79 replies to this topic

[Deathlike]

Gas Guzzler, on 19 May 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:

Wow didn't make that comparison yet... *facepalm*

Error: The agile Black Knight is the 6, not the 6B.

Fixed.

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:03 AM, said:

PGI seems to have missed the entire phase where BLRs have supplanted every other IS assault mech for first choice with laser builds.

I mean this engine desynch was supposedly added because some mechs have low engine caps....



20.02: BLRs (Engine cap 400)
15.41: All Awesomes, STK-3FB (Engine Caps mostly 300/310)
13.11: All (Engine Caps 310)
10.79: Mauler (Engine Cap 325)



So tell me how this makes sense then? Tell me how this is better than just letting the mech with the bigger engine cap ACTUALLY PAY with tonnage for their added agility/mobility instead of just playing favorites or using the dartboard of balance?

And let's be clear here, we are talking about what is one of the top tier IS assaults that already outclassed Stalkers, Awesomes and even most Maulers before the skill tree or desynch went live. (Not that I'm unhappy about BLRs, I'm happy to have one Assault that isn't a fun-killing experience to pilot like nearly everything else after this desynch mess).

TBH, that still doesn't explain a lot of the 35-tonner agility values though like Firestarters, Ravens, and others.

It's Dartboard of Balance in full view actually.

[Gas Guzzler]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:03 AM, said:

20.02: BLRs (Engine cap 400)
15.41: All Awesomes, STK-3FB (Engine Caps mostly 300/310)
13.11: All other STKs (Engine Caps 310)
10.79: Mauler (Engine Cap 325)

I too remember one of the reasons for the desynch was to help low engine cap mechs. I guess that goal was missed in the implementation.

[Ultimax]

Gas Guzzler, on 19 May 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

I too remember one of the reasons for the desynch was to help low engine cap mechs. I guess that goal was missed in the implementation.

The goal was missed because balancing in this way is messy and idiosyncratic.

It is very subjective, and it is also suceptible to personal preferences of people who are designing/blancing - as well as the preferences of prominent voices such as NGNG (Sean in particular) or even community members like Kanajashi (not his fault either - but they can be influenced by him).


As system that works off of calculation is immune to this, and what's more they already had this - all they had to do was make some tweaks to the calculation to lessen the gap between big engines & small engines for agility and then it would have been maintenance & bias free.

[Gas Guzzler]

Deathlike, on 18 May 2017 - 02:58 PM, said:

47.71 - Wolverine (all), Dragon (all), Quickdraw (4G, IV-Four), Viper (C)
45.39 - Centurion (Yen Lo Wang), Linebacker (all)
43.08 - Firestarter (all), Panther (all), Raven (all except 4X), Quickdraw (4H, 5K), Adder (all)
40.79 - Summoner (all)
33.86 - Centurion (D), Bushwacker (X2), Kintaro (all), Thunderbolt (Top Dog)
31.55 - Vindicator (all), Blackjack (all), Stormcrow (all)
29.26 - Centurion (A, AH, AL), Crab (all), Enforcer (all), Hunchback (all), Trebuchet (all), Catapult (Butterbee, Jester), Grasshopper (all), Huntsman (all), Nova (all), Gargoyle (all)

OMG we have assaults as agile as mediums and some heavies more agile than lights!!!! OMGWTFBBQ I thought the desync was supposed to fix this. You guys said countless times "ermahgerrd assaults with huge engines are more agile than mediums with piss poor small engines (read: shitbuilds), and that needs to be addressed because its breaking the game!"

Well, here you go. Quickdraw/Linebacker/Dragon more agile than lights. Gargoyle on par with mediums.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 19 May 2017 - 10:18 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:07 AM, said:

All they had to do was tweak the formula so that final values for agility wasn't such a huge advantage once you took X TON mech and gave it Y RATING engine.

There's clearly a middle ground. Well, was.

And you expect PGI to find that happy middle ground? That's as naive as me expecting PGI to have a good baseline for decoupling.

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:14 AM, said:

The goal was missed because balancing in this way is messy and idiosyncratic.

That's kinda the point? You think the mobility quirks on top of coupling was really that much better? I think people just never cared enough before to really bother questioning the values and how much they varied before.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 May 2017 - 10:32 AM.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 10:30 AM, said:

And you expect PGI to find that happy middle ground? That's as naive as me expecting PGI to have a good baseline for decoupling.

They didn't have to find a middle ground, all that was needed was a tweak to the formula and it was done.

Adjusting the way the formula worked would take the process of finding the middle ground (as well as not warping what the system should actually they way they already are) out of their hands so they wouldn't continue to mess it up on a regular basis or get it wrong once (like now) and then let it languish for months. (no clue which of these is going to happen yet).


Quoting myself out of lazyness. (and because I think I phrased it better in my reply to Gas than I did when I replied to you.)

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:14 AM, said:

The goal was missed because balancing in this way is messy and idiosyncratic.

It is very subjective, and it is also suceptible to personal preferences of people who are designing/blancing - as well as the preferences of prominent voices such as NGNG (Sean in particular) or even community members like Kanajashi (not his fault either - but they can be influenced by him).


As system that works off of calculation is immune to this, and what's more they already had this - all they had to do was make some tweaks to the calculation to lessen the gap between big engines & small engines for agility and then it would have been maintenance & bias free.

Edited by Ultimax, 19 May 2017 - 10:57 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 19 May 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

I too remember one of the reasons for the desynch was to help low engine cap mechs. I guess that goal was missed in the implementation.

PGI fails at balancing, news at 11!

I'm still glad they did it, but I wish that just once, they'd set base values according to actual performance / balance needs rather than stock values. Particularly not imagined ones like agility.

I mean, really, why WOULDN'T you make the Awesome agile? It needs help as it is, even in the old system with max engine.

Hell, I can't even muster up disappointment I'm so unsurprised.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 10:54 AM, said:

They didn't have to find a middle ground, all that was needed was a tweak to the formula and it was done.

It still would've been a mess. I mean, you see what happens when they try to create a better baseline. Keeping in mind that the mess of agility quirks across the board doesn't help with that either.

All I'm trying to say is before it was a mess too, people just never noticed it as much because agility was much higher across the board.

There are two real differences between before and now:

• Speed can't be used to overcome bad agility
  
• Overall agility is much lower due to skill tree changes, a lower baseline, and changes to agility curve (how effective your agility is based on your speed).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 May 2017 - 10:59 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

All I'm trying to say is before it was a mess too, people just never noticed it as much because agility was much higher across the board.

Can confirm, humanoid heavies struggle to spread damage as well now, even with all agility skills. The Black Knight (non-6) felt sad.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 10:57 AM, said:

It still would've been a mess. I mean, you see what happens when they try to create a better baseline. Keeping in mind that the mess of agility quirks across the board doesn't help with that either.

All I'm trying to say is before it was a mess too, people just never noticed it as much because agility was much higher across the board.

There are two real differences between before and now:

• Speed can't be used to overcome bad agility
  
• Overall agility is much lower due to skill tree changes, a lower baseline, and changes to agility curve (how effective your agility is based on your speed).

See, the thing about it was that some people don't even notice it on the Dire Wolf... and that was hit hard from the old skill tree efficiencies nerf.

The ability of some people to recognize the effects of stuff in the previous tree... particularly cool run and heat containment... is why we are having "mechs are too hot" threads during the PTS and post skill tree. It's just that some people touch that stove and don't notice their hand is burning hot.

[KekistanWillRiseAgain]

Deathlike, on 18 May 2017 - 05:00 PM, said:

https://mwomercs.com...__fromsearch__1




You skimmed it w/o reading why I said what I said. While untrue on the live servers previously, it was completely TRUE on the PTS and now live.

So no.

Bishop was way too busy White Knighting how great the Skill Maze was going to be to actually look at the problems it was creating, the overwhelming majority of the defenders of the Skill Maze who are just not smart on the other hand were mainly cheering for change for the sake of change. No matter how badly the result of the change would be.

[Gas Guzzler]

Soo incoming Annihilator... any guesses on baseline agility there? I'm thinking around 4.1 kph/s accel. Will totally help its low engine cap.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 19 May 2017 - 11:39 AM.

[Ultimax]

Gas Guzzler, on 19 May 2017 - 10:58 AM, said:

Can confirm, humanoid heavies struggle to spread damage as well now, even with all agility skills. The Black Knight (non-6) felt sad.

How does this improve TTK, one of the intended goals?


(it doesn't)


Instead, we are seeing a system designed for the lowest common denominator potatoes (balancing for skill, and balancing for the mid-tiers).



Bigger mechs (rescale)
Less agility (easier to hit)
More HP


It's more rock'em sock'em robots and less active mitigation.

[Gas Guzzler]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 11:39 AM, said:

Bigger mechs (rescale)
Less agility (easier to hit)
More HP

Yeah, looking at it this way, its definitely geared towards helping people that didn't really spread damage anyway.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:

While true, we wouldn't have any more of a balanced game with the coupling because BESM would've still ruled the day. Sure this is a mess but at least there is some variety and tonnage isn't the end all be all (KDK-3 is probably dethroned by the MAD-IIC and BLR finally for example). IDK, it may be more messy, but I still prefer engine decoupling, PGI just needs to suck less at baselines.

I wanted to come back to this, because I realized I can't find a single good reason why the KDK-3 should be dethroned by MAD-IIC & BLR.


Why should a 100T mech be dethroned by 85T mechs?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

Why should a 100T mech be dethroned by 85T mechs?

Because until the WC uses tonnage instead of weight classes, class balance matters more honestly imo. Sadly there is a discrepancy between the WC format and FW/GQ. If all comp play used tonnage as well, then I would agree, that is silly (and honestly they did overnerf 100 tonners even without factoring that in).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 May 2017 - 12:05 PM.

[Isolani]

At least my Top Dog handles like a medium mech in the new skill system.

[Y E O N N E]

Isolani, on 19 May 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

At least my Top Dog handles like a medium mech in the new skill system.

With a brutal beam duration. That's 52 damage at 330 meters in the same time it takes a stock Clan Medium Pulse to burn.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 12:04 PM, said:

Because until the WC uses tonnage instead of weight classes, class balance matters more honestly imo. Sadly there is a discrepancy between the WC format and FW/GQ. If all comp play used tonnage as well, then I would agree, that is silly (and honestly they did overnerf 100 tonners even without factoring that in).

But if WC just uses weight classes and the MAD-IIC and BLR are superior - does that really change anything in terms of balance value as opposed to novelty value?

*Novelty in this case meaning people are bored of seeing KDKs, they will soon simply be bored of seeing MAD-IICs and BLRs.

It's not like there is suddenly a huge choice, if X is superior to Y - everyone will take X.

If you can't double up on X, everyone will take X and whatever is just slightly less optimal than X.

As you say tonnage based would change that - but tonnage based often ends up with a similar result as people drop the 100 tonners in favor of things that perform similar while saving weight for elsewhere.

Is the game better if we all shift away from 100 tonners into 85 tonners and 100 tonners don't have a place outside of "No dupes" rules?



This feels like another "SCR vs. NVA" issue - where people pined for a year+ about their Novas being inferior to SCRs - and now the opposite is generally true (in a limited capacity)

I've never understood why a lighter mech should be as good or superior to a heavier one - you simply stop taking whatever is inferior anyway.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 12:37 PM, said:

I've never understood why a lighter mech should be as good or superior to a heavier one - you simply stop taking whatever is inferior anyway.

Because we have dealt with weight classes and generally PGI is bad at finding a middle ground where mechs are pocket versions of others. Then of course their is the role specialty, the SCrow and Nova shouldn't be competing for the same thing and now they don't (SCrow is somewhat decent at the mid range poke it just isn't used for SPL boating like it did before the Nova).

Ideally that's where the separation is, you have 2 different types of mechs essentially:

• Provides a unique role/build that no other can do, and thus has its own niche.
  
• Is a lighter version of another mech and sacrifices some performance somewhere but is still useful for that role if you want to put more tonnage into another role. This provides some options for trade-offs in drop dec creation, especially with no dupe rules (which are great).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 May 2017 - 12:46 PM.