182 replies to this topic

[Knownswift]

Tyman4, on 17 August 2022 - 06:09 PM, said:

Freaking 10 years in and people still say these stupid non-arguments.

PVP "balance" is a unicorn. It doesn't exist. Something will ALWAYS be meta, or something people think is out of balance.

1. All games have a meta game.
2. Especially well balanced games have a meta.
3. Especially poor balanced games have a meta.

The lack or abundance of distinct meta isn't a statement on the quality of balance of a game, or on the difficulty of balancing a game PVP or otherwise.


But lolololololol game can't be balanced because 4 paragraphs of word said so.

Edited by Knownswift, 18 August 2022 - 12:29 AM.

[Andrewlik]

Knownswift, on 18 August 2022 - 12:29 AM, said:

1. All games have a meta game.
2. Especially well balanced games have a meta.
3. Especially poor balanced games have a meta.

The lack or abundance of distinct meta isn't a statement on the quality of balance of a game, or on the difficulty of balancing a game PVP or otherwise.

But lolololololol game can't be balanced because 4 paragraphs of word said so.

Despite his four paragraphs, some of which have legit merit, I'm still seeing a good amount of streak boats or lrm fire pit ishing me when I get overzealous in my piranha. I can still play my Jenner iic streakboat or my lrm + narc arctic wolf and use mobility and map knowledge to maintain locks and chase down targets of opportunity. Yes you're countered by the occasional stealth locust, and there isn't much you can do if you're not moving at locust speeds, but that's just a mechlab issue.
It's also a logical fallacy to claim that PGI (it's not even PGI anymore, it's The Cauldron that's doing balance) is just "buffing the iconic mech" and then go on to complain than the Centurion is more armored than the Timberwolf (THE iconic clan mech everyone knows)
All I care about balance is that a variety of mechs feel fun and viable to play. I play both the Centurion 9d and the laservomit timby semi regularly to good effect - I'm happy. The quick play queue is not being swarmed by 1 over represented chassis or build (except for maybe snubs now), so I feel balance is in a good place.

[w0qj]

Slightly off topic, but it's normal to have several mechs & their meta weapons layout...

It's an unbalanced game when you have just one or two mechs with the exact same weapons layout...with everyone and their dog using the same mech+weapons! (Which is not the case in MWO).

(eg: In Diablo 2, melee characters almost always are Barbarian with cookie cutter Whirlwind specialty skill).

There are some mechs that are more useful than others in certain situations...
but overall in different situations, it's the actual variety of mechs + weapons layout used that indicate to me things are relatively balanced!

Edited by w0qj, 18 August 2022 - 05:58 AM.

[Tyman4]

Knownswift, on 18 August 2022 - 12:29 AM, said:

1. All games have a meta game. 2. Especially well balanced games have a meta. 3. Especially poor balanced games have a meta. The lack or abundance of distinct meta isn't a statement on the quality of balance of a game, or on the difficulty of balancing a game PVP or otherwise. But lolololololol game can't be balanced because 4 paragraphs of word said so.

No...a meta that never shifts means something isn't balanced. If a meta has a response meta, people will shift to adapt to it. If 1 answer is categorically better than others...in our case direct LOS weapons. Then that is all you will see.

That's all we are seeing. LRMS are actively discouraged in any competitive arena of MWO.

But back on the topic of the thread. ECM and radar derp discourage a different play style by relegating them to "luck" weapon instead of "skill" weapon. You need to be "lucky" that the enemy doesn't have 3-5 ecm mechs countering all of you lrm enabling weapons.

Literally got out of a match yesterday narcing with my raven 3L. And I thought I was just missing the target.
Nope. I had maintained narc on at least 4 mechs for the match. But their team had so much ecm that we could never get a lock on anything for target info much less a missile lock. Which means I basically contributed nothing to the fight at all bc my 35tonner was short about 5 tons of usable weapons. And countered by 1.5 tons of passive equipment.

[Andrewlik]

Tyman4, on 19 August 2022 - 12:37 AM, said:

No...a meta that never shifts means something isn't balanced. If a meta has a response meta, people will shift to adapt to it. If 1 answer is categorically better than others...in our case direct LOS weapons. Then that is all you will see.

That's all we are seeing. LRMS are actively discouraged in any competitive arena of MWO.

But back on the topic of the thread. ECM and radar derp discourage a different play style by relegating them to "luck" weapon instead of "skill" weapon. You need to be "lucky" that the enemy doesn't have 3-5 ecm mechs countering all of you lrm enabling weapons.

Literally got out of a match yesterday narcing with my raven 3L. And I thought I was just missing the target.
Nope. I had maintained narc on at least 4 mechs for the match. But their team had so much ecm that we could never get a lock on anything for target info much less a missile lock. Which means I basically contributed nothing to the fight at all bc my 35tonner was short about 5 tons of usable weapons. And countered by 1.5 tons of passive equipment.

I too pilot a Raven 3L and yeah this is a struggle
Giga-skilled UAVs help, I also run 2 light PPCs to mess with ecm even more, but sometimes I've had games where my entire team doesn't know what to do because their minimap isn't showing anything due to ecm

[caravann]

Beagle active probe counters ECM and counter on Raven counters ECM.
If you don't want the NARC to to be disrupted you need to put ECM on counter.
This debacle gets better since now you need ECM to fire LRM and ATM
or you need someone running straight into the mech with counter ECM.

Close range stealth has been removed from this game thanks to seismic radar
So there's technically no way for you to really counter ECM with a Raven.
what works is Atlas K3 with NARC and counter ecm and active beagle probe in case they counter your ecm counter because of who knows why it happened. ECM is better since it has skill points while beagle active probe doesn't get any. Usually nobody uses counter ECM because two disrupt ECM mech next to each other enter godhood. Some games one team has two ECM while yours only has one. Too much information is required for each game. How many ECM do we have, how many LRM mechs are in the team, how many NARC &TAGs to we have, how many long range and brawlers. Most people don't know you can counter ECM with a ECM. This makes ECM so darn cheap in tonnage because it has an active beagle probe installed into it.

[Tyman4]

caravann, on 19 August 2022 - 05:58 AM, said:

Beagle active probe counters ECM and counter on Raven counters ECM.
If you don't want the NARC to to be disrupted you need to put ECM on counter.
This debacle gets better since now you need ECM to fire LRM and ATM
or you need someone running straight into the mech with counter ECM.

Close range stealth has been removed from this game thanks to seismic radar
So there's technically no way for you to really counter ECM with a Raven.
what works is Atlas K3 with NARC and counter ecm and active beagle probe in case they counter your ecm counter because of who knows why it happened. ECM is better since it has skill points while beagle active probe doesn't get any. Usually nobody uses counter ECM because two disrupt ECM mech next to each other enter godhood. Some games one team has two ECM while yours only has one. Too much information is required for each game. How many ECM do we have, how many LRM mechs are in the team, how many NARC &TAGs to we have, how many long range and brawlers. Most people don't know you can counter ECM with a ECM. This makes ECM so darn cheap in tonnage because it has an active beagle probe installed into it.

...yep...
add that a narc launcher fires 1 and only 1 projectile
has a crazy long reload speed,
with a slow missile speed,
is dumb fire,
and is countered by AMS
and weighs MORE than a C-lrm 10...

people are silly. They just don't want to have to think about a different gameplay dynamic.

[caravann]

With the projectile speed almost twice the AC fire faster and NARC isn't some sort of primary weapon. You put it with lasers and fire the NARC every time and keep on swapping targets. This increase your assist which increase your rating. What NARC need is ammo since it consumes a lot of ammo if fired many times. Sure you can keep on spamming on one target but the question by then is why the other teams hasn't already established a firing range around your mech by focusing fire on one mech for too long. UAV work as counter ECM as well and why the only reason to use a raven as scout is because it can launch UAV nearby. But a flea could had done this as well.
The reason why people uses raven as scout is because they're thinking inside the box that the Raven is made to be a scout when NARC is another example of skirmishers who refuse to use NARC by the principles that only their own glory matter.

[Saved By The Bell]

"Beagle active probe counters ECM"

No.

You still cant get a lock in many cases, as Raven guy wrote above.

All my Lrm mechs equipped properly with BAP, TARG COMP, skills, etc. But I felt changes at once after tree changes.

And now we have swarm of lights and mediums with snubs in every fight, though they should be lurmed, lol.

[Tarteso]

This feature should be reduced to 5% or less per node, IMO. And in general, any gains coming from the new skill tree should be susbstantially revised, since they are now really cheap to max

[Divkrd]

Just make derp a flat amount rather than percentage, to balance things out you can make it so mech with full target decay gonna have at least 1-1,5 seconds of target time against mech with full radar derp, should be fine for lurm lords

[Divkrd]

Andrewlik, on 19 August 2022 - 04:32 AM, said:

I too pilot a Raven 3L and yeah this is a struggle
Giga-skilled UAVs help, I also run 2 light PPCs to mess with ecm even more, but sometimes I've had games where my entire team doesn't know what to do because their minimap isn't showing anything due to ecm

Dunno what are you talking about, my double narc reven works just fine. Plenty of narc to shut down ALL ECM mechs in the game. Double narc lets you shoot through AMS as well.

Edited by Divkrd, 20 August 2022 - 03:21 AM.

[Blood Rose]

Andrewlik, on 17 August 2022 - 06:20 AM, said:

"Why can't I fire 15 medium lasers without this ghost heat?" "PvP balancing mechanic, otherwise people would just build mecha to one shot, and that's no fun"

Back in beta we had this thing called "timed convergence". It meant it took your multi ton weapons time to adjust from sighting on a point 800 metres away to sighting on a point 300 metres away, and you either had to wait for them to converge (usually no more than a second) or fire earlier and accept the spread. It worked really well right up until the COD and generic FPS crowd came along and pooped themselves over not being able to "180 INSTA HEADSHOT SNIPORZ YOOOOOOO".
And that, kids, is how we went from having a fairly decent balancing mechanic to prevent mechs melting like butter, to having a convoluted mess of systems that still struggle to achieve the same thing.

[caravann]

Saved By The Bell, on 20 August 2022 - 12:45 AM, said:

"Beagle active probe counters ECM"

No.

You still cant get a lock in many cases, as Raven guy wrote above.

All my Lrm mechs equipped properly with BAP, TARG COMP, skills, etc. But I felt changes at once after tree changes.

And now we have swarm of lights and mediums with snubs in every fight, though they should be lurmed, lol.

Do you realize that the range for BAP is 90 meters .
You can't fire LRM at 90 meters.

[Blood Rose]

Now ive actually read through the thread I can TL;DR it:
Noskill/generic FPS players want LRM's to be nerfed harder and seethe over IDF because it ruins their l33t meta sniper experience/forces them to have to take countermeasures
Actual players and those with skill want LRM's to be better and counters reduced because right now you are literally better taking MRM's

[Maddermax]

caravann, on 21 August 2022 - 04:36 AM, said:

Do you realize that the range for BAP is 90 meters .
You can't fire LRM at 90 meters.

BAP range is longer than 90m.

[Maddermax]

Blood Rose, on 21 August 2022 - 04:42 AM, said:

Now ive actually read through the thread I can TL;DR it:
Noskill/generic FPS players want LRM's to be nerfed harder and seethe over IDF because it ruins their l33t meta sniper experience/forces them to have to take countermeasures
Actual players and those with skill want LRM's to be better and counters reduced because right now you are literally better taking MRM's

Look, I’m in the camp of taking a little off radar deprecation considering it’s ease of access these days, but this post is ridiculous edgelord nonsense. Take a step back and make your point or state your preference without throwing shade on half the community next time.

[D A T A]

No, promoting hiding in a hole and firing with an aimbot at a lock that you see on a wall is the very last thing this game needs.

[caravann]

Maddermax, on 21 August 2022 - 04:48 AM, said:

BAP range is longer than 90m.

It really isn't. Look for yourself = Light active probe 90 meters

[caravann]

D A T A, on 21 August 2022 - 07:26 AM, said:

No, promoting hiding in a hole and firing with an aimbot at a lock that you see on a wall is the very last thing this game needs.

That's what they're doing, you can't counter fire because LRM boats uses ECM + deprivation while firing from a hidden location.

LRM boats are now immune to counter fire because they have ECM + Deprivation which means ECM is working in favor of LRM boats.
The other team is ruined because they only got one ECM mech on their team.