79 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

So apparently there are "5" guys that troll the forum and everyone else wants Stock/LORE loadouts in FP.

These same "5" don't really know what they are talking about, apparently.

Stock load out Faction Play is news to me, not one player I drop with out of the 200 or so have ever even mentioned wanting it. But apparently that's "5" guys. Must be a lot of alt accounts.

naterist, on 14 February 2017 - 11:02 PM, said:

it really isnt a minority opinion. the 5 guys who troll these forums for a living just bash it a lot to make it seem like a majority doesnt like it.

Reference to stock mode: HERE


Lets see where this majority actually sits, shall we?

Edited by justcallme A S H, 15 February 2017 - 04:57 AM.

[Black Ivan]

Lore yes, stock no. IS would have a very gard time fighting clans. In addition there would have to be exclusive mechs for every of the great houses. They would have to be balanced, otherwise everyone would go to the house with the best Mech and that is it.

[justcallme A S H]

Not balance - as is stock load out in the mechbay.

So you've got LRM IS mechs vs some of the pure Meta Clan ones.


There is no balancing stock loadouts! Run what ya brung

[Kael Posavatz]

Is there a point to this poll?

TT is not actually lore. It is a mechanic that translates lore into a miniatures wargame.

Even stock loads aren't 'lore' since PGI doubled armor values.

Edited by Kael Posavatz, 15 February 2017 - 12:56 AM.

[Carl Vickers]

Kael Posavatz, on 15 February 2017 - 12:55 AM, said:

Is there a point to this poll?

TT is not actually lore. It is a mechanic that translates lore into a miniatures wargame.

Even stock loads aren't 'lore' since PGI doubled armor values.

Look at some other threads in the faction forum and you will see why the vote has been put up.

[justcallme A S H]

Kael Posavatz, on 15 February 2017 - 12:55 AM, said:

Is there a point to this poll?

TT is not actually lore. It is a mechanic that translates lore into a miniatures wargame.

Even stock loads aren't 'lore' since PGI doubled armor values.

Look at the quote in the first post.

Apparently, people that want to run their own builds are in the minority. I seek to find out if that is true, or nothing more than fallacy.

A lot of claims of "we" "majority" have been made on quite a few subjects lately - I flat out believe that to be total B/S.

I suspect the result of this post is it is not just "5" people wanting Faction Play to be about custom load outs. That that the actual majority is in favour of it.

So, lets see shall we?

[Kael Posavatz]

Carl Vickers, on 15 February 2017 - 01:22 AM, said:

Look at some other threads in the faction forum and you will see why the vote has been put up.

It appears that the inanities in this section of the forum have grown since my last visit, Carl.

I am not certain that the aforementioned poll is not among them, but I can appreciate--if not necessarily agree with--the thinking that led to it.

Of course, 'lore' has essentially been a non-issue in FW since the day it was first introduced, else we would have the Federated Commonwealth to deal with. Why are we debating mechs when we cannot even get the map right?

[Carl Vickers]

Agree but it is here now so it is what it is.

I know PGI wouldnt change it so I dun care.

Edited by Carl Vickers, 15 February 2017 - 02:21 AM.

[justcallme A S H]

Kael Posavatz, on 15 February 2017 - 01:45 AM, said:

Why are we debating mechs when we cannot even get the map right?

Half the issue right there!

[Codpond]

Man I am down to rock stock is builds... The lols will be awesome. Man that would be insane! Talk about stacked. Now I don't think this would be balanced in any way whatsoever, but man would it be crazy! I'd do it.

Oh oh 2 star bs 3 lance woot!!

Edited by Philocrates, 15 February 2017 - 03:21 AM.

[naterist]

You phrasef this poll really stupidly. Like, even for you this is especially dumb.

stock and implementing lore are not 100% synonymous.

and ya, i already think ash is pretty dense, well said guy below this.

Edited by naterist, 15 February 2017 - 01:56 PM.

[Daidachi]

naterist, on 15 February 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

You phrasef this poll really stupidly. Like, even for you this is especially dumb.

Not really. The first question hits the nail on the head - the second you introduce any degree of customization into mechs, you move away from stock and into choosing your own loadouts. Stock mode is precisely that - stock. From a pure TT perspective, battlemechs are hard locked to the loadouts listed, whilst omnimechs in tt are completely customisable, rather than the hardlocked omnipod system we have atm.

At the point in which you allow players to choose their own loadouts, you move towards the system we have in place now.

Stock is really an all or nothing proposition - unless there were reasons to carry a varying loadout such as AI turrets that are more than a nuisance, fortified hardpoints, tanks/VTOL's and airfields/aircrafts, there is only other players to account for, and players will always, without fail when given a choice pick the most effective loadout to destroy the enemy in the manner they are most comfortable with. That means long range PPFLD is king, because the positives of such a build for a smart player are not outweighed by the negatives.

This is a game inspired by the Battletech franchise. It is not accurate, it has never been accurate, and it has also never pretended to be fully accurate to the lore, because as much as I may take issue with PGI's balance attempts, they accepted (rightly) that canon veracity has to take a back seat to game design - what works in a tabletop game, or on megamek runs into problems the second you give players choice, especially in a fringe F2P title.

I'm not going to change your mind on this, but mine is an opinion shared by more than just Ash and Carl - and we are all also paying customers of this game.

[justcallme A S H]

naterist, on 15 February 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

You phrasef this poll really stupidly. Like, even for you this is especially dumb.

It's rather clear.

It will show you are the minority, and thus, stop claiming you "speak" for the "majority".

That will do us all a favour.

[Emeraudes]

naterist, on 15 February 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

You phrasef this poll really stupidly. Like, even for you this is especially dumb.

I find this quite clear actually, could you point out what you do not understand?

My understanding is this poll bring into question whether
1: people prefer stock mode or customizability in Faction Warfare
2: With reference to the first question, whether they'd play if it was only option 1 as per that question.

Now, I wouldn't presume upon the understanding of the OP but it's pretty offensive to say someone's phrasing is "stupidly" done and "even for you" which insinuates that you believe they already are stupid. If you're the only one who has trouble understanding, there is no shame in asking.

Hope that clears it up for you

[KinLuu]

Stockmechs are stupid. And thus, stockmode is also stupid.

[The Errant]

Short Answer/TL;DR:

As much as I want to say yes, eh...I'm afraid not. It'd take a massive restructuring and rethinking of the game to make a stock mode work and I just don't see that happening.

Long Answer:

IF there were a BV (Battle Value, for folks who haven't played tabletop Battletech) system AND it were accurate, you could match teams of IS stock mechs against smaller teams of clan mechs. Setting a hard count at 12v10 or 12v8 would not work, because total team BVs would be fluid on a per-match situation depending on what mechs everybody brought and to have balance you'd need variable match sizes. With units/premades who want to drop at specific strengths, how do you manage that? You have a clan 12-man ready to drop but you zone in against IS so now you have to ditch 4-5 guys to make it a fair match? I don't see that working well.

Alternatively you could change the drop deck tonnage limit to a drop deck BV limit, but you'd still have to redo match size because 12v12 would restrict clan mech choices to equalize BV between teams (way worse than they're restricted right now by their lower drop deck tonnage, entire classes of mech would potentially be ruled out). That or Clans would just have fewer mechs, 2-3 waves instead of 4. Which would create a whole host of other population issues related to things like how many bodies it takes to fill out IS teams vs Clan teams, how much money it takes to put together a drop deck, etc.

Now if you made it so that IS just fought IS and clans just fought clans in this stock mode...that could maybe work to a degree. But there'd be a meta there too, and I'm certain it would be far more restrictive, especially for IS as a lot of the clan mechs have good hardpoints in general.

The FP meta and indeed the wider MWO meta is mobility/speed synergy, high-damage alphas, high hardpoints and uniform weapon profiles (aka boating). The current system lets you more or less control all of those things except hardpoint locations, and even that to a very limited degree based on which hardpoints you decide to put your weapons in, so you can bring mechs with not-quite-optimal hardpoints and still do alright if you're decent as long as you have the right speed and loadouts. Though not as well as if you'd gone full-on meta, and that's why it's the meta.

The 'stock' meta would consist only of specific mech variants that have all of those things. I really don't think we'd see anymore variety in stock mode than we do currently. Which doesn't make a stock mode unfeasible in and of itself, but I see stock mode linked to greater variety in a lot of posts and I just don't think those two things go together like that.

12 stock IS mechs vs 12 stock clan mechs, as currently implemented in-game? Nah. If you think clan has the tech edge now, wait till IS has to say goodbye to:

1) Pretty much all assaults (not fast enough)
2) Speed in general, IS average speed tends to be around 64 for mediums and heavies
3) Alphas that can compete with the clans

Do I think there are conditions where a stock mode could work? Yeah. Would I play it under those conditions? Sure. Do I think it's realistic to expect the necessary changes to meet those conditions? No. Would I trust PGI to implement these changes properly? No, and to be honest I can't think of a dev studio I WOULD trust to get it right. Would I want to make FP as a whole stock only? No way.

But this entire discussion is academic in the face of the population issue. As in it's barely enough to support the single FP mode we have right now, divide it further and watch the wait times skyrocket causing even MORE people to get fed up and leave, tanking the whole mode.

EDIT: A final note from a lore perspective. In BT lore, IS didn't win the Clan Invasion and won only a handful of individual battles. The Clans were stopped at Tukayyid (because of basically a cease-fire to buy time) but they kept the planets they took. Also, ComStar wouldn't have won a war with them anymore than the Successor States could have. In that respect the idea of balanced play in FP as a whole is very non-lore, and if FP were lore-consistent along those lines I doubt many people would stick around IS-side to get their faces stomped repeatedly...although who knows.

Edited by The Errant, 15 February 2017 - 06:53 AM.

[MaxFool]

naterist, on 15 February 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

You phrasef this poll really stupidly. Like, even for you this is especially dumb.

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people. But I don't think Ash is one.

[rolly]

Hi could you correct your poll please. Its pretty bias if you suggest one answer is undesirable. First you don't give any other variance in answer options, second you don't define what you mean by Lore in the FP context. Then you sour the first option by suggesting its strictly Lore/TT stock mode based.

Revise it and then you'll probably get a better sample. Otherwise its irrelevant.

[justcallme A S H]

The poll questions are totally neutral. Please point out where the bias is please.

It is a simple yes or no answer. There are no caveats, restrictions, variables.



This is just based on the tripe a very (tiny) part of the MWO community is spouting, and I intend to prove it to be a load of crap.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 15 February 2017 - 08:33 AM.

[Kael Posavatz]

Shall we see what happens to lore when the timeline advances?

The Map should get...interesting.

The degree of interesting will depend, of course, upon whether they decide to go all the way to 3068 or just stop at 3060.