108 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Bluttrunken, on 01 April 2016 - 01:10 AM, said:

Terrible hardpoint placement and a low amount at that, low engine cap and mediocre quirks all combined on a 45 ton chassis.

The Vindicator is probably the best mech in the game according to Paul.

Fixed for you.

[C E Dwyer]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 March 2016 - 06:56 PM, said:

or will we just keep running rumors, fearmongering and negative propaganda that people will take as gospel and run with?

Love how bitter people are over the volumetric scaling, when it actually is the most accurate overall measurement they can use.

The real issue is basically, post rescale, they should unquirk EVERYTHING, for a solid month and collect data from there, and then quirk only what is actualyl shown needed. Instead of handing out quirks like Oprah giving away cars.

I do agree however

This was your tune before the archer, but when the archer arrived you were one of the most vocal in it needing quirks, now you are on this line of thought again, it does look like some of the accusations that were thrown at you in the archer quirk threads look validated.

[Clownwarlord]

Tristan Winter, on 31 March 2016 - 07:46 PM, said:

Two possible explanations:

• PGI's balancing is done in large part by a mysterious group of "comp players" who whisper into Paul's ear about the Clan vs Inner Sphere balance. Bad mechs are ignored, and they focus on balancing Thunderbolt vs EBJ, Grasshopper vs Timber, Firestarter vs ACH, etc. As if that is all that matters.
  
• PGI determines mech quirks by a series of D20 dice rolls.

This seems so true. But it isn't comp players ... it is MS.

[Appogee]

Please, give PGI some time to fix things.

They are committed to quality, and therefore, they don't rush out fixes willy nilly.












Bwahahahahahahaha!

[Paigan]

clownwarlord, on 31 March 2016 - 03:01 PM, said:

Can we get some love for probably the crappiest mech in the game? Anything this mech can do it has a light or a bigger medium that can do it better. With the in coming PH it will ultimately replace any small usefulness that the Vindicator had.

So please PGI get out your quirk gun and quirk this mech more.

If I may add something about the vindicator as the filthy clanner that I am:

After getting the SHC, I bought a Vindicator (1AA) to compare jump capability etc.
Bought it.
Played around with the camo.
Tried to build a decent loadout.
Tested it in a match for hardpoints etc.
Reaction: "My god, that thing is aweful."

Now I have a nicely looking Lostech Mech painted in a police style standing and rusting in my clanny hangar.

Edited by Paigan, 01 April 2016 - 03:12 AM.

[Coolant]

Agree with OP...i thought about buying one many times, but it needs to be able to equip a bigger engine

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 March 2016 - 06:56 PM, said:

Love how bitter people are over the volumetric scaling, when it actually is the most accurate overall measurement they can use.

I'd argue surface area would be better, or even trying to equalize both at the same time, but this is about the Vindi which suffers pretty much in all areas because of the dartboard of balance.

[MechWarrior5152251]

I don't own one, but there is one in tier 1 of Metamechs.com

[dervishx5]

I still think that they should give Vindicators two lives. When you die you respawn. That's really the only thing that would get me to take one in its current state over any of the other 45 tonners.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Volumetric weight balance will make the Imp a smaller target than the hunchback. Eggs are very volume efficient.

Urban mech may actually be meta, as its R2D2 volumetric efficiency will make it smaller than a locust.

[Bishop Steiner]

Cathy, on 01 April 2016 - 01:19 AM, said:

I do agree however

This was your tune before the archer, but when the archer arrived you were one of the most vocal in it needing quirks, now you are on this line of thought again, it does look like some of the accusations that were thrown at you in the archer quirk threads look validated.

Could it be because the two are not mutually exclusive, and on fact are almost two totally different things?

The Archer was released in MWO as it stands NOW. Unquirked, it was DoA.

This is referring to what needs to be done, post rescale. Really, should be done period.

Not the same thing, at all. One is referring to what should be done for the state of the game, the other was about the state of one mech in the current game.

Not sure why you find that confusing. Should I be pushing for all new mechs to be unquirked, like lambs to the slaughter vs the over quirked hordes? Your reasoning confuses me.

[FupDup]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 01 April 2016 - 06:17 AM, said:

I'd argue surface area would be better, or even trying to equalize both at the same time, but this is about the Vindi which suffers pretty much in all areas because of the dartboard of balance.

Well, in my case, my main opposition is that PGI seems to be allowing the spreadsheet to do all of the decision-making for them, rather than merely using it as a tool or assistant device.

Human thought processes such as judgement, intuition, and critical thinking, are, in this case, being entirely disregarded because they aren't as "accurate" as the spreadsheet.

I guess one example would be the Archer. If we did a survey of the people who play this game, I'm very confident that most people would say its scaling is okay as-is. Very, very few people would believe that it is too small and in need of being upsized.

However, as we've heard, apparently the volume spreadsheet thinks the Archer is "too small." The moment that people hear about the volume measure being involved, they suddenly back off and fully endorse the sovereignty of the sheet. People who would have protested or opposed such changes suddenly forget that they ever had a complaint, and become fully compliant instantly, without even realizing it. They allow their own reasoning and judgement to be made subservient to math equations.


I think spreadsheets are a great tool that can be used to aid in the process of balancing stuff, but I also think that as tools they should never outright replace the decision-making process of those who use the tools. Right now it's not being used as a supplemental tool, it's being used as a replacement for human judgement.

For example, we really shouldn't make the Archer bigger solely because the tool says so. We can observe in-game that it's not tiny or small at all, and is very similar in size to most other heavies. And when we factor in the fact that it's seen as a sub-par mech due primarily to having low durability (hitboxes/geo), making it even bigger (thus bigger hitboxes) is just going to reinforce its core weakness.

Edited by FupDup, 01 April 2016 - 06:40 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FupDup, on 01 April 2016 - 06:38 AM, said:

Well, in my case, my main opposition is that PGI seems to be allowing the spreadsheet to do all of the decision-making for them, rather than merely using it as a tool or assistant device.

Don't get me wrong, this is the correct approach, but if we are arguing about which stat should be used if they aren't doing any decision making themselves, surface area is more important with volume being 2nd.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 01 April 2016 - 06:38 AM, said:

Well, in my case, my main opposition is that PGI seems to be allowing the spreadsheet to do all of the decision-making for them, rather than merely using it as a tool or assistant device.

Human thought processes such as judgement, intuition, and critical thinking, are, in this case, being entirely disregarded because they aren't as "accurate" as the spreadsheet.

I guess one example would be the Archer. If we did a survey of the people who play this game, I'm very confident that most people would say its scaling is okay as-is. Very, very few people would believe that it is too small and in need of being upsized.

However, as we've heard, apparently the volume spreadsheet thinks the Archer is "too small." The moment that people hear about the volume measure being involved, they suddenly back off and fully endorse the sovereignty of the sheet. People who would have protested or opposed such changes suddenly forget that they ever had a complaint, and become fully compliant instantly, without even realizing it. They allow their own reasoning and judgement to be made subservient to math equations.


I think spreadsheets are a great tool that can be used to aid in the process of balancing stuff, but I also think that as tools they should never outright replace the decision-making process of those who use the tools. Right now it's not being used as a supplemental tool, it's being used as a replacement for human judgement.

For example, we really shouldn't make the Archer bigger solely because the tool says so. We can observe in-game that it's not tiny or small at all, and is very similar in size to most other heavies. And when we factor in the fact that it's seen as a sub-par mech due primarily to having low durability (hitboxes/geo), making it even bigger (thus bigger hitboxes) is just going to reinforce its core weakness.

Once you make one exception, exceptions become the rule. Fixing those exceptions is exactly what quirks were originally intended to do.

What do you do when perception and public opinion fails, line on the Centurion, which by the spreadsheet, and by actual play testing by people who know what they are doing, is fine as is.... Yet the mouth breathing masses are crying for a rescale because they feel it looks too wide?

[Juodas Varnas]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 April 2016 - 06:47 AM, said:

What do you do when perception and public opinion fails, line on the Centurion, which by the spreadsheet, and by actual play testing by people who know what they are doing, is fine as is.... Yet the mouth breathing masses are crying for a rescale because they feel it looks too wide?

Well, it IS too wide.
I'd happily have its height increased if its width was decreased.

Purely cosmetic reasons.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 01 April 2016 - 06:52 AM.

[FupDup]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 April 2016 - 06:47 AM, said:

Once you make one exception, exceptions become the rule. Fixing those exceptions is exactly what quirks were originally intended to do.

Didn't you ask for quirk purging just a few posts up?

The thing here is that some of those exceptions might be more more "exceptional" by this process, which kind of defeats the purpose. It just means more quirks might be needed than previously (e.g more structure on the Archer), and I thought that goes against what you want?

Bishop Steiner, on 01 April 2016 - 06:47 AM, said:

What do you do when perception and public opinion fails, line on the Centurion, which by the spreadsheet, and by actual play testing by people who know what they are doing, is fine as is.... Yet the mouth breathing masses are crying for a rescale because they feel it looks too wide?

The irony here is that I remember you defending the Crab's scale when it was showcased to us. There were a lot of people on both sides, with one side saying to make it bigger and the other saying that it was fine...you were one of the people saying it was fine. You even said it to me directly when I posted that I could understand a very small increase.

Do you still stand by your previous decision about the Crab, or do you allow the measurements to take priority over your previous judgements?

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 01 April 2016 - 06:52 AM, said:

Didn't you ask for quirk purging just a few posts up?

The thing here is that some of those exceptions might be more more "exceptional" by this process, which kind of defeats the purpose. It just means more quirks might be needed than previously (e.g more structure on the Archer), and I thought that goes against what you want?



The irony here is that I remember you defending the Crab's scale when it was showcased to us. There were a lot of people on both sides, with one side saying to make it bigger and the other saying that it was fine...you were one of the people saying it was fine. You even said it to me directly when I posted that I could understand a very small increase.

Do you still stand by your previous decision about the Crab, or do you allow the measurements to take priority over your previous judgements?

No, I didn't ask for quirk "purging", I asked for a clean board reset, which is a totally different thing.

As for "measurement" over judgement... one should always default to science of "feeling". Or have you somehow missed me being in total support of the rescale, even where it may "hurt" some pet rides?

I highly doubt, in the grand scale, more quirks would be "needed", especially if we started from clean slates, instead of quirking mechs to compete against already overquirked mechs. Remove 40 and 50% cooldowns, and such and one likely won't see many mechs needing 50% structure boosts. Or we maintain the status quo and watch powercreep continue to spiral out of control, and TTK go down just as fast, until we have to increase armor to the point we are playing Papercut Warrior.

Scale should never be a "balance" tool, like hardpoint inflation and hitboxes. Adjust those as needed, and then, as stated, and now repeated, because folks appear to want to debate for the sake of, use quirks to fix what can't be balanced, instead of making quirks the key selling point of a mech.

Again, not really sure what the confusion is. Or even where people have trouble with changing their stance when empirical data shows that they were wrong.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 01 April 2016 - 07:01 AM.

[Juodas Varnas]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 April 2016 - 06:58 AM, said:

Or even where people have trouble with changing their stance when empirical data shows that they were wrong.

You should ask the creationist that question.

[Bishop Steiner]

Juodas Varnas, on 01 April 2016 - 06:59 AM, said:

You should ask the creationist that question.

I do. Frequently. I don't selectively choose who to challenge, or why. Which is why those espousing "perception" can't be taken too seriously.

[Bishop Steiner]

Juodas Varnas, on 01 April 2016 - 06:51 AM, said:

Well, it IS too wide.
I'd happily have its height increased if its width was decreased.

Purely cosmetic reasons.

Ah. Cosmetics. I get that. After all, I am the guy who won't touch his K2 because it's once perfect aesthetics got butchered in the extremely lazy weapon redo (which has done very little to help the game, visually, and a lot to butcher a lot of mechs).

But I also do realize they are also purely subjective, and that believe it or not, there are folks who like the stocky look on the CN9 over the lanky look. If I was to stump for cosmetic changes on the CN9, personally? I'd stump for my old right arm back, with the variable geometry covering ONLY the barrel, in the manner demonstrated by the chap who made the physical 3D YLW Model for PGI, and then for my missile bay doors back.