145 replies to this topic

[WolvesX]

"Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil."

Edited by WolvesX, 14 March 2013 - 03:32 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Teralitha, on 14 March 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

Ive been saying this for months. But hey, maybe they will actually read this topic....



Um.. if its balanced for the top level, by default its balanced for the rest too.



You got that right.

To be fair I think they do pay attention, they just do updates slowly. Which isn't bad - any changes are going to get added to the list. I have no idea how PGI does their business but in the software testing I've done (business software and game design) normally bugs and feature changes get ordered by total impact. Minor (nobody cares) major (people care) critical (needs immediate attention) and show-stopper (hot fix or you're fired). There are hundreds of minors, most will probably get ignored unless someone catches the fix while doing something else or it's just stupid no brains easy. Dozens of majors but the problem are critical and show-stopper issues. These get fixed NOW. Also in order to ensure the product is not in perpetual triage you've got dev introduction and testing as well as user acceptance testing for new features the whole time.

See if all you do is rework what you've got already then you'll never get new stuff added. You've got to fix critical bugs (there are not any at current. This would be things stopping the game from working) first, then alternate rebalance adjustments and new content or you're just going to perpetually tweak the crap out of the same stuff.

As bad as this is for the pbase it's hell on devs. Most the coders I've known and worked with like to do new stuff and feel like they're getting stuff done and finished. Most of them probably have sticky notes everywhere, charts and flowcharts and printouts all but effing stacked around their desks on stuff that they have to do. Meetings just to figure out what order it's going to happen in - often meetings you don't even get to attend. You just get told 'do this next'. Which can be bad because in context of what to code and what you're working on it may be less efficient than working on another item first.

Anyway. I have a lot of empathy for PGI. I'm content to hear that they're working on ECM. I hope LRMs are getting resolved too. For now I'm content that some sort of rebalancing is taking place for ECM at least, I want to see how that goes before I get too invested in LRMs. I think the fix is easy though.

[WolvesX]

"The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all."

[WolvesX]

"It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge."

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Some great points here that can be told in a shorter version. The mechlab will always lead to inbalances. They should have never had a total mechlab only some upgrades or slight changes to the variant.

[Teralitha]

WolvesX, on 14 March 2013 - 04:13 PM, said:

"It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge."

Heh interesting way to bump. I think the best time to have a topic like this near the top is during PGI work hours.

[Critical Fumble]

Sifright, on 14 March 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Spoiler

Yes and no. People complain about balance who are terrible players or who can't make certain weapon systems work due to their short falls and so have biased observations. Also people at lower elo spectrum might see a powerful mech build that requires specific play style to work properly and because they keep killing mech pilots that don't know how to drive that mech properly they think the build is fine.
as an example the A1 catapult many people scream at you that you should just shoot the ears off any then they are uselessl. Sage advice if the pilot of the A1 is a moron who doesn't use cover or ambushes.
I drive the thing a lot. I very rarely get my ears shot off because I drive to its strengths and cover its weaknesses properly when you do that it is the most powerful brawler when the net code isn't ravaging your aim.
Balance suggestions made by LOW elo players is suspect because they don't have the skill to bring out the best qualities in a mech build and they are playing against players who likewise use mechs badly either in the mechlab or in the field.

Its a semantics thing.

When Wolves first posted this he said something to the effect of, "Balance the game around high level game play, not PUG matches." I was confused because that wording seemed to imply that PUG games would not be balanced. In reality they would be balanced though, because the endgame in any game is all about using the most powerful option available to complement your own innate strengths. That exposes parts of a game that aren't really "fair" per se, allowing for tweaks to make things more interesting than a handful of optimized setups.

The way I would have worded it is, "High Elo games is the primary reference point for game balance." That is far better than what appears to happen currently, where it seems like data for checking balance is pulled from the ENTIRE community; which is akin to trying to determine if pollutants are a health risk by finding the average disease rate of exposed and non-exposed people TOGETHER.

[WolvesX]

Critical Fumble, on 14 March 2013 - 08:34 PM, said:

The way I would have worded it is, "High Elo games is the primary reference point for game balance." That is far better than what appears to happen currently, where it seems like data for checking balance is pulled from the ENTIRE community; which is akin to trying to determine if pollutants are a health risk by finding the average disease rate of exposed and non-exposed people TOGETHER.

I like the way you put it in. English is not my first language, so complicated statements are hard to prase for me.

[Zerberus]

Sagranda, on 14 March 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

If they want to go competetive with tourneys, etc. they gain way more profit with balancing the game around high-elo and competetive players 'cause this will attract way more players who want to fight at a high level against others.
If they don't want to do this, then it doesn't matther around who they are balancing at all, or better to say it doesn't matther what they change or how they do it, since "noobs" will always complain about everything that kills them.

I think I understand what you`re getting at and actually agree with you for the most part. But "IF" is teh key word here, afaik we don`t have a clear leaning in either direction defined by the devs, or did I miss something? Usually teh way to go about creating a successful league game is to design teh gema and let the community worry about the league and rankings. For example, Valve didn`t even design CS, it was a Mod by Gooseman, but the league is still going strong today, and Valve`S contribution to that was minimal.

Quote

Btw,,,a competetive player will spend way more money in a Free To Play game than the casual one
-> More Profit

That is certainly true of P2W, but does not necessarily hold as true in a true F2P game like MWO where money brings zero tactical advantage but just more "bling" and faster progress, But regardless, my point is that the 5-10-20-50:1 ratio of paying casuals to pros makes him spending 4x as much as one of them still be the smaller source of income when the dust settles, and thereby the financially less sane decision.

The fact of the matter is that ALL games are financed by the broad community of smaller players, not by the comparatively small elite. Do you think the FIFA keeps the world of soccer afloat, or is it the massive community of multiple billion enthusiats and weekend warriors thastt kick a ball around on weekends and go to watch the pro games with their kids? The same thing applies here.

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Consistently getting matched against "better players" leads mostly to frustration
Getting stomped is no fun at all

While in theory it is true that you learn the most while playing against better players, the reality usually proves otherwise (besides some exceptions)

On the other side there are the "Elite Players" who have no fun stomping the newer ones over and over again

The key word being "consistently".. There is a difference between occasionally having a top tier player or two in a PUG and having 4 of them stuck into every match, surely we can meet somewhere in the middle? To return to soccer, "Friendship matches" hetween top tier teams and local or regional teams can and do take place, and the unknowns usually get stomped badly. But for some reason, they also seem to understand that it is a game and that sportsmanship and competitiveness do not mean winning or whining. That is admittedly seemingly lost with society in general today, and it does appear to be worse online, but IMO the only thing to do when you see a whine is offer some cheese.

*This next part is IMO and in no way meant as an attack or psychoanalysis, just the way I view it in general.* If you truly enjoy a sport (or any pastime for that matter), you do not care who you are doing it for (or against), just being able to do it is enough for you. If you only care to do it for or against people on your own level, you are either an elitist jerk /born-to-be-pro snob, or you are doing it solely for the ego rush of being able to say "I`m so much better, now look at my ****"... both types of athletes generally become well known but hated to the bone both by fans and colleagues alike. If you`re obviouslky better, IMO it`s your obligation to attempt to share that knowledge with those that need it (in this case the puggers that don`t come here), not to keep yourselfand your knowledge out of their reach until they reach some arbitraliy deemed qualification that people withholding themselves makes it that much harder to attain. If I did my job in this fashion I`d either be unemployed or the elected leader of the illuminati within a month.

Quote

It's like this in every multiplayer game that centers around competetive gaming.
And it's the way it should be

I think many are overlooking that at this point the game is merely a framework around which a competitive or non-competitive game could be built. We have no economy, no community warfare, no way to dictate stipulations and terms much less choose battleground, we have a somewhat buggy physics engine, a sometimes semi functioning netcode, problems with hit registration, massive teamply hindering factors like not being able to see your own teammate`s loadouts or communicate effectively w/o 3rd party software, huge balance issues due to some of the above as well as certain pieces of equipment that get flamed daily....

While just as in CS many leagues and Clans started out as early as beta 2.x (out of 7.2), just as many left between /as a result of beta patches (just as we see people threatening to do evertime a single line of code is changed in MWO), and even more left when 1.0 was released as a valve product, even more left when 1.3 came, and with 1.6 and the ballistic shield entire leagues suddenly pronounced the game dead. But for some reason, you can still find a CS match faster than an MWO one, 10 years after it "died". That`s because it was developed as a GAME for teh community, to be fun and enjoyable, not because TAMM , MTW and .sk gaming were telling them how to do it and make it the ultimate competitive game, 90% of the suggestions tehy made that were implemented were bug and balance issuess, like the head hitboxes being oversize and behind teh head. Which in hindsight was the better idea, because they`re now long gone and the game is still there, simply because the more people threw hissy fits and left, the more publicity the game got, and the more people got turned on to it. If all the people that ragequit during beta had been even remotely right, the game would have died loooong before it had millions of players.

IMO Regarding the game at present as even remotely suitable for true competition is like saying your goat can fly because you`re throwing it off a building. I don`t think it`s a good idea to base the game direction around that goat at this time, maybe building a falcon would be a better idea.

Now, if that falcon happens to be a steamlined machine just perfectly designed for fair competitions, then we have an argument. Until then, we can really all go around in circles if we want to (though in our case we`re really more just branches on the same tree IMO).

What I`m basically saying is that of course it makes sense to balance the game around optimized gameplay, I`m not even trying to argue that. And that that is going to be found more often in the higher tiers is equally as obvious. But you need to do it in such a way that it doesn`t kill the fun for the casuals, or there will eventually not be a game to play anymore.

Edited by Zerberus, 15 March 2013 - 06:55 AM.

[sycocys]

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

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.

This right here is exactly the problem that I am seeing right now. I am probably in the upper middle portion of the elo and when I drop against players of equal footing or greater they usually handle builts like my artemis cat fairly well, while when elo rounds me into the lower end of the middle I get 4-6 kills and 900+ damage.

[Sagranda]

Zerberus, on 15 March 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

I think I understand what you`re getting at and actually agree with you for the most part. But "IF" is teh key word here, afaik we don`t have a clear leaning in either direction defined by the devs, or did I miss something? Usually teh way to go about creating a successful league game is to design teh gema and let the community worry about the league and rankings. For example, Valve didn`t even design CS, it was a Mod by Gooseman, but the league is still going strong today, and Valve`S contribution to that was minimal.

The Devs said in one interview/statement/whatever that most of them are competetive players themselves
Then there's the implementation of an Elo-System and the "tourneys" they already held (that they were a joke and mainly for gathering data for their Elo-System doesn't matther)
So, tbh it's just my assumption that they want to go competetive with MWO
Anything else wouldn't make any real sense for "competetive players" to create an online multiplayer game, incluce a ranking system, hold tourneys, etc.
At least for me it wouldn't make any sense.

There's also nothing wrong with the Devs/the company providing the leagues/rankings and tourneys
The community does the rest

And even if the community is creating the leagues and rankings, you still have to balance it or the community will do it through mods (if possible), but that would just damage the popularity and image of the company

Quote

That is certainly true of P2W, but does not necessarily hold as true in a true F2P game like MWO where money brings zero tactical advantage but just more "bling" and faster progress, But regardless, my point is that the 5-10-20-50:1 ratio of paying casuals to pros makes him spending 4x as much as one of them still be the smaller source of income when the dust settles, and thereby the financially less sane decision.

The fact of the matter is that ALL games are financed by the broad community of smaller players, not by the comparatively small elite. Do you think the FIFA keeps the world of soccer afloat, or is it the massive community of multiple billion enthusiats and weekend warriors thastt kick a ball around on weekends and go to watch the pro games with their kids? The same thing applies here.

I would never talk about P2W, since P2W is a damn bad concept
But companies can gain a lot through XP/Credit - Boosts, Skins, Colours, etc -> See League of Legends
And for a "Pro" a "faster progress" is always great -> leads them to spend more money

I agree that all the casuals together are paying a lot of money and are usually the spine of every game when it comes to money.
But how do you advertise an online multiplayer game the best?
Through "Pro Teams and Matches"
Nearly the same goes for Soccer.
The interest of the people is kept alive through the Pro Teams

Ah...and soccer has a big and probably the most important advantage...you can play it nearly everywhere with nothing than a few people and a ball.
Can't do that with an online multiplayer game or some other sports...

Another note:
Pro Players usually don't have only one Acc where they are spending money, but more like 2-5 additional accs where they will spend at least 3-5 times more (my guess) than an average player

Quote

The key word being "consistently".. There is a difference between occasionally having a top tier player or two in a PUG and having 4 of them stuck into every match, surely we can meet somewhere in the middle? To return to soccer, "Friendship matches" hetween top tier teams and local or regional teams can and do take place, and the unknowns usually get stomped badly. But for some reason, they also seem to understand that it is a game and that sportsmanship and competitiveness do not mean winning or whining. That is admittedly seemingly lost with society in general today, and it does appear to be worse online, but IMO the only thing to do when you see a whine is offer some cheese.

When you have a MM that matches "The Elite" vs. "The Noobs" it won't only happen on occasions, but on a regular basis.
Friendship matches are a way different stories, since it's something that is decided by two teams with a reason behind it.
And they wouldn't want to play against them on a daily basis, that I can asure you.

Quote

*This next part is IMO and in no way meant as an attack or psychoanalysis, just the way I view it in general.* If you truly enjoy a sport (or any pastime for that matter), you do not care who you are doing it for (or against), just being able to do it is enough for you. If you only care to do it for or against people on your own level, you are either an elitist jerk /born-to-be-pro snob, or you are doing it solely for the ego rush of being able to say "I`m so much better, now look at my ****"... both types of athletes generally become well known but hated to the bone both by fans and colleagues alike. If you`re obviouslky better, IMO it`s your obligation to attempt to share that knowledge with those that need it (in this case the puggers that don`t come here), not to keep yourselfand your knowledge out of their reach until they reach some arbitraliy deemed qualification that people withholding themselves makes it that much harder to attain. If I did my job in this fashion I`d either be unemployed or the elected leader of the illuminati within a month.

So people who want to improve themselves as players, who want to compete against other people who are stronger or on the same level to test their strength, "who want to get as much as possible out of a game", who like the thrill of a close fight are bound to become evil personalities?

A lot of pro or high ranked players in other games are creating guides, streaming with commentary, doing an AMA, helping people out in the forums, etc.
But they would never want to give up on the competition they gain through battling enemies on their own skill level.

Quote

I think many are overlooking that at this point the game is merely a framework around which a competitive or non-competitive game could be built. We have no economy, no community warfare, no way to dictate stipulations and terms much less choose battleground, we have a somewhat buggy physics engine, a sometimes semi functioning netcode, problems with hit registration, massive teamply hindering factors like not being able to see your own teammate`s loadouts or communicate effectively w/o 3rd party software, huge balance issues due to some of the above as well as certain pieces of equipment that get flamed daily....

not at this moment, right
but you have to think in longer terms and start with it at the beginning.

And as long as there's elo, as long as there are different mechs with different weapons and loadouts are fighting while people are "piloting" them you have to think about the balance.

Quote

While just as in CS many leagues and Clans started out as early as beta 2.x (out of 7.2), just as many left between /as a result of beta patches (just as we see people threatening to do evertime a single line of code is changed in MWO), and even more left when 1.0 was released as a valve product, even more left when 1.3 came, and with 1.6 and the ballistic shield entire leagues suddenly pronounced the game dead. But for some reason, you can still find a CS match faster than an MWO one, 10 years after it "died". That`s because it was developed as a GAME for teh community, to be fun and enjoyable, not because TAMM , MTW and .sk gaming were telling them how to do it and make it the ultimate competitive game, 90% of the suggestions tehy made that were implemented were bug and balance issuess, like the head hitboxes being oversize and behind teh head. Which in hindsight was the better idea, because they`re now long gone and the game is still there, simply because the more people threw hissy fits and left, the more publicity the game got, and the more people got turned on to it. If all the people that ragequit during beta had been even remotely right, the game would have died loooong before it had millions of players.

We're talking here about nothing else (besides Queues and the like)

Quote

What I`m basically saying is that of course it makes sense to balance the game around optimized gameplay, I`m not even trying to argue that. And that that is going to be found more often in the higher tiers is equally as obvious. But you need to do it in such a way that it doesn`t kill the fun for the casuals, or there will eventually not be a game to play anymore.

This will never be possible.
There will always be casuals who see the sense behind a balance change, while others will not...and these are the ones who will cry and who will whine...they will even threat to leave the game
But It's like this in every game and there will never be a solution for it.

[WolvesX]

Sagranda, on 15 March 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

There will always be casuals who see the sense behind a balance change, while others will not...and these are the ones who will cry and who will whine...they will even threat to leave the game
But It's like this in every game and there will never be a solution for it.

Yup!

Sagranda, on 15 March 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

The Devs said in one interview/statement/whatever that most of them are competetive players themselves
Then there's the implementation of an Elo-System and the "tourneys" they already held (that they were a joke and mainly for gathering data for their Elo-System doesn't matther)

Also very true, that stated this and I see myself juging them by this.

[Avalios]

Ranked and Unranked play is a great idea........with a large playerbase.

MWO does not have that, at any given time maybe 5-10 teams are dropping 8 mans.
Cut that down by splitting the player base into different game types and well you will drop the same couple of teams over and over....that is not fun.

As for pug drops, who the heck would want ranked pug drops?

Edited by Avalios, 15 March 2013 - 05:40 PM.

[WolvesX]

Avalios, on 15 March 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

Ranked and Unranked play is a great idea........with a large playerbase.

MWO does not have that, at any given time maybe 5-10 teams are dropping 8 mans.
Cut that down by splitting the player base into different game types and well you will drop the same couple of teams over and over....that is not fun.

As for pug drops, who the heck would want ranked pug drops?

Why not? A single player only leaderboard of some kind =)

[Critical Fumble]

WolvesX, on 15 March 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

Why not? A single player only leaderboard of some kind =)

like the "Be a Hero" fiasco, only months long?

Although if they just make it based off of the players' stats rather than the way they've done it in the past, it might be OK.

It seems like there's a great, big wall of semantics blocking some communication here. We're defining the "pro" or "competitive" players by those who take the most effective builds, use them in the most effective way, and drop in a premade team. Then we're being fuzzy on what a "casual" is. I'd say its anyone who does only one or two of things in the previous list, although you could sub-divide casuals by how closely they follow some, if any, of those.

Lets suppose that there is a balance change, and it does make the game more, rather than less, balanced. The first set of offended people is anyone who was not adversely effected by the imbalance - the status quo/change is bad effect. This one is relatively minor, very brief screaming as the new becomes normal. The second level are those who benefited indirectly from the imbalance. Somewhat louder and longer screaming depending on how much reliance there was, and how quickly they adapt. The last level are those who who actually used it themselves. Potential hearing loss and chance of spittle.

The competitive players will adapt quickly, making a new technique for the aftermath. The ones who would be angry about the changes after having tried some would be those between the competitive and casual players, who thought that they were super-human because of their choice of mech+build versus other people who are using. . . whatever they want, to varying degrees of effect.

[Fooooo]

It should most definitely be balanced around the top teirs of play.

However, it should also be done in a way that has a positive effect on all teirs of play...which to be honest isnt exactly always possible.

The only way to somewhat avoid the problem of new players being smashed by certain builds played by ok players, then calling them OP etc, is to seperate them by games played.

IE, Somewhat like the Teir system some have suggested.

1. If you have less than 50 games played then you are in the "new player MM"

OBV to combat people creating new accounts to troll etc, have it also done by performance.

2. If your under 50 games and in 5 or so matches (consistantly I guess) you are well above the other players in the "new player MM" in general, then you get promoted to the normal MM we have right now.

3. After 50 games you are in the normal MM by default.

There would need to be a fair few new people coming in constantly for that to be filled so it would not always work, and new players would sometimes have to be promoted for a match or 2.

This system is pretty much identical to what WoT does for new players, for the first 25 or so matches you are in a seperate queue to everyone else. (or at least it used to be like that)

Other then that, elo is working as best as it can atm. Wait for more tweaks and see what happens.

Edited by Fooooo, 15 March 2013 - 09:48 PM.

[mekabuser]

Good stuff for the most part. DO like the idea of the little shield showing general skill level.. Hell , tribes ascend shows your exact rank.. I for one appreciate that as it not only helps id the real threats, its not so bad when your taken out by a guy 30 levels higher than you.

I think... i agree with OP theory about balance. One has to wonder what the game would look like if there was voip. and variants , just like mwll. I suspect given the same player base size we would all be having a much better time since it would all boil down to skill. Skill using a large number of viable, balanced mechs.. Not a handful of optimal builds.

You might call x mech a good choice, and you would! be right.. but I would still call it cheese. WHy? because I dont like easy mode, or rather, easier mode, especially against cannon fodder. Its all fine and good if you all use the same mechs amongst yourselves, once again it becomes skill. Kinda like what mw4 devolved into, but at least its skill based.

Im not sure if i missed something, but what is preventing 8v8 from being "fun and competitive" at this point and needs to be addressed by balance .. other than the players themselves who only use the best possible builds of the moment. ? oh and ecm i guess. Whats the problem?

Lets not forget the fact that there are several mechanics in game that are utilized by top players , who keep quiet about it because it remains that "competitive advantage" that super cedes fair play and dare I say it honor. zombieism , which flies in the face of logic and reason, but is a dirty secret both offensively and defensively. THe raven and its much bigger brother , the stalker with their quantum hitboxes. Theres probably more, but i dont bother with that stuff.

Even tho it puts me at a great disadvantage, I like to play in sub optimal , or rather I explore the sub optimal , till I find something unconventional , yet competitive.

So, balance for the high elo.. WHat does that entail. ? A boat tax ? Only being able to take certain rides a percentage of total games in a specific timeframe? < i kinda like that one>what?

I hope no one thinks Im biichen here, Im not, just confused as to what the answer is.. Do player who constantly need to win, will they be satisfied if all the tools they used to gain a dominant position on the bf are taken away? idk. I think for many of these players once all the loopholes are closed they might not be as happy.

It seems as if victory trumps fair play, even if the victory is hollow and brutal.. Much like in mwll, it was pitiful how few good players would switch teams halfway through an obvious stomp. It didnt matter , they won.

So, now that OP brought it up so eloquently, sincerely, how do you balance the game at the top of the heap?

[WolvesX]

Fooooo, on 15 March 2013 - 09:44 PM, said:

Spoiler

It should most definitely be balanced around the top teirs of play.

However, it should also be done in a way that has a positive effect on all teirs of play...which to be honest isnt exactly always possible.

The only way to somewhat avoid the problem of new players being smashed by certain builds played by ok players, then calling them OP etc, is to seperate them by games played.

IE, Somewhat like the Teir system some have suggested.

1. If you have less than 50 games played then you are in the "new player MM"

OBV to combat people creating new accounts to troll etc, have it also done by performance.

2. If your under 50 games and in 5 or so matches (consistantly I guess) you are well above the other players in the "new player MM" in general, then you get promoted to the normal MM we have right now.

3. After 50 games you are in the normal MM by default.

There would need to be a fair few new people coming in constantly for that to be filled so it would not always work, and new players would sometimes have to be promoted for a match or 2.

This system is pretty much identical to what WoT does for new players, for the first 25 or so matches you are in a seperate queue to everyone else. (or at least it used to be like that)

Other then that, elo is working as best as it can atm. Wait for more tweaks and see what happens.

I like this idea! Thouse players would have my "Rookie Shield".

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Zerstorer Stallin, on 14 March 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

Some great points here that can be told in a shorter version. The mechlab will always lead to inbalances. They should have never had a total mechlab only some upgrades or slight changes to the variant.

This. I think I'd play more with a more stock-plus approach as opposed to the do as much customization as you want.

[WolvesX]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 16 March 2013 - 05:54 AM, said:

This. I think I'd play more with a more stock-plus approach as opposed to the do as much customization as you want.

I love att the customization stuff in this game and I even want to have more.

I consider myself a BT fan, an old BT fan, but I love balance and modern design more.