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Post by frunobulax on Sept 19, 2021 11:15:08 GMT -5
One of them being a whale, with all premium mechs/weapons bought and levelled at 6*, at 60k XP.
I get it, you've got to find some opponents for these tough wallet warriors. Immense motivation to continue playing, such a game. Plarium really needs to find more players, and ways to balance their games.
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Post by Old-Cat on Sept 19, 2021 11:22:36 GMT -5
Yep, it’s annoying but fairly infrequent. They seem to come in pairs for me when running solo. I’ll get two in a row, then everything is fine. Strange.
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Post by reconnecting on Sept 19, 2021 15:13:02 GMT -5
I had Whale take 1st place in my tournament yesterday. He had about the same xp as OP's Whale with 6 star equipment. He had over 12500 points as of yesterday afternoon. He added more at night. I blurred his name as it was X- rated.  |
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Post by S1E1 on Sept 19, 2021 15:32:55 GMT -5
What I particularly like is when it's 5v1 and a bunch of them immediately start dropping Rocket Mortars on you. It's one thing to fight an unwinnable match, but to spend all of it just running from wave after wave of mortars such that you can barely even get a shot off, ughh. Seriously, it's already 5v1, grow a pair and try brawling for once!
And I realize there is an economic incentive behind starting with RMs in a group. That seems to often grab the most kills and points - otherwise the highest ranked players with double RG and such just gobble up the points. But focusing on the one human (who will be the best at dodging) works against the economics. IDK it just seems like a wussy and/or jerk move to me.
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Post by frunobulax on Sept 19, 2021 16:51:12 GMT -5
What I particularly like is when it's 5v1 and a bunch of them immediately start dropping Rocket Mortars on you. It's one thing to fight an unwinnable match, but to spend all of it just running from wave after wave of mortars such that you can barely even get a shot off, ughh. Seriously, it's already 5v1, grow a pair and try brawling for once! And I realize there is an economic incentive behind starting with RMs in a group. That seems to often grab the most kills and points - otherwise the highest ranked players with double RG and such just gobble up the points. But focusing on the one human (who will be the best at dodging) works against the economics. IDK it just seems like a wussy and/or jerk move to me. Well, we know this from War Robots all too well. Human nature, unfortunately -- theses game attract the type of school yard bully that likes to beat up much younger kids. Many death squads will do things just to humiliate their opponents that have no chance of winning anyway.
The problem is that these unbalanced matches are there in the first place. Game developers must ensure that at least the vast majority of the games are balanced. In the case of the above squad, let them run against 5 strong AIs if you can't muster 3-4 humans that average the same hangar strength.
But overall game balance isn't too great in MA, and hasn't improved since I played MA for the first time. For me, the quality in the combat game is judged by the quality of the matches. If you go the route to sell power, you have to make sure that the advantages don't get too big, otherwise battles will be boring for the whales and frustrating for the small fish. MA will just be another failed mech game (like BoT, Mech Battle and others) if they can't find a good balance. There are 4 big issues, IMO.
- Matchmaking should depend heavily on hangar strength. Can't have a 6-star mech face 2- and 3-star mechs just because a player has deep pockets.
- Weapon class balance, damage vs. risk.
I've argued again and again that RMs should be nerfed significantly, as the damage/reward ratio is way out of balance. High damage weapons should require both skill and exposure to enemy fire. There are too many situations where you can't avoid them, and the splash radius is way too high. The number of times I got 1-shot even if I was in a moderately fast bot (say Panther) and I was sprinting either forward or to the side of the shooter... At the start of a match you often have no chance. 3 teammates in front of you, left, right and center, and you have no idea which one was targeted. Too much casino for me.
- Upgrade balance.
Not sure how big the difference between 5 and 6 stars is, but the difference between say 2, 3 and 4 stars is HUGE. A player with mostly 3-star bots has virtually no chance against a player with 4 star bots, given equal mechs/weapons. That leads to very one sided matches even though the difference in player strength is just a few upgrades. This shouldn't happen.
- Weapons and abilities are too strong in general.
Only very few weapons should be able to 1-shot an enemy mech, and need limits like a long reload rate. Abilities like the Zephyr stun are just too strong, too. Games where a bot can be taken out without any danger lead to a very defensive play style: Hide until your ability to stun/shield is charged, find target, kill it without taking damage, go back to cover. Or, in some cases, step out of cover and be killed before you even see the enemy mech. This favors luck over skill: If you're 29m from the enemy, you'll kill it easily because you get to stun it. If you're 31m away, you'll get killed because your ability doesn't work and now you're in the open. It devalues abilities like corner shooting or using cover.
In general, these 1-shot-kill games lead to more 1v1 situations and less strategic play. In War Robots, the truly epic games I had were almost all in 6pack, where we have no "death button" builds. Clever positioning, beacon awareness and teamwork are essential there -- all because we don't have OP abilities and it takes a while to bring a bot down.
Now things may get better once my hangar improves, but the new player experience is critical to build a large player base, something that MA is obviously lacking. (The older of my 2 accounts sits at 1200 games and 65k XP, so I wouldn't really classify me as new player.)
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Post by S1E1 on Sept 19, 2021 19:20:59 GMT -5
Now things may get better once my hangar improves, but the new player experience is critical to build a large player base, something that MA is obviously lacking. (The older of my 2 accounts sits at 1200 games and 65k XP, so I wouldn't really classify me as new player.) I feel like it evens out more as hangar strength improves. Matches seem consistently more competitive since I brought my bots up to level 5 or 6, whereas my L4 bots seemed so frail against a better-levelled human. Getting an RG16 and being able to inflict significant burst damage probably helped a lot too, but I think there were other factors that happened around the same time, like a better balancing of AI on both sides. The main thing is that I just don't see any real blowouts these days unless it something like 5v1. Otherwise, most of my games against other humans are pretty close to the point where it feels almost random who the winner is because just a point or two separated us. CPC can get more lopsided, although the more aggressive AI has tipped the balance against campers in a 1v1 match, which was a nice and necessary change. But when AI drops the wrong bots, it gets pretty gunked up. Plarium really needs to stop letting AI use RM Guardians on Skyrim for instance, they just get stuck in the hangar and make it 4v5 all match. |
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Post by nocluevok on Sept 20, 2021 6:13:43 GMT -5
I just ditch the match, even if it's tournament. Why hang around and waste time getting slaughtered?
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Post by Koalabear on Sept 20, 2021 7:31:41 GMT -5
On the flip side, I accepted some Friend Invites from some lower SP players this morning and ran a couple of games with them. I was the only one gunning for Control Points....and we lost to an AI team! Geez...well, that was one short friendship!
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Post by ⓣⓡⓘⓒⓚⓨ48 on Sept 20, 2021 8:27:32 GMT -5
On the flip side, I accepted some Friend Invites from some lower SP players this morning and ran a couple of games with them. I was the only one gunning for Control Points....and we lost to an AI team! Geez...well, that was one short friendship! Went up against a maxed player in CPC today... won on beacons because he was ambling around in a LA 10 Juggy. He killed me at one point... I saw he was the last mech on the Red sided, and just went around him and got the rest of the beacons. Game Over. Maybe he should have played TDM... |
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Post by reconnecting on Sept 20, 2021 12:54:22 GMT -5
Now things may get better once my hangar improves, but the new player experience is critical to build a large player base, something that MA is obviously lacking. (The older of my 2 accounts sits at 1200 games and 65k XP, so I wouldn't really classify me as new player.) I feel like it evens out more as hangar strength improves. Matches seem consistently more competitive since I brought my bots up to level 5 or 6, whereas my L4 bots seemed so frail against a better-levelled human. Getting an RG16 and being able to inflict significant burst damage probably helped a lot too, but I think there were other factors that happened around the same time, like a better balancing of AI on both sides. The main thing is that I just don't see any real blowouts these days unless it something like 5v1. Otherwise, most of my games against other humans are pretty close to the point where it feels almost random who the winner is because just a point or two separated us. CPC can get more lopsided, although the more aggressive AI has tipped the balance against campers in a 1v1 match, which was a nice and necessary change. But when AI drops the wrong bots, it gets pretty gunked up. Plarium really needs to stop letting AI use RM Guardians on Skyrim for instance, they just get stuck in the hangar and make it 4v5 all match. Yes, Plarium needs keep Rocket Mortar AI from spawning on indoor maps. They can't do anything but draw fire and run in circles. |
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Post by Munki on Sept 20, 2021 13:54:11 GMT -5
On the flip side, I accepted some Friend Invites from some lower SP players this morning and ran a couple of games with them. I was the only one gunning for Control Points....and we lost to an AI team! Geez...well, that was one short friendship! Got to remember from a player lower on the EXP progress bar's perspective, when matched with a player who is high up on that bar will cause the enemy Ai to be at a high rank with bigger EN weapons and loadouts. They are both shocked at what is being shot at them but how little their weapons do. They have little or no experience tactically moving around the map trying to avoid confrontation with the enemy mechs that now outclass them. Normally, they most likely steamroll low ranking Ai. I just cannot understand why the newer players keep wanting me to join their squads and then set gametype to Tournament. They will get few points in those games. However, I will still accept their invites as they are better than friendly Ai in distracting the enemy. |
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Post by Danny Linguini on Sept 20, 2021 14:01:19 GMT -5
On the flip side, I accepted some Friend Invites from some lower SP players this morning and ran a couple of games with them. I was the only one gunning for Control Points....and we lost to an AI team! Geez...well, that was one short friendship! Got to remember from a player lower on the EXP progress bar's perspective, when matched with a player who is high up on that bar will cause the enemy Ai to be at a high rank with bigger EN weapons and loadouts. They are both shocked at what is being shot at them but how little their weapons do. They have little or no experience tactically moving around the map trying to avoid confrontation with the enemy mechs that now outclass them. Normally, they most likely steamroll low ranking Ai. I just cannot understand why the newer players keep wanting me to join their squads and then set gametype to Tournament. They will get few points in those games. However, I will still accept their invites as they are better than friendly Ai in distracting the enemy. Oh yeah, I can second this. I had somebody with a slightly lower SP than me invite me, and then invited someone with a maxed hangar. The maxed guy was the only one who wasn’t getting 1-shotted, so consequently it almost amounted to him playing alone against a higher ranked red team. We literally provided nothing other than a beacon cap. |
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