59 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

Prototelis, on 22 January 2019 - 11:00 AM, said:

Snip

This is getting surreal.

[Prototelis]

Sure is bud.

I'm more than willing to accept "balance changes in place of actual content" but intentional currency sink lol no. That one time russ called a bunch of people cheapskates doesn't support that argument, skill tree doesn't support that argument (intentional currency sink to replace previous intentional currency sink, only now with less options to reduce grind)

New mechs represent intentional power creep to drive sales, no debate there.

But none of those are things that support "balance passes as intentional currency sinks" as a whole.

Edited by Prototelis, 22 January 2019 - 11:14 AM.

[mad kat]

They can't stop the balancing act because they don't know what they're doing.......


.....But yeah the constant pendulum swings are really annoying.

[Bud Crue]

Prototelis, on 22 January 2019 - 11:14 AM, said:

Sure is bud.

I'm more than willing to accept "balance changes in place of actual content" but intentional currency sink lol no.

But nonstop change it is most clearly a cbill sink. Think about when Chris nerfed SPLs. Did you leave all your build running SPLs alone, or did you go buy ML or ERML and whatever else to fix those builds? How about when they added ghost heat to Gauss/PPC the meta was (and I think still is) gauss/vomit, yet that was a balance change that resulted in people leaving those gauss/PPC builds and switching them out with new equipment. You may not think of these acts as a cbill sink, but they most certain are acting in that manner.

Prototelis, on 22 January 2019 - 11:14 AM, said:

That one time russ called a bunch of people cheapskates doesn't support that argument, skill tree doesn't support that argument (intentional currency sink to replace previous intentional currency sink)

You asked for a cite to when Russ talked about the need for a c-bill sink. I only mentioned the module cheapskate thing as a reference to the NGNG cast as a referent that I thought you would recall. Him calling people cheapskates had nothing to do with the need for a sink. That just happened to be something which also occurred during that 2 plus hour discussion. Go listen again for yourself.

Prototelis, on 22 January 2019 - 11:14 AM, said:

New mechs represent intentional power creep to drive sales, no debate

Yo.

Prototelis, on 22 January 2019 - 11:14 AM, said:

But none of those are things that support "balance passes as intentional currency sinks" as a whole.

Again, the proof is in the actuality. You may not change your builds after PGI nerfs them but there are hundreds of posts both here and on Reddit where folks complain constantly of having to redo builds or even buy new mechs after some of the more egregious nerfs. Those rebuilds cost c-bills. It’s just the reality of the current game. Perhaps you’re right and this isn’t intentional, but I would be more convinced that PGI was in fact balancing for balance sake, if they were actually nerfing what is at the top and buffing what is clearly at the bottom, rather than their normal MO of nerfing that which is in the middle.

Edited by Bud Crue, 22 January 2019 - 11:37 AM.

[Prototelis]

Bud Crue, on 22 January 2019 - 11:35 AM, said:

You may not change your builds after PGI nerfs them but there are hundreds of posts both here and on Reddit

Those people aren't the developer, those people most likely also had bad builds to begin with or its hyperbole. Again that is conjecture and not proof that the developer intentionally does balance passes to act as a cbill sink.

Balance cycles are normal for online games. Get used to it.

[LordNothing]

too much balance makes games boring. part of the fun is finding the loophole that makes it possible to outperform the other players. problem is those loopholes need to be a moving target. it sucks to have one thing be op all the time.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 January 2019 - 05:09 PM.

[Kotis77]

Guess we need constant balance change, but PGI has taken lazy/easy way to achieve that. Nerfing everything to the ground is one way to balance game. But it takes all fun out of the game. Buffing takes more resources and its more delicate thing than just listen to brown sea experts constantly complaining mechs/weapons and PGI will yield to whiners in time. If PGI would just buff other mechs/weapons to be next metamech, this would be still fun game to play.

But again Balance guru doesnt understand this....

[Alexandra Hekmatyar]

You know I don't believe in perfect balance I just find the whole balance thing a useless waste of time.
If Chris is the only one doing balancing well Chris could be doing something more useful helping other bigger projects around, no?

[Kotis77]

Alexandra Hekmatyar, on 23 January 2019 - 02:49 AM, said:

You know I don't believe in perfect balance I just find the whole balance thing a useless waste of time.
If Chris is the only one doing balancing well Chris could be doing something more useful helping other bigger projects around, no?

Yes i feel the same way, but people have pointed out it has to happen to keep some freshness/cblill sink in game.

But balancing takes littlest resources possible. That's why there is only balancing left in game, so it seems PGI is actually doing stuff, but they are just buying time to keep people playing this game and hoping for actual content to the game.

Just look past 6 months podcasts/talks about improving game. Its been just talk about giving us the moon, but only thing they doing is just changing xml's and doing mechpacks. So there is only 2-5 guys working on MWO.

Edited by Kotis77, 23 January 2019 - 04:13 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Bud Crue, on 22 January 2019 - 11:35 AM, said:

But nonstop change it is most clearly a cbill sink. Think about when Chris nerfed SPLs. Did you leave all your build running SPLs alone, or did you go buy ML or ERML and whatever else to fix those builds? How about when they added ghost heat to Gauss/PPC the meta was (and I think still is) gauss/vomit, yet that was a balance change that resulted in people leaving those gauss/PPC builds and switching them out with new equipment. You may not think of these acts as a cbill sink, but they most certain are acting in that manner.

This is quoted for truth here and part of my issue with the balance changes. Prime example was last night. I hadn't played my beloved PHX-2 for quite some time because I have been focused on the bright and shinny new mechs I have had but I took it out last night and the build I had on it was utter trash. The nerf to medium laser cooldown reduced its DPS to unacceptable levels and that new heat system changed up its profile quite a bit as well. So I ended up removing all the ER MLs and replaced them with standard MLs (cost C-bills) and then had to respect my skill tree to pick up a ton of range and cooldown nodes to try to offset the loss of range when I replaced my ER MLs and offset the increased cooldown on MLs in general to try to get my DPS back up to where I used to be. That took me 24 skill points and 1.09 million C-bills right there, not to mention the time sink required to grind the 20k XP needed for the respec.

Now take all the C-bills, time and effort spent on the one mech and consider I have 244 mechs in my stable. Basically I am spending huge sums of C-bills right now to re-tweak dozens of mechs all because of the recent balance changes and this is the just the latest round of them. I have had to do this time and time again as change after change after change has taken place. On top of that, I can't even count the number of my favorite and most enjoyable mechs that I have ended up tossing into the trash heap after a balance change. Nothing is more frustrating than having the mech (and build) you play day after day be rendered a steaming pile of dog doodoo because of a balance change.

Also, if I have to be honest, most of the extended breaks I have had with this game have been because of frustration at the balance change. I actually quit the game like 2 months prior to the heat changes simply because I realized that I would be pissed off when it happened and 1/2 my mechs ended up broken and would have to be rebuilt. I decided that maybe if I took a long enough break, I wouldn't remember how good any given mech was BEFORE the changes so that when I returned it wouldn't be such a dramatic change for the worse that I got frustrated. There is obviously something wrong when you have players feeling they need to take long breaks to prevent frustration at changes, it is down right silly.

[Prototelis]

If the heat change broke half of your mechs you're doing it really wrong.

[Alexandra Hekmatyar]

Kotis77, on 23 January 2019 - 03:48 AM, said:

Yes i feel the same way, but people have pointed out it has to happen to keep some freshness/cblill sink in game.

But balancing takes littlest resources possible. That's why there is only balancing left in game, so it seems PGI is actually doing stuff, but they are just buying time to keep people playing this game and hoping for actual content to the game.

Just look past 6 months podcasts/talks about improving game. Its been just talk about giving us the moon, but only thing they doing is just changing xml's and doing mechpacks. So there is only 2-5 guys working on MWO.

Yup sadly some people also take it hook, line and sinker on these patches, so any change of behavior on how PGI runs the game is never gonna change for the better, not that I would expected it to happen anyway.
Mean how many podcasts have we had listening to how difficult it is to develop stuff.

[Khobai]

LordNothing, on 22 January 2019 - 05:08 PM, said:

too much balance makes games boring. part of the fun is finding the loophole that makes it possible to outperform the other players. problem is those loopholes need to be a moving target. it sucks to have one thing be op all the time.

if you have to derive fun from exploiting loopholes in balance then MWO has bigger problems than balance issues.

Like the fact its just not a fun game and people have to invent their own minigames to have fun.

[DANKnuggz]

OrmsbyGore, on 22 January 2019 - 12:34 AM, said:

On a more serious note, the only way to truly balance the game would be to re-introduce repair and re-arm costs.

This right here was one of the great equalizers between clans/IS.... Clans had better tech but as an advancing army with ever extending supply lines, rearming/refitting became harder and harder to maintain as time went on. Clans mitigated this by keeping assets used to a minimum but this only slowed the need it didn't eliminate it.

IS factions (mostly) had FAR more planets with resources to draw on and as the defending faction their supply lines were FAR shorter.

Add to this the relative cheapness of IS tech vs Clanner tech and keeping your clan mechs going for longer will rack up a much larger bill than IS mechs.

If these costs were figured into FP you'd need to increase the payout to compensate or players would become even more timid than they are now but it would add more of a campaign progression feel to FP. As it is now after a FP map restart the beginning of the offensive feels exactly the same as the middle and the end. Add to this no real clear objective or path to victory and FP is just another place to farm C-bills.

It might be nice to reward those who remained in 1 contract or faction (I.E. didn't switch from clan to IS mid season or visa versa) a bonus payout based on FP activity and success at the end of a war. You could even implement component salvage to mitigate direct C-bill cost for refit/rearm, basically you get a portion of the salvage from any mech you help destroy as well as your standard share based on contract.

Edited by DANKnuggz, 23 January 2019 - 08:15 AM.

[Prototelis]

All repair/rearm is going to do is ensure new players and lower skilled players consistently have to drop broken garbage against high skill players in fresh mechs. It's a dumb mechanic for an action team play game because it only handicaps the lowest skilled players.

[Nameless King]

Alexandra Hekmatyar, on 21 January 2019 - 05:00 AM, said:

Mean come on it's just a humongous waste of time it's never gonna be perfect.
They could be pulling their resources from this shizzle towards Faction play which they say is going to be their big focus this year or optimization or find a way to integrate all old maps in the rotation without sacrificing other things, fixing their draw distance issue and streamline their freaking hitboxes on certain maps.

But no instead PGI is wasting time on removing and adding quirks buffing and nerfing weapons which creates an imbalance in other weapons and mechs.

You want an online Multiplayer game to stop balancing? Well that aint ever going to happen. There is no perfect balance in anygame, they all have to add a little here or take a little away constanly.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Prototelis, on 23 January 2019 - 06:49 AM, said:

If the heat change broke half of your mechs you're doing it really wrong.

Broke might be a strong word, though there were a few builds that no longer worked after the change. However even if not broke, many required some fairly extensive tweaks and those tweaks cost C-bills, XP and time invested to test out the new builds/skills required. Also keep in mind they have this constant re-balancing cycle going on with sometimes quite significant changes that we have to keep adjusting to.

For example the LRM change. If it goes in, LRMs effective become direct fire, lock on weapons when you have direct line of sight to the target while making indirect fire be less effective. Obviously, this is going to have a dramatic effect on any mech armed with LRMs so it is very possible many of these builds will require significant changes to both loadout and mech skills.

Then if you run MRMs or Streaks you have to ask yourself if it might not be better to run LRMs instead. I mean you will now have the near equivalent of Lock On MRMs that will auto-guide to the target at upwards of 1000m if you have line of site the enemy, no aiming required. Pretty much the same for streaks because you now get long range lock on missiles that also can be used indirectly. Then if you do change over you have to pay for new builds and might have to re-tweak your skills for those new builds.

Every time they make a change like this you go through the same process over and over and over.

[Weeny Machine]

MrVaad, on 21 January 2019 - 06:10 AM, said:

I played world of warcraft for years and i remember the nerfs were constant and targetting a different class each patch.
The joke was who would get the nerf "bat" in the next patch

I have a question for the MWO veterans, does the nerf game eventually puts an old nerfed mech/weapon in the meta ?

Nope but of one thing you can be certain:

Light mechs get nerfed. Repeatedly. Consistently.

No class got more direct or indirect nerfs.

[Angel of Annihilation]

LordNothing, on 22 January 2019 - 05:08 PM, said:

too much balance makes games boring. part of the fun is finding the loophole that makes it possible to outperform the other players. problem is those loopholes need to be a moving target. it sucks to have one thing be op all the time.

On the other hand, those OP things generally become less OP when people finally figure out the loopholes to negate their over-performance. For example, I never really had an issue with the Quad UAC/10 KDK-3 back in the day because I realized he was a monster and as such modified my behavior on how to deal with them. Hell just the simple fact they were OP meant they rapidly became a priority target which had a dramatic effect on their performance. I mean when every enemy mech on the battlefield makes it a point to target the KDK-3 exclusively and kill it as fast as possible, they tended to fold rather quickly. By the time they were nerfed, I don't even really think it was necessary any longer.

My point is that often as not, alot of what is considered OP actually is self-correcting with time simply because players will adapt and change their tactics, builds, etc to counter it. Rarely is there, nor should their be a real need to do any extreme balancing especially this far into the lifespan of the game.

[LordNothing]

Angel of Annihilation, on 24 January 2019 - 02:02 PM, said:

On the other hand, those OP things generally become less OP when people finally figure out the loopholes to negate their over-performance. For example, I never really had an issue with the Quad UAC/10 KDK-3 back in the day because I realized he was a monster and as such modified my behavior on how to deal with them. Hell just the simple fact they were OP meant they rapidly became a priority target which had a dramatic effect on their performance. I mean when every enemy mech on the battlefield makes it a point to target the KDK-3 exclusively and kill it as fast as possible, they tended to fold rather quickly. By the time they were nerfed, I don't even really think it was necessary any longer.

My point is that often as not, alot of what is considered OP actually is self-correcting with time simply because players will adapt and change their tactics, builds, etc to counter it. Rarely is there, nor should their be a real need to do any extreme balancing especially this far into the lifespan of the game.

this is probibly why i do well in unmeta mechs. they often fall low on the priority list and end up with me in the fight a bit longer. i never really considered the kdk-3 to be as good as the hype. sure it was a fun mech, anything you can run 4x uac10s on it would be good. i didnt really like the way they handled it with a blanket nerf on the uac10, which broke a lot of other builds i was using at the time. you can see more or less the same thing with piranhas now. its earned such a reputation (one i consider undeserved) that their typical lifespan can be measured in a few minutes even though its really only a threat when in the hands of a very small minority of good light pilots.