297 replies to this topic

[BLOOD WOLF]

So this is going to be the follow up thread to my UI 2.0 thread and overview thread. This thread is for pure discussion and in no way is negativity going to be tolerated.

So now that association is out, what do we think of the game. Some have said that association is not CW, despite the fact that association is a critical part of CW. Basically we are not getting CW in one big package, instead we are getting pieces of it. I know many players are just all to happy to finally form Units. Which is very cool, we now can see the map of the IS. Basically some of what byran was presenting at the launch event, HE said CW is coming in phases so anybody saying that association is not CW is indeed __________(fill in the blank).

So what do you think of the game as far as what is going to be happening for the next few months. Obviously, the hit everything on the state of the IS address, So October is when we are going to see another part of CW. I think there was even more after that but I am not so sure. Now we can only look forward. I don't know how it helps people or a few find comfort in knowing that CW should have came in beta. Or even CW coming that early would have spelled disaster.

In my UI 2.0 thread back in December I predicted every date hit and so it was done. Now all we have left on the list is planetary assault. After CW i will think that this game will have the chance to grow even bigger. With the core features out of the way that will just allow for more resources elsewyre. Map creation is big on the list. What I am saying is, Now definitely more than ever I think PGI has shown promise in this regard. This was the final blow to doubt, If you are still living in 2012-13 please join us in 2014 and moving on to 15. Nothing but progress can be made.

Point is we literally have CW in our hands. Association is CW, take a piece of a brick and it is still a brick. Even if it is a part of something it is still that which is is meant to be. The Doubt should almost be gone but of course a piece is not a whole and we still wait on the latter halfs, which I am exited for.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

*sigh*

Unit creation should have been in years ago, just like every other game that allows you to create units/guilds/teams.
Unit creation is part of CW kind of, but it is not CW.

Is it good to have them, of course it is good to have them, but it is way way overdue.

And as i said in another thread, if what we have now is a 75% complete CW as you point out from the plan....im more than a little worried.
And we are horrifically short on maps for CW almost as short as actual information on CW systems.

Edited by DV McKenna, 27 August 2014 - 04:47 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

I guess we're left to either speculate wildly or ask them on Twitter.

I would guess we're getting 1 new map and 1 new game mode before the next big CW patch. And that will probably be factions and loyalty points, based on the recent challenges.

[CDLord HHGD]

I think its a step in the right direction. I cannot argue against people who say CW should have been a part of the launch, but it is what it is. I look forward to the additional of the remaining pieces of this puzzle.

[TKSax]

Listen to 22:45

The same as I felt before Unit association was delivered. Unit association is such a small part of CW going to the mountain top to trumpet SEE CW IS here! with this tiny feature is laughable. I am happy PGI is hitting dates finally, however I am seeing a distrubing trend of more and more bugs coming in the game... missile lock bug, introduced when clans were put in, Server Desync/Lag spike issue, existed since reconnect put in. PGI to me has a leadership and a talent problem, which is to say they do not have enough good/great of either.

Edited by TKSax, 27 August 2014 - 04:54 AM.

[Sprouticus]

There are still multiple phases of CW left. They may introduce multiple phases at once, but the phases are distinctive in my mind...


1) basic faction vs faction combat.
clan vs IS general (may include 12v10)
IS faction vs IS faction
clan faction vs clan faction
clan faction vs IS faction

2) planetary conquest faction vs faction

This will probably be a basic planery grab similar to how they did it in 3025. Hopefully planets have a map set (even as basic as the maps are), each drop will shift the plantary ownership % by X%. and some bonus is achieved by the faciton winning the planet.

3) Merc planetary conquest

This will be much more in depth. Dropships, planetownership, unit vs unit battles, etc. Basically a planetary league.

[Wolfways]

I log in for my first match today and the first thing i see is the unit tag (SEX). Brilliant...

I thought players were going to be joining canon units (Clans/Houses/Merc corps/etc.) instead of just making up stuff, which always ruins games imo.

[RF Greywolf]

BLOOD WOLF, on 27 August 2014 - 04:42 AM, said:

This thread is for pure discussion and in no way is negativity going to be tolerated.

-42.....

Kidding aside, I think there is going to be some very good things coming through the pipeline. I am very interested to see how everything will fit together and how they will work as the pieces start falling in place.

[BLOOD WOLF]

RF Greywolf, on 27 August 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

-42.....

Kidding aside, I think there is going to be some very good things coming through the pipeline. I am very interested to see how everything will fit together and how they will work as the pieces start falling in place.

I should have been clear, I was meaning towards other people. Not the game.

[Sprouticus]

DV McKenna, on 27 August 2014 - 04:45 AM, said:

*sigh*

Unit creation should have been in years ago, just like every other game that allows you to create units/guilds/teams.
Unit creation is part of CW kind of, but it is not CW.

Is it good to have them, of course it is good to have them, but it is way way overdue.

And as i said in another thread, if what we have now is a 75% complete CW as you point out from the plan....im more than a little worried.
And we are horrifically short on maps for CW almost as short as actual information on CW systems.

Look at the actual plan.
Front warfare is at 15%.
Planetary warfare is at 15%.
Loyalty points is 50%
player level is 20%
Economics is 20%

Also note that several of these are morked 'phase 1' which implies more complexityt o be added.


There is a LOT of work left to be done.

Sure, we can wish that units had been added 2 years ago. And we can monday morning quarterback the blunders PGI has made in the last couple of years. But what does that add to the discussion. Their recent decisions are much more indicative of the odds of success. You can say what you want about the clan balance, but honestly it was WAY smoother than I expected. Same with units so far.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Sprouticus, on 27 August 2014 - 05:27 AM, said:

Look at the actual plan.
Front warfare is at 15%.
Planetary warfare is at 15%.
Loyalty points is 50%
player level is 20%
Economics is 20%

Also note that several of these are morked 'phase 1' which implies more complexityt o be added.


There is a LOT of work left to be done.

Sure, we can wish that units had been added 2 years ago. And we can monday morning quarterback the blunders PGI has made in the last couple of years. But what does that add to the discussion. Their recent decisions are much more indicative of the odds of success. You can say what you want about the clan balance, but honestly it was WAY smoother than I expected. Same with units so far.

I am going to Guess Economics is when the money is going to really matter. Also when taxation without representation!! is going to appear. For now we are stockpiling. Just thing, a dropship can cost well over 90 million, something tells me CW is going to be expensive.

[Blakkstar]

Wolfways, on 27 August 2014 - 05:00 AM, said:

I log in for my first match today and the first thing i see is the unit tag (SEX). Brilliant...

I thought players were going to be joining canon units (Clans/Houses/Merc corps/etc.) instead of just making up stuff, which always ruins games imo.

The option that would have made the most sense would be a system like EVE. Drop players into NPC units (like EVE's NPC corps), which are from canon. A new Kurita character could wind up in Sword of Light, etc. No leaders and reduced unit functions, but you get introduced to unit play and can quickly group up for games, etc.

Then players can create their own units either as House-affiliated mercs (think McCarron's Armored Cavalry for Liao) or independent guns for hire (like Wolf's Dragoons). Each House would provide some kind of bonus to its affiliated NPC or merc units, and Independent Mercs would get some sort of different advantages and disadvantages for being able to jump between employers.

Would work beautifully, follow the canon, and automatically provide a pipeline for new players to get invested in CW.

[Sprouticus]

Blakkstar, on 27 August 2014 - 06:05 AM, said:

The option that would have made the most sense would be a system like EVE. Drop players into NPC units (like EVE's NPC corps), which are from canon. A new Kurita character could wind up in Sword of Light, etc. No leaders and reduced unit functions, but you get introduced to unit play and can quickly group up for games, etc.

Then players can create their own units either as House-affiliated mercs (think McCarron's Armored Cavalry for Liao) or independent guns for hire (like Wolf's Dragoons). Each House would provide some kind of bonus to its affiliated NPC or merc units, and Independent Mercs would get some sort of different advantages and disadvantages for being able to jump between employers.

Would work beautifully, follow the canon, and automatically provide a pipeline for new players to get invested in CW.

My guess is that player levels will include faction units. They have hinted at that before anyway.

[Roland]

Unit creation is a fairly trivial aspect of CW, one which is effectively taken for granted by most games that are still in a beta state.

Hell, look at my first link in my sig to see the page that we have for Star Citizen... THAT is how unit creation is supposed to work. Hell, CIG Hosts a whole freaking web page for our unit, and a chat server... That whole page at that link is created using their system.

And we had it like a year ago.

[AdamBaines]

Roland, on 27 August 2014 - 06:32 AM, said:

Unit creation is a fairly trivial aspect of CW, one which is effectively taken for granted by most games that are still in a beta state.

Hell, look at my first link in my sig to see the page that we have for Star Citizen... THAT is how unit creation is supposed to work. Hell, CIG Hosts a whole freaking web page for our unit, and a chat server... That whole page at that link is created using their system.

And we had it like a year ago.

Can we stop comparing the two? its two different approaches. They JUST had the dog fighting feature come out a few months ago. Their approach was working on supporting feature like Unit creations and hangers where PGI went for the actual in game part first.

There have been a lot of issue with PGI and their dev process that have dissapointed me, but lets stop comparing SC and MWO as their approaches are totally different and both sides have vastly different amounts of resources.

[Roland]

AdamBaines, on 27 August 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

Can we stop comparing the two? its two different approaches.

Nah, I don't think we're gonna stop comparing the two.

The fact they are taking different approaches doesn't matter.. what matters is the result.
If one is producing results dramatically better, then perhaps it says something about the difference in approach.

When CW exists in some form that actually has a real in-game component, then it'll be different. But for now, the unit creation "feature" is something which really should have been in the game years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm real glad to have it... although it would have been much more useful back in 2013 before most of the folks playing left.

[Why Run]

I don't understand how it took them from September 2013 until August 26, 2014 to implement this basic feature. Back in September of '13 they outlined all these features. If this is all they've done, and the next step is to turn the private lobbies into a way to battle between factions, I'm back to being extremely worried. They keep telling us they have separate groups for designing and for game mechanics. Yet all we really have seen is mechs/cockpit content for 12 months. Finally we get a small graphical map and a second tier of name labels. Yup, Very Concerned.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

AdamBaines, on 27 August 2014 - 06:42 AM, said:

Can we stop comparing the two? its two different approaches. They JUST had the dog fighting feature come out a few months ago. Their approach was working on supporting feature like Unit creations and hangers where PGI went for the actual in game part first.

There have been a lot of issue with PGI and their dev process that have dissapointed me, but lets stop comparing SC and MWO as their approaches are totally different and both sides have vastly different amounts of resources.

I don't think it was different approaches.

SC worked on outside content (unit creation, backstory etc etc) at the same time they worked on the game.
PGI worked on half the game, putting everything else off, then begun the next part putting other bits off and continue such a cycle.

SC doesn't stop production on everything, to accommodate making one feature ( like maps)

Edited by DV McKenna, 27 August 2014 - 07:15 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

BLOOD WOLF, on 27 August 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

I am going to Guess Economics is when the money is going to really matter. Also when taxation without representation!! is going to appear. For now we are stockpiling. Just thing, a dropship can cost well over 90 million, something tells me CW is going to be expensive.

No, it won't be, because the initial planned costs were based around battletech income - which is why you'd be making anywhere from 300k to 1 million a game, with paid repairs and ammunition, and different maintenance costs depending on mech class and tech used.

The deal was that you'd have your own little stable of robots, that you put in your dropship (that would hold anywhere from 4 to 12 robots, each dropship costing anywhere from 80 to 350 million each), and you'd be fighting over territory against other players, so you could assemble more robots cheaper/faster/steal better tech/etc.

All these players would, ideally, be formed up into guilds under one name or another, and guilds would form loose alliances. There would likely be resetting ladders to keep score.

There are a bunch of problems with everything here.

1) RnR was awful, and/or PGI didn't have the skill to implement a functional one. Scrapped november 2012.
2) we never got information warfare or role warfare. It's ECM warfare and module grind warfare now. 2014 dropships would be all the best and biggest ships, full of assault gundams, outfitted with tens of millions in modules and consumables.
3) we never got said dropships, despite them supposedly coming in as mutators well before conquest, late 2012. Dropship mode was silently scrapped early 2013.
4) modules are magical end-game content. Mechs, while expensive on their own, are costed like EVE online ships now, in that the robot will be X million, but you'll likely be using a much bigger c-bill value of models to power the truly good ones. Losing something like that would be a disastrous, completely unacceptable goal.
5) assets were initially supposed to be destructible.
6) 2011-2012 PGI were implying there'd be procedurally generated maps, which is another word for 'all battlefields and planets will be generated on the fly, and not need separate hand-crafted, expensive maps, that take a long time to build.' It is IMPOSSIBLE to do any kind of community warfare that won't turn into a snore fest with 10 maps.
6) consumables have ruined the old c-bill to item balance.
7) income is now down from -X to +200k on a solid win. This isn't enough to farm out hundred million dollar dropships, or outfit companies of mechs. If RnR was in effect, it wouldn't be enough to fix up damaged equipment or mechs.
8) PGI has obviously scrapped the entire old income model. We now make peanuts, and the atlas has been called 'the top-tier end-game avatar' by Paul and Bryan. It's meant to be better than the awesome, which is a mere low-tier assault avatar.
9) they're not gonna overhaul the entire game to fit old man dreams of being the most pro mercenaries in. It's not gonna happen. Not after they spent years getting us to where we are today.
10) MWO will never be the game you think it should be. It'll never live up to its 'potential.' It's a livelihood of Russ, Bryan, Paul, Niko, Mr. Berg, and partially NGNG guys like Phil and Bombadil. This is how they make their paycheck, and they're not gonna risk it when they're making money already. You're playing the finished product. It's a pretty solid, if shallow, F2P robot shooter, but it is what it is.









I'm sorry.

[BLOOD WOLF]

now thats a long post

now about the 2012-2013 estimates, I could care less. It's happening this year, so why does anybody need to bother with estimates from 2 years ago about prediction releases.

What good comes from what could have been in the years past?

Rain, I hate to say it and i haven't said it in a long time but You are dead wrong.

As far as that goes, After they release the meat this year, the next year can be dedicated to polish. Who really knows. I making calls based on this year, and a lot of work was gone into 2014 than the past 2 years combined.

We all heard those same statements Rain, there nothing new. We know what isn't here and what has not been done, We also know what did come this year and how is it going to finish. It's really about what is to follow, now that they are getting a Uber major feature out the way. Think of how much resources that frees.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 27 August 2014 - 07:30 AM.