20 replies to this topic

[Roland]

This is tangentially related to balance, in that it's somewhat about how we discuss and address balance overall.

Some of my guys were talking about this, and in the midst of complaining about various balance issues, I think sometimes we may forget about what certainly was done right in this game so far.

In general, I think that PGI has absolutely nailed two things:
1) The mechs look awesome - Seriously, even though many of the models are perhaps scaled in such a way as to make them less viable from a gameplay perspective, they all look totally awesome. One of the guys in my unit said, "Man, they even made the Quickdraw look cool. Look at the TRO art for that thing. PGI's version is far better."

2) The mechs FEEL awesome - PGI did in fact manage to capture the "feel" of mechs. They feel like big robots. Even the light mechs have some feel of weight to them. They feel very right, and this is quite a grand accomplishment given how unique Mechwarrior feels compared to other games. Even compared to other giant robot games like Armored Core, Battletech robots were always considered much more ponderous, and PGI nailed that, while keeping them fun to drive.

I'm not sure what the point of this was, other than I felt like since we bash PGI all the time for balance issues, it'd be good to acknowledge some of what is done very well. PGI's art team, and the guys who put together the very core of the gameplay, really did an exceptional job.

In some ways, most posts these days fall into two categories... those of us who are frustrated with some aspects of the direction the game is going, and what we feel is a disregard for our input on various balance issues.... and folks who do not want to criticize PGI at all.

I am quite critical of some of the balance issues in the current game... but at the same time, when I take a step back and look at what we have today, I am still impressed.

Mechwarrior Online, despite its numerous flaws, is still a fun game. I still play it daily (although perhaps less than I did previously).

The issues that separate what we have from true greatness in terms of games is not an insurmountable problem. Many balance issues can likely be addressed with fairly small tweaks.

If done correctly, Community Warfare could enable a truly epic game experience. I think many of us hope desparately for such a thing.

I think that part of what results in such discontent among many players is that we don't really get to hear anything about Community Warfare... We heard about it earlier. It sounded cool. We gave PGI money (in some cases, a LOT of money) because we want to play that game. But in recent weeks, the only real thing we've heard about it is that it's basically not coming any time soon.

It's this lack of knowing what's happening that causes folks to focus on the only thing we DO know.

The only thing that we have concrete information on, is the current state of the game. We know what the current weapons stats are, and we know what the resulting imbalances in game are. And since that is literally all we know, it's all we focus on.

I know it's a two edged sword though... When PGI presents us with information, there is inevitably negative feedback. Folks (sometimes myself included) complain about those new ideas even before we get to see them... but as I've said before, I think a lot of this comes from a desire to see this game become the game that we all know it can be.

Anyway, the point of this is that despite my criticisms of PGI sometimes, I wanted to say that there really are aspects of this game, indeed, the majority of this game, which really is GOOD. And I know that most of the absolutely most vocal critics of PGI feel the same. Those people who are complaining loudest do not want PGI to fail. They want PGI to succeed, more than anything. We want to play mechwarrior. We get frustrated, and our frustrations cause us to lash out.. and I'm sure that makes PGI frustrated, and that frustration makes them pull back.

But maybe we can put that aside, and step back, and try to work together to make this game as good as we can. For my part, I will try my best to be less negative. That does not mean that I will stop criticizing what I believe to be mistakes, but I will try to be constructive in my criticism. In return, I hope that PGI can understand that many of their loudest critics have the potential to be their greatest fans, and are just frustrated.

[jeffsw6]

I don't know why you think CW is going to be so awesome.

Currently the game is setup so a well-balanced team of Frankenmechs, or a team made up of some ranged-mechs and some brawler-mechs, is very likely to get stomped by a team of less skill (though not total noobs) if that team simply has gone for max-ranged-mechs or max-brawler-mechs.

CW will probably be 100% about hoping whoever is challenging your position doesn't have 12 (or 8) Atlases or 12 Stalkers. Invariably, they will, and so CW will be about random luck -- not your leaders' organization skills, the tactics you employ, etc.

[Sybreed]

Nice post, but you forgot the ugly.

[Roland]

jeffsw6, on 31 July 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

I don't know why you think CW is going to be so awesome.

Currently the game is setup so a well-balanced team of Frankenmechs, or a team made up of some ranged-mechs and some brawler-mechs, is very likely to get stomped by a team of less skill (though not total noobs) if that team simply has gone for max-ranged-mechs or max-brawler-mechs.

CW will probably be 100% about hoping whoever is challenging your position doesn't have 12 (or 8) Atlases or 12 Stalkers. Invariably, they will, and so CW will be about random luck -- not your leaders' organization skills, the tactics you employ, etc.

I believe that part of this stems from my experience in the old MW4 planetary leagues, that I know many folks here played in.

Back in MW4, game balance was by no means good. In many ways, it was perhaps worse than what we have in MWO, as lasers dominated everything, being hitscan weapons that sidestepped much of the netcode failures of that game.

And yet we had fairly epic battles that kept us entertained for, literally, years. The larger leagues had thousands of players all fighting over the various planets in the IS and clanspace.

To some degree, you're right, in that the current state of weapons balance relegates many mechs to the category of useless, but that in itself does not preclude Community Warfare being great.

Even with imbalanced mechs, you will tend to get battles that fall into one of the three categories:
1) Equally matched players in equally matched mechs - These are good matches, where the fact that all mechs aren't good gets reduced out of the equation. It limits the variety in certain aspects of the game, but the most important aspects being tactical play on the part of the pilots is preserved.
2) Poorly matched mechs with equally skilled pilots (or with the good pilots in the good mechs) - these will be somewhat unbalanced games. But in MW4 we had "garbage mechs" too. In competitive games, folks just didn't drive those mechs.
3) Superior pilots in inferior mechs - We had a few fights like this... generally while playing a mercenary unit, hired by a house to fight what they perceived as a suicide mission. On some level, these provided an opportunity for greatness. Crushing the opposition while driving garbage tier mechs was fun, and offered a challenge that would have otherwise been missing due to less skilled opponents.

Ultimately though, the various balance issues should be addressed. The game will be better as a result. But even without perfect balance, I think that Community Warfare (either implemented within the core game by PGI, or a placeholder mechanism implemented by the community itself with a lobby system, like we had in MW4) will provide the best option for long term sustainability in this game.

Community warfare is what makes the individual matches mean something.

Balance and stuff makes the individual matches more fun, but on their own the game will eventually grow stale... it's the prospect of actually fighting within a greater world, where your victories and losses have real impact beyond simple statistics, which will keep players engaged long term.

[Bilbo]

jeffsw6, on 31 July 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

I don't know why you think CW is going to be so awesome.

Currently the game is setup so a well-balanced team of Frankenmechs, or a team made up of some ranged-mechs and some brawler-mechs, is very likely to get stomped by a team of less skill (though not total noobs) if that team simply has gone for max-ranged-mechs or max-brawler-mechs.

CW will probably be 100% about hoping whoever is challenging your position doesn't have 12 (or 8) Atlases or 12 Stalkers. Invariably, they will, and so CW will be about random luck -- not your leaders' organization skills, the tactics you employ, etc.

Drop weight limits, both high and low, should alleviate the problems you describe. I would hope they will be in place before CW goes into full swing.

[DaZur]

I think it's fair to say that sometimes our passion makes us myopic and occasionally fail to see forest for the trees... An awful lot of our discourse stems from not appreciating a "grander plan" because we become mired in the here and now.

There is a lot of of forwarded notion that PGI doesn't have a clue what they are doing but in fairness, we tend to assume what they do is random and singular in it's design, forgetting sometimes one has to build a foundation before erecting the building.

That said, we all would not be here if we were not passionate about MW:O... If we truly believed it was a lost-cause we would not waste our breath incessantly debating...

Interestingly enough... Sometimes I think the people who don't visit this forum and know the least about the long-running debates forwarded opinions on (insert issue here:) are the players that are having the most fun playing this game...

What's the saying... "Ignorance is bliss?"

Edited by DaZur, 31 July 2013 - 11:57 AM.

[Bobdolemite]

I think op is correct in that many of the loudest and most persistent voices on the forums really love the game despite the sometimes negative content of their posts. I for one have lobbied for and against a great many things, but always continues to love the game and mechwarrior in general.

My frustration level and the disposition of many of the forum goers sometimes has me in a ****** mood but I never really stop wanting to love this game.

I also have to agree that the look and feel of the game is superior to any other mechwarrior title I have ever played. Mechs while some are visibly different, they still retain a likeness that is recognizable to those who have been playing since dos days. As to the feel, I think thats what brings most of us back day to day. I love the start of every match, watching the mechs peel away as a group moving off to combat. (though fix stuck on pebble and Jj accel from stop as these make it tedious)

PGI and IGP have done a great many things right, and the road ahead is one of balance not of revamping or optimization. That alone is an accomplishment. Though I am very worried about the direction of the game, the over-use of bandaid solutions and the tendency to shift away from previous commitments / long term fixes. There is also a tendency (like many other games) to make changes with a heavy hand rather than in incremental fashion. Many games do this to appease the more aggressive parts of their player base even if only for a week or two while they work on balanced solutions, but in each case I believe it would have been better to step things up or down rather than use a 2 story jackhammer.

I also find that their attempts to stay "relevant" to todays media style has really hurt the feeling of community that many games feel in regards to their development staff. Call me an old fogey but I think twitter is ridiculous and I hate Facebook with a passion, game updates and related information should always start in the forums and then matriculate out from there if they so choose, but in many cases this appears to be the last place they are looking. This also tends to make players feel like they are out of touch, which in some cases they are (look at the many heat / convergence / queue ideas etc that have gotten absolutely 0 response despite many of them being good/simple easy to implement and less convoluted than other systems that they seem to be married to)

All in all I love MWO and I think PGI and IGP are doing an alright job so far, they have much to learn IMO but theres certainly time. Now if we could just get some input on some of the many good ideas floating around here then I could upgrade that "alright" to "great".

Edited by Bobdolemite, 31 July 2013 - 12:04 PM.

[Zypher]

The part that worries the most is that it's going to be some time before we CW, after that we have to deal with it's balancing, bugs, and modifications. I say good luck to those who still play. I play 1-5 games after every patch to see the changes, honestly in the year that I have been playing hardly anything has changed gameplay wise, I have just about lost hope that this title will be anything more than it already is.

I feel the opportunity for the genre, to make something that really stands out, was wasted, the overall combat and graphics are great, but those two pieces alone cannot lift this barely floating ship to greatness.

Edited by Zypher, 31 July 2013 - 12:20 PM.

[Lootee]

Well I hope they get the matchmaker better before the release.

The gaming site reviewers may or may not know much about MW, BattleTech, or MWO weapon stats and heat rules but I'm fairly certain every single one of them knows how to count to 8 or 12.

The first time one of them gets pug stomped in a 8v7 8v6 or 12v10 and they're going to write WTF is this crap??! as their game review. Seriously, how long have the lopsided teams plagued the game ? It's been like that since closed beta and you still often get 8v7 or 8v6. The worst I've seen is 8v4.

I'm not talking about disconnects or crashes either. These are the games were the matchmaker just derps and leaves you 2-3 down at the very start. Fix it.

[Kitane]

PGI nailed the feeling and atmosphere of massive war machines, something that has been missing from MW series since MW2.

Balance complains are valid, but PGI does need to recreate the whole weapon balance from scratch as the TT system is simply not usable for real-time combat. Illogical armor hit zones, bad original mech designs (from gameplay perspective), hard to balance weapon systems that were designed around randomized damage, weight classes that were designed to be balanced through numerical advantage (more medium mechs vs less heavies...)

I can't blame them for all those hickups, it's a pretty tough job (and imho impossible)

Edited by Kitane, 31 July 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[Bilbo]

PanchoTortilla, on 31 July 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Well I hope they get the matchmaker better before the release.

The gaming site reviewers may or may not know much about MW, BattleTech, or MWO weapon stats and heat rules but I'm fairly certain every single one of them knows how to count to 8 or 12.

The first time one of them gets pug stomped in a 8v7 8v6 or 12v10 and they're going to write WTF is this crap??! as their game review. Seriously, how long have the lopsided teams plagued the game ? It's been like that since closed beta and you still often get 8v7 or 8v6. The worst I've seen is 8v4.

I'm not talking about disconnects or crashes either. These are the games were the matchmaker just derps and leaves you 2-3 down at the very start. Fix it.

That's actually exactly what it is. When you start a match without the requisite number on a side, it is because someone crashed out in some manner after the MM set the teams. I don't see it with frequency that you do, but I do think the should be able to fill in the missing mechs before the match actually starts.

[Sprouticus]

Roland, you have many good points in this post. I want to stress one of them

We are all adults here. We are passionate, sure. But we are also adults. We should all have the ability to respond to issues in the game in a civil manner. Sure, some of the issues drive us batty. I would LOVE to sit down and have a real discussion with Paul and others on some of the balance issues.

But getting whiney, being negative, being emo, all of those things actually REDUCE your message.

When I see someone, even someone I know who is smart and usually has something to say, when I see them being negative, I usually just skip their post. You can be 100% sure PGI's guys do the same thing. Same goes for the trolls who constantly belittle PGI or other posters.

If we (frequent posters) make a real effort to reamin calm in the face of adversity, it will HELP in the long run.


example: The crit% change Paul alluded to yesterday. It might be a disaster. It might be great. We can't be sure. But instead of freaking out, several people posted concerns and questions. Hopefully those questions will be answered fairly quickly. If not, we will find out eventually. But I can promise if we had gone ballistic that there is a 0% chance of a response to our feedback.

[Tezcatli]

I think the longer it takes to hear about CW. The more people will have misconceptions and high hopes for it. They need to release some more solid info on what we'll see.

[Sprouticus]

PanchoTortilla, on 31 July 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Well I hope they get the matchmaker better before the release.

The gaming site reviewers may or may not know much about MW, BattleTech, or MWO weapon stats and heat rules but I'm fairly certain every single one of them knows how to count to 8 or 12.

The first time one of them gets pug stomped in a 8v7 8v6 or 12v10 and they're going to write WTF is this crap??! as their game review. Seriously, how long have the lopsided teams plagued the game ? It's been like that since closed beta and you still often get 8v7 or 8v6. The worst I've seen is 8v4.

I'm not talking about disconnects or crashes either. These are the games were the matchmaker just derps and leaves you 2-3 down at the very start. Fix it.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Instead of making a reasonable post about a potentially serious issue, you rant and curse and sound demanding and bitter.

What do you think the odds of PGI actually finishing you post are after reading the first line or two?

[Roland]

Yes Sprout, part of my post is to stress that sometimes you catch more flies with honey, than you do with vinegar.

But at the same time, my hope is for those who defend PGI, and perhaps PGI themselves, to understand that much of the negativity that takes place on these forums is not driven by hatred for the game, but instead is driven by a deep committment on the part of those players to the game.

Those folks who protest loudest, even if they may not always do so in the most constructive manner, tend to be those who really are most committed to this game.

Because honestly, if they truly didn't care, they could just find other games.

[Sprouticus]

Roland, on 31 July 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

Yes Sprout, part of my post is to stress that sometimes you catch more flies with honey, than you do with vinegar.

But at the same time, my hope is for those who defend PGI, and perhaps PGI themselves, to understand that much of the negativity that takes place on these forums is not driven by hatred for the game, but instead is driven by a deep committment on the part of those players to the game.

Those folks who protest loudest, even if they may not always do so in the most constructive manner, tend to be those who really are most committed to this game.

Because honestly, if they truly didn't care, they could just find other games.

Agreed. Blindly defending PGI's positions is not helpful

The thing is I try very hard to be cordial but frank in my communications, and I think that if more people did so we would not only get more from PGI and people who disagree might be willing to consider each others points more freely. Which might lead to better discourse, Which is good for the game.

Being passionate is no excuse for being a jerk. Now is it an excuse for blind optimism.

[DaZur]

Where's the forest?...

One point I've made elsewhere that I believe is underappreciated is the fact that we (collectively the community) are privy to and occasionally suffer the growing pains associated with being part of a living-breathing development environment.

All single-purchase games (SPG) and for a large part most F2P games up until MW:O were developed behind closed doors and players, let alone their internal testers do not touch very much code before it is effectively sanitized and determined palatable to the masses... Even though what we "play" is likely a couple of builds behind the open / working code, we still are party to an awful lot of code that is "moist in the middle" to which PGI extracts pertinent matrix data.

Point being, we quite often get hung up on stuff that is destine to change... We want so much for the next patch to be the "be-all-end-all" and bring closure to every conceivable issue that one cannot help feeling a bit of frustration when it does not materialize...

PGI did themselves no favors by telling us metaphorically that they were going to win the race and and with great authority. Sadly, they had little experience with the terrain, struggled finding the clearly marked paths and suffered from dehydration and cramps at the half-way point...

[DaZur]

Sprouticus, on 31 July 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Being passionate is no excuse for being a jerk. Now is it an excuse for blind optimism.

Honestly... I've grown accustom to separating the wheat from the chaff and I believe PGI is equally gifted in this exercise. That said, the detractors that do not waste a single opportunity to offer some off-handed barb at the expense of PGI and have no qualms hijacking a salient thread for no other purpose than to tell us what slack-shouldered mouth-breathers we are for blindly accepting MW:O in it's fluid state does tend to wear thin...

Sadly an awful lot of good discussion get dumped in the garbage because its apparently "the cool thing" to disparage the devs and parrot some inane rhetoric...

Edited by DaZur, 31 July 2013 - 01:19 PM.

[jeffsw6]

Roland, on 31 July 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

But even without perfect balance, I think that Community Warfare (either implemented within the core game by PGI, or a placeholder mechanism implemented by the community itself with a lobby system, like we had in MW4) will provide the best option for long term sustainability in this game.

If CW looks much like World of Tanks' CW system, and remember, PGI has copied a lot from WoT already, it will be impossible to hold onto a planet/territory because of opponent min-maxing, and your inability to predict which way they max (brawl or ranged.)

DaZur, on 31 July 2013 - 11:56 AM, said:

Interestingly enough... Sometimes I think the people who don't visit this forum and know the least about the long-running debates forwarded opinions on (insert issue here:) are the players that are having the most fun playing this game...

What's the saying... "Ignorance is bliss?"

Given that new player retention is under 1% one could make the argument that the players having the most fun might be the ones who don't play.

Bobdolemite, on 31 July 2013 - 12:02 PM, said:

I also have to agree that the look and feel of the game is superior to any other mechwarrior title I have ever played.

It also requires 30x more computer power to play. MW:O performs badly if you don't have a discrete GPU that is current- or last-generation. This really limits the potential audience for the next couple of years.

I really hope the DX11 stuff they are talking about improves game performance.

PanchoTortilla, on 31 July 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Well I hope they get the matchmaker better before the release.

The gaming site reviewers may or may not know much about MW, BattleTech, or MWO weapon stats and heat rules but I'm fairly certain every single one of them knows how to count to 8 or 12.

They really can't improve the match-maker without more players. It's a chicken-or-egg issue, except they had a growing chicken a few months ago, and choked it with HUD bugs they wouldn't roll back, and by letting the PPC-fest go on for so many months.

Game reviewers are scum. They are just PR mouth-pieces.

For example: SimCity sucked. It's clear that not one single game reviewer spent a whole day playing the game, or they would have identified a lot of the bugs / design problems in the game and wrote about them in the days leading up to its release. They didn't. It wasn't just the EA server problems that made people angry; when the game worked, it really didn't.

Why does this happen? Game reviewers are being paid by companies who earn their money selling ads for games. Those ads are bought by big game publishers (EA, etc.) and big PR/ad firms. They can't write bad reviews about a game from a big publisher, or a game who is buying ads through a big media-buying firm.

They can write bad reviews about indie games, but the truth is, they don't have much reason to review those games at all.

DaZur, on 31 July 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

Honestly... I've grown accustom to separating the wheat from the chaff and I believe PGI is equally gifted in this exercise.

I'm certain that they aren't. Remember, Paul took the time to come onto the forum and tell me that the heat-scale system wasn't locked in, and they later posted that they were thinking about legitimate boating builds, yet the system they implemented turned out to have every problem I predicted.

That was ten weeks ago. I wasn't the only one who told them this. That thread is over 200 posts and every single poster says one of two things:

• heat-scale is bad and they will find a way to make it worse (they did)
  
• or; leave Paul alone!!!! it's not an official announcement yet! They have time to get it right! (they didn't)

[Blackadder]

PGI has nailed the core mechanics of piloting a mech without a doubt. It just feels right, from movement to turn rates, etc. granted things can and should be tweeked for certain weight classes to make them better, but overall the game play and piloting aspects of the mechs are great.

Where the game drops in quality for, me is the battle aspects. I really want to see flanking and movement as a priority, with battles that feel like boxing or MMA fights more then FPS games. In CB the fighting aspect was better, but it was mostly due to the lack of DHS, and the fact that players had to stack so many heatsinks that you could only run smaller damage weapons, outside of a very few ballistic weapons. I want to see viable play styles, not just phases, where we go from sniping, to gaining a numbers advantage, to moving in for the kill. I want to see strike mechs as viable, brawlers as viable, and snipers as viable so there are a wide range of strategy and tactics to be used with multiple counters to each, so that this really is a thinking mans game, and does not revolve around left clicking your mouse while calling out "focus alpha" on teamspeak.

As far as CW goes, to be honest i think PGI is falling into the same trap as the WOT guys did, while i have no personal issue with 3rd/1st person views, CW needs to be the game aspect that embraces all players not just the select few, who always run the same standard teams, in the same standard ways based on what map they are playing on.