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[Mawai]

Hi All,

In my opinion, balance in MWO has been difficult to achieve between clan and IS mechs and for underperforming chassis in each category.

PGI has spent significant resources coming up with "quirks" to apply to individual underperforming mechs to try to give them a role.

There are problems with such a system
1) It takes quite a bit of effort for PGI to go through, analyse each mech and try to come up with specific quirks and then they need to change tables within the game to record each of these changes. Apparently these changes are made by hand and can be error prone.
2) As the balance of the game shifts over time, quirks can become too powerful or irrelevant.

I have two suggestions that could be used to address ongoing balance issues and reduce the workload on PGI.

With the implementation of the new skill tree, PGI has created the infrastructure needed to support different skill selections for each mech owned by a player. This means that skill unlocks AND potentially quirks do not need to be global but can be applied on a per mech basis.

Balance idea #1.
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Each mech is assigned a bonus number of skill nodes to be applied to the new skill trees based on balance considerations.
- Good mechs would get NONE. (Good is defined by PGI by analysing play metrics).
- Other mechs would have some number of additional free skill nodes (number to be determined). The number would vary depending on the relative performance of mechs (perfornance tiers could grant 3, 5, 7 or 10 points for example).
- All PGI would have to do is determine how many free nodes a mech would receive. The players could then optimize the balance advantage for their specific build and playstyle.
- The total number of nodes availabe for a mech would be 91+ number of free nodes.

The main issue with this approach is the possible reducing utility of the last few skill nodes. How many extra nodes will help in the end since the 92 to 101 skill nodes will likely have the least utility. However, since the free nodes are granted at the beginning, underperforming mechs will get a leg up on the skill tree from the beginning.


Balance idea #2.
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Introduce a "quirk" tree identical to the skill tree implementation. However, quirks can only be purchased using quirk points which are given to a mech based on balance considerations. They are a part of the mech. Good mechs would receive no quirk points. Underperforming mechs would receive some number of quirk points for purchases from this specific tree. The number of quirk points would depend on the values assigned for individual quirks. The smaller the numbers the greater the number of quirk points that could be assigned and the greater the granularity possible in balance.
- the quirls available would be similar to existing allowing for improved mech movement, weapon performance or simlar.
- values/node in the quirk tree would be on the order of 1% assuming that 5 to 10 quirk points would be allocated to an underperforming mech.
- the player could then choose the quirk that would fit their build and playstyle likely leading to an overall better balance in the game.

Advantages
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The advantages of these systems are
1) More satisfying for players since it allows for a greater level of customization
2) Utilizes the new skill tree system (or similar quirk system that could be based on the same code) to enable a more flexible approach to balance than fixed quirks
3) Reduced work for PGI since the only balance that PGI needs to work out is how many skill/quirk points to allocate to each mech ... the players do the rest.
4) Since the code for the new skill system is more or less in place, the additional code required to support either of the above systems should be relatively modest from an investment perspective but has the pay off of greater player involvement and hopefully a more dynamic and balanced game between clans and IS and for underperforming mechs on both sides.