111 replies to this topic

[Scout Derek]

I've been hearing talk that the game is really unbalanced, and talk has come down to arguments about what it should be and what should not.

So I've taken it upon myself to ask you:

If Mechwarrior: Online is not balanced, then which previous Mechwarrior title was?

It's hard not to use other game titles such as this, and even similar ones (such as Hawken), but none are really ever like the Mechwarrior franchise, not similar in game mechanics, and not similar in weaponry.

But back to the question again, which Mechwarrior title was balanced if Mechwarrior Online isn't?

[FupDup]

I don't think any of them reached the "sweet spot." They've each just had their own issues, or sometimes shared issues...

[Tastian]

In my personal experience, previous mechwarrior games had tonnage creep. The greater the tonnage, the greater the fire power, the greater the mech.

[FupDup]

Tastian, on 10 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

In my personal experience, previous mechwarrior games had tonnage creep. The greater the tonnage, the greater the fire power, the greater the mech.

Yeah, it's a good point that "tonnage creep" isn't nearly as bad in MWO as the previous games. It still exists of course (especially in the light and medium classes), but it's more manageable here.

Edited by FupDup, 10 September 2015 - 06:53 AM.

[Lugh]

Mechwarrior has NEVER been balanced. It always used balancing tools to make things more even.

Bring more to the table 12 mechs company vs one Star 5 Clan mechs was a classic example.

Sadly with MWO that doesn't work, as each of those 12 IS mechs is within 10-15% of the Clan counterpart out of 'fairness'.

Because no one likes being Russia throwing 5 tanks for every German tank destroyed or America for that matter during WWII.

They all suffer from the delusion that THEIR mechs are the best. When in lore they weren't, which is why the Lore has the arms race it does.

In each of those previous titles you had option to play online (but hey dial up is OP) but only the truly patient ever did. And they all used PPCs to win.

[SaltBeef]

I sould say none as Frankenmekking was allowed. Mixing Faction tech and race to put Clan weapons on IS mechs.

[Lily from animove]

actually MWO is more balanced than the other games ever have been. The old mechwarrior games were simply, heavier is better cuz more boom boom. They were progressive games in their PVE gamestyle and PVP never had any balance since they were never focused on this. However I feel that heatbalance was better in older games allowing you not to dish out ridculous alphas as MWO does.

Edited by Lily from animove, 10 September 2015 - 06:58 AM.

[FupDup]

SaltBeef, on 10 September 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

I sould say none as Frankenmekking was allowed. Mixing Faction tech and race to put Clan weapons on IS mechs.

It was actually still better to put Clan guns on Clan mechs in the previous games, at least much of the time.

In MW3, IS mechs couldn't make use of Clan XL or Endo, thus they couldn't pack quite as much equipment. For lower weight mechs this didn't matter too much, but once you get into the bigger robots then you needed all of that extra space.

In MW4, Clan heatsinks dissipated more heat per sink than IS ones, so the Clan mech could fire the same weapon payload with the same number of heatsinks, but for a longer period of time than the otherwise identical IS mech. If the IS mech didn't have other advantages to make up for it (i.e. JJs vs no JJs, more hardpoints, etc.) then it was better to use a Clan mech.

[Sjorpha]

MWO is no doubt the most balanced MW title to date, but it doesn't really matter since the older games were primarily single player games and multiplayer was up to the players to organize as they wished. And you could mod if you wanted to change things and so on. Those games didn't need to be balanced, they just needed to be fun.

MWO on the other hand is a dedicated online competitive game, and therefore it NEEDS to be well balanced.

Apples and oranges.

[SaltBeef]

Flogging a Dead Horse here but it would have found that Balance in 10 v 12. I know,......I know

[kesmai]

Not one.(mw1 maybe :-))
Damn, forgot my rose tinted glasses.

[SaltBeef]

I would say that MWO , with what the develpers have done so far, and what they has shown thier capabilities are in the new training grounds, Have all the tools and Potentail to make this the Best Battletech game to date, it already is graphics wise and fun to play, I play for hrs sometimes and see a lot of the puzzle coming into place.

[Night Thastus]

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was EXCELLENT!

It did have what some other's mentioned, that lighter 'Mechs were really not worth it, but it was tons of fun. LRM's were useful in combat, SRM's caused enemy 'Mechs to overheat, and lasers were pretty decent. I felt it was pretty balanced.

[InRev]

Lugh, on 10 September 2015 - 06:53 AM, said:

Because no one likes being Russia throwing 5 tanks for every German tank destroyed or America for that matter during WWII.

Minor thread-jack, but for the love of Christ, stop repeating this damn myth! It has absolutely no basis in reality and yet still won't die. Inform yourselves, please!

http://ftr.wot-news....1-panther-myth/

http://ftr.wot-news....-at-statistics/

Back on topic, the frustrating part of MWO is the fact that, at any given point, it's usually only a few minor adjustments away from being in a good state of balance. Maybe drop a weapon's heat by one or two here, increase projectile velocity by 10% there. That kind of thing.

What tends to happen, however, is instead of frequent, iterative, and intuitive slight changes, we get infrequent but giant swings of the nerf or buff hammer which just throws everything out of whack. In other words, balance could approach perfection with tinkering, not massive meta shifts.

(ofc, this ignores the state of LRMs which are just awful due to their current implementation, along with the binary nature of ECM)

[SgtMagor]

tonnage creep was especially noticeable in MW4, 3 gauss, 2 erll, Daishi in MWO would cause riots, and rage quitting to no end! or was it 2 gauss, and 3erll, oh well!

[KraftySOT]

Ack, some misconceptions here.

MW2 was pretty well balanced, but it had some issues. Firstly, the netcode/netmech. If you played on a LAN, welcome to a balanced fun, albeit tacked on multiplayer mode. If you played on Netmech, welcome to a Jenner IICs with 9 small lasers you couldnt hit unless you led into 'dead air' in front of the mech. LRMs didnt work at all.

MW2 Mercs got better. There were some actual maps made for MP.

Game was very well balanced on LAN. Had the same netcode issues.


MW3 decided its MP would be more of a focal point, and Microsoft Gaming Zone, was 'sorta' integrated. If you had a good connection, it was fairly well balanced, but had some issues. The Shadowcat and Annihilator were the two best mechs. The Shadowcat was fast which had Hitreg issues (this has been a theme in all MW games) and could mount a crap ton of small lasers. The annihilator could carry bunch of LBx which had higher knockdown, caused alot of shake for the enemy, and had a high ROF.


It was pretty well balanced, but as always a meta arose. However there were plenty of leagues that created balanced leagues and matches. It was soon abandoned and no new patches and the expansion adding power creep hurt the balance ultimately.

MW4 was specifically designed for MP and was the most balanced out of the bunch.

There were still 'no go' mechs (DOA here) because of the hardpoint system that was introduced and the way clan and IS worked. However you could mix and match so your IS gundams could be just as good as the clan gundams with clan weapons.

After two pretty hefty patches and an expansion, MW4 stands as the most balanced and competitive MW experience you can have without mods.

Night Thastus, on 10 September 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was EXCELLENT!

It did have what some other's mentioned, that lighter 'Mechs were really not worth it, but it was tons of fun. LRM's were useful in combat, SRM's caused enemy 'Mechs to overheat, and lasers were pretty decent. I felt it was pretty balanced.

If you had a bad connection, lightmechs were still really good in MW4.

So long as you can outrun your "shadow", it makes it difficult for people to hit you. Packetloss was your best friend and worst enemy in MW4.

[Mister Blastman]

Scout Derek, on 10 September 2015 - 06:47 AM, said:

I've been hearing talk that the game is really unbalanced, and talk has come down to arguments about what it should be and what should not.

So I've taken it upon myself to ask you:

If Mechwarrior: Online is not balanced, then which previous Mechwarrior title was?

It's hard not to use other game titles such as this, and even similar ones (such as Hawken), but none are really ever like the Mechwarrior franchise, not similar in game mechanics, and not similar in weaponry.

But back to the question again, which Mechwarrior title was balanced if Mechwarrior Online isn't?

Great question! I happen to have played every single one of them extensively online with the exception of Netmech (I started with Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries in 1996).

So, I assume you're asking this from the perspective of online play because that is really what is relevant. So, let's see... which one? Hmm. That's a tough question believe it or not.

Answer: Mechwarrior Living Legends with Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries as a distant runner-up.

Supposedly Netmech was the most balanced and I believe that given how the weapon mechanics work in single player minus the blobs of goo PPCs.

Mechwarrior 3 + 4 had perfect convergence and were imbalanced as hell.

Mechwarrior 3 had short range laser vomit monsters with obscene lag. Striders were nasty beasts when paired with dual UAC 20 Dire Whales. The UAC 20 had this nasty perk of knocking stuff over. The owens were unhittable. It was a broken combination. The pinpoint convergence made lasers so bad they had to nerf clan medium lasers into the ground. The game also introduced lasers that were hitscan.

Mechwarrior 4 had perfect convergence and pop tarts + lasers were nasty. Long range boating ruled the field for a very long time until user made content fixed it (I hear--I quit before then despite mopping the field, it was just... boring)

Mechwarrior 2 had convergence of sorts... but the weapon velocity made it spread damage out almost every time so it didn't matter.

Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries had this silly balance issue with medium pulse lasers... supposedly they did double damage. Despite that the regular medium lasers were very serviceable. Missiles were also very useful, too (with the exception of regular SRMs). Autocannons were... meh. Nobody every really used them so it is hard to say and PPCs... despite them being slow, I could kill people with them. You could shoot the ground and the splash damage would fry people's legs--just like playing Quake! If people would land...

Living Legends was the most balanced and not why you might think. It was balanced due to the mechs being stock. If there was a mechlab, I'm sure we'd figure out a way to break it... because it too had convergence. But alas, due to reasons™ we won't have a mechlab in it.

What is the one common problem with every game (minus Mechwarrior 2)? Answer: Convergence.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 10 September 2015 - 07:46 AM.

[Hotthedd]

kesmai, on 10 September 2015 - 07:17 AM, said:

Not one.(mw1 maybe :-))
Damn, forgot my rose tinted glasses.

Good times. Headshotting Battlemasters with a single PPC, legging (and killing) anything with the MGs on a locust...

[KraftySOT]

3 and 4s imbalances were largely mitigated by leagues. The other problem with the netcode.

Systemically, they were both pretty well balanced.

Edited by KraftySOT, 10 September 2015 - 07:40 AM.

[KraftySOT]

In the main 'balance' has two aspects. Systemically, and "the meta" how its actually used.

Take the three generally accepted 'most balanced games in history'. Quake 2, Tribes 2, and Counterstrike.

Is counter strike still "balanced" when you play in "free buy" mode. Or was Tribes 2 "unbalanced" when you played with "free buy" mode? Yes. Even though everyone just bought an AWP in counterstrike, the game was still balanced. Players just gravitated when there were no checks and balances on the matches, that everyone gravitated towards the same weapon system.

The same was true in all the mechwarrior games.

What made them balanced, was the use of player driven leagues, that set up rules on the matches themselves.

All MW games have been "free buy deathmatch". You can take whatever you want, whenever you want, for whatever reason.

If you dropped with "an MP5" and not an "AWP" it was your choice.

When you joined a league, and suddenly everyone couldnt 'free buy' the AWP, it was obvious that MW3 and 4 were pretty well balanced, but only suffered from netcode at the time.

Which, just like MWO, made incredibly fast small mechs, very powerful, because they were very hard to apply damage too.

MW4 had a sized hardpoint system, which kept SOME boating out of the game, but still dual gauss was 'meta'. The Supernovas LL extravaganza was the same thing. Leagues immediately realized this and put those mechs at a premium, which immediately removed balance issues.