347 replies to this topic

[Andi Nagasia]

Tarogato, on 12 June 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

It is the weapons in the yellow and above which defines the landscape and meta of this game. Anything that is not at least yellow simply falls short of expectation. I do not find it acceptable to set the bar any lower than how I defined it here, otherwise you are balancing around crap tier equipment imo.

even so, if everything is brought up to Meta level, then that Meta level becomes average,
i think what PGI is looking for is to bring everything to a base line as so all things can be Average,
also things being Average isnt bad, it just means its inline with everything else that its compared to,

lets assume whats in this Doc makes MWO perfectly balanced,

after you then have 2 choices,
1) increase Mech HP to keep TTK Stable,
2) Globally reduce weapons Stats to keep TTK Stable,
i feel PGI would like to go with Option 2,

[Y E O N N E]

Greatly disagree with the Ultra AutoCannon/20 being average. Nobody uses it, just as nobody uses the Clan one. Anybody using the IS one is using it because they can't really do anything better or they've already got the better build on another variant of the same chassis and they are just clowning around.

Also, title says 2.1 now. What updated?

Found it. No UAC/20 buff. Boo.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 12 June 2018 - 03:14 PM.

[Nightbird]

Tarogato, on 12 June 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

And alas we have quickly arrived at what is perhaps an irreconcilable difference of opinion. Yours such that the SPL and cAC10 are well-balanced weapons, and my opinion that they are below par.

My opinion on the SPL is based on my performance with CSPL, which you rank below SPL.

https://mwomercs.com...eta-is-too-good

9KDR, 3.6W/L in solo quick play is average at least - in my opinion - for a 6CSPL build. Out of curiosity, what is your basis for saying they're below par?

[Y E O N N E]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 June 2018 - 03:05 PM, said:

even so, if everything is brought up to Meta level, then that Meta level becomes average,

That's a good thing. That means your meta is now diverse.

[Tarogato]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 03:12 PM, said:

Greatly disagree with the Ultra AutoCannon/20 being average. Nobody uses it, just as nobody uses the Clan one. Anybody using the IS one is using it because they can't really do anything better or they've already got the better build on another variant of the same chassis and they are just clowning around.

Also, title says 2.1 now. What updated?

Found it. No UAC/20 buff. Boo.

Huh?

I put it in my "Below Average" category.

Also, the proposal reduces the JammedTime by 20%. And that's just a first step, it's probably gonna need quite a bit more than that.

Nightbird, on 12 June 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

My opinion on the SPL is based on my performance with CSPL, which you rank below SPL.

False. I put both SPL and cSPL into the "Below Average" category. Order does not matter.

Quote

[cSPL] Out of curiosity, what is your basis for saying they're below par?

I consider builds like the cMG Cheetah, Mist Lynx, and MPL Wolfhound to all be good baseline light mechs that are performing how I expect lights should perform in terms of net effectiveness. I would much rather take a WLF, ACH, or MLX, or even a cMPL + cERSL Cheetah, or even 6x cERSL instead of taking a cSPL Cheetah. When I take a cSPL Cheetah, it struggles to damage anything. It is outperformed by its alternatives. Therefore I rate it poorly, and it requires buffs.

[Nightbird]

Tarogato, on 12 June 2018 - 03:31 PM, said:

When I take a cSPL Cheetah, it struggles to damage anything. It is outperformed by its alternatives. Therefore I rate it poorly, and it requires buffs.

Okily Dokily... I can't wait to see what I will do when my 'sub-par' 6 CSPL Cheeta is brought up to average...

[Y E O N N E]

Tarogato, on 12 June 2018 - 03:31 PM, said:

Huh?

I put it in my "Below Average" category.

Reading is hard.

Quote

Also, the proposal reduces the JammedTime by 20%. And that's just a first step, it's probably gonna need quite a bit more than that.

I know about the jam time. What I don't agree with, as I outlined earlier, is that being the end of it, even as a first step. You went ham on the cUAC/20, and it's not even that much worse than the isUAC/20. Again: you've already got less weight/slots and more range, you then buffed shell count and buffed jam time. I have no reason to consider the IS UAC/20 over the cUAC/20 just on paper alone, now.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 12 June 2018 - 03:49 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Ballistics are always a harder discussion than lasers. Missiles are even worse.

I would recommend getting a solid laser set of changes down and balancing toward mediums; get a baseline for IS MLs that everyone can agree (well, not everyone but generally) is worth 1 ton and 1 slot. I think you're about there already.

Then when you've got lasers locked down start working on ballistics. 'Is this better in the same range/approximate role bracket as an equal weight and slots (or close to) in lasers'.

I think what HBS did with ballistics should be looked at as an effective guide. Maybe not exactly but approximately. 2s, 5s, 10s and 20s have defined roles and value in being deployed. Boated AC2s are not necessarily better than a couple of 5s, which are not absolutely better than a 10. You got value for your tonnage and slot increase on a weapon by weapon level.

The current list of changes cover a lot, even if they're incremental and so it's easy to find a flaw in them. Get a segment (for example lasers), get it reasonably locked down and move on. Then when you do ballistics someone can't say 'well your ballistic changes don't address the effectiveness of IS ERSMLs at heating tacos so I hate all your changes'.

Get a manageable piece, get it locked down, then move on. Otherwise the carousel never stops.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 12 June 2018 - 06:44 PM, said:

Ballistics are always a harder discussion than lasers. Missiles are even worse.

This isn't a hard fix. He's very clearly made the gun flatly superior to the IS one. He fixed the problem with the cAC/5 being flatly superior to the isAC/5 when he swapped it from single slug to higher velocity. He just has to give the isUAC/20 something more meaningful than a pitiful 0.36 improvement to jam DPS and it's fine. He has a truckload of options including, but not limited to, increasing the volley size on the cUAC/20 back to 4, increasing the range on the isUAC/20 to 330+, giving the isUAC/20 more meaningful superiority to jam DPS, cutting the volley size on the isUAC/20 to 2...

No shortage of options.

[Andi Nagasia]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 03:27 PM, said:

That's a good thing. That means your meta is now diverse.

but if everything is brought down into balance things will still be diverse,

1) if all weapons do 20 damage and all mechs have 100 health,
it would be the same as,
2) all weapons doing 10 damage and all mechs have 50 health,

both above are the same more or less, its just PGI seems like the would rather persue (2)

[Nightbird]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 June 2018 - 07:28 PM, said:

but if everything is brought down into balance things will still be diverse,

1) if all weapons do 20 damage and all mechs have 100 health,
it would be the same as,
2) all weapons doing 10 damage and all mechs have 50 health,

both above are the same more or less, its just PGI seems like the would rather persue (2)

Exactly, willingness to accommodate PGI's wish to balance towards to the center would be the only way this group can have input on the next balance pass. Really, all you have to do is change the goal post on 'par' and apply the same strategy, and you'll be influencing the next pass.

[SFC174]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 June 2018 - 07:28 PM, said:

but if everything is brought down into balance things will still be diverse,

1) if all weapons do 20 damage and all mechs have 100 health,
it would be the same as,
2) all weapons doing 10 damage and all mechs have 50 health,

both above are the same more or less, its just PGI seems like the would rather persue (2)

I think that's very misleading. PGI isn't going to cut down health to the extent they want to cut down dmg. They clearly want to _increase_ TTK across the board.

The path PGI wants to take will tank game participation on a scale that we haven't seen in awhile. Probably even more than I think because they tend to screw this stuff up. They don't understand how the game is played after all.

I can only hope that the rather harsh response they've received will convince them to at least try the community balance changes on a PTS.

[Tarogato]

SFC174, on 13 June 2018 - 06:55 AM, said:

I think that's very misleading. PGI isn't going to cut down health to the extent they want to cut down dmg. They clearly want to _increase_ TTK across the board.

What he could have meant is a global reduction in weapon effectiveness, accompanied by a global reduction in durability quirks.

However, that has the downside of being preferential to clans (since clans don't really have durability quirks to reduce in the first place), so you would have to reduce clan weapon effectiveness more than IS in order to compensate.

[Nightbird]

Good thing Clan weapons are more effective than IS weapons so there is fat to trim?

[Tarogato]

Nightbird, on 13 June 2018 - 07:06 AM, said:

Good thing Clan weapons are more effective than IS weapons so there is fat to trim?

Not strictly speaking, but generally yes. However, inter-faction balance is more of a razor's edge than I think people tend to give it credit for.

[R Valentine]

I don't see the purpose in reducing the cLPL to 11 damage. Why have it do the exact same damage as the ISLPL? Both are entirely unused right now, and you can only fire 2 cLPLs at once. I'd rather it went back to the way it was prenerf. The cERML is the problem in the clan laser vomit category. Not the cLPL.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 June 2018 - 07:05 PM, said:

This isn't a hard fix. He's very clearly made the gun flatly superior to the IS one. He fixed the problem with the cAC/5 being flatly superior to the isAC/5 when he swapped it from single slug to higher velocity. He just has to give the isUAC/20 something more meaningful than a pitiful 0.36 improvement to jam DPS and it's fine. He has a truckload of options including, but not limited to, increasing the volley size on the cUAC/20 back to 4, increasing the range on the isUAC/20 to 330+, giving the isUAC/20 more meaningful superiority to jam DPS, cutting the volley size on the isUAC/20 to 2...

No shortage of options.

It's not about your one comment but 12 pages of similar ones.

I don't disagree that UAC20 needs some love but that's part of a bigger set of issues. There's 20 balance discussions going on in this one thread alone.

Get lasers done. Set them aside. Do ballistics. Set them aside. Do missiles. Accept most people won't be happy with the results and move on anyway. Otherwise we're going to never get anywhere.

[Stinger554]

Andi Nagasia, on 12 June 2018 - 07:28 PM, said:

but if everything is brought down into balance things will still be diverse,

1) if all weapons do 20 damage and all mechs have 100 health,
it would be the same as,
2) all weapons doing 10 damage and all mechs have 50 health,

both above are the same more or less, its just PGI seems like the would rather persue (2)

Another thing to consider is fun factor. Is it fun to play with 10 dam 50 health? Is it fun to play with 20 dam 100 health? Both? Neither? Somewhere in-between?

Fun factor is why so many people are throwing a **** fit about the purposed balance changes that Chris has put out(at least imo) because nerfs don't feel good and typically make whatever the nerf was on less fun. Sometimes it's necessary but PGI has the problem on if they nerf a specific weapon or even weapon combo, every single build that uses a weapon in that combo will also take a hit irrespective of if they are a problem or not.

So the only ways to avoid nerfing not problematic builds(that I can see) is to either prevent(or heavily penalize) those combos ala gauss/ppc, or to nerf specific mechs ala Night Gyr. Both of those options are kinda bad and players won't be satisfied with either.

Rock and a hard place is where PGI lies in regards to this.

Of course another option is to just allow mixtech; it'd make balancing quite a bit easier. Woudln't have to worry about strange discrepancies between IS and Clan if both can field the same equipment. Plus would somewhat eliminate the need for durability quirks.

Downside is you basically eliminate most of the IS tech available.

[Dogstar]

Stinger554, on 13 June 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

Fun factor is why so many people are throwing a **** fit about the purposed balance changes

It seems to me that the only people strenuously objecting to this are the ones that are going to see their favourite (clan) builds go from being easy mode OP to balanced with everything else.

If the only fun they can have is at the expense of others then perhaps the game would be better off without them!

Edited by Dogstar, 13 June 2018 - 08:44 AM.

[Khobai]

Dogstar, on 13 June 2018 - 08:43 AM, said:

It seems to me that the only people strenuously objecting to this are the ones that are going to see their favourite (clan) builds go from being easy mode OP to balanced with everything else.

theyre also the same people that dont want IS-XL, IS-DHS, and IS-ES/FF to be buffed so theyre equal to the clan versions. they want clans to retain their strongest advantages over IS...

this community proposal is all smoke and mirrors. its a bunch of buffs and nerfs that ultimately dont really matter. while ignoring the most important things that need to be balanced.

MischiefSC, on 13 June 2018 - 07:49 AM, said:

Get lasers done. Set them aside. Do ballistics. Set them aside. Do missiles. Accept most people won't be happy with the results and move on anyway. Otherwise we're going to never get anywhere.

balance engines, heatsinks, and ES/FF first.

then do lasers, ballistics, and missiles second.

then do mech balance and quirk balance last.


thats the three step process for balance. anything else is not going to result in a balanced game.

Edited by Khobai, 13 June 2018 - 09:06 AM.