233 replies to this topic

[Hotthedd]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 21 December 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

PGI falls apart in the face of that mooing so fast people are killed by the shrapnel... so Id expect the donkies to win



except in this game its not actual salvage but salvage pay

Right now it is salvage pay. Once the game starts, that could change to actual salvage. The hard part would be how to divvy up the loot.

[Asakara]

For "real" clan tech to work I believe they need to balance matches by battle point value.

If you take that single 75 ton Timber Wolf Prime (BPV2 = 2,737) then our team gets two 75 ton Marauders (BPV2 = 1,363 each for 2,726 total).

[Anyone00]

Yeah should be handled in part by elo or bv or the like; but that will take time and alot of trial and error to bang out.

My idea: Clan Tech requiring cross tech control modules to use in IS mechs. Want a Clan ERPPC that will need one Clan Energy Weapon module to use, want a second Clan ERPPC then that will need a second Clan Energy Weapon Module (separate modules for ballistics and missiles with diffrent cost because half weight missle launcher with pre-CASE'd ammo should likely cost more to obtain than Clan ballistics or even energy weapons) to use. Make Clan DHS require a Clan engine that require one module to use (yes one for both since they're tied together). Maybe have some specialized modules that will allow for multiple cERSLas or cUAC2 in the same section of the mech to make is so it's not all the big guns that are valued.
This system would require a pilot to give something up like a Capture Accelerator or Advanced Zoom just for one (or a few small) pieces of Clan Tech. Plus it front loads the cost if repair and rearm costs should ever come back.
(Salvaged/Captured/Backroom-dealings-obtained) Clan Mechs: no modules, no cross tech, cost more than one mech during mach making.

Also it would be nice if PGI made it so it felt like an accomplishment you got your hands on Clan Tech (as in something other than grinding C-Bills): good luck at trying to change the base configuration of that Clan Mech you obtained with rare bits.

[BWAvent]

no modified clan items
they must be punch hard

the FIS have lost many mechs in the first of the invasion.
only the best of the best troops have make a draw

i dont wont a victory for free
when we fight against clans

and yes a binari star of clan front mechs have killed a kompani of FIS troops in the beginning of the invasion
thats it

no merci
no hope
thats war

[MacKoga]

Adridos, on 21 December 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

Ahh, the Clan tech.

No minimumm range LRMs.
SSRM6s.
UAC/2,/10 and /20.
1 crit DHS.

The amount of "X is unbalanced" on the forums right now is nothing compared to what we may see. I think we're looking at this the wrong way, though. The issue of the Clans and their technology might better be handled like this:

1:
RENT-A-CLAN
One way to implement the actual clan invasion is to have everyone be Inner Sphere, and own IS mechs, loadouts, etc. All of their community warfare progress and accomplishments would be IS.

When playing in Clan mechs for their conquest of the IS, it could be more like autmatic Clan trial mechs possibly even in a PUG-only grouped drop.

No resources or accomplishments from the fight would be retained by the players; they would get to stomp, but their progress, "what matters" would be their IS work.

2:
CLAN DROPSHIP TOKENS
Also, maybe the ability to drop as Clan would be limited by accumulating and spending tokens. To avoid farming for tokens (stuff that's bad for gameplay), maybe all pilots with at least 25 games under their belt automatically have up to 5 games they can play in as part of a Clan deployment.

Alternatively, tokens could be built up by each time a person has a certain kind of accomplishment in a game (top position on winning or loosing team, etc). This is probably a bad idea, however, as it would make it like we're playing IS just so we can play Clan, which would totally undermine the joy in playing IS, and make everything feel like a grind. I.e. ruin the game.

3:
SCARCITY & CLAN RETROFIT TOKENS
Completely separate from dropping as a Clanner, is dropping as Inner Sphere, with a clan part retrofit into an IS mech. The truth is, clan parts are going to be rather rare in the beginning. This should mean that a player or merc corps would have a rather limited supply of clan parts, if any. Some kind of token system could help this, as C-Bills alone would just be grindy & pay-to-win. Beating a Clan deployment may give bonus Token distribution, but everyone should be able to occasionally get tokens (people will sell and trade parts across the inner sphere).

Parts that are more rare & harder to recover fully intact, or even maybe full battlemechs, would cost more tokens and be rarely seen on the IS side.

Gradually, as time goes on, scarcity drops, and the token acquistion rate goes up.

4:
EXPENSIVE TO MAINTAIN
If Repair & Rearm costs go back in, or if a C-Bill only system is used for Clan parts for Inner Sphere companies (which I recommend against), honestly, x3 IS cost is far to cheap. Early on, due to supply & demand, the price should be at least x10 the cost to buy or maintain. Or, actually determine it by supply and demand, and distribute all clan parts by auction house. (this would of course lead to weird farming, and risk ruining the game).

5:
DELAY THE TIMELINE?
Many of us do want the IS vs. Clan struggle to be our core MWO experience, but from what's been proposed, IS vs IS community warfare struggle looks like it could be a really rich experience. I would like to have that be its own thing, for at least a little while before the Clans show up.

Banding together vs the Clans should feel like a big deal, a big change from the status quo.

[WardenWolf]

Clan Tech needs to be better than IS - maybe not quite so much as in TT, but clearly better in almost every way. Balance should be achieved through numbers: one star of Clanners (5 mechs) vs 2 lances (8 mechs) of IS, at least using current battle sizes. Drop weight and such could be controlled as well.

This has been much debated on the forums, back to well before Closed Beta. If you want to see some fully thought-out ideas, check out threads like this one: http://mwomercs.com/...on-balance-etc/

[BadWolf81]

I would like to see it and be able to mount clan weapons in my IS mechs a laser hard point is a laser hard point I don’t see why I can’t mount it

[Cleverbird]

Oh! Make it rogue-like!

Lose your clan mech in a game, it gets deleted!

(this is a joke btw)

[Bayamon]

If the gamestyle stays as it is, Clantech has to be "balanced" or otherwise there would be no point in using any IS tech (other than the IS stuff that is actually better).

There are many ways to do it.
Just a silly brainstorming on my part here:

Make Clanmechs and Equipment rediculously expensive...and just as expensive to repair.
Infact, if youre using only IS tech, you should have no r&r costs, but if you use any clantech, you need to maintain it the way we used to before the patch (so you wouldnt end up at a net loss after a match, but severly reduce your income.)

You cant just "buy" clantech, you have to "earn" it somehow.
Tokens, GXP unlocks....anything.
Ultimately a lot of people will have unlocked everything anyways, so i dont know if that does it.

Have an obscene "recovery" timer on Clan Mechs or ones that use any clan tech.
That way youll a have to wait a long time before you can join a match with one and the matches wont be swarmed by them.

Matchmaker taking into consideration whether youre on an IS or Clan mech.


Killing Clanners as IS => Huge Cbill bonus
Killing IS as Clanner => Minimal Cbill bonus.



or simply balance the tech....but i feel this wouldnt do the BT universe justice.


Making Clantech availible exclusively with MC would be an option....but a quite silly one...that would be actual pay2win.
Although maybe not.... reading those IS vs Clan discussions sometimes makes you think as if Clan tech is so uber that you could solo all eight enemies with ease.....it is not..its "better"....but its not A1Abrams-vs-Slingshots- better.

[CDLord HHGD]

Why are there duplicate threads??

http://mwomercs.com/...40#entry1646210

[Quad Ace]

I know it doesn't really apply here, but one of the primary balances of clan tech in TT was price. Now that that's gone, who know's how they'll do it.

[Cferre]

Valleros, on 21 December 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

Not all of us... I never liked the Nazis from outer space and their uebermechs.

The differents between the Nazis and the clanners is that the clanners are actually genetically superior.

Edited by Cferre, 21 December 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[Zero Neutral]

IMO, clan tech should be an advanced tier which has its' availability limited to players by either high c-bill costs i.e. one weapon costing as much as say a Catapult (tbh that might be too cheap,) some sort of gxp unlocks, purchased with germanium/some other currency, or through tokens won through the community warfare system.

However, I do not think that clan tech should be balanced with repair costs. Keeping the cost of these items up front on purchase will help to maintain the current economic system which has normalized income for all players.

Edited by Zero Neutral, 21 December 2012 - 01:53 PM.

[Johnathon Drew]

Bluten, on 21 December 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

If Clan Tech is used by players, then it should be exclusive to a Clan faction. Balancing IS vs Clan with team sizes would be A BIG HELP rather than just trying to balance weapons. 12 IS vs 10 Clan would almost fix the problem by itself. Then you've got better stuff, vs more people. Makes sense. If that isn't good enough(and it most likely won't be), then you could do edits to weapons or Mechs after that. But IS vs Clan would make the game a lot more fun too. I just don't want everyone in every game riding around in Clanner stuff, forgetting IS Mechs even exist. IS Houses vs Clan factions, that's the way to do it.

the biggest success of this technique is that it is battletech certified. that is how battletech balanced it, well that and clan mechs were a little more cost prohibitive and tended to run up heat a touch faster. battletech is simply the battle between high quality with decent quantity (clan) versus high quantity with decent quality. This is the best and only way to do it in my opinion without breaking the game. to make it a little more expensive for clan mechs as well as having less per battle. maybe 12 to 9 though for a little more balance

[So who took Pilot Name as a name]

While the concept could be hard to smoothly introduce for MWO in its raw form... I'd finding harder to conceive that I'd be playing a MW game without the Clan tech. Not that I've just signed up in the hopes of piloting a Vulture soon... but really;

Might as well make a MW game without the Mechs while you're at it! Call it ''Mechwarrior - THE simulation'' only to end up playing a dating sim... wtf mate, right?

Clan tech shouldn't be expensive to repair, should be expensive to aquire. If you allow IS mechs to eventually gear up with Clan tech, it won't make it too unbalanced to have them fight Clan Mechs loaded with Clan tech... well ok, their would be some tweaking to be done on how hardpoints work, but hey, they've done it with IS mechs and it seems to have been ''digested'' just fine by players and fans alike, I don't see why it should be ''o so outrageous'' if Clans did get nerfed a bit too! Now purchasing a Clan chassie, that'd be another story: make those expensive, but then, you don't want to turn this to a P2W where everyone who don't dish out mad $$$$$ get ran over by Clan mechs.

Perhaps, should a Clanner join in a random game, he should count as 1.6 player no matter what, so that gameplay-wise, it wouldn't be that bad that the team has one less player - they have one Clan player! Aside from sucking HARD if that one guy with a Timber Wolf gets disconnected at the beginning of the match... it seems balanced enough! Now you might say ''but what is this? You mean there would be IS players fighting alongside Clan players in matches left and right??'' ... Yes, what would be the better idea? Clan vs IS-only matches? Could be done, but if we add more and more restrictions in those still-potentially-neat game modes, you'll eventually see a lot of that ''Searching...'' screen to get a match-up. Given the nature of the game, there is bound to be ''innaccuraties'', may that be in the lore and/or tech used.

[Cataphract]

I still don't see clan tech being usable the way many are expecting. They cant hope to bring Clan tech in without this game being another MW3, MW4 debacle. Clan tech would just mean the end of everything IS again. It would be better to keep clans an AI opponent for special missions and events then bring it into the masses. Every game with AI has always let the AI cheat or given them buffs to make it challenging for the player controlled characters. Fighting AI clan opponents is the perfect challenge for the community. They have better tech, faster mechs, longer range, more damage etc. The only balance factor without making clan tech ridiculous, really crappy or taking an absorbent amount of time of the devs to make it right is making you permanently lose any item that gets destroyed in game or bring back R&R for clan tech and make it ridiculously expensive. The whole 5v8 or one clan mech for every two IS would not work worth a beans in this game. Just because there'd be a Clan mech in the match doesn't mean he/she is worth the two IS mechs and pilots the other team would get, so thats also not a good idea. People are also forgetting that if any IS pilot breaks a Clans honor code, in this case trying to two on one a Clanner, then the Clan pilots are freed from that code and can free for all all they want and that includes ALL Clanners in that engagement which is usually what causes IS pilots to lose their ***** off in a firefight so the honor code thing wont work worth a balls in this game. Really the only initial implementation that makes sense before the devs can come to a good decision for player based Clan tech is making Clans AI only and just introducing special PVE missions.

[Crazycajun]

What i want is the clan mechs KEPT TO THE CLANS ..and is mechs kept to the IS

as in if ur in the clan factions then u only have access to CLAN MECHs..

same for IS ...only access to IS mechs .. unless captured/confiscated ..

thats what i want

[Wintersdark]

Clan tech as is. I'm really looking forward to the Clan invasion.

Yes, generally speaking the Clan mechs are more powerful. The whole point of setting the game at a specific time and moving forward allows PGI to continuously introduce gradually more powerful mechs legitimately. They've got a business to run, and want to keep providing New Shinies for us to strive for. This allows them to introduce ever better stuff without it being a blatant cash grab, or silly expansion power creep. See: WoW, etc, where the next tier of stuff is more powerful just because it is.

Ultimately, though, balancing new clan stuff against existing mechs is silly and stupid. Old models of military hardware depreciate amd are succeeded by new models. It's how it works in all warfare.

I'm interested in how they introduce it. Do they just start adding clan mechs? Will there be some awesome event? How will the invasion be modelled in the context of the game? There's a lot of potential for awesome here.

[AEgg]

Clan tech needs it's own game mode. We can't include it in 8v8s or that would make IS tech useless, and having useless things available is stupid.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

AEgg, on 21 December 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Clan tech needs it's own game mode. We can't include it in 8v8s or that would make IS tech useless, and having useless things available is stupid.

yeah cause machineguns and flamers are so viable.
LRMs too when ECM is around