54 replies to this topic

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

Congratulations to Empyreal, Eon Synergy and 228 IBR on making the world finals.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/178677487
Here are the drop decks that got them there.

Eon runs 2 wolfhounds replacing the 2 spiders they ran last year.
228 IBR ran 2 assassins for 1 drop.

Everything else Clan.

Edited by The Nerf Bat, 02 October 2017 - 09:26 AM.

[Bombast]

Yup. I was counting out Inner Sphere mechs on the earlier matches, and the Assassin and Wolfhound stood out as the most used ones. Maulers showed up a few times, and even a Grasshopper, but not enough to really make an impact.

EDIT: Those Assassins are no joke, though. Wish I could run them like that.

Edited by Bombast, 02 October 2017 - 09:30 AM.

[Battlemaster56]

Man IS really need a boost up to even be consider in competitive matchs, just seeing Wolfhounds only in drops in such a scene have to mean something needs to happen in balancing to mech more IS mechs viable.

[MechaBattler]

You know what this means? They'll nerf the Assassin.

[Trissila]

Battlemaster56, on 02 October 2017 - 09:28 AM, said:

Man IS really need a boost up to even be consider in competitive matchs, just seeing Wolfhounds only in drops in such a scene have to mean something needs to happen in balancing to mech more IS mechs viable.

Lasers dominate the meta, as they have since basically MW2.

Clans do lasers better than IS, with notable exceptions like the Wolfhound.

[N0ni]

What a surprise, the same teams from last year's WC are the top 3 again this year.

And this is why i don't watch. SSDD.

[Bud Crue]

MechaBattler, on 02 October 2017 - 09:33 AM, said:

You know what this means? They'll nerf the Assassin.

Beat me to it.

But yep, you probably ought to expect all these mechs (and likely all chassis mates of these particularly variants as they did with the Kodiaks, all MAD-IICs save the 8, the Night Gyrs, etc.) to be nerfed. They won't buff everything/anything up to be like these mechs, rather they will nerf these mechs to be more like their lower performing fellows. So there's that to look forward to!

[MechaBattler]

I think they need to try another pass at core mechanics. In particular how crits work and component health. They could try to readdress weapons. But then everyone will cry over whatever changes they make there. "Don't nerf me bro!" has become a common theme lately.

[Rovertoo]

Bud Crue, on 02 October 2017 - 09:39 AM, said:

Beat me to it.

But yep, you probably ought to expect all these mechs (and likely all chassis mates of these particularly variants as they did with the Kodiaks, all MAD-IICs save the 8, the Night Gyrs, etc.) to be nerfed. They won't buff everything/anything up to be like these mechs, rather they will nerf these mechs to be more like their lower performing fellows. So there's that to look forward to!

I feel that, functionally, nerfing the few overperformers instead of buffing everything else is a pretty clear decision. Ive never understood the mentality of buffing everything, that just leads to a crazy arms race, and eventually wed have to buff armor values again and well be back where we started but with bigger numbers. Like, either way leads to balance I guess, but buffing everything is a hugely longer race.

[MechaBattler]

Imagine trying to make the Vindicator perform at the same level as those Clan mechs. It would need ridiculously huge quirks.

[Bud Crue]

Rovertoo, on 02 October 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

I feel that, functionally, nerfing the few overperformers instead of buffing everything else is a pretty clear decision. Ive never understood the mentality of buffing everything, that just leads to a crazy arms race, and eventually wed have to buff armor values again and well be back where we started but with bigger numbers. Like, either way leads to balance I guess, but buffing everything is a hugely longer race.

Consider Mecha's comment above regarding the Vindicator.
So we nerf these "overperformers" instead of buffing everything else. Fine. To what level do you nerf them? To that of the aforementioned Vindicator? If not, why? If the goal is the oft cited "balance" where every mech is equally viable (as Paul used to assert), should not that Vindi be just as good and just as likely a player in the comp scene as those Night Gyrs, Summoners, supernovas, et al? Isn't the Vindi supposed to be just as viable as any other mech? So if we buy the logic that it is proper and just to nerf these over performing terrors of the battlefield, just how much and in what manner do we nerf them?

That is the problem I have with nerfing. We have no agreed upon base line. No consensus for how mechs are to perform.

So before we just pull out the nerf bat and start wacking, I think it behooves PGI to first figure out "to what end", and if we can't answer that question with consistency and consensus I would just as soon they leave the over performers the hell alone out of fear of them just ruining what few mechs are good, in favor of making yet another mech no one wants to play because of their knee jerk response to their perceived over performance.

Edited by Bud Crue, 02 October 2017 - 10:14 AM.

[MechaBattler]

I question whether it's really the mechs themselves. Or a continuing disparity in tech and base mechanics.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I see a lot of long-range builds.

Does this data suggest that 12 ton Gauss Rifles dealing 15 damage is appropriate, or should they deal 8 damage?

(Note, you can clearly see the tip of my tongue imbedded in my cheek)

Edited by Prosperity Park, 02 October 2017 - 10:31 AM.

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

Last year the white knights and the clan apologist defended the lack of I.S. mechs in the world finals on things like old client build and saying the balance a lot gotten better. Here we are a year later, and even with the civil war tech, the I.S. mechs are still poorly represented. I'm just waiting to see how they will spin it this year.

[Bombast]

The Nerf Bat, on 02 October 2017 - 10:30 AM, said:

Here we are a year later, and even with the civil war tech...

Did they even use Civil War Tech, besides maybe LFE in the Assassins?

[Y E O N N E]

Bombast, on 02 October 2017 - 10:37 AM, said:

Did they even use Civil War Tech, besides maybe LFE in the Assassins?

IS ERML here and there on the WLF, but usually standard MedLas. Assassins were XL.

I like how even Oz had to yield to the superiority of the SNV over the BLR as the opposition got tougher.

[Bombast]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 October 2017 - 10:51 AM, said:

IS ERML here and there on the WLF, but usually standard MedLas. Assassins were XL.

Thanks.

I guess, as usual, the ML always finds its place. It was true in TT even after several tech releases, and its true here. It's like the M2 Browning of Battletech - Immmortal.

[Trissila]

MechaBattler, on 02 October 2017 - 10:22 AM, said:

I question whether it's really the mechs themselves. Or a continuing disparity in tech and base mechanics.

It's a combination of 'mech properties, tech, and How The Game Is Played. When you're in a full-stack coordinated team that focuses fire and controls spacing, lasers are much more attractive for their ability to deal large amounts of damage from decent-to-great range; burn time's not as much of a factor when you've got three or four 'mechs all burning the same target. In more disorganized play, you can get away with a lot of other things and do perfectly fine with them, even in very sub-optimal things like a Splat Huntsman.

That's the other big problem, really. Tournaments represent the extreme edge-case of highly-organized play. The vast, vast majority of MWO play is simply not like that.

[Bud Crue]

The Nerf Bat, on 02 October 2017 - 10:30 AM, said:

Last year the white knights and the clan apologist defended the lack of I.S. mechs in the world finals on things like old client build and saying the balance a lot gotten better. Here we are a year later, and even with the civil war tech, the I.S. mechs are still poorly represented. I'm just waiting to see how they will spin it this year.

Don't forget that PGI's last stated official position is that mechs with quirks (IS mechs predominantly) represent power creep.

Yup. According to them (remember this gem): "overall quirks have introduced a level of powercreep that we feel is the wrong direction for mechwarrior online." So perhaps the MWOWC will be a wake up call to the folly of this position? Perhaps they will recognize what my my 7 year old noted back when the skills tree dropped that "making the bad mechs badder seems like a bad idea". Perhaps they will see that their reduction and in some cases the elimination of "narrow offensive quirks" that accompanied the Skills Tree patch was perhaps not the great balancing achievement that PGI expected it would be. Perhaps then PGI will have this post facto realization and decide to give some of the recently nerfed IS mech back some of their power creep introducing quirks back so that they might be a wee bit more competitive.

Or maybe they will just nerf the Assasin and Wolfhound and gut the agility even more on all the Clan mechs listed above.

Which do you think is more likely?

[Rovertoo]

Bud Crue, on 02 October 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

Consider Mecha's comment above regarding the Vindicator.
So we nerf these "overperformers" instead of buffing everything else. Fine. To what level do you nerf them? To that of the aforementioned Vindicator? If not, why? If the goal is the oft cited "balance" where every mech is equally viable (as Paul used to assert), should not that Vindi be just as good and just as likely a player in the comp scene as those Night Gyrs, Summoners, supernovas, et al? Isn't the Vindi supposed to be just as viable as any other mech? So if we buy the logic that it is proper and just to nerf these over performing terrors of the battlefield, just how much and in what manner do we nerf them?

That is the problem I have with nerfing. We have no agreed upon base line. No consensus for how mechs are to perform.

So before we just pull out the nerf bat and start wacking, I think it behooves PGI to first figure out "to what end", and if we can't answer that question with consistency and consensus I would just as soon they leave the over performers the hell alone out of fear of them just ruining what few mechs are good, in favor of making yet another mech no one wants to play because of their knee jerk response to their perceived over performance.

I agree they need a baseline, and its tricky to find really. But I think its a good idea to consider other popular PvP games, and I cant think of a single one that deals purely in buffs and I think theres good reason for that. Most games play to the middle ground, nerfing high performers and buffing low performers. I think thats probably the best way to go.

And yeah, save the vindicator!