136 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Noesis, on 09 December 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

I prefer the Bruce Lee style personally but had to like the above post all the same as it was too frankly honest not to.

I studied Wing Chun Do (one of Bruce's styles), Using his teachings, I was told that our fists would hit with the force of a sledge hammer equal to 10x our body weight (the famed 1"-3" power punch) I weighed 300 lbs at the time of my training!!! So a 1.5 ton sledge hammer even at 1/5 the speed that Bruce could strike...

[Artgathan]

arghmace, on 09 December 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

The problem here is that why would anyone take a slow assault if it weren't better at killing stuff? Much wiser to take a fast light mech that you can use to scout and cap as well. What's the point of an assault in this scenario?

The point is that with proper mobility balancing each weight class is good at killing stuff a little bit lighter than it. Let's consider an example:

• You decide your team will bring all light mechs
  
• The enemy team finds this out, and decides to bring some lights mech (to match yours) and some medium mechs (since they'll be good at killing your lights)
  
• You find out about this and decide to change your team's composition as well! If they're bringing Mediums, by golly you're going to bring Heavies (and a few mediums)! That'll learn those mediums!
  
• The enemy finds out (again!) that now you've got Heavies! Not to be out-done, they upgrade a few mechs to Assaults and Heavies so that they can dish out the damage against your Heavies
  
• Knowing the enemy is bringing some Assaults, you grab a few of your own to be on equal footing! However you also keep some Lights to be able to out-maneuver and destroy the enemy in CQC.
  
• And so the cycle continues, with both teams bringing a mix of Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault mechs so that they have a mix of firepower and mobility. If mobility was well balanced, leaning too heavily on one weight class leaves you vulnerable to another.

As another example, consider the introduction we had to the Flea: http://mwomercs.com/...tlemech-16-flea

In the current version of MW:O, do you really think this would happen?

[arghmace]

Artgathan, on 09 December 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

The point is that with proper mobility balancing each weight class is good at killing stuff a little bit lighter than it.

As another example, consider the introduction we had to the Flea: http://mwomercs.com/...tlemech-16-flea
In the current version of MW:O, do you really think this would happen?

OK, I admit my defeat, you (and stjobe) are right

And as I wrote earlier, I too have always been of the mind that heavies and assaults are too nimble. Some of this is due to base values, some to the fact that engine size affects both leg and torso twist, some because of those universal pilot skills. I just felt that you guys were maybe advocating for too huge movement penalties - maybe unduely. Also I really thought that what is the point of having a heavier mech in this scenario but you're right. When you balance it out properly, it becomes a nice rock-paper-scissor-system going L<M<H<A<L, and preferably also along the lines of M=A and L=H. If this was the case, we indeed wouldn't need weight restrictions at all. I see the light!

[SniperCon]

A quick note on terminology, when I say at a 'Mech's back, I mean behind their legs, not necessarily at their back armor. I have had significantly more success maneuvering against and shooting an enemy's legs. It requires more maneuvering and offers fewer shots to try for back armor unless the target is otherwise occupied.

In my experience in a light trying to solo assaults:

vs Atlas / Stalker without pilot tree upgrades, it is possible to say at their back the majority of the time. Best case a skilled assault pilot gets 2-3 opportunities for a shot.

vs Atlas / Stalker with double basics, Highlander / Battlemaster without basics, it is possible to stay at their back maybe 1/3 of the time. I tend to try and use cover taking pot shots and staying unpredictable instead of trying to stay behind them. I will go behind them if there is a good opportunity as it is usually possible to get of two shots before the assault can regain the upper hand, at which point I go back to cover. This is usually a pretty even fight.

vs Highlander / Battlemaster with double basics, it is not feasible to stay at their backs. The Highlander can jump to avoid opportunities when you are otherwise in a good position, and the big engines of the Battlemaster make it a quite agile opponent. Best case is you get a few more shots than they do. Make them count.

vs Victors, find something else to fight. If you have to, aim for a side torso and pray their arm convergence causes them to miss shots enough times for you go get through to their XL. Being on higher ground helps a bit.

[Artgathan]

arghmace, on 09 December 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

OK, I admit my defeat, you (and stjobe) are right

And as I wrote earlier, I too have always been of the mind that heavies and assaults are too nimble. Some of this is due to base values, some to the fact that engine size affects both leg and torso twist, some because of those universal pilot skills. I just felt that you guys were maybe advocating for too huge movement penalties - maybe unduely. Also I really thought that what is the point of having a heavier mech in this scenario but you're right. When you balance it out properly, it becomes a nice rock-paper-scissor-system going L<M<H<A<L, and preferably also along the lines of M=A and L=H. If this was the case, we indeed wouldn't need weight restrictions at all. I see the light!

The Rock-Paper-Scissor System isn't immediately apparent (I had to think about it for a while before it came to me while writing other posts in this thread), so don't feel bad about it!

I agree that it is possible to swing the balance too far to the other side (such that Light mechs would become the gods of the battlefield). However, this is not what I am advocating for. I just want a nicely balanced system where all mechs are useful.

That said, this balance will be tricky to attain. In one of my previous posts I gave an example where at Atlas would take about 33 seconds to execute a 360 degree turn. This raises more questions though: even if this is balanced, is it fun? Will anyone want to keep playing Assault / Heavy mechs, or will they be too slow and unappealing (despite their superior firepower)? In theory this would force Heavy / Assault players to have to think more tactically and consider the impact of their actions on the field (since if they maneuver into a bad position it might take them a while to get out).

There are also secondary game-play implications to consider: if Light and Medium pilots no longer have to carry a massive engine to be effectively on the field, will they drop engine tonnage to carry more firepower / heatsinks? Or will they continue blazing along at 150+ kph to make it even harder for the Heavy / Assault pilots to hit them?

In the end the only way to know what will happen is to actually implement the system and see what happens. These values wouldn't be too hard to adjust, they just require a re-tooling of the formulas that the game is currently using to determine Twist / Turn / Arm speeds to reduce the values for all mechs.

[Almond Brown]

stjobe, on 08 December 2013 - 02:22 AM, said:

stuff

The PGI devs seems to agree. Go heavy or go home. There's only one problem with that: It leads to 12v12 Atlas matches, and nothing else. In other words, it's stupid and short-sighted.

Quote

Ideally, the heavier the 'mech the slower and less agile it should be, and - as Artgathan is so eminently showing in this thread - the less tracking speed it should have. The way to make this into a balanced game is to never fail to remember that each player only gets one 'mech at a time, so that 'mech better be viable whether it's a Locust or an Atlas.

stuff

Those 2 statements directly contradict each other.

Unless you can provide #'s satisfactory to "everyone" what you propose is to make that players 1 Heavy/Assault something less viable than they are currently.

So which is it to be? "Viable" (defined as each player sees fit) at all weights, or just at some weights? And remember, each player only gets 1 Mech at a time.

So, the Dev's decision was not stupid nor short sighted. They just made ALL weights "viable" just like you apparently want them to be too.

Edited by Almond Brown, 09 December 2013 - 11:50 AM.

[Artgathan]

Almond Brown, on 09 December 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Those 2 statements directly contradict each other.

Unless you can provide #'s satisfactory to "everyone" what you propose is to make that players 1 Heavy/Assault something less viable than they are currently.

So which is it to be? "Viable" (defined as each player sees fit) at all weights, or just at some weights? And remember, each player only gets 1 Mech at a time.

So, the Dev's decision was not stupid nor short sighted. They just made ALL weights "viable" just like you apparently want them to be too.

You are either deliberately misconstruing what stjobe said, or you actually don't understand what he meant.

The first quote points to the current state of the game, which is "Go Heavy or Go Home".

In the second quote stjobe is discussing an "ideal" version of the game, not its current state.

All weights are not viable in the current game. We know this from observation of the current meta and the fact that a weight limit system is considered to be required to balance the game. If everything was well balanced there'd be no need for such a system because a force of 4 Assault mechs could be countered by a force of 4 Light/Medium mechs and therefore everyone would play a range of mechs instead of almost only Heavy and Assault mechs.

[Prezimonto]

Can you normalize the low end of the weight classes by including the missing Heat Sinks in the engine tonnage?

ie, the Locust needs to mount 10 full heat hinks to launch and has a max engine rating of 190.. meaning you should include the extra weight to normalize that end of the graph.

Otherwise, sucks to be a medium... what's new around here?

[stjobe]

Almond Brown, on 09 December 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Those 2 statements directly contradict each other.

Only by some very strange and non-standard definition of the word "contradict" that for sure cannot be found in any dictionary of the English language.

The first statement expresses a belief that the MWO devs subscribe to the theory that heavier 'mechs should be better than lighter 'mechs.

The seconds statement expresses a belief that all 'mechs should be equally good, no matter what weight class they belong to.

"Good" can be different things for different weight classes, of course, but there shouldn't be one weight class that is strictly better than all others; the normal balancing triangle for BattleTech is Speed - Armour - Firepower; what Artgathan is showing us is that assaults have all three when Speed is interpreted not as top speed but agility (turning/twisting speed and tracking ability), and that it's destroying weight class balance.

I happen to agree.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 10 December 2013 - 05:13 AM, said:

Only by some very strange and non-standard definition of the word "contradict" that for sure cannot be found in any dictionary of the English language.

The first statement expresses a belief that the MWO devs subscribe to the theory that heavier 'mechs should be better than lighter 'mechs.

The seconds statement expresses a belief that all 'mechs should be equally good, no matter what weight class they belong to.

"Good" can be different things for different weight classes, of course, but there shouldn't be one weight class that is strictly better than all others; the normal balancing triangle for BattleTech is Speed - Armour - Firepower; what Artgathan is showing us is that assaults have all three when Speed is interpreted not as top speed but agility (turning/twisting speed and tracking ability), and that it's destroying weight class balance.

I happen to agree.

1st statement. Assaults are better than Lights... More weapons, more armor. Lights more Speed. Assaults have more "betters". Equal pilots in both Mechs the Assault should win, on durability and massable firepower.

With a better pilot in the Light, the Light should win cause the ability to know how to kill by paper cuts is an art.

[Praehotec8]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 December 2013 - 05:51 AM, said:

1st statement. Assaults are better than Lights... More weapons, more armor. Lights more Speed. Assaults have more "betters". Equal pilots in both Mechs the Assault should win, on durability and massable firepower.

With a better pilot in the Light, the Light should win cause the ability to know how to kill by paper cuts is an art.

I think this to some degree should be true, but in general, I feel that lights should have a very difficult time actually killing an assault. It should take prolonged time, or multiple lights, more so than now. In the current game, it often feels that fighting a good assault pilot is easier than fighting a good light pilot, as it's much easier to hit the assault, no matter how good the pilot is (once you get into close combat...disregard long-range sniping). A single light should have to think hard about going 1v1 against an assault, and the opposite is true in this game (yes, better players can mitigate this, but it remains that speed is more effective than armor).

Honestly, I think that heavies an assaults should have more damage reduction and less speed, and that armor should better compensate for lack of speed than it does now. How to get there is open to debate, but the current game is not ideal in this regard. Doing this, combined with tonnage limits would make mediums shine more than any engine weight or speed buff adjustments. I've been reading some of the battletech books for the first time(!), and the shadow hawk was one of the "big dawgs" with most of the field being locusts, stingers, and wasps. The 75 ton marauder was a BEAST, and nigh unkillable. If most mechs on the field were light to medium, and lights had less of an advantage than they have currently, it would be interesting.

P.S. Do you have any idea how long and painful it is to kill a decent light pilot with a stalker using lasers, with a joystick? Unless I have an AC20 to tear the leg off, give me an assault of equal skill to the light pilot any day.

[Joseph Mallan]

Praehotec8, on 10 December 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

I think this to some degree should be true, but in general, I feel that lights should have a very difficult time actually killing an assault. It should take prolonged time, or multiple lights, more so than now. In the current game, it often feels that fighting a good assault pilot is easier than fighting a good light pilot, as it's much easier to hit the assault, no matter how good the pilot is (once you get into close combat...disregard long-range sniping). A single light should have to think hard about going 1v1 against an assault, and the opposite is true in this game (yes, better players can mitigate this, but it remains that speed is more effective than armor).

Honestly, I think that heavies an assaults should have more damage reduction and less speed, and that armor should better compensate for lack of speed than it does now. How to get there is open to debate, but the current game is not ideal in this regard. Doing this, combined with tonnage limits would make mediums shine more than any engine weight or speed buff adjustments. I've been reading some of the battletech books for the first time(!), and the shadow hawk was one of the "big dawgs" with most of the field being locusts, stingers, and wasps. The 75 ton marauder was a BEAST, and nigh unkillable. If most mechs on the field were light to medium, and lights had less of an advantage than they have currently, it would be interesting.

P.S. Do you have any idea how long and painful it is to kill a decent light pilot with a stalker using lasers, with a joystick? Unless I have an AC20 to tear the leg off, give me an assault of equal skill to the light pilot any day.

I don't have a joystick so I don't know... I o however know how hard it is fr me to kill a light with Mouse and Keyboard.

[Almond Brown]

Artgathan, on 09 December 2013 - 12:11 PM, said:

You are either deliberately misconstruing what stjobe said, or you actually don't understand what he meant.

The first quote points to the current state of the game, which is "Go Heavy or Go Home".

In the second quote stjobe is discussing an "ideal" version of the game, not its current state.

All weights are not viable in the current game. We know this from observation of the current meta and the fact that a weight limit system is considered to be required to balance the game. If everything was well balanced there'd be no need for such a system because a force of 4 Assault mechs could be countered by a force of 4 Light/Medium mechs and therefore everyone would play a range of mechs instead of almost only Heavy and Assault mechs.

Not at all. He stated apparently the DEV want it this way (Go big or Go home) which is pure speculation on his part, at best, but then stated that ALL mechs should be viable. Well the current state of the Mechs based on what we have is that they all are (depending on personal flavor).

Any Mech can be fielded and if played as it was meant to be, and built accordingly, will do OK. How in Hades can any Dev assure that everyone of 100+ chassis are good to go when the players will Cherry pick no matter what the stats show. Not all Mechs Jump, not all have ECM, not all are 90-100 ton monsters.

But if a TEAM were to build for a Mission (in the near future hopefully) without all weight classes available, despite that some are not "Meta" ready currently, not having them available would be a damn shame imo.

As to the Lance config. We, a four man in a PUG, killed a Steiner Scout Lance that had 2 DDC after they snuck up on us. Not bragging, just saying, if a Teams composition and competence is right, even a 400t threat can be dealt with and by no means guarantees the other Team a win.

But I expect that the response would be that was a BAD Steiner Scout Lance right? Your Steiner Scout Lances always win every time? So be it. I am glad to report that we only ever fight BAD Steiner Scout Lances. Maybe some day your Steiner Scout Lance will show up and do it right.

P.S. It is a Team game and the current PUG scene is no indicative of what can be accomplished across the whole weight spectrum of Mechs in MWO. Without some personal flavor available, I am not playing my MWO, I would be playing someone else vision. Sorry, I prefer my vision, despite its obvious flaws.

Edited by Almond Brown, 10 December 2013 - 09:02 AM.

[Artgathan]

Almond Brown, on 10 December 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

Not at all. He stated apparently the DEV want it this way (Go big or Go home) which is pure speculation on his part, at best, but then stated that ALL mechs should be viable. Well the current state of the Mechs based on what we have is that they all are (depending on personal flavor).

Any Mech can be fielded and if played as it was meant to be, and built accordingly, will do OK. How in Hades can any Dev assure that everyone of 100+ chassis are good to go when the players will Cherry pick no matter what the stats show. Not all Mechs Jump, not all have ECM, not all are 90-100 ton monsters.

But if a TEAM were to build for a Mission (in the near future hopefully) without all weight classes available, despite that some are not "Meta" ready currently, not having them available would be a damn shame imo.

As to the Lance config. We, a four man in a PUG, killed a Steiner Scout Lance that had 2 DDC after they snuck up on us. Not bragging, just saying, if a Teams composition and competence is right, even a 400t threat can be dealt with and by no means guarantees the other Team a win.

But I expect that the response would be that was a BAD Steiner Scout Lance right? Your Steiner Scout Lances always win every time? So be it. I am glad to report that we only ever fight BAD Steiner Scout Lances. Maybe some day your Steiner Scout Lance will show up and do it right.

P.S. It is a Team game and the current PUG scene is no indicative of what can be accomplished across the whole weight spectrum of Mechs in MWO. Without some personal flavor available, I am not playing my MWO, I would be playing someone else vision. Sorry, I prefer my vision, despite its obvious flaws.

The problem with your argument is that personal anecdotes =/= evidence.

You also present the premise "Any Mech can be fielded and if played as it was meant to be, and built accordingly, will do OK." This may be true for some mechs, but it is certainly not true for all mechs. Consider the Locusts, several Hunchback variants, the Trebuchets, the Awesomes. Almost none of these mechs see play, which implies that they don't "do OK". Granted, you could define "OK" as something like "they did at least 1 point of damage", but that would be absurd.

I agree that balancing 100+ variants is a difficult task, but there are baby steps that can be taken toward putting everyone on a more even playing field. Of course players will cherry pick the chassis that currently plays best in the current meta, but if we can get the number of "useable" chassis to a higher number that's good. I agree that not all mechs can carry the same equipment. This is why (for example) the Cataphracts that don't carry jump jets should have something that makes them special compared to the Cataphract that does have jump jets. For instance, we could decrease the turn rate on the CTF-3D so that it only turns as fast as the other Cataphracts when it is using its jump jets (but this only happens if jump jets are equipped).

I agree that personal flavour is a huge selling point for MW:O. I love playing the mechs I want to and tinkering around with them in the mechlab to squeeze in that little bit of extra performance from a build. However, in the current system a lot of this personal flavour is lost. For instance - if I wanted to seriously play a "competitive" 12-man, you can believe that I wouldn't be bringing my special snowflake PPC + 3ML + 2 ALRM15 Thunderbolt to the party.

Balancing more variants, be it based on mobility, agility, firepower, armor or anything else you can think of, only serves to add more diversity to the game because it means that there are more "good" options available to players (instead of picking between HGN-733C or "mech that will be killed by a HGN-733C").

I'm not suggesting that we make Heavy / Assault mechs unusable / useless, I'm simply suggesting that we tip the balance so that Heavy / Assault mechs tend to dominate at long range, while Light / Medium mechs have an advantage at short range. Remember that when I say "advantage" I mean "higher chances of success" and not "lol free Atlas kill".

Consider this: when was the last time you built an Assault mech that carried 20%+ of it's torso armor on the back? Mine typically carry 16-18 points of rear armor (roughly 15% of their torso armor) because the only time something can shoot at my back is when I'm intentionally running away from it. Likewise, I've heard that many top-tier players carry only a few points (1-10) on their backs because nothing can ever get behind them.

[Dashwood Fox]

OP, I strongly agree you conclusion. For a while now, especially when it comes to heavies and assaults, I've felt torso twisting is way too fast. Not only is it too easy to track pretty much any target but it also breaks the reality that you're in a big towering 'mech. 'Mechs should feel a little more lumbering. Maybe reduce elited/mastered twist speeds back to standard speed and lower the standard at the same time. That might be a good start.

[Escer]

YEAH! :]

[Postumus]

PGI needs to start soliciting these kind of analysis to figure out what the underlying game mechanics are actually doing to class balance. When I heard about the medium mech maneuverability buffs, I was skeptical. I was skeptical because, in my experience, extra torso twist and arm movement speed are the two least useful buffs for a mech, because every mech in my stable from Atlas on down can move the crosshair fast enough to snap shot anything the moment it is in my view.

Right now the only reliable way to kill larger mechs in a light or medium is to attack from the rear, attack a distracted opponent, or use a high alpha build that has enough speed to get back under cover as a way to mitigate damage. At best, circling an opponent will reduce the damage you take by less than half if they are smart enough to not try and turn in a single direction, but half of an assault's damage output is more than enough to kill you quickly. If there are two or more enemy mechs, all the speed and mobility in the world wont help you, you just have to hope for bad aim. Not very fun, because it means that piloting skills don't get you very far, and the tactics available for confronting opponents are very limited.