122 replies to this topic

[Gaan Cathal]

Thuzel, on 16 March 2013 - 10:20 PM, said:

True, but there's a huge middle ground between EVE and deathmatch. I think a lot of people are expecting MWO to land somewhere in there.

If anyone is familiar with EndWar, there was a persistent world associated with that where multiplayer battles could be fought on given maps (dependent on who held what) and that dictated region ownership on an aggregate level. Something similar to that is a reasonable upper level of expectation for MWO.

The fact of the matter is, whatever CW is, it will be a structured aggregate of arena-shooter matches. 8v8, 12v12, 16v16, 5v8, 10v16 - doesn't matter. The game physically cannot be an EVE or a Planetside, the mechanics aren't there. No matter how many game modes they add, you will always be fighting on an isolated map, and CW effects will be an aggregate of a win/loose scenario. Expectations to the contrary are both baseless and doomed to disappointment.

The thing is that for it not to boil down to aggregate deathmatch, you need dynamic asymmetry (a'la EVE, Planetside2) - but you can't have that in MWO. Look at the rage threads that crop up every time a weight imbalanced match turns up. Hell, I see people crying about weight advantage one match, and then crying about enemy lights next match (because obviously they can't have just, you know, lost). Even if the game was capable of dynamic asymmetry, the playerbase would go apoplectic. The question is 'how will CW link the deathmatches'.

[hammerreborn]

Thirdstar, on 16 March 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

I was waiting for this tired old line to be posted. Figured it would be you too.

You chose a terrible example in CoH. You see I played that game from Beta to its death and one thing I always admired about the Devs there was that if they couldn't do something quickly they told you why.

So giving you timelines on when changes will be made isn't good enough, they need a detailed explanation on how they are doing it and why it will take so long?

Quote

I won't say PGI hasn't improved a bit, the command chair post about vision modes was the sort of thing I've been hoping they transition to. But their track record up until now? Not impressive. And don't get me started on the latest Ask The Devs. A litany of 'no plans' is no way to communicate with the playerbase.

You mean the "ask the devs" that people complained about from 1-~30 about not answering all the questions person A wanted answered, and so answered all of them instead? And how is "no plans" not a good way to communicate with the playerbase. You talk about Founders having no idea what is going to be in CW or in the future, how is this not an exact contradiction to what you're claiming?

Is x going to be in the game? No. See, easy, no expectations to be made.

Edited by hammerreborn, 16 March 2013 - 10:35 PM.

[xengk]

I am constantly amazed by the culture difference of online gamer between east and west.

Ask an online game player from Asia, and thing like this (charging in Beta) is common and an accepted industry standard over here.

Even western publisher are starting to pick up the trend, like the recent Neverwinter Nights Online. Close Beta accessible only by selected lucky few and anyone who purchase their founder pack. Cash Shop will be available once they hit Open Beta, a la Chinese and Korean MMO. Then again, Perfect World Entertainment is a China based developer+publisher

[Thirdstar]

hammerreborn, on 16 March 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

So giving you timelines on when changes will be made isn't good enough, they need a detailed explanation on how they are doing it and why it will take so long?

Yes? Is that too much to ask? Used to be pretty common back in the day.

hammerreborn, on 16 March 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

You mean the "ask the devs" that people complained about from 1-~30 about not answering all the questions person A wanted answered, and so answered all of them instead? And how is "no plans" not a good way to communicate with the playerbase.

Because the ENTIRE ATD was 'No Plans'. I would rather they actually gave insight about things they CAN answer, something a little more detailed, something that didn't look hastily put together by an intern.

hammerreborn, on 16 March 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

You talk about Founders having no idea what is going to be in CW or in the future, how is this not an exact contradiction to what you're claiming?

What?

[Training Instructor]

It won't fly because every single weekend they have a new sale that encourages people to spend real money on the game.

Yet, when thousands of players give feedback indicating that they want something from the devs, they often get ignored, or it takes months for the devs to even acknowledge that they're listening and might even contemplate addressing the problem. EX: ECM, team death match modes, game lobbies

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

If you go back to the Dev Blogs (which really need to be updated), by my estimate, they're about 50% of the way to being what they envision as "complete" ... until then, it's Beta.

• Community Warfare: not even 10% implemented
  
• Information Warfare: maybe 20% implemented
  
• Role Warfare: maybe 20% implemented
  
• Mech Warfare: maybe 75% implemented

Other developers and publishing houses spend tens of millions of dollars developing a game over years ... PGI has been at this for just over one year. They are a small team that does listen to our feedback and acts on it as quickly as they can, hopefully without breaking something else and (hopefully) making progress on all fronts. Are they fixing stuff and implementing new features and content fast enough? ... obviously not for some.

Game, software, community, and network development of this scale takes time and manpower, which takes money. I paid them because I believe that great things can be done with the BattleTech/MechWarrior IP ... I waited a decade for something like this, I can wait a few more months for them to continue to improve it. In the meantime, I'm going to keep playing ... when my MC runs out, I might buy more. If this doesn't meet someone's definition of "Beta", oh well.


"It's Beta" is not an excuse for a bug or a balance problem, but it is our responsibility as Beta Testers to report it, ideally in a method and format that they can use to fix the problem.

[Thirdstar]

Training Instructor, on 16 March 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

It won't fly because every single weekend they have a new sale that encourages people to spend real money on the game.

Yet, when thousands of players give feedback indicating that they want something from the devs, they often get ignored, or it takes months for the devs to even acknowledge that they're listening and might even contemplate addressing the problem. EX: ECM, team death match modes, game lobbies

And yet, as seen in this thread, people go on and on about how it's a 'choice' to buy anything, ignoring that all electronic entertainment is a choice anyway.

[Thirdstar]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 16 March 2013 - 10:52 PM, said:

They are a small team that does listen to our feedback and acts on it as quickly as they can, hopefully without breaking something else and (hopefully) making progress on all fronts.

And you're welcome to that opinion. Just as others should be allowed to hold the opinion that the progress is unsatisfactory. My point being that you can't brush away those concerns with 'Its BETA'.

Edited by Thirdstar, 16 March 2013 - 11:01 PM.

[Noth]

Training Instructor, on 16 March 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

It won't fly because every single weekend they have a new sale that encourages people to spend real money on the game.

Yet, when thousands of players give feedback indicating that they want something from the devs, they often get ignored, or it takes months for the devs to even acknowledge that they're listening and might even contemplate addressing the problem. EX: ECM, team death match modes, game lobbies

You do know that the are othe games that sell things while in beta right? Pretty much all ftp games do.

They have addressed those problems before. They mentioned lobbies way back in CB and just stated that it would be awhile. They acknowledged TDM by saying it likely wouldnt come until solaris, if they make solaris. ECM, they did address, just no one wanted to hear it or were too stuck in their thought process to acknowledge it (this does include me).

Edited by Noth, 16 March 2013 - 11:19 PM.

[NocturnalBeast]

Thirdstar, on 16 March 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

And that has what to do with my post and specially the last paragraph?
At least ATTEMPT to read the damn thing.

Well, my rant mostly agrees with you and I added something related to free to play games which greatly irritates me. Call it derailment if you will.

[Training Instructor]

It's been months since people began complaining about the Raven 3L and, to a lesser extent, the Commando 2D, and PGI has done absolutely nothing to address the problem that doesn't also nerf every non-ecm light mech.

Please, tell me about all of the non-ecm lights you enjoy piloting, or that your friends enjoy piloting.

When it comes to this issue, there's a massive gulf between developer understanding and player experience, and they're finally showing a grudging acknowledgment that they have to address it. That alone, more than anything else, has caused a lot of people to lose faith in the developers.

Also, Garth's posts make him sound like a 23 year old hipster, when his audience is mostly 25-45+ non-hipsters. Terrible move to have him as a spokesperson.

[Thuzel]

Thirdstar, on 16 March 2013 - 10:28 PM, said:

An excellent post.

I am concerned that there just seems to be a lack of long term goals beyond the very nebulous CW (about which we have zero information). Also, there's just not enough BETA here, as i've mentioned.

Someone previously brought up Firefall in an unrelated point, so i'll use that game as an example. Do you guys know they've reworked the entire leveling and crafting system once already and are planning to do it again soon? How about the Warframe Devs? They're planning to scrap skilltrees/artifact/loot drop system ENTIRELY and remake it from scratch.

Where is that sort of actual testing/iteration as regards to MWO? I'm not talking about bugs, I'm talking about gameplay systems. Shouldn't they be stretched to the limits? Tested, broken, reworked?

Thanks!

I think a lot of people have those same concerns. We've received very little information about CW or what PGI has in mind to tie it all together. The funny thing is that even the people who throw the beta term around are wrong. This game isn't really in beta, it's still in the fundamental design phase, which is much earlier than beta. PGI just doesn't want to admit it, since it could scare people off. I saw someone posting above about how this game was maybe 50% complete, and since I can't argue with that, I have to say that calling MWO a beta is extremely generous, if not just outright misleading.

About the other stuff, PGI is only just now starting to get a grip on their release cycles and methodology. I don't know when you started playing, but I can tell you that almost everything released before November/December was a train wreck. I'm pretty sure they didn't even have a staging system to speak of, much less any real QA testing before releases. What we have now is miles ahead of what we had then. Stress testing, long-range planning, and experimentation should come with time. I'm just glad we finally have a semi-formalized patch release process.

[NocturnalBeast]

Thirdstar, on 16 March 2013 - 10:56 PM, said:

And you're welcome to that opinion. Just as others should be allowed to hold the opinion that the progress is unsatisfactory. My point being that you can't brush away those concerns with 'Its BETA'.

Beta implies that the game is a work in progress, so that means that some things will be unfinished, or need to be tuned. Anyone is free to critique the work that PGI does, or defend it, however, a person should not get upset if PGI does not necessarily agree (stop spending money, or stop playing, these are the only choices you can make that will actually affect the game, albeit in a very small way). Sometimes there is no good answer and smart devs will never commit to anything that is not ready, or working as it should be on the forums, because they will be mercilessly held to it.

[Thuzel]

Gaan Cathal, on 16 March 2013 - 10:32 PM, said:

[...] The question is 'how will CW link the deathmatches'.

Nailed it. I'm really interested in that myself. How will PGI be able to bring more depth to the table when they're constrained by their player base?

It's not a job I would want, to be honest.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

valkyrie, on 16 March 2013 - 08:45 PM, said:

His post isn't about changing PGI's designation of the game's status.

It's to stop people like you from going "well it's a beta, so clearly anything wrong with this game isn't worth complaining about" when the exact opposite is true.

valkyrie, on 16 March 2013 - 08:45 PM, said:

His post isn't about changing PGI's designation of the game's status.

It's to stop people like you from going "well it's a beta, so clearly anything wrong with this game isn't worth complaining about" when the exact opposite is true.

thats because people who cry "its beta" tend to forget that the POINT of us being in beta isnt to play the game but to break it, find the flaws and point them out.

[Thirdstar]

Edward Steiner, on 16 March 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

Beta implies that the game is a work in progress, so that means that some things will be unfinished, or need to be tuned. Anyone is free to critique the work that PGI does, or defend it, however, a person should not get upset if PGI does not necessarily agree (stop spending money, or stop playing, these are the only choices you can make that will actually affect the game, albeit in a very small way). Sometimes there is no good answer and smart devs will never commit to anything that is not ready, or working as it should be on the forums, because they will be mercilessly held to it.

Multiplayer Online Games like MWO are functionally never out of 'beta'. It will always remain a work in progress.

Never promise something you can't deliver is a good development maxim, however this does not mean that you never make long term plans known to the playerbase.

[Commander Kobold]

Reading comprehension, some mech warriors need to learn dem some

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Regarding QA testing of either bug fixes, balance fixes, or new features, anyone who has watched the developers play (with a few exceptions) knows that they need our help and feedback to continue to make the game better.

http://www.twitch.tv/piranhagames <- their "8-man drops" last Friday night ... I'm pretty sure a handful of moderately experienced PUGs could give them a run for their money.

[Thorn Hallis]

Who cares what a gaming site thinks?

[Fooooo]

Not really on topic, but the splash damage mechanic, if it was implemented well, should have a dmg multiplier / number somewhere.

Change that number to 0 and splash dmg as a mechanic still runs in the background, however no dmg is caused from splash then.


There may be another modifier for each type of explosive weapon also dictating the range / size of the splash or different dmg for different weapons etc, however those in theory should not need to be changed if there is a "master" so to speak.

Even if they did have to change them all it should not be much effort to put a 0 there for each splash modifier.

However.....if the modifiers for splash are somewhat hardcoded (IE there is no simple xml to adjust splash dmg) well then, we will have to wait till next week as they have stated.


On topic,

The game is in beta. If people want to use it to suit their arguments on either side of the fence, well thats up to them. Its not really going to give their opinions any more weight with me if their ideas or complaints were no good to begin with.....so typically I guess I just ignore it.

Edited by Fooooo, 17 March 2013 - 02:40 AM.