5 replies to this topic

[Ysarric]

(I apologize for jamming this here, but with no simple General Forum any longer.) This is gonna be stupid long. It's my initial post and I have a lot to get off my chest! This post is ideally aimed at PGI for them to read, but of course all are welcome to subject themselves to it! I polite ask to have those that wish to flame me to simply refrain. This post is not aimed at any players or posters and I'm not attempting to attack or devalue anyone else's opinion. So pardon my rambling, and here we go!


Hello PGI. I understand that you're in crunch mode for releasing the product in it's official state. So I won't be surprised if you don't even see this. But I have to at least vent a bit. The game, as it exists as of August 7^th, 2013, is in a poor state. But not for any singular reason. Rather, it is a plethora of poorly executed actions that have been adding up to create a MechWarrior title that feels lesser for it. The thing is, I know that you have the capability to do better. I just do not see it happening

Sadly, this is my first post here. I have been amongst the silent majority since last year, shortly after the game went to open beta. And by and large, I've been pleased with the product. It's been far from perfect, but it was also far from a failure and it brought back the slower, stompy robots that I remember from the older MW titles and TT. I dealt with OP LRMs. I dealt with the craziness of ECM. I handled the broken nature that Streaks were, and the glitchy OP nature that SRMs used to have. And while I'd complain about it with my friends and family that played, I never felt that I had to bring it to the forums. Even primarily as a PUG player, I found ways to deal with it, and accepted the PUG experience for what it was.

I also understand that you have a small team. Perhaps TOO small of a team, as some of the core balancing for the game seem to be squarely upon the backs of one, maybe two people. And, unfortunately, this is where I have to call out my disappointment. Do pardon me as I ramble (despite my editing) and the longer nature of this read.

I feel that, at the very core of all the upset nature to be found on the forums, if not possibly among some of the silent players, is that communication seems to not be a priority here. I am not a Twitter using person, nor to I really care to peruse my facebook account more than once a month. And I'm pleased that some of your team does use those features, which is fine. You all may actually read more of the forums than what is suspected. But there is a rather large, and surprising, lack of response from your team on the forums. And that is why many players feel that the PGI team is not really tuned in, or listening, or even trying. Possibly inaccurate, but that is the impression that, at the least, *I* am left with.

Normally I would say that the forums at Blizzard would be a good example to look at, as I thought that the developers, and various community managers, were decently vocal there. But that is an unfair comparison to make. That team is ridiculously large, and yours is not quite as big!. However, some other smaller teams, with projects being recently crowd-funded, have been doing a stellar job at remaining in contact with the players and fanbase. Take a peek at how the teams of Camelot Unchained or Star Citizen are doing it. In this regard, all that I am asking is to be a bit more transparent. Devote at least one person to be a liaison between the forum community and the development team. It won't erase all the ire and grievances, but it will certainly aid to adding a layer of understanding and even acceptance, if people know that they ARE being heard and why certain decisions were made.

Again, I apologize for the cit wall of text to any poor souls happening upon this! What brought me out of my own silence to scribe this test is not only a plea to improve communications between the development team and the community, but because I have a fear that the vision of the game may be getting lost a bit. And yes, I realize that not all agree with me. I'm not suggesting that I speak for a vocal majority (or even minority). These are my own viewpoints.

-- The addition of new and unusual mechanics in lieu of adjusting and tweaking existing data sets.
I'm not going to say that the TT should be strictly followed. There have been plenty of others that have detailed the differences between TT and a real time sim. I understand that deviations have been made from the TT. I agree that changes have to be made, and that some add the potential for interesting, and hard, choices to be made. Accounting for a laser's beam duration, or the cooldown rate for each gun are nice factors to have. Adding into that the raw damage, the heat, the ranges and even speed of the bullet, and you have quite a few variables to work with already. I'll accept the strange new heat penalty if the intention is to use it as a temporary band-aid since the focus is on finishing up other aspects of the game. However, with that said, the end result should be that the heat penalty goes away. The balancing can be handled more easily, and more fairly, just by adjusting the existing numbers. PPCs were buffed many moons ago since HSR wasn't in play, and shots were missing far and wide. Well, that issue is (for the most part) resolved, so put them back to being a hard choice again. High heat vs ranged pinpoint damage. (And to make it interesting, why not double the minimum range of the PPC. Or keep the current min range and completely nullify it's damage sub 90m. Then it can be more of a long range weapon, and the ERPPC can have a role if you REALLY want to fire at close range.) And with that example, it shows that the existing numbers in the game can be used to modify balance. the heat penalty scale, and this new internal structure bonus damage, have no reason to exist. Hell, machine guns are extremely powerful at the moment, which is an interesting thing to say.

-- The extreme absence of in-game communication.
And no, the chat system in the match is not any good for this. No one, and absolutely no one, will type out for help, or guidance in the heat of a fire-fight. Even the idea to add some form of quick commands to the game, while a better idea than what exists, is not the answer. Voice communication is what's missing. And I'm not talking a hastily tossed together mess. Something that allows for one to adjust volume, even normalize audio so no one is overly loud or squeaky, and a way to mute individual players that are out to merely abuse the system. Just look at XBox Live features and emulate that. And yes, teams often use Teamspeak, Mumble, or Ventrilo. I've used them when my few MWO playing friends are handy. But more often than not, people PUG this game. And even teams of 4 can't talk to the other 8 players on their team via voice (save for sync droppers). I'm still perplexed as to how something as basic as comms on the battlefield was completely missed.

-- Bases.
OK, so we have two modes of play. Assault and Conquest. And while not really the most interesting of choices, they still allow for some combat, and potential tactics. Now, please do not tell me that these modes were tested on the maps as the maps have been released. And definitely don't tell me that the bases in Assault are accurately tuned for that mode. I get that you are not aiming for a complete team deathmatch, and I'm good with that. However the bases should not become claimable until at least 5 minutes through the match. Maybe 7 minutes for the larger maps. Make them able to be captured, but lets not make it a race to see while team has more lights that claim first. Personally, I think that Assault would be FAR more interesting if it was merely one base, smack in the middle of the map, and the sides had to fight to see who could claim it first. That'll nearly guarantee some combat. Conquest is mostly fine, but the capture rates need tweaking. And not the once every 2 weeks type. You have Test Servers. Use them.

-- 12v12.
You know, I really like the idea of 12v12 on the larger maps. The smaller maps were not designed for 24 mechs walking around. More is not always Better. Too add to this, the larger issue is that the game itself is not balanced around 12 mechs per side. I'm not speaking on a technological aspect, though that certainly seem to require some work as well. The game itself is not designed for adding 4 more targets to whittle down. Especially if the armament that a mech has is mostly missile or ballistic in nature. I'm sure that the fans will correct me if I'm wrong here, but at it's core, scenarios of mech combat in BattleTech were best balanced around lance on lance. Maybe 2 lances vs 2 lances. Now, MWO has double the armor to help account for the real time nature of fighting, versus the 10sec turns of TT. And the amount counts were increased a bit from the TT values to help account for this. But it seems like that was largely balanced around 8v8. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would suggest that the extra 4 mechs per side be factored in when balancing weapons, ammo, and armor counts.

-- Armor/Internals.
I'll admit that, at first, I thought it was a bit much to double the armor values (and internal I think) from the TT. However, it was necessary and it worked. Now, I have to ponder if another increase is due to both armor and internal structure, if not also the components themselves. Why? Well, as several have stated, the time-til-death is quite short. People learn to focus fire and remove weak components/mechs. Make a mistake and show your mech too soon to the enemy and you'll be a charred wreck for it. I know this is not the TT, but at least for that version, a battle lasted more than a few seconds. In addition to playing wit the existing numbers for the weapons, playing with adding more to the armor plating and/or internal skeleton would make this game feel less like Hawken and more like a proper Mechwarrior title. And please do remove that recently mechanic of transferring component damage to the skeleton. That is a complete 180 against the spirit of this franchise.

-- Movement.
I like the idea of slopes affecting movement. I'll even accept that a downgrade doesn't speed the mech up, just to keep the programming a bit easier (for the moment). However, do another pass after launch and adjust the values. 45 degrees is a bit shallow to account for a biped's movement, and the 5 degrees of variety between the 'types' of mechs is just too shallow to really make a real difference. You have a good idea here, just work on it some more. Again, don't be shy about the Test Servers.

Now I may have given an example here or there for my personal opinion on how to try to fix something. I'm going to restate that I'm not speaking for any majority or minority. I see a lot of common topics coming up, and responses to both sides of a given topic's coin. I DO have ideas for the points that I have brought up, but I'd rather cover them with an interested PGI member if they were so inclined to hear me out. I could create other forum topics for them, but I ponder that I would simply be flamed for beating a dead horse!

For the past year, I have been enjoying stomping around in my large, multi-ton robots. I would like to continue to do so. However, the way the game is designed right now, it is currently aimed at being a heavy/assault snipe alpha or a swarming pack of lights. I want to be fair and see if the programmers can reverse this trend of half-completed concepts and 'balances.' It’s a hard job that they have, and I appreciate that. I also love this franchise and I do not wish to see it die out or become akin to many other FPS products out there. I shall take a break from playing the game itself for the time being, as it is just not fun for me. I do, however, plan to watch the forums to see if PGI is, indeed, interested in talking with the players and working to resolve the amassed set of holes and issues within the game.

Good links to look at for PGI (or other interested parties)
Gwaihir's post
MWO Suggestions

tl;dr (can't blame ya!) - PGI, please (and quickly) become more communicative, and use your own established forums to do so. Work with existing data values in the game and look to remove the unneeded mechanics of transferred damage to internal structure and the heat penalty. Tweak how the bases work in the existing modes and look at the game as a whole when it comes to balancing for 12v12. The balance is not there, and adding weight limits will not resolve it. Email/PM me if you want to chat further!

[Celtic Warrior]

Well written, I read almost all of it. I totally agree with the 12v12 being a mistake at this point.

[Tennex]

thanks for posting

[ThePhil]

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

I feel that, at the very core of all the upset nature to be found on the forums, if not possibly among some of the silent players, is that communication seems to not be a priority here. I am not a Twitter using person, nor to I really care to peruse my facebook account more than once a month. And I'm pleased that some of your team does use those features, which is fine. You all may actually read more of the forums than what is suspected. But there is a rather large, and surprising, lack of response from your team on the forums. And that is why many players feel that the PGI team is not really tuned in, or listening, or even trying. Possibly inaccurate, but that is the impression that, at the least, *I* am left with.

I'm with you on this one. We get big write-ups about once a month from a few key people and I appreciate the time they put into their posts. I would like smaller 'We are aware and actively exploring options' responses to issues as they arise.

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

-- The extreme absence of in-game communication.
And no, the chat system in the match is not any good for this. No one, and absolutely no one, will type out for help, or guidance in the heat of a fire-fight. Even the idea to add some form of quick commands to the game, while a better idea than what exists, is not the answer. Voice communication is what's missing. And I'm not talking a hastily tossed together mess. Something that allows for one to adjust volume, even normalize audio so no one is overly loud or squeaky, and a way to mute individual players that are out to merely abuse the system. Just look at XBox Live features and emulate that. And yes, teams often use Teamspeak, Mumble, or Ventrilo. I've used them when my few MWO playing friends are handy. But more often than not, people PUG this game. And even teams of 4 can't talk to the other 8 players on their team via voice (save for sync droppers). I'm still perplexed as to how something as basic as comms on the battlefield was completely missed.

Absolutely. C3 may work (not sure on this as I've never encountered anyone else who uses it) but until it or something like it is fully integrated I won't touch it.

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

...Personally, I think that Assault would be FAR more interesting if it was merely one base, smack in the middle of the map, and the sides had to fight to see who could claim it first.

I like this idea a lot. ...And the thing that I love about it is how SIMPLE the idea is. Not a big elaborate formula, no wall of text to explain how the mechanics will work. Just, "There's a base. Go see if you can hold it."

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

-- 12v12.
You know, I really like the idea of 12v12 on the larger maps. The smaller maps were not designed for 24 mechs walking around. More is not always Better. Too add to this, the larger issue is that the game itself is not balanced around 12 mechs per side. I'm not speaking on a technological aspect, though that certainly seem to require some work as well. The game itself is not designed for adding 4 more targets to whittle down. Especially if the armament that a mech has is mostly missile or ballistic in nature. I'm sure that the fans will correct me if I'm wrong here, but at it's core, scenarios of mech combat in BattleTech were best balanced around lance on lance. Maybe 2 lances vs 2 lances. Now, MWO has double the armor to help account for the real time nature of fighting, versus the 10sec turns of TT. And the amount counts were increased a bit from the TT values to help account for this. But it seems like that was largely balanced around 8v8. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would suggest that the extra 4 mechs per side be factored in when balancing weapons, ammo, and armor counts.

Re: Ammo and 12v12
~Personally, my thoughts on ammo conservation and ballistics vs beam weapons are like this. Ballistics are for front loading damage to the beginning of a match in order to focus down a few key targets quickly in order to minimize the damage they do to your forces. They have minimal heat generation and can supplement damage from energy weapons quite nicely without much worry for overheating because of their use. However, when the ammunition is gone you better have some energy weapons to carry you through, and you better be a better pilot and shot than your opponent because holding a beam weapon on a specific limb requires you to be both. Carry this over to 12v12 combat and ammo capacities are stretched to their limits, with some pilots choosing to take reduced ammo stores in order to slot more heat sinks in anticipation of longer matches. That the player must actively make that choice is a good thing. More ammo for higher sustained burst -or- more heat sinks for longer engagements. It reduces the number of ballistic boats overall, and in combination with heat scaling, is successful in encouraging most pilots to take a more balanced mech loadout.

[Archtype]

I do not believe you edited this, other wise you would not have found it necessary to apologize for the length as many times as you did.

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

-- The addition of new and unusual mechanics in lieu of adjusting and tweaking existing data sets.
I'm not going to say that the TT should be strictly followed. There have been plenty of others that have detailed the differences between TT and a real time sim. I understand that deviations have been made from the TT. I agree that changes have to be made, and that some add the potential for interesting, and hard, choices to be made. Accounting for a laser's beam duration, or the cooldown rate for each gun are nice factors to have. Adding into that the raw damage, the heat, the ranges and even speed of the bullet, and you have quite a few variables to work with already. I'll accept the strange new heat penalty if the intention is to use it as a temporary band-aid since the focus is on finishing up other aspects of the game. However, with that said, the end result should be that the heat penalty goes away. The balancing can be handled more easily, and more fairly, just by adjusting the existing numbers. PPCs were buffed many moons ago since HSR wasn't in play, and shots were missing far and wide. Well, that issue is (for the most part) resolved, so put them back to being a hard choice again. High heat vs ranged pinpoint damage. (And to make it interesting, why not double the minimum range of the PPC. Or keep the current min range and completely nullify it's damage sub 90m. Then it can be more of a long range weapon, and the ERPPC can have a role if you REALLY want to fire at close range.) And with that example, it shows that the existing numbers in the game can be used to modify balance. the heat penalty scale, and this new internal structure bonus damage, have no reason to exist. Hell, machine guns are extremely powerful at the moment, which is an interesting thing to say.

I agree almost totally here. Though my first thought is to go full tt on this and make it hurt the pilot some who fired the PPC under 90, or at least a chance to. ERPPC's have a place. They negate damage loss at close range and offer an overall increase in max range.

DERP on suggesting altering their ranges. Another suggestion, make them slower, pinpoint damage if you are skilled, not point and click.

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

-- The extreme absence of in-game communication.
And no, the chat system in the match is not any good for this. No one, and absolutely no one, will type out for help, or guidance in the heat of a fire-fight. Even the idea to add some form of quick commands to the game, while a better idea than what exists, is not the answer. Voice communication is what's missing. And I'm not talking a hastily tossed together mess. Something that allows for one to adjust volume, even normalize audio so no one is overly loud or squeaky, and a way to mute individual players that are out to merely abuse the system. Just look at XBox Live features and emulate that. And yes, teams often use Teamspeak, Mumble, or Ventrilo. I've used them when my few MWO playing friends are handy. But more often than not, people PUG this game. And even teams of 4 can't talk to the other 8 players on their team via voice (save for sync droppers). I'm still perplexed as to how something as basic as comms on the battlefield was completely missed.

Really, 12 months of playing pug and you have not picked up a regular group to run with? The idea of playing a team orientated game without communication is inconceivable to me. Thats why i use team speak. Funny thing, I know my Stats are better for it, my mic me cost ten bucks and their are a plethora of TS3 servers out there. Be proactive!

That being said. Russ's statement that people walked away from the game at E3 2012 made me laugh first, and wonder what on earth is going through their heads. NO in game coms worth anything after a year and their first failed attempt to launch C3.

Ysarric Lightbane, on 07 August 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

-- 12v12.
You know, I really like the idea of 12v12 on the larger maps. The smaller maps were not designed for 24 mechs walking around. More is not always Better. Too add to this, the larger issue is that the game itself is not balanced around 12 mechs per side. I'm not speaking on a technological aspect, though that certainly seem to require some work as well. The game itself is not designed for adding 4 more targets to whittle down. Especially if the armament that a mech has is mostly missile or ballistic in nature. I'm sure that the fans will correct me if I'm wrong here, but at it's core, scenarios of mech combat in BattleTech were best balanced around lance on lance. Maybe 2 lances vs 2 lances. Now, MWO has double the armor to help account for the real time nature of fighting, versus the 10sec turns of TT. And the amount counts were increased a bit from the TT values to help account for this. But it seems like that was largely balanced around 8v8. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would suggest that the extra 4 mechs per side be factored in when balancing weapons, ammo, and armor counts.

-- Armor/Internals.
I'll admit that, at first, I thought it was a bit much to double the armor values (and internal I think) from the TT. However, it was necessary and it worked. Now, I have to ponder if another increase is due to both armor and internal structure, if not also the components themselves. Why? Well, as several have stated, the time-til-death is quite short. People learn to focus fire and remove weak components/mechs. Make a mistake and show your mech too soon to the enemy and you'll be a charred wreck for it. I know this is not the TT, but at least for that version, a battle lasted more than a few seconds. In addition to playing wit the existing numbers for the weapons, playing with adding more to the armor plating and/or internal skeleton would make this game feel less like Hawken and more like a proper Mechwarrior title. And please do remove that recently mechanic of transferring component damage to the skeleton. That is a complete 180 against the spirit of this franchise.

I don't even know what to say here. Did you edit? More armor? More ammo? how about PGI fixes hit detection and you figure out how to lay off the trigger? How is it I push out 500-600 points of damage on 3 kills and a number of assists in a victory and still have ammo left? I carry 200 rounds of SRM and 50 rounds of Ac-10 in my CTF-2x with 3 ML's to back it up, full armor and an XL340. Learn to play a sim!

What I hear from every person who complains about ammo is a combination of "i don't really understand what this is/I have no idea what i am doing." you start out this post concerned that they are creating too many alternate systems and potential changes to TT and the franchise. But then you encourage them to blow damage tables out of the water.

IF you find your self being blown to smithereens early in a match, perhaps consider how you are approaching the battlefield before you start making demands about more armor. More armor means lights are less of a threat, unless you adjust weapons to compensate which negates the point of raising armor values. The vicious cycle continues.

PGI needs to focus on creating a "feel" for the weapons. srms can feel similar, they have different firing rates.Though Ac/5, ppc and gauss could use a pass to create some differentiation.

Pretty much spot on movement issues OP

TL:DR i am not convinced you edited this for content, PGI needs balance and fixes for their existing game before adding any NEW FANGLED #@$()%*&@)(# features to it.

Edited by Archtype, 07 August 2013 - 07:17 PM.

[Anais Opal]

Read most of it,

Agree on most points, except the ammo/armour thing, I can do 1000 damage and 4 kills in my D-DC with 2 tons of SRM (200 rounds) 4 tons of AC20 (28 rounds) and two large lasers. Only ONCE did I burn through all my ammo. If you're running dry fast, learn to go easy with the trigger, or (now don't shoot me) aim better. I think you're spamming your guns and not hitting anything.

One thing that must be mentioned, PGI is a VERY small studio, 30 employees last I checked. They're hiring, but have been for months, seems no-one is biting. I'd apply for the modelers job as it's what my degree is in, but the state of the game makes me nervous.

In my humble opinion, they bit off waaaaaaay more than they could chew with reviving the MechWarrior franchise. It has a HUGE installed fan base (PC and tabletop). It's one of the largest and most committed spanning 10 years if not more of MechWarrior (if we go alllll the way back to MW1, I joined at MW2) Expectations of MW:O were extremely high when it was announced and PGI was ambitious with the information they initially gave to the public.

So far, it's been on a fast decline.

With official release a little over a month away (and I'm sorry, if you're asking people to spend money on Hero 'Mechs and such I consider that out of beta) Community Warfare had better be pretty b*loody spectacular otherwise MWO is going to die an intensely horrible death.

Would be a shame for that to happen wouldn't it?

If it did, I would say to PGI either 1) hand the franchise over to a studio that has the manpower to do better or 2) open source it to the community and let us do a better job.

Edited by GlycerineOxide, 08 August 2013 - 12:00 AM.