M1ndph4s3r, on 26 September 2025 - 01:48 PM, said:
I think my post here has been completely misunderstood. I'm not concerned with how quickly you get a match; I'm concerned with making it more balanced.
Let's be honest, but right now there are only matches that end 2:12 or 4:12 or even 0:12 because the MMS can't evenly divide the teams. There are just too many T5 and 4 and 3 pilots fighting against T2 and 1 pilots, who, if all goes well, have to play in a group of up to 4 players. This can't be compensated for; the result is games that become too one-sided, and for one group, it means more frustration and annoyance than enjoyment, which is lost!
And what annoys me most is this damage and armor penalty that Tier 5-3 players have compared to Tier 1-2 players. You simply do little to no damage to a T1-2 player when you're T5-3, while a T1 player targets you and wipes out your torso armor with one shot... PGI should work on that instead of bringing out new mechs for real money... Pay to win has never been a good solution, especially for problems like this when the MMS isn't fully developed. Sorry PGI, but I'd rather wait 1-2 minutes for a fun match because it's exciting, rather than one team just being used as target practice for the other team.
I've broken your post down to three points:
1. Match balance has always been an issue of discussion. How much of a real issue it is has also always been a discussion. See point 2 for more depth, but suffice to state, what is balance to one is rarely what another considers balanced.
2. Sadly, even with perfect match balancing, stomps and rolls wouldn't stop. A stomp /roll is just the nature of what happens as one side starts to lose numbers, and thus fighting power. Rarely can a team counter a roll once it starts to happen. AKA: Even with perfect balance, you are not going to end up with many 11:12 matches. It's just not how match dynamics work.
3. This is the big one, there are no bonuses to health nor damage for your PSR Tier. A T1 player shooting a LL does the same damage as a T5 player. The only difference likely between the two will be how well they can hit and keep on target for the entire beam duration, or burn. A T1 player is more likely to keep the majority of the laser burn in one component of a target, while a T5 player is probably more likely to only graze a target with only a brief portion of the laser burn, and likely splashing several components on top of that.
This game is very much not P2W. Paid portions are only early releases (though I do feel the length of time a mech is early released could be up for serious debate), premium time (earn more match rewards, nothing more) and cosmetic items. Or in other words, it's Pay to Progress Faster. There is no Gold ammo that deals extra damage. There are no boosts to increase your armor for money. None of those P2W options are here.
The only time you can get a T1 and a T5 pilot together is in FP (Faction Play), which uses no MM restrictions. Otherwise, minus a team that has a mix, those two extremes should never come together (with maybe exclusion to extremely long match making, and even then it isn't suppose to). As for teams, if a T5 is teamed up with a T1 player, I do believe that poor T5 player is going to be dropping like he's a T1 player, as I believe MM uses the highest tier player for MM purposes.
I do wonder if you are referring to possible extra health or other small boosts related to mech skills. However, if a T1 and a T5 player have the same mech skills unlocked, with the same builds on the same mechs, they should be doing the same exact damage. As mentioned previously already, there are no bonuses for your PSR tier. It's only there for MM purposes. Having a low, or high, PSR is meaningless unless you are talking about the MM system.
As a suggestion for your own testing, if you have a T1 friend and a T5 friend, get them into a private match with the same exact mech, mech variant, mech skills, etc. Make everything the same. (Trial mechs might be the easiest way to do this.) Have each one shoot once at the other in the same location, from the same distance. The damage should be the exact same between the two. It is key though that everything be the same, including where you hit. You have to hit the same hit box on the target, be it arm, torso, legs... and not splash damage or miss with any amount of the weapons fire. (In theory, total health dropped should be the same if all damage hits, even if it is different spots, but for testing, the more exact you can be, the better the results.)
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