295 replies to this topic

[Mechwarrior1441491]

Just wait for Clans in stock mode. They are going to dominate.

[Accused]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

Nuke all the quirks.

Thank you.

Quirks are a fantastic tool for increasing the viability of a mech build around a particular chassis (hunch's hunch, cent's arm, atlas internal structure, etc) not for the wholesale bastardization of increasing ttk across the board.

In this quirkless world some mechs are simply going to be inferior to others. You're not supposed to make outdated models stand up to newer varients but here we are...Balance.

Nuke the quirks, balance your game, and go from there. I would suggest putting this on the test server but lol you won't because nobody knows why you do things.

[FupDup]

Accused, on 17 July 2016 - 12:19 PM, said:

...In this quirkless world some mechs are simply going to be inferior to others. You're not supposed to make outdated models stand up to newer varients...

Actually, in a game like MWO, the "outdated" models should in fact be brought up to par. Making the game so that the newest toys are always the best toys is stupid.

Edited by FupDup, 17 July 2016 - 12:26 PM.

[SirSoggyDog]

Blanket removal of quirks without good testing and other tweaks will almost certainly wreak IS v Clan balance. Quirks are the only thing that keep some chassis viable, such as the Vindy and Locust. Yes many of these quirks decrease TTK, but without them those mechs would be borderline useless.

Also TT values are not a good metric for balancing, as a boardgame is nothing like an FPS. That's to say nothing of the fact that many TT mechanics are non-existent in MWO.

[FupDup]

SirSoggyDog, on 17 July 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Blanket removal of quirks without good testing and other tweaks will almost certainly wreak IS v Clan balance. Quirks are the only thing that keep some chassis viable, such as the Vindy and Locust. Yes many of these quirks decrease TTK, but without them those mechs would be borderline useless.

Also TT values are not a good metric for balancing, as a boardgame is nothing like an FPS. That's to say nothing of the fact that many TT mechanics are non-existent in MWO.

Also note that:

A. Many quirks also increase TTK (structure and agility).

B. A number of TT values weren't even good in TT itself.

[MischiefSC]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

As the title says.

We've rescaled the entire Mech line up. But we've limped along on layers of quirks bandaided over layers of quirks, no one honestly has a clue what any mech's relative truly value is. PGIs usual "tweak a handful here, a handful there" approach actually tends to exacerbate this.

And players are so addicted to the quirk-crack, that this often causes bigger concerns than geometry, hardpoints, hitboxes.

So, IMO, this is the time to go cold turkey.

Nuke all the quirks. Take us back to day zero, whatever. Let's get a feel for what each mech can do. Remember when the Tier 1 Metamechs DIDN'T GET ANY QUIRKS AT ALL, or possibly, we even saw the need for a few with some negative quirks, here or there? Before Powercreep turned into the (predicted) Powersprint?

Top tier mechs shouldn't have quirks at all. Everything below should get minor quirks that address otherwise unaddressable deficiencies, or occasionally, add lore/fluff favor (in which case they should be veeeery minor). But one really needs to see them "naked", as it were first, to know really what the new balance of power, post rescale is.

Now, I know this is going to confuse some of you. "How can I argue and be salty about the upcoming quirk changes on some posts, yet be pushing for a total reset here?" It's actually very very simple. In those posts, I am arguing about the MWO game we actually have, NOW, where the top tier mechs are uberquirked, and we are oddly stripping quirks of second tier mechs, instead. This post is about what SHOULD be done.


*Procurator Derek: Yes, I am sure I could have posted this in a different, "appropriate" Section of the Forum. Where it would have 5 views, 1 like, and zero comments. We post here specifically for the "DISCUSSION" part of General Discussion, sir. Just saying!

You really hit on why I'm okay with the big quirk dial-back. I'm hoping it's the start of quirk methadone. We need it. Until we have it we really can't have any real approach to balance.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Acehilator, on 17 July 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

Sounds good. Problem is Clan vs IS balance for FW. Without quirks, IS is pretty much screwed.

/edit: Oh, and of course, we all know how fast and iterative PGI works. Getting quirks back to an acceptable level would take what? Half a year?

honestly I think giving the clans one less respawn or ideally limiting clans to 2 stars would balance it pretty well.

If clan ends up weak due to fewer mechs, then buff the weapon power in fw mode until balanced.

FupDup, on 17 July 2016 - 12:25 PM, said:

Actually, in a game like MWO, the "outdated" models should in fact be brought up to par. Making the game so that the newest toys are always the best toys is stupid.

But good for profits if you can maintain plausible deniability.

Edited by Narcissistic Martyr, 17 July 2016 - 12:39 PM.

[Oberost]

Deathlike, on 17 July 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

I'm not a total fan of quirks (mostly because our balance overlord is incompetent), but do you guys really want to find out how bad many mechs are w/o their quirks?

Phoenix Hawk debuted with quirks - it's going to suck even more. Archers? They were already laughable and further dead. Commandos and Mist Lynx's? lol ok. Awesomes still have quirks, but they'll be forgotten just as well.

Some mechs will survive the such a thing, such as the Arctic Cheetah and many of the existing Clan mechs that have minimal quirks (Timberwolf will recover its status, only indirectly through everything sucking). Black Knights and Grasshoppers that are totally reliant on quirks wouldn't even be a thing.


While you can ask for said unquirkening, just remember that if you can imagine many of the mechs w/o quirks, you're going to cull most of them on the field. The mechs that weren't dependent on the quirks, well, they will generally be the standouts.

This isn't rocket science... it's the lack of foresight in the understanding and application of quirks (whether it be by others or our balance overlord) that causes people to lose sight of the dreadfully obvious... until you get smacked in the face of how badly you were reliant on those quirks. We'll still be back to claiming the Phoenix Hawk being the worst of the Mediums (unless the Vindicator wants to "outshine" it in its terrible state).

Completely agree with this.

We don't need to remove completely all the quirks just to realize what is wrong . We just need someone who really knows the game (not like our balance overlord) to make all the adjustments to all the mechs. No need to start again from zero: we should already know that a Vindicator without quirks will suck compared to a Blackjack, for instance, or that the Awesome will keep being not so awesome without it.

Common sense, no more flipping tables.

[Oberost]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 17 July 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

honestly I think giving the clans one less respawn or ideally limiting clans to 2 stars would balance it pretty well.

If clan ends up weak due to fewer mechs, then buff the weapon power in fw mode until balanced.

This has been discussed in other threads. Assimetric balance won't work in a PvP like MWO. Maybe in another kind of games could do it, but not in this one. I want my 70 ton IS mech to be as powerful as a 70 ton Clan mech, I'm not cannon fodder.

[MauttyKoray]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

As the title says.

We've rescaled the entire Mech line up. But we've limped along on layers of quirks bandaided over layers of quirks, no one honestly has a clue what any mech's relative truly value is. PGIs usual "tweak a handful here, a handful there" approach actually tends to exacerbate this.

And players are so addicted to the quirk-crack, that this often causes bigger concerns than geometry, hardpoints, hitboxes.

So, IMO, this is the time to go cold turkey.

Nuke all the quirks. Take us back to day zero, whatever. Let's get a feel for what each mech can do. Remember when the Tier 1 Metamechs DIDN'T GET ANY QUIRKS AT ALL, or possibly, we even saw the need for a few with some negative quirks, here or there? Before Powercreep turned into the (predicted) Powersprint?

Top tier mechs shouldn't have quirks at all. Everything below should get minor quirks that address otherwise unaddressable deficiencies, or occasionally, add lore/fluff favor (in which case they should be veeeery minor). But one really needs to see them "naked", as it were first, to know really what the new balance of power, post rescale is.

Now, I know this is going to confuse some of you. "How can I argue and be salty about the upcoming quirk changes on some posts, yet be pushing for a total reset here?" It's actually very very simple. In those posts, I am arguing about the MWO game we actually have, NOW, where the top tier mechs are uberquirked, and we are oddly stripping quirks of second tier mechs, instead. This post is about what SHOULD be done.


*Procurator Derek: Yes, I am sure I could have posted this in a different, "appropriate" Section of the Forum. Where it would have 5 views, 1 like, and zero comments. We post here specifically for the "DISCUSSION" part of General Discussion, sir. Just saying!

I think this needs to be done along with the Power Draw system. It should fundamentally change the way the game plays and you won't have multi-UAC assaults peppering you, laser boats spraying insane alphas, or constant missile barrages anymore. At least that is I assume the power draw would have to 'dissipate' like the timer between ghost heat and the penalty for firing a weapon (or if not a hard number, a gradual decline mechanic kinda like how heat has a UI bar that dissipates) and not just be possible to pop a 1-2 alpha combo at max damage within a half a second.

After a month of that we can then look into where the mechs lay in their power, viability, versatility, and how they stand up to others of their weight class and similar tonnages (both in and out of weight class if needed). Then quirks can be used to help the stragglers, buff some with cool designs that are just detrimental to their survivability, and be made use of to give certain mechs literal 'quirks' that make them what they are. (i.e. summoners and their jump jets...still waiting)

[MauttyKoray]

Oberost, on 17 July 2016 - 12:44 PM, said:

This has been discussed in other threads. Assimetric balance won't work in a PvP like MWO. Maybe in another kind of games could do it, but not in this one. I want my 70 ton IS mech to be as powerful as a 70 ton Clan mech, I'm not cannon fodder.

I agree here honestly, since MWO is primarily a PVP centered competitive game, I'd prefer my Clan mechs to not just chew through IS mechs like butter. I want a fight, I want to go toe to toe with another medium in my Nova or HBK-IIC and have to try.

Balance between IS and Clan needs to be a 'different but level' style playing field. The hit that Clan DHS took leveled out the heat problem quite a bit and now our farther reaching and more damaging lasers have a trade off of also burning longer and being hotter. Its a different style of gameplay, but one that isn't necessarily under or overpowered in comparison.

Still not a fan of IS/Clan (U)AC balancing...but the lack of weapons on the IS side is partly to blame and I hope when they do come out we'll see at least something like IS UAC20s (maybe 10s? Maybe not) needing a double shot to split that 20 damage in a multi-tappable weapon.

[Mystere]

Oberost, on 17 July 2016 - 12:44 PM, said:

This has been discussed in other threads. Assimetric balance won't work in a PvP like MWO. Maybe in another kind of games could do it, but not in this one. I want my 70 ton IS mech to be as powerful as a 70 ton Clan mech, I'm not cannon fodder.

Sigh! Here's another example of exaggeration. A 10:1 performance ratio is in the realm of cannon fodder. 1.2:1? Not really.

Kubernetes, on 17 July 2016 - 11:23 AM, said:

Also, regarding 10 v 12, I don't think they've ever been able to make it work in testing. It doesn't matter how much more powerful Clan mechs are on a 1 to 1 basis, because the numbers win out and 12 IS crushes 10 Clan without fail. I don't even think 12 v 11 works.

Well, at least this person gets it.

Heck, even the internal testing done by PGI, and which apparently involved some of the people here, demonstrated it as well. But, why is that tiny tidbit of information not being mentioned? I wonder if said information is just a bit too inconvenient.

Edited by Mystere, 17 July 2016 - 01:30 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Deathlike, on 17 July 2016 - 09:40 AM, said:

I'm not a total fan of quirks (mostly because our balance overlord is incompetent), but do you guys really want to find out how bad many mechs are w/o their quirks?

Phoenix Hawk debuted with quirks - it's going to suck even more. Archers? They were already laughable and further dead. Commandos and Mist Lynx's? lol ok. Awesomes still have quirks, but they'll be forgotten just as well.

Some mechs will survive the such a thing, such as the Arctic Cheetah and many of the existing Clan mechs that have minimal quirks (Timberwolf will recover its status, only indirectly through everything sucking). Black Knights and Grasshoppers that are totally reliant on quirks wouldn't even be a thing.


While you can ask for said unquirkening, just remember that if you can imagine many of the mechs w/o quirks, you're going to cull most of them on the field. The mechs that weren't dependent on the quirks, well, they will generally be the standouts.

This isn't rocket science... it's the lack of foresight in the understanding and application of quirks (whether it be by others or our balance overlord) that causes people to lose sight of the dreadfully obvious... until you get smacked in the face of how badly you were reliant on those quirks. We'll still be back to claiming the Phoenix Hawk being the worst of the Mediums (unless the Vindicator wants to "outshine" it in its terrible state).

Except how much of 'how bad' bad mechs are is based on how good the quirks on others is?

If you remove all quirks I think you'll find the bads are not quite so bad. Sorta like Stock Mech Mondays, the Awesome was a good mech.

Remove the quirks, see where things are, THEN quirk up the worst ones. The best mechs should be quirkless.

[Bishop Steiner]

MischiefSC, on 17 July 2016 - 01:37 PM, said:

Except how much of 'how bad' bad mechs are is based on how good the quirks on others is?

If you remove all quirks I think you'll find the bads are not quite so bad. Sorta like Stock Mech Mondays, the Awesome was a good mech.

Remove the quirks, see where things are, THEN quirk up the worst ones. The best mechs should be quirkless.

But this would make sense. So much so that PGI certainly won't grasp it, but to the degree that even some of our weary minded forum regulars can't anymore, because they've been struggling under "PGI Logic" for so long.

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 01:38 PM, said:

But this would make sense. So much so that PGI certainly won't grasp it, but to the degree that even some of our weary minded forum regulars can't anymore, because they've been struggling under "PGI Logic" for so long.

I'll put it this way..

You give a mech a quirk, it'll be played for a day.

If you teach PGI how to quirk, it'll be borked for 60 to 90 days.


It boils down to asking/answering three questions:

1) What is wrong with the mech (whether it is OP/UP)?

2) Why is the mech considered that way (hardpoints, placement and #, + all relevant data)?

3) What do you think the fix is based on that (assuming the complaint is legitimate - if not, just stop here)?


The problem is that #1 is filled with "whines". #2 is not considered at all, or at least done improperly. Consequently, #3 is the result of #1 + #2.


It doesn't take a rocket scientist here to figure the issue out.

Edited by Deathlike, 17 July 2016 - 02:33 PM.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

MischiefSC, on 17 July 2016 - 01:37 PM, said:

Except how much of 'how bad' bad mechs are is based on how good the quirks on others is?

If you remove all quirks I think you'll find the bads are not quite so bad. Sorta like Stock Mech Mondays, the Awesome was a good mech.

Remove the quirks, see where things are, THEN quirk up the worst ones. The best mechs should be quirkless.

We played the game without quirks for years. Quirks saved the stale game play of this game and got rarely used mechs back on the field. Why on earth do we have to go back to closed beta to understand what it would be like without quirks? After mastering a mech I rarely kept more than a single mech. There was no point. So many variants were useless as there was ALWAYS the best out of the bunch you would play. Anything else and it would be a handicap.

[Lykaon]

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.

[Wintersdark]

Mechwarrior1441491, on 17 July 2016 - 12:13 PM, said:

Just wait for Clans in stock mode. They are going to dominate.

Obviously. A stock only mode will be utterly unbalanced, but everyone who wants to do that knows that going in. It'll only be for private matches though, not queued play, so rules can be established going in.

This thread isn't about stock mode though, nor is it about a "no quirks" mode.

It's about resetting quirks to get a fresh start going forward, particularly relevant because we've seen MANY faction wide clan nerfs (weapons, engInes, DHS) and the whole rescale but have just kept semi-randomly adjusting quirks.

It'd do the game a lot of good to start fresh on the balance train, having adjusted base weapon stats to account for "mass quirks", and hopefully having learned what sort of impact various types of quirks have when all is said and done.

But, that also assumes that things HAVE been learned, and that PGI would even be willing to actually buckle down and do it (as opposed to starting, doing one or maybe two passes, then forgetting about it).

... I'm still shocked they actually finished the rescale.

[Baulven]

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.

Keep cbills and do from matches and provide 5 MC per chassis complete. Once you complete every third of a weight class you get a free mechbay. Every 25% of a weight class you get a free module.

That should be enough to get a lot of people on the test server and playing everything to get data configured.

[FupDup]

At this point, I'm not as concerned about which approach we take so long as the approach is being performed by competent people.

Basically, what I'm saying is that if we went with Bishie's reset route, it would turn out okay if it was handled with diligence. On the other hand, the current quirking approach would also work if the quirks were being handed out with any level of intelligence being applied.

It doesn't matter whether we try to hit the reset button or work with what we have so long as the current balancing "team" (if there even is one) is still making the decisions. Both approaches will end badly in this condition. Any approach will end badly if they lead it.

We need a balancing team/person/whatever that actually knows what they're doing before we determine which approach we want to use. Otherwise, we're going to fail no matter what we pick.