579 replies to this topic

[Dee Eight]

RestosIII, on 05 November 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

You posted all of these within a 10 minute span of each other, with no-one else posting inbetween. Why would you make these separate.I beg of you. Stop.

That's how the forum handles posts. If you reply to several posts QUICK enough, it lumps them together into one post. If not, seperate posts.

[RestosIII]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

Because as a general rule I want to reply to each post or poster separately, unless I feel the need to so do otherwise. I did not feel any need to do so this time.

Wanna buy a Mech Pack?

Gah. That seriously messes with me just because bloats the size of threads, and every time I go "Oh, a new post, must mean that more of a conversation is going on!", I instead find that you posted 3 times in a row. Damn you!

Dee Eight, on 05 November 2016 - 10:17 AM, said:

That's how the forum handles posts. If you reply to several posts QUICK enough, it lumps them together into one post. If not, seperate posts.

Or you could just, y'know, quote each post and talk about them before actually fully posting it. Or edit it afterwards. There's always those options.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Let me state, that generally, I dont like nerfing mechs... And that I would rather mechs be buffed up when it comes to balance...

That being said, the kdk-3 is an absolute monster and bringing other mechs up to this power level is definatelly not a good idea.

The only way to rectify this problem would be to bring the kdk-3 down some.

I am not sure how anyone can defend the kdk-3 as being balanced when it obviously outperforms anything remotelly balanced.

Heck, I cant even think how other mechs could be brought up to the level of performance the kdk-3 has without completelly throwing time to kill out the window. You would literally have to give mechs obscene quirks. (And PGI is currently trying to bring down the level of quirks across the board).

The kdk-3 is literally mecha godzilla. I am shocked at how many people think this mech is fine as it is in the current meta. Especially with all the irrefutable proof that has been layed unto the table at this point in his thread against the kdk-3.

[Sjorpha]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 09:50 AM, said:

Here's my take in all of this. From PGI's perspective working to keep the 90% and losing the 10% is much better than losing the former and keeping the latter.

As such, if balancing by potato keeps the 90%, then that is PGI's prerogative. The sacred cows () can go pound sand as far as PGI is concerned. It may be sad but also very true at the same time.

That isn't how it works though.

If you balance by anything other that top tier, you are simply using worthless data to balance from. You're not balancing "for the 90%" at all, you are simply making decisions on incorrect information. The result is imbalance everywhere from top to bottom.

The reason to balance around the top is not to cater to the top players at all, the reason you have to do it is that it is the only useful data that exists for any kind of game balancing.

The more optimal the play, the more useful the data, because as performance goes up the variance and randomness factor goes down. The goal is to isolate the skill component and remove it, this is only possible at the highest levels of play. In theory the best data for balancing would be generated by play that is 100% optimal. Obviously that play doesn't exist, but the more optimal it gets the closer to accurate data you get.

Conversely the less optimal play you have the more noise and interference in the data, the less useful it is to make any conclusions about anything.

So balancing around the only useful data that exist, which is top tier play, is going to make balance better from top to bottom, and balancing around useless data, which is all the bad to average play, is going to make balance worse, for everyone. Therefore it is in everyone's best interest, from potato to tryhard, that PGI learns to understand and balance around top tier play. Unfortunately we have never seen this done, because no one at PGI is good enough at the game, or enough invested in understanding it's metagame. It's a big problem.

There is really no conflict of interest between tryhards and potatoes here though.

I think there are people from both those camps inventing this imaginary conflict by thinking PGI balances around the other group, when the truth is that PGI is simply mostly clueless and incompetent, and that's why they do bad balance for everyone.

Edited by Sjorpha, 05 November 2016 - 10:57 AM.

[Mystere]

Sjorpha, on 05 November 2016 - 10:49 AM, said:

That isn't how it works though.

If you balance by anything other that top tier, you are simply using worthless data to balance from. You're not balancing "for the 90%" at all, you are simply making decisions on incorrect information. The result is imbalance everywhere from top to bottom.

The reason to balance around the top is not to cater to the top players at all, the reason you have to do it is that it is the only useful data that exists for any kind of game balancing.

The more optimal the play, the more useful the data, because as performance goes up the variance and randomness factor goes down. The goal is to isolate the skill component and remove it, this is only possible at the highest levels of play. In theory the best data for balancing would be generated by play that is 100% optimal. Obviously that play doesn't exist, but the more optimal it gets the closer to accurate data you get.

Conversely the less optimal play you have the more noise and interference in the data, the less useful it is to make any conclusions about anything.

So balancing around the only useful data that exist, which is top tier play, is going to make balance better from top to bottom, and balancing around useless data is going to make balance worse, for everyone.

There is really no conflict of interest here.

I was referring to the calculus of economic survival, not balance.

[AphexTwin11]

Sjorpha, on 05 November 2016 - 10:49 AM, said:

when the truth is that PGI is simply mostly clueless and incompetent, and that's why they do bad balance for everyone.

What a meany!


@Deathlike, u know of any good stocks I could buy? Asking for a friend....

FireStoat, on 04 November 2016 - 09:36 PM, said:

I declare the troll that extended this thread by 10 pages the winner.

10/10 PGI plz nerf

Edited by AphexTwin11, 05 November 2016 - 11:17 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

If MWO were a serious eSports event, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. But it is not. Worse, it's a game with an apparently under 60K player base. As such, PGI should have wasted ... Ahem! I meant ... "spent" less time "balancing" the game and more time building all the features still missing and finishing the miserably-less-than-half-baked ones.

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 10:02 AM, said:

I think this fragment above needs expounding on because I think doing so will open more avenues for discussion.

Who knows? I might even provide some good revelations.

The only actual difference between comp play and casual play is how much attention the players are playing to WHY they won/lost.

That's it. Full stop.

Everyone in casual play wants to win. Of course they do. Nobody goes into a match to play poorly (anecdotal acts of idiocy aside). Everyone is playing to win. Some people make worse choices, some people play poorly, some people over-think stuff, etc. However everyone is always playing to win.

The difference between a 'competitive' mindset and a 'casual' mindset is simply the effort you put into understanding why the match played the way it did. A casual just says 'huh. 200 damage and 1 kill. Effing LRMs.' A competitive player will have been playing that match and thinking afterward about who was positioned where, what was and was not working both in what he did and the other players and trying to see what of that he can leverage to win the next match. One is just playing without paying attention to everything else the other is playing as a learning experience.

Balance is 100% as critical for casual pugs as it is for casual league matches. If impacts your stats, it dramatically impacts the games already shakey ability to provide balanced matches for casual play. It impacts a players ability to have as much playing a variety of builds.

All that's different is the players predisposition to actually be willing and able to identify where balance issues exist. From there you can get into most comp players almost OCD need to play the absolute best mech/build but what people play in comp is a byproduct of balance issues, not the cause of it.

KDK 3 is out of balance for the game. This creates issues for the enjoyment of the game for every single player at every single skill level. Exactly as if the IS LL did 15 points of damage with a 0.5 second burn. Yes, people with Gauss snipers or fast ML boats or splat SRM ambush brawlers would still kill LL boats every match. Carrying LLs would not mean you would always win every fight every time. However it would be imbalanced and that would negatively impact the rest of the game.

Bad balance is bad. It's bad for everyone. That some people are not attentive enough to recognize the problem doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

[MischiefSC]

AphexTwin11, on 05 November 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

@Deathlike, u know of any good stocks I could buy? Asking for a friend....


10/10 PGI plz nerf

Don't buy stocks right now, hold or gold until probably Jan 1. Between uncertainty on the rate hike and if OPEC can hold its members to production limits the market is pretty volatile. If you've got something you have to roll back into the market to avoid penalties plop it into a brokered portfolio with someone competent.

Besides, only billionaires and financial underhive T5 scrubs do single stock investments anymore. It's the digital age, son! Trades take place too fast to play a single stock for points. LRMs may be fine in the 401K Underhive but there's no tonnage limits and it's all double gauss focus fire on Wall Street.

[RestosIII]

MischiefSC, on 05 November 2016 - 11:47 AM, said:

Invest in Clan Diamond Shark!

FTFY.

[Mystere]

Weapons. Invest in weapons manufacturers. The world just might start stocking up the day after Tuesday.

Edited by Mystere, 05 November 2016 - 12:19 PM.

[Zergling]

Dee Eight, on 04 November 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

I can compete with "decent" players as you put it, with EVERY kodiak variant. I don't need the 3 variant to do it. I am only a tier 3 still because I don't chase mythical numbers of rank which have no meaning. I routinely get matched into teams/matches with Tier 1s anyway. I kill them just fine in my Kodiak 1, 2, 4, 5, and SB.

You consistently produce potato tier stats in the leaderboards, month after month, so any claim of 'competing' with decent players can be treated as a load of bull, as can your claim of 'killing KDK-3s just fine'.

Tip for potatoes: don't make claims of being a better player than you are.

Venloe, on 04 November 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:

Do you realise you replied with an entirely anecdotal response to the stats I provided to you. It’s really not helpful in assisting the conversation we are having here. I can see by your snideness that you won’t care but will respond so that other can get a better perspective.

What Dee is saying here is garbage. He is saying that cheating effects the leaderboards so we should just toss the only non-anecdotal stats we all have access to. Let’s say he is right for a minute and the scores are effected by cheaters. Well then all scores would be and we are back to a level playing field skill/cheat wise and the distinguisher is still the mech. Unless he has proof only Kodiak pilots cheat…. Or we can say drop the top 5 guys for each mech. You will see the results are the same, the Kodiak is still 1000 points ahead.

The problem is that for close/med/long range slugfests the AC has always been very powerful, the low heat combined with high dps can’t really be beaten for this style engagement. But these weapons are heavy, ammo dependant and up until recently extremely restricted via hardpoint assignment. The Kodiak does not have to sacrifice speed to get this so it doesn’t fall out of position like the Dire or KC yet has all the armor and tonnage advantages that come with the class.

Let me close with some anecdotal information of my own regarding the game overall and leaderboard events. While I am “aware” all FPS game have cheaters and this one is no exception, at no point have I ever felt cheated against. In the Epic assault event I was able to make it to 5^th place in my KC before I stopped playing and over the last day while offline was knocked back to 11^th. I was able to get there without the use consumables as I feel they are part of the pay-to-win portion of the game. Once I hit around 20^th place and the progression really slowed I noticed that most of the names around me moved up slowly as well. This happened in the small increments you would expect as your good game was replaced with another good one or hopefully great one.

PS. Sorry is the quote portion ends up being gimped, it’s my first time using the feature.

I completely destroyed his arguments about supposed cheating invalidating the leaderboard statistics in the previous thread, which resulted in him running to the mods to lock the thread for discussion of cheating, when he was the one that bought it up.

Like, even if the top 25 Kodiak players are disregarded from the leaderboards, it still has the highest average score of all mechs.
Hell, the lowest Kodiak score was just 3 points below the highest Dire Wolf score.

And his supposed claims that there was a wildly uneven distribution in Kodiak scores? Load of rubbish; the distribution wasn't much different from other mechs, and there was actually a tighter distribution in the Kodiak scores than many other mechs.

Edited by Zergling, 05 November 2016 - 12:09 PM.

[Rhent]

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, on 05 November 2016 - 10:21 AM, said:

Let me state, that generally, I dont like nerfing mechs... And that I would rather mechs be buffed up when it comes to balance...

That being said, the kdk-3 is an absolute monster and bringing other mechs up to this power level is definatelly not a good idea.

The only way to rectify this problem would be to bring the kdk-3 down some.

I am not sure how anyone can defend the kdk-3 as being balanced when it obviously outperforms anything remotelly balanced.

Heck, I cant even think how other mechs could be brought up to the level of performance the kdk-3 has without completelly throwing time to kill out the window. You would literally have to give mechs obscene quirks. (And PGI is currently trying to bring down the level of quirks across the board).

The kdk-3 is literally mecha godzilla. I am shocked at how many people think this mech is fine as it is in the current meta. Especially with all the irrefutable proof that has been layed unto the table at this point in his thread against the kdk-3.

Move two of the torso ballistic slots out and place them one in each arm and you just gave the mech a convergence nerf that it needs and then see if that helps. The problem is the developers gave the mech 4 ballistic slots in the torso, 4 energy slots in the arms and the ability to use XL/Endo/Ferro w/ clan techs. The amount of stupidity presented by the developers in making those slot choices for a clan mech are telling.

If moving the ballistic slots around don't work then set the engine cap to 325 as well.

[RestosIII]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 12:06 PM, said:

Weapons. Invest is weapons manufacturers. The world just might start stocking up the day after Tuesday.

"I should have listened to my cousin Gaila. He said to me 'Quark, I have one word for you: Weapons. No-one ever went broke selling weapons.' But did I take his advice? No. And why not? Because I'm a people person! I like interacting with my customers, like you and I are doing right now. Talking to each other, getting to know one another."

"I can see the attraction, for you."

"But when you're dealing in weapons, buyers aren't interested in casual conversation. They just want their merchandise, no questions asked. It's so impersonal."

"Your charms would be wasted."

"Exactly. So now, Gaila owns his own moon. And I'm staring in to the abyss."

[Deathlike]

AphexTwin11, on 05 November 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

@Deathlike, u know of any good stocks I could buy? Asking for a friend....

If you had time machine, go buy some Microsoft stocks.... or Apple stocks.

Just saying.

Rhent, on 05 November 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

If moving the ballistic slots around don't work then set the engine cap to 325 as well.

Wat?

Kodiaks come with a stock 400CXL engine. Maybe I'm just wondering why you need to adjust the cap (even if that's the lower bound).

Edited by Deathlike, 05 November 2016 - 12:23 PM.

[Mystere]

Zergling, on 05 November 2016 - 12:09 PM, said:

You consistently produce potato tier stats in the leaderboards, month after month, so any claim of 'competing' with decent players can be treated as a load of bull, as can your claim of 'killing KDK-3s just fine'.

Tip for potatoes: don't make claims of being a better player than you are.

Well, just to be fair, the leaderboards do not state what Mechs a player has killed. For all we know, he's been hunting KDK-3s and being successful at it.

[Zergling]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 12:24 PM, said:

Well, just to be fair, the leaderboards do not state what Mechs a player has killed. For all we know, he's been hunting KDK-3s and being successful at it.

Someone that is being successful at killing KDK-3s would have even greater success at killing other mechs, so they'd have substantially better stats than 'potato tier'.

[Rhent]

Deathlike, on 05 November 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

If you had time machine, go buy some Microsoft stocks.... or Apple stocks.

Just saying.




Wat?

Kodiaks come with a stock 400CXL engine. Maybe I'm just wondering why you need to adjust the cap (even if that's the lower bound).

The Whale has a similar load out and weapon slot capabilities, the only reason it wasn't OP was by having a lower engine cap as you are well aware.

[Khereg]

Mystere, on 05 November 2016 - 10:13 AM, said:

They they should have absolutely no problem with the above course of action.

I won't speak for the others, but I really don't. Nerf it or leave it. It's all the same to me.

However, my regular teammates and I are pretty sure they're going to nerf it. We're already pondering what will become the next best assault in the game.

\no telling the secretses, though - wait and see

[Deathlike]

Rhent, on 05 November 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

The Whale has a similar load out and weapon slot capabilities, the only reason it wasn't OP was by having a lower engine cap as you are well aware.

The Whale didn't have Endo or FF, let alone being able to switch out engines.

A lot of that is totally not comparable, especially when it is highly likely that even the Kodiak will most likely have some Endo involved too and not even maxing out on its engine (probably 350XL min for most builds).

They are not even on the same level.

[Ghogiel]

Rhent, on 05 November 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

The Whale has a similar load out and weapon slot capabilities, the only reason it wasn't OP was by having a lower engine cap as you are well aware.

When the DWF came out it wasn't OP. lol good one.

Edited by Ghogiel, 05 November 2016 - 12:50 PM.