209 replies to this topic

[Imperius]

ECM, Ghost Heat, Lack of robust collision system, pop tarts, True Skill's poor team balancing (should match good players against good players, not a few good players with new/bad players), LRM's are basically useless (poptarts, lack of scouting pugs, ECM), C-Bill Nerf, Poor hit boxes (spiders running more rampant than ever)

This is just a few in my opinion.

Edited by Imperius, 16 December 2013 - 01:11 AM.

[Davers]

Only a handful of truly competitive weapons/mechs. Lack of 'role warfare' for medium mechs. The fact that I already have all the 'end game' content (High tier assault mechs and all the modules) before the game actually even starts.

[Bhael Fire]

- Broken matchmaking
- Lack of communication tools to facilitate teamwork with PUGs.
- Lack of meaningful after-match rewards for roles
- Lack of game modes

[Imperius]

Bhael Fire, on 06 October 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

- Broken matchmaking
- Lack of communication tools to facilitate teamwork with PUGs.
- Lack of meaningful after-match rewards for roles
- Lack of game modes

Ah yes I forgot to add incentive to win bonus (scrap doesn't count much)

[HRR Insanity]

Failure to deal with summed weapon damage (pinpoint convergence) and the resulting weapon balance issues.
ECM implemention
Seismic implementation
Lack of Team Deathmatch
Lack of ability to set up and coordinate matches between organized groups (no lobbies, lack of 4v4, 5v5, 6v6-11v11).

Just generally poor game design.

[Xaositect]

I agree with what everyone I've seen so far on here says.

1. Horribly broken matchmaking. While I haven't been playing this game since the closed beta, I've been playing it for a while (since a little before Alpine Peaks came out), and matchmaking is worse now than I've ever seen it. When tonnages are balanced (which isn't often), the skills on each team are not close to balanced, and often tonnage is heavily imbalanced, making it even worse. I was just in a drop (Frozen City conquest) with these 'Mechs:
Team 1: BJ-1, BHK-4G(F), CTF-1X, SDR-5D, QKD-4G, QKD-4G, CDA-X5, JM6-DD, CTF-3D, COM-1B, SDR-5K(C), CDA-3C
Team 2: STK-5M, HGN-732, STK-5M, JM6-S, HGN-733C, HGN-733C, HGN-733C, AS7-RS(C), AS7-BH, CTF-IM, JR7-D(S), VTR-9S
Team 1: 0 assaults, 5 heavies, 4 mediums, 3 lights
Team 2: 9 assaults, 2 heavies, 0 mediums, 1 light
Team 1 tonnage: 585
Team 2 tonnage: 990
Team 1 average tonnage: 48.75
Team 2 average tonnage: 82.5
Are you kidding? Nine assault 'Mechs on one team and zero on the other, with one team averaging under 50 tons and the other averaging over 80 tons. This is an extreme example but I've seen a number of drops almost this bad. Tonnage imbalances are even worse on small maps because mobility isn't as important, but are still a problem on big maps.

I also see, now more than ever, wildly lopsided battles because of poor matchmaking. I'm talking 12-2 or worse. These days, a drop where one team wins with three or fewer 'Mechs surviving seems unusual, and mostly it seems to be six or more on a team surviving, which is not close.

There needs to be a tonnage cap for each team in a battle, and the matchmaker needs to balance things out when there are three- or four-man groups. I've seen several situations where two highly-skilled three- or four-man groups were put on one team and the other team had few or no pre-made groups, sometimes for several drops in a row, and you can guess how those battles went. There should be some kind of tonnage limitation for three- and four-man groups, too- too often I see such groups running four assaults or two assaults and a heavy, and that almost always throws the balance of the battle off. It's fine if the matchmaker puts two such groups on opposite teams, but I don't often see that happening.

2. ECM is too powerful, BAP isn't powerful enough. If a 'Mech is carrying BAP, it should be able to lock onto an enemy 'Mech with Streak SRMs easily, but this isn't the case. I certainly run 'Mechs with ECM, but the SDR-5D in particular seems broken because you practically need Streaks to hit it, but it's hard to lock Streaks onto it, and if there are two of them (or a second 'Mech with ECM around), forget about it.

3. There's no incentive to keep your 'Mech from being destroyed in a battle. Afterward, it's completely repaired at no cost to you. I didn't start playing until after paying for repairs was taken out, but it seems like this wouldn't be unreasonable to put back in. I'm not saying repairs should be prohibitively expensive, but I think there needs to be some sort of repair cost.

4. Hit detection and collision detection. Lights should be hard to hit, but not THAT hard to hit. I was in a drop the other day where my team lost because what showed as a clean AC/20 hit at point-blank range to the right back torso of a Jenner failed to register. This would have likely destroyed the Jenner, or at least damaged it severely, but because the hit failed to register, the Jenner destroyed the Victor or Highlander or whatever it was. Hit detection seems worst on Spiders, and it seems to me like the Spider needs to be physically bigger- they seem to be thinner than the Commando, which is five tons lighter.

5. LRM boaters and poptarts. Luckily the dual AC/20, multiple PPC/ER PPC, and large laser-boat configurations are rare now due to the welcome heat change, and poptarts aren't nearly as prevalent since the reticle change with jets and the Gauss rifle change, but LRM boats are still around. While LRMs aren't as overpowered as they were a few months ago, and poptarting isn't so easy anymore, there are still plenty of no-skill pilots who load up a Stalker or whatever with LRMs and hide behind a hill while their teammates spot for them. I don't know what can be done about this, though. Light packs are also a problem since lights are so difficult to hit (partly due to broken hit detection).

6. No built-in voice communication for use with your team. I know this wouldn't be simple to implement, though.

7. No way to rearrange your 'Mechs in the Mechlab, they just show up in the order you bought them. What if I want to arrange them by weight, or by some other means? Would that be so hard to implement? It's also slow to scroll through the bays if you have a lot of them.

8. It seems like not very many people are driving mediums. They're driving lights (because they're so hard to hit) or heavies or assaults, and I see lots of drops with six or more assaults on each team, which is stupid. This goes back to weight balance.

9. No immediate in-game way to report someone. If someone is being purposefully obnoxious, shooting teammates, or something like that, I have to wait until the drop is over, write down the offender's name (or offenders' names), and send an email to support and hope that something is done about it. If there were an in-game reporting feature, other players in the drop could report someone instantly. I was in a drop earlier today where several people on both teams were being intentionally obnoxious and annoying with the chat, and that ruins the fun for everyone else.

[Imperius]

Good points, no voice communication is pretty big.

[Mr 144]

It's not a SIM, and it's not an MMO...two core things I signed up for.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Well I haven't lost interest in the game and I am still playing, but agree with most of the posts above me. ECM to me is still one of the dumbest issues. You now have to carry TAG and BAP (at 2.5 tons total) to make LRM's usable against an enemy mech protected by ECM, otherwise you cannot lock and fire, crippling a whole family of weapons. Seismic is the other issue, and should never have been implemented. Players should be awarded for successfully using terrain to sneak up on enemies to perform surprise attacks and ambushes, they should not walk into a bunch of gun barrels because the magic red dot gave them away. Surprise should be a powerful tool to use, and seismic just removes it.

[Gremlich Johns]

Xaositect, on 06 October 2013 - 02:06 PM, said:

9. No immediate in-game way to report someone. If someone is being purposefully obnoxious, shooting teammates, or something like that, I have to wait until the drop is over, write down the offender's name (or offenders' names), and send an email to support and hope that something is done about it. If there were an in-game reporting feature, other players in the drop could report someone instantly. I was in a drop earlier today where several people on both teams were being intentionally obnoxious and annoying with the chat, and that ruins the fun for everyone else.

In MW4 we used to be able to vote in the chat window: "Kick "obnoxious player" ", if a majority voted "yes", that player was removed from the game.

[Xaositect]

Stuff I forgot:

10. No remediation for players who disconnect prior to the start of the battle. While this isn't usually a big deal, I was just in a drop where my team started with only 11 players, then another player disconnected right away after the battle began, making it 10v12. It's not great to be one player down because the matchmaker didn't bother to fill the 12th spot, but being two down is worse. The matchmaker should kick anyone who disconnects in the ready screen and find someone else to replace that player.

11. The matchmaker doesn't always fill out teams. I've seen teams start two short not because of disconnects, but because the matchmaker didn't wait long enough before building teams. If it's 11v11 that's fine, but usually it's 11v12 or 10v12. I don't understand how the search time has been increased to three minutes, but there are still situations where one team is short. Likewise, why is matchmaking worse than ever now that the wait is up to three minutes? Shouldn't it be better?

[Ghogiel]

Xaositect, on 06 October 2013 - 03:11 PM, said:

11. The matchmaker doesn't always fill out teams. I've seen teams start two short not because of disconnects, but because the matchmaker didn't wait long enough before building teams. If it's 11v11 that's fine, but usually it's 11v12 or 10v12. I don't understand how the search time has been increased to three minutes, but there are still situations where one team is short. Likewise, why is matchmaking worse than ever now that the wait is up to three minutes? Shouldn't it be better?

Those empty player slots are usually disconnects as well.

[Sybreed]

1. Broken ECM. Paul saying ECM is as intended only leaves me with shivers down my spine as to how MWO could turn out in the future. They keep saying "try to be constructive when you criticize something, explain you would do it better". Well, PGI, explain to us why ECM is as intended. Explain to us why it's supposed to be this way, because we've stated a countless times why it's NOT what it should be and we brought enough arguments to make most other developers reconsider their work. Convince us that ECM is how it should be. The burden is on you, not us. We've explained that ECM is broken. Your turn to explain to us why it's not.

2. Mixed builds not working very well, mostly due to bad LRMs and SRMs hit detection. I try to run mechs close to their stock builds as much as possible. With the actual LRMs performance, it's simply impossible to play stock mechs that use a single LRM-10 or even a dual LRM-15. I stopped using my Founder Cat, I stopped using my Trebuchet. Most mechs with LRMs and other weapons get stripped of their LRM launchers and I put SRMs instead, even if SRMs aren't doing so well either.

edit: Bad ECM, OP AMS don't help either.

3. No tonnage limits. Although a temporary issue (supposedly), playing a match with half of the team being assaults just feels wrong.

Edited by Sybreed, 06 October 2013 - 06:17 PM.

[Imperius]

Tincan Nightmare, on 06 October 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

Well I haven't lost interest in the game and I am still playing, but agree with most of the posts above me. ECM to me is still one of the dumbest issues. You now have to carry TAG and BAP (at 2.5 tons total) to make LRM's usable against an enemy mech protected by ECM, otherwise you cannot lock and fire, crippling a whole family of weapons. Seismic is the other issue, and should never have been implemented. Players should be awarded for successfully using terrain to sneak up on enemies to perform surprise attacks and ambushes, they should not walk into a bunch of gun barrels because the magic red dot gave them away. Surprise should be a powerful tool to use, and seismic just removes it.

I'll see if I can change the title to losing instead of lost. This game has been more than a test to my patience. With over $310 spent on the game I'm starting to feel I invested in cash grab and got suckered big time.

Edited by Imperius, 06 October 2013 - 04:00 PM.

[xenoglyph]

Imperius, on 06 October 2013 - 03:15 PM, said:

... I'm starting to feel I invested in cash grab and got suckered big time.

You should have realized that when they removed the Centurion CN9-AH so they could replace it with the YLW. That's when I asked for my refund.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Imperius, on 06 October 2013 - 03:15 PM, said:

I'll see if I can change the time to losing instead of lost. This game has been more than a test to my patience. With over $310 spent on the game I'm starting to feel I invested in cash grab and got suckered big time.

Well I originally got the elite founder pack, then upgraded to legendary, just to support the game because I love the BT franchise. However, I haven't put any more money in since then. I want the game to succeed, but they need to start showing some good progress. Especially with WH40K Eternal Crusade coming out next year. I will divide my time if things get good on MWO, otherwise my account here will probably start collecting dust.

[D1al T0ne]

- CONVERGENCE. Instant weapon convergence is causing so many problems which are being "fixed" with even more irritating game mechanics like ghost heat. Weapons either need to take time to converge when a mech is stationary or weapons need to have a widening cone of fire as they are shot.

- MATCHMAKING. Matchmaking is pure garbage. It took World of Tanks about a year to work out their MM so that it wasn't so terrible, but the fact that one team will have 2-3 premades with the other having zero is just ridiculous. A full PUG group almost never stands a chance.

[xxxRocketxxx]

C bills are the number one deterrent for me. I get a reward for doing well so rarely that I am losing interest.

They just announced that 12 people have to pay 18 million to form a merc unit. That is over 200 million in c bills that a group of 12 would have to pay.

Takes me more than a month to earn 20 million. I think I make like 10k per minute with my hero mech.

Edited by Dr Baja, 06 October 2013 - 03:51 PM.

[General Taskeen]

PPC Min Range. Makes using a stock Awesome Build ******* awful. Tisk Tisk PGI.

[Kitane]

The combination of poor C-Bill income and the requirement to buy three mechs of the same type to fully unlock the first one.

This is the main reason why I hesitate to try out and buy new mechs. Picking a new mech takes like a month of active gameplay to make enough money for unlocking the mech I wanted to play with.