85 replies to this topic

[Trystan Thorne]

I don’t even think that Stock matches would be hardcore mode really. Quite the contrary actually.
It would be a great way of playing MWO for new starters. When I think of War Thunder for example. My non modded planes have a good chance against modded planes.
Granted, you can’t mod planes in War Thunder as much as you can in MechWarrior but that really makes stock Mech battles even more mandatory in my eyes.
I do pity the poor new guys in their non Endo Mechs with single HS having to compete with our double HS, Endo and armed to teeth Mechs.
MWO itself is hard to master, but having a competitive Mech will increase the fun for new starters.
So yeah, stock matches should be an official game mode! Personally I would even allow the stock Mechs who have Endo and double HS though too. But people shouldn’t be allowed to change anything. Not even the location of ammo.

[Orbit Rain]

Yeah Tyger, that's a great argument for steering new players into stock mech matches...their ill-equipped drunk-mech has a longer lifespan in these stock mech matches, than out there fighting the meta of wherever their elo takes them.

[Davers]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 May 2014 - 02:16 PM, said:

Stock Mechs....... Is that when our mechs are made out of fiberglass, and run in a big circle the whole match?

No, thats Locust Only Night.

[TygerLily]

Trystan Thorne, on 14 May 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

I don’t even think that Stock matches would be hardcore mode really. Quite the contrary actually.
It would be a great way of playing MWO for new starters. When I think of War Thunder for example. My non modded planes have a good chance against modded planes.
Granted, you can’t mod planes in War Thunder as much as you can in MechWarrior but that really makes stock Mech battles even more mandatory in my eyes.
I do pity the poor new guys in their non Endo Mechs with single HS having to compete with our double HS, Endo and armed to teeth Mechs.
MWO itself is hard to master, but having a competitive Mech will increase the fun for new starters.
So yeah, stock matches should be an official game mode! Personally I would even allow the stock Mechs who have Endo and double HS though too. But people shouldn’t be allowed to change anything. Not even the location of ammo.

Orbit Rain, on 14 May 2014 - 09:08 AM, said:

Yeah Tyger, that's a great argument for steering new players into stock mech matches...their ill-equipped drunk-mech has a longer lifespan in these stock mech matches, than out there fighting the meta of wherever their elo takes them.

True...but sadly your stock mechs will not earn any XP (or unlocks) while playing in private lobbies. =( At some point they must go out in to the wild...experience the sins of the world...then choose to return to the pious life of the stock Mech...

[Rhaythe]

Davers, on 14 May 2014 - 09:53 AM, said:

No, thats Locust Only Night.

Let's do it!

[TalonOne]

This would actually be a way to get me back into the game.
Just me, my stock front-line machine, my cooling vest and the bloody heat of my mismatched choice of weapons some Steiner-abiding idiot crammed into the thing.

Y'know an actually balanced match without the whole FOTM-Metagame-15-ECM-PPC-Crap that you have to grind hours of dying to get kinda competitive in which is grossing out a lot of players (including me).

Edited by TalonOne, 14 May 2014 - 11:40 AM.

[Sybreed]

Trystan Thorne, on 14 May 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

I don’t even think that Stock matches would be hardcore mode really. Quite the contrary actually.
It would be a great way of playing MWO for new starters. When I think of War Thunder for example. My non modded planes have a good chance against modded planes.
Granted, you can’t mod planes in War Thunder as much as you can in MechWarrior but that really makes stock Mech battles even more mandatory in my eyes.
I do pity the poor new guys in their non Endo Mechs with single HS having to compete with our double HS, Endo and armed to teeth Mechs.
MWO itself is hard to master, but having a competitive Mech will increase the fun for new starters.
So yeah, stock matches should be an official game mode! Personally I would even allow the stock Mechs who have Endo and double HS though too. But people shouldn’t be allowed to change anything. Not even the location of ammo.

I think it's much harder to manage multiple weapon groups, low heat threshold, low ammo than it is to manage the 1 click alpha wonders with more than necessary ammo and high heat threshold

[Rhaythe]

TalonOne, on 14 May 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Y'know an actually balanced match without the whole FOTM-Metagame-15-ECM-PPC-Crap that you have to grind hours of dying to get kinda competitive in which is grossing out a lot of players (including me).

That's part of the free-to-play model. The idea is that you want to keep playing in order to constantly improve your inventory so you can kill better. Stock Mech matches remove that pressure; what you buy is what you get, so you play because you *want* to play, not because you need to. Well, that, and it just feels more like Mechwarrior.

[Trystan Thorne]

TygerLily, on 14 May 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

True...but sadly your stock mechs will not earn any XP (or unlocks) while playing in private lobbies. =( At some point they must go out in to the wild...experience the sins of the world...then choose to return to the pious life of the stock Mech...

Fully agree! That's why stock matches should be made an official mode by PGI where C-Bills are been earned. Should have been clearer on that.

Sybreed, on 14 May 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

I think it's much harder to manage multiple weapon groups, low heat threshold, low ammo than it is to manage the 1 click alpha wonders with more than necessary ammo and high heat threshold

Aye, it is! But the new starters have to do that anyway and on top of that they face all the alpha strike Mechs. At least with stock matches they had an even enough enemy at their hand.
Once they collect enough money, they can choose if they want to continue stock matches or to do standard matches.
For myself I could see me playing both and keeping certain Mechs at their stock variant, while upgrading other.

[Grey Ghost]

Sybreed, on 14 May 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

I wouldn't recommend refitting to tech 1 something that can give you a CBILL bonus. Since you don't get any rewards for playing private matches, keep your mechs that can net you more Cbill for public matches.

Generally speaking sure, but I haven't used my Founders Atlas in probably a year or so... yeah. Probably a bad idea anyhow, since I can't unlock it's elite skills.

TygerLily, on 14 May 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

True...but sadly your stock mechs will not earn any XP (or unlocks) while playing in private lobbies. =( At some point they must go out in to the wild...experience the sins of the world...then choose to return to the pious life of the stock Mech...

That's why I was considering a JR7-F or HBK-4P, since they have those Champion Trial versions available for grinding XP.

[Bishop Steiner]

Sybreed, on 13 May 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

oh and food for thoughts: this brought back Role Warfare... to a certain extent. Funny huh?

What I would like to try next week is to do Conquest matches instead of Skirmishes. Skirmishes are cool, but this forces the gameplay to be blobs vs blobs, while Conquest forces you to split your forces more and have more balanced lances.

I'm all for it. Make mechs like the Cicada and Locust more attractive. Shads and Griffs over HBKs and CN9s.

Khobai, on 13 May 2014 - 08:17 AM, said:

Nah because you could have a battle value system to balance that out.

Battle value would be very easy to implement if mechs were only stock loadouts. Customization makes battle value very difficult to implement because of all the variable loadouts.

aren't they totally rewriting the TT battlesystem because of how inadequate it proved to be?

[Khobai]

Quote

aren't they totally rewriting the TT battlesystem because of how inadequate it proved to be?

Right but its 2014 now. Game developers have tools that can help them adjust a battle value system based on usage stats. In fact its possible to even have a dynamic battle value system that automatically increases or decreases the value of a mech/item based on how many games are won while using it.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 03:52 PM, said:

Right but its 2014 now. Game developers have tools that can help them adjust a battle value system based on usage stats. In fact its possible to even have a dynamic battle value system that automatically increases or decreases the value of a mech/item based on how many games are won while using it.

We're talking PGI, remember?

[TalonOne]

Rhaythe, on 14 May 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

That's part of the free-to-play model. The idea is that you want to keep playing in order to constantly improve your inventory so you can kill better. Stock Mech matches remove that pressure; what you buy is what you get, so you play because you *want* to play, not because you need to. Well, that, and it just feels more like Mechwarrior.

You can still have a progression model. Take a look at War Thunder. There every new plane or tank can be equipped with 'new' parts that improve performance by a small amount. Stock machines are still competitive unlike in say ...World of Tanks stock-tank-dying-grind but equipping them with replacement parts gets you a couple percent of improvement, other ammo types and bombloads. For MWO this could be the other variants of a chassis, UAV / Artillery upgrades, stuff like that.

You do the normal matchmaking and community warfare with "real" machines in the ongoing CW-War and then you still can have an alternative, ultra competitive "Solaris" game mode to go wild on the customization of personal loadouts for the Solaris Deathmatch.
Faction leaders could evn get to use their custom Mechs in CW-Battles to emphasize their special standing.

Pretty basic Idea, but it would get rid of a lot of balancing issues and stuff like coolant shots and ghost heat could be removed.

[TygerLily]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 03:52 PM, said:

Right but its 2014 now. Game developers have tools that can help them adjust a battle value system based on usage stats. In fact its possible to even have a dynamic battle value system that automatically increases or decreases the value of a mech/item based on how many games are won while using it.

BV would be excellent. Definitely second them using their telemetry to correctly value items/ chassis, etc. The ides of it dynamically scaling to account for flavor of the month is a great idea.

[Eglar]

Wow,
joined a Stock-mech only (no hero, no champion) 1v1 tournament. Played my first Stock mech, won 5 duels in a row and they made my result invalid for taking an "OP" stockmech. Picked my second Stock Mech, replayed last 2 matches and they were bitching about my choise again.

Forfeited from tournament. Glad that those guys thought stock mechs were all "balanced".

[Bishop Steiner]

Eglar, on 18 May 2014 - 04:29 AM, said:

Wow,
joined a Stock-mech only (no hero, no champion) 1v1 tournament. Played my first Stock mech, won 5 duels in a row and they made my result invalid for taking an "OP" stockmech. Picked my second Stock Mech, replayed last 2 matches and they were bitching about my choise again.

Forfeited from tournament. Glad that those guys thought stock mechs were all "balanced".

was everyone else running SHS Mechs? I know the Stock Mech Mondays, yours would have been invalid for running DHS. Which is clearly explained in the entry rules. Because no one in their right mind feels SHS to DHS are "balanced". Can't comment on the group you were dropping with, obviously.

[Barantor]

I don't know of any tournaments on Mechforce so maybe it was a EU tourny?

[Marauder3D]

I would LOVE a stock mech option in the game. My playtimes are generally a few hours in the morning on random weekdays. I'm happy to wait extra time in queue for the chance to play in a stock mech only environment.

A know this is an apostate opinion, but unlimited customization just doesn't help me enjoy this game. I'm sick to death of 3 PPC and an AC20 on 12 assault mechs in the normal queue. Speaking of assault mechs, I would also really like to see 3/3/3/3 (hell, even 3/5/3/1) implemented soon. But I digress.

TLDR: I can't make nighttime events: so put in an option in the main menus please!

[Eglar]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 May 2014 - 06:21 AM, said:

was everyone else running SHS Mechs? I know the Stock Mech Mondays, yours would have been invalid for running DHS. Which is clearly explained in the entry rules. Because no one in their right mind feels SHS to DHS are "balanced". Can't comment on the group you were dropping with, obviously.

no it was not shs only. the rules clearly stated 2 out of 3 matches and Stock mechs only, Hero and Champion Mechs excluded. One of my oponents was running GRF-3M which also loaded DHS.