213 replies to this topic

[SmokeGuar]

Go play IS... don't want to. Lot of players have either IS or Clan dropdecks, chancing side is not that simple.
Besides, if all leave, then against who are you planning to play?

Being loyalist, well not gonna happen with todays -25% loss to LP, cant even switch to different clan faction.

Cost of mechs may not be important to vets, but new players it can be deciding factor. Not all play fully kitted mechs neither in FW or QP.

Regarding speed, standard engined mechs bit faster, those with XL, no difference. And laser beam beats any mech on speed.

[SmokeGuar]

On loyalist side 67 of top 100 are IS pilots. Proof of something?

[Kael Posavatz]

SmokeGuar, on 04 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

On loyalist side 67 of top 100 are IS pilots. Proof of something?

It means 67 of top loyalist players are aligned IS. Thus, populations are nearly balanced.

Remember, this has been one of PGI's goals from day 1 of CW, to have 10% of participating community in each faction. So, IS is currently somewhat stronger than Clans, but that is because of population, not tech.

That achieving PGI's dream would leave the IS/Clan populations unbalanced 6:4 is irrelevant. What matters is faction population, not side, and certainly not tech.

When populations are balanced everyone will be having fun, and MWO will be the bestest most awesomest giant-stompy-robot game that ever was or ever will be because only PGI wanted to make one and nobody else will. Ever.

Edited by Kael Posavatz, 04 June 2016 - 10:28 AM.

[Jman5]

SmokeGuar, on 04 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

On loyalist side 67 of top 100 are IS pilots. Proof of something?

34% of the top 100 Loyalists are Clans

40% of factions are Clans

I have a strong suspicion that the consistent population difference between IS and Clans is mostly because there are more Inner Sphere Factions than Clan Factions. I would bet all my MC that if PGI reduced the number of IS factions to 4, we would reach close to population parity.

[Rho Treska]

Jman5, on 04 June 2016 - 11:20 AM, said:

I would bet all my MC that if PGI reduced the number of IS factions to 4, we would reach close to population parity.

Not arguing with that logic, but why cut two factions instead of adding two?

The Clans brought additional forces into the IS, namely the clans Nova Cat, Steel Viper, and Hell's Horses.

Add two of those (or all three) on the Clan side (and ComStar for the IS) and we have the same chance for population parity, and in turn less corruption on the data for mech comparisions.

[TercieI]

Rho Treska, on 04 June 2016 - 11:32 AM, said:

Not arguing with that logic, but why cut two factions instead of adding two?

Seriously? Wait times not long enough for you now? CW desperately needs faction compression.

Edited by TercieI, 04 June 2016 - 11:40 AM.

[Rho Treska]

TercieI, on 04 June 2016 - 11:40 AM, said:

Seriously? Wait times not long enough for you now? CW desperately needs faction compression.

Seeing how I can join the other Clan factions in their matches and I rarely wait more than a few minutes for a drop when I pay attention to the queues, I can not agree with you.

What CW needs is more players. But we won't see those until the PuG vs Premade issue is solved.

[TercieI]

Rho Treska, on 04 June 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

Seeing how I can join the other Clan factions in their matches and I rarely wait more than a few minutes for a drop when I pay attention to the queues, I can not agree with you.

What CW needs is more players. But we won't see those until the PuG vs Premade issue is solved.

I don't play CW any more because matches often take 10 minutes to find regardless of group size. Well, that and it's a really boring game mode. But most folks complain about the wait times, so I know that's not just limited to me. If they could reduce planets/factions so it's effectively a game mode, more folks would play it, I'm sure. No one cares about the map, AFAICT.

Edited by TercieI, 04 June 2016 - 12:33 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Charles Sennet, on 04 June 2016 - 07:55 AM, said:

IS mech have more hit points, better heat management, and have far better pinpoint weapons. These are the most important attributes in the game and they all favor IS right now. Russ himself says "pinpoint damage is king". That alone is a balance-breaker let alone the others. This really should be no debate here. It's super obvious to anyone who has some experience playing this game.

Then you guys with all that experience should go explain that to all the comp players. They keep playing Clans and taking mostly Clan mechs in comp matches.

Clearly the people who are demonstratively the best overall players in the game don'tknow what tthey're doing. You should go set them straight.

[MischiefSC]

SmokeGuar, on 04 June 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

On loyalist side 67 of top 100 are IS pilots. Proof of something?

Population disparity. Also availability of matches.Most the top players are mercs too.

Why don't you make a list of the top 10 units in FW. Straight skill at winning matches.

Then look at what factions they generally play in. It used to be only Clans, now they play IS at least part of the time but still not 50%.

Must be because they don't really know how the game works or is played. Maybe one of the times they're kicking your *** you can get their boot off your neck long enough to explain how they can GIT GUD to them.

[TercieI]

MischiefSC, on 04 June 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Then you guys with all that experience should go explain that to all the comp players. They keep playing Clans and taking mostly Clan mechs in comp matches.

Clearly the people who are demonstratively the best overall players in the game don'tknow what tthey're doing. You should go set them straight.

Eh...it's a pretty even mix in comp, actually, just that there are a few real standouts on the clan side (hello, KDK-3) and the fact that comp is all canyon all the time right now has some weird effects on what's being featured (favors HBK-IIC for anything ranged, limits Oxide's use due to no JJ, etc.). Gone are the days of DWF, TBR, SCR all the time no matter what.

As for who the comp players play in CW, the answer, by and large, is: They don't.

[invernomuto]

SmokeGuar, on 04 June 2016 - 10:02 AM, said:

Go play IS... don't want to. Lot of players have either IS or Clan dropdecks, chancing side is not that simple.
Besides, if all leave, then against who are you planning to play?

Being loyalist, well not gonna happen with todays -25% loss to LP, cant even switch to different clan faction.

Cost of mechs may not be important to vets, but new players it can be deciding factor. Not all play fully kitted mechs neither in FW or QP.

Regarding speed, standard engined mechs bit faster, those with XL, no difference. And laser beam beats any mech on speed.

For me the problem is mostly the cost of building a competitive clan dropdeck. I started 4 months ago and - like almost everyone - I started with a IS mech. I always postponed the buying of clan mechs: Everytime I had enough C-Bills to build a Clan Medium or Heavy, I ended up buying another IS mech, because I had unused IS weapons, I could use an XL engine I already had, etc.
There aren't also Clan mech packs (apart from the Kodiak - that I bought): if you don't want to farm, to get clan mechs you have to spend LOTS of money often buying chassis that you're not interested with (like in Clan waves packs...).
Now I bought a Timberwolf and I am getting far worse result than with IS mech. I have to spend other 30 mlns C-Bills to just elite that mech: At this rate in 2018 probabily I will have elited the mech...

Edited by invernomuto, 04 June 2016 - 01:12 PM.

[Kael Posavatz]

invernomuto, on 04 June 2016 - 01:12 PM, said:

At this rate in 2018 probabily I will have elited the mech...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but at around this time in 2018 PGI's license from Microsoft will be expiring. You may get a month or two.

Now, as I recall Russ said (this was several years ago so I could be wrong) that if certain benchmarks are met, and PGI and Microsoft were both happy with how things were going, and the community was engaged and supportive (in other words, giving PGI money) that contract could be extended out to 2020. I'm not sure how likely that is, though.

[2fast2stompy]

Kael Posavatz, on 04 June 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news

Sounds like potentially good news to me.

[Aiden Skye]

Appogee, on 04 June 2016 - 10:00 AM, said:

Can Judge Khan explain why this would be in any way relevant to the consideration of whether "Clan Mechs are a joke" or not?

Fact is: both IS and Clan Mechs appear in equal numbers in the leaderboard. And there's a lot of other similarities in stats across Clan and IS. Whether those scores were achieved stomping pugs or not is irrelevant.

It's clear that the 50% of guys in the top 10 who favour Clan Mechs clearly do not find those Mechs "a joke", and are achieving significant success in them.

Balance talk is irrelevant and success is a joke when you're talking about pugs vs premades. Premades will win 99% of the time no matter which side...even in troll decks a half baked premade can stomp a bunch of headless chickens most of which cannot break 1k damage in 4 mechs. I rather look at the tourney scene as a better example of what's going on. Court is adjourned!

[Cy Mitchell]

MischiefSC, on 04 June 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Then you guys with all that experience should go explain that to all the comp players. They keep playing Clans and taking mostly Clan mechs in comp matches.

Clearly the people who are demonstratively the best overall players in the game don'tknow what tthey're doing. You should go set them straight.

You must be saying then that the Tourney players are not comp players. In the matches I have watched, a Clan Mech was most often chosen for the Assault slots, IS Mechs were most often chosen for the Heavy and Medium slots and the light spots were about a 50-50 split between Clan and IS. I think things are pretty well balanced right now but each side is constantly lobbying for an imbalance weighed in their favor.

[Vanguard319]

All the ppl advocating that clan mechs have an advantage in range forgot three very significant facts:

First, Clan weapons are more significantly affected by ghost heat than their IS counterparts. If you were to try to replicate some of the IS meta builds with clan tech, you would find yourself shutting down constantly, or close to shutdown threshold after your first shot.

Second, there isn't a whole lot of terrain that caters to long-range engagements, and the maps where terrain favors ER weapons (alpine hills, etc) tend to be the most maligned and avoided maps in the game. In addition, IS players are generally not dumb enough to fight clanners at range brackets where they excel, and are generally quick to close range where they hold the advantage using what terrain they can as cover. In short: Clan range superiority is meaningless for the most part. Why do you think the Clans eventually developed heavy lasers which have the exact SAME ranges as standard IS lasers? Because even in the lore, the clans realized that their range advantage wasn't much of an advantage at all.

Finally, Clan ballistics, with the exception of the Gauss Rifle are not only all DoT, but are unlikely to hit for their full damage at their optimum range, and because they do not begin their cooldown until they have finished firing, that means they also have a longer delay in between shots compared to their IS equivalents. Clan lasers with their long burn times have an even more pronounced delay because of this as well.

All these factors mean that clan mechs are no real match for IS mechs of comparative weight and size.

[Mole]

I don't like to go around saying "git gud" but it's really all I can think of when I see people whining incessantly about how clan 'mechs are broken to a point of near uselessness as I go around topping match score boards in my clan 'mechs.

[MischiefSC]

Rampage, on 04 June 2016 - 05:56 PM, said:

You must be saying then that the Tourney players are not comp players. In the matches I have watched, a Clan Mech was most often chosen for the Assault slots, IS Mechs were most often chosen for the Heavy and Medium slots and the light spots were about a 50-50 split between Clan and IS. I think things are pretty well balanced right now but each side is constantly lobbying for an imbalance weighed in their favor.

Boom.

Yeah, it's a good balance. Sometimes you see a TBR heavy. As maps rotate expect to see the odd EBJ too but they're in a good place. You don't want to spend a heavy in comp on a push mech and the TBR is a good push mech.

[Livaria]

The problem I have with discussions like these, is that it compares IS vs Clan mechs. It's quite the abstract comparison because they are both so different from each other. How can anyone tackle balancing issues on such a broad scale?

It's much more easier to talk about imbalanced mechs on an individual case-by-case basis. For example: Is the Atlas too tanky? Could the Direwolf use new quirks? And so on. This could even apply to existing weapons.

Edited by Livaria, 04 June 2016 - 08:43 PM.