86 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 06:32 PM, said:

Your point doesn't seem relevant.

Talk about abstractions and everything else all you want. It's a red herring. The core interaction is that allowing bigger, more rapid alphas, sustained for a longer period of time led to low time to kill. Powercreep from the start. Doubling armor reinforced the need for big, rapid, sustained alphas.

Quirks have further reinforced that. Including the armor/IS ones.

QED.

Your argument was that the 10 second turn idea was not an abstraction, when it is, just like AC20s being an abstraction of a bunch of weapons. I read the second statement about the difference between Turn Based and Real Time wrong, I goofed on that one, at least my reasoning given that is, I do believe there is a fundamental difference between the two not just a practical one.

Weapon balance is part of the problem, alpha strikes power is about on par with MW4, but recycle faster and are hotter (heat caps are on par but heat efficiency was better in MW4) while mechs are overall less durable and less able to sustain DPS (thanks to side torso destruction causing arm loss).
Doubling armor did nothing to reinforce alphas, it just exacerbated the problem with rapid fire weapons in this game. Slight semantics difference, but still the problem is not convergence or anything, it is a simple product of rapid fire weapons just not being powerful enough; projectile velocity is part of the problem in this regard.

For example, MW4:HC was dominated in the latter stages by UAC5 boats. They had the same recycle time as the MWO AC5s, did 0.75 more damage than the MWO AC5s, and almost twice the heat. A Mad Dog C could mount 3 of them and run around 80kph. A Hellfire which was the same tonnage could deal a massive 55 point alpha every 10 seconds and the better hitboxes but went Dire Whale slow. Then there were the twin Streak LRM20 (6 sec recycle I believe) Mad Dogs that ran around 90kph and would consistently rain missiles on you at the edge of visual range. All of these examples are different in the way they deal damage and yet all were decently or exceedingly effective and all in an environment that had double armor and in an environment where the suggested boost was possible.

So if your argument is that we need slower firing large weapons, I would agree for the most part. I would also say max heat needs to come down and heat dissipation boosted. This is hardly an endemic because of core mechanics though, this is a problem of simple math, same with quirks, it is all about implementation.

Not arguing with you on power creep either, PGI has been really bad about that ever since DHS got added.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 11 March 2015 - 07:44 PM.

[Koniks]

I'll say that this is still the closest thing to a good stompy robot game currently available. But that shouldn't give the game a free pass.

There are definitely conceptual problems with the game, not just an implementation issue. It's not just the values they applied to the weapons but the interactions among them. Some of that is from the CBT rules they adopted. Some of that is the ones they ignored. It adds up to a game that plays more like an FPS and less like vehicle combat. But hey, maybe that's their target audience since mech simulators were dead for so long.

There are plenty of examples. How useless pulse lasers were forever. Or how flamers still have a broken mechanic in how they deliver damage and generate heat. Or how they tried to correct for large, frequent, pinpoint alphas with ghost heat. Or failing to recognize the problems with treating Gauss like other ballistics in the original design. Or how jumpsniping became practically the sole viable tactic in the game for a year because of how every design decision interacted. Or the targeting and target information sharing system that's in place with the wallhack available for CBills. Hill climb. The list goes on.

I disagree with how you perceive the effect of doubling armor. Reducing the usefulness of damage over time builds inherently favors burst damage. The heat system is a contributing factor that enables burst damage to be useful in the first place. I give you the TDR, DRG-1N, and WVR quirks as exhibits A-E. They have to be ridiculous in order for them to be useful.

I think a combination of reworking heat values and cooldown is needed. But I also think the game would be better off rethinking how mechanics work to provide something closer to rock-paper-scissors balance. Both between factions and among chassis. The biggest problem with the IS quirks is not just that they're a gimmick to make IS mechs more useful but that conceptually they were designed to make the IS mechs behave more like Clans, e.g. mid-range laser vomit, welcome to the Inner Sphere.

And the biggest problem with the latest pass is that they were quirked towards stock loadouts rather than giving mechs unique roles. That's not just an implementation thing like effectively reducing the heat generation quirks on almost every chassis that was using pulse lasers. That's a flaw in the underlying concept.

The thing about games with a healthy meta is that they achieve balance through asymmetry. They design systems to work differently with different strengths and weaknesses. We don't have that here.

Edited by Mizeur, 12 March 2015 - 12:36 AM.

[Johnny Z]

Mizeur, on 12 March 2015 - 12:26 AM, said:

I'll say that this is still the closest thing to a good stompy robot game currently available. But that shouldn't give the game a free pass.

There are definitely conceptual problems with the game, not just an implementation issue. It's not just the values they applied to the weapons but the interactions among them. Some of that is from the CBT rules they adopted. Some of that is the ones they ignored. It adds up to a game that plays more like an FPS and less like vehicle combat. But hey, maybe that's their target audience since mech simulators were dead for so long.

There are plenty of examples. How useless pulse lasers were forever. Or how flamers still have a broken mechanic in how they deliver damage and generate heat. Or how they tried to correct for large, frequent, pinpoint alphas with ghost heat. Or failing to recognize the problems with treating Gauss like other ballistics in the original design. Or how jumpsniping became practically the sole viable tactic in the game for a year because of how every design decision interacted. Or the targeting and target information sharing system that's in place with the wallhack available for CBills. Hill climb. The list goes on.

I disagree with how you perceive the effect of doubling armor. Reducing the usefulness of damage over time builds inherently favors burst damage. The heat system is a contributing factor that enables burst damage to be useful in the first place. I give you the TDR, DRG-1N, and WVR quirks as exhibits A-E. They have to be ridiculous in order for them to be useful.

I think a combination of reworking heat values and cooldown is needed. But I also think the game would be better off rethinking how mechanics work to provide something closer to rock-paper-scissors balance. Both between factions and among chassis. The biggest problem with the IS quirks is not just that they're a gimmick to make IS mechs more useful but that conceptually they were designed to make the IS mechs behave more like Clans, e.g. mid-range laser vomit, welcome to the Inner Sphere.

And the biggest problem with the latest pass is that they were quirked towards stock loadouts rather than giving mechs unique roles. That's not just an implementation thing like effectively reducing the heat generation quirks on almost every chassis that was using pulse lasers. That's a flaw in the underlying concept.

The thing about games with a healthy meta is that they achieve balance through asymmetry. They design systems to work differently with different strengths and weaknesses. We don't have that here.

I completely disagree with relying on blanket systems for a game of this depth. Anything like rock paper scissors is like repulsive to any gamer over the age of 10. It wasnt my idea they went in this direction and it takes alot of guts for them to have done so. To try give each of 100+ mech its own character?

They took the hard road here, which makes getting balance right even tougher. Mechwarrior is about the characteristics of each of the machines of the future and mastering them and making them shine for each indivual pilot, so they made the right call. With such a large selection of mechs there may be only or 2 truly great Awsome pilots for instance and no two Awsome will look or act the same. Thats a cool thing to have in a game. Sounds like Im trying to sell it lol. But really its pretty cool.

When it comes to Omni mechs, I think they made a mistake making them OP out the gate. Either way, Omni mechs are called Omni mechs for a reason. They may have less custom options but they are more versatile. With weapons load outs and paint, camo, no two Omni mechs have to be the same either. So they went about the actual mechanics of Omni right to.

On the Balance subject between Omni mechs and Inner sphere mech, the original Battle Tech board game had balanced gameplay. I am super glad they went this direction rather than lopsided gameplay. So alls good with this games direction other than current minor balance problems and some silly cockpit items lol and that "PLAY NOW" button.

Edited by Johnny Z, 12 March 2015 - 01:02 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Pulse lasers being useless was very much a numbers thing, as we obviously have decent wubwub now, especially with the LPLs on both sides. Though I would love for them to be more than just a more accurate laser, that is kind of what they are in BT, so whatever. Flamers however is definitely because they overnerfed it because of the Flamer 4Ps from back before I even got in to closed beta, either way, no argument there that it was a flawed concept.

Gauss hasn't been treated like normal ballistics either as it still boasts the best heat to damage ratio outside of MGs. Not to mention it is still the only weapon in the game that does damage out to 3x its effective range instead of 2x like the rest and also has projectile speed only matched by the AC2.

Ghost heat was a flawed bandaid, no doubts about that since they had to create a new unrelated system to prevent the boating of Gauss. Which doesn't mean the heat system is far from fixing as we still want heat management to be a thing, it just requires tweak in the numbers (lower max heat, increased dissipation).

Jumpsniping is itself not a terrible thing, while the actual mechanics are different than in TT, there were plenty of mechs that abused jumping and pulse lasers to terrorize players. They were right in allowing it to be a valid tactic, the only problem is that it was the ONLY valid tactic thanks to mech balance issues among other things. It is possible to achieve, they just have to actually learn from it rather than the scorched earth approach they seem to have towards former champions of metas from yore.

Hillclimb, again, this was not necessarily a concept so much as they tweaked some numbers to make mechs get stopped by their terrible terrain pebbles. It was a bad choice for sure, but it isn't like it is a core mechanic of the game, it is a simple physics adjustment that can be adjusted right back and considering how long those statues on River City plagued us, it may also be the map designers who are part of the problem (which they are, for other reasons though)

Mizeur, on 12 March 2015 - 12:26 AM, said:

I disagree with how you perceive the effect of doubling armor. Reducing the usefulness of damage over time builds inherently favors burst damage. The heat system is a contributing factor that enables burst damage to be useful in the first place. I give you the TDR, DRG-1N, and WVR quirks as exhibits A-E. They have to be ridiculous in order for them to be useful.

This has nothing to do with doubled armor, rapid fire weapons always have to have insane DPS in order to compete with Alpha or Burst damage weapons.

Back to the MW4:HC example:
Clan UAC5
Damage: 5.75
Range: 800
Recycle: 1.67
Heat: around 1.75
Tonnage: 8 + 1 for extra ammo
DPS = 3.45
Most clan heavies could manage to fit 4, or 3 if you wanted special armor

Clan ERPPC w/Capacitor
Damage: 21.5
Range: 950
Recycle: 10
Heat: 22.5
Tonnage: 7
DPS: 2.15
The most you could ever mount was 2 on a clan heavy, and it was the Hellfire (60) tons so it was paired with other less efficient alpha strike weapons.

Notice the DPS has to not only be pretty much twice what the alpha strike weapon is, it also has to be fairly heat efficient on top of that.

Another condition for rapid fire weapons to work really well is fairly flat or open terrain, and many of the maps outside of Alpine (which is too open) do not play well with that idea with many mech high ridges.

As for the latest pass of quirks, yes they were very much disappointing, not disagreeing with you on that, but that does not mean the idea of quirks are bad. Quirks were designed for two reasons:

• To add flavor as hardpoints don't do enough of it, not to mention BT recently added quirks as well even though they are quite a bit different, the idea behind them is still the same.
  
• Balance mechs that have unfortunate profiles, which will always happen unless all mechs look the same. Mechs that have inherent advantages because of some combination of their stock hardpoints, profile/hitboxes, and weapons mounts and quirks are a way to give inherent advantages to the rest that don't have one or all of these.

Edited by WM Quicksilver, 12 March 2015 - 01:07 AM.

[Koniks]

It wasn't just a numbers thing. It was a concept. They decided pulse lasers should do more damage with shorter bursts. They decided they should weigh more. And for most of them, they decided they should do more heat (the C-LPL vs C-ERLL being the only exception I recall).

They didn't have to go that route. They could have made pulse lasers work like flamers--straight DPS no cooldown until you overheat. Or given them the energy equivalent of a UAC jam chance that forces a cooldown if you use it too long. The combination of using the standard laser mechanic and poor understanding of the weapons's stats compared to other systems made them useless.

Yeah, they fixed them by changing numbers rather than the mechanic. But it was after re-evaluating how all the lasers interact with each other and other weapons. And a big part of it was the fact that they limited Clans' burst damage capability by changing their non-Gauss ballistic mechanic.

I really don't want to go into the other examples--but Gauss had the same firing mechanic as other ballistics. The only difference was the numbers. Now it has a slightly different mechanic to make up for the advantage of its different numbers. That's what I mean by how it was a flawed concept at the start.

I disagree with most of the rest of your assessments here. Like they could have balanced mechs from the start by locking them to their unique armor values. The table top values make the WVR a better-armored medium than the rest of that class. The Jagermech was a glass cannon, it's a lot less of one in MWO. Doubling armor and allowing customization of all mechs removed that. Going back and adding weightless armor and structure is a gimmick to fix the fact that they removed one of the key things differentiating mechs.

And that's what they've done for the most part...apply patches instead of fixing core mechanics.

Edited by Mizeur, 12 March 2015 - 08:38 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Mizeur, on 12 March 2015 - 08:16 AM, said:

It wasn't just a numbers thing. It was a concept. They decided pulse lasers should do more damage with shorter bursts. They decided they should weigh more. And for most of them, they decided they should do more heat (the C-LPL vs C-ERLL being the only exception I recall).

They didn't have to go that route. They could have made pulse lasers work like flamers--straight DPS no cooldown until you overheat. Or given them the energy equivalent of a UAC jam chance that forces a cooldown if you use it too long. The combination of using the standard laser mechanic and poor understanding of the weapons's stats compared to other systems made them useless.

Yeah, they fixed them by changing numbers rather than the mechanic. But it was after re-evaluating how all the lasers interact with each other and other weapons. And a big part of it was the fact that they limited Clans' burst damage capability by changing their non-Gauss ballistic mechanic.

I really don't want to go into the other examples--but Gauss had the same firing mechanic as other ballistics. The only difference was the numbers. Now it has a slightly different mechanic to make up for the advantage of its different numbers. That's what I mean by how it was a flawed concept at the start.

I disagree with most of the rest of your assessments here.

Tthey decided to translate all weapons and value over to MWO and adjust from there, thus why pulse does more damage with a shorter burst to "simulate" the -2 to-hit pulse enjoyed. This included weighing more as well, since tonnage is one of those things that tends to go untouched to preserve stock mechs. The smaller lasers also got penalized with more heat because for the tonnage almost all of them were too powerful. The IS ML is one of the best weapons the IS has to offer in TT, and it translated here just like it did in MW3, hardpoints and engine caps were the only thing stopping it from being the best weapon before the Clans dropped and the ERML became the most important weapon for clans.

Again, just because they were once useless still has NOTHING to do with the concept of the weapon since they ARE CURRENTLY, decent weapons, that's the point. I'm sure part of the reason they don't work like the Sentinel Beam from Halo or the continuous beam laser from MW4:MP3 is because those weapons were absolutely horrid weapons. No one took them, and for good reason the damage didn't justify the amount of exposure. Could they have been more interesting or distinct? Yes. Is it completely necessary for this to be the case? No, you can still have balance among similar weapons, they just have to have some sort of trade-off.

[Ultimax]

Thread about improving IS Engines, unnecessarily derailed by nitpicking game mechanics systems that ure exceedingly unlikely to ever be changed.


Good job derailers, understand that this is why the devs don't "listen to us" - because our topics are a jumbled mess of off topic nitpicking and semantics instead of focusing on the topic as it's laid out.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 12 March 2015 - 09:02 AM.

[Koniks]

OP's solution doesn't address the underlying problem. That's my point.

[Ultimax]

Mizeur, on 12 March 2015 - 09:09 AM, said:

OP's solution doesn't address the underlying problem. That's my point.

You have derailed a thread asking for fixes that are beyond his control, and so out of the realm of ever coming to be that it's a waste of time to even bother proposing a "fix".


It's not even a fact you are presenting, you are presenting your opinion.

Many players are fine with the current rate of fire. I think firing my weapons every ten seconds would make for a boring game.


You are harping on rate of fire from a game where mechs didn't even have full armor allotments.






The goal of his thread is balance between IS and Clan engines not "redesigning the entire game's underlying mechanics"

Edited by Ultimatum X, 12 March 2015 - 09:14 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Mizeur, on 11 March 2015 - 07:11 AM, said:

I'm not looking for Table Top. I didn't play. But I do understand the mechanics it used to balance the game.

And PGI chose most of those mechanics as the core of its game. And implemented things that approximate them where there wasn't a direct translation from turn-based to RT. That includes things like beam duration and projectile velocity.

So this isn't about my preference for using Table Top. I've played the MechWarrior and other BattleTech video games since the 80s. This is about how they chose to adapt the rules. This game has the most arcade, least simulator feel of any of them.

This is about fixing the implementation at the core of the game rather than treating the symptoms with things like ghost heat. But thanks for telling me to find another game instead of suggest ways to improve the one I like and have invested time and money in. I appreciate you looking out for me.

Your to late for a CORE change my good man. So is everyone else who makes the same type of asinine suggestion. The basement is poured, cured and the House sits a top. If the roof leaks a little you don't tear up the houses foundation ffs. You Patch the roof. If the foundation leaks, you Patch it. You do not tear it all out assuming a new one will not also spring a leak at some point in the future.

[Almond Brown]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 March 2015 - 06:11 PM, said:

Oh, so having them still SUPERIOR in every way is not more fun. Gotcha.

Because hot and slow still beats dead, every single time.

At the rate were going, everything will have to be the same, Mechs and weapons, before the cries of OP ever begin to slow down, only to be replaced with wails of "ahhh everything sucks, were is the differences?"

They would mean the current OP stuff that everyone seems to want gone for... reasons.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Almond Brown, on 12 March 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

At the rate were going, everything will have to be the same, Mechs and weapons, before the cries of OP ever begin to slow down, only to be replaced with wails of "ahhh everything sucks, were is the differences?"

They would mean the current OP stuff that everyone seems to want gone for... reasons.

Well everything doesn't have to be the same. Imagine if all the weapons in the Battletech were balanced against each other as though they were in the tech level. Then weapons/equipment were separated to their corresponding techs, things would be slightly better balanced with each tech having some sort of "hole" that creates a "perfect imbalance" as Extra Credits might say. Though I disagree with the semantics, the idea is the same, it creates a sort of rock-paper-scissors effect when equal skilled players and teams are considered.

Of course that idea isn't perfect, there would still be some adjustments once split, but you get the idea, all weapons and equipment need to be balanced against each other rather than just strictly to tech bases and then compare the tech base itself.

Now considering the gap between IS engines and Clan engines and how much of the rest that affects, balancing the engines would be a good place to start.

[Rossario x Vampire]

WM Quicksilver, on 12 March 2015 - 01:02 AM, said:

Clan ERPPC w/Capacitor
Damage: 21.5
Range: 950
Recycle: 10
Heat: 22.5
Tonnage: 7
DPS: 2.15
The most you could ever mount was 2 on a clan heavy, and it was the Hellfire (60) tons so it was paired with other less efficient alpha strike weapons.

2xHPPC+Capacitator (C-ANG-X) Not mentioning that ARChANGL got instant energy quirks that allow him to mount plus to those 2xHPPC+Cap also 2xBLC doesn't even mentioning that this is ext-tech.
Mektek tho.

[Johnny Z]

Almond Brown, on 12 March 2015 - 11:35 AM, said:

At the rate were going, everything will have to be the same, Mechs and weapons, before the cries of OP ever begin to slow down, only to be replaced with wails of "ahhh everything sucks, were is the differences?"

They would mean the current OP stuff that everyone seems to want gone for... reasons.

Hearing that from the "cheese mode" crowd would be music to my ears. What I dont get is how the "cheese mode" crowd can actually brag about being the "cheese mode" crowd.

"Look at me, I like cheesy win in cheesy mechs. Dont even try and balance the cheese because I will just find more cheese. Its all about the cheese dont you know. Have I mentioned how much I like cheese?"

Edited by Johnny Z, 12 March 2015 - 01:02 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Johnny Z, on 12 March 2015 - 12:54 PM, said:

Hearing that from the "cheese mode" crowd would be music to my ears. What I dont get is how the "cheese mode" crowd can actually brag about being the "cheese mode" crowd.

"Look at me, I like cheesy win in cheesy mechs. Dont even try and balance the cheese because I will just find more cheese. Its all about the cheese dont you know. Have I mentioned how much I like cheese?"

Im gonna stop you here because there are serious misconceptions about competitive/cheese/tryhard/meta players and the differences between them.

While I try to avoid binary comparisons, there tends to be two sides to this equation. There are the competitive players who want a more dynamic and diverse meta (ironic considering the competitive players from the Guild Wars days were the opposite) so that more options are actually viable. Then there is what I generally considered the tryhard/cheese group, these are players who aren't as adaptive as some of the better players. These players have abused their crutch to be competitive, and they don't want their crutch to go away.

It is a very important distinction to make, not to single you out because you could very well know the difference, but a lot of people don't and I wanted to clear the air on that one because I've seen many and known many comp players from previous mods that wanted more diverse metas and have tried to make that happen rather than actively try to combat any change.

Off topic rant done.

[Johnny Z]

WM Quicksilver, on 12 March 2015 - 02:37 PM, said:

Im gonna stop you here because there are serious misconceptions about competitive/cheese/tryhard/meta players and the differences between them.

While I try to avoid binary comparisons, there tends to be two sides to this equation. There are the competitive players who want a more dynamic and diverse meta (ironic considering the competitive players from the Guild Wars days were the opposite) so that more options are actually viable. Then there is what I generally considered the tryhard/cheese group, these are players who aren't as adaptive as some of the better players. These players have abused their crutch to be competitive, and they don't want their crutch to go away.

It is a very important distinction to make, not to single you out because you could very well know the difference, but a lot of people don't and I wanted to clear the air on that one because I've seen many and known many comp players from previous mods that wanted more diverse metas and have tried to make that happen rather than actively try to combat any change.

Off topic rant done.

Its true there is a large difference between what I have heard from different players participating in the tournements and such. My weak attempt at humour was really addressed to the "dont bother to try balance anything because there will always be a new meta" crowd.

[Lulz Kev]

Is it my understanding that you want mechs to keep max torso turn speeds regardless of engine size? Sorry, at work only briefly skimmed through.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

DTF Kev, on 12 March 2015 - 09:49 PM, said:

Is it my understanding that you want mechs to keep max torso turn speeds regardless of engine size? Sorry, at work only briefly skimmed through.

I want to untie turn and twist speeds from engine size, yes. So just like how previous MW titles worked, all upgrading your engine did was increase your max speed. Acceleration and deceleration should probably be untied as well, if they are (they were at one time I believe).

[Lulz Kev]

Thanks I appreciate you taking the time to summarize for me!

I agree with you 100%

[Quicksilver Aberration]

DTF Kev, on 12 March 2015 - 10:30 PM, said:

Thanks I appreciate you taking the time to summarize for me!

I agree with you 100%

I might've misunderstood the point of your question, as turn/twist speed was a minor thing of this thread, there was more to it than that.