44 replies to this topic

[Tyler Valentine]

Mcgral18, on 01 January 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of balancing with Power Creep via Quirks.

Leaves the Trash Tier Trash, without giving them even bigger quirks, and so the cycle continues.
Or they remain trash...which is worse?

They'd need quirks regardless, but giving the already superior BJ larger quirks than the Vindi?
Seems very strange to me.

I'm just saying neither faction has a decided advantage right now, not endorsing the avenue taken to get to this point. We still have too many 'mechs that are essentially useless sitting in the depths of our stables. I vote for a new Pau.. ehm... Balance guru.

[Alistair Winter]

I agree most people don't know about balance. That's why polls would have been useful, to pick up on the extreme cases you mention. But PGI don't roll like that.

When PGI talks about listening to the players, I think a lot of people assume they're talking about the forum, when it seems increasingly likely they're talking about Twitter and NGNG more than anything.

What did they fix regarding the Warhammer's head?

[C E Dwyer]

MauttyKoray, on 01 January 2016 - 02:18 PM, said:

Seriously, after reading these forums for months, people don't know how balance works. They complain about systems they use getting nerfed and that 'now I have to use a different weapon' when the weapon nerfed was in fact overpowering the others and making them a sub-par choice in their intended use.

Also the game has long had an issue with high damage pinpoint alpha strikes, yet any attempt to mitigate these has been met with strong opposition. Meanwhile you can find the same people complaining about low TTKs and how they die so quickly all the time.

So here's what I can suggest: Stop listening to people complain. Monitor the forums for any major issues (like extreme cases, the triple ERPPC thunderbolts, the many underperforming clan mechs, the ridiculous BJs survivability, the Warhammer's Head/Arms (gj on that one!), and other issues) but for the overall general balance of the game: Stop listening!

They should also stop listening to you, and your clan bias, still if they do what you want you post and this thread is pointless.

Don't you think its a bit stupid to post telling people to ignore you and others ?

[Khobai]

Quote

No, balance is crap.

Quirks have created a sort of Ghost Balance (see what I did there?) for specific mechs. Bring some bad Clan or bad IS mechs in your deck and see what happens.

This.

Players asked for quirks as a way of differentiating similar mechs.

Players NEVER asked for quirks to be used to BALANCE THE GAME. Thats not at all what quirks should be used for.

IS and clan tech should be balanced WITHOUT quirks. And then quirks should be applied to both IS and Clan mechs as a way of differentiating them...

For example... the CERML and ISML should be equal at the base level. The CERML shouldnt be outright better and only balanced when IS players use specific mechs with quirks for medium lasers. Thats a ridiculous way of balancing the game.

For example CERML and ISML balanced at base level might look like this:
CERML: 6 damage, 5 heat, 360m range, 1.25 beam duration, and 3.25 cooldown
ISML: 5 damage, 4 heat, 270m range, 1.0 beam duration, and 3.0 cooldown

Edited by Khobai, 01 January 2016 - 05:29 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

Alistair Winter, on 01 January 2016 - 05:03 PM, said:

I agree most people don't know about balance. That's why polls would have been useful, to pick up on the extreme cases you mention. But PGI don't roll like that.

When PGI talks about listening to the players, I think a lot of people assume they're talking about the forum, when it seems increasingly likely they're talking about Twitter and NGNG more than anything.

What did they fix regarding the Warhammer's head?

they did more shading and definition from what I have seen

[MischiefSC]

Gas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 04:36 PM, said:

Are you sure?

I feel like quirks have give me reason to take a wide variety of mechs. There is only a couple of chassis that I wouldn't touch... Kintaro, Trebuchet, Vindicator, Awesome (until they rescale), and Commando I guess. So, if you sincerely ask me, that is the best it has been in a LONG time.

How about last month? How about 2 months from now? Also you are a long way from an 'average' player. You can do alright in a sub-par mech.

I will absolutely agree that it's the best it's been in a long time. That's because the game has been badly broken since release. The problem though is that structure quirks on a BJ /= IS vs Clan XL balance. The game is 'balanced' only in as much as we've got a broken mechanic offsetting other broken mechanics.

[MauttyKoray]

Alistair Winter, on 01 January 2016 - 05:03 PM, said:

I agree most people don't know about balance. That's why polls would have been useful, to pick up on the extreme cases you mention. But PGI don't roll like that.

When PGI talks about listening to the players, I think a lot of people assume they're talking about the forum, when it seems increasingly likely they're talking about Twitter and NGNG more than anything.

What did they fix regarding the Warhammer's head?

Cathy, on 01 January 2016 - 05:20 PM, said:

they did more shading and definition from what I have seen

The cockpit/head area was noticeably taller and the arms were extremely stiff. (like perfectly vertical) It was mentioned to Russ by a bunch of people and he said they went back in and changed it.

For the cockpit/head thing, take the concept and the preview image and you'll see what I mean. Gave a fairly different feeling to the mech and a lot of people didn't like it. I agree that it took away some of the menacing attribute the concept had.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 01 January 2016 - 05:36 PM.

[Navid A1]

- Machine guns suck
- flamers suck
- LRMs got nerfed (1 sec more cooldown) even if they were useless to begin with.
- Gauss got obliterated
- IS gauss does not have less explosion chance and more HP
- LBX cannons suck


i would say that PGI is doing a pretty good job of not listening, don't you think?

[Anjian]

The problem is that the developers don't have a clear vision what makes a good game. Like a clear set of principles that they must uphold regardless what the player base says or not. For example, architectural and maintenance simplicity (a vital long term principle) is sacrificed for quirks, to resolve short term imbalances. Most often the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Once you start down that road, there is no turning back. The mess just builds up and up, cascades, builds its own chain reactions until it becomes its own monster.

[FupDup]

I wasn't aware that they even started.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

They did what you suggested for years and didnt get it right, why do you think that will change?

Gas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

Balance is pretty good. Neither side has a significant advantage, if any.

The CW map would disagree. IS are OP

Anjian, on 01 January 2016 - 06:51 PM, said:

Like a clear set of principles that they must uphold regardless what the player base says or not.

They USED to. They had the pillars of development. The problem is they decided to shatter those and "it was our position at the time" etc.

[Deathlike]

Is there a point where we should be holding "that man" responsible for all the changes?

Sometimes it doesn't seem to be part of the convo. It's kinda maddening.

The "listening" is selective... even the biggest of balance "complainers" like myself have zero voice, but... this other source (let's call them "the defenders of the man responsible") is the one in his ear (and it's not the Secret Squirrels, to my understanding).. or the mass Twitter complaints to Russ.

Let me know when "that man" is actually going to "do the right thing".

[Tarl Cabot]

MauttyKoray, on 01 January 2016 - 04:51 PM, said:

Problem with 10v12 CW is that you have mixed 12v12 public drops. Why take an inferior IS mech into that mode only to get rolled by clan mechs?'


Not all quirks are a problem, however you have extremes of 'they didn't really do anything at all' and the 'this mech is know superior to other choices' problem that we've had. It usually comes from core mechanic imbalance, as PGI will change a core mechanic value and then every mech with quirks are effected. Other times its just a quirk pass that has some issues.

There is that, but then there are mechs that, due to good to excellent weapon positioning and numbers, receive major quirks instead of minor quirks. I love my BJ (see what I did there!!), T-bolts, Battlemasters and Stalkers, but they are all laser vomit machines with excellent hard point location. BK and grasshoppers have decent quirks but their hardpoint locations sucks, and using IS-XL engines to increase their speed only makes them a glass figurine. Other laser-centric builds suffers a similar fate.

Then most other mechs are ballistic/missle combo-centric. The Grid-Iron, before the gauss rifle recycle time nerf and the GR quirk reduction, could spit out rounds very quickly but still hardly saw any CW time cause it was a one trick pony. Most other IS mechs are humanoid mechs with bad hard point placement, with both low torso and arms settings that can not be raised above obstacles. Tis the same with Clan Gladiator/Executioner mechs, they can have some halfway decent builds but needs to show 3/4 of itself before it can fire most of their weapons. On a flat plain some things would be different but with PGI being maps meant for tall mechs instead of humans in mechs, it changes lots of things. Basically, a tank with one or two guns would be better than most of the IS and Clan mechs due to its hull-down abilities.

As for the CW weight increase... that really is a sad panda, as the IS forces are more readily able to take advantage of it and have the ability to field the tonnage, both armor and weaponry whereas for the Clans it is not that much of a difference on what they can fill, the amount and type of weapons, the armor differs only slightly.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 01 January 2016 - 08:05 PM.

[Davers]

MischiefSC, on 01 January 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

The problem is this -

what player recommended Ghost Heat? Ghost Drops? Gauss charge-up mechanic? Quirks used to balance the mechs instead of balancing the tech, leaving less-quirked IS mechs and Clan mechs even further behind the 'best' mechs than they ever were?

I wish I could trust PGI to make good decisions about game balance. If I could I'd agree 110%. We have a lot of bad ideas here. However PGI has managed, against all expectations, to make ideas worse than anything we would have the balls to put forward and then pushed it live into the game.

Admittedly there was this one time PGI tried to experiment with using IW as a balance leg for weapon performance. A solid idea, even if the exact method (laser damage falloff) wasn't ideal it was a solid concept. It was however killed early because.... reasons.

Aside from that one incident of PGI having the core of a really good mechanical idea that we killed by filling our diaper and threatening refunds I'm not seeing a history of PGI making great decisions that get torpedoed by player ideas.

Ghost Heat was suggested by many players in the forums, especially around the time of the 4-6PPC Stalkers.

The Charge Up mechanic was also often suggested, but for PPCs, not Gauss (at least from what I had seen). Also around the same time period.

It's sad that after 2 Quirk balance attempts, we still only have 10 or so 'competitive' IS mechs out of 200+ variants, and for the most part they were the same ones as before the latest changes. How can PGI even be thinking of Esports when only 5% of IS mechs are considered 'good'?

[Deathlike]

Davers, on 01 January 2016 - 10:10 PM, said:

Ghost Heat was suggested by many bad players in the forums, especially around the time of the 4-6PPC Stalkers.

Fixed for you.

What was asked for is a heat penalty system... as in, make the mech slowdown (perhaps less agile) when overheating (or above a threshold like ~80%, as seen previously in MW4).

There are many things that could be done, but inevitably it was decided that "Ghost Heat" was optimal, for no good reason.

Copying pretty good/solid ideas from older MW games is freaking Lostech.

[Ultimax]

Deathlike, on 01 January 2016 - 07:06 PM, said:

Is there a point where we should be holding "that man" responsible for all the changes?

Sometimes it doesn't seem to be part of the convo. It's kinda maddening.

The "listening" is selective... even the biggest of balance "complainers" like myself have zero voice, but... this other source (let's call them "the defenders of the man responsible") is the one in his ear (and it's not the Secret Squirrels, to my understanding).. or the mass Twitter complaints to Russ.

Let me know when "that man" is actually going to "do the right thing".

I liked your post but it sounds like this:



Specific time in link for 59s mark isn't working.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 02 January 2016 - 12:04 AM.

[Deathlike]

Ultimatum X, on 02 January 2016 - 12:00 AM, said:

I liked your post but it sounds like this:



Specific time in link for 59s mark isn't working.

I apologize.

To keep it simple, balance is only dictated by the few and the clueless.

Fix that, and we'd have a shot at addressing longstanding issues.

[Wayreth]

PGI will never take this seriously until a crapstorm™ of 2016 happens. Stop playing period, stop spending money, stop making their server counters go up. Nothing else will get their attention, period.

[Gas Guzzler]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 01 January 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

The CW map would disagree. IS are OP

Right because the CW map totally has something to do with balance.

[Ultimax]

Deathlike, on 02 January 2016 - 12:06 AM, said:

I apologize.

To keep it simple, balance is only dictated by the few and the clueless.

Fix that, and we'd have a shot at addressing longstanding issues.

I got what you meant, it was just funny.