153 replies to this topic

[TWIAFU]

Commander A9, on 05 November 2017 - 08:05 PM, said:

No one was willing to play Invasion with us tonight.

Event "successful." Right...

That is a human nature fail on PGI.

They allowed for Scouting to give credit. People will naturally take the path of least resistance, they are going to Scout over Invasion.

Shorter matches, less wait, 8 less Pugs to deal with, and added joy of denying enemy 100 match score. You know your doing something right when the enemy actually BEGS you to let them make score off you....

[C E Dwyer]

Pariah Devalis, on 01 November 2017 - 10:05 PM, said:

Actually... if you note? That has a very.. very positive KDR. I got those via brawling.

Against IS mechs.

I do not want to hear excuses, because, frankly, there are none. People fail to work together. Half the time, people do not even hit R to attack weakened legs. They just scatter to the seven winds and smear shots all over the enemy. That isn't how you fight. That isn't how you win. Focus fire as best you can, fire primarily on legs, and go all in - or die one at a time.

He's right you know.

Tonnage parity is just a battle cry of bad players looking for an excuse for their scrub play.

scrubs will play just as badly with 50/50

The real effect will be either a massive hike in armour quirks on the hunchback and centurion, making them unbalanced in other area's or a mode that becomes a ghost town as the clan 50 toners carry more firepower and are faster meaning skilled clan players (not scrub) can dictate the engagement every single match.

or of course P.G.I being P.G.I they could quite possibly lower the clan tonnage to 45, because they hate to admit they got it badly wrong, even when they buckled to scrub demands.

[DevlinCognito]

Come on Cathy, you've been here long enough to know PGI don't make mistakes, it's the players not playing it right.
/s

[MischiefSC]

Fuerchtenichts, on 05 November 2017 - 10:37 PM, said:

That is why the comp community has its own game mode where they can use all chassis. But this discussion is about FP. If you want people to get better results they should invest time in training their personal skills and their team play. I don't see a scouting mech configuration that can't be beaten at the moment.

My estimated root causes for FP success/failure:
Team play 60%
Personal skill 30%
Tech balance 10%

If you want to improve start with the 90% and not with the last 10% .

Except the tech balance is more than 10% specifically because of teamwork and that 10% *drives* the other 90%.

Good people want to play with good gear. The reality is that the best players in the game could beat you and I in while they played in trial mechs. That doesn't mean trial mechs are balanced vs everything else nor does it mean people should just stay in trials and work on their individual skill first.

In a 1 v 1 duel there are IS mechs I can take and beat good players in Clan mechs in. However because teamwork multiplies your advantages and can be used to mask weaknesses the tech advantage balloons. That extra 20 damage per trade suddenly becomes 240 damage advantage every 4 seconds.

Saying game balance is fine being bad (interestingly that's something I literally only ever hear from people who are advantaged by the imbalance. yes yes, they also all say 'I play IS all the time' yet seem to post and play all the time anyone sees them in Clan tags) and that people need to just 'git gud' is incredibly disingenuous. In that logic we should have just left balance as it was when Clans were released I guess? Send PGI home, everything from here on out the players will just fix on our end?

The best players in the game say yes, git gud, but bad balance sucks for everyone and needs fixed. Let me know when PGI can make a patch for the game to fix bad player skills. Until then their focus needs to be fixing balance, which in turn fixes population spread and the relative value of both sides.

DevlinCognito, on 06 November 2017 - 01:56 AM, said:

The recent event has given IS the chance to face other IS Scout groups and it was glorious! No one complaining about the Tech imbalance, no whining about 'OP quirks' or 'Clantech eazy mode', it was so refreshing (if shortlived).

A properly built Clan Scout Lance has zero problems fighting the IS. Personally I believe dropping Clans to 50 tonnes was a huge advantage for them, stopping players from bringing dumb Skill-crows and pushing them into Novas that (if the pilot can aim) eat Griffins and Bushies for breakfast.

Shoot legs

Yes it's less damage to go straight through the CT, but accept the enemy pilot may be able to shield and take the legs and Bushies die fast with 4 Mechs shooting them. The *ahem*... 'huge OP tanking quirks'... *ahem* don't mean a damned thing when you have a 4 extra 4 small pulse on the Huntsman over the Griffin or you can get all your small Lasers on the Bushies legs in your Nova. However if you bring ATMs, Crit-lynx, ER-medium Novas or LRM Hunchies don't complain when you get outbrawled by real brawling Mechs.

The Scrow was a problem primarily because of SPLs. That was way back when SPLs were super strong. I can run 5 or 6 Streak 6 on a huntsman - that's never been the issue. It was high speed, very tanky hitboxes and the incredible alpha + heat management of SPL boating that made the Scrow an issue.

If Clans were put back at 55 tons right now it wouldn't help much because the HBK IIC and Huntsman are as good a platform as the Scrow and in some roles better. What shifted scouting the most was the Griffin got some buffs and the Bushie is an excellent, tanky, hard hitting medium.

However a Clan team that puts as much effort into bringing a good deck for their team can easily still win those matches. 1 or 2 fast mechs that have rock solid DPS (2HLL, bunch of MGs on a Scat even) and a couple of mid range strong mediums and you'll pull legs of bushies and griffins before they can SRM you. It's about positioning more than anything else. You can go full brawl but you need to coordinate fire - the advantage Clans have is the ability to take 4xSRM6A plus some heat efficient lasers and additional DHS, match the Splat and follow it up with a precision burn. Don't shoot the heavily quirked bits.

Edited by MischiefSC, 06 November 2017 - 09:57 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

I agree with both of you, MischiefSC and Fuerchtenichts, but for differing points.

However, I also don't believe a state of "perfect balance" is ever going to happen. No game with asymmetrical forces ever does have perfect balance. All you can hope for is to get close enough. Even if there is a 1% difference, that technically isn't "balanced." The best of the best can exploit advantages no matter how small, yes, but the best of the best make up, what, 5% of the game's active population?

I'm not saying the 5% doesn't matter. However, for the majority of the players out there, "close enough" is good enough for tech balance. Or it should be. I'm also not saying balance for skill, because that's just chasing a ghost and punishes those who can coax extra performance out of their mechs. Problem is, if you balance for skill, you make certain things too good for what they are, and that results in the best of the best abusing the hell out of it. If you balance based on the top 5%, you create a perceived imbalance for the 95%, where certain mechs or builds vastly outperform others simply due to a lack of player capabilities, as some builds will be easier to use effectively than others.

So where is the balance point? Probably the best thing that can happen is, like what LoL does, is change up the way items (or in this case, weapons and equipment) work, either by straight values or changing their root function somewhat, every several months. Sweeping changes that forces everyone to relearn how parts of the game interact. That intentionally mixes up the meta. Unless you stir it up, and keep stirring it up, things can feel samey.

Of course, if you go about that the wrong way, you're also gonna piss off a whole hell of a lot of people who got attached to certain things. Especially with our community full of thin-skins. Even nonfactor changes that PGI currently rolls out pisses people off.

[MischiefSC]

Pariah Devalis, on 06 November 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

I agree with both of you, MischiefSC and Fuerchtenichts, but for differing points.

However, I also don't believe a state of "perfect balance" is ever going to happen. No game with asymmetrical forces ever does have perfect balance. All you can hope for is to get close enough. Even if there is a 1% difference, that technically isn't "balanced." The best of the best can exploit advantages no matter how small, yes, but the best of the best make up, what, 5% of the game's active population?

I'm not saying the 5% doesn't matter. However, for the majority of the players out there, "close enough" is good enough for tech balance. Or it should be. I'm also not saying balance for skill, because that's just chasing a ghost and punishes those who can coax extra performance out of their mechs. Problem is, if you balance for skill, you make certain things too good for what they are, and that results in the best of the best abusing the hell out of it. If you balance based on the top 5%, you create a perceived imbalance for the 95%, where certain mechs or builds vastly outperform others simply due to a lack of player capabilities, as some builds will be easier to use effectively than others.

So where is the balance point? Probably the best thing that can happen is, like what LoL does, is change up the way items (or in this case, weapons and equipment) work, either by straight values or changing their root function somewhat, every several months. Sweeping changes that forces everyone to relearn how parts of the game interact. That intentionally mixes up the meta. Unless you stir it up, and keep stirring it up, things can feel samey.

Of course, if you go about that the wrong way, you're also gonna piss off a whole hell of a lot of people who got attached to certain things. Especially with our community full of thin-skins. Even nonfactor changes that PGI currently rolls out pisses people off.

When we talk about the best balance period, right before the KDK dropped, balance still wasn't 'perfect'. However IS had some of the best heavies but Clans were close. Clans had the best lights and mediums but IS was close. Assaults was actually split on the role; IS options were best for mid/close, Clans had longer mid-range but both could work in the other space.

Balance was NOT perfect. However each side had some mechs that could be leveraged to be better in specific places and the places they were not it was still close.

That's good enough. That's great even. As good as you can expect.

Currently though there's none of that. Clans have the best mech for every real role in each category. The only exception is the Assassin, which has wonky hitboxes and takes 10x as much shooting to take down as any other medium or light save the locust.

70-80 pt alphas at 500+m that are actually better than most DPS builds up close and stack with Cendo/CDHS/CXL to cool more quickly than any IS mech can even with the higher heat breaks pretty much everything. I can boat 9 CMPLs or go 2 HLLs and cermls based on mech tonnage and fill the rest with DHS and pretty much just wreck whatever wherever. Unless it's an assault with mixed energy/ballistics, then I can go 2xgauss and either HLLs or CERMLs.

Unless you want to brawl - then I can run 4xSRM6A and mixed lasers on a 50 tonner with JJs. Or 6 MPLs. Or 6 SRM6, really, but you can do better builds.

There's not really a space for IS to compete directly. There's nothing it actually does better. Some bads say 'well IS is better up close' because they don't really know how to brawl in a Clan mech I guess? 9 MPLs or any of a variety of Clan brawling builds just wreck face over their IS equivalents. Faster, more maneuverable, bigger alpha, faster cooling.

Have IS be better at a few things or have ranges in which they're just flat out better and we've got a good place. We had that place once. We are now well past it with the removal of the bulk of IS quirks, giving Clans skill tree quirks and the release of Heavy Lasers.

[Grus]

12 spl nova is all you need...
Go
For
Legs!

[MischiefSC]

Grus, on 06 November 2017 - 02:23 PM, said:

12 spl nova is all you need...
Go
For
Legs!

Spls overrated.

10x hsml, 4x lmg.

12 ersml

[Khaze]

Once Clans stopped screwing around with all-MG lights and ATM Huntsmen, it's still painfully obvious how far ahead their mechs are, Stormcrow or not. Let's not kid ourselves, IS is still being curbstomped, as they have been since the inception of the Clans.

[Fuerchtenichts]

MischiefSC, on 06 November 2017 - 09:55 AM, said:

In a 1 v 1 duel there are IS mechs I can take and beat good players in Clan mechs in. However because teamwork multiplies your advantages and can be used to mask weaknesses the tech advantage balloons. That extra 20 damage per trade suddenly becomes 240 damage advantage every 4 seconds.

Well that example is very catchy but it does not consider fighting range, hit accuracy, burn times, pinpoint vs splash damage, armor difference, maneuverability and what is even more important the skill of the pilots. Some of these factors are used by PGI trying to balance extra damage and I know you are experienced enough to know it.

We can argue whether this evaluation is sufficient or not but we should at least try to show the whole picture. Balancing is and will be an ongoing topic.

I can only encourage new players to start on Clan side, because mech building is less complex and in the end you will have to pay the same prize for comparable IS mechs. So your risk is lower to loose cbills/mcs at the very beginning of your MWO career.

[MischiefSC]

Fuerchtenichts, on 07 November 2017 - 12:52 AM, said:

Well that example is very catchy but it does not consider fighting range, hit accuracy, burn times, pinpoint vs splash damage, armor difference, maneuverability and what is even more important the skill of the pilots. Some of these factors are used by PGI trying to balance extra damage and I know you are experienced enough to know it.

We can argue whether this evaluation is sufficient or not but we should at least try to show the whole picture. Balancing is and will be an ongoing topic.

I can only encourage new players to start on Clan side, because mech building is less complex and in the end you will have to pay the same prize for comparable IS mechs. So your risk is lower to loose cbills/mcs at the very beginning of your MWO career.

I would say you can look at the top performing teams, from comp play to even the good FW teams and get their perceptions. That Clans are better at this point is a pretty clear consensus and there's a lot of math to back it up.

I would absolutely agree that new players are better off in Clan mechs. Way, way more forgiving both for building and playing.

[Charles Sennet]

Davegt27, on 02 November 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

Lets see

if I can repeat the Clan playbook

1) get gud
2) stop taking LRMs to scouting
3) suck it up butter cup
4) cry me a river
5) stop taking junk builds into FP
6) FP is for teams so get on a team


that's all stuff I can remember being told since Dec 2014

I agree with all this which only reinforces the point that tonnages should be equal for both sides. It was IS complaining (who violated what you're saying) about the Streak Crow that got us to this place to begin with. Put another way... its a embarrassment for any IS player who defends the 5 ton advantage they currently enjoy. You should have gotten good to begin with. Thanks for making our point for us.

[MischiefSC]

Charles Sennet, on 07 November 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

I agree with all this which only reinforces the point that tonnages should be equal for both sides. It was IS complaining (who violated what you're saying) about the Streak Crow that got us to this place to begin with. Put another way... its a embarrassment for any IS player who defends the 5 ton advantage they currently enjoy. You should have gotten good to begin with. Thanks for making our point for us.

At the time it was done the tonnage difference was warranted because SPL boating and streaks with the tech that was available and mechs available was broke AF. At this point it's not relevant because stealth armor and better mediums on both sides make the Scrow largely irrelevant.

IS complained because broken balance is bad, regardless of skill level.

[Holy Jackson]

As somebody that has scouted extensively on both sides, but moreso IS, I'd say that bumping the clans back to 55 tons wouldn't scare me. The old crows could be dealt with before we had bushwackers, light engines, and nerfed streaks and lasers. I actually think that scouting might go to a 50/50 win loss average with them. as long as the pugs don't flood once side or the other and get farmed unevenly.

[Roland09]

What scouting imbalance? It's plenty balanced between Kurita and FRR.

[Charles Sennet]

MischiefSC, on 07 November 2017 - 12:38 PM, said:

At the time it was done the tonnage difference was warranted because SPL boating and streaks with the tech that was available and mechs available was broke AF. At this point it's not relevant because stealth armor and better mediums on both sides make the Scrow largely irrelevant.

IS complained because broken balance is bad, regardless of skill level.

As it now broken in favor of IS.... there simply is little justification for durability quirks and 20 tons more (4 pilots x 5 tons). Sadly though bringing back 5 tons for Clans won't fix the issue as the SCR's cannot stand up to BSW's as they are currently constituted in-game.

[Roland09]

Charles Sennet, on 07 November 2017 - 02:11 PM, said:

As it now broken in favor of IS.... there simply is little justification for durability quirks and 20 tons more (4 pilots x 5 tons). Sadly though bringing back 5 tons for Clans won't fix the issue as the SCR's cannot stand up to BSW's as they are currently constituted in-game.

Actually, there is a justification. In brief, it's called "lots moar firepower on Clan side".

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

People are still thinking a Nova can stand up to a Bushwacker? ERSL is the best option available with CSPLs being nerfed and short range and HSLs also being shorter range than the ASRMs, ERSL lets you at least get one volley into the legs at reduced damage before you get curbstomped.

In general the Nova ends up taking one leg of the Bushwacker and lightly damaging the other leg before dying.

[Grus]

Dakota1000, on 07 November 2017 - 04:34 PM, said:

People are still thinking a Nova can stand up to a Bushwacker? ERSL is the best option available with CSPLs being nerfed and short range and HSLs also being shorter range than the ASRMs, ERSL lets you at least get one volley into the legs at reduced damage before you get curbstomped.

In general the Nova ends up taking one leg of the Bushwacker and lightly damaging the other leg before dying.

I disagree, I'm still loving the 12 spl build.. pops legs quick.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Grus, on 07 November 2017 - 04:41 PM, said:

I disagree, I'm still loving the 12 spl build.. pops legs quick.

I've done a lot of math between the builds that shows the Bushwacker just being better and also had many fights against the Nova with the Bushwacker, even in more controlled 1v1 situations, the Bushwacker just makes the Nova look weak in comparison.

I remember playing the 12 CSPL Nova back when the lasers all did 6 damage each and you had 2 DPS per laser, that's back when it was decent and would have had a chance against the Bushwacker. But this piddly 4 damage per laser and 1.6 DPS just doesn't cut it.

With 165m optimal range its really going to have problems when the Bushwacker can go and get in a free alpha due to range while having an alpha's worth of extra armor sitting around while having a free alpha of damage from the rocket launchers. That's like 3 free alphas it has over you and it only takes 2 to remove a leg, except for you actually, those CSPLs only have 48 damage per alpha, two of them leaves the bushwacker with 9 health left on the leg.