166 replies to this topic

[Varent]

So admitedly I usually make a point to avoid most gaming forums. I dont like them, they are full of nerd rage and generally alot of argument. However Ive always enjoyed BT. Ive read every novel, Ive played every game, Ive played the board game and ive even done the roleplaying gaming with friends. There was even a time I collected the card game. It has a deep seated root within me and I really wanted to fully explore the MWO forums because of that. I for one actually had been enjoying the game as a whole. Was it perfect? No. But compared to many other shooting games out there ive found it very favorable due to the fact that its alot slower paced then other shooters while still providing a strong degree of excitement and reward for my efforts. The degree of customizability is awesome and overall It makes me feel fairly well immersed.

I didnt completely start looking at the forums until after the game went out of Beta, this was mostly because frankly... I was confused and had thought CW was coming.... I started to look around the forums and observed the arguments tossed aruond back and forth and discussions... then I found the Balance forums. I read over a few of them and felt many of them had a very skewed view and many of them were very much in disagreement to one another. I also felt many of them would lead to changes in the game that I personally found unfavorable. I did feel there was issues with jump snipers being too prevalent however so I felt that perhaps a nice subtle change could prove beneficial... I started it there and then slowly continued to read and learn more and more and more.

It is with a heavy heart that I slowly began to form a few conclusions about the community of MWO. There are three very distinctive groups that play. All of wich want different things and all of wich drastically do not get along in any way shape or form. The reason for this is that the game itself appeals to a very specific set of gamers on every level. The game itself seemed to promise a niche for each of them but at its core the gaming wants are so different that it cant possibly fulfill the wants and needs of all of them without making the game unpalatable for another of the groups.

Honestly its why I think the game feels more then a little unfinished right now and why things have been so delayed over and over again. PGI has put themselves in a position where there community that they have to make happy is all crying out for different things and making one group happy possibly isolates another one entirely. The following are some of the more major points I feel sort of need to be brought up. Partly because im tired of them not being addressed and partly because I feel as a community we need to realize except and embrace a few of the basic premises because honestly if we dont the game will continue to drag on and on and on until eventually it will remain a simple unfinished project and die.


1) you want the game to be equal with weapons. weapons however are not meant to be equal. Weapons are MEANT to be unequal. weapons that are larger, and heavier and stronger are located (normally) on larger mechs who are supposed to be scary. No one has addressed at all the fact that the ac20 is supposed to be scary. They want to ignore this fact because they want to balance it. They want to balance it based off BT. But they ignore the fact that the ac20 is supposed to be scary in the BT universe. I recall a specific book where light mechs stood in awe of two assaults duking it out simply because they knew whoever one the combat would basically decide the overall battle because of the fact that they simply would not be able to handle an assault mech by themselves due to the weapons they carried. This in essence is what weight restrictions do. They give value to the weapons based off of weight and limit how many of them can be on the field of combat. That being said many successful games out there with 1. a larger following, 2. larger monetary value, and 3. a more active community, do not balance all of there weapons but instead leave weapons in the game for options and 'feel' value. You dont see people hoping all over there forums complaining about them. They simply enjoy the game or dont play. What you have on the MWO forums is people whining and complaining because 'Its not what I feel BT should be'. I mean really.... all I can think is , 'aww... muffin' and pinching the cheek of a child.

2) You want the game to be equal because currently there are no roles for ligher chasis. The BT universe was created around the concept of there being a role warfare for a light mech. In the universe itself this works because you have a true world to explore. I need to use the concept of eve to fully explain this. Eve is a truly massive universe. Due to the massiveness of it a 'scout' is needed to actually move way way ahead of a force and bring back useful information so you can know of the enemies forces. In mwo you simply dont have the map sizes that make having a scout mech truly valuable, nor do you have the amount of time in a game that would be needed for this. In a real life situation and scenario you would need to spend hours over a massive map with your scout mechs moving foreward miles ahead to bring information back to you that you could then use to decide how to engage an opponent. In mwo the maps are so small that the scout mechs main roll is a quick blurp of information and then once combat starts they are relagated to a combat roll. There are no true scout rolls in mwo. And there cant be with the system they are using. Scouts were balanced against other mechs and weapons in TT because there was BV and you could bring 2-3 light mechs for the value of a heavy mech at times. You cant however do this in MWO and it would be unbalanced either way because there is no way to properly account for the value of a pilot within a mech, some are amzing, some are crap and it makes the weapons ona mech either ten times better or worse based off of that. Right now we are moving away from BT honestly because we are trying to balance something that is not meant to be balanced and honestly ruining the fun and exciting and interesting factors of the game for the sake of achieving a balance scale that doesnt even make sense in a BT world.

3) Your basing your ideas off TT, TT in and of itself was never balanced in the first place, it was erated multiple times because of this and many things were added to the game overall to fill in the gaps of the balance issues that always occured. This being said we dont have access to all of those items yet to fill in those gaps, We took an already broken system and without using the proper parts to fix it we are trying to tinker and 'fix and balance' it when really we probly should have just been focusing on making a fun game. There are two major competing views and concepts here people need to accept. There is TT and there is the BT universe and after both of those things there is the MW universe. In TT you will be matched evenly based off how many mechs you have with X BV. However in the BT universe two mechs are not equal, nor are two weapons equal. Certain weapons are simply stronger and better then others. Clan technology is simply stronger and better then IS. This is the reason why they are having to change so many things about the clan weapons and tech, it was never balanced in the first place and is at such a disparity that it would mean an utter steam role of the IS. Yet people feel that two mechs should be equal and thus we have created this broken concept of balance that we are trying to work towards wich is basically ****** everything the actual universe and lore of BT stands for. Now on top of that you have the Mechwarrior universe. Wich is what I am reffering to as the onling gaming universe since that has been what every title has been under. This universe requires an equal amount of shooters on either side and basically arena style game play to a degree to be fully effective. You cant fully balance mechs along those concepts. Every MW title so far has always been an arms race. The balancing factor to a degree is weight restrictions since it allows you to not have so many big guns on either side. If you want an actual BT feel in a MW title, then weapons being unbalanced is acceptable. It actually gives the game taste and feel.

4) The sad truth on all sides of the argument is you have an older generation of gamers that want this game to be TT, you have a younger generation of gamers that want it to be MW and you have a middle aged generation of gamers that want it to be BT. All three of those options are impossible to put fully into a game. To put in a long random shot game of attrition like you have in TT you will destroy the entire MW crowd and basically leave the game bland for those that want BT. For the game to feel epic and give the feel of true mechs like we read about you will have devastating weapons that make the TT people cry because its not 'balanced' and make the MW gamers unhappy because they want a shooter that lets them have there E-Peen. And to make the game a simple balanced shooter for the MW crowd means you **** the BT universe and go away from everything that TT really stood for since it has nothing to do with a balanced shooter.

All these things are not statements, they are facts and cold hard truths. What is the answer? Honestly I dont know. What would be my answer is for PGI to take a stand and state what crowd they will be aiming for. The last MW title came out 12 years ago.... time and the gaming industry has changed so much now its ridiculous. All these things said I dont feel that this game is meant to support all those gaming types... they are too differing of crowds based on what they want and because of this the game will always be unsufficient to fullfill the wants of everyone that will play it. If at some point they do decide they will please one specific group then you will lose the other two since there wont be a reason for them to play. In a perfect world gamers might come together and find an acceptable middle ground where everyone can be happy. In a real life situation human beings have been killing each other from the moment we could lift up and bash someones head in with a rock based off things alot less important then the direction of a videogame.


Now I suppose with all this said the only hope that I truly have is that as a community these groups can somehow come together so that whatever direction PGI decides we as a community can embrace. Would you rather see a game that at least offers 'some' of what you want, or would you rather have no game at all?

-In hopes of a brighter future and a more unified community.
Varent.

[DocBach]

the community is its own worst enemy in a lot of regards

[D04S02B04]

Nice write up.

I would add however that, not everyone's views are relevant and as another thread / post has mentioned pertaining to the issue of jump snipers (or gauss rifle) are not so much the problem with the weapon or meta itself but rather, the game mechanic of front loaded damage combined with pin point/convergence damage.

But honestly, problems remained unsolved when people do not know what they want (i.e. they want a problem solved, but they don't know how).

You made a good point that the game should be designed according to the game environment.

[Varent]

D04S02B04, on 08 March 2014 - 02:14 PM, said:

Nice write up.

I would add however that, not everyone's views are relevant and as another thread / post has mentioned pertaining to the issue of jump snipers (or gauss rifle) are not so much the problem with the weapon or meta itself but rather, the game mechanic of front loaded damage combined with pin point/convergence damage.

But honestly, problems remained unsolved when people do not know what they want (i.e. they want a problem solved, but they don't know how).

You made a good point that the game should be designed according to the game environment.

Yes and no. I am by no means saying I have the answer. I dont. I fall into one of these crowds quite readily. I am the BT crowd. I dont care about the weapons that much in regards to balance, frankly I like them how they are so im a proponent for keeping them as close as possible while making subtle changes to appease other groups. But the fact of the matter is that while doing this I dont feel other groups are willing to do the same for the same sake.

I feel the answer is probly somewhere in the middle of all those groups, but the thing people need to understand is where they get, they need to give. Otherwise they will actively be hurting the game and ruining it for another playstyle and gamer group.

[Rebas Kradd]

The community generally cannot agree on how to balance the game. PGI truly cannot please everyone. There are common throughlines of criticism, but here is the giveaway: nobody actually looks at the practical results of what's been done.

Have the size and speed of lights vs assaults been properly differentiated so that lights can legitimately survive and play a role? Yes. Has the PPC meta been tuned down by Ghost Heat? Yes. Has the PPC/AC20 meta been eliminated by the recent nerf? Yes. Is there a place for the majority of the weapons? Even the most intense nit-pickers admit that there is. Are mediums making a comeback? I've sure seen one this week. Waiting until every single mech and weapon has a role is a prissy and fussy definition of balance and not a fair criticism of a 2.5-year-old game. Nobody ever stops to ask how much worse this could all be. (For an object lesson, I reference MW2 and MW4).

There is still tuning to be done, the friggin SRMs need to get fixed already, and role warfare and objectives need to be further fleshed out and incentivized. But that is not the level of grievous imbalance that should generate a constant stream of unconstructive snipes (or worse) and send critics waxing poetic on PGI's idiocy. We're just not talking about the same thing. In my judgment, we're about 75% there.

[Mcgral18]

D04S02B04, on 08 March 2014 - 02:14 PM, said:

Nice write up.

I would add however that, not everyone's views are relevant and as another thread / post has mentioned pertaining to the issue of jump snipers (or gauss rifle) are not so much the problem with the weapon or meta itself but rather, the game mechanic of front loaded damage combined with pin point/convergence damage.

But honestly, problems remained unsolved when people do not know what they want (i.e. they want a problem solved, but they don't know how).

You made a good point that the game should be designed according to the game environment.

There have been many options given, such as Varents rather long list of variants for ACs which could take some time, as well as very simple to implement suggestions.

One such is just going into the XML, halving the cooldown, heat and damage and then doubling the ammo for some ACs. It would take an hour at most, and would significantly reduce the frontloaded massed alphas, while retaining the same DPS.

Throw it on the test server and see if it increases the TTK or not.

[Varent]

Mcgral18, on 08 March 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:

There have been many options given, such as Varents rather long list of variants for ACs which could take some time, as well as very simple to implement suggestions.

One such is just going into the XML, halving the cooldown, heat and damage and then doubling the ammo for some ACs. It would take an hour at most, and would significantly reduce the frontloaded massed alphas, while retaining the same DPS.

Throw it on the test server and see if it increases the TTK or not.

As long as your willing to acknowledge this may not be an answer and that others may feel differently. And be willing to accept a middle ground perhaps.

[Mcgral18]

Varent, on 08 March 2014 - 02:43 PM, said:

As long as your willing to acknowledge this may not be an answer and that others may feel differently. And be willing to accept a middle ground perhaps.

As long as there is a significant enough disadvantage to your FLD weapons, sure. 6.5 or so seconds for the AC20 should be good, while the burst versions keep the current 5 DPS, or around there. FLD is a significant advantage.

[Varent]

Mcgral18, on 08 March 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

As long as there is a significant enough disadvantage to your FLD weapons, sure. 6.5 or so seconds for the AC20 should be good, while the burst versions keep the current 5 DPS, or around there. FLD is a significant advantage.

I agree it is. I also think that it should have advantages because of its weight and size however. I dont have the best answer for that though. What I hope is that the community as a whole can get behind something and that we can all want something together since there seems to be very little we all can agree upon.

[Hexenhammer]

People scream "BALANCE!" as if there is some magical panacea that will create balance. Its this word people use but never tell you what it means.

I want this game balanced!
Okay. What does Balanced mean?
It means every weapon is equal!.
Okay how do you achieve that?
Huh...

Balance is this utopian ideal that can't exist in a game like this. It'd be wonderful is MWO maps were as big as Planetside 2 but that would require a change in design philosophy.

Anways thats my 2 cents. Everyone cries for balance but can't actually explain what it means without using platitudes.

[Sephlock]

Hexenhammer, on 08 March 2014 - 03:02 PM, said:

People scream "BALANCE!" as if there is some magical panacea that will create balance. Its this word people use but never tell you what it means.

I want this game balanced!
Okay. What does Balanced mean?
It means every weapon is equal!.
Okay how do you achieve that?
Huh...

Balance is this utopian ideal that can't exist in a game like this. It'd be wonderful is MWO maps were as big as Planetside 2 but that would require a change in design philosophy.

Anways thats my 2 cents. Everyone cries for balance but can't actually explain what it means without using platitudes.

How about this:

Usage of any given weapon should not be zero or near zero (see: narc, flamers, splas).

I'd expand that a bit to include lone LRM launchers, but that gets into fuzzier territory .

As for the specifics, those have been discussed to death. The Narc buff will help (it remains to be seen how much, I suspect they will need a bit more of a buff). There are solutions to the flamer issues but the Devs (justifiably, to a certain degree) are loath to implement them, and splas... they're in the process of tweaking, it's just taking a while. A long while.

[Asmudius Heng]

Stop using the word equal in regards to balance it creates an entirly skewed idea of what people actually want.

Balance simply means that as many playstyles, items, equipment etc in the game have a place in the game even if it is niche.

IT means that everything needs to be effective enough to compete within it's state role.

Do we have that now? No, there are a lot of mechs and weapons that are not effective. The worse crime against balance I feel is that the much advertised role warfar of this game was never in as a core pillar form the start.

If it was they would be looking at every mech and item with an eye to how it would fit into a broad role.

Instead they took the TT values and tweaked them a bit, i love TT and i like the game to feel like it but they should have taken the IDEA of a weapon and mech and built it around that rather than just a list of hardpoints and statistics.

Balance does not mean equality, balance means as much player usable items as possible should be competative and any competative player will tell you there is a decent chunk of weapons and mechs that are not there yet.

Sephlock, on 08 March 2014 - 03:10 PM, said:

hey're in the process of tweaking, it's just taking a while. A long while.

I hink we would see far less vitriol if this process was sped up ...

[Willard Phule]

I know this is kind of off topic, at least to your original post, but it's kinda not.

I get what you're saying and I agree with about 80% of it. But...balance doesn't necessarily mean equal....and a lot of that is situationally dependent.

The primary argument, at least the ones I've been involved in, with regard to balance have more to do with the fact that the Elo system is inadequate and the Matchmaker is set to pick up people with such a wide spread of Elo level, it's basically not doing it's job. Considering you start at 1400, the cap is 2900 and the spread the MM uses is 1400...there's a 100 point gap (2 wins) that aren't considered if you're maxed out and joining a game. You see my point?

Equal, as far as tonnage is concerned, is an issue...with regard to random PUG games. With regard to CW and such? Not so much. In fact, "equal" teams in CW circumstances would generally be wrong. But, in controlled circumstances (such as Clans fighting a Rite of Possession and holding their bidding process outside the game, prior to drop) it would be understandable.

But...in a random PUG drop who's outcome doesn't effect anything but the amount of Cbills and XP earned? Come on. You can't tell me you enjoy being placed on the underweight team against a 4 man premade of D-DCs over and over and over again. Noone likes to lose that much.

I guess that's my point. Sorry to intrude. Carry on.

[Sephlock]

Asmudius Heng, on 08 March 2014 - 03:16 PM, said:

I hink we would see far less vitriol if this process was sped up ...

I've just learned to accept the pace.

Maybe I'll take up zen Buddhism, try some meditation .

[Eddrick]

I like the way you looked at the situation from all points of view. I experianced all three. But, I like MechWarrior and TableTop versions. What I would like to see is each weapon having it's place with nothing being powerfull in all situations. I can exept that some will be better then others. But, I will not tolerate this game needing a Ban List, like Armored Core has.

[Varent]

Eddrick, on 08 March 2014 - 03:46 PM, said:

I like the way you looked at the situation from all points of view. I experianced all three. But, I like MechWarrior and TableTop versions. What I would like to see is each weapon having it's place with nothing being powerfull in all situations. I can exept that some will be better then others. But, I will not tolerate this game needing a Ban List, like Armored Core has.

I like that your open minded. This game needs more open minded people willing to look at all sides.

[keith]

tues kills MWO. standby for titanfall

[Khobai]

titanfall wont kill mwo. its only 6v6 and theres no customization. the gameplay and gamemodes will be better though.

[Sandpit]

Honestly, a lot of the ones coming to the forums in the name of "balance" are wanting nothing more than easy buttons. They play the game, they lose, they keep losing, they keep doing the same thing over and over again and instead of adapting to the game they want the game to adapt to them.

[Mcgral18]

Sandpit, on 08 March 2014 - 04:53 PM, said:

Honestly, a lot of the ones coming to the forums in the name of "balance" are wanting nothing more than easy buttons. They play the game, they lose, they keep losing, they keep doing the same thing over and over again and instead of adapting to the game they want the game to adapt to them.

From what I see, the easy button is what some want taken out.