175 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 01 July 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

Again, problem isn't skilled 4man vs skilled 4man. In pug matches 4 skillcrows just have to get a lock and fire to do max damage. Any scrub can build a skillcrows. To combat it you need a couple of select mechs and you need to be able to actually aim to hit legs consistently.

It's never been about skilled teams not beating skillcrows. It's always been pug v pug. Tell you what, let's drop scouting tonnage to 45. See what happens. When Clans get face rolled in scouting non-stop pug v pug and play every invasion match under LT we can talk about how it's actually just fine you just have to being build X exclusively and do exactly Y to have good odds of winning. Unless the other team does A, B or C instead.

I have no issue with crows. However when I play clans running an SRM Scrow, even pugging, is like printing and free money. You don't even have to skillcrows- all the bads you pug with do and it takes their performance from terrible to mediocre. There is no equivalent build for IS - no way to hand a bad player mediocre performance with no real effort.

That's the issue. It breaks the averages by glossing Clan terribads to mediocre.

Are we supposed to balance at the bottom?

Also, instead of reducing drop weight, why not just remove the restriction instead? Why intentionally try to nerf an entire side?

[Loren Ward]

Limiting scouting matches to 45 tons would make a lot of sense, you're meant to be scouting, not rolling hard hitting mediums, IMO.

It would also make the gameplay a lot more varied.

[Vanguard319]

Am I like the only clanner who doesn't run a streakcrow? Mine currently has 6 med lasers, 2 pulse lasers, and a pair of SRM6 for close quarters punch.

[PFC Carsten]

Northern Nomad, on 30 June 2016 - 05:36 PM, said:

How do you counter these? Everything 55 tons and down seems to die basically instantly to two of them.

Pokecust with 1 LPL. Stay out of reach, tear their armor, reap rich rewards.

[LordNothing]

windermere, on 30 June 2016 - 06:33 PM, said:

we should all just buy a mech pack.

it would need to be a crow hunting medium. hint: its not the phoenix hawk. ive been watching those get splattered all day.

if pgi was smart they would try to capitalize and rush out a crow killin is 55 tonner. it would fix the problem and be cool at the same time. or you could just get a griffon 2n.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 July 2016 - 05:25 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

WANTED, on 01 July 2016 - 05:56 PM, said:

Forget the Streakcrows, how do you counter the new Clan brawl meta in the form of the HunchieIIc? Been getting hammered by them by units, not the easy to leg streak crows

Yup Splunchie2's (I guess that's what you call them) are far more deadly

[Pariah Devalis]

LordNothing, on 02 July 2016 - 02:20 AM, said:

it would need to be a crow hunting medium. hint: its not the phoenix hawk. ive been watching those get splattered all day.

if pgi was smart they would try to capitalize and rush out a crow killin is 55 tonner. it would fix the problem and be cool at the same time. or you could just get a griffon 4n.

A crow killing medium? Hm... I suspect one such mech should be around 55 tons, reasonably fast, quirked for durability, maybe carry ECM, and can pack ample close range firepower.

Oh.... Wait. The Griffin 2N already exists.

I don't normally say this, but "git gud." In the 55 and below range, IS mediums have better tools available to squish Clan mediums. Better autocannons, tighter clustering SRMs, much higher durability quirks, and Clans are far more vulnerable to flamers than the IS are due to lower heat caps and hotter guns. All of which that has a far higher rate of fire and better damage application than streakcrows. Aim for legs and you almost cannot lose. Almost.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 02 July 2016 - 03:10 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Pariah Devalis, on 02 July 2016 - 03:07 AM, said:

A crow killing medium? Hm... I suspect one such mech should be around 55 tons, reasonably fast, quirked for durability, maybe carry ECM, and can pack ample close range firepower.

Oh.... Wait. The Griffin 2N already exists.

I don't normally say this, but "git gud." In the 55 and below range, IS mediums have better tools available to squish Clan mediums. Better autocannons, tighter clustering SRMs, much higher durability quirks, and Clans are far more vulnerable to flamers than the IS are due to lower heat caps and hotter guns. All of which that has a far higher rate of fire and better damage application than streakcrows. Aim for legs and you almost cannot lose. Almost.

I hear these sorts of arguments all the time. We had similar arguments about the TBR when it first came out - when Clans were first released. They were beatable, you 'just had to play right'.

Tell you what - if Scouting dropped to 45 tons, what do you think would happen? Would scout queue play out exactly as it does now in terms of which side wins all the time?

Again, I have no issue with skillcrows. The new Nova is a bigger threat IMO. However if you pug in a Clan drop and an IS drop you'll see the difference - it's not that Clan pugs are incredibly good at communicating - Clan pugs are, in general, just as bad as IS pugs. For some factions they are considered worse.

So if Scout tonnage drops to 45 and suddenly Clan scout queues are getting crushed all day because Blackjack, Cicada and Oxide > Fridge, ACH and Jenner2C in pug v pug so that your faction mate pugs are losing 2 matches for every one you win... well, the problem is just your side doesn't know how to Scout?

Remember when balance strongly favored the Clans and it was a race to see which Clan got to Terra first because even against good teams on the IS side who still played back in CW1? It was all 'GIT GUD' right up until tech got rebalanced and suddenly.... Clans were back at their homeworlds. Which was still the case in CW 2.5, right up until Scouting came out and Clans could take worlds under LT all day/night.

You don't see the correlation there? This doesn't strike me as complex. Scouting reveals how bad the games balance is in an overall sense and how quirks don't fix that - they just cover it up when everyone has access to the handful of mechs quirked up to deal with 8v8/12v12 environments. So between scouting being a showcase for bad balance issues in game design and LT being superior to even ghost drops at getting people to quit playing FW are we really going to repeat this whole 'oh it's totally balanced if you just play right' bit for the umpteenth time?

When you have matches between bad players where one side needs to aim and the other doesn't it is, amazingly enough, a balance issue for that 70% of players who are really, really not that good. Stack with this the firepower advantage Clans have at lighter weights (SPLs being a great example and builds with 12e hardpoints, half tonnage SRMs, etc. etc) and you have an environment where you need skilled players in a team with the right synergy deck to even the field.

That's not balance. It never was.

[WANTED]

Crazy idea but maybe remove quick start from the skill tree or increase it's time up a bit. Right now Clan mechs I see shutdown all the time due to heat ( I've done it way to much myself ) and they don't pay much for it. Both sides should pay for shutting down. Meaning a tick or two longer so cockpit shots are viable as well as open areas. This might at least even things a bit? Especially on hotter planets

[Pariah Devalis]

MischiefSC, on 02 July 2016 - 03:40 AM, said:

I hear these sorts of arguments all the time. We had similar arguments about the TBR when it first came out - when Clans were first released. They were beatable, you 'just had to play right'.

Tell you what - if Scouting dropped to 45 tons, what do you think would happen? Would scout queue play out exactly as it does now in terms of which side wins all the time?

Again, I have no issue with skillcrows. The new Nova is a bigger threat IMO. However if you pug in a Clan drop and an IS drop you'll see the difference - it's not that Clan pugs are incredibly good at communicating - Clan pugs are, in general, just as bad as IS pugs. For some factions they are considered worse.

So if Scout tonnage drops to 45 and suddenly Clan scout queues are getting crushed all day because Blackjack, Cicada and Oxide > Fridge, ACH and Jenner2C in pug v pug so that your faction mate pugs are losing 2 matches for every one you win... well, the problem is just your side doesn't know how to Scout?

Remember when balance strongly favored the Clans and it was a race to see which Clan got to Terra first because even against good teams on the IS side who still played back in CW1? It was all 'GIT GUD' right up until tech got rebalanced and suddenly.... Clans were back at their homeworlds. Which was still the case in CW 2.5, right up until Scouting came out and Clans could take worlds under LT all day/night.

You don't see the correlation there? This doesn't strike me as complex. Scouting reveals how bad the games balance is in an overall sense and how quirks don't fix that - they just cover it up when everyone has access to the handful of mechs quirked up to deal with 8v8/12v12 environments. So between scouting being a showcase for bad balance issues in game design and LT being superior to even ghost drops at getting people to quit playing FW are we really going to repeat this whole 'oh it's totally balanced if you just play right' bit for the umpteenth time?

When you have matches between bad players where one side needs to aim and the other doesn't it is, amazingly enough, a balance issue for that 70% of players who are really, really not that good. Stack with this the firepower advantage Clans have at lighter weights (SPLs being a great example and builds with 12e hardpoints, half tonnage SRMs, etc. etc) and you have an environment where you need skilled players in a team with the right synergy deck to even the field.

That's not balance. It never was.

I've always stated that Clan mechs punish poor enemies. It punishes enemies who stare, who stand still, who take no evasive action, and do not play to their tech's particular strengths. However, I've also always said that IS advantages often exceed Clan ones in the hands of good pilots.

Like for like, in the medium bracket, IS mechs hold a serious advantage. A lack of ability to utilize the tools is a user error, not a mech error, and it isn't a great idea to balance based on the worst skill levels in the game. It's far better to balance on the top end so that there is an actual skill ceiling, as opposed to a true state of derpwarrior online which would happen if everything was balanced to the lowest common denominator. Further, if we lowered the tonnage to 45 tons, the Clans would be extremely disadvantaged given we have nothing in the 40-45 range that can output the kind of hurt the Blackjack can. If we had the Pouncer, sure, why not, but our 45 ton options favor speed more than firepower, as will the Viper.

Edit: 50 ton slot looks more interesting as a cap. Clears the top end mediums of both tech trees without crippling either side's options, which could diversify the field quite a bit.

Skillcrows are awful mechs, functionally. But for two totally different reasons on two ends of the spectrum. Against mediums armed with brawling weapons that require the slightest amount of aiming, they are toast. Absolutely outclassed in every way, shape, and form. However, against light mechs they are far too effective. Personally, I'd love to see SSRM on both IS and Clan side get their HP per missile reduced by half, and the SSRM 4 and 6 of (eventually) both tech lines shoot out missiles 2 at a time, as opposed to one clump of missiles. That way AMS can act as a good counter pick to reduce the effectiveness of a weapon system that requires no actual skill to utilize.

Of course, that doesn't do anything to improve how much they suck against mediums, but, frankly, I don't care. Self-guided weapon systems should never be as effective as manually placed weapons, anyways, in my book. Those changes might warrant a decreased cooldown for the 4 and 6, however.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 02 July 2016 - 05:41 AM.

[H I A S]

In my opinion PGI should ban all poor man's aimbots (LRM and Streaks).

[Scarlet Tempest]

I have huge success with 4 SRM 4s and LBX-10 on shadowhawk 2d2. It wrecks all skillcrows. I get 2-3 kmds every single match.

[AssaultPig]

I think all you'd see from clans at <45 would be cheetahs, which people would probably hate as much as the current emphasis on scrows.

50 ton limit might be kinda interesting, but IS would probably have the advantage

[Asaru]

Big Tin Man, on 01 July 2016 - 08:41 AM, said:

Yen

Lo

Wang

Apply AC20 to legs until desired effect is achieved.

Poor man's alt is a Cent-AH with SRM4's and AC20.

Cent-AH is my ride of choice when scouting against Clans. They eat skillcrows alive. A little team work and bringing the right mech can work wonders for your win/lose ratio.

[MischiefSC]

Pariah Devalis, on 02 July 2016 - 05:36 AM, said:

I've always stated that Clan mechs punish poor enemies. It punishes enemies who stare, who stand still, who take no evasive action, and do not play to their tech's particular strengths. However, I've also always said that IS advantages often exceed Clan ones in the hands of good pilots.

Like for like, in the medium bracket, IS mechs hold a serious advantage. A lack of ability to utilize the tools is a user error, not a mech error, and it isn't a great idea to balance based on the worst skill levels in the game. It's far better to balance on the top end so that there is an actual skill ceiling, as opposed to a true state of derpwarrior online which would happen if everything was balanced to the lowest common denominator. Further, if we lowered the tonnage to 45 tons, the Clans would be extremely disadvantaged given we have nothing in the 40-45 range that can output the kind of hurt the Blackjack can. If we had the Pouncer, sure, why not, but our 45 ton options favor speed more than firepower, as will the Viper.

Edit: 50 ton slot looks more interesting as a cap. Clears the top end mediums of both tech trees without crippling either side's options, which could diversify the field quite a bit.

Skillcrows are awful mechs, functionally. But for two totally different reasons on two ends of the spectrum. Against mediums armed with brawling weapons that require the slightest amount of aiming, they are toast. Absolutely outclassed in every way, shape, and form. However, against light mechs they are far too effective. Personally, I'd love to see SSRM on both IS and Clan side get their HP per missile reduced by half, and the SSRM 4 and 6 of (eventually) both tech lines shoot out missiles 2 at a time, as opposed to one clump of missiles. That way AMS can act as a good counter pick to reduce the effectiveness of a weapon system that requires no actual skill to utilize.

Of course, that doesn't do anything to improve how much they suck against mediums, but, frankly, I don't care. Self-guided weapon systems should never be as effective as manually placed weapons, anyways, in my book. Those changes might warrant a decreased cooldown for the 4 and 6, however.

So if you've got tech balanced by "this side does better in the hands of skilled players" that's not balance.

How about 45 tons for 6 months? No Nova, no Hunter. The Fridge is a good mech in skilled hands, right? So all the Clan players need to buy one and git gud. Then they'll do fine against BJs and Oxides.

Except it doesn't work that way. All the Clan players who don't own anything smaller than a Scrow and hate lights just won't play it, most the Clan players who've been crutching on streaks aim even worse than IS pugs and it'll be a slaughter probably comparable to the current one in the opposite direction.

Balance in 8v8 comp play between mediums as part of a larger deck doesn't equate to balance in the scout queue between pugs and bads. That's why it looks like this. Again, it's not hard to look at it and see what's happening.

Or during 2.5 when all the Clans were at their home worlds, that was just all Clan players not playing well? In CW 1 when Clans won constantly that was just player issues and not balance?

Current invasion queue is best it's ever been. Without LT it's decided by best team. Scout queue is broke.

[Void Angel]

Malystryx VoF, on 01 July 2016 - 12:45 PM, said:

lol. nice one calling other pilots stupid people. Almost makes everything you write after carry no weight and not wroth reading with such language.
anyway. yes this does show how OP they are. our team was unorganized, and they did focus fire on the first SCR as you can see in the video, that's how i positioned behind them and took them out pretty easy.
Yes that is the streak crow working. it's easy as hell. SSRM's don't miss. you fire and they hit. easy as pie (yes easy mode as hell, and good pilots still use them).

alll ya need is 4 SCR's with ssrm 30 to alpha once, and any mech is done.

Wow. Leaving aside the amateurish attempt at poisoning the well, you need to go back and re-watch your own video. You didn't kill a single enemy from behind, though you did try for that positioning - it just didn't matter, because you are a Streakcrow. Instead, you battered them with your random-location Streak sandblaster and picked up the kills when your chain-fired streaks randomly took the last hits. If you had been using a build that was good for fighting other Mediums, you or your team would have killed the enemy much more quickly and effectively.

• 2:32: Hard to tell if you took out his red legs, or his XL engine - after battering through his front side torso armor. At this point one of your teammates is at half durability, and the other is at two-thirds. This is not the result of focus fire. Additionally, the enemy Centurion can be seen in the distance - he has yet to join the fight.
  
• 2:59: Again, you battered through the target's front armor after hitting him with a few volleys from behind; Your Shadowcat is dead - blasted apart by the enemy Oxide while the other enemies focus on your Shadowcat. This is not the result of focus fire.
  
• 3:32: They've finally figured out that maybe shooting at the same person is the best thing to do, but their battered Oxide and LRM5-toting Centurion aren't up to the task of killing two fresh Stormcrows. The enemy Oxide tries a desperate frontal assault but can't get around behind you before his (front) torso armor succumbs to the RNG.
  
• 3:39: The final victim falls when your SRM Hail Mary finally destroys his vulnerable legs - after blasting through his shield arm, two torso armor locations, and half his CT structure. Again, from the front. Note that your heavily damaged armor locations, include one arm, both legs, and your right and center torsos. This is not the result of skilled marksmanship.

So the enemy used a combination of bad builds with bad tactics, hammering away at center mass - while your "disorganized" group stayed together, consistently focused legs, and focused down target after target. You did get all four kills, and dealt out 841 damage - but does that make your build "overpowered?" Excluding head durability, the enemy team had exactly 2100 possible durability (assuming they maxxed armor everywhere, which is highly unlikely.) That means that you put out 40% of the damage it would have taken to completely melt their entire team into slag over the course of a couple of minutes; adding in your team, the group inflicted 1378 damage - 65% of the enemy team's total effective durability. Great, huh? But the enemy team inflicted 827 damage, and killed two 'mechs, despite challenges in focus fire and their Centurion not even showing up until one of them was dead. The primary difference was that their lack of targeted damage, focus fires and tactical concentration allowed your team to survive longer in order to dish out more DPS.


This is not an overpowered build, or a game-breaking imbalance - the only thing that your video demonstrates is that the team which used the best selective targeting (legs,) focus fire, and teamwork won.

Edited by Void Angel, 02 July 2016 - 01:33 PM.

[Void Angel]

Davegt27, on 01 July 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

2 ECM will shut down streaks (unless things have changed I been away for awhile)

Eh, not if there's an equal number of Streakcrows - they nerfed ECM's range to 90m, while the Clan/Beagle Active Probes still counter ECM at their old ranges. This means that if the Clanners stay together, it's very hard to stop even one of them from locking on. ECM still does help by not allowing them to acquire you at long range and then open fire as soon as you enter their envelope, but they're not shut down any longer - even in the old days, that could be hard to do.

[Void Angel]

Mystere, on 01 July 2016 - 08:16 PM, said:

Are we supposed to balance at the bottom?

Also, instead of reducing drop weight, why not just remove the restriction instead? Why intentionally try to nerf an entire side?

Reducing drop weight to 45 tons really wouldn't nerf either side. You'd lose the Stormcrows, but also the Griffins that people are bringing to fight them - it's about a wash; the resulting meta might be skewed, but there's not really a clear winner there as far as theorycrafting goes. The suggestion to lower drop weight primarily comes from people who want more freedom to bring and play mid-speed Lights without getting trashed by larger 'mechs, or who feel that 50-55 tonners are too big conceptually for scouting... that sort of thing.

Of course, just to play devils advocate... removing the Streak Crow from the Scouting mix does level the playing field, since that build is flat-out unavailable to the Inner Sphere (one reason many Inner Sphere pilots despise it.)

Edited by Void Angel, 02 July 2016 - 04:52 PM.

[SeventhSL]

ECM does prevent locks at long range where CAP can't counter it which means the skill crow has to get into brawl range and the IS mechs won't take long range alpha strikes on the way into a brawl.

CAP will ensure that clan can get locks once in the brawl but ECM increases lock on time. Long lock times can be a serious issue when brawling around building and similar terrain.

Streak trades pilot skill for DPS so they require low pilot skill but have low DPS. This is why more skilled clan pilots don't take them. ECM isn't a hard counter but is does decrease the damage output of Streaks (reduced lock range and extended lock times).

[Pariah Devalis]

Void Angel, on 02 July 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

Reducing drop weight to 45 tons really wouldn't nerf either side. You'd lose the Stormcrows, but also the Griffins that people are bringing to fight them - it's about a wash; the resulting meta might be skewed, but there's not really a clear winner there as far as theorycrafting goes. The suggestion to lower drop weight primarily comes from people who want more freedom to bring and play mid-speed Lights without getting trashed by larger 'mechs, or who feel that 50-55 tonners are too big conceptually for scouting... that sort of thing.

Of course, just to play devils advocate... removing the Streak Crow from the Scouting mix does level the playing field, since that build is flat-out unavailable to the Inner Sphere (one reason many Inner Sphere pilots despise it.)

It would shift it too far to the IS side, IMO. The Ferret is fast, but even the most gunned out loadouts on it cannot hold a candle to a BJ in a straight fight, either with all the lasers or with even a simple AC20, given how stupidly potent the IS AC20 is in scouting. SHC packs a more respectable punch, but not only tanks worse, but still relies on Clan SRMs for the bulk of the damage, meaning more smear than IS equivalents.

50 tons knocks the Crow out, and the Griff. Nova is mean, but slowish and can be heatlocked by flamers easily. Hunchback IIC is slowish, has high Dakka, but smears damage due to the Clan UAC mechanic (though I do wonder how a twin LB20X Hunchback IIC would perform in Scouting). The Huntsman (eventually) would still be slowish, but would bring the same sort of firepower potential as the Stormcrow. IS still get their own Hunchback, the Centurion, the Enforcer, and Trebuchet in the 50 ton slot, all of which can easily pack an IS AC20 and/or SRMs, plus their gobs of structure quirks.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 03 July 2016 - 05:38 AM.