DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
1.) Weapons / damage "globally" must be averaged (Not necessarily balanced). Failure to be as such leads to the present meta where specific mechs, specific configurations and tactic prevalence manifest as imbalanced game mechanics. A competitive player and their overarching desire to be as competitive as possible will forgo variety and conical configurations in favor if the apex mechs and weapon configurations. Failing to do so is viewed as not playing to win.
This is true, but the apex could be considerably larger than it is at present. There will always be bad builds, and probably even bad mech variants, but as it stands right now, about 80% of the
variants in MWO are bad. Even many of the viable variants are only useful for one or two very specific builds. Lack of variety is the problem.
DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
2.) Relative player commitment. Clearly we all approach MW:O with a wide varying level of intent. one common thread is that we all want to win, however That's kinda where the similarities end... A competitive player assumes anyone not running the de facto optimum builds are not vested nor prepared to "play-to-win" and as such are a burden to any team vested in winning or lack the savvy to know the difference.
A competitive player assumes this because that is reality. Sometimes people don't like reality. Reality doesn't care that you don't like it.
That's not to say there aren't plenty of times when I just want to run around in a big, stompy robot. That's what 4P and solo matches are for. And yes, the meta is "better" in that situation, but only because the players either don't understand the meta or are, like me, temporarily ignoring it.
DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
3.) That even upon reaching the nirvana of relative perfect balance, the competitive player will still leverage for the the optimum mechs and builds because failing to do so is contrary to their core desire to be competitive. Ultimately the very premise that the present meta would be mitigated by balance changes fails...
Bzzt. Wrong. As long as the various weapons have trade-offs (i.e. some good in close, some good at distance, some good at shaving armor, some good at penetrating to internals, etc.) then the balance will be perfectly "imbalanced." Your build should determine your tactics. Right now, there is only one good tactic (sniping), so thus there is only one good type of build.
DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
Even upon achieving acceptable balance, competitive play will, by design, still center around a particular sub-set of mechs and weapons that afford the highest battle-value. The selection of both mechs and weapons may widen...
Yes, which is the whole point! More options that actually work, means more options for everyone. Why is this bad?
Increasing the number of good builds does not prevent people from running bad builds and having fun doing it. Plenty of people have fun running bad builds in MWO. That's
most of the game right now. I do it too. I run an Ilya with 2 LBX and 2 LL from time-to-time in 4P. I would never bring that thing into an 8P match. But it's fun to drive. Whee!
Making the competitive game better does not reduce the ability of players to goof around in sub-optimal builds in the slightest. That part of the game is completely unaffected. However, the competitive players are the ones who are going to stay for the long term and keep pouring
money into the game.
It is in PGI's best interest to balance for high-Elo players. Low-Elo players have useful input, especially when it comes to UI issues and training grounds and tutorials. For those aspects of the game, I would focus on low-Elo players. But for
play balance, it's high-Elo advice or you're doing it wrong.
DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
but the present meta the competitive player says is boring and uninspired will not change drastically. The very nature of high-level competitive play demands that it can't...
False. See the concept of trade-offs above. If brawling and skirmishing were better tactics, then yes, there would be apex builds for those roles. But those would be
in addition to the apex builds for sniping. The meta would no longer be stale, and again,
casual players are totally unaffected by this. If anything, casual players will be better off, since when low-Elo players copy those apex builds they will no longer decisively crush people in their Elo tier.
DaZur, on 26 July 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
These players that are not "playing to win" are not taken seriously by the competitive player, are dismissed as failing to be vested in the game, fail at the necessary mechanics to understand what is necessary to be competitive and by default are deemed to be a burden on team play and the evolution of MW:O...
False, my unit is full of people who will never even
want to be competitive players. That is totally fine. But even those people get cranky when obviously cheesy builds flood the low-Elo bracket. Some cheese builds were easy to counter. For example:
The AC40 Jager was
not a problem. That mech was either horrifically slow or had XL engine. Either way, you focus a side torso. If they have XL, they die. If they don't they still lose half their weapons! It was very easy to tell every newer player in a drop to just shoot the side torso whenever you see a BoomJager.
Other cheese builds, OTOH, like the Quad PPC Stalker or the Sniperlander just didn't have a good counter. The only good advice was "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Lack of trade-offs is the problem. Every gimmick build should be specialized enough that there is an effective counter to that build. In MWO, this is not the case. Some gimmick builds have no real drawback, and that problem is fundamentally due to certain weapons being too powerful relative to the cost of equipping them (PPCs primarily), and other weapons being too weak (most other energy weapons, the AC10, SRMs).
6
Second answer is the bomb!
