Balance discussion and suggestion

[Philadelphia Collins]

I have now fought two different clan enemies and I have to say that the matches are complete stomps. I don't know if anyone else in the IS is having a better time of things if so I would like to know how you are doing it.

I believe there are two underlying problems with balancing this league. Mech imbalance and skill seed imbalance.

 It is hard enough fighting top tier players under equal circumstances and it is impossible to do so with the current imbalance in mechs. Clan vs IS mechs is a joke, Streaks, speed, durability take your pick from the things clans can do better than IS. Is it any wonder that all the top tier players chose to play as clans? To the point where some teams rosters have an absolute ridiculous number of players on it?

I think it is important in a competition that both sides start on as close to an even playing field as possible. Clan vs Clan and IS vs IS is the only way I can see to do this. Giving IS a bunch of IS meta will do nothing to solve the combination of skill and mech imbalance between Clan and IS currently. Clan meta is just better than IS meta, I own 4 TDR-5SS so don't think I don't like my IS meta it just isn't as good.

What I recommend for moving forward is a max roster size. There should be no reason to have rosters the size I am seeing when there are empty factions that need players in them. 25 seems like a good number or maybe just a little higher to be able to include enough players to field a team in multiple timezones. This might help spread the talent out a bit.

Lore is awesome, I loved reading the battletech books. This is a game and things don't play out the same here as they do in a book with an author dictating what happens. IS can't fight Clan the way they did in lore. Especially not with PGI's boneheaded balancing. A reset was brought up not long ago and at the time I felt it was too soon. And maybe it still is a little too soon but when we do reset I would recommend an IS vs IS only league. Or do a Clan vs Clan only. Maybe do one and then the other with an objective that doesn't take a whole year to complete and then reset so both types of players get a turn. I just can't imagine a situation where Clan vs IS works out.

[Xavier]

We kept the last two discussions civil, let's keep this one so as well.

The only thing NBT admin has to say on roster sizes is

• teams can sport whatever roster size they like, and
• that larger/more-geographically-diverse rosters (many factions here have NA and EU/RU player bases, for example) should make scheduling easier, not more difficult.

Additionally, having N players on a roster does not necessarily translate into N players available each night. Our preference would be that only the players who actually WILL play in NBT be listed on a roster, but in fact, rosters are there to indicate players on a team who MAY (are allowed to) play in NBT (including players who the team may know have gone on to focus on games other than MWO).

Other than that, carry on...civilly, s'il vous plait (sorry, don't know how to do the little hat thing with a US keyboard).

[RayRazor]

Philly, I admire your attempt but if this goes anything close to the posts I made concerning this very aspect I wish you GL.... the amount of 'blame' and 'finger pointing' that will ensue is comical all the while avoiding the actual issue

PGI made a game that is unbalanced with no end in sight to closing that imbalance gap

Your point about the 'more talented' units taking clans should also be noted, yet how do you address that without upsetting folks?

I suspect that PAs will clear the path to moving this issue to the forefront rapidly... I fully expect the level of folks getting upset with the play and outcomes to be significant enough to make people really address this issue instead of avoiding it like they did in the prior balance/reset posts made

But this is just my perception, we'll see once the first wave of PAs are played out...

[ngrt]

The only thing that I feel is extremely unbalanced enough to warrant any banning is the issue of streaks and light drops.  The drop tonnages overall are too light. We either need pilot number reduction to 4 on light drops, an increase of 150 tons across the board, or an outright ban on streaks, or else this will continue.

Look at the match vids.  Half the drops in is vs clan are light. Light enough that when its 8v8, the best option is streaks. is it any wonder these have been blowouts?  Clan vs is meta in a real fight is reasonable.  Sure the two best sides are both clan, but that is another issue entirely separate from clan is balance.

No one enjoys streak fights.  Even clan vs clan is streak deck at these tonnage and pilot numbers. That is the real problem that needs to be addressed and we should start talking about it, instead of talking about clan vs is on the whole.

[X-Grunt]

How are we going to follow BT cannon with the Clans?
Now stepping back into MWO after a long break, I am already losing interest. I see OP Clan mechs with MWO caring less about the lopsided play. I have not seen the Streak fights as claimed above, but I have seen pulse boats and ECM on every CW drop. With equal number of pilots and tonnage on both sides, Clans will generally prevail unless the DC FUBARS the drop.

For us in NBT I am not sure what the fix will be. In NBT previous, the mechs were roughly even and the pilot made the difference. Follow cannon? Clan bidding process? Clans taking a % less in mechs?  Clans were based off American military. Quality over quantity. So even # of pilots and tonnages is going to make things very one sided until MWO either, nerfs the crap out of Clan mechs or people get tired of playing. The later is my fear. We have waited for how long to get our game back, but sadly it's broken. From what I can see in the forums, Piranha is taking the World of Tanks approach. Only about money. Which is why they are in business after all.

So it comes down to us, in our league to remedy the lopsidedness. I know I offer no solutions.

[Quicksilver]

but I have seen pulse boats and ECM on every CW drop.

Let me get this out of the way, comparing CW to normal queue is a huge mistake to make. NBT does not use CW, and honestly it is better for it, because CW is really poorly designed game mode.

Also, I think you mean canon, not cannon, two very different things and where did you get the idea that Clans were based off of American military o.O.