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"stick Together." The Assault Racket And Player Created Imbalance.


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#221 Mhael

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 07:29 AM

I think most of the problems with mediums would be solved if they shrank their profile by about 20%. I play a treb-7M sometimes and that is its biggest problem (although I'm still saving up for the crucial 300 xl). Otherwise it is probably more efficient to build a Jenner or Raven like a medium to take advantage of their small profile. Examples are the 6xMPL JR7-F or the RVN -2X with 2xLL 1xML 1xSRM4 or the RVN-2X with 3xLL. I wish I had money to try all of these out....

#222 Fastfire

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 07:40 AM

I dont Think that "PPC boats" and masses of Assault mechs are the problem, neither is the question "are mediums up?"

The whole Problem starts somwhere else, its really simple:

In Battletech, an Assault Mech is a ******* expensive and hard as hell to get piece of equipment.

If you have one, you still need to be able to maintain it, which is not easy at all, as factorys producing spare parts
or even whole chassis, are rare.

Why IS the Medium mech the Workhorse of the inner sphere? Ask yourself that simple question.

Mediums are the workhorses because mediums are rather easy to aquire and maintain, bringing a solid mix of speed and
firepower for the price tag.

Unlike us players in MWO, house and merc forces do NOT have acces to unlimited ammounts of PPCs, Stalker Chassis,
and can NOT throw away Highlander Mechs at a dozen for skirmishes at some border world.

The "real" Problem simply comes from the unlimited acces on everything, the fact that you NEVER can loose something,
and the absurd ammounts of C-bills players accumulate.

Most of the playerbase have by chance aquired so many C-bills by now, that, given a "realistic" economy,
most medium sized worlds would have not a single C bill left.

The only thing to blame is the incredible stupid inflation of Gear, Mechs and Cbills we have.

Do you *really* think, if in the Battle tech Universe, Assault mechs would be as easy to get and maintain as they are in MWO,
anybody would use a light or medium mech?

WHY should they?

Want a Solution?

Here is one:

Reset EVERY account,

make Equipment and mechs HARD to come by, hard as in:

Mediums can be aquired as you see fit, but for every chassis you buy, the next one will raise in price.

Every other chassis type will be auctioned on an open auction, where every player can place a bid,
the ammount for each chassis aviable depends on weight class and rarity of the chassis during the
actuall Time, reseting each MONTH to mirror the time it takes to manufacture the different mechs.

Meaning:

There will be FOUR atlas for Auction this month.

Want one? GOOD LUCK.

Stalkers are more "common" so maybe settle for one of the 12 (TWELVE) chassis on the market this month.

Put RnR back in,
put up a dependency on rarity of the given Chassis and weapon,
meaning:

A hunchback full of small lasers will cost next to nothing to repair, because the chassis and the Weapon systems are
easy to come by and, in worst case, replace.
(there are about 39 Factorys in the IS producing Small Lasers compared to the 22 producing PPCs)

Want to repair and rearm your Atlas? again GOOD LUCK, it *should* be incredible expensive, why?

Non-Standard Parts
Having been constructed with components that are not considered standard components, units with this Quirk suffer a penalty to rolls to obtain or locate replacement parts because of their relative scarcity.
Thats what Sarna tells us about the Atlas chassis "quircks"

But as long, as everything is thrown at the players till they beg for it to stop,
no matter what happens, massive use of Assaults and "usualy" extremly rare weapons, will *allways* be a problem.

#223 jaakkomm

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 07:49 AM

GOOD LUCK to get that happen, nice idea anyways.

#224 Vodrin Thales

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 07:55 AM

View PostFastfire, on 14 May 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

I dont Think that "PPC boats" and masses of Assault mechs are the problem, neither is the question "are mediums up?"

The whole Problem starts somwhere else, its really simple:

In Battletech, an Assault Mech is a ******* expensive and hard as hell to get piece of equipment.

If you have one, you still need to be able to maintain it, which is not easy at all, as factorys producing spare parts
or even whole chassis, are rare.

Why IS the Medium mech the Workhorse of the inner sphere? Ask yourself that simple question.

Mediums are the workhorses because mediums are rather easy to aquire and maintain, bringing a solid mix of speed and
firepower for the price tag.

Unlike us players in MWO, house and merc forces do NOT have acces to unlimited ammounts of PPCs, Stalker Chassis,
and can NOT throw away Highlander Mechs at a dozen for skirmishes at some border world.

The "real" Problem simply comes from the unlimited acces on everything, the fact that you NEVER can loose something,
and the absurd ammounts of C-bills players accumulate.

Most of the playerbase have by chance aquired so many C-bills by now, that, given a "realistic" economy,
most medium sized worlds would have not a single C bill left.

The only thing to blame is the incredible stupid inflation of Gear, Mechs and Cbills we have.

Do you *really* think, if in the Battle tech Universe, Assault mechs would be as easy to get and maintain as they are in MWO,
anybody would use a light or medium mech?

WHY should they?

Want a Solution?

Here is one:

Reset EVERY account,

make Equipment and mechs HARD to come by, hard as in:

Mediums can be aquired as you see fit, but for every chassis you buy, the next one will raise in price.

Every other chassis type will be auctioned on an open auction, where every player can place a bid,
the ammount for each chassis aviable depends on weight class and rarity of the chassis during the
actuall Time, reseting each MONTH to mirror the time it takes to manufacture the different mechs.

Meaning:

There will be FOUR atlas for Auction this month.

Want one? GOOD LUCK.

Stalkers are more "common" so maybe settle for one of the 12 (TWELVE) chassis on the market this month.

Put RnR back in,
put up a dependency on rarity of the given Chassis and weapon,
meaning:

A hunchback full of small lasers will cost next to nothing to repair, because the chassis and the Weapon systems are
easy to come by and, in worst case, replace.
(there are about 39 Factorys in the IS producing Small Lasers compared to the 22 producing PPCs)

Want to repair and rearm your Atlas? again GOOD LUCK, it *should* be incredible expensive, why?

Non-Standard Parts
Having been constructed with components that are not considered standard components, units with this Quirk suffer a penalty to rolls to obtain or locate replacement parts because of their relative scarcity.
Thats what Sarna tells us about the Atlas chassis "quircks"

But as long, as everything is thrown at the players till they beg for it to stop,
no matter what happens, massive use of Assaults and "usualy" extremly rare weapons, will *allways* be a problem.



There is a much more simple way to make the sort of "Assaults are rare and tough to maintain" part of the game. Simply implement tonnage limits on drops to simulate it. And suddenly mediums are much more common again.

#225 Caustic Canid

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 09:00 AM

View PostFastfire, on 14 May 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

I dont Think that "PPC boats" and masses of Assault mechs are the problem, neither is the question "are mediums up?"

The whole Problem starts somwhere else, its really simple:

In Battletech, an Assault Mech is a ******* expensive and hard as hell to get piece of equipment.

If you have one, you still need to be able to maintain it, which is not easy at all, as factorys producing spare parts
or even whole chassis, are rare.

Why IS the Medium mech the Workhorse of the inner sphere? Ask yourself that simple question.

Mediums are the workhorses because mediums are rather easy to aquire and maintain, bringing a solid mix of speed and
firepower for the price tag.

Unlike us players in MWO, house and merc forces do NOT have acces to unlimited ammounts of PPCs, Stalker Chassis,
and can NOT throw away Highlander Mechs at a dozen for skirmishes at some border world.

The "real" Problem simply comes from the unlimited acces on everything, the fact that you NEVER can loose something,
and the absurd ammounts of C-bills players accumulate.

Most of the playerbase have by chance aquired so many C-bills by now, that, given a "realistic" economy,
most medium sized worlds would have not a single C bill left.

The only thing to blame is the incredible stupid inflation of Gear, Mechs and Cbills we have.

Do you *really* think, if in the Battle tech Universe, Assault mechs would be as easy to get and maintain as they are in MWO,
anybody would use a light or medium mech?

WHY should they?

Want a Solution?

Here is one:

Reset EVERY account,

make Equipment and mechs HARD to come by, hard as in:

Mediums can be aquired as you see fit, but for every chassis you buy, the next one will raise in price.

Every other chassis type will be auctioned on an open auction, where every player can place a bid,
the ammount for each chassis aviable depends on weight class and rarity of the chassis during the
actuall Time, reseting each MONTH to mirror the time it takes to manufacture the different mechs.

Meaning:

There will be FOUR atlas for Auction this month.

Want one? GOOD LUCK.

Stalkers are more "common" so maybe settle for one of the 12 (TWELVE) chassis on the market this month.

Put RnR back in,
put up a dependency on rarity of the given Chassis and weapon,
meaning:

A hunchback full of small lasers will cost next to nothing to repair, because the chassis and the Weapon systems are
easy to come by and, in worst case, replace.
(there are about 39 Factorys in the IS producing Small Lasers compared to the 22 producing PPCs)

Want to repair and rearm your Atlas? again GOOD LUCK, it *should* be incredible expensive, why?

Non-Standard Parts
Having been constructed with components that are not considered standard components, units with this Quirk suffer a penalty to rolls to obtain or locate replacement parts because of their relative scarcity.
Thats what Sarna tells us about the Atlas chassis "quircks"

But as long, as everything is thrown at the players till they beg for it to stop,
no matter what happens, massive use of Assaults and "usualy" extremly rare weapons, will *allways* be a problem.


As much as I'd like to see more lights and mediums, this isn't the way to do it. This would make the game a lot less fun for a whole lot of people, since the game would now be elitism incarnate. People who have nothing to do but sit and play MWO all day would have all or most of the best mechs, and the only way for a casual player (like myself) to attain anything heavier than a hunchback, would be to be FORCED to spend huge sums of real money in hopes that I win an auction. That's a great way to turn off new or casual players, which the game needs to survive.

Restricting weight, or as others have suggested, having a respawn system that is weight based would be a better way to go. Say everyone has 300 tons to play with. They could have 3 respawns if all they choose is atlases. On the other hand, they could have 12 respawns if they play exclusively commandos. Any mix of mechs in between would assure a decent number of respawns as well as a decent amount of firepower.

#226 Agent of Change

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 10:41 AM

View PostLostdragon, on 14 May 2013 - 05:15 AM, said:

Maybe you should go back and actually read the rest of the thread where multiple people laid out in very clear terms why the way capping works right now is stupid and ideas to improve but not eliminate it.


I don't agree capping is good as it is, but it needs to remain a real threat and a viable win condition for a mech that cannot win otherwise other wise it is a useless mechanic.

View PostKeifomofutu, on 14 May 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:


Because the vast majority of those cap wins are going to be happening in the large maps. You'll notice that a lot of the Assault Cap hate started resurfacing with the introduction of two massive maps back to back. That is not a coincidence. Your remedy is an absolute failure. You probably won't even see the capper on tourmaline. What's your remedy for that?

Only sure defense would be to sit on base, leave your team down a man, and die when the four surviving mechs of the enemy team hunt you down because they had numbers on their side.

Or a pack of three lights catches you alone.



People are dumb. I have waltzed within 300 m of enemy mechs in the open and they can't be bothered to even use their eyes to spot me. If you can't torso twist to look for enemy mechs then you deserve to lose to a cap, the problem there is reliance on radar and not the eyeball.
  • If your bait ball can't afford a light or medium with enough speed to RTB than you deserve to lose to cap
  • If your bait ball can't spread out a bit and use their eyes on the possible approaches so you don't get snuck by you deserve to lose to cap
  • If your Bait ball can't afford to not rush directly to the middle of the map right away you deserve to lose to cap.
  • If your bait ball doesn't use their eyes or even *gasp* scout a little then you deserve to lose to cap.
  • If you insist that using a bait-ball is the only way to play you'll probably lose to cap.

But you won't accept that you can work as a team, that most things that happen are a matter or personal or team failing in either play or drop makeup, you will probably continue to insist that the only possible solution to capping is to change it or remove it because why should you have to adapt to something.

Edited by Agent of Change, 14 May 2013 - 10:43 AM.


#227 Keifomofutu

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 10:52 AM

I'll just cover all of your ridiculous lack of points with this.

Drop composition is random, class based matchmaking isn't working, and you aren't guaranteed a light or fast medium(cicada).

Pub lights owe nothing to you, won't listen to you, and also play the game to have fun and not sit near base on the off chance somebody rushes it.

Caps on the huge maps are much higher than the others; its only a matter of time till the devs deal with the ridiculous ease that one guy can win an entire match with basically no effort or skill.

#228 Vodrin Thales

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 10:58 AM

View PostKeifomofutu, on 14 May 2013 - 10:52 AM, said:

I'll just cover all of your ridiculous lack of points with this.

Drop composition is random, class based matchmaking isn't working, and you aren't guaranteed a light or fast medium(cicada).

Pub lights owe nothing to you, won't listen to you, and also play the game to have fun and not sit near base on the off chance somebody rushes it.

Caps on the huge maps are much higher than the others; its only a matter of time till the devs deal with the ridiculous ease that one guy can win an entire match with basically no effort or skill.


Putting 12 mechs on these larger maps will help that situation, but truthfully, most of the cap losses I have seen are really due to poor tactics by the losing team. And the "its a PUG so everyone should play stupid" is just a terrible excuse. Play smart or risk losing by cap. I'm good with that.

#229 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:01 AM

Types of Missions.

In MPBT EGA (yes, the first multiplayer MW game) had different mission parameters. When attacking a planet for the first time it was scouting missions, attack bases and some defend bases. The early missions though had weight restrictions. Started off with lights then as your House's military gained a foothold heavier mechs became available for tougher missions.

In MPBT Solaris with either the tourneys or the SSW every weekend the player based followed a similar setup, lights, med, heavy, assault then true lance (L/M/H/A).

MPBT 3025 CW was a quick add (after the original plans fell through) then it was a FFA on mechs, iirc, since players had to earn their way up to a heavier weight class.

There is nothing that says the drops later have to be like they are right now. It would mean that the players would need to be more well rounded with their mechs but that in itself would be a good thing.

#230 Void Angel

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:09 AM

View PostVodrin Thales, on 14 May 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

There is a much more simple way to make the sort of "Assaults are rare and tough to maintain" part of the game. Simply implement tonnage limits on drops to simulate it. And suddenly mediums are much more common again.

They already have tonnage matching, but the matchmaker has to break it sometimes in order to get enough players for a match - under the current system, you'd end up with popular 'mech tonnages getting hugely imbalanced matches if you put in a hard-capped tonnage limits.

#231 Braggart

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:13 AM

View PostVoid Angel, on 14 May 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

They already have tonnage matching, but the matchmaker has to break it sometimes in order to get enough players for a match - under the current system, you'd end up with popular 'mech tonnages getting hugely imbalanced matches if you put in a hard-capped tonnage limits.


no, they dont have tonnage matching. They have class matching. 1 team can get 3 awesomes, the other can get 3 highlanders, and it thinks that is equal. Same goes for Medium mechs, it considers a dragon as good as a cataphract, or jager.


Also, considering have had seen matches were 1 team has 4 lights, and the other has none, or my favorite last night, our team had 4 mediums, 1 light, and 2 heavy and an assault, against 3 heaves, 3 assault, and 2 light. Probably the most lopsided match ive played in a long time.

I think most people would prefer to wait for an even match, than get into an uneven one quickly.

Edited by Braggart, 14 May 2013 - 11:14 AM.


#232 Keifomofutu

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:21 AM

View PostBraggart, on 14 May 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:



no, they dont have tonnage matching. They have class matching. 1 team can get 3 awesomes, the other can get 3 highlanders, and it thinks that is equal. Same goes for Medium mechs, it considers a dragon as good as a cataphract, or jager.


Also, considering have had seen matches were 1 team has 4 lights, and the other has none, or my favorite last night, our team had 4 mediums, 1 light, and 2 heavy and an assault, against 3 heaves, 3 assault, and 2 light. Probably the most lopsided match ive played in a long time.

I think most people would prefer to wait for an even match, than get into an uneven one quickly.

They rank Elo as more important than class based matchmaking. So the game will put uneven classes ingame if it thinks the Elo is fair. Which of course screws things up badly. Elo won't make you faster.

#233 Keifomofutu

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:33 AM

View PostVodrin Thales, on 14 May 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:



Putting 12 mechs on these larger maps will help that situation, but truthfully, most of the cap losses I have seen are really due to poor tactics by the losing team. And the "its a PUG so everyone should play stupid" is just a terrible excuse. Play smart or risk losing by cap. I'm good with that.

12 mechs will just be a bigger blob. Maybe a little more spread out. Maybe.

The game does have to be balanced at the pub level. That means controlling how the game actually plays at the base level. Failing to balance the ease of cap on the big maps will just continue to drive more players from the game as they get tired of wasted matches on those maps.

If both teams actually did just sit and guard their base from a spot where there was no chance of them getting capped then there would be no engagement at all. You can't have both teams in a position to engage each other AND have time to get back to base with anything short of a light or cicada(which you aren't guaranteed to have on your team).

Hence people have just said **** it and go engage. They've washed their hands of cap defense because it is so imbalanced in favor of the capper.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 14 May 2013 - 11:34 AM.


#234 Caustic Canid

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 11:58 AM

In addition to changing the times of the caps, perhaps they should have static cap times that don't change based on how many mechs there are in the base. This would make the 4 man light premades that only cap unviable, as well as give everyone a general idea of how much time they actually have to peel off and head back to base.

#235 Soy

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 12:22 PM

4 man light teams capping is a good thing.

It pushes back against the turretmech/poptart snipefest of slow boats at the moment.

Welcome it with open arms.

#236 RG Notch

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 12:43 PM

View PostSoy, on 14 May 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

4 man light teams capping is a good thing.

It pushes back against the turretmech/poptart snipefest of slow boats at the moment.

Welcome it with open arms.

Awesome, so counter one lame game type with another. I'm starting to think it is the community here.

#237 Soy

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 12:46 PM

You have to break an egg to make an omelette.

Besides, even if everything is 'lame' cuz you're the king of cool, at least we'll have variety.

#238 RG Notch

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 12:50 PM

View PostSoy, on 14 May 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

You have to break an egg to make an omelette.

Besides, even if everything is 'lame' cuz you're the king of cool, at least we'll have variety.

Yes two choices of lame are better than one, but that's what happens when one can only see lame counters. :D

#239 Soy

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 12:53 PM

You're talking to the wrong guy man, I've been brawling since the Weekend in assaults with nothing but SPLs, so. Personally I conquered the lame a while ago, but everywhere I look in game is full of tryhards, I won't deny that. It's ruinous.

#240 Stoicblitzer

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Posted 14 May 2013 - 01:00 PM

strategy in a pug? i would rather run in a herd and shoot what others are shooting than type a dissertation about sun tzu's art of war only to be dismissed by the mcdonalds burger flipper as an "internet general" and being told "NOBADY TELLZ ME WAT 2 DO!!1" Then he proceeds to suicide in his lrm atlas.





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