337 replies to this topic

[Garth Erlam]

HRR Insanity, on 08 April 2013 - 06:46 PM, said:

Grab anyone from the one of the tournament teams, or anyone with >70% win rate... ask them how to fix the game.

Sane answers nearly every time.

It's almost like I do that... all the time...

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Hi Garth.

Too bad if you do, you don't take the advice. Cause half your weapons are not working properly.

Oh and by the way, can you try to make your posts more condescending? I feel like you could definitely step it up a notch, recently it seems like you only hate your job a little bit.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 09 April 2013 - 07:33 AM.

[Garth Erlam]

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

[Sifright]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

like the first iteration of Artemis you mean?

by the way I keep getting told this is a beta so why are you afraid of trying rapid balance deployment patches... mgs, flamers and missiles have been 'broken' for a long time.

True missiles right now are broken in a different way, to their previous situation but they are still broken.

Pulse lasers are terrible an entire weapon system side lined because the trade offs are to large compared to their usual contemporaries to be worth contemplating.

Half the ballistic weapons are in similar state because within a few tonnes and crit slots you can have a better weapon system.

Edited by Sifright, 09 April 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[I am]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

PGI is doing a "damn good" job. Garth says so. Guess we all stand corrected.

And were you to release something without arbitrarily testing it, you might have something like the LRM splash debacle you had not too long ago.

Guess that didn't happen, and we all made it up, because god knows a huge glaring mistake like that couldn't possible go unmissed, since you assert you pre test your patches so thoroughly.

Keep up the good work! We'll try to avoid making things like that up in the future.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Oh and by the way Garth, since you are so happy with weapon balance.

Why don't you go fill out a Spider 5K with it's 6...lol MG's to full Basic XP.

Then come tell me you can boat ballistics and be competitive.

Aw darn, he left the thread.

[keith]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

comparing cs1.6 to MWO is kinda mute. in any CS game u have assault rifle, king of all guns then u take a back up pistol. here u have to take different load outs depending on your range, which increases the wep variation. atleast 2-3 fold.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

keith, on 09 April 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

comparing cs1.6 to MWO is kinda mute. in any CS game u have assault rifle, king of all guns then u take a back up pistol. here u have to take different load outs depending on your range, which increases the wep variation. atleast 2-3 fold.

Nah man it's cool, MW:O is so much better than CS. So we don't have to worry about anything!

[keith]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 09 April 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

Nah man it's cool, MW:O is so much better than CS. So we don't have to worry about anything!

cool, u mean we got this many ppl on today? (steam stats as of 11:57 est) 36,202 41,731 Counter-Strike

[Nicholas Carlyle]

keith, on 09 April 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

cool, u mean we got this many ppl on today? (steam stats as of 11:57 est) 36,202 41,731 Counter-Strike

I guess we must, since Garth is busy comparing us to CS.

[Roland]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

In many ways, I agree. Compared to past games in the MW franchise, the weapons balance in MWO actually IS pretty darn good.

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

See, in my mind, I think maybe folks wouldn't freak out so bad if you actually just made intentional changes to the weapon stats.. even if they resulted in imbalance.

Making small changes to something like MG damage is really not gonna break anything to such a large extent that it cannot be fixed. It won't ruin the game. Worst case scenario, you can just patch in a hotfix.

Certainly, no intentional change to weapon damage could result in anything worse than what we saw with the LRMageddon 3 fiasco.

One of the biggest problems that I think we're having when it comes to balancing stuff out, is that it seems like sometimes you guys are changing too many variables at the same time.

For instance, when we look at various incarnations of the LRM's, we see that a ton of different mechanics changed at the same time, which made it hard to settle on a set of mechanics that worked. Originally, LRM's were kind of "fire and forget". You'd fire them, and they'd track to their target.

This, in itself, was actually not bad.. what WAS bad was how it combined with various other things, such as the incredibly high flight arc which made it virtually impossible to get cover from them.

But, I don't think we ever had a version where the LRM's were fire and forget, but had the CURRENT flight arc, such that you could actually get cover from them. And then we added in ECM, which changed everything again.

I, for one, would really like to see the old style of fire and forget LRM's, paired with some of the newer mechanics.. because I suspect that it might result in LRM's which are not-OP, but which are more satisfying to use. But it seems like we missed that step in testing, so we'll never get a chance to try it out now.

[Tennex]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

thats not the case at all with MGs. or even ECM.

the devs are straight up saying they are fine.


anyone can see at 1/3 the DPS of small lasers. the MG is not fine.

but what other option does the ballistic light mech have?

Edited by Tennex, 09 April 2013 - 08:13 AM.

[tenderloving]

TruePoindexter, on 08 April 2013 - 10:08 PM, said:

The fact that a balance issue is a fight is usually indicative of it being balanced. The devs have the real stats and can see the trends that we can't. Players are usually the poorest judge of what's fair and balanced. Plus there are in fact balance shifts every patch - they're just not always to numbers. See the vision mode changes as an example.

We have examples in recent history that indicate this is not the case: A PLAYER took it upon himself to test missile damage and discovered that they were doing incredibly higher damage to certain mech models. This information was available to the devs for an extended period of time, but a player doing simple testing discovered it.

The dev team for this game has shown that they are often reluctant to make simple and necessary changes for the sake of balance. It appears that they only use hard data when it supports the conclusions they have already made for themselves. This is a bad sign for game balance: Players will abuse imbalances quickly and relentlessly. They will min/max to the extreme possible ranges. If the dev team is slow or unwilling to respond to this it will kill the game and we'll have a ghost town when we could have had a revival of a great franchise.

Edited by tenderloving, 09 April 2013 - 08:18 AM.

[tenderloving]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

Are you concerned that everything you mentioned as competitive is a boat of some sort?

[Belorion]

I for one am pretty glad they don't listen to what some people think balance is.

[Sifright]

tenderloving, on 09 April 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

Are you concerned that everything you mentioned as competitive is a boat of some sort?

Actually thinking about it i'm more interested to know what he thinks those 12 weapons are.

Belorion, on 09 April 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

I for one am pretty glad they don't listen to what some people think balance is.

well aren't you mister passive aggressive.

[Zaptruder]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I don't hate my job at all

So, in terms of weapon balance, I tend to look at it like this:

CS 1.6: 24 weapons, 4 used competitively.
MWO: 26 weapons, at least 12 used competitively.

We're doing pretty damn good, less than 1.5 years from FLoC, if that's where we are now. I can build an energy boat, ballistic boat, or missile boat, and compete. Sure it ebbs and flows, but I'm damn proud of where are are in terms of weapon balance. There's a bunch of changes in testing, but it takes awhile.

And were we to just arbitrarily release something without properly testing it, you know..

I like you Garth. You do a good job in a tough job. But it's plain to see that you're not fully informed or fully able to speak of the thought that goes into balance decision making process.

Good is good. But great is better. Why aim for 50%, when you can aim for full viability? Isn't that the goal here?

Why not embrace iteration, if experimentation and observation is the surest path of achieving a desired result?

The battle tech license was somewhat restrictive with their prescribed tonnage and crits... but PGI have a lot of lee-way to play with, outside of the fixed variables.

Rate of fire, speed of projectile, damage, heat, trajectory, etc.

Without adding or modifying additional weapon systems, those are all numbers that can be adjust to decimal places. So why not do it?

To an extent, I don't expect you to answer. I just hope that by quoting you, you are able to read and relay these concerns. ITERATE MORE.

[Jace Lancer]

Sifright, on 09 April 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Actually thinking about it i'm more interested to know what he thinks those 12 weapons are.



well aren't you mister passive aggressive.

Well we know one of them is machine guns

[Belorion]

Sifright, on 09 April 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

Actually thinking about it i'm more interested to know what he thinks those 12 weapons are.

I would say: Gauss, AC-20, Ultra-5, AC-2, ER-PPC, PPC, Medium Laser, Large Laser, Small Laser, SRM-6, SRM-4(for crit slot reasons), SSRM

Are all pretty viable.

[tenderloving]

Belorion, on 09 April 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

I would say: Gauss, AC-20, Ultra-5, AC-2, ER-PPC, PPC, Medium Laser, Large Laser, Small Laser, SRM-6, SRM-4(for crit slot reasons), SSRM

Are all pretty viable.

If this is true (and I think you are pretty darn accurate) it seems that there is a large subset of long range indirect fire weapons missing from this mix.

Edited by tenderloving, 09 April 2013 - 08:29 AM.