110 replies to this topic

[TheMurf]

Modern Warfare MP Design Director: Balancing Everything Kind of Boils the Fun Out of Things

Just saying

[FupDup]

You're right.

We need to roll back all Clan tech to how it was first released and remove all quirks. That would make the game more fun!

[Vonbach]

Fun for who?

[Bud Crue]

I’d be up for a return to selected giga quirks, particularly those that gave some of the crappier variants a shot at niche play or even competitiveness. Review some of the baseline agility numbers on select currently sidelined mechs (save the Sprit Bear! Give the Timber a reason to be loved again). Removal of Gauss/ppc GH on more chassis via HSL quirks and heck more HSL quirks all around (lemme have my Thunderbolt 5SS back, or ye olde 3 ERPPC Thunderbolt 9S ). Stuff like that. Things that might not be great for across the board “balance” but that would would make more mechs more fun, I’d be all for that.

[Christophe Ivanov]

Turn everything back to before the engine desynch. Just sayin.

[Nesutizale]

There are basicly two kinds of balance.

1) 1:1 balance where everything is equal...like chess without the player. Every figure is the same for both sides. Everyone has the same starting conditions and so on.

2) Asymetrical balance where different players have different abilities or weapons but the same chance of winning the game by using what they have to their advantage.
That can also include rock-paper-scissor mechanics. Think Zerg, Protoss, Humans for example.

MWO sadly never managed to perfect the asymetrical system and was leaning to much towards the 1:1 system that is kinda boring.

[Feral Clown]

Bud Crue, on 27 August 2019 - 09:27 AM, said:

I’d be up for a return to selected giga quirks, particularly those that gave some of the crappier variants a shot at niche play or even competitiveness. Review some of the baseline agility numbers on select currently sidelined mechs (save the Sprit Bear! Give the Timber a reason to be loved again). Removal of Gauss/ppc GH on more chassis via HSL quirks and heck more HSL quirks all around (lemme have my Thunderbolt 5SS back, or ye olde 3 ERPPC Thunderbolt 9S ). Stuff like that. Things that might not be great for across the board “balance” but that would would make more mechs more fun, I’d be all for that.

I wants my light sabre lpl Locust back.

[Jman5]

More like people playing overpowered stuff will never admit it and hate having their toys taken away from them.
1. Something is identified by the community as really strong and easy to use. (aka overpowered)
2. People flock to it.
3. Developers nerf it.
4. People freak out.

If I was developing a competitive multiplayer game, I would start everything at a really low baseline. Then you just progressively powercreep everything that isn't overpowered. It gets you to the same place, but without the community wailing and gnashing their teeth.

[LordNothing]

everything in mwo, which should be fun, is highly marginalized. any advantage you can gain is within a few percent of baseline to the point you can simply ignore it. fun doesnt happen until you can get a 30+% boost over baseline.

people think of balancing as a flattening of values so everything is the same, which is boring. advantages and disadvantages need to be much more pronounced. i miss when you could find an utterly vicious quirk on a generally underperforming mech. remember those dragon builds where all the weapons were in one arm and it was meta for awhile? have you used many dragons since they flattened that out?

[FupDup]

I think something important to clarify about this whole debate is what people mean when they say "balancing." Many people on the interwebs think that balancing means everything has the same DPS, range, ammo, etc. I'm assuming that the COD developer guy is using this definition. I think that definition is pants.

I define balance as every item/gun/character/etc having its role/niche where it is viable such that nothing is useless and you can do good with anything as long as you use it properly (i.e. you shouldn't expect to do well bringing a shotgun to a long range sniper war, but if you ambush people up close then you should wreck face).

[Willard Phule]

Except that it's actually been done before, with this title under different publishers.

Those of us that remember MW3 fondly, were skeptical about the hardpoint thing when MW4 came out. Look at how long that lasted. It was supported by a fan base with upgrades and patches almost a decade after Microsoft stopped supporting it.

PGI keeps trying to reinvent the wheel, without the benefit of the advice of the people that actually play the game they publish. What, exactly, do you expect to happen in the long run?

[Karl Streiger]

While its fun to beat players with worse equipment the reason it doesn't work in MWO is inherited by the very game mechanic.
Don't care enough to write wall of text just stupid simple:
If player A and B and C and D uses Meta X and Players E to H use OlMeta Y that deals 5% less damage (either DoT or FLD) Team 2 already starts with 40% less chance to win that engagement.
Would be difficult alone to manage a limited number of combinations. But hundreds of Mechs with almost free Mechlab and dozens of weapons made the attenp futile and every change that was done since closed beta was almost wasted afford.

[JediPanther]

If you want fun in mwo you need to run the lesser used mechs in what ever builds. I had fun with my cptl-a1 with six lrm 10s crawling after my dhgr ecm meat shields bombing any lock I could get. You know where every one is going to lemming to on the map so setting up near the lemming fight gives good angles of attack.

The funner moments of last night were killing an enemy pir in the classic snow city map in a stock urbie and staring down a stealth comanndo on h 10 alpine neither of us having erppc or erlls on adv zoom while I was down on the road to radio tower as the lemmings went into their k-l hole to lose.

[R Valentine]

Game designers have been out of touch with their communities for a decade now. Balancing things is only less fun for the devs, not for the players. The players want things balanced so they aren't shoe horned into just one or two choices. That's boring.

"We’re just having fun. We want to just be able to climb around and have fun interactions."

There's no "fun interactions" in a foregone conclusion. I have .22, you have a belt fed .308. RIP me. That's not a "fun interaction". It's a waste of my time.

Edited by Kiran Yagami, 27 August 2019 - 01:03 PM.

[Nesutizale]

Karl Streiger, on 27 August 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

While its fun to beat players with worse equipment the reason it doesn't work in MWO is inherited by the very game mechanic.
Don't care enough to write wall of text just stupid simple:
If player A and B and C and D uses Meta X and Players E to H use OlMeta Y that deals 5% less damage (either DoT or FLD) Team 2 already starts with 40% less chance to win that engagement.
Would be difficult alone to manage a limited number of combinations. But hundreds of Mechs with almost free Mechlab and dozens of weapons made the attenp futile and every change that was done since closed beta was almost wasted afford.

That is pretty much why I support the idea of MW5 to have more fixed designs.

[FupDup]

Nesutizale, on 27 August 2019 - 01:16 PM, said:

That is pretty much why I support the idea of MW5 to have more fixed designs.

The issue is that many of the fixed designs of TT were intentionally designed with planned obsolescence and gimpiness in mind rather than being effective at a particular job. If the stock designs were actually built intelligently it might be fine, but that's just not the case.

[Appogee]

PGI can't balance their game because they don't play their game anywhere near enough to know how it works.

[Khobai]

TheMurf, on 27 August 2019 - 08:41 AM, said:

Modern Warfare MP Design Director: Balancing Everything Kind of Boils the Fun Out of Things

Just saying

Thats exactly what someone who doesnt know how to asymmetrically balance a game would say.

There are plenty of games that pull off asymmetrical balance just fine. Is it 100% perfect? No. But as long as its within +/- 10% thats generally acceptable.

Karl Streiger, on 27 August 2019 - 12:37 PM, said:

While its fun to beat players with worse equipment the reason it doesn't work in MWO is inherited by the very game mechanic.

Agreed. This is where not having respawn gamemodes becomes a problem. By making the win condition centered around kills it places an emphasis on builds that do damage.

Whereas if there were respawns and win conditions that werent centered around kills it would allow people to play more fun builds without being penalized.

MWO kindve shot itself in the foot by making customization its biggest strength then having gamemodes that punish you for not using meta builds.

FupDup, on 27 August 2019 - 01:19 PM, said:

The issue is that many of the fixed designs of TT were intentionally designed with planned obsolescence and gimpiness in mind rather than being effective at a particular job. If the stock designs were actually built intelligently it might be fine, but that's just not the case.

As far as Im aware there is no rule that says PGI has to use existing stock mechs. PGI just chose to do that because they were lazy. They created the issue themselves.

As for tabletop, at least it had battle value, so the crappy stock mechs generally had lower points value than the good stock mechs. MWO has nothing like that. It treats the worst assault the same as the best assault in the game.

Edited by Khobai, 27 August 2019 - 02:05 PM.

[Willard Phule]

Khobai, on 27 August 2019 - 01:50 PM, said:

Thats exactly what someone who doesnt know how to asymmetrically balance a game would say.

There are plenty of games that pull off asymmetrical balance just fine. Is it 100% perfect? No. But as long as its within +/- 10% thats generally acceptable.

I have no idea how to do it, either, but I know it's been done before. I experienced it through two iterations of the title before this. PGI's approach to "customization" pretty much shot themselves in the foot.

Khobai, on 27 August 2019 - 01:50 PM, said:

Agreed. This is where not having respawn gamemodes becomes a problem. By making the win condition centered around kills it places an emphasis on builds that do damage.

Whereas if there were respawns and win conditions that werent centered around kills it would allow people to play more fun builds without being penalized.

Both MW3 and MW4 had online play that was nothing like the potato tornado we're part of now. But "customization" and "omnipods" were treated completely differently. There were plenty of missions that didn't involve damage the way it is done now.

Khobai, on 27 August 2019 - 01:50 PM, said:

MWO kindve shot itself in the foot by making customization its biggest strength then having gamemodes that punish you for not using meta builds.



As far as Im aware there is no rule that says PGI has to use existing stock mechs. PGI just chose to do that because they were lazy. They created the issue themselves.

As for tabletop, at least it had battle value, so the crappy stock mechs generally had lower points value than the good stock mechs. MWO has nothing like that. It treats the worst assault the same as the best assault in the game.

Therein lies the problem. All the other online incarnations of the title were "Mercenary" titles. All allowed mixed tech, since the only thing holding you back is your bankroll.

Hell, the website for this game is "mwomercs.com," but this sure ain't like any other mercs title. Forcing balance like they have has led us to this point.

[LordNothing]

Nesutizale, on 27 August 2019 - 01:16 PM, said:

That is pretty much why I support the idea of MW5 to have more fixed designs.

balance for single player games is different. you want power creep as part of the natural progression. going from a 2 bit merc outfit to a top notch merc outfit involves starting with a hodgepodge of weak builds progressing to super metas at the end. this is great for immersion.

competitive multiplayer on the other hand is different, you want a fair fight, so boring weapons, no sense of progression, everything more or less the same. progression is handled by leveling mechs for very marginal improvements, which of course is at cross purposes to fairness hince the heavy marginalization.