Re: A simple recipe for victory

Dazamin wrote:

tl:dr Hunter doesn't understand anything about balancing, believes Heavy Mechs should be an I win button and thinks new players should preferably be banned from beta or if not should immediately blow up if he looks at them funny.

who spreads such BS?

Heavy mechsare performing rather poor for their production costs. And theres a completely different balancing for them.

how much does your small / assault have to change adjust its fit to be able to kill everything from small to heavy mech? ZERO! you ewar+demob+neut everything down to completely defenseless and then kill it in a few seconds with combined firepower of small weapons.

how much does a HEAVY MECH have to adjust its build to be able to kill a light bot / assault, but also beeing able to kill other mechs or heavy mechs?
- it needs weapon stabilizer or maxed out extensions in range, rate of fire, precision, damage. Fastest possible locking, and dunno what else, because you either kill the light fast in one or two volley, or your 30% more hitpoints are nothing else but a slightly delayed death.

There are builds out there that can one-shot most encounters, but those are EXTREMLY specialized and they are kinda stationary compared what they can one-shot.

IMHO, light weapons should be as ineffective against mechs like medium weapons are meant to be ineffective against lights. all light bots have medium slots -> for what?

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: A simple recipe for victory

@Dazamin

What do you know about balance then oh great knowing one?

@Pit Fiend

Sure is a lot of credit your taking for a fit that relies mainly on a broken game mechanic to be as effective as it is.

Lets see Shield size being reduced by a module supposedly equipped to reduce bot Armour size. That could be compared to a ERP regaining Accum through shield.

Dont get me wrong its a mean fit but the overwhelming effectiveness of it in the fact it can tank 5 mechs full dpsing on it w/ Stabilizers  is due to a i am assuming broken and not a missed mechanic within the shield size vs bot size coding.

@Arga

So based on your logic then with the investment being made in to Heavy mechs should they not have a role and niche outside of PvE farming for PvP equivalent to the investment? Who says they have to beat everything but rather at least be able to do something?

@Folks

Hes not asking to be god mode, he is simply asking to be effective for the effort required to attain such a bot.

TL:DR Risk/Reward=/=Effort/effectiveness

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Well then...a simple thought experiment: Mechs seem to be fine, HMechs broken. Now lets look at the stats of both of them. The HMech is superior to a Mech in any way apart from Sensors and Speed. That means the HMech is the best tool to bring in any fight where speed doesn't play a role and you got enough support to boost your sensors.

There are only two situations where you can complain: 1.) Any form of PvP requires speed. 2.) EW is overpowered/no counter for EW

Now both things are game mechanics that have nothing to do with heavy mechs as they are now.

And another thing: The price always has to rise steeper than the effectiveness of a bot. Otherwise there would be no reason at all to use anything but HMechs as soon as you can use them. If it were more economical to use and loose HMechs than assaults for example the game would be very broken. Compare it to Eve if you will. A BS is 10 times more expensive than a cruiser...is it 10 times more effective? I guess not. Its a matter of how/when to use them.

The problem right now is that because of the two points i gave as examples, situations where HMechs are good in PvP are very rare at the moment. But again...that has nothing to do with the bots themselves. They are the most effective Bots for "important" PvP like Intrusions after all.

29 (edited by Pit Fiend 2011-09-25 13:54:36)

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Lemon wrote:

@Pit Fiend

Sure is a lot of credit your taking for a fit that relies mainly on a broken game mechanic to be as effective as it is.

Lets see Shield size being reduced by a module supposedly equipped to reduce bot Armour size. That could be compared to a ERP regaining Accum through shield.

Pot calling kettle...

Lets see I will take your guys ERP argument (which everyone knows was a broken mechanic)....

Pit Fiend's set-up is not broken because:
1. Requires months and months of focused EP skilling (~half million) to be anywhere near as effective as I am
2. The base bot is expensive
3. The fit is expensive (t4, protos, and 10's of thousands of kernels)
4. When my shield is up I cannot shoot (unlike your ERP)
5. Sure I take credit (call it a finders fee) just like you guys took credit for ERP's


There, that should be crystal clear for you guys...  big_smile

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Immortal troiars clearly need some adjustment.
And the fact that only old and wealthy characters can use them makes it even worse balance-wise.

As for the hmechs, ZUBO made a very good argument. 10 people in hmechs are better than 10 people in assaults, end of story.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

I will defend Pit Fiends vitality fit, because i'm assume he using lvl10 in extensions what boost his vitality capabilities. If i'm wrong, then trojars are broken.

32 (edited by Lemon 2011-09-25 16:32:48)

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Pit Fiend wrote:

Pot calling kettle...

Lets see I will take your guys ERP argument (which everyone knows was a broken mechanic)....

Pit Fiend's set-up is not broken because:
1. Requires months and months of focused EP skilling (~half million) to be anywhere near as effective as I am
2. The base bot is expensive
3. The fit is expensive (t4, protos, and 10's of thousands of kernels)
4. When my shield is up I cannot shoot (unlike your ERP)
5. Sure I take credit (call it a finders fee) just like you guys took credit for ERP's


There, that should be crystal clear for you guys...  big_smile

Pit dont take what i said the wrong way, for there is a place in the game in my mind for viable tank builds. To run the fit to the extreme you do does take quite a lot of EP (my Green can fit it, no draining skillz xD)

Im sure we both can agree on it is a very viable and strong fit, but if you do have a logical thought process as i am assuming you do. You and i both agree some adjustments could be made on the balancing.

As i will state i only ran a ERP fit tank twice, i agreed with the first nerf and agreed with the need to adjust the ERP  again. I dont agree with how it was handled the second time and will leave it at that.

Question though, How many light bots does it take to break that tank? it would have to be more than 10 with out neuts possibly 5-6 if they each had 1 neut.

PS: wait till your wing-men get PM's to not run the same fit from a Dev.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

Re: A simple recipe for victory

I guess all I will say on the subject is shield mechanics are stupid, but Pit Fiends fit is awesome.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Lemon wrote:

...but if you do have a logical thought process as i am assuming you do. You and i both agree some adjustments could be made on the balancing.

As i will state i only ran a ERP fit tank twice, i agreed with the first nerf and agreed with the need to adjust the ERP  again. I dont agree with how it was handled the second time and will leave it at that.

Want logic, well here's some for you > You say you only fit ERP twice, fine, then lets see what needs balancing (if anything) on your non-ERP, station-gank fit Artemis Mk2.

Lows - You fit what, a thermal, a seismic and a chemical hardener, med rep and injector < No problem there.

Mids - Autocannons (x4) > First, one has to skill advanced robotics to level 10 just to get t4 lasers to do the same dps as t4 autocannons in an Artemis. Second, autos consume no accumulator, despite doing MORE dps!! << That's really broken and needs to be addressed.

Highs - Repair tunings (x4/x5) > pre-nerf each single rep tuning (t4) gave 64.3% more rep power!! Compared to t4 weapon tunings which give about 20% increase in DPS, they were way overpowered.  A single tuning gave more boost than advanced robotics 10 gave to Kains/Mesmers <<< That definitely was broken and finally got its fix.


In conclusion, your Artemis fit has/had balance issues too. You used it against others so you never complained about balance then (or now) even though you knew the math.  I use my troiar fit against you guys and you take a shot at me, fine.  But there are a lot of broken/balance issues that need to be addressed, not just my troiar.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Lemon wrote:

@Arga

So based on your logic then with the investment being made in to Heavy mechs should they not have a role and niche outside of PvE farming for PvP equivalent to the investment? Who says they have to beat everything but rather at least be able to do something?

Arga is right ... does Advanced robotics require high level in Basic robotics ??? NO. All the bot clases have mostly the same options and capabilities. Some do overlap and some don't. There is no clear progression that NEEDS TO BE FOLLOWED from light to heavy mech.

The only argument is price/performance. That I agree with. Mechs and Hmechs have low hitpoints for their cost at the moment. But that's about it.

Also how do you count in the cost of the player piloting the assault vs the mech ? If 1 hmech should kill 10 assaults without issues any time and in any configuration than you are devaluating the 9 assault pilots themselves to ZERO. So basicaly 1 hmech+pilot equals to 10 asaults+10 pilots. That will never be true no matter how expensive the hmech gets.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Pit Fiend wrote:
Lemon wrote:

@Pit Fiend

Sure is a lot of credit your taking for a fit that relies mainly on a broken game mechanic to be as effective as it is.

Lets see Shield size being reduced by a module supposedly equipped to reduce bot Armour size. That could be compared to a ERP regaining Accum through shield.

Pot calling kettle...

Lets see I will take your guys ERP argument (which everyone knows was a broken mechanic)....

Pit Fiend's set-up is not broken because:
1. Requires months and months of focused EP skilling (~half million) to be anywhere near as effective as I am
2. The base bot is expensive
3. The fit is expensive (t4, protos, and 10's of thousands of kernels)
4. When my shield is up I cannot shoot (unlike your ERP)
5. Sure I take credit (call it a finders fee) just like you guys took credit for ERP's


There, that should be crystal clear for you guys...  big_smile

the funny thing is, a castel is some 200k. troiars got for 1m+. Does a Troiar defeat 5-6 castels ? NO. Why do CHAOS alts only look at Hmech vs light/assault bot price ratios ?

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Pit Fiend wrote:

In conclusion, your Artemis fit has/had balance issues too. You used it against others so you never complained about balance then (or now) even though you knew the math.  I use my troiar fit against you guys and you take a shot at me, fine.  But there are a lot of broken/balance issues that need to be addressed, not just my troiar.

Yeah nova is well known for complaining very well when it's against them, but saying you lack fits when they use it against someone. It's kind of hypocrisy. Something I would expect. Hunter and lemon do a fine job of vocalizing this concept.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Price versus performance and progression aren't the same subject, but performance/cost ratio is never linear regardless of the bot chosen.

What I'm saying is that players spending EP and NIC for hmechs 'assuming' they are the end-game progression bot are looking at Perp system incorrectly.

The same arguements have been developing since launch, which I repeat here again, that bot X is useless. What they have always meant by this statement is that a certain bot is not viable for roaming, for whatever reason. Since Roaming seems to be the only PVP that is occuring, if a bot is not good for roaming, then its worthless and broken.

Mechs and lights are less expensive to build and have less slots to fill, so there has been a lot more experimentation with them to find builds, simply because they are cheaper. With Hmechs you are losing a lot of time (resources) for each one you blow up in the learning curve to find powerful fits. The idea of expensive bots and modules fits the game, that is there are things that only corporations or groups of players working together can afford to do. Fielding and losing 100's of T4 hmechs in battles is something a solo player or small group of players simply can't afford to do; but something like that is what it takes to find builds that work. Theorycrafting only takes you so far.

The 'fitting' learning has been a progression. 6 months ago it was too expensive to field mechs, only the most powerful corps would even think about taking mechs out in roams or even to intrusions. These first corps learned alot about fitting them and the extensions they needed to make powerful bots. Now there is more wealth in the game, and access to T4 LWF's is reasonable, and mechs are fairly common in all types of PVP.

Lastly, is this ongoing revivale of the Solo-Hunter mythos.

Players have been trying to be lone-wolf pirate/hunters since beta, with a little success, but generally they are foiled by any group larger than 3. These players have spent a lot of time and NIC working on lights, assaults, mechs trying to get some uber-powerful fit they can go out solo with and pwn everything. Since none of those worked, the Hmech MUST be the solution, but its too expensive to lose 100 of them.

The game rules are simple.

Not a solo PVP game.
No bot based progression.

All these discussions are players trying to force a change in the game rules to fit thier desired play style. If this sounds like L2P it's not meant to be that harsh. Those are such general rules there's plenty of room in the game for different play styles. I'm not saying L2P, I'm saying set reasonable expectations.

The Lemon bot pre-nerf shows that there are potentially powerful solo-bot configurations out there, they just don't have to be Hmechs because they have the most slots.

If your in group PVP, having a solid mix of bots to support each other is BETTER than having all one type. This holds true for roaming and intrusions.

Price versus performance is really a moot arguement for roaming PVP because part of the equation is set to 'fun'. To assess the real value of performance there needs to be a quantifiable objective. The cost/performance ratio also changes depending on what your using it for. Which means you simply can't say 'in general hmechs provide less performance for cost". There's DPS/NIC, survivablity/NIC and support/NIC all of which have a different cost to performance ratio depending on how they are used. Take a symbiot support fitted and put it in a solo dps fight, the cost/performance is incredibly bad, now team it up with a DPS bot and it provides a huge boost for the cost.

The final cost is the 'margin' of victory. If it cost 100M NIC for 1 additional DPS, but you win with 1 HP left, then it was worth it; assuming your objective is worth risking 100M extra NIC per bot.

tl;dr - hmechs are worth using if achieveing your objective requires them, if not, don't use them.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

i am demanding new robots for a while for a reason:

to widen the choices per CLASS.

what about tanking assaults (more legslots, less weapons)
fast heavy mechs (more speed, less weaponslots, cheaper to build)

tanks (i mean vehicles, not builds)

four-legged mechs, slow as hell, AoE weapons, ...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Isn't that what the whole build-your-own robot was about, mixing and matching legs/torso/head to achieve those things.

The response for not getting it was that it's too hard to balance.

---

The most valuable resource on the server is the player. It's no wonder that corporations and players are looking for ways to make the bots they have perform better. Adding classes of bots and specialites to make the game fun is positive motivation, trying to add bots to work-around low corporation activity is not.

Any new class of bot has to be counterable by a reasonable number of existing bots; ideally by 1 counter-fit bot.

A slightly exaggerated example is a heavy tanking bot that is 10x more expensive than a DPS fit bot, but needs 10 players to take it down. Put 5 of those on a passive SAP and your attacker would need 50 players to show up, while you defend with a much smaller force.

The opposite is true too, where a 10x expensive offensive bot could take on 10 'normal' defenders, means defenders would have to field 50 to 5.

I'm not saying there isn't room in the game for more bot types, but at this time, there simply isn't any objectives that require those specilaized bots. Nor is the world small enough to penalize slow movement rates suffciently to offset any benefits.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Arga, if it only required 10 to take one out wouldn't it only take 11 to beat 5? Assuming the Tanked bot is doing a fraction of the damage/range?

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Arga wrote:

The game rules are simple.

Not a solo PVP game.


Goddammit, where is this written?

Re: A simple recipe for victory

How much pvp you have Arga to be competent in pvp ballancing?

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Alexadar wrote:

How much pvp you have Arga to be competent in pvp ballancing?

Bot ballance is not only about PvP. Something many people tend to forget.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Annihilator wrote:

i am demanding new robots for a while for a reason:

to widen the choices per CLASS.

what about tanking assaults (more legslots, less weapons)
fast heavy mechs (more speed, less weaponslots, cheaper to build)

tanks (i mean vehicles, not builds)

four-legged mechs, slow as hell, AoE weapons, ...

yes please ... it annoys me that there is only one light damage bot and one light ewar bot. only one light assault. there is not much difference or flavor to be had in a single faction.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

Iam Abanana wrote:
Arga wrote:

The game rules are simple.

Not a solo PVP game.


Goddammit, where is this written?

Where's the opposite written ?

Re: A simple recipe for victory

youi can solo pvp... if your a good multiboxer like lemon...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: A simple recipe for victory

You can solo pvp just don't expect you wtfpwn a whole big army. Choose your targets accordingly your possibilities.

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Re: A simple recipe for victory

@lemon

Your right the numbers wouldn't be linear, which is why I said it was an exaggerated example. The actual battle would depend on player skill, the specific fit that allows them to take 10:1, what their offensive capability is, how long it takes the bots to break the tank, ect.

All I was trying to demonstrate is that builds that require multiple players to counter are not the same as builds that have single bot counters.

And that its certainly an advantage for any force to require the opposition to bring more players; and certainly more so in a low population environment.

Its worth noting that I mean this only for solo builds. If you have two or more bots working together that can hold off a larger force using "tactics, technology, and skill" that is just good game play; regardless if the bots are run by a single player multipboxing or different players.

@alex

I'm not suggeting any specific PVP balance changes where intimate knowledge of how the builds actually function is required. Although I didn't mean to move too far away from the non-bot based progression, but PVP is where that type of thinking is most pronounced; because in PVE, bigger is actually better in farming.

I understand your trying to disqualify my opinion, and if we were discussing specific balancing traits, I'd agree with you. But this is about a conceptual issue; Should heavy mechs be the ultimate PVP bot? No.

@ solo PVP

I'm not trying to say that players can't or shouldn't PVP, but I'm countering the concept that progressing into a Heavy mech should allow a solo player to counter a large group of other players. The heavy mech has its place in the tool box, but just because its 10x more expensive then bot X doesn't mean it should out-perform it by 10x.

Re: A simple recipe for victory

who says that a heavy mech that CAN solo several opponents single handed cannot be countered by another single player?

who says that more of those solo-build can work together and do the same thing faster then one?

there are ways to balance that.

if one TANK-fitted heavy mech can alone handle 10 attacking dumb, universal jack-of-all trades fit - where is the rule that says that two Tank-fitted heavy mech can handle more then 10? (overexaggerated - are 10 demobs more effective against one target then two ?)

Lemon could handle 5 mechs with ease for a long time, but he died against a few smart fitted assaults.
Those smart fitted assaults could have handled even more lemons at the same time, if there had been some...

i find the argumentation "one single player (on one single account) should not be able to handle more then X other players" BS...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear