Trump is President and Ion is the Best Titan: Balancing
Nov 17, 2016 13:24:59 GMT -5
wittyscorpion and Slick like this
Post by Dumien on Nov 17, 2016 13:24:59 GMT -5
I feel like Titanfall is a really really well balanced game. Figured we could have a balancing thread.
I was inspired to make this thread because I watched this video that wittyscorpion mentioned and frothyomen created. For all the teasing Pegasus and I inflicted upon frothy... I want to make sure that we extend a hand of welcome to someone so willing to talk in depth about Titanfall 2.
I know after watching this I am definitely going to try out the shotgun some more. I know I used it in the beginning, but not since I got familiar with all the maps.
Most of my experience with the maps is from the perspective of someone who plays ALOT of LTS... so I definitely have all the biases that come along with that. I generally agreed with his assessment of the titan meta, though I felt that scorch should be placed over ronin/northstar. Tone and Ion are clearly very strong right now. Ion hard counters two titans (northstar/legion) and is worth using just to shut out those matchups. Tone has a very synergistic kit that works at all ranges. Both are exceptional at confirming the pilot kill after an ejection. The issue with legion/northstar is you can't use them against Ion-heavy teams. Northstar/Ronin have a very high skill ceiling but one mistake leads to immediate punishment.
One argument I had with frothy's outlook is his idea that scorch needs more options. Early in the video he made an apt comparison/reference to hearthstone's implosion. Allow me to use another hearthstone reference here... Just because something is predictable doesn't make it "less good."
Take a look at the warlock class. At one point in the metathey had a few different options available to them. They could run anything from zoo (aggressive deck), to malygos burn (combo deck), to control (handlock). One of the appeals of a warlock deck was the fact that it was difficult to mulligan (pick your hand) against. Most of the time it was better to mulligan in preparation to face the zoo warlock deck since it could kill you faster...you had less time for counterplay. However, this had the interesting effect of making the control/combo deck more powerful because people would mulligan away all their lategame tools to prepare for that aggro matchup.
The mere existence of more options made warlock stronger.
However, there have also existed hearthstone classes that can do one thing and do that one thing REALLY REALLY well. Remember the dominance of face hunter? How about the current dominance of midrange shaman? Sometimes the "one thing" is just good enough to make it top tier regardless of how one dimensional it is.
This is how I feel about Legion and Scorch. Both are extremely linear. They do one thing and do it really really well. Regardless of the fact that Ion just completely dominates Legion (best counterplay is to call out the ion and disengage), I feel that he is still a must-use on certain maps. Legion's abilities don't really change how he plays AT ALL. I feel the exact same way about scorch. Sure, you could open up their kits more and give them more viable options, but I don't think it is necessary to make them competitive.
That said, I think they should rework Legion/Scorch's kit with viable alternatives just so players could have fun with different options (with the caveat that they don't remove/nerf flame shield/stronger gun shield/extended mags)
I also think that the Legion nerf on particle walls was a bit too harsh. He should be a good counter to tone. Tone needs a good counter.
Ion vs Tone is pretty even me-thinks. They balance each other really well, but their overall "goodness" and "goodness" against each other means that they will always be picked more often. THAT is the problem. I think they need to make sure that the other four titans have some some sort of counterplay.
Very minor gripes. I'm really love this game.
I was inspired to make this thread because I watched this video that wittyscorpion mentioned and frothyomen created. For all the teasing Pegasus and I inflicted upon frothy... I want to make sure that we extend a hand of welcome to someone so willing to talk in depth about Titanfall 2.
I know after watching this I am definitely going to try out the shotgun some more. I know I used it in the beginning, but not since I got familiar with all the maps.
Most of my experience with the maps is from the perspective of someone who plays ALOT of LTS... so I definitely have all the biases that come along with that. I generally agreed with his assessment of the titan meta, though I felt that scorch should be placed over ronin/northstar. Tone and Ion are clearly very strong right now. Ion hard counters two titans (northstar/legion) and is worth using just to shut out those matchups. Tone has a very synergistic kit that works at all ranges. Both are exceptional at confirming the pilot kill after an ejection. The issue with legion/northstar is you can't use them against Ion-heavy teams. Northstar/Ronin have a very high skill ceiling but one mistake leads to immediate punishment.
One argument I had with frothy's outlook is his idea that scorch needs more options. Early in the video he made an apt comparison/reference to hearthstone's implosion. Allow me to use another hearthstone reference here... Just because something is predictable doesn't make it "less good."
Take a look at the warlock class. At one point in the metathey had a few different options available to them. They could run anything from zoo (aggressive deck), to malygos burn (combo deck), to control (handlock). One of the appeals of a warlock deck was the fact that it was difficult to mulligan (pick your hand) against. Most of the time it was better to mulligan in preparation to face the zoo warlock deck since it could kill you faster...you had less time for counterplay. However, this had the interesting effect of making the control/combo deck more powerful because people would mulligan away all their lategame tools to prepare for that aggro matchup.
The mere existence of more options made warlock stronger.
However, there have also existed hearthstone classes that can do one thing and do that one thing REALLY REALLY well. Remember the dominance of face hunter? How about the current dominance of midrange shaman? Sometimes the "one thing" is just good enough to make it top tier regardless of how one dimensional it is.
This is how I feel about Legion and Scorch. Both are extremely linear. They do one thing and do it really really well. Regardless of the fact that Ion just completely dominates Legion (best counterplay is to call out the ion and disengage), I feel that he is still a must-use on certain maps. Legion's abilities don't really change how he plays AT ALL. I feel the exact same way about scorch. Sure, you could open up their kits more and give them more viable options, but I don't think it is necessary to make them competitive.
That said, I think they should rework Legion/Scorch's kit with viable alternatives just so players could have fun with different options (with the caveat that they don't remove/nerf flame shield/stronger gun shield/extended mags)
I also think that the Legion nerf on particle walls was a bit too harsh. He should be a good counter to tone. Tone needs a good counter.
Ion vs Tone is pretty even me-thinks. They balance each other really well, but their overall "goodness" and "goodness" against each other means that they will always be picked more often. THAT is the problem. I think they need to make sure that the other four titans have some some sort of counterplay.
Very minor gripes. I'm really love this game.