57 replies to this topic

[Shanrak]

I dont like the MWLL system. Why would you force people to play a mech/style they migt not like? Lights are not for everyone, but put a decent combat chassis in the hands of a good light player and watch them go to work. Some of the worse chassis needs some buffs but those exist for every weight class.

[Daggett]

MischiefSC, on 06 October 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

If I have to put in 10x the work for the same payout in a light or the other team has to do X ... for me to even get close it's not balanced, or good.

I disagree. In balancing it's totally fine to have characters that are much harder to use. If you want examples take a look at MOBAs: Meepo in DOTA2 is known for being one of the hardest hero in the game because you need heavy micromanagement to use him effectively.

Khobai, on 06 October 2018 - 04:38 PM, said:

MWO is a terrible game it should be restructured.

Personally i would not play 1000+ matches and post more than 22.000 times in the forums of a terrible game.
Are you a masochist or could it be that in fact MWO is not that bad in it's core, but simply changed in a way you don't like anymore?

Khobai, on 06 October 2018 - 04:38 PM, said:

No lol. Abrams tanks would be utterly useless if RPGs could destroy them that easily. Their armor has the equivalent protection of 24 inches of steel. Which is about the same as a battleship's deck armor in WW2. RPGs. Even a modern RPG cant penetrate the interior compartment of a tank. You might be able to blow off the treads though.

That's true if hit from the front and most side-areas. But from the rear things look different. Here the good old RPG-7 would penetrate a standard Abrams every time and still has a 50% chance to penetrate when the tank is equipped with slat armor on the rear. Also the top is quite vulnerable too.

And that's a huge problem in an urban environment where it's quite possible for an RPG-7 user to reach a favorable attack vector. And there is also the RPG-29 which has reportedly penetrated the front and side armor of two Abrams and several other tanks. That's less than 20kg defeating a 65t vehicle when given the chance, a much crazier ratio than 20t mechs vs. 100t ones.

The only reason why an Abrams is not utterly useless against RPGs are the soldiers accompanying them who have to take care of any threats the Abrams can't handle.

So RPGs are basically the real-life eqivalent to light mechs in MWO. Not very effective against front-armor, but deadly when in the rear while being maneuverable enough to reliably get there.
A lone Abrams would be as dead as a lone assault is in MWO. But luckily their commanders are smart enough to not do such things and their teams in turn are actually supporting them...

Edited by Daggett, 06 October 2018 - 06:57 PM.

[MischiefSC]

It's not about 'hard to use'. As has already been pointed out, persistent player inventories and mixed environments. The idea of lights being bad just means PGI isn't going to sell lights and 25% of the games content is instantly inferior, actually about 50% because mediums fit in that category. So before you even look at what is and is not 'meta' you're writing off 50% of the games content.

That's stupid game design.

[BumbaCLot]

New idea, resupply/repair for forum posts. Every 5 matches you get to post on the forum. You start off in a trial mech, you are stuck in the new players area. Once you move out of tier 4 you can post on general forum. If you are destroyed and drop down to Tier 5 again, you have to play until your WLR increases to > 1.

Faction play works the same way. Scouting 10 matches gets you 1 forum post, invasion 5 gets you another.

BONUS: for every match you break 500 match score you get 5 extra posts.

Recruiting threads, bug reports, etc are exempt.

Any forum warriors up for the challenge?

[Khobai]

Shanrak, on 06 October 2018 - 04:40 PM, said:

I dont like the MWLL system. Why would you force people to play a mech/style they migt not like? Lights are not for everyone, but put a decent combat chassis in the hands of a good light player and watch them go to work. Some of the worse chassis needs some buffs but those exist for every weight class.

because its how battletech works

and its how every other mechwarrior game works

MWO is literally the only game in the entire battletech franchise thats different in that regard.

MischiefSC, on 06 October 2018 - 06:57 PM, said:

The idea of lights being bad

they wouldnt be bad though. they would be cost proportional.

if you can buy 3 lights for the cost of 1 assault that doesnt at all mean lights are bad. especially if lights can perform essential roles that assaults cant throughout the game.

you would be able to switch between using lights when its relevant to use lights and assaults when its relevant to use assaults. lights would be better when your team needs to capture remote objectives or attack isolated enemy mechs. assaults would be better when your team needs to hold objectives or push the enemy team when theyre clumped up. etc...

And there would be MORE incentive to use lights. Because you would get multiple lights for the same cost as an assault. So what youre saying makes absolutely no sense. A 20-35 ton light should never equal an 80-100 ton assault in combat. thats bad, illogical game design. But you should get multiple lights for the same cost as an Assault.

Edited by Khobai, 06 October 2018 - 11:02 PM.

[MischiefSC]

This is a FPS. The idea of "I'm stronger but you can make up for it by dying to me repeatedly" is the most ridiculous, self serving and unrealistic balance idea in any game.

It's a PvP FPS. Quit trying to change the game design in the hope that you'll win more fights based on bad game balance than by player skill.

Each mech needs to have a comparable level of effectiveness. Be that mobility and precision or armor and firepower. Without that the game is poorly balanced. Every fight and match is each player in 1 mech. Those mechs may have different roles but end of the day those roles and approaches to combat a need to be comparable.

[Koniving]

Khobai, on 06 October 2018 - 04:38 PM, said:

But no light should be as good as a heavy or assault at combat. And no heavy or assault should be as good at electronic warfare as a light.

In Megamek I took out an AS8-D (Light PPCs, etc.) with two Locust 1Vs. Finishing blow was melee to the back.

Admittedly the Atlas pilot was incompetent (8/8) and the Locust pilots were average (4/5).

The weapons should be inherently equal, the armor and such should not be. To balance out the unfairness there, we have speed and the like though it is a bit excessive. Especially with all the structure and armor buffs on the lights which force us to need them on mediums heavies and assaults especially with all the faster firing rates and excessively high thresholds. (At one point it was possible to get a maximum shutdown heat of over 130... Currently it's around 90 and it's gonna drop a bit more soon closer to MW4 levels, which was 60. MW2 was 40, MW3 was 30, 40 if you installed Pirate's Moon expansion. This is why MW3 was so brutal).

Anyway..
The ticket system makes sense. Remember PGI's big thing about a dropship, and say you have 600 tons to drop with? Apparently that was originally for your whole unit per dropship, but lets apply it at the current number of 250 tons.
So you drop with a 100 ton mech. You come back 2 times.
You drop with a 20 ton mech... Welp we'd probably want to cut the number down to 200 as you'd be spawning 12 times with a 250 limit.

Really solo or FP, we should have multiple drops. Whether its the same mech or several.

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2018 - 06:38 AM, said:

This is a FPS. The idea of "I'm stronger but you can make up for it by dying to me repeatedly" is the most ridiculous, self serving and unrealistic balance idea in any game.

It's a PvP FPS. Quit trying to change the game design in the hope that you'll win more fights based on bad game balance than by player skill.

Each mech needs to have a comparable level of effectiveness. Be that mobility and precision or armor and firepower. Without that the game is poorly balanced. Every fight and match is each player in 1 mech. Those mechs may have different roles but end of the day those roles and approaches to combat a need to be comparable.

I chose to use my 200 tons on 2 mechs, you chose to bring in 5 mechs and if you're good, who says you need them all?

In many older games stats were never tracked, and nobody cared about dying a few times to get an end goal. Although there's a lot of bragging rights in the fact that a player only needed one out of five lives to kill two of the other guy and then some.

In fact I'd say that's better than "Oops I got one hit killed, now I can't use my mech or play or do anything for another 13 minutes."

Nothing truly needs to be modified, except maybe ditching inherent quirks.
Here's a quirkless Hunchback 4P in an MWO without quirks. That Locust? One shot. That Jagermech? Stood up to a barrage, turned around and he was already dead but an even fresher Jagermech comes up, butchered.. The other guys? Butchered. The last guy? Hunted down and butchered.



(Skip to 4:30 if you don't care about the build, which is put together just before the match)

Now imagine if they all had a few lives based on their size. Had they been at full strength I'm sure they would have done a lot more to me. The Locust...not so much, it was always pathetic and it still kinda is unless it's lucky as hell and everyone else is incompetent. I'm using a PS3 controller for god's sake! A CONTROLLER! Two joysticks and some buttons.

Anyway... My point is, being a light can really, really suck if you're unlucky enough to get hit once. 20 damage and you're dead unless you're quirked into oblivion. That's literally one shot. There's more health on the cockpit than on the body!

Plus the game is a lot more fun with more than one life. Who the hell brings exactly 12 units to fight exactly 12 units, and tries to match ton for ton? Nobody in any conflict ever. But some will send a lot of smaller units to fight a few big ones. In fact a crap load of Battletech is all about the battle of attrition and who has more staying power in the long run, and the little guys usually outlast the big things. In fact, a new challenge of skill is who can outperform the big guys in something small with the fewest or no lives lost.

Edited by Koniving, 07 October 2018 - 07:57 AM.

[Ted Wayz]

Daggett, on 06 October 2018 - 05:34 PM, said:

I disagree. In balancing it's totally fine to have characters that are much harder to use. If you want examples take a look at MOBAs: Meepo in DOTA2 is known for being one of the hardest hero in the game because you need heavy micromanagement to use him effectively.

How are "balanced" and "much harder to use" mutually compatible. And why would anyone use how other games get it wrong to defend the imbalance in MWO?

There are no excuses for the state of the scoring system, skill system and faction play because frankly the playerbase has given PGI the answers. Be great if we the playerbase would support the players and stop defending what is obviously wrong with this game.

[Ted Wayz]

Koniving, on 07 October 2018 - 07:42 AM, said:

Plus the game is a lot more fun with more than one life. Who the hell brings exactly 12 units to fight exactly 12 units, and tries to match ton for ton? Nobody in any conflict ever. But some will send a lot of smaller units to fight a few big ones. In fact a crap load of Battletech is all about the battle of attrition and who has more staying power in the long run, and the little guys usually outlast the big things. In fact, a new challenge of skill is who can outperform the big guys in something small with the fewest or no lives lost.

IMO quick play is simulated play and could care less if someone brings one mech or three mechs or whatever. But IMO simulated play should be preparation for something.

Faction play should be the actual war and would prefer it be as grim and daunting as TT. With reem and repair tactics begin to matter more as it becomes a war of attrition on a different level.

Rewarding roles in quick play would be great training for faction play, even now. But could mean so much more.

[Khobai]

Daggett, on 06 October 2018 - 05:34 PM, said:

A lone Abrams would be as dead as a lone assault is in MWO. But luckily their commanders are smart enough to not do such things and their teams in turn are actually supporting them...

nope. if its just a fight between a lone abrams and a lone truck with 2-3 guys with RPGs im gonna have to say the abrams still wins the vast majority of the time. thats not a stretch.

its a friggin main battle tank. do you really wanna be those guys in a truck fighting a main battle tank. no you dont. lmao.

its same thing in battletech/MWO. A 20T light mech should not have a chance against a 100T mech. there is simply no way to justify that from a logical standpoint.

Koniving, on 07 October 2018 - 07:42 AM, said:

In Megamek I took out an AS8-D (Light PPCs, etc.) with two Locust 1Vs. Finishing blow was melee to the back.

thats how it should work. two or more lights should be able to take down an assault.

but one light shouldnt really have a chance.

lights should have to swarm up on heavier targets to take them down. thats the whole point of lights in battletech. you get 3-4 of them for every 1 assault.

and medium mechs should be the most common weight class. not heavies or assaults.

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2018 - 06:38 AM, said:

This is a FPS. The idea of "I'm stronger but you can make up for it by dying to me repeatedly" is the most ridiculous, self serving and unrealistic balance idea in any game.

not really. plenty of other games like planetside use that mechanic. and theyre more popular than MWO ever will be. so you cant say it doesnt work, its been proven in countless games that it DOES work.

Edited by Khobai, 07 October 2018 - 11:38 AM.

[MischiefSC]

So the game is based on o e player in 1 mech. The idea that some people will want to play redshirt roles for the uberheroez is a pipe dream that keeps coming up. It came up under IS/Clan balance. It's wanting other players to play the bot roll of PvE for them. There's nobody who wins consistently asking for this which doesn't make the reasoning hard to figure out.

Quit trying to change the game in the illusion that other players will flock to redshirt roles so that people who otherwise can't win fights on skill will win on skewed game mechanics. The only people who would occasionally play that role are people who get farmed regularly anyway. It would drive people out and dramatically reduce the viable selection of mechs, forcing anyone who isn't terrible into only assaults to give bads the illusion of skill they don't actually have.

Fortunately there's no way PGI would do this so, not worried.

Edited by MischiefSC, 07 October 2018 - 09:58 AM.

[Prototelis]

Besides there are roles in this game.

You would know that if you played with higher level teams or played faction.

[Khobai]

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2018 - 09:50 AM, said:

So the game is based on o e player in 1 mech.

um faction play is already not 1 player in 1 mech. So I dont what youre talking about. respawns already exist in the game.

furthermore the introduction of a new respawn mode does not mean one-life quickplay modes need to be removed from the game. its not mutually exclusive.

there is room to add a new gamemode without having to eliminate existing gamemodes.

MischiefSC, on 07 October 2018 - 09:50 AM, said:

Fortunately there's no way PGI would do this so, not worried.

its also one of the reasons the game is dying.

because PGI wont do anything to improve their game.

and the addition of large maps with respawns and strategic level objective-based play is an often requested feature.

you can stick your head in the sand all you want but other people have asked for that to be added to the game many times.

Prototelis, on 07 October 2018 - 11:29 AM, said:

Besides there are roles in this game.

You would know that if you played with higher level teams or played faction.

forcing teams to play 3/3/3/3 or with tonnage restrictions is not the same thing as having actual role warfare. Weight class and tonnage restrictions take the stick approach to getting players to play different weight classes.

role warfare is something entirely different and entirely lacking in this game. role warfare takes the carrot approach to getting players to play different weight classes. players are incentivized to play different weight classes rather than forced to play them.

theyre diametrically opposite approaches to getting players to play different weight classes.

Edited by Khobai, 07 October 2018 - 11:52 AM.

[Prototelis]

Once again demonstrating that you don't play faction or with higher level teams.

[Mystere]

BumbaCLot, on 06 October 2018 - 10:13 PM, said:

New idea, resupply/repair for forum posts. Every 5 matches you get to post on the forum. You start off in a trial mech, you are stuck in the new players area. Once you move out of tier 4 you can post on general forum. If you are destroyed and drop down to Tier 5 again, you have to play until your WLR increases to > 1.

Faction play works the same way. Scouting 10 matches gets you 1 forum post, invasion 5 gets you another.

BONUS: for every match you break 500 match score you get 5 extra posts.

Recruiting threads, bug reports, etc are exempt.

Any forum warriors up for the challenge?

Play non-stop for 4-5 years then come back with your "suggestion".

Edited by Mystere, 07 October 2018 - 11:52 AM.

[Khobai]

Prototelis, on 07 October 2018 - 11:47 AM, said:

Once again demonstrating that you don't play faction or with higher level teams.

Once again demonstrating that you dont fully understand the concept of role warfare.

Role warfare means each weight class has completely different skills, different equipment, and entirely different capabilities/roles. Having a shared skill tree, shared equipment, and a single role (combat) is not role warfare.

Role warfare means adding dependencies to the game so that no single weight class can do everything and has to depend on other weight classes. with actual role warfare in place, a team of all assaults/heavies would be weaker than a team with all four weight classes.

Right now in faction play, heavies are dominant over every other weight class. The only reason people dont take 4 assaults/heavies is because the tonnage limit prevents it. Nobody would ever take lights/mediums in faction play if they werent FORCED to. thats NOT role warfare.

The closest thing to role warfare in faction play is conquest gamemode, which still isnt even actual role warfare, but at least lights have a purpose in that gamemode.

Very early on in MWO's development, they were going to implement role warfare by having 3 different pilot skill trees. They said it was one of MWO's four pillars of design. But we ended up with a tripod. PGI has never implemented anything resembling role warfare.

Edited by Khobai, 07 October 2018 - 12:09 PM.

[Mystere]

Ted Wayz, on 07 October 2018 - 08:26 AM, said:

IMO quick play is simulated play and could care less if someone brings one mech or three mechs or whatever. But IMO simulated play should be preparation for something.

Faction play should be the actual war and would prefer it be as grim and daunting as TT. With reem and repair tactics begin to matter more as it becomes a war of attrition on a different level.

Rewarding roles in quick play would be great training for faction play, even now. But could mean so much more.

Community Warfare was supposed to be actual game. Quick Play was suppose to be nothing more than mere filler while the former was developed -- to come 90 days after "release" in fact.

[Prototelis]

Khobai, on 07 October 2018 - 11:56 AM, said:

Once again demonstrating that you dont fully understand the concept of role warfare.

Things you will never understand;

Your idea of role warfare is out of place in an FPS setting
No one is going to play less viable mechs, all your "ideas" would accomplish is a queue that is stacked with even more heavies and assaults
This game already has a multitude of combat and combat assistance roles
Players take a multitude of lights/fast mediums in FP and fill a variety of roles without being forced to

You are playing the wrong series.

Edited by Prototelis, 07 October 2018 - 12:24 PM.

[Koniving]

Prototelis, on 07 October 2018 - 11:47 AM, said:

Once again demonstrating that you don't play faction or with higher level teams.

Role warfare demonstrated, since I have the distinct impression you're not quite sure what it is...

(Scout/interception lance, attacking lance [main force], and fire support.)

(Main force and Dragon Lance.)

Rolewarfare in a four-man team. One tank, two direct fire and one indirect fire



And role warfare as described by PGI in 2012, when PGI actually cared about the game and had a vision..
which is very similar to what Khobai is describing.
Most of which never made it into MWO, though some are appearing in MW5: Mercs.
That which has made it into MWO has fallen short of what was originally envisioned.

And now what we really have.

[Khobai]

Prototelis, on 07 October 2018 - 12:22 PM, said:

Your idea of role warfare is out of place in an FPS setting

no its not lol.

ever heard of overwatch? thats an FPS that has very clearly defined roles that are completely different and dependent on other roles. theres countless other examples of FPS games that implement role warfare too.

not only does role warfare belong in an FPS game, but its also an essential part of many FPS games.

it absolutely should be an essential part of MWO, since MWO has hundreds of different mechs, but does a very poor job of making them play differently. instead a lot of mechs are just defunct or obsolete because they dont have clearly defined roles. And only a small handful of top tier mechs actually get used.

Prototelis, on 07 October 2018 - 12:22 PM, said:

No one is going to play less viable mechs, all your "ideas" would accomplish is a queue that is stacked with even more heavies and assaults

they wouldnt be less viable. thats the whole point of role warfare: to make every mech viable in at least one role.

you clearly still dont understand the concept.

especially if you think all mechs are viable in MWO now, because theyre not, so adding role warfare would mostly be an improvement to those mechs that already arnt used.

Edited by Khobai, 07 October 2018 - 12:36 PM.