58 replies to this topic

[Asmudius Heng]

MW4 was bad i a different way - but Victor is partially right.

However, it only really came to the fore in leagues not regular pubs matches.

As for LRMs, yes we only ever used clan LRMs - usually a fast Loki and that was about it.

What Victor did get right was that these came a semblance of balance of ranges though the weapons were still restricted.

Light Gauss was the best extreme range and could be used to counter ..
ERLL which was the best of the best overall, but could be countered by ...
LBX brawlers if they could get in close enough range to charge without taking too much damage.

In between those mainstay weapons you have Clan LRMs as has been said that could be used sparingly to punish straying enemy mechs but generally you wanted it on a fast flanker. You also have Gauss and PPCs but they were too close to ERLL range and were used more sparingly due to less consistent hits (lag based)

Pure tech the LL helped a great deal with brawlers and mid range IS mechs and performed decently if you didn't get caught outside of range. I think Streaks were not terrible but seemed under utilised from memory.

Later RACs become a good option for IS teams as well.

So you had these range brackets that had effective weapons to counter other effective weapons. If you positioned well you could get the maximum benefit out of them.

This made MW4 a game where these was some sense of equilibrium, but not of balance across all of the weapons and mechs as there was so many junk weapons.

MWO lacks this equilibrium - yet the balance of all the weapons are closer to being balanced. It is quite a different beast of balance but no less vexing.

[Roland]

Quote

If they buffed Small and Medium lasers, then they would have to find a way to compensate weapon balance elsewhere. I think the moment you start increasing the damage on smaller weapons, lighter Mech's are going to become far more popular because they are harder to hit and will deal more damage.

Currently, the problem with small and medium lasers is that they were nerfed earlier in beta, back when hit detection was terrible, because they were clearly the best weapons back then.

Now, however, they could stand to be restored to their original stats.

[Sephlock]

@ the OP, that's a very good assessment, but you are missing one critical factor:

Its taking them a kajillion years to even acknowledge problems, and it takes even longer for them to tweak anything, and when they do it is some HILARIOUSLY insufficient buff, followed by a wait of several months for the next HILARIOUSLY insufficient buff.

On the other hand, the millisecond missiles become fun PGI LEAPS into action, and they are nerfed the very next day.

;.

[Wolf Ender]

one thing about MW4 to consider was the unique interpretation of mech customization in the mechlab.

it was the first game where we ever had hardpoints that gave mech chassis a bit of specialization
they completely threw out critical slots in favor of hardpoint slots
you could upgrade or downgrade your engine based solely on tonnage, no consideration of slots or heatsinks
you could add or remove heatsinks at will, with no penalty or limitation of slots except for tonnage

these factors made some configs a lot more viable MW4, whereas in MWO they would be impossible or suicidal to run.

As Roland mentioned, i think some of us have gilded memories of MW4 that make us think it was an exceptionally good game. I myself am one of those guys. I remember MW4 being a ton of fun, probably more fun than MWO is currently... but i can't honestly say that i know for a fact it was better or if i'm just lookin at the past through rose colored lenses.

Edited by Wolf Ender, 29 May 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[Livewyr]

MW4 = Jumpsniping Highlanders and Black Knights in its death...

Every once in a while the Longbow would make an appearance with 4-6 CLRM20s on it.. then the player would realize that missiles were pointless.

MWO resembles MW4 in a lot of ways right now.

[keith]

MW4 had maps. u knew what maps u were going on. made choosing what to take important, MW4 had many great maps

[El Bandito]

MW4 multiplayer was not known for it's balance but it was better than MW2 and MW3 multiplayer due to hardpoint restrictions.

MWO really should apply that here as well. Everyone here is jamming AC20s into machinegun slots and ERPPCs into medium laser spots.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 May 2013 - 04:51 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

OP: I'll agree with you there. Weapon balance right now is definitely WORSE than vanilla MW 4.

Vanilla MW 4 was BAD, too. Terrible. It got better but never good enough to make me want to come back to it again over the years. The game still gives me a bad feeling in my stomach when I play it, unlike MW 2 or 3 (and 3 was broken too).

[Lykaon]

Victor Morson, on 29 May 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

Not really compared to the Gauss; the Gauss is just generally too good to sacrifice the AC/20 range on; you only really see AC/20 used on some super fragile glass cannon 'mechs that aren't very good (Like the Jagger that pops fast). I agree the AC/20, as a gun, is fine; if the Victor can sport two of them, it will be stellar.

Really the AC/20s biggest problem is you can only sport 1, so the ROF advantages and stuff don't add up as fast as the single all-range Gauss.

At least that's my take on the AC/20.. not a broken gun but the current "delivery platforms" are pretty bad for it. First 'mech to run two with solid armor will be a terror though. For that reason, it might honestly deserve a ROF buff, to make it more useful on all the designs meant to sport just one.

Honestly I would actually say the twin AC 20 builds and streak boats are all we have for effective brawlers now.And honestly a streakboat (A1 Cat) is dead meat when faced with a twin 20 build that pops it's top in one shot.

The problem is a brawler build needs to close to brawling range under the guns of alpha striker PPC/Gauss builds that do not suffer under brawling conditions as much as brawlers suffer from coming under sniper fire.A brawler will not "sneak" up on a sniper with seismic in play so it's really a matter of did the brawler manage to be lucky enough to not get hit coming into brawl range and can the brawler now survive the sniper builds 45 point alpha strikes.


What we have now is a simple matter of a handful of weapon platforms that mount gobs of the handful of top tier weapons.
This combination creates a play enviorment that excludes other builds due to those other builds not being the alpha killer builds.

[Kiiyor]

It's imbalanced because it isn't finished. PGI are still balancing, still tweaking, still building.

Heck, some of the basic infrastructure behind the weapon systems (HSR) is yet to be rolled out.

It ebbs and flows. Also, PGI have on several occasions commented that they will be doing a FULL weapon pass once he various flavours of HAR have been implemented.

I daresay they have a lot of empirical and emotional data to use also, based on the traffic in the forums here.

Patience. Lol.

[Ningyo]

I think a significant % of the weapons are fairly well balanced, the problem is a few are a bit OP making them look worse, and a handful are utter crap.

OP weapons
ER-PPC (yes it high heat, but it kills things anywhere, quickly)
PPC <Note if overheating was a bigger deal these might be balanced now>

Close to balanced:
ERLL
LL
ML (maybe 1 less heat, but its not bad)
AC 20 (the sheer amount of damage makes it viable)
Gauss (This would be OP, but its really heavy and big and fragile, it still is borderline. Mostly its the synergy with PPC though)
UAC 5 (not op like PPCs, but this really should have its base RoF same as AC 5)
AC 5 (if UAC had same base RoF some people would use either depending on play style)
AC 2 (against some players screen shake effect causes massive FPS drop so this can stun lock, but aside from that its fine)
Machine Gun (since last patch these are no longer complete crap, though there seems to be a ping issue reducing damage for some)
SSRM (these look slightly OP sometimes, and might be. I think its mostly the lack of other decent short range weapons ATM though)
SRM (not sure these might be weak since patch I haven't played them enough to be sure)
<TAG>
<AMS>

Weak -> Complete Trash
Large Pulse Laser
Medium Pulse Laser
Small Pulse Laser
Small Laser
Flamer
AC 10
LB 10-X AC
LRM (right now, these fluctuate a lot lol)
<NARC>

The problem in my mind is most of the short range weapons are garbage, and the rest are at best average. AND with things like seismic getting close is even tougher.

I do kind of wonder though if they put ER/PPC back to there TT heat values, (15/10) and made LRM right finally, how far off would balance really be?

[Volthorne]

I will agree with the OP's premise, but reject the notion that a fix is as easy as he thinks it is. There are issues that plague balance beyond data values in a damage table.

Edited by Volthorne, 29 May 2013 - 10:21 PM.

[El Bandito]

Kiiyor, on 29 May 2013 - 06:13 PM, said:

It's imbalanced because it isn't finished. PGI are still balancing, still tweaking, still building. Heck, some of the basic infrastructure behind the weapon systems (HSR) is yet to be rolled out. It ebbs and flows. Also, PGI have on several occasions commented that they will be doing a FULL weapon pass once he various flavours of HAR have been implemented. I daresay they have a lot of empirical and emotional data to use also, based on the traffic in the forums here. Patience. Lol.

"Patience" in PGI term can mean 6 months or more. Eff that. For all I have witnessed, their words are hollow.

Can't wait til September when my other love -- Total War: Rome 2 comes out.

[Corvus Antaka]

LBX is still a problem....maybe. brawlers either need some love, OR snipers need nurfs.

I took out my old faithful, founders hunchback, ac20/ 3MLaser today.

all the poptarts and everything, and I still averaged 3 kills a match with the thing. its still a monster, even with the mega hunch and dual ac/20 jaggers around.

SRMS do need tweaking, so to ssrms, and LRMS, no doubt flamers etc need love.

Constructive suggestions on how to improve these systems would help a lot more right now. This point in Beta is usually when weapon balance really gets hammered out.

[El Bandito]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 29 May 2013 - 11:39 PM, said:

LBX is still a problem....maybe. brawlers either need some love, OR snipers need nurfs. I took out my old faithful, founders hunchback, ac20/ 3MLaser today. all the poptarts and everything, and I still averaged 3 kills a match with the thing. its still a monster, even with the mega hunch and dual ac/20 jaggers around. SRMS do need tweaking, so to ssrms, and LRMS, no doubt flamers etc need love. Constructive suggestions on how to improve these systems would help a lot more right now. This point in Beta is usually when weapon balance really gets hammered out.

There were (and still are) huge amount of "constructive suggestions" in these forums. PGI chose to not give a damn.

Edited by El Bandito, 29 May 2013 - 11:49 PM.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Roland, on 29 May 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

You and I both played as IS units in various planetary leagues, including the pure-tech NBT, where our IS mechs were confined to only using inner sphere weaponry.

I believe that you are misremembering some aspects of weaponry in MW4, and giving it more credit than it deserves in terms of balance.

Specifically, I point to your recollection of LRM's.

In MW4, inner sphere LRM's were total trash. You know why? Because their stats were basically that of normal Battletech LRM's. (i.e., what we see in MWO). For the amount of damage they dealt, innersphere LRM's were terribad weapons. They simply weighed too much.

In MW4, if you wanted to use LRM's, you used clan LRM's.

The clan LRM's weighed only HALF of the IS version... And those weapons were, while effective in the hands of some, not really uber-overpowered compared to various other weapons in MW4. Certain folks like Valk were extremely good at dealing damage with LRM's, but the LRM's fired by more players could be easily dodged if you understood the mechanics of how they worked (for anyone playing still, if someone fires missiles at you in MW4, you turn your torso 90 degrees from the direction it was facing when they launched the missiles. If they had targeted any torso panel when they pulled the trigger, all of the missiles will slam into the ground. I'm always amazed at how few people knew this. Good shooters would target a mech's crotch when they fired the missiles, which would prevent them from being dodged, and maximize damage).

But really, no one used IS LRM's.. they were terrible. They weighed far too much for the damage they dealt... which, interestingly enough, is what we see in MWO.

When clan tech comes around, you're likely to see the same ultimate issue.. it's impossible to make IS LRM's even remotely competitive, without making the clan version the most overpowered insanity you've ever dreamed of. If you make the clan version somewhat balanced, then you make the IS version terrible.

Sometimes, I actually wonder if perhaps PGI actually is already doing some work with clan weaponry, and running into these horrific balance issues, which ends up coloring what we see.

You do know that IS LRMs fired faster than Clan LRMs, right?

[jeffsw6]

Ningyo, on 29 May 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

I think a significant % of the weapons are fairly well balanced, the problem is a few are a bit OP making them look worse, and a handful are utter crap.

I disagree. I think the only weapons that are right are ML, LL, AC/2, AC/5, UAC/5, AC/20 (except its crit slots or hitpoints.) I believe all other weapons are badly broken, either being much more or less useful than they should be.

Volthorne, on 29 May 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

I will agree with the OP's premise, but reject the notion that a fix is as easy as he thinks it is. There are issues that plague balance beyond data values in a damage table.

Most problems can be trivially fixed by editing data values in a damage, range, and heat table. They have not tried to do this.

It would be a lot more constructive for PGI to simply say "we're not trying hard on balance right now, we know a lot of weapons are still broke, but we're working on X Y Z first." Except they don't say that because they actually believe the armaments are close to right. All evidence points to this and it's why the forum is a river of flame.

[Cyke]

It's not so much that entire classes of weapons are useless.

It's not so much that the imbalance is pigeonholing players to use a certain type of build to be effective.

It's not so much that general game balance (the purpose of this thread) has gaping holes that see ten or twenty threads posted in the Game Balance forum on a weekly basis.


The real reason that makes all those minor issues into major issues is that it takes months to see any change whatsoever.
Therefore, everyone figures PGI either thinks the weapon balance is fine now, or that they don't care (as long as they can turn out Hero 'Mechs and Camo Patterns to generate cash).


One optimistic explanation is that they're working on other things first. For example, they want to finish Missile Host State Rewind before they tweak missile stats.
This actually makes sense. Tweaking the weapon stats now is technically wasted effort, because once Missile HSR is complete, they'll need to be tweaked again.
.
The problem is, by the time that happens, they'd already have hemmoraged a lot of goodwill and active players.
Sure, you need HSR to be done for all weapons, but in the meantime, do something to make the gameplay work now!

Leaving the gameplay in its sorry state "until X Y Z is done" means there are people who leave and won't won't buy Camo and Cockpit Items and Hero 'Mechs now, and won't be around to buy them later either.

Edited by Cyke, 30 May 2013 - 05:41 AM.

[Foust]

Lykaon, on 29 May 2013 - 05:52 PM, said:

The problem is a brawler build needs to close to brawling range under the guns of alpha striker PPC/Gauss builds that do not suffer under brawling conditions as much as brawlers suffer from coming under sniper fire.A brawler will not "sneak" up on a sniper with seismic in play so it's really a matter of did the brawler manage to be lucky enough to not get hit coming into brawl range and can the brawler now survive the sniper builds 45 point alpha strikes.

This. Your reward as a brawler for making effective use of cover to close in on the mechs specializing in long range fire power is to take the full brunt of that fire power at your optimum range.

A quad PPC boat is not a threat under 90m, nor a pure LRM boat under 180m. Apply the same logic to the ER PCC and Gauss. Give them a minimum range as well.

[jeffsw6]

Cyke, on 30 May 2013 - 05:38 AM, said:

This actually makes sense. Tweaking the weapon stats now is technically wasted effort, because once Missile HSR is complete, they'll need to be tweaked again.
.
The problem is, by the time that happens, they'd already have hemmoraged a lot of goodwill and active players.
Sure, you need HSR to be done for all weapons, but in the meantime, do something to make the gameplay work now!

Leaving the gameplay in its sorry state "until X Y Z is done" means there are people who leave and won't won't buy Camo and Cockpit Items and Hero 'Mechs now, and won't be around to buy them later either.

This is what I've been saying. There are a lot of problems they can't even try to fix right now because they are bleeding players. The match-maker is horrible but it is very hard to fix when the number of players in the game is small. Adding more game modes? Can't let people select from more modes on the drop-down if it would cause there to be too few to make drops. There is no 8v8 pre-made games anymore and there certainly won't be 12v12.

They have killed their player-base so effectively that they do not have enough "beta testers" left to solve some of their problems. This is really bad and PGI needs to look at themselves, and place the blame for that on their inattention to weapon balance, their repeated mistakes, and failure to communicate.

Like I keep saying, the game has fantastic graphics and audio, many mech choices, etc. but the armaments are wildly broken, game objectives are limiting, the maps are not good with the current weapons, etc. A game title like this is much more about game-play values and mechanics than it is about great graphics. They need to reset their priorities quickly.

Foust, on 30 May 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

A quad PPC boat is not a threat under 90m, nor a pure LRM boat under 180m. Apply the same logic to the ER PCC and Gauss. Give them a minimum range as well.

I have suggested simply raising ERPPC heat and reducing its maximum range so it does 0 at 1200m. I think it's fine that ERPPC is very punchy at short range, so long as its heat production is higher.

For Gauss Rifle, I also agree with you that it should not be useful as a brawling weapon; but it shouldn't be a spray-and-pray sniper rifle either! The ammo/ton on Gauss Rifle should be decreased.