89 replies to this topic

[Tikkamasala]

I like your idea, but instead of a flea give them a hunchback or cataphract, i.e. a slightly more forgiving mech with more ways to customize in the mech-lab.

[Shumabot]

Signal27, on 25 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

Nay, good sir. While I do agree the game needs to be more new-player friendly, we don't want to cater to the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel attention deficit disorder crowd. There's already a legion of posts about catering to the "Cowadooty instant gratification" crowd. There is something to be said about starting out near the bottom and working your way to the top. World of Tanks does it - they hand you a bunch of free crappy tanks. Apparently there's a lot of players who are willing to spend some time in literally the worst tanks in the game in order to get to the next tier.




WAT?? Why? Trial mechs could have double heat sinks. That trial-heavy-mech-design-competition thingy allows for any and all tech to be incorporated into the design.

The call of duty crowd is a crowd of humans. They are people. If you can give them a game that is deep, fun, and engaging they will play it. Stop defaming other people to make yourself feel better. Call of duty is already a deeper game than this one with a higher skill cap, more variety, and significantly better balance. That you don't like it or what you perceive to be its audience is irrelevant. Those same stereotypes would probably say you were old, skillless, and obsessive.

As to the double heat sinks, it's this games dirty little secret that the ECM streakmando is the only mech in the game that isn't outright improved by double heat sinks. It's not an option, its practically mandatory to be competitive.

As an aside, world of tanks is venting players and has half the players it did two years ago.

Davers, on 25 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

5 energy is better than having 4 ballistics.

Good luck putting five energy weapons on it. Enjoy your 5 small laser boat with no armor that overheats constantly.

Edward Steiner, on 25 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

With the cadet bonus a new player will earn enough cbills to buy just about any non-hero mech in the game after about 15-20 games. You can easily play 15-20 games in one weekend, plus you will learn how to play during that time. New players already get pleanty for free.

What does free mean in this instance? Everything is free. Why are you forcing new players to get hazed just to play the game?

[Signal27]

Shumabot, on 25 March 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

The call of duty crowd is a crowd of humans. They are people. If you can give them a game that is deep, fun, and engaging they will play it. Stop defaming other people to make yourself feel better. Call of duty is already a deeper game than this one with a higher skill cap, more variety, and significantly better balance. That you don't like it or what you perceive to be its audience is irrelevant. Those same stereotypes would probably say you were old, skillless, and obsessive.

I am loathe to get into any arguments about what you and I find fun and not to be fun, but I've actually played Call of Duty multiplayer before and I wouldn't levy that kind of harsh judgement on that community if I didn't experience it first hand. There's got to be some kind of minimal barrier to entry and, as Edward Steiner mentioned earlier, the Cadet Bonus means you're only 15-20 games away from a decent mech - so why not give them a cheap freebie to learn how tonnage and crit limits work out before they dump all that cash into the mech they decide they actually want to pilot? But If somebody doesn't want to put that kind of time into the game to save up that money I'd rather not have them around because God knows what time they'll put in to, say for example, learning the controls.

Quote

As to the double heat sinks, it's this games dirty little secret that the ECM streakmando is the only mech in the game that isn't outright improved by double heat sinks. It's not an option, its practically mandatory to be competitive.

You'll hear no argument from me on that one. But we're starting to get off track with this. The devs look like they're going to integrate doubles into trial mechs - that's that.

Quote

As an aside, world of tanks is venting players and has half the players it did two years ago.

That's funny, I just recently read an article that stated they recently set the world record for most players logged on to a single server all at once.

EDIT: Found the article! 800,000 concurrent worldwide users doesn't NOT sound like "half the players it did two years ago."

Edited by Signal27, 25 March 2013 - 04:55 PM.

[Davers]

Shumabot, on 25 March 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

Good luck putting five energy weapons on it. Enjoy your 5 small laser boat with no armor that overheats constantly.

It comes with 5 energy on it. With the tonnage saved from putting on small lasers (4.5 tons) and Endo+FF I think I will have armor and heatsinks to make it useful. Or at least more useful than a 40 ton mech with 4 machine guns and one energy weapon.

[Bogus]

I get where you're coming from but a light mech other than maybe Raven would be a bad choice because lights are arguably the most difficult mech to use correctly--need fantastic situational awareness plus good twitch accuracy and an understanding of mechs' weak points. A medium is far more forgiving, so they should get a cent or hunchie.

[Peiper]

The OP made me laugh, and so, I am bumping this absurd thread.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

They already have the Cadet Bonus. If they want a Flea, they'll be able to get it almost immediately since it'll be dirt cheap as a 20t Mech. I think they can survive the 5-10 or so matches it takes for the bonus to unlock a light mech.

Edited by Bluten, 25 March 2013 - 05:06 PM.

[Rippthrough]

Leave the trail mechs in (they're great for people to test mechs before they buy too), but give them the flea too, get them into the mechlab and hook them on earning money for upgrades...

[jakucha]

Josef Nader, on 25 March 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

I don't think the flea is the right way to go. Hunchbacks are far and away the best chassis to learn the game on. There's a hunchback that supports every type of weapon in the game, they're decently fast, decently maneuverable, pack a very respectable punch, and affordable. They teach you about protecting your rear arc, shielding your powerful weapons, and using your arms and torso weapons effectively.

But yeah, I think every player should get a free hunchback of their choice.

Like other players have mentioned, giving away a free starter mech will just give completely new players the impression that that weight chassis or mech is only for noobs. I don't think giving away a free mech is right the way to go.

Cadet bonus is a better idea as it is, gives the player choice and they can easily afford a flea if they want one with that.

Edited by jakucha, 25 March 2013 - 05:08 PM.

[Alois Hammer]

Nathan Foxbane, on 25 March 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

Theny why not have an ingame tutorial that takes a new player through the 'Mech lab and teaches some basics before they burn a sizeable chunk of their cadet bonus on an XL engine for for their Flea.

Because adding a real tutorial would rob them of their primary rationalization for adding 3rd person view come Hell or high water.

[Shumabot]

Signal27, on 25 March 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

I am loathe to get into any arguments about what you and I find fun and not to be fun, but I've actually played Call of Duty multiplayer before and I wouldn't levy that kind of harsh judgement on that community if I didn't experience it first hand. There's got to be some kind of minimal barrier to entry and, as Edward Steiner mentioned earlier, the Cadet Bonus means you're only 15-20 games away from a decent mech - so why not give them a cheap freebie to learn how tonnage and crit limits work out before they dump all that cash into the mech they decide they actually want to pilot? But If somebody doesn't want to put that kind of time into the game to save up that money I'd rather not have them around because God knows what time they'll put in to, say for example, learning the controls.



You'll hear no argument from me on that one. But we're starting to get off track with this. The devs look like they're going to integrate doubles into trial mechs - that's that.



That's funny, I just recently read an article that stated they recently set the world record for most players logged on to a single server all at once.

EDIT: Found the article! 800,000 concurrent worldwide users doesn't NOT sound like "half the players it did two years ago."

If this is like the previous record they set, this one is full of zombie accounts (the previous one was hugely illegitimate). EU and NA player counts have been averaging down since the games peak over a year ago. The games russian player base is still pretty solid, but that's it.

Also, the crap I've heard from this community is no better than what I heard playing CoD. That game has voice chat, this one doesn't, but text chat and even some of the vent servers I've been on are hardly better than xbox live quality. Just wait until they integrate VOIP within the game, you'll hear the same crap that you hear in DOTA2 and CoD.

Either way, this game would be blessed to hit the "balance" and required skill of CoD.

Edited by Shumabot, 25 March 2013 - 05:16 PM.

[Jazzbandit1313]

Tennex, on 25 March 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

what was that? i'm sorry i heard urbanmech

Lololololololololololololololollolololoolololol *mounts 5 MG's on a spider and runs off*

[Pinselborste]

if they give out a free flea for new players, they should first fix mgs and flamers to be viable.

[Targetloc]

PGI giving all new players fleas?


My friend's cat gave his family fleas once... they were less than impressed.

[Budor]

Hunchback or Centurion, let new players choose which stock variant. Give them a small lore textbox to boot: "You have been promoted into the rank off blahblahblah....". Hooked.

[Mousehold]

Shumabot, on 25 March 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

What does free mean in this instance? Everything is free. Why are you forcing new players to get hazed just to play the game?

Exactly this. I don't get the obsession that developers and players have with hazing rituals where you have to suffer a gross disadvantage in the game for dozens of matches before finally being allowed to have any fun at all.

Give new players a choice of which mech they want to start out and a half million C-bills to customize it with. Keep the list of options short so they don't get overwhelmed with choices, and make it clear what each mech on the list can be built into with a basic description.

Alternatively make some special trial mechs that aren't terrible! Give them custom fittings like what an actual, semi-intelligent player would use.

Finally, you could separate trial mechs into their own matches. Don't allow trial mechs into lances to help curb smurfing.

Edited by Mousehold, 25 March 2013 - 05:49 PM.

[Crazy Billy Joe Bob]

after 5 or so straight meaningless games most people quite and wish they could get the time wasted on this game back.

[Ryllen Kriel]

It would be really cool to have a game where you had to work your way up from Light mech recon and harassment duty all the way up to whatever role you prefer. I think the Flea is deffinitely not everyone's bag however. Players new to the Battletech universe might give up rather quickly if they could only use a Flea versus...well...any other mechs. People are not patient enough these days to adjust to that learning curve. As bad as the trial mech system is, a Flea would discourage most people I think. Heck, personally I can't wait to pilot a Flea.

[Kaarde]

How about giving a graduated Cadet bonus?

Set a C bill amount to work off of.
Choose a light and get a large cash infusion to work with upgrading it.
Choose a med and get a commensurately lesser amount.
Choose a heavy and still less and so on.

Each player would be able to choose a mech out of a weight class and get at least a little bit of money to trick it out. The lighter you go the better the cash.

Couple that with allowing them to take a stock mech out from any chassis to play around in the training grounds so that they can get a feel of the process as well as having the hopefully improved trial mechs around and you have a vastly improved new player experience.

[Walk]

Nathan Foxbane, on 25 March 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

Really? The Flea has some good modification potential and with a decent light player at the controls an actual threat. But stock? In the hands of a brand new player who knows little to nothing, going up against an in all likelyhood custom Atlas? You will drive players away in droves. In addition, as bad as the trial 'Mechs are not everyone is cut out to be a light pilot and forcing them into that role is not a good way to keep new players.

Remember that everyone's ELO starts at 1400 or so. Not 0 so they will be going up against people with some time behind the controls.

The point is, you'd have both trial mechs and this mech, aka, you can modify your own without spending money buying one first. It would be no different than it is now, except they can choose to start modding their own mech immediately.