88 replies to this topic

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

@Gamuray:

I'm pretty sure that many of the things you listed in the "alterable" (I read "not in TT") list do actually exist in TT.

Burst fire for ACs is definitely a thing. So are critical hits.

But there are other things that existed in TT that contributed to balance; availability of equipment and being a turn-based system, foremost among them.

Changing the format simply messes with this balance and renders it mostly invalid.

[LordKnightFandragon]

**** no this game doesnt feel like Battletech.

MW2, 3, 4, Mechcommander and Mechcommander 2 all felt like Battletech.

MWO feels like some 25 cent arcade shooter game, where you die so fast you dont even have time to blink. Ive been dorking around in that battlegrounds in the training room, I cant usually go up against more then 5 AI before my mech is shredded to pieces. This game feels more like Dance Dance, Robot, since we spend more time twisting and trying not to get hit then we ever do firing back. MWO has no Battletech feel to it what so ever honestly.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

DaZur, on 24 January 2016 - 10:06 PM, said:

To be fair BT and more specifically MWO was never intended to be a game of equity. Universally BT lore and canon prefaced overcoming insurmountable odds, using ones guile and wits and or tactical prowess... Which includes playing the game of who's bringing the biggest knife to the fight to achieve victory.

MWO is based in an inherently and imbalanced and flawed universe. Problem arises when folks want to play "against" each other... Everyone wants a fair fight in a competitive arena right?

Thus the conundrum.

You either develop a game that is true(er) to the canon and lore fluff or you deviate from it to placate the competitive crowd. It is monumentally impossible for PGI or any game developer for that matter to please both the classic BT/MW zealot and the high-adrenaline e-sport junkies at the same time.

You're right, this is the conundrum.

Luckily, it has an objective solution: fair competition requires a fair playing field. No competitive game can survive without fair competition.

There are just not enough hardcores willing to be IS canon fodder for Clan players to allow the game to survive; that is, be fiscally viable.

On the other hand, there are enough competitive and casual players for the game to survive without the ultimate hardcores.

This part isn't even a balancing issue, its a business and marketing issue.

But I disagree that MWO was never meant to be balanced. I think that it was, in fact. PGI just didn't take into account how very unbalanced the two techlines were when they moved forward with Clans based on TT values. Ultimately, it was a developer oversight.

[Rhent]

OP:

What would happen to an online game in which one side is vastly superior to the other side? The vast majority of online players will flock to the superior faction leaving the inferior faction to decline. Gaming queues become untenable and people QUIT. When SWOTOR released, the dark side had significant advantages in PVP to the point where everyone was playing the Empire over the Rebels and the queues for the Empire suffered for it. Changing the queue to be 10 Clan vs 12 IS with the assumption of giving clans superior weapons would make it even worse. There would hardly be anyone playing IS in that scenario.

[Mystere]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 January 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

MWO, a PvP 'Mech piloting simulator, is, by definition 1:1. On multiple levels.

No it is not. Otherwise, show me exactly where this definition is written.

It is nothing but an a priori assumption accepted by some/many but also disputed by some/many.

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 January 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

It's 1 player to 1 'Mech.

Fair competition requires that the teams have an even number of players, therefore its 1:1 competition.

The 1:1 fair competition necessitates that we have 1:1 tech balance (not sameness, mind you).

Fairness does not necessarily imply 1:1. The latter is just the easiest way to achieve the former.

Also, why in Hades' name is there still a tonnage difference between Clans and IS in CW?

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 January 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

If you want an asymmetrical BT game, you have to look elsewhere and in another format.

Nope. I'm staying here to continue to press the issue. And I am not alone. Hardly.

Edited by Mystere, 24 January 2016 - 10:31 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

I never played Battletech table top.
I did play Mechwarrior 2 and 3.

This feels like Mechwarrior to me.

[Salvag3]

@ Rhent, you do things to make the "weaker side more appealing" large bonuses for playing that side and winning. Tools that the clans do get to use, like being able to call in Helo support or waves of tanks that can be given orders. People will play a "under dog" in a game if it's fun to play. I just strongly believe balance in PVP can be achieved with out needing a 1:1 ratio of players.

Stronger match making systems would also help, something that could take stats like player KD ratio, hit ratio, win loss, ect and then apply a multiplier to a units base value could do wonders.

One key thing would be not to limit the match maker into such rigid match making. It doesn't need to be 10 vs 12 every match. You could have everything from 1 vs 1, to 3 assaults vs 5 lights and a heavy. The missions could very from do a patrol and located a object and then get it back to a drop zone. To a Clan trial where a Artic cheata is dropped against a IS heavy.

The basic idea is that as long as it's fun people will play, people only played the dark side because it wasn't balanced and more importantly it was not fun.

[Johnny Z]

It doesn't feel like Battletech because of so many missing features not because of what is currently in game. What is currently in game is first rate.

There is a long list of what needs to be added to make this a full MechWarrior/Battletech game.

I would say the top of that list is proper player character creation. For a start. This game needs to put the warrior in MechWarrior. Its ironic on many levels and is why it doesn't feel like a Battletech game.

Also at the very top of what this game needs to feel like a Battletech game is NPC's. This is an entire topic but one that almost no one has even approached here.

Also quit crying for easy mode back.

Edited by Johnny Z, 24 January 2016 - 11:06 PM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Mystere, on 24 January 2016 - 10:30 PM, said:

No it is not. Otherwise, show me exactly where this definition is written.

It is nothing but an a priori assumption accepted by some/many but also disputed by some/many.

It's not a priori at all. If a game is competitive it must be fair. To be fair, it must give each team an equal chance of winning. If each team has an equal chance of winning, then neither team can have a any distinct advantage or disadvantage.

"Unfair competition or distortion of competition is a situation in which competitors compete on unequal terms because favorable or disadvantageous conditions are applied to some competitors but not to others." https://en.wikipedia...air_competition

In this format, anything less than 1:1 fairness is unfair competition.

Mystere, on 24 January 2016 - 10:30 PM, said:

Fairness does not necessarily imply 1:1. The latter is just the easiest way to achieve the former.

Also, why in Hades' name is there still a tonnage difference between Clans and IS in CW?

Because the 2 techlines still aren't balanced and PGI is compensating. This goes to prove my point.

Mystere, on 24 January 2016 - 10:30 PM, said:

Nope. I'm staying here to continue to press the issue. And I am not alone. Hardly.

Ok, its still not a valid argument.

[MischiefSC]

FASA themselves nuked the entire gameworld, the entire WoB plotline specifically because they wanted to start over with 1 to 1 balance because asymetric balance was absolute crap. Even in tabletop. They re-created the whole setting for Dark Ages so they could undo the abomination that was the original Clan Invasion. It was suitable for PvE, not PvP. They even recreated the Kerensky plotline with Devlin Stone.

If 1 for 1 you've got one side that's going to kill more players than the other by design you have a failed game for a FPS shooter. Everyone is one character, you play one mech at a time. I get the desire to have a superhero and scrub army dynamic; it's why single player games are still popular. You can go kill hordes of orcs as the hero and feel like a BA even if you eventually succumb to their numbers.

That was never, ever what Battletech was about. It was a bad design choice that the developers later apologized for and went through great effort to walk back. Battletech was always about a huge war with big stompy robots. MW:O does that. I have a laundry list of complaints about MW:O but to try and reduce Battletech to nothing but its biggest mistake is disingenuous.

[Mystere]

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 24 January 2016 - 11:00 PM, said:

"Unfair competition or distortion of competition is a situation in which competitors compete on unequal terms because favorable or disadvantageous conditions are applied to some competitors but not to others." https://en.wikipedia...air_competition

The only thing you did by that quote is show me how the use of quirks is very "unfair".

[Johnny Z]

MischiefSC, on 24 January 2016 - 11:03 PM, said:

FASA themselves nuked the entire gameworld, the entire WoB plotline specifically because they wanted to start over with 1 to 1 balance because asymetric balance was absolute crap. Even in tabletop. They re-created the whole setting for Dark Ages so they could undo the abomination that was the original Clan Invasion. It was suitable for PvE, not PvP. They even recreated the Kerensky plotline with Devlin Stone.

If 1 for 1 you've got one side that's going to kill more players than the other by design you have a failed game for a FPS shooter. Everyone is one character, you play one mech at a time. I get the desire to have a superhero and scrub army dynamic; it's why single player games are still popular. You can go kill hordes of orcs as the hero and feel like a BA even if you eventually succumb to their numbers.

That was never, ever what Battletech was about. It was a bad design choice that the developers later apologized for and went through great effort to walk back. Battletech was always about a huge war with big stompy robots. MW:O does that. I have a laundry list of complaints about MW:O but to try and reduce Battletech to nothing but its biggest mistake is disingenuous.

You said it better than I could. But they are trying to reduce Battletech to its biggest mistake and they know it. Always have.

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 24 January 2016 - 11:03 PM, said:

FASA themselves nuked the entire gameworld, the entire WoB plotline specifically because they wanted to start over with 1 to 1 balance because asymetric balance was absolute crap. Even in tabletop. They re-created the whole setting for Dark Ages so they could undo the abomination that was the original Clan Invasion. It was suitable for PvE, not PvP. They even recreated the Kerensky plotline with Devlin Stone.

If 1 for 1 you've got one side that's going to kill more players than the other by design you have a failed game for a FPS shooter. Everyone is one character, you play one mech at a time. I get the desire to have a superhero and scrub army dynamic; it's why single player games are still popular. You can go kill hordes of orcs as the hero and feel like a BA even if you eventually succumb to their numbers.

That was never, ever what Battletech was about. It was a bad design choice that the developers later apologized for and went through great effort to walk back. Battletech was always about a huge war with big stompy robots. MW:O does that. I have a laundry list of complaints about MW:O but to try and reduce Battletech to nothing but its biggest mistake is disingenuous.

If PGI chose any other era except for the Clan invasion, I'd 100% agree with you. But they did not. They specifically chose to do 3049-3052. And in that particular era, Clans being equal to IS is not BattleTech, which is what this topic is all about.

Johnny Z, on 24 January 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

You said it better than I could. But they are trying to reduce Battletech to its biggest mistake and they know it. Always have.

See above.

Edited by Mystere, 24 January 2016 - 11:10 PM.

[Salvag3]

@ Gunnarson

1:1 is not the only way this format of game can be balanced, the game "Evole" is a good example. skill based shooter with two sides that are vastly different in a 4 on 1 game play setting and it's still balanced to make the game fun and winnable by either side. You just have to take a different approach to balance when you don't have both sides available tools equal.

[Hit the Deck]

How does Warhammer (40k etc.) fare with asymmetric balancing? If they can survive then why did FASA have to apologize for what they have done?

[MischiefSC]

Mystere, on 24 January 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

If PGI chose any other era except for the Clan invasion, I'd 100% agree with you. But they did not. They specifically chose to do 3049-3052. And in that particular era, Clans being equal to IS is not BattleTech, which is what this topic is all about.



See above.

PGI also selected Ghost Heat. Trying to say that a bad idea is a good idea because PGI did it that way is too absurd even for you.

[Johnny Z]

No offense to the stupid ones that think throwing most of the mechs and most of the factions in the trash is a good idea. I was referring to the ones that deliberately make that out to be a good idea knowing it isn't.

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 24 January 2016 - 11:10 PM, said:

PGI also selected Ghost Heat. Trying to say that a bad idea is a good idea because PGI did it that way is too absurd even for you.

With my fingers pinching my nose, I just see Ghost Heat as a "runaway but temporary nuclear reaction caused by firing too many weapons of a particular kind". That is so much easier to take that issue is not even close.

Edited by Mystere, 24 January 2016 - 11:15 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Mystere, on 24 January 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

If PGI chose any other era except for the Clan invasion, I'd 100% agree with you. But they did not. They specifically chose to do 3049-3052. And in that particular era, Clans being equal to IS is not BattleTech, which is what this topic is all about.



See above.

Which is why most players wanted this to be a 3025 game. To this day its the best Battletech aside from MechWarrior Online that wanted the Clans to be added and not totally ruin any chance at multi player including the Inner Sphere.

This is a huge topic that effects the turn based Battletech game being made and also any movie if one ever gets made.

On the movie topic. Natasha Kerensky a clan spy? After years of building her reputation as the most notorious mercenary in the Inner Sphere, betraying everyone she had worked for and fought along side. I don't think so. How long would that movie be popular.

This is why I think she was frozen in carbonite like Han Solo and the clans used their cloning technology to clone her.

+1 for the original Natasha Kerensky.

Edited by Johnny Z, 24 January 2016 - 11:36 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I would not play a game with pop-up minigame pilot skill checks.

I would not play a game where my targeting is dominated by NRGs.

I would not play a game of "8 really cool Mechs vs 12 meh-Mechs" because everyone in their right mind would want to play only with the cool ones.