3 replies to this topic

[jeffsw6]

I got MWO about a week and a half ago, and have played about 450 matches. This is the first real "free time" I've had for a year, so I'm glad I found a fun game to play, since the weather is terrible here in March and there's nothing to do.

Here are some of my thoughts and suggestions as a newbie with a lot of matches played:

VOIP should be the #1 priority for the game developers, period. If they don't already know this, man, get some pitchforks and torches or something. PUGging is often very one-sided and PUGging is all newbies are likely to do, unless they get the game through a friend who is in a clan or something. Integrated VOIP will help with this. Don't do it wrong, though -- make sure you can choose to ignore any sound from a player who is accidentally piping music into the game, easily tell who is talking, etc. I can't imagine why consumable items could possibly be a larger priority than this feature -- it's crazy!

Half the in-game chat seems to be complaining about LRM boating or how hard it is to shoot Ravens. Better coordination among teams would fix both these problems without actually making any adjustments to the game mechanics, because these are easy things to counter if you cooperate with your team. Currently you can't cooperate in a PUG. Boating doesn't need to be fixed, and although I think those Ravens should have a bigger hitbox, they don't need "fixing" either -- you just need to be able to talk to your team and organize your efforts.

"Pay to win" is not all bad. Doing it through consumables that may radically alter the game balance in ways your opponents can't predict is bad. Make the hero mechs cost more MC and buff them a little, or increase the reward for premium time, but adding consumable items that can be easily purchased for MC is IMO a terrible idea. If you ask me, you should have to spend CB on consumables, and not even be allowed to spend MC on them. The game developers should want to create a sustainable, predictable revenue stream for the game; and while consumable items might do that, it seems like premium time is likely to be a better route. Just my $0.02.

Mech, map, and player statistics should be shown at the conclusion of a match. I didn't even know about these stats until I was clicking around on the MWO web site. It's useful information and nice to know that I'm doing better in my Dragon than I realized, while I need to improve my Atlas gameplay. It wouldn't hurt for it to show last 10 matches, too. It's frustrating when you lose 5 in a row, but maybe you won 5 before that, and forgot all about it after getting waxed by a group of ravens repeatedly or something.

Some of the ballastic ammunition is way too limited, while LRM ammo is plentiful. I carry 1400+ LRMs on my Atlas but I only have 30 rounds of LB10X. Okay, that's a choice, but I should get a lot more LB10X ammo per ton/slot, or a lot less LRMs. There's something wrong when I have about 324dmg worth of guided, stand-off missiles per ton/slot but only 150dmg of short-range, aimed shots of LB10X ammo per ton. There are a lot of ammo issues like this.

The heat system is hard to understand. If the in-game gauge simply read 40 heat or whatever, instead of 0% to 100%, it would instantly become more transparent. Get more heat sinks? More heat capacity and faster rate of heat reduction (I assume.) Arm gets blown off and you lost some heat sinks? The gauge should update.

The mech lab screen needs a lot of improvements. How about an indicator for free slots? I'm sure the devs know this, but it's very frustrating for a newbie like me, trying to figure out how to build his first mech, and not understanding why the endo steel upgrade won't install. What is a "dynamic slot?" It's confusing at first! What is the advantage of ferro armor vs xl engine vs endo steel? These are hard things to learn. I know it's an open beta and improvements will be made, but because of that, you can gain tons of players, and you want to make the game accessible to them as quickly as possible.

The game should be able to do something with a multi-monitor PC. Put the map on the second display or something. I bet this is a lot harder than it sounds, a lot of DirectX crap, whatever. Devs probably read "suggestions" like this and go, omfg, 4% of players have two monitors and that feature just isn't worth implementing. Well, maybe that's true. It's just something I wish for.

Mechs of the month .. will I always be able to buy these? Will the X-5 not be available to me after March, or after today's patch? I don't know! As a newbie, I guess I will learn about this today. If there are mechs I will never be able to get again, I'll buy them. If that X-5 costs $12 worth of MC but I won't have another chance to buy it ever (or for a year or something) then I will spend the $12 just to have it. Seriously! Maybe I won't ever play it, but I might "collect the whole set" or whatever. It'd be cool if you could trade them someday like you used to trade baseball cards as a kid.

Anyway, these are my thoughts after 450 games played in a little more than a week. The game has replayability for me with only a few maps right now, not much clan/friend system yet, no VOIP, some balance issues to work out, a few annoying bugs and crashes, blablah. It's imperfect but I'm hooked. I think it's a great game and I look forward to it getting better and including new, different ways to have fun than just the gameplay -- like collecting rare mechs!

[focuspark]

I have answer to all of your questions, but you're not here to get answers you're here to complain that you need to ask.

I agree. The game is far to dense and not transparent enough. Designers have a lot of work ahead of them.

[jeffsw6]

I've found answers to almost all of my questions on the forums. You're right, I'm complaining that these things should be more obvious to novice players. I took the time to read a bunch, but not everyone will.

[Neolisk]

Good points overall.