69 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

This is the most intelligent thing that PGI has ever "realized" and understood about some of the very poor decision choices that have been made in the past and most shockingly, rather than masking it with a bandaid they are addressing it directly (they haven't done this since the introduction of HSR in 2013.)

Quote

Q: So how do you account for the fact that a number of already high-performing ‘Mechs, particularly on the Clan side, are perceived to disproportionately benefit from the Skill Tree? These are already strong ‘Mechs with no offensive Quirks, but under the new Skill Tree players will be able to apply a list of optimized offensive Skills. Alternatively, many IS ‘Mechs rely on their current Quirks to be viable; why the blanket reduction of existing Quirks?

Chris: The current Quirk system is not producing the intended results for the experience we are attempting to provide with MWO. While Quirks have served us well up until this point as a system which assisted toward balance - fairly well in some cases - the results ultimately ran contrary to ‘Mech customization; one of the key features of MWO.

Overall, current Quirks have introduced a level of power creep that we feel is the wrong direction for MWO, with heavily Quirked ‘Mechs acting more as puzzles then avenues of personal customization. With often only loadouts that fully optimize around a ‘Mechs given quirks able to be considered in a “balanced” state, while loadouts which ignore, or do not care to customize into the very ridged quirks often massively underperforming loadouts that play exclusively to pre-canned quirks.
Loadouts often needed to be fully optimized around the ‘Mechs inherent Quirks in order for the ‘Mech to be considered in a “balanced”, optimal state. Loadouts which didn’t lean into the inherent Quirks would be taken with the knowledge that they’re sub-optimal. This was a restrictive system that needlessly caused entire Loadouts to underperform.

When one of the core pillars of the MWO experience is the ability to customize and personalize your ‘Mech through the MechLab, this is something we cannot ignore any longer. We intend to break this blind adherence to narrow offensive quirks as being what dictates an entire Chassis’ performance and balance.

This is not a decision taken lightly, and we are fully aware of the concerns raised about these changes. With the Skill Tree being released, we felt strongly that now was the time to address this long standing concern for the following reasons.

• First and foremost, we do not want the quirks to be one of the primary factors for considering ‘Mech viability on the IS side. We further do not want said Quirks to add to the massive performance gulf between ‘Mech Loadouts optimized entirely around the Quirks, and those that are not.

There is plenty more that was said as the answer and it is all valid..

But the realization that not only was quirks a bad system that forced us to use specific builds to just be relevant is perhaps one of the very few times PGI has admitted it has made terrible mistakes in regards to balance and game design and is actually striving to fix them instead of their tired old trend of creating bandaids to hide the problems rather than actually deal with them.

I believe this fact is praiseworthy. An actual attempt that is being made to fix a core issue that they have created rather than another bandaid is perhaps the biggest, boldest thing PGI has ever done.

(Note when Quirks were originally introduced, before Russ's turn at balance, the original goal and purpose of quirks when first introduced alongside the Clans was fewer hardpoints would get positive quirks, more hardpoints would get negative quirks and the 'baseline' or middle line would have none as a way of giving you a viable reason to choose between 'less', 'moderate' or 'more' rather than simply going 'More more more!' Quirks have clearly lost that original purpose by taking on greater ambitions and in turn creating the level of power creep that has required PGI to discretely buff the Clans time and time again [AC shot counts, large pulse damage, reduction in beam times across the board several times over, missile reload time reductions, spread reductions on Clan mechs -- LRM spread for a Clan LRM-20 on the PTS before release was as wide as a Dire Wolf, currently it's as wide as an Atlas's side torso.)

[Mcgral18]

We can hope that it's more than empty words

A proper iterative balance would be nice
Kinda sucks that it has to be MONTHly now, and not bi-weekly

[Wintersdark]

Where is that quote from, good sir? I'd be interested in reading the whole thing.

[Juodas Varnas]

Wintersdark, on 13 May 2017 - 11:08 AM, said:

Where is that quote from, good sir? I'd be interested in reading the whole thing.

https://mwomercs.com...d-chris-lowrey/
Knock yourself out, buddy.

[Acehilator]

You are really going to praise them for that load of BS? They are increasing TTK with the next patch anyways (global cooldown nerf), not needed to nerf quirks yet again for perceived "powercreep". And TTK was shorter or the same beginning of last year than it is now, when Black Knights and Warhammers could go toe to toe with Timbers and it was an even fight... they almost had faction balance right, and then they decided to break it by nerfing the best IS mechs several times in a row. So now there are only a handful of mechs left which are even worth using in a dropdeck, and pretty much all of them are getting nerfed AGAIN. Because the "energy weapons overhaul" might result in IS buffs? Well, how about we nerf quirks when 90% of comp players are using IS mechs, and IS beats the Clans back to their homeworlds at equal tonnage in FW.

And their new design philosophy will not work anyways. So the deciding factor in which mech to use will now only be hardpoint location and quality of hitboxes, instead of hardpoints, hitboxes and quirks (at least for IS mechs). On the other hand, that point is moot, because nobody with a clue will continue playing IS mechs. That will surely increase the number of viable mechs chassis' and variants.

[Andi Nagasia]

personally i would be ok with all Clan things getting -1damage & -1heat with reduced duration,
but with that IS-Small-Lasers need some love, i would start with reducing their heat to 1.5(its 2 right now)

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 13 May 2017 - 11:22 AM.

[Tripzter]

Andi Nagasia, on 13 May 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:

personally i would be ok with all Clan things getting -1damage & -1heat with reduced duration,
but with that IS-Small-Lasers need some love, i would start with reducing their heat to 1.5(its 2 right now)

The IS small lasers are already highest dmg/heat ratio lasers in the game. Way higher than the clan weps. You want it higher?

Edited by Tripzter, 13 May 2017 - 11:25 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Tripzter, on 13 May 2017 - 11:24 AM, said:

The IS small lasers are already highest dmg/heat ratio lasers in the game. Way higher than the clan weps. You want it higher?

IS Small Class lasers need love, because they suck, ya on paper they look good,
but in practice they are next to useless, they are too hot, and have too little range to be viable,

also IS-SL only wins over the C-ERSL in terms of Damage/Heat, and its only a difference of 0.17,
and the IS-SPL well thats completely inferior to the C-SPL, which has better DPS and Range,

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 13 May 2017 - 11:38 AM.

[FupDup]

They're not really living up to those words though. Where exactly are the baseline IS equipment changes that are supposed to compensate for the quirk gutting that is about to come?

[CK16]

But here we are again with a "weak" weapon...Of course it will be weak in a game just about killing other mechs! However if we had to kill other stuff like infantry and lighter vehicles the smaller weapons now have a use to bring a few of them on board your loadouts. Guass PPC all of a sudden isn't so great in a mixed battlefield cause well it's over killing everything!

[FupDup]

CK16, on 13 May 2017 - 11:41 AM, said:

But here we are again with a "weak" weapon...Of course it will be weak in a game just about killing other mechs! However if we had to kill other stuff like infantry and lighter vehicles the smaller weapons now have a use to bring a few of them on board your loadouts. Guass PPC all of a sudden isn't so great in a mixed battlefield cause well it's over killing everything!

Or you can just take some Large Lasers and put them on chain fire to use your long beam duration to sweep over swarms of infantry and light vehicles.

Adding weak AI "creep" targets won't magically make MGs or Small Lasers good.

[MechaBattler]

FupDup, on 13 May 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

They're not really living up to those words though. Where exactly are the baseline IS equipment changes that are supposed to compensate for the quirk gutting that is about to come?

They're going to do a pass on energy weapons in June. So we can blame it on their once a month patch schedule. Although considering how often the Skill Tree has been pushed back. You'd think they'd have somethings ready to go on that front already. : /

Perhaps they'll tone down Clan laser damage.

Edited by MechaBattler, 13 May 2017 - 11:55 AM.

[FupDup]

MechaBattler, on 13 May 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

They're going to do a pass on energy weapons in June. So we can blame it on their once a month patch schedule. Although considering how often the Skill Tree has been pushed back. You'd think they'd have somethings ready to go on that front already. : /

Perhaps they'll tone down Clan laser damage.

And yet there are far more faction balance problems than just energy weapons.

I wouldn't be surprised if PGI re-attempts their idea of Pulse Lasers as DPS weapons from the Energy draw PTS. And it'll definitely have the same result as that ED PTS...(i.e. making Pulse Lasers totally crappy).

Edited by FupDup, 13 May 2017 - 11:57 AM.

[Armored Yokai]

So, what happens to my NoobMaster and Noobhopper?
do i no longer get to spam 810 ERLL across the map?

[Mcgral18]

Tripzter, on 13 May 2017 - 11:24 AM, said:

The IS small lasers are already highest dmg/heat ratio lasers in the game. Way higher than the clan weps. You want it higher?

You may want to recheck your numbers
Both Small Pulses have 2 Dam/heat

The Clam one is infinitely better

[Andi Nagasia]

FupDup, on 13 May 2017 - 11:49 AM, said:

Or you can just take some Large Lasers and put them on chain fire to use your long beam duration to sweep over swarms of infantry and light vehicles.

Adding weak AI "creep" targets won't magically make MGs or Small Lasers good.

i remember doing this in MW3 with Elementals, its was fun but you never took them for granted,
they would Ant swarm you to death with numbers(1Mech > 100Infantry)(101Infantry > 1Mech)

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 13 May 2017 - 12:01 PM, said:

You may want to recheck your numbers
Both Small Pulses have 2 Dam/heat

The Clam one is infinitely better

TL;DR: Ratios are important but so are raw values. 2/4 might be mathetically similar to 1/2, but 2/4 gives you more bang for your buck.

Also, the IS Small Laser (not Small Pulse, just plain old Small Laser) is far less fortunate than this.

[xSleeZyx]

Only thing that worries me with the whole thing is engine desynch, i don't want the mechs to feel more sluggish than they already are.
I tend to pilot alot of lighs due this reason.

Recently started lvling assaults and it reminds me how horrible it is to play them because how sluggish they are.

[Monkey Lover]

xSleeZyx, on 13 May 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

Only thing that worries me with the whole thing is engine desynch, i don't want the mechs to feel more sluggish than they already are.
I tend to pilot alot of lighs due this reason.

Recently started lvling assaults and it reminds me how horrible it is to play them because how sluggish they are.

Lights on the last pts were a little more sluggish but not to bad. You will have to plan on using lots of nodes on this to get it back to normal.

Heavy/assauts are on average down but this would make using a lighter eaiser.

[EgoSlayer]

Koniving, on 13 May 2017 - 10:28 AM, said:

This is the most intelligent thing that PGI has ever "realized" and understood about some of the very poor decision choices that have been made in the past and most shockingly, rather than masking it with a bandaid they are addressing it directly (they haven't done this since the introduction of HSR in 2013.)



There is plenty more that was said as the answer and it is all valid..

But the realization that not only was quirks a bad system that forced us to use specific builds to just be relevant is perhaps one of the very few times PGI has admitted it has made terrible mistakes in regards to balance and game design and is actually striving to fix them instead of their tired old trend of creating bandaids to hide the problems rather than actually deal with them.

I believe this fact is praiseworthy. An actual attempt that is being made to fix a core issue that they have created rather than another bandaid is perhaps the biggest, boldest thing PGI has ever done.

(Note when Quirks were originally introduced, before Russ's turn at balance, the original goal and purpose of quirks when first introduced alongside the Clans was fewer hardpoints would get positive quirks, more hardpoints would get negative quirks and the 'baseline' or middle line would have none as a way of giving you a viable reason to choose between 'less', 'moderate' or 'more' rather than simply going 'More more more!' Quirks have clearly lost that original purpose by taking on greater ambitions and in turn creating the level of power creep that has required PGI to discretely buff the Clans time and time again [AC shot counts, large pulse damage, reduction in beam times across the board several times over, missile reload time reductions, spread reductions on Clan mechs -- LRM spread for a Clan LRM-20 on the PTS before release was as wide as a Dire Wolf, currently it's as wide as an Atlas's side torso.)

Except for the fact that this system has already failed and is incapable of meeting it's design goals. There is no way with a one size fits all skill tree they can balance under-performing mechs, and nerf over-performing ones. Weapon and skill changes are global, so nerfiing them because they are over-performing on specific mech variants means that it's over-nerfing that weapon/skill on everything that isn't that over-performing one.

Right back to the initial clan invasion balance attempts.

No amount of chassis structure quirks are going to buff a hardpoint or geometry limited mech to be balanced with a better weapon platform, without chassis specific weapon boosts/nerfs. Having 5x structure boost doesn't mean squat when the only 2-3 weapons on the mech are gone in seconds after the armor is done.

Skill tree and lack of quirks is going to lead to a very small handful of optimum platforms, most, if not all, of them being on the clan side.