587 replies to this topic

[Corvus Antaka]

clan mechs, ui 2.0 and CW will bring people back, mostly for the clan mechs. If PGI actually gives us private matches, lobbies, collisions, DFA, & all the stuff the miracle ui 2.0 will supposedly give us, all PGI has to do is time the clan mech release for having CW in & working well and droves of players will pile back in faster than you can blink.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 17 November 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[Igorius]

Bront, on 17 November 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

My experience is anecdotal, but so is the experience from folks losing friends and not finding new ones. Like I said, I'm down only 1 friend due to 3PV, and my friends list has grown by at least 100 people in the past 2 months, and I've played perhaps 15 new (less than a month experience) players over that time period.

As for being stagnant, it all depends on what you're looking for and how you're involved. Sure, the game play hasn't changed greatly, but it has changed here and there, and there are plenty of things you can do to find new gameplay (plenty of tourneys, group metas, or simply playing with a group of friends). For me, I'm still learning new wrinkles in the game play, and have been branching out into different scenes. What's stagnant for one person may not be for someone else.

Mostly, I see a bunch of folks in this thread who are more interested in saying "woe is me" than they are in finding something new and enjoyable.

That said, play what's fun for you. If MWO isn't fun for you, then find something else that is. MWO isn't going anywhere, and some time away may help you get some perspective and excitement back for the game.

First off, can I say that I appreciate the civility you've shown while offering a different opinion to mine? Too many times now I've witnessed disagreements on these forums degrade into outright hate. While we may differ in our points of view, I appreciate your candor and tone in spite of the potential to see things completely come apart at the seams.

On your suggestion to take some time away from the game, I have, repeatedly. I love the game, in spite of itself; which may be part of my issue. Every time I come back, I relive the same sense of... disappointment is the wrong word for it. Frustration doesn't quite cover it, either. No, the game leaves me with a sense that it is letting itself down. Forgive me for not being able to put it into better words than that. Watching all the friends I'd accumulated give up and leave the game simply added a sense of loss on top of that, for me at least.

[Time at the Position]

Mister Blastman, on 17 November 2013 - 02:20 PM, said:

This game is a steaming pile of {Scrap} right now for a couple of reasons:

1. Horrible hit detection (50%+ of damage not counting)
2. Weapons balance sucks
3. Matchmaker sucks
All three of those lead for a piece of {Scrap} experience and why you see people not playing.

Tell me about it, last night I got matched against some 8 man sync drop guys from HARDCORPS 4 times in a row

[3rdworld]

Roadbeer, on 17 November 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

You and I have different ideas of criticism.

What you see as criticism, I see as a petulant, tourets ridden, 10 year old having a tantrum in the supermarket because mommy told him he has to wait for his candy bar.

Then tell me what exactly of his 3 criticisms. Hit detection, Weapon balance, matchmaker are not valid?

He isn't even going into poor performance, Chassis inequity, variety of gameplay, 2 modes lawl, etc.

The game has huge issues. Being upset he didn't coddle PGI when spelling them out, doesn't change that they exist. I just don't get butt-hurt when people say the truth.

Edited by 3rdworld, 17 November 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 17 November 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

clan mechs.

I still 110% hold that they are likely to drop Clan Mechs as an anyone can buy them scenario while claiming they are "not more powerful." Since at this point it is obvious nobody at PGI understands the slightest thing about game balance mechanics and thinks it is a great Herculean feat to edit an XML file, I think we can safely say unless they throw the ENTIRE base stats out the window, they will be more powerful.

What I'm saying is if they drop Clan mechs and allow everyone to use them outside of CW, it will outdate every single 'mech we have in the game (including Project Phoenix) and at that point, well, I fear for the future of the game. People will not take kindly to a "Oh yeah all your 'mechs are yesterday's news" moment.

If Clan 'mechs are restricted to Clan pilots then we're fine. Then we can find some other way to balance the IS vs Clan matches. But given CW is "sometime after that" (I don't expect it this year, at all, period) and they pull this, it might be the end of MW:O flat out. Not a riot like the last time, but people will get fed up.

Edited by Victor Morson, 17 November 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[Igorius]

Alistair Winter, on 17 November 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

This guy.

He know's what's up.

And he's even wearing my medals. Nice.

Grazie mille! I do enjoy the medals so very much. Nicely done.

[Roadbeer]

3rdworld, on 17 November 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

Then tell me what exactly of his 3 criticisms. Hit detection, Weapon balance, matchmaker are not valid?

He isn't even going into poor performance, Chassis inequity, variety of gameplay, 2 modes lawl, etc.

The game has huge issues. Being upset he didn't coddle PGI when spelling them out, doesn't change that they exist. I just don't get butt-hurt when people say the truth.

Nope, you don't get to do that. You don't get to say he has valid points just addressed them poorly.
That's coddling the petulant. Worst thing that ever happened was making it illegal to discipline your children for poor behavior. When a point is made intelligently, I'll respond in kind. Until then, I'll be here to mock childish behavior for what it really is.

[3rdworld]

Roadbeer, on 17 November 2013 - 02:44 PM, said:

Nope, you don't get to do that. You don't get to say he has valid points just addressed them poorly.
That's coddling the petulant. Worst thing that ever happened was making it illegal to discipline your children for poor behavior. When a point is made intelligently, I'll respond in kind. Until then, I'll be here to mock childish behavior for what it really is.

Enjoy your fedora.

[Victor Morson]

My concern as that we're going to get flat out abandon again, and have been already.

The simple fact of the matter is after Consumables came out until about two months before launch - roughly an 8 month gap - nothing happened at the upper levels in this game. Networking programmers continued to work as did the map/mech teams, but there's not one single new gameplay feature, improvement, or even major XML tweak in that period.

Keep in mind, CW was promised to us at the start of 2012 and then they have since confirmed they didn't begin working on it until about three months ago... and so far, given all the talk of "UI 2.0", I would be willing to wager 10MC that they aren't even doing any work past design doc phase right now. At all. We are literally discussing vaporware since I don't believe even a prototype exists right now.

UI2.0 itself was confirmed to have started about three months ago, again, being a promised feature since open beta.

Long story short: The lead developers utterly checked out and stopped working on this game for about half a year, and left it to a few interns and relied on the map/mech people to release stuff to keep it on life support.

... why am I bringing all this up? Promptly after Project Phoenix all attempts at releasing frequent balance updates, fixes, etc. and to communicate with the community ceased entirely.

I can't help but feel they came back from an 8 month of, if not a vacation, totally checking out - put on a good show to prove there's "effort" and then promptly went back to looking at silly cat pictures on the internet or playing tetris or whatever it is they're doing with their time.

I hope the next patch fixes flamers, narcs, LBXs.. maybe fixes a few mechs, or addresses pulse lasers.. but I suspect it won't. I doubt it will have much of anything at all in the way of major game changing progress. Let's hope I am proven wrong.

My final prediction: We'll hear from the devs and get a pitty fix about one month before the Clan pack drops.

Edited by Victor Morson, 17 November 2013 - 02:51 PM.

[Bront]

Igorius, on 17 November 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

First off, can I say that I appreciate the civility you've shown while offering a different opinion to mine? Too many times now I've witnessed disagreements on these forums degrade into outright hate. While we may differ in our points of view, I appreciate your candor and tone in spite of the potential to see things completely come apart at the seams.

On your suggestion to take some time away from the game, I have, repeatedly. I love the game, in spite of itself; which may be part of my issue. Every time I come back, I relive the same sense of... disappointment is the wrong word for it. Frustration doesn't quite cover it, either. No, the game leaves me with a sense that it is letting itself down. Forgive me for not being able to put it into better words than that. Watching all the friends I'd accumulated give up and leave the game simply added a sense of loss on top of that, for me at least.

We just see things differently and have had a different experience. No reason for it to devolve into anything more than a civil discussion.

I have trouble seeing a game that is continually changing for the better (for the most part) as falling apart at the seems. Then again, I started playing in.. June or July, so I expected nothing but what was here to start with, and all the new stuff has been gravy. Perhaps that colors my view a bit.

[Roadbeer]

3rdworld, on 17 November 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

Enjoy your fedora.

I shall
And I eagerly await your impending tantrum about (insert item here) so I can mock you as well.

Victor Morson, on 17 November 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

My concern as that we're going to get flat out abandon again, and have been already.

The simple fact of the matter is after Consumables came out until about two months before launch - roughly an 8 month gap - nothing happened at the upper levels in this game. Networking programmers continued to work as did the map/mech teams, but there's not one single new gameplay feature, improvement, or even major XML tweak in that period.

Keep in mind, CW was promised to us at the start of 2012 and then they have since confirmed they didn't begin working on it until about three months ago... and so far, given all the talk of "UI 2.0", I would be willing to wager 10MC that they aren't even doing any work past design doc phase right now. At all. We are literally discussing vaporware since I don't believe even a prototype exists right now.

UI2.0 itself was confirmed to have started about three months ago, again, being a promised feature since open beta.

Long story short: The lead developers utterly checked out and stopped working on this game for about half a year, and left it to a few interns and relied on the map/mech people to release stuff to keep it on life support.

... why am I bringing all this up? Promptly after Project Phoenix all attempts at releasing frequent balance updates, fixes, etc. and to communicate with the community ceased entirely.

I can't help but feel they came back from an 8 month of, if not a vacation, totally checking out - put on a good show to prove there's "effort" and then promptly went back to looking at silly cat pictures on the internet or playing tetris or whatever it is they're doing with their time.

I hope the next patch fixes flamers, narcs, LBXs.. maybe fixes a few mechs, or addresses pulse lasers.. but I suspect it won't. I doubt it will have much of anything at all in the way of major game changing progress. Let's hope I am proven wrong.

My final prediction: We'll hear from the devs and get a pitty fix about one month before the Clan pack drops.

Though I think you presume too much and state it as fact, I'm of the mind that the whole of CW is still written on a cocktail napkin that was hurriedly sketched on the flight to San Francisco for the Launch party (and the Power Point was created earlier that afternoon). The bit about cat pictures seems to be spot on.

Edited by Roadbeer, 17 November 2013 - 03:04 PM.

[spectralthundr]

Victor Morson, on 17 November 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

My concern as that we're going to get flat out abandon again, and have been already.

The simple fact of the matter is after Consumables came out until about two months before launch - roughly an 8 month gap - nothing happened at the upper levels in this game. Networking programmers continued to work as did the map/mech teams, but there's not one single new gameplay feature, improvement, or even major XML tweak in that period.

Keep in mind, CW was promised to us at the start of 2012 and then they have since confirmed they didn't begin working on it until about three months ago... and so far, given all the talk of "UI 2.0", I would be willing to wager 10MC that they aren't even doing any work past design doc phase right now. At all. We are literally discussing vaporware since I don't believe even a prototype exists right now.

UI2.0 itself was confirmed to have started about three months ago, again, being a promised feature since open beta.

Long story short: The lead developers utterly checked out and stopped working on this game for about half a year, and left it to a few interns and relied on the map/mech people to release stuff to keep it on life support.

... why am I bringing all this up? Promptly after Project Phoenix all attempts at releasing frequent balance updates, fixes, etc. and to communicate with the community ceased entirely.

I can't help but feel they came back from an 8 month of, if not a vacation, totally checking out - put on a good show to prove there's "effort" and then promptly went back to looking at silly cat pictures on the internet or playing tetris or whatever it is they're doing with their time.

I hope the next patch fixes flamers, narcs, LBXs.. maybe fixes a few mechs, or addresses pulse lasers.. but I suspect it won't. I doubt it will have much of anything at all in the way of major game changing progress. Let's hope I am proven wrong.

My final prediction: We'll hear from the devs and get a pitty fix about one month before the Clan pack drops.

Yep they haven't even started working on UI 2.0. I'll just leave this here.

Edited by spectralthundr, 17 November 2013 - 03:01 PM.

[Victor Morson]

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Yep they haven't even started working on UI 2.0. I'll just leave this here.
[post='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdgWWIr9Caw']UI 2.0 preview
[/post]

I said they haven't started on Community Warfare yet. I also said that UI 2.0 started three months ago, but was promised closer to 11 months ago, with no major features that they have worked on filling the gap in time to excuse it.

i.e.
Q4 2012 - "UI2.0 will be up super soon!" "Community Warfare is coming!"
Q1 2013 - Consumables.
Q2 2013 - ???????????????
Q3 2013 - [Late Q3] "We're totally starting UI2.0 guys!"
Q4 2013 - Remains to be seen

Read the full post next time, it will help you make accurate replies.

Edited by Victor Morson, 17 November 2013 - 03:04 PM.

[spectralthundr]

Victor Morson, on 17 November 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

I said they haven't started on Community Warfare yet. I also said that UI 2.0 started three months ago, but was promised closer to 11 months ago, with no major features that they have worked on filling the gap in time to excuse it.

i.e.
Q4 2012 - "UI2.0 will be up super soon!" "Community Warfare is coming!"
Q1 2013 - Consumables.
Q2 2013 - ???????????????
Q3 2013 - "We're totally starting UI2.0 guys!"

Read the full post next time, it will help you make accurate replies.

Features get delayed during game development all the time, it isn't the first time it won't be the last. Could PGI be better about communicating? Yep! Is it the end of the world that things got delayed? Nope! I get people's frustrations, truly I do, but going the doom and gloom route constantly isn't going to speed up CW or any other feature getting into the client any faster.

[Victor Morson]

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

Features get delayed during game development all the time, it isn't the first time it won't be the last. Could PGI be better about communicating? Yep! Is it the end of the world that things got delayed? Nope! I get people's frustrations, truly I do, but going the doom and gloom route constantly isn't going to speed up CW or any other feature getting into the client any faster.

This isn't about feature delay, it's about feature stop. There's a difference. A big one.

Answer me one question: What major, game changing feature did they implement to excuse not starting on UI2.0 or CW until three months back? To my knowledge they didn't even do anything major to the XML file resulting in, if anyone remembers, over half a year of PPC + Gauss.

Hit state rewind was the networking guys (Nothing to do with Paul, Russ, Garth, etc.). The mech & map teams are separate.

Again, if UI2.0 was worked on and had delays I'd feel different. Same with CW. But that's not what happened here. Again in their own announcement they were at the mock up stage for CW three months back.. around a year after it was supposed in development.

Community Warfare is in a similar boat. Promised since the very first mention of MW:O and again, if they were working on perfecting it I'd feel 110% OK with that.. but I think it's a very safe bet to say it exists as a bunch of sketches and text right now and nothing more.

Now, if we had perfected balance, new gameplay mechanics, new game modes, etc. during that period of time... all would be forgiven. My point is that nothing happened until a deadline was looming point-blank (Launch/Phoenix). Then we suddenly got a huge list of XML fixes, a bunch of improvements, etc. As soon as Launch/Phoenix passed, however, communication dropped back to 0, the last few patches have only had cosmetic improvements (Again it takes like 5 minutes to fix freaking XML files and wouldn't delay the test cycle hardly at all)..

My point is I'm seeing a pattern here.

Again, we know for a fact these features have not been in development for the whole year. UI2.0 got started recently. There is, again, well over half a year completely "missing" from MW:O, but I will let that slide. What I am concerned about is this pattern repeating, again.

EDIT: If anyone wants evidence, go look at the UI 2.0 mock-up thread in which it's rather admitted they are starting UI2.0 then, just about/under 3 months back. As for CW? I have less to give you there except the fact they couldn't even muster a single legitimate even concept image of it to show people at launch, or even yet. If they had anything they'd be showing it... I would definitely wager it is nothing more than ideas scribbled down at the moment.

Edited by Victor Morson, 17 November 2013 - 03:15 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Roadbeer, on 17 November 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Quote

Benjamin Franklin

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.

and any fool can ignore danger critazisim and run off a cliff.

maybe the critazising should be taken seriously sometimes.

i can take CW and ui.2 being delayed, it has been for many months.

i can take weapon balance being all over the place with mechanics that work/don't work needing changes, it's been that way for over a year.

but i will critazise a netcode that is so terribad that it keeps anyone over 150 ping away from the game because you can't hit what you see. it has hardly ever changed, i can only recall two weeks worth of not hitting airpockets to damage a mech, i'm all for the nostalgia of this IP but not for Lan 56K stuff.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 17 November 2013 - 03:16 PM.

[spectralthundr]

Victor Morson, on 17 November 2013 - 03:11 PM, said:

This isn't about feature delay, it's about feature stop. There's a difference. A big one.

Answer me one question: What major, game changing feature did they implement to excuse not starting on UI2.0 or CW until three months back? To my knowledge they didn't even do anything major to the XML file resulting in, if anyone remembers, over half a year of PPC + Gauss.

Hit state rewind was the networking guys (Nothing to do with Paul, Russ, Garth, etc.). The mech & map teams are separate.

Again, if UI2.0 was worked on and had delays I'd feel different. Same with CW. But that's not what happened here. Again in their own announcement they were at the mock up stage for CW three months back.. around a year after it was supposed in development.

Community Warfare is in a similar boat. Promised since the very first mention of MW:O and again, if they were working on perfecting it I'd feel 110% OK with that.. but I think it's a very safe bet to say it exists as a bunch of sketches and text right now and nothing more.

Now, if we had perfected balance, new gameplay mechanics, new game modes, etc. during that period of time... all would be forgiven. My point is that nothing happened until a deadline was looming point-blank (Launch/Phoenix). Then we suddenly got a huge list of XML fixes, a bunch of improvements, etc. As soon as Launch/Phoenix passed, however, communication dropped back to 0, the last few patches have only had cosmetic improvements (Again it takes like 5 minutes to fix freaking XML files and wouldn't delay the test cycle hardly at all)..

My point is I'm seeing a pattern here.

Again, we know for a fact these features have not been in development for the whole year. UI2.0 got started recently. There is, again, well over half a year completely "missing" from MW:O, but I will let that slide. What I am concerned about is this pattern repeating, again.

EDIT: If anyone wants evidence, go look at the UI 2.0 mock-up thread in which it's rather admitted they are starting UI2.0 then, just about/under 3 months back. As for CW? I have less to give you there except the fact they couldn't even muster a single legitimate even concept image of it to show people at launch, or even yet. If they had anything they'd be showing it... I would definitely wager it is nothing more than ideas scribbled down at the moment.

Do you work at PGI or IGP? Do you know for certain none of these aspects were worked on, or in a design phase or anything of the sort? Stating things like that as fact without having actual facts to back it up doesn't really bring anything to the table imo.

No one knows what goes on behind the scenes, or how much red tape they have to go through in regard to Microsoft owning the IP, license or not. And honestly with the amount of NDA's and lawyer jargon there is in the industry these days, I doubt they could tell us even if they wanted to.

I know I may be in the minority on this but personally I consider jump sniping a viable tactic, and all the complaining got us what? Shake for JJ's, Gauss being neutered in such a way it's practically useless in a lot of combat situations, heat penalties for linked weapons, etc etc. And this is coming from someone who's a brawler who doesn't jump snipe at all.

Constructive criticism is one thing, those who scream doom and gloom, troll, and state the game will be dead in 6 months is something else entirely.

[Roadbeer]

GalaxyBluestar, on 17 November 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

and any fool can ignore danger critazisim and run off a cliff.

maybe the critazising should be taken seriously sometimes.

Not when it often sounds like this...



The prediction may be dire, it's just too hard to take it seriously.

[Victor Morson]

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Do you work at PGI or IGP? Do you know for certain none of these aspects were worked on, or in a design phase or anything of the sort? Stating things like that as fact without having actual facts to back it up doesn't really bring anything to the table imo.

I provided facts in the above posts. They have admitted to starting UI 2.0 as a mock-up about 3 months ago. For a feature planned for a year, that's pretty silly, given that I also have rather blatant evidence that in that period of time, we did not get new features.

Like I said, I have less evidence to go on with UI2.0 except for the fact that their presentation of it last time looked like somebody spend 30 minutes on a laptop screwing around with MS Paint and writing down any ideas that popped into their head with nothing concrete to back it up. If they are working on CW concurrently with UI2.0, they just started it; given they've said it is Q1 2014 (Read: Q2+ 2014 minimum) I suspect I'm right, though.

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

No one knows what goes on behind the scenes, or how much red tape they have to go through in regard to Microsoft owning the IP, license or not. And honestly with the amount of NDA's and lawyer jargon there is in the industry these days, I doubt they could tell us even if they wanted to.

I would love to read a post mortem of PGI. I want to know how things like Ghost Heat got through so many programmers without being shot down, and what exactly happened in that missing time, etc. I really hope when the NDA wears off one of their mid-level programmers writes one. There's some things that have happened in MW:O that should not have happened, from core decisions to community relations and an insider perspective would be a fascinating read.

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

I know I may be in the minority on this but personally I consider jump sniping a viable tactic, and all the complaining got us what? Shake for JJ's, Gauss being neutered in such a way it's practically useless in a lot of combat situations, heat penalties for linked weapons, etc etc. And this is coming from someone who's a brawler who doesn't jump snipe at all.

It is, and was, a viable tactic. It's still entirely usable despite what you just said. However you know what? I will take what our "complaints got us" over every single mech running PPC + Gauss any day of the week!!!!

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Constructive criticism is one thing, those who scream doom and gloom, troll, and state the game will be dead in 6 months is something else entirely.

The people who said if the balance situation was not corrected the game would die were correct. Fortunately it got dire enough they threw us a few pitty fixes and made more than 1 style of play viable. Also the people who said 3PV would kill 12 mans were correct, and the removal from 12 man 3pv has prevented it.

Probably the first was when they were going to release consumables without the cbill upgrade, making it a pure Pay 2 Win upgrade. Tons of doom & gloom screaming then, that prevented what would have been the moment many of us left.

Sometimes people cry doom & gloom to prevent doom & gloom, and too many people mistake that as "whining" and want to dismiss it. I dare say that if there wasn't a violent backlash against some systems, we'd been in a way, way worse place today.

God knows why they drew a line in the sand at Ghost Heat, though, given it is literally the most mind meltingly dumbest thing ever planned out and added to a game like this in the history of MechWarrior. I have no idea how anyone even re-read the notes without laughing, let alone coded it.

[MonkeyCheese]

spectralthundr, on 17 November 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

I know I may be in the minority on this but personally I consider jump sniping a viable tactic, and all the complaining got us what? Shake for JJ's, Gauss being neutered in such a way it's practically useless in a lot of combat situations, heat penalties for linked weapons, etc etc. And this is coming from someone who's a brawler who doesn't jump snipe at all.

For once I have to agree, game would have been better if they just tweaked the ppc even just a little bit back towards the way it was in closed beta while improving the srms and lrms at the same time to have a more even playing field.

But fire mechanics, ghost heat and jj shake came instead of spending precious development time on better things.