46 replies to this topic

[Kell Pryde]

How to even out the Inner Sphere versus Clan:

#1: If you are fighting an IS vs Clan battle it shall be company on star (ie: 12 Spheroids versus 5 clanners). Why? First you dump the fanboys that just want the awesome weapons. Second you can actually scale the Clan technology up to better represent them canon wise without breaking the game as they will be severely outgunned.

#2: Clan equipment will be expensive. To take a page from World of Tanks your clan equipment might not even be able to pay for its own repairs / reloads unless you do exceptionally well. Yes yes I understand Clan society doesn't have money, but you need some in game form of currency in order to upgrade your stuff. For Clanners you could call it honor points or whatever.

#3: I can see the whole naming thing going one of two ways. One; they don't even bother with bloodnames initially, or two; you buy it with honor points. When I say buy it though I mean with a CRAP TON of points.

As much as I would love to see zellbrigen as a mechanic I have no idea how they would implement it in game form. I am simply excited to see Mechwarrior back in computer game form, and will enjoy whatever they pop out. Everything looks great so far.

[KuruptU4Fun]

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A newbie who has no knowledge of BattleTech can take one look at the matchups and see "Oh, the clan team only gets 10 people. I guess they have stronger stuff."

Once you get to the point of choosing whether to join a IS house or Clan, I'm sure the Dev's will give some sort of explanation between the two styles of factions and how they go into combat. If a newbie chooses not to read and pay attention to this information, then the fault is on them.

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Eh, I don't generally like cost as a means of balance. If you use cost as a means of balance, then it doesn't balance high skilled players (who can always afford what they need) while it punishes less skilled players in a large way. Also, if the costs get too out of hand, it can easily turn into P2W model, where people who are willing to put money into the game have superior mechs/gear to people who don't.

I'd have to agree with previous posters on this issue, the farther a Clan (or House) makes it's way into the enemy territory the higher costs for repairs should be. Otherwise a salvage and/or time to convert weapons to the mechs repair needs should be implimented. If supply lines are a long ways away from a battle then you have to make due with what you've got available. If you can't do that then your only option is to retreat.

[Noble]

Dont know why people are suggesting clanner technology to only be limited to the clanners. Spheroids loved finding an intact laser and see how it works and how to rig it too there machine, do you fear the innersphere hitting you just as hard now? Or do you just want an easy massacare without putting any skill in the battle? I would think a clan warrior would find it more interesting if his dueling foe also had his advantage....anyway, I dont think we'd really get the numbers right with the IS vs Clan. Everyone would want to be in the clan...Much like how everyone is germany in CoH's while there are very few allied players.

[LordDeathStrike]

KuruptU4Fun, on 14 May 2012 - 08:03 AM, said:

While I'm sure we are all aware of the advantages that the Mechs used by the clans are, should they be allowed to become the dominating force once they arrive. Should changing from a IS merc to a Clan brother come with disadvantages as well?

I think that having a negative balance of Xp for new sibko pilots should be considered, allowing for the more experienced IS pilots to have an upper hand. Would this be present already with Clan members starting from 0xp, but is that really enough?

Maybe some other people could suggest some starting disadvantages as well...

once the comstar truce lifts and the real war begins, the clans should face the true crippling odds, in 12 vs 12 game sizes, it should be 18 IS mechs vs 6 clan. our atlas's will grind them into a fine paste. and this will prevent faction hopping, as to get fast games youll want to be IS house or merc for fast matchmaking as we can fight each other clans only fight us, in heavily outnumbered battles.

[Thanathos87]

Hmm , dont know if its been said yet in this form , but i support an "honor point" mechanic paralel to the xp system. But the twist is that honor is more liquid and is given for different things : for example you killed X amount of enemies/did X amount of dmg ( since tracking kills and determening ks-ing is hard ) BUT your team used air strikes or other non-honorable forms and methods of winning , meaning that while you get honor for killing /damage you get honor reduction for your team winning non-honorably.

Also you could wager honor prior to the match ( obviusly this would be only an option for companys ) etc.

You could only buy clantech with alot of c-bills AND honor ( so dont just pile it up and unlock everything then ) and unlock certain grades of it by gaining a set amount of honor ( so you have to balance buying and unlocking ), so you need a ****load of honor to unlock a masakari for example and only the '"most honorable" pilots could own one ( making it a status symbol of a sort , though this could lead to unbalance), while unlocking i.e. an ER small laser or uller would be much easier to do...but you could also lose this if you are "weak" or "dishonorable".
( meaning you lost alot of honor and sink back to a previous grade )

Though this system may be a bit harsh but hey , this jsut an idea.

Edited by Thanathos87, 22 May 2012 - 04:12 AM.

[oohawkoo]

Geist Null, on 14 May 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

parts expense isnt a combat disadvantage that will balance the game. neither is 12 on 10. clan mechs are worth 2 IS mechs

it is is if you have to win to get enough cash to do the repairs or even buy the better gear first ..... IS wont have that problem (since its been said that ull always get enough cbills to cover repairs and such at mission end) but clan mechs might Require a win to get any cash/honor,,,, i think this would be a good idea.... and it would fit with how clans work

also the rules of winning for is should prolly be different in a match against clans .... like bonus exp/cbils and such for damage or even out right destroying the enemy... (this would work for the clans too if its applied to 1v1 honor battles etc)...so that even if the match ends up in a loss its not like they loose in a bad way and end up with nothing ...
well one thing i wish they add is the abilty to salvage... tho i know whole mechs are prolly out since we will never compleatly loose them,,, but maybe something like weapon systems and other such things would be good... even if its just for research ... that would prolly be a good option too ,,, makeing you have toput significant research and cbils into being able to use clan tech befor you can even think of useing it in an IS mech,

i think the zelbrigan toggle would work fine(i mean all it really does is mark a target as urs to your clan mates .... and also adds honor points to ur gaind exp at the end i dont see how it would be complicated at all) ... i mean it would give clanners a chance to gain honor points... i mean for a few seconds of combat where its likely they will have their target all to them selves they get the chance to gain honor points and such ...as long as no is mech breaks the rules everyone else stays un shootable (it should be possible for clans to accidently break them too with penalties) pretty fast into combat the rules are likely to change when the other is mechs turn up and start shooting every one .. at that point it should prolly turn into a free for all with only total victory gaining them honor etc.. but in that way i belive it would work fine i dont think there would be much of a blance issue ... but i could be wrong

[Kreisel]

Some way of implementing the different trails for Clansmen would be interesting.

Also, I'm highly in support of the idea of the Clans bidding for slots much the way Mercs are going to be bidding for contracts, but with unit strength instead of c-bills.

Zellbringer offering rewards for being followed seems like a decent idea, but I think it needs to just be more than calling targets. Clansmen lost battles from things like refusing to step into cover or fall back from weapons range.

I don't like the idea of making it more expensive for the Clans to get repairs the better they do... or the farther they push, this is punishing them for doing well. Not a good model, unless say it's countered by them making more C-bills to offput the cost... and that defeats the purpose.

The real trick is: if the IS gets Clan tech, then it's vastly unfair to the Clan player to make them fight uphill odds as a reward for their tech. If things are consistent with their only being a different of price, it will be even in that everyone can have Clan tech, but then it is neither rare, nor special, or even really a Clan thing at that point, their would be little to distinguish the Clans from the Houses.

If Clan tech is expensive and hard to get, but possible to get for the IS (and we can spend real money to do so) then we run the problem of the game becoming functionally P2W. Sure they could get it normally too, but if it's impractically expensive, players will just throw money at getting the best stuff right away.

if Clan equipment is just better and any player can use it, players will FIND a way to get it. It will become the standard of the top teir, anyone lacking it will be considered a noob and just get steamrolled.

Perhaps the way to restrict it is by chassis, I know it's not cannon, but it would offer some better control of Clan tech if say, only Clan Chassis could mount it, and they had special restrictions of other equipment they could not mount such as c3, or had disadvantages like less module slots, require 2 player slots to field one Clan Chassis, Or just piloting a Clan mech somehow is automatically set up for Zellbringer and functioned at a disadvantage if you didn't fight that way no matter who you are.

Either Clan tech is somehow balanced with it's non-clan equivalents or is restricted in it's use, else the standard equipment will go obsolete. If the idea is it's fine for that to go obsolete and get replaced with the new stuff, fine but then things need to be balanced from that perspective.

Either Clan tech needs to be limited to the clans, and they have some kind of handicap built into their gameplay for balance, or the Clans should have NO handicap and anyone should be able to get the tech. If the Clans are handicapped and there Inner sphere can get their stuff, they get crushed and it's no fun to play them, if the Clans just get better tech and no handicap that makes players think twice about jumping to that side then the Inner Sphere gets crushed and it's no fun to play on that side.

Edited by Kreisel, 22 May 2012 - 05:21 AM.