Major Details from Jythri

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

So last night on PC when 10-man scrims were being put together, our fellow bot decided to invite Jythri into the action. Out of everyone’s amazement, he actually joined us, saying he would definitely be down for it. While we were waiting for other players to join, we were able to start a nice little conversation with him :D.

Jythri asked for requests of new colors for the colorization skins for all the characters (much like the Tier 1 recolors). Bot Ice mentioned Red+Black would be pretty dope, to which Jythri replied that there would actually be two red/black variants coming with the new Operation mission. One of them is red/black and the other is red/black/gold. Some other skin suggestions we mentioned were blue/black, blue/white, black/gold, a demon skin for Galilea, and a sexy schoolgirl outfit for Attikus (seriously tho, make this happen >_>)

Jythri mentions the Quick match queue starting tomorrow, saying that PC desperately needs it, PS4 kinda needing it, and Xbone not really needing it. Then he goes on to say how it works: there will be 3 choices, Paradise would be locked it place as a first option, the second option would be a random Capture map, and the third option would be a mix of the other Incursion and Meltdown maps, except Overgrowth (LOL).

Someone asks if there is anything he can say about to Story Operations:

“Yes”

Utter Silence

O___O

O.K

Xyber mentions Thorn being overpowered, to which Jythri asks why exactly. Everyone mentions the typical reasons to Thorns broken state yada yada yada, to which he mentions that Thorn has not actually really been mentioned and doesn’t stand out as an outlier as far as damage and wins goes in the data. Says that Thorn being OP could simply be because of different trends in high skill play or platforms (which is true).

Someone mentions about the hiding of CR’s. Jythri says they do plan on doing this in the next big patch, saying they plan to hide all CR except maybe friendly CR, hiding enemy group bars, keeping friendly group bars, and keeping titles. They plan to record data to see if it does make a difference in leaves, match times, etc.

He mentions an awesome draft mode for the next big patch after the October one which is planned to have everything you could want in it including picks and bans.

Also in the patch after the October one he says they plan to better reward people for playing complete and concurrent matches and further punish those that leave or are AFK. Also he mentions the improvements to sentry AI also planned for this patch.

Finally, someone mentions El Dragon’s nipple in his taunt. He says they are aware of it :D.

Unfortunately he had to leave then so he didn’t actually get to do the 10-mans :frowning: but nonetheless an interesting conversation to have with THE Randy.

If you want to actually listen to the conversation, it is in my most recent stream broadcast, starting at 4:28:30.

TL;DR: Basically more Tier 1 (red and black), Quick Match implementation, Thorn not particularly OP, draft in two patches, sentry AI, punish quitters more, hidden command rank, El Dragõn has a wonky nip

Thoughts?

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#2

Yeah, the issue with the whole “Thorn OP” thing is how they are balancing.
They are balancing around the whole player base rather than the upper ranks of the player base like some games do, which is also why Rath ended up being nerfed despite a lot of people thinking he was already weak.

Not sure if that’ll fly if a competitive scene actually emerges for this game, buuuuut that a big if at this point.

2 Likes
#3

Why are any of the maps fixed? They should be fully randomized.

Also, all the hiding of ranks and groups sounds like a terrible idea to me.

#4

I’m predicting now. Match up times will decrease, idles/surrenders/abandons will increase as getting beaten early will translate to “This is clearly a pre-made we’re being matched against.”

1 Like
#5

Data average seems a really strange way to balance, to me. I’m sure there are plenty of bad Thorns (she’s an early unlock character with a bow) to skew the data set and hide the fact that, in the hands of a good player, she has by far the best offensive kit in the game on top of good health and great mobility.

In contrast, Mellka - yes, you all knew it was coming - is a late unlock who tends, in my experience, to be played primarily by those who are determined to do well with her. Players are generally fairly practiced by the time they consider taking up Melka. So her performance data likely reflects this.

The end result? Mellka, a skinny bouncy single target skirmisher, gets one of the biggest health nerfs in the game; Thorn, a skinny bouncy massive-AE ultra wave clearing skirmish/sniper with the most devastating ult imaginable, is “not an outlier” and enjoys almost 20% more health than her sister-in-arms.

I know, i know, I’m a broken record. :confused:

Very happy to hear quick play is going in. Not so glad about Paradise, the closest Meltdown can get to being Incursion. Outskirts is the finest map in this game, guys - showcase it!

12 Likes
#6

I’m at school right now, 10:20 am mountain time, waiting for class to start.

Won’t be able to check Battleborn til much later today.

Has Quickmatch started up as of today?

Or are we still waiting for a few more hours?

#7

Well without rank, it’s probably pretty hard to eyeball the “good” Thorns and balance from that. Balance on a competitive level would require a more formalized competitive scene to actually exist to pull data from.

#8

I hope they at least stringently remove outlying samples and also consider things like command rank and Elo in their data mining.

What bothers me most is that whatever method they’ve used, it has a shown tendency to be mistaken. Look at Benedict. His buffs were made based on their data collection techniques: following massive player disapproval, including from Benedict mains, those buffs have been largely rolled back (and even to an extent reversed.)

This happened because a character was wrongly buffed, became dominant, and so the entire playerbase was vocal about it. Yet as far as the data model was concerned, the initial Benedict buffs were just right. It took qualitative data to shift the model.

Now, when the model sees a character wrongly nerfed, the outcry is far less - because whereas an overpowered character is noted by everyone in game, the only people to have a significant sense of a character being undertuned are the ones that play them. The qualitative data here is still relevant, but it doesn’t shift the model, because it doesn’t get loud enough.

The issues with Benedict, and the frequently-noted excess of the changes to Kleese, suggest the data method is flawed. I’m sure GBX admit this and are committed to regular monitoring and tuning. But the question is, how often? And how reliant are the balancing team on purely quantitative data?

9 Likes
#9

I have no problem with your “broken record”. Everything you say regarding Mellka is absolutely true. I would love for her to be a viable PVE pick because she is a ton of fun to play, but alas…one, two, three shots “please revive”. Her hp pool just doesn’t reflect (what appears to be inteneded) her mid/close combat requirements.

I sincerely hope they take all your posts to heart.

4 Likes
#10

I think this will solve itself for the most part once the draft mode comes into play. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait awhile if the next patch gets delayed like the October patch did.

I’m not exactly sure why they decided to hide the enemy team’s CR only. Could be good. Could be bad. I don’t know. :confused:

Anyway, I’m really excited for more tier 1 skins as long as we also get some free tier 2 (hoping maybe even tier 3) skins in the dlc. I also can’t wait for this part as well:

So much to look forward to! :grinning:

1 Like
#11

The problem with this. If I’ll get matched with someone I don’t know (new nickname i.e.) - I will have to go to see his steam profile and his time spent in the game to see if he is a new player or a veteran (I just don’t like to play with the low level ones who doesn’t know what they are doing). I really don’t like this.

#12

She is getting a big nerf to her ult, Volley, and Blight though

#13

Well, you probably shouldn’t do that and just help them out or stick through the match? Sorry if that seems rude, but…

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#14

That argues as much for taking away friendly CR’s as well. The same people who are likely to jump out of a match when they see their up against a premade are just as likely to now continually jump ship when they see they’re teamed with any low rank players. That leads too, no fix at all really. Just shifts the time they jump.

#15

Eh. It stops assumptions. Now, you leave when you’re sorely beaten, not when you assume CR means they’ll beat you and you teammates. In that respect it will help

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#16

So, in essence, we’re now talking more quantity of games for less quality.

Kind of hard to justify that when you’re talking an up to 30 minutes time investment on a foregone conclusion. Which is what a 5v4 is 95% of the time.

#17

So a playlist update is coming tomorrow?

Why wouldn’t they mention that in the Battleplan?

I’ll be glad to have it, though I get the impression from Randy’s explanation that we are only getting the Quick Play option added in alongside the current Mode Choice options, instead of the two list idea he pitched a couple weeks ago (mixed Incursion/Meltdown with ELO and mixed Meltdown/Capture without ELO and with global chat).

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#18

I think that’s eventually the goal, this is a quick (m) patch (it’s a pun, a sort of play on words)

#20

Then they should be buffing Boldur while they’re at it

#21

I would say if all we get in the dlc is t1 skins, I’m going to be… dissapointed, and if there is one thing I do not like to be, it is dissapointed.

The Melia vs Thorn thing comes down to Thorn is just easier do do the damage she needs and at longer ranges. Both are agile, both have aoe slows, both have burst ults. But all of Thorns are easier to use and/or have more range. Thorn just dumps all her skills into you, locking you down with slow then putting 1.5 to 2.5k damage into you. Melka putting all her skills in just never feels that powerfull. (Ps, buff up Melkas melee damage to poisoned targets to give her that closer ranged role).

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