67 replies to this topic

[HighTest]

Werewolf486, on 17 April 2014 - 05:59 AM, said:

It will be balanced eventually!

Think about it this way for a minute. You nerf the best weapon every month and then eventually they all have the same range, same damage, and same heat....balance!

I tried suggesting even back in closed beta that they just make all mechs the same tonnage, same speed, same armor, and same single laser for every mech in the game. Strangely, eveybody complained they didn't like that idea. Even the people that kept whining about making things more balanced. Huh.

You just can't please everyone all of the time. I've suggesting to PGI several times to just leave the balance alone (since they'll NEVER make everyone happy anyway) and to save their time and effort for developing new content, features, bug fixes, etc. Oh well. Let the vocal whiny minority rule.

I guess no one else is interested in Community warfare, private lobbies, clan mechs, or any of that stuff...

[Almond Brown]

CapperDeluxe, on 17 April 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

I don't think the OP understands what balance means when it comes to games. It mostly takes into account an "all other things being equal" approach, of course there are good players and bad players but just throwing your hands up and calling it a day just because of this fact makes no sense. Balance is a multifaceted topic that isn't so black and white.

The idea that ALL weapons have to be useful at all times is a crazy thought in and of itself as well. Unless there is context, how does anyone make a Small Laser = to a Large Laser or even a Medium Laser for that matter?

Do you give the SL the range of a LL/ML but keep its damage? They still aren't the same.

So when that type of argument is brought forward, it seems silly to even pursue to any extent. One can make certain assumptions about how best to utilize the SL perhaps, but saying it sucks because it has little damage, and poor range is pointless.

Unless, ALL weapons have the same damage, range, heat etc etc etc. Anyone who wants that for their MechWarrior game should simply head out now cause it isn't ever going to happen.

[Mister Blastman]

Aurien Titus, on 16 April 2014 - 11:36 PM, said:

The problem has never been lack of skill on a players part.

The routine 6 players that have less than 100 damage on my team in my PUG drops argue otherwise.

[Greyboots]

Metalsand, on 17 April 2014 - 08:21 AM, said:

You said player skill and LRM in the same post? Lolwut?

LRM's are annoying on most maps, but they are OP on certain maps, because it keeps your team from advancing if the enemy team has enough LRM's. Unlike WoT artillery, there is no skill required, since missiles are auto-lock. Maybe a slight bit of instinct, but you can play LRMboat from day 1 nearly as well as day 50.

And by silly things, did you mean walk anywhere that doesn't have a skyscraper or mountain for cover? Because you can still take damage from cover the size of your mech.

Wasn't my point but it seems like you've got an axe to grind.

If you choose to believe what you're saying then that's as good as you will ever get. I just don't die to LRMs any more frequently than to anything else. If that's not true for you then...

Edited by Greyboots, 17 April 2014 - 09:01 AM.

[Demuder]

Metalsand, on 17 April 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

His argument was a bit different. Take chess from your post for example. If someone did an amazing manuver using a rook, sweeping across the entire board to enter a checkmate with the opponent, and people cried that rooks were overpowered, PGI would respond by preventing rooks from moving more than 5 spaces at a time.

With basketball? An awesome 3 pointer wins the game, so obviously we should make 3-pointers only worth 2 points. That's the kind of PGI logic we are dealing with, because every "balance" just undoes the last balance patch in a circular fashion, instead of focusing on things the game was promised such as community warfare.

Uhm the way I read it was, that since balance is impossible, PGI shouldn't care about it.

We do however agree that PGI has no idea (or knows something we don't) on how to even start working on some glaring problems with their game mechanics and balance.

[Mcgral18]

Almond Brown, on 17 April 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

The idea that ALL weapons have to be useful at all times is a crazy thought in and of itself as well. Unless there is context, how does anyone make a Small Laser = to a Large Laser or even a Medium Laser for that matter?

Do you give the SL the range of a LL/ML but keep its damage? They still aren't the same.

So when that type of argument is brought forward, it seems silly to even pursue to any extent. One can make certain assumptions about how best to utilize the SL perhaps, but saying it sucks because it has little damage, and poor range is pointless.

Unless, ALL weapons have the same damage, range, heat etc etc etc. Anyone who wants that for their MechWarrior game should simply head out now cause it isn't ever going to happen.

5 tons of SLs beats 5 tons of LL, 30 VS 9 damage. You pay for that in range and heat. Seems balanced enough, you can't expect much from .5 tons.

SRMs however have a max range of 270 M and if you bring 16 tons worth, with ammo and launchers, I would expect to get AC20 results, if not better. As it stands, it's a waste of tonnage with shotty hit detection and poor damage.

Balance would be SRMs being better than PPCs and ACs at 200M. As it stands, you need to get within 90M to even get comparable results.

[Khobai]

the game *might* be balanced eventually. the problem is by the time we get there it wont resemble battletech at all.

ac2s for example should not have less range than AC5s and if thats how youre trying to balance ac2s you did something very wrong. thats not battletech.

i dont really care about the specific stats of weapons, but the general feel of weapons needs to stay the same as battletech, and an ac2 with a shorter range than an ac5 completely changes the feel of the weapons.

Edited by Khobai, 17 April 2014 - 09:09 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Metalsand, on 17 April 2014 - 08:37 AM, said:

His argument was a bit different. Take chess from your post for example. If someone did an amazing manuver using a rook, sweeping across the entire board to enter a checkmate with the opponent, and people cried that rooks were overpowered, PGI would respond by preventing rooks from moving more than 5 spaces at a time.

With basketball? An awesome 3 pointer wins the game, so obviously we should make 3-pointers only worth 2 points. That's the kind of PGI logic we are dealing with, because every "balance" just undoes the last balance patch in a circular fashion, instead of focusing on things the game was promised such as community warfare.

And it is incoherent and sentimentalist talk like that that derails and eventually kills every good potential thread ever created. You don't like MWO, fine, your choice but please leave the make-no personal criticism where it belongs. Somewhere else, it ain't helpful.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mister Blastman, on 17 April 2014 - 08:58 AM, said:

The routine 6 players that have less than 100 damage on my team in my PUG drops argue otherwise.

With respect, unless those players are regulars in your drops they could just be players outside their Elo.

I can get matches where I am scoring less than 100 damage, a player leaves our group. We pick up a new 4th and I am back to scoring 200-500 getting kills and assists in buckets. Or as a PUG Well the same thing can and does happen.

[Mister Blastman]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 April 2014 - 09:09 AM, said:

With respect, unless those players are regulars in your drops they could just be players outside their Elo.

I can get matches where I am scoring less than 100 damage, a player leaves our group. We pick up a new 4th and I am back to scoring 200-500 getting kills and assists in buckets. Or as a PUG Well the same thing can and does happen.

It happens so often though. It is maddening. 50% - 70% of drops at times.

[Mechteric]

Almond Brown, on 17 April 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

Unless, ALL weapons have the same damage, range, heat etc etc etc. Anyone who wants that for their MechWarrior game should simply head out now cause it isn't ever going to happen.

That's not balance, that's just lazy game design theory which isn't applicable to MWO, and not at all what I'm talking about. Balance is about keeping the multidimensional factors that make up the elements of play in some sort of equilibrium (perfect imbalance).

[Joseph Mallan]

Mister Blastman, on 17 April 2014 - 09:12 AM, said:

It happens so often though. It is maddening. 50% - 70% of drops at times.

Sounds like fresh meat syndrome.

[Graugger]

Khobai, on 17 April 2014 - 09:05 AM, said:

the game *might* be balanced eventually. the problem is by the time we get there it wont resemble battletech at all.

ac2s for example should not have less range than AC5s and if thats how youre trying to balance ac2s you did something very wrong. thats not battletech.

i dont really care about the specific stats of weapons, but the general feel of weapons needs to stay the same as battletech, and an ac2 with a shorter range than an ac5 completely changes the feel of the weapons.

I guess you haven't heard??? They're cutting the max range of all the other ACs by a third and possibly slowing their projectile velocities again as well.

Oh and about those 14 tons of SRMs doing better than an AC/20... the bally AC/20 weighs 14 tons and each ton only gives you 7 bullets. If you want that why don't we just remove ACs and get this entire complaint about them being OP out of the picture? Better yet how about anything with an OP complaint should just be outright removed from the game so there is no possible way that it can be unbalanced if it doesn't exist... You'd like that right?

[Joseph Mallan]

Graugger, on 17 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

I guess you haven't heard??? They're cutting the max range of all the other ACs by a third and possibly slowing their projectile velocities again as well.

Oh and about those 14 tons of SRMs doing better than an AC/20... the bally AC/20 weighs 14 tons and each ton only gives you 7 bullets. If you want that why don't we just remove ACs and get this entire complaint about them being OP out of the picture? Better yet how about anything with an OP complaint should just be outright removed from the game so there is no possible way that it can be unbalanced if it doesn't exist... You'd like that right?

Wouldn't that just leave us with an empty map???? Oh.... Rigggggght!

[Khobai]

Quote

I guess you haven't heard??? They're cutting the max range of all the other ACs by a third and possibly slowing their projectile velocities again as well.

i havent read that anywhere. got a source?

Quote

Oh and about those 14 tons of SRMs doing better than an AC/20... the bally AC/20 weighs 14 tons and each ton only gives you 7 bullets

Yeah but its pinpoint damage not spread damage. Pinpoint damage is at least twice as lethal as spread damage for obvious reasons. SRMs also cant shoot beyond 270m like the AC20 can. So SRMs should obviously do more damage than the AC20.

As for damage per ton of ammo... AC20 gets 140 pinpoint damage per ton of ammo. SRMs get 200 spread damage per ton of ammo. So in actuality the AC20 gets better ammo efficiency because again its pinpoint damage vs spread damage.

Everything seems to indicate SRMs need a buff.

Edited by Khobai, 17 April 2014 - 09:53 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Khobai, on 17 April 2014 - 09:52 AM, said:

Yeah but its pinpoint damage not spread damage. Pinpoint damage is at least twice as lethal as spread damage for obvious reasons. SRMs also cant shoot beyond 270m like the AC20 can. So SRMs should obviously do more damage than the AC20.

ou do remember Missiles are/were RNG for numbers of missiles to make contact right? SRMs could do more... or as was more the case, less damage.

[Mystere]

I might be "Other School" (and no, "Old School" is not even close ) ...

One of the problems I see when people argue about balance issues is that they take a very limited or, worse, one-on-one point of view:

• ECM vs. "I brought only LRMs."
  
• artillery vs. "I am too too busy to look for red smoke."
  
• long range poptarts vs. "poor brawlers"

I, on the other hand, take a "total system" or "everything is considered" approach. By that I mean that I simply look at whether or not something can be countered. I don't give a rat's behind if it's so easy even a lone monkey can do it, or it's extremely difficult only a highly-coordinated team can get the job done. If it can be countered, then it is good enough for me.

There are much more important things to worry about. Can you say: Community Warfare?

Edited by Mystere, 17 April 2014 - 09:59 AM.

[Graugger]

SRMs operate like an LB-10X in the idea of spread damage. And figure it this way you can and most likely will hit a different spot on a moving mech than where you hit the previous shot so you blow off the armor with an AC/20 then hit them with SRMs so you are pretty certain that you're going to hit that open spot.

[Mcgral18]

Graugger, on 17 April 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Oh and about those 14 tons of SRMs doing better than an AC/20... the bally AC/20 weighs 14 tons and each ton only gives you 7 bullets. If you want that why don't we just remove ACs and get this entire complaint about them being OP out of the picture? Better yet how about anything with an OP complaint should just be outright removed from the game so there is no possible way that it can be unbalanced if it doesn't exist... You'd like that right?

Please, a close range weapon that dedicates 16+ tons shouldn't be effective? Or even viable? Why not competitive?

It's hard capped at 270M, AC20 does over 10 damage at 500M. In fact, it does front loaded damage, considerably better than the spread SRM damage. So yes, SRMs should do more damage. Rather, they should DO damage which they simply fail to do 40% of the time.

[Almond Brown]

CapperDeluxe, on 17 April 2014 - 09:15 AM, said:

That's not balance, that's just lazy game design theory which isn't applicable to MWO, and not at all what I'm talking about. Balance is about keeping the multidimensional factors that make up the elements of play in some sort of equilibrium (perfect imbalance).

Equilibrium is fine. Try to have the SL and ML have similar utility at similar ranges and damage levels, like so many think they should be, otherwise the SL is the suck, is just crazy talk is all.