28 replies to this topic

[MadTulip]

After a long time of seeing PGIs balance issues ive come to the conclusion that PGI cant be THAT STUPID. Nowerdays i actualy believe they can use the rule of proportion and i think that PGI is willingly and on intend imbalancing some weapons to produce a new mete which requires new/other chassis in order to sell those.

[MadTulip]

when the highlander and misery was out ppcs and gauss meta was on its peak.
when the firebrand came out ac20 meta was on its peak
when the kintaro came out they buffed ssrm
at the moment you can buy an ilya if you dont have one already.

the current UAC5 buff is by now way an accident. Its eigther to sell ilyas or to distract from the gauss nerv and 3pv anger. At first everyone likes the "ive found the current OP weapon and kill them all with it for 1 week.". Then everybody known and all start to complain and so we just move on to adress it in an unpopular way and distract with the new OP weapon.

so we need some shift to all the lights and medium hero mechs somewhere soon. there is lots of cash in it. i bet if the new rewards system comes out they manage imbalance it to the state that youll earn most money per match with those.

youre balance changes are that stupid sometimes that it just becomes implausible that you dont get it. There is one guy whos job it is to balance the game. You cant tell me that if thats the only thing youre ought to do at youre job you still dont get it right after a year and do not get fired. You could even write some code to autobalance the game based on what you call telemetry. With that high number of measurements you have at youre disposal its close to impossible to mess up that hard. its on purpose!

i dislike it!

Edited by MadTulip, 09 September 2013 - 11:44 PM.

[Rayspace]

So the tail is wagging the dog is what you are saying. Intentional conspiracy to keep us so busy on the forums that we do not notice other "things" we would like even less? Not sure how that is possible. Really, I keep track of all the things that give me the gripes. 3PV - the only gripe I have is that they promised not to do it, like coolant flush. Its obvious when you think about it though. They are not wagging the dog. They are making changes by committee. It is the only thing that makes sense.

[Nihtgenga]

Why shouldn't they make changes to earn early money, if these could not really be discovered as such? Why is only "changes by committee" making sense? I can find no argument obviously invalidating the theory of MadTulip, even though I do not have any proof of that it is really true.

[MadTulip]

It is the name of the game. Make money is Nr. 1 priority as with every buisness which is just the way it is and somehow ok as it is somehow darwinistic imo, anyway. Free to play, pay more then for a normal game though.

Say you have the best mech. You dont need another then. So they constantly need to bring out a better one as they constantly need $$$. People will notice and complain that you constantly need to buy the new stuff and that the new stuff is allways getting better. So lets just add a few parameters to all mechs like the weapons they can load and globaly change those in order to shift what is good at the time back and forth so people wont notice but still need to buy it them all over time.

The heat penality system hits in the very same direction. If they would change the numer of slots a chassis has then people would complain A LOT that they bought the mech with this specs and thus exspect it to be as they bought it. by the heat penality system you can to a certain degree change the effectivness of some hardpoint combinations on some chassis to increase or decrease theire effectivness as you can with the single weapons. bad example :"firing 2 energy weapons at the same time produces +1000 heat". you better buy a chassis with those missiles on it which has the same problem in 4 weeks.

All this is just a screw to adjust what is currently good (sellable) and of course that has to change.

Also if you take a look at the frequency of changes. They change 2 numbers once a month. It has nothing to do with coding or beeing able to programm at all in most cases. Its a single number in an exel similar file you have to change. Why would this not be done weekly? It would be so easy to correlate a given weapon beeing used with the players chances to win. you can totaly ignore the what and why it did leed to victory. Adding statistics you can by the large number of datasets they have available easily say if this is just a random occurance or a stable imbalance vs other weapons.

With such statistics you could see the imbalance of weapon way before you can "feel" them in game. Still every month you as player can certainly develop a feeling for what currently works best. In psychologic experiments they suggest you get a feeling of controll if something behaves controllable in 70% or more of the cases. You will not notice 51%. statistics will definitivly do WAY earlier. So the guy doing the balancing will do the statistics and he does know exactly to what ammount what is imbalanced.

You could even change all those balancing parameters on a per day bases using automated algorythms which would self center on "all weapons are equally effective in helping you win the game". balancing not fully understood systems is a tecnique used everywhere from economics to chemistry to balancing a guided missile on track to its target. there are numerous already developed and working methods for this.

Its also not true that balancing those numbers needs a lot of thoughts or internal preparation/testing. you just set the AC20 damage to 100 per shot now and will have very conclusive numbers that the AC20 helps you win the game whenever you bring one only 2h later. Nerfing it back to 1 damage per shot will tell you the opposite in another 2h and so after like 1 week it will swing in to the equilibrium. So if you would be realy interested in balancing you would change the parameters a lot more often to observe its effects and be able to react. You have a waaaaaaay large enough number of games as observations after one or two days which would justify a parameter change.

NARC as an example is not used in 95% of the games. probably because its not good. lets change the hitpoints of the missile to the double value and see how many people use it next week ... a no brainer with no efford. why is that not done? there is no good reason not to do that if you intend to balance it. you can do it over your mobile phone while beeing on the toilet on the bahamas. but no, thats not possible for 6 month.

Its on intend or the balancing guy is the wrong one for the job. After one year of messing around he would be fired if he would be the wrong guy so the first seems to be the case to me.

anyway, the game is fun to play as trolling on the forums is.
glhf!

Edited by MadTulip, 10 September 2013 - 11:52 AM.

[MadTulip]

And now a week after UAC5 has been made the current meta the ilya (bringing 3 of them) and the firebrand (the other hero capable of using the UAC5s for good effect) are on sale. WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

realy pgi, this is to obvious and will upset quite some people. please try not to earn money with game balance. you have all other options. making money with game balance bringt playing it to absurdum. its pure p2w then. please take more care about those kinds of decisions.

Edited by MadTulip, 13 September 2013 - 11:38 PM.

[MadTulip]

Which ever of the players is interested in a balanced game should be aware of this (not as a fact) but constantly keep this in mind and reflect about the current meta and sales connected to it and complain in case it is needed. If it is true that PGI imbalances things in order to sell them this is a great insult to all those players arguing for hours about the current balance. It would show how much of a BAD OWRD they give on youre oppinion instead of your $$$. I believe that the evidence is quite conclusive here. more people need to keep an eye on this and if this continues to happen it has to be complained about. it is respectless to say on the one side say that "we will balance it" and on the other hand knowing and willingly imbalance it just for the $$$. can it be worse?

Edited by MadTulip, 13 September 2013 - 11:29 PM.

[VXJaeger]

+1 for greater justice.

[Dymlos2003]

These conspiracy posts are getting really good

[TOGSolid]

The funny part here is that I'm 100% willing to bet that all that's happening is that whoever handles this sort of thing is just tracking sales numbers and deciding to put on sale popular mechs because money is awesome. Of course, these mechs are popular due to the relevant broken meta so it just makes things worse and looks kinda bad.

Of course, this blatantly obvious sort of mistake doesn't line up with what you windowlicking conspiracy theorists want to believe because it's more fun for you guys to create some sort of crazy story that you can get mad at and spread around. PGI did 9/11, PGI lied electrons died, etc.

Edited by TOGSolid, 14 September 2013 - 12:41 AM.

[DeadlyNerd]

Hold on to your tinfoil hats.

[MadTulip]

TOGSolid, on 14 September 2013 - 12:40 AM, said:

The funny part here is that I'm 100% willing to bet that all that's happening is that whoever handles this sort of thing is just tracking sales numbers and deciding to put on sale popular mechs because money is awesome. Of course, these mechs are popular due to the relevant broken meta so it just makes things worse and looks kinda bad.

Of course, this blatantly obvious sort of mistake doesn't line up with what you windowlicking conspiracy theorists want to believe because it's more fun for you guys to create some sort of crazy story that you can get mad at and spread around. PGI did 9/11, PGI lied electrons died, etc.

This would be an explanation. On the other hand it also shows that you can even use the indirect number of mechs bought as an indicator to what is currently imbalanced. Which just underlines even more how easy it would be to actualy balance it even by such indirekt side effekts. They even have much better (more direct) data for each weapon available like the correlation of fielding the weapon with the chance to win the game and still do not balance it which kind of speaks against that theory.

regarding tin foil hats it would be much more effektive an easier to wear a small elektromagnetic white noise generator like mobile phone antenna to conceal your neuronal activity from distinct sensors.

Edited by MadTulip, 14 September 2013 - 12:58 AM.

[VXJaeger]

Tinfoil or not, really serious claim which should be answered by higher authorities.
Just too many co-incidences to put aside.

[Sharp Spikes]

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (C) Robert J. Hanlon

[Sharp Spikes]

On the other hand, I don't give PGI presumption of sanity anymore, so if MadTulip's theory will somehow prove itself as being true it won't surprise me at all. It's PGI we're dealing with - expect anything.

[FREDtheDEAD]

Look at previous OP weapon + mech combos:

(ER)PPC Stalker boats (before phantom heat penalty and PPC mega nerfs)

AC20 Jager and Catapults (they're still there but heat penalty reduces alphas)

(ER)PPC+Gauss Victor poptarts (before Gauss charging)

LRM boating Stalkers or Catapults (the various times LRMs have been insanely deadly)

SRM Catapults (ye Splatcat).

None of them required MC purchase. They were just bad balance decisions.

I put it to you that this is just a bad balance decision too...

[MizarPanzer]

Hey, I'd like to point out some facts for you:

• Hero mech sales has always occured at the middle of a particular month. It is this way this month, it was the same way last month, and it was also the same way the month before last. This month is a heavy mech month. This week is going to be a heavy hero mech sale, and it has been decided before countless cycles of nerfs and buffs to a myriad of weapons.
  
• UAC 5 was actually buffed almost 4 weeks ago.
  
• PGI has publically stated that UAC5 will be 'adjusted' about two weeks before this sales event. You know, trying to scam people by telling them you will scam them does not really work well.

Therefore OP, I have no problem with you posting your gripes with PGI. However, posts like these will just make you lose all credibility. As things stand, only the insane or the mentally chanllenged will ever believe what you are trying to say.

[MadTulip]

Xajorkith, on 14 September 2013 - 01:28 AM, said:

Look at previous OP weapon + mech combos:

(ER)PPC Stalker boats (before phantom heat penalty and PPC mega nerfs)

AC20 Jager and Catapults (they're still there but heat penalty reduces alphas)

(ER)PPC+Gauss Victor poptarts (before Gauss charging)

LRM boating Stalkers or Catapults (the various times LRMs have been insanely deadly)

SRM Catapults (ye Splatcat).

well as i already sayd before

when the highlander and misery was out ppcs and gauss meta was on its peak.
when the firebrand came out ac20 meta was on its peak
when the kintaro came out they buffed ssrm
at the moment UAC5 meta is present and ilya and firebrand are for sale

there where imbalances that where not acompanied by a hero mech sale (splatcat i.e., LRM apocalypse i.e.)

but

Xajorkith, on 14 September 2013 - 01:28 AM, said:

None of them required MC purchase. They were just bad balance decisions.

is invalid because its not about requiring MC purchase but more about beeing able to MC purchase the current meta. The more often you shift the current meta to other chassis the more chassis will be bought with MC. The kintaro i.e. doesnt have to, but can be boght with MC. there is some money coming from this. it doesnt require the hero mech in all cases, but current meta for quite some occasions was favoring certain chassis just beeing released. they might be bought with MC and theire hero variants might also be bought. its not that the CB variants wont do the current meta at all. its just that if you where to buy a hero then the one which is good by the current meta is the obvious choice and coincidentaly just release or advertised on sale.

- "hero mech sales always at md of month, this month is a heavy mech month"
yes so what? lets imbalance a certain hero mech variant this month. OP has neigther something to do with the time of the month nor the weight class.
- "uac5 was buffed almost 4 weeks ago."
and still they couldnt figure out not fix that its imba where everyone playing the game experiences it? maybe because the sale of ilya and firebrands was not through yet? they will fix the uac5 before the next sale next month. lets set what the meta and sale will be then.
- "PGI stated that uac5 will be adjusted"
Adjusted could mean up or down.

Anyway guys, this starts to take to much of my time. Form your own oppinion, i just wanted to point this out.

Edited by MadTulip, 14 September 2013 - 03:02 AM.

[Antagonist]

Always bet on stupid.

[Psychopathic]

I don't care about conspiracies in video games. They are business and making money is the concern of business's.

That being said I'm just going to ***** about a game I have already spent over 300 hundred dollars on. Every mech configuration I have has been made obsolete with the last few "balances" they have done and it makes me want to quit playing the damn thing and let me tell the dev's I will having nothing but bad things to say about this game if I do end up quitting and make sure everyone I know doesn't even try it.

I'm going to focus in on a couple of issues. As far as I see it all of the imbalances have one thing in common, they make LRM's the only weapon that is even worth installing. Why would they want to do that? Because noobs have no skill outside of locking on from clear across the map and lauching hundreds of damn missiles.

Ghost heat for SRM's is a huge disadvantage becuase you have to be up close and personal to use them. One salvo from an SRM 6 + a SRM 4 with my 1.3 heat efficient Kintaro makes every other weapon I have installed useless for the duration of that heat build up. You gimped them enough when you changed the damage value of the SRM's and made it exactly as much as LRM's. Call me a purest but in the original MW series the reason SRM's do more damage than LRM's is becuase LRM's require guidance systems and SRM's are dumb fire. IE THEY TAKE SKILL TO USE.

So why wouldn't ghost heat be an issue for LRM's? That's simple to answer becuase they are clear across the map and it doesn't really matter if they overheat.

Gimping the gauss rifle has pretty much made it so you have to choose between an XL engine OR a high caliber AC. Why you have to charge the gauss rifle is beyond me. It was gimped enough when they made it explode if your opponent so much as looks at you wrong. I also don't see the damn logic in charging the gauss and not the AC20 either. If you're going to gimp balistics you should have done it across the board and not selectively. I mean what the hell are cool down times for if not to get the weapon ready for the next salvo.

And now the ecm hardpoint which made me have to redesign ever single ECM mech I have. For the most part it was just an inconvience but my ECM atlas lost an SRM launcher out of the deal which severly hampered his effectiveness up close and personal. My complaint with that is you gimped my favorite mech. I mean did you have to make the hard point in the same place for all of them? No, but you did knowing that it would limit the weapons capacity on the atlas even though the center torso has enough slots to fit it and THERE IS NO WEAPON HARDPOINT IN THE CENTER TORSO. But you can't do that, oh no, becuase it couldn't be destroyed unless your mech goes down and that just wouldn't make LRM's the ultimate freaking weapon.

Now lets move on to AMS's. These don't work if 15+ missiles are fired at you and since most LRM's boats have 4 to 6 LRM 20's you may as well not even install them. Plus they use their ammo WAY too fast. One ton should either hold 2000 rounds or AMS ammo should only weigh half a ton.

And finally I move on to LRM's being overpowered. This happened when you changed the trajectory pattern of them. You can't hide from them behind terrain and with the advent of UAV's and Tag's cutting through ECM you also made that an obsolete component. No one has a chance against a boat unless they manage to get within 180 meters of the noob using LRM's. Going back to being a purest in the original MW games LRM's FIRED IN A STRAIGHT LINE, NO ******** ARC, NONE.

So my point is this the devs made their jobs a whole lot harder than they needed to. All they had to do was look at the board game values then port those into the weapons database and it would have been done. If they don't think the board game didn't go through it's own balancing they are up in the night.

So thank you devs for ruining a great classic game by trying to make it easier for new players and taking any skill out of the game. The fact is you shouldn't have a mech with nothing but LRM's because that is the most unbalanced scenario I can imagine. You might get more noobs to play but you're going to take any depth out of the game, That means people will not play as long which means they aren't going to spend as much.

I can only imagine one possibility why the devs would be doing this. And that is the people that donated 10,000+ dollars to the game have all of the say. Well let me lay it out for you dumb ***** 333.33 dollars spent by just 30 people is the same as 10 grand. Last time I checked there were a million members of the community so if they all just spent a hundred dollars that's a hundred million dollars and I don't care how much these big contributors gave you we will end up giving you WAY more and yet we don't seem to have any say in how the game functions. Do us all a favor and stop catoring to the lowest common denominator.

I wish I could say this rant made me feel better but I can't. It literaly makes me sick to see what you've done to this game.