179 replies to this topic

[Davers]

Roland, on 10 May 2014 - 07:39 PM, said:

I don't even know what that rant was trying to say.

Someone said his BT novels weren't canon, CW will give huge perks to everyone but him, um....I give up. He is having an argument with an invisible poster and accidentally quoting the wrong people I think.

[Deathlike]

Koniving, on 09 May 2014 - 08:20 PM, said:

They never said anything about changing the weight of the weapons. Quite specifically they expressed they cannot do that.

http://mwomercs.com/...gn-perspective/

From teh Paul's mouth said:

The fact that the Clan version of LRM-20s have no minimum range is a huge problem. What you effectively now have is a Streak SRM-20 available to you if we cut minimum range to 0. The fact that this weapon weighs half as much and takes up 1 less slot makes this a significantly over powered system.
The following will probably be applied to this weapon system:
Base heat increase to [7]
Minimum range stays at 180m but LRMs can be fired. The damage ramps from 0 to 1.1 in an exponential curve. i.e. Damage is minimal in the [0]-[100]m range and increases to full damage between [101] and [180]m ranges.
Possible adjustment to [7] tons.
Now the weapon system still keeps it “no-minimum” range property and it still keeps a weight reduction and generates a little more heat. Again, this will translate into better piloting skills, fire timing and heat management to take full advantage of the Clan LRM-20.

That being said, when dealing with core values like tonnage or crits, we risk the chance of breaking a standard build in a future Clan BattleMech in terms of its weight capacity or space capacity. This is why this third area of balancing new mechanics takes the longest time and will have to be revisited now and again.

While I don't think he's said too much more about this since then (like, aborting that idea altogether), what you just said is not true... which was part of my original response to the appropriate feedback thread (which, probably isn't even looked at seriously).

Edited by Deathlike, 11 May 2014 - 12:27 AM.

[1453 R]

Davers, on 10 May 2014 - 07:47 PM, said:

Someone said his BT novels weren't canon, CW will give huge perks to everyone but him, um....I give up. He is having an argument with an invisible poster and accidentally quoting the wrong people I think.

Ye know, there's a part of me that wishes it knew how we got from "Why do you people think CW will magically/single-handedly Save Mechwarrior Online?" to where we are now...but then the rest of me remembers it doesn't like headaches.

You know what, though? Fine. Do whatever you like. Demand all you want that Community Warfare come out NOW and that Piranha never devotes another resources to anything else ever again. Pin every last inch of your hopes and dreams on Community Warfare fixing every single problem the game currently has all in one patch.

And when the CW patch comes out and it not only doesn't fix every balance issue, every bug problem, every broken texture or too-big model or PPC sniper or LRM Atlas, it turns out to not be even half as cool as this colossal, four-games-in-one Ubermensch of BattleTech everyone seems to've turned it into over these last two years? I won't even bother to say 'I TRIED to tell you it was going to be like this...'

[Agent of Change]

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

ANGRILY SAID A BUNCH OF STUFF

And y'know what... why should we care. CW was a 'pillar' of what we were sold, we would like it. It may or may not make the game better or worse but that's not the point.

More to the point, since you clearly don't care about the enjoyment or interest of what a large number of MWO players actually started playing this game in anticipation of 2 years ago why should we give a rats ass about what you want?

Discussion is a reciprocal system here, and if you are just gonna write off a huge number of people and opinions because "OMFG it don't give me nuthin, rage, rage rage" Then quite frankly you just aren't worth listening to.

The Post Brought To You By

The Post-Lerian Jihad

"We Post better than you."

Edited by Agent of Change, 12 May 2014 - 06:27 AM.

[1453 R]

Who let you out of the pit? I left you the other one, be content with that.

The 'reciprocal' part of reciprocal discussion seems to be "Hey, you. Shut up and agree that Community Warfare is the only thing anyone should care about EVER and any attempt to forestall or delay it for any reason whatsoever - including suggesting that resources be allocated to bug fixes/optimization, balancing efforts, or in fact things like continued biweekly updates, keeping the servers online, or maintaining a janitorial staff so Piranha's offices stay clean enough to work in - is BAD and should be VOTED OFF THE ISLAND."

Frankly, I'm surprised the CW people are even allowing* the Clan packs to release. The prevailing attitude seems to be "PULL that **** and get to work on CW first! Founders spent money more than two years ago on CW, and only CW, and we deserve that before anyone else deserves anything else!"

Funny...I thought Founders spent money on Founders' 'Mechs, forum tags, a pile of MC, and other stuff that was delivered in full a long while ago. Online games change, and frankly I still don't know where you people figure Piranha's going to come up with this monumental galaxy-wide multilayered total warfare/logistics/political maneuvering simulation when they can barely keep up with releasing a new 'Mech every* month. For cripes' sake, look how long the Clans took, and that was just a different kind of 'Mech.

How the hell can you people convince yourselves that this studio isn't going to make a complete hash of it, to the point where you're going to wish they hadn't even bothered releasing it so that you could continue to blarch/hope?

[Davers]

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

You know what, though? Fine. Do whatever you like. Demand all you want that Community Warfare come out NOW and that Piranha never devotes another resources to anything else ever again. Pin every last inch of your hopes and dreams on Community Warfare fixing every single problem the game currently has all in one patch.

Wow. Nothing but extremes? CW NOW and never work on anything else ever again? Really? Just a black and white world for you I guess. How can we discuss anything if you take silly stances like this?

Sug, on 09 May 2014 - 11:41 PM, said:

Weird, there's a pcgamer article on my desk that says it's going to be done between winter and spring of 2012....

I mean, there's no way content that "couldn't be more key to the game's longevity" would be delayed for over 2 years...

After all it's "the umbrella that holds all the other pillars together," says creative directory Bryan Ekman. "It's what wraps the game up in something that creates a sense of persistence and makes the game compelling."

I'm sure they have top men working on something that important.

Top. Men.

I'm going to leave this here (Sorry Sug for dragging you into the conversation). See what PGI describes CW as? If PGI thinks it is so crucial for the game, why don't you?

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 07:16 AM, said:

The 'reciprocal' part of reciprocal discussion seems to be "Hey, you. Shut up and agree that Community Warfare is the only thing anyone should care about EVER and any attempt to forestall or delay it for any reason whatsoever - including suggesting that resources be allocated to bug fixes/optimization, balancing efforts, or in fact things like continued biweekly updates, keeping the servers online, or maintaining a janitorial staff so Piranha's offices stay clean enough to work in - is BAD and should be VOTED OFF THE ISLAND."

Funny...I thought Founders spent money on Founders' 'Mechs, forum tags, a pile of MC, and other stuff that was delivered in full a long while ago. Online games change, and frankly I still don't know where you people figure Piranha's going to come up with this monumental galaxy-wide multilayered total warfare/logistics/political maneuvering simulation when they can barely keep up with releasing a new 'Mech every* month. For cripes' sake, look how long the Clans took, and that was just a different kind of 'Mech.

For someone with such a poor view of PGI I wonder why you even care about the development of this game. According to you it will just turn into a big pile of dog poo.

You are all over the place with your arguments. I really can't follow some of them. It seems you don't want CW because you think it will 1. be total crap or 2. hurt your game experience somehow. Maybe both. But I disagree. I don't think either will happen.

It's not that PGI is being forced to release CW by it's cruel players. PGI wants to release CW. It will be the Cbill sink they want to drive more MC sales.

[1453 R]

Davers, on 11 May 2014 - 07:47 AM, said:

Blah.

For one, and as much as this is going to get me taunted by more K-town transplants...I will apologize. Some people managed to get my goat up about things I feel very strongly about; having had some time/breakfast, some of the side issues that have cropped up shouldn't have. For that, I offer my apologies.

As for the rest...reading this thread is what finally crystallized my formerly-unclear/undecided opinion on CW. I've been watching more and more people make this insane disconnect between the game we have now and "The Game We'll Have When Piranha Finally Releases CW." The game we have now is apparently so far below just regular mancowdung that we're getting into Shisno territory here - the current game is unplayable, unrecoverable, so incredibly painfully terrible that Piranha should be paying us to play it for them.

...but when Community Warfare comes out, every single problem will go away. The game will be balanced, the bugs will be gone, the graphics will shoot up to prerendered-cinematic levels of awesome, every single individual player will have a direct, meaningful, and measurable impact on the Inner Sphere (except for Clan players because f*** those guys), a strong and intuitive new player tutorial system will spontaneously erupt from the ether, The Community will come together as a single harmonious whole, and the entire game will just be so incredibly awesometastically badass that Harmony Gold will be universally overcome with manly tears of emotion and release their deathgrip on all the rest of the Unseen 'Mechs on the spot.

What the hell world are you people living in? o_O

The expectations being leveled on CW very seriously boggle my mind. I cannot fathom it, I cannot figure out how people can expect a small studio like Piranha, who took over a year just to refresh their front end, is somehow going to quadruple the size of their game overnight and also manage to fix absolutely everything The Community wants fixed in the space of one patch. These people just don't have the resources to pull that off - if they did, it would have been done already!

Piranha's said it several times themselves - they're a small team. They just don't have the manpower to chug out these monstrously oversized multilayered interdependent systems everyone is demanding CW turn out to be, and I think the backlash when Piranha finally does introduce CW and it turns out to not be really anything like this mythical ultragame people have been building up in their brains is going to be game-damagingly severe, no matter how good/bad the CW module actually is.

And it's going to be your fault ('your' being the "CW RIGHT NOW" crowd in general, not specifically Davers). Not Piranha's, not mine, but the specific fault of everyone who decided that Community Warfare was going to be bigger, better, and more badass than any game company could ever actually succeed at making it be.

[Koniving]

Deathlike, on 11 May 2014 - 12:27 AM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...gn-perspective/
While I don't think he's said too much more about this since then (like, aborting that idea altogether), what you just said is not true... which was part of my original response to the appropriate feedback thread (which, probably isn't even looked at seriously).

Smarter idea that I've been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing is to double the cooldown time (and bring damage per missile to 2.0). De-physics-defy Streaks to have a strong guidance system but not an impossible turning radius, and then enhance both Streaks and SRMs to their proper 4 damage per shot.

(LRMs against 1 times armor = 1 damage. Therefore LRMs against 2 times armor = 2 damage. 1:1 ratio).
(SRMs against 1 times armor = 2 damage. Therefore SRMs against 2 times armor = 4 damage. 1:1 ratio.)
Cut firing speeds back, they only fired once per ten seconds, so firing twice per ten seconds is more than acceptable (versus the 3 [LRMs 10 through 20] to 4 times [LRM-5] they fire within ten seconds now).

That way, LRM 20 whether IS or Clan, might be 40 damage for one launcher, but it's fire at 0 seconds, and then at 9.50 seconds you can fire again.
LRM 15 might do 30 damage, but at 8.5 seconds you can fire a second time.
LRM 10 might do 20 damage, but at 7.5 seconds you can fire a second time.
LRM 5 might do 10 damage, but at 6.5 seconds you can fire a second time.

And that's the best 10 damage you're gonna get for 2 tons + ammo at long range.

This maintains the DPS and everything else about the LRMs, but removes this aspect of them. (First 28 seconds; note that it's 6 LRM-5s + 2 LRM-20s, back when the LRMs were doing 0.9 damage per missile. They have the same firing rate now, but they travel faster, hit much more CT-focused, and there's NO pauses from that kind of build. Even the true ROFLpult [6 LRM-15s] is absolutely devastating with constant streams up til it overheats at 18 LRM-15s FIRED back to back).

In other words, the spam you could use to "brawl" with them. The very same Spam that AC/2s got nerfed for when there wasn't anything actually powerful about it. We're keeping everything almost the same (it'd be 2.2 per missile actually if we keep it purely identical in the DPS department which I wouldn't mind either).

It also gives you time to advance and attack them while they are reloading, adds a tactical element to LRMs (because of the reload time isn't it better to relocate instead of hold the button while drinking coffee and reading celebrity gossip?) Makes the launchers more valuable as individual launchers. And honestly if you have to wait (since most LRM boats pack LRM-15s) 8.5 seconds to fire your next cluster of "LRM-60", are you going to be a pure boat or are you going to put on some other weapons to protect yourself with to avoid what happens in the following video (where I spent more than 6 minutes asking for help from the team when they were all alive, both on voice and in text, and no one answered?)


Now, SRM-2 would do 8 damage for 1 ton. Streak would be 8 damage for 1.5 tons + non-impossible tracking. SRM-4 would be 16 damage for 2 tons. 24 damage for 3 tons. But, give the SRMs back their wild patterns, and make them slower to fire. For that damage, double their reload time (not firing rate, how silly!).

Or, put it at 3 damage per missile, and increase their reload time by 1.5x instead of 2x. This will make many non-ballistic variants useful again.

Also: That's an old post. The Vblogs state that they decided against changing weights. Vblogs 2 and 3 were made well after December.

Or, as I pitched to elsewhere.

Spoiler

Quote

LRMs are in a great place now. Very useful. But unlike the days of old, the missiles travel fast, target decay maintains locks, and missiles hit very often with great detection now that everyone is chain firing.
However, because of all that, the rapid firing rates we've had to make up for the lack of all the above are no longer necessary and while the DPS of missiles is highly effective, the 'spam' is beyond annoying and makes players on the receiving end who are standing in cover and still being pelted feel completely helpless. So the idea is what if we doubled the cooldown (making it take twice as long to reload and shoot again) but also doubled the damage (to maintain the DPS and its effectiveness).

This engages players more. So instead of sitting in a corner reading celebrity gossip while holding down the "fire" button for LRMs until the match is over, missing is much more detrimental to them due to the increased time to reload and fire again. This increases the tactical element as instead of a "hold button" mechanic to grind for cbills, it is now about finding the perfect position to fire from and relocating after the fact before the enemies rush you. The combination of firepower and firing rarity also increases the value of missiles to the point that a player may actually make a request "LRM (Target) C?"

Better engagement means better player retainment. It also means more communication and reliance on others or themselves to fire at enemies, acquire escorts, make friends in matches, the list goes on. It also means that dedicating 100% to "boating" missiles is no longer a feasible option as that means being helpless when a rush starts. So they will bring other weapons to defend themselves and boat less.

In the long run, it'd also increase the value of spotter gear. Meanwhile, mixed builds that have 1 or 2 missile racks might use SRMs or Streaks for close range combat and long range energy weapons or they may go the other route and use close range energy/ballistic weapons and long range missiles as the individual launchers will have increased in value and battle significance.

Edited by Koniving, 11 May 2014 - 08:31 AM.

[Davers]

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Blah.

But we don't think that. At least I don't.

I enjoy playing the game. I have played nearly every day for the past 2 years. I know there are bugs left to fix, balancing to be done, etc. But just like PGI said 'The game is good enough to Launch', I say it is good enough to get CW started. CW is not a miracle cure, but the next step in the game's development. For many of us CW was the reason we wanted to play MW:O in the first place. Everyone has played in homebrew campaigns, either in TT BT or in other MW leagues. But this was the chance to see it 'come to life' as a built in component of the game, not as a player made add on.

Will it do everything that every player can dream of? No. No one thinks that.

But the great thing about F2P games is that they are constantly worked on and updated. There will always be improvements and expansions to look forward to. CW can be expanded on for years to come.

Koniving, on 11 May 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Wrong thread methinks...

[Roland]

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

Ye know, there's a part of me that wishes it knew how we got from "Why do you people think CW will magically/single-handedly Save Mechwarrior Online?" to where we are now...but then the rest of me remembers it doesn't like headaches.

The reason why people want CW, is because they want to do the things that YOU claim to want, based on your love of the battletech novels. And this is enabled by CW, if done correctly, in the same way that the old planetary leagues enabled that aspect of MW4.

Community Warfare enables that, by putting the individual matches within a larger context. You aren't simply fighting for 8 minutes against people who you don't know. You're fighting for some greater purpose, against forces who have established personalities.

Even as a lone wolf, you have the ability to contribute to such an environment and engage in the types of heroics that you imagine from the Battletech novels. You can play as a mercenary and help one of the major houses who is losing ground to their competitors. And the choices about who you fight for actually mean something.. you're actually given a choice to make.

As an example, back in NBT for a while we played Burrock, and enjoyed a good deal of success against the Inner Sphere. At one point, we had a falling out with the clan grand council, after Clan Wolf's leadership changed, and they decided to remove our invasion rights. As a result, we abandoned the clans entirely and went back to our mercenary roots (We had previously played as Mercenaries in prior leagues). At that point, we started taking jobs from those same Inner Sphere units that we had previously been pounding on... to go and just beat the tar out of Clan Wolf. And that's exactly what we did. Not only did we effectively end their advancement into IS space, but through the ridiculously high fees we were being paid by the Lyrans, we were able to assemble our own planetary assault force and started digging up through clanspace, capturing systems with jump charging stations, all the way up to Wolf's homeworld.

All of that was played, ultimately, in the same basic way that MWO exists.. single matches (albeit usually longer than the ones in MWO due to much larger maps). What made it actually MEAN something was that they weren't just random matches against random opponents. They were against specific units, who had actual people playing them.

That's why CW is important... if it's done correctly.

Now, if it's done incorrectly, and has no real meaning or sense of identity? Then you're right. It'll do nothing to save this game, and this game will inevitably die as it hemorrhages more and more players. But without Community Warfare, it's already suffering that fate as we speak.

Mechwarrior 4 was a neat game.. but it was the leagues, who provided a layer of community warfare, which kept that game alive for the better part of a decade.

Quote

Frankly, I'm surprised the CW people are even allowing* the Clan packs to release. The prevailing attitude seems to be "PULL that **** and get to work on CW first! Founders spent money more than two years ago on CW, and only CW, and we deserve that before anyone else deserves anything else!"

Quite frankly, yes... PGI's decision to release the clans prior to Community Warfare was a pretty catastrophic mistake on their part.

And they can't even give the normal answer of, "Oh, well different people make mechs!" because the clans require a significant balancing effort to try and find a way to fit them into the game. They have drawn a huge amount of resources from what PGI really should have been focusing on.

Because they are introducing the clans, but we never got to play the CW as the houses PRIOR to the clan invasion.... That's a major part of battletech. You have all the major houses beating each other up, and then the clans show up and the IS houses need to refocus their efforts to defend themselves against this new threat.

But now you've just skipped all that, and the clans show up... but the clans don't actually MEAN anything without community warfare. They're just new mechs. There's no sense of them actually being some devastatingly powerful invading force.

And from a purely business perspective, their decisions have proven to be terrible.. That's why you have a 350 page thread telling PGI to eat it when they came out with their clan announcement. It's why they have sold so few clan packages.... To the extent that they needed to pretend like they are "running out of stock" of the gold MadCat package... and yet, with only 50 of them, they still haven't sold out. Because no one wants them.

Deciding to release the clans prior to all of the other stuff that they needed to focus on, like community warfare, fixing the mechlab, balancing the game, etc.... Was a terrible, terrible decision on PGI's part. They thought it would generate revenue, but I seriously suspect that it failed at that end.

Edited by Roland, 11 May 2014 - 10:28 AM.

[Dymlos2003]

Roland, on 11 May 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

The reason why people want CW, is because they want to do the things that YOU claim to want, based on your love of the battletech novels. And this is enabled by CW, if done correctly, in the same way that the old planetary leagues enabled that aspect of MW4.

You can do that now with private matches. This thread was about since you can do that now, why not have them optimize and fix what they have now while pushing CW a bit back more. Since Niko said that they should be doing both during the same dev cycle then we should be fine. Still would like them to just focus on polish though. Oh wells.

Edited by Dymlos2003, 11 May 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[Roland]

Dymlos2003, on 11 May 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

You can do that now with private matches.

You could potentially do it with private matches (although not quite, given that the map selection is small, and there are no mutators for conditions)... if you went to the trouble to create a planetary league setup. But given that CW has been suggested, why would someone go to that trouble given that it will inevitably just be superseded by PGI's system?

And even if they did, it will then require players to pay a subscription fee... and why would they be paying for such a thing, if the persistent world is all being managed by someone OTHER than PGI? In Mechwarrior 4, we had to manage our own persistent world.. but we also didn't have to pay Microsoft for the right to do so. We just bought the game for $30 and that was it.

You expect people to go and develop their own planetary league, which will eventually be made obsolete (unless PGI just proves to be grossly incompetent and totally fails at CW development), and then pay a subscription fee to PGI... and also not earn any money in those games, while requiring money to actually use all of the game's features, such as artillery and airstrikes... oh, and they can't even play with their friends easily in the matches that DO earn money.

That doesn't sound like a real reasonable expectation, right?

Dymlos2003, on 11 May 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

This thread was about since you can do that now, why not have them optimize and fix what they have now while pushing CW a bit back more. Since Niko said that they should be doing both during the same dev cycle then we should be fine. Still would like them to just focus on polish though. Oh wells.

The reality is, there are a large number of things that really shouldn't have had resources devoted to them prior to completion of core functionality like CW.

The clans are a prime example of that, and I explained above exactly why it was such a bad idea.

[Deathlike]

Koniving, on 11 May 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Smarter idea that I've been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing is to double the cooldown time (and bring damage per missile to 2.0). De-physics-defy Streaks to have a strong guidance system but not an impossible turning radius, and then enhance both Streaks and SRMs to their proper 4 damage per shot.

Without trying to skip/skim through too much, I would agree with adjusting cooldown times across the board (like seen in MW4, though that didn't really deter people from taking the superior clan tech, but at the moment the "slowest" weapon is the Gauss Rifle with the 4 second cooldown + .75 charge up.

Until Paul does serious proper balance in iterations, none of this will come to pass anytime soon.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 May 2014 - 02:48 PM.

[Koniving]

Deathlike, on 11 May 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Until Paul does serious proper balance in iterations, none of this will come to pass anytime soon.

True, but that isn't gonna happen at all. In the mean time, you'll enjoy this when you have some time to really sit, read and daydream...and cry, weep, and sob.

[sokitumi]

1453 R, on 11 May 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Piranha's said it several times themselves - they're a small team. ....

Small, true. Misguided and poorly planned.... also true.

[Dazzer]

I have no interest in private matches what so ever. CW I am interested in.

[TexAce]

No no no and NO.

I am one of the 84%, I don't play private matches and I am a lonewolf. I want what was promised, I want CW to happen. If it doesnt screw this game.

[Major Derps]

Op...Yes they should hold off. CW is overdue by nearly 12 months anyway, the matchmaker is still useless, and LRMs are still making every game feel like I'm in the final scene of 300... I can't enjoy the game as it is, and I would really like to see the current content improved before trying to jam in more half functioning crap into the game.

[Bobzilla]

If CW adds any sort of balance change, (through economics, player base, perks...) then there is no point in optimizing balance just to have it shift again.

For example, it would be like asking them to hold off on Clan tech till everything is balanced knowing that it could change the balance, better off having everything in, then solve any issues that cannont be predicted.

[Joseph Mallan]

TexAss, on 12 May 2014 - 12:43 AM, said:

No no no and NO.

I am one of the 84%, I don't play private matches and I am a lonewolf. I want what was promised, I want CW to happen. If it doesnt screw this game.

Yes but will CW give you the game you are expecting or the game I am expecting?