122 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Alan Davion, on 19 December 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

The WSP-1W used by the Wolf's Dragoons uses 6 lasers, just like some variants of the Locust, Jenner and Wolfhound.

Only the Firestarter holds the firepower advantage being able to mount 8 lasers.

You are not getting six Medium or Small Pulse lasers into a Wasp without sacrificing speed and/or jumping ability (XL180 gets you six with one JJ), making it identical at best. To wit, most of its weapons are also in its large arms...which will get sheared off in short-order. Unlike the Locust, which has very tiny arms which almost never get hit with any meaningful damage.

It is not an inherently well-designed 'Mech.

[Lehmund]

Geez. The game doesn't need more mechs that are more powerful in an FPS setting than others, IS or Clan.

What it needs is more balance across the board so that players will enjoy playing pretty much any mech they wish.

How do you do that? With great difficulty.

But it's not by adding other mechs on the IS side that will make obsolete other IS mechs just to compete with the most played mechs on the Clan side...

I've posted threads about the typical game design balancing process for competitive multiplayer games elsewhere so won't go into it here though.

As for myself, I'm not one of the top players, but I do quite well for myself, whatever mech I bring to the table. The obvious ones do better for me as Clan and I would gladly take more nerfs on high performers and bonuses on low performers just so that I can take whatever I want and my team mates be ok with it.

I just want to have good games, that is all.

[Jingseng]

You speak as if the IS is a real place or a real faction with decision making authority and power.

Moreover, what would constitute "effective"? Other than "not a medium", you don't really give an example of what would be "competitive" or "more useful" (and never mind that the Crusader is a heavy missile boat).

Edit: It's almost like you suggest that with ALL the IS mechs already out there, there is not a single one which is "effective', "competitive", or "useful" such as would justify other choices being added.

Edited by Jingseng, 19 December 2016 - 06:09 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Have you not noticed the trend in 'Mechs being named?

> Max tonnage for the weight class
> Energy and ballistics mounted in one arm and both torsos in high mounting positions
> Either narrow frontal profile or good shield capability
> Bonus: Jump jets and ECM

[Alan Davion]

MechaBattler, on 19 December 2016 - 05:22 PM, said:

Is it a rights issue?

No, supposedly it is because the original weapons programmer who apparently just up and said "F*** you I'm leaving", supposedly left no notes on how to program future weapons or some B-S.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 December 2016 - 05:31 PM, said:

Can't is the wrong word, won't is the accurate word.

Won't may also apply as "Won't add them until they get to a certain set of mechs that require them", for example the Hermes 4K I mentioned earlier, which uses an ER small and 6 ER mediums.

We won't know until we reach a point where the new weapons are absolutely required, and they're not added.

Yeonne Greene, on 19 December 2016 - 05:57 PM, said:

You are not getting six Medium or Small Pulse lasers into a Wasp without sacrificing speed and/or jumping ability (XL180 gets you six with one JJ), making it identical at best. To wit, most of its weapons are also in its large arms...which will get sheared off in short-order. Unlike the Locust, which has very tiny arms which almost never get hit with any meaningful damage.

It is not an inherently well-designed 'Mech.

Well the Wasp 1W is only armed with 6 standard small lasers, so obviously there would have to be some changes or sacrifices made, especially to use 6 medium pulse lasers. If you used endo, ferro and xl you might get 6 medium pulse lasers, but you'd probably have to bring zero jump jets and skim the armor down.

Lehmund, on 19 December 2016 - 06:03 PM, said:

Geez. The game doesn't need more mechs that are more powerful in an FPS setting than others, IS or Clan.

What it needs is more balance across the board so that players will enjoy playing pretty much any mech they wish.

How do you do that? With great difficulty.

But it's not by adding other mechs on the IS side that will make obsolete other IS mechs just to compete with the most played mechs on the Clan side...

I've posted threads about the typical game design balancing process for competitive multiplayer games elsewhere so won't go into it here though.

As for myself, I'm not one of the top players, but I do quite well for myself, whatever mech I bring to the table. The obvious ones do better for me as Clan and I would gladly take more nerfs on high performers and bonuses on low performers just so that I can take whatever I want and my team mates be ok with it.

I just want to have good games, that is all.

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.

[Y E O N N E]

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

Well the Wasp 1W is only armed with 6 standard small lasers, so obviously there would have to be some changes or sacrifices made, especially to use 6 medium pulse lasers. If you used endo, ferro and xl you might get 6 medium pulse lasers, but you'd probably have to bring zero jump jets and skim the armor down.

A.) Small lasers are worthless. PGI needs to do something about that. A buff to small lasers wouldn't just help the Wasp, though.

B.) You are not ever getting six Medium Pulse onto a Wasp; that's 12 tons. You can barely get 4 onto a Locust and that's using either an XL180 and scraping a lot of armor or dropping to an XL170, suffering even worse heat efficiency and lower speed, and scraping not quite as much armor. Just getting three Medium Pulse onto a Wasp would be a trick. That said, since it doesn't have to worry about JJs, the Locust can mount three MedPulse and two Smalls...because it can shave armor from its arms that never get hit.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 19 December 2016 - 06:21 PM.

[Valdarion Silarius]

Tristan Winter, on 19 December 2016 - 03:22 PM, said:

At this point, I'd like to see more mechs like the Dragoon, Jagermech and Blackjack. We've got plenty of humanoid mechs and chicken walkers. I'd like to see some more of those mechs that look like walking AA guns. No arms, just lots of guns strapped to the shoulder joint.



Mmm, yeah. With ECM and jump jets. That's my jam.

PS: What the IS really needs is the Hatamoto-Chi, the Axman and the Black Knight variant with a frickin sword. That'll teach those clanners.

Only thing I can think of off the back of my head is the Rifleman 3 (would be an assault), Jagermech 3 (another 65 tonner for IS) and the Flashman. The Flashman might work depending on how high they make the arms and IF they don't screw up on redesigning the thing (I don't think there would be many people willing to buy an IS mech that looks like a light bulb with legs).

It's going to be rather difficult to get Russ off of his mary-sue-mech high until the lack of sales finally hits home to PGI. Until the whales realize that their IS nostalgia mechs don't contribute anything new to the game, it's going to be a long slippery slope until the 3060 TRO with new tech rolls around.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

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

Won't may also apply as "Won't add them until they get to a certain set of mechs that require them", for example the Hermes 4K I mentioned earlier, which uses an ER small and 6 ER mediums.

Won't as in "The balance overlord won't add them for unforeseen reasons because they don't need a new mech to be added into the game."

[El Bandito]

Every single IS mechs will need quirk crutch, even the meta-est one. Tech difference, brah.

[Alan Davion]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 December 2016 - 06:39 PM, said:

Won't as in "The balance overlord won't add them for unforeseen reasons because they don't need a new mech to be added into the game."

Then someone needs to be fired, plain and simple.

[TheArisen]

Just an FYI about the Nightstar, one variant would have a cap of 400 (375 stock) and another has JJ.

The Anvil is another solid IS heavy. High mounts, good engine, JJ, ecm and good hard points. It's only downside is being 60 tons.

The Dragonfire would be just about perfect. Slap a 350 or 325xl in it and you're rdy.

As others mentioned the Cerberus would be about as good a choice as the Nightstar. Basically a Banshee that can dual goose.

I know you said no mediums Gas but for a strong medium I'd suggest the Lynx. Fast, good hard points and high mounts with a narrow frontal profile.

The Javelin would be good, not AC good without quirks though. One variant has 7 energy HP's.

The Penetrator would rock Sox. My main concern with it is it'd obsolete the BK most likely.

[Tristan Winter]

Arnold The Governator, on 19 December 2016 - 06:36 PM, said:

It's going to be rather difficult to get Russ off of his mary-sue-mech high until the lack of sales finally hits home to PGI. Until the whales realize that their IS nostalgia mechs don't contribute anything new to the game, it's going to be a long slippery slope until the 3060 TRO with new tech rolls around.

In his Twitter poll where ~1000 people voted, 38% said MWO has enough mechs and 62% says we don't have enough mechs.

I think he will get the message eventually. But I expect they'll keep pumping out new mechs for another year or so.

El Bandito, on 19 December 2016 - 06:40 PM, said:

Every single IS mechs will need quirk crutch, even the meta-est one. Tech difference, brah.

Russ just announced on Twitter that tech difference doesn't matter. So we can all relax.

[JediPanther]

Current mech and tech you just have to make counter builds to clan meta. This wolf is a good light hker. WLF-2 ach hunter

[Alan Davion]

Tristan Winter, on 19 December 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

Russ just announced on Twitter that tech difference doesn't matter. So we can all relax.

Then he needs to spread around whatever the hell he's smoking, because unless I missed some patch notes saying the Clan weapons had been nerfed to the point they're equal to IS weapons in terms of range and whatnot, then tech difference still applies and still matters.

Hell, it still matters because the IS is still missing the ER Small/Medium, UAC 2/10/20, LBX 2/5/20, Streak 4/6.

Until the IS get those weapons, tech difference very much matters.

[Y E O N N E]

Tristan Winter, on 19 December 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

Russ just announced on Twitter that tech difference doesn't matter. So we can all relax.

Alan Davion, on 19 December 2016 - 06:52 PM, said:

Hell, it still matters because the IS is still missing the ER Small

Technically, the smalls we have now have been so buffed that they are already "ER" by the TT definition.

[TheArisen]

Hey Yeonne, Lynx versus Bhawk Ku.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lynx

[Valdarion Silarius]

Tristan Winter, on 19 December 2016 - 06:47 PM, said:

In his Twitter poll where ~1000 people voted, 38% said MWO has enough mechs and 62% says we don't have enough mechs.

I think he will get the message eventually. But I expect they'll keep pumping out new mechs for another year or so.

And I agree with that poll. I feel that they should at least finish up with the MW2 classic line up (Firemoth, Rifleman IIC and Warhammer IIC) then move onto a few TRO 3060 mechs with the current tech that we have (Mad Cat Mk.2 and MAYBE some IS omni's for the whales). I hope by the time they are ready to add in new tech, that perhaps the community could assist PGI with coding for the new weapons. There are probably a handful of code monkeys floating around here that are willing to do the work for FREE for them.

Edited by Arnold The Governator, 19 December 2016 - 07:05 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

TheArisen, on 19 December 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

Hey Yeonne, Lynx versus Bhawk Ku.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lynx

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.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 19 December 2016 - 07:08 PM.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

JediPanther, on 19 December 2016 - 06:50 PM, said:

Current mech and tech you just have to make counter builds to clan meta. This wolf is a good light hker. WLF-2 ach hunter

Cheeto Smasher. Two shield arms are better than one. Granted, WLFs aren't in the greatest place since the rescale...

I want the Raptor. One of the few IS omnis with DHS and Endo stock, all high mounts, tons of hardpoints, very small profile. Anyone with three brain cells to rub together could make that work, even with a relatively low top speed.

[Y E O N N E]

I always up-vote Raptor.

IS Light with 8x Medium Lasers? Lolololololol, yes please.