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MWO feels like an arcade shooter at the moment. There are a lot of very good and well thought out gameplay suggestions to improve the simulation element, and while CW might help us with the epic feel and purpose of MWO, there's very little character. So, I'm dusting off my cynicism and making a BIG writeup of ideas to try and help MWO out. If you can't tell, I've given this a lot of thought.
Executive summary: You create and name a pilot and tech for each 'mech you own, who gain skills and make tweaks to your machine.
Remember that old portrait we could never change? Well what if we could?
Proposal:
Each Battlemech you purchase comes with a Mechwarrior and a Technician. The Technician is the personal tech assigned to that pilot, he stays with him. So they operate as a unit. This system completely replaces the Skill system (and dispenses with the ‘three chassis’ rule) and all non-consumable Modules.
Your new Mechwarrior and Technician should be name-able, either with a name you choose or with a random name generator (preferably with names sorted by faction, similar to MegaMek). Clan faction pilots should only be allowed a first name – and perhaps some Clan players could brainstorm a system for earning your pilot a proper Bloodname.
Mechwarriors are central characters in the story of MWO. Let's give them a face.
Mechwarriors should have a group of Skill Trees to choose from. Initial suggestions are:
- Light
- Medium
- Heavy
- Assault
- Energy
- Missile
- Ballistic
- Piloting
As an example category, ‘Light’ might include three ‘Green’ skills, two ‘Regular’ skills, two ‘Veteran’ skills and two ‘Elite’ skills. Skills should improve that specific area, and ideally include a couple of mutually exclusive trees – for example, a ‘Light Scouting’ tree might boost sensor range, sight radius, etc, while a ‘Light Striker’ tree might help manage heat. The ‘weapon’ trees give modest bonuses to the specific weapon type, and should be smaller than the weight class tree. These would effectively replace Weapon Modules. Piloting skills handle many of the ‘torso twist’ and ‘turning radius’ skills we have currently.
Building the skill trees would easily be its own forum topic for each tree, and should be explored if this idea finds community and developer favor.
Nice DCMS uniform he's got there. Would YOU buy a Kurita pilot pack, if you were a Kurita player?
Mechwarrior skills should have less of an impact than the current skill system. Gimping a brand new mech – and player – with a 20% penalty on twist speed makes the new player experience even more unforgiving. Ideally, skills should adjust no more than 3% or so per rank; so an Elite Light pilot might have a 12% bonus in a given area – not insignificant, but hardly crushing.
Mechwarrior Bonus: Give (F), (P), and (I) mechs a nice boost to their ‘mechwarrior somehow. These ‘mechs are special. Even if it’s a custom portrait, unique pilot avatar, or skill boost, throw your old backers a bone.
Don't forget the old soldiers.
Technician Tweaks would replace the current module system. (Modules are not canon and exist nowhere in the IP; personal technicians, however, are!) They allow your Tech to attempt a few (mostly mutually exclusive) modifications to your ‘mech. Tweaks could include most of the current ‘mech Modules, but ideally would allow the player to apply Quirks to his machine, perhaps gaining access to new Quirks as the developers introduce them. (Who wouldn’t want to be able to apply some of the new energy heat dissipation quirks to, say, their old K2?)
Tweaks would also be sorted by the Tech’s skill level. A Green tech might be able to boost sensor range or LRM lock time (the increase would increase as his experience improves), while a Veteran Tech can rig up a Seismic Sensor and an Elite tech can attempt something like Radar Deprivation. Only the ‘high end’ quirks which would require a lot of extra work should cost C-Bills as well as XP.
Most Tweaks should be purchasable with Mech XP. Perhaps only quirks which also require a significant C-Bill payout would require GXP; making a handful of challenging quirks – like, say, if you wanted to attempt something like the Hellbringer’s insulation – an expensive, Elite level Tweak.
Since your Tech is also in effect a character in the game instead of a ‘module’ slot, he could add his own unique skills to your Mech. So, for example, an Elite tech might improve the Salvage C-Bill bonus your Mechwarrior brings home. Or, should R&R ever return, another Tech might reduce your R&R costs.
Tech Bonus: Your tech’s 3D model should occasionally load up as working on the ‘mech you have selected; welding or loading ammo or otherwise working. A little animation business in the bay would be nice and add character. Double bonus – your tech TELLS you when you’ve got a ! problem with a ‘mech. (“This ‘mech is unarmed, we can’t bring it into combat.” Or “Fire all those weapons together and she’ll run too hot.”)
No Mechwarrior skills should ever cost C-Bills. This is just the accumulation and application of experience.
Technician Tweaks could have modest C-Bill costs, but never more than 10-20% of the ‘mechs overall value (including upgrades). Tweaking a Locust should be cheap.
(Yes, I know we’d be removing the ‘end game’ C-Bill and GXP tweak. This should be replaced by end-game stuff in Community Warfare; spend GXP and C-Bills for strategic actions, combat drops, and unit-wide boosts … but that’s another post)
Mechwarriors and their Technician could be allowed to shuffle between variants of their ‘mech, for a small XP cost. If you really wanted to promote your Locust pilot to a Shadow Hawk (maybe you’ve gotten attached to the lucky fellow) perhaps that could be a small MC promotion cost; like 15-50 or so.
Players should be allowed to GIFT Mechwarriors and Technicians to other players. This would allow an experienced player to help out his newbie buddy by gifting him his Elite Hunchback Mechwarrior and his personal tech. (The portrait comes along, of course; see below). This allows veterans to help out new players, and gives them a reason to play older machines again, so they can train a new pilot for that machine.
Time to get serious.
Pilot Death: If our Mechwarriors are actual characters, the possibility now exists that they could be wounded in action; perhaps requiring a ‘cool down’ between CW battles or degrading their skills until healed. Mechwarrior death could also be implemented (perhaps as a ‘hardcore mode’ or for CW only) which could allow the death of a Mechwarrior in battle, requiring you to train another.
Sub idea: It would be nice if ONE of your Mechwarriors could be designated as your account’s ‘ACE’. This Ace Mechwarrior must have completed the Elite Rank (and be Bloodnamed if Clan). This pilot could apply a C-Bill boost (or maybe Loyalty boost?) to whatever ‘mech he pilots – allowing players to make one of their mechs a Hero mech. Your Ace status could be moved to another pilot (when you inevitably get a new favorite Mech) for a small C-Bill (or Loyalty?) fee.
Monetization options:
Retraining tokens for Mechwarriors and Technicians. This would allow a pilot (for a modest MC fee, say 150 MC) to rebuild his skill tree. New players should get a token or five for free upon finishing their Cadet Bonus.
University Training for Mechwarriors and Technicians. These XP boosts should be named for faction-appropriate military academies – the Slangamore pack, the NAIS pack, etc. Low benefit packs (from less prestigious places) could be purchased for C-Bills, while MC purchases gain access to the Nagelring (or faction equivalent). New players should be granted one or more ‘Scholarship’ tokens to train their first (or first few) Mechwarriors faster.
All players have access to a dozen or so Portraits for their Mechwarriors. These are fairly generic; some male, some female, some IS, some Clans.
Hey, free pilot portrait!
Another free pilot portrait!
Gee, maybe I should get a portrait pack ...
Every month, PGI should release a new Mechwarrior Portrait Pack. So, for example, January would see the Davion Pack. Febuary the Clan Jade Falcon pack. March the FRR, and so on. These packs contain twenty or so faction-specific portraits. Eventually you can get into merc units, uniforms from different time periods, or perhaps even famous characters from Battletech (the Kerensky pack!). As an added bonus, some Portrait packs might also be bundled with a ‘mech skin and/or appropriate decals; a Wolf’s Dragoons pack might have twenty Dragoon pilots, a Black Widow Company skin and Dragoon/Black Widow decals.
Since these are relatively simple 2D art assets, they should be inexpensive to produce (or contract out-of-house) and deliver to the player. MC costs for these packs should be in the ‘micro transaction’ range, say about 300 MC, though PGI of course will have their own metric to show profitability.
If they cared to expend the effort, packs could be structured like collectible card games, where a given pack comes with a number of random mechwarrior portraits. Some might be rare or desirable, or even be canon pilots, like Natasha Kerensky or Morgan Kell.
It would be great if the pilot portrait could flag the correct gender and uniform color/pattern for the 3D pilot model inside the Battlemech – and upgrades to this might be another monetization option.
Mechwarrior Upton wants YOU to support more depth to our Mechwarriors.
Edited by Malleus011, 09 September 2014 - 09:54 PM.
