51 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Kaptain, on 08 July 2017 - 02:45 AM, said:

Yes, yes it was. And they said so many times in the patch notes. The entire point was that a mech like the mad cat with a c375xl was benefiting not just in top speed and heatsink slots but also in mobility vs say an Inner Sphere Orion. The 75ton Orion could not mount such a large engine as the mad cats 375xl and also mount effective firepower. The intention, as they stated many times, was to reduce this advantage by normalizing movement at any given tonnage with other mechs of the same weight. They even give examples of this comparing a 30ton IS mech to a 30 Clan mech and in another example a 100ton IS mech to a 100 clan mech.

The thing I don't like is they have started straying away from the decoupled values and instead are using mobility base stats as an entirely new set of positive and negative quirks or buffs/nerfs if you will. Artificially nerfing and buffing as they see fit. This makes the game even more convoluted and increases the number of "freak" mechs that simply perform far better, or far worse, than you would otherwise expect. And worse yet instead of seeing a red quirk that is obviously a negative you have to study each aspect of mobility and compare it to other mechs to see why your heavy mech is as slow accelerating as some of the heaviest assaults, as an example.

You are reading the words, but you are not understanding their application and the necessary tweaks that have to be made for it to work.

The point was we had 'Mechs with X level of firepower and some 'Mechs which were required to run smaller engines or more vulnerable engines (and often both) to reach X level of firepower. So PGI de-coupled agility from the engines and then set the mobility on all 'Mechs of that weight to be the same, right? So now we've got fast 'Mechs with X and slow 'Mechs with X but nobody can turn better. That means the fast 'Mechs with X are still flat-out better. PGI saw this, so what did they do? They give some bonus agility (and sometimes durability) to the slow 'Mechs with X and you arrive at what we have now. I recall PGI also saying that they wanted taking a smaller engine to have more merit than it previously did, and the above is what is necessary for that to happen.

You can call it a quirk, but it's all semantics. We've had 'Mechs with "artificially reduced" mobility and agility since at least the Phoenix package. Why do my BLR-3M and BJ-1X have crap torso yaw compared to my BLR-1S and BJ-1? Why have they had this for years, now? Because having a commanding set of weapons in perfect mounts on a fast 'Mech means you should rely on the team more to cover your flanks otherwise you just dominate the field with an unparalleled ability to quickly respond to threats from any angle with less risk per shot. That's what happened with the KDK-3 and the MAD-IIC and WHM-6R and that's why they got nerfed in the mobility departments. Even the IS Marauder got nerfed in the mobility department.

Would you rather they do it all with durability quirks instead? Those things that can scale with Skill Tree and require zero effort from the pilot to take advantage of? I rather prefer the agility tweaks because taking advantage of them is entirely dependent on pilot input.

As for freak 'Mechs, the key phrase in your sentence there is "as expected". You aren't supposed to expect any 'Mechs in a class to perform way better or way worse. They are all supposed to perform roughly similarly. And you know what? They do, for the most part. In the Heavy bracket, I don't know many that perform significantly better or worse than the pack, it's mostly fringe benefits that tilt a close match-up one way or another. Most have some niche and it comes down to pilot ability 9 times out of 10. Even in competitive games today, you see some pretty interesting combos that still manage to work out. The only really freakish thing is that the values some of these Heavies need to perform as well as the other Heavies given some of their inherent limitations (i.e. lack of tonnage for weapons on the LBK) puts them in a better place mobility-wise than certain Lights (i.e. ACH). But that's not the Heavy's fault, it's the Light's for not being fast or agile enough for what it is. But, you know, Lights OP.

[Pariah Devalis]

As a dedicated Clan pilot, I am firmly on the "wait and see" side of the fence, here.

Do I expect the overall balance to shift towards the IS with the introduction of their new toys and LFE? Yes. How far of a balance shift will it be? How noticeable? No clue. At the least, it will be a hugely needed QOL boost to some under performing IS chassis. At the worst, it's going to combine with existing quirks to create a perfect storm of a metamech.

If it pushes the "6%" Clan advantage into a "6%" IS advantage, that isn't honestly enough of a statistical difference to give much of a damn about. 6% does not account for much, and is rather impressively tight balancing if true given the different tech bases. Of course, I think any IS players currently complaining about a 6% disadvantage are just scavenging for a reason to complain. So a potential 6% disadvantage for the Clans? I'm OK with that because I know that 6% accounts for jack all due to unequal pilot skill levels in this game.

However, that said, I expect the first things to go will be certain IS mech quirks. MRMs, UACs, and LFEs, as well as ERMLas will seriously reduce the gap as far as damage potential (and survivability) is concerned. My concern is how those will interact with existing quirks.

I specifically am concerned about IS mechs that are currently considered close to, if not legitimately, equal to or better than Clan mechs. Mechs that are already toeing the line. Suddenly a mech that was deemed reasonably durable might be stupidly difficult to kill. A mech that had reasonable damage output potential is suddenly outputting more than expected.

I'd rather the IS quirks get reduced to bring newly overperforming IS mechs into line, as opposed to buffing some of the Clan negative hits we got, if only to avoid pushing TTK any lower than it is now. If, for the sake of argument, Clan mechs demonstrate the apex of TTK minimization, why do we want the game as a whole to lower the TTK further?

Equal for both sides? Sure, that is fair. But the overall TTK should not be allowed to be any lower than it is currently. The easiest way to do that is to release the update, monitor the results, and shave down the newly overperforming platforms by an appropriate amount.

Assuming PGI follows this reasonable course of action (probably making an *** out of U and Me, here), I expect IS tears from well expected nerfs a couple months down the line post update.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 09 July 2017 - 05:45 PM.

[FunkyT]

Yeah, I'm curious to see what new meta mechs might appear on the IS side aswell.

I could imagine the Roughneck getting a bit more spotlight. Doesn't have all too impressive offensive quirks, but tons of defensive quirks. And with it's very limited and mostly ammo focused hardpoints (ballistic + missile), this one was basically screaming "civil war tech" right from the start. Could imagine that this one get's a considerable boost in firepower with LFE and the new UACs and MRMs. And with those defensive quirks and some serious investment into the survival tree, the Roughneck might turn into a mini-Atlas.

And I agree that PGI would most likely tone down the new overachievers after the patch, if there are any. Seems like they prefer to balance the stronger mechs this way, maybe to avoid some sort of power creep should they increase quirks or weapon stats over time.

But to be honest, I reckon that Clans will still be ahead by a little bit after the update. After all, most of the new IS toys are worse copies of existing Clan Tech. Should close the gap between the two Tech Bases by quite a bit though.

[J0anna]

To the OP, lets see what happens on the live server. In general balance will be much closer between the sides. I, for one, expect IS mechs to keep their armor/structure quirks as long as they still have access to XL engines and die to a single side torso loss. I expect some weapon quirks to start to go away (or get significantly reduced), but that will take time. I suspect some IS mechs will perform much better than any clan mech in their weight class (in some cases we already have that as the clan's have some weight classes with pretty horrible mechs). The new IS weapons may look like cheap knockoff's of clan weapons, but combined with IS mechs, they could easily outperform their clan counterparts. Remember nobody should care about a one for one weapon comparison, but rather a mech comparison.

[MechaBattler]

We should definitely see how the changes do on live. I think they'll just adjust stats on a case by case basis. If some Clan mechs are just under performing they'll likely see a performance bump. I doubt they'll go for a blanket increase to all of them just because the IS got an engine that is 25% heavier than the C-XL. Really it benefits IS brawlers the most. While IS builds that rely on multiple heavy weapons will still need IS XLs.

[Cato Phoenix]

Rampage, on 04 July 2017 - 12:27 PM, said:

The engine de-sync affected all Mechs, not just Clan. LFEs are not going to change the things that led to engine de-sync. The new LFEs and weapon systems in the Civil War patch will probably lead to IS Mech seeing some of their quirks reduced or removed eventually but that is about all the changes I expect.

The problem with this is that mechs losing quirks will push those builds into whatever the new meta is with new tech. If your old build that works with quirks is suddenly de-quirked because there's a new tech around, well - you'll then have to switch just to stay on par.

[Khobai]

Quote

The problem with this is that mechs losing quirks will push those builds into whatever the new meta is with new tech. If your old build that works with quirks is suddenly de-quirked because there's a new tech around, well - you'll then have to switch just to stay on par.

new tech changing the meta? who wouldve thought.

[Pariah Devalis]

There is nothing wrong with a changing meta. It stirs the pot if new options become preferable over existing ones. Otherwise the game can get stale fairly quickly.

[Colonel Clunge]

Guys

I've not read every post here so forgive me if these points are covered elsewhere. However, a response to a few points:-

1. Talk of the IS being only 6% behind Clan is bull - all I need to say is two words - "Tukayid 3" - yes I know that the reasons for the Clan walkover are more complicated but the gulf was SO big.
2. I might be wrong here but didn't most of the quirks disappear with the introduction of the skill tree system - surely that levelled the scales for many mechs which would essentially give a massive advantage back to the Clan.
3. I do find it slightly ironic that the Clanners are complaining about IS overtaking them - having taken a hammering for 3 years at the hands of the Clan, I think it would be ok for them to be on the receiving end for a while.

While not Lore correct, I would advocate as near as possibly a level playing field with some mechs having different strengths and weaknesses so that personal choice and playstyle dictate mech choice more than meta. However, there will inevitably still be some mechs that are better than others. I do find it funny that Clanners cite TW and NG as needing buffed. This list would be much, much longer if you listed all the underperforming IS mechs! It sometimes seems that Clanners expect every Clan mech to be superior. While that might be Lore accurate, it makes for a pretty boring game, unless you balance lance size to take account.

CC

[FunkyT]

The quirks didn't really disappear with the skilltree hitting the live servers. But they were overall greatly reduced.

While defensive quirks stayed mostly untouched, offensive quirks got reduced by somewhere between 5-15% on average. Some quirks got reduced even more (something like 50% energy cooldown on some lights) and some quirks vanished entirely, mostly as some sort of redesign of what niche a certain chassis or variant was supposed to fill I think.

But overall, Clan mechs may have gotten the better deal out of the skilltree.
Quirks were already rare on the Clan side, so there weren't a lot of quirk reductions there if I recall correctly. Think several omnipods had their built-in quirks reduced, but set of 8 omni quirks stayed mostly untouched.
So not only did most Clan mechs not actually lose anything, but instead they got access to the skilltree, giving quirks to Clan mechs that previously didn't have any at all.

PGI apparently thought of that and had many of the firepower-skilltree nodes scale lower than on the IS side. For example Clans can skill -10% Laser Duration, while it's up to 15% for IS.

But from how I see it, Clan mechs got access to some really nice, entirely new quirks, while the IS had to heavily invest into the firepower skilltree to actually regain the quirks that they lost with the introduction of the skilltree.

That's at least how I saw it

Edited by FunkyT, 11 July 2017 - 10:09 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The Light Fusion Engine will have two effects on Inner Sphere mechs:

1 - Lower payload in exchange for higher survivability. Fewer guns, smaller guns, and slower, but no more XL vulnerability. The tradeoff is built in. Less guns firing at clanners, but harder to pop their mechs.

2 - Higher payload for many Standard engine builds. Standard engine heavy and assault mechs could have 4-6 more tons of payload at the cost of 4 spaces, OR replace Endosteel so they gain 10 spaces instead of saving any weight.

The second one is the only win-win for IS mechs. Dual Ultra-20's rejoice. Clans already have the way to counter that, though... range. Or an overwhelming number of micro-lasers. Still, be interesting to see how balance plays out.

[J0anna]

ScrapIron Prime, on 11 July 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

The Light Fusion Engine will have two effects on Inner Sphere mechs:

1 - Lower payload in exchange for higher survivability. Fewer guns, smaller guns, and slower, but no more XL vulnerability. The tradeoff is built in. Less guns firing at clanners, but harder to pop their mechs.

2 - Higher payload for many Standard engine builds. Standard engine heavy and assault mechs could have 4-6 more tons of payload at the cost of 4 spaces, OR replace Endosteel so they gain 10 spaces instead of saving any weight.

The second one is the only win-win for IS mechs. Dual Ultra-20's rejoice. Clans already have the way to counter that, though... range. Or an overwhelming number of micro-lasers. Still, be interesting to see how balance plays out.

You forgot:

3) LFE and Light Ferro, save both weight and space over the STD/Endo combo.

I have already replaced some XL engines with LFE's. For example, my Yenlo currently runs with XL300, 2xML's and an AC 20. Next week it will have LFE 280, UAC 20 (and yes the AC 20 quirks worked with the UAC) and 2xERML, gaining both DPS and range, for a loss of 7 KPH. Since I don't see it losing it's defensive quirks, it seemed to play very nicely on PTS.....

Light Ferro is the sleeper that not many are talking about, but it's very valuable and I wound up using it on quite a few mechs....