5LeafClover, on 19 October 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:
I finally convinced my brother to give MWO a try. Hes said he was struggling to get to grips so he came over and i gave him a quick intro. Unlike me, he's totally new to all things mechwarrior.
Oh My Word! I'd forgotten just how much I take for granted. To say the learning curve is steep is an understatement. Below is a list of what we came up against, that i can remember. There were many more.
So, I hope he sticks with it. And I know there are resources and helpful people here on the forum, but I can't help but feel sorry for the players that try and just give up when faced with this 89.99deg, pure vertical learning curve. Also, picking out the basics for beginners is not straightforward. If you're new and don't know, how are you supposed to decide if its an important game feature to get to grips with right now or not?
1. Patches - Download and installation of 19 patches dented the enthusiasm for a new game
2. Trial Mechs - Are they his? Why then do they appear under owned filter? Why buy others if he has these? Why two currencies?
3a. Currencies - Why two currencies? How do you get MC? WHAT? $99?????
3b. Yet more currencies - XP & GXP what?
4a. Mech Lab - How do you know what weapons/kit you've got? Why can't I adjusted in the mech details screen? Armour values what? XL engines what?
4b. Hard points - Symbols for hard points. Explaining he had unused hard points. Hard point types. Hard points being something different from crit spaces.
5. Video settings - Where are they? Why do I have just a window? What screen res do I need?
6. What way are my legs? How do I know? What was that special button from the tutorial to centre up? Why did the tutorial give me a gazillion throttle options? What is best?
7. First/Third person perspective - Why do I have to play in 1st person? Why no peripheral vision? How am I supposed to see through explosions.
8. Targetting - How can see what? What is on the minimap?
9. Weapons - Will i run out of ammo? How do I know what ranges are? Why do weapons work longer than the stated range? What is damage? What is heat? Do I have enough energy for my lasers?
10. Weapon groups - Oh my, the weapons group matrix!! I didn't even attempt to explain how to set.
11. Weapon damage - how much damage does a weapon do? Whats an AC20? so SRM6 does 6 damage then?
12. Coloured triangles - What does blue mean? What does green mean?
13. Assault mode - So theres a base on this map right? Ah, so is this the base (rerfering to caldera in Terra Therma)
14. Environmental temperature effect
15. Heat/Night vision
16. LRM locks - Getting a lock. Handling non LOS shooting. That SRMs don't lock. but SSRMs do.
17. Damage - Is 40 damage good? Why did that mech die at 50% health? What components lead to death? XL not XL. Will it fall over if I kill its leg?
18. ECM
19. Spending CBills - How do I know what's good?
20. Factions/Forces
21. Spectating - Do i have to sit here and watch?
22. Queue proportions - Light mechs equals short queues
23. Mech weight classes - Explain that there are 4, tonnage ranges.
I recently have to make a similar explaination to a friend.
Personally, I think some of the answer are quite straight forward and can be figure out in a couple minutes.
1. This is the nature of Online game; the long the game is in service, more patch are released. This can be alleviated by releasing updated client with latest patch built-in, or having an installer that download the latest patch while also downloading the client.
2. Think of Trial mech as test drive car, you get to play around in them for free but you will not own them until you buy one.
3a. The 2 currency in the game are;
CBill (virtual money), you earn this from playing the game, think of them as coin or gold in WoW or other online game.
MC (real money), you gain these by converting real money into the game, think of game tokens at your local arcade. You can exchange money into token but you cannot change them back to money.
To purchase MC, you can click on this icon
at the top of the forum.
3b. XP (Experience Point) represent how much experience you have gain with a particular mech, you use this to unlock skills on that mech.
GXP(General Experience Point) are free floating experience point that can be use on mech skill and pilot skill. You gain gain 5% GXP for every XP you earn, IE: 100XP = 5GXP.
4a. The detail screen in the MechLab only let you see an overview of your mech's loadout. To modify your loadout, you will have to go into the customization screen.
4b. Hard Point type are colour coded, he should be able to figure that out after a few minutes in the MechLab. The number next to the HP icon tell you how many unused HP are remain.
5. Settings can be found at the bottom right of the screen, you can switch between fullscreen or windowed there.
If unsure what video setting you should select for your PC, Medium is a good start and tweak them as you become more familiar with the game.
6. Look to your mini map in the center bottom during a match.
Your mech is the triangle in the center, it will always point at where your leg is facing, or you can refer to the dotted arrow pointing away from the triangle.
The bigger triangle or the slice of pie is where your torso is facing.
(I can't remember what is the default button for Center to Leg)
Throttle setting are like gear setting for your mech, the higher it is the faster it will go, much like a car (I pity the fool who drives automatic transmission).
Alternatively you can change the mode to throttle decay and your mech will act like it is on auto transmission.
7. MWO is suppose to be a simulation for piloting and fighting in a mech, first person/pilot vision best serve this purpose.
Third person/chase cam are an option for anyone who prefer to play in that mode. However playing in this mode, you lose access to some HUD fuction available to the pilot.
The same reason you cannot see through an explosion in real life.
8. Targeting is basically locking on to a target, press R to target the closest enemy to your corsshair. You can share target with a teammate if you do not have visual and vice versa.
Locking a target let's you scan it's weapon loadout and damage taken, locking also let you use homing weapons like LRM(Long Range Missile) and SSRM(Streak Short Range Missile) on the target.
Remember kids, PRESS R TO MURDER
9. Yes, you will run out of ammo for ballistic and missile weapons.
The optimum range of each weapon is display next to the weapon's name.
Energy and ballistic weapon can got further than their Optimum Range to deal reduced damage, this is call Maximum Range. Rule of the thumb for Maximum Range of weapon types are:
Energy, MR = 2x OR
Ballistic, MR = 2x OR
Missile, MR = OR
Heat are by-product of firing your weapon, heat build up is bad, just like it is in real world for car.
Your mech have unlimited energy to power your weapons as long as the engine is not destroyed.
10. There is 2 way to setup weapon group, the control for both way are the same however.
While in the MechLab, click on weapon group tab to see your weapons. Move the highlight using the arrow key to select a weapon and group, presst the ctrl key to assign the weapon to that group.
Or in a match, use the same arrow and ctrl key in the same manner to assign weapon to groups.
11. You can see a weapon's stats while in the MechLab, click on a weapon to see it's damage, heat, range and etc.
12. Blue are your friends, green are your best friends.
Red are evil bacon thieves that must be killed.
13. In Assault, you are preventing the enemy from capturing your base while trying to capture their. This is where the enginners process the bacon collected in Conquest into delicious breakfast food, protect them at all cost!
Or think of it as football/soccer/kickball, the base is the goalpost, your team scoring a Goal = GOOD, enemy scoring a Goal = BAD.
14. Hot map are hot, cold map are cold. They affect how fast your mech cooldown.
15. Mechs are hot and heat vision picks up their heat signature. Night vision amplifies light to give you enchanced visibily into the dark.
16. LRM and SSRM are homing weapon that require a lock-on to use, think missile on a fighter jet. SRM are like rocket or RPG, just point and shot.
17. Any damage that lands on the enemy is good damage, more is better.
The 2 most important part of the mech is the Center Torso that house the engine, and the Head that protect the fleshy pilot. Destorying either one will stop the mech; dead engine or dead pilot.
XL are special engine that extend into the Side Torso, destorying part of it counts as destroying the whole engine. (Special case on Clan mechs which require both Side Torse destroyed)
Shotting out 1 leg will cause a mech to limp, blow out both legs will cause it to fall over and destroy it's engine/pilot.
18. Electronic Counter Measure are jamming device that mess up your enemy's targeting.
19. Buying mech and spending Cbill to customize your mech is general a good idea.
20. Faction/Force are fictional nation a player choose to allign with, they not important for now.
21. It is good to stick around and watch other people play to learn how they pilot their mech or check out a weapon load they have, it also ensure you receive a full paycheque for sticking around until the match end.
22. Queue proportion shows you have many of each mech class are currently in the game, the least weight class will get match quicker.
23. Weight class are something the creator use to try to setup a fair fight, similar to how weight system in boxing works.
Light (20-35 tons),
Medium (40-55 tons),
Heavy (60-75 tons) and
Assault (80-100 tons).
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