145 replies to this topic

[WolvesX]

Greetings fellow BETA Testers,

this thread is about how the skill and the personal goals of a player, infuences her view on game balance, mechanics and overall enjoyment.

The first thing you have to know is: There are different "worlds" we are playing in as community. If you see Broceratops, Kaffeangst or Koreanese playing or the "Russian Jade Falcons" or the "Clan Smoke Jaguar" you know the difference between PUG and competitive play.

If you think, that you are an about average player, just create a new account and you will see the difference.

Positioning - Aim - Teamwork - Targeting and Spotting - Weapons - Current Meta etc.

There are things in a high ELO game like: "Every other weapons than Gauss + PPC sucks", when high Elo players acutally figh other high Elo players. In low Elo, not so much. In lower Elo, you can be successfull with your 4 LPL stalker or your 3xSRM6A CN9, but that doesn't mean that it is significant.

I think a game should be balanced around HIGH Elo, around competitive environments and not around PUG games.

The reasons are pretty simple, if you want a long lasting game that is enjoyable for a wide audiance, you need to balance the elements. You need to have different play styles like:

• Brawler
  
• Tank
  
• Sniper
  
• Flanker
  
• Light Killer
  
• Guardian
  
• Supporter
  
• etc.

Therefor, what's really needed is a balance around HIGH Elo gameplay, like in LoL, Dota, Starcraft.

You might think, I'm a casual player! I don't have time all the day to play games! I just want to play what I want and I don't care about win or lose! I also don't like to play my best builds all the time, some times I want to play lets say a Blackjack not matter how ridiculous it is. Therefore we need:

Ranked and Unranked games and/or an other style of balancing Elo in a team.

Right now, the MM just balances elo out on the average, what a matchmaker really needs is, that there are only players in the same Elo braket play against each other.


Elo is a must in both - ranked and unranked games - to have a fair match, but in ranked games, the mindset is:I want to win! As opposed to the casual mindset I want to shoot mechs.

As a matter of balance and fairness:



We don't need open stats, but we need small shields near our name, like:

GREEN = Rookie

BLUE = Mechwarrior

ORANGE = Veteran 25%

RED = Elite 5%

(GOLD = Legendary 1%)

Which you can earn in ranked games only!

For the matter of balance: Elites should not be matched against Rookies and if the MM system does match them, you know there is a problem (ingame).

Sidenote:An option like: Searching for Games OR Searching for FAIR Games, resulting in a longer search, would be great.

On reasonable Elo in MWO:

AWE-M9 -> Player X got exactly the same build as player Y.

AWE-M9 with player X got a rating of 3000.

AWE-M9 with player Y got a rating of 700.

This makes every match fair, regardless of the equip or the mech.

AWE-M9 with 6 small laser, could have a rating of 3000, IF (skilled) player X can do as much good as a an other player with 4 PPC.

AWE-M9 with 5 LLs 20 DHS..., could have a rating of 20, IF (unskilled) player Y plays it.

Would balance mech chassis and player skill.

TL;DR: Different skill levels together with Elo influences the view of a player in regards to balance heavily, though different gaming experience.


EDIT: Thank you for your imput!

5LL 23 DHS STK

Greetings, have fun and good luck

Wolves

EDIT: Changed on 07-08-2013

Edited by WolvesX, 10 July 2013 - 05:19 AM.

[Critical Fumble]

I don't follow. If you made the game balanced at higher levels, wouldn't it inherently be balanced throughout? Especially considering that the "high level gameplay" has a lot to do with getting the best meta mecha and exploiting it to the fullest.

[Tennex]

players at high elo take advantage of OP things for every little competitive edge they can get. Its a very good indication of what is too powerful and exploitable in a game. And a very good place to start balance wise.

balancing for low/med levels can be more difficult as cheese builds that the pros know how to deal with can be very dangerous to less skilled players.

Edited by Tennex, 13 March 2013 - 05:02 AM.

[WolvesX]

Tennex, on 13 March 2013 - 05:00 AM, said:

players at high elo take advantage of OP things for every little competitive edge they can get. Its a very good indication of what is too powerful and exploitable in a game. And a very good place to start balance wise.

balancing for low/med levels can be more difficult as cheese builds that the pros know how to deal with can be very dangerous to less skilled players.

The truth!

[Star Captain Obvious Kerensky]

I agree with OP. The simple fact is there are a lot of very terrible players who are unsurprisingly still terrible even when placed in exceptionally good assets.

Even bad players gravitate towards the equipment that is beating them, but that doesn't make the bad player automatically an Ace pilot. There will always be the moron who parks his Atlas DDC in the open without cover and expects to survive against the entire enemy team.

This is further compounded by bad players using good equipment getting beaten by good players grinding out unlocks in bad equipment. Artificially skewing the data to make it look like the game is more balanced than it is.

Which inevitably results in useless anecdotes on the forums about ECM is perfectly fine because the poster routinely kills ECM mechs.

Edited by Eldragon, 13 March 2013 - 05:13 AM.

[WolvesX]

Eldragon, on 13 March 2013 - 05:12 AM, said:

Which inevitably results in useless anecdotes on the forums about ECM is perfectly fine because the poster routinely kills ECM mechs.

I love this!

[WolvesX]

Fun fact: Threads with reason die soon.

[Lyrik]

But there is still the difference between: OMG; ECM KILLS MWO and "The D-DC is only 1% better but in competitive (lol) play every percentage is important".

But because competitive players are looking for balancing holes , PGI should implement as fast as possible team tournaments. So they have an easier time gathering data from competitive players.

And not listen to some self-declared wannabe pro :-P

[Tennex]

WolvesX, on 13 March 2013 - 05:46 AM, said:

Fun fact: Threads with reason die soon.

an agreeable thread has no debate to keep it alive :3

[xDeityx]

WolvesX, on 13 March 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

Original Post

This is all extremely old news to the majority of us.

Would you like to know more?

Why do bad players think they know the answers? This is a great reason why skill indicators such as stats and Elo rating should be made public.

From David Sirlin's Playing to Win e-book:

"The best players are usually doing somewhat weird things that most players don’t understand. I picture a bell curve of “valuations” that players have about their game. What I mean is that there is a large number of players in the middle of that curve who share common beliefs about what is good and effective, and what is not. They represent the “conventional wisdom” about the game. But there are a few players at the extreme end of the bell curve who have different views on what is good. In their world, some of the commonly known tactics don’t work on elite players, so they are worthless. Some moves or tactics are seen as worthless to most, but the elite player has a very specialized or refined use of them that makes them highly effective. Basically, because these players are on a higher level of understanding about the game—either with an explicit, logical analysis or through inexplicable intuition—they see the game through different eyes and see different relative values. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is just wrong about a game, and only the best players are able to step out of the mold and not be bogged down by how the masses incorrectly think the game should be played. And these elite players very often cannot explain in full, logical, step-by-step detail exactly why they value one thing so much more than another. I think the mental process for arriving at these valuations and the process for fully explaining them to others are very different things. You are better off watching what the masters do than asking them why they do it."

Edited by xDeityx, 13 March 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[AC]

OMG... I can't believe we made it this far into a thread with only intelligent posts. I didn't think it was possible on this forum!!

Sarcasm aside, I agree with OP and the posts made so far. One thing I would like to add...

I feel balancing is harder in MWO because of the random map generator. For example: I have seen multiple posts from people stating that they get River City when they take their LRM boat, and Alpine when they grab their SRM boat. Having the wrong mech for the map makes that mech look less effective. If PGI was able to implement team play on a pre-selected map, and then gather data from those matches, I feel they would learn a lot about the current balance of the game.

Also, I am sure some of the competitive teams would allow a PGI person to drop with them from time to time so they could see the imbalances first hand. People can post issues all they want on the forums, but having PGI see these issues first hand speaks much louder.

[Deathlike]

xDeityx, on 13 March 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

"The best players are usually doing somewhat weird things that most players don’t understand. I picture a bell curve of “valuations” that players have about their game. What I mean is that there is a large number of players in the middle of that curve who share common beliefs about what is good and effective, and what is not. They represent the “conventional wisdom” about the game. But there are a few players at the extreme end of the bell curve who have different views on what is good. In their world, some of the commonly known tactics don’t work on elite players, so they are worthless. Some moves or tactics are seen as worthless to most, but the elite player has a very specialized or refined use of them that makes them highly effective. Basically, because these players are on a higher level of understanding about the game—either with an explicit, logical analysis or through inexplicable intuition—they see the game through different eyes and see different relative values. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is just wrong about a game, and only the best players are able to step out of the mold and not be bogged down by how the masses incorrectly think the game should be played. And these elite players very often cannot explain in full, logical, step-by-step detail exactly why they value one thing so much more than another. I think the mental process for arriving at these valuations and the process for fully explaining them to others are very different things. You are better off watching what the masters do than asking them why they do it.[/color]"

Heresy!

Actually, there is some method to the madness. It should be explainable, but sometimes, it is easier to match what they do to why they do it.

AC, on 13 March 2013 - 06:08 AM, said:

I feel balancing is harder in MWO because of the random map generator. For example: I have seen multiple posts from people stating that they get River City when they take their LRM boat, and Alpine when they grab their SRM boat. Having the wrong mech for the map makes that mech look less effective. If PGI was able to implement team play on a pre-selected map, and then gather data from those matches, I feel they would learn a lot about the current balance of the game.

There is some truth to that.. on the other hand, the randomness is supposed to somewhat mitigate what is currently a system that favors short ranged boating (dual AC20 Catas, splatcats, etc.), so I disagree there that it is necessary.

However, it shouldn't be that hard to analyze a map based on good play. Sometimes these problems become self-evident.. like how those that spawn in the northeast have a natural advantage. Same can be said for River City Night to a lesser extent... but it does require lots of time on the map to get a good feel of that problems at hand.

[Zakie Chan]

Op and many others are correct. The devs are able to collect lots of data on the whole, which would reference you 'average' player. What they need to do is introduce a system for private matches and allow things like RHOD be closely supported by devs and allow them to feed them all the data they require. Many teams have invested considerable time, effort and money into this game. They are loyal to mechwarrior and many would gladly join the devs in experimenting pre patch balance values.

Similar to starcraft, there could be a choice/invitation to join the public test server and see what changes are coming. This would help reduce patch shock and reduce the keyboard warrior spam. It would favour rational input and people working together to progress the game.

There is huge potential to take this game to the next level, all it takes is some experimentation and cooperation.

[Arete]

I can wholeheartedly agree here.

Balancing needs to be made based on what the top tier players do. And it should most definitely not be quick decisions, as pro players generally find weaknesses and exploit them with new tactics and builds.
A true unbalance can be spotted when all the top teams do the same thing, and cannot find a counter for it for a long time.
For example, if the stats and experiences of the top teams all point towards "lots of ECM = win", and no team can find a counter for mass ECM for two months, then ECM is unbalanced and needs to get balanced gently. I stress gently, because upsetting the balance of one item often brings out another. The balance can either be made by nerfing ECM, or buffing a counter to ECM.

We've actually seen both kinds of gentle nerfs/buffs for ECM already. ECM doesn't fully effect more than the closest enemy (ECM nerf), and PPCs breaks ECM (targeted PPC buff). Evidently this wasn't enough (based on the command chair post), so they're going to do another pass. It will hopefuly be another gentle nerf/buff pass.

ECM itself was brought in as a counter-nerf for SSRMs and LRMs, but that was (imho) way too much. It wasn't really a gentle nerf, it was more like beating the game balance with a sledge hammer.

I don't play in a top team, neither am I a top player, therefore I'm quite reluctant to get into a real balancing discussion. These are my opinions on the matter, take them as such.

[xDeityx]

Hard counters in general are bad for competition. Soft counters work much better. The idea is for a player to be able to give himself advantages with his choice of assets, not to be able to possibly negate another player's entire arsenal. ECM giving a longer lock-on time and decreasing lock-on distance is more than enough of a soft counter to guided missiles and wouldn't create all the problems that the hard counter version does.

[KingCobra]

WolvesX----->
I think a game should be balanced around HIGH Elo, around compedative environments and
not around PUG games. This is a NO new players are already being slaughtered what you want to drive away everyone like the few head swollen players on the Mektek servers did with there constant NHUA games? If i put you in a stock mech and you did stock mode battles only we would see how great your ELO becomes? Right now ELO is working at maybe 60% effectiveness becouse of the way it has been programmed with sparse data.PGI needs a premade team vs team que no pugs no noobs then all you high ELO players can cry becouse you only have yourselfs to stomp on.I can hear the crying now WAAAAAAAAA that team is to good YADAYADAYADA.WAAAAAAAAA i cant stomp pugs and new players anmore im terrable ive lost my ELO what do i do.I can here that crying also WAAAAAAAAA.PGI need to segragate the MM ques trial Vs trial only/pug Vs pug only/and teams Vs teams only then add more game mode types and use ELO.

Edited by KingCobra, 13 March 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

I tend to believe that ELO will distort the perception of some players of how powerful things are. On the plus side, at least the devs can check ELO ratings and mech build choices and see what the ELO bracket prefers.

Quote

I don't follow. If you made the game balanced at higher levels, wouldn't it inherently be balanced throughout? Especially considering that the "high level gameplay" has a lot to do with getting the best meta mecha and exploiting it to the fullest.

No, not necessarily.
Elo doesn't explain why someone is succesful or fails, it just adjusts the score until you're in a bracket where you probably win half the time and lose half the time.

Maybe you're an excellent Spider pilot boating 4 MGs and one Medium Laser and a bunch of Jump Jets and are just incredibly fast, mobile, have excellent situational awareness. Your weapon choice sucks great time, but you use it so well that the guy with the Splatacult that doesn't even twist his torso and takes 10 seconds to realize that he's being shot in the back has real issues dealing with you.

But in the high ELO brackets, people will already avoid a choice like the Quad MG Spider. They will sit in a Raven 3L, and they will use their skills on a stronger platform. The Splatapult Guy will have a similar skill set then the Raven 3L guy will have, and so the imbalances of the items itself will show much more strongly.

[Oto Kanon]

It's a bit true. It seems that low ranked Splatcats expect everyone to run at them into SRM range. They get really confused when people start skirting around their ideal range and they keep shooting wide spread SRM volleys to little effect. A lot of the low level Splats either have weak engines or do not pick Artemis because they can probably get away with just walking up to someone for the SRM hug.

In low ranking ELO, you will see 97 kph light mechs who realize the importance of upgrading their engines when they get chased down and killed by upgraded Pretty Babies.

[Salis777]

OP has a really good point and I think it's always something to keep in mind when discussing balance. I've pretty much said the same regarding LRMs in the game right now. They are insignificant to comp teams, high ELO players. But they've dramatically changed the lower ELO bracket game.

PGIs challenge is to make sure the game attracts new players, especially with upcoming release, as well as keep the game competitive in higher echelons. It's our job as beta testers to try and give them some qualified feedback, and part of that as OP says, is to consider all angles.

[Critical Fumble]

MustrumRidcully, on 13 March 2013 - 07:30 AM, said:

Spoiler

I tend to believe that ELO will distort the perception of some players of how powerful things are. On the plus side, at least the devs can check ELO ratings and mech build choices and see what the ELO bracket prefers.

No, not necessarily.
Elo doesn't explain why someone is succesful or fails, it just adjusts the score until you're in a bracket where you probably win half the time and lose half the time.
Maybe you're an excellent Spider pilot boating 4 MGs and one Medium Laser and a bunch of Jump Jets and are just incredibly fast, mobile, have excellent situational awareness. Your weapon choice sucks great time, but you use it so well that the guy with the Splatacult that doesn't even twist his torso and takes 10 seconds to realize that he's being shot in the back has real issues dealing with you.
But in the high ELO brackets, people will already avoid a choice like the Quad MG Spider. They will sit in a Raven 3L, and they will use their skills on a stronger platform. The Splatapult Guy will have a similar skill set then the Raven 3L guy will have, and so the imbalances of the items itself will show much more strongly.

Wouldn't the absence of MG Spiders in higher brackets be just as telling as the combat data from those matches?

In that case, Elo acts like comparing the lengths of pencils by tapping them against a desk; they all touch the bottom, but only the longest ones stick out.

Of course, it'd probably be hard to analyze it that way with the way they have it set up - by weight band rather than specific variants.