I'd love weight matching, seeing I'm a locust player.
Though I thought 3/3/3/3 was being used...
On the same breath though, I got swarmed in a PUG by six lights a few days back, so, yeah...
What's even going on with matchmaker?
3
Hard Forced Class Numbers
Started by Bigbacon, Sep 26 2014 07:20 AM
45 replies to this topic
#42
Posted 26 September 2014 - 09:34 AM
Pyrrho, on 26 September 2014 - 08:42 AM, said:
If I find any juicy screen-grabs (from group or solo play) I will be sure to PM a few your way.
Like I said, I am confident that more often than not, weight balance is achieved -- but it is not a guarantee. That's all!
Yea lets find out! Honestly, like i said i hadn't noticed much of an issue. I am certainly curious though....post some screenies! I will do the same, Maybe run 25 Solo matches and 25 Small groups over the weekend and see what it turns out? Gonna be a small sample from me but if a few of us all do it and take a look im sure we will see if the trend is for or against 4x3 and maybe even how often it is broken or the valve opens.
A lot of these issues stem from a small player population though and often are exacerbated during non peak hours so that will have to be a factor and taken into account during my/everyones drops.
Im pretty sure MM strives for a 4x3 (or 3/3/3/3) but if that cant be done the valve opens and those rules go out the window. But i also think weight is a factor as i know the IS get a boost/handicap. vs Clan (like 1ton-2tons or something i cant remember right now) But a small pool of players to choose from can lead to mismatches because getting a match going quickly is the MM main focus.
Edited by DarthRevis, 26 September 2014 - 09:37 AM.
#43
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- The Money Maker
- 583 posts
Member
- Locationchewing his lower lip
Posted 26 September 2014 - 10:05 AM
I honestly don't get the QQ over Mediums. They are in a great spot balance-wise and are one of my most successful classes. Looking over my stats for the past 90 days at www.mechstats.com:
LIGHT
227 matches
0.62 W/L
0.81 KDR
217 avg dmg
MEDIUM
549 matches
1.22 W/L
1.87 KDR
371 avg dmg
HEAVY
448 matches
1.15 W/L
1.87 KDR
442 avg dmg
ASSAULT
460 matches
1.34 W/L
1.49 KDR
399 avg dmg
You can see that my Mediums are just as effective as my Heavies and Assaults. (I'm an admittedly terrible Light pilot.) Most of those Medium games have been spent leveling Stormcrows and Blackjacks, with a sprinkling of Centurion, Nova, Cicada, and Shadowhawk games, too.
I bet that many other people have similar success in Mediums, too. Most of the 55 tonners can be competitive against any other mech out there. And there's plenty of viable mechs in the 40-50 ton range, too.
LIGHT
227 matches
0.62 W/L
0.81 KDR
217 avg dmg
MEDIUM
549 matches
1.22 W/L
1.87 KDR
371 avg dmg
HEAVY
448 matches
1.15 W/L
1.87 KDR
442 avg dmg
ASSAULT
460 matches
1.34 W/L
1.49 KDR
399 avg dmg
You can see that my Mediums are just as effective as my Heavies and Assaults. (I'm an admittedly terrible Light pilot.) Most of those Medium games have been spent leveling Stormcrows and Blackjacks, with a sprinkling of Centurion, Nova, Cicada, and Shadowhawk games, too.
I bet that many other people have similar success in Mediums, too. Most of the 55 tonners can be competitive against any other mech out there. And there's plenty of viable mechs in the 40-50 ton range, too.
#44
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- Elite Founder
- 392 posts
Member
Posted 26 September 2014 - 11:12 AM
7 dire wolves on the same team? Screenshot please. Hundreds of drops since 3/3/3/3 came in, I've seen more than 3 assaults on the same team maybe 2-3 times at most.
#46
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- 250 posts
Member
- LocationShut down on a heat vent
Posted 26 September 2014 - 11:33 AM
I think most of the general issues have been brought up here, but I'll put in my two cents about methods of mitigating the issues. I'd also note that although this thread has been complaining about the number of mediums more than the lights, the queue percentages paint a different picture. Right after the Nova-prime went up as a trial mech, mediums were actually the biggest weight class in queue. Obviously the luster has worn off there through a combination of time and c-ML nerfs, but there's still clearly more mediums in the queue than there are lights. As I write this, the numbers for L/M/H/A are 9/16/42/33. That seems pretty normal.
So why don't people want the smaller mechs? One reason is obviously the reward issue. A 50 tonner will get less xp and cb than a 100 tonner. Obviously carrying ECM is a lot of the benefit a light brings in the current meta, which I think lights can agree is pretty lame. I want to be useful because of my skills, not because I'm a warm body in a Raven-3L. That said, I never drive ECM mechs, because I love my Jenners too much. These mechs bring speed and damage, but are obviously offset by extreme fragility. One misstep dancing around a dire-wolf can easily cause instant death, as 40 pinpoint damage tears off a leg, or instantly kills through a rear torso. The second major issue, I will claim, is a real, objective gap in utility.
Even if utility is balanced, the reward issue will still be there. Smaller mechs do less damage. That's obvious, and that's also reasonable. If an Atlas can't pump out more heat than a hunchback, why does it exist? That damage, though, is on average less useful. A D-DC can sit in the backfield with 3 LRM15s, a couple thousand missiles, and break 500 damage without ever doing anything clever. A good pilot will break 1,000 damage with some regularity. If I do 1,000 damage in my Jenner, then I am a god, and I probably have 5 or more kills. One piece of this is simply that LRMs do a lot of easy damage, but are offset by that damage being fairly low value damage. It's spread over the whole mech, with the pilot easily being able to tank the damage with whatever portion of the mech can most afford it. A second part is that lighter mechs do more useful damage as a rule.
Imagine that I in my Jenner come across a friendly cataphract trading blows with an enemy Atlas. My first reaction will of course be to run behind the Atlas and shoot his rear armor. In the process, the Atlas has to start acting more defensively, and his damage against the cataphract will typically drop as he tries to get his back against a wall, etc. This also allows my friendly cataphract to act more boldly, and increases his output against the atlas. Ganging up is a huge advantage, and the fastest mechs (ie, lights and mediums) allow ganging up the most often. Being faster also allows me to be closer more safely, which increases my accuracy. If you're in a Jagermech pumping out direct fire support at 600m, you'll find a heck of a lot of your shots hit front armor, either in the arms or torsi. If I take out a component in my light, it's probably a leg or rear torso. This means my damage/kill is lower, meaning my reward/kill is lower. I also get no reward for having enabled a gang-up situation more often than an assault could ever hope to. The one real advantage I have is that I have more opportunity to tag the majority of the enemy team to farm assists. I think the suggestion of bonus XP/c-Bills for smaller chassis is decent, but wouldn't take lights off the list. Spotting, tag, and narc are available to all mech sizes, and some of us aren't support mechs. I do my work with medium lasers, not with tag. I would prefer a more elegant solution, personally. If it's possible to track damage done to rear armor or legs separately, I think that would be a cool solution. Kills performed through breached rear armor could get an "Assassin Kill" reward or some such, giving benefits similar to the "Savior Kill" currently in place. I think taking off a leg is a super handy activity, but it tends to involve more missing, since they're small (meaning less reward), as well as no component destruction potential (meaning less reward).
Moving past inferior rewards, the second major difference is perceived utility. Now, lights and mediums either are balanced, or they aren't. If they are, then the reward issue could be enough to fix it. If they indeed are weaker (which I'm inclined to say they are), there would be several ways of combating it, some of which are heavy handed, some of which aren't.
1. Introduce MASC
I recognize that there are issues here, but we all know that MASC would provide a huge benefit to smaller mechs. Even if we put a speed limit on things to account for the net code issues, it would increase the tonnage available to work with by a lot. Lets compare what this does to a Stalker and a Jenner, both running a 300XL. With MASC, a 240xl would get them moving just as fast. The Stalker spends its 4 tons and 4 crits for MASC, and now has .5 tons of extra space, and 4 fewer crits available to it, even before considering the loss of 6 crits worth of DHS in the engine. The Jenner spends its 2 tons and 2 crits for MASC, and is now 2.5 tons ahead in exchange for the loss of 2 crits. It also loses the 6 crits of engine space, but always has the option of dropping FF armor and freeing up 14 crits than way. It will still be about 1.6 tons ahead, with 6 crits freed up: a notable advantage. MASC will be of essentially no benefit to assaults, unless you're trying to make some weird gimmick build, and will be very handy for lights and mediums.
2. ECM
We all know that ECM is incredibly overpowered. Nobody runs a mech with an ECM hardpoint and doesn't install ECM. The fact that it's restricted by hardpoint tells us that PGI agrees that it's overpowered. Personally, I'd rather see it balanced according to its tonnage, and given to all mechs, but I have little confidence that will happen. This is a more heavy-handed option than MASC, but why not just give ECM to all lights and mediums? If some variants need a small buff afterwards, fine, do it. I can't imagine the complete lack of ECM on medium mechs (lets be real, we all know the Cicada is a light) does much for their popularity.
3. Weapon Balancing
You could definitely bring the weight classes closer together in capability by nerfing and buffing certain weapons. You don't see a whole lot of Gauss rifles in medium or light mechs, due to weight. You do see a lot of small lasers, medium lasers, and machine guns. A ballistic slot in a light mech almost certainly means machine gun. Why not make machine guns better? No Atlas would be caught dead sporting a pair of small lasers, but if the range was 180m and they did 3.5 damage, I'd strongly consider putting 6 of them in my JR7-F. The ghost heat cap of 6 mediums lasers affected the TDR-5SS (which wouldn't use 7 MLs anyway), the AWS-8Q (again, which wouldn't use 7MLs), the BLR-1G (again, with little reason to bring 7), the BNC-3S (which shouldn't use more than 6), and the BNC-3M. Only one of those, the BNC-3M, would even consider using more than 6MLs even without ghost heat. They could, of course, take 7-8 MPLs, which has no ghost heat, and which a light or medium probably couldn't afford to carry. On the other hand, there are 4 lights and a medium that would happily take more than 6. In the case of the HBK-4P, its default build uses 9. This was a nerf that exclusively targeted smaller mechs, and shouldn't be in place if smaller mechs are the ones that are struggling. Dropping heat generation from SRM2s, and probably SRM4s, would give a benefit to smaller mechs, and probably not matter to larger mechs, where missile HPs are too precious to spend on 1 ton weapons. Make SPLs not suck. There's a lot of options here!
4. Change armor caps
Not sure if it's a direction we want to go in or not, but dramatically changing how much armor a 20 tonner can equip and decreasing the bonus linearly until we're back to normal at 100 tons would obviously help out with the primary disadvantage of the smaller mechs.
So why don't people want the smaller mechs? One reason is obviously the reward issue. A 50 tonner will get less xp and cb than a 100 tonner. Obviously carrying ECM is a lot of the benefit a light brings in the current meta, which I think lights can agree is pretty lame. I want to be useful because of my skills, not because I'm a warm body in a Raven-3L. That said, I never drive ECM mechs, because I love my Jenners too much. These mechs bring speed and damage, but are obviously offset by extreme fragility. One misstep dancing around a dire-wolf can easily cause instant death, as 40 pinpoint damage tears off a leg, or instantly kills through a rear torso. The second major issue, I will claim, is a real, objective gap in utility.
Even if utility is balanced, the reward issue will still be there. Smaller mechs do less damage. That's obvious, and that's also reasonable. If an Atlas can't pump out more heat than a hunchback, why does it exist? That damage, though, is on average less useful. A D-DC can sit in the backfield with 3 LRM15s, a couple thousand missiles, and break 500 damage without ever doing anything clever. A good pilot will break 1,000 damage with some regularity. If I do 1,000 damage in my Jenner, then I am a god, and I probably have 5 or more kills. One piece of this is simply that LRMs do a lot of easy damage, but are offset by that damage being fairly low value damage. It's spread over the whole mech, with the pilot easily being able to tank the damage with whatever portion of the mech can most afford it. A second part is that lighter mechs do more useful damage as a rule.
Imagine that I in my Jenner come across a friendly cataphract trading blows with an enemy Atlas. My first reaction will of course be to run behind the Atlas and shoot his rear armor. In the process, the Atlas has to start acting more defensively, and his damage against the cataphract will typically drop as he tries to get his back against a wall, etc. This also allows my friendly cataphract to act more boldly, and increases his output against the atlas. Ganging up is a huge advantage, and the fastest mechs (ie, lights and mediums) allow ganging up the most often. Being faster also allows me to be closer more safely, which increases my accuracy. If you're in a Jagermech pumping out direct fire support at 600m, you'll find a heck of a lot of your shots hit front armor, either in the arms or torsi. If I take out a component in my light, it's probably a leg or rear torso. This means my damage/kill is lower, meaning my reward/kill is lower. I also get no reward for having enabled a gang-up situation more often than an assault could ever hope to. The one real advantage I have is that I have more opportunity to tag the majority of the enemy team to farm assists. I think the suggestion of bonus XP/c-Bills for smaller chassis is decent, but wouldn't take lights off the list. Spotting, tag, and narc are available to all mech sizes, and some of us aren't support mechs. I do my work with medium lasers, not with tag. I would prefer a more elegant solution, personally. If it's possible to track damage done to rear armor or legs separately, I think that would be a cool solution. Kills performed through breached rear armor could get an "Assassin Kill" reward or some such, giving benefits similar to the "Savior Kill" currently in place. I think taking off a leg is a super handy activity, but it tends to involve more missing, since they're small (meaning less reward), as well as no component destruction potential (meaning less reward).
Moving past inferior rewards, the second major difference is perceived utility. Now, lights and mediums either are balanced, or they aren't. If they are, then the reward issue could be enough to fix it. If they indeed are weaker (which I'm inclined to say they are), there would be several ways of combating it, some of which are heavy handed, some of which aren't.
1. Introduce MASC
I recognize that there are issues here, but we all know that MASC would provide a huge benefit to smaller mechs. Even if we put a speed limit on things to account for the net code issues, it would increase the tonnage available to work with by a lot. Lets compare what this does to a Stalker and a Jenner, both running a 300XL. With MASC, a 240xl would get them moving just as fast. The Stalker spends its 4 tons and 4 crits for MASC, and now has .5 tons of extra space, and 4 fewer crits available to it, even before considering the loss of 6 crits worth of DHS in the engine. The Jenner spends its 2 tons and 2 crits for MASC, and is now 2.5 tons ahead in exchange for the loss of 2 crits. It also loses the 6 crits of engine space, but always has the option of dropping FF armor and freeing up 14 crits than way. It will still be about 1.6 tons ahead, with 6 crits freed up: a notable advantage. MASC will be of essentially no benefit to assaults, unless you're trying to make some weird gimmick build, and will be very handy for lights and mediums.
2. ECM
We all know that ECM is incredibly overpowered. Nobody runs a mech with an ECM hardpoint and doesn't install ECM. The fact that it's restricted by hardpoint tells us that PGI agrees that it's overpowered. Personally, I'd rather see it balanced according to its tonnage, and given to all mechs, but I have little confidence that will happen. This is a more heavy-handed option than MASC, but why not just give ECM to all lights and mediums? If some variants need a small buff afterwards, fine, do it. I can't imagine the complete lack of ECM on medium mechs (lets be real, we all know the Cicada is a light) does much for their popularity.
3. Weapon Balancing
You could definitely bring the weight classes closer together in capability by nerfing and buffing certain weapons. You don't see a whole lot of Gauss rifles in medium or light mechs, due to weight. You do see a lot of small lasers, medium lasers, and machine guns. A ballistic slot in a light mech almost certainly means machine gun. Why not make machine guns better? No Atlas would be caught dead sporting a pair of small lasers, but if the range was 180m and they did 3.5 damage, I'd strongly consider putting 6 of them in my JR7-F. The ghost heat cap of 6 mediums lasers affected the TDR-5SS (which wouldn't use 7 MLs anyway), the AWS-8Q (again, which wouldn't use 7MLs), the BLR-1G (again, with little reason to bring 7), the BNC-3S (which shouldn't use more than 6), and the BNC-3M. Only one of those, the BNC-3M, would even consider using more than 6MLs even without ghost heat. They could, of course, take 7-8 MPLs, which has no ghost heat, and which a light or medium probably couldn't afford to carry. On the other hand, there are 4 lights and a medium that would happily take more than 6. In the case of the HBK-4P, its default build uses 9. This was a nerf that exclusively targeted smaller mechs, and shouldn't be in place if smaller mechs are the ones that are struggling. Dropping heat generation from SRM2s, and probably SRM4s, would give a benefit to smaller mechs, and probably not matter to larger mechs, where missile HPs are too precious to spend on 1 ton weapons. Make SPLs not suck. There's a lot of options here!
4. Change armor caps
Not sure if it's a direction we want to go in or not, but dramatically changing how much armor a 20 tonner can equip and decreasing the bonus linearly until we're back to normal at 100 tons would obviously help out with the primary disadvantage of the smaller mechs.
Edited by buckX, 26 September 2014 - 12:59 PM.
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