20 replies to this topic

[T R 0 U B L E]

This crap with the uacs and nerfing has gotten way out of hand. I'm sure there are people that would prefer to have 10 LRM boats and 2 NARC'rs running around every match. And it appears thats what PGI wants also. If you haven't noticed the population levels since the last patch, let me point something out to you. There is no population because people are sick of you breaking the game. Sure a 30 ton mech running in front of a Dire Wolf would get ripped to shreds, it's 70 tons bigger. That goes without saying. That doesn't mean nerf all the weapons so it can't. That means learn how to play and don't charge head on into a Dire Wolf. For the love of god please please please set stuff back to how it was when you started the tournament, or even further back before all the nerfing got out of hand. Having every weapon performing equally makes using different weapons pointless. People that don't like boating are the same people hiding in back launching LRM's into a cliff or your back. Teamwork is how you take on the Dire Wolf in a 30 ton mech. Not breaking all the weapons to the point you might as well go play Hello Kitty cause it's got more destruction. Gauss has been broken for ages, with the crit chance and recycle time it's useless. It's one of the hardest weapons to use but provides the most benefit when mastered. But why bother mastering it when it's made useless? And don't even get me started on the nerfing on the mechs. Why have 50 different mechs if they're all the same? serriously, what's the point?

Seriously, if the population numbers aren't telling you something then this games beyond hope which sucks. Because this used to be a game that kept you on the edge of your seat. But you've replaced the concept of teamwork and skill with handing everybody a nerf bat so everyone can participate and get a trophy at the end. I spent a year not breaking 200 damage and i kept playing until I got better. I didn't go on the forums and demand equality. The people demanding that are not your customer base, your listening to them is pushing your customer base away. WTF, even war games are politically correct now? This isn't me being upset about my favorite mechs or loadouts not working. This is about what makes a game fun and not fun and the population numbers dropping after every major change. If that doesn't tell you something then how do we get through to you?

Edited by T R 0 U B L E, 29 November 2016 - 11:31 PM.

[noleet]

I understand that balancing is difficult. However, we have a community helps you (PGI) doing that. We have a lot of players with many good suggestions how to improve this game and solve issues like op-weapons.

[T R 0 U B L E]

I understand the arguement people make saying 6 srm6's could kill most mechs and stuff like that. But you know how to beat that, long range, teamwork. War isn't fair, it's not supposed to be. I'd also like to point out MW4 survived a LOOONG freakin time with no weapon balance adjustments. No nerfing. They just made the weapons what they were according to battletech and that's all it took. Because that's what this game is. Battletech, not Hawkin, not CoD, it's MECHWARRIOR. Nerfing it into some care bear redux isn't going to keep your population coming back. Staying true to what the game is, is what will keepp them coming back. Maybe I need to just go reinstall MW4 again idk

Edited by T R 0 U B L E, 30 November 2016 - 12:15 AM.

[Taxxian]

Neither MW4 nor LL had the multiplay quality MWO has, just install and play a while... you will see...

Player numbers decline for one main reason: content

In WOW those numbers raise and decline by 50% with each new addon... yet next to no one saw every bit of content there is...

In MWO we know every square centimeter of every map in every gamemode... lack of content makes long term players leave and new content will bring them back... that the way MMOs work...

Balancing is far from perfect but still better than anytime since clan mechs came out... there is room for improvement but the need for content is probably greater...

You seem to think at some time in the past everything was better than it is now when exactly would that be? When LRMs did hell a lot of damage?
When JumpSniperPoptarts where all you saw in competitve modes?
When we killed each other mainly with 4-6 PPC-Stalkers before Ghostheat came?
When ClanMechs where OP and new and IS had no Quirks to counter?
When you could kill scores of new players because there was no tier level?
When you just needed a 4 man group to dominate the single player filled queue?
When you could stare-down-kill every opponent in less than 8s with your KDK-3 GodMech?

When exactly was that mysterious point time where everything was better?

Edited by Taxxian, 30 November 2016 - 03:18 AM.

[PFC Carsten]

T R 0 U B L E, on 29 November 2016 - 11:25 PM, said:

People that don't like boating are the same people hiding in back launching LRM's into a cliff or your back.

Randomly picked nonsense from the OP.

[Vapor NINE]

[VitriolicViolet]

lol random rant is random, since when is MWO politically correct? Also if all weapons are as good as each other then you have achieved balance. Do you want everyone to use just one weapon?

[Wing 0]

Taxxian, on 30 November 2016 - 03:08 AM, said:

Neither MW4 nor LL had the multiplay quality MWO has, just install and play a while... you will see...

Not True. Theres alot of things that MWO dont have that MW4 and all had back during those 10+ Years. Back then, We had lots of modes, maps, and restriction systems that were available that made EVERY MECH VIABLE in terms of "balance" and the leagues we had back then made use of EVERYTHING. We had VL, NBT, TWL, and MWL.

Mechwarrior Leagues lasted the longest because of the ladder leagues they had made and they made it where every single mech had to be used in one way or another. Those were good times. Every mech and all was viable back then and all it took was the leagues to make that happen. It made people think more "outside the box" instead of using the obvious things like you would see here in MWO which it and its community has failed at miserably.

I could go on all day about this but I will keep this short.

[The Basilisk]

Actually ppl minmaxing mechs like Dire, Kodiak or any other hillarious hyperboats are the reasons why actually pretty good and fun weapons get nerfed, so normal ppl can't use them anymore.

-- Gauss and PPC....where pretty good and fun weapons ... then came along the pop(re)tards...nerfed into oblivion unless you take two of each

-- LRMs...usefull weapons in mixed loadouts LRM10x5 boats came along...LRMs where nerfed to uselessness so it isn't viable anymore until you boat it

etc etc pp

Dont you ppl get it ?
PGI gives you ppl what you want. Your minmaxed, frigging, boating, franken, sh...mechs are still ...viable but all others just suck even more.
And that ...IS .....YOUR...OWN...FAULT !!!

Edited by The Basilisk, 01 December 2016 - 05:28 PM.

[VitriolicViolet]

lol its our fault for using the in game customisation to customise our mechs? ridiculous, give me a game where people dont try to minmax where ever possible?

[ProfPyro]

As long as there is choice there will be min-maxing. As long as there is min-maxing there will be preferred strategies. As long as there are preferred strategies there will be those who claim them unfair or op. Whether a strategy is op or just good is a matter of who you ask.

[The Basilisk]

Uh...please read again and turn your perspective to stand aside from ingame logic.
I never denied that there will always be minmaxing simply out of the fact it helps you win.
And in ultima ratio this is the goal in this PvP game.

I merely pointed out the fuitility of mourning the never ending vicious circle of first minmaxing and the following nerf.

The only possible solution would either be to restrict boating (more limits to minmaxing would require more testing and we all know how likely that is with PGI) by limiting the number of installed weapons of a kind or simply putting up other limits to prevent monster builds.
Recoil would be a measure against AC flooding, energy draw against energy weapons high alpha, maximum tube count as limit for LRMs and SRMs.

Problem is, like our friend who opened that post, those ppl relishing the overpowered builds would screem to high heavens and insist their chassis wouldn't be viably drivable when someone takes away from them their favorite sealclub.

Again...its your own fault friends.

Hands of overpowered sh...instead insist on harsh restrictions versus boating and over minmaxed builds that create overpowered frankenmechs and MWO may get better in that hinsight.

Still to make this game great (or at least better than a mechshooter demonstrator) it requires things to do with the basics (Mechs, those are no content) we got abundantly.

Also a problem with minmaxing. There are only one or two builds for every chassis considdered competitive or even viable. That's pretty lame.
Kick meta all over the place and lets try some new stuff, could be intresting.

Edited by The Basilisk, 02 December 2016 - 02:12 AM.

[Mawai]

MWO is an online PVP game. MW4 was primarily a first person PVE game. MW4 supported online multiplayer but there was absolutely no thought given to multiplayer balance in the design or construction of MW4. If there was any balance in multiplayer MW4 it was the result of whatever voluntary rules the folks organizing the matches decided to impose.

The folks who want the balance to be set in stone for MWO don't understand that it is a continually evolving online game. PGI has ALL the metrics ... they can do some match data mining and see which weapons are most used, which ones are accounting for the most kills or doing the most damage. They can then tweak the numbers for the weapons or the mechs to bring them better inline with other comparable mechs. Thus they decided that UAC jam chances needed to be normalized across the different UAC and in some cases the overall DPS reduced by increasing the jam probability. Similarly, they presumably used numbers to decide that the Kodiak outperforms any other assault (the KDK-3 being even better than the others) and decided to make it a bit less agile and maneuverable.

Of course this is annoying to those who loved to stomp opponents in their maneuverable KDK-3 equipped with clan UAC ... but you know what? The folks that you were stomping on probably did not enjoy the 10% to 50% performance advantage folks had simply by taking that mech. With the changes the performance advantage is likely reduced somewhat, maybe 5% to 15% ... KDK is still better, just not as much as it was before.

Anyway, balance in a game like MWO is a moving target since new mechs are released, new builds and strategies emerge and balance then needs to be tweaked. It isn't surprising, it is normal and expected since PGI is trying to make a game that is fun for most which means that whatever mech they hop in can neither be too good or too bad. Bottom line is that ongoing balance changes are a natural part of the game and if anything PGI makes far too few tweaks than too many.

[Karl Streiger]

Although I would like to agree for the most part, there is still the issue of a missing concept.
Look as you say they had the metrics and of course they also know how a Mech will be designed - because the number of mechs and variants is a known variable.
So exactly as the KDK was announced and you've seen the 4 ballistic slots you already did know that this will be a quad ac 10 build.
So you shouldn't need to collect more data before tweaking you know what's going to happen.
Same could be predicted for Mechs like Annihilator, Thunderhawk or Cerberus

Ok the Uac's are indeed very powerful but I don't think that this normalisation is the correct answer

Edited by Karl Streiger, 02 December 2016 - 11:30 AM.

[Mawai]

Karl Streiger, on 02 December 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

Although I would like to agree for the most part, there is still the issue of a missing concept.
Look as you say they had the metrics and of course they also know how a Mech will be designed - because the number of mechs and variants is a known variable.
So exactly as the KDK was announced and you've seen the 4 ballistic slots you already did know that this will be a quad ac 10 build.
So you shouldn't need to collect more data before tweaking you know what's going to happen.
Same could be predicted for Mechs like Annihilator, Thunderhawk or Cerberus

Ok the Uac's are indeed very powerful but I don't think that this normalisation is the correct answer

I think that your comment here actually speaks to a different aspect of releasing new mechs that PGI is very bad at. They are bad at it because they are conflicted about motivations and try to balance short term income vs long term player retention ... and usually fail.

Here is the issue ...

When PGI releases a new mech they want it to be attractive to the player base so it sells well and they earn significant revenues. Often this means power creep. When you release a new mech with a similar tonnage to a previous mech .. what can distinguish it? What will make folks buy it?

1) Lore ... some Battletech fans like the mech or chassis and will buy it anyway .. these are not the ones they are looking at.
2) Functionality ... can it do something a bit better or differently than other mechs in the same weight class or of the same tonnage. This could be flexibility ... battlemech vs omnimech ... it could be quirks ... it could be acceleration/torso twist/agility ... it could be hard point placement and it could be geometry. Lots of things can be used to make a mech more attractive so folks buy it.

These are fine strategies. The problem is that PGI tends to overdo it. They make the new mech TOO MUCH better than comparable mechs. This is less noticeable at lower tonnages. So a 45 ton mech peforms more like a 55 ton one ... makes it a bit unbalanced but since it will be thrown into the same match maker bucket as all mediums it would have no effect on overall match balance. On the other hand, a 55 that performs like a 65 will be like having an extra heavy except that if there are enough players who use the mech (which often happens with those that outperform) the overall match balance will be a bit more random but odds are good that the OP mech will appear on both sides.

The Kodiak is an exception since it is 100 tons ... there are NO 115 ton mechs to compare to. An outperforming 100 ton assault is at the top of the foodchain with no way to balance it out. 3 Kodiak vs 3 Atlas ... Kodiaks win unless the Atlas pilots are far superior.

Anyway, the problem arises from the fact that PGI designed the new mech to be too good in order to promote sales. They then find that they misjudged ... sold lots so successful on that front ... but are then faced with a major game balance issue whose only fixes are

1) Make all mechs as effective as the OP mech ... a non-starter option
2) Nerf the popular OP mech (and perhaps its builds) that sold well and has a substantial player base following. This tends to annoy the community and negatively affect player retention ... however, leaving a poorly balanced mech in the game ALSO harms both mech choice variety and long term player retention and growth since many folks either get one or quit from frustration and boredom.

This whole cycle is made worse by the entire IS vs clans dichotomy. It is also a cycle that PGI has repeated many times though more often with clan mechs than with IS ones. This may be because more folks will buy the IS mechs on an iconic basis while the purchasers of clan mechs may be looking more for power creep ... who knows.

[Mechsniper]

Let me point out one of the major issues with weapons balance and min/max of mechs that I have been harping on since I saw the first gauss K2 hit the ground during closed beta. ITS A WEAPON HARDPOINT SIZE ISSUE. There are other issues, but this is the glaringly large bull in the china shop that is wreaking havoc since its inception. Because you can stick a gauss rifle on a machine gun mount in MW. Think of it as putting a battle tanks main gun on a HMMW (Humvee). Its ridiculous in concept and practice. Many mechs have small laser headmounts wearing a large laser, or a SRM 6 rack where only an SRM 6 rack could fit in lore. Like the K2 putting gauss rifles where the original only had enough space left to put an MG. The K2 was never a gauss boat. Yet, here, you caaan doooo eeeeet!!! Limit hardpoint sizes for each mech and you will cease to see 4 LRM 20 mechs where the original ran 2 srm 6's in those extra spots. Reload times for LRM 5 packs, etc are still an issue, but much easier to balance once the hard point size issue would be fixed. Alas, PGI told us founders we are on an island, and that our 30 years of experience with MW games does not matter. Unfortunately I feel at this point it would be too embarrassing to admit this error and take a little time to rework hardpoint sizes.

[Vlad Striker]

Well, you wish to play in stockmech.

[Mechsniper]

Untrue, limit the hardpoint sizes to smaller upgrade increments though. AC 2 on a MG mount, sure.
Gauss rifle, no frikin' way.
ERLL on a ML mount, ok, no ERPPC though. The current system is completely untethered leading to the issues. If this does not fix it, one could limit weapon class numbers by chassis, Remember we are attacking min/maxing and boating here.

Edited by Mechsniper, 05 December 2016 - 04:07 PM.

[Ano]

Mechsniper, on 05 December 2016 - 04:05 PM, said:

Remember we are attacking min/maxing and boating here.

Sized hardpoints would, I suspect, just increase the number of mechs boating smaller weapons and possibly reduce build diversity on smaller chassis. Min/maxing is a constant in all online games that allow you to customise your avatar's capabilities. Heck even if you locked mechs to stock loadouts, you'd still see min-maxing, in the sense that only the mechs with the most useful stock loadouts would be used.

Short of putting each person/each team in an identical deck of mechs, minmaxing will happen.

[Fake News]

noleet, on 29 November 2016 - 11:46 PM, said:

I understand that balancing is difficult. However, we have a community helps you (PGI) doing that. We have a lot of players with many good suggestions how to improve this game and solve issues like op-weapons.

hahahaa