72 replies to this topic

[Livewyr]

Ok, all of us who have been here a long time remember Repair and ReArm.

We also remember the giant headache that introduced when it came to the game's economy. (Great Economic Roar, Great Depression, Latest Recession-> Expense removal.)

I personally attribute part of the crazy amount of heavies and assaults in matches, as well as the veritable requirement to bring Endosteel and DHS, to a lack of cost for bringing them.

(Someone stated that in Lore assaults were rarer because they were expensive, that makes sense.. that is also a large part of why militaries today are outfitted like they are. Cost.)
If you wish to straight disagree with my assignment of (part of the) blame, please do so, I'd love to talk about it.


Repair and ReArm (in concept) was also a nice touch on immersion.
-----------------In order to keep the post short, I'm not going to post my ideas for solutions, rather I'll post concerns to discuss solutions for, and people can add to them, things I hadn't thought about off the top of my head.

Now the difficult part: making it work and balancing it out. Problems before were:

Making running an assault/heavy viable vs making it profitable. (costs)
Tuning to handle XL engines. (And now the built-in upgrades) (tuning costs)
Handling when a player runs out of Cbills (for whatever reason) (being able to repair a mech to take again..)
Balancing essentially UA energy weapons against ammo consuming weapons. (Obvious)

Anything I miss?

What can we do?
-------------------------------------
(Also, I understand the other options: Tonnage Limits/BV matching, etc.. this isn't about that, this is a think tank to see if we can come up with a basic idea to make RnR viable for [lore] immersion and balance.)

[Aurien Titus]

Well let’s start by knocking down that ******** straw man that R&R add to immersion. That is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Please go ahead and point to the lore or books showing how pilots were responsible for individual repairs to their ‘mechs even if fighting for a house or clan. How many mercenaries fought to the death for only a hundred thousand c-bills? Oh yeah, BattleTech lore clearly showed examples of people taking multi-million c-bill fighting machines and fighting to the death for almost no pay. So realistic my ***. Use a little critical thinking next time.

[Livewyr]

Aurien Titus, on 26 May 2013 - 10:33 AM, said:

Well let’s start by knocking down that ******** straw man that R&R add to immersion. That is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Please go ahead and point to the lore or books showing how pilots were responsible for individual repairs to their ‘mechs even if fighting for a house or clan. How many mercenaries fought to the death for only a hundred thousand c-bills? Oh yeah, BattleTech lore clearly showed examples of people taking multi-million c-bill fighting machines and fighting to the death for almost no pay. So realistic my ***. Use a little critical thinking next time.

Well aside from being completely rude and asinine; you are thinking entirely too literally.

Nobody friggen hot dropped onto a planet with 8 dumb***es they didn't know either.. nor did pilots have a blessed thing to do with modifying their mechs.. heck, modifying their mechs would've taken hours, days, or weeks.. yet here we are doing it.

Try thinking constructively instead of making an *** of yourself.

-----------------

Moving on.

[MustrumRidcully]

How do you make sure that people don't just resort to farming C-Bills with cheap, ineffective mechs and tactics because that's more economical then actually fighting?

Currently, AFK farming or suicide farming is stupid. Your team is likely to lose, and you make 25,000 for doing nothing, and your mech si still locked out for the whole match.

But when your Assault with Double Heat Sinks and Endo Steel and and ARtemis LRMs and what not gets destroyed in a tough fight that your team barely lost, you might also just take 25,000 C-Bills due to the repair cost? Why bother?

And if you drive a cheap mech, you suddenly have to fight (possibly Premium and Hero powered) mechs in a subpar build, and losing becomes a likely result.

If you switch constantly between powerful, expensive build and weak, money-making build, your ELO goes up and down and you'll never reach a sweet spot.

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Well aside from being completely rude and asinine; you are thinking entirely too literally.

Nobody friggen hot dropped onto a planet with 8 dumb***es they didn't know either.. nor did pilots have a blessed thing to do with modifying their mechs.. heck, modifying their mechs would've taken hours, days, or weeks.. yet here we are doing it.

He said "R&R was not really immersive". You list stuff that is not immersive either, if you try to make this game "lore-like". You are not really disproving his point.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 26 May 2013 - 10:46 AM.

[FupDup]

Right now one of the main arguments in favor of RnR is that it will cut down on heavy and assault mech spam, as well as tech upgrades. The flaw in that argument, though, is that it doesn't balance those items at all. All it does is restrict who gets to use them (side-note: another case of this in MWO was ECM, it didn't balance lock-on missiles but instead just chose who got to use them). Right now we at least have the option to fight fire with fire by counter-spamming assaults and upgrades.


Let's say you were started up a match of MWO if RnR got reinstated. You got unlucky; the enemy team just so happened to have a lot of assaults. Your team is mostly mediums and lights with maybe a heavy or two. Unless you cap them out or massively out-skill the enemy team, you're gonna get steamrolled.

If I lose because of not having enough spacebucks to buy a tricked-out Steiner Scout Lance instead of being out-played/out-skilled, it will not lead to very satisfying gameplay for the losing team. And when that happens, would the losers be thinking "The enemy only won because they brought superior mechs, but it's totally balanced because it'll cost them slightly more after the match has already been won"? I doubt it. The fight was over before it even began. The fact that they have to pay up slightly more spacebucks after the damage has been done won't really make the defeated feel much better.

Balancing has to take effect within the match, not outside of it.

Edited by FupDup, 26 May 2013 - 10:47 AM.

[Star Colonel Mustard Kerensky]

All R&R accomplishes is making the grind more painful and causing QQ threads about P2W.

[Und3rSc0re]

RR will never come back, way to many people qq about it and bring up afk farming as one of the only reasons for taking it out. But afk farming can be fixed by a proper report function which mwo currently lacks. GG welcome to assault warrior online where if a bad gets killed by an assault he will get into an assault thinking it will make him good. From my experience the majority of f2p game players are bad so yes they will go for assaults because they pretty much make the same as every other mech currently so why not? Now get ready for all the bads qqing because jj got nerfed and their poptart highlanders are now useless, they are quitting, no more buying mc etc. Pretty much the same people that qq about jj assaults being nerfed are the ones hating the rr system.

Edited by Und3rSc0re, 26 May 2013 - 10:51 AM.

[Livewyr]

A: (Mustrum, my point is that we won't be able to have immersion (or accurate immersion) in all aspects of the game. That went out with random drops and no story mode- but that doesn't mean we can't try and include it in places.. otherwise, why the hell bother with B-Betty?)

B: You two (Mustrum & Fup) bring up great points, and I'd like us to think of ways around it. (Thus this being a discussion thread, not a courtroom.)

[Keifomofutu]

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

A: (Mustrum, my point is that we won't be able to have immersion (or accurate immersion) in all aspects of the game. That went out with random drops and no story mode- but that doesn't mean we can't try and include it in places.. otherwise, why the hell bother with B-Betty?)

B: You two (Mustrum & Fup) bring up great points, and I'd like us to think of ways around it. (Thus this being a discussion thread, not a courtroom.)

You can think of ways around it all you want. But most of us who actually played through R&R have no desire to see it back.

No matter how you try to balance it you won't shake the inherent soft PtW system it brings to the game. The paying players get to use the best mechs all the time and the freemiums and their cheap mechs serve as cannon fodder most of their games. Hellz to the no.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 26 May 2013 - 11:13 AM.

[Livewyr]

Example offer solutions- round one: (something to keep in mind, I'm not sure it can be solved, but I'd at least like to explore it before damning the idea)

Defining actual repair costs according to mech and loadout:
Making the costs of repairing damaged mechs (since no mech is actually completely destroyed) about 10% (random number for example purposes) of the cost of equipment/upgrades divided by percent of damage to it. (the sum of it's parts lost).

Equipment within component lost/damaged. (When you lose your CT, you don't actually LOSE your CT, you lose it's in-match value and things within it are damaged. (Really judging by the final blow and critical hits.)

Example: Death by CT destruction: Engine damaged down to 50% (killed by a gigantic PPC alpha)
Cost of CT "repair" = CT Components value/10 of total losses. + Critical spaces loss value/10
Engine value of say... a Standard 300, brought down to 50% 1,840,000 / 2 = 920,00/10 = 92,000cbills to repair. (less damage, less cost, etc..)
Value of critical spaces: The mech itself, with nothing in it is worth Cbills. One could divide the worth of the component by the critical slots it includes. Why would this matter? Internal Structure slots and Armor upgrade slots. Destroyed slots have a certain value, destroyed upgrade slots have more value. Finite numbers to be determined..
And ofcourse weapons and heatsinks lost.

XL engine would be a doozy, but then again- it is also what allows the current ridonculous alpha builds. (6PPC stalker, most highlanders, etc..)

[Livewyr]

Keifomofutu, on 26 May 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

You can think of ways around it all you want. But most of us who actually played through R&R have no desire to see it back.

No matter how you try to balance it you won't shake the inherent soft PtW system it brings to the game. The paying players get to use the best mechs all the time and the freemiums and their cheap mechs serve as cannon fodder most of their games. Hellz to the no.

I would like it back- because without it, there is no penalty for running the most premium ridiculous build of Artemis/EndoSteel/DHS/XL engine build that completely removes purpose of a standard engine in anything but a brawler and affords the ridiculous high-alpha- along with SHS. "I think I'll put SHS in this mech" -Said no player in MWO since they were "finalized."

I would like to figure out a way to deal with the "Pay2Win" situation (which varies from player to player) and that might be addressed with a tier-weighting matchmaker.. to write it off immediately as impossible without actually exploring it is akin to mouth-breathers QQ'ing about how missiles take no skill. They never actually thought about it.

EDIT: And then lets talk about clan tech.

Edited by Livewyr, 26 May 2013 - 11:36 AM.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

I would like it back- because without it, there is no penalty for running the most premium ridiculous build of Artemis/EndoSteel/DHS/XL engine build that completely removes purpose of a standard engine in anything but a brawler and affords the ridiculous high-alpha- along with SHS. "I think I'll put SHS in this mech" -Said no player in MWO since they were "finalized."

Actually, Artemis and XL Engines already have very large downsides without RnR in place:
Artemis: +1 ton and +1 crit slot per launcher
XL Engine: +3 crit slots per side torso, will die if side torso is destroyed


If you try to roll with XL, you're probably gonna die a lot faster than you normally would unless you're in a light mech or something with small side torso hitboxes (Catapult, Treb, etc.). Mechs like Highlanders and Stalkers virtually never run XL because their side torsos are huge (especially the Stalker, it has the largest ST in the game).

Edited by FupDup, 26 May 2013 - 11:44 AM.

[Artgathan]

R&R didn't really add to immersion. It just meant that I had to carefully balance what tech and weapons I carried into a match to ensure that I rung up a profit every round, regardless of win or loss. It was one more button I had to click between rounds.

I agree that seeing more mediums on the battlefield would be nice, but I don't think that R&R is the way to do it. Previously it just created a gulf between the "good" and "bad" players, as the good players could just farm the bad ones for money, while minimizing their own costs. This in turn created a cycle that allowed the "better" players to also run better tech, giving them a double advantage.

With the new Elo system I'd wager that all we'd see is players dumbing down their mechs (outside of 8-mans) so that they can make cash every round (considering that the Elo system is basically designed to make your W/L Ratio equal 1).

I think we should look for other ways to encourage the use of other mech classes and different equipment. For instance, we could have Endo Steel slightly reduce a mech's maneuverability (due to it's increased bulk).

R&R is not the way to go - it punishes people for using the builds they want to (if it happens to use expensive tech), and a game where I can't play with the toys I want without being punished is a bad game.

[Livewyr]

FupDup, on 26 May 2013 - 11:41 AM, said:

Actually, Artemis and XL Engines already have very large downsides without RnR in place:
Artemis: +1 ton and +1 crit slot per launcher
XL Engine: +3 crit slots per side torso, will die if side torso is destroyed


If you try to roll with XL, you're probably gonna die a lot faster than you normally would unless you're in a light mech or something with small side torso hitboxes (Catapult, Treb, etc.). Mechs like Highlanders and Stalkers virtually never run XL because their side torsos are huge (especially the Stalker, it has the largest ST in the game).

So tell me the risk/downside of Endosteel and DHS?

When was the last time you put SHS in a mech despite having money for DHS?

[El Bandito]

RnR? Time for everyone to spam zombie Cents.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

So tell me the risk/downside of Endosteel and DHS?

When was the last time you put SHS in a mech despite having money for DHS?

Never. I didn't mention heat sinks for that exact reason. Endo does I guess have a tiny downside if your loadout is crit-intensive (i.e. spamming DHS as hard as possible), although in most cases it is indeed a direct upgrade.

For Endo, maybe one way to balance against it would be to buff FF in some way. Endo already weighs less, so it tends to allow one to pack a bigger engine, more gunz, whatever. FF could possibly get a small damage resistance bonus to make it stand out as making you tougher than Endo but not saving as much weight. So, you could choose to be tougher or be more powerful/speedy.

Edited by FupDup, 26 May 2013 - 11:49 AM.

[Livewyr]

Artgathan, on 26 May 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

R&R didn't really add to immersion. It just meant that I had to carefully balance what tech and weapons I carried into a match to ensure that I rung up a profit every round, regardless of win or loss. It was one more button I had to click between rounds.

I agree that seeing more mediums on the battlefield would be nice, but I don't think that R&R is the way to do it. Previously it just created a gulf between the "good" and "bad" players, as the good players could just farm the bad ones for money, while minimizing their own costs. This in turn created a cycle that allowed the "better" players to also run better tech, giving them a double advantage.

With the new Elo system I'd wager that all we'd see is players dumbing down their mechs (outside of 8-mans) so that they can make cash every round (considering that the Elo system is basically designed to make your W/L Ratio equal 1).

I think we should look for other ways to encourage the use of other mech classes and different equipment. For instance, we could have Endo Steel slightly reduce a mech's maneuverability (due to it's increased bulk).

R&R is not the way to go - it punishes people for using the builds they want to (if it happens to use expensive tech), and a game where I can't play with the toys I want without being punished is a bad game.

(I think your decisions on balancing what you brought into a match is immersion, it made you actually think about what you put on your mech, rather than "A little of this, a lot of that, all of that, yes yes, this here, all of that... throw that on there..." etc.

I think R&R in addition to Weight/ELO matching, and possibly with an introduction of a BV/Tier system.
(Similar to WoT's tier system, only BV brackets)
RnR to keep everyone and their mother from bring Tier 10 all the time, and tier system to make sure they're matched up against people with their own similar fighting capacity. With a set preferred amount of each tier in a match.

I think keeping the economy performance based would also be a good step towards removing/reducing farming.

[Livewyr]

FupDup, on 26 May 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:

Never. I didn't mention heat sinks for that exact reason. Endo does I guess have a tiny downside if your loadout is crit-intensive (i.e. spamming DHS as hard as possible), although in most cases it is indeed a direct upgrade.

For Endo, maybe one way to balance against it would be to buff FF in some way. Endo already weighs less, so it tends to allow one to pack a bigger engine, more gunz, whatever. FF could possibly get a small damage resistance bonus to make it stand out as making you tougher than Endo but not saving as much weight. So, you could choose to be tougher or be more powerful/speedy.

But given those options, why would I ever bring something without Endo or FF? (aside from critheavy builds)

(Rhetorical question: I'm really just explaining that I think we need a way to balance the game so bringing the most premium/upgraded build every time isn't encouraged.. and thus pursuing solutions to the RnR route to attempt a viable aspect in match/game balancing... especially since Clan mechs are coming, and short of making Clan gear exactly like IS gear.. it will not be balanced. Clan would have to fight only other clan, and IS vs IS.. and fire and brimstone death to MWO.)

[Tor6]

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

So tell me the risk/downside of Endosteel and DHS?

When was the last time you put SHS in a mech despite having money for DHS?

There are SO few designs that you can actually run without DHS that if you made it cost prohibitive no one would ever NOT run it. Because if a team of no DHS fought a team with DHS the DHS team would win EVERY SINGLE TIME. Pretty much all of the OP builds from before DHS are not around and would be laughed at in a game now. All SL hunchie? The SL jenner?

And Endo-steel being expensive would not cause people to weigh its balance, it would just be removed in favor of mech builds that don't use it. And when is the last time you saw an atlas or stalker even run Endo? It's mostly lighter mechs that run it because heavy mechs get crit locked way before they get tonnage-locked. so if anything this would hurt the lighter, cheaper chassis more than the heavies you want to see fewer of.

Bottom line though, NO ONE likes to lose because the other guy *who he doesn't get to choose to face* paid more money for their gear. It's unsatisfying and makes you feel cheated. Especially when you still need to pay repair cost because he wiped the floor with you and you could barely touch him.

If this change were to go into effect It wouldn't effect me. I've almost every IS mech I want to own, and enough saved up for the ones that will come out that I do. I'd still run whatever I want to, as would many here who were here since CB. But the new people? The people we want to attract? Those people would suffer at the hands of people who don't give a crap about cost and who only want to have a fun match. Bringing back repair and rearm as anything other than a low-cost fluff bonus for not dying (say 10k cbills max cost or something just as a 'hey you didn't splode! Good work!' thing) is just a recipe for disaster.

Edited by Tor6, 26 May 2013 - 11:58 AM.

[FupDup]

Livewyr, on 26 May 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

But given those options, why would I ever bring something without Endo or FF? (aside from critheavy builds)

(Rhetorical question: I'm really just explaining that I think we need a way to balance the game so bringing the most premium/upgraded build every time isn't encouraged.. and thus pursuing solutions to the RnR route to attempt a viable aspect in match/game balancing... especially since Clan mechs are coming, and short of making Clan gear exactly like IS gear.. it will not be balanced. Clan would have to fight only other clan, and IS vs IS.. and fire and brimstone death to MWO.)

Note sure on that one. Maybe standard structure/armor could be given a bonus to damage transfer, less likely to be crit, better stability (i.e. less cockpit shake, less falling damage, so on and so forth) etc.? Weird quirks like that.


For Clanners, I'd honestly just prefer to add tradeoffs to compensate for their lower weight, greater range/damage, etc. Maybe longer beam durations for lasers, for instance.

Edited by FupDup, 26 May 2013 - 12:01 PM.