34 replies to this topic

[Requiemking]

So, I've been doing some thinking, and I may have figured out what is the real reason for MWO's current state. It doesn't lie with the Clans, nor with PGI's incompetence, not even with the playerbase's own temperamental nature. It lies with a system that has been in game since the beginning, and as far as I know, has never been changed. That system is the score system.

Now, you may be asking, what's wrong with the score system? Simple. It bases the majority of your score on damage dealt, with little emphasis on the objectives. There is also the factor of the combat-related bonuses(ie KMDD, Component destruction, ect) not only being available in every gamemode, but also paying far more than objective-based bonuses. If you really look, the majority of the current ingame problems can be traced back to this faulty system:

1) Clans OP: This exists because Clans are good at not only dealing lots of damage, but also spreading said damage around, thus allowing them to get higher scores and more Cbills than an equivalent IS mech.

2)Lights UP: Lights, as a whole, cannot deal large amounts of damage, thus meaning that their matchscores and Cbill earnings are, as a whole, lower than the other weightclasses.

3) Every mode is Skirmish: Since Damage gives so much matchscore, wiping the enemy team out is far more attractive than actually completing the objective.

These are just a few of the problems caused by the score system, and they are hardly the only major ones. Now, before a certain group of potato-quality come barging into the thread proclaiming that "Objectives are only there to encourage us to move around when fighting", those Objectives are the whole reason we are doing that mission. The enemy team's presence is an inconvenience, yet wiping them out gives you a bigger payout than completing the mission.

Now, this is only a discussion thread(seeing as this is the General Discussion section), I will be posting my proposed fix in the Feature Suggestion section, where it belongs.

EDIT: Proposed fix and poll are in this thread: https://mwomercs.com...n-score-system/

Edited by Requiemking, 20 April 2017 - 08:00 AM.

[cazidin]

Our Balance Overlord and his master, mostly.

[Requiemking]

cazidin, on 18 April 2017 - 01:55 PM, said:

Our Balance Overlord and his master, mostly.

How can you achieve true balance when the score system itself rewards mechs that can deal lots of damage more than mechs that can't?

[cazidin]

Requiemking, on 18 April 2017 - 02:00 PM, said:

How can you achieve true balance when the score system itself rewards mechs that can deal lots of damage more than mechs that can't?

Visit a mech monastery until you achieve balance within yourself.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Your second problem isn't. For any passingly competent pilot it's vastly easier to rack up high damage scores in a light because you can avoid fire, get free poke, and are generally not a priority target. Lights are almost always the first to engage and the last to die. Assaults are the class which is the most (effectively) underpowered because they are high priority targets (due to their potential damage) and cannot easily escape from bad situations or poke without taking return fire. A brawling assault can do much better than a light, but only in a specific set of circumstances: a whole team vs. team brawl in which it is not the first to go in and there are no coherent firing lines or focus fire calls. The same applies to a lesser extent to the more potent heavies.

A sniping or lurming assault/heavy is almost always going to do poorly compared to most things because they have all of the disadvantages without that breakthrough potential that causes high-profit high-score games. They have to deal out the sort of consistent low-level long-term damage which is not safe to aim for in a large, slow 'mech.

That's just how it goes. It sounds counterintuitive, but that's the difference between theorycrafting with paper numbers versus how things actually play out on the battlefield. Doesn't matter if you have a 90pt alpha if you get swarmed and melted before you can fire three times.

[Requiemking]

Alexander of Macedon, on 18 April 2017 - 02:06 PM, said:

Your second problem isn't. For any passingly competent pilot it's vastly easier to rack up high damage scores in a light because you can avoid fire, get free poke, and are generally not a priority target. Lights are almost always the first to engage and the last to die. Assaults are the class which is the most (effectively) underpowered because they are high priority targets (due to their potential damage) and cannot easily escape from bad situations or poke without taking return fire. A brawling assault can do much better than a light, but only in a specific set of circumstances: a whole team vs. team brawl in which it is not the first to go in and there are no coherent firing lines or focus fire calls. The same applies to a lesser extent to the more potent heavies.

A sniping or lurming assault/heavy is almost always going to do poorly compared to most things because they have all of the disadvantages without that breakthrough potential that causes high-profit high-score games. They have to deal out the sort of consistent low-level long-term damage which is not safe to aim for in a large, slow 'mech.

That's just how it goes. It sounds counterintuitive, but that's the difference between theorycrafting with paper numbers versus how things actually play out on the battlefield. Doesn't matter if you have a 90pt alpha if you get swarmed and melted before you can fire three times.

Ah, but the Rescale rendered every Light, except for the ACH and the LCT, pathetically easy to kill, by a combination of ballooned physical size, mobility profile nerfs, and the denial of Compensation quirks. And if Assaults are so underpowered, then why is the Kodiak the top mech in game I wonder?

[Alistair Winter]

The real problem is the players. If we had all just shut up and stop pointing out stuff about the game that is broken or that we don't like, this game would have been much better. But unfortunately, the stupid players thought that feedback was something more than praise, and so they ruined the game.

For more edgy and relevant MWO satire, please follow me on Twitter.

[Kangarad]

how can one achieve the best balance with just 2 legs? to be truly balanced you need more. Bring out the Tripods, no.... bring the Quad Mechs for ultimate balance.

Edited by Kangarad, 18 April 2017 - 03:04 PM.

[El Bandito]

Requiemking, on 18 April 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

1) Clans OP: This exists because Clans are good at not only dealing lots of damage, but also spreading said damage around, thus allowing them to get higher scores and more Cbills than an equivalent IS mech.

It's cause of Clan tech. Clan XL for starters. IS deal a lot of damage to Clans too, since most Clan mechs only go down after going below 30%. Meanwhile IS XL mech can die well above 60% HP.

If PGI equalizes Clan/IS tonnage again, you would see many units jump over to Clans.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 April 2017 - 06:59 PM.

[Requiemking]

El Bandito, on 18 April 2017 - 06:57 PM, said:

It's cause of Clan tech. Clan XL for starters. IS deal a lot of damage to Clans too, since most Clan mechs only go down after going below 30%. Meanwhile IS XL mech can die well above 60% HP.

If PGI equalizes Clan/IS tonnage again, you would see many units jump over to Clans.

Ah, but Clans earn more because 1) their weapons deal more damage and 2) they can easily spread said damage around. If the system rewarded Objective-based gameplay more than Combat-based gameplay, then that would switch over pretty much immediately. For example, if Skirmish rewarded Kills more than Damage, then IS would have a much better time of it, since IS weapons are more precise, thus leading to more efficient kills and more money.

[El Bandito]

Requiemking, on 18 April 2017 - 07:07 PM, said:

Ah, but Clans earn more because 1) their weapons deal more damage and 2) they can easily spread said damage around. If the system rewarded Objective-based gameplay more than Combat-based gameplay, then that would switch over pretty much immediately. For example, if Skirmish rewarded Kills more than Damage, then IS would have a much better time of it, since IS weapons are more precise, thus leading to more efficient kills and more money.

1. That's only match score-wise. C-Bill and XP wise, KMDD and Kills offer far better rewards than damage. I already tested it.

2. Damage contribution towards match score was reduced in this patch.

[Humpday]

Yeah rewards need to be a touch higher for completing objectives so that people actually DO the objective, otherwise everyone just defaults to skirmishing.

Not too high though or else then we get to shoot nothing, and that blows as well lol.

I remember one match on tera recently where we accidentally walked onto the enemy base as a team, trying to find the other team...and we cap'd it so fast we all went....well crap, I didn't even get to shoot.

[Karl Streiger]

Want objectives?
- either increase the TTK by simply reducing the damage of all weapon by 50%
- or add respawns and a ticket system like any other shooter

Rewards is only a soft counter for behaviour. People want to blow stuff - they won't stop in doing so even when they get less and less c-bills.
However, when the mission objectives are needed to win - you can bring back the Win based ELO system and after some time those that go for the kill and those that go for the win will be sperated.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 18 April 2017 - 09:59 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Gentlemen, ladies.. The REAL reason behind MWO's problems is rooted much deeper - it's in base design..

PGI tried to take a system that is developed for turn-based combat and make it into a PVP shooter.

Ain't nothing wrong with that.. But with it, came the inherent faults of that system.. Being the many imbalances and the difficulty in translating the fixes to those imbalances to a FPS environment..

And in this, the ultimate problem of MWO is revealed: Clear lack of the desire to do things properly!

Since it's inception, this game has been treated as more of a pet-project than an actual game. The lack of immersion is staggering, the lack of actual content is overwhelming, and everything in this game is subject to "the next mech pack we can sell".

Why would you want to fix balance? If all the mechs are balanced, you could not sell the next OP mech pack, and then nerf it when it's out for cbills..

Why would you add immersion? That would take the devs off more important things, like selling mech packs..

Why would you want to advertise the game? That would bring in more critically-minded players that would expect a full, immersive product, and would influence mech pack sales negatively!

Why would you pre-test, test and then re-test the new features before they were perfect? We can just let the players do it, and then cancel it when they can't agree on weather this feature or that one sucks more!

The base problem is the lack of will to do things properly, without just thinking about the money the next mech pack will bring..

If this game had a million players, PGI could finance everything just from the sales of mech bays.. but a half-assed product means a small playerbase, and then you have to sell 20-40$ mech packs just to keep the lights in your offices on..

(and please, nobody tell me a million players is too much.. some other games have many times that.. WOW started with a few players too once, and now it's like what, a billion?)

Simple fact of F2P games is quality = money = more quality.

Edited by Vellron2005, 19 April 2017 - 05:32 AM.

[Almond Brown]

What we really need is for the very vocal "Armchair Developers" around here to get off their arses and build us the "perfect" GD Mech game already. After 5 years of BS'ing us about how they they could do "so much better", hell just with some XML edits ffs, perhaps it is about time they put up or just shut the F up... maybe... :|

Who we kidding right? It is always easier to **** upon the work of others, than actually make something better yourself. Even after crying out from the soapbox of self-righteousness, a million times... "We could do Better!"..

Edited by Almond Brown, 19 April 2017 - 08:11 AM.

[Anjian]

You can do a million a month if you have at least 100,000 people paying a $10 monthly on premium time, camo and items. That's likely more than enough to sustain a studio with 50 people, along with the IT and cloud requirements.

[Requiemking]

Added link to poll thread.

[C E Dwyer]

Requiemking, on 18 April 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

Sadly the truth of the matter is that people are not interested in a match score based around objectives.

If you remember, turrets were first placed around the base in Assault, because people stamped their feet and whined to P.G.I rather than guard the objective.

Which is the mode people vote for the most, Skirmish.

This is because again people don't want to win by using intelligence, they want to win by beat down.

Same goes for maps, the most popular are the easiest to do damage on, nad are small so the knock down can happen.

Why else do you think that Solaris free for all is called out for ?

I'd support your idea's, but the simple fact is that the majority of the community don't want a game style that requires intelligence.

[Johnny Z]

Kangarad, on 18 April 2017 - 03:04 PM, said:

how can one achieve the best balance with just 2 legs? to be truly balanced you need more. Bring out the Tripods, no.... bring the Quad Mechs for ultimate balance.

A voice of wisdom rises above the rest.

[Vxheous]

Requiemking, on 18 April 2017 - 02:13 PM, said:

Ah, but the Rescale rendered every Light, except for the ACH and the LCT, pathetically easy to kill, by a combination of ballooned physical size, mobility profile nerfs, and the denial of Compensation quirks. And if Assaults are so underpowered, then why is the Kodiak the top mech in game I wonder?

The Kodiak is a top mech specifically because it doesn't suffer the drawbacks of most other assaults. The Kodiak goes relatively fast (67 kph), has high mounts, and has clan XL survivability. Most other assaults only have one of those 3 aspects, and IS assaults are either slow (50-60 kph) or rely on IS XL to thrive (Battlemaster 2c). Assaults are considered underpowered when compared to heavies because heavies sit at the optimal balance of the damage/survival/speed triangle.

The Kodiak build that performs the best is 2 Gauss 2 CERPPC, which is a fire support/lane lockdown role, previously occupied by the 5 AC5 Mauler MX-90 (which goes 52 kph). The Mad IIc Scorch is probably a good runner up for same role, but the Scorch can also brawl build (coincidentally, this makes the Scorch another top assault in the game)

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 20 April 2017 - 10:50 AM.