107 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

I started it and then realised I hadn't set it out how you wanted it, weakest scoring 1 etc, may do it in a week or so when the results aren't fresh, as I peaked.

What surprised me the most, is there are mechs on the list that arn't here yet, and until we can work out the hitboxes and get the feel of them, we can't judge them correctly, only have a general idea, High mounts, Clan XL's ECM clear advantages etc

It's mostly how I expected and would have voted but for a few things

In the assaults I'm surprised the HGN rated higher than the Victor and the Zeus i'd have put the Zeus slightly ahead, and the Vic HGN on the same level. also that the Stalker rated higher than the Warhawk.

My thoughts can only conclude with all groups but the most competitive is how good a lurm boat they are, but it still doesn't explain why the HGN is top on the Comp list.

With the Heavies I'm surprised the Grasshopper is regarded so highly by the comp people as I'd put it around the same level as the HBR and the EBJ

The Summoner, and Black Knight variation made me smile and nearly LOL as it clearly shows who can hit with poptarts and those that can't.

Warhammer I can see why it's high and it's a good Heavy, personal experience with it is lower though as I just will not meta with it, and as a near stock, build with DHs and endo it runs around the level of the TDR and JM.

Mediums no real surprises apart from the TREB at comp level, I'm just not seeing it, I know it's thin, and that helps torso twisting and it has value as a hit and run SRM mech, or a gauss ERPPC sniper, but that highly regarded ?

The lights exactly as I expected

[invernomuto]

There is a vote for MAD IIC...
Come on, it's not in the game yet, how could you rate this mech?

[Bud Crue]

Interseting results thus far.

Comparative results seems to indicate (at least to me) that comp folks put a greater premium on mobility. The King Crab and Stalker having noteworthy differences in perceived strength between competitive players and everyone else, with the opposite trend shown in the fairly agile Executioner.

Enforcer jumped out at me too. Fairly middling. Relative to most clan mechs sure, yet, its a dominant medium mech in MRBC matches (those that I've watched) plus the R is the top metamech build for the IS, so I expected it to rate higher. Also the Ice Ferret with the comp folks seeming to give it a bit more love than other types of player (I think again due to its mobility).

A bit surprised that the Black Knight is still as highly thought of as the results suggest. Rarely see em in game since the rescale (though I saw several this morning oddly).

The disdain shown to the Vic, Dragon make it clear to me that wide mechs suck.

Anyway. This is cool.
As always, thanks for the effort Tarogato.

[NighthawK1337]

Clownwarlord, on 07 November 2016 - 03:16 AM, said:

KFC is 5 tons lighter than adder hence less weapons. Outside of being iron dome there isn't much for it to do.

Jump Jets for maneuvering where the ADR can't go like the wall in HPG or cliffs in Viridian Bog, ECM to protect yourself and your teammates from locks, and the triple ams with overload wins lurm games. The KFX is better than the ADR at finding better spots to shoot from and staying undetected. The KFX has structure quirks, they have the same speed, leg hitbox sizes and the ADR even have a wider torso. If anything the only thing ADR has over the KFX is 1.77 tons of pod space at max armor (16.3 vs 14.53), 2.77 if you add ECM, and .5 ton per Jump Jet. Overall KFX has a lot more flexibility than the ADR.

I think next week the KFX will have a significant boost in fighting potential with the incoming hero mech Purifier. It's gonna be like what Oxide is to IS Jenners, it's behind a paywall but the addition of 4 high mounted energy hardpoints will make the KFX even better at energy boating than the ADR. If this poll is still open then, the KFX might see a rise in score.

Edited by NighthawK1337, 07 November 2016 - 06:40 AM.

[Ultimax]

I applaud your effort (and your pretty spreadsheets) - but I declined to vote.

The main reason is because lumping all variants of a chassis into a monolithic whole is not accurate.

"Kodiak" 10/10 is true for the KDK-3 and not true in descending degrees for the other variants.

The aggregate score for the most part is good enough for Omni-mechs, but for battle mechs that have fixed hardpoints and very different quirks - there is just way too much variance.

For example the "Grasshopper" is being carried by 2 of it's variants, the rest are basically trash and would warrant a score of 5 at best.


Obviously, it would have been pretty unmanageable to try and account for everything - so it's not really a criticism. More just a reason why I really like what you're trying to do, but decided I'd pass personally to partake.



Thanks for putting this together.

Edited by Ultimax, 07 November 2016 - 07:58 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

So of course everyone who doesn't even own all those mechs is qualified to vote. No offense, but this is pathetic.

[Ultimax]

Cathy, on 07 November 2016 - 04:38 AM, said:

With the Heavies I'm surprised the Grasshopper is regarded so highly by the comp people as I'd put it around the same level as the HBR and the EBJ

To be honest, I think it's being overvalued.

The main variant used is the 5P, for it's 4 high mounts and shorter beam duration which let's it use ERLLAS more effectively.

It also gets used frequently because it has JJs on top of the previous points.


The HBR & EBJ by comparison are generally strong, but they lack JJs and CERLLAS are not as a good a choice as quirk buffed IS ERLLAS as their burn time is just way too long. (They also can only fire 2 x 2 without suffering ghost heat).

So that's why you are likely seeing the GRH being rated higher than both of them.

Cathy, on 07 November 2016 - 04:38 AM, said:

Warhammer I can see why it's high and it's a good Heavy, personal experience with it is lower though as I just will not meta with it, and as a near stock, build with DHs and endo it runs around the level of the TDR and JM.

If you're going to evaluate performance, you need to evalute maximum possible performance vs. maximum possible performance.

The really poor designs of stock builds or refusing to play optimally is the wrong kind of starting point for this kind of assessement.


I imagine if you played the 6R, 6D and Black Widow over the course of 2 weeks using their best meta focused builds you'd probably have a change of opinion.

[invernomuto]

PhoenixFire55, on 07 November 2016 - 08:00 AM, said:

So of course everyone who doesn't even own all those mechs is qualified to vote. No offense, but this is pathetic.

I voted only for the mech I own and tested on the battlefield, otherwise it would be pointless...

[Mcgral18]

invernomuto, on 07 November 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

There is a vote for MAD IIC...
Come on, it's not in the game yet, how could you rate this mech?

The same way we could tell the Kodiak 3 would be good, without any quirks
Sure there are variables which can tone it down (weapon mounts), but it has a solid base to build on.
Predictions which, while not perfect, have shown to be fairly accurate in a quirkless environment.

[Tristan Winter]

Tarogato, on 06 November 2016 - 10:31 PM, said:

Haha, I was considering messaging you, but you posted anyways. You can redo if you like and I'll remove the old one.

I've now revoted, so you can delete my original entry!

PhoenixFire55, on 07 November 2016 - 08:00 AM, said:

So of course everyone who doesn't even own all those mechs is qualified to vote. No offense, but this is pathetic.

What did you expect? UN representatives to monitor the voting process? This isn't the 2016 presidential election.

[Bud Crue]

invernomuto, on 07 November 2016 - 08:12 AM, said:

I voted only for the mech I own and tested on the battlefield, otherwise it would be pointless...

PhoenixFire55, on 07 November 2016 - 08:00 AM, said:

So of course everyone who doesn't even own all those mechs is qualified to vote. No offense, but this is pathetic.

The OP is just asking for subjective opinions. If one wants to include a mech that they don't have or play, but they have experienced it...say by being slaughtered by it consistently and repeatedly (example the Kodiak-3) then their subjective view of the mech is just as valid as is someone who plays the thing. I mean I don't own Kodiaks but I see plenty of them in game and it is pretty clear that they rate highly on a 1-10 rank of strength. But since I don't own them I can't make that totally obvious observation? K.

[xe N on]

Great poll. However, I found it quite difficult to use a scale of 1 to 10. 1 to 5 would have been better.

[Nainko]

Well done.

[Tarogato]

xe N on, on 07 November 2016 - 09:01 AM, said:

Great poll. However, I found it quite difficult to use a scale of 1 to 10. 1 to 5 would have been better.

I original had a scale of 1 to 15, but then I realised that Google Forms only allow options for a 1 to 10 vote, so I had to adjust.

1 to 5 however doesn't offer enough granularity in my opinion. With such a small scale, you wind up giving more mechs the same rating than you'd like.

PhoenixFire55, on 07 November 2016 - 08:00 AM, said:

So of course everyone who doesn't even own all those mechs is qualified to vote. No offense, but this is pathetic.

I don't own Commandos or Mist Lynxes. I suppose I'm not qualified to submit that they are the two worst lights in the game. Consider that a lot of the mech balance discussion that already goes on, on both on the forums and reddit, has a lot to do with observation. People don't need to own a KDK-3 to understand that they consistently get slaughtered by them. They don't even have to play light mechs to understand that the Firestarter has been dropped like a hot potato in favour of Arctic Cheetahs due to the rescale.

If the people voting truly didn't have a good picture of the mechs they don't own, then I would have expected much greater variance in the results. But the variance has consistently been an average of only 1-2 points out of 10. In fact, that global variance average is currently 1.26 points. On the whole, people are voting mechs very similarly to one another, which I think shows that we together as a community have a better than vague idea of where mechs fall in relation to each other. I would be very interested to see how Russ and Paul might fill out this form, because they are the folks we are relying on to balance this game and make all mechs as equally viable as reasonably possible.

Ultimax, on 07 November 2016 - 07:56 AM, said:

I applaud your effort (and your pretty spreadsheets) - but I declined to vote.

The main reason is because lumping all variants of a chassis into a monolithic whole is not accurate.

"Kodiak" 10/10 is true for the KDK-3 and not true in descending degrees for the other variants.

The aggregate score for the most part is good enough for Omni-mechs, but for battle mechs that have fixed hardpoints and very different quirks - there is just way too much variance.

For example the "Grasshopper" is being carried by 2 of it's variants, the rest are basically trash and would warrant a score of 5 at best.


Obviously, it would have been pretty unmanageable to try and account for everything - so it's not really a criticism. More just a reason why I really like what you're trying to do, but decided I'd pass personally to partake.



Thanks for putting this together.

I respect your opinion - you understand why I only did this by chassis instead of variant, because it would become unwieldy. Hence in the OP, before the poll link, I asked that people vote according to the best build/variant the chassis has to offer, so they wouldn't even consider the GHR-5J or -5N. This is a top-down approach that seeks out first the mechs that are stronger than the rest and deserve most to be toned down.

I may put together a similar poll that includes all variants in the game and ask people to only vote on chassis they have owned and played. I am just worried that it won't receive as many votes because people will see that it's a lot of work to fill out and might not want to spend that time. I would have liked to also do something along the lines of "vote according to the average performance of a chassis, I.e. the KDK-3 is the best, but there is also the KDK-2, the KDK-5, as well as the others to consider." or even possibly one that seeks out the weakest mechs "vote according to the weakest mech in each chassis" but I think that would be even harder because we aren't wired to think like that. Is the WVR-7D or WVR-Q really the worst? Are they worse than the VND-1X or TBT-5N? Those are mechs that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about, so it's harder to quantify them.

invernomuto, on 07 November 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

There is a vote for MAD IIC...
Come on, it's not in the game yet, how could you rate this mech?

I find it amusing how many people have pointed out that I added the MAD-IIC, but not a single person has mentioned that I added the Linebacker.

Predictions don't hurt. You can easily vote on a mech that isn't in the game by understanding how it compares to existing mechs. The MAD-IIC for instance is widely perceived to be an improvement on the Warhawk because it is a Clan battlemech with good hardpoints and flexible engine limitations, whereas the Warhawk is rather limited on hardpoints and has a lot of fixed equipment preventing it from being optimised.

Also, timestamps are logged, so I could compare before vs. after mech release if I ever wanted to run this poll again in the future after balance changes have taken place.

[Ultimax]

invernomuto, on 07 November 2016 - 04:46 AM, said:

There is a vote for MAD IIC...
Come on, it's not in the game yet, how could you rate this mech?

https://en.wiktionar.../educated_guess

[Ultimax]

Tarogato, on 07 November 2016 - 09:50 AM, said:

I respect your opinion - you understand why I only did this by chassis instead of variant, because it would become unwieldy. Hence in the OP, before the poll link, I asked that people vote according to the best build/variant the chassis has to offer, so they wouldn't even consider the GHR-5J or -5N. This is a top-down approach that seeks out first the mechs that are stronger than the rest and deserve most to be toned down.

Well, fair enough.


My concern is that where you and I and many of the people participating are reasonable and game-knowledgeable recognize the KDK-3 is the best variant, PGI very specifically left the KDK-1 out of being quirked because it's pretty clear they do not actually understand what really makes some mechs better than others (nor do they understand where the meta currently is or where it is shifting).


So I'm always really afraid that someone over at PGI get's a hold of something like this and goes "Man, those Grasshoppers still seem to be doing very well!" - when the points its received on your chart are:

• All about the 5P
  
• Heavily influenced due to the mech's usage in MWOWC
  
• Heavily influenced by MRBC rules against duplicate mechs.

The reality is that Grasshoppers as a whole have almost completely disappeared from normal PUG play and will be replaced for comp the instant a jump capable, long range capable, replacement is available (my money is on NTG & SMN eating away at the 5P's role once they are allowed in MRBC).



The mech is already replaced as soon as the map strat will be mid-range or shorter in favor of Warhammers, a duplicate TBR or even an EBJ depending.



My other concern is that this chart shows the ACH as a "9", when the TBR is an "8" and that's because you've asked for evaluations within each weight class. No one in their right mind would say the ACH is a 9 compared to the TBR being an 8 (including you) - however PGI has not proven to me that they will read that chart accurately.

Edited by Ultimax, 07 November 2016 - 11:43 AM.

[Odanan]

Nice pool! I loved the statistics!

But... why did you include mechs that are not even released yet? (Bushwacker, Marauder IIC, Linebacker...)

[invernomuto]

Ultimax, on 07 November 2016 - 09:53 AM, said:

https://en.wiktionar.../educated_guess

But you're making "educated guess" on mech without even knowing quirks or hitboxes... Mah!
Again, I voted only for mechs that I have at least elited/mastered in game.
Voting for mechs that one does not own or that are not yet released is not good for the pool in my opinion because you're mixing real experience with "guesses" or player expectations...

Edited by invernomuto, 07 November 2016 - 10:11 AM.

[Ultimax]

invernomuto, on 07 November 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

But you're making "educated guess" on mech without even knowing quirks or hitboxes... Mah!
Again, I voted only for mechs that I have at least elited/mastered in game.
Voting for mechs that one does not own or that are not yet released is not good for the pool in my opinion because you're mixing real experience with "guesses" or player expectations...

The hitboxes are pretty discernible in the artwork (prior experience with other mechs tells us this), we also have several roughly similar shaped mechs to draw from (more prior experience for making an assessment) including a different version of the mech itself (IS MAD) which is guaranteed to be smaller due to how PGI's tonnage based scaling works (again, more information on what to expect).


Then we have all of the hardpoints, we know it's engine capabilities and many of us can approximate available builds using spreadsheets created for such a thing.


We might get some surprises, such as some hardpoints for a variant that aren't visible in the artwork or if as you said PGI goes nuts with the quirks (highly unlikely, they have not done this often with clan assault mechs and at this point probably recognize their huge mistake with the Kodiaks).


That is more than sufficient to make a rough assessment of the CHASSIS as a whole.

Edited by Ultimax, 07 November 2016 - 10:17 AM.

[blood4blood]

I voted but FWIW, I'm a sporadic player who has taken extended leaves from this game, so many of my votes are probably based on outdated information. Example - I've mastered Victors, but I haven't piloted one in ages, and I haven't bothered checking if they've improved. Also, I tried to only vote on mechs I own or have at least used the trial version, except the Kodiak. KDK-3 is common and obvious to anyone who's faced one, no need to pilot it to form an opinion there. Last point - I voted subjectively based on my personal opinion & experience, not trying to be objective at all. Example - I still like FS9's a lot better than many other people, so I rated them highly even though I know they're not as good as they used to be.