318 replies to this topic

[BlackYoshi1230]

Aww... no F___ Yeah option?

Though seriously, when I play NetMech for Mech2 (yes, there's a handful of us still playing), I do love the dynamic of stock matches (Clash of the Assaults, anyone?), and the sense that not only do you have to adapt to potentially unfamiliar equipment, but also adding some tactical forethought (having to compensate for heat, cover, and "weapons you should use at X range").

I am all up for a stock only mode, because right now, I'm dead sick of jackrabbit/Cobra Assault Cannon superiority, and if someone can do it right, we can not force new players into the field having to deal with the custom builds and quitting before their cadet bonuses dry up (that is, theoretically).

[C E Dwyer]

NRP, on 28 April 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Why should I take the thread seriously when the only poll options are "Yes"?

I can't imagine why anyone would want to roll in a stock mech. As the Trial Mechs show, they are absolute garbage. Customizing mechs to suit individual preferences is the great thing about MWO. Without it, MWO loses a lot of its appeal, at least for me.

Because people want to fight in stock mechs against other stock mechs so they can actually play mech warrior, and not this watered down min/max twitcher stompy robot game.

PGI have given us methadone when we want to full crack

[ExtremeA79]

I like to have a stock game mode.
THAT would be awesome.

[Gremlich Johns]

NRP, on 28 April 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

I can't imagine why anyone would want to roll in a stock mech. As the Trial Mechs show, they are absolute garbage.

Obvious you do not have a history with the MW franchise. The Planetary and Ladder Leagues all had, from time to time, stock mech drops. The better pilots were successful in either a stock or custom mech. And trial mechs are not garbage, you're just a bad pilot who can't work with what he's thrown into. I have had great success piloting Trial mechs and wish MW:O would have a tournament using just those for pilots who want a challenge. Get a team all piloting Trial mechs and I bet they will be successful.

Think you're the **** in MW:O with a fully customized mech? Try your skill out with a stock configuration. Drop the hubris and learn to be humble.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 13 May 2013 - 04:50 PM.

[Deathlike]

Gremlich Johns, on 12 May 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

Think you're the **** in MW:O with a fully customized mech? Try your skill out with a stock configuration. Drop the hubris and learn to be humble.

So, you think the JM6-S is fine?
http://mwomercs.com/...rial-mech-ever/

It is true the stock matches have been around in leagues... but when you look at MWO as a whole, most stock builds in the current system are atrocious for the heat system that is in use.

When you see them actively try to replace the crap trial mechs with something else (the Jenner Champion in the current release), it's not a coincidence (outside of the future moneymaking aspect).

[Gremlich Johns]

If MW:O made canon stock variants, maybe people wouldn't shy away from them. I'll grant you that the trials mechs are not the best ever, but if everybody is in one during a match, the playing field should be level enough, especially if tonnage matching were used (no deviation between the teams of, say, 60 tons)

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 13 May 2013 - 04:50 PM.

[Tennex]

this would be SO easy to implement

[Corvus Antaka]

Tennex, on 12 May 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

this would be SO easy to implement

Yes but stock mechs make no money. no customization. no cbill sink for DHS. or Endo/ferro. or buying new guns.

Shove rookies into "Crap" stock mechs, and suddenly they are buying MC and grinding away to tweak their mechs out.

it is a good money making system, but it sucks for making a good video game.

I've got 30 mechs now, and they all have DHS. 35 mcbills just on heatsinks. more grind, more MC spent buying mechs to avoid said grind.

stock takes all that away, AND makes the gameplay better.

what a nasty little conundrum PGI has created.

This mech game has less options and features than mech3 or mech4, AND it costs about 4 times as much or more.

I don't blame PGI - the F2P market has evolved as has the gaming market. if they made a normal mech4 style game it wouldnt generate near the revenue.

But applying their income and power to giving us basic options like stock only gamemodes or training simulators or *gasp* respawn matches, or CTF...you know, all the fun stuff we had for 20 years that let the community keep this entire bloody thing alive and full of passsion so PGI could get 5 million bucks from founders to build a new mech game...

well, if indeed this game does fail look no further than the oversight of the basics we see here.

stock gamemode right now would have saved this game while half the playerbase abondoned it due to ECM or pop-sniping.

[Deathlike]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 May 2013 - 05:43 AM, said:

stock gamemode right now would have saved this game while half the playerbase abondoned it due to ECM or pop-sniping.

I've always regarded stock mode as a niche mode... primarily emphasizing the few good stock builds vs the overwhelmingly many bad ones.

The population that would benefit from this would be vastly smaller than people claim to be. It is would very likely be the size of the number of newbies that start playing this game... it's not that huge. I'm not against having more options (stock being a classic one), but it's not the one people make it out to be to keep a game going.

Even a respawn mode would get people back interested in this game...

[Roland]

Ya, this seems like a reasonable suggestion.

I don't know how many folks would actually play such a game, but it'd definitely add some utility to a number of mechs, which are generally useless when custom mechs make those variants inherently sub-optimal.

[Corvus Antaka]

Deathlike, on 13 May 2013 - 06:05 AM, said:

I've always regarded stock mode as a niche mode... primarily emphasizing the few good stock builds vs the overwhelmingly many bad ones.

The population that would benefit from this would be vastly smaller than people claim to be. It is would very likely be the size of the number of newbies that start playing this game... it's not that huge. I'm not against having more options (stock being a classic one), but it's not the one people make it out to be to keep a game going.

Even a respawn mode would get people back interested in this game...

Probably Deathlike. But back in mech3 & 4 we had quite heavy stock mech only populations - enough to take every unit in the btech universe and give it a good 20-50 pilots per unit at the very least. Stock mechs are only worse because the open class option even exists, otherwise they would be fine and balance a lot easier achievable.

I like open class, but the options of past mech games are exactly what kept them going so long - just like energy only matches, or the rarer ballistic or missile only matches.

tonnage limits, etc where all used by every league that ran solid universe based gameplay to great effect. PGI needs to bring this stuff into MWO to make it more attractive over the long term. I'm already bored to death of open class, you can only boat ac/20/ppc/gauss/FOTM for so long before the entire experience becomes really ungratifying and incredibly boring - imho the game becomes much to easy and cookie cutter.

If PGI can't find a way to give us balanced mixed mechs the game will devolve into pretty close to what it is now - alpha strike warrior online where coring the CT in 2-3 hits is all that matters, and the mechs and loadouts best suited to do that will win.

This is why a lot of us want stock mechs as an option, because it is much harder to run mechs with SHS, limited ammo and weapons, and the choices of what you field are much more interesting.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 13 May 2013 - 09:59 AM.

[Lord of All]

Not only is this a great Idea. Choose a mech and drop with stock loadout.

But this will also act as a gauge for PGI to determine game balance Issues.

all PGI has to do is monitor the amount of players choosing stock only and if it starts rising then the game is out of balance.

Not to mention the N00bs will find themselves in a more level playing field. I've had Friends I turned onto this leave as they were crushed to often and too quickly. No-one fault except probably the elo system.

This will also have the added benefit Of keeping Veteran players that quit because they can't take the imbalance anymore.

[Red squirrel]

In the name of the squirrels I approve of this suggestion.

[Deathlike]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 May 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

Probably Deathlike. But back in mech3 & 4 we had quite heavy stock mech only populations - enough to take every unit in the btech universe and give it a good 20-50 pilots per unit at the very least. Stock mechs are only worse because the open class option even exists, otherwise they would be fine and balance a lot easier achievable.

I was there for them... and it was never my cup of tea. I fondly remember a few good stock configs in MW3.. the Madcat-D, and the Thor-C. For MW4, I wasn't much into that either, but I do recall the Shadowcat and Uziel being alright...

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tonnage limits, etc where all used by every league that ran solid universe based gameplay to great effect. PGI needs to bring this stuff into MWO to make it more attractive over the long term. I'm already bored to death of open class, you can only boat ac/20/ppc/gauss/FOTM for so long before the entire experience becomes really ungratifying and incredibly boring - imho the game becomes much to easy and cookie cutter.

I'm unsure how popular that would be... not that I wouldn't use or try it all out. Remember that this will indirectly affect the queue, by splitting the player base.. but with the player base thinning as it is, it probably wouldn't split it significantly, but perhaps increase the change of pace (imagine if a match were ballistics and missiles only...)

Quote

If PGI can't find a way to give us balanced mixed mechs the game will devolve into pretty close to what it is now - alpha strike warrior online where coring the CT in 2-3 hits is all that matters, and the mechs and loadouts best suited to do that will win.

I'm more concerned about balancing the variants themselves (vs each other for the most part, like the Spider) than worrying about the meta... since a lot of it has to do with the current balance that is going to be addressed in due time.

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This is why a lot of us want stock mechs as an option, because it is much harder to run mechs with SHS, limited ammo and weapons, and the choices of what you field are much more interesting.

I would suggest that you compile a solid list of variants that would be suitable for stock, because I can already tell you that more than 50% are not viable for stock play. Also you have to factor in that you would need full access to all the mechs to have enough people to even attempt stock mech play (which, I assume UI 2.0 would address, but I'm very skeptical as it is). With what we have now, a stock mech game would be underwhelming and disappointing out of the gate and that would be "time wasted" and whined about by others.

Edited by Deathlike, 13 May 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[MeatyMutawings]

well a stock mode would mean that most people would just have to use those few stock mechs with builds that doesn't complete suck. Those who wanna fool around would just get completely rolled. This also cannot be done on a technicality level with the mechbay and matchmaking that we have, and how difficult it will be to regulate this game mode.

[Lord of All]

MeatyMutawings, on 14 May 2013 - 05:46 PM, said:

well a stock mode would mean that most people would just have to use those few stock mechs with builds that doesn't complete suck. Those who wanna fool around would just get completely rolled. This also cannot be done on a technicality level with the mechbay and matchmaking that we have, and how difficult it will be to regulate this game mode.

W0w, I don't think you have a clue what your talking about.

[Lord of All]

Niko Snow, on 17 May 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Seems like an interesting idea. If ever implemented, it might take a while to queue a match since most players seem to be tuners at heart.

Not if all trial mechs were auto qued to the stock mode.

It would make trying out trial mechs more fun as well.

Or the matchmaker could just balance stock and "Tuned" as a filler if there aren't enough for a match. And the filler modded mechs should be added with the lowest ELO rated added first.

Edited by Lord of All, 17 May 2013 - 11:04 AM.

[TheForce]

Niko Snow, on 17 May 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

Seems like an interesting idea. If ever implemented, it might take a while to queue a match since most players seem to be tuners at heart.

if we had a stock queue, private matches, and a lobby, there would be more than enough action. there would also be organized leagues/games to ensure a variety of mechs are used.

I've spent over $1600 on this game (i bought a new PC for it), i have more money to spend, but i'm not spending any and i haven't played in a month. i'm done.

PGI is losing money from me, and all of the other battletech/mechwarrior fans that feel like this game is "GenericRobotWarrior Online."

[Surtr]

I hadn't seen this before posting my Puretech Society thread. I would love a way to run stock matches through the client, but I say why wait! We can simulate it ourselves! I also recently found out about Semi-Stock Saturdays, but I say lets make it more formal, get some dedicated teams from some of the bigger Units and Corps out there and make a league.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Was about to vote yes, but then saw the more affirmative yes. Vote went that way.

Since the poll is a petition, I don't see an issue with its formulation.

As far as the age-old complaint that a canon-variant only mode would lead to a select number of chassis being optimal... That's nothing that some soft stat balancing or weapon balancing can't fix. Indeed, it seems to me that it'd be easier to balance those than to balance an entire weapon system in the current system.

The only concern I have is the lack of a rapid means of resetting to stock on a 'Mech that has already been customized. I'd love a button that just resets everything and bills me for any missing parts.