231 replies to this topic

[Fiona Marshe]

Pixel Perfect Pinpoint Accurate Alpha Strikes.

[Eric Harvester]

Actually i have been playing for just over 6 months and done over 1000 drops, but i still cant get a consistant game. Some games i can come away still alive on the winning side with a couple of kills to my name and then others first shot kills me. And the latter experience recently has outweighed the first instance. As for the light versus assault mech, your expereince isn't mine, i mainly run an Awesome 8T with endo and double HS with Artemis and the small laser taken out, or a Cataphract with ERLarge 4 mediums and ac/10 with endo. Now both buids regualrly get toasted by light mechs, and i have mastered both mechs, unless they come to me already pretty battered and i'm relatively unscathed then i might win, but if i get more than one then thats it.

Now i have come upon a raven from behind, it was perfectly still and hit it with the 4 mediums and the ac/10 and it walked away and eventually killed me, this is what i see as a problem, it shoulod have been destroyed if it was the tabletop it would have been no mech in my experience can take that much damage to the rear nd not be badly damaged.

So thats why i'm now considering leaving this game and maybe come back when it finally goes live maybe. I really wanted to like it but with thngs like the kill/death ratios (which in my opinion don't promote teamplay, and only really show who has stolen the kills of other players) and this, in my perception, light mech imbalance i just havn't enjoyed the last few weeks of gameplay.

[Rhent]

Perhaps it was increasing the spread on SRM's
Although it could be invulnerable armor panels causing little to no damage when hit
Unknown ghost heat preventing people from boating
Little to no thinking about other ways to balance game play except heat

I believe I described the main guy killing the game now.

[Raidyr]

Consistently-failing hit detection means that proper balance is difficult to iron out, and fixing it should be a top priority.

[Tolkien]

Lack of features and game modes we were supposed to have in January (CW), combined with the developers still making giant 30%+ changes to weapon balance rather than incremental ones.

[Tombstoner]

The games name MWO implies a new paradigm, this is not true and it should be called MW4 online. cause that's what we got, a reskined MW game that has more in common with CS then TT BT.

[Morang]

Lack of skill on the designers part combined with extreme complexity of balancing mechs and weapons in very dynamic and player-influenced environment (it comprises not only the different environment on different maps, which is normal, but also vast number of possible player-made loadouts and too frequent changes to such core features as HSR, collisions, terrain effect on movement etc influencing balance) and complicated by lacking playerbase which makes it hard to get solid average ratings of different mechs' performance.

[Dimento Graven]

Kaijin, on 12 September 2013 - 10:02 PM, said:

Prior to the end of the Fourth Succession War (3028-3030), which is history, as far as we're concerned in MWO..

Quoting the relevant text from Sarna:
"With the creation of the first BattleMech in the 25th Century the face of battle in the Inner Sphere changed. In the centuries that followed these awesome machines and the men and women that piloted them came to be viewed as the modern incarnation of the Knight-Errant. These masters of the modern battlefield were given honors, and some were even raised to the nobility on the merit of their accomplishments. Over time a social class of MechWarriors formed and a series of traditions became established. During the long years of the Succession Wars, as the Great Houses battled each other for control of the Inner Sphere, many MechWarriors owned their own BattleMechs and a tradition of passing the 'Mech and their responsibilities from one generation to the next within a family line started. These 'Mechs became a treasured resource for those lucky enough to have them and were coveted and repaired again and again over the centuries.

This changed with the end of the Fourth Succession War. With the discovery, development and rapid adoption of many new and old technologies, the ancient 'Mechs that had held the field for so many years became hopelessly outclassed by newer generations of BattleMechs leaving factory lines throughout the Inner Sphere. The average independent MechWarrior could not keep up with the House-sponsored armies in keeping their systems and components up to date and soon fell hopelessly behind. With the coming of the Clans this became even more evident. The change in culture has had grave consequences for the private ownership of BattleMechs. Most of the newer Inner Sphere produced 'Mechs are owned by the various House Militaries, while amongst the Clans all property is owned by the Clan itself and a Clan MechWarrior never owns his own equipment."

Emphasis mine. That endosteel. Those DHS. The ER weapons. XL Engines. That's House Military issue.

Besides which, even when replacing one weapon with another that fits, how often do you think that was an AC20 replacing a machine gun? That sort of thing required extensive structural changes. Swapping out fusion engines? Hardly. Repairing them, or taking apart the mech for scrap if the engine couldn't be fixed. The stuff we can do to customize our mechs would require something more than the workshop on a union-class dropship.

We're in that 'transitional' period now where there are still quite a few custom 'mechs, and as far as requiring a 'workshop on a union-class dropship' there's plenty of field service vehicles out there capable of swapping weapons, armor, and other components.

The point is 'standardization' isn't yet as universal as you're making it out to be.

[Theodor Kling]

Hexenhammer, on 12 September 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

Big promises
High hopes
Still waiting.

Nice one.

One sentence:
Lack of ironing out core game elements and mechanics before balancing weapons.

alternative version:
Lack of team tools in a team based game.

Meaning: Performance, client stability ( good by now I think), hit detection, ecm an assorted equipment.. those all need to be ingame and at work before you can even begin to balance weapons in a meaningfull way.
But they went open beta with nothing of those.

About the second one: Primarily I miss voice. Premades using external voice get a way too big advantage over pugs. Not saying they wouldn't be better anyway. A team of people playing together on a regular basis will always have an advantage over a random team. But voice comms make calling out targets or orders, or even sightings of the enemy so much easier.

[Dimento Graven]

Ultimately I think that PGI bit off more than they could realistically chew by choosing to start their timeline just before the Clan wars.

I think it would have been more prudent to start at just before the beginning of the 4th Succession war, which would have had a few less weapons and other components to balance.

Perfected that, and then brought in the new technologies.

At any point in time they could have accelerated the timeline after having gotten to a 'steady state' of game balance.

As it is now, however, they're having to rush rush rush like mad to add in Clan technologies which will probably more than double the amount of weapons and systems requiring to be balanced.

Not a good situation for PGI, the game, or the customers to end up in...

[Livewyr]

"It all started with a little magic box so-called ECM..."

[PropagandaWar]

Kazly, on 12 September 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

It is a simple repetitious game that has no depth or meaning and is only kept afloat through our love of battletech and great groups of people we play with.

Aka: implement something!

Yep MOST FPS's have tons and tons of depth. Aim, shoot, kill, Aim, Shoot, Kill. MWO CW may bring some depth to the games MP aspect something that Battlefield and CoD do not.

[Kazly]

PropagandaWar, on 13 September 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Yep MOST FPS's have tons and tons of depth. Aim, shoot, kill, Aim, Shoot, Kill. MWO CW may bring some depth to the games MP aspect something that Battlefield and CoD do not.

I like to think of it more as a simulator vs first person shooter myself, and originally got excited for the community warfare plans. I also think they can add a lot more pilot progression, and the inherent tactics of this game make more than tespawn kill respawn kill. Otherwise, I would never continue to play this game more than occasionally.

[Kazly]

I'll admit, I generally don't play FPS online all that much, and when I do, it's just to kill time. I prefer games that have objectives.

With that said, even the FPS games I've played have more going for them than what MWO does in its current state. I stand by my statement that what's keeping my interest in this game is good people I play with, and that it's battletech/mechwarrior.

[Bacl]

The lack of convergeance system leading to stupid attempt to fix by implementing a overly stupid and complicated ghost heat system punishing the heavier classes of mechs, players and limiting the customization and freedom of building your own personnalized machine by solving one problem while creating 3 more.

[Roughneck45]

AssaultWarriorOnline.

[Deathlike]

Rhent, on 13 September 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

Perhaps it was increasing the spread on SRM's
Although it could be invulnerable armor panels causing little to no damage when hit
Unknown ghost heat preventing people from boating
Little to no thinking about other ways to balance game play except heat

I believe I described the main guy killing the game now.

It's a little more than just that.

For instance, the recent Streak buff coincided with the release of the Catapult-A1 Champion.

The current UAC5 buff coincides with the Ilya+Firebrand sale.

Wasn't the JJ "shake removal" coinciding with debut of the Victor?

You know... when you follow the trail of crumbs...

[Protection]

Here's a better one:

"If the game was exactly the same in every other way, but didn't have the Mechwarrior / Battletech IP, we would have all given up on it long ago and the game would already be dead."

[Chavette]

Matthew Craig, on 12 September 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

With regards to the match maker matching up too broad a range of skilled players; as stated in my last technical update we're addressing this and the changes are coming in the next patch. The range that the match maker pulls from for weight class and Elo are tightening up significantly which should make it much harder to get a game with too wide a range of Mech weights or pilot skills, the downside may be slightly longer wait times, we'll see when the patch goes live.

As someone with ~4600 matches: - and I've heard Bryan being concerned about this - I don't give a damn if the wait time is doubled from the current ~10 avg to ~20 or even ~25 if the match, (as in following 10 minutes of my game time) is significantly higher quality.

[Livewyr]

Prot.. that's an opinion/comment on the balance, not an explanation..


(However, very true nonetheless.)