163 replies to this topic

[Rofl]

Roadkill, on 15 February 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Nope. Clan Medium Pulse Laser. Same size, weight, and range as IS Medium Laser, but 2 more damage and 1 less heat. Pair it with Clan DHS and you'll have no heat problems and pinpoint accuracy.

http://www.sarna.net...ium_Pulse_Laser

Still weighs 2 tons, but yes, they are pretty awesome. No one's mentioning that their ERPPCs do Gauss level damage at further ranges? At the same heat level of IS ERPPCs, but 1 less ton and critical slot.

Again, in direct comparison ERPPC Clan vs IS:
5 more damage, 1 less crit, 1 less ton.

You can't balance clan vs IS on a 1:1 basis. Your best bet at balance is offsetting the numbers.

[Xeren KelDar]

Roadkill, on 15 February 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Nope. Clan Medium Pulse Laser. Same size, weight, and range as IS Medium Laser, but 2 more damage and 1 less heat. Pair it with Clan DHS and you'll have no heat problems and pinpoint accuracy.

Depending on how PGI implements hardpoints and Omni technology for the Clans, it could easily be possible to boat 8 Clan Medium Pulse Lasers on an 80-ton Mech that runs 81 kph base with full armor and has 24 Clan DHS. That's a 56-point alpha all in one location every 3 seconds.

Or as previously mentioned, the Clan Streak SRM-6.

Umm not true there on the stats as far as TT goes.
IS Medium Laser 1 ton, 1 crit, 3 heat, 5 damage, 9 range
C Medium Pulse 2 tons, 1 crit, 4 heat, 7 damage, 12 range

The weight and crit size of a Clan Medium Pulse is exactly the same as IS, 2 tons and 1 crit, but produces more damage at double the range.

[Vodrin Thales]

Rofl, on 15 February 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

You can't balance clan vs IS on a 1:1 basis. Your best bet at balance is offsetting the numbers.

I strongly suspect that clan tech will be made available for installation on any and all mechs when it is introduced in game. It's not really consistent with BT cannon, but will make balance much easier for PGI as they will not have to worry about IS tech only mechs trying to go 1v1 with a clan tech beast.

[Vasces Diablo]

However Clan tech is ultimately implemented, I think we can all agree that it will be met with absolute agreement and admiration by the player base.

/end sarcasm

[Silpher K]

i can't even imagine how they would go about balacing Clan tech with current IS tech that's currently in game.

clan tech is almost superior in every way. not to mention omnimechs and omni mounting, pricing on both clan mechs and clan weapons.

[Roland]

Vodrin Thales, on 15 February 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

I strongly suspect that clan tech will be made available for installation on any and all mechs when it is introduced in game. It's not really consistent with BT cannon, but will make balance much easier for PGI as they will not have to worry about IS tech only mechs trying to go 1v1 with a clan tech beast.

Then you basically just made all the IS tech obsolete, since the clan tech is flat out better.

For instance, in MW4, how many people used IS LRM's?
ZERO.

Even in puretech leagues, no one brought IS LRM's.. if you had IS mechs, you just didn't bring LRM's, because they were total trash.

[New Breed]

This is how the clans are going to be implemented

[Vasces Diablo]

Due to the number of shot fired in online vs TT I would assume the clan tech will only be marginally better than IS tech.

Ex. In TT a mech my only fire a weapon twice, but in online, a player will easily fire 20 times. So to accommodate for that increased volume, the increase in effectiveness should be 10% (max) of TT clan tech increase.

[Lord Ikka]

I am guessing that the first attempt to balance Clans will be for their Mechs to be incredibly expensive compared to IS Mechs. Clan Light Mech starting out at the same price as IS Assault Mechs.

[Roadkill]

Xeren KelDar, on 15 February 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Umm not true there on the stats as far as TT goes.
IS Medium Laser 1 ton, 1 crit, 3 heat, 5 damage, 9 range
C Medium Pulse 2 tons, 1 crit, 4 heat, 7 damage, 12 range

The weight and crit size of a Clan Medium Pulse is exactly the same as IS, 2 tons and 1 crit, but produces more damage at double the range.

Oops, I was looking at the IS ER Medium Laser. Clan Medium Pulse Laser does weigh 2 tons, though.

[Wolf Ender]

Ghost Bear, on 15 February 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

This is how the clans are going to be implemented
[ awesome picture of a Timberwolf advancing and firing missiles ]

F**K YEAH!

[Karl Marlow]

Khobai, on 15 February 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

Clan LRMs will have to have a min range to balance them though. Unless they do a complete rebalance of missiles before then.

LOL He things Clans will be balanced vs IS.

[Sprouticus]

Clan mechs are going to be beasts. Clan weapons are insane, and the equipment is no better.

But balance in MWO is about more than just heat/damage/range

• In MWO, NUMBERS are the biggest indicator of winning. Even more than dropping wit a group. Right now if you drop 8v5 (12v7 or 12v8), you are going to lose the vast majority of the time, even if tonnage is the same.
  
• Add to that the fact that PGI is looking at options for Zell, (I can see breaking Zell resulting in no XP for that mech or something)
  
• Add to THAT that we really dont know how omni hardpoints will work, It is possible they will limit the A/B/C/D variants of clan mechs to regular hardpoints except for 1 or 2 omni hardpoints.

Im actually not that worried about the absurd balance issues.due to those three points.

[ElLocoMarko]

Completely frivolous discussion... I'm IN!

In our tabletop days we could not resist clan tech. It was like crack.

[Wolf Ender]

i find it hard to believe they would actually implement real penalties for breaking Zell, especially considering that all 20 clans have 20 different interpretations of how strictly or liberally to adhere to the tenets of zellbrigen in a fight.

Also bear in mind the fact that 9 times out of 10 the Inner Sphere pilots on the other side break zellbrigen, technically giving the clanner the right to do so as well without loss of honor.

I think the only time Inner Sphere pilots ever stuck to Zell was in some stupid 'deus ex machina' in one of the novels where "spherioid uberpilot X" manipulated the rules of zell to gain an advantage over "arrogant and egotistical clanner Y" and won because the author of the book needed it to happen that way so we could have a happy ending for the spheroids.

[Rakashan]

Vodrin Thales, on 15 February 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

I strongly suspect that clan tech will be made available for installation on any and all mechs when it is introduced in game. It's not really consistent with BT cannon, but will make balance much easier for PGI as they will not have to worry about IS tech only mechs trying to go 1v1 with a clan tech beast.

And if they plan on doing that we all know that they might as well just quit working on balance for the weapons in game right now because they will never be used again.

I mean... Let's get real. Why would you *ever* mount an IS weapon again. You can't make them insanely expensive and give them the better stats because if you do then the whining about premades being hard on new players and PUGs will sound like the soft, melodic strains of classical music compared to the furor that will arise.

[One Medic Army]

I'd find it amusing if piloting a Clan mech added a massive boost to your Elo score for matchmaking.
It's even canon, IS had the better pilots, and clans had the better tech. So match better players with IS gear against people using Clan gear.
You could also go the 8v5 route, 2lances vs 1 star. 12v10 might also work, since we're getting 12v12 maps.

[FupDup]

Rakashan, on 15 February 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

And if they plan on doing that we all know that they might as well just quit working on balance for the weapons in game right now because they will never be used again.

I mean... Let's get real. Why would you *ever* mount an IS weapon again. You can't make them insanely expensive and give them the better stats because if you do then the whining about premades being hard on new players and PUGs will sound like the soft, melodic strains of classical music compared to the furor that will arise.

Well, maybe I'm about to be an extreme heretic for saying this, but maybe clan weapons/gear could have some tiny tradeoffs here and there? For instance, a clan laser might have higher damage and range and stuff, but having a longer beam duration (arbitrary example for demonstration purposes) would also make them slightly harder to use than an IS laser of the same type. A clan ER PPC might not have the ability to disable ECM (like IS ones are going to be patched to have soon). Maybe clan missiles could have a larger spread to them. Ballistics...I dunno what to do about those. Slightly slower projectile speed?

Edited by FupDup, 15 February 2013 - 01:07 PM.

[Aethon]

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[Rakashan]

That'd be one option for balance, Fup, but I doubt it would be all that effective. You can't monkey with weapon weights or slots without invalidating the canon builds (which they have avoided thus far) and you've still got to be close with heat or you get an unusable config. If you were to modify beam durations, per your example, you'd have to have some really long firing lasers to balance... Beam durations of 1.5 to 2s sounds really long to me.