75 replies to this topic

[Malakie]

Just wondering if there is any kind of time frame to balance things out? Getting tired of seeing battles where the end game is 12-0, i.e. one side all living the other all dead. Also tired of being hit by lights that are packing as much firepower easily with no heat issues as medium and some heavies AND able to run circles around them..

While lights should have a speed advantage, they should NOT be able to take down heavy mechs, especially assault mechs, in a matter of seconds.. and this happens frequently.

I have been in the Battletech world since 1989 when I was part of the team that contributed to the development and building of the very first Battletech Center in Chicago. Also having helped in coding another Battletech game on the Commodore Amiga, I have a good idea and the experience to see things not quite where they should be in this online iteration and based on that, things are in need of some balance and such, thus my question on a time frame....

Curious too... how many reading this have been involved in Battletech since the early days? Or are most of you a new generation?

[FupDup]

Malakie, on 14 May 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

Just wondering if there is any kind of time frame to balance things out?

Judging by the current rate of things, I'd guess it to be anywhere between Soon™ and lolno.

[Pygar]

FupDup, on 14 May 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Judging by the current rate of things, I'd guess it to be anywhere between Soon™ and lolno.

Lessee hurr.... uh, PGI somewhat quietly dismantled the "Balance" section of the forums and just rolled it all into general discussion, and the Clans come out in almost exactly one month... so I think we can rule out "Soon™" and just go with "lolno". (or maybe even "L2P nub" for those who are feeling particularly spiteful today)


/out b4 highly typical echo chamber "Meta/TryHard/PreMade/LoneWolf/PinPoint/Alpha/FLD/WTFHAX/QQMoar/L2P/PEBKAC/ID10T-error/PGIsux/ThankObama" argument starts and then continues on for 9 pages solving nothing.

(oh, and yes, I have been playing BT/MW in some form or another since the late 80's- best advice I can give you in short time to help you is to tell you to join a clan/house/guild, and avoid these forums unless you like to just randomly have people to argue about nerd stuff with...these forums are an absolutely terrible place to get your ideas of true in game balance or ideas for how to play the game better from.)

Edited by Pygar, 14 May 2014 - 02:49 PM.

[Votanin FleshRender]

Played TT when it was called BattleDroids, if that gives you a reference...

And I like the fact that a light in Mwo is not easily wiped by an assault/heavy, as it was in TT. But the pendulum swung too far IMHO, because a competent heavy has zero chance against a competent light.

[Mcgral18]

Votanin FleshRender, on 14 May 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

Played TT when it was called BattleDroids, if that gives you a reference...

And I like the fact that a light in Mwo is not easily wiped by an assault/heavy, as it was in TT. But the pendulum swung too far IMHO, because a competent heavy has zero chance against a competent light.

That's wrong actually, a competent heavy can two shot any light.

[Graugger]

Time frame for balance = When Mehrunes Dagon skates to work.

Edited by Graugger, 14 May 2014 - 03:30 PM.

[Willard Phule]

Malakie, on 14 May 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

Just wondering if there is any kind of time frame to balance things out? Getting tired of seeing battles where the end game is 12-0, i.e. one side all living the other all dead. Also tired of being hit by lights that are packing as much firepower easily with no heat issues as medium and some heavies AND able to run circles around them..

Dude. Seriously? We, the community, have been trying to get PGI's attention regard to everything that's wrong with this game for going on, what, 2 years now? PGI simply doesn't want to hear or acknowledge anything that doesn't give it good reviews. Accept it, it sucks, but it's real.

Malakie, on 14 May 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

While lights should have a speed advantage, they should NOT be able to take down heavy mechs, especially assault mechs, in a matter of seconds.. and this happens frequently.

You can blame that on lack of hardpoint size restrictions. Every other Mechwarrior/Battletech title gives you a number of "slots" that can be used for each weapon type. That's why you don't see Gauss sniper ECM Ravens anywhere else but here. Or any of the other "meta" builds....because they just don't work in any other rule system.

Keep in mind that they doubled...DOUBLED...the armor and internal structure on every mech back in the betas. They knew their weapons were overpowered based on comparison to everything else....and yet, just slapped a band-aid on it and moved on. That's how we got Ghost Heat. A band-aid slapped on a gamebreaking problem and ignored for a year....and finally just given the nudge and wink treatment. It's how they operate.

Malakie, on 14 May 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

I have been in the Battletech world since 1989 when I was part of the team that contributed to the development and building of the very first Battletech Center in Chicago. Also having helped in coding another Battletech game on the Commodore Amiga, I have a good idea and the experience to see things not quite where they should be in this online iteration and based on that, things are in need of some balance and such, thus my question on a time frame....

Curious too... how many reading this have been involved in Battletech since the early days? Or are most of you a new generation?

I've been playing BT since the '80s. Got REAL into it off and on for the last what...20+ years? Started playing the MW series back at MW2.....the days of the 14.4 modem. Pretty sure there wasn't any online play worthy of the name until MW3. I designed a couple of the maps that got used for UA/ICE matches all the time (named 'em after CounterStrike maps).

Struggling with getting any of the old titles to work on my computer now, though. Seems like either my computer simply isn't compatable or there's something goofy going on. Shame Mektek can't sponsor all the community based addon/fixes for MW4 Mercenaries anymore...PGI put a stop to that.

It is what it is, man. Right now, it's a combat simulator built on a first-person shooter engine, full of bugs...not the least of which is a matchmaking system that simply throws everything to the winds. There is no balance at all...not in mechs, equipment or skill level. Premade teams will be happily shoved into matches against the newest of the new with no mercy nor concern for player retainability. Hell, we'll even drop premade 12 man groups against the unwashed masses and laugh our merry asses off because it's HILARIOUS to us to simply ignore the problem and take a 3 hour lunch.

Could it be more? Possibly. Probably not while in the hands of these guys, though. They've got big, bright ideas that sound enticing.....but, they've pretty much proven that with the talent pool they've got (and don't misunderstand, they certainly DO have some talented people....just not enough of the right type in the right places), it's probably beyond their capability at the moment. Will they hire more people? Hopefully. They've been advertising. Doesn't seem like they've been doing much hiring though. Wonder if the gifted and talented are staying as far away from a sinking ship as they can for a reason....

[Alexandrix]

Mr. Phule pretty much said everything I would say,only better than I could say it.

I would add though,Don't play MWO expecting an actual battletech game.This isn't battletech.It's a Counterstrike/Call of duty-esque arcade shooter with BT mech skins.

I don't know if PGI has intentionally went this route in a silly attempt to try and draw in the CoD gamers of today (LOL ESPORT) or if they just actually don't have a clue what they are doing.Considering the game is basically just a big mish mash of terrible,half assed band aid fixes over top of a broken foundation,i'd probably go with the latter.

[Lostdragon]

Malakie, on 14 May 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

While lights should have a speed advantage, they should NOT be able to take down heavy mechs, especially assault mechs, in a matter of seconds.. and this happens frequently.

What sort of situations are we talking here? More than one light vs. heavy and assault mechs? Or 1v1?

Edit: As to your question, I got into MW2 in 1996 or 1997, shortly after it came out. I got all the xpacs and all the other games after that. I got into the lore via early online resources.

Edited by Lostdragon, 14 May 2014 - 05:36 PM.

[Name140704]

SOON^TM

90 DAYS^TM

[Hellcat420]

Willard Phule, on 14 May 2014 - 03:40 PM, said:

Will they hire more people? Hopefully. They've been advertising. Doesn't seem like they've been doing much hiring though. Wonder if the gifted and talented are staying as far away from a sinking ship as they can for a reason....

if you worked in the videogame industry would you want this game on your resume?

[Quintus Verus]

X-box and PS have all but killed PC gaming. Getting PC staples to not design their games base on game consoles designs is even getting hard. Given time, I think the game has a chance. If it got to even 50% of Eve's complexity I would be ecstatic!

[Willard Phule]

Quintus Verus, on 14 May 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

X-box and PS have all but killed PC gaming. Getting PC staples to not design their games base on game consoles designs is even getting hard. Given time, I think the game has a chance. If it got to even 50% of Eve's complexity I would be ecstatic!

Given time. That's kind of the crux of the issue, isn't it? The question that remains is "how much time does PGI have to make MW:O a viable product before everyone just gives up and moves along?

And even that's a hard question to answer because PGI's marketing department is REAL GOOD at dragging in a new batch of players every month or so....granted, with a complete lack of tutorials and an interface (both in the mechlab and in game) that is NOT user friendly, it keeps the talent pool full of complete Derps and keeps the game unplayable.

Only time will tell. I, personally, don't hold a whole lot of hope for them.

[Caswallon]

OMG this thread. Hilarious!

They ARE balancing the game... Just not the way that we'd like to see. Or a way we can comprehend..

But they paid MS the outrageous fee for the licence they can and will do it any way they like. I'm just here to shoot Mechs and have fun anything else is wishing for the moon...

[Mycrus]

FupDup, on 14 May 2014 - 02:20 PM, said:

Judging by the current rate of things, I'd guess it to be anywhere between Soon™ and lolno.

Between next patch and the heat death of the universe

[Karl Streiger]

So 12:0 is not balance? Is this legend here to stay?

Of course if you have 12 rifleman with muskets on one side and 12 rifleman with muskets on the other side - and both shoot at each other - those with the better muskets win.
But if you have 12 rifleman with muskets that face 4 and after a minute 4 and after a minute 4
or after each half minute 2 or even 1 rifle man.... do you think those riflemans that come into battles like water drops should be able to win?

Edited by Karl Streiger, 15 May 2014 - 03:19 AM.

[Dymlos2003]

You either get CW or balance and optimizations. People want CW so that's what PGI is working on.

[Joseph Mallan]

Hellcat420, on 14 May 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

if you worked in the videogame industry would you want this game on your resume?

Verdict is still out as we don't have the game to play... yet.

[Willard Phule]

Caswallon, on 15 May 2014 - 03:16 AM, said:

OMG this thread. Hilarious!

They ARE balancing the game... Just not the way that we'd like to see. Or a way we can comprehend..

But they paid MS the outrageous fee for the licence they can and will do it any way they like. I'm just here to shoot Mechs and have fun anything else is wishing for the moon...

Seriously?

Just to play Devil's advocate here....how, exactly, are they "balancing" the game? By removing any sort of filtering from the matchmaker.....allowing multiple premades and 12 man groups to drop with the PUGs? By using an Elo system that only allows your score to move up or down by 50 points if you do something other than what's predicted?

The Elo system used by PGI is worthless. It maxes out at 2800. You start with a 1400 when you complete your cadet missions and the MM was allowed to use a spread of 1400 points to put a match together. That means that there's really no differentiation with the matchmaker at all.

I know you're not referring to weapons balance. That's been a ridiculous issue since the beginning. Dude, they DOUBLED the armor and internal structure of the mechs just to deal with the weapons back in closed beta. That should have been their first clue that something was out of whack.

As far as the "outrageous fee".....I have no idea how much they paid for it, but it's a license that MS held on to for how many years with no activity? No, I'm willing to bet this was bargain basement for MS. And, besides, it's the cost of doing business. If you want to develop a title, you have to pay for the rights.....then, if you want to completely destroy the title, you do what PGI has been doing. And they're doing a fine job of it.

[Flaming oblivion]

Hellcat420, on 14 May 2014 - 05:41 PM, said:

if you worked in the videogame industry would you want this game on your resume?

Well . There's one thing about it sadly if any of them do know what they're doing when MWO go's belly up i'm betting there looking for jobs in another industry . Fast food maybe ?


Then again they probably couldn't get a job there 2 years to deliver a pizza.

Edited by Flaming oblivion, 15 May 2014 - 04:25 AM.