181 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 January 2017 - 12:54 PM, said:

It depends on what type of weapon you are looking at, ERLL/LPL boats like the BLR-2C and GHR-5P would definitely benefit from better engines (since they would replace the structure quirks) than they would weapon buffs. Same with brawlers like Griffins and Atlases.

Not necessarily. Shortened duration and/or increased damage/range indirectly buff your durability without even touching the engines. Lower heat lessens the need for more heatsinks so the extra two slots or extra tons are less crucial, etc.

The Atlas's main issue has nothing to do with equipment, though. The kind of buffs the engines would give wouldn't be enough to benefit it, either. That buff is meant to help the STD-XL-CXL issue, not the geo/hardpoint issue.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 26 January 2017 - 01:42 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

The Atlas's main issue has nothing to do with equipment, though. That buff is meant to help the STD-XL-CXL issue, not the geo/hardpoint issue.

While true, any buff to STD engines definitely buffs it since the main brawling config runs a STD (and kinda has to with the firepower it mounts).

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

Shortened duration and/or increased damage/range indirectly buff your durability without even touching the engines.

True, but with the first wave of quirks we saw how much of glass cannons some of these mechs were (too much, they became gimmicky kind of like the ERPPC Summoner before the loyalty pods), whether it be the Wolverine, Dragon, or whatever else from that era that relied on those types of quirks.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 January 2017 - 01:47 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 January 2017 - 01:45 PM, said:

While true, any buff to STD engines definitely buffs it since the main brawling config runs a STD (and kinda has to with the firepower it mounts).

But the level of buff a STD should grant is not enough to get the Atlas where it needs to be to work as a brawler. You still need quirks. We'd merely be taking the difference between the quirks it has now/needs and what the part of that is covered by the engine buff.

Basically, outside the scope of the thread.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 01:53 PM, said:

But the level of buff a STD should grant is not enough to get the Atlas where it needs to be to work as a brawler. You still need quirks.

Oh I know, though tbh if STD engines provide double structure in the torsos (like I had suggested a while back) it would have more structure in the torsos than it currently has thanks to quirks.

[Andi Nagasia]

nehebkau, on 26 January 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

well it is a faction balance issue given that you can adjust your mech's loadout to make the most effective use of it's high mounted weapons points (omnimechs) -- maybe not the highest priority but it is part of the issue. Add to that the ability of one faction to place higher damage weapons/weight in those high mounted points -- you get more disparity (IIC vs IS-regular mechs).

but its not, yes OmniMechs can choose their OmniPods, but that Comes with the Penalty of Locked Equipment,
most OmniMechs have Ether too Big/Small an Engine, or not the Right Upgrades, or Locked Areas(Locked Endo)
even the ones that Do have Cockpits in the middle of the Chassis so they have to expose more to Peak & Poke,
-
as Such thats more of a Hard Points Amount vs Hard Point Location, Mech Disparity Discussion,
than a Clearer innerSphere vs Clan Disparity Discussion, Some Mechs have it some Dont, its not ISvC,

[Mcgral18]

This poll probably should have been Check Boxes, I'm not going to vote because I'm too split

Upgrades is completely unbalanced, but Engines aren't great
Certain weapons are terribly balanced, largely held in check by available options (Hardwired stuff, or geometry/hardpoint deficiencies)
The half weight for nearly identical performance issue, mostly

Other weapons are fine


Heatsink I'd say is the only one I'm not too concerned about

[Bud Crue]

Andi Nagasia, on 26 January 2017 - 01:35 PM, said:

i completely agree,
their should be a balance between how many hardpoints a mech gets and where those hard points are,
but thats more of a Mech Disparity Discussion, this is more of a Faction Disparity Discussion,
Edit-

I see where you are coming from but I still think this is totally a clan/IS issue.

Why was the Kodiak-3 so great and even now still dominant? Because originally it could put 4 uacs on its shoulders and when the meta shifted, the ability to put 2 Gauss up there (and the 2 ERPPCs at just under chest height) make it superior to any IS mech with a similar load out. Mauler is as close as you can get, but then you will be moving at 2/3rd the KDK's speed. Yes the engine is a factor here (obviously), but the hard points are what made and continue to make the Kodiak 3 lethal. Now look at the Dire. Sure its as slow if not slower than a Mauler...it also can boat more weapons. Again because of hard points. Yes the lighter clan engine is important but not as important as the ability to boat all those weapons. Two top assaults (don't know if that has changes since Mad iic...ask Tarogato), both clans, both have a idealized hard point locations or numbers.

Same thing with my Nova and the Hunch-IIc examples above. Lots of points and high points respectively. Yes the engine is what enables them to use those points to the fullest, but if those points where down at their chest or waist...all they would be is slightly tougher crabs or regular hunchies.

I just think the whole engine debate is missing the forest for the trees. Hardpoints mater and I think they are what make a good mech great, and most of the great mechs are on the clan side because of them having an excess of hardpoint numbers or height that are unmatched on the IS side on mechs of equal tonnage. Only the Warhammer comes close...and it just got nerfed. Cheetah is only real exceptional here, mostly because there is no 30 ton IS equivalent with that many energy hard points, and if you go to the Firestarter it is huge in comparison, and its lack of quirks make it obviously inferior regardless of build or engine differences.

TLDR hardpoint numbers and locations are as important to tech disparity as the XL engine differences, maybe more so.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 January 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

Oh I know, though tbh if STD engines provide double structure in the torsos (like I had suggested a while back) it would have more structure in the torsos than it currently has thanks to quirks.

I don't know that it should provide that much. My 75 kph laser vomt TDR would become rather god-like...

Also, Atlas wants armor. Its issue is losing guns it can't even crit-pad faster than it takes to kill better 'Mechs.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Engine balance and faction flavor

For faction flavor you need only to look at the IS LPL versus the cLPL and how differently they behave and how they do well within their own roles but not each others'

[Kael Posavatz]

Frankly, it is not 'what' PGI is choosing to balance that I take issue with. It is 'how' and 'when'.


1) How. I am sick and tired of nerfs. Every couple of months it seems there is a new wave of nerfs. Nerfs to weapons. Nerfs to quirks. Nerfs to engines... Okay, some, maybe a lot, of them had to happen. Why? Because PGI made them too powerful to begin with. (I'm not just talking ClanTech here, a lot of the quirks were just as bad, such as the ppc-toting thunderbolts, or the AC-quirked wolverines and dragons). But at a certain point additional nerfs don't really do a lot for the game (besides enrage a substantial portion of the player base) that can't be equally addressed through buffs. With the Clan-XL-engine thing, okay, PGI's dialed back the Clans some, but it doesn't address the issues of the IS XL OR the standard engine which almost everyone was saying were where the actual balance problems resided.

2) When. Clans have been in the game for 30 months. There is usually a 4-month game between a MechPack going on sale and when it is injected into the game, and the first 'FutureTech' pack goes on sale in March so FutureTech absolutely has to be in-game and functioning by July. I can't recall PGI ever building that kind of cliff to run-into/go-over if their schedule slips but...okay.

But with at least one, and potentially two (skill trees), balance-altering patches coming in the first half of 2017, a balance pass that by its nature has a detrimental impact on more than three-quarters of the mechs available to one side does nothing to instill any confidence that either skills trees or FutureTech are going to be even remotely balanced.

And I really, really, really, really do not want to go through often haphazard-seeming and frequently heavy-handed 'balance' attempts like we had with both the initial Clans and the Quirkening (or if you want to see it that way, the Quirkening was in and of itself an eight-kiloton gorilla of a balancing attempt), and a half-year of nothing (such as after the Long Tom went in) would be just as bad.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 02:08 PM, said:

I don't know that it should provide that much. My 75 kph laser vomt TDR would become rather god-like...

Also, Atlas wants armor. Its issue is losing guns it can't even crit-pad faster than it takes to kill better 'Mechs.

IMO, they should lower the crit chance for everything, I'm tired of seeing sets of weapons disappear from a scratch of internal damage. MW4 did not seem to have this happen near as much as it happens in MWO and I think that rate was much more acceptable.

[visionGT4]

Tristan Winter, on 26 January 2017 - 12:56 PM, said:

I don't understand the question, really. If I have two cars and the goal is to make them both go equally fast, but not as fast as possible, which factor is most important?

• horsepower
  
• air resistance
  
• mass
  
• friction from wheels

It doesn't matter. If one car is too fast, increase mass or air resistance or friction, or reduce horsepower. Who cares? Of course, it's slightly unpractical to make the wheels 100 times wider in order to make a Bugatti Veyron as slow as a Toyota Prius, but that's not really the kind of problem that we have in MWO. It's not necessary to make IS weapons 100 times more powerful to compensate for Clan XL engines.



The only way that it cares is by not breaking the things heavily connected to lore. E.g. it would be stupid if Clan ER lasers had shorter range. Lore doesn't say anything about ROF, however. So you can tweak that.

These things are all connected, so I don't really perceive one Clan advantage as particularly problematic. Again, if one car is too fast, there's any number of ways to solve that.

To continue with the car analogy

I have a couple of race cars (gravel rally and a circuit car). Both are turbocharged and one is powered by a rotary engine. To ensure some form of parity a turbo factor is applied against engine capacity (x1.7 in both cases) so my 2 litre engine rally car is considered to be equivalent to a 3.4l engine and classed against other cars of similar effective capacity.

The rotary engine car gets stung twice, once for being rotary which again is x1.7. So the 1.3l rotary engine is effectively a 2.2l + the turbo factor bringing total effective capacity to 3.8l (rounded up).

*In mwo terms, imposing tonnage limits in FP is the mechanism used to drive parity*

The rally car is also fitted with a turbo inlet restrictor which limits maximum potential horse power - so I can't just wind up the boost to make more power than non turbo cars in my class.

*in mwo terms this is why we have quirks. Applying -ve quirks against clan tech would be the best means to achieve mechanical parity between the tech bases. However no one wants to be nerfed so IS mechs need +ve quirks.

Mechanical parity is not hard to achieve, the problem is that PGI for some unknown reason has made a decision to appease clan players who believe they are entitled to operate superior equipment. We already have the tools to achieve balance, Clan player entitlement is the primary reason why we don't (and seems never will) have meaningful balance between the tech bases.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 January 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

IMO, they should lower the crit chance for everything, I'm tired of seeing sets of weapons disappear from a scratch of internal damage. MW4 did not seem to have this happen near as much as it happens in MWO and I think that rate was much more acceptable.

Probably easier to triple or quadruple equipment health than finagle with percentages, but yeah.

[L3mming2]

Andi Nagasia, on 26 January 2017 - 12:33 PM, said:

their are many Topics popping up about Balance,
but one has to Ask what is the Most Important,

so if you had to Choose one Balance Item,
what would it be? what would you Choose?

• Balance is Good Right now?
  
• Engines Balance(STD/XL/C-XL)?
  
• Upgrade Balance(Endo/Ferro)?
  
• Heat Sink Balance?(SH/DHS/C-DHS)
  
• Weapon Stats Balance(Dam/Cycle/Crit/Ton)?

What do you feel is most Important Right now?

(feeling Balance is in a Good Place is also a Justifiable Answer)

=(Poll)=

Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Thanks,

Edit-

the hole balance problem is that all the for things you summed up are in favor of the clans,
i am for assimetrical balance but then some things need to be clearly in favor of IS...

[Tristan Winter]

visionGT4, on 26 January 2017 - 02:26 PM, said:

Mechanical parity is not hard to achieve, the problem is that PGI for some unknown reason has made a decision to appease clan players who believe they are entitled to operate superior equipment. We already have the tools to achieve balance, Clan player entitlement is the primary reason why we don't (and seems never will) have meaningful balance between the tech bases.

Sure. That, and lore. It's the same thing with Jedi in any Star Wars game, Space Marines in any Warhammer 40,000 game or Elves in any fantasy game. "But my guys are supposed to be better than the other guys."

So how do you get around that, to avoid a game where Jedi are getting clubbed to death by Ewoks, where Space Marine armour offers less protection than a leather jacker or where Elves are about as accurate with their bows as Mr. Magoo?

The real answer is that you explore the empty spaces of lore. Maybe you let Elves be more accurate, but Orcs do more damage. Maybe Space Marines have great protection, but Imperial Guard have laser weapons with greater accuracy at range.

I think it's a mistake to make Clan XL engines identical to IS XL engines if this contradicts lore or completely misrepresents TT. But there are so many other variables one could manipulate. But you're right. You know, in 2014, Russ basically went right out and said that the Timber Wolf will always be the best heavy mech, during one of the first Town Halls. He stated it unequivocally. And he's been true to his word, really.

[FireStoat]

For me it was obviously Engine balance. Back when I used to play table top Battletech after the release of the Clan mechs it became a constant choice to outfit my Inner Sphere mechs with Endo Steel and XL Engines. The game didn't overtly punish me for doing so due to the random hit location charts that were used in that format.

When I started playing this game the first thing I did was attempt to recreate builds of Mechs (the Marauder 3R in particular) to designs I used. In this game, using an Inner Sphere XL engine was a horrible mistake for a player to make vastly in most of the cases, which =/= feeling like I was able to play what I used to.

There's not much else for me to say, other than there are a LOT of players like myself who hit the same stumbling block to recapturing their fun through nostalgia of custom built mechs. By default I felt the game was urging me to play Clan mechs instead.

[Mcgral18]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 02:30 PM, said:

Probably easier to triple or quadruple equipment health than finagle with percentages, but yeah.

The fact non AC20 Ballistics have the same HP as ammo, heatsinks, actuators and literally everything that's not ECM, Engine and Gauss isn't quite right

They have among the lowest HP/Crit, and the AC20 only has 1.8 (to the typical 10)

[Andi Nagasia]

Yeonne Greene, on 26 January 2017 - 02:30 PM, said:

Probably easier to triple or quadruple equipment health than finagle with percentages, but yeah.

i would support that as well as x4 Internals(Double what we have now)
so such would matter abit more than it does now,

[Mystere]

Andi Nagasia, on 26 January 2017 - 12:33 PM, said:

their are many Topics popping up about Balance,
but one has to Ask what is the Most Important,

so if you had to Choose one Balance Item,
what would it be? what would you Choose?

• Balance is Good Right now?
  
• Engines Balance(STD/XL/C-XL)?
  
• Upgrade Balance(Endo/Ferro)?
  
• Heat Sink Balance?(SH/DHS/C-DHS)
  
• Weapon Stats Balance(Dam/Cycle/Crit/Ton)?

What do you feel is most Important Right now?

(feeling Balance is in a Good Place is also a Justifiable Answer)

=(Poll)=

Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Thanks,

Edit-

Who said balance should be based on just the first three and not at least all of the following?

• Mechs
  
• weapons
  
• equipment
  
• forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, and IS vs. Clan
  
• maps
  
• numbers
  
• tonnage
  
• game modes
  
• victory conditions
  
• rewards

Or does everyone still stubbornly insist on the current boneheaded course of action being taken, which has failed in the last four years or so?

[Y E O N N E]

Andi Nagasia, on 26 January 2017 - 06:21 PM, said:

i would support that as well as x4 Internals(Double what we have now)
so such would matter abit more than it does now,

I don't think we need x4 internals; all you'd accomplish by universally buffing health is encouraging DPS and brawl builds because alpha builds can't deal enough damage to handle any sort of push.