71 replies to this topic

[Noth]

KursedVixen, on 18 September 2015 - 10:58 PM, said:

Stop poking at people and be nice.

A problem with: "this mech is better for this" is we can't even choose our mechs in the public games to fit the terrain. A General of the army will not call a nuke to every single situation that he needs to deal with. Nor will the navy just say oh let's just do a bombing run ever single time. it doesn't work like that Leaders of armed forces look at the field decide which asset is the best for that field and deploy it. For example. The Urban mech is built for urban combat close quaters. You don't drop an urbanmech into a wide open desert. Each mech has a role yes ,but the fact that we don't even see what map were on doesn't help.

And it doesn't work like that in the BT universe. IS mechs couldn't just change equipment easily for deployment to areas. Many were hand me downs and the pilots were stuck with the mech they were given. You have to drop on a hot planet and your mech is a laser heavy mech? Well I hope you can manage your heat well. Clan mechs were better for this, but were still confined to the omni-pods available for the mech.

From a gameplay perspective, not being able to choose the best for the map can add variety to builds, while being able to choose you end up with less variety on builds since people will just choose what is best.

[jay35]

oldradagast, on 16 September 2015 - 05:51 PM, said:

But MWO is not such a game. It's niche game full of older casual gamers and a small percentage of hard-core ones, many of whom buy mechs based on nostalgia, roleplaying, and feel even if they are dismal performers in game. Such an environment is not conducive to massive shakeups long after the game's release for three reasons:
- Small players base; they can't afford to lose players
- Players are attached to what they bought for reasons other than "winning with the flavor of the month" and thus won't be happy when their favorite mech morphs into something functionally very different.
- No real reason to regrind new mechs (no real-world income off the game, etc.) so players leave.

MWO is not like Magic: the Gathering, where you could print trash and get people to buy it because of the forced card rotations, or like WoW, Dota, LoL, where people will spend an insane mount of time and money grinding whatever the flavor of the month is because winning is all that matters.

MWO is more like Dungeons and Dragons, where people have old favorites (character classes, items, spells, etc.) And the last time somebody tried to "totally re-imagine" D&D, it resulted in 4th Edition, which was not very successful at all.

Agreed completely. This balance pass is the first thing in three years that's caused me to consider leaving MWO. As a player who has invested a lot of time and money in this product, I was extremely concerned at what I saw in the PTS that demonstrated the person in charge of balance does not understand how to achieve viable balance in MechWarrior products.

I proposed this approach which provides balance while also keeping all mechs interesting, diverse, and configurable - three things that were imho lost completely in the PTS we saw due to its heavy-handed neg-quirking, confused mixing of info warfare into balance, and dictating which variants should be played certain ways.

[oldradagast]

You gotta love a bunch of sheeple who throw jabs at people who are "upset that somebody is changing their toys."

Can anyone really be that ignorant? OF COURSE people are going to be upset when something they purchased (perhaps with real money), put a lot of time into (grinding and leveling), and have grown to like changes into something completely different! Are the white knights around here that blind to human nature? If a car company with a software patch vastly changed the performance of their car, would they just mindlessly agree that it "was for the best? Come on!

It is laughable. There is absolutely no evidence to support any of the white-knight's claims that "everything is going to work out." PGI's balance track record in this game is terrible, and that's for handling small things, like ECM, modules, pinpoint damage, etc. But we're to believe that they'll hit a homerun with a much bigger and complicated change based on no evidence whatsoever and PTS data that was so badly done a random number generator would have created better results. And if you don't agree with this groundless pipe-dream, you're a "baby who gets angry when somebody changes the product he bought into something else!" as if that's a rational insult.

Get out and spend some time in the real world... yeesh!

Edited by oldradagast, 19 September 2015 - 04:44 AM.

[oldradagast]

IraqiWalker, on 18 September 2015 - 08:43 PM, said:

I can understand part 1 of that, since I play commander as well (though I prefer casual standard more). However, the rebalancing on the server is still in it's infancy, it's not the final stage of that balance pass. We still need to go through it's phases, and even then, it's not the last time the game changes. I see nothing wrong with the game constantly changing.

Magic can afford to change frequently. They have deep pockets, 20+ years of understanding their game and market, and effectively no competition in the CCG arena once people outgrow Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh. As I said before, PGI has NONE of those things going for it, and from a resource and experience perspective has much more in common with the now-deceased companies that tried to challenge Magic.

Also, let's not kid ourselves - nostalgia has FAR more impact in MWO than it does in Magic, DotA, or any of those other games. Yes, yes - you play LoL characters for nostalgia reasons, and Commander format in Magic may as well be called "nostalgia format." But MWO only SURVIVES on nostalgia - on people who will buy mechs purely for the memories even though they don't need any more mechs. Take that away by reducing mechs to specific roles, killing their combat abilities, or making them behave in a way totally unlike Lore, and you kill the game.

I guarantee MWO is already taking a hit from the threat of this Unbalancing. Why dump money on Nostalgia Pack 3 when the mech may end up performing nothing like it did back in the "good old days?"

Edited by oldradagast, 19 September 2015 - 04:51 AM.

[Noth]

oldradagast, on 19 September 2015 - 04:51 AM, said:

Magic can afford to change frequently. They have deep pockets, 20+ years of understanding their game and market, and effectively no competition in the CCG arena once people outgrow Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh. As I said before, PGI has NONE of those things going for it, and from a resource and experience perspective has much more in common with the now-deceased companies that tried to challenge Magic.

Also, let's not kid ourselves - nostalgia has FAR more impact in MWO than it does in Magic, DotA, or any of those other games. Yes, yes - you play LoL characters for nostalgia reasons, and Commander format in Magic may as well be called "nostalgia format." But MWO only SURVIVES on nostalgia - on people who will buy mechs purely for the memories even though they don't need any more mechs. Take that away by reducing mechs to specific roles, killing their combat abilities, or making them behave in a way totally unlike Lore, and you kill the game.

I guarantee MWO is already taking a hit from the threat of this Unbalancing. Why dump money on Nostalgia Pack 3 when the mech may end up performing nothing like it did back in the "good old days?"

Mechs already rarely performed according to lore. Mechs already never performed like in the good old days, unless you are talking about the good old days of MWO, which I have to laugh as I wouldn't call much of it good with shortcuts, halfassed balancing attempts.

You keep saying MWO only has nostalgia and that isn't enough. How about Warframe? Last I checked they both had similar populations, Warframe has did some massive changes, doesn't have the nostalgia angle to go on, and is still sitting pretty. People will always leave when change happens because people do not like change. Saying a game will die from it is not appropriate though, as what ends up killing it is either poor results from the change (the change here is not complete), or it simply being outclasses by competitors (no real competitors in the mech based shooter for MWO).

[IraqiWalker]

KursedVixen, on 18 September 2015 - 10:58 PM, said:

Stop poking at people and be nice.

A problem with: "this mech is better for this" is we can't even choose our mechs in the public games to fit the terrain. A General of the army will not call a nuke to every single situation that he needs to deal with. Nor will the navy just say oh let's just do a bombing run ever single time. it doesn't work like that Leaders of armed forces look at the field decide which asset is the best for that field and deploy it. For example. The Urban mech is built for urban combat close quaters. You don't drop an urbanmech into a wide open desert. Each mech has a role yes ,but the fact that we don't even see what map were on doesn't help.

You do know how combat in the BT universe worked, right?

Have you ever considered why stock builds are designed the way they are? Because you can't customize battlemechs to the battlefield. No, every single mech had a variable loadout that allows it to have some functionality on every type of terrain. Even then, commanders don't have their pick of mechs. If it's a mech, they will drop it on a battlefield, regardless of how suitable it is to the field.

The entire basis, and foundation of omni tech was to circumvent that issue. It was actually the clans' main advantage. Not their guns, but their ability to always drop in a min maxed loadout set to perfectly match the field.

[MischiefSC]

Mauler is miles from OP. At least it's a solid/upper Tier 3 and does alright in pug queue.

[Davers]

oldradagast, on 16 September 2015 - 04:55 PM, said:

And there's a reason online games that change too much cease to stay in business.

See also Star Wars Galaxy, and probably a host of other dead games.

Those who don't learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

I bought the special edition for Galaxies. My only memory of that game was 60 guys standing around waiting for sand people to spawn so we could kill them. I was very disappointed in that game.

oldradagast, on 17 September 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

They'll gladly fork out a fortune for the next Pay to Win edge they can get, making selling to them via power creep very easy.

Not 100% true, as many of the cheaper/cheapest champions are considered very good. Annie, Ashe, Nunu, Ryze, Sivir, and Soraka are all 'beginner' champs that do well at all skill levels. Honorable mentions go to master Yi, Garen, and Kayle.

Noth, on 18 September 2015 - 11:11 PM, said:

And it doesn't work like that in the BT universe. IS mechs couldn't just change equipment easily for deployment to areas. Many were hand me downs and the pilots were stuck with the mech they were given. You have to drop on a hot planet and your mech is a laser heavy mech? Well I hope you can manage your heat well. Clan mechs were better for this, but were still confined to the omni-pods available for the mech.

From a gameplay perspective, not being able to choose the best for the map can add variety to builds, while being able to choose you end up with less variety on builds since people will just choose what is best.

Except we are like all the big named guys from BT with our custom mechs.

[Spare Parts Bin]

I just feel aa little sick in the pit of my stomach,especially when I contemplate the possible ruination of hours of hard work, and more money than I want to consider.
You may be more objective but I can ilafford such emotional detachment.

Edited by Spare Parts Bin, 19 September 2015 - 06:41 PM.

[Noth]

Davers, on 19 September 2015 - 06:24 PM, said:

Except we are like all the big named guys from BT with our custom mechs.

I'd say that is more for gameplay purposes than us being the big shots, Also it wasn't often that those big shots switched up their mechs and when it was it was notable. They didn't just switch gear between each drop.

[IraqiWalker]

Spare Parts Bin, on 19 September 2015 - 06:40 PM, said:

I just feel aa little sick in the pit of my stomach,especially when I contemplate the possible ruination of hours of hard work, and more money than I want to consider.
You may be more objective but I can ilafford such emotional detachment.

All I can say is that PGI seems to be listening more and more, and the community recognizes when they make a mistake. There will be a way to make those mechs viable.

In the game's current state I can point to ONLY the Mist Lynx, as being somewhat bad, and in need of more help. Every other mech can work somehow.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 19 September 2015 - 08:22 PM.

[DasSibby]

I remember when you could have a 6 AC2 Jaeger... Those were the days. Not overpowered but the Pop-Tarting Meta hated it... So naturally the AC2 was nerfed into oblivion and that Jaeger just hasn't been the same since.

(sadface)

[oldradagast]

Spare Parts Bin, on 19 September 2015 - 06:40 PM, said:

I just feel aa little sick in the pit of my stomach,especially when I contemplate the possible ruination of hours of hard work, and more money than I want to consider.
You may be more objective but I can ilafford such emotional detachment.

I've said it a dozen times, and it seems a frightening number of people just don't get it. Players are NOT going to be happy when the mechs they bought and grinded for hours and hours change into something different then what they enjoy playing currently. It stuns me the number of excuses made up to justify this - "PGI can technically do whatever they want" - and the number of people who think radically changing everything is somehow "fun."

This game is a niche game heavily driven by nostalgia. Most people do not have the money to keep buying new mechs based on the flavor of the month, nor do they have the interest in grinding up the latest flavor of the month while tossing their old mechs in the dust heap. Factor in the nostalgia on top of that - "My favorite mech no longer performs like it should!" - and you have a recipe for a total trainwreck if PGI goes through with the "change everything!" plan.

Edited by oldradagast, 20 September 2015 - 05:50 AM.

[JC Daxion]

Noth, on 16 September 2015 - 05:11 PM, said:

Star War galaxy died because it moved away from what the game was meant to be(a sandbox game) and tried to shoehorn in thempark because the publishers got greedy.

Galaxies main trouble was the result of bad press from angry players about the NGE, and 90% of them never even bothered to come back to see that the game eventually became a lot of fun again, yet they still bad mouthed the game.. It did take 2-3 years before it finally passed the launch, but by the end, the game was really made tons of improvements...

In the end the game was far superior that the BETA that everyone played for the first two years,, Everything from combat balance, to crafting, decorating, clothing, space.. heck they even added an awesome hoth battle, and you could fly ships over the planets, and launch into space from your house!

People forget that before the CU, that you wore one type of armor,, used a couple of builds that were competitive, and basically over powered.. Over powered weapons, bio was broke, Most of chef was broke, droids were broke, all armor outside of composite was broke... Buffs were So over powered it wasn't funny.. the list goes on..

But for all those people that think Galaxies was the best at launch.. should go play EMU, as it is making strides, and in really just about were the BETA SWG was at the CU.. But compared to the end of SWG, it is pretty weak.

the end came when SWTOR's contract happened, and LA only wanted one starwars game so they got smedly to just pull it as SWTOR was supose to be the best star wars game ever, and we all know how that went.. It's a good game, but it is no galaxies that's for sure...

It's sad that people never came back in the end, because the game really did turn into something special. Player made stories, Open planet hunting, instances, challenges, all the old builds came back, like melee bounty hunters, tanks, DPS builds, TKA ext.. the buff system was great, crafting was so far beyond what it originally launched as, there were literally 1000's of items to make, and you could customize your character far more than anything we had pre-NGE

sure NGE launch was a total mess.. But they more than made up for it in the end.. But most never knew and still did nothing but trash the game anywhere that people would listen. For me lifes to short to be bothered with games i don't love... I don't like something i move on.. With the 1000's of games around, why would you even play something you didn't like?


As for this game, i think it has improved, and still will, and i'm excited to see where this all leads..

the following are things that never could of been done in the PRE-NGE era..

Edited by JC Daxion, 20 September 2015 - 06:32 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

oldradagast, on 20 September 2015 - 05:50 AM, said:

I've said it a dozen times, and it seems a frightening number of people just don't get it. Players are NOT going to be happy when the mechs they bought and grinded for hours and hours change into something different then what they enjoy playing currently. It stuns me the number of excuses made up to justify this - "PGI can technically do whatever they want" - and the number of people who think radically changing everything is somehow "fun."

This game is a niche game heavily driven by nostalgia. Most people do not have the money to keep buying new mechs based on the flavor of the month, nor do they have the interest in grinding up the latest flavor of the month while tossing their old mechs in the dust heap. Factor in the nostalgia on top of that - "My favorite mech no longer performs like it should!" - and you have a recipe for a total trainwreck if PGI goes through with the "change everything!" plan.

Yet the strongest two arguments for why changes should happen are not mentioned in this post.

Those arguments being "things need to change for balance", and "broken OP/UP mechs are not fun in the game. Maybe toe their pilot, but not to the rest of the players"

[Alex Warden]

well i know this little sentence has been mentioned a few times, but obviously someone here likes to ignore it...

It´s the FIRST path of testing on SPECIFIC parts of a LONGER rebalance path with MORE elements to be tested later...

It´s like the first few pixels of a larger picture and it´s totally normal that it looks weird if the other elements aren´t in place yet...

It has been the same with alot of changes, an outcry based on assumptions and predictions...a few weeks later those prove to be wrong and people calm down again... i highly doubt this will be any different this time...

cheers and have a nice day...

[DivineEvil]

oldradagast, on 19 September 2015 - 04:43 AM, said:

You gotta love a bunch of sheeple who throw jabs at people who are "upset that somebody is changing their toys."

Yes, you gotta. Because we're right.

Quote

Can anyone really be that ignorant? OF COURSE people are going to be upset when something they purchased (perhaps with real money), put a lot of time into (grinding and leveling), and have grown to like changes into something completely different!

Who's talking about completely different? Changing quirks to reflect mech balance doesn't make evrything completely different. Where did you've pulled that from?

Quote

Are the white knights around here that blind to human nature? If a car company with a software patch vastly changed the performance of their car, would they just mindlessly agree that it "was for the best?

You ideas about human nature does not concern me. Humans are different from animals, because they can control their actions and evaluate things outside of their instincts, and understand the concepts of balance and justice.[Redacted]

I would not mindlessly agree, but I will agree if there's a problem with performance of said car, and car company would like to correct their mistake. If it also accepts my feedback to better meet my requirements, I'm all for providing just that.

[Redacted]

Quote

Come on! It is laughable. There is absolutely no evidence to support any of the white-knight's claims that "everything is going to work out." PGI's balance track record in this game is terrible, and that's for handling small things, like ECM, modules, pinpoint damage, etc. But we're to believe that they'll hit a homerun with a much bigger and complicated change based on no evidence whatsoever and PTS data that was so badly done a random number generator would have created better results.

This is our "job" basically to make sure, that this large rebalance endeavour would meet it's intentional goal. It is because of the people like you, that balance was thrown around, trying to meet your halfwit desires. It is because of uneducated, undisciplined scrubs like you, who only is capable of whining and throwing fecals at people like baboons. It is easy to tell what is wrong, but it's much harder to figure out what's right. This is why people like you would rather play MWO in a broken state that it is now, rather than face any significant challenge of adapting.

Quote

And if you don't agree with this groundless pipe-dream, you're a "baby who gets angry when somebody changes the product he bought into something else!" as if that's a rational insult. Get out and spend some time in the real world... yeesh!

Yes, you are a baby. Because, like a baby, you're not concerned with people that are around you. What about the majority of players, that are bying and mastering mechs out of taste or nostalgia, but these mechs just wouldn't work anyway? What you want them to do? Playing underperforming mechs anyway, out of mere stubborness? Selling them for the mechs, that you like? Is that the depth of your perspective?

You only care for yourself. You perpetually making up assumptions about everything and look at them as facts. You proceed to blame people for ignorance on mere basis of them disagreeing with your empty claims. Who is really ignorant here?

Quote

I've said it a dozen times, and it seems a frightening number of people just don't get it. Players are NOT going to be happy when the mechs they bought and grinded for hours and hours change into something different then what they enjoy playing currently. It stuns me the number of excuses made up to justify this - "PGI can technically do whatever they want" - and the number of people who think radically changing everything is somehow "fun."

SOME people are not going to be happy with their overpowered mech being overpowered anymore. That's the goal.
PGI can technically do whatever thay want - it's not an excuse, it's an objective fact.
Nobody is going for "just changing everything". We're going for "changing mech quirks across the board for better balance". Stop making up straw-mans for yourself. It is not healthy.

Quote

This game is a niche game heavily driven by nostalgia. Most people do not have the money to keep buying new mechs based on the flavor of the month, nor do they have the interest in grinding up the latest flavor of the month while tossing their old mechs in the dust heap. Factor in the nostalgia on top of that - "My favorite mech no longer performs like it should!" - and you have a recipe for a total trainwreck if PGI goes through with the "change everything!" plan.

Possibilities and choices in MWO are given by the extent of your participation. You play more and do your part in the regular events - you earn more and can do more. This is what that game is driven by, nothing else. At this point you can put your freaking nostalgia back where you've pulled it out.

MWO is only to be successful if it can provide for players, who doesn't give a damn about your nostalgia, who barely knew anything about it prior to playing it, just like me. I've played that game since Closed Beta Testing, possess 62 mechs and mastered 106 variants in total, my favorite mech is Catapult, and I can care less if someone holds fetishes around particular mechs, and I do not openly despise min-max players, who holds zealously to top meta-mechs with top meta-builds. But, having said that, the game has to change, so there's an actual balance and a practical reason for buying and playing every mech and variant. I'm pretty sure we have lost plenty of people, who just had hit a wrong mech for playing, unable to bring it to the reasonable level of efficiency, thus making the game more of a burden, than fun.

If you cannot count for all points of view, not even talking about the majority of game's present and potential MWO audience, then you're in no way a person to tell, what PGI can and cannot do and what their game is or should to be driven by.

Edited by GM Patience, 08 October 2015 - 03:05 PM.
language

[Fate 6]

oldradagast, on 17 September 2015 - 03:07 AM, said:

LoL and DotA player, in general, have almost nothing in common with MWO players other than they both play PvP computer games online. In those games (much like professional Magic: The Gathering), people focus on doing whatever it takes to win and consider an ever-shifting meta as a chance to prove how much better than are than everyone else. They'll gladly fork out a fortune for the next Pay to Win edge they can get, making selling to them via power creep very easy. Also, in some of those games like that, you can win real money via tournaments and such if you're good enough, which is also not true in MWO.

In MWO, on the other hand, you have folks who buy mechs heavily out of nostalgia, individual personality ("nobody else may play this mech, but I do!"), and the hard to quantify "how the mech feels" factor. They are NOT going to be happy when their nostalgia-mech turns into something completely different - and possibly useless - thanks to "info-tech" silliness.

Finally, LoL, DotA, and so forth have MUCH larger fan bases, so they can afford to lose customers if they screw up. MWO does not have that luxury.

The fact that you think LoL has nothing in common with MWO means you either don't play it or your don't understand MWO. There are a lot of basic tactics that apply to both games.

Second, LoL has absolutely no pay-to-win. In fact, new content releases so slowly that I can more than keep up (I earn twice what I need). In contrast, MWO has early-access paywalls and pay-only hero mechs. Even now I'm still far far away from having all the mechs (also behind a paywall because of mech bays btw). MWO is actually the most pay-to-win game I've played in years.

If you want an example of power creep look at Hearthstone.

Edited by Fate 6, 21 September 2015 - 01:22 PM.

[oldradagast]

Fate 6, on 21 September 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

The fact that you think LoL has nothing in common with MWO means you either don't play it or your don't understand MWO. There are a lot of basic tactics that apply to both games.

Second, LoL has absolutely no pay-to-win. In fact, new content releases so slowly that I can more than keep up (I earn twice what I need). In contrast, MWO has early-access paywalls and pay-only hero mechs. Even now I'm still far far away from having all the mechs (also behind a paywall because of mech bays btw). MWO is actually the most pay-to-win game I've played in years.

If you want an example of power creep look at Hearthstone.

Oh, come on - read my post! The PLAYERS have almost nothing in common between LoL, DotA, and MWO, in that their reasons for buying the in-game toons that they buy are often vastly different. The games share some common tactics, yes, but that is not what I said, not what we're talking about, and completely irrelevant to the conversation. Yeesh!

The main differences between LoL, DotA, and those other games and MWO is twofold:
- MWO has a much smaller player base and comparably less resources
- People buy mechs and play them based heavily on nostalgia, which is barely even a factor in most online games (mostly since they lack years to decades of history behind them.)

So, given those two facts, would anyone care to explain how "changing everything" - which is what the PTS data proposed - is good for business? Particularly in a small game with limited resources, and a limited, nostalgia-driven player based who have already spent years and real money grinding up mechs? Anyone? Nope... didn't think so.

Edited by oldradagast, 21 September 2015 - 03:42 PM.

[oldradagast]

DivineEvil, on 21 September 2015 - 09:27 AM, said:

Yes, you gotta. Because we're right.

Yes, you are a baby. Because, like a baby, you're not concerned with people that are around you. What about the majority of players, that are bying and mastering mechs out of taste or nostalgia, but these mechs just wouldn't work anyway? What you want them to do? Playing underperforming mechs anyway, out of mere stubborness? Selling them for the mechs, that you like? Is that the depth of your perspective?

You only care for yourself. You perpetually making up assumptions about everything and look at them as facts. You proceed to blame people for ignorance on mere basis of them disagreeing with your empty claims. Who is really ignorant here?

I have better things to do then debate with immature trolls like you who think they speak for everyone while accusing others of "thinking only of themselves." You've done nothing but make groundless assumptions about me, my motives, the motives of everyone who "dares" disagree with you, and even the community as a whole if you think that "we" support the illogical nuttiness on the PTS. In short, you've said a whole lot of nothing and looked like a child throwing a tantrum.

Before I ignore you for good, I figure you could use a hand in understanding what's actually going on here, so I'll spell it out for you:
- Most of my mechs are low tier; we're talking Awesomes, Hunchbacks (not just the GI), Centurions, Atlases, etc.
- I play for fun, not to polish my epeen.
- Even with those two conditions, I STILL don't want PGI screwing up the mechs I have with whatever strange, limited new "vision" or "role" they have for them.

If you can't honestly figure out why people would be concerned that random "balance" is going to vastly change the products they've purchased and enjoyed up until seeing the PTS data, then you are not qualified to speak on this subject.

Edited by oldradagast, 21 September 2015 - 03:44 PM.