76 replies to this topic

[Thomas Covenant]

Kiiyor, on 21 April 2013 - 10:54 PM, said:

100% of the mechs I am skilled with are mechs I am skilled with.

Basing anything on an arbitrary statistic does not a valid argument make.

matux, on 21 April 2013 - 11:26 PM, said:

111% of the time i talk out my arse...

Grey Black, on 21 April 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

This thread needs to be 20 percent cooler.

What is cool?

[Kiiyor]

Thomas Covenant, on 22 April 2013 - 02:08 AM, said:

What is cool?

Ha! Nice

[The Silent Protagonist]

Barghest Whelp, on 22 April 2013 - 12:10 AM, said:

See, it's not that I'm best with the Muromets, it's that the Muromets has the best hard point configuration of all the phracts.

Sure, it's more or less a one trick pony, but that's not due to the chassis, but due to weapon balance. If it's not an AC20 or a UAC5 then it's not worth the slots/tons. I've tried fitting it with dual AC10, but it just falls short of the 3xUAC5 configuration.

And before you tell me that a jager can fit the same, let me tell you that it has 5 tons less to play with, less armour and a lower speed cap (even though it's miniscule, it's a lot easier to achieve a higher speed with the Muromets with the 5 extra tons).

Triple large pulse and MGs. It's hilarious. The LPLs give you the DPS and the MGs satisfy dakka whilst tricking your enemy into thinking you're worthless. With the right engine you can also have enough heatsinks to fire for a long time even on the hotter maps, and indefinitely on alpine. Quality brawler. Or, it could just be me doing well in **** chassis, like I have a strange ability to do.

[Barghest Whelp]

OpCentar, on 22 April 2013 - 01:17 AM, said:

Agreed. Triple UAC/5 Ilya is way better than the 4x 'Phract which is the only other ballistic variant.



I think I played the most games in my C1[F], with a modified stock build of 2xLRM15s+Artemis and 4xMLas.

It was fun, balanced, and effective preECM, could work with ECM, turned useless after missile nerfs. I will still play it once they buff LRMs although it seems it's glory days are gone.

Bring on the Orion!

Just to make one thing clear. I still play my muromets, and I still pwn with it. Even after the poptarting madness began, it is and will always remain my personal favourite. Personally I don't see what all the fuzz is about. Never been shot even once by a poptart. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I certainly don't see them as OP.

The whole ECM thing really screwed over LRM builds. I personally hate using LRM's, but I still don't think it's fair to those who do. Besides, ECM as a counter to LRM's was just a horribly thought out idea that was doomed to failure.

But yeah, bring on the ORION!!!one!1!!eleventyone!!1!!2!!

[KinLuu]

The Orion has his armweapons mounted even lower and even wider apart than the Atlas.

Not sure if want.

[Barghest Whelp]

Lt XKalibur, on 22 April 2013 - 02:56 AM, said:

Triple large pulse and MGs. It's hilarious. The LPLs give you the DPS and the MGs satisfy dakka whilst tricking your enemy into thinking you're worthless. With the right engine you can also have enough heatsinks to fire for a long time even on the hotter maps, and indefinitely on alpine. Quality brawler. Or, it could just be me doing well in **** chassis, like I have a strange ability to do.

Hm, that sounds like a good idea actually.

I put four LPL's on my 3D, and it was remarkably successful. Machine gun camo could give it that little extra boost to really make it shine.

[Joseph Mallan]

By my win loss(2.20) and my kill death(1.52) my best Mech is my Jager-DD.

[Agent of Change]

i'm sure this is going to have been said already but OP your premise is flawed.

in my mech bay alone I have 19 mechs, 2 are heros 1 is a founders. even if we don't count the more than founders 20% of my mechs are heros. There are only about 4 mechs in my mech bay i don't run from time to time, and most of the time my go to mechs are not my Hero mechs.

I also know that unlike most people I don't sell off any of the mechs i've bought but even the people that do won't sell their hero's because they are an MC investment there by someone would have to keep more than 9 other mechs per hero to maintain even a 10% hero to other stuff ratio in their own stable.

beyond that you seem to be buying into the "all mechs are created equal" which they are not. And ignoring the fact that only the Illya and FLame are considered "good hero" mechs compared to other variants of their chassis.

So long story short Not P2W.

[Ronan]

Thomas Covenant, on 22 April 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

Assuming ALL MECHS are roughly evenly balanced, there is roughly an 11% chance a hero mech is the mech you are best with, whether you are aware of it or not.

Flawed premise is flawed. Whether mechs are balanced or not, PLAYERS are not balanced. Some can track lasers on an Atlas' eye at 500m while running full throttle. Some can snap-fire AC's on a speeding Commando. Some can't aim for cr@p and only enjoy playing LRM/SSRM mechs. There is no way to "balance" player skills into a game.

You also assume that any given player (or every player) is going to spend money on any or all Hero mechs. Which is untrue.

You also fail to account for the "oooo pretty" players, that have MC to burn and really like the exclusive looks of Pretty Baby or that giant PINK monstrosity. They don't buy or drive those mechs for loadouts, effectiveness, or anything of that sort. They like the paint job.

You failed to account for the fact that your poll is voluntary and thus cannot guarantee an accurate reflection of the general mech pilot populace.

So, nice job doing the math on how many of the total list of mechs/variants are MC only. And putting up a poll asking a limited number of players if they happen to like one chassis over others. Which are two unrelated bits of trivia. Cuz that is all you've managed to do.

[TheMightyWashburn]

The only perfectly fair games are the simply ones where all players use the exact same things. The most famous is chess. If you want a perfectly balanced game, play chess. If you want to have fun murdering people in giant mechs, play MWO. I prefer the latter.

[Stormur Herra]

The TDK is definitely my best commando, at least since we've been tracking stats, but the sample size is pretty small. My second best mechs are both Trebuchets (which don't have a hero variant).

[KhanCipher]

Panzerman03, on 21 April 2013 - 10:04 PM, said:

The best hero mech, hands down, is the Ilya Muromets. And it's not even the best Cataphract.

is that because the dominance of the poptarts? or do you have other reasons?

Panzerman03, on 21 April 2013 - 10:04 PM, said:

The Heavy Metal is ok,

the HGN-HM is debateable...

Panzerman03, on 21 April 2013 - 10:04 PM, said:

and one of the Dragons is alright.

ummm... the flame is actually the best dragon...

anyone remember when the YLW came out, 2 things happened, it was the only cent to be able to use a AC/20 (and have the biggest engine limit of the cents), and the CN9-AH was replaced with the YLW (yeah, a canon variant was replaced by a hero mech >.>)

Edited by KhanCipher, 22 April 2013 - 12:18 PM.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

As far as 3xUAC5 builds go, I prefer the Jaeger over an Ilya or CTF-4X because of the tighter weapon convergence, however, I would probably play the Ilya anyway because the 30% C-Bill bonus trumps the convergency issue. that being said I neither are my favorite mech, that is currently a 3xPPC CPLT-K2.

[TungstenWall]

My best mech is COM-TDK (followed closely by CN9-A)

[Aym]

I'm not sure what mech I am "best at" but my Flame is not the one I am best with for ANY role I can imagine.

[Thomas Covenant]

Thomas Covenant, on 22 April 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

Assuming ALL MECHS are roughly evenly balanced, there is roughly an 11% chance a hero mech is the mech you are best with, whether you are aware of it or not.

Ronan, on 22 April 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

Flawed premise is flawed. Whether mechs are balanced or not, PLAYERS are not balanced. Some can track lasers on an Atlas' eye at 500m while running full throttle. Some can snap-fire AC's on a speeding Commando. Some can't aim for cr@p and only enjoy playing LRM/SSRM mechs. There is no way to "balance" player skills into a game.

That is the whole point I am making. Players have different mechs they are best at. Mechs they win the most in. Of the 70 mechs 11% are heroes, so roughly 11% of players would have to pay for their highest potential mech.

Ramrod, on 22 April 2013 - 01:14 AM, said:

You know what they say about assumption. You are operating under the (mistaken) premise that all Hero mechs are equal to their non-Hero counterparts. Some are arguably on par, a couple are certainly better, but at least half do not compare favourably.

True! Mechs are of different potential, but unless PGI is actively creating them to be worse on purpose, there is as good a chance that any given hero or non hero will be slightly superior. If all the mechs were horrendously balances, which they are not and I stand behind calling them "roughly evenly balanced", there would still be 11% chance a player can win most in a mech they have to pay for.

Now a good argument that I haven't heard is Elo. Even if a player has an advantage over another, Elo will put them against tougher opponents next time. So it's not as much pay to win as pay to increase Elo. But it is not not p2w either, at the highest levels of play for example.

[Thomas Covenant]

Lets say your best mech is the Cicada. You can get your Elo say, 10% higher while piloting a Cicada then your second best mech.

Lets say of the Cicadas, you win most in the X-5. Perhaps you are really good with missiles, and it is the only Cicada to offer them. So you end up doing another 5% better while piloting the X-5, than piloting your second best Cicada.

That player has to pay to win(or improve their elo) 5% more.

10% of people are left handed. But if someone IS left handed, they are left handed 100% of the time, of course.
11% of people will have the highest potential to win in a hero mech, if it's just 5% more or 15%, they have to pay for that advantage, and that is 100% true MWO is p2w, for them, of course.

This won't effect most people. Most people will likely find they are best in a stock variant because there are so many more of them.

But it will happen to some. It can be calculated.

[Son of Horus]

This means a very high % of the player base in OP's world, are running mechs they are inferior at piloting!

COOL!

[Rakashan]

Thomas Covenant, on 21 April 2013 - 10:44 PM, said:

Yes, that is what I am saying. 11% is a starting point to calculating to what factor MWO is pay to win, while including personal skill level as a factor. If every mech was intentionally inferior, with the volume of players there is still likely to be a factor, some people will still do better in them. Do you believe all hero mechs are designed to be inferior? Even if you did, which I don't, this still applies. I also don't think they make them intentionally superior either, but the 11% argument still applies.

Unfortunately, for this to be true and applicable, every mech would have to have equal representation. We simply know this is not the case based on the statistics that have been published by a number of people. The most recent thread I recall was from hammerreborn and it is at http://mwomercs.com/...of-data-inside/. That thread does not represent unbiased data either given that they were offering additional bonuses on top of the normal C-bill bonuses and in spite of that two of the top 4 chassis in use were not Heroes.

There are two ways to view the 11% figure. If no Hero mechs were available you could argue that every mech should be driven by roughly comparable numbers of people so that when Hero mechs were added you'd see the same behavior there. We this is not the case given the distribution of chassis used by other players and the dearth of variants like the Atlas-K, the Commando-1B and the Cicada-2B. Without that balance you are left to posit a balance between the overall number of hero mechs and the overall non-hero mechs. For that comparison to be valid you have to posit that every pilot in every match is driving the mech that he is most successful in. You can't even define what "most successful" is uniformly for pilots (some are working on mastering chassis, some on earning GXP, some on earning C-bills and some on just getting wins or kills) and even if you were able to make such an assumption you cannot claim that on a weekend which increases the already lopsided C-bill bonus for Hero mechs that the stats which show Hero mechs were (on average) roughly as popular as any Heavy chassis which was the most popular group of chassis on that weekend.

TL;DR - You can say a lot about chassis distributions if you look at the statistics but not that Hero mechs are more popular than any other FotM on any given weekend in spite of their C-bill bonuses.

[Thomas Covenant]

Rakashan, on 22 April 2013 - 03:18 PM, said:

Unfortunately

Unfortunately? I am saying for 11% people, MWO is pay to win. I would love to be proven wrong. Please if you think I am wrong, throw it out there people, and I will try to respectfully contemplate and respond to your argument. I gain no benefit to a game I love being pay to win so understand where I am coming from.

Quote

for this to be true and applicable, every mech would have to have equal representation.

No. Only to be a perfect 11.42857142857143%. Agreed distribution is warped, whether it's warped in favor of any particular hero or non hero mech there is a 1/70 chance(there are 70 mechs). All mechs have the same odds of being warped, so in general the 11% isn't affected up or down.

Now in a case by case basis you could get more technical, which is what I believe what you are showing me with this data?

The data doesn't show those that would pilot hero mechs if they were cbill items with no bonuses. Additionally the data may reflect many people building their skill tree or any number of things rather than piloting their best mech.

To calculate best mech you'd have to take an individual and have them play all the mechs many times. You will now know two things about the player: what their best mech is, and and by how much it is their best mech.
This test, rather than W/L counting, would be judged by how high they can get their Elo score, as Elo would obscure it otherwise.

Quote

You can't even define what "most successful" is uniformly for pilots (some are working on mastering chassis, some on earning GXP, some on earning C-bills and some on just getting wins or kills)

Each of those could be a category for testing. And in each of those categories there is an 11% chance a player would perform the best on a regular basis in a hero mech.

Edited by Thomas Covenant, 22 April 2013 - 05:29 PM.