129 replies to this topic

[Grey Ghost]

Sir Wulfrick, on 02 July 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

1) Give IS mechs the ability to use all clan weapons.

2) Give clan mechs the ability to use all IS weapons.

3) Remove all quirks.

4) Balance largely complete.

Lawl, does that include those sweet 7crit Endo/FF and free CASE all over the Mechs?

[bad arcade kitty]

>sweet 7crit Endo/FF with fixed slots placed to prevent you to use your best hardpoints fully

fftgj

[Grey Ghost]

bad arcade kitty, on 04 July 2015 - 01:00 AM, said:

>sweet 7crit Endo/FF with fixed slots placed to prevent you to use your best hardpoints fully

fftgj

Ah, but will the new Clan IIC Mechs have fixed slots?

[NeoAres]

Nightshade24, on 03 July 2015 - 11:30 PM, said:

-snip-

Well Nightshade, I have to give you credit for at least being on-topic. Most of the people responding in this thread seem to think that countering technology with numbers is the way to go. Converting this game to 100% Clan vs. IS is not the way to go--the arcade mode should remain supported, which means balancing the tech. And as I said somewhere on page 2, the core concept of my argument is what matters to me, not the individual balancing proposals. If I had failed to include any specific balancing proposals, unimaginative people would have been on my case for not proposing any. You have a couple good points, but you made a few key mistakes.

CGauss: First of all, CGauss velocity is not currently affected by TC. But it could (and should) be once its velocity is lowered. Secondly, my plan involves getting rid of all those stupid IS mech quirks you're refering to.

Clan Pulse Lasers: They already have a balance. My focus is on bringing balances to those things that don't have any yet. If you'd like to change the pulse laser's balance, that's a topic for a new thread.

Most every other weapon/equipment you mentioned: nothing can be left alone if this is going to work. NOTHING. Every little imbalance between clan and IS tech must have a balance (no matter how small) so that standard mechs and omnimechs can be on equal ground regardless of their tech type (more on that below).

What is the core concept of my argument again? It's not that PGI failed to sufficiently balance items. It's that they balanced some items, and then neglected to balance other items at all, choosing instead to bring parity to the game by blanket-quirking IS mechs and blanket-nerfing clan mechs. Whoever claimed that we have reached parity under the current system is absolutely correct. We have indeed reached parity. The problem is that new content is constantly being added, and incorporating balance to this new mech class will either require some very creative thinking and exhaustive playtesting as they try and re-quirk everything to cope with no longer having as much control over clan mech builds, or it will require a simplification of the system based on a part vs. part balancing system that doesn't compare apples to oranges. My OP is advocating that second option. With a compartmentalized, appropriate set of balances in place, new content like Clan IIC mechs and IS Omnimechs can be integrated into the game far more seamlessly.

So, in less specific terms than in my OP, let me go over the basic terms at work here and how I envision what they mean and how they can be balanced. This is important because each of these four terms must be considered independently of one another because they will eventually all be interchangeable. In other words, PGI is currently nerfing omnimechs because of a failure to balance clan tech. It's worked so far but it will not work forever--you need to counter the clan tech independently of the omnimechs in order to seamlessly integrate the upcoming Clan Standard and IS Omnimechs into the game.

Standard Mech
A standard mech is exactly what we've grown accustomed to with the IS. A standard mech's advantages are dynamic slot use, dynamic upgrades, and dynamic engine choices. Its disadvantages are fixed hardpoints and fixed arm actuators.

Omnimech
An Omnimech is what we've grown accustomed to from the clans so far. Its advantages are a selection of different hardpoint configurations (though not truly dynamic) and should be dynamic arm actuators as well. Its disadvantages should be fixed bases and upgrades (engine, minimum heatsinks, endo and FF). More on the "should be" later.

IS Tech
IS weapons, to take a very complex series of differences and sum them up simply, should offer up less firepower in exchange for more accuracy. IS electronics should offer more services (but not better services) at the price of greater size and weight. IS XL mechs should be easier to kill but harder to disable (or partially disable).

Clan Tech
Clan weapons should offer up greater firepower in exchange for less accuracy. If desired, a TC can be used to upgrade accuracy at the cost of slots and tonnage (essentially bringing clan mechs equipping TC closer to IS mechs in both positive and negative ways). Clan electronics are smaller and lighter than IS counterparts but should have more specific services. Clan XL mechs should boast better overall survivability in exchange for being easier to disable or partially disable.

Now, back to the "should"s. I don't want to reiterate my OP so I'll be more vague this time.
Clan Weapons vs. IS Weapons: All clan weapons have a combination of better range, damage, size, and weight than IS counterparts. All of this together translates into a massive increase in firepower at moderate range due to the clans' ability to carry more, larger weapons and have them each do more damage over range. PGI was on the right track with their balances to Lasers, LRMs, and UACs by decreasing accuracy. Now they just have to finish the job by applying similar debuffs (and/or buffs to their IS counterparts) to C-ERPPCs, C-Gauss, C-SRMs, C-SSRM2s, C-LBX10s, CMGs, C-Narcs, and C-Flamers. The factors most easily used to achieve these balances are duration, rate of fire, weapon velocity, hit spread, and critical hit %. Any of these factors can be used to balance most of these weapons to their IS counterparts.

Clan Electronics vs. IS Electronics: The differences between clan/IS probes and ECMs are very small, so the balance should be very small. That being said, in order for my plan to work in principle, there needs to be something to counter the loss in weight and size. In my OP I proposed removing counter mode from C-ECM (thus having CAP take over ECM-countering duties on mechs that equip both), and lowering/removing the TIG buff on the CAP (because TC offers the same buff anyway), but I'm not opposed to something simpler like a general stat adjustment. As far as TC vs. CC is concerned, just leave the TC alone and increase the CC's stat buffs until it's fair.

Clan Mechs vs. IS Mechs:This is the hardest, most contentious part of balancing clan and IS tech. The first step is creating an overall philosophy from which to draw, just like the clan vs. IS weapon comparison has its "damage vs. accuracy" philosophy. As I said above, my philosophy is that Clan mechs should be harder to kill outright than IS mechs, but with the tradeoff that they're easier to partially disable. This philosophy can be implemented by lowering component health, increasing incoming critical hit percentage, and lowering internal structure. Because clan mechs have free CASE (yes, Nightshade, all clan mechs--http://www.sarna.net...orage_Equipment), ammunition explosions outside the CT cannot kill them, but can result in half their weapons getting blown off. Here is my modified proposal for balancing clan tech mechs.
*C-CASE: balance with a slight reduction to ammo bin and CGauss component health
*Clan XL: balance with a reduction to side torso internal structure
*Clan Endo/FF: balance each with a stackable buff to incoming critical hit %
*Clan Double Heat Sinks: balance with a slight reduction to DHS component health.
---By balancing each of these independently, they can all be placed on a Clan Standard mech at will without putting any sort of artificial restrictions in place. Choosing a Standard engine, structure, and armor type over upgraded versions will no longer be a silly proposition for a Clan Standard mech, just as it isn't silly for IS mechs for other reasons.

What This Will Replace: By properly balancing clan tech to IS tech and omnimechs to standard mechs independently, the following arbitrary balances can disappear.
1. Most mech quirks. Obviously there will always be some imbalances within the clan and IS chassis ranks, some under-utilized variants and omnipods that make minor quirks a good balancing agent, but gone will be the practice of heavily quirking every IS mech just to compensate for imbalances in clan vs. IS tech.
2. Clan Omnimech arm actuator handicaps.
3. Clan Omnimech fixed equipment, JJs, and external heatsinks beyond the required 10.
4. The utter lack of weapon hardpoints on most Clan Omnimechs' omnipods, especially lights.

Edited by NeoAres, 04 July 2015 - 06:07 AM.

[Tombstoner]

NeoAres, on 04 July 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

Lots of well written stuff i don't agree with.

What you want to do is considered too much work by PGI. The minimally viable produce game developer. Doing things correctly doesn't fit in the budget.

You cant balance IS vs. clan via any method except for mech vs mech ratio. 2-1 or 4-3.

Buffing IS via quirks is a joke. a really bad cruel joke on all the people who paid for clan mechs....

If accuracy was actually a part of this game along with heat effects, the situation would be different.

[Sjorpha]

NeoAres, on 04 July 2015 - 05:43 AM, said:

[Last post above]

Good post, I agree with the general direction and I hope this kind of shift in design philosophy is on the way.

IMO single heatsinks and standard armour/structure should be balanced with double/endo/ferro as well. Nothing in the game should obselete anything else.

Any gameplay option in any game that makes another option redundant of obselete is simply bad game design and should be changed or removed, simple as that. It's a basic design principle and I wish PGI would just get around to embracing it along with other basic principles of good design and balance. This is an area where you should not be bogged down by leftovers from a past where game design was less evolved, we have learned a lot since then and it is stupid to not take advantage of that progress.

The fix to single heatsinks would be to simply always treat internal engine heatsinks as truedubs and make the single/double choice only apply to heatsinks that occupy crit slots, that way going for double heatsinks would have a real gameplay tradeoff and not be the no brainer it currently is. Access to single heat sinks could even be an asset of real metagame value to IS mech building, imagine that!

Standard armour and structure I think should simply be balanced by applying a significant crit chance increase to endo and ferro, and make that penalty more severe the better the upgrade is. So endo would have a higher crit penalty than ferro, and the clan versions could have a higher penalty than the IS versions to account for taking up less space.

Edited by Sjorpha, 06 July 2015 - 09:36 AM.

[Water Bear]

Sjorpha, on 06 July 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

Nothing in the game should obselete anything else.

I completely agree. In an ideal world, every playable mech should have something to offer (and every usable technology; Otherwise why include them except to force people to upgrade?)

What's funny about the world is the way clan mechs obselete inner sphere tech intentionally. In my opinion (and I feel this is pretty clear when you look at things and think for a bit) the Clans were introduced to tabletop play to be the 'bad guy of the week,' like the seasonal bad guys you see on tv shows ranging from Dexter to Dragon Ball Z. On Tabletop, a single player could control several mechs at once, so a fair match could be constructed where, say, a Clan bad guy took 2-3 mechs and an Inner Sphere opponent took maybe 5 or 6.

In MWO, where players and mechs are in one-to-one correspondence, you just can't have any one mech (or subset of mechs) be as astronomically and obviously better as Clan mechs are when compared to TT IS tech.

I will note that after the introduction of Battle Value on TT, Clan mechs have almost always had something like twice the BV of an equivalent IS mech.

The only reason I can see for game developers to include Clan mechs in this game without heavy adjustment (and nowadays we are adjusting things fairly heavily) is to make money a la F2P.

Anyway I agree it would be great if single heat sinks and ferro had more of a role to play, but we've got bigger dinosaurs to fry here.

Edited by Water Bear, 06 July 2015 - 09:51 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Regarding making Double sinks, Endo, Ferro and XL engines not just be an automatic upgrade that obsoletes what they replace, we actually HAD reasons to not upgrade in CB, Repair and Rearm costs. Running these things cost you heavily on repairs, typically running more than you'd make if lost multiple limbs and had DHS/ES/FF, and you would straight up LOSE money if your XL engine was destroyed, as replacing that would run you the price of the engine more often than not.

THAT factor is what keeps them from being automatically used in TT, costs of repairs, and it was a real factor in MWO in CB when we had those R&R costs, bad players literally lost money every drop if they used DHS/ES/FF/XLs.

The price was enough that people complained, whined, screamed and pitched enough fits that R&R was removed, and the much higher rewards we were getting were then dropped as they were no longer justified without R&R costs.

People scream and cry about things, demand they be changed, but they never think about the results of what they demanded...we are STILL dealing with the Paulconomy thanks to those whiners. We still have people who ask when R&R is coming back, as it really did make upgrading a Mech something you just did NOT automatically do, the R&R costs made you think about that, since a blown XL engine that wasn't repaired didn't work usually, so you couldn't take that Mech back into battle with it in. You still had it, it just didn't work until you paid to get it repaired, and ES/FF/DHS had to be repaired as well or the Mech wasn't usable.

R&R costs in MWO were, just as in TT, the factors that kept upgrades from being an automatic deal that obsoleted stock hardware.

[ozmodion]

Water Bear, on 06 July 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

I completely agree. In an ideal world, every playable mech should have something to offer (and every usable technology; Otherwise why include them except to force people to upgrade?)

What's funny about the world is the way clan mechs obselete inner sphere tech intentionally. In my opinion (and I feel this is pretty clear when you look at things and think for a bit) the Clans were introduced to tabletop play to be the 'bad guy of the week,' like the seasonal bad guys you see on tv shows ranging from Dexter to Dragon Ball Z. On Tabletop, a single player could control several mechs at once, so a fair match could be constructed where, say, a Clan bad guy took 2-3 mechs and an Inner Sphere opponent took maybe 5 or 6.

In MWO, where players and mechs are in one-to-one correspondence, you just can't have any one mech (or subset of mechs) be as astronomically and obviously better as Clan mechs are when compared to TT IS tech.

I will note that after the introduction of Battle Value on TT, Clan mechs have almost always had something like twice the BV of an equivalent IS mech.

The only reason I can see for game developers to include Clan mechs in this game without heavy adjustment (and nowadays we are adjusting things fairly heavily) is to make money a la F2P.

Anyway I agree it would be great if single heat sinks and ferro had more of a role to play, but we've got bigger dinosaurs to fry here.

agree too

[FupDup]

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

Regarding making Double sinks, Endo, Ferro and XL engines not just be an automatic upgrade that obsoletes what they replace, we actually HAD reasons to not upgrade in CB, Repair and Rearm costs. Running these things cost you heavily on repairs, typically running more than you'd make if lost multiple limbs and had DHS/ES/FF, and you would straight up LOSE money if your XL engine was destroyed, as replacing that would run you the price of the engine more often than not.

THAT factor is what keeps them from being automatically used in TT, costs of repairs, and it was a real factor in MWO in CB when we had those R&R costs, bad players literally lost money every drop if they used DHS/ES/FF/XLs.

The price was enough that people complained, whined, screamed and pitched enough fits that R&R was removed, and the much higher rewards we were getting were then dropped as they were no longer justified without R&R costs.

People scream and cry about things, demand they be changed, but they never think about the results of what they demanded...we are STILL dealing with the Paulconomy thanks to those whiners. We still have people who ask when R&R is coming back, as it really did make upgrading a Mech something you just did NOT automatically do, the R&R costs made you think about that, since a blown XL engine that wasn't repaired didn't work usually, so you couldn't take that Mech back into battle with it in. You still had it, it just didn't work until you paid to get it repaired, and ES/FF/DHS had to be repaired as well or the Mech wasn't usable.

R&R costs in MWO were, just as in TT, the factors that kept upgrades from being an automatic deal that obsoleted stock hardware.

What I see happening with that is new/poor players having to run 100% stock Vindicators while rich/veteran players farm the hell out of them with gold-plated Timberwolves.

Basically, you create a system of haves and have-nots, with the former feasting upon the latter.

Oh, and people would cry about laser vomit even more, because using any ammo-based weapons would now cost the user money while laser vomit builds are completely free.

[FupDup]

Oh, and also, people acting even more cowardly than they do now in order to avoid/reduce armor repair costs. And I thought that people cuddling in a corner was bad enough already...

[Johnny Z]

Sjorpha, on 06 July 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

Good post, I agree with the general direction and I hope this kind of shift in design philosophy is on the way.

IMO single heatsinks and standard armour/structure should be balanced with double/endo/ferro as well. Nothing in the game should obselete anything else.

Any gameplay option in any game that makes another option redundant of obselete is simply bad game design and should be changed or removed, simple as that. It's a basic design principle and I wish PGI would just get around to embracing it along with other basic principles of good design and balance. This is an area where you should not be bogged down by leftovers from a past where game design was less evolved, we have learned a lot since then and it is stupid to not take advantage of that progress.

The fix to single heatsinks would be to simply always treat internal engine heatsinks as truedubs and make the single/double choice only apply to heatsinks that occupy crit slots, that way going for double heatsinks would have a real gameplay tradeoff and not be the no brainer it currently is. Access to single heat sinks could even be an asset of real metagame value to IS mech building, imagine that!

Standard armour and structure I think should simply be balanced by applying a significant crit chance increase to endo and ferro, and make that penalty more severe the better the upgrade is. So endo would have a higher crit penalty than ferro, and the clan versions could have a higher penalty than the IS versions to account for taking up less space.

Totally agree. Many games rely on tiered items in game basically as a level grind mechanism, which is basically just cheap content.

Mechwarrior has literally 100's of mechs to choose from and very entertaining game play, and only geeting more so. Even if they are some complaints, it cannot be denied game play options are expanding although at a slow rate at the moment.

I read many complaints about other games content becoming obsolete after leveling up and many other associated complaints. If Mechwarrior is one day advertised as a game where every item in game is usefull and balanced from newbie to end game, then thats a huge bonus many will appreciate and is great game design. Also it makes the most of all content in game and is far sighted rather than short sighted and cheap.

Edited by Johnny Z, 06 July 2015 - 11:50 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Fup, that's why there are rules concerning non-participation, they were a direct result of the R&R and people trying to bypass the costs. We have people who do it NOW to avoid deaths, not realizing that the system doesn't care if YOU are connected or not when your Mech gets taken out, it still counts as a death on the KDR stat Been seeing that a lot lately btw, same players will usually go off on the team right before they shutdown and quit the match, makes me laugh, they didn't get any kills and got a DEATH!

And yes, there will always be people who try and abuse the system or grief others, regardless of what the system is. We had it when we had R&R, we had it after R&R was removed, and we still have it today, nothing that can be done about it but to punish the people who do it, hence the CoC covering these things.

R&R was effective at making you think about upgrades though, I often kept my Mechs without ES/FF/DHS simply because it was not cheap to fix those, although I never had any problems using ammo weapons, ammo costs aren't bad, unless you go nuts and take 2k+ rounds or such. ER lasers cost more to repair than non-ER lasers, so people didn't use as many ERs, Artemis upped the cost of repairing launchers AND ammo, PPCs were expensive, ERPPCs much more so, and Gauss, well, that was usually a big hit since those damn things always explode It made you think about what you put on a Mech, because everything has a cost AND everything had repair cost. Now, without R&R, people ONLY think about how much alpha they can put out, costs don't matter outside of the initial outlay, that's it, so get those DHS, put that ES and FF on here, grab that XL engine, run ERLs and Gauss, once you buy them, that's it, no more costs involved. With R&R, well, you can still do that, but the costs involved in upkeep now factor in, which makes the alpha only build not such a great idea.

Laservomit would actually be cut down, DHS are expensive to replace and you can't run laservomit without them now can you?

And the Clan costs..oh man, their hardware is more expensive across the line, and repair costs will eat them up since ALL OmniMechs have XL engines, plus you have the OmniPod repair costs to factor in there...

Yeah, R&R is a great tool to limit how people build their Mechs, it keeps the stock Tech from becoming obsolete, and it really does have a direct effect on the meta. Stock Mechs without DHS and ES/FF/XLs suddenly aren't so bad, R&R costs are pretty low for those, and they suddenly become more viable due to that reason.

[bad arcade kitty]

i dunno why you still bump this ridiculous thread

Edited by bad arcade kitty, 06 July 2015 - 12:00 PM.

[FupDup]

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Fup, that's why there are rules concerning non-participation, they were a direct result of the R&R and people trying to bypass the costs. We have people who do it NOW to avoid deaths, not realizing that the system doesn't care if YOU are connected or not when your Mech gets taken out, it still counts as a death on the KDR stat Been seeing that a lot lately btw, same players will usually go off on the team right before they shutdown and quit the match, makes me laugh, they didn't get any kills and got a DEATH!

We don't need to add any more fuel to the fire that's already burning strong...

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

R&R was effective at making you think about upgrades though...

The thought process looks like this:

Do I want to win the game? --> Use best tech
Do I want to farm money? --> Use crap tech

It discourages people from playing to win, and actually rewards people who don't play to win. That's toxic as crap and I don't want it anywhere near this game. Behaviors that increase the chances of winning are the ones that should get rewarded the most, not the other way around. I don't want anybody on my team to use "farming" builds, I want everyone to be bringing their A-game.

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

I often kept my Mechs without ES/FF/DHS simply because it was not cheap to fix those, although I never had any problems using ammo weapons, ammo costs aren't bad, unless you go nuts and take 2k+ rounds or such. ER lasers cost more to repair than non-ER lasers, so people didn't use as many ERs, Artemis upped the cost of repairing launchers AND ammo, PPCs were expensive, ERPPCs much more so, and Gauss, well, that was usually a big hit since those damn things always explode It made you think about what you put on a Mech, because everything has a cost AND everything had repair cost. Now, without R&R, people ONLY think about how much alpha they can put out, costs don't matter outside of the initial outlay, that's it, so get those DHS, put that ES and FF on here, grab that XL engine, run ERLs and Gauss, once you buy them, that's it, no more costs involved. With R&R, well, you can still do that, but the costs involved in upkeep now factor in, which makes the alpha only build not such a great idea.

As long as having a large alpha strike increasing your chances of winning, it will be the best build strategy. All you accomplish is making space poors have to use horribad trash builds while established vets alpha strike them to death with near impunity (how is that T1 tech mech going to kill a decked-out Clan heavy/assault? It's not).

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Laservomit would actually be cut down, DHS are expensive to replace and you can't run laservomit without them now can you?

Laser vomit don't have to pay for every shot they fire. Furthermore, the fact that lasers are so lightweight means you can actually skimp on certain tech items, like getting away with using a STD engine instead of XL while still packing a good payload at a good speed. In certain cases you can even go without Endo on a pure-laser build because you need so many critslots. They certainly won't be using Ferro.

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

And the Clan costs..oh man, their hardware is more expensive across the line, and repair costs will eat them up since ALL OmniMechs have XL engines, plus you have the OmniPod repair costs to factor in there...

Wasn't the entire purpose of Omnimechs to be easier to maintain/repair rather than harder?

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Yeah, R&R is a great tool to limit how people build their Mechs, it keeps the stock Tech from becoming obsolete, and it really does have a direct effect on the meta. Stock Mechs without DHS and ES/FF/XLs suddenly aren't so bad, R&R costs are pretty low for those, and they suddenly become more viable due to that reason.

RnR doesn't magically increase the competitive effectiveness of stock mechs. Their basic weaknesses are still all there, unchanged. Making them cost less space money doesn't help them compete in battle against min-maxed metamobiles.

Their armor is still paper thin. Their weapons loadout is still incredibly tiny. Their heatsinks are still woefully insufficient to cool their loadouts. Their ammo loads are still insufficient to last most of a match. Their engines are still well below their class's average. Making them cost less money doesn't suddenly make them competitive against min-maxed mechs.

My Hellbringer, for example, will absolutely shitstomp a stock Vindicator into the ground no matter how much you make that Hellbringer cost. No amount of costs in the world will change that outcome, and thus your premise of "affecting the meta" is bunk. You'll only see an effect at the lower/casual levels of play where people don't have enough money to run the best stuff.

At the peaks of mount tryhard, using the best toys will ALWAYS be the best way to win, regardless of how much or how little monopoly money they have to pay to get up there.

[Sjorpha]

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

Regarding making Double sinks, Endo, Ferro and XL engines not just be an automatic upgrade that obsoletes what they replace, we actually HAD reasons to not upgrade in CB, Repair and Rearm costs. Running these things cost you heavily on repairs, typically running more than you'd make if lost multiple limbs and had DHS/ES/FF, and you would straight up LOSE money if your XL engine was destroyed, as replacing that would run you the price of the engine more often than not.

THAT factor is what keeps them from being automatically used in TT, costs of repairs, and it was a real factor in MWO in CB when we had those R&R costs, bad players literally lost money every drop if they used DHS/ES/FF/XLs.

The price was enough that people complained, whined, screamed and pitched enough fits that R&R was removed, and the much higher rewards we were getting were then dropped as they were no longer justified without R&R costs.

People scream and cry about things, demand they be changed, but they never think about the results of what they demanded...we are STILL dealing with the Paulconomy thanks to those whiners. We still have people who ask when R&R is coming back, as it really did make upgrading a Mech something you just did NOT automatically do, the R&R costs made you think about that, since a blown XL engine that wasn't repaired didn't work usually, so you couldn't take that Mech back into battle with it in. You still had it, it just didn't work until you paid to get it repaired, and ES/FF/DHS had to be repaired as well or the Mech wasn't usable.

R&R costs in MWO were, just as in TT, the factors that kept upgrades from being an automatic deal that obsoleted stock hardware.

Yeah, but I don't like that alternative too much for several reasons.

It does give economic reasons to be a little conservative about upgrades, but it doesn't give you any balance for those in the actual match.

It does nothing for competitive and high level play where money no longer matters, and I care quite a lot about that.

It's even harsher on new players than now, because rich veterans could afford going full bling while new players can't. Buying yourself free of repair costs with real money to run the best load outs would be very much P2W as well.

Also, the current balance difference between single and double heatsinks is so large that your chance to win and survive a game is so much better with double HS, that you'd need ginormous repair costs to balance that if single heatsinks are to be worth dying and losing that much more.

It also creates problems with economic lockdown for new players who lose their last cbills to repair costs.

Actual in match balance is much more interesting IMO.

I want single heatsinks and standard structure to be viable in builds used for competitive play, nothing less.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Sjorpha, on 06 July 2015 - 12:16 PM, said:

Yeah, but I don't like that alternative too much for several reasons.

It does give economic reasons to be a little conservative about upgrades, but it doesn't give you any balance for those in the actual match.

It does nothing for competitive and high level play where money no longer matters, and I care quite a lot about that.

It's even harsher on new players than now, because rich veterans could afford going full bling while new players can't. Buying yourself free of repair costs with real money to run the best load outs would be very much P2W as well.

Also, the current balance difference between single and double heatsinks is so large that your chance to win and survive a game is so much better with double HS, that you'd need ginormous repair costs to balance that if single heatsinks are to be worth dying and losing that much more.

It also creates problems with economic lockdown for new players who lose their last cbills to repair costs.

Actual in match balance is much more interesting IMO.

I want single heatsinks and standard structure to be viable in builds used for competitive play, nothing less.

First off, there won't be a R&R system again, too many people like you are the reason it was removed and won't be added back.

You want to try and FORCE people to use lesser toys in top comp? Are you out of your mind or something? Start a Stock Only league, see just how diversified the Mechs being used are, go on, try it. Comp players ALWAYS take the best toys, limit their selection and they'll take the best of what they are given, that's how it works.

You want to make UPGRADES worse then the stock hardware, so that people will have a reason to use the stock, you DO realize that that is rather fubar right? It's not an upgrade if it's WORSE than what you had before, and if it's not WORSE, than why wouldn't you upgrade?

Another person who goes to McDonald's and demands a Whopper...some of you totally remove my fear for the future of humanity, it's already a done deal, no need to worry at all...

[Dimento Graven]

NeoAres, on 01 July 2015 - 03:42 PM, said:

[Lots of thought out ideas...]

Dude, seriously, the IS vs. Clan balance should only be approached for CW, and in that, should not begin until PGI limits IS vs. Clan matches to 12 IS vs 10 Clan, AND, eliminate the concept of 'mercenary' for Clan units.

Once that is done, THEN we can begin to see the what REALLY needs to be balanced and why.

The whole concept of the clans was GREATER TECHNOLOGY and FEWER NUMBERS, hence the batchal process where the units brought to battle were bid DOWNWARDS to what each side thought was the least amount necessary to accomplish their goal.

So when it came to the Clans invading the IS, the Clans' GREATER TECHNOLOGY and FEWER NUMBERS was counterbalanced by the IS's MUCH GREATER NUMBERS.

We have absolutely NOTHING like that right now, and honestly, "IF" we're going to maintain the "Clan Technology is ALWAYS BETTER, SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY than IS Technology" (including f'ing up the release of MASC on Clan 'mechs first, WHEN CLEARLY BT canon-wise, it was the IS that developed and released MASC first) then the game NEEDS to invoke the counter balance of "THE IS WILL ALWAYS HAVE GREATER NUMBERS".

Seriously, everything else being done is just a bastardization of the core game we all love.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 06 July 2015 - 12:35 PM.

[Sjorpha]

Kristov Kerensky, on 06 July 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

First off, there won't be a R&R system again, too many people like you are the reason it was removed and won't be added back.

You want to try and FORCE people to use lesser toys in top comp? Are you out of your mind or something? Start a Stock Only league, see just how diversified the Mechs being used are, go on, try it. Comp players ALWAYS take the best toys, limit their selection and they'll take the best of what they are given, that's how it works.

You want to make UPGRADES worse then the stock hardware, so that people will have a reason to use the stock, you DO realize that that is rather fubar right? It's not an upgrade if it's WORSE than what you had before, and if it's not WORSE, than why wouldn't you upgrade?

Another person who goes to McDonald's and demands a Whopper...some of you totally remove my fear for the future of humanity, it's already a done deal, no need to worry at all...

Please don't degrade a functioning dialogue with insults ("people like you", "are you out of your mind" etc.), it makes your opinion and relevant arguments harder to understand, so it's not in your interest.

As for your actual questions, the answer is yes.

I don't want the game to have upgrades in it, I think upgrades are bad game design in multiplayer games.

It works (kind of, it's still a very lazy and outdated approach to game design) to give a sense of progression in single player games, but in multiplayer games it just obseletes content that could be and acts as a grind barrier to playing the full game. It is even worse in games without tiers where the "upgraded" players get to stomp over newbies.

Therefore, instead of upgrades, a multiplayer game should have different options with matching pros and cons to make as many different strategies (mech builds) competitive as possible.

So yes, SHS would be an alternative to DHS just like standard engine is currently an alternative to XL, just like there are many builds best made with standard engine there should be many builds best done with single heatsinks.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Dimento Graven, MASC was in use before the Exodus, and the Clans kept development of it up and were using it all along, so PGI first adding it to the game on the Executioner is fine. There's not a lot of MASC equipped IS Mechs running around right now after all, it starts reappearing around 3047 or so, not many of the old SLDF Mechs with MASC still exist outside of ComStar's caches.

So PGI releasing it with Clan Omni's first, not a big deal, since the Hermes 3S is only a few years old and we don't have that yet ingame, and it's one of the few IS Mechs with MASC, it and the Flea 17, also out at the same time, late 3040s. Both of these Mechs were pretty much LosTech, the Hermes lost to attrition after the First Succession War and only coming back after the Helm Memory Core recovery, and the Flea only coming back after the Wolf's Dragoons re-introduced it to the IS, and then it wasn't found outside of their ranks until the exclusivity clause with Earthwerks ran out. MASC was LosTech until recently you know.

Sjorpha, trying to force people to use stock over upgrade by making the upgrade worse, and trying to force comp players to use lesser toys, if that's not crazy, I don't know what is.

This game is based on BTech, and upgrades and obsolete tech are part of that system. Costs are how the game keeps the obsolete systems in play, upgrades are expensive and repairing them are expensive. Remove the costs of R&R and there's little incentive to use the old systems, after all, the upgraded systems are better, and if you only have to pay to install them, well, there's goes any incentive to NOT use them all the time.

And I know a number of PvP only games that have upgrades and better equipment that gets unlocked as you play, like the BF series starting with BF2 and the CoD series, Planetside 2 springs to mind as well. Oddly enough, THOSE games all do quite well with their upgrade systems, so I would venture the guess that upgrade systems in PvP games aren't detrimental to them. And those games ALSO toss new players in with the vets without any warning, doesn't seem to stop people from loving those games, making them popular and making their developers and publishers a lot of money in the process.

You want a system where no one has better toys, everyone has the same toys, and that's not a BTech system, never has been. The MW titles have never been that way either, from the original MW to MW4, that's not how they worked, there were always better toys to be had and stock was usually not optimal, or even good in many cases.

In short, you want a totally different game. I would suggest Hawken or the Heavy Gear Assault, but they won't fit what you want either as both of them have upgrade systems in place, and everyone isn't in the same thing using the same toys, so those wouldn't fit your requirements either. Uhm..hmmm..even Quake and Unreal titles won't fit the bill, since they use different toys the players can get that vary in power, so..sorry, at a loss to think of any PvP game that fits what you want.