43 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

FaithBombCRNA, on 19 May 2016 - 07:48 AM, said:

What's a Gundam? I don't speak Japanese, sorry.

It's a meme on this forum to rename our "Battlemechs" using the names of mecha units from other series. Alternatively, we can just call them robots.

[Moldur]

FupDup, on 18 May 2016 - 08:20 PM, said:

Faction balance is still desired in the Pug and Premade queues because many of us don't want a small subset of the game's gundams to dominate everywhere.

Does this balance also transition to when the sides are divided between teams solely comprised of Clan or Inner Sphere mechs?

I feel like balancing to the standard of Faction Warfare, and balancing to the standard of quickplay are mutually exclusive to each other, and one will always suffer for the other..

[Almond Brown]

Stefka Kerensky, on 19 May 2016 - 01:47 AM, said:

I did it for a month and it's been a lot of fun in Marik attacking the Fedrats.
But you know what? Even there ppl uses a small bunch of good mechs, while 70-80% of other poor unfortunate mechs still stand there in the dark and dusty corner of the garage.

Balance is not all about IS vs Clan.

A lot of that is due to the fact that you can take an 80t Assault Mech or an 100t Assault Mech. Funny thing is the 80t Assault Mech has a smaller max Engine capacity and 120 pts less base Armor. So if the Team says take an Assault Mech, which do you think most players would select? 80t of Assault or 100t of Assault?

The same is true fro a 4 weight classes, with the Light class having the least obvious impact per say.

[Snowbluff]

FupDup, on 19 May 2016 - 07:52 AM, said:

It's a meme on this forum to rename our "Battlemechs" using the names of mecha units from other series. Alternatively, we can just call them robots.

The funny thing about that is that we have actual Robotech mechs coming out, because of a decades old rebranding deal, but we still talk in terms of Gundam.

**** yeah, Gundam!

Edited by Snowbluff, 19 May 2016 - 08:02 AM.

[Alan Davion]

Lugh, on 19 May 2016 - 05:12 AM, said:

Why there are not penetration values to sizes of lasers and auto cannons I cannot fathom. Armor doesn't mean HPs. Armor is the plating need to be penetrated to damage something that has value.

This is where just about every mechwarrior game has gone wrong. If you will be fighting mechs that have 100mm of armor and bring small lasers that can only penetrate 40mm of armor, you are going to be a REALLY long time trying to ablate that plate to get to something that 'makes a difference'.

The dumbing down to HPs ruins much of what could be a far more in depth damage system that had Interesting consequences. Damaged gyros preventing you from turning to the right, ammo feed belts severed and needing repair, leg gyro lock ups for reductions in speed and so on.

If not for this little bit right here, you might have had a point.

If MWO had a cone of fire mechanic, you might have had a point, but since it does not, and we can fire those small lasers all at the exact same point on the enemy mech, oh, that 100mm of armor is gone from 3 small laser shots.

Armor means exactly that. The armor and internal structure are your mechs hit points like any other RPG. And the reason mechs were capable of absorbing the amount of punishment they sometimes did in TT was because of the dice rolling equating to a cone of fire mechanic.

You want your mech to survive longer, then PGI needs to do something to kick this pinpoint accuracy BS to the curb.

A cone of fire mechanic would significantly increase time to kill and affect overall game balance, requiring people to completely change their play style and method of thinking.

[Death Proof]

Ideally, I'd rather it be ok for some mechs to be openly superior to other mechs and simply have a proper Battle Value system, where weight class/tonnage and PSR/tiers are just another factor that BV is comprised of. Then, use the BV when match-making instead of weight class and/or tonnage and PSR.

In addition, a player could have a separate PSR for each mech, based on how they perform in that particular mech.

A system like this would be far more granular and accurate and would create higher quality matches, IMO.

Another benefit a system like this would provide is that balancing individual weapon stats against each other would largely be irrelevant as they'd simply have to tweak the BV of the weapon instead of tweaking the individual stats of the weapon. Basically, they would no longer need to make each weapon balanced perfectly...it would simply be a case of "is this weapon better than this weapon"...and so forth.

With the addition of PSR factored in, it would smooth out any discrepancies with BV. For example, if a skilled player manages to make a mech with a low BV a successful killing machine, their individual PSR with that mech would increase the BV of that mech when they piloted it.

Edited by Death Proof, 19 May 2016 - 08:24 AM.

[STEF_]

Almond Brown, on 19 May 2016 - 07:59 AM, said:

A lot of that is due to the fact that you can take an 80t Assault Mech or an 100t Assault Mech. Funny thing is the 80t Assault Mech has a smaller max Engine capacity and 120 pts less base Armor. So if the Team says take an Assault Mech, which do you think most players would select? 80t of Assault or 100t of Assault?

The same is true fro a 4 weight classes, with the Light class having the least obvious impact per say.

Victor was a beast for its JJ. And it has 80 tons.
Highlander was a beast cause...JJ, again.
Atlas, a 100 tonner, was felt useless while facing the dire....but then thanks to quirks we found a reason to pilot it again.

And so on.

About lights.
Can the Lynx have some love?
Can the COM have some love?
Can the MG have some buff, OR can the Ember have some love?

Oxide before quirks was there...in that dark corner of the garage.

Etc.


There is a way out of current boredoooom.
But.... Pgi is Pgi....

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 19 May 2016 - 08:24 AM.

[ReverseBurgler]

visionGT4, on 19 May 2016 - 01:16 AM, said:

3 types of player

• Adults with the mental age of 12 demanding that their clan mech should be superior because Lore.
  
• The types who for some reason seem to think that a battletech game should be 100% competition focused
  
• Adults at the stage of life who want to play a modern battletech game as a break from real life responsibilities.

those last two points, points 2 and 3, are not mutually exclusive; you can have a competitively focused game and still have a game where your "adult" players "take a break" from responsibility. You can have adults in "that stage in life" (whatever that means) who want to have a casual and competitive experience.

CSGO is a perfect example of a game that successfully caters to causal players and competitively oriented ones. There is a ladder that appeals to those who want to show skill and another mode that is non-ranked or private servers that one can chose from. It works really well and one of those reasons is because of CSGO large player base and successful monetization of the game with loot drops and trading.

MWO can be that game but one of the biggest things holding this game back is the lack of player base and mismanagement of some parts of the game.

i really wish people would just drop the lore discussions when balance changes have to be made. This game doesn't pass a hand wave of science and that is perfectly fine; the lore behind the technology doesn't even total up. The weaponry or the mechs do not make a ton of sense but it is honestly better that way because balance comes first.

Edited by ReverseBurgler, 19 May 2016 - 08:50 AM.

[Bud Crue]

ReverseBurgler, on 19 May 2016 - 08:49 AM, said:

those last two points, points 2 and 3, are not mutually exclusive; you can have a competitively focused game and still have a game where your "adult" players "take a break" from responsibility. You can have adults in "that stage in life" (whatever that means) who want to have a casual and competitive experience.

CSGO is a perfect example of a game that successfully caters to causal players and competitively oriented ones. There is a ladder that appeals to those who want to show skill and another mode that is non-ranked or private servers that one can chose from. It works really well and one of those reasons is because of CSGO large player base and successful monetization of the game with loot drops and trading.

MWO can be that game but one of the biggest things holding this game back is the lack of player base and mismanagement of some parts of the game.

i really wish people would just drop the lore discussions when balance changes have to be made. This game doesn't pass a hand wave of science and that is perfectly fine; the lore behind the technology doesn't even total up. The weaponry or the mechs do not make a ton of sense but it is honestly better that way because balance comes first.

Agreed in principle to your post, until the last paragraph.
If we "would just drop the lore discussions when balance changes have to be made" then we are kind of ignoring a key word in the third classification you cited.

visionGT4, on 19 May 2016 - 01:16 AM, said:

• Adults at the stage of life who want to play a modern battletech game as a break from real life responsibilities.

I like competition but I like this game primarily because it is a battletech game. Every time a balance decision or other change is made to the game (goodie crates) which distances the game from that flavor ("lore", I think, is too strong of a word), I like it less. Competition will not overcome that.

[Alan Davion]

ReverseBurgler, on 19 May 2016 - 08:49 AM, said:

MWO can be that game but one of the biggest things holding this game back is the lack of player base and mismanagement of some parts of the game.

It might just be me, so feel free to agree or disagree as you see fit, but these two things here I feel are mutually exclusive of each other.

The game has been pretty much fundamentally broken at the very core since about day 1, and PGI continues to ignore these issues even today, 3 or 4 years into the games life.

Over that length of time, how many hundreds, even thousands of players has the game lost that could have been convinced to stay if the game operated better as a whole?

[ReverseBurgler]

Alan Davion, on 19 May 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

It might just be me, so feel free to agree or disagree as you see fit, but these two things here I feel are mutually exclusive of each other.

The game has been pretty much fundamentally broken at the very core since about day 1, and PGI continues to ignore these issues even today, 3 or 4 years into the games life.

Over that length of time, how many hundreds, even thousands of players has the game lost that could have been convinced to stay if the game operated better as a whole?

i feel that they are not exclusive because of the reasons you just stated; i see it as a causal relationship: if the game is mismanaged then the game loses players.

but i think that MWO being flawed is deeper then just PGI mismanaging the game. The game is deeply flawed because FASA's tabletop game does not translate well into a real-time computer game. All mechwarrior games have used the tonnage of mechs as a way to increase or decrease difficultly levels; towards the end of all the mechwarrior games you are piloting assaults because they are the best and facing assaults because they are the best.

Bud Crue, on 19 May 2016 - 09:11 AM, said:

I like competition but I like this game primarily because it is a battletech game. Every time a balance decision or other change is made to the game (goodie crates) which distances the game from that flavor ("lore", I think, is too strong of a word), I like it less. Competition will not overcome that.

To me this is fine because it will mean the continuation of the game as well as attract and retain players. The game can be flavored to lore in other ways, such as factions and the mechs themselves, but in terms of balance i dont think it works. I feel that how much adjustment to values PGI has had to mechs' armor and weaponry justifies this.

for the record i feel that this is probably the most balanced mech game we have had in a while. i do fundamentally like this game for the same reasons that battltech is fun and i like the mechs as well.

[krash27]

Snowbluff, on 18 May 2016 - 08:26 PM, said:

This. The mechs are supposed to be reasonably balanced to a 1 to 1 power for general play.

So why bother with quirks etc? Why not just make Clan and IS weapons have the same dmg/duration/heat/slots/tons. Thats all quirks etc are pushing weapons towards anyhow is a 1 to 1 ratio, so why do it with quirks?

If clan weapons are not going to have their lore advantages because IS quirks aim to make IS weapons similar to clan counterparts, why not just make them 1 to 1 and scrap the quirks?

[Alan Davion]

krash27, on 19 May 2016 - 09:58 AM, said:

So why bother with quirks etc? Why not just make Clan and IS weapons have the same dmg/duration/heat/slots/tons. Thats all quirks etc are pushing weapons towards anyhow is a 1 to 1 ratio, so why do it with quirks?

If clan weapons are not going to have their lore advantages because IS quirks aim to make IS weapons similar to clan counterparts, why not just make them 1 to 1 and scrap the quirks?

The reason behind why the clans were so much more powerful, in TT, was because clan players were forced to bring fewer mechs against an IS player, commonly known as the 12v10 rule.

Supposedly PGI tried the 12v10 system around the time when the clans were introduced into the game, but they only did it for I think 1 weekend, and the matchmaker was not able to assemble matches properly, it would end up like 12v6-8 or something.

Can someone who was here for that confirm or correct my analysis?

So, instead of knuckling down, and figuring out why the hell the system was breaking, PGI kinda sorta just threw their arms up in defeat and said "It won't work" and just carried on with the 12v12.

So, because the IS numbers vs Clan power system is impossible to implement, the IS mechs have to be made more powerful than they normally would be in order to compensate for the clans range, damage and so on.

As for your second bit there, the only way that could be done would be to allow IS mechs to equip Clan weapons, and that would pretty much wreck the game completely, to the point where people would literally burn the forums down around PGI's ears.

[krash27]

Alan Davion, on 19 May 2016 - 10:25 AM, said:

The reason behind why the clans were so much more powerful, in TT, was because clan players were forced to bring fewer mechs against an IS player, commonly known as the 12v10 rule.

Supposedly PGI tried the 12v10 system around the time when the clans were introduced into the game, but they only did it for I think 1 weekend, and the matchmaker was not able to assemble matches properly, it would end up like 12v6-8 or something.

Can someone who was here for that confirm or correct my analysis?

So, instead of knuckling down, and figuring out why the hell the system was breaking, PGI kinda sorta just threw their arms up in defeat and said "It won't work" and just carried on with the 12v12.

So, because the IS numbers vs Clan power system is impossible to implement, the IS mechs have to be made more powerful than they normally would be in order to compensate for the clans range, damage and so on.

As for your second bit there, the only way that could be done would be to allow IS mechs to equip Clan weapons, and that would pretty much wreck the game completely, to the point where people would literally burn the forums down around PGI's ears.

Or make clan weapons pretty much identical to IS weapon values. I mean thats what everyone is driving it towards anyhow.
If they were to pit Clan VS IS at 10 vs 12 then the IS would have the clear advantage as Clan weapons have no clear advantage anymore.

I know the lore, what I am getting at is why waste time with quirks when everyone is just driving it to a 1 to 1 balance.

[Triordinant]

zagibu, on 19 May 2016 - 01:27 AM, said:

It wouldn't matter to me if I could play IS vs. IS in quick play.

THIS. Instead of the never-ending tweaking and quirking followed by new 'mechs and more tweaking and quirking, just make matches Clan vs Clan and IS vs IS and all that time, money and effort could be put to better use.

[Alan Davion]

krash27, on 19 May 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

Or make clan weapons pretty much identical to IS weapon values. I mean thats what everyone is driving it towards anyhow.
If they were to pit Clan VS IS at 10 vs 12 then the IS would have the clear advantage as Clan weapons have no clear advantage anymore.

I know the lore, what I am getting at is why waste time with quirks when everyone is just driving it to a 1 to 1 balance.

You obviously don't know the lore as well as you think you do.

If the 12v10 ISvClan system had worked as it was intended, then the IS quirks would not be at the ridiculous levels they're currently at.

The Clans would have all the damage/range advantages they had when they were first introduced, and the IS would have to fight them down by superior numbers. Which is why the way the TT BV system was reworked at that point, to force the Clan players to bring fewer units, because they had the range and damage advantages, against the numerically superior, but technologically inferior IS.

The other reason the Clans were as effective as they were in the lore was because of their "Honor" system, they would engage in 1on1 fights until either they or their opponent fired on another opponent, at which point it became a complete melee.

This is also what eventually led to their downfall, because the Clan warriors were either shocked and thrown into disarray, or enraged to the point that they began making what IS pilots would consider rookie mistakes, at the IS' lack of honor, shooting literally anything that was their enemy and just grinding it down to nothing.

This point right here is the one that truly does not work in MWO, because like any other FPS game, 1on1 is literally impossible, you will always have at least 2 people firing at you regardless of what side of the fight you're on. It's always going to be a full-on brawl no matter what.

Without the 12v10 system to balance the ISvClans, IS mechs had to be made more powerful, but they couldn't be made AS powerful as the Clans, which leads back into my previous statement, about IS equipping Clan weapons and equipment. It would just utterly destroy the game.

In order to make the IS more powerful, but not as powerful as the Clans, the quirk system came to be, in order to allow the IS to fight the Clans on more even terms. Not perfectly even like they would if the IS could equip Clan tech. Just "more" even.

[Captain Mittens]

I think something that would really help balance, would be to adjust the ghost heat limitations based on mech class.

It's silly that a 100t assault should be limited to 6 med lasers, the EXACT same as a 20t locust.

[Davers]

Alan Davion, on 19 May 2016 - 10:25 AM, said:

The reason behind why the clans were so much more powerful, in TT, was because clan players were forced to bring fewer mechs against an IS player, commonly known as the 12v10 rule.

Never heard of the 12v10 rule. Using BV in TT gave the IS almost a 2-1 advantage, and that is with level 2 tech.

[Alan Davion]

Davers, on 19 May 2016 - 02:04 PM, said:

Never heard of the 12v10 rule. Using BV in TT gave the IS almost a 2-1 advantage, and that is with level 2 tech.

Okay, so maybe I worded that incorrectly.

I find it hard to believe that the IS had that much of an advantage in TT though. 10v5 or 20v10 just seems excessive.

[Davers]

For fun I ran the numbers for 3 warhawks, 3 timberwolves, 3 stormcrows, and 3 arctic cheetahs and they were worth 21 IS mechs with level 2 tech. (I believe I used stalkers, shadow hawks, thunderbolt, and jenner).