155 replies to this topic

[Greyboots]

Quote

It is a sad fact, but it is true. Trying to be a unique little snowflake is going to make the developers conclude that the meta isn't really the meta after all. If you want OP things fixed, relentlessly abuse those things. If you want UP things fixed, avoid those things like the plague, and maybe even sell them off from your mechbay. Take matters into your own hands, and give the people in power the statistics they need to make a decision on the issue.

The "sad fact" is that the FASTEST way to get the game fixed is to play what you play, not follow the "flavour of the month" and weather through it when you constantly get roflstomped. Server data is the only empirical data and therefore the least questionable of all of the data. Changing the way you do things is the fastest way to take it away from the Devs.

To try to manipulate this data? Well, Devs know people do it and factor that into their deciphering of the server data.

Play how you play. Come to the forums and make logical posts about your game experiences pointing out both the benefits and drawbacks of what you have observed.

Not screenshots of roflstomps that could have happened for any reason. Not whining posts about how you get smashed all the time. Point out the strengths and drawbacks you observe. This gives Devs 2 reference points filtered through the same player to make some sense of the information they are receiving. Your motives also become clearer so they don't have to worry nearly as much about whether you are trying to manipulate the situation. They also can build up a bank of strengths and weaknesses to compare and contrast and find a logical and fitting way to improve what needs to be improved and tone down what needs to be toned down. Also to what extent.

This way Devs get a more complete and reliable view of what's actually going on to cross-reference and decipher server data with.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Being honest is actually the best policy? Go figger.

Edited by Greyboots, 23 November 2013 - 04:54 PM.

[mekabuser]

while i agree with op. whats OP or abused at this point?

[FupDup]

mekabuser, on 23 November 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

while i agree with op. whats OP or abused at this point?

There are some very common trends for what people consider balanced/imbalanced, but there is some individual variation between players as well. I don't really want to get into the specifics for this thread, as it may detract from the overall message.

Edited by FupDup, 23 November 2013 - 05:22 PM.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

I agree with FupDup completely, from now on, there is only one mech...

733 charlie.

(no but srsly is it just me or does it seem that almost every drop these days you can tell there's a premade on both teams... enemies because of same paint job and allies because you see four of the same mech in a group such as D-DC, 733C, 3L, JR7F, 2D2, 3D..........)

fix it. it's OP and abused.

Edited by M4NTiC0R3X, 23 November 2013 - 05:50 PM.

[BlackIronTarkus]

Im using double PPC/AC5 3D, am I doing it right?

But on the other hand Im also using double GAUSS CTF-4X... so hum... I guess they cancel each other... Oh well, at least Im having fun!

[Sable Dove]

Tolkien, on 23 November 2013 - 08:16 AM, said:

Craven 3L's were murder birds until they were fixed (broken hit boxes on the back, broken hitboxes on the legs) and HSR was implemented.

Spiders have had their hitboxes 'simplified'.

People need to stop assuming that just because something is changed, that means it was broken before.

Ravens and Spiders got nerfed. Not fixed. The Raven's leg hitboxes were not broken. They were too accurate to the Raven's small legs. So PGI gave them invisible bubble legs so that people didn't have to actually hit to deal damage. As to back hitboxes, I don't recall them ever being broken except that it's now fairly common for the Raven to take rear damage from front hits (more so than other mechs).

Spiders got the same, except that it's virtually the entire mech that's surrounded by a bubble now. I wonder if they're going shrink the hitboxes of mechs that are too big as well, rather than changing the model size.


Ghost hitboxes is PGI's solution to HSR-shortcomings in the same way that ghost heat is their solution to the shortcomings of their bad heat system. PPCs/lasers weren't 'fixed' by ghost heat; they were nerfed by ghost heat. Ravens and Spiders weren't 'fixed' by hitbox bubbles; they were nerfed by hitbox bubbles.



Can't fix something that's not broken.

[Troutmonkey]

According to this thread I should do one of two things:

1. Buy Artillery and waste 40k CBIILs a match when I really need it for my second and third shadowhawks
2. Stand under artillery and get head shotted a lot

While I agree with the idea of this thread, it'll be near impossible to pull of in execution, with plenty of people not reading the forums, and plenty of newbies dieing regardless of what mech / weapon they use.

[GalaxyBluestar]

hmmm spam what you consider OP to be heard... this thread is going places. TBH please no more nerfs.

sokitumi, on 23 November 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

All true.. but isn't that kinda what betas should be used for? And what you're saying is basically that team awesome can't really evaluate their own game outside of data collecting tools. And you're probably right about that, sad as it is. All math no kung-fu..

But saying for people to only ***** imba weaps doesn't help a whole lot either as counters are needed to verify the imba-status of whatever broken item of the month. How many months did PPC's dominate? And how obvious was it? And then what was the end result? RIght... ghost heat...

this ^^

getting a crowd onto the problem doesn't mean the solutions will be as needed. it's convulting and arbitary workarounds at best. No more nerfs please.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 23 November 2013 - 09:12 PM.

[DaZur]

FD you such an ****** sometimes.

Abusing something does not prove it's busted nor does ostracising it prove it's underutilized.

All it proves is a community can influence the metrics of a game through weighted manipulation...

Sometimes you guys really depress me...

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 23 November 2013 - 09:03 PM, said:

FD you such an ****** sometimes.

Abusing something does not prove it's busted nor does ostracising it prove it's underutilized.

All it proves is a community can influence the metrics of a game through weighted manipulation...

Sometimes you guys really depress me...

That's not his point though. The point is if something isn't really OP then there's no "abuse". If something is really OP, it's still not "abuse", but the DEV team uses statistics and factual data to make balancing decisions.

They don't use, thankfully, "Whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa! I just got owned by (insert current popular bandwagon here) so it must be OP!" or the ever popular "Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa! I can't use this (insert current popular bandwagon here) so it must be UP!"

Regardless of personal opinion Fud's suggestion is exactly how DEVs track things like this. Sure, sometimes (very few sometimes usually), something that is truly OP or just not working correctly is seen almost universally by the community as actually being OP. The LRM and SSRM OP stages are the first that come to my mind. Generally though most of the "feedback" you see on the forums is FAR from accurate or useful.

Even when someone posts great data, explanations, and suggestions, that doesn't mean something is actually OP. I have tons of thoughts and opinions on various things concerning this game as I'm sure you, and everyone else that plays does. That doesn't make them factual though.

[Sandpit]

Here's another thing to consider. "Bad" features and balancing mechanics aren't always a final "fix". If a dev team sees an issue and comes up with a simple but hard to implement fix for it to help balance things short-term while they work on the "final" solution, then that by no means implies that the short-term was the "best" way to go about it but a quick way to help even things out while they work on the final solution.

That's one thing I don't think many consider. There are tons of things that go on behind the scenes that we never hear about (nor are we entitled to in my opinion) and then you get all the doom and gloom from some of the player base. Many moaned and groaned and wailed against going from CB to OB. There are jsut certain issues that could not be properly tested without expanding the player base to a much broader community. It's not always about balancing weapons and such either. Sometimes it's to test things like server load and things of that nature. Sometimes you simply need a larger sample size in order to collect more accurate data.

Every game that has ever failed is always blamed on things like the dev team. It's always everything but the simple answer which, a lot of times, is simply it wasn't popular enough to sustain a commercial product.

[FupDup]

DaZur, on 23 November 2013 - 09:03 PM, said:

FD you such an ****** sometimes.

Abusing something does not prove it's busted nor does ostracising it prove it's underutilized.

All it proves is a community can influence the metrics of a game through weighted manipulation...

Sometimes you guys really depress me...

Then how would one go about trying to prove OP/UP-ness of certain things? Making forum posts clearly doesn't do the trick, so what does that leave us with?

[GalaxyBluestar]

essentially FD hasn't made a suggesntion or an idea, what he's done is stated what devs usually do in regards to analysing how to balance a game. it's all correct and above board and it's why other weapons recieved GH amongst others not just curtailing an OP system or boats but it's designed to slow down the pace of the builds they saw as dealling the most damage and being used alot. srms were not intentianally double nerfed with GH and hitreg, they're just slow figuring hitreg solutions.

i just hope we're not encouraging extra spam just to throw figures out of whack "because it killed me whaaa" hatred "i'll spam it to convince devs to destroy it" mentality. i could've gone off the rails like this over AC's but i investigated further and found out it wasn't an OP weapon. {in my case hitreg was terrible ppcs and gauss were not hitting and getting low dmg just the same} if i didn't do that and if many others don't and jump on "kill it" bandwagons we'll just have dev times wasted making more silly bandaid "fixes." it's at times like these when i'm glad the forums have a low readership.

Sable Dove, on 23 November 2013 - 06:41 PM, said:

Ravens and Spiders got nerfed. Not fixed. The Raven's leg hitboxes were not broken. They were too accurate to the Raven's small legs. So PGI gave them invisible bubble legs so that people didn't have to actually hit to deal damage. As to back hitboxes, I don't recall them ever being broken except that it's now fairly common for the Raven to take rear damage from front hits (more so than other mechs).

Spiders got the same, except that it's virtually the entire mech that's surrounded by a bubble now. I wonder if they're going shrink the hitboxes of mechs that are too big as well, rather than changing the model size.


Ghost hitboxes is PGI's solution to HSR-shortcomings in the same way that ghost heat is their solution to the shortcomings of their bad heat system. PPCs/lasers weren't 'fixed' by ghost heat; they were nerfed by ghost heat. Ravens and Spiders weren't 'fixed' by hitbox bubbles; they were nerfed by hitbox bubbles.

and you have to wonder whether the core problems are being acknowlaged let alone fixed, so far it's 50/50 as hitreg is being addressed {we recieved an improvement fix this patch yay} in a way they are but we just have to wait a long time for those real solutions. in the meantime how long do we wear our bandaids for?

[Jman5]

This is why I try not to rag on people who are taking advantage of the optimal playstyles. If it really is as good as it seems, then surely it will show up on the metrics and eventually get changed.

My biggest concern is that the developers will look at the data at the top and simply conclude that these players would be getting these numbers with anything they run. They're just good pilots.

[Deathlike]

Jman5, on 23 November 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

This is why I try not to rag on people who are taking advantage of the optimal playstyles. If it really is as good as it seems, then surely it will show up on the metrics and eventually get changed.

My biggest concern is that the developers will look at the data at the top and simply conclude that these players would be getting these numbers with anything they run. They're just good pilots.

This means, the devs will find a way to finally give Jman a reason to leave the Hunchback!

I still have a 732, and I don't entirely subscribe to the 733C meta (although, it's still a Highlander, so it's still pro-meta) and I don't think there is any easy/right way to figure out what is truly OP (it needs a lot more context).. but is insanely easy to figure out what is UP... (although, people futzing with the usage won't help the NARC become viable).

[Mycrus]

me?

i'll just troll the tryhards and the tryhard groupies...

[DaZur]

FupDup, on 23 November 2013 - 09:46 PM, said:

Then how would one go about trying to prove OP/UP-ness of certain things? Making forum posts clearly doesn't do the trick, so what does that leave us with?

FD... My problem with this is it's weighted manipulation. While I'm sure a number of people claim "X" is OP... That in and of itself is not necessarily self incriminating. (I argue half of what is claimed is OP is personal bias... but I digress)

The "lets all abuse it to show how broken it is", is artificial inflation of metrics... Which I view as self-appointed judge and jury hurbis...

Obviously I'm in minority... but I think its dirty pool where there is no need for it.

[WidowMaker91]

FupDup, on 23 November 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

Being a hipster with your LPL Stalker is going to give PGI statistics that people use the weapon and do okay with them, and thus LPLs will never get buffed.

you sir, win the internet.

[Tolkien]

Sable Dove, on 23 November 2013 - 06:41 PM, said:

People need to stop assuming that just because something is changed, that means it was broken before.

Ravens and Spiders got nerfed. Not fixed. The Raven's leg hitboxes were not broken. They were too accurate to the Raven's small legs. So PGI gave them invisible bubble legs so that people didn't have to actually hit to deal damage. As to back hitboxes, I don't recall them ever being broken except that it's now fairly common for the Raven to take rear damage from front hits (more so than other mechs).

Spiders got the same, except that it's virtually the entire mech that's surrounded by a bubble now. I wonder if they're going shrink the hitboxes of mechs that are too big as well, rather than changing the model size.


Ghost hitboxes is PGI's solution to HSR-shortcomings in the same way that ghost heat is their solution to the shortcomings of their bad heat system. PPCs/lasers weren't 'fixed' by ghost heat; they were nerfed by ghost heat. Ravens and Spiders weren't 'fixed' by hitbox bubbles; they were nerfed by hitbox bubbles.



Can't fix something that's not broken.

Re raven back hitboxes, back in the day someone found that while misisle weapons could damage a ravens rear left and rear right torsos, it was not possible to hit them with lasers (And possibly ballistics).

For a similar example that is in game to this day see here: http://mwomercs.com/...s-bug-verified/

You can shoot that part of the centurion head all day and the damage goes *nowhere*.

Just because PGI hasn't acknowledged it as such, doesn't mean it isn't or wasn't broken.

[FupDup]

DaZur, on 23 November 2013 - 11:51 PM, said:

FD... My problem with this is it's weighted manipulation. While I'm sure a number of people claim "X" is OP... That in and of itself is not necessarily self incriminating. (I argue half of what is claimed is OP is personal bias... but I digress)

The "lets all abuse it to show how broken it is", is artificial inflation of metrics... Which I view as self-appointed judge and jury hurbis...

Obviously I'm in minority... but I think its dirty pool where there is no need for it.

You didn't answer my question. We need/want a method to directly show that an entity is not properly "balanced," and does not rely on simply saying that something is imba by making a forum post, because forum posts don't usually get read (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). What is that method?