34 replies to this topic

[Duke Nedo]

Acehilator, on 09 February 2017 - 10:23 AM, said:

Everybody and their mother running Clan mechs on the PTS... how surprising. The 4vs4 only serves to REALLY show how underperforming IS mechs are, with not enough other people to hide behind or to distract the enemy.

No surprise, I mean the NGR with dual Gauss + PPC must be one of the mechs that got the biggest BUFF from these changes compared to every other mech, and it was already one of the absolutely best mechs in the game, if not the best.

[Duke Nedo]

Fox2232, on 09 February 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

Btw, this poll is pretty funny because it is likely that 1st half of those who filled "Worse faction balance" are actually on other side of fence than that 2nd half which had same complaint.

"Someone is always hurting me" syndrome.

It's a simple do you think this change is for better or for worse in terms of faction balance.

The thought crossed my mind to give more options, but I'm not sure it would do any good.

What PTS does to faction balance is my single biggest concern right now. In my opinion, what we're looking at now is game breaking. Most importantly it is a step in the wrong direction, which is frankly amazingly bad decisionmaking on PGIs behalf. You simply don't set out and make bad faction balance worse. It has to be obvious even to PGI that there is nothing in the current system that compensates for all the quirk nerfs they are delivering to ALL IS mechs and to most or all bad clan mechs... The only winners here are the top tier clan mechs that alteady dominate every aspect of mech performance.

[MovinTarget]

I might have been on during a different time zone as everyone else but oddly, I was doing better in IS mechs than Clan...

I was out damaging assaults in a Quad AC2 'Whacker and a 4 LPL STD BLR... Not really meta, I know but I wanted to try specialist builds and see if it made a difference.

I also tried the classic 2LP + 4ML EBJ and found that despite all the relevant energy skills were unlocked, max cool running/Heat Containment... The heat gen from an alpha was almost identical (runs me from 0-49% at a standstill on Emerald Taiga) so with the other skills added in, it actually RUNS HOTTER on the PTS because you can get the CD buff and cooling can't keep up even if it's been buffed. So I guess it would be the same if you waited before your second firing, but if you are spam firing/alpha repeatedly you will overheat faster.

[MovinTarget]

Duke Nedo, on 10 February 2017 - 04:05 AM, said:

It's a simple do you think this change is for better or for worse in terms of faction balance.

The thought crossed my mind to give more options, but I'm not sure it would do any good.

What PTS does to faction balance is my single biggest concern right now. In my opinion, what we're looking at now is game breaking. Most importantly it is a step in the wrong direction, which is frankly amazingly bad decisionmaking on PGIs behalf. You simply don't set out and make bad faction balance worse. It has to be obvious even to PGI that there is nothing in the current system that compensates for all the quirk nerfs they are delivering to ALL IS mechs and to most or all bad clan mechs... The only winners here are the top tier clan mechs that alteady dominate every aspect of mech performance.

I'm not sure about the balance being bad in the first place... population balance, yes.. skill balance, yes... both of these see-saw as merc go back and forth, but tech balance is not terrible apart from IS have a higher learning curve (but people shouldn't be learning to pilot a mech in FP, thats another discussion). I can only offer anecdotal evidence here, but in our unit we have several seasoned pilots that can do equally well on either side of the fight, I'm not as good as them but I'm pretty much even too, just not as high scoring.

As to if this breaks faction balance, the funny thing is that apart from my observations on running hotter with my EBJ, it doesn't really *feel* buffed. Its almost like they came up with the whole skill tree construct with very little to offer over the existing system... I know they could tweak the numbers and it certainly appears on paper to buff things... I dunno, when I stop and look at the differences in performance it really seems minute for all that work...

Edited by MovinTarget, 10 February 2017 - 04:39 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

MovinTarget, on 10 February 2017 - 04:37 AM, said:

I'm not sure about the balance being bad in the first place... population balance, yes.. skill balance, yes... both of these see-saw as merc go back and forth, but tech balance is not terrible apart from IS have a higher learning curve (but people shouldn't be learning to pilot a mech in FP, thats another discussion). I can only offer anecdotal evidence here, but in our unit we have several seasoned pilots that can do equally well on either side of the fight, I'm not as good as them but I'm pretty much even too, just not as high scoring.

As to if this breaks faction balance, the funny thing is that apart from my observations on running hotter with my EBJ, it doesn't really *feel* buffed. Its almost like they came up with the whole skill tree construct with very little to offer over the existing system... I know they could tweak the numbers and it certainly appears on paper to buff things... I dunno, when I stop and look at the differences in performance it really seems minute for all that work...

There is really no doubt that the best mechs before squirktree are all clan mechs. Look at the tournaments for money where both teams do their utter most to win, there was nearly only KDK-3, TBR, HBK-IIc and JR7-IIC. There were a few WHM-6R for dakka, but that was before the NGR was allowed, so had the tournament been run now that role would be filled by NGRs. There are other sources too, like the mech performance poll, or Gmans metamechs.com, or the challenge-stats-summary sheet. All show the same thing, clan has all the best mechs, IS has none of the best mechs. You don't even have to play the game to know this if you want to know it.

There is also really no doubt that the proposed change here favors clan mechs over IS mechs, strongly. Relatively speaking, one of the very very best competetive mech is the 2x gauss, 1x ppc Night Gyrs, was buffed the most. They did not lose any quirks, get 80% of the relatively small skill tree bonuses (80% of a 10% bonus means ~2% in performance), and they run really cool to start with (only the single ppc and JJ generates heat). Which IS mech is even on the same planet as the Night Gyr now?

Edited by Duke Nedo, 10 February 2017 - 06:12 AM.

[MovinTarget]

Duke Nedo, on 10 February 2017 - 06:11 AM, said:

There is really no doubt that the best mechs before squirktree are all clan mechs. Look at the tournaments for money where both teams do their utter most to win, there was nearly only KDK-3, TBR, HBK-IIc and JR7-IIC. There were a few WHM-6R for dakka, but that was before the NGR was allowed, so had the tournament been run now that role would be filled by NGRs. There are other sources too, like the mech performance poll, or Gmans metamechs.com, or the challenge-stats-summary sheet. All show the same thing, clan has all the best mechs, IS has none of the best mechs. You don't even have to play the game to know this if you want to know it.

There is also really no doubt that the proposed change here favors clan mechs over IS mechs, strongly. Relatively speaking, one of the very very best competetive mech is the 2x gauss, 1x ppc Night Gyrs, was buffed the most. They did not lose any quirks, get 80% of the relatively small skill tree bonuses (80% of a 10% bonus means ~2% in performance), and they run really cool to start with (only the single ppc and JJ generates heat). Which IS mech is even on the same planet as the Night Gyr now?

Okay, relax, take a deep breath, I'm not saying that things are *prefectly* balanced (which would be impossible since there is hardpoint place/hitboxes/engine caps in play) I am saying that the mechs themselves are not *way* out of balance. Even back in FP v3, before the big tonnage skew, the deciding factors for who was winning was not the tech, but the people, mostly big merc units see-sawing populations in FP.

This goes back to my contention that I've brought up numerous times in the various threads when people clamor for "balance":

What is balance?
Because again, even if you homogenize the tech (lore-mongers would go ballistic!), the physical mechs themselves are different and you'd end up with a new meta. Homogenize the mechs? Make them all the exact same layout, hitbox? Even more ridiculous, nobody would ask for that.

Also, consider that we can't look at comp play in isolation here, whatever "balance" we find has to work for QP, FP, and Comp play... Also, it has to span levels of pilot competency because the Night Gyr you mentioned would be great in the hands of a top tier Comp player, but utter shite for a potato playing on DSL from the Antarctic... okay that example is a little unfair, but you do see what I mean right? Fact is, the "Comp Way" of playing maps/modes varies greatly from how us regular people, play the same map/modes for a whole host of reasons.

I am not dismissing your assertions about Comp players, but could Comp players in FP in IS mechs beat Comp players in Clan mechs? I won't say they absolutely will or won't, I think they have a good chance. I don't like responding with absolutes when human beings are involved...



Since your question was about faction balance, I responded from an FP perspective as that is where factions would need to have "balance".

Your assertions on Comp play, that most players use clan mechs for Comp is fair, but wouldn't that be a different argument for making sure that ultimately Comp play has a greater variety?

Having said all that, I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, just clarifying my position and perspective

[Duke Nedo]

MovinTarget, on 10 February 2017 - 06:45 AM, said:

Okay, relax, take a deep breath, I'm not saying that things are *prefectly* balanced (which would be impossible since there is hardpoint place/hitboxes/engine caps in play) I am saying that the mechs themselves are not *way* out of balance. Even back in FP v3, before the big tonnage skew, the deciding factors for who was winning was not the tech, but the people, mostly big merc units see-sawing populations in FP.

This goes back to my contention that I've brought up numerous times in the various threads when people clamor for "balance":

What is balance?
Because again, even if you homogenize the tech (lore-mongers would go ballistic!), the physical mechs themselves are different and you'd end up with a new meta. Homogenize the mechs? Make them all the exact same layout, hitbox? Even more ridiculous, nobody would ask for that.

Also, consider that we can't look at comp play in isolation here, whatever "balance" we find has to work for QP, FP, and Comp play... Also, it has to span levels of pilot competency because the Night Gyr you mentioned would be great in the hands of a top tier Comp player, but utter shite for a potato playing on DSL from the Antarctic... okay that example is a little unfair, but you do see what I mean right? Fact is, the "Comp Way" of playing maps/modes varies greatly from how us regular people, play the same map/modes for a whole host of reasons.

I am not dismissing your assertions about Comp players, but could Comp players in FP in IS mechs beat Comp players in Clan mechs? I won't say they absolutely will or won't, I think they have a good chance. I don't like responding with absolutes when human beings are involved...



Since your question was about faction balance, I responded from an FP perspective as that is where factions would need to have "balance".

Your assertions on Comp play, that most players use clan mechs for Comp is fair, but wouldn't that be a different argument for making sure that ultimately Comp play has a greater variety?

Having said all that, I'm not disagreeing with you entirely, just clarifying my position and perspective

Heh, yeah I guess I am a bit angry. Not at you though mate.

No offense, but it's not really a discussion whether clans are significantly stronger than IS. All players I know of that understands the game agree that this is the case. Most think the balance we had in April last year was pretty good, but from there we have had a several rounds of nerfs to IS quirks, the resize and the introduction of Kodiaks, Night Gyrs and Marauder-IIcs.

So yes... I am angry with PGI for after these triple nerfs to the IS side, destroying the best faction balance we had... they announce another nerf to IS, wrecking the last shard of faction balance we had. It hurts the game I like. I play(ed) both sides, enjoy both sides. I mostly rant about IS balance but that's because they have been the weaker side for 95% of the time after clan invasion, making MWO a worse game that it has to be. Destroyed balance will drive me away from the game and I don't think I'll be alone... and that is frustrating because I invested a lot in this game, 200+ mastered mechs split fairly equal between IS and clans.

As for using the comp scene as a balance benchmark, I think there is none better. There are a few exceptions to keep in mind though, for example systems like LRMs and SSRMs can not be balanced by comp standards because if they were to be competitive weapons, then then your be very OP in the PUG-environment...

[TankBadger42]

I think we are forgetting they intend to balance things, after the basic test is out of the way.

However, there are some mechs that will do from bad to useless if they don't quirk them back up.
They are too confident with being able to do away with quirks.

A few of the hunchbacks and the Atlas' are good IS examples. **** fox and the Summoners are Clan examples of a mech that sucks without 'dem tasty cooldowns.

[MovinTarget]

Comp needs to be accounted for because if mechs are soley tuned for potatoes, they would be insane in the handsof players with skillz. Just understand that not everyone wants only comp-level play, nor can they obtain that level of play. In fact, i am sure that pgi has a pretty good idea of how many paying customers have no interest in comp builds and are more about lore and yucking it up. The much-maligned "set of 8" quirks kind of helped with this but there needed to be an IS equivalent for the outliers...

[Gas Guzzler]

kapusta11, on 09 February 2017 - 06:37 AM, said:

It's the same IMO, meaning it's still crаp because of base tech differences.

Well the crux of the issue is they nerfed a bunch of IS weapon quirks going along with the Skill tree, and then gave the Clans only a marginally less powerful nodes in the skill tree. The problem is, if you make balance all done in the skill tree, than IS mechs are underpowered as **** in the hands of new players that haven't ground out that 137000 xp and 9.1 million c-bills.

I actually really don't see how the skill tree will EVER facilitate a drastic reduction of inherent mech quirks, and if they do manage to do it this way, IS mechs are going to be pieces of **** while you are trying to level them. The right way to do it is to balance the tech, and that is completely separate from any skill tree.

[kapusta11]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 February 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

The right way to do it is to balance the tech, and that is completely separate from any skill tree.

I fully agree with that, I don't just expect skill trees to balance anything. With or without them tech disparity should be addressed directly, skill trees are not the (primary) issue here.

Nerfing IS quirks was indeed a stupid move. Why would you nerf one side (the weaker one) after buffing both?

Edited by kapusta11, 10 February 2017 - 11:14 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

kapusta11, on 10 February 2017 - 11:13 AM, said:

I fully agree with that, I don't just expect skill trees to balance anything. With or without them tech disparity should be addressed directly, skill trees are not the (primary) issue here.

Nerfing IS quirks was indeed a stupid move. Why would you nerf one side (the weaker one) after buffing both?

Yeah, exactly. This is why I predicted that all quirks would just carry over into the PTS version, since they can't possibly use the skill tree alone to compensate for quirks without breaking something else. I had too high hopes it seems, they just went ahead and nerfed the bad mechs and left the good mechs alone... but why?

[MovinTarget]

Can we just get an armored core mmo?

[Nimnul]

I think that the sphere has too many advantages. It should be reduced. Clans can not do anything to do with LPL batlmasters. That shoot as gauss 0.6s - bonus

Edited by Nimnul, 13 February 2017 - 08:37 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Hmm, that's an unexpected revival and an even more unexpected reply. Hopefully this will look better before it threatens to go live next time...