118 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

OMG.

I absolutely would not play a BattleMech simulator where a target 270m away from me would receive enough ballistic impacts to shed 13300kg of armor from a single bodypart by a burst of AC/20 shells, when a target 271 meters away would remain completely unscathed because all the bullets would miss.

Nope.

A weapon that weighs 6 tons deals 0.2 DPS at long range, whereas a single 15 ton weapon deals 1.5 DPS at similar range?

Nope.

Clan tech straight from TROs against IS Tech from TROs...


Nope.

Would not play.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 09 October 2015 - 08:17 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Adiuvo, on 09 October 2015 - 07:54 PM, said:

Eh, I think you're giving PGI too much credit here. The game could be so much better if they just played with their XML files more than once every 6 months. The basic gameplay is good, as it always has been, but everything is marred by the poor balance. The PTS rebalance was somehow a step in the entirely wrong direction too.

This is why I am so critical/skeptical of some of the forum's broad balance changes. Its like if we go to try something we will have to live with it for months, even if it doesn't work out.

[wanderer]

oldradagast, on 09 October 2015 - 05:19 PM, said:

I still don't get this fascination with table-top balance.

It beats the "if it's imbalanced, break it" that seems to be the process in MWO and it's a reasonably solid foundation to work with.

You can't religiously follow TT, but it seems to me that PGI barely pays it lip service in building the game, and frequently doesn't even bother to to detriment of MWO itself. That's been bad for the game's popularity and bred plenty of hate.

Worse, it seems like a lot of the "alternatives" are made with casual disregard for why they might exist in the first place. Weapon systems are useless (flamers), incredibly binary (LRMs), or outright dysfunctional (LB-X). Clantech never intergrated smoothly (nor can it) with PGI's stated intentions.

Worst of all, much of it seems tantalizingly easy to remedy in forms that don't involve rendering a mechanic crippled (like jump jets), but never seem to be. Whatever they're paying Paul, it's too much for how much he's damaged the game in the name of "fixes" and "rebalancing". I admit to occasionally looking at PGI's job openings and hoping his is one of them.

[1Grimbane]

you guys do realize there is a split in fasa canon right.... mechwarrior games refer to the mercenary side while battletech does not... every mechwarrior game ever differs from canon battletech ever so slightly, just be grateful this franchise is still alive

[Y E O N N E]

Gas Guzzler, on 09 October 2015 - 08:14 PM, said:

This is why I am so critical/skeptical of some of the forum's broad balance changes. Its like if we go to try something we will have to live with it for months, even if it doesn't work out.

Hey, at least it'll be new and exciting!

[LordNothing]

the game can be fixed with more simulation features. simulating things like c3 networks, laser focus times, actuator motion (no such thing as an instant actuator), overall physics rewrite (including collision detection and response).

simulation features is why im a mechwarrior fan. so when you make it an arcade shooter/generic fps game, you really loose a lot. it was a mistake to go for a so called 'thinking mans shooter, there is very little thinking (even among devs) and very few men (many, many mice though).

going back to battletech rules might help out some of the balance issues, but to be fair its not a battletech title (theres a game for you now, go play that), its a mechwarrior title and i think the game needs to be looking at what made mechwarrior great. it was simulation features.

Edited by LordNothing, 09 October 2015 - 09:59 PM.

[Mechanical Dragon]

I sort of skimmed through most of this forum, but I'll put my 2 cents in. I love Mechwarrior Online. I have not played battletech so I don't know very much about it at ALL. I can definitely complain about certain things like how suddenly mechs are doing EXTREME amounts of damage due to Laser overload, and when I say that I mean mechs carrying 4 large pulse lasers, or 8 medium pulses or 10 small pulses on some mechs. This under certain circumstances allows for extreme amounts of damage compared to Ballistic or Missiles. 8 Pulses can do much more than 4 UAC 5s all fired at once. I say this because A UAC can jam and also uses ammo, giving you a limited amount of shots. I think this should be fixed by either by giving lasers more heat generation. In other words just make people overheat when they shoot "so and so" many lasers at once, or withing 2-3 seconds of eachother. This "might" make it even with the energy weapons so that people don't get 1-12 games due to people carrying ONLY lasers.

[Elizander]

Ultimatum X, on 09 October 2015 - 08:53 AM, said:

This idea has come up so many times, and one thing that I've learned is that some players have a warped perception of how long their mechs get to live because table top games take a really long time.



So, tell me, just how long do the actual simulated battles last?

You have a 10s turn, so Total Average Turns x 10s / 60s = Total Battle Time (in minutes)


So how many turns would an average battletech battle take? (do you need to adjust for number of mechs? probably - I'm sure some BT expert can enlighten).

This. People think mechs lasted a long time on tabletop. They didn't.

[Mystere]

Alistair Winter, on 09 October 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

In retrospect, I think making a strictly PVP version of Battletech was way too ambitious and they made the "mistake" of trying to compromise between the hardcore fans and the e-sport crowd. A pure e-sport (i.e. PVP with focus on competition rather than immersion) Mechwarrior game would probably have been the only thing that PGI could have handled, but it would probably have been a financial disaster. They needed to attempt a compromise to get the money from the hardcore Battletech fans, but their compromise was doomed to fail from the beginning.

To really do justice to their original vision, I think their budget would have needed to be ten times bigger. And they would have have needed people with more experience and skills, both in regards to balancing, map design, game mode design, programming UI, you name it. In retrospect, it's hard to be bitter about the overall direction MWO has taken. Sure, it could have had better balance, it could have had role warfare, etc. But realistically, they had 3 options.
1- Single player game. This could have been great, but I doubt I would have played a single player game for thousands of hours.
2- Strictly competitie PVP game. No CW. No real immersion or depth, just team deathmatch, capture the flag, etc.
3- A compromise between 1 and 2.

With Battletech being a relatively obscure franchise with a small demographic, I doubt this game would have been alive if they'd gone for option 1 or 2 right away. It would have been a better game, but a lot narrower, with fewer players. They went with option 3, which was way too ambitious, but at least the game is still alive after 3 years.

PGI should just make a stand -- either ignore the BT crowd or the e-sports crowd -- and let the chips fall where they may. Sheer lack of conviction/vision is what is keeping this game always less than half done.

[FalconerGray]

Elizander, on 09 October 2015 - 10:45 PM, said:

This. People think mechs lasted a long time on tabletop. They didn't.

They certainly didn't, but that's ok if everything else is working in the right way.

People are stuck on the idea of lengthening the TTK, but do we really want to be able to play the MWO equivalent of rock'em sock'em robots, with two mechs standing still in front of each other hitting the alpha strike key until one drops?

A solid hit in TT will be far more devastating than in MWO, but it's also much, much harder to land those shots. Simply making a mech harder to kill isn't the answer, but slowing down the gameplay will definitely help.

And please don't mistake me for a "everything should be TT" preacher, because that's not the way to go about improving things, but to dismiss the TT game and say there is nothing to learn from it is just as foolish.

What would I like to see? The MW3 intro vid. That's the direction I'd be curious to see followed.

[Alistair Winter]

Adiuvo, on 09 October 2015 - 07:54 PM, said:

Eh, I think you're giving PGI too much credit here. The game could be so much better if they just played with their XML files more than once every 6 months. The basic gameplay is good, as it always has been, but everything is marred by the poor balance. The PTS rebalance was somehow a step in the entirely wrong direction too.

How was it a step in the entirely wrong direction?

[Bloody]

All these balance arguments is ridiculous, it can be solved in 1 go with a simple change, just let mechs put in whatever tech they want. And boom, done 90% of the balance is solved and the only issues will be jesus hitboxes and artistic need to place weapon mounts.

But this wont happen as all the try hard grognards will whine about Lore or the need to differentiate the " clans over IS " which is incredibly stupid as even the original BT devs admitted Clan tech broke the game, they had to do a massive reboot in Dark Ages where, surprise surprise, both sides have access to both techs. Instead there are multiple posts by try hard posters who seem to think a weapon which has 50 % extra range, 50% damage extra potential, weight half as much in a superior XL engine, endo frame etc is somehow balanced with some simple nerfs or quirks. It is absolutely ********. Clan tech was never meant to be equal to IS tech, it is meant to be superior.Full stop, end of story. Even the clanners did not do stupid things like Oh lets maintain old IS tech for the sake of making things " lore" hello, clan wolf upgraded Kerensky favourite mech to the clan level. All the IS guys clambered for the latest clan tech to their personal mechs as they are not some stupid grognard.

[RedMercury]

Nice to see people care, it would be worse if the effort for writing went to waste.

To those who like the game as it is, great, this thread isn't for you.

Some misunderstandings aside (e.g. when I say break balance, I mean distort from original FASA balance, not necessarily that something is now OP), I don't see anyone actually make counter arguments against the chains of reasoning I proposed.

I appreciate those who clarified rules of which I was not aware.

A point I want to clear up is that, obviously, making a shooter will need some changes from Battletech rules. The problem is, if the changes are not done well and thought through carefully, it distorts the balance of the original game. And when things get out of balance, often times band **** are used to patch those up, which, if not well thought out, cause further distortions and the need for further band ****. The easiest example is LRMs. Another example is recycle times.

So a related point I want to make is that, instead of applying further band ****, perhaps the designers need examine the original changes which led to the distortions and problems in the first place.

[Hotthedd]

Johnny Z, on 09 October 2015 - 08:48 AM, said:

This isnt a board game and Im not sure why some cannot grasp that, its as simple as can be.

BOARD GAME MECHANICS CANNOT BE USED FOR A FPS SIM COMPUTER GAME BY DEFINITION.

I see this argument all the time and it is incorrect. Allow me to explain why:

The TT mechanics SIMULATE firing weapons, using PROBABILITIES, which are modified by heat, movement, distance, etc.
What an FPS game does is the SAME THING. MW:O simulates firing weapons, but fails to use probabilities with modifiers. The OP is exactly right when he says that MW:O's handling of the SIMULATION has deviated from the board game SIMULATION, and this has led to the domino effect he has so eloquently and succinctly described.

It COULD be done. And the game would be better for it. At the very least, it should be TRIED before being decried as "impossible".

Johnny Z, on 09 October 2015 - 08:48 AM, said:

Additions to the sim, like pilot eject animation will also be huge improvements. This will even improve the sense of scale for instance.

Agree 100%

[Ultimax]

Elizander, on 09 October 2015 - 10:45 PM, said:

This. People think mechs lasted a long time on tabletop. They didn't.

The fun part is that aside from Fup, you'll notice no one has really answered my question yet.

[Johnny Z]

Adiuvo, on 09 October 2015 - 07:54 PM, said:

Eh, I think you're giving PGI too much credit here. The game could be so much better if they just played with their XML files more than once every 6 months. The basic gameplay is good, as it always has been, but everything is marred by the poor balance. The PTS rebalance was somehow a step in the entirely wrong direction too.

I think they do have various test builds they work with to try find balance and good game play mechanics. Balance isnt to bad at the moment. Game play is great for the most part. A bit of work on both and it will be great. The rest of the game will still be lacking or none existant though.

But then Phase 3 of the Galaxy map is on the way to and maybe other surprises. The Galaxy map makes this game more that a blue vrs red TDM. With 4 v 4 on the way also it even looks better going forward.

This game is going in an awsome direction. Just maybe to slow and not far enough.

They are working on like 10 or 11 new additions to Mechwarrior, all at the same time.... Very busy I guess.

This is why no events lately. Its the same with construction everyone wants to get done before the end of the year and have some time off etc. But peeps are also tired from working all year. Construction is even worse for the guys that work outside and if tis raining alot etc. Quack quack to any framers out there. But this time of year the framing is done and the roof is already on, mostly. But I worked in the rain and snow a couple times on industrial and high rises.... Not a framer though. 99% indoors.

Toughest job out there is iron workers and drywallers. Anyone wants to argue go tell them different while they are working. Not even their bosses will go near them then. I shouldnt leave out concrete workers now that I got started.

Edited by Johnny Z, 10 October 2015 - 07:41 AM.

[Freeman 52]

Alistair Winter, on 09 October 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

8- In Battletech, some mechs are inherently more valuable than others and in fair matches you won't see Dire Wolves matched up against an equal number of Awesomes, you won't see upgraded mechs with XL engines, Endo and DHS matched on even terms with cheaper tech variants, etc.

THIS

Even without changing any of the underlying math or the actual mechanics of MWO, I would make one change inspired by TT that could improve gameplay experience for all: let the matchmaker calculate groups not on the basis of TONNAGE * SKILL but BATTLE VALUE * SKILL.

Example: stock Arctic Cheetah Prime vs Centurion CN9-A

• MWO: Light vs Medium, therefore the search for balance favors ACH
  
• BT: 1334BV vs 945BV, therefore the search for balance favors CN9

Surprised an ACH survives until the end as a 30-ton killing machine? Well in TT you would not be!! Because it isn't just a "light mech", it's a freaking 1334BV mech, just slightly inferior in value to a Catapult C1 that has over twice its tonnage.

Different tech levels might have been unbalanced in TT and clans may be OP in 3050, but Battle Value allows us to craft balance matches just by looking at a simple number.

[Trystan Thorne]

I agree partly with the OP.
I think that the TT should be taken as a template, but obviously there is quite a difference between the TT and MWO.

The biggest issue I have with MWO is that Mechs go down too fast. I miss the back and forth we once had. Wish the battles would last a bit longer and be more strategic again.

[FupDup]

Ultimatum X, on 10 October 2015 - 06:13 AM, said:

The fun part is that aside from Fup, you'll notice no one has really answered my question yet.

This quote right here needs to be repeated and requoted.

The majority of the "muh TTK" people seem to have at least some of a background in the Tabletop game, claiming that mechs were extremely durable in that board game.

But so far nobody has actually provided some anecdotes about how long a TT mech will even survive during combat.

If somebody wants to make a claim that MWO's TTK is too low compared to TT, they need to actually provide some estimates of TT's TTK for comparison. And those comparisons should be based on the number of TURNs, not the total game time, because otherwise calculations and crap would make the game drag out for ten times longer than the "real combat" part of it.


A fun side-note is that some of the same people who claim that our TTK is "abysmal" are the same types who want certain weapons to be "devastating" (e.g. AC/20, Gauss Rifle, PPC). Logically, wouldn't weapons that can kill or cripple mechs in one hit make the TTK actually VERY low by definition? That's what makes them "devastating" after all, if they weren't devastating then they wouldn't kill mechs in a short period of time. And if they didn't kill mechs in a short period of time, then they wouldn't be "devastating" anymore.

Edited by FupDup, 10 October 2015 - 08:06 AM.

[Adiuvo]

Alistair Winter, on 10 October 2015 - 01:57 AM, said:

How was it a step in the entirely wrong direction?

Homogenization of mechs, which in the end resulted in less choice overall. A complete lack of weapon rebalance, which is the core of the problem, in favor of structure quirks that are meaningless. Somehow buffing the 2 most powerful mechs in the game (Daishi, TBR). Illogical nerfs like Locusts, Mist Lynx. The incorrect assumption that any amount of 'infotech' is as useful to the same degree as armor, speed, and firepower. In general a lack of any attention to the details.

There's more, but that's a short enough summary.