476 replies to this topic

[benwarrior]

i like outlaws way,but say you want to take an atlas instead of your awesome and all the bv is used up maybe if you could pay for more but make it so expensive that you earn little or nothing from the match reduce c-bills and exp, higher rate of success for a lowered payday after all you'd need a bigger dropship to accomodate the extra weight.

[Belisarius1]

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

Wow, pre-HC the IS had the Raven, Black Knight and Atlas with BAP/ECM, leaving the BK to be a pretty good heavy "go with the lance" kind of recon or raider, and the Clans had the Loki; unless my memory is failing, they lacked another ECM/BAP combo mech, having to go with one or the other. I could be wrong here, I dealt with very little Clantech so my memory is a little fuzzy.

That's nuts if those designs lost their ability to combo.

I kind of wish I had a chance to play HC to see the UAC2/5 with the buffs applied; they sound like they became the dominant design, which is sure to drastically change the whole dynamic of the game. It sounds like they were abit too extremely buffed, but it's a fine line to walk - do you know if there's a youtube video floating around of them? Would be neat to post in the AC thread.

The BK was nerfed to oblivion. I think it might have still had BAP, but it was quite a poor 'mech in HC. The atlas was also terrible, but I never thought it much good to begin with.

The IS was given a marauder variant that ran ECM/BAP and it saw a bit of use, but its slots were relatively poor in a straight up fight and it was very heavy to field just for the suite. For assaults, the cyclops also had ECM/BAP, and it was a pretty good command 'mech in fat drops. That's such a poor lineup that I have to be missing something, but it still felt like there was a mile-wide gap between the raven and the 'rauder that the clan scouts ruled with glee.

Clanners also got full suites on the kitfox, which went toe-to-toe with the raven, and a 'mech called the warthog which was a so-so assault that didn't see a ton of use. The IS did tend to do better on one-or-the-other 'mechs - most of the clan heavy shooters needed to run passive while the IS stuff tended to have ECM - but it never really felt good enough.

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

I kind of wish I had a chance to play HC to see the UAC2/5 with the buffs applied; they sound like they became the dominant design, which is sure to drastically change the whole dynamic of the game. It sounds like they were abit too extremely buffed, but it's a fine line to walk - do you know if there's a youtube video floating around of them? Would be neat to post in the AC thread.

Moved my reply to the AC thread because it got way too long. tl;dr I'm not sure of any videos but can have a look. Have an essay in the meantime.

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

Fake edit: If they decide to make players repurchase gear that's destroyed and Clan tech can only be salvaged, not purchased (possibly outside of some pay "random salvage pack" or something), I WOULD be in favor of allowing mixtech for mercenary units. I think that'd be pretty neat and would both buff the price of the 'mech (and thus make it more expensive to field) and be a serious risk/reward mechanic for the player choosing to do it. If I managed to salvage enough Clan ER PPCs to turn my Awesome into a top-tier killing machine, there's no way I'd break it out in all but the biggest fights against great players, for fear I'd get my arm blown off and lose one. Not sure how they're doing salvage/repairs, hopefully they'll bring up this stuff in the next reveal.

I really don't like this idea. At the same time, I'm worried because I think it's likely that MWO will do exactly that.

Partly, I just don't like it because I hate the idea of a 'mech that's too valuable to ever use, but there's also the fact that metagame restrictions will always be crushing to some players and negligible to others, depending on money, time and skill.

If mixtech is cripplingly hard to get, teams will win or lose fights based on how many guys on their team have mixtech configs left in their garage. If it's too easy to get, the access barrier shifts forward so that new players in stock configs find themselves torn apart by everyone in sight until they get mixtech of their own. You also may as well throw out the IS versions at that point, as in MW4 mixtech pubs.

If we assume that there's some availability balance that can keep them 100% available for league drops but rare in pubs (and I don't personally believe that's possible), you still have a situation where players are forced to practice in a different config to what they'll use in "real" fights, and that's not a desirable outcome either.

A mixtech 'mech's engagement ranges and "I can beat X but need to run from Y" profile will be fundamentally different to the puretech version, so to be effective you're really going to want to be able to use it all the time instead of only as-needed.

benwarrior, on 01 April 2012 - 04:01 AM, said:

i like outlaws way,but say you want to take an atlas instead of your awesome and all the bv is used up maybe if you could pay for more but make it so expensive that you earn little or nothing from the match reduce c-bills and exp, higher rate of success for a lowered payday after all you'd need a bigger dropship to accomodate the extra weight.

Sorry, but this more or less defeats the purpose of having a per-game restriction system. Any kind of "pay money to break the system" thing automatically becomes P2W for that gametype.

Edited by Belisarius†, 01 April 2012 - 05:30 AM.

[Outlaw2]

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

Those were definitely some of the best players in NBT, but it is interesting to note that CJF when we played them briefly actually took about 30% IS 'mechs in almost every drop to push the LGR. I heard Wolf was also fond of trying to field Bushwackers as much as possible. The Aces at our prime fought a few different Clan units, focusing heavily on IS energy boats, damage soaks and niche weapons. The wolfhound's profile helped it a lot, but we also turned it into a mini-Novacat (3 Large, 3 Medium Lasers was the one I drove) so it allowed us to do a ludicrous amount of hit scan damage.

Im not sure if we are talking about the same Wolf or CJF. The CJF im talking about was the unit I was a part of. We rarely took ANY Is mechs. In fact I don't have a clear memory of ever taking one personally while as CJF. There was a month during our peek where we didn't even lose a single match. Don't mean to drag in brag talk, but just want to demonstrate clan mech dominance. We were the ones that coined "4x4" (4 scats, 4 ryos) during Mercs PLT (since that is what we took to the vast majority of our matches..didn't lose a match in the PLT either). As for wolf, I also don't have a clear memory of them taking any IS mechs, but I don't doubt they might have taken some of the good IS mechs. Not so much against us though.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 01 April 2012 - 08:01 AM.

[Victor Morson]

=Outlaw=, on 01 April 2012 - 06:15 AM, said:

Im not sure if we are talking about the same Wolf or CJF. The CJF im talking about was the unit I was a part of. We rarely took ANY Is mechs. In fact I don't have a clear memory of ever taking one personally while as CJF. There was a month during our peek where we didn't even lose a single match. Don't mean to drag in brag talk, but just want to demonstrate clan mech dominance. We were the ones that coined "4x4" (4 scats, 4 ryos) during Mercs PTL (since that is what we took to the vast majority of our matches..didn't lose a match in the PTL either). As for wolf, I also don't have a clear memory of them taking any IS mechs, but I don't doubt they might have taken some of the good IS mechs. Not so much against us though.

You know, it's quite likely that we fought Jade Falcon when we were FWL/1st Gold Knights, which might have been a different Jade Falcon than the one you guys were running (I think this was BK era). I know that whatever Jade Falcon we did fight, they absolutely kicked our ***, though.

I know we fought the Mercs version of Clan Wolf, though; those guys were seriously tough but not half as bad as the Falcons. We mostly fought the more easily defeated Ghost Bear to make enough money to tie up every single factory in the Draconis Combine making Wolfhounds for us, heh - we were starting to gun for higher tier units when I stepped out (and the 2nd Aces began).

Anyway, not 100% sure if you guys were still CJF during BK, but I think I might have gotten my "when we fought them" wrong. I do distinctly remember them backing some serious heavy hitters with Uziels at the time, though.

heh, I'm starting to think we need a thread to talk about the old days of NBT here.

[MaddMaxx]

Victor Morson, on 30 March 2012 - 08:43 PM, said:

Just a note, the Bane was mass produced as a second line 'mech and is available in a lot of Clan units - some of the alternate versions of it are actually really good (The 8 LRM-15 one for example). It's based on a design that never got produced, rather than being never produced itself.

Minor thing but worth nothing.

Sorry, I should have stated produced by the IS.

[zorak ramone]

StaIker, on 31 March 2012 - 04:01 PM, said:

This.

In MW4 it was and so puretech was rediculous and game breaking. If MWO makes clan and IS tech essentially perform the same then I'd be fine with it in theory.

After the "balancing" of the ERLL and the addition of the HGauss, RACs, HVACs, and CapPPCs, I thought IS tech was pretty much equal, if not better, than clan tech. LL boats were excellent mid-short range fighters. Throw a Hgauss/HVAC20/CapPPC into the mix and you have a solid short range punch. Of course the IS had LGRs, which the clans had no answer for after the ERPPC was "rebalanced", and the IS PPCs also had value in a damage/tonnage/recycle comparison to cERPPCs.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

zorak ramone, on 01 April 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:

After the "balancing" of the ERLL and the addition of the HGauss, RACs, HVACs, and CapPPCs, I thought IS tech was pretty much equal, if not better, than clan tech. LL boats were excellent mid-short range fighters. Throw a Hgauss/HVAC20/CapPPC into the mix and you have a solid short range punch. Of course the IS had LGRs, which the clans had no answer for after the ERPPC was "rebalanced", and the IS PPCs also had value in a damage/tonnage/recycle comparison to cERPPCs.

Correct, and that still stands true in the current MW MP3 form.
Except now its Assault Laser Crabs,Wolfhounds,Black Jacks. Coupled with those Marauders.
And Tenchi's with LG and wonderful Hitboxes.

[zorak ramone]

DV^McKenna, on 02 April 2012 - 12:18 AM, said:

Correct, and that still stands true in the current MW MP3 form.
Except now its Assault Laser Crabs,Wolfhounds,Black Jacks. Coupled with those Marauders.
And Tenchi's with LG and wonderful Hitboxes.

I hate each and every one of Mektek's original designs. I can see that the Ares, with its win-button hitboxes, was a sign of times to come.

[Sprouticus]

Hey Stalker, good to see you around. You too Outlaw.


Honestly I think that while puretech vs mixtech is an important discussion, the hitbox geometry is going to be a much bigger indicator of a mechs success and usefulness. Not to mention it can probably wait until we need how they balance other aspects.

In MW4 Thannies and Bushies remained useful in Puretech because of their geometry. Uzi's did not because of theirs, This despite them being better than Bushies in theory due to JJ's (lack of ECM hurt too).

Im hoping with DoT lasers things will be better, at least at range. AC10/20's are still single projectiles, but limited by range.


I stopped playing about halfway through HC and it was a while ago, but aside from geometry, clan mechs did have a significant advantage due to lighter LBX/UAC and ERLL. Hotter maps compensated because of the IS advantage in heat, but it was not huge, and the range limits on the ISLL meant that ballistics on clan mechs could usually be brought into the fight.

The RAC/LG advantages outlined by you guys is true, but that is level 3 tech if I remmeber correctly.

Back to Pure/Mix & drop functions...

I would use a combined method

BV-, but only because it can be tweaked artifically if required. For instance if Geometry or weapon loadout or whatever really favors certain mechs heavily, you tweak the BV up a few %. They should have a LOT f data on battle to draw from to get the stats needed to do this properly.

Role- Im guessing for pub drops they will have slots for certain roles

Size- Limiting the number of heavies and assaults is probably not a bad idea, but its optional.

Skill- some kind of matchmaking based upon skill would also be a nice variable, again its optional

All of that would be handled in the background. The user would select chassis and role, and the matchmaking system would do the rest. If you queue up as a group, give a lance or company option. Company is easy, try to match against other companies (organized teams vs pubs is not going to be fun for anyone), then against 3x lance gorups, then against pubs. Lance might be tougher. Maybe allow the lance to declare the 'overall lance role'?

As for pure vs mixed tech:

Hopefully we have a lot of time before we need to worry about it. Personally I think Puretech is by far the better way to handle things. If you need to lower the absurd advantages clan mechs have for balance I think most people would be ok with that. Especially with Zell being a joke in an online environment.The advantages in chassis structure (XL engines, Endosteel, and DHS) might be just as important, and Im not sure how to handle those if you allow mixed tech.

Level 2 tech wont come up (hopefully) for 4-6 months after go live. At that point level 1 tech will be balanced if we are lucky, and they can introduce new weapons and techs piecemeal until the clan invasion. If they push back the actual introduction of the clans as long as possible they will have even more time to balance.

Looking at the timeline in this map they could probably want until June without to much issue.

http://www.sarna.net...88/Clanwave.gif


You will not be able to make level 2 tech as rare as it should be in MWO. Just like you could not limits chassis well in NBT. Its just not possible since there is no way to actually make it limited fairly. So, just introduce level 2 as an expansion. Let the 'inventing' faction have it for a few weeks and then make it widely available. This gives you some play testing for each tech separately and then let it out for cross faction consumption.

Then you get another 4-6 months to balance those changes until the clans arrive. You should have a good idea at that point what we are looking at regarding balance.


Its too bad they didnt make this 3048 instead of 3049. It would give the Devs another year to balance and introduce new stuff slowly. The issue of course is that the clan-heads would have had a fit.

[Logan Pryde]

Victor Morson, on 01 April 2012 - 07:43 AM, said:

You know, it's quite likely that we fought Jade Falcon when we were FWL/1st Gold Knights, which might have been a different Jade Falcon than the one you guys were running (I think this was BK era). I know that whatever Jade Falcon we did fight, they absolutely kicked our ***, though.

I know we fought the Mercs version of Clan Wolf, though; those guys were seriously tough but not half as bad as the Falcons. We mostly fought the more easily defeated Ghost Bear to make enough money to tie up every single factory in the Draconis Combine making Wolfhounds for us, heh - we were starting to gun for higher tier units when I stepped out (and the 2nd Aces began).

Anyway, not 100% sure if you guys were still CJF during BK, but I think I might have gotten my "when we fought them" wrong. I do distinctly remember them backing some serious heavy hitters with Uziels at the time, though.

heh, I'm starting to think we need a thread to talk about the old days of NBT here.

Yeah Victor, we were the =CJF= that you fought. To reinforce Outlaw's point though, almost all of our force decs and strats were made with pure Clan Tech in mind , trust me, I made them all... =) During the BK Era we would sub in some IS tech if needed, or if we just had some of it lying around from a recent raid and we wanted to get rid of it... we may have been running one or two BK's as heavy scout mechs, as their electronics packages were pretty OP, then put an Uzi or 2 behind it with some nice long range punch and you have a nasty set of jump snipers! That said, once MW:Mercs came out, we really consolidated our systems with purely clan mechs. They just fit our strats better and were superior in most ways.

Edited by Logan Pryde, 03 April 2012 - 12:15 AM.

[BerryChunks]

the limitation in IS vs clan has always been that clan shoots the front of enemies only, and they take IS pilots on 1:2 ratio. I guess the trick would be a combination of value and player numbers per side.

clan tech has not ever been even with IS, its always better. the trade-off is that you need clanners to die to get it, and clans had less pilots to field, making fights even.

Edited by BerryChunks, 03 April 2012 - 01:05 AM.

[RedHairDave]

something tells me bv is the way to do it. i dont know what their plan is but i dont think there is any real chance for this to turn into 11 assaults and 1 light. i think they are going to make light medium and heavy (and also assault of course) useful in their rolls. maybe heavy will get skills assault wont in the support roll, maybe medium will get something light doesnt, maybe light will get something nothing else can.

it seems what what they have been saying that every size and shape of mech will be useful in its niche.

[zorak ramone]

Sprouticus, on 02 April 2012 - 02:42 PM, said:

The RAC/LG advantages outlined by you guys is true, but that is level 3 tech if I remmeber correctly.

RACs, LGRs, and HGRs are level 2 tech (tournament legal) and appear by the Civil War (if not before) and before the WoB show up.

Only level three tech I can remember from MW4 (keep in mind, I stopped at Mercs, didn't play HC) were the CapPPCs, and I think those were added by MekTek.

[Aegis Kleais]

StaIker, on 31 March 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

One thing I hope we can all agree on is the need to see the map and conditions before we are committed to a Mech. Any idea of balance goes completely out the window if a player can build for example a powerful infighter Atlas and then gets dumped onto a desert flatland. Same with a missile boat being dumped into a city map, their on paper BV has been reduced to near zero. There are lots of bad ways it could turn out.

"The key to victory is the element of surprise.......... SURPRISE!" - Zapf Brannigan, before dumping his unknowing soldiers onto a battlefield.

[renegade mitchell]

=Outlaw=, on 31 March 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

The really good IS weapons were ones that didn't have clan equivalents ...which allowed the devs to make them a little bit more powerful then they would have been if a clan equivalent was around. There being a Clan version suppressed the IS version's stats, since "we all know" they should be inferior. Almost all good IS mechs were good due to their hitbox geometry or secondary non-BT stats. Later on mods messed with the numbers to make some of IS stuff better, but it too was stretching CBT. Im actually perfectly fine with it if they go that route, but something tells me they won't. Most people on these forums probably would raise hell for deviating from BT.

Thanny had 360 TT, thin CT and could boat light gauss (a weapon clans couldn't match). Bushy had a tough hitbox layout and could take a decent loadout...but without the geometry it would have been meh. Same with the wolfhoud. Thin torsos, fast (lag shield) and yea could take a good amount of lasers, but without the fist two it would have been benched. Same with catapults, tough torso layout...and as a Xpulse boat you could ignore the arms. Don't get me wrong these were good mechs, but pretty much all the top teams of NBT throughout its lifespan took predominately clan mechs; DCx, Wolf, =CJF=, Ice Hellions, ect...There were very good teams that took mostly IS mechs (AK and HRR/GDL at the top of the list) but I always felt they were handicapped for not taking more clan mechs.

I totally agree with what Outlaw posted.

As for those saying they want mixed tech. Just looking at the Thanny from MW4. My clan tested mixed tech, and the one truelly over powered infighter was the Thanny, with 3 CLBX 10s and 2 Clan ER Lasers. A friend of mine, who at the time were closely matched, tested every mixed tech mech against it, he using other mechs, and I in a Thanny, and vice versa. Thanny won everytime. So I hope the Devs stick to puretech when clans come.

Quote

Don't get me wrong these were good mechs, but pretty much all the top teams of NBT throughout its lifespan took predominately clan mechs; DCx, Wolf, =CJF=, Ice Hellions, ect...There were very good teams that took mostly IS mechs (AK and HRR/GDL at the top of the list) but I always felt they were handicapped for not taking more clan mechs.

Like to also mention CSA and CCC. Both had a 80 percent win percentage.

[SideSt3p]

I think tonnage is the best way to do it. Battle Value is a complicated way of figuring out 'Mechs "worth" that anybody who hasn't played the table top game (ME) doesn't fully understand.

You have to impart responsibility and game knowledge upon the end-user at some point.

I think implementing tech levels is a good way of limiting what you will face. If you're a newbie just starting out (Level 3 MechWarrior) you fight other Level 3s with similar 'Mechs/load-outs/Tech level. If you're a Level 30 MechWarrior, you fight other 30s meaning a HUGE varience in load-out and tech level.

Just my feelings on it.

[renegade mitchell]

Forgot to add in my previous post, and more on topic. How about both tonnage and battle value implemented in matches?

[General Mal Function]

BV 'equalizes' the game. I don't want equal. If I wanted 'equal' I would be ok with holding hands too. This is war, this is competition, this is the best, the BEST winning. If my team doesn't have the brains to tailor our load out to the mission we DESERVE to lose.

Anyone /everyone who wants ' equal' needs to trade in the battlemech and get a pram and some small children.

Hopefully they can do much better than that. I hope the game will STRONGLY encourage the players to think further than the end of the missile rack.

Edited by General Mal Function, 13 April 2012 - 04:03 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

General Mal Function, on 13 April 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

BV 'equalizes' the game. I don't want equal. If I wanted 'equal' I would be ok with holding hands too. This is war, this is competition, this is the best, the BEST winning. If my team doesn't have the brains to tailor our load out to the mission we DESERVE to lose.

Anyone /everyone who wants ' equal' needs to trade in the battlemech and get a pram and some small children.

Hopefully they can do much better than that. I hope the game will STRONGLY encourage the players to think further than the end of the missile rack.

No - BV equalises (approximately) the equipment, not the pilots. Are you saying that an experienced, well trained team should be put against a random collection of newbies? That being roflstomped repeatedly at the start before you have the chance to learn is going to keep people in the game? Because this is a game, not war. So far there has been no indication either way that people will know exactly what they are facing before they have "set-up". It may be that the devs want people to run a balanced set up, not optimised for each individual match.

[Aegis Kleais]

You'll never equalize pilots across matches. Skill is not a quantifiable measurement. The computer cannot determine how good or bad a player is, war is never fair, so the chance of a game being "uneven" in any terms of skill will always be there.