19 replies to this topic

[nehebkau]

This beta has highlighted a population balancing issue that should be addressed. Let’s face it, there are always going to be population imbalances, some factions just don’t get the love or respect of other factions. For the game it means that some factions are always going to be behind the 8-ball (meaning at a disadvantage) in clan warfare and that means they will consistently get beaten far more then they win. While some may not see a problem, the end result will be a slow magnification of the problem as decide that they want to move to a ‘winning’ clan rather than stick with a losing or disadvantaged faction. You will eventually end up with one or two factions that have all the population and they will only ever be able to fight each other as all the other factions have little to no population.

The basic problem:
A group that can field more 12-man units on a specific target where the opposition cannot put up enough defenders to counter all the attackers will get nice-and-easy ‘ghost drops’ and be able to take the planet easily. In real life, that’s just the way things go – superior numbers often turn the tide of battle, in a game – that just causes people to switch factions and the disadvantaged faction to eventually be a ghost-town. I have seen this in many PvP based games – one faction eventually becomes devoid of all but the most hard-core players. In each of the games where this has happened game-play for all sides eventually degraded to the point where PvP was stagnant or non-existent. Usually some radical balancing mechanic had to be employed that completely threw off the game for years. As i stated above, this dynamic, when expressed to its fullest, will eventually result in one or two factions having all the population and they will only ever be able to fight each other as all the other factions have little to no population. Is that going to be fun?

How this pertains to MWO:
Regardless of if we like it; certain factions will have more appeal to the general game population than others. Be that because of technology (clans tech vs is tech) or based on lore (Can anyone deny that the Ghost bear’s legacy intro video is anything but uber cool?) In the FRR, in particular, we have already seen many people opting to switch over to a ‘winning’ faction. Regardless of the actual balance in the games (technology wise) you will have people jump-ship if they perceive that there is some advantage to be gained by jumping ship.
Likewise, I have seen, on many many many occasions, where larger units have swamped a planet with attackers and ghost-dropped their way to swapping a planet over in the last hour or two of an attack cycle. Granted, and I say this again, in the real world numbers are often the deciding factor in battles, but I say that it’s a game and we must balance reality with good game-play. Let’s face it stompy-stompy robots with giant lasers and pew-pew-dakka-dakka are fictional.

My suggestion for changes:
When the system is planning out which attack routes a faction gets, it balances the NUMBER of attack-able squares based on the population of that faction. Currently there are 15 attack zones per planet, regardless of population. I suggest that that number be increased or decreased based on the population of the faction that is getting the attack. A faction with a very high population may have the planets they attack have 23 attack zones while factions with very low populations may have planets with 9 attack zones. I would require PGI to dynamically adjust the attack zones on each planet after the attack phase ends and when attack routes are calculated.

What will this affect?
First, it will make it slightly harder for a larger population base to take a planet – rather than holding 8 of the 15 zones on a planet, they may have to hold 12 of 23 zones and conversely, a very small population faction may only have to hold 5 of 9 zones.
Second, and the biggest effect, would be on factions that receive a big influx of merc units during an attack phase. I’ll pick on –MS- right now for this because –MS- has highlighted this weakness. –MS- can bring a large number of 12-man groups to a battle and significantly alter the attack population of a faction (overwhelm a faction). In essence, the game can be held hostage to –MS- whim. If an even bigger cooperative were to develop, which it most likely will with the current mechanic, the problem would be even worse. What balancing based on population would initially do is reduce the effect of this mercenary influx on planetary battles. Longer-term it would provide a means where lower-population factions would still have a chance to have some effect on game-play.

Countering Arguments:
Now, for those of you who would retort that its more realistic for a larger population to affect a battle let me add these points to show you how you can’t crutch on the ‘real world’ argument by showing you ways that the game bypasses reality (i.e. the game is not real world). I do this in the hopes that you will realize that this is a game and one of the most important aspects of a game is balancing.

• There are huge logistics involved in setting up battles including finding available supplies. In history mercenary units have always bore the brunt of these issues making them less effective in large-scale operations. The larger the mercenary group you try to field, the faster these issues grow (the game deals with none of this – when have you had an LRM ammo or food shortage?). Merc units typically become less effective the more you use -- in the real world.
  
• These are canned battles, not real. Taking a planet involves more than taking out 15 installations. Planets are HUGE. Taking one would take months, if not years of constant battle. (we just get to fight in little sandboxes that really have no value) For example, think how small Vietnam or Afghanistan were and how difficult it was to battle in those places– now think of an entire planet.
  
• The game does not take into account travel time to planets – flying many light years, according to what I recall from the game lore, would take quite a bit of time. (you get to click and go without regard for where you mechs were in the previous phase)
  
• Units that have just completed a large-scale battle and they would need significant time to repair, reload and rest the unit before attacking – we don’t do that in MWO. (In game we just get to click ready and all the dents are instantly buffed out and arms magically reattached)

In Conclusion:
We should all recognize that this is a game. We should all recognize that ensuring that players at least feel like they have a chance of succeeding is important. We should recognize that population imbalance is inevitable and that will affect the quality of game play. We should make allowances to make it a little easier for lower-population factions to actively participate in CW by making their attacks on worlds a little easier and attacks against them a little harder. In my opinion, it is going to be necessary to proactively put something in place to balance population imbalance before we go to Steam.

P.S.
I doubt mechs will ever be balanced. So long as revenue is generated by new mechs, there has to be some reason to get them and usually (and most easily) that is achieved by making them slightly better in some way.

Edited by nehebkau, 13 March 2015 - 10:20 AM.

[Leggin Ho]

Some good thought some so so ideas, but none of this will matter or work until PGI actually balances both sides mechs and tech to something close to equal. Once the tech is equal and PGI stops trying to balance player skill, then they can make certain planets harder to take or easier depending on the attacker and defender. Until then it won't ever make and sense.

[Funkmaster Rick]

Nehebkau, that was an excellent post that highlights some important issues in a clear way. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with your solution as stated, but I acknowledge the existence of the problem and that exploring solutions is the best way to find a good one.

Unfortunately, Leggin Ho's post is probably a taste of what you can expect; people will hijack your thread and use it to air their own issues about the game. It's kind of hard to have a complete discussion on an internet forum for that reason.

I do recommend you send your concerns directly to PGI. I don't know if they have an e-mail for suggestions as such, but that seems like it would be the best way to convey your message. =/

[Leggin Ho]

No Hijacking intended, just a simple statement that if the balance during play is not fixed, setting up a value system for each planet or group size will just fail. It's not like it's a difficult concept to understand, you can't fix the "Big" picture until you have the smaller things worked out which is what we are all hoping and waiting on PGI to do.

[Funkmaster Rick]

Leggin Ho, on 13 March 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

No Hijacking intended

Ah, well, sorry for the misinterpretation! I'm sure you understand that anyone who reads any particular internet forum for a while tends to get just a bit jaded about certain topics. Thanks for understanding. =)

[sycocys]

The problem with complaining about the balancing is other than going on 2 years of broken/terrible ecm mechanic, the balance isn't very far off. Mech to mech and fighting to their strengths/weakness IS mechs are probably better than clan mechs even simply because you have more options to build around to your own tastes. Not sure on all the customization options for clan mechs, but if you just simply don't alpha strike every weapon you are vastly more powerful - big alphas are useless if you are shut down.

Even 12v12 clan vs is, if you have 2 competent teams the matches come out more or less even until one team loses control of a particular defense or attack point - which in most cases is about 35-40 mechs into the match anyhow so right at the end.

Edited by sycocys, 13 March 2015 - 11:46 AM.

[Mandrakerootes]

Leggin Ho, on 13 March 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

Some good thought some so so ideas, but none of this will matter or work until PGI actually balances both sides mechs and tech to something close to equal. Once the tech is equal and PGI stops trying to balance player skill, then they can make certain planets harder to take or easier depending on the attacker and defender. Until then it won't ever make and sense.

This clans are OP circlejerk needs to stop though, We regularly roll clan pugs with less than a company lost in IS mechs. We regularly win against partials and noncompetitive unit drops in IS mechs. Have people that understand their mechs strengths and weaknesses, have someone who understands the map and can guide the team. Have that on both sides and suddenly the game gets very balanced. The amount of hate on asymmetric balance approaches by this community baffles me.

Onto the threads topic:

This together with a rework in how you threaten a planet(aka ghost dropping to incentivize defenders) will result in way less mice leaving the sinking ship. Plus if there would be a way to see a factions populace people might realize who needs help, but then again there need to incentives for a player to switch to the losing faction.Its sad yes but that is how the human brain works.

[Parmeggido]

While at first glance this may seem like a good idea, I have to disagree. If anything, it will only strengthen the factions with more players. By forcing smaller factions to spread their attack efforts across more zones, you provide the enemy with more opportunities to defend with ghost drops, while the larger faction can attack on more fronts because they need less teams to fill a planets attack que. If you reverse the change, you have the same problem, a large faction can easily field the teams to block the smaller factions efforts, while feasting on all the extra attack zones. That said, I applaud the effort, and have yet to come up with any means to balance population disparity. It is the main reason I cannot support most of the suggested changes to the current form of CW, including 10vs12.

[nehebkau]

Parmeggido, on 13 March 2015 - 12:39 PM, said:

By forcing smaller factions to spread their attack efforts across more zones, you provide the enemy with more opportunities to defend with ghost drops, while the larger faction can attack on more fronts because they need less teams to fill a planets attack que.

Actually it will give smaller factions LESS squares to have to attack (but more areas to defend). Basically the more areas to defend will mean that teams will have a harder time taking a planet with ghost drops -- each ghost drop requires a 10 minute count down. Currently ghost-dropping an entire planet would take (15+1)/2 x 10 minutes = 70 minutes (in reality it takes longer). For a faction with a high population, in my proposed system it could take (25+1)/2 x 10 minutes =130 minutes. That would give the lower-population defenders more time to form groups and defend. On attack, the exact opposite would happen, the smaller faction would have less squares to attack. Please remember too, that there is currently each faction only gets 1 attack lane to every other faction that they border.

Parmeggido, on 13 March 2015 - 12:39 PM, said:

If you reverse the change, you have the same problem, a large faction can easily field the teams to block the smaller factions efforts, while feasting on all the extra attack zones. That said, I applaud the effort, and have yet to come up with any means to balance population disparity. It is the main reason I cannot support most of the suggested changes to the current form of CW, including 10vs12.

There is nothing wrong with blocking an attackers efforts by stacking up the defender queue -- and if there are an equal number of attackers in the queue you will get constant battles. Yes its possible for the high population defender to stack and hope for ghost-drop defense but again, there is a 10 minute timer. Don't underestimate the pain of waiting for 10 minutes to get no opponents.

Combine my idea with PGIs model for adjusting bonus' and you may slowly affect population imbalances -- which is the way that you need to do it. It's just like driving a car on ice, reactionary and jerky movements put you in a worse situation while slow and steady keeps you on the road.

[eSeifer]

I would like to

+1

this and say good ideas.

[slide]

OP. I can see where you are coming from and I do realize that there are some definite issues in this area. Numbers will trump skill every time as long as ghost drops exist. Although I see no viable alternative to ghost drops at this time.

However there are a couple of assumptions that you have made that are not applicable to all situations. Certainly what you have suggested would work and would as you say lessen the effect of Mercs jumping factions. But in time zones where there are small populations playing, it would completely ruin any chance of changing the map in any way.

Example. My unit recently ghosted our home planet. It took the combined effort of about 20 people over the course of our prime time (Oceanic) to keep a team constantly dropping on that planet. It took nearly 2 hours of ghost drops to get to the required 8 zones + a couple more to make sure we weren't ninja'd at the last minute. As we currently play for Davion who is known to have one of the largest (yet possibly lowest skilled) populations, your suggestion of 23 zones would make it it all but impossible for any unit, team or faction to gain a planet in this timezone. There are simply insufficient players, or players with enough patience to make it happen. Without the ability to do that what is even the point of playing CW.

You could possibly change the number of Zones on a planet based on your suggestion and the current population at the end of a ceasefire, but I can see this being completely inaccurate as well as the Oceanic TZ would be based off of who was playing at the end of the NA TZ leaving a large number of zones, whilst the EU cycle would pick up the small number. Not to mention enterprising teams dropping out of cycle to get better opportunities.

I think you are correct in saying that population imbalance will be an issue. I personally think that the population playing CW, at all, is way too small. I think the only way to address this is to seriously look at the rewards for playing CW in the first place. Many will argue that the rewards for playing are just fine. If you are on the winning team most of the time this is true. If you are getting stomped, which most new players do, you can lose money on consumables(4*arty + 4*UAV=320k) for rewards less than 200k. Not to mention the demoralizing effect of being stomped repeatedly has. This only reinforces the urge abandon CW for the pug queue to make a few CBills.

I honestly think there needs to be some more restrictions on who can play CW and who they play against. There needs to be some sort of team rating (Egads! team Elo) to keep new players who have neither the skills, mechs or know how, away from veterans and organised teams who are growing insanely rich on the constant stream of noob pug teams throwing themselves at them. Mostly because it is the only game they can get. Trial mechs should be banned altogether from CW and new players should not be able to drop in CW until they have at least 100 normal matches under their belt.

I know more changes are on the way, but if the current system stays the way it is when we launch on steam it is going to be a disaster. The good/rich will get richer and the noobs will get stomped and leave before they have a chance to get better, most likely bad mouthing the game and PGI along the way.

[nehebkau]

slide, on 15 March 2015 - 05:24 PM, said:

time zone stuff

I hear your argument and understand but I think its a separate issue in regards to the timezones. The time zones needs to be looked at separately. One of the issues in the FRR was organized groups purposely ghost-dropping during our lowest population time-zone (pacific) attack phase to take FRR planets when there were no defenders -- so its a two-way street.

I made a CW suggestion for who can play here: http://mwomercs.com/...40#entry4264440

[Gyrok]

Leggin Ho, on 13 March 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

No Hijacking intended, just a simple statement that if the balance during play is not fixed, setting up a value system for each planet or group size will just fail. It's not like it's a difficult concept to understand, you can't fix the "Big" picture until you have the smaller things worked out which is what we are all hoping and waiting on PGI to do.

Balance is pretty close, are we even playing the same game?

[Leggin Ho]

Gyrok, on 16 March 2015 - 02:19 PM, said:

Balance is pretty close, are we even playing the same game?

Depends are you just playing PUGS or do you think the heat scale is close? Play one of the better DCMS unit's and you may see what I'm talking about as you shut down every other shot, unless one of the AC5 Dragon's does not just run up and kill you after the first shut down that is, and no I don't run all laser or super high damage Alpha configs. The weapons may be close on paper, but once your actually playing try to keep up with the output of IS weapons because of the ghost heat. Remove it and then yes the game would be just about balanced.

[anonymous161]

My solution to maximize your overall fun is to simply not play it, besides which you will get a lot more cbills playing the regular matchmaker. CW is horribly done and not really all that fun but for a few who have a lot of time on the game and know how to use all the mechs weapons for best dps.

[Leggin Ho]

CW is a awesome idea and the most fun in MWO for "Team" play, is it perfect nope, and the suggestions made at the first of this thread were intended to help and they may, but not until a few basic things are finished being balanced.

[slide]

Darth Bane001, on 16 March 2015 - 04:16 PM, said:

My solution to maximize your overall fun is to simply not play it, besides which you will get a lot more cbills playing the regular matchmaker. CW is horribly done and not really all that fun but for a few who have a lot of time on the game and know how to use all the mechs weapons for best dps.

This is the exact problem with the current CW population. (or lack there of)

Until CW is either more fun or more profitable than the other queue's it will remain a very small and dwindling niche in a small and niche game.

I logged in last night just before the Oceanic Cease there were 28 people playing CW, I couldn't have got a game even though I wanted too. The current event doesn't help either.

Edited by slide, 16 March 2015 - 05:16 PM.

[Gyrok]

Leggin Ho, on 16 March 2015 - 04:09 PM, said:

Depends are you just playing PUGS or do you think the heat scale is close? Play one of the better DCMS unit's and you may see what I'm talking about as you shut down every other shot, unless one of the AC5 Dragon's does not just run up and kill you after the first shut down that is, and no I don't run all laser or super high damage Alpha configs. The weapons may be close on paper, but once your actually playing try to keep up with the output of IS weapons because of the ghost heat. Remove it and then yes the game would be just about balanced.

I play a lot of top units, and I agree clans run hotter to put out the same DPS...no doubt...

[Mandrakerootes]

Im gonna get mad one day, seeing this balance bullshit. I have to completly agree with Gyrok here, its pretty close in balance, and here is the fun part, ever heard of asymmetric balance? Where the set of tools is different on both teams but balanced by specific mechanics only one team gets. There is a load(not a pile only a load unfortunately) of succesful games that employ assymetric balance.

Natural Selection, Evolve, Starcraft, ******* Hide and Seek to only name a few. Both sides have to come up with different strategies depending on what they face and which tools they have to dispose of that. And as with every other team game, balance is way wonkier issue the more teammates you have, because skill difference is a anomaly in the balance data, and can only be combatted by huge sample sizes.

@slide, it will initally suck ass for loyalist units, but remember this is system to balance out population, so if it works correctly, Davion populace would decrease giving you fewer zones to attack. Ideally every faction should have 15 squares to attack and defend after 3-4 months again ut with better populationdifferences.

The issue with timezone pop. difference doesnt get solved by this, and it cannot be solved by PGI except by starting huge ad campaigns in that region. So if that continues to be a problem they may need to revise the ceasefire system into a 3point system or something. Maybe rework the way a planet gets invaded entirely(they are working on that somewhat with the new 4v4 and 8v8).

But heres to hope that the timezone pops. are equal in every faction, so if the pop. is balanced the timezones get balanced too but thats not guaranteed of course.

Edited by Mandrakerootes, 17 March 2015 - 06:32 AM.

[nehebkau]

For Timezone issues, first I would like to suggest that any planet that is taken in the preceding attack phase can not be taken in the attack phase immediately following. that would give any planet an 8-hour cool-down before it can be attacked again. Second, and IN CONJUNCTION WITH MY FIRST SUGGESTION, I would suggest that we alter the number of attack zones based on the average number of players online for the previous 30 days. (meaning that if an attack phase generally has more players playing (on average) it would have more attack zones, if an attack phase usually has less players then it will have fewer attack zones per planet)