19 replies to this topic

[brock0]

Hey everyone. Just downloaded this week and I am very much enjoying the game so far. Have never played a mech combat game either tabletop or PC but I thought I would give this a go. Not that I think anyone cares (lol) but here are some thoughts.

Maybe some of you have some comments or suggestions.

First of all, I'm no fan of the F2P model. I blame the mobile gaming scene, which have made microtransactions, in-app purchases, and pay walls part of the gaming vocabulary. I understand it from a business perspective, that magical "unlimited spend" versus a one time set fee. There seem to be very few free to play titles that can be enjoyed without spending any money, and this game is no different. The content here is expensive - not to say that I won't plunk some money down, but the prices seem steep.

Aside from that the game play is great, mechs look awesome, controls are good but there are two things that really bother me as a new player.

1) Light mechs seem out of balance with the rest of the mech lineup. All of the game modes currently involve some type of capture objective and the lights have the speed to determine when and where to engage. It appears to me that the only thing that can counter a light mech is another light mech and if your team composition isn't right you're SOL which is a problem for average joe casual in pug matches. Perhaps this wouldn't be as much of a problem if the light mechs weren't so durable. They seem able to take way too much punishment given their size and speed. Is it lag-shield? I don't know.

2) ECM is just too good. There is no downside to running it save the mech space and weight, and way too many advantages. Again, the only way to counter ECM is with ECM, not something you will necessarily have control over outside of your own mech. If you end up on the team with less ECM you're at a tremendous disadvantage right off the bat. Consider too that the aforementioned light mechs are usually running this as well and the problem appears cumulative to me. I feel that an ECM nerf would make gameplay (pug anyway) more enjoyable and approachable for new players.

Anyways, good luck and happy hunting to all.

[dusted]

Welcome and nice feedback. Keep playing until you have earned your entire cadet bonus. You should end up with enough CBills to buy just about any mech you want without spending any real money. Of course, feel free to plunk some cash down on a hero mech if you really want to jump start your career.

You are dead on about the ECM, that is a major point of discussion here.

However, you may be the first person on this forum to have proposed that light mechs are OP (without mentioning the Raven-4L).

[brock0]

I could be way off on the light mechs, just initial feel after 50-75 games or so.

Big kudos for the cadet bonus, it's a great way to get newbies rolling. If only I had known what I was spending it on at the time Really though, mech bays for cash pretty much guarantees some money in at some point and that's OK. Premium time to ease the c-bill grind will be good too. I am so disappointed that this game (and so many others) monetize the personalization and customization options. I understand, people want it so charge for it, but you're talking $4-$8 for a single color and that seems like a bit much.

[BladeSplint]

Once your aim gets better the lights go down fast, I wouldn't sweat that point too much.

And yeah ECM could use some work, but if its really bugging you try running a loadout with PPCs.

[brock0]

It's not so much the hitting the lights, it's that they appear to dictate the battle because of the capture based nature of all the game modes.

You could be the best Atlas driver in the world and if that raven or commando wants to avoid you and cap there isn't much you can do about it. Of course you can counter this with organization, but that's not something that happens often in pug games from my experience.

Having all your team beeline for the scuffle at the middle of the map only to have a light mech cap your base before anyone can get back is not fun at all I can honestly say that. Players are encouraged to mix it up for c-bill and experience bonuses which I don't think motivates a lot of people to hang back and play D when they may miss out.

[Signal27]

Just FYI OP: The devs have stated that they're taking a look at ECM balance and that changes might come about 4 weeks from now.

[MadPanda]

Signal27, on 29 March 2013 - 08:23 PM, said:

Just FYI OP: The devs have stated that they're taking a look at ECM balance and that changes might come about 4 weeks from now.

They said 4 weeks after they announce any changes. They haven't announced anything yet.

[Tezcatli]

Well I just played a game with 3 lights on our side. We got completely destroyed. We didn't destroy a single opponent. But it was close in the points because the last surviving mech was able to cap another point. But they still won by points because they could cap every other point.

Right now the matchmaking could use some balancing around total tonnage imo. Since it's based solely off Elo as I understand it.

[Corwin Vickers]

brock0, on 29 March 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

It's not so much the hitting the lights, it's that they appear to dictate the battle because of the capture based nature of all the game modes.

You could be the best Atlas driver in the world and if that raven or commando wants to avoid you and cap there isn't much you can do about it. Of course you can counter this with organization, but that's not something that happens often in pug games from my experience.

I think the best Atlas driver in the world would go back to his base and realize that the light mechs have to come to him.

In conquest speed is more important since there are multiple cap points. If you find your team heavy you can try and wipe out a good portion of the enemy team and then spread out and cover cap points that way.

You could also pilot a light mech or a fast medium. I'm sure your impression of how powerful light mechs are would change.

Teams probably shouldn't be 8 Atlases anyways. With the SSRM nerf you see more light pilots around now since Rav- 3Ls are not quite the gods they used to be. Personally I think their hit boxes are still messed up.

[Nuds]

I find your observations to be spot on I have played the game for many months now and the fact that all our game modes are based around capture is odd. I hope this could be remedied by an artificial timer before the cap opens up or automated defenses around the cap that could scare away small scouting forces until their team catches up and can coordinate to take down the base.

keep posting and have fun.

[Leesin]

Light mechs speed is their armour, without speed they just fall apart, believe me if you play a light and you get hit hard you will see how fragile they are. Yes, they have an advantage of being able to pick and choose their battles and being able to flank quickly for caps, but if you have good positioning you can cut enemy lights off and protect cap points.

The majority of the problems concerning you is simply made by Pugs, there can be lack of communication, too many team mates in slow mechs clumped together in a conquest map meaning the enemy just caps all points and other scenarios like this.

Sometimes you get a decent team, other times you don't, my suggestion is to join a House and join their teamspeak, play with other guys in that house and communicate with them, you'll have alot more fun and generally a lot more success ( not always, but usually ).

Edited by Leesin, 30 March 2013 - 02:39 AM.

[Primetimex]

As a newb without Founder's content, you can't EVEN buy a new mech without spending money - because you need at least one free mechbay to put your new mech in which costs 300 MC, thus straight up the new players are forced to spend real money on the game or be forever stuck with their crappy, non-configurable trials ....

[Roughneck45]

Primetimex, on 30 March 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

As a newb without Founder's content, you can't EVEN buy a new mech without spending money - because you need at least one free mechbay to put your new mech in which costs 300 MC, thus straight up the new players are forced to spend real money on the game or be forever stuck with their crappy, non-configurable trials ....

No, they get 4 open mech bays to start.

[General Taskeen]

ECM should have been changed 2-4 weeks after it was introduced months ago. But, welcome to MWO, balance changes don't always occur very fast unfortunately.

[Marcus Cvellus]

Lights were actually a bit more useful in the past. Wait till you get more weapons and you will forget that they are around.
They are nothing but easy kill now. At least most of them. Only ones with ECM might be the problem, but even those are easily one shot kills when you have ballistics on.
Thou i doubt we will pilot/see any lights for long. Only fanatics will continue to pilot those with the direction this game is currently heading with damage/armor/balance and most importantly tactics and roles.

Edited by Marcus Cvellus, 30 March 2013 - 04:41 AM.

[Sephlock]

... that aside... I cannot applaud the OP enough for his clarity of vision.

[Krondor]

Lights aren't too bad right now, since PGI did some netcode tweaking. Ravens especially used to be the Alpha mech because of ECM and horrid hit detection (it's still horrid, but at least you can hit them now). I used to prefer taking on an Awesome or Atlas in my Dragon over a Raven because I knew I stood a chance against the assault mechs... how messed up is that? It got so bad that the only way you were hitting a light mech was with SSRMs or maybe a lucky pulse laser shot.

Luckily they've really fixed up the lights, and I think they're pretty decent now for power. In groups they're a terror -as they should be- but individually, especially under group fire, they rip apart real fast.

One thing I have noticed about light mechs though is that a very good light mech pilot is absolutely deadly. It seems to me that pilot skill in a light mech has a greater effect on the overall performance of the mech more so than the other classes. IMO this isn't a bad thing since light mechs are hard to master and play effectively.

[jeffsw6]

brock0, on 29 March 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

It's not so much the hitting the lights, it's that they appear to dictate the battle because of the capture based nature of all the game modes.

This is sometimes true. It is most apparent when your team has 0 or 1 light, and your opponents have several; or if the lights on your team just don't capture anything.

Capturing resources is sometimes a thankless job. I try to remember to thank the lights on my team for spending their time running between resource nodes instead of shooting enemies.

Tezcatli, on 29 March 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

Right now the matchmaking could use some balancing around total tonnage imo. Since it's based solely off Elo as I understand it.

This would improve that problem of one team having 0 lights and the other one having 3 or 4. On a conquest game, the team with 0 lights is probably going to lose. In an assault game, who knows?

brock0, on 29 March 2013 - 07:15 PM, said:

The content here is expensive - not to say that I won't plunk some money down, but the prices seem steep.

2) ECM is just too good. There is no downside to running it save the mech space and weight

I don't think MWO is "too expensive," though I have spent $200 on it. I have a stable of mastered mechs (3 Atlas 3 Dragon) plus some other ones, equipment and armaments for all of them, etc. I could have got all these things without spending one penny if I was willing to grind out the needed CB, but I wasn't. I wanted it now so I purchased MC to buy my mechs.

Even the Hero mechs are not, at all, over-powered. And if you compare the amount of time and fun you get out of a $20 hero mech to a night out at a bar, MWO is a lot more entertainment for your dollar.

ECM does have disadvantages. It limits your mech choices. The Atlas D-DC doesn't have as many laser hardpoints as the other Atlas models. I wish it did, because I could use some more lasers! The ECM Raven can't use jump-jets. There are trade-offs for choosing an ECM mech.

I do not think it is over-powered. I think it's a good element of gameplay. But when I first got the game, I agreed with you. Now that I have played close to 1000 matches, I think ECM allows opponents to use surprise to their advantage, make missiles harder to target, etc. in beneficial ways. If you never got surprised by the enemy, the game would be pretty boring.

Oh, to your point about the camo customization costing MC, I have 15K MC sitting in my account right now, and none of my mechs have custom paint.

Why? Because the camo area in the mechlab is ******* hard to understand. I would spend some MC on painting my mechs if it weren't so damned hard to figure out how to use it.

[Sam Slade]

Light Mechs will take a ner when collisions and 'knockdown' are back.

[brock0]

I do realize that some of this can be alleviated with team-work, but for "fresh meat" that doesn't seem to be the norm in pug matches and I'm just trying to represent what it's like for the unwashed new player out there.

If ECM at least didn't rob you of information about your own team, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. If you don't stick close to your team, you're toast and it's much easier to lose track of where they are when the fur starts flying if they don't show up on your radar/hud.