37 replies to this topic

[Void Angel]

Gameplay -always- changes over time. This is a basic expectation for any MMO, and when a game fixes balance issues, often refits are required.Do you think League of Legends "compensates" players when the flavor of the month characters change? Do MMORPGs "compensate" players when they reroll to take advantage of class buffs? Leaving aside your very subjective ideas about fairness, it's simply not feasible. Your air of put-upon victimization is tiresome and unreasonable - you are literally asking for reparations. It's not going to happen, and the longer you choose to ignore reality to believe what you wish were true instead, the more disappointed you're going to be.

[Lances107]

I do not know why this is in the new player forum, but it is.

Anyways first op you need to play a whole lot more faction play before you start making statements like the IS is under powered, because it is not. Several IS units use uniformed mech/weapon drops to kick the ever living **** out of clan units. I know, I have been one of the ones getting my *** kicked when they do that. Now if the clans mechs were so overpowering, it would not matter what they did, they would still lose. Now onto details, the TBR can load allot of weapons, and solid speed. What you do not know is it has a easy left/right torso that can be quickly destroyed, opening it for a quick kill. More onto what you did not know, is to really load that puppy up with heavy weapons, you end up lowering the armor on the legs. Onto another mech, the Night Gyr, assault level weapon load out, and jump jets. Onto what you did not know, it moves as slow as assaults, sticks out like a sore thumb, and has armor equal to that of a heavy. Onto another mech, the Hellbringer, solid general purpose mech at 65 tons. Onto to what you did not know, it can handle a decent weapons payload, but nothing in the bracket of a TBR or Night Gyr. Even further you would find out that just about every clan weapon has had ghost heat added to it. Now I get you IS guys have to spend credits on engines, which sucks. I also get you do not yet have some of the high end hard hitting weapons, but you will when the civil war update hits. The IS mechs are insanely tanky compared to clan mechs. The speed you mentioned can be both a curse and a plus. Onto what you did not know, if you poke half or full speed ahead on a tbr, it takes far too long to reverse back behind cover. Onto to more of what you did not know. The clan drop deck is 240 tons while the IS drop deck is 265 tons, the clan scout drop deck is 50 tons, while the IS drop deck is 55 tons.

So please do not make statements like the IS is under powered until you have spent some time learning the weaknesses of the clans. Also until you spend some serious time among the units in faction play. I mean for the lover of mercy they even nerfed the summoner of all mechs lol.

As to your concern, everyone I have talked to that spends allot of time on this stuff, does not know exactly how this will play out. The one statement I keep hearing is the new skill tree has allot of options to it. Until the final version goes live, the guys who live to test stuff, will not know the full impact on each mech. Also please pay attention to wording the devs said they originally wanted to do away with quirks but realized that for some of the chassis the quirks were a necessary evil and must remain. I heard that one I believe it was on a round table?

Its clear you have allot to learn. So I am going to suggest you make a new thread asking the people on the new player forum for help. A couple of them spend allot of time helping new players, and have good solid advice.

Edited by Lances107, 30 April 2017 - 01:49 AM.

[The Jerol]

Lances107, on 30 April 2017 - 01:46 AM, said:

I do not know why this is in the new player forum, but it is.

Anyways first op you need to play a whole lot more faction play before you start making statements like the IS is under powered, because it is not. Several IS units use uniformed mech/weapon drops to kick the ever living **** out of clan units. I know, I have been one of the ones getting my *** kicked when they do that. Now if the clans mechs were so overpowering, it would not matter what they did, they would still lose. Now onto details, the TBR can load allot of weapons, and solid speed. What you do not know is it has a easy left/right torso that can be quickly destroyed, opening it for a quick kill. More onto what you did not know, is to really load that puppy up with heavy weapons, you end up lowering the armor on the legs. Onto another mech, the Night Gyr, assault level weapon load out, and jump jets. Onto what you did not know, it moves as slow as assaults, sticks out like a sore thumb, and has armor equal to that of a heavy. Onto another mech, the Hellbringer, solid general purpose mech at 65 tons. Onto to what you did not know, it can handle a decent weapons payload, but nothing in the bracket of a TBR or Night Gyr. Even further you would find out that just about every clan weapon has had ghost heat added to it. Now I get you IS guys have to spend credits on engines, which sucks. I also get you do not yet have some of the high end hard hitting weapons, but you will when the civil war update hits. The IS mechs are insanely tanky compared to clan mechs. The speed you mentioned can be both a curse and a plus. Onto what you did not know, if you poke half or full speed ahead on a tbr, it takes far too long to reverse back behind cover. Onto to more of what you did not know. The clan drop deck is 240 tons while the IS drop deck is 265 tons, the clan scout drop deck is 50 tons, while the IS drop deck is 55 tons.

So please do not make statements like the IS is under powered until you have spent some time learning the weaknesses of the clans. Also until you spend some serious time among the units in faction play. I mean for the lover of mercy they even nerfed the summoner of all mechs lol.

As to your concern, everyone I have talked to that spends allot of time on this stuff, does not know exactly how this will play out. The one statement I keep hearing is the new skill tree has allot of options to it. Until the final version goes live, the guys who live to test stuff, will not know the full impact on each mech. Also please pay attention to wording the devs said they originally wanted to do away with quirks but realized that for some of the chassis the quirks were a necessary evil and must remain. I heard that one I believe it was on a round table?

Its clear you have allot to learn. So I am going to suggest you make a new thread asking the people on the new player forum for help. A couple of them spend allot of time helping new players, and have good solid advice.

I do NOT need to play "a whole lot more faction play".

Everything I have EVER read about FP indicates that it's broken. These forums are stuffed with literally thousands of posts detailing the problems with that game mode. There are almost no posts from players on either this forum or on Reddit that indicate this mode is worth playing right now. I am a SOLO player. FP is the LAST place I would EVER want to play. I'm not going to play a broken game mode where solo players are made to face off against well organized groups. That's just stupid. Sorry.

Also, don't tell me that IS kicks the crap out of Clan in FP and then slip in as an aside that, oh yeah, they get to drop with 25 extra tons of mechs -- because that's a huge advantage and it was put in place precisely because IS was getting beaten badly by Clan.

This is in the New Player forum because I'm a relatively new player (well, played a very small amount in 2013, but basically I'm 600 games in -- since February of this year) and I wanted information, because on the surface the new system seems like it might affect IS more than Clan. I play mostly Clan mechs btw. Your assumptions that I somehow don't know ghost heat or structural vulnerabilities or the agility benefits of one chassis over another are false. Using heavies as an example, I own and run Night Gyrs, TBRs, Hellbringers and Ebon Jaguars (in addition to Grasshoppers and Warhammers). I study the game. I only play solo queue (which is what MOST players do, btw) and I understand what wins in that game mode very well. Using the example of a well coordinated team of IS mechs destroying a Clan team in FP is irrelevant to the reality of most players in the solo queue. In solo queue what wins is speed, alpha and range. Period. I have had success in both IS and Clan mechs in solo queue, but Clan just does better. Granted I am still learning and improving (and I think my statistics support that statement), but I find your post stating what I do and do not know to be, frankly, offensive and extremely condescending.

[The Jerol]

Void Angel, on 30 April 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

Gameplay -always- changes over time. This is a basic expectation for any MMO, and when a game fixes balance issues, often refits are required.Do you think League of Legends "compensates" players when the flavor of the month characters change? Do MMORPGs "compensate" players when they reroll to take advantage of class buffs? Leaving aside your very subjective ideas about fairness, it's simply not feasible. Your air of put-upon victimization is tiresome and unreasonable - you are literally asking for reparations. It's not going to happen, and the longer you choose to ignore reality to believe what you wish were true instead, the more disappointed you're going to be.

This is a false equivalency. You do not buy anything in League of Legends that makes your champion better. You obviously have never played that game -- or maybe you just don't understand it.

In MWO, how you fit your mech is everything -- and you have to buy it. I do not seek reparations, as you say. I have both IS and Clan mechs and plenty of C-bills stored up. I play primarily Clan mechs -- because they're better. I will continue to play primarily Clan after the changes go live, as I expect most people will. I am not a victim. Truthfully, the condescending "I know better than you" replies to a fairly straightforward observation that IS will be nerfed harder than Clan in this thread is counterproductive. My title was provocative on purpose -- I now regret that and regret ever posting here in the first place, to be honest. I'll leave you to your "newbie" bashing, but you should know there are several identically themed posts from players on the Skill Tree forum and on OutreachHPG that lay out the exact same concerns. Perhaps we are all wrong. I agree that it will take time to sort through all the changes and that no one knows for sure exactly how all this will affect gameplay, but my concerns remain.

[Lances107]

Either you are a new player or your not. On the one hand your acting like you know all, on the other hand your claiming to be a new player. Your talking about clan balance which directly effects faction warfare which many of us do. You claim to know all the things I mentioned, but your still claiming to be a new player. You also claim to read reddit and mwo forums? Ah big whoop do you know how often peoples posts actually get something right on both? You are doing a whole allot of caps there and shouting for no reason. My point is if your a solo player, then dont bring up balance between the factions, because it sounds like it does not effect you one way or the other. Unless your one of the ones doing faction play, which you claim not to be doing.

[Rogue Jedi]

Clans are not better than IS, they are diferant. however Clans do have fewer Mechs which need help, there are more "lower tier" IS Mechs ^{(mostly Mechs from 2013 or earlier)} which need help than there are for Clans, but there are IS Mechs which can compete with every Clan Mech without significant disadvantage, and in many cases the IS has advantages.

The Jerol, on 29 April 2017 - 10:13 PM, said:

Whoever is running an IS XL engine the day LFE is released, for example, is obsolete. Meanwhile, Clan mechs continue to run their superior XLs, with their superior ranged weapons with their superior damage. Making players pay for "fixing balance issues"? Please.

the Light Fusion Engine will most certainly not obsolite the XL, most of my Light Mechs will stick with XL and there are a few heavier IS Mechs which just do not (in my experiance) loose side torsos so as the XL will still be 25% lighter than the LFE why would I sacrifice, in some cases 6+, tons for a nonexistant suvivability increase?

The the LFE may well obsolite the Standard Engine, because, assuming I could afford the LFE ^{(I leave most of my Mechs ready to go, as with more than 200 Mechs it is a real pain trying to locate that precise engine I need)} the only time I would consider taking a standard is if I had 2 guns CT and 1 in the head.

[Void Angel]

Well, the Clans really are a bit better, but that's not the point here...

The Jerol, on 30 April 2017 - 09:33 AM, said:

This is a false equivalency. You do not buy anything in League of Legends that makes your champion better. You obviously have never played that game -- or maybe you just don't understand it. [No, people buy champions. And when their favorite champion gets nerfed, they make the same kind of posts with the same bad arguments.]

I'll leave you to your "newbie" bashing, ["but I'm going to follow this baseless accusation with an appeal to common wisdom now that my argument has failed."]

[Editorial added.]

Reparations are exactly what you're asking for, whether you've thought it through or not. When you say, "the added cost to IS pilots should be considered in any compensation model," you're asking for Inner Sphere pilots to be paid - indirectly or directly - for their upgrades.

Not that your premise there is sound anyway. You've made the erroneous assumption that the new tech will be designed to be better, and thus invalidate old gear - but that's not been the case with the introduction of Clantech (implementation aside) and there is simply no reason to presume that PGI will suddenly reverse a core element of their design philosophy without so much as an announcement.

But hey, you're mad that people are winning arguments with you, and you're sorry you even posted - fine. By all means take your ball and go home; your intransigence in the face of reason may remain, but your arguments are still found wanting.

[The Jerol]

Void Angel, on 30 April 2017 - 09:31 PM, said:

Well, the Clans really are a bit better, but that's not the point here

Actually, it's literally the entire point of my original post.

<edited to remove mean-ness... if that's a word>

My question still stands, though. Quirks are being removed. IS suffers more from this than Clan. You admit IS is already underpowered and you go on to say new tech won't be better (and is therefore not the solution). I believe you. This takes "reparations" out of the discussion. How is it balanced? Again, it seems all the discussion focuses on module compensation when the real issues are game balance and the needless complexity of the new system (I'm sure you're not looking forward to assigning 91 nodes to each of your mastered mechs). This was the entire point of my post -- it's the quirk removal that should concern players the most.

Edited by The Jerol, 01 May 2017 - 07:21 AM.

[Void Angel]

Meanness is a word, and does not require hyphenation.

My posts have been on two subjects: I claimed that the timeline advancement is a step toward getting better balance feedback for PGI - and that your assertion,

The Jerol, on 27 April 2017 - 09:04 PM, said:

And if 3060 tech is successful in balancing the game, the added cost to IS pilots should be considered in any compensation model.

amounts to reparations for past balance issues and is both infeasible and unreasonable to request.

On the first subject, while I don't think and haven't said that simply advancing the timeline will fix all ills, I also haven't said that the process won't end in some semblance of balance improvement.

As for the second, well, you brought up reparations! You can't now accuse me of missing the point. Your original subject to which I did not respond other than to point out that the timeline advancement will alleviate some balance issues doesn't really have anything to do with the point about whether your request for reparations was reasonable.

On the topic of the original post, I ran out of hard drive space, so I wasn't able to participate in the last test phase - but the test population isn't big enough for demographic numbers anyway, so we'll just have to see. The rolling of most of the quirk system into the skill tree means that Clan 'mechs effectively now have access to quirks that they didn't have before, and can customize these quirks to suit. This is certainly concerning, and you have a point there. It should also be remembered, though, that PGI will probably be watching demographic numbers pretty closely in order to make adjustments.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Void Angel, on 30 April 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

Gameplay -always- changes over time. This is a basic expectation for any MMO, and when a game fixes balance issues, often refits are required.Do you think League of Legends "compensates" players when the flavor of the month characters change? Do MMORPGs "compensate" players when they reroll to take advantage of class buffs? Leaving aside your very subjective ideas about fairness, it's simply not feasible. Your air of put-upon victimization is tiresome and unreasonable - you are literally asking for reparations. It's not going to happen, and the longer you choose to ignore reality to believe what you wish were true instead, the more disappointed you're going to be.

As a longtime League player (from early season 3), let me tell you that you're full of **** on that comparison. No champion is ever so heavily nerfed as to be completely worthless, a person who knows what they're doing with even the bottom-rung of the month can stomp all over someone running metacheese.

Now try taking a Commando against any clam light and say that that's a skill match. A Vindie against any clam medium (even a fridge). A Dragon against any clam heavy. On and ******* on. The very worst clam 'mechs are still about as viable as average IS 'mechs.

Let's get this out of the way: I'm generally favorable to the skill tree, I don't have a problem with how compensation is being handled. But stripping perks from IS 'mechs (literally the only thing making a great many usable in any realistic world) and saying "lol Civil War tech will take care of it whenever that releases" is delusional, particularly because even after that update clams will still have: superior engines, double-efficiency FF and ES, more space-efficient weapons and equipment, auto-CASE, higher damage and range, and greater flexibility in builds.

But no, LFE and Heavy Gauss and snub PPCs will somehow overcome the massive logistical advantages that let clam 'mechs pack in better-optimized, larger, and more damaging loadouts while also moving faster. Sure.

The worst part is, the skill tree without quirk nerfs could actually have helped level the field a little bit. Losing out on Speed Tweak would have been a buff to IS, since omnimechs can't just stick a bigger engine in and change up their build a little. Losing out on modules would have made the perks on underperforming IS 'mechs more significant, allowing them to come closer to clam range and DPS. The Defense tree could have (and in this case thankfully still will) worked well alongside armor and structure quirks, since it's percentile-based.

Without the quirk nerfs, the skill tree and Civil War might actually have put IS closer to parity with clams than they ever have been since the brief few months that clanboys continually drag up to justify years of clam dominance as "it's just our turn lol". But we can't have IS 'mechs being good, and we certainly can't have old 'mechs being good, not when there are mechpacks to sell.

[Void Angel]

Because you're the only one who plays LoL on the internet.

You, like the only person who has liked your post, are attempting to drag me into defending an idea that I've already disavowed - that new tech will fix all balance - in order to gain ground in argument. Like him, you've failed. The post you've quoted doesn't have anything to do with the diatribe that follows it.

[Serpentine Shel Serpentine]

Two things. First someone mentioned IS can fire two AC20s and kill any mech with a cockpit shot. Maybe but two Ac20 generates enormous ghost heat (30 heat for firing both). It's hard to see why anyone would try that very often.
Second, if PGI really intends to wipe out quirks that doesn't seem fair to those who bought mechs based on quirks. One big attraction of the roughnecks for example are some of the quirks. I have been tempted to buy it but this talk of quirknerfing makes me hesitate, PGI is actually hurting its own business model by creating such uncertainty as to the value of what it's selling. I'm perplexed.
Also is the package model going to change since there's no incentive to buy three variants at a time?
A little more clarity in expectations is always good for the economy,

[Tarl Cabot]

Quirks are always changing. In fact quirks did not exist until the Clans went live for IS mechs, so never purchase a mech purely due to quirks, also never sale a mech since quirks could change.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 03 May 2017 - 06:45 PM.

[The Jerol]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 04 May 2017 - 06:30 PM.
insults / ad hominem

[draiocht]

[mod]As this topic is about speculation and playtest discussion,
this thread has been moved to
Skill Tree Public Test #2.

Thread title has been edited for clarity in its original sub-forum.[/mod]

[oldradagast]

The OP is correct. Even though new tech will help fix SOME of the imbalance, it still still exist in the Clan's favor forever because of 3 things:
- Lighter weapons
- 7 slot Endo and Ferro (and smaller heatsinks help a lot on some builds)
- No death on side torso loss using Clan XL engines. IS LFE are a nice step forward, but they still weigh more than a Clan XL for the same capabilities.

No matter how you look at it, IS mechs will always be short on tonnage compared to Clan ones because of the heavier weapons and heavier LFE compared to the same size Clan LX. Also, the Clan mech, if it can switch to Endo and Ferro, has a slot and/or tonnage advantage there, too.

Even aside from this, there's the bigger issue of mechs that just plain suck even with all the new tech. Awesomes come to mind - useless without big quirks because who needs a low-engine capped energy/missile boat with low weapons when they can, for 5 tons more, have a Battlemaster or Stalker with comparable builds but also high weapon mounts? Mechs like that badly needs quirks to have any purpose in the game.

Edited by oldradagast, 05 May 2017 - 05:26 AM.

[oldradagast]

Tesunie, on 27 April 2017 - 09:59 PM, said:

The balance is suppose to be IS have better closer range, clans have better longer ranges.

Which is balance fail because of the long-range clans drill out your torsos with PPC + Gauss on approach, nobody cares about your short-range brawling abilities. You either simply won't get into range before you're dead, or you'll be so battered when the brawl beings, the Clan mech can still put you down without being destroyed.

I'm not blaming you for this - it's PGI's fault - but that concept of "being good at brawling" only works if the brawlers are incredibly durable, fast enough to close the distance, and able to sustain damage-dealing in a fight. The IS can do the last one of the two, but on average they are slower than the Clan and, even with durability buffs, they aren't tough enough to matter in a game where massive pinpoint alphas at medium to long ranges are the norm.

[Tesunie]

oldradagast, on 05 May 2017 - 05:29 AM, said:

they aren't tough enough to matter in a game where massive pinpoint alphas at medium to long ranges are the norm.

Some of that are maps, as most of them encourage more mid to long range engagement zones. Some of that is the fact that dealing damage at range is normally more effective than having to get up close to do so. Not to mention, if you can engage at range, you can determine if you need to sit behind cover for a while to cool off, where as when you are up close and in someone's face, you don't have such a chance. So the hotter clan weapons are almost mitigated.

As much as I hate to say it, quirks are needed to help IS operate in a similar manner as Clans do. Balance is much better than it has been in the past (including past games where you took nothing but Clan tech, even if on an IS mech) between Clan and IS tech. It's not perfect, and some of that is by nature the very rules of BT.

I heard that even the creator of BT and the Clans wished they had not created the Clans as they had (with all that good tech). Created a balance issue everywhere (except for lore and novels, as story telling and "tactics" could overcome the "advanced Clans", not to mention honor codes and etc).


Clans will probably forever be in a hard spot to balance it seems. Clans will be powerful unless we rewrite the very rules the "universe" runs off of.

Edited by Tesunie, 05 May 2017 - 08:37 AM.