47 replies to this topic

[Kdogg788]

Battle Value is nearly impossible to implement within a game system that allows customization.

Also, IS and clan should be as even as possible to make a competitive PVE game work. Game mechanics were full on skewed in old MW games where the focus was PVE, and for a reason. It adhered to lore and made the campaigns functional. Now, we need a system wherein players have motivation to buy any mech on the roster, IS or clan. This situation is MUCH more profitable for PGI as it enables them to have more selling content to the average player. If Orions remain as a clearly inferior mech to a Timberwolf for example, how many are going to buy them, especially with real money?

-k

[Wattila]

Kdogg788, on 16 September 2015 - 07:05 AM, said:

Battle Value is nearly impossible to implement within a game system that allows customization.

True, if you base the BV on mech configuration instead of real-world performance. In War Thunder, for example, the BR gets adjusted depending on how well the aircraft performs. The system results in outliers like P-47 Thunderbolt (awesome aircraft, but not "meta-friendly") at BR 3.0 so people often look for the BR sweet spot which is interesting in itself. In MWO, the current Orion would be a very attractive pick at half the BV of a TW, but the price difference would have to be smaller of course. As far as the economic aspect goes, it would depend on whether people would only play (and buy) the most powerful mech regardless of how much team BV it would eat. But you would have to ask PGI about that.

EDIT: Oh, and I would totally play the Orion, if I got compensated with stronger mechs on my team, as I like the design.

Edited by Wattila, 16 September 2015 - 07:33 AM.

[Torric]

Kdogg788, on 16 September 2015 - 07:05 AM, said:

Battle Value is nearly impossible to implement within a game system that allows customization.

Also, IS and clan should be as even as possible to make a competitive PVE game work. Game mechanics were full on skewed in old MW games where the focus was PVE, and for a reason. It adhered to lore and made the campaigns functional. Now, we need a system wherein players have motivation to buy any mech on the roster, IS or clan. This situation is MUCH more profitable for PGI as it enables them to have more selling content to the average player. If Orions remain as a clearly inferior mech to a Timberwolf for example, how many are going to buy them, especially with real money?

-k

There are mechs that are never going to be viable. Apparently one of the NGNG guys confirmed Locusts were among them. PGI adhered to lore where it pleased them. They put in the Locust, because they could make money from selling it, but they did not care it is an anti infantry mech in a game that does not have infantry...

Wattila, on 16 September 2015 - 07:31 AM, said:

True, if you base the BV on mech configuration instead of real-world performance. In War Thunder, for example, the BR gets adjusted depending on how well the aircraft performs. The system results in outliers like P-47 Thunderbolt (awesome aircraft, but not "meta-friendly") at BR 3.0 so people often look for the BR sweet spot which is interesting in itself. In MWO, the current Orion would be a very attractive pick at half the BV of a TW, but the price difference would have to be smaller of course. As far as the economic aspect goes, it would depend on whether people would only play (and buy) the most powerful mech regardless of how much team BV it would eat. But you would have to ask PGI about that.

EDIT: Oh, and I would totally play the Orion, if I got compensated with stronger mechs on my team, as I like the design.

That is the problem. To make matchmaking work, they would have to factor in both player skill and mech rating. Gaijin (Warthunder) can use their system (which has its own problems) because customization is very limited and usually a linear unlock of better engines, guns, ammo. With our current system in MWO... well, they would need to factor in weapons loadout and hardpoint locations on top when it comes to the mech rating.
Those orions are pretty awkward to pilot because you have to expose yourself fully to make use of your weapons, hardpoints are all very low and far apart, and the hitboxes make running a STD engine almost mandatory. I like the Orion as an iconic mech in the Battletech Universe, but in this game, they are horrible.

Maybe... maybe they could just discard the matchdata from completely nonviable mechs, so they can still be run for lolz without tanking your psr?

Edited by Torric, 16 September 2015 - 05:38 PM.

[Rushmoar]

Kdogg788, on 16 September 2015 - 07:05 AM, said:

Battle Value is nearly impossible to implement within a game system that allows customization.

Yeah, I would aslo agree with this. Also the battle value that is in the PTS is only part of the balance pyramid. Mainly its just structure and sensors changes right now. Weapon balance is later if needed.

The skill tree is a joke at the moment. The skill tree just does not work for both Clan and IS mechs. The Timberwolf gets more bonuses off the skill tree than an Oroin will. Better acceleration, better cooling, better agility, and on and on. Clan tech is differnt from IS tech so I think there should be 2 skill trees. One for each side.

Or how about game mechanics like if a Clan XL mechs loses its ST, it also loses it speed tweek bonus. Or how about lowering the Heat Threshold so that laser vomit mechs can't alpha 56 damage 3 times before shutting down. Wouldn't need most of those ghost heat quirks if the heat threshold was lower to start with. Also might promote more brawling if more mech needed to run some small lasers instead of running all medium lasers. I know there will always be gauss rifles out there. Just tweek them it its a problem. Also they are not the end all be all weapon. They can explode.

Was going to make another point but don't know what it was. Any way PGI said for the most part Timberwolves will always have large alphas. But PGI can at least tone down the acceration, torso twist speeds, and over all agility so it is harder to pilot. That is what the battle value is trying to do.

Maybe the Orion doesn't have the timberwolf's firepower but, it is stronger, tougher, and its guass rifle is much harder to take out. And i think the biggest thing that makes clan op is the XL engines. I have seen many Clans mech lose a side torso, the problem is they keep going and going but your dead in your IS mech with the XL engine. That is why I say Clan XL engines should lose their speed tweek bonus but not their base speed. Russ said he won't touch the mechs speed. But the speed tweek bonus is a diffent aspect in my opinion.

Edited by Rushmoar, 16 September 2015 - 08:50 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Torric, on 16 September 2015 - 05:22 PM, said:

There are mechs that are never going to be viable. Apparently one of the NGNG guys confirmed Locusts were among them. PGI adhered to lore where it pleased them. They put in the Locust, because they could make money from selling it, but they did not care it is an anti infantry mech in a game that does not have infantry...

The Locust is not the worst mech in the game. Certain variants are contenders, but others are far above the worst.


That's what Quirks can do. Legs as durable as 35 tonners, with cooler, longer ranged weapons, at the cost of fragile STs. Not quite fearsome, but not something to be ignored.

[Khobai]

Dont worry guys. PGI is going to make the Orion equal to Timberwolf by compensating all its firepower, armor, and speed shortcomings with infotech bonuses. The Orion's infotech will be over 9000. Anything it targets with its sensors will instantly explode.

Quote

Battle Value is nearly impossible to implement within a game system that allows customization.

Not really. You could easily assign battle values based on usage stats. Most players gravitate towards using whatever mechs and weapons they perceive to give them the biggest advantages. So logically the more a mech or weapon is used the higher its battle value should be.

You could even implement dynamic battle values, where the battlevalue of a mech or weapon automatically changes based on how often it gets used. If its usage increases or decreases then its battlevalue also goes up or down. So, for example, if you had a laser-only meta, the battle value of lasers would keep increasing, which would eventually discourage the use of lasers and shift the meta to other weapons.

Quote

There are mechs that are never going to be viable. Apparently one of the NGNG guys confirmed Locusts were among them.

Except you see Pirate's Banes sometimes in CW because of tonnage limits. By taking a locust as your last mech it allows you to frontload your other 3 mechs with 220 tons.

The reason the Locust isnt seen in non-CW gameplay is because theres no incentive to use lights that weigh less than 35 tons. Because tonnage limits arnt enforced in assault, conquest, or skirmish.

Edited by Khobai, 17 September 2015 - 12:00 AM.

[Nick86]

Wait.... Hold up.

Sorry but f*cking surely, the answer is to give IS mechs Clan Weapons. Happened in every other successful MWO game and they didn't take 3yrs to sort their sh*t out.


https://youtu.be/sZ4sR4S74xQ

I mean Jesus... WHY carry on with this? It's like saving your silver bullet for when you're half-dead, knowing it would have killed the problem from the start.

And Orions equal to TWs? Not buying a mech ever again having spent hundreds of dollars on junk-to-be.
Gonna actually have to download the stupid testy thing to see if it's really that bad!

Personally, I think the logical conclusion is to allow IS/Clan to all use the same weapons to bring them closer, then start quirking to balance out the chassis and even add unique abilities like the ones currently under development. Surely, right?!

Edited by Nick86, 17 September 2015 - 12:21 AM.

[Raggedyman]

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

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?

PGI had enough fun going "can we get 3 of each broad weight class into a match and not have people wait half an hour for a drop", as soon as you put points in it becomes a queuing nightmare as you have to deal with finer numbers and thus bigger variances.

Technically you can put in some kind of balancing mechanic (for example and not as a proposal "if a team is X% down on points in a drop it gets X% more armour") but that carries it's own balancing fun.

[Torric]

Khobai, on 16 September 2015 - 11:40 PM, said:

Dont worry guys. PGI is going to make the Orion equal to Timberwolf by compensating all its firepower, armor, and speed shortcomings with infotech bonuses. The Orion's infotech will be over 9000. Anything it targets with its sensors will instantly explode.



Not really. You could easily assign battle values based on usage stats. Most players gravitate towards using whatever mechs and weapons they perceive to give them the biggest advantages. So logically the more a mech or weapon is used the higher its battle value should be.

Hory sheet, no. That statistic would be horribly skewed by hero mechs and the like being played because of their c-bill bonus, and thus receiving a much higher battlevalue than their ingame performance validates.

Khobai, on 16 September 2015 - 11:40 PM, said:

Except you see Pirate's Banes sometimes in CW because of tonnage limits. By taking a locust as your last mech it allows you to frontload your other 3 mechs with 220 tons.

The reason the Locust isnt seen in non-CW gameplay is because theres no incentive to use lights that weigh less than 35 tons. Because tonnage limits arnt enforced in assault, conquest, or skirmish.

Well, when i say Locusts i think about the Phoenix variant, the one with 1 energy and 4 ballistic hardpoints. The 5- or 6 energy hardpoint variants and the 4 energy+1 ECM hero are quite fine i think, though pretty much everything else can oneshot them. And CW is not what we are talking about i think... solo queue is.

[Lostdragon]

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.

Things were going pretty well for a while though, and CSJ were ******** anyway.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 16 September 2015 - 11:40 PM, said:

Not really. You could easily assign battle values based on usage stats. Most players gravitate towards using whatever mechs and weapons they perceive to give them the biggest advantages. So logically the more a mech or weapon is used the higher its battle value should be.

You could even implement dynamic battle values, where the battlevalue of a mech or weapon automatically changes based on how often it gets used. If its usage increases or decreases then its battlevalue also goes up or down. So, for example, if you had a laser-only meta, the battle value of lasers would keep increasing, which would eventually discourage the use of lasers and shift the meta to other weapons.

So in other words, a single Medium Laser would have a higher BaddieValue than a single Ultra-5 because it's used on a much wider variety of mechs?

Lel.

[Almond Brown]

Nick86, on 16 September 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Wait.... Hold up.

Sorry but f*cking surely, the answer is to give IS mechs Clan Weapons. Happened in every other successful MWO game and they didn't take 3yrs to sort their sh*t out.

https://youtu.be/sZ4sR4S74xQ

I mean Jesus... WHY carry on with this? It's like saving your silver bullet for when you're half-dead, knowing it would have killed the problem from the start.

And Orions equal to TWs? Not buying a mech ever again having spent hundreds of dollars on junk-to-be.
Gonna actually have to download the stupid testy thing to see if it's really that bad!

Personally, I think the logical conclusion is to allow IS/Clan to all use the same weapons to bring them closer, then start quirking to balance out the chassis and even add unique abilities like the ones currently under development. Surely, right?!

Well why stop there. Give the I.S. Clan XL engines and 2 slot DHS's etc etc. Then everyone who ever bought a Clan Chassis would be very happy surely.

[Torric]

Almond Brown, on 17 September 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Well why stop there. Give the I.S. Clan XL engines and 2 slot DHS's etc etc. Then everyone who ever bought a Clan Chassis would be very happy surely.

They still have customizable hardpoints to be happy about

[Mystere]

Nick86, on 16 September 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Wait.... Hold up.

Sorry but f*cking surely, the answer is to give IS mechs Clan Weapons. Happened in every other successful MWO game and they didn't take 3yrs to sort their sh*t out.


https://youtu.be/sZ4sR4S74xQ

I mean Jesus... WHY carry on with this? It's like saving your silver bullet for when you're half-dead, knowing it would have killed the problem from the start.

And Orions equal to TWs? Not buying a mech ever again having spent hundreds of dollars on junk-to-be.
Gonna actually have to download the stupid testy thing to see if it's really that bad!

Personally, I think the logical conclusion is to allow IS/Clan to all use the same weapons to bring them closer, then start quirking to balance out the chassis and even add unique abilities like the ones currently under development. Surely, right?!

Heck! Why not just go full batshit?

• Mech A = Mech B = ... = Mech Z
  
• Weapon A = Weapon B = ... = Weapon Z

Make everything exactly the same except in color, shape, and sound effects.

[Nick86]

but.. That's where we're headed anyway.. 😞

but.. That's where we're headed anyway.. 😞

Pls excuse my phone.. Does funny stuff like the above sometimes..

[fat4eyes]

Throet, on 16 September 2015 - 05:09 AM, said:

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.

It would be great if this were true, but a meta-toting Timberwolf (all pulse lasers) will take out the biggest of the Orion's weapons before they can even be brought to bear. And the Timber is faster so it can stay out of range as well. Even in a brawl, an SRM Timberwolf will tear the Orion apart because it can pack a lot more firepower, and has a lot better hitboxes.

They should bring back the old longer values for clan laser burn time, particularly for pulse lasers. Make SRMs and Streaks stream like LRMs. And reduce the ammo per ton for the Gauss Rifles, to like half of IS. The clan pulse lasers (MPLs) have way too similar burn times to normal IS lasers, but have 20% more range and 60% more damage. And clan SRMs, Streaks and Gauss are just plain better than their IS equivalents.

I liked the different but equal way they tried to balance IS and clan weapons and don't really understand why they reduced clan laser burn times. It just made it a lot easier for clans to just boat lasers. It's just made worse by the fact that Clans already can boat lasers a lot easier than IS because of omnipods. There are only a select number of IS chassis that even have the hardpoints for laserboating, while almost all clan chassis can be turned into a laserboat with the right omnipods.

Edit: grammar

Edited by fat4eyes, 17 September 2015 - 10:02 AM.

[Kira Onime]

Avenger762, on 16 September 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

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.

Terrible idea.

[Rat of the Legion Vega]

Throet, on 16 September 2015 - 05:09 AM, said:

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.

Well this may be true as a general point of comparison regarding an "average" I.S. mech vs. one of the "average" Clan chassis, the TW vs. Orion matchup is entirely one-sided. TW is arguably one of the best mechs in the game while the Orion is probably one of the top 5 very worst.

You have to pilot an Orion someday to appreciate how bad it is. You have terrible torso hitboxes and your arms are useless as shields so you're forced to run a std engine. As a result you're slow and have poor torso twist due to how those variables are linked in this game. Your loadouts are such a mixed bag it's not possible to boat any of the three main weapon types very effectively, and it doesn't matter anyway because your low slung hardpoints mean it's difficult to get most of your guns to bear over hills.

.

Edited by Rat of the Legion Vega, 17 September 2015 - 10:46 AM.

[Wattila]

Torric, on 16 September 2015 - 05:22 PM, said:

That is the problem. To make matchmaking work, they would have to factor in both player skill and mech rating. Gaijin (Warthunder) can use their system (which has its own problems) because customization is very limited and usually a linear unlock of better engines, guns, ammo. With our current system in MWO... well, they would need to factor in weapons loadout and hardpoint locations on top when it comes to the mech rating.

You do not need to factor in hardpoint locations and such when you use a mech's statistical battlefield performance as a guideline. Mechs with suboptimal hardpoints and hitboxes will underperform, dropping their relative rating. Also, MWO does not really have a skill-based matchmaking. The tier system only prevents T1 and T5 from meeting, but the rest can be freely matched if the MM gets desperate enough. IIRC, according to Wargaming, people start to leave the queue if they don't get a match after 30 seconds or so, and do something productive with their lives, so you don't want to make the queue time too long. And MWO has a lot smaller matchmaking pool which makes suboptimal matches more likely.

Optimally you would also normalize this data for skill to prevent skilled players from overperforming in hard-to-use mechs. Here's how it is done in World of Tanks (axes represent win rates): The E-50M medium tank is pretty well balanced, overperforming only slightly in skilled hands. WG has found out that skilled player benefit more from soft stats (gun and tank handling, view range), and mediocre players more from hard stats (armor, gun damage, armor penetration), which can be used to make the tank perform predictably across a range of skill levels. Mind you, WoT tanks in the same class and tier have more or less comparable capabilities, which isn't going to happen in MWO. But I digress, these what-ifs are fun exercises but unlikely to change anything as far as balance goes.

[Khobai]

Quote

So in other words, a single Medium Laser would have a higher BaddieValue than a single Ultra-5 because it's used on a much wider variety of mechs?

Lel.

Obviously you have to normalize things based on hardpoint used. Because mechs can easily have like 4-6 lasers but can only have like 2-4 UAC/5s. So based on hardpoint normalization the UAC/5 would have a base value thats about 50% higher than the medium laser.

But the dynamic battle value would still mostly depend on how much the laser is used in relation to the UAC/5. Eventually as the lasers battle value increases lasers will be used less and less and other weapons like the UAC/5 will get used more and more and as a result and things will start to equalize.

And whats wrong with that anyway? If medium lasers are used more than UAC5s, it means theyre considered better than UAC5s, because better weapons tend to get used more than worse weapons. Why shouldnt better weapons have higher battle values? That makes perfect sense to me.

Edited by Khobai, 17 September 2015 - 12:46 PM.