181 replies to this topic

[Terick]

Yeah, forgot clanners have only two spots in each Torso.

As for the clans using CASE, because if they didnt' they would have to replace the whole mech. It makes sense for a culture that is trying to conserve resources to try and limit the need to replace a whole mech.

For not using Standard engine. Clans want fast duels that are over fast. Most of them aren't in tot eh grueling long drawn out conflicts. They like short sharp combat... makes me think of many FPS players, like a constant attack and not maneuver for advantage then attack, but I digress.

The XL engines give them increased performance and shorten combat. I also attribute it to the people that designed the clan mechs to start with. They made heavy use of XL engines. In later Tech Readouts you see XL engines used a lot less. Especially on the IS side of things.

Personally I like that the clanners have to roleplay to limit their power. But I like Role Play and have been playing on The Shack for almost 4 years now.

I really hope the clanners have their cool toys, but have to follow the parts of being clan. Meaning they can't load certain ammo types and ther things because they wouldn't think to use them or they would consider it dishonorable.

I also like the idea of salvaging their units and using them against them. Lance of Vipers tearing at some poor clan player.

[Kudzu]

Volume, on 15 December 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

1: Clan vs. Clan only. This doesn't fix the equipment, it just fixes the player experience.
2: Battle value with a set number of players on each side. Example: 8v8 battles, with 10000 BV or something. Can't have 8 people in Warhawks vs. 8 people in Jenners - maybe one or two people on each side have Clan tech, make sure amount of Clan mechs are equal. This doesn't fix the equipment, and it can make the player experience not so good. At least people will be able to gang up on the "big guy" (again, WoT style when you get 1-2 heavies in a tier 5 match. Not good, but playable at least.)
3: No changes, use ECM and tactics to win. Picture one lance of inner sphere heavies fighting a point of clan heavies. No chance, right? What if you give the inner sphere heavies a fire support lance of a longbow, catapult, dervish, whatever... on a hill while a Raven runs around and NARCs the clanners, allowing artillery fire... ARROW IV support or something. Who knows.
4: Zellbrigen (LOOOL WOULD NEVER WORK IN A MULTIPLAYER GAME)
5: NERF CLAN TECH (Not canonical but BAME GALANCE is more important)
6: make clan tech a TRADEOFF (see: PPC, cER PPC in MW4, ER Large Pulse vs Large X-Pulse, etc) - make them more heat, higher recycle time, whatever, more burst damage than IS. I don't want to say "OH IT HAS 15% CHANCE TO JAM RANDOMLY AND ***** YOU" because we all hate RNG (at least non-tabletop players do. Rolling a 12 with an urbanmech's AC is totally fair).
7: Make it incredibly rare (This doesn't FIX it either, it might fix the gameplay a BIT but not really. Salvagable and expensive just makes the game pay2win which we don't want.)
8 and my solution: DON'T INCLUDE IT.

Or the best solution of all-- Balance by BV not by tonnage or an even number of people per side.

[Terick]

Riiggghhhtt.... BV is so balanced. Not even close.

I remember a clan assault star facing more then two companies of IS mechs. It wasn't even close, the IS had a whole company of WVR-6Rs (3025 tech Wolverine). The clanner lost the entire star for less then 6 IS mechs going down.

The clanner laughed when he saw what he was facing, and was cryng when the last clan mech went down. He was crying foul, but he said even Bv.

So yeah if you want the IS to trounce clanners every game... or want only a few mechs to be used because they min/max. Go with Bv.

[Kudzu]

Terick, on 15 December 2011 - 01:03 PM, said:

Riiggghhhtt.... BV is so balanced. Not even close.

I remember a clan assault star facing more then two companies of IS mechs. It wasn't even close, the IS had a whole company of WVR-6Rs (3025 tech Wolverine). The clanner lost the entire star for less then 6 IS mechs going down.

The clanner laughed when he saw what he was facing, and was cryng when the last clan mech went down. He was crying foul, but he said even Bv.

So yeah if you want the IS to trounce clanners every game... or want only a few mechs to be used because they min/max. Go with Bv.

"So this one time this one thing happened, that means it always happens every time."

[Habokku]

Guys, I appreciate all the thoughts offered in this discussion so far, and this is a very very polarlizing topic to be sure. On the one hand you've got people who love the Clans and the game as it is, and/or don't want things to change in any way, shape, form or fashion. On the other hand you've got people who would like to see a more reasonable, and effective method of balancing things outside of Battle Value, which has it's function but is far, faaaaar from perfect.

Lets keep this discussion civil and polite. Everyone has their opinion and all of us have different experiences when it comes to the Universe of Battletech. We're all fans here, and I think through discussion we can find a middle ground that will probably not please everyone (In fact I hold no illusion that it ever could, just to be honest) but that the vast majority of the people here can agree on, so that the next two and a half decades can be as much (Or more, hopefully!) fun as the last were.

I'll admit, I wasn't a part of the universe when Battletech was created. I wasn't a part of the marvelous story and mythos of this wonderful sci-fi universe that we all share such fond feelings towards till much later. But, better late to the party than never as they say! I discovered this game as a result of playing a freeware version of Earthsiege 1, and loving the concept of 'mechs and walking tanks that blew each other up. After I had played the earthsiege 1 demo for two months, I went searching for the actual game. I never could find it, but I did find Mechwarror 2 mercenaries, which had just released. Well, safe to say, I was hooked from that moment onward.

Having said all that. Lets all look at the problem critically. Specifically, the skewed balance of the weaponry of Battletech, post clan invasion. People have been trying to find work arounds both simple (two-to-one odds at all times) to complex (The Battle Value system) and none seem to have really solved the overall problem to a suitable degree. They're a band-aid on a deep cut, meaning they do some good, but don't really address how to fix the problem.

I, along with others in this thead, are trying to find the right method of stitching the cut up so it can heal.

I've already made my opinion clear. I'd like the weights on weapons systems to be more even. Not even identical, but more consistant across the board. I want the Clan weapons to be superior to their I.S. counterparts in many ways. Be that range, damage, and/or space required to mount them on a 'mech. However, they should not be better to the degree that they are the only logical choice when choosing weaponry. If their weight is the same (Or almost the same), it makes that harder hitting, longer reaching weapon (Let's say, ER Large Laser) less of an obvious choice. Sure you get better range and more damage, but it runs much hotter, and/or has a longer recycle time between firing. The I.S. Counterpart lacks a little, taking up more space to mount, not reaching as far or hitting as hard, but it recycles faster because it has more or bigger "recharge capacitors" (It takes up twice the space of it's Clan counterpart), and also runs cooler on average because it's capacitors aren't as powerful or advanced. Just adding some Battletech science speak to my argument to elaborate and explain my point. I know nothing of real world laser technology or it's Battletech equivilent.

The clans can be done right, and at the same time be balanced so that they'll still can wipe the floor with an I.S. force if fought man-to-man more often than not. (Pilot ability & tactical accumen not withstanding, of course) But, at the same time, still have weaknesses that mean something, and that savvy I.S. pilots can capitalize on and hopefully come out on top if their tactics are up-to-snuff.

These are my musings, take them as that and please know I'm not calling for a complete re-write of the Clans, or their 'mechs or weapons or anything else. Just looking at what I view to be a rather glaring dent in the otherwise amazingly detailed and well made universe of Battletech as a whole.

To everyone who's posted so far, regardless of your stance, thank you very much for your thoughts. I've read all of them and while I don't agree with all of the opinions expressed, I do respect you for having them and hope that through continued discussion we can as a community hit upon a method to bring balance where I think (in my ever so humble opinion) it is needed.

<S> Take care everyone

-Havoc
A.K.A. Habokku

Edited by Habokku, 15 December 2011 - 10:39 PM.

[Ratwedge]

The Clan's and their Technology are fine, its the people who don't know the nuances of the setting and can only see stats that is the problem. The Inner Sphere already has the versatility and the numbers to out fight Clan forces 8 out of 10 times, after all in this day and age if you want a challenge you play the Clans, not the Inner Sphere because it actually requires to you to out think your opponent, milk those advantages your equipment provides and pray for a whole lot of luck that you don't get one-shot.

[CaveMan]

This thread officially gives me a headache

[Slepnir]

Habokku, on 15 December 2011 - 07:08 AM, said:

I want the new players that we as a community will welcome to this universe to not simply go "Oh, wow the Clan's tech is so much better! Why would anyone play Inner Sphere?".

One word-fluff
We don't really have this problem with new players. we get them to choose both a clan an IS faction(or several) based on combat tactics, mech appearance, house unit special rules(from the field manuals) and so forth.

Once again i see you trying to "fix" something that really isn't broken. the game has lasted for 25 years with only minor tweaks and the same basic core rules and is still one of the best most balanced systems out there in the market.

I personally hate BV and BV2, war is not fair or balanced we encourage players to throw down mech they LIKE to play with not mechs that they HAVE to play with because they are the most optimised. knowing how to play your force(espcially with added special unit rules) is really the big kicker VS only what you choose to bring. hell we ran a campaign where all our players were in a clan ice hellion star-only lite or fast medium weight mechs and they learned how to overcome heavier opposition with them.

feel free to look through my battle log on warseer for examples-
http://www.warseer.c...ad.php?t=267230

[Habokku]

Terick, on 15 December 2011 - 09:41 AM, said:

I do have to say your choice of a highlander as a mech... ick. Give me a Rampage and I'll curb stomp you.

If both 'mechs are in game, we'll test that theory out! Best of luck to ya.

<S>

-Havoc
A.K.A. Habokku

[Aaron DeChavilier]

the problem habokku is the pro-Leave-Clantech-as-is side keeps pulling
the Slippery Slope* argument, and it's evidenced by you feeling the
need to make that long paragraph about how you want to be careful
and keep the clan mythos but balance the stats etc. It's often very hard
for one faction that is OP to accept their OP and understand the way
forward is balance and that things don't always stay the same.

Space Marines in 40k are the best closest analogy - in order to beat
space marines as a player of certain other factions, one generally looks
online to find space marine busting army build lists. This is not a true
fix because now it is limiting what the opposition gets to take if they want
the best chance at victory.

On top of that, in btech you can't really grab a 3025/3050 IS build list that
will give you a good chance of victory on any given mapsheet. See the one
of the problems I realized about clan tech is this: the idea of meritocracy -
in an RPG you have to level up to get the new/better and work for it.
I think a lot of people don't like clantech because the players who take it...
chose it...nobody earns clantech - it was just made to be perfect and anyone
could take the equipment. IS tech plays more like the RPG scenario, there are
levels of technology, and most gear comes with drawbacks. So I see it as
a bit of a 'Betrayal of Ideals' thing that seems more fit in 40k

now we can keep going case-by-case for clan tech; but as I think I've shown
over the course of this discussion that it's not the case-by-case that makes
them OP - it's the fact that overall, and on average their equip is just better.
The stats for each weapon seem to be literally written as better in every way
and that's bad game writing. My challenge to clan players, esp the TT ones;
reverse roles with your IS players. Play basic scenarios or even canon ones
from the books, and see what happens.

FInal note: "when something's broken [in a game] it's no secret"
http://www.stephane....odex_not_marine

*: http://rationalwiki..../Slippery_slope

[Habokku]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 16 December 2011 - 06:54 AM, said:

the problem habokku is the pro-Leave-Clantech-as-is side keeps pulling
the Slippery Slope* argument, and it's evidenced by you feeling the
need to make that long paragraph about how you want to be careful
and keep the clan mythos but balance the stats etc. It's often very hard
for one faction that is OP to accept their OP and understand the way
forward is balance and that things don't always stay the same.

Space Marines in 40k are the best closest analogy - in order to beat
space marines as a player of certain other factions, one generally looks
online to find space marine busting army build lists. This is not a true
fix because now it is limiting what the opposition gets to take if they want
the best chance at victory.

On top of that, in btech you can't really grab a 3025/3050 IS build list that
will give you a good chance of victory on any given mapsheet. See the one
of the problems I realized about clan tech is this: the idea of meritocracy -
in an RPG you have to level up to get the new/better and work for it.
I think a lot of people don't like clantech because the players who take it...
chose it...nobody earns clantech - it was just made to be perfect and anyone
could take the equipment. IS tech plays more like the RPG scenario, there are
levels of technology, and most gear comes with drawbacks. So I see it as
a bit of a 'Betrayal of Ideals' thing that seems more fit in 40k

now we can keep going case-by-case for clan tech; but as I think I've shown
over the course of this discussion that it's not the case-by-case that makes
them OP - it's the fact that overall, and on average their equip is just better.
The stats for each weapon seem to be literally written as better in every way
and that's bad game writing. My challenge to clan players, esp the TT ones;
reverse roles with your IS players. Play basic scenarios or even canon ones
from the books, and see what happens.

FInal note: "when something's broken [in a game] it's no secret"
http://www.stephane....odex_not_marine

*: http://rationalwiki..../Slippery_slope

Hey Aaron, and good points.

You and I are on the same sheet of music I think, to be sure. Also, and as an aside, I play Warhammer 40,000, and have since a few years after I first learned about Battletech and Mechwarrior. (I started playing 40k in high school.) I've got a marine army but I do play Eldar as well as Imperial Guard (For Vostroya!!!... God those minis are neat looking but MAN painting an all metal imperial guard army is painful..). So yes, I do understand the analogy you're giving, and lament that we can't learn from other game systems and see the way forward is indeed to start making adjustments. Fine tune the system so that it's balanced completely. It's balanced now, yes, and it works now, yes, but it can be better, and that's why I started this discussion.

As for my long paragraphs, I tend to get wordy, and over-explain my stance for fear of being misinterpreted. I don't want to come off half-cocked or uninformed, so I want to err on the side of saying a little too much than perhaps not enough. As for the slippery slope argument, yes I've seen that mentioned here in this discussion on more than one occasion, and if done properly it won't even come in to effect.

I agree with you on the RPG element of the game, being personally part of a more-than-a-year long running Mechwarrior pen & paper/tabletop game with my gaming group. I agree completely with your view of earning something cool vs. just having it out the gate. A good observation in my mind.

I hope that through this and other discussions on this particular forum we can narrow down the concept of what can and/or should be done to balance Clan tech as a whole, be it in the tabletop, in MW:O, or both.

We'll see I suppose, and good post there Aaron, thank you once again for your thoughts. Well said sir.

<S> See y'all soon.

-Havoc
A.K.A. Habokku

[Slepnir]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 16 December 2011 - 06:54 AM, said:

. My challenge to clan players, esp the TT ones;
reverse roles with your IS players. Play basic scenarios or even canon ones
from the books, and see what happens.

Already done and proven, follow the link in my previous post. we do clan VS IS all the time on a variety of tables and even camapaigns straight from the HTP books. We have been doing this for years.

It is not bad writing at all, in fact it is correctly done, clan stuff is supposed to be better. field manual rules aside IS players have the ability to ignore zell, use weight of numbers and focused fire as well as the players use of terrain and movement. thats not even taking into account the crit systm. no matter how good your weapons, how heavy your armor or how elite your pilot. 12+ points to the face and your still dead. a floater taking out gyros and engines or ammo has the same end result.

I personally bring at least a trinary worth of clan as well as 3-4 lances of lyran as well as 3-4 of combine forces with me to the game shop every weekend. so reversing roles is never an issue.

P.S. i have built different armies for 40K, still have my DIY marine chapter, but i have also built(and sold off most of) nids, tau, SOB, deathwing, ravenwing, before i learned my lesson and moved to more skirmish games like infinity.

[Paul Rice]

Maybe this has been posted before, but we suggested having an in-game mechanic that limits clan force size in a way that evens the odds, instead of nerfing their mechs?

With the clan honor system and batchalls and all that, the Clans were all about sending in the smallest/weakest force possible in order to gain the most honor. Forcing smaller clan force BVs would make battles work out okay.

OH FRICK I just had an idea. What if instead of C-Bills, clan forces used HONOR as currency somehow? They don't really have an innersphere capitalist economy, unless they do and I just forgot. But if a clan MW does something really impressive in an even battle, or wins a battle with bad odds,, he comes out of the battle with more honor which he can spend on whatever. That would be interesting.

Plus, it might motivate clanners to limit their own advantages if winning a stacked fight gets them no significant reward.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

Slepnir, on 16 December 2011 - 07:59 AM, said:

Already done and proven, follow the link in my previous post. we do clan VS IS all the time on a variety of tables and even camapaigns straight from the HTP books. We have been doing this for years.

It is not bad writing at all, in fact it is correctly done, clan stuff is supposed to be better. field manual rules aside IS players have the ability to ignore zell, use weight of numbers and focused fire as well as the players use of terrain and movement. thats not even taking into account the crit systm. no matter how good your weapons, how heavy your armor or how elite your pilot. 12+ points to the face and your still dead. a floater taking out gyros and engines or ammo has the same end result.

it's been my experience as game designer and game player that luck should be the reward during a game not the crux of the strategy. As with the internal ammo explosion vs CASE+XL argument, headshots fall equally on both IS and Clan designs, outside of targeting computers and limited-scope situations; one cannot rely on headshots to carry the game or their strategy. One can however rely on their large lasers to do more damage, more often, and at longer ranges because its immutable stats are written that way.

As for Zell, zell only works in Clan vs Clan. Zell limits Clan Rules of Engagement...until IS inevitably breaks Zell, then it’s a FFA giving the Clan player free reign to play their strategy as they see fit.

Finally, again as I’ve started to analyze games and break them down; I’ve realized that are better ways to make the clans different and stronger. The ‘same equip but better’ I see as a wholly lazy way to do it. Rather clan tech should be something like the later Clan stuff but from the start. If they’re so advanced, why did they not come up with ATMs sooner? Why stick with the inefficient model of SRM/LRM paradigms? If you brought the clans back down to star league tech then moved them on a different but slightly more powerful tech track, it could work. Where their power lies in their weapons that the IS could never forecast.

Slepnir, on 16 December 2011 - 07:59 AM, said:

I personally bring at least a trinary worth of clan as well as 3-4 lances of lyran as well as 3-4 of combine forces with me to the game shop every weekend. so reversing roles is never an issue.

P.S. i have built different armies for 40K, still have my DIY marine chapter, but i have also built(and sold off most of) nids, tau, SOB, deathwing, ravenwing, before i learned my lesson and moved to more skirmish games like infinity.

Again, case-by-case; I’m talking about weight of averages.

Same here Habokku, by opening up rational dialogue we can make Btech better which is what everyone could get behind. I started 40k in high school now, started with Dark Eldar so I know all about how broken Space Marines are; then I moved to pure Death Guard and learned that only Imperial Space Marines are actually broken and GW doesn’t give much love to chaos anymore (from what I’ve read about 5^th ed…. O.o )

Conclusion: if we can make the clans powerful but different with a different set of tangible draw backs (not-RP req’d, not arbitrary rules) then we have a solution that pleases both sides. When making a faction for any game, best way to make them truly feel different or alien is to start with their play mechanics; how they play out on the table. Applying this to clan; we see that they aren’t different at all to IS, they just have better guns hence why they get raged at, because IS players see them given advantages ‘because the writers said so’ kind of thing. Now if they made the clans play different with a new set of different weapons then their power wouldn’t feel so jarring.
Example difference (again 40k)
Imperial Guard and Orks; both are horde-style armies but they have sublte differences where one isn’t directly superior to the other.

[Kudzu]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 16 December 2011 - 06:54 AM, said:

My challenge to clan players, esp the TT ones;
reverse roles with your IS players. Play basic scenarios or even canon ones
from the books, and see what happens.

I play both sides and win with both. All that is required is a change in tactics.

[TheMagicMan]

Having never read any of the books or really played much TT, and pretty much all of my limited knowledge is based off of mw2, how did it work in universe? How did actual engagements play out between Clan and IS? Seems like the answer must be there.

I've never played BF:Vietnam but friends have told me that some of the battles are slanted toward one side or the other to try to reflect history (this is just what I've heard). Seems like IS would have "home field advantage" to some extent as the invade-es and maybe this could be reflected somehow.

Also I think I read something somewhere about using numbers. If each clanner has to fight against two or three IS then that would level it to some extent (doesn't matter if you've got better tech if they're blowing it apart). That in addition to tonnage/BV or course.

Honestly I didn't read all 7 pages of this and I'm pretty ignorant of actual BT canon, but it seems like (and I'm sure the dev's will) going and taking a look at what "actually" happened would give a little enlightenment. Why reinvent the wheel when it's probably already there, and try to adapt it to this particular game (and a fun, authentic playing experience for everyone IS and Clan alike). Short of that just give the Clan's tech and give the IS a slant and numbers. Just my .02

[Draelren]

I got to the end of page 4 and stopped reading because I just had too much to put in already.

A lot of the changes people propose and say here makes it obvious that some of you don't know the clans history and how they work. People say that they wouldn't have been able to obtain that much tech because they fought amongst themselves. Yes, the clan warriors did. But the scientists? They were never touched, and in fact they conspired with scientists from other clans. They shared information, they weren't the same as most of the warrior touman.

That is how they had achieved a lot in so little time, there was a few clans that didn't do this true, but most did. Soon after Clan Coyote invented Omni-tech, most clans used them.

And as far as changing the clans weapons and balancing... WHY?! That would change the history of what BattleTech is. The clans came in, swept almost all aside, had to go home, came back, and the IS had caught up more. If you change the balance, you change the history of how that came to be. Why in hell would you want to change it?

[Ratwedge]

TheMagicMan, on 16 December 2011 - 12:28 PM, said:

Having never read any of the books or really played much TT, and pretty much all of my limited knowledge is based off of mw2, how did it work in universe? How did actual engagements play out between Clan and IS? Seems like the answer must be there.

How does in work in universe? Oh Clans are always outnumbered, facing an enemy that will use anything and everything to fight with. Often if you put down a decent Clan Omnimech on the tabletop, the Inner Sphere player will put down 2 Battlemechs + some change. On the tabletop, the advantage is firmly with the Inner Sphere which they exploit through superior numbers and diverse technologies.


Seriously, despite what this thread goes on about, if you really want a challenge on the Tabletop you play the Clans. The Inner Sphere just has to many toys in which to beat your head in, while Clans have pretty much what they had when they were first introduced.

[Strum Wealh]

Paul Rice, on 16 December 2011 - 08:45 AM, said:

OH FRICK I just had an idea. What if instead of C-Bills, clan forces used HONOR as currency somehow? They don't really have an innersphere capitalist economy, unless they do and I just forgot.

Well, all of the Clans do have a merchant caste.
That, and some of the statements in that article, would seem to imply that the Clans do have some sort of monetary (and/or bartering?) system and, by extension, some sort of economy.

And the Clan Diamond Shark (/Sea Fox) is pretty much built around their merchant caste and fleet in the same way that each of the other Clans are built around their warrior caste...

[CaveMan]

They do have a currency (it's called the Kerensky) but it's really pretty much just a formality. Clan merchants aren't permitted to seek "personal" profit, only profit for the Clan as a whole, so their exchanges are pretty much all barter.

The clans using honor as a currency could potentially work, but to make it stick you'd need strict rules enforcing the LOSS of honor for dishonorable acts, and set it up in such a way that you couldn't just grind honor for two days and then play the rest of the week dishonorably and still come out even on Sunday.

In other words, dishonorable acts should have much more weight than honorable ones. Maybe even do it on an exponential scale so that you have to be extra, extra honorable to really get anywhere.

Or perhaps have an honor system that is set up so that only maintaining an honorable disposition improves your rep. Like, say, your Loyalty Points for Clan factions govern which Clan equipment you can requisition and how much per day, but LP for Clans are gained by completing a match with a certain honor-to-dishonor ratio (90%+ honorable), and dishonorable acts themselves directly harm your LP score, so it's never favorable to behave dishonorably as a Clan player.

Honor as currency also poses the issue of, how do you trade honor? It's not a currency after all unless it's an accepted medium of exchange. Can you buy from another player using honor, and if so, do they then have more honor as a result? Can a dishonorable player then become honorable through barter?

Edited by CaveMan, 16 December 2011 - 11:01 PM.