115 replies to this topic

[rolly]

Gyrok, on 19 May 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

What were my expectations?
1.) The mechs we have are gorgeous...may be the single saving grace for me in this game.
2.) The fundamental game play is good in terms of the feel of the weapons and chassis.
3.) Balance - honestly, balance was the best it has been to this point right around the Tukayyid event up until the most recent adjustments.
4.) Progression - aside from way outdated pilot trees that superfluously require 3 mechs to advance and the pilot tree/module system...there really is no progression. Sadly, what is considered progression here is not really progression at all in my mind.
5.) Depth of gameplay - Same few modes, mostly the same maps (though that has improved somewhat lately, and maps are supposed to be revisited).
What are the thoughts of this community here? What do you see as positive/negative here?

Thank you for the post Gyrok. I feel pretty much as you do and indent to step away from this game for a bit. I do feel driven away from it and fairly fed up at the stagnant environment.

1.) Yes its gorgeous, but as they say "Beauty is only skin(sprite) deep". It is a pretty game, but it isn't sustaining.
2.) At the very bare basics, yes the fundamentals are okay. Its rooted somewhat barely in the BT Universe. Though there are still to this day glaring issues. UI interface is inept and awkward and its still very much a shell of game. Its continuing to stray and water down those fundamentals however.
3.) Balance - too much, as with World of Tanks, its now a matter of overbalancing back and forth like a scale. Either this stops or it ends up like WoT where things are over-balanced to the point at which every vehicle is pretty much a shadow of its historical (in this case canon) self.
4.) Progression: Yes there is no progression, just lateral superficial upgrades that at first glance are mistaken for progression
5.) None. Even after waiting some time. Its the same thing I see with nothing heavy duty to improve depth, role warfare or immersive coordinative teamplay that builds on investment of time.

Community - sadly its polarized due to different fans (Old Skool BT, MW Fans, FPS etc.) competing for attention coupled with being jaded has continued to sour the community and forum experience.

I love the BT Universe, liked the initial concept of MW:O, but to this day, disappointed at its direction and lack of real progress. The introduction of Mech packs, consumable sales, and the occasional map is not progress. Sadly what keeps me coming back is the fact that there are no other options to fulfill this love of the genre. That in itself is telling.

[Cupid and Psyche _]

Thanks for the post. Pretty sure we can all relate. I've felt the same way recently. I've just lost my passion for the game. I think the monotonous gameplay and the grind are what is pushing me away.

We only have a few games modes and a very limited number of maps and it takes a while (even with premium time) to attain new mech chassis. Couple that with the leveling system and the game can get stale.

I would like to add that playing through MW4 Mercs and reading the books has helped me get my daily dose of BT while away from the game. It also allows you to get a fresh start and perspective on the game, so you can start earning those c-bills again!

Edited by Tranquil Winds, 20 May 2015 - 11:57 AM.

[rolly]

I think you're right. I need to go through MW, MW2, MW3, MW4 and the Mech Commander series to reboot. That and find time to dust off the mini's and play CBT. That seems the best medicine for the substitute.

[Burktross]

Ghillie Dhu, on 19 May 2015 - 10:53 AM, said:

I'm a very casual player . . . pop in blast away for 3-6 games ... go out . . . go to work .... suites me fine .... I can see how it could become very repetitive if this is your main form of entertainment .... Just get a girl friend / boy friend and some kids ... game fixed ... life fixed !

Casual gamer, casual acquisition of children! At least you're consistent .

But yeah, OP. Just not feeling it. I'm more apt to spend money on pens now than I am on MWO.

[C E Dwyer]

I no longer look to anything.

I'm running down my premium, and then I'm out of here, unless a miracle happens, still undecided if i'm going to cancel resistance 2

The positive of there is a MW game, and generally the mechs are looking ok, and the game play is reasonable, if repetitive is no longer enough for me.

three years of PGI talking the talk and then not producing the goods has worn me down, and the last insult of dragging us the community into a yes no fight over their desire to make a fast buck, for no work, has done for me.

PGI disgust me I have zero trust in their behaviour, i'm squeezing out the last penny of game time then no more

[Rampancy]

This "community" is gross.

[Nightmare1]

OP sums it up for me. It's all "more of the same and have a cup of NerfWarrior."

Time to jump the timeline and introduce new content.

[Spleenslitta]

Positive-
Maneuvering of the mechs is near perfect. I like the flexibility of the mech customisation.

Mechs look good. They used to be better though.

Negatives- Convergence made the meta what it currently is. Without it there would be far less pinpoint damage dealers out there.
Sure some chassis would still be able to boat pinpoint configs...but that's life.
CW maps are a complete disaster.

Flamer/ all AC2s are near useless and seems they will stay that way indefinitly.
They removed ammo explosions. Yeah i know they still happen but it's rare nowadays.
Mechs don't get sluggish and slow at high heat levels like in the lore. That alone would have put a big obstacle in front of boating.

Some assault mechs were supposed to be able to jump quite high though....but the poptarters just made PGI draw a line and that was an end to that.

There are many negatives. Positives are actually kinda hard to find.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 20 May 2015 - 01:21 PM.

[Telmasa]

The Good:
- Mechs are pretty
- Weapons are pretty
- Shooting stuff is pretty
- Maps are fairly pretty (ain't perfect, but I'm biased cause of the Crysis games and how well-tailored the aesthetics were in all 3 games)
- Mech/weapon balance is mostly good, if we ignore the outliers


The Bad:
- Too many outliers exist, when it comes to balance
- Magic Card Consumables ™
- No Long Toms/Arrow IVs
- Magic Power Quirks (and Magic Curse Quirks now, with the last patch's changes), alot of which is responsible for the outliers when it comes to balance
- No Tutorial Mode
- No PvE Mode
- Community Warfare lacking depth (think Star Wars: Battlefield 2 as a basic example)
- No Solaris arena (solo *and* team tournaments)
- The tediousness of a c-bill grind (not unique to MW:O, though, so it's a fair frustration to leave in...if something to be frustrated about and struggle with is seen as enhancing the fun or something)


I'm at the same point as you Gyrok, all the "good" stuff about this game...I can experience by entering a training match.

All the rest is too frustrating, especially with the prolonged-exposure-grind necessary to get goodies or new mechs & whatnot.

I may fool around in the training room to see what this patch might've changed for mechs I already own, but I'm taking a break and waiting for the next patch notes to arrive.

In an ideal world, I'd be grinding, playing 'casual' as it were, and saving up c-bills for the Black Knight, Griffin, and Grasshopper, not to mention weapon modules galore...but more and more often lately I can't have fun playing even one match.

I'm hoping to see some good news with quirk changes, consumable adjustment/replacement, and map/mode improvements soon, but I won't be holding my breath either. (I will look forward to exploring the new River City in training grounds, at least.)

[Apnu]

Gyrok, on 19 May 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

I am not sure anything in MWO makes me happy anymore. Sadly, I may be taking a break from this game for the first time in roughly 3 years...

Breaks are good. Get some rest, a new perspective, come back when you think its time and see what you think.

Quote

3.) Balance - honestly, balance was the best it has been to this point right around the Tukayyid event up until the most recent adjustments.

The game will never be truly balanced. Its root IP is broken in terms of IS and clan balance. Add on the fact that PGI and the players won't even try using the balance mechanisms FASA put in (though many players I knew from back then, didn't pay one wick of attention to clan culture and battle doctrine) makes the game even more unbalanced.

Thus balance will always teeter one way or another and it will wobble as PGI tries to find balance and inevitably over nerfs, under nerfs, over buffs, and under buffs.

Accepting this idea of constant change and embracing it is the first step to MWO sanity. (I'm considering starting a MWO 12-step program, think it might get traction?)

Quote

4.) Progression - aside from way outdated pilot trees that superfluously require 3 mechs to advance and the pilot tree/module system...there really is no progression. Sadly, what is considered progression here is not really progression at all in my mind.

Russ said in the last Town Hall that the pilot tree stuff is one of the oldest parts of the game. They know its inadequate and are cooking up changes to it. Fingers crossed.

Spot on with the 3 mechs to master thing. It stupid. They should sell 1 mech then have us unlock variants as we progress up a tree of skill for the chassis. Then charge us MC or GXP to get those variants unlocked and then charge us c-bills to retrofit our mech with that variant. Make us pay more c-bills to convert the mech again or back. Say HBK-4G --> HBK-4J --> HBK-4P --> HBK-4G return. Would be far more interesting and less cluttered and make us feel more like an actual pilot than some generic, nameless, faceless, collection of mechwarriors.

Quote

5.) Depth of gameplay - Same few modes, mostly the same maps (though that has improved somewhat lately, and maps are supposed to be revisited).

They know there's no depth. There's a new 4v4 coming for CW (too little IMO, they need a lot more in there) and Russ has hinted at some other game mode in the public queue if I recall him correctly in the last Town Hall. He recognized that the PQ is pretty stale and its getting neglected and he wants to spice it up a bit.

So changes are coming, its painful to watch and wait every day for them, so taking a break is a fine idea. Coming back after a few months the game will feel more fresh I bet.

[Lorian Sunrider]

cdlord, on 19 May 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

EDIT: MERCHANDISING!!!! I WOULD PAY FOR MWO MINIS!

Sweet monkey jesus no. I still have oodles and oodles of Dark Age Figurines that never see the light of day.

[CDLord HHGD]

Lorian Sunrider, on 20 May 2015 - 01:56 PM, said:

Sweet monkey jesus no. I still have oodles and oodles of Dark Age Figurines that never see the light of day.

Me too! But while I bought DA in the hopes of playing, mini's in the MWO style would be collector items too. Esp. if they offered pewter.

[Kristov Kerensky]

I've already taken 2 breaks from MWO now, but I keep coming back because it's MechWarrior.

What I expected..what PGI sold me on back before there was anything to show us, the IDEA of the game they were promoting. Inner Sphere Houses and the infighting, raids and outright wars, the Invasion and the fear, uncertainty and confusion it creates. The 4 pillars. Logistics. You know, BattleTech in a video game format, like the old GEnie MPBT 3025, only with great graphics and the Clans mixed in with the league play we had in the MW2-4 leagues like NBT, all run by PGI so we don't have to worry about bias messing things up like so often happened in the those old leagues.

What we got to date..I'm good with it, but mainly because there's not much else to play really. I have some single player games on my XBox I play from time to time still, and besides MWO, that's about it. I don't have a lot of free time despite being single. I am a busy exec, I have kids and grandkids, I have a real life in other words and it actually takes up a lot of my time. MWO is perfect for that right now, I can drop when I feel like it for as long as I feel like it and it's good.

I enjoy the combat, it's fun. And to be honest, it's what we had with ever other MW title, they were ALL nothing but arena shooters really, the GAMES didn't offer anything else, it was the leagues that did that. There's actually nothing keeping someone from running some good planetary leagues for MWO right now, we've got all the toys ingame to do it, IS and Clan Mechs and Tech, we can launch private matches do to league combats, all we need is someone willing to do all the grunt work. I know exactly what the requires, having done it for the original NBT myself, and I sure as hells don't have that kind of time myself, but I know others do. Create a website, feel free to use the old NBT rules, me and the folks who created them do NOT mind that at all. Creating the starmap shouldn't be too hard, I know there's copies of the old FASA IS Map online you can use as a template, etc. I know a lot of people who'd love something like that, you'd have more players than you'd know what to do with, so I'd suggest setting up a team to run things...and remember, if you run the show, you don't get to play in the league, first and foremost unbreakable rule!

Until that time, I'll keep on dropping when I have the time, blowing up Mechs and having some fun. Just as I did with all the previous MW titles.

[Nine-Ball]

I took a break from this game because it became a bit stale and boring a year or so ago. Came back 3 months ago and been having a blast ever since.

Not all players burn out for the same reasons or the same length as other players. Just take a break, play other games, then come back whenever the mood hits you.

I'm not into meta 100% or anything (I do enjoy the quad-AC5 krab tho), but I enjoy the MW lore (thank you sarna.net) and can appreciate what they are doing here. Does it agree 100% with my narrow view of how MW should work? No, but that never bothered me since all MW games to date have operated under vastly different game engines.

Can they do more? Of course. But all in all it is an awesome multiplayer shooter that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the run of the mill military shooters out there. I played Hawken (even stupidly pre-ordered..) and MWO trumps Hawken in every regard. Its more accessable then something like Armored Core 5(?.. i played 4A last), which requires some skill from previous games to even scratch the surface. Does it get dull from time to time? Well yeah, but so do many shooters that are essentially retreads of themselves. What keeps me coming back to MWO is that it is probably the best iteration of stompy shooty mechy blowing upy action there is and will be for some time.

[Y E O N N E]

Gyrok, you and I don't always see eye-to-eye and we've taken some jabs at each other, but you have some salient points here.

I completely agree that art is gorgeous and most of the fundamentals are sound. I do think balance is still a mess, though; it's better than where it has been, but it has gotten there with some rather inelegant solutions. We've got even more variables to manage now than we did a year ago. The Clans came out, added a whole bunch of new equipment to the game and upped the ante on capability, and now we've got quirks making things even messier. They combine with what I think are some foundational problems - including how the heat system works, that they are trying to stick with Table Top values and mechanics too closely, and that the game is an arena shooter with small maps - to make for some frustrating outcomes.

I continue to play because I get cheap thrills doing well in death-traps and because it still exercises my motor and reflex skills in combination with my judgement skills like no other game does. It is addicting fun. I do wish, though, that this game were much more than it currently is. There is a lot of potential here, but I get the sense that PGI is both too cash- and experience-strapped to truly transform the experience.

What I, personally, would like to see is a MechWarrior game on the scale of Planetside 2, featuring combined-arms and resource management and where there are definite roles to be played on the battlefield. You'd need players that can hit things at long range, players that can gather intel, players that can push an assault, players specialize against armor, players that specialize against infantry, players that provide air cover, players that can perform battlefield repairs and re-armament on allies, etc. The scale of BattleTech is that it works well with and actually demands such a large-scale, combined-arms affair. In this environment, you can even give the Clans the properly powerful weapons they deserve, because the resource costs will be higher and because Inner Sphere forces have the option of ganging up to level the playing field. MWO could and should be that game.

[Jaeger Gonzo]

If you want more Battletech, you want stock mode.
You guys would be surprised how this game can have battletechish felling and fun in stock.

[Gyrok]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 May 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

Gyrok, you and I don't always see eye-to-eye and we've taken some jabs at each other, but you have some salient points here.

LOL! I have a pretty big (anti-)fan club as I understand it . I suppose I catch flack for speaking my mind unabashedly, if that tends to ruffle a few feathers...well...some people must wear their emotions on their sleaves or have thin skin.

I do think that you must be a bit more reasonable than the average frothing at the mouth anti-clan 'spheroid' to be reasonable enough to have a good conversation about MWO and the state of things though. Surprising, a General Discussion thread without ad hominems, veiled insults, or outright trolling. I almost wonder where this community has been hiding for so long...(were you all abducted and replaced by bots...?) (Alright, I jest...)

Yeonne Greene, on 20 May 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

What I, personally, would like to see is a MechWarrior game on the scale of Planetside 2, featuring combined-arms and resource management and where there are definite roles to be played on the battlefield. You'd need players that can hit things at long range, players that can gather intel, players that can push an assault, players specialize against armor, players that specialize against infantry, players that provide air cover, players that can perform battlefield repairs and re-armament on allies, etc. The scale of BattleTech is that it works well with and actually demands such a large-scale, combined-arms affair. In this environment, you can even give the Clans the properly powerful weapons they deserve, because the resource costs will be higher and because Inner Sphere forces have the option of ganging up to level the playing field. MWO could and should be that game.

Mother of all that is holy, if there were a BattleTech game like that, I might be tempted to uninstall every other game I have...

Do not play with my emotions...that would be absolutely epic! What we have now almost feels derpic (felt like that was a good portmanteau for the opposite of epic) comparatively at times, especially considering a vision like that .

I also liked the idea someone else proposed earlier about Casey Hudson. Though, I am not sure that could be accomplished, as someone with a resume like that is likely the sort that only a huge studio can afford.

[Gyrok]

nehebkau, on 19 May 2015 - 10:46 AM, said:

I feel exactly the same way -- the past 2~3 weeks have been joyless with this game -- I really don't want to log in.

4 & 5 are very true -- the progression is not engaging and game-play depth is kiddie pool deep. I would add:

6.) Perception of cheating and apparent lack of progress reducing it. Always having to ask myself if that head-shot or the 7 ac5 shots to my RT were skill or aimbot -- isn't fun. Having to run FRAPs for every game -- just in case -- makes it worse.

7.) Poor communication from PGI -- having to check twitter, reddit, facebook because the PGI website is the last place information gets posted.

8.) Lack of reasonable roles for Merc vs. Loyalist units.


There is great potential -- but I think that PGI lacks someone of vision to push the game forward -- creatively (Meaning a great creative mind who can take this to the next level). I love BT lore, but it has become this holy grail of what MWO should be -- even when TT game-play or lore is incompatible with an online RT game.

Think how Casey Hudson and drew Karpyshyn and the rest of the bioware team created new star wars lore for KOTR and led the creation of the mass effect lore. PGI needs a dreamer(s) to push this out of the boxed-set.

There is the post about Casey Hudson...we can dream...

[PurpleNinja]

Gyrok, on 19 May 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:

...or an I quit post...

You should rethink your writing, because it really looks like all the other "I quit" posts.

[Gyrok]

PurpleNinja, on 20 May 2015 - 04:30 PM, said:

You should rethink your writing, because it really looks like all the other "I quit" posts.

Nice troll avatar in your signature.

This is not an "I quit" post. Nowhere did I say I was leaving for good...or F*&^ PGI or anything of the sort....

I expressed lamentation at what we have versus what I expected, and what could have possibly been.

Edited by Gyrok, 20 May 2015 - 04:33 PM.