97 replies to this topic

[Davers]

Void Angel, on 12 March 2014 - 10:32 PM, said:

Sweet; I try to read all the stuff they release, but I miss stuff. I really wish they'd put all their interviews in the Command Chair.

I was floored when PGI posted the transcript of the Vlog instead of waiting for a forum user to do it.

[oldradagast]

INKBALL, on 13 March 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

I fear that game will gets more ''meta'' again: You can't say a 20tons = a 35 and neither a 40 tons = a 55...

So, we will fight against 35-55-75-100 and maybe some -5 tonners (with more hardpoints or with jj or mech specific situations).

So it wont really balance the weight, it will just bring it to a more ''meta'' situation.

People feeling more forced into bringing the best of their weight class will be a serious problem.

The future team from 3-3-3-3 will look as follows:

Lights: Some mix of Firestarters / Jenners and 1 or 2 ECM lights
Mediums: 3 Shadowhawks and maybe an ECM Cicada... or just 4 Shadowhawks
Heavies: Some mix of Jager-S and Jager-DD and Cataphact 3D
Assaults: Some mix of Highlander 733C and Victor's

And that's about it. One could rightly argue that those are already the best mechs, so nothing changes, but as others have stated, there's a perceived weakness now if you "waste" one of the team's slots with a weaker mech. You brought an Awesome, but they probably brought a meta-assault - you get the idea. Currently, while one can have wild tonnage imbalances, there's far less sense of wasting a slot since you're not clearly paired up with an opponent of the same weight class. I'd like to hope that people would still play more diverse builds even with 3-3-3-3, but I doubt it... and sadly the game still has a lot of subpar mechs. Not everything can be great, but there's some real differences in power level evident.

[Void Angel]

Eh, they're working on better communication, which is good. I still get the feeling that they don't have quite all the personnel they could use - and some of the guys who are releasing information, well. They're software engineers.

[Void Angel]

Some people do feel that they do better in a lighter 'mech - particularly when some 'mechs have dramatically different capabilities in the class. Consider the Atlas and the Victor, for example. Still, there are some 'mechs which simply underperform; I know people who prefer their Commandos over Jenners - no one prefers a Locust for competitive play. Bear in mind that they're going to have the matchmaker look for exact tonnage matches first, but yeah, it's one of the drawbacks of the system proposed.

As in anything, the question is whether the benefits are worth the costs.

Edited by Void Angel, 13 March 2014 - 11:14 AM.

[Murzao]

#1 Having a group of 11 vs 5 or 4 is like the old day of having 8 mans vs the general queue. Pure pugstomping. I was 50-2 before I stopped caring ended up at like 1000-50 even pugging a lot. Loads (not) of fun. If you have 6 or more in your group you should be matched vs the 12 man queue. Pull all the highest ELO people looking for match. They don't get any more match failed, you get good players to go against the 12 mans (and uuhhhh probably people better than your group lol!!!!) shoot em off your TS in the prelim screen and you're good to go. That is if the MM can't find your group size in pug land right away so a 7group vs a 7group?? no? then 7group+5pros vs 12 man time.

Problem Solved and Problem Solved.

#2 People think this 3/3/3/3 will cause bottlenecks. Sure a small one (like tank/healer queue in wow), but once everyone is used to not 6 assaults every match...there'll be more than enough mediums. Mediums are the best 1v1 and best overall mechs, just sucks if they go against 6 assaults. In the weight limit premade games he who has the most mediums wins usually. I know I can't wait cuz I'll be like, 'only 2 victors on the other side? charge!' I can't wait for this 3/3/3/3 when most poptart posers will rapidly fall in elo due to not having an assault blob for protection. Poptarts are a breeze to kill 1v1.

Not really caring if it's weight limits or this 3/3/3/3 system. (weight limits is preference....meh if I coded this game and you had 400 tons with 4 people I woulda made you go 4v8, that would solve the heavy/assaultfest in a hurry)

Edited by Murzao, 13 March 2014 - 11:52 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

INKBALL, on 13 March 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

Finally, i think 3/3/3/3 is as bad as no weight balance.
Have a nice day,

You're more optimistic than I. At least now if I queue in a mech, any mech, that mech drops into a match as soon as the match maker can match me to one. Once 3/3/3/3 is put in I'll be waiting for the least represented class to fill into my match. I'll be waiting in a queue to play a game because of a decision to place an artificial limit on group composition.

this isn't accounting for the blandness of facing your doppelganger each time.

PGI has the opportunity to scrap 3/3/3/3 before they write all that code and blow us away with a different better solution. I am not optimistic.

Edited by HammerSwarm, 13 March 2014 - 11:42 AM.

[Whatzituyah]

You know I too think this is a bad solution I mean they could keep 3-3-3-3 for balance but without trying matching tons to tons it will lead to boring battles.

[Mason Grimm]

I know I'm going out on a limb here but I'm predicting 12 Man Competitive Builds will look something like this....

3x HGN / VTR (Poptarts)
3x CTF-3D (Poptarts)
3x SHD (Poptarts)
3x JR7/RVN (Jenners for Screenining or Ravens for ECM)

[Lukoi Banacek]

Mason Grimm, on 14 March 2014 - 06:32 AM, said:

I know I'm going out on a limb here but I'm predicting 12 Man Competitive Builds will look something like this....

3x HGN / VTR (Poptarts)
3x CTF-3D (Poptarts)
3x SHD (Poptarts)
3x JR7/RVN (Jenners for Screenining or Ravens for ECM)

Safe bet.

[HammerSwarm]

Whatzituyah, on 13 March 2014 - 11:57 PM, said:

You know I too think this is a bad solution I mean they could keep 3-3-3-3 for balance but without trying matching tons to tons it will lead to boring battles.

It's the 3/3/3/3 that is a bit of a concern too. I dunno. I'd like to think they could do better than ridged class balancing and tonnage matches. Poor is the team with the awesome, the dragon, the cicada, or the locust.

I am less concerned with how boring and predictable the matches will be than finding a match in my over represented class mechs.

I love dragons. Why in the name of the Mech Lord would I ever pilot one again? Longest que and since they are a rare sight in game and quick draws are also rare that I'd see a catapult/jager/thunderbolt on opposition.
So I wait to be a burden on the poor team that drops with me? Ha.

I'll just pull the mech cover over them and close the garage door. Which hurts because I have 5 fully mastered dragons that I was hoping I could bring out in community warfare when I could earn loyalty with my previously mastered mechs.

Edited by HammerSwarm, 14 March 2014 - 06:40 AM.

[Davers]

HammerSwarm, on 14 March 2014 - 06:35 AM, said:

It's the 3/3/3/3 that is a bit of a concern too. I dunno. I'd like to think they could do better than ridged class balancing and tonnage matches. Poor is the team with the awesome, the dragon, the cicada, or the locust.

I am less concerned with how boring and predictable the matches will be than finding a match in my over represented class mechs.

I love dragons. Why in the name of the Mech Lord would I ever pilot one again? Longest que and since they are a rare sight in game and quick draws are also rare that I'd see a catapult/jager/thunderbolt on opposition.
So I wait to be a burden on the poor team that drops with me? Ha.

I'll just pull the mech cover over them and close the garage door. Which hurts because I have 5 fully mastered dragons that I was hoping I could bring out in community warfare when I could earn loyalty with my previously mastered mechs.

Play what you like. Simple as that. I assume you like Dragons because you feel you do well in them. So play them. I remember a Kuritan 12 man who used Dragons are part of a fast flanking force. They have a place on any team. The quickest way to ruin MW:O is to be a slave to the meta.

[Gremlich Johns]

3/3/3/3 is the easiest thing for PGI tacticians to figure out.

[Sable]

Well i was going to qoute the OP but couldn't actually determine what was relavent information vs what was pure speculation. The scenarios you were suggesting are too rigid and since the actual drop rates for the different classes have never been expressed to us there isn't enough info to determine if the equalized number for each class is impractical. You make too many assumptions in determining your numbers. As an example for conqest you assumed people were dropping in more lights than assaults, which at first seems reasonable if people were always planning on going into conquest to win by cap points but that isn't always true. Some go into conquest because they select "any" when they drop, some like conquest because it helps discourage megablobbing as they will lose to cap points because no one splits up. Some people don't care what game mode they are playing and will play whatever mech they want no matter what. PGI has stated after looking into the different methods of weight balance that this one seemed to solve the most problems. This wasn't just a snap decision without exploring the other possibilities. If you listen to the podcasts they explain the process on how they react the conclusions with their design decisions.

[jper4]

i know someone posted this somehwere earlier but i like the idea of giving the MM a bit more flexibility by setting an upper cap of 4/4/4/4 for each chassis. so you may end up 4/4/2/2 vs 2/2/4/4 worst case- 520 tons vs 860 tons if the lightest mechs possible are taken by everyone on team 1 and heaviest ones by everyone in team 2- what are the odds of that happening much? still avoids the assault-apalooza but gives teams more flexibility when being put together which should speed the MM process up some but letting it use a slightly bigger net to catch players in.

plus this way if a 4 man wants to bring 4 heavies they can and not say "sorry #4 you need to play an assault because we're out of heavy slots" .

Edited by Tanar, 17 March 2014 - 09:04 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

Sable, on 17 March 2014 - 08:44 AM, said:

Well i was going to quote the OP but couldn't actually determine what was relevant information vs what was pure speculation. The scenarios you were suggesting are too rigid and since the actual drop rates for the different classes have never been expressed to us there isn't enough info to determine if the equalized number for each class is impractical. You make too many assumptions in determining your numbers. As an example for conquest you assumed people were dropping in more lights than assaults, which at first seems reasonable if people were always planning on going into conquest to win by cap points but that isn't always true. Some go into conquest because they select "any" when they drop, some like conquest because it helps discourage megablobbing as they will lose to cap points because no one splits up. Some people don't care what game mode they are playing and will play whatever mech they want no matter what. PGI has stated after looking into the different methods of weight balance that this one seemed to solve the most problems. This wasn't just a snap decision without exploring the other possibilities. If you listen to the podcasts they explain the process on how they react the conclusions with their design decisions.

The point of a discussion asking how something would work given XXX data is to logically work through some parameters and see how they would work. If all players Queue evenly in each weight class then we'll be fine and we'll have evenly balanced matches with no queues. I've save you the trouble, It's 100% speculation based on the command chair post, I was hoping in some small part that the questions would be addressed by PGI as to how they are going to handle it or if based on their data they anticipate a problem. Not a direct answer to me but as an addendum to the command chair.

I do listen to the podcasts, and read the releases. Show me where at any point this was addressed? Hint: has not been, don't bother.

The information they released to support ridged realignment of weight classes is that 84% of players drop solo. What?

I want to know more data. I want to know what that data looks like the day a new mech is released. I want transparency so that my feedback as a paying customer can be as helpful to them as possible so that we both get what we want: A great game.

Edited by HammerSwarm, 17 March 2014 - 10:58 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

Tanar, on 17 March 2014 - 09:04 AM, said:

plus this way if a 4 man wants to bring 4 heavies they can and not say "sorry #4 you need to play an assault because we're out of heavy slots" .

They're not worried about 4 mans. You're on an Island bro.

In all seriousness if you listen to the NGNG Russ part 1 interview he talkes about how they feel Premium Private matches are a fine solution for that "edge" case.

I know my group(taw.net) has never done anything like a light pack, a medium flanking lance, or all catapult 4 man drops...We're and edge case though because we group up, 84% of people drop solo.

Davers, on 15 March 2014 - 07:51 PM, said:

Play what you like. Simple as that. I assume you like Dragons because you feel you do well in them. So play them. I remember a Kuritan 12 man who used Dragons are part of a fast flanking force. They have a place on any team. The quickest way to ruin MW:O is to be a slave to the meta.

I can respect that Davers. I dunno, I worry about it though. If I'm taking up a heavy slot with something that can be done as well by a medium it's hardly the same as using a slot in the current unlimited drops to be a dragon. The tonnage difference between taking an extremely effective 55 ton medium and taking an underwhelming 60 ton heavy seems large if it has the potential to negatively impact my team. I guess in practice we'll see.

Edited by HammerSwarm, 17 March 2014 - 11:10 AM.

[jper4]

HammerSwarm, on 17 March 2014 - 11:04 AM, said:

They're not worried about 4 mans. You're on an Island bro.

In all seriousness if you listen to the NGNG Russ part 1 interview he talkes about how they feel Premium Private matches are a fine solution for that "edge" case.

I know my group(taw.net) has never done anything like a light pack, a medium flanking lance, or all catapult 4 man drops...We're and edge case though because we group up, 84% of people drop solo.

no island here, i PUG 99% of the time. not to mention 90% of my mechs are mediums or lights, would be higher % but phoenix package forced me to take some heaves/assaults with it. i have seen light swarms and mediums packs (hawks usually) with the occasional highlander foursome drop in matches i've been in which is why i proposed having a max of 4 per weight class instead of locking everyone in at 3. that way those guys could keep doing that if they wanted to.

[Kadix]

It won't be bad if they have some sort of visual feedback on wait times.

If I see a notice in the upper corner that says:

Average Wait Times
Light Mechs: 20 seconds
Medium Mechs: 0 Seconds
Heavy Mechs: 200 seconds
Assault Mechs: 100 seconds

then I'm going to be playing a Shadowhawk or my CN9-D for the evening.

Given how the Founder's and Phenoix packs gave us a mix of mechs, I think most paying customers are going to still have a bunch of mechs for different weight classes. Maybe not maxxed out for skills and equipment, but if going medium will save me queue time then I'm going medium.

Edited by Kadix, 19 March 2014 - 04:00 AM.