14 replies to this topic

[Splitpin]

Yes 6 Streak Cats on a team leads to an unbalanced game, last week 6 Jenners on a team led to an unbalanced game, next week (with yet more AC buffs to come) ACs will lead to an unbalanced game if they aren't already.

Inevitably from patch to patch while systems, weapons and new mechs are being introduced to the game there will be mech and weapon flavors of the week. It is not, of neccessity the fault of any particular weapon that the game becomes unbalanced. Judging weapon balance soley on an overabundance of extreme builds gives a very false impression of a weapon's value.

This week SSRMs recieved a buff that arguably gave everyone something to use against last weeks overabundance of light mechs, that was good for 'game balance', but yes led to issues with an overabundance of 6xSSRM2 Catapult A1 that leads to screams of 'nerf em or I'll quit' and the dev response of ok we'll nerf 'em, but in this case we're not quite sure how yet.

Use the matchmaker to balance mechs, stop the overabundance of 'flavor of the week' then you can properly judge weapon balance and make any adjustments as required. Allowing an imbalance of whichever mech/weapons that is flavor of the week to dominate gives a totally false impression. The community cries and we go into another nerf/buff/nerf/buff cycle all in a totally unbalanced enviroment.

Use the matchmaker to create at least a vaguely normal/balanced environment, then look at weapon balance in detail. How ? Don't allow an overabundance of any mech, start with a simple but enforced 2 light, 2 med, 2 heavy, 2 Assault team, possibly even a 'no duplicate chassis' even tougher rule. I'd think even at the moment if there were only 2 Cat A1's (or 1) on a team there wouldn't be the current screams causing a nerf to a weapon that only just now returned to being a viable option.

And before I get jumped on, no I'm not trying to make an arguement that 2,2,2,2 is a definitive matchmaking system, far from it. Neither am I trying to discuss matchmaking per se, I'm saying during testing use matchmaking to ensure at least a vaguely level playing field so weapon balance can be looked at objectively. The current system that allows even encourages an overabundance of 'flavor of the week' leads to nothing but emotional subjective reactions which is no environment to try and do the delicate task that weapon balance is.

[TostitoBandito]

6 streak cats should get dismantled by a balanced/coordinated team on the other side. Once 8-man drops are back this will not be an issue.

[Corvus Antaka]

my concern is balancing for boats like the A1, when in pairs or on a stock mech a lot of these guns are just fine - something that needs to be addressed by devs with a hardpoint system or in some other manner.

[USMC Iceman]

And before the 6 ssrms 2s it was the 6 lrms 5s and now the Ultra 5 and next AC 2 and they all ready used a Team work Nurf with 4 mans. Next the armor?

http://mwomercs.com/...mspeak-servers/ team work is the best tool. Use it.

Edited by USMC Iceman, 24 November 2012 - 09:19 PM.

[Star Witch Esperanza]

Splitpin, on 24 November 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

Use the matchmaker to create at least a vaguely normal/balanced environment, then look at weapon balance in detail. How ? Don't allow an overabundance of any mech, start with a simple but enforced 2 light, 2 med, 2 heavy, 2 Assault team, possibly even a 'no duplicate chassis' even tougher rule. I'd think even at the moment if there were only 2 Cat A1's (or 1) on a team there wouldn't be the current screams causing a nerf to a weapon that only just now returned to being a viable option.

part of the problem with that is that people are going to play the mech they want to play. We dont have the abundance of people required to divide the matchmaking up like that and not have waves of "match not found" errors. And if we TELL people that they aren't finding matches because they are picking a chassis that is too popular (especially one that they may have paid for) they may just quit.

[Splitpin]

TostitoBandito, on 24 November 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

6 streak cats should get dismantled by a balanced/coordinated team on the other side. Once 8-man drops are back this will not be an issue.

USMC Iceman, on 24 November 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

And before the 6 ssrms 2s it was the 6 lrms 5s and now the Ultra 5 and next AC 2 and they all ready used a Team work Nurf with 4 mans. Next the armor?

http://mwomercs.com/...mspeak-servers/ team work is the best tool. Use it.

Teamwork, I couldn't agree with both of you more. Yes good teamwork will defeat even an over abundance of 'flavor of the week mechs', if more players actually got that message there'd be much less angst I totally agree.

But the point I was trying to make was we need a leveler (if thats a word) playing field so that weapon balance can be judged in some sort of objective way rather than the distored arena that 'flavor of the week' creates .

Nephera, on 24 November 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

And if we TELL people that they aren't finding matches because they are picking a chassis that is too popular (especially one that they may have paid for) they may just quit.

Yes you may have a point there Nephera, but at the moment they are telling us they are quiting because 6 streak cats are ganging up against their Jenner, or UAC5's are tearing up their Atlas. I still see the current situation as the worst case in this instance to look at weapon balance.

[CocoaJin]

TostitoBandito, on 24 November 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

6 streak cats should get dismantled by a balanced/coordinated team on the other side. Once 8-man drops are back this will not be an issue.

except when 8-man teams use them...at least it wont be against PuGs. My point? 8-man teams wont fix the issue...especially for PuGs...in fact, nothing will change at all.

[TostitoBandito]

CocoaJin, on 24 November 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

except when 8-man teams use them...at least it wont be against PuGs. My point? 8-man teams wont fix the issue...especially for PuGs...in fact, nothing will change at all.

Then your issue isn't about mechs or weapons, it's about PUG's vs. premades. That imbalance will never change. Even if you integrate voice comms into the client, not everyone will use them. You will always be at a disadvantage against an organized team, especially one that practices and plays together regularly.

[CocoaJin]

TostitoBandito, on 24 November 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

Then your issue isn't about mechs or weapons, it's about PUG's vs. premades. That imbalance will never change. Even if you integrate voice comms into the client, not everyone will use them. You will always be at a disadvantage against an organized team, especially one that practices and plays together regularly.

You missed my point, perhaps I wasnt clear. 8-man teams will still use them with great affect agaisnt other 8-man teams. And with 8 man teams being forced to play together, PuGs will still have the current issue of Streak Cats performaing just as good as they do now by solo or smaller groups. So as I was saying in response to the quoted post, 8 man teams will not fix the issue of Streak Cats as FotM.

Since the effectivness of the Streak Cat will remain in both PuG and Pre-made use, the constant is in fact the mech build and/or the its synergy within the current game modes and environments.

Frankly, I have no issue with PuGs or Pre-mades in general.

The problem is that any auto-aim and auto-hit weapon that has no counter-meaure is inheritly unbalancing....especiallyw he it can be stacked. LRMs have AMS as a counter, why dont SSRMs? No one complains that one AMS can essentally neutralize a LRM5 salvo, why cant AMS neutralize at least a SSRM2 salvo..if not two SSRM2 salvos? At least the inability to AMS a slavo of SRMs is balanced by the fact that they are dumb fired and require some level of skill to aim.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

I read in the patch notes that they made Streaks hit 100% AND they boosted the damage. Considerable buff, no?

* SSRMs were doing less damage than designed, that is now fixed.
* SSRMs will now hit 100% unless something in the way or latency issues.

Either of those would have been a sufficient boost, but both? On grounds of beta testing, wouldn't it be more effective to test one added/subtracted factor at a time and see where that puts you from the results you want?

I admit this is my time beta testing for any game, but doesn't that seem like a short-sighted adjustment? Eh...
Edit: Added quote from patch notes.

Edited by B3RZ3RK3R, 24 November 2012 - 11:36 PM.

[Splitpin]

CocoaJin, on 24 November 2012 - 11:18 PM, said:

LRMs have AMS as a counter, why dont SSRMs? No one complains that one AMS can essentally neutralize a LRM5 salvo, why cant AMS neutralize at least a SSRM2 salvo..if not two SSRM2 salvos?

The facts of that matter is AMS DO work as a counter to SSRMs, to quote dev engineer Thomas Dziegielewski on Page 13 of this thread http://mwomercs.com/...0/page__st__240

"Yes AMS works against SSRM.
As of 1.050 SSRMS2 have 1 hitpoint. AMS does 2 damage per second. So if a SSRMS volley flies towards the target for more than a second both missiles will be intercepted. Max range is 270m Speed is 200."

[Randodan]

My SSRMs are often cut down by AMS. I am firing two at once, since all I got is one SSRM launcher.

[CocoaJin]

My AMS doesnt seem to do crap against SSRMs. Ive never heard it go off once, even against a single Streak opponent like a Jenner or Commando.

[HlynkaCG]

CocoaJin, on 24 November 2012 - 11:18 PM, said:

You missed my point, perhaps I wasnt clear. 8-man teams will still use them with great affect agaisnt other 8-man teams. And with 8 man teams being forced to play together, PuGs will still have the current issue of Streak Cats performaing just as good as they do now by solo or smaller groups. So as I was saying in response to the quoted post, 8 man teams will not fix the issue of Streak Cats as FotM.

Since the effectivness of the Streak Cat will remain in both PuG and Pre-made use, the constant is in fact the mech build and/or the its synergy within the current game modes and environments.

Frankly, I have no issue with PuGs or Pre-mades in general.

The problem is that any auto-aim and auto-hit weapon that has no counter-meaure is inheritly unbalancing....especiallyw he it can be stacked. LRMs have AMS as a counter, why dont SSRMs? No one complains that one AMS can essentally neutralize a LRM5 salvo, why cant AMS neutralize at least a SSRM2 salvo..if not two SSRM2 salvos? At least the inability to AMS a slavo of SRMs is balanced by the fact that they are dumb fired and require some level of skill to aim.

I don't know if you remember but for a while in closed beta Streaks were even more powerful (1.5 times the damage and always hit CT) than they are today and yet you rarely saw 6-8 streak boats on a team. Despite the obvious OPness of Streaks Guass and LRM boats were far more popular.

Why was this?

...For the reasons TostitoBandito already stated. A team with little-to-no long-range firepower was (and still are) easily dismantled by a balanced team that coordinates their fire. (engage at range and go for the legs Boo!)

[Splitpin]

HlynkaCG, on 25 November 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

I don't know if you remember but for a while in closed beta Streaks were even more powerful (1.5 times the damage and always hit CT) than they are today and yet you rarely saw 6-8 streak boats on a team. Despite the obvious OPness of Streaks Guass and LRM boats were far more popular.

Why was this?

...For the reasons TostitoBandito already stated. A team with little-to-no long-range firepower was (and still are) easily dismantled by a balanced team that coordinates their fire. (engage at range and go for the legs Boo!)

Yes I totally agree, the keywords in your statement was 'balanced team' so lets try and encourage that so that we don't get emotional subjective cries that result from wildly distroted teams that result from 'flavor of the week' and end up with nerf nerf nerf when what we're trying to do is weapon balance. I'm not trying to say a balanced team can't defeat a flavor of the week team, a good one usually will. I'm trying to say we can't look at weapon balance without reasonably balanced teams in the first place and this isn't just streaks it's whatever weapon/mech week after week.