231 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

For a while now, the important problems in MWO's gameplay balance have been made visible by how people are adapting to the current Meta game. There was the PPC + gauss era, the LRMapocalypse era, the AC40 era, the "ECM or bust" era (generally, the team with more ECM mechs than the enemy would win), and so on.

Today, it's not as easy for new players to read the current meta and understand what's going on. There's definitely more variety in both mech builds and chosen mech variants than before. You can't just sum up the problems of the game by saying "PPCwarrior online", for example. Describing the trends is a bit trickier than before.

Here are the rules for this thread:

• Explain the current biggest problem(s) for MWO gameplay balance in one sentence.
  
• Don't include any meta-game issues such as C-bills, piloting skills or module costs, or separate issues like maps and gamemodes.
  
• Please try to avoid hilarious, sarcastic comments like "Everything" or "Too many things to explain in a single sentence."
  
• Try to avoid a list of 50 different issues in the same sentence. Keep it succinct.

If we're lucky, I can compile a list of all your answers in a long list of short, but informative explanations.



I'll go first.
"The current major issues are lack of role warfare, poor matchmaking and too many one-sided battles where skilled individuals on the losing side have no chance of making a significant impact."

Spoiler

Comments by other people so far:
Flawed heat system: IIIII IIII
Pinpoint aiming / convergence: IIIII III
Poor matchmaking (rookies vs veterans): IIIII I
Mechs dying too quickly / too big center torsos: IIII
A certain few mechs and builds are far better than others: IIII
Gameplay isn't balanced for high level competitive play, only low level play: III
Poor ECM implementation: IIII
Hardpoint system: III
Lack of information warfare: III
Macros: III
Not enough size difference between light, medium, heavy and assault mechs: III
Poor Hit registration: II
Lack of tonnage restriction: II
No integrated teamspeak: I
Lack of variety and counters in weaponry: I
Too much FPS and not enough sim: I
Lack of collisions, collision damage or death from above: I
Too much alpha-striking: I
Lack of tutorials / rookie training: I
Inconsistent experience and mechanics: I
Disconnects: I

Edited by Alistair Winter, 12 September 2013 - 11:31 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Seasoned vets are dropping with shower shoes(rookies).

[DaZur]

Tryhards.

[Mudhutwarrior]

Putting pugs type chat teams against voice coodinated teams. Outcome same everytime.

Thinking those posting here is a snapshot of the player base. Most dont bother and just quit the game.

[JudgeDeathCZ]

Boating and newbies dropping with vets.

[Lootee]

Matchmaker can't do basic arithmetic.

How can you expect any part of the game to be balanced when the most fundamental concept of team vs team play, 12 players on each team, still doesn't happen a good 33% of the time.

Still seeing lots of 12 vs 11 and 12 vs 10 games. The very worst I've seen in the past was 8 vs 5. Not to mention the immediate disconnects at match start. Game reviewers doing write ups after launch may or may not know much about BattleTech rules, MWO weapon values and quirks, or FOTM mech chassis but they WILL know how to count to 12. And the first time they get ROFLstomped 12 vs 10 they'll change their review to read 'WTF is this {Scrap}?'

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 12 September 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

PanchoTortilla, on 12 September 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

Still seeing lots of 12 vs 11 and 12 vs 10 games. The very worst I've seen is 8 vs 5. Not to mention the immediate disconnects at match start. Game reviewers doing write ups after launch may or may not know much about BattleTech rules, MWO weapon values and quirks, or FOTM mech chassis but they WILL know how to count to 12. And the first time they get ROFLstomped 12 vs 10 they'll change their review to read 'WTF is this {Scrap}?'

Honestly, disconnects is not a big issue when I play this game (I rarely see one, let alone several), but that was hilarious.

[Voivode]

Current maps and gamemodes only allow players to encounter a small set of situations and all of those situations can be solved with the longrange flavor of the month build.

[Lootee]

Alistair Winter, on 12 September 2013 - 06:37 AM, said:

Honestly, disconnects is not a big issue when I play this game (I rarely see one, let alone several), but that was hilarious.

Yeah but when you see the guy in your only assault mech, an Atlas D-DC disconnect on match start it's like a stout kick in the crotch. I'm betting Elo doesn't take disconnects into account at all. If you start the match missing 1 teammate and anotjer one disconnects shortly I bet you take the full Elo hit when you get stomped.

[Lostdragon]

Time to kill is too low by a factor of at least two, ghost heat is a terrible system that needs to go away, heat capacity is too high and dissipation too low, hit registration still has some issues, lack of integrated voip is frustrating for pugs, and many mechs are either useless or OP due to hitboxes and/or scaling.

Edited by Lostdragon, 12 September 2013 - 06:52 AM.

[Voivode]

PanchoTortilla, on 12 September 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

Yeah but when you see the guy in your only assault mech, an Atlas D-DC disconnect on match start it's like a stout kick in the crotch. I'm betting Elo doesn't take disconnects into account at all. If you start the match missing 1 teammate and anotjer one disconnects shortly I bet you take the full Elo hit when you get stomped.

Yeah, that's totally true. Disconnects are awful for your team. On the other hand though, disconnects are way down since earlier this year, at least in my experience. Twelve man also makes having a single disconnect less of an issue. I'd like to see disconnects go away totally but compared to how it used to be (guaranteed at least one disconnect every match) it isn't too bad.

[stjobe]

PanchoTortilla, on 12 September 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

Yeah but when you see the guy in your only assault mech, an Atlas D-DC disconnect on match start it's like a stout kick in the crotch. I'm betting Elo doesn't take disconnects into account at all. If you start the match missing 1 teammate and anotjer one disconnects shortly I bet you take the full Elo hit when you get stomped.

I find it more of a "stout kick in the crotch" when I'm killed after an intense and even fight only to spectate our last surviving 'mech - a pristine assault - lumbering towards the front line with zero damage and no ammo expended. Where the deuce was he when we needed him?

It happens a lot more often than disconnects, as well.

[HammerSwarm]

Center torsos are too large and easy to hit.

[Sybreed]

pinpoint aiming + badly thought hardpoint system + messed up heat system = completely borked balance.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Ultra AC/5's gain benefit beyond the risk-reward double-fire mode (specifically a higher base rate of fire).

Weapon refire rate is directly inverse to the size/missilecount of the weapon with no regard to how this affects tonnage/crit balancing.

Alpha-striking pinpoint damage is far more of a win than consistent damage performance.

Large LRM clusters are bigger than light 'mechs and thus get scraped off on the floor or miss entirely when they wouldn't miss a larger 'mech, even at the same speed.

Torso hitboxes during gameplay do not match the torso sectioning shown in the Mechlab, resulting in misleading perceptions of which frames are more XL-engine-friendly than others.

Many new players treat this game the same as a standard FPS, where one or two hits will do you in, and this is a terrible mentality for using Assault and most Heavy 'mechs in ways that benefit your team.

There are no easily-found informationals in the game or in the basic makeup of the website to edify you on: Torso/Arm locking, torso twisting and its uses, why the Pilot Lab is so important, how expensive it really is to fit out a 'mech into a more useful configuration, how jump jets interact with 'mech rate of motion, how engine ratings interact with torso-twisting and turning, what that Heat Efficiency number actually is saying (I still don't understand what '1.14 heat efficiency' means and how much better it is than 1.35 efficiency), why Beagle Probes are worthwhile, and probably a few other important bits of information.

You gain no benefit for surviving the match, win or lose, but some people still value their KD ratio more than their WL ratio for some unfathomable reason.

That's all that comes to mind so far.

Edited by Elli Gujar, 12 September 2013 - 07:02 AM.

[The Boz]

stjobe, on 12 September 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:

I find it more of a "stout kick in the crotch" when I'm killed after an intense and even fight only to spectate our last surviving 'mech - a pristine assault - lumbering towards the front line with zero damage and no ammo expended. Where the deuce was he when we needed him?

It happens a lot more often than disconnects, as well.

He was probably in the rear, being slow, watching his mentally challenged teammates die one by one because they can't be bothered to wait for the siege breaker.
But then again, that's MUCH better than having the siege breaker go in alone and die because the team doesn't follow the frakking Atlas into combat.

Edited by The Boz, 12 September 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Felbombling]

The unwavering belief of the development team that their core game mechanics were perfect out of the gate, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, compounded by the bizarre omission of critical game features.

[Xandre Blackheart]

The Game lacks consistency regarding functionality (weapon performance, heat, mech mobility, matchmaking etc.) providing a widely varying experience from match to match and frustrating new and old players alike, causing them to leave in droves.

[Monky]

People who want to win choose different mechs, weapons, and loadouts than people who want to play for fun, because they are demonstrably better and are then dropped in against people who just got the game 5 minutes ago.

[DaZur]

I want to change my answer...

New: Open beta. If MW:O were a closed door project and final playable (gold) code was all the consumer ever saw... 97.3% of the perceived issues the game would disappear behind the cloak of "BT universe magic" and much of the present angst would mitigated.

Edited by DaZur, 12 September 2013 - 07:31 AM.