274 replies to this topic

[CJ Daxion]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 October 2016 - 05:22 AM, said:

They somewhat recently stated they will not do negative quirks again, and there is nothing they can really do to bring other 'Mechs up, quirk-wise, without basically destroying the game...because the quirk requirements are ridiculous.

Umm there are some neg quirks in the game still.. TBR has um..

Just removing the quirks on the kodiak whould be a great start.. Then if they really need to buff some through weapons, then let's see after that. But i really don't think others need a buff as much as the KD3 needs a -neg quirk. Personally i think i would slow the twist down, or limit the twisting. there are already plenty of older mechs that have differnt rates/and degress that they twist/turn anyway.. They ALSO have different max engine caps.. Though i could only imagine the Crying that would come if they took away quirks, AND made it carry a smaller engine.. Ohh the tears would be fresh for sure.

But outside of that, doing those things don't even need to be a a quirk, they could just go baseline to the chassis. so people don't see the -red and think NEG quirk!


But honestly, i think when ED hits, there will be some changes to it.. and really i think ED needs to go live anyway to see how things all play out.. ED hits, and i really hope they do some balances changes at least every couple months.. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that balance is much better by next summer.. I really hope next time they do a weight class tournament, that the Kodiak, Jenner II, arc, and locust are not the only ones on the Light and assault leader boards...

[CJ Daxion]

ladiesman712, on 15 October 2016 - 05:27 AM, said:

The main reason why the KDK-3 is so good is, that it is a 100 ton non-omnipod clan mech with four torso ballistic hardpoints and the KDK-3 is fine as it is - imho.

Uhh no... the reason why it is great is because it is a 100 ton assault with endo, and a XL-400 engine cap.. and the KD3, cranks out over 7 DPS with over 50% heat efficiency...

And IS mechs couldn't even fit quad 10's anyway, because they are to heavy.. if they did the thing would be slower than a direwolf..

Edited by CJ Daxion, 15 October 2016 - 05:46 AM.

[El Bandito]

ladiesman712, on 15 October 2016 - 05:27 AM, said:

The main reason why the KDK-3 is so good is, that it is a 100 ton non-omnipod clan mech with four torso ballistic hardpoints and the KDK-3 is fine as it is - imho.

I don't know if Innersphere (lore wise, but not yet implemented) does have a compareable assault mech with four torso ballistic hardpoints, but if they should have one I would suggest to release this mech as soon as possible so that this crying will hopefully stop.

Spoken like someone who has no idea about game balance. KDK-3 is that good not only due to its hardpoints and tonnage but also Clan tech, namely the 2 slot, side torso death proof Clan XL engine, lighter and more compact Clan CUAC10/CERPPC/CGauss, and Clan Endo+Ferro that actually saves more weight while costing only half the slots! Similar IS mech with 4 high mounted torso ballistic slots--such as the Mauler simply can't pack enough firepower and move as fast while being durable as the Kodiak with IS tech--even if it was 100 tonner. Base tech needs to be balanced first.


And introducing more outlier mechs is the stupidest idea I have heard, which will only further push the powercreep, further reduce the TTK, all the while leaving the majority of other mechs in the dust.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 October 2016 - 06:19 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

CJ Daxion, on 15 October 2016 - 05:38 AM, said:

Umm there are some neg quirks in the game still.. TBR has um..

An oversight, more than likely, not that those negative quirks are anything significant. But that is what PGI said, no more negative quirks.

[adamts01]

Mystere, on 15 October 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

Financial pressures make most people do really foolish things.
Example: 5000 Wells Fargo employees who created 2 million fake accounts.

I did reference the supply and demand model, and that's where I believe PGI and most game developers fall. the other option is straight up scamming people, like Wells Fargo or No Man's Sky kind of scamming. PGI kind of gave the customers what they wanted by nerfing lights, but what they really did was give the whining half of the basketball team too much ice cream at half time. And now they're sick and still useless and the smarter half of the team that stuck with Gatorade is pissed off and everyone loses. If that doesn't make sense I'll drink the rest of this bottle of rum and try again.

[Hanky Spam]

El Bandito, on 15 October 2016 - 05:56 AM, said:

Classic argument of someone who has no idea about game balance. KDK-3 is that good not only due to its hardpoints and tonnage but also Clan tech, namely the 2 slot, side torso death proof Clan XL engine, lighter and more compact Clan CUAC10/CERPPC/CGauss, and Clan Endo+Ferro that actually saves more weight while costing only half the slots! Similar IS mech with 4 high mounted torso ballistic slots--such as the Mauler simply can't pack enough firepower and move as fast while being durable as the Kodiak with IS tech--even if it was 100 tonner. Base tech needs to be balanced first.


And introducing more outlier mechs is the stupidest idea I have heard, which will only further push the powercreep, further reduce the TTK, all the while leaving the majority of other mechs in the dust.

Dont worry. I am aware of it that IS tech requires more slots and mostly also weights more than clan, for basic things like probes, engines, but also ballistics and so on. On the other handside IS mechs also often have very good quirks while clan is missing them partly completely. This fact won't negate the weight and slot difference between Clan and IS but mitigate the impact of the less better IS tech in direct comparison with the better clan tech - at least to some degree.

So yes, all overall I agree with you at this point that the base tech would need to be re-balanced first, even though this would mean that PGI would have to break heavily with the lore (clan tech -> is tech), but otherwise there will ever hardly be any balance between Clan and IS, especially in the assault class.

Balancing is a difficult task thats for sure.

[Kirkland Langue]

ladiesman712, on 15 October 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

Balancing is a difficult task thats for sure.

Actually, balancing is easy.

The hard part is figuring out what balance means. Once you figure out what it means to be balanced, actually achieving balance is relatively simple.

[Captain Stiffy]

ladiesman712, on 15 October 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

partly completely.

[Xmith]

Do you think the KDK is enough to carry the team to a win in most matches? I'm on a fast track to T1 with the KDK. It is only because they can dish out lots of damage. My average KDK k/dr is good, the w/l is not. It's currently under 1.0.

I would like to know what is the overall winning percentage of the KDK across the player base. If the percentage of wins is well over 1.0, then perhaps a nerf is warranted.

[Y E O N N E]

ladiesman712, on 15 October 2016 - 06:35 AM, said:

Dont worry. I am aware of it that IS tech requires more slots and mostly also weights more than clan, for basic things like probes, engines, but also ballistics and so on. On the other handside IS mechs also often have very good quirks while clan is missing them partly completely. This fact won't negate the weight and slot difference between Clan and IS but mitigate the impact of the less better IS tech in direct comparison with the better clan tech - at least to some degree.

So yes, all overall I agree with you at this point that the base tech would need to be re-balanced first, even though this would mean that PGI would have to break heavily with the lore (clan tech -> is tech), but otherwise there will ever hardly be any balance between Clan and IS, especially in the assault class.

Balancing is a difficult task thats for sure.

Nah, PGI is making balance more difficult than it has to be. They are extremely reluctant to touch the equipment stats and they never want to actually follow through on their espoused "different but equal" philosophy. Look at the cERML: it has more damage per tick, more damage per second, more range, and more total damage. The only drawback is more heat, which is irrelevant because four cERML does roughly the same damage as six ML for roughly the same heat. Neat. Where's the give-and-take? There is none. The only weapons which seem to be well-balanced are the Large Pulse Lasers and the UAC/5. That's it.

Also, you cannot and should not balance around quirks. Quirks are, first and foremost, there to deal with outliers.

[Commander A9]

When other quirks on the Inner Sphere side are deleted in kind to achieve the sense of "balance" PGI so knows and loves.

[Bud Crue]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 October 2016 - 09:41 AM, said:

...
Also, you cannot and should not balance around quirks. Quirks are, first and foremost, there to deal with outliers.

Upon reading the above, I suspect that most of the higher ups at PGI would be totally and honestly bewildered by that statement, as it would appear to be so far outside of their reality, so as to seem truly alien or even nonsensical.

[Kirkland Langue]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 October 2016 - 09:41 AM, said:

Also, you cannot and should not balance around quirks. Quirks are, first and foremost, there to deal with outliers.

Err, if a particular mech throws the balance of the game off - wouldn't that mech, by definition, be considered an outlier?

Bud Crue, on 15 October 2016 - 10:41 AM, said:

Upon reading the above, I suspect that most of the higher ups at PGI would be totally and honestly bewildered by that statement, as it would appear to be so far outside of their reality, so as to seem truly alien or even nonsensical.

that's because it IS nonsensical.

[Sjorpha]

Kirkland Langue, on 15 October 2016 - 01:44 PM, said:

Err, if a particular mech throws the balance of the game off - wouldn't that mech, by definition, be considered an outlier?

Yes, and therefore the quirks should be on that outlier mech, not on all the other mechs.

If quirks are to balance outliers, you need to put positive quirks on extemely weak mechs, negative quirks on extremely strong mechs, and the mechs with zero quirks should be the average ones. In other words, you balance the outliers towards normality, you shouldn't balance everything else towards strong outliers because that's the definition of power creep.

Right now there is some kind of taboo against negative quirks, creating a need to balance not the outliers themselves but everything else. So average mechs needs quirks to compete, that's just silly.

PGI is scared of their players, so they won't nerf mechs that needs nerfing. So they are stuck in a cycle of power creep.

I want the game balanced around the power level of something like an unquirked shadowhawk, not around kodiaks or timberwolves.

There is nothing principally different between nerfing and buffing, they are two sides of the same coin, to balance a game you have to be equally willing to do both in relation to a reasonable power level that you decide upon, letting that power level be pushed upwards over time is a bad idea.

So PGI should decide what a reasonable power level is so they can balance towards it, and IMO they should look at unquirked IS mechs as that baseline.

[El Moosechacho]

The problem with the 3's is the same problem with all the meta garbage: exploitation of game mechanics.

Step 1: Bring back 30ish heat hardcap
Step 2: Eliminate Heat cap increases via heatsinks (they should only increase dissipation)
Step 3: Hardpoint Classification system similar to what MW4 had (can't put a %$^*ing AC20 in a MG slot etc.)

...
...
Step 4: ...Profit?

[Deathlike]

El Moosechacho, on 15 October 2016 - 02:10 PM, said:

The problem with the 3's is the same problem with all the meta garbage: exploitation of game mechanics.

Step 1: Bring back 30ish heat hardcap
Step 2: Eliminate Heat cap increases via heatsinks (they should only increase dissipation)
Step 3: Hardpoint Classification system similar to what MW4 had (can't put a %$^*ing AC20 in a MG slot etc.)

...
...
Step 4: ...Profit?

The heatcap wouldn't actually stop the dakkabears from being effective.

[Sjorpha]

Deathlike, on 15 October 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

The heatcap wouldn't actually stop the dakkabears from being effective.

Lower heatcap would be a major buff in fact, to all ballistic boats, so dakkabears would be even more dominant.

[El Moosechacho]

Deathlike, on 15 October 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

The heatcap wouldn't actually stop the dakkabears from being effective.

3 volley's of 4 UAC10's is 12 heat, 3 taps and you're shutdown (depending on your heat dissipation)

Would by no means stop, but would definitely and appropriately hinder.

Edited by El Moosechacho, 15 October 2016 - 02:17 PM.

[Mcgral18]

El Moosechacho, on 15 October 2016 - 02:16 PM, said:

3 volley's of 4 UAC10's is 12 heat, 3 taps and you're shutdown (depending on your heat dissipation)

Would by no means stop, but would definitely and appropriately hinder.

Hinder less than any other loadout in the game, thus an indirect buff (with a global giganerf)

[LesIzmore]

Thanks for the help, i needed to buy a mech pak for my bonus and this thread help me decide.