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Dear Pgi: Stop Listening On Balance


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#1 MauttyKoray

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:18 PM

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!

#2 Mcgral18

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:32 PM

...they've already done that...

#3 MauttyKoray

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:38 PM

View PostMcgral18, on 01 January 2016 - 02:32 PM, said:

...they've already done that...

Hah, if only...

#4 Gas Guzzler

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:38 PM

View PostMauttyKoray, on 01 January 2016 - 02:18 PM, said:

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!


I sense.... a bias I've not felt since....

#5 MischiefSC

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:51 PM

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.

#6 Tyler Valentine

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:58 PM

View PostMauttyKoray, 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!


I'm sure PGI appreciates your advice and they'll get right on that.

If you're trying to suck up you should use Twitter.

#7 Johny Rocket

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 02:58 PM

I wish people would stop obsessing about balance altogether. Play whats fun and the skill is in making it work. If you find a handful of meta beasts fun than play them, if you find odd balls and low tier mechs a challenge play them, the fun is in figuring out how to play the odds or flip the table.

#8 cazidin

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:00 PM

No game should have poor balance. Even games with assymetrical balance, like the proposed 10v12 CW for Clans vs IS, would in theory be balanced to support that.

#9 Gas Guzzler

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:03 PM

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

#10 Tyler Valentine

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:08 PM

View PostGas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

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


#11 Mechwarrior1441491

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:09 PM

They spend all this energy on weapon balance, which has been very decent at times in the past, while the rest of the game suffers.

We'll see if the Tournament and the CW changes breathes some life into our jaded corpses.

#12 MischiefSC

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:32 PM

View PostGas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

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


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.

Originally balance was bad because weapon balance was bad, so the mechs that could boat the most broken weapons were OP. Finally weapons got beaten into a rough balance-ish sorta shape, at least it wasn't clownshoes terrible even though some stuff is clearly better (lasers + gauss) and high hardpoints still rule, but at least it's within a margin of error.

Then, Clans and Quirks. The gap between top and bottom performers is higher than it's ever been. Clans never tried to balance Clan mechs, they just assume you're going to take HBR/EBJ/TW/Scrow/DW/ACH and you realize that all the others are **** but because of omnipods you can take those 6 mechs and make literally any sort of loadout you want to take. It also assumes that you're going to abuse the **** out of CSPLs, CGauss and CERMLs with some CLPLs on the big mechs for extra punch because, well, Clan weapon balance is worse than IS weapon balance. Look at Clan ballistics. They're like a bad joke someone didn't even bother to finish telling.

If you're IS you have to doggedly follow and grind the math on the quarterly Quirkening to see what mechs are suddenly OP and all the others such absolute **** that even bad Clan mechs look at them with pity. At least IS weapons are balanced to a state that's only just shy of 'mediocre'. If you tried to take IS weapon balance and drag it into any other AAA shooter on the market you'd get a riot and your house burned down by all the players who are in shock that you'd do something so boneheaded.

So. Is CW 'balanced'? Given how incredibly low the bar has been with the utterly broken balance we've had, yeah. If you know and understand the meta, if you have dedicatedly kept up with the math and the posts and the mechanics and the right builds and the right tactics on those builds and the other team has too, then yeah. If you're both dancing the right dance with the right steps you're going to have a good, balanced-ish match on either side.

That's not worth cheering over though mate. It's just better than it was. From where it was, that's still a long, long way from 'well balanced'.

#13 Mcgral18

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:32 PM

View PostGas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

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


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.

Edited by Mcgral18, 01 January 2016 - 03:34 PM.


#14 LordNothing

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 03:33 PM

i kind of think they need to base all balance changes on analysis of in game stats. every week (that there is not an event, those ruin everything), you (or rather a program or script or whatever) look at the massive amount of data generated for that week. thinks like damage scored by a particular weapon (you already track this on a player by player basis). if it sees a weapon that gets an absurd amount of damage relative to other weapons for that weak, the script tweaks one of its variables a very small amount to bring it down. likewise if a weapon totally sucks, some variable gets buffed. you can run the same kind of thing on certain mechs and find out if they need quirks.

the important part is you run these things in the background continuously forever. over time the game will reach a point of more perfect balance. its much faster than doing a "pass", which is a one off kind of thing and is never complete and seemingly is done by hand. this method of balance tweaking is far too slow and far too much based on unverifiable information. in other words tell your programmers to put some science back into their computer science.

#15 Gas Guzzler

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:12 PM

View PostMcgral18, 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.


Well I was referring to Clan vs IS balance. I agree there is no good reason for the BJ to have superior quirks over the Vindicator, that doesn't make any sense at all. But Most quirks aren't really power creep quirks, they are just some help here and there. IMO, the BJ could stand to lose some of its durability, across the board.

#16 Bishop Steiner

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:13 PM

View PostMauttyKoray, 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!

this is fine...I go straight to twitter for balance concerns, anyhow. Posted Image

#17 Gas Guzzler

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:15 PM

View PostMischiefSC, on 01 January 2016 - 03:32 PM, said:


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.

Originally balance was bad because weapon balance was bad, so the mechs that could boat the most broken weapons were OP. Finally weapons got beaten into a rough balance-ish sorta shape, at least it wasn't clownshoes terrible even though some stuff is clearly better (lasers + gauss) and high hardpoints still rule, but at least it's within a margin of error.

Then, Clans and Quirks. The gap between top and bottom performers is higher than it's ever been. Clans never tried to balance Clan mechs, they just assume you're going to take HBR/EBJ/TW/Scrow/DW/ACH and you realize that all the others are **** but because of omnipods you can take those 6 mechs and make literally any sort of loadout you want to take. It also assumes that you're going to abuse the **** out of CSPLs, CGauss and CERMLs with some CLPLs on the big mechs for extra punch because, well, Clan weapon balance is worse than IS weapon balance. Look at Clan ballistics. They're like a bad joke someone didn't even bother to finish telling.

If you're IS you have to doggedly follow and grind the math on the quarterly Quirkening to see what mechs are suddenly OP and all the others such absolute **** that even bad Clan mechs look at them with pity. At least IS weapons are balanced to a state that's only just shy of 'mediocre'. If you tried to take IS weapon balance and drag it into any other AAA shooter on the market you'd get a riot and your house burned down by all the players who are in shock that you'd do something so boneheaded.

So. Is CW 'balanced'? Given how incredibly low the bar has been with the utterly broken balance we've had, yeah. If you know and understand the meta, if you have dedicatedly kept up with the math and the posts and the mechanics and the right builds and the right tactics on those builds and the other team has too, then yeah. If you're both dancing the right dance with the right steps you're going to have a good, balanced-ish match on either side.

That's not worth cheering over though mate. It's just better than it was. From where it was, that's still a long, long way from 'well balanced'.


Meh. I just meant Clan vs IS, best vs best, is pretty good. Clan mech balance needs some work, as does IS mech balance needs work. I don't get all the quirk hate though.

And actually, I have been using Clan ballistics to pretty good effect. Some of those IIC mechs can mount 2 UAC10s with some other weapons, and that is pretty devastating. Its been fun.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 01 January 2016 - 04:33 PM.


#18 MischiefSC

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:32 PM

View PostGas Guzzler, on 01 January 2016 - 04:15 PM, said:


Meh. I just meant Clan vs IS, best vs best, is pretty good. Clan mech balance needs some work, as does IS mech balance needs work. I don't get all the quirk hate though.


Quirks are the justification for not fixing actual balance. If you say 'balance is good right now' it's a reason for PGI to not actually, you know. Balance the game.

Quirks have a use. If the game is otherwise balanced you can have mechs with bad hitboxes and hardpoints quirked up a bit to be competitive. They should be mobility and structure exclusive. Low-end of competitive but competitive. The top 2 tiers of mechs should have 0 quirks. With quirks you should have the bottom 2 tiers of mechs competitive with the 2nd tier of mechs. T1 mechs should be T1 by dint of hitboxes and hardpoints. However the goal with overall game balance is to make that difference from the top two tiers (and the 2nd tier has tiers 3 and 4 quirked up into it) razor thin. Still relevant at a top tier competitive level but in regular play you can run an Orion vs a Timber Wolf and be in the 45/55 range.

Quirks alone as a balance mechanic are incapable of that. They are the reason we can't have game balance right now and they're adding even more limits to what is viable than we had before.

#19 Gas Guzzler

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:36 PM

View PostMischiefSC, on 01 January 2016 - 04:32 PM, said:

Quirks alone as a balance mechanic are incapable of that. They are the reason we can't have game balance right now and they're adding even more limits to what is viable than we had before.


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.

#20 MauttyKoray

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Posted 01 January 2016 - 04:51 PM

View Postcazidin, on 01 January 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

No game should have poor balance. Even games with assymetrical balance, like the proposed 10v12 CW for Clans vs IS, would in theory be balanced to support that.

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?'

View PostGas 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.

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.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 01 January 2016 - 04:54 PM.






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