1555 replies to this topic

[Chronojam]

One interesting method to handle access to content and incentivize play that War Thunder uses is unlocking skin options, decals, etc. via specific combat objectives. An MWO equivalent would be "defeat x-hundred enemies while piloting a Dragon, receive the Flame skin" with the option to pay MC to immediately unlock it instead. This gives you a reason to try planes you otherwise wouldn't, and lets you give yourself something to work towards.

I feel that a lot of MWO pay-to-avoid-grind isn't done out of excitement for a particular mech variant, it's done because the other variants are simply so bad that nobody wants to deal with them. People use GXP to rush past the bad Dragon, or Raven, or Stalker variants that seemingly only exist to encourage you to buy GXP to avoid ever needing to actually use them. I'm not saying that was PGI's intent but that's sure how things ended up feeling, which is unfortunate for battlefield variety.

[Nekki Basara]

What's a "war mongler"?

[Armored Yokai]

Locust will make nest in your mech he says

[Hexenhammer]

Heffay, on 16 October 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

Some people just need to be angry. What they are angry about is irrelevant. If it disappears, their anger will just transfer to the next thing they see.

Pretty much. Some people want to be mad and they are.

I'll take the engine upgrades to lights. Some people are so angry that they don't realize upping mech speed past 152 means the net code is getting fixed.

[FrDrake]

Chronojam, on 16 October 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

It's generally considered to be in poor taste to leech images and post page-high unrelated content while sidestepping the actual discussion entirely. Of course, if you see no fault with the current mech scaling, you are quite tasteless indeed.

If you truly do not like any of the camo patterns, there is little to be said about your appreciation of aesthetics in general. Of course if some actually do indeed appeal to you but their price is too steep to justify purchase, we're right back to that again, aren't we? Surely if they were more accessible you (and others) would try them out more. The fact you haven't bought a specific skin option clearly is either a sign of poor design (less likely) or a sign of poor pricing (more likely) if we rule out a failure to appreciate MWO's aesthetics (sort of a toss-up).

As there is no bad stalker variant, I'm forced to consider the rest of your post suspect.

[Country Gravy]

TamCoan, on 16 October 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

Checking to see if my overlord forum badge shows.

[Nekki Basara]

FrDrake, on 16 October 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

As there is no bad stalker variant, I'm forced to consider the rest of your post suspect.

Assuming the twist and pitch hasn't been updated since August any Stalker that isn't the -3F or MAYBE the Misery if you want to use a ballistic then EVERY OTHER variant is the bad one.

ETA: that's not 100% fair, the -5M would make missile boat, were missiles worth taking and Ghost Heat didn't cripple them.

Edited by Nekki Basara, 16 October 2013 - 11:41 AM.

[Anders]

FrDrake, on 16 October 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

As there is no bad stalker variant, I'm forced to consider the rest of your post suspect.

Hello Mr. Fr-Capital-Dee-rake:

Please justify the current existence of the Stalker-4N in the face of the Stalker-3F. I dare you.

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[Deathlike]

FrDrake, on 16 October 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

As there is no bad stalker variant, I'm forced to consider the rest of your post suspect.

Without waffling through Anders "standard reply", the 4N is that variant. The 3F is the best, generally. The 5M is unique (the Misery is in the same niche). The 3H is the pure missile boat (although the 5M can do that with the extra missile hardpoint).

The 4N is only "good" if you have minimal use for missiles and don't care about the "added arm protection" of the missile bays. Then again, the 5S has dual AMS and doesn't suffer from the same things the 4N does.

The 4N doesn't do anything of worth, nor does anything better than most of the existing variants can do.

[DirePhoenix]

Chronojam, on 16 October 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

It's generally considered to be in poor taste to leech images and post page-high unrelated content while sidestepping the actual discussion entirely. Of course, if you see no fault with the current mech scaling, you are quite tasteless indeed.

If you truly do not like any of the camo patterns, there is little to be said about your appreciation of aesthetics in general. Of course if some actually do indeed appeal to you but their price is too steep to justify purchase, we're right back to that again, aren't we? Surely if they were more accessible you (and others) would try them out more. The fact you haven't bought a specific skin option clearly is either a sign of poor design (less likely) or a sign of poor pricing (more likely) if we rule out a failure to appreciate MWO's aesthetics (sort of a toss-up).

My not purchasing the patterns is not a statement on the pattern's quality. The cobra skin is nice, it looks like a cobra skin probably should. However, I don't want my mechs to look like snakes, so I'm not buying it. Others may want to have a snakeskin look on their mechs, and if they want to buy it, I have no issues with that. I'm not going to rant about people buying an option that I'm not interested in. The Tartan skin is also a nice skin using a tartan pattern. I'm not really interested in having a tartan pattern on my mechs. Others may go nuts over it. The Applejack pattern I may buy once I figure out which chassis I'd like it on most (preferably one I'll be using well after I've mastered it, if its a variant that can use it), but until that happens, I can wait. The Buccaneer pattern is great if you want to RP a pirate, outlaw, or some other miscreant. I don't, but I'm not going to kvetch if others do, or that the pattern exists, or that PGI is selling it. Phranken is cool if you want to have a skeleton painted on your 'mech. Again, I don't, but others might. And if they do, good for them! Why would I have an issue with people having an option to make their mech look like they want, even if its not how I want my mech to look?

The HotRod pattern is a nice bonus, and I'll probably use it on some mechs. Would I have bought it if I didn't get it free? Maybe. Depending on if I have a 'mech that suits it well. It's not like I don't have options to customize my mech's appearance like I want or that they're taking my options away. The options are there. If I want them, I'll buy them, if I don't I won't. There is no 'issue'. I don't need to have everything. And I especially don't have to take every little thing as an 'issue' that I have to take a stand on one side or the other for.

Take the paint colors, as that is something I do buy: Most colors I will wait until they're on sale to buy, and even then only the ones I want. Some colors I will buy even when they are not on sale. It is not a statement on quality, I just want some colors more than others (other people may have different preferences... If I don't buy Cadmium Red, I am not saying it's a bad color, it's just not something I may want right now). It also is not a statement on price, I just know that eventually all colors will be on sale and I can get more bang for my buck then, and I can wait; unless I REALLY want the particular color, and there was already a sale on it recently that I missed for whatever reason, then I'm fine with paying full price. If I was unaware that there are things called 'sales' that happen from time to time where they temporarily lower the prices on some items, I'd probably buy everything (I wanted) at full price. No issue.

Edited by DirePhoenix, 16 October 2013 - 12:46 PM.

[Chronojam]

Deathlike, on 16 October 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

Without waffling through Anders "standard reply", the 4N is that variant. The 3F is the best, generally. The 5M is unique (the Misery is in the same niche). The 3H is the pure missile boat (although the 5M can do that with the extra missile hardpoint).

The 4N is only "good" if you have minimal use for missiles and don't care about the "added arm protection" of the missile bays. Then again, the 5S has dual AMS and doesn't suffer from the same things the 4N does.

The 4N doesn't do anything of worth, nor does anything better than most of the existing variants can do.

A problem with the 5S is that the second AMS costs you 3 million cbills and mobility while contributing relatively little to your own combat effectiveness (when compared to alternative resource allocation). The sacrifice in space and weight for a second AMS and ammo is better spent on armor or heatsinks, and the severe vulnerability to flanking means that it's not LRMs you have to worry about.

The 5S does not contribute particularly much to herd immunity either. A second mech carrying an AMS would be far more useful taking the group as a whole, if you expect many LRMs.

So really for 3,000,000 more cbills or 1,320 more MC, you get very little over a STK-3F while gaining very large downsides.

Edited by Chronojam, 16 October 2013 - 12:53 PM.

[Deathlike]

Chronojam, on 16 October 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

A problem with the 5S is that the second AMS costs you 3 million cbills and mobility while contributing relatively little to your own combat effectiveness (when compared to alternative resource allocation). The sacrifice in space and weight for a second AMS and ammo is better spent on armor or heatsinks, and the severe vulnerability to flanking means that it's not LRMs you have to worry about.

The 5S does not contribute particularly much to herd immunity either. A second mech carrying an AMS would be far more useful taking the group as a whole, if you expect many LRMs.

Well, I didn't buy it for the 2nd AMS (no reason to have one most of the time). It was to grind something out (and for the purposes of grinding, it's hard to say it was bad for that reason).

Quote

So really for 3,000,000 more cbills or 1,320 more MC, you get very little over a STK-3F while gaining very large downsides.

All I collected was the "free" 255XL (for a future Spider). Maybe someday the 2nd AMS would be in demand. Hello Atlas-K.

Edited by Deathlike, 16 October 2013 - 01:01 PM.

[Nekki Basara]

For AMS to actually be worth taking again Ghost Heat will have to go and missiles will need a damage buff to counteract the removal of the splash damage which shouldn't have existed in the first place. I suspect that will result in another LRMpocalypse for a week or so until "tuning" nerfs them back to worthlessness again.

[PrototypeIV]

Nice.

[Chronojam]

Deathlike, on 16 October 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Well, I didn't buy it for the 2nd AMS (no reason to have one most of the time). It was to grind something out (and for the purposes of grinding, it's hard to say it was bad for that reason).

It's still sub-par at combat aside from "Which can hold more AMS gear" when compared to the 3F, though, and it cost more so if money's your goal it's the wrong choice. What's its torso twist like in the most recent patch? Since the Bad Stalkers have been Bad Stalkers for so long, perhaps they snuck in a fix for the awful range of motion (which harms your survival as much as it harms your capability to direct fire).

It's just not really interesting compared to the 3F to make it feel really different or make it a good choice to ever bring, much like the 4N has literally no compelling reason to ever be used unless a game rule comes out that says you cannot have duplicates of any variant (and even then the 4N is dumber than the others and objectively worse).

[Deathlike]

Chronojam, on 16 October 2013 - 04:28 PM, said:

It's still sub-par at combat aside from "Which can hold more AMS gear" when compared to the 3F, though, and it cost more so if money's your goal it's the wrong choice. What's its torso twist like in the most recent patch? Since the Bad Stalkers have been Bad Stalkers for so long, perhaps they snuck in a fix for the awful range of motion (which harms your survival as much as it harms your capability to direct fire).

It's just not really interesting compared to the 3F to make it feel really different or make it a good choice to ever bring, much like the 4N has literally no compelling reason to ever be used unless a game rule comes out that says you cannot have duplicates of any variant (and even then the 4N is dumber than the others and objectively worse).

It could be worse. Got to make the most out of the options... compared to other mechs that have no options...

[Titan Osis]

Woot!

[Lord of Death]

So, like, will we be getting our little red overlord star banner showing ingame in the stats screen like the founders thing is?

[3Xtr3m3]

^^ Well said, Mate

[Falkon71]

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