154 replies to this topic

[IL MECHWARRIOR]

it is false, i am an elite player and i hate this increased ttk, with less ttk i will go around oneshotting people, and that is what used to happen.


3 years ago i ran a direwolf 4 erll+2 gauss and you could one shot people at 1000 meters away. way better than the actual lrms+srms ********

[Nightbird]

Lowering TTK panders to elite players, keeping the TTK the same panders to elite players. It's always like elite players will always be elite, WTF!!!!!!!!!!!

[Asym]

Daggett, on 20 December 2017 - 07:16 AM, said:

So many assumptions, so few proof.

Why are longer Solaris matches better or more profitable? Having FP with 20+ minute matches and QP with 7-8 min average match-time, wouldn't it be smarter to make a duel mode cater to players who want even less match-time especially when fewer mechs are involved?

I see no problem with let's say 3 minute-matches, in fact i would be a target audience (although i'm more a fan of team-dynamics than duels). And if consumables are allowed shorter match-times are a better cbill-sink than longer ones.
I think PGI intends to make the real money from the bolt-on cosmetics and whatever interesting stuff they might add as well in the revamped lootboxes.

BTW, TTK has not increased significantly over time. For a very long time the average QP match is often decided within 5 minutes of fighting. Then you add a few mins for finishing off any survivors and for walking time on bigger maps like Polar, but both have nothing to do with TTK.

TTK only seem to have increased since 8v8 with bigger maps being released which require more 'boring' walking time, but i bet the numbers tell a different story.

Personally i'm totally fine with current TTK times. Maybe some specific alpha-limitations like on laser-vomit would help to prevent getting wrecked too fast, but apart from those outliers it feels good for me overall.

Players leaving because they predicted some Solaris-scheme related to TTK before Solaris was even announced sound very odd and far from being rational to me. I'm pretty sure there are more logical reasons why they left. Maybe you are referring to the fear that FP get's left to die in favor for Solaris. That may be the case, but has nothing to do with TTK.

Your proof is that FP is dead and Solaris is the strategic goal: Hello !!!!!
Your proof is in the nerf's that no one can make any logical sense of.....
Your proof is in a shrinking population that only now comes out for events.....
Your proof is that farming and seal clubbing IS the accepted culture of this game.
We could go on and on but so far, everything I've outlined has and will come to pass........
Why elongate TTK: simple to make it more of an arcade style FPS versus actually tuned and lethal combat. No fun, no average players......
Food for thought........

[ROSS-128]

Honestly I suspect people might end up being surprised with how long solaris matches actually end up taking (outside of some edge cases like dying to a lucky headshot or making first contact with your rear armor).

Sustained DPS is generally quite low in MWO. Death by alpha strike only really happens when you're being focused by multiple mechs (outside of the above-mentioned edge cases). In a 1v1 scenario, it can actually take quite a while for two mechs to kill each other. Especially if they whiff or spread the first two or three alphas, at which point most of their huge burst damage is now out the window and they're either going to disengage to cool off or start whittling each other with their pitiful sustain.

This is also why focusing fire is so important in team matches, it's mathematically the only way to get anything resembling a quick kill in most situations.

So yeah, that's why I think people will find the current TTK in solaris is longer than they expect. I wonder if they'll ban cool shots though, because those may extend the high-damage burst window to an unreasonable degree.

[Daggett]

Asym, on 20 December 2017 - 04:18 PM, said:

Your proof is that FP is dead and Solaris is the strategic goal: Hello !!!!!
Your proof is in the nerf's that no one can make any logical sense of.....
Your proof is in a shrinking population that only now comes out for events.....
Your proof is that farming and seal clubbing IS the accepted culture of this game.
We could go on and on but so far, everything I've outlined has and will come to pass........
Why elongate TTK: simple to make it more of an arcade style FPS versus actually tuned and lethal combat. No fun, no average players......
Food for thought........

Seriously, i don't get it. Congratulations, you brainfucked me. I have seen weird conspiracy theories which made more sense to me.

In which universe is the label "arcade" connected to longer TTK? Arcade is by definition fast and unforgiving. Hawken for example is an arcade mech game, MWO is not and never will be for sure. The longer TTK becomes the less arcade your game will be.

So my question is still unanswered: Why does PGI have to increase TTK for Solaris, where is the benefit? Why exactly can't it work with current TTK?

Where are the numbers showing TTK has even increased significantly enough this year to prove your claim? Without this it does not make sense to blame nerfs for that because we currently don't know if anything has changed in the first place.

Where is your logic-chain which connects shrinking population to Solaris and TTK? What is with all the other numerous reasons why players could leave the game?

What has farming and seal-clubbing to do with your claim? Assuming that your opinion is true and the game is full of seal-clubbers (which i don't believe), what exactly shall it prove? I have not figured it out, sorry...

Your opinion that "If TTK shortens, NO ONE WILL PLAY.." is not the fact you want to make it to. As you can see in this thread alone there are players who want shorter TTK.

We two and many others do not want a shorter TTK, but we are only a part of this diverse community. Saying "no one" is always false when enough opinions are involved.

BTW: Where did PGI say they want to shorten TTK to make that even relevant for Solaris or the game as a whole? Maybe TTK overall is fine, does not need to changed and PGI has no intention to do so apart from maybe reducing some extreme alpha-outliers? Who knows?

Edited by Daggett, 20 December 2017 - 06:23 PM.

[Fiachdubh]

When are we going to get an AT-AT simulator?

[Maker L106]

Every time I see this brought up in any forum for any game with vs I think the same thing.

SBMM [Skill Based Match Making]

[rant] (but maybe worth your time)

Then I think back to games I used to play years and years (read decades at this point) ago and it's night and day between matching systems. Now granted games have evolved quite a bit in that time but hear me out because I'm not advocating server browsers or what not for MWO just an adjustment in how the game MM's people together.

I have had a notoriously dodgy connection in the past so i'm basically relegated to the NA server, despite this it's an excellent example of how you can mitigate some problems by limiting your exposure. That said, the community wide knows this and does so when needed.

What blows my mind is that people think for some reason rookies need to be gated from pros. What successful community does that!? Big *** comm's like CoD and what have you don't count, too big and too full of casuals (not meant as an insult or anything but MWO / Armored Core etc: are a bit more complex by design).

Which leads me to the conclusion that communication makes more of a difference than SBMM ever would. Yes it might suck to get absolutely trashed by a top tier player, but if you're able to engage with said player both on the battlefield and in some chat from time to time, be it in game when they're on your team, or the forums here or otherwise you stand to grow a lot more as a player a LOT faster and getting top down help like that is INSTRUMENTAL in getting low balling players who are happy to have 50 damage games because that means they've improved from having 30 damage games. To having way way better times with MWO because they've actually improved a lot relatively quickly AND its made a difference they can see.

both in numbers and performance.

Their mechanical skill will get better over time if needed and as with anything having people in positions to do this actually helps bootstrap the potatoes up from their roots and can cement them solidly as a decent player. The best? probably not. But your average joe in MWO is probably a lot worse off than he really should be for gating reasons to some degree. Not as bad as some games I've played but it might do well for them to not be babied until after they're academy bonuses go away and then they're thrown to the wolves proper.

The biggest key your need to take away from this is the ability to easily communicate with other players IN GAME if you get the chance. Dead? Wanna chat, you got the T key, people need to be encouraged to engage with others. Huge deal I cannot stress enough. I'd have never been a national level Soul Calibur player in my time if i'd just played locals and stayed in the basement rather than traveling to arcades (yes that used to be a thing) and got my *** whipped hard by people who were to me at the time, godlike.

The quality of the rookies you keep has got to come up as does player retention, if you make absolutely certain the players feel welcome and engage with them that's the biggest help any community gives their game and by just the nature therein the developer. PGI take notice, you don't really have to change SBMM for better or worse, just focus on actively encouraging engagement of players with one another. Makes things 100% better for everyone.

[/rant]

[Temporary Axis]

Cone of Fire? Sorry this is an FPS game.

The new Battletech game is over there.

[Asym]

Daggett, on 20 December 2017 - 06:02 PM, said:

Seriously, i don't get it. Congratulations, you brainfucked me. I have seen weird conspiracy theories which made more sense to me.

(Arcade as in "the astetics of an Arcade game vis-a-vis simulator images. We come from different generatiosn of VG playing....)

In which universe is the label "arcade" connected to longer TTK? Arcade is by definition fast and unforgiving. Hawken for example is an arcade mech game, MWO is not and never will be for sure. The longer TTK becomes the less arcade your game will be.

(TTK and arcade are not dependant. TTK must elongate to increase sales due to customers wanting more.... If you walk out into an arena and immediately die, no one will play. If not one playes, no one is buying PGI microtransaction products, let a lone mech packs.)

So my question is still unanswered: Why does PGI have to increase TTK for Solaris, where is the benefit? Why exactly can't it work with current TTK?

(Gameplay time must be fun to a a majority of the very small player base. To do that, survival must increase and accuracy and lethality must decrease. Otherwise, only the elite few will get anything out of this game mode.... and that, does not increase sales.)

Where are the numbers showing TTK has even increased significantly enough this year to prove your claim? Without this it does not make sense to blame nerfs for that because we currently don't know if anything has changed in the first place.

(the major nerfing campaign started in May with the new ST. PGI is going to have to start reducing lethality or face a very un-happy player base very soon after Solaris drops. Now, there is a theory that Solaris actually may be "everything" else around actual fighting......... We'll see.)

Where is your logic-chain which connects shrinking population to Solaris and TTK? What is with all the other numerous reasons why players could leave the game?

(customer base dynamics in small niche markets is an exacting science with a very fine line of tolerance... Push too hard and even the most ardent customers will leave.... Players are leaving and a great many forum pundents have related their losses. In my own team of 57, only 8 to 10 still activly play MWO... That's 47 long time players who have in fact, retired from MWO and only occassionally drop.)

What has farming and seal-clubbing to do with your claim? Assuming that your opinion is true and the game is full of seal-clubbers (which i don't believe), what exactly shall it prove? I have not figured it out, sorry...

(simple: the game has digressed into the worst of game types: power..... People farm and club because they "get off" on it. The TK because they can and they find it fun. VG's bring out the worst behaviors because there are no social checks and balances. VG corps struggle with this "toxic" behaviors each and everyday..... Read gaming news a bot more because it's an industry major issue......causing "good players" each and everyday.....)

Your opinion that "If TTK shortens, NO ONE WILL PLAY.." is not the fact you want to make it to. As you can see in this thread alone there are players who want shorter TTK.

(they are the players that want "something else" and "enjoy the rush" or have a need to act anti-socially or aggressively..... There are more players that just want to have fun! And, another fact, if this game was "more fun", there would be a large population of players and an even larger number of teams that were competitive. Right now, people had to beg players to play in comp mode this season.... Heck, I was the 8th player on a pick-up team because no one else would play !!!!)

We two and many others do not want a shorter TTK, but we are only a part of this diverse community. Saying "no one" is always false when enough opinions are involved.

(Opinion is like that and the only true test of opinion is "history" and, to paraphrase Santayana" those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it..." Of course, this may be before your time....)

BTW: Where did PGI say they want to shorten TTK to make that even relevant for Solaris or the game as a whole? Maybe TTK overall is fine, does not need to changed and PGI has no intention to do so apart from maybe reducing some extreme alpha-outliers? Who knows?
(We know. Those of us old enough to "read tea leaves" based on decades of experiences and VG intuition or the fact that many of us worked in this field before we retired and now teach "stuff" like Innovation design and market place and niche market trends and dynamics.....Oooops.......)

as above.

Does this help? I appreciate your replies and look forward to your response.

Edited by Asym, 21 December 2017 - 06:32 AM.

[Fleeb the Mad]

Maker L106, on 20 December 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

Every time I see this brought up in any forum for any game with vs I think the same thing.

SBMM [Skill Based Match Making]

[rant] (but maybe worth your time)

Then I think back to games I used to play years and years (read decades at this point) ago and it's night and day between matching systems. Now granted games have evolved quite a bit in that time but hear me out because I'm not advocating server browsers or what not for MWO just an adjustment in how the game MM's people together.

I have had a notoriously dodgy connection in the past so i'm basically relegated to the NA server, despite this it's an excellent example of how you can mitigate some problems by limiting your exposure. That said, the community wide knows this and does so when needed.

What blows my mind is that people think for some reason rookies need to be gated from pros. What successful community does that!? Big *** comm's like CoD and what have you don't count, too big and too full of casuals (not meant as an insult or anything but MWO / Armored Core etc: are a bit more complex by design).

Which leads me to the conclusion that communication makes more of a difference than SBMM ever would. Yes it might suck to get absolutely trashed by a top tier player, but if you're able to engage with said player both on the battlefield and in some chat from time to time, be it in game when they're on your team, or the forums here or otherwise you stand to grow a lot more as a player a LOT faster and getting top down help like that is INSTRUMENTAL in getting low balling players who are happy to have 50 damage games because that means they've improved from having 30 damage games. To having way way better times with MWO because they've actually improved a lot relatively quickly AND its made a difference they can see.

both in numbers and performance.

Their mechanical skill will get better over time if needed and as with anything having people in positions to do this actually helps bootstrap the potatoes up from their roots and can cement them solidly as a decent player. The best? probably not. But your average joe in MWO is probably a lot worse off than he really should be for gating reasons to some degree. Not as bad as some games I've played but it might do well for them to not be babied until after they're academy bonuses go away and then they're thrown to the wolves proper.

The biggest key your need to take away from this is the ability to easily communicate with other players IN GAME if you get the chance. Dead? Wanna chat, you got the T key, people need to be encouraged to engage with others. Huge deal I cannot stress enough. I'd have never been a national level Soul Calibur player in my time if i'd just played locals and stayed in the basement rather than traveling to arcades (yes that used to be a thing) and got my *** whipped hard by people who were to me at the time, godlike.

The quality of the rookies you keep has got to come up as does player retention, if you make absolutely certain the players feel welcome and engage with them that's the biggest help any community gives their game and by just the nature therein the developer. PGI take notice, you don't really have to change SBMM for better or worse, just focus on actively encouraging engagement of players with one another. Makes things 100% better for everyone.

[/rant]

While I respect the effort that went into the post, I'm afraid I'd have to disagree based on principle and empirical evidence.

The games modes we have that have no or greatly reduced matchmaking controls (FP, Group queue) have suffered a population crash over time and are famous for being inhospitable and outright hostile to new players. Getting punched in the teeth over and over isn't any fun. It's a fairly rare person who is stubborn enough to suffer through and improve to the point where they're no longer fodder, as opposed to finding something less frustrating to do with their leisure time. Given MWO is free to play, it's very easy to walk away and do something else.

Another thing is, a lot of people don't want to play like your top level folks. It comes across that being top tier is some sort of ultimate accomplishment, but if you actually play with or against the competitive players, you might find that gameplay is anathema to you. I sure do. I find it to be particularly shallow and tedious because most of the build variety is squeezed out with little variety on tactics. There's a couple things that work well, you do them over and over. If you're stubborn and stick to your B mechs and refuse to spam airstrikes, you wind up playing with a handicap that becomes draining after a while.

Having a stratified player base is friendlier and I would say necessary to retaining the casual people that keep the game running.

[Bishop Steiner]

FupDup, on 11 December 2017 - 08:30 PM, said:

Uh...you're contradicting yourself. First you say TTK is too high, then you want the TTK to go higher (last sentence).

High TTK means long time to kill, high survivability, however you wanna word it. Low TTK means fast kills.

TTK is both too high and too low.

The TTK between 2 dueling mechs, is too high. The TTK in the actual game environment, is too low, thanks to the miracle combination of EZ Aim For Idiots mechanics and Focus fire.

Sadly, the only way to realistically increase the one without making the other even worse.. is one that will never happen cuz QQ.

So we have to give up the feel of how mechs should last in dueling scenarios for the "greater good" of the Group Match.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

Cone of Fire? Sorry this is an FPS game.

And yet, for all that rancor, MGs and missiles get spread, which is much the same thing. LB-X, too.

[Maker L106]

Fleeb the Mad, on 21 December 2017 - 12:57 PM, said:

While I respect the effort that went into the post, I'm afraid I'd have to disagree based on principle and empirical evidence.

The games modes we have that have no or greatly reduced matchmaking controls (FP, Group queue) have suffered a population crash over time and are famous for being inhospitable and outright hostile to new players. Getting punched in the teeth over and over isn't any fun. It's a fairly rare person who is stubborn enough to suffer through and improve to the point where they're no longer fodder, as opposed to finding something less frustrating to do with their leisure time. Given MWO is free to play, it's very easy to walk away and do something else.

Agreed mostly with the above.

Another thing is, a lot of people don't want to play like your top level folks. It comes across that being top tier is some sort of ultimate accomplishment, but if you actually play with or against the competitive players, you might find that gameplay is anathema to you. I sure do. I find it to be particularly shallow and tedious because most of the build variety is squeezed out with little variety on tactics. There's a couple things that work well, you do them over and over. If you're stubborn and stick to your B mechs and refuse to spam airstrikes, you wind up playing with a handicap that becomes draining after a while.

Having a stratified player base is friendlier and I would say necessary to retaining the casual people that keep the game running.

As for the rest of the post, again you're not wrong. There's a certain mentality that the top players absolutely will not tolerate and it's not even just here. That said its one of the few games where your allowed to some degree to be creative with what you setup / bring in a team but get railraoded by the "meta" when you can play "off meta" just fine with zero issue. Pro payers are good enough to bank every coin on themselves and right now the game is balanced in such a way as to make any other gameplay not even close to reliable without without substantial support. Following that point into...

Brain Cancer, on 21 December 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

And yet, for all that rancor, MGs and missiles get spread, which is much the same thing. LB-X, too.

This. ******* this. MG's Missiles / LBX get spread cones. Why is one weapon easily coddled while the others are not suspect to the same balancing act. If PPFLD causes your problems (unlikely in all scenarios outside of boating lasers) then why is this not addressed? It clearly can be.

If I had to pick a thing PGI is bad at, it's balance. The mechs I've seen for the most part minus a few outliers aren't too terrible. a few need buffs, and most weapon systems need to be reworked in some way. If nothing else make the projectile weapons keep their pin point and add the cone to lasers judging from all the games I've played recently... then again, I'm dakka / missile biased, so that's something to consider.

[YueFei]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 December 2017 - 02:30 PM, said:

TTK is both too high and too low.

The TTK between 2 dueling mechs, is too high. The TTK in the actual game environment, is too low, thanks to the miracle combination of EZ Aim For Idiots mechanics and Focus fire.

Sadly, the only way to realistically increase the one without making the other even worse.. is one that will never happen cuz QQ.

So we have to give up the feel of how mechs should last in dueling scenarios for the "greater good" of the Group Match.

1v1 TTK is probably about 30 seconds to 1 minute or so. That's my feeling, never actually measured it. And to me that's OK, it's several exchanges of shots, about a dozen or so, not just 2 or 3 salvos.

In team vs team, obviously focus fire shortens individual mech lifespans significantly. Learning to avoid focus fire is key, and failing that, learning how to best absorb it to extend your lifespan to tank longer while your teammates retaliate on your behalf.

Some of my worst matches where I screw up and get gibbed early, I usually still manage about 150 damage, living long enough to fire 4 volleys or so. That's 13+ seconds. I don't think that's too short, and I feel that I still get a few swings in before going down, instead of getting exploded instantly. And it's my own stupidity that causes it anyway.

[Odanan]

[mod]
Merged the 2 topics about the same thing.
[/mod]

[Weeny Machine]

UnofficialOperator, on 04 December 2017 - 02:37 AM, said:

Imagine in traditional FPS games, where there are 1 shot 1 kill sniper duels. Being out of position or being slow to react equals to death. Very unforgiving. Requires thinking and reacting fast.

Low/Zero TTK. High skill level required.

On the other end, we have killing each other softly with feather dusters in a tickle war. Crumpets and tea in the middle. Being out of position is OK. Try again.

High TTK. Low skill level required.

You think in chess competitions they allow you to move back your piece when you get out of position?

Hence High TTK advocates = newbie panderers

My logic is sound

GG NO RE

Maybe you should play another shooter if 1-shotting someone appeals that much to you.

[Temporary Axis]

Brain Cancer, on 21 December 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

And yet, for all that rancor, MGs and missiles get spread, which is much the same thing. LB-X, too.

Most FPS have that effect on machine guns and shotguns. Weapon spread is not an argument for Cone of Fire.

[Jay Leon Hart]

UnofficialOperator, on 04 December 2017 - 02:37 AM, said:

Imagine in traditional FPS games, where there are 1 shot 1 kill sniper duels. Being out of position or being slow to react equals to death. Very unforgiving. Requires thinking and reacting fast.

Low/Zero TTK. High skill level required.

On the other end, we have killing each other softly with feather dusters in a tickle war. Crumpets and tea in the middle. Being out of position is OK. Try again.

High TTK. Low skill level required.

You think in chess competitions they allow you to move back your piece when you get out of position?

Hence High TTK advocates = newbie panderers

My logic is sound

GG NO RE

UnofficialOperator, on 11 December 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

As argued by the majority of the community, increasing TTK will increase the gap between good players and new players because aiming and consistency is too much of an advantage for good players.

We need to immediately and drastically decrease TTK so that the gap is lesser and hence improving the new player experience and retention.

1. Decrease TTK
2. New player wins more
3. Higher retention numbers
4. Increase PGI income
5.

I'm sure the good players will agree to decrease TTK since the good players already have an advantage.

Juxtaposing both threads to highlight the obvious troll, for anyone who still didn't realise.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

Most FPS have that effect on machine guns and shotguns. Weapon spread is not an argument for Cone of Fire.

Most FPS also have a single HP pool, meaning no spread doesn't effectively cut a third or more off what it takes to kill your target.

There's a reason every iteration of the meta has included either lasers (focused pinpoint) or PPC/AC/Gauss (again, focused pinpoint and also frontloaded) damage, or weapons that can effectively override spread via massive damage and/or tactics that can minimize spread (SRMs, most notably).

A weapon that cannot avoid or minimize spread effects in MWO is automatically disqualified from ever being in the meta, because that applies an automatic level of inefficiency vs. other weapons of similar weight and heat. MGs are still meta-worthy despite spread, simply because the ROF and crit effects generally mean you'll still ruin internals, and of course you can be that light hugging your target and laughing about spread anything. Larger LB-Xs are more popular simply because they put more damage in the center of the crosshairs, while LB-2/5X are virtually worthless by comparison since their range does nothing considering it's a super-long-range shotgun blast.

Spread is, honestly the most effective nerf any weapon can receive at this point.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Brain Cancer, on 22 December 2017 - 01:29 PM, said:

Spread is, honestly the most effective nerf any weapon can receive at this point.

Yep.

Increased CoF with higher heat?

Although that still leaves Gauss untouched...