161 replies to this topic

[Chavette]

Funkadelic Mayhem, on 29 May 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

next patch, hold your seahorses

Next patch, no. Other one after? Probably.

Thats 2nd patch of 7th month.

Edited by Chavette, 30 May 2013 - 08:16 AM.

[MeatForBrains]

If you look at what PGI has done and ignore what they say they are going to do the answer becomes obvious:


Push micro transaction paid content until the river starts running dry,every month.

More camo
More paints
More cockpit items
More heroes
Not enough heroes so lets make "champions" (most likely because of special paint designs of heroes)
More consumables
Add day/night version to make is seem like we have more maps then we do.

If you notice these are the priorities, not balance.


Every month like clockwork we get more things to spend money on, but things like balance, clan wars, community warfare, 12v12, things that would make it a great game get pushed back over and over.


If you look at how they bypassed kickstarter and look at the above model, this also becomes readily apparent:

Use that money to get the game going just enough to do the pay model, and push that until the revenue starts slacking.

Edited by MeatForBrains, 30 May 2013 - 07:19 AM.

[Cyke]

MeatForBrains, on 30 May 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

If you look at what PGI has done and ignore what they say they are going to do the answer becomes obvious:


Push micro transaction paid content until the river starts running dry,every month.

More camo
More paints
More cockpit items
More heroes
Not enough heroes so lets make "champions" (most likely because of special paint designs of heroes)
More consumables
Add day/night version to make is seem like we have more maps then we do.

If you notice these are the priorities, not balance.


Every month like clockwork we get more things to spend money on, but things like balance, clan wars, community warfare, 12v12, things that would make it a great game get pushed back over and over.


If you look at how they bypassed kickstarter and look at the above model, this also becomes readily apparent:

Use that money to get the game going just enough to do the pay model, and push that until the revenue starts slacking.

Maybe they could sell game balance via microtransactions!

Vote for missile fix!
Fix missiles..
- Yes?
- No?
500MC per vote!

[Rebas Kradd]

PGI is horribly understaffed and has been from the beginning. That's going to create delays. They're the manpower equivalent of a burger trailer-stand trying to match McDonald's traffic, and it doesn't help that they find new irritations with CryEngine every month. They're probably starting to regret ever having chosen that engine, assuming that there was anything better out there.

[Thuzel]

Rebas Kradd, on 30 May 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

PGI is horribly understaffed and has been from the beginning. That's going to create delays. They're the manpower equivalent of a burger trailer-stand trying to match McDonald's traffic, and it doesn't help that they find new irritations with CryEngine every month. They're probably starting to regret ever having chosen that engine, assuming that there was anything better out there.

They did have a different engine selected. They had some resources already built in the Unreal engine from the previous developer, but they scrapped that due to cost concerns and went with CryEngine instead. Smith and Tinker had already done some work in Unreal, and that is one of the major reasons MWO doesn't look like the original trailer.

This was mostly rumor, but from what I've read IGP screwed them on this. Apparently a lot of the founders fund was funneled into MWT instead of this game, and they've been dealing with that decision for some time. They've suffered reduced headcount, the engine switch, and probably a hundred other hardships because someone else is holding the purse-strings.

This is why it's important to distinguish between our gripes. For example, poor balancing decisions and bad customer communications can be pinned on PGI, while a reduced headcount would most likely be IGP's fault.

-- Edit --

Just to be clear though, those excuses have worn pretty thin. When I see hero mechs all over the field and see metric assloads of cockpit accessories while spectating, I can't help but think the money is flowing freely enough to hire a new body or two.

Edited by Thuzel, 30 May 2013 - 08:45 AM.

[BlackWidow]

Hammertrial, on 29 May 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

Pretty sure you can point exclusively to the netcode problems for the delay.

Exackery. That and the extreme unplanned amount of time the devs and QA had to spend squashing the HUD bugs.

[jakucha]

jeffsw6, on 29 May 2013 - 06:21 PM, said:

I disagree with their priorities and I think weapon balance can be far better for minimal time investment, but I am not without hope.

Weapon balance, something that can't be fleshed out until the netcode is up to par. That combined with unexpected, engine-deep bugs delayed things quite a bit.

[jeffsw6]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Weapon balance, something that can't be fleshed out until the netcode is up to par.

That's not true. We all know the came could be significantly improved with some trivial tweaks to damage, heat, ammo/ton, and range figures. Might these values need later modification as HSR / netcode changes come? Yes.

Does that mean they shouldn't spend A COUPLE HOURS re-thinking easily-modified game parameters to stop the player-bleed pending those more complex evolutions in the game? No

[jakucha]

jeffsw6, on 30 May 2013 - 09:34 AM, said:

That's not true. We all know the came could be significantly improved with some trivial tweaks to damage, heat, ammo/ton, and range figures. Might these values need later modification as HSR / netcode changes come? Yes.

Does that mean they shouldn't spend A COUPLE HOURS re-thinking easily-modified game parameters to stop the player-bleed pending those more complex evolutions in the game? No

They have done small tweaks. They haven't done much dedicated heavy delving into weapon balance though. The only group fully ready are lasers. Ballistic state rewind (ppc included) is only something like half implemented and missiles aren't at all. I have to agree with them that there's little point to altering weapons much further until those ones are hitting as they should.

As for heat, I think that needs another layer of complexity/reworking in general to stop alpha spamming, something touched upon beyond a single weapon.

Edited by jakucha, 30 May 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[Franchi]

Thuzel, on 30 May 2013 - 07:09 AM, said:

It's here. It arrived when PGI started selling in-game christmas lights that cost significantly more than the real thing.

I remember that, I made a thread about it

http://mwomercs.com/...the-space-poor/

Awe the good old days, before I figured out what was going on here and decided trolling was a better use of my time than actually trying to be constructive.

Edited by Franchi, 30 May 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[jeffsw6]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

They have done small tweaks. They haven't done much dedicated heavy delving into weapon balance though. The only group fully ready are lasers.

No, they haven't. They make major changes to one or a few weapons and then leave them alone, even if these changes are clearly wrong (too much or too little.) This is the clear pattern they follow again and again.

If they made small tweaks, you might have seen several small changes to PPC heat, LB10X-AC spread, LRM damage, splash, arc, or velocity; modifications to LPL or SPL, Gauss Rifle ammo/ton or range adjustments, etc. None of these things have happened. And then there are Flamers and Machine guns... ECM field range ... target acquisition speed ... it goes on and on.

They have never once made incremental changes with the intent of getting closer to right. They guess, usually badly, and then they dig their heels in.

[jakucha]

jeffsw6, on 30 May 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:

No, they haven't. They make major changes to one or a few weapons and then leave them alone, even if these changes are clearly wrong (too much or too little.) This is the clear pattern they follow again and again.

If they made small tweaks, you might have seen several small changes to PPC heat, LB10X-AC spread, LRM damage, splash, arc, or velocity; modifications to LPL or SPL, Gauss Rifle ammo/ton or range adjustments, etc. None of these things have happened. And then there are Flamers and Machine guns... ECM field range ... target acquisition speed ... it goes on and on.

They have never once made incremental changes with the intent of getting closer to right. They guess, usually badly, and then they dig their heels in.

MG and flamer are definitely small tweaks. It's simple to me: trying to balance weapons that are broken in such a way that each hit doesn't even guarantee it will register is a waste of time. It leads to a much bigger chance of it breaking the weapon whenever they do get around to fixing their netcode.

Edited by jakucha, 30 May 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[MeatForBrains]

Rebas Kradd, on 30 May 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

PGI is horribly understaffed and has been from the beginning. That's going to create delays. They're the manpower equivalent of a burger trailer-stand trying to match McDonald's traffic, and it doesn't help that they find new irritations with CryEngine every month. They're probably starting to regret ever having chosen that engine, assuming that there was anything better out there.

Being understaffed is not the issue, the issue is horrendous project management skills, which would take into account your available resources, cost, scope, risk, schedule, etc. which of these items do you see coming through clearly? At the very minimum the schedule and scope have been destroyed. What is the endgame here?

[Thuzel]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

MG and flamer are definitely small tweaks.

[...] a waste of time. [...]

Ironically, the MG and flamer were weapons that could have actually benefited from the typically big change.

You know what's a big waste of time? Spending 6 freaking months trying to balance broken game mechanics built around a single astoundingly over-powered item. In fact, here's a test, I won't even name the item but I'm betting everyone here will know what it is. That's not a good thing.

We could have been working on all kinds of other things for half a year. Instead, we've been chasing our tail over something that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. It's just possible that this sort of thing is a major reason the game is extremely behind schedule.

[jakucha]

Thuzel, on 30 May 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

Ironically, the MG and flamer were weapons that could have actually benefited from the typically big change.

You know what's a big waste of time? Spending 6 freaking months trying to balance broken game mechanics built around a single astoundingly over-powered item. In fact, here's a test, I won't even name the item but I'm betting everyone here will know what it is. That's not a good thing.

We could have been working on all kinds of other things for half a year. Instead, we've been chasing our tail over something that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. It's just possible that this sort of thing is a major reason the game is extremely behind schedule.

So you think ECM is the sole reason the game is delayed, not deep cryengine bugs, nor prolonged netcode issues? I know people dislike ECM, but I don't think it's quite that evil.

Edited by jakucha, 30 May 2013 - 10:32 AM.

[Thuzel]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

So you think ECM is the sole reason the game is delayed, not deep cryengine bugs, nor prolonged netcode issues? I know people dislike ECM, but I don't think it's quite that evil.

I don't believe the delay and the state of game balance are related. I'm fairly certain the devs are working regardless of balance, and balance work continues regardless of development (in most cases).

That being said, spending half a year balancing one thing has most definitely hindered us in that area. Thus, the current balance being pretty atrocious is at least partially caused by ECM and all of the poor decisions that have come with it. That work could certainly have been used on other items.

[Deathlike]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

So you think ECM is the sole reason the game is delayed, not deep cryengine bugs, nor prolonged netcode issues? I know people dislike ECM, but I don't think it's quite that evil.

Actually, ECM only shows true incompetence of identifying problems in the design.

It also serves as a tool used by most terrible answers from Bryan and Paul about the state of balance and the game.

[New Day]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

They have done small tweaks. They haven't done much dedicated heavy delving into weapon balance though. The only group fully ready are lasers. Ballistic state rewind (ppc included) is only something like half implemented and missiles aren't at all. I have to agree with them that there's little point to altering weapons much further until those ones are hitting as they should.

As for heat, I think that needs another layer of complexity/reworking in general to stop alpha spamming, something touched upon beyond a single weapon.

Do tell how the flamers, small lasers, small pulse lasers, medium pulse lasers, large pulse lasers and arguably PPCs are fully ready.
And since when isn't BSR fully implemented?

[Chemie]

Garth (or someone) posted back in January that they were running 12v12 on their internal server. Then, in March, we are told "less than 60 days away". So that is 5 months worth of "testing".

This worries me because it means it is not as simple as "change the queue size" and likely they are having issues with server, netcode, lag, etc. So when they do release it, we can then expect 2-6 weeks of a mess.

5 months for one feature...what exactly do we expect they can get done for CW in the next 3 months? ouch.

[xRaeder]

All I know is that PGI should be ashamed of the game they've made. I've never played such an unbalanced mess of a beta.