36 replies to this topic

[KraftySOT]

Its a short list. Theres alot of misconceptions, and alot of vitriol over them.

1. Server will be back up monday morning, probably with no changes.

2. It was said at the Townhall plainly, Sept 22nd wasnt even remotely possible, even if the PT went well.

3. What we saw, wasnt the final product, nor was it intended to be taken as such

4. They did not set out to ruin your toys on purpose

5. This will take months

What PGI needs to know:

1. The sensor system youve added is great. It needs tweaking but its a really nice addition, I dont think anyone is saying they dont like it. It just isnt a metric for balancing the game.

2. Clearly mechs are still going to need more than sensors to balance the game, and we still need weapons quirks on some mechs

3. This will take months


Thanks for your time, if you have anything to add, please add it below, and ill add it to the list.

Edited by KraftySOT, 13 September 2015 - 10:53 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

Its a short list. Theres alot of misconceptions, and alot of vitriol over them.

1. Server will be back up monday morning, probably with no changes.

2. It was said at the Townhall plainly, Sept 22nd wasnt even remotely possible, even if the PT went well.

3. What we saw, wasnt the final product, nor was it intended to be taken as such

4. They did not set out to ruin your toys on purpose

5. This will take months

What PGI needs to know:

1. The sensor system youve added is great. It needs tweaking but its a really nice addition, I dont think anyone is saying they dont like it.

2. Clearly mechs are still going to need more than sensors to balance the game, and we still need weapons quirks on some mechs

3. This will take months


Thanks for your time, if you have anything to add, please add it below, and ill add it to the list. This main page is already getting clogged up with misconceptions and the test server isnt even up. These forums dont exist for our complaints, but for actually testing.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled slapfight.

I get what you're trying to do here and thanks, I agree.

HOWEVER, as I recall (and correct me if I'm wrong, please) in the Town Hall they admitted to a Sept date being unreasonable, BUT, they did lay out that their thoughts were they could have this all done by October 6th.

Given the current, VERY RANDOM state of these changes on the IS side, and the HUGE 'gaming the system' potential on the Clan side, I can't see how THIS portion of the rebalance can be fixed before November.

Some of the **** I'm seeing just don't make no sense...

[Astrocanis]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:09 AM, said:

1. The sensor system youve added is great. It needs tweaking but its a really nice addition, I dont think anyone is saying they dont like it.

I disagree, not in principle but in effect. I think the sensor system will have almost no immediate good benefit without other systems being taken into account. In fact, I think it will be deleterious.

Quote

2. Clearly mechs are still going to need more than sensors to balance the game, and we still need weapons quirks on some mechs

Again, agree in principle. It's going to take more than "mechs" or "weapons quirks" to make this role warfare concept fly.

Quote

3. This will take months

Agree - and I think without approaching the rest of the game ecosystem, it will take longer.

The barbs at the end of your post do you no credit.

[KraftySOT]

Astrocanis, on 13 September 2015 - 10:19 AM, said:

[/b]

I disagree, not in principle but in effect. I think the sensor system will have almost no immediate good benefit without other systems being taken into account. In fact, I think it will be deleterious.


[/b]

Again, agree in principle. It's going to take more than "mechs" or "weapons quirks" to make this role warfare concept fly.

[b]

Agree - and I think without approaching the rest of the game ecosystem, it will take longer.

The barbs at the end of your post do you no credit.

Oh I agree. This is just a step along the path. There are already people who play this game and are good at it, and never hit 'R'. Sensors alone cannot balance the game. PGI HAS to know this. Either they did before Friday, or they sure do now.

Either way, its a great feature, but it cannot stand alone.

[oldradagast]

PGI does not have a good track record when it comes to fully checking and testing before deployment. All they've done is push this back to early October. In its current state, it would make the game unplayable, and it needs more than correcting typos and fiddling with a few numbers to make it work.

Fundamental flaws:

- We cannot tell how balanced anything is when, by their own admission, they aren't trying to balance Clan vs. IS, fix weapon balance, etc. Those are the KEY issues in the game, and adding a layer of Infotech on top of that fixes and balances nothing.

- Infotech is NOT a good balancing tool. Nobody is going to want to buy or play a trash-tier mech whose "role" is to run around the battlefield pressing "R" and hoping not to be shot. That's not fun and it is not even remotely supported in the current game play.

- The new quirks in this Unbalancing as presented make no sense. They are all over the place and look like random numbers splattered across chassis. We've got buffed top-tier mechs, nerfed trash-tier mechs, and mechs of the same chassis type that no longer in any way play like each other. What is the point to all this convoluted nonsense? And one cannot "balance" something like this without just scrapping it.

Edited by oldradagast, 13 September 2015 - 10:26 AM.

[KraftySOT]

Dimento Graven, on 13 September 2015 - 10:14 AM, said:

HOWEVER, as I recall (and correct me if I'm wrong, please) in the Town Hall they admitted to a Sept date being unreasonable, BUT, they did lay out that their thoughts were they could have this all done by October 6th.

Given the current, VERY RANDOM state of these changes on the IS side, and the HUGE 'gaming the system' potential on the Clan side, I can't see how THIS portion of the rebalance can be fixed before November.

Yeah I have no idea how they thought Oct 6th was possible, but then again at the Townhall, the only person to say that was Paul. Either theres a disconnect there between Paul and the engineers who know better, or Pauls just addicted to 'hype'.

November even seems sketchy for finishing this by. Theres ALOT of variants. We need ALOT of time with this. I dont think anyone wants to see every single quirk come back the same as it was, but now with sensors, that doesnt fix anything.

We need to first balance the sensors, then balance the weapons, then do the quirks, then test for weeks, tweak, then maybe its ready for the Live game by Christmas.

[oldradagast]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Yeah I have no idea how they thought Oct 6th was possible, but then again at the Townhall, the only person to say that was Paul. Either theres a disconnect there between Paul and the engineers who know better, or Pauls just addicted to 'hype'.

November even seems sketchy for finishing this by. Theres ALOT of variants. We need ALOT of time with this. I dont think anyone wants to see every single quirk come back the same as it was, but now with sensors, that doesnt fix anything.

We need to first balance the sensors, then balance the weapons, then do the quirks, then test for weeks, tweak, then maybe its ready for the Live game by Christmas.

Christmas what year?

As presented, it makes no sense. There's no amount of rebalancing that can justify a system that buffs strong mechs, nerfs weak ones, and makes mechs in the same chassis type play and feel in no way like each other. Until they get over those nutty ideas, this new concept cannot be balanced.

[Astrocanis]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Yeah I have no idea how they thought Oct 6th was possible, but then again at the Townhall, the only person to say that was Paul. Either theres a disconnect there between Paul and the engineers who know better, or Pauls just addicted to 'hype'.

November even seems sketchy for finishing this by. Theres ALOT of variants. We need ALOT of time with this. I dont think anyone wants to see every single quirk come back the same as it was, but now with sensors, that doesnt fix anything.

We need to first balance the sensors, then balance the weapons, then do the quirks, then test for weeks, tweak, then maybe its ready for the Live game by Christmas.

Still think this is barking up the wrong tree. What I can gather from this "balancing" is that they are attempting to promote roles. But the game doesn't support roles. Even if they implement roles at the mech level, so much is missing from the game that those roles will wither and die. And sensors fit into this. They are going to outdo ECM by ECMing pretty much everything. Marginal weapons systems will become fossils. Playstyles will change from "peek and hide" to "brawl" - and that's only in the lower tiers. At the top level, sensors are already close to meaningless. And no CW team is going to go for "better sensor range by 200-300 meters" over "blasts the crap out of the enemy".

Rewards, maps, skill trees, mech trees, modules, PSR - all of these will have to be modified to make something as "simple" as a sensor change work.

[KraftySOT]

oldradagast, on 13 September 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

PGI does not have a good track record when it comes to fully checking and testing before deployment. All they've done is push this back to early October. In its current state, it would make the game unplayable, and it needs more than correcting typos and fiddling with a few numbers to make it work.

Fundamental flaws:

- We cannot tell how balanced anything is when, by their own admission, they aren't trying to balance Clan vs. IS, fix weapon balance, etc. Those are the KEY issues in the game, and adding a layer of Infotech on top of that fixes and balances nothing.

- Infotech is NOT a good balancing tool. Nobody is going to want to buy or play a trash-tier mech whose "role" is to run around the battlefield pressing "R" and hoping not to be shot. That's not fun and it is not even remotely supported in the current game play.

- The new quirks in this Unbalancing as presented make no sense. They are all over the place and look like random numbers splattered across chassis. We've got buffed top-tier mechs, nerfed trash-tier mechs, and mechs of the same chassis type that no longer in any way play like each other. What is the point to all this convoluted nonsense? And one cannot "balance" something like this without just scrapping it.

Absolutely.

But they shouldnt scrap the sensors. They, based on our testing, need to work on the weapons pass, then couple the new weapon stats, with the sensor stats, then test it. Find out what needs to change. THEN quirks for mechs that need them need to be introduced again, in a sane and rational manner. Not just throwing a 50% LB10 rof quirk at an Orion and thinking that fixes it.

Quirks was a great idea badly implemented. Sensors is a great idea, but cannot stand on its own.

Quirks AND sensors AND a weapons balance pass, is how we get a balanced game. Sensors are basically just fluff. Its cool fluff. But fluff none the less.

PGI cant possible think that they could just make some mechs really good at hitting 'R' and others bad at it, and it was going to balance the game.

They ARE still planning to balance Clan vs IS, but clearly they need time. Theyre not suddenly going to stop being PGI. Changing the flamers stats takes 30 seconds and its been over a year.

Im not convinced theyll listen to us and get this right, but we surely are shooting ourselves in the foot if we just keep ragevomiting at them for their ineptitude. We have all these subforums for each mech. We need to use them. Then at least we can rub their noses in it if they ignore it.

Between the vitriol there IS a consensus on these PTS forums:

"Sensors are cool, but cant balance the game"

oldradagast, on 13 September 2015 - 10:28 AM, said:

Christmas what year?

As presented, it makes no sense. There's no amount of rebalancing that can justify a system that buffs strong mechs, nerfs weak ones, and makes mechs in the same chassis type play and feel in no way like each other. Until they get over those nutty ideas, this new concept cannot be balanced.

Maybe Christmas 2017

But seriously, even Christmas this year, given the state of it, is optimistic yes.

[Nik Reaper]

Some of us again fell victim to several things, such as thinking that PGI got a lot more competent than before, Phills hype for the rebalance and the early planned date of release.
The impression we got was this was close to release not a pre-alpha concept to be tested

Putting mechs in a matrix to find out it's potential value is an ok idea, lowering overall sensor potential to make some mechs shine in that role is also an ok idea, removing IS weapon qirks and keeping clan weapons the same , well bad idea, mech variants separated in to scout, tank and skirmisher is not something that should happen often in a variant instead you have a line of brawlers with mby one outliner ( like the K2 with no missile weapons ) so again not a good idea.
Lowering some omnipod combinations to 66deg torso twist... yeah no, should big firepower be penalized somehow, yeah ok , not to crippling amounts, and to do so to a mech like the kit fox??

It's good that they are trying new things, it's good that they are using the PTS , and if they keep up a rapid iteration based on feedback it all might go somewhere , but we are still worried what they will do with the feedback we provide... we say this is too impotent or those sensor quirks still are no enough to make that variant good, and they give it +5 structure.... yeah...

[KraftySOT]

Im pretty sure they planned on redoing weapon quirks, ran out of time, didnt want to look bad, put it up on the PTS anyways because we were excited, never told us it wasnt even remotely finished, then panicked when it was so bad, people who were just playing it and not testing it, abandoned it after one evening.

This was a fiasco. No doubt about it. But reading between the lines, I just cant believe that the actual engineers at PGI were like "Ok this balance pass is legit, we can get this out by Oct 6th"

No one actually doing those .xml files, or created the code base for the sensor changes (meaning they had to dive into targeting code which theyve admitted is beyond them because a guy who no longer works there made it) or the guys who put it in the UI or the flyaway menus....thought this was going to balance the game. Theres just no way.

And you have to remember when PGI says "Weve been working on it for months!" they mean "Its been on the white board for months and we started on it last week!"

We all know that it took them 8 weeks just to create the BV, after its been on the "big board" since June. Editing the .xmls took two guys all of a day to do. Then we literally saw it the very next day lol.

They really should have warned us it was barebones. Im totally sure Paul or Russ thought this was going to be a "cool surprise"...and not have this giant backlash.

Edited by KraftySOT, 13 September 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[Koshirou]

a.) Just for the record: I do not like the new sensor system. And I think its inclusion as a balancing axis is a disaster.

b.) I keep hearing that PGI stated they haven't balanced Clans vs. IS yet, or that they have only balanced intra-chassis, or that the firepower balance is yet to come. Could anybody point me to a source for that? At the townhall, Russ said unambiguously that they had carefully examined all the Mechs in the game for all the four factors they mentioned and then based the new values on that.

c.) Russ also said they were shooting for an October release at this point. Where and when did PGI state that this would "take months"?

d.) Where and when did you see anything to indicate that weapon quirks could make a comeback? At the townhall, feedback was clearly meant to be provided only on the specific numerical values, and not on the principle.

[Koshirou]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:37 AM, said:

Im pretty sure they planned on redoing weapon quirks, ran out of time, didnt want to look bad, put it up on the PTS anyways because we were excited, never told us it wasnt even remotely finished, then panicked when it was so bad, people who were just playing it and not testing it, abandoned it after one evening.

I prefer to be a cynic about this:

Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.

[Nik Reaper]

Well, I don't think it was a disaster, even though there are a number of rage posts there is a nice number of legit sensor and quirk feedback posts.
Even for one evening worth of testing I do think this has spowned a good amount of why this doesn't work.

I wish PGI thought these tests better, more focused, breaking a big problem in to a smaller one and being detailed about it instead of here we did a bunch of things here, try it out, and we did , and it didn't take much longer than one evening to get an understanding of what was done and what the effect were, yeah some didn't get to test it in time, but why would they when there is an event going on and no rewards for spending time in the PTS...

[KraftySOT]

Koshirou, on 13 September 2015 - 10:37 AM, said:

a.) Just for the record: I do not like the new sensor system. And I think its inclusion as a balancing axis is a disaster.

b.) I keep hearing that PGI stated they haven't balanced Clans vs. IS yet, or that they have only balanced intra-chassis, or that the firepower balance is yet to come. Could anybody point me to a source for that? At the townhall, Russ said unambiguously that they had carefully examined all the Mechs in the game for all the four factors they mentioned and then based the new values on that.

c.) Russ also said they were shooting for an October release at this point. Where and when did PGI state that this would "take months"?

d.) Where and when did you see anything to indicate that weapon quirks could make a comeback? At the townhall, feedback was clearly meant to be provided only on the specific numerical values, and not on the principle.

A. Well damn theres one. Its absolutely a balancing disaster. But I still think its a cool feature. But yeah no one thinks sensors will balance the game. Thats ridiculous.

B. Yeah the Townhall was bubkiss. I dont even know why I tune in for those things. Its just a hype machine. But I cant find the quote, but Paul just said a few days ago something to effect of "IS vs Clan isnt balanced, and PGIs intention is to make it balanced". But no details. Of course.

C. Its obvious. They havent said that, nor will they. But clearly its going to take months. If they just plop this on the server on Oct6th for the live game, this game is over. Ive seen trains baring down on people that are less obvious than this.

D. Again, recent Paul quote to the effect of "Quirks were a great idea, badly implemented, we dont want to see them gone, but we want to get rid of the huge ones" Basically in response to someone saying the Grid Iron was OP.

He teased in the Townhall to the Twitch chatters, that all those 'nasty' weapons quirks got the boot. So maybe in his mind, this was all going to work out great. But if its not again obvious that you cant balance a TW with an Orion with sensors...well then maybe youre Paul rofl.

[KraftySOT]

We all have bittervet syndrome. We all think PGI is pretty inept. And that absolutely colors our opinion of this "balance pass".

While alot of the bitterness is completely legit and justifiable, im just trying to see through the hype and make this work. I enjoy this game and I dont want to see it wrecked. Theres ALOT of work to do. I dont want to see the whole thing scrapped, I just want it to actually you know...balance the game. Balance clan vs IS. Raise TTK. Add depth. Maybe a role.

Theyre still PGI, but, at the end of the day theyre trying to move the ball forward (albeit slowly and with alot of mistakes).

Can they get this right? Who knows. But I know they cant get it right unless we point out clearly, and concisely, where and how theyre mucking up.

[Mystere]

KraftySOT, on 13 September 2015 - 10:24 AM, said:

Either way, its a great feature, but it cannot stand alone.

And PGI never said that, and which is why I am puzzled why people are raging loudly about it.

And just as a sweetener, here are a few simple and not-so-simple changes to mix things up in information warfare:

• wide-area smoke/incendiary modules
  
• flammable environment
  
• ECM disabling IFF (like it used to)
  
• range detection asymmetry (as they are proposing now)
  
• making TAG visibility subject to atmospheric conditions
  
• making TAG immune to ECM outside of bubble
  
• active/passive sensor system
  
• mines (area denial is information denial)
  
• remove missile warning
  
• make Betty warn that you have been targetted. (yes, it's to troll the enemy )

Edited by Mystere, 13 September 2015 - 10:59 AM.

[KraftySOT]

Yeah I also dont see why theyre raging about it. Its obvious to me...but theres alot of people screaming "YOU DUMMIES CANT BALANCE THE GAME WITH SENSORS!"

Well...

Yeah. Thats like screaming "THE SKY IS BLUE!"

Regardless, theres ragevomit thats being spewed under the premise that it was intended to stand alone. I dont think that was their intention.

[SpiralFace]

Agree with everything your saying Krafty.

The old system was a broken system. And while it was fun, it was also shallow, and EVERYONE knew it was judged on a linier scale.

This system is a mess, but its a mess that at least shows the bones for a MUCH better foundation.

Everyone is so busy hung up on the lack of weapon quirks, they aren't seeing mechanics that seem to be put in.

• Info warfare at least has the building blocks for being something more then it was, when before we had NOTHING!
  
• The entire clan dynamic that they seem to be going for with the stripped out CT's and actually bringing meaning to the different omnipods you equip in more then JUST weapons I feel is a great thing that is almost COMPLETLY getting passed over.
  
• The IS quirks actually look very interesting when you get past the entire lack of weapon quirks. The Highlander and Atlas actually look fun to play now.
  
• I am VERY interested to see what later, better passes at info warfare brings when it comes to LRM play, since that is currently a weapon system that is ENTIRELY dependent on info warfare.

There is a lot wrong with this system, but I would say the direction is a good one to take to break the entire cycle of linear firepower chasing that is all weapon quirks end up doing. And while I believe they need to probably make it back in at some point in time, I do look forward to where they aren't the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to mechs.

[KraftySOT]

Exactly.

Big Tanky mobile Atlas, with his old weapons quirks, would actually be fairly nifty. Doesnt stand up to a King Crab or Dire still, but its at least got a trick in its bag. Youll probably lose all your weapons before you lose that structure, but with bad targeting on alot of mechs, you wont know that Atlas is barren and keep wasting ammo and time on a target that is already a technical kill.

I see POTENTIAL here.

Thats the only thing keeping me hanging on lol.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly, if its going back to alot of the same weapons quirks, or new ones, or what, but I do see a great foundation here.