263 replies to this topic

[Kyle Wright]

Hey guys,

I know there are a few people that are super happy about 3,3,3,3 as they hope it will limit matches with heavy assaults poptarting. The thing is it may limit the amount of assaults, but you are still going to have issues with jump sniping. 3,3,3,3 just equates to 3 Highlanders, 3 Cataphract-3Ds, 3 Shadowhawks, 3 Jenners or Ravens... All with ERLL, PPC, Gauss, or Ac10.

Not to mention by implementing 3,3,3,3 you are taking away players free choice to play whatever they want in whatever setting. Instead you are shoehorning people into conforming to a set drop setup.

The logical thing to do would be to have Mechs with a general Battle Value (BV) then as weapons and engines are switched the BV would change. Then you set a overall limit on 12-mans with some # overall BV. Now if a team is able to field 8 assaults with in that constraints well good for them, now they might not be the best setup, but by gollie they got them in there. All the while the opposing team ran more balance through the weight classes and has a higher quality mech across the board.

Furthermore you could easily influence the meta of the game by making unused weapons lower in BV such as things like LRMS, LPLs, small lasers, etc while giving PPCs, Ac20s, Guass, ERLLs a higher BV. So if you want to have the bells and whistles you will pay for it, or if you run more modest builds you can have possible higher tonnage across the board.


-K. Wright (HHoD)

[FupDup]

Tonnage Limits, 3/3/3/3, Tiers, Battlevalue....


Why not just have Role Warfare? Why not have maps larger than shoe boxes, so that mobility and scouting are much more important? Why not restructure rewards so that shooting everything that moves isn't the only reliable way to make some cash? Why not give each class (or possibly even chassis, if we're ambitious enough) their own unique XP tree, instead of giving every single mech the same copy-paste that reduces the weaknesses of mechs that shouldn't really be maneuverable (notice how most of the XP tree unlocks are based on making your mech more agile?)? Why not have every class able to be equally valuable contributors to their team, while having vastly different (but complementing) strengths and weaknesses?

...But we can't have that, because PGI prefers their "top tier avatar" system. They want to clearly outline which mechs they want to be the best in the game and which mechs they want to shine the shoes of the top dogs.

Edited by FupDup, 17 March 2014 - 10:40 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

3/3/3/3 is a great thing but it is pointless without a maximum tonnage limit. Then again, PGI is balancing around the 84% that solo drop so what do we know?

[Eddrick]

It's a substitute for Tonnage Limits. But, like FupDup said, Role Warfare would go much farther with balancing Mechs and Weight Classes.

[M4NTiC0R3X]

The old matchmaker (IMO) was better than the current in fairness and fun. Now we have a combination of the two systems and additional flavor knowing only one premade will exist per team and for each premade the other team will have one as well, it's a half step forward to me.

[Mystere]

Whiners cried, MWO died.

[Shermburger]

Mystere, on 17 March 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

Whiners cried, MWO died.

Oh boo-hoo.

Since the Mechwarrior games first hit online game play, it has always been a heavy/assault beat down. 3-3-3-3 isn't perfect, but it's at least an attempt to change from that. Do I agree with 3-3-3-3? No. But that's the fastest, cheapest thing they can do for now to address the problem.

Everyone I have ever asked in my entire life (who has played Mechwarrior/Battletech) has always responded with some heavy or assault when I ask them for their favorite mech. That's because lights and mediums have always been portrayed as stepping stones to the mechs that people actually care about.

[Kyle Wright]

Shermburger, on 17 March 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

Oh boo-hoo.

Since the Mechwarrior games first hit online game play, it has always been a heavy/assault beat down. 3-3-3-3 isn't perfect, but it's at least an attempt to change from that. Do I agree with 3-3-3-3? No. But that's the fastest, cheapest thing they can do for now to address the problem.

Everyone I have ever asked in my entire life (who has played Mechwarrior/Battletech) has always responded with some heavy or assault when I ask them for their favorite mech. That's because lights and mediums have always been portrayed as stepping stones to the mechs that people actually care about.

Give me a Hunchback or Shadowhawk maybe a Griffin and Im happy, personally id like to see more medium mechs offered that arent cookie cutters of each other * cough cough Wolverine and Shadowhawk) though weapons are situated different.

[Mystere]

Shermburger, on 17 March 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

Oh boo-hoo.

Since the Mechwarrior games first hit online game play, it has always been a heavy/assault beat down. 3-3-3-3 isn't perfect, but it's at least an attempt to change from that. Do I agree with 3-3-3-3? No. But that's the fastest, cheapest thing they can do for now to address the problem.

Everyone I have ever asked in my entire life (who has played Mechwarrior/Battletech) has always responded with some heavy or assault when I ask them for their favorite mech. That's because lights and mediums have always been portrayed as stepping stones to the mechs that people actually care about.

In my humble opinion, 3-3-3-3 is a bad idea that came as a response to incessant whiners unable to repeatedly face odds not in their favor. I faced the hordes of 8-man teams that wreaked havoc on the PUG queue without any complaint. I just picked myself up by my bootstraps and soldiered on, which made me -- I dare say -- a much better player for it. Unfortunately, a large chunk of the player base is just not tough enough to play a game as brutal as MWO.

By the way, my favorite mech at the moment is the Ember Firestarter and I named her "Charlie":




and the other one is my itsy bitsy yellow Spider-5D:



So,

<Incorrect spelling for "Charlie">

Edited by Mystere, 18 March 2014 - 08:48 AM.

[trollocaustic]

Kyle Wright, on 17 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Hey guys,
Furthermore you could easily influence the meta of the game by making unused weapons lower in BV such as things like LRMS, LPLs, small lasers

Kyle Wright, on 17 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

unused weapons lower in BV such as things like LRMS, LPLs, small lasers

Kyle Wright, on 17 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

unused weapons such as LRMS

[Mechteric]

Kyle Wright, on 17 March 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

I know there are a few people that are super happy about 3,3,3,3 as they hope it will limit matches with heavy assaults poptarting. The thing is it may limit the amount of assaults, but you are still going to have issues with jump sniping. 3,3,3,3 just equates to 3 Highlanders, 3 Cataphract-3Ds, 3 Shadowhawks, 3 Jenners or Ravens... All with ERLL, PPC, Gauss, or Ac10.

Tonnage/Class balancing is not at all related to what the meta does. Meta can and will only change based on weapon balance changes, and other gameplay affecting balance changes.

But Battle Value itself isn't perfect either. A high BV Centurion may still be no match to a lower/equal BV Cataphract for instance, because of so many other factors that make that the case (Meta usage, pilot skill, etc). The only way to make BV account for this is to have the numbers dynamic based on the Meta at the time. I can't begin to imagine how hard that would be to quantify the numbers that way.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 17 March 2014 - 11:47 AM.

[Khobai]

3/3/3/3 is far from ideal but I wouldnt say its detrimental. Its a HUGE improvement over what we have now: which is absolutely nothing.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Khobai, on 17 March 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

3/3/3/3 is far from ideal but I wouldnt say its detrimental. Its a HUGE improvement over what we have now: which is absolutely nothing.

Yeah, I can't help but be happy that they are doing SOMETHING to limit Assaults.

I was dropping with a few guys, and guess our combined ELO was high enough to hit that super special part of the queue.

And it was like 5 Victor's, a Highlander, a couple Phracts, and some lights against us.

And we certainly weren't running a competitive comp.

It was really annoying.

I mean, sure sometimes you'll still get super unlucky and end up against 3 Victors and 3 Phracts running meta.

But that's still better than the current, and probably won't be as common as you'd think.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 17 March 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

3/3/3/3 is far from ideal but I wouldnt say its detrimental. Its a HUGE improvement over what we have now: which is absolutely nothing.

I actually liked the "absolutely nothing" part ...




Heck, for all it's warts, I still prefer the original random(?) matchmaker over everything else that came and is still to come.

Edited by Mystere, 17 March 2014 - 12:28 PM.

[Charons Little Helper]

Frankly - I still think that they should do a tonnage by lance set-up. (Cue for a scout lance - your lance gets 160 tons - you need to be at least 100kph & leave at least 30 tons for each player left to pick a mech. Assault lance is 350 tons. etc - each side has the same lance types)

But 3/3/3/3 should be a MAJOR improvement over no limits.

The absolute theoretical tonnage difference with 3/3/3/3 is 195 tons - and they're going to set it to keep the tonnage difference to a min as well. I'm guessing that weight differences of more than 100 will be extremely few and far between.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Russ and Bryan are detrimental to MW.

[Rubidiy]

I see one huge downside of 3-3-3-3. Each time some new mech is being released, people won't be able to find a proper match for entire weight class of a new chassis, because everyone would want to drop in a new mech. Problem is that players need to drop a lot in a new mech, cause they have to level up in three versions of a chassis.

[Shermburger]

Mystere, on 17 March 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

In my humble opinion, 3-3-3-3 is a bad idea that came as a response to incessant whiners unable to repeatedly face odds not in their favor.

Cute.

It's a problem with the game, and they are making a genuine attempt to deal with it. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it any less of a problem.

[Bhael Fire]

I'd much rather see a 1:1 matching mechanic based on BattleValue that takes into the account the mech and the pilot. That is, for each 20-ton light mech one team has, the other team will have a 20-ton light mech with an equally skilled pilot. So basically not matched purely on tonnage, but on weight class and skill, as well. This would prevent massively off-balanced matches, while still allowing players to drop in whatever they want.

However, as this seems to be too hard to implement, I'll settle for 3/3/3/3 over what we have now.

[Daekar]

OP and other complainers are just sad that they'll have to use different tactics now. This is nothing but good, and any negatives that come from it will be far outweighed by the benefits. As someone who doesn't own a single assault mech on principle, this will be one of the biggest and most meaningful changes to my gaming experience in months. I never understood why they dropped weight-class matchmaking in the first place. Having attempted-tonnage matching in addition will make lesser mechs like the Locust and Dragon that much more viable, which is critical to population diversity.

Bring on 3-3-3-3. Better yet, make it 3-4-3-2. Then the rage will really flow...