102 replies to this topic

[Imperius]

I play clans because they look better IMO. Never really cared for the old junky IS mechs.

The majority of us clan players I'd say are the younger fans.

Though I can't prove it. That is my suspicion.

[El Rizzo]

Mech the Dane made a video explaining the current Clan superiority quite well, I recommend you guys watch it, because your personal experience doesn't say much about the overall state of balance. If you are a skilled pilot you will stomp noobs regardless of faction, but the overall stats paint a pretty clear picture of clan superiority, as showcased by the actions taken by PGI such as increasing IS drop deck tonnage while lowering Clan and also the fact that Clan factions have been winning pretty much every contested planet since 4.1 dropped.

[Alteran]

El Rizzo, on 18 December 2016 - 11:22 AM, said:

Mech the Dane made a video explaining the current Clan superiority quite well, I recommend you guys watch it, because your personal experience doesn't say much about the overall state of balance. If you are a skilled pilot you will stomp noobs regardless of faction, but the overall stats paint a pretty clear picture of clan superiority, as showcased by the actions taken by PGI such as increasing IS drop deck tonnage while lowering Clan and also the fact that Clan factions have been winning pretty much every contested planet since 4.1 dropped.

So what you are saying is that good players will be good in whatever Tech they play? I play Clan because I bought Clan mechs with real $$. Plain and simple. I like the look and feel of the Mechs. I'm finally at a point where I don't care about RP and the Lore of BT in MWO, I advocate for one weapon Tech for both sides.

So if Tech is eliminated and from what I'm seeing creep out again on this forum is: skill and merc units.

In CW/FW/FP 2.0 and 3.0 - the issues that concerned Loyalist factions came down to 'Super Merc Units', big units with skilled players, like MS, 228, NS and others. MS joined a Clan faction and they took over the map in that area. MS joined FRR and they completely decimated CW, CGB and CJF pushing the Clans back to their starting worlds.

How do you propose to balance skill? Have PGI create metrics so that you can only have so many T1, T2 and T3 players in a single unit, a single drop?

Is that what this whole argument is coming to again?

[Appogee]

Alteran, on 18 December 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

How do you propose to balance skill?

Simple. Create a functional matchmaker that at least puts large teams up against large teams.

While there is no matchmaker, large teams are constantly getting dropped against small groups whose numbers are filled in by disorganised and clueless PUGs.

And the large teams stomp the small/disorganised/PUG team, every time.

I have now played an equal number of matches in FP4.1 for IS, and for Clan. And I saw the same thing in every one of those matches. Bigger teams faced off against small/no teams with 4-6 completely clueless and unitless PUGs.

In every case, the big organised team stomped the small/no team. Didn't matter whether it was IS or Clan.

So: FP needs a matchmaker that tries to pair big groups with other big groups.

Edited by Appogee, 18 December 2016 - 12:48 PM.

[Alteran]

Appogee, on 18 December 2016 - 12:45 PM, said:

Simple. Create a functional matchmaker that at least puts large teams up against large teams.

While there is no matchmaker, large teams are constantly getting dropped against small groups whose numbers are filled in by disorganised and clueless PUGs.

And the large teams stomp the small/disorganised/PUG team, every time.

I have now played an equal number of matches in FP4.1 for IS, and for Clan. And I saw the same thing in every one of those matches. Bigger teams faced off against small/no teams with 4-6 completely clueless and unitless PUGs.

In every case, the big organised team stomped the small/no team. Didn't matter whether it was IS or Clan.

So: FP needs a matchmaker that tries to pair big groups with other big groups.

Appogee, you and most of the long-time experienced players that post on this forum have been around forever. We've asked for a large unit queue metric and PGI released it, it then failed hardcore and it was rolled back out.

But let me take a step back, I said skilled, not large unit.

So again, how do you balance skill, because right now I just dropped solo. Our side has PUG's and a 3-man, against a 9 man and 3 man.

Let you know how it turns out.

Edited by Alteran, 18 December 2016 - 01:01 PM.

[Vonbach]

Quote

CLANS ARE OP

Gee ya think? All the top units went to the faction with the best mechs and people are shocked when the clans
are seal clubbing across the IS. The fact is they need to do something about the tech difference before all the
IS players just stop playing.

[Lehmund]

Jman5, on 18 December 2016 - 09:52 AM, said:

I think the balance issue is a bit of a red herring. What I think is worth recognizing is that Clans have a history of consistently winning and pushing forward in FP with very few exceptions. You can have perfect theoretical balance, you can even have a situation where IS is overpowered, and still have a problem.

I didn't check the final outcome, but from what I saw last night, it looked like you and a couple other units fighting for IS were only able to fight the planet to a draw.

Why is it that Clans have significantly more tier 1 unit groups than the IS? What is it that is drawing the teams that win a lot over to the Clans rather than the Inner Sphere?

Saying things like you just have to organize is like telling people they just have to get good. It doesn't help at the population levels.

So what can PGI do to make the successful units with high winrates split up more evenly?

I've mentioned this in another post and we can argue until our face turns red:

Balancing after a major change like this taking into account unpredictable player and team "side pick behaviours", has to be a step by step process .

Step 1: make the wait times shorter and make FW more interesting. PGI did this roughly in 4.1
Step 2: PGI needs to implement a good solid March making system with the reasonable amounts of players dropping. Thus system should match players of equal skill level as well as try to match similar group sizes on both sides.
Step 3: look at March data and see if specific mechs are dominating statistically on either Clan or IS side and stats around populations and W/L ratios knowing the match ups are better skill-wise.
Step 4: apply appropriate balance tweaks to the match ups or mechs to balance things out .

Reason this order is important is that PGI needs to make tweaks on balance when player/group coordination is equal on both sides of fights. And they need to do it with up to date info based on the current FW setups. Otherwise it's valueless tweaking.

They've applied a temp adjustment in tonnage decks to drive player behaviour towards balance but that smells like " we're working in a new update but in the meantime, lets patch this to give IS a chance " .

I figure we'll know more in Jan what they have in mind to address player complaints.

[Alteran]

Vonbach, on 18 December 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Gee ya think? All the top units went to the faction with the best mechs and people are shocked when the clans
are seal clubbing across the IS. The fact is they need to do something about the tech difference before all the
IS players just stop playing.

So you're disagreeing with the point/post that SCAR is making?

Anyways, back to the end result of the game I just finished:

So was it tech? Was it skill?

We used in-game VOIP well, called out targets, focused fire and didn't allow a wave to get completely decimated before pulling back for a regroup with new drops. Most engagements were under 300m around the Citadel, we even had a few guys using LRM's with UAV's.

From what I saw of the other team, they spread out, didn't focus fire, didn't use a lot of consumable and all around left their remaining Mechs to fend for themselves.

Edited by Alteran, 18 December 2016 - 01:37 PM.

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

The clans are +153 planets in 5 days.

If it's not the tech, it must be something else.

[Kin3ticX]

I'd say its about 80% the players and 20% the tech. And I am thinking more about the omnipods than I am about the XL engines and the better weapons. Its just easier to make good Clan dropdecks.

Complaining about the tech is basically asking PGI to do a better job with 20% of the problem. Yeah, there is a problem but what can PGI do that would make a difference in CW? Tonnage helps the IS pugs beat the Clan pugs but the excellent IS units dont need the tonnage. That makes it less fun for them. Tonnage handicaps should be given out with a CW specific tier system and not just to anyone.

There are just not enough good players to go around. The good ones tend to join each other because they dont want to carry bads that do 300 damage in 30 minutes of play.

[naterist]

Wow, evil took 3 warhammers and a griffin, and stomped the clans who have to bring a mist lynx to get any good weight frontloaded

(Insert slow, sarcastic clap here)

After the weight changes, im surprised a group like you guys lost even once, tbh.

Your image neglects to show what the drop deck tonnage changes are REALLY doing.

Any unified IS team can win, or hold their own with this weight advantage. Heck you could bring a 100 tonner and 3 55 tonners as IS right now. They arent changing the extreme lopsidedness of pugs, and they arent adressing the fact that clan mechs can hold 2 times the weapons, move way faster, hit from much farther out, and they have 33-66% more survivability if the clanner can torso twist.

Thats the real issue here. Those numbers dont mean jack on their own. Anyone trying to look at that qualitatively will realize your arguement has as many scientific facts as a donald trump speech.

Tl;dr evil is good, but after the weight changes balance isnt even an issue almost cause an is mech = a clan mech thats 25 tons lighter.

Side note) bud crue, the second post in this thread, also makes very valid points on mercenary distribution.

[El Rizzo]

Alteran, on 18 December 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

So what you are saying is that good players will be good in whatever Tech they play?

Well obviously, skill is not determined by the mech you are piloting after all, HOWEVER, this of course doesn't mean a skilled player is equally good in any mech, but he knows how to maximize each mechs potential whereas a noob is not (yet) capable of doing so. A good player will therefore be able to play decently even in a bad mech, whereas a bad player might very well fail to do much even in monsters like the Kodiak 3.

What I was responding to with my post was the argument that good players can also win with IS, thus there is no imbalance of mechs/tech but rather just of skill, which is simply not true and that argument is no proof of this whatsoever.

Take anyone from EMP, EON etc. and they will also wreck you in most IS mechs, sure, but they would perform even better in a good clan mech (hence why you see them predominantly in clan mechs), because a good bunch of clan mechs are simply better than their IS counterparts, the skill of the player doesn't factor into that at all.

And since competitive and skilled players tend to play the best way possible it is only natural that a whole lot of decent players wanna play Clan rather than IS as a result of this. This in turn shifts the (im)balance of Faction Warfare even more, because now you got more skilled players in better mechs which only adds to the problem at hand.

Alteran, on 18 December 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

How do you propose to balance skill? Have PGI create metrics so that you can only have so many T1, T2 and T3 players in a single unit, a single drop?

Is that what this whole argument is coming to again?

At least regarding FP you wouldn't have to balance skill once the underlying tech is balanced, we only have this imbalance of skilled players because Clans have better mechs/tech and skilled players tend to use the best option available = clan mechs (because why would you intentionally handycap yourself ?). If IS mechs get more viable again (yes I know there are certain mechs that still are) more skilled players would start using them again and it would balance out quite naturally.

Huge Merc units would of course still pose an issue as you have correctly pointed out, but that can be fixed by smaller unit caps or other measures, this is however completely unrelated to the actual balancing of mechs/tech.

Edited by El Rizzo, 18 December 2016 - 02:15 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Been gone all after noon, but back to the fun...

Alteran, on 18 December 2016 - 09:27 AM, said:

All the same stuff, just in 4.0.

Yes. You summarize the primary balance problem, at least as I see it, quite succinctly.

As long as there is any benefit to one side, and as long as the majority of the CW population (seriously, what is the proportion of loyalists vs mercs?) is free to drift where they will to follow those benefits (perceived or real) then we will always have one side dominating the other depending on where that drifting majority population coalesces. If that population was always split evenly, or evenly distributed, then the tech imbalance (perceived or real) would never be as big a factor to the overall population as it is now.

So yep, same at it ever was, same as it ever was.

[El Rizzo]

Bud Crue, on 18 December 2016 - 02:15 PM, said:

If that population was always split evenly, or evenly distributed, then the tech imbalance (perceived or real) would never be as big a factor to the overall population as it is now.

And you would get this equal distribution once the mechs and tech is balanced between IS and Clan, because as you note yourself, people tend to flog to the side that gives them an advantage, once that is gone it should distribute quite equally, so rather than forcing an equal distribution (which wouldn't work anyway), people need to distribute themselves equally, which can only be achieved if they don't receive a (dis-)advantage from joining one side.

Edited by El Rizzo, 18 December 2016 - 02:28 PM.

[Alteran]

El Rizzo, on 18 December 2016 - 01:58 PM, said:

Well obviously, skill is not determined by the mech you are piloting after all, HOWEVER, this of course doesn't mean a skilled player is equally good in any mech, but he knows how to maximize each mechs potential whereas a noob is not (yet) capable of doing so. A good player will therefore be able to play decently even in a bad mech, whereas a bad player might very well fail to do much even in monsters like the Kodiak 3.

What I was responding to with my post was the argument that good players can also win with IS, thus there is no imbalance of mechs/tech but rather of skill, which is simply not true and is no proof whatsoever.

Take anyone from Empyrial, EON etc. and they will also wreck you in most IS mechs, sure, but they would perform even better in a good clan mech (hence why you see them predominantly in clan mechs), because a good bunch of clan mechs are simply better than their IS counterparts, the skill of the player doesn't factor into that at all.

And since competitive and skilled players tend to play the best way possible it is only natural that a whole lot of decent players wanna play Clan rather than IS as a result of this. This in turn shifts the (im)balance of Faction Warfare even more, because now you got more skilled players in better mechs which only adds to the problem at hand.

Ok... so if PGI were to use only one Tech for all weapons and engines, is the problem of imbalance going to disappear? Will it then morph into a problem with weapon firing placement (high mount vrs low slung arm), will that then mean that all mechs need to fire from exactly the same spot no matter what the mech is or where the weapon is located?

Honestly, I don't see any changes to any of these things that will satisfy the FP community. Will it then just morph into a problem with Super Units dominating, just like it did in 2.0 and 3.0? That is seems to be coming to in 4.0.

Because that's what I'm seeing more and more in these posts. Good players/organized units seal clubbing 'bad' pugs/disorganized units. Those that have optimized mastered Mechs vrs Mechs that don't even have consumables on them. EVIL kicking the crap out of Clan units because... Clan Mechs are OP?

[El Rizzo]

Alteran, on 18 December 2016 - 02:25 PM, said:

Ok... so if PGI were to use only one Tech for all weapons and engines, is the problem of imbalance going to disappear? Will it then morph into a problem with weapon firing placement (high mount vrs low slung arm), will that then mean that all mechs need to fire from exactly the same spot no matter what the mech is or where the weapon is located?

It is not about 100% perfect balance between mechs, that would result in only 1 available mech with only 1 loadout, which no one wants , but there has to be an equal amount of equally good mechs on each side. Take the Kodiak 3 for example, there is no counterpart for the IS that comes even close to it. While there is no Kodiak 3 for the other weight classes, the heavies, mediums and lights suffer the same problem, the strongest mechs in each weight class are clan mechs.

Quote

EVIL kicking the crap out of Clan units because... Clan Mechs are OP?

This is exactly what I was talking at length about ... a single win by a strong unit against scrubs or less skilled units isn't saying anything at all, good players will always stomp less good players unless the latter are given a huge advantage (and even then they need to be able to use it). Mechs and tech need to be balanced without player skill factoring into the equation at all.

Edited by El Rizzo, 18 December 2016 - 02:40 PM.

[Bud Crue]

El Rizzo, on 18 December 2016 - 02:25 PM, said:

And you would get this equal distribution once the mechs and tech is balanced between IS and Clan, because as you note yourself, people tend to flog to the side that gives them an advantage, once that is gone it should distribute quite equally, so rather than forcing an equal distribution (which wouldn't work anyway), people need to distribute themselves equally, which can only be achieved if they don't receive a (dis-)advantage from joining one side.

Bingo. Now what are the chances of PGI...the all knowing, we use actual data to balance, no dart boards here, lets forget the last two years of the state of this mode...yes that PGI, of EVER getting the two sides to being exactly and perfectly balanced? Pretty close to nil imho.

And so the problem(s) will always be with us. The best we can hope for is that they address performance outliers and get mech/tech balance "sort of" close...for most purposes, for most apects of the game...and then institute some sort of mechanism to minimize the impact or ability for the majority of the playing community to all go to one side or the other making what imbalance there is even more disproportionately impactful in reality or perception.

Its either that or allow the status quo to be maintained, and we continue going around in this circle of "clans op! "no IS is OP" "no, its skill", "no, its large merc units", "no its clans are OP..." with no end in sight.

[El Rizzo]

Bud Crue, on 18 December 2016 - 02:39 PM, said:

Bingo. Now what are the chances of PGI...the all knowing, we use actual data to balance, no dart boards here, lets forget the last two years of the state of this mode...yes that PGI, of EVER getting the two sides to being exactly and perfectly balanced? Pretty close to nil imho.

Agreed

Bud Crue, on 18 December 2016 - 02:39 PM, said:

And so the problem(s) will always be with us. The best we can hope for is that they address performance outliers and get mech/tech balance "sort of" close...for most purposes, for most apects of the game...and then institute some sort of mechanism to minimize the impact or ability for the majority of the playing community to all go to one side or the other making what imbalance there is even more disproportionately impactful in reality or perception.

While I mostly agree with you on this, the issue I see with this is that people will simply stop playing if they aren't allowed to "join the winning team" so to speak. If there is a perceived (and currently factual) imbalance between tech and you are forced to play the handycapped side, chances are good that you get frustrated and stop playing FP altogether until you are either able to join the winning team (if you aren't fed up with the mode at this point) or the imbalance is remedied.

[nehebkau]

****** Type 9, on 18 December 2016 - 07:25 AM, said:

So basically you farmed Zito's mom

I think most of us have farmed Zito's mom. @Zito's mom -- thanks for the cookies they were awesome.


So, the analogy the OP is giving us is:

• 95-96 Bulls are playing High-school tournament in division A.
  
• Division A has better coaches, equipment and more experienced players.
  
• Division B says Division A has an unfair advantage.
  
• The 95-96 bulls go over to Division B and win every game
  
• the 95-96 bulls say "Everything seems fine to us"

Ya, outliers are not useful unless you are trying to find out what the outliers are.

Edited by nehebkau, 18 December 2016 - 03:05 PM.

[Ghogiel]

Appogee, on 18 December 2016 - 08:52 AM, said:

Large coordinated teams will win every time.

This.

All OP is highlighting is faction play farming. What's a larger imbalance, tech or not balanced matches? imo it's the matches and tech is secondary.