75 replies to this topic

[Mawai]

Actually ... I interpret their statement to mean that if IS XL did not have the vulnerability then that would provide a significant boost to the firepower, maneuverability and durability of IS mech builds since there would be no reason to use a STD engine except in the rare cases where the weapons would not fit in a side torso with an XL build. Keep in mind that this is an advantage ALREADY in place for clan XL engines.

Right now, for IS, the choice is maneuverability and extra tonnage for an XL with the risk of dying on ST loss.

However, by dodging the issue of IS vulnerability in favour of a reason to take an IS STD engine ... they just reinforce the continuing issue of IS vs clan balance. If a durable IS XL engine is such a significant factor in balance " in light of the other benefits provided by larger Engine sizes and the massive offensive boost XL Engines can facilitate" then it is quite clear that the shortcomings of IS XL engines are a major factor in the clan vs IS balance in the game.

The only real balance alternative would be to provide significant side torso structure or armor quirks to every IS mech to make them more durable even with an XL equipped. They could still die to ST loss but it would be more difficult to achieve while STD engine builds would probably require a CT structure boost associated with the engine itself so that a STD engine build would be more durable and an IS XL build still more vulnerable but not as much as currently.

The main problem is that PGI has demonstrated no real interest in actually achieving any form of clans vs IS balance. It should be that a clan mech has the same effectiveness as an IS mech but unfortunately that is still not the case over a wide range of mechs (of course there are under- and over-achievers on both sides ... but the clans generally dominate).

[The Lighthouse]

Tristan Winter, on 24 January 2017 - 04:54 AM, said:

If we give PGI the benefit of the doubt, the basic logic is this:

If we just make IS XL as good as Clan XL, then we fix one problem and create another problem. Or, at the very least, we mitigate one problem and exacerbate another problem. We need to figure out how to solve both problems.

That kind of sentiment makes sense. Because making STD engines a viable choice is a real problem for MWO. Not only because XL engines are now effectively another mandatory C-bill tax for new players, on top of DHS and Endo, but also because eliminating choices of customization makes the mech lab game less interesting. Ideally, SHS vs DHS, Endo vs standard, Ferro vs standard and XL vs standard should all be questions with different answers for different players and different mechs.

And on top of that, it would be interesting to bring MWO slightly closer to the 2012 / 2013 meta of high TTK and slow mechs, as an alternative to the current roflstomp nascar meta with XL engines everywhere. It would be cool if heavy mechs could equip STD engines in order to significantly increase their survivability. Today, you see a lot of people pick something like an XL350 instead of a STD280 because the XL engine provides you both increased survivability in form of mobility and increased firepower. In many cases, there's no real balancing act when picking one or the other. XL engines all the way.

It really doesn't increase survivability of the mech even if using XL engine gives you higher engine rating.
As players' skills do better, when I play with IS mech, pretty much all people trying to do is pop up the side torso. It's no-brainer choice.

1. If he has XL engine, he is dead.
2. If he has standard, at least he is crippled and lost about 50% of fire power.


Yes, shielding, torso twist, etc... but eventually they get to you, quite easily.


IS Assaults with XL engine is about as fragile as an oversized Firestarter in decent games.

[Bud Crue]

Star Commander Horse, on 24 January 2017 - 05:48 AM, said:

I still think we have a ways to go before everyone is happy.

I can't tell you how they can make everyone happy, but I can tell you how they can stop pissing everyone off:

Apply nerfs selectively and with precision and then explain even those nerfs with equal detail.

Its that simple.

Don't nerf ALL kodiaks because 1 is OP. Don't nerf ALL Warhammer's because one (or maybe two) is over performing. Don't nerf ALL Summoners because the loyalty variant is the new poptart king. Don't nerf ALL shadowcats...wait why are they nerfing Shadow cats?...

Anyway, the point is that if they stopped doing broad brush nerfs and instead nerfed (and buffed) where needed...AND ONLY WHERE CLEAR EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT SUCH AN ACTION IS CALLED FOR...then I think a lot less people would be pissed off.

[Sjorpha]

razenWing, on 24 January 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

And you think IS mechs will be super fair when we give you a 70 ton Warhammer that has 4 ballistic slots instead of max 3 on any Clan heavies, AND give it more speed, durability, and no side check weakness? Give me a f-ing break.

Night gyr has 7 ballistic slots (and is the best ballistic heavy in the game by far), Timber wolf and Summoner has 5, Hellbringer and linebacker has 4.

Should those mechs die on 1 ST loss then?

The fact is that IS heavies have a max of 4 and only one of them is anywhere near compeitive. So when it comes to ballistic heavies clans are way superior both in hardpoints and number of chassis.

The number of hardpoints only matter if you can use them effectiely though. The night gyr can effectively use up to 6, more reasonably 5, and the Black Widow can use it's 4. On every other mech, both clan and IS, there is no good ballistic build that uses more than 3 ballistic hardpoints (as far as I know). Leaving out machine guns, there is only 1 medium that can use 4 effectively (HBK-iic 4UAC2), and of course there are several assaults on both sides. So there is very little substance in arguing there is something extra OP about having 4 ballistic hardpoints, and it becomes downright silly if you argue this is an IS advantage, when ballistic boating is clearly more available to clan side in all weight classes.

Ballistic boating isn't even the strongest type of heavy build right now, laser boating and jumpsniping is much stronger, so this argument tripple fails.

Go ahead and keep pretending there are somehow oh-so-many factors why clan tech is totally balanced, you can either selctively list things and leave others out (like harping on about fixed engine sides while ignoring omnipods etc.), or just make things up out of thin air like you just did in the quote above (probably just a shameless lie?). After that it's time to grind through some of the old popular myths that are actually nonsense (Clan mechs are hotter! IS mechs have better hitboxes! God Quirks!) You can also keep repeating the mindbogglingly ridiculous fallacy that balance=sameness, or why not give yourself a breather by throwing out some self serving reference to "lore" while getting ready to repeat the whole cycle of nonsense again.

On second thought, don't.

Edited by Sjorpha, 24 January 2017 - 06:24 AM.

[a gaijin]

Bud Crue, on 24 January 2017 - 05:55 AM, said:

I can't tell you how they can make everyone happy, but I can tell you how they can stop pissing everyone off:

Apply nerfs selectively and with precision and then explain even those nerfs with equal detail.

Its that simple.

Don't nerf ALL kodiaks because 1 is OP. Don't nerf ALL Warhammer's because one (or maybe two) is over performing. Don't nerf ALL Summoners because the loyalty variant is the new poptart king. Don't nerf ALL shadowcats...wait why are they nerfing Shadow cats?...

Anyway, the point is that if they stopped doing broad brush nerfs and instead nerfed (and buffed) where needed...AND ONLY WHERE CLEAR EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT SUCH AN ACTION IS CALLED FOR...then I think a lot less people would be pissed off.

That's part of it. But honestly I think mistakes were made when nerfs became "the new norm."

Now things are in such a tangled mess that we're stuck in a vicious cycle of nerf, buff, nerf, buff, berf, nuff ad nauseum.

We've no choice now but to power through it all and keep providing data that can be examined for the next optimization patch iteration.

I'll probably be in a much worse mood tomorrow after playing ultra nerfed summoners. Hope not but we'll see



edited to add missing word: 'mood'

Edited by Star Commander Horse, 24 January 2017 - 02:14 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Star Commander Horse, on 24 January 2017 - 06:04 AM, said:

That's part of it. But honestly I think mistakes were made when nerfs became "the new norm."

Now things are in such a tangled mess that we're stuck in a vicious cycle of nerf, buff, nerf, buff, berf, nuff ad nauseum.

We've no choice now but to power through it all and keep providing data that can be examined for the next optimization patch iteration.

I'll probably be in a much worse tomorrow after playing ultra nerfed summoners. Hope not but we'll see

I'd be okay with that "cycle" If I thought the data we "keep providing" justified those nerfs and buffs but I don't.

E.g. I don't believe for a second that they have data suggesting that the Warhammer 7S is overperforming against all other heavy mechs in the game. There is no way that ALL Summoners have been over performing for quite some time even before the loyalty variant was introduced. Etc.

If the "cycle" was actually reflecting what we see in game or better yet was supported by PGI showing us their data and more fully explaining and justifying their actions in this regard, I think people would actually welcome iterative nerfs and buffs. But when they make these overly broad changes, with equally broad and/or nonsensical justifications, all they are doing is creating hostility and confusion, and gets us no closer to "balance".

[Prof RJ Gumby]

It's a perfectly logical sentence to me.

In short, they say that xl bonuses are sooo great that boosting any xl further is a bad idea. Reading along the lines: it's better for the game to boost non-xl engines and nerf the best version (clan) of xl engines.

You may not agree with it. Heck, I don't agree with it (at the same weight costs, the engine that allows you to stay alive after torso loss will be always better than an engine that kill you after torso loss, unless it will be easier to kill CT of the "non-lethal" engine than a st of the lethal engine. You may bring them close together with penalties for torso loss, but only to some degree.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 24 January 2017 - 06:15 AM.

[Mechteric]

Bad fruit analogy is bad

[The Lighthouse]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 24 January 2017 - 06:14 AM, said:

It's a perfectly logical sentence to me.

In short, they say that xl bonuses are sooo great that boosting any xl further is a bad idea. Reading along the lines: it's better for the game to boost non-xl engines and nerf the best version (clan) of xl engines.

You may not agree with it. Heck, I don't agree with it (at the same weight costs, the engine that allows you to stay alive after torso loss will be always better than an engine that kill you after torso loss, unless it will be easier to kill CT of the "non-lethal" engine than a st of the lethal engine. You may bring them close together with penalties for torso loss, but only to some degree.

Yes, nerf the XL engines... except PGI is nerfing the wrong aspect of the XL engines.

As I said in other thread, the main issue of ISXL vs ClanXL is durability. It was never functionality.
Right now PGI is nerfing functionality of ClanXL engine instead of durability, which does not address the problem.

Also, nerfing ClanXL engine is really, really far more tricker than buffing ISXL engines because of omnimechs which cannot replace the engine. As soon as you are touching ClanXL engines, you will be affecting a lot of weak Clan omnimechs (i.e a lot of Clan Assault omnimechs, light omnimechs, and mostly omnimechs with oversized engines) in a really bad way.

The reality is you are not just merely nerfing the ClanXL engines.... The today's patch will definitely have negative impacts on mechs like Executioner and Gargoyle while hardly addresses ISXL vs ClanXL problem.

[Pjwned]

Actually, it's a decent step towards weaning Inner Sphere players away from the extremely unhealthy habit of stuffing an XL engine into literally every mech.

Imagine if there weren't huge torso structure quirks on a vast number of mechs, reinforcing the idea that XL engines are meant more for small & fast mechs that can avoid damage (or for mechs that you deliberately want to build as a glass cannon) rather than the default choice for any given mech due to magic space jesus quirks practically eliminating the weaknesses of a lightweight but fragile engine.

And then imagine there was a balanced alternative between the XL and STD which would give people the functionality they're asking for without severely unbalancing the game; we could even call it something like the light fusion engine.

And then after that imagine further tech imbalances could be addressed directly, such as buffing underperforming IS weapons and/or slightly nerfing overperforming Clan weapons, in addition to adding new tech for IS which is now confirmed to be coming later in the year.

But no, instead people just incessantly whine their *** off because the game absolutely must cater to their desire to cram in as much firepower as possible, which doesn't work out too well when everybody else does the same thing, and then they have to whine for more quirks as a result while not realizing the power creep arms race they're perpetuating.

Edited by Pjwned, 24 January 2017 - 06:43 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

Pjwned, on 24 January 2017 - 06:41 AM, said:

Actually, it's a decent step towards weaning Inner Sphere players away from the extremely unhealthy habit of stuffing an XL engine into literally every mech.

Imagine if there weren't huge torso structure quirks on a vast number of mechs, reinforcing the idea that XL engines are meant more for small & fast mechs that can avoid damage (or for mechs that you deliberately want to build as a glass cannon) rather than the default choice for any given mech due to magic space jesus quirks practically eliminating the weaknesses of a lightweight but fragile engine.

And then imagine there was a balanced alternative between the XL and STD which would give people the functionality they're asking for without severely unbalancing the game; we could even call it something like the light fusion engine.

And then after that imagine further tech imbalances could be addressed directly, such as buffing underperforming IS weapons and/or slightly nerfing overperforming Clan weapons, in addition to adding new tech for IS which is now confirmed to be coming later in the year.

But no, instead people just incessantly whine their *** off because the game absolutely must cater to their desire to cram in as much firepower as possible, which doesn't work out too well when everybody else does the same thing, and then they have to whine for more quirks as a result while not realizing the power creep arms race they're perpetuating.

I am sure a lot of inexperience people do put ISXL engines on wrong mechs.


Standard 340 weights 34 tons, XL engine weights 20.5 tons. Even with LFE we are looking for at least 10+ ton differences between engines.


That's like at least 20~40 alpha strike damage difference from the start. You are not going to balance this just by buffing weapons (oh wait, we are ended up buffing something again!) unless you put some crazy numbers on it.


Oh wait, PGI once actually did.

Crazy quirks.


They actually worked and we had a short period of the time when IS vs Clan was kind of balanced if IS had some slight advantage. But it seems PGI has very low tolerance toward seeing IS having advantages. So here we are with a bunch of mechs with insignificant quirk numbers.


You know, probably only one thing you said is correct: there are a lot of mechs with crazy side torso quirks... because of this engine imbalance. A huge list of quirks that easily lose to track. I have a better idea. How about we just buff the ISXL engine and get rid of all of these stupid side torso durability quirks so the overall game gets much simpler and PGI does not have to pull hairs to adjust a lot of numbers?

Edited by The Lighthouse, 24 January 2017 - 06:55 AM.

[C E Dwyer]

Duke Nedo, on 24 January 2017 - 04:10 AM, said:

Lol, yes... praise the day when the MWO playerbase agrees that something is good or bad. Could mean something.

I don't agree !

Yeah yeah I'm fooling with yah.

Truth is after P.G.I's mech designed team lost all objectivity and have done their damnedest to make it virtually impossible to balance this game effectively, I no longer give a damn

Edited by Cathy, 24 January 2017 - 07:03 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Cathy, on 24 January 2017 - 07:03 AM, said:

I don't agree !

Yeah yeah I'm fooling with yah.

Truth is after P.G.I's mech designed team lost all objectivity and have done their damnedest to make it virtually impossible to balance this game effectively, I no longer give a damn

Ya, know now that you mention it, and now that I think of it I'm kinda in the same boat. I mean, the whole clan v IS balance issue really is only significant for CW purposes or if you care about PGI's long term plan for this game.

As to CW, I have largely given up on it, so who cares if the IS are largely incapable of taking dots, regardless of skill, population or tech differences.

As to PGI's long term plan: I'm convinced that PGI is going to sell mostly power creeping inherently superior mechs and tech from here on out because power creep sells and that is how they are funding MW5. I think the balance passes are designed for the primary purpose of making those new mechs more appealing (by making what currently exists even worse in comparison) and secondarily giving a pretense to balance to keep the remaining whales and nostalgia players holding on for a bit longer than they otherwise would without that pretense.

So yeah, I guess I only care in the sense that I still have an irrational sense of hope that PGI will care too. That they will make CW more than "dotwarrior online", that they will make a tiny effort toward the balance goals that they stated when quirks were introduced and again reiterated over the years. Since they appear to have abandoned both of those things, about all I have left is QP and the thankfulness that this is still a F2P model.

Fifth stage of grief realized and achieved. Well done PGI.

[NRP]

I don't know what the answer is, but it certainly can't be making Clan XL engines die when a ST is destroyed. There are too many (slow) clan mechs with fixed XL engines that would be rendered useless.

Perhaps allow IS XL engines to survive a ST loss, and greatly increase the cooling capacity of internal heat sinks in STD engines to negate some of the tonnage issues?

[The Lighthouse]

NRP, on 24 January 2017 - 07:34 AM, said:

I don't know what the answer is, but it certainly can't be making Clan XL engines die when a ST is destroyed. There are too many (slow) clan mechs with fixed XL engines that would be rendered useless.

Perhaps allow IS XL engines to survive a ST loss, and greatly increase the cooling capacity of internal heat sinks in STD engines to negate some of the tonnage issues?

Very good point. So the most of the sane suggestions were either buff ISXL engine, or make Clan XL engine same as current ISXL, but unlock the engine for all omnimechs so they could choose standard engines if desired.

But PGI chose not-so-sane option.

[Maker L106]

Never tipped my hat in this arena before (that I remember) but I'm going to now.

The IS XL vs Clan XL situation needs to be addressed, i think we can all agree on that.

The issue is how its addressed. Bold topics below not covered thus far.

--Post ST loss results: IsXL explodes vs cXL having a 40% heat jump / and slowing of movement. On the surface this doesn't seem too fair. And really it isn't. Suggestions to fix this are not quite suggestions to fix this so much as "suggestions to keep the IsXL from popping" Those who run IsXL's in their mechs can attest to the fact its aggravating when you shield side and STILL get popped with your weak, damage ST away from the enemy at large. This relegates the IsXL mechs to two demographics in my eyes. Long range heavy battery style support, or Skirmisher support due to increased speed and maneuverability. In these instances I've seen people do okay with them, and have done okay with them myself. but to be fair, my Tier / not playing FP perhaps my point is mute.

Is issues don't stem from the XL popping, they stem from their inability to capitalize on utilizing standard engines. Most mechs are not configured or cannot be configured properly to fully utilize a standard because they either shield side (meaning your a stick with no weapons /w standard at the end) or you alternate sides with the XL meaning you keep your weapons longer but may die sooner.

That's your core issue. The few clan mechs that CAN equp a standard have this issue as well. There is ZERO reason to do so. So is more an issue with the standard configurations on BOTH sides than it is the XL's interaction which causes this entire situation.

The bottom line is even if your NOT more fragile, why would you willingly be slower AND have less tonnage for weapons?

The typical answer repeated is "Durability" and I can't lie, that's why i run a standard in most of my IS Marauders. A common counterpoint is that it takes more skill to operate a IsXL build, which is only part of the story. I don't for a second believe the XL system is a fundamental flaw, but I also do not believe that it is an issue with the engines. I believe it is an issue with the WEAPONS.

--Here's why...

Take 4 LPL's or 3? doesn't matter the mech, go ahead, choose, I'll wait.

Now with your 4-13 LPL's / PPC's / whatever weapon setup you run / enjoy / etc: go fire upon your opponent while making your shots count. Damage not withstanding this rolls over into the facetime argument where spike damage vs DPS. While in reality you need a decent bag of both, right now PPFLD is king for obvious reasons. "XL Checking" for example is a thing because it is possible to strip / destroy parts SO quickly. This effectively makes the ST's CT's as well meaning as long as your placing accurate damage, doesn't matter too much where, Do the math in your head, yes its harder to chew through someone who knows how to rotate and move, but the higher this goes on the weight list, the more problematic you see that become.

Fatbro's can't bob and weave like their lighter or hell even some rare heavies can get away with that. There's a threshold at which the IsXL becomes a serious liability and its lower on the weight scale than most are aware of as there should be Mid's that I'm not currently remembering which suffer these problems as well. If memory serves the Hunchback is one of them.

--All that fancy talk and no fix? Are you mad!?
I like to think not but I certainly could be off on a tangent. Engine design is flawed, I won't try to deny that. But it comes back to the core issues you see with the ease of stripping parts for whatever reason (no armor / no speed / etc: ) which are exacerbated by the fact standards are also weaker than their XL tonnage counterpart.

Can't keep my thoughts in line any longer though... so that's all for now. I may show back up and throw up more but hopefully not. [Edited formatting for easier reading]

Edited by Maker L106, 24 January 2017 - 07:41 AM.

[KuroNyra]

kesmai, on 24 January 2017 - 02:54 AM, said:

Well Sir, you are just about to encounter alternative facts.

There was more Apple C than Apple A and B! PERIOD!

[Pjwned]

The Lighthouse, on 24 January 2017 - 06:54 AM, said:

I am sure a lot of inexperience people do put ISXL engines on wrong mechs.


Standard 340 weights 34 tons, XL engine weights 20.5 tons. Even with LFE we are looking for at least 10+ ton differences between engines.


That's like at least 20~40 alpha strike damage difference from the start. You are not going to balance this just by buffing weapons (oh wait, we are ended up buffing something again!) unless you put some crazy numbers on it.


Oh wait, PGI once actually did.

Crazy quirks.


They actually worked and we had a short period of the time when IS vs Clan was kind of balanced if IS had some slight advantage. But it seems PGI has very low tolerance toward seeing IS having advantages. So here we are with a bunch of mechs with insignificant quirk numbers.

You are just proving my point, especially when you bring up "crazy quirks" like 3x firing rate for the RVN-H and DRG-1N or the -50% heat generation for ER PPCs on the TDR-9S as if they were anything other than an abomination; if you think that was balanced in any way you are beyond help.

And the difference with buffing underperforming IS weapons is the keyword: underperforming.

Tell me the last time you used these weapons without ridiculously overdone quirks on 1 or 2 mech variants:

-LB-10 X
-ER PPC
-Small laser
-SSRM2
-LRM15 & LRM20

And then also tell me the last time you whined (or thought) about, for example, C-ER medium lasers having more range & damage even though the IS medium laser should generate only 3 heat (according to lore stats) instead of 4; there's a number of other similar examples I could bring up too but I'm sure I would be further wasting my time bothering to show that to you.

Quote

You know, probably only one thing you said is correct: there are a lot of mechs with crazy side torso quirks... because of this engine imbalance. A huge list of quirks that easily lose to track. I have a better idea. How about we just buff the ISXL engine and get rid of all of these stupid side torso durability quirks so the overall game gets much simpler and PGI does not have to pull hairs to adjust a lot of numbers?

And how long before you go back to whining for more structure quirks because of further increased firepower as a result of there being literally no reason to not use XL engines in every single mech?

And then how long before you whine that your weapons aren't doing enough against the now massive structure quirks, which means whining for the ridiculous weapon quirks you mentioned above?

The whining for power creep just doesn't stop, and you just want to perpetuate it (like I already said) instead of actually putting a real solution forward that makes a modicum of sense...because you're clueless.

Edited by Pjwned, 24 January 2017 - 07:52 AM.

[Magnus Santini]

It does seem like the quoted patch notes rationale might not express what the reason is for not equalizing the XL engines. Maybe it just puts the two sides so close that it undermines all of the other balancing work.

[1453 R]

Tristan Winter, on 24 January 2017 - 04:54 AM, said:

If we give PGI the benefit of the doubt, the basic logic is this:

If we just make IS XL as good as Clan XL, then we fix one problem and create another problem. Or, at the very least, we mitigate one problem and exacerbate another problem. We need to figure out how to solve both problems.

That kind of sentiment makes sense. Because making STD engines a viable choice is a real problem for MWO. Not only because XL engines are now effectively another mandatory C-bill tax for new players, on top of DHS and Endo, but also because eliminating choices of customization makes the mech lab game less interesting. Ideally, SHS vs DHS, Endo vs standard, Ferro vs standard and XL vs standard should all be questions with different answers for different players and different mechs.

And on top of that, it would be interesting to bring MWO slightly closer to the 2012 / 2013 meta of high TTK and slow mechs, as an alternative to the current roflstomp nascar meta with XL engines everywhere. It would be cool if heavy mechs could equip STD engines in order to significantly increase their survivability. Today, you see a lot of people pick something like an XL350 instead of a STD280 because the XL engine provides you both increased survivability in form of mobility and increased firepower. In many cases, there's no real balancing act when picking one or the other. XL engines all the way.

Quoted for being largely the only piece of sensible logic in the thread.

People screaming "MAKE THE iXL BEHAVE EXACTLY LIKE THE CXL! THERE! BALANCE DONE! EASY SOLUTION! Y U NO EZ, PRANA?!" are ignoring the fact that engine imbalances are already rampant in the game and you'd just be making them worse. Nothing should be a strict upgrade over something else, but the rules Piranha's currently locked into in regards to Clan technology make figuring out the right shape of the puzzle piece needed to solve this whole issue very difficult.

There should be reasons to take the iSTD engine. Hell, there should be reasons to take the cSTD engine, but those reasons should not come at the expense of dooming every single OmniMech that is unable to alter its engine due to current Omni construction rules. The same reasoning means that the iXL needs its fix sooner rather than later due to incoming locked-XL Sphere Omnis, but as Tristan said, you don't want to exchange one problem for another. You want to solve problems, not just move them around.

SuperMegaUltraQuirks aren't a fix. They're a manual slap-patch applied to particularly weak options that can't be systemically fixed, or at least they damn well should be. The iXL vs. cXL vs. i/cSTD (vs. LFE vs. i/cXXL vs. Compact...) fix needs to be systemic, not just a slap patch, and not just "make everything act exactly the same as the current best stuff!" The current best stuff needs looked at, the current worst stuff also needs looked at, and simply bolting the former onto the latter is no solution at all.

Everything deserves its place. I'm not fighting the cXL nerf; the durability on the cXL is a game-changer and it needs to be accounted for at some point without invalidating nine tenths of the Clan technology base. But simply saying "f*** Standards, nobody uses those anyways!" is indicative of a larger overall issue that Piranha has its eye on, even if you don't.

Possible incoming new armor types promises to make the MechLab game much more interesting - the addition of reflective/reactive, possibly Stealth, maybe even the different Ferro grades, will make the choice of armor/structure layout more interesting. Do you maybe pass on Endo after all, because you'd really like the benefits of slot-eating Reflective/Reactive armor and want room in your 'Mech afterwards for stuff? Do you take Endo anyways and deal with having to squeeze guns in the cracks? Do you pass on the new armor types for the sake of maximizing armament space/weight with the typical STD/Endo combination? It would make the 'MechLab game much more interesting and promote intriguing new build combinations.

Wouldn't it be awesome if your choice of engine could do the same thing?