391 replies to this topic

[Stormie]

Sjorpha, on 02 January 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:

Is there an actual answer to my question in there?

There is no good reason for the engines, or any other equipment for that matter, to not be equally good.

Being bigger and occupying more crit slots is a disadvantage in MWO, therefore in order to be equally good the IS XL needs to have some corresponding advantage to become equally good, a smaller penalty for ST loss could be that advantage.

From any sound balance and game design perspective there is no sense at all to giving the IS XL a bigger penalty, that would give it two disadvantages (bigger size + bigger penalty) and no advantages. That's just silly.

The current design (death + bigger with no upside) is completely nutballs ridiculous, just like a lot of the other tech.

Surely the advantage is that should you want to you are able to remove it?

[Sjorpha]

Stormie, on 02 January 2017 - 06:47 AM, said:

Surely the advantage is that should you want to you are able to remove it?

No, that is nonsense for several reasons. Number one is that there are comptitive clan battlemechs in each weight class, engine swapping can no longer be seen as an IS advantage.

But it would be nonsense even if all clan mechs were omnimechs. Clan xl is for almost every intent and purpose as durable as a standard engine, so it gets the advantages of both engine types.

Saying that the choice between standard and XL equals the clan XL is like saying the ability to choose between food and sleep is as good as having both. Its complete nonsense and the argument has never had any validity. Its just an excuse or diversion. Just like the common strategy of diverting discussions of balance into skill epeening and so on.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Well reasoned and good evidence to back it up. I don't agree with your conclusion, at least not as the whole solution. I want tech to be balanced, but this would be a good stopgap measure in the meantime.

[MischiefSC]

Stormie, on 02 January 2017 - 06:47 AM, said:

Surely the advantage is that should you want to you are able to remove it?

I am strongly of the opinion that if tech is properly balanced, why not unlock omnis?

IIC battlemechs already exist. The benefits of being able to swap Omnipods can be answered by slightly lower benefits in the skill tree or slightly inferior quirks (though I'd rather quirks are very, very rare).

If tech is balanced as it should be then hell yes. Unlock Omnipods. Everyone wins.

[Nightbird]

Battlemechs and Omnimechs have their own strengths and weaknesses (you can either move components around or switch endo/ferro/engine, but not both). If PGI releases LFE for IS, then they'll survive a side torso loss. If the PGI releases XXL engines for clans, then clans won't survive a side torso loss (for their battlemechs).

All you need to balance skill for both sides is to imbalance the incentives for playing on both sides until skill is even. Clan mechs are more expensive, so players able to afford them are more skilled if reward is even. Increasing IS tonnage actually increases clan payout for killing them, there is more tonnage to destroy after all. Another knob to use is win payout, if winning on IS side gives more than on Clan, then players/units that can win consistently might play IS more. Again, there is currently a financial disincentive to play IS if you're skilled due to tonnage difference. The knob has to be adjusted but should be around 100% more payout on IS side on a win, when tonnage is equal.

[Sjorpha]

MischiefSC, on 02 January 2017 - 11:19 AM, said:

I am strongly of the opinion that if tech is properly balanced, why not unlock omnis?

IIC battlemechs already exist. The benefits of being able to swap Omnipods can be answered by slightly lower benefits in the skill tree or slightly inferior quirks (though I'd rather quirks are very, very rare).

If tech is balanced as it should be then hell yes. Unlock Omnipods. Everyone wins.

No, swappable hardpoints vs swappable engines is a pretty fair tradeoff.

You could unlock endo and ferro though.

[no one]

If PGI wanted balance they probably shouldn't have made the clan erSmall 30% better than the IS medium laser in every relevant metric. Just sayin'

[exiledangel]

this is still going

Edited by exiledangel, 02 January 2017 - 05:23 PM.

[nehebkau]

I think I can also highlight the imbalance easily. Consider these two identical Hunchback builds, one clan one IS. (Oh ya they both have swap-able engines!)

HBK-IIC-A

64 alpha damage

4.32 dps

26% cooling

with 40 right and left torso armor and 24 internal structure.

8 CMPLs.

HBK-4P

48 alpha damage

4.27 dps

32% cooling

with 40 left front torso armor and 24 structure.

with 60 right front torso armor and 24 structure.

8 MPLs

Were these two to fight (excluding crits):
one alpha from the clan mech to the left torso would kill the IS mech outright
one alpha from the IS mech to the left torso would remove all the clan armor and 8 structure leaving the clan 16 int structure

One alpha from the clan mech to the right torso would remove all the IS armor and 24 structure leaving the IS 18 structure
One alpha from the IS mech to the right torso would remove all the clan armor and 8 structure leaving the clan 16 structure.
Second alpha from the clan mech to the right toso would kill the IS mech
Second alpha from the IS mech to the right torso would remove the clan right torso -- clan's alpha damage drops to 40

No matter how you look at it, the distinct advantage is to the clan mech. Yes, it has much higher heat but its dissipation is close to the IS mech and, requires fewer shots to kill the IS mech. Weapon wise the t1t-for-tat of range, heat and damage slightly favours the clan mech since these two are not going to engage in a long drawn-out fight.

Where the HUGE difference comes is in the difference in the XL engine. To put it in numbers, the minimum damage each mech must do to kill the others is:
IS: 88 damage ( going CT on the clan mech)
Clan: 64 (Going LT on the mech)

Granted, these are not awesome buids -- they were done to illustrate the clan-IS balance gap. We have seen this with every IIC variety that has come online -- they are superior to their IS counterpart. Now I realize that according to the BT lore clans are supposed to be stronger, does that really hold water in a game that has come so far from lore that the BT lore just doesn't work?

There is nobody on the clan side wants to admit that they are overmatched -- because they don't want to get nerfed. But the truth is that PGI jumped the shark with clan tech because clan superiority ONLY made sense in the environment of 10 vs 12, batchall vs. all-in, honour vs. no-honour.

Clanners like to cloud the issue by comparing omnimechs to battlemechs -- that's just a smoke screen. When IS gets it's omnimechs that have the same no-new-engine policy what are clanners going to say then? So, lets just compare clan battlemechs to IS battlemechs of the same/similiar chassis and the truth becomes clear.

its not like PGI is going to admit this because that would prove that they had their heads up their behind in regards to balance, making some in PGI look foolish.

Edited by nehebkau, 03 January 2017 - 10:45 AM.

[no one]

nehebkau, on 03 January 2017 - 10:42 AM, said:

I think I can also highlight the imbalance easily. Consider these two identical Hunchback builds, one clan one IS. (Oh ya they both have swap-able engines!)

HBK-IIC-A

HBK-4P

That's actually a pretty favorable comparison since you're comparing Clan MPL to IS MPL. Despite those weapons name's they're not all that similar and cMPL run very hot. One of the things PGI screwed up pretty badly in balancing weapons was to lean heavily on mangling weapon heat for 'balance' instead of refire despite the fact that their heat system is a completely laughable capacity based train-werck.

Here's a different comparison to consider:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9792823e6f54538

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...692639e9f6fdb8e

Similar range brackets. Similar or same weapon damage. Similar or same weapon beam duration. Similar alpha.
The difference? The Hunch IIC has about 30% better sustainable DPS.
Well, at least the hunchback 4P has a 10% cooling efficiency bonus.

nehebkau, on 03 January 2017 - 10:42 AM, said:

There is nobody on the clan side wants to admit that they are overmatched

You got my name wrong.

Edited by no one, 03 January 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[Lily from animove]

Sjorpha, on 02 January 2017 - 07:39 AM, said:

No, that is nonsense for several reasons. Number one is that there are comptitive clan battlemechs in each weight class, engine swapping can no longer be seen as an IS advantage.

But it would be nonsense even if all clan mechs were omnimechs. Clan xl is for almost every intent and purpose as durable as a standard engine, so it gets the advantages of both engine types.

Saying that the choice between standard and XL equals the clan XL is like saying the ability to choose between food and sleep is as good as having both. Its complete nonsense and the argument has never had any validity. Its just an excuse or diversion. Just like the common strategy of diverting discussions of balance into skill epeening and so on.

with the intorduction of clan battlemechs, the engine swapping did indeed became a balance problem between multiple chassis amongst the clans and also the IS.