18 replies to this topic

[HumbleSoldat]

Dear PGI.

Who are you balancing for?

Which part of your player base do you balance for? All the hyperbole and whine threads aside. Do you balance for the average player? The Clan Wars players? The Quick Play players?

I started playing this game just a month ago, I have been gaming for 20 years, mostly FPS games, but really i play everything. I have over 10k games in WoT (similar in play style) so it was really easy for me to pick this up and learn the nuances and be "good". I read a lot in the first weeks and ironically I chose the locust as the first mech to try out. I literally chose it because it had the highest speed (the trial mech). I said to my self "I wanna go fast".

I had a blast, i flanked and spanked, and ran all over with reckless abandon. I then went to your shop and purchased the raven, locust, blackjack, and kodiak Packs. The raven because i had read it was a good sniper, the locust 'cause sonic, and the blackjack because i read it was a good medium to start with. I grabbed the Kodiak purely because it looked super bad ***. I even thought the spirit bear was bad initially (because i didn't know how to brawl). So in short I was having a blast with the game, along comes the size balance patch and i jumped with glee at the locust getting smaller, I was super pumped that i was gonna be a little beast running around.
suffice to say I had a beastly 1k damage game in it and subsequently average around 400-600+ damage in it.

Fast forward to now, one month after i started playing MWO, I'm 25% done with Tier 2, I own more mechs and I can't believe I didn't like the Spirit Bear (My favorite Assault mech now).

I am going to use the locust as the example, but this concept applies to all mechs.

In just a few days you are going to nerf the locust, and this is where my original question comes into play. Who are you balancing for? Let's be honest, (I forgot to mention i'm a student and summer started hence the binging for the last month) alot of your player base is older players, they haven't been playing fps games for 15 years, they are not the best at aiming, nor do they necessarily purposefully do all the usual tricks to improve their game play. Favoring Frames Per Second, playing most maps with thermals on. Aiming for side torso first, torso twisting, anything and everything they can to improve their chance of survival and victory.

I have yet, to ever die to a locust. The quirks that it has currently pre-patch, are so very needed, it already dies in one to two hits from anyone who can aim, not to mention streaks are a thing as are LRMS. So in the hands of good pilots, it looks damn good, keep in mind though those pilots are constantly on the edge of their seats moments away from death at any time. In the hands of basically anyone else, it's a wasted slot on your team. I believe personally removing so many of it's Armor quirks you are sentencing it to uselessness, and in the hands of those good pilots you are simply sentencing them to sometimes having a blast, to other times just being frustrated and wondering why you do this to them?

Hence why i ask, who are you balancing for? Any good mech is going to look much better in the hands of skilled players, it dosen't matter which mech is the flavor of the month, the goods are always going to make it look better than it is. So are you balancing in terms of those players who struggle to aim at small moving targets? Because I got to tell you, one of the reasons I have been so quickly drawn into this game, is that it heavily rewards skill, it rewards using all the skills you learn to negate your opponents opportunity to do damage while increasing yours.

The locust, AS IS, RIGHT NOW. Is a perfect, example of break neck, high ceiling play that no one outside of the tier 5 and 4 players think is an issue whatsoever. If your f*#@ing good, then you get rewarded for it. Just ya know, watch out for streak crows xD humbled me real quick.

Dear PGI, In my opinion you have not only a responsibility, but an opportunity to answer that kind of question for you community, I personally will keep playing, regardless if you nerf my big cuddly bear who likes to hug people (Even though it is currently still not as good as an atlas? but a perfect fit for it's role?) and my little Honey Badger that bites at the ankles of bigs. Despite that, I would love to hear from you, do you genuinely care about where the ceiling on skill is being placed? That we have different fun and interesting mechs to choose from? Or should we all just be playing Laser Vomit heavies and canyon for the rest of our MWO days? You have mechs right now that offer something different, please do not remove that.

Oh and i forgot to mention, random drop cases, with random items inside that spin like a slot machine. Disgusting, genuine shame on you PGI. I realize that you are trying to make small but over time MC sink, but c'mon so many more interesting and original ways you could do that.

Thoughts? Comments? Where are your feelings overall? Keep it civil please, and let's let PGI know what you think in the most well thought out manner possible.

Edited by HumbleSoldat, 16 July 2016 - 01:41 PM.

[Bud Crue]

OP, very good post imo. People have been asking these questions for a very long time. Still no answers from PGI other than "they know best."

I for one would like to know not just "who are they balancing for" but what are they trying to accomplish with their attempts? Paul once posted that the goal of balance was to give each mech and each variant an equivalent value based on their intended roles. Contextually, his stated goal was predicated on the introduction of info-tech, which was dumped, but is that stated goal of balance, still thee goal? I honesty don't know, and PGI does not deign to share with us.

I cannot fathom how nerfing mechs that folks aren't playing, continuing to keep an instant kill feature in their end game content of faction play (even in its upcoming, most recently nerfed state), nerfing an entire class of mechs in both their retive size and movement type, etc. etc. etc. has anything to do with balance.

[AmazingOnionMan]

Good OP. Just wanted to correct one thing; the Locust is a #%*&¤ plague across all tiers.

I want to believe that PGI like the BattleTech-franchise. I want MWO to be a good game, to succeed and draw in new players as well as old, and make PGI tons of money in the process. But it seems PGI are intent on crushing my dreams here.
For a "thinking man's shooter", it's woefully short on the thinking, and the shooting-part is questionable as well.

The way PGI "balances" the game with quirks is indicative of a failed design. As long as they don't adress the core mechanics and gameplay, it doesn't matter if we have quirks pouring out of our ears.

[Dee Eight]

And he highlights the ridiculousness of the tier system right there... 1 month... started as a tier 5....now a quarter thru tier 2. I love how they (and many players) described it as eventually everyone if they win more than they lose would reach tier 1... apparently eventually is only going to be 6 weeks for this fellow. Too bad he missed the window for the world championships. He'd be the ringer everyone wants on their team.

[D V Devnull]

Read a well-thought post, place a Like, and now waiting for the response from PGI. If our Opening Poster, HumbleSoldat, who's questioning PGI, hasn't been cheating in any way while ascending so quickly, then somebody has finally shown PGI completely up for the 'common sense'-lacking lunatics that they've devolved into. Sadly, it has all unfortunately happened while PGI dragged MWO down along with them, so now almost everyone (at least from what I can tell) left is upset.

Much to our chagrin however, it is unlikely that PGI will ever recover from this downspiral they started. Consequently, several Chassis that I was trying to master will likely get severely ignored and unused by me due to it. I can already feel the mental image of my Catapults (amongst others in my hard-earned Mech Bays) looking at me, asking me "What did you let PGI do to us? Can't you fix anything?", when I simply never had any control over the matter. Hell, all this insanity from PGI is causing me to play less and less, because the 'inviting feel', fun, population, and community of MWO just isn't there anymore. It's all degrading to stress, sadness, loneliness, and worthlessness... something which drives Mech Pilots away.

~Mr. D. V. "Feeling no hope left... Broken and hallucinating..." Devnull

[Dee Eight]

I'll just buy another orion and cataphract, I can do catapult builds on them with more mass to play with. I have a mad dog to do the chain fire LRM routine.

[PraetorGix]

To the OP, it's been my solid belief that pgi "balances" for the potential customers, in particular the newcomers with money to throw at them. All this crap is intended to make the old mechs useless and the new appealing. Of course I don't think it is working at all but hey, since when reality has gotten in the way of anything they do, right?

D V Devnull, on 17 July 2016 - 04:15 PM, said:

Hell, all this insanity from PGI is causing me to play less and less, because the 'inviting feel', fun, population, and community of MWO just isn't there anymore. It's all degrading to stress, sadness, loneliness, and worthlessness... something which drives Mech Pilots away.

Sounds an awful lot like what I feel right now...

Edited by PraetorGix, 17 July 2016 - 04:57 PM.

[D V Devnull]

Dee Eight, on 17 July 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

I'll just buy another orion and cataphract, I can do catapult builds on them with more mass to play with. I have a mad dog to do the chain fire LRM routine.

Now if only as a Mercenary there was the ability to have both Inner Sphere and Clan Mechs all in your personal Drop Deck at the same time... then it sounds like you would be in heaven. (I know I would be.) Waitaminute, doesn't the I.S. Orion lack jumpjets, as does most of the Cataphracts, same for the Clanner's Mad Dog, and wouldn't that make it hard to do some Catapult builds without them?

~D. V. "I can't connect the dots. Please fill in the blanks?" Devnull




[Edit by author for a missed thought.]

Edited by D V Devnull, 17 July 2016 - 05:03 PM.

[Aerei]

They probably balance for the casuals and semicompents, or potentially simply casuals--with a couple trend guidelines in terms of clan vs IS.

Because you're absolutely right. A 6 SPL locust can be dangerous up close, but it's by no means as OP as people complained about on the forums, but most people were complaining about lights in general before the rescale, and I always thought it was kind of amazing. It's actually why I think all the mechs got bigger during the rescale, too. They could have left lights the same size, and made all the other mechs smaller and probably reduced the amount of complaining, but a ton of people had been complaining about "I can't hit lights, PGI nerf" for months, and probably longer than that.

I guarantee the main reason we haven't seen so many knee jerk clan nerfs is because most of the changes are quirk based, and most of the clans strengths aren't quirk reliant.

But going back a bit...unfortunately, I'd say three quarters of the players in this game just aren't very good, certainly not compared to the resume the OP has put up at least. As I'm sure you've probably seen in other games, some things can be perfectly balanced in a competitive environment, with good players, but be totally imbalanced when you look at the skill levels of the average players.

Edited by Aerei, 17 July 2016 - 05:11 PM.

[Mother Natures Psychedelic Fury]

This video show how everyone is going to feel after the new patch.

- PGI you can still do good here, all you have to do, is listen.

[Ragnahawk]

I love both of those mechs, but they had the nerf coming. Now they just need to remove god structure quirks from 4SP, and start buffing the lesser mechs that people rarely play.

[Dee Eight]

When do the atlas structure nerfs happen? They're the same size and mass as kodiaks...surely its high time they had their structure nerfs and agility quirks dropped. Nobody is paying real money for them anymore.

Edited by Dee Eight, 17 July 2016 - 08:20 PM.

[Aedwynn]

PGI will never answer. They put things like "new minimap" or "voting system" on live servers without testing it on PTS. And despite both cases resulting in a storm of negative comments, they never ever acknowleged making a mistake, or actually explaining why they did that. They just don't care because "they know better". And if a lot of players leave they just start a new advertising campaign to lure in new players to replace. PGI repeats same mistakes again and again year after year, never apologises and never talks. Hoping something will change is pointless, in that regard MWO is dead. WHile all OP said is true, it's like howling at moon. Instead of trying to reach to PGI on forums, vote with your money. Don't buy a thing from them, all mechs will eventually be available for credits, why waste your money on a product that can go in a completely random direction any time? For all you know PGI might introduce mech hats and companion creatures next month.

Edited by Aedwynn, 18 July 2016 - 06:35 AM.

[Void Angel]

And they told you why they don't do much with the PTS. A lot of you guys mistake "listening" for "doing what we want," and "paying attention to the players" for "petting me with attention and personal responses to whatever issues I deem are important."

Take Aedwynn's opening statment: he's either dishonest, or he's not paying attention. He can pick; I don't care - but it's one or the other. See, PGI has told us why they don't run a lot of changes through the PTS: they haven't been able to get enough of a sample size to make it worth the while. They told us this while "never answering" player feedback that they were releasing certain features without running them through the test server. You can also clearly see what PGI is going for with most of their changes, including quirks. You might agree or disagree, but it's hardly "completely random."

Why should they talk to you, when you're clearly not listening?

But it's easier to be snarky than to try to understand; "'mech hats and companion creatures;' hah, I'm such an edgy, bitter vet." '"No one's paying money any more, you can nerf this 'mech now.' Hah, take that - zing!" Forget all the times that 'mechs haven't been nerfed after c-bill release - heck, let's not even try to correlate the nerfs that do happen with the lack of a PTS! It's more satisfying to feel knowledgeable and self-righteous by haunting the forums with cheap shots, unsupported accusations, and conspiracy theories.

[QuickSpoon]

Hello there. My two cents.

Supplycaches.

First thought: Cash grab.
Don't like Cash grab.

Ok, lets think it's a company, it need money so ok you can understand why this cash grab exists.

So overall I'm not that against anymore. It could be fun. But it should be tweaked in my opinion:

1. From the possible rewards in the cache these items should be thrown out: GXP and Active Premium Time.

GXP is aquired overtime. I hate it when I get it from events. I don't play much but I got enough. Aquiring CBills isn't a quick process and the modules are expensive. Does anybody really have that big problem that GXP is the thing you need?

Premium time is just as stupid. If you got MC you can unlock it. Also its automaticaly activated so its just a waste for a casual player.

2. 25MC Cache Key is a cringe cash grab, but ok lets get over it. Make it always 25mc for a key. Unless the more expensive keys are to caches that offer us more than one reward.


3. Also there is no real point to the option to sell caches for cbills.

[D V Devnull]

Source Mystic, on 19 July 2016 - 03:17 AM, said:

QuickSpoon, on 19 July 2016 - 01:28 AM, said:

3. Also there is no real point to the option to sell caches for cbills.

Yes there is I like to get something for my crates I will not pay to open c-bills will be fine.

Yeah, I think those purchase values for keys are a bit overkill as well. It should be maybe 10 max. Better yet, why not just charge 250K to open instead? It would still land up draining more than would be gained in most cases, and would have a key value effectively five times the value that would be gained for selling a Supply Crate.

~D. V. "Yeah, something's definitely out of adjustment." Devnull

[QuickSpoon]

Ok I admit selling the cache for cbils is a good option.

Still that GXP and premium time in the cache is agravating.