73 replies to this topic

[Requiemking]

Alright people, lets face it. The Rescale was a complete and utter disaster that hurt balance more than any other event in recent time. That last month before the Rescale was the most balanced the game has ever been, and here is why:

1) Inter-weightclass balance: This still existed at that time. It was a soft rock-paper-scissor style system between the weightclasses where each weightclass, on average, had enough speed to keep up with the shenanigans of the weightclass directly below it while having enough armor and firepower to take them out, with the Light weightclass using their superior mobility to out-manoeuvre Assaults. However, this was a soft system, so it wasn't guaranteed that this would always occur. For example, a skilled Medium pilot could defeat a Heavy pilot.

2) Inter-faction balance: Again, this existed as a soft system where each faction held superiority in two weightclasses. IS had, in general, better Lights and Heavies, while Clans held dominance in the Medium and Assault categories. Again, this was a soft system, where a pilot's skill could often overcome a disadvantage in battle.

3) Actual choice in the Meta: Back then Laservomit was king, and IS had no less than three options that were equally good. It came down to what you were willing to sacrifice in exchange for the other benefits. People picked the Black Knight if they valued tonnage and quirks, the Grasshopper if they valued tonnage and high mounts, and the Thunderbolt if they wanted quirks and high mounts.

However, when the Rescale came that balance was sent on a one-way ticket to hell. Black Knight and Grasshopper got ballooned in size, and while the 'hopper's mounts kept it from totally dying out, the Black Knight ceased to be relevant from then out. Whats even worse was that the one balance issue from that month was Oxide, and even then a majority of the community agreed that Oxide needed a nerf, and had even agreed upon what about it needed to be nerfed(the only people who didn't agree were the relatively small number of OP drifters who had lost the God Knight the month before and were clinging to the Oxide like a safety blanket).

Now, how does one correct this mistake. Quite simply, all mechs that were enlarged need to be returned to their previous sizes and have their movement profiles restored to what they once were. Also, to prevent another reign of the Oxide, it needs to have it's durability nerfed, like it should have been the first time around.

Edited by Requiemking, 01 June 2017 - 11:17 PM.

[Davegt27]

you cant build a great game based on how much one side is crying over the other

its like a dog chasing its tail

[RestosIII]

Last year's greatest mistake was not releasing the Flea/Quadrupeds/colorblind support/HTAL/IK, all put together. I guess while they're at it they could also give the Warhawk a touch-up and move it's LRM launcher to the correct position.


(but seriously colorblind support and HTAL PGI. SweetFX can only do so much for me.)

Edited by RestosIII, 01 June 2017 - 11:49 PM.

[PyckenZot]

Some mechs relived, others withered, same as the new skill tree will revive dead chasis and make other ones less useful. The next change will be the next change.

Adapt!

It's the way of the online multiplayer game.

[Appogee]

The rescale would have been great if PGI had decided to simply use a fair and even mathematical approach based on the tonnage of the chassis and its volume and surface area.

Instead, PGI started with a mathematical approach and then screwed it up completely by modifying some chassis based on their 'judgement'.

PGI have shown time and again they do not have enough experience of playing their own game necessary to make sound judgement calls.

[CK16]

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

If you are a light mech getting shot at way to much, you are not playing lights correctly and maybe need to learn the tactic of break contact and hit and run instead of trying to dance with anything larger then you...

[PhoenixFire55]

CK16, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

Like you are abusing the overbuffed torso twist and turning ratios on your heavies and assaults right now?

Talking about a Locust in a vacuum is a great thing yet utterly pointless, since there are other mechs, weapons, objectives and so on.

The current scale might be right (which it is not) when you look at your mechs in a hangar, yet it does nothing to improve overall game balance, which was the entire point of rescale. In fact in made matters worse in 90% cases. The funny thing is - the size of mechs is the only thing that is needed for balancing the game.

Rescale alone was more than enough for that, yet PGI once again have proven their track record and blew it. Now one year later they have neither admitted this fail, nor willing to give any effort to continue working on it. Typical. Req is raising a valid topic yet like always its falling on deaf and ignorant ears.

[Kaeb Odellas]

CK16, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

If you are a light mech getting shot at way to much, you are not playing lights correctly and maybe need to learn the tactic of break contact and hit and run instead of trying to dance with anything larger then you...

You think Jenners were hard to hit pre-rescale?

Maybe you need to learn how to aim.

[Wildstreak]

Some of the rescaling was silly.

We do not need to undo it but instead do another focused on certain chassis.

I do not see where the Grasshopper or Black Knight suffer. Used both, they have done fine, if they suffer now it is more due to May 16 patch than scale.

Now I look at a Victor and scratch my head. How that Mech is as tall as a Gargoyle, wider being easier to hit is beyond me. It is even bigger than a Battlemaster.

[BurningDesire]

why are IS 45t mech so big?????? same for IS 35t mechs

[R Valentine]

PyckenZot, on 01 June 2017 - 11:47 PM, said:

Some mechs relived, others withered, same as the new skill tree will revive dead chasis and make other ones less useful. The next change will be the next change.

Adapt!

It's the way of the online multiplayer game.

Fixing mistakes is adapting. That's also the way of the online multiplayer game.

[Requiemking]

CK16, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

If you are a light mech getting shot at way to much, you are not playing lights correctly and maybe need to learn the tactic of break contact and hit and run instead of trying to dance with anything larger then you...

Ck, did it ever occur to you that people were abusing the Oxide, not because of it's small size, but because it had stupidly OP durability quirks, and that other Jenners were nowhere near that powerful? Because that is exactly why people were using so many of them. The other Jenners rarely saw the light of day because the Oxide was so much better. Yet the OPness of a single variant is no reason to punish the entire weightclass, which is exactly what happened. Oxide was OP, and Lights suffered for it. As for you Wildstreak, the Black Knight and the Grasshopper were ballooned to the point where they don't even fit on screen in the mechlab anymore, and while the 'hopper managed to get by on its high mounts, the Black Knight ceased to be relevant due to the increased size, low mounts, and the fact that it took a quirk nerd at the same time.

[Mawai]

The following video is pretty cool showing the rescale size changes.



Some mechs got larger and some smaller. Some by a lot.

As far as I know PGI based the rescale on the volume of the mech compared to its tonnage and assigning a constant density. I don't know whether they tweaked anything based on "personal feelings" ... I thought all the rescale was based purely on calculations. We can only hope the calculations were done correctly.

However, in general, mechs with large solid torsos/arms/legs tended to get smaller. The catapult is probably the most extreme example. It has a sold and long torso, large weapon pods and fairly thick legs ... as a result it rescaled a lot smaller. On the other hand, the firestarter has narrow legs, a narrow hips and torso and modest arms so it scaled significantly larger. Similarly, the jenner, although it has a solid torso, has very small arms and narrow legs so it also scaled a lot larger.

I think that most of the scalings make sense from a physical perspective. Volume is length*width*height ... so if you take a mech that is 100 tons and scaled it down so that it was 1/2 the size (1/2 height,width,length) it would then have 100/8 = 16.66 tons mass. So it is NOT a surprise that a 20 ton mech is bigger than 1/2 the height of a 100 ton mech.

So ... there is NOTHING wrong with the scalings from a realism perspective. They make sense.

What is the challenge? In MWO we do not fire at the mech's volume ... we fire at the cross-sectional surface area visible from the angle of fire. Larger mechs are easier to hit. Lets compare a 100 ton to a 50 ton ... assuming the same shape then the 50 ton mech will be about 0.8 x height, width, length of the 100 ton mech. From the side it will have 64% of the surface area of the 100 ton mech even though it is 50 tons ... it is proportionally easier to hit compared to its mass. In addition, mechs are shaped differently. You could have a tall wide but short/thin mech like the firestarter .. in this case, it will have the cross-sectional surface area from the front that could be just as large as a much heavier mech ... depending on the design even 80 to 100 tons but its side profile is 1/3 of these heavier mechs. Unfortunately, weapons aim forward and being difficult to hit from the side is not nearly as useful as being difficult to hit from the front.

The bottom line is that the rescalings are physically consistent but the details of the 3D models make some mechs much easier to hit in an MWO first person shooter context. The only way to really fix this would be to individually adjust the 3D models on the worst cases to make them a bit thicker, make the legs a bit bigger, widen the torso slightly so that the overall dimensions end up more balanced. However, changing all the 3D models to make them more playable as well as physically properly scaled is a lot of work.

[Deathlike]

CK16, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

If you are a light mech getting shot at way to much, you are not playing lights correctly and maybe need to learn the tactic of break contact and hit and run instead of trying to dance with anything larger then you...

Are you saying "aiming" with Streaks is hard?

Just double checking faulty definitions.

[cazidin]

Last year's greatest mistake...

...was not making me Grand Poobah of PR.

I would've been cruel but fair.

[Bud Crue]

The thread title inspires so many options for snark and anti-PGI commentary that I am actually at a loss as to just what mistake they could undo and which was the greatest.

I mean the potential for a Phase 4.1 comment seems really ripe, but then there is the world championship aspect that just begs to be mocked. Then again all the nerfs to my favorite mechs really invites ridicule. But then I thought of all the times they fixed something, then realized they actually broke something, then let Russ get on twitter justifying whatever they broke, and then half-assed fixing it (minimap being most obvious example to pop into mind) and thought "now that is what should be mocked in this thread."

Then I read the actual OP. Rescale. Hmm. Yeah IS humanoid 35tonners were gutted, but was that their greatest mistake of 2016? Seems almost blasé...a mere unintended consequence...as opposed to an outright mistake.

Then it struck me...their greatest mistake of 2016 is one that simply cannot be undone, alas. It is this:
allowing Russ Bullock to pontificate in front of a camera or mic. That is their greatest mistake. If they could undo that...undo drunk Russ from March, insulting Russ from April, barely able to put up having to talk with the community Russ from Twitter, and of course hobo Russ from mechcon; I think the goodwill that the greater community would have for the game and their faith that PGI actually has both it and its players best interests at heart would be significantly greater than it currently is.

Oh well, this thread had great comedic potential. Now it just made me depressed for PGI. I hate that.

Edited by Bud Crue, 02 June 2017 - 06:41 AM.

[Sjorpha]

I think the move to volume based rescale was good and better than arbitrary scaling, but they should have assumed higher densities for lower tonnages. Something like 150% the density at 20 tons assuming 100% for 100 tons. Basically make ligther mechs smaller.

Rescale felt a lot worse than it was though because PGI paired it with a blanket nerf to IS quirks for absolutey no reason at all, so example like the BK and GHR felt extra bad because they lost out both in scale and quirk power. Double whammies are never a good idea.

I personally think the execution of phase 3 was the worst mistake, way too hyped for what was delivered and several things that made FP worse, failure to make split queue work, long tom faceplant, dysfunctional voting system reducing strategic choice on the map, taxing units with weird recruitment and contract switching penalties reducing players ability to self-organize and manage queue times by moving where they were needed, also penalizing large units so that big projects like MS became unfeasible and/or meaning less where they should be important parts of FP. Complete disaster overall.

Edited by Sjorpha, 02 June 2017 - 06:53 AM.

[Pjwned]

Appogee, on 02 June 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

The rescale would have been great if PGI had decided to simply use a fair and even mathematical approach based on the tonnage of the chassis and its volume and surface area.

Instead, PGI started with a mathematical approach and then screwed it up completely by modifying some chassis based on their 'judgement'.

PGI have shown time and again they do not have enough experience of playing their own game necessary to make sound judgement calls.

Where's the evidence that they did that? Because that's pretty much the opposite of what they said they were doing and as far as I can tell each mech is about the size it should be.

I wouldn't be surprised if that did happen but I've seen nothing presented (other than some speculation) to suggest major discrepancies in mech size.

Being buttmangled about 35 tonners getting bigger is not evidence of that by the way, since some people seem to think it is.

[PhoenixFire55]

Sjorpha, on 02 June 2017 - 06:45 AM, said:

I think the move to volume based rescale was good and better than arbitrary scaling, but they should have assumed higher densities for lower tonnages. Something like 150% the density at 20 tons assuming 100% for 100 tons. Basically make ligther mechs smaller.

Uh, so instead of arbitrary scaling we are gonna do ... *drumroll* ... arbitrary scaling! Much amaze.

[Weeny Machine]

Appogee, on 02 June 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

The rescale would have been great if PGI had decided to simply use a fair and even mathematical approach based on the tonnage of the chassis and its volume and surface area.

Instead, PGI started with a mathematical approach and then screwed it up completely by modifying some chassis based on their 'judgement'.

PGI have shown time and again they do not have enough experience of playing their own game necessary to make sound judgement calls.

Pretty much this - regardless if it was by making exceptions or none. A prime example are the 35t mechs. They rival the size of mediums but not having their armour nor structure. Which means they feel quite squishy. The paradox thing is that a 30t mechs feels tougher than a 35t mech.

And even if they kept strict to a volumetric approach, then I wonder why there were no exceptions like in the case of 35t mechs because it obviously is ok that a heavy mech can have better agility stats than many light mechs. I know it is a kind of cherry picking but that it is possible at all that a mech can behave better than a mech 30t lighter and 2 weight classes lower should not happen

CK16, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

No Req....as many have pointed out to you time and time again....the scaling is not a mistake....Scaling was horrid before...A Jenner would not be remotely close to the Locust....or the Firestarter to the Commando....Fact is, light pilots who ***** about how they csnt compete now, well they were just abusing the micro scale and clustered hitboxes to survive. Also relying on a very under scaled mech in oh I don't know the Oxide? I

If you are a light mech getting shot at way to much, you are not playing lights correctly and maybe need to learn the tactic of break contact and hit and run instead of trying to dance with anything larger then you...

Jup, listen to this pro! I mean he has played a light mech 4 seasons ago but hey... Honestly, hypcorites like you crack me up.

Edited by Bush Hopper, 02 June 2017 - 07:41 AM.