772 replies to this topic

[LORD ORION]

Paul Inouye, on 11 September 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

I have to be honest with you; some of you will love this new system, others will hate it (especially those who might rely on 'meta' builds that push the limits of the current Quirk system). That being said, here is what the new balance system brings to MWO that the current system does not. Information Warfare/InfoTech is being brought to the forefront of 'Mech capabilities.

I do not understand how your brain can think this is true.

Some easy questions.
Number of Thunderbolts, Wolverines and Dragons on the field doing well before quirks?
Number of matches fought in thermal vision because of massive ECM utilization and "I can't see a damn thing" map design causing total sensor blackout?

Removing weapon quirks shifts the meta back to mechs that trade well. These are mechs that have mounts that allow them to do more damage then they take.

Information warfare is not going to mean anything except playing the game in the correct vision mode that lets you see mechs.
You'll stll take the mechs that trade well, and the mechs that "sensor" well will just see the good mech better whille it blows the crap out of them.

Also removing the current weapon quirks lowers TTK, which means team work causes a larger imbalance. As TTK goes up, the more damage players "who know how to play" can shrug off as they wolf pack an out of position mech. (the players who complain about TTK and refuse to l2p)

You should give me a test server and let me adjust the game, and we'll have a "competition" to see which game is preferred.

I know you won't though.,...

[Nick Tsunami]

Here is a humble proposal to make Info Warfare relevant and actually something you can use to balance, I am just unsure whether the game could support it easily as it exists now:

1- make convergence work only on locked targets. (i.e. unless your target is in a red box, _no_ DF convergence), which obviously works against the meta and increase TTK a lot, but does not make your gun useless or prevent return fire.

2- introduce a signature strength in line with mech size+class, i.e. 20t less than 30, with step changes between class sizes, with ECM simply affecting signature strength and AP the sensors strength. then you can match signature vs sensors for range and lock times.

3 - gives a XP/Cbill bonus on whoever got and maintained the lock leading to the kill, similar to tAG bonus, but biggest than the actual spotting bonus.

The Idea is now that if you are not relying on your teammates, your TTK _is_ influenced by your Information warfare ability as it allows you to use convergence, and pinpoint damage. If you do not use a 'mech that has strong IW, but has strong long-range DF capability, this put your 'mech in the fire support role (i.e. K2) and you will need either a cooperative enemy or someone to spot for you .

This gives you roles - Scouts (IW specialists), Strikers (Fast brawlers), brawlers, "Main combat mechs" (I.e. MBT's) with balanced aspects, and fire support.

And the scout job would be a lot more than just pressing R. Maintaining lock and surviving when everyone knows that your are the one responsible for the Pinpoint damage coming should make things reasonably hairy and interesting for you Scout hunting could become an important part of any fight (as it should be)

It would also reinforce the cooperative aspect of the game for teams or CW in addition to the the "Echo - Summoner - Left leg"

On the balance IS vs Clan, PrideSyn's idea makes a lot of sense - go 10 vs 12, that would likely solve a big part of the problems without nerfing clan weapons. batchall with added faction points for winning with the lowest bet in CW would even be better (but would probably need more population to have competitive bidding)


TL;DR - Make IW relevant by making _all_ DF convergence conditional on lock. This would then force you to either rely on others, or use a 'mech with enough IW to do pinpoint damage, hence IW become relevant for individual chassis balance.

[Pereset]

As an Elite founder, I have been playing this game for many years.

I have watched many players, tactics and strategies come and go since I started playing 05 Nov 2011. I remember when our Jagermechs were capable of mounting 6 AC-2's, and turning them into "machine pistols" on the battlefield. I remember in a match, when I would see an entire 12-man of light mechs, totally dominate the field and I remember observing the sky RAINING with LRM's, as an entire 12-man team would bring out Stalker LRM "monsters" firing endless streams of missiles on our heads, decimating us in less than a minute. I also remember when one could mount 3 or 4 ER PPC's or 1 Gauss and 2 ER PPC's and "head shot" players from distances as far as 600 meters. All those days are now gone. Except, if you own certain, specific mechs.

I'm certain that someone had mentioned this in one of the prior posts, but I am wondering if you will be "tuning down" the ability of larger assault mechs (clan/IS for example) to rely more on the ranging capability of the lighter mech, thereby putting more focus on scouting and information relay for the scout, rather than implementing that scout as a fast-moving weapons platform.

A perfect example of what I am mentioning here, is the imbalance that you had implemented when you introduced the Artic Cheetah. Its hit boxes were so small, that a Jagermech; a mech that is quick enough to deal with it, possessing enough firepower to destroy it with one alpha salvo would instead, be pounding on it like it was up against a Dire Wolf, with only 56% damage occurring to the Cheetah after hitting it dead-on in the center torso with 2 AC-10's, 2 medium pulse lasers and 2 machine guns within a 3-second round of fighting. Increase hit boxes areas for lighter mechs, more realistic and challenging goals for those pilots who want to use their mech as a fast-moving weapons platform.

With "sensor" ranging for IS/Clan mechs decreased (without advanced ranging modules, targeting modules, Command Consoles, Beagle Active Probe (BAP)), it makes more logical sense to have the more advanced sensor equipment taking up so much space and weight to degrade the ability (especially Clan ability) of mechs in equipping maximum weapons systems in the mech slots. Greater sensor ability, fewer weapons.

The balancing system in CW also comes to mind. PGI has NOT changed any of the balancing in regard to matching during competitive challenges. I cannot count anymore, the times that Davion, Kurita and Liao were placed in 2, 3, 4 or 6-man groups against highly competitive, highly organized players using Clan mechs. The result would be a slaughter, every time. What kind of "balancing" system is that? As far as this mechwarrior is concerned, you should FIX the IMBALANCE between matching, and reset the whole CW map to zero.

To fix what you say is imbalanced, then bring in all your new players from Steam will be for the most part, more fodder for the highly organized groups. If you have a 12-man in CW, then let them wait for a highly organized 12-man in CW, rather than placing all of the people waiting for a CW match against an highly organized team. I can see you losing all kinds of new players, due to the imbalance I see both in CW and in pickup groups. Fix the matching weight imbalance and start all over again.

That is all this pilot has to say.

Humbly and respectfully,

Pereset Takami
Former Executive Officer
Davion Royal House Guards

Edited by Pereset, 13 September 2015 - 06:30 PM.

[Void Angel]

Hmm. A fascinating idea, actually, and a subtle one. At first glance, my response was a more subdued version of the angry poo-flinging monkey children who dominated the first page of comments - I wasn't waving around any farm implements, but I didn't see how just adding an infotech capacity would help balance all that much. But I do try to read carefully, and you mentioned changing the information sharing range as well: that has some potential and, as I said, there are fascinating possibilities.

However, when all is said and done, everything comes down to combat in most game modes - where the metal meets the meat. It can be boring, attrittion-based combat, or tactical, interesting combat, but at the end of the day we will be shooting at each other, and if one side has better tools to do that, it's going to be amazingly hard to compensate with longer sensor ranges. Essentially, I think this is an awesome idea, but I don't see how it's going to fix the problem of balancing quirks instead of technology bases.

[Elbrun]

While I look forward to a rebalancing (and in some cases a re-rebalancing), I am one of those people who feel quirks should simply be removed entirely.

It's easy enough to explain that I 'grew up' with Battletech, then MechWarrior (RPG), and the first Battletech computer games. The mechs had their ups and downs, and most play groups didn't allow you to fiddle with the default variants in games. This was before the BV system came about, and came down to friends saying '100/150/200/250/etc ton limit' and then having a fun several hours moving miniatures across a map.

Eventually a new edition came out, and with the new edition some new changes the BV formula, for the better overall to balance. But then came the 3050 and 3055 TRO's and another new edition, included in them... the Clans. And they were so seriously imbalanced as to be silly. Their initial BV values off, in some cases by a fair amount. But, something people seem to ignore or simply be ignorant of, Clan invasion trouble were Veteran and Elite troops by Battletech standards of Gunnery/Pilot skills. 3/4 G/P IS standard pilots were seriously outmatched by Clan 2/3 G/P 'standard pilots' with the advantages their weapons gave them in firepower, range, heat, space/tonnage, and in the case of the Targetting Computer bonuses to hit.

After while it became standard practice to play 12 IS mechs (w/ 4 x 2/3 pilots & 2 x 1/2 pilots) vs 10 Clan mechs (w/ 4 3/4 pilots). And by using BV as well as those 12v10 limits. Clan equipment is by definition broken on the tabletop.

Now we have MWO, where effort was made to balance IS mech/equipment vs IS mech/equipment. Same tech base, so much simpler a prospect. But you add in the clantech and you run into the same troubles tabletop groups had. Clan tech as set out in lore, and in the tabletop rules quite simply are miles ahead of even Lostech. To make it any less seems to be a slap in the face of established lore. The decision to start near 3050 and add in the clans just caused issues. Ones you the devs didn't see, or want to see, until it was too late.

The addition of quirks didn't help at all, and took the basic mech designs of Battletech and tossed them in the garbage. 'Oh look, this mech gets extra armor/structure/speed/whip cream/pie launchers/blah blah blah'. Seriously, if you keep quirks keep them as NEGATIVES to a variant. Quirks as an idea could work, but why would every mech have them? And why would the vast majority of them take baseline mech and give it the equivalent of a 10-40 ton mass increase to Internal Structure without ANY downside. And have those increases specific to certain areas of a mech?

The more you look at quirks, the more the hardpoints on the majority of mechs/variants seem not to be set for balance, but to offset broken quirks or to unfairly stop builds. Should mechs have certain hardpoints locked to set weapon types? In some cases yes. But I fully feel MOST hardpoints should be open for use with any weapon/equipment. And that nearly every IS mech is severely under-hardpointed.

My sincere suggestions to help with balance.
1) Remove all non-negative quirks.
2) Set things up so that each mode has a company vs binary version, in which those searching for a battle are placed in IS or Clan sides before the ready lobby.
3) Give every IS mech 2-4 more hardpoint, and make 2/3-3/4 of current IS hardpoints generic ones allowing any weapon or piece of equipment.
4) LOCK the xl engines on the IS chassis that come with them like Clan mechs. On the same note, LOCK endo-steel on the IS chassis that come with it. These are recovered lost tech, and as such those variant chassis were redesigned around this recently recovered technology.

[Elbrun]

Honestly, some mechs just suck compared to others, by purposeful design or simply poor design. While other mechs are incredibly good due to having excellent design. There should be mechs that are totally crap until you get the chance to 'get under the hood' and replace systems/weapons/etc to make them worth using.

[kka]

This is not what the PGI intends, but one attempt for balance:

• REMOVE ALL buffs and nerfs
  
• Solo and group queue WILL RESULT ONLY: clan vs IS, IS vs IS or clan vs clan matches
  
  • 8 vs 12 for clan vs IS (or 7vs12, 12vs18, whatever, balance this...)
• After this has been balanced, balance the variants of each chassis by MINOR buffs and nerfs
  
• Iterate

Edited by kka, 13 September 2015 - 08:49 PM.

[kka]

kka, on 13 September 2015 - 08:29 PM, said:

This is not what the PGI intends, but one attempt for balance:

• REMOVE ALL buffs and nerfs
  
• Solo and group queue WILL RESULT ONLY: clan vs IS, IS vs IS or clan vs clan matches
  
  • 8 vs 12 for clan vs IS (or 7vs12, 12vs18, whatever, balance this...)
• After this has been balanced, balance the variants of each chassis (by minor buffs and nerfs etc)
  
• Iterate

To keep it interesting, try "For this December (or whatever time) all Kintaros, Spiders, Kitfoxes and Mist Lynxes get buffed by ..."

Thus every mech gets a chance to shine, but only temporarily. The core will stay balanced.

[Nightshade24]

IraqiWalker, on 13 September 2015 - 12:09 PM, said:

None of the ones that make this suggestion are willing to do it.


But Wolf never got Terra in CW. MS did. Soon as MS left Wolf's progress halted. Ghost Bear has about 8 active players, and CSJ has about 2 12 mans active.

Saying that all the clans combined have a territory rivaling Davion's is not a point you should be using, because the clans started out with only 8 planets or so. The fact that they grew to the size of the largest IS territory is an argument AGAINST the point you're trying to make here.

large areas have large boarders, the bigger the boarders and the more fronts you have the harder it is to progress. This applies to every event in history with every faction and is part of the defeat of some large empires, Ranging from Roman, {Godwin's Law}, etc. The reason why Russia is so big is because literally no one wanted that large area of land, it has little value. The advancement of clanners stabilised soon after they got terra.


On top of that- my point was to the person which I responded to which is valid for the conversation- but like how you shifted the whole focus and claim my point is void- however you also did the exact same thing as me by showing that factions are indifferent but only the players that play them (for eg 8 people in ghost bear, MS formerly in clan wolf, etc.) With your evidence here you state that clans are not OP, nor are they UP- but it's the fact that people jump ship, shifted, etc and it's mainly about population then being overall OP- granted clan wolf got a population spike due to reaching terra and verging to reach it- thus a lot of lore nuts out there like me fight to get terra hence the population spike in recent events for Clan wolf.

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

As a US Veteran I have to point something out that I think has been totally overlooked by both the Devs and the Players. Improper use of Words to show intent. Information Warfare is NOT about what takes place on the BattleField. Information Warfare is Espionage and Counter Espionage. You dont send Scouts into a an area to find the Oppositions Forces, Thats the Role of RECON. Recon gives you Location, Force Size and Defensive capabilities. Scouts on the other hand are used to locate Patrols and either report back to OIC (Officer In Charge) or find ways to Flank the OpFor Patrols or find Ambush sites to eliminate said patrol. Recon usually does not directly engage the OpFor, which is why they use stealth. Scouts use Stealth so as to better place themselves and their Patrol for Ambushes, meaning they do Engage the OpFor in Combat. Recon takes place prior to Friendly forces coming into the area and Scouts are real time updates to the information that Recon has supplied. So far the game hasnt had any need for Recon or Scouts because none of the maps are really big enough for either role from a Military Standpoint. As for Information Warfare, mouse over a planet in CW and tahdah look Information! As if Recon has already been there. The drop zones are a known factor so you dont have to send scouts out to find where the OpFor is at you already know where they are going to be (in a General Sense, the 1st rule of Combat is that no battle plan survives 1st Contact, so a General Sense of OpFor Location is all that is needed).
That being said so I expect that every Inner Sphere Mech will be cycling madly thru its Mech Recognition Database trying to Identify every Clan Mech for Every Battle until 2 years from now since thats Canon (and why Clan Mechs have 2 Designations). They also wont beable to detect Clan Mechs until they are very close because after the Ravages of 300 years of full on War with the other Houses, even the most common place bit of Technology that the Clans use, even if it hails back to the SLDF Era, is Superior to anything that the Inner Sphere has. And since Paul mentions the Jenner I have to guess that only the Draconis Combine pilots will be able to use it SINCE ITS A DRAC Mech!
Paul says that they want to avoid an Arms Race. There is only 1 way to do that, Stock Mechs ONLY. And then there will be Mechs that will never be used because no matter how hard they try, in a game that has 21st Century people playing it, who can buy what ever mech and weapon they want (as long as they have the money), so Mechs just wont be a viable competitive option. There is no way to replicate a 31st Century where one side has been fighting what amounts to Civil war for 300 years and the ravages that come with it and balance it equally against an Opposition that isnt Piloting Mechs that are held together by duct tape and bailing wire that Grand Dad handed down to Dad and Dad handed down to you.

The easiest thing PGI could do is go the JJ Abrahms route and say that MWO is a Alternative Universe and pray us long time Mech Junkies dont leave in droves. But they way things are going Neither side of the Inner Sphere/Clan divide will be totally happy and as everyone has seen already from CW there isnt the participation of players there once was.

[Tamerlin]

InfoTech: we already have some of that - tags, UAVs and NARCs. And the mech/pilot that uses those gets MC/CBills/XP when successful. It's just right now about the only way to be "successful" is when another mech has LRMs.

What I hope to see is a continuation of that, but now the InfoTech/support mech is able to get credit for direct fire teammates as well. With the removal of dedicate mech weapon quirks, perhaps like this:

ML effective range: 270m
ML effective range, if an InfoTech mech is supporting you: 300m or more

Thus there is an increase in weapon damage/rate/crit chance (which many are complaining about on the MWO forum), and the support mech is directly influencing how the damage occurs, rather than just a sensor range enhancer.

[Joshua McEvedy]

So Paul, what are you guys going to do about the Hero mechs we purchased with real money via mech credits, based on their significant quirks that you now say you are going to remove? Will Hero owners be recompensed for that loss, or are we just out of luck?

[hkk]

Change can be positively or negatively received. Often change prompts additional points of view. What has not changed in MWO is that most combats are won or decided by a boring repetitious style of play, brawling. To me, any change that encourages more diverse game play is a step in the right direction.

[Raggedyman]

I'll be curious to see how this plays out with the CBill cost, because if all mechs are supposed to be balanced on weight but they are at different costs that doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

[Bud Crue]

Paul,

Love the ideas, but not for the stated goal of "re-balance"

You speak 4 areas being looked at for determining a mech's base value in comparison to other mechs' of the same chassis and focusing on a comparative analysis of these 4 areas to direct specific play styles to a particular version of the chassis in question.

Forgive me lack of understanding, but I do not see how this sort of revision will in any way re-balance the implied imbalance brought about by the quirk system and other current in game issues across all the mechs or the game play in general.

Also, If one of the goals of the re-balance (as stated) is to avoid an end game where all one plays is "a few clan mechs that render everything else obsolete" I don't see how making one type of Jenner better for a particular role or roles (x out of 4) can re-balance even the Jenner only within the confines of similar mechs, if no one plays a Jenner because there are better mechs at performing that particular combination of desired roles...and there are. There always will be. With as many mechs as there are, with as few game modes as there are, it seems inevitable that there will always be a better mech to play for ANY role that your hypothetical Jenner can provide. Moreover, the continued advancement of in game technology and introduction of more advanced mechs makes this inevitable, for probably all current mechs.

So I must ask what is the point of re-balancing individual mechs of the same chassis in a game where a core aspect of the game is the continued introduction of new and presumably better mechs according to a known timeline? How will this re-balance anything (again I like the proposals I just don't see that it has much to do with re-balance)?

It seems to me that if you want to make role warfare (information gathering or what have you) a real aspect of the game then you are going to have to significantly change or add to the game modes, not mech characteristics. Otherwise, say for example: "attack" on CW, is going to be a fast rush or a heavy murder ball with chassis that are good at those roles and nothing else. Because that is what the game mode requires.

Love what you guys are doing, just don't understand how what you are doing re-balances anything. Guess we shall see.

Edited by Bud Crue, 14 September 2015 - 04:07 AM.

[Josef Koba]

I think that information warfare or whatever we want to call it has a lot of room for improvement over its current state, I'm just not sure what these quirks in the PTS are supposed to do. I would also prefer, much to the chagrin of traditionalists, to leave in the weapons quirks (though as I indicated in my previous posts in this thread, tone some of them down significantly or removing some of the specific quirks in some cases and leaving them general (i.e. energy weapons vice specifically large lasers and the like).

If I'm not mistaken, we essentially have all mechs equipped with some version of C3 from table top. That being all mechs can share their targeting data, etc, etc. We could, for instance, see such information sharing limited to scouts with the appropriate sensors (whether they're inherent or via modules or quirks) and command mechs (with command modules (maybe lessening the tonnage similar to clan targeting computers)). I won't throw out random numbers, but maybe you could have mechs that are just better at getting and relaying information to their allies. A traditional scout mech might get info faster and at larger range, whereas your traditional brawler wouldn't, or at a much diminished range.

I would also like to see some incorporation of passive versus active sensors, sort of like how MWLL does it, though I've only played it a few times and don't have a firm grasp on exactly how it works. But let's say that active sensors get information further away, quicker, and more accurate - say it provides load out information and the specific chassis. Active sensors make the scout more readily visible to the OPFOR at a further range. Passive sensors, on the other hand, have a shorter range, only give basic information (chassis size - light, medium, heavy, assault), and general location similar to seismic. Mechs using passive sensors are also not as readily visible unless caught in an active sensor range, or normal sensor range for those mechs with standard sensor packages. Or, obviously, visually identified. A real life example would be sonar - submarines have the ability to use passive sonar or active sonar, with benefits and disadvantages for both. I think this would be pretty cool and would add a layer of depth and uncertainty. ECM could be adjusted too. I think the ECM bubble is probably a bit too large at present. So maybe a mech with passive sensors active and ECM would be less visible at range, but the electromagnetic output might make it more noticeable closer - the OPFOR would only get general targeting data on said mech. I don't know. Something like this. I'm not a game designer, just a military intel analyst with a decent understanding of electronic warfare and electronic intelligence (ELINT).

The vision modes could use some work too. I'm glad the days of infinite thermal are gone, but I generally find little use for thermal now. The range is abysmal, and much of the time it makes little sense. Things that shouldn't be hot, are. And why does my paint show up so visibly? I'm nitpicking here, for sure. But I'd like the vision modes to have a bit more utility and, gasp, realism. I could be in the minority here, however. I've just seen enough Predator feeds to know that the way it operates now isn't quite right.

Edit: I was tooling around on the PTS in the testing ground. The internal structure buffs are nice and all, but it still seems that weapons are critted out fast as heck. Sure, the Atlas' torso stayed together quite a bit longer than usual, but it was still disarmed very quickly. As has been noted, it seems like we'll just have disarmed zombies running about. So, sure, survivability might be up, and TTK up as well. But those mechs will be unable to fire back.

Also! This is why I put a premium on information gathering. I want to know what a mech has left. I routinely break off or refuse to engage a target which has no weapons left if there are other enemies out there who can shoot me. A disarmed mech is no threat and I can come back to kill him after the Dire Wolf with six UAC5s is dead. This, to me, is just smart game play from a tactical perspective. If my scan time in my Atlas is now +400%...

Edited by Josef Koba, 14 September 2015 - 05:42 AM.

[Catho Sharn]

TorinZ, on 12 September 2015 - 11:43 AM, said:

What really should be done with these changes is, just don't show these as quirks. In the end they are really just differences in the individual mech stats. So instead of showing a whole list of positive and negative quirks, just show the actual stats to the mech. Looking at % increase/decrease across multiple stats with these quirks just makes people cringe. We are not seeing a baseline of what these numbers change. Just show the real number per stat for each mech and I think in the end would be a cleaner way to show stats in the UI. Looking at a negative 250% can freak people out, but if the actual stat change is minimal because 250% multiplied by some small fraction could really be not a huge deal. I would rather see the actual stats.

To reiterate this point:

Quirks should be oddball features of individual mechs, not huge blocks of stats that alter other stats that we can't see. It's time for PGI to stop obfuscating underlying mech stats and just show us the numbers. Providing players, especially new players, you know, like Steam users, with a 10, 15 or 20 plus/minus mods to stats they can't even see is just a bad design.

Bad. Design.

Show us the numbers.

[Hydrocarbon]

LORD ORION, on 11 September 2015 - 08:09 PM, said:

Just remove all quirks.
Prorate C-bills based on the battle value you are bringing into a regular 15 minute match. (do 1000 damamge in a timberwolf will net you proportionally less c-bills thjan doing 1000 dmg in an Orion)
Allow IS to take more mechs and more tonnage into CW. (say 6 mechs and 300 tons of unquirked mechs)

This is a great idea in theory, but not everyone is concerned about C-bills. I know people who buy loads of Cicadas w/MC just to sell for c-bills.

And what about comp games? Right now I'm in the netbattletech league, and this would utterly destroy any semblance of balance. It would fumble for months trying to figure out balance. Even normal TDM-type comp matches would suffer, mostly in the absolutely stale builds & strategies of all-clan teams.



MWO will turn into a clamz arm race with a stale end-game.

[hercules1981]

Joshua McEvedy, on 14 September 2015 - 02:52 AM, said:

So Paul, what are you guys going to do about the Hero mechs we purchased with real money via mech credits, based on their significant quirks that you now say you are going to remove? Will Hero owners be recompensed for that loss, or are we just out of luck?

This crap right here is y I never have or will ever buy a mech with real money or a hero mech for that matter. Just the occasional mech bay and convert GXP to XP for when I'm lazy and want to master a mech real fast

[Legend_]

Copy&pasted from reddit because lazy.

All right, good effort on trying to explain things /u/SeanLang[1] . You shouldn't have to do it though (and your video lacks a good deal of flow, meaning your attempt at explaining PGI's balance-wizardry still lacks substance).

First and foremost, this is a massive and atrocious failing in communication from the people at PGI. You'd have thought, following the stuff that's happened over the lifespan of MWO, that they'd have learnt their lessons regarding communication and game changes.

They clearly haven't, this doesn't bode well for other things.

On to the balance stuff

• Infotech - *As soon as you reach a certain skill level (average and above) in MWO, it's fairly useless. Lock-on range, target acquisition and information gathering times, it all becomes null for two reasons. Firstly, people know that aiming and shooting at a 'mech will result in the same thing, regardless of red boxes/Doritos/rag-doll readouts. Average and above pilots only need to visually see a 'mech to, in most cases, understand everything you need to know (Location, moving direction, likely loadout and what to target).

Secondly, with the majority of games being played as murderball vs. murderball, the tactical advantage one might gain as a singular entity vs. another singular entity (i.e. single 'mech vs. single 'mech), further information becomes worthless due to 'mechs being hit from all angles, from all sorts of different weapons, in mostly chaotic situations. And let's not forget, most maps let you get into a position where you can see across a map and spot the movement of the enemy with ease, there's your infotech right there.

• Clan vs. IS balancing - Without assigning some sort of definitive identity to the IS or Clans, this will always be, at best, an uphill struggle. Trying to balance something which was never intended to be balanced is asking for trouble and until PGi can decide what they want the two factions to be about, they'll never be able to pull this off. A decision needs to be made, and quickly, about the identity of IS and Clan. Will the IS be known as fast, sturdy 'mechs whilst the Clans will be known more for their uniformed efficiency and accuracy at range, or will PGi decide to reverse the roles and have clans better suited to brawling and knife-fights, with IS preferring a slower moving, ranged role?

Until a solid identity is given to the two factions, the balance will more than likely never happen (But they'll continue to sell 'mechs on the merits of they could potentially be capable of, and if they did give IS and Clans a solid identity, then they'd likely lose a lot of those sales due to people leaning more towards a specific playstyle, so if clans were better brawlers, people who like to play ranged would be less likely to buy clan packs.. so it'll probably never happen).

• 
  
  Firepower/Movement/Protection/Infotech - Firepower will, unless something massively changes with gameplay, be at least 75% of what makes this game. Ultimately, this is about putting your crosshair over an enemy 'mech, pulling the trigger and repeating until that 'mech is dead. Movement and protection are, in some cases, one and the same. Moving is protecting, protecting is moving. I know in this example, they're primarily talking about HP and speed/agility, but these values, unless modded to the extremes, are still always going to be playing second fiddle to firepower. There are variants in the game, many, which cannot compete due to either a lack of hardpoints, or too many hardpoints in the wrong places. We all know that monkey arms on 'mechs is a nightmare for shooting, and that missile hardpoints are worthless unless you're building a very niche 'mech. Smaller, lighter 'mechs with an abundance of ballistics hardpoints are 'hamstringed' from the get go due to the weight of not only ballistic weapons, but also ammunition. Not to mention that few ballistics are worth it.
  
  Infotech is a joke, in all honesty. It will take an extreme shift in how MWO is played to make this of any real worth, and using it as a pillar of balance, a point that 'mechs are measured and rated for, is a critical failure. It also highlights how severely limited PGI's understanding of their own game really is. It doesn't matter how little of a factor this actually plays in the balance, you say in the video that it isn't that big of a deal.. so this begs the question, why is it even being used as a balancing factor at all? If MWO had something in place like World of Tanks, where 'mechs had differing view ranges and such, then sure.. InfoTech would be really helpful, especially on light 'mechs. But that's not how things are right now, thus it's moot and null and in all honesty needs to be removed from that 4-pillars graphic and for all 'mechs to be rated purely on the other performance measures.
  
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  How to balance? - The Quirkening, as it was penned, was a response by PGI and Paul Inouye to try and balance the game out (And the dire situation of IS vs. Clans). He all but blamed this on 'certain parties', which can probably be equated to a select few of the competitive community, and maybe a few other voices. What Paul continued to do, however, is where he messed up balance, and it is also where he can reapproach the issue with a better mentality.

Firstly, Paul was always chasing the meta. The competitive community, and high-skilled players in general, quickly adapted to whatever changes were made to start using the best, most efficient, min/maxed 'mechs available. Why wouldn't they? Most people want to win, so of course the majority of players will adapt to using whatever the competitive players are using to win. By constantly chasing after the power creep of adaptive builds that spawn from high-level play, this further compounded the disparity between chassis' and factions 'mechs. (I'm pretty sure there's been PGI comments about players not playing the game like they intend, it's a good indication of amateur believes from a developer; people will play game which gives them the best chance at winning, not how you want them to play it).

Now, rather than chase the developing meta or trying to swim against the tide of whatever spawns as a result of the balance changes made, Paul needs to open up communication with the people who will ultimately decide the meta in the game; The competitive/high-skilled community. And I'm not talking about a select few SJR and couple of others, either.

What they, PGI, need to do is send an invite to the unit leads/reps of each competitive unit in MWO, asking for those units to each put forward a number a members (2, 5, 10, w/e) to offer their views and insights and criticisms about all things balance related in MWO. 'Mechs, weapons, factions, maps, you name it, it all plays a part.

There are a lot of smart (and some not so smart) people out there who have put a lot of time into this game, hundreds upon hundreds of hours. Paul and PGI can pour over their graphics and charts and internal information but they'll never have that same level of real lifeexperience of how things perform in the game. I've never seen a PGI member who was good at playing the game, so without tapping into the experience of skilled players, they'll constantly be behind the curve of developing meta. And that's what the balance is all about, right? PGI want to create their own balance that has multiple potential meta's, so they need to take the wealth of experience and insight from the proper people to be able to fully understand what can be abused, what can be helped, what can be changed.

People will probably say "Go post on the MWO forums if you have good insight". I can tell you right now, a massive majority of people with a lot of really smart ideas and inputs stopped trying to make those particular voices heard a long time ago, 30-50 pages of feedback threads dilute a lot of the weight of input, and it's largely mixed with people who really don't have a clue what they're talking about.

It's about time PGi really opened up to the competitive community to talk about balance, invite guys from the various units to a closed forum where a lot of the unnecessary noise of public posting is gone and get down to proper discussion. All of the big games do it, Valve runs stuff by the pro players on a regular basis, LoL has the same. Riot talks to the pro players about balance, because ultimately, they are the guys that will show the meta to everyone else that plays. PGi need to re-embrace their communication with the community, and it's about time they started properly working with the comp scene because if there's any one particular scene that can help you balance the game out, it those guys with their wealth of insights and experiences.

tl;dr

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  PGI communication vanished again
  
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  InfoTech is a joke
  
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  Sean Lang explaining the actions of something he's not even fully informed of because PGI couldn't be bothered to do it themselves
  
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  PGI needs to man up and make some solid, definitive decisions about identity
  
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  Weapons as a whole are broken and need to be balanced before everything else is balanced
  
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  PGI needs to invite the competitive community, and not just a select few such as SJR, to help -them- balance their own game, because they can't do it themselves.