MechWarrior Online BETA Update
Closed Beta Update #8 - v0.8.80
Upcoming Patch - Tuesday Aug 21st @ 10AM – 1PM PDT
State of the Economy from Paul:
To update you all on the current state of MC/CB/XP/GXP, I would like to clarify a few things for you.
The first thing, and cannot be stressed enough, is that all numbers currently in the game are placeholder/tunable numbers. These numbers WILL change before we go live, and you should
expect to see your accumulated rewards reset at various points during that time. We need to do these resets periodically so we can track rewards and how fast/slow people are achieving
the various efficiencies and modules etc. An example is, we know that you’ve all been working away at your XP for the Mech Efficiencies. We’ve left them untouched to this point to see
how long it takes for players to reach the Elite and Master tiers. A some point, you will see your efficiency tree reset and XP reset and most of all, the costs of each efficiency
changed due to the information that we’ve received about how fast people are getting through these tiers. Another example is the recently introduced bug that rewarded heavy XP on
suicides. This artificially inflated the XP pools players were getting and threw the numbers completely off track. This bug will be addressed and XP will get reset so we can start
tracking real numbers again.
With every patch, there have been minor fixes and adjustments (end of match scoreboard for example), and you are seeing your rewards increase. There is still plenty of work ahead of us
to incorporate a few more systems to help make the economy in MechWarrior Online robust and balanced. In this patch, we will be adding the Salvage Reward system (outlined below) in its
early iteration. You are going to see rather large CB rewards at the end of each match and your CB wallet will balloon. Rest assured that there IS something else coming down the pipe
very soon that is going to counter these large rewards. That something is the repair/rearm system. Once all of our major systems are in place, we will start adjusting the numbers as
needed to balance the overall rewards you get while playing the game. Again, expect to see resets of any rewards accrued during Beta.
In short, Salvage (going in now) and Repair Rearm (coming soon) are two systems that will start allowing us to re-tune numbers to make MechWarrior Online a deeper and richer game
experience.
P.S. Regarding MC. There have been some people who don’t understand our current use of MC. At this moment, MC should be considered free play money. It does not affect your MC balance
when we go Open Beta. At Open Beta, we will be resetting all players to 0 C-Bills and the only players with MC will be the Founders who will be getting the amount of MC in accordance
with the tier of Founder’s Package they bought. From Open Beta onward, any MC you spend will be gone forever and the transaction process to buy more MC with real world currency will be
in place.
P.P.S. We will be resetting the Mech Efficiency Trees this patch. The XP exploit threw our numbers well out of whack and requires a reboot so we can track XP gains properly. While
this is unfortunate, just be thankful it’s not 6 months from now when you’ve mastered 8 Mechs or so.
That being said, here are your patch notes:
Change Log
GENERAL
User Data:
All player BattleMechs will be removed from the Mech Lab.
Players will be re-granted their Founder’s BattleMechs as stock
Players will be re-granted their Founder’s MC + a universal MC injection for all players (13,000 MC)
Premium accounts’ “days remaining” will be reset
New Map:
River City – A port city nestled in a coastal valley is being ravaged by war. A river spanned by two bridges divides the city into two opposing sides. The center of the city is
dominated by a fortified citadel. Mechs battle for control of two key sites – a spaceport high on a plateau, and a crucial industrial port facility on the ocean.
FRONT END
MatchMaking 0.5
Teams will always be even in numbers.
Groups will always be on the same team.
Groups will now be matched with equivalent weight class opponents in a 1:1 relationship.
For every Assault Mech on 1 team, there’s an Assault Mech on the other.
This is weight class driven, that is, an Atlas on one team can be matched with an Atlas or an Awesome on another team.
Currently an all Atlas team vs an all Atlas/Awesome game is valid.
Players who are grouping up should start considering strategic team make-ups in terms of Mech weight classes.
Note: This is an early implementation of a much more robust system that will, in the future, also take into consideration team make-up in terms of Mech classes (what would be considered
a well-balanced company/lance) and player skill levels.
GAMEPLAY
Battlegrid:
Battlegrid map now correctly points north when viewed.
Adjusted zoom level to be able to see the whole map when zoomed out.
Mech markers of teammates now have an info panel that shows there name, mech, and overall health percentage.
Commanders can issue orders to the team. Orders will appear on the battlegrid and on the compass.
Commander can resign command from the battlegrid.
Commander is randomly selected at start of match, and when someone resigns
Known Issue: If the whole team resigns command, there will be no commander selected.
Known Issue: Mech info panel is rotated 90 degrees.
Salvage:
Upon a mech’s death a value is calculated for each component’s inner structure health/weapon/module/remaining ammo that is scaled to the amount of health that component has remaining
If a component is completely destroyed no salvage will be awarded for that component.
Each point of inner structure health is worth 685 C-Bills (armor is not included in salvage)
Weapons and modules are currently worth their store value scaled against remaining health in that component. If a component is at 50% health, then that weapon is worth 50% of its normal
value. This will change in the future when the critical hit system is fully functional, since each weapon and module will have its own health values.
Ammo is currently worth their normal store value at 1 ton and then is scaled against the remaining ammo.
Salvage is only awarded to the winning team, and only the dead mechs on the opposing team contribute to the salvage value.
Salvage is then divided up evenly amongst eligible players (early disconnects do not get awarded).
Assists & New XP Rewards:
Assist: Awarded if an enemy Mech you’ve damaged is killed.
Kill/Assist XP: A pool of 150 XP that is divided amongst all players who dealt damage to the destroyed target. The amount of XP is proportional to your personal damage dealt to the
target.
Kill XP: A 50 XP bonus for getting the kill shot, on top of any Kill/Assist XP.
Spot XP: A 25 XP bonus if you have someone targeted and a teammate who does not see him locks on with LRMs. Awarded only once per team mate per target.
Capture XP: A 150 XP bonus if you win the match by capture, awarded to everyone on the winning team.
Capture Assist XP/C-Bills: A 75 XP & 75,000 C-Bill bonus if you assisted in the capture of an enemy base.
TUNING
Input:
The user is able to reset settings to default.
New keys mappings prompted with confirmation.
Remapping Z now functioning.
Every key binding is now unique.
Damage Indicator:
Colours tweaked to make it more readable. Now doing a 3 stage blend from yellow->orange->Red ( 100% - 0% health).
Undamaged parts are now transparent, upon taking damage, the part become opaque. This happens independently for armour and internals.
User Interface:
Added Main-Menu social linkages (Facebook/Twitter/YouTube).
Hide news items until valid data obtained.
Added visual context to premium status.
Premium status poll time increased to 30 minutes.
BUG FIXES
Gameplay:
Fixed Projectiles remaining stuck on something for 0.2s after impact.
XP reward error when players killed themselves.
MechLab:
Component slots now highlighting and selecting correctly
Corrected problems with naming ‘Mechs
Users will no longer be disconnected to Mech Lab while mid-game.
HUD:
Fixed key binding so you can now bind team / all chat keys to ‘Y’.
Fixed an issue with the chat log becoming unordered when players die / switching spectator.
Fixes to fonts to use less memory.
Friends Chat
User blocking fixed.
Users now see the ready state of users in their party.
List Scrolling fixed.
Error is now displayed when adding a non-existent user in the Friends List.
Add a friend window no longer closes on unrelated events.
User's online status updates when forcefully closing the client.
Entering a name that is too long into the add friend field causes the failed message to display a blank name.
We thank you for your patience and we look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!
- The MechWarrior® Online™ Team