31 replies to this topic

[CW Grayson]

As clan equip will come, i thought about how to balance this.

In MW3, we just did drops with 4 clanner vs. 5 IS mechs and it worked out.
In MW4 everything was screwed because every mech could mount clan weps and some is-mechs were even better than clan ones.
So, is it even possible to mount clan-tech into IS-mechs and if not, is there a drop-condition that gives the clans a handicap?

In MW3, it worked because clan units had only 4 mechs, while IS had 5. MW4 and mektek just screwed it up. (btw, CW_sK_Ward here, sorry but it did in my opinion).

I'm wondering how the dev's will balance it, as omnimechs are far away from the timeline. Even when, there are only a few omni's in the IS arsenal.

One lesser mech in drop for clans worked, but how will it work out in MWO?

[Dirk Le Daring]

I doubt you can ballance Clan and Inner Sphere. That is the crux of the game. Correct me if I am wrong, but Clan technology is superior to Inner Sphere. Tactics aside, the clans have the edge.

[Stormwolf]

Weapons should not be balanced, teams should be balanced.

Clan Players should always be outnumbered by the IS side.
I'd personally like to see 5 vs 8 or 5 vs 12 battles depending on BV.

[pursang]

Stormwolf, on 23 April 2012 - 01:39 AM, said:

Weapons should not be balanced, teams should be balanced.

Clan Players should always be outnumbered by the IS side.
I'd personally like to see 5 vs 8 or 5 vs 12 battles depending on BV.

Exactly this. There are so many more InnerSphere mechwarriors in comparison to Clan mechwarriors that it's very much a case of Clan forces being outnumbered on almost every front. I mean, just look at the Battle of Tukkayid: 1000-18,750 Clan points (25 galaxies) against roughly 20,736-34,560 InnerSphere soldiers (144 regiments). Talk about a big difference! This is like the Battle of Thermopylae on a massive scale. The Clans are very much the "Spartans" of the BattleTech universe. Also remember that Clan commanders like to underbid their forces: They gain more honor and prestige by being victorious with the fewest amount of warriors used. It's very much a part of their culture.

[Havoc2]

pursang, on 23 April 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

Exactly this. There are so many more InnerSphere mechwarriors in comparison to Clan mechwarriors that it's very much a case of Clan forces being outnumbered on almost every front. I mean, just look at the Battle of Tukkayid: 1000-18,750 Clan points (25 galaxies) against roughly 20,736-34,560 InnerSphere soldiers (144 regiments). Talk about a big difference! This is like the Battle of Thermopylae on a massive scale. The Clans are very much the "Spartans" of the BattleTech universe. Also remember that Clan commanders like to underbid their forces: They gain more honor and prestige by being victorious with the fewest amount of warriors used. It's very much a part of their culture.

That theory works fine in the novels and TT, but the simple fact is that in this game, people want the better weapons. If that means going Clan, they will go Clan.

I agree with CW Carlson. If/when we start having the option of fighting as the Clans, there should be some type of handicap.
8v5, 12v10, something like that

[pursang]

}{avoc, on 23 April 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:

That theory works fine in the novels and TT, but the simple fact is that in this game, people want the better weapons. If that means going Clan, they will go Clan.

I agree with CW Carlson. If/when we start having the option of fighting as the Clans, there should be some type of handicap.
8v5, 12v10, something like that

Erm, thanks for disagreeing then agreeing with my point - I guess?

[Havoc2]

pursang, on 23 April 2012 - 04:31 AM, said:

Erm, thanks for disagreeing then agreeing with my point - I guess?

Sorry, I failed to explain what I was disagreeing with lol, stupid work.

People like playing with the better tech. I suspect a lot of people will be jumping ship to play with the new shinys.
It'll have nothing (or very little) to do with playing the honourable, fight to the last style that the Clans stand for in the lore and more to do with the fact that their 'Mechs, weapons and tech are better.

Once the population becomes split Clan/IS and the Clans start to get closer to even numbers (population) with the IS, the IS starts to get ROLLED!

As people get a$$jammed more and more, the IS population falls off more as people either quit or join the Clans. By limiting the Clans to being short-handed all the time, people need to weigh the balance of whether they want to be short-handed or get the shiny new tech.

Edited by }{avoc, 23 April 2012 - 04:48 AM.

[ASC]

Its all going to depend on how the devs balance clantech and mechs, and how availible they will be to IS factions.

If it is IS tech vs frontline clantech then we might see 4 lances vs 2 stars (16vs10).

If the IS side has some access to clantech but not mechs we might see 3 lances vs 2 stars

but if its all availible even to IS to get a fair force we might have to see 5 lances vs 4 stars to keep the mech count even; though a 40 player battle might be a bit too much to hope for (can still dream)

Of course this doesn't really matter right now as we won't be seeing clantech for a while.

[RedDragon]

Maybe they don't need to balance IS vs. Clan. Maybe those two just CAN'T be balanced. But there could be ways around that.
Historically (in BT lore), IS forces couldn't hope to win most battles. There are very few exceptions where they were able to defeat the Clans. So maybe it would be a good idea for IS players not having to win but rather trying not to lose, if you're getting my meaning. At least the first fights up to Tukayyid could be special missions in which you for example have to deal the most damage possible to the advancing Clan forces. So you could still "win" a match even if all your mechs are destroyed - you would just have to deal enough damage before dying. Technically the IS could afford losing mechs while every lost Clan mech set them back a step from reaching Terra.
Or just other types of missions like defending a space port long enough that your dropships can lift off before being overrun by Clan forces.
There are many scenarios where it doesn't really matter who's got the bigger guns. You just have to depart from the standard death-match style gameplay.

Edited by RedDragon, 23 April 2012 - 06:42 AM.

[neodym]

how about making IS mechs catch up with clan mechs by using everything except chassis clan tech based

[Adridos]

neodym, on 23 April 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

how about making IS mechs catch up with clan mechs by using everything except chassis clan tech based

Not a good idea.

The Clan tech is so different, changing just one weapon on the mech for Clan one changed it to a completely different mech and with comepletely different needs. I'd rather support fighting a loosing battle in an actual Vindicator (not that many of them ever faced Clans), than to fight them in something that, well, isn't Vindicator.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I think that we should stick to puretech ie no Clan mechs or weapons for IS and balance it by numbers. RedDragons idea of different objectives, especially if we can retreat, is a good way to go. I'm intending to stay IS whatever happens.

[Siilk]

Per-drop team BV limit would work excellent to balance IS vs Clan matches. You don't even have to have uneven team sizes, IS would simply have more tonnage at their disposal as IS tech usually has lower BV.

[AlanEsh]

BV is going to be difficult to judge... what if I loaded up my mech with PPCs where I had MLs originally, and didn't upgrade my heatsinks? My BV is going to be totally skewed isn't it? Or is BV going to calculate heat output vs heatsinks and adjust?

[Morashtak]

Clan tech > (pre-3050) IS tech, just no way to get around that. 50 tons of clan tech will destroy 50 tons of IS tech.

Agree with those that suggest a number imbalance as well as other posts/threads that suggest a bidding system where the less Clan tonnage you go into battle and win with awards a higher amount of Clan loyalty points.

Want to go 1ton v 1ton? Go right ahead. Would be interesting to see the IS players get more loyalty points for losing than the Clan players get for winning.

[Jonas]

Look it will be war, and if I can get my hands on clan tech I will use it. I would most likely strip the Clan mech for everything I could use on my IS mech and then sale the Clan chassis. Always liked mixing tech for some reason.

[CW Grayson]

neodym, on 23 April 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

how about making IS mechs catch up with clan mechs by using everything except chassis clan tech based

Jonas, on 23 April 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

Look it will be war, and if I can get my hands on clan tech I will use it. I would most likely strip the Clan mech for everything I could use on my IS mech and then sale the Clan chassis. Always liked mixing tech for some reason.

That's how MW3/4 made it and i found it rather bad. I mean, how can any clantech fit into an IS-mech? IF they want to make it, maybe some sort of omnitech-upgrade would do it, but otherwise it always botherd me when you could outfit a urbie with some clan weps.

[Kevin Kirov]

neodym, on 23 April 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

how about making IS mechs catch up with clan mechs by using everything except chassis clan tech based

Technically that couldnt work. All the Clan mechs that would be seen would be Omnis and their weps are not compatable with regular battle mechs for the Clans, no way the IS would be able to mount them without ridiculous salvage costs.

"The modifications required to add modular attachment points so that weaponry and equipment can be used by OmniMechs render such equipment incompatible with standard BattleMechs."
From Sarna Omnimech page

[Stormwolf]

Kevin Kirov, on 23 April 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

Technically that couldnt work. All the Clan mechs that would be seen would be Omnis and their weps are not compatable with regular battle mechs for the Clans, no way the IS would be able to mount them without ridiculous salvage costs.

"The modifications required to add modular attachment points so that weaponry and equipment can be used by OmniMechs render such equipment incompatible with standard BattleMechs."
From Sarna Omnimech page

Sarna is a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to info.

The weapons used Clan Omni's and regular Battlemechs are the same. Those modular attachment points are part of the omni chassis so you can plug in any weapon.

At any rate lore wise it shouldn't be possible for IS forces to mount Clan weapons on their mechs yet (atleast not until 3052 I suppose). IS forces couldn't even maintain Clan machines for longer periods of time. The original Avater TRO fluff pointed out that most Clan machines would break down after a couple of months due ot lack of maintenance.

[AlanEsh]

CW Grayson, on 23 April 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

That's how MW3/4 made it and i found it rather bad. I mean, how can any clantech fit into an IS-mech? IF they want to make it, maybe some sort of omnitech-upgrade would do it, but otherwise it always botherd me when you could outfit a urbie with some clan weps.

I'm curious why mixing clan and IS tech bothers you.

It's not like clan tech is from some alien race and uses totally different basis for the weapons and gear.

I don't see that swapping in clan tech would be any more difficult than swapping in an IS autocannon from a different manufacturer, or an IS autocannon of different size.

Take today's tech for example... if you're going to replace the 20mm vulcan cannon on an F-18 with a 30mm avenger, you're going to have to do a whole heck of a lot of alteration to the plane. It doesn't matter if this is a US made 30mm cannon, or something from China, the thing is going to be a serious pain in the butt to implement.

So to sum up... clan tech into and IS mech is just another modification.