10 replies to this topic

[SuomiWarder]

I've read people wishing to avoid IS 'mechs full of advanced or Clan tech, and posts from people that want their advanced 'Mechs (Clan or otherwise) asap. Neither position is inherently wrong. It just means different parts of the community are more interested in different aspects of the game lore.

My thought was to tie XP into these competing wishes in the following fashion. Each 'Mech has some sort of battle value based on the tech of the components. Experience for landing damage on enemy 'mechs gets a slight bonus or deduction based on the difference in those BVs.

For example, pilot Old School drives a base Catapult with regular engine, no ER weapons, single heat sinks, etc. It has a BV of say 300 (just a number for math sake, not a real suggestion). In a drop he lays into a Model K catapult that has double heat sinks and ER PPCs. (BV 350 or so). As the enemy Mech is more advanced, pilot Old School gets a bonus to his damage based XP. Now in that Model K, pilot Maximus I.S., also scored damage on the older model Catapult, Maximus I.S. scores a little less XP for the same amount of damage because of his higher tech BV level.

If a Clan Omni is ever available for IS pilots, then it will be an XP beacon everyone wants to nail. You go for the higher tech, you lose a little xp compared to those facing the greater challange. This might help keep older tech in play longer as those interested in pilot development will run "old school" for the XP bonus and keep the electronic battlefields of MWO from becoming all endo-steel, double heat sink and ER weapons evry battle. If clan weapons are visiable (maybe different laser colors) then having clan ER weapons will make you a more juisy target in exchange for your in game advantage over regular weapons. Clanners will have a reason to fight trials amongst themselves (for full xp rather than "reduced" beating up on IS players). IS players will have more of a reason to face better Clan equipment in drops as they expect to get more XP from defending a Clan fight that taking on a standard house drop.

Just my thoughts....

Edited by SuomiWarder, 12 May 2012 - 08:28 PM.

[Bullwerk]

You sir have yourself an excellent idea there. Quite elegant in how it simplistically balances the tech gap. In addition it would have the additional effect of minimizing the apparent penalty players who do not use real money to buy weapons have. It is certainly something to think about.

[Zakatak]

I agree to this. Although if a Commando has a BV of 200 and an Atlas has a BV of 1000, the Commando shouldn't do 5x damage because it has a fifth of the battle value. Not that I think that is what you are implying, but just making sure.

It think it would be best if the devs implemented this without telling anybody about it. It'll be nice to have a bunch of Smoke Jaguars yelling "die, pitiful freebirth!" only to get their @$$ kicked by a bunch of old dudes driving Orions that are 300 years old.

[GaussDragon]

SuomiWarder, on 12 May 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

I've read people wishing to avoid IS 'mechs full of advanced or Clan tech, and posts from people that want their advanced 'Mechs (Clan or otherwise) asap. Neither position is inherently wrong. It just means different parts of the community are more interested in different aspects of the game lore.

You are my new favourite forum user.

SuomiWarder, on 12 May 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

My thought was to tie XP into these competing wishes in the following fashion. Each 'Mech has some sort of battle value based on the tech of the components. Experience for landing damage on enemy 'mechs gets a slight bonus or deduction based on the difference in those BVs.

For example, pilot Old School drives a base Catapult with regular engine, no ER weapons, single heat sinks, etc. It has a BV of say 300 (just a number for math sake, not a real suggestion). In a drop he lays into a Model K catapult that has double heat sinks and ER PPCs. (BV 350 or so). As the enemy Mech is more advanced, pilot Old School gets a bonus to his damage based XP. Now in that Model K, pilot Maximus I.S., also scored damage on the older model Catapult, Maximus I.S. scores a little less XP for the same amount of damage because of his higher tech BV level.

If a Clan Omni is ever available for IS pilots, then it will be an XP beacon everyone wants to nail. You go for the higher tech, you lose a little xp compared to those facing the greater challange. This might help keep older tech in play longer as those interested in pilot development will run "old school" for the XP bonus and keep the electronic battlefields of MWO from becoming all endo-steel, double heat sink and ER weapons evry battle. If clan weapons are visiable (maybe different laser colors) then having clan ER weapons will make you a more juisy target in exchange for your in game advantage over regular weapons. Clanners will have a reason to fight trials amongst themselves (for full xp rather than "reduced" beating up on IS players). IS players will have more of a reason to face better Clan equipment in drops as they expect to get more XP from defending a Clan fight that taking on a standard house drop.

Just my thoughts....

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea.

Edited by GaussDragon, 12 May 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Belisarius1]

It's interesting, but it doesn't totally fix the problem.

First, the 'mechs will still be overpowered. If nobody can ever get in range because clantech is OP, it won't matter that everyone wants to shoot them. Second, if you get a team full of high-reward omnis, the detriment is gone because they're all worth the same and none get singled out. Thirdly, it actually gives even more power to good players, because a really skilled guy in a really high priced 'mech can use his opponents' tunnel-vision to drag pubbies away from where they should be and/or into ambushes.

I'm not against the idea, but it's not enough. High-tier equipment needs to be balanced on in game terms.

Edited by Belisarius†, 12 May 2012 - 11:20 PM.

[eZZip]

The XP difference would need to be quite large to actually get people to stay back with worse tech, since the superior loadouts offered by better tech would probably net players more XP anyway. The other problem is that by not actually balancing the game, players that take worse loadouts would be detrimental to their team.

[GaussDragon]

Belisarius†, on 12 May 2012 - 11:17 PM, said:

It's interesting, but it doesn't totally fix the problem.

First, the 'mechs will still be overpowered. If nobody can ever get in range because clantech is OP, it won't matter that everyone wants to shoot them. Second, if you get a team full of high-reward omnis, the detriment is gone because they're all worth the same and none get singled out. Thirdly, it actually gives even more power to good players, because a really skilled guy in a really high priced 'mech can use his opponents' tunnel-vision to drag pubbies away from where they should be and/or into ambushes.

I'm not against the idea, but it's not enough. High-tier equipment needs to be balanced on in game terms.

eZZip, on 13 May 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

The XP difference would need to be quite large to actually get people to stay back with worse tech, since the superior loadouts offered by better tech would probably net players more XP anyway. The other problem is that by not actually balancing the game, players that take worse loadouts would be detrimental to their team.

Good points.

[Yeach]

Hmmm...
no mention here about MW4 tonnage bonus points for kills with smaller mechs again larger mechs.

[Siilk]

I like the idea. Paired with team BV-based matchmaking it could make a good, balanced game even with IS lvl 1 tech vs Clan lvl 2 tech games. Bigger and/or heavier team for IS with each player yielding more XP for the battle vs lighter and/or smaller Clan team with clan players having less XP for such match.

[GaussDragon]

Yeach, on 13 May 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

Hmmm...
no mention here about MW4 tonnage bonus points for kills with smaller mechs again larger mechs.

That was the most dramatic difference in scoring between MW4: Mercs and Vengeance. In Vengeance, the point-based scoring was called "team attrition". In Mercs, it was called "team battle". The primary difference was that in Mercs, under the team battle scoring system, light mechs got a much more favourable point multiplier than they did under the team attrition system and thus, they became more useful in team games.

[Morashtak]

If I am following correctly it sounds a bit like the First Internet Backgammon Server (FIBS) rating system. The difference would be that one would change the Length of Match play (ML) score for a modified Battle Value (BV) score.

Example;

A pilot in a clan Mech is supposed to beat a similarly sized IS Mech. The IS pilot is risking less points in a loss than the Clan pilot but will be rewarded more for the win than the Clan pilot. In order for the Clan pilot to win more points than an IS opponent the clanner would have to take on a IS Mech of comparable BV.

This would need to be balanced somewhat as the BG rating system is tuned for 1v1. For multi-player this could be an aggregate of each side BV value (average, mean, or other). The modified BV score could even be displayed in the Lobby so as to allow teams to play opponents of similar rankings.