391 replies to this topic

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

If it were up for a vote, I would like to see how increasing IS XL survivability might work out first before resorting to mixing IS and Clan tech in FW.

[Koniving]

Spider00x, on 15 December 2016 - 02:40 AM, said:

While I do appreciate the drop deck tonnage increase, AND the WAY overdue streak missile nerf its time to address the XL engines. I would like to see Innersphere XLs not have the insta side torso death 'feature' removed before I sign up for mixed clan/ IS drop decks. In the "Lore," the innersphere im told shortly after the clan invasion broke out made adjustments to this engine flaw.

Uh...

I'd like to take a moment to address that 'lore'.

First... The issue wasn't 'instant death to side torso loss'.
The issue is that the engine cannot function with 3 'crits' done to it.
IS XL engines due to their bulk (by using lighter materials, which needed to be layered in order to be of similar strength, in turn adding to the bulk) have 3 slots in each side torso.
Clan XL engines manage to do this with only 2 slots, because they never lost the ability to make those materials (mainly endo steel) and in turn got more efficient at it.

No matter what, 3 slots get damaged and the engine is dead; this often happened regardless of all three torsos being intact and still having armor. What makes for poor balance is the fact that Engine HP (currently 15 in MWO) doesn't matter, as going to 0 does nothing. If it did, then the mech would die, with zero torsos destroyed... 1 destroyed, 2, whatever it took to get those three crits.

Side note:
Their "addressed" fix was called 'Light Engines'. 3/4ths the weight of standard (while XL is 1/2), by mixing endo steel and standard metals together when forming the engine. The result is something a bit bulky but no more than Clan XL engines. Honestly this would hurt balance as the IS wouldn't be able to carry as many heavy things.

Side note: A Light Engine, or eXtra Light, or STD engine... wouldn't be that big of a difference and in fact would just be a trade off of how easily you could die in exchange for how many tons you can carry in firepower. Especially since any weapon can easily triple crit including a machine gun, and many Clan mechs in my experience with Battletech have died with a single well placed Gauss round to the center torso hitting the engine.

XL? STD? Doesn't matter in the end. 1 crit, 0.5 heat per second non-stop as well as speed cuts, reduced accuracy, etc. 2 crits, 1 heat per second non-stop, double speed cuts, double impaired accuracy, etc. 3 crits; the engine stops working altogether and has a risk of exploding [non-nuclear]. Should also mention: In almost every instance... I had heatsinks systematically melting so even a single engine crit, if I continued to engage in shooting even if I wasn't taking damage, heatsinks would fail... escalating the problem; a single crit was equivalent to a time bomb ticking away; you were as good as disabled or dead either way once a single crit occurred to your engine.

Sadly this element doesn't exist here.

Edited by Koniving, 15 December 2016 - 09:05 PM.

[Fake News]

tonnage does not solve pug stomping. that is all

[Monkey Lover]

ebolachan, on 15 December 2016 - 09:02 PM, said:

tonnage does not solve pug stomping. that is all

I don't care about pug stomping . I care about unit v unit fighting. Pugs will stop playing cw here real soon. They only play during events or something new.

[Alteran]

Mech The Dane, on 15 December 2016 - 02:11 AM, said:

Good video, but I'll give this as my perspective.

• I play Clan side, because of my love for the history of the Clans and the novels.
  
• I spent over $500 on Clan mechs, $250 of that before they were even released in game.
  
• I continue to play Clan mechs because of 2.....
  
• I will continue to play Clan mechs after all the nerfs and 'balancing' that PGI does to the the Clans because of 2.
  
• Oh yeah, I bet that a good number of Clanners are pretty much the same as I, because of 2.

That's why I play Clans. Not the over the top tech, or OP anything. Because I spent good hard cash on them. Oh that and I've played with them for over 2.5 years.

As for CW/FW/FP matches: tonight EK has been in 2 3 absolute crushing PUG stomps. It didn't have anything to do with the Tech, it had everything to do with the fact that they weren't organized, trained and in talking with a couple of the IS players, most didn't even have consumables on their mechs. The IS guys who were talking are completely disheartened because of the state of the IS PUGs. 1 Guy disconnected at the beginning of the match and 3 more dropped after the second wave crush.

The fact is, most new players play IS mechs because they haven't paid a cent to purchasing their mechs and it takes forever to gain enough CBills to purchase a mech. So unless they actually pay some good $$ for Mechs, they are pretty much stuck with those 6-10 mechs they scrape together in the first few months. Then they play CW so they can experience the War..... well stomp I guess.

As for the balance, well I've said my piece on it. They can't balance a Pulse Laser to a Potato Gun, it just won't work. Not unless both weapons are either a Pulse Laser or a Potato Gun. Level the field and be done with it.

From what we talked about tonight, EK will go IS for two reasons: a good fight and tonnage advantages. Not because we like the tech (IS Mechs are freaking tanks), not because we feel bad for the IS players, but because at this point fighting the IS isn't even fun.

Edited by Alteran, 15 December 2016 - 09:57 PM.

[Uncle Stickyfinger]

MischiefSC, on 15 December 2016 - 07:03 PM, said:

For example -

Both IS and CLAN have same penalty on ST loss for XL. IS XL is 3 slots, not 2. So IS gets like 5 pts bonus st structure with XL. Both Clan and IS get 15 pt CT structure buff with an STD.

Weapons largely the same as now.

Remove almost all quirks, both sides. Positive and negative.

IS endo/FF 2x the size of Clan, so IS Endo gets same tonnage saving as Clan Endo + FF. The FF savings is tiny so Clan flexibility to save 7 slots and pay extra 1-2 tons for armor offsets IS option to pay 14 slots to save 1-2 tons. On lights, where it's relevant, this also offsets Clan overall smaller/lighter weapons and the bigger benefit that is on lights.

IS DHS are larger and so both IS and Clan in engine heatsinks work the same and out of engine DHS for IS work slightly better.

However the IS loses all the existing quirks.

Then you go through and quirk up IS/Clan underprivileged mechs with bad boxes, hardpoint location, etc.

Balanced, but still same sort of performance differences we have now for fighting stats.

The deafening silence on these suggestions says a lot.

[Hexidecimark]

tl;dr at the end because I'm merciful.

The Clan mech is as stated repeatedly and properly, a superior machine. It is intended to be a superior machine. It was made with better technology using better resources and better data.

It is by design faster, harder hitting, and as damningly well armed as it is flexible.

That is not a problem unless one states that Clan and Inner sphere are equal on a 1-to-1 basis.

If you make and support this statement, and therefore implement a system wherein clan and IS mechs fight N to N, you have created a system wherein artificial limiters must be placed on the clans.

Now, the issue becomes "how do we make an objectively superior thing not objectively superior given literally any inputs of skill" which will result in disappointment, confusion, oversteps and understeps.

To be frank, that system places upon the developer an impossible task- they must design a system wherein initially arbitrary tweaks must be made until unequal parties, regardless of skill, are held to equality.

This does have a variety of solutions, but I would posit that that best solution would be as such;

1. Users purchase/outfit/etc. mechs.

2. A numeric value based on the combat viability of the resultant mechs is generated (as in the Battle Value system seen in many, many games, including battletech- it is a very viable system)

3. An AI hashes together groupings of BVs so that matches have equivalent BVs. For example:
Player 1 has an adder-b, stock. It's worth 1,422 BV
Player 2 Has a Locust-3s with stock. It's worth 483.
Player 3 Has a spider-7K2 with an ER medium and two MPLs- that changes his BV to 872 from 884.

The AI would hash 1 to be solo and 2&3 to fight him, doing the following calculation:

G=goal number for the teams- matches would be N points +/- a set percent.
If G=1422, and let's say we find players with our search function in order 3,1,2-

This is written in really ****** 1AM java, just to illustrate how the system would work.

Program teamBuild:
(gets fist open team ID)
(Makes a list called (ID)T)
int currentBV= 0;
int goal= (points per side per fight);

for(int x = 0; x<(number of players on team max); x++){

if(currentBV/G<.9){
player=getplayer(); (finds a user in the queue)

if((player.BV+currentBV)/G < 1.1){
(Adds player to list)
currentBV+=player.BV;
}else{
x--;
}

}else if(currentBV/G<1.1){
(finalize and set up team)
}}


So if we run that through,
0000T is formed. Next, the game finds P3, and adds them because they are less than what would result in a 10% overage in stats. The system then sees P3 isn't within 10% of G, so it tries again, and finds P1. He's too many points, and is rejected. Next it finds P2, who gets the team within 10%. The system finalizes this team, passing it onto the next stage where it will be matched with another team.

Then team 0001T is formed, and the system finds P1 again. This time he doesn't send the system overboard, and as such it checks to see if it's in a tolerable range. It is within 10% of G, so he becomes a team, and fights P2 and P3.

Asymmetric, yes, but still fair, as long as the Clan is not nerfed artificially, and IS isn't buffed artificially, or you adjust BV as needed.

The only two things that will hold you back are poor design and poor skill, because you get equal theoretical power every time. So yes you can bone yourself if you decide to go with http://mwo.smurfy-ne...227673c5d89f633 but that's just more incentive for people to learn to properly construct and manage their giant, much worshipped 'mech properly.

Just my two cents, though- that's how you keep things fair and unbalanced, and as someone who is really into BT in all its myriad forms, I would like that. I don't want my Jenner to be able to kill a Kodiak. I want me and twenty-eight of my jenner pals to be able to kill that Kodiak-

It should feel like Attack on Titan when I try to take an assault on with a light- dancing around the lumbering giant, dodging a staggering amount of fire, and only by way of speed and skilled aiming should I be able to dent it at all.

Then when you kill the big lumbering giant? Everyone cheers with delight as it falls to the ground. Until then the pilot of said giant gets his power trip of mulching anything in front of it.

Not this "ugh a light" or "well, we killed the atlas, next, I guess", but "HELL YEAH WE KILLED THE ATLAS!" and "Hah! Thought you could take me?"

====================================
TL;DR:
Realistically, one timber wolf (mad cat if you have bad computers) should be on even footing with two atlases, and we should allow for that.

[Vxheous]

Mixed deck drops could work, and Dane's idea of locking it to CW rank could work as well. I would add another idea for the mixed deck, where maybe you can max drop 2 mechs of opposing tech. You could still be purist and run 4 IS as IS, or 4 Clan as Clan, but maybe allowing a mixed 50/50 deck would be a good compromise to the whole "lore" captured mech explanation.

[Count Zero 74]

All those IS puggies that get stomped right now will get stomped the same if they have Clan tech.

The IS teams that are winning right now don't need Clan tech. For christs sake, if I play an equally skilled Clan premade with with my premade now I get 25 tons more, lets talk about balance shall we?

On the other hand the more skilled team will beat a lesser skilled one most of the time, no matter what teck or tonnage limits.

[Vincent Quatermain]

SlyJJ, on 15 December 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

Clan tech is overwhelmingly superior, better range, better damage, faster mechs, no instadeath XL engines.

Worse heat, fewer and weaker quirks, inferior ACs, limited customizablity on the omnis

SlyJJ, on 15 December 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

You offered a very concise reason to justify your claim that clan mechs are OP- Not a SINGLE clanner has offered any evidence AGAINST your claim- the only thing they can attempt to do is strawman and attempt hypothetical caveats.

First off, this is not a Clan vs IS argument, it's Freelancers and IS Loyalists vs everyone else.

Second, if Clan was "overwhelmingly superior" none of the major merc units would ever go IS. Why? Because they play to win. Is there arguably a slight advantage? Maybe . . . except that the tonnage gap is now 25 tons on an Invasion drop deck. No fracking way Clans have the advantage now. As soon as the current contracts expire, and mercs all go IS, the Clans are going to get curb stomped.

SlyJJ, on 15 December 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

YES Im all for mixing the tech once and for all. Mostly because it'll piss the clanners off, because they wont hold a significant edge anymore.

Whatever, I don't care. But then the only distinction between FP and QP will be drop decks. The irony is that the grognards will have been responsible for the last vestige of lore vanishing from the game.

SlyJJ, on 15 December 2016 - 08:28 PM, said:

Thats why all the good units are clan... ALL

False. 228 switched between Clan and IS on a two week cycle all summer and into the fall, and will almost certainly go IS next week.

But please go on saying that. It does wonders for the queue population for you to lie about this. I guess giving scrubs a ready made excuse for failure is more important than being able to get matches.

[Novakaine]

What planet do you live on?
The clans don't have an advantage now?
They've always had the advantage.
Like I said earlier.
"You just can't convince a blind man that an apple is red."

[Hexidecimark]

Novakaine, on 15 December 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

What planet do you live on?
The clans don't have an advantage now?
They've always had the advantage.
Like I said earlier.
"You just can't convince a blind man that an apple is red."

Any thoughts on my proposal of asymmetry?
I was hashing it out with my unit and some IS peeps.

Also -1 for comic sans

Edited by Hexidecimark, 15 December 2016 - 11:35 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Hexidecimark, on 15 December 2016 - 11:11 PM, said:

tl;dr at the end because I'm merciful.

The Clan mech is as stated repeatedly and properly, a superior machine. It is intended to be a superior machine. It was made with better technology using better resources and better data.

It is by design faster, harder hitting, and as damningly well armed as it is flexible.

That is not a problem unless one states that Clan and Inner sphere are equal on a 1-to-1 basis.

If you make and support this statement, and therefore implement a system wherein clan and IS mechs fight N to N, you have created a system wherein artificial limiters must be placed on the clans.

Now, the issue becomes "how do we make an objectively superior thing not objectively superior given literally any inputs of skill" which will result in disappointment, confusion, oversteps and understeps.

To be frank, that system places upon the developer an impossible task- they must design a system wherein initially arbitrary tweaks must be made until unequal parties, regardless of skill, are held to equality.

This does have a variety of solutions, but I would posit that that best solution would be as such;

1. Users purchase/outfit/etc. mechs.

2. A numeric value based on the combat viability of the resultant mechs is generated (as in the Battle Value system seen in many, many games, including battletech- it is a very viable system)

3. An AI hashes together groupings of BVs so that matches have equivalent BVs. For example:
Player 1 has an adder-b, stock. It's worth 1,422 BV
Player 2 Has a Locust-3s with stock. It's worth 483.
Player 3 Has a spider-7K2 with an ER medium and two MPLs- that changes his BV to 872 from 884.

The AI would hash 1 to be solo and 2&3 to fight him, doing the following calculation:

G=goal number for the teams- matches would be N points +/- a set percent.
If G=1422, and let's say we find players with our search function in order 3,1,2-

This is written in really ****** 1AM java, just to illustrate how the system would work.

Program teamBuild:
(gets fist open team ID)
(Makes a list called (ID)T)
int currentBV= 0;
int goal= (points per side per fight);

for(int x = 0; x<(number of players on team max); x++){

if(currentBV/G<.9){
player=getplayer(); (finds a user in the queue)

if((player.BV+currentBV)/G < 1.1){
(Adds player to list)
currentBV+=player.BV;
}else{
x--;
}

}else if(currentBV/G<1.1){
(finalize and set up team)
}}


So if we run that through,
0000T is formed. Next, the game finds P3, and adds them because they are less than what would result in a 10% overage in stats. The system then sees P3 isn't within 10% of G, so it tries again, and finds P1. He's too many points, and is rejected. Next it finds P2, who gets the team within 10%. The system finalizes this team, passing it onto the next stage where it will be matched with another team.

Then team 0001T is formed, and the system finds P1 again. This time he doesn't send the system overboard, and as such it checks to see if it's in a tolerable range. It is within 10% of G, so he becomes a team, and fights P2 and P3.

Asymmetric, yes, but still fair, as long as the Clan is not nerfed artificially, and IS isn't buffed artificially, or you adjust BV as needed.

The only two things that will hold you back are poor design and poor skill, because you get equal theoretical power every time. So yes you can bone yourself if you decide to go with http://mwo.smurfy-ne...227673c5d89f633 but that's just more incentive for people to learn to properly construct and manage their giant, much worshipped 'mech properly.

Just my two cents, though- that's how you keep things fair and unbalanced, and as someone who is really into BT in all its myriad forms, I would like that. I don't want my Jenner to be able to kill a Kodiak. I want me and twenty-eight of my jenner pals to be able to kill that Kodiak-

It should feel like Attack on Titan when I try to take an assault on with a light- dancing around the lumbering giant, dodging a staggering amount of fire, and only by way of speed and skilled aiming should I be able to dent it at all.

Then when you kill the big lumbering giant? Everyone cheers with delight as it falls to the ground. Until then the pilot of said giant gets his power trip of mulching anything in front of it.

Not this "ugh a light" or "well, we killed the atlas, next, I guess", but "HELL YEAH WE KILLED THE ATLAS!" and "Hah! Thought you could take me?"

====================================
TL;DR:
Realistically, one timber wolf (mad cat if you have bad computers) should be on even footing with two atlases, and we should allow for that.

Except you'd never have 2 people in atlases for every Timber Wolf. Most players would want to be the TBR, who is not a better player but has the *illusion* of being better because his tech is better, getting 3.0 KDR even at average/mediocre skill. You'll never have the majority of players (or more than a small minority) wanting to be the expendable redshirts trying to bury the superhero Clanners under piles of their dead bodies.

Beyond which player skill is not a set stat like TT. We're not 4/5 vs 3/4 here. The impact on weapon performance relative to skill is a very steep curve in a FPS vs TT.

You're trying to plot a mm for MW:O like it was TT. It's not, and players wouldn't play that way. Hence why it was always a bad system. BV was always broken, clownshoes silly broken. Either by boating Clan LPLs or ERPPCs or by having IS bring a swarm of vehicles.

Clan invasion balancing only ever worked when it was friendly players who knew each other and played to a friendly set of rules. Google BT forums, look at what people wrote about tournaments in that era. They were crap, hence the Jihad to nuke everything and start all over with 1 to 1 balance.

[MischiefSC]

Count Zero 74, on 15 December 2016 - 11:19 PM, said:

All those IS puggies that get stomped right now will get stomped the same if they have Clan tech.

The IS teams that are winning right now don't need Clan tech. For christs sake, if I play an equally skilled Clan premade with with my premade now I get 25 tons more, lets talk about balance shall we?

On the other hand the more skilled team will beat a lesser skilled one most of the time, no matter what teck or tonnage limits.

Except the tech advantage is WHY ALL THE TEAMS ARE IN CLANS NOW.

Yes, teamwork OP. Nobody has ever argued that. Anywhere, ever.

However they've also said, as in 'they' I mean everyone from EVIL to Dane to NS to 99% of comp players to 99% of the units who left being IS loyalists to be mercs to play Clans, that Clan tech is overall superior to IS. Not dramatically, but enough.

So they all went Clan.

Every unit in Clans has been a steady process since CW 1. Originally it was loyalists going merc. Then it was all the mercs playing Clans 90% of the time.

Do you think every unit went Clan because they wanted to get really, really ready for the MAD IIC? 18 months in advance? Why do you think all the units went Clan 18 months ago, a year ago, 6 months ago?

Beyond which, again, few people are talking about team v team. Given that 90% of teams are in Clans right now there's very little team v team action. The point is pug v pug, where the otherwise minor tech advantages make for a big advantage.

The amount of struggling we get from people against actually balancing the game has always astounded me.

[Hexidecimark]

MischiefSC, on 15 December 2016 - 11:46 PM, said:

Except you'd never have 2 people in atlases for every Timber Wolf. Most players would want to be the TBR, who is not a better player but has the *illusion* of being better because his tech is better, getting 3.0 KDR even at average/mediocre skill. You'll never have the majority of players (or more than a small minority) wanting to be the expendable redshirts trying to bury the superhero Clanners under piles of their dead bodies.

Beyond which player skill is not a set stat like TT. We're not 4/5 vs 3/4 here. The impact on weapon performance relative to skill is a very steep curve in a FPS vs TT.

You're trying to plot a mm for MW:O like it was TT. It's not, and players wouldn't play that way. Hence why it was always a bad system. BV was always broken, clownshoes silly broken. Either by boating Clan LPLs or ERPPCs or by having IS bring a swarm of vehicles.

Clan invasion balancing only ever worked when it was friendly players who knew each other and played to a friendly set of rules. Google BT forums, look at what people wrote about tournaments in that era. They were crap, hence the Jihad to nuke everything and start all over with 1 to 1 balance.

The thing is, you don't need an exactly 2T:1A. You can have any number of combinations thereof. If people are all going for clan, then the system will process their data just as effectively.

And people are entirely willing to pile their dead bodies under our feet already- giving them some chance at victory would probably be better, considering the clanner would lose as often as win instead of "Clan is best".
===
Which I why I suggested changing it. Again, a lot of games have used a BV system very well, like Star Trek Starfleet command, for example. And yeah you will need to change BVs around because even if they were perfect, you can aim in Mechwarrior.

[Vincent Quatermain]

Novakaine, on 15 December 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

What planet do you live on?
The clans don't have an advantage now?

Exactly how much of a tonnage advantage is needed to make Invasion drop decks balanced? It's already 25 tons. Should it be 50? How about 100?

[MischiefSC]

Uncle Stickyfinger, on 15 December 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

The deafening silence on these suggestions says a lot.

Always has. The suggestions people make are always 'we'll adjust this and this, but make the Clan one just a little better' because we're still stuck on that idea. That absolutely terrible balance idea that the actual developers of TT battletech abandoned and moved to 1 to 1 balance to get away from.

Oh, and this. 3 years ago,

Dec 14, 2013. Paul Inouye, in Design Chair forum, thread titled Clan Technology - A Design Perspective

Quote

Past MechWarrior titles were primarily single player experiences so over powered Clan Technology was not really an issue. The other titles that had multiplayer components became arms races to get Clan Tech and once achieved, nothing changed from that point on. Inner Sphere technology became obsolete at that point if a player wanted to be competitive in a match. This is something that we do not want to happen in MechWarrior Online. We are aiming to make sure that all types of gameplay are available while keeping all current BattleMechs viable on the battlefield.

That's just one slice. Read the whole thing. The point was to get Clans balanced with IS mech to mech.

Yet we keep avoiding doing so. We want to keep our Clan tech OP to IS tech but still pretend it's balanced.

It's not, never has been, never been fixed.

Go read the feedback thread linked at the bottom of the post. Look at the players noticing, in Dec of 2013, that CXL/Endo/FF/DHS would be a problem and that the weapons would be OP without huge changes.

This was an issue before they arrived, we've been complaining about it non-stop, we're just unwilling to take steps to fix it.

Hexidecimark, on 15 December 2016 - 11:55 PM, said:

The thing is, you don't need an exactly 2T:1A. You can have any number of combinations thereof. If people are all going for clan, then the system will process their data just as effectively.

And people are entirely willing to pile their dead bodies under our feet already- giving them some chance at victory would probably be better, considering the clanner would lose as often as win instead of "Clan is best".
===
Which I why I suggested changing it. Again, a lot of games have used a BV system very well, like Star Trek Starfleet command, for example. And yeah you will need to change BVs around because even if they were perfect, you can aim in Mechwarrior.

No, you've got some pugs doing it until they quit. Also balance is reasonably close as it is. You go ahead and break balance proper and you'll void the IS population. Like what happened to literally empty CW 2. Clans were OP as crap, most the IS left. Many never came back; we probably cut about 1k players from the total population. Maybe more. Then it swung wonky with quirks and we had the OP Stalker and Thud. Most the Clan players left, all the units went IS.

Noticing a pattern here?

It's the pattern of failure.

[Hexidecimark]

MischiefSC, on 16 December 2016 - 12:10 AM, said:

Always has. The suggestions people make are always 'we'll adjust this and this, but make the Clan one just a little better' because we're still stuck on that idea. That absolutely terrible balance idea that the actual developers of TT battletech abandoned and moved to 1 to 1 balance to get away from.

Oh, and this. 3 years ago,

Dec 14, 2013. Paul Inouye, in Design Chair forum, thread titled Clan Technology - A Design Perspective



That's just one slice. Read the whole thing. The point was to get Clans balanced with IS mech to mech.

Yet we keep avoiding doing so. We want to keep our Clan tech OP to IS tech but still pretend it's balanced.

It's not, never has been, never been fixed.

Go read the feedback thread linked at the bottom of the post. Look at the players noticing, in Dec of 2013, that CXL/Endo/FF/DHS would be a problem and that the weapons would be OP without huge changes.

This was an issue before they arrived, we've been complaining about it non-stop, we're just unwilling to take steps to fix it.



No, you've got some pugs doing it until they quit. Also balance is reasonably close as it is. You go ahead and break balance proper and you'll void the IS population. Like what happened to literally empty CW 2. Clans were OP as crap, most the IS left. Many never came back; we probably cut about 1k players from the total population. Maybe more. Then it swung wonky with quirks and we had the OP Stalker and Thud. Most the Clan players left, all the units went IS.

Noticing a pattern here?

It's the pattern of failure.

The problem here is pretty clear-

You cannot be moderately canon.

I'd like to move closer to canon, and hells yeah that presents a mountain of mechanical issues. Issues that I think can be worked past.

But I can certainly see the argument moving in the opposite direction just as effectively.

Can't do it both ways, though. You either need to overhaul things as per my suggestion, or overhaul things by making clan tech basically a retexture of IS. Otherwise you will be stuck in balancing issues purgatory (which is the originator of the pattern).

A lot of robot fighting games do get by on standard parts, and we could probably manage. And though I'd prefer a *battletech* game over a *gundam* game, that's not to say I wouldn't be just as happy with generic robot killing sim 2017.

Edited by Hexidecimark, 16 December 2016 - 12:26 AM.

[Hanky Spam]

Novakaine, on 15 December 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

What planet do you live on?
The clans don't have an advantage now?
They've always had the advantage.

Always?
I remember times were Clan factions got dominated by IS factions in CW, so please don't try to spread untrue things..kk? thx!

[Novakaine]

I've played TT since I bought my first boxed set in 1984.
Been in love with it ever since.
The problem is simply this.
Clan mechs are suppose to be superior.
I have no issue with that whatsoever.
But in this game where teamwork and skill is used vs random die.
Clan mechs become even more superior based on that fact.
The only true way to balance that out and from I learned since then is the numbers.
And this applies only to FW.
Two Clan stars or a binary vs twelve IS battlemechs.
Especially since we locked in a constant state of quirk then nerf rinse and repeat.
Also because of the weapons tech we have now.
The drop tonnage increase only partially and inadequately address the issue.
That extra 15 tons means almost nothing not even equivalent to a extra locust in my deck.
The only true way to break this stupid cycle is by the numbers just like in the lore.
It's a well establish fact that in this game the more skilled players are going to want to play the Clans.
Because they have the superior speed and firepower.
Which brings up another issue - mercs.
Sound like a great and fun idea but this ability to jump between IS and Clans whenever the advantages are better that season.
That needs to stop.
If you want to be either or - then own it.
If you have both types of mechs use one or the other for group play or quick play.
That's what I would do if it was my game.
Play Clans then own it.
Play IS then own it.
Until PGI decides to add IS Omni mechs we're never gonna get any kind of real parity between the two factions.
Like it or not it's all about the numbers.
That's what 32 years of battletech gaming has taught me.

Edited by Novakaine, 16 December 2016 - 12:55 AM.