17 replies to this topic

[Sergei Pavlov]

MWO's game balance issues stem from the fact it uses tabletop figures on a videogame medium.

Imagine they made a movie adaptation of War and Peace without changing or removing one word from the novel. The result would be a several-hundred-hour-long "movie" that moviegoers and readers would both despise.

Even though MWO has made changes to the tabletop weapon and armor values, they have proven to be insufficient.

The problem is that MWO should focus on getting the "feel" of the tabletop, while ignoring its rules (many of which are flawed, as acknowledged by Jordan Weisman and Randall Bills themselves - just check their opinion on tabletop rules for Clan Mechs).

Mechs are fearsome and nigh-unstoppable. This is reflected in the tabletop by allocating damage randomly. Since this is simply impossible on a pixel-perfect manual aiming FPS, we need to find a different solution.

Mine is Overall Armor, Penetration and Critical Chance, or Make Mechs Great Again.

OVERALL ARMOR

When a Mech is hit, the weapon's damage is substracted from its overall armor value. At this stage, the hit's location is simply ignored.

In order to destroy a Mech, all of its armor points must be removed. It takes 614 damage points to destroy an Atlas. That's more than 20 Alphas from a KDK-3, the most broken Mech currently in the game. Think about it.

That's it. Given not a single shot penetrates into the internal structure, of course...

PENETRATION

Every shot has a chance to penetrate the Mech's internal structure. This chance increases the more damage the Mech has previously sustained, and the more damage the weapon deals:

Penetration Chance = ( total armor value / current armor value ) x ( weapon damage / 20 )

EDIT: Shots fired on a Mech's back would get a significant increase to the Penetration chance.

A Medium Laser that hits a fresh Atlas has a 0,25% chance of penetrating, for example.

Penetrating damage takes hit location into account. The weapon's damage is substracted from the component's structure points (on top of reducing the current amor value), and provides a chance of causing a...

CRITICAL HIT

When a shot penetrates, there's a chance it causes a critical hit:

Critical Hit Chance = ( total component structure points / current component structure points ) x weapon's Critical Hit Rating

Weapons already have a critical chance modifier in MWO. This number would have to be adjusted to the formula above, depending on the desired result. Not a big deal. I would say that the more pellets / missiles / projectiles a weapon shoots, the higher the Critical Hit Rating should be.

When a critical hit is confirmed, a piece of equipment in that component gets destroyed, as per the current rules.

CONCLUSION

And that's it. You don't need to increase armor values (heck, you can even revert them back to their original values), you don't need to nerf weapons, add charging mechanics, ghost heat or what-have-you. Just like in tabletop, the more weapons you shoot, the more chances you have to get a critical hit, and the more damage they cause individually, the easier it is to destroy a component.

Just tweak Penetration and Critical chances until you get the perfect TTK and the game balances itself nicely, while retaining a sweet Battletech "feel".

What say you?

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 16 October 2016 - 07:09 AM.

[Sergei Pavlov]

In case it's not self-evident, I will explain the gameplay consequences of this idea:

1. Assault Mechs become fearsome again.

Insta-killing an Assault Mech gets almost impossible. Only a headshot with a big-punch weapon has a reasonable chance to achieve it. Just like the tabletop.

2. Light Mechs stop being the terror of the battlefield.

Light Mechs can forget about ganking on an Assault for an easy kill. They were never supposed to do that. They are meant for scouting, distraction and to get the ocassional finishing shot.

This balance change has a tremendously positive effect on the group queue. 12-man teams will see their combat performance seriously hindered by their lower tonnage, and stomps will become much harder for them.

3. Single LRMs become useful again, even for Tier 1 and comp players.

LRMs were always supposed to be a support weapon, designed to reduce the enemy's armor before they get close. My suggestion brings them back to the game for their original purpose. A single LRM becomes an extremely useful tool to have in your loadout.

4. Boating multiple low-damage weapons becomes ineffective.

Low-damage weapons have a low penetration chance. Players will want to equip high-damage weapons to increase their odds.

5. Boating a few high-damage weapons becomes ineffective.

Despite the above point, you still want to field as many weapons as possible. Assaults entering the battlefield with just 3-4 weapons become really ineffective, since they only get as many penetration and critical rolls as the number of weapons in their arsenal.

6. Maximized balanced loadouts become the norm.

As a result, balanced loadouts that use every single hardpoint available are encouraged. One or two LRMs to chip armor off in the beginning, high-power mid range weapons later, and close-range high-crit weapons like SRMs for the end of the round.

7. Teamwork wins the day.

This is true today, but becomes even more important. Given the incredible boost to Mech survivability, local firepower superiority and focus fire become the only safe way to destroy heavily armored Mechs quickly. Pilots with situational awareness can survive for a long time by choosing their engagements wisely.

8. Inner Sphere XL Engines become a definite upgrade, even for Assaults.

The inability to guarantee a component destruction turns these engines into the clear upgrades they were always supposed to be. You won't cringe again when you see an Assault sporting an XL Engine, either in-game or when reading a Sarna article. As a side effect, the gap between Clan and current date IS technology is (mostly) closed.

9. High-crit weapons don't need to be boated to be useful.

A single SRM, LB-2X or two Machine Guns become relevant. Their high crit chance turns them into priceless end-game weapons. Assaults and Heavies won't remove those MG from their stock loadouts anymore.

10. Hiding, poptarting and general cowardly behaviour go away.

Players will become confident their Mech is an extremely well-protected war machine, able to sustain incredible amounts of damage. Peeking to land a couple of shots before hiding again becomes ineffective. Getting out of cover, moving straight toward the enemy, or fielding weapons with high face-time, stop being suicidal ideas.

Since sporting as many weapons as possible is the optimal way to build a Mech, both arms will have weapons on them. Asymmetrical builds become a stupid (and ugly) idea. Players will want to get out of cover to shoot as many of their weapons as possible. Armor is a Mech's cover. It always was.

In summary, Mechs become great again. Massive tools of war that you can rely on, and will keep going for a long time, while you shoot a truckload of weapons at all ranges at other equally impressive opponents.

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 16 October 2016 - 07:01 AM.

[Void Angel]

...
<.<
>.>

"And there will be a wall, it'll be a great wall. And the Clans will pay for it. We'll use random armor penetration and oversimplified hit location rules to Make Battletech Great Again!"

Not a new idea, still a bad one. The elimination of true hit locations dumbs down a core staple of the Battletech franchise - in the name of making the 'mechs "more like Battletech," no less! Many of your conclusions are simply wishful thinking - taking insane amounts of time to kill an enemy 'mech doesn't make sniping and peeking tactics obsolete - on the contrary, high-alpha, high heat combos will remain effective. The only thing that gets penalized is marksmanship, since it literally doesn't matter beyond hitting the 'mech for 2/3rds of the game - and that illusion of invinceability will only promote bad play, if it has any effect at all. People aren't magically going to switch to totally unwieldly, unusable configurations with a hodgepodge of guns - they're still going to focus on doing something well if they're smart - nor will they stride suicidally bravely across the landscape volunteering to be shot at. "Armor is cover. It always was?!" Fracking woods hexes were cover! Smoke was cover; partial concealment was cover!

Balance is about the best it's been in a while - there are some systemic issues that are being addressed (however well, we'll see) by Energy Draw. PGI isn't going to drop their entire body of balance mechanisms in order to implement your unwieldly idea, nor should they. Your suggestion isn't even really BattleTech -you do realize you're closer to Heavy Gear, right?

[Sergei Pavlov]

The game has lost more than half of its players in one year.



Wishful thinking is your pretense the game is perfectly fine as it is, and that ED will fix the little problems it still has.

The game may be more stable and balanced than ever for comp players. I can agree with that. But the game is not working for almost anyone else. I can't count the number of players that have left, or never really invested in MWO, because they couldn't bear being killed in seconds in a game with no respawn mechanic, especially when they had a minimum knowledge of BT and knew how Mechs are supposed to be able to sustain damage for long periods of time.

Defending that component armor is a staple of BT, and hence has to be kept in MWO, is an extremely stupid idea, that implies you haven't either read my post, or didn't understand it.

Let me repeat it for you: you just can't take a technique that works on a certain medium into another, and expect it to work. Each art form has its own rules. Kubrick, disappointed with his own adaptation of Lolita, famously said that great novels didn't make for good movies, and decided to adapt only short, second-rate stories from then on. Hitchcock worked his whole career on the same premise.

I can't imagine two media that are further apart than a turn-based tabletop game and a real-time first-person shooter.

Independent component armor worked on tabletop BECAUSE hit location was random. Independent component armor on a mouse-controlled shooter is such a flawed concept it's not even funny.

Now, PGI won't probably do anything to fix the problem, I know that. They haven't in 4 years, why would they now?

But defending their position at the end of 2016, with an ever dwindling community, is the very definition of stupidity, bringing to mind something like this:

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 16 October 2016 - 01:02 PM.

[The Basilisk]

We need anything but more simplyfication and less TT/Battletech rules.
This game simply needs content, storry, missions, things that add incentive to play.
Not more mech packs or simplyfied game modes or buckets or more casual twitch shooter bull.

Also your assumption the game would use TT rules is just plain wrong.
The mechanics used in MWO remotely look like TT rules but they have as much with them incommon like checkers and chess have.
Also the used weapon mechanics or functions are far from Battletech lore.
Some of the used values remind of TT weapon tables but...only remind.
Pulse Lasers f.e. do not pulse short bursts to focus more dmg per time on target.
In fact its the other way round in TT beam lasers fire one short and concentrated beam after some secs heat up/charge up time.
Pulse lasers are easier to target because they fire several smaler beams over larger time but without heat up preamble and with better targeting gear.
No AC in Battletech ever was a single slug weapon.
LB-X had switchable ammo for either cluster or solid rounds (clusters came in bursts too like an autofire shotgun)
Normal SRMs where not dumbfire but either like AGM-65 or AIM-7.
Normal LRMs where direct sightline on target (AIM-7) only or indirect fire on marked area only.
Gauss rifles only explode when hit after charging them up wich happens after every shot.
PPCs dont fire projectiles but Ion streams.
Only weapon pretty close to lore are SSRMs.

Also your assumption TT rules would be contradictory to a pc game is just hillarious.
The TT rules where centered around a 10sec time frame.
So every weapon cycle, damage, heat, Mech movement where balanced and normed relative to 10 sec. (one round)
That is exactly what a computer game does.

The only thing absolutely flawed is the idea to make this a mouse controled shooter with pinpoint accuracy.
Seriously even most nowadays first person shooter have some kind of mechanics to simulate recoil, consequences of movement etc etc
The better ones even have dmg resolution where leggs, arms etc can get injured.

By not adhering to those rules but throwing together made up BeeEss and some dismembered TT ruleleftovers PGI kicked balance, roles and meanings of all mechs, weapons and equipment all over the place. Thats the birth sin of MWO.

Edited by The Basilisk, 16 October 2016 - 03:13 PM.

[BodakOfSseth]

Worse, the rules proposed would end in one simple result:
100% Heavy and Assault mechs, 100% of the time. The only time that people wouldn't play the nigh-invulnerable Atlas or King Crab or what-have-you, are the poor newbs who try to get into the game thinking how fun it would be to run around in a Locust.
In addition, I don't see your rules as particularly scaleable. What happens when that Locust is hit with a couple light or medium lasers?
Also, people would be looking for B-S peeking and poking. There is no incentive or strategic advantage to face down an enemy and shoot their CT or Arm or Leg. Instead, you just need to look for any exposed armor. A toe. A hand. A gun barrel.
Zap-Zap on the toe and BANG the arm fell off. That's the worst of 90's console gaming right there.

No, I agree with The Basilisk - big robots stomping around and shooting each other in the face is great fun, but it can only get you so far, especially with limited map selections; Yes, 15 basic maps is quite a bit, but when most missions are finished in 7 minutes, people get bored of those maps pretty quickly. It's worse when 50% of games played are on 4 maps: (This is old personal data by over a week. The percentages are worse now: the top four maps are now over 52% by my count.)


People crave storytelling, missions, goals. It's in our nature.
PGI started in on that with the Clan Invasion, and if you care to follow it, I suspect there's plenty of drama in what's been happening. However, that's billed as "End Game Content", so the newbs and the people who don't want to do CW are stuck fighting the same battles over and over again.

Now that PGI has a stable of over 300 individual mechs available to people to play with, I strongly believe they should shift to design more maps (don't get me wrong, I recognize those new mechs are what bring in the dough, but come on, somethings gotta give here.
Perhaps develop the AI and go more the route of a true MMO where you can get quests (mission) and team up to go battle that stuff, or open up a broader battle zone where you can have companies fighting each other. 36 mechs battling it out over multiple objectives. That's just a start.

Edited by ScottAleric, 16 October 2016 - 08:52 PM.

[Sergei Pavlov]

The Basilisk, on 16 October 2016 - 02:56 PM, said:

We need anything but more simplyfication and less TT/Battletech rules.
This game simply needs content, storry, missions, things that add incentive to play.
Not more mech packs or simplyfied game modes or buckets or more casual twitch shooter bull.

Also your assumption the game would use TT rules is just plain wrong.
The mechanics used in MWO remotely look like TT rules but they have as much with them incommon like checkers and chess have.
Also the used weapon mechanics or functions are far from Battletech lore.
Some of the used values remind of TT weapon tables but...only remind.
Pulse Lasers f.e. do not pulse short bursts to focus more dmg per time on target.
In fact its the other way round in TT beam lasers fire one short and concentrated beam after some secs heat up/charge up time.
Pulse lasers are easier to target because they fire several smaler beams over larger time but without heat up preamble and with better targeting gear.
No AC in Battletech ever was a single slug weapon.
LB-X had switchable ammo for either cluster or solid rounds (clusters came in bursts too like an autofire shotgun)
Normal SRMs where not dumbfire but either like AGM-65 or AIM-7.
Normal LRMs where direct sightline on target (AIM-7) only or indirect fire on marked area only.
Gauss rifles only explode when hit after charging them up wich happens after every shot.
PPCs dont fire projectiles but Ion streams.
Only weapon pretty close to lore are SSRMs.

Also your assumption TT rules would be contradictory to a pc game is just hillarious.
The TT rules where centered around a 10sec time frame.
So every weapon cycle, damage, heat, Mech movement where balanced and normed relative to 10 sec. (one round)
That is exactly what a computer game does.

The only thing absolutely flawed is the idea to make this a mouse controled shooter with pinpoint accuracy.
Seriously even most nowadays first person shooter have some kind of mechanics to simulate recoil, consequences of movement etc etc
The better ones even have dmg resolution where leggs, arms etc can get injured.

By not adhering to those rules but throwing together made up BeeEss and some dismembered TT ruleleftovers PGI kicked balance, roles and meanings of all mechs, weapons and equipment all over the place. Thats the birth sin of MWO.

PGI has made changes to the TT rules, as I said, and you detailed, but they were not enough. Weapon damage values are mostly the same, and doubling armor has proven insufficient.

I agree with you. The game needs missions, PvE, storytelling. That's what BT fans crave for. Most of them are middle aged men with a lot of responsiblities and not very good reflexes. A (relatively) fast-paced FPS game is not the cup of tea for a vast majority of them. Just look at the support and enthusiasm that the HBS game has generated. I think the fact HBS's Battletech is a turn-based game has a lot to do with it.

But I had this idea to make the game a little less unforgiving for those guys, and wanted to share it. My idea may not be the best in the world, but I feel it would be a step in the right direction. And, as I said, penetration and crit chance values would be really easy to tweak so we get the right amount of component and equipment destruction. The end result would be a game that feels exactly like BT, and you wouldn't even notice the difference because all the changes would happen under the hood.

MWO has done a lot of good things for the BT community (their redesigns will go in history as their greatest achievement), and it's still a fun game to play. I wouldn't like to see it go.

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 16 October 2016 - 09:36 PM.

[Critical Rocket]

The main problem now is that PGI are very much set in their way and really they always have been. Player suggestions like your own her Sergei have been put forward before and sadly they have never been acknowledged by the devs. I always found it rather striking that in a town hall (can't remember which) Russ referred to MWO as "my game". I have never come across this kind of attitude before from a developer of a title that wants to appeal to as many players as possible. Worse though is that it kind of solidifies that any idea's that basically aren't his or someone close to him are ignored.

I think the biggest issue the game faces and has done since day 1 is pinpoint accuracy of weapons. High alpha pinpoint shots ruin the game for many and I can't imagine how boring and frustrating it is for new players who just die instantly from being alpha'd by some boat across the map or blind corner. The older titles at least had a general reticle that indicated that yes your shot will go where you are pointing but it will be within this circle. That at least made the fights last a little longer than what we have now.

I have no idea if energy draw will change anything given PGI's track record, however I hope it does improve gameplay. The game is currently in a sweet spot for the comp side of things as mentioned above but if PGI are banking on the comp players keeping them afloat financially then they are going to be in for a shock. I don't want MWO to sink but it's hard to support them when they keep ignoring player feedback (for the most part) and worse still remain completely silent here on the forums. I guess if PGI were more communicative then parts of the community wouldn't feel so jaded by the whole thing.

[Vellron2005]

o.0

.....

NO.

[Sergei Pavlov]

Critical Rocket, on 17 October 2016 - 04:54 AM, said:

The main problem now is that PGI are very much set in their way and really they always have been. Player suggestions like your own her Sergei have been put forward before and sadly they have never been acknowledged by the devs. I always found it rather striking that in a town hall (can't remember which) Russ referred to MWO as "my game". I have never come across this kind of attitude before from a developer of a title that wants to appeal to as many players as possible. Worse though is that it kind of solidifies that any idea's that basically aren't his or someone close to him are ignored.

I think the biggest issue the game faces and has done since day 1 is pinpoint accuracy of weapons. High alpha pinpoint shots ruin the game for many and I can't imagine how boring and frustrating it is for new players who just die instantly from being alpha'd by some boat across the map or blind corner. The older titles at least had a general reticle that indicated that yes your shot will go where you are pointing but it will be within this circle. That at least made the fights last a little longer than what we have now.

I have no idea if energy draw will change anything given PGI's track record, however I hope it does improve gameplay. The game is currently in a sweet spot for the comp side of things as mentioned above but if PGI are banking on the comp players keeping them afloat financially then they are going to be in for a shock. I don't want MWO to sink but it's hard to support them when they keep ignoring player feedback (for the most part) and worse still remain completely silent here on the forums. I guess if PGI were more communicative then parts of the community wouldn't feel so jaded by the whole thing.

I guess MWO started its life with illusions of grandeur, as many other games. I imagine Bullock dreaming of global success and infinite wealth. That's how I explain their decision to enable pinpoint accuracy - a way to make the game more mainstream. I remember back in the day they were always trying to find ways to make the game more conventional. Then they started realizing the game was too hardcore for that, and looked at other similar titles for inspiration, like World of Tanks.

It took them 4 years to understand BT and MWO are niche products. The sad thing is that their lack of vision has alienated an immense part of the potential playerbase, so paradoxically, MWO has become even more niche than Battletech itself. I would like to think they could still try to get them back, but that would require drastic changes and it's probably too late.

[Karl Streiger]

Critical Rocket, on 17 October 2016 - 04:54 AM, said:

I think the biggest issue the game faces and has done since day 1 is pinpoint accuracy of weapons. High alpha pinpoint shots ruin the game for many and I can't imagine how boring and frustrating it is for new players who just die instantly from being alpha'd by some boat across the map or blind corner. The older titles at least had a general reticle that indicated that yes your shot will go where you are pointing but it will be within this circle. That at least made the fights last a little longer than what we have now.

Thing is you can keep pinpoint accuracy but you have to tweak the armor - instead of dartboard methodes use server data - how often does players hit the left arm of a Atlas, how often the CT, how often the leg.
Tweak the armor values.
However this is a process and may need some time. Because after the first tweaking people might realize that the CT of the Atlas suddenly is armored with 200 points while his legs only have 45 at max.

At some time there might be a balance, additional you might need to give the shooter some incentive to shoot at the arms rather the ST (JaegerMech) - less armor could be a thing. Ok a smaller hitbox isn't such a great thing with pinpoint and Laser and high velocity rounds but its a beginning.

Also important is to get a weapon roll - no not Mech Roll - weapon Roll. A PPC don't need to be able to hit a light.
If the light see the slow bolt of death crawl in his direction he should be able to dodge, same for mediums and very good assault pilots.... but if this bolt hit.....it should deal damage the real damage not some system nerfed 10 points of nothing.

The next logical step is to reduce the burn duration of the laser weapons, but keep in mind that large laser should have a shorter pulse - this is important - because PGI decided to remove the range brackets - now smaller weapons fire faster and with less spread or beam duration - this is a system fault and need to be fixed 4 years ago

Edited by Karl Streiger, 17 October 2016 - 06:42 AM.

[BodakOfSseth]

Critical Rocket, on 17 October 2016 - 04:54 AM, said:

The main problem now is that PGI are very much set in their way and really they always have been. Player suggestions like your own her Sergei have been put forward before and sadly they have never been acknowledged by the devs. I always found it rather striking that in a town hall (can't remember which) Russ referred to MWO as "my game". I have never come across this kind of attitude before from a developer of a title that wants to appeal to as many players as possible. Worse though is that it kind of solidifies that any idea's that basically aren't his or someone close to him are ignored.

You sound like you own this game - let me tell you, that's not actually how this works.
The modern gaming industry (and especially online gaming) has been functioning under this idea that the players are basically "allowed" to play in the game. Even moreso Free-to-Play games. It's their servers, their software, their code. We log in and play it. If they shut down the power tomorrow, there is nothing you could do to stop it and no amount of whining, complaining, begging or threatening will make them bring it back. Five years after they turn off the servers, you're not going to be able to re-install the game from a disk and play it for old-times sake.

There is one main factor keeping this going: Money.
PGI is a for-profit business that is looking to make themselves a living and have fun doing it with a cool IP that they (AFAIK) don't own (i.e. they're paying to use it).

As for your relationship with PGI, you may give them cash money to encourage them to keep the servers on. For that cash money, you are given certain in-game privileges and expendable in-game resources.

PGI has to spend that money as wisely as possible, and out of the infinite number of things they can do, they have to carefully marshal their resources to make sure that what they do adds to the game and doesn't upset the majority of players.
- They have to add new mechs. Really - it's kind of necessary. Each time they add a mech, a certain percentage of folks are going to buy it. It's an important revenue stream.
- Adding caches almost certainly wasn't about getting more people to pay for keys to open the caches. Those keys go for $0.10 to $0.17 each, when you break it down - less than that, if you consider key and MC giveaways and the fact that you don't have to open it at all, and just sell the cache for in-game credits. It is much more obviously about reciprocity and keeping people hooked.

Sadly, adding content like maps and missions are not going to bring in direct funds, unless they find a way to monetize it directly (more on that later). Maps require a huge amount of work, not just from design and layout, but modeling it, adding dodads, weather and atmospheric effects, lighting, setting mission zones, testing for fixing any bugs, etc. So honestly, making the investment to add more maps is expensive, with minimal direct return.

Adding new game modes would probably be more difficult, because after developing the mode rules and testing them, they then have to modify *each* of the extant maps to accommodate the new mode, which will again, require testing and again, no direct profit.

SO - how to better monetize this game, without disturbing the careful balance of the free-to-play realm?
Add premium level missions/content.
For those people who buy Premium time, provide them an additional level of benefit: access to a more open game setting, more MMO than 12v12 Shooter. give it quests and and content, an expansive world map, battle zones.
Really want to get it done? Kickstarter. PGIs launch screens and website is well tuned to let us know about things like a Kickstarter.

Quote

I think the biggest issue the game faces and has done since day 1 is pinpoint accuracy of weapons. High alpha pinpoint shots ruin the game for many and I can't imagine how boring and frustrating it is for new players who just die instantly from being alpha'd by some boat across the map or blind corner. The older titles at least had a general reticle that indicated that yes your shot will go where you are pointing but it will be within this circle. That at least made the fights last a little longer than what we have now.

The Basilisk mentioned that adding recoil (or ballistic variance) might be a good idea - and I agree. I can't imagine it would be difficult to add a small amount of variation in the spread of a ballistic weapon.
Tweaking and testing would be necessary of course. Increase the variation when walking, reduce the variation when standing still or moving slow. Weapons with higher velocity would have less variation. The whole thing could look like this:

I predict that this alone would stop the pinpoint damage problems, as well as encourage people to move in much closer - sniping at range would be more difficult and dangerous, since for accuracy you would need to stop, making you vulnerable to return fire. It would keep the Gauss and the PPC as the kings of sniping, but it would still be hard. LRMs and SRMs already have this as part of their basic functionality.

Quote

I have no idea if energy draw will change anything given PGI's track record, however I hope it does improve gameplay. The game is currently in a sweet spot for the comp side of things as mentioned above but if PGI are banking on the comp players keeping them afloat financially then they are going to be in for a shock. I don't want MWO to sink but it's hard to support them when they keep ignoring player feedback (for the most part) and worse still remain completely silent here on the forums. I guess if PGI were more communicative then parts of the community wouldn't feel so jaded by the whole thing.

One problem is fan entitlement (no you don't own this game) and the vocal angry minority when things change. Too often they will stir up a bunch of crap, and the people who are uncommitted in the fight will start saying "yeah!" making it into a giant rolling snowball of destruction of angry players. There's no winning for PGI in this space. Any action PGI takes will be taken wrong - try to explain, and they get crapped on. Try to fix it, they break something else. Block or delete messages, and they're being tyrants. Reasonable people ask for calm or remain silent because they don't want to be in the fight.
PGI loses, MWO dies.

Honestly, I think that PGI is far ahead of many other game makers and are doing a fantastic job communicating. Just look at the whole thing around the Energy Draw, and warning us of revised maps coming. Can you imagine if Blizzard developed and did public testing like that out in the open? The End-Times would arrive pretty much immediately.
And I'm positive PGI reads most of what goes on here in the forums. That's one of the things Community Managers do, and flag important stuff for devs to see.

Edited by ScottAleric, 17 October 2016 - 07:18 AM.

[Sergei Pavlov]

The tiresome "fan entitlement" card, again.

There's always someone that uses that cheap argument to reject an idea they individually don't agree with.

First, every complaint is not caused by "entitlement", but the subjective perception of what doesn't work in the game.

Second, MWO has lost most of its population in the last year. If it loses a couple hundred more, it will disappear. That's an objective fact. When CR, me or anyone else observes that fact, we try to analyze the root causes. There's absolutely no entitlement present there.

And third, we are not in the 90's. Game bugs are not private any more, as Rod Fergusson recently said. Anyone can share their individual perception on a game in social media and have an impact in the game itself, for good or bad. Community perception matters more than ever. If gamers "feel" they have a say in how a game show be shaped, that becomes the new expectation, and game studios that don't cater to that reality are failing. No Man's Sky was considered a failure three weeks after it was released, and that was due to the mismatch between the perception the community and the designers had about the game. Guess what, the community won. When Critical Rocket complains about PGI's attitude toward the community, he is highlighting one of the reasons MWO is failing, based on today's gamer's expectations of how a developer should interact with its community. And he is absolutely spot-on on that assessment.

So yeah, what you call entitlement is either personal opinion, or 2016's expectations, so stop using that trope to defeat arguments you personally don't agree with, please.

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 17 October 2016 - 10:37 AM.

[Dreammirror]

Interesting read, I give you credit for researching an upgrade for some of pgi's balancing issues, but I believe you have some flaws in your plan. 1. I have a LOT of experience in tabletop battletech, and while I agree it doesnt transition over well to the current pgi model, light mech very much dominated assaults in a 1 on 1 situation. I could run a custom 30 ton mech and expect a 1 turn kill 75% of the (or at least severely crippled). Unless they can protect their backs, you will run circles around them or negate their battlefield contributions. On the concept of modifying player snipping, hiding or otherwise "cowardly " behavior, good luck with that one. There is NO game system in existance that players have not figured out how to get some kind of edge or angle on their opponents. Many players also play in pvp games to "crush their enemies, see them driven before them, and hear the lamentations of their women". IE- you can't remove human trolling from the game. People will circumvent any rules to teabag their defeated foes. It's just gonna happen.

Edited by Dreammirror, 17 October 2016 - 11:04 AM.

[Sergei Pavlov]

Regarding your first point, Penetration chance could get a significant boost when you shoot a Mech in the back. So we should be covered there.

About your second point, you are probably right. I just want to believe people would go out in the open if they knew they wouldn't get insta-killed if they did, but human behaviour is not so easily predicted.

[BodakOfSseth]

Sergei Pavlov, on 17 October 2016 - 10:35 AM, said:

The tiresome "fan entitlement" card, again.

There's always someone that uses that cheap argument to reject an idea they individually don't agree with.

First, every complaint is not caused by "entitlement", but the subjective perception of what doesn't work in the game.

With respect,
First, I don't care at all about the complaints. Haters gonna hate. It's no skin off my nose if they do.
Second, If you think I'm using fan entitlement to pan this idea of single mech hitpoint values and scaling critical chances, you either didn't actually read my posts, or didn't understand them, or have such a hate for the phrase that you're reading into what I'm saying.

I'm speaking of fan entitlement in relationship to forum discussions and how people freak out when something changes and demand more change. More broadly the idea that people feel they can make demands of the developers and have those demands met on a one-for-one basis. That when this cycle is allowed to start and the company engages, the company loses every time.

I disagree with the OP's idea on its own merits and disagree with that separately, and explain why.

I also disagree with the idea that PGI doesn't communicate at all with the fans. It may not be as often or as transparent as the fans like, but it's there. Just because they don't respond to or take up your idea isn't a slight against you. If they were going to sit and respond to all of it, they would have to have an army of respondents doing that 24/7, and it would become a gigantic disaster very quickly, because entitled fans would descend on them with their own unique pet demands.

I'm not disputing population changes, but this idea that changing the basic functionality of the game is going to fix player populations is, if I may be so bold, ridiculous.

If you want to see this game succeed, PGI has to take steps toward what is actually requested. Unfortunately, most suggestions don't seem to take into account revenue and ROI, and are therefore fundamentally bad. Other suggestions are sadly shortsighted and not actually addressing the fundamental problems. The rest tend to require a huge amount of capital and time, with a relatively high risk.


Edit:
I am curious where you got your population graph...

Edited by ScottAleric, 17 October 2016 - 11:48 AM.

[Sergei Pavlov]

Your disagreement with the suggestion is perfectly valid and well explained (and I never said otherwise). It was never stated it would fix everything wrong about this game, though. It's just a suggestion, food for thought. I am not even expecting PGI to read it. I hope you are not making those assumptions based on the OP's title, which is quite obviously a joke. Don't pull a straw man on me, please.

I disagree with your point that developers can only lose when they engage their community. Frontier is becoming much more open to feedback, and Elite Dangerous is making giant leaps to become the best space sim ever (regardles of what another CR may say). ED' community is more engaged than ever, knowing their feedback is welcome, appreciated, and implemented. It's a healthy environment, and Frontier is gaining, not losing, as a result.

I have worked in the game's industry and whenever I make a suggestion, I do take into account development time and investment, as many others in these forums. Actually, the reason I decided to post this crazy idea here is because it would be easy, fast and cheap to introduce. All the mechanics I mentioned are already in the game, and there are very few changes that would be required to try it.

Edited by Sergei Pavlov, 17 October 2016 - 11:57 AM.

[BodakOfSseth]

Sergei Pavlov, on 17 October 2016 - 11:55 AM, said:

I disagree with your point that developers can only lose when they engage their community. Frontier is becoming much more open to feedback, and Elite Dangerous is making giant leaps to become the best space sim ever (regardles of what another CR may say). ED' community is more engaged than ever, knowing their feedback is welcome, appreciated, and implemented. It's a healthy environment, and Frontier is gaining, not losing, as a result.

Who is straw manning whom?
I didn't say only lose when they engage - I said,

ScottAleric, on 17 October 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

I'm speaking of fan entitlement in relationship to forum discussions and how people freak out when something changes and demand more change. More broadly the idea that people feel they can make demands of the developers and have those demands met on a one-for-one basis. That when this cycle is allowed to start and the company engages, the company loses every time.

It is possible for Developers to engage; they can listen and respond. especially in a positive space. PGI clearly does listen and respond - I watched the twitch where they were coming up with the Mechtober event. Two days later it was released.
Terra Therma is being re-released.
Energy Draw may be dead, and Russ is going talk about it in a post soon.

So. Moving on.

Edited by ScottAleric, 17 October 2016 - 12:18 PM.