111 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Dak Darklighter, on 19 October 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

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

Actually, I'd say MW4 got one thing right on that that would have gone a long way to removing the boating MEtas.... Sized Hardpoints. The biggest mechlab blunder of MWO. Well that and making Endo equippable, instead of fixed.

Seriously, fixing the balance in MWO would be very simple with 3 items being addressed
1-Customization: Sized Hardpoints, Fixed Structure. Remove overlap, less instant obsolete chassis.
2- Meaningful Heatscale with pre shutdown consequences....just like the TT scale, but probably starting at 50% on the Bar.
3-Convergence. Number of options, but simply put instant convergence is bad for the game.

After that, tweaking the numbers for weapons becomes child's play.

[GrimRiver]

Hotthedd, on 19 October 2015 - 09:44 AM, said:

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.

The same reason way most tank games do it, lore wise a tiger tank owned the battle field and almost no tank could stand up to it and then the germans made the tiger2 which was a whole other story but balance wise this wouldn't fly at all in any game because it wouldn't be fair to be in a tank that straight up dominates the field.

[Yellonet]

What does the balance of past products have to do with opinions on the balance of this product?

[Bishop Steiner]

Yellonet, on 19 October 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

What does the balance of past products have to do with opinions on the balance of this product?

pretty simple.

There are inherent features to the entire Battletech/Mechwarrior game, mythos, lore, etc that make balance pretty dang impossible, and most of them can be summed up with 2 words: Clan Invasion.

Worst thing to ever happen to Battltech

So if no other version has ever been balanced, why do the rose coloredglassesnazis get so indignat when MWO isn't?

[Hotthedd]

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 10:07 AM, said:

The same reason way most tank games do it, lore wise a tiger tank owned the battle field and almost no tank could stand up to it and then the germans made the tiger2 which was a whole other story but balance wise this wouldn't fly at all in any game because it wouldn't be fair to be in a tank that straight up dominates the field.

But this is BATTLETECH lore we are talking about, not WWII history.

...and I might be rusty on my world history, but I think even with the Tiger, the Germans were defeated...

[Dakkss]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 October 2015 - 10:06 AM, said:

Actually, I'd say MW4 got one thing right on that that would have gone a long way to removing the boating MEtas.... Sized Hardpoints. The biggest mechlab blunder of MWO. Well that and making Endo equippable, instead of fixed.

In one way but not in another. Mechs with large ballistic slots could either fit 1 UAC20 or like 6 UAC5's if you'll remember that sort of thing.

What you suggested would work only as long as it was sized hardpoints with restricted numbers of weapons in them, instead of however many you can fit. Otherwise boat problems.

[Yellonet]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 October 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

So if no other version has ever been balanced, why do the rose coloredglassesnazis get so indignat when MWO isn't?

Because a multiplayer FPS with crappy balance is stupid?

I've no proof, but I think that most players don't really care about BT or the all mighty lore, they just want a good game.

Edited by Yellonet, 19 October 2015 - 10:23 AM.

[BARBAR0SSA]

MW2 was pretty good because weapons were slow and so was the visual distance, so a lot less sniping, and the slow travel speed and massive cooldown time of weapons.

LRM20s were on something like a 20s cooldown, PPCs slow travel time etc.

At least it felt more balanced, then again it had missions and ammo was precious because the fights went on.

10 v 12 is one of the worst ideas, all that does is make it easier to focus fire and unload....plus rewards are terrible as is, you want to now get less Cbills? Why not flip off newbies while we're at it....

[Void Angel]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 October 2015 - 10:06 AM, said:

Seriously, fixing the balance in MWO would be very simple with 3 items being addressed
1-Customization: Sized Hardpoints, Fixed Structure. Remove overlap, less instant obsolete chassis.
2- Meaningful Heatscale with pre shutdown consequences....just like the TT scale, but probably starting at 50% on the Bar.
3-Convergence. Number of options, but simply put instant convergence is bad for the game.

After that, tweaking the numbers for weapons becomes child's play.

...
So, what you're saying here is that: completely re-hashing nearly every non-light build in the game; adding entirely new software systems to implement table-top style heat penalties; and implementing some sort of non-instant convergence - which is not currently compatible with HSR - would be... very simple.

I know you want the game to do better and be more successful - but this kind of talk is what drove PGI's extremely... acrimonious relationship with certain fractions of its player base in the past. Think islands.

Edited by Void Angel, 19 October 2015 - 10:30 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Void Angel, on 19 October 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

...
So, what you're saying here is that: completely re-hashing nearly every non-light build in the game; adding entirely new software systems to implement table-top style heat penalties; and implementing some sort of non-instant convergence - which is not currently compatible with HSR - would be... very simple.

I know you want the game to do better and be more successful - but this kind of talk is what drove PGI's extremely... acrimonious relationship with certain fractions of its player base in the past. Think islands.

The PLAYERS would "re-hash" the builds, so no real effort on PGI's part. All PGI would have to do is program sizes onto each Chassis' hardpoint locations. Maybe not easy, but definitely simple.

Adding new CODE for heat penalties, not systems. The program already tracks heat, so again, simple.

There are several non instant convergence features ALREADY IN THE GAME that fit just fine with HSR. (Reticle shake and cone of fire). So once more...simple.

[Bishop Steiner]

Void Angel, on 19 October 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

...
So, what you're saying here is that: completely re-hashing nearly every non-light build in the game; adding entirely new software systems to implement table-top style heat penalties; and implementing some sort of non-instant convergence - which is not currently compatible with HSR - would be... very simple.

I know you want the game to do better and be more successful - but this kind of talk is what drove PGI's extremely... acrimonious relationship with certain fractions of its player base in the past. Think islands.

Actually no, that is not what I'm saying.

I'm saying those were choices they CHOSE NOT TO IMPLEMENT, DESPITE LOTS OF FEEDBACK IN CLOSED BETA, when it was still a very simple change to make, and it's bit them in their butts ever since.

NOW, as I have posted repeatedly, it is far too late for that kind of Sea Change, and we are stuck with what we have, and any "fixes" at this point are going to be minor iterative things, instead of the grand fixes people pine for.

This game is what it is, for better or worse, meaningful change WILL NOT HAPPEN, so play it for what it is, Call of Mechs with aiming for dummies, while we hammer away in TDM

Also, as for "not compatible with HSR"? That is true of the old delayed convergence. I said NOTHING about that, but that there were multiple other options, from various motion sways, forms of CoF, etc, to minimize the Point and Click for Idiots we currently employ.


I dedicate this to PGI's development philosophy

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 19 October 2015 - 11:05 AM.

[GrimRiver]

Hotthedd, on 19 October 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

But this is BATTLETECH lore we are talking about, not WWII history.

...and I might be rusty on my world history, but I think even with the Tiger, the Germans were defeated...

The germans lost because they made too many boneheaded decisions and and was fighting on too many fronts but when it came to tank battles they had no equal of that time.

Your right this is a BT based game so it isn't really fair to compare the two but I was giving an idea on what would happen if they had all lore based items while trying to balance it at the same time, it would cause even more unbalance.

They would have to rewrite the whole game just to fit it in and it'll take even more time just to get it balanced just right so players don't burn it at the pike.

And also this a F2P game, I think they don't care enough to add anything like that except for doing tweaks on the current system and adding new mechs, new/updated maps.

[Bishop Steiner]

Yellonet, on 19 October 2015 - 10:22 AM, said:

Because a multiplayer FPS with crappy balance is stupid?

I've no proof, but I think that most players don't really care about BT or the all mighty lore, they just want a good game.

And in truth? As far as I'm concerned those people should be playing Titanfall or some other generic FPS instead of insisting on ruining an IP so it fits their generic vanilla preconception of a FPS, like the 10,000 other generic FPS games out there they could be playing instead.


Honestly, if you are playing an IP game and don't care about the IP; you are playing the wrong game as far as I am concerned. And like most, as soon as the next shiny comes along, you'll jump to that anyhow. Niche IPs should cater to the fans of said IP BECAUSE THAT IS HOW YOU KEEP YOUR WHALES FROM MIGRATING.

They're never going to get the casual player retentions of the big games anyhow. Chasing that is just a pipedream.

[Hotthedd]

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 10:55 AM, said:

The germans lost because they made too many boneheaded decisions and and was fighting on too many fronts but when it came to tank battles they had no equal of that time.

Not to argue WWII history with you, but the Allies won a whole lot of tank battles. Air superiority of the battlefield was the real key.

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 10:55 AM, said:

Your right this is a BT based game so it isn't really fair to compare the two but I was giving an idea on what would happen if they had all lore based items while trying to balance it at the same time, it would cause even more unbalance.

The thing is, lore does not dictate burst-fire, hitscan, splash, etc. Furthermore, it only has heat and damage values based on 10 seconds, PGI is completely free to play with a wide range of numbers and hit dynamics within that frame...and STILL be canon.

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 10:55 AM, said:

They would have to rewrite the whole game just to fit it in and it'll take even more time just to get it balanced just right so players don't burn it at the pike.

True, but they currently have a minimum viable product, AND players are burning it at the pike. Might as well aim high.

GrimRiver, on 19 October 2015 - 10:55 AM, said:

And also this a F2P game, I think they don't care enough to add anything like that except for doing tweaks on the current system and adding new mechs, new/updated maps.

Sad but true.

But it COULD be done.

[MeiSooHaityu]

None of the MechWarrior games were that balanced.

Basically the A.I. doesn't care if you install 3 gauss rifles and 2 LLasers and use it against them. Computer players tend not to complain about unfair load outs.



It's more complicated than that, there was multiplayer support in those games too (except maybe the first MechWarrior).

Still, overall when you play a single player orientated product, the player doesn't care too much if they boat high powered weapons and obviously the A.I. doesn't care because...A.I.

[Lugh]

Lily from animove, on 10 September 2015 - 06:57 AM, said:

actually MWO is more balanced than the other games ever have been. The old mechwarrior games were simply, heavier is better cuz more boom boom. They were progressive games in their PVE gamestyle and PVP never had any balance since they were never focused on this. However I feel that heatbalance was better in older games allowing you not to dish out ridculous alphas as MWO does.

Because they had at least part of the heatscale in with consequences. And they were not afraid of heat neutral mechs.

[Lugh]

Hotthedd, on 19 October 2015 - 11:03 AM, said:

Not to argue WWII history with you, but the Allies won a whole lot of tank battles. Air superiority of the battlefield was the real key.

The allies won a lot of tank battles True. But the tank losses on both fronts were ~4-1 versus German equipment of the day regardless of the era.

The only time the numbers looked good for the allies were in 1945 when all the german tanks that were captured in the surrender were added in to the totals to inflate Russian egos.

Which is BS, because up to that point the Germans were still killing American and Russian tanks at a 4-1 clip...


As for this game and what PGI COULD do, their first step in the right direction is to hire a man that is good at MATH.

Then do the math for the scales of 5 damage over 10 seconds. Then because that works out to be .2 damage a second and fractions make Gamerkiddies heads explode decide what big number range you wish to apply to that to make it OMG LOOK AT HOW MUCH DAMAGE I DID LOL?!?!

Do the same math to figure out What the armor values need to be so that the TTK is the same.

Then apply that same scale to the armor.

So lets say they decide the numbers need to be 1000x TT values for the 10 second turn...

That would be 200 damage for the ML at 5 damage with 40 damage applied per second that the laser is on target.

[Water Bear]

Scout Derek, on 10 September 2015 - 06:47 AM, said:

I've been hearing talk that the game is really unbalanced, and talk has come down to arguments about what it should be and what should not.

So I've taken it upon myself to ask you:

If Mechwarrior: Online is not balanced, then which previous Mechwarrior title was?

It's hard not to use other game titles such as this, and even similar ones (such as Hawken), but none are really ever like the Mechwarrior franchise, not similar in game mechanics, and not similar in weaponry.

But back to the question again, which Mechwarrior title was balanced if Mechwarrior Online isn't?

I don't know how long you've been a fan of the franchise, but tabletop battlech Clan vs Inner Sphere was dramatically unbalanced. It would be my opinion, and that of at least a few others, that any 1 on 1 match between an inner sphere and clan mech of equal weight has been grossly unbalanced since the early '90's or late '80's.

Probably mechwarrior 2 was the most balanced mechwarrior game I played since the only mechs in that game were clan mechs. But then again it wasn't pvp.

Edit: Ah yes, I remember now. The most balanced MW / BT game I've played which was PVP oriented was the pod simulators. Again, because they only included Clan mechs (IIRC anyway. I only ever played in them once).

Edited by Water Bear, 19 October 2015 - 11:32 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Water Bear, on 19 October 2015 - 11:31 AM, said:

I don't know how long you've been a fan of the franchise, but tabletop battlech Clan vs Inner Sphere was dramatically unbalanced. It would be my opinion, and that of at least a few others, that any 1 on 1 match between an inner sphere and clan mech of equal weight has been grossly unbalanced since the early '90's or late '80's.

Probably mechwarrior 2 was the most balanced mechwarrior game I played since the only mechs in that game were clan mechs. But then again it wasn't pvp.

Edit: Ah yes, I remember now. The most balanced MW / BT game I've played which was PVP oriented was the pod simulators. Again, because they only included Clan mechs (IIRC anyway. I only ever played in them once).

mmmmmmmmmmmm... TESLA Pods. Largely responsible for my love of Summoners.

Despite my general disdain for what Clan Invasion did for to the game as a whole.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 19 October 2015 - 11:45 AM.

[LordMelvin]

MWLL felt relatively balanced, although everyone started on the same level at the start of a match and from there player skill dictated who would be piloting Atlases and who would be crying in the brig.

LRMs, for one, needed LOS unless you had an active TAG or NARC on the target. Missiles would auto lock on the nearest TAG or NARC to the end of their trajectory.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the devs of that mod also balanced the lasers to act like their lore counter parts (balanced to do full lore damage over 10 seconds instead of per shot).