81 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Aim64C, on 23 July 2017 - 09:28 AM, said:

To put this all into context, my laser-vomit Battlemaster can put out something like a 56 point alpha that will take a ghost heat penalty. 4 LPLs and 2 ERMLs My laser-vomit Supernova can pull a 78 point alpha with no ghost heat and survive side torso destruction. 2HLL, 6 ERMLs.

Sure, there are mild operating differences - the Battlemaster is faster; but I am running an XL in it to give it that mobility. I have considered putting in an LFE, but we'll have to see. That will require a drop in rating and will lose me a few heat sinks. I'm usually on the verge of being cored by time I die to a side torso hit, anyway - so I doubt it will improve my survivability much.

The weapon difference is notable - the damage duration is much shorter on my battlemaster than on the supernova - but from my own rounds in playing, I'd say the supernova still outshines the battlemaster by having arm mounted weapons that can easily track or even fire on a target while I have my torso twisted to protect a component.

I vaporized a raven in a single alpha from my supernova. I've never done that in my battlemaster under similar scenarios.

It's not the 3ERPPC "Commando Disintegration Ray" from years back (Blackjack 1-X with 3 ERPPC in one arm - guaranteed to hit on one armor location), but it still will open up the armor on most 'mechs in a little over a second.

And that is in lasers - a weapon system the IS had the most parity with Clans against. (Missiles are half the weight and a fraction of the criticals, ballistics are minus a couple tons and criticals...).

The only real thing going for the IS vs Clans was the hilariously limited nature of Omnimechs relative to standard 'mechs. That flew out the window with the IICs and the standard mech variants coming out for the Clans. Now, the same aggressive min/max strategies that allowed the Inner Sphere to be relatively competitive against the Clans are becoming more prominent within the Clan mechs, themselves.

Improve your builds a bit. There's no reason for you to run a 56 point alpha that runs through ghost heat. Yeonne shows a build that gets a 55 point alpha that is ghost heat free and runs an LFE350.

Also arm mounted weapons are inferior to the torso mounts when comparing Supernova and Battlemaster because the Supernova must come out of cover much more than the Battlemaster to take shots on people. Not to mention the Supernova is capped at a 325 rated engine compared to Battlemasters going up to 400, leaving the Supernova as a slow assault that loses to the Battlemaster in everything but pod space available for putting in heatsinks to cool the lasers it carries. In a 1v1 the Battlemaster is most likely to win due to having arm shields and better hitboxes which can be used to easily torso twist away the damage from the long duration clan lasers.

[Clydewinder]

Victor and Highlander laugh at complaints of past, present, and future Clan "nerfs"

[Y E O N N E]

Dakota1000, on 23 July 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

Improve your builds a bit. There's no reason for you to run a 56 point alpha that runs through ghost heat. Yeonne shows a build that gets a 55 point alpha that is ghost heat free and runs an LFE350.

And it has essentially perfectly synchronized lasers. That 10% duration quirk for Medium lasers also applies to ERML, meaning it has a 0.675 second duration on ERML. It is the same thing as the old 5x LPL build, only now you can alpha-strike with it instead of having to stagger 3+2. It's very powerful inside its own range bracket, better than any laser vomit that a MAD-IIC can mount, IMHO, though with the caveat being that is because the cMPL don't have 2x max range (I think PGI can stand to restore that, too).

[Spheroid]

I found that Banshee a bit hot for my tastes but to each their own.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Clydewinder, on 23 July 2017 - 11:49 AM, said:

Victor and Highlander laugh at complaints of past, present, and future Clan "nerfs"

Neither of those mechs are even bad anymore, they're quite capable at brawling or PPFLD builds and if you invest into the jump jet tree they can poptart fine, especially the Victor.

Its not the old days of being able to jump up with one jump jet and fire while holding the jets, but that's a nerf to any mech with jump jets that's really hurt mechs such as the Dire Wolf-S, Executioner, and Summoner much more, especially Executioner with no ability to remove its 8 tons of hover jets if the pilot doesn't want to go jump jet tree.


Also, examples of some Victor and Highlander builds, spread the word they're good again.

Brawl Victor: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...6cf1d748843fe4b
PPFLD Highlander (35 frontloaded, 50 in short duration): http://mwo.smurfy-ne...8a6cd4f528fa93d
Poptart Victor: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c1c5773892ca66a
Poptart Highlander: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...050891428d10dae

Edited by Dakota1000, 23 July 2017 - 12:05 PM.

[Mestari]

It's all potato farming. Neither side is really "OP". Whichever side has the most bad players is the side that loses. 70% of this game is in the mechlab, you bring bad builds, you lose. Simple as that.

Also teamwork op.

Edited by Mestari, 23 July 2017 - 11:57 AM.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Mestari, on 23 July 2017 - 11:57 AM, said:

It's all potato farming. Neither side is really "OP". Whichever side has the most bad players is the side that loses. 70% of this game is in the mechlab, you bring bad builds, you lose. Simple as that.

Also teamwork op.

Neither side was "OP", but the problem was that a huge number of chassis on the IS side were basically irredeemably bad- far more than on Clans. A casual player trying to make a drop deck under the 3-variant mastery system would be lucky to have even one good variant with them- nevermind the entire deck.

Good IS teams were of course competitive with strong decks, but at the average level it was much easier for Clan players to massage their deck into something decent.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Aggravated Assault Mech, on 23 July 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:

Neither side was "OP", but the problem was that a huge number of chassis on the IS side were basically irredeemably bad- far more than on Clans. A casual player trying to make a drop deck under the 3-variant mastery system would be lucky to have even one good variant with them- nevermind the entire deck.

Good IS teams were of course competitive with strong decks, but at the average level it was much easier for Clan players to massage their deck into something decent.

IS having much more open customization combined with many bad mechs really makes them a pretty bad new player trap. You see builds where people are moving 40kph and bringing one of every weapon and overheat every shot much more on the IS side than the Clan side, especially with omnimechs that restrict people from putting in a terribly bad engine anyway.

[Spheroid]

What needs to be implemented is a self-balancing mechanic that moves sharks to areas that are shark poor and potato rich. Right now the only motivator for merc contracts is faction population balance which is extremely poorly implemented.

If contracts were awarded to mercs based on the degree of territory control then the internal calculation of joy of clubbing vs. need to make money would be in effect.

Also the whole leaderboard for mercs needs to be abolished, the existence of an e-peen reward undermines the two other psychological motivators for space war which is the war economy for mercs and national pride for loyalists.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Spheroid, on 23 July 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

What needs to be implemented is a self-balancing mechanic that moves sharks to areas that are shark poor and potato rich. Right now the only motivator for merc contracts is faction population balance which is extremely poorly implemented.

If contracts were awarded to mercs based on the degree of territory control then the internal calculation of joy of clubbing vs. need to make money would be in effect.

Also the whole leaderboard for mercs needs to be abolished, the existence of an e-peen reward undermines the two other psychological motivators for space war which is the war economy for mercs and national pride for loyalists.

If PGI just didn't account for loyalists in the contract payout bonuses then the sharks would spread out a bit more. As it is now Davion and Wolf are known to be some of the weakest factions because mercs never join them because of all the loyalists, its especially bad when people just become a loyalist then never play FW, just means their faction is always a man down.

Besides that, clubbing generates a lot of money, much more than high contract bonuses against high level opponents would earn, as clubbing is just winning every time very quickly while high level fights have a 50-50 chance of a win and last longer, so lets say you play an hour, you could club in 4 15 minute matches and earn about 5 million cbills in that hour or you could play a couple matches against high level opponents, win one, lose one, make 2 million cbills at best.



So maybe if they cut loyalists out of the contract bonus entirely then boost the contract bonuses to about 500% then it *might* be a viable choice to not just club if you're farming money.

[Spheroid]

I know, I really want severe penalties to alter current behavior. Such as break even or lose money on a win type scenarios. Not enough experimental data exists to map out the pain threshold of the merc playerbase. I am all for that experiment.

Fronts needs to make a comeback, but to avoid population issues I propose that rival houses and clans can force share on offense sans contract bonus on a win.

Edited by Spheroid, 23 July 2017 - 12:28 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Spheroid, on 23 July 2017 - 12:27 PM, said:

I know, I really want severe penalties to alter current behavior. Such as break even or lose money on a win type scenarios. Not enough experimental data exists to map out the pain threshold of the merc playerbase. I am all for that experiment.

Fronts needs to make a comeback, but to avoid population issues I propose that rival houses and clans can force share on offense sans contract bonus on a win.

With how low population FW is, the only way you'd get people to play it more is if you did increase the rewards substantially, this could be done in a way that softly enforces the merc units splitting up.

Basically no one would play FW if you end up not getting any money on a win, and you can forget it if they're actually losing money.

[Spheroid]

If two potatoes remain instead of five driven off, then it is a net increase. I only said I wanted to experiment on the pain levels, positive and negative rewards would be effect. With fronts, the good sharks could be on the otherside of the innersphere, leading to "fun" potato vs. potato on the Davion-Liao front until such time as the market forces of greed summon the sharks to restore the frontier to historical pre-Forth Succession War borders. It would be essentially a rotating vacation from farming that slowly cycled around the star map until your faction dues came due.

Edited by Spheroid, 23 July 2017 - 12:45 PM.

[C4NC3R]

Stormcrow was and is an almost assault alike brawler, MadCat is and was the best mech closing gap between heavies and assaults having 2 in 1. Wub-SNova now have an "Blazer"-alike heavy energy builds turning her back into a walking DeathStar just melting every thing what comes into her aim.
One thing I have to admin, aading extra GH on Clams are actually NERF, also I think Clams must have back their C-ERPPC as it was at the beginning, cause we have IS match - HPPC. Just give IS their extra Capacitator module as it is according TRO.

Edited by C4NC3R, 23 July 2017 - 02:57 PM.

[Aim64C]

Dakota1000, on 23 July 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

Improve your builds a bit. There's no reason for you to run a 56 point alpha that runs through ghost heat. Yeonne shows a build that gets a 55 point alpha that is ghost heat free and runs an LFE350.

Know your place.

There is, actually. It's called cycle time and controlled exposure. I control, through positioning, which weapon mount is exposed and which weapon mount can deal damage. Proper grouping allows me to make sure I only fire weapons that are going to hit and not be clipped by a building.

The point is that even the best IS builds are going to cap around a 50 point alpha before hitting Ghost Heat while Clan builds can now hit over 70 point alphas without Ghost Heat... more if you want to go with heavy medium lasers or medium pulse lasers. I just like my ranges to be relatively similar in such builds so that I can minimize the number of weapon groups I need to run effectively and lock my 'mech into an optimal range I can focus on maintaining.

The problems with the 2LPL/6MPL build is the short range of the medium pulse lasers. While this build can be potent in close range battles, it's also bound by rather punishing range restrictions that are untenable in practice. The max range of medium pulse lasers are where the optimal ranges begin for the LPL and ER medium laser. While this build can potentially run&gun quite well at 250 meters - I'm tapping on them from 500 on in for full or almost full damage.

Ghost heat on my build is manageable if necessary - but is staved off by simply not mashing both mouse buttons down at the same time.

Quote

Also arm mounted weapons are inferior to the torso mounts when comparing Supernova and Battlemaster because the Supernova must come out of cover much more than the Battlemaster to take shots on people. Not to mention the Supernova is capped at a 325 rated engine compared to Battlemasters going up to 400, leaving the Supernova as a slow assault that loses to the Battlemaster in everything but pod space available for putting in heatsinks to cool the lasers it carries. In a 1v1 the Battlemaster is most likely to win due to having arm shields and better hitboxes which can be used to easily torso twist away the damage from the long duration clan lasers.

Not in my experience piloting both.

Not to say I can't kill myself in either build - but that the Battlemaster -must- use positioning to do this. One mistake and the battlemaster's firepower is halved in a firefight that was already substantially slanted against it in terms of raw firepower.

While the somewhat lower position of the lasers is a bit of an issue for the Supernova, the fact I can control which torso you hit WHILE striking/tracking you more than makes up for it. Unless you're stupid and make a habit of positioning yourself so that you have to use the horizon for cover.
Again, take any standard Clan chassis comparable to an Inner Sphere design. The Clan version is capable of mounting vastly superior weaponry, mobility, and armor. Period.

You can make quips back and forth about a specific chassis or another - but there's a reason we don't see the Jenner, anymore - but will occasionally see the IIC. There's a reason we don't see the Orion, anymore - but see the IIC on occasion. Hell, we even see the Linebacker yet can't find a Cataphract for the life of the game.

If you want to think a battlemaster can go toe-to-toe with a Supernova burning a 70+ point alpha, that's cool. It can be done. I'm telling you that it's not gong to go according to plan quite a bit more often than it does go according to plan simply because the Supernova has that much more firepower.

If you're relying on torso twist to protect your components, you've lost. You -must- turn full frontal to hit with the torso weapons. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to not mash the fire button and wait for you to begin to turn back around. While you're drawing a bead, I'm already melting away whatever it is I want. You either hold your stance to complete your own burn, or abandon it to try and protect your torso. Either way, the exchange largely goes in my favor. The advantage you have to play is peeking.

Although we also have to consider the fact that we aren't one-on-one. I generally don't shoot at things that are paying attention to me - that's just silly. You shoot at things that are shooting at your team mates. Either they are easily distracted and break their concentration on your buddy to try and shoot back at you... or they ignore you and let you rack up easy destruction. If you're one-on-one, that is a tactical failure or act of desperation playing out.

The reality is that I get orange armor and go "Oh, look at that..." from the Battlemaster's alpha. It's concerning, but I'm not about to start losing important stuff to missiles and light mechs decked out with machine guns. The battlemaster gets a laser burn that is no different from any other laser burn, and suddenly they have no armor. What the hell did that? Who knows - but by time you figure it out, it's going to do it again.

[Andi Nagasia]

El Bandito, on 22 July 2017 - 08:33 PM, said:

If I were to nitpick, IS ERML has 360 range, and HBK-4P has no range quirks. Dunno why you put 389 meters there. And Clan range is compounded by TCMK1 and the 15% range you get from skill nodes. So basically IS ERML reaches 857 meter max range, compared to CERML's 952 meters. About 50 meters difference in optimum range and 100 meters difference in max range.

And of course, HBK-IIC will have bigger heat capacity due to having more DHS in the first place, which will be augmented by Operations nodes. Heat dissipation is not the only factor at play here.

True but in my HBK-4P build i have a TC2(+8%BeamRange) thats where the 378Range comes in,
also if you were to take a DHS out of the HBK-IIC-A the Heat efficiency would go down to 54%(same as IS)
but in that case it would indeed be 378Range(IS+5%) to 408Range(IS+4%) so a 30m Difference which is ok,

its True the Clan HBK will get more out of the Operations Tree, But
its also True the IS HBK will get more out of the Defense Tree, so i guess its Balanced,

PS. i got the Range bonus Wrong on the TC2(it was +5% not +8%) sorry about that,

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 23 July 2017 - 04:29 PM.

[Andi Nagasia]

FallingAce, on 22 July 2017 - 11:51 PM, said:

Actually the number is 8%
https://www.reddit.c...all_transcript/
"Q: Recently posted IS/Clan balance was closer than ever before. You said 8%. How do you internalize your data to come up with such a comparison?

Chris: We pull data from servers. I can see how good mechs are performing across multiple different balance points. We can't get into specifics."

So the clans turned their 8% advantage into 28% more wins.

well actually,

Chris Lowrey, on 29 May 2017 - 10:01 AM, said:

• Inner Sphere to Clan balance in Win / Loss ratios between 'Mechs is the closest it has ever been within the game. With a global average performance difference of 6% between the factions. With the widest individual performance difference between 'Mech chassis' being 8%. While these numbers are the best that I have observed while part of the team, we are still of the opinion that these can be improved further. More on that below.

so Faction Balance(IS to Clan) win / loss have roughly a 6% global average performance difference,
with the largest Disparity between Mach Chassis being roughly around 8%,

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 23 July 2017 - 04:37 PM.

[Spheroid]

@Nagasia: A 50/50 ratio on a unified front leads to star map stagnation. However if that is the average value among all contested worlds then local variation can be meaningful.

Bias is both hated and needed for the current system to function. A unified front is terrible and is separate from unified buckets. We already had unified buckets prior to a single front. That system worked fine.

The only tweaks need to be expanding the shared bucket to offense and eliminating the status bar reset at ceasefire so that fewer players can effect territorial change over days and not eight hours which in the presence of a near even win ratio is highly unattainable/unlikely.

Edited by Spheroid, 23 July 2017 - 05:03 PM.

[Athom83]

Khobai, on 22 July 2017 - 05:21 PM, said:

of course theyre unhappy their stuff keeps getting nerfed. nobody likes their stuff getting nerfed.
instead of nerfing clan agility across the board.

I would be sympathetic... except I keep seeing clanners complain that they are being nerfed when the only change is a slight buff to IS. Seriously.

Khobai, on 22 July 2017 - 05:21 PM, said:

it wouldve been much more of a feel good change for everyone if PGI just buffed ISXL to survive side torso destruction.

Its from a TT rule of where you die if 3 engine critslots go.

[Andi Nagasia]

Spheroid, on 23 July 2017 - 05:02 PM, said:

@Nagasia: A 50/50 ratio on a unified front leads to star map stagnation. However if that is the average value among all contested worlds then local variation can be meaningful.

Bias is both hated and needed for the current system to function. A unified front is terrible and is separate from unified buckets. We already had unified buckets prior to a single front. That system worked fine.

The only tweaks need to be expanding the shared bucket to offense and eliminating the status bar reset at ceasefire so that fewer players can effect territorial change over days and not eight hours which in the presence of a near even win ratio is highly unattainable/unlikely.

agreed, but PGI does have better Stats then we do, as they see more of the Picture,
however i do agree Clan mechs are easier to get into, where IS mechs are more Specialized,