4
One point I'd like to make and stress on in regards to this matter is that increasing the number of anything tends to SYNERGIZE. That is a keyword that I will be re-using and to great extent because of it's importance. PGI and many other game companies fail to understand this single important factor in balancing any game: that more of one thing does not increase it's capabilities by a proportional factor and tends to increase it by a disproportionate factor. I'll give an example that many in this game can understand. Given that a player pilots a mech of a certain weight chassis, and the enemy uses the same chassis for sake of balance (assuming the mechs are balanced in that weight class as well), then we can assume facing one opponent is relatively and strictly fair. Now two opponents and immediately there is a synergistic effect. They may be dealing twice the damage, but in effect many other factors, such as the pilot now facing twice the armor, twice the heat efficiency, etc., makes the match as effective as facing an opponent with three times the weapon power, heat efficiency, armor, hardpoints/components, etc. That is SYNERGISM. A battle against one might take ~2 minutes given that it is strictly balanced, now turns into a battle that takes ~30 seconds.
To give another example on a more strict and direct approach is an arbitrary mech chassis. Let's say that a mech has an arbitrarily average torso twist speed and can mount an also arbitrarily average damaging weapon. If that mech were underwhelming and PGI decides to buff, let's say the torso twist speed, that weapon is much much more effective than before, what was before a miss now becomes a shot on-target, laser weapon retention times are increased substantially, the capability to lock onto a moving target now also substantially increased.
This applies more often than not due to how often a single mech can be left alone, as well as in confrontations, a single mech may decide to spot or be the forefront of a strategic push and face upon a wall of 12 enemies as opposed to only a max effective of 8 before, making scouting and advancing much less viable than before.
In effect, increasing the number of players may have lowered the proportionate number of players communicating, but this additionally increases the synergistic fighting capabilities of both sides. By increasing the number of players, PGI employed the lack of communication as a balancing mechanic. To me and many other players that is a stupid move on their part, and quite literally at that (using ignorance to balance the game). What I consider a feature they NEED to implement rather than plainly increasing the number of incoherent pugs to balance is the implementation of VIOP. This is a feature that WILL solve the communication issues... is communication capabilities within this game. This game has already gone into release as they claim it to be but let it be me to point out, and I'm not certainly the first, that the lack of communication in this game is pivotal point in which I consider the game to be in it's beta stages, or as of now I call it gamma testing, along with MULTIPLE other features still abhorrently missing from this game.
From how it may be seen, increasing the number of incoherent players was an utter lazy method of delaying VIOP, with other negative consequences that should never be a part of this game. Those negative consequences are nerfs to weapons that may not need to be nerfed. Case in point: A PPC MAY, and quote, MAY be fine without the additional heat. Due to the increasing cases of poptart, PPC's have gotten the nerf hammer simply because more than one mech may be using it. A single team may have 15 PPC's in total. Does that make the PPC an overpowered weapon? Not necessarily. It may be balanced as it is if an individual mech were to use it and strictly observing that individual mech, but now consider a total of 15 PPC's on one team. Within certain circumstances, that's 150 damage, maybe spread, maybe on point. Whether on point or not any single mech does not have the capability to fire with an alpha of 150, but collectively 12 mechs are capable of doing so with little issue with heat management and little downtime between shots. Increasing the number of players also leads to boating rather than diverse mech loadouts due to this synergistic effectiveness. Lower team numbers although will have cases of boating, will be rarer the case so. Given the lower number of players on a single side players will have to consider being capable of dealing damage at multiple ranges and multiple circumstances. With the increase in number of players, individuals begin to assume that the variability of the whole team choosing one-weaponed boating is lessened, and will begin to boat themselves believing that other mechs will account for the other ranged/scenario circumstances and from what we can see, it has been truer the case where players are boating PPC's and ballistics or even LRM's but much less the case so.
To me, the ideal game as of now is 4v4 both capable of communicating and weight balanced.
Edited by SmallPaws, 10 March 2014 - 11:30 AM.
