592 replies to this topic

[101011]

Chronojam, on 21 July 2013 - 04:41 PM, said:

Stop saying depressing things before everybody leaves for Star Citizen, a game that won't even be out for two years. We've got to give it the old college try.

I really wish that I was wrong, but I can list several examples of PGI ignoring the forums: recent heat changes, Orion excitement, just to replace it with the Quickdraw, ECM (God, that took forever to change), flamers (still not really useful), MG's (also not useful), the current poptart meta ("We felt the Quickdraw had a different meta" when asked why they replaced the Orion with the Quickdraw), third person view (remember that survey?), etc. How long does the list have to be?

[JadeRaven]

Builder, on 21 July 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

The 8 man queue is what it is because the game is unfinished. There are no drop restrictions yet or a true meta game to have something to fight over.

These things will come. these things take time.

MWO doesn't need saving from self righteous loud mouth minorities. It just needs patience rather than impatient crybabies.

If you aren't enjoying the game right now, take a break! The game doesn't revolve around you, it will go on without you.

I'm unconvinced that you're truly in the know about who is actually in the minority here. Either one of us could be part of a vocal minority, but I'm the only one that seems willing to concede that.

I've already said that I don't have any expectation that everyone involved will agree with us. You can come, speak your piece and move on should you want to. If 99% of players are happy, then that's A-Okay with me. Now kindly stop derailing this topic and refrain from ******** up my thread.

[Chronojam]

Builder, on 21 July 2013 - 04:46 PM, said:

The 8 man queue is what it is because the game is unfinished. There are no drop restrictions yet or a true meta game to have something to fight over.

These things will come. these things take time.

MWO doesn't need saving from self righteous loud mouth minorities. It just needs patience rather than impatient crybabies.

If you aren't enjoying the game right now, take a break! The game doesn't revolve around you, it will go on without you.

Hey remember back in December when you were talking about only failing to find a match rarely? Do you think the current dead 8-man queue has improved since that point? Because I think "rarely fail to find a match" was better than "rarely succeed in finding a match." I think all of the Run Hot or Die units would agree with me, as they struggle to keep players interested.

Do you remember when you were complaining about low mech health given the ease of aiming, mocking PGI's slow content drip rate, or were pointing out the deficiencies the broken matchmaking has? I wonder what happened to make you forget all of these things you said. Why is it different when other players say mechs should have more hitpoints, why are other players crybabies when they say it but it's A.O.K. for you?

Remember PGI was discussing new plans and scheduling, and you said,

Builder' said:

How can you expect people to believe anything you say is true when you do something like publicly saying, on April 23, that we will see a new mech announcement within 30 days, and then over 30 days later we have nothing?

[GaussDragon]

Kudos to you guys for the initiative, I'll certainly be there.

[Chronojam]

Builder I'm curious what restored your faith so quickly. Share with us what opened your eyes and made you think everything will be alright.

Edited by Chronojam, 21 July 2013 - 04:56 PM.

[JadeRaven]

GaussDragon, on 21 July 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

Kudos to you guys for the initiative, I'll certainly be there.

Then you can ignore the Reddit PM you have from me asking you to be there. Bring your friends. I think SteelJags might show up, but they haven't confirmed anything yet.

[101011]

Chronojam, on 21 July 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

Hey remember back in December when you were talking about only failing to find a match rarely? Do you think the current dead 8-man queue has improved since that point? Because I think "rarely fail to find a match" was better than "rarely succeed in finding a match." I think all of the Run Hot or Die units would agree with me, as they struggle to keep players interested.

Do you remember when you were complaining about low mech health given the ease of aiming, mocking PGI's slow content drip rate, or were pointing out the deficiencies the broken matchmaking has? I wonder what happened to make you forget all of these things you said. Why is it different when other players say mechs should have more hitpoints, why are other players crybabies when they say it but it's A.O.K. for you?

Remember PGI was discussing new plans and scheduling, and you said,

I don't know whether to be impressed or unnerved that you went through his posts looking for that info. I think I'll go with impressed.

[BumRuckus]

My only real gripe is that I hate how they started out talking like excited game developers, and now they sound like slippery politicians. Plenty of ways to take your money (before it's launched ;D ) but they can't seem to talk straight to us anymore.

[JadeRaven]

Builder, on 21 July 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Damn, you got me

I was just trolling you guys

Look at this puppet master here.

[Protection]

Sheeeeit, it's been like 6 months since I made an appearance, but even I might show up for this.

[JadeRaven]

Protection, on 21 July 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

Sheeeeit, it's been like 6 months since I made an appearance, but even I might show up for this.

We would love to have you. Tell your friends.

[JadeRaven]

Thontor, on 21 July 2013 - 05:12 PM, said:

Would be cool if someone from PGI like Garth or Bryan Attended this thing.

Or at least listened in... Heh

They are more than welcome in any capacity. If they wan't to talk, then I would love to hear a candid response to player critique.

[Hubis]

JadeRaven, on 21 July 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

They are more than welcome in any capacity. If they wan't to talk, then I would love to hear a candid response to player critique.

And if they (or any PGI staff) would like to join and listen, contact Stalkerr and we can arrange some sort of anonymous access for them.

[Protection]

Just one thought I've had in regards to this:

I can't help but notice that I found the combat and battles to be much, much more fun and engaging and challenging back when the game was in closed beta, rather than when it went to open beta and "release."

One of the largest factors, I've come to realize, were the addition of double heatsinks (as well as endo-steel), that dramatically changed the gameplay.

I can't help but think that a "3025 tech" game mode would do wonders to add some variety to the game. Where any mech or equipment that existed only after 3025 isn't allowed to be selected for drop. When you thin about it, removing Gauss rifles, double heatsinks, and all the other lostech, the game is actually much much closer to balanced. Battles take longer, and the TTK is dramatically increased, and high alpha builds are much less appealing because single heatsinks are frighteningly slow. It'd add a lot of variety, give players some reason to build and use mechs with loadouts and equipment that they otherwise ignore, and give players a whole lot more to toy with, without being a demanding addition to the game. Hell, even a few stock mechs might be viable.

[JadeRaven]

Protection, on 21 July 2013 - 05:27 PM, said:

Just one thought I've had in regards to this:

I can't help but notice that I found the combat and battles to be much, much more fun and engaging and challenging back when the game was in closed beta, rather than when it went to open beta and "release."

One of the largest factors, I've come to realize, were the addition of double heatsinks (as well as endo-steel), that dramatically changed the gameplay.

I can't help but think that a "3025 tech" game mode would do wonders to add some variety to the game. Where any mech or equipment that existed only after 3025 isn't allowed to be selected for drop. When you thin about it, removing Gauss rifles, double heatsinks, and all the other lostech, the game is actually much much closer to balanced. Battles take longer, and the TTK is dramatically increased, and high alpha builds are much less appealing because single heatsinks are frighteningly slow. It'd add a lot of variety, give players some reason to build and use mechs with loadouts and equipment that they otherwise ignore, and give players a whole lot more to toy with, without being a demanding addition to the game. Hell, even a few stock mechs might be viable.

I would be hesitant to split the queue further, but feel free to include that in a suggestion. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Edited by JadeRaven, 21 July 2013 - 05:43 PM.

[Gwaihir]

Protection, on 21 July 2013 - 05:27 PM, said:

Just one thought I've had in regards to this:

I can't help but notice that I found the combat and battles to be much, much more fun and engaging and challenging back when the game was in closed beta, rather than when it went to open beta and "release."

One of the largest factors, I've come to realize, were the addition of double heatsinks (as well as endo-steel), that dramatically changed the gameplay.

I can't help but think that a "3025 tech" game mode would do wonders to add some variety to the game. Where any mech or equipment that existed only after 3025 isn't allowed to be selected for drop. When you thin about it, removing Gauss rifles, double heatsinks, and all the other lostech, the game is actually much much closer to balanced. Battles take longer, and the TTK is dramatically increased, and high alpha builds are much less appealing because single heatsinks are frighteningly slow. It'd add a lot of variety, give players some reason to build and use mechs with loadouts and equipment that they otherwise ignore, and give players a whole lot more to toy with, without being a demanding addition to the game. Hell, even a few stock mechs might be viable.

I wouldn't say that 3025 tech itself is more balanced, necessarily, but what certainly is true is that with lower heat capacity and dissipation, heat efficient weapons (aka brawling weapons, aka ballistics and properly working SRMs) ARE more important, and perform better in relationship to large lasers and PPCs.

Fundamentally, the game's not going to be balanced while sticking to anything close to TT numbers.

If you want an example of a game that felt very "mechwarrior-y" but had actually balanced weapons, then just look at MWLL. In MWLL, PPCs were almost the lowest DPS weapons in the game, only beating out small lasers, medium lasers, small pulse lasers, and (s)SRM 2s. Yes, it dealt a really large chunk of pinpoint damage at long range, but it was hot enough so that you couldn't fire more than 5 at a time, and had a long enough cooldown so that missing was a big deal, and demanded carefully picking your shots.
Meanwhile, you had ballistic weapons ideally suited for the big "main gun" role, pulse lasers for very tonnage efficient brawling purposes, and SRMs that bridged the gap. It wasn't a perfect game, and MWO already mechanically works much, much better and has better art (Thanks to not being a mod, among other things), but the weapons numbers would be a superb place to start fixing balance, and best of all they require absolutely no code changes to try out.

[Literally]

Gwaihir, you make a point that I think is worth echoing:
The problem with MWO is, in my opinion, really all about the balance. Sure, every game can always have better netcode, but the art, graphics, sound, and general feel of MWO are really in a good state. We just need to somehow convince certain parties to make sensible and pragmatic balance decisions. Overall, PGI has done some great work.

[Gwaihir]

That's the most frustrating part to me, personally. The game is, in game terms, very new, barely 1.5 years from the start of production at the moment, if I remember correctly. Programmer time has got to be at an absolute premium, given how many features are waiting in the wings.

But, instead of just changing up numbers on weapons and health to fix things up, we got a myopically obtuse new system that doesn't even really address any of the fundamental problems.

Especially now that there is a test server, use the thing for "radical" balance testing, doing nothing more than changing weapons numbers in itemstats.xml. No new systems, no lengthy testing required, just hammering out actual game balance through solid iteration.

[GaussDragon]

Literally, on 21 July 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

Gwaihir, you make a point that I think is worth echoing:
The problem with MWO is, in my opinion, really all about the balance.

Gwaihir, on 21 July 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

just hammering out actual game balance through solid iteration.

The vast majority of my frustration boils down to balance. We've been saying these things for months and then we get the heat scale.

[Hylius]

Honestly, you might be a bit late on this. The latest patch has generated nothing but excitement on our end, bringing many of our more MWO-inactive members back into playing and given us a spike in applications (granted, the spike was from a base of about 0 thanks to the state of the game). I don't follow the forums so I can't speak for what's coming down the pipe, but the patch indicated they're finally getting their head in the game.

I might attend or send someone, depending on availability though. It's not like it hurts to talk.