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I'll start by saying that I'm very impressed with the lack of warping and general hit detection consistency since I last played. Before, a Jenner could just run around you zapping all over the place and shooting it did nothing, so everyone relied on streaks or lasers to at least do some damage. With the addition of the (still pretty damn ridiculous) ECM, lights with ECM were basically undefeatable. I still don't understand how so many people have such high 300+ pings in this game, I live in a crappy apartment complex where I share my internet with the whole building at university and my ping is in the 60s or so. My ping to EU is still around 110... do we really have like 50% player pop coming from china or australia? This isn't the devs fault though, and they've done a good job, at least in my experience, at allowing me to hit "lagging" targets accurately.
Okay, so I'll just jump right in here.
[b]Geist Null: By the number of pink snordies I’ve seen in the field, I’d say the hero mech before c-bill variants was a success. do you plan on continuing that? Cause I would love to get a hero orion and hero hermes II to grind with the bonus before the c-bill models. When is hermes II coming out?[/b] A: The next two Hero `Mechs will be designs from already released content. We may see a return to this model in Summer.
I have to admit, as a founder I'm pretty irked at Hero mech stats. I paid $60 into a game that was entirely unproven just on my hopes that it would be worthwhile, and I stuck it out and never retracted my founder status even when they were offering refunds. My single founders mech, which I can't even name, gets 25% C-bill bonus... yet the new Hero mechs get 30%. Why? I could have easily saved my 60 bucks and spent only 20 and gotten a Hero mech or two, both of which make more c-bills than my founder. I know I have MC leftover from my founders package, but it's still ********.
[b]PanzerMagier: Will the Yen Lo Wang ever get it's claws/hatchet?[/b] [b]Source:http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Yen-Lo-Wang[/b] A: When and/or if we do melee.
I really hope this is a big if, we are just now getting over the lag/hitbox stupidity. I don't want to have some glitcher running around in the round 2-hitting people with a giant axe. This isn't armored core.
[b]Phylum: Can the excess heat damage components inside the mech and reduce their capacity?[/b] [b]Ex: engine losing 10% power, 5% longer recharge times for weapons and so on.[/b] A: It’s possible, however we do not have any immediate plans to support this.
Please do this. I'm sure that this response, "possible," is their nice way of saying no, but I'd really love to have something like this, similar to the table top heat scale (reduced movement speed, maybe cockpit fire, small % recharge penalty might work but no more than 5%).
[b]Ghost Badger: Has PGI considered matching the armor values to the cosmetics, shape, size of the mechs? For example, more armor on the 'shield' arm of a centurion, or the shield shoulder/arms of an Awesome, or the finned/side torsos of a Jagermech? Conversely, less side torso armor on mechs with smaller side torsos, like Catapults and Stalkers?[/b] A: No plans currently, as the armor values are derived initially from the table top rules.
And it should stay like this.
[b]Metafox: SSRMs and LRMs appear to share the same locking function, even to the point where Artemis benefits both indiscriminately. Are there any plans to decouple the two systems and tweak them individually?[/b] A: No plans at the moment.
I'm fine with this, but why can't I fire my Streak SRM's dumbfire like every single other mechwarrior title? I don't care if the spread or do **** damage, I should be able to dumbfire them just as I can LRM's.
[b]ThinkTank: Are there any plans to add tonnage and critical space as a component of Cool Shot? If not, can you please explain the in-game mechanism that provides the temperature reduction? i.e. water or another liquid or a gas based temperature reduction device.[/b] A: No plans. I’ll let David invent some “tech” description.
The way this worked before was that you "flushed out" the hot coolant in your mech before it had time to cool down. This was risky as it meant you didn't have that coolant anymore (now a gas in the atmosphere) so you dissipated heat more slowly after flushing. However in this game, flushing coolant doesn't actually effect your normal passive heat dissipation rate, so I have no idea how they're going to explain this. Should've done it as I said here, then it'd put a little more skill into it rather than people just spamming cool shots at the beginning of a round (as you'd suffer the rest of the round with less coolant).
[b]Perspicatron: Do you have plans to implement active/passive sensors? I think that if every mech had a limited "stealth" mode there would be more use for TAG/BAP/Narc and it might balance the fact that only a select few mechs can mount ECM.[/b] A: Yes. No ETA.
This should be a priority. It's also pretty stupid that only certain mechs can mount ECM, and even more stupid that BAP does absolutely nothing in game against ECM. I mean, whose idea was it that you have to counter ECM with another ECM? Terrible.
[b]Edweird: Are there any plans in motion you can tell us about in regards to limited area of effect 'mech explosions when they get destroyed as in previous MechWarrior titles? Will this not deter going into the silly hugging fests and add a level of consideration as well as make flocks of light 'mechs swarming over a single one think twice before they commit? This might work well with knockdowns once they are implemented.[/b] A: We’ve chosen not to go the route of exploding cores.
THANK GOODNESS. Those stackpole explosions were terrible.
[b]Tesunie: Are we to expect any kind of special ammo for weapon systems? In particular, I'm asking about Thunder LRM ammo. I think it'd be nice to predict enemy movements and blind fire these Thunder LRMs to set up a quick mine field on the ground.[/b] A: No ETA.
I was hoping they'd do this too, but they said earlier that they had no plans to implement different ammo types so I'd assume Swarm/Thunder LRM as well as Spread/Single LBX ammo will not ever make it into this game.
[b]Big Giant Head: Have you considered introducing crouch mode? And if so, are there going to be limitations of mechs that can crouch, or it has to be an upgrade like endo-steel and artemis or module (gyro module)?[/b] A: It has been discussed internally, however no formal design work has been done.
I hope they do this. It wouldn't be too ridiculous, and probably wouldn't really do very much, but I was a fan of it in the older ones for trying to stay behind cover or perching up in a crevice to snipe. Since you can't walk while crouched, it definitely has enough disadvantages where it wouldn't change the balance at all.
[b]BitMonger505: Are there any plans to release a native 64 bit executable?[/b] A: Possibly.
Also would be very useful. I mean, the engine can already do it and for ****'s sake, it's 2013. I'd bet a wide majority of users are either on x64 now or will be in the next 2 years or less.
[b]Karma Police: why not give us the abilty to shoot down LRMs with MGs and lasers?[/b] A: Possibly.
I hope not, or at least if allowed the LRM's need to move at a MUCH higher velocity, As it stands now I could shoot down every missile in an LRM-20 barage by sweeping my ERLL's across it because they move so slow. If this gets added, they need to adjust LRM's heavily first otherwise it will be terribly half-assed.
[b]DocBach: Are there any plans of increasing the function of other information warfare tools such as Beagle Active Probe or the Narc Beacon?[/b] A: Yes, we are reviewing them now.
Thank you. I've had BAP equipped for like 30 rounds before I realized it has literally no functionality or advantage whatsoever. Why put the item in the game this early then? Stupid.
And now one final issue I see as a huge problem that was implemented as a temporary fix for lagging hitboxes, but should now be repealed: engine size limits. Now that the netcode has been relatively normalized, it's totalyl unecessary to have this limit in place. I hope that the devs will revisit this topic and revert to the previous engine system. I mean, if I want to build a hunchback that has a 300XL, why shouldn't I be allowed to? I can perform a similar function with the Trebuchet I know, but that's not the point. I'm sure some will be opposed as they fear a return of the Swayback, but hey, we have 6x PPC Stalkers running around right now so it can't be any worse than that.
Another small issue, the new thermal vision sucks. Nightvision is fine now but it was fine before as well, it's just an aesthetic difference. Thermal now has extremely low range with no new advantages... at least let me pick white-hot or black-hot, on the snow maps everything is grey anyway and defeats the whole purpose.
EDIT: Please no third person. It gives an unfair advantage and you can bet the jump sniping will become exponentially worse if you can just see over a hill without going over it.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the dev responses. Overall I'm pretty impressed with how much progress has been made on the game in the past few months since I last played, but it definitely needs some work (for example, I played 3 rounds in a row where the entire enemy team had ECM and only won because of it. No single item should do that).
Edited by lonewolfsx, 02 May 2013 - 08:53 AM.
