295 replies to this topic

[Templar Dane]

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!

Oh yeah I'm sure that'll do wonders to all the vindicators and other sub-par mechs in the game.

[Bishop Steiner]

Templar Dane, on 17 July 2016 - 08:36 PM, said:

Oh yeah I'm sure that'll do wonders to all the vindicators and other sub-par mechs in the game.

Perhaps if you trying reading what is said beyond the title, sometime , you'll actually have a clue what's going on around you?

[Ghostrider0067]

While this is a nice idea, I fear the putting it into practice aspect would be a colossal failure. It's abundantly clear that PGI lacks the focus to make this happen in the right fashion. There are some solid ideas in this thread, but would they heed a single one of them? Would they actually find value in the rationale behind them? While I'd like to remain optimistic, I'm a realist and know better.

The game has strayed so far away from the tabletop that's a different breed entirely. It may walk like a mech and look like a mech... but it's far from what we believe that mech to be. Incessant meddling only helps to break the game rather than fix it. Just my two C-Bills.

[Dirus Nigh]

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.

Clan weapons do more damage, have better range, weigh less, and take up fewer slots. That leaves space for more, armor, Bap, tag, ammunition, and most importantly more heat sinks.

Combat takes place well out side of 500m for clan mechs. The large pulse has an effective range of 600m, Most of the maps are large open areas were you can stay at 700+ meters sniping. Maps like canyons, and bog are becoming the minority. Still even on those maps you can set up on hills with very long sight lines. IS mechs have to close the range in order to bring their shorter range weapons into play. All the while being hit by long range clan weapons.

[Ryllen Kriel]

Hey, good call Bishop. I've been mentioning removing all quirks for awhile now. They will never do it but I support the move. Damn...aren't modules supposed to be the original "quirks" to modify builds? If PGI wants money, abolish quirks, people will buy more modules.

C'mon...there's the bait PGI, it's tasty, want a bite? Sure you do, it will dull the ache in your belly, just take away the quirks...that's it, you know you want to! What's that in the distance I hear? I think it's the intoxicatingly slick plastic-on-plastic of credit cards coming out of wallets. Do it! You know it ill feel good in the morning, and the next day, and the next...muhuhahahah!

[Templar Dane]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 08:39 PM, said:

Perhaps if you trying reading what is said beyond the title, sometime , you'll actually have a clue what's going on around you?

I guess even you don't know wtf you typed, because you said in the body of the OP to remove ALL THE QUIRKS.

You prattled on for a good while about removing all quirks.

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 08:39 PM, said:

Top tier mechs shouldn't have quirks at all. Everything below should get minor quirks that address otherwise unaddressable deficiencies

If you think 5% here and there will help a vindicator or summoner, you are mistaken. Lights and mediums are already endangered species because heavies rule the day and nuking all quirks and giving the worst mechs minor quirks isn't going to make up for their deficiencies.

[Ghostrider0067]

Templar Dane, on 17 July 2016 - 09:01 PM, said:

If you think 5% here and there will help a vindicator or summoner, you are mistaken. Lights and mediums are already endangered species because heavies rule the day and nuking all quirks and giving the worst mechs minor quirks isn't going to make up for their deficiencies.

Personally speaking, I think it's more about how you play what you're piloting than needing to have the devs tweak on it. Mechs aren't supposed to be as even as they are. They all have inherent pros and cons and it's your responsibility as the pilot to know what they are and how to work within that sweet spot. The game was never really meant to be balanced; however, if PGI didn't take some kind of measures to do so, no one would play anything below heavies unless they're a masochist, a moron, a savant, or some concoction of all of those things.

In my mind, the quirks thing is all or nothing. There's no middle ground here and there shouldn't be. You either leave them in and keep building on the game as it exists or strip them out entirely and live with the consequences. I'm thinking PGI goes with the former rather than the latter.

[Wintersdark]

Templar Dane, on 17 July 2016 - 09:01 PM, said:

I guess even you don't know wtf you typed, because you said in the body of the OP to remove ALL THE QUIRKS.

You prattled on for a good while about removing all quirks.

If you think 5% here and there will help a vindicator or summoner, you are mistaken. Lights and mediums are already endangered species because heavies rule the day and nuking all quirks and giving the worst mechs minor quirks isn't going to make up for their deficiencies.

Or, you're totally missing the whole freaking point of the thread.

I'll restate it, to help you out, as it seems difficult for you.

Step one: Remove all quirks to establish a baseline of balance, as so many sweeping changes have been made (scale, clan DHS, clan engines, weapon stats, etc)
Step two: quirk the lowest performing mechs to bring them up to the level of the better performing mechs, but not beyond. As such, do this in stages. Mechs established as T1 in step 1 should remain that way and never receive quirks.

This isn't about staying with no quirks. Quirks are, unfortunately, a necessary reality. We all understand that. But right now, we're in a confused morass of essentially random quirks, and constantly tweaking mechs against other tweaked mechs. It's a confused mess with no real baseline, no target for balance.

[Pjwned]

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

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).

That's not what IS needs though, they need buffs to weapons like SRMs, medium & small lasers, ER PPCs, AC2, machine guns, etc and SSRMs need to be reworked too.

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, just give Inner Sphere mechs the Light Fusion Engine instead.

[kapusta11]

Most of so-called meta mechs don't rely on quirks all that much if at all anyways. High mounted hardpoints come first and lack of gun arms that you can strip off of armor to gain more tonnage is a solid plus. Look at tournament and see for yourself.

The whole discussion is based on false premise.

Edited by kapusta11, 17 July 2016 - 10:29 PM.

[Manei Domini Krigg]

Nuke all quirks - and 90% will switch to use clantech

[Bishop Steiner]

Manei Domini Krigg, on 17 July 2016 - 10:30 PM, said:

Nuke all quirks - and 90% will switch to use clantech

So what if they do? Then we can actually balance that before hiding the mess under a mire of Quirks.

THEN we can requirk as needed.

[DovisKhan]

A game that has two factions that are by lore uneven, cannot by balanced unless we throw lore out the window completely



You can either have the cake or eat it



So make all mechs Omni, remove all fixed equipment, unlock all equopment for every chasis, remove multiple chasis variants because they're redundant at this point


What you get is a much more balanced, streamlined approach that is the only way to make this even remotely work as a balanced game, which I assume they want, otherwise why do e-sports with it. You can't have an e-sport with laughable balance as it is, no one takes this one seriously

Edited by DovisKhan, 17 July 2016 - 10:58 PM.

[Templar Dane]

Wintersdark, on 17 July 2016 - 09:09 PM, said:

Or, you're totally missing the whole freaking point of the thread.

I'll restate it, to help you out, as it seems difficult for you.

Step one: Remove all quirks to establish a baseline of balance, as so many sweeping changes have been made (scale, clan DHS, clan engines, weapon stats, etc)
Step two: quirk the lowest performing mechs to bring them up to the level of the better performing mechs, but not beyond. As such, do this in stages. Mechs established as T1 in step 1 should remain that way and never receive quirks.

This isn't about staying with no quirks. Quirks are, unfortunately, a necessary reality. We all understand that. But right now, we're in a confused morass of essentially random quirks, and constantly tweaking mechs against other tweaked mechs. It's a confused mess with no real baseline, no target for balance.

I totally get what this thread is about. Dudes that say they don't play the game anymore and have no place in a serious discussion about balance, who are on strike for one reason or another, wanting to make sweeping changes to the game when it's already as close to being balanced as it ever has.

Things are already pretty damn well balanced as they are, with the exception of some really smelly mechs. It's taken this long to get here and starting from scratch would do more harm than good.

PGI told us they wouldn't do sweeping changes and they would do incremental smaller changes on a regular basis........and we've seen pretty much zero of that. God knows how long it would take them to rebalance it all. Most of the criticism about this game as it is right now is that it is boring because it's 12v12 team deathmatch all day long. Yeah, lets slow down the already glacial speed of development on this game to appease some forum warriors that spend way more time on the forums than they do stomping around in mechs.

If the dudes that don't play the game are going completely by what they see on the forums, they should know that there was an event this weekend so the rest of the bads actually logged in. They logged in, were terrible as usual, and hit the forums to whine about the thing that killed them. Nerf locust, lrms OP, nerf this, nerf that, tears, rage, wallet closing, etc.

[patataman]

Yes, please.

I would say the test server is the place for this, but given past tests and the low population in there (maybe i was unlucky because of my timezone?), i'm not so sure about it.

[Karl Streiger]

patataman, on 17 July 2016 - 11:06 PM, said:

Yes, please.

I would say the test server is the place for this, but given past tests and the low population in there (maybe i was unlucky because of my timezone?), i'm not so sure about it.

PTS like the last time? Weeks of testing - and "Well we thought and we measured and we didn't think it was a good idea - so ehm nothing changes"

During the sessions they told their players - we have a complete new system and we don't keep quirks. People said hey those assaults feel good without quirks - but serious your info system need a twist - it isn't working well enough.

PGI understand: your PTS sucks, you suck - PTS = NOTHING CHANGES - not enough people no PTS anymore.
And I totally can understand people not to spend a second on PTS when your testing over weeks result in actual no change.

[BumbleBee]

I think its a great idea.

When it comes to using this to possibly (and damn well should be) also re-balance weapons on a clean slate as mentioned earlier in the thread (I forgot who brought it up), there will be a glaring issue unless the timeline is advanced a few years.

The IS isnt that far off getting more ER lasers, LBX, Streaks and UAC's, not to mention the LFE. Once these are brought in, THEN IS vs Clan tech can be balanced much closer than now. As much as im craving new some toys, the entirely new weapons systems can wait until after these basics are done.

Doing both in a short(ish) timespan would probably be for the best for the game in the longrun.

[MischiefSC]

Templar Dane, on 17 July 2016 - 11:03 PM, said:

I totally get what this thread is about. Dudes that say they don't play the game anymore and have no place in a serious discussion about balance, who are on strike for one reason or another, wanting to make sweeping changes to the game when it's already as close to being balanced as it ever has.

Things are already pretty damn well balanced as they are, with the exception of some really smelly mechs. It's taken this long to get here and starting from scratch would do more harm than good.

PGI told us they wouldn't do sweeping changes and they would do incremental smaller changes on a regular basis........and we've seen pretty much zero of that. God knows how long it would take them to rebalance it all. Most of the criticism about this game as it is right now is that it is boring because it's 12v12 team deathmatch all day long. Yeah, lets slow down the already glacial speed of development on this game to appease some forum warriors that spend way more time on the forums than they do stomping around in mechs.

If the dudes that don't play the game are going completely by what they see on the forums, they should know that there was an event this weekend so the rest of the bads actually logged in. They logged in, were terrible as usual, and hit the forums to whine about the thing that killed them. Nerf locust, lrms OP, nerf this, nerf that, tears, rage, wallet closing, etc.

Ah. Okay. So you don't have a point and fall back to making incorrect generalizations and unbacked sweeping statements.

So, balance changes scare you. Got it.

Back in reality land we don't really have balance - we have a quarterly rotation of randomly quirked up and down mechs that may or may not fill all the roles that need filled and balance is a matter of quirks, not mech performance.

We won't have balance because we have quirks, legacy quirks and all this associated garbage. Removing quirks and re-balancing based on all the big shifts (weapon rebalances and mech rescale) would be the expected, intelligent response to a variety of big game changes. The stupid choice is making huge changes (like the weapon changes we've had over the last 2 years plus mech rescale) and just tweaking quirks, leaving others and ending up with what we have now.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I'm not really for the idea.

My problem is that many mechs need quirks of some type. If we remove all quirks to reevaluate all the mechs and reapply quirks off of that, the process would be terribly time consuming. Look how long it is taking for the Phoenix Hawk to get help and it is just one mech.

A bunch of new data being obtained, analyzed, and then reapplied would take months I bet. That's months of certain mechs just getting wrecked and going unused. And at the end of that, when quirks are finally applied, people will still be unhappy.

I think PGI should save themselves the pain and just keep tweaking what they have. It leaves them more time to work on new content.

[Pjwned]

kapusta11, on 17 July 2016 - 10:27 PM, said:

Most of so-called meta mechs don't rely on quirks all that much if at all anyways. High mounted hardpoints come first and lack of gun arms that you can strip off of armor to gain more tonnage is a solid plus. Look at tournament and see for yourself.

The whole discussion is based on false premise.

Sized hardpoints would solve that to an extent.