7 replies to this topic

[Emmjay]

Mech Warrior Online – Comments from a Returning Player.

Alright folks, I am back playing MWO after a very long absence. Now, I love MWO and back when it was in beta I happily paid for the Legendary Founders pack, and played for a month or so before real life issues forced me to stop playing until a month ago.

Now, returning to the game the dev's have made some REALLY good changes and additions to the game.

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  Bitching Betty – How did they NOT have this from the start? It is so Mechwarrior.
  
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  Clan Mechs – Great additions, but not without their pitfalls
  
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  Updated UI – again, a two edged sword
  
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  Premium Mechs – A great way to make money, as well as offering unique Mechs for players.

However, there are some things that I had hoped would have been added to the game by this point.

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  and 2. I have heard from people that I have played with that you lose any points you may have earned if you die and then leave the match. Ok, why? That sounds like a way to tick people off rather than solve any problems (are there?). What happens if I die early but hit/injured mechs in the process. Why would I want to stay around for many more minuets doing nothing when I could be searching for another match in another mech. Along the same lines – why isn't there an end of match summary when you do leave the match early? Every good F2P has some type of end of match summary in the main interface – without having to stay in the match. It doesn't have to be detailed, just a summary of earned credits, costs, and how much exp was earned.

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  Why are Clan mechs so much more powerful than IS mechs? Ok, given, on the road map they are going to tweak IS mechs by adding quirks, but for right now, why would anyone ever play with them if they had the choice not to?
  
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  Clunky interface. Right now there are just to many mouse clicks and movements to do anything. Just think of modding and tweaking mechs – adding and rearranging weapons and ammo and such. An example of how to fix it is to show the entire mech (not just an arm, torso, etc) and then you can select all the energy weapons and add them, ballistic weapons, ammo, etc. Right now you click on a location, then the item to be added and repeat the action for every mech location.
  
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  After a year, why isn't there more done? I ask you to look at War Thunder, World of Tanks/Warplanes two other decent F2P games. Look at all that they have done in a year compared to this game.

Let it be known - I am here for the long haul now that I am able to play frequently. I am just offering comments from someone who doesn't know - and would like answers.

[KraftySOT]

I can answer the last one.

Giant player base and pay to win.

Also.

Russia.

[Mcgral18]

Emmjay, on 07 October 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

and 2. I have heard from people that I have played with that you lose any points you may have earned if you die and then leave the match. Ok, why? That sounds like a way to tick people off rather than solve any problems (are there?). What happens if I die early but hit/injured mechs in the process. Why would I want to stay around for many more minuets doing nothing when I could be searching for another match in another mech. Along the same lines – why isn't there an end of match summary when you do leave the match early? Every good F2P has some type of end of match summary in the main interface – without having to stay in the match. It doesn't have to be detailed, just a summary of earned credits, costs, and how much exp was earned.

If you quit after you die, pretty sure you don't lose anything. Quitting before you die and not reconnecting within 2 minutes makes you lose it.

Quote

Why are Clan mechs so much more powerful than IS mechs? Ok, given, on the road map they are going to tweak IS mechs by adding quirks, but for right now, why would anyone ever play with them if they had the choice not to?

There are arguably 3 Clan mechs that are better than their IS counterparts, if you're afraid of the Whale. I personally only consider 2 of them to be noticeably better, but not by an excessively large margin. Enough to make a difference, but a bad player in the mech won't suddenly become good.

With the coming pack and the Mad Dog, that brings the number up to 4 good mechs out of 13. You can't forget the bad mechs. Cute Fox, Badder, Suckoner, Nope-Va, PeaceDove, the upcoming MythLynx, IceHamster and "Doug".

Anyhow, not that big a deal in my opinion.


UI isn't the greatest, and apparently IGP was blocking lots of progress. Future will tell.

[Xarian]

Updates are coming more frequently as of the last couple months.

Regarding the UI comment: everybody wants a Smurfy-like interface for the mechlab. I think we'll get it eventually.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

1. I think one might lose assist points by leaving early. Like say if you inflict damage on a mech and its later destroyed you'd receive credit for an 'assist'. Leaving before the mech is destroyed could deprive someone of their assist points. I'm not 100% certain on that.

2. I don't know if clan mechs are superior. I've killed plenty of clan mechs 1 vs 1 in inner sphere mechs and been killed by a lot of inner sphere mechs when I was using a clan mech.

3. I think the UI 2.0 is just a foundation for developing a CW compatible GUI. Its not a finished product just something hashed together quickly to provide CW functionality. In town hall, Russ says IGP refused to fund user interface changes which may have complicated things.

4. If you can find time to listen to Russ' town hall talks he goes in depth on the topic of why certain aspects of development took longer than initially expected to and how some offhand comments that weren't intended as promises might have been taken out of context and things like that.

[Zeusus]

You get all rewards you earn if you leave after dying. You only lose out if you disco. So hide and disco and lose stuff. Makes sense.

Clan mechs they are trying to balance but keep a different flair. WIP. They are trying to not go to far to fast.

Interface I can't really add anything.

As to slowness its partly budget partly staff and I think some cryengine. There is a certain game using cryengine with much larger staff and budget and really from an objective standpoint has only just caught up to MWO. I'd they can't be pumping stuff out it doesn't surprise me that pgi has been 'slow' (as a dev myself I can imagine how much we don't see).

[Josef Nader]

The Clan mechs are a lot of pomp and circumstance, but not that much better than their IS counterparts. I've gone back to playing my IS mechs after a leveling most of my Clan chassis, and I'm amazed how easy it is to focus damage with my IS mechs now. Sure, my up-front alpha might be smaller, but it's all getting pumped into the same component. With a few exceptions (like stepping around a corner and getting caught in front of a 6 UAC5 Dire Whale, which causes you to get knocked around like a kitten in a tumble dryer), IS mechs have less DPS, but better focus, whereas Clan mechs have withering DPS, but scatter that damage without an excellent pilot behind them. Honestly, they're fairly equivalent at all levels of play. We just have lots of clan mechs on the field now because they're shiny and new.

[Training Instructor]

After a year, why isn't there more done? I ask you to look at War Thunder, World of Tanks/Warplanes two other decent F2P games. Look at all that they have done in a year compared to them?


Because for the price of one coder in Vancouver, you can have three guys who are just as good in Minsk, where WoT is developed. Even with government subsidies, Vancouver is simply not a very competitive place to house a video game studio.

Edited by Training Instructor, 07 October 2014 - 11:23 AM.