476 replies to this topic

[MaddMaxx]

Victor Morson, on 28 March 2012 - 04:40 AM, said:

EDIT: I misread. I'm going to provide another example based on the same weight class and tech base, abit an extreme one; again I'm using TT BVs, when really and honestly, it'd probably be better and more relevant to show examples from Living Legend's system, as it's balanced more for a game of this sort.

Charger CGR-1L: 80 Ton Assault, BV 980
Awesome AWS-8Q: 80 Ton Assault, BV 1605

Difference: 625. This is enough BV to field any kind of Commando that exists. It is also more than enough to upgrade another team mate's light 'mech into a medium.

Again I'm only posting TT values to explain the basic concept and reasoning of this; I in no way am endorsing that MWO use any hard CBT BV values. Many quirks that will arise in a mech sim game like some chassis being more durable than others just due to the size of their various parts and frame need to figure into this, as does things like weapon balance; if you've seen my thread on low-caliber ACs you know I highly endorse greatly reducing their BV to give them a purpose.

Just a disclaimer.

Thank you Victor. The XL engine must account for the difference right? I should have expected there to be an 80T Scout variant somewhere. I guess Role and Raw firepower would make a difference. I was kinda hoping for a fair fight though. lol

Quote

"CGR-1L - A simple modification of the Charger in an attempt to make it more effective when scouting as a BattleMech in general, the 1L variant removes four and a half tons of armor and also removes all five Small Lasers. The 'Mech replaces these with a Large Laser and two Medium Lasers. While this reduces the armor on the Charger to that of a traditional scout 'Mech, it also makes the Charger capable of better defending itself against other scout 'Mechs. BV (1.0) = 772, BV (2.0) = 980"

Quote

"The Awesome is built around its impressive all energy based arsenal and heavy armor making it a highly independent and powerful assault 'Mech. Rugged and reliable, the Awesome is traditionally used in a vanguard role when penetrating enemy defenses. The Awesome's massive firepower also lends it to defensive actions, acting as a mobile turret when necessary. Because of its reliance on PPCs, the Awesome is able to act independently for extended periods of time. This trait is also useful in siege situations where the 'Mech can keep up a constant barrage, allowing it to win battles of attrition through bleeding an enemy dry."

Edited by MaddMaxx, 28 March 2012 - 01:21 PM.

[Outlaw2]

MaddMaxx, on 27 March 2012 - 05:37 PM, said:

Show me two Mechs, the same weight, utilizing the same Tech, same Engine rating and you have to account for Heat 15/15 and then provide the WILD BV rating difference they would obviously have... please.

How much clearer can one ask for?

No offense Max, but I've find your posts hard to make out sometimes.
Reading Victors response I figured it out. You are asking for TT examples (though Im not sure if you mean Clan/IS Tech or IS Tech Level, plus whats "heat 15/15"). Again, I sure hope the dves wouldn't copy paste the TT BV. In fact it probably will be drastically different depending on how they go about it.

I regret now using the word "battle value" since it seems many people are focusing on the TT version.
The basic idea is that you price the value of mech in the match by taking into account as much as possible about that mech. Call it whatever you want.

However, here are two CBT Marauders with drastically different BV values.
Marauder MAD-3L = 1,369
Marauder MAD-5L = 2,286
Im not sure if that satisfies your question, but its a TT example of how components make a difference.
I can drop TT examples like this all day...won't really prove anything.

zorak ramone, on 28 March 2012 - 09:20 AM, said:

Balancing mechs by straight cost of components is better because it allows people to gain advantage by superior configurations. The lack of formulas means that loopholes won't exist, and post-hoc balancing can be achieved simply by adjusting the prices of weapons and equipment. You won't be penalized for making a good configuration.

This is what I had in mind for "BV" in MWO. I was never a big TT player (played a few MM games) so I can't say much about the formulas that were used to come up with the TT BV numbers.

Edited by =Outlaw=, 28 March 2012 - 12:17 PM.

[MaddMaxx]

=Outlaw=, on 28 March 2012 - 12:10 PM, said:

No offense Max, but I've find your posts hard to make out sometimes.
Reading Victors response I figured it out. You are asking for TT examples (though Im not sure if you mean Clan/IS Tech or IS Tech Level, plus whats "heat 15/15"). Again, I sure hope the dves wouldn't copy paste the TT BV. In fact it probably will be drastically different depending on how they go about it.

I regret now using the word "battle value" since it seems many people are focusing on the TT version.
The basic idea is that you price the value of mech in the match by taking into account as much as possible about that mech. Call it whatever you want.

However, here are two CBT Marauders with drastically different BV values.
Marauder MAD-3L = 1,369
Marauder MAD-5L = 2,286
Im not sure if that satisfies your question, but its a TT example of how components make a difference.
I can drop TT examples like this all day...won't really prove anything.

This is what I had in mind for "BV" in MWO. I was never a big TT player (played a few MM games) so I can't say much about the formulas that were used to come up with the TT BV numbers.

It answers the question as did Victors but in both cases the increase in BV has as much to do with the Tech involved, XL engines and lack of firepower with the Charger (5 SL's) vs the Awesome (3 PPC's) (Victors post) and the TSM, Stealth armor, ECM and 18 DHS additions to the MAD-5L.

So the Role obviously impacts BV. So when choosing a Lance make up, those Roles would have to be accounted for. Not sure how many MWO Commanders would take an 80T Scout Mech with 5 Small lasers...

The Heat thing was to assure one Mech did not carry a Full Heat draining profile versus one that would explode when the pilot hit the Fire button...

Edited by MaddMaxx, 28 March 2012 - 01:23 PM.

[Victor Morson]

MaddMaxx, on 28 March 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

It answers the question as did Victors but in both cases the increase in BV has as much to do with the Tech involved, XL engines and lack of firepower with the Charger (5 SL's) vs the Awesome (3 PPC's) (Victors post) and the TSM, Stealth armor, ECM and 18 DHS additions to the MAD-5L.

Just throwing one more example between two even tech'ed, even tonnaged clan 'mechs on Table Top. I present you:
Bane (Kraken) - 100 tons - bv 1950
vs
Daishi/Dire Wolf C - 100 tons - bv 3610

That's the same era and tech base; the huge gap is explained in primary armament, even though the Ultra AC/10 one is also dramatically cheaper. That's enough BV to field an upper tier IS assault 'mech in the gap! I think this might satisfy what you're looking for in this regard.

Also, to bring this discussion back around to using a different system in the same spirit, just comparing two 'mechs values in Living Legends, which acts like the BV there:

Mad Cat Mark II A: 108,196
Mad Cat Mark II D: 157,398

The gap between these two can allow some mediums to upgrade up to heavies, or top-tier mediums, which makes a huge difference in the team. Again, I'm not even arguing that MWO should use MWLL's BV system, just that these are good frames of reference where to start if they incorporate one.

Edited by Victor Morson, 28 March 2012 - 03:38 PM.

[Johannes Falkner]

Or just have post-hoc balancing of teams. I or my lance select our mechs (whatever mechs we want) and choose to enter a battle. The match maker (hopefully better than some games I can mention [*cough* WOT]) can then select players from the ready pool to put on the teams and achieve comparable team parity (though I would pity the Urbanmech used to balance it out!).

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Devs have already said that drops can be asymetric. It might be that the team whose PGI value equates to yours drops with 11 mechs instead of your 12, or vice versa if you had 10 and it added a LW to your team.
From the Matchmaking thread in General Discussion;

Quote

Posted Today, 04:09 AMBryan Ekman

• 
  
• Vancouver, BC

Re: OP Matchmaking will help with balancing teams/tonnage/BV etc. We haven't revealed the full formula, as we are still tuning and testing the best way to handle it



Bryan Ekman
Creative Director/Co-Founder
Piranha Games Inc.

@bryanekman
check it out

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 30 March 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[docmorningstar]

MaddMaxx, on 27 March 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

Well OK then. You always get an Atlas, and Mike always gets a friggin Medium? What are you on about. Show me two Mechs, the same weight, utilizing the same Tech, same Engine rating and you have to account for Heat 15/15 and then provide the WILD BV rating difference they would obviously have... please.

They wouldn't

Because BV is based on tech level, weight, armor, speed, and weapons...I’m pro BV, Maxx.

The point that I am arguing about is that the most important thing is pilot skill – I think that pilot skill is the only interesting thing. BV is obviously more important. A charger 1A1 pilot, no matter how awesome, probably will never beat even a total newb driving any useful mech.

I think that, ideally, pilot skill (and commander skill) should be the only factors that determine who wins or loses the game. A players ‘skill’ at selecting the perfect min/maxed mech is…stupid.

The idea about BV is that 2 units of equal BV, in equally skilled hands, will have a similar level of combat effectiveness – that you can pick one or the other based on preference (or based on the map) and have a ‘reasonable’ chance of success vs the other mech.

BV is a way to allow pilots to compete in DIFFERENT machines in a ‘fair’ match, so that their skill level is what determines the outcome.

A good example is in racing cars. The engine performance, car weight, etc are all HIGHLY regulated – only cars with a similar ‘Racing Value’ are allowed to compete with each other. Because we recognize, in sport, that competitions based on ‘unfair equipment’ are inherently not fun and wins accrue to those who have the most money.

Edited by docmorningstar, 29 March 2012 - 04:01 AM.

[docmorningstar]

For PUGs you need *some* sort of limiter, or else it becomes 'all top gear, all the time' which is fine, for people with the top, but it *really* sucks in the grind.


To get back to the topic at hand, here is why I think that matches should be balanced based on BV.

Tonnage is 'sorta-ok' but you can get into really easy min/maxing problems here, the classic example is the AC/5 dragon vs PPC dragon - same tonnage, same speed, but one is freaking WAY better than the other one. In a tonnage based system, there is NO reason to ever field an AC/5 dragon.

BV (BV 3.0) is 'better' because it trys to balance ALL of the factors that go into making a mech competetive. BV trys to take into account all of the little bits that go into making a good mech. Yes, BV can be gamed as well, but not as easily as tonnage.

Unlimited is 'stupid' because it WILL end up matching people in crapmobiles vs the elite mechs. Noone wants to play in matches where they are useless. given all the monkeys in the universe and all the mechs in a universe, and unlimited matchmaker eventually will pit 12 Direwolf-Cs vs 12 Urbies.

The slot limitation is an interesting idea, but it doesn't discriminate between the different roles that mechs can occupy. Charger 1A1 - 80 ton scout mech, and the HBK-4G is a 50ton assualt mech.

One idea I have been kicking around is generating lances for PUG games, then pulling mechs from the waiting queue to fill the lances.

Example:
'traditional' company format
*note - the numbers I'm listing for BV are pretty much just made up out of thin air

3x lances - Scout, Support, Command
Scout: average BV 700 (2800 total) min speed 5/8
Support: average BV 900 (3600 total) min speed 4/6
Command: average BV 1200 (4800 total) no min speed

Now, the matchmaker goes out, and it looks for mechs that fit the 'average' BV for each lance +/- some percentage - the final BV for the lance much ALSO be within +/- 20% of the average.

What is nice about this sort of system is that you get a fairly large variation in the power of mechs involved in a battle (the command mechs will roughly be 70% more powerful than the scouts on a mech-for-mech basis) while still keeping each mech valuable. IE, 2 scouts can team up to be 'more powerful' than any other individual mech in the battle. That means scouts have a direct combat role other than 'kill the other scouts'.

[StaIker]

So with BV, some weapons are going to be found to be "cheap" once people work out the correct (unforeseen) tactics to make use of them properly.

As the BV makes the counter weapons unnaturally expensive (relatively) how will players be expected to adapt?

[zorak ramone]

StaIker, on 29 March 2012 - 05:05 AM, said:

So with BV, some weapons are going to be found to be "cheap" once people work out the correct (unforeseen) tactics to make use of them properly.

As the BV makes the counter weapons unnaturally expensive (relatively) how will players be expected to adapt?

Assuming that one weapon/equipment etc. is found to be just completely out of balance (i.e. at its price, there is nothing to counter it effecticely), it would be simple to adjust the price of that component (assuming BV = total cost of components, not some formula). If you wanted to get really complicated, you could use an economical model where you set a supply level for each weapon, and as demand (as measured by weapons taken per drop) exceeds supply, the price goes up automitically.

[Siilk]

zorak ramone, on 29 March 2012 - 07:34 AM, said:

Assuming that one weapon/equipment etc. is found to be just completely out of balance (i.e. at its price, there is nothing to counter it effecticely), it would be simple to adjust the price of that component.

^This. It's called Beta for a reason.

[Dlardrageth]

StaIker, on 29 March 2012 - 05:05 AM, said:

So with BV, some weapons are going to be found to be "cheap" once people work out the correct (unforeseen) tactics to make use of them properly.

As the BV makes the counter weapons unnaturally expensive (relatively) how will players be expected to adapt?

So if you don't use some balancing (i.e. by BV), you'll have e.g. someone swapping out the weaponry and heat sinks on an OTL-4D Ostsol for Clan ER variants and DHS. Heck, why not add TSM and FF armor as well when we're at it? And a nice TC perhaps? And thus the customized rebuild has still the same Mech chassis, the same tonnage, just a vastly superior setup in terms of range, heat efficiency and armor. You would not seriously think that to be a fair matchup, right? Let's see...

OTL-4D

• 2 x LrgLas
  
• 4 x MedLas
  
• 16 standard heat sinks
  
• 144 standard armor points

And 2 of those MedLas are rear-mounted, just for the record.

Now if we customize a bit around, we could end up easily with a way more effective setup, might not even need Clan Tech. Just look at the OTL-6D variant:

• 2 ERLrgLas
  
• 2 ERMedLas
  
• 2 MedPls
  
• 2 SmlPls
  
• TSM
  
• Targeting Computer
  
• 14 Double Heat Sinks
  
• 201 FF armor points

Only slight disadvantage (prolly) is that it uses a XL engine. So unless there is some way to balance out the 600+ difference in BV between those two, which one would you bet your money on if it comes to comparing performance on the battlefield? Or in a 1 vs. 1 match in an Arena?
So we need to balance that out some.

The question you raised on how to adapt in terms of lowering the BV is valid, but the solution there is easier IMO. Just get rid of the TC, then prolly the TSM. That will already lower your BV. Not enough? Well, throw out those double small pulses then? Eventually you will arrive at your "target BV".

The point is, it's way easier to downgrade a design than the other way round. Because the pilot of the standard Ostsol variant might not be able to upgrade because he doesn't have any ER lasers available to start with.

[StaIker]

zorak ramone, on 29 March 2012 - 07:34 AM, said:

Assuming that one weapon/equipment etc. is found to be just completely out of balance (i.e. at its price, there is nothing to counter it effecticely), it would be simple to adjust the price of that component (assuming BV = total cost of components, not some formula). If you wanted to get really complicated, you could use an economical model where you set a supply level for each weapon, and as demand (as measured by weapons taken per drop) exceeds supply, the price goes up automitically.

My concern is that as the community matures and new tactics become more sophisticated, the flavor of the month will end up being subject to nerfing so we'll never get an opportunity to settle in with a fixed combat system and work on refining it. I might spend a few months creating drop packages and getting the tactics right and then because a certain element of it is being used more than the average, suddenly that element is too rare or expensive to be used effectively anymore.

To be comfortable with that I'd want to see a fair leeway given to "above average" use before anything is done about it and a reasonable amount of time to pass to let counter tactics evolve before the nerf hammer is brought down.

[Victor Morson]

StaIker, on 27 March 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Outlaw I think we will just have to agree to disagree. I've always seen the challenge as being on the field, restrictions on loadout like puretech or stock were always offensive to my sense of achievement. I like being able to eek out an extra bit of performance through some novel change to a Mech, it doesn't seem fair to have that taken away by an upper limit on allowed performance. But each to their own. Should BV end up being the chosen system I'll work within it anyway. I just won't like it.

I'm surprised you disliked Puretech then. One of the chief things that was really hard to do was to come up with new Inner Sphere weapon configurations that would absolutely maximize what they could do on the tech base in order to stand toe-to-toe with Clan stuff in MW4. You'd have to really strive to maximize your designs then, rather than just slapping tons of low tonnage guns on. The end result was stuff like the Black Knight that could decimate a Novacat despite inferior range and weight, by playing to strengths (lower heat, using the shield on it, maxing use of unique electronics, etc.) Or how the Bushwacker became the premiere damage soak 'mech because of it's profile, and maximizing it as a running damage soak, despite carrying completely inferior weapons to any Clan medium.

Puretech is good. I want Puretech in MWO and I suspect we'll have it (unless modding Clan weapons onto your IS 'mech costs tons of money). I'm a huge fan of customizing 'mechs and trying to eek out every last damage from them while maintaining their usefulness, but things like this add to the challenge, not detract from it.

I was not as much of a fan of Stock, though. Even with multiple variants available, the mechlab adds a LOT of replayability to MechWarrior; stock variants are a good place to start, not finish. I kind of hope that the various stock variants in MWO come with different engines/hard points, so each variant is slightly different for customization purposes.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Well, we've got a little while longer to go before we find out what the Mechlab is intended to be. We'll know if they've got it right if nearly everybody objects to one thing or another

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 31 March 2012 - 03:52 AM.

[zorak ramone]

StaIker, on 29 March 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

My concern is that as the community matures and new tactics become more sophisticated, the flavor of the month will end up being subject to nerfing so we'll never get an opportunity to settle in with a fixed combat system and work on refining it. I might spend a few months creating drop packages and getting the tactics right and then because a certain element of it is being used more than the average, suddenly that element is too rare or expensive to be used effectively anymore.

To be comfortable with that I'd want to see a fair leeway given to "above average" use before anything is done about it and a reasonable amount of time to pass to let counter tactics evolve before the nerf hammer is brought down.

I agree. I'm sure you remember my many heated rants against reactionary balancing: the ML/SL nerfs because of MW3, the LXPL nerfs after BK (I freaking loved the BK LXPL), the massive ERLL nerf in Mercs (which was eventually fixed I think). All reactionary nerfs that either went too far or failed to see the real roots of the problem.

So, I think we agree that balancing can go to far and can be reactionary. I think we'd also agree that there can be legitimate situations when a weapon/mech/equipment really does need to be changed due to lack of counters/it being a win button. The only solution is a dev team that pays attention to the community (and by that I mean doesn't just bend in the direction of the wind but analyze the complaints) and/or plays the game to evaluate things themselves.

On the other hand, if you don't want to trust people to balance things, you could go with an automatic economic model:

1) Start by assigning supply values for every mech and weapon. Mech supply would be based on the cost of mechs (e.g. if an atlas is 10x as expensive as a commando, assume that the commando is 10x the supply of atlases), and weapon supply would be established by mech supply (sum for all mechs: supply value x number of weapons ... so given a supply of 1 for the atlas and 10 for the commando, the supply of MLs would be (1x4)+(10X1) = 14, and the supply of AC20s would be (1x1)+(0x10)=1).

2) Count the number of mechs, and number of weapons brought by people in all games played.

3) When mech or weapon usage deviates a significant amount (to be decided) from supply, adjust price accordingly (to be decided). E.g. in the COM/AS7 model, if the COM's relative supply dropped to .5 (assuming many more mechs than the AS7 and that the other mechs were close to normal) the COM's base price should get a discount.

The keys here would be frequency of price updates, amount of modulation of price, and acceptible deviation from baseline. My bias would be toward modulations that scaled with deviation with a minimum deviation of ~10% before any modulation, and modulations scheduled for once a month (or longer) to protect against wild fluctuations.

Also, since mech price (IMO) should be a function of equipment, base prices of mechs should necessarily have to change, just weapon prices. That said there may be some mechs (BNC-3E as opposed to the 3S) which just suck and need to be discounted.

[MaddMaxx]

Victor, you last comparison, and again appreciated, was one Clan Mech that never actually saw production/ service vs a crazy badass Clan Mech.

Quote

:"Just throwing one more example between two even tech'd, even tonnage clan Mechs on Table Top. I present you:
Bane (Kraken) - 100 tons - bv 1950

The Bane is a BattleMech that is based upon a Star League prototype that was never put into production.
vs
Daishi/Dire Wolf C - 100 tons - bv 3610

The Dire Wolf is one of the OmniMechs that became feared throughout the Inner Sphere during the initial Clan Invasion, and rightly so.

I was hoping more for 2 Mechs/Variants we might actually see in game given the MechLab is not a total Full blown disaster (my bias ofc)

[MaddMaxx]

StaIker, on 29 March 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

My concern is that as the community matures and new tactics become more sophisticated, the flavor of the month will end up being subject to nerfing so we'll never get an opportunity to settle in with a fixed combat system and work on refining it. I might spend a few months creating drop packages and getting the tactics right and then because a certain element of it is being used more than the average, suddenly that element is too rare or expensive to be used effectively anymore.

To be comfortable with that I'd want to see a fair leeway given to "above average" use before anything is done about it and a reasonable amount of time to pass to let counter tactics evolve before the nerf hammer is brought down.

That would be known as MechLab balance and if I have to say it again, I might actually go crazy, is/will be "THE" key component to MWO's balance outside all the other elements, be it BV, Tonnage or some other element we have not sen yet.

Pilot Skill will have to be dealt with separately as it is a moving target. Mech Balance is, or should not, be.

[Victor Morson]

MaddMaxx, on 30 March 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

Victor, you last comparison, and again appreciated, was one Clan Mech that never actually saw production/ service vs a crazy badass Clan Mech.

Just a note, the Bane was mass produced as a second line 'mech and is available in a lot of Clan units - some of the alternate versions of it are actually really good (The 8 LRM-15 one for example). It's based on a design that never got produced, rather than being never produced itself.

Minor thing but worth nothing.

[StaIker]

Victor Morson, on 29 March 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

I'm surprised you disliked Puretech then. One of the chief things that was really hard to do was to come up with new Inner Sphere weapon configurations that would absolutely maximize what they could do on the tech base in order to stand toe-to-toe with Clan stuff in MW4. You'd have to really strive to maximize your designs then, rather than just slapping tons of low tonnage guns on.

Puretech removed about 70% of the useful designs from the game in one stroke. Replacing the useful designs with garbage designs based on inferior weapons did not somehow make it interesting, it made the process tedious. It meant that players had two choices, either use the same handful of good designs over and over or use notably inferior designs. A choice between being bored or being handicapped is less than inspiring and apart from the tiny subset of NBT players, virtually no one in the entire MW4 community liked it. We know this for a fact because virtually no one in the community used puretech, either in open servers or leagues.

Not only is it not fun, it's not financially viable to base a game around. For every player that might enjoy it, hundreds wont.

Edited by StaIker, 30 March 2012 - 09:02 PM.