114 replies to this topic

[Ced Riggs]

Hey there,

So, mhmm - the recent changes as a whole, beginning at the engine desync, going over to assigning the arbitrary mobility profiles seemingly willy-nilly, giving either core-specific quirks or removing crucial quirks from mechs, and ultimately, shredding the light classs across months now, has given food to one thought here:

PGI, indirectly, nerfs the hardest to measure stat: Fun. And that is an important stat.

Fun is hard to point down, fun is nothing you can see in W/L ratio, or average match score. Fun is an emotional value, that has little representation in actual game metrics, because it is so implicit. But we all know what's not fun.

• Unresponsive mechs.
  
• Near instantaneous, long weapon jams.
  
• Spontaneous combustions after beign grazed by MGs.
  
• The inability to take a turn.
  
• Running into team mates or walls.
  
• Hover jets that do nigh nothing.
  
• Endless screenshake.
  
• Brawling being less and less of an option.
  
• LRMs being in a pitiful state.
  
• Goose-Pepsi centric meta.
  
• The same maps for years.
  
• CW coming, but seemingly having no meaning.
  
• Strategic Strike Warrior Online

There is more, and I am sure everyone has a special thing they get bummed out about. We all get annoyed, or disheartened when mechs we like, builds we prefer, or playstyles we enjoy become tiresome. When thrill becomes burden, when high-risk/high-reward becomes high-risk/no-reward.


The problem begins with the mobility changes - rather than looking at the mechs that performed well and learning from it, it seems that we got shafted across the board. We didn't get a mobility increase, but we got bogged down. But, mech responsiveness is a direct correlation to how enjoyable, how comfortable it is to pilot that mech.

• Lights were hit with the rescale and subsequent mobility blanket nerfs. Larger and easier to hit, less responsive, unless they are Locusts. Piloting any non-20t Light is an exercise in patience and frustration now. Scouting isn't rewarded, UAV placement has rewards in no relation to the danger, and squirreling has no rewards either.
  
• Mediums are the last class to feel good when piloting, with the Summoner and Linebacker being the few exceptions. Only the prior has some firepower, the latter is damned to an existence as pepsi nipple poptarting to have some tangible effect due to horrid hardpoints and low arms. But not all Mediums were that lucky. Mechs like the Hunchies got slammed pretty hard, moving like some Heavies now. Across the board, mediums are now a mixed bag.
  
• Heavies feel cumbersome, and often as Assaults used to feel. There is a lot less of twisting, a lot less of darting, and even many mechs that were lauded in lore as being highly agile are ... not agile at all anymore. The gain in firepower comes with a much slower, cautious playstyle, as any path chosen requires commitment - you can't alternate a push's path much anymore, as heavies simply don't handle well enough to do it in an enjoyable way.
  
• Assaults are now playing TurretWarrior:Online. Pick a direction, hobble that way, fire, and hope no one comes for a flank. Like glaciers. Responsiveness is only found in the minuscule motions of the crosshair, but the machines themselves are ponderous, lumbering - and they still die like any other mech, were increase in resilience and loss of mobility stand in little correlation. Hell, there are heavy mechs that eclipse Assault Mechs in resilience, too. So even that is gone.

Again, I could go on. You could add and go on, too. And this isn't even about one specific nerf, or one specific build, faction, weapon, map, anything. It is about the grand whole of things. And overall, as a grand whole, MWO is paying for many decisions with a precious currency - fun. And that's a dangerous coin to flip.

So, for what it's worth, I'd implore Chris, Russ, whoever, to look at your game and ponder: What can we do to make the game fun? Increase the fun. Return control and comfort to the players, after you took it away, bit by bit. You may eventually reach a game that is balanced by the numbers and metrics, but if it isn't fun at that point in time, your balance efforts will be worthless.

Anecdote: Fractured Space (F2P MOBA) did a weekend as a joke where they increased all agility, speed, etc. by 50% for all ships across the board. Just to do a funny event. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that a permanent 10% increase followed, as a serious implementation - and the game was better for it, as players got more responsiveness out of their ships.

[Fox the Apprentice]

Thinking man's shooter =/= fast

[Toothless]

Ced Riggs, on 21 June 2017 - 08:28 AM, said:

Anecdote: Fractured Space (F2P MOBA) did a weekend as a joke where they increased all agility, speed, etc. by 50% for all ships across the board. Just to do a funny event. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that a permanent 10% increase followed, as a serious implementation - and the game was better for it, as players got more responsiveness out of their ships.

Thats such an awesome game. (And free to play too, btw. Everyone go download it)

[Antares102]

Fox the Apprentice, on 21 June 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

Thinking Old man's shooter =/= fast

FTFY

[Felicitatem Parco]

Mechwarrior is not a franchise symbolized by agile space robots or Mechanical ninjas.

It's a Tank game. Keep the context - it's a tank vehicle sim.

[ChapeL]

Ced Riggs, on 21 June 2017 - 08:28 AM, said:

• Mediums are the last class to feel good when piloting, with the Summoner and Linebacker being the few exceptions.

Sorry, I just read diagonally for lack of time but this caught my eye.
Those two mechs you mention are heavies

[cazidin]

Fox the Apprentice, on 21 June 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

Thinking man's shooter =/= fast

Thinking man's shooter =/= twitch shooter, is what I think that you meant. Most of our thought goes into the mechlab, in selecting our mech and loadout and then on the map in terms of optimal positioning, twisting damage, etc. Slow, unresponsive mechs actually work against an intelligent man because he'll either be at a disadvantage against faster mechs, or he'll be one of them. An intelligent man will not choose a suboptimal or poorly performing mech no more than he would, say, a slow and unresponsive vehicle.

[Ced Riggs]

Fox the Apprentice, on 21 June 2017 - 08:31 AM, said:

Thinking man's shooter =/= fast

That was a sarcastic post, right? You're making a joke there, correct? I am having a hard time believing that anyone would use "Thinking man's X" unironically. Especially when I see lurmers throwing missiles at 100m, or teams timidly hugging rocks, Assaults being oblivious to back stabs, and quad cUAC2 Timberwolves. There isn't much thinking going on in the lower ranks, now is there? Convoluted strats that never work, neither get executed don't make anyone a "thinking man".

[Antares102]

Prosperity Park, on 21 June 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:

Mechwarrior is not a franchise symbolized by agile space robots or Mechanical ninjas.

It's a Tank game. Keep the context - it's a tank vehicle sim.

Battletech is a fantasy game as all of its "tech" is nonsensical.
While battlemechs are compared to tanks the fantasy stuff behind them negates any reasoning that they should actually handle like tanks.

[Ced Riggs]

ChapeL, on 21 June 2017 - 08:38 AM, said:

Sorry, I just read diagonally for lack of time but this caught my eye.
Those two mechs you mention are heavies

Yes. Those two heavies are the last exceptions to the blanket statement of mediums being the only class that is enjoyable to pilot, despite being heavies.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Antares102, on 21 June 2017 - 08:40 AM, said:

Battletech is a fantasy game as all of its "tech" is nonsensical.
While battlemechs are compared to tanks the fantasy stuff behind them negates any reasoning that they should actually handle like tanks.

Really? They have tank-like ground speed, they cannot side-step but rather have to pivot to turn, they have tank-like weights and armor and weapons, they are piloted by a human in a cockpit, and their role on the battlefield is just like that of tanks.

The only difference is that Mechs can kick, use arms, and some have jets. They are tanks on legs.

They have a very high center of gravity, so if you wanted to make it more like it "should be" then Mechs should have slower acceleration and deceleration, and less turning ability at speed, than tanks do.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 21 June 2017 - 09:14 AM.

[Ced Riggs]

Prosperity Park, on 21 June 2017 - 09:13 AM, said:

... so if you wanted to make it more like it "should be" then Mechs should have slower acceleration and deceleration, and less turning ability at speed, than tanks do.

You are missing the point.

If, anything, you are walking in the opposite direction. I am asking for a game to be fun. PGI has been put dampeners on fun for quite some time. I am not asking for the game to be realistic, because at that point, the entire concept of 'Mechs is dumb. Inefficient, instable, wasted weight, bad profiles, and so on. So, that all goes out of the window.

I'd like to have fun. MW1, MW2, MW3, MW4 was fun. MWO had more fun, but fun, the one stat you cannot get from metrics, has been taken hit after hit. And that needs to change.

[BattleGnome]

This "War against fun" feeling I get from PGI also seems to manifest itself in the recent Night Gyr and Marauder IIC nerfs.

It's not like they didn't need nerfs, it was how heavy handed they were- at least with the Night Gyr. And while the Night Gyr could technically be considered competitive still, reducing the torso angle (and pitch! WTF?) on it makes it NOT FUN.

Seriously, reducing the torso twist arc as a balancing tool doesn't help much, it just pisses players off- especially when such nerfs are disproportionately on Clan Assault mechs. These kind of nerfs only really just pigeon hole players into other mechs that perform similarly like the Timber Wolf and Supernova (sshhhh! Don't tell PGI about the Supernova! It's our secret, okay?).

[Foxfire kadrpg]

I agree with the 'nerf to fun' idea.

For me, every time I pour an alpha on a target and it remains standing, I get more and more depressed. Every mech that cannot torso twist more than 50 degrees to its side is unfun to me; even if I CAN push 1k damage with an ambush Direwolf, I do not like being unable to look around my surroundings due to a 'balanced torso twisting.

And I am STILL bitter over the jumpjet nerf of 2013, half at PGI and half at all the [REDACTED] players who complained about 'pop tarting'.

I don't need the mechs to travel faster than they do now, but I DO wish they'd die when I shoot them, I DO wish I could torso-twist to spread damage on ANY mech, and I WISH an assault with jumpjets could reach a ledge at eye level.

[Wintersdark]

I realise that everyone has their own preferences, but I prefer there be significant mobility differences.

The problem was that Mediums sucked as a class (outlying Mechs aside) because Heavies where sufficiently agile that the gain mediums had was irrelevant - heavies could twist damage well enough.

Now, it's different. For many heavies, it's harder to twist damage. Not impossible, but you're going to be less efficient at it.

This helps balance out the armor difference, whereas previously a heavy gained "free" survivability vs a Medium at no real cost (tonnage, for the bulk of gameplay, isn't relevant).

Maybe this pushes the Ideal Weight Class from Heavies to Mediums. To be honest, I'm fine with that. It's different, but not worse. After all, Mediums are supposed to be the workhorse mechs; the most common Mechs on the battlefield.


Keep in mind, in Battletech a mech running at full speed and turning hard could outright fall over and slide. Mechs are not extremely agile machines.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I don't necessarily agree with everything the OP states but I do agree with the general statement that PGI tends to nerf Fun. I think this comes from the fact that it doesn't really appear they actually play their own game. I mean our new Balance Manager, Chris, apparently went on record at some point saying that he didn't really play the game much and that outlines the basic problem.

The basic problem is that nerfs tend to be based on some spreadsheet somewhere without any consideration whatsoever to whether the changes lead to situations that are still fun and enjoyable or not. If they actually played the game as much as we do, they would know that 1.25-1.5 beam duration weapons weren't fun to use, that the charge up mechanic on the Gauss isn't fun, that JJs that don't allow mech to Jump aren't fun, that mechs will brick-like movement profiles aren't fun to pilot, That UACs that jam up every 10 second or so aren't fun to use and so on and so forth.

Now I am not saying that balancing doesn't have to take place but each and every change should have to pass the "Fun Test" before making it into the game. If it doesn't pass and isn't fun, then another solution needs to happen, simple as that.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 21 June 2017 - 09:53 AM.

[Bud Crue]

BattleGnome, on 21 June 2017 - 09:37 AM, said:

This "War against fun" feeling I get from PGI also seems to manifest itself in the recent Night Gyr and Marauder IIC nerfs.

It's not like they didn't need nerfs, it was how heavy handed they were- at least with the Night Gyr. And while the Night Gyr could technically be considered competitive still, reducing the torso angle (and pitch! WTF?) on it makes it NOT FUN.

Seriously, reducing the torso twist arc as a balancing tool doesn't help much, it just pisses players off- especially when such nerfs are disproportionately on Clan Assault mechs. These kind of nerfs only really just pigeon hole players into other mechs that perform similarly like the Timber Wolf and Supernova (sshhhh! Don't tell PGI about the Supernova! It's our secret, okay?).

No. No they didn't need nerfs. Only some variants -and honestly only some builds on those variants- needed nerfs.

And that is one really big example of how and why PGI keeps nerffing fun.

However inadvertently, they balance by spreadsheet and modify by formula. In a game where every mech and every variant has unique characteristics, they apply broad based changes in their presumed good faith efforts to balance and improve game play. But such broad changes to a system where everything is unique, end up "fixing" perhaps one thing, yet simultaneously hurting far more. That sucks the fun right out of a game based on diversity and customization. The lower tier Mad-IIcs and the non-PPC/Gauss Night Gyrs are thus rendered less-fun across the board because the others are a bit OP. See also Kodaks suffering for the Kodiak-3's high hard points.

[Birthright]

PGI seems to nerf the most popular mechs.

Idk if that is a good decision.

Like many ppl like the TBR, but its actually pretty weak right now.

Because PGI nerfed it several times.

Good mechs become popular, but a "good" mech is not only called good because of awesome match performance, its mostly because of a fun playstyle and a general feelgood vibe.

Like all assaults are terrible now except for the Marauder 2C, simply because it does not feel sluggish and turns fast.

Now the marauder is a slug aswell, that might be a performance nerf, but it mostly is a fun nerf.

I think the 2C is still super viable, but I dont think i will play it anymore because it just feels boring slow now.

It is a really crappy decision on PGI's end to streamline every mech.


Some time ago, many mechs had different quirks, loadouts, mobility and maneuverability profiles.

Then they removed quirks basically, made it possible for every mech to get the same quirks via skilltree (=streamlined) making mechs less unique, they streamlined hardpoints and loadouts on any mech
and worst of it all they streamlined maneuverability.

Every 85t mech has the same maneuverability as a stalker, same turn rate and so on.
Its the same for every mech on a certain weight class.

This is a terrible design decision.

The only thing that separates any mech at the same weight class from each other is only hitboxes and hardpoint location.
The rest is totally identical.
Carry the same weapons, have the same speed, ability to get the same quirks (skilltree), same maneuverability, same firepower basically...

Just everything streamlined again and again.

Really ******* boring.

And Hero and Paytoplay mechs of course always come with better hardpoints or special quirks, COINCIDENCE.


Maybe one day the game will be balanced from a spreadsheetwarrior point of view.
But it will also be super boring, zero fun and totally abadoned player numbers wise.

Edited by NebeIparder, 21 June 2017 - 10:01 AM.

[MechaBattler]

If you enjoy mobility then drop down to a medium or a lighter heavy. You no longer have access to mechs with firepower, armor, and mobility. You'll have to make a choice. As you should.

It's not the death of fun. It's curtailing the power creep of heavier mechs.

It's called balance. Mechs having everything is not balance.

[cazidin]

MechaBattler, on 21 June 2017 - 10:04 AM, said:

If you enjoy mobility then drop down to a medium or a lighter heavy. You no longer have access to mechs with firepower, armor, and mobility. You'll have to make a choice. As you should.

It's not the death of fun. It's curtailing the power creep of heavier mechs.

It's called balance. Mechs having everything is not balance.

While it may make sense from a balance standpoint I don't think that you can argue Assaults having the mobility of a double decker bus with half the wheels deflated is *fun* or *feels good*.