876 replies to this topic

[Meta 2013]

Hello Russ,

So again, I'll ask, why aren't recycle times being used to help balance the clan weapons out against the IS? You keep talking about TTK, well longer duration on the recycles, accomplish this task nicely, without nerfing the weapon. Why are Streaks ( a short range weapon) the lonest recycle, why aren't clan gauss longer, ppc's longer, missiles? While I agree that may not solve it all, its an easy step in the right direction, without falling back on your magical heat solves everything approach to balance.

I have never seen you all attempt to use this tool in balancing, why?

Why screw with everyone's load out's they have spent many weeks and now months working on, make the bad mechs even worse, while not using the one tool, that lowers dps per second, and will help increase TTK, and allow the tech to retain its "flavor" ??? No need for armor increases, screwin with engines, apply the "KISS" factor when possible.

Heat, damage, and range should be used to balance weapons within the tech, but to balance across techs, you have to look else where.

In my limited understanding of the lore, clan pilots are supposed to be better trained, higher skilled pilots than IS pilots in general. So increasing the recycle times lends well to needing to be a better pilot and making each shot count. True?

I just feel your missing a chance to enhance the "flavor" vs your default heat nerf and neuter till its all got the same bland "flavor".

It certainly cannot hurt to try it out.

[Tanreh]

XX Sulla XX, on 08 September 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Lots of talk about 10vs12 but I know a lot of us do not care that much about that aspect of lore. Nor do we think 10vs12 will ever balance out right. So no do not get in a hurry to try and make 10vs12 work. I would much rather have CW etc first.

How about thinking...

10vs12 is the original base for CW?

[Hayato1983]

Some of the proposals sound good, do; however think, that inner sphere need abuff and let the clans be.

Edited by Hayato1983, 08 September 2014 - 12:55 PM.

[Hoax415]

XX Sulla XX, on 08 September 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Lots of talk about 10vs12 but I know a lot of us do not care that much about that aspect of lore. Nor do we think 10vs12 will ever balance out right. So no do not get in a hurry to try and make 10vs12 work. I would much rather have CW etc first.

You realize we are only talking about all clan mechs versus all IS mechs right?

You realize we are only talking about clan faction versus IS faction in CW right?

The real issue with team balancing is that if you are looking to win you should almost always pick:
100t assaults
75t heavies (except Orion sucks so not really for IS)
55t mediums
35t lights (except kit foxes get ecm for clanners)

Because otherwise you are giving up tonnage, which represents armor, speed, weapons, heatsinks etc. for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Where the real issue will come in is 12v12 Clan vs IS means that 12 Clan mechs need to be as weak as 12 IS mechs. Even after all these nerfs we are only kind of sort of there. The SMN is probably balanced with the CTF because the Summoner can't mount endo which makes it pretty weak in this game.

But go on smurfy and build one of the clan endo mechs. Now build a IS mech with the same weight using similar weapons. The evidence is undeniable and right in front of you. IS mechs aren't as good. Except in one area: heat efficiency.

PGI's solution to this is clearly to make Clan mechs unpleasantly hot. The question is how unfun will clan mechs be to pilot if they are planning to nerf heat efficiency until a MadCat is on par with an Orion? Because we're still quite a ways from that.

Edited by Hoax415, 08 September 2014 - 01:15 PM.

[Sandtiger]

I have had extensive play time to test the new balance patches that have recently been put into play. I hope this feedback helps you determine future patches.

1. I have been playing with my clan builds extensively and found that my K/D Ratio has dropped significantly. At first I thought it was just piloting errors (being caught where I shouldn't be) until I engaged several mechs on a one on one basis. I have noticed that my DW dual guass build combined with 5 CMPL is no where near as effective as it used to be. Was their a damage Nerf to the clan Gauss Rifles?
Each match I would have anywhere from 2 to 6 Kills per match. Now however, I am fortunate enough to get one. I tried my other builds DW with 5 CERM lasers with CLRM 20 and dual CERPPC's. Just as horrible.
Next I tried my other DW but I am not going to tell you my load out, so that I may avoid the Nerf overkill button. I was successful with two kills per match for five matches. (Pilot errors non withstanding)

2. I found the CERLL to be nearly useless, but then, I didn't like it from the get go. So I hardly ever used it. It seems as though my assault mech's cannot take as much damage as they used to. Which is frustrating as they are supposed to be assault mechs. However, I run all classes of mechs so it doesn't truly matter so much. It just means I will be tabling my assaults and putting them on the back burner until the mechanics are more proportionate for these war machines of mass doomy, doom, doom.

3. I recently tried my IS mechs and found that my K/D ratio rose dramatically. I am now back up to 4 to 6 kills per match and usually score with 600 to 900 points per match. For my experiment I utilized my favorite IS mechs. Raven 3L, Atlas AS7-D-DC, Boarshead Atlas, and Griffin variants.

I apologize if this isn't nearly long enough to type out every minute detail of my experience. However, I digress. These are my findings.

Clan equipment now is less effective than their IS counterparts. I find that they have been Nerfed to such a degree that I no longer have fun piloting them. According to lore clan mechs were supposed to be better than IS but I understand that you feel that this game needs to be balanced. Instead of being a skill based game, you will continually "balance" weapons and equipment into uselessness.
I like many other players will create new Meta to give us an unfair advantage (as other players are deeming it) Until all equipment is so successfully Nerfed that I no longer feel like playing. Or Until such time as I feel their is no more hope for this game, and find enjoyment elsewhere.

I paid a lot of money to PGI between me and my wife, brother, and two sons who play. We calculated it to nearly $4,000.00 between us. This is the most we have ever spent on a game. It is disparaging for us, to find that the money we spent on the clan packages has been gruesomely stolen by PGI who like to listen to players that obviously do not understand that this used to be a game of skill, tactics, and mech specialization.

If I may be so bold. If I wanted to play Call of Duty, that is what I would play. But I came here to play Mechwarrior online.

Epic Fail.

[Dracol]

Kain Thul, on 05 September 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

Too bad they are ruling out 10v12 just because they don't want to do any actual programming.

I would prefer 10v16 if that's what it took to not see the clans nerfed to ****.

At this point in the timeline the clans had every advantage, period. Good stuff won't start showing up in the IS until the 3060s.

To you and the other 10 v 12 advocates based on Lore. That lore was designed because the TT rules forced the new clan tech mechs to fight in lower numbers in order to even have a semblance of being a fair fight.

Had the original TT designers decided to avoid power creep and better implement the clans, then the lore would have clanners still using the lance organization utilized since the star league.

[Tanreh]

Dracol, on 08 September 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

To you and the other 10 v 12 advocates based on Lore. That lore was designed because the TT rules forced the new clan tech mechs to fight in lower numbers in order to even have a semblance of being a fair fight.

Had the original TT designers decided to avoid power creep and better implement the clans, then the lore would have clanners still using the lance organization utilized since the star league.

So what?
Part of the implementation was a mysterious force at first who were wielding superior weaponry and unknown stuff (elementals)
Reading through the first encounter of Phelan Kell with ClanWolf forces is stil vivid in my memory as I frequently reread those novels. So how would you better implement that element form the novels into TT without giving the clans better mechs?
Therefor the hate of the clans for waste of ressources is actually a *believable* explanation and the novels and TT are in synch. I do not really see a big problem here.
The problem is that MWO is not in synch with either TT or the novels...therefor it is not catching the feel of Battletech for me at the moment.

Edited by Tanreh, 08 September 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[stjobe]

Tanreh, on 08 September 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

The problem is that MWO is not in synch with either TT or the novels...therefor it is not catching the feel of Battletech for me at the moment.

That sums MWO up beautifully; it's not in sync with either TT rules or BT lore, so it doesn't really feel like BattleTech at all.

[Haroldwolf]

This is not what I expected.

Sorry PGI but did you even think this game through? What did you expect would happen with the introduction of the Clan? Did you even bother to read the source books and tech readouts? Why didn't you plan using a form of BV to help balance? It worked great in user made scenarios plus FASA and Catalyst Labs scenario packs.

Maybe you should have had just one chassis per weight class and called yourself Hawken!

Edited by Haroldwolf, 08 September 2014 - 02:33 PM.

[Riff Zifnab]

tl;dr: This is a joke, Battletech has solved this problem 15+ years ago with Battle Value

If only Battletech had a solution to this problem. It sucks that you always have to fight the same number of mechs with the same tonnage. Wait, that's stupid, Battle Value (BV) is a long established system and works well. Lets see how it would help the situation:

• UI redesign of the pre-game, scoreboard and end of round screen.

If the code for this is so brittle you can't make this work, I don't even. This is out of scope of BV.

• New rules for tie breakers surrounding the uneven team sizes

Highest remaining battle value on the field wins, shocking. You could even make the points at the top be the remaining BV.

• Significant re-factoring of the match maker to develop team sizes that don’t match.

Make matches between teams with similar BV, increase the disparity between teams as time in queue goes up.

• 'Mech chassis tonnage balancing will no longer work.

Great, who cares? Battle Value means people can make the team they want, not the 3x4 crap we have now.

• Elo will no longer work with 10 vs 12 team calculations.

Just like piloting and gunnery skills in Battletech add to the Battle Value, whatever magical ELO number you make is added to the mech BV. Hey, we could even get an idea of what our ELO with this system, amazeballz.

I don't understand why this wasn't in the game from the beginning, it works remarkably well in Battletech. I guess it makes things more difficult to understand, because larger numbers are scary, or something.

[Dracol]

Tanreh, on 08 September 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

So what?
Part of the implementation was a mysterious force at first who were wielding superior weaponry and unknown stuff (elementals)
Reading through the first encounter of Phelan Kell with ClanWolf forces is stil vivid in my memory as I frequently reread those novels. So how would you better implement that element form the novels into TT without giving the clans better mechs?
Therefor the hate of the clans for waste of ressources is actually a *believable* explanation and the novels and TT are in synch. I do not really see a big problem here.
The problem is that MWO is not in synch with either TT or the novels...therefor it is not catching the feel of Battletech for me at the moment.

The desync comes from the initial BTech game not being a balanced and well designed in the first place. MW:O since it is a multi player game instead of a Bot Stomping game actually had to address this.

If game development theory had developed sooner, we'd never see stars of clan.

What I am trying to get at is the fact that lore jas stars of mechs only because it was poorly designed in the first place. MW:O actually has to deal with people fighting these mechs like mechwarriors were depicted doing but under the constrain of making an enjoyable game.

I lived through the Clan invasion in table top. Those who got to be clans lorded it over those who were new or not connected with the organization running events. OP clans drove a large segment of the TTop game away and FASA was hurt badly from it. MW:O learned from history.

[Wintersdark]

XX Sulla XX, on 08 September 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Lots of talk about 10vs12 but I know a lot of us do not care that much about that aspect of lore. Nor do we think 10vs12 will ever balance out right. So no do not get in a hurry to try and make 10vs12 work. I would much rather have CW etc first.

Indeed. While Clan mechs fought primarily in 5 man stars rather than 4 man lances, it's not like 12v10 was a common engagement size; that varied dramatically.

Honestly, I'm really happy for this. Having 10v12 results in clan mechs simply being better which devalues existing IS mechs. It's always been the problem - while die hard IS fans will stick with them, your average non-hardcore fan (the bulk of the playerbase) is almost always going to want to be in one of the few, elite mechs rather than the zerg-like weaker mechs. We'd end up with Clan mechs being endgame content and fewer and fewer IS mechs all the time, leading to a very clan-heavy Community Warfare. Much better to leave the difference up to player skill.

PGI has done pretty well at avoiding power creep in mech releases, on the whole. While mech balance isn't spectacular and there are absolutely duds, it's not been a case of newer mechs always being better than older ones.

And, of course - this was the design for Clan mechs that was presented from the very beginning: Having IS and Clan mechs be roughly equal. The more the difference in a 1v1 battle is decided by the players rather than the gear, the better for the game.

[Osric Lancaster]

Dracol, on 08 September 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

To you and the other 10 v 12 advocates based on Lore. That lore was designed because the TT rules forced the new clan tech mechs to fight in lower numbers in order to even have a semblance of being a fair fight.

Had the original TT designers decided to avoid power creep and better implement the clans, then the lore would have clanners still using the lance organization utilized since the star league.

In which case the clans would still be using lost tech. Think of how stock plays compared to custom 'Mechs in MWO. Forcing 12/12 with that godawful 3/3/3/3 matching system they spent far too long on means a Timberwolf balances against a Quickdraw. I don't care how "samey but different" you make clan tech, that is never going to be an equivalence.
On the other hand you could have the clan 'Mechs be actually fearsome. A storm crow could be the equal of two Blackjacks as long as the matchmaker reflected that. It could work in a weight valued system where clans launch with X tons of equipment for each ton of IS gear.

Would it be perfect? NO, but it would be heads and hands above a system of homogenized tech and "equivalent" forces.

I works better from a lore perspective. Clans bid on forces and take the cheapest viable force.
It works better from a matchmaking perspective, where you aren't trying to find a [ m,m,h,h ] lance to match an [ a,a,l,l ] lance.
It works better from a playability standpoint for both sides.

tldr; 12 v 12 is not the problem, the problem is the combination of that and the 3/3/3/3 system.

[KursedVixen]

At this point in time I'd take the 10vs12 instead of this nerf. Th 10v 12 was fine with me I didn't care.

I was happy with clans ,but now I'm not.

Edited by KursedVixen, 08 September 2014 - 02:52 PM.

[Dracol]

Osric Lancaster, on 08 September 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

tldr; 12 v 12 is not the problem, the problem is the combination of that and the 3/3/3/3 system.

and 10 v 12 is not the answer for any problem in a multi-player game

Osric Lancaster, on 08 September 2014 - 02:45 PM, said:

On the other hand you could have the clan 'Mechs be actually fearsome. A storm crow could be the equal of two Blackjacks as long as the matchmaker reflected that. It could work in a weight valued system where clans launch with X tons of equipment for each ton of IS gear.

Who in their right mind then would pilot a blackjack? That is the crux of the problem. You make one side better then the other and no one plays the weaker side.

Edited by Dracol, 08 September 2014 - 03:52 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Dracol, on 08 September 2014 - 03:51 PM, said:

Who in their right mind then would pilot a blackjack? That is the crux of the problem. You make one side better then the other and no one plays the weaker side.

Exactly. While there will always be some who love to be the underdog, it's long been my experience that the gross majority of players would rather play the elite warrior, rather than the hapless minion. You'd have the lore hounds who are dedicated IS players and a few odd players going IS, all the while more and more players go Clan, and basically just leave all the IS mechs as obsolete garbage.

[Dracol]

Wintersdark, on 08 September 2014 - 03:56 PM, said:

Exactly. While there will always be some who love to be the underdog, it's long been my experience that the gross majority of players would rather play the elite warrior, rather than the hapless minion. You'd have the lore hounds who are dedicated IS players and a few odd players going IS, all the while more and more players go Clan, and basically just leave all the IS mechs as obsolete garbage.

Exactly. Those bent on lore would love the 10v12 but 9/10 out of them would never pilot an IS mech in that scenario.

[Hoax415]

So your bizzare assumption about human psychology just ends any discussion.

Nobody wants to be cannon fodder!

-Yet people play IS mechs currently in pubs.
-Yet people still take out Dragons and Locusts and Awesomes.
-Yet people bother to pilot light mechs.

Where is the evidence of what you say?

Psychological factors working against playing clans in 10v12:
-The smaller the team the more any mistake you make is noticeable and damaging to the team.
-The more powerful your unit the more pressure to perform (you can see this in dota, a bad position 5 doesn't get half the **** of a bad position 1).
-You are playing as the "cheap" thing, which takes credit away when you win
-You are the favorite, not the underdog this can be a HUGE thing with players
-You can't brag about beating anyone 1v1 because you are meant to be able to win 1v1's
-You would be forced to deal with disgusting yiffaff idiots especially in clan wolf
-You will feel outnumbered, which does bother the hell out of some people
-You cannot be a special snowflake playing clan, there are only 8 chassis

and on and on.

There is psychologies that play into both sides. There are lore-guys for both sides. There are reasons for both sides.

Let me tell you that no matter what these factions will be huge compared to others:
-Davion
-Wolf
-Steiner
-CJF

Other potentially huge factions
-Kurita
-CGB

Knowing PGI there aren't going to be much in the way of anti-zerg measures in the minimum viable CW. So we're going to have bigtime population imbalances no matter what.

Claiming 10v12 would cause population balance issues because reasons is not a very worthwhile assertion.

If your argument is:
Less people will play clan mechs after they get heat-nerfed until they are 1:1 even with IS mechs and after we spit in the face of their lore...

OK I respect that, its probably true. Some will quit in disgust, certainly some will play CW less or just be less inclined or invested to play often. Some bandwagon players if they are told clan mechs now suck may even switch sides.

Is that really a good reason to do it though?

Edited by Hoax415, 08 September 2014 - 04:52 PM.

[StonedDead]

Tanreh, on 08 September 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

Hmm, I disagree strongly.

I want to play Battletech

part of Battletech is 10vs12
part of Battletech is superior Clan mechs
part of Battletech is IS group tactics and Clan single target philosophy

If much more people want to play Clan mechs.....let then wait longer as the queues are for 10vs12 If there are 50 people wanting to play Clan and 30 playing IS...well the IS people can play constantly...the Clan people have to wait.

If a Clan mech is shooting at a target within 1 second of another mech first...deduct Cbills and XP from him. He is breaking his philosophy

If you want to make IS and Clanmechs *comparable* in the initial states of The Invasion...don't call this game Mechwarrior or Battletech....it is NOT because than your are only by name siphoning from an IP. Most of the people know the history of the invasion and by shifting/nerfing/manipulating the superiority of the Clans---you are rewriting the canon.

If you want IS and Clan Mechs to be equal (and don't want to integrate 10vs12), you shouldn't have started with IS mechs pre3055 in the first place. Everybody firm in Battletech lore could have told you years before.

If you now say 10vs12 is too much work and too hard to implement...I feel kind of betrayed because you used all the other Battletech elements are advertising elements...but now you are changing key systems because they are complicated.

I think the last points may be critical in understanding the amount of disappointed players who are searching for a *lore-true* Battletech/Mechwarrior game

I also want to point out that in my estimation many people would like to play both sides. It is easier and perhaps in the short time more rewarding playing the better mech (Clan) but it would be also a challenge to play the IS side to get a kick from the game. Otherwise I don't think people would play expereinced or champion settings in a lot of games...everybody would go newbie level in difficulty settings because it is easier...but some people want to have a challenge to say ..'I achieved victory against overwhelming odds (A common practice for nearly every great action movie I ever saw ... or did you saw a martial arts movie in which Jacky Chan or Jet Li or vanDamme did just fight a single inferior foe? How many Schwarzenegger movies are out there where he fights only one enemy? [Aside fromPredator...but I think we can imagine Arnie being and IS mech here and the Predator being Clan?) Which side would you choose? The hero at the end?

Sorry, you in fact agreed with me. I want 12v10, I want to fight tougher clan mechs. I want our mechs to be hurt severely by heat. I'm just saying I can live with it cause I doubt I have much of a choice at this point, and please don't nerf the clan mechs too much more, they don't need it. As in they need to nerf their nerfs. Return clan mechs to their glory. I will fight them.

[Solis Obscuri]

I like the approach being used. Things like the longer beam durations and higher heat/shot on ER Lasers make the Clan weapons challenging to use at peak effectiveness, but still very powerful if used correctly; and the Pulse Lasers still give great performance if you need shorter durations for hit-and-run tactics or fast targets.

Likewise, the options between the burst-fire Clan UACs and slug-or-shot Clan LBx ACs and lower RoF but superior damage/ton Clan missile systems encourage a range of tactical consideration to make a loadout really work effectively according to the tactics a player chooses, rather than making all the ClanTech faceroll weapons with massive front-loaded damage and no drawbacks or heat management concerns.

Per Lore the Clans did, after all, focus on honing the mechwarrior to being a perfect weapon on the battlefield, not just stuffing a collection of inbred vatjob scrubs into advanced military technology that would do all the work for them.

Putting some constraints on Clan technology and raising the skillcap for using it effectively is a good change, and a much more interesting implementation than I've seen in prior MechWarrior titles.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 08 September 2014 - 05:17 PM.