38 replies to this topic

[Stikyard]

I've recently stumbled apon a group of people playing private matches with "stock" mechs. These builds are coming straight out of lore books and puts the feel and balance back into a game that has become all about "meta" mechs and boating.

I think Faction warfare would greatly benefit from a "stock" feature and puts balance back into the hands of the devs. I imagine it working as simply as being able to choose any mech you currently own but, it would be retrofitted back to a "stock" build.

Faction Warfare is supposed to take a more story based feel and many people complain that its very bland. Imagine your chosen faction actually determining what types of mechs are available. Certain factions specialize in specific mechs. A lot of the personal flavors we all wanted in faction warfare could be achieved by removing the rediculous "meta boating". Its all good and fun for quickplay but, I really believe the hardcore Mech fans would find the "stock" option offers much more variety, balance and, overall fun!

PGI should be paying attention to how these guys are running and balancing these stock teams. They are even able to run campaign style stories just by recording their progress and tracking what is available to their faction. I just feel like we have Quick Play for tinkering and meta boating... Can we do something else with FW please?

[Jack Booted Thug]

Stikyard, on 13 February 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

I've recently stumbled apon a group of people playing private matches with "stock" mechs.

No

Your first line is the reason why faction play sucks right now according to many. "groups of people" are the problem apparently

[justcallme A S H]

Already been discussed, won't happen.

Some stock load outs are absolutely crap where some stock loadouts are right in the meta. There is absolutely no balance there wha so ever because stock load outs do not actually mean balance.

[SilentScreamer]

Stikyard, on 13 February 2017 - 05:43 AM, said:

I've recently stumbled apon a group of people playing private matches with "stock" mechs. These builds are coming straight out of lore books and puts the feel and balance back into a game that has become all about "meta" mechs and boating.

I think Faction warfare would greatly benefit from a "stock" feature and puts balance back into the hands of the devs. I imagine it working as simply as being able to choose any mech you currently own but, it would be retrofitted back to a "stock" build.

Faction Warfare is supposed to take a more story based feel and many people complain that its very bland. Imagine your chosen faction actually determining what types of mechs are available. Certain factions specialize in specific mechs. A lot of the personal flavors we all wanted in faction warfare could be achieved by removing the rediculous "meta boating". Its all good and fun for quickplay but, I really believe the hardcore Mech fans would find the "stock" option offers much more variety, balance and, overall fun!

While I play in the Stock matches sometimes forcing stockmode on FW is a really bad idea for several reasons:
1) Some stock builds use double heat sinks, most do not. You would either have to exclude those with doubles (like stock play often does) or deal with 66% of the mechs being severly handicapped.
2) Stock mechs often have severe ammo shortages. In tabletop armor vakues are half that of MWO which is why ammo is light. In MWO it means many ammo dependent mechs will struggles for a kill of equal weight.
3) Even in Stock play there is a meta which prefers the highest performers. Grasshoppers, Awesome, Marauder, Hunchback are all higher end performers and used much too often.

[Stikyard]

Well, I appreciate a few of you taking time to respond. Im sorry you all feel it isnt a good idea. Stock mechs may have a list of meta too but you could mitigate that by faction choice and reinforcement availability. And couldn't the ammo situation also be addressed by simply adding a couple stacks to ammo dependant builds or lowering overall armor values.

I would just like to see something more unique for FW. If that is to be our "story mode", I would like to see it have those faction flavors or at least find a way to diversify the meta boating. I fear the skill tree will only push metas over the top. This isnt the way Mechs are built, these mechs dont reflect their factions, availability or, lore. Its getting way out there.

[QueenBlade]

While it would give the game mode a more lore / roleplay feel, the stock mode option would only go to show how much more imbalanced the Clans and IS techs are.

You would need to include more mechanics along with Stock mode to really make it worth for people to place themselves at such large disadvantages. Not to mention that FW has been reduced to only Clan vs IS. If IS vs IS and Clan vs Clan was still an option it would definitely help. Even something along the lines of cost would help stock mode, like repair/refit or cost to bringing Clan tech over IS tech to the field.

Either way, the imbalance in stock mode is too great at the current timeline. If FP were to get pushed back to 3025, then at least all factions would more equal.

[naterist]

id be down.

as for there being a meta to stock mechs, well ya, but are they as meta teir OP AF as the laser vomit ebonjag or grasshopper?

no.

so who cares if some are SLIGHTLY better stocks then other stocks. its WAY more balanced then some builds ive seen face each other. also, there should be a lot of variants with double heatsinks after they finish the timeline jump.

Edited by naterist, 13 February 2017 - 11:51 AM.

[Deathlike]

naterist, on 13 February 2017 - 11:50 AM, said:

id be down.

as for there being a meta to stock mechs, well ya, but are they as meta teir OP AF as the laser vomit ebonjag or grasshopper?

no.

so who cares if some are SLIGHTLY better stocks then other stocks. its WAY more balanced then some builds ive seen face each other. also, there should be a lot of variants with double heatsinks after they finish the timeline jump.

DHS is not slightly better than SHS. Full stop.

[naterist]

Deathlike, on 13 February 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

DHS is not slightly better than SHS. Full stop.

i run singles on my pirates bane cause i need the room. it isnt too noticeable if you arent running laservomit, and you have fire control discipline.

[QueenBlade]

66% to 43%...

Lets take a WHM-6D

29% to 42% just by changing SHS to DHS.

The mechs with a larger pool of heat sinks will have a very noticeable difference.

Heat sinks serve to meet two needs:
Heat dissipation and Heat Threshold

Both of which DHS increase the effect of over SHS.

But lets try it with a mech that doesn't depend on a laser build as its stock value.

CP-11-A-DC

29%, but when you change over to DHS it increases to 48%.

Lets compare it to a Clan mech of similar tonnage but with DHS stock.

HGN-II-C (29%) same as CP-11-A-DC but with 89 Firepower whereas the Cyclops only has 43.6 firepower.

[Deathlike]

naterist, on 13 February 2017 - 12:20 PM, said:

i run singles on my pirates bane cause i need the room. it isnt too noticeable if you arent running laservomit, and you have fire control discipline.

I run DHS on the PB because I don't build bad Lolcusts.

I will able to shoot your mech a lot more often (and cool down faster) due to the benefits of DHS.

Edited by Deathlike, 13 February 2017 - 01:08 PM.

[naterist]

Deathlike, on 13 February 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

I run DHS on the PB because I don't build bad Lolcusts.

I will able to shoot your mech a lot more often (and cool down faster) due to the benefits of DHS.

But hard to squeeze in armour and machine guns w ferro. You may be able to shoot me more, dont matter if you cant afford to stick around the whole fight or for more than 1 or 2 alphas since your armour cant take it.

[Deathlike]

naterist, on 13 February 2017 - 04:44 PM, said:

But hard to squeeze in armour and machine guns w ferro. You may be able to shoot me more, dont matter if you cant afford to stick around the whole fight or for more than 1 or 2 alphas since your armour cant take it.

Why would you even bother with MGs (when you can only fit 2)?

PIRATES' BANE

MGs aren't useful unless you have at least 4.

[naterist]

i like em, but that isnt the point. few mechs using stock boat lasers and single heatsinks. they use the, 'all weapons for every range' approach, which could be fun. more lore inducing fun content i say.

[Carl Vickers]

naterist, on 13 February 2017 - 06:40 PM, said:

i like em, but that isnt the point. few mechs using stock boat lasers and single heatsinks. they use the, 'all weapons for every range' approach, which could be fun. more lore inducing fun content i say.

The only way that happens is if you remove the mech lab from the game.

[Stikyard]

Jack Booted Thug, on 13 February 2017 - 07:31 AM, said:

No

Your first line is the reason why faction play sucks right now according to many. "groups of people" are the problem apparently

My first line is the reason it sucks? That hardly makes sense and I'm sorry you feel that way about people offering different Ideas.

I think it would be easier to maintain balance and overall fun play with stock builds. Sure there may need some tweaking here and there but I doubt it could be any worse than current Meta boating. Also keep in mind that different factions could have specific Mechs available and only certain factions can use specific Mechs.

I fight the Meta all day in QP. I would like to see a real balancing system. One system being used is a "Battle Value". Actually determining a mechs individual value. Each team has a number of points to spend and superior mechs cost more points. It would be hard to "battle value" custom builds. Battle Values could even balance IS vs. Clan given Clan mechs would typically rate higher in value so, they would end up having to choose only a few High value Mechs.

Edited by Stikyard, 13 February 2017 - 08:16 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

Deathlike, on 13 February 2017 - 05:04 PM, said:

Why would you even bother with MGs (when you can only fit 2)?

PIRATES' BANE

MGs aren't useful unless you have at least 4.

Yep that or SPL. Only build for a PB.

If you're bringing a MG, you're failing, probably explains a lot.

Actually I saw a STD engine locust the other night. I LOL'd... Moving 80km/g, can't even outright anything Clan. Result was interesting. It was dead in even less time than usual.

I don't really understand why anyone would have need for a IS light anyway given how poor they are now. A/H/H/M no worries.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 13 February 2017 - 08:16 PM.

[MacClearly]

Do you even play FW? What do you think meta is there? You are also saying that you want to change how the majority of players choose to play the game because you think it would be better your way? If stock mechs were to make sense it would be because the game and especially map sizes would have to be changed dramatically.

[naterist]

just got out of my locust in the build i described. each game 5-8 kills in it and i only died near the end of each match.

keep saying my locust sucks, lol. its awesome.

[Curccu]

naterist, on 13 February 2017 - 09:57 PM, said:

just got out of my locust in the build i described. each game 5-8 kills in it and i only died near the end of each match.

keep saying my locust sucks, lol. its awesome.

Or you could get 5-48 kills each game with Deathlikes build, If you do well in with **** build you would most likely do BETTER while driving better build. Not to mention if your K/D ratio with PB is lets say 6,5 you are very good light pilot.... dunno but your S7 leaderboard light stats shows 0.38 K/D.