175 replies to this topic

[H I A S]

MechregSurn, on 12 July 2016 - 06:08 AM, said:

Have you noticed that even the "best" teams that go clan for too long, lose their ability to win in inner sphere mechs. The crutchcrows and crutchkodiaks kill skills.

The best Teams keep winning on IS side as well.
Did u noticed that the balance is nearly even (crapmechs on both sides aside)?
Did u noticed that the IS had a slight edge pre last Patch?

Edited by arivio, 12 July 2016 - 08:36 AM.

[Jman5]

The issue of Clan Streak 6s is tricky. On the one hand I don't believe they are overpowered. The forced RNG spread, required locktime, relatively low range compared to other weapons in the game, and the existence of several soft counters (ECM, Radar deprivation, and AMS) make it less powerful.

On the other hand when you threw a lot of people of all skills at Scouting like we did during the event last week, you could clearly see a consistent bias emerging favoring clans. A bias that seemed to disappear in the regular invasion mode.

Perhaps the answer isn't to nerf or buff anything. Maybe the best course of action is to just introduce a Streak 6 for Inner Sphere. Then all the players who can't deal with streak 6s can fight fire with fire.

[Kuritaclan]

Jman5, on 12 July 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

The issue of Clan Streak 6s is tricky. On the one hand I don't believe they are overpowered. The forced RNG spread, required locktime, relatively low range compared to other weapons in the game, and the existence of several soft counters (ECM, Radar deprivation, and AMS) make it less powerful.

On the other hand when you threw a lot of people of all skills at Scouting like we did during the event last week, you could clearly see a consistent bias emerging favoring clans. A bias that seemed to disappear in the regular invasion mode.

Perhaps the answer isn't to nerf or buff anything. Maybe the best course of action is to just introduce a Streak 6 for Inner Sphere. Then all the players who can't deal with streak 6s can fight fire with fire.

As soundy as this propasal is, it won't fix the problem. Because after that we will see the rambling about tonnages, XL engines. The advantage of streakboat with xl vs clan-xl is blantant. And the next iteration would be std to have the same survivebility as a XL 55t e.g. stormcrow, but with less speed caused by tonnage consumption of the engine and the weaponary. So in the end there is no fire fight fire. You only will see the advantage that clans have in that particluar szenario.

SSRMs on IS side can't fight SSRMs on clan side. This doesn't work out. People as they do now need to counter it with other builds. If the "pugs" can't go that way the addition of SSRMs to the IS won't help i think.

[Jon Gotham]

MechregSurn, on 12 July 2016 - 06:08 AM, said:

Have you noticed that even the "best" teams that go clan for too long, lose their ability to win in inner sphere mechs. The crutchcrows and crutchkodiaks kill skills.

Much like the excessive IS quirks?

[MischiefSC]

Rather than auto-aim proliferation just cut range to 270m on streaks. No reason for them to have extra range. This robs them of the free shot on closing. Slow them slightly to make AMS more effective against them or reduce their HP for the same effect.

No need for big changes.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

bring 50+ ton mechs, bring at least 1 ECM mech, keep together, Autocannons are king, you can not spread pin point damage. Another option is bring 3 BJ-1's with an ECM mech, BJ-1's bring AC2's with a bunch of ammo, coordinate fire, make certain you are in a big clearing to force the enemy to converge on you in the open. Once enemy is dead or legged nab intel in the window before the Drop Ship arrives, have someone stand next to the extraction zone and walk in with 5 seconds remaining.

Remember, it isn't about how much intel you bring in, but, not losing intel for your side of the conflict.

[Surn]

I am very sorry to report that no...the best teams currently playing clan cannot win regularly in inner sphere mechs unless they all move is at the same time to only face pugs. That is why they are all clan, any that break rank are obliterated and start losing pilots. This phenomena is purely due to balance issues.

Edited by MechregSurn, 12 July 2016 - 07:56 PM.

[TygerLily]

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.

USE THE VOIP.

Focus down the legs with 50 or 55 ton SRM boats.

Don't take XLs.

[H I A S]

MechregSurn, on 12 July 2016 - 07:55 PM, said:

I am very sorry to report that no...the best teams currently playing clan cannot win regularly in inner sphere mechs unless they all move is at the same time to only face pugs. That is why they are all clan, any that break rank are obliterated and start losing pilots. This phenomena is purely due to balance issues.

insinuation much?
the best teams play almost no fp.
you have no idea what you're talking about.

Edited by arivio, 12 July 2016 - 09:54 PM.

[Crockdaddy]

MischiefSC, on 04 July 2016 - 04:02 AM, said:

The problem however is simply numbers.

Wolf and Bear don't attack. Only CJF. So as almost all of what's left of Davion is in Steiner the Steiner defense is populated by all the remaining pugs of Davion, Liao and Marik, plus the existing Steiner pugs. You'll even see a lot of Kurita and FRR pugs there as there's always a scout matching defending Steiner from CJF....

even if they're losing constantly. And they are. As these threads point out there's lots of people who are winning less than 10% of their matches while pugging in Scout queue.

The result of that is that while those of us who drop in teams win almost every match there's an ocean of terribads pugging in LRM Kintaros (yes. Yes they are. Not kidding, they are) losing literally faster than we can win matches. Combine this with almost every major merc unit being in CJF and the Clans having few pugs left and what you've got is mostly units in CJF being fed pugs from every IS faction, who have nowhere else to drop while even their own pug teams have SSRMs to give them an edge in terribad v terribad matches.

Not anything like enough teams in Steiner to hold it. So it goes to LT and the people who prefer invasion go to QP or quit. Rinse and repeat for 90 days, you've succeeded in burning most the IS loyalists out of FW.

I applaud PGI though. They've managed to make FW what they originally wanted - almost entirely mercs. Now they don't need to make factions mean anything. If only I could believe they were cunning enough to have done it on purpose instead of just taught everyone not to care about FW or to even hate it outright by sheer incompetence and apathy.

I know ... I was in a team of 4 Crows slaughtering said Kintaro's. PS ... we don't use streaks for the most part. MPL / SPL are more tasty.

Jon Gotham, on 12 July 2016 - 10:57 AM, said:

Much like the excessive IS quirks?

Do you play? I see quite a few Clan mechs in comp play. Timbers, Kodiaks ... that isn't an accident. IS mechs have range issues and XL engine death by side torso issue. Figure out how to use what your mech does best. Jeez.

[Deathlike]

Hit the Deck, on 11 July 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

I'd like to write something more about Skillcrows. Yes, I'm in the camp who believes that Clan PUGs on average (the important bit) win more against IS PUGs because of using massed Streaks.

One main strength of Streaks is that teams which use the weapon can focus fire very easily below 400m because of the lock on mechanism. It is therefore very important for IS PUGs (or any Scouting team really) to identify the composition of the enemy team before committing to attack especially if they are bringing Crows. If you see Crows with missiles/Streaks pods, don't ever try to be an Hero and charge in first because all of those Skillcrows will lock on you and you will eat more than 9000 missiles! If you by any chance survive, I'm sure one or two of your limbs have already fallen out.

Now those Streaks have long cooldown and are hot! Kill those Crows with fire (bring Flamers and use them)! Form up and charge together and those Skillcrows are going down one by one easily.

The inherent problem with that is that PUGs aren't trained to do that. Hitting "R" for paperdoll loadouts+info is not something these players use on a consistent basis. Of course, it's not really communicated to each other effectively (that's why VOIP is critical).

Even the basics of just ganging up on players (4v3, or 3v2) is just not something practiced, let alone understood... heck, even the concept of regrouping (assuming you're doing the "Protect Intel" mode) can be foreign.

Unless PGI drills this into people through tutorials, it's never going to work the way it should.

This is normally drilled in through units, but ultimately if people don't commit to joining forces (using faction TS servers), it's only going to increase the gulf of the people that play the game.

Jman5, on 12 July 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

The issue of Clan Streak 6s is tricky. On the one hand I don't believe they are overpowered. The forced RNG spread, required locktime, relatively low range compared to other weapons in the game, and the existence of several soft counters (ECM, Radar deprivation, and AMS) make it less powerful.

On the other hand when you threw a lot of people of all skills at Scouting like we did during the event last week, you could clearly see a consistent bias emerging favoring clans. A bias that seemed to disappear in the regular invasion mode.

Perhaps the answer isn't to nerf or buff anything. Maybe the best course of action is to just introduce a Streak 6 for Inner Sphere. Then all the players who can't deal with streak 6s can fight fire with fire.

IS SSRM6 is still inferior to the Clan version... you'd still have to nerf the Clan version or buff the IS version (or do a little of both) to even be on the same playing field.

Edited by Deathlike, 14 July 2016 - 10:29 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Crockdaddy, on 14 July 2016 - 09:01 AM, said:

I know ... I was in a team of 4 Crows slaughtering said Kintaro's. PS ... we don't use streaks for the most part. MPL / SPL are more tasty.



Do you play? I see quite a few Clan mechs in comp play. Timbers, Kodiaks ... that isn't an accident. IS mechs have range issues and XL engine death by side torso issue. Figure out how to use what your mech does best. Jeez.

No is 4man fears skillcrows - pulse crow and Nova? The respect they are due.

However we win 80-90% of scout matches as a 4man. The problem is pug v pug matches.

[Vonbach]

How do you deal with them? Don't play against them.

[Count Zero 74]

House Steiners solution:

Moar tonnage !

[AztecD]

Drop Heavy, 50-55 tons, stay together bring ams/ecm focus fire, use voip/ts

you know standard group tactics

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Count Zero 74, on 20 July 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

House Steiners solution:

Moar tonnage !

Let's bump up steiner tonnage to 80 tons as is..

I mean, Atlas scouts are unfair, but Zeus scouts shouldn't be!