1125 replies to this topic

[Sereglach]

Tarogato, on 07 February 2018 - 05:16 PM, said:

*snip*

I've noticed that you're still making changes to the document and actively discussing it. Have y'all given any thoughts to Flamers, yet? Please, please address them in this. Here are the recommendations I gave earlier in the thread (which is, of course, easy to get lost in the many pages of active discussion). It would just be nice to know that in a community driven balance pass, that you're hitting on all weapons that the game has, not just the common ones.

Sereglach, on 08 February 2018 - 07:57 PM, said:

Quote insert for easy redirect.

Thank you, again, for your time and consideration.

[Sigmar Sich]

CainenEX, on 10 February 2018 - 09:24 AM, said:

You don't need to use CANNON in the act of balancing. It doesn't work and won't ever work. You cannot do a 1 to 1 transition of a table top dice roller to a computer game.
...
It has very little place in determining game mechanics or aiding in balance. If you don't believe me then go ask another game dev. If they are worth their salt you'll get the same answer.

Lore =/= tabletop rules. Lore is a spirit of Battletech. TT rules are not the lore, but just a tool, which allows you to compile dice, battlegrid and figurines into a Battletech experience.
To pursue a 1 to 1 transition of a Tabletop tactical game rules into a PC PVP game, is silly, yes. Same as attempt to apply chess rules into a football game.
But.
Good gamedesing will operate within lore, and benefit from it. If you are working with a franchise with deep lore, design that does not bother with lore, and suggests to "toss out of a window" such rich resource; such design is just a lame work, not worth payment.

For MWO, "f*ck lore" stance is as silly as TT purism.
Many people who think lore is a problem here, they are wrong. Unimaginative gamedesign and low quality requirements, they are problems of MWO.

CainenEX, on 10 February 2018 - 09:24 AM, said:

I'm a game developer that has been playing MWO since 2015. I've ran my own unit and have been part of several units composed from new green guys to the elite upper players. I've participated in the competitive circuit and have several leagues under my belt. Currently with the ISENGRIM and happy to be a part of them.

As a fellow gamedeveloper (10 years in industry), i suggest you to brag less, arrogance is blinding. And always listen to people, without dismissiveness. Unless you are doing PGI reenactment. "What the hell can they know?!", right...
Would hate to see this rebalance effort end up as one.

___________
P.S. Apologies for offtopic.

Edited by Sigmar Sich, 10 February 2018 - 10:20 AM.

[McValium]

To keep this thread somewhat on topic please move the "lore vs Balance" discussion to a new thread.

[CainenEX]

Sigmar Sich, on 10 February 2018 - 10:15 AM, said:

P.S. Apologies for offtopic.

I offer my Apologies as well.

I believe you misunderstood me in my entirety and therefore find myself frustrated at your interpretation of what I was attempting to say. Furthermore you call me arrogant and dismissive? Quite the opposite, but as a game dev you have to filter out what works and doesn't work. Sure listen to your community, but at the end of the day you need to filter stuff out. and you should know that.

Tools or not game play comes first so lets stick to that and solve that problem.These are the parameters we have to work with. Suggesting drastic changes that are heavy on code involvement or require considerable financial spending should be move to the side for now.

Lionheart2012, on 10 February 2018 - 10:26 AM, said:

Actually, you just destroyed all the credibility you have. We are playing MechWarrior, a game based on the Battletech saga, played by people who revere the story and want to live out that fantasy in some form. "Tossing it all out the window" is a precursor to breaking the game. If we are tossing it all out the window, let's add force fields, phasers, proton torpedos, teleportation, and psionics to the game. However, if we are playing Battletech/MechWarrior, let's have some foundation in the lore that got us to this point.

...
What are you smoking? Seriously I might want some of that.

[Kin3ticX]

Andi Nagasia, on 10 February 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

actually it wouldnt, if you Doubled LRM velocity LRMs would move threw AMS range twice as fast,
which means Doubling AMS damage would actually null the Effect, the balance between the 2 would not change,
-
if a single AMS doesnt hurt small LRM Launchers now(LRM5/10) then it wont hurt them after,
(the Proposed doubling of all nonLRM health, is to again offset the Increased Damage of AMS)



1) increasing the Cooldown of LRMs could make them Less Spammy,
as you cant chain fire them as well, or it would cost more in Launchers(8LRM5 need vs only 5-6 now)

2) by increasing the Cooldown Players will have to choose their shots more carefully,
adding to skill of the weapon, as you have to choose your engagements more so then now,

3) doubling their Velocity will make them more reliable as a weapon system,
AMS changes(x2damage) and increasing nonLRM missile health(x2Health) are to keep Missile/AMS balance)


its true doing those 3 things will make LRMs better, but not OP,
Homing weapons can be skill weapons it treated right,

you are assuming PGI's implementation of AMS means doubling AMS damage would counter faster LRMs (2x faster).

I dont think AMS even responds fast enough to shoot down really fast missiles. That would create more work for PGI than just changing an XML entry.

I don't think people are going to install AMS if you make LRMs stronger, they are just going to come to the forums and start complaining. The reason is....LRM counterplay sucks and it gets boring. Ive been around since closed beta when LRMs did 2 damage and ive seen whats thats like.

[HammerMaster]

McValium, on 10 February 2018 - 10:18 AM, said:

[mod]To keep this thread somewhat on topic please move the "lore vs Balance" discussion to a new thread. [/mod]

At first I was fine with my deleted apology but now I'll remind you that part of our balance problem is due to ignoring lore.
Three letters.
Stinks like garbage water.
ECM.

Back on topic I really appreciate the effort of these guys because honestly all these formulas make my head hurt.

[Gyrok]

Tarogato, on 07 February 2018 - 05:16 PM, said:

Clarification: we do not intend to have this revised in time for Paul's podcast. Just so you know. We're going to take as much as one week to soak in the feedback, and then we'll post a revised version.

---

By now you’ve probably heard about MechTheDane’s video, “Unfunning of MWO”. If you haven’t, go check it out now because it has been the centerpiece of a large community push over the past week to incite positive changes in MWO.

But Dane isn’t the only that was fired up after RJBass' interview with Chris Lowrey and wanted to “get something going.” Community member Bear Claw decided to pull together a crew of players to draft up a list of weapon balance changes to improve the game and have them forwarded to PGI. This has already been cleared with Paul Inouye at PGI. I will list who all is involved at the end of this post.



SO WHAT IS GOING ON?

We have drafted up weapon balance changes to recommend directly to PGI. You can read them here on the follow document, or if you like you can directly peruse our massive spreadsheet:

- Full list of changes
- Spreadsheet form for nerds

WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK. We have discussed every single weapon in the game, and almost every weapon has been modified in some way or another through our combined efforts. Not every change is going to make the cut and be forwarded to PGI. We want to hear what YOU ALL have to say, make modifications to our proposal, and cut down and simplify where necessary. So please, if weapon balance is important to you, take the time to dig in and offer your opinions.

It’s important that we as a community all get on the same page, and this can be our jumping point. If we all poll our effort together, we can whittle our proposal down to something we can all agree on. We're here to work together and focus our feedback so that we can help PGI succeed and make this game more fun for everybody. If we can't agree on what we want, how do we expect PGI to give us what we're asking for? If this effort is successful, we can hope to maintain an open dialogue with PGI in improving topics beyond just weapon balancing.




And do remember that this is concerning weapon balance only, which is only a single slice of the pie. There are other things that should probably be addressed by PGI:

- Mech quirks
- Mech mobility
- Overbearing consumables
- Skill Tree as a whole (ie., are enough people unhappy to justify significant changes?)
- New player experience (hey, it’s still not good)
- Matchmaking (the PSR system is fundamentally broken as it stands)

Any of the above could be topics for a dedicated community effort to provide direct feedback to PGI on how they should be handled. But for now, ONE THING AT A TIME. First thing is weapon balance only.
So on that topic, FLY MY PRETTIES. LET LOOSE YOUR FEEDBACK.

---

Here are the people who were involved with drafting these balance changes and will be reviewing your feedback:

Major contributions from:
- Navid A1
- Metachanic
- Tarogato

Additional input from:
- Bows3r
- Fragosaurus Rex
- Bear Claw

I thought this might bring me back to the game, then I looked at the list of changes to clan weapons, which is basically nothing positive, and some added nerfs on top of buffing the IS.

If this goes through, I would be less likely to return than I am in the current state of the game.

[East Indy]

Just noticed the proposal to increase the Heat Scale limit of AC/20s to 2.

Bad idea, and inconsistent with the wise decision in retaining PPC/Gauss Heat Scale.

Again, this goes right back to MWO's central flaw of two unadjusted weapons always being better than one. How often do you see one Heavy Gauss on an assault? Not nearly as often as a pair, simply because right now you can. Who cares about the weapon's recoil effect when each firing is considered a single shot and you're not even carrying another weapon?

Tarogato et al., you guys should know better. Introducing more high alpha combinations disadvantage lights and mediums even more. They can't take advantage, and are more at risk for one/two-shot deaths. Heavies and assaults don't need fan service.

The problem is 50 points a shot; not that AC/20s need to compete. If you then tell me that 20- or 25-point shots from ballistics can't compete with lasers, well then — time to get to the heart of things. Otherwise, what is your re-balance proposal accomplishing beyond deck chair arrangement?

[Tarogato]

Sereglach, on 10 February 2018 - 10:14 AM, said:

I've noticed that you're still making changes to the document and actively discussing it. Have y'all given any thoughts to Flamers, yet? Please, please address them in this. Here are the recommendations I gave earlier in the thread (which is, of course, easy to get lost in the many pages of active discussion). It would just be nice to know that in a community driven balance pass, that you're hitting on all weapons that the game has, not just the common ones.

I feel like flamers are in an okay place right now. They're very rarely used, but they're very very strong when they *are* used well, which is a fairly limited set of circumstances. They aren't even an auto-win in a bonafide 1v1, they can be countered with smart play because they heat you up almost as much as they heat the enemy up (I can't tell you how many times I've seen half-decent pilots overheat themselves while trying to flame the enemy, and they die because of it)

[SHIN BRODAMA]

Gyrok, on 10 February 2018 - 11:35 AM, said:

I thought this might bring me back to the game, then I looked at the list of changes to clan weapons, which is basically nothing positive, and some added nerfs on top of buffing the IS.

If this goes through, I would be less likely to return than I am in the current state of the game.

Is your perception that clans are not superior to IS at the moment? If so I have a bridge to sell you in northern Canada.

[Gyrok]

SHIN BRODAMA, on 10 February 2018 - 11:38 AM, said:

Is your perception that clans are not superior to IS at the moment? If so I have a bridge to sell you in northern Canada.

My perception is that the last time PGI buffed the hell out of the IS and nerfed clans simultaneously is that IS was overpowered for most of a year before anything changed.

[Jarl Dane]

Gyrok, on 10 February 2018 - 11:35 AM, said:

If this goes through, I would be less likely to return than I am in the current state of the game.

Good.

[Y E O N N E]

Gyrok, on 10 February 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

My perception is that the last time PGI buffed the hell out of the IS and nerfed clans simultaneously is that IS was overpowered for most of a year before anything changed.

If by "most of a year" you mean approximately 4 months, sure.

[Gyrok]

Mech The Dane, on 10 February 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

Good.

I know a few groups consisting of 100s of players that want PPC/Gauss back as it was for clans. If you want the playerbase to keep shrinking, and no one returning...then you can celebrate the death of the game along with my absence.

[Y E O N N E]

Also, in the Word Document, the Clans got net buffed more than the IS did. You can head on over to Reddit to see how.

[HammerMaster]

Ever tune numbers on for example ocing a motherboard or video card. Your tweaking volts and clocks and latency and once you go so far back and forth it still is a mess. Then you scrap the whole thing and go back to defaults and you know what? It's stable and works! Hrmmm.

Edited by HammerMaster, 10 February 2018 - 11:46 AM.

[Gyrok]

Yeonne Greene, on 10 February 2018 - 11:44 AM, said:

Also, in the Word Document, the Clans got net buffed more than the IS did. You can head on over to Reddit to see how.

How is "no change" to most weapon systems a net buff? I saw the UAC changes, and frankly those are worthless with current Ghost heat being so restrictive on how many you can run at a time. If you are predicating the majority of your "net buff" on the UACs and the small laser buffs...then I would say that is a fail.

Clan Gauss got nothing, Clan PPCs got nothing and ghost heat is staying the same, meanwhile the IS counterparts are being buffed strongly, and the proposal calls for allowing 3 SNPPCs at once.

[Kin3ticX]

Gyrok, on 10 February 2018 - 11:35 AM, said:

I thought this might bring me back to the game, then I looked at the list of changes to clan weapons, which is basically nothing positive, and some added nerfs on top of buffing the IS.

If this goes through, I would be less likely to return than I am in the current state of the game.

FP is basically abandonware so if you are coming at techbase balance from an FP angle, maybe someone would care in 2015.

Most of my top mechs are clan but most of them have also been nerfed.



and i dont even have deathstrikes or supernovas.

Besides, in MWOWC, they were using majority Clams too.

[CainenEX]

HammerMaster, on 10 February 2018 - 11:20 AM, said:

At first I was fine with my deleted apology but now I'll remind you that part of our balance problem is due to ignoring lore.
Three letters.
Stinks like garbage water.
ECM.

Back on topic I really appreciate the effort of these guys because honestly all these formulas make my head hurt.

I found ECM to be very underwhelming in its current state to very overwhelming before it was addressed. I do not even bring it anymore. I think it should be addressed at somepoint in the future outside of the current weapons debate.

What are your suggestions for addressing ECM? Do these suggestions requires small xml changes or require code edits?

[Khobai]

CainenEX, on 10 February 2018 - 11:52 AM, said:

I found ECM to be very underwhelming in its current state to very overwhelming before it was addressed. I do not even bring it anymore. I think it should be addressed at somepoint in the future outside of the current weapons debate.

What are your suggestions for addressing ECM? Do these suggestions requires small xml changes or require code edits?

ECM should not grant stealth. That needs to be removed.

However I do think ECM should cut mechs off from sharing sensor information like it used to.

And ECM should have a third mode called ghost mode that creates fake radar contacts (maybe even project a holographic image of a mech so you cant tell its not a real mech)


I would also lower the base sensor range of most heavies and assaults (with a few exceptions like the cyclops that are supposed to have better than average sensors). That way heavier mechs have to rely more on lighter mechs to be able to target.

There should be three different sensor suites:

Basic (600m - most heavies and assaults)
Intermediate (800m - most lights/mediums and heavies/assaults like cyclops)
Advanced (1000m - lights/mediums like raven)

BAP and sensor skills would still give the same % increases

Edited by Khobai, 10 February 2018 - 12:07 PM.