23 replies to this topic

[Raggedyman]

Because I'm seeing a whole ton of threads with "PGI nerfing the TBR-A was a conspiracy to make money!!" threads I'm going to ask one very simple question to all those spouting this tale:

Given PGI's apparent history of technical errors and balancing mistakes with the game, as recorded and witnessed by the huge amount of negative posts and threads on these very forums, why do you assume that this one incident wasn't another example of these errors?

Or, to put it another way, why are you assuming a complicated and intricately executed malicious act when a simple case of precedented incompetence explains it fully?

Edited by Raggedyman, 21 May 2015 - 06:34 AM.

[Mar-X-maN]

Incompetence on this level would mean they are R E T A R D S. Since they are able to code a minimally viable product and market it
for outrageous amounts of money and get away with it, they must in fact be geniuses. Therefore the only logical conclusion
is, this must be a ploy to milk the customers for more money.

Edited by Mar X maN, 21 May 2015 - 04:40 AM.

[Jetfire]

It is neither the former nor the latter. I mean the community has more than one idea of what "balanced" even looks like.

Long story short, if the new meta builds don't still involve the TBR and SCR I will be amazed. So it can't really be that insane of an issue.

[Innocent]

It is irrelevant whether the decision was intentional malice or accidental incompetence. The outcome is the same, paying customers will be less likely to purchase wave 3 for money. Even if it is a technical error that is also irrelevant since PGI does not admit mistakes or take corrective action.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I dunno, but there's been many a theory I've read lately that...

[Astrocanis]

Mar X maN, on 21 May 2015 - 04:39 AM, said:

Incompetence on this level would mean they are R E T A R D S. Since they are able to code a minimally viable product and market it
for outrageous amounts of money and get away with it, they must in fact be geniuses. Therefore the only logical conclusion
is, this must be a ploy to milk the customers for more money.

Theorycrafting on the boards is always easier than trying to balance. WoW has been out forever and they still can't balance the game even though Ghostcrawler made priest=paladin=druid=whatever and made them homogeneous.

Balance is a dream that can't exist as long as players have something to strive for. The next mech, the next level, the next gear/loadout. And, no matter what, the technology doesn't really exist today to balance for skill. Hence the attempts via ELO / ranks and so on.

It's all well and good to label them greedy ******** or r-tards It's all well and good to second guess play calling in a football game or removing a goalie in the last two minutes of a game. It's another thing altogether to actually have to make those decisions, knowing full well that, no matter what, "know-everything-just-ask-mes" will crucify you whichever way you choose.

Edited by Astrocanis, 21 May 2015 - 05:15 AM.

[LordBraxton]

Or maybe it isn't that hard of a nerf, and everyone is overreacting? I switched to 4 clan MPL on my twolf, with some streaks as an afterthought, and it worked quite well. Gauss + 2lpl is nasty as well. This also has the effect of making my gargoyle feel like it has a role, because before the Twolf did everything better, but for pure laser vomit, it's all about the gargles now. The twolf is now a high speed, high durability heavy, with the encouragement to use a balanced loadout. Nobody took our toy away, we can all stop crying. When the highlander was nerfed to death, the whole community posted about drinking salty highlander tears.... Twolf gets a smack with the nerf stick, and it's the end of the goddamn world. Popularity contests...

[Naduk]

it does not take a rocket scientist to see that the timberwolf and stormcrow were hideously overpowered (probably still are)
the clan mechs in general are very powerful
but when clan pilots them selves claim their other units are garbage compared to the two god mechs
it becomes pretty obvious that something needs to be done

the community has been calling for their nerfing since they launched (over a year) and now its finally happened
but people are surprised ? and even angry ? lol what ? how did anyone not see this coming ?

did pgi perform the nerf in the best way ? who knows
was their other ways to do it ? most certainly
if this way does not change the mechs behavior to their liking will they try another method ? yes you bet

what we do know is that they will monitor the usage and win rates of all mechs and continue to attempt balance
considering the complexity of battletech im surprised this kind of thing isnt happening a lot more often
we have seen powerhouses come and go, its a natural thing in a PVP game, almost all mechs have had their

i do not see any conspiracy i just see a company trying to be fair in a PVP game that people are very passionate about

[Johnny Z]

There is no theory about it. The Cheese Wolf and Cheese Crow were OP so they got nerfed.

The only theory woth looking at is if the guys making this game are playing FOTM flavour of the month. I dont think so simply because the left the Cheese mechs in top spot for way to long.

Either way I hope they arnt playing FOTM and this becomes a balanced game where the players give the mechs character and make the most of them and it doesnt come down to 1 or 2 OP mechs for crutch seekers to use.

[operatorZ]

Raggedyman, on 21 May 2015 - 03:53 AM, said:

Because I'm seeing a whole ton of threads with "PGI nerfing the TBR-A was a conspiracy to make money!!" threads I'm going to ask one very simple question to all those spouting this tale:

Given PGI's apparent history of technical errors and balancing mistakes with the game, as recorded and witnessed by the huge amount of negative posts and threads on these very forums, do you assume that this one incident wasn't another example of these errors?

Or, to put it another way, why are you assuming a complicated and intricately executed malicious act when a simple case of precedented incompetence explains it fully?

It is irrelevant wether its a money grab or just bad balancing. Having seen this in several other MMO games I tend to think that releasing content and than nerfing it later is part of the deal; regardless of how hard people try to be correct in the balance.

My advice?

Embrace the suck....if it really bothers you...buy a TDR or 4N stalker...or like me buy Wave 3 with the full intention of using the s*it out of its OP content until they inevitably nerf it down...by which point they will probably be releasing new OP content...which I will buy and ride until its nerfed. Tis the way of MMO's....get used to it...and quit whining.


EDIT: and by the way

"a complicated and intricately executed malicious act".

..releasing stuff behind pay wall early then nerfing once it hits general population is not complicated or intricate...its actually insanely easy and lazy.

Edited by operatorZ, 21 May 2015 - 05:49 AM.

[Mar-X-maN]

When the metas admit they hardly felt the impact and can easily offset it by just adding another laser but the balanced builds completely need to rethink and rearm their builds how can you still defend this ***********. I bought bot Mad Cat and Crow
a la carte and I spent 25.000.000 cbills to fix this mess and I am now left with less viable builds. Sorry if I am angry.
Both mechs were never OP. The meta was, maybe. Probably not. They had their drawbacks. But people failed to see that.
And I have accepted that I could not compete with the meta, but they destroyed the niche and not the meta.
The "problem" was not analyzed correctly and the solution was not a solution at all.

I did not call them ******* but smart and greedy instead. And smart and greedy are virtues in this economy. So I actually complimented them even if I don't approve of this moral.

[Satan n stuff]

Mar X maN, on 21 May 2015 - 05:45 AM, said:

When the metas admit they hardly felt the impact and can easily offset it by just adding another laser but the balanced builds completely need to rethink and rearm their builds how can you still defend this ***********. I bought bot Mad Cat and Crow
a la carte and I spent 25.000.000 cbills to fix this mess and I am now left with less viable builds. Sorry if I am angry.
Both mechs were never OP. The meta was, maybe. Probably not. They had their drawbacks. But people failed to see that.
And I have accepted that I could not compete with the meta, but they destroyed the niche and not the meta.
The "problem" was not analyzed correctly and the solution was not a solution at all.

I did not call them ******* but smart and greedy instead. And smart and greedy are virtues in this economy. So I actually complimented them even if I don't approve of this moral.

If you have a balanced build you should have much lower penalties. If you don't have a low cooldown and duration penalty then you either have a very bad pod layout for your build or you don't in fact have a balanced build, you have a slightly more colorful lasevomit build.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 21 May 2015 - 05:53 AM.

[Mar-X-maN]

I had a balanced builds that were based on all the wrong pods. I got 12%, 15% and 21% to both burn time and cooldown. Maybe it was a more colorful laservomit build if you have 2CERLL, 2CERSL, 2 MG and 2 LRM10
or 3CERML, 2 CERSL and 2 LRM15.

But I was stupid to bring LRMs in the first place, wasn't I. Totally ignoring the fact that the LRMs are what made especially the Timberwolf iconic.

Edited by Mar X maN, 21 May 2015 - 05:57 AM.

[Felbombling]

The whole issue boils down to this...

January, 2015: "OMG... the Timber Wolf is so [expletive deleted] OP. Nerf it, PGI."

June, 2015: "OMG... I just bought a Timber Wolf back in January! WTF PGI?!"

[operatorZ]

StaggerCheck, on 21 May 2015 - 06:30 AM, said:

The whole issue boils down to this...

January, 2015: "OMG... the Timber Wolf is so [expletive deleted] OP. Nerf it, PGI."

June, 2015: "OMG... I just bought a Timber Wolf back in January! WTF PGI?!"

If every player had a TBR and every player had the same loadout for it and every player played the TBR the same; than everybody would be mad. But as it stands the are winners and losers in the nerf/quirk wars.

[Raggedyman]

Mar X maN, on 21 May 2015 - 04:39 AM, said:

Incompetence on this level would mean they are R E T A R D S. Since they are able to code a minimally viable product and market it
for outrageous amounts of money and get away with it, they must in fact be geniuses. Therefore the only logical conclusion
is, this must be a ploy to milk the customers for more money.

Given pulling of the con job you've described would require an amazing amount of number-crunching and ability to predict player base behavior, so as to ensure that the total income from the hose-job would be higher than the amount of potential income lost from the bad-will generated, why would they not use those skills to better balance the game for longterm returns?

Right now you are accusing them of being the stupidest evil geniuses ever.

[Raggedyman]

operatorZ, on 21 May 2015 - 05:44 AM, said:

EDIT: and by the way

"a complicated and intricately executed malicious act".

..releasing stuff behind pay wall early then nerfing once it hits general population is not complicated or intricate...its actually insanely easy and lazy.

Working out profit and loss from it so as to prove the scam worthwhile is a pretty complicated and intricate job, especially when you have to keep all the stuff from not going "DONT BUY IT!! ITS A CON JOB!!". The mechanics of it are simple, the business logic and long-term maths of it isn't.

[operatorZ]

Raggedyman, on 21 May 2015 - 06:41 AM, said:

Working out profit and loss from it so as to prove the scam worthwhile is a pretty complicated and intricate job, especially when you have to keep all the stuff from not going "DONT BUY IT!! ITS A CON JOB!!". The mechanics of it are simple, the business logic and long-term maths of it isn't.

I disagree, simply "if we put things behind paywall once...and people buy it (which I and others did) then we will do it again and will get similar results ($$)"

there are no complicated decisions to be made, its make money or choose to not make money (and they must make money of course, they are a business, which I support with my money).

The question of whether to nerf this content after it has been bought could be to make more money or just how things go in pursuit of balance, (either of which I'm fine with).

I think your saying that PGI has to be careful in not alienating its customer base by doing this; so they hire people to study the effects and produce complicated graphs on player retainage vs. cost? Or have some market metrics on business models and such? I highly doubt this is true, its not necessary, they have a captive market.

EDIT: and its not necessarily a scam...its what I have been saying..... its the MMO business model....get used to it.

Edited by operatorZ, 21 May 2015 - 06:51 AM.

[FupDup]

It's almost as if there's another Clan heavy getting released next month. A Clan heavy that would be almost equal to a completely un-nerfed Timber Wolf.

Doesn't the timing just seem a little bit...convenient here? Why didn't it happen earlier, or later? Why now instead of any other time?

[Templar Dane]

The TBR-A variant coming out for cbills, then getting nerfed into the ground...the timing seems suspect. Especially since Wave 3 is coming up.