46 replies to this topic

[RedDragon]

mud fart, on 13 January 2014 - 06:40 AM, said:

Yes the game has issues but . . .
I played some other "free to play games" over Christmas and the new year and It doesn't matter whether your an elf, a tank, an airplane, dwarf or a space soldier man they all have more issues than mwo and most of them are real sucky, so give the devs and pgi , piranha et al a slap on the back and a hearty whoooo hoooo. Oh and I had a go of a new fantasy mmorp that will be released soon and man that has more bugs and issues than a rain forest.

So thanks guys . . . can I have my hero Raven x4 now?

Can't speak for you, but I recently tried out War Thunder Beta and oh my god, it was a completely different league than MWO. They have tutorials, different gaming modes for simulator freaks and arcade players, they have actual ingame events and not just sales like MWO... and most importantly, I only played a few times, but I already felt at home. You log in, you are greeted by a pop up "Oh, you are back again today? Here, take some cash!". You complete a tutorial? You get some cash as reward. Grind for the first planes is nearly non-existant, they throw XP and cash at you whatever you do. You can buy more planes, level your crew and your alter ego... get new missions the farther you rank up, so it's highly addictive to keep on playing.

On the other side, there is MWO. You get nothing that you don't wrestle from the cold dead hands of the Devs. There is nothing rewarding throughout the whole game, it's just grind after grind, farming money over and over, just to buy mechs that you won't even use because besides the 2 or 3 chassis for the monthly meta, most mechs are redundant.

Yeah well, long story short, this encounter once again opened my eyes to what MWO could have been.

[Rebas Kradd]

To add to the idea of "beta burnout", the first people to get burnt out will be the people who play the most - who are usually the same people who frequent the forums most. This explains a lot of the vocal discontent. Despite my forum activity, I play relatively rarely because of my job, and I don't foresee being burnt out any time before the launch module in April. I've still got several mechs I want to buy and grind, and I'm excited to imagine how much damage they might cause.

But yeah...people will get burnt out. I don't mind that and I don't even mind them uninstalling. I do notice, however, most of them saying "I'll be back sometime" or some variant thereof.

NextGame, on 13 January 2014 - 07:21 AM, said:

In fact, thinking about it, I can only really come up with 4 notable mechanics off the top of my head that have been introduced since closed beta ended, and these are:

12v12 - fine
ghost heat - generally opposed
3pv - almost universally despised
hill walking restrictions - pebbles stopping mechs of all sizes in their tracks for a while

That took what, a year or more? 2 of which the community really didn't want.

I spend a lot of time on the forums, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why everyone hates Ghost Heat. Nobody's giving actual explanations or proving that it hurts the game in any but a purely theoretical sense. In my eyes, it prevents boating and yet preserves medium lasers as the workhorse they're supposed to be. This game was PPConline before it came along. Tweaking weapon damage directly was not a viable fix and will never be a viable fix as long as different mechs use different weapons in different proportions.

3PV is also griped about only in principle. When people list the foremost problems with the game, nobody lists the actual tangible effects of 3PV. It's not turning this into MW4 or breaking the game at all. It's merely held up as a "broken promise" by purists who need to stop and consider basing their complaints on practical factors for a change.

As for hill-walking, well, just because most people didn't want it, doesn't mean it wasn't needed. Does it make sense for Atlai to walk up 89 degree inclines? This was a major issue that nullified the role of terrain. Maps didn't breathe and flow like they're supposed to, and mechs didn't experience the advantages or disadvantages that terrain was supposed to assign them.

For a more comprehensive list of what PGI has accomplished over 2013 (while still regrettably not including CW), I recommend this excellent summary by Solis Obscuri: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3012401

I limit my irritation with PGI to two tangible and falsifiable faults: constant delays (which have since been explained) and bad PR. The latter really does drive me nuts.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 13 January 2014 - 06:07 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Rebas Kradd, on 13 January 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

I spend a lot of time on the forums, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why everyone hates Ghost Heat.

2 reasons usually:
1) "It isn't explained in-game well enough / at all"
2) It completely demolished their abilities to "PWN" with said weapons / made them actually have to think about their weapons.

[Rebas Kradd]

Shar Wolf, on 13 January 2014 - 06:14 PM, said:

2) It completely demolished their abilities to "PWN" with said weapons / made them actually have to think about their weapons.

Eh, let's not demonize the opposition. There are anti-boaters who don't like it as well. But I don't know why.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Rebas Kradd, on 13 January 2014 - 06:45 PM, said:

Eh, let's not demonize the opposition. There are anti-boaters who don't like it as well. But I don't know why.

Those are the two complaints I see pop up the most frequent (Just like those who post that the clan mechs they just bought BETTER be OP - you get those who are upset that they cannot 1buttonWIN anymore)

Beyond those two - I think most of it is simply Trolling or general Anti-PGI sentiment.

[Arahantius]

Shar Wolf, on 13 January 2014 - 06:50 PM, said:

Those are the two complaints I see pop up the most frequent (Just like those who post that the clan mechs they just bought BETTER be OP - you get those who are upset that they cannot 1buttonWIN anymore)

Beyond those two - I think most of it is simply Trolling or general Anti-PGI sentiment.

I have to agree with this statement - anyone would think that PGI was the first ever company that didn't deliver on time. The history of gaming is full of games that didn't measure up but I have never seen such horrible behaviour against a games company as I've witnessed in MWO.
Check my profile if you imagine I have no leg to stand on, my experience is extensive.

[Koopak]

Arahantius, on 13 January 2014 - 09:25 PM, said:

I have to agree with this statement - anyone would think that PGI was the first ever company that didn't deliver on time. The history of gaming is full of games that didn't measure up but I have never seen such horrible behaviour against a games company as I've witnessed in MWO.
Check my profile if you imagine I have no leg to stand on, my experience is extensive.

Don't you think its a bit rediculous to treat the community reaction to development decisions as a problem seperate of the issue complained about? I personaly think its obsurd to assume that such a large number of people are so uniquely harsh, as if there are little to no mitigaters that would pad out the extreamests. This thread in and of itself I feel proves my point as I see no sign of excessive flame, and yet when directly reacting and discussing the changes themselves, it has been common for players to express EXTENSIVE disatisfaction.

Personaly? The issues are, like others have already said, less the developmental decisions themselves, and more the lack of clear communication.

The fact that Ghost Heat for instance, is completely undocumented in-game. There is also the fact the 3PV is set as default and in this mode a new player is deprived of critical information and limited to a general less user friendly gameplay experience.

I digress, the greatest issue by far is a lack of clear communication, and progress updates, as well as what can only be percieved as multiple cash grab sales. Some of this is burn out sure, but can you really say it would be like this if PGI spent less time hawking mechs and more time keeping us up to date on the development of features we want?

I know many in the field feal that to much information is dangerous, but just giving us expectations and conversation on the systems for community warfare would do wonders, but right now we dont even have an outline of core mechanic ideas, thats obsurd. Not a single one of us has a clue what the dev team has invisioned for community warfare, heck we dont even have a reason to believe they even have a vision, much less a plan or even some text in a .txt file somewhere.

Pile on a series of obnoxious bugs such as the missle hit detection, and limitations from the "pure tabletop conversion" expectations of some, and you have a VERY hurt community who are lashing out, big surprise.

The BattleTech/MechWarrior community has been promissed much and delivered little repeatedly in the history of the franchise... we are tired of having our franchise whored out to us and neverb ecomign what it should have been for decades.

[brumster]

My issues aren't totally to do with the mechanics like ghost heat. The game really doesn't seem to be moving at a suitable pace for me. I came late into the beta, a few months before release, so to see a game that is now quite a way into it's life (let's be honest, that was a looooong beta) and still stumbling on some basics is frustrating.

Lack of saveable mech configurations - presumably just to bend the player to buying more mech bays, mechs and weapons and just owning several configurations.

An inability to relate a mech config to a map. Various approaches could be done to this, but I still choose my mech and roll the dice to see if it's suitable for the map I'm going to be playing. My personal approach would have been to allow the user to pre-configure various saved mech configs for a chassis and, provided they have the build parts in stock and purchased, then on the match start screen they have 60 seconds to choose a saved config for that map. No lengthy reconfigs, just pick one of their saved configurations.

Loads of other minor issues/wants, of course. Clunky UI, costs, slow grind, pointless weapons, poor teamplay tools within the game, no death from above, AC firing mechanics unexplainable in logic, no trackIR, yada yada yada.

For me, the reality is when I'm playing, the game has changed. The roleplaying is less, the teamwork is less, the quality of the play is less and it gets more like a FPS - which is precisely what I don't want, because I'm {Scrap} at the whole "run in and see who can shoot the most rounds the most accurately in the least amount of time" thing. But, I suspect, that's the biggest market out there. I somehow just suspect the game makers are playing to the majority (and why wouldn't they; they're hear to make money).

I prefer to vote with my feet though. I wish there was some way I could get the message through to the relevant people but I really can't imagine these forums achieve much.

[KhanCipher]

Rebas Kradd, on 13 January 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

and I cannot for the life of me figure out why everyone hates Ghost Heat.

1. It's a Bandaid for the actual problem, Pin Point Convergence. (fun fact, either Bryan or Paul said that pin point convergence is the core issue that ghost heat was suppose to fix in one of the NGNG podcasts.)
2. There's a huge set of double standards in the tables. Like use 2 LRM20s and 2 LRM5s and you're fine, but if you have the nerve to use 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM10s then you deserve to get punished by the mechanic. And then there's the large laser which does less damage than the PPC (as well as a longer cooldown, and lower dps numbers), spreads it's damage more than the PPC, and yet it has the same "cap" as the PPC. Yet oddly enough MLs are the only weapon in that list that doesn't really "suffer" from ghost heat (i think there's only 5 mech variants in the game that can even carry more than 6 MLs)
3. If you looked at the latest "balance pass", it should be obvious to you that the PPC is still the problem weapon because of pin point convergence. (yes i think the AC20/10 was nerfed to "desync" them from the PPC)

[King Arthur IV]

op, i think what your not seeing is.....

mwo has a decent size team, funding and more then ample time to develop content. they also have a large, loyal, vocal player base that can provide data and ideas to help game development. (not that they seem to listen but this exist)

these other free to play games you mention most likely dont have the same kind of resources mwo has... but the ones that do have some thing similar look like they are doing much better.

[Kaijin]

Rebas Kradd, on 13 January 2014 - 06:45 PM, said:

Eh, let's not demonize the opposition. There are anti-boaters who don't like it as well. But I don't know why.

I'll tell you why. While boating is the problem ghost heat was created to solve, it wasn't the problem. Pin-point convergence and high heat threshold is. Without these two, boating wouldn't be an issue. Without these, there'd be no reason to commit a 4 PPC alpha because 1) they're not going to all hit the same spot, and 2) the shooter would 'splode. That's the mechanics angle.

From the lore angle, ghost heat makes most 'mechs equipped with single heat sinks unplayable, which means that if the heat system used by MWO ruled the Inner Sphere, the Mackie would have been a colossal failure and there wouldn't be any battlemechs at all.

Edited by Kaijin, 17 January 2014 - 07:12 AM.

[Gladewolf]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 06:48 AM, said:

They also have more material to immerse yourself in. I started playing SWTOR over Christmas... That is how an Online game should be. PvP is PART of the game not the only part. There is a story in SWTOR... there is only combat here. There is Swag to be won an Achievements to be earned in SWTOR... we get C-bills and XP and that's it! For a game launched 3-5 months ago, we have next to nothing as content goes.

Eh, I don't think it's really fair to compare a game that started out as a supposedly blockbuster level subscription based MMO(and failed at it) to a game that started as a free to play game, but life isn't fair is it? I didn't even last 6 months in SWTOR though, but that might be because it was a crappy WoW clone with great story(and I was already burnt out on WoW)....so once the story was over.....shrug...for the price of free, it should be a good experience for those that haven't tried it.

Edited by Gladewolf, 14 January 2014 - 08:10 AM.

[Sybreed]

Gladewolf, on 14 January 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

Eh, I don't think it's really fair to compare a game that started out as a supposedly blockbuster level subscription based MMO(and failed at it) to a game that started as a free to play game, but life isn't fair is it? I didn't even last 6 months in SWTOR though, but that might be because it was a crappy WoW clone with great story(and I was already burnt out on WoW)....so once the story was over.....shrug...for the price of free, it should be a good experience for those that haven't tried it.

yeah, they had a bunch of {Surat} at Bioware who:

a) didn't realize people didn't want another WoW clone
didn't realize the subscription model is pretty much a thing of the past
c) forgot the "multiplayer" part of their game as you never had world PVP in questing zones and it was pretty much a single player experience. A fun one, but I'd rather have played SWTOR 3 instead of SWTOR online.

But really, the game being another WoW clone killed it for me, I had no interest of doing that {Scrap} again. Plus, paying 15$ per month when you can only play 5-10 hours per month is far from worth it.

RedDragon, on 13 January 2014 - 04:12 PM, said:

Can't speak for you, but I recently tried out War Thunder Beta and oh my god, it was a completely different league than MWO. They have tutorials, different gaming modes for simulator freaks and arcade players, they have actual ingame events and not just sales like MWO... and most importantly, I only played a few times, but I already felt at home. You log in, you are greeted by a pop up "Oh, you are back again today? Here, take some cash!". You complete a tutorial? You get some cash as reward. Grind for the first planes is nearly non-existant, they throw XP and cash at you whatever you do. You can buy more planes, level your crew and your alter ego... get new missions the farther you rank up, so it's highly addictive to keep on playing.

On the other side, there is MWO. You get nothing that you don't wrestle from the cold dead hands of the Devs. There is nothing rewarding throughout the whole game, it's just grind after grind, farming money over and over, just to buy mechs that you won't even use because besides the 2 or 3 chassis for the monthly meta, most mechs are redundant.

Yeah well, long story short, this encounter once again opened my eyes to what MWO could have been.

You think War Thunder is great? It was even better before the last patch, when you had basically 0 grind. Now, they're going the WoT route as they realized people were grinding levels and unlocking airplanes way too easily. It's still a very fun game, but the grind went from enjoyable and not very noticeable to WoT endless grind level.

[Rebas Kradd]

Kaijin, on 14 January 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

I'll tell you why. While boating is the problem ghost heat was created to solve, it wasn't the problem. Pin-point convergence and high heat threshold is. Without these two, boating wouldn't be an issue. Without these, there'd be no reason to commit a 4 PPC alpha because A) they're not going to all hit the same spot, and the shooter would 'splode. That's the mechanics angle. From the lore angle, ghost heat makes most 'mechs equipped with single heat sinks unplayable, which means that if the heat system used by MWO ruled the Inner Sphere, the Mackie would have been a colossal failure and there wouldn't be any battlemechs at all.

You cannot ask them to take away pinpoint convergence this late in the game. It is a core mechanic and removing it would completely upheave the landscape of the game's weapons and mechs. If they do it, I'll be very surprised, because we'd essentially get an entirely new game. Anyone who thinks pinpoint convergence would conveniently just take away pinpoint alphas and not affect other weapons...well, honestly, that's wishful thinking. Balance would be completely rearranged and would need a from-the-ground-up retweaking.

So from there, I ask this...has Ghost Heat done its job? Sure, we could complain that artificial solutions aren't ideal, and sure we could complain that this one doesn't match up with BT lore. But we'd still just be complaining on principle and in the purely theoretical sense. Has Ghost Heat done its job? Have the tweaks reduced high alphas to the level of a tactic and play style rather than a meta?

I'd have to say yes, with help from the recent AC/20 nerf. The PPC meta in spring was bad but manageable with skill, the PPC/ballistics meta during summer and fall was less bad, the current meta is even less bad. With each tweak we've gotten better. For me, that's all that matters and I am satisfied.

[Koopak]

While I agree Ghost Heat has done its job admirably, and in terms of balance the game is remarkly well balanced at this current junction, I feel that it needs to be made obvious, i cant count the number of players i run into on a regular basis who dont even know about the mechanic, much less other issues in the game.

As a side note, while the removal of pin poitn convergence would be a sketchy thing, it would be interestign to see weapons land around the cross hair in refrence to the weapon's location on the mech, and would introduce a new level of gunnery skill necessary, that said it would be far from noob friendly.

Again the number one flaw here is the tight lipped aproud the developers have taken to community interaction, it is apsolutly vital in a continuous development game to maintin a constant, open conversation with the community, and we have not seen much of that. I think more than anything this is why we have seen so much anamosity toward the company.

[CyclonerM]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 January 2014 - 07:29 AM, said:

To date, all I got is a bunch of grind, and not much to brag about outside of Killing a Khan once ...so far!

So far i have killed Marack Drock (Khan of the infamous Blood Scorpions! ) and the Star Captain who later has become our new Khan, both in honorable combat. I actually have something worth bragging adding it to my Codex!

[Roadbeer]

CyclonerM, on 14 January 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

adding it to my Codex!

Is that a manly, Clanner, way of saying diary?

[Sybreed]

Kaijin, on 14 January 2014 - 06:14 AM, said:

I'll tell you why. While boating is the problem ghost heat was created to solve, it wasn't the problem. Pin-point convergence and high heat threshold is. Without these two, boating wouldn't be an issue. Without these, there'd be no reason to commit a 4 PPC alpha because A) they're not going to all hit the same spot, and the shooter would 'splode. That's the mechanics angle.

From the lore angle, ghost heat makes most 'mechs equipped with single heat sinks unplayable, which means that if the heat system used by MWO ruled the Inner Sphere, the Mackie would have been a colossal failure and there wouldn't be any battlemechs at all.

removing convergence doesn't fix LRM boats though, and these were a big issue until PGI nerfed LRMs into oblivion. Prevent massive senseless boating and you can start having decent LRMs again.

I agree convergence is the #1 issue, but boating is a close #2.

[Solis Obscuri]

Koopak, on 14 January 2014 - 12:15 PM, said:

While I agree Ghost Heat has done its job admirably, and in terms of balance the game is remarkly well balanced at this current junction, I feel that it needs to be made obvious, i cant count the number of players i run into on a regular basis who dont even know about the mechanic, much less other issues in the game.

As a side note, while the removal of pin poitn convergence would be a sketchy thing, it would be interestign to see weapons land around the cross hair in refrence to the weapon's location on the mech, and would introduce a new level of gunnery skill necessary, that said it would be far from noob friendly.

Again the number one flaw here is the tight lipped aproud the developers have taken to community interaction, it is apsolutly vital in a continuous development game to maintin a constant, open conversation with the community, and we have not seen much of that. I think more than anything this is why we have seen so much anamosity toward the company.

I agree thoroughly. While I didn't like Ghost Heat much at the outset, I can honestly say it doesn't affect my play much now that I understand how it works. The only build I really lost was a five AC/2 Jager, but the two AC/2 two AC/5 build I replaced it with is honestly just as good and a little more heat efficient. Ghost Heat is a wonky mechanic, and it needs some good documentation added to the mechlab, but it has served to limit alpha striking in general without requiring a lot of iterative tweaking to every weapon system.

I think what is lacking right now is not pure balance from a statistical standpoint, but systems to encourage tactical depth in combat and further enhancement of roles, both in terms of viability and reward.

The slope/ movement penalty system has been a far more dismal failure than Ghost Heat IMO, as it both spawned a pile of buggy situations that immobilize 'mechs and the arbitrary assignment of movement profiles placed several of the strongest assault and heavy 'mechs (Cataphract, Jager, Stalker) in the position of being as fast and mobile than the medium/heavy chassis they already had eclipsed. Meanwhile, several chassis canonically defined primarily by their high agility like the Victor and Quickdraw, got screwed by being placed in size brackets that still cause them to high-center on molehills. (Not to beat a dead horse, but the Quickdraw really is screwed over by its combination of huge hitboxes and tendency to get stuck in the scenery).

The chassis-by-chassis tweaks and hitbox adjustments have been a little better, but there's still some ways to go. Particularly, there still is limited incentive to favor mobile skirmishers over a super-heavy murderball or an scout-heavy caprush, and despite a growing arsenal of soft counters, Information Warfare is still predominantly ECM warfare. Recent matchmaking tweaks have helped encourage the use of mediums and lighter heavies, but it's artificial, and most mediums still compete poorly against heavies and assaults.

The needed game content/balance at this point is systems to expand tactical depth and make more roles desirable to play. And while I'm eager for CW, I honestly think it'll come up shallow and unsatisfying if it's primarily a contest of super-heavy murderballs and caprushes.

And as for the devs and communication... the recent Vlog was an improvement. I do hope they continue to improve that communication and do a better job of holding dates, though.

[Solis Obscuri]

Sybreed, on 14 January 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

removing convergence doesn't fix LRM boats though, and these were a big issue until PGI nerfed LRMs into oblivion. Prevent massive senseless boating and you can start having decent LRMs again.

I agree convergence is the #1 issue, but boating is a close #2.

I don't think LRMs are that bad right now, as they are neither terribly strong or weak, but will wear down any 'mech with enough salvos; but their usefulness is still extremely variable depending on the presence of absence of ECM on the battlefield. Organized play and good spotter roles help with that, but solid direct-fire firing lines are almost always a stronger option even when ECM isn't in play.