75 replies to this topic

[Dirus Nigh]

Abisha, on 15 June 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

Gauss without a charge mechanic is just stupid.
it don't request a lot of brains to work that out the why.

I think the weapons are great balanced overall.
only the flamer can use some love, but then again you get stun locks if they get to much love.
See their how freaking hard it is to just modified even a single weapon?

The charge mechanic was not needed. The guass rifle is 15 tons, it needs at least 3 tons of ammo to be effective. It explodes when crit. The ammo will run out. That is a very big investment and risk.

Several other solutions have been proposed in how to mitigate high alpha pin points. PGI chose not to use them. It resulted in a machanic that is not natural and is illogical for a gun to have.

[Perilthecat]

Abisha, on 15 June 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

Gauss without a charge mechanic is just stupid.
it don't request a lot of brains to work that out the why.

I think the weapons are great balanced overall.
only the flamer can use some love, but then again you get stun locks if they get to much love.
See their how freaking hard it is to just modified even a single weapon?

Hah! This guy! Thiiiis guyyyyyy! That gave me a good chuckle, gotta love it.

I think that's exactly the point the op was making. These days very few people request a lot of brains to work that out the why.

In fact, so few people request a lot of brains to work that out the why that they cannot even see that they don't request a lot of brains.

[Perilthecat]

Sidenote Gauss: I agree that gauss feels good and unique, and when I get pinned by one from across the map and cannot even locate my assailant I can only tip my hat! We have enough autocannons, the gauss brings some much needed flavour!

Sidenote Psychology: the aggressive and defensive comments by a few out there in regards to psychology is indeed "fascinating". And hilarious. To discount a field that studies patterns in human behaviour and discovers causal relationships therein... obviously only a crazy person would believe in that kind of hogwash! But without psychology how are we supposed to tell the sane ones and crazy ones apart?

;P

[smokefield]

first thing i did when they changed the gauss mechanic was to equip my firebrand with 2 and test it. and i must say after some practice i found out to be better than the original one. it has some drawbacks but it has some very positive aspects also. maybe just a slight reduced charge time ..but it will make it too powerfull. It is really a weapon for the skilled.

just yesterday i had a sniper exchange with a dual erppc cicada. me in the direwolf dual gauss. he was faster and the ppc fires instantly. i had more armour. too bad that some others intervened and we couldnt continue the play. but both got hit and hit back and was really a challange to anticipate and try ti hit him with gauss. now these are the situations that make this game fun.

if we contiune the nerf war we will end up having only a nerfed small laser that does 1 damage at 50m as the main meta weapon. at the moment the weapons are in a pretty good spot. some minor tweaks, some fixes on hit registration....but i see everything on the field when i play. yes - some more than others but i wil assume just because ppl are afraid to test new builds or come with something original. not because the weapons are utterly inefficient... the pilot is what makes them inefficient.

[Galenit]

qki, on 15 June 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

So, kindly, think before you type. And when it comes to posting "balance suggestions" think extra hard.

Maybe just let out all talking about skill and use math?
Thats a real comparsion, if you take out all subjectives points and go for the raw numbers.
Thats how its done in the science world you talk about if you use dunning ...

You can compare a ml and cml without any skill in the comparsion, just do your math and you have some numbers like dps, dph, hps and then compare it.


Maybe its to early and my english is to bad and you talked about letting out skill because of effects like the dunning one and said that only a real objective comparsion is talkable?


Or did i read right and dunning is only for others, that have a different subjective sight then you?
Maybe it worked on you too, during your writing?

[Col Jaime Wolf]

qki, on 15 June 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

Made you look, didn't I? A little something to occupy my time (it's PDT -9 here) while waiting for the second trial to come online, and maybe occupy a bit of your time as well (caution, long rant incoming).



David Dunning is a professor of psychology at the university of Cornell. According to his research, in order to know how good you are at something, you must have exactly the same skills as it takes to be good at that thing in the first place. The resulting paradox is that if you are absolutely no good at something at all, then you lack exactly the skills that you'd need to realise that you are no good at it. Just listen to this guy:
https://www.youtube....Afv3U_ysc#t=213

A consequence of this, is that countless people THINK they are good at something, precisely because they are not.

Now, normally, when you are confronted with superior tactics (and subsequently lose to them) in a game, you have two options. One, is to learn that tactic, and just try to be better at it than other players, and the other is to try to counter said tactic (perhaps even exploit the fact, that people using it are going to behave in a certain way).

Trouble is - some people refuse to learn. Not that they cannot learn, but they refuse to do so. Because in their own mind, their tactic is correct (remember the opening paragraph?). So they insist on using it, and then wonder why they keep getting blown up. This is the literal definition of insanity - repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome.

And every time we point out, that maybe their skills just weren't up to par, we are met with hostility:
"no, damn it! I know how to play this game, I'm not wrong, the game is wrong! And You are wrong! Everyone is wrong except ME!" (sounds familiar?). This is partially the fault of the current education system in many countries - instead of improving their skills to pass a test, people want to lower the requirements. And they have come to expect it too, because the super-PC (politically correct) culture of the modern world seems mortally afraid to offend anyone with suggestions that they, quite frankly, suck.
The end result is that people refuse to make an effort to improve in any way, and ALSO refuse to acept responsibility for their defeats. And while it is tempting to focus your blame on incompetent teammates (and i've given in to this temptation many times), some people take it further.

When I talked about two options before, these people choose a third one - go on the forums and cry about it, until it gets nerfed. Rather than trying to overcome the obstacles, they want the easy way out, and ask for the obstacles to be arbitrarily removed from their way. And it bothers me, because it impacts the game in a strictly negative way.

You see - people seldom complain about winning. Most of the time, when you hear someone complain about "balance", they do it from the position of the victim. And amidst accusations of "overpowered weapons that allowed an inferior player to get an undeserved victory", and "underpowered weapons that should have given them a victory they so rightly deserve", these people are not really looking for balance. They are looking for vengeance. Even if only subconciously, their "suggestions" are meant to prevent people from defeating them using a certain tactic that they cannot be bothered to learn how to counter, and sometimes outright punish people for trying. That's how we got asault mode base turrets, which i dislike with all my being (at least in their current form), but have (learned) to deal with.



And now that the second round of testing the clan mechs and equipment is upon us, people will invariably offer their "valuable input" on matters they do not fully understand.
Personally, I have to say that I like how the clans are being treated in this game so far, even though i was cautious at first, when it was announced, that clan weapons will be tweaked to not be clearly and strictly 200% superior to the inner sphere ones. My initial reaction was along the lines of "what heresy is this?!", since clan tech in battletech lore is strictly superior, to Inner Sphere's - more powerful, lighter and with more range. That being said - while the numbers in the board game manual are clear, there has never been any official statement (that I am aware of, feel free to correct me) as to what exactly MAKES them better.

I must admit I really like PGI's (liberal) interpretation, that clan weapons have higher damage potential, than IS weapons, as long as you put in the extra effort required (Obviously, the UAC20 can shred a lot more armour, than the IS AC20, and the lasers do more damage, as long as you stay on target). And I am quite puzzled to see, that some people discount them entirely as impossible to use effectively (aka: it doesn't matter if the CERLL does more damage, since the burn time is 50% longer and you will waste all of it hitting something else).

Very much like the change to Gauss Rifle mechanic. A lot of people, who relied on the simple "point and click" nature of it, cried out that the GR is unusable now (nevermind the bit of effort and practice to go from aim-click, to click/aim-release). While I argued, that the GR has been made more powerful, since once you learn to handle the charge mechanic, you are given a very powerful option to cancel your shots, and refire quicker than after a missed one (not to mention saving ammo).


So, kindly, think before you type. And when it comes to posting "balance suggestions" think extra hard.

you assume much and use straw man attacks based off the conjecture of 1 man. then you continue to ramble about stuff? could you be less helpful especially with your post title? in short you're probably just trolling for the lulz. where in your post does the noob see what he really needs?

why not just be honest and point out the elephant in the room the MM. telling people to "L2P" when the real problem is weight differences in game between teams, the fact that often you have up to 8 assaults per team leaving no room for most med and alot of heavies to breath, that every one and their mom is telling noobs to pack the magic 2x PPC 2x AC5 which simply is to cheap and boring for many who want a varied and challenging mech experience without being trolled by 8+ snipers every round, the fact that the MM as a whole will often stick 1-2 good pilots on one side and seemingly stack the other with all pros and 1-2 nubs, the fact that finding information on this game is a hellish experience of searching through the forums for terms they may not even know like ghost heat and 3pv. even now months after release i hear many pilots wondering how to go "inside" their mech and asking why weapons make so much heat in this iteration of mechwarrior.....and often the best answer i can give them if they want an exact "answer" to the ghost heat situation is "try stuff out then cry, just don't try to chain fire ac2's".

you would be better off telling noobs "MWO is a unique and visceral experience. it has its balanced and unbalanced parts but mostly its best if you just learn to accept it for what it is and find a play style you find fun. so experiment don't be close minded and don't cry "OP" on everything, even if you think something is OP. try to counter it first, try different approaches. if after trial and experimentation you cannot find any valid way to counter said OP weapon/mech/mechanic then post on the forums. but until that point assume you simply may not know the proper counter or may not be playing tactically enough to even find the counter to said problem"

stop being a troll and be helpful.

[Perilthecat]

Mellifluer, on 22 June 2014 - 01:56 AM, said:

you assume much and use straw man attacks based off the conjecture of 1 man. then you continue to ramble about stuff? could you be less helpful especially with your post title? in short you're probably just trolling for the lulz. where in your post does the noob see what he really needs?

why not just be honest and point out the elephant in the room the MM. telling people to "L2P" when the real problem is weight differences in game between teams, the fact that often you have up to 8 assaults per team leaving no room for most med and alot of heavies to breath, that every one and their mom is telling noobs to pack the magic 2x PPC 2x AC5 which simply is to cheap and boring for many who want a varied and challenging mech experience without being trolled by 8+ snipers every round, the fact that the MM as a whole will often stick 1-2 good pilots on one side and seemingly stack the other with all pros and 1-2 nubs, the fact that finding information on this game is a hellish experience of searching through the forums for terms they may not even know like ghost heat and 3pv. even now months after release i hear many pilots wondering how to go "inside" their mech and asking why weapons make so much heat in this iteration of mechwarrior.....and often the best answer i can give them if they want an exact "answer" to the ghost heat situation is "try stuff out then cry, just don't try to chain fire ac2's".

you would be better off telling noobs "MWO is a unique and visceral experience. it has its balanced and unbalanced parts but mostly its best if you just learn to accept it for what it is and find a play style you find fun. so experiment don't be close minded and don't cry "OP" on everything, even if you think something is OP. try to counter it first, try different approaches. if after trial and experimentation you cannot find any valid way to counter said OP weapon/mech/mechanic then post on the forums. but until that point assume you simply may not know the proper counter or may not be playing tactically enough to even find the counter to said problem"

stop being a troll and be helpful.

Yeahhhh... I don't know. It's obvious that you were upset by the op in some way, but I don't know that you are talking about the same point.

My perspective as someone who plays in the mid to low elo brackets at best (judging from the general observed insanity of many of my teammates):

Guiding players to improved tactics is one thing, and people being intrinsically opposed to growth is another. The op made a good point about a modern cultural climate that involves entitlement and low self awareness. There is an incessant cry on the forums over almost every weapon and tactic being OP. They often even contradict one another. And many seem to stem from a place of: "I keep falling prey to this same tactic over and over, which means it is OP and must be nerfed. I do not feel that it is reasonable for me to have to adjust my play style to compensate" or "This weapon or tactic is my preference, but as it is not foolproof I feel that it should be buffed. I do not want to modify my personal tactics in order to be more effective."

Now, do not misconstrue this as a generalization. But it is very common. And there are of course many reasonable balance issues that have - and will continue - to crop up.

Many people, when faced with game performance that does not match up with perception of their own personal skill, seem to be making the assumption that the reason they are failing is the game's fault. They cry the hardest, loudest, and longest. And this leads to in-game changes which may simplify gameplay and interfere with the challenge (and fun) of the game.

There is plenty of information out there on how to be tactically successful. The people who recognize a need for growth in any given situation seek it out and become better players. The others just cry some more - Nerf LRMs! No, nerf ECM! NOOO, nerf LRMs!!!!

[Perilthecat]

Galenit, on 22 June 2014 - 01:50 AM, said:

Maybe just let out all talking about skill and use math?
Thats a real comparsion, if you take out all subjectives points and go for the raw numbers.
Thats how its done in the science world you talk about if you use dunning ...

You can compare a ml and cml without any skill in the comparsion, just do your math and you have some numbers like dps, dph, hps and then compare it.


Maybe its to early and my english is to bad and you talked about letting out skill because of effects like the dunning one and said that only a real objective comparsion is talkable?


Or did i read right and dunning is only for others, that have a different subjective sight then you?
Maybe it worked on you too, during your writing?

That would be a fair point if you were comparing, say, Gauss (assuming projectile speed is equivalent).

With lasers however, skill is a hugely important factor. They are not instant-hit, you have to physically keep them on target. Thus, any laser with a shorter burn time will be more effective at delivering its "payload" to the targeted location. Longer burn times can make lasers with higher damage potential less effective if the pilot using the does not have a steady hand. Skill is important, MWO is more sport than it is science.

[Galenit]

Perilthecat, on 22 June 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

That would be a fair point if you were comparing, say, Gauss (assuming projectile speed is equivalent).

With lasers however, skill is a hugely important factor. They are not instant-hit, you have to physically keep them on target. Thus, any laser with a shorter burn time will be more effective at delivering its "payload" to the targeted location. Longer burn times can make lasers with higher damage potential less effective if the pilot using the does not have a steady hand. Skill is important, MWO is more sport than it is science.

Do you compare a car that you want to buy the same way?
One about its performance driven by a profi in a professional race and the other driven by an 75 years old granddad on sundays only?


Let the same player do the same shot under the same conditions with both weapons as low level "objective" comparsion.
Skill is taken out this way (to some degree) and you can compare them.


If you want, you can replace the player with a fixed setup that emulates the behavior. That would let out the good and bad days or distraction a human player may have.


If you have the time, you can do a statisticbased modelcalculation that emulates your players with different skills (accuracy) under different conditions (heat of map, ranges, size of target, speed, speed of target,...), to get an objective comparsion.


With the right test-setup you could take this factors in the comparsion without any skill differences.
Thats whats sience is about.

Edited by Galenit, 23 June 2014 - 01:37 AM.

[qki]

It's a trap.

Comparing stats on things with identical mechanics works fine, but not when the mechanics diverge.

So one weapon allows you to pop a 10-point "damage pellet" and disappear, the other allows you to pop eight 2.5dmg pellets (assuming you don't jam). Which is better?

Overall, the second one does more damage. So more DPS and less weight, meaning more damage per ton, etc.

However - depending on the battlefield conditions, things like range, and cooldown, can be made completely irrelevant. If you run your test in precisely controled conditions, to rule out any outside interference, you end up with a Mark 14 torpedo (google that).

[Lily from animove]

Perilthecat, on 22 June 2014 - 12:00 AM, said:

Hah! This guy! Thiiiis guyyyyyy! That gave me a good chuckle, gotta love it.

I think that's exactly the point the op was making. These days very few people request a lot of brains to work that out the why.

In fact, so few people request a lot of brains to work that out the why that they cannot even see that they don't request a lot of brains.

Yes thats worrying, maybe its a todays generation thingy. How much brain would it require to even cook a real meal?
3 pots on the herd at the same time, maybe 4. checking and spicing them all at the same time. preparing components and whatever. Must be hella brain magic required to do this.

My feeling is that the most slighly piece of common sense went into the term "lot of brain needed" nowdays. The amount of shooters I played where poeple just couldn't figured out the most basics like: What is cover good for and prenading the overcrowded cover aresas, made me worry a lot about how todays newer gamer generations are working.
bakc in those games, like realms of Arkania or Baldurs gate, the manual was your best friend for the "pre-game" success because you needed it to get some vital info about the game mechanics and plannign your character development. But nowdays people ask for all this stuff, "How should I this, and these" instead of even trying it themselves, or yet they are able to create a whole thread for this question, while using google on 3 words already gives an answer.

Perilthecat, on 22 June 2014 - 12:21 AM, said:

Sidenote Psychology: the aggressive and defensive comments by a few out there in regards to psychology is indeed "fascinating". And hilarious. To discount a field that studies patterns in human behaviour and discovers causal relationships therein... obviously only a crazy person would believe in that kind of hogwash! But without psychology how are we supposed to tell the sane ones and crazy ones apart?

;P

Thats the funfact, those psychos do not objectively judge what is going on, they define by THEIR theory what is sane and insane. Which is crazy and not working. Its like medieval church saying by THEIR opinion who has to burn and who not. remember back in the days when people were normal by having hobbies outside but playing Killergames made you an possible massmurder. Now everyone is playing shooters like they eat their meals and nothing of this is potentially a sign of insanity.
Yet, still in the internet, when someone spends 500$ on a game hes still called crazy, while in RL one may pay hookers for it, or just buy a piece of diving equipment. There is no real difference, but still some people and THEIR psychology try to judge what is sane and what is insane. And all 3 just spend 500$ on something they expect to have fun with. So they are objectively all as same (in)sane.

Edited by Lily from animove, 23 June 2014 - 03:33 AM.

[qki]

I'll digress, but what the hell:

In the old days (or is it "ye olde days"), video games were mainly played in arcades. On machines that ran on quarters (or the local equivalent). Players competed for high scores and the trick was to make the game difficult enough to make them lose often, but appealing enough to make them drop those quarters in the mechine.

Over to the home systems, the games were limited by the data storage devices - you could only put so much stuff on four 1.44MB disks. High dificulty was therefore substitute for content. As a kid, I beat maybe 2 or 3 of all the games I had on my old Atari 800XE.

Enter the new era. Games are like movies now - with detailed stories, scripted action sequences. There are also a lot more of them. Which means, that barring titles like Monster Hunter, companies are unwilling to make their games too difficult, to keep people from completing them in the brief time alloted (remember, in the 90s, a game would be played for months or years - think Jagged Alliance, Street Fighter etc.).

And so we got games that basically play themselves - even if there is a high difficulty setting, a low percentage of people use it. And kids get spoiled by that kind of thing.

When I started playing Quake 2, the only tutorial I had was checking what keys did what, and a single prompt (literally - one prompt in the game) telling me to crouch. Because you couldn't crouch in Q1 - this feature was introduced in Q2.

Look at what we have now - games hold the player's hand for way too long. And then the player shows up online, and expects to do well, because he is used to it. And the game never did anything to show him just how little he knows.

[Lykaon]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 June 2014 - 12:30 PM, said:

Actually I don't use any of the OP builds (Excluding Jager40), I beat a good many of the supposed OP builds because I refuse to accept that skill and ingenuity have no place in this game. Its a combat game and combat is all about stacking the deck in your favor or improvising and overcoming when your gear isn't the top of the heap.

Sadly a good portion of the "skill" is performed in the mechlab the second you decide to put 2 AC5 2 PPC and 2 Jumpjets on a Victor.

Wouldn't stacking the deck in your favor involve deciding to use the best possible mech builds (meta mechs)?

If the need to "overcome" is a result of rejecting the meta aren't you just deciding to play with a handicap and applying that handicap to your team?

If a player is skilled enough to perform well with a second rate mech build wouldn't they better serve their teams in a top tiered meta mech?

Just the counter argument I'm presenting because I am also not piloting meta builds any more I am bored silly of the routine (lock target/fire jets/release jets/adjust aim/alpha/land/repeat )

[Lily from animove]

qki, on 23 June 2014 - 03:39 AM, said:

I'll digress, but what the hell:

In the old days (or is it "ye olde days"), video games were mainly played in arcades. On machines that ran on quarters (or the local equivalent). Players competed for high scores and the trick was to make the game difficult enough to make them lose often, but appealing enough to make them drop those quarters in the mechine.

Over to the home systems, the games were limited by the data storage devices - you could only put so much stuff on four 1.44MB disks. High dificulty was therefore substitute for content. As a kid, I beat maybe 2 or 3 of all the games I had on my old Atari 800XE.

Enter the new era. Games are like movies now - with detailed stories, scripted action sequences. There are also a lot more of them. Which means, that barring titles like Monster Hunter, companies are unwilling to make their games too difficult, to keep people from completing them in the brief time alloted (remember, in the 90s, a game would be played for months or years - think Jagged Alliance, Street Fighter etc.).

And so we got games that basically play themselves - even if there is a high difficulty setting, a low percentage of people use it. And kids get spoiled by that kind of thing.

When I started playing Quake 2, the only tutorial I had was checking what keys did what, and a single prompt (literally - one prompt in the game) telling me to crouch. Because you couldn't crouch in Q1 - this feature was introduced in Q2.

Look at what we have now - games hold the player's hand for way too long. And then the player shows up online, and expects to do well, because he is used to it. And the game never did anything to show him just how little he knows.

true, they are easy skill afst food. Maybe it was because I was a child back in 'ye old days' when it neede like 300 attemps to finally end a game and there were no save spots and unlimited "continues". When beating just the first stage of Alex the kidd was a triumph. But thats was at the age of 10. Who knows how this may feel at this age (30) without ever havign played any video games before.

[Noxcuse]

i think he should call his doctor for some pills...this is a game...not an [color=#959595] psychology experiment.[/color]

[Bobzilla]

qki, on 15 June 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

Very much like the change to Gauss Rifle mechanic. A lot of people, who relied on the simple "point and click" nature of it, cried out that the GR is unusable now (nevermind the bit of effort and practice to go from aim-click, to click/aim-release). While I argued, that the GR has been made more powerful, since once you learn to handle the charge mechanic, you are given a very powerful option to cancel your shots, and refire quicker than after a missed one (not to mention saving ammo).

This is just silly. If you miss without the charge, it's faster than missing with the charge.

Why even need to cancel your shot ever? The only reason to cancel a shot, is if you had the opportunity (would have hit without charge), but due to the charge mechanic, loss that shot. So no, the charge in no way made the GR more powerful, it weakend it.

While I agree it's nowhere near 'unusable', it is severly worse with the charge.


If you find it better with the charge, then you may need to think "why can I use something better, when it forces me to take my time and focus, yet still has the same aim mechanic?". You should never want/need to cancel a shot.