100 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

My wallet is actually closed because of me not comfortable spending something on imaginary toys and imaginary bucks -- although i admit i bought Kaiju and K9, with some MCs, sure, although i don't plan on splurging in mechpacks.

[Tom Sawyer]

Hey guys we have heard your pleas for new maps! Look at this big city map! LOOK AT IT! It has this nifty link built in that takes you directly to where you can buy a mech pack! Is that not exciting!! LOOK AT THIS NEW MECH PACK! SHINY!

um no just no. I will admit to buying the 10 buck tourny supporter pack but no more mech packs for me. I believe that every dime spent now goes to Mech Warrior 5.

[Sigmar Sich]

My wallet is closed too, though i had a habit buying MC and a mechpack or two per year.
Not because riot, but reflecting on past years of development, i no longer believe in bright future of this game. I always told myself, PGI is slow, but we will be there one day, just you wait. That day never came. So why invest into game you don't believe in.

[sycocys]

Tom Sawyer, on 09 January 2018 - 02:51 AM, said:

Hey guys we have heard your pleas for new maps! Look at this big city map! LOOK AT IT! It has this nifty link built in that takes you directly to where you can buy a mech pack! Is that not exciting!! LOOK AT THIS NEW MECH PACK! SHINY!

um no just no. I will admit to buying the 10 buck tourny supporter pack but no more mech packs for me. I believe that every dime spent now goes to Mech Warrior 5.

PGI should be worried if Tom stopped buying mech packs.

[Lupis Volk]

My wallet is in hiatus like myself. Though the Sun Spider and Fafnir look interesting.

However as one person mentioned PGI is locked in a dammed if they do, dammed if they don't situation.

They "could" fix the Clan>IS tech imbalance but that'd trigger Clan Special Snowflake to an ungodly level.

They could "implement" asymmetrical balancing but since that's not the sledge hammer nerf to the Clans that the IS forumwarriors want they'll get triggered, with hold their money and hold PGI to ransom.

So PGI does option 3. Throw their hands in the air and slap on some knee jerk nerf and buffs on a month by month basis with no rhyme or reason leaving all of us frustrated.

Edited by Lupis Volk, 09 January 2018 - 03:34 AM.

[Sjorpha]

Hazeclaw, on 08 January 2018 - 02:05 PM, said:

How can you balance different weapon systems when their effectiveness varies depending on how skilled the player using them is? How can you improve asymmetrical balance when players continue to refuse using particular faction/mech/weapon where its most effective? You can ask 15 people in this thread what needs to be done to improve balance and you'll get 15 different answers, most of them contradicting the others. I think the biggest thing that can be done for balance is if we could pick the mech we're using after the map/game mode like in FP. Then you'd see way less of the safest option (mid range trade mechs) being used which are currently dominated by clan heavies/mediums

Good question. Fortunately the question has a correct answer, and just like with the previous post the answer is the same as in other assymmetric competitive games.

The skill dependency is handled by looking primarily at the top level of play where the skill differences are the smallest, so for example in Starcraft you wouldn't base your evaluation of Boross vs Zerg balance on casual quickplay matches, you base it on data from tournaments. Low and behold we actually have tournaments in MWO producing data to look at, isn't that neat?

This is normally augmented by playtesting and judgement by a group of players with good competitive experience and also a good reputation for evaluation and testing. Trusted tournament organizers, retired comp players with a good network in the active comp scene and so forth.

Thirdly you can have some awareness of issues that suddenly and blatantly break the game directly after a change and adress them quickly, this should only be done if it actually breaks things really big time though.

Ideally the more mature a game becomes the better the balance and the more seldom you have to change stuff. It is all about taking it seriously and recruiting the right people to work on it.

Other games, both big and small, has proven time and again that this is possible. Again, MWO/Battletech isn't special, it doesn't function differently from other games in terms of balancing and basic game theory.

"Balance is impossible", "You'd have to make everything the same", "Balance issues don't exist, it's all about skill" and so forth are silly memes regurgitated by people who either don't want the game balanced or who who thinks it makes them sound aloof and cool or something.

Edited by Sjorpha, 09 January 2018 - 04:47 AM.

[valrond]

sycocys, on 08 January 2018 - 12:26 PM, said:

Well that's not that hard - you break from the lore because its didn't work for TT and they knew long before they implemented it that it wasn't going to work for an MMO PVP game.

The best way to keep some lore feel and create some balance would be from locking the pod loadouts on omnis and just flat out hardpoint reduction on many of the newer mechs.

If you break from the lore, you break from battletech, you lose a great part of the gamers, that are here just because this is battletech, remember.

They have done a decent job, and, quite frankly, I don't see why people still say clans are OP. They are not. They were when they came out 3 years ago, but after so many nerfs, IS quirks and the new tech, they are quite on par, I'd even say IS has an advantage, as my scouting with clan mechs (yes, that OP Huntsman that is just food for the Bushwackers) has demonstrated.

[Mcgral18]

valrond, on 09 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

If you break from the lore, you break from battletech, you lose a great part of the gamers, that are here just because this is battletech, remember.

They have done a decent job, and, quite frankly, I don't see why people still say clans are OP. They are not. They were when they came out 3 years ago, but after so many nerfs, IS quirks and the new tech, they are quite on par, I'd even say IS has an advantage, as my scouting with clan mechs (yes, that OP Huntsman that is just food for the Bushwackers) has demonstrated.

Which explains the sub 15% Spheroid pick rate
It's not about imbalance at all!
It's all about skill....the skill of choosing the superior robots


Mwo is already Shooty Stompy Robots, there is no Lore
It's an arena shooter with an objectively superior faction

[Daggett]

slide, on 08 January 2018 - 04:44 PM, said:

IMO MWO is on minimal support until MW5 comes out. It is increasingly evident that most of the talent at PGI is involved with MW5.

Until FP has some depth introduced to it my wallet remains closed, no matter what mechs they introduce for sale..

Well Solaris and it's accompanying features like bolt-on geometry is a big enough feature to prove that support is more than just minimal. The support just does not go into the direction some of us want, like FP...

Edit: My wallet is more open than ever. Maybe because i only play QP with some scouting mixed in and i have lots of fun and success whatever mechs and weapons i use so i see no _serious_ balancing issues here.

For me the game has improved a lot overall since beta. Yes, development progress is quite slow and i'm salty too about FP not turning out to become interesting for me.

But i have fun playing the parts of the game that work for me and i think that the F2P model is very fair compared to most other games i know. And those two things are what counts in the end when it comes to open or close my wallet.

Edited by Daggett, 09 January 2018 - 07:45 AM.

[sycocys]

valrond, on 09 January 2018 - 05:59 AM, said:

If you break from the lore, you break from battletech, you lose a great part of the gamers, that are here just because this is battletech, remember.

They have done a decent job, and, quite frankly, I don't see why people still say clans are OP. They are not. They were when they came out 3 years ago, but after so many nerfs, IS quirks and the new tech, they are quite on par, I'd even say IS has an advantage, as my scouting with clan mechs (yes, that OP Huntsman that is just food for the Bushwackers) has demonstrated.

And they could have skipped right over most of the nerfs and IS quirks had they just actually done balancing in the design from the get-go. People could have had an asymmetrical balance with lighter/smaller clan tech, but they'd have to have more restrictions on loadouts for instance - so things were actually balanced for the game without a billion balance passes that didn't really do much.

Also things like - no you can't drop 24 ecm mechs vs the side that has only 2 mostly useless options in comparison. - You know balance mechanics to keep one tech from being completely out of order because this is a PVP game.

[Dogstar]

My wallet is closed to IS mechs (except the Crusader/Stinger/Valkyrie) and frankly I can't see much point in buying more clan mechs because there's only so many ways you can do laser vomit.

[Mole]

Why do so many people complain about believing that money is being taken from this game and used on MW5? Of course it is, and so what? Is MW5 not what this game was originally supposed to be? Do we not want MW5 to be good? Unless I'm mistaken, MWO is where most of PGI's income comes from. And you can't make a decent Mechwarrior title if you can't fund it. If you feel like all MWO money should only be used on MWO then, well, you will never get your coveted MW5. Sorry.

[Leone]

visionGT4, on 08 January 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

Who else is voting with their wallet?

I am. I've put more time into this game than any other title in the last five years. Likewise, I think it's only fair to put more money into this game than any other title. I mean, come on, they're even making a MW5! And they unlocked the unseen! I support the Piranha, though I've not gotten the newest packs, cuz I don't care for em.

And if they're funneling that cash towards MW5, then great, I'll get that too anyways.

I understand folk are unhappy about what could've been, but I look at Mechwarrior Tactics Online, which is what I chose to fund rather'n this way back when, and I see what has been. PGI's done good by my count. Sure, they could do better, but they're better'n most and I feel that deserves my support.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 09 January 2018 - 10:26 AM.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 09 January 2018 - 02:25 AM, said:

My wallet is actually closed because of me not comfortable spending something on imaginary toys and imaginary bucks -- although i admit i bought Kaiju and K9, with some MCs, sure, although i don't plan on splurging in mechpacks.

So you play the game but don't want to support it.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 09 January 2018 - 06:57 AM, said:

Mwo is already Shooty Stompy Robots, there is no Lore
It's an arena shooter with an objectively superior faction

Does having an "objectively superior faction" really matter if to 99% of the players factions don't really mean anything?

[Mystere]

Curccu, on 09 January 2018 - 10:26 AM, said:

So you play the game but don't want to support it.

Isn't previously buying stuff already supporting the game, especially a F2P one?

[Water Bear]

I just came back after 2-3 years away, and to be honest it's way, way more balanced now than it was back then. With all the tech available to both sides, I no longer feel the IS has to be quirked up to 11 to stand their own.

I don't play this game competetively, but in PUGs you can take pretty much any chassis you want regardless of tier and do really well if you know all the ground rules of good play.

So yea, I'm pretty happy. Got my yearly premium time paid for and thinking about blowing $50 or more on dozens of mech bays to prepare myself for a year of farming.

[Christophe Ivanov]

There aint no so called "Balance" as most matches end up like 12-2 for example. Before all that, was closer to 6 to 8-12. Yeah Clan mechs have gotten the short end and what irks me to no end is tis so called Balance thing. WHY? Lore as far as I can tell never had balance. Just newer mechs and newer weapons for existing ones. The time spent with this so called "Balance" would have been better spent on offering updated weapons, Omnis, etc.

just my 2 cents worth.

[DevlinCognito]

To be brutally honest despite the extreme amount of whining from BOTH sides about how they are just 'poor hard done by folks who don't deserve to be stiffed by the PGI employees as they have an interest in making the opposite Tech Base OP', I think the game is pretty well balanced by those who use their preferred Factions strengths.

For every complaint about the Assassin being OP (despite it being easily countered by Streaks) I see complaints about the Crit-Lynx (despite it being easily countered by Streaks). For every complaint about the shorter duration of the IS lasers, I see complaints about the 60+ alphas of the Clans. Both sides have 'cheese tactics' for use in a pure tech environment, and both sides have the same guys running those 'cheese tactics' whilst complaining about the other side running their 'cheese tactics'.

Smells like a pretty good balance to me.

Will it make me re-open my wallet though? Hells no, FW was promised so much and delivered so little, I'll be buggered if I reward that.

[Cade Windstalker]

Water Bear, on 09 January 2018 - 11:28 AM, said:

I just came back after 2-3 years away, and to be honest it's way, way more balanced now than it was back then. With all the tech available to both sides, I no longer feel the IS has to be quirked up to 11 to stand their own.

I don't play this game competetively, but in PUGs you can take pretty much any chassis you want regardless of tier and do really well if you know all the ground rules of good play.

So yea, I'm pretty happy. Got my yearly premium time paid for and thinking about blowing $50 or more on dozens of mech bays to prepare myself for a year of farming.

Pretty much this honestly. I drifted away from the game and started playing other things years ago just after the Vulture came out and the balance is massively better now than it was then. Anyone remember when Clan energy weapons were basically just flat better across the board? When Clan LRMs would just drill your CT because of of an animation issue? When IS didn't have any of the fancy toys they've got now like Stealth Armor, Light Engines, twelve different flavors of new weapons?

Most of my old Clan builds still feel decent, but none of my IS builds do because *there is so much better stuff now* at least in pub games.

Christophe Ivanov, on 09 January 2018 - 11:29 AM, said:

There aint no so called "Balance" as most matches end up like 12-2 for example. Before all that, was closer to 6 to 8-12. Yeah Clan mechs have gotten the short end and what irks me to no end is tis so called Balance thing. WHY? Lore as far as I can tell never had balance. Just newer mechs and newer weapons for existing ones. The time spent with this so called "Balance" would have been better spent on offering updated weapons, Omnis, etc.

just my 2 cents worth.

12-2 match results aren't a case of bad balance, they're a case of that's just how team games work. One side loses a man and now it's 11-12 and unless those 11 play really well or that 1 guy sold his life pretty dearly then that advantage is just going to snowball.

That's just now pub games work, whether it's MWO, World of Tanks, or any of a dozen DotA-esque MOBAs. Small advantages early on frequently snowball into seemingly large wins.

If you're remembering 'the good old days' when matches were closer it's because you remember those matches, not because that was the actual outcome most of the time.

Also balancing existing stuff is not the same amount of work or even exactly the same people as designing new stuff. New weapons require models, animations, sounds, and possibly coded mechanics as well and each of those is a different guys. Balancing an old weapon is one guy sitting down and IDing the problem, tweaking numbers until it feels better, and then monitoring after release. In extreme cases there may need to be a mechanics change but that's somewhat unlikely.

Yeah lore wasn't really 'balanced' on a mech for mech basis, but the lore was meant to be played on a tabletop game with 10 clan mechs vs 12 IS ones so things balanced out a bit. You can't do that in MWO or you'll screwball the matchmaker and the IS will end up with a massive advantage just due to numbers.