47 replies to this topic

[Novakaine]

Ah true this wishing glass.
Minimally viable product breeds minimum effort.
"PGI Style"

[Joseph Mallan]

Oni Ralas, on 25 February 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:

Oh I know, and ideally it would be a game for the purists. But the reality of the situation is that all us purists/fans can't keep this thing afloat on our own. Nor should we, and nor should we deny a new batch of people interested in the BT/MW universe.

There will always be an attrition rate of any game, but there are some really simple things you can do to ensure it's not right off the bat. I've been having a blast with Star Conflict, and I use it a basis of comparison of what a small company *should* be able to put out.

So long as those people understand that the universe predates them and has its own laws of physics. Absolutely! But the game CANNOT be made to make everyone happy. Somewhere the DEVs have to say ______________________ This is how it is going to be. And as my Dad says. Piss or get off the Pot.

Oni Ralas, on 25 February 2014 - 10:36 AM, said:

Hehe, you and me both man. I think most folks that are still around are from this school of though...or are masochists LOL

LOL This is a game for Old Men!

I work with a guy. He is an Axis and Allies Player. He is Always the German Army. He always loses. For 20 Years he has tried every way he can think of to win... Dude has even more resolve than I have!!!

[Oni Ralas]

Tier Example. Set number of mechs (I just picked some randoms) are available in this tier. Pilot ranks 1-3 are show, with sample bonus (which emulates new player bonus) tapering off around R3. R4 is shown as an example of what would happen if someone higher rank came to lower tier.




And mech progression tied into tiers. Ranking up your pilot accesses higher tiers/mechs, but ranking up your mech gets you access to both elited version of your current mech (which follow you in the tiers) but also unavailable chassis in the next tier. For example - if you just ranked up and never elited your A1 catapult, then in T2 you could buy an C4 and C1. If you elited your A1, you'd have access to the K2 (again, I just picked random for illustration)




The important thing to note is that each tier gets progressively larger in terms of mech selection and loadout (previous tiers roll into it) without limiting people to one starter chassis. You can also introduce assault mechs in T2, albeit maybe just 1 version, so people can get used to them while still being around relatively "new" players. In T3 and above, the remainder of assaults/heavies/more specialized chassis become available. There is of course the problem with Hero mechs and where they fit into the board. The good news is that the Hero's aren't all that great (I love you YLW and Illya...) so they can still be shimmed into tiers...but I'm sure PGI would have a problem selling someone a mech for real $ they couldn't go use. There are mechanical ways around this that could still keep things viable for both the purchase side and usable side.


Logic for drop. We check for pilot rank to determine if they can enter the tier selected. Higher ranks can enter lower games (w/ penalty) but not the other way around. We then look at the mech's tier rating. Mech must be at or lower than the current tier (that way a T5 Stalker doesn't end up in the kiddie pool). If we're good, we drop. At the end of the match, modifiers are applied for things like the rank of the pilot and their other standings (CW, etc).

Edited by Oni Ralas, 25 February 2014 - 12:39 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

If I understand your proposal Playing under your Elo/Skill level would net you less XP/cash. Kinda how when a higher level character in SWTOR causes a sharp XP drop for the adventure. But you are suggesting only the Ringer get penalized... Yes?

[Oni Ralas]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 February 2014 - 12:19 PM, said:

If I understand your proposal Playing under your Elo/Skill level would net you less XP/cash. Kinda how when a higher level character in SWTOR causes a sharp XP drop for the adventure. But you are suggesting only the Ringer get penalized... Yes?

Correct. I don't want to isolate people from their friends, and forcing people to play certain tiers is no better than dropping them in one giant mess. I can be the ultimate veteran mech jockey, but still go tool around in the kiddie pool if I want to. I'd get like zero cash for it, but I would be "scaled down" by having to use the same mech level as everyone else. I may still tear it up, but there is a greater chance that I'll also be tossed around because everyone is on relatively equal footing. At higher tiers it becomes a bit more of a grey area - but that's expected. The deeper the pool, the bigger the sharks

Mech XP still functions in a similar way it does now, except that my pilot rank, which unlocks the tiers, are what control my ability to purchase/use mechs. However, I may still elite them out to gain bonuses, and on top of that, I'd like to see certain chassis only be available through the mechxp ranking structure. The idea there is that I am not *forcing* you to elite a mech you hate, however as an added bonus for doing so, you'll get the "hotrod" version of it available from there on out. Some may complain that they have to grind X to get Y, but in reality...they're likely already going for elite status on a chassis they really like, so it's just a natural progression. It also can fit right into the lore, giving "ace" pilots access to better gear is a common military theme.


Oh, and ELO still can easily fit into this. Even though MechWarrior's may be the same Rank, it doesn't mean there at the same skill level. You could lose every single match and still rank up your pilot, since the mechanism for doing so is the XP from matches. Your victories however are going to not only accelerate your progression through ranks, but also start putting you with people of your same skill level. That way, we've got balance within the balance. The slower folks on the learning curve will still progress against others their speed. The ace pilots are going to be up against the other aces, etc. They've already got the mechanics in place, it wouldn't take much to adapt it to a tier system.

Edited by Oni Ralas, 25 February 2014 - 12:50 PM.

[Trauglodyte]

Oni Ralas, on 25 February 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

I've struggled to understand the PGI approach to balance, especially after being involved in several other IPs over the last few months. I brought this up a looooong time ago, and I think it's even more relevant now than then.

Without any form of linear progression, or tiers, I can't see how things can ever be balanced. Forget weapons for a moment - I'm talking about the core how all things MechWarrior happen.

Take a newbro and an oldbro. Newbro has been playing for a day or so, with all those nice trial mechs, and has amassed himself enough money to buy an atlas. Good for him! It's a capitalist society in the IS, so if you want it.. go buy it. So after his purchase, he's sitting in his brand new Atlas cockpit, ready to take on the world. His ELO has never been calculated - as it's based on the chassis he's in and not his time played.

Oldbro decides he's had enough of the 50 other mechs in his bays and finally picks up an atlas. He's got a bit more cash to throw around, so he springs for the better setup and of course the modules to go with it. His elo has also not been calculated, since he has never piloted the atlas. However, he's got a ton of seat time in everything else, so all the concepts are the same.


Both get dropped into the same random match. What's weird is that their elo's get match with other elo's of the same bracket - but nothing based on chassis weight or loadout. Will it be 10 others in shiney new atlas' (Steiner lance FTW) or a bunch of Centurian A's in default loadout? Who knows.


After a steady whooping, the following results have occurred:
- Newbro gets his ass handed to him. Even with all that tonnage and firepower, he slowboats into the line of fire and is dropped. They lied to him! Assaults are supposed to be the best! Ugh this game sucks...

- Oldbro gets torn up, but not before doing decent damage. He's already learned some of the quirks of the chassis, and with all the pinpoint spam, knows better than to go rushing in. He'll likely stick with the chassis a bit, but will probably go back to some of his others.


Without any form of progression, newbro burned all his money and probably got frustrated (maybe even coming to the forum to rant about how assaults are broken?). Oldbro has been around long enough to just know how things go, the luxury of time in grade. How in the world do we consider this a good idea? I'm not going to turn my daughter loose in a Ferrari when she turns 16, why would I let a new player access the biggest/most expensive items without any form of proving their worth?


I'm not suggesting we sandbox everyone or make them start with X chassis - but giving people a progression tree *AND* a "safe haven" to play around with others in their skill class makes them want to actually stay and learn. You can break up the mechs into tiers, with overlap, and have the ELO play into it. You can also grand unlocks of variants (or lock a tier down to pure "stock" mechs, etc) without really changing much from a mechanical standpoint.


/endrant

PS: Is it that hard to give us a "Eyes on my target!" command key? Even without voice comms, those who play Star Conflict can easily let their team know whats up by "pinging" a target (which makes a ping sound and notifies you in the chat window). It's amazing how such a small thing can turn the tide of a fight.

There is a flip side to this coin/arguement.

Oldbro (me) gets tossed into a game with 7 Newbros and 4 randoms. Oldbro doesn't know what his ELO score is because the intricacies have never been explained and the data isn't available. What Oldbro does know is that Newbro in his shiny Stalker Champion, which he didn't have to pay for at all, is a walking steamy pile of slag waiting to happen on top of the fact that chances are good that Newbro has no idea what he is doing. As the game progresses, some Newbros redeem themselves while others fall into newby line and fire LRMs at point blank range, snipe with MGs, and do the bad heat management shutdown conga. The game ends and Oldbro is extremely upset because he lost, ended up having his time wasted due to Newbro (and not out of maliciousness at all), and wonders why he keeps getting these people in his games.

The one thing to remember here is the #1 addage for Sales: It is always easier to keep your existing consumers than it is to find new ones. Oldbro is the person that is more apt to line the pockets of PGI. Newbro might be here for one game and then bounce to yet another FTP game or he might stick it out for 25 games and then quit due to the same frustration as Oldbro. The point is, Oldbro is probably actually old and a long time Battletech player and/or Mechwarrior player while Newbro happened to read about the game on some random website. Which one is the better option at keeping?

I will say that I think Newbros get hosed in this game. They get set way to high when they begin, wehther it be the game or a weight class, and don't have the access to tools or knowledge like the rest of us. Most of them don't even know about this board and, unfortunately, would probably get eaten alive for asking "dumb" questions. They also don't know about the various community run team speak channels and are solo dropping. So, they're already leagues behind the vets all while trying to climb the ranks. But, they're also getting tossed into games WITH the vets which leads to them getting eaten alive and thus less time to learn things. Neither of these things is healthy for the long term game.

But, how do you fix it?

[General Taskeen]

Well the newbro would select a starter "Stock" Atlas and be all like, "oh hell yeah, I can fire those 4 medium lasers all day with 20SHS, the Atlas is so kool!" and then sees how broken the heat system is where he overheats using all the lasers and an AC/20 when 20SHS should do just fine, but doesn't. And then newbrogirlperson gets frustrated realizing the game requires you to grind to adapt to the broken heat system (gotta get that DHS man, gotta get dem 1.5 mil man!), where all the "oldbros" are using Elited Mechs with even more broken heat system applied (better cooling rates, more thresholds).

"Ah f***, now I got use those Trial Mechs again, since the Mech I bought overheats like crazy and then I gotta grind 2 more just so I don't overheat, wtf!"

I see new players running around in fresh stock Mechs every game - the most popular I've seen is the Locust-3S for some reason, probably its cheapness. NewBroLocust doesn't get to fire their 2 Streaks since every game I also see ECM, because "PGI Balance" and then takes maybe 1-2 hits and dies, since the bigger hitter weapons do their exact TT damage, while other Lights Annihilate NewBroLocust with their Auto-Arcade-Streaks and yet NewBroLocust can't fire 75% of their weaponry at a Mech staring right at em.

Great balance right there for a new player. So now if they want to use their Streaks on their shiny new Locust, they gotta grind for Endo, maybe Ferro, just to fit a damn Beagle Probe to fire their weapons, and then they also realize they need to grind for a damn expensive XL or sit through a ton of terrible matches until they get a Light Mech that can actually survive.

And then the new player shrugs and loads up a different game. This game has a lot more problems for new players due to those core design issues.

Edited by General Taskeen, 25 February 2014 - 06:44 PM.

[Sandpit]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 February 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

New bro is an idiot if he doesn't try more than the one Mech.

Kinda have to agree here. There's 4 weight classes to try out.

I WOULD, however, make a suggestion. New players still under the cadet bonus period would be allowed to customize their trial mechs. They wouldn't be charged for customizing a mech. This would give them plenty of experience with the mech lab, different wechs, weapons, modules, engines, etc. so they can make a more informed decision before they drop all their cadet cash into a mech they end up not enjoying and getting stuck with it.

[GreyGriffin]

NewBro would have a much better time of it if he didn't have to lose 80 rounds to get enough C-Bills to make his one Atlas viable. To say nothing about the 3 Atlases he'll need to purchase, customize, and grind to master the chassis.

[Craig Steele]

Oni Ralas, on 25 February 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

I'm not going to turn my daughter loose in a Ferrari when she turns 16,

I hear your daughter just read this and she wants to talk you..............

[Hexenhammer]

Gonna ask a newb question. How does Eve do progression? I've never played it. I ask this because I wonder how much Community Warfare will impact the game when and if we see it. Maybe thats part of the progression puzzle we are missing.

[Sephlock]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 February 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

And as my Dad says. Piss or get off the Pot.

What if I have to go #2 ?

Quote

I work with a guy. He is an Axis and Allies Player. He is Always the German Army. He always loses. For 20 Years he has tried every way he can think of to win... Dude has even more resolve than I have!!!

http://www.axisandal...p?topic=30167.0

[GreyGriffin]

Hexenhammer, on 25 February 2014 - 08:26 PM, said:

Gonna ask a newb question. How does Eve do progression? I've never played it. I ask this because I wonder how much Community Warfare will impact the game when and if we see it. Maybe thats part of the progression puzzle we are missing.

[Mystere]

GreyGriffin, on 25 February 2014 - 10:06 PM, said:

Although I like that graph, it is wrong. It depicts "time spent playing" as a function of "gaming skill", when in fact it is the other way around.

[GreyGriffin]

Mystere, on 25 February 2014 - 10:20 PM, said:

Although I like that graph, it is wrong. It depicts "time spent playing" as a function of "gaming skill", when in fact it is the other way around.

That's what you get when you grab infographics from the internet.

[Tahribator]

GreyGriffin, on 25 February 2014 - 10:26 PM, said:

That's what you get when you grab infographics from the internet.

Do you order them by mail?

[Joseph Mallan]

Sandpit, on 25 February 2014 - 06:59 PM, said:

Kinda have to agree here. There's 4 weight classes to try out.

I WOULD, however, make a suggestion. New players still under the cadet bonus period would be allowed to customize their trial mechs. They wouldn't be charged for customizing a mech. This would give them plenty of experience with the mech lab, different wechs, weapons, modules, engines, etc. so they can make a more informed decision before they drop all their cadet cash into a mech they end up not enjoying and getting stuck with it.

When I first got into Beta, My (F)Atlas had a small stock pile of equipment I was allowed to use. It was cool, It would be great for Boots to have SOME options.

[Willard Phule]

Trauglodyte, on 25 February 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

There is a flip side to this coin/arguement.

Oldbro (me) gets tossed into a game with 7 Newbros and 4 randoms. Oldbro doesn't know what his ELO score is because the intricacies have never been explained and the data isn't available. What Oldbro does know is that Newbro in his shiny Stalker Champion, which he didn't have to pay for at all, is a walking steamy pile of slag waiting to happen on top of the fact that chances are good that Newbro has no idea what he is doing. As the game progresses, some Newbros redeem themselves while others fall into newby line and fire LRMs at point blank range, snipe with MGs, and do the bad heat management shutdown conga. The game ends and Oldbro is extremely upset because he lost, ended up having his time wasted due to Newbro (and not out of maliciousness at all), and wonders why he keeps getting these people in his games.

Heh. "Bad heat management shutdown conga." Gonna have to remember that. But I absolutely agree with it. As for why he's getting these games, it's because the spread that the matchmaker works with in trying to find "appropriate" Elos is so huge, it encompasses EVERYONE, just about.

Trauglodyte, on 25 February 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

The one thing to remember here is the #1 addage for Sales: It is always easier to keep your existing consumers than it is to find new ones. Oldbro is the person that is more apt to line the pockets of PGI. Newbro might be here for one game and then bounce to yet another FTP game or he might stick it out for 25 games and then quit due to the same frustration as Oldbro. The point is, Oldbro is probably actually old and a long time Battletech player and/or Mechwarrior player while Newbro happened to read about the game on some random website. Which one is the better option at keeping?

You'd think, right? But, imagine you've got a fly-by-night, no real product to sell company. Your business plan isn't to have a sturdy, well developed customer base. You're trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to as many people as you can before you get ran out of town. That's the impression that PGI is giving me, at least. They're more concerned in drawing in new people and getting them to stick around long enough to drop that first $30 on the game, then they're relegated to the "ok, we got their money, focus on the next crop of idiots" crowd.

Trauglodyte, on 25 February 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

I will say that I think Newbros get hosed in this game. They get set way to high when they begin, wehther it be the game or a weight class, and don't have the access to tools or knowledge like the rest of us. Most of them don't even know about this board and, unfortunately, would probably get eaten alive for asking "dumb" questions. They also don't know about the various community run team speak channels and are solo dropping. So, they're already leagues behind the vets all while trying to climb the ranks. But, they're also getting tossed into games WITH the vets which leads to them getting eaten alive and thus less time to learn things. Neither of these things is healthy for the long term game.

But, how do you fix it?

Other than rehashing the whole weight balancing thing, just working within the parameters of what we've got right now?

Simplest solution is to lower the Elo score that "Newboy" starts out with once he's done with his 25 cadet rounds. Keep the 1400 spread so the "Oldboys" can find matches....but start "Newboy" out in the triple digits, not quadruple. That way, all the "Newboys" will be stuck with each other until they can pull their heads out of their butts and get better.

[Joseph Mallan]

Phule, your post has made me a sad man. Mostly cause I see the ties from what you said to the actions of PGI/IGP.

[Shae Starfyre]

84% of the players might tell you that until you seperate the queues between new/casual players and team play, you can't balance scrap meaningfully. It's part of the balance equation that is being ignored.