Posted 24 June 2014 - 04:04 PM

Science!

Spoiler



So, it's not really Science, it's more of a questionable statistical analysis of a (probaly too small) small sample size of matches.



Firstly, I've found the entertainment value present in all the CLANS ARE OP/CLANS ARE FINE threads to be almost as great as piloting these awesome new Clan mechs.



After a while though, I began to wish for some actual hard data to throw at people. "Kiiyor, you take screenshots of almost every EOM screen. You should collate that info!" the ice cube in my Scotch whispered to me the other night.



10 minutes later, having transferred barely half of one result to excel, my Scotch and I both agreed it was a job for future me. Also, being slightly inebriated, I was more interested in using the REPT function in Excel to make wang charts. HILARIOUS.



Anyhoo, after almost a full freaking day working out Photoshop batching, and with the help of a passable piece of free OCR software, I had the results from 110 matches stored in Excel.



The result? Some (still very questionable) SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS. No graphs though. Just some lovely numbers.





WARNING!!!



Some caveats about the below data:

100 matches is barely viable as a sample size. It probably isn't viable. SERIOUSLY. At the most it’s an indication. But SCIENCE.



My own details are recorded in every match, which guarantees one Clan mech per battle, as I have been deeply involved in a torrid and passionate affair with the StormCrow. In a sample size as low as this, it will definitely skew the results. Well, the MM should counter that, actually.



In a perfect world, I would have counter-run 110 matches in some Sphere hardware.



To try and keep things more viable, I ran only in my StormCrow, figuring that mediums would have less of an impact on the battlefield. My own kills/match and damage/match were well above the average though, so that will also skew the results.



My ELO in mediums is questionable. I was a terror in the 4SP when it reigned supreme, but shelved it for aeons when enemy mechs became capable of punching Jenner sized holes in it with one Alpha.



Mixed battles... it's far harder to do a decent comparison when the samples are mixed. If there was full separation, each factions strengths/flaws would probably become far more apparent.



OCR SOFTWARE! I used some text recognition software to gather the data. It had some trouble (sometimes) working out if a 6 was an 8, 3 or 9. I paid particular attention to this, but some errors may have slipped through.



Almost 100% pug. 4 or 5 matches with a mate.



The data discusses damage/killin' mostly, and not utility (ECM, AMS etc) THE RESULTS!





(note, they are an image. I couldn't format them as text here to save myself)













So. How bout them shiny numbers? Note that i've got some top 10's (most prevalent mechs, best killin' machines, biggest death traps etc) but I haven't been bothered formatting them as yet. I may upload them later. Edit: top 10's added. GO TEAM STALKER!



Some analysis of the results: The Clans were more prevalent on the battlefield.



The Clans were VERY top heavy.



The average damage for the Clans was far higher than the IS, but the IS were far more efficient at killing (less damage / kill).



than the IS, but the IS were (less damage / kill). IS lights are... not doing well, but really, neither are the Clan lights.



Clan heavies are everywhere! Ain't no party like a TimberWolf party.



The biggest competition against the clans seem to be IS Assaults.



Go Stalker, you big metal phallus of DOOOOM! Note that these figures are not normalized. I had a crack at normalizing the data for kills and damage, but really can't remember how to interpret the results. I've put this in a spoiler, because it's mathy.





Regarding the Charts! I think my ELO in mediums was questionable, so the increases in the charts could be attributed to me murdering my way up the ELO brackets.



Also, it's over about 5 days. I'm recording more data to upload, so we'll see how this looks over the next few weeks.





Personal observations:

The IS are still learning how to combat the clans... but mixed matches isn't helping. It's hard for a new meta to develop when neither side is forced to confront each other's specific fighting style.



Having said that, a grace period getting to learn the enemy is probably very helpful. Ease into it.



The Clans, if they out-maneuver you, are lethal. They suck at peek and shoot; they need quality time with the IS under their crosshairs.



The IS is FAR more effective at defence. That's not from the figures, it's from personal experience.



The IS needs to stick and move; fire off an alpha, back to cover. Standing toe to toe is asking for limb removal.



AMS is ludicrously effective against clan LRM's, but no-one carries it!



Clan heavies seem to be the best bang for buck. Also; killing machines.



Forcing the clans to maneuver can expose holes in their defence, as their fixed engine sizes is detrimental to their assaults (but not their heavies!). Things I would like:













More data! Does anyone else collect EOM screenshots? Have any factions been using private matches to host their own IS vs CLAN grudge matches? DOES ANYONE CARE?



Anyone who wants to send me EOM screenshots (and if you do... please, please be objective - no selective collections of one sided stomps please, or no edits of the data to make all the scores spell 80085 (boobs - hilarious!) you can email them to:



sendmemwojunk@hotmail.com



Overall:



Overall, I think the clans are remarkably well balanced when compared to IS mechs, and that some of the disparate figures above are more indicative of the IS needing to develop a new meta to combat the way the Clans are built to wage war. At the moment though, the clans do seem to have an advantage, but it isn't as great as many people seem to think it is. I took the bull by the horns for a few matches and tried to force any IS heavy groups into defence, and we seemed to do very, very well, the usual pug-related one man charges and the like notwithstanding. Many Clan mechs tend to have low slung weapons, and have to expose lots of their profile to unleash their furious barrages of doom.



Also, these are new machines and new weapons; ongoing balance will undoubtedly help bridge any gaps in faction viability.



THOUGHTS?



Edit: uploaded damage and kill charts.

Edit 2: Actual charts and trends added. LOOK AT ALL THE SQUIGGELY LINES.



So, it's not really Science, it's more of a questionable statistical analysis of a (probaly too small) small sample size of matches.Firstly, I've found the entertainment value present in all the CLANS ARE OP/CLANS ARE FINE threads to be almost as great as piloting these awesome new Clan mechs.After a while though, I began to wish for some actual hard data to throw at people. "Kiiyor, you take screenshots of almost every EOM screen. You should collate that info!" the ice cube in my Scotch whispered to me the other night.10 minutes later, having transferred barely half of one result to excel, my Scotch and I both agreed it was a job for future me. Also, being slightly inebriated, I was more interested in using the REPT function in Excel to make wang charts. HILARIOUS.Anyhoo, after almost a full freaking day working out Photoshop batching, and with the help of a passable piece of free OCR software, I had the results from 110 matches stored in Excel.The result? Some (still very questionable) SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS. No graphs though. Just some lovely numbers.Some caveats about the below data:(note, they are an image. I couldn't format them as text here to save myself)So. How bout them shiny numbers? Note that i've got some top 10's (most prevalent mechs, best killin' machines, biggest death traps etc) but. GO TEAM STALKER!Note that these figures are not normalized. I had a crack at normalizing the data for kills and damage, but really can't remember how to interpret the results. I've put this in a spoiler, because it's mathy.Regarding the Charts!More data! Does anyone else collect EOM screenshots? Have any factions been using private matches to host their own IS vs CLAN grudge matches? DOES ANYONE CARE?(and if you do... please, please be objective - no selective collections of one sided stomps please, or no edits of the data to make all the scores spell 80085 (boobs - hilarious!) you can email them to:sendmemwojunk@hotmail.comOverall, I think the clans are remarkably well balanced when compared to IS mechs, and that some of the disparate figures above are more indicative of the IS needing to develop a new meta to combat the way the Clans are built to wage war. At the moment though, the clans do seem to have an advantage, but it isn't as great as many people seem to think it is. I took the bull by the horns for a few matches and tried to force any IS heavy groups into defence, and we seemed to do very,well, the usual pug-related one man charges and the like notwithstanding. Many Clan mechs tend to have low slung weapons, and have to expose lots of their profile to unleash their furious barrages of doom.Also, these are new machines and new weapons; ongoing balance will undoubtedly help bridge any gaps in faction viability.THOUGHTS?Edit: uploaded damage and kill charts.Edit 2: Actual charts and trends added. LOOK AT ALL THE SQUIGGELY LINES.

Note: This is mostly prior to 3/3/3/3. I'm going to run totals for subsequent batches of data based on that.

Note²: most of the below data is in image form. I couldn't format this properly here to save myself. There's also a TL;DR at the bottom, because OH GOD this thread needs it.

Spoiler





Observations:

I think i'm on to something with the contributing factors with the performance of Inner Sphere mechs. The disconnects and (C) mechs make a big difference.



Looking at the sample above with no (C) or 0 damage mechs, it seems as though things are very nearly balanced. I'd love to have enough matches to solidify this, but I think there would have to be waaay more data than I have now, as decent, even matches are fairly rare.



It seems that IS mediums are being stomped into the dirt and having their lunch money stolen before being hung from a flag pole by their underwear. Someone Photoshop that for me please. It may be due to the IS having so many mediums, with only a couple of truly viable chassis.



Clan heavies are dominating. Correction, the MadCat is dominating.



I believe things will be far better balanced if the Clans ever get (C) mechs themselves.

A note on the data:

What I would like:

Anyone who wants to send me EOM screenshots

Conclusion:

Edit: New data!Thanks to the community and my unflinching devotion to mech science, I've got close toworth of cold, hard numbers now.Instead of haphazardly totaling numbers, I had a dig through the raw data this time, and found some interesting things:Interesting thing #1;. While a large portion of matches had similar(ish) counts of IS and Clan mechs on each team, some… didn't. This posed a problem, being that it was difficult to get an idea of proper faction performance if the numbers weren't weighted correctly. So, I added some new columns, worked out the weighting of faction mechs on each side of every battle, and found that not all matches were created equal.More interesting things below:Up next: top 10's. Ives wrapped this one in a spoiler, because it's lengthy:Well, that was in depth.So how about those numbers?I've since converted about 100 extra matches, and the Clan kill/damage gap has widened by about 1.5% over the IS. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out.(and if you do... please, please be objective - no selective collections of one sided stomps please, or no edits of the data to make all the scores spell 80085 (boobs - hilarious!) you can email them to:sendmemwojunk@hotmail.comI would alsolove to get my hands on some team stats, just to see how things compare to Pugs.I think that the Clans and IS are very, very close to balanced, but the IS throws a spanner in the works with Newbie mechs and disconnects. Any future balance adjustments should be considered carefully, though I do believe that instead of nerfing the Clans, the IS should be buffed somewhat.Also, it's nice to say that (C) and 0 damage mechs can be removed from analysis, but their existence is inescapable on the battlefield, unless you 12 man of course.THOUGHTS?

Edited by Kiiyor, 16 July 2014 - 05:28 PM.