221 replies to this topic

[JC Daxion]

Deathlike, on 05 November 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

But people are repeating all the same mistakes and drawing flawed conclusions... such as "LRMs need nerfing" or "we need autoaim to balance out TTK".

It's not like the brown sea of potatoes are producing anything remotely close to intelligent discourse that actually is meaningful. At least comp play shows how flawed a basic player's perception of the game actually is.

The sad part is you think that people don't understand the comp play, or see what it is. It's always been a chase meta, and what ever mech gives any bonus.. It is nothing about Clan or IS, IT is what ever mech has the biggest advantage at that time. Be it hitbox, or range, or alpha, or movement or what ever..

What ever mech has the combo that fits best into what it is at that given time is what is popular.

That is not what the base game is, Nor should it ever be..


Should SOME comp issue be looked at.. of course, because they are typically min/maxing something and taking advantage of a certain aspect of the game. But man, get off your high horse for just once. And except that there are other aspects and people that do understand the game that are also NOT COMP ISSUES and are more than just Git Gud, or what ever other disparaging remark that you feel the need to make.

And maybe they need to be a bit more on the ball with taking the top performers down a notch too. Engine desync was a big part of that, and more could be done, but the nature of mix and match+ omni makes that incredibly hard. So the greater picture needs to be looked at.. what ever the comp guys are running at for a while, they get to do that.. Because making a game that is only balanced at comp level would be a incredibly bad game to play on so many levels.



The point of this topic was about the omni system.. and i already made a huge list of mechs that got better because of the omni system.. Summoner, mist linx, Kitfox, ACH, Ebon, ect and a bunch of others to varying degrees. I guess i am just imaging those buffs all those mechs got, or advantages those mechs can have during a meta shift.. Unlike the IS mechs, that get the meta shift and the mech gets tossed, and then they find the next over quirked meta.

Yes there needs to be more balance between clans and IS not relying on quirks as much.. But i certainly don't want to play a game that IS and Clans are exactly the same and just different skins.

Edited by JC Daxion, 09 November 2017 - 11:40 AM.

[MischiefSC]

JC Daxion, on 09 November 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

The sad part is you think that people don't understand the comp play, or see what it is. It's always been a chase meta, and what ever mech gives any bonus.. It is nothing about Clan or IS, IT is what ever mech has the biggest advantage at that time. Be it hitbox, or range, or alpha, or movement or what ever..

What ever mech has the combo that fits best into what it is at that given time is what is popular.

That is not what the base game is, Nor should it ever be..


Should SOME comp issue be looked at.. of course, because they are typically min/maxing something and taking advantage of a certain aspect of the game. But man, get off your high horse for just once. And except that there are other aspects and people that do understand the game that are also NOT COMP ISSUES and are more than just Git Gud, or what ever other disparaging remark that you feel the need to make.

And maybe they need to be a bit more on the ball with taking the top performers down a notch too. Engine desync was a big part of that, and more could be done, but the nature of mix and match+ omni makes that incredibly hard. So the greater picture needs to be looked at.. what ever the comp guys are running at for a while, they get to do that.. Because making a game that is only balanced at comp level would be a incredibly bad game to play on so many levels.



The point of this topic was about the omni system.. and i already made a huge list of mechs that got better because of the omni system.. Summoner, mist linx, Kitfox, ACH, Ebon, ect and a bunch of others to varying degrees. I guess i am just imaging those buffs all those mechs got, or advantages those mechs can have during a meta shift.. Unlike the IS mechs, that get the meta shift and the mech gets tossed, and then they find the next over quirked meta.

Yes there needs to be more balance between clans and IS not relying on quirks as much.. But i certainly don't want to play a game that IS and Clans are exactly the same and just different skins.

It's not about 'balancing for comp'. I think you're missing things a bit on that.

The value of comp for balancing is simply that at a comp level of play the difference in player skill is the narrowest. So for testing viability of performance comp play is useful because it does the best job of solving for player skill.

So you use comp for balance specifically because it gives you the cleanest view of how mechs/builds/weapons/tech perform relative to each other when player skill is solved for, and what people gravitate to for successful performance and why.

I never have and never will play at a comp level, vast majority of players won't. That's irrelevant to the pursuit of game balance, which exists independent of player skill. Balance is balance. 10 x 1 lb weights is the same as 1 x 10lb weight. That's balance. Two separate things that are equal in their result.

If something is only balanced because the people you're using it against are bad, it's not actually balanced.

[Jackal Noble]

MischiefSC, on 09 November 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

It's not about 'balancing for comp'. I think you're missing things a bit on that.

The value of comp for balancing is simply that at a comp level of play the difference in player skill is the narrowest. So for testing viability of performance comp play is useful because it does the best job of solving for player skill.

So you use comp for balance specifically because it gives you the cleanest view of how mechs/builds/weapons/tech perform relative to each other when player skill is solved for, and what people gravitate to for successful performance and why.

I never have and never will play at a comp level, vast majority of players won't. That's irrelevant to the pursuit of game balance, which exists independent of player skill. Balance is balance. 10 x 1 lb weights is the same as 1 x 10lb weight. That's balance. Two separate things that are equal in their result.

If something is only balanced because the people you're using it against are bad, it's not actually balanced.

That's like asking why evolution made flamingoes. I jest.

Edited by JackalBeast, 09 November 2017 - 01:52 PM.

[moerker]

Best option would be to remove either Clan mechs or IS. Or just keep them seperate. Never face each other.

[Koniving]

davoodoo, on 05 November 2017 - 06:07 AM, said:

Battletech favors battletech playstyle, got ya...

battletech mechs are all about alphas.

Actually...

It depends on the "Alpha" definition.
Battletech "alpha" as in firing all weapons... isn't firing all weapons at once but firing all weapons in a 10 second turn.
That's 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi, 6 Mississippi, 7 Mississippi, 8 Mississippi, 9 Mississippi, 10 Mississippi.

If you look at Solaris Rules, you'll see how this plays out in its 2.5 second turns...




They divide the turns by 4... and in order to not have players dividing the heatsinks by 4 and max heat by 4 (in order to avoid the situation where some weapons would cause you to overheat by just pulling the trigger due to how BT front loads heat), they instead times the weapon heat by 4, and the max heat by 4.

Lets say you fire 3 large lasers in the 2.5 second scale.
That's 96 heat out of 120. Or 75% heat.
Now lets say you fire 3 large lasers at the 10 second scale.
That's 24 out of 30 heat, or 75% heat.

So whether you "alpha" in BT or in Solaris, you still haven't "truly alpha" like in MWO.

In Solaris you can fire them much closer together, as they're in 2.5 seconds.
So lets see what that does cooling wise. Lets assume 10 DHS.
96 out of 120.. 75% heat... - 20 (in 2.5 seconds, which would be 80 in 10 seconds). 76 out of 120, 63.33% heat.
In BT, with 10 seconds time to fire your weapons...
24 out of 30... 75% heat. - 20 (in 10 seconds). 4 out of 30 or 13.33% heat.

But in Solaris,in 10 seconds...
96 out of 120... 75% heat. (- 20 - 20 - 20 - 20 = -80) = 16 out of 120 or 13.33% heat.

In other words, 30 is the maximum threshold of Classic Battletech. This is why there are shut down risks from 46.67% heat onward. Not because you'd actually shut down at that level, but regardless of your heatsinks if you're at 46.67% heat after cooling, chances are strong that your weapons could have hit over 30 (or in the case of Solaris 120) if fired too closely together, and the risk of shutting down gets higher as you go up because as the heat increases, the difficulty of spacing your weapons to fire at different times becomes harder and harder and harder and harder until it becomes impossible to avoid hitting 100% heat by spacing the weapons out.

As an example, a Warhawk can't Real Alpha four ER PPCs. But you can Battletech Alpha them, because you can space them out across 10 seconds. You can't Solaris alpha four ER PPCs either, its impossible. You might get away with two, and even then you gotta wait til the 5 to 7.5 second mark (third turn) before you can fire one more. Then you gotta wait til the 7.5 to 10 second mark (fourth turn) before you can fire another and by then you've hit three chances of shutting down depending on exactly "when" the pilot fired, as you could still hit that threshold even with the waiting.

In conclusion... its never been about the alpha strike.

And it couldn't be...


Because like all MW games before it, there's a Target Interlock circuit. Its far more restrictive than the MW versions, too. The weapons are tied by the group AND to a SET range.
And this is the only way to fire more than one weapon at a time.
Except for the perverbial Alpha Strike key... which as I said gets its own rules, its a everything hits or doesn't on a single roll, split between three body sections as appropriate for the weapon placement, and the heat can kill the pilot doing it.
Even if the heat isn't that bad, you still get about 4 of them after which the pilot is "dead". Not "Really dead" (where they can't be revived) but effectively dead.

So imagine if you could only "True Alpha" 4 times in MWO and you're dead. That's Battletech.

[Battlemaster56]

Such dark magic... Bringing the dead back to life.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

there a real reason this thread was necro'd?

[MischiefSC]

Also 50/50 chance of hitting a target at 180m with a medium laser in a random location.

Let's not forget terrible builds all around!

There is a ton of mechanics in the table top turn based strategy that are not fun for FPS.

[PocketYoda]

The reason Clan are so op is simple..

Heat sink boating allows weapon boating which literally allows them destroy everything in seconds and they do not shut down..

That is the clan op.. Everything else like top speeds, range, agility and higher damage is just the icing on the cake of IS doom..

[Variant1]

I think the problem with is vs clan balance has more to do with lazer range. Clans medium can hit as far as a is large laser which is ridiculous. Its worsened by the fact that weapon nodes can increase their effectiveness by alot. Which is why i prefer how mw4 balanced clan vs IS lazers, is have less range but generate less heat/faster cooldown where as claners have slightly more range for some extra heat/cooldown only having like 100 more range. This is how clan vs is lazers should be clanners should only have 100-200 range adantage not 300+, that extra range is too advantageous since long range poke is too favored amond maps. Also weapon nodes need to be removed, weapons in mechwarrior series have a fixed range for a reason, the weapon nodes cause an insane unbalance to the core balance of weapons in mwo. just my 2 centurions

Edited by Variant1, 22 April 2018 - 08:59 AM.

[LordNothing]

Viktor Drake, on 05 November 2017 - 07:01 AM, said:

I agree with the Energy Draw. I too think there is just too much alpha-warrior online. It is just way to easy to put all your weapons on one mouse button and click your way to victory. The game would be much better if you were forced to cycle through groups of weapons around 30 damage each group. TTK would dramatic go up and the game would require a bit more skill than currently. Also the builds would tend to fall more into line with traditional Battletech, mixed weapons builds rather than boating all one type of weapon to get that one click alpha build going. Hell maybe they would even revert the horrid medium laser rebalancing they did last patch.

the problem with energy draw was that it applied to all weapons and not just the laser vomit problem. they also tacked on annoying mechanics that ultimately killed it. sledge hammer for a job that needed a screw driver. all you needed was diminishing returns for boating, you didnt need to cripple every weapon in the game and make it annoying. ghost heat technically does this but in a very unintuitive (and circumventable) way.

my rebuttal was a 3 bar system that affected different weapons in different ways based on their type. missiles would get ghost spread, ballistics would get recoil, and lasers would get more or less a ghost heat redux (based on damage output rather than arbitrary gh groups). it would promote mixed builds and reduce the effectiveness of boating, and especially kill laser vomit. but pgi and good ideas are like oil and water.

e: damn it and your nekro shenanigans!

Edited by LordNothing, 22 April 2018 - 09:26 AM.

[Oberost]

moerker, on 22 April 2018 - 04:10 AM, said:

Best option would be to remove either Clan mechs or IS. Or just keep them seperate. Never face each other.

[Tarl Cabot]

Koniving, on 22 April 2018 - 04:43 AM, said:

Actually...

snip...

The funny thing is with Solaris 7 boardgame then the three MPBT series and the MW titles, how the weapon cooldown (delay) where changed with MWO. MWO started closer to those cooldowns but with the mechs available at the time for the early beta FF group, they hollered they could not fire often enough, did not matter they were playing it more like it was FFA instead of unit-orientation with focus fire. Then once the cooldown timers were drastically cut, then the cry that mechs were dying too fast, leading to doubling of armor points/ton, as well as the byproduct of doubling of internal structure pts/ton (thanks coders!!! ).

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 22 April 2018 - 01:50 PM.

[Koniving]

Tarl Cabot, on 22 April 2018 - 01:49 PM, said:

The funny thing is with Solaris 7 boardgame then the three MPBT series and the MW titles, how the weapon cooldown (delay) where changed with MWO. MWO started closer to those cooldowns but with the mechs available at the time for the early beta FF group, they hollered they could not fire often enough, did not matter they were playing it more like it was FFA instead of unit-orientation with focus fire. Then once the cooldown timers were drastically cut, then the cry that mechs were dying too fast, leading to doubling of armor points/ton, as well as the byproduct of doubling of internal structure pts/ton (thanks coders!!! ).

Far as I know, many weapons started with 4 second cooldowns, with a few having much higher cool downs. But I was here before the double armor/structure. Part of the issue was the hitbox encompassed the entire head. Which isn't a terrible issue other than sometimes it was too large, it should have encompassed parts of the head with less front loaded weapons...

A big issue with MWO is how front loaded their weapons are, however. Yes, an AC/5 can deliver five damage every X often on Solaris. On the sheet, the delay is 5 seconds (The firing turn (2.5 seconds) + 1 turn without being able to use it is another 2.5 seconds, ending at 5 seconds or turn 3.) in Solaris, so 1 second longer than MWO's delay time for MOST weapons like the AC/20 or medium laser originally.

(Remember, for EVERYTHING below, assume an Atlas of stock 608 armor and 313 structure actually has the tabletop 304 points of armor and 152 structure... and that all other mechs are similarly "tabletop" armor/structure. As such it won't take as much to kill, which helps due to how much more spread damage would be.)

But, one must remember that BATTLETECH itself is FRONT LOADED already. The highest calibers that AC/5s come in is 120mm, like the GM Whirlwind/5. That's three shells as a "Painfully slow" 1 shell per second. So it'd be doing 1.67 damage every second. (Pull trigger, 0 second, 1 second, 2 second, reload 3 seconds, 4 seconds, 5 seconds ready to fire.)
Meanwhile lower caliber AC/5s could pepper more spray at less damage per shell but pretty often. Some never stopped to reload, but didn't pump the damage as quickly so while the GM Whirlwind/5 has a 'front loaded' 5 damage in 2 seconds, another AC/5 might have pumped bullets pretty non-stop but only net 5 damage in... (and given these I would let them net their damage quicker to make up for their DPS nature by giving them an edge over time opposed to front loaded ACs, so 5 damage in 4 seconds before starting again).

Spoiler

Lets assume the 60mm AC/5 given as an example pumping 8 to 10 shells per second, and say it is 8, that it gets 5 damage in 4 seconds. That's 32 shots = 5 damage. This is actually a bit much, so we'll cut this DPS variant to 3 seconds and actually 10 shots, so 30 shots = 5 damage in 3 seconds. So it has an edge over other AC/5s, but it also has spread. That's a very MWO-ish way of doing it.

Of course we'd have to redesign RAC/5s a bit, they'd have to actually do some good damage to be RAC/5s compared to some variants of AC/5...

In other words, even with the painfully slow one, we could shoot even faster than we do now, do less damage, and have lower alphas. Also lower heat, so the super high thresholds that allow insane alphas would be unnecessary. You'd do something similar with lasers, which eliminates the extreme lethality of laser vomit. I'm not gonna get into major ideas here, but if say PGI did a power drain mechanic, one medium laser could do 5 damage, 2 would do 5 damage together, but be able to fire again twice as soon, 5 might do 5 damage together but be able to fire 5 times as frequently... Meh... Just a random thought.

One could balance out the extreme weight and 'spread' of the non-front loaded bullets by using Battletech's rapid fire AC rule, which allows normal ACs to meet the firing rate of Ultra ACs, but at the risk of jamming, damage and explosions if they are pushed. Ultras would just have the risk of jamming. Even had a heat system for the weapons to be able to know how pushed they are... PGI used something almost identical for the way RACs work in MWO.

Anyway then certain front loaded weapons like PPCs can have the wallop of lore, they're siege cannons used to breach heavy structural walls and those pesky gates that we can't seem to pass in MWO... Gauss Rifles could then be a real threat. And in return for their awesome power... the slower reload times. The immense heat. Etc.

Also, weapon variants would then be possible.

I did this breakdown of Atlases once. You might enjoy it. It gave variations on the ACs and the laser weapons.

Spoiler

Koniving, on 06 August 2014 - 07:47 AM, said:

I know none of this works in MWO, and the favoritism came with a few things (to include ECM on a mech that doesn't carry it mainly due to the lore reason "there isn't even enough room to properly mount a proper LRM-20"). So instead lets take a minute to look at the Atlases in the source material to make some sense out of them, and to have an idea of what the game could have been like with some intelligent design.

Energy hardpoints and Atlas Cockpit to Dual Cockpit design.

Spoiler

The Atlas in lore has medium lasers that we're going to assume had to be fired 3 times in a firing cycle (1 firing cycle = 1 rating of damage and heat, so firing its lasers 3 times is 1.666666666666667 damage per firing + 1 heat per firing per medium laser, totalling 5 damage and 3 heat).

The Atlas K's ER Large Lasers, they fired twice in a single rating, providing 4 damage on target (with 6 heat, out of 8 damage total and 12 heat). (Inner Sphere Large Lasers are known to fire up to 4 times in a single rating to get 8 damage).

Now with the Atlas K, with hotter weapons you might wonder what the logical sense would be in mounting hotter rear-facing lasers as well. Pulse lasers in lore are rapid fire 'machine gun' lasers so to speak. Instead of 4 heat and 6 damage per beam it varied depending on the variants. The Atlas K's MPL shot count per rating is not mentioned, unfortunately, but they have gone up to '20' per rating from what I had seen. If it is 20, then that's 0.3 damage and 0.2 heat per shot, with an automatic fire (which is very handy considering that it's a rear mounted gun that you can't focus on). So it wasn't actually hotter (sure hotter over time) but very cool and manageable. Especially since you only got 1 to 2 uses out of them in 10 seconds depending on the ruleset, and honestly Solaris VII lore specifically separates itself from Battletech in saying that all mechs are modified to do less damage and draw the fight out as long as possible, so while the ratings are not changed to prevent confusion, the game overall forces more chain firing and the like.

(Continued)Two MPL together at the 20 shot rating make 0.6 damage and 0.4 heat per squeeze, making trying to sneak up on an Atlas (who isn't busy) a very deadly thing to do as a light or medium mech when you consider an Atlas actually had 404 points of armor and a Hunchback had 160 points of armor. Of course, that's the worst case scenario, Atlas K's MPL shot count has never been fluffed and it could easily be something like 6 shots in a 'use' or 3 shots in a use. But the fewer the shots, the higher the damage and heat per shot to fit that rating we go, the harder or more impractical it is to use.
------
Cockpits.
The Atlas D-DC sacrificed the torso lasers as well as lost 1 ton of LRM storage to make room for the weighty equipment involved in its Dual Cockpit design.

Unlike ALL OTHER Atlases who are controlled with the pilot sitting in the middle of the head looking through the NOSE, the Atlas D-DC is controlled from the eyeballs. The Right eye is specified as the command chair and the Left eye is specified as the primary cockpit.

Where most dual cockpit setups have one pilot controls the navigation while the other controls the weapon systems, this one gives full control to EITHER pilot but only one can have control at any one time. The primary pilot typically has the controls while the Command Chair has the battlegrid up giving out orders to an entire company. If the primary pilot is killed or knocked out, the commander can take the controls. This could be done in a number of ways in MWO, to include two separate head hitboxes with half armor/structure on each meaning a single headshot would never kill the D-DC.

Ballistics.

Spoiler

It is important to note that aside from the head and wirings on the inner body, the Atlas D and D-DC are identical.

The Atlas D and D-DC's AC/20 fires 15 shots to do 20 damage (1.333333333333333 damage per round; typical of all 100mm ACs of EVERY classification). All 15 shots count as a single use, and the reasoning behind the limited range is the recoil that it produces will jerk on the torso, raising it upward. Its accuracy is significantly better while stationary of course, allowing (and this is covered in TT) it to (within reason) hit targets nearly twice its stated range with accuracy provided the pilot has a decent gunnery skill. In 15 shots, the total 7 heat is divided across 15 meaning each shot generated "0.467 (rounded)" heat per shot. Note the Atlas is only intended to have one autocannon. With 6 ratings per ton of ammunition it was factually 90 shots per ton. The 100mm Deathgiver is an automatic type (has only a cooldown per shot, does not use magazines/cassettes, in MWO's time line it'd fire 1 shot every 0.267 seconds. In FASA's time line it fires 1 shot every 0.667 seconds).

Note the autocannon fire.

(In true PGI fashion, they have an Atlas "Combine" aka Atlas C, the aka the 'completed' Atlas K, and it has gone over 40 years into the past....)

The Atlas RS starts with an AC/10. The variant isn't specified but in the book Binding Force, the Atlas RS there has a 120mm AC/10 that fired 5-6 shots per rating. Keeping consistent most other entries for 120mm, 6 shots fits the 3/6/12 pattern of AC/5 through AC/20 for 120mm, which means the RS's AC/10 does (1.666666666666667 damage) per shot, more than the Atlas's AC/20, but its firing rate is slower and in the time the Atlas D's AC/20 pumps out 15 shots, the Atlas RS will have pumped out 6 (Atlas D thusly doing 20 damage and Atlas RS only doing 10). The AC/10's heat at 6 shots was 2 per shot. At 6 shots per rating it has 10 ratings per ton (60 shots). Its firing rate in MWO would be one shot every 0.4167 seconds given PGI's faster rate of fire given to it. In BT its rate of fire would be 1.67 seconds per shot. Slower, but slightly harder hitting than the AC/20 of the D and D-DC. (At the same caliber, an AC/20 would fire exactly twice as fast as an AC/10).

The Atlas K's Gauss Rifle is especially devastating, 15 damage in a single shot. The Gauss Rifle could not be fired at the same time as its ER Large Lasers, however. (Again, purely book stuff). In MWO it does 45 damage in 10.25 seconds. In BT it would do 15 every 10 seconds with exactly one use hit or miss. Given BT rules on charging the Gauss Rifle, you'd tap its fire key once to charge it (and when charged its capacitors will hold that charge so you can use other weapons after it is charged) and tap it again to fire. The charge could be held indefinitely but the Rifle could easily explode if damaged while charged. It won't explode when not charged.

Now count the tubes here before continuing. How many holes in the left shoulder? 6. How many in the pack on the left? 5.


And the paragraph that explains why the 5 tube launcher is the LRM-20 of old, and how the Atlas K is different.


Missile hardpoints.

Spoiler

The Atlas in lore fired 5 missiles at a time...
"For long ranges, the 'Mech carries a FarFire Maxi-Rack LRM-20 in the left torso that allows it to both fire directly at an enemy target at long range, and to give indirect fire support when needed. Unable to fit a full twenty-tube system on the 'Mech, the FarFire instead launches the missiles in waves of five over the course of ten seconds and carries two tons of reloads for twelve such salvos."
Each missile does "1 damage" which in MWO would be 2 damage if you compare the armor ratios. This combined with MOST mechs not having any form of AMS was pretty decent. However it could not rely on spotting information from other mechs, it does not have a C3 computer system. Instead it uses line of sight exclusively, or pulls up a battlegrid and selects coordinates to send the missiles at like artillery.
Which compared was superior to the lasers (except in the Atlas K's case) and that one LRM-20 outdid its SRM-6 launcher, which only fired once and didn't reload as quickly. Of course its SRMs homed in, too. Only the Ballistic weapon (or the ER LLs of the Atlas K) was better than its 5 tubed LRM launcher.

The Atlas K however sports the only change in missiles. The side pack for LRMs is removed and the SRM rack is replaced with a 10 tube LRM-20. [Very specifically in the MRM [Medium Range Missile] lore, it is mentioned that an SRM-6 and a 10 tube LRM/MRM rack launcher are interchangeable. This is because SRM missiles are fatter, taking more space, and thus the LRM/MRM rack could replace it with ease so long as it was up to 10 tubes].

Meanwhile it should be noted that an Atlas cools with its stock configuration in 15 seconds from an overheat to 0 under nominal temperatures using standard heatsinks. (The same speed as 10 DHS would if thresholds didn't rise). At any one point in time, 50% heat (or 15 units of heat, 1 ER PPC -- it should be noted that ER PPCs in lore do not instantly generate their heat but build it over time) is the beginning of a 3% shutdown risk. Much like any other mech (who usually cool slower), the Atlas cannot generate more than 30 heat at once without a huge risk to itself. Therefore, it is perfectly viable as is if this game was done correctly and actually looked at the lore.

But we have rising thresholds (which when you add heatsinks you are adding cooling over time which thusly helps your mech fit all of its queued firepower into 10 seconds, in MWO you are adding cooling over time AND maximum heat/alpha potential). We also have PGI's belief that "1 AC/20 use in tabletop must be 1 shot" rather than 1 AC/20 use is 1 AC/20 use.
(For the Victor 1 AC/20 use is actually 100 shots, for the largest IS AC/20 it's actually 4 shots, and thus it can be anywhere from 4 to 100 shots for an IS AC/20; the typical range is in the area of 100mm (15 shots) to 120mm (12 shots).)

And so, the balance of things is pretty out of whack. With each patch PGI conjures up its own balance, and while this makes some weapons more practical against mechs (AC/2s for example), the purpose of the weapons is getting increasingly warped and lost.

In trying the MWO meta in BT, it doesn't work. Even with a perfect 0/0 pilot who can make jumpjet landings with only one leg from the PRONE position while under fire, the weapons are virtually worthless. I've tried many combinations. Twin PPC + AC/5 with max armor, JJs, Endo, etc. for a Shadowhawk. LRM boats. 6 SRM-6s (kept overheating), 5 Streak-6s (rarely would fire, tried it again with Streak-4s and streak-2s and it turned out to be best and most viable to carry Streak 2s). Every feasible meta in MWO failed in BT as absolutely worthless. Even changing to Solaris Rules, these mechs were being creamed by Locusts, being creamed by STOCK mechs, being creamed by tanks, jeeps with SRM-launchers, just..absolutely worthless.

But it's meta here, and it's entirely due to PGI's own version of balancing.

More on missiles; particularly minimum range

Spoiler

Oh, and don't forget even at 30 meters an Inner Sphere LRM can still do full damage, the minimum range is NOT an arming range but a to hit chance. I had a tank with LRM-5s and hit 3 out of many targets with the LRM-5s as well as killing the Atlas as seen in this image. Supposedly, unless "Hotloaded," LRMs are actually NOT loaded into the launcher until after told to fire, hence that minimum range (it's because the target is close enough to see the missiles being loaded and dodge). When hotloaded however, the missiles could detonate if the launcher is hit. Clan mech LRMs are always hot-loaded. (There's another balancing technique right there, but failure to look at lore leaves us with many missed balancing opportunities).

The Clan / IS Gauss + PPC meta.

Spoiler

Now when you consider the lore, the ER PPC + Gauss meta the Clans are using would never happen. 2 ER PPCs at the same time is too much heat (30 heat hit at any point in time before it is cooled would be an instant shutdown; of course ER PPCs and PPCs charge up; ER PPCs with a shorter charge up time thus no minimum range, but this charge up spreads the heat so that a single ER PPC can't trigger a shutdown. How much it spreads varies with the variant).

ER PPC + Gauss at the same time is too much energy draw. Over 10 seconds it's perfectly fine, shot one at a time. You can also easily make 4 ER PPCs work in 10 seconds. But at the same time the engine would shutdown and the heat would cause the Gauss Rifles to explode, rapidly disabling the mech if not instantly killing it.

-------------
But all of this is just some food for thought.

If only if PGI had some foresight, or at the very least read some of the manuals with an open mind. The basic Solaris rulebook doesn't cover it, and in fact is very screwed to begin with.

Also.
This is ANCIENT... but...


(Last edit I swear.)

Edited by Koniving, 22 April 2018 - 02:50 PM.

[Chiasson Brinker]

JC Daxion, on 05 November 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

*SNIP*

Long story short, the Clans aren't balanced because they were never meant to be.

[panzer1b]

The ONLY reason clam is so good is because they have MANY mechs that are capable of killing or neutering a full HP target with but 2 very well placed shots at mid-long range. Yes, IS does have mechs capable of this, but you are looking at severe limitations to that ability, namely short range and subpar mobility.

Aside from that, IS has more viable playstyles and builds. They can sorta equal clam at extremely long ranges due to quirks and hardpoint locs on certain mechs like the ERLL battlemaster, and better ERPPC velocity (makes a huge difference at 1.5km ranges). IS also has very strong PPFLD dakka builds, like 2-3 AC-10, 4-6 AC5/UAC5. FInally, you just cant compare brawling, where IS has a massive advantage (AC20, SRMs, SPPC, MRM, ect), and clan has very very few mechs to even consider in a brawling environment (linebackers are decent, orion 2c isnt too bad, ect, but most are terrible at this).

Still, the most dominant playstyle at higher levels is raw alfa damage trading, and clam does that best if you want to do it at mid-long ranges (most high tier strats dont rely on DPS or brawl).

[MischiefSC]

If Anni got minor nerfs KDK3 could beat it, as could Boiler, MC MKII and some MAD IIC builds. If any Clan light was in Div 1 you'd see no Anni.

If maps were bigger you'd see no IS mechs.

[Blood Rose]

You know, it strikes me as ironic that not one person has suggested the really logical and obvious solution to this
Historical matchups
In Battletech you did not have mixed Clan and IS teams, you might have the occasional Clan mech in an IS lineup and vice versa. In Battletech it was usually on vs the other.
How was this balanced you ask? Well, in several ways, but the fluff one was in the size of an equivalent unit.
IS units where organised into Lances of 4 mechs whilst Clans where in Star's of 5. Sound balanced? No, it is not, until you consider that this is a Company level game, not a Platoon one.
An IS mech company consists of 3 Lances, totalling 12 Mechs whereas a Clan Binary (equivalent to a Company) consists of 2 Star's, totalling 10 Mechs.

So the game would become mostly IS vs mostly Clan for a 12 vs 10 in favour of the IS.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Blood Rose, on 22 April 2018 - 03:17 PM, said:

You know, it strikes me as ironic that not one person has suggested the really logical and obvious solution to this
Historical matchups

It has been suggested ad nauseam, just not in this thread.

It has been discussed to death.

[Wil McCullough]

There had better be an update by thursday on the outcome of mcgral vs jackal.

#orriot

More on topic though, as a clam mech user, clams op. Cxl is really ridiculous. I do think isxl should keep 1hko sts, but the tradeoff for that needs to be a lot better - they need to be able to pack on a lot more guns to make up for how fragile isxls are.