59 replies to this topic

[Athom83]

I am ashamed the community hasn't posted this yet.

[Jackal Noble]

Without breaking down into salty salty tears, please try and think of positive qualities/characteristics IS mechs have.
I'll start.
Ppfld ballistics that are fun as hell to use. Vs c-Uac that unless boated are unreliable and spray all over.

Edited by JackalBeast, 09 November 2017 - 07:16 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

JackalBeast, on 09 November 2017 - 07:15 AM, said:

Without breaking down into salty salty tears, please try and think of positive qualities/characteristics IS mechs have.
I'll start.
Ppfld ballistics that are fun as hell to use. Vs c-Uac that unless boated are unreliable and spray all over.

I mean, 2 projectile cUAC5s isn't THAT bad for spraying.

One of my favorite builds has 3 cUAC5s and 2 ER PPCs. On heavies you can do 2 cUAC5s and 2 ER PPCs and even that works pretty well.

I'm not braking into salty tears, and I do quite like the IS versions, like the MAD-3R, but it only works decently well because it still has that heat gen quirk and the PPC velocity quirk.. if you took those away it would be pretty bad.

For example, which is why it will be extremely difficult for the Thanatos to run that build... if it doesn't have the heat gen quirk, because that means you need an extra 3-4 tons for heat sinks, and the only way to do that is to run an XL.

[Jackal Noble]

The Thanatos....egad.
That thing had better come uber quirked out the box. What kind of hero comes with rocket launchers equipped lol.

Edited by JackalBeast, 09 November 2017 - 10:49 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

JackalBeast, on 09 November 2017 - 10:48 AM, said:

The Thanatos....egad.
That thing had better come uber quirked out the box. What kind of hero comes with rocket launchers equipped lol.

I really hope it gets RL Heat Gen quirks

[Fox the Apprentice]

JackalBeast, on 09 November 2017 - 07:15 AM, said:

Without breaking down into salty salty tears, please try and think of positive qualities/characteristics IS mechs have.
I'll start.
[...]

MRMs sound really cool on HPG Manifold.
Stealth armor helps avoid LRMs on Polar Highlands, and can help lights vs streak boats if you have a fetish for wasting slots.

That's all I've got.

[Athom83]

JackalBeast, on 09 November 2017 - 10:48 AM, said:

The Thanatos....egad.
That thing had better come uber quirked out the box. What kind of hero comes with rocket launchers equipped lol.

The kind with a RL70 (can get up to RL100 if you wanted) because he ran out of supplies for his MRMs?

Fox the Apprentice, on 09 November 2017 - 11:37 AM, said:

MRMs sound really cool on HPG Manifold. Stealth armor helps avoid LRMs on Polar Highlands, and can help lights vs streak boats if you have a fetish for wasting slots. That's all I've got.

Hmm... single shot ACs? HGauss?

[MischiefSC]

JackalBeast, on 09 November 2017 - 06:59 AM, said:

Most people are sheep. Ba-ah-ah-ah.
It's so nice ROFL stomping IS players that don't know how to build their mechs and then whine about. Nothing feeds my ego better than running around in my insta-win 9 mpl EBJ constructed of high quality glass and poo. Esp with those superior mount hitboxes that make shearing of its side torso such a chore.

Besides, I'll just use my KC and tear both the Anni and Dire an new one. Sigh.

Your seriously whining about the Annihilator. Get real.

What I love is how you try to dodge into personal insults every time it gets pointed out how you're wrong. I pointed out that literally everyone in this game who is demonstratively better than you and I has a pretty clear consensus about IS vs Clan balance and if they would rather face an Annihilator or a Dire Wolf (given that quite a few top tier comp players still play Dire Wolves and you can see them in comp periodically) and said that if IS is clearly so much better why don't you go show everyone how they're wrong.

9 MPL EBJ is a solid mech. A great choice for a push mech depending on the map. If you've got a lot of terrain to cover the LBK is better for the tonnage. If you're going to be poking a lot HLL/CERML HBR is better. However for a mid range map (Emerald for example) it's excellent. 9 MPLs is excellent for DPS/DPH. Stare with an EBJ, wiggle when getting shot so spread damage over all 3 ST, stay at 250-300m whenever possible.

As for IS stuff?

AC10, very underrated weapon.

MRMs on the right mech can be excellent.

IS has a few good niche mediums.

I <3 Marauders.

[Vancer2]

This guy needs to read up on the lore... Clan tech > IS tech.

[MischiefSC]

Vancer2, on 09 November 2017 - 05:05 PM, said:

This guy needs to read up on the lore... Clan tech > IS tech.

The lore also says that Clan pilots were 1 to 1 far, far better than IS pilots.

So I'm assuming you're 100% in favor, for the sake of lore, of only the top 10% of players being allowed to play Clan mechs?

Which is fine - you can balance it by PGI using 'plot armor' tactics like the lore did. Say for example regardless of what Clan mechs you pick sometimes you drop in a very poorly suited trial mech.

Because, you know. Lore.

Oh, wait. Or were you just saying you want your side to have OP tech advantages but nothing else? Because that would be an incredibly stupid game design idea for a FPS.

Fortunately the Lore already solved this - OP Clan tech was identified as a horrible, horrible game design decision and the Jihad was done to nuke the game world back to reset and then rebooted with Dark Ages (which is more or less what 3025 was) with IS/Clans balanced 1 to 1. Just with a ton more stuff.

Good for us lore already identified that OP Clan tech was absolute **** for a game design and fixed it with 1 to 1 balance, right?

[Jackal Noble]

MischiefSC, on 09 November 2017 - 01:14 PM, said:

What I love is how you try to dodge into personal insults every time it gets pointed out how you're wrong. I pointed out that literally everyone in this game who is demonstratively better than you and I has a pretty clear consensus about IS vs Clan balance and if they would rather face an Annihilator or a Dire Wolf (given that quite a few top tier comp players still play Dire Wolves and you can see them in comp periodically) and said that if IS is clearly so much better why don't you go show everyone how they're wrong.

9 MPL EBJ is a solid mech. A great choice for a push mech depending on the map. If you've got a lot of terrain to cover the LBK is better for the tonnage. If you're going to be poking a lot HLL/CERML HBR is better. However for a mid range map (Emerald for example) it's excellent. 9 MPLs is excellent for DPS/DPH. Stare with an EBJ, wiggle when getting shot so spread damage over all 3 ST, stay at 250-300m whenever possible.

As for IS stuff?

AC10, very underrated weapon.

MRMs on the right mech can be excellent.

IS has a few good niche mediums.

I &lt;3 Marauders.

What about that was personally insulting? The 9 mpl EBJ is fine, just on a chassis with sub-par easily isolated hitboxes. I actually relish going up against Ebons. What's personally insulting is you are lumping me in the same category of skill as you are. I'm actually damn proficient, it's just when you have 230 mechs on one account and you want to play as many as you realistically can mixed with being hellbent on going against the general Meta-sheep grain, things can seem a bit muddled. I don't proscribe to certain ideologies because I don't have to, for a long while I dropped solely qp and often times alone. Go ahead and look at my stats, but that is only a partial story. There not great but not bad, about typical of what you would see from a player constantly dropping qp by himself. Funny how my scores and kills go up quite a bit and are more consistent when I group drop. Wonder if there is any correlation? Maybe if I actually cared about such trivial things, rather than just being a good fighter I'd have more weight. Again don't really care. But don't think for one second it's because of an absence of proficiency.

[MischiefSC]

JackalBeast, on 10 November 2017 - 12:32 AM, said:

What about that was personally insulting? The 9 mpl EBJ is fine, just on a chassis with sub-par easily isolated hitboxes. I actually relish going up against Ebons. What's personally insulting is you are lumping me in the same category of skill as you are. I'm actually damn proficient, it's just when you have 230 mechs on one account and you want to play as many as you realistically can mixed with being hellbent on going against the general Meta-sheep grain, things can seem a bit muddled. I don't proscribe to certain ideologies because I don't have to, for a long while I dropped solely qp and often times alone. Go ahead and look at my stats, but that is only a partial story. There not great but not bad, about typical of what you would see from a player constantly dropping qp by himself. Funny how my scores and kills go up quite a bit and are more consistent when I group drop. Wonder if there is any correlation? Maybe if I actually cared about such trivial things, rather than just being a good fighter I'd have more weight. Again don't really care. But don't think for one second it's because of an absence of proficiency.

You're missing the point - I said you and I both because the top 1/10th of 1% of players is absolutely not you or I and they absolutely would mop the floor with either of us. And 99.8% of the games population. That's the point.

I have 220 mechs and my most played QP mechs are IS Marauders and Roughnecks. That's irrelevant to the point.

My stats tend to drop when I play in a group. I drop maybe 10 matches in group queue a month, if that though. Again, irrelevant though.

The original point though, that still stands, is that everyone who demonstratively plays the game and understands the game the best knows a Dire Wolf is better than an Annihilator and that the King Crab is worse than both, and that Clans > IS. Your response was some ad hominem.

[LordNothing]

i have metrics for determining which of my mechs are best for my playstyle. of my top 10 highest scoring mechs, 8 of them are clan.

[The6thMessenger]

Oh please, my Urbanmech spits at your face.

On the other hand though, it's Clan TECH that is OP. I mean if the IS mechs had access to the very same light-weight long-range laser vomit, Clan-XL that doesn't die with one ST lost, aggrevated by their inherent quirks, Clan Mechs will literally suck in comparison. Omnipods be damned.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 November 2017 - 01:49 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Vancer2, on 09 November 2017 - 05:05 PM, said:

This guy needs to read up on the lore... Clan tech > IS tech.

because this totally makes a good PvP setup with 1 pilot one machine.

[LowSubmarino]

Nobody is saying Clan tech isnt better.

Or is there?

Just look at Marauder IIC with max engine, running almost 80 kph, with jjs, insane firepower, Clan XL. That kind of combination and potential just outclasses basically any and all IS mechs.

IS mechs can be competitive. But they're not as good.

Theres some mechs - e.g. Marauder IIc - where the difference is huge. Just like with some other mechs for example the shadowcat. I mean....what that thing can do, the speed, durability (if you go into survival tree), ecm, masc, flying sky high, theres no IS mech that can do all the shadowcat can do. Thats just one slick, smooth, fast hunter. Very good. Awesome really. IS cannot compete with the conentration of tech and ability.

But its the community's fault bascially. They have been emphasizing lore, and TT rules and all of that since ive been playing the game. Since open beta. You ppl's priority is lore. Not fun gameplay. Theres an inherent dysbalance the way clan and sphere were implemented.

The way I would handle such a state is by reintroducing rearm and especially repair costs. Give all mechs battle values which the community votes, especially - or primarily even - competitive units and players. But also the community or allow players that have at least played a certain number of matches (500 - 1000) the right to vote for battle value.

That wont be 100 % perfect and precise. But it will be pretty good. Pretty good indicator of how strong a given mech truely is.

Based on that battle value you can field high tier mechs (e.g shadowcat or marauder iic) but that will be expensive. So as an example, if I run a marauder iic three games and get about 200 - 300 dmg with almost no components destroyed, or I never run in formation or generally play mediocre at best, then I shouldnt even make money in such mechs.

Hell. I wouldnt even mind a comlete Cbill reboot and reset. So evybody starts at zero. Let players with less than 100 matches keep their money or let everyody keep a few millions. And make it so you cannot repair your mech with mc. You gotta pay with cbills.

Make the game within the game - managing your mechs, rearming, repairing, even selling loot that evybody gets at the end, randomly distributed, like large lasers or ammo you can sell - immersive. Make it fun. In games such as xcom the game within the game is basically as fun as the action phase. It doesnt have to be as deep, but make the inherent dysbalance between mechs and especially clan vs is a strength. Not a weakness you desperatly try to fix with bandages.

There should be mechs that you can run and which are very cheap to repair and rearm. Theyre not the strongest mechs, but because of that they are cheap. Top of the line, modern military tech is naturally expensive. Outdated or not so strong designs will be cheaper. Much, much cheaper.

So you can still make money with mediorce or even kinda weak mechs, even if you dont play that well.

That actually makes the game a hell of a lot more exciting and immersive, harder too. But thats a good thing. Players will think twice before suiciding their atlas into the enemy team complely out of position or to just get killed for nothing somewhere alone on the map. This will ultimately create better gameplay and will also reward good (team) play and punish very weak play. Youll see a huge increase in players fielding not the strongest mechs.

And if somebody has saved a lot of money or plays very well then as a reward theyll get to play very good mechs more often.

Match maker can pay attention to the number of high tier mechs in a team and try to balance.

Do something like that.

To me that sounds a lot of fun. You could even introduce new achievments or give player rewards in from of titels they can temporarily earn. Like performing way above average or not even dying for three matches and they loose the title once the streak is over. Other players can see the title and then also know 'gotta watch that player he could be dangerous'.

Give mwo another dimension.

The gameplay is still fun.

But give it more depth and more immersion and higher incentives to play well. Make high tier mechs a valuable and expensive resource. That will give them much more weight and more respect and ppl actually gotta work for them and basicall prove themsevles in battle continuously to justify allowing them to field such monsters like the marauder iic.

You could even keep the current pts. Players that are very new or not that good yet should have an easier time. They wont be punished as hard and have less repair costs and all that. Im sure the community alone would be able to come up with solutions for that.

If all of that would be refined over half a year and the community checks how it works. Im almost positive it will be a **** ton more fun.

Edited by oneda, 10 November 2017 - 05:58 AM.

[Fox the Apprentice]

Athom83, on 09 November 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

[...]
Hmm... single shot ACs? HGauss?

I don't like HGauss, and single-shot ACs were already mentioned.

[Rusharn]

My damage in clan mechs is higher, but I have better K/D Ratio's in my IS mechs. The big thing with the IS, is when to XL, or not XL. My Banshee, I do not XL. In my marauder 3R has an XL, and I would say that 1 out of 6 matches I go down from the XL where I wasn't going down anyway. But the XL gives me the speed to position and I know how to spread damage in that mech os the XL is not as much of a liability.

The Skill tree favors the IS, with heat gen, range, and the survival boost being higher for the IS, shoring up some of the gaps between the performance of Clan and IS, but that requires IS pilots to really push the Skill Tree to the maximum effectiveness for their machines. The IS ER Large laser fires just as far as the Clan long range weapons, and still is good enough to be used at closer ranges. At closer ranges, the IS weapons are cooler, fire faster, and have more pin point damage. I wish the Clans had the IS AC/20. Being able to fire two of them and put 40 damage into a single location in addition to whatever secondary weapons you are carrying is excellent for a good marksman.

Overall I think that the Clan battle mechs with good hard points are the best mechs allowing the internal customization ability to maximize on the clan light weight weapons. Omni mech verses IS battle mechs with good hard points is more even with IS better at the lower weights, and Clan better at the higher weights. Note that as the clan gets more lower weight battlemechs that may change. But IS is harder to play, because of the level of customization that makes it harder to reach that optimal build which honestly requires more thought when setting up an IS mech as well as better target and situational awareness to put the damage where it need to go. This is one reason my wife, save for the urbie and the locust, exclusively pilots Clan omnimechs, they are just simpler to set up and still have a competitive build.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Rusharn, on 10 November 2017 - 07:51 AM, said:

The Skill tree favors the IS, with heat gen, range, and the survival boost being higher for the IS

Are you sure about that? The only nodes I can see that differ are Cooldown & Laser Duration, with both being more effective for IS.
12% vs 9.6% Cooldown
15% vs 10% Laser Duration

https://kitlaan.gitlab.io/mwoskill/

This could be out of date, of course.

Edited by Jay Leon Hart, 10 November 2017 - 07:58 AM.