45 replies to this topic

[LordBraxton]

Clans will whine, IS quirks will be toned down, Clan nerfs will be rolled back, IS will remain ****-tier.

[NimoStar]

Part of the dumb mentality of "I am clan so nerf IS" "I am IS so nerf clan" whine, like the previous player, is what pressures PGI to

9 out of 10 matches today are won by the more skilled player, not according to the faction of the mech.

Yet people from both sides still whine that their faction "sucks" and the other one is "OP".

So the only answer from the "geniuses" at PGI is to reassure this geniuses making everything the same, thus taking away their "reasons to complain" (not taking into account that the complaints do not need reasons, and more often than not there isn't one. See posts like "I driven this top-tier mech for 4 matches but it sucks" newb thinking like here: https://mwomercs.com...rchtic-cheetah/ , showing that most players that complain about balance have no idea of it to begin with; or the pother thread about complaining from PIRanha with c-HEAVY mg boating, which piranhas don't even use. )

Of course, there are many reasons to complain (entire mechs and some weapons are nigh completely unusable), but random people complain about their faction being "Underpowered" isn't really one that should be taken into account without solid evidence. In any case, making the factions the same because of these whines is nearly the worst possible "solution" imagined, because it puts this into a slippery slope; like Clans complaining about IS quirks and skills eliminated, IS complaining still about clan XL engine and asking that the IS one works the same, etc. OF course all terrible complaints, but if we stay on this course, MWO will end up abiding by that, pitting essentially two clone "factions" against eachother.


_____________

PS about lore: Clans aren't suppossed to be better "in every way", they have a pretty bad society, corrupted influences, bloody infighting, and by any measure the clans were introduced as the bad guys. They DID have a massive technological advantage but that's about it, numerically they are suppossed to be extremely inferior, as well as in resources. Hell, clan homeworlds are extremely resource poor and about 10/20 times less, numerically, than inner sphere systems.
The problem is approaching this within a game which erases the weight off all those differences and boils it down to a 12 vs 12 mech fight, where ONLY superior tech matters, that was unbalanced from the get-go with the lore of course. The problem of balance wasn't that clan tech was superior in itself (clans are balanced vs IS on the tabletop where you have to pay from a limited number for expensive equipment, and have to field less mechs), but boosting clan NUMBERS and ECONOMY (made irrelevant) to match IS.

Edited by NimoStar, 08 July 2018 - 10:03 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Except in TT it was never balanced. I could go over why, again, but to be clear even Stackpole and several of the original developers of Battletech have said so. It's why it went to Dark Ages; essentially the Jihad nuked everything back to square one and started over with balanced tech. Tech was balanced by just having everyone use Clan tech.

Because, again, BV and 'numerical advantage' never worked. Either IS just spammed tons of vehicles or Clans took LPLs and the most totally broken superior Clan tech and dominated. In any competitive engagement it was always broken, it only worked when it was casual friends playing with house rules.

Edited by MischiefSC, 09 July 2018 - 12:12 AM.

[Scout Derek]

There was always another way to balance the two tech sides.

PGI took the worst route to do so, that's all I'm going to say.

[Palor]

Maybe PGI will stop nerfing everything if they just give Clan and IS weapons the exact same stats. They may as well, at the rate things are going they will end up there eventually.

Distinctly different sides is a pipedream.

[VonBruinwald]

Scout Derek, on 08 July 2018 - 10:15 PM, said:

There was always another way to balance the two tech sides.

PGI took the worst route to do so, that's all I'm going to say.

There is a better way to balance the two tech sides.

But your way is worse than PGI's, that's all I'm going to say.

[Bud Crue]

MischiefSC, on 08 July 2018 - 11:06 AM, said:

Make it fun, then try to dial in TTK to a good balance.

That’s never gonna happen and at the same time kinda the problem as I see it.

They don’t understand their own game or those that play it to have even an idea of what is “fun” about it; and because they lack that basic understanding, they make changes that affect the various subjective aspects of that fun in objectively detrimental ways.

Like “balance” decisions that focus on 1-3 builds but hurt everything because they are clueless that there are scores of other mechs that are not problematic but use similar builds to what is; to game changes that focus on one issue while ignoring dozens of more pressing ones (see 1 bucket solution vs fixing the many long term complaints of CW that if addressed might actually get people playing and filling the old buckets as but 1 example of this). PGI has never understood why its fairly diverse (however niche) community plays its game or why.

And because as a corporate entitiy whose leadership barely plays and who cannot stand interfacing with the community who does, (with some exceptions) they have no idea what it is about their own game that draws their player community to it; i.e. they have no idea what and why we find to be “fun” in playing their game.

And so they make hamfisted proposals (like the proposed PTS) or worse outright changes, based on player feedback from equally hamfisted options that they propose in the first place (recoil and nerfs), all because they don’t understand their game or us. This has been the case for as long as I have played the game. And despite the fact that it would be so mindnumbingly simple for them to correct (by playing and interfacing more), they don’t; and instead they blinding lash out with absurd “balance solutions” like fun killing nerfs and unfun game modes and changes, and stockmode WC! and other changes that no one finds to be “fun”.
.
TLDR:
There is no hope of them suddenly figuring this out, because they don’t care enough to play their own game or even listen to those that passionately do.

[TWIAFU]

Palor, on 09 July 2018 - 12:11 AM, said:

Maybe PGI will stop nerfing everything if they just give Clan and IS weapons the exact same stats. They may as well, at the rate things are going they will end up there eventually.

Distinctly different sides is a pipedream.

Why not?

Make it all the exact same in stats. ONLY difference would be HUD and laser colors.

ONLY factor in a win/loss would be the pilot and not the tech.

No more quirk 'advantages'. No more Clan tech 'advantages'.

But that is not the 'balance' Clans want, minus the removal of IS quirks.

[Asym]

Actually, the "answer" to this ongoing quagmire is by doing the exact opposite of what PGI is inclined to do: un-nerf everything and establish a clear difference between IS and Clan tech.....

Now, some would scream that's :un fair" or would create a complete lack of balance and would ruin the game... The entire Universe the game is based on was never balanced in the first place ! It was the story of "Us" and "them". It had boggy men (the Clan) with some serious superiority quirks and the masses and masses of somewhat normal people (the IS worlds).

One side had the tech, small numbers, exceptional training and some very odd tactics; and, the other side had low tech solution (common sense solutions with robust builds), large numbers, training that centered on "groups" versus "individuals" and fought using tactics that were safer and simpler to employ using average people !

Us and Them. The Cold War of the future. These are apples and oranges paradigms, charactures of the era this game was created in and THAT is the "value proposition" that MW has been using since !

If you change the value proposition in a small niche market, which MWO is, that change "assumes" the niche can and will find something of "value" to replace what PGI is taking away.........that's not happening and the game itself is suffering because of it.!! This is an arcade FPS with a rich history but, a small niche because of that history.......tinker with that like they have done, and look at the population loss........ Culture trumps process all of the time.... we are there.

[Novakaine]

The only true way to balance this is lore wise.
Unnerf the Clans and give us 12 v 8.
Forget about this constant weapons balance.
Let Clan be what they truly are, but give the IS the numbers advantage.

[Mystere]

Asym, on 09 July 2018 - 05:08 AM, said:

One side had the tech, small numbers, exceptional training and some very odd tactics; and, the other side had low tech solution (common sense solutions with robust builds), large numbers, training that centered on "groups" versus "individuals" and fought using tactics that were safer and simpler to employ using average people !

Novakaine, on 09 July 2018 - 08:45 AM, said:

The only true way to balance this is lore wise.
Unnerf the Clans and give us 12 v 8.
Forget about this constant weapons balance.
Let Clan be what they truly are, but give the IS the numbers advantage.

Here is an avenue for differentiation just waiting to be used: equipment (i.e. communications, sensors, etc.). Make clan ones emphasize the individual, and IS ones enhance team/unit cohesion.

[Stinger554]

Andi Nagasia, on 08 July 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

well not this year,

jokes aside i think Clan lasers with -1 damage could work,
as long as all the other stats(Dam/Heat, Dam/Tic, ect) all remain the same or close to what we have now,

That's what I was hoping the proposed changes would be -1 damage to all lasers used in laservom builds. IE CERLL, CERML, CHLL and then go from there.

Novakaine, on 09 July 2018 - 08:45 AM, said:

The only true way to balance this is lore wise.
Unnerf the Clans and give us 12 v 8.
Forget about this constant weapons balance.
Let Clan be what they truly are, but give the IS the numbers advantage.

Negative doesn't work for QP, might work for FP but that would require PGI to have separate game data for each mode. Which we both know they won't do.

Only true way to balance IS v Clan is to allow mix tech. Any other method is going to have significant issues similar to the ones PGI is having now.

[Mystere]

Stinger554, on 09 July 2018 - 10:42 AM, said:

Negative doesn't work for QP, might work for FP but that would require PGI to have separate game data for each mode. Which we both know they won't do.

Do these 3 things:

• Make solo QP have forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, or IS vs. Clan drops based on player availability on the queue.
  
• Implement dynamic team sizes for even faster queue times.
  
• Turn solo QP into an "Endless War" mode -- where players waiting on the queue get dropped into the fight as other players die -- for longer player participation.

QP was originally intended as a filler. It is time to kill it. Kill it with fire.

[Stinger554]

Mystere, on 09 July 2018 - 10:55 AM, said:

Do these 3 things:

• Make solo QP have forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, or IS vs. Clan drops based on player availability on the queue.
  
• Implement dynamic team sizes for even faster queue times.
  
• Turn solo QP into an "Endless War" mode -- where players waiting on the queue get dropped into the fight as other players die -- for longer player participation.

QP was originally intended as a filler. It is time to kill it. Kill it with fire.

Good luck getting that implemented.

Trying to keep things relatively realistic in terms of balancing.

[Mystere]

Stinger554, on 09 July 2018 - 12:09 PM, said:

Good luck getting that implemented.

Trying to keep things relatively realistic in terms of balancing.

At the rate things are heading, the only logical balance solution to mixed tech (both at the drop and equipment levels) is harmonization. But by then, we might as well drop the IP and go fully generic.

Edited by Mystere, 09 July 2018 - 12:28 PM.

[Stinger554]

Mystere, on 09 July 2018 - 12:27 PM, said:

At the rate things are heading, the only logical balance solution to mixed tech (both at the drop and equipment levels) is harmonization. But by then, we might as well drop the IP and go fully generic.

Solution to mixed tech? Mixed tech is the solution...idk what you're trying to say there.

As has been said before the whole reason Jihad happened and mixed tech is a thing is because balancing Clans vs IS is fundamentally flawed. It is not possible without lore fluff; which is impossible to have in a PvP environment similar to MWO. Hence why mixed tech is the answer.

Edited by Stinger554, 09 July 2018 - 12:41 PM.

[Snowbluff]

MischiefSC, on 08 July 2018 - 10:12 PM, said:

Except in TT it was never balanced. I could go over why, again, but to be clear even Stackpole and several of the original developers of Battletech have said so. It's why it went to Dark Ages; essentially the Jihad nuked everything back to square one and started over with balanced tech. Tech was balanced by just having everyone use Clan tech.

Because, again, BV and 'numerical advantage' never worked. Either IS just spammed tons of vehicles or Clans took LPLs and the most totally broken superior Clan tech and dominated. In any competitive engagement it was always broken, it only worked when it was casual friends playing with house rules.

Didn't this just make the clans suck? Their mechwarriors weren't any better, their mechs weren't any better, but they were still stuck with more rules of engagement and less numbers. That's ******* dumb.

[MischiefSC]

Snowbluff, on 09 July 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:

Didn't this just make the clans suck? Their mechwarriors weren't any better, their mechs weren't any better, but they were still stuck with more rules of engagement and less numbers. That's ******* dumb.

Nope, because their pilots still get better piloting and gunnery and they just got very adaptive in their use of Zel. Everyone feared and respected the Clans because the Clans, as a culture, had no issue with 'Okay, let's just annihilate each other. You first.' One for one they were still better pilots most the time.

They almost all relocated to the Inner Sphere and no longer had the lack of resources. While everyone had their own 'Clan ERPPC' (IS or Clan) the Clans were acknowledged as the better engineers.

Also every faction, IS and Clan, had their own special tech or trick or toy and their own flavor. While I dislike the glut of tech and the bloated number of rolls per round to make stuff happen Dark Ages was good in that every faction, every IS or Clan faction, was equally as interesting. Not balanced in power and strength, no - some were stronger than others in various ways but you didn't have the Davions as the Great White Hope faction along with 'oh, yeah, and screw those Liao guys' and then 'CLANS! We do everything you do, but better! However we intentionally, illogically and irrationally refuse to fully deploy our advantages because then us being OP Mary Sues would just be too obvious. Here, I'll hand you some plot armor so you can win against us anyway.'

Nope. We want the balance of factions that existed in Dark Ages. We want the same principle of tech balance but without just removing everything 3050 (which is what happend) and then just making another 30+ weapons and components to replace all the stuff we just removed.

Do the same thing but with the IS tech we already have.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

I wish Clans had their own currency. Honor or some such and the ability to offer Zelbriggen during combat with rules for breaking it and making it dishonorable etc.

Clans have no use for C-Bills.

Snowbluff, on 09 July 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:

Didn't this just make the clans suck? Their mechwarriors weren't any better, their mechs weren't any better, but they were still stuck with more rules of engagement and less numbers. That's ******* dumb.

Their default mehcwarriors had better gunnery and piloting. They had way better heat management for out of the box mechs. That was enough right there.

[Tarl Cabot]

And even lore wise, tech wise, Clan STOCK mechs were ways ahead IS/SL stock mechs because of how they were built. When Clans were originally playtested using their Zel/etc, it was using STOCK Star League mechs vs Stock IS 3025/3050 mechs and IS brought the Clans to a standstill EARLY without Comstar assistance, why? Because there was NO FRAKING mechlabs. So as previously noted, Clans did have better piloting/gunnery skills but their mechs were not setup with a few weapons.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 09 July 2018 - 03:20 PM.