28 replies to this topic

[BrunoSSace]

You change one thing and the IS cry, you do another and the Clan Sook, then you also have the battletech Lore junkies. This places lore on one side and game play on the other. Its a See-saw that looks to never balance itself out. Now with the new Technology incoming for mainly the IS side. All the range advantage should be a lot closer. It also throws the possibility of ever getting any stability out the window. Instead of fixing problems they will probably just add more of them to the pile. Then before we have time to settle down. The new skill tree will drop. Fixing some battle Mechs and then totally over shadowing others. I believe this new skill tree will buff the clans while hamstring the IS. But who cares right? As long as you keep adding new things and not addressing problems everyone will be happy. Because if you don't fix a problem you can not make one side unhappy.

[Buster Machine 0]

Stop the power creep and the game can be balanced.

[Mcgral18]

Here's what has to be said:

Sod those guys



It isn't hard to balance thing better. Not perfectly, but weapons have remained worthless for YEARS on end in MWO. The isSL (which is pretty much an isERSL) is still not worth it, and the Flamer took the better part of 4 years to go from worthless to worthwhile
You know what ended up changing on it?
Four things
The starting heat value (big arse buff)
The timer for self-inflicted Exponential heat (nerf)
The damage dealt (big arse nerf)
The visual


You know which one of those things had any worthwhile effect? The starting heat.
From 0 to 4.5
It took FOUR YEARS to make a weapon worthwhile, which ended up being a SINGLE NUMBER CHANGE



Opinions don't matter very much when THAT is the balance reality of MWO
Things don't happen

They don't happen iteratively, they don't happen reliably, they don't happen to coexist with competent play
Sure, the whine can have an impact...but not as much as the balance process itself

[Bud Crue]

Mcgral18, on 21 January 2017 - 06:00 PM, said:

Here's what has to be said:
...
They don't happen iteratively, they don't happen reliably, they don't happen to coexist with competent play
Sure, the whine can have an impact...but not as much as the balance process itself

TESTIFY!

[Nightmare1]

This game has too many dynamic systems to completely balance it. The best course, is not to seek a perfect balance, but an acceptable imbalance.

[El Bandito]

Quote

PGI can't balance the game

Fixed.

[Arugela]

It can't be balance because it is designed to be unbalanced.... It should not be balanced to work right.

Have they thought about adding in drop boxes with a small ammount of ammo generically or simple empty boxes in place of mech and make a 12/8 match with the current game. If they can drop mechs why not NPC boxes that do nothing or give some small ammo resupply? Those would fill in 4 players for clan side.

It sounded like they couldn't get uneven sides, but what if they simply add the above in place of several players and keep what is technically 12/12 matches with object dropped.

Edited by Arugela, 21 January 2017 - 06:34 PM.

[Bud Crue]

The question isn't can it be balanced? Of course it can.
The problem is the difficulty in balancing it while giving impetus to get customers to keep buying content in the form of new mechs. Balance isn't the problem, but rather failing to prioritize balance over easy (I said easy not any) cash grabs is the problem.

There is a lot more to it that that blase observation, but I think that is what it comes down to. Priorities.

PGI makes money by selling us mechs. The easiest way to make those mechs sell is by making them better than what is already in the game, then subsequently nerfing them to make them less appealing, so that the next mech looks more appealing to thus be more likely to sell. Repeat.

This makes them plenty of money and drives a lot of folks around here crazy with enthusiastic mech lust (look at hit counts on threads in the vein of "what is the next new mech? or "what's your favorite mech not yet in the game?" compared to any others) but it sure doesn't help balance ANYTHING other than to make the playing field ready for another new mech. Doing anything other than mking and selling mechs to us takes time and effort...time and effort that they would rather spend making and selling us new mechs, because that is how they get paid. What little balance they do engage in is almost exclusively directed toward that goal of selling more mechs (see every quirk pass ever). This isn't nefarious. Its not even incompetence. Its business; and business is good.

So, who's excited for MW5? I wonder how they came up with the funds to make that game?

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 January 2017 - 06:33 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Of course you can balance it. Saying you can't balance it is like saying you can't do complex math because it's hard.

Yes, you can, you don't even need a calculator.

However balancing the game would need to be a priority and a strong one. It absolutely isn't and never really has been with PGI. Things that affect balance are - like Ghost Heat, Energy Draw, Skill Tree.

However Clans have been broken for *years*. Effing *years*. This while CXL thing? Go back to the original Clan release thread PGI put up years ago. It's always been an issue, balance has always been ****, it's just so wonky with quirks that it has short phases of feeling "better". Largely that's because it's been so stupidly one sided for years so even not totally blatantly stupidly broken feels better.

Yes, at this point it could be balanced with a bit of work. Some people would rage because they want Clans OP but better to toss them out and get people who want and appreciate a balanced game where they win on skill and not skewed mechanics to come and stay.

[Bishop Steiner]

BrunoSSace, on 21 January 2017 - 05:55 PM, said:

You change one thing and the IS cry, you do another and the Clan Sook, then you also have the battletech Lore junkies. This places lore on one side and game play on the other. Its a See-saw that looks to never balance itself out. Now with the new Technology incoming for mainly the IS side. All the range advantage should be a lot closer. It also throws the possibility of ever getting any stability out the window. Instead of fixing problems they will probably just add more of them to the pile. Then before we have time to settle down. The new skill tree will drop. Fixing some battle Mechs and then totally over shadowing others. I believe this new skill tree will buff the clans while hamstring the IS. But who cares right? As long as you keep adding new things and not addressing problems everyone will be happy. Because if you don't fix a problem you can not make one side unhappy.

No. YOU can't balance this game. PGI can't balance it. It can be balanced.

[Johnny Z]

Its a really hard game to balance and they are doing a great job of it.

[Deathlike]

The game can be balanced. It's that PGI is incapable of doing it.

It shouldn't be that hard, but when you use "statistics" as a moving target w/o applying any sort of logic or understanding (aka the application of the data), it's the equivalent of trying to balance a wet paper bag (why you would do it is anyone's guess).

For instance, you could filter out some input from some of the top players...

1) What are the 5 top Assaults (both IS and Clans) in the game (in order with #1 being the best)?

2) What are the 5 top Clan Assaults in the game?

3) What are the 5 top IS Assaults in the game?

4) Of what is listed in questions 1 through 3, rate the power differentiation between each listed item, with a value between 1 (very little difference) and 10 (significant difference)

5) Repeat all questions with different weight classes (replace the word Assaults with Heavies, Mediums, and Lights).


Once you gather that data, you are able to figure out pared with your own internal stats what the data implies/infers.

The problem is PGI skips the application of the data they have.

Edited by Deathlike, 21 January 2017 - 06:48 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Deathlike, on 21 January 2017 - 06:47 PM, said:

The game can be balanced. It's that PGI is incapable of doing it.

It shouldn't be that hard, but when you use "statistics" as a moving target w/o applying any sort of logic or understanding (aka the application of the data), it's the equivalent of trying to balance a wet paper bag (why you would do it is anyone's guess).

For instance, you could filter out some input from some of the top players...

1) What are the 5 top Assaults (both IS and Clans) in the game (in order with #1 being the best)?

2) What are the 5 top Clan Assaults in the game?

3) What are the 5 top IS Assaults in the game?

4) Of what is listed in questions 1 through 3, rate the power differentiation between each listed item, with a value between 1 (very little difference) and 10 (significant difference)

5) Repeat all questions with different weight classes (replace the word Assaults with Heavies, Mediums, and Lights).


Once you gather that data, you are able to figure out pared with your own internal stats what the data implies/infers.

The problem is PGI skips the application of the data they have.

No, run events. By weight class. Then collect data both from pug queue as a guidance and then offer "bonuses" for group queue kills - then you collect data from matches involving that top fraction of a percent. What they take (and how they play) you use for balance.

Then you have another tournament for mechs by chassis - so you opt into a faction and each faction has a chassis in each weight class, matches played in a "faction" chassis get points for rewards in the tourney. So, say, Davions get Zeus/Banshee, Jags/WHR, Griffins/Trees, Firestarter/Locusts. Do same as above for qualifying the data you get.

That would be a good start.

Without both motivating top performers to seek each other out while playing comparable tonnage mechs and isolating performance data to minimize player skill differential you get bad data.

[Domoneky]

Best way for ANYONE to balance MWO: Smash the servers, Fire Everyone at PGI, Leave note for other Developers that say "If you can't do better don't even touch it. We will ruin you"

[FalconerGray]

MWO = minimally viable product = we're missing all of the extra game elements that are necessary to balance Battletech units.

It's far too late now, MWO made the bed and now we all lie in it.

[Mystere]

It's an oldie but still a goodie.

Mystere, on 30 October 2016 - 08:29 PM, said:

Is this the right time to say that balance should be based on at least all of the following instead of just the first two?

• Mechs
  
• weapons
  
• equipment
  
• forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, and IS vs. Clan
  
• maps
  
• numbers
  
• tonnage
  
• game modes
  
• victory conditions
  
• rewards

Or does everyone still stubbornly insist on the current boneheaded course of action being taken, which has failed in the last four years or so?

Those will most certainly add more flavor than the current direction that is heading towards blandness.

Edited by Mystere, 21 January 2017 - 08:19 PM.

[Vonbach]

Of course you cant balance the game its got clans in it. Clans are supposed to be unbalanced
and thats the reason I've always hated them. How are you supposed to balance 1945 technology
vs what is supposed to be 1990's at the least? The answer is simple you cant.

[Moebius Pi]

Deathlike, on 21 January 2017 - 06:47 PM, said:

The game can be balanced. It's that PGI is incapable of doing it.

It shouldn't be that hard, but when you use "statistics" as a moving target w/o applying any sort of logic or understanding (aka the application of the data), it's the equivalent of trying to balance a wet paper bag (why you would do it is anyone's guess).

For instance, you could filter out some input from some of the top players...

1) What are the 5 top Assaults (both IS and Clans) in the game (in order with #1 being the best)?

2) What are the 5 top Clan Assaults in the game?

3) What are the 5 top IS Assaults in the game?

4) Of what is listed in questions 1 through 3, rate the power differentiation between each listed item, with a value between 1 (very little difference) and 10 (significant difference)

5) Repeat all questions with different weight classes (replace the word Assaults with Heavies, Mediums, and Lights).


Once you gather that data, you are able to figure out pared with your own internal stats what the data implies/infers.

The problem is PGI skips the application of the data they have.

The kicker with that, is that it requires ongoing communication with the community with some level of detail. Outside of "give us some examples of a mech build" when was the last time you -really- saw PGI wanting to know what its players thought that wasn't telegraphed, heavily filtered and railroaded to avoid responses they -did not- want?

But yes, they seem to look at some raw numbers without context, then blanket nerf/tweak some irrelevant value based on that very, very often. It tells me how very little of this seems comes from internal playtesting or knowledge of the game environment as it is played, vs some sort of white room logic that doesn't apply to gameplay. Even then, it doesn't seem to correlate to player experience level using a specific weapon or chassis vs some massive blob's end numbers, regardless of variables.

But hey, a handful of folks say they like FP. That means working as intended, eh? Balance too. Echo chambers are a *****.

[Felbombling]

They COULD balance the game, but it would take brass balls and tough love. Some major changes would have to be implemented to core game mechanics that a large group of players just adore. Fact is, the freedom we enjoy in the Mech Lab right now makes game balance akin to herding cats.

• Major engine limitations so that min-max builds are harder to achieve. No more shoehorning engines in to the half ton. A Mech chassis could be limited to three-to-five engine rating choices, standard or XL.
  
• Minimum armour values on limbs, say 50%, to prevent players from entering battle with zero arm armour traded off for an extra heat sink or two.
  
• Signature hard-points where the weapon quirks are tied directly to location, not a blanket bonus on the entire chassis.
  
• Longer cool down on heavy weapons to increase time to kill slightly.
  
• Less damage for lighter weapons, but they can retain their current cool down. This should both increase time to kill slightly and keep an exciting 'weapons free' environment for light Mechs. Better still, it would incentivise Light weapon placement on Heavies and Assault Mechs.
  
• More ammunition per ton, so Mechs no longer have to over invest in ammunition. It just promotes boating. We see this most often with LRMs.
  
• Some sort of weapon targeting bloom for movement / snap-shots.
  
• Full jump-jet allotment per engine rating divided by tonnage, rounded up to nearest full ton. Full jump-jet allotment gives maximum mobility. A single jump-jet, no matter the engine rating, should always have minimal thrust potential. If players want to jump-snipe, fine, but make them pay for the ability with jump-jet investment.
  
• Limit Alpha striking in some way. Forced chain-fire on a short cool down for each weapon in a group, revisit energy draw... something.
  
• A heat system that recognizes that heat neutral Mechs are not a bad thing, but also allows for damage and attrition to take hold near end game to cause excitement and tension. Constantly being in the red zone on the heat scale gets monotonous and boring after awhile. Make heat sinks much more important to over-all performance in game.

Just some ideas to float around... mock... discuss.

[FalconerGray]

StaggerCheck, on 21 January 2017 - 08:09 PM, said:

Just some ideas to float around... mock... discuss.

Battletech is the wrong starting point to attempt to balance units 1:1, because it was never intended to be run that way. It relies on things like finances, repair times, running costs, unit availability / rarity, diplomacy, supply lines, unit transportation, etc etc etc to provide balance to the game, because there is no balance to be found by just focusing on the units alone.

You could make everything exactly the same, but then what's the point of going out of your way to follow a pre-existing and established universe if you're just going to blatantly ignore 75% of what matters?

The design of the game is flawed for the universe it is set in. The game would be far better off if it was to completely disregard the "Battletech" tag and just do whatever they wanted.