876 replies to this topic

[Bmetranger]

StaggerCheck, on 05 September 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

Just a couple of points...

I am having a difficult time understanding the justification of the Clan Mech pricing after these weapon tweaks. It seems to me that the Clan technology was the determining factor, but if it is all being reigned in closer to the Inner Sphere technology level, why exactly are Clan Mechs so expensive again?

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

Wait... what?! You are balancing Clan weapons when one of the most important influencing factors isn't even part of the game yet? It might seem trivial, but an XL equipped Inner Sphere Mech dies if either side torso is destroyed. You didn't think to add the traditional heat penalties to Clan Mechs for losing a side torso while mounting an XL engine? No wonder the Inner Sphere pilots have been screaming blue bloody murder.

Clan Mechs can also Not choose to Remove the XL for a standard. Allow us to put the size and type of engine in our clan mechs and we would be happy to support xl having destory on side torso. Clan mechs are also hotter then IS Mechs.

PGI why do you not just make every weapon the same for both clan and IS and just change the way the sound look if you just what balance and not the Game MECHWARRIOR.

[Karpundir]

I do agree that adjusting 'Mechs, IS and Clan, by chassis would be a good way to reign in a dominant build.

What I find disconcerting is the time-frame for balance changes... 3 months or more. This means that CW is going to be further delayed, because it was already mentioned in the past that CW would only be implemented once balance had been achieved. I think you need to really listen to community feedback because we are essentially playtesting this game (still) to achieve that balance. Make the changes quickly, but in smaller increments, to balance it sooner.

I know the community will be at odds on the exact method and numbers, but you must know by now that there are a pool of players who are truly knowledgeable enough to give fairly good input that you can use. These players have much respect by the long term players in this game and many will be glad to hear a voice being heard from the player base.

Let us help you, PGI!

[Dakkath]

Here's an idea. Instead of continually screwing around trying to fix the impossible. Because lets face it, you will never balance a game when you give users the ability to constantly change load outs to use the next best meta. Lets try to fix the game play aspects of the game.

Increase Armor you say? How about stopping pinpoint damage. Fix convergence like people have been saying since Closed Beta.

Movement penalties when torso's are destroyed? How about heat inflicted penalties like in lore. Inability to aim, or run, or jump. How about some movement penalties when running through heavy forest, or deep water.

This is only a couple of ideas, but FFS there are so many great ideas that people have brought up (again since closed beta) I don't get why they aren't even tried....

[Fairly]

The intractable problem here is that in BT clan tech was supposed to be OP, while PGI is attempting to make them equally viable.

Some things make it worse:
-PGI is stringing along BT folks, and using the Mechwarrior universe and likeness but not respecting it
-PGI seems to be purely reactive, ie, when X weapon starts to "win" nerf weapon x.
-When trying to make things different but equal in strength, you usually go with the apples and oranges approach. Numbers vs Strength, Brawn Vs Brains, Zerg Vs Protoss, Etc. In this case, not only are PGI going directly against the BT universe, but also trying to make like for like things like mechs that deal with heat and damage equiped with beam,ballistic,etc weapons, and powerplants in their CT's act like apples and oranges.

Cognitive Dissonance.

There are ideas to salvage it, but at the core of the problem, I think, is the fact that a game like this needs whales and cannon fodder, while at the same time playing the balance game, while at the same time using the patently unbalanced BT universe.

[That Dawg]

Longer, much longer search times before going into battle.
And thats chosing the mech is suggests, i.e. faster load time for lights

[Dark Jackal]

Mystere, on 05 September 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

Because you seem to be operating from an eSport mindset and not a BattleTech one.

Because this game is based on the Cry Engine literally running FPS rather than a RTS Commando Supremo.

[White Bear 84]

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

Hello MechWarrior’s,

In light of the upcoming clan weapon changes today...

This is a long awaited update on PGI's latest feelings and plans as it pertains to Clan balance. I expect it to be a very lengthy post so please bear with me as we work through the entire logic of our balance decisions and plans.

First off, let's all go back to the initial clan announcement and postings of how the technology would work. We were very clear from the very start that we were determined to not make the same mistake of past MechWarrior games in establishing the Clan mech’s as the "end game". In other words we weren't making a second game but that these Clan mech’s needed to fit and exist within MWO. We let players know how the engines, armor and Omni pods would work as well as a general description of how the weapons would play. This was going to create a unique feel to the clans but hopefully very balanced with IS mech’s.

Now that things have settled in we can see that, yes, we have fulfilled the requirements of how the technology will work as well as attaining that unique feel. However we can also see that the balance between IS and Clans is further apart than we had estimated. So the question has been, how do we plan to address this?



[color=orange]10v12[/color]

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.



[color=orange]Balancing Plan[/color]

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. 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.

Don't shoot the messenger..

But. This is disappointing. Essentially the changes that are required to *balance* IS and CLAN mechs are going to require modifications to the gameplay that is imo going to further dilute the essence of MWO. That said, it is not surprising to see this post - my opinion is that realistically the changes for 10 v 12 should have been well thought through well before clans were released, not after. Now we are in a state of limbo as to how the game is actually going to shape up, yet equipped with the knowledge that there is another *probably* convoluted workaround on its way that really is a shortcut in comparison to the actual development of 10 v 12.

I will not completely lambast this announcement though - heat reduction on IS mechs would be welcome, although it runs the risk of creating a new wave of meta energy mechs which will probably mean some kind of new IS ghost heat. IS mech quirks are VERY welcome if they are highly unique per mech and DEEP, but these really should have been present from the get go anyway - at the moment there is little reason to take many chassis over others purely because there is no benefit to do so other than running in a different mech. And increasing armor even more... ..sigh.

Now i wonder, when clan mechs and IS mechs are split into separate teams, what is going to happen with matchmaker and elo. Sure hope by the time CW is out we have sufficient numbers for this - especially so we do not get pug and premade mixes like we have been experiencing.,

I just hope that for scrapping 10 v 12 that CW does not disappoint.

Edited by White Bear 84, 05 September 2014 - 04:50 PM.

[LyskTrevise]

Mystere, on 05 September 2014 - 03:42 PM, said:

Well, it is very much easier than admitting "We actually did not have any plan.", which I am starting to lean on.

It's totally your right to be negative, they certainly don't have the best track record. But at least its better than saying "Well, our community is just very quiet, this is just a vocal minority. They're on a bit of an island."

Disappointed that's the only part of my post your chose to respond to, though.

[El Bandito]

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

Hey everyone! Please let us know your thoughts on the latest post from Russ

Clan XL engine damage heat penalty should have been on this patch, not maybe in the future. It was obviously needed.

Edited by El Bandito, 05 September 2014 - 04:33 PM.

[Gierling]

two things, first off losing half of your heat capacity when you lose half of your weapons is a null loss, the heat penalties need to be extremely significant to outweigh the lost weapon heat generation.

Also I hope you guys get creative on the quirks, stuff like Projectile speed, or ammo bin capacity bonuses.

[Valheru]

Feedback: I'm not a fan of this announcement. I disagree that balancing clan weapons in the game will give them a unique feel. In fact, I have seen nothing that causes me believe that clans have a different feel from inner sphere at this point. Tactics are all the same all around.


CLAN. IN. NAME. ONLY.

Edited by Valheru, 05 September 2014 - 05:06 PM.

[GumbyC2C]

I am not going to comment on the weapon balance changes because I would like to see how it works out for more than one evening of play. I just need some time to adjust my loadouts and play style to the new situation.

But I will say that not much changed on the desync/ping/rubber-banding. My ping was noticeably worse than last night, desyncing was at about the same rate and ruber-banding was worse than normal.

I also saw a lot more exploiting (shooting through buildings or terrain) than usual but it is impossible to say if that was a result of the patch or I just ran into a lot more jerks than normal.

[Deathlike]

I don't even know where to begin (and I'm probably way late to the party as it is).

I think it is possible to balance Clans and IS, but that requires a significant understanding of how the game works fundamentally. Noone is asking PGI to play daily like some of the diehards do, but on the other hand, grasping mechanics is the #1 requirement before a balance attempt is made.

It would just be easy to blame one man we would like to mention, but that in itself isn't fair or encompassing... there's so much gone wrong in the background understanding of the Clan vs IS tests.

Frankly, those tests shouldn't have been needed, in the sense that if you understood the benefits of Clan XL AND treating it mostly like a Standard Engine with the tonnage benefits, it would have been imperative to look into that particular thing and "balance" it appropriately. You could do it however you wish, but it probably starts with some sort of heat penalty (generally in the form of reduced heat capacity, or heat dissipation) combined with some sort of movement penalty (probably starting @ 20% speed reduction or something along those lines). Had you been able to do that, the testing would probably be a better starting point.

Even a simple Lords vs SJR Clan vs IS match prototype would have been an interesting starting point to balance with, vs the randomness of the masses in every possible test, which could have been affected by multiple things, like trial mechs, people who are unable to identify, let alone counter ECM from the Kitfoxes, or those that prefer to ragequit in the presence of Clan Tech.

It might have been productive once upon a time, when Garth was around. He probably played the game the most (although, I suspect other PGI members are better than one that balances the tech) and very likely had some form of insight as to what problems were and why they exist.

The thing is, for PGI to have been telling us multiple times before on balance and changes to the game... cease to read the feedback threads (or, selectively picking a few they like, but not in the proper context or furthering discussion on a particular idea). While the community doesn't always have the best solutions, but those that play the game a lot and understand its nuances and probably use+abuse them probably are more than willing to discuss in a civil manner what problems there are about the interactions between multiple subsystems. That doesn't also mean you have to solely listen to the competitive groups, but at least use them as a measuring stick as long as you understand the implications of said changes.

For every feedback thread full of negative responses, there's probably a unifying message that everyone is saying (outside of "it's bad and you should feel bad"). When you start to ignore the feedback generated, why would it should then be all of a sudden that you can't "balance" IS vs Clan? Is stopping attempts going to rectify and solve the situation? Highly unlikely.

The current set of balance changes really don't help matters any more, so it will always be a neverending quest to balance stuff if you refuse to learn the mechanics you put into your own game. How can balance be taken seriously if you cannot grasp the overall implications of a change? For every "positive change" you think you are adding, you also need to reevaluate and see what possible negative changes you may have inadvertently done. That's how balance works. Gotta acknowledge your own weakness before trying something else that will probably end up doing more harm than good.

It's far too easy to give up, because the quicker solution is far less permanent and worse as a long term answer. If you put the time and effort into balancing stuff, people wouldn't have to be writing you off at every change. Treating every balance change like we are back in beta will get you more disgruntled people over time... the offer to help you out stands, but not taking feedback seriously... most people don't have tolerance for that.

[DrSlamastika]

I am so glad, I bought just 3 chassis of clan mechs.

[Sandpit]

DrSlamastika, on 05 September 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

I am so glad, I bought just 3 chassis of clan mechs.

I'm so glad I just saved my money and it won't cost me anything other than cbills

[Tremendous Upside]

From my standpoint, I'm not "angry" at the nerfage. Yeah, the clan mechs were too powerful as they were... but what bothers me (and has been touched upon repeatedly in this thread) is just the fact that they've AGAIN chosen the easiest possible way out of the problem they've forced on themselves. It's a pattern you'd hope they'd learn from sooner or later...

From the very beginning we've had promises of greatness, and what's been delivered is the minimum viable solution. They can't do "this" because it's too hard - too much work. Can't make maps because they're too busy with clans. Can't do CW because UI 2.0 is the bottleneck holding everything back. Can't finish UI 2.0 on time because they're too busy with Phoenix mechs. Can't do UI 2.0 because lagshields are ruining the game. And it's been like this for 3 years... At what point do you start to look at yourself as a business and realize there's something seriously wrong with the way you operate?

[Dante Haguel]

if you want to equal IS and Clan, so make clan cheaper! you still use the price of TT for clan tech, but it's no longer worst it !
decrease range, decrease damage, increase heat .... why should use clan if cheaper IS are better?

torso damage -> reduce heat & movement, that stupid.... make engine/gyro/sensor damage effective for everyone ! that not hard!

in TT, clan mech are more powerfull at distance, but they can't do close combat, which is in favor for IS, so do it ! make close combat (punch, kick, push, death from above) a reality, other mech game did it (great in heavygear2) so why you didn't?

i'm afraaid you will loose players, but you don't care, cause they already pay -in cash- for you twisted, sneaky change of rules!

SHAME ON YOU PGI !!!!!!!!!
defenitively agree with Banky :
"At what point do you start to look at yourself as a business and realize there's something seriously wrong with the way you operate?"

Edited by Dante Haguel, 05 September 2014 - 05:07 PM.

[Veneroso]

At first, I was upset about these changes. But now that I've had some time to think about it, this is probably good for the game long-term.

To-Hell with the tabletop rules. None of the previous games gave it much more than an afterthought. I respect that the devs have tried to honor it, but it clearly isn't going to work. This is a real time game and it needs real time rules.
I do have some things on my wish list, however:

1.) Re-balance Armor/Internal structure of all mechs so that they survive longer. While it is certainly fun to burn a hole through someone in 2-3 shots, it isn't fun to be on the receiving end. If you look at the novels, those mechs were never 1 or 2 shotted. In fact, they generally took a beating. Even when we had IS vs clan mechs, the IS mechs didn't just fall over either.

2.) Re-tune all the weapons so that they fall more in line with each other. Weapons are either underpowered to the point that no one uses them, or overpowered to where everyone uses them. If they were more in-line with each other drastic nerfs wouldn't be needed between patches. Increasing mech HP would also help in this regard.

3.) Add an in-game display of the reactor output. If reactor output goes past 100%, say 125%, it generates extra heat when you continue to tax it. This would be more intuitive for the player. Perhaps even add this power draw to the weapon groups in the mech lab.

[Mystere]

Dark Jackal, on 05 September 2014 - 04:30 PM, said:

Because this game is based on the Cry Engine literally running FPS rather than a RTS Commando Supremo.

The CryEngine is just a game "engine", not a game. I think you are seriously confused about the difference.

[Arkus Bethla]

As this is pretty much what you suggested would happen from the beginning and it does address the otherwise open question: "why wouldn't everyone just join the clans rather than the zerg army?". I am pretty happy.

If you do go this direction anyway, consider allowing engine components to be crit in general. Even if you don't institute the 3 crits = dead rule with it, decreasing efficiency with engine crits would be interesting. It would nerf the IS XL engines more but maybe you could decrease the penalty for crit IS engine slots or some other magic.

Then maybe add leg actuator crits, as long as you keep your options open this shouldn't be too far removed once the precedent for decreasing movement on engine crits is in place.

Then maybe gyro crits could increase cockpit shake on impulses and perhaps introduce screen shake on movement.

Now I know what MY customers feel like LOL.