jakucha, on 28 May 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:
They've gotten a bit over half of HSR working so far. Ballistic still has another part that needs to go up and then that's set, and missiles are the last group. Netcode has been their biggest hurdle, which prevents weapon balance from advancing. It's getting cleared, finally. After that point I'm guessing it speeds up in regard to weapon balancing. It would make no sense to make big changes to weapon balance before they all work within the netcode as they should.
THIS!
How do you balance a game around broken mechanics/design flaws that are to be fixed in the near...ish future?
Honestly, I think PGI massively messed up choosing cryengine, either through inexperience (basically not knowing about the speed cap) or a leap of faith. As soon as the first commando hit 200 kph, leaving a trail of disconnections in it's wake as it literally ripped through the fabric of reality like a Guild Navigator on crack, they probably realized that none of their short term goals were going to be met.
There were a bunch of PPC balancing acts done through open beta that clearly point at balances to help negate the netcode issues. Projectile speeds were increased nearly across the board, meaning you didn't have to lead a fast mech too much to still achieve a hit, heat was lowered so that you didn't blow up on unregistered hits, and other various changes to make lasers not the end all be all weapons, or just face hugging each other (collisions were one of the first victim of the netcode). Streaks became the weapon of choice just because they were the only weapons that could reliably hit, and we had brawler central.
Then netcode began getting fixed. First was the lasers (and machine guns/flamers....technically), and just like there was light...THERE WAS LIGHT! In green, blue, and sometimes laughably the red variety. Large lasers were in vogue, and lights began getting their legs chopped off.
And then ballistic HSR arrived, and it was good. PPCs and ballistics now became the flavor of the month as high pinpoint damage took control over the steady beams of the lasers.
But the problem was that all those bonuses and buffs overtime just to deal with the netcode all of a sudden made them massively overpowered when the netcode was fixed, and you get the current meta.
I rather PGI work exclusively on fixing the netcode and having all weapons working properly (a common complaint is that ballistics still aren't hitting properly) before doing any sweeping balance changes. Balance can be resolved over time (hell, people keep commenting about blizzard making frequent changes and they still make near monthly balance changes), but having a fully functional game I think is far more important in the long run.