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Let me start off by saying I haven't been playing this specific game long. A couple of months, actually. However, I have played most all versions of Mechwarrior or Battletech and participated in leagues in days long past. I've played at CAL level in categories such as FPS, RTS, and MOBA's. I enjoy this game to an extent because I get to stomp around in a big ass tank with lasers and missles and blow the hell out of other big ass tanks. Yet despite that fact, I have seen and heard and read numerous other blogs, other forums, and these forums, and found that people find you wanting.
I too find you wanting. Dont take that as an angry insult. Take it as me telling you, we mostly agree, things need to change some. The very first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge there is one. I am trying to help you do this. My reasons, as are the reasons of every person who plays this game, is that I love the franchise, and I want to be able to stomp around in my mech for years to come. Your reasons for reading this and heeding the words should be that you want to make more monies from it. Unless I miss my guess, that's what businesses do. I think. Hell, I dunno, maybe I'm wrong and my economic teachers were idiots.
However, almost every single "great" game in the internet age has the ability to be played as both a competitive game AND a casual game. The only way a game can be played on a competitive level and taken seriously is to have 4 things. First, developers who listen to the competitive players for balance. Second, divergent scenarios in which to place your players. Third, a very close to bug free game. Fourth, and just as importantly, comeunicationn(hehe).
So let's take a look at the game with a critical eye, and see if maybe a few of my ideas strike a nerve. Hell fellas, I'm not even looking for credit. You can save this to your desktops, delete the thread, and take credit down the road for incorporating the ideas. Let's get into it.
1. Listen to your players. Dont hear us, nod your heads, smile, and do whatever you wanted any way. Robert Downy Jr. is a cool guy, but you cant use his words as a game model basis.
The current system of doing no testing with a sizeable portion of the playerbase, competitive or otherwise is killing this game. You make changes, sure, but you either grossly over-correct, or horrendously under-correct fixes to balance. If you get it right the first or second time, you dont eviscerate the balance the following 6 times. As new meta comes out and people find new ways to exploit weaknesses, of course things change. That's to be expected. This isn't paper-rock-scissors. The issue is the continual decreasing of the skill required to use one weapon effectively with the exponential increase of the skill required to use almost all others. That has to be changed. Find a group of players from different clans, factions, etc. and give them rewards(MC, Cockpit Items, etc) for beta testing and giving you feedback on balance BEFORE you drop the new balance patches into our laps. Then CHANGE the patch according to the feedback BEFORE, again, you drop the patch into our laps. 5-10% of the playerbase, players who play radically different from each other, but who can compete on a competitive level, would be perfect. You get a divergent group of players who can tell you what needs to be changed, and how much to change it instead of 10-20 people who, no offense, CANT compete on a competitive level. Paul, you cant. I've seen the videos. Neither can most of your dev's. That's the problem. You are making changes based on YOUR experiences and YOUR judgment. You just cant do that and have a successful game. You need the players. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's the truth. No offense meant fellas, I'm in the same boat. I can't play competitively. I'm decent, but I'm horrbile compared to the best. Remember, you may be players of this game too, but you do not represent the majority.
This isnt about balance between Clan vs IS weapons and mechs. That is a completely different subtopic and you clarified yourselves that eventually that would be balanced out. We just got the chance to pay to play with new overpowered versions of those toys for a little while.
2. The only "constructive" ways to really play on a regular basis can be broken down into 2 categories.
A.) You solo qeue and choose a mech that you have designed and loaded out and take a chance with 11 other players who may or may not be in small groups themselves, while being pitted against another team of 12 who may or may not be in small groups themselves. You get in to one of 10 maps that you've played over and over. You rage, you smile, you make jokes, you usually die or live based on how badly the enemy did, not yourself. The match turns into a stagnant shoot-out at one of about 2-3 different places depending on the map. You die, and/or you win, and you make the conscious decision to either leave early and go in a new mech or redrop with the same mech after the match is over.
B.) You group up with between 1 and 11 others. You get in to one of 10 maps that you've played over and over. Your odds, generally, are better. This is, after all, a team game. You might drop and just have fun, or work on fundamentals, teach a newbie some mechanics, ***** at each other, feel comradeship, rage as a whole group, calm down the guy raging, who knows? The match usually turns into a stagnant shoot-off at one of about 2-3 different places depending on the map. However, you and your lance can choose to abandon your teammates and go do something you deem "better". Sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. No plan survives contact with the enemy. You die and/or you win, and you make the conscious decision to either leave early and go in a new mech with a whole new group or redrop with the same mech after the match is over.
Now, in both scenarios, a key point is that you do the same thing at the end. You continue doing the same thing. You jump into the same mech or a new mech and reqeue. I understand thats the point. You actually NEED us to grow a little tired of the grind. The key here is a little. Your answer to that(based on a free-to-play model) is MC to buy new mechs so we dont have to grind so long(or buy nice shinies for prettyness.) The problem, however, isnt the grind of the mech itself. The problem is the rotation of maps. We have 10 maps now. I will not count changing the time of day or weather conditions as a seperate map. Also, the amount of time certain maps are played is hugely unproportionate. I have 2 maps that make up for more times played than any 4 of the others. We the players, and you the company who make money from us, need new maps. DESPERATELY. I understand the new Mech Factory map is slated to come out some time soon. I applaud you on that, and I enjoyed playing it on the PTS. However, we need them more often. MUCH more often. Set a timeline. 1 new map every 2 - 3 monthes. Work on the map you're making, find the bugs before you use us to beta test it for you. If it takes a little longer than expected, hey no big deal. If you're working on it, and we know you are, we can accept that. What we steadfastly refuse to accept is that you tell us you are and then we find out you're not. We want you to make monies from this game because we want to PLAY this game. It's sort of a cycle that requires both parts.
3. BUGS. You hate dealing with them. We hate dealing with them. However, all video games come with them. It's a constant pain in the ass with them. You squish 1 and 2 more come along to piss you off.
The problem is, there are major bugs that haven't been dealt with. You know it as well as the players do. That's gotta change too, fellas. There are a myriad of bugs. Invisible walls, hitboxes, damage mitigation, etc. The problem for us isnt really the bugs themselves. Any veteran of gaming knows it's something that you deal with. The problem for us is that there are big bugs that havent been fixed. More work seems to go into making new monies than fixing bugs. This may not be the exact case, but you must understand, it's not what you do, it's what the world sees. Again, an easy fix for this is to reward players for finding bugs. Hire or transfer a person or persons to doing nothing but fixing them. Get volunteers who know a bit about programming to help you fix them. We are willing to give you our time to help make this game better, give us the opportunity to do so. You may all have degrees and know your stuff, but you're not the only ones who know their way around a program and coding. We want to help you.
4. Communication between the players and the playees is really important. To date, you guys have a baaaaaaaad track record. You have outright lied to players on multiple occasions, hidden what you planned on doing, satirically given non-apologies, and censored those who speak out against you.
Honestly, I think you need to remove your project heads from the eye of the public. Feel free to keep them in the loop and heading things, but you simply cannot have them continuing in the way they have. Use someone who has brilliant oral skills to give us info. We have been burned so badly by Paul and Bullock that you two need to stay out of the limelight. Take a page from.. well.. almost every other head of company who has screwed up in the past. Dont post. Play under aliases. This is where humility comes in, and you need it guys. This might be harsh, but I am only saying this because you definitely need to hear it. We will follow you when you give us accurate information, and honesty. Purposely leading us astray, whether through "white lies" or miscommunication by accident will only hurt you. Give us some credit, your playerbase may be passionately angry some times, but for the most part, we are semi-intelligent fellas. Plus, we have every right to hold you accountable for your actions concerning the game.
I want this game, and this company, to succeed. You guys picked up a series of games that every one of my top 10 gaming experiences comes from, and for that I thank you. I am hoping to put some experiences from this game onto that list, and that is why I wrote this.
Yasuoka
Edited by Yasuoka, 08 September 2014 - 10:16 PM.
