59 replies to this topic

[Aurawind]

I just thought of something after reading the stats for Tukkayid regarding the "Meta". According to the stats IS used mainly Thunderbolts, Stalkers and Ravens, and Clan used mainly Stormcrows, Timber Wolves and Hellbringers.

Personally I hate Meta and the idea of it, since in Battletech/Mechwarrior there's a ton of different Mechs and lots of different weapons used, but with Meta only the "best" Mechs and the "best" loadouts are used. It does not properly reflect what a Battletech/Mechwarrior battle would be. I feel like Meta also takes away player creativity, instead of making their own loadouts they just lookup which loadout is the best.

I will admit that I was using Meta Mechs/loadouts for the event because I felt it was the only way for me to be able to compete and get my points for the event. But seeing all the same Mechs and loadouts on the field was disheartening.

The tonnage drop limit does nothing to stop Meta, it only determines which and how many Meta Mechs can be used. But I'm not saying its something that should get rid of, I think it makes sense to have a drop limit.

The problem that creates the Meta is the fact that players can choose any Mech they want and any weapons they want. But in the reality of Battletech/Mechwarrior, the choice of Mech and loadout was rarely determined by the pilot, instead by many factors including faction, availability, salvage, rank, etc... This created a wide variety of Mechs to be used on the battlefield.

My solution would be that the Drop Deck would be filled with random Mechs within the drop limit (respecting IS and Clan of course). All Mechs would have a default loadout for CW that is a good mix of different weaponry (not stock loadouts, dear god!) determined by PGI. These Mechs should also be painted in the player's faction camo (cause plain green sucks!) to reinforce CW feel. BUT to not remove player options, you would have 3 random Drop Decks be offered to the player and then the player can choose the one he prefers, and if the player owns any of the Mechs in the random Drop Deck, they would have the option to replaced them with the player's own Mech/Loadout.

I feel like those changes will create a wide variety of Mechs to be used and create a better feel of Battletech/Mechwarrior in CW. Players will have to adapt to the Mechs that they have been dealt, instead of finding out which Mech is best and just using that.

Of course there's alot of Mech and weapon tweaks that also need to be made so that there is more balance between them.

All I want is for CW to be better, hopefully that's what PGI and most people want.

Thanks

Edited by Aurawind, 02 May 2015 - 11:29 AM.

[Sniper09121986]

That may be too complicated to implement at the moment, so I suggest a much more simple solution: ban using multiple variants/configs of same mech in a dropdeck. This would limit the deck to one T-Wolf, Stalker or any other currently meta machine (say one STK-4N excludes STK-3F or Misery but does allow a Battlemaster). It may seem too restrictive at first, but it is still volumes better than allowing people to hide behind a tried and proven metagame.

[Kira Onime]

Break one meta and people will find a new one.

[Mystere]

The only way to break the "meta" is to be better, run a different config, and whoop the ass of all those who run the "meta". Once players start copying you, rinse an repeat.


<OMFG! I really hate that word!>

[grendeldog]

Sniper09121986, on 02 May 2015 - 12:17 PM, said:

That may be too complicated to implement at the moment, so I suggest a much more simple solution: ban using multiple variants/configs of same mech in a dropdeck. This would limit the deck to one T-Wolf, Stalker or any other currently meta machine (say one STK-4N excludes STK-3F or Misery but does allow a Battlemaster). It may seem too restrictive at first, but it is still volumes better than allowing people to hide behind a tried and proven metagame.

I was going to suggest this myself, but you ninja'd me!

--

To the original poster, while I also agree with you that the variety of mechs that are viable in competative CW is quite limited, I don't think that random decks would solve the problem. The thing is that randomized decks would likely cause 75+ percent of the people who play CW to quit playing it entirely.

I'm not trying to slap you down here; any suggestion regarding increasing mech diversity is a good thing IMO. But I would go about it a different way.

Instead of artificially forcing varied drop decks, why don't we examine what is currently causing the number of viable mechs to be small? I believe the answer is weapon design and balance and quirks. Now, I don't object to quirks in and of themselves, but I think that they are indeed being used as a band-aid to kludge a crappy fix onto the problematic weapon balance. I also think that major positive quirks should be paired with reasonably significant negative quirks in another area. Do you have a ridiculous 25% MPL cooldown quirk? You should also then have a speed reduction quirk for example, so that it takes longer to get into the effective range to use that crazy MPL bonus.

As I said though, quirks are an attempt at fixing weapon imbalance, and so the limited viability of many mechs in CW thus boils down to weapon imbalance. For example, clans have to rely on their lasers because their autocannons are less effective at pinpoint component damage. And clan ACs are totally and 100% useless when clan UACs are lighter weight, can double tap, and have the same cooldown periods. So if clan ACs were to be made useful somehow - perhaps by boosting their velocity, range, and reducing their heat generation, we might see more ballistics used by clan mechs. And since not every clan mech can boat dakka, that could potentially increase the variety of chassis or at least the variety of chassis variants used in CW. Clan gauss is so common because it can do the pinpoint damage that their ACs and UACs cannot.

Likewise, large lasers and medium pulse lasers are currently the kings of IS energy weapons. MPLs have no ghost heat at all, so you can boat 8 of the things on top of crazy quirks. This ensures that other options are suboptimal in comparison, and ensures that mechs with those crazy quirks will dominate IS dropdecks. There is no reason why IS medium lasers should have ghost heat with 6 at once while their more powerful pulsed cousins have no ghost heat at all. I would say that MPLs should get ghost heat with five shots, to compensate for their higher damage and reduced burn time. Large lasers dominate of similarly ranged ACs because they require less constant face time. And this kind of weapon imbalance causes reduced viability of a lot of mechs in CW.

Unfortunately PGI seems to be reinforcing the current weapon meta with the Timber-A, the wave 3 clan pack - lots of gauss and las there - and the IS resistance 2 pack, which is almost solely energy boats that are not much different and likely inferior to the current IS meta choices.

It is however worth pointing out that weapon balance is a non-trivial problem to solve when there are as many variables in play as there are in MWO - damage, range, duration, cooldown, ghost heat, heat per second, velocity and spread on ballistics and missiles, jam chance on UACs, etc - and then with quirks piled on top of that to further complicate the task of balancing weapons against one another. In fact I would argue that weapon quirks make it virtually impossible to balance, because what balances two weapons against one another for mech A will not necessarily do so for mech B if they have different quirks, so that weapon X and Y are balanced with one quirk set while weapon X is far better or worse than weapon Y using a different chassis and the associated quirks.

Edited by grendeldog, 02 May 2015 - 01:11 PM.

[Aurawind]

Sniper09121986, on 02 May 2015 - 12:17 PM, said:

That may be too complicated to implement at the moment, so I suggest a much more simple solution: ban using multiple variants/configs of same mech in a dropdeck. This would limit the deck to one T-Wolf, Stalker or any other currently meta machine (say one STK-4N excludes STK-3F or Misery but does allow a Battlemaster). It may seem too restrictive at first, but it is still volumes better than allowing people to hide behind a tried and proven metagame.

I can see what you're saying by limiting to one variant of one chassis but the problem will still be that people who use meta will still just use 4 different Meta Mechs. So you will see the same 4 Mechs in every Meta Drop Decks.

I don't think that my solution is really that complicated to implement, its possible, but I don't think it something that can be implemented instantaneously.

As to grendeldog's comments:

I don't think that 75+% of people would quit CW with randomized drop decks. Hell if that's a problem they could have 5 random drop decks to choose from, I mean at least there's more choice then. I never suggested to remove player choice either, but something has to be put in place to prevent exploiting the best Mechs and weapons. I can see it attract more players to CW because it would provide a more varied and even playing field. It would provide a better feel to Battletech/Mechwarrior battles. Besides it shouldn't really matter what you pilot if its a decent loadout and you pilot it well and you coordinate well with your team, that's what CW is about.

I do agree though that alot of the balancing issues are weapons and quirks, which is another problem that should also be addressed. Personally I have a problem with the heat and beam duration on Clan weapons for one example.

Edited by Aurawind, 02 May 2015 - 01:43 PM.

[Moldur]

I fully support randomized decks. Once a match up is made, all players have a vote to randomize drop deck where the game will randomize your deck with mechs that you own to meet at or near the weight limit. 50% votes = randomize decks.

This way, if everyone feels sick of meta decks, or is afraid that a 12 man is on the other side and will stomp them, they can vote for randomized decks, giving pugs a slightly better chance or at least changing up the game.

[Targetloc]

A simpler solution might be to make periodic adjustments the prices of all the mechs (and equipment) to better reflect how powerful they are and then limit drop decks by price. Put some fluff about "high command has limited the budget of this mission to X..."


If it lists the total price of your mech after upgrades that might finally put in a reason to use some of the less desirable chassis, or bring a build that doesn't use ECM, DHS or endo. (Assuming they drastically lower the cost of ferro compared to endo).

Edited by Targetloc, 02 May 2015 - 03:25 PM.

[Aurawind]

Targetloc, on 02 May 2015 - 03:24 PM, said:

A simpler solution might be to make periodic adjustments the prices of all the mechs (and equipment) to better reflect how powerful they are and then limit drop decks by price. Put some fluff about "high command has limited the budget of this mission to X..."


If it lists the total price of your mech after upgrades that might finally put in a reason to use some of the less desirable chassis, or bring a build that doesn't use ECM, DHS or endo. (Assuming they drastically lower the cost of ferro compared to endo).

It's an interesting idea you have there, but I feel like the price value of your Mech doesn't matter anymore after you purchased it. To be honest I never look at the value of my Mechs with each components and weapons. To me it's just "how much do I need to get it?" that's it, once I have it I can swap weapons and engines between Mechs without even thinking of the cost. Also to have to keep track of how much you have spent in each Mech to make sure they would fit in the Drop Deck would be annoying.

[Vassago Rain]

>My solution would be that the Drop Deck would be filled with random Mechs within the drop limit

[Tarl Cabot]

^^ Agreed, as that type of system can be gamed by limiting what mechs you own.

Alternate method would be to have more than one drop deck that have different min/max weight ranges and have that specific deck selected once the match starts the 1 minute countdown.

[TheSilken]

The solution is simple: Give people large Loyalty and C-Bill rewards for running mechs in CW that are iconic/common to the faction they fight for. An example would be if they ran a Gargoyle for Clan Wolf or a Zeus for House Steiner they would get +100% LP and +30% C-Bills for that mech.

[hybrid black]

no matter what people will bring the best of what they can, there will always be meta.. but if you want to open up the mechs used limmit what each house can use or what mechs each house can fix and keep on the frount line.

Edited by hybrid black, 02 May 2015 - 04:27 PM.

[Kain Demos]

Just a few town halls ago russ mentioned varying drop weights by planet but now it seems to have slipped everyone's minds.

[Grynos]

People will always gravitate towards what everyone else is using. That being said pretty much during the whole CW event , with the exception of a few matches in which I brought a STK-3N I never ran "META" mech and not one person during that whole time said anything about it. Did I do top DPS?? Hell no, but even with the META mechs I wouldn't have. It is up to the individual to decide what their own respective drop deck should look like, but also keep in mind that things like being able to have a JJ light mech, an ECM mech, a sniper,a brawler etc. means that you will have to know what mechs you have capable of doing those roles.

[Aurawind]

Tarl Cabot, on 02 May 2015 - 04:16 PM, said:

^^ Agreed, as that type of system can be gamed by limiting what mechs you own.

Alternate method would be to have more than one drop deck that have different min/max weight ranges and have that specific deck selected once the match starts the 1 minute countdown.

Kain Thul, on 02 May 2015 - 04:33 PM, said:

Just a few town halls ago russ mentioned varying drop weights by planet but now it seems to have slipped everyone's minds.

I felt that if randomizing the Drop Decks only by Mechs you owned, people would purposely only buy Meta Mechs. In my suggestion, the Drop Decks would be random Mechs of your faction (IS or Clan) regardless of if you owned it or not. You could even go further and limit the random Mechs by Sub-faction (House Steiner, House Davion, Clan Wolf, Clan Jade Falcon, etc...) but I don't know how balanced the Sub-faction Mech lists are...

The idea is that if for example you get a Banshee 3M in your random Drop Deck and you don't own one, you will have a default Loadout determined by PGI that is decent but not the greatest. So your faction loans you a Banshee 3M and you will use it in the battle. If you want a better Loadout for that Banshee 3M you will want to buy one and modify it. After that, if you get the Banshee 3M in your random Drop Deck again, you can pick to use your own instead of the default one.

This system would encourage players to get their own Mechs to change the Loadouts, but if they don't have that Mech yet they can still pilot it with the default one from that faction.

Changing the Drop Deck min and max will not change the fact that players will still use Meta Mechs for their Drop Decks. For example if you have a drop limit of 140, players would probably take like 2 Thunderbolts and 1 Locust, or 4 Firestarters, or 2 Stormcrows and 1 Kit Fox, etc... which all include Meta Mechs... And in turn still limits the variety of Mechs used in CW.

[Aurawind]

Vassago Rain, on 02 May 2015 - 04:10 PM, said:

>My solution would be that the Drop Deck would be filled with random Mechs within the drop limit

Thing is that a Mechwarrior is usually assigned the Mech he/she pilots by the faction or mercenary unit they belong to, its not their choice, they just have to pilot it the best they can. Makes sense to have random Mechs from your faction in the Drop Decks for CW, but as a bonus you aren't stuck using the default one if you already own that variant.

Edited by Aurawind, 02 May 2015 - 05:39 PM.

[Targetloc]

Aurawind, on 02 May 2015 - 04:07 PM, said:

It's an interesting idea you have there, but I feel like the price value of your Mech doesn't matter anymore after you purchased it. To be honest I never look at the value of my Mechs with each components and weapons. To me it's just "how much do I need to get it?" that's it, once I have it I can swap weapons and engines between Mechs without even thinking of the cost. Also to have to keep track of how much you have spent in each Mech to make sure they would fit in the Drop Deck would be annoying.

The main reason you don't think about the total value of your mech is they don't display it anywhere for you to see. If it was shown in the UI and integral to building your drop deck it would matter.


Consider the Timberwolf vs the Summoner. Almost no one uses the Summoner because it is 93% of the weight of a Timbewolf, but it's not nearly as effective.

If the price of a fully loaded Timberwolf was adjusted to something like 17 million, while the Summoner was adjusted down to 13 million to reflect it's lack of endo and firepower, a lot more people might consider it. Especially if other highly effective mechs like the Stormcrow were a higher price.

The result would you could fit less 'meta' mechs in a drop deck, and would be making a choice between working in less desirable mechs to balance out your deck, or going in with less total equipment to fit more meta.


It gets the result more people are looking for, less homogeneous drop decks and more choices and strategy in how you build your deck. It would be a little more complicated to swap mechs in and out of your drop deck, but it would be a lot better than random.

[Molossian Dog]

Aurawind, on 02 May 2015 - 10:48 AM, said:

...The problem that creates the Meta is the fact that players can choose any Mech they want and any weapons they want....

No, the problem that creates the Meta is the fact that Mech peformance is that grossly different that you gimp yourself if you use a "normal" Mech.

In case of the clams the near indestructability of the Derpcrow and Timberderp as well as the neccessity to bring an ECM Mech leads to no variety.

In case of the IS the power creep that came with the introduction of the clamz skyrocketed the power level. It is now go cheese or go home. And since cheese means milking the last out of the quirks the number of actually viable builds became very, very, very limited.


Your proposal, while well-intended (I get that) would predetermine the winner by something the players can´t control or influence. A mere throw of the dice.
Generally I support ideas like "stock only-balance otherwise" and everything that goes in that direction, but the way the game is at the moment and with no major gameplay changes your proposal alone would not make me happy.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 02 May 2015 - 06:22 PM.

[Aurawind]

Molossian Dog, on 02 May 2015 - 06:19 PM, said:

No, the problem that creates the Meta is the fact that Mech peformance is that grossly different that you gimp yourself if you use a "normal" Mech.

In case of the clams the near indestructability of the Derpcrow and Timberderp as well as the neccessity to bring an ECM Mech leads to no variety.

In case of the IS the power creep that came with the introduction of the clamz skyrocketed the power level. It is now go cheese or go home. And since cheese means milking the last out of the quirks the number of actually viable builds became very, very, very limited.


Your proposal, while well-intended (I get that) would predetermine the winner by something the players can´t control or influence. A mere throw of the dice.
Generally I support ideas like "stock only-balance otherwise" and everything that goes in that direction, but the way the game is at the moment and with no major gameplay changes your proposal alone would not make me happy.

I feel like winning shouldn't be about what Mechs you pilot, but how well you pilot them and coordinate with your team, random Mechs wouldn't be a "throw of the dice" that would determine the winner. I think also a problem with CW is that ECM shouldn't be a necessity, I'm not gonna believe anyone that tells me that every battle in Battletech/Mechwarrior had ECM Mechs. Meta players just want to use every single crumb of bonus to their advantage even if its not needed. Heck most of the 12 mans that use Meta Mechs would probably win without the ECM and the Meta Mechs anyway.

Yes I strongly feel that the Mechs need to be more balanced, having one Mech with power level over 9000 isn't good, but if all Mechs are over 9000 that would be more balanced. The problem with stock is that some loadouts are really terrible, that's why I suggested PGI make decent loadouts for the default Mechs and balance them out. It's up to the players to buy the Mechs and make their own better loadouts for the Mechs, but only weapon tweaks and Mech tweaks will prevent Meta loadouts.

Edited by Aurawind, 02 May 2015 - 06:49 PM.