77 replies to this topic

[MMoonSetW]

The thing is, even if PGI magically nerfed everything to the magical sweet spot (which does not exist in the first place). Everyone is feeling (magically) relatively fair, but we will be facing a less responsive and more annoying game.

[MMoonSetW]

And PGI knew desync is going to be a divisive change, that's why they have hidden it under the skill tree patch. I assume most people in this sub-forum have read the patch notes throughout, but what about those more casual players who wouldn't? To them engine desync is far less visible than the skill tree.

Desync itself is totally worth a separate PTS and a separate discussion, if PGI knew it will be popular they would have capitalized on it way more.

[SmokedJag]

MMoonSetW, on 29 April 2017 - 04:19 AM, said:

And PGI knew desync is going to be a divisive change, that's why they have hidden it under the skill tree patch. I assume most people in this sub-forum have read the patch notes throughout, but what about those more casual players who wouldn't? To them engine desync is far less visible than the skill tree.

Desync itself is totally worth a separate PTS and a separate discussion, if PGI knew it will be popular they would have capitalized on it way more.

A hard nerf to dominant playstyles is never going to be popular or receive constructive feedback. If they've decided they're gonna do it for balance reasons, it's better just to push it live.

[MMoonSetW]

SmokedJag, on 29 April 2017 - 05:07 AM, said:

A hard nerf to dominant playstyles is never going to be popular or receive constructive feedback. If they've decided they're gonna do it for balance reasons, it's better just to push it live.

Peeking is not a dominant play style (brawling is way more prevalent). Many players I played with cannot do peeking properly even after I told them how to do it. (These guys are veterans of this game, but they find it easier to just brawl. I am quite the opposite.) PGI is aiming at the wrong target.

[C E Dwyer]

Whether you like it or loath it

Engine desync is the only feature which has any point in this entire build.

It's the only feature that actively changes the way people will play out of all the changes and the skill tree

[MMoonSetW]

Cathy, on 29 April 2017 - 06:34 AM, said:

Whether you like it or loath it

Engine desync is the only feature which has any point in this entire build.

It's the only feature that actively changes the way people will play out of all the changes and the skill tree

You are right in that the engine desync will have a bigger impact than the skill tree itself, which is ironic.

This change makes me think of when I was playing Robocraft about 2 years ago. At some point the devs of that game started making big changes to the game (by adding parts, big nerfs, and straight up changes to the physics), allegedly for the better. However the popularity and feedback have only gone downhill from that point. Robocraft was once one of the top F2P games on steam and now it is far from what it used to be. MWO does not have the base popularity to afford such controversial changes.

Btw as far as I can recall the changes made to Robocraft were very similar to the engine desync. They both break builds that players took time to build and offer no compensation, they introduce too many balance problems (the desync is more so in this respect than the Robocraft changes), and they divide the community. I don't see MWO going anywhere if this trend continued, given that it's a niche game already.

[The Basilisk]

MMoonSetW, on 27 April 2017 - 02:30 AM, said:

Sure I tried my mechs, HBKIIC is now significantly slower (not PTS2 CTF slow, cuz that was a bug, but still a very noticeable difference even after a 20% acceleration and deceleration skill).
Pretty sure they did buff some baseline stats of traditionally agile mech (like the Assassin). And the rest of the mech you mentioned are not very fast mechs to begin with.

Problem I have is even with some mechs that are not known for speed I tend to go with the top engine rating to get the most agility (for example the HBKIIC), and I was fine with it. In the new system PGI thinks that HBKIIC should be slow and gave it an average agility, and locks it to that fixed value regardless what I want to do with it. I simply want to retain my freedom to do whatever I want to my mech.

EDIT: just took a look at the acceleration chart before and post change, the difference is huge. Before it starts at about 70 at 0kph (the current version does not display the exact numbers, but I can tell it's way over 50), now it's 24.03 at 0kph.

Thats exactly it.
You want something that PGI (and lots of ppl out there including me) does not want.
I.E. the ability to change one of the base characteristics of a mech.
This base character is now more determined by the chassis inherent agility stats modified by your skill tree.
And I find this to be super ok since this will help to increase the traits that set appart one mech from an other.

[50 50]

I had a good go at the mechs without the skills applied to see how they felt with the desync.
I liked it.
At the small end of the scale they felt responsive and agile.
Where it was quite interesting was in the Clan heavy mechs where there are quite a few with the same top speed thanks to the locked engines.
A mech like the Maddog at 60 tons still felt fairly responsive, maybe just a touch less on it's handling but basically like a big medium.
This changed the higher up the scale I went up to the Timberwolf where I really noticed a difference.
Getting this 75 tonner up to full speed and trying to make corners was tough. It has a really poor turning circle at top speed but that seemed about right for the size of the thing. It's always felt more like a medium mech and the desync made it feel more like a 75 tonner. Just need to let the speed drop a little to make some turns.

Interestingly I thought the way the mechs handled felt more like they did in earlier versions of MechWarrior and I thought that was good.

I didn't get around to putting the mobility nodes on and having another go under this PTS but I did that under the last one and there were noticeable improvements. However we should not expect the same level of agility as we have now and I feel this will help the game. If I want a mech with a good top speed and to handle well then I will look at a bigger engine and allocating the skills that way. But I will not expect my Assault mech to behave like a Medium.

[MMoonSetW]

The Basilisk, on 29 April 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

Thats exactly it.
You want something that PGI (and lots of ppl out there including me) does not want.
I.E. the ability to change one of the base characteristics of a mech.
This base character is now more determined by the chassis inherent agility stats modified by your skill tree.
And I find this to be super ok since this will help to increase the traits that set appart one mech from an other.

Simply, I'm totally OK with someone giving up their own rights, but at the same time no one can force me to give up my rights.

[50 50]

MMoonSetW, on 28 April 2017 - 05:12 AM, said:

Yeah the Urbanmech is the perfect example for a mech that will need a big buff in the PTS, and every other mech that tends the use larger engines than the stock ones as well.

I had a go of the Urban and it was quite zippy with it's maximum engine. Fast off the mark, turned well.

MMoonSetW, on 29 April 2017 - 03:33 AM, said:

No it does not give lights an advantage because they are nerfed even harder.

Where you won't notice anything is in the Assaults because they are already so cumbersome that the loss of mobility doesn't do much. Once they are up and running, then they can get to where they want to, but will still turn like a pig in mud.

Because the mech agility is now based on tonnage, the light mechs will all be very agile regardless of the size of the engine.
You want to go fast, then yes, you will want that big engine, but it's going to turn according to it's mass.
Light mechs will still have the advantage over anything heavier than them because everything else is going to behave according to their weight.

Would have been fun to do some 'mech races' on the test centre in regards to this.

[oldradagast]

Tell me again how reducing mobility in a game with already low TTK and the ability to put a staggering amount of damage on a single pixel from long range is going to fix anything?

This game is already dominated by long-range poking; reducing mobility will only slide the game further towards hiding behind rocks and slamming people with various mixes of long-range firepower. With your ability to twist away damage, maneuver in a brawl, and even retreat back behind cover all reduced, long-range, low-risk poking will become even more dominant.

MWO does NOT need this, and this stupid mobility nerf fixes NOTHING because "most mechs are too mobile" is not a real problem in the game.

[MMoonSetW]

Well... The meta in this game really depends on whether you are dropping in a unit or not. In solo queue poking is good, but in group queue a coordinated rush of any brawling mech will be devastating. The fact that different queues behave so differently makes any across the board balancing move questionable.

IMO engine desync will make some happy and some (not a minority by any means) sad, which is a bad thing for a game's population.

The overall move to a slower game is very much a preference thing, and it punishes anyone who does not have the same preferences, which is simply a silly move on PGI's part.

[The Basilisk]

MMoonSetW, on 29 April 2017 - 06:53 PM, said:

Well... The meta in this game really depends on whether you are dropping in a unit or not. In solo queue poking is good, but in group queue a coordinated rush of any brawling mech will be devastating. The fact that different queues behave so differently makes any across the board balancing move questionable.

IMO engine desync will make some happy and some (not a minority by any means) sad, which is a bad thing for a game's population.

The overall move to a slower game is very much a preference thing, and it punishes anyone who does not have the same preferences, which is simply a silly move on PGI's part.

Well for everything you said there is an oposite.
You can always say "its stupid to do this and that because someone will get pissed because of that."
Well ... and ?
There are always ppl that can't accept change and when things do not go along the lines they like.
Either they can adapt and stay a part of the community or not. *shrug*
For a long time the game went towards the faster, more quirks, more generalisation more casual twitch shooter route.
This road ended and now the game will head down an other road. (finaly)

Edited by The Basilisk, 30 April 2017 - 03:32 AM.

[MMoonSetW]

The Basilisk, on 30 April 2017 - 03:29 AM, said:

Well for everything you said there is an oposite.
You can always say "its stupid to do this and that because someone will get pissed because of that."
Well ... and ?
There are always ppl that can't accept change and when things do not go along the lines they like.
Either they can adapt and stay a part of the community or not. *shrug*
For a long time the game went towards the faster, more quirks, more generalisation more casual twitch shooter route.
This road ended and now the game will head down an other road. (finaly)

I'm not happy not just because of the change itself, but what it means for the future patches of this game.

The patch shows that PGI wants to limit the variety of builds by forcing strict roles onto mechs, it also shows PGI wants to get away with breaking builds and playstyles based on personal preference while not compensating for it. What I found the most ridiculous is the fact that they have hidden desync under skill tree changes where they could totally make a separate patch and PTS for desync alone due to the change it brings, which means that they are simply not being open and honest.

Edited by MMoonSetW, 30 April 2017 - 04:04 AM.

[The Basilisk]

MMoonSetW, on 30 April 2017 - 04:02 AM, said:

I'm not happy not just because of the change itself, but what it means for the future patches of this game.

The patch shows that PGI wants to limit the variety of builds by forcing strict roles onto mechs, it also shows PGI wants to get away with breaking builds and playstyles based on personal preference while not compensating for it. What I found the most ridiculous is the fact that they have hidden desync under skill tree changes where they could totally make a separate patch and PTS for desync alone due to the change it brings, which means that they are simply not being open and honest.

Isn't that a bit harsh?
Are they realy "hiding" something ?
It was openly announced as a big change after all.

Concerning the restriction of build options....I can not realy see that.
Sure some old build options will no longer be viable but others will emerge.
Remember the rise and fall of the extreme Clan Laservomit.
There was basicaly no other competitive builds on Clanmechs.
Or the Gauss and PPC era of poptarting.
Or the era of Lurmageddon.

All those singleminded gamestyles have been broken once....and others emerged.

Now there will be new meta builds and with the new tech this summer (if it will come this summer ) there will be shitloads of other new builds be made available.

[Knighthawk26]

Desyncing the engine from the torso twist speed is not such a bad idea. But, bigger engines should still increase acceleration and deceleration. This might be a compromise players could live with and that allows PGI to move forward with their plans for some rebalancing between clan and IS mechs.

[MMoonSetW]

The Basilisk, on 30 April 2017 - 06:11 AM, said:

Isn't that a bit harsh?
Are they realy "hiding" something ?
It was openly announced as a big change after all.

Concerning the restriction of build options....I can not realy see that.
Sure some old build options will no longer be viable but others will emerge.
Remember the rise and fall of the extreme Clan Laservomit.
There was basicaly no other competitive builds on Clanmechs.
Or the Gauss and PPC era of poptarting.
Or the era of Lurmageddon.

All those singleminded gamestyles have been broken once....and others emerged.

Now there will be new meta builds and with the new tech this summer (if it will come this summer ) there will be shitloads of other new builds be made available.

Yes they are hiding desync. In terms of the impact to the gameplay, there's no doubt that desync is more significant than the skill tree. With the skill tree it cannot change the pace of the game by so much. I'm not saying that they should put skill tree under desync, cuz that's stupid too. At least they can make a separate PTS and patch post and make everyone aware. There are people who don't read further than the titles.

Another point is that skill tree does not break builds, it facilitates them. (the way it works is still questionable, but it's not the topic of this post.) However the desync will most definitely break builds and there's no way that PGI doesn't know that.

EDIT: Desync is not going negatively affect builds based on weapons, but based on which end of the engine spectrum you are on. Desync will be more punishing and because of its much broader scope, it is bound to affect builds it did not intend to break.

The problem with these huge balancing patches is that as new metas emerge and old one die, at any given point there will only be a handful of meta builds, and people are still going to complain. I don't see why can't PGI just buff the weaker build a bit at a time so that everything can be somewhere close to meta and at that point the game can be more balanced and you will have more meta choices because this time around both the old and new metas are all there.

Edited by MMoonSetW, 30 April 2017 - 09:55 PM.

[Katastrophy Kid]

Maxing out the mobility tree doesn't bring a mech up to the standard of agility that they enjoy on the live server as far as I can tell. Every mech I tested , the Locust, Phoenix Hawk, Marauder, and King Crab, each felt sluggish and less responsive with or without the Mobility Tree maxed out. This diminishes game play for me instead of enhancing it. I would like to see the Devs either enhance the Mobility Tree to allow pilots to achieve the same degree of agility that they enjoy now, tie the Mobility Tree Perks to engine size somehow, or forgo the engine desynchronization all together.

Tie Mobility Tree modifiers to engine size. Start with a low baseline modifier for engine size and increase the modifier for each node used so that maxing out the tree brings mobility and agility to the standard that mechs currently enjoy on the live server. I feel like this would be an acceptable compromise for most people.

Edited by Katastrophe Kid, 01 May 2017 - 02:49 PM.