Balance very off?

[Droolguy]

NVA has more potential armor, more potential firepower, and is faster than nearly any mech up to 20 ton's over it's weight class with it's default pods massaged just a tiny bit.

This new mechlab seems hyper restrictive and pigeonhole-y, I get it it's "lore accurate" (sortof) lore doesn't translate at all to a real time game because it was designed around turn based originally.

Did they learn nothing from MWO explicitely showing them that certain chassis are just straight up worse than others? Which is great for roleplay but horrible for an actual game.

Really, with some slight tweaking you get base stats that are just ridiculously over-the-top.

50 tonner.
94
58.8
380
66
81
900
3.6
25.76

Compare that with literally any version of any 60 tonner and they will be a straight downgrade across the board while costing more, 70 tonners become "maybe" territory.

I've just been running a squad of NVAs constantly for two whole planets now because there are no upgrades.

[talemore]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

The advantages of the Nova are offset by it's low slung arms, most of it's worthwhile weapons being in said arms (which are usually the first thing to be destroyed) and a massive easy to hit from any angle CT. There are always cons to the pros.

@talemore I played MWO for years competitively, no the Nova is not complicated to build. It's one of the easiest to build. The cons i listed above are why it isn't always popular in the meta.

It will be a very complicated mech to build when you make it the way I build it.

2 uac5. 2 machine guns and lasers in the arms.

Now go and try if you can make my build

[FlyingTorcensoredWhale]

Originally posted by talemore:

Originally posted by Tr0w:

The advantages of the Nova are offset by it's low slung arms, most of it's worthwhile weapons being in said arms (which are usually the first thing to be destroyed) and a massive easy to hit from any angle CT. There are always cons to the pros.

@talemore I played MWO for years competitively, no the Nova is not complicated to build. It's one of the easiest to build. The cons i listed above are why it isn't always popular in the meta.

It will be a very complicated mech to build when you make it the way I build it.

2 uac5. 2 machine guns and lasers in the arms.

Now go and try if you can make my build

DONE.

Not sure why you'd want this, but here.

Black Hawk (Nova) Silly
Base Tech Level: Standard (Clan)
Level Era
----------------------------------------------------
Experimental 2849+ (Early Succession Wars -)
Advanced -
Standard 2870+ (Early Succession Wars -)
Tech Rating: F/X-X-E-D

Weight: 50 tons
BV: 1,669
Cost: 10,979,688 C-bills
Source: TRO: 3050
Role: Skirmisher

Movement: 5/8/5
Engine: 250 XL
Double Heat Sinks: 10 [20]
Cockpit: Standard Cockpit
Gyro: Standard Gyro

Internal: 83
Armor: 160/169 (Standard)
Internal Armor
----------------------------------------
Head 3 9
Center Torso 16 23
Center Torso (rear) 8
Right Torso 12 16
Right Torso (rear) 8
Left Torso 12 16
Left Torso (rear) 8
Right Arm 8 16
Left Arm 8 16
Right Leg 12 20
Left Leg 12 20

Weapons Loc Heat Omni
--------------------------------------------
Ultra AC/5 LA 1 Pod
Ultra AC/5 RA 1 Pod
Machine Gun RA 0 Pod
Machine Gun LA 0 Pod
ER Medium Laser RA 5 Pod
ER Medium Laser LA 5 Pod

Ammo Loc Shots Omni
-----------------------------------------
Ultra AC/5 Ammo RT 20 Pod
Machine Gun Ammo [Half] LT 100 Pod
Ultra AC/5 Ammo LT 20 Pod
Ultra AC/5 Ammo RT 20 Pod

Carrying Capacity
----------------------
One battle armor squad

Quirks
------
Combat Computer
Narrow/Low Profile

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by Myo:

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Any of the big names still play anymore? Proton, Kaffeangst, Celith, Heimdelight? I know LeO and Energy haven't played in ages.

these 4-6 ppl you mentioned am i suppose to know them?

Multiple league and tournament winners...
Also LeO was a legendary MW4 player prior to MWO.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by talemore:

Originally posted by Tr0w:

The advantages of the Nova are offset by it's low slung arms, most of it's worthwhile weapons being in said arms (which are usually the first thing to be destroyed) and a massive easy to hit from any angle CT. There are always cons to the pros.

@talemore I played MWO for years competitively, no the Nova is not complicated to build. It's one of the easiest to build. The cons i listed above are why it isn't always popular in the meta.

It will be a very complicated mech to build when you make it the way I build it.

2 uac5. 2 machine guns and lasers in the arms.

Now go and try if you can make my build

Why tho? The strength of the mech is it's ability to boat an obscene amount of lasers and dhs for it's weight.

[FlyingTorcensoredWhale]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Originally posted by talemore:

It will be a very complicated mech to build when you make it the way I build it.

2 uac5. 2 machine guns and lasers in the arms.

Now go and try if you can make my build

Why tho? The strength of the mech is it's ability to boat an obscene amount of lasers and dhs for it's weight.

Doesn't matter. I've built him his mech, so he can bring his weird abomination to the next tabletop game :D

[Droolguy]

Originally posted by Dreams of Fury:

Lore wise, if i remember correctly, the Nova has some serious issues for the firepower it has.....dont quote me on this I'm more of a heavy and light enjoy myself and I know more about those across both IS and Clan.....

Gameplay wise its just busted.....

If the game had any kinda of competitive play even the most basic of basic pvp like say 3 had it would basically be a waste of a slot with its arms being shot off in less than 4 seconds of being engaged then its just walking around doing nothing.

Unfortunately, in MW5C, none of those disadvantages are present.

So it's just a rofl-stomp machine for anything you can possibly compare it to even remotely close to it's weight class in this game.

[panzerd18]

Originally posted by Droolguy:

Originally posted by Dreams of Fury:

Lore wise, if i remember correctly, the Nova has some serious issues for the firepower it has.....dont quote me on this I'm more of a heavy and light enjoy myself and I know more about those across both IS and Clan.....

Gameplay wise its just busted.....

If the game had any kinda of competitive play even the most basic of basic pvp like say 3 had it would basically be a waste of a slot with its arms being shot off in less than 4 seconds of being engaged then its just walking around doing nothing.

Unfortunately, in MW5C, none of those disadvantages are present.

So it's just a rofl-stomp machine for anything you can possibly compare it to even remotely close to it's weight class in this game.

I think they should increase the heat. Alpha striking all 12 er meds should bring you close to 100% heat. In MW2 I don't think you even fire all 12 without overheating.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by panzerd18:

Originally posted by Droolguy:

Unfortunately, in MW5C, none of those disadvantages are present.

So it's just a rofl-stomp machine for anything you can possibly compare it to even remotely close to it's weight class in this game.

I think they should increase the heat. Alpha striking all 12 er meds should bring you close to 100% heat. In MW2 I don't think you even fire all 12 without overheating.

Players can still get around that via researching higher heat cap, better heat dissipation, and lower laser heat tiers. Or just switch to 10-12 ERSLs or SPLs + 4 MGs.

[Droolguy]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Originally posted by panzerd18:

I think they should increase the heat. Alpha striking all 12 er meds should bring you close to 100% heat. In MW2 I don't think you even fire all 12 without overheating.

Players can still get around that via researching higher heat cap, better heat dissipation, and lower laser heat tiers. Or just switch to 10-12 ERSLs or SPLs + 4 MGs.

This is true, people often fall into the trap of "bigger is better" in MW even though the smaller weapons have very similar DPS, many with superior DPH.

Alpha's look cool, but unless you one-shot the mech your fighting or manage to get some lucky crits and destroy some components... alpha doesn't do crap... and the mechs with superior DPS/DPH win, because DPH is the "real" metric of how fast you can damage things in a MW game past the initial volley.

NVA simply has far too many hardpoints, plain and simple, allowing for a level of boating that ensures you'll always be DPSing at your maximum thermal threshold (doing the maximum possible damage relative to your thermals at any given time).

Also, for the person who was planning on Just doing NVA's until they can transition into TBRs at the beginning of this thread. It works, I have one more NVA to replace in my star before it's TBR across the board for all members. I did not use any in-between mechs at all.

[the.momaw]

Why on earth are you all trying to compare Mechwarrior singleplayer to MWO. In a competitive game, facing 1:1 odds you should lose 50% of the time because that's what fair and balanced means. In THIS game, you have to beat 5:1 odds with 100% success rate because that's how the missions are laid out.

[Droolguy]

Originally posted by the.momaw:

Why on earth are you all trying to compare Mechwarrior singleplayer to MWO. In a competitive game, facing 1:1 odds you should lose 50% of the time because that's what fair and balanced means. In THIS game, you have to beat 5:1 odds with 100% success rate because that's how the missions are laid out.

We're not?

I was originally referencing the fact that due to MWO being a competitive PvP game, they had to give handicaps to certain chassis in order to make them viable (balanced) vs. more overpowered ones.

So, if they already knew that in practice certain mechs underperform in real time use, why wouldn't they leverage that knowledge from one game to another?

[panzerd18]

Originally posted by the.momaw:

Why on earth are you all trying to compare Mechwarrior singleplayer to MWO. In a competitive game, facing 1:1 odds you should lose 50% of the time because that's what fair and balanced means. In THIS game, you have to beat 5:1 odds with 100% success rate because that's how the missions are laid out.

Just looking at the Nova within MW5 Clans, 70 tonnes and below it is so much better than everything else. It's so good people are just using a whole star of novas.

[the.momaw]

Is it really the Nova that's the problem, or is it a balance problem with small lasers.

Once you strip everything off, the Storm Crow has 3 extra tons since it doesn't jump (23 tons vs 16 tons but Nova has 4 integral DHS so really it's 23 vs 20 tons) AND more base armor (443 vs 381). It also uses Ferro armor which means, ton per ton, if you add the same amount of extra plating armor then the Storm Crow will benefit even more (38.4 points per ton vs 32). It's 10% heavier and about 10% stronger.

However what the Nova has, uniquely, is a stupid amount of small weapon mounts. 1 ER large laser is not even remotely as good as 4 ER medium lasers. Which suggests that the real balance problem here isn't the Nova, it's the fact that as you go up in tonnage most mechs have fewer but bigger weapons but the game is balanced such that the best lasers are the smallest i.e. most numerous ones.

[kain279]

Well "balance" is not really a thing since this is not a PvP game. But the Nova is not "OP" at all, in fact the Stormcrow outclasses it in every conceivable way. I noticed in this game the arm hit boxes seem even larger than usual (wherever they draw the lines between it and the LT/RT) because when I tried using it in this game my starmates were losing arms like it was their job.

Run the Stormcrow with 2 LPL and 3-4 CERML or 1 gauss and 5-6 CERML. Faster, harder to hit, does more damage, better heat management.

[Droolguy]

Originally posted by kain279:

Well "balance" is not really a thing since this is not a PvP game. But the Nova is not "OP" at all, in fact the Stormcrow outclasses it in every conceivable way. I noticed in this game the arm hit boxes seem even larger than usual (wherever they draw the lines between it and the LT/RT) because when I tried using it in this game my starmates were losing arms like it was their job.

Run the Stormcrow with 2 LPL and 3-4 CERML or 1 gauss and 5-6 CERML. Faster, harder to hit, does more damage, better heat management.

Post up the raw stats on your stormcrow. I put the NVA earlier on in the thread.

The stats in the mechlab before pilot buffs.