125 replies to this topic

[Snazzy Dragon]

El Bandito, on 19 December 2016 - 05:34 PM, said:

Dark side is treating me real good, as I had strings of victories. I joined [MS] yesterday (swell guys), which means I managed to involve myself with two things I dislike about CW--Clan mechs and big merc units. My conversion to the dark side is complete. I'm thinking of changing the sig to that of a Night Gyr or KDK-3.

Make it a gif of that battlemaster there running away from a kodiak.

[Y E O N N E]

Revis Volek, on 19 December 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

SA remembers....


The days (well maybe day, might have been a week) of ERPPC thuds and uber quirked IS mechs pushing us back to the hole from whence we crawled.


It was weird but at the same time glorious.

TBQH, I find not being able to fit more than 19 DHS on a 'Mech except in very rare circumstance to be a bigger hindrance than XL fragility. Even 19 is luxurious, it usually caps out at 18 for Heavy energy boats, less for lighter classes. That, and the extra two tons and two slots it takes to run a UAC/5. Or the one extra ton and slot to fit a PPC. Or the fact that I can't fire three PPCs together. Or the fact that I can't run Gauss with the XL.

You change any two of those things for the IS, and the game transforms.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 19 December 2016 - 06:10 PM.

[Alex Morgaine]

Mystere, on 19 December 2016 - 02:14 PM, said:

Hmm. Have people conveniently forgotten the time when the Clans were reduced to a handful of planets?


In a related note, one of my crazy (or not so crazy -- you be the judge) solutions is to have tonnage dynamically increase/decrease once the front lines goes nearer/farther one's home and "major" planets. For the RP impaired, just imagine it as your supply lines getting affected by distance.

<weight changes should be within reasonable limits, of course>

Oooo raids on held worlds that doesn't change the map but can reduce nearby planets drop deck if not defended.

[Mystere]

El Bandito, on 19 December 2016 - 05:34 PM, said:

Dark side is treating me real good, as I had strings of victories. I joined [MS] yesterday (swell guys), which means I managed to involve myself with two things I dislike about CW--Clan mechs and big merc units. My conversion to the dark side is complete. I'm thinking of changing the sig to that of a Night Gyr or KDK-3.

Good! Good! I knew you were well on your way to the dark side long ago.

[El Bandito]

Mystere, on 19 December 2016 - 06:57 PM, said:

Good! Good! I knew you were well on your way to the dark side long ago.

My experience with the KDK-3 taught me that if you want something nerfed, you gotta join the ride and spam it until PGI notices.

[Kmieciu]

Clans are much better at brawling than IS, Scouting mode is the biggest proof.

[QuantumButler]

Tristan Winter, on 19 December 2016 - 01:49 AM, said:

I don't see a lot that the IS currently does better, except that it has 170 kph light mechs. The Griffin with SRMs + Flamers is great, but so are Clan medium mech SPL boats such as the Nova.


The guy who posted this and everyone who liked this post, were all currently Clan players.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Simple logic, better red than dead, and so on.

[RestosIII]

QuantumButler, on 26 December 2016 - 05:52 PM, said:

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Simple logic, better red than dead, and so on.

Anyone that chooses a side based on how they view the tech balance to be is a fool. Loyalty above convenience! Lore above meta!

[MoJomo]

Yeonne Greene, on 18 December 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

Was never even a real disadvantage. Clans could always drop their firepower to IS levels and run cold as ice if they wanted to.

my internal structure quirks (lack thereof) says different.but who needs defense if they dead already!

[QuantumButler]

RestosIII, on 26 December 2016 - 05:54 PM, said:

Anyone that chooses a side based on how they view the tech balance to be is a fool. Loyalty above convenience! Lore above meta!

TBH if I'm honest, I just like clan mechs better and would be running clan side even if clantech was just cosmetically different from IS instead of actually different.

Got into BTech after playing Mech2 so all my nostalgia is for clan mechs and I don't find IS robots especially endearing, except for the Crab/King Crab.

[MadcatX]

Only real advantage I found about getting into brawling range is clans seem to overheat a lot, could be a pilot thing (Maybe the new players are shifting to clans, havn't done FW in a couple days). Especially if they get thrown into a hot FW QP map that would otherwise never get voted for and are used to riding that shutdown threshold line pretty darn close.

It's been my experience anyways.

[Y E O N N E]

MadcatX, on 26 December 2016 - 06:13 PM, said:

Only real advantage I found about getting into brawling range is clans seem to overheat a lot, could be a pilot thing (Maybe the new players are shifting to clans, havn't done FW in a couple days). Especially if they get thrown into a hot FW QP map that would otherwise never get voted for and are used to riding that shutdown threshold line pretty darn close.

It's been my experience anyways.

Unless you build for brawl, you don't really want to get into brawl ranges. IS don't really have a choice but to close to brawl ranges unless they can take heavy large-class lasers, ACs, and PPCs. They don't have a 1- or 2-ton mid-range option.

[JudauAshta]

Kodiak SB is so good at brawling that it's dumb, i have one and any mech that comes within 450m-300m is dead period.

[MadcatX]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 December 2016 - 06:23 PM, said:

Unless you build for brawl, you don't really want to get into brawl ranges. IS don't really have a choice but to close to brawl ranges unless they can take heavy large-class lasers, ACs, and PPCs. They don't have a 1- or 2-ton mid-range option.

Range top is a factor, I stopped counting of how many games my team lost due to a couple IS folks trying to engage clan at long range and that isn't a battle they tend to win.

[Sjorpha]

1453 R, on 19 December 2016 - 02:55 PM, said:

That's a cheap solution. I get that it's an easy solution, but what would benefit the game more is if the Sphere XL had something to it that made Clan players sit there and go "Maaaaan, I wish our engines did that." What that solution is, I don't know. Figuring out a different-but-equal fix for the cXL is one of the most difficult balance problems on the forum, one a lot of people have tried to tackle without any solid successes I can think of.

Scarecrow made a superb point in one of those actual-discussion balance threads people in threads like this one tend to ignore. To blatantly paraphrase and mangle the post: "the closer the two tech bases are to being exactly the same, the easier it is to see where they're still different and point out how that's still a huge balance problem. Give the iXL deathless side torsos and it becomes easy to see that the iXL is still two slots bigger than, and thus still inferior to, the cXL. If the two sides had wildly different stuff, with each tech base having extremely divergent equipment with tons of differences everywhere tuned to give roughly the same win rate between the two, then the differences stop mattering and become more about what a given player likes to play.

PARITY is the bane of balance. EQUIVALENCE is what we need. The bigger and more pronounced the differences between the two, and the more differences there are, the less those differences matter in the grand scheme of things."

Some folks have suggested giving the iXL the ability to innately buff the STs of whatever 'Mech it's in to match the durability of the 'Mech's center torso, so that losing an ST takes just as long as getting cored out and the iXL's "disadvantage" is effectively nullified. That's the sort of wild crazy idea we need more of, not a four hundredth low-hanging fruit "just make them the same!" thread.

Sameness is bad. if you want XLs that survive a shoulder blowout, we have Clan 'Mechs for that. The Sphere should have a different answer, so that everybody has more, and more different, cool things to play with.

I agree completely.

If it wasn't for lore shenanigans I would like to simply make the ISXL weigh less than the clan XL. Seems reasonable that: standard engine=heaviest and most durable, clan XL=lighter and less durable, IS XL=Lightest and least durable.

Since that probably won't get past the taboos, I could see just adding significant agility bonuses to IS XL.

Regardless of what the fix is the standard engine should also be buffed to do something equally powerful as the XLs.

[Deathlike]

Yeonne Greene, on 19 December 2016 - 05:38 PM, said:

You are not very good at this.

The 24 DHS the Clan build (assuming TBR with one S-torso) gives you has a heat-cap of 85.2. One shot from your alpha puts you at 51.6%.

The 20 DHS the IS 'Mech gives you (assuming BK) has a heat-cap of 78.0. One shot from your alpha puts you at 48.7%

Golly jee, near-enough-as-makes-no-difference! But wait, sonny, there's more!

The dissipation on the Clan build gives you a rate of 4.71. It takes 9.3 seconds to dissipate the heat completely.

The dissipation on the IS build gives you a rate of 3.85. It takes 9.4 seconds to dissipate the heat completely.

Hmmm, pretty close again! But we're not through yet!

If we drop the S-torso on the TBR and run no JJs (the BK doesn't get JJs anyway), we can fit in another two DHS, giving us a cap of 88.8 and a dissipation of 5.06. We now hit 49.5% on the first shot and get rid of the heat in 8.7 seconds...a whole 0.7 seconds faster.

And on top of having nearly identical soak ratio and dissipation rates, you get to start dealing your full damage a whole 150+ meters sooner! Because targeting computers and ER lasers! Yeah!

Now how about a build that actually competes in the same bracket, buddy?

7x cMPL
56 Damage
46.8 Heat

Same 26 DHS. 52.7% after firing, takes 9.2 seconds to dissipate completely. On top of this, you are dishing out 65.9 damage per second over the course of your burn, which is more than the 57.8 you get from your named IS build, and also more than the 64.4 you get from the 3xLPL+5xML build you would find on the BK in a real match. A BK which, by the way, runs 19 DHS, so it soaks to 53% in one shot and has to wait 10.6 seconds to fire again!


And you people wonder why the IS get heat gen quirks. It's because not only do they actually run just as hot for less damage and less range, they have to be able to fire more once they finally get in range to compensate for the damage they received on the way in.

This schooling session is now closed. Next time, do your homework before mouthing off.

Edit: Oh, and the BK has its hard-points at belly-button level. Enjoy!

That's why I've stopped taking him seriously. That's besides the point though.

Some of this heat gen quirks shenanigans removal might have to start with actually lowering heat across all IS laser weapons across the board... this means Med Lasers back @ 3 heat instead of the convoluted idea of 4 from whatever dartboard decision in beta.

I'm unsure if every IS laser weapon has to be adjusted, but at some point we'll have to admit the IS is never going to have 20+ DHS like the energy heavy clan builds and the insane people that vouch otherwise (forgetting how they already have some nice heat gen quirks for some of their underserved mechs) need to actually learn to mechlab.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Deathlike, on 27 December 2016 - 12:21 AM, said:

That's why I've stopped taking him seriously. That's besides the point though.

"He did math that's logical and made sense and provided examples, quick, don't take it seriously!"

Edited by Snazzy Dragon, 27 December 2016 - 12:32 AM.

[brroleg]

Yeah, IS need some buff. But this buff should be fair and according to Lore.

And there is one.

Thunderbolt Missile

Year Availability 3053

As i understand MWO now is exactly at 3053?

This weapon gives real advantage for IS, while Clans still dont have ATM(Advanced Tactical Missile) until 3060

So Clans will face some problems if IS now will have TBolts. And, as Clan player, i will be totally okey with this. Cause i play not to win. I play to feel the Lore of BT. And if according to it i, as Clan player, must face defeat - i will gladly accept it.

But if you will give IS some advantage that is ignoring Lore (like xl engine thing) - i will be mad and stop playing.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Clan spls are to blame here mostly IMHO, even after the max range nerf they're superb weapons, while IS spls are just bad. Clan srms are not that outstanding due to higher spread and lower damage, especially srm4s. Clan spls could get a small nerf.

Also, now with working flamers, clan flamers are equal to is flamers while having half the weight AND while the clan mechs have more hardpoints on average to have many flamers AND a decent alpha combined. Nova can spend 3 tons to be able to overheat an enemy almost instantly with minimal own heat investment while still having a considerable alpha in the second fist... Clan flamers should actually be half as effective as IS ones to level things out.

Also, while still situational even after the buff, clan MGs are also much better than IS mgs, because they weight half as much. Lower health on MGs means nothing, lighter mechs that mostly use MGs don't have enough structure to worry about crits anyway. Clan MGs are useful now, IS MGs are still not IMHO. IS MGs should be buffed further to start being actually usefull.

As said many times above and before, IS can sometimes win with clans with risky brawl tactics, but only because clan long and medium range builds are so effective, most people don't bother making clan brawlers. I built a friggin underdog mech - the Viper - with spl+mgs and its a beast in brawling. Just because clan SPLs and clan MGs

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 27 December 2016 - 12:58 AM.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Just outbrawl the Clanners.
Clanners typically like to run their hot long range builds.
Also bring a flamer while you're at it. An overheating Clanner is a good Clanner.