772 replies to this topic

[GX9900 Gundam X]

MoonShaman, on 01 April 2018 - 06:23 AM, said:

complaining

I feel like a lot of "PGI balance pls" whining these days is just people trying to get playstyles they don't like nerfed and playstyles they do like buffed. I mean, I thought lasers were overpowered? Why are we now saying cannons are powered?
What's next? PPCs?
For christ's sake I just saw some moaner elsewhere on the forum complaining about machineguns being OP. If all of these things are OP, then are they really OP? There's no way for any of the people making these claims to actually qualify what they are saying at this point, it's just people wanting to limit the options that other people have access to because they don't like X attribute of the game. And what the quoted poster said about dying in a few hits... if its happening so often I'd say that it's the natural result of just good ol' fashion focus fire. I recently tried to get a friend into this game around the Civil War update and his biggest complaint was the time to kill in this game was too long for him. Obviously getting shredded in "2-3 hits" isn't really a problem if it's happening so infrequently (and trust me, I've experienced it too).

Hell I used to run a Jenner IIC with 4 SRM 4s and 2 SRM 6s just so I could one-shot people in the back, but do you know how freaking hard it was to get the perfect backstab? I had a collection of videos of me doing it but since I lost the flash drive they were on I don't think I have the heart to try and make another collection. But it wasn't easy, and it still isn't. EVEN with Heavy Gauss. EVEN with Heavy lasers.

Quote

I've been saying this in game for ages. Devs- do something about- armour ups, or weapons nerfs- SOMETHING, please

Heckin' stop my dude. Just stop. The biggest issues with this game are because of playstyles being nerfed, then some other playstyle becomes preferred and that gets nerfed too. Stop asking them to do "SOMETHING, ANYTHING! ". I'm going to be asking that instead of doing "something" they do the right thing, and the right thing is not going overboard with the freaking nerfs, and to not cave to people who just want one thing that they find annoying to be nerfed by calling it "OP".

[Darko Nagasawa]

GX9900 Gundam X, on 03 April 2018 - 12:40 AM, said:

Heckin' stop my dude. Just stop. The biggest issues with this game are because of playstyles being nerfed, then some other playstyle becomes preferred and that gets nerfed too. Stop asking them to do "SOMETHING, ANYTHING! ".

I do agree that there's too much balance whining on these forums. This is a problem in itself, because it means when you do spot a balance issue, noone takes you seriously.

Not sure if you play FP and on which side, but guessing from your post you don't or have fun on IS side. I do think mechs on each side of the IS (i.e. Clan or IS) are balanced well against each other (kudos to PGI, after 6 years), but between sides they aren't. PGI never solved this. And in combination with coordination and play styles the issue is just exacerbated. Let me explain:

The issue is regarding IS vs. Clan in FP (in QP you don't feel it because there's a mix of mechs and the matches end so quickly). Roughly half the games I drop in are complete pugs and half I drop with a larger group. Also about half are called, half not. Very roughly. Unfortunately 'called' and 'groups' correlate, so the half which are uncalled and pug games are the most problematic ones. In a non-called pug game nobody wants to die first, so there are usually no real pushes. They devolve into a peeking game. Unfortunately this situation favors the IS side with their short burn long range quirk laser vomits, which then even have enough time to cool down!

On top of that you have games where a well called group game is pitted against a well called group of laser vomits (smart players will take even more laser vomits and will have mastered using them), so even this rarely ends well for the Clanners. I don't know why there is so little pushing into the enemy to get them to shut down (which I think would be a viable strategy), but that's just the way it is. Maybe it's a fear of dying natural to humans. Maybe it's that a perfectly timed push is even hard for a 12 man to pull off and they lose 1-2 mechs in the first 3 seconds. Anyway, that's over half of all games which are problematic.

So this went on for as long as extreme laser vomit quirks existed - maybe 2-3 years? Clan players have noticed. Units got smaller and smaller over time due to a changing player base and PGIs restriction, so for many the only option was to drop in FP as a pug. With the results outlined above. Clan pilots started not liking FP anymore. Some don't play it, some simply have switched to IS. And because there has been a situation at some point in the past where a few good Clan units were crushing many bad IS units/pugs, tonnage got taken away - another nerf to the Clans. And now the ANH got introduced (12 ANH waves ftw), with the Fafnir just around the corner.

If your experience has been different, feel free to share. But I believe this issue exists and has developed roughly the way I described. It's certainly not overpowered MGs.

Edited by Darko, 08 April 2018 - 04:46 PM.

[TheMightySpin]

End of the day, Teamwork is OPed.

Regardless of which side they're on in FP, the most co-ordinated teams are the ones who win. Most units just get together, jump in whatever mechs, hope for the best and then complain when they get wrecked by a team that's running complimentary builds, focusing fire and following calls.

If you want to win in this game it can't be done consistently by 12 lone wolfs doing their own thing, no matter how good they are as individuals. More units need to start running group lobbies for training and getting build list together for what they expect their members to drop with. The units that do this are the ones who always stomp the yard and get all the "balancers" going haywire.

Short and sweet, put in the time and effort with your team and you won't need PGI diddling around with the game mechanics every 3 months. "Universal Balance" is a fallacy, particularly in a game like this one. There will always be people min/maxing their way to victory. You want to fix it? Either train or complain. Or as I like to say: wish in one hand and crap in the other, see which one fills up first.

[MauttyKoray]

From someone who has advocated for a long time that a Tabletop to Mechwarrior game cannot be directly translated in a 1-1 manner... THANK YOU for beginning to step back and treat this as a video game first and foremost and begin balancing it as such while trying to preserve the spirit of Battletech, not the exact table top rules.

There have been some other examples prior to this, but the most recent patch notes is a MASSIVE step towards the difference between a player controlled first person videogame being able to manually aim anywhere they want and a game/percentage controlled odds of hitting a location on a mech.

I'm hoping that the MWO team can continue to look at the game in this perspective of its balance and make more decisions based on the difference in mechanics that this first person shooter has compared to the Tabletop and even HBS' new turn based game which can more closely translate TT rules because of its design as a system controlled percentage system and not player controlled aiming.

Below is probably one of my favorite parts of the new patch notes, taking into account that the shapes of mechs are not equal and armoring something like a humanoid arm would not reflect the same armoring of something like a Jenner or Cicada's small weapon pod arms, or even in comparison to the latter two being balanced to something like the Sun Spider/Stalker with massive weapons pods.

Quote

Structure / Max Armor Redistribution Design Notes:
All 'Mechwarrior games have attempted to honor as many of the core mechanics found in the very descriptive Battletech Universe as possible. But sometimes these mechanics do not translate well into the First Person Simulation setting. Among those mechanics are the core structure/armor distribution rules and how that relates to the 'Mech art. In Battletech, there is never a distinction between individual body locations and the art that represents them. Within those game environments, the chance to hit an arm location is always equal, regardless of how the art depicts the 'Mechs. And as such you are just as likely to hit the arms on a Jenner as you are the arms of a Mandrill. This is something that simply does not translate one-to-one into a 3D Shooter environment. As such, many 'Mechs depicted in the Battletech universe as having very short and stubby arms often, as a result, see overall larger torso geometry, as well as having hit locations with a pool of health much greater then they need to before they often find their torso's being destroyed within the context of MechWarrior Online. So while a Jenner in the Table Top game may see 28% of hits go to arm locations, while 47% go to torsos, In our game, this could be skewed as only 20% of hits go to the arms, and 55% of hits go to the torsos when accounting for the physical shots against the 'Mech model's art.
We want to see an improvement to this to assist those 'Mechs that often do see their art come with very stubby appendages that often leads to more prominent torso locations while staying true to the overall structure and armor distributions depicted within the Battletech Lore. In the 'Mechs above, we are shifting a number of their base arm structure points from the arms and into torso locations and with it, their total available "Max armor." For this initial roll-out, we are only going to alter five 'Mechs across all weight classes that have seen smaller arms result in larger torso locations. Each of them has had their structure and armor re-distributed in a way that best compliments the needs of the physical 'Mech geometry while maintaining the same overall health pool. We will be monitoring this change closely and will consider other 'Mechs getting a similar treatment to them in a future patch depending on the impact of this change on the targeted chassis'.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 12 May 2018 - 01:16 PM.

[Grus]

But... but... my bandwidth...

[The Schwartz]

Can't really speak in comp play but i do QP alot sometimes even play seriously (not often) but,I can honestly say i don't have any standouts as "OP" when i'm getting shot at. Yes some things are annoying (and should be annoying like commandos, good job). Some dislike heavy lasers alot due to what you can sandwich them into (76 pinpoint light mech). The part they forget is how squishy that mech is, it falls to pieces if the wind blows wrong (same with the piranha, if you shoot it, it will die, horribly). Solutions that come to mind may not work but more like brainstorming the gist of the idea.
Tier mechs to tier pilots. 7 mech tiers 7 pilot tiers, we got solaris so the basis is there for it. Harder to do for quickplay for sure having the ideal of 3 lights 3 mediums 3 heavies and 3 assualts. But could unlock mech types as the pilot tiers increase.
The rage you tend to get anymore is because you have so many in one tier either not understanding the game or want to play it in a non-team fashion. I tend to play for fun so i run alot of "tier 4-7" mechs in QP as i just plainly find them more enjoyable. Tier 1-2 mechs are great but painfully repetitive in my personal opinion. The weapons loadouts are pretty much the same and it comes down to which has the best hardpoints and hitboxes. That's all good though in honesty. Those "same" loadouts are quite varied compared to other FPS style games and there's no 1 right weapon that stands out to me which is fantastic. I'm just thinking if there's a QP version of tiered mechs the whole "THIS IS OP" when it's a tier one pilot smashing on tier 5's in something they'd never use in lets say faction play might subside a bit. Not to many tier one pilots go "OH NO MACHINE GUNS" they go "Keep an eye out for.... and shoot at it if it gets close." Mostly everything is deadly in the right hands.

Another idea is a build helper for newer players. Something that can be onscreen in the mechbay rather than forums that can maybe reccomend things or rate things based on syncronisty, or reccomend a playstyle for the type of weapons. Possibly rate "difficulty to use". You see streakboats without BAP at times or a tag, maybe a "helpful tip" to add one or list as a caution "ineffective vs ecm equiped mechs" might help. I'm trying to keep it from a new player perspective as to what might be useful. Like build reccomendations, you used to see Atlas running ERPPCs in the arms something akin to (low slung arms may find long range sniping or firing behind teamates difficult) nothing extreme, or (the hardpoints of this mech lean more heavily towards close range engagements) nothing saying you CANT do something but just to say what typically it can be used for effectively. There's plenty of great builds throughout the forum with great reasoning for those builds but, new players typically wont look at the forums and they'll get frustrated. It's hard to do without gutting the magic that is discovering your own builds (even if it's on the forums) but like you go for a raven-3L it could say something like (a fast mech that excells at recon and/or sniping) (tier whatever mech). I'm just thinking in the way you can have new player friendly matches AND veteran friendly matches. As far as gun balance goes it feels pretty alright to me.

Faction Play could benefit from having a faction specific mech unlock as well. Have an actual reason to play FP (MC and mechbays are nice don't get me wrong here) but, there's nothing "special" about any specific faction being played.

[Thrudvangar]

A little more armor and structure on EVERY mech, lets say 20% each would be cool. Saying it since
years, it would feel much more driving a shi.tload tons of a big monster than a paper tank.
With all these high damage alphas, you're doomed if you face the wrong enemy at the wrong time...

And getting your torso melted by one click isn't funny on certain mechs.

[VXJaeger]

Do that bloody c-laser heatscale nerf already, as they are a main factor in all balance problems.
Move AC20 HS 2->3, LBX20 2->3 and set LBX10 HS to 4.

Edited by VXJaeger, 27 May 2018 - 10:31 AM.

[BTGbullseye]

VXJaeger, on 27 May 2018 - 10:28 AM, said:

Do that bloody c-laser heatscale nerf already, as they are a main factor in all balance problems.

No.

[McHoshi]

VXJaeger, on 27 May 2018 - 10:28 AM, said:

Do that bloody c-laser heatscale nerf already, as they are a main factor in all balance problems.
Move AC20 HS 2->3, LBX20 2->3 and set LBX10 HS to 4.

OMG - IS got all the little good Things but those "bloody" c-lasers - whine some more!

BTW. Dual Heavy Gauss GH 2 > 1 would be a wise Choice! So roll your dice!

[Carbon Guardian]

How can you claim to balance any IS mech based on loadout when said loadout on any IS variant can be so drastically changed. Example I can put a large laser in a small laser location or an A/C 20 an A/C 5 location the only limit is critical slots. In order to truly balance any IS mech based on it's role and yes different variants have specific hardpoints for said role, is to make hardpoint slots such as large laser hardpoint, medium, small laser hardpoint etc. Then you can balance an IS mech based on role. Role is non existent in this game, all quirks are based on juggernauts.
PGI could lock in an engine size to IS mechs which would naturally limit loadouts if they want to keep their precious omni pod IS mechs, which would make it much easier to balance am IS mech based on it's default loadout.

Clan is different in the fact that omni pods and clan tech are designed to be what PGI has made IS mechs. PGI even nerfed clan mechs from changing their engines and a few other things.

The biggest problem in balancing mechs isn't the mechs themselves, it's the players. Most players want an authentic Battletech universe gameplay experience, and win. "top tier" in this game just abuse the fact that they can put as many pinpoint fire and forget weapons on any variant fire twice before overheating. Which was never the point to Battletech and I'm going to assume not the original design of this game.

I would lock IS mech engines, lock hardpoint to weapon size, and apply a BV system. In order to apply a BV system the order of game select will have to change to select game mode and map, then we choose our mechs based on BV in order and each player gets a range of BV to select from. If a player doesn't have a mech with low enough BV, PGI provides free mech choices (similar to trial mechs) for the player to choose. PGI you can look at this from a marketing perspective, I'm sure you'd sell more variants of a specific mech when the game is balanced based on offensive and defensive natures of mechs.

coe7, on 11 September 2015 - 02:07 PM, said:

Congratulations for adding totally useless infotech stuff. You really do not understand your own game it seems? Anyone with even a sliver of skill hits the same with or without red box around the mech. Who are you trying to fool here? the masses I assume.

If this was the long awaited BV, you really should hop in an see what your highest tier players do in this game. Balance made for below average players has never worked on any game in history of gaming. Dissing meta players in your post and trying to limit how players should play your game really shows your ability as a player and in the end, as a designer.

A "meta" player is a troll not a pro, the pro's outperform other players without the need for exploits.

Most "top tier" players only use exploits the community then deems these exploits as "meta" when in fact it's a loop hole. Look at how many "top tier" streamers won't play COD warzone 2 because they can't find an exploit that they can then use until the rest of the community can use it. Once the rest of the community learns these exploits to "get good" the "top tier" players run to the next game and look for exploits.

[Extra Guac]

Are the Wolfhound's armor quirks correct? They all have +11 CT, +11 LT, +17 RT.

It is technically an asymmetric mech... but realistically everyone is going to run an XL on it, so if you lose either ST you're dead.


Wouldn't it make a lot more sense for it to be +17 in the CT and +11 for both side torsos?

[KursedVixen]

Kmieciu, on 11 September 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

Hardly anyone uses the Jenner due to it's enormous CT hitbox.

yeah I use to use the jenner all the time was my favorite light mech.