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[OP8]

Dear community, I offer this long submission containing all the things I ponder but procrastinate on posting while playing MWO. This is my story, my experiences, why MWO won't get any more of my money for a while, and what things I believe need constructive criticism as of today. This is my first "state of the union address".

My ingame tag is OP8 and I'm sure many of you have reason to remember me from somewhere. I have been passionate about this genre since elementary school (before computer games existed), and as a young inventor I used to draw combat robots similar to the ravens and stalkers instead of class work in 3rd grade. I played a mech style game on my Commodore 64. Then I was introduced to the first mechwarrior game on my pentium 1 100mhz computer. Later I was obsessed with MW2 till I saw every inch of the game and even learned to composed music inspired from it's sound track. Then MW3... 4.... As a matter of fact, I've played and beaten every single-player mechwarrior game since the dawn of computer entertainment. I know the tech, I know the stories, I know the strategies, I know how to build a killer variant of every chassis and play style, and sometimes I suppose in truth or not that my opinion on this subject should carry a respectable... Tonnage.

I've been playing MWO since closed beta, and am elite founder plus overlord phoenix with reinforcements. I have both gotten my money's worth while simultaneously been hosed a little, but I'll touch base on that later. I had played several hundred games before MWO started keeping stats. Then when stats were introduced, I played ballpark 2,100-2,500 games. Some 150-200 of those games were crashes or disconnects. My current computer unfortunately can barely run this game at 20 FPS in heavy combat scenes at minimal/medium custom settings, and I still managed to kill over 2,000 of you folks as I payed off 34 mastered and pimp builds. Good times and thanks much, gents. You guys have collectively called me a noob, a savior, a ******, and a god all within 15 minutes of each other. I have both won and lost in every way you could think of to every type of foe.

My current garage contains these 28 variants, all with extra pilot modules unlocked and the best military hardware setups you can cram into those slots. The mechlab has a glitch where it seems to think I own 34, but I can't find the extras evidently taking up bays. I'm taking a break buying more till after the omnimechs come. Banking now and finishing touches mostly. I enjoy playing every one of these for different reasons, and they all have strengths and weaknesses different to all enemy types. Variety is a big deal to me as a gamer. Here's my arsenal so far:
LCT-1VP, LCT-3M, SDR-5D, SDR-5V, JR7-D, JR7-K, RVN-3L, CDA-3M, CN9-AC, SHD-2HP, SHD-2D2, GRF-1NP, GRF-3M, WVR-6RP, WVR-7K, TDR-5SP, TDR-9SE, JM6-DD, CPLT-C1-Founder, CPLT-A1, CTF-3D, CTF-4X, BLR-1GP, BLR-1S, STK-5M, STK-5S, AS7-D-DC, AS7-K.
They all have unique paint jobs and color schemes, I own enough engines and weapons to never have to swap between mechs (many XLs), and I own duplicates of all the most useful modules (have unlocked everything but hill climb, cool boost, 9x9, improved arty, and improved airstrike) according to my play style versus usefulness.

The most universally useful module is adv. target decay- for individuals and the team. It goes in EVERY mech. It affects battlefield awareness, LRM abilities, and perks against ECM plus people who hide too much between shots. I also consider the dual upgraded UAV to be quite valuable, but frankly the process of reloading them requires too many horses ass delays and way too many annoying clicks. The reload process needs to be fixed- aka module installs and has one point of ammunition reset each game for cash deduction- but doesn't remove module.

My most lethal mechs to play so far are ECM spider (terrorist), the ECM cicada (ERPPC sniper), my founder's cat (dual role LRM boat), and my (splatterSRM/2xERLL) Stalker. Sometimes I enjoy my DDC, but frankly the low arm weapons and hard points in general make the atlas kinda suck compared to a high slung stalker. Anyway...

I play MWO mostly during the late evenings/early mornings, or days I'm in bad shape to go to work. Clearly there's much time spent, but this last year I found myself in the hospital on several occasions for long stays due to being diagnosed with a rare type 1 diabetic situation and blood poisoning. This is only important here because for as much as I've invested in this game, much of my paid experience and premium time was lessened or completely missed out on because of hospitalization and inescapable absence from a computer. The way I couldn't stop my real world money ticking away for weeks at a time really made me feel like I was getting conned in a way. The un-pausable premium time clock causes a definite sense of betrayal to a loyal gamer, especially with the hardships some folks go through in life outside of gaming. I payed huge bucks compared to other "finished" games, and with my limited budget had to skip upgrading my video card to even enjoy the game smoothly because the MWO packages were so expensive. Now I'm constantly being bombarded with guilt trip ads about how I'm supposed to drop huge money again on an unfinished product to demonstrate loyalty, and how time's runnin out to get the good stuff- BUT HOLY SHIT DEVS,... My car is broken down with serious engine problems, work has been really ******* difficult and inconsistent due to this onset of health issues and hospitalizations, and now I've got all kinds of important prescription drugs, and my video card can only handle this game with chunky framerates anyfuckinway. And you guys want $240 for an upgrade to a free game I've already paid many times what other devs charge for a finished game, with polished features? Everything here has become too expensive for not enough satisfaction, and I can't rationalize spending a friggin car payment on 1/3rd upgrade to an unfinished "video game". I bet if the $240 package had cost $60 or something reasonable to anyone who aint rich and obsessed, PGI could have made much more money by letting more people afford it as a hobby. Aint talkin "scrounge up some spare cash for a new game" like the old days...Getting what I want out of this game costs more than my car repairs, or my medications, or a new video card, and a hundred other things important to real life; and therefore must be filed to the absolute back of my priorities because of those absurd proportions. PGI lost my future business via price gouging beyond my abilities to finance my passion for the game. That's a sad moment to any hardcore gamer. I'll keep playing, just no more paying for the extras till some product quality issues are dealt with or prices become more realistic to someone with real bills..

So here is a list of things missing or not yet implemented that make MWO feel too unfinished to spend more money on.
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Interface direct:
Way too many clicks to do simple things like module reloading, starting matches in set game modes, exiting the game, etc..(beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser) It gets really old after enough games.
Not enough of the right info on the appropriate screens; why can't I see how many CBills I have on EVERY tab like I should?(beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser) Why doesn't it always show the XP for my current mech without having to go way into a menu?(beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser) Why can't we see at a glance what engine is equipped, or what modules are on the current mech without being 4 pages into the mech lab (not in tool tips/extended info popup?!?? (beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser)Why don't all mechlab and skills pages start off open to your currently selected mech? (beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser)The graphs for the mech specifics don't show information well enough to compare loadouts. If you sell a mech that's not finished unlocking, you can't see any info regarding how far you got any where in the skills page or how much XP is in it's bank. It feels like there's something little missing on every page.(beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeebeebeeeep from the curser)... Are you sure you want to log out? are you sure you want to exit? Are you sure you're sure? Yes? No? Was another confirmation box really necessary at this junction? After 1000 games? 2000? Moving on.
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Interface immersion:
Monochrome simple icons are cupcakes with no frosting. They are "ok" for placeholders, but offer no imagination or satisfaction for gamers who like to see fleshed out details. They look lazy and unfinished to a community that appreciates at least semi realistic renderings of engines, weapons, ammunition racks, modules, upgrades, skill unlocks and more. We want short descriptions about the technologies and their place in the MWO galaxy built into the game. We want a picture that lets us see little design differences between an unmounted UAC5 and an AC10. We want to see a rack of SRM ammo on a loader next to the parked mech. Even better if some of those pictures show humans working on or testing such items. Not some generic grey outline in a box. We want little info panels telling short stories and technical jibberish about the guns and systems we install. The UI is riddled with this lack of finalizing effort and detail.

The game lacks any instance of ever letting the player see a human being next to a mech for visual scale. No technicians working in the mechlab, No pilot standing on a catwalk anywhere, No humans being stepped on by giant atlas feet in the intro movie, none of that stuff. Sure some small features in maps have cars or small doors, but these details don't do the job of instilling awe from the size of the vehicles. Even if it's just sprites of people occasionally walking down a glassed in hallway behind the mechlab or SOMETHING... But get a person in the same scene as a mech SOMEWHERE! It's more valuable to player interaction than maybe the devs realize.

The game would've benefited from customizable pilots as well. Show your pilot on a staging platform next to the open cockpit door. Make some CBill purchasable outfits and accessories with fancier real money counterparts like fancier body armor, different styles of boots and gloves, helmets etc. Make these items cost on par to cockpit upgrades. I'm sure enough players would pay 250MC for a pair of clown shoes, cowboy boots, black leather pants, a white Michael Jackson glove, or other gimmicks during startup procedure. Make holding down the player overlay key ingame show the player's fancy avatar icon or something. There's all sorts of implementations.

Imagine if you accessed the mechlab of each chassis by walking up to a console at the feet of each mech in a large expandable hangar, in human scale?

I'm sure everybody would love a "game mode" that was a large interior of a dropship with all your mechs lined up together for taking paint job screenies, and seeing their fleets assembled. A prideful gamer showing off his hard earned machinery is one of the best advertisements for a game like this. That's how you make players feel attached to their rides, persuade them to buy stuff, and invite friends to show off.

We want a screen somewhere that adds up the net worth of our garage or specific builds. I wanna know what my fleet costs now that I upgraded everything, new engines, weapons, modules, etc. We want to know the buy price of OUR version compared to stock from the factory. Just sayin.
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Maps: We don't have enough of em, and they all seem slightly unfinished or monotonous in different ways.

We need a low G map and it shoulda been manifold- manifold also needs more color and visual work like some sort of blue plasma or electrical beam from the big dish and the core towers in the basement. It could also use various colored energy effects shimmering through parts of the station floors and walls. It's so much black and grey that it's hard to tell features of the station apart. One of the sites outside the inner ring needs a huge sphere dropship on a launch pad or something. So much of this map needs a little extra visual flair somehow without just more ultra busy grey. Even a deep red glow from under those grates in the ramps would help.

Terra Therma needs more identifiable landmarks spread around the outer areas, like large construction depots, launch stations, or other features people can identify from a distance. The crater is cool. The rest of it is just the same hills again and again. Those hills could have been visually separated with big mining drill towers, massive volcanic extraction facilities, or a few overhead ore conveyors the player can visually associate with.

Forest Colony/Forest Colony Snow: has anyone ever wondered how the ship even got in that position with the beach in front and a mountain behind? Physically impossible for such a detail to arrive there? Green season needs more lush greens and foliage colors. Seems drab. Snow version could use a weather variation such as a light sleet that blurs visibility passed 800M that randomly comes and goes.. Those giant generic concrete culvert pipes are totally out of human scale of manufacturing, and should be re-detailed as a sealed subterranean bunker entrance into each hillside with a bridge deck superstructure, or some other construction indicating a base or human presence and purpose. Like a covered breezeway between 60 foot doors going into the river banks on each side. Anything but weirdly huge culvert pipes.

River City/Night: I have surprisingly few complaints about the daytime design of this map, but the night time version could use some areas of illuminating buildings or spotlights. The occasional operating street light. It just needs a few more areas where players can still see a little through the streets for spooky mech shadows cast down alleys if they disable their thermal/NVision. The other vision modes should be "very helpful in portions of the city, but not persistently mandatory everywhere". This is where it would be ultra cool to sell a "tactical searchlights" module that shines 200M beams of white headlights from over the cockpit and arms or chest, that the player can toggle. Just a thought there that many players would find entertaining in dark places. This would also help lube a player's acceptance of other night mode maps. Another perk feature could be to make cockpit glow visible through the window glass from the outside.

Crimson straight: Another "closer to finished" map, but could use a dusk version. Maybe a third brighter than RiverCNight out doors, but many work lights on and under the port platforms and other larger buildings, almost completely dark all the way out by the island or far from city streets.

Canyon Network: Mostly ok, could use some finishing touches like an alternate weather situation such as duststorms etc., or an early morning/dusk mode where the sunlight casts deep shadows into the low areas but high intensity light skating across the tops of the plateaus. Could also use either 2 Rail stations with covered platforms at the ends of the maglev tracks, or one in the middle; relate-able visual landmarks that provide temporary relief from LRM rain.

Enough about maps, my point is that they all could use a little finishing touch here and there. They're good enough for a FTP game, but still playing catch-up to my expectations if I'm gonna invest more than my previous near $200.
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Module specifics:
Some of the "persistent effect" modules are really useful, while others are kind of a waste of GXP and CBills. Consumables are irritating to remember and re-stock after every match especially caused by how many clicks through pages and confirmation dialoges and "updating" waits, etc. I have all the UAV upgrades for 30,000GXP +40kCB per shot, but I stopped using them on mechs due to irritations like that, after too many repetitions.
Thank you for finally fixing most of the advanced zoom, but it still has a couple minor glitches.
I personally feel that every chassis needs one more "granted" module slot, and the possibility of earning a second "extra" after the master unlock for perhaps 35k GXP or something "difficult". Or perhaps as a chassis unlock if 3 mechs of a weight class have been mastered. Otherwise many of the modules are just stupid choices when you can get such cool effects from the others. The weapon range boosts fall typically into this category, along with hill climb, and a few others that will always come last. I've unlocked them all, but will never install 90% of them. If you're paying GXP and huge CB for these modules, Ya'all need to scrap negative attributes like increased heat, and the upgrades need to be more significant or they'll only be installed by rookies who don't comprehend goodies like ADV. Seismic or ADV. Target Decay. The airstrike and artillery mods don't fit my personal play style, but clearly there's a logical popularity to some and I shouldn't *****. They do get frustrating when 8 enemy mechs use them in a 90 second spam parade though, and I've seen it happen from my team as well as against us. I only invest in modules that frequently affect the outcomes of games, not the ones with minimal effect in rare situations. Excluding a few, most modules aren't worth the slot or the money too often.
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Achievements: I know more are coming, but I gotta say we coulda started with a bunch more like Toboggan= slide more than 100M down a hill after dying;
Clay pigeons= kill X lifetime enemies while they're flying over 10M;
Harpy=kill X lifetime enemies while jump jetting at full throttle;
Sniper=get X lifetime kills or X lifetime damage from over 1,100M;
Crusader= exceed 1000 baseXP for 5 games in a row;
Man with the plan= Win 20 games as the commander with at least 10 waypoints reached by any teamate per game;
Cloak and dagger= kill 50 lifetime mechs being scrambled by your ECM;
Umbrella= Use ECM to break locks on 10,000 already fired LRMs;
Eye Spy= Get X lifetime successful TAG/NARC designations;
Winning streak= self explanatory counter;
Sponge= get hit by 20,000 lifetime missiles;
Wicked this way comes= master 6 mechs from a single weight class;
Master Mechanic= master 6 mechs from EACH OF ALL 4 weight classes;
It's Raining Men= get shot by 8 or more enemies in 90 seconds;
Nancy Kerrigan= destroy an enemy leg with a collision;
Mr. Fancy Pants= be kill and damage leader VIP for your team 50 lifetime games;
Hot Stuff= maintain over 90% heat threshold for 60 seconds with enemies in sight;
The Shoehorn= win 10 games in a mech with ZERO slots, ZERO tons remaining;
Daka Daka= get 100+ AC hits in a single game;
Recently Deceased= lose 10 games in a row;
The fireman= force overheat 10 lifetime mechs with flamers;
Nemesis= kill the same ungrouped public player more than 3 times in a day;
Fish in a barrel= damage 4+ enemies with a single laser blast;
Twitchy= land 20+ consecutive shots with PPC/ERPPC;
The Black Knight= kill an armless mech by destroying both legs;
Achilles heel= Kill 20 lifetime assaults with less than or equal to 30 tons;
Symbiotic Relationships= Keep an enemy light mech in motion targeted for >90 seconds;
Meteor shower= die from self inflicted leg injuries 3 or more times.

There's SOOOOO many possibilities. As well, make the cadet achievements consolidate to one expandable entry after Knight Errant has unlocked, there's no need to take up that much screen real estate after passing cadet. P.s. the achievement titles for the "helpers" aren't as definitive and linear as they could be and could benefit from more convincing terminology.
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Mech Specifics: I'm not going to rant too much about the specific chassis, but there's a few situations with the mechs that just could be better. The community wants to see some sort of noticeable effect upon enemy destruction to different ends. It doesn't have to be as fancy as some people have suggested, but at least give us some sort of electrical dissipation over the skin or light beams to indicate a destroyed core.
One of my minor pet peeves about mechs with no hard points in an arm, and I'll use the Centurion as my example though there are others; That "dead" arm should be shaped to look like some sort of shielding for that side of the body to be used defensively on purpose. Then players could choose or not to beef up armor tonnage on that side as compensation for the hand actuator slots and lack of usable firepower. Imagine the Centurion with a waist to head, high tech looking mechanical heater shield on his left arm....
Then there's all the varying levels of quality in the mech Icons, where some clearly look like old concept art and others are clean, posed renderings. Get that crap all on the same quality scale or it looks patch worked and unfinished.
I'm skipping the rest of this section till another time.
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Of course there's also that pesky LRM epidemic that's happening lately...
And by the way a majority of disconnects and crashes happen in the first 60 seconds of a match- and I STILL think it's ridiculous that we can't reconnect to dropped mechs in the first 3 minutes of match starts- connection failures and software crashes shouldn't be such guaranteed blemishes on people's K/D and W/L stats. When it happens hundreds of times in a year, it gets fairly annoying.


So that's a bulk of my perception regarding MWO as of today, and forgive my possible typos. Of course there's other things I'm forgetting to touch base on at this point, but frankly I'm tired of typing and need to go pump some SRMs up an LRM Boat's ass. I'll continue my evaluations at a later date, but had to get at least some of this off my chest. Thanks to anyone who read all the way to the end, I understand this might have been a tedious read but I think the extensive review serves some wisdom. I'll be seein (and killin) all you folks later.

[Stardancer01]

your achievements suggestions would be good as a separate post