79 replies to this topic

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

Because we have dealt with weight classes and generally PGI is bad at finding a middle ground where mechs are pocket versions of others.

I don't honestly feel this is PGI's fault.

This is inevitable with this many mechs to deal with.

It would be extremely hard to find uniqueness and rolespace for mechs if they only focused on a Chassis vs. Chassis basis.

But that's compounded by too many other factors.

2 different 90 ton chassis who need rolespace vs. each other, who then also need role space vs. 85 and 95 tonners and also need role space among all their variants?


That would be a herculean task for a top tier studio with huge budget.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

• 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).

That's not what we ended up with, because there just isn't enough bandwidth in the spectrum - and people complained so furiously about the KDK it was destined to be nerf hammered into something unrecognizable.


For the "unique role build" part, as I said above - there are too many mechs, too many variants and the weight differences are too granular (5 ton increments makes for oversaturation).

Edited by Ultimax, 19 May 2017 - 01:17 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 01:12 PM, said:

For the "unique role build" part, as I said above - there are too many mechs, too many variants and the weight differences are too granular (5 ton increments makes for oversaturation).

I agree there are too many mechs, but if every variant was pigeon-holed into one build with maybe some wiggle room, I don't know that there would be that much overlap, certainly not as much as we have now. That would take some SERIOUS work to pull off though, but honestly it would end up better than what we have currently where a lot of mechs are absolutely pointless.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 19 May 2017 - 01:16 PM.

[FupDup]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 01:16 PM, said:

I agree there are too many mechs, but if every variant was pigeon-holed into one build with maybe some wiggle room, I don't know that there would be that much overlap, certainly not as much as we have now. That would take some SERIOUS work to pull off though, but honestly it would end up better than what we have currently where a lot of mechs are absolutely pointless.

At the very least, the variant system is really detrimental to balance. This would all be a lot simpler if every Battlemech had only one variant designed to encompass the overall "flavor" of that chassis.

Omnimechs of course would still have to have some variants (maybe like 3-4 total depending on which mech), but you could swap the CT pod freely and we would have to be more selective of which variants get put in (e.g. don't give JJs to the Mad Cat or Daishi). Redundant placeholder pods like Summoner legs shouldn't even be swappable in the first place, just adds more bloat for no good reason.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 01:16 PM, said:

I agree there are too many mechs, but if every variant was pigeon-holed into one build with maybe some wiggle room, I don't know that there would be that much overlap, certainly not as much as we have now. That would take some SERIOUS work to pull off though, but honestly it would end up better than what we have currently where a lot of mechs are absolutely pointless.

I think the first step would be acceptance that some variants are outright inferior and that's OK - and now that the rule of 3 is going there is nothing mandating people buy crappy variants they don't need.

The onus would be on PGI at that point to carefully select what variants actually end up in the game, and possibly deviating from TT to adjust hardpoints and engine caps to prevent something from being a waste of their development time.


But, yes neither of our ideas are likely to happen - in which case I usually argue against changes like the desynch because they will inevitably cause the kind of imbalance we are seeing now.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 01:21 PM, said:

I think the first step would be acceptance that some variants are outright inferior and that's OK - and now that the rule of 3 is going there is nothing mandating people buy crappy variants they don't need.

Inferior mechs serve no purpose in this game, so wasting effort on pointless variants seems bad does it not? As such, as Fup mentioned, it makes more sense to go back to the MW4 way of doing things, 1 "model" per chassis.

[Ultimax]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 01:30 PM, said:

Inferior mechs serve no purpose in this game, so wasting effort on pointless variants seems bad does it not? As such, as Fup mentioned, it makes more sense to go back to the MW4 way of doing things, 1 "model" per chassis.

I agree that Fup's idea is superior to pointless variants. My personal preference is more severe, I think the ideal game would only have 35, 55, 75 & 100 ton mechs - and roughly 2 max 3 Chassis per weight per faction - with each one given a clear role in it's weight and each weight given a clear role in the game.

People who like variety for variety's sake would hate it, but it would be balanced and there would be clear role based warfare.


Unfortunately this game is focused on selling nostalgia to long time players - and for a long time that meant the Rule of 3. (it was an easy way to shovel lots of mechs, good or bad, onto willing buyers who wanted to see the artwork brought to life in a modern game)

I'm not sure where they go from here, but I highly suspect we will see ways to drain GSP and more ways to drain CBills (which is partly skill tree, and also why we have 5 potential consumable slots).

Edited by Ultimax, 19 May 2017 - 02:53 PM.

[Deathlike]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 01:30 PM, said:

Inferior mechs serve no purpose in this game, so wasting effort on pointless variants seems bad does it not? As such, as Fup mentioned, it makes more sense to go back to the MW4 way of doing things, 1 "model" per chassis.

It's just saturation with a higher rate with the mechpacks PGI is doing these days.

3 variants
2 reinforcements
1 hero

That's 6 variants to balance, and PGI still manages to buff the ACH to new levels while the rest of the Lights can go eff themselves more often.

Too bad it doesn't work with their mechpack system, and you would have to have a clue when it comes to chassis and Clan vs IS balance... but that's a lot of work that was not done previously.

[El Bandito]

Ultimax, on 19 May 2017 - 09:48 AM, said:

To clarify a bit, I don’t think not having ideal hardpoints is a logical reason it is an idiosyncratic reason when they all have access to identical engine caps - why are we balancing hardpoints through agility?

Wasn't the point of the desynch to address ENGINE CAP imbalances?

So what we have here is some massive overreach and utilizing the new values in a very messy, non-scientific and non-systematic way - and it will unlikely ever be balanced well across all mechs.

PGI is not being consistent as usual. I prefer engine desync myself (as big XL is offering too much benefit over smaller Std engine), but PGI made a mess of it, and frankly their way of doing it doesn't make sense.

[Ultimax]

El Bandito, on 19 May 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

PGI is not being consistent as usual. I prefer engine desync myself (as big XL is offering too much benefit over smaller Std engine), but PGI made a mess of it, and frankly their way of doing it doesn't make sense.

Somethings go obsolete for a reason, and unlike people STD engines don't have feelings.

Punishing agility doesn't fix STD engines being heavy either, it simply makes other things suck less by comparison.

IS Assaults will swap to LFE the instant they are available (even if they side grade and keep the same rating) so - it's still irrelevant.


Except now we have less active mitigation, and more catering to potatoes.

[Ultimax]

Tarogato, on 19 May 2017 - 12:19 AM, said:

Does anybody have these raw accel and decel and quirks in spreadsheet/csv? I've tried copying from PGI's pdf, but it doesn't come out as csv, so I can't use it.

I feel silly posting this because I'm assuming you already have something like it but it's unusable?

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

The clan one is a formatting disaster, I was going to fix it but not after the week I've had.

Edited by Ultimax, 19 May 2017 - 04:47 PM.

[Coolant]

Thanks for the post OP, I've referenced it several times.

[Juodas Varnas]

So let me get this straight...

Arctic Cheetah got BUFFED the most and Atlas got NERFED the most?

Really? Atlas got its mobility cut in HALF.
Because it needed to be nerfed, right? It outclassed all of the Kodiaks so much after all!

That is dumb. To put it lightly.

[Gwahlur]

Where are the numbers in the OP from, btw?

[Deathlike]

Gwahlur, on 21 May 2017 - 06:55 AM, said:

Where are the numbers in the OP from, btw?

It's from the patch notes PDFs that were linked.

[Andi Nagasia]

so all these are the Twist Speed Numbers,
has any one calculated the Accell / Decell numbers? Old vs New?

ok it seems the ACH has better Twist, but it has the Accell / Decell of a UM,
many IS mechs have much better Accell / Decell, to balance them,

still abit perplexed as why the ACH got such good Twist, although is Accell / Decell arnt too good,
the AS7/KGC as well turns like a Dump Truck, but it seems to have KDK/DWF levels of Agility,
(i agree, the Twist on the ACH perhaps should come down, & the AS7/KGC should go up)

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 21 May 2017 - 12:19 PM.

[Deathlike]

Andi Nagasia, on 21 May 2017 - 12:03 PM, said:

so all these are the Twist Speed Numbers,
has any one calculated the Accell / Decell numbers? Old vs New?

The sheet is sorted by accel+decel. In fact, Mcgral's work is based on that very thing (I think).

Twist speed is another # altogether.

[Andi Nagasia]

Deathlike, on 21 May 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

The sheet is sorted by accel+decel. In fact, Mcgral's work is based on that very thing (I think).

Twist speed is another # altogether.

no i think its the Twist Speed, as at the numbers nearly match the Graphs Stats,
also near the top it says (Values in Deg/second) that sounds like a Turn thing as speed isnt calculated in Deg/second,

also the UM has the Same Accell / Decell as the ACH, which makes sense,
i just dont get why it has such good Twist Speed, which seems odd,

[Cato Phoenix]

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

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.

I think this is quite true.

It's giving a handicap to less skilled players and potatoes. Whereas before they could be annihilated by someone skilled, you'd have to be completely hopeless not to get a couple shots off now. Mechs can facetank more, and the opponent can torso twist off damage less well.

So its more point and click until one mech falls over - the rock'm sock'em. Poor play and mech control has been buffered.

[sycocys]

Something weird I noticed -

A HBK with a std250 seemed to have a higher top speed than a griffin (sparky) with a 340xl despite a 20km difference in the griffin's favor.

20% different in top speed you'd think would still feel quite noticeable, and definitely not feel like you are running slower - not sure if there's a bug there or something but truly weird.

Edited by sycocys, 21 May 2017 - 07:02 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Cockpit height and walk animation can make a 'Mech feel faster or slower than what the number indicates.