44 replies to this topic

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

I know that there is stock mech mondays, but I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before in the forums, or in this way, but what I was wondering is if Community Warfare wouldn't be more enjoyable (as well as easier balanced) if only Stock Builds were allowed for CW mode?

I suggest this because I feel current Metawarrior Online playstyle doesn't allow for mech diversity or their variants to really shine.

There is a lot I imagine that could be done in a mode like this, but just thinking off the top of my head I would imagine it'd be a lot easier to balance as the variants loadouts wouldn't change. You could even limit the amount of variants that could be taken into a drop (2, 1... whatever) as to reduce meta abuse and ease quirking overbuffing/restrictions.

Now obviously there are some glaring issues when looked at on paper. But lets separate TDM from CW for a second, and try to reinvent that wheel. There is a lot of game play ideas that could be added to a Stock Mech CW to make up for the grand canyon of a technological gap that exists between the two factions, and I'm sure that could be explored (in a positive way, we're all on the same MWO team) so that we could have our TDM metagame, and we could also have our lore-like Community Warfare.

Ideas, thoughts, suggestions?
Would you give a Stock Mech version of CW a try?

[Burktross]

Err... nahhh........

[Kira Onime]

God please no...... most default clan builds are horrible.

[xDust]

KiraOnime, on 24 May 2015 - 02:59 PM, said:

God please no...... most default clan builds are horrible.

lolstormcrowprime

Not like anything changed!

[Bishop Steiner]

00ohDstruct, on 24 May 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

I know that there is stock mech mondays, but I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before in the forums, or in this way, but what I was wondering is if Community Warfare wouldn't be more enjoyable (as well as easier balanced) if only Stock Builds were allowed for CW mode?

I suggest this because I feel current Metawarrior Online playstyle doesn't allow for mech diversity or their variants to really shine.

There is a lot I imagine that could be done in a mode like this, but just thinking off the top of my head I would imagine it'd be a lot easier to balance as the variants loadouts wouldn't change. You could even limit the amount of variants that could be taken into a drop (2, 1... whatever) as to reduce meta abuse and ease quirking overbuffing/restrictions.

Now obviously there are some glaring issues when looked at on paper. But lets separate TDM from CW for a second, and try to reinvent that wheel. There is a lot of game play ideas that could be added to a Stock Mech CW to make up for the grand canyon of a technological gap that exists between the two factions, and I'm sure that could be explored (in a positive way, we're all on the same MWO team) so that we could have our TDM metagame, and we could also have our lore-like Community Warfare.

Ideas, thoughts, suggestions?
Would you give a Stock Mech version of CW a try?

that would imply that Stock Mechs were in themselves balanced. Even if you stick to single Tech Tiers, you have wildly disparate power levels. And then you have mechs that would be stuck with 3025 Tech facing Star League Tech, facing Clan Tech.

Stock Mech is fun, but only way it's even remotely balanced is pure Clan vs Clan or Tier 1 3025 tech vs 3025 tech. And even then, it only slightly alleviates the balance issues.

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 May 2015 - 03:04 PM, said:

that would imply that Stock Mechs were in themselves balanced. Even if you stick to single Tech Tiers, you have wildly disparate power levels. And then you have mechs that would be stuck with 3025 Tech facing Star League Tech, facing Clan Tech.

Stock Mech is fun, but only way it's even remotely balanced is pure Clan vs Clan or Tier 1 3025 tech vs 3025 tech. And even then, it only slightly alleviates the balance issues.

And that's an elephant in the room issue, of course. In current PGI state of game, yes wouldn't be much fun or fair. I get that.

But, and this is just thinking outside of the box, use some sort of reward system for playing in CW, that allows for either upgrading mechs (SHS to DHS, quirk-like abilities, things to make your mech better the more you pilot it) or leveling a mechwarrior through different tiers, and specializing them in more ways. This would allow for people to chisel out a mechwarrior to their playstyle, or to fill roles not previously explored in depth. Also it would allow for some diversity I'm not saying this is the epic solution or anything, but it's just one idea of a direction that this game could really use as a breath of fresh air.

Also I'm sure there are tons of incentives PGI could develop and drop mechwise for different factions as carrots to chase after as well. Even for different weight class tiers too. Perhaps a champion-level mech? Different hardpoints, model geometry... whatever.

But I think this would only really work in a Stock world, because it's almost impossible to balance a game (or game mode) when there are too many variables people can bring into play. If PGI were to start small, then work big then perhaps things would be better off.

[bad arcade kitty]

not trials
stocks
is stocks with single heat sinks... delicious

[Summon3r]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 May 2015 - 03:04 PM, said:

that would imply that Stock Mechs were in themselves balanced. Even if you stick to single Tech Tiers, you have wildly disparate power levels. And then you have mechs that would be stuck with 3025 Tech facing Star League Tech, facing Clan Tech.

Stock Mech is fun, but only way it's even remotely balanced is pure Clan vs Clan or Tier 1 3025 tech vs 3025 tech. And even then, it only slightly alleviates the balance issues.

doesnt much matter in the current non-stock format anyway 400 year old IS battlemechs trump the hell out of clan omni mechs.

i endorse a stock option somewhere in the game 100%, i would play nothing else tbh.

[IronLichRich]

Stock mode would simply have a different meta than modified. You would see the best stock mechs just as much as you see the current meta builds now

[zagibu]

They could totally do it if they dropped tonnage limits and added battle value instead.

[Astrocanis]

00ohDstruct, on 24 May 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

I know that there is stock mech mondays, but I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before in the forums, or in this way, but what I was wondering is if Community Warfare wouldn't be more enjoyable (as well as easier balanced) if only Stock Builds were allowed for CW mode?

I suggest this because I feel current Metawarrior Online playstyle doesn't allow for mech diversity or their variants to really shine.

There is a lot I imagine that could be done in a mode like this, but just thinking off the top of my head I would imagine it'd be a lot easier to balance as the variants loadouts wouldn't change. You could even limit the amount of variants that could be taken into a drop (2, 1... whatever) as to reduce meta abuse and ease quirking overbuffing/restrictions.

Now obviously there are some glaring issues when looked at on paper. But lets separate TDM from CW for a second, and try to reinvent that wheel. There is a lot of game play ideas that could be added to a Stock Mech CW to make up for the grand canyon of a technological gap that exists between the two factions, and I'm sure that could be explored (in a positive way, we're all on the same MWO team) so that we could have our TDM metagame, and we could also have our lore-like Community Warfare.

Ideas, thoughts, suggestions?
Would you give a Stock Mech version of CW a try?

Sure thing. Because then Clan will NEVER have an advantage. Their stock mechs are so brutally behind IS stock buildouts.

[Mcgral18]

KiraOnime, on 24 May 2015 - 02:59 PM, said:

God please no...... most default clan builds are horrible.

While some are terribly...most IS stock robots have SHS. I'd wager over 80% of them, but I don't feel like counting.

Stormcrow prime is a wonderful example of a good robot. Mr Gargles prime...not so much. Loki would be made nearly useless.

Edited by Mcgral18, 24 May 2015 - 04:21 PM.

[bad arcade kitty]

Astrocanis, on 24 May 2015 - 04:20 PM, said:

Sure thing. Because then Clan will NEVER have an advantage. Their stock mechs are so brutally behind IS stock buildouts.

you mix stocks and trials
is trials are not stocks, clan trials are stocks

[Summon3r]

Mcgral18, on 24 May 2015 - 04:20 PM, said:

While some are terribly...most IS stock robots have SHS. I'd wager over 80% of them, but I don't feel like counting.

Stormcrow prime is a wonderful example of a good robot. Mr Gargles prime...not so much. Loki would be made nearly useless.

the huge quirks on the IS side may help with the SHS thing tho? id rock a HBR for sure along with good ole SMN-PRIME

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Lets stay with a stock privet button for now.
Then you will all can see how things work in stock.
Clan vs IS would need balance by numbers as is supposed to. We tested it and it can work as is fun as hell. Challenging for both sides.

[Moldur]

Not a good idea.

IS stock builds are near unplayable. Clans aren't good either, but comparatively speaking they're far beyond IS stock builds with standard heatsinks and small engines.

[ICEFANG13]

Mcgral18, on 24 May 2015 - 04:20 PM, said:

While some are terribly...most IS stock robots have SHS. I'd wager over 80% of them, but I don't feel like counting.

Stormcrow prime is a wonderful example of a good robot. Mr Gargles prime...not so much. Loki would be made nearly useless.

I was curious so I counted them up:

7 assaults/38
4 heavies/29
10 mediums/43
0 lights/29
21/139
15.11%

This does NOT include champion or hero mechs. I'm surprised there is so many, I thought I was gonna count up 1-10 at most (remember the good old days... ahhh). But I'm even more surprised there is 0 lights, I could have sworn one would have it, surely? That along with stock engines, well, lights are DOA, as they are on TT in terms of complete combat power.

Compare some of the builds, I rated them myself (on my opinion) in a "How good is this in the stock mech world?" idea. How well this mech would preform against other serious opponents.

Assault:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9a2e4c94f4b0cec (Good/Great).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...56b77e5728aed88 (Good/Great).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c4c6ec8abec6e21 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b82033d8dc37481 (Useable/Fair).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5d15894b3924320 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...dc84cf87295fe1e (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...51693c0a1cbed91 (Good/Great).

Heavy:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...201b1bcccdfc070 (Good/Great).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...cb11c617a1e7e88 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...93c711caccee2bf (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...be35820c36f9b3f (Fair/Good).

Medium:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...53515feaaed1788 (Poor/Useable).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...6a31c3a07a2e513 (Good/Great).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...21e99e387efc123 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...92ffaf7fe46b81f (Poor/Useable).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...54ac7938f6810a8 (Poor/Useable).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...dbd121c9766addc (Good/Great).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...1356189066aaf1c (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...957417dfc10eb81 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f1208acf40250a9 (Fair/Good).
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...58d9470ca3c66bd (Good/Great).

Those are all pretty much useable mechs at worst (the worst I had there, TBT-3C and CDA-3M, are mostly because they're likely to get one shot, even here). I'd even say some of them are pretty impressive, although all of them could be improved (only the Griffin-2N had all three upgrades, which aren't always used, but quite often, especially on a medium. It was probably the most impressive, if it had a closer ranged energy weapon I would have given it a higher rank).

When you compare them to some of the better stock clan mechs, I mean I have a Stormcrow to fill out my drop deck on CW, to which I am still new, and I do about as well with it as the Nova (that I decided to involve myself with, I guess I like underpreformers).

** please don't take the ranking system too seriously I just glanced and make it up, it's more for entertainment purposes.

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

IronLichRich, on 24 May 2015 - 04:05 PM, said:

Stock mode would simply have a different meta than modified. You would see the best stock mechs just as much as you see the current meta builds now

True, but this is where specialization traits or some new form of mechwarrior leveling tree and balancing of mech variants would come in. Easier to do when you remove the meta customization variable.

Besides, who knows, maybe when PGI gets around to involving an actual economy maybe those seemingly less viable mechs would have a greater purpose for whatever reason (war costs money, after all and resupply isn't cheap)

Then you could also limit the amount of variants allowed in a drop deck. So for example, you wouldn't see a drop deck with a bunch of SC Primes, or what have you.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

Actually 3C is very strong mech, CDA-3M has its charm too as is one of the fastest mechs in game.
But if you think about Clans vs IS in stock mode, better start to think about BT asymmetrical balance by numbers.
As I wrote it before here. Thing was tested and can be real fun.

[ICEFANG13]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 24 May 2015 - 05:59 PM, said:

Actually 3C is very strong mech, CDA-3M has its charm too as is one of the fastest mechs in game.
But if you think about Clans vs IS in stock mode, better start to think about BT asymmetrical balance by numbers.
As I wrote it before here. Thing was tested and can be real fun.

I think the weapons and speed of the CDA-3M is impressive, but it's armor is too low for this game, even stock mechs, especially vs clan mechs.