54 replies to this topic

[Freebrewer Bmore]

"Gather 'round, children, and let me read you a story..."


The Battles of Bullock:

The Epic Tale of How CW Became Epic
by Michael Stackpoll


Chapter I: The Fall of the Meta Mechs

Once upon a time, everyone and their mothers all piloted the same few mechs in Community Warfare. It was a dark age, dreadfully boring to many, and downright frustrating to others. Though many OP accusations were hurled back and forth between them, neither Clan nor Succession House was spared as the evil Tryhard Cartels and their meta builds drove fun out of the Inner Sphere.

One day our hero Russ, President of PGI, came home from a hard day's work to find a note waiting for him, and he could tell just by her hand-actuator-writing that it was from his Pretty Baby:

"I'm leaving you, Russ. You never take me out anymore, and I know what your competitive friends say about me. I've had enough of being humiliated by people calling me 'non-viable', and I've met a pug who truly appreciates me. Goodbye."

Russ stood and stared at the note in stunned silence. It fell from his fingertips and drifted gently to the floor as a single tear slowly rolled down his cheek. "What have I done?" he asked the empty house. "I need to make this right." He had trouble sleeping that night, alone, but when he did, he dreamt...

The next day the doors to PGI HQ burst open as Russ strode in and announced, "Attention, everyone! We are abandoning the CW dropdeck tonnage limits!" He heard gasps from all around the office, and saw Lead Designer Paul choke on his coffee. "Come on, people, don't give me that. We all know that pretending we can measure mechs just by tonnage is a total joke, even before considering those garbage Gargoyles and OP FS9's." The Piranhas looked at each other and nodded their heads. It was true. Only nobody had yet dared to say it.

Paul stood and asked, "So what will we use to keep everyone from bringing 4 Direwhales? 1-1-1-1? Maybe even, you know... Battle Value?"

"Hell no!" Russ' face wrinkled in disgust. "Players will find the meta in 1-1-1-1 or BV just like they find it in tonnage, and then they'll be playing all the same mechs as each other again. No static balancing mechanic is ever going to perfectly account for relative mech strength, so we just need to acknowledge that and use a dynamic system instead, one that self-corrects as people start overplaying whatever the OP flavor of the month chassis is."

Paul immediately understood. "So you think each mech should get a variable dropdeck value based on its current usage statistics, so the more people are dropping with it, the tougher it'll be for them all to fit it in their dropdecks?"

"Exactly!" Russ nodded excitedly. "They'll still be able to play any mech they want, but if they really want to bring an OP meta mech, they'll need to also bring some underplayed stuff to balance it out. This way, by moving away from tonnage, we'll bring tons more diversity into the game and keep the meta builds in check, regardless of whether our quirking and weapon balance is out of whack!"

"I like it," Paul said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "We can actually implement this pretty easily."

...And so they did. The OP variants became less valuable as including them in dropdecks started requiring more sacrifices, and weaker mechs became useful as their dropdeck cost dropped. Casual players loved it because it gave them a place to use their fun variants, and their fun variants got even more fun because they weren't always drowning in a sea of OP anymore. Founders found that even their old Fatlases started being worth something; despite bad hardpoints, their 100 tons was still a lot of weight to throw around so long as it didn't cost 42% of a dropdeck. Mechs began to cost what they were actually worth in a deck, and because the costs adjusted gradually with a rolling window of usage stats, everyone was able to keep up with the dropdeck evolution until costs reached relative stability (unlike those earlier times when PGI would arbitrarily and suddenly change tonnage quotas or quirks in rebalancing attempts, angering players by making their dropdecks instantly unplayable).

Of course, the Tryhard Cartels cared for nothing but winning, so they immediately started trying to beat the new system. However, they found that they could no longer get by with simply copying and playing the same winning combination of meta builds ad nauseam. As those builds were played more by the whole community, they stopped fitting together in dropdecks, and the Tryhards were forced to turn to something else. So they learned to adapt and succeed, continuing to thrash pugs of course, by being better at identifying, building, and deploying undervalued variants, rather than by simply being more ruthless in pursuing what was obviously OP. There was still a metagame they could win through their effort and skill, but it was a tremendously rich and diverse one, no longer so stale and brutal.

Russ was elated. Community Manager Tina reported that people were still moaning about things in the forums, but whaddayagonnado? "Haters gonna hate," he told her. "Full steam ahead to the Steam release!" Things were looking up, but he knew there was something missing...

He tried calling his Pretty Baby to tell her all about how much she was appreciated now. He left a voicemail, but she only Tweeted him later: "Glad to see @russ_bullock is trying to change, but u still have so many issues w/ ur CW. Sorry but the pug life is what makes me happy now."

His heart sank, and he hung his head... but only for a moment. He knew what he'd need to win back her love: better maps, better matches, more depth, more even faction populations, and more players in general. And he knew his Piranhas could make it happen.


Look for future installments in Stackpoll's epic space opera parody series, hailed by critics as "The best thing since tabletop"...
Chapter II: Mapping the Path Forward
Chapter III: The Rise of Logistics
Chapter IV: Cue Queue Unification

Edited by Freebrewer Bmore, 18 May 2015 - 10:39 PM.

[Adamski]

And lo I drop in nothing but the most rare hero mechs that few players have or would spend the money on, and so are critically undervalued.

No, seriously, your idea is dumb.

[Freebrewer Bmore]

Adamski, on 16 May 2015 - 11:24 AM, said:

And lo I drop in nothing but the most rare hero mechs that few players have or would spend the money on, and so are critically undervalued.

I don't think heroes would pose a big problem, but if they do there are plenty of ways to handle it as a special case far more easily than the present approach of basically handling every single mech as its own special case needing its own quirks etc. to try in vain to bring it into balance with everything else. Roland explored these basic issues pretty thoroughly in his old thread:
http://mwomercs.com/...levalue-system/

Adamski, on 16 May 2015 - 11:24 AM, said:

No, seriously, your idea is dumb.

How constructive of you... but it's not exactly my idea. Roland wrote his posts like a year ago. I've been told that people have used very similar concepts to run Mekwars campaigns with Megamek. I myself thought of it independently 15 years ago when I decided not to play Multiplayer Battletech Solaris because it only had a couple viable mechs. So market pricing is far from a new idea, or a dumb idea. In fact it's the reason we don't all starve.

Edited by Freebrewer Bmore, 16 May 2015 - 12:21 PM.

[Void Angel]

This again? All you're suggesting is that people be punished for playing 'mechs other people like or find effective - and heaven help them if they don't have enough of the "right" 'mechs to avoid the penalty.

This doesn't even prevent there being a meta - all it does is spread the meta out over multiple chassis, because weapons drive the meta more than 'mechs do. Sure, hitboxes and hardpoint locations matter - and sometimes are the deciding factor that put a chassis on top (consider the Stalker.) But if I recall correctly, when the Highlander was initially nerfed, players simply shifted over to the Victor; the "poptart" meta didn't go away until the core system that enabled it was nerfed - jump jets.

The only thing this is likely to accomplish - aside from annoying everyone and confusing new players even more - is to shift the meta to collections of chassis which share similar characteristics and hardpoints. Thus, the meta will still exist; certain chassis will still be played less than others - and the entry fee for getting into the meta will skyrocket. See, the end result of what you're proposing is an inflation of the cost to "buy in" to whatever the meta turns out to be. That won't be much of a problem for very long-term and/or high-volume players, but it will quickly become burdensome to new players and those wanting a less time-intensive commitment.

In the end, you're "saving" Community Warfare by making the meta harder for the average player to reach - while doing little to "solve" the meta issue.

Edited by Void Angel, 16 May 2015 - 12:41 PM.

[Adamski]

Everyone wants to drive viable mechs, especially when you can only take 1 at a time.

While people occasionally take a perverse joy in seeing just how much they can do with nonviable / suboptimal decks, its not fair to force everyone to drive them because the developer doesnt want to balance them.

We are already in a fairly good state, with the STK-4N == WHK, and SCR <= TDR <= TBR

If PGI could stop listening to the whiners they could continue along that path so that more mechs become viable.

[Koniving]

It's a start... but the thing is PGI needs to actually work on balancing things without over buffing things. Extreme percentages are ******. "Quirked" stuff is also screwed. Between a dynamic skill tree per mech variant without super-enhancing or even enhancing weapon types and carefully monitoring real issues and addressing them directly rather than bandaging, we'd get something good situated in here.

Balancing by market value is only a first step as you implied by Pretty Baby's tweet. It isn't quite how Russ can save CW, but definitely would make me want to play more. The issue is having the value of the mech change dynamically would screw with how people arrange their dropdecks. What if while waiting, your 'market value' of the mechs you have chosen has changed and now you're over value, 3 seconds before launch and therefore can't launch?

Dynamic R&R by availability of parts (with them being unique to each chassis/variant) would be a similar way of doing things; the more 'meta' it is the harder it would be to upkeep and at some point it'll be too expensive to do. Less issue with suddenly being over market before dropping. Still it has its own issues.

You're on to something... but while it's a good idea for diversity, it is merely a bandaid for the underlying problems with the game.

Edited by Koniving, 16 May 2015 - 01:00 PM.

[Dolph Hoskins]

I liked the story for it's dramatic points and memorable characters. Very well written

[Freebrewer Bmore]

Void Angel, on 16 May 2015 - 12:41 PM, said:

All you're suggesting is that people be punished for playing 'mechs other people like or find effective - and heaven help them if they don't have enough of the "right" 'mechs to avoid the penalty.

Once prices adjust, there won't even be any 'wrong' mech. Everything will cost what it's worth. Nobody's STK4N (or TDR9S, rust in peace) will become unplayable, because if it does, its price goes down until it's playable again. Nobody gets punished.

Void Angel, on 16 May 2015 - 12:41 PM, said:

the "poptart" meta didn't go away until the core system that enabled it was nerfed - jump jets.

Right, and so the effort to balance those core systems is a better place to apply developer resources than trying (and always failing) to balance every chassis against every other. Let the dynamic system manage the chassis balance so you can use developer intervention where it's really necessary.

Void Angel, on 16 May 2015 - 12:41 PM, said:

the end result of what you're proposing is an inflation of the cost to "buy in" to whatever the meta turns out to be.

This system doesn't change C-Bill mech ownership costs at all. So the issue you're raising here is only a concern if dropdeck costs were wildly fluctuating, requiring people to keep buying new mechs every time the meta wind blows a different way. However, that volatility is eliminated by a sufficiently large rolling window for the usage stats. With stable prices, 4 mechs under this system costs no more than 4 mechs now.

Again, I'd contrast this with the way things happen now, which is far worse: PGI decides to make a balance change and suddenly your superquirked mech becomes unplayable, or your whole 250-ton dropdeck now needs reworking to fit 240, etc. Now that gets expensive, and the dynamic system wouldn't cause that suffering.

Have I addressed your concerns? You're making good points, but I don't think they're reasons to fear.

[Freebrewer Bmore]

Koniving, on 16 May 2015 - 12:56 PM, said:

The issue is having the value of the mech change dynamically would screw with how people arrange their dropdecks. What if while waiting, your 'market value' of the mechs you have chosen has changed and now you're over value, 3 seconds before launch and therefore can't launch?

Yeah, as I was saying above, you'll need a sufficiently long rolling window for the usage stats so they don't fluctuate wildly. I'd personally be inclined to initally try a 1-month usage window with prices updating at a fixed time once per day (e.g. at the same time your daily double XP is updated on your mechs). Since only 1/30th of the total body of usage data is being updated, the costs should move slowly day by day (if it doesn't, OK, use a longer window; PGI has access to the data needed to set it at a good length).

If your dropdeck had been set up at the very edge of what was allowable, maybe that one day's new data would push it over the edge, yeah, but it would happen at a set time of day. You also could (and should) insulate yourself from that by building your deck with a little cost wiggle room, and/or using mechs that are clearly on a downward market cost trajectory, and/or simply having one cheaper mech to slot in as a price substitute when you get pushed over the edge.

Adamski, on 16 May 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

Everyone wants to drive viable mechs, especially when you can only take 1 at a time.

In the CW context we're talking about taking 4 at a time, not 1 (tho Roland's thread explores possibilities in group queues, even he never proposes using this idea for the solo queue). As mentioned in the story, you'll always be able to take any 1 mech, it's just that you might need to make some sacrifices in the rest of your dropdeck if you're trying to bring OP stuff.

And here's the thing: the weaker mechs will become less weak (and more fun) simply because they won't just be surrounded by only the strongest few variants anymore. Instead of just getting their butts handed to them by OP stuff, they'll be able to hold their own against a more diverse field of mechs.

[Void Angel]

Magical thinking about market economics, or hand-waving away problems like buy-in costs to get to the meta with an unsupported (and unsupportable) assumption that the meta will never shift, isn't going to cut the mustard. For example, re-setting my drop deck to 240 was trivial, and while it's not a top-performing chassis any longer, the Thunderbolt 9S (for example) is still viable. But even ceding that claim for the sake of argument, you're still looking at the same thing, just on a grander scale, and without human oversight. Instead of PGI looking at 'mechs and possibly overshooting a balance point, you're going to have whole ranges of 'mechs nerfed automatically - based not on how good they actually are, but on how much people use them. It's game balance by democracy, and if you think that phrase is a positive descriptor, you need to take more political science.

Your proposed system contains the same kind of overgeneralizations and possibly (in this case certainly) faulty assumptions that are often used in publicly-discussed economics. You assume that the great mass of people operate according to enlightened self-interest, for example. This is emphatically not the case; look at all the people who use missile boats, or refuse to move from their favorite camping spot in order to counter the enemy's movements. I'm not sure I'd like your system anyway, even if it could work. But since it has insurmountable obstacles between paper and the real world, that question is truly moot.

PS: Use of slurs like "tryhard" reduces your credibility out of the gate. See also: Ethos.

[Brizna]

While I give the OP a big BROFIST for a great opening post. A system like that would filter mechs by good and bad but also by fun and boring, effectively pushing people to play a boring game. People play mechs because they are good but also because they are fun and conversely don't play them because they are unexciting.

[Skarlock]

Void Angel, on 16 May 2015 - 02:49 PM, said:

It's game balance by democracy, and if you think that phrase is a positive descriptor, you need to take more political science.

This, exactly. Peoples subjective opinions are the worst way to achieve balance. Balance is not a popularity contest, and most of the players in this game don't even base their decision making on empirical data. Because the players balance the game by choosing their mechs, they are the ones really in control of it.

Also, this system would only work in an environment where the playerbase as a whole is pretty educated about what is actually good. Otherwise, the majority of players will simply take bad mechs and enable the meta players allowing them to take the top tier mechs. I'd love for PGI to actually try something like this though, simply for the schadenfreude of watching it fail spectacularly on the IS side by enabling good players and units to insane levels, and more or less destroying the viability and competitive ability of the clan decks in one fell swoop. Why would the clans be destroyed? Simple. The bad clan mechs are *really* bad, whereas IS has a ton more variety and viable mechs to choose from. If the clans can only win an event with the majority of the high level comp teams going to the clan side, and IS having a 10 ton advantage, and clanners spamming timber wolves and storm crows all day every day, and removing the IS ability to just rush generators with light mechs by forcing them on defense, by SEVEN PERCENT, they'll get absolutely, hilariously demolished after implementing this suggestion.

Not to mention that in order to compete, as people shift their mechs around, you will need an extraordinary amount of mechs to switch to because the system is now dynamic. So your perfectly legal drop deck one week becomes overpowered or underpowered and you need to optimize it. Thus you can only do well at CW if you have a veritable ton of mechs to choose from to take the optimal deck, which of course would favor the "tryhard" teams who actually earn the c-bills to do so...

Like I said, I really want PGI to try something like this, I really do. As a learning experience...

Edited by Skarlock, 16 May 2015 - 03:08 PM.

[LordNothing]

The Ripper13, on 16 May 2015 - 01:05 PM, said:

I liked the story for it's dramatic points and memorable characters. Very well written

too bad it will be forever relegated to the fantasy section of the library.

[sycocys]

Like the way the post was written, don't care for the idea he is suggesting.

Also "easy to implement".... if you've been tracking PGI you'd know that nothing is easy for them to implement and complex solutions are little more than dreams.

[Repasy Cooper]

Meta is dull. So many people are limiting themselves by obsessing over the "OP" builds, and running the same mech over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over......

Before they know it, the game ceases to be fun. It becomes routine grinding to earn more C-bills to buy more mechs to turn into the same mech to grind with some more.

I beseech you all to add more flavour into the game. Don't wait for some super-amazing update that fixes everything. JUST DO IT. Don't limit yourselves to some cookie-cutter loadout that some deadbeat basement squatter dreamed up with all their unemployed-free time on their hands. Dream up your own build! If somebody criticizes your build for not taking full advantage of a mech's capability well SCREW THEM! because in the end it is not the mech's capability that matters at all. It is your own.

I guarantee 100% that any player who does this will increase their piloting skill. Because when it comes down to the hard truth, meta is a crutch that you really don't need if you're a good player.

And you'll have more fun too.

Edited by Repasy, 16 May 2015 - 08:32 PM.

[Skarlock]

Repasy, on 16 May 2015 - 08:32 PM, said:

Meta is dull. So many people are limiting themselves by obsessing over the "OP" builds, and running the same mech over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over......

Before they know it, the game ceases to be fun. It becomes routine grinding to earn more C-bills to buy more mechs to turn into the same mech to grind with some more.

I beseech you all to add more flavour into the game. Don't wait for some super-amazing update that fixes everything. JUST DO IT. Don't limit yourselves to some cookie-cutter loadout that some deadbeat basement squatter dreamed up with all their unemployed-free time on their hands. Dream up your own build! If somebody criticizes your build for not taking full advantage of a mech's capability well SCREW THEM! because in the end it is not the mech's capability that matters at all. It is your own.

I guarantee 100% that any player who does this will increase their piloting skill. Because when it comes down to the hard truth, meta is a crutch that you really don't need if you're a good player.

And you'll have more fun too.

Meta builds are used when you want to win. For example, the MLMW tournament. Lots of people have fun with under powered, silly, or quirky builds, but they ALSO have fun competing at a high level against other skilled opponents, using what they consider the best possible drop decks in these competitions. Finding ways to break or refine the meta is now the challenge, and your skills at this are pitted against other players. If the meta is dull, it's because it has become static. Nothing changes, everyone uses the same strategies, same mechs, and same weapon loadouts because they have been *proven* through exhaustive testing and competition to be the best. As the game grows more stagnant, so does the meta, because there is less to discover as the players discover over time everything there is to discover. Hopefully the game makers add new things to keep the game fresh and interesting, and then a new meta will be born.

Your dismissiveness of the meta as being the concoction of a single "basement dwelling unemployed" person though is rather ridiculous and insulting. The meta was established not by a single person with a web site, but by the entire collective of the top players of this game. It's also wrong to assume some people just want to play to "have fun". For some people, competition *is* the drive to play, and trying to win *is* the fun part. Telling someone what they find fun and not fun is absurd, as is ignoring other peoples input on your builds.

So in closing, play whatever you want to play. But don't tell other people how they are supposed to enjoy the game.

Edited by Skarlock, 16 May 2015 - 09:36 PM.

[Crockdaddy]

Adamski, on 16 May 2015 - 11:24 AM, said:

And lo I drop in nothing but the most rare hero mechs that few players have or would spend the money on, and so are critically undervalued.

No, seriously, your idea is dumb.

Actually in fact it is rather brilliant. Why not use statistics to generate your relative BV within the game. Whom but the community knows what works vs what doesn't? One of the community driven leagues Proxis attempted to take this into account. it was fascinating as obviously everyone taking the very best of something generated scarcity of a thing. Creativity would indeed have to flourish as us tryhards figured out every devious way we could to exploit the system while maximising value.

[zortesh]

Crockdaddy, on 17 May 2015 - 12:25 AM, said:

Actually in fact it is rather brilliant. Why not use statistics to generate your relative BV within the game. Whom but the community knows what works vs what doesn't? One of the community driven leagues Proxis attempted to take this into account. it was fascinating as obviously everyone taking the very best of something generated scarcity of a thing. Creativity would indeed have to flourish as us tryhards figured out every devious way we could to exploit the system while maximising value.

Scarcity of overused things would be hilarious.

For some reason i imagine some poptart trying to equip there mech, telling the tech what they want..... and the tech being all.
"hahahah... autocannons.. jumpjets... ppcs... pfft good luck buddy anything like that has been sold out for months!"
and then a single nerf later and theres piles of used autoocannons and ppc's sitting in budget bins, and a huge black friday style mob fighting a melee over the few remaining lasers in stock.

[Smith Gibson]

The only change I would make to the idea is that the formula become:

[Initial Battle Value] x [Usage Percentage] = [Modified Battle Value]

You will need to start with a Battle Value based on Weight, Weapons, Armor, Engine, etc. And then modify it with usage percentage. That way someone that plays a "less than optimal" build of the most optimal 'Mech will have a smaller modified battle value. Since Hitboxes and Hardpoint placement is not something we can actually calculate to any usable degree like we can Weapons, Armor, and Engine, usage percentage will have to be used to fill that role.

The end result would be:

Initial Battle Value Modifying Variables:
Chassis Weight
Armor
Weapons
Ammo
Equipment
Engine
Endo Steel
Ferro Fibrous
Artemis

Usage Percentage Variables:
Quirks
Hitboxes
Hardpoint Placement
Available Missile Tubes
Hill Climbing

We start with a Modified Battle Value equal to the Initial Battle Value, then after the usage percentage information is collected the Modified battle value either goes up because it has a superior combination of Quirks, Hitboxes, and Hardpoints, or the Modified Battle Value goes down because it has arm weapons placed lower than it's knees or something equally ineffective.

There are quite a few 'Mechs that need to have the Quirk of "-10 tons for CW purposes" and this will effectively give us that but with the added advantage of the numbers being generated by actual popularity instead of being semi-arbitrary.

Edited by Smith Gibson, 17 May 2015 - 05:17 AM.

[Tywren]

I still like the idea of repair time between CW drops myself.

Every point of armor damage taken = 30 seconds repair.
Every point of internal damamge taken = 1 min of repair.
Every weapon would have it's own time base (possably with modifiers if it's non-stock equipment for the mech in question), and things like ECM, and TCs would have a 30 min repair time.

Sure there are those who will just buy more of the meta mechs, and rotate them out between drops, but those people have to consider that they'll be doubling down on the current meta, and may be left behind once that meta shifts. For everyone else, it becomes a question of "do i wait for my good mech to come out of repairs, or do i go digging through the mechbays and find something else to drop with in the mean time".