402 replies to this topic

[MechFrog1]

Getting the devs to actually play the game might be the hardest part.

[Nekki Basara]

'sup Destined. Good Christmas?

[RoboticRooster]

I'm pretty sure I just felt my heart break.

This is the kind of thing a publisher and developer would do if they actually cared about mwo. Not grabdeal after grabdeal, with none of their core pillars of design in sight.

[Roland]

Sybreed, on 18 December 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

I remember creating a thread called: "How PGI should introduce the clans" 8-10 months ago that was pretty much exactly what you described.

Well said.

Exactly this.

This is what's so sad about the whole thing... It's so obviously the correct way to have done it, and one which multiple people presented multiple times on these forums.. that the fact PGI still somehow missed the boat is just tragic.

On some level, when you are given the answers ahead of time, and you still manage to fail an exam, you gotta start to wonder whether you really belong in that course to begin with, or whether you're just way in over your head.

Destined, on 02 January 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

They play sometimes. Maybe we could get an event going or something- I don't know, I just work here. I know that they are super busy right now...

I like how your signature kind of looks like a user getting screwed by the Mecharrior Online logo.

[Roland]

Destined, on 02 January 2014 - 12:16 PM, said:

I see yours has been removed, maybe we'll be redacted buddies soon.

Yeah, I never bothered replacing it because I think its redaction was even more humorous than the signature itself was.

[xhrit]

Destined, on 02 January 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

They play sometimes. Maybe we could get an event going or something- I don't know, I just work here. I know that they are super busy right now...

Whatever they are doing, tell them all to stop. Obviously the community need pointless one time events like this way more then whatever features they think we need for long term viability.

RoboticRooster, on 02 January 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

This is the kind of thing a publisher and developer would do if they actually cared about mwo. Not grabdeal after grabdeal, with none of their core pillars of design in sight.

3/4 of the core design pillars are spot on. The only pillar we do not currently have as described by PGI is community warfare. Mech warfare, role warfare, and information warfare, all hit the goals outlined in the early dev blogs.

The issue is people have taken what the developers have said out of context, and replaced it with their own interpretation of what those design pillars should mean.

Here is a professional journalists summery of MWO's design pillars. This is an accurate assessment of the design pillars. If you disagree with the following quote, then the issue is not MWO has failed to achieve the design pillars, the issue is your unreasonable expectations are not based on the reality of what PGI said, but rather your own personal fancy.

Quote

In the video, president of Piranha Games Russ Bullock explains how Mech Warfare, Information Warfare, Role Warfare and Community Warfare form the four pillars of MechWarrior Online.
Mech Warfare
Probably the most obvious and that is making players feel like they are strapped into the cockpit of giant multiple ton mech.
Information Warfare
Unlike previous MechWarrior games, MechWarrior Online requires you or a teammate to have a line of sight on an enemy mech for you to be able to target it.
Role Warfare
This is the most important pillar in Bullock's opinion as previous MechWarrior games was more about racing to get the heaviest and most powerful mech. Piranha Games has designed MechWarrior Online to encourage the use of all mechs including the lighter, less well-armored scouts.

http://www.examiner....e-new-dev-diary

[Fut]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 12:27 PM, said:

Whatever they are doing, tell them all to stop. Obviously the community need pointless one time events like this way more then whatever features they think we need for long term viability.

3/4 of the core design pillars are spot on. The only pillar we do not currently have as described by PGI is community warfare. Mech warfare, role warfare, and information warfare, all hit the goals outlined in the early dev blogs.

The issue is people have taken what the developers have said out of context, and replaced it with their own interpretation of what those design pillars should mean.

Here is a professional journalists summery of MWO's design pillars. This is an accurate assessment of the design pillars. If you disagree with the following quote, then the issue is not MWO has failed to achieve the design pillars, the issue is your unreasonable expectations are not based on the reality of what PGI said, but rather your own personal fancy.

Quote

Role Warfare
This is the most important pillar in Bullock's opinion as previous MechWarrior games was more about racing to get the heaviest and most powerful mech. Piranha Games has designed MechWarrior Online to encourage the use of all mechs including the lighter, less well-armored scouts

Role Warefare is spot on?
Damn, you've got a major problem with setting the bar extremely low, don't you?

[Nekki Basara]

Information Warfare could use some tweaking too TBH, but overall it's still solid enough that it requires some thought to use right. I'll give them that one. Bear in mind that the article quoted is from before Mech Warfare went to **** though, and before Information Warfare reached the current state. Heck, had ECM even settled down by then?

[xhrit]

Fut, on 02 January 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

Role Warefare is spot on?

My static unit has a few pilots who prefer different roles - each of them has been able to pull off 8+ kills and 1k damage in their respective weight classes. As a dedicated light pilot, I use only light mechs when I drop with my unit. In my light mech I can engage and destroy any other mech of any other weight class in single combat.

Das Alpha Tier : Jenner, Raven, Hunchback, Shadowhawk, Jagermech, Cataphract, Orion, Highlander.

Role warfare accomplished.

Fut, on 02 January 2014 - 12:44 PM, said:

Damn, you've got a major problem with setting the bar extremely low, don't you?

Nothing wrong with hoping for the best, but if you always expect the worst you will never be disappointed.

Nekki Basara, on 02 January 2014 - 12:47 PM, said:

Information Warfare could use some tweaking too TBH, but overall it's still solid enough that it requires some thought to use right. I'll give them that one. Bear in mind that the article quoted is from before Mech Warfare went to **** though, and before Information Warfare reached the current state. Heck, had ECM even settled down by then?

Everything could use some tweaking. At least we agree on something tho.

Oh, and I don't even think ECM was in game at all at that time, let alone settled down...

Edited by xhrit, 02 January 2014 - 01:03 PM.

[Fut]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

My static unit has a few pilots who prefer every weight class - each of them has been able to pull off 8+ kills and 1k damage in their respective weight classes. As a dedicated light pilot, I use only light mechs when I drop with my unit. In my light mech I can engage and destroy any other mech of any other weight class in single combat.

Das Alpha Tier : Jenner, Raven, Hunchback, Shadowhawk, Jagermech, Cataphract, Orion, Highlander.

Role warfare accomplished..

That's not really "Role Warfare" though, there's only one role happening - COMBAT.
Which is supported by the fact that your light mechs are scoring 8+ kills each.

Role Warefare is lacking.

[GODzillaGSPB]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 12:27 PM, said:

3/4 of the core design pillars are spot on. The only pillar we do not currently have as described by PGI is community warfare. Mech warfare, role warfare, and information warfare, all hit the goals outlined in the early dev blogs.

I disagree. Role-warfare went out the window quite a long time ago and only weight limits and / or class limits could probably fix that. Information warfare is also dead and burried. ECM messed with it first, then the seismic sensor and lastly 3rd person. Who needs scouts anymore? The last straw was the Locust and it's literal uselessness. When it can't fight, it becomes wasted tonnage. And in combination with no weight limits a slot filled with that senseless mech is a wasted one.

Remember the time when an Atlas or MAYBE two were the center of the attack line? The memory kinda fades away already...

PGI is also trying hard to mess with mech warfare in subtle and not so subtle ways. For instance, some initial designs of mechs had a very limited number of missile tubes, which was a sign that PGI wanted to shape that mechs into certain role-models. Laser-heavy, ballistic-heavy...either way, but with a weekness in missiles. Before long PGI just gave them like 10 or 15 tubes per slot. Overnight they became missile-boats.

In essence, they made all mechs more a like. There are no special mechs that would encourage a certain role. The Catapult as a missile-boat has long since surpassed by many other mechs because PGi wants to appeal to everyone. Each and every mech shall be able to do all things. In my opinion this is boring and mech warfare is boring along with it. PGI also doesn't realize that this will hurt new mech releases in the long turn. When you only have a handful of variables and no chassis-special-abilities, mechs become bland.

For instance: When did you see the last Raven? The Raven should be the epitome of technological warfre. Why not give this mech a higher default radar range? Why not have it pick up mech details faster. But then again...with information warfare dead, why do any of that?

Nope. It is my honest believe that PGI is doing this with the design pillars:

https://i.chzbgr.com...hA2B8D5EF/#.gif

And I'm pretty much very, very disappointed when I compare the things we were promised and with what we got now. It's a mech game that is still fun to play now and then but sadly this...this is it. At least for me.

[xhrit]

Fut, on 02 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

That's not really "Role Warfare" though, there's only one role happening - COMBAT.
Which is supported by the fact that your light mechs are scoring 8+ kills each.

Role Warefare is lacking.

That is exactly what role warfare is, as defined by PGI in their dev videos. Any other notions as to what Role Warfare was supposed to be are extraneous.

GODzillaGSPB, on 02 January 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

For instance: When did you see the last Raven?

I pilot a raven. I pretty much retired my 4X, since it gets eaten by shadowhawks, but then I only ever ran that in pugs anyway. Most of the time I drop in a group, and when I am in a group my role is to run ECM support for the aforementioned hunchbacks, jagers, shawks or highlanders.

GODzillaGSPB, on 02 January 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

In essence, they made all mechs more a like. There are no special mechs that would encourage a certain role.

The reason you find role warfare lacking is you use your own personal definition of what "role warfare" should be, and not the one stated by PGI.

Edited by xhrit, 02 January 2014 - 01:45 PM.

[Chronojam]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 12:27 PM, said:

Whatever they are doing, tell them all to stop. Obviously the community need pointless one time events like this way more then whatever features they think we need for long term viability.



3/4 of the core design pillars are spot on. The only pillar we do not currently have as described by PGI is community warfare. Mech warfare, role warfare, and information warfare, all hit the goals outlined in the early dev blogs.

The issue is people have taken what the developers have said out of context, and replaced it with their own interpretation of what those design pillars should mean.

Here is a professional journalists summery of MWO's design pillars. This is an accurate assessment of the design pillars. If you disagree with the following quote, then the issue is not MWO has failed to achieve the design pillars, the issue is your unreasonable expectations are not based on the reality of what PGI said, but rather your own personal fancy.

Quote

In the video, president of Piranha Games Russ Bullock explains how Mech Warfare, Information Warfare, Role Warfare and Community Warfare form the four pillars of MechWarrior Online.
Mech Warfare
Probably the most obvious and that is making players feel like they are strapped into the cockpit of giant multiple ton mech.
Information Warfare
Unlike previous MechWarrior games, MechWarrior Online requires you or a teammate to have a line of sight on an enemy mech for you to be able to target it.
Role Warfare
This is the most important pillar in Bullock's opinion as previous MechWarrior games was more about racing to get the heaviest and most powerful mech. Piranha Games has designed MechWarrior Online to encourage the use of all mechs including the lighter, less well-armored scouts.

http://www.examiner....e-new-dev-diary

What's weird here, to me, is that this particular explanation of the pillars is something I like to post to remind people what could have been -- what should have been, what was advertised -- in contrast to what we've been given. You, inexplicably, have decided to use this as a foundation for your defense of the game. I just don't get how you aren't burying that article as deeply as possible, but kudos for that degree of honesty.

Mech Warfare -- one of the number one aesthetic complaints about the game is poor scaling. Structures, textures, trees, lamps, all have been badly scaled in successive map releases. Not to mention a lack of dynamic elements, so you can't shove other mechs, blow up bridges or buildings, or even crash through a group of trees.

Mechs themselves are scaled poorly next to each other, which leads to the hilarious situation where Catapults were grouped with assault mechs and Cataphracts were grouped with medium mechs for the release of the new movement system.

Information Warfare -- ECM's been swinging back and forth hilariously on the balance scale due to clustering all countermeasures into one "ECM" module despite tabletop's broad array of ECM and ECCM options. NARC remains useless despite player feedback since its inception. Poor allocation of ECM means we see situations like with the Raven where one variant is made incredible useful and the rest made useless.

The "Command Console" never is given a function despite a year of Ask The Devs requesting information. The built in map is poorly implemented, difficult to navigate controlwise, and commander mode is best used to shuffle mechs between lances. Players ask since open beta to be able to even see teammate loadouts and cannot.

Role Warfare -- what a silly joke this has become. On top of the problems with Information Warfare, we have several mechs that simply outclass others -- why take a Dragon when the Quickdraw has superior stats and jumpjets if you want a heavy cavalry mech? And why take a heavy cavalry mech when 2PPC1Gauss was the way to win for a year, with a very slight shift towards pairing autocannon instead of gauss now?

We've seen lights be made either useless in comparison (bad Ravens, Commandos) or terrifying due to bugs (unhittable-while-stationary Spiders). We've seen the shift towards heavier and heavier loadouts since the earliest days -- made worse by the barely-there matchmaking that doesn't care about facing medium mechs against an Atlas basecamp. And we've heard that very same Atlas be described as the "top-tier avatar" now.

It boggles the mind you thought bringing that stuff up again was a solid defense, when all it does is expose problems people have been on about since closed beta and the new issues that have cropped up in the meantime.

[Roland]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 12:53 PM, said:

My static unit has a few pilots who prefer every weight class - each of them has been able to pull off 8+ kills and 1k damage in their respective weight classes. As a dedicated light pilot, I use only light mechs when I drop with my unit. In my light mech I can engage and destroy any other mech of any other weight class in single combat.

Das Alpha Tier : Jenner, Raven, Hunchback, Shadowhawk, Jagermech, Cataphract, Orion, Highlander.

Role warfare accomplished.

Honestly, Russ' initial suggestion that prior mechwarrior games didn't use light mechs was actually demonstrably incorrect anyway, as anyone who actually played in the old NR leagues will tell you.

Back in MW4, we used to drop with light mechs all the time... lots of the time, the Raven, since it was the only ECM/BAP capable light. And bear in mind that in NBT it was a puretech league, so the Raven was constrained to garbage IS tech, and we dropped with them anyway.

Now, in reality, the raven wasn't a powerhouse when it came to combat... We had some excellent raven pilots who killed their share of heavier mechs all the time, but the POINT of the raven wasn't to kill mechs.

In those games, the point of the raven was to provide sensors and intel on the enemy unit.

And THAT is what is missing from MWO in many ways.... The notion of scouting just isn't really there that much. The maps are generally far too small. Even large maps like Alpine tend to have such long lines of sight that you can almost immediately see where OPFOR is going. And all the matches are only a few minutes long.

Back in MW4, we had matches that lasted an hour.... Yeah, seriously, an HOUR of constant maneuvering all over the place, engaging, disengaging, and re-engaging.

I suspect many folks don't really have the stomach for such depth any more, certainly not in a F2P title.

However, the point remains that for many folks, the notion of "role warfare" means more than simply "any mech can kill any other mech". Don't get me wrong, the fact that light mechs can seriously challenge an assault mech is definitely a GOOD thing... but it's not really a complete implementation of "role warfare". But then again, I don't think Russ really understood what role warfare was, since he seemed to think that it didn't exist in prior mechwarrior titles, when it most definitely did.

That in itself is kind of an illustration of perhaps the source of many of MWO's problems. I had originally assumed that PGI was aware of the thriving Mechwarrior 4 leagues which existed for the better part of a decade, and had tens of thousands of players.

Most of what needed to be in CW was effectively already implemented by amateurs via websites... Certainly not everything that CW could be, but damn, we had all the basics.. We had enough that, if that's what PGI had delivered, most folks would be totally content for the time being.

But it's like they never even checked out any of that stuff, which is just weird.

[GODzillaGSPB]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

I pilot a raven. I pretty much retired my 4X, since it gets eaten by shadowhawks, but then I only ever ran that in pugs anyway. Most of the time I drop in a group, and when I am in a group my role is to run ECM support for the aforementioned hunchbacks, jagers, shawks or highlanders.

Well and I use a gauss in my Hunchback, but when have I seen the last gauss? Pretty much none. Could be coincidence. ^^

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

The reason you find role warfare lacking is you use your own personal definition of what "role warfare" should be, and not the one stated by PGI.

Enlighten me, please. I remember the early vids where they said scouting will be important. And it is...well...not.

[Chronojam]

Roland, on 02 January 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

[...]
Most of what needed to be in CW was effectively already implemented by amateurs via websites... Certainly not everything that CW could be, but damn, we had all the basics.. We had enough that, if that's what PGI had delivered, most folks would be totally content for the time being.

But it's like they never even checked out any of that stuff, which is just weird.

Much like we've had a couple mech builder applications that provide way more information than PGI is willing to provide either in-game or on-site, and several other MechWarrior games featuring a mech lab of some sort, and they still manage to create the UI 2.0 boondoggle.

As you said, it's like they never even checked out any of that stuff, which is just weird.

[xhrit]

GODzillaGSPB, on 02 January 2014 - 01:47 PM, said:

Enlighten me, please. I remember the early vids where they said scouting will be important. And it is...well...not.

That would be what the devs refer to as "information warfare". Scouting in this game means targeting mechs with the R key.

It is super important.

Coincidentally light fast mechs can do it better then slow heavy mechs.

[Chronojam]

Lost Opportunities: Mechwarrior Online

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

That would be what the devs refer to as "information warfare". Scouting in this game means targeting mechs with the R key.

It is super important.

Coincidentally light fast mechs can do it better then slow heavy mechs.

Sure is too bad that heavy slow mechs often have superior ranged weaponry, can take a beating, are sitting in an ECM + AMS cloud of their own with spare hardpoints for TAGs, and have the exact same radar range as smaller mechs for pushing "R" then. You see a scout, you nail him with your absurd long-range alpha before he can do anything useful about it.

[Roland]

One of the things that is funny too, is that way back in Closed Beta, one of the goons (I think it was PringlesPCant?) made up some truly epic post about the totally awesome thing that MWO could be made into, and with the exception of some folks saying, "OMG, GOONS BAD", everyone who read it was like, "Yeah, that's awesome!"

Even some of the devs noticed it, and recognized it as being awesome.

And then they just didn't do any of that at all.

[GODzillaGSPB]

xhrit, on 02 January 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

That would be what the devs refer to as "information warfare". Scouting in this game means targeting mechs with the R key.

It is super important.

Coincidentally light fast mechs can do it better then slow heavy mechs.

It was in the beta. Now I can avoid running in ambushes by using the the seismic sensor or by looking around corners or above hills. Plus it pays off to drop in more heavy mechs than have some scouts. What does it matter when a scout sees my all-Atlas-lance coming when we simply roll them, unless faced with the whole enemy team?