86 replies to this topic

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Is the end-game financial plan to continue to power creep mechs, like the Fire Starter, Shadow Hawk, Victor, etc? It kind of looks that way with the introduction of the clan mechs, and how long until the next tech bump?

Have you considered a strategy of less customizable mechs, combined with maps that play to the strengths of different chassis? Possibly subtly manipulating meta if it drifts too far in one direction. I like autocannons and PPCs as much as the next battletech player, but I also like SRMs, LRMs, Pulse lasers, Small Lasers, etc.

Have you ever considered mech decay (fatigue), the gradual deterioration of mechs over time as a way to either encourage diversity or drain C-Bills from the economy. Maybe combine it with a salvage/customization perk. For instance as a mech enters the twilight of its usable life, barely held together by hope and willpower, it has a little more flexibility in loadout (whatever fits).

[FupDup]

I personally wouldn't call the Shadow Hawk to be power creep. If anything, it actually is what all medium mechs should have been like from the start. Most of the mediums before it were (and still are) rather mediocre, and not as able to pull their weight as papa Shad is. It's the ultimate baseline mech for the medium class and maybe even the whole game.


As for the Clan mechs, I'm personally expecting some of them to be on-par with the IS, some of them to be better than the IS, and some of them to be outright worse than the IS (the same goes for weapons). They'll probably be all over the place in terms of balancing.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

FupDup, on 03 June 2014 - 07:49 PM, said:

I personally wouldn't call the Shadow Hawk to be power creep. If anything, it actually is what all medium mechs should have been like from the start. Most of the mediums before it were (and still are) rather mediocre, and not as able to pull their weight as papa Shad is. It's the ultimate baseline mech for the medium class and maybe even the whole game.

As for the Clan mechs, I'm personally expecting some of them to be on-par with the IS, some of them to be better than the IS, and some of them to be outright worse than the IS (the same goes for weapons). They'll probably be all over the place in terms of balancing.

Keep in mind the alternative is what we saw in the tournament. A handful of chassis with near identical loadouts. Even with different maps and objectives, we saw the same chassis each map, just weighted in one direction or the other to meet tonnage restrictions.

[CeeKay Boques]

End game is... single player?
End game is... server rental?
Well, there are 100's of battlemechs... they could live off that for awhile still...

[FupDup]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 June 2014 - 07:59 PM, said:

Keep in mind the alternative is what we saw in the tournament. A handful of chassis with near identical loadouts. Even with different maps and objectives, we saw the same chassis each map, just weighted in one direction or the other to meet tonnage restrictions.

Which is why we can/should go through and buff any underused weapons and underused mechs/variants, so that people want to use more than 1-2 handfuls of different loadouts.

(Also, map and objective reworks to help encourage mobility-based mechs instead of a pure emphasis on gunboat mechs).

[WVAnonymous]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 June 2014 - 07:59 PM, said:

Keep in mind the alternative is what we saw in the tournament. A handful of chassis with near identical loadouts. Even with different maps and objectives, we saw the same chassis each map, just weighted in one direction or the other to meet tonnage restrictions.

And your point?

This isn't elementary school. Some platforms are going to be better than others; they can't all be winners.

[Hexenhammer]

For a second I thought this was a necro thread because the same thing was said about the Misery when it came out. OP! Pay to Play! Boars Head! OP Pay to play!

Some complaint, different target.

[CeeKay Boques]

WVAnonymous, on 03 June 2014 - 08:02 PM, said:

And your point?

This isn't elementary school. Some platforms are going to be better than others; they can't all be winners.

People who have played the game forever will delight in weird, hard to use chassis, and just bring out the death machines for the league games.

[WVAnonymous]

Technoviking, on 03 June 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

People who have played the game forever will delight in weird, hard to use chassis, and just bring out the death machines for the league games.

Exactly. They can all be fun, but they can't all be the best.

[Gas Guzzler]

WVAnonymous, on 03 June 2014 - 08:02 PM, said:

And your point?

This isn't elementary school. Some platforms are going to be better than others; they can't all be winners.

Technoviking, on 03 June 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

People who have played the game forever will delight in weird, hard to use chassis, and just bring out the death machines for the league games.

WVAnonymous, on 03 June 2014 - 08:08 PM, said:

Exactly. They can all be fun, but they can't all be the best.

I am so tickled to hear you guys say this stuff. I thought I was the only one that realized certain setups will ALWAYS have an advantage, no matter what balance changes they do.

[Turboferret]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 June 2014 - 07:44 PM, said:

Is the end-game financial plan to continue to power creep mechs, like the Fire Starter, Shadow Hawk, Victor, etc? It kind of looks that way with the introduction of the clan mechs, and how long until the next tech bump?

Have you considered a strategy of less customizable mechs, combined with maps that play to the strengths of different chassis? Possibly subtly manipulating meta if it drifts too far in one direction. I like autocannons and PPCs as much as the next battletech player, but I also like SRMs, LRMs, Pulse lasers, Small Lasers, etc.

Have you ever considered mech decay (fatigue), the gradual deterioration of mechs over time as a way to either encourage diversity or drain C-Bills from the economy. Maybe combine it with a salvage/customization perk. For instance as a mech enters the twilight of its usable life, barely held together by hope and willpower, it has a little more flexibility in loadout (whatever fits).

You understand the game's *tech level* advances with the ingame time as defined by the relevent TRO. W're playing by TRO 3050 rules right now. As you move forward in time from here until 3132 the power creep is real, it's happening, and it'll all be canonical.

[Khobai]

Quote

Well, there are 100's of battlemechs... they could live off that for awhile still...

They cant, since those mechs arnt all that diverse. A lot of mechs are similar/identical or outright worse than other mechs and theres just no reason to ever use them. Sales are really going to slow down once any new mech that comes out is just a rehash of an existing mech.

what pgi needs to do is give us a reason to play every single mech.

The problem is crap like the Victor having the same armor as the Awesome. Victors were always lacking armor in tabletop. By giving the Victor and Awesome the same max armor, you completely invalidate the Awesome. Imagine if the Victor had a better profile and jumpjets but lower max armor and less modules slots. And the Awesome had a worse profile, higher max armor, a synergy bonus for using PPCs, and more module slots. Now these mechs are much closer to being equal.

PGI needs to do a better job of giving every mech strengths and weaknesses that balance out.

Edited by Khobai, 03 June 2014 - 08:54 PM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

>Op Complains about power creep
>Doesn't undestand Powercreep is part of evolution of combat.
>Doesn't want battletech things in a battletech based game.

Hey we had that last bit before, it was called Mech Assault, it was balanced, go play that.

[Tremendous Upside]

FupDup, on 03 June 2014 - 07:49 PM, said:

I personally wouldn't call the Shadow Hawk to be power creep. If anything, it actually is what all medium mechs should have been like from the start. Most of the mediums before it were (and still are) rather mediocre, and not as able to pull their weight as papa Shad is. It's the ultimate baseline mech for the medium class and maybe even the whole game.


As for the Clan mechs, I'm personally expecting some of them to be on-par with the IS, some of them to be better than the IS, and some of them to be outright worse than the IS (the same goes for weapons). They'll probably be all over the place in terms of balancing.

I think if the clan mechs aren't fully superior to IS mechs, considering the cost for them in real money - and likely c-bills as well? I think these forums are likely to go nuclear...

[Kassatsu]

Banky, on 03 June 2014 - 09:09 PM, said:

I think if the clan mechs aren't fully superior to IS mechs, considering the cost for them in real money - and likely c-bills as well? I think these forums are likely to go nuclear...

Nuclear launch detected. Detonation in 14 days.

[Chagatay]

Well...I wasn't impressed with clan LRM technology. In fact, the wet kittens they are now look like tigers in comparison. Their streak technology however might just make light pilots cry rivers making them the default go to missile tech (if they can get in range and that is a big if).

Long live our timbertart overlords!

Edited by Chagatay, 03 June 2014 - 11:38 PM.

[Marmon Rzohr]

CW is MWO's planned end game. Plus, in the Reddit thread Russ talked about revisioning the grind in MWO allowing player more advancement, more stuff to grind.

There has been very little power creep in MWO. Victors and highlanders did come, so did the shadowhawk, but that was a long time ago, and old mechs are still pretty good. Like the Jenner, the Raven, the Atlas, Stalker etc.

The only true powercreep element were the arty/air strikes as they made all mechs capable of doing significantly more damage.

[Lykaon]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 03 June 2014 - 07:44 PM, said:

Is the end-game financial plan to continue to power creep mechs, like the Fire Starter, Shadow Hawk, Victor, etc? It kind of looks that way with the introduction of the clan mechs, and how long until the next tech bump?

Have you considered a strategy of less customizable mechs, combined with maps that play to the strengths of different chassis? Possibly subtly manipulating meta if it drifts too far in one direction. I like autocannons and PPCs as much as the next battletech player, but I also like SRMs, LRMs, Pulse lasers, Small Lasers, etc.

Have you ever considered mech decay (fatigue), the gradual deterioration of mechs over time as a way to either encourage diversity or drain C-Bills from the economy. Maybe combine it with a salvage/customization perk. For instance as a mech enters the twilight of its usable life, barely held together by hope and willpower, it has a little more flexibility in loadout (whatever fits).

It was no mistake that the "winning" mechs of the tournament were what they were.And it isn't power creep of mech chassis to blame.

Look at the loadout of each of them then count how many are built to optimize front loaded damage mechanics and poptarting.

Every mech that was not 35 tons was designed around the principle of massed front loaded damage.

It's not the mech chassis that are the problem the problem is having a singularly superior damage dealing mechanic (FLD) and a bunch of garbage mechanics that can not compete with the meta.

Since fixing the handful of FLD weapons is a less daunting task than making every other weapon FLD just bite the damn bullet and kill the FLD mechanics already.

[NextGame]

The end game is squeeze as much many pennies out as possible in exchange for minimal effort development and then downsize that minimal effort to the point that the game just sits there without progressing technically for a couple of years and eventually close it down when the server costs exceed the revenue.

[Kilo 40]

Hexenhammer, on 03 June 2014 - 08:03 PM, said:

For a second I thought this was a necro thread because the same thing was said about the Misery when it came out. OP! Pay to Play! Boars Head! OP Pay to play!

Some complaint, different target.

I've noticed that gamers, in general, tend to parrot certain phrases over and over again. usually incorrectly. Pay to play, OP, dumbed down, XYZ breaks immersion, etc...

They know the phrase means something is "bad" and they know they don't like that one thing in the game. so their solution is to just start chucking phrases they're heard about other "bad" games, at the thing they don't like, and viola! It magically applies to that game/item/mechanic/etc too.