675 replies to this topic

[Odanan]

MovinTarget, on 16 July 2017 - 03:35 PM, said:

I am guessing the actual civil war part will come in a week or two so we get a chance to get a handle on the tech and PGI can hotfix anything that comes up in the patch.

It may also be partly due to the fact that the code/UI has morphed a bit since we last were able to fight other specific factions...

I believe this new map will stay for many months. Well, at least until the new big event: Operation Bulldog.

[mad kat]

Fixed the totally ****** up 'matchmaker' for want of a better word?......Nope, still as lopsided as ever since the PSR **** was introduced.

Still cant balance weapons within their own faction let alone against each other? Yep.

No cure for the Assault mechs hiding at the back every damn match problem. (Yes i know this is a mediums not supporting them in pug issue) but the loss of armour is compounded when people keep showing up in LRM atlas and Supernova's. The protected medium/light reward needs adressing.

No real fix for flamers, that when used right are indeed a threat when the situation is right but apparently plasma doesn't damage armour......Strange that considering what plasma is and some weapons actually use the stuff to do damage (PPC and energy weapons).

Machinegun range is still generally way too small. (counter by spread).

Domination is still grossly ignored by players (no bonus for being in the circle) the amount of games lost because players just can't seem to comprehend they actually have to be in the circle.

*Edit*

i forgot the 100 ton mechs being stuck on sticks and pebbles problem.

And MASC being almost worthless now since the Desync. (At least it is on my 'phract).

Edited by mad kat, 17 July 2017 - 02:15 AM.

[Odanan]

Peter Overheater, on 16 July 2017 - 05:18 AM, said:

Just saw this on reddit, post made my day: https://www.reddit.c...notes_for_july/

So much good stuff I knew it wasn't real... :/

[Steinkrieg]

Having all the new IS Ultra Autocannons behave like Clan UACs is stupid. It's not like the IS doesn't have an UAC in which to base the new UACs. ATMs with minimum range = DOA.

[C E Dwyer]

I have this wild dream where Mitch Gittleman and Jordan Weisman find the money to buy out P.G.I from under it's current owners.
Yeah it will never happen, but it would be very good for this product, and the tone around here would be vastly improved.

Why ?

When H.B.S make changes they tell their community, they don't stay silent and then tell everyone four days from patch day.

Most of the forum warriors, from here are also over there so I'm preaching mostly to the converted, but when H.B.S make a change or do something we don't like, they Communicate ...

They explain why they needed to do this, or why something that was to be in an earlier stage, isn't going to be there now, and apart from the fringe fanatic's people can respect even if not like the changes made.

The exchanges between staff on H.B.S dev stream shows confidence. it shows they can cheek the boss, without being disrespectful, because they know that he is the Boss, and they have a boss confident in his authority, and ability to allow it.

P.G.I on the other hand these always seems an undertone of fear, in the little I've seen, even Tina glances nervously, when she makes some Paul comment on the N.G.N.G streams.

It shows in the product, and it shows in the deceitful way P.G.I string it's customers a line, fully knowing something isn't going to happen of there are going to be changes.

The latest is the change in the timeline, they have known through dev talks where the news could have been broken, they could have mentioned the reason why in twitter or hell even coe here and made a post about it.

But there was nothing, no notice until patch notes came out a few days before, a wall of silence and yet another expectation dashed for those that were looking forward to the civil war.


The really sad thing is that it's almost expected now, you can tell from the comments, and that we won't do a damn thing about it, and P.G.I management will continue to treat us like crap, with total immunity.

Hell this game just struggles on, and on, because of a hard core of BattleTech and Mechwarrior addicts, never really amounting to much other than to give us our next fix like a junkie shooting up, and like a drug addict, complaining about it, and never doing anything about their self inflicted unhappiness.

If this game was a dog or one of my cats I would have taken it to the vet long ago, and done what needs to be done, and maybe even shed a tear as I dug the hole in the garden for it.

But here it's different the only pain and suffering is self inflicted, while a person that uses deceit, silence, and at times outright lies, to get wealthy.

[Twilight Fenrir]

Odanan, on 17 July 2017 - 02:59 AM, said:

So much good stuff I knew it wasn't real... :/

Huh... Well, that's.... Different....

Lot to digest there... I'm actually disappointed they took away the screen shake from the H gauss... I thought that added a lot of fun to carrying them, made them FEEL powerful... Boost to L gauss damage is smart...

Oh... Wait... That's not.... Damn... I guess I don't know how Reddit works, didn't realize it was idle dreaming X3

Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 17 July 2017 - 04:17 AM.

[Genesis23]

heavy lasers are a bit weird... there is nothing heavy about them, they just use one slot more (medium+large) than normal and still weight the same. one slot more wont bother clans since most of their other equip is smaller anyway, but the dmg is insane. hml 10dmg out of one single ton - scary.

[Argond]

Please add Clan Wolf in Exile.

[Jep Jorgensson]

Gas Guzzler, on 16 July 2017 - 01:01 PM, said:

Are you saying that everybody is going to start running AMS all of a sudden? Or is this purely hypothetical?

And hey, if AMS is hardcountering ATMs, its a sign to up their missile health.

Start using AMS? What game have you been playing? People are already carrying it. I have seen a number of mechs running it or even double AMS and in some cases, triple. As a LRM specialist, I pay close attention to these things. I have even seen matches where the enemy had multiple 3x AMS mechs. On top of which, AMS got a double buff in the last patch, in case you forgot.

[Empischon]

PGI, You have Empibear seal of approval.
My MRM60 Victor is coming for You clanners }=]

And after I get bored with it, I'll just wait until people realize what is now possible to do with Dragons.
I fully expect that hardpoint starvation will now be a thing of the past - the Death Star's are clear to fire.

[NocturnalBeast]

Saber Avalon, on 16 July 2017 - 10:02 PM, said:

It's not even an argument from a lore stand point, it's a table top rule that people are clinging to. Lore sides with being able to change and modify mechs. (See the response to my next quote for examples and proof)



Yen-Lo-Wang is but one example and it's happened for many others too;

Grinner was upgraded by the clans to have clan weapons and if I recall the technician wanted to mount an AMS but it was against the mech's design, to use ammo, so he wanted to use an experimental laser AMS but it wasn't ready yet.

Every single clan battlemech that has an identical IS mech, but has the "IIC" designator, is actually an IS chassis that was upgraded to clan tech.

There are battlefield repairs that resulted in modified mechs, the Cataphract exists as a hackjob of different mech parts, there are mech variants that went extinct because a new version came out and all older versions were upgraded to the new one.

The clans also would move mountains for various trails. If a warrior wanted an old battlemech(or Omni) modified for a specific fit, at the request of a warrior about to undergo a trial, they'd do it.

Sarna has a list of customized mechs, it doesn't even include them all as Yen-Lo-Wang isn't on it nor is Grinner. So it's incomplete: http://www.sarna.net...Unique_%27Mechs

Heck, click into the first Jenner listed, there's another Jenner on it's page that was also customized. You could probably go through Sarna's list of every mech created and the majority probably have a custom one listed.

As for your point about being "unique"... that's why they're custom. The point is they were modified, in lore. Lore supports customizations.

Actually the IiC Mechs were brand new Mechs from designs that were based on the original IS versions. Yes, the Clans did upgrade their Mechs before they started manufacturing the IiC Mechs, but this was long before the invasion.

Also, yes in lore there are 100s of customized Mechs, but the majority of Mechs were not customized. The reason that there are different variants of Mechs is because they needed different loadouts for different situations and it was not quick, or easy to change the loadout of an existing Mech.

Edited by Ed Steele, 17 July 2017 - 07:52 AM.

[Zergling]

Jep Jorgensson, on 17 July 2017 - 06:53 AM, said:

As a LRM specialist

...that's a really bad idea. I highly suggest specialising in other weapons, or becoming a more generalist player.

Jep Jorgensson, on 17 July 2017 - 06:53 AM, said:

On top of which, AMS got a double buff in the last patch, in case you forgot.

And it's getting a nerf this patch.

Edited by Zergling, 17 July 2017 - 08:13 AM.

[Grus]

Wintersdark, on 15 July 2017 - 12:15 PM, said:

Again, because you seem to lack basic reading comprehension:

1) From Clan Introduction day one, PGI's has been explicit with their balance design regarding Clan vs. IS balance: Parity. That's been the stated goal from the beginning.
2) Weismann himself said he made a mistake making Clans so much better than the Inner Sphere; that it was a poor game design decision then and he wished he could change it. So, yeah,
3) It IS a poor game design decision. Whatever you feel "should" be the case, Clans and Inner Sphere MUST be balanced for good gameplay. There is no reasonable alternative. This is a faction based PvP arena game. It needs to be balanced.

I just don't get why this is so hard to grasp. Whatever you want to read into "A battletech game": GAMEPLAY MUST ALWAYS TRUMP LORE.

After all, if they just implemented Clans as per lore, things would have been vastly worse from the get go, and instead of improving over time they'd just have gotten ever worse. Who'd continue to play Inner Sphere if the game design was "You just suck, and will lose consistently as a result."

Because no, you won't find better players gravitating to the weaker side. That just doesn't happen.

You'd just find IS populated entirely with people who like losing, or lore grognards who also absolutely love IS (as the Clan grognards would still happily be piloting their stronger mechs).

How things worked out in Tabletop Lore - IS winning despite Clans being stronger - was stupid writing more than anything else. "We win because they are dumb."

my reading comprehension is just fine thank you.

If they would have launched clans correctly and PER LORE we wouldn't have the issues we have today. They should have done this;
1) FW dropdecks for clan should be for 10 players i.e. 2 Stars.
2) BATCHALL should have been in place from day one for bonus rewards for winning with less tonnage than your opponent
3) make clan population limited to always be less that a %of IS.
4) current balance is fine for QP so have lore numbers for FP "simulation" and current balancing for QP. That simple.

There are plenty of other games that handle balancing in much the same way, so it shouldn't be that hard to implement. I just think PGI lacks the hubris to admit they messed up and fix it.

[Sucy Manbavaran]

no need to limit clan Pop << i'm pretty sure 80% of them will go IS right after update (for "some" reasons)

Edited by Sucy Manbavaran, 17 July 2017 - 08:44 AM.

[Ironically Ironclad Irony]

Grus, on 17 July 2017 - 08:30 AM, said:

my reading comprehension is just fine thank you.

If they would have launched clans correctly and PER LORE we wouldn't have the issues we have today. They should have done this;
1) FW dropdecks for clan should be for 10 players i.e. 2 Stars.
2) BATCHALL should have been in place from day one for bonus rewards for winning with less tonnage than your opponent
3) make clan population limited to always be less that a %of IS.
4) current balance is fine for QP so have lore numbers for FP &quot;simulation&quot; and current balancing for QP. That simple.

There are plenty of other games that handle balancing in much the same way, so it shouldn't be that hard to implement. I just think PGI lacks the hubris to admit they messed up and fix it.

Tell clan enthusiasts "sorry you can't play today, to many other clanners already logged in!"

Balance is fine in QP b/c they try to balance the tech. Make clams op and artificial restrictions would need to be enacted to prevent one side from having too many clan mechs in qp... what if you wanted to 12 man drop qp? Who gets clan mechs? If all clan mechs will you have to wait until another all-clan team drops?

Nothing is simple...

[Antares102]

Cathy, on 17 July 2017 - 04:10 AM, said:

Great summary

o7

[Jep Jorgensson]

Zergling, on 17 July 2017 - 08:10 AM, said:

...that's a really bad idea. I highly suggest specialising in other weapons, or becoming a more generalist player.

I can handle pretty much any Clan weapon fairly well, I just do my best work with LRM's. Took me quite a while to truly master them, but master them I did.

Zergling, on 17 July 2017 - 08:10 AM, said:

And it's getting a nerf this patch.

Only to the overload nodes that not everybody uses.

Sucy Manbavaran, on 17 July 2017 - 08:43 AM, said:

no need to limit clan Pop << i'm pretty sure 80% of them will go IS right after update (for "some" reasons)

No, just the mercs, most of whom have already left since the IS are getting tons of new toys while we get a few scraps.

Edited by Jep Jorgensson, 17 July 2017 - 10:07 AM.

[Khalcruth]

Kaptain, on 16 July 2017 - 04:42 PM, said:

Agreed. I would like to see clan omni mechs get some of their build restrictions lifted. Lets start with being able to remove and move around heatsinks.

Sure thing. You can have your build restrictions lifted, all you have to do is give up the ability to swap around hard points. If you want a huge positive, you also have to take a huge negative.

[Sucy Manbavaran]

Khalcruth, on 17 July 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

Sure thing. You can have your build restrictions lifted, all you have to do is give up the ability to swap around hard points. If you want a huge positive, you also have to take a huge negative.

Go play EXE/GAR and other craps ultra lock ... then maybe your brain cells can connect and you'll understand the problem

[Wintersdark]

Grus, on 17 July 2017 - 08:30 AM, said:

If they would have launched clans correctly and PER LORE we wouldn't have the issues we have today.

Kind of a useless statement. This is the game we have now, and what we wish had happened years ago is pretty irrelevant. That said:

Quote

They should have done this;
1) FW dropdecks for clan should be for 10 players i.e. 2 Stars.

Nope. Balancing assymertrical numbers in a PvP arena game is basically impossible, as the adjustment is too coarse. It's not just "10 players with mechs that are 1.2 times the strength of the mechs on the 12 player side" - it just doesn't work that way. If PGI struggles to balance even numbers(Note that EVERY game struggles to balance equal numbers with different factions), it would do even worse with different numbers of players. We've had this discussion a lot of times over the years.

The long and short is, even if you want to believe having different numbers of players per side is no harder than equal numbers, it certainly isn't easier.

Quote

2) BATCHALL should have been in place from day one for bonus rewards for winning with less tonnage than your opponent

Quote

3) make clan population limited to always be less that a %of IS.

What? Now you're going right off the deep end into ridiculous. Who gets to be clans? Clan mechs launched before faction play existed, so people who bought clan mechs early on suddenly don't get to use them because there's not enough IS players? What if a current IS player had been buying Clan mechs, but then suddenly can't switch to Clan's because a couple IS players quit? Jesus. You can want to have all the fluffy lore stuff you want, but this is still a business and needs to have fair rules in place for everyone. You can't just screw people because you feel one faction needs more players than another. That's atrociously bad business.

Quote

4) current balance is fine for QP so have lore numbers for FP "simulation" and current balancing for QP. That simple.

Wait, you want to have a fully different set of weapon stats/etc for QP and for FP? Is that really what you're saying? Because that's an atrociously terrible idea. Maybe I'm misreading that, so I won't bother going into WHY it's a terrible idea, and I'll just accept I'm probably misunderstanding you.

Quote

There are plenty of other games that handle balancing in much the same way, so it shouldn't be that hard to implement. I just think PGI lacks the hubris to admit they messed up and fix it.

Plenty of other games? Like what? Name some.