65 replies to this topic

[30ft SMURF]

Major gripes...
#1.) They kept having sales of mechs for real life cash when they weren't even sure they could keep the liscence to produce the game. Kinda seems fraudulent to take our money, promise they were working on developing the game and then not actually work on developing anything more than new sales, but thats what we got untill they renewed their contract with Microsoft... Then they informed us they were actually going to hire people to work on the promises they'd used to hook us founders in the first place. The only reliable thing this company has been able to do is have a freaking sale every week or two.

#2.) Never... with a slight possibility that it was ok in closed beta (or we just didn't know any better) has there been a time where weapon balance has existed. Lrms have repeated gone from useless to op to useless again in a matter of days, but they're still relatively useless. Ghost heat, jump jet shake, gauss warmup and any other fly by the seat of the pants adjust 5 to 10 things about weapon balance, but never make minor adjustments to test things out approach to fixing problems has only crated a game with vast differences form where it began and where its supposed to be. Then they promise to add clan tech without disrupting the balance... which is funny, since they can't even seem to balance clan tech either. Wish I'd have taken bets on that one, though nobody who's played this game would have taken such a clearly unwinnable bet.

#3.) 3rd person view and not having to group with people who use it... ya... that lasted right up till the point where they decided we needed it and they couldn't be bothered to seperate the small/dwindiling population into seperate groups because nobody would ever find a match.

#4.) Clan tech will have advantages over IS tech, but will have disadvantages to balance them out... well F the entire reason the Clans were able to get a foothold in the IS in the first place... and while yer at it don't mind the fact that the Clans were from the IS and are essentially just using lostech, but for some reason (read they want you to spend more money buying clan mechs) Clan tech isn't compatible with IS mechs. [redacted]

#5.) How many mmos have chat rooms and lobbies for people to interact? They bill this as a team game and yet make it hard for people to work together. They built this game for pugs didn't you know, but they don't help those pugs very much. VOIP should be part of the game, but we can't even get a simple chat room.

#6.) Salvage is reduced to nothing more than cbills... So much for that aspect of the game.

#7.) I want to ***** more. I know there is more to ***** about. Guess I'll be back in a week or two to read some new patch notes and wonder why I still waste my time on this game.

Edited by Egomane, 19 June 2014 - 01:03 AM.
langauge

[Lykaon]

I am a closed beta tester soon hitting my second year in Mwo. pretty much been there and seen it as it came down the pipe.

Well let's take a look at the old pitch about the "pillars" of MWo.

We were sold on Community warfare as a primary pillar of game play,a dynamic and persistent play enviorment where your battles contributed to the overall state of the "universe".House units battling over territory merc companies bidding for contracts.Player choices having a far reaching effect beyond the next time you press the launch button.

Many of the closed beta players were expecting to be seeing this community warfare tested in Beta.Since,in effect the CW feature is the purpose of the entire mech vs mech conflict to begin with.But,no two years latter and nothing. TWO YEARS,nothing to show for it not a stitch of community warfare to be seen and as a result the player run "guilds" House units and merc corps are hollow shells of their closed beta selves few of the large organization still remain but most of those founded in early beta and persisted through the first year are gone,grown bored waiting and moved on.

And then we have several poor design choices that PGI seems beyond reluctant to address directly.The standard operating procedure seems to be some sort of whack-a-mole technique.Flail at everything around the issue and maybe it will work out.

Some examples...

ECM was dropped into the game way before the equipment it was suppose to counter were properly developed.For those of you not in the know about ECM and it's function based on the source information (Battletech) here is the jist of basic ECM function.

ECM negated the functioning of BAP,NARC,Artemis and C3 computer networks.This is it in level 1 play ECM ONLY does this.

It does not prevent LRM locks it does not prevent streak locks it does not make every friendly mech within 180m of ECM invisable to enemy radar,ECM does not make your friendly mechs invisable to your radar (ECM had this function when introduced) ECM does not jam TAG.

So,since ECM was granted all of those other abilities I listed and a significant number of the players really disliked ECM and some of those really hated ECM.

Was the ECM addressed directly? were the bloated features removed or toned down? Nope PGI developers then went to town with the mole whacker and altered TAG,BAP,NARC,PPCs,Sensor range modules UAVs,Seismic sensors...

All of that was done to other features of the game and the grand total of actual nerfs to ECM where an actual reduction in a ECM function was ONE! a singular ECM feature was removed and now enemy ECM does not prevent you from detecting you own team.But ECM kept every function it shouldn't have been given and the actual functions it was suppose to do don't work because BAP and NARC are now "counters" to ECM instead of the reverse.

And now we have a debate on LRM balance that can't be adddressed because LRMs are sometimes weapons and sometimes huge paper weights because of ECM.It is impossible to balance a feature that is simultaniously good and useless when kept in the box of pre match gameplay (sorta like that cat)

Another example: high damage pinpoint alphas were getting out of hand around a year ago when the netcode was improved and hit percentages increased significantly.We then saw the birth of the 45 -60 damage pinpoint alphas.

It was madness Stalkers with 4-6 PPCs Highlanders with a gauss rifle and 3 PPCs and of course twin gauss or AC20 builds on Jagermechs and K2s.

There were several postings about this growing trend and eventually the ever narrowing meta was drawing developer attention.And yet again the actual cause of the issue was not directly addressed.No one looked to the front loaded pinpoint damage mechanics or how these singular weapons function with group fire and instant pin point convergence.

Instead the mole hammer was pulled out and this was done instead...Ghost heat.

Ok this changed the meta from 4-6 PPCs to 2 PPCS and a Gauss so...

Increase PPC and ER-PPCC heat and add a charge mechanics to gauss so...

Meta changed to 2 PPC and 2 AC5s on a poptart or PPCs and AC10s or 2 AC20s so...

AC projectile speeds desynced from PPC speeds and reticule shake to make poptarting harder

Meta focused down to pretty much just AC5s combined with PPCs on jumper mechs (this is where we are today)

Players now complain about poptarts and the proposed "fix" is not addressing front loaded damage it's a nerf to jumpjets and increasing fall damage (both effect non poptart mechs and likely more than poptarts )

So,after reading the history of how PGI goes about balance can you see where consumer confidence is wavering?

[Dymlos2003]

Been here since the beginning. I expected giant mech combat and I received giant mech combat. Everything else is just icing on the cake which I can wait for.

[Lane]

I expect many more mechs before CW comes out. If CW would have came out before or at the same time as the clan mechs, not many IS players would have bought clan mechs...

Edited by Lane, 19 June 2014 - 04:53 AM.

[Fut]

Roland, on 18 June 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

Back in MW4, light mechs actually scouted... Finding the enemy force was actually something you had to work at... especially to spot them without being spotted, because there was no little red triangle that popped up over any mech within view.

It was further deepened by varying weather and sensor conditions... different times of day, rain/shine, light/heavy/pea-soup fog... electromagnetic storms which disabled radar...

The sensor model, compared with the environmental conditions, and the large maps enabled battles that took an hour to play out... with the teams engaging, disengaging, and re-engaging multiple times in some matches.

You never see anything approaching that level of complexity in MWO.

All of this is exactly what I was expecting from MWO.
Sure, the game is fun as it is, but it really just feels like a typical arena shooter - one that you happen to ride in robots during combat. It's not the "Thinking Man's Shooter" that PGI claimed it was, it's just a shooter.

[Torgun]

I think we should all stop expecting CW to ever materialise, because frankly I seriously doubt it ever will. And if it does it'll be a basic map with borders going back and forth and you'll gain like a 5% CBill bonus if your faction is in the lead. Just expect it never to happen, drop in and play a few matches until you get bored and come back later when you feel like it again. It'll be so much easier to shrug it off when they're going to announce yet another Clan pack after the summer instead of actually working on CW.

Edited by Torgun, 19 June 2014 - 05:24 AM.

[Galenit]

What i expect or what i expect to get from pgi?

[Axeface]

I played this game years ago in beta I think, and have started recently for about a month.
The main thing that I don't get (other than the horrific pricing that can do nothing but drive people away) is - why doesn't the game attempt to place me in the fiction? The frontend for the game is just that, a frontend - a store - a portal to a battletech deathmatch simulator.
Maybe I was spoiled with mw2/mercs etc, but I like the battletech universe and want to be part of it. This game is just a deathmatch sim.

They could even say that we are participating in the solaris arena or something. It grinds my gears that i'm basically playing a glorified store-front.

Edited by Axeface, 19 June 2014 - 05:29 AM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Well, go the the Pirahna website for information on their "Core Pillars." As far as I can tell, they've DELETED those from the MWO site.

"Adhering to the key design pillars of Mech Warfare, Information Warfare, Role Warfare and Community Warfare, MechWarrior Online adds several new layers of gameplay and tactical team planning to the franchise. This, along with the massive amount of customization available to the player base, allows Piranha Games Inc. to not only return the MechWarrior IP to the forefront of gaming, but to do so with a level of depth and ever expanding content that was previously never possible."

Depth. Information warfare? ECM doesn't cut it. Role warfare? Well, you have two roles; kill or be killed. Community Warfare? 3 years of "Soon!" Mech Warfare? Hey, they got 1 outta 4!

So yeah, they made money by selling the idea that this was far MORE than just a friggin' deathmatch robot engine. And it's not. *shrug*

Edited by Ghost Badger, 19 June 2014 - 05:32 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

I'd just like to see them properly put in something that isn't a mech.

It's been forever since a feature that wasn't a mech was put in without major issues.

Finish UI2.0. Fix the mech lab. Put in a proper social system. For the love of god.

[AlmightyAeng]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 19 June 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

I'd just like to see them properly put in something that isn't a mech.

It's been forever since a feature that wasn't a mech was put in without major issues.

Finish UI2.0. Fix the mech lab. Put in a proper social system. For the love of god.

Do maps count? Or not, because of places you get "stuck" on?

[Nicholas Carlyle]

For reference...I love my Timber Wolf...but after a night of playing...

LRMs are still LRMs.

SRMs are still SRMs.

The same tactics that worked before work now. The same shallow game play still exists. We still haven't seen a map in 6 months.

It's all fine and dandy, I spent my $55, because that's really nothing to my budget. But it's all still a giant disappointment.

Ghost Badger, on 19 June 2014 - 05:38 AM, said:

Do maps count? Or not, because of places you get "stuck" on?

Man, I got caught on some terrain in Caustic and couldn't do anything. Jump Jets wouldn't refill. Had to exit out.

And we haven't had a map in 6 months.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 19 June 2014 - 06:01 AM.

[Eddrick]

One thing I can't stand seeing in any game is seeing multiple copies of the same thing. Role Warfare is something that would make this not likely to happen. A team with multiple copies of the same thing should have a glaring weakness to make up for the specialized team they have.

[Bobzilla]

I would have expected collisions to be back in, also way more customization of the in game hud.

Collisions just because they just needed some work.

I think the huds are a pretty lame setup, and would really like to change things on it, and most games you can change the interface somewhat. More of a want that I thought would have been made by now, being not game changing.

[Sarlic]

What else can i add? Much of the things are said already said.

But the one and the most that ticks me off were when you set deadlines which you obviously cant meet when you have not even started yet. Missing a deadline i can understand, but two or three in a row?

And the marketing departement of PGI. But i bet IGP hold the ropes on that.

[Suko]

What do I want in-game? How about we start with fixing that Auto Detect: No signal thing on the monitors? Let me put a youtube video on it or cat gifs, or ANYTHING. I realize some IS mechs could be hundreds of years old, but can't I go to the Space Radio Shack and pick up an HDMI cable or something?

Jez, on 18 June 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

pinging the map
pre-formatted messages on hot-keys
re-equip button for consumables
5+ groups
at least 4 more maps than what we currently have
A new game mode aside from conquest and assault/skirmish
chat log
friending from in-game
DOCUMENTATION (jesus does this one piss me off)
acutal in-depth tutorials (what we currently have is a joke)
my personal fav - collisions and knockdowns

Honestly, a bunch of basic and standard stuff that you'd expect from any other multiplayer game

Don't forget VOIP. For being a "team based game", MWO is distinctly lacking in communication options for effective team play.

30ft SMURF, on 19 June 2014 - 12:38 AM, said:

Major gripes...
#1.) They kept having sales of mechs for real life cash when they weren't even sure they could keep the liscence to produce the game. Kinda seems fraudulent to take our money, promise they were working on developing the game and then not actually work on developing anything more than new sales, but thats what we got untill they renewed their contract with Microsoft... Then they informed us they were actually going to hire people to work on the promises they'd used to hook us founders in the first place. The only reliable thing this company has been able to do is have a freaking sale every week or two.

I've been harping this since that December command chair post. When I heard them tell us that CW was just starting to get to the engineers, that peeved me off to no end (especially since they've been promising it since 2011). However, when they then said "good news, we've extended the license", I thought the exact same thing as Smurf. Wait, what? <sarcasm> You mean this game might not have even existed a year from now? No wonder you didn't bother to start CW. Why bother if you lost the license, right? I'm super glad I dumped so much money into this game that might not have even been playable a year from now. </sarcasm>

That kind of non-transparency killed the last bit of faith I had in PGI. I stuck to my guns and didn't buy a Clan pack. I guess I was one of the only ones from the look of things in-game. And God knows I wanted one, but no. Their decision to take my money, even when they knew the game might shut down less than a year later, was too much for me to take. A company that unscrupulous doesn't deserve another cent from me.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 19 June 2014 - 08:40 AM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Rebas Kradd, on 18 June 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

Instigation

Seriously? We've had a two day lull of people just basically enjoying the game and you want to make sure we have a nice post reminding everyone that we need to buckle down, and find things to push and complain that we don't have enough of.


I love you guys.

[Prezimonto]

1. Objective based game play/Asymmetric game modes with a point. This is not the same thing as community warfare.

2. Lobbies to go with private matches. OR A stock or 3025 tech queue (could be fixed with lobbies).

3. A whole mech view based mech lab(instead of a sideline feature), where editing a mech is simple and straight forward.

Really, given the direction of the game these 3 things would make the game so much more robust.

edit:
I've given up on ECM, information warfare, role warfare, or in game rewards that actually push for people to fill roles other than "damage dealer" in all but the most organized of play.

Roland, on 18 June 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

Well, PGI promised directly that the 4 man limit was temporary (and it didn't exist at all originally). Being able to easily play with your friends is a pretty fundamental gameplay element.

Beyond that, in terms of other gameplay elements?

Again, folks who played mechwarrior 4 have a better idea of what mech battles CAN be... the maps were all HUGE compared to what we have in MWO... Many of them made Alpine look tiny by comparison.

This, coupled with a more interactive (and basically deeper) sensor model, facilitated much deeper tactical gameplay in no respawn games. Using active and passive sensor modes, and ECM and BAP were a critical element of that game, and yet were not nearly as disruptive to balance as what we've seen with ECM at many points in MWO's development.

Back in MW4, light mechs actually scouted... Finding the enemy force was actually something you had to work at... especially to spot them without being spotted, because there was no little red triangle that popped up over any mech within view.

It was further deepened by varying weather and sensor conditions... different times of day, rain/shine, light/heavy/pea-soup fog... electromagnetic storms which disabled radar...

The sensor model, compared with the environmental conditions, and the large maps enabled battles that took an hour to play out... with the teams engaging, disengaging, and re-engaging multiple times in some matches.

You never see anything approaching that level of complexity in MWO.

The thing that boggles my mind is that a lobby system (used in games for matchmaking since at least the mid-90's) is all these groups would need now that there's private match making. I think they're terrified of how many players would quit PUG-queuing to join private games if they did it. I know I'd stop puging unless I needed cash.

Edited by Prezimonto, 19 June 2014 - 08:27 AM.

[Tom Sawyer]

I am going to parrot Roland. I played Mech 4 and its variations for years. I was uable to be a found due to financial constraints but I had high hopes watching from the sidelines MWO was going to be M4 on steriods. VOIP, CW, small unit tactics. HUGE MAPS, ect.

All the way up to the phoenix package I kept on holding the lighter high. Despite all the claims of we are working on this, we are going to add this. Then came the clan annoucment prior to CW.

I enjoy the aracde action of Big Stompy Robots. But is this Battle-Tech? Not by a long shot.

[By Dysentery]

What am I expecting?

More sales.

Why?

Because it works. You do not have to deliver anything else than shiny new (costly) toys and a repeptetive 24 man deathmatch to make money. And a bad one. The number of available maps alone is a disgrace.

And it is your fault. All you guys throwing good money after bad. All of you who reward shoddy work with buying 200$ packages.

PGI will never deliver an immersive, consistent gaming universe, because it has no reason to.