21 replies to this topic

[HighTest]

I think I just figured it all out.

We seem to have all this discussion about this being overpowered and that under-performing and this being too fragile and that running too hot and blah blah blah.

I think the issue might simply be that the Devs keep tying to balance things. Period.

And every time they do, someone complains about something they've done. Some are happy, some are not. Sure, they re-balance some stuff, only to find some other 'balance' gets compromised. Or that it had some unwanted side-effect. Or whatever.

>> I think I figured it out. <<

Just put everything, and I mean everything, back as closely as possible to BT/MW canon.

Those rules have been tweaked and used and such for years. Chances are they can't be too far off balance. And besides, if anyone whines that something isn't balanced, it'd be a lot easier for PGI to say "Hey, it's just the rules. You don't like it, take it up with FASA."

Sure, PPCs will still generate gobs of heat. But 2.0x DHSs will help with that. And Gauss rifles may be overpowered, at least until someone rides up with SSRM2s from behind and the Gauss user has no ECM and gets massacred. And pulse lasers will suck up extra heat and tonnage for nominal extra damage, just like in TT. In the end, it'll all work itself out.

And, as an added bonus, this would give the Devs more time to work on some of the graphics / sound / mechbay / exploit / matchmaking / "insert other fundamental gameplay issue here" issues.

***

You know, this post was kind of started in jest -- but when you really think about this, does this not ultimately make a heck of a lot of sense? At least for Beta? I dunno. Does to me.

[WithSilentWings]

Dear god no.

The game started with pure tabletop stats and it was not fun at all, this is something the devs keep telling us.

The only way a fight would last a decent time would be to also limit every weapon to only fire every 10 seconds like it tabletop.

I think they've headed in the right direction. There are some things that need fixing and balancing back and forth with ALWAYS happen. Think of finding balance like trying to focus a manual camera or binoculars. You go back and forth over and over less and less each time in order to find the sweet spot.

[Dukov Nook]

To make this work, this mech simulator would have to become turn based, and I would have to commit suicide.

[Bguk]

Dukov Nook, on 05 December 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

To make this work, this mech simulator would have to become turn based, and I would have to commit suicide.

This is too easy. Now I think you're just trying to switch clans.

What Salient said above. TT was turn based and moving that ruleset into realtime does not work so well.

[HighTest]

True. But in all the niggling and wiggling of weapon balancing, I think they may have forgotten some of the far more key issues that are preventing people from playing the game at all. Or crashing repeatedly. Or from using the mechlab without unknowingly committing CBills and MC that they spent ages grinding. Or getting new mechs into the game. And that sort of stuff.

If you're going to charge people $20 per mech and $5 per Christmas decoration, I think you should at least make sure the game is fully stable first.

I'm not suggesting 10-second firing rates or turns or any of that nonsense. I think the balance wasn't too bad around the close of closed beta / opening of open beta. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but from what I hear now, it still isn't.

Think of how much else could be fixed or implemented since then if they weren't constantly tinkering with balancing since then. Heck, I might even have my Highlander by now.

[Nathan Foxbane]

... You mean you want to go back to the days when, due to their properties, flamers and MGs KILLED EVERYTHING? When the armor values were half of what they are now and when you had not a chance in hell to survive a head shot from a gauss or AC/20? You want to go back to that? Whyever would you want to endure that kind of suffering? Perhaps some of the early closed beta (late spring, early summer) crowd would like to share their horror stories with you if you ask nicely.

[Bguk]

HighTest, on 05 December 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

True. But in all the niggling and wiggling of weapon balancing, I think they may have forgotten some of the far more key issues that are preventing people from playing the game at all. Or crashing repeatedly. Or from using the mechlab without unknowingly committing CBills and MC that they spent ages grinding. Or getting new mechs into the game. And that sort of stuff.

If you're going to charge people $20 per mech and $5 per Christmas decoration, I think you should at least make sure the game is fully stable first.

I'm not suggesting 10-second firing rates or turns or any of that nonsense. I think the balance wasn't too bad around the close of closed beta / opening of open beta. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but from what I hear now, it still isn't.

Think of how much else could be fixed or implemented since then if they weren't constantly tinkering with balancing since then. Heck, I might even have my Highlander by now.

Here I thought we were going to be discussing TT rules and real time.

On the comment of spending money. As for anything a consumer buys, research should be done before said consumer makes their purchase.

[Arclight]

Nathan Foxbane, on 05 December 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

... You mean you want to go back to the days when, due to their properties, flamers and MGs KILLED EVERYTHING? When the armor values were half of what they are now and when you had not a chance in hell to survive a head shot from a gauss or AC/20? You want to go back to that? Whyever would you want to endure that kind of suffering? Perhaps some of the early closed beta (late spring, early summer) crowd would like to share their horror stories with you if you ask nicely.

No real horror stories to be honest. Swaybacks were brutal though, that really didn't work out. And SRM had so little spread, a 4SP was a lot more dangerous than nowadays, even with Artemis and the boosted damage. LRM was fairly impotent, untill people started using staggered fire from many launchers to cash in on the rocking effect. Complete stun-lock but not a lot of damage. AC shells were terribly slow, lots of drop to compensate on an AC/20. Flamers were mostly annoying because of not being able to see, their fairly high damage being a second concern, and I never really thought much of MGs.

You know, all the stuff they (mostly) fixed, or will shortly.


Oh, and it started off with double armour. And without damage transfer. Zombie Hunchbacks were a hoot.

Edited by Arclight, 05 December 2012 - 12:01 PM.

[HighTest]

Nah - mentioning TT was part of my 'initial epiphany'. I can appreciate that TT rules would be boring as sin, even though I wasn't there at that point to have experienced it.

But I think the 'true epiphany' was why spend so much time tinkering with balance when the result of it:
a. WIll probably just be wrong in some other way
b. WIll take time from fixing or implementing other critical things?

And, suffice it to say I have not, nor plan to, purchase any cockpit decor at those prices...

[stjobe]

They could go back to TT values, but it wouldn't be fun, only getting to fire once every ten seconds.
They could keep the TT weapon values and increase the rate of fire, and we end up where we are now.
They could keep the TT armour values and increase the rate of fire, but then they'd have to decrease the weapon values, and the only relation an AC/20 would have to 20 damage would be that it did that much if fired continuously over 10 seconds.

Something from TT has to give if the game is to be fun as a real-time game. The devs choose to keep the weapon damage, and thus we have doubled armour values and a somewhat wonky heat system to compensate.

So no, going back to straight-outta-1985 TT values is not the answer. Keep adjusting the balance is the answer, and funnily enough exactly what the devs are doing.

[Purplefluffybunny]

HighTest, on 05 December 2012 - 10:24 AM, said:

>> I think I figured it out. <<

Just put everything, and I mean everything, back as closely as possible to BT/MW canon.

Those rules have been tweaked and used and such for years. Chances are they can't be too far off balance. And besides, if anyone whines that something isn't balanced, it'd be a lot easier for PGI to say "Hey, it's just the rules. You don't like it, take it up with FASA."

You have figured nothing out and have failed to realise that there is a universe of difference between something designed for a turn based system and something designed for a real time environment.

To humour you and to be more constructive, if the dev team is suffering from balance woes the best thing they can do is to have a chat with the people behind MWLL.

Edited by Purplefluffybunny, 05 December 2012 - 12:08 PM.

[Hatachi]

It's really as simple as moving the heat and damage of tabletop by the number reload times in 10 seconds. Implementing it as firing once every 10 seconds or the same listed damage as the weapon does in 10 seconds shows a lack of basic understanding of how the conversion should worked. If you have a real life gun that can fire 10 bullets in 10 seconds and cause (arbitrary number) 3 heat. If converting over to a real time game, would you have it fire 30 bullets in 10 seconds and cause 9 heat in ten seconds or cause 10 damage and 3 heat in 10 seconds.

Edited by Hatachi, 05 December 2012 - 12:11 PM.

[Purplefluffybunny]

It is not as simple as that, Hatachi, and you know it

[HighTest]

HighTest, on 05 December 2012 - 10:24 AM, said:

***

You know, this post was kind of started in jest -- but when you really think about this, does this not ultimately make a heck of a lot of sense? At least for Beta? I dunno. Does to me.

Seems everyone is missing the key part of the post.

My point generally is to suggest to stop micro-tinkering with weapon balance and work on fixing/adding more important stuff.

If the last batch of balancing did any good, then threads like this wouldn't exist:
http://mwomercs.com/...fail-yet-again/

Just leave it at the fail it is and move on. Return to re-balancing when clients don't crash and the economy makes sense and content is added.

Funny -- everyone seems to want to pick apart my TT reference, but everyone I have read that complains they can no longer play due to crashes and FPS issues have nothing to say. I can't believe that no one has client crashes or bugs or would want to see new mechs / more maps / better content. Odd.

[Aerik Lornes]

Purplefluffybunny, on 05 December 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

It is not as simple as that, Hatachi, and you know it

No, it really is pretty much that simple. A little factoring and it would have mostly just worked out. Then they would have only had to tweak based on ergonomics like how fast things move on screen or how long they need to be kept on target. The idea that tabletop purists want 10 second fire rates and nothing at all changed are just straw men.

[Squid von Torgar]

Give us TT and let God sort it out!

[Ogresan]

100% TT rules would be so boring. Balanced (maybe), but boring. "Pew!....... wait for it.......any second now...... Pew!" Poptarting would be the only way to play (almost, maybe not). Not to mention aiming at a cockpit just perfectly and having the dice roll make me hit its foot (oh wait I grouped 4 lasers, I also hit an arm, a torso and the other foot). Who would play that?

[SD 47]

We really need to bail on the idea that TT is the benchmark for this game. Yeah it should point the way towards mechanics and give us an idea of how powerful a weapon is but MWO != TT.

Since I remember someone roughly calculating that 1 turn in TT = 15 secs, I will use that for all examples that follow.

First off MWO is in real time. Thus leading to things like, heat dissipation being gradual. This might not sound like much but in TT you can find yourself in a situation where you could fire 3 out of 5 ML w/o over heating; because of gradual dissipation however, wait a few seconds and you can get the 4th or maybe even the 5th off. 15 seconds is a long time, even if they bumped the cooldown of all weapons to be in multiples of 15 seconds, you can still find ways to eat up more heat in MWO than in TT.

On top of that, because it is in real time, you can spread damage around. Imagine how often you would die, if you had to take all that laser damage before you could rotate your torso.

Finally, TT uses roles to determine things like hits. While crits are still random, I know if my crosshair is over something (unless its a Jenner), so I know if I will hit or not. There is no 20% chance that my well aimed laser will just flat out miss, I know that Atlas is standing still.

Again, since everyone seems to obsess over this... TT is a guide to the universe, MWO has to make this work for itself.

[Mazgazine1]

I find the current interpretation almost perfect. The biggest issues being how the heat system currently works. Consider how this was made from scratch and feels more indepth now then mw4 and its old (better) brothers.

Their big challenge will be how they introduce clan tech in the future, because it will mean EVERYTHING ELSE will be obsolete.

Side note: How exactly did the clan loose in the end? I read the sarna excerpt but its still strange that a way more advanced set of mechs lost at anytime.

[Volume]

WithSilentWings, on 05 December 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

The game started with pure tabletop stats and it was not fun at all, this is something the devs keep telling us.

The only way a fight would last a decent time would be to also limit every weapon to only fire every 10 seconds like it tabletop.

These two sentences imply to me that you realize the game never had tabletop statistics, because recycle time on weaponry is actually a very key part of it.