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10v12
We have come to the conclusion that, for the foreseeable future, this is NOT a viable option for MWO, here are some of the reasons why:
- UI redesign of the pre-game, scoreboard and end of round screen.
- New rules for tie breakers surrounding the uneven team sizes
- Significant re-factoring of the match maker to develop team sizes that don’t match.
- 'Mech chassis tonnage balancing will no longer work.
- Elo will no longer work with 10 vs 12 team calculations.
These elements alone (not including other edge cases) represent at least several additional weeks, if not months, into refactoring and testing time before they would be ready for deployment. That is time that will directly impact the development and delivery of CW modules 2+.
But perhaps more importantly than that, if we went down this path the overall message to the community is basically “Yes your IS mech’s are weaker, but if you put lots of them together you might win”. This is not what we communicated to the MWO community as to our plans for the Clan mech’s and how they would balance within MWO.
I agree that abandoning 10v12 is the best course of action. There are an abundance of features that the community desperately needs, first and foremost being Community Warfare. If more in-depth features and a better end-game competitive scene mean abandoning 10v12, then so be it.
This game should be more than just team death match in robots, as good as that already is.
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Balancing Plan
At this point we cannot make the statement that we have a picture perfect solution to IS vs Clan balance, but we do have a solid plan of attack. First off just knowing that we are going to exist within a 12v12 environment is one of the major decisions we were waiting to make, and now that it has been decided, we can chip away at the problem.
The first step is to release this latest round of Clan weapon changes this week. We HOPE this is the last Clan weapon nerfs we will have to implement. Not because we feel like this will be enough, (in fact we know that it will not) but in an effort to keep the unique feeling of the clan mech’s strong we will look to other areas to bridge the rest of the gap.
First of all, its very humble to admit "Hey, we don't have all the answers, but we're trying." I applaud you for this bit of honesty.
Second, the balance changed in
some areas are the wrong direction. For example, the strength of the C-ERSL is its light weight and power, while sacrificing range. However, now the range practicially makes it useless. On the majority of maps combat will happen at around 300-500m and up to two to three times those numbers at the start of that match. This makes the C-ERSL unviable for any of the clan mechs, given their base speeds. Why not just reduce the damage by say, 0.5 - 1 points, and keep the range the same? As it stands now, the Clan Small Pulse Laser has the same range as its small laser counter-part which doesnt really make a whole lot of sense, given the precedence set by the other pulse lasers in the game.
That being said,
some areas are absolutely on the right track. The problem with the C-ERLL was not the damage, or the beam duration, or any of those things, but instead it was the range. The ability to deal damage at nearly 2000m was invaluable, and many competitive teams would do nothing but boat these C-ERLL and hold up in some far off location where they could fire with impunity, until by the time you were close enough to do any damage, you were already nearly dead.
Furthermore, a lot of people will feel better about these changes if some other issues were fixed with the Clan mechs, such as the C-AC/# weapons being completely useless at the moment. Perhaps instead of focusing on nerfing one weapons system, you should make the others more useful. The clan mechs already can not reliably use the C-ERPPC, which leaves them with Gauss Rifles (too heavy for a lot of mechs), or the UACs (useless unless boated, see: Dire Wolf).
What I'm trying to get at is this: With the other weapons so deficient, where else do you expect them to go except to the C-Lasers?
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Such as the following POTENTIAL changes:
- Clan Heat and Movement penalties if a Right or Left torso is destroyed.
- Small increase in IS Mech heat efficiency.
- Complete IS mech Quirk pass to give more uniqueness and ability when used within their respective roles.
- Increase in IS and Clan mech armor and internal structure if time to death decreases too much.
Our plan is to begin this plan of attack on the balance of the game this weekend with the implementation of the latest Clan weapon changes and then continue on with the other items systematically over the course of the next couple of months. With this command chair post shared with the public future updates on this subject should be possible much more frequently to discuss our progress.
Well, I would say that first of all, IS mech quirks are always welcome. I think they are a great idea that so far has been squandered on all mechs except the Awesome.
Second, I disagree with -any- heat efficiency boosts, in a game where assault mechs such as the legendary Atlas can be ripped apart by just one or two mechs with a couple of gauss rifles, or in the case of the clan mechs, the incredibly powerful laser boat timber wolves or storm crows. It is true that TTK being fast or slow does not change player skill: good players are still good, and bad players are still bad. HOWEVER, the game as it stands now is too twitch-like, I don't want to compare it to that -other- robot game, but it doesnt feel quite like it used to. If we think back to closed beta before the introduction of Double Heat Sinks and the other upgrades, players had to think extremely carefully about how to manage their heat, how many heat sinks to bring versus how much firepower, or if they brought additional firepower, when was the right time to go all-out versus conserving heat to continue outputting damage. That felt right. That felt like a 'mech-sim. Now, players simply alpha strike (many times more than once before hitting high heat levels), then wait for the heat to dissipate before alpha striking again. Given that there are now more mechs than ever on the battlefield and the efficiency of the 'mech builds people can come up with, the TTK has never been lower. Let's get back to heat management, please!
Clan heat and movement penalties if a torso is destroyed i think is a great unique feature, however, i caution you to think about the new player experience and how new players that come into the game will learn about this effect.
Complete IS and Clan mech armor and internal structure increases are the best fix to low TTK. I would argue that a doubling of all mech healths is in order
again. See my above paragraph regarding TTK and Heat.
The game is great guys, and even though you are taking a lot of flak, at least you're trying to make the best game you can.
Cheers.
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Kael 17, on 05 September 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:
