30 replies to this topic

[Antares102]

PGI can we please have a say in your planned energy rework through PTS?
I fear total balance annihilation if this goes untested.

If PTS is no option at least give us a write up of what you are planning about now and not just two days before the patch hits the live server in June.

Thanks !

Edited by Antares102, 01 June 2017 - 12:04 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Normally, I would agree with you.. but given the fact that Energy draw was a big bust mostly cose' people on PTS killed it, and Skill Tree also almost didn't see the light of day cose' of the PTS..

I'm kinda inclined to just let PGI handle it, and deal with the fallout..

Sometimes, devs have to put their foot down and say, "this is how it is", cose' this salty, bitter community can't seem to agree on anything.. :-(

I have yet to see a PTS go "well done PGI", it's always more like "PGI, you suck, what is this horsepiss you put on the PTS?"

Correct me if I'm wrong..

Edited by Vellron2005, 02 June 2017 - 01:55 AM.

[El Bandito]

Just as long as PGI makes IS SL and SPL useful, I am fine with them doing the energy tweaking without PTS. Russ mentioned that he will let Chris handle balancing, so I am hopeful. Just a little tiny bit.

[PhoenixFire55]

Its already a trainwreck either way. Who cares ...

[Greyhart]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 02:30 AM, said:

Its already a trainwreck either way. Who cares ...

It'll be what it will be.

Some will like it some will hate it.

Never let the perfect get in the way of the good

[ForceUser]

I'd like a PTS just because I'm an impatient little **** and would love to see what they're up to. But the ST went well and improved balance and that was a much larger (mechanical) change than any energy weapon rebalance will ever be so it'd probably be better to work on the new tech PTS instead. It'd be important to catch any mechanical issues with new implemented tech and weapons with the new tech.

[Shifty McSwift]

Vellron2005, on 02 June 2017 - 01:54 AM, said:

Correct me if I'm wrong..

Nah you're good.

Even if there is one that says good job there are 50 shades of alternate responses that conflict with each other.

[Sjorpha]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 02:30 AM, said:

Its already a trainwreck either way. Who cares ...

How is current balance a trainwreck?

As far as I can see there is more mech variety on the field and more viable builds than ever before.

[jjm1]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 03:28 AM, said:

How is current balance a trainwreck?

As far as I can see there is more mech variety on the field and more viable builds than ever before.

Its the best its ever been. That's a sad testament to how bad its been previously though.

There are still mechs you pick to carry matches and mechs you pick as a challenge to try and get to 300 damage. There needs to be a balancing system that matches the game PGI has made.

[PhoenixFire55]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 03:28 AM, said:

As far as I can see there is more mech variety on the field and more viable builds than ever before.

Right until the day when people actually figure out that 95% of those builds never work. It might take a while due to the nature of the skill maze tho, especially so in the lower tiers of tier-1 potatoeland, but it in no way means that there is any kind of balance whatsoever.

There can be no balance under the current system, unless it is artificially and arbitrary created by quirks or different skill node values for different chassis. And that ain't balance, that is BS.

[ForceUser]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 03:45 AM, said:

Right until the day when people actually figure out that 95% of those builds never work. It might take a while due to the nature of the skill maze tho, especially so in the lower tiers of tier-1 potatoeland, but it in no way means that there is any kind of balance whatsoever.

There can be no balance under the current system, unless it is artificially and arbitrary created by quirks or different skill node values for different chassis. And that ain't balance, that is BS.

I was messing around with my urbies, trying out stupid stuff in the mechlab + ST just to see what would happen and launching into training grounds. Built a 2 AC2 urbie with 3t of ammo. No other weapons. This is mostly due to me not being at my home PC this week and having to play on a slow hotel connection on a 20fps work laptop.

Turns out I accidentally launched into an actual match on Mining, derp. Still ended up with just under 600 damage done. This is the direct result of new things only available in the skill tree.

Played last night with my Jester, again slow connection and FPS. Got 7 kills and over 1k damage.

Your nihilism is sad and tiring and does not reflect actual fact.

Edited by ForceUser, 02 June 2017 - 03:54 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

ForceUser, on 02 June 2017 - 03:54 AM, said:

Turns out I accidentally launched into an actual match on Mining, derp. Still ended up with just under 600 damage done. This is the direct result of new things only available in the skill tree.

No, that is a direct result of the enemy team being a bunch of vegetables. Any DPS facetanking light like your AC2 Urbie is dead 3 seconds after it starts shooting when your enemy has at least half a clue.

I've once done 700+ dmg in a Spider with just one LPL (that was before any sort of quirks). Anecdotes like that are going to happen regardless of skill maze. Doesn't prove anything apart from the fact that there were 23 potatoes in that game.

[ForceUser]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 04:06 AM, said:

No, that is a direct result of the enemy team being a bunch of vegetables. Any DPS facetanking light like your AC2 Urbie is dead 3 seconds after it starts shooting when your enemy has at least half a clue.

Didn't realize you were in that match and can state with such conviction as to the skill levels of both sides. It was actually a tough close match, 10-12 at the end with for the most part great team work and flanking set up by both teams.

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 04:06 AM, said:

I've once done 700+ dmg in a Spider with just one LPL (that was before any sort of quirks). Anecdotes like that are going to happen regardless of skill maze. Doesn't prove anything apart from the fact that there were 23 potatoes in that game.

I'm not talking about 'I once did 1200 damage in an ubrie' (I have a couple of time) I'm talking about how as a direct result of the skill tree I was able to pull what I felt was my weight in a mech people consider bad in an average close match. I have a very long list of borderline ok mechs that are now objectively better directly because of the skill tree AND the engine desync. There is just as long a list of OP mechs that are no longer nearly as strong. The observable facts support the published metrics that the relative strengths of IS and Clan mechs are closer than ever and that is what is commonly referred to as (better)balance.

[Sjorpha]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 03:45 AM, said:

Right until the day when people actually figure out that 95% of those builds never work. It might take a while due to the nature of the skill maze tho, especially so in the lower tiers of tier-1 potatoeland, but it in no way means that there is any kind of balance whatsoever.

Balance is when many builds and playstyles are viable.

I'm not talking about joke builds here, there are in fact more viable builds and mechs now. As for claiming "those builds never work" I can confirm by personal experience that all the mechs and builds I'm referring to have worked well a number of times, not sure which builds you're talking about but "never works" seems like a very extreme metric that very few builds would fall into, certainly there are no actual mech chassis that never works in the game.

Now I agree that there are still chassis and variants in the game that have no actual good build going for them, and that's a problem of course.

I'd really appreciate if you only say things you actually mean when talking to me, I'm pretty sure you don't actually mean "never works", but since I don't know what point you are trying to make behind that exaggeration I then have nothing to respond to.

Quote

There can be no balance under the current system, unless it is artificially and arbitrary created by quirks or different skill node values for different chassis. And that ain't balance, that is BS.

Saying that the methods employed achieving balance is not to your liking is a different subject, so that's moving the goalposts. If the methods employed increase the scope of the current meta then those methods are objectively balancing the game, whether you like them or not.

[PhoenixFire55]

ForceUser, on 02 June 2017 - 04:37 AM, said:

Didn't realize you were in that match and can state with such conviction as to the skill levels of both sides. It was actually a tough close match, 10-12 at the end with for the most part great team work and flanking set up by both teams.

Amazing. Now what it being a tough close match actually proves? ... If you would have taken an actual mech you probably would have won it 12-5 easily.

ForceUser, on 02 June 2017 - 04:37 AM, said:

I'm not talking about 'I once did 1200 damage in an ubrie' (I have a couple of time) I'm talking about how as a direct result of the skill tree I was able to pull what I felt was my weight in a mech people consider bad in an average close match. I have a very long list of borderline ok mechs that are now objectively better directly because of the skill tree AND the engine desync. There is just as long a list of OP mechs that are no longer nearly as strong. The observable facts support the published metrics that the relative strengths of IS and Clan mechs are closer than ever and that is what is commonly referred to as (better)balance.

Sigh ... when you are playing with potatoes and against potatoes you can use any mech with any build and still pull your weight and then some. And since solo PUGs is nothing but playing with and against potatoes let us stop this silly discussion, since based on your statement about how IS and Clan mechs are "closer than ever" you apparently have no clue.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Vellron2005, on 02 June 2017 - 01:54 AM, said:

Normally, I would agree with you.. but given the fact that Energy draw was a big bust mostly cose' people on PTS killed it, and Skill Tree also almost didn't see the light of day cose' of the PTS..

I'm kinda inclined to just let PGI handle it, and deal with the fallout..

Sometimes, devs have to put their foot down and say, "this is how it is", cose' this salty, bitter community can't seem to agree on anything.. :-(

I have yet to see a PTS go "well done PGI", it's always more like "PGI, you suck, what is this horsepiss you put on the PTS?"

Correct me if I'm wrong..

Energy Draw's implementation was stupid.

[PhoenixFire55]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

I'm not talking about joke builds here, there are in fact more viable builds and mechs now. As for claiming "those builds never work" I can confirm by personal experience that all the mechs and builds I'm referring to have worked well a number of times, not sure which builds you're talking about but "never works" seems like a very extreme metric that very few builds would fall into, certainly there are no actual mech chassis that never works in the game.

Read just above. When playing with potatoes and against potatoes everything works well. Even joke builds.

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

Saying that the methods employed achieving balance is not to your liking is a different subject, so that's moving the goalposts. If the methods employed increase the scope of the current meta then those methods are objectively balancing the game, whether you like them or not.

Pffft. What does it have to do with methods not being to my liking? Pray tell how under these current methods a 5V Spider with 2 hardpoints and no ECM is going to get balanced against either 5D Spider with 3 hardpoints and ECM or 5K Spider with 5 hardpoints? Just as I've said, without artificially created arbitrary quirks it won't. Everything that requires additional crutches in order to work shouldn't exist in the first place, especially so considering people deciding on what and how to crutch have no clue whatsoever.

I.e. current methods are bad, and you should feel bad for defending them.

[ForceUser]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

I'm not talking about joke builds here, there are in fact more viable builds and mechs now.

This has been my experience. I've been around since closed beta (founder) and I took out my founders Catapult two weekends ago and had a blast due to the tree + the small quirks on it + engine desync and of course resize. I took out a classic Hunchback 4G and man those armor skills + quirks make it such a solid mech again. Been having a bizarely good time with blackjacks of all things, built a little mini 4G that was doing some silly things. Consistently good matches in the K2, Thunderbolts feel good but not as broken OP as they were when they got super quirked. The list goes on of mechs that are just simply good, instead of trash or broken OP.

Every mech I try just has so much more potential and ways to make it competitive or viable with every change they've made recently. People aren't able to see the bigger picture, they're not able to get how all the pieces fit together and form a more balanced whole. It's not perfect, it never will be but it gets better every time.

[Mawai]

The problem with a PTS is the following ...

It is an energy weapon REBALANCE.

This usually means that some will be buffed and some nerfed. In addition, the clan weapons are generally more effective since the range and alpha seem to be more important in general than burn time in terms of weapon performance.

This likely means that there will be changes to clan energy weapons that will not be appreciated by folks playing clans since no one likes a nerf. If they choose to solely buff IS weapons then the TTK will go down so that is likely not an option.

Anyway, the bottom line is that some folks will be ok with it, some will hate it and the haters will make a lot of noise ... so I suspect a PTS would not be very useful unfortunately. Even publishing the numbers will likely cause a lot of angst even though I think they should publish them and open it up for discussion.

Finally, creating any sort of energy weapon balance will be very hard without the new tech coming later in July? The main reason for this is that the clan ERML is one particular problem that can't be solved because the IS has no equivalent yet.

IS ML - 5 damage 4 heat - 270m range - 1 ton/1slot - 0.9 duration - 3.0 cooldown
IS LL - 9 damage 7 heat - 450m range - 5 tons/2 slots - 1.0 duration - 3.25 cooldown

Clan ERML - 7 damage 6 heat - 405m range - 1 ton/1 slot - 1.15 duration - 3.0 cooldown

The clan ERML costs 1 ton and 1 slot to fit ... has a range comparable to an IS LL and has damage midway between the IS ML and IS LL. It does generate more heat with a slighly longer burn time but with the usual peak and poke playstyle there are usually lots of opportunities to cool off and holding the target for an extra 0.25s is often not an issue.

Ton for ton the clan ERML is probably one of the best in the game. The IS doesn't yet have an equivalent which will make an energy weapon balance pass more difficult.

I expect to see balance changes on the order of changing burn times by 0.1 seconds / damage by 0.5 or less / heat by 0.5 or less ... staying with integer values for heat/damage etc makes it much harder to balance the weapons.

[Mawai]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2017 - 04:58 AM, said:

Amazing. Now what it being a tough close match actually proves? ... If you would have taken an actual mech you probably would have won it 12-5 easily.



Sigh ... when you are playing with potatoes and against potatoes you can use any mech with any build and still pull your weight and then some. And since solo PUGs is nothing but playing with and against potatoes let us stop this silly discussion, since based on your statement about how IS and Clan mechs are "closer than ever" you apparently have no clue.

I think he is quoting the devs .. and their current balance expert:

https://mwomercs.com...l-tree-balance/

"Inner Sphere to Clan balance in Win / Loss ratios between 'Mechs is the closest it has ever been within the game."

Why that thread is not stickied in the forum I have no idea ...