876 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

I don't like to be rude, but the "explanations" on why 10 v 12 isn't being pursued reek of pure sloth.

Isn't PGI a game development company? Aren't UI redesign, new rules for tie breakers, re-factoring of the match maker etc what game development companies do...?

But instead of actually doing the necessary thinking and programming, you're choosing to break canon and pursue easy balancing options like making all the weapon vanilla...?!

What exactly are you, PGI? Where is your pride in your company, yourselves and your product? Are you content to be just a Walmart.com front end for Mech parts in a generic first person shooter?

I've spent, on behalf of myself and two sons, more than $1000 on your game. But if you can't be bothered improving the game and realising its potential, I can't be bothered spending any more money on it.

Edited by Appogee, 06 September 2014 - 01:20 AM.

[SirTurtleton]

Hello,
I'm new here and though my words might not carry much weight in this but I'll just state my opinions anyway. Being a newbie means I am mostly at the received end of clan weapons. I say, they are not too powerful as others have claimed. With teamwork and good tactics, IS mechs can easily dispatch them. I, myself, killed some of the assault clan mechs just by doing so (in a hunchback, nonetheless). What you guys need to do is not nerfing clan weapons but buff up IS ones and as someone said in this topic earlier, balance out some chassis like the timberwolf. The quirk idea seems like a great one,btw.

[jarien13]

Here's a question that I've seen on the forums a few times and will reiterate: why does all the balancing involve nerfing and never seem to involve buffing?

Why continue to nerf the clans with regard to heat, which was already high at release as a "balance" and now you can't fire more than one or two weaps without overheat. Seems like clans have been forced to work on the TT 10 sec weap cycle (to avoid overheating, not because the weaps actually cycle at that rate). Is it really balance to have clan mechs overheat so easily? Would it just not work to buff IS mechs somehow to have better dps, or higher heat threshold, or better heat dissipation, or hell, buff their alpha strikes with steroids. Make IS mechs tougher so they can withstand punishment while closing to brawling range where the Clan are not as effective. Anything to make the clan mechs not dead on drop from heat.

Whether people spent real money or CBills for the Clan mechs, it is not fun to have your shiny new toy nerfed for any reason, plus people would probably be appreciative of the existing IS mechs being buffed, since more people have them to use anyway.

Additionally, maybe stop catering to the vocal minority that complains about every weapon system that kills them because they are too stupid lazy to adjust their playstyle and tactics to counter? Get killed by LRMS? Decry them as the noob weapon and they must be nerfed! Killed by a cluster of MLas, clan or IS? Call them OP and demand they be fixed or you'll never play this broken game again! Killed by an arty strike while standing in a face full of red smoke? Complain that arty and air are unbalancing and need more advance notice of them being deployed, or just chop the damage they do, or threaten to quit the game because of it!

/endrant

~end transmission~

Edited by jarien13, 22 September 2014 - 12:04 AM.

[GumbyC2C]

I have been giving this some thought and once again, the problem is not the weapons or the mechs, it's the matchmaker. For example, A Timber Wolf's best IS opponent is a Victor. But the Victor is an assault and the Timber Wolf is a heavy. Since the matchmaker can only match by class and not by tonnage, they are treated completely differently by the matchmaker.
My suggestion: instead of nerfing the clan mechs, disallow mixed teams. Clan vs IS. But remove the 3x3x3x3 rule from the IS team. If they want a team of 12 Atlas/Banshee, let them have it. Or if that is not working out, keep the clan vs IS and balance by tonnage instead of class and give the IS a good advantage in tonage, like 1.5 to 1. Then you can look at the W/L of the IS and adjust that as needed.

But no more stupid mixed teams. Fix the matchmaker. If 10v12 is not going to be possible (something PGI has almost had to have known for some time) then balance it out in other ways. Just nerfing the clan weapons is the laziest way possible to balance things out.

[stjobe]

jarien13, on 06 September 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

Here's a question that I've seen on the forums a few times and will reiterate: why does all the balancing involve nerfing and never seem to involve buffing?

Because TTK is almost ridiculously low as it is, and buffing weapons would only make it lower.

Of course, if they did something about the pin-point accuracy, instant convergence, and front-loaded damage that breaks the armour system, or even made a half-hearted attempt at fixing the broken heat system, they might get that TTK under control and could start buffing instead of nerfing.

But as should be evident from this statement: "At this point we cannot make the statement that we have a picture perfect solution to IS vs Clan balance", they haven't got a clue. They've had three years now knowing that they were designing a game that would sooner or later have Clan 'mechs and Clan tech in it, and they still have no plan on how to actually balance it.

They set the game in 3050.
They knew Clan tech would be roughly half the game.
They still didn't manage to come up with a plan on how to balance Clan vs IS.
For three years.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[Mota Prefect]

Sorry Russ, but you're about 4 years too late with what I'm sure was your directive to emulate how Star Citizen connects with their community.

Maybe you should hire some people that know what they're doing or better yet sell MWO to a studio that has the skill to make this game what it should be, not the huge mess it is now.

[GDFan]

If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than the cost needs to be reduced and the current price is unjustified.
If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than let me take the Jump Jets out of my clan mechs.
If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than let me put a NON-XL engine in my clan mechs.

[Mota Prefect]

stjobe, on 06 September 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

Because TTK is almost ridiculously low as it is, and buffing weapons would only make it lower.

Of course, if they did something about the pin-point accuracy, instant convergence, and front-loaded damage that breaks the armour system, or even made a half-hearted attempt at fixing the broken heat system, they might get that TTK under control and could start buffing instead of nerfing.

But as should be evident from this statement: "At this point we cannot make the statement that we have a picture perfect solution to IS vs Clan balance", they haven't got a clue. They've had three years now knowing that they were designing a game that would sooner or later have Clan 'mechs and Clan tech in it, and they still have no plan on how to actually balance it.

They set the game in 3050.
They knew Clan tech would be roughly half the game.
They still didn't manage to come up with a plan on how to balance Clan vs IS.
For three years.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

I glad to see I am not the only person, I share your sentiment 100%

[Appogee]

stjobe, on 06 September 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

They set the game in 3050.
They knew Clan tech would be roughly half the game.
They still didn't manage to come up with a plan on how to balance Clan vs IS.
For three years.

They make stuff up as they go along. They probably kid themselves that it's "agile development".

[Lily from animove]

the current patch was awful,

in my timberwold and Direwolf the additional CERML heat is nearly not noticeable. And the epic punch of the direwolf is hardly reduced by this.

The Nova on the other side, wow its now like the old awesome. kinda useless. Even with full master skills, you can not use the stock variant without iverhating when you volleyfire this. Its now the most broken stockloadout ever. Not even ta,lking about people who may "try" it with no heat skill imporvements.

• Clan Heat and Movement penalties if a Right or Left torso is destroyed.

this would be ok.

• Small increase in IS Mech heat efficiency.

I don't think so, the issue is cool fired wepons paired with some lasers, this will hardly help that much

• Complete IS mech Quirk pass to give more uniqueness and ability when used within their respective roles.

A possible idea, but this should include inferior clanmechs as well. So nova and summoner need some viable quirks too, adder possibly too. these clan mechs are rare and possibly gone when the Stormcrow and Timberwolf get released for C-bills.
So yes I am with the fact that inferior and underused mechs need some special wuirks to bring them back. But this should not be IS/Clan restricted, it should be judged per mech.

• Increase in IS and Clan mech armor and internal structure if time to death decreases too much.

I think increasing internal HP and decresing armor is a good way, it would create a better mehcfeeling and also would increase the amount of destroyed components which does then affect a mechs performance more often.

[That Dawg]

Longer wait times

Much longer wait times............


Also, were the "modules" affected? I just researched the (clan) ERLaser, SMLaser, MPLaser, LPLaser, and ERMLaser modules to stage 5, seems, felt...like they were working yesterday, now I can't hit targets from hide spots I had-
I know they nerfed the clan lasers, but no mention of whacking those very expensive modules?







but really, longer wait times and I'm still getting rubberbanding, desyncing.......very disappointing.
Feels like being a kid at a 5 year old birthday party, lots of promises, then being told to sit down, and shutup when we ask wheres the goods

GDFan, on 06 September 2014 - 03:27 AM, said:

If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than the cost needs to be reduced and the current price is unjustified.
If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than let me take the Jump Jets out of my clan mechs.
If clan mechs are going to be balanced with IS mechs than let me put a NON-XL engine in my clan mechs.

well, the community hasn't started extinction category whining over those yet. NOW that clan weapons are more or less equal to IS weapons....thats next.

Lily from animove, on 06 September 2014 - 03:59 AM, said:

the current patch was awful,

The Nova on the other side, wow its now like the old awesome. kinda useless. Even with full master skills, you can not use the stock variant without iverhating when you volleyfire this. Its now the most broken stockloadout ever. Not even ta,lking about people who may "try" it with no heat skill imporvements

Want a good belly laugh? In my excitement, I sold off half a dozen IS mechs, and all the weaponry and equipment...then, tossed 15 bucks real money into the game in order to buy all three Novas last week, grind the free premium I won...well, except for the down time.....then the three day weekend when real humans do stuff other than sit on a computer.......
anyhow, that was last week........now, I have basically a hunchback with jumpjets and shiny blue HUD......
what an f'ing joke

[Peiper]

PGI's reasoning for selling Clan mechs for so much more than IS mechs (price jump between Phoenix and Clan packs) is because Clan mechs are so much better than IS mechs. If the clan mechs are supposed to be nerfed to the point of being no better than IS mechs, they should give a partial refund to EVERYONE who bought clan mechs with real money. At this point, they should give us maybe 15% back. If they buff IS mechs to be as good as clan mechs, then they should give us a total of 33% back of all moneys spent on clan mechs. If they do not do that, then with yesterday's nerfs plus these proposed IS buffs are a slap in the face of everyone who bought the clan packs. ESPECIALLY true if people bought them after seeing them in action. Why? Because we bought them after seeing what they were capable of. Disclaimers or not, we bought clan mechs because we SAW they were better and wanted some of that - even if that meant we'd be playing against more tonnage or more mechs (10 v. 12).

PGI, you're making a mistake. FIGURE IT OUT, don't devalue your own product and call it balance. What you're doing is bait and switch, and it is inappropriate, rude, unfair, deceptive, and disrespectful.

[thisisxerxes]

jarien13, on 06 September 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

why does all the balancing involve nerfing and never seem to involve buffing?
Why continue to nerf the clans

I've been thinking this as well.
Their general approach to clan tech has been "it's better, but it also requires more skill to use". That's fantastic.
But it feels like if they keep nerfing clan tech, all they do is lose that uniqueness. For a weapon to require more skill - it needs to be *tangibly* harder to use; a clan laser might have 0.2 seconds longer burn time than the 'Sphere equivalent, but really - the player doesn't notice that at all.

If the Clan advantage is higher damage potential, at the cost of skill, then they should really play on the Inner Sphere's great unspoken advantage: IS mechs are more forgiving, and strike faster than Clanners.

So give the Sphere shorter beam durations, faster cycle times, more punishing missile salvos, more lenient shutdown threshold, stronger rear armour. That sort of stuff. Play on the Sphere's strengths, instead of taking away the Clans advantages.

Edited by thisisxerxes, 06 September 2014 - 04:14 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Peiper, on 06 September 2014 - 04:10 AM, said:

Because we bought them after seeing what they were capable of. Disclaimers or not, we bought clan mechs because we SAW they were better and wanted some of that - even if that meant we'd be playing against more tonnage or more mechs (10 v. 12).

Partially true.

I bought a Timberwolf because of nostalgia, because it is a cool and well rounded design, because if i had to buy with real money 1 single Clan 'Mech, it had to be that one, because i am a Clan warrior and as such i want to pilot a Clan OmniMech, and i would expect it to work and perform in a similar way to how i would expect it..

[Lily from animove]

ThatDawg, on 06 September 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

Longer wait times

Much longer wait times............


Also, were the "modules" affected? I just researched the (clan) ERLaser, SMLaser, MPLaser, LPLaser, and ERMLaser modules to stage 5, seems, felt...like they were working yesterday, now I can't hit targets from hide spots I had-
I know they nerfed the clan lasers, but no mention of whacking those very expensive modules?







but really, longer wait times and I'm still getting rubberbanding, desyncing.......very disappointing.
Feels like being a kid at a 5 year old birthday party, lots of promises, then being told to sit down, and shutup when we ask wheres the goods




well, the community hasn't started extinction category whining over those yet. NOW that clan weapons are more or less equal to IS weapons....thats next.



Want a good belly laugh? In my excitement, I sold off half a dozen IS mechs, and all the weaponry and equipment...then, tossed 15 bucks real money into the game in order to buy all three Novas last week, grind the free premium I won...well, except for the down time.....then the three day weekend when real humans do stuff other than sit on a computer.......
anyhow, that was last week........now, I have basically a hunchback with jumpjets and shiny blue HUD......
what an f'ing joke

with exception, that you Hunchback can fire a lot more before havign hetatrouble, has a way better profile becaus eit isn't a heavy mech in size, and No one with the current heat on CERML has use for 12 CERML, because you can't really use them anymore in thse numbers. So the whole basic deisgn of the mech is broken. Get a SC and you have JJ less way better hunchback. So yeah the hunchback would now be the better decision soemhow. I would would truly prefer they nerf CERML to IS damage values and only keep soem range values. that would be totally enough to simulate "superior" tehcnology. Because additionally to this effect, you still have more hardpoints on Clanmechs and by this can sue more. This would make sure, the nova can sustain firepower constantly. It would also heavily reduce the "overpunch" DW, TW and WJ can get from simply slabbing up to 8 CERML together with some gauss/AC's

That would indeed be a big change, because damage of the laser heavily reduces, but also heat. But it would finally affect all clanmechs equally and smaller clanmechs would even benefit because they can not simply adjust their build to more heat, they don't have podspace for much changes unlike heavy+ clanmechs.

[Too Much Love]

Appogee, on 06 September 2014 - 01:17 AM, said:

I don't like to be rude, but the "explanations" on why 10 v 12 isn't being pursued reek of pure sloth.

Isn't PGI a game development company? Aren't UI redesign, new rules for tie breakers, re-factoring of the match maker etc what game development companies do...?

But instead of actually doing the necessary thinking and programming, you're choosing to break canon and pursue easy balancing options like making all the weapon vanilla...?!

What exactly are you, PGI? Where is your pride in your company, yourselves and your product? Are you content to be just a Walmart.com front end for Mech parts in a generic first person shooter?

I've spent, on behalf of myself and two sons, more than $1000 on your game. But if you can't be bothered improving the game and realising its potential, I can't be bothered spending any more money on it.

This.

Instead of doing something talanted and creative PGI wants to change weapons stats only. It's so hard to change mm, so hard to change weight balancing, so hard to make 10 vs 12... It seems that they are not game developers, but some amauters using 3rd party programm...

[thisisxerxes]

drunkblackstar, on 06 September 2014 - 04:32 AM, said:

It seems that they are not game developers, but some amauters using 3rd party programm...

Oh, come on , that's not fair.
Game development is still engineering, and that means there are human and resourcing factors they have to consider as well.
At some point decisions have to get locked down, and a 12v12 matchmaker is probably one of those.

[Redneckpanther]

Crapola! Where is the nerf. The clans still hit harder then any mech on field. So were is the balance. Oh yeah quirks. Whose idiot idea was that. Also this latest challenge is crap also. So it is geared toward guilds and pretty much the only way to accomplish is with a guild. Plus if you are in a guild you don't even have to play public matches you can set up matches just with in your guild and viola you get the challenge done with out any effort what so ever. Who ever thought this up really didn't think it through and dropped the ball. This is a major handicap to non guild members. Hell I would love to group with friends but the state of the game has reached a point where 99% of the people on my friends list don't even play anymore and of the ones that do only have one or two on at a time. Yall really need to lay off the weed when you try to think this stuff up.

Edited by Redneckpanther, 06 September 2014 - 04:46 AM.

[Livewyr]

Another step closer to having IS mechs with clan skins...

Could have saved yourselves a lot of time in the Medium/Pulse department by un-nerfing the IS medium laser heat.
(If TTK is too high, you can always back off the RoF a little bit...)

But... no, that would be efficient and cause too little stirring.

[Hagoromo Gitsune]

Quote

balance IS vs. Clans is for:

• IS Mechs = Clan Mechs
  
• IS Weapons = Clan Weapons
  
• IS Equipment = Clan Equipment
  
• IS Weights = Clan Weights
  
• IS Critical Slots = Clan Critical slots

Or in other words, the Clans are nothing more than just reskinned versions of the IS.

They actually are... Sarna.Net helps you to understand that.

Edited by Hagoromo Gitsune, 06 September 2014 - 04:53 AM.