54 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

I've stopped caring about balance. Nobody listened back in 2012 when I suggested the armor system be enhanced from 3 chest panels to 9 or 27. Nobody seemed to care that convergence would lead to balance problems through boating weapons and pinpointing them on the huge panels, leading to grossly decreased times to kill.

And here we are.

Any discussion of balance now is pointless, because it has been done before, and the problems forever continue to persist. Until the root cause is addressed, nothing will change. Only silly bandaids and convoluted systems that violate the laws of physics will exist. And people will continue to be sad.

So what's the point?

Why bother?

Why care?

[Deathlike]

It would be hard to not be selfish when looking over the advantages of Clan Tech as a whole... and I don't have any particular allegiance to either side... just the tech.

It becomes more than apparent (before we even talk about uneven teams, since that's too much of a folly) that the tech has to balanced against each other... mainly buffs to IS and nerfs to Clans have to be done. It always starts with the Clan XL engine. Anyone trying to debate the LFE are not that bright, considering the tonnage difference is still wide enough to be a Clan benefit and moreso planned obsolescence for the Standard engine.


If you ignore the power of Clan XL relative to everything else, you are very selfish.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Even as a mostly clan player I still believe IS should get buffs and sidegrades/upgrades to existing tech to close the gap.

[Gaden Phoenix]

Snazzy Dragon, on 05 January 2017 - 07:29 PM, said:

Even as a mostly clan player I still believe IS should get buffs and sidegrades/upgrades to existing tech to close the gap.

Problem is those battletech lore group of people. They dont care if weapons are inbalanced although they say they do. But they want LORE to be sticked to regardless of balance.

And they will argue it can be balanced based on lore.

[Kael Posavatz]

Interesting thought experiment.

Issues being, well, actually, there are a lot of them. In regards to the testing criteria, most of the diehard 10v12 proponents are really 'replicate table top' proponents. Most of the people who've even a laymen's understanding of game design have an idea of how...bad that would be.

PGI used table top for determining base values (slots, tonnage, original heat and damage), but then added a lot of their own (beam duration, cooldown). Cooldown in particular was egregious because in TT one of the things balancing, say, the Large laser to the Small Laser is that any and every weapon (save UAC/Rotary-AC) could fire only once every ten seconds, which is why light mechs boating huge light laser batteries are a thing. PGI has done an okay (I'm not sure that anyone could do a great) job of ensuring that pretty much every weapon has at least some viability.

The big issue for balance is that of engines. I've seen a lot of people comment on the IS v Clan XL, but that completely overlooks, if not ignores, the issue of the standard engine. In Table Top, hits are randomized across a mech. Ignoring armor for a moment, this means an IS mech with a standard engine has a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of a hit component having engine crits in it, and Clans (with XL) has a 3 in 8 (37.5%) chance, offset somewhat by IS engines being able to take only two critical hits before destruction to the Clans 3.

Since hits aren't randomly assigned in MWO (and criticals aren't much of a thing), there is essentially no mechanic for translating the survivability of the standard engine. So what if the standard engine came with a structure and armor buff to center and side torsos? What would be reasonable? 33%? 50%?

[Snazzy Dragon]

Gaden Phoenix, on 05 January 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Problem is those battletech lore group of people. They dont care if weapons are inbalanced although they say they do. But they want LORE to be sticked to regardless of balance.

And they will argue it can be balanced based on lore.

F*** the lore. We already have the angel and guardian ECM suites mixed up; we are missing tech that is in the lore; we have mech variants that are out of the timeline; we have made up mech variants; we have weapons that operate completely differently compared to how they do in the lore; we have cACs on the battlefield, which don't even exist; we have weapons like the IS small laser that have been buffed so much they are basically an ER small laser (and they still suck! LOL); all of our large lasers do more damage per shot than they "should;" we have doubled armor and structure and higher ammo counts per ton; we scrapped Repair and Rearm costs; clans drop in lances instead of stars for the sake of balance.

Could go on and on but the simple truth is the closer to the lore we are the more unbalanced and skewed the game becomes. You cannot balance this game by sticking to what the TT did because it is an FPS game.

[Novakaine]

Clan players.......

[Gaden Phoenix]

Snazzy Dragon, on 05 January 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

F*** the lore. We already have the angel and guardian ECM suites mixed up; we are missing tech that is in the lore; we have mech variants that are out of the timeline; we have made up mech variants; we have weapons that operate completely differently compared to how they do in the lore; we have cACs on the battlefield, which don't even exist; we have weapons like the IS small laser that have been buffed so much they are basically an ER small laser (and they still suck! LOL); all of our large lasers do more damage per shot than they "should;" we have doubled armor and structure and higher ammo counts per ton; we scrapped Repair and Rearm costs; clans drop in lances instead of stars for the sake of balance.

Could go on and on but the simple truth is the closer to the lore we are the more unbalanced and skewed the game becomes. You cannot balance this game by sticking to what the TT did because it is an FPS game.

Err I agree with you... But in a less eloquent way
I really really really wish they will F the lore and start with the std and xl engine revamp, then with the std and double heatsink revamp. Because as it is now, std heatsinks are 99.999999% useless and std engine is 85% useless and meaningless.

[Alan Davion]

Deathlike, on 05 January 2017 - 07:24 PM, said:

It would be hard to not be selfish when looking over the advantages of Clan Tech as a whole... and I don't have any particular allegiance to either side... just the tech.

It becomes more than apparent (before we even talk about uneven teams, since that's too much of a folly) that the tech has to balanced against each other... mainly buffs to IS and nerfs to Clans have to be done. It always starts with the Clan XL engine. Anyone trying to debate the LFE are not that bright, considering the tonnage difference is still wide enough to be a Clan benefit and moreso planned obsolescence for the Standard engine.


If you ignore the power of Clan XL relative to everything else, you are very selfish.

The only problem with your argument goes right back to the Clan players. If PGI were to suddenly make the IS XL engine immune to destruction via only a single torso loss, thereby giving it equal survival with the Clan XL, can you with any reasonable degree of assurance say that the Clan players would not throw an absolute s***-fit because their XL engine has essentially been nerfed by making the IS XL immune to single torso destruction?

The IS LFE is a compromise between the two. It's immune to single torso destruction, but gives less weight savings.

It's all risk/reward. XL gives you even more weight savings, but you're taking a huge risk depending on the mech you're using. LFE gives you less weight savings, but prevents you from being insta-killed if you're focused too heavily on by the enemy. Or a sneaky light mech that manages to gut your rear torso.

Gaden Phoenix, on 05 January 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Problem is those battletech lore group of people. They dont care if weapons are inbalanced although they say they do. But they want LORE to be sticked to regardless of balance.

And they will argue it can be balanced based on lore.

Then unfortunately this is not the game for them, nor will it likely ever be, and honestly they'd probably be better off leaving. It would certainly cause a lot less headaches here on the forums. Maybe the upcoming HBS BT game will be more their speed. Being a slower turn based game and all.

Kael Posavatz, on 05 January 2017 - 07:38 PM, said:

Interesting thought experiment.

Issues being, well, actually, there are a lot of them. In regards to the testing criteria, most of the diehard 10v12 proponents are really 'replicate table top' proponents. Most of the people who've even a laymen's understanding of game design have an idea of how...bad that would be.

PGI used table top for determining base values (slots, tonnage, original heat and damage), but then added a lot of their own (beam duration, cooldown). Cooldown in particular was egregious because in TT one of the things balancing, say, the Large laser to the Small Laser is that any and every weapon (save UAC/Rotary-AC) could fire only once every ten seconds, which is why light mechs boating huge light laser batteries are a thing. PGI has done an okay (I'm not sure that anyone could do a great) job of ensuring that pretty much every weapon has at least some viability.

The big issue for balance is that of engines. I've seen a lot of people comment on the IS v Clan XL, but that completely overlooks, if not ignores, the issue of the standard engine. In Table Top, hits are randomized across a mech. Ignoring armor for a moment, this means an IS mech with a standard engine has a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of a hit component having engine crits in it, and Clans (with XL) has a 3 in 8 (37.5%) chance, offset somewhat by IS engines being able to take only two critical hits before destruction to the Clans 3.

Since hits aren't randomly assigned in MWO (and criticals aren't much of a thing), there is essentially no mechanic for translating the survivability of the standard engine. So what if the standard engine came with a structure and armor buff to center and side torsos? What would be reasonable? 33%? 50%?

There are some table top elements that the game really needs, and there are some it doesn't need... Or simply can't work, like the 12v10 rule. PGI tried that and it failed completely, necessitating a different approach.

As far as the armor and weapon relationship, well that's inherent to the FPS style mechanic. Most people expect an FPS game to be fast paced. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Battlefront, Hawken, Titanfall and a million other games, you use one weapon at a time. Assault rifle, pistol, rocket launcher, whatever.

Because you're just a single soldier, you can't carry ten different weapons at once.

But because a Battlemech can carry anywhere between 4 and 10 weapons, maybe more depending on the mech, and can fire said weapons in groups, this was solved in TT by making rounds equate ten seconds of in-game time.

Here in MWO you can fire literally everything you have, at least twice, in less than ten seconds. That goes completely against TT and caters too much to the normal FPS crowd. If laser burn duration and cooldown, as well as general cooldown across the board for ACs and LRM/SRM weapons, were increased to the point that everything took ten seconds to be able to fire again... Well now that would fundamentally alter the gameplay now wouldn't it?

The heat scale also falls into this, heat takes too long to accumulate if your mech is built properly. Weapons fire needs to be slowed down, and heat accumulation sped up by an equal margin.

No more team deathball rushes to the center of the map. More focus on actual scouting, positioning of your resources. ACTUAL. F***ING. STRATEGY! OMG!

Of course, this would also require the maps be at least 5 times bigger than they actually are right now. There needs to be no obvious center to the maps, no more untakable highgrounds giving whatever team gets there first the undeniable advantage.

Snazzy Dragon, on 05 January 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

F*** the lore. We already have the angel and guardian ECM suites mixed up; we are missing tech that is in the lore; we have mech variants that are out of the timeline; we have made up mech variants; we have weapons that operate completely differently compared to how they do in the lore; we have cACs on the battlefield, which don't even exist; we have weapons like the IS small laser that have been buffed so much they are basically an ER small laser (and they still suck! LOL); all of our large lasers do more damage per shot than they "should;" we have doubled armor and structure and higher ammo counts per ton; we scrapped Repair and Rearm costs; clans drop in lances instead of stars for the sake of balance.

Could go on and on but the simple truth is the closer to the lore we are the more unbalanced and skewed the game becomes. You cannot balance this game by sticking to what the TT did because it is an FPS game.

Doubled armor, structure and ammo were required because of the FPS style gameplay. If things were slowed down, maybe, just maybe, we could reduce these numbers back to TT values.

[Hit the Deck]

Nik Reaper, on 05 January 2017 - 05:48 PM, said:

Also deng, but running some numbers on the light engine, that while it does help, it still hampers IS mechs in comparison.
...

Deathlike, on 05 January 2017 - 07:24 PM, said:

...
Anyone trying to debate the LFE are not that bright, considering the tonnage difference is still wide enough to be a Clan benefit and moreso planned obsolescence for the Standard engine.
....

The IS still needs to get the LFE. There are mainly three reasons:

• the aforementioned weight saving compared to STD
  
• small speed increase over STD
  
• and when you can't take isXL because it restricts equipment placement on the ST

Yes, the STD would be relegated to specialised builds like the brawler Atlas' or Dakka Mauler's. PGI can also make STD worth more by giving 'Mechs which equips it durability bonus or something.

[Johnny Z]

The biggest difference in tech at the moment, after all the quirks and all the balancing is Clantech speed.

Reducing speeds of all XL engines is brilliant. It potentially even makes standard engines faster than XL engines at the cost of available tonnage. It creates a more dynamic environment while maintaining the character of both techs. It helps balance the massive advantage of Inner Sphere XL vrs standard. It improves the viability of standard engines and even gives them a special role for pure very lightly armed scouts.

Along with removing guass charge up, removing PPC minimum range, UAC full auto, XL tweak removal or reduction should be in tomorrow. Balance will be improved and options will be improved a lot and gameplay improved. These changes help remove previous nerfs.

Edited by Johnny Z, 05 January 2017 - 09:33 PM.

[RestosIII]

Gaden Phoenix, on 05 January 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Problem is those battletech lore group of people. They dont care if weapons are inbalanced although they say they do. But they want LORE to be sticked to regardless of balance.

And they will argue it can be balanced based on lore.

Every time someone goes on a tirade like this about people that like lore, I feel personally insulted. I'm a lore ******* that cherishes everything about Battletech. (Besides Jihad+ and Far Country) But dear lord I want balance. Don't label all people that want to preserve lore aspects as the same people that think Clan mechs should be inherently superior because "Lol cuz".

[Snazzy Dragon]

Hit the Deck, on 05 January 2017 - 08:46 PM, said:

The IS still needs to get the LFE. There are mainly three reasons:

• the aforementioned weight saving compared to STD
  
• small speed increase over STD
  
• and when you can't take isXL because it restricts equipment placement on the ST

Yes, the STD would be relegated to specialised builds like the brawler Atlas' or Dakka Mauler's. PGI can also make STD worth more by giving 'Mechs which equips it durability bonus or something.

You don't really need structure quirks when you get the speed to reposition and use terrain more effectively on top of carrying a bigger payload + higher alpha and enough heat sinks to sustain. Why take damage in my STD engine Marauder 3R when I can net myself an extra 9 kph, more AC5 ammo, and more heat sinks crammed into the engine internals so I can keep firing those PPCs, and avoid taking as much damage because of these factors?

[stealthraccoon]

I do believe that IS STD engines should have a little more flavor added, such as specific quirks. I'll even go one further and say that inefficient STD engines should get significantly boosted for using them - who here has bought a STD 105 engine? 165? 230? If they serve no purpose, better to remove them altogether. Lore is the only reason a Locust uses a STD 160, because a 170 is the same weight and would offer more speed.

[Hit the Deck]

Snazzy Dragon, on 05 January 2017 - 08:58 PM, said:

You don't really need structure quirks when you get the speed to reposition and use terrain more effectively on top of carrying a bigger payload + higher alpha and enough heat sinks to sustain. Why take damage in my STD engine Marauder 3R when I can net myself an extra 9 kph, more AC5 ammo, and more heat sinks crammed into the engine internals so I can keep firing those PPCs, and avoid taking as much damage because of these factors?

Because you need STD to build the brawler atlas or dakka mauler.

[Mystere]

Novakaine, on 05 January 2017 - 08:14 PM, said:

Clan players.......

IS players:

[Navy Sixes]

Gaden Phoenix, on 05 January 2017 - 07:37 PM, said:

Problem is those battletech lore group of people.

Kael Posavatz, on 05 January 2017 - 07:38 PM, said:

most of the diehard 10v12 proponents are really 'replicate table top' proponents.

Snazzy Dragon, on 05 January 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

F*** the lore.

I'd like everyone to just take a second to remember that f it weren't for the "lore" people buying into this game in the first year, we wouldn't be having this discussion. There'd be no game. You'd all be playing Overwatch.

This "lore" thing you think of as a hassle is called an "IP," or "Intellectual Property." It means that PGI was able to tap right into a lot of people who have been loyal fans and (more importantly) paying consumers of previous Battletech and Mechwarrior merchandise. But that early cash cow came at a cost. PGI has an obligation to tread lightly when diverging from the rules and overall character of the franchise they've plugged into.

I hate clan tech. I hated it in TT for the very reasons the OP is trying to point out. The people who always wanted to play clan in TT were munchkin. It's munchkin gear. You get everything, you sacrifice nothing. The "honor" rules were a hokey mechanic to get a small enough group of munchkins to have a big enough group of enemies to shoot at that it might be a fair fight.

But it's lore. So while I quietly cursed the day PGI realized there were plenty of munchkin players just chomping at the bit to get at that good munchkin tech, ready to throw money at them for a stupid-power Timberwolf, and I even quit playing for a long time soon after, the fact is Clans are lore, so if I want to play this game, I have to deal with it.

The fact that PGI has made the Is/Clan tech even this balanced is a radical departure from the lore, and I credit them for that. Clearly, more needs to be done. I'm not saying that PGI can't or already hasn't taken steps away from lore, or canon, or TT, or whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying the above quotes are necessarily wrong.

I'm saying PGI is correct in understanding the responsibilities associated with contributing to an established IP, and are also correct in proceeding cautiously. They really can't just be as cavalier as you or I or anyone else may want them to be in chucking Battletech over their shoulder and doing whatever they want.

I feel like PGI has done a pretty good job in finding and creating places within the TT/Video Game structure to create balancing mechanisms. I don't have to imagine the difficulty involved in making a dice-and-hexmap tabletop game into a first-person shooter with some semblance of balance. I see it every time someone driving a Locust takes out anything bigger than a Phoenix Hawk one-on-one. You have no idea how many improbably bad/good dice rolls it would take for that to happen by the TT rules! I honestly think (or at least hope) this new skill system is going to be a huge mechanic in the direction of IS/Clan balance, and the current state of things is going to change once its implemented.

In the meantime, I'm just saying go easy on the people who came to play Battletech. The community didn't treat them like a "problem" when this game was still getting off the ground; back then they were the only community this game had.

[Mystere]

Alan Davion, on 05 January 2017 - 08:30 PM, said:

There are some table top elements that the game really needs, and there are some it doesn't need... Or simply can't work, like the 12v10 rule. PGI tried that and it failed completely, necessitating a different approach.

Huh? When? Where? PTS?

[Mystere]

Tycho von Gagern, on 05 January 2017 - 09:33 PM, said:

I'd like everyone to just take a second to remember that f it weren't for the "lore" people buying into this game in the first year, we wouldn't be having this discussion. There'd be no game. You'd all be playing Overwatch.

Well, what can I say? Some people are just plain ingrates, bloody freeloading ingrates.

Edited by Mystere, 05 January 2017 - 09:37 PM.

[Kael Posavatz]

Tycho von Gagern, on 05 January 2017 - 09:33 PM, said:

I'd like everyone to just take a second to remember that f it weren't for the "lore" people buying into this game in the first year, we wouldn't be having this discussion. There'd be no game. You'd all be playing Overwatch.

This "lore" thing you think of as a hassle is called an "IP," or "Intellectual Property." It means that PGI was able to tap right into a lot of people who have been loyal fans and (more importantly) paying consumers of previous Battletech and Mechwarrior merchandise. But that early cash cow came at a cost. PGI has an obligation to tread lightly when diverging from the rules and overall character of the franchise they've plugged into.

I hate clan tech. I hated it in TT for the very reasons the OP is trying to point out. The people who always wanted to play clan in TT were munchkin. It's munchkin gear. You get everything, you sacrifice nothing. The "honor" rules were a hokey mechanic to get a small enough group of munchkins to have a big enough group of enemies to shoot at that it might be a fair fight.

I came into BattleTech through the MechWarrior RPG. TT was an if-and-when augmentation, and MWO was the first electronic imprint I played. So when I say it is the TT players, I mean the TT player and not necessarily lore-monkeys. Looking at Lore and strict 10 v 12 was not a thing. The Jade Falcons tended to show up with a cluster and WarShip support, and sometimes a full galaxy, even when the defending forces are noticeably less.