740 replies to this topic

[ClericShiv]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Well it's not just TT stats, there are actual fluff and background stories to these sort of things. You might as well throw out classic mechs like the Hunchback or Atlas if your are not going to bother with those types of things.

I think using fluff and background stories to dictate or justify in game MWO values and stats doesn't work. Fluff and background provides an emotional connection or enhances the experiences it doesn't define it. There are plenty of absurd things that happen in the books that cant be nor should be translated into a game. The same goes for TT, it should provide a framework.

[GaussDragon]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Well it's not just TT stats, there are actual fluff and background stories to these sort of things. You might as well throw out classic mechs like the Hunchback or Atlas if your are not going to bother with those types of things.

Yeah but these stories are just that, stories. If you let them hamstring a real time game, you get a bad game. I doubt Stackpole had any concept of weapon balance when he was writing a story about giant robots fighting. The lore was made to sound grandiose, it was never written to take a balanced PC game into consideration, c'mon.

[Morashtak]

The chat was not a colossal waste that a couple of colleagues thought it was going to be as there were several voices of reason that were allowed to state their opinions (thanks, chat mods).

A couple of points were stressed and would be good to repeat them;

1) PGI is not going to re-write entire portions of the code, let alone the entire game, between now and launch.

2) Working within the system to assist in tweaking numbers is better than screaming inanely ("Fire Paul!", etc).

To the first; PTR would be a great place to test some theories - numbers can be adjusted there and the data analyzed and compared to the old numbers. While armor and internals are tough to change on the fly weapon damage and speeds can be. ex. We could ask that all weapons on PTR are reduced by 1/3rd in order to approximately simulate an armor buff along with the PPCs and GR rate-of-fire slowed down. Data recorded and compared to previous data. Numbers adjusted again. Data compared again. Repeat until one can extrapolate on appropriate change in the armor values needed to handle the weapon damage being brought back up to their long term damage (with changes after PTR).

To the second; Keep calm and don't panic. Games have taken longer than this to be coded, tested, and released in their almost final form (how many required after patches after release? quite a few, iirc). Work within what we do have, not what we wish it would have been.

Overall it was a good first step to constructively engage collectively. Will stay tuned for further developments.

Edited by Morashtak, 26 July 2013 - 12:14 PM.

[RG Notch]

Haven't they already ignored this same "letter" from the same people, our ELO overlords again and again. Oh well you know that whole definition of insanity thing and all.
I guess 100th times the charm for them to let the "competitive" community make the decisions for the rest of us unwashed masses.
Seriously, what's the difference this time? I've been reading the same pleas from the same vocal minority for months and PGI hasn't listened yet.

[Gwaihir]

Morashtak, on 26 July 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

1) PGI is not going to re-write entire portions of the code, let alone the entire game, between now and launch.

This is important, and bears repeating for me. Aside from features that all of us generically want, (CW, Lobbies, UI2.0), I don't think there are *any* code changes that need to happen to get a balanced game. The most consistently mentioned item last night was balance (along with new player experience), which can *easily* get hammered out just by changing weapon and health numbers on the test server. With the right balance to weapons, you don't need special new convergence systems, heat systems, boat penalties, hardpoint sizes, nothing. It's been done in other games and it can be done here. I think most of us are just super frustrated that, effectively, it hasn't been done for the last 6 months.

[Elyam]

Gwaihir, I like your long post. To me, it's a reasonable set of approaches, particularly the armor and internal structure % increase. Perhaps something like 12.5% more armor and 25% (or even 37.5%) more IS would be very interesting.

(I would rather see dynamic fire deviation as a core mechanic of any BT/MW game, but since that is not the future of MWO, I want to see the best ideas for the present system thrive)

{edit: typos}

Edited by Elyam, 26 July 2013 - 12:22 PM.

[Gwaihir]

I think, thematically, one of the things that I would most like to see is for mechs to spend far more time in a seriously damaged to crippled state, which a large internals buff would help with.

When a lot of us think about mech combat, we tend to think about limping around with half a machine left, only a couple of weapons, and bashing on each other until finally the last enemy falls. That doesn't really happen now, we generally go from "Everything's good!" to "Red CT/Side torso armor" to "Deep red internals/dead"

e: A larger ratio of internals to armor buff also indirectly helps LBX weapons, MGs, and other crit happy weapons with spread, like SRMs.

Also along these lines, one of the things that I would realllly like to see, which was mentioned by a couple of PGI guys on their friday stream (I can't take credit for this idea, but it's a damned good one), is applying a damage reduction modifier to certain mechs, to compensate for hitboxes. Think like the ones applied to sections with missile doors. All of us know what a hunchback looks like, and absolutely expect it to have an iconic hunch, but that huge SHOOT ME HERE sign is a MASSIVE handicap, compared to something like Centurions. Going through and evaluating mechs based on their hitboxes, and putting varying levels of DR on each section would help out a ton in terms of evening out relative goodness of different mechs. An Awesome might not be so strictly inferior to a stalker in every way if it's huge slab sided left and right torsos got some extra DR on them.

Edited by Gwaihir, 26 July 2013 - 12:32 PM.

[fil5000]

Stalkerr, on 26 July 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

Please keep things civil and bad posts to a minimum. For the sake of the sanity of the mods, if for nothing else

Just a reminder that this should probably extend to ignoring people that aren't interested in anything other than sparking a flame war. If you see a poster that's clearly just fanning the flames, don't bother replying. We've got plenty to talk about without having to descend to that sort of thing, I'm sure.

[Stormwolf]

GaussDragon, on 26 July 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

Yeah but these stories are just that, stories. If you let them hamstring a real time game, you get a bad game. I doubt Stackpole had any concept of weapon balance when he was writing a story about giant robots fighting. The lore was made to sound grandiose, it was never written to take a balanced PC game into consideration, c'mon.

Stackpole didn't exactly write the weapons descriptions I'm talking about. But while talking about Stackpole, he never wrote about a mech that gunned down a Marauder II with a MG.

My point here is, there are plenty of weapons and effects that really need to get their stats altered from what they are in the TT. But they should preserve the identity of weapons at the same time. The AC20 is always going to be a short range heavy hitter, the gauss is always going to be the long range high damage weapon. You can play with their damage, reload and range stats, but that they should have a general feel to them in line with their function.

Edited by Stormwolf, 26 July 2013 - 12:35 PM.

[Rippthrough]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 12:06 PM, said:

Unfortunately.

I'd currently prefer it if PGI removed mechs like the Spider SDR-5K. It just isn't viable in the game.

It is THE most fun mech to play that I have.

[Gwaihir]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

My point here is, there are plenty of weapons and effects that really need to get their stats altered from what they are in the TT. But they should preserve the identity of weapons at the same time. The AC20 is always going to be a short range heavy hitter, the gauss is always going to be the long range high damage weapon. You can play with their damage, reload and range stats, but that they should have a general feel to them in line with their function.

Oh, absolutely there. I don't think anyone at all wants to do something like making the AC20 anything other than a short ranged brutalizer. Similarly, no problem with gauss being a high damage long range pinpont weapon, they just need to have the right stats to back up their role.

[GaussDragon]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

My point here is, there are plenty of weapons and effects that really need to get their stats altered from what they are in the TT. But they should preserve the identity of weapons at the same time. The AC20 is always going to be a short range heavy hitter, the gauss is always going to be the long range high damage weapon. You can play with their damage, reload and range stats, but that they should have a general feel to them in line with their function.

These are very elastic terms. It's incredibly hard to satisfy everyone when using these as your method evaluation. And for the sake of argument, if all the weapons did somehow feel like they were supposed to, what do we do about the ones that are still overwhelmingly more effective in the game anyways? For those that want a reason to use all the weapons based on actual usability, and not some nebulous idea of feel, the only weapons that effectively exist as content in the game are the ones that work overwhelmingly better than the others. This is why a more objective and concrete metric like balance needs (IMO) to be followed.

[Stormwolf]

GaussDragon, on 26 July 2013 - 12:45 PM, said:

These are very elastic terms. It's incredibly hard to satisfy everyone when using these as your method evaluation. And for the sake of argument, if all the weapons did somehow feel like they were supposed to, what do we do about the ones that are still overwhelmingly more effective in the game anyways? For those that want a reason to use all the weapons based on actual usability, and not some nebulous idea of feel, the only weapons that effectively exist as content in the game are the ones that work overwhelmingly better than the others. This is why a more objective and concrete metric like balance needs (IMO) to be followed.

Then enlighten me to your balance model and stats.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Personally I don't appreciate rewriting what a piece of equipment, system, or weapon does in the MW universe. BAP countering ECM as an example, didn't happen ever in MW but PGI decided to just up and change what something in the MW universe does. It's not necessary to rewrite what things do to create balance in MWO. If this is going to be the standard for development of this game then frankly I am worried. Systems should not change role, they should be correct for an online game. Obviously TT rules will not translate over to a PC game or even a console game, so tweaking things to fit a game like this must be done and I understand this completely as a former Alpha Tester in Mechwarrior Living Legends. The Devs and Alpha Testers from MWLL had done an awesome job and put in hours and hours (sometimes 8 hours) on a Sunday during the meetings to test things, PGI seems to run on a metronome of Nerf/Buff/Nerf/Buff till they quiet down some mad players.

Shout out to SJ Maus on his comments as the former Balance man for MWLL, completely agree with him (Which is very rare, right Maus).

Also the creation the the 4 and 8 Man has taken quite a toll on my friends list and the player base. Not being able to have more then 4 in your group always leaves people out and they eventually leave, or we try to rotate people in which is very very aggravating and we usually lose people who just don't feel like waiting around.

There were so many great points in the Townhall to spend the evening touching on all them. Unfortunately I don't hold much hope for anyone from MWO taking this for what it really is (a cry to fix the game) rather then a threat to them, I maybe wrong about it but it's been my experience that they will more likely get defensive.

I would like to see (if it hasn't happened yet) the creation of a new forum, lead by those who put this together to tackle each topic in their own thread, and to bring up any future topics. With a Troll lock on the forum door.

Thank you everyone who contributed, now we wait to see.

[GaussDragon]

Stormwolf, on 26 July 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

Then enlighten me to your balance model and stats.

This would involve an enormous :effort: post. Rather, it's the merit of the approach I'm debating with you, not the specifics.

[Chronojam]

Thanks again to everybody who was able to show up, sent a representative, followed along in their own gathering, or caught up on the recording after the fact. We had unit leaders still hanging around, both bantering and discussing the real issues, a full six hours after the main event started. It's awesome to see such dedication.

GaussDragon, on 26 July 2013 - 01:18 PM, said:

This would involve an enormous :effort: post. Rather, it's the merit of the approach I'm debating with you, not the specifics.

That's the correct angle to take right now, and a lot of people realize it. We can't really do things like shout out exact numbers for SRMs or PPCs or small pulse lasers immediately. The main topic we need to address right now is process.

[Gwaihir]

Werewolf486, on 26 July 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

Shout out to SJ Maus on his comments as the former Balance man for MWLL, completely agree with him (Which is very rare, right Maus).

Personally I would be A-OK with just copying MWLL's numbers for weapons and health wholesale, as a place to start. They're not perfect, but they've been worked on and tweaked for a lot longer than MWO's have.

[Stalkerr]

I have lost at least 8 hours of sleep this week over #saveMWO. It was worth it to get together with such a great group of people and chat about robots all night.

[Rippthrough]

^^When I went to bed it was full on daylight and if I'd got a gun, there'd be a dozen dead chirruping fkn birds this morning.

[GaussDragon]

Chronojam, on 26 July 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

Thanks again to everybody who was able to show up, sent a representative, followed along in their own gathering, or caught up on the recording after the fact. We had unit leaders still hanging around, both bantering and discussing the real issues, a full six hours after the main event started. It's awesome to see such dedication.



That's the correct angle to take right now, and a lot of people realize it. We can't really do things like shout out exact numbers for SRMs or PPCs or small pulse lasers immediately. The main topic we need to address right now is process.

Stalkerr, on 26 July 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

I have lost at least 8 hours of sleep this week over #saveMWO. It was worth it to get together with such a great group of people and chat about robots all night.

Rippthrough, on 26 July 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

^^When I went to bed it was full on daylight and if I'd got a gun, there'd be a dozen dead chirruping fkn birds this morning.

I've run out of likes again, so these.