29 replies to this topic

[Hazzimat]

I was thinking about buying some mechs, but now I am hesitant since I have no idea what they will be like when this is done. Should I buy a clan mech? So expensive, but if they are going to be balanced down, maybe not worth it. Should I buy a new variant? Hmm, if it will not have the current quirks, have no basis on which to purchase. I hope they roll out the next phase soon, I bet I am not the only one on the fence now.

[Livewyr]

Whatever do you mean?

[KodiakGW]

Yep. Not selling anything in inventory, and not purchasing any preorders until I see whet comes in the next PTS. Got a refund on my Orion IIc pack because of what I saw. Also hit registration is pretty much back to what it was, and not agreeing with the implementation of PSR.

Thinking about the Warhammer pack with Black Widow hero, and maybe even Crab pack now that I saw it's size. $75. But seriously not expecting to see what I want to see. Expect to see the same crap.

[Sereglach]

Hazzimat, on 03 October 2015 - 05:54 PM, said:

I was thinking about buying some mechs, but now I am hesitant since I have no idea what they will be like when this is done. Should I buy a clan mech? So expensive, but if they are going to be balanced down, maybe not worth it. Should I buy a new variant? Hmm, if it will not have the current quirks, have no basis on which to purchase. I hope they roll out the next phase soon, I bet I am not the only one on the fence now.

I'll start this off with a preface. My spending for PGI has frozen until the Flamer is fixed; and I've been sorely tempted by both the Marauder and Warhammer (because I really want to support the rebirthing of the classics). However, I have not refunded any prior purchases/preorders (Black Knight pack and Hunchback IIC pack both had already been preordered). I have reached my spending limit until my personal issue with the game is resolved. I'm hoping (especially since the results of the last Town Hall) that they'll be pushing that through for the rebalancing. For me, I have to stick to my principles on it; and for anyone and everyone it should be a matter of literally putting your money where your mouth is.

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That said, they have flatly stated they will not be releasing any rebalancing until they have successfully created something that is better than what we have now on the live servers. Therefore, know that your mechs are not going to be any worse off then they currently are. Will the Mad Cat/Timber Wolf not be quite the behemoth it currently is? I'm sure of it; but that won't be because they nerf it, it'll be because they've adequately balanced and buffed everything that was grossly inferior to it. If anything, you should take solace in the fact that the poorly-off Clan mechs will be much better off after the rebalancing then they currently are.

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Otherwise, your purchases and preorders should be based on two things:

1. Is this a chassis (or package) that I truly like the concept of and want to support (all stats aside, because it's made clear that stats can be subject to change).

2. Is it something I can monetarily afford to do and want to invest in; and want the convenience of owning before other people can get their hands on it.

Besides the obvious fact that you shouldn't overextend yourself financially (there are some people who do it, and they've complained about it on these very forums), you also have to consider your personal beliefs and convictions. I have money squirreled away that I WANT TO SPEND ON MWO but I refuse to do so, currently, because of personal convictions regarding a sadly neglected weapon system that is my personal favorite.

PGI has made immense improvements across the spectrum ever since their separation from IGP. It's been leaps and bounds in quality, communication, and content advancements. Do they still have a way to go? Sure, but they're making solid progress.

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Also, as far as in game costs, here are some other things to consider:

1. Clan omnimechs come completely pre-upgraded. There are no investments for double heat sinks, endo-steel internals, ferro fibrous armor, or massive XL engines. Therefore the c-bill costs tends to get pretty close between a fully kitted out Clan omnimech and IS battlemech of similar tonnage (also a reason why the IIC Clan battlemechs preorder for the same value as an IS battlemech).

2. The value on any package preorder is amazing, especially if you get the early adopter bonuses. The discount on the MC costs of the mech bays and chassis alone is close to 50%, let alone any other goodies you might get.

3. Considering all packages, since Clan Wave I, aren't going anywhere, you also don't need to jump on a purchase right this second. If you want to snag a package at a later time, you don't need to worry about losing anything aside from the early-adopter rewards.

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Hopefully, this all helps you make a decision on whether or not you wish to make any in-game purchases.

On a closing side note, the only thing I'd suggest staying away from is any purchase you're considering making exclusively because it fits the current "meta" of the game. You already know that will be changing.

[KodiakGW]

My preorders are based on two things: Use over time, and enjoyment over time. If there are plans to make a mech I spend real money on sit collecting dust because a different meta was introduced, then I won't spend real money.

This isn't a charity. This isn't "Save Mechwarrior". I have use for the mechs I spend time leveling, and holding onto, in league play. As well as the solo, group, and CW queues. If I see a plan that will make my existing purchases useless for any of those, no matter what they say are future plans, I won't spend real money. Otherwise, I'm enabling bad behaviour. This world has enough people enabling bad behaviour. My money and time are not going to go to doing that.

[MissingBolt]

Been a free player for a while, was about to put some money in MWO after having some genuine fun in it, then Clans happened and I realized PGI will never ever fix them, because people paid big money to have that advantage (so nerfing the Clans would just turn the remaining playerbase into a riotting mob calling for refunds), so I stopped playing.

Funnily enough, I wasn't the only one to just forget about it. Now I hear they're half-admitting screwing it up and trying to find new ways to pretend to balance things, when it was clear the Quirks joke wasn't funny anymore. Seriously: information ranges! mobility! like if it would counter having a massively higher firepower.

See you in 2016 MWO! May your changelogs be empty of any relevant changes and your forum threads full of desperate fans begging PGI to save what's left of the game

[Errinovar]

Sereglach, on 04 October 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

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That said, they have flatly stated they will not be releasing any rebalancing until they have successfully created something that is better than what we have now on the live servers. Therefore, know that your mechs are not going to be any worse off then they currently are. Will the Mad Cat/Timber Wolf not be quite the behemoth it currently is? I'm sure of it; but that won't be because they nerf it, it'll be because they've adequately balanced and buffed everything that was grossly inferior to it. If anything, you should take solace in the fact that the poorly-off Clan mechs will be much better off after the rebalancing then they currently are.

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You have a very rosy picture of the future, one I do not share having played through the era where mediums were highly unpopular. I have seen nothing so far that even hints that mediums will not be dust binned by the changes. Structure and agility quirks (some of which are confusingly negative) will not replace the survival boost that you get from being able to do adequate damage, and I mean adequate. Take my personal favorite mech, the YLW. It was pretty good in the beginning, not spectacular, but not terrible particularly because you could seriously zombie in it. It has the worst set of hard point locations (2 ballistic low and outside arm and 2 energy in the ct)and lowest number of hard points of all IS medium mechs, it is way too big for its weight and is terrible for XL engines due to the gigantic ST hitboxes. Max possible alpha is 30 and it generates way too much heat for that thanks to the inflated AC20 heat. You have to fight exposed and because of the arm you tend to find those invisible walls still lurking around. Basically this mech carries a much higher risk factor and has to be played really well to get a decent reward and that is combining heavy torso twisting and the current combat quirks. Removing weapon quirks will only increase the risk factor of taking this mech into combat by cutting its damage potential and damage potential is both offense and defense. No armor, sensor, structure quirks are going to make this mech competitive, hell currently the 35 arctic fox outclasses it with 30-36 damage alphas that recycle faster, incredible hit boxes, extreme speed and ecm to boot.

So until PGI actually shows us how they intend to improve the game without dust binning all the mechs that aren't even in the current meta by removing the one feature that actually makes them somewhat playable I will not buy a single thing no matter how tempting it might be. I love this game, I have played since beta and I have spent enough money to buy a number of AAA games on it, but I can't ignore the way things have gone in the past either.

[Lord Auriel]

I already have the mech I want to drive, I've been keeping it warm in my garage for two years now. It's called the commando, and do you remember the time when SRMs were fixed in 2014, and Griffins were OP? That's when I had the best games of my life in the Commando 3A with 2 srm4 and 2ml... it was GLORIOUS.

Now it's garbage again. Because, laservomit meta and completely bonked srm hit detection. again.

Will the commando be playable in the future?

It's not just about the quirks....

Nowadays when i want to buy a new mech it's because I want to own meta mechs, for the group queue. Hell no I won#t buy any new mechs until I know the new meta. No MC packages either, sorry.

[Theron Branson]

I am so tempted to purchase the Warhammer (still might) but it's hard to justify spending money on a company imho they don't know what direction to take this game. They spend most of their time and resources it seems re-doing everything that was already done and keep doing it instead of adding new content. They aren't sure to support CW or put all their effort into Quick Que as shown by the remade maps and other items that will keep the population low for CW. They should've made this game more like past MW titles and less like WoT. I want this game to succeed badly, but very little what was sold to us a long time ago has actually come true. They still don't have any reason to hold/take planets, spend our C-bills as a group, our loyalty towards factions and many other pillars that, at this rate could take a decade to implement. PGI has made some improvements but I think it's fluff stuff and not actual bones to the game.

[xWiredx]

Sounds like OP is trying to abuse advantages. Not terribly shocking, but still kind of lame. Especially for somebody that looks relatively new around here.

Just bought the Marauder a couple weeks ago. Thinking about the Warhammer, but I am putting it off to see if there's some positive progress this month. I mean, we do have until the end of the month for pre-order bonuses, so no reason not to put off buying it until we see what PGI gets done through most of the month, right? Plus there are other games that are about to draw my attention, so I'm not sure I'll be playing enough to care about shiny new things come the new year. While I like supporting this game (and have probably to the tune of about $1000 now, maybe more), I don't like wasting money.

[Hades Trooper]

Yeah all this re balance crap has me closing my wallet till i see how bad they screw over clans.

This could be a true deal breaker and finally what gets me to give up my mech habit and move on to other games or heaven forbid, exercise!

[NienBall]

Hades Trooper, on 13 October 2015 - 06:35 PM, said:

Yeah all this re balance crap has me closing my wallet till i see how bad they screw over clans.

This could be a true deal breaker and finally what gets me to give up my mech habit and move on to other games or heaven forbid, exercise!

I'm with you on that, the clan mechs were a huge dissapointment to me, no real challenge to fight against one on one because of overheating or negative quirks, trying to "balance" Clan against IS tech the way PGI is going about it completely defeats the point of even having them, I really wish they'd just leave well enough alone and stop seemingly catering to the Leroy Jenkins/COD crowd who complain when they go blindly charging out into the open and get LRM'ed to death like they deserve instead of playing smart.

[Tuis Ryche]

I'm done handing over any money for new mechs/packs. Done. I like what I have and use it well enough. If something does grab my fancy, I'll have the cbills on hand when it comes around.

[Mordric]

there is a lot of funk going on in the game right now. I think I'll hold off from any Mech packs untill some of it is sorted out. it seems I'm having issuse with Hit registration, Lag or ping, maybe both, there is no shortage of glitches in the mech lab, where my currently selected Mech is a black box, or all my mech read invalid build. My match damage as dropped from 400-800 per match to 150-250 a match. I get better scoring if I run around tagging narcing and launching UAV's now. it's like half my weapons don't read hits. Plus now they are doing a full rebalance, I don't even under stand what that means yet.

[Phantomime]

Clan vs. IS was never supposed to be ballanced. So playing it up like they were was silly, though they did try - I like the DPS approch to Clan AC's.. if they were like IS ones, people would have had SO much more to complain about. Same with the C-ERPPC.

Still, the big issue was always with Clan Heatsinks, Clan XL's, and the godly power of Clan Lasers (+range, +heat-ish, +damage).

So they nurfed Clan lasers (they be HOT yo). Ghost Heat is a *****.
Thing is, Clan can still pack more HS than IS can. and their XL's dont die like the IS ones do, and you still have the range advantage (-ish, stupid quirks)

so they are messing with Clan HS... *shakes head* STOP TRYING TO FIND BALANCE WHERE THERE SHOULDNT BE ANY.


Battletech dealt this the fundemental imbalance between CLAN and IS by making 1 cost more, AND,
be raited higher.
there is NO raiting system in MWO. if all your 20t light has is 1 MG and the other guy's 35t light is running 9 ERMLas, you are matched based on your mech class, NOT 'Tonnage' and not by any kind of raiting based on equipment and capibility, aka 'Battle Value'. MAYBE there is a skill raiting in their somewhere, but..yaa..

the matchmaker is, and always has been the bane of this game, and it is still PGI's greatest failure.

the 3/3/3/3 system keeps groups diverse (promotes the use of mediums, when everyone and their dog wants to run heavies)

what it doesnt do is keep it balanced between overpowered/underpowered mechs of the same class. a badly fitted awesome is no match for a meta dire/executioner.



(TL;DR?)



THE FIX:
-add 'Battle Value' based on the mech (tonnage? IS/Clan? XL? Top Speed? Effective # of HS?) and what it is equiped with.

-use the 3/3/3/3 system of match making (diversity is good) just have it then consider the 'Battle Value' of a given team, if one team needs to drop with 11 to balance the better quality of mechs they are using, so be it.

-Clan Mechs were always supposed to be fighting in vs 1.5 to 3x their number of IS equivilants in the Table Top (Battletech). Trying to nurf/buff your way to a balance between them is a signifcantly more painful way dealing with what should be a Non-Issue.

Edited by Phantomime, 17 October 2015 - 11:57 PM.

[wullfsteiner]

No more money into this game until the dev team stops catering to money....clan is so OP now and TUK2, way to ******* laggy to do anything in there...get your crap straightened out. And if your server is able to handle it, then better start dusting off the ban button for some clanners, seems like lag kicks in right as your in a showdown with a pilot.

[Tempest Borne]

Selling clan mechs, joining the IS. Not spending another dime on this game. PGI should start coding IS vs. IS CW soon because every clanner I talk with has had enough.

[Russhuster]

i am very diasppointed with what happened to balance in general and to Clan ion specific
when double heat sinks are almost as effective as is single, when the agility is nefed down on Clan side at an average rate of 20% and the equipment ist becomoing more and more the same,.C-ER ppc with minimum range lrm with minimum range and bug infected AC and UACs the fun is spoiled out of the game in an rapidly increasing tempo.

In view of the fact that with Steam release new players will face the desastrous Balance situation, there will be a short living hype with the partial well done overworked maps and the mechs. but the greater the disillusionment will hit when these maybe enthusiastic new players find themself faced to the mechs and the Quirk and Nerf desaster.
And a once scared away customer/Player is in the world of games very hard to reactivate,... if at all.
Many of those i know and bought the clan packs wont spend a Dollar anymore, after what became to the Chassis...
to little loadout to many nerfs,bugy ballistic weapons, heat efficiency zero or negative... the list could be continued

The new Match maker isnt really suitable to tie the score neither, Though i can understand the intension of PGI to participate in the Cristmas vacation time and sale, i have my doubts if this balancing is well thought of, and if the release should nt have had more time, At the current state it all looks crude and unfinished,.. threwn out half-baked.

But maybe iam wrong in all these impressions

As I mentioned in another post the short living Shooter-gamers arnt spending value in mech packs or stay long enough to need camo,mechbays etc,.. the Battletech fanbase players on the other hand ......do

Maybe the Management should think where the money is made and what target-group of customers PGI wishes

with friendly regards

[Appogee]

I've been putting off new Mech purchases for several months ahead of the new balance.

I thought they'd locked down the quirks more or less when they said "PTS 4 values will go live"... but then, the moment before Tukayyid, they shovelled in a bunch of quirk changes (including the BJ-1).

So, who knows when they will stablise? I'm not still spending money because I'm not playing QuirkLotto any more.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Russhuster, on 06 December 2015 - 06:25 AM, said:

C-ER ppc with minimum range...

Uh... what are you talking about?

Appogee, on 06 December 2015 - 08:38 AM, said:

I've been putting off new Mech purchases for several months ahead of the new balance.

I thought they'd locked down the quirks more or less when they said "PTS 4 values will go live"... but then, the moment before Tukayyid, they shovelled in a bunch of quirk changes (including the BJ-1).

So, who knows when they will stablise? I'm not still spending money because I'm not playing QuirkLotto any more.

Yeah... I make sure never to build off quirks for that reason.