180 replies to this topic

[Slaughterama]

No delay!! I need mah Vulture!

[Rejarial Galatan]

When the clans get introduced and the devs get things lined up right, the clans will be a playable faction, and those of us who want to, will change to Clan. How can I say clans will be faction playable? Simple, PGI has stated several times this game is Player Vs Player, and for a while, presumably a year or more after launch there will be NO Player Vs Environmental content, thusly, it is logical to conclude that, with the full scale invasion starting in MARCH of 2013/3050 Clans will be playable by us players, so, yea, those of us who change, will be piloting clan mechs.

[Todd Lee]

No clans, no play

[Skylarr]

Jakob Knight, on 19 July 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

Those who even allow Freebirths to pilot anything will only assign them to second-rate battlemechs that are either captured Inner Sphere units no True warrior would pilot, or units pulled from Brian caches (which are the same as the Star League level mechs in the IS).

Those horrible Second Line Mechs.

• Glass Spider
  
• Griffin IIC
  
• Guillotine IIC
  
• Highlander IIC
  
• Jenner IIC
  
• Locust IIC
  
• Marauder IIC
  
• Phoenix Hawk IIC
  
• Rifleman IIC
  
• Warhammer IIC

Besides the Mechs listed above here are the Mechs placed in the Brian Caches by the Star League: Technical Readout: 2750

Edited by Skylarr, 22 July 2012 - 08:48 AM.

[William Petersen]

The invasion of the 'Sphere proper doesn't happen 'til March. That's 7 months from August, so maybe 6 months from "Game On". That should be plenty enough time for me to earn a nice fat load of C-Bills worfh of hardware to throw at the Clans to smash that smug trashborn grin off their ulgy clanner faces.

[Vtack]

The worry I have is that the dev's haven't really talked about the clans at all. I think that for financial reasons the invasion has to happen. Some of the most iconic mechs in the whole of cannon are clan mechs. I'm sure at some point I'll pay very good money for my Summoner and its many awesome variants. Folks are going to spend cash for a madcat. Ditto the Dire Wolf, Warhak, and Vulture.

Like it or not the devs have a monetary interest in seeing clan mechs released. The fact that there doesn't seem to be any plan, or more realistically a plan that they don't care to share at present time worries me.

The reasons are two fold: Monetizing clan mechs is highly likely to be different in some keep respects. First they're omni mechs. Making people pay for variants of a mech that is modular is a hard sell. On the flip side people that paid money/played hours and hours of the game to have 3 separate variants of their favorite IS mech are going to be (justfiably) upset that the clanners have an easier time equiping and outfitting their mechs. The first solution that presents itself, extremely high prices for omni tech, is fundementally a flawed approach. you now enter a system where the players with the most time or disposable income are afforded an advantage in the game because of the second problem.

The second problem is the 100 ton gorilla in the room. Omni mechs are demonstrably superior. They have higher damge to weight ratios, they're faster, better armored, and their weapons hit from further out because that was exactly what FASA wanted them to be when they rolled out the clan invasion. All of a sudden your Centurion that was a strong competitor in a stand up fight is getting obliterated by similar sized omni's. In fact a Nova is faster by more than 20 kph, jump capable, has 1.5 tons more armor (than a CN9-D) , and is capable of dealing 84 points of damage (if you can alpha that many mediums and not die a horrible death) as compared to in the CN9-D's 30 on an alpha. the Nova is a statistically vastly superior mech. People that play this game are going to want that. There's no doubt in my mind that rolling out omni's will be disasterous to game play if its not done with a lot of care and thought.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Vtack, on 19 July 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

The worry I have is that the dev's haven't really talked about the clans at all. I think that for financial reasons the invasion has to happen. Some of the most iconic mechs in the whole of cannon are clan mechs. I'm sure at some point I'll pay very good money for my Summoner and its many awesome variants. Folks are going to spend cash for a madcat. Ditto the Dire Wolf, Warhak, and Vulture.

Like it or not the devs have a monetary interest in seeing clan mechs released. The fact that there doesn't seem to be any plan, or more realistically a plan that they don't care to share at present time worries me.

The reasons are two fold: Monetizing clan mechs is highly likely to be different in some keep respects. First they're omni mechs. Making people pay for variants of a mech that is modular is a hard sell. On the flip side people that paid money/played hours and hours of the game to have 3 separate variants of their favorite IS mech are going to be (justfiably) upset that the clanners have an easier time equiping and outfitting their mechs. The first solution that presents itself, extremely high prices for omni tech, is fundementally a flawed approach. you now enter a system where the players with the most time or disposable income are afforded an advantage in the game because of the second problem.

The second problem is the 100 ton gorilla in the room. Omni mechs are demonstrably superior. They have higher damge to weight ratios, they're faster, better armored, and their weapons hit from further out because that was exactly what FASA wanted them to be when they rolled out the clan invasion. All of a sudden your Centurion that was a strong competitor in a stand up fight is getting obliterated by similar sized omni's. In fact a Nova is faster by more than 20 kph, jump capable, has 1.5 tons more armor (than a CN9-D) , and is capable of dealing 84 points of damage (if you can alpha that many mediums and not die a horrible death) as compared to in the CN9-D's 30 on an alpha. the Nova is a statistically vastly superior mech. People that play this game are going to want that. There's no doubt in my mind that rolling out omni's will be disasterous to game play if its not done with a lot of care and thought.

this, this right here, is the beginning of Pay To Win. I am sorry, but, this is a bad, bad, bad, VERY BAD idea.

[William Petersen]

Vtack, on 19 July 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

The second problem is the 100 ton gorilla in the room. Omni mechs are demonstrably superior. They have higher damge to weight ratios, they're faster, better armored, and their weapons hit from further out because that was exactly what FASA wanted them to be when they rolled out the clan invasion. All of a sudden your Centurion that was a strong competitor in a stand up fight is getting obliterated by similar sized omni's. In fact a Nova is faster by more than 20 kph, jump capable, has 1.5 tons more armor (than a CN9-D) , and is capable of dealing 84 points of damage (if you can alpha that many mediums and not die a horrible death) as compared to in the CN9-D's 30 on an alpha. the Nova is a statistically vastly superior mech. People that play this game are going to want that. There's no doubt in my mind that rolling out omni's will be disasterous to game play if its not done with a lot of care and thought.

The problem isn't Omnis; it's ClanTech.

The only thing that makes OmniMechs OmniMechs is the easy of swapping loadouts relative to BattleMechs. Switching a Timber Wolf Prime to a Timber Wolf D configuration didn't require a brand new mech or weeks laid up in a factory somewhere, you popped out the Prime's pods, and stuffed on the D's pods. Took maybe a couple hours (don't know, just guesstimating). The "trouble" was that you couldn't change ANYTHING about the Mech structrually. You couldn't change the engine, the armour, or the internals, nothing but equipment like weapons, electronics, ammo, AMS, and heatsinks. And for Heat Sinks you could only take them down to the chassis' minimum, ex: the Timber Wolf had a minimum of 15 double heat sinks, you couldn't reduce it any further, the 5 above the 10 standard free heat sinks were "hard-wired" into the chassis, and you couldn't change their type - not that you'd want to, clan DHS are the best thing ever. Also, there were a handfull of OmniMechs with hard-wired weaponry as well. I believe the Avatar has dual MLas in the CT that can not be removed, and the Adder has a Flamer in the CT that can not be removed.

I look forward to seeing how they implement OmniMechs.

[Morashtak]

How about no delay, just not playable until the fourth wave in August of next year. First through third would be posts in the Announcements.

Gives PGI plenty of time to beta test and tune the Clan specific Mechs and equipment. Gives the Clans a border that will ensure a large number of planets to attack and defend.

[Vtack]

William Petersen, on 20 July 2012 - 08:37 AM, said:

The problem isn't Omnis; it's ClanTech.

The only thing that makes OmniMechs OmniMechs is the easy of swapping loadouts relative to BattleMechs. Switching a Timber Wolf Prime to a Timber Wolf D configuration didn't require a brand new mech or weeks laid up in a factory somewhere, you popped out the Prime's pods, and stuffed on the D's pods. Took maybe a couple hours (don't know, just guesstimating). The "trouble" was that you couldn't change ANYTHING about the Mech structrually. You couldn't change the engine, the armour, or the internals, nothing but equipment like weapons, electronics, ammo, AMS, and heatsinks. And for Heat Sinks you could only take them down to the chassis' minimum, ex: the Timber Wolf had a minimum of 15 double heat sinks, you couldn't reduce it any further, the 5 above the 10 standard free heat sinks were "hard-wired" into the chassis, and you couldn't change their type - not that you'd want to, clan DHS are the best thing ever. Also, there were a handfull of OmniMechs with hard-wired weaponry as well. I believe the Avatar has dual MLas in the CT that can not be removed, and the Adder has a Flamer in the CT that can not be removed.

I look forward to seeing how they implement OmniMechs.

If they implemented that type of design deficency ie you can't mess around with internals in any way (armor amount, engine size, etc.) and just said you have 16 tons of pod space to play around with weapons I'd be ok with that. It's a fairly cannon way to atleast attempt to eqaulize the difference between omni's and IS mechs.

Still I worry that omni's are gamebreakers.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Morashtak, on 20 July 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

How about no delay, just not playable until the fourth wave in August of next year. First through third would be posts in the Announcements.

Gives PGI plenty of time to beta test and tune the Clan specific Mechs and equipment. Gives the Clans a border that will ensure a large number of planets to attack and defend.

as said before by me: OH HELL NO. You are asking those of us who are basically trying to bust our respective gates as we try to break free from our bridals to wait LONGER? JUST HELL NO. The majority of us, myself included, have waited since the END OF MECHWARRIOR 2 GHOST BEARS LEGACY. We are sick of waiting, we demand equally fair chances to play what we love, just as you innerspheroids play what YOU love. Do not ask us to wait, for we do not ask it of you.

[Gremlich Johns]

Skylarr, on 19 July 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

Those horrible Second Line Mechs.

• Glass Spider
  
• Griffin IIC
  
• Guillotine IIC
  
• Highlander IIC
  
• Jenner IIC
  
• Locust IIC
  
• Marauder IIC
  
• Phoenix Hawk IIC
  
• Rifleman IIC
  
• Warhammer IIC

Mechs placed in the Brian Caches by the Star League: Technical Readout: 2750

Unless I misread how you presented this, The IIC variants are Clan variants of IS mechs and so, cannot be found in a Brian cache.

[CCC Dober]

OP: This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Lots of guys accepted (more or less grudgingly) that Clans aren't there yet but they have still forked out cash in anticipation. Take me as an example: I'd gladly trade my whole lance of Founder's Mechs for the chance to start with Clans from day one, no BS. I'd even trade them for a single Clan Founder's Omni Mech of my choice (Thor/Summoner to be precise) and you can hold me to that. I'm practically waiting for the day to start playing for real. Clans or bust is what I say. If I was told that they are delayed now all of a sudden, for whatever reasons, be sure that wouldn't sit well with me. Pretty sure I'm not alone on this one.

[Rejarial Galatan]

CCC Dober, on 21 July 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

OP: This doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Lots of guys accepted (more or less grudgingly) that Clans aren't there yet but they have still forked out cash in anticipation. Take me as an example: I'd gladly trade my whole lance of Founder's Mechs for the chance to start with Clans from day one, no BS. I'd even trade them for a single Clan Founder's Omni Mech of my choice (Thor/Summoner to be precise) and you can hold me to that. I'm practically waiting for the day to start playing for real. Clans or bust is what I say. If I was told that they are delayed now all of a sudden, for whatever reasons, be sure that wouldn't sit well with me. Pretty sure I'm not alone on this one.

<climbs up onto a chair and shouts his agreements with CCC Dober> I add: I would hand over my founders AS7-D in a HEART BEAT even if I had the bloody thing MASTERED, and start from 0 xp with my TIMBER WOLF. I am with Dober on this. Delaying the Clans sits about as well with me as an angry, soaking wet cat would, which is it say: NOT AT ALL WELL.

[CharliePapaLima]

I'm sure there will be sufficient time between the launch of the game and the Clan invasion. No reason for the devs to pull out all their cards right off the bat.

[Faceless Priest]

i agree with delaying it

[Ulbrecht Stormcrow]

Five by Five, on 18 July 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

I like stepping one year back in time for several reasons. More time to get more mechs, both IS and Clan. Time to get the IS games types maps and factions implimented and organized. And very important, time to let the Clans get organized, get a clan on clan matchmaking system in place and a clan on IS match making system in place.

There is no reason to keep the clans out of the game for a year, just offset the time line for so the invasion doesn't occur for a year. The clans will need time for establishing rank and blood names, and I believe there's some pre-invasions trails they have to work through. So by all means, get the clans in the game as soon as possible, but hold off on the clan invasion for an additional year.

**Edit** and please don't nerf the clan mechs. If the game needs balance, then do it by awarding XP and C-bills (maybe honor points instead of c-bills for the clans) differently for the clans.

This^

I'm all for "resetting" this year on January 1 for a repeat of the current calender year, then advance the timeline per cannon. More time to refine, more time to add machs, more time for maps and core game functions to develop depth. Its not that I object to the time line, its that I object to the year we chose to start at, given the lateness of the beta, and the core functions still to be implimented.

[Graives]

My fellows and I were talking about this earlier and the only thing that makes sense is for them to reset the timeline when the game is released, because there is supposed to be a year before the Clan arrives. Unless I'm just way off on my dates.

EDIT: BTW, the Dev's already said quite clearly that historical events will not be handled by players, so anything that has to happen any certain way will happen the way it's supposed to. We don't need to worry about that. We'll just get the chance to play our part.

Edited by Graives, 21 July 2012 - 07:09 PM.

[Five by Five]

Rejarial Galatan, on 18 July 2012 - 11:10 PM, said:

um, the IS did NOT have time to prepare, they were caught unawares and were blind sided. That is how it happened in Canon/Lore, that is how it MUST happen here. Stepping back a year is a needless harm to those of us, chomping at the bit to get back where we belong, in Clan Mechs, Fighting as TRUEBORN WARRIORS. We have waited, We are DONE waiting, Our time is NIGH, WE ARE COMING!

Off setting the time-line isn't intended to give the IS a year more to prepare, it is intended to give the devs enough time to get a full complement of Clan mech in game and to give the Clans enough time to get organized, and enough time for the Devs to get a Clan vs IS match making system in place (not to mention a Clan vs Clan match making system).

The sooner the Clans are open to players the better. If the Clans are to be played properly, we'll need time to get proper trails of position done. We'll need time for warriors to hone their skills in the mechs fitting of their rank. And who currently owns the BloodNames of the Clans? We'll need time to awards those as-well. I do want the Clans opened up as soon as possible, and I want Clan mechs as soon as possible. But the first warriors I want to fight in those Clan mechs are other Clan warriors so that those who do invade the inner sphere are trained, prepared and organized and not a rable of freebirths. To do those things, and to do it with a full inventory of Mechs, I say off-set the time line a year.

Again, off-setting the time line a year does not mean that we wait an extra year to get Clan mechs, nor an extra year to start fighting. It just means the invasion doesn't start for a year, There are plenty a Clan vs Clan trails to keep busy with (think of the invasion slots, each of those was won in a trail.)

[Rejarial Galatan]

I am sorry 5x5, but, the idea of waiting even longer to get back into the saddle as a Clanner is appalling. It seems that every time it is called for Clans to be delayed or for them to be nerfed it is by IS players who have something against the Clans, be it they resent how much more powerful the tech is, or some other reason. I am sorry, you guys feel like this. But, I want you all to take notice of something: We the die hard Pro-Clan Invasion-Clan Faction bunch, have NOT said: Start this game right as the Clans invade! Nor have we said: Let us start as Clan Factions. We have sat by, quietly biding our time, being patient, and waiting our time, but, threads like this pop up. I want to break something down for you guys, all you pro-IS, pro-delay the clans crowd. Does the following date ring any bells for anyone: November 30, 1995.

Why is this date important Rejarial? What does it mean? That date, that date right there, is the LAST release date of CLAN SPECIFIC, CLAN CENTERED content for us. August 31, 1996 was MW2 MERCENARIES. It should also be noted: EVERY SINGLE TITLE SINCE THAT DATE has been INNERSPHERE ORIENTED.

Please, for the love of the franchise, stop, just STOP treating us Clan Faction oriented players as second rate citizens and demanding we wait even LONGER for our beloved content, WE DO NOT DEMAND THIS OF YOU, so do not demand it of us. We have waited 18 years, as of 2013 for this, stop asking us to wait LONGER. If our wait was a child born the day MW2 GBL was released, they will have GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL by now. Look, we know you love your IS tech and mechs, and so on and so forth, well, we love our Clan tech and mechs and so on and so forth. We just want to be treated equally and not forced to wait any longer than we absolutely must.