135 replies to this topic

[r4zen]

justcallme A S H, on 07 March 2018 - 07:37 PM, said:

Agree as I did previous. All the input from people that understand MWO has been great and I've chucked mine in there as well.


Big issue with your video though - PGI taking down FP to "fix" it properly...

Bad suggestion and it will cause a further exodus of players. This is bad for MWO and the community as there are plenty of units that literally just exist to play FP.

Currently PGI have nothing slated for Faction Play in terms of revamp. The current changes coming next patch or whatever are not good enough and misguided IMO. So taking it offline would lead to it never coming back or, at least, 6-12months without it.

You cannot take that away from them no matter how bad you believe the mode it. It is irresponsible to make that suggestion IMO due to how many players that affects (100s, it not into 1,000 players).

I obviously don't speak for the FP community at large but I would wager that most of us wouldn't complain (too much) if FP were to come down for a month if we were confident that would lead to tangible improvement in the mode.

Pulling it to "avoid long queue times because everyone will be playing Solaris" is BS.

[justcallme A S H]

There is no justifiable reason to take a PC software system, offline, to improve it. It can be coded/dev'd and deployed.

The only reason to take it offline was to push people toward Solaris (1v1). Most people play FP for the Team Aspect (12v12) and thus, not everyone is interested in Solaris

PGI will not be able to improve Faction Play enough in a single month. Look how long it took just to get Long Tom fixed, properly. Some 9 months. There is zero cofindence in a 1-2month "down time" to "fix" anything.

[Mystere]

sycocys, on 07 March 2018 - 06:59 PM, said:

I'm glad they aren't actually listening to you guys for advice on balance.

Buff, buff, buff.....

Buffing defensive attributes is like nerfing the enemies' offensive ones.

[InspectorG]

( xpost from Youtube)

I 'get' what PGI did: reduce Agility/Mobility for TTK...Which WORKS for unskilled casuals/newbs/bads who cant aim specific components/twist incoming damages.

They didnt have the nuance needed to split the difference between scrubs and comps.

IMO: Assaults needed a turning speed nerf(the concept being a lone Assault should be very screwed vs a lone Light), but keep linear speed(to get to the fight on time/pokes). Also needed to keep Torso/Arm agility for twisting/unlocking - which scrubs barely use.

The global nerf and *cough* Tree formerly called Skill, gimps the fatter mechs agility. PGI literally didnt Math that 10% increase of 6degrees is...not much, and not likely worth the Cbill sunk into the tree. Should have been flat or increasing amounts on those nodes. 15 agility nodes(after some filler nodes) at the current cost and my Dire should be able to shoulder roll like James Toney.

[Khobai]

Quote

IMO: Assaults needed a turning speed nerf

Yes and no.

If an assault is willing to spend the points in mobility tree they should still get decent turning.

But the problem is the mobility tree is totally worthless for assaults.


And then you have mechs like the night gyr. Its a 75 tonner with the agility of a 95-100 tonner... If they wanted make the night gyr somewhat sluggish like an 80-85 tonner ok fine. but a 95-100 tonner? lol


Mech agility needs a complete overhaul. All mechs of the same tonnage should have the same approximate baseline agility, within a margin of say 10-15 tons for mechs that are supposed to be more or less agile for their tonnage.

Edited by Khobai, 07 March 2018 - 08:48 PM.

[fat4eyes]

I disagree that mobility will increase TTK, particularly in the lower tiers. Lower tier players don't torso twist, so they'll see less defensive benefit from mobility increases. Even on higher tiers, increased mobility is a two edged sword: sure you can twist faster, but you can also aim faster, increasing the number and accuracy of snap shots. It seems to me an overly indirect way to increase TTK, and probably one that is difficult to tune. Better to stick to heat and damage numbers.

I do agree that lasers are very VERY boring. I don't run laser mechs often even though I perfrom better in them than my usual mechs because of that. I still think that a change to laser mechanics is the solution, but that has an even lower chance of being implemented than a plain laser nerf.

[justcallme A S H]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 08:55 PM, said:

Lower tier players don't torso twist,

Lower tiers cant hold laser burns either don't forget.

[Khobai]

Quote

I disagree that mobility will increase TTK,

But it will make the game more fun. Night Gyrs moving like garbage trucks is not fun. Regardless of how it affects TTK.

[InspectorG]

Khobai, on 07 March 2018 - 08:41 PM, said:

And then you have mechs like the night gyr. Its a 75 tonner with the agility of a 95-100 tonner... If they wanted make the night gyr somewhat sluggish like an 80-85 tonner ok fine. but a 95-100 tonner? lol

Mech agility needs a complete overhaul. All mechs of the same tonnage should have the same approximate baseline agility, within a margin of say 10-15 tons for mechs that are supposed to be more or less agile for their tonnage.

Yup, Gyr was nerfed to counter poptarting. Not to reflect a baseline of the weightclass.

[fat4eyes]

Khobai, on 07 March 2018 - 09:02 PM, said:

But it will make the game more fun. Night Gyrs moving like garbage trucks is not fun. Regardless of how it affects TTK.

That's beside the point. If the goal is to increase ttk. i believe increased mobility won't fix that. Whether mobility is more 'fun' is a conpletely different matter. I personally wouldn't mind increased mobility (I pilot mostly fast mediums like the Shadowcat) and would benefit from it, but it's not going to increase TTK.

[InspectorG]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 08:55 PM, said:

... Even on higher tiers, increased mobility is a two edged sword: sure you can twist faster, but you can also aim faster, increasing the number and accuracy of snap shots....

At high level, thats where the skill comes in, and where Dakka gets some utility. The pilot times his shots vs the enemy fire/enemy defense. A destroyed component offers a damage reduction. Deadsiding was a tactic.

At that point the agility allows the expression of better skill, not just facehugging common in Solo. Hence, TTK can be affected by skill.

PGI gave a global nerf that punished skill and 'appeased' the less-skilled. Which in a way, incentive-izes lazy play.

[Khobai]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 09:09 PM, said:

That's beside the point.

the whole point is to make the game more fun.

Nerfed agility on mechs is one of the major reasons the game isnt as fun anymore.

thats the only reason you need to unnerf agility as far as im concerned.

[fat4eyes]

justcallme A S H, on 07 March 2018 - 08:59 PM, said:

Lower tiers cant hold laser burns either don't forget.

Yeah and increased mobility will just make their laser swings wider. So they won't get increased TTK from a mobility increase. As I said a mobility increase seems to me to unwieldy and indirect a tool to increase TTK. If you want to change the feel and flow of the game, sure increase mobility. But to increase TTK? I don't think mobility changes are the way.

Khobai, on 07 March 2018 - 09:11 PM, said:

the whole point is to make the game more fun.

Nerfed agility on mechs is one of the major reasons the game isnt as fun anymore.

thats the only reason you need to unnerf agility as far as im concerned.

But as Dane has mentioned, we have to work within PGI's target, which is increased TTK. That's the problem he's trying to address with increased mobility. Increasing the scope to 'fun' (which means many things to many people and is almost impossible to quantify) is just going to stall any action. Better to focus on one specific thing at a time, it's more likely to get done.

[justcallme A S H]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 09:17 PM, said:

Yeah and increased mobility will just make their laser swings wider. So they won't get increased TTK from a mobility increase. As I said a mobility increase seems to me to unwieldy and indirect a tool to increase TTK. If you want to change the feel and flow of the game, sure increase mobility. But to increase TTK? I don't think mobility changes are the way.

Well no that is the shooter vs the target.

Bit hard to generalise that both targets are standing still. I mean some players just stand there but those that actually move when incoming fire is bearing down on them, mobilty changes will help that absolutely.

I mean you cannot Brawl in many, many mechs right now. This is partly due to weapons but very much so the mobilty of the mechs themselves. I just come back to how bad the Atlas is right now, it's one of my fav mechs.

Overall mechs accelerate/decel slow, they don't move/turn well, they dont twist well - all due to desync. This means in a slugfest there is less chance to spread at all (even accidentally). I mean I know PGI have said "just invest in mobilty" but that simply is not the case for many, many mechs.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 07 March 2018 - 09:24 PM.

[InspectorG]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 09:19 PM, said:

... As I said a mobility increase seems to me to unwieldy and indirect a tool to increase TTK. If you want to change the feel and flow of the game, sure increase mobility. But to increase TTK? I don't think mobility changes are the way.



But as Dane has mentioned, we have to work within PGI's target, which is increased TTK. ...

Mobility increases TTK...IF...Skill is applied:

Accel/Deccel give quicker pokes allowing faster movement back into cover.

Torso Twist Rate allows rolling of incoming damage to either spread it across more components, hit a deadside, or to hit a lost St which decreases damage.

Torso Twist Range allows larger twist which helps the above, and, allows some mechs to shoot 90degrees to the side(for faster pokes-think Dire Whale turning a corner to poke) or even behind, which would increase survival of a lone assault in a light vs Assault scenario.

Torso Pitch: 'Anni cant look down'. Many mechs cant even shoot down a UAV.

Arm Speed, though mainly for mechs with shield arms allow better shielding, hence better survival. Better arm-aim tracking means you shoot the enemy better, increasing your survival.

Turn Rate: part of the basis for brawling, which we have little of these days yet so many mechs will only ever be able to brawl. Also, IMO, the basis for the advantage of Lights over Assaults in the right scenarios. Again, PGI was too ham-fisted with the nerf.

[FireStoat]

OP, thanks for making the videos and trying to shed more light on the issue on points that are detrimental to the game's fun. It's appreciated. We actually saw your previous video have an effect in this latest patch and the upcoming patch. To be honest though, the Sun Spider will be out soon for me to have fun with, and then HBS Battletech will be out not long after that and I'm done.

The key issues for me that have reduced the fun to be found in the game are exactly what you covered - multiple styles of fighting with a mech still remain painfully narrow. LRMs were nerfed repeatedly with cluster size, SRM's of all sizes had the same thing happen, and then Artemis was nerfed so that... A+LRM and A+SRM kind of aren't worth it, but worse than this - the performance of stock missile mechs as translated from table top design to a FPS setting are complete garbage. I'm not asking for complete parity for a translation, I'm saying it was BETTER and CLOSER to being competitive to other fighting styles than what we have now.

Clan 'placeholder' autocannon are garbage and an embarrassment. They still don't even gain the LBX quirks for cooldown or range if a mech offers it, which it should as it's an LBX slug 'version'. And flat out, I give 2 rat butts about Solaris 7 after having sampled 2v2 pvp in WoW that felt like 4 guys crammed in a closet to have a sweaty wrestling match. Meaningful, team oriented pvp that was to be found in CW is what I first wanted and expected in this game, and it's still not here.

Edit - and yes, listen to the podcast again Dane. CW is coming down solely to funnel players into Solaris 7 for 2 to 4 weeks (or longer, this is PGI after all) and NOTHING, NOT ONE LINE OF SCRIPT, was promised to be worked on. A half promise was ONLY made that CW would have available resources to be put into it again, maybe, sometime in the summer.

Edited by FireStoat, 08 March 2018 - 10:37 AM.

[Sigmar Sich]

Good video, i agree with almost everything.

Except CW shutdown as it is - i'm ok with the idea of reintroducing CW after some pause, to build hype for new phase / features. But we all know that's not the case - there will be no CW development before Solaris, and few months after its release. So this shutdown serves no purpose, only to manipulate players into new mode, and/or hide in shame half-baked CW from newcomers. Though great move to push more people to play HBS BT game in April.

And except hanged steiner dude, you savage

Nice to see the rebalance team have thorough feedback document (near 17:30). If i had any doubts before, they would disappear. Good job, i salute team's dedication <o

P.S. It would be great, if by the time (summer?) PGI starts wondering how to improve CW, community could present them with community-driven initiative about CW.
If left alone, PGI will do not enough, and at a snail pace.

[Khobai]

fat4eyes, on 07 March 2018 - 09:19 PM, said:

But as Dane has mentioned, we have to work within PGI's target, which is increased TTK.

As people have repeatedly pointed out, increasing agility DOES increase TTK.

While also making the nerfed mechs more fun to play.

"but Tier 4 and Tier 5 dont torso twist"

Then they should learn how to. Maybe they wouldnt be Tier 4 or Tier 5 then.


And im not necessarily saying that assaults should turn like ballerinas like they used to. But assaults should be able to put points into mobility skills and get a decent return out of it. But right now the mobility skill tree is absolute garbage... too many wasted skill points on crap skills and not enough return on the skills that matter. The whole mobility skill tree needs to be completely revamped.

Edited by Khobai, 07 March 2018 - 10:50 PM.

[Mystere]

I have said it before and I will say it again, a game in which a Timber Wolf moves like a slug is not "A BattleTech Game". <shrugs>

[sycocys]

Revis Volek, on 07 March 2018 - 07:36 PM, said:

Surely you mean,


Fun, fun, fun... You cant tell me you have playing this game right now? Or are you a bit more starchy then the rest of us?

The lack of fun in the game comes primarily from two areas in my opinion.
1. A total lack of actually developing a game to play. It's been the same exact "mode" since closed beta, and that at least partially lands on the feet of a portion of the playerbase that can't be bothered with anything beyond simple arena matches.

2. The buff-centric model for progressing the game (and player progress) in the first place. Outside of reeling the agility of the mechs back into place and a few misguided quirk nerfs nearly everything they've done is buff after buff from hardpoint inflation to implemented completely imbalanced tech (weapons) to jacking up armor values to out of control quirks.

--
The agility levels are actually at an appropriate level (overall) for a Mechwarrior game if they would have fixed the other underlying mechanics problems that create the lower TTK they don't want and the major balance issues that affects the game across the board.

As for the weapons, buffing isn't going to help anything. The reason laser vomit is so good is because they never addressed its bad mechanical design for a PvP video game in a way that would ever be effective, then they piled onto that bad design with hardpoint inflation.

That's not going to change by buffing up all the other weapons - won't even change by (also) going back to arcade mode agility because lasers were the same problem before and since the start of the game.