124 replies to this topic

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

Ed Steele, on 19 May 2013 - 09:57 PM, said:

Wow, if playing a day or two worth of matches in a less-than-optimal trial mech, makes you "shiver in fear," then this game is not for you. Also, the "champion" trial mechs, have very good, proven loadouts, that are only hindered by not having the pilot skills maxed out. Again, this game is not hard to get into, there is no longer any repair or rearm, you can earn more than enough cbills to buy and upgrade a mech in about 20 to 25 matches with the cadet bonus. How is more handholding going to make the game better?

And in case you are wondering, I played my first 25 matches in a trial trebuchet, with no premium time and I bought myself a Jager DD with the money I earned and was able to put double heatsinks on it as soon as I bought it. Yes, I have spent money since then, but that was much later.

Most sane people won't be throwing any money at any free to play game untill they see they are going to enjoy it for a while, so they don't buy mechs with MC right after downloading the game. Many NEW player that don't know a thing about this game start to play MWO, and after several matches in trial mechs they say "WTF is this ****?", uninstall and never come back. That is because trial mechs suck. Period.
Now this is bad for two reasons: that players won't spend any money on this game ever, as they won't play it, and they will tell others that this game is not worth it.
It is said that it takes a thousand good impressions to undo a bad first impression

[Sol Fin]

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Ask the Devs #38

Gnadelwarz: Will there be a function in UI 2.0 to save Serveral Loadouts for the Same Chasis? Like 1 Brawler Loadout, 1 Sniper, 1 LRM Load Out for a Heavy Metal. So you can change loadouts quickly with 1-2 clicks.
A: This is under review and being decided on currently.

Seriously? "being decided"? For any level of competitive play it's a must-have option. Even for any level of comfortable playing it's a must-have option.

If to store loadouts locally, without any connection with the server - it's a very easy task that just requires one additional dialog in UI. With minimal serialization logic behind it.

So, please, don't "think" about it. Just do it!

[Mechteric]

Vaan, on 19 May 2013 - 09:21 PM, said:

Why devs didnt answer the question for poptarting issue? I believe this is 1 of the important issue too.

They've answered it in other posts, I believe it was stated they'll be adding some jump jet shake so that poptarts have to remain airborn longer to squeeze off an accurate shot. This leaves them open more to retaliation. It worked well in MWLL so its proven effective, just gotta wait for them to implement.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 20 May 2013 - 06:14 AM.

[Rashhaverak]

Thanks for the info. Great stuff in this weeks answers.

Really glad your not bending to the, "I keep losing to cap, please change the rules so I can win without changing my tactics," crowd.

Can't wait for the LRM, flamer and MG changes... Great patch week!

Five, six and seven player groups might have a future after all, could be the best news of all!

Keep up the great work, love the game!

[Tannhauser Gate]

Sol Fin, on 20 May 2013 - 01:16 AM, said:

Seriously? "being decided"? For any level of competitive play it's a must-have option. Even for any level of comfortable playing it's a must-have option.

If to store loadouts locally, without any connection with the server - it's a very easy task that just requires one additional dialog in UI. With minimal serialization logic behind it.

So, please, don't "think" about it. Just do it!

Oh you....

[-Muta-]

Krzysztof z Bagien, on 20 May 2013 - 12:15 AM, said:

Most sane people won't be throwing any money at any free to play game untill they see they are going to enjoy it for a while, so they don't buy mechs with MC right after downloading the game. Many NEW player that don't know a thing about this game start to play MWO, and after several matches in trial mechs they say "WTF is this ****?", uninstall and never come back. That is because trial mechs suck. Period.
Now this is bad for two reasons: that players won't spend any money on this game ever, as they won't play it, and they will tell others that this game is not worth it.
It is said that it takes a thousand good impressions to undo a bad first impression

Way too dramatic!!!!

I started to play with a trial mech and fell in love with the trebuchet and with that money I bought my first atlas then later on decided to be a light pilot .


The is always room for improvement however lets not be dramatic no biggie

[Deathlike]

Ed Steele, on 19 May 2013 - 09:57 PM, said:

Wow, if playing a day or two worth of matches in a less-than-optimal trial mech, makes you "shiver in fear," then this game is not for you. Also, the "champion" trial mechs, have very good, proven loadouts, that are only hindered by not having the pilot skills maxed out. Again, this game is not hard to get into, there is no longer any repair or rearm, you can earn more than enough cbills to buy and upgrade a mech in about 20 to 25 matches with the cadet bonus. How is more handholding going to make the game better?

You learn very little in a trial mech, other than "I die quickly". Unless you are not in the "recommended" trial mech (which is the Jenner Champion at the moment), you are asking for a very sizable handicap. Noone is asking for handholding.. we are asking that newbies have a chance to not be automatic punching bags because their trial mech is making it infinitely easier for everyone else to blow them up. Yes, PGI is working on it, but anyone who hasn't paid attention to the matter prior to this is not being realistic.

Besides, we have threads now of newbies wasting their cadet bonus away.. which doesn't surprise anyone. Heck, they don't know how long it lasts - they assume it's "the norm".

Edited by Deathlike, 20 May 2013 - 12:57 PM.

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

Mutaroc, on 20 May 2013 - 11:39 AM, said:

Way too dramatic!!!!

I started to play with a trial mech and fell in love with the trebuchet and with that money I bought my first atlas then later on decided to be a light pilot .


The is always room for improvement however lets not be dramatic no biggie

At least six of my friends reacted exactly like i described. And they all say they are not going to download MWO again, even when I say many things are much better now.

[Troggy]

A relative of mine tried about 5 matches with trial mechs and was entirely ready to quit. He had played MW2,3 and 4 in past.

I ended up grinding out the whole Cadet bonus for him so that he could start out with a mech that was playable.

They simply need to design 4-8 decent trial loadouts and rotate them permanently.

For example:

Flight one = 6 ML-Jenner, Hunchie SP, 2LL Gauss Dragon, Classic DDC build.

Flight two = ECM Commando, UAC5 and med las Cicada, LRM and Med Las Catapult with JJ, 4 PPC Stalker (or Highlander) (or Awesome)

Not necessarily FOTM builds or the "best" builds in common use. But, effective, balanced, role-warfare driven mechs. I suspect it would take the dev team very little time, and have a HUGE effect on perceived playability for new players. I kind of understand the argument that players should be able to buy what they try, but honestly, that makes it worse. People buying these things and thinking they are ok.

--
Troggy

[Myandriss]

Deathlike, on 20 May 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

You learn very little in a trial mech, other than "I die quickly". Unless you are not in the "recommended" trial mech (which is the Jenner Champion at the moment), you are asking for a very sizable handicap. Noone is asking for handholding.. we are asking that newbies have a chance to not be automatic punching bags because their trial mech is making it infinitely easier for everyone else to blow them up. Yes, PGI is working on it, but anyone who hasn't paid attention to the matter prior to this is not being realistic.

Besides, we have threads now of newbies wasting their cadet bonus away.. which doesn't surprise anyone. Heck, they don't know how long it lasts - they assume it's "the norm".

Actually, the first thing I learned in a Trial Mech was how to play. Shocking I know, and this was back before the Cadet Bonus when piloting a Trial Mech actually netted you less C-Bills per match. If people are raging over them, I gotta seriously wonder about them and not the game. I mean damn...how would they have handled what a lot of us went through if they're complaining about how it is now?

Before I even started to play, I read up on everything I could. Learned what to expect when I first started and what to expect later. If they had the training grounds available at the time, I probably would have spent some time with each trial to learn how it handled before playing an actual match.

Unfortunately, the problem here is that despite the resources and info being available, people tend not to utilize them and then wonder why the heck they aren't doing very well.

Yes, there was some learning on the fly, but once I got the hang of it, I was pretty damn dangerous in my trial of choice, the K-2. I was able to take on guys with fully outfitted custom mechs without any problem, because I learned what I was supposed to do, what each weapon on that mech could do and what it couldn't. I learned to stick with my teammates and what to watch for.

Short of adding in a tutorial mode, which I think is being worked on, I don't see how they could make the start any better. Especially with the training grounds. The real problem is, nobody bothers to take advantage of what's available and just jump in, expecting to be blowing up big mechs left and right.

[Thorqemada]

Almost nobody reads neither Manuals nor Forums - People expect a good, intuitive first time experience and if this is not delivered they go away to never come back.
Also the current Meta is the least fun of all Metas that occured throughout the beta phases i participated in and it must even be worse in a Trial that has Low Speed, Low Armor, Low Heat Dissipation, Low Alpha Weaponry.

Nobody likes to be a "Helpless Victim"!

[Ocaro]

I have to agree on what's being said. I tried to get friends into the game, knowing how fun it can be. Problem is, I'm a founder. I've been here since the start. They haven't.

Some never played MW games, some were fans. It didn't matter. Every single one left after 5-15 games. Trial mechs are just insanely bad. Yes, the cadet bonus is a welcome addition, just as are the champion variants. But it's not enough. It's only enough for people who took the extra effort to do some HEFTY research into what the "real game" is about.

The only resolution I can think of is have 2 separate queues. One for trials, one for owned mechs. Let the noobies blast each other off. Let them stay in the "Trial league" as long as they want. Before they think they're smart enough to build their own mech and join the "big boys". I don't know...slap some huge message to it like "You're buying your first mech. Note that this mech will be joining a playerbase of customized mechs only. Do so at your own risk."

Also, I really don't like how the engine optimisations are handled. As a founder, I paid for what I saw. I expected something out of the product. With promises about DX11 and further refined graphics, I expected improvement, not such huge compromises. This really made me feel betrayed and severely disappointed. Of course I expected changes as this is beta, but I didn't expect something so drastic. As a high-end user, I feel like a 2nd class citizen now.

But thanks for the constant weapon rebalances, UI improvements, all the design-specific refinement. Just don't sacrifice the technical side of things for it.

[Aidan McRae]

MavRCK, on 17 May 2013 - 12:12 PM, said:

Wow. Awesome. Can't wait for fall. But please let skill determine gameplay -- all this RNG is driving me nuts (heat override, UAC jamming, and now JJs? )

Disagree. There's a meeting place where skill and RNG work together in a wondrous harmony. I'd like that place, please. No COD with Robots, please.

[TheRuslan]

When will be hitboxes, mech appearance and armor in proprtion?

(cicada head 18 armor and hitbox size compare to catapult head 18 armor and it`s hitbox)

[Ashnod]

one of the disadvantages of the gauss rifle is the fact that it does have a minimum range >_>

[badkilik]

Until LRM's are fixed again after todays patch, theres no reason for me to play this anymore. Mastered an AWS-9M and what good does it do? Nothing, get blown to bits by LRM's because devs wont give it an ECM. What good is 82kph when your torso is the size of Texas, can't accelerate, have bad radar range, LASER only loadout and LRM's only seem to hit you in the torso? Makes the Awesome pointless and all my efforts this past month and a half for nothing. 60+ hours apparently doesn't mean much. Spending money doesn't help now either. I can't believe I wasted money on this game. Dev's, you lose a customer and I wont be recommending this game to anyone anytime soon. Good luck with this boat happy game.

[TheRuslan]

badkilik, on 21 May 2013 - 09:20 PM, said:

Until LRM's are fixed again after todays patch, theres no reason for me to play this anymore. Mastered an AWS-9M and what good does it do? Nothing, get blown to bits by LRM's because devs wont give it an ECM. What good is 82kph when your torso is the size of Texas, can't accelerate, have bad radar range, LASER only loadout and LRM's only seem to hit you in the torso? Makes the Awesome pointless and all my efforts this past month and a half for nothing. 60+ hours apparently doesn't mean much. Spending money doesn't help now either. I can't believe I wasted money on this game. Dev's, you lose a customer and I wont be recommending this game to anyone anytime soon. Good luck with this boat happy game.

This kind of issue is because they don´t see, that every mech has different appearance. They don´t even "know" how to distribute armor and internal structure sizes accordingly !

P.S. Got killed in catapult in 1 shot (headshot, only damage taken to mech)

[Morang]

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

N0V0CAIN: Will the Atlas D-DC's command console allow a 9th or 13th person to enter a match and take command in a match as a passenger?
A: No plans to do so. We’re looking at a more passive benefit, rather than a literal to the TT rules.

So much disappointment. I'm an advocate of this functionality. It can be good not because of TT rules, but by itself, adding more depth to the game and new dimension of player's experience.

[HighTest]

Morang, on 22 May 2013 - 06:06 AM, said:

So much disappointment. I'm an advocate of this functionality. It can be good not because of TT rules, but by itself, adding more depth to the game and new dimension of player's experience.

Agreed. For those of us that are members of a mech corps, it would be great to be able to be the 9th (or 13th) member in the field, calling out tactics and commands and targets, keeping the team in order. Realistically, they could probably build this off of the 'spectate' functionality already in the game, and just open up more map and command controls as if the mech was still alive. For the Atlas, you might just need to change the perspective to the right eye.

I suppose you could even recycle the same cockpit layout for the commander and just mirror it. And/or remove some of the details/controls to make it look more 'command-ish'.

Admittedly, this wouldn't necessarily appeal to the new player or typical PUG. But if you're used to dropping in a group anyway, and/or running 8v8 premades, this would be fantastic.

[PhoenixFire55]

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Adridos: What is the team's stance on the issue of "entry requirements" being raised?
Currently, for a mech to be usable, it needs to get upgraded by DHS, ES and have all it's efficiences skilled up, otherwise it is gimping itself in the match. There are already mentions of expanded pilot trees, epics and such and it may very well become a serious issue. Thus I would like to know the official stance on this.
A: This is entirely subjective. It depends at which level you play at. From my 1 in hundreds of thousands of player view, I can roll into a match with a stock Mech and be very competitive, and get lots of enjoyment. I may not be able to compete for 1^st place all the time, but I can usually place in the top 8 no sweat. Your skill and Elo rating will definitely drive the level of competitive play you will face, and therefore the requirement to bring a more efficient, upgraded `Mech to the match. This is working as intended, and plays nicely in with how a player’s skill and inventory evolve over time.

I liked this part. To have fun you have to suck. If you don't suck you can't have fun because you need to use cheese builds. This is working as intended? Sweet.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Mahws: Really happy to see the recent command chair post on weapon balancing, doubly so that we can expect them in the next patch. Any word on balancing changes to single heat sinks though? Would be good to see viable non-DHS builds.
A: This will be looked at again closer to or after launch.

Only way to reasonably balance things such as DHS, FF armor, XL engines, Artemis etc is to bring Repair & Rearm back along with the rest of economics you so willingly killed before.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Pencilboom: What do you guys feel about large weapons boating? And what are you guys planning to do to prevent them from creating game imbalances?
A: This is something that Paul is looking into currently and he will post a CC statement on his findings. We’re also exploring incentivizing players to balance out their BattleMechs better on a personal and team level in addition to small tuning changes.

When PPC is a better weapon for brawling then SRMs and LBXs no 'incentivizing' is gonna force people to use balanced builds.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Wispsy: At least on certain mechs (Jenner for one) SSRMs only hit the front ct, even if the mech is directly behind you you can die with full back armour. Is there any plans to change this at all considering how quickly they can kill lights right now?
A: Currently the SSRMs will randomly hit one of 8 bones on a Mech. The cluster of these bones is generally around the CT area. In addition to a large splash damage effect, and damage transfer – most of the damage is ending up on the CT, even though the missiles are actually hitting at different locations on the mech. It’s not actually a bug, rather a tuning fix to minimize splash damage. This tuning adjustment will go live in the first patch of June. Unfortunately, the fix was a tad late for the 21^st patch.

This is bull$hyt and you know it. SSRMs hit CT and CT only, all your 'bones' are apparently there. Hit boxes are screwed up on mechs like Jenner and Cicada its impossible not to hit front CT no matter where from you are shooting and no matter what weapons you are using. Getting shot in the back and getting front side damage is common for nearly all exsisting mechs as well.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Metafox: Do you have any future plans to accommodate groups of 5+ players who want to play together but are unable to fill a full 12-man?
A: Yes. We’re getting close to feeling confident in the matchmaker, which is the sole reason for not allowing it currently.

Matchmaker? Confident? Just lolz here.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

DeathofSelf: What is your reason behind the decision to not reintroduce collisions/knockdowns until after launch?
A: Priorities mostly. The same people needed to work on Collisions are needed to work on CW and UI 2.0.

Hire more people.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Lilslugger: Would it be possible to switch between 1st and 3rd person view when spectating another player after death rather than only seeing 1st person?
A: Probably.

So you can type for him in chat ... 'hey I see an Atlas ambushing you behind that wall'. Yeah great, just what we need.

Bryan Ekman, on 17 May 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Kmieciu: People using macros is a sign that the game controls could be improved. What's the official response for these ideas that have been floating around forums since closed beta?:
- changing ultra autocannons behavior: hold button for single fire (no jam, like regular autocannons), tap to double fire (a risk of jamming)
- chain fire with shorter delay between shots (usefull for AC2)
- ability to toggle TAG on/off (just like missile bay doors)
Anyone with a macro can already do all that, why not helping new players by giving everyone the same opportunities?
A: We’re going to look at any macros that may pose a balance issue and see if anything needs to be addressed in gameplay.

Macros should be banned. End of story. Encourage skill not macros.