25 replies to this topic

[Roland]

I've made similar suggestions previously, but this includes some refinements that have popped into my mind recently.

TL:DR Version:
Implement a "market" based system, where a team is allowed to drop a fixed "value" per game. Say, "300 Points". The point value of each mech is determined based upon how frequently that chassis, and the equipment mounted on it, is used in comparison to other chassis and equipment, across all games played by the community over a recent period of time (say, the last month). This will give you a dynamic balancing system which will result in a wide variety of mechs and weapon used.

Detailed version:
In order to enable a balanced matchmaking sytem, implement a market based approach, where the Battlevalue for any given mech is derived based upon the usage stats taken over a recent time period across all games. This will result in mechs which the community considers "the best" to be penalized more and more as time goes on, which will force pilots into using other chassis.

This will create a dynamic and varied gaming environment.. while not requiring anyone to make some arbitrary decision about what is good and what is bad, and how to balance those things... The community will end up balancing itself, automatically.

And it won't automatically force any mech, even those "best" mechs, into disuse... thus providing a better solution than simply trying to nerf them. As the "cost" of those mechs goes up, usage of them will shift away, causing their cost to fall into equilibrium.

Ultimately, this type of market based approach is essentially guaranteed to work, and will dynamically adjust to usage over time, eliminating the need to constantly try to nerf and buff various elements of the game in a misguided attempt to hit the moving target of balance.

In past incarnations of mechwarrior, in competitive league play, we had aspects of this incorporated... units purchased their mechs on a market, and their prices were determined by supply and demand. It worked well, to some degree, but since it was only economics based, the best units basically had infinite money anyway. So it really only penalized the weaker units who were resource constrained.

By linking the usage stats to battlevalue, and thus having it directly tied to what you are able to drop in a given match, you end up achieving the benefits of a market based system, but impose the exact same resource restrictions on every unit... No matter how good or successful your unit is, you will still be bound by the same limitations in terms of what you can drop in a given match. Thus, the playing field is fair, and different mechs are automatically balanced against each other in a way that reflects how good they actually are.

[Shlkt]

It would certainly be an interesting experiment... but for users who don't like to play Spreadsheet Online it could get frustrating. "The mechs you used 30 minutes ago are now too popular, you must redesign your mechs!" And then you have to scroll through all the latest "point values" to find less popular equipment / mechs. Heck, that would be frustating even for me, and I *like* spreadsheets.

You could reduce the frequently of market updates to once a week or so, but it would still get obnoxious, especially for players who just want to jump into a game with a random group. You don't know ahead of time how popular everyone else's stuff is, and not every player can afford a dozen different 'Mechs for varying point values.

Don't get me wrong, it would be neat to see more diversity and the open market approach is interesting on paper, but for more casual players it wouldn't be fun.

[Roland]

Yes, I think that a good practice would to have a market value revaluation take place on a monthly basis.

[Roland]

Bump just because folks seem to still be talking about potential solutions to this issue.

[Asmudius Heng]

Missed this before.

I am in total agreement with you Roland. No amount of balancing will change that some mechs will become less than optimum. The PRICE of a mech does not actually help balance anything at all - or equipment for that matter. Anyone can eventually save up for it.

If the commando ends up being raven food or something consistently then it will be used less and less and its stats will show why.

That mech should be cheap to field as is factories are making them but no one is buying then they have to reduce the "Cost" to field them or something. ITs abstract but its the only way i can see sub-optimal mechs being used.

In organised games you might gave some pilots who are great in those less than optimal mechs so you can put them in to save points for a fully kitted out ubermech or two. IT will increase diversity as the optimal mechs will be harder to field - but they will also still be used.

A monthly rebalancing would be appropriate I believe as well.

Many +1s

[INSEkT L0GIC]

BT already had a system to calculate Battle Value based on mech builds that could be adapted to MWO. I think combining that with the ELO matchmaking would be ideal.

Edited by INSEkT L0GIC, 16 January 2013 - 04:16 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

INSEkT L0GIC, on 16 January 2013 - 04:15 PM, said:

BT already had a system to calculate Battle Value based on mech builds that could be adapted to MWO. I think combining that with the ELO matchmaking would be ideal.

The calculation they used in BT needs to be adjusted for a very different game though.

And the idea is that is is modified over time from usage not a static number so that FOTM builds will ebb and flow a little more as will les optimal ones.

It would be an integral part of the ELO system but could be used for 8 vs 8 drops matching certain BV points system to have more even games tech wise.

Edited by Asmudius Heng, 16 January 2013 - 07:20 PM.

[Roland]

Exactly. By linking the value to usage statistics, you eliminate the requirement to have people pre-determine how good a weapon or mech is.. because, ultimately, that value changes over time as players discover new combinations and come up with new optimum builds.

[Gaan Cathal]

The idea is good, but has an inherent point of concern - a market dependant on players can be manipulated by players. This especially a concern with purely free accounts, which is far more open to attack under a system like the proposed.

[Asmudius Heng]

Gaan Cathal, on 23 January 2013 - 01:34 PM, said:

The idea is good, but has an inherent point of concern - a market dependant on players can be manipulated by players. This especially a concern with purely free accounts, which is far more open to attack under a system like the proposed.

On a macro scale I think it would be a massive effort to try to manupulate the system and would be pretty easy to detect. Free new accounts take ages of grind to get into a mach you want to manipultae. The sheer number of real competitave games will drown out any background noise of people trying to manipulate the system.

I would love to take a low end commando say and know I have freed up heaps of BV for my team to take a souped up Raven or something of a ehavier tonnage etc.

[focuspark]

Not to throw a wrench in this discussion, but wouldn't a market based approach require a market to exist before it can work?

[Roland]

focuspark, on 23 January 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

Not to throw a wrench in this discussion, but wouldn't a market based approach require a market to exist before it can work?

This approach does not require a literal market, where players are purchasing things.

It's just a term to talk about how the value is determined through an abstract notion of "demand" based upon how frequently items are used within the game.

[focuspark]

Roland, on 23 January 2013 - 02:18 PM, said:

This approach does not require a literal market, where players are purchasing things.

It's just a term to talk about how the value is determined through an abstract notion of "demand" based upon how frequently items are used within the game.

Ahh I see. Missed that somehow. So if a mech, module, component, or weapon is fielded too much you could be barred from playing because you're some how over the BV limit? Since what ever it was that put you over was very popular you're now making it very hard to form groups of people.

Actually, in someways this isn't helping at all. If the most popular things have the highest values then the majority of people have that thing and the majority of people will still end up playing against each other. What you've created here is pigeon holing people who are not using the FotM.

[Roland]

focuspark, on 23 January 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

Ahh I see. Missed that somehow. So if a mech, module, component, or weapon is fielded too much you could be barred from playing because you're some how over the BV limit? Since what ever it was that put you over was very popular you're now making it very hard to form groups of people.

No, not at all.

You wouldn't be banned from playing. Your lance would just have to field less of whatever that is.

This idea is directed mainly at organized team play, such as in the 8 man queue. Your team would have X "points" to allocate amongst your lance.

Now, if one configuration is found to be extremely powerful, and starts showing up all the time (for instance, like the Streak Cat A1 a few patches ago.. or the 3L recently) then its value would increase, as more and more folks started using it.

The result would be that an organized team would be forced to drop less of them, and supplement the lance with other, "less optimal" configs.. or just different configs that weren't the FOTM.

Thus, the system results in a dynamic balancing system, and creates diversity in the mechs you see in games.

Edited by Roland, 24 January 2013 - 06:51 PM.

[Asmudius Heng]

It depends Roland on your last point.

If you are being dynamically assigned to fight someone of a similar BV then yes. However if you have organised drops the BV can be set.

I think 8 vs 8 should not be random but people can post up a team with a BV and people can choose to challenge that BV or close to it.

So if you dont wanna go against the guys running the best of the best - even if your team can - then you might find a more balanced team to fight.

This all relies on there being a LOT of 8 vs 8.

Other thing could be implemented - if you face off against someone with a higher BV you get bonus cbills and XP to encourage people to try fighting with less optimal builds and still win. Just a thought.

[Roland]

I think that the way it would work best would be to make a set of sub-divisions in the 8 man queue, based on BV.

This would then allow teams to choose to fight at a particular "weight class", choosing what the top BV for the entire lance they want to allocate.

I also think that teams should be able to voluntarily drop undermanned, so (for instance) if you had perhaps 7 pilots, you could choose to just use that BV among those 7 pilots, and then drop against perhaps teams of 8... you'd have fewer mechs, but they would be better.

This would also serve to potentially balance clan tech, if it eventually arrives.

[Ave Hax]

Hate to say it but a new player 1 meck is what sol (sh@@ out of luck) in this design sorry it is no go
i should not be limited to the meck i choose to use
and as long as they drop equal assaults / lights etc. we should be good

[Roland]

Ave Hax, on 25 January 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

Hate to say it but a new player 1 meck is what sol (sh@@ out of luck) in this design sorry it is no go
i should not be limited to the meck i choose to use
and as long as they drop equal assaults / lights etc. we should be good

I don't think you fully grasp what is being suggested here, as it would not prevent you from piloting a mech.

Certainly, as a new player playing by yourself, it wouldn't really impact anything at all for you.

[Splinters]

I like the idea of combining BV and ELO to make a full system. The current BT/MW BV's are out of whack due to 2 major things: #1) wide availability of customizations in-game and #2) damage values and dps are very different than TT.

So we would need a new BV system that calculates each of the components individually and then a separate "modifier" for the market value side of the BV proposed by the OP.

After that we would have to figure out what the balance is between ELO and BV when calculating who can drop against who. We could start out with a 50/50 mix of BV and ELO, but I imagine that ELO should have a higher percentage of the calcuation since the pilot tends to be more of a factor than the mech. Maybe 55/45 would be a good enough split.

Either way, the other side of implementing a market-based BV is to have players see the BV before they click launch/ready. I would suggest a bar with a number listed off inside the bar to indicate the current BV of the mech chosen in it's current configuration. The bar itself will be rated on a 0-10 scale with 0 being "not-popular" and lower BV value and 10 being "too popular" and a lower BV to go with it. This way the pilot can determine which mech he wants to pilot. If he chooses a popular mech then the pilot knows the rewards are going to be fewer and his ELO will have more downside than upside. If he chooses a non-popular mech then a pilot knows there is a better chance at rewards.

This way a guy in a trial mech does stand to gain a great benefit vs a fully modified version who will get some benefit but maybe not as high.

Finally the final piece of this puzzle is to put the market modifier of the 0-10 into the XP and Cbills. 5 being 1.0 modifier. 0 being a 3-4x modifier and 10 being 0.25-0.33x modifier.

Then a team won't be as excited to take in a 4-man of Raven 3L's or splatcats knowing that they are all going to get a smaller percentage of what their actual performance. And a guy in a trial mech that does well can stand to gain 3-4x more xp and cbills in a match so even doing poorly won't be too painful of a grind.

-S

[BallSabre]

I think this as already in the op but it seems the really good point of this is ignored at the moment.

That is the ability to tweak income in the basic random matches by using this system and so directing the main community to discover new things as well. Also this would make a gausscat less profitable and there would be no need to nerf it.

example.

a certain loadout or model of the jenner gets really popular because it is OP in every sense of the word. In a month its income is reduced by ~25% while a loadout or model of atlas is really unpopular so its income is buffed by ~25%. (or balancing on performance)

This means that most "hardcore" players will switch from the jenner to the atlas for the money boost while casual players will continue on blisfully ignorant of the shift in balance(note. I count myself in the later group). A kind of shifting balance that will get the best players to use something other than the best stuff.