170 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Enjoy.

Edited by Koniving, 26 September 2013 - 09:52 PM.

[Itsalrightwithme]

I'd pay a modest amount of MC to put a bounty on Koniving ;-).

[Aerokii]

Thanks for the link, OP!

I'm excited for this- if they can pull it off. I have my doubts, of course, but it sounds pretty awesome! UI 2.0 is looking pretty nice too!

[CyclonerM]

I might even decide that after all this game could be worth some money!
Just a couple of concerns:
How are they going to have in the IS map so many planets (just them in the front lines) with only 7 different maps? And as far as i understand everyone,by collecting a good amount of loyalty points, can join the NPC controlled faction units. So if a player group represents a canon unit but can't name their own Merc Corp,for example, "10th lyran Guards" or "Clan Wolf Alpha Galaxy" they have to join this NPC faction without much freedom and without the interesting Merc Corp assets like Jumpships and dropships?

Edited by CyclonerM, 27 September 2013 - 05:31 AM.

[Theron Branson]

The only issue I have with this is that this is exactly what they said at the beginning (except how to become a Wolf's Dragoon part) and they didn't show any working part of the game. I would feel more confident if they showed at least some of the CW in actual in game content since they've had a very long time to design and work on. They showed a small part of UI2 which is good but I fear how long it will take to implement this vision into actual game.

[VIPER2207]

Theron Branson, on 27 September 2013 - 05:35 AM, said:

...they didn't show any working part of the game...

well, i think that's because not a single line of code is written for CW until now. could bet on it =/

[I C Wiener]

I'm looking for a full version of the launch event stream (was kinda late in Europe last night ). Anyone has a link? Doesn't seem to be on Youtube (yet).

[Joseph Mallan]

Thanks Koniving.

I predict much whining.

"Murphy's Law isn't matching our mass limit when we attack their planet!!!"

Well, to bad. You come into our house be prepare to get rolled by what we have on planet!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 27 September 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[B0oN]

Delivery first, Hype after that.
So far I don´t see any reason to get enthused.
Time will show if that state can be reachieved for this game until then I´ll be sceptic at the least.

One thing off-topic though : FIX HITREG/HSR-Wonkiness GRMBLFJX !!!!!

[100mile]

CyclonerM, on 27 September 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

I might even decide that after all this game could be worth some money!
Just a couple of concerns:
How are they going to have in the IS map so many planets (just them in the front lines) with only 7 different maps? And as far as i understand everyone,by collecting a good amount of loyalty points, can join the NPC controlled faction units. So if a player group represents a canon unit but can't name their own Merc Corp,for example, "10th lyran Guards" or "Clan Wolf Alpha Galaxy" they have to join this NPC faction without much freedom and without the interesting Merc Corp assets like Jumpships and dropships?

1) They have more maps coming and revealed one last night.
2) They are making you choose between the types of play...depends on what you want and what your priority is. It's also making you decide what you think is the best approach... If they pull it off it will be fantastic....

I C Wiener, on 27 September 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

I'm looking for a full version of the launch event stream (was kinda late in Europe last night ). Anyone has a link? Doesn't seem to be on Youtube (yet).

NGNG said they will post a version on Utube...figure it will take a day or so...

[Caervyn]

Thanks for the video!

[Koniving]

Itsalrightwithme, on 27 September 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

I'd pay a modest amount of MC to put a bounty on Koniving ;-).

Don't know for sure if you can hear me over that part, but I was like "I'm so screwed, people are gonna put bounties on me."

[Wintersdark]

Koniving, on 27 September 2013 - 06:46 AM, said:

Don't know for sure if you can hear me over that part, but I was like "I'm so screwed, people are gonna put bounties on me."

Player set bounties are a brilliant cbill sink. Allow me to place a bounty on player X for Y of my own cbills, at a modest placement cost. The cbills earned come out of my pocket, and the bounty placement cost is sunk.

I'd so put a bounty on Koniving just because for lol's.

[Koniving]

CyclonerM, on 27 September 2013 - 05:28 AM, said:

I might even decide that after all this game could be worth some money!
Just a couple of concerns:
How are they going to have in the IS map so many planets (just them in the front lines) with only 7 different maps? And as far as i understand everyone,by collecting a good amount of loyalty points, can join the NPC controlled faction units. So if a player group represents a canon unit but can't name their own Merc Corp,for example, "10th lyran Guards" or "Clan Wolf Alpha Galaxy" they have to join this NPC faction without much freedom and without the interesting Merc Corp assets like Jumpships and dropships?

So many planets, so few maps?

I believe this has been answered in an ATD. To be specific, they said they would be using multiple maps that, for now, would just be generic but later on they would try to use maps of a related environment to any fluff that may be given. For example if it's an ice planet, they'd use several snow-related maps. If it's a vacuum, they'd use any vacuum (no atmosphere) maps they have (which at least one is in development; set to look like an asteroid with a mining facility). If it's a water world, then either above-water maps like the new one coming up or river city, or the one mentioned quite some time ago which was supposed to be some sort of under ocean map. However nothing's been mentioned on it since the very first time it was mentioned in an ATD in the late teens to mid twenties.

I know that they have a target goal of a minimum of one map for each type of environment before the full implementation of community warfare. Considering that the map development is outsourced as far as I can tell (not even CoD developers pay that much to develop their high budget single player maps with the scripted events and they have a 14 million dollar budget for their rather lousy games, so even if the amounts are listed in Canadian the only way they would cost as much as PGI says is if they're outsourced to another group. I know mech animations are outsourced for certain; Bryan's essentially said as much in his 3 part NGNG interview -- if animations are done internally, then you're already paying the guy[s] a daily salary and so cost wouldn't be an issue).

So all in all they just might pull it off.

Spoiler

Though I do wish that they contracted the development of the core heat system to the guys who originally began developing MWTactics; we'd never need heat penalties and might not have ever needed double armor (because we wouldn't have anywhere near the problems we have with non-stop LRM spam or non-ballistic high alpha boating -- we'd still have the ballistic alpha boating there's no denying that but at least they'd shut down an average of 10 to 20 seconds faster and shoot that much less).

Joseph Mallan, on 27 September 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Thanks Koniving.
I predict much whining.
"Murphy's Law isn't matching our mass limit when we attack their planet!!!"
Well, to bad. You come into our house be prepare to get rolled by what we have on planet!

To be honest I had quite some interest in the logistics part. If you have to buy and maintain dropships it sounds like they chose this over classic repair and rearm.

Spoiler

Though I wish they would try the Optional Entry Level R&R I did a concept for -- faction pays for your basics, but you pay for repairs on any upgrades (Ferro, endo, DHS, XL engine) as well as LostTech (LB-10, which would also be able to switch between LB Cluster and AC/10 rounds), RareTech (ER PPCs for example, Artemis, Arrow IV).

You would have up to 4 tons of ammo for a specific weapon type for free [the faction pays for it] (example: 4 tons LRM ammo), a 5th or more tons would have its ammo charged from you if you used them. If you consumed the entire ton you'd literally pay the full price for another).

Of course, since Mercs are supposed to earn more money than faction or lone wolf players, they get hardcore R&R for those craving it. But this was simply the concept.

What has me interested is would more dropships give us more drop weight? If so would the planet we're invading have magically matching weight or could there be differences?

To be honest having a dropweight difference makes a fight interesting. I never liked the "We have an assault you can have an assault" thing and hope that the merc groups don't have to endure that. Let me explain why.

MWO's currently using a tight-weight class system. If you have an 80 ton, it'll try to find a 75 to 85 ton mech to put against you. Mkay? Great.

Though before it used to be if you have a 25 ton mech, the search weight would start with an 25 ton, and if it can't find one it changes to "We just want to find a light mech." If it can't find the light mech, it'll look for a medium. Since mediums aren't too available, it'll look for a heavy. Usually it settles there, causing the weight differences of before.

Before that, it was just "Heavy to heavy. Assault to assault." And before that, it was "we want to find 8 players."

The current system is okay, but the battles are pretty monotonous. Read: Boring. The systems before were usually putting weight in one group's favor when matches weren't perfect. That's not good either. The class to class system really blew.

But what was great, what made MWO really great for me in closed beta? The total lack of categorized matchmaking. When one team might have a mixed group and another might be full on mediums.

First there's the unpredictable nature of it. You did not know what you would be put up against. This made role warfare matter significantly. Your scouts HAD to find out. You had to discover the enemy movements. What they had. Those scouts would report it, giving you the information you needed to set up your ambushes or your plans.

I had a battle in Zhizhu against one of the Skye Ranger regiments (our score against the group overall is 2 wins 1 loss), in which the group had 7 asssaults (680 tons) and 1 ECM Raven (35 tons) against our 2 Atlas, 2 Stalker, 2 Medium 2 Heavy lance (significantly less weight) and we mopped the floor with them after losing half of our forces in an instant.

A great battle involving role warfare was this one. The involved description of the match in lore terms gives a great idea of how much I loved the game back then. I know the perspective of a missile boat isn't the best, but the communication is key.

And this one shows how the complete underdog can use effective teamwork and tactics for one merc group to best a largely superior force not just once but twice in a row, both night and day. To this day, we have yet to beat the Blazing Aces. Complete with annotations analyzing every movement used against us as well as our own mistakes. The use of non-base rushing decoys and the implementation of blitzkrieg rush tactics are completely unheard-of in today's MWO. So is a team of mediums, heavies and lights completely besting a team of mostly assaults and some heavies, completely unheard of these days.

So back on topic, for Merc Groups voice communication will always be there. The opponents will also always have voice. So the weight and mech class matching for me isn't necessary and actually unwelcomed in my eyes. What is welcomed is the concept of the Dropships limiting our weight potential, while a Garrison has an established supported tonnage limit.

So what's an example? Let's say a dropship gives the Merc Corp an ability to deploy 200 tons. This is just a random even number; there's no specific info on this so don't take it as word of God or a promise.

Let's say your Merc Group has 3 dropships. Mkay, that means for the entire group, you get 600 tons to drop with. That's to spread to 12 players. If one person brings an Atlas, that's 1/6th of the entire possible weight consumed for 1 player. Let's say you bring 2 Atlases, that's 400 tons left for the rest of the team.

But what if it doesn't have to be 12 versus 12? Then you could drop 6 Atlases which means 6 players your team is limited to only 6 players, but the other team might have 240 tons of heavies, 200 tons of mediums, 85 tons in assaults, and perhaps an additional 115 tons in lights. So they have 12 players to defend against you. This is assuming their weight had to match.

Not feeling so confident in having only assaults, are you as the random person reading this? Though it's quite possible the battle can go either way and I rather like that idea.

Also nothing says that the team defending would have to have the same weight limits as you. So the Garrison weight limit idea (purely mine nothing was given about this by PGI, but I would love it if they apply this) might not support a full 600 tons to match the invading force! Oh noes! Perhaps they invested more in better base defense gear instead? The defending team might be restricted to less weight but uses it in much lighter, faster mechs and chooses instead to rely on the actual base defenses and garrisons to help them turn the tide!

That's the way I would do it. They mentioned bases with defenses already. They mentioned making garrisons and bases. Defense systems. So why should a merc corp (read: the hardcore-style players) be obligated to match weights perfectly? I say leave that for the casual faction and lone wolf players. Or even set up something for the faction players where the overall drop tonnage is matched within a 15 ton differential but otherwise it can be done in whatever way possible.

It's the diversity I crave. A way to make role warfare matter again. Tactics and strategy, the thinking person's shooter we were promised.

Edited by Koniving, 27 September 2013 - 07:46 AM.

[Karl Marlow]

I only really have two notes.

First, It looks like the Merc units are getting most of the fun goodies while those who want to be a part of the houses are being left out.

Second, Why does it matter so much if an Atlas is cheaper to buy if I won a planet? I already own mechs and C-bills will accumulate even for the more expensive mechs. This seems like a barrier to play for newer people. Unless you are adding in some sort of Mech Durability to the game. Which I wouldn't be opposed to.

Edited by ThomasMarik, 27 September 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Not the first time they have had high aspirations, I will give PGI one thing they constantly shoot for the moon.....sadly they keep hitting New Jersey.

[Aerokii]

Xeno Phalcon, on 27 September 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Not the first time they have had high aspirations, I will give PGI one thing they constantly shoot for the moon.....sadly they keep hitting New Jersey.

Who here among us haven't thought about hitting New Jersey? Preferably in the metaphorical face.

[Jestun]

I C Wiener, on 27 September 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

I'm looking for a full version of the launch event stream (was kinda late in Europe last night ). Anyone has a link? Doesn't seem to be on Youtube (yet).

http://www.twitch.tv/igp/b/465216210

[CyclonerM]

Koniving, on 27 September 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

So many planets, so few maps?

I believe this has been answered in an ATD. To be specific, they said they would be using multiple maps that, for now, would just be generic but later on they would try to use maps of a related environment to any fluff that may be given. For example if it's an ice planet, they'd use several snow-related maps. If it's a vacuum, they'd use any vacuum (no atmosphere) maps they have (which at least one is in development; set to look like an asteroid with a mining facility). If it's a water world, then either above-water maps like the new one coming up or river city, or the one mentioned quite some time ago which was supposed to be some sort of under ocean map. However nothing's been mentioned on it since the very first time it was mentioned in an ATD in the late teens to mid twenties.

I know that they have a target goal of a minimum of one map for each type of environment before the full implementation of community warfare. Considering that the map development is outsourced as far as I can tell (not even CoD developers pay that much to develop their high budget single player maps with the scripted events and they have a 14 million dollar budget for their rather lousy games, so even if the amounts are listed in Canadian the only way they would cost as much as PGI says is if they're outsourced to another group. I know mech animations are outsourced for certain; Bryan's essentially said as much in his 3 part NGNG interview -- if animations are done internally, then you're already paying the guy[s] a daily salary and so cost wouldn't be an issue).

*wall of text*

Nice post as always.. I never read this, but i am new to the game compared to the closed beta veterans.
So i understand this: each front showed in the CW presentation should have no les than 10 planets i suppose; and i assume that there will be no less than 5 border regions. this means there will be for example 8 icy planets, 8 snowy planets, 8 desert planet ecc.? Well,this is still better than what i feared but i still think they should have tried to use community created maps.

EDIT: I wonder why they didn't post ANYTHING in Command Chair,they could have posted a link to this awesome video.. Are they not interested in their own big announcements?! If Russ announced in a NGNG podcast that the game'd be shut down and no one of the community posts some notes, there would be a big surprise for 95% of the players.

Edited by CyclonerM, 27 September 2013 - 08:17 AM.

[Wintersdark]

ThomasMarik, on 27 September 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

I only really have two notes.

First, It looks like the Merc units are getting most of the fun goodies while those who want to be a part of the houses are being left out.

Second, Why does it matter so much if an Atlas is cheaper to buy if I won a planet? I already own mechs and C-bills will accumulate even for the more expensive mechs. This seems like a barrier to play for newer people. Unless you are adding in some sort of Mech Durability to the game. Which I wouldn't be opposed to.

In short - and they've always been along this line for CW stuff - if you already own everything you want and already have zounds of cbills, then yeah, there won't be much for you. Rewards for CW have always been largely economic and "fluffy" (camo patterns, unit designation for faction players) which that's been well known since PCGamer's article.

This is a major reason why they stomped down on cbill gain. If you go into CW with a huge stockpile of cbills, you have far less reason to care about who controls what. Obviously some reason, as it's still bragging rights, but economics are a design pillar of motivation here.