aniviron, on 09 October 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:
While it is cool-sounding, I want you also to realize that every game you cite in this post and later ones are singleplayer games. You just can't have jawdropping, scary-as-hell OP enemies in multiplayer only games, because that's just not fun for either side (well, it's fun for the OP side for a while, but that doesn't last). Even games where there are huge scary enemies like Unreal Tournament's
Leviathan have to have massive drawbacks like being heinously slow, and once you know how to take them on they're not that bad.
You'll notice that one of my examples was from World of Warcraft, where PvP gear was always a big issue. Of course, WoW isn't exactly the pinnacle of gaming that all new games should try to emulate. But I would like to see the equivalent of PvP gear in MWO, in the sense that some variants, weapons and/or other gear had to be earned. In WoW, the way to get good gear was to grind and farm, and I'm not a fan of that. I would prefer to see a kind of skill-based criteria, like a number of challenges in order to earn the right to use certain mechs, for example. Let's say you need to score at least 5 kills in a match with any Atlas variant as a challenge in order to qualify for the Atlas D-DC. Or score 1000 damage. Or get a score of 100 and above.
Set some goals with more focus on skill, things that can be accomplished in just a few games if you're good enough. Not goals like "500 wins in Assault mode", that force players to grind for gear.
aniviron, on 09 October 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:
If you want a big scary Atlas, get PGI back on their singleplayer reboot of Mechwarrior 3025. Remember that trailer? You know, the one? Here, I'll link it for you.
Very kind, aniviron, but I actually linked to this in the OP. So yeah, I remember it.
aniviron, on 09 October 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:
Now that you're done watching how cool that is again, take a minute to think about how amazing it would be to run into that if you could save, plan ahead, and really wanted a challenge to overcome. Once you're done with that, think about if that was how MWO worked; you get blindsided by an Atlas, just instantly dead, nothing you can do about it. One of those sounds like fun, the other doesn't; losing the scariness of the big mechs was already done the moment PGI decided to go multiplayer.
You can never take away the element of chance, or the chance of instant death from a game like MWO. There's always going to be the chance of running into 5-10 enemy mechs around the corner, because you're playing against intelligent and experienced gamers, and they'll often have scouted ahead and laid some kind of plan to surprise you. Not to mention that, if PUGing, your teammates can be quite reliable, so if you make the mistake of overestimating your teammates, you'll often end up dead very fast.
(Twice in the last couple of days, I've run into two lances of heavy / assault mech with no warning, because they were standing in the middle of our position, but only one or two had been targeted by our team, and no one had thought to warn the rest of us that we were under attack. No ECM, no stealthy light packs. Just a bunch of Jagers and Atlases that casually strolled into our midst)
Anyway, you can never take away that element of multiplayer games. If you're playing Capture the flag in Quake, and you're defending one of two routes between the enemy and your flag, then there's always the chance that you will be overrun by a surprise attack and killed very quickly. That's part of the game. If you take that away, we're back to Napoleonic trench warfare.
The thing that got me hooked on online multiplayer to begin with, was the feeling of vulnerability and mortality in CounterStrike. You were just waiting for that AWP round or AK-47 burst in your back. When I first started playing online, I was almost scared to death every time I died. Especially since CS had no music, very few ambient sounds, and there was so much sneaking involved. In MWO, death is rarely so sudden, so it's not quite as scary. Even in a Raven, I can bump into an Atlas, take a full alpha on the nose and survive. It's not often you go instantly from 100% to 0%.
But I never had a problem with instant death in computer games. I actually find it more frustrating when I die a long and inevitable death from a constant LRM and AC2 barrage, shaking my cockpit while I desperately try to get some kind of aim through the clouds of smoke and fire. It's not as fun when you're just spectating your own death for 30 seconds.
Nubirak, on 09 October 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:
Tbh there are plenty of multiplayer games that deal with assymetric power-levels. First thing that comes to mind is EVE online and DUST. It's also one of the selling points of Titanfall, the upcoming twitch-shooter by the team that made CoD. So we have both thinking-man shooters and twitch shooters that already feature the mechanic.
The complete lack of a metagame has pidgeonholed PGI on the other direction though. Frankly, R&R was a lackluster mechanic, however, in order to have assymetric power in the battles, some kind of external check might be needed. I just don't see PGI going that way though, I think they are much more minded in making this an e-sport with tight balance than a simulation game.
Agreed on all counts, but although I don't think R&R was perfect, I do think it was better than the current state of carelessness and no consequences.
aniviron, on 09 October 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:
That is kind of my point though- the AWP is an excellent example of an unbalanced weapon that can make games unfun. While a good player with an AWP will generally defeat two lesser players without AWPs easily, so will a decent player be able to beat two better players simply because he has better gear. At higher levels of play (at least in source and 1.6) the only thing ever stopping everyone from taking an AWP/deagle loadout every single round was the cost. MWO has no such balancing method, and so implementing very powerful gear like the AWP in a game like MWO would backfire pretty badly, as there is no more risk to dying in a bad mech than a good one; you only get one life, regardless.
And of course, this was my suggestion for a potential MWO hardcore mode. Buy stock mechs before each battle, like weapons before each match in CS. You die in CS, you lose your AWP rifle and probably don't have enough money to buy a new one with kevlar and desert eagle at the same time. You die in MWO hardcore mode, you lose your assault mech and you're only left with enough money to buy a medium or heavy at best.
Of course, the problem with this model is that PGI can't make money on sellings mechs for MC. Meh, I'd pay MC for a monthly subscription to hardcore mode if I could.
aniviron, on 09 October 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:
I also can't help but feel that part of the reason people tend not to be scared of individual pilots in this game is that what passes for tactics in every single pug match is "don't you dare leave the giant metal death ball." This means that it's rare to ever get into a 1v1 fight at all unless you're a light (in which case the battle is decided entirely by who has more streak srms) and it's hard to be afraid of someone when you and your 250 tons of backup are target firing them. No matter how good they are, there's not a lot you can do about that.
Agreed.