160 replies to this topic

[Mcgral18]

Snazzy Dragon, on 15 January 2017 - 01:16 PM, said:

STD engine is already functionally obsolete on most competitve IS mechs because XL is required to fit anywhere near clan level of firepower at this point.

They already compete with the cXL, and already need buffs (regardless of the isXL status)

[Koniving]

Snazzy Dragon, on 15 January 2017 - 01:16 PM, said:

STD engine is already functionally obsolete on most competitve IS mechs because XL is required to fit anywhere near clan level of firepower at this point.

This is due to the power creep that PGI introduced.
If weapon classes were from tabletop lore instead of PGI, we'd have damage and heat rating Over Unit of Time...
instead of PGI's "Per shot."

Then steps could be taken to do balancing right.

Also, double armor/structure + more armor structure is why we need XL engines to begin with.

Yeonne Greene, on 15 January 2017 - 01:16 PM, said:

No it wouldn't, it would be incredibly frustrating. It would also be opaque to new players, who would be wonder why they are dead when they've still got all their pieces.

We need a monitor that shows our internals.

And how many people get frustrated when their weapons or ammo are destroyed while still having their limbs?
How many people freak out about losing a few heatsinks to crits?

[Y E O N N E]

Koniving, on 15 January 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

We need a monitor that shows our internals.

And how many people get frustrated when their weapons or ammo are destroyed while still having their limbs?
How many people freak out about losing a few heatsinks to crits?

I get frustrated when my AC/20 in my side torso is blown away immediately upon armor breach 99% of the time. I get frustrated when a grazing shot to my Mist Lynx's arm takes out a laser that was in there, dragging 25% of my firepower with it, or when my torso armor gets breached and both AC/5 go poof simultaneously. I get frustrated all the time by bullsh*t RNG mechanics that destroy my stuff, prematurely ending a run despite still retaining a high percentage on the total health counter, and I sincerely doubt that I am the only one.

Table Top and its ideas can go suck a nut.

[Alan Davion]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 January 2017 - 01:27 PM, said:

Table Top and its ideas can go suck a nut.

TT based rules for item destruction were based entirely on luck of the dice roll, and given the totally random hit locations it was a lot less frequent for your weapons or gear to get blown to hell.

Here though, with FPS pin point accuracy, yes, you're going to lose your s*** way, way more often. And until PGI addresses the pin point convergence issue, it's going to continue being an issue.

So I think what you're really upset with is the FPS game mechanics, not so much the TT mechanics.

[Y E O N N E]

Alan Davion, on 15 January 2017 - 01:34 PM, said:

So I think what you're really upset with is the FPS game mechanics, not so much the TT mechanics.

No, a die is rolled to determine whether or not I lose anything at all in a location that gets hit, potentially dealing out a disproportionate reward for the level of effort and damage expended to make that hit. It is stupid.

[Novakaine]

Deal with it.
We do.

[MischiefSC]

El Bandito, on 15 January 2017 - 03:10 AM, said:

Cause of this guy, most likely.

I've said this before and I'll say it again -

Please don't do that. If you were not in the room for the conversations that led to the decisions then you don't know who's deciding what. For all you know Russ has pictures of Paul with Zitos mom and uses them to blackmail him into accepting bad balance decisions.

You just don't know. It's one thing to list a quote from someone and attack that, or to say 'PGI did X'. When you muddy the line between specific people and the decisions of the business they are working for you muddy the real issue.

It's like when I see people complaining about not hearing from the PGI community manager. Just because they're not talking to YOU doesn't mean they're not talking to SOMEONE. If there was ever a job that will turn someone into a legit sociopath being the community manager for a computer game forum is one of them.

Same thing with issues like this. Blame PGI, blame specific quotes. Picking on specific people however converts a legit complaint (bad game balance decisions) into a personal attack - which can simply be ignored.

[Alan Davion]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 January 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

No, a die is rolled to determine whether or not I lose anything at all in a location that gets hit, potentially dealing out a disproportionate reward for the level of effort and damage expended to make that hit. It is stupid.

And the FPS system makes it even more stupid because of the ease for such a disproportionate reward to be handed out because of the ability to focus all your weapons at one location.

At least in TT your damage was spread all the f*** around the mech. Yes you could still end up with a random critical hit destroying a weapon, a heat sink, or hell even your cockpit, but it was entirely dependent on luck.

Not pixel-perfect accuracy thanks to a movement of the mouse and a click of a button.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 January 2017 - 01:27 PM, said:

I get frustrated when my AC/20 in my side torso is blown away immediately upon armor breach 99% of the time. I get frustrated when a grazing shot to my Mist Lynx's arm takes out a laser that was in there, dragging 25% of my firepower with it, or when my torso armor gets breached and both AC/5 go poof simultaneously. I get frustrated all the time by bullsh*t RNG mechanics that destroy my stuff, prematurely ending a run despite still retaining a high percentage on the total health counter, and I sincerely doubt that I am the only one.

Table Top and its ideas can go suck a nut.

I have had this happen so many times it is incredibly irritating. Take a scratch of internal damage turning my yellow, lose all weapons in that torso. Feels bad man.

Alan Davion, on 15 January 2017 - 01:46 PM, said:

Yes you could still end up with a random critical hit destroying a weapon, a heat sink, or hell even your cockpit, but it was entirely dependent on luck.

That somehow makes it better???

[Y E O N N E]

Alan Davion, on 15 January 2017 - 01:46 PM, said:

And the FPS system makes it even more stupid because of the ease for such a disproportionate reward to be handed out because of the ability to focus all your weapons at one location.

At least in TT your damage was spread all the f*** around the mech. Yes you could still end up with a random critical hit destroying a weapon, a heat sink, or hell even your cockpit, but it was entirely dependent on luck.

Not pixel-perfect accuracy thanks to a movement of the mouse and a click of a button.

You are still trying to put inaccurate thoughts to my words.

I am not angry that people can place big damage on me, or even that they can aim it. That's fine, I can actually do something about that by being hard to hit. When you play this game well, your damage is already spread all the f*ck over the place. I rarely go down in a 'Mech with other components largely intact, it's almost always after everything else has been opened up, so convergence is not the issue.

What I can't do anything about is the random chance for Bozo scraping me with poorly-aimed large lasers and being rewarded with some exploding munitions that do an inordinate amount of harm to my combat capabilities relative to that farcical effort. That problem would persist whether or not instant convergence was a thing.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 15 January 2017 - 01:56 PM.

[Alan Davion]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 15 January 2017 - 01:49 PM, said:

That somehow makes it better???

I never said it was better, just less likely to happen.

[Mcgral18]

MischiefSC, on 15 January 2017 - 01:41 PM, said:

I've said this before and I'll say it again -

Please don't do that. If you were not in the room for the conversations that led to the decisions then you don't know who's deciding what. For all you know Russ has pictures of Paul with Zitos mom and uses them to blackmail him into accepting bad balance decisions.

You just don't know. It's one thing to list a quote from someone and attack that, or to say 'PGI did X'. When you muddy the line between specific people and the decisions of the business they are working for you muddy the real issue.

It's like when I see people complaining about not hearing from the PGI community manager. Just because they're not talking to YOU doesn't mean they're not talking to SOMEONE. If there was ever a job that will turn someone into a legit sociopath being the community manager for a computer game forum is one of them.

Same thing with issues like this. Blame PGI, blame specific quotes. Picking on specific people however converts a legit complaint (bad game balance decisions) into a personal attack - which can simply be ignored.

Can we use the blanket term Nerfinator (without the excellent image) for reference to They Who Control Balance?
The current Balance Underling seems to have taken up the mantle.



We should avoid personal attacks, aside from the fact they're against the CoC, they're also

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

This issue is becoming painful to revisit.

The question is no longer "What are they thinking?!" but "Are they thinking?!"

[Lily from animove]

Willard Phule, on 15 January 2017 - 05:48 AM, said:

I bet it has EXACTLY the desired "balancing" effect they're trying for. It isn't about balancing XL engines, it's about driving experienced players to the IS because they want to avoid the penalty. Potat..er..New Players don't read the forums or the patch notes. They could care less.

no what will happen is that those new players see the still strong clanemchs succeed and then buying those. or they will buy crappy IS mechs with lrm's because thats what they lerned to work in t5.

Newbies and potatoes tend to buy what they lern works. And they lern this in t5. this balance change will not change much amongst the potatoes level. But it will erase peoples chocies in mid skill and top skills. Because those of mid/top skill sacrificing some performance for a chassis they like over meta will probably now end up wiht a too bad performance and the choice flips from like >meta to meta > like.

Sjorpha, on 15 January 2017 - 08:46 AM, said:

It wouldn't be better, it would be equally good. The clan XL would have the advantage of being slightly smaller, the IS would have the advantage of slightly smaller heat penalty on ST loss. I'm talking about a small difference here, only a few percent to balance the larger size.

How would you do it? What would you give the IS XL to match the Clan XL crit slot advantage?

I'm all ears here.

it would break many of the omnimechs balance comapred to the clanmechs and is mechs. If thesy want to equalise engines, they also need to unlock clanomni construction rules, otherwise the majority of clanomnis is just left in a inferior state. How good a clanomni is, depends on the broked fixed equip and the lore coincedence well chosen enginesize as well as ESFFbeing there or not. It would need a buttload of quirks to prevent many of the inferior clanomnis form being bad afte such a change.

Brandarr Gunnarson, on 15 January 2017 - 07:26 PM, said:

This issue is becoming painful to revisit.

The question is no longer "What are they thinking?!" but "Are they thinking?!"

I really would like to know how that "internal review, refinement, and testing" thing works.because those people surely have no idea how the playerbase reacts to the changes done. Thats why hardly a change PGI does has the effect they want it to have. Thats why the informationw arfare attemp failed, thats why heatscale failed. Not because they were basically bad ideas, mostly because their implemention was not adding anything that mattered, and the way the change hould affect the game was not how it affected players. Someone there is bad/unexperienced in knowing or guessing how MWO gamers adapt to the changes they implement.

[Sjorpha]

Lily from animove, on 16 January 2017 - 02:12 AM, said:

it would break many of the omnimechs balance comapred to the clanmechs and is mechs. If thesy want to equalise engines, they also need to unlock clanomni construction rules, otherwise the majority of clanomnis is just left in a inferior state. How good a clanomni is, depends on the broked fixed equip and the lore coincedence well chosen enginesize as well as ESFFbeing there or not. It would need a buttload of quirks to prevent many of the inferior clanomnis form being bad afte such a change.

Since Clan battlemechs are in the game and topping the power curve you can no longer argue that the omnimech construction rules are balancing the factions, because it's not. The tech itself needs to be balanced when both factions have access to battlemechs. The currently overpowered clan tech is forcing overquirking on many more IS mechs than there are even omnis in the game, so no matter how you look at it balanced equiopment leaves su with fewer mechs needing strong quirks, fewer is better.

Also you're exaggerating, omnimechs are for the most part good mechs and the ability to configure hardpoints is quite strong. Timber wolf still wouldn't need quirks, Night gyr wouldn't need them, hellbringer wouldn't need them, Cheetah wouldn't need them and stormcrow wouldn't need them, and arguably a few more are also fine, so those could be removed from that equation.

I would say if you balanced the tech unlocking endo and ferro for omnimechs would be a good idea and leave the locked engines and jumpjets to balance against the swappable hardpoints.

Also IS Omnis will come sooner or later, they need to be as good as clan omnis without needing extra quirks.

There simply is no good reason for unbalanced equipment in this game. Everything else, including omnimechs on both sides, becomes easier to balance if the basic IS and Clan equipment is equally good, as it should be.

Edited by Sjorpha, 16 January 2017 - 02:38 AM.

[Dino Might]

Clan omnimechs are not bad. Clan battlemechs are just too good. (Some) IS mechs are too heavily quirked.

/discussion

Edited by Dino Might, 16 January 2017 - 03:52 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Sjorpha, on 16 January 2017 - 02:36 AM, said:

Since Clan battlemechs are in the game and topping the power curve you can no longer argue that the omnimech construction rules are balancing the factions, because it's not. The tech itself needs to be balanced when both factions have access to battlemechs. The currently overpowered clan tech is forcing overquirking on many more IS mechs than there are even omnis in the game, so no matter how you look at it balanced equiopment leaves su with fewer mechs needing strong quirks, fewer is better.

Also you're exaggerating, omnimechs are for the most part good mechs and the ability to configure hardpoints is quite strong. Timber wolf still wouldn't need quirks, Night gyr wouldn't need them, hellbringer wouldn't need them, Cheetah wouldn't need them and stormcrow wouldn't need them, and arguably a few more are also fine, so those could be removed from that equation.

I would say if you balanced the tech unlocking endo and ferro for omnimechs would be a good idea and leave the locked engines and jumpjets to balance against the swappable hardpoints.

Also IS Omnis will come sooner or later, they need to be as good as clan omnis without needing extra quirks.

There simply is no good reason for unbalanced equipment in this game. Everything else, including omnimechs on both sides, becomes easier to balance if the basic IS and Clan equipment is equally good, as it should be.

the reasonw hy the tbr doesn't needs quirks is it function as we well chosen battlemech. as it doesn't have unenecessary fixed equipment and it doesn't have a badly chosne engien size.
When the composition of the omnimech is extremely close to the composition of a meta clanbattlemech they hardly differ, but for many that isn't even the case.

And I don't agree with balancing out on the clanbattlemech level, if you do that you can remove quirks on is side nd put them on the inferior clanomnis, so all you do is shifting the quirks around. We need to find the proper middle of the mechs and make balance to reach these mechs, by either nerfing or buffing. You cannot balance tech as long as the same tech is used by two so much differently performing mechs. In such a constellation you will always have to handout either super quirks for one or some quirks (pos/neg) for both.
configuring hardpoints isn't actually such a good option at all, that entirely depends on the hardpoints the pods have, as much as lore decided hardpoints for a battlemech. yes theoretically thats more flexibility, practically most combinations are simply never used. So when you meet a battlemech with the nearly identical optimised hardpoint configuration, it will always be equally good or superior to it's omnimech counterpart. Not even talking about mechs like the MLX which basically doesn't realyl gice you any options because the way how hardpoints were made on it.

Edited by Lily from animove, 16 January 2017 - 03:54 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Lily from animove, on 16 January 2017 - 03:53 AM, said:

You cannot balance tech as long as the same tech is used by two so much differently performing mechs. In such a constellation you will always have to handout either super quirks for one or some quirks (pos/neg) for both.

QFT

Lily from animove, on 16 January 2017 - 03:53 AM, said:

Not even talking about mechs like the MLX which basically doesn't realyl gice you any options because the way how hardpoints were made on it.

And there is the problem

I still don't get why we try to have a pilot skill based matchmaker and not a Mech based matchmaker.

When low performer like Panther, commando, Vindicator and Mist Lynx only drop on their own - those Mechs can be played and not settle dust in everybodys mech hangar.

[Mawai]

To be honest, most clan mechs lose 1/2 their weapons when they lose a side torso. As a result, usually, no matter whether the heat penalty is 20% or 40% ... the heat efficiency will typically go up since they are firing 1/2 the weapons but still with more than 50% of the heat sinks.

Other than the slow down in max speed, I've generally noticed that heat becomes a non-issue after losing a ST just because I will typically have proportionally more heat sinks left than weapons.

If they REALLY wanted to nerf clan XL engines ... they would apply a 40% max speed and maneuverability reduction (up from the current 20%) ... I think that would tend to hurt more.

[Mawai]

Karl Streiger, on 16 January 2017 - 05:23 AM, said:

QFT


And there is the problem

I still don't get why we try to have a pilot skill based matchmaker and not a Mech based matchmaker.

When low performer like Panther, commando, Vindicator and Mist Lynx only drop on their own - those Mechs can be played and not settle dust in everybodys mech hangar.

They don't have a mech based matchmaker because they don't have a usable point value system in order to even roughly rate mechs and builds against each other.

The "ultimate" matchmaker would take a mech rating based on (base mech rating + loadout based modifications) and combine that with a pilot skill multiplier. The number that results could be used to balance matches.

The pilot skill multiplier would start off at a base value. It would go up or down based on match performance. Once a player accumulated enough games in specific weight classes the game would follow the overall rating as well as one for each weight class with sufficient data. When a player acquires enough games in a specific chassis then a specific chassis rating would be created. All ratings would continue to change with each match result and the appropriate skill rating would be used when the player enters the queue.