127 replies to this topic

[Pirits]

Grenadier and vanguard are supposed to get a damage boost in tank mode.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Even if others can, they give up a lot of map movement, kiting, and utility towards your team. If someone wants to camp in one spot, this build is perfect for them. But for players that actually want to cap points and move around the map instead of hanging in the back, the cons outweigh the pros.

Except you can still play a heavily offensive, aggressive, point-capping SS with that build. It's a skill thing. If you fuzzy bunny up with your positioning and movement, you'll be punished more, because it's less lenient.
An offensive build does not mean you are required to hang out in the back, and never take objectives. It just means that it will take a bit more effort to make it effective, and isn't as friendly for lesser skilled players.

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Not going to comment about your SS in the IRC; I'm just going to say that it is not my favored style of play.

Sorry to tell you this, but just because you don't favor it doesn't mean it's not viable, and you can't just dismiss it. The game is not balanced around you alone, so considering alternative playstyles is something that must be done.

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It is effective until good players actually pick up on your presence the first time you shoot them and choose to leave LoS and nullify your output, and create a numbers situation on the rest of your team in CQC. They off-tank the mechs on the front lines while limiting your shots, so you're not as useful as you would be with a CQC mech.

This is more of a problem with map design actually. Many of the maps expecially the objective based ones are CQC centric and offer poor options for long range play. The maps should be designed to be balanced for all types of play, instead of favoring CQC.
When you try to balance mechs around poorly balanced maps, all sorts of strange balance problems start to happen.

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Great so let's have the SS be geared to kill players with at least less than half of their health. Other support mechs actually provide more presence than an SS by being able to damage without a direct LoS requirement, having an increased success chance of fighting on points and getting out alive when fighting multiple mechs, and being either more resilient to hold a point or faster to juggle them. I could just pick one of these mechs and prove a bigger asset to my team.

See above comment about map design.

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If you don't want it to be a killer class, then it's also not going to be a pretty viable mech in DM either (when A's run abound and everyone is on equal skill level).

That ignores the fact it was already viable in DM before PS got buffed. And you don't balance around DM anyways.

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That's just a side note. With it being a purely support class, the point holds true though you're better off following another mech in who can clean up the pieces in a team game. And the problem of LoSing becomes readily clear when your teammate who needs to get on the point gets doubled and you're stuck waiting for a window to open or just rushing forward and fighting a less favored fight.

Again, map design.

[necroq]

-edit- found it

Edited by necroq, February 24 2013 - 05:55 PM.

[Culex]

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Even if others can, they give up a lot of map movement, kiting, and utility towards your team. If someone wants to camp in one spot, this build is perfect for them. But for players that actually want to cap points and move around the map instead of hanging in the back, the cons outweigh the pros.

Except you can still play a heavily offensive, aggressive, point-capping SS with that build. It's a skill thing. If you fuzzy bunny up with your positioning and movement, you'll be punished more, because it's less lenient.
An offensive build does not mean you are required to hang out in the back, and never take objectives. It just means that it will take a bit more effort to make it effective, and isn't as friendly for lesser skilled players.

I agree it's less lenient and more punishing to run full offensive build. These SS's are the ones that are more reluctant to get on points, and mainly hang in one area waiting for shots to come up. The problem with this is is that you're not benefiting your team as well as you could be with this tactic. You need to be constantly on the move and ever changing, otherwise the enemy players adapt. Hanging in the back and not putting a body on the point =/= skill. You can do this with a less optimal build for it, and get reamed against equal skill level players in mechs more suitable, or play to your strengths at the expense of your team winning. Winning is more objective based than kdr-based. For the same reason in the MMR thread we discussed rating gain being most appropriate for W's and L's, not xp gain.

All in all balance is best determined by seeing which mechs and which comps consistently lead to the most wins. We can all talk about individual skill, but your perception that you're being optimal in helping your team is going to be different than that of your teammates'.

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex said:

Not going to comment about your SS in the IRC; I'm just going to say that it is not my favored style of play.

Sorry to tell you this, but just because you don't favor it doesn't mean it's not viable, and you can't just dismiss it. The game is not balanced around you alone, so considering alternative playstyles is something that must be done.

I have considered that playstyle, as have others. It boosts kdr at the expense of winning the game. I play for the team, even if it means more risk and deaths to me.

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

It is effective until good players actually pick up on your presence the first time you shoot them and choose to leave LoS and nullify your output, and create a numbers situation on the rest of your team in CQC. They off-tank the mechs on the front lines while limiting your shots, so you're not as useful as you would be with a CQC mech.

This is more of a problem with map design actually. Many of the maps expecially the objective based ones are CQC centric and offer poor options for long range play. The maps should be designed to be balanced for all types of play, instead of favoring CQC.
When you try to balance mechs around poorly balanced maps, all sorts of strange balance problems start to happen.

Ok so let's balance things in a current state. Definition of good map design can be subjective, and what you're suggesting trying to balance a mech for maps or redone maps that aren't yet in place. With primarily the exception of bazaar, the SS can succumb to this pitfall on the rest. So you want to balance and nerf the mech to be even less capable on those_ Then we can go and digress further and discuss what maps you consider balanced, but we're talking about the SS as a whole and it's powershot. Also the community as a whole voices balance based on how things play currently. That is all we have to work with.

[Culex]

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

If you don't want it to be a killer class, then it's also not going to be a pretty viable mech in DM either (with A's running abound and everyone being on equal skill level).

That ignores the fact it was already viable in DM before PS got buffed. And you don't balance around DM anyways.

Yes, you don't balance around DM. That's why it was a side note. I'd be happy for you to prove me wrong, but an SS hasn't ever outxp'd all the players in a DM full of top A-mech players before the powershot came in (if so, provide evidence). That's what I meant by viable. Viable to win it.

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

Great so let's have the SS be geared to kill players with at least less than half of their health. Other support mechs actually provide more presence than an SS by being able to damage without a direct LoS requirement, having an increased success chance of fighting on points and getting out alive when fighting multiple mechs, and being either more resilient to hold a point or faster to juggle them. I could just pick one of these mechs and prove a bigger asset to my team.

See above comment about map design.

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

That's just a side note. With it being a purely support class, the point holds true though you're better off following another mech in who can clean up the pieces in a team game. And the problem of LoSing becomes readily clear when your teammate who needs to get on the point gets doubled and you're stuck waiting for a window to open or just rushing forward and fighting a less favored fight.

Again, map design.

Trying to balance something upon something that doesn't exist and may never exist (subjective) =/= appropriate balance. What you think may think of map design may be different than what the devs think of good map design. Even if implemented, the perfect ratio may never be achieved. Why would you balance against a mech now who already has to fight the current map design_ Only though proper and extensive testing do we decide balance with what we have to work with. After the maps get redesigned, the mechs get reanalyzed and their numbers tweaked.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Culex, on February 24 2013 - 07:36 PM, said:

I agree it's less lenient and more punishing to run full offensive build. These SS's are the ones that are more reluctant to get on points, and mainly hang in one area waiting for shots to come up. The problem with this is is that you're not benefiting your team as well as you could be with this tactic. You need to be constantly on the move and ever changing, otherwise the enemy players adapt. Hanging in the back and not putting a body on the point =/= skill. You can do this with a less optimal build for it, and get reamed against equal skill level players in mechs more suitable, or play to your strengths at the expense of your team winning. Winning is more objective based than kdr-based. For the same reason in the MMR thread we discussed rating gain being most appropriate for W's and L's, not xp gain.

I think tonight we figured out that our two different builds are pretty equal in effectiveness.

[Nept]

AsianJoyKiller, on February 24 2013 - 12:05 AM, said:

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- semantics -

Blah, blah, blah, you don't like how I define things and imply that several factors can't fall under a general category. So you've created a semantic argument that I'm oversimplifying in order to discredit my position. You claim I'm not considering everything involved, and list off a large number of individual factors to show off everything I'm forgetting. Except I'm not. Many of the factors can be grouped together and looked at as a general principle.


TL:DR
Stop arguing sematics and making overly complex ad hominem arguments and start discussing the topic of the thread. 6 pages in, and you have yet to actually comment on Power Shot, it's mechanics and whether or not it needs tweaking.

Six pages in, and you've yet to admit that your oversimplifications damage your ability to assess balance issues.  That's not arguing over semantics, that's pointing out oversimplification.  And absolutely, many factors can be grouped together under a general principle so long as that general general principle isn't overly reductionist - which yours is, and has been throughout.

What you're trying to do is shift attention from a very fundamental error on your part.  It's not going to work.

*Edit* I should mention that the more you backtrack and modify your original statements to mean more than they meant, the closer you come to alleviating my concerns.  I'm sure that we'll eventually reach an acceptable point.  And hey, perhaps you actually did mean more than you meant, and your current efforts are simple clarifications.  Either way works for me.  Just keep going.

Edited by Nept, March 01 2013 - 06:22 PM.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Nept, on March 01 2013 - 06:14 PM, said:

Six pages in, and you've yet to admit that your oversimplifications damage your ability to assess balance issues.  That's not arguing over semantics, that's pointing out oversimplification.  And absolutely, many factors can be grouped together under a general principle so long as that general general principle isn't overly reductionist - which yours is, and has been throughout.

What you're trying to do is shift attention from a very fundamental error on your part.  It's not going to work.

*Edit* I should mention that the more you backtrack and modify your original statements to mean more than they meant, the closer you come to alleviating my concerns.  I'm sure that we'll eventually reach an acceptable point.  And hey, perhaps you actually did mean more than you meant, and your current efforts are simple clarifications.  Either way works for me.  Just keep going.

So in other words, you're going to continue to not talk about Power Shot.