36 replies to this topic

[TheArisen]

A couple years ago there was a push for quirks to reflect the stock loadout or at least encourage players to build something similar to it. There were also people that complained about "uber quirks" Now I like the lore and it even has some merit but it is my opinion that there are other things that should be more influential in deciding how quirks are assigned and how big they are.

I'd like to suggest a ladder of priority and IMO it should look like this,
1st, Encourage build variety, at least on a chassis wide basis. Simply put, quirks should be a driver for people to do things outside the regular meta or really just do something different in general. Naturally there are so many mechs that true uniqueness is pretty much impossible but it's still something to strive for.

2nd, Quirks should be aimed at making the mech not only fun but balanced. Now while that might seem like a "no duh", the nuance is that not only should they strive to make the mech as good as it can be, but PGI should also not be afraid to roll out especially strong quirks. I'm not saying they should quirk them to be meta lords, but rather to quirk them into relevance. Sometimes that means an extra large helping of quirks.

3rd, This is where stock load-out/lore role should be on the ladder. A consideration but it takes a back seat to the first two. After all more flavor is good and with the right amount of stock & lore seasoning they can actually help accomplish the 1st two points.

What do you guys think? Any other considerations for re-thinking quirks?

Edited by TheArisen, 26 February 2021 - 10:44 PM.

[PocketYoda]

I'm not sure why they did that with the quirks and still allowed customers to boats weapons if they wanted the mechs to perform like the table top.. that seems counter productive..

Anyway i'm all for bad or poor mechs getting quirk passes to at least make them useful again.

[Elizander]

It's time for Meta Quirks.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i'm a bit of a lore hound so i love lore based stuff. that doesn't mean the stock loadouts are any good in the context of this game. i like the idea of quirks that pull from the lore use for a mech chassis. so if by lore say a mech was primarily used as a long range fire support then give it some range quirks. also do away with those stupid quirks like a big quirk to say energy when the chassis only has a single energy hardpiont. or heavy missile quirks when a mech only has a single hardpoint in say the center torso (that heavily restricts what can be used there). using lore as a basis for quirks is a good start but flavor it by looking at the chassis hardpionts available.

might have sort of repeated myself but there it is.

[Wildstreak]

TheArisen, on 26 February 2021 - 09:11 PM, said:

2nd, Quirks should be aimed at making the mech not only fun but balanced.

But for which mode?
This matters as shown in other games.
MOBAs for example balance characters for traditional 5 v 5 three lane mode but some have other Ranked modes and characters wind up in different Tiers depending on which Ranked mode you play. Shooters have the same issue.

Seems MWO assumes balance for 12 v 12 but Pros play 8 v 8 in the year long stuff, Solaris does 1 v 1 and 2 v 2. No one has ever mentioned it before but if Mechs are balanced for 12 v 12, you will get some performing differently in 8 v 8 and even a third difference in S7 as seen by Divisions that are an informal Tier List for S7.

[East Indy]

A little bit of both.

Because so much time has passed and new folks have come in since, I'll link an archived database of MWO quirks prior to May 2017. Some are very powerful and focused — take a look at the LCT-1V and DRG-1N — yet neither of those variants was overpowered while becoming a much more common choice among players.

I believe quirks need to reflect a few realities of the game:

• MWO/BattleTech is all about chassis and variants with unique character.
  
• The very basis of a variant is usually a weapons loadout.
  
• Each chassis has many variants, some dozens, and as per Stryker Thunderbolt, PGI can simply invent new ones.
  
• Thus, wherever possible, quirks should balance in-game usefulness with the variant's standard loadout.
  
  • On one hand, this means a BLR-1G doesn't need ballistic quirks while an MAL-MX90 kinda does.
    
  • On the other, you skip the generic "10% Better" quirks, instead encouraging players to customize around a signature weapon system.

[Bud Crue]

TheArisen, on 26 February 2021 - 09:11 PM, said:

What do you guys think? Any other considerations for re-thinking quirks?

PGI is frankly schizophrenic when it comes to quirks. They want a variety of mechs played but they make most of them utterly generic out of a fear weapon specific quirks (nods to the Black Knights). They want diversity of builds but then give select variants specific quirks that pigeonhole them into a single niche build that is objectively superior to others (high-fives the Awesome 8Q and leaves the ERPPC specific 9M hanging). They fear giving giga quirks, but then give out...giga quirks, but only if they are utterly singular and limited in use (waves at Spider 5V).

Honestly until PGI decides what quirks are for and when they should be used, there isn't much point in our discussing it. At the moment they seem to think quirks are, for the most part, for giving minor flavor and little else. Daerons comments during the various updates of late suggest they are still in this mode.

What boggles me and always has, especially when they are publicly wondering just how to make money on their game at this point in time, is that they have made the apparently wilfull decision to keep the vast majority of their purchasable products in a state that discourages their play and purchase despite having the tools (quirks) that they could readily utilize to make even lowliest of mechs fun an enticing (to play and purchase). Why they refuse to do so makes no sense to me. But here we are.

[letir]

It really strange when Spider 5V are "not allowed" to have hyper-quirks as compensation for pathetic hardpoints, but something like Quickdraw IV-Four can have everything in spades.

[MechaBattler]

I agree. We need another quirk pass. Every month there should be at least a dozen mechs that get a quirk revision. If they're weak and underused. Then they need quirks that play to their strengths. And if they're just average then they need a niche.

[FupDup]

The "weapon family" quirks are usually a fine way to both give a nod to a mech's original purpose while also allowing players to customize their loadout.

Beyond the "family" quirks I'd like to see some sort of "class" quirks as well, like "IS medium-class lasers" (ML, ERML, MPL) or "Class-5 Autocannons" (AC/5, UAC/5, LB 5-X, RAC/5). The family method is alright but it has some limitations (you can't always move up or down the family without making the build suck).

Edited by FupDup, 27 February 2021 - 09:14 AM.

[East Indy]

Bud Crue, on 27 February 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

PGI is frankly schizophrenic when it comes to quirks. They want a variety of mechs played but they make most of them utterly generic out of a fear weapon specific quirks (nods to the Black Knights). They want diversity of builds but then give select variants specific quirks that pigeonhole them into a single niche build that is objectively superior to others (high-fives the Awesome 8Q and leaves the ERPPC specific 9M hanging). They fear giving giga quirks, but then give out...giga quirks, but only if they are utterly singular and limited in use (waves at Spider 5V).

[...]


What boggles me and always has, especially when they are publicly wondering just how to make money on their game at this point in time, is that they have made the apparently wilfull decision to keep the vast majority of their purchasable products in a state that discourages their play and purchase despite having the tools (quirks) that they could readily utilize to make even lowliest of mechs fun an enticing (to play and purchase). Why they refuse to do so makes no sense to me. But here we are.

I see a combination of distaste for offensive quirks and lack of energy/interest/game familiarity to explain your first observation, and disconnected senior leadership to explain the second.

And incredibly, it's that same one-two impeding a playerbase — talk about mind-boggling — that is actively offering pro bono designs and strategies to incentivize themselves to pay PGI money.

[LordNothing]

the purpose of quirks has shifted quite a bit since i first noticed them. if pgi can look for the worst 50 or so variants and quirk the hell out of them, and do that every quarter that would improve mech balance a lot. much of the balance has been to nerf from the top, but i think the top end is about where it should be, with a couple outliers of course (vapor eagle). now you need to buff from the bottom. these buffs can either be general or to improve the stock configuration, or to give it one thing it does very well. it doesn't really matter, what matters is they get them.

id also make set of 8 quirks fractional, or have different threshold values (say set of 6). because a lot of omnimechs suck and losing all your quirks because you want to swap an omnipod also sucks. set of 8 are fine on some of the stronger omnis, but thats the only place they should exist.

Edited by LordNothing, 27 February 2021 - 09:28 AM.

[MechaBattler]

Hellspawn 8P +1 HSL LRM5. And then just 10% energy cooldown. So they clearly want you to boat LRM5s with this. Okay. But wtf. You can't just give this thing that and expect it to fill the niche. They should give it a min range reduction, at the cost of LRM optimal range. Make it like a mobile close in LRM support. A fat 15% missile velocity quirk so it can actually get some missiles through the AMS. It's like they had idea for this mech. But didn't commit.

Edited by MechaBattler, 27 February 2021 - 09:54 AM.

[FupDup]

MechaBattler, on 27 February 2021 - 09:54 AM, said:

Hellspawn 8P +1 HSL LRM5. And then just 10% energy cooldown. So they clearly want you to boat LRM5s with this. Okay. But wtf. You can't just give this thing that and expect it to fill the niche. They should give it a min range reduction, at the cost of LRM optimal range. Make it like a mobile close in LRM support. A fat 15% missile velocity quirk so it can actually get some missiles through the AMS. It's like they had idea for this mech. But didn't commit.

You can notice on a lot of more recent mechs that their quirks are really stingy even when the mech is pretty crappy.

Another quirk for the Lurm Hellspawns could be extended target retention time and/or faster locks.

The HSN-9F is one of the few mechs to have MRM-specific quirks and it's just 10% velocity. Give that variant something like 20-30% MRM spread and it might actually have a reason to exist.

Overall it just feels like a lot of mechs had their quirks assigned by a spinning a wheel of fortune or algorithm rather than somebody making a conscious decision to push a mech into a particular niche.

Edited by FupDup, 27 February 2021 - 10:20 AM.

[Bud Crue]

letir, on 27 February 2021 - 08:37 AM, said:

It really strange when Spider 5V are "not allowed" to have hyper-quirks as compensation for pathetic hardpoints, but something like Quickdraw IV-Four can have everything in spades.

I have a couple of theories about the IV-4's overabundance of quirks.

One, the old (perceived) formula of how Paul and later Chris applied quirks, which was essentially that mechs that couldn't boat, had few hard points overall, and low hard points, got more quirks. Pre-civil war tech the IV-4 was widely considered one of the worst heroes, if not worst mechs in the game as it suffered from all of those things. It only lost some velocity quirks and little else post skill tree. By the time we all adapted to the 2 MRM 30 or 40 builds that are ubiquitous today PGI stopped caring about balancing outlier variants and was far more concerned about balancing weapons to fit the existing mechs.

Second, post skill tree Chris repeatedly spoke about a need to ensure that no variant was limited to a single build based on quirk optimization. I truly think that the IV-4 kept its armor quirks out of some ill conceived effort to encourage zombie builds that took advantage of the CT energy hard points and ballistic builds that could take advantage of the ballistic cool down quirks but require extensive face time to do so. The fact that those same quirks made the MRM builds superior to other mechs was irrelevant, since reducing those quirks would likely also then discourage SRM and even LRM builds (in Chris's mind).

These are just my theories/guesses mind you, but its all I can think of to justify why Chris never nerfed the thing during a period when we was happily nerfing all sorts of things for no apparent reason. The fact it was a premium mech may have also played a part as well. I mean, he nerfed the other Quickdraws to a far greater extent than the IV-4 post skill tree, and the only reason I can think of is because those mechs could "boat" 4-6 energy weapons and they weren't being purchased with MC.

[FupDup]

Bud Crue, on 27 February 2021 - 11:56 AM, said:

Second, post skill tree Chris repeatedly spoke about a need to ensure that no variant was limited to a single build based on quirk optimization. I truly think that the IV-4 kept its armor quirks out of some ill conceived effort to encourage zombie builds that took advantage of the CT energy hard points and ballistic builds that could take advantage of the ballistic cool down quirks but require extensive face time to do so. The fact that those same quirks made the MRM builds superior to other mechs was irrelevant, since reducing those quirks would likely also then discourage SRM and even LRM builds (in Chris's mind).

The Quickdraw has crappy hitboxes so armor quirks are justified in at least some amount (although maybe they don't need to be as large as they are now). The C-Bill variants only get tiny structure quirks which are woefully inadequate to give the mech reasonable survivability.

[Meep Meep]

Remove all quirks from the mechs themselves past maybe one or two generic quirks that applies to all loadouts and revamp them into the skill tree so you can pick and choose what bonus you want. The skill tree really helped with making a mech perform how you want with the loadout you want so its natural it should be expanded to help in this regard.

[Bud Crue]

FupDup, on 27 February 2021 - 12:01 PM, said:

The Quickdraw has crappy hitboxes so armor quirks are justified in at least some amount (although maybe they don't need to be as large as they are now). The C-Bill variants only get tiny structure quirks which are woefully inadequate to give the mech reasonable survivability.

No argument from me. But then I have never understood Chris's propensity to nerf mechs no one is playing (G and H) while leaving the best mechs (IV-4) alone. For a couple years he did the same thing to Grasshoppers (left the P and H alone while nerfing the J...the J repeatedly. Only comparatively recently did he finally go after the 5P. I have no idea what the rationale for this behavior could be other than what I have guessed at above. He spent 3 years unfuning or outright removing from the game many already less than meta mechs and I have never been able to come up with a justification that made any sort of sense.

[FupDup]

Meep Meep, on 27 February 2021 - 12:03 PM, said:

Remove all quirks from the mechs themselves past maybe one or two generic quirks that applies to all loadouts and revamp them into the skill tree so you can pick and choose what bonus you want. The skill tree really helped with making a mech perform how you want with the loadout you want so its natural it should be expanded to help in this regard.

Are you saying that each mech would get their own skill tree to suit their own needs? I'm assuming so because just yanking out all the quirks from mechs like the Dragon without letting them earn them back some other way would make those mechs useless. Even then it would still suck for bad mechs to only become good after completing their custom skill tree while good mechs are strong without any skills unlocked.

[Meep Meep]

FupDup, on 27 February 2021 - 12:10 PM, said:

Are you saying that each mech would get their own skill tree to suit their own needs? I'm assuming so because just yanking out all the quirks from mechs like the Dragon without letting them earn them back some other way would make those mechs useless. Even then it would still suck for bad mechs to only become good after completing their custom skill tree while good mechs are strong without any skills unlocked.

Not their own skill tree(though that is actually a pretty good idea in itself so each class can have a more targeted set of skills) but added into the current tree at an appropriate place or possibly a new section added in. This wouldn't remove the need for some mechs to have their own specific quirks as I stated above so that a certain models hitbox can be improved with armor quirks etc. But more in moving quirks that slotted a mech into a certain playstyle into the skill tree so you can choose to use it or something else.