111 replies to this topic

[cSand]

Tastian, on 10 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

In my personal experience, previous mechwarrior games had tonnage creep. The greater the tonnage, the greater the fire power, the greater the mech.

Yea, I remember MW2 Mercs (my fav one btw) started with a Commando and worked your way "up"

Edited by cSand, 10 September 2015 - 08:20 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

cSand, on 10 September 2015 - 08:20 AM, said:

Yea, I remember MW2 Mercs (my fav one btw) started with a Commando and worked your way "up"

Nah. The best players were quite comfortable in Hellbringers and Summoners. The top Inner Sphere mech was the Flashman and the Hatamoto-Chi (it had nasty hitboxes).

Yeah, the Executioner was a beast... but the best pilots whittled down the tonnage instead of upping it.

[General Taskeen]

Most balanced would make any previous MechWarrior game with player-hosted server functionality. I think this is the case as they were balanced in the sense that it was governed by the players themselves; either agreed upon before hand or not. A server could choose what to include for the game mode, whether 3PV was enforced or not, how many lives (if any), time limits, score limits, what a player was allowed to customize their Mech with, what Mechs were allowed in the first place, etc. The NBT League provided even more balance with their own Mod, a huge stock mech mod, teams assigning people what Mechs they get, how many there were available of specific types, etc.

Right now MWO is a merri-go-round nightmare as it seems a lot of precious development time is wasted on trying to balance MW inside a Server-Authoritative Matchmaker with Open-Customization (no other choice but to conform to it since there is no Limited or Custom-Type restriction options on Open-Custom), which I don't believe will ever be balanced in the way previous games were better in that regard (player-governed). And being that MW is Niche (but also vast), I believe a matchmaker is an inferior balancing mechanism compared to actual lobbies or player-hosted servers.

[KraftySOT]

General Taskeen, on 10 September 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

Most balanced would make any previous MechWarrior game with player-hosted server functionality. I think this is the case as they were balanced in the sense that it was governed by the players themselves; either agreed upon before hand or not. A server could choose what to include for the game mode, whether 3PV was enforced or not, how many lives (if any), time limits, score limits, what a player was allowed to customize their Mech with, what Mechs were allowed in the first place, etc. The NBT League provided even more balance with their own Mod, a huge stock mech mod, teams assigning people what Mechs they get, how many there were available of specific types, etc.

Right now MWO is a merri-go-round nightmare as it seems a lot of precious development time is wasted on trying to balance MW inside a Server-Authoritative Matchmaker with Open-Customization (no other choice but to conform to it since there is no Limited or Custom-Type restriction options on Open-Custom), which I don't believe will ever be balanced in the way previous games were better in that regard (player-governed). And being that MW is Niche (but also vast), I believe a matchmaker is an inferior balancing mechanism compared to actual lobbies or player-hosted servers.

So much this.

[Green Mamba]

They had Single Player Campaigns that makes up for a lot. For $30 you got a storyline, Instant action,bunch of customized Mechs from the beginning (not in the campaign of course,those were gained through progression) Multiplayer and right off the Shelf with 30 to 45 or so maps instantly when an expansion came it added a new storyline,mechs and maps ..could enjoy for years... that is a whole lotta' value right there and made up for some of the down falls of balance

[Khobai]

The other mechwarrior games were mostly singleplayer with multiplayer added as an afterthought.

So players were willing to forgive the flaws of multiplayer because it wasnt the real focus of the game.

MWO doesnt have that luxury though since its multiplayer only. Theres no forgiveness for its multiplayer being flawed.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FupDup, on 10 September 2015 - 06:52 AM, said:

Yeah, it's a good point that "tonnage creep" isn't nearly as bad in MWO as the previous games. It still exists of course (especially in the light and medium classes), but it's more manageable here.

It is actually worse here than in the MW4 days, if you played with the same restrictions (Forced First Person, Heat on, Ammo limited), mediums and heavies were actually better than most assaults. There is a reason Mektek allowed 100 tonners to mount more armor to compensate for simply being outdone. The one possible exception is the MP3 100 tonners like the Behemoth or Marauder II.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 September 2015 - 09:43 AM.

[CtrlAltWheee]

Gameplay-wise I think mwo is the most fun.

Every class feels good.

My only gripe would be slow it all down a hair. Even if only for an event weekend "Slow Weekend" of remove speed tweak and slow all torso twisting by some %. Once we slow it down I imagine that introduces new balance issues and so on, but I'd like to play it and see.

[Leggin Ho]

MW4 was balanced by the setting that the leagues set up, they restricted tonnage, chassis #, pure tech vs mixed tech, heat vs NHUA. MWO is attempting to balance all this with quirks which will work some times, but when you have two teams of even skill then the tech (team with better quirks) is going to always be the deciding factor and frankly that's lame to continue to try to balance skill out of the game with quirks.

I ran several of the ladders and PL in MWL and we ran for several years with drops going every day of the week so it worked pretty well till all support for MW4 went away.

[Dakkss]

It's been a while since I played MW2 but having recently gone through MW3 and MW4, I'd say MW3 was more balanced (mostly because of the mobile mech repair bays)

But MWO is surely the most balanced of them all. The actual problem is that MWO doesn't have half as many features that were in MechWarrior games over a decade ago.

In older titles:
- Firing heavier weapons such as PPC's, Gauss Rifles or AC20's would cause significant recoil.
- Getting hit with said weapons would also cause significant jerking to your mech.
- Firing too many heavy weapons could knock your mech over and you'd have to waste time getting back up.
- Getting hit with too many heavy weapons would knock your mech over and you'd have to get up.
- Colliding with other mechs would cause one or both of the mechs to fall over and have to get up.
- Your weapons would bounce with the mech's movement causing inaccuracy.
- Mechs could Stackpole (reactor go critical) causing damage to anything around it forcing players to spread out instead of deathball.
- Walking on uneven terrain had a chance of causing your mech to lose balance and fall over if the slope was severe enough.
- Weapons did not converge 45 degrees perpendicular to the gun barrel like we see in MWO.
- Mechs had camera mounted onto the rear torso to check behind oneself. They also had searchlights.
- High heat would cause inaccuracy, slower movement and HUD to fizzle up and rarely, ammo to explode
- There were maps totally underwater or under other environments that would totally change playstyles.
- There were a larger assortment of weapons including RAC, HAG, Rocket Launchers, Inferno ammo, Long Tom, Thunderbolt Missiles and MRM's.
- MASC was available for a lot more chassis as well as Targeting Computers and so forth.
- Solaris VII
- Rudimentary quick-command to lancemates ("Help me / focus this target / retreat")

The only thing MW4 got wrong was it's Mechlab/Critical Slots system. MWO's Hardpoints fixes that.

And this is just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more I've missed. These were all things that made MechWarrior great and simulator-esque, where every battle was a long, gruelling test of skill between pilots, unlike MWO where you can peek around a corner and get killed in 2 seconds from someone boating 6 MedPulse because of pinpoint accuracy.

MWO is hardly a MechWarrior game besides it's setting. It is inferior in it's gameplay which is obvious when you realise it's missing things that programmers could manage with computers from over 10 years ago.

Edited by Dak Darklighter, 19 October 2015 - 08:53 AM.

[SaltBeef]

Night Thastus, on 10 September 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was EXCELLENT!

It did have what some other's mentioned, that lighter 'Mechs were really not worth it, but it was tons of fun. LRM's were useful in combat, SRM's caused enemy 'Mechs to overheat, and lasers were pretty decent. I felt it was pretty balanced.

I can still play MW4 mercs on my older system and MW3 a bit but it bugs out quite a bit. Mechcommander Gold and the lesser Mechcommander 2 I can still play on my computers. I can still play Enemy Nations on them from 1995. Supreme Commander is another fun one also Star wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption.

Edited by SaltBeef, 19 October 2015 - 09:10 AM.

[topgun505]

Which ones were? Um. None.

MWO does do better than most in that lasers aren't instant damage. But it still falls prey to a number of traps all the other MW titles fell victim to.

[cSand]

Tastian, on 10 September 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:

In my personal experience, previous mechwarrior games had tonnage creep. The greater the tonnage, the greater the fire power, the greater the mech.

in fact I always thought of it that way until MWO where we need all chassis to have some kind of use

Edited by cSand, 19 October 2015 - 09:18 AM.

[Nightmare1]

It's really impossible to balance MechWarrior simply due to the incredible diversity of Mechs, Weapons, and Equipment. The best that anyone can hope for is to make things manageable so that pilots who like running sub-par Mechs and/or weaponry and equipment aren't at too great a disadvantage.

Personally speaking, I thought MW4 was a lot of fun to play, although it had a lot of weapon systems that weren't well balanced with the rest.

[GrimRiver]

Reason why MW games aren't balanced is because of the focus on balance and lore at the same time, of course this can work on a TT game but for a 1st/3rd person sim game...not so much.

It's like the jack of all trades(The master of none) saying, You either give up lore for balance but then you got lore nuts losing their minds or you give up balance for lore and then the game is unplayable. So they have no choice but to stick to the middle road, it has most of the pros with some of the cons.

[ChapeL]

Night Thastus, on 10 September 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was EXCELLENT!

It did have what some other's mentioned, that lighter 'Mechs were really not worth it, but it was tons of fun. LRM's were useful in combat, SRM's caused enemy 'Mechs to overheat, and lasers were pretty decent. I felt it was pretty balanced.

I played in NBT during the MW4:Mercs era. No one used SRMs, your Clan mech had 100 LRMs or none ( let's not even mention IS LRMs) You used only IS Light Gauss, Clan Gauss or Clan ErLL. None of the single slot weapons were worth mounting, thus making lighter chassis that couldn't easily fit them (two slotters and up ) crippled. ( Like the Hellspawn and Chimera )

No one used MRMs or IS LRM like I said so that eventually gave way to the twin ballistic arm Thanatos and Argus once Mektek was able to mod the game. As you can see, I don't have rose tinted goggles when looking back on MW4 but I did stop playing before MekTek made more sweeping changes so maybe by the end it didn't turn out so bad.

Edited by ChapeL, 19 October 2015 - 09:34 AM.

[Hotthedd]

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 09:32 AM, said:

Reason why MW games aren't balanced is because of the focus on balance and lore at the same time, of course this can work on a TT game but for a 1st/3rd person sim game...not so much.

It's like the jack of all trades(The master of none) saying, You either give up lore for balance but then you got lore nuts losing their minds or you give up balance for lore and then the game is unplayable. So they have no choice but to stick to the middle road, it has most of the pros with some of the cons.

I see this mentality all of the time, but nobody ever makes an argument for WHY lore has to be sacrificed for balance. I guess if people repeat it often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.

There is no need to make an either/or choice. MW:O can be balanced AND follow canon. It would require taking some of the mechanics back to the beginning where they chose to deviate from BattleTech (pinpoint group fire, heat penalties, etc.), but it COULD be done.

[SaltBeef]

I admit it , I was an Evil 6 ER LL timberwolf sniper in MW4 multiplayer and it was extremely effective it got the Nerfhammer by Microsoft Shortly after, I only played it like that a few Games Honest. My MadCatMrk II with LBX, Streaks, and med Laser was a Close range Crusher kinda like the Warhawk duels LBX 20 2 srm 6 is in this game. I loved how if you smacked a Mech hard enough with an alpha you could knock it on its arse.

Edited by SaltBeef, 19 October 2015 - 09:50 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 10 September 2015 - 06:52 AM, said:

Yeah, it's a good point that "tonnage creep" isn't nearly as bad in MWO as the previous games. It still exists of course (especially in the light and medium classes), but it's more manageable here.

yeah, though I do recall Russ's Launch Event speech, where he envisioned Class level tonnage creep as the plan and acceptable.... you'll always want to move up from your Victor to an Atlas, type of thing. Glad that hasn't entirely happened, as even with the "grind" people would simply be driving 35, 55, 75 and 100 tonners in short order and there would be ZERO point in any of the rest existing, except maybe as trial mechs to get started.

[Bishop Steiner]

KraftySOT, on 10 September 2015 - 07:34 AM, said:

Ack, some misconceptions here.

MW2 was pretty well balanced, but it had some issues. Firstly, the netcode/netmech. If you played on a LAN, welcome to a balanced fun, albeit tacked on multiplayer mode. If you played on Netmech, welcome to a Jenner IICs with 9 small lasers you couldnt hit unless you led into 'dead air' in front of the mech. LRMs didnt work at all.

MW2 Mercs got better. There were some actual maps made for MP.

Game was very well balanced on LAN. Had the same netcode issues.


MW3 decided its MP would be more of a focal point, and Microsoft Gaming Zone, was 'sorta' integrated. If you had a good connection, it was fairly well balanced, but had some issues. The Shadowcat and Annihilator were the two best mechs. The Shadowcat was fast which had Hitreg issues (this has been a theme in all MW games) and could mount a crap ton of small lasers. The annihilator could carry bunch of LBx which had higher knockdown, caused alot of shake for the enemy, and had a high ROF.


It was pretty well balanced, but as always a meta arose. However there were plenty of leagues that created balanced leagues and matches. It was soon abandoned and no new patches and the expansion adding power creep hurt the balance ultimately.

MW4 was specifically designed for MP and was the most balanced out of the bunch.

There were still 'no go' mechs (DOA here) because of the hardpoint system that was introduced and the way clan and IS worked. However you could mix and match so your IS gundams could be just as good as the clan gundams with clan weapons.

After two pretty hefty patches and an expansion, MW4 stands as the most balanced and competitive MW experience you can have without mods.




If you had a bad connection, lightmechs were still really good in MW4.

So long as you can outrun your "shadow", it makes it difficult for people to hit you. Packetloss was your best friend and worst enemy in MW4.

sorry but "stock" MW3 and 4 were far from balanced, and even the later iteration MekTek MW4 was so poptart meta oriented it was stupid. Years of that was what largely precipitated the rise of poptarting in MWO, because that's what scores of players were waiting for..and as soon as the Highlander arrived..... stationary jumping toaster pastries, everywhere.

And when a small laser Scat is a top contender...there are balance issues.

Leagues mitigated it some...and made it worse in others, almost all leagues ended up riding the poptart meta full tilt.

Mister Blastman, on 10 September 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

Nah. The best players were quite comfortable in Hellbringers and Summoners. The top Inner Sphere mech was the Flashman and the Hatamoto-Chi (it had nasty hitboxes).

Yeah, the Executioner was a beast... but the best pilots whittled down the tonnage instead of upping it.

I played all the way up to the crashed Dropship with the Flashman mission using a 2xLRM5 Assassin. It was so easy to just backpedal, and LRMs had a nasty habit of critting out cockpits in MW2. Having to go into the dropship hull was part of what made that ineffective against the Flashman.

Thing is, the tonnage creep was more noticeable in PvE than PvP.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 19 October 2015 - 10:00 AM.