92 replies to this topic

[pbiggz]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 January 2016 - 09:02 AM, said:

And I already defeated that argument. Logic disagrees.
Tech 1 is Base. As long as that remains in flux, NOTHING can be balanced fully, because the scale keeps shifting. ONLY after tech 1 is set in stone can things actually move forward, because as things are now, every kneejerk changes massively unbalances the scale across the board.

If you have no set horizon, nothing works.

Once they set tech 1, then you balance IS tech 2 around that, along with Clan Tech. And then you have a framework to build Tech 3 and Clan Tech 2 around. I know it's not what you want to hear, because it means waiting, but it's the right way to do it.

Do we really need to restart this argument?

Now that im home I can finally respond to this and not have my focus in 3 different directions.

Tech 1 is deliberately incomplete. 3025 = cheapo tech, remember? That's the whole point of the succession wars era. After 300 years of war the inner sphere was barely able to keep old mechs running, let alone make new ones. Dozens of tech 1 variants are in this game and they're strictly worse versions of tech we would have had during the star league era. If you have all your standard ACs, LBXs, Ultras, and light ACs for example, then you can balance them all against one another instead of patching one on top of the other. If you give the inner sphere the bulk of its tech 2 then you balance from the entire perspective, i.e. with nothing missing, then you have an equal foundation to balance on when you're facing the clans, and that, is a fact.

Im applying game design concepts taught to me repeatedly by industry professionals and applied to several games iv made over the past few years, not being a self-appointed BT expert because I played TT.

Edited by pbiggz, 20 January 2016 - 08:10 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

pbiggz, on 20 January 2016 - 08:07 PM, said:

Now that im home I can finally respond to this and not have my focus in 3 different directions.

Tech 1 is deliberately incomplete. 3025 = cheapo tech, remember? That's the whole point of the succession wars era. After 300 years of war the inner sphere was barely able to keep old mechs running, let alone make new ones. Dozens of tech 1 variants are in this game and they're strictly worse versions of tech we would have had during the star league era. If you have all your standard ACs, LBXs, Ultras, and light ACs for example, then you can balance them all against one another instead of patching one on top of the other. If you give the inner sphere the bulk of its tech 2 then you balance from the entire perspective, i.e. with nothing missing, then you have an equal foundation to balance on when you're facing the clans, and that, is a fact.

Im applying game design concepts taught to me repeatedly by industry professionals and applied to several games iv made over the past few years, not being a self-appointed BT expert because I played TT.

Actually 3025 was not incomplete and was indeed an entire complete system that went unchanged for most of a decade. Everything else was added to it. It was also the only era that was remotely balanced. Literally every addition afterward was simply powercreep and further imbalance. IS Tech 2 did not balance anything.

[pbiggz]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 January 2016 - 08:20 PM, said:

Actually 3025 was not incomplete and was indeed an entire complete system that went unchanged for most of a decade. Everything else was added to it. It was also the only era that was remotely balanced. Literally every addition afterward was simply powercreep and further imbalance. IS Tech 2 did not balance anything.

3025 was balanced by numbers via battle value, not weapon values. We don't have that luxury in MWO. Especially when tanks and infantry were added.

[Bishop Steiner]

pbiggz, on 20 January 2016 - 08:31 PM, said:

3025 was balanced by numbers via battle value, not weapon values. We don't have that luxury in MWO. Especially when tanks and infantry were added.

Actually, BV was used and needed primarily to balance LATER Btech and it never worked. 3025 was quite decent on it's own...speaking as someone who played it since 1987...at the official tournaments.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

pbiggz, on 20 January 2016 - 08:31 PM, said:

3025 was balanced by numbers via battle value, not weapon values. We don't have that luxury in MWO. Especially when tanks and infantry were added.

Bishop Steiner, on 20 January 2016 - 08:48 PM, said:

Actually, BV was used and needed primarily to balance LATER Btech and it never worked. 3025 was quite decent on it's own...speaking as someone who played it since 1987...at the official tournaments.

Frankly gotta agree with Bishop here.

Go back and look at the absolute, bone basic 3025 mechs. Look at them character, see how they are crafted, see how the weapons are balanced and all.

There are some outstanding weapons systems, PPC's are frightening under 3025 rules, as are LRM15's and AC20's... but the limiting factor's for those are range cutoffs and low ammo counts.

And there's a lot of utilizing Mlas, because lore dictation that Mlas was the "bread and butter" weapon [still is in my opinion.] At the end of the day however, You can take any 3025 era mech, against another within the same weightclass, or even +or- a class, and do fair, if you manage your movement and all properly. The weaponry, is pretty damned decently balanced.

Oh and on your little tirade about Battlevalue, BV wasn't introduced until the Clans was a thing anyway. BV was literally introduced because people were min-maxing their army's via tonnage, and IS player's couldn't compete with the powercreep in tech from Clanners who were abusing the tonnage limits.

[Moldur]

If they did say screw it and jump the timeline, I would rather have it as a mega update with tons of new crap instead of piece meal.

[MossPigglet]

I have been saying we need new weapons for a long time. PGI wanted to balance the current weapons before adding new ones. But I think they are chasing their tail. Because when you nerf some weapons. Then players find a new meta weapon combination. League of legends has this problem as another FTP title. They constantly change the balance every patch. And then something else becomes OP.
I think that the new weapon content should just be added and worked out by seeing what the players do. And that the time line should be scrapped.
I would pay money for MC to get new weapons if they were added. Because let's be honest. PGI needs to make money otherwise it's not economical to invest in the resources to bring in the new weapons. I'm not saying make the game pay to win not at all that would be awful. But maybe instead make it like they do mechs. Want early access to them, pay money. But you will can get them eventually with cbills. Just have to wait longer.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

CardMaster7, on 20 January 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

I have been saying we need new weapons for a long time. PGI wanted to balance the current weapons before adding new ones. But I think they are chasing their tail. Because when you nerf some weapons. Then players find a new meta weapon combination. League of legends has this problem as another FTP title. They constantly change the balance every patch. And then something else becomes OP.
I think that the new weapon content should just be added and worked out by seeing what the players do. And that the time line should be scrapped.
I would pay money for MC to get new weapons if they were added. Because let's be honest. PGI needs to make money otherwise it's not economical to invest in the resources to bring in the new weapons. I'm not saying make the game pay to win not at all that would be awful. But maybe instead make it like they do mechs. Want early access to them, pay money. But you will can get them eventually with cbills. Just have to wait longer.

1) Never be willing to pay money for weapons... Money for power is always a terrible model, then we'll have even more people screaming P2W.

2) yes, we need new weapons, we need new tech, and mechs, and maps and modes. MWO is a content starved game.

But frankly, if it were up to me, we should be going backwards, and balancing 3025 era tech, then balancing 3050 era tech... because we never actually got the 3025 balance down, MWO's beta moved way, way too fast... now when the game first was released in beta, we had base 3025 tech. And honestly, the matches were pretty solid, there were some adjustments to be made, but at the time, the game actually played well... but the second Lostech weaponry was added, the balance started going down the toilet, because while the 3025 era stuff was playable, it wasn't completely balanced yet, we hadn't iterated enough.

But IGP and PGI forged ahead, like a wonton child ignoring their parents. And completely screwed everything up... and we're still suffering from this today.

[Bilbo]

Ted Wayz, on 20 January 2016 - 06:52 PM, said:

Over 250 mechs and I play them all. Haven't hit triple digit matches in one mech yet.

But now I know how you insta-master mechs with GxP.

I've got triple digits in a dozen or so mechs, I've just always had a favorite.

[Sedmeister]

I think perhaps we might be asking the wrong question. I would like to ask PGI to think about two of the following things. Firstly add new kinds of mission/map combinations. For example, take out the landed enemy dropship scenario. Imagine an Overlord class dropship, armed with lore specific weaponry, with enemy mechs spilling out of the bays with another force countering the invasion. So maybe on one side 12 mechs + dropship versus a 24 mech force. This scenario would require both the attackers and defenders to think about the kinds of mechs and weaponry they would need to accomplish this particular kind of task.

If they introduced not just two or three new maps but two or three types of mission/structure, this would require us as players to think not about new weapons etc, but how to utilise weapon/mech mix and construction/design.

Secondly, I would love PGI to give players the option to select which mech's we choose in the pre drop phase of quick play in the same way we do in CW. So once the mission has been selected, we can select the appropriate mech we want to take into battle.

That would breathe new life into the current collection of mechs/weaponry etc.

[topgun505]

Reached? This game has had that problem since day 1.

It's pretty much unavoidable when you have a mech lab which is fully customizable.

If they had included hardpoint sizes as one of the limitations of customization then individual chassis would have retained at least some flavor that tied them to lore and would not have thus necessitated the need as much for individual mech quirks to do so.

[MossPigglet]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 20 January 2016 - 11:37 PM, said:

1) Never be willing to pay money for weapons... Money for power is always a terrible model, then we'll have even more people screaming P2W.

2) yes, we need new weapons, we need new tech, and mechs, and maps and modes. MWO is a content starved game.

But frankly, if it were up to me, we should be going backwards, and balancing 3025 era tech, then balancing 3050 era tech... because we never actually got the 3025 balance down, MWO's beta moved way, way too fast... now when the game first was released in beta, we had base 3025 tech. And honestly, the matches were pretty solid, there were some adjustments to be made, but at the time, the game actually played well... but the second Lostech weaponry was added, the balance started going down the toilet, because while the 3025 era stuff was playable, it wasn't completely balanced yet, we hadn't iterated enough.

But IGP and PGI forged ahead, like a wonton child ignoring their parents. And completely screwed everything up... and we're still suffering from this today.

If you read my whole post. You would see I said to role out new weapons like they do mechs. The new mechs are not OP typically. And buying them just gets you them sooner. Not pay to win. But economics. Why would PGI put bin the effort unless there is money to make?

[Anjian]

Game has reached some form of saturation point (definable as diminishing returns) with mechs for some time already, which is why it needs to exploit the last possible creative possibilities (IIC and Unseen mechs). Each new mech has overlaps with one another, over and over, and trying to distinguish them via quirks also opens uglier bags of power creep. But as the game goes on there is increasingly less and less incentive to buy newer mechs in terms of dispassionate functionality and competitiveness, and that will affect PGI's income in the long run. Hence why Russ needs mine the passionate vein instead, find out what people want now, to keep the game going.

Edited by Anjian, 21 January 2016 - 07:33 PM.