47 replies to this topic

[ScreamingSkull]

So Battletech balances mechs combat effectiveness through battle value. The Timber Wolf Prime has a BV of 2737. The Orion ON1-K has a BV of 1429. In a battle you could take 2 Orion K against 1 Timber Wolf P. Why not use a similar system for balancing?

From what I gather MWO mech values are going to judge the combat effectiveness of certain mechs, but instead of using these values for matchmaking... they're being used for balancing? Sorry but in no universe should an Orion be equivalent to a Timber Wolf (or at least not in current time). That is the impression I'm getting, however, that PGI is going to try nerfing the TW down to the level of an Orion and/or buffing the Orion up to the level of a TW.

[627]

this is still a game of 12 vs 12 and if you have 12 mechs on one side that are double as efficient as the other side, you need to balance that.

No lore fluff will rescue this if it comes down to fair game mechanics.

How you achieve a fair balance is of course another story.

Edited by 627, 16 September 2015 - 03:01 AM.

[Wattila]

Yes, PGI wants to balance IS and Clan mechs ton for ton, for whatever reason, fluff be damned. However, clan tech must be superior because of fluff, so it's going to be asymmetrical balance, enter quirks. Turns out you need 25-50% (depending on weapon type) firepower quirks to make IS mechs competitive. Now PGI apparently wants to get rid of weapon quirks and introduces an entirely new concept of infowar, but without doing anything about ECM (range nerf is a joke since it actually increases the value of ECM mechs). Oh, and some IS mechs get large structure quirks so they can serve as nice damage pinatas once the weapons have been stripped off.

Mind you, a battle rating / value system isn't perfect either, but at least it allows you to balance mechs against each other without having to touch every individual variable. It works quite well for War Thunder planes as you can theoretically shoot down a jet with a biplane. This allows you to have machines of different capabilities in a team without breaking overall team balance. The PGI approach is attaching a jet engine and cannons to the biplane so it can fight the jet. Now, chances are people wouldn't buy the underdog mechs, and PGI knows this, so design is dictated by economy as is common with F2P games.

[El Bandito]

The Clans and IS tech can be balanced even further without solely relying on quirks, but PGI is not willing to go the extra mile. Shame.

To OP: BV is always an interesting idea but it is gonna be a real hell to figure out the correct value on all variants. If PGI is not willing to change a few numbers on a simple XML sheet, they sure are not gonna try to go the complicated BV route.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 September 2015 - 04:15 AM.

[Mcgral18]

PGIs value is a ranking system to base quirks off. Hardpoints and mounts are taken into account, along with a few other thing.


Sadly, Paul has stated the point high is based on tonnage, hence why the PTS shafted light mechs, and significantly buffed the TimberGod and Whale.

Time will tell is he fixes it...but seeing as he's forsaken Flamers for 3 years, I doubt it.

[Alistair Winter]

ScreamingSkull, on 16 September 2015 - 02:52 AM, said:

Sorry but in no universe should an Orion be equivalent to a Timber Wolf (or at least not in current time). That is the impression I'm getting, however, that PGI is going to try nerfing the TW down to the level of an Orion and/or buffing the Orion up to the level of a TW.

If you actually want people to pilot the Orion, it either needs to be equal to the Timber Wolf or you need to add meta-game mechanics such as higher repair costs or longer repair times for the most powerful mechs. The community seems opposed to the latter, so PGI is left with the choice of letting both mechs be equal or just accepting the fact that most of the Inner Sphere mechs will be blatantly inferior to their Clan counterparts, and being an Inner Sphere pilot in MWO will be the equivalent of being a Confederate soldier in an American Civil war reenactment.

In other words... yeah, they have to be equal in order for this online PVP game to work.

I didn't realize the so-called BV system would be used for matchmaking though. My impression is that there will no longer be Tier 1 - Tier 5 mechs. The new mech rating system is only there to determine which mechs get the most powerful quirks. But the MM will treat them all as equal, except in terms of tonnage.

Am I wrong?

[El Bandito]

Alistair Winter, on 16 September 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:

If you actually want people to pilot the Orion, it either needs to be equal to the Timber Wolf or you need to add meta-game mechanics such as higher repair costs or longer repair times for the most powerful mechs. The community seems opposed to the latter, so PGI is left with the choice of letting both mechs be equal or just accepting the fact that most of the Inner Sphere mechs will be blatantly inferior to their Clan counterparts, and being an Inner Sphere pilot in MWO will be the equivalent of being a Confederate soldier in an American Civil war reenactment.

Confederates were not inferior in quality to Union soldiers BTW. Union soldiers had the numbers so they are more akin to the IS, by lore.

I'd say the IS would be like that of the Qing Empire in the Opium War against the Europeans. Ancient matchlocks vs. modern rifles.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 September 2015 - 04:38 AM.

[Avenger762]

You could also maybe limit the number of clan mechs per side in a match. So say any given side has no more than 1 timberwolf and dire whale unless the other team has he same numbers of OP mechs.

[Alistair Winter]

El Bandito, on 16 September 2015 - 04:24 AM, said:

Confederates were not inferior to Union soldiers BTW. Union soldiers had the numbers so they are more akin to the IS, by lore.

I knew someone would say that. My point is they lost the war and it sucks !

If you're going to be so änal about it, just think of it as who gets to be the Stormtroopers in a Star Wars LARP. Or the classic Donald Duck tale where the civil war between Duckburg and Goosetown is reenacted, and Donald Duck finds himself in the unfortunate situation of having to reenact the role of the cowardly Goosetown commander. (But then decides to ignore historical accuracy and tries to win the reenactment )

[NuclearPanda]

I was very outspoken in the past about actually TRYING to implement a 10v12 mechanic for Clans v IS.

Sadly, I got yelled at by Russ and they completely wrote it off and flat out said they're not even going to bother. I feel that would be a better route to try than to try to quirk the heck out of the IS mechs for "balance"

[El Bandito]

Alistair Winter, on 16 September 2015 - 04:35 AM, said:

I knew someone would say that. My point is they lost the war and it sucks !

Yeah, except the Clans kinda lost, in lore. First in Tukayyd thanks to space Comcast, and then in Strana Mechty trial of refusal by the combined IS forces, halting the invasion. Oh, and Clan Smoke Jaguar was completely annihilated.

Edited by El Bandito, 16 September 2015 - 04:49 AM.

[Avenger762]

I agree. Less Clan mechs and more IS per match would balance things out a bit. Besides, If a Timberwolf is supposed to be better than two Orions, I'd like to see it actually happen. 2 vs 1 in MWO is always bad for the 1. The Timberwolf will have a large hole in its back.

[Alistair Winter]

El Bandito, on 16 September 2015 - 04:48 AM, said:

Yeah, except the Clans kinda lost, in lore. First in Tukayyd thanks to space Comcast, and then in Strana Mechty trial of refusal by the combined IS forces, halting the invasion. Oh, and Clan Smoke Jaguar was completely annihilated.

You don't say.

[Wattila]

NuclearPanda, on 16 September 2015 - 04:42 AM, said:

I was very outspoken in the past about actually TRYING to implement a 10v12 mechanic for Clans v IS.

Sadly, I got yelled at by Russ and they completely wrote it off and flat out said they're not even going to bother. I feel that would be a better route to try than to try to quirk the heck out of the IS mechs for "balance"

10v12 won't work for mixed teams and still doesn't guarantee balance (I'd still bet on the clan team with those odds, if you take away quirks). It would have to be some kind of BV system or MM by tonnage and make clan mechs appear heavier to the MM (and simply give IS heavier drop decks in CW). Except that MM is now better than ever according to PGI, so they'll just have to figure out how to make Orion equal to TW without touching weapons or resorting to ridiculous quirks.

Edited by Wattila, 16 September 2015 - 04:59 AM.

[Avenger762]

An Orion will never be equal to a TW. So we will need more of them. Just like cannon fodder and Marines.

[Throe]

Part of the reason this doesn't work is because the 'Mechs and weapons in MWO are not balanced around TT values. In TT, clan weapons are hands down better than IS weapons in every way. This is entirely not the case in MWO. Clan weapons in MWO are, in many ways, inferior to IS weapons. This means that, head to head, a single Orion actually has a chance at beating a Mad Cat(Timber Wolf). From my perspective, I would say that single Orion has a slight edge, due to the ability to mount shorter duration beam weaponry, and PPFLD ballistics... I have to note, for the record, that I do not have any Orions or Mad Cats(Timber Wolf) in my garage.

[Torric]

Alistair Winter, on 16 September 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:

I didn't realize the so-called BV system would be used for matchmaking though. My impression is that there will no longer be Tier 1 - Tier 5 mechs. The new mech rating system is only there to determine which mechs get the most powerful quirks. But the MM will treat them all as equal, except in terms of tonnage.

Am I wrong?

I thought that was what they were aiming for... i had HOPED it was what they were going to do. If not, there really is not much hope for this game ever seeing B A L A N C E.
Ideally, the MM would use a product of the pilots PSR and the mechvalue when creating matches, to get something similar like a "per variant psr". With the stuff you can read on the PTS forums, they're never going to make an orion equal to a TBW.

Edited by Torric, 16 September 2015 - 05:22 AM.

[kesmai]

My crystal ball lightens up. I see pgi implementing a battlevalue rating for the public queue. The ball shines brighter and i see a completely different way how battle behavior, kills, assists etc. are valued depending if you are clan or is.

i see a a red flaming eye, damn, wrong franchise.

Edited by kesmai, 16 September 2015 - 05:44 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Avenger762, on 16 September 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

An Orion will never be equal to a TW. So we will need more of them. Just like cannon fodder and Marines.

That's not at all true, it would simply take some work.


isSRMs not being worthless, for example, isXL engine normalization, and quirks, could go a long way.


Clan weapon balance as well.

[mad kat]

I'm waiting for the Daily whine thread to explode when this new system is implemented as PGI have proved time and again they can't balance two pound coins.

What will happen is a theory will be rolled in the Meta will adjust and we will go full circle as there is always a compromise along the lines when you have two fundamentally different types trying to play in the same arena. Its like putting russel crow as gladiator against Neo from the matrix. Chalk and cheese.

You can buff the IS and gimp the Clans all you want but with quirks it makes mechs Niche builds (i don't mind that so much as it kinda carries weight that different mechs, weapons and systems will be made by different manufacturers just as they are now). But what the info system that Russ is rambling on about will collapse as soon as it hits solo queue. It may work for group queue but this info relay network will remove any reason to take a mech over its next nearest equivalent as typically most people ignore each other in pug land and judging by the ratings it looks as if heavies and assualt queue will bulge. so we will once again end up with redundant mechs but a vaguely better idea of enemy movement.

Edited by mad kat, 16 September 2015 - 06:08 AM.