114 replies to this topic

[Mortalcoil]

PGI has basically thrown up their hands and are saying, "Yes, this game is completely unbalanced. Instead of fixing these underlying problems that make for boring poke fests we have decided to force players to not be allowed to play the best mechs and builds."

PGI, why not just balance your game? This might be the laziest way to make a video game more interesting I have ever seen.

What if Riot decided that it couldn't balance League of Legends, so its next tournament didn't allow buying of items or any champion other than the release champions.

Just balance your game.

but here's the sad part. MWO tournaments have always been boring as hell to me. This one might actually be worth watching... it will at least be funny to see a mech get gibbed by an airstrike...

bah, who am I kidding. PGI is going to cave on this.

Edited by Mortalcoil, 05 June 2018 - 02:29 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

They've tried for how many years now?

At least this option might work

[Battlemaster56]

Riot latest balance to shield support screw over Lulu, Karma, and Ori with weaker shields durations while leaving the biggest offender Janna with a decaying shield, also haven't thought about alot of the assassun buffs they threw around last couple of patches.

Their balancing over this seasin is really questionable to the point at times it seem they have no idea while throwing the meta over it head ecery two weeks.

Now for MWO there are quite a few things need to be adress mostly cerml and hll, they try to do it but missed the point by attempting to gut clan gh that would screw over alot of mechs that focus heavily on lasers, while competely missing the main offenders. And there the problem with spl and srms that need serious buffs and/or nerfs reverted or revised.

[Wil McCullough]

It's the entire "balance by spreadsheet" problem.

Almost 100% clan mechs picked before, so now we force an almost 100% inner sphere mech choice.

On paper, that shows parity is achieved. Now, across the board, clan and is mechs are picked equally at highest level.

Would you like to buy a mechpack?

Edited by Wil McCullough, 05 June 2018 - 03:25 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Well, they coudn't achieve it in Beta before they introduced DHS, Endo-Steel and Gauss Rifles, why should they be able to now?

Back then there wasn't any stock mode play, though. The Mech Lab existed and people would raise their mech's heat efficiency by ditching firepower for heat sinks. Maybe if that hadn't been possible and they were forced to play stock mechs, PGI in turn would have been forced to deal with the core balance of heat dissipation vs heat generation.

I doubt Stock Mode Tournaments will change this. But if PGI is just copy & pasting its MW:O statistics to Mechwarrior 5, MW5 might face some serious "fun" issues. The increased lack of heat efficiency for stock mechs with their system isn't just simply a balance problem, it's also a gameplay issue, because overheating too quickly and easily is not fun.

[Kaeb Odellas]

If it were simple or easy to "just balance the weapons and mechs", they would have done so long ago.

As it turns out, designing and balancing video games is actually pretty hard, especially when no one can agree on what balance actually means.

If massive companies like Riot or Blizzard can't make perfectly balanced games, then why do you think a smaller team like PGI can?

[Savage Wolf]

I also find the notion that stock mode is somehow more balanced than the current meta to be funny. Nothing is more imbalanced than stock mode.

[Khobai]

Kaeb Odellas, on 05 June 2018 - 03:33 AM, said:

As it turns out, designing and balancing video games is actually pretty hard, especially when no one can agree on what balance actually means.

um the definition of balance isnt subjective

balance is when all elements of the game exist in parity with eachother so that no one element is vastly superior than another

so for example having CXL be vastly superior to ISXL is not balanced. ISXL shouldve been changed to survive side torso blowout a long time ago.

all PGI has to do to balance their game is make clan tech not vastly superior to IS tech. you can have clan tech be different from IS tech, but the power level should still be roughly equal.

then they just have to balance the individual mechs and make sure no mech is so bad its not viable or so good that theres no reason to use any other mechs.

it really isnt that hard. PGI just doesnt take a logical approach to it. they never have. Like instead of just lowering damage on clan lasers, which was the logical thing to do, they wanted to reduce the ghost heat limit on clan lasers instead, which was completely illogical and wouldve killed clan lasers as a competitive option.

PGI is their own worst enemy for balancing. They come up with ridiculous convoluted ways to try and balance their game that completely backfire or the community at large rejects. Instead of just taking a simple logical approach.

The worst part is PGI never seems to learn from their past mistakes. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over ad infinitum.

Edited by Khobai, 05 June 2018 - 05:13 AM.

[Asym]

Again, we go down this path.... "Balance" is the wrong direction for several reasons:

1) the entire philosophy of MW is the lack of balance in the MW Universe !

• IS and Clan are diametrically opposed cultural philosophies !!!!

2) the entire MW Universe is based in the 'Cold War" military, political and philosophical dogma...

• the weapons systems are laid out according to the 1960's-1980's template
  
• there is suppose to be a large and un balanced technology and effectiveness scheme

3) tactical doctrine (s) are based on the cold war schism...

• One side has a smaller, more lethal and more dynamic but FRAGILE and often, dangerous tactical doctrine
  
• the other side has a lot more and more powerful weapons (by caliber or size; not tech), a simple "the ones with the most win" doctrine; and, a more stable and rational operational and tactical doctrine.

The entire game is about opposing sides, with benefits and deficiencies finding the best methods of surviving. That is an un-fair process but a good struggle because neither system can actually work too well because of the numbers involved...

And, balance is a game term that infers "fair".... Imagine a "racing" game that makes you take a Volvo and makes you race against a Corvette because now, the both have the same 6 cylinder engine because the 8 cylinder engine was too big for the Volvo......that is what balance is........"making it fair" and that is stupid and just about impossible in a fighting vehicle combat FPS based on "the inequities of diametrically opposed cultures..."

Bottom line: "that dog won't hunt..."

[Savage Wolf]

@Asym

You are absolutely correct... if we were talking about novels, RPGs or single player games.

But MWO is a multiplayer only game and then balance and game mechanics are king and lore is secondary. So you are not wrong, the problem is that Battletech is simply not a good universe for a competitive multiplayer game.

[K O Z A K]

If you ask 100 different players what "balance" is you'll get 100 different answers, and to make it worse balance is different at different skill levels. They did what they could while trying to have the 2 sides remain somewhat unique. You want to know what real balance looks like? When both sides have access to all mechs, weapons and equipment in the game. It's the ONLY way. Anything other than that will always be unbalanced in one way or another. And even that would only produce 100% faction balance, but not class/playstyle balance, which once again is so affected by skill that trying to balance for high end players will totally mess it up for casuals, and vice versa

[RoadblockXL]

They aren't making the WC stock mode for balance because stock mode has plenty of its own imbalanced builds.

Get ready to see lots of HBK-4Gs and AWS-8Qs

They're just trying to trying to do something different while appealing to the lore purists.

[Khobai]

Quote

If you ask 100 different players what "balance" is you'll get 100 different answers

yes but not all of those those answers will be correct.

like if you ask a blue haired feminist how many genders there are. and "they" say 23.. the only correct answer is 2.

as I said before, the definition of balance is not subjective. it is very well defined and not subject to opinion.

balance is when both sides of the equation are equal. there is no other correct definition.


balance is Clan tech = IS tech

balance is atlas = annihilator, spider = arctic cheetah, etc...


its that simple. there is no need to overcomplicate the definition of balance. thats what PGI does and thats why they can never obtain it.

however absolutely perfect balance is pretty much the unobtainable holy grail for any game with as many elements as MWO. But most games settle for a margin of 5%-10%. If the difference between the worst mech and best mech is only 5-10% that would be an acceptable margin for MWO. thats what PGI should aim for.

Edited by Khobai, 05 June 2018 - 06:32 AM.

[Dogstar]

Khobai, on 05 June 2018 - 06:21 AM, said:

like if you ask someone how many genders there are. and they say like 23. the only correct answer is 2.

You do realise that this is an exceedingly wrong statement?

Balance is generally speaking a subjective matter and one of opinion rather than hard fact, so yes you are going to get a lot of diversity on the balance subject with some ideas being less fun on average than others

True balance (and fairness) is achieved when the most number of players are having the most fun

[Verilligo]

Khobai, on 05 June 2018 - 06:21 AM, said:

yes but not all of those those answers will be correct.

like if you ask a blue haired feminist how many genders there are. and they say 23. NO. the only correct answer is 2.

I mean I hate to get technical with you on this, but you're medically incorrect. There are circumstances where humans can be born hermaphroditic. I also see no serious fault with allowing a somewhat more flexible definition of gender to narrow down someone's personal identity, unless such question is being asked to determine exactly which organs are present. Which, again, still leaves the possibility of a third option.

[Khobai]

Quote

You do realise that this is an exceedingly wrong statement?

nope. there are only 2 genders.

Quote

There are circumstances where humans can be born hermaphroditic

thats sex not gender. there are six different karyotypes for humans (XX, XY, X, XXY, XYY, and XXXY). theres six different sexes. 3 of which are hermaphroditic.

there are only two gender identities though: male and female. your gender cannot be attack helicopter.

but you have completely missed the point.

Quote

Balance is generally speaking a subjective matter and one of opinion rather than hard fact, so yes you are going to get a lot of diversity on the balance subject with some ideas being less fun on average than others

again its not subjective. balance is when both sides of the equation are equal. like in algebra. or balancing scales.

balance is when clan tech equals IS tech

and when the worst mech in the game is close enough to the best mech in power level so that all mechs are viable

theres nothing subjective about that. its 1+1=2.

Quote

True balance (and fairness) is achieved when the most number of players are having the most fun

um no. balance and fun are two distinctly different concepts. a game is not balanced simply because its fun.

likewise fun is not required for a game to be balanced. tic tac toe or rock paper scissors are examples of balanced games that arnt fun.

ideally a game should be both balanced and fun though. whenever possible you should find a way to balance the equation so that it doesnt detract from the fun of the game. like balancing clan lasers by reducing their damage rather than their ghost heat limit.

Edited by Khobai, 05 June 2018 - 06:57 AM.

[Dragonporn]

OP, do you seriously think that balancing thousands upon thousands of possible build combinations is even remotely realistic?...

[RickySpanish]

ITT: No actual game designers. Balance in a game where players will always seek the optimal means to win is as good as impossible. All you can do is rearrange the variables to shake up the meta game every now and then. This will force some level of confusion as players once again adjust to seek the optimal path. Balance in games is like the travelling salesman problem: a solution may exist, but seeking one quickly becomes foley. My prediction is that soon enough a new meta game will exist for stock mode, at which point all of the same cry babies will come out and whinge about how it's unfair or boring with respect to their preferred style of play. Life shall go on.

[Nightbird]

Stock mode will be more interesting to watch. Meta I can't watch, too boring.

[Bud Crue]

Khobai, on 05 June 2018 - 06:21 AM, said:

as I said before, the definition of balance is not subjective. it is very well defined and not subject to opinion.

balance is when both sides of the equation are equal. there is no other correct definition.

balance is Clan tech = IS tech

balance is atlas = annihilator, spider = arctic cheetah, etc...

its that simple. there is no need to overcomplicate the definition of balance. thats what PGI does and thats why they can never obtain it.

Yup, subjective or not that has never been PGI’s definition of balance.
Back in the day of info-tech, Paul defined balance as all mechs down to the variant level having equivelant value and roles.
Thus in 2016 balance was to be:
Atlas DDC = Spider 5V = any Cheetah Omni in terms of “value” and role, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean (we still have the little graph in the mech lab as a hold over from this interpretation of “balance”).

Chris, last year, indicated that balance was analyzed from the perspective of clan v IS and chassis to chassis actual performance data. The latter part being key. They don’t seem to care about your artifice of classes comprised of light, medium, heavy and assault mechs, and balance within those classes, but rather in the terms of your analogy above balance last year was to be:

Atlas as a chassis = Annhilator as a chassis = Spider as a chassis = Cheetah as a chassi. All roughly equal in terms of overall actual game performance.

Solaris adds a new definition to the balance discussion; balance being applicable to 12v12 or 1v1, etc. and needing an artifice of divisions to provide for such “balance” in one mode versus the other. In effect making “balance” totally subjective and variable with map and mode having as great an impact on that definition than the mechs and their builds.

So what is balance? I have no idea. But take heart, in the last year Paul, Russ, and Chris have all made various comments regarding balance in terms of it “being the best it has ever been” or words to that effect; so however it is defined, rest assured that according to the devs...its just great.

Edited by Bud Crue, 05 June 2018 - 06:50 AM.