365 replies to this topic

[Carl Vickers]

Grus, on 22 April 2017 - 09:17 AM, said:

This post.. no... just no.

Our parts fly off now once armor is reduced so all those "superior" items we have stuffed in our mechs get vaporized just yet looking at them...

So yeah.. no...

Dunning Kruger speaking above.

[TheMightySpin]

To those of you always seeking to "Balance" MechWarrior: please stop.

Fact is that, if you follow lore, the Clan IS supposed to have higher tech, because Blake blew up all the Inner Sphere research and development centers after the exodus. Clan continued to produce better tech while Inner Sphere was busy with the succession wars and ComStar suppressed technological development.

While I do like the concept of the quirk system, the implementation of it in game is straight up broken. IS meta builds, with their abundance of cool down, laser duration, heat reduction, armor and structure bonuses in comparison to Clans predominate MG rate of fire or occassional structure/armor bonuses (with the upcoming quirk restructuring) and ghost heat, Inner Sphere effectively has an overwhelming tech advantage. When the new tech release comes out with the Civil War update, Inner Sphere WILL have a distinct tech advantage over Clan, which doesn't get a fraction of the new technology it should have by this point in the time line (WHERE IS MY HAG?!?!).

At the end of the day, the bulk of the players that the Devs listen to are Inner Sphere or Mercs, and Inner Sphere players are predominately either former Clan players who switched over after they introduced quirks or a bunch of C.O.D. Jockies who only ever heard of the BattleTech franchise from the Steam release or, occasionally, from the Microsoft series (namely MW4 and Mech Assault for X-Box).

I'm fairly new to this game, but I've been rocking out with BattleTech since I discovered Table Top in the 90's and I have ALWAYS played Clan Wolf and always will and frankly find all this pandering to the lowest common denominator in search of some mythical "Balance" (always it seems, by Nerfing Clan and Buffing Sphere) is a rot at the very core of not just this game, but the franchise as a whole (I can't wait to see how many people complain about "balance" when they BattleTech VG based on TT rules comes out later this year (double when they release the Clan)).

In short: if you're always going to complain about the OPedness of Clan either go back to Call of Duty or just wait for MW5.

P.S. - Clan is supposed to drop with either fewer Mechs or fewer Tonnes due to our inherent lack of reliable supply lines/reinforcements as uber-long distance interstellar invaders compared to the Inner Sphere and also because we decide who's got the right to attack specific targets by who is willing to bid/use the fewest troops to do it. See: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Batchall and http://www.sarna.net...i/Clan_Invasion

Edited by TheMightySpin, 22 April 2017 - 05:13 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

Take your lore and exit the door. This is not a lore game, this a PvP first person shooter where balance is needed.

Why am I not surprised this is coming from a Wolf.

[TheMightySpin]

Then, once again, go back to Call of Duty or just wait for MW5.

[Carl Vickers]

Actually, if you want lore MW5 is going to be for you, that will be lore based.

[50 50]

MischiefSC, on 19 April 2017 - 07:16 PM, said:

I'll take a Clan mech over an IS mech of equal tonnage in a duel 9 times in 10. Clan mechs are heavily represented in comp play for a reason as well; best in class almost across the board.

That might vary depending on the chassis, however it's a pretty good evaluation.
Clan mechs may generally be the equal of an IS mech 10 tons heavier.
Hence having the different drop deck limits as a way to create balance.

[50 50]

23203, on 20 April 2017 - 05:28 PM, said:

In general i would not say clan is OP. Sometimes i ask me why some clan mechs are so extrem fast for its class what
destoys a bit the class system when an assault is faster then your heavy or a med can speed up with your light.

That's true in a few cases, but the cost of such a big engine that you can't change out is to have stuff all free tonnage for equipment and often stuff all free space.
The Clan Omni;s all fit into a bit of a pattern or grouping with their performance so it's possible to pair up several mechs across the different weight classes that will be able to keep up with each other.
It's a cool design idea.

[TheMightySpin]

Carl Vickers, on 22 April 2017 - 05:18 PM, said:

Actually, if you want lore MW5 is going to be for you, that will be lore based.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to MW5 (on the off chance it ever gets released), but the reason I reference it in terms of balance is (check my signature here) it's 1 player. You can only balance a multiplayer game so much. The same people that complain about the Clan/IS balance are, as far as I can tell, the same ones who don't like Conquest, Domination, Escort or Incursion because it isn't Skirmish and complain about loosing when the other team wins by completing the objectives. While there are plenty of issues and aspects of this game that could use some tweeking, balance between Clan and Sphere Mechs really isn't one of them.

Quirks are cool, and I dig them (gives a great bit of added uniqueness to the different Chassis beyond hard points), but PGI got carried away with it somewhere along the way in regards to IS vs. Clan. As far as I can see, most of the people with the biggest complaints about balance don't even tend to play FP because they just want it to be QP with a drop deck (just like C.O.D.) and don't want to play as part of an actual, co-ordinated team (Which is a major reason why I DON'T play C.O.D.).

Perhaps this is just my Military background chiming in, but I want to play something that is BOTH tactical AND strategic. I want to play a game where it's not just my skill level, or that of my individual team mates, but the team AS A WHOLE and it's ability to work together as a co-ordinated unit that determines the outcome of a game. I've seen a 12 man Urbie drop ROLL 12-0 because they were on-F-ing-point as a team.

Or maybe the Urbie is OP and needs Nerfing?

Edited by TheMightySpin, 22 April 2017 - 06:03 PM.

[Carl Vickers]

Lol, you are in the wrong faction if you want team work.

[TheMightySpin]

Not the Faction, mate, just most the Units. Mercs tend to soak up the better, more co-ordinated, players regardless. They're the ones who are really OP.

NERF THE MERCS!

[Vxheous]

TheMightySpin, on 22 April 2017 - 06:23 PM, said:

Not the Faction, mate, just most the Units. Mercs tend to soak up the better, more co-ordinated, players regardless. They're the ones who are really OP.

NERF THE MERCS!

You got something right at least

[MischiefSC]

TheMightySpin, on 22 April 2017 - 04:57 PM, said:

To those of you always seeking to "Balance" MechWarrior: please stop.

Fact is that, if you follow lore, the Clan IS supposed to have higher tech, because Blake blew up all the Inner Sphere research and development centers after the exodus. Clan continued to produce better tech while Inner Sphere was busy with the succession wars and ComStar suppressed technological development.

While I do like the concept of the quirk system, the implementation of it in game is straight up broken. IS meta builds, with their abundance of cool down, laser duration, heat reduction, armor and structure bonuses in comparison to Clans predominate MG rate of fire or occassional structure/armor bonuses (with the upcoming quirk restructuring) and ghost heat, Inner Sphere effectively has an overwhelming tech advantage. When the new tech release comes out with the Civil War update, Inner Sphere WILL have a distinct tech advantage over Clan, which doesn't get a fraction of the new technology it should have by this point in the time line (WHERE IS MY HAG?!?!).

At the end of the day, the bulk of the players that the Devs listen to are Inner Sphere or Mercs, and Inner Sphere players are predominately either former Clan players who switched over after they introduced quirks or a bunch of C.O.D. Jockies who only ever heard of the BattleTech franchise from the Steam release or, occasionally, from the Microsoft series (namely MW4 and Mech Assault for X-Box).

I'm fairly new to this game, but I've been rocking out with BattleTech since I discovered Table Top in the 90's and I have ALWAYS played Clan Wolf and always will and frankly find all this pandering to the lowest common denominator in search of some mythical "Balance" (always it seems, by Nerfing Clan and Buffing Sphere) is a rot at the very core of not just this game, but the franchise as a whole (I can't wait to see how many people complain about "balance" when they BattleTech VG based on TT rules comes out later this year (double when they release the Clan)).

In short: if you're always going to complain about the OPedness of Clan either go back to Call of Duty or just wait for MW5.

P.S. - Clan is supposed to drop with either fewer Mechs or fewer Tonnes due to our inherent lack of reliable supply lines/reinforcements as uber-long distance interstellar invaders compared to the Inner Sphere and also because we decide who's got the right to attack specific targets by who is willing to bid/use the fewest troops to do it. See: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Batchall and http://www.sarna.net...i/Clan_Invasion

Except even the lore made for **** gameplay, so bad that the original developers nuked the gameworld to functionally start over with 1 to 1 balance. The whole concept was a mistake that they walked back and changed. The idea that we need to repeat the same mistakes to get to the same logical conclusion they got to is a bad idea to begin with.

I get the desire to pretend that a game balanced designed around one side being inherently superior and the other side repeatedly dying in an effort to bury them under their dead bodies is somehow a good idea in a FPS where everyone is playing one mech and not a strategy turn based game where both sides are players each playing several mechs. Especially when it involves game balance being stone cold broken in your favor and that somehow you'll get 70% of the player base to want to play red shirts.

However it would never happen. It would be an abject failure of a game as everyone would go Clans. The inherent balance issues made tournaments for TT Battletech a mess for which developers apologized and we got the nuke-happy WoB obliterating everything, the Clans merging in like other IS factions and tech being pretty much balanced 1 to 1.

I also find it funny how that's the only 'lore' that people want to stick to. I'm noticing that everyone is happy with mechs being customizable on the fly, that everyone isn't restricted to essentially only owning 1 mech. Also I don't see you saying that only the top 20% skill level of players get to play Clans to properly represent their higher base Gunnery/Piloting. How would you recommend we represent the 'plot armor' effect of Clanners being required to make bad strategic decisions regularly?

No, none of that. Just 'My side should have dramatically superior gear but you all get to die repeatedly to try and beat me, that's how the game should be balanced'.

It was **** in TT and it would be an absolutely failure in a FPS. This game is as 'lore' friendly as every other PC adaptation of the game. If you want a game designed around you being OP regardless of your skill and ability and everyone else having to die repeatedly to try and take you down, play a SP game and turn the difficulty to 'easy'. If you want to win in this game you actually need to get good at it and play in the company of good players. Making game balance terrible and pretending that everyone wouldn't flock to the advantaged side isn't going to happen.

[TheMightySpin]

So were you also planning on mentioning the overwhelmingly superior quirks afforded to IS mechs, Clans unbalanced ghost heat or the new tech release that almost entirely overlooks any real advancement in Clan tech (I still want my HAG) in the same time period, the re-balancing of component health drastically in favor of Inner Sphere (Bigger components got serious HP bonuses while Clans smaller components got significantly reduced HP) or any of the other myriad nerfs to Clan and Inner sphere buffs? No? You just want to find a way to increase your own stats while avoiding any real work going along with it.

You can look at my tier and say I have no place to talk, but I've only been playing for about 4 months, and half that time my right hand was in a cast. Also, I tend to stick to FP when I can. Fact is that the only time Clan makes any real gains against Sphere in FP is when the Mercs sign up with Smoke Jaguar for 2 weeks at a time then turn around and pop back over to Sphere afterwords, when clan then proceeds to loose half the gains made by the Mercs (if not more).

I'll admit, Clan Mechs tend to be more user friendly, particularly in lower tiers. However, when put up to comp level teams using IS meta builds, they are woefully under powered compared to Sphere Cool down, heat reduction, structure/armor buffs and (on some variants) even range. Add that to the bulk of top tier players residing with Sphere and Merc units and you really cannot make a valid argument to the Clans being OP.

[Tarl Cabot]

Quote

I'll admit, Clan Mechs tend to be more user friendly, particularly in lower tiers. However, when put up to comp level teams using IS meta builds, they are woefully under powered compared to Sphere Cool down, heat reduction, structure/armor buffs and (on some variants) even range

Actual Team play - aka mech synergy, tactics, communication, and focus firing is OP, be it Clan or IS.

Quirks get changed at the drop of a Canadian penny and most will either disappear or be partially rolled up into the new Skill Tree when it goes live.

What I am hearing though is that a Clan PUG w/other Clan PUGS, when facing an IS Unit, can not win because of all the IS quirks, it is not because said unit is actually organized and playing as a unit/team, and said unit is TAKING advantage of that 25-ton weight difference, hai?

As for lore, Comstar prevented information from being sent out while the Clans rolled through primarily 3025-era mechs and militia. Even when facing regular and veteran units, running STOCK 3025 era mechs was not a good time. That was FASA's story line which was not just the game itself but also the novels. And to add some info, when the Clans were first play-tested, they were using Star League era mechs and tech and was brought to a standstill relatively fast, so FASA created Clan tech and omnis. Have you actually seen stock Star League era mechs? And we are talking about stock mechs for both IS, Star League era and Clan mechs, with the Clan omnis being ability to switch from one configuration to another in a matter of hours. Have you SEEN IS stock load outs? Mostly STD engines, 3-5 weapons total but rarely of the same type.

And the lore/fiction/scenarios, many were based on actual dice rolls for each weapon, not each weapon group, as the authors stage boardgames to stage the scenes in their novels, while FASA had an outline that encompassed the overall storyline, there were some leeway for the authors to play with.

Quote

Add that to the bulk of top tier players residing with Sphere and Merc units and you really cannot make a valid argument to the Clans being OP.

If so, and with a 25-ton difference, why are the Clans still advancing? Why have they not been pushed back to the Periphery?

[Vxheous]

TheMightySpin, on 23 April 2017 - 09:23 AM, said:

So were you also planning on mentioning the overwhelmingly superior quirks afforded to IS mechs, Clans unbalanced ghost heat or the new tech release that almost entirely overlooks any real advancement in Clan tech (I still want my HAG) in the same time period, the re-balancing of component health drastically in favor of Inner Sphere (Bigger components got serious HP bonuses while Clans smaller components got significantly reduced HP) or any of the other myriad nerfs to Clan and Inner sphere buffs? No? You just want to find a way to increase your own stats while avoiding any real work going along with it.

You can look at my tier and say I have no place to talk, but I've only been playing for about 4 months, and half that time my right hand was in a cast. Also, I tend to stick to FP when I can. Fact is that the only time Clan makes any real gains against Sphere in FP is when the Mercs sign up with Smoke Jaguar for 2 weeks at a time then turn around and pop back over to Sphere afterwords, when clan then proceeds to loose half the gains made by the Mercs (if not more).

I'll admit, Clan Mechs tend to be more user friendly, particularly in lower tiers. However, when put up to comp level teams using IS meta builds, they are woefully under powered compared to Sphere Cool down, heat reduction, structure/armor buffs and (on some variants) even range. Add that to the bulk of top tier players residing with Sphere and Merc units and you really cannot make a valid argument to the Clans being OP.

Here's the thing though, you say Mercs are the only ones making headway, but when Mercs come to clans, they use clan mechs. When people refer to Clans as "OP", it's not clans as a loyalist faction (LOL), it's clan mechs/tech. Component HP was reduced for clans because PGI wanted to balance "per slot hp ", example, a 3 slot IS double heatsink = 10 hp, so a 2 slot clan double heatsink = 6.67 hp (each slot has 3.33hp).

You clearly have no idea about comp/comp level players, as the bulk of comp play uses clan mechs (clan XL survival trumps any IS structure/weapon quirking). I've already mentioned the fact that the IS has NO REAL COUNTER to the Clan Night Gyr 2 Gauss/ERPPC/3CERML builds.

[justcallme A S H]

T5 - That number says all you need about the understanding of "balance".

[Vxheous]

justcallme A S H, on 23 April 2017 - 12:19 PM, said:

T5 - That number says all you need about the understanding of "balance".

It is true that not everyone in T1 should be in T1, there is rarely anyone that is in T5 that really shouldn't be there.

[justcallme A S H]

Indeed. Many T1 people shouldn't be there.

But the fact they are, in T5, means they don't really have a basic grasp of the game.

So of course they are going to claim a whole bunch of "imbalance" when, it's just not.

[TheMightySpin]

Perhaps I spoke a wee bit to strongly: the vast majority of gains made by clan are made when they have more Merc units than Sphere (i.e. notice Smoke Jaguar has the most Merc unit contracts and is making the most gains?). Also, in the end you could have 12 people with the greatest, most OPed Mech builds out there and it won't mean all of jack or squat if they are not co-ordinated and working as a team. To further that point, a well co-ordinated team, that focuses fire, calls targets, and has a good drop caller making sound decisions will win against a herd of cats regardless of the specific Mechs they pilot. (12 man Urbie team rolls 6 man + pugs 12-0. I've seen it happen). Beyond that, while comp teams may be using Clan mechs, their members are still predominately in Sphere or Merc units in game for FP, same with most top tier players. Being said, it is not the Mechs, nor the individual pilots, but the unit/team as a whole that determines the success or failure of a drop.

And again, I might be T5, but that has more to do with my spending more time in scouting matches, recovering from a broken hand and still not digging the W,A,S,D b.s. when I've always played previous MW games with a JS (also, only been playing for about 4 months) than any other factor. Beyond that, I'm prior service military and know a thing or two about how having the best tech in the world don't mean squat if you don't have a team that can work together (notice we're STILL getting owned in the Mid-East by what are effectively 18th century tribesmen armed with 3rd rate, Soviet era equipment?) Agree or disagree, fact is tech will only get you so far, the rest of the time it's all teamwork.

[naterist]

I heard lore and felt obligated to return.

They should put a story to the clan invasion. Updates from command theatres, automated requests for assistance, some made up reason for why each war phase is being waged, and with what objectives and why..... hell, an automated newsreel on the bottom of the screen giving randomized updates worded with lore sounding **** would be enough.

Gameplay wise, i think they just need to make sure that each weapon has a comparable counterpart on the other techs side. C-xl comparable to lfe, standerd and clan standerd=comparable. Is xl is unbalanced because theres nothing comparable for it clanside
(c-xxle would be comparable but it isnt in game. Clan streaks are called op because is has nothing to match yet.. Get the pattern?