunately, without tearing down the entire game and making a fully new product, the viable and realistic solutions are very limited.

Durability buffs for IS create the problem that Clan Battlemechs with Std. engines are nonviable (a problem of lacking meaningful choices).

Weapon superiority for IS is just flat out unfair (as well as fraught with never ending further balancing issues).

Asymmetry of teams/tonnages will destabilize the entire business model of the game as well as create a foundation of imbalance.

I realize you said, "isXL aside", but can you think of a more effective or realistic solution?

[Wolfways]

Eider, on 21 February 2016 - 04:17 PM, said:

Engines aside? Equalize damage example clan med 7 is med 5.. no thats bad. Secondly adjust heat/range to compensate. Clan has more range so make IS heat make up that percentage in being better. That would go a long way. And before people scream about IS fielding more lasers dont forget clans have omnipods.

What do omnipods have to do with balance?

More IS mechs to choose from = less clan mechs to choose from but you can change omnipods.

[Thunderbird Anthares]

IS needs Light Fusion Engines

[DovisKhan]

There is an answer that few would like


Let both mount whatever equipment they want and remove all quirks, boom problem solved


No one would of course ed up using IS equipment because it's clearly inferior and the only way it ~somewhat holds up is the quirk system

[mogs01gt]

IMO I want a truly balanced game. That means there shouldnt be any different between equipment. Everything should be the same.

Edited by mogs01gt, 22 February 2016 - 06:54 AM.

[Lugh]

Tarogato, on 21 February 2016 - 12:59 AM, said:

In my opinion? Give the clans their range back, but nerf their laser durations significantly.

Clans already suffer greatly from 'too long a burn time' to be as effective at laser vomit(something they should excel at) as effectively as IS mechs do.

[Mystere]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 21 February 2016 - 05:04 PM, said:

Asymmetry of teams/tonnages will destabilize the entire business model of the game as well as create a foundation of imbalance.

I am still very doubtful of this assertion, especially given zero real proof being provided so far.

[Mystere]

mogs01gt, on 22 February 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

IMO I want a truly balanced game. That means there shouldnt be any different between equipment. Everything should be the same.

Sure, I'll accept that once PGI removes the "A BattleTech Game" tag. Then I'd also promptly leave because a generic shooter is not what I came here for.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Each faction needs quirks for balancing against their own mechs, not just against their enemy lol.

You can talk about IS vs Clan all you want, but a Vindicator needs to be balanced vs a Centurion that needs to be balanced vs an Enforcer.

Basically, things like hard point power creep has made quirks a necessity, and that is before we even look at how one mech stacks up against another faction's supposed equivalent.

Quirks are here to stay.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

• Balance engines, the most egregious offense to tech balance, but also something needs to be done to make STD engines more worthwhile, like decoupling agility from speed and simply make it tonnage based with quirks to add flavor.
  
• Bridge the gap between equipment, since tonnage doesn't seem to be an option, some sort of advantage needs to be afforded to equipment that is less efficient, whether it be iECM vs cECM or iLRMs vs cLRMs, the power to tonnage ratio needs to be bridged between the two.
  
• More focused design on how Clan's and IS will play, right now this exists to a degree, with Clans often sacrificing heat efficiency for firepower to compete with low duration IS lasers. This sort of parity is nice, but definitely needs to be more thought-out and across the board.
  
• Omnimechs, with Clan battlemechs now being a possibility, imo it is time to think about unlocking them more so that they don't require as much heavy-handed quirks to help balance.

[process]

Quirks should be used to balance between individual mechs: to compensate for things like geometry, and to add flavor. Things that mere hitboxes and hardpoints can't fully remedy.

Clan vs IS balance is a whole other discussion. Asymmetric balance is certainly possible, but it has to be done from an even foundation. Past arguments like "we need overquirked IS mech X to balance Clan mech Y" will never yield a satisfying result for either side. Every mech should be viable in its role, which sadly hasn't really been defined yet.

Unfortunately this is a lot easier said than done, and is contingent of a lot of other mechanics. Engine? Endo/Ferro? Internal weapon balance? What should Clan/IS tech mean to gameplay? I'm afraid at this point, things seem relatively 'okay' because everything is so unfocused.

Edited by process, 22 February 2016 - 09:48 AM.

[Dan Nashe]

MeiSooHaityu, on 22 February 2016 - 09:33 AM, said:

Each faction needs quirks for balancing against their own mechs, not just against their enemy lol.

You can talk about IS vs Clan all you want, but a Vindicator needs to be balanced vs a Centurion that needs to be balanced vs an Enforcer.

Basically, things like hard point power creep has made quirks a necessity, and that is before we even look at how one mech stacks up against another faction's supposed equivalent.

Quirks are here to stay.

A point so often overlooked. Even tabletop has been adding quirks (albeit unofficial) for a long time now to differentiate mechs. And read technical readouts, they're full of quirks. Albeit with 0 game impact.

Quirks have also been good for build diversity. Especially on the same chassis.


Question:

Would light fusions help or break the game?
I think they would go a long way. But are inherently a huge buff to many IS. But still not as good as clan.

For those who don't know, light fusions weigh less than standard (2/3?) but work like clan engines (2 Crit each side). I'm fine with std engines being rare like sinhle hs. But this does allow is st ac20 on atlas with lighter engine. And makes is assaults more agile.
So game changing

Edited by Dan Nashe, 22 February 2016 - 09:58 AM.

[process]

Dan Nashe, on 22 February 2016 - 09:53 AM, said:

Would light fusions help or break the game?

I'm really not a fan of obsoleting current tech -- feels like a "eff it, we failed, moving on". LFEs would probably help the perception of balance, but it begs the question whether it would have any negative effects on balance given some of the benefits of IS weapons.

Edited by process, 22 February 2016 - 10:01 AM.

[cazidin]

Want to balance IS and Clan? Crosstech. Every MW game before this had it. If you want to be lazy, just move the timeline up a bit and replace old IS tech with the new Clan tech. (ER-Lasers, LBX-20, etc.)

[DivineEvil]

My opinion: Double Internal Structure for all IS mechs.

Why?:

• It's an extremely easy, purely value-driven change, requiring no additional mechanics or elaborate evaluation by itself.
  
• It gives IS mechs a baseline counter-weight against Clan-tech advantages, which spans over almost everything, except general durability. There's basically no other way around it. Giving IS any other advantages over any other fields will migitate Clan advantages, which means it will reduce the distinction, rather than balancing it.
  
• It makes sense from treoretical perspective - Clan mechs speak for being more brittle for using Omni-pod modular system. Whether regular Clan Battlemechs should get no bonus with insane quirks, half the bonus for regular quirks, or the same bonus with lower or no quirks, is up to debate and, perhaps, community vote.
  
• It opens up a huge performance gap between IS and Clan mech in their current relation. This gap can be closed by giving Clan mechs the same volume of quirks as IS has, across the board. That will allow for Omni-pod system to shine, with several same-speed Omni-frames featuring dramatically different customization and play-style options. The quirk system, that currently is used to differentiate and equate variable IS mechs could be used to do the same thing for Clan mechs. Structure quirks for IS will become excessive, and all durability quirks for them could be limited to minor armor bonuses to few specific components when hitboxes are calling for it. The Clan mechs, that were designed to tank, will be able to do so.
  
• While quirks would likely be insufficient to balance out that gap on their own, it will open up the space to back-track some of the nerfs, that Clans has been issued with, including cXL penalties. As long as there'd be visible inequality in favor of IS, there's now a list of things, that can be returned to their former values.
  
• It will create a clear and distinct style and gameplay distinction between the two factions - the rough, durable and reliable, but clumsy Inner Sphere, and polished, nimble and hard-hitting, but brittle Clans.
  
• It's already proven, that the effect of such a change is not as severe as it might sound - the Blackjacks had a double internal structure pre-nerf, which would not be such big of a deal without their weapon quirks on top, and there's still a HBK-4SP with double internal structure, which doesn't seems to be anything more, than it should be in the first place.
  
• ???
  
• Profit.

Edited by DivineEvil, 22 February 2016 - 10:17 AM.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

If they would balance the tech within each other then against the other tech base, we could be more sparing on quirks.

The cERML is just good. Best weapon in the game, IMO. Following that is the cLPL and iLPL.

The cLPL totally deprecates the cERLL. The iLPL and iERLL totally deprecate the iLL.

The iSL and iSPL are garbage except on a few select chassis.

Lasers as a whole are too cool running.

-Heat gen quirks need to go
-iLPL duration needs to go up and damage needs to go down
-iERLL range and heat needs to be nudged up
-iML and iSL need their range nudged up and heat nudged down
-cERML needs its range, heat, and damage nudged down
-cLPL damage needs to go down
-cERLL duration needs to go down

And lastly:
-heat scale needs to be non-binary
-heat scale needs to be fixed across the board to a lower threshold
-all dubs should be TruDubs
-laser stacking needs to be mitigated

If they did that, then they can look at the other weapons and see how they stack up.

[mogs01gt]

Mystere, on 22 February 2016 - 09:31 AM, said:

Sure, I'll accept that once PGI removes the "A BattleTech Game" tag. Then I'd also promptly leave because a generic shooter is not what I came here for.

This game has never been a battletech game. It just uses the title. You cant compare an FPS game to a table top game.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

process, on 22 February 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

I'm really not a fan of obsoleting current tech -- feels like a "eff it, we failed, moving on". LFEs would probably help the perception of balance, but it begs the question whether it would have any negative effects on balance given some of the benefits of IS weapons.

Some IS mechs would benefit more than others. Most IS lights and the lighter mediums wouldn't really benefit. Select mediums and heavies would benefit from it, while others would still have better loadouts with standard or XL. And most assaults wouldn't really benefit much other than a few edge cases.

[Mystere]

mogs01gt, on 22 February 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

This game has never been a battletech game. It just uses the title. You cant compare an FPS game to a table top game.

Who said I am comparing it to the table top game? I am more interested in the lore, or more specifically the basic tenets of BattleTech lore, and not TT mechanics.

[process]

Saint Scarlett Johan, on 22 February 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

Some IS mechs would benefit more than others. Most IS lights and the lighter mediums wouldn't really benefit. Select mediums and heavies would benefit from it, while others would still have better loadouts with standard or XL. And most assaults wouldn't really benefit much other than a few edge cases.

I forgot that LFEs are heavier than XLs, so yes I guess it's mostly some mediums and heavier that would benefit. I suppose my thinking is that there would be very little reason to take a standard engine, just like with the Clan IICs. Zombie mode is highly overrated when considering you could have had X more gun or Y more speed for the whole match.