103 replies to this topic

[Telemetry]

With all the complaints about everyone running assaults and heavies and all the complaints about matchmaking missmatches, boating, etc. It occurred to me that bringing back balance in part means bringing back consequences.

By consequences, I mean Expenses. Here is a quick list of expenses and why it might help:

- Initial cost of dropping by tonnage: This will reflect the space used in a drop ship, fuel costs, etc. It also serves as a balance mechanism to make players have to decide what mech makes sense based on their financial situation. Mecwarriors have to worry about the bottom line. Certain drops for factions can reduce the costs.

- Repair costs: We used to have this. It simply costs more to repair an expensive mech with more expensive armor, weapons, structure. Again, this would make pilots decide whether it makes sense to alwasy drop that D-DC or Stalker boat. Having a relatively high repair bill for large beam weapons would limit boating.

- Rearm costs: Another item we used to have. Missles and Ballistics were balanced in previous games by the costs or rearming them. Bringing this back will reduce the AC/Missile boating.


So, applying something like this would have a good effect by balancing how many times someone could drop assault mechs and actually make money. If players could make more money with lighter mechs, it would cause the player base to think more about what to drop.

Also, there needs to be more use for currency in game to balance the economy. The drop costs are part of that equation. Once CW comes in, maybe there are costs for fuel to get to a certain system. Costs for intel on certain worlds, etc.

This is all just food for thought on how to balance the game without resorting to just tuning weapon damage and heat.

Edited by Telemetry, 24 July 2013 - 05:17 AM.

[Mechteric]

The problem with R&R is that is didn't actually hurt good players who won their matches, but really hurt those who lose a lot. If you're only scraping by making 40-60K per lost match and then get dinged for most of that, then the grind would be even worse than it already is.

The way I see it, R&R should only exist in the most highly competitive portions of the game, possibly only for community warfare and only first person hardcore type crowd.

[Yankee77]

Personally I think we should have repair/rearm as part of Community Warfare, alongside a more developed logistics feature for entire units (sort of late-phase CW). Things like tracking ammo supplies, spare parts, and so on. As part of a full campaign feature that would be awesome.

But for random pugging? I can see why the current situation is preferable. Keep in mind that economics balancing is generally bad: it basically means that people who have tons of money are free to use the Better More Expensive Stuff just by virtue of being richer.

A weapon or mech shouldn't be better in-game just because it cost more to obtain or maintain in the metagame. All this would do is favour premium pilots, as they'd more easily be able to afford repair and rearm costs. Some might even call this P2W.

[Tombstoner]

R&R is not fun. it prevents me from using the mechs i like to play. if it happens to be an assault then so be it.
If this game some day supports off line game play with a story driven campaign. Then yes i would want R&R to add debth, more BT realism. then i'd be all for it.

it would never promote a larger range of mech types used but needlessly frustrate players into leaving.

[James The Fox Dixon]

We did it before and ammo based builds got screwed over big time. They got screwed over so bad that many players, including me, couldn't afford a second or third variant to master a particular chassis because we lost money on a win. I'm not talking a small amount of money, but several hundred thousand c-bills a match on a win and worse on a loss. Economics doesn't balance anything, but I know of one sure fire way that will balance the matches. That is the old match maker that balanced everything by weight class. If you had 2 lights, 2 mediums, 2 heavies, and 2 assaults then you were assured to be facing the same composition with the occasional exception that you faced a different composition.

Edited by James The Fox Dixon, 24 July 2013 - 05:37 AM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Yes, what this game needs is more grinding and more complicated/clunky/unintuitive systems with unintended consequences.

[Blackadder]

balancing MWO by economic means has been proven not to work, given the lack of adequate controls. In tiers like WOT you have far more control, and can adjust individual levels of income. In MWO, all it does is allow the players who spend money to rise to the top, with little to no risk, and forces the new players or players who cant afford to run competitive mechs, to basically be cannon fodder.

[CygnusX7]

I sucked when we had RR and other than the deflated grind aspect of it I didn't really feel like it made all that much difference.
Always made at least enough to repair and from a positive pov it made me focus more on staying alive.

Edited by CygnusX7, 24 July 2013 - 06:17 AM.

[Hythos]

What then, is the point of Rental 'Mech's?

If people want to make money on a consistent basis? Run something that won't cost 100-200K per match. This will force more stock units into play, along with lower-value machines (IE, not the 'flavor of the month). This will also force players to run Flavor of the Month units (historically, PPC Stalkers and 3xPPC+Gauss HGN's - because those people think they can force their way to the top... only to find that they only win 50% of the time... thereby, limiting the number of players that can and do "play to win" (with PPC-heavy units) because they either lose too much money, or can't make any money.

Rearm and Repair is a satisfactory method of limiting the 'high value' (typically assault) -heavy matches.

[Master Q]

As long as so many of the modules and even some of the weapons cost more C-bills than many of the Mechs do, no sale.

[3rdworld]

There is R&R.

Its called CoolShot.

[Hellcat420]

repair and rearm encourages boating and high alpha builds.

[Hythos]

CygnusX7, on 24 July 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

I sucked when we had RR and other than the deflated grind aspect of it I didn't really feel like it made all that much difference.
Always made at least enough to repair and from a positive pov it made me focus more on staying alive.

That's correct - people seemed to play wiser, and safer. Less missle-boats over-all (needed to be mentioned as people are now complaining that LRM's are again over-powered). Since R&R was removed, we've seen droves of players suicide and quit the match for fast cash/xp(?apparently it was fast?) - and extreme loss of tactics. Capping has no purpose, and cash from Conquest has little benefit.
With R&R, players fight harder, wiser, and are more focused on maximizing the amount of gains per round (IE, conquest capping). This would force an increase in usefulness of Mediums due to speed, cost (inexpensive vs heavy + assaults) ... yet another element that seems to be a popular talking-point / complaint.

[Royalewithcheese]

Incidentally, on FOTM, keep in mind that it actually has nothing to do with cost. For any given cost level, R&R actively punishes players for bringing robots that are "balanced", non-optimized, or out of sync with the current meta.

[Syllogy]

Repair and Rearm as a balancing tool? ... No.

[Murphy7]

Itkovian, on 24 July 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

Personally I think we should have repair/rearm as part of Community Warfare, alongside a more developed logistics feature for entire units (sort of late-phase CW). Things like tracking ammo supplies, spare parts, and so on. As part of a full campaign feature that would be awesome.

But for random pugging? I can see why the current situation is preferable. Keep in mind that economics balancing is generally bad: it basically means that people who have tons of money are free to use the Better More Expensive Stuff just by virtue of being richer.

A weapon or mech shouldn't be better in-game just because it cost more to obtain or maintain in the metagame. All this would do is favour premium pilots, as they'd more easily be able to afford repair and rearm costs. Some might even call this P2W.

QFT

For me, one of the things I enjoyed a great deal in TT was playing in a campaign where repairs, salvage, rearming were part of your logistics and strategy, where the actual battles were more tactical. It put value on retreat and an attempt to preserve war materiel.

That is the kind of thing I would love to see as an option in Community Warfare. There is no place or need for it in randoming picking up a few games just bash robots with one another.

[James The Fox Dixon]

Hythos, on 24 July 2013 - 06:29 AM, said:

That's correct - people seemed to play wiser, and safer. Less missle-boats over-all (needed to be mentioned as people are now complaining that LRM's are again over-powered). Since R&R was removed, we've seen droves of players suicide and quit the match for fast cash/xp(?apparently it was fast?) - and extreme loss of tactics. Capping has no purpose, and cash from Conquest has little benefit.
With R&R, players fight harder, wiser, and are more focused on maximizing the amount of gains per round (IE, conquest capping). This would force an increase in usefulness of Mediums due to speed, cost (inexpensive vs heavy + assaults) ... yet another element that seems to be a popular talking-point / complaint.

Oh this is ******** since during the R&R days people still suicided and afked their way through the c-bill grind. People didn't play harder, wiser, and were more focused on their gains unless they happened to have founders or hero mechs. Even then you weren't guaranteed that they wouldn't suicide or afk their way through the match. Rose tinted glasses is what you're looking through.

[Miekael]

Itkovian, on 24 July 2013 - 05:25 AM, said:

A weapon or mech shouldn't be better in-game just because it cost more to obtain or maintain in the metagame. All this would do is favour premium pilots, as they'd more easily be able to afford repair and rearm costs. Some might even call this P2W.

This right here is probably the most important part. I personally would love a R&R mechanic brought into the CW aspect of the game, however, it would have to be disconnected from any sort of MC/Premium Time benefits, or you are essentially allowing people who can spend money, an advantage.

I still believe it could work for CW, maybe along the lines of unit logistic ratings. A numerical value that can increase/decrease based on how economically efficient you can run you merc unit, while not giving any consideration for individual member premium times or MC purchases. Ideally that number could put restrictions on drops for units in CW, say the lower the number, the less tonnage you could bring to a fight, even lower numbers and maybe you drop with half ammo. Fight (win/lose) under harsher conditions would increase your rating, allowing you to bring more to the drop next time.

This could be further augmented by planet capture, say planet X has a munitions manufacturing plant, owning the planet allows you to drop with full ammo at a lower logistic rating then you would have.

These are all just random thoughts right off the top of my head, but I think that a system like this could be a great mechanic in a CW, but it would have to be very carefully planned, and would probably require more work then PGI could handle any time soon.

[xCico]

[Hythos]

James The Fox Dixon, on 24 July 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:

Oh this is ******** since during the R&R days people still suicided and afked their way through the c-bill grind. People didn't play harder, wiser, and were more focused on their gains unless they happened to have founders or hero mechs. Even then you weren't guaranteed that they wouldn't suicide or afk their way through the match. Rose tinted glasses is what you're looking through.

Because those were the reasons PGI took out R&R aren't they. Though, I could see how someone who only PUG's could think that.