876 replies to this topic

[NuclearPanda]

Koniving, on 05 September 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Paraphrase: "10 versus 12 won't happen because we'd have to redesign the system."

Well duh. Now, with the 2+ years it took to make the new UI, you would think at some point in time, someone would have said "You know, Clans aren't supposed to be arranged in groups of 4 and they pride themselves on lower pilot counts. Maybe we should consider a 10 versus 12."

Which.... I believe such has been mentioned dozens upon dozens of times before UI 2.0 came out, so during its development...

....and no one decided to put in a clause for its occurrence?

Again, you're right on point as usual Koniving.

But instead PGI just write it off. As usual.

As I said before, this is becoming more and more of just a generic robot shooter. It's not a simulation, it's an arcade shooter now. There are two game modes. No work has been done on anything else that they've showcased. We have a dearth of maps for ages now. And the whole damn thing has been completed dumbed down to nonexistence.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 05 September 2014 - 12:10 PM, said:

Source: Batman & Robin

Awesome haha

[Zyllos]

I am EXTREMELY sad to hear 12 v 10 is leaving...

[Kiryuin Ragyo]

We need 20 vs 20 in random instead of 12 vs 10 in some crapish CW + Siege Game Mode.

[Koniving]

On a side note: Before nerfing the Clans, how about DE-NERFing the Inner Sphere's close range weapons and consider something simple like a 30 threshold... in which case with the IS's more heat to damage efficient weapons (at canon values), alpha strikes from the IS would have FAR more devastating potential than alpha strikes from the Clans when considering that the player shutting down is something to avoid.

IS SL: 29 fired: 87 alpha strike, 29 heat.
Clan ER SL: 14 fired, 70 alpha strike, 28 heat.

IS ML: 9 fired: 45 alpha strike, 27 heat.
Clan ER ML: 5 fired: 35 alpha strike, 25 heat.

IS LL: 3 fired: 24 damage, 24 heat.
IS ER LL: 2 fired, 16 damage, 24 heat
Clan ER LL: 2 fired: 20 damage, 24 heat
(Note: Range comes at damage to heat inefficiency. Large damage per shot comes at damage to tonnage inefficiency for lasers).

Now, isn't that simple? Of course any combination of under 30 heat is acceptable, but just that 24 heat with 10 DHS or 20 SHS is gonna take 12 seconds to deal with. Wow, heat matters MORE with a 30 threshold and 2.0 cooling than it does in MWO right now? The same heat that, in David and Paul's words, would allow "heat neutrality"? AMAZING!

Oh wait, I know why heat would matter more after those changes than before. Aside from magically rising thresholds (in which case the Clans will always have the upper hand because PGI lacked that foresight), some really dumb person decided to have a skill tree that gives bonuses of up to 55% on things, with all things unlockable instead of a 'tree of choice' to check out like in the Dev Blog about Role Warfare explaining the skill tree as a tree with CHOICES that you have to make, and increases of 2.5 with an elite increase of 0.5 and a second possible "elite II" increase of 0.5 to all benefits.


http://mwomercs.com/...le-warfare-cont

I don't know what happened to you, PGI. But you've lost your way. I'm taking that shovel away from you because if you keep at this any longer I think you're gonna bury this franchise with you.

Edited by Koniving, 05 September 2014 - 01:39 PM.

[-Natural Selection-]

sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad....


10 v 12 was one of our groups justifications to be a clan unit. That the mechs were slightly better but having to overcome the mech count advantage.

Now I just see clan mechs getting watered down and nerfed into the dirt. Because he who cries the loudest drives changes, not people who adapt and overcome.


I would rather Wait for 10 v 12, than to just be fighting mechs with different colored cockpits.


** I was pretty damn happy with the way things were coming along and this just sucks.

Edited by Mickey Knoxx, 05 September 2014 - 12:35 PM.

[Prezimonto]

ShadowWard, on 05 September 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

Yes actually i did.

Now let me rephrase what i said a bit differently so its a bit more clear.

Their Nerfing the "weapons" before they even attempt to fix the "real" problem. That being the ST loss issue.

As i said. My timberwolf went from being 'decently' Heat stable (and its nowhere near any of the truely OP builds such as having 7 ERLL's or such), to being almost useless now. And this is BEFORE they have figured out a way to 'balance' the ST issue.

Whats going to happen whey they finally DO introduce the Heat Penalty/Movement penalty that SHOULD have been done 'before' all of the weapon nerfs?. We nearly cook outselves just firering 2 beams when were undamaged now. They throw the Increased heat for the loss of a ST ontop of the already incraesed heat just for daring to use a weapon and we'll assplode ourselves when were damaged just from firering 1 beam.

Im all for balacing clan weapons if they need it. But they should have introduced the Loss of a ST changes FIRST, then taken a look at the weapons IF a change to them was even needed anymore once the loss of a ST actually affected the mech.

Now this I agree with wholeheartedly. They have too large a track record of layering nerfs to many systems looking for something that will achieve a goal they want to meet. But then never reverting old nerfs once a change that matters actually takes hold. See Catapult, Victor, IS-ML, and soon Clan mechs likely.

[HUBA]

First a +1 for the 10vs12 explanation. I'm a fan of the 10vs12 idea and don't share the concerns that no one will play IS anymore. It is a game about team play and balance a stronger team by a hinger numbered team would work. If it ware true that only the strongest mechs would be played we would only have assault mechs on the field. (I know a light can outmaneuver a heavy but a lance of light against a lance of heavy?) the only concern I can understand is the k/d ratio which would be in favor of the clans. But you really pointed out that it have a big impact on the design and that is a good reason to put the idea by side. Please don't abandon it totally, bring it in when you have some time and a good concept for it. BTW the game need 4vs4 and 8vs8 why not think ahead and also prepare for 5vs5, 10vs12 or 5vs8.

Some ideas for the balancing:
Clan should engage more directly and dislike hiding. So a change of the ECM could help. Only the owner get the cloak effect the allies in range get only a harder lock on and missile protection.
Also LRM should require a LOS from the oner to the target. So C-LRM become a secondary weapon and less effective in boating.
Laser could/should be effected by movement. Hitting with a laser on a 1000m should only be possible if the mech is standing still. That would really make a different in expose time. Also it is more appropriate for a sniper to stand still and aim then just running around ans shooting things
Also a stronger damage reduction can be done. Bring the ER laser in the 3x max range instate of the 2x. E.g. ER-LL from 675m and 1350m to 450m and 1350m (900m falloff). This would make the laser more "expensive" on long range.

And there are much more interesting ideas out there.

[Kiryuin Ragyo]

Why just not make E-weapons efficiency actually depending on engine capability. I mean affect the cooldown time, heat absorption, beam duration? Then ghost heat wouldn't be needed at all.

[RedDragon]

shad0w4life, on 05 September 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

What's with all the whining about not having 10v12, because it doesn't fit in the old school lore? Who gives a crap!

I love reading complaints with absolutey zero point to them besides a "ME, ME, ME, I WANT" attitude.

God, I'd really love to see how the Star Craft fan base would react if in the next iteration a single Zergling could win against a single Marine. Because, you know, to hell with lore. It's all about minimizing work for the Devs so we can get our most minimum viable product. Who needs fluff and deep game play when we can make everything the same?

[JohnyBlack]

Good post... Like the shelving of the 10v12 idea... Did not feel the right way to go.. For me at least.

Wasn't looking forward to the clan nerfs... But need to test them before anything. One way or the other: we will adapt.

I really hope PGI is going to focus on the mech quirks in the future as another way to balance.
The initial introduction of the clans was pretty good. I never had the impression they were too powerfull as to being game bracking.
Some small touches should bring everything in line. As in small....

[dragnier1]

First, the weapon changes. I'm currently ok with said changes except clan streak srm4 cooldown. Personally i feel it should be 4.75s. The stated 5s CD is too close to the streak 6, thus players will likely shun the streak 4 in favour of the 6 launcher. With 4.75s CD the streak 4 is right in the middle of the streak 2 and 6, and will not appear disadvantaged against either.

Quote

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.

The first proposal looks good, as is the third one. The second and forth i believe can be resolved somewhat with 1 solution: fix the heat system to match the original board game (30 heat threshold for example). Increasing the heat efficiency of IS mechs is more likely to encourage rapid use of alpha strikes and defeat attempts to increase battle times.

At present the prevailing practice is to alpha strike one's opponent, with meta builds centered around it. Players have even argued that using alpha strikes increases their ability to deal all their damage to a precise location. Although this is a valid tactic, it has resulted in fights becoming shorter. The ability to increase their heat threshold also enables players to deal alpha strikes more frequently to achieve quick kills, thereby decreasing combat time even further. At present players consider a 10 minute game too long. This has also resulted in players mainly from the solo queue hiding behind cover for fear of being taken out by alpha strikes (or heavy blows).

If the heat threshold is set to 30, this will affect all mechs, with the clan mechs being more disadvantaged as their weapons generate more heat. This will discourage players from using alpha strikes in rapid succession and more players will be inclined to fire their weapons separately. This will result in battles lasting longer and encourage players to be bolder. At the same time the disparity between IS and Clan will be reduced a little as players on the Clan side will slow down their rate of fire, thus increasing battle time for the IS players.

[stjobe]

About the whole 10 vs 12 thing not happening:

Russ said:

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

Weren't those kind of things supposed to be really easy with the new UI 2.0? And really, just how hard and time-consuming can it be to remove two lines of text on one half the screen?

Russ said:

New rules for tie breakers surrounding the uneven team sizes

Here's a hint: If the teams have an equal number of 'mechs standing when the time runs out, it's a tie. If not, it's not. There, saved you a ton of time finding some 'Ghost Tie' solution.

Russ said:

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

The matchmaker needs to be redone anyway since it's producing crap match-ups most of the time, this won't add much time to that. While you're at it, get rid of the silly 3-3-3-3 system that the release valves keep making 1-2-5-4.

Russ said:

'Mech chassis tonnage balancing will no longer work.

Here's another hint: It never did. It's a piss-poor substitute for a real, functional battle value calculation. All 75-ton 'mechs are not created equal, you know.

Russ said:

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

If you can't make Elo work with 10 vs 12, nobody will notice. It's not like it's kicking off matches with or against players of the same skill level as myself with any regularity anyway - I see absolute newcomers that can't hit a barn from the inside, playing with and against me in matches with and against people that can headshot my Commando going full tilt from max range.

---

I find it seriously disappointing that you're giving up on 10 vs 12, especially with such lame excuses backing the decision up. It's not only lazy, it's also (yet another) slap in the face of BattleTech lore. Just how much lore can you ignore before Microsoft says you can't use the license any more?

And just so we're clear: I'd rather gouge out my eye with a spoon than drop in a Clan 'mech. IS all the way, and I still think we should have 10 vs 12 to balance out the slightly overpowered Clan tech.

[fyrebryan]

I think having the Clan mech's getting movement and heat penalties if a torso is destroyed is 100% mandatory.
giving some nice positive quirks to IS mechs would be great also...

i'd like to see how IS mechs would do with a 10% heat reduction and 10% better cooling (like what was done on the awesome, but across the board).

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 05 September 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

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.

Constructive feedback:
You will never be able to balance Clan vs. IS Tech, as the Clan-Tech will just through the fact that they can fit *more* weapons and *more* DHS into a mech stay superior. You would have to nerf Clan weapons below IS-Tech by a huge margin to create parity.

This will never come.

What you can do, is to go the hard way and implement a mass-vs-quality-balance, as the proposed 10 vs 12. The reasons against 10 vs. 12 are - to be honest - excuses. You can and you should go this way, because there is no other option beside nerfing Clan tech into nothingness - which will destroy the game.

So, what can you do?

First: If you are not able to code the matchmaker that way, be honest and hire someone who can. Give him/her the data, let the coder code the new MM and test it out.

To the specific points:

UI: Shouldn't be a problem. Change the variables from 12 to 10 in the list, adapt the sizes, done. I honestly think, this is a matter of a single day of workforce. Or should be. If not - then something is wrong.

Tie-breakers:
Make it easy: If the same amount of mechs are standing, IS wins - other than that, the side with more mechs wins. No Tie possible. Done. Time to implement: 5 minutes

Match-Maker: Take your game data, review the average strength in specific ELO-classes of each mech and take this as Battle-Value. Design the Match-Maker to create similar BV-Matches. Done. Estimated time for first prototype: A week or two.

Mech-Tonnage: Irrelevant if you have the above Match-Maker ruleset. For 12. vs. 12, you take an average BV of all Clanmechs (added) of a 3-3-2-2 system (like: Kitfox-kitfox-kitfox-stormcrow-stormcrow-stormcrow-madcat-madcat-daishi-daishi) and look out for BV of an average 3-3-3-3 IS setup. If they are within a 10% margin - all good. If not: Tighten up the limitations for clan mechs even more, like for example: Maximum tonnage of medium-lance: 155 tons (so the clans are forced to take two novas and a single stormcrow)

Yes, it will complicate the setup at first, but it is still a rather fast way to handle and only needs one additional pre-check variable for each class, that can be build in quite fast.

ELO in 10 vs. 12:
Well, you have your BV now, ELO is just a multiplier on that value. Sure, you have to test it, but you can do that in the background.


What else can you do to motivate people to use IS-mechs?
Give them a C-Bill bonus for driving IS-mechs, while Clan machs will stay at the baseline. The bonus will depend on the chassis you take.

Edited by Thuata Dé Danann, 05 September 2014 - 12:52 PM.

[dragnier1]

Quote

Who needs fluff and deep game play when we can make everything the same?

I believe PGI wants a level playing field for both IS and Clan, as shown in the post statement "...establishing the Clan mech’s as the "end game"". After all MWO is an non-canon product, just like the other mechwarrior games.

Quote

It's not only lazy, it's also (yet another) slap in the face of BattleTech lore.

Read what i wrote in this post.

Quote

I think having the Clan mech's getting movement and heat penalties if a torso is destroyed is 100% mandatory.
giving some nice positive quirks to IS mechs would be great also...

Penalties for blown ST are likely to be passive, they only trigger when the condition is met. Quirks for destroyed parts might have to be active, running said script/code every time someone shoots. I'm not sure if it would impact server performance.

Quote

Time to implement: 5 minutes

This is not ordering fast food at a restaurant. As mentioned they need months to add stuff. Lets visualize by substituting mwo with fried chicken. They take that long to deliver your fried chicken because they have to travel to the chicken farm, catch a chicken, kill it, pluck its feathers one by one, remove the hair, remove the skin, cut the chicken, marinate the meat, blah blah blah...

Edited by dragnier1, 05 September 2014 - 01:05 PM.

[Hillslam]

Not doing 10v12 is the RIGHT choice

Balancing the clan mechs is the RIGHT choice

All the goat bleating about leaving is empty drivel impotent forum rage. None of them are going to quit playing.

Lastly, some people seem completely incapable of understanding that LITTLE TO NO other paying customers want to pay THEIR money and invest THEIR time into being a low-powered junk-wielding grunt in a swarm so that a few fat slack-jawed neckbeards can feel like the heroes they're not.

Edited by Hillslam, 05 September 2014 - 01:02 PM.

[NuclearPanda]

Koniving, on 05 September 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

On a side note: Before nerfing the Clans, how about DE-NERFing the Inner Sphere's close range weapons and consider something simple like a 30 threshold... in which case with the IS's more heat to damage efficient weapons (at canon values), alpha strikes from the IS would have FAR more devastating potential than alpha strikes from the Clans when considering that the player shutting down is something to avoid.

IS SL: 29 fired: 87 alpha strike, 29 heat.
Clan ER SL: 14 fired, 70 alpha strike, 28 heat.

IS ML: 9 fired: 45 alpha strike, 27 heat.
Clan ER ML: 5 fired: 35 alpha strike, 25 heat.

IS LL: 3 fired: 24 damage, 24 heat.
IS ER LL: 2 fired, 16 damage, 24 heat
Clan ER LL: 2 fired: 10 damage, 24 heat
(Note: Range comes at damage to heat inefficiency. Large damage per shot comes at damage to tonnage inefficiency for lasers).

Now, isn't that simple? Of course any combination of under 30 heat is acceptable, but just that 24 heat with 10 DHS or 20 SHS is gonna take 12 seconds to deal with. Wow, heat matters MORE with a 30 threshold and 2.0 cooling than it does in MWO right now? The same heat that, in David and Paul's words, would allow "heat neutrality"? AMAZING!

Oh wait, I know why heat would matter more after those changes than before. Aside from magically rising thresholds (in which case the Clans will always have the upper hand because PGI lacked that foresight), some really dumb person decided to have a skill tree that gives bonuses of up to 55% on things, with all things unlockable instead of a 'tree of choice' to check out like in the Dev Blog about Role Warfare explaining the skill tree as a tree with CHOICES that you have to make, and increases of 2.5 with an elite increase of 0.5 and a second possible "elite II" increase of 0.5 to all benefits.


http://mwomercs.com/...le-warfare-cont

I don't know what happened to you, PGI. But you've lost your way. I'm taking that shovel away from you because if you keep at this any longer I think you're gonna bury this franchise with you.

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!

What? Is that seriously something from ROLE WARFARE!?

What in the blazes is that!? /end sarcasm


PGI: Shhhh, don't look at that. I have something shiny over here for you to give me money for.




At this point I don't think this game has any sort of direction anymore. I'm almost sad that MS extended the licensing for so long.

Edited by NuclearPanda, 05 September 2014 - 12:56 PM.

[Murzao]

No weight limit drops or 10v12?

Only plan of attack is more weapon balancing which PGI has a horrible track record of??

No role warfare? At least back in CB one had to guard their base and that split up groups.

WTF

Edited by Murzao, 05 September 2014 - 12:58 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

Who cares anymore? It's not like they really listen to much of what we say.

Also, remove that "A Battletech Game" line...it's an ugly reminder of what this game is turning into.