108 replies to this topic

[Tabrias07]

Pater Mors, on 22 March 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Actually both of those opinions can easily be right. Another logic fail here. You're playing top tier competitive games and due to the nature of those, LRM's might be worthless.

I am playing PUG games and due to the nature of those, LRMs are super rocket-mini-nukes (I don't agree with that, just an example).

Both opinions are correct. This is why you can't just take one opinion and run with it.

Everyone says I'm an ***** when I say the game needs to be balanced on two levels, for both comp and pub play.

It's not so much an issue of weapon strength as it is communication. LRMs are useless in 8mans because ECM is so strong.

[Pater Mors]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

This can happen, I agree, but in terms of weapon, 'mech and equipment balance having people who understand it offer feedback (filtered through PGI's own balance people) should merely result in well balanced equipment, and maybe some better flow in the maps or tweaks to the game rules.

If you gave them total control, you'd have a problem, of course. But again, I'm talking about where to get feedback, not who to put in charge. PGI should definitely be where the buck stops.

Again; you can't get all your feedback from one place without getting biased feedback. You must get it from multiple sources who disagree with each other. That is the definition of finding a balance.

[megoblocks]

Not really a summary when its like 40% of your post

[stjobe]

I'm not a "top-tier player", nor am I in a "top-tier team". I do, however, have quite a sound grasp of the game mechanics, and a couple of thousand drops under my belt.

Why should the devs listen more to a "top-tier player" than me? Isn't the important thing whether you can express an idea in a coherent fashion, back it up with facts and rational, logical arguments, and be prepared to be proven wrong?

Catering only to "top-tier players" can kill a game just as easily as catering to only newcomers can drive the "top-tier players" away.

I'm sure PGI would like to keep both groups around.

[Victor Morson]

DanNashe, on 22 March 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Why is it wrong to have weapons that are good for some players but bad for others? As LONG as there is variety at all levels, does it have to be the same variety?

Because the community at large will eventually adapt. I garuntee if you had left LRMs alone, by this time next April the mob would have likely moved onto something else, like Large Lasers, ER PPCs or UAC/5s, which are all vastly more effective than LRMs really.

I'm not sure how many of you played MechWarrior 4, in the days of VERYYYYY huge delays between patches (with most major balance changes appearing in expansions, instead), but if you did, you know that the "overpowered" and "best" tactics in the game changed every other month.

One month X would be the broken thing, next month Y. We played for nearly a year, without a patch, and in that time saw at least six major tactical revisions to how the game was played, from the ground up.

Sometimes, in addition to polling top players, the best attitude is just "wait and see." It's also why I think balance changes should be done a couple % at a time, at the most, unless something is seriously broken.

tl/dr: I would bet you money right now that if LRMs had been left alone, the community would have adapted in the coming month and you'd be seeing a ton of threads about ER PPC spam instead.

Pater Mors, on 22 March 2013 - 12:04 PM, said:

Again; you can't get all your feedback from one place without getting biased feedback. You must get it from multiple sources who disagree with each other. That is the definition of finding a balance.

I agree. But I think balancing based on the top 10 teams / top 30 players would offer a diversity wide enough to get some perspective. If each of those players is in a different unit with different friends and experiences, that would help matters greatly too.

[Gaan Cathal]

To an extent this is true, a major case in point in MWO is the Dragon. There are slews of people who resent the idea of Dragon buffs because they pilot them and do fairly well. This apparently counter-intuitive state is essentially because of a misunderstanding of normalisation. The Dragon is not as good as a Catapult or Cataphract. If you divide out pilot skill and pilot style a good pilot who is good in Cataphracts will be significantly better in game than a good pilot who is good in Dragons. This is why the Dragon doesn't appear in top tier play, and why it needs a degree of upscaling.

However. Top-tier players are not always a reliable source of balancing data for several reasons.

1: Not everyone is top tier. If you balance entirely around top-tier play you can end up with certain weapons being brutally overeffective against players lacking the knowledge, reflexes, whatever to deal with them. At that point, the weapon needs a redesign, despite being superficially balanced, because top-tier players are not the major source of income.

2: Top tier players can be self-aggrandising idiots like anyone else, and insist that their favoured equipment is 'just fine' when it's not. They are no more or less prone to this than any other tier, but it means they are not universally reliable.

3: There are significant examples where specifically not doing this has helped a game. Eve is a major example, had the devs in the early days listened to the elite pilots, the game would almost certainly have lost many interesting facets (ECM, numerical tactics, in-lines, The Blob etc) that have combined to make it the closest thing on the internet to an actual warfare simulator and hugely popular for a 'niche' game.

4: It is quite possible to have a good understanding of a game's meta without being able to apply it at the top tier. For an easy example, I think I personally have a good handle on the Ballistic Weapon mechanics in MWO and their implications. On the other hand, I have a UK-Canada ping, a non-gaming-grade mouse and a mild joint condition. I am well aware I am thus unable to apply that knowledge to the game in practice. An interesting crossover of this and point 1. is the LBX-10. It's a terrible weapon. Terrible. However, I've seen one legitimate excuse for fitting it - "I'm not a very good shot, and this mech has a ballistic hardpoint." Doesn't mean it doesn't need fixing, but if it came at the cost of being a 'poor aim crutch' then we'd probably actually loose something from the game, albeit something not seen at the top tier. Similarly, Amaris' excellent thread identifying the Splash Damage bugs that were making missiles untenable as a game mechanic (no, I don't care how little LRMs were used at Top Tier - a weapon doing 5-7x stated damage against some chassis and ~1.5x against others is untenable and needs to be fixed). Whether or not Amaris is Top Tier (I genuinely have no idea) doesn't matter. His research and number-crunching were valid, necessary and have contributed more to the game than almost any other player observation I've seen.

TL:DR - Yes, within limitations.

[Zyllos]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Actually a lot. Again, this comes down to understanding the systems.

This is why top tier players refuse to use LRMs at all, even before this nerf, while low tier players thought they were the most overpowered, unstoppable weapon system that was wrecking the game.

Clearly, both of those opinions can't be right, but I think that I would have to give more weight to the opinion of the organized team that could easily sweep the general population games in 8-0 landslides for hours before the 8-man split.

Again, this is nothing against any player, but the more skilled and experienced players are, the better they are able to fully and accurately give feedback about, well, anything in the game.

The problem with taking examples from the top means the game is only balanced to the top. "Competative" players don't use LRMs because they can't control their damage. The opponent is dictating your weapons.

On the other end, LRMs feel strong because either they do not understand that they have the control to dictate LRMs.

Neither's point of view is correct. Both examples show there are problems with player control and damage. I think it would be a mistake to solely give weight to one side or the other.

[Pater Mors]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 12:11 PM, said:

I agree. But I think balancing based on the top 10 teams / top 30 players would offer a diversity wide enough to get some perspective. If each of those players is in a different unit with different friends and experiences, that would help matters greatly too.

No it wouldn't, are you kidding? You want a sample size of 30 players to be the only people providing feedback on a game with tens of thousands of players? And you somehow think that's balanced?

[Victor Morson]

stjobe, on 22 March 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

I'm not a "top-tier player", nor am I in a "top-tier team". I do, however, have quite a sound grasp of the game mechanics, and a couple of thousand drops under my belt.

Why should the devs listen more to a "top-tier player" than me? Isn't the important thing whether you can express an idea in a coherent fashion, back it up with facts and rational, logical arguments, and be prepared to be proven wrong?

Because doing so benefits you, too.

I brought this up in the OP: If you have a solid knowledge of the game mechanics and a lot of experience but are a lone wolf by choice, you're likely to have a dissenting opinion from the general population on some things. But it will go pretty much unheard, really, as another sound in the storm.

Basically, due to your situation, the devs already aren't listening to you - really. They're hearing the loudest majority over you, no matter what you have to say. A lot of why I've suggested this is to bring those voices down to something manageable and the easiest way to track who actually understands game mechanics is to go to people who have proven their skill.

It's not that you couldn't offer valuable, informative opinions on your own, it's that you've got no way to and nothing to really grant your voice weight over the fifty buff/nerf topics up right now.

Zyllos, on 22 March 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

The problem with taking examples from the top means the game is only balanced to the top. "Competative" players don't use LRMs because they can't control their damage. The opponent is dictating your weapons.

On the other end, LRMs feel strong because either they do not understand that they have the control to dictate LRMs.

Neither's point of view is correct. Both examples show there are problems with player control and damage. I think it would be a mistake to solely give weight to one side or the other.

Actually, given the LRM issue is apart of this, I feel like I should mention some of the reasons that competitive units don't like LRMs:

- Travel time: They take way too long to get on target, resulting in a lot of wasted shots when lock is lost.
- Indirect Fire isn't that great: Without the Artemis to focus damage, and an arc that means half your shots will hit terrain on the way, it's rarely fully useful.
- TAG is ranged at 750m. Given you need TAG to break ECM bubbles, this takes a quarter off your range without dedicated spotters, whom are likely blinking in and out of jam themselves. This takes a quarter of your common effective range.
- They don't do focused damage, which is a huge drawback. In the upper caliber of players, focusing fire onto specific areas becomes increasingly important.
- They require a lot of crit space and tonnage. I don't think this should change, of course, but considering the other drawbacks..
- ECM completely shuts them down up close. This is ludicrous. On top of the ECM bubble, you suddenly entirely lose the ability to track targets if anything even momentarily gets close to you with ECM. The amount of shots I've lost because a Raven ran past are staggering.
- A very large minimum range. Again, I like this and don't think it should change, but it's a HUGE drawback and can leave an LRM 'mech nearly defenseless just by getting close to it.

Also in the past, AMS has been a problem. Back when LRMs were a serious threat (and I would agree overpowered), AMS was also such where any team that took at least 80% of their units with AMS could outright ignore missiles just by standing near each other. AMS isn't as effective now, but if LRMs are to be rebuffed into being a useful weapon in all styles of play, this is going to have to be avoided in the future.

There's a reason a skilled 3D pilot could dismantle an LRM-100 Stalker without breaking a sweat. Jumping up to expose themselves for a few seconds, firing high-velocity direct-fire pinpoint weapons like Gauss/PPC, and then popping down behind cover again before the LRMs have even gotten a quarter of the way there, if they got lock in the first place.

3D: Serious damage inflicted right where you wanted it.
Stalker: Would be fine if it could blow up cover, I suppose. But it can't, no hits.

EDIT: I have a theory that the recent anger against LRMs did not come from any change to LRMs, but rather, the new larger maps like Alpine. Alpine is the first time LRM gunners have had huge, open ranges to lock on targets moving across.

Also, I think a shocking number of casual players do not understand extreme ranges. I bet a lot of people reading this thread might honestly believe that ER PPCs, Gauss and ER Large are out ranged by LRMs, when the reverse is true by a huge margin.

Edited by Victor Morson, 22 March 2013 - 12:28 PM.

[Protection]

You're also assuming that all top tier teams have the same opinions on balance. This will probably be true for some things, but not across the board.

After the first Run Hot or Die in closed beta, the developers asked us and the other competing teams for balance suggestions. So they have done this before, to an extent.

[SkyCake]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

I'm not sure what you meant, but this would be the best twist ending to the thread. "There are no good teams in MWO, because.. MWO doesn't exist!"

Man, those were some crazy hallucinations.

Basically game is not finished yet, we have no info on how competitive drops will be organized, number of players, weight limits, etc etc... if we don't have the competitive game how can we balance it...

What we are all doing right now isn't balancing, which I define as a narrower tweaking of set in stone mechanics, but rather building out the foundations of the game... for instance, not only how much damage lrms do, but should they out shouldn't they do splash, how spot Artemis affect them, etc. etc

[Samurai]

Hey VM,

Always love your posts. And I get your point. Whether anyone agrees with it or not is irrelevant. As you stated...it has been used time and time again.

And PGI should consider it if they don't already.

But, something to consider. If you are only talking about using this resource to balance weapons, that may be fine.

But, realize in the end, hard core players, no matter what the forums present, are usually only a small % of the total player base.

Great example is World of Warcraft. Depending on dungeon or expansion only 5-15% of players ever saw the end boss. They changed that, and for the better I think.
Did it take something away from the game, Sure. But, there is always give and take. Titles like that cannot survive without both hardcore and casual players. Hardcores "drive" the casuals by showing off rewards. Casuals "pay" for the game that could not survive on just the hardcore subscriptions.

In the case of ECM (no matter what one's opinion on it is). I highly doubt that "counter" that the elite teams come up for this would ever fully precipitate down to the masses. Even if they could understand the tactic, they don't have THE TEAM to ever pull it off.

TL;DR What works for GUILDS rarely works for PUGS. Which is why devs have to build more systems that cater to both. Like LFG finder in WOW.

Now, I know you are discussing weapon balance, but spreadsheets can show you a lot of that. It's the player behavior that you are really hinting at balancing.

[Ranzear]

tl;dr

Because this worked so well for balancing ECM, right?

[stjobe]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 12:17 PM, said:

Because doing so benefits you, too.

I brought this up in the OP: If you have a solid knowledge of the game mechanics and a lot of experience but are a lone wolf by choice, you're likely to have a dissenting opinion from the general population on some things. But it will go pretty much unheard, really, as another sound in the storm.

Basically, due to your situation, the devs already aren't listening to you - really. They're hearing the loudest majority over you, no matter what you have to say. A lot of why I've suggested this is to bring those voices down to something manageable and the easiest way to track who actually understands game mechanics is to go to people who have proven their skill.

It's not that you couldn't offer valuable, informative opinions on your own, it's that you've got no way to and nothing to really grant your voice weight over the fifty buff/nerf topics up right now.

I'm sorry, but that's simply not true - until they do what you say. Once they only listen to the "top-tier teams and players", I no longer have a voice at all.

That's a pretty sub-optimal solution from my point of view, as you might understand.

At least now I have the opportunity to make my voice heard by writing well-thought out and well-argued posts that a lot of people read and discuss.

[Vasces Diablo]

I would prefer balancing and decisions based on developer vision and telemetry/back end data as opposed to what any group of players feel the meta game should be.

[NKAc Street]

Victor Morson, on 22 March 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Actually a lot. Again, this comes down to understanding the systems.

Clearly, both of those opinions can't be right, but I think that I would have to give more weight to the opinion of the organized team that could easily sweep the general population games in 8-0 landslides for hours before the 8-man split.

Well that makes my point right there. Pre 8 man que pug stomping being equal to skill isnt understanding the system of random drop balance at all. Certainly does not make their opinions more valid. The imbalance of what it takes to win in the 8 man que says it

[hashinshin]

Two things.

1. Just because something has a counter doesn't make it OP. In fact, if you were even knowledgeable on the competitive scene you'd know like half the imbalances in games are because something is pressing down on something else that is OP, and as soon as it stops pressing down (gets nerfed) the other thing that is OP all of the sudden becomes HOLY CRAP HOW DID THAT GET SO OP!?

IE: LRMs aren't OP, ECM counters them. But ECM is crazy OP. BOTH needed to be nerfed.

2. Skilled players are prone to "it's fine because I'm using it" and "just get better and it'll get good" syndrome. Less prone, but still prone. How many times I've heard this in the various games I've played is insane.

[Victor Morson]

Protection, on 22 March 2013 - 12:20 PM, said:

You're also assuming that all top tier teams have the same opinions on balance. This will probably be true for some things, but not across the board.

After the first Run Hot or Die in closed beta, the developers asked us and the other competing teams for balance suggestions. So they have done this before, to an extent.

Yep! I've brought that first poll up since it's been nearly six months or so since it happened, but it resulted in a lot of sweeping, well received changes throughout the community to both map layouts and gun balance. I sincerely hope they do so again at the closure of this season, as that is in part what I'm talking about.

Also I agree, on some issues, you'll get dissent. I think that's a very good thing. If I thought they would share the same opinions on everything, people would be right in saying that the top players would be a poor test group. I think some things will be universally agreed on (LRMs, for example) and others not. That, in itself, would be very useful developer feedback IMO.

NKAc Street, on 22 March 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

Well that makes my point right there. Pre 8 man que pug stomping being equal to skill isnt understanding the system of random drop balance at all. Certainly does not make their opinions more valid. The imbalance of what it takes to win in the 8 man que says it

While tactics and strategy are a huge part of it, let me be honest in saying equipment choices sure don't help matters. There's a lot of face palming and "What the hell were they thinking?" that gets traded over the VOIP when we see bad configs.

This is part of why organized 4-mans mess up public 8-mans so badly as well. We're not bringing bad weapons (unless we're screwing around) and our opponents, well, are. This is the same in every single organized group I've spent any time with, across the board.

Long story short, balancing these weapons at the top insures way more weapons have a place without handicapping the people taking them.

hashinshin, on 22 March 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

2. Skilled players are prone to "it's fine because I'm using it" and "just get better and it'll get good" syndrome. Less prone, but still prone. How many times I've heard this in the various games I've played is insane.

As I've said, this comes up a lot because of experience - and it's often true. Sometimes balance patches are needed but a "wait and see" attitude should always be adopted for major balance changes. I've played many, many games before the era of easy patches, and I can tell you that the "Overpowered flavor of the month" changes, constantly, with nothing external happening. In other words the rules don't change, the player's tactics do.

Sometimes balance changes are a good thing. They often are. But they should be handled VERY delicately. Given LRMs have, in fact, ping-ponged between way too good and way too terrible for over a year now, settling the last few patches on "Barely justifiable niche" before going to "Even worse" now, I think this is advice that would be of great benefit to everybody.

EDIT: There were several points in the past I felt LRMs were actually OP. I also felt other things that have changed were OP, like unlimited engine restrictions and such, and was glad to see those fixed. I'm not above having an opinion that something is OP, but I'd rather see how it plays out before getting sweeping changes done to it (unless clearly broken, again, like Tuesdays LRMs. THAT was OP, unquestionably.)

Edited by Victor Morson, 22 March 2013 - 12:54 PM.

[SkyCake]

Vasces Diablo, on 22 March 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

I would prefer balancing and decisions based on developer vision and telemetry/back end data as opposed to what any group of players feel the meta game should be.

Bean counting isn't going to bring you a great mwo game... for instance, they touted a stat once that only 15% of mechs being played were using ecm... that doesn't tell you that 8 man ecm teams were breaking the game... those kind of experiences can only be fully realized in the field... which is precisely why us beta testers are here...to test and comment and be heard!!! Each and everyone of us regardless of skill, understanding, etc...it doesn't mean they cater to everyone's individual tastes...Lord knows I'm not getting everything I want out if this game... it means that a consensus shall be formed about how this game shall be played and what this game should strive to achieve...

OP seems to want to cancel beta all together, hire himself and a bunch of his elitist friends to balance the game as he sees fit, and that we should all just trust him blindly that he knows what's best for all of us, and that any input from us will be appreciated about as much as a preschoolers crude drawings magneted to the fridge door.

[HermanitoII]

I agree 100% with Victor.

Who really know how a game works is people on top.

It´s like poker, it doesn´t mind what cards you have if you play against an elite player. He will win you playing with YOUR cards. I mean, he knows EXACTLY how to win because he knows HOW THE GAME WORKS no matter what he has on hand. Here in MWO happens the same.

Most people only run ahead and get killed fast. They don´t understand why they get killed by LRM and they suppose it´s overpowered. If LRM is overpowered it´s overpowered for ALL PLAYERS. If you´re a bad player it doesn´t mind if you carry lots of LRM as you won´t be able to use them wise.
People is usually wrong thinking that only "aiming" is what makes a player better than the rest.

What makes good a pilot is considering all factors in the match he´s playing. What mechs has my team, what map i´m playing, where is supposed to be the enemy, my weapons and their limits, the enemy weapons and theirs limits, where can I take cover, when to flank the enemy and hundred of things like that. With that on his mind a good player wins.

As it is said in Formula1, there´s nothing that makes you one second faster, but there are 1000 things that makes you one thousandth faster each.