91 replies to this topic

[Kalimaster]

Suppose for a moment that Mechs were real and used in combat. Would you go up to your Tech Team and say. "Hey, my LRM's need to be nerfed. They are doing to much damage to the enemy."

It's just something to think about.

We need to work on ways to make this game better, come up with ideas for various buildings, points of interest, storyline senarious, and other aspects that will make MWO the best game possible

I've never known an RPG player of any sword and sorcery styled game say "No, I don't want the +5 Defender, I want the rust old dagger in the corner".

Challenge yourself, see if you can't come up with some concept for a building design, map detail, or otherwise that would help make MWO something totally awesome.

[Livewyr]

I propose that the Gauss Rifle should do 50 damage with Mach 6 speed, and 100% critical chance.

Then let us bring the other weapons on line with it.

[Mister Blastman]

Livewyr, on 24 July 2014 - 07:35 AM, said:

I propose that the Gauss Rifle should do 50 damage with Mach 6 speed, and 100% critical chance.

Then let us bring the other weapons on line with it.

[MechWarrior849305]

Livewyr, on 24 July 2014 - 07:35 AM, said:

I propose that the Gauss Rifle should do 50 damage with Mach 6 speed, and 100% critical chance.

Then let us bring the other weapons on line with it.

Very, very, very underpowered gauss... Just gimme Machine Gun with 100500 pts of dmg per bullet with light flying speed and unlimited range and ammo. Then I'll just let other players challenge themselves, and, OK, also me.

[Gallowglas]

Honest question here, but if a developer is trying to cultivate balanced gameplay where people don't ragequit because of instant deaths and where "skill" counts for something by allowing tactical decisions to be made over time, how do you avoid nerfing a weapon? Sure, you could simply beef up the armor of all mechs, but instead of bringing one weapon into line, you've just rendered a lot of other weapons less effective. You could certainly just leave weapons unbalanced, but then everyone starts packing them and the imbalance gets further skewed by boating. It also starts impacting mech design decisions.

For years now I've heard this philosophy that you should never nerf anything but, rather, buff everything else up to be just as awesome. That sounds great on paper, but the reality is that all you've done is decrease survivability, limit tactical decisions, and reduce weapon diversity.

[Ngamok]

Kalimaster, on 24 July 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

Suppose for a moment that Mechs were real and used in combat. Would you go up to your Tech Team and say. "Hey, my LRM's need to be nerfed. They are doing to much damage to the enemy."

It's just something to think about.

We need to work on ways to make this game better, come up with ideas for various buildings, points of interest, storyline senarious, and other aspects that will make MWO the best game possible

I've never known an RPG player of any sword and sorcery styled game say "No, I don't want the +5 Defender, I want the rust old dagger in the corner".

Challenge yourself, see if you can't come up with some concept for a building design, map detail, or otherwise that would help make MWO something totally awesome.

Your tech team wouldn't be in the mech lab swapping stuff around with hand wavium magic either.

[Mercules]

Someone doesn't understand Game Theory.

Ngamok, on 24 July 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

Your tech team wouldn't be in the mech lab swapping stuff around with hand wavium magic either.

Oh.. .good point. In fact your tech team would be telling you, "Sorry, we don't do custom modifications here... are you insane. Why don't you submit your mech design to that factory over there and if it is a good one, maybe in 10 years production might start on that model. Oh you want a retro fit, I suppose we could make a couple changes, but I can tell you now we would have to cut away to much support structure to put an AC/20 in the place of those machine guns."

[DEMAX51]

[MadcatX]

Mercules, on 24 July 2014 - 07:49 AM, said:

Someone doesn't understand Game Theory.



Oh.. .good point. In fact your tech team would be telling you, "Sorry, we don't do custom modifications here... are you insane. Why don't you submit your mech design to that factory over there and if it is a good one, maybe in 10 years production might start on that model. Oh you want a retro fit, I suppose we could make a couple changes, but I can tell you now we would have to cut away to much support structure to put an AC/20 in the place of those machine guns."

I agree with the OP insofar that when something gets nerfed, things tend to stay nerfed more often then not around here. Raven leg hitboxes, srm's were for the longest time same with LRM's, still have that Gauss recharge,

As for MW:O's techs, they work miracles! Being able to swap out a Catapult's machine guns for AC20's on the fly...

[FupDup]

Sometimes a nerf might be necessary, like the pre-nerf 4 PPC Stalker when PPCs only were 8 heat each. That was an example of something truly overpowered, and it allowed an underhive scrub like me to farm up to an 11.6 KDR with minimal effort with how ridiculous it was.


However, most things are not nearly on the level of the example above. The current FoTM builds are generally less powerful than they used to be. These days, very few things seem to qualify as being truly "overpowered."

The few things that do are pretty much always exploiting the same broken mechanics, in this case being perfect/instant convergence, and craptastic JJ design to a lesser extent (JJs have been giganerfed because of pooptarts, rather than rebuilt from the ground up to NOT SYNERGIZE WITH THAT STYLE OF PLAY). Fix that and the worst offenders like PPC + AC/Gauss combos stop being so bonkers (but would still be effective, as they should be given their tonnage and other construction sacrifices).


Outside of the edge cases of 30+ pinpoint alphas, there isn't really anything in this game that's overpowered anymore.

For the most part, there is actually a lot of stuff that is underpowered, like pulse lasers, flamers, LBX (excludes LBX5 boated in huge numbers, which can be "decent"), and MGs for example (there are more weapons out there in need, these are just examples). And there's a laundry list of mechs that are hilariously crap.

Nerfing every mech to be on-par with Locusts and every weapon to be on-par with Flamers would be utterly batshit insane. That doesn't mean buff everything to be a pre-nerf 4 PPC Stalker, but there comes a point when you should probably do something about the unfun, underperforming items rather than making effective things cease to be enjoyable to use.

Edited by FupDup, 24 July 2014 - 08:46 AM.

[Jman5]

Nerfs, buffs? It doesn't matter which one you choose because balance is relative.

Think about it this way: when you nerf a weapon, you're actually indirectly buffing every other weapon simultaneously. When you buff a weapon, you're actually indirectly nerfing every other weapon simultaneously. All other weapons are now stronger or weaker relative to the weapon that was changed.

People get mad whenever there is a nerf because they feel like someone is taking their toys from them. They usually fail to understand that a buff to another system is also nerfing their stuff even if the values were never changed.

Edited by Jman5, 24 July 2014 - 09:13 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Jman5, on 24 July 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Nerfs, buffs? It doesn't matter which one you choose because balance is relative.
Think about it this way: when you nerf a weapon, you're actually indirectly buffing every other weapon simultaneously. When you buff a weapon, you're actually indirectly nerfing every other weapon simultaneously. All other weapons are now stronger or weaker relative to the weapon that was changed.
People get mad whenever there is a nerf because they feel like someone is taking their toys from them. They usually fail to understand that a buff to another system is also nerfing their stuff even if the values were never changed.

So you think you can just walk in here with your fancy logic and apply reason, like some univeristy-educated hotshot?

Get the **** out of this thread.

[Sprouticus]

Jman5, on 24 July 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

Nerfs, buffs? It doesn't matter which one you choose because balance is relative.

Think about it this way: when you nerf a weapon, you're actually indirectly buffing every other weapon simultaneously. When you buff a weapon, you're actually indirectly nerfing every other weapon simultaneously. All other weapons are now stronger or weaker relative to the weapon that was changed.

People get mad whenever there is a nerf because they feel like someone is taking their toys from them. They usually fail to understand that a buff to another system is also nerfing their stuff even if the values were never changed.

Actually not true.

Buffing weapons decreases TTK, thus making tactical mistakes more severe and lowering options. It also makes the game feel more like a twitch shooter to me, but that is a personal opinion.

Whether we nerf X opr buff Y and Z should be based upon how it impacts the game as a whole. Some might argue that TTK is fine, other think it should be lower, or higher. In my experience this is really based primarily upon which playstyle you like best (boom! headshot vs death of a thousand cuts).

Basing it upon TT is one measure but we all know the limitaitons inherant in that (convergance, random hit locaitons, etc.). So it really boils down to how long PGI wants the matches to last, what FEELS best.

[CDLord HHGD]

Livewyr, on 24 July 2014 - 07:35 AM, said:

I propose that the Gauss Rifle should do 50 damage with Mach 6 speed, and 100% critical chance.

Then let us bring the other weapons on line with it.

PFFFT! Do you even AC20 bro?

[Jman5]

Sprouticus, on 24 July 2014 - 09:35 AM, said:

Actually not true.

Buffing weapons decreases TTK, thus making tactical mistakes more severe and lowering options. It also makes the game feel more like a twitch shooter to me, but that is a personal opinion.

Whether we nerf X opr buff Y and Z should be based upon how it impacts the game as a whole. Some might argue that TTK is fine, other think it should be lower, or higher. In my experience this is really based primarily upon which playstyle you like best (boom! headshot vs death of a thousand cuts).

Basing it upon TT is one measure but we all know the limitaitons inherant in that (convergance, random hit locaitons, etc.). So it really boils down to how long PGI wants the matches to last, what FEELS best.

That's exactly my point.

Buffing one things nerfs other things indirectly. In your specific example, buffing a weapon is simultaneously a nerf to TTK. Conversely, if we nerfed a weapon, it's a buff to TTK.

Edited by Jman5, 24 July 2014 - 09:47 AM.

[Livewyr]

cdlord, on 24 July 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

PFFFT! Do you even AC20 bro?

Naw bro, I NAC40.

[CDLord HHGD]

Livewyr, on 24 July 2014 - 09:53 AM, said:

Naw bro, I NAC40.

BOOM!

[Mcgral18]

Livewyr, on 24 July 2014 - 07:35 AM, said:

I propose that the Gauss Rifle should do 50 damage with Mach 6 speed, and 100% critical chance.

Then let us bring the other weapons on line with it.

Is this a nice time to say that the Heavy Gauss in MWLL deals 2000 damage?

The Uller/Cute Fox also has nearly 3800 armour on the CT alone.

They didn't make the same mistake as PGI, where stats were taken verbatim from TT, with a flawed analysis.

[EyeOne]

Kalimaster, on 24 July 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

Suppose for a moment that Mechs were real and used in combat. Would you go up to your Tech Team and say. "Hey, my LRM's need to be nerfed. They are doing to much damage to the enemy."

Ok, well this isn't real life.

Kalimaster, on 24 July 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

I've never known an RPG player of any sword and sorcery styled game say "No, I don't want the +5 Defender, I want the rust old dagger in the corner".

And it's not an RPG.

[Agent of Change]

cdlord, on 24 July 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

PFFFT! Do you even AC20 bro?

I propose AC20's should Fire 20 shots ('cause 20) and EACH shot does 20 damage ('cause 20) and each ton of ammo should have 400 rounds ('cause that's 20 shots) and it should also probably weigh less cause (like the OP) I have no idea how game balance works.

Edited by Agent of Change, 24 July 2014 - 11:20 AM.