20 replies to this topic

[heimdelight]

I speak for many competitive and casual players here when I say that we are very disappointed with the approach on the balance pass. As Paul discussed in his post, he agrees there is a very concerning level of power creep in MWO that has hit a very bad point.

However, the proposed changes and direction of these changes will do nothing to solve the inherent issues with weapon and mech balance in MWO. Even with the proposed changes, Clan 'Mechs with high amounts of excess tonnage such as the Dire Wolf, Ebon Jaguar, and Artic Cheetah will still remain king. The incoming IIC 'Mechs will only exacerbate this issue.

Before I even played competitively, I hit a point as a player where getting info wasn't important if you had one teammate or more to keep you updated in the same way you would keep them updated. Getting info on a 'Mech is only important in Solo Queue if no one has microphones.

I highly recommend you open a line with the community to better balance MWO, because my guess is that people will end up being disappointed with your proposed balance changes if they continue to focus on small amounts of armor quirks and information technology.

The Power Creep needs to be properly addressed first before doing anything else. Balancing the rest of the game with present power creep means you are balancing around the bad power creep.

Edited by heimdelight, 11 October 2015 - 06:35 AM.

[jay35]

One of the biggest issues is how the preview we saw of the balance pass significantly reduced build diversity potential for each chassis variant because they were all shoe-horned into whatever arbitrary "role" PGI determined for each variant rather than allowing the players to build the mech for whatever role they desire, which has long been a fundamental aspect of MechWarrior games. The entire construct of heavily quirking everything (particularly with tons of negative quirks thrown everywhere) is a horrible approach to balance. More thoughts here.

The other major issue is they tried to kill two birds with one stone, Balance and Roles, but each of those requires and deserves its own separate stone. Info warfare is not an equitable pillar to firepower, mobility, or strength, just as strength is not equitable to firepower or mobility, and firepower is really the foremost of these supposed pillars. And Info warfare does not create roles by itself. Trying to force more complex and complicated constructs into a balance pass under the guise of creating "roles" just makes the work unnecessarily harder on the person trying to achieve balance. Roles must be tackled separately, as they are a first-order concept that is impacted by everything from the game modes (when we actually get more than just slight variations of team deathball) and reward structures, to the "Skills" tab (which needs an overhaul to turn it into actual Roles).

Roles are not created by quirks nor should they be trying to do so through quirks. Focus on balance first and worry about roles after we have a general balance achieved.

The entire concept of trying to create "roles" (not really roles, just forced playstyles) for each mech should not have been part of the actual balance pass and won't even be feasible until Skills tab is replaced with Roles tab and several roles are provided for each mech to choose from, rather than forcing everyone to take each mech in only the one way PGI dictates it should be played. And that would remove their perceived need for the mass amounts of negative quirks on everything. More thoughts here and here.

Edited by jay35, 11 October 2015 - 09:36 AM.

[XX Sulla XX]

I suggest doing it in a logical order. Balance - weapon power/range between IS and Clan. Then worry about durability and agility. Then worry about flavor of chassis and things like infotech.

[Fle]

nobody cares, community passed its point of no return, I believe you would get much more support if you propose idea for new cocpit item

[Kjudoon]

Power creep is how PGI makes its money. There is no money left in selling Death Knells or Protectors or Golden Boys. Now the money is selling the next broken/power-creeped mech. This is the business model now. WotC did this by making old sets of cards inelegible for competition. PGI is doing it by making new mechs unbalanced or putting out broken mechs which they let become meta, then the fix rolls out after money has been made. It's not totally P2W, it's still mostly Pay 4 Impatience but those first buyins do get that little something they need for a while till it goes Cbills and then it's successor is introduced. That's the problem with power creep, and since real money is involved, I don't see that changing.

The real problem with this game being frustrating for everyone not playing competitive or climbing Mount Meta-Tryhard remains TTK as brought about by pinpoint convergence. Nothing's worse than getting in match, getting into position to only be killed in seconds by focus fire because one mistake was made and someone lines up a 60 point alpha on you from 600m away ending your game.

Info warfare will not change this, Heim, you are right. Ending pinpoint AlphaWarrior Online will. But for that, you have to basically break the back of the esport push that pretty much is going to be done at the expense of everything else in this game.

So, Heim of LaMancha, this is a windmill we are tilting at. We cannot win.

[Fractis Zero]

XX Sulla XX, on 11 October 2015 - 12:15 PM, said:

I suggest doing it in a logical order. Balance - weapon power/range between IS and Clan. Then worry about durability and agility. Then worry about flavor of chassis and things like infotech.

If PGI lowered the heat and cooldown of the Inner Sphere weapons, yet keep the lower range and higher tonnage. Would that be a good start at balance? This would also keep the flavour of IS vs. Clan tech.

[Skarlock]

Kjudoon, on 11 October 2015 - 12:46 PM, said:

Power creep is how PGI makes its money. There is no money left in selling Death Knells or Protectors or Golden Boys. Now the money is selling the next broken/power-creeped mech. This is the business model now. WotC did this by making old sets of cards inelegible for competition. PGI is doing it by making new mechs unbalanced or putting out broken mechs which they let become meta, then the fix rolls out after money has been made. It's not totally P2W, it's still mostly Pay 4 Impatience but those first buyins do get that little something they need for a while till it goes Cbills and then it's successor is introduced. That's the problem with power creep, and since real money is involved, I don't see that changing.

The real problem with this game being frustrating for everyone not playing competitive or climbing Mount Meta-Tryhard remains TTK as brought about by pinpoint convergence. Nothing's worse than getting in match, getting into position to only be killed in seconds by focus fire because one mistake was made and someone lines up a 60 point alpha on you from 600m away ending your game.

Info warfare will not change this, Heim, you are right. Ending pinpoint AlphaWarrior Online will. But for that, you have to basically break the back of the esport push that pretty much is going to be done at the expense of everything else in this game.

So, Heim of LaMancha, this is a windmill we are tilting at. We cannot win.

You know, if they at least gave IS the same level of power creep as clan, I'd be fine with this. PGI has to make its money somehow. Yet no new IS mechs have arrived that are actually really good with Resistance 2, and Resistance 1 was a joke. I guess the Mauler isn't bad, but it's no clan mech. If PGI is really following this model, they should at LEAST be consistent between the clan and IS packs. It should be either that, or let IS take clan mechs in CW. As much as people malign CW, PGI invested a lot of time and effort making this whole new game mode that no one plays, at least partially because of said imbalance. If they are going to get a legit return on that investment, they need to do something with it.

Edited by Skarlock, 11 October 2015 - 03:14 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

heimdelight, on 11 October 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

The Power Creep needs to be properly addressed first before doing anything else. Balancing the rest of the game with present power creep means you are balancing around the bad power creep.

Well put

When heat scaling was new, I think it did a pretty good job. Post clan invasion though PGI didn't seem to be interested in using it on Clans. At the height of the poptart meta, 20, 25, 30, 35, maybe 40 pt alphas at a distance were common. With Clans here now 50-84 alphas are the norm on some of the best mechs.

Back in Dec 14'. PGI decided to buff IS large lasers, ER larges, and LPL rather than use HS directly against Clans.

Back when PGI tried the burn time nerf to the TBR and SCR, regardless of whether burntime is a good way to go about it, they still got grief over it.

Forget the heat scaling though, things are just globally out of whack and quirks are not up to the challenge to completely fill it.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 11 October 2015 - 03:58 PM.

[Ragnahawk]

Maybe they plan to adjust the weapons for intersphere before they introduce quirks?

[Skarlock]

F8Sealed, on 11 October 2015 - 04:08 PM, said:

Maybe they plan to adjust the weapons for intersphere before they introduce quirks?

The thing is, balance doesn't exist in a vacuum, especially with asymmetrical balance between clan tech and IS tech. If we saw the whole picture we could give much more accurate feedback. We can't see something so obviously half baked though and make any proper judgments. It's like PGI was contracted to build a house. After some months they say for us to come check their work, and we see a concrete foundation. No walls. No floors. Not even plumbing or basic electrical work. Just a concrete slab. That doesn't give us any real indication of what they are building here. We need to see something much more fleshed out before we can decide if it's good or bad for the game.

[Igor Kozyrev]

Start back from the roots and first change the skill system. It's the skills that turn mechwarrior in some sort of arcade game. Then, quirks. I think it's time to reduce all weapon quirks to minimum and add something new - radar range, zoom factor, ecm range, non-affected-by-ecm-range, jjet efficiency, safe fall speed and so on. Hell, even agility quirks might work if you get rid of mech skills and replace it with something that doesn't doubles 'mechs efficiency in every single aspect.

[XX Sulla XX]

Fractis Zero, on 11 October 2015 - 02:24 PM, said:

If PGI lowered the heat and cooldown of the Inner Sphere weapons, yet keep the lower range and higher tonnage. Would that be a good start at balance? This would also keep the flavour of IS vs. Clan tech.

I think range has to be closer to have any kind of balance. You already have much shorter IS range and you can run 3 very short duration LPLs etc. But Clans having double range just kills you. Thats why I think they should jump to 3060 and give us IS ER Mediums and Small and Xpulse etc.

And as part of that they can lower clan laser damage some and even range to lower TTK a bit over all.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 12 October 2015 - 02:36 AM.

[Mazzyplz]

the shoehorned roles thing is a massive kick below the belt - the thing that should balance the variants is the different hardpoints; the reason they are not balanced is because some weapons like the SRM and LRM completely SUCK
making missile hardpoints useless.
instead of getting all creative with variant roles why not do the simple and more basic thing and balance the weapons?
that way missile variants will be balanced by their ability of not sucking.

you are trying to shoot into orbit before you have even crawled, let alone ran.

[TygerLily]

I think each game mode needs something "to the side."


Conquest
Cluster a bunch of nodes central to the map (5?)

Several few, far between points on the edges of the map. (3?)

Also at the edge of the map, two capturable facilities:
One that doubles resource gathering
Another that, when destroyed, neautralizes ALL nodes.

Infotech Mechs can "double capture" a node which makes it take longer to removed from your team's control. (IE fill the capture bar, IT mechs can stay and fill the capture bar again to get this bonus).

Theory: Lights at the edge could get 3 nodes and double their output (like having 6). So fighting for the outside is important. BUT the 5 in the center mean bigger Mechs have an important area to fight over. Being able to neutralize the points once could also make for interesting late game strategies.

Assault

Each team has a main base. It can be captured SUPER fast and leads to an immediate win.

There are two secondary bases mid field that start neutral. Capturing both starts a 5 minutes countdown to win. If the defending team recaptures ONE of these secondaries, then they stop the countdown.

InfoTech Mechs can "reinforce" their team's main base or secondaries. The IT mech stands on the base for a bit longer and now the bases now takes longer to recapture by the enemy.

Theory: Teams cannot deathball in full defense or they will lose due to the secondaries. They cannot play deathball fully aggressive either because a fast enemy can capture their main base very fast. Fast movers will be more important to tending the flanks to stop enemy fast Mechs, thus thinning out the deathball.

Skirmish

Three or four facilities on the edges of the map.

1) Fire Support Site: Replenishes strikes when captured. If captured by an "infotech" Mech, it replenishes all consumables. Has a 1 minutes cooldown.

2) HQ: On a tie or time out, whoever owns this facility wins.

3) Logistic Site: Replenishes UAV and coolshots when captured. If captured by an "infotech" Mech, it replenishes all consumables. Has a 1 minutes cooldown.

4?) Repair/Rearm Site: If your team owns this, any Mech can enter the square to have armor (not structure) repaired and ammo replenished. This should be a SLOW process.

Theory: The 'goal' of Skirmish is annihilation so infotech has to be valuable in assisting this goal. Any number of other facility ideas could be used so that the outter bounderies of the map 1) get used 2) break up the deathball 3) let battles unfold in new ways.


OR ANYTHING. lol...something to change things up.

[Benjamin Davion]

Heim is absolutely on point and I've been saying this since they started talking about 'info warfare'. It's not going to make an iota of difference between higher level players and lower level players. Higher level players are still going to figure out what the most effective firepower profile is (with the laser nerfs they're talking about, all hail PPC/Gauss, as predicted), lower level players will screw around trying to get the most out of this new 'info warfare' BS and get absolutely thrashed by higher level players with meta. Period.

[Khobai]

Agreed. The 50-70 damage alphastrikes coming from gauss/laser combopacks needs to be curbed for there to be any hope of balance between Clan and IS mechs.

[Benjamin Davion]

Khobai, on 15 October 2015 - 12:30 AM, said:

Agreed. The 50-70 damage alphastrikes coming from gauss/laser combopacks needs to be curbed for there to be any hope of balance between Clan and IS mechs.

The way they're going about it just means it's going to be Gauss/PPC like the days before the quirks.

[Leopardo]

Igor Kozyrev, on 11 October 2015 - 04:51 PM, said:

Start back from the roots and first change the skill system. It's the skills that turn mechwarrior in some sort of arcade game. Then, quirks. I think it's time to reduce all weapon quirks to minimum and add something new - radar range, zoom factor, ecm range, non-affected-by-ecm-range, jjet efficiency, safe fall speed and so on. Hell, even agility quirks might work if you get rid of mech skills and replace it with something that doesn't doubles 'mechs efficiency in every single aspect.

can agree with this - after x2 efficiency all mech lost their own driving style and become easydriving arcade style!!!!
i want mechs that controls more real,,,and moves more real,,,

[Leopardo]

TygerLily, on 13 October 2015 - 12:36 PM, said:

I think each game mode needs something "to the side."


Conquest
Cluster a bunch of nodes central to the map (5?)

Several few, far between points on the edges of the map. (3?)

Also at the edge of the map, two capturable facilities:
One that doubles resource gathering
Another that, when destroyed, neautralizes ALL nodes.

Infotech Mechs can "double capture" a node which makes it take longer to removed from your team's control. (IE fill the capture bar, IT mechs can stay and fill the capture bar again to get this bonus).

Theory: Lights at the edge could get 3 nodes and double their output (like having 6). So fighting for the outside is important. BUT the 5 in the center mean bigger Mechs have an important area to fight over. Being able to neutralize the points once could also make for interesting late game strategies.

Assault

Each team has a main base. It can be captured SUPER fast and leads to an immediate win.

There are two secondary bases mid field that start neutral. Capturing both starts a 5 minutes countdown to win. If the defending team recaptures ONE of these secondaries, then they stop the countdown.

InfoTech Mechs can "reinforce" their team's main base or secondaries. The IT mech stands on the base for a bit longer and now the bases now takes longer to recapture by the enemy.

Theory: Teams cannot deathball in full defense or they will lose due to the secondaries. They cannot play deathball fully aggressive either because a fast enemy can capture their main base very fast. Fast movers will be more important to tending the flanks to stop enemy fast Mechs, thus thinning out the deathball.

Skirmish

Three or four facilities on the edges of the map.

1) Fire Support Site: Replenishes strikes when captured. If captured by an "infotech" Mech, it replenishes all consumables. Has a 1 minutes cooldown.

2) HQ: On a tie or time out, whoever owns this facility wins.

3) Logistic Site: Replenishes UAV and coolshots when captured. If captured by an "infotech" Mech, it replenishes all consumables. Has a 1 minutes cooldown.

4?) Repair/Rearm Site: If your team owns this, any Mech can enter the square to have armor (not structure) repaired and ammo replenished. This should be a SLOW process.

Theory: The 'goal' of Skirmish is annihilation so infotech has to be valuable in assisting this goal. Any number of other facility ideas could be used so that the outter bounderies of the map 1) get used 2) break up the deathball 3) let battles unfold in new ways.


OR ANYTHING. lol...something to change things up.

i like the way you thinking - good! and there going to be more of ideas like this!

[Stingersun]

i think if they want locks and info to be so high, lets take a side step to convergance. make locks take a little longer, but the better the lock to have, the more pinpoint you have, closer you are, faster you can lock. pinpoint is what drops TTK, with this, if you line up that shot and wait for the lock, you can still have pinpoint, but atleast it would help take some of the pinpoint out of this.