116 replies to this topic

[EDMW CSN]

Imo this is all i feel about starter mechs.

1) Your given a choice of up to 160 tons for selection. So you can drive the Kurita landpig Atlas and have a Thorn and Sentinel as your light and med respectively. Or 2 Zeus for a Steiner. Or you can go nuts with various combo of lights tailored for different roles, or a bunch of meds and a heavy.

2) Starters can be repaired free of charge or replaced by your House or Merc. Except there will be some down time for repairs, longer so for replacements. So maybe it is good not to put all your eggs into a single basket and have a varied few more mechs.

3) Able to modify them to a limited degree.
Imo you should be able customize your starter mech to a very limited degree like change items that are like 5% to 10% of your mech. For example a Locust can let you play around with 2 tons while an Atlas can only change out 5 tons.

It should not be totally crippling or restricted.
Of course you should not be reimbursed if you lost your fancy mods.



Lastly ejecting early should preserve your mech and return it to if your crew accomplishes the mission of course !

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 22 November 2011 - 10:55 PM.

[Strayed]

[EDMW]CSN, on 22 November 2011 - 10:53 PM, said:

Imo this is all i feel about starter mechs.

1) Your given a choice of up to 160 tons for selection. So you can drive the Kurita landpig Atlas and have a Thorn and Sentinel as your light and med respectively. Or 2 Zeus for a Steiner. Or you can go nuts with various combo of lights tailored for different roles, or a bunch of meds and a heavy.

2) Starters can be repaired free of charge or replaced by your House or Merc. Except there will be some down time for repairs, longer so for replacements. So maybe it is good not to put all your eggs into a single basket and have a varied few more mechs.

3) Able to modify them to a limited degree.
Imo you should be able customize your starter mech to a very limited degree like change items that are like 5% to 10% of your mech. For example a Locust can let you play around with 2 tons while an Atlas can only change out 5 tons.

It should not be totally crippling or restricted.
Of course you should not be reimbursed if you lost your fancy mods.



Lastly ejecting early should preserve your mech and return it to if your crew accomplishes the mission of course !

Kind of like this, has some merit to it. May be worth making a new topic for this idea cause its a good way to implement free choice while keeping everyone happy in my opinion. In otherwords I may steal your idea! With your permission of course!

[Threat Doc]

Alrighty, then. 90% of my email dump this morning was in this stupid thread, so since I have nothing else positive to add, I'm out.

[StoneRhino]

I think light mechs would be a great way to get started. I think a lot of untested pilots might end up in light mechs due to their cost and ease of production. Of course, there is a problem with the idea of slowly progressing up the line in tonnage. That can be seen in WOrld of Tanks, where you start in light tanks and graduate up to larger tanks. The end game then becomes getting into the biggest possible tank with the biggest gun and heaviest armor. When I started I hit a point where I really enjoyed the game far more when it was just light tank on light tank action. At the same time, it is also boring when it is nothing but light tanks, and it can be a bit of a shock to go from just lights to lights, mediums, and heavies all on the same field.

[Jack Gallows]

Could be a mix of what has been stated before.

Given a certain tonnage limit, but add in cost of the mech. Maybe you'll buy that shiney atlas but that's probably it, and then you have some left over starting money. Or, another player may buy two light mechs and a medium, or just one medium and more starting cash.

[EDMW CSN]

Strayed, on 23 November 2011 - 04:27 AM, said:

Kind of like this, has some merit to it. May be worth making a new topic for this idea cause its a good way to implement free choice while keeping everyone happy in my opinion. In otherwords I may steal your idea! With your permission of course!

Go ahead, I'm cool with that.

[Kaemon]

IMO - I'd like to see an RTO (rent to own) model implemented.

Start - you select a house, and a 'mission' (ideally this would be a PvE tutorial for ppl to learn basic mechanics...but...we already know the devs aren't going to do that *sighs*).

Your Lance leader (either NPC or Commander type Player) assigns you a 'junk' mech (remember you're barely a functional human at this point, so you randomly get a 'light' or maybe if you're lucky a 'med' mech, hopefully they'll look like junk and have 1 or 2 weaps max).

Reason? People gravitate to the heaviest hitters on the field, they need to start in the smaller/lighter role tanks to get an appreciation of them (it will be up to the devs to make them really viable in combat).

Battle: you roll out, do some fighting, learn some basics (scouting, strafing, hiding, etc...) you gain honor/merit points and C-bills...hooray.

At this point you can either a.) purchase and upgrade the mech you 'rented' b.) get another one because you sucked it up and trashed it c.) continue stockpiling your $C for a different mech/tonnage

Ejecting: I think it'd be a good feature in team/match play, but it only serves a purpose if your pilot can take damage/die. In pub, leave the pilots as immune to death (but not being hurt that translates into mech control issues). Match play, pilots should be able to die (and eject) then see how it works out, if it's useful, move it to pub, if not...leave it out.

I see the MWO progression tree as more circular within tonnage, which allows either jumping into different 'roles/weigh classes' or advancing through your own specific 'role'.

Or try this one on for size:

I'm a vet player, I have a few mechs of different classes, match comes around, we don't have a scout (only heavies), we don't have the c$ to hire mercs (or don't trust them), so I 'loan' my scout out to another teammate for a cut of the profit/loss.

That may cut into the merc role a bit, but I like options when I play games, this seems to be an interesting one.

Edited by Kaemon, 23 November 2011 - 08:16 AM.

[Iron Horse]

Everyone starts with a Chameleon.

/thread. LOL

This would be closer to TT rules, though.

I also recently suggested the idea of a random chance of getting a larger 'mech by "inheritance" when you start the game, or daily bonuses (low probability), whatever system they decide to use, etc. I think the basic idea though, should be that when you choose a 'mech it should be a tough decision because you have to pilot it for a while and learn all of the little tricks it has by the time you get to a new one.

Edited by Iron Horse, 26 November 2011 - 02:31 AM.

[Halfinax]

Personally I think a rotating pool of 'Mechs on a weekly or biweekly basis would be the best option. These say 4 (one from each weight class) would be free to use to everyone, but once you have enough money you can buy a 'Mech of your choice in the weight class of your choice.

[Dlardrageth]

Keeeping in mind that PGI wants to make money with this game, it might actually be an option to have everybody at first start with a selection of 1 or 2 20-ton Mechs at the very beginning. With an option to buy (for real money) an upgrade that doubles the choices, even allowing for 25-ton Mechs at start perhaps.

While I'm aware that some people might see that as a totally game-breaking advantage, it's basically the same as a (time-limited) combined XP/C-bills buff package. Because the next higher Mech/tonnage class is not that uber in comparison and how long will they really stick with it? If the common opinion is though, that is toomuch, then offer a bigger variety (prolly not faction-attuned) to those who purchase the "Elite Starter Set". And leave it at 20 tons. Some people might even go for that because they want a Starter Mech that their faction of choice isn't offering apart from that option.

So standard game start: Pick one of 2 options offered by your faction.
Elite/Premium/Whatever game start: Pick from 10 additional models available.

[Jeremy Hunter]

feor, on 20 November 2011 - 07:27 AM, said:

Yes it is, this is a game, based on the universe established in the Novels, to disregard them is to make this, very simply, no longer a mechwarrior game, and make it simply Generic Mecha-Combat Sim #526.

*clap*

Can I place this in my signature?

[Nik Van Rhijn]

It is interesting to see that the majority say everyone should start in a light. Personally I have always regarded them as more difficult to play well. For people new to the franchise I think a medium is easier. Given that we may well see even assaults available from the start I get the feeling thats where you'll see all the newbies, depending on the map etc.

[lxxwj]

The key to this would be to balance mech types, ie. 1 light = 1 assault. Even if you started
out with a light mech, there would be no reason to use one once you have access to a heavier class.
However, there *could* be space limitations or something of that sort that would pretty much force you to use a lighter
class..

of course, weight class equality would be decided by the canon.

Edited by lxxwj, 26 November 2011 - 10:49 AM.

[karish]

WoT hit this on the head have to start in light mechs tell you learn how to pilot and move up

[Ghost 9]

karish, on 26 November 2011 - 11:02 AM, said:

WoT hit this on the head have to start in light mechs tell you learn how to pilot and move up

The obvious response is "this isn't WoT" but I share your enthusiasm for making the comparison; if everyone can take one step back they'll see that MWO and WoT are very similar and a lot can be learned about how to do things well and what can be improved by contrasting the two.

[Orzorn]

I think the answer should be far more simple. You get a set number of C-Bills to start out with, and you can buy whatever you want with that. You could buy a light mech and have some c-bills left over to outfit it or do whatever else you want, or you can pick heavier mechs and thus have less c-bills left over.

[Vuxx]

1. Light
2. A small selection dependant on role type
3. Just the one