130 replies to this topic

[Villz]

ryoma, on 06 September 2013 - 01:08 AM, said:

When you balance around a metagame used by low kill players it creates large waves and ripples in higher level play where intricacies can be exploited.

This explains the see saw effect we've seen a million times
PGI intorduces a change
things are ok for a bit
high level players find a way to break it
things stop being ok as this knowledge trickles down.

The problem isn't that the devs are bad at the game really, but that they don't use good enough players to assist them in balance. Videos like in my OP post surfaced within days of 3PV implementation and show one of the aspects of 3PV that is downright OP in the hands of someone who isn't terrible at this game. If these people were involved in testing then such bad balance changes wouldn't hit servers so often.

Look forward to UAC/5.

If thats the case im going to start making a video guide, patch to patch. On how to be the cheesiest dirtiest build u can fathom so everyone can figure it out within 1 week and i'll cause them eventually to reconsider their oversight

Edited by Villz, 06 September 2013 - 05:52 AM.

[DegeneratePervert]

Villz, on 06 September 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

If thats the case im going to start making a video guide, patch to patch. On how to be the cheesiest dirtiest build u can fathom so everyone can figure it out within 1 week and i'll cause them eventually to reconsider their oversight

Whatever helps you sleep at night, dude.

Try hard is an insult that low-end players (like myself) who refuse to devote a whole lot of time to this game throw at the high end players who they perceive as "trying too hard," or "not realizing that this is a game, and busting out spreadsheets kinda ruins it," whenever we're thrown on a losing streak and are getting frustrated.

This game needs to be balanced around those "try-hards." They're the ones who care about this game the most, as evidenced by their continued presence in this game despite their "#saveMWO" rallies and such. They're the ones who are going to devote hours and hours and hours to this game, finding every little bug and exploit to gain an advantage, because they are ultra-competitive and their competition will be doing the same. Try-Hards are the best testers PGI could ask for.

This is why we need a public ranking system... so that we know whose opinion to trust when it comes to balancing weapons and such.

[King Picollo]

I would have thought they'd balance based on stats not on any specific levels of gameplay.

[Kaspirikay]

Casuals will leave this game.

True fans will stay.

Cater to the stable playerbase.

[ryoma]

DegeneratePervert, on 06 September 2013 - 06:06 AM, said:

This game needs to be balanced around those "try-hards." They're the ones who care about this game the most, as evidenced by their continued presence in this game despite their "#saveMWO" rallies and such. They're the ones who are going to devote hours and hours and hours to this game, finding every little bug and exploit to gain an advantage, because they are ultra-competitive and their competition will be doing the same. Try-Hards are the best testers PGI could ask for.

This is why we need a public ranking system... so that we know whose opinion to trust when it comes to balancing weapons and such.

This guy gets it. Try hards aren't the heroes we want, but the heroes we need.

Kaspirikay, on 06 September 2013 - 06:11 AM, said:

Casuals will leave this game.

True fans will stay.

Cater to the stable playerbase.

According to Bryan we're a "small, small" demographic.

I come back to this thread in the morning and find myself stunned by the community response. Thank you level headed people who understand this.

Edited by ryoma, 06 September 2013 - 06:21 AM.

[Team Leader]

Villz, on 06 September 2013 - 04:19 AM, said:

Clearly not as shown by your presence here ;-)

Reading the forums like a bystander at a horrible impending train wreck =/= playing the game or paying any money for it ;-)

[General Taskeen]

Some balance changes occur due to Devs getting owned in 8 or 12 mans. So what they see and experience is how they react to a change. If they get owned by knockdown (which was bugged anyways) it was removed, if they get owned by peepeecee's, nerf, with nonsensical things like "TT 90m PPC min range."

[ryoma]

Screech, on 06 September 2013 - 05:42 AM, said:

I think you should look up what a MMO is, this game is not a MMO. Comparing this game to LoL and WoW is laughable at best.

You're right. MWO isn't an MMO. It's a competitive lobby game like LoL, Counter Strike, Dota, or Natural selection 2. These kinds of games need to be balanced around relatively high levels of play in order to be balanced because of the trickle down effect.

Example: PPCs a few months ago suddenly got really good, but only good players noticed this and certainly not the devs, so high level play became PPC fest. Within a few months more and more lower skill players caught on and the entire game became PPC fest. This is an example of why high level play needs to be understood by the balancing team, or at least include higher level players in the balancing process.

Example of companies who do do ^: Riot Games. The game devs use professional players in their game balancing. I know the same happens with Counter Strike.

Any MWO player worth their salt will tell you the 3PV offers a significant tactical advantage to this game that minimizes the requirement for light and medium 'scout' mechs. Now the only reason to bring a light is ECM, but even then an Atlas D-DC can bring one and utilize 3PV and scout very well.

[Roland]

The problem with trying to balance for poor players, is that they don't really understand how the game works.

Thus, you are pursuing a fool's errand. You can't balance a game for folks who don't know how to play the game, because you aren't balancing the game itself. You're trying to balance against their (incorrect) perception of the game, rather than the actual game mechanics. For instance, imagine you had some weapon that could one-shot mechs, but which a new player was simply unaware of. Would his disregard of that weapon make it balanced? No, of course not, it's simply a manifestation of his lack of understanding, rather than a manifestion of some actual game mechanic.

There are certainly cases where certain items, when balanced for high tier play, are seemingly unbalanced for low tiers because weaker players do not know how to counter them (LRM's come to mind), but ultimately you must balance the game against players who actually understand the game. You can't balance against players who don't understand the game, because then you're going to be trying to hit a moving target... Not only will different low tier players have totally different perspectives regarding the game, and thus require different balancing approaches, but their own perspectives will change over time as they learn more about how the game itself works.

[ryoma]

I like your sig Roland, it really highlights the meaning of this thread

[tenderloving]

krash27, on 06 September 2013 - 03:58 AM, said:

Realy? Quote your sources. You can't just say that every serious game on the market now uses elite-level play for balance decisions and not prove it. So prove it, show us FACTS, not you taking wild guesses. You say every hgame, I will be happy if you prove a lot of games do.

Nah. I got more than 5 likes on my post, from people much smarter than I with a deeper understanding of game balance, and you got zero. I'm happy with that; it's a forum after all.

Edited by tenderloving, 06 September 2013 - 07:20 AM.

[Deathlike]

Balance should be done at ALL LEVELS OF PLAY.

Here's some examples that should explain the problems:

1) The Gauss Rifle "adjustment" is unintuitive. This can actually confuse the newbie since the mechanic of the Gauss Rifle is not the simple "click and fire". At higher levels, this isn't as much as an issue. Adding something like a charge noise... similar to one applied to the Bombast Laser in MW4 would greatly help the newbie, and not magically imbalance the game.

2) LRMs are always a source of contention for players... it either seems to do too much or too little damage, depending on who you speak to.

The newbies complaining about it doing too little damage probably have not figured out the keys to making them most effective (having a dedicated spotter and/or using TAG).

The newbies complaining about it doing too much damage probably don't do the usual "get cover from LRMs" using buildings and terrain to their advantage AND the simple GETTING OUT OF THE SPOTTERS' FOV.

If we let LRM balance be dictated by newbies, it can become LRMageddon or "completely useless" in the same tone.

Understand that balance is intricate and needs actual analysis AND abuse to see where you need to tweak. It cannot be something that is arbitrary and hard to understand.

That is why you must BALANCE ACROSS ALL LEVELS OF PLAY.

Edited by Deathlike, 06 September 2013 - 07:22 AM.

[Rippthrough]

Gizmoh, on 06 September 2013 - 04:20 AM, said:

since he was powerful yet easy to use

Ease of use is something you use to set differing characteristics, not something you use to balance weapons.

Ideally, you'd take balance figures on weapon stats from the top-end players, so you know the weapons are all balanced in outright performance, and allow a variety of viable playstyles.
Then you'd poll the new guys to the game as to which weapons they're having difficulty using or they're avoiding altogether, and use that to alter fire characteristics, etc.

Edited by Rippthrough, 06 September 2013 - 07:33 AM.

[Lostdragon]

This game is actually a lot like a MMORPG that has organized PVP like WoW, Rift, AoC, WAR, etc. All of those games involve building a character that is designed to play a role on the battlefield. Leveling up in those games is a lot like unlocking skills in MWO except MWO does not yet have meaningful choices that cater to a specific role. All of these games involve selecting gear that is appropriate for the role you want to play.

In all of these examples knowledge of the game mechanics and the math behind them results in optimized builds and play. The use of sound tactics by a coordinated team will thrash a group of PuGs in all of them, therefore most require premade teams to only fight other premade teams.

So while the actual game play is quite different the core concepts are very similar. People who can play any of the MMOs I mentioned at the highest levels of PvP could come into MWO and do well. They may not have the twitch skills needed to be the very best but they would be able to understand the underlying systems and figure out how to choose a good chassis and create a solid build in the mechlab. Their experience in coordinated PvP would mean they understand how to work as a group and use superior tactics. They would understand they have a role to play and would do everything possible to fill that role.

Any game focused on PvP that does not balance around this type of player is not going to succeed in the long term because these players are the leaders of the most successful clans, guilds etc. but they do not want to play a game that is not reasonably well balanced. When they give up on a game then the community starts to fall apart. Look at the history of some of the games I mentioned and you can easily see this trend.

[Corvus Antaka]

so what if they do?

MWO doesn't even have comp play yet beyond groups forming lances or 12v12 sync drops, which are unreliable at best.

Further, only a tiny % of the community cares about the highest level of play. Of course PGI balances for the masses, they pay the bills, not the top 1 % , otherwise we never would have gotten 3PV either.

[Grimlox]

ryoma, on 06 September 2013 - 06:30 AM, said:

Example: PPCs a few months ago suddenly got really good, but only good players noticed this and certainly not the devs, so high level play became PPC fest. Within a few months more and more lower skill players caught on and the entire game became PPC fest. This is an example of why high level play needs to be understood by the balancing team, or at least include higher level players in the balancing process.

As you say PPC's and Gauss were the king in high level play and that just got 'balanced' in the last patch. Sure it took them a while, but perhaps they were waiting until the latest HSR buff came in to make the changes.

Right now it seems high skill players are using a lot more UAC/5's. What has PGI said they are looking at next? UAC/5's.

I believe there was also a poll to have 3pv removed from competitive 12matches. That seems like a direct balance for high level play.

Do you think right now they need to be looking at other balance changes for high level play?

[Roland]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 06 September 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

so what if they do?

MWO doesn't even have comp play yet beyond groups forming lances or 12v12 sync drops, which are unreliable at best.

Further, only a tiny % of the community cares about the highest level of play. Of course PGI balances for the masses, they pay the bills, not the top 1 % , otherwise we never would have gotten 3PV either.

Panda, even aside from actual organized competition (which actually does tend to contribute heavily to the longevity of a game, as well as the revenue received from the player base) most of what folks here are talking about is more directed at balancing against how GOOD PLAYERS play the game, as opposed to trying in vain to balance against how bad players play the game.

As I said above, you can't balance for how bad players will play, because you're then balancing against their incomplete and incorrect perceptions of how the game mechanics work, rather than the game mechanics themselves.

[Syllogy]

NamesAreStupid, on 06 September 2013 - 02:19 AM, said:

Balancing for 'those' players, means balancing for everyone.

And yet, everyone has a different idea of "Balanced."

[Shae Starfyre]

You can read the following for some indepth info on Game Balancing Design:

http://en.wikipedia....ce_(game_design)

Note; looks like that end Parenthesis is causing a link issue (cut and paste).

It looks like, based on the read, that there are various methods, and according to Design Lead at Bungie, he said in a lecture, "every fight in Halo is unfair" This potential for unfairness creates uncertainty, leading to the tension and excitement that action games seek to deliver.

Based on most of the threads (if not all) in these forums...

Working as intended.

Edited by Aphoticus, 06 September 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Lostdragon]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 06 September 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

so what if they do?

MWO doesn't even have comp play yet beyond groups forming lances or 12v12 sync drops, which are unreliable at best.

Further, only a tiny % of the community cares about the highest level of play. Of course PGI balances for the masses, they pay the bills, not the top 1 % , otherwise we never would have gotten 3PV either.

CW will hopefully bring a true competitive aspect to the game. The masses may pay the bills but the top 1% drive the community and the game. People see what those top players are accomplishing and they want to do that too. They may never get to the level where they win tournaments but if the drive to be able to play with the best in the game keeps a lot of people interested and playing.

In vanilla WoW less than 1% of players cleared Naxx. I saw dozens of guilds break up because they could not kill Vael in BWL but a lot of those players kept playing and tried to get into the best guilds that were beating that content.

Having that top tier is very important because without a meaningful end game you don't retain players. They play to a certain point where they feel satisfied with their accomplishments and then they move on. You have to give people a reason to want to keep playing the game for years and having that upper echelon of top players is a big incentive to a lot of people.