555 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

kapusta11, on 29 March 2016 - 10:54 AM, said:

You make it sound like LPL is straigh up superior

I don't make it sound like that, it just is straight up superior with quirks, sorry but the cMPL isn't used by a majority for a reason, it is niche at best.

kapusta11, on 29 March 2016 - 10:54 AM, said:

You make it sound like LPL is straigh up superior by using some bad example. First, no one carries just 3 cMPL, it's either 5 or 6 hence up to 48 damage. In order to match that on the IS side you need 2 LPL and 5 ML. In the end we have

The problem you have, is that you are trying to match the damage (3 LPLs is golden for mediums, more so than 4-5 cMPLs). You are also comparing things a bit wrong, you shouldn't be comparing 2 LPL/5 ML, you should be comparing 3 LPL/3 ML.

6 cMPL is 48 damage, for 12 tons, and 9.54 HPS
3 iLPL/3 iML is 48 damage for 24 tons, and 8.46 HPS.

Now here the comparison is worse off, because the cMPLs easily allow for 7 DHS and still have tonnage left over (5 tons), this is without quirks however, and this is why the 10-15% heat generation becomes important, the range also helps a bit in giving the iLPL/iML combo an even better range advantage, then if the mech has a duration quirk on top of everything, you end up with an even better duration disparity that shifts the advantage even more into its favor. Honestly, if the iMLs had a lower heat like they should've had a long time ago (3 heat plox) we wouldn't need the heat gen quirks as bad (it would also make the tonnage required for 3 iLPL/3 iML and 6 cMPLs equal when accounting for DHS tonnage).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 29 March 2016 - 11:25 AM.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 March 2016 - 11:03 AM, said:

I'm only comparing it to the cSPL because that's the only weapon it competes with at this point, and so long as the cSPL maintains the role of being the more accurate short range weapon, it will probably maintain the position of being better, even if it did 1 less damage, I would still probably take it because the duration is just that important for a weapon that is in brawl range.

I'm not trying to throw the CSPL out.. it's rather making the CERSML an option when tonnage is a concern/factor.

For instance, a Jenner-F/Firestarter-H with 6 ML is going to be "more effective" than the 6 CERSML ACH Champion mostly because the ACH will have the stare slightly longer to put down it's payload (this is before we factor in quirks). I'm not even saying the ACH should win in this instance (tonnage committed by the Jenner+FS is greater, so they should be more effective), but it's really an afterthought. It's a great filler for something like Nova-laservomit (if you're going all 12+E, you might as well), but it's not something you'd bother vs Lights.

[Gyrok]

Deathlike, on 29 March 2016 - 11:07 AM, said:

I don't think heat as an issue. In the case of the ISSL... I kinda think range is part of its issue, but I don't think it's quite that. I'm kinda leaning towards tweaking the duration from .75 to .66 or something like that. I'm still not quite sure, but I've never found a need to run IS SL generally speaking.

See, I ran ERSLs when the range gap was justifiable...if you cannot do damage to 400m with ERSLs, then there is not a sufficient gap in range from SPLs to make it worth taking the longer duration/less damage weapon.

I think if you remove the fall off nerf from small and medium class clan lasers, you get back to a point where there is a justifiable gap in range. I am not really of the mind that you need to adjust anything else at that point.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Deathlike, on 29 March 2016 - 11:16 AM, said:

I'm not trying to throw the CSPL out.. it's rather making the CERSML an option when tonnage is a concern/factor.

I'd much rather a role of it be carved out so it was useful even when tonnage isn't a concern but much like its IS counterpart, I dont see it happening.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 March 2016 - 11:25 AM, said:

I'd much rather a role of it be carved out so it was useful even when tonnage isn't a concern but much like its IS counterpart, I dont see it happening.

Well, it's not an MG.

[cazidin]

Deathlike, on 29 March 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

Well, it's not an MG.

So. If I'm reading between the lines correctly here. You're saying to nerf the CSPL and CSL? Okay!

[Gyrok]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 29 March 2016 - 11:25 AM, said:

I'd much rather a role of it be carved out so it was useful even when tonnage isn't a concern but much like its IS counterpart, I dont see it happening.

Duration would not be useful enough I think...

I really think range is the issue at the moment...maybe even bring SPLs down to 150m optimal, and leave ERSL at 200m, then un-nerf the fall off on them, and 100m range gap makes a big enough difference, you might see people take ERSL over SPLs.

[Vanguard319]

I would agree that weapons that should be considered equivalent are not created equal.

Take the IS and Clan LRM 15 for example: the Clan launcher has a vastly inferior rate of fire, taking nearly twice as long to reload, likely due to it's cooldown not starting until after the complete volley of missiles has been fired. This means the clan launcher has lower DPS, despite being no more accurate that their IS counterparts. The same problem seems to apply to autocannons and lasers as well due to the cooldown not cycling until the burst has finished, or the laser has shut off.

No matter how you look at it, this means the clans are severely gimped in terms of damage output, especially when you realize that IS mechs (with one or two exceptions) consistently have more available hardpoints. Add all the armor and structure bonuses that IS mechs get, and you have a situation where piloting a clan mech is a liability. PGI could have fixed the problem by giving IS mechs either faster firing weapons, or better armor/structure, but they should never have given them both.

[Gas Guzzler]

Vanguard319, on 29 March 2016 - 03:21 PM, said:

I would agree that weapons that should be considered equivalent are not created equal.

Take the IS and Clan LRM 15 for example: the Clan launcher has a vastly inferior rate of fire, taking nearly twice as long to reload, likely due to it's cooldown not starting until after the complete volley of missiles has been fired. This means the clan launcher has lower DPS, despite being no more accurate that their IS counterparts. The same problem seems to apply to autocannons and lasers as well due to the cooldown not cycling until the burst has finished, or the laser has shut off.

No matter how you look at it, this means the clans are severely gimped in terms of damage output, especially when you realize that IS mechs (with one or two exceptions) consistently have more available hardpoints. Add all the armor and structure bonuses that IS mechs get, and you have a situation where piloting a clan mech is a liability. PGI could have fixed the problem by giving IS mechs either faster firing weapons, or better armor/structure, but they should never have given them both.

Not that LRMs are really relevant right now, but I had to point out that Clan LRMs weigh HALF as much as IS LRMs, so they should be less effective.

[MischiefSC]

Just got done dropping with MS in CJS for a week prior to my week in Steiner. Before that it was a week in CGB, trying in vain to find CGB players to drop with, so instead dropping as a pug on defense. Was a good opportunity to see the difference between good Clan play and bad Clan play.

I suspect I've played more CW more recently as Clans than you have.

99% of QP matches are terrible for gauging balance. 75% of comp tier matches are terrible for gauging balance - they're leveraging things that are simply out of scope for the other 98% of the games population.

90% of CW matches are not based on mech tech but relative coordination/communication skills.

The other 10% of CW matches though are a really good indication of where each setup is strong.

IS is strong right now, strong enough to be on par with Clan decks. There's a lot of situations where with the right call and a good prediction against an ill-prepared Clan team I can make an IS deck that'll win. Conversely I can build a universal Clan deck that, with a competent team, will win 95% of matches on any map or situation.

I'll take a TBR over a BK in almost every situation. The BK has one narrow situation where he'll win. The TBR has a dozen situations he can build for, or even just take laservomit and leverage range and maneuverability for the win.

Walking around a corner at 200m laservomit TBR vs laservomit BK, the BK will probably win. Unless the TBR is loaded for Splat, or just moves on into cover, circles around and pokes back at 450m, or is Dakka and does the same thing, or is good at the JJ dance.... etc. etc. etc.

Close range rules of Queensbury though? BK is very solid at it. Excellent even. That's his envelope. Like the Atlas. You turn a corner in a Dire into a 4xSRM4, AC20, 4xML Atlas he's going to **** your face so hard you're going to have mouth babies that look like little Atlases. You catch him in the open at 400m with 4xUAC10? He's going to rage at how OP your Dire is because he died in a few seconds.

That BJ is nasty in a hill-hump poke-match. Splat-Scrow or even 8xSPL Scrow comes over the hill into his face and it's a whole other conversation.

Etc, etc, etc.

It's a solid balance now. I've got over 100 mechs in my bay and I can build a lot of IS drop decks for different maps, teams and situations and it's really strong right now. I still score higher in Clans but that's largely due to IS structure buffs feeding me more damage to do for a kill, which is fine because my Clan mechs do more damage for the same performance profile.

Go drop with MS, or AWOL, or KCom when they're done in Steiner, or another great unit in Clans that drives wins. Quit making excuses. If you could put up performance like they do you would understand how and why they do it.

[Karmen Baric]

So what Gyrock is saying is we need to buff the IS mechs that arent used in comps, so mechs like the Dragon, Catapult, Jegermech, Thunderbolt, Cataphract, Warhammer & Orion for heavies all need to be strengthened as they are not seen in comp play.

[Amsro]

Having debates over pgi balanced weapons is pointless.

[Gyrok]

Karmen Baric, on 29 March 2016 - 06:01 PM, said:

So what Gyrock is saying is we need to buff the IS mechs that arent used in comps, so mechs like the Dragon, Catapult, Jegermech, Thunderbolt, Cataphract, Warhammer & Orion for heavies all need to be strengthened as they are not seen in comp play.

Actually...

In spite of your asinine attempt at jesting...I am saying that in a round about way.

Tech trees need normalizing across the board. IS needs tech2 to get their equal counterpart tech that was designed to compete more directly with Clan tech2.

As for mischief:

CW is not where balance is sorted...never was...and never will be.

[Karmen Baric]

Gyrok, on 29 March 2016 - 06:40 PM, said:

Actually...

In spite of your asinine attempt at jesting...I am saying that in a round about way.

Tech trees need normalizing across the board. IS needs tech2 to get their equal counterpart tech that was designed to compete more directly with Clan tech2.

As for mischief:

CW is not where balance is sorted...never was...and never will be.

So we dont balance normal solo games, dont balance in group Q because thats skewed, dont balance in CW for same reason, so we balance on what the 1% of population who play comp and have a very specific play style not found in 99% of the game ?

Id prefer they balanced it for the majority of the game not for a very specific skewed game mode/players.

Edited by Karmen Baric, 29 March 2016 - 09:41 PM.

[wanderer]

MischiefSC, on 24 March 2016 - 05:33 PM, said:

So if you played BT with your little brother and house rules your statements would make sense. Outside that.... are you high?

So if you're playing with friends under a gentlemens agreement on what would make a "fair match up" are you calling that "how it was meant to be played"?

Because competitive pvp between people tryptophan win broke BT completely with Clans. Hence, you know. Everyone ******* hating the Clans.

Have you ever been to a BT forum for tabletop? A con? Tournament?

The only way it "worked" in TT was under agreement between players not to cheese the **** out of it. Have you read the books, the lore? The whole storyline of nuking everything back a la 1st and 2nd succession wars? Balance 1 to 1 for IS and Clan tech?

The thing about tournaments are the "balancing" units generally don't exist in tournament play. People want to play only robots, then whinge about how Clan is OP in short scenarios. Heck, I've played both sides of the coin in actual long-term campaign games. Smaller Clan forces tend to be whittled down over time simply by having too many guns fired at them, but in the short term Clantech tends to be a more overwhelming short-term advantage and you just don't have anything BUT short-term fights at a con or in a tournament.

The result is the eventual unification of the two tech trees by the late 3100s. Mixtech, in other words. Although honestly, given most MWO maps you -could- go with numerical/tonnage balancing and get good results, if only because the maximum amount of damage a force can take is directly related to it.

But that'd actually take work and remove PGI's ability to get Clan machines in there 1:1, which of course makes them the most money possible- even if it requires unholy levels of breakage to try and make them even roughly fit into the system.

[MischiefSC]

wanderer, on 29 March 2016 - 09:43 PM, said:

The thing about tournaments are the "balancing" units generally don't exist in tournament play. People want to play only robots, then whinge about how Clan is OP in short scenarios. Heck, I've played both sides of the coin in actual long-term campaign games. Smaller Clan forces tend to be whittled down over time simply by having too many guns fired at them, but in the short term Clantech tends to be a more overwhelming short-term advantage and you just don't have anything BUT short-term fights at a con or in a tournament.

The result is the eventual unification of the two tech trees by the late 3100s. Mixtech, in other words. Although honestly, given most MWO maps you -could- go with numerical/tonnage balancing and get good results, if only because the maximum amount of damage a force can take is directly related to it.

But that'd actually take work and remove PGI's ability to get Clan machines in there 1:1, which of course makes them the most money possible- even if it requires unholy levels of breakage to try and make them even roughly fit into the system.

The only thing MW:O is ever going to have effectively is short term fights.

Also each player only plays one mech at a time in MW:O, it's a FPS.

We've been through this. If you seriously and truly think that 70% of players will happily play the redshirts consistently and try to bury the OP Clans under their dead bodies for the win and come back for that day after day and not just switch to Clans then run it as private matches. Clans get to modify their mechs, IS is stock only. Do 10 v 12. You may have to do 11 v 12 as 10v12 was a stomp when it was tested, in IS favor, as MW:O 'Clan' pilots don't get the stat boost that TT Clan pilots got.

See how many people you get who only want to play that way when they play MW:O. If it's 70% IS, all the time, and 30% Clan then great. We can start looking at it. I'd wish you good luck with it and buy me some more Clan mechs if there's so many people who want to line up and get shot 'cuz lore'.

Or do you accept that's an incredibly stupid idea and you'd have like 50 people playing MW:O total if you tried to do something so bone-headed, 40 of which would want to play Clans and would be complaining that all IS players are cowards for not wanting to play them.

[wanderer]

Clantech in MWO isn't balanced for anything save a 1:1 ratio, and running any test that doesn't at least do what comes logically (everyone actually builds their 'Mechs, none of this "stock only" garbage) is a failure.

There's zero chance it'll happen at this point, however. Paul isn't competent enough to balance 1:1, never mind the effective 1:1.2 or so a 12v10 scenario would have to work out to (as 10 'Mechs basically provide about 85% the damage capacity of 12, and would also suffer from more focused fire earlier on).

But taking the inherent Clan construction rules would be a lot easier to work around if a Clan 'Mech WAS better, ton for ton than an IS one. And slotted into the matchmaker the same way, to the point where the largest Clan 'Mechs would effectively take up an additional slot, and effective act as higher-tonnage slots than actual weight otherwise.

Clan 90-100T = fills IS assault slot, removes one slot from team (normally 12, now -1 per 90+ Clan chassis)
Clan 70-85T = fills IS assault slot
Clan 50-65T = fills IS heavy slot
Clan 35-45T = fills IS medium slot
Clan 20-30T = fills IS light slot

Instead, we'll just continue to try jamming the square peg into the round hole.

[MischiefSC]

wanderer, on 29 March 2016 - 10:38 PM, said:

Clantech in MWO isn't balanced for anything save a 1:1 ratio, and running any test that doesn't at least do what comes logically (everyone actually builds their 'Mechs, none of this "stock only" garbage) is a failure.

There's zero chance it'll happen at this point, however. Paul isn't competent enough to balance 1:1, never mind the effective 1:1.2 or so a 12v10 scenario would have to work out to (as 10 'Mechs basically provide about 85% the damage capacity of 12, and would also suffer from more focused fire earlier on).

But taking the inherent Clan construction rules would be a lot easier to work around if a Clan 'Mech WAS better, ton for ton than an IS one. And slotted into the matchmaker the same way, to the point where the largest Clan 'Mechs would effectively take up an additional slot, and effective act as higher-tonnage slots than actual weight otherwise.

Clan 90-100T = fills IS assault slot, removes one slot from team (normally 12, now -1 per 90+ Clan chassis)
Clan 70-85T = fills IS assault slot
Clan 50-65T = fills IS heavy slot
Clan 35-45T = fills IS medium slot
Clan 20-30T = fills IS light slot

Instead, we'll just continue to try jamming the square peg into the round hole.

Except not all mechs in a tonnage range are equal. Hence why the BV was created, which in turn didn't work.

You're also ignoring, completely, the fundamental issue of 'you're not going to get 70% of people to play the redshirts' in a FPS.

Because it wouldn't happen. It was an issue in TT as well as people would build clownshoes OP Clan mechs and get all fussy when nobody wanted to feed IS mechs to them 'but the BV is equal' sort of crap.

10 v 12 wouldn't work either - you'd have to rebalance all the mechs and tech to try and get 10 v 12 to work, just like you do to get 12 v 12 to work, only 12 v 12 is both better for the players overall and easier to accomplish. Even in TT the OP Clan tech of 3052 was crap for the gameplay mechanics.

Which is why the game developers went to 1 v 1 tech in the end.

Just like we're doing now.

The idea that we have to repeat stupid mistakes because someone else made them is, in turn, a mistake.

[wanderer]

MischiefSC, on 29 March 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

Except not all mechs in a tonnage range are equal. Hence why the BV was created, which in turn didn't work.

You're also ignoring, completely, the fundamental issue of 'you're not going to get 70% of people to play the redshirts' in a FPS.

Given that there's 12-0 stompfests already, please. Tell me we don't already have just that. Also, instead of BV balance by tonnage, we end up quirking 'Mechs instead to bring them closer together in effectiveness. It's how some chassis even -exist- in regular play at this point, and I have no illusions that we wouldn't see it happening in this as well.

Quote

Because it wouldn't happen. It was an issue in TT as well as people would build clownshoes OP Clan mechs and get all fussy when nobody wanted to feed IS mechs to them 'but the BV is equal' sort of crap.

10 v 12 wouldn't work either - you'd have to rebalance all the mechs and tech to try and get 10 v 12 to work, just like you do to get 12 v 12 to work, only 12 v 12 is both better for the players overall and easier to accomplish. Even in TT the OP Clan tech of 3052 was crap for the gameplay mechanics.

Custom matches are inevitably slaves to the fullest of the meta, just like they are now. You balance on what's best, not someone's still-using-single-heatsinks flamer builds. 12 best IS vs 10 best Clan- is the W/L ratio decent? You're balancing pretty good. Balance tech tree gear against itself- are IS ballistics doing OK vs doing IS energy or missiles? No? Balance that way, and the same with Clantech.

Magically, this isn't TT. Heck, it's nowhere even close to TT in many ways, and the 1:1 Edicts Of Paul warp Clantech even further than IS Mechs in that regard. And the concept of a lower-tech IS pilot being "redshirts" only applies if the IS team can't perform and win. Tougher for IS vs Clan matches for IS players to get higher match scores? Give them an appropriate modifier for it since they get fewer targets/are more likely to get shot up quickly. Put in IS vs IS, Clan vs Clan, IS vs Clan. 12v12, 10v10, 12v10. 2/3rds of the matches are automatically even, the last 1/3 are actually something different.

Quote

Which is why the game developers went to 1 v 1 tech in the end.

Just like we're doing now.

The idea that we have to repeat stupid mistakes because someone else made them is, in turn, a mistake.

We went 1:1 because it's the simplest method on paper. It created it's own mountain of balance issues, which persist to this day in many ways.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

wanderer, on 30 March 2016 - 06:17 AM, said:

Given that there's 12-0 stompfests already, please.

Because that has to do solely with tech balance