295 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 05:51 PM, said:

But perhaps they'd need LESS insane levels of quirks, if there weren't so many other overquirked mechs about. Hence my desire to baseline everything for a bit, and see just how badly the weakest of the weak need to be worked to compete against Tier 2s.

Certainly don't need everything trying to be tier 1, again

I could give all the answers to the test of the natural underperformers, but that would still be up to our balance overlord to listen and use the noggin' to figure out what is to be done.

That assumes a lot on the latter, even if I occasionally derp on the former.

[adamts01]

Baulven, on 17 July 2016 - 07:44 AM, said:

Just increase other mechs don't need things. The whole bonuses here minuses there is how we got this **** storm to begin with. You buff in cycles until the performance I on par.

I like Bishop's idea, but it again relies on PGI buffing the correct chassis. After all this time they still haven't shown much in their ability to recognize which mechs are actually good.

Acehilator, on 17 July 2016 - 07:47 AM, said:

Yeah, but still with the Dartboard of Doom. Case in Point: Blackjack, Quickdraw, severity of Warhammer/Marauder Nerfs. Still totally mindboggling.

I think the Warhammer (I don't own Marauders) was one of the more sensible changes PGI has made. I just bought them so I'd have some IS heavies for CW, and it was absolutely a performer. Not OP, but very strong, on par or even better than my Timbys in some ways. I'd argue one of the best of the heavies. I'm not a fan of power creep, so I like the idea of slightly toning down top tier mechs. And honestly, with lights getting the shaft on re-scale, they either needed some serious buffs or everything else needed a nerf, and losing extra agility is a good place to start. Especially on an already strong chassis.

[Dirus Nigh]

Pariah Devalis, on 17 July 2016 - 07:25 AM, said:

Seconded, but with a small caveat:

Adjust base weapon stats based on the average amount of quirking that has proved necessary for various weapon systems to become viable in play.


Honestly, I could take or leave this condition, but we all know several weapon systems do need improvements, and the solutions have been staring us in the face for quite some time. Dumping the quirks entirely allows the weapons to be buffed directly, without pushing anything beyond the line.

So what do you do then? give IS weapons the same stats as the clan or the clan lowered to the IS? That is what needs to happen for balance.

[Trauglodyte]

Dirus Nigh, on 17 July 2016 - 06:33 PM, said:

So what do you do then? give IS weapons the same stats as the clan or the clan lowered to the IS? That is what needs to happen for balance.

Not really. The only thing that the Clans have on the IS is range. DPS is well enough balanced. Range is largely a moot point, given how small the maps are. Most solid combat takes place between 350-500m.

[Y E O N N E]

Trauglodyte, on 17 July 2016 - 06:40 PM, said:

Not really. The only thing that the Clans have on the IS is range. DPS is well enough balanced. Range is largely a moot point, given how small the maps are. Most solid combat takes place between 350-500m.

DPS is not balanced. You have grown overly accustomed to the quirks allowing you to shoot faster and more often.

[FupDup]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 July 2016 - 06:46 PM, said:

DPS is not balanced. You have grown overly accustomed to the quirks allowing you to shoot faster and more often.

Aren't "shooting faster" and "shooting more often" the same thing?

[Baulven]

FupDup, on 17 July 2016 - 06:48 PM, said:

Aren't "shooting faster" and "shooting more often" the same thing?

In this case no. If you have a 20% reduction to both duration and cool down when you for a weapon that is 1 second duration and 1 second CD it becomes 1.6 seconds per shot due to both.

[FupDup]

Baulven, on 17 July 2016 - 06:51 PM, said:

In this case no. If you have a 20% reduction to both duration and cool down when you for a weapon that is 1 second duration and 1 second CD it becomes 1.6 seconds per shot due to both.

That only applies to lasers, which aren't usually the best weapons for DPS anyways due to heat limiting their longevity. Lasers are usually used for their alpha-strike value.

[Y E O N N E]

FupDup, on 17 July 2016 - 06:48 PM, said:

Aren't "shooting faster" and "shooting more often" the same thing?

No. At least, in my head one of them is about maximum cyclic damage and the other is heat-limited damage.

[Mawai]

I think the basic idea is excellent.

However, as another poster pointed out ... it doesn't address clan vs IS balance. PGI nerfed a few clan weapons but then turned to positive quirks to IS mechs to try to complete the clan vs IS balance. They tried to avoid giving negative quirks to clan mechs since that was wildly unpopular with the clan fanboys .

So ... the problem with a quirk reset ... as nice as that would be ... is that it would pretty much eliminate much of the progress made on clan vs IS balance.

In order to try and at least minimally address this issue I'd modify Bishop's suggestion.

Remove all quirks but give the IS a 5% or 10% structure quirk across the board. The size and distribution could be revised but the point would be to apply the exact same base quirk to all IS mechs as part of the clan vs IS weapon balance issue. (For example all IS mechs could get a 10% CT structure boost and 5% to all other components). The actual value would depend on the exact balance between clan and IS weapons (for which PGI should have the statistics by now).

[Lyoto Machida]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 17 July 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

Nope. I'd end up stabling half my mechs, like almost everyone else.

So you use all your mechs now?

[Mystere]

Trauglodyte, on 17 July 2016 - 04:47 PM, said:

Plus, let's not forget how much power is gained in a landslide win. 12 v 10 means that you've got 2 extra people, supposedly, focusing on a single target making it, in reality, 3 to 1. That 1 is going to drop like a rock which then puts you at 12 v 9, so on and so forth. There isn't any level of reasonable quirks that would allow 12 v 10 to work. You'd have to increase armor and structure by another 30-50% and then your 1v1 battles would be awful.

Hold on a second! Are people actually now saying that 12 IS vs. 10 Clan would be in favor of the former? Are people actually now saying that the IS will not be cannon fodder? Really?

Well Holy Cannoli! This is an interesting reversal.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call progress.

Edited by Mystere, 17 July 2016 - 07:18 PM.

[Karmen Baric]

Make it so Clan mechs die on the loss of a side torso with XL engines, then lets talk no quirks.

[Deathlike]

Karmen Baric, on 17 July 2016 - 07:25 PM, said:

Make it so Clan mechs die on the loss of a side torso with XL engines, then lets talk no quirks.

You mean, RIP most Clan mechs?

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

You guys are getting a bit ahead of yourselves with all the talk about balancing weapons in the absence of quirks.

Even should quirks be removed from the equation, we still would not be able to accurately evaluate weapon performance due to the disparity in durability.

All those structure quirks (which are by far the most prevalent), and to a lesser extent armor quirks are largely a compensation for that IS 'Mechs with Std. engines are undergunned and those with isXL are over fragile.

That very foundational engine durability issue is the #1 thing that would need to be resolved in the stripping of quirks.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

Karmen Baric, on 17 July 2016 - 07:25 PM, said:

Make it so Clan mechs die on the loss of a side torso with XL engines, then lets talk no quirks.

Um... no. Much better the opposite.

Best would be engine crits and the 3-crit rule.

[InspectorG]

Yeonne Greene, on 17 July 2016 - 06:46 PM, said:

DPS is not balanced. You have grown overly accustomed to the quirks allowing you to shoot faster and more often.

NOT TO MENTION all Clans had DHS and most IS had SHS. Pay that Tax, son.

[MischiefSC]

Mystere, on 17 July 2016 - 07:17 PM, said:

Hold on a second! Are people actually now saying that 12 IS vs. 10 Clan would be in favor of the former? Are people actually now saying that the IS will not be cannon fodder? Really?

Well Holy Cannoli! This is an interesting reversal.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call progress.

With the heavily modified stats we have right now, sure. Because we're within a stones throw of balance. If you went to stock stats it would not be balanced at all and it would swing wildly - good Clan mechs would be OP as **** and bad Clan mechs would be utterly worthless because focus fire > tech variance.

10 v 12 balance was never on the table because it's a horrible, humiliatingly bad to even consider balance mechanic for a FPS that will fortunately never see the light of day as it would require as many or more tweaks to original stats as balance does if not more so, plus all the issues pointed out a billion times in these debates on why the idea is pure unmitigated failure.

Again. Try to get a player run event around it, get 500 people to show up and agree to play that and only that every single time they play for a month. Then we'll talk about it.

Edited by MischiefSC, 17 July 2016 - 08:11 PM.

[Alex Morgaine]

Lykaon, on 17 July 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

What should be done is a lengthy run on the test servers sans quirks to gain some baseline data on mech performance.

Incentivise participation by granting rewards to accounts that play X number of quick play matches on the test server per chassis.

So for example. Play 10 matches with MAD 5d get some MC Play 10 more matches with a MAD 3R get more MC etc.

Maybe also have all C-bills and GXP transfer to the live server account.

Whatever the reward it needs to effect the live server account to reward playing on the test server instead of just grinding your assets on your live server account.

Sadly, though opposed too forcing rewards for testing stuff, i am in agreement that they need to reward people for using the pts when it's up if they want any data or feedback.

[Mystere]

MischiefSC, on 17 July 2016 - 08:08 PM, said:

With the heavily modified stats we have right now, sure. Because we're within a stones throw of balance ...

So it is possible. Yipee! More progress.