134 replies to this topic

[Noth]

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

It comes down to the fact that the developers went down the Heat for weapon balance path. I was in the closed Beta since Sept 2012 and from then on not once did I see a Hard Point &/OR Convergence method used to balance weapons.

If you like ghost heat and think its great, that is awesome for you. I don't. I personally find the idea of a 2 PPC Jenner running around ludicrous, but the DEV's have set up a system where you will see that.

If you come to a post titled "How is this good game design" and don't expect this to be an opinion piece, then that is on your own intelligence. Join in and post, but don't expect everyone to agree with your point of view.

So this is just a veiled heat and convergence thread? Why not just join in on one of the other many instead of making your own? Why lead off with an example that you then have to explain in a roundabout way? If you are going to claim something is not good game design as an opinion you better have more to backup your opinion than "Because."

By the way, changing the heat system and convergence won't fix the balancing problems. They may fix some, but will introduce more that will take just as long to iron. This makes the changing of such systems completely and utterly not worthwhile. Nor will it fix some mechs/builds being outright better than others.

[Sybreed]

Adiuvo, on 20 October 2013 - 06:15 PM, said:

No, the cause of that was the low heat on PPCs, fast PPCs, introduction of ballistic HSR, introduction of JJ assaults, among other things.

yeah, true, but remove the possibilty for every mech to fit 2/3/4 PPCs and sniper meta instantly dies! Weird huh?

[Rhent]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

So this is just a veiled heat and convergence thread? Why not just join in on one of the other many instead of making your own? Why lead off with an example that you then have to explain in a roundabout way? If you are going to claim something is not good game design as an opinion you better have more to backup your opinion than "Because."

By the way, changing the heat system and convergence won't fix the balancing problems. They may fix some, but will introduce more that will take just as long to iron. This makes the changing of such systems completely and utterly not worthwhile. Nor will it fix some mechs/builds being outright better than others.

In your opinion.

I don't find any of your complaints worth merit, in my opinion.

Lets look at one problem: Pin Point PPC damage.

Everyone hated seeing 4 PPC stalkers with 20 DHS's being able to snipe of a 40 pt pin point shot every 3 seconds for 4 volleys or a 6 PPC stalker do that for 2 two shots. Piranha went the ghost heat solution as the final fix.

What could have been done to better fix that?

Hard Point placement for the start and convergence to continue. What if only the Awesome could carry 3 or 4 PPC's and then the rest of the assaults were limited to a max of 2 PPC's? Would the Awesome now be the red haired step child of MWO or would it finally have a role? What if the STF-4N was allowed to carry 3 PPC's, would it now be the absolute worst of the stalker family or would it have a role?

If the DEV's went one step further and put convergence into the scenario as well, it would further push out mech diversity. If the DEV's split convergence better between arms, side torsos and the CT/Head, we could have a higher damage game without as much pin point damage and no blanking ghost heat.

For Piranha, if they had implemented hard point limitations, they could sell a heck of a lot more mechs IF they implemented certain combinations for those mechs that weren't necessarily available elsewhere. For the most part, there is very little Piranha can introduce now for mechs that anyone needs to buy. Look at your stable, you have all the mechs you need right now for the rest of the games lifespan.,

I'm macroing around ghost heat and the gauss change right now, but frankly its an annoying poorly thought out mechanic that NEVER should have been put in the game.

[Adiuvo]

Sybreed, on 20 October 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

yeah, true, but remove the possibilty for every mech to fit 2/3/4 PPCs and sniper meta instantly dies! Weird huh?

Yeah, it does. By completely removing sniping from the game.

[Umbra8]

Man Rhent, you sure do love your background assumptions.

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

I don't. I personally find the idea of a 2 PPC Jenner running around ludicrous, but the DEV's have set up a system where you will see that.

The odd thing being that having also played since closed beta, I do not remember a single time where I dropped with or fought against a 2 ERPPC jenner. You know why?

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 07:06 PM, said:

I personally find the idea of a 2 PPC Jenner running around ludicrous,

Yeah. You an everyone else with enough sense to keep breathing think it's pretty ludicrous too. They tend to think it's ludicrous before they even make it to the mechlab, much less the game proper.

So what we have is a system wherein you could build a mech that would be largely a waste of time, attempting to fill a role better suited to just about anything else, but the inherent mechanics and common sense prevent this from happening in 99% of the cases.



Sounds pretty balanced to me.

...

Now if you want to talk about ghost heat and what a slapdash abomination that is, I'm on board.

[Shakespeare]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

So this is just a veiled heat and convergence thread? Why not just join in on one of the other many instead of making your own? Why lead off with an example that you then have to explain in a roundabout way? If you are going to claim something is not good game design as an opinion you better have more to backup your opinion than "Because."

By the way, changing the heat system and convergence won't fix the balancing problems. They may fix some, but will introduce more that will take just as long to iron. This makes the changing of such systems completely and utterly not worthwhile. Nor will it fix some mechs/builds being outright better than others.

They're ALL heat/convergence threads. 'Cause that will fix everything and OH MY GOD ITS SO SIMPLE, so much game design expertise in this place.

[Rhent]

Shakespeare, on 20 October 2013 - 07:39 PM, said:

They're ALL heat/convergence threads. 'Cause that will fix everything and OH MY GOD ITS SO SIMPLE, so much game design expertise in this place.

It more goes down to 20 years of the Mechwarrior Franchise that relied on those mechanics for PVP. But hey, new developers new ideas. Look at how good Quicksilver did to the Masters of Orion franchise with their "ideas" on gameplay. They did wonders for the Orion franchise.

[Noth]

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

In your opinion.

I don't find any of your complaints worth merit, in my opinion.

Lets look at one problem: Pin Point PPC damage.

Everyone hated seeing 4 PPC stalkers with 20 DHS's being able to snipe of a 40 pt pin point shot every 3 seconds for 4 volleys or a 6 PPC stalker do that for 2 two shots. Piranha went the ghost heat solution as the final fix.

What could have been done to better fix that?

Hard Point placement for the start and convergence to continue. What if only the Awesome could carry 3 or 4 PPC's and then the rest of the assaults were limited to a max of 2 PPC's? Would the Awesome now be the red haired step child of MWO or would it finally have a role? What if the STF-4N was allowed to carry 3 PPC's, would it now be the absolute worst of the stalker family or would it have a role?

If the DEV's went one step further and put convergence into the scenario as well, it would further push out mech diversity. If the DEV's split convergence better between arms, side torsos and the CT/Head, we could have a higher damage game without as much pin point damage and no blanking ghost heat.

For Piranha, if they had implemented hard point limitations, they could sell a heck of a lot more mechs IF they implemented certain combinations for those mechs that weren't necessarily available elsewhere. For the most part, there is very little Piranha can introduce now for mechs that anyone needs to buy. Look at your stable, you have all the mechs you need right now for the rest of the games lifespan.,

I'm macroing around ghost heat and the gauss change right now, but frankly its an annoying poorly thought out mechanic that NEVER should have been put in the game.

I haven't made any complaints in this thread. My complaints are already well covered by other threads (like your complaint here). I see no need to make new threads on my complaints.

Adding hardpoint limitations further while making mechs more diverse would only lead to even less optimal mechs than there is now simply because there would be less options on the mechs. Same issue is there despite the hardpoint limitations.

Heat, it will still come down to doing as much damage as possible within the heat allowed. In essence it is still an alpha meta as it was in the old mechwarriors with lower heat cap and faster dissipation rates.

Convergence, you may change the meta to dps over alpha which while different is not better. Or you may just end up having mechs that can mount the most weapons in one spot become the new meta.

It won't actually fix the issues. It won't even let mechs actually live any longer.

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

It more goes down to 20 years of the Mechwarrior Franchise that relied on those mechanics for PVP. But hey, new developers new ideas. Look at how good Quicksilver did to the Masters of Orion franchise with their "ideas" on gameplay. They did wonders for the Orion franchise.

I find this example funny since quicksilver practically destroyed the master of orion series. This seems to show that you don't want the devs to diverge from the older mechwarriors. The older mechwarriors had instant convergence, alpha heavy meta as well. In fact it was much worse than it is here. So from your example you seem to want it to stay the same...

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Umbra8, on 20 October 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

I remember when people ran around in Raven 4x's with AC20s in the arm. Crazy. Good for a laugh. They even got some kills with them!

Priceless!

[Ghogiel]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

Other lights would tear that thing apart.

Rock meet paper.

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

I find this example funny since quicksilver practically destroyed the master of orion series. This seems to show that you don't want the devs to diverge from the older mechwarriors. The older mechwarriors had instant convergence, alpha heavy meta as well. In fact it was much worse than it is here. So from your example you seem to want it to stay the same...

Oh man is this the truth. As multiplayer games older MW's were kinda bad.

I think mainly because it was all balanced around a single player.

The only time it was ever not LOL was years after I had moved on from MW4 and mektek did stuff. Apparently. But then I saw a video of mekpak4 JJs and mechs flying around like gundams... I was having nightmares about skating JJ in MW3 and ****. :\

Edited by Ghogiel, 20 October 2013 - 08:24 PM.

[Stygian Steel]

it seems to me that the game is actually in a pretty good state as far as balance is concerned and that the trolls are now just nit picking ,

[Rhent]

Stygian Steel, on 20 October 2013 - 08:19 PM, said:

it seems to me that the game is actually in a pretty good state as far as balance is concerned and that the trolls are now just nit picking ,

Yup, ghost heat is a wonderful mechanic and universally loved. HSR is awesome sauce. Everything is working awesome for MWO. White Night and Whight Night approved.

Seriously the censoring that MWO forum team is doing is what is getting them so much negative press from the forum base, oh wait Ex-Forum base that left, wonder why. As to why this comment? You can't write out White and Knight as a phrase now.

Edited by Rhent, 20 October 2013 - 08:31 PM.

[Zyllos]

Stygian Steel, on 20 October 2013 - 08:19 PM, said:

it seems to me that the game is actually in a pretty good state as far as balance is concerned and that the trolls are now just nit picking ,

Not even close in my opinion.

Mechs like the HBK-4G, any of the Awesomes, and future mechs like the Hollander just provide nothing to the game because of the very definition of open hardpoints. The original intent of adding the hardpoints in the first place is so that one 50 mech isn't exactly the same as another 50t mech. But with the number of mechs being added, there is so much overlap that more limited hardpoints is there give specific mechs/variants their unique role back.

But just changing hardpoint limitations doesn't fix the core issues with this game. You also have to introduce some type of mechanic to spread out damage. We are using the CBT armor system, that assumes distributed damage in a game that lets players to place all damage onto a single point.

And we have an imbalance between ammo based and energy weaponry. Ammo based weapons do so much better due to the fact that ammo doesn't feel limited because how efficient players can become in taking out targets due to weapons all hitting single locations. And energy weapons can't out last ammo based weapons as fights end much too quickly.

There is major issues between the whole ECM/LRM/NARC/TAG/BAP thing. The entire system is just completely binary.

Edited by Zyllos, 20 October 2013 - 08:32 PM.

[Umbra8]

Stygian Steel, on 20 October 2013 - 08:19 PM, said:

it seems to me that the game is actually in a pretty good state as far as balance is concerned and that the trolls are now just nit picking ,

Uh, yeah, no. There's plenty wrong with this title, enough to fill over a years worth of ignored forum posts, it's just that I wouldn't put this particular topic on the list. Balanced? Not this game, not yet.

[Noth]

Umbra8, on 20 October 2013 - 08:47 PM, said:

Uh, yeah, no. There's plenty wrong with this title, enough to fill over a years worth of ignored forum posts, it's just that I wouldn't put this particular topic on the list. Balanced? Not this game, not yet.

The game will never be balanced. The suggestions for fixes wouldn't balance things either as they'd simply create other areas of imbalance. It basically comes down to either liking or not liking the way it is being balanced. As for the current balance, it is the best it has ever been.

[Umbra8]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 08:49 PM, said:

The game will never be balanced. The suggestions for fixes wouldn't balance things either as they'd simply create other areas of imbalance. It basically comes down to either liking or not liking the way it is being balanced. As for the current balance, it is the best it has ever been.

I actually prefer how the game was balanced (from a mechanics perspective) prior to the introduction of ECM. Most of the steps forward have been in hit detection, state rewind and critical bugs (SRM splash madness), but from the standpoint of weapon mechanics and function, we're worse off now.

One example I can think of off the top of my head was when they changed how streaks worked. It used to be that they did not auto-hit, but curved up to a certain turn limit in the direction of your target but could still miss if your aim was bad or the targets manoeuvrability was superior. I though that was a much more elegant approach that required a higher skill investment than the current model. I can't remember reading why it was changed.

Edited by Umbra8, 20 October 2013 - 08:59 PM.

[Rhent]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 08:49 PM, said:

The game will never be balanced. The suggestions for fixes wouldn't balance things either as they'd simply create other areas of imbalance. It basically comes down to either liking or not liking the way it is being balanced. As for the current balance, it is the best it has ever been.

Unless you use SRM's or any mech other than a Light with the current HSR.

[Ghogiel]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 08:49 PM, said:

The game will never be balanced. The suggestions for fixes wouldn't balance things either as they'd simply create other areas of imbalance. It basically comes down to either liking or not liking the way it is being balanced. As for the current balance, it is the best it has ever been.

Forget objective balance. Balance it seems is an opinion.

See people asking for nerfs on spiders, yeah they a bit broke in some ways, but they are still niche mech that doesn't even dominate it's own weight class lol. And so on and so forth across this forums entire history.

[Noth]

Ghogiel, on 20 October 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

Forget objective balance. Balance it seems is an opinion.

See people asking for nerfs on spiders, yeah they a bit broke in some ways, but they are still niche mech that doesn't even dominate it's own weight class lol. And so on and so forth across this forums entire history.

Exactly, objective balance is impossible and it simply comes down to opinion on how well things are balanced. If you look at the general masses that play the game you it seems rather balanced with varied loadout able to do really well. Once you get to the top of the competitive players you see select few builds being run and such will not change as there will always be select builds being run as that is the very nature of the competitive play (find what works best and abuse the hell out of it).Thus you get a rift onhow the balance is depending on how you play the game.

Rhent, on 20 October 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

Unless you use SRM's or any mech other than a Light with the current HSR.

I never said it was perfect, I said it was in the best it has ever been. Oh I have no issue pegging lights (ok the spider has some issues, but not near as bad as people would believe). SRMs also need fixed.

Edited by Noth, 20 October 2013 - 09:02 PM.

[Rhent]

Noth, on 20 October 2013 - 09:01 PM, said:

Exactly, objective balance is impossible and it simply comes down to opinion on how well things are balanced. If you look at the general masses that play the game you it seems rather balanced with varied loadout able to do really well. Once you get to the top of the competitive players you see select few builds being run and such will not change as there will always be select builds being run as that is the very nature of the competitive play (find what works best and abuse the hell out of it).Thus you get a rift onhow the balance is depending on how you play the game.



I never said it was perfect, I said it was in the best it has ever been. Oh I have no issue pegging lights (ok the spider has some issues, but not near as bad as people would believe). SRMs also need fixed.

With the ridiculously bad HSR there has been an algae bloom of light mechs the last two months. I've switched to Trolltaro's to deal with it and to get the nice K/D boost. That being said, you wouldn't see the switch to lights if there wasn't a reason, and a big part of that reason is HSR.