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I have been with this game since early beta up till now and i have watched the progress it has made since then for the good and most of all for its worse.
Ok now thats out of the way lets start and take a look at what Mechwarrior has always been about and where i think MWO is failing to deliver.
1. Context and depth of Battles:
Mechwarrior has always been about 2 or more sides struggeling to get the upper hand in a conflict that spans from one planet to whole systems. At middle of those fights there are the elite warriors that are known as "Mechwarriors" surrounded by a warmachine consisting of mixed groundforces i.e Tanks and Infantry and/or Airforces and Navy.
While MWO is nailing the part on side of the Mechs i cannot but feel the whole rest of what makes Battletech and respectivly every other Mechwarrior game great is beeing ignored in this game completly.
There is no defensive structures to overcome. There ins no meaningfull objective like taking an actual base by disabling its defenses and garrison. There is nothing to do but fight Mechs in a sort of Gladiatorious pitfight to the death. There is no context and no depth to these fight besides "use the current meta game to your advantage or lose the fight".
I know that Community Warfare is promised to us and is supposed to fix alot of what i just brought up. But to what degree are they (PGI) going to make this Franchise come back to life?
I understand that Mechwarrior has allways been about Mechs at its core but what made the other Mechwarrior games so great to me was that you actually felt as if you were part of a Conflict rather then a duel.
2. Balance and Stock viability
2.1 Balance
Battletech has allways had ways to balance out forces without tweaking weapon damage or armor distribution or stuff like Ghostheat.
In the previous Mechwarrior games you mostly played in singleplayer and i'm just mentioning this because i will get jumped for continuing without doing so. I am well aware of the differences beween balancing a singleplayer game and a multiplayer game. Fact is though balance is no Voodoo balance is math.
Back to point.
In Battletech since the earliest versions you had a limiting factor to balance out matches i.e Tonnage.
This worked well until an event hit the fan that is also known as the "Clan Invasion"
The first ruleset stuck to the Tonnage as a limiting factor but FASA realised very fast that this wasn't going to balance the game because Tonnage wasn't taking into considerration how vastly superior the Clantech was to its Inner Sphere counterparts.
They came up with a system to make balance as close as it has ever been to perfect in the Battletech Universe.
BV or Battlevalue
Better Tech cost more of this Battlevalue then Tech that fit the same role but was inferior.
To make an example everyone understands to make my point.
A side that fields...
...1x 75 Ton Timberwolf (Mad-Cat) BV: 2,737...
...enables the opposing side to field...
...2x 75 Ton Marauders BV: 1,363...
...to make up for the superior Technology that is Clantech.
What this could mean for MWO if it was done right is, you might have superior Mechs and Systems but you have to face up to double the number of enemies in a Match.
It means that Clan Tech can be introduced without the redicilous tweeks that have been thought up by Paul and his game designer department.
To me this sounds like a fair way to balance the game as it takes skill to stand your ground against a superior number of enemies even though you have better Tech. Clans do not become overpowered and skill stays a focus. Also it fits the Canon of the Clans who took on vastly superior numbers to get their kicks of it. (arrogance some would say)
To be exact it might take a Clan player a bit less effort to down an Inner Sphere Mech but he also has more targets to take down aswell.
What does it take to make this possible on PGIs side?
- implement a BV for every chassis and every equipment in the game
- Match teams of equal or near equal BV
- make Clan Tech only available to Clan Mechs
- make Inner Sphere Tech only available to IS Mechs
- pit IS vs. IS, Clans vs. Clans or Clans vs. IS but never mix teams
- increase maximum players per side to 20 (4 Clan Stars or 5 IS Lances) as a cap for BV to work and give enough space to compensate for BV heavy Clan Teams
- cap the Maximum BV so the 20 man Cap isn't streched
This is no Voodoo it is doable. Its simple mathmatics if you agree with my point or not.
The question is, Is PGI willing to do so rather then fixing the current balancing of the game by yet another patchwork balance to compensate for it's **** poor design decisions in the past.
2.2 Stock viability
In the Battletech Universe (including Mechwarrior) every Mech was designed around a certain task it had to fullfill on the Battlefield. Every Mech was viable in its own way.
The problem i see with this within MWO at the moment is there is NO stock viability.
I will make this example easy and believe me or not its its transferable to nearly every mech in the current game.
The Hunchback 4G is designed around the concept of urban combat and close range brawling. With its AC/20 it is a fearsome foe up close and even way heavier mechs have to fear it.
The Blackjack 1J is designed to be a firesupport Mech with counter insurgency capabilities and a decent close combat potential.
Now these two Mech build the perfect case to proof my point about Stock viability.
The Hunchback 4G comes with a stockloadout of 1 AC/20, 2 medium lasers and a small laser has no jumpjet capability and weighs 50 tons with a BV of 1,041
The Blackjack 1J comes with a Stockloadout of 2 AC/2's and 4 medium lasers, has jumpjet capability and weighs 45 tons and a BV of 949
Ok you say what the problem?!
The problem is that the Blackjack has replaced the Hunchback 4G due to its hardpoint abilities.
Though the Blackjack only comes with a total of 2 ballistic Hardpoints instead of the 3 of the Hunchback most if not all players these days run it with the same loadout a upgraded Hunchback 4G runs.
To be exact i run my Hunchback 4G with 3 medium lasers and 1 AC/20 with 4 tons of ammo i am forced to a standart engine of 200 with a topspeed (without speadtweak) of 64.8 KPH
I run my Blackjack 1J with the exact same weapon loadout and ammo except i am able to fit 4 jumpjets and an XL 235 engine with a topspeed (without speedtweak) of 81 KPH
The only difference to my Hunchback is the armorvalue which is 338 for the 4G and 272 for the 1J at next to no survivability difference due to the way higher maneuverability of the Blackjack.
Ontop of that my Hunchback has to turn his whole torso to the enemy to fire its AC/20 while the Blackjack has it in its arm and has a way better firing angle.
If the Hunchback looses its right torso the AC/20 is gone and so is one of my energy hardpoints. If the Blackjack looses one of its side torsos its dead but that has happened to me less then my Hunchback getting cored in the center. Why because the Side torsos of the Blackjack are 1. very tiny in comparison and 2. are unlike the center torso very retracted.
So you could say the Blackjack 1J is the better Hunchback 4G
What makes this possible ?
Very easiely put Hardpoints as they are in the game are a **** poor implementation.
What to do to fix this? Well thats not an easy thing to answer.
The best i have seen in the past and could come up with myselfe is restricting hardpoint sizes on Mechs to what the stock weapons had in slots.
So for example if we stick to the current slots sizes of weapons in game currently
Give the Hunchback 4G not 3 ballistic slots but give it a left torso that fits any combination of ballistic weapons up to a maximum of 10 Slots like its stock AC/20 has.
For the Blackjack that would mean take 2 AC/2's or 2 Machine guns.
Now hold on for a second i know thats a bit unfair but we have to take into consideration that these hardpoint limitations have been forced upon us by PGI not by Battletech. I think a bit of leeway and common sense should be put into this aswell. So maybe allow the Blackjack to have 4 slots of ballistics in each arm to make it a viable mech in its own right and give it some viable posibilities to customize its loadout.
How ever you put it the current Meta game without hardpoint size limitations has led to monstrosities like the 6 ERPPC Stalker or the Dual AC/20 Jager or Catapult, 6 SRM 6 Catapult A1 and many different Mech designes that suck out the fun and diversity that was once thought out by the original makers of Battletech.
What did PGI do to counter alot of these builds ? Double Heatsinks that do 1.4 instead of 2.0 Heat dissipation and as that clearly did not work Ghost heat. Upping the Armor values to double of the original. All clear signs as to how little PGI understands the Franchise they are working on right now patchworking over every balance issue they introduced themselfe someway down the line.
So what is it i am demanding?
In short.
- introduce Battlevalue for balancing instead of tweaking the formula each time you run into self introduced balance issues.
- leave Clan Tech and IS Tech as originaly intended
- up the possible playerlimit to compensate for possible Battlevalues while capping out BV
- give us bigger maps with actual Objectives instead of Gladiatorial fights in Solaris sized maps
- limit the hardpointsize per mech to keep intended stock designes alive while finally killing uberboats and builds that disregard the canon of Battletech.
- generally start to pull the stick out of your arse for thinking you the Devs have the ultimate formula for Battletech just because you have the funds to realize it.
This Franchise has been here before you (PGI) and while i thank you for finally puting it back to life step by step heed my warning. You are on the brink of destroying your work with stupid design decision after stupid design decision. Get real! Listen to your community and stop ******* around with our loved franchise.
Cheers,
Jack Corban
PS: If you find any typos or gramatical issues of any sorts keep em i'm not a native speaker.
Edited by Jack Corban, 15 December 2013 - 05:19 PM.
