68 replies to this topic

[TLBFestus]

BLOOD WOLF, on 03 September 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

Conservative Estimates
- Association: July-Aug----------------------------------------------THIS WAS HIT AUGEST[/color]
- Planetary Conquest: Sept-Oct------------------------------------ITS NOT OCTOBER YET.

NEXT TIME DO SOME RESEARCH, IT WONT KILLA you

As for the maps, we definitely need a whole bunch more. Also need a faster way to make them. I dont expect until after they role CW out that maps will take priority.

Most of these "hits" for delivery of something are missing the word "finally" in front of them. You see Blood Wolf seems to think that "finally hitting" a CW module when they say they will, after the entirety of CW has been missed multiple times over the past 2 years, makes them "on time". In fact, anything they do with CW is hugely late by "at least 90 days" regardless if they hit their latest target or not.

Next he will argue that we are making this stuff up, and want us to dig through archived posts to prove our point, but none of us can be bothered as we were here for every broken promise, misleading statement, and missed deadline.

All the time he will huff and puff and continue to bark at us, leading to a complete derailment of the thread as we watch in awe of his total and complete blindness to anything PGI has screwed up.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Galen Crayn, on 03 September 2014 - 06:27 AM, said:

It is now one year that PGI told us that Community Warefare isnt ready as promised. In one year we have no new map, no CW, only Clan Mechs... How long will it take to get what we were promised for autumn 2013? Another year? What is PGI doing all the time? Unbelievable...

The year has been in hand in hand with the State of the I.S so his answer and wondering can be found by what was laid out in December. So far they stuck to it and by that you can expect October to be when we are going to see the better half of CW.

I know its one year later but only after this year can we know if the pieces will fall in place. Now The concern for is, there are not many maps.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 03 September 2014 - 08:22 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Sandpit, on 03 September 2014 - 08:00 AM, said:

ding ding ding

Their inability to work on more than one thing at a time, their costs for map production, their constant shifting of focus, etc. seems to stem from their inability to lead a company on a solo venture. They went from shovelware and working on parts of a project, to being the lead designers for an entire game.

They're eyes were bigger than their stomachs

Right, and what little man power and expertise they do have is getting directed to the one thing they can pull off, making MC purchaseable items.

That's why Community Warfare, Maps, Game modes, and other things the community wants will be VERY slow to roll out. There is no direct income from those items, and they don't believe the lack of those items impacts the game's income.

They just had a HUGE income of money from the Clan Paywall, why do they need to waste some of that money on maps or game modes when people still play and spend money. Doesn't make business sense to them, and that is why we don't see large amounts of progress on those things.

[STEF_]

hey... next patch we'll have... again new camo colors, again new balance nerfs, and..... wtf.... NO new MC hero????
No new warhorn to devastate playgame immersion??? auch.... how can I spend my money now?..... :/

[Sandpit]

MeiSooHaityu, on 03 September 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Right, and what little man power and expertise they do have is getting directed to the one thing they can pull off, making MC purchaseable items.

That's why Community Warfare, Maps, Game modes, and other things the community wants will be VERY slow to roll out. There is no direct income from those items, and they don't believe the lack of those items impacts the game's income.

They just had a HUGE income of money from the Clan Paywall, why do they need to waste some of that money on maps or game modes when people still play and spend money. Doesn't make business sense to them, and that is why we don't see large amounts of progress on those things.

agree in part
PGi can't figure out who their audience is, they're constantly shifting their focus from one demographic to the next.

[Ngamok]

I am guilty of not logging in lately. Have not been on in like 3 1/2 weeks. Sure I still have to finish mastering my Summoners and the only thing I am looking forward to is buying the Storm Crows for C-Bills in October.

But it's not because I dislike the game. It's because I've been busy catching up on Defiance, Manhattan, Dominion, Outlander, Crossbones and The 100 but I couldn't get into the show and 5 episodes in I hoped they all died. Also trying to burn through my Netflix list and it's at 145 movies long.

[BLOOD WOLF]

MeiSooHaityu, on 03 September 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Right, and what little man power and expertise they do have is getting directed to the one thing they can pull off, making MC purchaseable items.

That's why Community Warfare, Maps, Game modes, and other things the community wants will be VERY slow to roll out. There is no direct income from those items, and they don't believe the lack of those items impacts the game's income.

They just had a HUGE income of money from the Clan Paywall, why do they need to waste some of that money on maps or game modes when people still play and spend money. Doesn't make business sense to them, and that is why we don't see large amounts of progress on those things.

1 more month dude, not that long of a wait at this point. The only concern about CW at this point is what about maps. Not even I can see how they are going to Roll this out without maps, its going to be interesting.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 03 September 2014 - 09:00 AM.

[Blakkstar]

PGI's biggest problem has been failing to use its single greatest asset in the Battletech IP. The Devs clearly don't have a good grasp of the TT game, previous MW franchise, or the lore. Thus they're dumping staggering amounts of time into fundamental issues like weapon balance after *years* of gameplay while the other features languish.

Yeah, I get it, a straight translation of TT rules wouldn't make for the best game and I'm not necessarily expecting that...but all the problems in this game could be solved with existing solutions or adaptations from previous games.

The most glaring problem right now is IS versus Clan imbalance...which could be fixed with some adaptations of lore:

1. Reduce flight arc for Clan LRMs, or require a direct target lock like Streak SRMs (Indirect fire spotting is for cowardly freebirths, not Clan warriors)
2. Clan ECM only gets Counter mode. (Clan warriors take the fight to the enemy, not hide behind teammates)
3. Clan mechs get no Airstrike or Artillery modules (Off-board support is dishonorable)

Right there you've taken big steps in balancing the meta, and done so in such a way that gives each side a distinct play style. IS gets an advantage in indirect fire, support, and hit & run tactics, while the Clans retain their edge in straight-up firepower. IS would have an early advantage, reducing the Clans' power until they can bring their direct fire weapons to bear. PGI is trying to make the two sides symmetric, which really isn't working, nor is it necessary to create a balanced game.

Don't even get me started on my usual rant about how this game should have launched as Solaris VII...which would have merged perfectly with F2P game design.

[BLOOD WOLF]

that is still theory before being tested. You dont know how players are going to react, and how they changes are going to affect actual game play.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 03 September 2014 - 09:03 AM.

[Dark Jackal]

Also, to add to the original post, the endless weapon balancing (going on for 2 years) designed to constrain players to play in a certain way. We seem to be going through such messy and disruptive weapon balancing every-time something is done unexpected by the playerbase that is not "in line with the expectations" of what is assumed the weapons behavior should be. Of course, what the baseline of that leaves everyone wondering and guessing on what the next balancing that is going to receive the nerfhammer that ends up showing up as out of whack.

Instead, we're left to over customize on armor and engines that leads to armor-front-loading and whacky engine setups that will skew numbers a bit on what can or cannot kill a mech outright that would make any relation to the game it came from self-destruct. This amount of work balancing and rebalancing just leaves the rest of the game that needs fleshing out behind and we get posts like this one in the forum for more maps and CW.

While the endless weapon balancing never appears to be "done", some other important items like normal Inner Sphere ER-LL is not around and instead we're still going through balancing Clan ER-LL compared to regular IS LL. So will IS-ER-LL also receive the terrible 3 second click-hold fiesta? It remains to be seen, re-seen, or just plain un-seen.

Edited by Dark Jackal, 03 September 2014 - 09:08 AM.

[Dawnstealer]

Mudhutwarrior, on 03 September 2014 - 07:34 AM, said:

CW... LOL...Did you want new maps or CW? Do you want CW before Voip or lobbies?

As I've been saying for a long, long time, they HAVE to have more maps before CW. VOIP would be a nice feature, but you can live without it. What won't fly is ten maps to represent 2000+ worlds, much less multiple battle locations on those worlds.

[DaZur]

Here's the reality... PGI is guilty of unrealistic lofty expectations, arrogance fostered by a same/similar CB player base that actually found humor in their snarky commentary (initially), and a waffling player base. PGI had delusions of grandeur... plain and simple. Couple that with mis-management of community representation and a lot of misplaced hubris...

Problem is PGI has done little to rectify the situation. Absolutely, a handful of PGI reps have managed to salvage some semblance of genuine community involvement and the game does seem to be taking steps in the right direction (in fits and starts)... That said, too much water has passed under the bridge and too many professional trolls continue to make it their mission to remind the player-base what slack-jawed buffoons PGI is (I do not agree with this inference only reference it).

And let's be honest... this community is its own worst enemy. It's vacillated between wanting to be a full-blown MMO and a glorified FPS for two years now driven largely by the large competitive groups and the neck-beard Grognards....

​MW:O sadly has no more "identity" and "propose" than the day I joined CB... It continues to attempt to "find itself" with wild swings of the balance pendulum and marginalization of CW.

Everyone wants to point fingers and blame PGI specifically for everything... Which they are surely culpable for without a doubt, That said, the community would do well the take a look in the mirror and qualify if their overarching demands made over the past 2 years best served the community as a whole or their own personal myopic desires...

Edited by DaZur, 03 September 2014 - 09:36 AM.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

I predict one year from now there will be an equally disappointing thread like this.

[Sandpit]

Ngamok, on 03 September 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

Netflix list and it's at 145 movies long.

noob
Mine is maxed out!
lol
(just waiting for the new once upon a time, supernatural, the league, and sons of anarchy seasons)

I haven't played since the last PST, because I can't. Desyncs and lag are the norm and when over half your matches result in that it becomes far too frustrating to play

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 03 September 2014 - 09:33 AM, said:

Here's the reality... PGI is guilty of unrealistic lofty expectations, arrogance fostered by a same/similar CB player base that actually found humor in their snarky commentary (initially), and a waffling player base. PGI had delusions of grandeur... plain and simple. Couple that with mis-management of community representation and a lot of misplaced hubris...

Problem is PGI has done little to rectify the situation. Absolutely, a handful of PGI reps have managed to salvage some semblance of genuine community involvement and the game does seem to be taking steps in the right direction (in fits and starts)... That said, too much water has passed under the bridge and too many professional trolls continue to make it their mission to remind the player-base what slack-jawed buffoons PGI is (I do not agree with this inference only reference it).

And let's be honest... this community is its own worst enemy. It's vacillated between wanting to be a full-blown MMO and a glorified FPS for two years now driven largely by the large competitive groups and the neck-beard Grognards....

​MW:O sadly has no more "identity" and "propose" than the day I joined CB... It continues to attempt to "find itself" with wild swings of the balance pendulum and marginalization of CW.

Everyone wants to point fingers and blame PGI specifically for everything... Which they are surely culpable for without a doubt, That said, the community would do well the take a look in the mirror and qualify if their overarching demands made over the past 2 years best served the community as a whole or their own personal myopic desires...

Can't blame the community for this one. PGI shifts its focus constantly to the latest "target audience" and balances the game accordingly. Only a slack-jawed buffoon buffoon wouldn't realize that once the game moves past CB, to OB, to launch, that the audience won't expand past the "core" group and include gamers from all genres and expectations.

PGI made the decision to continuously shift game balance and direction on each new "shiny". You can't blame a community on that and PGI has shown that it is more than willing to ignore community ideas, suggestions, and feedback in favor of what their current "vision" for MWO is. After the next big sale I imagine we'll have yet another shift as whatever "group" of customers spends the most money will be the "new" target audience and be PGI's new "vision" for MWO.

[BLOOD WOLF]

waffling player base? Are you insinuating that most players are sheep and just go with whatever the game direction is headed, and the CB players are the light that guides us?

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 03 September 2014 - 09:52 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Sandpit, on 03 September 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

Can't blame the community for this one. PGI shifts its focus constantly to the latest "target audience" and balances the game accordingly.

who are the target audience. if the do balance towards that audience at least someone's happy with the changes.

Thats right, I double posted.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 03 September 2014 - 09:58 AM.

[Voivode]

PGI has left a lot of low hanging fruit on the vine, so to speak.

What I mean is, there's a lot they could do to add compelling content by combining pieces of existing items in ways that require little new development on their part.

For example, a VIP game mode where the goal is to kill the enemy team's VIP and vice versa would be nothing but a modification of the existing Skirmish game mode, but would play quite differently and be an entertaining addition to the game.

I enjoy that they want maps that aren't generic, but having a small set of maps is worse than having a few that are viscerally unremarkable. Use some of the textures and objects from various maps with buildings to make a straightforward city map set out in a simple grid. Is it vanilla? Yes! Is it still an interesting terrain area to fight on? Yes! A few of these simple maps would be fine since they've spent time making less plain maps that are also in the rotation.

How about a game mode that borrows the cap points of conquest and the turrets of assault? Modify those turrets into simple helicopters (an easy AI leap since they hover and don't have to navigate terrain) and have the cap points spawn these little AI helicopters every once in a while rather than count up to 750. BAM! New game mode where holding cap points contributes to the attrition of the enemy. Despite being recycled from old material, it adds new mechanics to the game.

C'mon PGI. Not everything has to be "done from scratch". Don't be afraid to reuse some of your stuff in creative ways.

[Foksuh]

BLOOD WOLF, on 03 September 2014 - 08:07 AM, said:

Well, they have been doing that since the beginning of the year, just work on one major feature at a time. UI, Launch module, Clans, Association, and next is planet warfare but without maps i dont see how. Front warfare is somewhere in between so I expect that will come before planet warfare.

Can we please stop bringing up the UI like it's some sort of an achievement/or that it'd actually look like someone put some thought/work on it?

[Mawai]

Mudhutwarrior, on 03 September 2014 - 07:46 AM, said:

My take is if we were centered on the core of the game instead of demanding CW now we would already be much further down the road. Its not what I want but its what is practical overall.

Significant work on CW only started after clans were released. Design work didn't even really get going until the spring of 2014 after PGI received an official extension to their license from Microsoft. So ... I would say no ... CW has not materially reduced the core game progress that could have been made up to this point.

- problems and work flow issues with UI 2.0
- lack of maps because artists were working on clans
- no new game modes
- generally minor changes to game balance
- no new features ... lobbies, voip, competitive ladders, weapons systems (except weapon modules)

... and none of that was significantly slowed by CW until the past 3 months.

There has been progress in other areas
- some netcode
- matchmaker
- UI 2.0 introduction (though very little of the feedback from Nov/2013 testing sessions was addressed)
- clan mechs
- hero mechs
- new IS mechs
- cockpit items
- camo patterns

Most of the visible progress is in terms of things that they can sell.