40 replies to this topic

[XX Sulla XX]

Just reading some of the hate on the forums and I cant believe I am the only one still having fun. So I made a poll to find out.

Any way let me know if you are having fun. And if you are not having fun exactly why you are not. What would be the perfect version of the game for you?

[jakucha]

Polls seems a bit biased if I'm honest.

[BillyM]

Balance is very broken, sadly... We need weapon mount restrictions and more attention to balancing mech hitboxes...

--billyM

[El Bandito]

I have 10 hours of free time per day ATM. 6+ hours are spent on the internet and MWO forums. Only 30 minutes are spent on actually playing MWO--2 games most--only for getting some C-Bills.

I stopped having fun. Even actually going through the login process is a chore for me. Most of the time I just close the launcher without finishing the login.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 July 2013 - 08:38 AM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Your welcome to suggest more options for the poll

The game does need work although not sure I want the mount restrictions.

El Bandito why whats the exact problem?

[El Bandito]

XX Sulla XX, on 14 July 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

El Bandito why whats the exact problem?

1. Months of playing the same death-match is getting old.

2. PPCs, PPCs everywhere.jpg. Lack of variety is making the game even more monotonous. Not to mention the overall balance is far from ideal.

3. Balance changes are so few and so infrequent, there is nothing much to look forward to--or rather, there is not much concrete changes we can look forward to. PGI seems to do better on selling MC items than doing actual balancing.

4. Pugs against Pre-mades. They should have separate queues.

Edited by El Bandito, 14 July 2013 - 09:32 AM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Agree it would help having more match modes and community warfare etc. And hopefully they can get the balance a little better. It will be interesting to see what the heat changes and SRM buff do. But even now you can have success without just using PPCs. Or at least in my elo bracket you can. Although a lot of it does have to do with the mech you are using.

[Felbombling]

I would have voted, but the only answer that comes close to applying to me sounds wrong. Some people read the forums and see complaints as just that... someone whining that the game isn't the way they think it should be. I often see those same threads as people who see a great game being held back from being amazing. You may be having fun with MechWarrior: Online in the current state, but you'd have to be wearing rose tinted glasses to not see that the game could be tenfold better.

[XX Sulla XX]

Stagger feel free to suggest another option for the pole. And I agree it could be much better. Maybe difference is I think it will be better?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I have lots of fun, otherwise I'd find another game to play except right after patches to see if it was fun again.

That said, there are plenty of things that still need work.

[Unbound Inferno]

I trudge through matches of bad games and PPC spam for a rare good one.

Then I get bored and play something else.

[Felbombling]

XX Sulla XX, on 14 July 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Stagger feel free to suggest another option for the pole. And I agree it could be much better. Maybe difference is I think it will be better?

I would have voted for the "I stopped playing a long time ago and just come here to complain." option, but that really isn't true for someone trumpeting the shortcomings of the current core mechanics, now is it? If someone comes here after deciding never to play the game again in an effort just to complain about something they have no future investment in, they're outright crazy. The people who still post on the forums, despite not playing currently, are diehard fans of the canon and franchise that are hoping their suggestions get taken seriously by the development team. I think the word 'complain' in your poll is slightly misguided. I would also like to say that I, too, feel the game will get better... but it will not be via weapon value tweaks. It will be though a major adjustment to some of the core game mechanics to attack weapon boating at the root.

[XX Sulla XX]

Hmm Stagger not sure they will ever do major adjustments to game mechanics. I assume you mean something like convergence or changing the hard point system.

[Tennex]

i'm here(the forums) mostly for anticipation of content and change.

but to be honest i probably spend more time on the forums than the actual game. take from that what you will.

[Felbombling]

XX Sulla XX, on 14 July 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

Hmm Stagger not sure they will ever do major adjustments to game mechanics. I assume you mean something like convergence or changing the hard point system.

Many players posting suggestions come up with one or two issues that need to be fixed. I think the game has multiple issues that play off one another at the core game mechanic level. One problem creates another problem… which leads to a bigger problem. So when PGI comes up with weapon tweaks, such as lowering the heat on the PPC from 10 to 8, for example, it is fixing nothing about the PPC that was a problem in the first place. That change is in fact making the PPC more desirable than the Large Laser, based on weapon table values. Ok… so people see that the PPC is now better than the Large Laser and start to boat the PPC instead of the Large Laser. Ultimately, what was accomplished?
In no particular order, you could point to the following issues as hindering weapon balance and load out balance in Mechwarrior: Online.

• MechLab Freedom is an issue because there are weak engine restrictions. The way the game was designed for table top play, you had to make significant investment in engine upgrades if you wanted to go faster in the form of full movement points. That would be a jump in engine rating based on tonnage factor. Say a Cataphract that went 64km/h but wanted to go faster. In the TT game it would have to jump from a 280 rated engine to a 350 rated engine. That is a heavy chunk of tonnage to commit to. In MechWarrior: Online, players are able to shoehorn larger or smaller engines into their chassis to the half-ton. That extra flexibility is counter to the difficult Mech design process from the table top game.
  
• Weapon reload/recycle times are fast… sometimes as much as three times faster than the table top canon source material allows. This is an issue because they currently place more damage down range than the table top armour values were designed to absorb. Even with doubled armour values in play, the reality of faster rate of fire and weapon convergence quickly overwhelms that armour buff.
  
• Ammunition values per ton are insufficient when feeding the fast firing weapons, trying to defeat the doubled armour values. When players allocate more tonnage to ammunition than they really should be required to, it is a drain on tonnage that could otherwise be allocated to a few more weapons, heat sinks or other equipment. Further, when a player sees the investment they have already put towards a certain weapon system, say the LRM 15, boating often results because they see they may as well go ‘all in’ on the LRM launcher, rather than start allocating spare tonnage to other weapons that may/may not require their own ammunition. This would be why you may see an Atlas running around sporting 3x LRM 15s.
  
• The heat system is a minor disaster. The heat pool is large enough to allow for multiple Alpha Strikes of heavy weapons that would otherwise shutdown most Mechs in Table Top play. To get off one such Alpha Strike is ok, but to get off two or three before heat management comes into play is almost inexcusable for a game looking for balance. Worse still, it allows players to all but ignore support weapons in favour of one more heavier weapon with front loaded damage. Without heat penalties or a serious heat deterrent, what is the downside to adding another heavy weapon? A five second shutdown period?
  
• The hard point system could use some tweaking, because without restrictions Mechs lose their flavour and roles. You need only look as far as the K2 Catapult to see machine guns being replaced by Gauss Rifles or AC/20s. How many PPCs now currently occupy slots previously designed for Medium Lasers in the meta game right now? When I looked at the Victor artwork when it was released, I immediately imagined an XL engine replacing the standard engine and two PPCs replacing the left arm-mounted medium lasers. There is a problem there. Is says, “I can bend the heat system and hard point system to design a Mech that, under normal circumstances shouldn’t be viable… but is.”
  
• Weapon convergence has been beaten to death on the forums, and according to the last Ask the Devs posting of answers, is more or less here to stay. Take all the reasons above why Mech design is broken and put all that damage into a pin-point alpha strike again and again and again and the problem should be self-evident. I am not sure what they can do, other than make alpha striking a staggered format or a painful, last ditch effort. It appears all too commonplace right now, based on my own play and player feedback.

Ok, so let’s put it all together for when the Clans arrive, but skirt all the proposed heat penalties recently announced by the development team.
Assuming that we are allowed to purchase Clan Mechs and weapons, I would simply take an 85-ton Warhawk/Masakari chassis and place six weapons on it… 2x ER PPC, 2x Large Pulse Laser and 2x ER Large Laser. This arrangement skirts the 3+ weapons of the same type being fired at the same time penalties, so I have a 70 damage Alpha Strike with pin-point accuracy at my disposal. Better yet, it comes with an optimum range of 600m and no minimum range. I would then fit as many heat sinks as possible into the chassis and select an appropriate XL Engine, to the half-ton, to give my Mech respectable speed and space for internal heat sinks. If space and tonnage allow, I can also look at an ECM suite, Active Probe and AMS system.
While I applaud the development team for their dogged determination to stamp out all the balance issues with weapon value tweaks and adjustments, I really don’t see them finding a balanced situation. This game will forever be bouncing from one top end weapon to the next so long as the above issues are not addressed.

[Orzorn]

The stale meta is getting old. I have fun now and again, but my interest is dying off because I know, game after game, it'll generally be the same thing.

[Theodor Kling]

I chose "Sorta having fun some games but balance is very broken", since my real feeling is not listed:
Having fun but the game is really broken, and badly so.

So many basic things are broken: hit detection matchmaking( although not as broken as it might seem I at first glance I think), lack of ingame voice, which further enhances matchmaking imbalances; weapon balance ( although without fixing hit detection this can't really be worked on in a meaningfull manner)..
And so much content is still missing. But the missing content doesn't disturb me so much. Sure hampers my motivation to play sometimes, but when I play I have fun most of the time and that content will come one day.
Even pinpoint magic alpha strikes shredding my SRM Centurion... I have fun!
Sounds strange, especially if one reads some of my posts on these forums, but thats the way it is: I have fun despite all the problems the game has.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I have alot of fun when I new mech chassis is introduced but after a bit, it does tend to get stale playing the same types of matches over and over.

What they need to start doing here shortly is stop focusing on balance issues that really aren't issues and start focusing on content. We need lots of new maps and more importantly new game modes. Ideally I would like to see tacticaly scenerio battles be the meat and potatoes of the game. For example, instead of Assault just being base cap, one team actually has to defend a target and the other Assault it. Another scenerio would be an escort mission where one team has to stay with a slow moving convoy and keep the other team from destroying it. Another a meeting engagement where both teams have to capture a single base. Stuff like that.

[Fulcrom Kerensky]

Viktor Drake, on 14 July 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

I have alot of fun when I new mech chassis is introduced but after a bit, it does tend to get stale playing the same types of matches over and over.

What they need to start doing here shortly is stop focusing on balance issues that really aren't issues and start focusing on content. We need lots of new maps and more importantly new game modes. Ideally I would like to see tacticaly scenerio battles be the meat and potatoes of the game. For example, instead of Assault just being base cap, one team actually has to defend a target and the other Assault it. Another scenerio would be an escort mission where one team has to stay with a slow moving convoy and keep the other team from destroying it. Another a meeting engagement where both teams have to capture a single base. Stuff like that.

I like the defend assault idea but the convoy one meh not for me. I also agree with the more maps idea I would really like to see a jungle type map or swamp.

[Ryche]

I am having a blast with MWO. Things arent perfect but they are playable and it's fun playing new mechs and builds.
I do wish that PPCs weren't quite so prevelent so when I take them I don't feel like mook 32 who brought the same weapon load out that everyone has. Not that I PPC things all the time as currently my QuickDraw is all about lasers.