132 replies to this topic

[Stat1cVoiD]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

The FOTM is called that for a reason ffs. If it not dominating, then it does not get that moniker. You seem to feel that there is a "fix". Please enlighten us, and also do so in a fashion that does not get you laughed out of the tread. Please.

FotM means only that it is the FAVOURITE of the month. It can give you f.e. a slight advantage because it can be a little bit easier to handle than its alternatives. Or it can be like PPCs now: Absolutely superior given how the game works and the maps are designed.

I already casted pearls before swines in my own and other threads, I am tired of repeating the same over and over again. If you are really interested then take a look at my posting-history.

Thx.

[Bagheera]

jeffsw6, on 29 June 2013 - 02:22 AM, said:

Garth, for example, is known for expressing that PPC sniping must be boring, and not understanding why people play that way. Well, because that maximizes your chances of winning. If Garth had a high enough ELO to be in PPC-boat-filled matches all day, I bet he would rage/quit too.

Well, then Garth is basically just admitting that MW:O, in its current state, is boring. Because it isn't just PPCs for sniping, it's PPCs for everything. Literally everything. Sniping? Check. Brawling? Check. Building a hit/run Cicada? Better slap on 2-ERPPCs. BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGGG.

Take it from this, likely lower-to-at-best-middle-ground Elo player - PPCS are everywhere, on everything, and it isn't just the sniping that makes it boring.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Enforce BT Stock Mech loadouts and then let the real QQ begin. I didn't say it would be popular.



See point above.



So you advocate for no MechLab then? It is the most obvious and simple solution, as it is at the heart of the problem apparently.

Except that doesn't solve anything, there are plenty of BTU mechs that boat weapon systems at stock level, and they will equally be popular.
The Chassis that have the most homogenized loadout will be the favored chassis, i played in a stock league once, most of the time people took awesomes for the PPC's, Novacats if you had them, PPC's and Lasers, etc etc, you might force some oddball choices but as more and more mechs are added to the game, it's not a solution that will stand up to the test of time.

Some mechs, some weapons will always rise to the top for short or long periods.

Edited by DV McKenna, 29 June 2013 - 06:49 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

The Cheese, on 29 June 2013 - 06:40 AM, said:

The thing about that is; even inside those limitations that you describe, there will STILL be favored builds.

Agreed. But flavor builds are not an issue when the Teams cannot field them on mass. As far as Mechs that can load PPC's, yup, they will appear as always but if you have a mix of chassis with them then that helps in its own right. Easier to kill a Medium with 2 PPC's then a Heavy or Assault with 3 or 4, by default.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 29 June 2013 - 07:01 AM.

[Ghogiel]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Enforce BT Stock Mech loadouts and then let the real QQ begin. I didn't say it would be popular.

Not all stock load loadouts are equal. There is a great variance in their viability.

[MaddMaxx]

DV McKenna, on 29 June 2013 - 06:47 AM, said:

Except that doesn't solve anything, there are plenty of BTU mechs that boat weapon systems at stock level, and they will equally be popular.
The Chassis that have the most homogenized loadout will be the favored chassis, i played in a stock league once, most of the time people took awesomes for the PPC's, Novacats if you had them, PPC's and Lasers, etc etc, you might force some oddball choices but as more and more mechs are added to the game, it's not a solution that will stand up to the test of time.

Some mechs, some weapons will always rise to the top for short or long periods.

So there is no solution is what your saying. The players will FOTM whatever exists. Why do we argue that there can ever be a fix to please everyone.

[Bagheera]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:

Agreed. But flavor builds are not an issue when the Teams cannot field them on mass. As far as Mechs that can load PPC's, yup, they will appear as always but if you have a mix of chassis with them then that helps in its own right. Easy to kill a Medium with 2 PPC's then a Heavy or Assault with 3 or 4, by default.

Nonsense. There's no deck restrictions on 8-man, and the matchmaker doesn't look at weight class or 1:1 matching, just total weight (imo).

Run stock only class and people will run the 4 mechs which are most effective given the state of weapon balance at any point in time. Solves nothing.

[MaddMaxx]

Bagheera, on 29 June 2013 - 06:59 AM, said:

Nonsense. There's no deck restrictions on 8-man, and the matchmaker doesn't look at weight class or 1:1 matching, just total weight (imo).

Run stock only class and people will run the 4 mechs which are most effective given the state of weapon balance at any point in time. Solves nothing.

The discussion I am after is about what is to come. It is a fact that given your premise, there is no solution to please everyone. CW may set limits that will tighten up certain Team setups. It would be a good start at least.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 29 June 2013 - 07:07 AM.

[Bagheera]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 07:04 AM, said:

The discussion I am after is about what is to come. It is a fact that given your premise, there is not solution to please everyone. CW may set limits that will tighten up certain Team setups. It would be a good start at least.

There rarely is.

One of the core problems is that there are weapons in the game that are clearly dominant and others that are clearly worthless. In one of my matches last night I watched a poor A1 trying to defend a base solo against a Jenner. The A1 was one of those mixed builds, and the Jenner ate volley after volley of SRMs and I watched the paper-doll make no indications of damage taken. Yes, the A1 was hitting. Or at least by all appearances (leading properly, making contact, also making contact when the Jenner was stationary) he should have been, but the game engine was convinced otherwise.

Hell, direct SRM hits from 2 4's and a 6 at <50m and the paper doll doesn't so much as flicker. The Jenner was doing more leg damage to itself by running around than the Cat was by shooting it. Fortunately a 4xAC2 Jager came along and shredded the Jenner within seconds, first one leg then the other.

Pathetic.

It has to start with the weapons. Right now, the PPC is flat out the best at everything. There's almost no reason not to design around them on any chassis with one or more energy hardpoints. SRMs are completely irrelevant, and streaks are about to (rightfully) get another nerf so they don't auto-track to the CT as reliably which is going to make matters worse.

Edited by Bagheera, 29 June 2013 - 07:14 AM.

[Pinselborste]

we have such a bad Balance cause pgi tried to use TT rules for a game that works totally different, and after they noticed that it doesnt work right they tried to Change single things without thinking about how it will affect the rest of the stuff.

instead of changing single weapons , they would have needed a total redesign of all the weapon stats in order to Balance them with each other.

[MaddMaxx]

Bagheera, on 29 June 2013 - 07:12 AM, said:

There rarely is.

One of the core problems is that there are weapons in the game that are clearly dominant and others that are clearly worthless. In one of my matches last night I watched a poor A1 trying to defend a base solo against a Jenner. The A1 was one of those mixed builds, and the Jenner ate volley after volley of SRMs and I watched the paper-doll make no indications of damage taken. Yes, the A1 was hitting. Or at least by all appearances (leading properly, making contact, also making contact when the Jenner was stationary) he should have been, but the game engine was convinced otherwise.

Hell, direct SRM hits from 2 4's and a 6 at <50m and the paper doll doesn't so much as flicker. The Jenner was doing more leg damage to itself by running around than the Cat was by shooting it. Fortunately a 4xAC2 Jager came along and shredded the Jenner within seconds, first one leg then the other.

Pathetic.

It has to start with the weapons. Right now, the PPC is flat out the best at everything. There's almost no reason not to design around them on any chassis with one or more energy hardpoints. SRMs are completely irrelevant, and streaks are about to (rightfully) get another nerf so they don't auto-track to the CT as reliably which is going to make matters worse.

We will assume your A1 mix is a mix of SSRM's and SRM's and or LRM's right? Range will always be a benefit. Do we cut the PPC's range to what exactly, or the damage it does. or make it so HOT everyone just moves on to the next best.

[jeffsw6]

Let me lay it out for you guys again. PPCs were recently BUFFED. How?

They now cancel ECM when you shoot someone. SRMs, one of the main ways to counter a PPC boat if you can approach him, were nerfed. Seismic Sensor was added, making it impossible to approach a PPC boat without his knowledge. BAP now counters ECM, which means that mechs able to mount ECM can no longer use it to approach a PPC boat with a BAP equipped, either. Not like you need it, because of the Seismic Sensor.

The most powerful weapon in the game has become relatively more-powerful over the past few weeks. Understand? Now, they probably didn't do SRMs and Seismic specifically to buff PPC, they just didn't realize that's basically what it was.

What they explicitly did do was add that ECM-cancellation ability to PPCs. That is insane. But we can all plainly see, PGI does not care that the PPC is over-powered and needs to be adjusted. They only care about Paul's idealistic vision of how players *should* play. They don't care how they *do* play, which is based on the available armaments in the game!

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

So if that is true then there is no FIX ever. Those who "play to win" will use and abuse whatever is available until it gets to a point where even they say the game has no variety, despite it was them that caused it, by being only "FOTM to Win" players...

Wrong.

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 06:20 AM, said:

Then explain to everyone why, if that is true, it doesn't exist right now? Why do the High Elo players currently not use a "variety" of Mechs and weapons? We have a great variety of both.

Because the PPC and Gauss Rifle are so over-powered that every other weapon in the game is trash by comparison!

There has to be a variety of weapons that are viable for competitive players to use them. If those players do, everyone else will benefit from a more enjoyable game. This is basic stuff you should be able to understand.

Imagine we are racing. You can choose a car, a bicycle, or you can walk. I'm going to pick the car every time, because it gives me the greatest chance to win. PGI basically says, wow, that must be boring! It's idiotic. If you pick the bike or walking you will lose every time you enter a race where someone has a car. Your only hope is to get matched against a crew of window-lickers who haven't learned the car is the fastest available mode of transportation so your bike stands a chance.

Stat1cVoiD, on 29 June 2013 - 06:31 AM, said:

You cannot fix this "in a heart beat". This is a very long and very difficult process, for which you are in need of a good community communication.
There will always be a FotM, but the question is how dominating it really is. And currently PPCs are not only the FotM, they are THE ONLY WAY TO GO in high ELO games.

They could get a lot closer "in a heart beat." The point is, they aren't trying, and I think I finally understand the reason they aren't. It goes way beyond myopia into wishing the players would just customize and play their mechs the way PGI envisions, not the way that is the most effective.

Stat1cVoiD, on 29 June 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

Worst thing is: The current balancing is so retardedly easy to fix, at least from my point of view....
If PGI offers me flights, lodging, food and one programmer, i'd take the next plane to canada and bring that game up to par within one week, balancing wise.
2 days for analyzing the currently most pressing problems, 3 days for implementing the fixes, 2 days for party.

Dude i can fix it in ******* 3 minutes.

Delete PPC, ERPPC, and Gauss Rifle from the game. Roll back all other changes to how they were in April (except keep the HUD fix.) Done.

Should PPCs and Gauss Rifles be erased? No, of course not. Just adjust their ******* heat, range, ammo, etc. properties. That's simple. It might not be exactly right on the first pass, but you can tune them until the other weapons, and play-styles, are no longer pointless. Same thing with SRMs. Same thing with everything else.

This is not rocket science. World of Warcraft is incredibly complex compared to MW:O, and it has exceptional balance. Here is a list of difficulties faced by Blizzard when balancing WoW, which PGI doesn't have to deal with:

• healing
  
• crowd-control
  
• stuns
  
• AoE
  
• buffs and debuffs
  
• thousands of consumable potions including more buffs
  
• tens of thousands of armaments and equipments
  
• mixture of PvE and PvP content
  
• variety of player energy-sources: "energy," rage, mana
  
• millions of players who actually pay for a subscription every month, and expect this stuff to work
  
• new content patches/releases which introduce a staggering amount of new equipment and opponents

You see, MW:O is totally simple. There is only three things that matter: damage, damage, and damage. Balancing MW:O correctly is so simple that there are literally 100 active posters on this forum who would do a significantly better job than PGI without having access to the statistics, because they play the game and know that hugely over-powered things exist, and those things aren't being fixed or adjusted in the slightest bit.

[jakucha]

Stat1cVoiD, on 29 June 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

Most people in these forums doesn't seem to have any gaming experience.
Look at most of the successful E-Sport games: Balancing and variety are KEY.
SC2 f.e. has a huge variety of tactics and units precisely because of its excessively tested balancing on COMPETETIVE LEVEL.
Onesidedness is the result of bad game design. Versatility on the other hand comes from well thought balancing in collaboration with the community.
Balancing on competetive Level is the only way to make people have a good time across the board.

Competetive means: 100 Mechs which are perfectly balanced against each other, having different drawbacks to make up for their specific advantages, therefore offering a huge amount of tactics and playstyles, while being equivalent.

SC2 is actually pretty sterile and monotonous, I wouldn't use that as a good example for a game with tactical variety. It may be fairly balanced, but the way they achieve it is so generic it gets boring.

Edited by jakucha, 29 June 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[Bagheera]

MaddMaxx, on 29 June 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

We will assume your A1 mix is a mix of SSRM's and SRM's and or LRM's right? Range will always be a benefit. Do we cut the PPC's range to what exactly, or the damage it does. or make it so HOT everyone just moves on to the next best.

2srm4, 1srm6 and some compliment of LRMS, don't remember. He couldn't get range since he had to stand on the base - I think he could have gone to 180-270 sweet spot when backup arrived, had the Jenner not died so quickly at that point. For clarity, the Jenner was a standard build (4ml, 2 streak) and the above engagement occurred entirely at less than 100m.

As far as PPCs, the range is fine, the minimum range fall off scale is too generous to the PPC, and yes - putting them back to the heat they had prior to the most recent buff would help. Of course so would never having put in Coolant Flush (am I the only one who remembers that the dominance of the PPC boat and Coolant Flush start around similar times) and having a proper heat capacity/dissipation/penalty scale.

But leaving things exactly as they are and simply changing the mechlab isn't really going to solve much of anything vis-a-vis battlefield diversity.

Edited by Bagheera, 29 June 2013 - 07:30 AM.

[InRev]

Bagheera, on 29 June 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Well, then Garth is basically just admitting that MW:O, in its current state, is boring.

It's actually rather amusing how anti-PPC Garth is. I watched a few NGNG streams last night because I was bored, and every time there was a quad or hexa-PPC stalker or triple PPC+Gauss Highlander on the other team, Garth would say "oh look, how original" or "someone else kill me, I'm not dying to that guy" or the like.

Also, every time they went up against one of those FOTM builds, they got wrecked, mercilessly.

If even Garth and his Franken-build buddies know that PPC alpha boats are out of line, what's going on in PGI-land?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

InRev, on 29 June 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

It's actually rather amusing how anti-PPC Garth is. I watched a few NGNG streams last night because I was bored, and every time there was a quad or hexa-PPC stalker or triple PPC+Gauss Highlander on the other team, Garth would say "oh look, how original" or "someone else kill me, I'm not dying to that guy" or the like.

Also, every time they went up against one of those FOTM builds, they got wrecked, mercilessly.

If even Garth and his Franken-build buddies know that PPC alpha boats are out of line, what's going on in PGI-land?

He may not like them, he may think they are un-original, but he fails to spot the difference in what people play for.
The fact that Garth as a PGI employee can't understand that, is hopefully not indicative of the rest of the dev team.

[Coolant]

jeffsw6, on 29 June 2013 - 02:22 AM, said:

I've recently been thinking about why PGI makes such blatantly bad balance choices; why they don't understand that some mechs are trash; what game are they playing, because it definitely isn't the same one we all are.

I think their issue is idealism. They envision a balance/mechanic change, and they think players should embrace it in a certain way.

What they don't think is, how will players who want to maximize their chances of winning modify their mechs or tactics in response to a balance/meta change.

Garth, for example, is known for expressing that PPC sniping must be boring, and not understanding why people play that way. Well, because that maximizes your chances of winning. If Garth had a high enough ELO to be in PPC-boat-filled matches all day, I bet he would rage/quit too.

Their problem is they make these modifications with an idealized view of what players should do, without realizing that players will do whatever they CAN do to kill and win. Anybody playing PGI's "ideal" tactics and mechs will suffer a disproportionate number of losses because the first player-group have superior armaments and methods.

Idealism leads us to do dumb things in the real-world. For example, ship a bunch of food to poor African nations, thinking it will help the common people. Nope, much of the time, that food ends up under the control of corrupt government, or worse, warlords, who use it to control the hungry population even more than they already do.


The straight poop is you must balance the game with the competitive player in mind. If you do that, then all players will benefit, because the game will have reasonable equipment. Don't just expect enough people to go "I really like using a combination of missiles and AC/10s" even though that is ******* stupid. Those people won't like their LRM+AC/10 mechs after getting stomped in every game.

nope, competitive players boat, hard to balance when the issue is boating...prevent boating. Problem is, some mechs all they can do is boat due to hard points. That is something PGI will have to figure out...

[jeffsw6]

Oh, and I am really sick of the "PGI Defenders" saying how great CW is going to be.

We don't know if it will be great or not. Either it will be super-cool, or it won't be.

What we do know is they've announced there will be 7 player queues in the CW-future, so the match-maker is going to be even worse than it already is. You can't get a game without total noob trial mechs on your team, if you are playing at an off-peak hour, right now. That's with only ONE solo queue. How is it going to be better when there are essentially 7 different queues? You have to think about the available players for building a match!

Will CW instantly kill the game? No. When it comes out, lots of MW:O ex-pats will log back on to try it out.

Fast-forward a month. People realize it sucks and they go back to their other games. Now you can't even get 8 people from the same house into the queue at the same time off-peak. There will be no CW matches at all outside of peak hours. Just like there are no 8-man games, at all, outside of peak hours.

[Bagheera]

InRev, on 29 June 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

It's actually rather amusing how anti-PPC Garth is. I watched a few NGNG streams last night because I was bored, and every time there was a quad or hexa-PPC stalker or triple PPC+Gauss Highlander on the other team, Garth would say "oh look, how original" or "someone else kill me, I'm not dying to that guy" or the like.

Well, I hear that all the trade mags are talking about how verbal abuse is the best way to balance your game.

I love me a snowflake build probably more than most folks on this board, but even I've given up taking them for a spin at this point. Got bored last night and decided to finally break down and buy another Cicada (still never mastered or even elited my 2A). Grabbed the 3M. Snowflaked it for a few matches, died horribly and gave up. Then I dropped 2 er-ppcs and ECM onto it. Pushed 500 damage first match with it.

Seems legit.

[jakucha]

jeffsw6, on 29 June 2013 - 07:33 AM, said:

Oh, and I am really sick of the "PGI Defenders" saying how great CW is going to be.

We don't know if it will be great or not. Either it will be super-cool, or it won't be.

What we do know is they've announced there will be 7 player queues in the CW-future, so the match-maker is going to be even worse than it already is. You can't get a game without total noob trial mechs on your team, if you are playing at an off-peak hour, right now. That's with only ONE solo queue. How is it going to be better when there are essentially 7 different queues? You have to think about the available players for building a match!

Will CW instantly kill the game? No. When it comes out, lots of MW:O ex-pats will log back on to try it out.

Fast-forward a month. People realize it sucks and they go back to their other games. Now you can't even get 8 people from the same house into the queue at the same time off-peak. There will be no CW matches at all outside of peak hours. Just like there are no 8-man games, at all, outside of peak hours.

You're doing exactly what you just claimed to hate; claiming what you assume to be as truth.