OK I have to get this off my chest before I turn green and start throwing... mechs down the street?
Despite many posts attempting to indicate otherwise the big issues with this game aren't the fact that clans are soon going to be a year behind schedule in our "1 to 1" world of MWO, or that UI2.0 took half a year extra to come out or bla bla bla. Frankly without other things being fixed these other features are lackluster in regards to what they are being applied to.
Edit: 21/01/14
This is a list of things currently in the game that there are problems with. Not speculative/not implemented features or unfulfilled/broken promises because we know that everyone is upset about those things as much as the next person.
Please keep that in mind this is about THE CURRENT STATE OF THE GAME.
Issues with the game itself:
1) Spammable arty/air stikes
Problem: Even in pug matches now I'm seeing from 5-15 or more of these used per match. This is not "tactical usage to break up clustered teams" this is spamming to pad damage. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen friendlies drop this on one or two mechs.
Solution: Put them on a longer cool-down (much longer) so they are being wasted when used on a single mech and essentially screwing that team over if they need it later when push comes to shove. Also do not add the damage onto a players damage done at the end of the match. Sure you paid cbills for it, but it was to gain tactical advantage that should be return enough if used correctly. Or fine if you want it to award points make it have to hit 5+ mechs to even reward any kind of C-Bill bonus. Oh also if they are used within a few seconds of someone dying perhaps don;t give them any points? Since a lot of players drop them in a last ditch effort to rack up some C-Bills especially if they get pummeled quickly.
2) ELO
Problem:
Id like to consider myself a decent player, I have a positive win/loss ratio on nearly all maps and some up in to the 2.x range, my KDR isn't super substantial since I don't play a lot of pinpoint builds but its still a modest high 1.x with many of my favorite mechs over 2.x to 3.x. I have 56 mechs despite taking a 7 month break a month after the Trebuchet patch due to RL priorities of which 46 or so are fully mastered. On most heavies and assaults I average about 400-800 damage a match (yes I know high damage isn't the most reliable indicator of skill or contribution) and in mediums about 300-700ish a match.
I like to play with my friends but now and then its nice to play a few games solo... yet every time I do I'm for whatever reason stuck with a group of lead paint chip eating ******* (about the nicest way to put it) who seemingly don't grasp the concepts of "take cover behind objects to avoid lrms" or "stick with the team if you're not highly mobile" or "press R to target your enemies to see where they are damaged" or "look at your minimap and HUD to see whats going on around you" I'm sure you get the point by now.
Solution: Have some kind of newbie cutoff in regards to experience where newer players only play those under a certain amount of games or end up pulling people with a lower total exp down to fill matches. From there just use a few indicators of skill such as total experience, kill assists, idk whatever else to put together players with similar skill levels together rather than trying to have each team have X ELO score when combining each players elo scores.
3) SRM/Ballistic hit registration
Problem: Need I say more? This is not just "oh its an arm mounted weapons convergence issue at short range. Horsecrap! Just about 20 minutes ago shot a torso mounted AC20 hoping to finish off a Battlemaster who I had cored out from behind and was beet red under a yellow CT armor and a 50m shot point blank where we were facing each other standing in a street between multiple buildings I shoot, see the explosion as it hits him and to my total astonishment (sarcasm) his avatar's CT is still yellow, no flashing, no nothing. If I must elaborate further earlier today I was watching my friend in his 4x4SRM Jenner in spectator mode shoot a highlander who was just walking along with full red back internals showing and nothing, no hit reg or anything till his second alpha. I mean this game has been out for over a year and a half now and we cant have missles that hit? How about damage from missles somehow damaging the opposite side of your body from where they impacted?
Solution: Yes I understand that there are many factors that play into this like latency difference between you and the other player so hopefully some day soon we can have servers dedicated to players in north america or the americas and then europe and the like so that the ping difference isn't that high? Other than that I'm no game developer but camman it's been ages.
4) Some mechs hitboxes
Problem: I will say good job on most mech's hitbox changes however the changes to the awesome making their side torsos even bigger well, was that really necessary? I don't even pilot Awesomes but it seems from fiddling around with smurfy that its nearly impossible to make decent use of your hardpoints without running an XL on one. Was it really necessary to make the CT of the Cataphract bigger? Now instead of losing your shoulders if you didnt torso twist everything just hits your CT if you do torso twist. The one mech that I really didnt think was going to need an overhaul gets it and screws it up.
Solution: Rethink the Awesome, maybe some kind of different shaped cutout than before denotes the shoulder area and re-balance the CT of the Cataphract
5)The metagame
Problem: Jumpsniping direct damage builds. Lights with PPC's and ER large lasers. Spammed arty/airstrikes from 800+ meters. Why? Because you have to do this to compete. How many dedicated brawling builds do we see anymore? Zero, zip, nada. Why? Because to cross those 800m or even 400m to effectively use SRMs and heavier ballistics you will get torn to pieces. Try it PGI and please tell me you can successfully brawl without being in a 12 man on skirmish and forcing the other team to have to come into an area to brawl to actually do this.
Solution: Make short range weapons more viable, aka. do more damage. Why does every ballistic have its cannon values yet SRM's are nerfed into the ground. Splat cats arent as viable due to ghost heat and even then if someone is stupid enough to let one get close its just as likely they would be stupid enough to hug an AC40 jager. If you bumped back SRM's to their previous damage and more mobile mechs could harass snipers more effectively without them being like "oh i can stand here and take a few hits" you would see a great change in meta.
*Appended edit*
Jumpjets and jumpsniping, how to balance this out better. Currently one jumpjet is sufficient to be a jumpsniper so why dont we change this a bit since adding additional jump jets after your first one only marginally increases lift. SO... a few fixes...
1) Make jumpjets work opposite of what they do now, make the first one only result in a bit of lift and the more you add the more significant the lift. Makes sense right? This would force them to put more critical slots and weight into jump jets forcing them to run smaller engines and less ammo/heatsinks converting them into a true sniper, vulnerable in close combat with limited shots/recycle rate this way you could even bring back gauss without a charge up
2) Make the recharge time for jumpjets slower the fewer jumpjets they have on, so the more jump jets you run the more often you can jump. Thus resulting in the same thing as above.
Simple solution right?
The next part of the problem... the players...
The players:
1) Leeroys
Problem: Players who think this is CoD and just run off achieving nothing for the team and die within a few moments of the match. Maybe they do some damage, maybe they dont. Then half the time they log out. Some times this is right away at the start, sometimes its as soon as they get impatient and see the first red blip on their HUD.
Solution: Attempt to implement team based bonuses or make the ones in game currently worth more. For whatever reason damage is a higher C-Bill booster than spotting or tag or even kill assists are. Frankly I believe damage yes is important but it doesn't indicate effective damage or any kind of team play even. Kill assists do, tag/narc and spotting assists do, savior bonus's do. This way if you dont contribute more as a team player then you don't reap as many rewards.
2) Whats a map?
Problem: Players who could be disoriented in a hallway with one door on either end and not know what door they entered this room from just a few moments before. You can spam coordinates, there can be 12 red markers on the map indicating that the enemy is crushing one lance on their team and yet they will wander off blissfully unaware that they are heading towards well... nothing?
Solution: This is a tough one, honestly I'm not sure what PGI can do other than maybe implement a tutorial that stresses the importance of battlefield awareness? That taking a sec to pull up your map or inspect other potential targets is a good thing? Ill explain an idea i have just after the next few points for this.
3) What is the "R" key for?
Problem: How many times do you go into spectate mode and see a player who is firing willy-nilly at an Atlas in front of them hitting every single component but not taking the time to see that if they alpha'ed his RT two times the ballistic(s) that are pummeling the {Scrap} out of them would be a non-factor anymore. Heck I see it most games on at least one player when I reach spectator mode.
Solution: Once again some kind of tutorial that stresses this? A bigger bonus for component destroys? Read on...
4) Mutes... I can communicate with my teammates?
Problem: Players who will not convey anything of their status to the team, like "hey there are 4 lights beating the {Scrap} out of me in C4 please halp" Of course in that situation you can't necessarily type but anyways you get the idea.
Solution: Add in more options to convey information to teammates through the HUD, put it in a tutorial, encourage people to press "R" heck throw them 10xp for every new mech targeted in a game (up to the full 12 enemies of course). See the ending of this section for more...
Solutions to a lot of the player problems:
More tutorial or something since PGI refuses to put any single player campaign in which is what new players used to use to familiarize themselves with the games in the past. I have two friends who just started, one who I met and the other who I've known for years and both of them have found the resources available underwhelming or severely lacking compared to other games. So why not expand the tutorials a bit to where new players can see more fundamentals of the game.
Wait! Problem! Players don't want to do a tutorial, they want to just jump in and go. So what about that? Well how about this, make a few tutorials, and then upon completion a new player gets their pick of ONE mech? Maybe a choice between three mediums or something, think of Pokemon? I discussed this with various people on Comstar yesterday and most thought it was a great idea.
In a nutshell:
As PGI/IGP you guys need to bring us some stability to the game platform and the meta, as a player base we need to communicate more and help facilitate the changes we would like to see while being reasonable. Stop the quick fixes and the constant nerfbat use on weapons, look at the other causes as to why a weapon is too strong.
Perhaps to gather info from players who are new or players you don't ever have frequent the forums maybe put in some polls into game on loading screens or waiting screens?
Anyways those are my two cents, please feel free to add to this or give feedback.
Necromantion
4
Tombstoner, on 21 January 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:
