I'm pretty sure that has been brough up before... If so, i wonder why battle rating is not "a thing" atm? Especially now that new tech is incoming and old (IS) tech possibly falls further behind. To me it seems like a good way for matchmaking and balance putting together players and mechs that are in similar "leagues".
Would be possible to come up with an algorithm that gives mechs and mechs variants and builds a battle rating that tries to value its possible effectiveness. The battle rating could be use for matchmaking and provides additional way of balance where players with similar battle rated mechs are put together, additional to or perhaps replacing raw tonnage.
Some parameters that indicate how well a mech can theoretically perform:
- amount of hardpoints (more is better)
- diversity of hardpoints (less diverse is better)
- hardpoint locations (more closer to cockpit level is better, more higher then cockpit is better then lower then cockpit)
- amount armor (more is better)
- free tonnage (more is better)
- speed / mobility (more is better)
- overall size / hitboxes (smaller is better)
- firepower / alpha strike (more is better)
- dps / sus. dps (more is better)
- availability of jumpjets (true is better)
- etc.
First thought was to use battle rating where you are matched with others with a certain deviation, more deviation means more unbalance. The problem here i see is that optimal mech builds do no matter much anymore as an optimal mech builds will have to put it up against similar optimal mech builds.
Another idea is to have brackets like weight classes or tiers where min/max-ing builds remains a way to be competitive only within certain mech-tiers.
TL:TR I wonder why special battle ratings for mechs is not part of matchmaking and used as a balance tool?
Cheers B3R3ND
Edited by B3R3ND, 26 January 2017 - 02:32 AM.