543 replies to this topic

[Redshift2k5]

Great post. Looking forward to what the future holds, but also we will all be holding PGI even more accountable now that they are the sole managers of MWO- every error from here on out is firmly attributed to PGI and not to IGP and/or mixed interest between the two companies.

Really looking forward to what auniversetoexplore will have to say in T minus 4 hours. Is PGI making a new shooter (they have little experience making anything else) or something totally different? will everyone be a scantily clad cyborg chick? QUESTIONS

[Sprouticus]

Roland, on 09 September 2014 - 06:40 AM, said:

We'll see how things play out. I'm not gonna buy things on faith alone any more.
If things improve, that's awesome.

I tend to agree with you Roland. As usual.


Onto the actual topic at hand, I totally agree Bish. I have two points to add

1) It is the job of the actual responsible adults to resist the tide of bitterness and anger. Those things are totally useless. I try very hard to not let them get to me and to have reasonable discussions about gameplay, balance, etc. That includes trying to understand how PGI does thing.

2) This is an outgrowth of #1. We need to make sure that we are both respectful of PGI's decisions (even the ones we vehemently disagree with) and also express our dislike of those decisions (and support of the ones we like). This often means repeating old arguments and beating the occasional dead hoorse.

ex: Roland and I have been advocating certain aspects of the game to eliminate PP/FLD since BEFORE closed beta, when we were first discussiing 'how we would do it'. PGI has been very slow to implement those changes. To the point where I had given up pressing for them last winter. Suddenly they made changes and implemented several technologies that IMO are great for the game.

Yes, it took longer than I would have liked.
Yes, some people disagree with PGI's implementaiton (and thus my opinion)
Yes, there are other changes I would like (coughcoughISMLbuffcoughcough)

But if we are respectful and realize that none of us will get everything we want (what are we toddlers?), things will get better.


(NOTE: I won't comment much on the state of the game. It is what it is. Nothing I say will have any impact at all and wild speculation is pointless. All I can say is I still enjoy the game and will keep playing)

[Roland]

Hey, even a lot of the folks who got banned recently don't actually want Mechwarrior to fail. They may want certain folks to die in a fire, but even that animosity stems directly from a love of the Battletech IP.

But after a few years of the same, many simply don't believe the rhetoric, no matter how rosey it seems.

It's up to PGI to improve things. If they do, then they'll get more customers. That's how it works.

But folks aren't going to just throw money at them based on faith, like we did in the past. Most of that good will has been eroded, and so now we're left in a situation where things must be proven. We won't believe them simply because Russ tells us so, although at one point in the past we would have.

All of the promises seem reasonable. If they deliver, then that'll be awesome, and eventually they may win back some of their customers.

And make no mistake, some of Russ' statements suggest they most definitely have lost many customers. The fact that the Clan Packs, despite being the clans, and despite already having an established user base... made only 75% as much money as the Founders' packs? Which were sold to us sight unseen, prior to most of us playing the game at all? That is somewhat troubling. By all rights, the clans really should have raked in FAR more cash than the Founders program did.

The one critical mistake that PGI could pull here, would be if just as the existing clans are finally becoming available for CBills, if they nerf them and then introduce new, exceptionally powerful clan mechs for MC (or worse, only real dollars) only. Because that's going to be exactly what a ton of people predicted, and it's gonna look real bad.

Regardless, as I said, if things get better, that will be awesome. But it's counter productive to pretend like those who have been alienated by PGI have become so through no fault of PGI's. The first step to fixing a problem is admission of the problem's existence.

Big things that need to be done now:
CW needs to come out, and it needs to be GOOD.
We need more maps (basically required for CW to be good).
UI 2.0 needs to improve.
Weapons need to be better balanced.

Those 4 things are where PGI needs to invest its time and money.

[Blakkstar]

1. I'm willing to give PGI a second chance. We don't really know what restrictions were put on them by IGP, and they may have gotten some unfair criticism because of it. Of course now, there are no more excuses.

2. I will in no way feel blackmailed into white-knighting for PGI because they hold the Battletech license. This is not the only way to play Battletech on a computer, and arguably not even the best. They are a business and will succeed of fail on their merit. In this age of kickstarters, F2P, and crowd-funding, somebody will pick up the license if there is a market for the game. Battletech survived Harmony Gold, the collapse of FASA, the failure of Mechassault 2, and Mechwarrior: Dark Age, and it will survive with or without PGI.

[shintakie]

Bishop Steiner, on 09 September 2014 - 06:21 AM, said:

Well, at least you can find some positive and focus on it. There is a lot that ain't how I would have done it. Then again I am also not running a Dev studio, nor a programmer, but an amateur artist with delusions of grandeur, so "how I would have done it" and how "reality allowed me to do it" may indeed be two different things.

I have long wondered, and still feel that two of the biggest issues and mistakes made, also may have been totally unavoidable. Shackling themselves to a Publisher (who only see dollar signs, that is their job, after all), and choosing Cryengine over Unreal Engine.

That said, no publisher, not start up to get a Minimally Viable Product to Demo for Crowdfunding. And (Big if here) I understand correctly, Cryengine can been accessed for Free or rather cheaply anyhow, whereas Unreal cannot, so small studio, small budget, probably would never have got off the ground with Unreal, either.

Just to clarify, a developer can buy the rights to the Unreal Engine for 19 dollars a month with a 5% royalty fee. Its more than Cryteks $9.90 a month plan with no royalty, but considering that the Unreal Engine is far and away the better system, both in terms of how buggy Cryengine is and how user friendly Unreal is, I still wish they would have gone with Unreal.

edit - Important note, none of those 2 options were available when they were deciding which engine to run. However Unreal being better at everything other than sheer prettiness than Cryengine was still true back then.

Edited by shintakie, 09 September 2014 - 07:25 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Roland, on 09 September 2014 - 07:06 AM, said:

Hey, even a lot of the folks who got banned recently don't actually want Mechwarrior to fail. They may want certain folks to die in a fire, but even that animosity stems directly from a love of the Battletech IP.

But after a few years of the same, many simply don't believe the rhetoric, no matter how rosey it seems.

It's up to PGI to improve things. If they do, then they'll get more customers. That's how it works.

But folks aren't going to just throw money at them based on faith, like we did in the past. Most of that good will has been eroded, and so now we're left in a situation where things must be proven. We won't believe them simply because Russ tells us so, although at one point in the past we would have.

All of the promises seem reasonable. If they deliver, then that'll be awesome, and eventually they may win back some of their customers.

And make no mistake, some of Russ' statements suggest they most definitely have lost many customers. The fact that the Clan Packs, despite being the clans, and despite already having an established user base... made only 75% as much money as the Founders' packs? Which were sold to us sight unseen, prior to most of us playing the game at all? That is somewhat troubling. By all rights, the clans really should have raked in FAR more cash than the Founders program did.

The one critical mistake that PGI could pull here, would be if just as the existing clans are finally becoming available for CBills, if they nerf them and then introduce new, exceptionally powerful clan mechs for MC (or worse, only real dollars) only. Because that's going to be exactly what a ton of people predicted, and it's gonna look real bad.

Regardless, as I said, if things get better, that will be awesome. But it's counter productive to pretend like those who have been alienated by PGI have become so through no fault of PGI's. The first step to fixing a problem is admission of the problem's existence.

Big things that need to be done now:
CW needs to come out, and it needs to be GOOD.
We need more maps (basically required for CW to be good).
UI 2.0 needs to improve.
Weapons need to be better balanced.

Those 4 things are where PGI needs to invest its time and money.

The communication and execution needs to improve drastically.

Another example a few weeks back there were no more mech packs in the pipeline it was specifically stated that they had no plans for a clan reinforcement pack ala the pheonix......now look we exactly that coming.

It's things like that no matter how small; that effect their relationship with the community; Russ wants to press a reset switch on their relations and for people to forget the past and look what we got in 2014.

Fine I'm sure the community would go for that; banning people outright is not resetting; continuing to say one thing then shifting position only a few short weeks later is not resetting....its just more of the same old same old.

[Jody Von Jedi]

I think we'll see major changes going forward. Russ said last night, and I quote, " The Store Sucks". He knows UI 2.0 needs a major overhaul.

Edited by Jody Von Jedi, 09 September 2014 - 07:40 AM.

[Appogee]

Roland, on 09 September 2014 - 07:06 AM, said:

CW needs to come out, and it needs to be GOOD.
We need more maps (basically required for CW to be good).
UI 2.0 needs to improve.
Weapons need to be better balanced.
Those 4 things are where PGI needs to invest its time and money.

And let's be honest about the forecast for those things.
1. CW will come out. Remains to be seen whether it will be ''good''. But of all the features implemented since Beta, I'd characterise most of them as ''passable" and some of them as "poor".
2. There have been no maps since last year, and only one is coming (SOON™ - for the past 4 months).
3. There are no stated plans to improve UI2.0 AFAIK. PGI considers MWO a "mature product".
4. PGI have decided weapon balance will be done by changing the values in their spreadsheet. Russ ruled out more complicated changes, such as 10v12, on the basis of "the workload".

What does that picture add up to?

One new feature which history tells us will probably be "passable" or "poor". An indication that anything requiring genuine programming work - new weapon systems, game modes, knockdown, melee - won't be worked on in future. A bunch of new Mech skins headed our way.

Sounds like "maintenance mode" to me.

And when enough of us have had our fill of Mech skins, PGI will declare that the game is "no longer being supported by the players" and shut it down.

I don't want to be pessimistic. But I don't want to be gullible, either.

[Sprouticus]

Roland, on 09 September 2014 - 07:06 AM, said:

Hey, even a lot of the folks who got banned recently don't actually want Mechwarrior to fail. They may want certain folks to die in a fire, but even that animosity stems directly from a love of the Battletech IP.

But after a few years of the same, many simply don't believe the rhetoric, no matter how rosey it seems.

It's up to PGI to improve things. If they do, then they'll get more customers. That's how it works.

But folks aren't going to just throw money at them based on faith, like we did in the past. Most of that good will has been eroded, and so now we're left in a situation where things must be proven. We won't believe them simply because Russ tells us so, although at one point in the past we would have.

All of the promises seem reasonable. If they deliver, then that'll be awesome, and eventually they may win back some of their customers.

And make no mistake, some of Russ' statements suggest they most definitely have lost many customers. The fact that the Clan Packs, despite being the clans, and despite already having an established user base... made only 75% as much money as the Founders' packs? Which were sold to us sight unseen, prior to most of us playing the game at all? That is somewhat troubling. By all rights, the clans really should have raked in FAR more cash than the Founders program did.

The one critical mistake that PGI could pull here, would be if just as the existing clans are finally becoming available for CBills, if they nerf them and then introduce new, exceptionally powerful clan mechs for MC (or worse, only real dollars) only. Because that's going to be exactly what a ton of people predicted, and it's gonna look real bad.

Regardless, as I said, if things get better, that will be awesome. But it's counter productive to pretend like those who have been alienated by PGI have become so through no fault of PGI's. The first step to fixing a problem is admission of the problem's existence.

Big things that need to be done now:
CW needs to come out, and it needs to be GOOD.
We need more maps (basically required for CW to be good).
UI 2.0 needs to improve.
Weapons need to be better balanced.

Those 4 things are where PGI needs to invest its time and money.

The weapons balance is important. (for fun)
Not nerfing the heck out of clan mechs is important. (for image)


These may seem couter intuative, but they are not. In fact one of the change Russ said was possible moving forward is critical to doing both of these things

1) Buff IS weapons- ISML dmg/heat, ISSL dmg/heat, ISLL max number from 2-3 would be a great start)
2) Buff armor/internal universally. Perhaps IS slightly more than clans.
3) Implement a small heat/speed nerf when clans lose a torso. Or better yet implement engine crits on both sides (which impacts clan XL's far more than IS)
4) Implement burst fire for IS mechs

This has the effect (if done properly) of keeping TTL the same, not nerfing clans directly, being canon, and improving balance.

NOTE: This will upset some people. They will complain. Those folks care more about canon than a balanced game. This is evidenced by the complaints int he 12v10 thread Russ put out. There is literally nothing we can do to fix that. These folks want a different game. It is unfortunate, but true. Same goes with making multiple changes at once. Normally I would not advocate this, but you HAVE to do it that way in the example above, and some people are going to react negatively to it.

[Why Run]

DV McKenna, on 09 September 2014 - 07:38 AM, said:

The communication and execution needs to improve drastically.

Another example a few weeks back there were no more mech packs in the pipeline it was specifically stated that they had no plans for a clan reinforcement pack ala the pheonix......now look we exactly that coming.

It's things like that no matter how small; that effect their relationship with the community; Russ wants to press a reset switch on their relations and for people to forget the past and look what we got in 2014.

Fine I'm sure the community would go for that; banning people outright is not resetting; continuing to say one thing then shifting position only a few short weeks later is not resetting....its just more of the same old same old.

I like this guy ^^^^ Once again we're asked to forget past transgressions and BUY MORE STUFF. Not gameplay content, but more mechs for an incomplete game Color me unimpressed.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Why Run, on 09 September 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

I like this guy ^^^^ Once again we're asked to forget past transgressions and BUY MORE STUFF. Not gameplay content, but more mechs for an incomplete game Color me unimpressed.

I'm an easy guy to like; I don't tow party lines i say what I see.
Some people don't like that; some do.

[Sprouticus]

DV McKenna, on 09 September 2014 - 07:38 AM, said:

The communication and execution needs to improve drastically.

Another example a few weeks back there were no more mech packs in the pipeline it was specifically stated that they had no plans for a clan reinforcement pack ala the pheonix......now look we exactly that coming.

It's things like that no matter how small; that effect their relationship with the community; Russ wants to press a reset switch on their relations and for people to forget the past and look what we got in 2014.

Fine I'm sure the community would go for that; banning people outright is not resetting; continuing to say one thing then shifting position only a few short weeks later is not resetting....its just more of the same old same old.

It could be argued that the 2nd clan pack is actually an example of PGI listening to the community. a LOT of people have been asking for just that.

It says a lot about your (possibly unintentional) bias that you looked at it the way you did...

(this assumes there is no evidence that they knew about the 2nd clan pack prior to sayng there was no intent to do it. If there was, then obviously that changes the story significantly).

[Torgun]

DV McKenna, on 09 September 2014 - 07:48 AM, said:

I'm an easy guy to like; I don't tow party lines i say what I see.
Some people don't like that; some do.

Clan mech pack 2 is coming then? And CW somehow happened to be delayed again. Well I did not see that happen... until around April this year.

Sprouticus, on 09 September 2014 - 07:48 AM, said:

It could be argued that the 2nd clan pack is actually an example of PGI listening to the community. a LOT of people have been asking for just that.

It says a lot about your (possibly unintentional) bias that you looked at it the way you did...

(this assumes there is no evidence that they knew about the 2nd clan pack prior to sayng there was no intent to do it. If there was, then obviously that changes the story significantly).

Compared to how many that were asking for CW? FOR REALZ??!!

Edited by Torgun, 09 September 2014 - 07:51 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Sprouticus, on 09 September 2014 - 07:48 AM, said:

It could be argued that the 2nd clan pack is actually an example of PGI listening to the community. a LOT of people have been asking for just that.

It says a lot about your (possibly unintentional) bias that you looked at it the way you did...

(this assumes there is no evidence that they knew about the 2nd clan pack prior to sayng there was no intent to do it. If there was, then obviously that changes the story significantly).

There was also a large thread that said no more till after CW and more maps.

Given how much effort it took them to make the clan mechs and russ said so during the town hall and how quick they intend to push these out; one a month with one inside this month.

This is work that has already been started for the one this month I would suggest when the statement of no reinforcement pack.

My only bias is that I want this game to be good; and in good hands for some time to come. At this time I can't say that it is.

Edited by DV McKenna, 09 September 2014 - 07:52 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

[Sprouticus]

Torgun, on 09 September 2014 - 07:51 AM, said:

Clan mech pack 2 is coming then? And CW somehow happened to be delayed again. Well I did not see that happen... until around April this year.



Compared to how many that were asking for CW? FOR REALZ??!!

Fair point. I have not seen the quote on the 2nd clan pack. DV is a reliable source so I just assumed he had credible info.

Where DID you see that DV?

[TLBFestus]

For my part I'm willing to go from "Won't buy a damned thing because you guys pissed me off too many times" to "Still won't buy anything til I see how things improve over the next 3-6 months, then re-evaluate".

That said, there needs to be serious improvement in the development cycle and communication because we've been down this road before and I don't think I have the patience to do another turn on the Merry-go-Round.

I did sit through virtually the entire Town hall meeting last night and I will admit to being pleasantly surprised to hear how RB sounds when he doesn't have a foot in his mouth. I was impressed that he stuck it out for about 3.5 hours and answered many questions, not all softballs, without using bafflegab.

I wasn't happy with all his answers, but I didn't leave with a bad impression either. It was a good start (again).

[Sprouticus]

Sorry for not being up to date, but is there a transcript of the town hall meeting. Or a summary?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Sprouticus, on 09 September 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

Fair point. I have not seen the quote on the 2nd clan pack. DV is a reliable source so I just assumed he had credible info.

Where DID you see that DV?

It was a passing comment I read might have been on twitter; tbh I should have saved it instead of just scoffing at it going yea right...and moving on.

I saw someone else mention it in the thread about the clan pack here in general so im not the only one that saw it and I didn't dream it :-p

Unless you mean where did I see they are doing one? In which case the town hall

Sprouticus, on 09 September 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

Sorry for not being up to date, but is there a transcript of the town hall meeting. Or a summary?

NGNG are compiling one.

Edited by DV McKenna, 09 September 2014 - 08:02 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Torgun, on 09 September 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

I belittle and make fun of things that I find worthy of such, there's no point in your asking me not to. Just as I point out when people think it's all sunshine all of a sudden when we're still under a thick layer of dark clouds. Need I remind you of CW being delayed again to end of fall for the next phase? It's things like this that hardly can make me feel there's been any noteworthy change in the development of MWO to go happy happy joy joy just yet.

Since on the Roadmap, Russ flat out stated that CW this fall could mean up to Dec 21, yeah, not exactly getting up in arms.

Big difference between rose colored glasses, and maintaining a positive outlook til i have a reason not to. And in those instances that PGI (or IGP) forced an issue I did not like, I can, and have blasted the crap out of PGI on it. It's a little thing called: Objectivity.