123 replies to this topic

[Arkhangel]

Eh, it's needed more for full drops anyways just due to the sheer loadout capability Clans have over IS (like being able to carry LB20s in arms and so on)

[Genesis23]

stayed out of FP and not joining anytime soon, rather observe for a while. without the right bushie there is no point in playing as IS anyway.

on a curious note: why even put streaks on a bushie or any mech in scouting in general? seems an rather idiotic choice considering the spread, tonnage and cooldown compaired to regular SRM.

[MrKvola]

Potatoes gonna potato. Also, there was the stocking stuffer challenge, so people got used to streaks, I guess.

[Sigmar Sich]

Arkhangel, on 26 January 2018 - 02:55 AM, said:

Eh, it's needed more for full drops anyways just due to the sheer loadout capability Clans have over IS (like being able to carry LB20s in arms and so on)

We do have this imbalance in scouting too. Yes, mode is scaled down, so it is less noticeable. And higher speeds in scouting help IS to negate clan range superiority. But bigger slower IS mechs do suffer from it. With few overquirked exeptions.
I would prefer this imbalance to be resolved, instead of having tonnage crutch. There are many different suggestions.

Two of my favorite:
Change penalties for IS engines - IS XL gets penalties of LFE without death on side torso loss, LFE gets no penalties, and STD gets +50% CT structure quirk;
Or just make all IS structure 125% by default - not really useful for lighter mechs, so scouting does not change much, but invasion with bigger mechs who have more base structure, benefits more.

[Arkhangel]

Sigmar Sich, on 26 January 2018 - 04:51 AM, said:

We do have this imbalance in scouting too. Yes, mode is scaled down, so it is less noticeable. And higher speeds in scouting help IS to negate clan range superiority. But bigger slower IS mechs do suffer from it. With few overquirked exeptions.
I would prefer this imbalance to be resolved, instead of having tonnage crutch. There are many different suggestions.

Two of my favorite:
Change penalties for IS engines - IS XL gets penalties of LFE without death on side torso loss, LFE gets no penalties, and STD gets +50% CT structure quirk;
Or just make all IS structure 125% by default - not really useful for lighter mechs, so scouting does not change much, but invasion with bigger mechs who have more base structure, benefits more.

okay, first off, IS XLs are NEVER going to be like LFEs or Clan XLs. It's never going to @#$%ing happen. To do so would erase the need to even HAVE LFEs in the game (and NO, removing them is an incredibly stupid thing to say, so don't, it's how it should be).

The Structure one could work, but the fact still remains there's set mechs on both sides everyone potatoes in that's the real problem here. actually de-incentivizing the use of "potato" mechs would help too, which is honestly why a "battle value" system for drop decks would work better than any tonnage restriction. it would also actually vary up the builds a lot too, since people couldn't always go super-meta-tato without utterly screwing one or more of their mechs.

Edited by Arkhangel, 26 January 2018 - 07:03 AM.

[MrKvola]

It was proven over and over that a BV system is most likely to fail and just end up being exploited in some way, bringing no improvement to the table overall.

[Jragonsoul]

Mikayshen, on 23 January 2018 - 12:44 PM, said:

So this is something that you had to wait for now to do rather than when the Black Lanner's pre-order stuff was active?

Skip.

Same, IF they bring the preorder stuff back I MIGHT consider it. Otherwise, no.

[PanzerTC]

I'm looking forward to seeing how things go now.

[Sigmar Sich]

Arkhangel, on 26 January 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

okay, first off, IS XLs are NEVER going to be like LFEs or Clan XLs. It's never going to @#$%ing happen. To do so would erase the need to even HAVE LFEs in the game (and NO, removing them is an incredibly stupid thing to say, so don't, it's how it should be).

Never say never Engine balance is achievable.

Spoiler

IS XL without death on ST loss is great for speed and weight savings, without compromising survivability.
LFE without penalties is good for mechs with dedicated shieldside, you will no longer suffer after you lose it. If this is not enough, LFEs could receive little structure quirks for side torsos.
And IS STD with massive CT structure quirk would be a good choice for zombie mechs (or a necessity to mount LB20-X or HGR).

Only question is - would this be the best solution for IS problems? Maybe not..

Overall default structure quirks for all IS mechs are much easier to do, and benefits are scaling up for bigger mechs, who suffer much more than lights and mediums.

Arkhangel, on 26 January 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

"battle value" system

Lets say BV system will work (though it won't)

Spoiler

Static BV system is not the best choise, because weapon usefulness vary on different maps. For example LRM20 on Polar or Alpine is better than same LRM20 on maps with abundant high cover. Multiple lasers on cold map are better than same amount of lasers on hot map. So expected BV of a team could differ from real BV of this team, compromising match balance.
And dynamic BV, where each piece have different value on different maps, is just an unholy mess.

So lets do BV system without solving balance problems. Then IS will have less BV points per mechs than clans. So IS can bring more stuff into battle. So basicly it is a fancy tonnage crutch, but with a lot of wasted development time and effort.

And all these crutches contradict the goal of fair PVP game, where IS tech an mech should give you equal chances with clan opponent, ton for ton.

[Arkhangel]

Sigmar Sich, on 26 January 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

Never say never Engine balance is achievable.

Spoiler

IS XL without death on ST loss is great for speed and weight savings, without compromising survivability.
LFE without penalties is good for mechs with dedicated shieldside, you will no longer suffer after you lose it. If this is not enough, LFEs could receive little structure quirks for side torsos.
And IS STD with massive CT structure quirk would be a good choice for zombie mechs (or a necessity to mount LB20-X or HGR).

Only question is - would this be the best solution for IS problems? Maybe not..

Overall default structure quirks for all IS mechs are much easier to do, and benefits are scaling up for bigger mechs, who suffer much more than lights and mediums.


Lets say BV system will work (though it won't)

Spoiler

Static BV system is not the best choise, because weapon usefulness vary on different maps. For example LRM20 on Polar or Alpine is better than same LRM20 on maps with abundant high cover. Multiple lasers on cold map are better than same amount of lasers on hot map. So expected BV of a team could differ from real BV of this team, compromising match balance.
And dynamic BV, where each piece have different value on different maps, is just an unholy mess.

So lets do BV system without solving balance problems. Then IS will have less BV points per mechs than clans. So IS can bring more stuff into battle. So basicly it is a fancy tonnage crutch, but with a lot of wasted development time and effort.

And all these crutches contradict the goal of fair PVP game, where IS tech an mech should give you equal chances with clan opponent, ton for ton.

well, my point is it's set in stone that IS XLs are fragile. making them like Clan XLs is not happening. ever. because it makes Light Fusion Engines completely useless apart from saving four slots.

also, i just winged the BV system out there as an alternative. that said, something akin to the "tier" system Solaris is going to be using might work, so we'll see how that goes.

[LordLosh]

Plus 500 for Frank the tank and streaking

[Mechrophilia]

This tonnage increase might be a good idea just for experiment's sake. There have been advocates for it on clan side for a while now. I guess now we get to see how it goes.

[ToneLoc99]

Because, yay?

Nothing but streak crows and streak huntsmans tonight. IS holding on invasion, but getting wiped on scouting. Could not have predicted that....

</tone-loc>

[GrimmigerPetz]

Good lord. Take an ecm Griffin, some Bushwacker or Centurions and stop whinning. We managed to take down clanners before new tech and now its no problem either.

[SmokeGuar]

Scouting balance wont be know until next event. Currently there are far too few matches to determine balance.

Little that I have followed scouting, it seem to move between Clan ID to IS ID, and not further. How do you see that IS is getting stomped? Compared to previous 12 months that scouting has been on max IS domination?

[Widowmaker1972]

So will there be a fresh pre sale on Lanners?
The only reason i didn't purchase a pack is the fact I could not use it in scouting.
Jus sayin...

[GrimmigerPetz]

For Facton conquest my dropdeck is 2xLinebacker 2xStormcrow. Worked out pretty well.

To counter Assassins now with similar speed you could swap the crows for lanners. Put lots of low tonnage weapons in them and your fine.

Same goes for incursion or dominations for early presure.

Even in classic siege there could be a niche for them.

But I will still wait for them to be available for cbills.

Regards

[Laser Kiwi]

Well i played a couple of scout matches in the weekend. PUG v PUG i/we won, PUG v KCOM 4 man i/we lost, business as usual (well ok not "usual" the first is usually 50/50, the second is 1/99), they had some stormcrows (and a couple others), i had a bushwacker the bushie was still tougher than the stormcrow IMO. I still think the huntsman has superceded the stormcrow as the go to mech in scouting, i feel (in my lowly opinion only) that compared to a huntsman stormcrows aren't as hard to kill and despite saying above "legs all day" there wasn't a great effort required to crack the torso and crit them out, whereas I felt the huntsman can shrug and twist the damage right off.

Thats my 2 cents.

[Ruccus]

Widowmaker1972, on 28 January 2018 - 10:37 AM, said:

So will there be a fresh pre sale on Lanners?
The only reason i didn't purchase a pack is the fact I could not use it in scouting.
Jus sayin...

As an Inner Sphere player, based on the performance of the Griffins and Bushwackers against the 50 ton clan mechs I knew they'd return the clan cap to 55 tons when they announced the Black Lanner. Yes they should have announced it while the Lanner was still in early adopter phase so people knew for sure, but had I been clan and wanted the Black Lanner for scouting I'd have ordered it as an early adopter and cancelled it in February if the expected change had not happened.

Personally I'm not worried about going up against the Stormcrow because it's close enough in speed to the 50 ton clan mechs and the Huntsman is an impressive mech, though I am concerned about whether I'll have to make some changes to my scouting builds when the Black Lanner arrives to combat its extra speed. I'm also concerned about whether those changes will weaken my Bushwackers against Huntsmans and Novas and Hunchback IICs.

I do have a nice 340LFE build that should be able to combat a Black Lanner nicely but I'd rather use my more powerful 280LFE or 300LFE builds when facing the clan 50 ton mechs. So Inner Sphere players are going to have to decide whether to build their scouting mechs to combat the Black Lanner while being weaker against the clan 50 tonners or keeping their existing scouting mechs and risking the Black Lanner using its speed and durability along with distance weaponry to complete objectives and win the match.

[Arkhangel]

All in all they really just need to change the Scouting points setup anyways to actually reflect that getting Intel is more important than killing everyone. I mean, it's called "Scouting" ffs. actually have that MEAN something.