89 replies to this topic

[Koshirou]

East Indy, on 11 September 2015 - 07:39 PM, said:

"Weapon quirks did not quite produce a solution" does not equal "quirks must disappear."

Could somebody please hack PGI's computers and make this sentence appear on all their screens about 5000 times. Because maybe then they'll get it.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Krivvan, on 12 September 2015 - 02:52 AM, said:

That's the only way I see that could be a positive forward development. What discourages me is how they seemed to have become completely allergic to the whole concept of weapon quirks just because a few people were whining about it railroading their not-so-great builds.

The key word is signature. As many mechs or chassis as possible need to have their own signature theme or else they won't really find a niche for themselves and consequently will be less interesting.

When you scroll through the PTS quirks as they are now, even with huge differences in the quirks, all those IS mechs look the same. They all have some amount of structure buff, and some infotech stuff that isn't really impactful. Then some have some acceleration. Whatever mech you find to do something with, you'll probably just find another similar chassis/variant that does it better. There's less that differentiates the mechs.

These are only the first values, as stated in this post: "This brings us to today and the Public Test we are going to be running. The current PTS build comprises the first set of numbers in the database, and all of them are still open for tuning (drastically or only slightly, depending on metrics and your feedback)."

So I think we need to focus on how mechs feel receiving damage since, the first set are mostly structure and mobility agility quirks.

And I imagine the devs could be trying to look at different metrics in regards to weapons before opening that layer to the players as outlined in the linked thread.

[lsp]

I don't, I disagree completely. The quirks were a mistake to begin with and make the game very very boring. Meta is currently anything with large laser or laser quirks in general. It's not fun, and it usually takes the mech in question in a direction it was never meant to go. Load outs should be locked, and you can only use the stock load outs. Simliar to MW LL and the way MW should be.

[Texas Red IS]

lsp, on 12 September 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

I don't, I disagree completely. The quirks were a mistake to begin with and make the game very very boring. Meta is currently anything with large laser or laser quirks in general. It's not fun, and it usually takes the mech in question in a direction it was never meant to go. Load outs should be locked, and you can only use the stock load outs. Simliar to MW LL and the way MW should be.

One thing's for sure. I enjoyed MW 2, 3 and 4; in all their iterations. For decades. I still keep an old Win98 machine running, just for the older MW games. And there were no quirks; nor modules, either.

I don't see that as a problem.

YMMV

[jay35]

Noth, on 12 September 2015 - 09:00 AM, said:

I first heard of similar idea from watching SJR streams and it was received quite well (admitted saying it would need work), so it really doesn't matter if it is suggested by someone who doesn't play anymore if it is received well by those that are, and those that play at a high level at that.

It's an arbitrary modifier to weapon damage such that two mechs with identical weapons are not delivering identical damage per shot with it. It's not an AC10 anymore, then, for example. It's an AC8.5 or whatever you've now arbitrarily changed it to. Yuck. We already have enough variables that affect alpha and dps, adding more is really not needed or helpful. It is also fundamentally disingenuous to the user, because they're expecting an AC10 but only getting an AC8.5 in damage dealt by it when they fire it.

[Krivvan]

gloowa, on 12 September 2015 - 05:51 AM, said:

"removing weapon quirks reduces mech diversity". loving this. that is EXACTLY what people said when they first came out, except they said it about adding them.
they said "weapon quirks force you into single build for given chassis". so now both having them and not having them reduces loadout diversity.

You're conflating two different groups of people. The people that didn't like weapon quirks before are mostly the same people now. I liked the concept because it made some chassis that were never played into a chassis that could fit a real role and have a fun niche. The important thing was to always keep in mind tradeoffs for having those big 50% quirks.

[Mystere]

InRev, on 11 September 2015 - 08:07 PM, said:

That buzzing that you hear is the sound of the underhive.

So you actually have no argument to make?

[Koniks]

I agree with Krivvan on everything except the crit bonus for targeting mechs. Bad enough the targeting computer already does that.

The other point that needs to be said: baseline weapon balance needed to happen first, then weapon quirks, then structure and armor for mechs that had model and hardpoint deficiencies, then mobility. That's the order of importance for determining mech viability in the game. And weapon balance has by far the biggest impact. Like sanding, you start with large grit and work down to finer.

And adjusting sensors doesn't change how the game is played without overhauling sensors. We need a universal active/passive system like long-range, toggleable seismic before changes to those values matter.

[Krivvan]

Sarlic, on 12 September 2015 - 04:08 AM, said:

I fully understand that there need to be drawbacks. But how are we suppose to archieve balance with 50% or more quirks? (Current live)

I dont think thats divserity. You would be insane not to run 3LL on the Wolverine for example.

My view is that having the 3LL, 4LL 1 SL, 3LL 2 ML, 3LL 1 ML STD, 3 ERLL and 4ERLL are a lot of diversity when the alternative is no wolverines at all, which is how it was prequirks. Trying to balance by mainly infotech just means that the pool of top mechs that can compete with each other shrinks back to being very tiny, smaller than now.

jay35, on 12 September 2015 - 08:55 AM, said:

I'm with you on everything you've been saying except for this part.

Disagree that that is a good idea. It's completely arbitrary and capricious to start magically giving some mechs the ability to do more damage than others with the same exact weapons. It's a mostly bad idea from someone who admittedly doesn't even play the game anymore and who has a tendency to make suggestions that are completely incongruous with the MWO we have today. What he wants from MWO is not what MWO is and if MWO ever became what he wanted, it would cease to exist and lose a majority of its playerbase because it would be a completely different game.

I actually agree that it's uneccessary and solves a problem that need not exist, but that's the kind of thing we're talking about if they want infotech to be so important that it balances out firepower differences.

[Koniks]

Krivvan, on 12 September 2015 - 12:07 PM, said:

I actually agree that it's uneccessary and solves a problem that need not exist, but that's the kind of thing we're talking about if they want infotech to be so important that it balances out firepower differences.

Nah, if they went with an active passive system then they could adjust the ranges at which detection happened. Like creating different ranges at which mechs show up on radar. e.g. lights running passive radar would be detected at 150m. Commandos and Locusts would be detected at 100m because they're even smaller. Their passive radar could detect bigger mechs at 500m instead of the default 300m. Etc.

And if they made it so that mechs didn't share radar data by default, they could make that a unique advantage for scout mechs...like adding the c3 system into the game.

[Duke Nedo]

From a business point of view, having unique quirks is good for PGI and it's good for us players. I have bought many mechs for the quirks that I wouldn't have bothered with if they all had had different amount of the same structure quirks.... variety is fun, variety sells.

[0rionsbane]

Weapon quirks have to go, its as simple as that. With weapon specific quirks you are locking in a build and essentally saying this mech only funcutions with these weapons, then of course a meta builder gets as many of those weapons as he can and adds ammo/heatsinks to create a good build.
With structure quirks as the op mentioned most mechs seem similar (thats balance 101 get things close to even). in the specific example of the dragon a simple hitbox and ct structure quirk would make hte mech a lot more viable. It dosent need the ac5 super weapon which is the opposite of balance if it can compete fair and square by having better torsos or a redesign on its hitboxes which are bad.
Finally the dragon fits its role better, with its current quirks its a superweapon with a major flaw. with more structure it will be a balanced 55 ton mech, that mounts xl due to small side torsos with a lower drawback because its got a strong ct. in other words the tradeoff is now not just firepower but speed and pod space. two variables allow them to balance this mech better and when you run your dragon you can expect to have a good game. and not have your arm blown off by the dual ac 20 crab and be useless for the rest of it.

[Koniks]

0rionsbane, on 12 September 2015 - 12:20 PM, said:

Weapon quirks have to go, its as simple as that. With weapon specific quirks you are locking in a build and essentally saying this mech only funcutions with these weapons, then of course a meta builder gets as many of those weapons as he can and adds ammo/heatsinks to create a good build.

Without quirks, Clan laser boats and laser + Gauss boats are the dominant builds. Any mech that can't run those builds is inferior. Quirks limit the optimal loadout of a given variant but expands the number of viable variants.

[Nik Kerensky]

Duke Nedo, on 12 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

From a business point of view, having unique quirks is good for PGI and it's good for us players. I have bought many mechs for the quirks that I wouldn't have bothered with if they all had had different amount of the same structure quirks.... variety is fun, variety sells.

Bingo. We have a winner.

All the mechs feel neutered now. All purely quirked for structure and sensors, really boring stuff by itself. We need weapons quirks IN ADDITION to a variety of other quirks to keep each chassis truly unique. Weapons quirks and other quirks are not a mutually exclusive concept PGI, please listen to us!

[Lily from animove]

Krivvan, on 12 September 2015 - 03:01 AM, said:

Some more elaboration on Infotech, nerfing the ability to get targeting boxes doesn't actually have much of an effect on higher tier meta comp players. We already don't rely on target locks especially since the gameplay is often about lighting quick pokes in and out of cover in trading phase, and then target calls and shots based on mech knowledge during the push phase. Targeting boxes are always a nice small addition, but they don't make a truly significant difference.

At the same time, those targeting boxes are a big deal for average to worse players. Making it harder across the board to get targets really just nerfs lower tier players, both because of what I mentioned and because they sacrifice mechs that could be fighting well to get those target locks.

Most good players can already play the game pretty well even HUD-less.

If you really want InfoTech to have an impact, it needs to act in a true Support role. Look at other Class-based games with support roles. They are things like Healers, Engineers (turret makers and repairers), or in MOBAs they do slowdown and other abilities that very closely affect damage and the ability to kill mechs.

A great idea for InfoTech is to add some kind of damage of crit chance buff against mechs that are currently targeted. Then it makes sense to spend the effort to run an InfoTech-focused mech if you can actually really help the team in combat.

And to those (including apparently Paul in his post) that think these changes will annoy meta players because it changes the meta, well, these current quirks do not change the meta. The meta on the PTS right now is just the same as it is on the real server, except more reinforced especially since all the IS mechs that challenged the Clan meta are now gone, and those meta Clan mechs almost universally got buffs.

If we really all were just interested in keeping the status quo meta, we'd be jumping for joy at the PTS quirks.

if we had a cone of fire, thats size depends on having something targeted and even further analysed, that would give target acquision time and mech scan info time a true values. But the way it is, its basically just a minor value many pilots won't care about. instead of before the match where 10/12 mechs had a felt like ECM bubble, because theiy either have ecm or where under th bubble its basically now everyone having a 3 second temporary bubble. So not much change, except having low acquistiontime traded for damage being a disadvantage. And lrms being even more pointless as they were.

As much as the mech academy was positively surprising as much is this debalance change disappointing.

Edited by Lily from animove, 12 September 2015 - 12:39 PM.

[Krivvan]

Duke Nedo, on 12 September 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

From a business point of view, having unique quirks is good for PGI and it's good for us players. I have bought many mechs for the quirks that I wouldn't have bothered with if they all had had different amount of the same structure quirks.... variety is fun, variety sells.

Exactly. It drives sales to think "oh hey, I want the challenge of being easy to kill, but always knowing that if I play perfectly I can get massive damage" with the Dragon-1N. It doesn't drive sales to think "what does the Dragon do better that my Jagermech doesn't? I can't remember, I guess it has more CT structure, but my Jagermech doesn't get its CT structure hit much with the high mounts...I guess I can do whatever build I wanted on the Dragon on the Jagermech instead."

The solution to people saying that the Dragon-1N 50% quirk was too high was to either tone it down or emphasize the tradeoff by giving disadvantages for having that 50% quirk (although being a Dragon in the first place I feel was disadvantage enough). Instead, they scrap the entire quirk completely without really trying to tune it to lower values.

My view on mech weaknesses is that you entice people to take the mech regardless of those weaknesses. You don't haphazardly patch in those weaknesses with things like massive structure quirks. In context of the live server, the Atlas was a slow brawler assault mech that could do a lot of damage if it could get in close. At the same time, it was a little subpar. So you do actually give specifically the Atlas a bunch of durability quirks so it can tank in and lead a brawl push. You don't give the Atlas a ton of mobility quirks to try and offset its mobility disadvantages turning it into every other Assault in the game. The one Atlas (why only the one Atlas, why did every other get so little in comparison?) on the PTS with the structure quirks doesn't work because it isn't actually a good brawler anymore...

Edited by Krivvan, 12 September 2015 - 12:46 PM.

[Fleeb the Mad]

Quirks without a doubt reduced build variety. Though keep in mind you also have to judge quirks by where they came from.

The potency of quirks was originally related to how popular a chassis was, not how good or bad it was. The Stalker 4N's boggling laser quirks were based on it being a unicorn, which was due to it being identical to another Stalker that had more hardpoints. Not that the Stalker was a bad chassis, it's just that particular one was unpopular because it was objectively inferior to another. It received huge quirks that it didn't need to be a viable chassis and suddenly there's nothing but large laser stalkers.

I liked the first tenuous implementation best, personally. For example the Awesome 8Q's very generic heat dissipation quirks didn't put it in any other role other than 'energy boat', which it already was. I liked being able to run a pile of pulse lasers on it. Then when the actual quirk pass came, much of it became PPC-based and it felt a bit like punishment to use something else. It was more punishment when the quirked weapon wasn't particularly good. Sort of like how the 8R is considered an LRM boat with quirks to that effect, but I've always run mine as an SRM brawler. Also how most 9M's I see run lasers, because even with its massive quirks ER PPCs are terrible.

I'd much rather quirks were more along the lines of promoting a certain category of weapons rather than specific weapons and thus specific configurations. The hardpoints already lend themselves to a mech having a certain focus, so how hard would it be to just give a chassis +7.5% Missile Cooldown as opposed to +18.6% LRM 10 fire rate?

Hopefully that is the road they choose.

[Xevius Von Morrigan]

Sarlic, on 12 September 2015 - 03:04 AM, said:

Too many people are leaning on weapons quirks. I knew this would happen at some point.


I think PGI is stepping in the right direction. The problem is how they utilise the quirks and make them tied to certain chassis.

Why should a Dragon have the AC/5 speed of a AC/2? Why should the Huggin recieve enormous SRMs cooldowns? Why should the Grid Iron have the twice the gauss speed rate of my Atlas? Why should the Hunchback have more velocity then me with the same weapons?

Quirks made people go build on quirks.

Think outside the box ffs.

Too many people think in quirks and i think PGI wants to start back to the roots and use the normal weapon values and then analyse gameplay on some chassis who have equal weapon values.

I have no idea what PGI's goal and or strategy is but i have a slight idea where they are aiming at. Can't blame them for atleast trying it.

First of all I think some quirks are too powerful. the limit should be +10%.
I think that IS mechs are built with a specific configuration and that configuration should obtain quirks.
For example:
Is the factory on planet Xyz produce HBK-4G with AC/20? A mechwarrior can change that weapon for another one but the housing of the weapon is built to accomodate the AC/20 and that weapons should receive and enhancement on heat/range/cooldown (one or more).

[Krivvan]

Fleeb the Mad, on 12 September 2015 - 01:07 PM, said:

I liked the first tenuous implementation best, personally. For example the Awesome 8Q's very generic heat dissipation quirks didn't put it in any other role other than 'energy boat', which it already was. I liked being able to run a pile of pulse lasers on it. Then when the actual quirk pass came, much of it became PPC-based and it felt a bit like punishment to use something else. It was more punishment when the quirked weapon wasn't particularly good. Sort of like how the 8R is considered an LRM boat with quirks to that effect, but I've always run mine as an SRM brawler. Also how most 9M's I see run lasers, because even with its massive quirks ER PPCs are terrible.

What I'd have liked to see were more categories for weapon quirks. So they can be more general but in specific ways. For example, instead of the Dragon-1N just getting AC5 quirks, it can get RoF quirks for small ballistics. So you can run 2 AC5s, 2 AC2s, 1 AC5 and 1 AC2, or even machine guns if you want to run some silly weird build. It maintains the 1N as an interesting mech, with a theme, increasing build variety, but retaining the niche. Because it's not worth it to allow the 1N to be a laser boat when there are other very similar variants and chassis that can do that sort of laser boat that a player wants.

Xevius Von Morrigan, on 12 September 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

First of all I think some quirks are too powerful. the limit should be +10%.

The thing is, those giant quirks were the only thing balancing the few IS mechs up to Clan level.

So yes, the quirks should be toned down (not removed entirely) from the live server stats, but they should also do global Clan to IS balancing to go along with it.

The Large Laser Wolverine may have been OP compared to a bunch of other IS mechs, but it was in no way OP compared to the Clan mechs.

Edited by Krivvan, 12 September 2015 - 02:02 PM.

[InRev]

Mystere, on 12 September 2015 - 12:01 PM, said:

So you actually have no argument to make?

Krivvan has already made it a thousand times over in this thread but I will reiterate it if it's so important: Saying that Hunchbacks and Shadow Hawks are equal, in the absence of weapon quirks, is either disingenuous or ignorant. I lean towards the latter, hence the underhive reference.

This same argument can also be applied to a large number of other comparisons as well, including basically any IS heavy vs the Timby.

Claro?