148 replies to this topic

[Valdarion Silarius]

LordNothing, on 10 November 2021 - 01:56 PM, said:

spheroids have access to urbies, therefore is op.

[feeWAIVER]

Clan are baseline better.
Generally they are faster, longer range, better dmg, better engines.

IS has been hyperquirked for armor, structure, range, duration, etc to compensate.

In a FP game of two equally skilled groups, I think I would still bet on clan, but it's fairly even.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The clan tech advantage is why IS mechs have mad quirks on them, so they can compete. As a general rule, not talking about specific chassis, IS has better mechs while Clan has better stuff to put IN their mechs. Clan tech is lighter and longer ranged, and XL engines are not insta-kill on a side torso like they are in Inner Sphere. To compensate, IS mechs are buffed to the gills.

[Davegt27]

OP as an elite founder you should no better

or at least suspect what is going on

for sure just based on the specs for clan mechs and weapons
the Clans should be whipping the floor with IS mechs/tech

when the Clans first dropped yeah they where OP (hell how else would they sell them)
but PGI has done one heck of a job nerfing the Clans

later Paul said it was not PGIs intention to have the Clans be more powerful then the IS (I about fell out of my chair when I heard that)

one thing you can do is test for your self (I been tacking my wins and losses for 2 years) maybe play 20 matches in Clan mechs then swap and play 20 matches in IS Mechs

next go to your stats page and have a look at accuracy percentage for given weapons
I remember when my Clan weapons had around 80% weapons accuracy

my latest test is my first drop of the day (since I had been complaining that my first drop was always a loss)
anyways after 9 drops only 2 of them where wins

maybe you can answer your own questions
GLHF

[Half Ear]

Well, either the OP rarely plays or he spends most of his time in FP.. but based on his recent, average MS it is the first one.

With that said and as mentioned in a previous post, baseline Clan Tech is overall better than IS Tech. Overall Clan mechs are faster, weapons have longer ranges and do more damage, meaning Clan can touch you before you can touch them. We can only guess on PGI intentions based on how they utilized quirks, which initially was almost all IS mechs a few months before Clans went live in 2014.

Internal Structure quirks
Weapon quirks - increased range, decreased cooldown, heat.. but no actual, direct damage increase quirks...

So instead of touching the baseline for the most part (regardless of side), PGI added quirks that can be tweaked per mech, per variant.. to enhance their default loadout/hardpoints, their flavor. And PGI can reduce or even remove those quirks if deemed overbalanced by PGI.... PGI in the past have changed the baseline for items, but was when they had the right people, though not necessarily the right management team.

People call Clan mechs squishy because most do not have any armor quirks which can then be enhanced by Skill Points. Clan Omnimechs (not their Clan Battlemechs) have locked components. Pods can be switched out but Engines/Endo/Ferro/DHS/etc components which are locked in place can not be changed/moved.

Mine and a few others peeve/complaint with PGI is how they continue to handle isXL, with the death of the 1st side torso. Even though Chris said he would be reviewing it a few years ago after the engine desync and introduction of the current Skill Tree, nothing but crickets from him and the team. Sadly, to make any actual change would likely require an engineer that they do not have... so just about the only thing available is tweaking quirks and a few other items.

Overall, I agree with the others that balance-wise, things are equivalent with a few exceptions. But overall lots depend on the people on each team, whether they are able to work together or just do their own thing...

Edited by Half Ear, 10 November 2021 - 04:52 PM.

[Elaxter]

pbiggz, on 10 November 2021 - 12:56 PM, said:

snip

I appreciated the breakdown, but not the snarky sentence at the end.

Davegt27, on 10 November 2021 - 04:29 PM, said:

OP as an elite founder you should no better

I am not bestowed knowledge just by existing, which is why I'm here asking questions.

[justcallme A S H]

Elaxter, on 10 November 2021 - 10:52 AM, said:

How come there seems to be a clear bias towards Clan tech? I can put a 1-ton heavy medium laser for 10 damage on a clan mech. The trade off? Heat I guess? Meanwhile I have to spend 7 tons for the same damage output (a large pulse laser). That's 7x more weight.

I think the worst offender is the c-light probe. You're telling me that a clanner can just get a BAP for half a ton and one slot while I have to spend 3x as much weight and 2x the slots? Smells like BS for sure.

Am I wrong? Is there a fatal flaw that I'm missing that gives IS a clear advantage over Clan?

Light probe is meant to have half of what BAP and c-Probe gives, so umm.. yeah?

And yes you are very much wrong.

Elaxter, on 10 November 2021 - 11:08 AM, said:

Okay. What do Clan players say when talking about IS being OP?

You will find Clan apologists will always cry about IS being OP.
You will also find IS apologists who will always cry about Clan being OP.

Fact of the matter is there is pros and cons for each side that, overall, are well balanced.

People that are "life clanners" or "life of the sphere" because they have been for 20 years are completely and utterly bias in their views. While this next part might sound harsh - you need to largely ignore them. They cannot look objectively and form fair points of argument.

Often such players are entrenched in LORE based units (not always, just mostly) and have been misleading players and unit members for many years. The attitude is quite litereally entreched at this point and they will always refuse anything that says otherwise. It is actuall a big problem for MWO as it leads to a LOT of misinformation being spread.


From an actual perspective of balance without letting in gross bias... And simply looking at gameplay, values and taking into account pro/con - MWO is quite possibly in the best balanced state for both techs that there has ever been.

Is balance therefore perfect? No. Cauldron work is still as yet unfinished and there is work still to be done.

Some of the benefits of sides have been explained by other posts. Trust they are correct as they are.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 10 November 2021 - 05:54 PM.

[CFC Conky]

Elaxter, on 10 November 2021 - 10:52 AM, said:

How come there seems to be a clear bias towards Clan tech? I can put a 1-ton heavy medium laser for 10 damage on a clan mech. The trade off? Heat I guess? Meanwhile I have to spend 7 tons for the same damage output (a large pulse laser). That's 7x more weight.

...

Or, you could take two IS Medium lasers fro 6.5 heat and 10 damage, and shorter cooldown to boot. You could also take an IS Large laser for 9 damage, 6.5 heat and shorter cooldown for 5 times more weight.


Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 10 November 2021 - 06:00 PM.

[Ravni]

When I was fairly new to the game (pre-Cauldron), clan stuff looked so much better in the mechlab due to the tonnage/slots, alpha damage values, and optimal ranges.

The more I've played (esp. post-Cauldron), the more I've come to see how remarkably well balanced the two sides are on the whole. Many of the biggest IS advantages tend to be a little bit more subtle, as DATA & some other commenters have mentioned. There are also a lot of hidden stats that favor IS like vastly better spread values on their SRMS & MGs.


With all that said, the IS Beagle Active Probe probably could use a bit more juice. Maybe better sensor range or target info gathering boosts to balance and differentiate it against clan tech. That might be impossible to do without an engineer, however, due to how some module stats like that are weirdly hard-wired into PGI's spaghetti code.

Also: the clan light active probe is currently bugged and gives the same sensor range boost as the standard active probe. I'm guessing that is a spaghetti code issue as well.

Edited by Ravni, 10 November 2021 - 06:20 PM.

[LordNothing]

the obvious way to restore balance to the force is clear.

[caravann]

Inner sphere maybe has Lower, maybe

In practice inner sphere has higher heat because stacking causes ghost heat

This means that yes you can chain fire, it's not practical

The differences is blurry out higher you get in tonnages.

Clan wins on light snipers and LRM mechs.

Inner sphere has MRM but that like saying, Inner sphere has SRM6 who work for the same purpose.

Inner sphere has rocket launchers who is never used, clan has ATM who is sometimes used.

Clans have good machine guns and inner sphere better quirks]m that's right they had to make them better by generic ways.

[caravann]

Sure the inner sphere has burst LRM , the clans get 1 tonnage laser AMS and stacking AMS makes it less advantage.
The clans has an advantage that they do not have stealth ', making player picking up AMS on almost every mech.

[justcallme A S H]

And when I spoke about misinformation earlier.. The below is what I mean, chronic misinformation...

caravann, on 10 November 2021 - 09:42 PM, said:

Inner sphere maybe has Lower, maybe

In practice inner sphere has higher heat because stacking causes ghost heat

Which common loadouts incurr ghost heat at higher weapon quantities?

IS can fire 4 LL, Clan cannot.
IS can fire 3 LPL, Clan cannot.

UACs are the same. ACs are the same (except IS AC20, for good reason, that said ghost heat is overall not too bad).

A number of mechs have IS HSL quirks as well like AWS, PHX, JVN that allow higher weapon volumes as specialty for the specific chassis to add flavour. Some Clan do as well although they are limited.

caravann, on 10 November 2021 - 09:42 PM, said:

LRM mechs.

IS LRMs are better than Clan LRMs. IS LRMs cut through AMS, this is very strong. Also mechs that commonly use LRMs are generally quirked nicely for all missiles making LRMs very solid.

caravann, on 10 November 2021 - 09:42 PM, said:

Inner sphere has MRM but that like saying, Inner sphere has SRM6 who work for the same purpose.

MRM and SRM are not the same.

Range, spread, heat, tonnage and crit slots are varied across the weapon line.

[martian]

pattonesque, on 10 November 2021 - 01:44 PM, said:

an important consideration here that you're not considering is duration. ISLPLs have a duration of .75 seconds. Clan HMLs have it at 1.25 seconds. they have more difficulty landing all their damage on target

I posted the same thing - with more examples - in the duplicate thread that the OP started in the "New players" section a few minutes before this one. The OP read that ... and chose not to react.

feeWAIVER, on 10 November 2021 - 03:31 PM, said:

Clan are baseline better.
Generally they are faster, longer range, better dmg, better engines.

IS has been hyperquirked for armor, structure, range, duration, etc to compensate.

In a FP game of two equally skilled groups, I think I would still bet on clan, but it's fairly even.

I think I would bet on IS (with good 'Mechs and no duds, of course), but as you said, the game is quite balanced right now.

caravann, on 10 November 2021 - 09:42 PM, said:

Inner sphere has MRM but that like saying, Inner sphere has SRM6 who work for the same purpose.

MRMs offer 550 m range. SRMs have 270 m range.

caravann, on 10 November 2021 - 09:55 PM, said:

Sure the inner sphere has burst LRM , the clans get 1 tonnage laser AMS and stacking AMS makes it less advantage.
The clans has an advantage that they do not have stealth ', making player picking up AMS on almost every mech.

The Inner Sphere has one big advantage: The Corsair. Assault-class BattleMech that can carry up to four AMS with lots of AMS ammo.

If you deploy in some average Clan 'Mech armed with LRMs or ATMs and the enemy team has a Corsair or two, you can pretty much go home. The Corsair is good against all LRMs and especially agaisnt Clan stream-firing LRMs.

[caravann]

justcallme A S H, on 10 November 2021 - 11:27 PM, said:

And when I spoke about misinformation earlier.. The below is what I mean, chronic misinformation...




Which common loadouts incurr ghost heat at higher weapon quantities?

IS can fire 4 LL, Clan cannot.
IS can fire 3 LPL, Clan cannot.

UACs are the same. ACs are the same (except IS AC20, for good reason, that said ghost heat is overall not too bad).

A number of mechs have IS HSL quirks as well like AWS, PHX, JVN that allow higher weapon volumes as specialty for the specific chassis to add flavour. Some Clan do as well although they are limited.



IS LRMs are better than Clan LRMs. IS LRMs cut through AMS, this is very strong. Also mechs that commonly use LRMs are generally quirked nicely for all missiles making LRMs very solid.



MRM and SRM are not the same.

Range, spread, heat, tonnage and crit slots are varied across the weapon line.

Weapons who are shot before the bar reaches zero will always have some ghost heating, it is also important to know how much heat spiking you'll cause as it can fry the mech.

A single mech has capacity limit. Clan do not use those roles of IS using a single mech to carry all LRM,

Whenever you want to use SRM6 or MRM10 is up to you. It is only range differences, MRM is better because of the ranges and stacking. There's no reason why not to use MRM, why use SRM, a thing clan has access.

Information changes with time and interface and own experience or bias.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Weapons who are shot before the bar reaches zero will always have some ghost heating, it is also important to know how much heat spiking you'll cause as it can fry the mech.

A single mech has capacity limit. Clan do not use those roles of IS using a single mech to carry all LRM,

Whenever you want to use SRM6 or MRM10 is up to you. It is only range differences, MRM is better because of the ranges and stacking. There's no reason why not to use MRM, why use SRM, a thing clan has access.

Information changes with time and interface and own experience or bias.

I don't want to seem to be condescending, but caravann, you seem to either lack knowledge on some crucial game mechanics or you're unable to express yourself because english is not your first language.
Ghost Heat occurs when you fire a set number of weapons from the same Heat Scale group within a time frame of 0.5 seconds.
Have a read on the tables: https://mwo.nav-alph...pment/ghostheat

[martian]

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

A single mech has capacity limit. Clan do not use those roles of IS using a single mech to carry all LRM,

Have you ever heard about the Nova Cat? People often use it as pure Lurmboat. Inner Sphere has other Lurmboats (like Awesome, for example).

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Whenever you want to use SRM6 or MRM10 is up to you.

Yes.

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

It is only range differences, MRM is better because of the ranges and stacking. There's no reason why not to use MRM, why use SRM, a thing clan has access.

No, you are not right. It is not "only range differences".

SRMs offer good spread, lower heat than MRMs, no stream of missiles and faster cooldown than MRMs. There is still niche for Inner Sphere SRMs. Both weapons have their pros and cons.

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Information changes with time and interface and own experience or bias.

Sure, but a part of it are pure numbers and 'Mech and weapon stats. That has nothing to do with bias.

[Curccu]

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Weapons who are shot before the bar reaches zero will always have some ghost heating, it is also important to know how much heat spiking you'll cause as it can fry the mech.

1st part of the sentence.. what?
2nd part of the sentence, yes it's good idea to test builds heat, dropping on testing grounds after building mech is not bad idea.

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

A single mech has capacity limit. Clan do not use those roles of IS using a single mech to carry all LRM,

Both sides use LRM boats or what do mean?

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Whenever you want to use SRM6 or MRM10 is up to you. It is only range differences, MRM is better because of the ranges and stacking. There's no reason why not to use MRM, why use SRM, a thing clan has access.

SRM has better damage, damage/ton&slot, DPS, DPH, All missiles hit target precisely same time,
MRM has better range and MRM (twin 30&40) launchers have bigger alphas.
a thing clan has access?

caravann, on 11 November 2021 - 12:19 AM, said:

Information changes with time and interface and own experience or bias.

reading patchnotes is good thing to do.

[Mochyn Pupur]

Clan was always supposed to be technologically more advanced than the Inner Sphere, however, what IS lacked in advanced mechs and weaponry, they made up for in volume, just the sheer numbers they could throw against the Clans.

If you had been lucky/unlucky enough to be around when the Clans entered MWO, you would have witnessed how overpowering they were because PGI had rightly followed the flavour of the Clan supremacy during their invasion. However, in game mode with the 12 v 12 matching, the games balance was thrown completely out of the window other than when well skilled and experienced IS Units took to the field and the gap narrowed significantly.

The power creep facilitated by various nerfs and boosts to the Clan and IS mechs have, in the main, removed this intended imbalance to the point where there is minimal difference; a shame because this removes the distinct flavour of the two sides. Even in FW, where drop sizes could have been addressed to balance the strategic worth of the mechs and their relative weaknesses or strengths, there is little change, in fact, considering the superior chassis/weapons that should have been part of the Clans, this has been watered down to next to nothing; sorry PGI, this is entirely your fault in not committing resources to balance drops having introduced mixed tech (I so used to enjoy FW when it was IS Houses and not Clan/IS, far more fun and emphasis on tactics).

Other than that, there have been and will no doubt be further posts and threads comparing the relative benefits of both sides now which is like slamming the barn door shut after the horse has bolted . . .

[Nesutizale]

Mix tech isn't the answere as everyone will simply take the best of both sides and run with it. That isn't balanceing that is just lazy. Balanceing around heat, durations, reloadtimes, etc. is where the balance should take place.
IS could be made to be DPS types while Clans are the hard hitting ones but if you miss you are screwed.

I think there are more ways to do a balance without watering down the gameplay by giveing out everything to everyone.