122 replies to this topic

[Duke Nedo]

There already are quite a few IS mechs with good hitboxes and hard points, but that's not enough. Even with quirks they are behind. Since ALL IS mechs depend on quirks, what does it matter? It's just a matter of how strong quirks new mechs will ship with, they all need them or they will under-perform to the best clan mechs no matter what.

[kapusta11]

Nightstar/Dragonfire is probably as good as it gets.

Pros:
Cockpit level hardpoints --> good at hill humping
Not humanoid --> fairly small for their weight class. Praise be to volumetric scaling.
Shield arms --> XL friendly
Possible PPC quirks on Nightstar
ECM on Dragonfire
High max engine cap (360 for Dragonfire and 400 for Nightstar)

Cons:
Wide arm placement --> bad at corner poking (except for 1 Gauss, 2 PPC Dragonfire build)
Certain builds require proper hardpoint inflation (at least 1 more energy in ST)
IS XL engine + low speed makes them very fragile, unless you want to go down in power which kinda defeats the purpose
Weapons in the shield arms
Potentially no quirk love from PGI
No JJs

Nightstar builds:
2 Gauss, 2 PPC, XL325, +4 DHS, 5t ammo. 60 kph speed
2 Gauss, 1 ER PPC, XL390, 5t ammo, 71.5 kph speed
3 AC5, 2 PPC, XL350, +5 DHS, 6t ammo, 64 kph
4 AC5, 1 PPC, XL350, +3 DHS, 7t ammo, 64 kph
2 UAC5, 2 PPC, XL380, +5 DHS, 6.5t ammo, 70 kph speed

Dragonfire builds:
2 UAC5, 2 PPC, ECM, XL300, +4 DHS, 5t ammo, 70 kph
1 Gauss, 2 PPC, ECM, XL325, +6 DHS, 3t ammo, 75.5 kph
2 Gauss, 1 ER PPC, ECM, XL280, 4.5t ammo, 65 kph

Edited by kapusta11, 20 December 2016 - 02:39 AM.

[Valhallan]

It would be nice to get more competitive chassis but tech does still need to be balanced imo, anyway OT:

at 30 tons i'd say hussar if they'd double the E to give it 6, 270 engine base? marauder type shape? mmmmm. its even got ecm, it'd be a beast for poking

for 55 ton compeition id say menshen, E and M points with high engine 330 base and ecm and slim front

for 75, lightbulb flashman ftw, can reach 400xl if you want, got urbie shape good for spreading, E up the ***

for 100 tons, i say imp for the trashcan brigade , but for competitive id say berserker, even without its stronk melee, its got masc, shoulder mounts are literally cannons on top the shoulder, even better position than the kdk3

[Dirus Nigh]

Alan Davion, on 19 December 2016 - 03:13 PM, said:

Problem is, pretty much every IS mech, including many of the Omni mechs are STILL going to be outclassed by the Clan mechs because of the overall tech imbalance.

Not to mention supposedly it's apparently impossible for PGI to add the remaining weapons that the IS doesn't have in order to make them anywhere near equivalent to the Clans.

Or PGI could reduce the stats of the clan weapons to make them on par with IS. Adding more weapons to the game for balance sake is just stupid. All it does is add more clutter and further obsoletes the current IS weapons. The developer should make sure that current weapons are balanced with each other first.

[Willard Phule]

The IS has plenty of effective mechs.....

How about you petition PGI to improve the IS players?

[Duke Nedo]

Willard Phule, on 20 December 2016 - 03:30 AM, said:

The IS has plenty of effective mechs.....

How about you petition PGI to improve the IS players?

A bad in a clan mech is better than a bad in an IS mech, on average, by a fair margin. Now, back under the bridge with you.

[Willard Phule]

Duke Nedo, on 20 December 2016 - 03:53 AM, said:

A bad in a clan mech is better than a bad in an IS mech, on average, by a fair margin. Now, back under the bridge with you.

Not really. You should see our potatoes.

LRM Dire Wolves and LRM Kit Foxes. Steering wheels everywhere. No, a potato is a potato.

It's really a shame there isn't some kind of training that is required for new players to join FW. Not even a wall of text they're required to read and click "I Accept" to. Nope, it's "grab a free trial mech and go herp the derp."

[Lily from animove]

sry can't read your problem in my 360 spinmachine. wohohohoooooooooooooohooooooo

[Battlemaster56]

Dirus Nigh, on 20 December 2016 - 02:56 AM, said:

Or PGI could reduce the stats of the clan weapons to make them on par with IS. Adding more weapons to the game for balance sake is just stupid. All it does is add more clutter and further obsoletes the current IS weapons. The developer should make sure that current weapons are balanced with each other first.

I don't know we continue nerfing down clan weapon and equipment just because IS don't have an equivalent. Also weapons and other equipment being obsolete is a thing that will happen eventually.

What the IS need in weaponary is ER Mediums and smalls so at least they can fight around Clan ranges at least and their still a choice of brawling efficiency with standard lasers or skirmishing while using er lasers. Adding the rest of UAC's will be helpful while it will restrict the 10 and 20's to heavier mechs in the IS roster.

[Kaveli]

Waiting for the annihilator

[Lehmund]

Alan Davion, on 19 December 2016 - 06:18 PM, said:

Until PGI gets it through their thick collective skulls they need a proper BV system in the game, which was the only way the table top game was able to come anywhere close to balance thanks to cheaper IS mechs letting the IS player field more heavy or assault mechs vs the far more expensive Clan heavy and assault mechs forcing them to take very few if any of them.

Granted this would require a complete top to bottom wipe of literally every change the game has undergone since day one. Put literally everything back at TT values in order to get a baseline, and iterate from there.

Which is exactly why it will never happen.

It would certainly not be very difficult to introduce a BV system here. Instead of using tonnage for drop decks or QP, you use a BV system.

Instead of adding quirks to mechs to balance them, you change the BV based on loadouts, chassis etc....

It would make balancing much simpler.

I.e. Want to take the KDK-3 with 4 Lbx-10s into battle? No problem. It'll cost you 1000 BV. Want to take a flamer and machine gun Dire Wolf instead for giggles? Ok. 500 BV instead. Same tonnage, different battle value.

People would build their decks based on BV so would likely have to take some excellent builds and some less optimal ones too.

It would be excellent.

[Y E O N N E]

Spheroid, on 19 December 2016 - 11:40 PM, said:

No, I would prefer bad but iconic mechs. Two separate games are being fueled by this game's art asset development. The needs of the many out way the needs of the few.

Good thing you have no idea which is the few and which is the many.

[Alan Davion]

Dirus Nigh, on 20 December 2016 - 02:56 AM, said:

Or PGI could reduce the stats of the clan weapons to make them on par with IS. Adding more weapons to the game for balance sake is just stupid. All it does is add more clutter and further obsoletes the current IS weapons. The developer should make sure that current weapons are balanced with each other first.

If PGI nerfed the Clan weapons to the point of having the same stats as IS weapons the Clan players would riot, which just so happen to be all the top ranked units in the game. You think CW/FW is a ghost town now? Nerf Clan weapons to IS level stats and there will be literally no one playing.

Battlemaster56, on 20 December 2016 - 04:14 AM, said:

I don't know we continue nerfing down clan weapon and equipment just because IS don't have an equivalent. Also weapons and other equipment being obsolete is a thing that will happen eventually.

What the IS need in weaponary is ER Mediums and smalls so at least they can fight around Clan ranges at least and their still a choice of brawling efficiency with standard lasers or skirmishing while using er lasers. Adding the rest of UAC's will be helpful while it will restrict the 10 and 20's to heavier mechs in the IS roster.

Which is what I've been saying all along. You can't properly balance the Clan weapons when the IS are missing half of the weapons required to have tech equivalency with the Clans.

Clan ER Medium will always be OPAF because there's no IS ER Medium to balance it against, so on and so forth.

Willard Phule, on 20 December 2016 - 03:30 AM, said:

The IS has plenty of effective mechs.....

How about you petition PGI to improve the IS players?

Duke Nedo has it right.

Duke Nedo, on 20 December 2016 - 03:53 AM, said:

A bad in a clan mech is better than a bad in an IS mech, on average, by a fair margin. Now, back under the bridge with you.

Two equally bad players, one in a Clan mech and one in an IS mech, the one in the Clan mech will invariably have an edge over the one in the IS mech.

Willard Phule, on 20 December 2016 - 03:57 AM, said:

Not really. You should see our potatoes.

LRM Dire Wolves and LRM Kit Foxes. Steering wheels everywhere. No, a potato is a potato.

It's really a shame there isn't some kind of training that is required for new players to join FW. Not even a wall of text they're required to read and click "I Accept" to. Nope, it's "grab a free trial mech and go herp the derp."

And you don't think you have the same problem going on over on the IS side? Because believe me it's almost a certainty that the IS has the same problem.

Lehmund, on 20 December 2016 - 05:50 AM, said:

It would certainly not be very difficult to introduce a BV system here. Instead of using tonnage for drop decks or QP, you use a BV system.

Instead of adding quirks to mechs to balance them, you change the BV based on loadouts, chassis etc....

It would make balancing much simpler.

I.e. Want to take the KDK-3 with 4 Lbx-10s into battle? No problem. It'll cost you 1000 BV. Want to take a flamer and machine gun Dire Wolf instead for giggles? Ok. 500 BV instead. Same tonnage, different battle value.

People would build their decks based on BV so would likely have to take some excellent builds and some less optimal ones too.

It would be excellent.

Actually it would be absurdly difficult to introduce a BV system.

PGI would have to completely start over from scratch, return all mechs, weapons and other tech to their base table top values, and figure out what BV system to use.

Let's take my favorite mech, the Shadow Hawk as an example.

The bog standard SHD-2H has a 1.0 BV of 918 and a 2.0 BV of 1,064. How much of that BV is tied up in the engine, the AC5, the Medium Laser, the LRM5 and SRM2.

Now let's compare that to the SHD-2K. 1.0 BV the 2K is stated as 1,018, and 2.0 BV is stated as 1,147. You strip out the AC5, Medium Laser and SRM2, replace it with a PPC and 5 extra heatsinks, and the BV jumps up by exactly 100 points using the 1.0 system, and 83 points using the 2.0 system.

And just for s***s and giggles, let's look at everyones favorite Clan mech, the Timber Wolf.

Under BV system 1.0, the Timber Wolf has a value of 2,252, and under BV system 2.0 it has a value of 2,737.

You could take 2 bog standard 2Hs for 416 more points under BV 1.0, and just 124 more points under BV 2.0, or 3 bog standard SHD-2H's for 502 more points under BV 1.0, and 455 more points under BV 2.0. Those two or three SHD's could combine their LRM5s and shell the living daylights out of the TBR, while the TBR might only be able to retaliate against one or two of the SHD's.

If the SHD's are spread out far enough, the TBR could probably only attack one and would have to waste precious time re-positioning in order to return fire against the other one or two depending on which combination you're using. Under that much combined fire, especially if the SHD's managed to close to AC distance, and the TBR couldn't retaliate against the one or two that were ripping it's back apart, the TBR would fall eventually. With the SHD's incurring far less damage overall.

Literally everything would require a BV value from the armor to the weapons.

That's why it would be absurdly difficult for such a system to be implemented, and exactly why PGI will almost certainly never do it.

It would almost be tantamount to admitting they screwed up royally from the very start.

Supposedly they have some sort of "internal BV system", but clearly that's not working as intended. Is it.

[TheArisen]

kapusta11, on 20 December 2016 - 02:01 AM, said:

Nightstar/Dragonfire is probably as good as it gets.

Pros:
Cockpit level hardpoints --> good at hill humping
Not humanoid --> fairly small for their weight class. Praise be to volumetric scaling.
Shield arms --> XL friendly
Possible PPC quirks on Nightstar
ECM on Dragonfire
High max engine cap (360 for Dragonfire and 400 for Nightstar)

Cons:
Wide arm placement --> bad at corner poking (except for 1 Gauss, 2 PPC Dragonfire build)
Certain builds require proper hardpoint inflation (at least 1 more energy in ST)
IS XL engine + low speed makes them very fragile, unless you want to go down in power which kinda defeats the purpose
Weapons in the shield arms
Potentially no quirk love from PGI
No JJs

Nightstar builds:
2 Gauss, 2 PPC, XL325, +4 DHS, 5t ammo. 60 kph speed
2 Gauss, 1 ER PPC, XL390, 5t ammo, 71.5 kph speed
3 AC5, 2 PPC, XL350, +5 DHS, 6t ammo, 64 kph
4 AC5, 1 PPC, XL350, +3 DHS, 7t ammo, 64 kph
2 UAC5, 2 PPC, XL380, +5 DHS, 6.5t ammo, 70 kph speed

Dragonfire builds:
2 UAC5, 2 PPC, ECM, XL300, +4 DHS, 5t ammo, 70 kph
1 Gauss, 2 PPC, ECM, XL325, +6 DHS, 3t ammo, 75.5 kph
2 Gauss, 1 ER PPC, ECM, XL280, 4.5t ammo, 65 kph

The Nightstar has a JJ variant but if you're using the big engine variant only for builds then I gotcha.

[TheArisen]

Yeonne Greene, on 19 December 2016 - 07:08 PM, said:

Not enough lasers to be a nuke boat. It is, however, a very solid contender as a heavier replacement for the BJ-1X. Wish it had two more energy hard-points to make 8, though. Getting a competitive output from IS lasers with less than 8 hard-points is...tricky. It's either 3xLL+3xML or 2xLPL+4xML. Same weight for both. Same tonnage. Slightly different range brackets. DHS are an issue since we're involving larges.

Edit: also 3x LPL if we like running super hot.

It comes with an erppc and a Llas, I think it might get those extra 2 hps after inflation.

Edited by TheArisen, 20 December 2016 - 12:05 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

rant rant rant..

If this game was close to balanced then this thread wouldn't exist

I'm not doing Faction warfare so I don't care much, this games been broken for over a year now, and the more desperate the fixes become the more broken it gets.

Only reason I spent money for the last year was to see more 3025 mechs arriving in the hope they become DLC for HBS battle tech.

only chance they have of getting any more of my money is to continue with the 3025's

I'm not going to try and speculate how many people feel like I do, if it's a small amount things carry on as normal, if it's a large amount will MW5M even happen

[Alan Davion]

Cathy, on 20 December 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

rant rant rant..

If this game was close to balanced then this thread wouldn't exist

I'm not doing Faction warfare so I don't care much, this games been broken for over a year now, and the more desperate the fixes become the more broken it gets.

Only reason I spent money for the last year was to see more 3025 mechs arriving in the hope they become DLC for HBS battle tech.

only chance they have of getting any more of my money is to continue with the 3025's

I'm not going to try and speculate how many people feel like I do, if it's a small amount things carry on as normal, if it's a large amount will MW5M even happen

The game has been fundamentally broken since Day 1 of Alpha and/or Closed Beta. The introduction of the Clans was also far too early which further f***ed up the balance and they've pretty much been running around like chickens without their heads since then.

Frankly I think the only way to fix anything at this point is to just scrap all the balance changes they've made up to this point, return everything to base TT values, implement an actual, public Battle Value system so everyone knows what piece of weaponry or technology, from small lasers to double heat sinks adds up to a mechs total BV, and balance the game around the BV system.

But that of course is exactly why I know PGI won't do it. That's far too much effort to put into a minimally viable product.

[Y E O N N E]

TheArisen, on 20 December 2016 - 12:05 PM, said:

It comes with an erppc and a Llas, I think it might get those extra 2 hps after inflation.

Possibly. PGI has a bad habit of looking at a 'Mech and declaring it good enough as-is, which is how we get the LCT-3V, SDR-5V, etc.

[Lehmund]

Alan Davion, on 20 December 2016 - 06:38 AM, said:

Actually it would be absurdly difficult to introduce a BV system.

PGI would have to completely start over from scratch, return all mechs, weapons and other tech to their base table top values, and figure out what BV system to use.

Let's take my favorite mech, the Shadow Hawk as an example.

The bog standard SHD-2H has a 1.0 BV of 918 and a 2.0 BV of 1,064. How much of that BV is tied up in the engine, the AC5, the Medium Laser, the LRM5 and SRM2.

Now let's compare that to the SHD-2K. 1.0 BV the 2K is stated as 1,018, and 2.0 BV is stated as 1,147. You strip out the AC5, Medium Laser and SRM2, replace it with a PPC and 5 extra heatsinks, and the BV jumps up by exactly 100 points using the 1.0 system, and 83 points using the 2.0 system.

And just for s***s and giggles, let's look at everyones favorite Clan mech, the Timber Wolf.

Under BV system 1.0, the Timber Wolf has a value of 2,252, and under BV system 2.0 it has a value of 2,737.

You could take 2 bog standard 2Hs for 416 more points under BV 1.0, and just 124 more points under BV 2.0, or 3 bog standard SHD-2H's for 502 more points under BV 1.0, and 455 more points under BV 2.0. Those two or three SHD's could combine their LRM5s and shell the living daylights out of the TBR, while the TBR might only be able to retaliate against one or two of the SHD's.

If the SHD's are spread out far enough, the TBR could probably only attack one and would have to waste precious time re-positioning in order to return fire against the other one or two depending on which combination you're using. Under that much combined fire, especially if the SHD's managed to close to AC distance, and the TBR couldn't retaliate against the one or two that were ripping it's back apart, the TBR would fall eventually. With the SHD's incurring far less damage overall.

Literally everything would require a BV value from the armor to the weapons.

That's why it would be absurdly difficult for such a system to be implemented, and exactly why PGI will almost certainly never do it.

It would almost be tantamount to admitting they screwed up royally from the very start.

Supposedly they have some sort of "internal BV system", but clearly that's not working as intended. Is it.

For a BV system to be introduced by PGI, they'd have to use their own custom system, not based on TT, but based on the huge amount of stats they already have on mech performances, weapon performances.

If they had reasonably good math guys, the initial values could be modeled easily and automatically using simple data mining algorithms, then play tested for accuracy and tweaked from there. Such a thing would be absurdly difficult without the mountains of data they are collecting but they got that covered.

The issue without such a system is that they are using guesswork mostly on applying bandaid type fixes to improve or nerf mechs using a variety of Quirk adjustments to account for a large amount of variation.

Under a BV system, players would still min/max. No doubt about that. And a BV system would likely lead to some chassis being optimized on pretty specific builds and loadouts vs performance (metas based on a chassis basis). However, mech to mech, PGI would be able to balance things out fairly easily by increasing/decreasing base BV of chassis compared to other chassis.

So you'd end up with likely a wide variety of chassis in the field, but each chassis would typically have a few highly sought after builds that have a low BV/battle efficiency rating. Unless of course, BV for equipment is also adjusted on a chassis to chassis basis, but that would be crazy to keep up....

No system is perfect, unfortunately.

[Alan Davion]

Lehmund, on 21 December 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

For a BV system to be introduced by PGI, they'd have to use their own custom system, not based on TT, but based on the huge amount of stats they already have on mech performances, weapon performances.

If they had reasonably good math guys, the initial values could be modeled easily and automatically using simple data mining algorithms, then play tested for accuracy and tweaked from there. Such a thing would be absurdly difficult without the mountains of data they are collecting but they got that covered.

But are the current stats what we should base the BV system on? Given how badly some mechs have been mangled over the years by nerfs, i.e. Victor or Highlander and their jumpjet and mobility nerfs.

Then there was the mech rescaling where mechs like the Wolfhound got substantially bigger, therefore making it that much less effective than it had been before.

I honestly think the only way for a BV system to really, have a snowballs chance in hell of working, is for literally everything to be reset back to TT values, give everything its assigned BV, from AMS to XL engines, put it out and let the players play the game for a month, two, three months even, see how everything shakes out, and then iterate balance from there.

Lehmund, on 21 December 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

The issue without such a system is that they are using guesswork mostly on applying bandaid type fixes to improve or nerf mechs using a variety of Quirk adjustments to account for a large amount of variation.

This is pretty much what I just outlined before. Applying a BV system using current stats would simply be a bandaid on a gushing femoral artery wound. It's just like the change over from ELO to PSR.

Everyones game stats should have been wiped clean, everyone should have been settled into the middle of Tier 3, and then as they play their PSR tier goes up or down accordingly.

Instead some people had the... I can't think of an appropriate word to use here... Let's just say some people ended up at the literal bottom of the barrel based on BAD stats.

I got dropped to the bottom of Tier 5 because the system used my, at the time, piss-f***ing-poor stats, instead of having said stats wiped clean, put in the middle of Tier 3 and then given the chance to go up or down accordingly.

The same thing applies to a BV system. If we use the current piss-f***ing-poor stats of some of the mechs, the previously mentioned Victor or Highlander for example, and just convert them immediately to a BV system, that BV value will be skewed the wrong way.

If we reset everything to TT values, give everything appropriate BV values, as I said, everything from AMS to the biggest XL engine, this gives every mech the final appropriate BV value and we now know exactly how effective Mech A is against Mech B.

Go up a bit in this thread and look at my comparison between the Shadow Hawk and Timber Wolf using the TT BV 1.0 and 2.0 systems if you want a little more of a look at my thinking.

Lehmund, on 21 December 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

Under a BV system, players would still min/max. No doubt about that. And a BV system would likely lead to some chassis being optimized on pretty specific builds and loadouts vs performance (metas based on a chassis basis). However, mech to mech, PGI would be able to balance things out fairly easily by increasing/decreasing base BV of chassis compared to other chassis.

So you'd end up with likely a wide variety of chassis in the field, but each chassis would typically have a few highly sought after builds that have a low BV/battle efficiency rating. Unless of course, BV for equipment is also adjusted on a chassis to chassis basis, but that would be crazy to keep up....

No system is perfect, unfortunately.

Granted I know even with the BV system in place players would Min/Max, but if your fully min/maxed mech suddenly has a BV twice as high as its stock version was, and if in CW/FW, you had a BV pool for your 4 mechs, let's just say for s***s and giggles, a 10k BV pool... If a stock mech has, let's just say a BV of 2000, and you take that same mech, optimize the ever-living-hell out of it, you now end up with a BV of 4000.

Under such a system, your 10k BV drop deck pool drops by 4k BV from that min/maxed mech, and you have 6k BV remaining, you might be forced to take 3 of those 2k BV stock mechs because you can't afford to bring anymore min/maxed mechs.

Obviously the system I just outlined is a complete "throwing s*** on the wall and seeing what sticks" example, but the idea is appropriate I think.

Another way of looking at it is, for example, Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear TT game or Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures.

You have something like 100 to 150 points to build your forces with, so you can either sink almost all your points into one supreme unit, with a few trash units to fill out the remaining points, or you can take a larger number of average units and with a few well placed upgrades, increase their effectiveness.

The same applies to my theoretical CW/FW Drop Deck BV pool. You can either bring one "Ultra" unit and a bunch of trash, or a drop deck of lesser valued units that have been made only slightly better instead of one "perfect" unit that's been min/maxed to hell and back.

You would have to think, for example, "Do I bring my ultra optimized laser vomit Timber Wolf and a bunch of stock Fire Moths, or do I bring a deck full of only slightly better than average Storm Crows?"

Obviously I used the Clans as an example first because they would obviously have much higher BV values, where as the IS could probably afford to bring, let's just say for s***s and giggles, 2 fully optimized Atlas', and maybe 2 stock Shadow Hawks or something.

Does that help you see more of what I'm trying to get at?

Edited by Alan Davion, 21 December 2016 - 12:45 PM.