274 replies to this topic

[Asym]

The6thMessenger, on 04 March 2019 - 04:46 AM, said:

Well, I kinda notice the stigma of homing weapons too. And that "Incoming Missiles" that slow the game, because they have to take cover, it's like they are afraid of taking cover. PPCs and lasers don't warn you, and you do near incognito damage with them, why would "incoming missiles" that actually gives you a chance to take cover is worse? I wonder what will happen if we took away that "incoming missiles".

It has been said that homing, or basically self-aiming weapons shouldn't be competitive to DF weapons, and you know what, sure. But so far all I just heard it time after time, they justify nerfs after nerfs, like they want to nerf homing-missiles to the ground and never be viable in the first place.

They already admitted that the lock-cone nerf barely did anything, so what's the point of it in the first place? "Shouldn't be competitive to aimed weapons?" As if an additional 20-degrees would make homing weapons more competitive, it's not like LRMs were competitive pre-nerf -- streaks maybe. This mantra, this dogma really, it's too elitist for my taste.

Politics is the tool to balance all that you can not live with..... Yes, IDF slows the battle field for those whom don't use tactics that work in that environment. All they, whom ever they are, want nothing but a FFA arcade.... And, PGI gave them that and they, again, whom ever they are, ignored it !!! "They" did not want to fight against each other because "they" would be exposed as skill frauds.........that they really aren't that good skill wise but their verbal "Get GuD" never ceases.... It's all "they" have.... A good example was playing with and against some well known names in randoms these past few days and actually following them to learn how they are so good...... Guess what, in the 5 or 6 matches I did this, these elite players had half of their game below 100 match score..... Even the potato I am, was average 200+.....and yet, they just couldn't resit the verbal barbs...

Solaris failed because "talk is cheap..." Even after giving the "few" everything they wanted, it failed.... So, here we are discussing an elitist and failed dogma that really revolves around a movie quote: "all for One and One for all !!!! and, more for me....."

[Mystere]

Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS, on 04 March 2019 - 05:32 PM, said:

My view is that if they should have "fixed" LRMs by removing all of the changes made in 2018. With that done and out of the way, they could have spent the considerable time and resources that have been wasted on the LRMs on a matchmaker that could put together two teams such that the outcome wasn't generally already known at the drop screen.

PGI spending more time on another matchmaker is an even bigger waste. They could have used all of that wasted time, money, and effort on actually making the game better feature-wise.

[Mystere]

Feral Clown, on 04 March 2019 - 08:50 PM, said:

I don't get the general attitude that you balance a game around casual players. For a game to be the best it can be, it should be balanced around the best that play it. You don't change the rules for chess to make it easier for kindergarten students, you get them playing the game and learning it properly from the start.

As much as this debate has gone on though, PGI to me looks clearly focused on making the game better and addressing the age old gripe of many players, playing this multiplayer game have, and that is the parasitic playstyle commonly found in game.

So making lrms suck for a guy hiding behind a rock, while making them good for the guy running with his team sounds like the best move regarding lurms I have seen since I started playing.

However what I would really like to see PGI do is make lrms a 'class' and limit the number per side. The over saturation of lurms and atm's degrades gameplay. Back to the chess analogy, it is as if everyone wants to play the queen and variety of game play suffers....it is also why bad players think lights are OP and why a lot of the good players I know right now are running around in lights in solo queue.

With that logic, all drops should then be hard-limited to 3 lights, 3 mediums, 3 heavies, and 3 assaults with no exceptions.

Also, why limit ourselves to only LRMS and "classes", why not do it for ***everything***?

[Scout Derek]

Real talk;
Lrm buff is fine, ATM buff is a no no to me.

[The pessimistic optimist]

Appogee, on 03 March 2019 - 05:25 PM, said:

It's clear from the Steam player data, the wait times in the queues, and the failed matchmaking, that gaining new players, and retaining players are the two biggest issues confronting MWO.

In my opinion, PGI continue to buff LRMs because they are traditionally the weapon system used by new and less-skilled players. Many new and relatively unskilled players rely on them to do enough damage be able to earn the XP and C-Bills necessary to level their Mechs.

PGI's logic seems to be: "Let's keep buffing the weapon system - LRMs - most used by most new players. That way we can gain new players and retain them in the game."

However:

As LRMs grow in usage and effectiveness, more and more matches devolve into stagnant engagements where massed LRM boats on both sides are forced to hide and wait out the massed incoming missiles. It's not "fun". It's not creating the engaging kind of game that folks will want to play for a long time. I'm not confident that new players will hang around for a game like this.

Worse, many old hands and long-time dedicated supporters of MWO are heartily tired of LRM-fests. Even taking ECM and AMS, the unengaging gameplay of having to focus most of all on staying out of the missile rain is simply less fun than alternative playstyles including brawling, sniping, backstabbing etc.

TLDR: PGI continues to buff LRMs to make the game 'noob-friendly' and grow the playerbase, but I think it may ultimately achieve the opposite. New players will get bored quickly and leave. Loyal experienced players will increasingly walk away.

What is your view?

There just fixing something they should have fixed along time ago. LRM have always bin a problem weapon system that was well kind crappy not really fun to play with.

[Grus]

Mystere, on 05 March 2019 - 09:31 AM, said:

With that logic, all drops should then be hard-limited to 3 lights, 3 mediums, 3 heavies, and 3 assaults with no exceptions.

Also, why limit ourselves to only LRMS and "classes", why not do it for ***everything***?

Please no.

[Novakaine]

The usual...............

[Khobai]

The flawed logic is in trying to balance LRMs around Tier4-Tier5 when they should be balanced around Tier1-Tier2. Weapons should be balanced at the highest level thats reasonably obtainable for most players. You should never balance weapons for extremes... not for new players or for the top 1%.

Scout Derek, on 05 March 2019 - 09:35 AM, said:

Real talk;
Lrm buff is fine, ATM buff is a no no to me.

this

although ATMs do need major changes IMO.

they need to do less than 3 damage in the 120-270m range (3 damage is broken as hell). And as a tradeoff their missile health needs to be increased and their 0 damage deadzone needs to be removed completely or replaced with linear dropoff. Because its dumb that CLRMs do more damage than ATMs under 120m, how does that make sense at all when ATMs are supposed to be the short range version of CLRMs?

Edited by Khobai, 05 March 2019 - 01:29 PM.

[Scyther]

I'm not much of one to comment here, because I rarely play these days. Mostly because team deathmatch loses its charm for me after the first 6 or 7 thousand iterations. (When I signed up for Founder package I was envisioning something more along the lines of MW4: Mercs with travel, trading, hiring pilots, etc. all piled in with multiplayer and PVP and missions. Too much to expect I guess.)

Anyways, I don't really agree with the OP. PGI hasn't shown much concern for new players in the long run, and certainly not to the extent of tilting weapon systems to them.

Just from the 'outside looking in' viewpoint of someone who follows the game changes and discussions, I'd have to agree with Bud's contention that this is simply more of the same, cyclical, tweak this weapon system, then that one, then this mechanic, then that one; to make it appear PGI is actually doing something with the game when really it's just one guy twiddling numbers in a .xml file. This might cause people to cycle through different mechs and builds and skill tree layouts to deal with the latest bit of fiddling, then a month or two later it's on to the next thing.

[Scout Derek]

Khobai, on 05 March 2019 - 01:07 PM, said:

although ATMs do need major changes IMO.

they need to do less than 3 damage in the 120-270m range (3 damage is broken as hell). And as a tradeoff their missile health needs to be increased and their 0 damage deadzone needs to be removed completely or replaced with linear dropoff. Because its dumb that CLRMs do more damage than ATMs under 120m, how does that make sense at all when ATMs are supposed to be the short range version of CLRMs?

I'm just confused as to why PGI is buffing a playstyle that doesn't need buffing.

https://media1.tenor...ad70b/tenor.gif

[Khobai]

Scout Derek, on 05 March 2019 - 01:29 PM, said:

I'm just confused as to why PGI is buffing a playstyle that doesn't need buffing.

https://media1.tenor...ad70b/tenor.gif

I agree. ATMs definitely dont need buffing. 3 damage per missile is broken as hell.

[Scout Derek]

Khobai, on 05 March 2019 - 01:32 PM, said:

I agree. ATMs definitely dont need buffing. 3 damage per missile is broken as hell.

As a friend of mine joked;

"So people are more incentivized to use them at long range too"

[The6thMessenger]

Asym, on 05 March 2019 - 08:05 AM, said:

Politics is the tool to balance all that you can not live with..... Yes, IDF slows the battle field for those whom don't use tactics that work in that environment. All they, whom ever they are, want nothing but a FFA arcade.... And, PGI gave them that and they, again, whom ever they are, ignored it !!! "They" did not want to fight against each other because "they" would be exposed as skill frauds.........that they really aren't that good skill wise but their verbal "Get GuD" never ceases.... It's all "they" have.... A good example was playing with and against some well known names in randoms these past few days and actually following them to learn how they are so good...... Guess what, in the 5 or 6 matches I did this, these elite players had half of their game below 100 match score..... Even the potato I am, was average 200+.....and yet, they just couldn't resit the verbal barbs...

Solaris failed because "talk is cheap..." Even after giving the "few" everything they wanted, it failed.... So, here we are discussing an elitist and failed dogma that really revolves around a movie quote: "all for One and One for all !!!! and, more for me....."

I can't really comment to whether what happened to you is true, or what you are highlighting is true.

But but I do see a problem when they're whining about a system that is already less effective, and compromising to use (as in you can't just shoot instantly, you have to wait for a lock).

[Tesunie]

Appogee, on 03 March 2019 - 05:25 PM, said:

It's clear from the Steam player data, the wait times in the queues, and the failed matchmaking, that gaining new players, and retaining players are the two biggest issues confronting MWO.

In my opinion, PGI continue to buff LRMs because they are traditionally the weapon system used by new and less-skilled players.

I just wanted to chime in here, if it hasn't already been mentioned, that Steam Player Data only logs data from people who are playing the game on Steam. (As far as I know at least.) So, that means that the Steam Data is not going to tell you the whole tale. I know I myself use the Portal rather than Steam for MW:O.

The other point I'd like to make is that many people over the course of years has been asking for LRMs to be "better" when fired indirectly. The last I heard, it seemed like their latest proposal to change LRMs was specifically in this fashion, to buff direct fired LRM performance.

Can't blame PGI for putting in an often requested feature/change. (I wished I had tried the PTS for the LRM changes, but I wans't able to at the time...)

[Tesunie]

Khobai, on 05 March 2019 - 01:07 PM, said:

The flawed logic is in trying to balance LRMs around Tier4-Tier5 when they should be balanced around Tier1-Tier2. Weapons should be balanced at the highest level thats reasonably obtainable for most players. You should never balance weapons for extremes... not for new players or for the top 1%.

Wouldn't that mean to balance them for T4-2?

[The6thMessenger]

Tesunie, on 05 March 2019 - 03:25 PM, said:

I just wanted to chime in here, if it hasn't already been mentioned, that Steam Player Data only logs data from people who are playing the game on Steam. (As far as I know at least.) So, that means that the Steam Data is not going to tell you the whole tale. I know I myself use the Portal rather than Steam for MW:O.

Well, we can't just check the entire population either, that's why in statistics we simply take a representative sample.

Aside from differences in launchers, I don't know any special attributes from Steam users that would skew results.

[The pessimistic optimist]

MadBadger, on 05 March 2019 - 01:15 PM, said:

I'm not much of one to comment here, because I rarely play these days. Mostly because team deathmatch loses its charm for me after the first 6 or 7 thousand iterations. (When I signed up for Founder package I was envisioning something more along the lines of MW4: Mercs with travel, trading, hiring pilots, etc. all piled in with multiplayer and PVP and missions. Too much to expect I guess.)

Anyways, I don't really agree with the OP. PGI hasn't shown much concern for new players in the long run, and certainly not to the extent of tilting weapon systems to them.

Just from the 'outside looking in' viewpoint of someone who follows the game changes and discussions, I'd have to agree with Bud's contention that this is simply more of the same, cyclical, tweak this weapon system, then that one, then this mechanic, then that one; to make it appear PGI is actually doing something with the game when really it's just one guy twiddling numbers in a .xml file. This might cause people to cycle through different mechs and builds and skill tree layouts to deal with the latest bit of fiddling, then a month or two later it's on to the next thing.

If your a founder then you remember LRM have ALWAYS bin trash and only less trash then they use to be.

[Appogee]

Tesunie, on 05 March 2019 - 03:25 PM, said:

I just wanted to chime in here, if it hasn't already been mentioned, that Steam Player Data only logs data from people who are playing the game on Steam. (As far as I know at least.) So, that means that the Steam Data is not going to tell you the whole tale. I know I myself use the Portal rather than Steam for MW:O.

Understood. But it's also a fair assumption that the trend of declining Steam players would be indicative of a trend in declining portal players. (PGI doesn't provide data on portal player numbers.)

Tesunie, on 05 March 2019 - 03:25 PM, said:

Can't blame PGI for putting in an often requested feature/change.

There are at least as many threads/people complaining about LRM spam making the game less enjoyable.

[The6thMessenger]

Scout Derek, on 05 March 2019 - 01:29 PM, said:

I'm just confused as to why PGI is buffing a playstyle that doesn't need buffing.

https://media1.tenor...ad70b/tenor.gif

I honestly don't see much difference in the short-range use of ATMs with 242m/s (1.1157s time-to-target), because at 220m/s (1.2277s time-to-target), it's already fast and at short range the ATMs already hit quite immediately.

It's the mid-range to long-range use of the ATMs that were affected most by the velocity buff, and considering the LRM's overall tweak (though velocity-buff is stupid), it's probably right that they buffed the ATMs to be competitive against LRMs at mid-range because even if right now ATMs is the lesser choice for mid-range vs LRMs (but again the velocity buff is stupid to begin with).

No reason to single the ATMs out, ATMs being buffed is simply just a logical approach, from stupid choices.

[Appogee]

MadBadger, on 05 March 2019 - 01:15 PM, said:

(When I signed up for Founder package I was envisioning something more along the lines of MW4: Mercs with travel, trading, hiring pilots, etc. all piled in with multiplayer and PVP and missions. Too much to expect I guess.)

Not at all. That was what PGI said they were going to build. QP was supposed to be a temporary mode until the full game got built.