53 replies to this topic

[-VooDoo-]

I get everyone wants balancing, but really, some mechs will just have natural advantages over other mechs. Driving a Honda isn't the same thing as driving a Ferrari and adding quirks to my Honda to try and make it a Ferrari starts to get a little silly. The whole quirk system is out of hand and frankly needs to be abolished. If people don't play certain mechs because in reality they just suck....oh well. Quite a few cars out there that suck too...and people don't drive them very often, even if they do have a low payment and bucket seats quirk.

There are critical components of the game that need attention, and even those topics are debatable and that's fine. Piling on resources to try and endlessly balance a world that isn't meant to be balanced anyway is really a waste of time and takes away from other things that could truly enhance the game. Besides, people will always gravitate towards a mech they feel gives them an advantage, of course they are usually not alone in noticing the advantage. So really your just playing a chess game here where everyone uses some select mechs until the nerf bat comes out and the herd moves on to another. Which in turn forces another attempt to balance the game with the new mechs that seem to be dominating everything. Just ends up being very circular in nature.



The quirk system synopsis in my mind:

1. Will be in endless need of adjustment through its inherent circularity.
2. Will be totally unsatisfactory to a large percentage of your player base, whether quirks are positive or negative.
3. Steals developer attention from other far more important areas of the game.


I know that no one wants to lose that +10% on bla bla bla, but I think we need some honest feedback here on the validity of this whole process and its endless shenanigans. NO WHINING PLEASE, there are 50 other topics already posted you can go whine in. Just curious if people would be ok abolishing a quirk system that never, ever, ever, ever ends...and frankly given its nature...can't end.

[nehebkau]

Yes, I think they are going to be more trouble -- down the road. By that I mean they are going to make things harder to balance unless you make them so small they are mostly worthless. -- basically I agree with what you wrote.

[Joseph Mallan]

I like this analogy.

[FupDup]

I don't like the car analogy because most of the time cars aren't put in a battle arena to fight each other to the death. You just have to get from point A to point B, and if you can do that then a car is good enough. A Ferrari won't really get you to Walmart much better than a Honda.


Also, the choice isn't between having quirks and having "critical game adjustments." The choice is between having quirks and having nothing. They're not going to touch the base game itself no matter what happens to quirks. This has been mostly proven by the past of MWO.

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 19 May 2015 - 11:09 AM, said:

I don't like the car analogy because most of the time cars aren't put in a battle arena to fight each other to the death. You just have to get from point A to point B, and if you can do that then a car is good enough. A Ferrari won't really get you to Walmart much better than a Honda.


Also, the choice isn't between having quirks and having "critical game adjustments." The choice is between having quirks and having nothing. They're not going to touch the base game itself no matter what happens to quirks. This has been mostly proven by the past of MWO.

You never drove on teh California Highway system did you?

[Paigan]

Agreed!

Also, balance is very subjective.
For example before the adder buff, everyone whined how oh so terribly bad the Adder is.
And I ran around with mine doing multiple kills and topscoring in matches.
It's actually a very good mech. Pretty low (much cover), good hardpoints, etc.
It's just that 0.5 tons wasted on the flamer that's a little annoying.

But there was whining and more whining and so a very good mech got buffed to having mostly positive quirks.

Similar with the Warhawk.
Loved it before, now it got buffed. Uhm, okay, thanks. Why not.


For the same reason, I think TBR and SCR are not THAT good as everyone screamed and sure as hell not so good that they need jackhammer-level of nerfing.


On the other hand, IS quirks like the dragon's 50% Cooldown which effectively means 200% DPS (or even 250% if you count in modules) because PGI is obviously not capable of basic math make them VERY, VERY overpowered.


Quirks are nice to add individuality. +5% here a little, -5% there a little.
But not more.
Not 20% and definitely not 250%

Edited by Paigan, 19 May 2015 - 11:21 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

I been really happy about the quirks without it you might as well remove most of the mechs in the game. We are now able to play more mechs than we ever have before.

I want to see them do another quirk pass to all the mechs. This time give them armor ,,ammo and speed quirks.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 19 May 2015 - 11:18 AM.

[FupDup]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 May 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

You never drove on teh California Highway system did you?

That's why I said most of the time.

[JC Daxion]

I totally disagree, while they do need more work, this game is far more balanced, with far more mechs and builds that are very viable, than there were last year at this time...

If you looked at the competitive matches from about 1.5+ years ago, they basically had 2 or 3 mechs, using PPC's and ac-5's, with a couple mechs doing something slightly different. Maybe a gauss, or ac-20, and a 6ML light.

How anyone can look at the balance now, verse say right before clans droped and say it is worse.. I just don't know. Back up to when i started playing, right before the summer that coined the phrase LURMAGEDON, back when SRM's didn't work, Tarts were the rage, and STreaks cored lights for breakfast. This game is 10x better/balanced, and so many of the mechs coined totally useless are now either a bit OP, perhaps something like the TDR's can be put into this catagory, to others like ravens, Centurions,, (post zombie nerf) heck even catapults can do some fun stuff.

The game needs more work, and more balance,, but it is going in a better direction, not worse.

[-VooDoo-]

Most of what your saying is weapon balancing, which is fine.

[Flutterguy]

I think quirks are a pretty useful tool in balancing mechs. I mean even though the recent quirk nerfs to the SCR and TBR aren't popular imagine the uproar if instead all clan lasers got a 15% duration/cooldown nerf to balance the top mechs. I may not like how some quirks are currently implemented, but I like that it gives a method to tweak individual mechs.

[xDust]

I'm starting to think that quirks are actually okay. The idea behind them isn't too bad.

It's just that PGI's use of them makes them look like a terrible idea.

[JC Daxion]

Flutterguy, on 19 May 2015 - 11:23 AM, said:

I think quirks are a pretty useful tool in balancing mechs. I mean even though the recent quirk nerfs to the SCR and TBR aren't popular imagine the uproar if instead all clan lasers got a 15% duration/cooldown nerf to balance the top mechs. I may not like how some quirks are currently implemented, but I like that it gives a method to tweak individual mechs.

Exactly, and honestly i would not be surprised if the quirks on the SCR and TBR got tweaked again in a few weeks. Often what PGI does when they change things are making some radical changed and Data mine, then roll um back a bit to a sweet spot.. take LRM speed, or thunder bolt quirks, or the wolverines.. this is an entire new system, to think this is set in stone is a bit short sited..

Though i was playing around in smufy, and i came up with some decent builds (or at least i thought might be) that used combo's of weapon systems like i do on most of my mechs.. many came down to either a 6% or 12% nerf.. that really is not that big. (less than a module, and a module is hardly a make or break mechanic. The way i look at it, it will give mechs that are meant for Boating lasers, like a Nova to be a better mech, as that is exactly what it is designed for. I always thought it was stupid that a TBR was the better energy boat. lore TBR's have always been the missile/ballistics/energy combo mech.

Edited by JC Daxion, 19 May 2015 - 11:30 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 May 2015 - 11:11 AM, said:

You never drove on teh California Highway system did you?

Ive driven on the LA highway system....and dear god, is there ever a time of day where there isnt a traffic jam?

[Davers]

Jazz Hands, on 19 May 2015 - 11:03 AM, said:

I get everyone wants balancing, but really, some mechs will just have natural advantages over other mechs. Driving a Honda isn't the same thing as driving a Ferrari and adding quirks to my Honda to try and make it a Ferrari starts to get a little silly.

So why buy a Honda? Why even bother selling them? Remove the quirks entirely, and then just have everyone buy Clan mechs, since quirks are the only thing that made IS mechs comparable.

Maybe you are fine with there being 1 must have mech due to hitboxes and hard points in each category but I would think most people are not.

[Burktross]

It'd be one thing if we were comparing jury-rigged Agromechs to Battlemechs as Hondas to Ferraris, but these are all battlemechs here in a game-- they should each be good and viable, or else PGI will have wasted time with creating a new mech and players will have wasted money buying it.

Considering
1) Geometry changes are no go
2) Hardpoints can only be inflated so much
3) Some Battletech mechs were not made for FPS gameplay

Quirks are the only way to go.

Kind of like *insert your favorite system of government here*. It ain't perfect, but it's the best we got.

Edited by Burktross, 19 May 2015 - 11:49 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I think we just need to separate what quirks are the most problematic and why.

I think we should generally have a small number of listed quirks here and there per variant, to boost a signature trait and/or maybe weapon, not raise performance through the roof across different variables, as currently implemented.

When we have Mech Tree Efficiencies and various Quirks modifying multiple variables along with having certain stats vary based on Engine Rating, then there are simply too many variables all over the place that really should be more static than what they currently are.

So for me specifically, Weapon quirks are going to tend to be at the heart of potentially going round in circles with balancing builds, with the other quirks at lesser degrees.

Quirks that adjust armor, structure and agility / mobility though should have a place to help MWO balance, since hit boxes are basically gonna be one of the more stable / consistent facet of mechs.

And if we can see fewer agility / mobility variables jump up and down due to Mech Tree Efficiencies, various Quirks than it should be, and engine rating than we could see just a few signature quirks be kept. So for example, what I think needs to be done in relation to agility / mobility quirks is place those values directly to the variants' base stats and not as quirks.



So to specify more clearly what I mean; we should have static:

Heat Capacity - One Universal Attribute (setting this to say 30 can help reign in more troublesome builds without limiting what can be built and potentially can remove Heat Scale (Ghost Heat))

Heat Dissipation - One value per any SHS, and one value per any DHS, so players can still build how they prefer (for example, if we go doubled value than SHS are each at 0.2 and DHS each at 0.4)

Armor and Structure profiles should continue to be tweaked to support existing hitbox profiles (but instead of being displayed as a quirk, have it as a base stat according to variant)

One Chassis (and/or by Variant) agility profile, and so Engine Rating would only modify straight line speeds.

Weapons could be allowed signature quirks when very specific circumstances are fulfilled

With the idea of utilizing a small handful of quirks under more specific circumstances. One example, if we have a TDR-9S only carry a single ERPPC, it gains signature quirks since it fulfills a (1/1) for ERPPCs. If the mech is customized to fit two ERPPCs than the game tracks (2/1) with either reduced quirks or the full loss of the signature quirks for that custom build.

Another example with the GRF-3M having an LRM 20 and ERPPC, it could see signature quirks that would aid that stock build, but if a player decides to try a different build there is no limitations, but with the signature quirks adjusting to the custom build.

Clans with omnipods have this sort of functionality in very limited capacities, if going with stock omnipods; so why not expand that concept to all mechs to allow full customization, but reward fewer quirks in only specific circumstances?

Edited by Praetor Knight, 19 May 2015 - 11:53 AM.

[Apnu]

I don't think there's much to be done about it.

We can't force players to have the other clan limitations from Battletech. We can incentivize them to use zellbrigen, batchall and bidding (Say big c-bill and XP boosts for doing it this way), but we know many players will ignore it.

PGI and a large chunk of the community is convinced we can't do 10v12, even if we un-nerf the clans and give them straight book tech to make up for the lesser numbers.

We can only try to create parity between two tech levels and hope for the best.

This is really hard because of the inherent broken-ness between IS and Clan technology, and there's a lot of gamers who will boat the hell out of the most out-of-balance OP thing they can find and congratulate themselves on a job well done.

So yeah, endless rounds of quirking and crying is the new normal for MWO.

Improvise, adapt, overcome.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I overall think quirks are good and a good idea. It's clearly not perfect, but game mechanics aren't in place to make a proper replacement for quirks.

If we had some defined roll warfare and if certain mechs were artificially rare or heavy and assault mechs were rarer than more abundant mediums and lights like in lore, then lesser mechs would have certain rolls and places in a match.

Anyway...

I like quirks because it gives mechs boosted loadouts it can use to be competitive (or at least competent). When this boosts more lore loadouts it is even s bit more immersive.

Why does a Hunchback have such a big hump? Protects an A/C20 with additional armor or structure plus it must really carry an exceptional A/C20.

When it doesn't follow lore it can be a bit jarring, but sometimes lore loadout buffs still don't make for good performing mechs.

My only real complaints are...

Its hard to remember which mech gets what quirks when meeting them out on the battlefield. If a mech gets a huge structure buff, and you forget, you might lose a fight you'd normally win by targeting the buffed up section.

Lastly we get the weird outliers where a few mechs are over-boosted. Thing is, they are actually pretty rare. We talk about a handful of OP quirked IS mechs, but how many IS mechs are there? Counting all the IS mechs and released variants, it has to be over 100. 5 over boosted mechs out of over a hundred shouldn't label the system as a fail.

Overall I like the quirks and in the majority of cases, it does it's job decently. If discontent is to be pointed anywhere, it is with the occasional odd quirk choice and the slow response by PGI to tweak it.

Even then, often the issues with quirks are intertwined somewhere between fact and opinion anyway.

Overall though, I support quirks and would like to see it continually adjusted (up or down) for balance adjustments. It helps to limit blanket buffs or nerfs to weapons which can be abused under boating conditions as well.

[-VooDoo-]

Everyone is on the quirk bandwagon as long as the mechs they like...have the quirks they want. Otherwise it's piss and moan. It's clear the game doesn't really follow the tabletop anyway in many aspects so just design a mech that's functional I guess is more my point instead of band-aiding everything. To several posters very clever points...mechs are not cars. Thanks for clearing that up...but I think you get the point of the analogy all the same. They are taking away from the fact that different mechs require different play styles and skill levels and just make them as functionally even as possible.

Personally I think the weaponry is the real point and problem here. Beefing up IS mechs to compensate for the lack of comparable weaponry in most cases to Clan. Adjusting weapons might make more sense across the board and make adjustments universal instead of tinkering with one mech at a time...or the same mech time and time again.

Edited by Jazz Hands, 19 May 2015 - 08:08 PM.